I thought I might as well start posting journals from the campaign I'm currently running.
This one takes place in the Forgotten Realms and takes place around the Moonsea. For some reason I've always kind of liked this particular corner of the realms, and I always wanted to set a campaign in this region. Anyhow we are currently, 13 sessions in, but I'll start posting the journals over the coming weeks.
I decided to start it at 3rd level, and I'm not really sure how far I want to take it, probably to at least 10th or 11th level. We have six players for this campaign, so its a little crowded, but I think the players are enjoying it.
Session #1 (Welcome to the lands of the Moonsea)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk/Druid 3)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 3)
Jove (human, wizard 3)
Delilah (half orc, fighter/barbarian 3)
Alistair (human, fighter 3)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 3, with wolf animal companion)
• The heroes are all travelling on a ship bound for Phlan from Hillsfar. At this point, they aren’t yet “companions,” but they have all met. In the middle of the night, the ship is caught in a storm off the coast and is wrecked.
• They escape in a rowboat to a rocky beach where they find shelter.
• They find themselves with two sailors and a noble woman named Lady Stendale. She is travelling back to her home city of Melvaunt. She doesn’t seem to have much trust for the rag tag band of characters, but she recognizes Alistair as a noble and asks that he escort her safely to at least Phlan (her bodyguard was lost to the sea when the ship sank). Alistair offers her protection.
• After taking an extended rest beneath a rocky outcropping, they set out from the beach around noon the next day and follow the coast towards Phlan.
• Late in the day, they pass near a small settlement, and decide to pay it a visit to get a better handle on where they are and potentially find shelter for the night.
• They aren’t immediately given entry. The local lord and some of his men come out to greet them. The Lord’s name is Lord Grayhill. He doesn’t seem eager to allow any strangers into his hamlet.
• They learn that the place was recently raided, and the raiders had the aid of a man that had posed as a member of the Black Fist guard from the Phlan. Grayhill had allowed that man into his settlement, and the man had betrayed his hospitality by sneaking out in the night, murdering the two gate guards and allowing the raiders in.
• The raiders were driven off, but they took several villagers prisoner. Grayhill thinks they were slavers.
• Several of his men are still injured and the town’s priest was killed in the raid.
• Cade offers to heal some of his wounded guards using good berries
• Grayhill tells the heroes that they captured one of the raiders, but the raider has an infected wound and is unconscious and dying. Lord Grayhill was hoping to revive him, so that he might interrogate the man.
• The heroes offer to help, and he allows them entry.
• In his hall, they find the wounded prisoner, and they use healing magic to revive him enough that they can put him to the question.
• They learn that the raiders are slavers that have established a fort in the plains a day’s ride to the northwest. It is built around a massive rock that juts out of the ground on hill top
• There are usually anywhere from 20-50 men at the fort at a given time- depending on how many are out raiding.
• They have been attacking travellers on the road to Phlan, but recently they have started hitting some of the small villages in the region.
• The slavers sell their captives in slave markets in the remains of the ruined city of Zhentil Keep.
• The heroes offer to help Lord Grayhill get his people back. Lady Stendale isn’t pleased, she wants them to press on to Phlan, and she encourages them to escort her to town and then return to help the Lord if they so wish. She is quite demanding and clearly used to ordering people around and having her way. This doesn’t go over very well, and the adventurers start showing resentment towards her. Alistair convinces Grayhill to let her stay in his hamlet with the two sailors until they return.
• Grayhill promises to keep her safe.
• They take another extended rest
• The next day, they set out in search of the Slaver’s Fort. Cade picks up the trail of the raiders and they start following it across the rolling plains.
• Around mid day, Cade is riding up ahead when Toothless catches the scent of enemies up ahead.
• Cade narrowly avoids riding into an ambush. In fact, he takes an arrow, whilst riding Toothless back to rejoin the party. He returns to his companions and uses his ability to commune with the land to determine that a band of gnolls is waiting for them behind some large rocks at the top of a nearby rise.
• The heroes decide to venture up to confront the gnolls. A nasty skirmish takes place. The gnolls have several hyenas with them along with one very large hyena that seems to have fiendish blood.
• Highlights of the battle include: Deliliah and Toothless being surrounded in melee by hyenas and gnolls and Delilah facing down the fiendish hyena whilst withstanding a lot of punishment. Old Wan fighting a small pack of hyenas with his staff and kicks. Alistair staying out of melee and using his crossbow. Gnoll archers consistently missing Alistair. Pinky and Jove providing support with spells (magic missile), and Cade fighting off gnolls with his hand crossbow and kukri.
• In the end, the heroes prevail. Several gnolls and hyenas flee the fight. The heroes take their share of wounds, but no one is taken down.
• They take a short rest and prepare to press on.The session ends here.
Session #2 (The Slaver Fort)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk/Druid 3)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 3)
Jove (human, wizard 3)
Delilah (half orc, fighter/barbarian 3)
Alistair (human, fighter 3)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 3, with wolf animal companion)
• The adventurers continue to follow the trail of the slavers across the barren plains. Unfortunately, Cade loses the trail.
• While trying to find the trail again, they see carrion birds circling over a shallow valley to the north of them
• Here they find the scene of a battle between gnolls and a band of slavers. A few dead remain on the scene including a slaver that his been tied naked to a tree and has had his face horribly slashed up.
• They meet a ranger named Kivan that has been tracking the gnolls at the behest of the council in Phlan. Pinky learns (through secret hand signals) that he is a Harper and that he used to adventure with Pinky’s sister Leah.
• According to Kivan, Leah was killed when they were fighting ogres in the barren lands called Thar that are north of the Moonsea.
• Kivan heads north, following the trail of the gnolls. The heroes pick up the trail of the slavers and follow it westward.
• A few hours later they reach the slavers’ fort. The heroes hide in a small wooded area nearby.
• Wan goes to the fort disguised as Travis the slaver. He bluffs his way in and meets the commander of the fort- a man named Vane.
• Wan convinces Vane to send a party out to search for a couple of “heroes” that Travis thinks might have followed him.
• Wan/Travis is ordered to lead the group of slavers. They head into the trees, approaching the party from behind.
• Once Travis/Wan gets close to the spot in the woods where the heroes have hidden themselves, the dogs that are with them pick up the sent of Wan’s companions and start to bark. He initiates the ambush by turning on the dogs with a flurry of attacks.
• Belgor and the slavers realize something is amiss as crossbow bolts and magic missile spells bombard them from the darknes.s
• Belgor is furious with Wan and he cuts him down with his great sword. Luckily Pinky comes to heal him, and Toothless and Delilah rush in to engage the slavers in melee.
• The heroes fair well. Toothless and Wan take the worst injuries while the rest of the party mostly attacks from range.
• Soon all the slavers are dead (including Belgor), expect for one smart one that surrenders.
• The session ends with the heroes about to interrogate their captive.
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I originally started trying to write this journal in jot note form, but it wasn't really working for me, so I go back to prose for session #3 and up.
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Session #3 (Dancing Flame)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk/Druid 3)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 3)
Jove (human, wizard 3)
Delilah (half orc, fighter/barbarian 3)
Alistair (human, fighter 3)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 3, with wolf animal companion)
The characters interrogate their prisoner and learn that the slaves from Grayhill were moved out of the fort that morning and taken in a small caravan to Zhentil Keep. It should take the caravan 1 day and half to reach Zhentil Keep. During the interrogation, Vane calls out from the fort, demanding to know what has happened. Old Wan bluffs him into thinking that the slavers have won the fight. The party then flees into the night, following the stream back to the site where the slavers fought the gnolls. Here they make their camp for the remainder of the night, and they are fortunate that no one comes after them
The next day they decide to start following the trail north after the gnolls. Soon Cade detects the presence of a large band of humanoids to the east of them using his primeval awareness. They decide to investigate and soon discover a group of slavers escorting a band of about 10 slaves. There are 8 mounted slavers as well ten slaver archers on foot.
The heroes hide among a cluster of rocks, as there is little cover out on the plains. However, one of the riders spots Jove doing a s*@+ job of hiding. The mounted slaver and a couple of other riders, ride towards the rocks to investigate. They open up on the horse men with ranged weapons as the riders close, taking them down before they can reach them. More riders and archers move to attack the heroes, while a few of the slavers hang back to guard the slaves. The heroes take advantage of the terrain, taking cover behind the cluster of rocks they had been trying to hide among. The slavers are caught out in the open, and the adventurers pick them off with ranged weapons and spells. A couple of riders manage to close in on them, but Delilah makes short work of them with her great axe. Soon the surviving slavers retreat back to the where their companions are waiting with their prisoners. The adventurers decide to go after them, but they are forced to leave their cover to do so. The enemy archers fire as they close, but Delilah is the only one that takes any wounds. As the heroes move in on the remaining slavers, the two surviving riders bolt and flee, leaving the footmen on their own. The slaves jump them from behind as they fire arrows at the incoming heroes, and the fight quickly comes to an end.
They free the slaves and learn they were taken from a village called Mill Hill. Mill Hill was hit the previous night by the raiders, and these folk were captured in the raid. They decide to escort the freed captives back to Mill Hill. As they set out, it starts to pour rain. By the time they reach Mill Hill they are soaking wet and miserable. They find Mill Hill is a small settlement built near a large wind mill at the top of a wide, low hill. It is set up in the style of a ring fort, which used to be quite prevalent in the region.
Lord Milman is currently out on a trip to Phlan, and the village has been left in the hands of his twelve year old son Lord Milman the Younger. Lord Milman the Younger is grateful to the heroes for returning the captives and allows them to stay in his hall and get warm. They discuss recent events, and Lord Milman the Younger explains that his village has been living in fear of a potential gnoll raid. It seems they weren’t expecting the slavers- this is a new development in the area. Lord Milman the elder had gone to Phlan to meet with the council and try to convince them to mobilize the Black Fist to deal with he gnoll threat. He is expected to return the following day or the day after.
While they are warming themselves by the fire, they receive word that more travelers are at the gates of the hamlet. They go with Lord Milman to investigate and discover the travelers consist of two gnomes and a human sell sword who were caught out in the storm. The gnomes are brother and sister (Dimble and Ruby). They explain to Lord Milman that they are travelling to Phlan and from there to a gnome settlement called Grossetgrottle, which is located in the Dragonspine mountains. There Ruby intends to study illusion magic under the tutelage of her grand father. Pinky notices that the dagger Dimble is carrying looks familiar. He thinks that it might be Dancing Flame, a heirloom that has been in her family for generations.
The travellers are allowed in and escorted to the hall to get warm and dry. Pinky gets a closer look at Dimble’s dagger and confirms that it is Dancing Flame. The last time Pinky saw the dagger was when Pinky’s father gave it to her sister Reah. However, as far as Pinky knows, Reah was killed while fighting ogres in the Thar to the north (according to Kivan the ranger). Pinky confronts Dimble about the dagger, and Dimble explains that he stole it from a human swordsman named Delgar the Blade in the town of Teshwave. They were at an inn, throwing knives to pass the time. Delgar joined the game and was bragging to Dimble about how he had killed a gnome girl and took the dagger from her some time ago in Melvaunt. Dimble couldn’t abide the nasty man being in possession of such a fine gnomish weapon, so he broke into Delgar’s room late that night and stole it. He, his sister, and Edwin the sell sword then fled the town, riding off into the night. He claims they have been on the road ever since.
Although Pinky doesn’t normally use a dagger in combat, she does want the weapon back. She explains to Dimble that it is a family heirloom and requests that he give it to her. Dimble isn’t in any hurry to just hand it over, but he does seem to believe her story, and he reluctantly agrees to trade it to her in exchange for a horse (taken from the slavers) and Pinky’s remaining gold.
The session ends with the heroes resting for the night by the hearth in Lord Milman’s hall.
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Session #4 (Trouble with Trolls)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk 3, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 4)
Jove (human, wizard 4)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 3, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 4)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 4, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes wake on the floor of Lord Milman’s Hall after a night’s rest. The storm is over, and it is merely a cool, drizzly summer day. Dimble, Ruby and Edwin depart for Phlan; a rider is dispatched to Grayhill to bring news regarding the fate of the slaves from that town (being sent off to Zhentil Keep), and the adventurers set out, heading generally westward.
They take a slower pace, looking for potential fall back points to retreat to in case their impending raids on the fort go poorly or attract retribution. Their first day is uneventful, and they spend another night camping in the wilderness.
The following day, they decide to move south of the fort in hopes of finding the route that the slavers are using to move their cargo from the fort to Zhentil Keep. Eventually they come to a river that has an unoccupied camp site near it and some stands of trees. They investigate the site and conclude that it is a spot that the slavers might use on their trip south from the fort. The section of river that the camp is located beside is shallow and easy to ford. Cade channels his primal powers at the site and detects that a band of humanoids is approaching from the other side of the river to the north west. The heroes decide to hide in the trees near the camp site and see who they are.
Several minutes later, a band of 15 armed human men cross the river and arrive at the camp site. Here they start a short rest. The heroes can’t tell if the men are slavers or not, so Old Wan (changeling) disguises himself as one of the slavers from the fort and steps out of the trees. He asks if he can share their camp, and feeds the leader a story about having been ambushed by adventurers and how he is trying to find his way back to the fort. The men seem agitated and spooked (not necessarily by Wan), but they buy his deception and allow him to rest with them. The men claim that they are from Zhentil Keep and had gone north into the foothills of the Dragonspine mountains to search for the lair of the gnolls that have been troubling the region. They didn’t find the gnolls, but they did catch the attention of a pack of trolls. They were caught in skirmish with the trolls. A few of their men were killed and couple of others wounded. The men fled the fight, and a few of the trolls pursued them. The trolls are close on their trail, and the men know they don’t have much time to rest before the monsters catch up with them. Unfortunately, one of their men is really badly hurt, as his arm was nearly torn off by a troll. Wan offers the man some good berries, which heals him enough that he can travel. The men seem a little suspicious that a slaver guard has access to magical healing berries, but they are still grateful. They then part ways with Wan, heading south and encouraging him to get moving north if he doesn’t want to become a meal for a troll.
After the men have left, Wan returns to the trees where his friends are hiding and reports his conversation to his companions. As he is doing so, they notice three trolls crossing the river. The trolls soon reach the camp site that the men had just left. They start sniffing around, and the adventurers do their best to hide among the trees, as they don’t want to pick a fight with a trio of trolls. However, one of the trolls spots them. The thing immediately yowls in hunger and excitement and charges into the woods. His two kin follow close behind. Wan and Toothless face down the first troll with plenty of ranged support from their companions. Things are going well, as Alistair puts a well-placed crossbow bolt right through its neck, severing its spine, causing its head to fall off. Then the second two trolls arrive and it all goes south. Delilah finds herself forced to take on one of the trolls on her own, distracting it while the rest of the party finishes off the first troll (who is still fighting, despite not having a head) and tries to take down the second one before it kills Toothless and Wan. This doesn’t go well for Delilah, but it does keep the thing occupied long enough for her new friends to kill the headless troll- thanks to Jove’s fire magic. Soon the half orc barbarian is terribly wounded, and she is forced to retreat or die.
By now, Wan and Toothless have also suffered grievous injuries. Pinky focuses on healing Wan and Delilah, while Cade tends to his unconscious wolf. Meanwhile the second troll closes in on Jove and claws him brutally, despite his shield and mage armour spells. The wizard, escapes with a misty step spell. The troll rushes forward, deeper into the copse of trees, next tearing into Pinky. Alistair continues to hang back and devastate the enraged troll with crossbow bolts; the tactic is instrumental in finally bringing it down. Once again, Jove’s fire magic ensures that it doesn’t get back up. Seeing the fire magic, along with the deaths of his two kin, is enough to make the final troll decide to flee, and it runs off.
The heroes are too wounded to bother pursuing the creature and they are left to heal their wounds, of which there are many. They are in need of an extended rest, so they decide to make camp. The night passes uneventfully. The session ends with them waking up the next morning, trying to decide their next move.
Session #4 was almost completely improv. I had been hoping that the characters would head back to slaver fort and launch a raid, so we could wrap up this first adventure and they could head onto Phlan for session #5. However, instead of being heroic and interesting, they decided to avoid the fort and dilly dally around in the wilderness, looking for camp sites and small groups of slavers that they could pick off at no risk to themselves. I soon got bored, so I threw a pack of trolls at them. It turns out that 3 trolls makes a pretty tough fight for 4th level characters, but they deserved it.
Session #4 was almost completely improv. I had been hoping that the characters would head back to slaver fort and launch a raid, so we could wrap up this first adventure and they could head onto Phlan for session #5. However, instead of being heroic and interesting, they decided to avoid the fort and dilly dally around in the wilderness, looking for camp sites and small groups of slavers that they could pick off at no risk to themselves. I soon got bored, so I threw a pack of trolls at them. It turns out that 3 trolls makes a pretty tough fight for 4th level characters, but they deserved it.
I think most of us were in for attacking the fort. Unfortunately we have two pretty ideal scouts, so instead of what we wanted to do the rest of us caved in to the logic that we shouldn't do a full frontal, but instead putter around the wilderness for endless hours, heh.
Here's some character backstories (the players actually bothered to make some this time, though come to think of it, I think I did the write ups for most of them)
Alistair McKormicke (The fighter):
Alistair is youngest of the many children of Isabelle and Edgar McKormicke. The McKormicke family is a minor noble house from Cormyr with lands near the town of Arabel. Nearly all of Alistair's siblings are adventures, some quite successful. Alistair hopes to follow in their footsteps, gain personal power and be seen as hero of the people- hopefully staying in only the finest inns as he travels. His older brother Dustin is currently a resident in Melvaunt.
Cade (halfling ranger):
*Child of a traveling clan of lightfoot halflings.
*When the clan was camping around Dagger Falls, they were attacked by marauding orcs from the Border Forest.
* Many of the clan, including Cade and his parents, were taken prisoner and marched back into the Border Forest.
* On the march, Cade's parents were killed (and eaten).
* Before Cade could be killed, however, the orcs were attacked by elves (Eldreth Veluuthra). During that attack, some of the elves summoned wolves to aid in the attack.
* The elves either did not notice, or did not care, about Cade. One of the wolves, however, found and took pity on the child (perhaps because of his unusual wolf-like eyes). After the orcs were killed, the wolf took Cade back to its pack and raised Cade among them (in the Border Forest).
* The pack frequently skirmished with the ocs living in the forest, and as a result Cade learned to speak their language.
* When he was around 10 years old, Cade heard music in the woods. When he went looking for the source of it, he found an elf (Lothelia Silverleaf) playing the flute.
* Lothelia took interest in the "little halfling wolf" and befriended him. From her he learned common, elvish, and how to play the flute. She also gave him further instruction in the art of combat, which he used to help his pack. Unfortunately, however, he never learned to speak the language of his own people.
* Over time, Cade became curious as to where he came from. Lothelia asked among her own people and managed to gather enough information for Cade to deduce (in the barest details) how he came to be a member of the wolf pack.
* Cade, however, continued to be curious about the world outside the wood and the nature of his people; stories from Lothelia were no longer enough to sate his wanderlust.
* Recently, Cade exited into the world at large. While the majority of the wolf-pack (and all of his sylvan friends) stayed behind, his best friend, a wolf he ironically nicknamed "Toothless," decided to follow him. The two have been wandering ever since.
* Cade first visited Dagger Falls. While there, a resident recognized his features and said he looked like a halfling (Pip Weebottom) who had lived there for about 20 years, ever since his caravan was attacked by orcs on the outskirts of Dagger Falls and most of his people were killed. Pip had recently left Dagger Falls for Hillsfar.
* Cade then traveled to Hillsfar, where he discovered that Pip had been there, but had already left on a boat traveling to Phlan.
* Most of Cade's adventuring gear are gifts from Lothelia that Cade has acquired over the last 10 or so years. Some of it, such as the kukri, are of elvish make. The rest, such as his crossbow, are spoils of raids for which the elves of the Border Forest had no use (but to which Cade took a liking). Right before leaving, Lothelia gifted Cade with an ornate belt pouch (made of Orc hide) and a few gold coins. Cade still hasn't quite gotten the concept of money...
Delilah (half orc, fighter/barbarian):
Delilah doesn't fully know her origin. She was left at the door to a small, little known burrow "monastery" of halflings in Shadowdale (the dale not the village). The halflings were kind hearted little souls who were devout followers of halfling pantheon. They lived simple lives of devotion that centered around their modest hearth, farm and brewery. The halflings were too kindly to reject the half orc infant left on their door step, so they raised her as their own. Delilah never quite fit in, literally the place wasn't sized for one of her great stature, but she did the best she could. The halflings sheltered her from the world and taught her their simple, peaceful ways. Still, the realms are a dangerous place, and even the kindly halflings weren't above using her strength and size as a tool to aid in the defense of their tiny community in times of need.
Brother Amos, a follower of Arvoreen, the halfling god of protection and defence, taught her how to use weapons and armor. This was somewhat of challenge since halflings try to make the most of their small size in battle, and Delilah was far from small. As usual, she did the best she could, and her natural aptitude for battle easily allowed her to pick up the basics. On more than one occasion, she helped defend her home from deadly threats.
The day finally came when she realized that she must leave the nest. It was time to see the wider world and find her place in it. She set out into the world men armed with basic weapons and armor and the stories of the world that had been imparted on her by halfling family. She found the realms of men to be much harsher and crueler than the loving environment she had grown up in. Fortunately, her half orc blood gave her the strength she needed to survive and thrive in this cold, dangerous world. She learned to tap into the primal rage of her orc ancestry, which, combined with her natural martial skills, made her a formidable warrior. Despite being female, she gained work as a sell sword in the Dale Lands.
Over time, she grew more worldly and experienced, but she always managed to cling to some of her innocence and the traditional goodly values instilled in her by the halflings. Eventually, she heard rumors of much danger and work to be had in lands surrounding the Moonsea. It seemed like a place that needed heroes, and it seemed like a place where her kind were more common, and, with some luck, more accepted. Thus, Delilah made her way north. Along the way she met a feisty gnome cleric named Pinky who reminded her a little of her halfling family. She befriended the gnome, and the two headed towards the town of Phlan, a frontier settlement said to filled with opportunity for those with skill and grit.
Jove (human wizard):
Jove grew up in the town of Essembra in Battledale. His parents were bakers. At a young age they noticed his keen intellect, and he was taken to an old half elven mage who made his home just outside of town. The mage's name was Fin Greencowl. Fin immediately saw his potential and agreed to take him on as an apprentice. He introduced Jove to the art, and he proved to be a quick study.
On a number of occasions Fin spoke of the town of Phlan. When Fin was young and was first learning the art, over a century before, Fin studied with a mage named Denlor who lived in Phlan. He also made use of a repository of knowledge called Mantor's library- both experiences proved invaluable to helping Fin to learn his craft. In particular, Fin spoke of a text called "The Way of Magi." Fin claimed that there are only a few copies of this great text left in existence, but reading it changed his life, and it was instrumental in helping him grow as a mage.
After completing his apprenticeship with Fin, Jove decided that the next step towards advancing his skills in the art was to head north to Phlan to visit Mantor's library and study "The Way of the Magi."
Old Wan/Anna/Novo (changeling monk/druid):
The one thing everyone always wants to know about changelings is who we really are. To be honest we don't understand the question. When I am Old Wan, I am not just pretending to be Old Wan...I really am Old Wan. Other people don't seem to to think that you go through your life as just one person, while we don't understand how you could just go your entire life like that.
I guess the answer to your question then is, I am who I am. It is as simple as that and not as complicated as people make it.
Old Wan looks to be an old human man but in reality is a young male changeling. Ultimately that changeling wishes to open a dojo and train others of his kind into being their best possible selves. He would also like to undo some of the negative perceptions that society has placed upon his race.
Pinky (gnome, cleric of Mystra):
Pinky was born in a small rock gnome settlement located in the eastern side of the Thunderpeaks, south of Tilver's Gap. Her parents were merchants and peddlers for her people, and during the trade season they would regularly bring wares produced by the gnomes to markets in Mistledale and Tilverton. Pinky and her older sister Reah both enjoyed life on the road and meeting all the interesting tall folk that lived beyond their isolated rock gnome community.
When Pinky's sister Reah came of age, she decided to take up a life of adventure, so she parted ways with her family in Ashabenford in Mistledale. Pinky still recalls her father giving Reah a precious magical dagger called Dancing Flame that had been in the family for generations. Pinky was still quite young then, but Reah's departure may have been what sealed the fate of her family.
When the family was returning home, they were waylaid on the road by nasty band of goblinoids. Reah was a naturally skilled warrior, and without her present, Pinky's parents weren't able to fend them off. The Riders of Mistledale were patrolling that day and looking for the goblinoids. They arrived on the scene in time to save Pinky and slaughter the goblinoids, but they were too late to save her parents. Pinky was taken back to Ashabenford where she was taken in by a kindly priestess of Mystra named Mother Seelah. Mother Seelah was also a member of the Harpers and Pinky was taught the secrets of the Lady of Mysteries as well as the code of the Harpers through Mother Seelah.
Pinky spent several years living in Ashaben Ford with Mother Seelah, but when Pinky completed her training, she ventured out into the wider world set on doing the good work of the Harpers, and hoping to find her sister Reah. Her search has since led her to the Moonsea, a place that is said to be rife with danger and evils.
So far this is one of my favorite groups of characters for any campaign I've run.
#1. There aren't any PCs that are really driving me crazy from a mechanical perspective (probably a first, though I guess that was also the case with my other 5e campaign until Bryce the bladesinger showed up at the end)
#2. They are all developing fairly entertaining personalities. I think this is partially aided by the idea of ideals and flaws that is baked into 5e.
Jove always makes socially awkward comments, which tend to be really funny, but not great in situations where diplomacy is needed. Delilah is super kind hearted, despite being an ugly half orc, and she is kind of a foil for Cade. Alistair is always running into people who know his brother, and they inevitably make him feel inferior and annoyed by going on about how great his brother is. Old Wan is fun because of the different identities he/she jumps between. Cade is this kind of feral halfling that was literally raised by wolves. Pinky is a bit quieter and is more in the background of most rp scenes, so hopefully she'll start to assert herself a little more, especially since she's the only one with a real faction connection (Harper).
So far this is one of my favorite groups of characters for any campaign I've run.
#1. There aren't any PCs that are really driving me crazy from a mechanical perspective (probably a first, though I guess that was also the case with my other 5e campaign until Bryce the bladesinger showed up at the end)
#2. They are all developing fairly entertaining personalities. I think this is partially aided by the idea of ideals and flaws that is baked into 5e.
Jove always makes socially awkward comments, which tend to be really funny, but not great in situations where diplomacy is needed. Delilah is super kind hearted, despite being an ugly half orc, and she is kind of a foil for Cade. Alistair is always running into people who know his brother, and they inevitably make him feel inferior and annoyed by going on about how great his brother is. Old Wan is fun because of the different identities he/she jumps between. Cade is this kind of feral halfling that was literally raised by wolves. Pinky is a bit quieter and is more in the background of most rp scenes, so hopefully she'll start to assert herself a little more, especially since she's the only one with a real faction connection (Harper).
Part of the reason that Pinky is so quiet is that I really don't like her much - but she is so woven into the plot that I am kinda reluctant to just throw her aside :/
Session #5 (Attack on the Slaver Fort)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk 3, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 4)
Jove (human, wizard 4)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 3, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 4)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 4, with wolf animal companion)
After taking an extended rest to recover from their battle against the trolls, the heroes make their way north towards the slaver fort.
As they get close, they notice a couple of thick plumes of smoke rising up from inside the stockade. Jove turns Cade invisible, and the little ranger scouts closer to the fort. It doesn’t take the halfling long to determine that the slavers were recently attacked by gnolls. It seems they drove the gnolls off, but it is likely that they sustained significant losses.
The adventurers decide to take advantage of this turn of events. They wait until dark and approach the fort under cover of night. The palisade is poorly guarded at the moment (probably due to lack of men), and they get over the wall with ease- except for Toothless who remains outside. In the central yard, they note there are two large pyres where the slavers have been burning the dead. A few slavers still mill about in the dark tending to the remains of the pyres.
Cade, Delilah, Pinky and Jove take up position behind one of the main buildings. Alistair sets up for sniping in an empty guard tower, and Old Wan disguises himself as a slaver and approaches the guards that are on the platform above the main gate. He climbs the ladder up on the platform, claiming to have a message for the. As soon as he is up, he initiates a surprise attack on the two men. Delilah rushes out of the darkness to get to the gate bar and open it for Toothless. Cade, Jove and Pinky attack slavers minding the pyres in the yard, while Alistair tries to take down an archer up on the platform affixed to the top of the great rock that the fort is built around.
Clearing out the surprised guards is fairly easy, but it isn’t long before reinforcements burst out of the great hall and barracks. Among them is Commander Vane, Zandros the tiefling warlock and a talented female archer. These three combatants make for a challenging fight. Delilah spends most of the battle in a sphere of magical darkness conjured by the warlock. Here she manages to hack down some guards, but Zandros repeatedly blasts her with eldritch blasts (he seems to see just fine). Vane conjures a spiritual weapon that gives Cade some trouble, and the archer puts arrows into several of the party members. The heroes try to focus on Vane, but his minions keep getting in their way, and they spend much of their time fighting them off. To make things more difficult Vane has healing magic that he uses on his men, and himself. Jove’s magic missiles do a number on him, and Alistair plays a huge role in helping the party by shooting the archer woman’s bow from her hand and bringing down several slaver guards from his sniper position up in the tower.
Delilah does a great job at occupying the tiefling, but eventually she is horribly wounded and forced to retreat back to her companions for healing. Due to all the damage the heroes take throughout the battle, Pinky is forced to spend most of her time trying to heal her allies and keep them on their feet. As the battle nears its end, a burning hands spell from Zandros results in Wan, and Delilah both being brought down and having a brush with death (rolling death saves, but surviving).
In the end, the heroes come out on top of their biggest fight thus far. It was a close one, and all the heroes are injured, some grievously so. Vane and Zandros are both killed, as are several other a slavers. A few manage to flee into the night, but the heroes take the fort. The session ends with them beginning to search/loot the place.
I forgot during the fight that Delilah's damage reduction for raging doesn't apply against attacks from spells like eldritch blast (and of course her player didn't say anything). The warlock was blasting the crap out of Delilah with eldritch blasts from within the magic darkness he had summoned that Delilah was stuck fighting in. If I had remembered this detail, Delilah would surely have gone down much sooner in the fight, and this would have freed the warlock up to screw with the rest of the heroes, which would have been big trouble for them, as they already had their hands full.
Anyhow, despite that oversight, it was still the biggest combat of the campaign thus far, and IMO a pretty dramatic ending to the first adventure.
Session #6 (Phlan)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk 3, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 4)
Jove (human, wizard 4)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 3, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 4)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 4, with wolf animal companion)
After the battle, the heroes rest the night at the fort. The next day they loot the fort. Treasure includes 4 riding horses, weapons and armour, gold and silver, and several potions of healing. They also uncover a ledger that had belonged to Vane that includes extensive accounting records regarding his slaving operations. The adventurers load the loot into a wagon that they hitch to horses, and they escort the six slave girls they rescued back to Mill Hill.
After two days of uneventful travel through the wilderness, they reach Mill Hill. They leave the girls at the hamlet along with the weapons, for which the people of Mill Hill are grateful. Lord Millman the elder is back from his trip to Phlan, and he has learned that Kivan the ranger has returned to Phlan with news of the location of the gnoll lair. The council is in the midst of debating how best to proceed. They rest a day in the village, and the following day they make a long days ride to Phlan.
When they arrive in Phlan, Cade decides to take a temporary leave from the party to explore some of the nearby area (player absent for this session). He informs them that he plans to return in a few days. The rest of the group enters town. Their first stop is the public stables where they stable their newly acquired horses. Here they meet a chatty stable master named Bruno. He recommends a few local inns. He directs Jove towards Mantor’s Library, and when Jove inquires about the wizard Denlor, he mentions that Denlor has been dead for years and that Denlor’s Tower has been abandoned and sealed for decades, but it is still rumoured to contain magical secrets. Bruno also mentions that there have been some valuable books recently stolen from individuals living in the Scholar’s Square district.
Bruno also recognizes Alistair’s signet ring, and makes mention that he’s met his brother Sir Dustin McKormicke, who is apparently an highly skilled and renowned adventurer- with a much better horse than what Alistair showed up with. Alistair is annoyed since he has always been living in the shadows of his famous adventurer brothers and has yet to make a real name for himself.
While Jove and Alistair chat with Bruno, Old Wan hears the stable boy casually whistling a familiar tune while taking their horses to the stalls. Most folk would hear it and pay it no mind, but Wan identifies it for what it truly is- a recognition symbol used by changelings to help them meet others of their kind. Intrigued he follows the stable boy and they have a private chat. Wan reveals that he is a changeling and Connor (stable boy) demonstrates that he too is changeling living in disguise. Connor tells Wan that there aren’t many changelings in Phlan, but there is a large enclave of them in the city of Thentia, which is on the northern coast of the Moonsea east of Melvaunt. They can be found by seeking out a inn keeper named Oswald who runs the Giant’s Axe in Thentia. Wan files this detail away for later and thanks Conner.
They next proceed to lodgings. Jove and Alistair seek out the more expensive and luxurious Cracked Crown, while Wan, Delilah and Pinky head for the Laughing Goblin, a tavern and inn that caters more to adventurer types. At the Cracked Crown, the two humans find Lady Stendale drinking wine and eating supper in the common room. The last time they saw her was in Grayhill when Alistair left her there after promising he would return to escort her to Phlan. It seems she got tired of waiting for him to return, and found her own way thanks to an escort provided by Lord Grayhill. A slightly awkward conversation ensues, as Alistair explains what he and his companions have been up to for the past ten day and why he never made good on his promise. She mentions how his renowned brother Sir Dustin would have kept his word. Alistair learns that a mercenary named Edwin (same fellow who was travelling with the gnomes Ruby and Dimble) has agreed to travel with her to Melvaunt, but she does offer Alistair the chance to join them, as it could be a dangerous journey and the more security the better. Alistair says he will consider her offer. First thing’s first, a warm bath, a good meal and a rest in a decent bed.
Over at the Laughing Goblin, Pinky, Delilah and Wan also take a well deserved hot meal. They too spot a familiar face in the common room (two in fact). Kivan the ranger is eating and drinking with Edwin the sell sword. Pinky wonders what the connection is between the two men. She also has unfinished business with Kivan, as she now has reason to believe that he lied to her regarding the fate of her dead sister Reah. She approaches their table and drives Dancing Flame into it. Kivan is a little startled. Pinky demands some answers and gets them. Kivan confesses to lying, but explains he did it because he wanted to protect her from the truth. He goes on to tell her that he and Rhea were on a mission for the Harpers in Melvaunt. Here they were investigating rumours of a demon cult operating in the city. They learned that a local fest hall and gambling den called the Pearl Necklace was a front for the cult and rumoured to have secret chambers beneath it that were used by the cult. While trying to investigate they were confronted by Delgar the Blade and a few other veteran mercenaries that the cult was presumably using as hired muscle. Delgar has a reputation as being one of the most deadly swordsmen in the region. In the resulting battle, Rhea was cut down by Delgar and Kivan only barely escaped with his life. This was why Delgar had Rhea’s dagger, Dancing Flame, which Dimble the gnome later stole from him. With Rhea’s death, Kivan fled Melvaunt and abandoned his investigations of the cult. He feared that if Pinky learned the truth she would follow in her sister’s foot steps and get herself killed.
It seems that Kivan and Edwin have no real connection- other than both of them being warrior types hanging out in a tavern, swapping tales over drinks. Edwin does mention that Ruby and Dimble are staying at an inn called Nat Wyler’s Bell, which caters to smallfolk (gnomes and halflings) and that they will soon be leaving for Grossetgrottle with some of their gnomish kin. He has fulfilled his contract with them, having escorted them safely to Phlan, and he has since signed on to escort Lady Stendale to Melvaunt- though after hearing Kivan’s tale about a demon cult he finds himself having second thoughts about heading there. After the conversation, Pinky is still annoyed that Kivan lied, but she lets it go, finishes her meal with Delilah and retires for the night.
The next day, the heroes attend to personal business. Old Wan takes on the identity of Turk, a half orc bouncer, and he approaches the owner of the Laughing Goblin looking for work. After demonstrating his bouncing skills, he manages to get a part time job. Delilah hadn’t been told what Wan was up to and hits on Turk that afternoon when she is eating in the common room, resulting in an uncomfortable exchange for Turk (and maybe his player).
Jove heads straight for Mantor’s library. The classical stone structure is one of the great repositories of lore in Faerun, bested only by places such as Candle Keep. He meets with the head librarian, Master Opanrael and requests access to a book he learned of during his apprenticeship with his former master. The book is known as The Way of the Magi. It turns out, that it is the most valuable book in the library, and although Opanrael is willing to allow him to study the tome, he warns Jove that it is very dangerous. It is no ordinary book, and those who have been too weak in mind that have tried to learn its secrets have been left with their minds shattered. Jove is insistent and convinced he can handle its risks. Opanrael gives in, and Jove is given access to the book. For the next three days he studies the text in a private reading room in the basement. The book takes its toll (he permanently loses 4 wisdom and 6 hit points after failing a couple of saving throws), but he also gains great knowledge and a boost to his intellect (+2 Int and expertise in arcana).
While Jove is busy with his studies, Pinky, Delilah, Alistair and Wan visit the head quarters of the Black Fist. Much like the Flaming Fist in Baldur’s Gate, the Black Fist is a former mercenary company that now functions as the city watch and guard in Phlan. They enforce martial law and are free to punish law breakers as they see fit during the course of their daily duties. The office of their command is located in a building situated in the outer of bailey of Phlan’s greatest landmark- the mighty Valjevo Castle. Here they meet a woman named Aleyd Bural. She tells them that the Black Fist are planning on deploying forces to Mill Hill, as it is one of the closer surviving settlements to the lair of the gnolls that Kivan located. Their lair is said to be amongst a large cluster of enormous boulders as large as buildings that form a natural, open air labyrinth of sorts. This rock formation is located near the headwaters of the White River in the foothills of the Dragonspine mountains. However, the Black Fist doesn’t wish to confront them in their lair, and they are hoping that the gnolls will attack Mill Hill, and they can take them by surprise there with an unexpected show of defensive force. She also mentions that Kivan believes several gnoll war bands have been united by their half demon chief, and should he be killed the warband might dissolve. Thus, a 600 gp bounty has been put on Maldrick Scarmaker, the half demon chief of the gnolls. The adventurers decide that this is a mission they wish to take on.
On their second day in Phlan they hear rumours that the Black Fist has deployed 50 soldiers to Mill Hill.
On his final day of studies, and the party’s third day in Phlan, Jove inquires about the rumours of the book thefts that Bruno the stabler had mentioned to him. He is told that a few different individuals have had books stolen from their homes. One of which was an important book on the nature of the Weave that belonged to the library and was on loan to a local mage when it was taken. The thefts haven’t yet been extensively investigated, but there is a reward for the return of the stolen books.
Also, during the morning of their third day in town, Kivan tells Pinky and Delilah that he is leaving Phlan and heading for a village along the coast called Storm Cove. There are reports of a band of ogres causing trouble near the village, and he intends to deal with the problem. Later that same day, Pinky and Delilah are having their mid day meal at the Laughing Goblin- a place they have been spending much of their time at. In the midst of their meal, a group of dangerous looking mercenary types enters the common room. Pinky and Delilah learn from their server, Morkath, that the leader of the group is none other than Delgar the Blade himself. Although Pinky wants to confront him regarding the murder of her sister, his deadly reputation makes her take pause. Eventually, Delgar and a couple of his men wander over to Pinky’s table. Delgar addresses Pinky and explains that he’s looking for two gnomes- a brother and sister (Ruby and Dimble) that took something important to him. Their trail has led him to Phlan, and he and his men have just arrived in town. He asks Pinky if she’s seen the pair and can help him out (given that she’s a gnome, he seems to think she might know something about the pair). Pinky is far from helpful, and their conversation is short and terse. It ends with Delgar saying that Pinky “reminds him of someone he killed once.” Pinky is furious but keeps her anger contained. After Delgar and his men finish eating, they leave, presumably to look for Dimble and Ruby.
Delgar and company return to the Laughing Goblin that evening. Delilah and Pinky are once again in the common room, now having their supper. Old Wan is there as well, but he is in his guise as Turk the bouncer and is working. Delgar is clearly frustrated about something, and he and his men start drinking heavily. A little into their visit, Morkath the server wanders over to where Pinky and Delilah’s table. He warns Pinky that he over heard Delgar talking about how the gnomes they were looking for had recently left town. Morkath fears that they might start trouble and might take their frustration out on Pinky, given that she is a gnome. Turk tries to be proactive and intervene before the men get violent, but they aren’t easily intimidated, and they show no fear of the imposing half orc. The session ends with tensions escalating in the common room of the Laughing Goblin. Jove has completed his studies and is on his way with Alistair to join his companions for dinner and a meeting about what they plan to do next.
Session #7 (Delgar the Blade)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk 3, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 4)
Jove (human, wizard 4)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 3, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 4)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 4, with wolf animal companion)
Cade passes through the gates of Phlan just before they close after a few days of exploring the settlements around the town. In town he learns that some of his companions have been staying at the Laughing Goblin Inn, and he heads south on Podol Street towards the docks where the inn is situated. On his way he runs into Alistair and Jove who are also on their way to the Laughing Goblin to meet up with Pinky and Delilah. They aren’t sure what Old Wan has been up to, and none of them are aware that he has taken on the guise of Turk the half orc bouncer.
Meanwhile, inside the Laughing Goblin, Turk inadvertently convinces Delgar that he should go talk to Pinky to see if Pinky will help him get Dimble out of Grossettgrottle and lure him into a trap so that he can have his revenge for the theft of Dancing Flame. Turk is worried about violence starting in the inn, especially since Olstag, one of Delgar’s men, is most eager to start a fight. To solve the problem, the “half orc” bouncer decides to try to lure Delgar and his men out of the tavern. He moves to the door and then holds up Dancing Flame. “Is this what you were looking for Delgar?” he calls out.
Delgar is shocked to see the half orc holding the enchanted dagger. He turns towards Turk, but before he can say anything, Turk runs out the door into the street. Delgar gives chase, following after him. He crashes past Alistair and Jove just as they are about to enter the inn. Cade sees Turk run out and notices he’s carrying Dancing Flame. He’s mounted on Toothless, and he wheels his wolf around and starts calling out for Turk to stop, accusing him of being a thief. Jove makes his own attempt at stopping the “thief” by blasting him with a magic missile barrage.
A chase ensues with Turk running at uncanny speed up Podol street, Cade chasing after him on his wolf and Delgar running along behind both of them. Turk soon realizes he’s loosing Delgar and he slows down. This allows Cade to close on him, and he quickly informs Cade that he is actually Wan in disguise.
Back at the tavern Delgar’s men come out to see what is going on. Alistair and Jove are still standing in front of the doors trying to figure out what is going on when the sell swords step out. Olstag is still looking for a fight, and he immediately starts insulting Alistair. The big north man sees the slim noble as an easy target and throws an unprovoked punch at him. Then Rool the half orc takes a swing at Jove. Delilah and Pinky see the fight starting and move to help their companions. Pinky attempts a couple of hold person spells on Rool, but the half orc resists both of them. Delilah takes a more direct approach and engages the man in a fist fight, allowing Jove to back away.
Cade notices the commotion erupting in front of the tavern, and he hurries back down the street to help. He passes Delgar on the way, and he notices that the sell sword has drawn a gorgeous longsword, the blade of which is sheafed in a coating of magical frost. The halfling soon reaches his companions, and he tries to end the fight by raising his hand crossbow and aiming it at Olstag. He orders the man to stand down or be shot. Olstag ignores the halfling, and Cade makes good on his threat. A hand crossbow bolt grazes the man’s neck, enraging him. He draws his great axe. As he does so, Alistair gets his cross bow off his back and loaded with amazing speed. He too fires, but Olstag knocks his weapon to the side and the shot goes wide. Jove then blasts the sell swords with a thunderwave spell, sending some of them hurtling backwards. Rool and Delilah continue to brawl, but the remaining men draw their weapons and a full on battle erupts in front of the Laughing Goblin.
While that is going on, Turk sees a patrol of Blackfist guards coming down the wide, muddy street up ahead of him. Delgar sees them as well, and he calls out for them to arrest the thief. Turk ducks into a nearby alley. He alters his form and assumes the guise of harmless beggar. He finishes his transformation just as Delgar enters the alley. In his new form, he convinces Delgar that the half orc thief has run off down the alley, and he sends Delgar after him. The guards then enter the alley and start asking him what is going on. Before they can ask him more than a handful of questions, the guards notice the fight happening down the street in front of the Laughing Goblin, and they hurry off to intervene.
By the time the Black Fist get to the inn, Olstag is lying seemingly dead on the ground with a crossbow bolt in his back. Jove, Alistair and Cade are fending off two other sell swords, while Delilah and Rool continue their fist fight. The arrival of the guard ends the fight, as neither party wants to end up on the wrong side of the Black Fist. Alistair’s status as a noble gives him some sway with the guards, and probably saves him from being immediately arrested. It also helps that Olstag is actually still clinging to life. He receives healing magic from the heroes, saving his life and preventing a murder charge. Once he gets back on his feet the mouthy adventurers hurl some more insults at him, and he flies into a rage and attacks again. The guards tackle him and arrest him before he can hurt anyone or get himself killed. Alistair offers them a small sack of gold for their trouble, which helps to placate them, and The Black Fist order both groups to clear the streets and not be found causing any more trouble. and the heroes head on their way.
Pinky and Cade end up spending the night at Nat Wyler’s Bell. There Cade inquires with the gnome innkeeper about about the whereabouts of a yellow eyed halfling named Pip Weedbottom. Cade has reason to suspect that the Pip may be his only surviving halfling kin (the yellow eye connection). Yellow eyed halflings are a rarity, and the hostler recalls seeing a halfling that fits Pip's description staying at the inn a few weeks prior. The gnome recalls him mentioning that he was heading for Melvaunt. Why a halfling that has spent the last several years living in the distant town of Dagger Falls, suddenly pick up and head north is somewhat of a mystery to Cade, but one he wishes to find the answer to.
The rest of the party, spends the night at the Crooked Crown, and the following morning they gather at the gates to head back to Mill Hill where they hope to aid the Black Fist in fighting the gnoll band that has recently started savaging the region. It is long day’s journey. The monotony of the plains is broken when a pack of death dogs (feral, two-headed hounds) crests a rise and starts running to catch them. Fortunately, they have swift horses, except for Pinky, who is riding on the mule. Pinky hops on Jove’s steed, and they leave Betsy behind. The poor mule becomes the victim of the death dog pack, but her sacrifice allows the heroes to get away and avoid what might have been a deadly fight.
By evening the weary travelers reach their destination, and the session ends here.
Session #8 (Battle of Mill Hill)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk 4, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 5)
Jove (human, wizard 5)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 4, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 5)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 5, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes have travelled to the village of Mill Hill to aid the Blackfist guard that has been sent there from Phlan against the gnoll war band that has been ravaging the countryside. In Mill Hill, the characters meet Captain Maynard, the commander of the 50 Blackfist soldiers that have come to the village to help deal with the gnoll threat. He isn’t particularly impressed by the adventurers and seems to have little use for them. However, Lord Millman and his son come to the defence of the heroes and speak highly of them, telling Captain Maynard of their victories against the Iron Ring slavers. They are offered shelter in Lord Millman’s Hall by Lord Millman.
While walking to the hall they speak with Lord Millman the younger. He tells them that the gods have spoken to him and told him that the gnolls are coming to Mill Hill and will arrive in the near future; apparently, according to the young man, the gods speak to him quite regularly while he sleeps. Despite this omen, the night passes uneventful.
The next day most of the party attends to assisting with tasks around the village, such as helping to repair various gaps in the palisade, which has been somewhat neglected.
Cade and Novo/Anna decide to do some scouting beyond the village, so they travel northwest along the White River. They eventually reach the remains of a village that was recently sacked by the gnolls. The buildings are mostly in tact, but the place is infested with rats, crows, flies and vultures that pick away at the remains of the dead left behind by the gnolls. Later on, Cade detects the presence of a large group of humanoids a few miles to the west, using his primeval awareness. They go to investigate. Anna conceals their movements with a pass without trace spell. Soon, they spot a war band of a couple of hundred gnolls making their way in the direction of Mill Hill. The halfling and the changeling hurry back to the village and warn them of the impending attack. Captain Maynard assumes that the gnolls will wait until night before they attack, and he proves to be correct.
That night the heroes position themselves near the village gate, for this is where the fiercest fighting is expected. A couple of hours after dark, they hear the voice of a human female coming from beyond the palisade. She is crying out in pain and claims that she is a refugee from the neighbouring raided village. She explains that she just stepped in a rut and twisted her ankle and can no longer walk. She also says that gnolls are pursuing her. The heroes suspect it might be a trap, but they don’t want to chance that it isn’t. Cade uses primeval awareness again, and he detects some two hundred humanoids not far beyond the wall, making it seem more likely that it is a trap. Jove casts an invisibility spell on Anna, and she sneaks over the wall and tries to stealthily go out to investigate. She doesn’t see any sign of a girl, but she does spot a couple hundred gnolls crouched in the darkness among the grass and bushes beyond the wall. She also thinks she spots the source of the voice, a vile looking, four legged creature that looks something like a hoofed hyena. It is now entirely clear that it is a ruse, so she retreats back to the wall before she’s spotted.
The gnolls soon realize that their deception has failed, war horns sound, and the horde of foul creatures surge forward as one to attack. Pinky and Cade are standing on one of the archery platforms beside the gate along with a Blackfist soldier. They witness the creatures rush into the light cast by the bonfires they set outside the wall, and it is a terrible sight. They pray that the wall and gate will hold. Archers on both sides start firing bows and the battle begins. Captain Maynard starts barking orders and the Black Fist soldiers move in front of the gate to defend it should the gnolls break it down. Suddenly, from above, a dark, winged figure swoops down and lands beside Pinky and Cade on the rampart. It is Maldrick Scarmaker- the half demon gnoll chief. He brutally lays waste to the Blackfist guard with his morningstar, bashing his skull in, while his spiked tail slashes at Pinky.
The heroes gang up on Scarmaker. Jove and Pinky both hit him with magic missile barrages, while Cade and Alistair put crossbow bolts into him. Anna deftly scales up to the rampart and bravely engages him in melee, but after landing a strike on him with her magic dagger, he retaliates with his spiked tail and it lashes her in the neck. Poison from the spikes enter her blood, and she falls to the ground unconscious and dying. Fortunately, the rest of the party focusing all their fire on him is enough to drive him away, and her companions heal her in time.
Maldrick takes shelter among the gnoll forces beyond the wall, but he isn’t far enough away to escape Alistair's deadly aim with his crossbow. Nor is he beyond the range of Pinky’s magic missile spells. Together the pair finish him off, sending him back to the abyss.
The gnoll archers have done some damage (particularly to Alistair), but the gnolls haven’t yet penetrated the gates, and with their leader now dead, they are thrown into disarray and infighting. The heroes then hear horns coming from near the manor house at the far side of the village. They leave the defence of the gates to Captain Maynard and the Blackfist, and they rush to the aid of the few defenders that were positioned near the manor. Here they find that a band of gnolls has managed to get through a small breach in the palisade that never got repaired. Lord Millman and a few of his warriors are in a deadly melee with the gnolls. To make matters worse, the gnolls are accompanied by three disgusting maw demons. Delilah and Anna charge into the middle of the fray to aid Lord Millman. They arrive just in time. Delilah hews one in the chest with her axe, while Anna makes use of Dancing Flame’s magical properties to illuminate and blind one of the maw demons, making it an easy target for Alistair’s bow. Cade skirts the edge of the battle on Toothless, working to keep any gnolls from reaching Jove or Alistair who both hang back and fire on the enemy with spell and bow. Pinky doesn’t fully engage in the battle, but she does move close enough to provide support with healing magic and other spells.
The fighting is fierce, but in the end the savage gnolls and demons are cut down with no losses on the side of the heroes. With this threat dealt with, they return to the gates. They discover that with Scarmaker gone the various gnoll packs have nothing to keep them unified and they have fallen into fighting amongst themselves. The Black Fist archers take advantage of the infighting, and they put down as many as possible with their bows from the archery platforms. It isn’t long before the gnolls have given up on the siege, and the surviving packs scatter into the night.
Captain Maynard grudgingly congratulates the heroes for their good work in taking down Scarmaker, and he doesn't try to stop them from claiming what’s left of his wings before his body completely dissolves away (as tends to happen to demonic creatures), so that they can use them as proof to claim the bounty the Lord Regent of Phlan put on the fiend.
The session ends with the heroes taking a well deserved rest in Mill Hill after a tough battle.
Anyone familiar with D&D 4e products might recognize the name "Maldric Scarmaker." I stole this character from the Thunderspire Labyrinth adventure, as I thought he was kind of a cool villain- obviously he was updated to 5e stats.
Session #9 (Ogres of Storm Cove)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk 4, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 5)
Jove (human, wizard 5)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 4, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 5)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 5, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes rest a day in Mill Hill, recovering from the battle against the gnolls. The following night, they are awakened by a strange phenomena. It is nearly as light as day as they step out from the great hall, and to the north they see a series of shooting stars descending down into the barren land known as The Thar. Jove estimates their point of impact is a couple of hundred miles away, and that impact makes some tremors that can be felt even in Mill Hill, but no harm is done.
The following day the adventurers travel with the Blackfist soldiers back to Phlan. It is a long, tiring day’s journey, and it is nearly dark when they get back to Phlan. When they check their horses at the stables they learn from Bruno the stable keeper that Delgar the Blade and his mercenaries left town the day after they left for Mill Hill. He didn’t disclose where he was going, and he hasn’t been seen since.
Their first order of business is collecting their bounty on Maldrick Scarmaker’s head. They pay a visit to Valjevo Castle, and this time they are allowed beyond the outer bailey into the main keep. The castle is a very old structure that has been the most prominent structure in the town for centuries. It has suffered damage from various attacks over the years, including the Dragon Run, but efforts are being made to restore it to its full glory. Here they meet Lord Regent Ector Brahms, commander of the Black Fist and the most politically powerful man in Phlan. He is awaiting them on the Cinnabar throne in the castle’s throne room. Brahms’ personal body guard is a formidable looking, red scaled half dragon warrior. The half dragon says nothing during the conversion but watches the heroes intently. The Lord Regent is an enormous man of great height and bulk, and Jove can’t help but make his socially awkward and offensive comments about him. Thus, they don’t make the best impression on the ruler of Phlan, and Alistair has to work to mitigate the social damage Jove causes. However, they do collect the bounty before being ordered to get out of his sight.
They spend a couple of days in Phlan resting. Jove makes himself busy creating a back up copy of his spell book. Scholars Square proves to be a place that is well stocked with supplies for writing, and it is easy for him to get the materials he needs for his work. Once he’s completed the book, he leaves it in possession of the library. Cassra Brandywine assures him that it will be kept safely.
There is discussion about where to go next. In the end, the heroes decide that they will head for the village of Storm Cove and investigate the ogre threat that Kivan the ranger had gone to take care of. It takes them about a day of travel along the coast to reach Storm Cove. In the village, they are introduced to Lady Umbermead, the widow of the local lord, and she hosts them in her hall. Here they find Kivan. His right arm has been horribly mangled, and it doesn’t look like he will be much use as a warrior in the near future. They do what they can to heal him, and they learn from Kivan that he, along with Lord Umbermead and several warriors from the village, located the ogres' lair, which is in the ruins of an old ring fort along the coast to the south west. They confronted the ogres, but the ogres were more numerous than Kivan had anticipated. They killed a few of the big bastards, but Lord Umbermead and three of the militia were also killed, and Kivan was terribly wounded.
The following day, the adventurers follow Kivan’s directions to the ring fort, and they make their way along the desolate coast. The weather is breezy but hot; it is the height of the region’s short summer. As they get close to the fort, Cade does some scouting. First he finds a cluster of rocks about a hundred meters from the ruined fort that the heroes can hide among. They form a plan to lure the ogres out and do as much harm to them as they can with ranged attacks while the brutes cross the open terrain between the fort and the rocks.
Cade uses a pass without trace spell and rides Toothless up to what was once a fortified farmstead. It is protected by an earthen rampart and a rotting palisade wall. There are many gaps in the wall that are now overgrown with bushes, and it is easy for Cade to ride toothless in through one. No ogres are out and about, for they tend to be more active at night, but he does discover a pair of dire wolves slumbering in the ruins of an old barn. He tries to befriend them, and does succeed in calming the creatures and keeping them from sounding an alarm or attacking him, but building relationships takes time, and he isn’t sure if a few minutes is enough to create a lasting bond. He decides to leave them be, content that they aren't about to attack or alert the ogres.
Next he enters the remains of one of the large circular huts where he hears the sounds of ogres snoring. He finds two of the beasts sleeping, and he decides to go for an assassination attempt. The little ranger puts a crossbow bolt through the face of one of the sleeping ogres. It doesn’t quite kill it, but it does wake it up with a howl. Cade fires a couple of more quick shots at the thing and then rides out of the hut on Toothless. He makes his way for the rocks as chaos erupts.
The two dire wolves end up pursing him, and they are almost on him when his companions reveal themselves by bombarding the pursing beasts with magic missile spells and crossbow bolts. The ogres are savage creatures of low intelligence, and they stupidly go charging towards the rocks where the heroes are hiding. The adventurers take full advantage of the time it takes them to reach the rocks, and they fire on them with spells and bolts. They focus fire on the ogre leader, who carries a dwarven greataxe in one hand. He is the toughest foe, but by the time he reaches the rocks, he is already terribly wounded and Dellilah nearly cuts his head off with her own axe, slaying him (crit!).
Jove casts his new Melf’s Minute Meteor spell for the first time and blasts the ogres with fiery death. Pinky stays among the rocks and hurls potent magic missile spells. Cade and Toothless engage a couple of ogres in melee, as does Novo, and Alistair keeps pounding them with a crossbow bolts. The heroes take a few wounds from the brutes' clubs, but soon enough they have dispatched the ogres. Their good use of terrain and tactics made what otherwise might have been a dangerous fight a fairly easy one.
After dealing with the ogres, they claim the fine axe wielded by the chief and do some searching of the ruined farmstead. They don’t find much of value, but they do recover the mangled body of Lord Umbermead. They bring back all the ears of the dead ogres, along with the body of Lord Umbermead to Storm Cove. Lady Umbermead is grateful for their help and offers them coin. They rest the night in her hall and partake in somber celebratory feast. After all, she did just lose her husband.
They analyze the axe, and learn that it is a potent magical item. It seems that it was specifically made for killing giants, and though it might seem odd to be in possession of an ogre, the beast probably got some good use out of it putting down his rivals. Delilah claims the weapon and attunes herself to its power. The following day they return to Phlan with Kivan to cash in their ogre ears.
Session #10 (Festivus for the rest of us)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk 4, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 5)
Jove (human, wizard 5)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 4, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 5)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 5, with wolf animal companion)
On the way back to Phlan from Storm Cove, Kivan the ranger confides in Pinky and gives him the name of a couple of members of the Harpers that work in the region. They include Kral the Bard in Phlan, Ulblyn Blackalbuck, a halfling in Melvaunt that owns and runs Blackalbuck’s Swap Shop, and Forlin Mendalor, a gnome illusionist living in Grossetgrottle. Kivan mentions that Kral travels quite extensively, and the last he heard, Kral had gone to Zhentil Keep to try to gather more information regarding the Iron Ring slavers. Kivan isn’t certain if he’s returned yet, but he does know that Kral has a family and home in Phlan, and he gives Pinky directions to Kral’s home.
When they arrive in Phlan, they discover that Festivus, the annual Midsummer’s Day festival, is happening in two days. It will feature, various competitions including, “feats of strength!” The Festivus pole has been set up in the center of Podol Plaza, and as the heroes are heading towards the Cracked Crown inn, they notice a boy climbing the pole to hang a decoration on it. The pole is about 20’ tall and small wooden pegs protrude everywhere from it. It is a tradition in the town for children to climb the pole and hang decorations off of it. The rule is that you must hang them starting at the top and then work your way down. Several of the boy’s friends are watching him as he climbs high up the pole and tries to hang his decoration. Also watching are three other boys attired in the garb of the nobility. One of these boys is a cruel t@!+ who decides to throw a rock at the kid on the pole. It hits him in the back, and he falls, landing with a sickening thud. He’s unconscious and may be dead.
Novo, in his natural changeling form, hurries over to the boy and uses his druidic magic to heal him, probably saving his life. The noble boys are run off by a menacing looking Delilah, escorted by their bodyguard. As they depart, Jove casts a prestidigitation spell on the boy that threw the rock. It makes it smell as though the boy just cut a horrific fart. His two friends are disgusted by the smell (it doesn’t seem to phase the ugly bodyguard), and they start to tease him. At the same time the boy who fell gets to his feet (thanks to Novo’s healing). He picks up the rock that hit him, and he is clearly contemplating throwing it at the young noble. Novo discourages it, saying that no good can come from making an enemy of the nobility. Delilah, on the other hand, doesn’t like bullies, and she encourages him to stand up for himself and throw the rock. The boy thinks it over. His anger wins out, and he hurls the rock. It lands short of its mark, but the noble lad turns and glares at him- all the while being mocked by his peers for the “fart” smell.
After the incident the boy who fell from the pole introduces himself as Lief and thanks Novo for his help. Novo tells him to watch out since the noble lad might come after him for daring to throw a rock at him. Lief says he’s not scared, and that his dad is a well known bard and can help protect him. Then he and his friends go on their way.
The next day, the heroes claim the bounty on the ogre ears and otherwise take it easy. The following day they partake in Festivus. Novo competes in the unarmed combat challenge, which he handily wins against one of the town’s scrappiest brawlers. This earns him a 30 gp winning purse.
Delilah competes in the wrestling competition. She fares well, making it to the semi-finals. In that round she faces a tough dwarven adventurer named Targal. Unfortunately, Targal manages to best the half orc. He in turn goes on to compete for the championship against Sabat, the Lord Regent’s half dragon bodyguard. The half dragon wins this match, and Delilah learns that the half dragon has been the champion for several years in a row.
After the fight Delilah flirts a little with the Targal the dwarf and does her best to seduce him. This doesn’t work out so well for Delilah, and it seems the wrestling match was probably more close than he wanted to get to her. She decides to go drown her sorrows at being rejected in booze. Jove notices that Targal has two adventuring companions. One is roguish fellow that he learns is named Hitch. The other is a extremely tall and sturdy northern woman named Brida. He decides to try his own luck at seduction with Brida. It seems that she doesn’t get a lot of men hitting on her, and is quite sex deprived. She and Jove get on surprisingly well, despite Jove’s tendency to put his foot in his mouth. They end up have a loud night of passion at the Cracked Crown that makes it difficult for Alistair to sleep.
Unsurprisingly, Alistair competes in the archery contest. The competition doesn’t allow crossbows, so he uses his longbow. He too fairs well and makes it to the semi-finals, but like Delilah, he loses in the semi-finals of the competition. Apparently he’s a little rusty with the longbow. The winner of the contest ends up being a local retired adventurer named Marten Foss.
The day after Festivus, the heroes head for Melvaunt. They travel west on horseback along the desolate coast of the Moonsea. Novo decides to assume his/her Anna identity. The weather is decent and the temperature warm. The first day of travel passes uneventfully. That night they make camp in the wilderness at the edge of the Thar. Late that night Anna and Jove are on watch duty. Jove drifts off to sleep and Anna becomes lost in her own thoughts. Both fail to notice a pair of surprisingly stealthy hill giants until they are virtually upon the heroes’ camp. Anna spots the first one just in time to shout for her companions to get up. Then its club descends on her, smashing her into the dirt, leaving her unconscious and dying.
The second giant tries a similar tactic on Alistair, landing a solid hit on the noble, but he rolls to the side, avoiding its second attack. As he’s rolling, he grabs up his crossbow and some bolts, jumps to his feet and moves to get away from the giant. Delilah picks up Giant Slayer and rushes the hill giant that attacked Alistair. She hasn’t had time to don her armour, but she fights well without it. She hews the giant with the axe, and finds it to be a very effective weapon. It glows red, and she feels it hungering for the giant’s blood. Her brutal assault gets its full attention, allowing Alistair to move out of the melee and get to work at doing what he does best.
Toothless rushes the giant that put down Anna and bites at it, taking a chunk out of its lower leg and nearly pulling it to the ground. Then the giant thumps the wolf with its club, rendering Toothless unconscious and near death as well. Pinky heals Anna with her most potent healing magic, which restores her to consciousness. Anna gets up and plunges Dancing Flame into the giant’s leg. The giant is blinded and glowing with dancing lights. Jove distracts the giant with a barrage of magic missiles, while Alistair takes advantage of his illuminated target and unleashes a swarm of crossbow bolts into the giant. Cade is furious about seeing that Toothless might be dead, and he too shoots the giant with his hand crossbow. After a few ineffective shots, the halfling puts a bolt through its forehead, killing the giant.
Once again, Delilah’s been left to handle a very dangerous foe while her companions have their attention focused elsewhere. She holds her own well against the giant, and soon she cleaves its knee hard enough to bring it to the ground. She takes advantage of this and continues to hack at it. Just as she is ready to finish it, Pinky and Jove turn their magic on it. Jove fells the brute with a bombardment of magic missiles that obliterate its face.
After the fight they recover some coin from the giants’ bags. They decide to move campsites since disposing of the massive corpses is problematic. The remainder of the night is uneventful. The next day they continue their journey towards Melvaunt. They expect to reach the city by the end of the day. Around mid morning they round a bend in the road. Up ahead, they see a bloody conflict. Orcs are in the midst of attacking a trio of wagons. Only a few desperate human guards remain alive and fighting. It doesn’t look like they will last long against the orcs unless the heroes intervene immediately.
The session ends with the heroes about to engage the orcs brigands and protect the little caravan.
Session #11 (The rescue of Lady Nanther)
Characters:
Old Wan (changeling, Monk 4, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 5)
Jove (human, wizard 5)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 4, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 5)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 5, with wolf animal companion)
Around mid-morning on their second day of travel to Melvaunt, the adventurers round a bend in the road. Up ahead, they see a bloody conflict. About a score of orc raiders (with bigger, nastier orogs mixed in) are in the midst of attacking a trio of wagons. Only a few desperate human guards remain alive and fighting. It doesn’t look like they will last long against the orcs unless the heroes intervene immediately.
The heroes dismount their riding horses and ready for combat. Cade charges in on Toothless. The wolf pulls an orc to the ground with its fangs, Cade takes advantage of it being prone and slices its throat open with his kukri. He then fires a hand crossbow bolt into another orc. Jove and Pinky begin blasting the orcs with magic missile spells, while Alistair starts firing on them with his crossbow. The attacks immediately get the full attention of the orcs, and several of the savages rush towards the heroes. Delilah and Novo, the changeling monk (currently in the guise of Anna), intercept them and square off with a pair of orcs in melee. Cade, who had charged into their midst, finds himself almost instantly surrounded. The halfling is a vicious little fighter, and he dismounts Toothless to give himself more mobility. Together he and Toothless fend off some half dozen orcs and orogs. Unfortunately, the orcs’ greater numbers give them a distinct advantage, and soon both the wolf and the halfling ranger have sustained nasty wounds.
Anna sees that Delilah can handle the orcs near her, so she darts over to help Cade. As she does so, Cade jumps onto Toothless and rides out of the battle. Without the halfling to fight, the orcs then swarm Anna. She does her best to fend them off, but she is vastly outnumbered, and soon they overwhelm her. Jove and Alistair try to help her with ranged attacks, but they can’t save her from being cut down (0 hp- death save time).
While this is going on, the horses hitched to one of the three wagons in the small caravan panic and bolt. The wagon the horses are pulling is a sturdy coach, the sort that might carry a member of the nobility. Two orogs jump onto the coach as it rattles by, and while clinging to the sides of it they begin trying to hack down the door at the back (there is no side door) with their axes. The remaining caravan guards are finally cut down, freeing up more orcs to engage the heroes.
Cade receives healing from Pinky, and as the orcs that just brought down Anna move away to take on Pinky and Delilah, Cade rides Toothless over to help Anna. She is unconscious, but clinging to life. The ranger casts his most potent cure spell on her, which heals the worst of her wounds. She dextrously hops to her feet just in time to help Cade against a couple of more orcs and a pair of hulking orogs.
The commander of the orcs, who is actually a half orc, stalks through the blood and corpses to attack Delilah with a pair of orogs in tow. As usual, the heroic fighter/barbarian finds herself alone against some of the toughest foes on the battle field. This time her companions give her a little more support than she’s used to. Alistair turns his crossbow on the half orc captain. Jove hits him with fire bolt cantrips, and Pinky casts a bane spell that curses him and his two orog allies. The bane spell makes several of their attacks clumsy and easy for Delilah to avoid, sparing her much pain.
Delilah holds her own long enough for Anna, Cade and Toothless to cut down their opponents and come to her aid. The half orc tries to surrender, but the two orogs won’t have it, and they fight to the death. The heroes oblige the orogs and slaughter them, but they leave the half orc commander alive for questioning.
Meanwhile the pair of orogs that had jumped onto the back of the coach realize that the battle has been lost, so they give up on their attempt to hack through the doors and run off into the the moors. Alistair tags one with a bolt as they flee.
After the battle they find that one of the caravan guards is still alive. They heal him and learn his name is Conroy. He suspects that the orc attack was no coincidence, and when they interrogate the half orc they learn that he was hired in Melvaunt to lead his raiders in the attack. They were to kill Lady Nanther and her baby who are travelling to Phlan. Thanks to the intervention of the heroes, they failed. He isn’t certain who hired them, but he expects the man he dealt with was associated with the Nanther family’s main rival the Leiryaghons.
In the coach, they find Lady Nanther (there are several lady Nanther’s in the family) with her hand maiden and baby. Prior to being married she was from the Sokol family of Phlan and her family resides in Phlan. She was being sent to Phlan because her husband was concerned for her safety. It seems that a war is brewing between the Nanther and Leiryaghon family. The reason for the conflict is that one of the Nanther scions recently killed the eldest son of Lord Leiryaghon in a duel at the Pearl Necklace gambling hall in Melvaunt.
The name of the place is relevant to Pinky, for it was the place where Kivan claimed her sister was killed by Delgar the Blade. It is a gambling den and fest hall that Pinky’s sister and Kivan had been investigating because they believed it was a front for a cult of demon worshipers.
The heroes hadn’t been planning on returning to Phlan, but since Lady Nanther's entourage has been slaughtered, they agree to escort her back to her family. She assures them that her father will reward the good deed. Thus, they turn around and head back to Phlan. Their journey passes without incident, and they deliver the lady safely home. She is correct about her father. He is grateful to them for their good deed, and he rewards the heroes with gold. He also offers Jove access to a spell book that belonged to his great uncle and is now being kept in Mantor’s library. The heroes are invited to stay the night at Sokol Manor and feast with the family.
While they are dining they notice that Lord Sokol’s young son Gavin is one of the boys that was involved in the rock throwing incident that resulted in a boy named Lief being knocked off the Festivus pole (see session 10). Gavin didn’t throw the rock, but he was with the boy who did. Delilah advises that he never be involved in such activities again. She encourages him to make things right by apologizing to Lief. Gavin gets the opportunity when there is knock on the door of the manor. It is Krall the bard (rumoured to be a Harper), who is the father of Lief. He has come to Sokol manor with his boy to demand an apology from Gavin and the family. Lord Sokol hadn’t heard about the trouble his son had been getting into, and he isn’t happy about it. He forces Gavin to make a good apology, and it is clear that Gavin is remorseful.
Pinky recognizes the Krall’s name. Kivan the Harper ranger had told her that Krall was also a Harper. Kivan said that Krall had been out of town investigating the Iron Ring slavers in Zhentil Keep, but that he lives in Phlan. It seems that he has returned. Thus the heroes have a chance to meet Krall. He’s somewhat drunk when he arrives at Sokol Manor, and he invites himself and his son in for dinner. He sits himself between Pinky and Delilah, and he promptly starts hitting on the pair. Pinky isn’t interested, but Delilah isn’t used to getting much positive attention from men, and she is susceptible to his flattery and charm. During the dinner the heroes tell of their adventures, though neither Pinky nor Krall reveal their Harper connection. They learn that Lord Sokol’s wife (who is clearly not Lady Nanther’s biological mother since they are nearly the same age) is actually Lord Sokol’s second wife (his first wife passed away six years earlier). She is also the daughter of Lord Milman of Millhill. She has already heard of how the heroes helped save her village from the gnolls, and she is honoured to host them in her home. Krall explains that he was recently in Zhentil Keep on “business.” There he heard that the Lord of Shackles' tiefling brother was killed by a band of adventurers that raided one of the Iron Ring’s forts. The adventurers recall killing a tiefling warlock in the raid, and Krall makes it clear that the Lord of Shackles wants revenge.
After dinner, Delilah ends up going back to Krall’s house with him where they engage in a night of passion (Lief is left to stay at the Sokol home). The next morning, Delilah is making breakfast for Krall, who is fairly hung over, when his wife returns from the market with fresh bread. The pair must have separate rooms because Delilah hadn’t seen her the night before. Krall explains that it’s all fine, and that they have a very “open relationship.” Delilah is not impressed and smashes Krall in the face with a hot pan of eggs. She then storms out and returns to Sokol manor.
The heroes spend a few days of down time in Phlan, during which Delilah has the plate armour she took from the half orc raider fitted for her. Jove picks up the spell book from Mantor’s library and starts learning some new spells. Anna spends time with Connor the changeling stable boy. She starts teaching him martial arts. She also spends time with Lady Nanther, studying her ways and purchasing a dress from the lady’s dress maker.
Once their downtime activities are done, they are ready they return to Melvaunt. The journey passes uneventfully, and the session ends with the heroes arriving at the gates of “The City of Blades”.
Session #12 (Melvaunt the City of Blades)
Characters:
Novo (changeling, Monk 5, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 6)
Jove (human, wizard 6)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 6)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 6, with wolf animal companion)
While waiting in line to pass through the gates into Melvaunt, the heroes briefly meet a pair of herders who are trying to bring two bodies into the city. The bodies belong to one of the men’s sons. According to the herder, his lads were killed while trying to protect their flock of goats from a wyvern. The goatherd wishes to show his dead sons to the Lord of Keys in hopes that the city will take the wyvern threat more seriously and do something about it.
Once they pass through the gates, a halfling woman named Margo introduces herself to them and offers to be their guide around town. Cade asks her if she knows anything about a yellow eyed halfling passing through town in the past month or so. She doesn’t know anything about that, but she asks if the halfling is a killer because there are rumours of a yellow eyed killer stalking the streets at night slaughtering folk foolish enough to be out in the night. This is of some concern to Cade, and he hopes that Pip Weebottom is not the one responsible for the deaths. Margo, does suggest that the halfling named Ublyn Blackalbuck, who runs Blackulbuck’s Swap Shop, might have seen the halfling, as pretty much every halfling that passes through the city ends up at the swap shop sooner or later. Ublyn happens to be the halfling that Kivan the ranger told Pinky was a Harper.
Even though they are weary from the road, they decide that before heading to an inn, they will first go to the swap shop. Here they meet Ublyn Blackalbuck. Cade inquires about Pip Weebottom, and Ublyn claims that he does remember seeing a halfing that matches Cade’s description. Pip had been purchasing supplies for a trek to the town of Glister, which is on the northern edge of the Thar. It seems that Cade is always one step behind the halfling. While they are chatting, Pinky discreetly flashes Ublyn some secret Harper hand signals, which Ublyn returns, confirming that he is a Harper. He, of course, wants to talk to Pinky, and soon they are all having a private meeting in the back room of the Swap Shop.
Pinky explains that her sister was a friend of Kivan’s who was killed while they were investigating a demon cult rumoured to operating out of the Pearl Necklace. Ublyn’s heard the same rumours, but from what he can tell, assuming the cult exists, it has been keeping a fairly low profile. Though he wonders if the cult might have had anything to do with trying to initiate the current conflict between the Nanther and Leiryaghons families, since the duel in which Seth Nanther killed Royce Leiryaghon took place at the Pearl Necklace, and from what he’s heard Seth was a fairly cool tempered fellow, not someone prone to such behaviour. Perhaps the corruption of the Abyss influenced his actions?
Ublyn’s greater concern is the Iron Ring slavers. The slavers have a compound in the city and are the major player in the city’s slave trade, which is all legal. For the past couple of years, Ublyn has been involved in secretly freeing slaves and moving them out of the city to Phlan where his ally, Krall the bard, helps them escape the Moonsea region. Ublyn would like to strike a major blow against the Iron Ring by taking out their compound in Melvaunt. Unfortunately, he hasn’t had the resources to launch a direct attack against them. With the arrival of another Harper (Pinky) and a group of capable and heroic adventurers, he sees an opportunity to hit the Iron Ring. He suggests that the heroes take a couple of days to get settled in the city, but he encourages them to come see him soon and help him plan an attack on the Iron Ring compound.
The heroes spend the night at one of the city’s more luxurious inns, called the Breakwater. The following morning, they visit Thelgrim Strongarm’s smithy. They present the dwarf with the letter of introduction provided to them by Lord Millman. He hasn’t thought of Lord Millman in several years, but he is honourable dwarf, and he admits that he still owes the man a debt. Before they can get to discussing business, Thelgrim notices Delilah’s enchanted axe. He is enraged that a half orc is carrying around a fine enchanted dwarven weapon. He goes on to tell her the history of the axe, and he demands that she explain how she came into possession of the weapon. Delilah keeps her cool and tells the story about how she got it from a dead ogre they killed. He offers to buy it from her for 600 gp, but she isn’t interested in selling it. He then suggests that he could make her a new enchanted axe, especially if she could get him some star metal. She considers this offer, but for now intends to keep the axe. Cade convinces Thelgrim to forge him an enchanted kukri, and he agrees to make Pinky a breastplate. He has a number of assistants, and as part of paying his debt to Lord Millman, he tells them that he will make the work his top priority. Consequently, he promises to have it ready in a few days.
Because the Breakwater Inn is pretty pricy, the heroes decide to move to a quiet, lesser known inn called Pelgrim’s Place. However, Cade is interested in a paying a visit to a more rowdy place that is known to cater to adventurers. It’s called the Ogre of Thar, and if features a “civilized” ogre as a bouncer. The Ogre of Thar has a message board that is of interest to the heroes. It contains the following notes:
Wanted: bold adventurers to accompany a expedition into the Thar to seek the recently fallen Tears of Selune. If interested leave a message with Selgar.
Reward from the Lord of Keys: 300 gp for proof of each wyvern slain. Wyverns believed to have a nest in the Thar north of Dunheath.
Wanted Dead or Alive: Yellow eyed assassin
Reward from the Lord of Keys: 500 gp for proof the the capture or death
Carvan Guards wanted: Competent caravan guards needed to escort caravans to Glister. Apply at the Dead Ogre Coster Trading House.
Cade is most interested in the one about the Yellow Eyed assassin, so he takes it off the wall.
The heroes all end up gathering for lunch in the tap room of the Ogre. Here Jove meets the warrior woman named Brida that he had one night stand with back in Phlan. It seems that she and her two companions are in Melvaunt looking for work. They are considering allying themselves with either the Nanthers or Lieryaghons, as both families are apparently looking for sell swords.
After lunch, Cade convinces his companions to go visit the Lord of Keys. They manage to get an audience with the man- mostly thanks to Alistair’s noble blood. Here they gain some more details about the wyvern problem and the yellow-eyed killer. It seems the killer has slain over a dozen people in the last couple of months- always late at night when most folk are in their homes. Most bodies have been found in alleys, and they are usually drunks or prostitutes. There is a 500 gp reward for anyone that can bring proof that they have stopped the killer. As for the wyverns, the creatures are known to lair in the Thar north of the village of Dunheath. The Lord of Keys has heard that there is a rocky crag that has some ruins on it, and it is here that the wyverns have taken up residence. The city if offering 300 gp for each wyvern killed.
They decide that they will look into deal with the yellow eyed killer. They decide to set up a sting, in which they put Anna out as bait. They go to the market and get her good whoring dress. The following night, they set up at the mouth of an alley down near the docks where many sailors hang out. Alistair takes up position on the roof across the street, opposite the alley with his crossbow. Cade hides deep in the alley with Toothless and Delilah. Pinky goes up on a roof overlooking the alley, and Jove takes up position on the roof of the building across from Pinky, also overlooking the alley. Annna takes on the role of “Amber” the prostitute and sets up at the mouth of the alley. Soon enough various Johns approach her, and she has to use some special anatomical tricks to scare them off, tricks that only a changeling could perform. Unfortunately, they tell their friends and soon other men approach wanting to see the amazing Amber. Luckily she starts fairly late, so she doesn’t have to put up with the attention too long before the streets clear out and only the a few foolish drunkards stagger about.
Things get interesting, when suddenly a demonic humanoid with glowing yellow eyes appears in a poof of black smoke directly behind Jove. The creature is about seven feet tall. It’s gaunt frame is stretched over with black, oily skin that wreaks of chemicals. A nasty horn juts out from the back of its skull and curves up and over the top of its head, so that it is facing forward. The demon catches him by surprise, but Pinky responds with a barrage of magic missiles. The spell only wounds it, and it rends Jove with its claws, inflicting significant damage on the wizard. Cade and Delilah hurry to Jove’s aid by climbing onto the roof. Alistair fills it with crossbow bolts from his sniper position across the street, and Jove and Pinky engage it with more magic missile spells. In a matter of seconds, it is badly wounded, and instead of facing Delilah and Cade in melee on the rooftop, it teleports across the alley, appearing on the roof behind Pinky. It then turns its claws on the cleric of Mystra. Delilah attempts to leap across the alley, but doesn’t make the jump and lands hard in the alley.
At that moment a second one of the demons appears behind Alistair. It rushes the archer and tackles him. Both the noble and the demon fall off the building and crash to the cobbled street below. Toothless and Anna both race across the street to help Alistair. Cade fires down on the demon with his hand crossbow, while Jove aids Pinky by blasting the wounded demon with magic missiles. Together Pinky and Jove take down the first demon. Delilah gets to her feet and joins the fight against the second demon. With Anna, Delilah, Toothless, Alistair and Cade all attacking the final demon it too is quickly detroyed. Unfortunately for the heroes, both demons explode in a nasty burst of acid, injuring their attackers and leaving behind only puddles of acidic sludge. Jove collects some samples in glass vials and the decide they will use the demon acid as evidence to show to the Lord of Keys.
The session ends with the heroes healing their wounds and returning to their inn to rest.
Session #13 (Street Battle in Melvaunt, The Wyvern Hunt Begins)
Characters:
Novo (changeling, Monk 5, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 6)
Jove (human, wizard 6)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 6)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 6, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes wake up late the next morning at their inn- Pelgrim’s Rest. Their first order of business is to visit the Lord of Keys and report on the events of the previous night. On their way to the garrison building, they are passing by a fine townhouse; Jove notices the sigil of the MacKormike family carved into the lintel above the doors. Jove promptly points this out to Alistair and suggests that perhaps it is the home of his older brother Dustin. Alistair has no interest in seeing his brother and tells Jove that he is mistaken. The wizard is sure he’s right and decides to stir up some s%*@ by knocking on the door. Dustin MacKormike answers, confirming Jove’s suspicions. He looks a little wary and is armed with a sword. He seemed to have been expecting someone, but Jove isn’t that someone. He asks who Jove is and what he wants, at which point, Jove points to Alistair, who is standing sheepishly on the street with the hood of his cloak pulled over his head, concealing his face, despite the fact that it is a hot summer day.
Dustin is much more excited to see his little brother than Alistair is to see him. He asks him what he’s doing in Melvaunt and why he’s so far from home in the distant Kingdom of Cormyr. Alistair is a little awkward in his answers and clearly feels uncomfortable talking to his brother. Dustin, gives him a lot of back handed compliments- “I’m glad you’ve finally found some friends.” “Oh you’ve figured out how to use a bow? That’s great, you were always useless with a sword.” “It looks like you’ve put on at least five pounds since I last saw you years ago.”
Memories of Alistair’s childhood come flooding back, particularly of being tormented by his older brothers and specifically of Dustin thumping the crap out of him with wooden swords in sparring duels. Pretty soon, he is begging his companions to get moving. They seem to be enjoying watching him squirm and don’t hurry, but eventually they continue on their way. Dustin encourages Alistair to come by for a longer visit once he is done his errands, but Alistair is clearly in no hurry to spend time with his brother.
A few minutes later they come across trouble. A woman runs towards them. She is fleeing from two armoured men with swords. A little further up the street, more men, who are similarly armed and armoured, are busy slaughtering other townsfolk (mainly defenceless women) in the middle of the street. Delilah puts herself between the fleeing woman and the two killers chasing her. They tell the big half orc woman to mind her own business and get out of the way. As she refuses, Cade puts a crossbow bolt into one of the men’s shoulders. Cade, his wolf Toothless, Delilah and Anna rush the men, while Jove, Pinky and Alistair hang back to fight from range. More of the armed killers move in to help fight the adventurers who dare to oppose them.
The heroes are outnumbered about two to one, but Jove starts detonating melf’s minute meteors among their enemies. The balls of fire scorch several of the men at once and crisp them up for his companions to easily finish off. The fight is going well for the heroes, until they realize that the killers have a mage with them. The mage starts dropping fireballs among the adventurers, which causes significant injury to Delilah, Cade, Toothless and Anna as wells as some unfortunate civilians. The already frightened townsfolk in the area panic and run to escape the carnage. As terrified civilians rush past him, Alistair calmly raises his crossbow and targets the mage. He fires several bolts into the spell caster, and in seconds the mage has suffered a couple of terrible wounds. Pinky tries to finish him off with a round of magic missiles, but he finds the strength to throw up a shield spell, and the bolts of force are harmlessly absorbed. Before the adventurers, can reach him, he staggers into an alley, leaving several of the killers to protect his retreat.
With the wizard gone, the heroes finish off their enemies with relative ease. They show no mercy to these men who were murdering unarmed women in the street, and they don’t even bother to keep one alive for questioning. They glance over the bloody mess and try to deduce what was going on. The dead girls that the men had killed appear to be slaves or servants and likely belonged to one either the Leiryaghons or Nanthers. Their dead attackers aren’t wearing any house sigils, but they suspect they work for one of the two families as well. They then go after the wounded wizard that fled. Toothless tries to track the wizard’s scent through the alley, but it disappears not far in, and Cade can find no sign of his trail continuing. It’s as if he vanished, probably with the aid of magic.
They can hear the city guard coming, so they hurry up the street away from the slaughter. After getting out of the immediate area of the battle, they duck in another alley. Here they use healing magic, and Jove casts prestidigitation spells on all them. This cleans up their clothes and armour, removing scorch marks and and blood stains, and making it so that they no longer look like they just finished killing a dozen people.
Several minutes later they arrive at the garrison. Multiple squads of guards are being deployed as they reach the gates. The heroes assume it is to go to the scene of their recent fight, but, strangely, word of their involvement in the street fight hasn’t seemed to have reached garrison, and they are given permission to enter the complex to meet with the Lord of Keys- perhaps there are other matters going on in the city that are also demanding the attention of the guard? Soon enough, they have checked their weapons and are in the office of the Lord of Keys. It turns out that the Lord of Keys is the wife of Lady Stendale, the noblewoman that they had travelled with from Hillsfar and left behind in Grayhill several weeks prior. He had been talking to his wife the previous night about his encounter with a rag tag band of adventurers, and she recognized their descriptions. He’s not overly impressed about how Alistair failed to keep his promise to escort her safely to Phlan, but Jove, who thought she seemed like a detestable woman, figures that delaying her arrival back to Melvaunt probably did him a favour. The Lord of Keys, finds Jove’s jest both amusing and mildly offensive at the same time, and it is enough to make him change the topic and ask them about their investigation. They go on to explain that they believe the “yellow-eyed killer” is actually demons, and that someone is surely responsible for summoning them into the city. They give him an in depth recount about their fight with the two demons the night before, and they show him the acidic residue that Jove took from their melted corpses. They even make mention that they have heard that a cult of demon worshippers uses the Pearl Necklace as a front for their dark faith. The Lord of Keys scoffs at this notion. He admits that it is a place where the city’s wealthy go to gamble and have the occasional “interaction” with one of the courtesans. However, he doubts that the place could possibly be a cover for anything as sinister as demon worshippers. Still, he encourages the heroes to do whatever discreet investigations they wish and try to get to the bottom of the problem. They don’t make any promises, and with the report of their findings complete they leave.
They discuss their next move. They consider going to the Pearl Necklace to continue their investigation of the demon cult, but they decide that it might be better to get out of town for a little while, as they figure there will be consequences for killing nearly a dozen men in the middle of the street- even if the men were killers that were in midst of slaughtering innocent civilians. They decide to go after the wyvern bounty they heard about. The prospect of a tangible reward is appealing, and it gets them out of the city. Thus, they return to their inn, pack up their gear and hastily leave town.
By late afternoon, they reach the village of Dunheath, which is about 6 miles north of Melvaunt, on the edge of the barren wilderness known as the Grey Land of Thar. The dingy little village has a palisade and appears to be inhabited mostly by poor herders who raise goats and sheep in the surrounding pasture land. The soil is poor and rocky, so farming is limited. In the middle of the village, they find a single inn/tavern called the Goat’s Beard. Here they talk with some locals and learn that the wyverns have been mainly attacking their flocks but have also killed some villagers. The winged beasts have their nests in the ruins of a crumbling old monastery that sits on the top of a massive rock monolith, which rises up out of the barren lands of the Thar another six or so miles to the north.
After spending a night at the Goat’s Beard inn, the heroes head north. They leave their horses in the stables at the inn. Eventually, they see the monolith up ahead and they can see the ruins sitting on top of it, several hundred feet up in the air. A narrow, treacherous looking stair case is carved into the side of the rock. It climbs its way about half way up to the monolith and then ends. Where the stair ends, they see an opening that leads into the rock face. With limited magical means of getting up to the ruins, they decide to take the stairs. As they climb in single file, they keep alert for the wyverns; they are in no hurry to be caught in a fight with the beasts on a narrow stair hundreds of feet above the ground. Fortunately, they reach the top of the stairs without incident.
They find that the doorway opens into the a long hall that has been carved into the stone. There doesn’t seem to be any light, so they ignite torches and enter. The hall is quiet and empty. It features a vaulted ceiling that is about 12’ high and in a state of disrepair; chunks of rock that have fallen away from it littler the floor. A few side chambers connect to the central hall, and they appear to have once been store rooms. There doesn’t seem to be anything of value or concern in them. Mostly they are strewn with stone rubble and the rotting remains of old crates and barrels. The adventurers poke about a little, but for the most part they keep moving forward. As, they get further in, they immediately notice a drastic drop in temperature. It gets extremely cold way too fast. Clearly this is not natural, and Jove fears there may be dangerous undead in the area. This thought has Cade spooked. The savage little halfling ranger is quite superstitious, and he both hates and fears the undead. He scouts ahead with caution, ascending a short flight of stairs and then entering a wide but long chamber. In the middle of the room is a massive stone pedestal and standing on top of it is an enormous stone statue of a bald man in simple robes, with a pained expression on his face. A big bronze brazier sits on the pedestal at the feet of the statue. It burns with orange flame, providing a flickering light to the spacious room. The temperature in this room is even colder than in hall. It feels like the middle of winter, and the stone is tinged with frost. Then from high up above, in the shadows of the arched ceiling, there is a horrific wailing groan. Cade looks up just in time to see a dozen or more spectral human figures flying about. The apparitions are incorporeal and have anguished looks on their faces. Their eyes flare with hatred of the living, and they glide down with ghostly hands outstretched, reaching to suck the life from the living. Cade mounts his wolf and urges Toothless to run. As he escapes, the spectres swoop and attack. They reach out with deadly spectral hands leeching away at his precious life force.
The session ends with Cade fleeing into the hall and the heroes about to swarmed by incorporeal undead.
Session #14 (Cleansing the halls of Ilmater)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 5, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 6)
Jove (human, wizard 6)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 6)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 6, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes find themselves in the halls of an ancient monastery dedicated to Ilmater about to be swarmed by incorporeal undead (see end of session #13). The halls and chambers have been carved into the heart of a huge, natural rock monolith that stands in the Thar 12 miles to the north of Melvaunt.
Jove and Anna watch as Cade rides past them on Toothless, fleeing from a dozen or so spectral undead. The undead are flying in fast, shrieking with hatred for the living, ready to drain the adventurers of their life force. Jove reacts equally fast, using a misty step spell to teleport himself away from the incoming undead. This leaves Anna vulnerable, and several of the spectres swarm her. They reach out with ghostly hands and grab at her. Their touch burns her very soul, and she sustains so much damage that she falls to the floor on the verge of death (2 hits +1 crit for over 40 damage). More spectres and two shadowy wraiths glide past her, closing in on Pinky and Delilah. Pinky and Delilah both sustain nasty necrotic wounds, though they manage to survive the initial attacks.
Delilah begins cleaving at the undead with her enchanted axe. The magical weapon burns through them, causing their ghostly bodies shudder and explode into harmless mist. Alistair fires on them with his crossbow, and quickly learns that his non-magical bolts have no effect on the creatures. He resorts to using his valuable supply of silvered bolts, which seem to have some effect, though not as much as Delilah’s magical weapon. Still, he destroys a couple more spectres with his barrage of silver.
Pinky stands her ground, and raises her holy symbol of Mystra. She channels her goddesses divine power and turns back the tide of death. Several of the spectres and one of the wraiths recoil from the power of Mystra and flee back into the the depths of the halls. Those that remain continue their assault on the living. They initially focus their wrath on Pinky, and the remaining spectres drain more of her life force. Like Anna, she falls unconscious and is near death. Delilah sees this and flies into a rage, slashing another spectre apart and damaging the wraith. The wraith then reaches out to Delilah. It puts its incorporeal hand through her breast plate and into her chest. It wraps around her very heart, freezing it and nearly killing her instantly (crit for 50+ damage). The half orc fighter falls, also on the verge of death (she forgot about her ability to stay at 1 hp, once per long rest).
Thus, half the party is dying, but over half the spectres and one of the wraiths have been turned. Jove hurls magic missiles at the wraith, and Alistair targets it with his bolts. Through a miracle of the gods, Delilah’s heart starts beating again, and she even finds the strength to get back to her feet (rolls a 20 on her first death save). She takes a second wind and continues to cleave at the undead with her magic axe. The heroes manage to destroy the wraith and a few remaining spectres, clearing a path for Cade to get to Pinky and Anna. The halfling uses his primal magic to heal his companions, getting to them just in time to save their lives (Anna actually would have been dead if she hadn’t spent her point of inspiration to re-roll a death save).
The heroes pull back out to the mouth of the tunnels. The entrance is at the top of a long flight of narrow stairs that is carved into the side of the great rock pillar. They know that the wyverns have built their nest on the top, and they fear being attacked while descending the stairs, so they leap off one by one. Jove casts featherfall spell on each of them as they jump, and the adventurers safely float to the ground. Here Jove uses his spell book to cast a Leomund’s Tiny Hut ritual, creating a dome of magical force to protect them. The dome is the same hue as the ground and it is opaque from the outside. His hope is that the wyverns won’t see it, but even if they do it should be invulnerable to their attacks.
It is crowded inside the magical dome, but at least it is safe. They take an extended rest to recover from their harrowing battle with the undead. During the course of their rest, one of the wyverns takes notice of the dome. It flies down and lands on top of it, and pecks at it with its tail stinger. This, of course, has no effect, and it eventually gets bored of trying to figure out what the mysterious structure is and it flies away.
The next day, the adventurers emerge, healed and ready for action. They decide to go back into the haunted halls to finish off the remaining wraith and spectres. This time they aren’t caught by surprise. Their second confrontation goes much better than the first. They face down the final wraith and several of its spectre minions. Pinky again divides the undead by turning a few of the spectres. The adventurers then focus on the wraith, Jove blasts at it with magic missiles, Alistair goes into melee beside Old Wan and Delilah with Dancing Flame (Pinky’s magic dagger). Cade fights with a combination of his magic kukri and silvered hand crossbow bolts. Together they overcome the wraith before it can cause any real harm. After that it doesn’t take them long to destroy the last few spectres, thus purging the halls of their corruption.
The room that the undead were haunting features a massive stone statue of Ilmater sitting atop of a 15’ cube plinth. With the undead destroyed, it begins to return from freezing cold to a more normal temperature. The frozen bodies of several life drained soldiers from Melvaunt litter the floor, and may have been the source of many of the spectres. Also on the the floor is the remains of a long dead mage. On his corpse the heroes find some valuable magical treasure.
They take a short rest to identify the treasures, and they discover they have come into possession of a cloak of displacement, which Cade claims, a medallion of thoughts, which Old Wan takes, and a circlet of blasting, which Jove takes. After taking time to attune to their new items, they continue their exploration. They discover a final chamber that is essentially a 30’ diameter, 200’ high cylindrical shaft that ascends upward through the heart of the rock monolith. It once probably had a roof above it, but that roof has long since fallen in, covering the floor with debris, and leaving the shaft open to the sky high above. A stair case clings to the interior wall of the shaft and spirals its way up.
They follow the stairs upward, going single file. Delilah leads the way. About half way up she notices a section of stair that looks particularly unstable. She tries to jump across, but her plate mail holds her back and she lands directly on the unstable section. It gives way under her bulk. Luckily she catches onto the edge of the stairs, avoiding plummeting to her doom. She pulls herself up, and with the aid of some rope, the heroes bypass the collapsed portion of stair. They make it safely up to the top of the shaft. Here the stairs end and open up onto the top of the great monolith. Delilah scans about. She sees the crumbling remains of several buildings that were probably once part of the strange monastery of Ilmater. She also notices that nearby there are three young wyverns. Two of them are busy squabbling and play fighting. The third one seems to be picking at some bones. It notices her and squawks loudly, alerting its siblings.
The session ends here, seemingly with battle about to ensure.
Session #15 (Wyvern Fight)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 5, Druid 1)
Pinky (gnome, cleric 6)
Jove (human, wizard 6)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 1 )
Alistair (human, fighter 6)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 6, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes make it safely up the spiral stairs to the top of the shaft that cuts through the heart of the rock spire. Here the stairs end and open up onto the top of the great monolith. Delilah scans about. She sees the crumbling remains of several buildings that were probably once part of the strange monastery of Ilmater. She also notices that nearby there are three young wyverns. Two of them are busy squabbling and fighting. The third one seems to be picking at some bones. It notices the half orc and squawks loudly, alerting its siblings.
The vicious wyverns attack, flying in at the heroes as they move up off the stairs onto the rocky top of the tor. Alistair is quick on the draw, and he immediately starts pounding them with heavy crossbow bolts. Jove conjures a Melf’s Minute Meteors spell and flings mots of deadly fire at the beasts. Pinky contributes by casting a bless spell on her companions. Delilah, Old Wan and Cade (mounted on Toothless) take on the wyverns in melee. It doesn’t take long for the heroes to kill one of the nasty lizards and injure the other two bad enough that they fly off. At about this time, the mommy and daddy wyvern arrive, swooping down to defend their young.
The two adult wyverns attempt to snatch characters up in their talons, hoping to carry them out of the fight and drop them down the shaft. Unfortunately for the wyverns, the heroes slip their grasp. Even their deadly stingers rarely find their mark; they deflect off armour or are dodged. Only Cade takes a major sting wound, and the poison coursing through him does serious harm. The combined efforts of the heroes inflict devastating damage on the creatures. Delilah nearly cleaves one’s wing clear off. Old Wan pummels another with his staff, while Cade slashes it with his kukri and peppers it with hand crossbow bolts. Alistair's heavy bolts are as deadly as ever, and Pinky’s magic missile barrages, combined with Jove’s minute meteors, do even more damage. The fight doesn’t last long, maybe a minute at the most, and when the dust settles the two adult wyverns are dead. The adventurers have some wounds, but all things considered, they have faired well.
They take a few moments to heal the worst of their injuries with magic, and then they clamber their way up a steep, rocky slope to the highest part of the tor. Here they find the wyverns’ nest, and here they find the two surviving young wyverns licking their wounds. Delilah is opposed to killing them, but Cade ignores her and charges in on Toothless. The halfling gets stung again, but the poison doesn’t stop him, and he and Toothless bring down one of the two wyverns. They are about to turn on the second, when Old Wan throws a pair of rocks he has enchanted with magic. The stones connect with its head and kill it.
The wyverns are all dead. Their mission is complete. They set about looting through the nest and cutting the heads off the beasts to bring back as proof of their labours, so that they may collect the bounty offered in Melvaunt. Within the nest, they uncover a surprising amount of coin, as well as a few items of magical power. By far the most potent, is a staff of healing, which is claimed by Old Wan. In addition, Jove discovers a spell scroll that includes a “teleportation circle spell” and has a diagram of a teleportation circle on it. However, where the teleportation circle on the scroll is located is unknown. Finally, they find a potion of fire giant strength (given to Delilah) and a potion of gaseous form.
It is late in the afternoon by the time the heroes make it back to the village of Dunheath where they had stabled their horses. The people of the village are those that have been most affected by the predations of the wyverns, and they are thrilled to see the adventurers return alive with Connor (Alistair’s changeling hireling/servant) dragging the wyvern heads (part of his strength training program). At the Goat’s Beard Inn, they find that there are now other concerns that overshadow their accomplishment. About thirty refugees from Melvaunt are in the common room, and the adventurers learn that the city has fallen into chaos and open warfare between the Nanther and Leiryaghon families. Other families have also joined in the fighting. Even the guard has split in factions, making it part of the problem instead of a force for restoring order. Gangs of looters roam the streets, taking advantage of the anarchy to break into homes and businesses. Of even greater concern, are darker rumours of demonic assassins prowling the streets, killing at will. The city’s common folk have been caught in the middle. Most have barricaded themselves in their homes, but some have fled the city to seek safety in the outlying villages.
At the inn, the heroes are introduced to a strange woman (air genasi) named Airana. Airana is a member of the Harpers and has come looking for the heroes at the behest of Ublyn Blackulbuk (the halfling Harper that runs Blackulbuck’s Swap Shop in Melvaunt). She had been hoping to convince the heroes to take advantage of the disorder in Melvaunt to strike a blow against the Iron Ring slavers. The heroes had been planning on returning to the city to claim the bounty on the wyvern heads, but, given the news, it seems unlikely that getting paid is still a possibility. Still, they think that killing some more slavers sounds like fun (murder hobos), so they agree to return. They decide to continue to leave their horses stabled in Dunheath, and the local lord is more than happy to see them cared for, as thanks for the help that the heroes provided his village by killing the wyverns.
That evening Pinky makes a surprising announcement. She has decided that it is time for her to report some of the information she has gathered regarding the various happenings in the Moonsea region to Harper contacts she has back in the Dalelands. The next day, she takes her leave of the heroes and begins the long journey south. At the same time the remainder of the party returns to Melvaunt. Dunheath is only about six miles outside the city, so the trip doesn’t take overly long.
When they reach the gates, they find they are open and no one is guarding them. In fact, they find the corpses of three dead guards lying in pools of blood at the entrance. Cautiously, they enter the city. Evidence of the chaos is everywhere. The streets are mostly deserted, as anyone in their right mind has taken shelter. Here and there they see signs of looting and disorder. Carts are flipped over; shops have been broken into; the odd body is being picked over by rats. The city is in a dire state.
Since the barracks of the guard, where the Lord of Keys has his office, is near the west gate, they head there first, hoping that perhaps there is still a chance that they can meet with him and get paid for their successful wyvern hunt. When they arrive at the walled compound, they find the gates are barred, and the guards on the walls have no plans to allow anyone in. They inform the heroes that the Lord of Keys is dead, and that they are probably best off leaving the city. Novo uses his new magical amulet to read the surface thoughts of the guard, and he confirms that he is speaking the truth about the demise of the Lord of Keys. The heroes don’t see any point in getting into a confrontation with the guards, so they decide to head elsewhere.
Alistair decides that he wants to check in on his brother Sir Dustin and make sure he is okay. They make their next stop his townhouse. They decide to avoid the main streets and stick to the alleys. As they navigate the Melvaunt’s back alleys, they come across a trio of ruffians seemingly attempting to rape a young woman. This sets Delilah into a rage, and she charges the men with her axe. Cade is right behind her on Toothless and before anyone else in the party can do anything, the pair have cut the rapists down and saved the girl. Her home is nearby, so she hurries on her way, possibly terrified that the adventurers might suddenly decide to do something horrible to her.
Eventually, they reach Dustin’s posh townhouse. They see that the door is partially open, and when they enter they find that it has been looted. There are signs of a struggle in the form of blood on the kitchen floor near the back door. Cade tracks the blood trail, and it leads them through several more alleys. The trail takes them to Dustin, and they find him unconscious and barely alive. Healing magic is applied, and the man is restored to a semblance of health. He explains that a group of what he thinks were Nanther soldiers jumped him as he was entering his home. He fought them off, but was badly wounded. He decided he wouldn’t be safe at home, so he started making his way through the alleys towards the Lieryaghon manor where he hoped to find help. Unfortunately, his injuries got the better of him and he passed out.
Dustin decides to accompany them, as he isn’t sure what to do. They agree to make their way to Ublyn Blackulbuck’s Swap Shop in hopes that the halfling Harper will provide them with a place to rest and possibly information.
The session ends with the heroes about to arrive at the Harper’s shop.
Session #16 (Raid on the Iron Ring Slaver Compound in Melvaunt)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 6, Druid 1)
Ainara (air genasi, Rogue/swashbuckler 7
Jove (human, wizard 7)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 2 )
Alistair (human, fighter 7)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 7, with wolf animal companion)
Blackulbuck’s Swap Shop in Melvaunt has become a makeshift hospital for civilians that have been wounded in the chaos that has befallen the city. Shelving units have been moved aside and the injured are laid out on the floor. Ublyn’s halfling kin dart about attending to the wounded. Ublyn seems pleased to see the heroes again. He quickly invites them into the back room to talk in private. Here they explain that they were out of the city dealing with the wyvern problem near Dunheath, but Ainara helped convince them to return to Melvaunt and help out. Ublyn inquires about Pinky, and they explain that Pinky decided to leave the party to head back south to bring word of the some of the goings on in the region to contacts in Shadowdale.
There is some discussion about what to do next. The heroes are a little torn between raiding the Iron Ring slaver compound or visiting the Pearl Necklace and investigating rumours of the demon cult. Dustin McKormike (Alistair’s brother), gives them additional information about the Pearl Necklace. He tells them that he has been there a few times. However, only once did he get to go downstairs to the private, exclusive members area. In fact, that was the last time he visited the establishment, and he was in the company of Royce Lieryaghon when he went. Royce was a member and got him access to the lower lounge. Here, Dustin claims, can be found every vice and depravity you can imagine. He didn’t see any “demon worshipping” or “cultists,” but there were drugs, gambling, gorgeous and exotic prostitutes, pit fighting and other entertainment. On the night of his visit, he ended up in a high stakes card game with Royce and several other wealthy men, including Seth Nanther. Seth lost it all and bowed out. Seth wasn’t thrilled about losing, but Dustin knew him to be a fairly easy going fellow. Afterwards Seth went into one of the private chambers with one of the girls to work off his frustration. When he came out, he was far from calm. He marched over to Royce, who was still gambling, and challenged him to a duel. The pair ended up dueling in the club’s fight pit. Both men were talented swordsmen, but Seth was the winner. However, instead of letting Royce walk away, he ran his rapier through the noble’s throat, killing him. Then Seth and his entourage left. Royce was the eldest son of Lord Lieryaghon, and his death was the spark that initiated the civil war that is now ravaging the city. Sowing chaos and ruin is exactly the sort of thing a demon cult might get up to, so it seems like more than just a coincidence that this all happened at the Pearl Necklace.
At any rate, the heroes decide they will deal with the slavers first. With the city in the state it is, they will be able to stage their raid without fear of the city guard coming the Iron Ring’s aid- after all slavery is perfectly legal in Melvaunt, so a raid against the Iron Ring would be a criminal act.
It is unclear for how long the city will be in this condition, but Ublyn suspects that it won’t be too long before one of the families emerges victorious in the war and order is restored. He encourages them to make their move while things are still in turmoil. The heroes heed his words and set out for the compound. Dustin joins them, as he promised he would help.
They find the slaver compound is protected by a fifteen foot high stone wall. A single, sturdy set of doors provides the only visible entrance to the place. Novo, in the form of Old Wan, decides to climb the east wall and get up on the roof of one of the buildings, which is built against the wall. Once on the roof, he sees that the place consists of four large single story, structures (including the one he is on). One of them is clearly a stable building and is made of wood, but the other three are made of stone and have peaked, slate shingled roofs. These structures abut the walls of the compound, leaving an open, cobblestone courtyard area in the middle. Old Wan spots a few guards down in the courtyard. The men wear chain hauberks and are armed with longswords and clubs. He tries to stealthily creep down the roof to get a better look at the nearest guard, thinking that he might use his racial powers to assume the guard’s identity. Unfortunately, one of the shingles comes loose and slides off the roof. The guard hears the noise and goes to investigate. He looks up and spots, Old Wan; the monk scampers off along the roof, escaping his line of sight. He hurries to where the roof of the building meets the northeast corner of the compound wall. There he hails his companions and lowers a rope to help get them up the wall onto the roof. As he gets to work, he hears the sounds of the guards shouting. Ainara comes up first; she dextrously scales up to the peak, peering over just in time to see a guard clamber up onto the roof. It seems the guards have found a ladder to put up. She ducks into the shadows and waits for him to crest the peak. As soon as he comes into view, she lunges with her shortsword and dagger, running the man through and killing him.
Old Wan decides to take a bold move. He leaps down off the roof, landing in the courtyard near the gate. He darts past a couple of guards and reaches the doors. A heavy wooden bar holds them shut. The changeling is fast, but not strong. He suddenly starts to question his plan, as he isn’t sure that lifting the bar off the gate is possible. Guards draw their swords and close in on him. Adrenaline pumps through the monk, and he summons all his strength. He removes the bar and kicks the doors the open (natural 20 on his strength check- fortune favours the bold!). He shouts for his allies and they coming running to help. Before they can reach the open gates, Wan is swarmed by three guards and a pair of mastiffs. He defends himself with his magic staff (staff of healing), fending of several attacks, but a few sword slashes get through, causing him injury. Dustin, Delilah and Cade rush in to help the monk, giving him an opportunity to get out of the compound and join Jove and Alistair behind the meat shields. Delilah hates slavers, and she goes into a rage, hacking away at the first wave of guards with her great axe. Dustin proves a capable swordsmen and throws several flirtatious compliments Delilah’s way as he fights alongside her. Cade, who is mounted on Toothless, fights as ferociously as ever. More guards pour forth from various buildings and soon a bloody battle is raging at the gates. As usual, Alistair hangs back behind his allies firing his crossbow into the fray. All the while, he is taunted by his older brother for his reluctance to fight in melee like a “real man.”
Ainara stays on the roof where she faces off against another guard that scales up the ladder. He doesn’t last long; as she dodges a sword swing, she feints at him and then drives her blade into his side. She follows with a quick kick that dislodges him from her sword and sends him off the edge of the roof to land on the hard cobblestone below. She then pulls out the crossbow slung across her back and aids her new companions by firing down at the guards.
Jove conjures melf’s minute meteors. The balls of fire appear in the air just above him where they obediently orbit his head, awaiting to be directed to his enemies. One by one, he launches them into battle where they detonate among the guards. The Captain of the guards, proves to be a hardened warrior that is difficult to fell. He gives the heroes some trouble, and effectively maintains the morale of the slaver guards, even in the face of seeing their comrades cut down by the blood-thirsty adventurers. The heroes focus a lot of fire on him. He deflect several attacks with his shield, but eventually he sustains some serious injuries, and he withdraws into a nearby building.
Not long into the fight, another threat emerges. A tiefling woman steps out of one of the buildings. She bears a strong resemblance to the tiefling warlock the heroes killed at the slaver compound in the wilderness weeks earlier, and the heroes suspect she might be his sister. She sees the heavy fighting at the gate and Ainara firing down from the roof. She decides to deal with the sniper. She vanishes in a poof of acrid smoke, reappearing on the roof, whereupon she blasts at Ainara with bolts of eldritch force. One of which connects, causing the genasi some injury. The tiefling has a dark skinned female companion who wields a rapier, and she runs across the courtyard to the ladder and deftly starts to scamper up to help the tiefling. Ainara has no interest in fighting the tiefling on her own, so she slings her crossbow and leaps off the roof to land in the courtyard. Here she joins her companions in battle by the gate.
By this time, several slaver guards are dead. The ground is slick with blood and entrails. The party’s front line fighters are all injured, particularly Sir Dustin (who was still hurt prior to even arriving at the compound). Novo uses his staff of healing and casts a mass cure wounds spell, which grants himself and his companions some much needed healing. He then tumbles back into the thick of combat. The tiefling warlock leaps down from the roof and wades into the main melee. Her female bodyguard hops off the ladder and moves to aid her, but she’s intercepted by Old Wan, and the two face off against each other.
With the slaver’s leader in combat, the heroes wisely focus as many attacks on her as they can, and between the magic missile barrages, crossbow bolts and melee attacks from the likes of Ainara, Cade and Delilah, it isn’t long before she falls. The morale of the surviving guards wavers, but then their captain emerges from the building he fled into. It appears he’s done some magical healing of his wounds, though he is clearly far from being at full health. He rallies the remaining guards, and they make a final attempt to slay the invaders. In this final push, Sir Dustin gets overwhelmed and is cut down. The heroes keep pressing their attack, and soon the captain and the final couple of guards are slain. Sadly, Sir Dustin is dead, and although Alistair didn’t have the best relationship with his brother, he is clearly upset by his death.
The bodies of the dead slavers are heaped in a pile, and the heroes shut and bar the gates to the compound. With the place secure they set about searching it. First they loot the corpses. The guards have little of interest, but on the dead tiefling they find a ring of protection and a magical rapier. They discover that one of the buildings has cells that are currently holding about a dozen slaves. They free the slaves and continue investigating the compound. Inside another building, they discover the tiefling’s private chambers. Here they find some coin, and a jar of Keoghtom’s Ointment. They also discover a trap door concealed under a rug that leads down to a secret store room. In the store room, they uncover two secret doors. One of the doors leads to a hidden chapel of Bane. The second opens into a tunnel that leads to a room with a permanent teleportation circle, which the heroes destroy. Another tunnel continues from this room and provides access to a secret trap door in the building that housed the slaves.
The heroes are satisfied with their search of the compound, so they lead the slaves through the alleys, back to Blackulbuk’s Swap Shop. The session ends here.
Session #17 (Showdown at the Pearl Necklace, Part #1)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 6, Druid 1)
Ainara (air genasi, Rogue/swashbuckler 7
Jove (human, wizard 7)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 2 )
Alistair (human, fighter 7)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 7, with wolf animal companion)
Melvaunt is in chaos as the Nanther and Leiryaghon families battle it out with their private armies. The city guard is in disarray, and many guards have defected to join with the forces of the family they are most loyal to. Looters and criminals take advantage of the anarchy to settle scores and cause even more mayhem. The common folk with any sense have locked themselves in their homes and await order to be restored. The heroes have used the chaos to cover a raid on a compound belonging to the Iron Ring Slavers.
The rescued slaves are taken back to Blackulbuck’s Swap Shop under the cover of darkness. Here, Ublyn Blackulbuck, a local Harper, and the halfling proprietor of the shop, has given them refuge in the basement. He plans to help them escape the city and get to Phlan where his ally, Kral the Bard, will aid them. The heroes take some time to help get them settled and alleviate some of their fears. As they go about this task, one of the former slaves starts discreetly whistling the secret recognition tune of the changelings. Novo/Old Wan recognizes the tune, and acknowledges it with another secret whistle. The pair then step into a private corner where they each reveal their true natures to one another. The changeling introduces himself as Tully and explains that he was suspicious of Old Wan’s true nature because he seemed uncannily spry and limber for such an old man. Tully goes on to tell Wan that he comes from a small family of nomadic “gypsy” changelings that wander the Moonsea Region. His parents were originally from a changeling enclave in Thentia. Old Wan had previously heard of the enclave, and he has been hoping to have a chance to visit it in the not too distant future. Tully claims that his family was captured on the road by Iron Ring slavers near the town of Teshwave. They were brought back to Zhentil Keep where they were separated. He has been careful to keep his true nature a secret, and he doesn’t believe that the Iron Ring is aware that he is actually a changeling. From Zhentil Keep, he was shipped to Melvaunt where he had expected to be sold on the slave market. Tully has no interest in going to Phlan with the other freed slaves. He wants to go to Thentia and join his kin there. He asks if Old Wan will help him, and Wan agrees to help him reach Thentia.
Another matter to be dealt with is the death of Alistair’s brother, Dustin. Luckily, a priestess of Ilmater has recently started aiding Ublyn tend to the wounded civilians that he has been taking in. She knows a spell that will preserve Dustin’s body, and she is willing to cast it. Alistair accepts the offer, so Dustin’s body is preserved for the next several days. They leave it in the attic with a sheet over it. Alistair claims Dustin’s enchanted sword and mithril chain shirt, though he hates swords and hasn’t used one in years.
The heroes rest the night in Ublyn’s attic. The following morning a youthful human messenger arrives with word that the Lieryaghon family gained the aid of the Bruil family and together they have breached Nanther Manor and defeated the Nanthers. The messenger isn’t sure what has become of the Nanther family members. Clearly many of the retainers have been slaughtered, but as for the Nanthers themselves- he doesn’t know their status. With the Nanthers defeated, it is likely that order will return to the city in the next few days.
In addition, Old Wan receives a message from the sending stone that he recovered from the tiefling woman who appeared to be in charge of the Iron Ring Compound. The message arrives telepathically in his head and speaks the following words to him,
"What is your status? Is the compound secure? A lot bad hombres out there. Sad.”
Novo replies to the message with a magical message of his own, which is channeled back to the unknown sender from his sending stone. He tells whoever is asking, “The compound was attacked, but the raid was repelled and all is well.” (I can’t recall the exact wording). Once this is done, the magic of the sending stone is useless until the next day.
The heroes spend time discussing what to do next. They consider leaving Melvaunt, but they decide to stick around a little longer. Ublyn would like their help getting the slaves out of the city, and Jove encourages them to investigate the Pearl Necklace, as he is concerned by the threat posed by the demon cult rumoured to be operating from the place. Ainara and Delilah are both on board with destroying the cult. Old Wan wants to go to Thentia, Cade expresses an interest in travelling north to the town of Glister to seek out the yellow-eyed halfling named Pip Weebottom. He believes Pip may be the only living kin he has left, and he’d like to confirm whether this is the case. Alistair is far more distraught over his brother’s death than he expected to be, and he seems indifferent and okay to go along with whatever the group decides. Eventually, they decide that they will investigate the rumours of the demon cult. However, before they go to the Pearl Necklace, they first agree to escort Ublyn’s nephew Hob to the residence of a local fisherman named Faydrick, who helps Ublyn secretly move freed slaves out of the city in his fishing boat at night.
Thus, the heroes set out towards the docks with Hob the halfling leading the way. They stick to the the dimly lit alleys to avoid gangs of looters, soldiers and mercenaries. As they get closer to the docks, the adventures round a bend and Ainara spots a trio of cloaked individuals huddled in the alley up ahead of them. She’s signals for her companions to halt, and she stays in the shadows. She sees that the individuals are not human. They have the heads of rats- wererats from the looks of things. They seem to be in the midst of dividing up some loot that they likely stole from some of the nearby shops or homes. The heroes move forward to approach the rat men, but as soon as the wererats see the heavily armed adventurers, they grab up the loot and run, vanishing around a corner. The party doesn’t bother chasing after them, but when they reach the spot where the wererats had been sorting their treasure, Jove notices a scroll case on the ground that presumably had been dropped in their haste to flee. He opens up the case and inside he finds a map. The map shows a sketch of an unknown city. There are markings, indicating a few locations of importance as well as text providing some information about the place. The text is in common, but it is coded in a cypher. Jove suspects he can crack the code given some time. For now he puts the map back in its case and tucks it in his satchel.
They press on, and soon they reach the home of Ublyn’s contact Faydrick. He is suspicious of the heroes, but he knows Hob, and Hob vouches for them. Hob passes on the request to move a group of slaves, and Faydrick agrees to help, offering to move the slaves that night. However, his boat isn’t large enough to take all of them in one trip, so he will have to transport them in two shipments. With this task complete, they return to Ublyn’s shop and report the news. They then decide to pay a visit to the Pearl Necklace.
The Pearl Necklace is a large establishment crafted from grey stone blocks. It features a blue slate tiled roof and several windows of multi-hued glass. Stairs lead up to a wide portico and sturdy, double wooden doors provide the main point of entry. It appears that someone has already attempted to break into the place because the front doors show signs that they have been hewed at with an axe. The heroes circle around the place and find a locked back door. Ainara gets out her thieves tools and sets to work. She handily picks the lock and eases the door open.
Ainara, Cade and Novo are the stealthiest members of the party, so they sneak inside and start scouting. They find themselves in a short, hall that passes by a large kitchen. Sounds of activity emanate from the kitchen, and they notice a cook and a few serving girls working. They sneak past the kitchen and pass through a door that takes them behind a long bar. Peaking over the bar, they realize that they have entered the main gambling hall. A sprawling red carpeted room stretches out beyond them. Scanning the room, they see that it is nearly empty. There are no patrons, and it appears the place has shut down, probably due to all the troubles in the city. They do notice four guards sitting around one of the tables playing a dice game. The men are dark skinned southerners. They are muscular and shirtless. They wear only silk pantaloons and thick leather girdles that help protect their vital areas- not the style of dress normally seen in the region. Each man carries a large, curved tulwar. There are many doors branching off the gambling hall. The heroes have heard that the demon cult has an exclusive gambling hall in the basement, and finding access to the basement is their main goal. Ainara and Novo sneak across the gambling hall and duck behind a concierge desk area. The pair enter a door behind the desk and find a series of exotically furnished bed chambers. The chambers are currently all empty and hold little of interest.
Meanwhile Jove, Delilah and Alistar sneak in and joins Cade behind the main bar. One of the serving girls in the kitchen hears them and comes over to investigate. She sees them crouching behind the bar. They try to be as charming as possible and convince her that they are merely looters looking for a score. She warns them that this place is very dangerous and that if they want to live to see another day they should get out now. She then heads back to kitchen. The heroes don’t get the sense that she is about to tell anyone of their presence.
The adventurers reconvene, and they start a whispered conversation debating what to do next. Delilah thinks that they should approach the guards and try some sort of bluff, but no one else seems to think it would really work. Cade is impatient and quickly tires of the discussion. He mounts Toothless and the pair charge out from the bar to attack the guards. The men are shocked to see a halfling riding a wolf suddenly bearing down on them. They leap to their feet and draw weapons. The rest of the party follows close behind Cade. He, Novo and Delilah collide with the guards in melee. A fifth guard joins the action from elsewhere in the room. Then a well-dressed man with a great sword bursts out of a door to one of the adjoining rooms. He snarls and stalks confidently towards the melee. As he does, he transforms, turning from a man to a handsome bluish skinned, six-fingered cambion (half demon). He and Delilah face off, and he cleaves her with his massive, acid-dripping blade. Things get worse as three babau demons drop down from above. The “ceiling” is in fact a drop ceiling made of hanging tapestries, and the demons must have been hiding somewhere above them. One of the demons uses magic to heat up Delilah’s plate armour, causing it to burn her flesh.
With demons aiding the guards, the fight gets tough for the heroes. Ainara darts in and out of the main fray stabbing guards with her enchanted rapier, Raven’s Warning. Novo in his guise as Old Wan also concentrates on taking down the guards, smacking them with his staff and sending them sprawling with kicks and head butts. Jove casts a melf’s minute meteor spell, and flaming spheres of fire begin orbiting his head. One by one he launches the orbs of flame out among his enemies, scorching the guards, and inflicting minor harm on the fire resistant demons. Alistair hangs back near Jove and sends deadly crossbow bolts into the melee. Two of the babau demons engage Alistair, while the third one moves to help the cambion against Delilah.
As usual, Delilah finds herself in a deadly fight against the most powerful foe on the battlefield. The cambion deals horrific damage with his acid dripping blade, and, to make matters worse, Delilah’s armour continue to scald her. The half orc grits her teeth and tries to ignore the pain. She enters into a rage and cleaves away at the cambion with her enchanted axe. Pretty soon both of them are suffering from extensive injuries.
The fight continues as the demons slash at them with their claws, and the surviving guards fight with tenacity using their tulwars. Old Wan has been monitoring the battle closely as he fights, and he sees that several of his companions are now badly wounded. He raises his staff of healing and uses it to cast a mass cure wounds spell, giving all his allies much needed health. This helps keeps Delilah up, and gives her chance to finally bring down the cambion with a tremendous blow from her axe that hews through the centre of his chest. The half-demon’s body immediately dissolves into a pool of acidic goo. With the cambion sent back to the Abyss, Wan, Ainara, and Delilah finish off the remaining couple of guards and one of the babau demons with relative ease.
Only two babau demons remain, and they are focused on tearing apart Jove and Alistair. Alistair is still distraught over his brother’s death, and hasn’t been entirely focused. He has long had an aversion to blades, but he has sought fit to carry his dead brother’s magic longsword on his person. He knows his crossbow, which isn’t magical, isn’t overly effective against the demons, so he draws the enchanted sword. It’s the first time he’s used a sword since training with blades as a youth (and being beaten repeatedly with training swords by his older brothers). It is heavy and a little unwieldy for him, but his training comes back to him and he cuts a brutal slash across the demon, dropping it to the ground. The rest of the party hurries to the aid of the wizard and the noble, and they destroy the remaining two demons.
The fight has taken a significant toll on the heroes. They are low on healing magic, and have spent many spells. Everyone has suffered injuries. The session ends with them, taking a short rest to tend their wounds.
Session #18 (Showdown at the Pearl Necklace, Part #2)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 6, Druid 1)
Ainara (air genasi, Rogue/swashbuckler 7
Jove (human, wizard 7)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 2 )
Alistair (human, fighter 7)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 7, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes have decided to investigate the Pearl Necklace with the intention of destroying the demon cult they believe is operating out of the fest hall. They found evidence of demons when they were attacked by babau demons and a dangerous half demon. The fight left them low on spells and injured. Fortunately, they have just completed a short rest, and healed most of their wounds.
Things are quiet in the Pearl Necklace. They set about doing a more thorough exploration of the main floor of the establishment. The kitchen has emptied out, and there is no sign of any of the staff they had seen. Near the kitchen, they find a stair case that leads to the second floor, but they decide to stay on the main floor and focus on finding a way down to the basement.
They investigate the room that the cambion came out of and find that it is an office type room. Here they find a magical dark wood crossbow hidden under the desk that Alistair claims. On the desk, Jove finds a ring of keys and books of accounting records. He also discovers a hidden compartment in the drawer. The compartment holds a small velvet bag. Inside the bag is another larger key, and a small bone scroll tube about the size of his index finger. The scroll tube holds a tiny piece of parchment with a single word on it. The word is written in draconic and translates to “hold” in common. It doesn’t appear magical in any way.
They soon find a door that looks like it might access the casino vault. The door is made of thick wood and bound in iron. It has a complex lock in the centre of it that consists of multiple interlocking gears. Ainara and Jove investigate the door, but it doesn’t appear trapped. Jove takes out the key he found and tries it in the lock. Just before he inserts the key he speaks the word he found on the pice of parchment. The key works, and the door unlocks with a loud click. They ease the door open. The room beyond is cloaked in magical darkness. Novo offers to investigate. He taps at the floor with his staff, and when nothing happens he steps inside. Suddenly something bites him on the leg. He staggers back out of the room. Two fang like puncture wounds drip blood and poison from his calf. The poison coursing through him has left him badly wounded (30+ damage), and he feels weak and dizzy. Luckily, the heroes recovered a container of Keoghtum’s magical ointment when they were exploring the slaver compound. He puts a dose of the ointment on the wound, which helps heal the injury and relieve the effects of the poison.
Alistair fires a crossbow bolt into the room. He hears it hit the far wall, and there is a clinking sound of coins falling to the floor. Jove then tries the command word on the parchment a second time. He then steps into the darkness. This time nothing happens. He starts feeling around near the walls and finds shelves holding sacks of coins. It seems that Alistair’s crossbow bolt pierced one of them, and Jove feels coins under his feet. The wizard starts tossing the sacks out of the room. There are thousands of gold and silver coins and even some platinum (1000 sp, 600 gp and 15 pp each). The loot is too much to easily transport, so they put it back in the vault and lock the vault. The plan is to come back for it when they are leaving after they take down the cult.
After a little more exploration, they discover a small room with a stair that leads down. Novo casts a pass without trace spell. Then Ainara creeps down the stairs to scout it out. The stair opens into a 15’ wide hall. The hall stretches for about 30’ where it ends at a set of double doors. Torches in brackets on the wall illuminate the hall with flickering light. Two more of the black skinned guards stand stoically on guard. The rest of the party stealths down the stairs with the aid of Novo’s magic. Ainara takes one of the guards by surprise with a thrown dagger that inflicts a grievous wound on the man. He pulls the blade out of his chest and tosses it to the ground. The two guards ready their tulwars and stride forward to cut down the thief. The rest of the heroes burst into action. Delilah decides it’s time to drink the potion of fire giant strength she’s been saving. Novo uses his shadow powers to teleport behind them, as Delilah jumps out into the hall with her great axe. She cuts down the injured guard, and dispatching the remaining guard is easy enough. Only minor injuries are sustained.
They move up to the double doors. Novo uses his amulet of thought detection to scan beyond the doors. He discovers two sentient minds within range, and he decides to scan one of them. The surface thoughts indicate that the man is aware that there is trouble (from the heroes) beyond the doors. He seems to be waiting in ambush for someone to come through. Delving more deeply into his mind, Novo discovers that he is a seasoned warrior. He’s a violent man, but not necessarily evil. In fact, Novo senses he’s fallen under a magical compulsion.
Delilah enters into another rage and with her fire giant strength still active, she kicks open the doors, shattering the bar holding them shut. The room beyond is a large one. It seems to be another gambling hall that has several tables in it, as well as a bar and a stage. Bronze braziers light the room. Several curtains hang in front of several openings in the walls that access additional areas. There is no sign of anyone in the room. Novo conjures a minor illusion of Delilah. He sends it running into the room and Delilah shouts a battle cry in an attempt to give the illusion sound. Suddenly several men burst out from behind the various curtains. There are four guards and three other men that look like professional gladiators. The gladiators wield shields and spears.
A fight breaks out. Once again Delilah, Novo, Cade and Ainara find themselves in the main melee, while Jove and Alistair hang back. Jove conjures Melf’s minute meteors and Alistair tests out his new enchanted crossbow. The fighting is bloody and both sides take wounds. In particular, the gladiators are dangerous foes. Fortunately, Old Wan stuns one, briefly keeping him from attacking, allowing the monk’s allies to bring him down. Towards the end of the fight, one of the two remaining gladiators closes in on Jove. The wizard puts up a shield spell, which spares him from being impaled by a spear, but once the spell goes down the gladiator drives his weapon into Jove, causing him a nasty gut wound. His companions come to his aid, and cut the gladiator down before he can cause anymore harm to their precious wizard. The guards all seem to be under magical compulsion, and they fight to the death with no attempt to flee or surrender. The heroes survive, surrounded by the corpses of their dead foes, but they have plenty of wounds to show for the victory and are now nearly tapped out on healing and spells. They search the area and find a hall that leads to another room. This room has a fighting pit and several cages and torture racks. The curtains in the gambling hall all access alcoves covered with fine carpets, hookah pipes and silk pillows.
In one of the alcoves, they find a rug that is slightly askew, revealing part of a wooden trap door in the floor. The heroes are pretty spent, but Delilah doesn’t want to rest, because if she does she will lose her fire giant strength. They press on, opening the trap door. It reveals a narrow stone staircase that leads down deeper beneath the Pearl Necklace. A foul stench wafts from below and Ainara hears the muffled sound of drums and chanting.
The adventurers descend the stairs. They find themselves in a some sort of old catacomb. The stench is palpable, but its source is unclear. Alcoves off the hall of the catacomb hold stone sarcophagi, which the heroes leave alone. They follow the sound of the drumming and chanting. It leads to a ten foot wide stair that goes down further. Ainara and Old Wan scout down the stairs. The stairs are fairly short, and they open into a large room. The stench if even stronger here. A lot is going on in this chamber, and it is all terrifying.
In the middle of the room is a twenty foot diameter, circular pool filled with an unknown bubbling, frothing liquid. Surrounding the pool are a couple of dozen naked cultists. Some of the cultists wear alabaster masks that hide their faces. Clothing is scattered around them, much of which appears to be quite expensive, suggesting that many of the individuals might be members of the aristocracy. The cultists are both men and women and they are a variety of ages. They are engaged in a massive orgy of sorts, and most of them seem to be drugged and not entirely aware of their surroundings. Four masked male cultists sit around the perimeter of the orgy beating on huge drums. In the midsts of the cultists are four naked females of incredible beauty. Bat wings protruding from the their backs suggest they might be some sort of foul demonesses. One of the four has big curving horns protruding from her forehead and a long sinuous tail. She is facing the pool and chanting; all the while, she erotically caresses her body with her hands. She seems oblivious to everything around her. The other three demon women mingle with the cultists. They don’t notice Ainara hiding in the shadows. She watches in horror as one of them kisses one of the cultists and the cultist’s body convulses and falls dead from the kiss.
Beyond the pool is an altar. Hovering above the altar is a strange purple black orb. Bright blue energy surges from the orb to the pool. Two babau demons monitor the orb with fiendish glee.
Ainara creeps back up the stairs and reports her findings. Jove decides that he needs to see it all first hand. He hopes he might be able to figure out what they are up to and how to stop it. He sneaks down the stairs, aided by Novo’s pass without trace spell. The wizard is highly knowledgeable of all matters arcane, but even he isn’t certain of exactly what is happening. He discerns the orb is obviously central to the ritual, and it seems to be channeling psychic energy into the pool. However, he doesn’t know what the end result is intended to be. He does sense the ritual is very close to reaching its climax, and he’s entirely certain that whatever it results will be horrific.
Jove reports back to his allies, sharing his theories. He and Alistair decide to try to destroy to the orb. They creep back down the stairs. Alistair readies his enchanted crossbow and Jove prepares a magic missiles spell. They coordinate their attacks to fire at the same time. Alistair misses his mark, but the magic missiles steak unerringly to the orb. As they reach it, they are reflected back at Jove, and he’s forced to conjure a shield spell to save himself from being blasted by his own magic missiles. This event alerts the demons, and they spot Jove and Alistair lurking in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.
The session ends here. The heroes are tapped on resources and s$!$ is about get real.
The rogue swashbuckler archetype is fun for sure, pretty much the ability to get out almost any situation...
It was heartening to see everyone grow a pair and continue on without full resources for once ... though maybe our timing wasn't the greatest :/
Not investigating the upstairs shot the party in the foot a little. They missed out on the chance to search the Succubus matron's chambers and score a bunch of loot, potions, scrolls and a few other magic items including an iron flask, which is a very potent magic item that would have been very useful in the final battle that occurs next session.
Session #19 (Showdown at the Pearl Necklace, Part #3)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 6, Druid 1)
Ainara (air genasi, Rogue/swashbuckler 7
Jove (human, wizard 7)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 2 )
Alistair (human, fighter 7)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 7, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes have found their way into a series of crumbling catacombs beneath the basement of the Pearl Necklace. Here they have come across an secret chapel where a demon cult is in the midst of performing a profane ritual.
Jove and Alistair stand at the bottom of a short flight of stairs, looking out on the scene. Before them is a pool of frothing liquid. Naked, drug addled cultists surround the pool where they engage in a perverse orgy. Four masked cultists beat on large drums, while vile succubus demons mingle with the cultists. Beyond the pool is an altar, and hovering just above the altar is a magical orb. The orb appears to channel psychic energy to the pool. A pair of babau demons gleefully monitor the orb.
Jove and Alistair had just attacked the orb. Jove’s magic missile spell was reflected back at him, and Alistair missed with his crossbow (session #18). The babau demons look out towards the stairs and see the pair. One of the demons vanishes in a poof of black, oily smoke, reappearing in front of Alistair. The second babau stays near the orb.
Ainara, who is at the top of the stairs, is quick to react. She darts down the stairs, stabs the lanky babau demon with Raven’s Warning and dances back up the stairs out of harm’s way. Alistair continues to fire at the orb with his crossbow. This time one of his bolts connects and seems to inflict damage on the orb, but it doesn’t destroy it. Delilah comes to her companions’ aid, striding into the chapel with her greataxe ready. She lays eyes on the scene for the first time and is a little overwhelmed. She raises her weapon to attack the demon, but she recalls that they tend to detonate in an acidic explosion when they are destroyed. She sees how wounded Jove is, so she orders him to get away from the thing before she strikes. Next Cade descends into the unholy room mounted on Toothless. The pair enter the combat, also attacking the babau demon. Toothless sinks its fangs into the demon’s leg and pulls it off its feet. Then Cade slashes it with his enchanted kukri and puts a hand crossbow bolt in its chest. The pain enrages the demon, but doesn’t destroy it.
Just before Jove withdraws and Delilah can strike and finish the babau demon, the three succubus in the room focus their supernatural powers and try to charm Cade, Delilah and Alistair. Initially, Delilah and Alistair resist their charms. Cade is not so fortunate and he succumbs to one of the succubuses, and it establishes a telepathic link with him. Jove withdraws from combat and retreats up the short staircase. Wan then uses his shadow step powers to teleport into the chapel room. With Jove clear of the babau demon, Delilah cleaves the wounded fiend open with her axe. It detonates in a burst of acid, sending it back to the Abyss. The acid sprays hers, Cade and Alistair. The damage almost causes Cade to shake off the charm effect, almost. Instead, he shrieks at Alistair for looking at Delilah, shouting something to the effect of, “I saw you looking at her. She’s mine!” Much to the noble’s surprise, the savage little halfling suddenly starts attacking him.
The four masked drummers continue to beat out a steady rhythm on their drums while the succubus queen chants and moans. All the while, the battle continues, and her minions expend great effort to destroy the adventurers. Jove conjures melf’s minute meteors and moves back down the stairs to get line of sight on the orb. He then launches a meteor at the vile sphere. Flames wash over the orb, but appear to have no affect on it. The babau demon that remained near the orb, casts a heat metal spell on Delilah’s armour, causing the half orc great pain. Ainara strikes at one of the succubuses, soon wounding it enough that it shifts into a ghostly form and vanishes from sight. Unfortunately, it’s not the one controlling Cade, and the halfling slashes at Alistair, wounding him. The remaining succubus that isn’t controlling Cade, then gains control of Alistair and orders him to start firing on his allies. Seeing this, the succubus controlling Cade has him turn his attention on Delilah, as Alistair is now their puppet, and there is no more need for Cade to be attacking him.
Wan deftly makes his way through the drugged out cultists, crossing the chapel to reach the orb. Here attacks the babau demon guarding the orb. He lands some solid strikes on the demon, causing it to loose concentration on its heat metal spell, but it slashes back at him with its claws, leaving him with some nasty wounds. Wan tries to ignore the pain, and he smacks the orb with his staff, hoping to shatter it. He connects with a solid hit, and as he does so the orb unleashes a psychic blast that rends at his mind. He realizes he can’t continue to attack it without risking it destroying him. Thus, he retreats away from the orb and the demon. Unfortunately the demon pursues him and continues to slash at him with its claws. Wan weaves and dodges, avoiding some of the demon’s attacks, but others get through, leaving him bleeding profusely.
Jove looks again at the frothing pool. He determines that the ritual appears to be on verge of reaching its climax. He sees a magical gate forming in the pool, a gate to the Abyss itself. He calls out to his companions, shouting that if they are going to stop the ritual it needs to happen in the next few seconds. Ainara darts back into the action. She notices that Wan’s attempt to destroy the orb has failed, so she tries a different tactic. She throws a dagger at the chanting succubus queen. The woman is too enthralled to notice her throw the weapon, and it embeds itself in her chest, just above a naked breast. The dagger is not enchanted, so it is not as deadly to the demoness as it could be, but it is well placed shot all the same. The demoness hisses at Ainara and glares at her, eyes burning with rage, then she turns her gaze back towards the pool and keeps on chanting.
Delilah goes after one of the remaining succubus, hoping to destroy the fiend and free one his friend’s from magical control. The demonesses aren’t overly hearty, and with a great swing of her axe, she cuts the throat of one wide open, sending the b&%*& back to the Abyss. Now, of the demons, only one succubus, one babau and the succubus queen remain. Destroying the succubus frees Alistair from her control, but Cade is still charmed and continues to attack Delilah. The little halfling has soon caused Delilah significant injury, which is really starting to piss her off. She starts smacking him, hoping to shake him out of the mind control. However, she is raging and has consumed a potion of fire giant strength, so a “smack” from Delilah really hurts. Cade’s face is soon a big purple bruise, and he has still failed to shake off the succubus’s enchantment. It’s starting to look as though the two friends are going to kill each other.
With Alistair having regained his senses, he makes a final push to destroy the orb. He hastily loads a bolt and fires at it again. His bolt flies true, and he hits with a shot that shatters it! At this instant, the orb unleashes all the psychic energy trapped inside of it. The wave of psychic damage radiates outward. It washes over the cultists, killing them instantly. It also hammers, Ainara, Wan, and the surviving demons, but it just fails to reach the rest of the heroes. Ainara and the demons all survive, but Wan was already badly hurt, and the surge of psychic energy is enough cause the “old” monk to collapse to the ground unconscious and dying. He immediately transforms back to his true changeling form.
The orb is destroyed. The pool immediately stops frothing, and the gate to the Abyss that was opening closes. The succubus queen shrieks in frustration. She turns her attention on Alistair and flies towards the nobleman. She attempts to charm him with her alluring gaze. Somehow, he manages to resist, and this enrages her even more. At about this time Delilah, with the aid of Toothless, finally manages to knock some sense into Cade, and he snaps out of the enchantment. It takes him a moment to figure out what is going on, but he soon realizes that the orb is destroyed. He also sees Novo unconscious on the ground. He rides over to the changeling and heals him with one of his final spells. Novo regains consciousness and gets to his feet. He looks at Cade, who is barely conscious himself and says, “We need to get out of here now!” He then uses his supernatural powers to shadow step out of the chapel and into the hall of the catacombs.
Jove has already called for a retreat and started to flee. As soon as he saw the gate close, he realized it was time to go. With everyone so badly wounded, he is certain that trying to finish off the succubus queen and the remaining demons is a death sentence.
Delilah heeds his call and starts to withdraw, but she stops at the base of the exit stairs, as she wants to make sure her friends get out alive. Cade rides towards her, and the final babau demon bounds after him. Meanwhile, the last succubus (not counting the queen), has flown to near the altar. From here she charms Ainara, and telepathically orders the rogue to come to her. Ainara can’t resist and soon the pair are passionately kissing. It is no ordinary kiss, for a kiss from a succubus can be death, and the demoness sucks the very life force from Ainara. Alistair see the angry succubus queen coming at him, and he considers running for his life. However, he wants to try to save his companion, so he fires across the chapel at the succubus that is killing Ainara. His shot misses, and the succubus queen is on him.
The furious succubus queen claws chunks out of Alistair. A horribly wounded Cade comes riding to his aid, but the babau demon is right behind him, and it pulls Cade off of Toothless. It tears into him, leaving him on the verge of death. Delilah, who is also near the pair, fends off the demon, grabs Cade off the ground and throws him over her shoulder. Alistair orders her to run, so she bounds up the stairs, carrying the halfling, with Toothless following along.
By this time, Jove is already out of the catacombs and Novo isn’t far behind the wizard. The final succubus drains the last of Ainara’s life force and drops her withered husk of a body to the ground. She then flies across the chapel to join her queen. Alistair starts to follow Delilah, but he can’t move fast enough to escape the babau and the succubus queen. It looks like the noble is going to die as well. Suddenly, Cade regains consciousness (nat 20 on a death save, puts him at 1 hp). He sees Alistair is in trouble, and he can’t abide leaving one of his pack members behind. He demands Delilah put him down, and he rushes back with Toothless to help Alistair. Delilah can’t imagine leaving a halfling behind (she was raised by halflings), so she follows Cade (both only have 1 hp each). They engage the remaining demons and order Alistair to run. The noble, considers dying with them, but he doesn’t have any crossbow bolts left, and he sees no sense in their sacrifice being in vain. Thus he flees.
Toothless, Cade and Delilah make a last stand against the demons, but their wounds are already so extensive that they only survive long enough to buy time for their companions to escape before being torn apart.
Some time later Jove, Novo and Alistair rendezvous at Ublyn’s Swap Shop. The session ends with the survivors taking an extended rest in Ublyn’s attic.
Session #19 (Showdown at the Pearl Necklace, Part #3)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 6, Druid 1)
Ainara (air genasi, Rogue/swashbuckler 7
Jove (human, wizard 7)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 2 )
Alistair (human, fighter 7)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 7, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes have found their way into a series of crumbling catacombs beneath the basement of the Pearl Necklace. Here they have come across an secret chapel where a demon cult is in the midst of performing a profane ritual.
Jove and Alistair stand at the bottom of a short flight of stairs, looking out on the scene. Before them is a pool of frothing liquid. Naked, drug addled cultists surround the pool where they engage in a perverse orgy. Four masked cultists beat on large drums, while vile succubus demons mingle with the cultists. Beyond the pool is an altar, and hovering just above the altar is a magical orb. The orb appears to channel psychic energy to the pool. A pair of babau demons gleefully monitor the orb.
Jove and Alistair had just attacked the orb. Jove’s magic missile spell was reflected back at him, and Alistair missed with his crossbow (session #18). The babau demons look out towards the stairs and see the pair. One of the demons vanishes in a poof of black, oily smoke, reappearing in front of Alistair. The second babau stays near the orb.
Ainara, who is at the top of the stairs, is quick to react. She darts down the stairs, stabs the lanky babau demon with Raven’s Warning and dances back up the stairs out of harm’s way. Alistair continues to fire at the orb with his crossbow. This time one of his bolts connects and seems to inflict damage on the orb, but it doesn’t destroy it. Delilah comes to her companions’ aid, striding into the chapel with her greataxe ready. She lays eyes on the scene for the first time and is a little overwhelmed. She raises her weapon to attack the demon, but she recalls that they tend to detonate in an acidic explosion when they are destroyed. She sees how wounded Jove is, so she orders him to get away from the thing before she strikes. Next Cade descends into the unholy room mounted on Toothless. The pair enter the combat, also attacking the babau demon. Toothless sinks its fangs into the demon’s leg and pulls it off its feet. Then Cade slashes it with his enchanted kukri and puts a hand crossbow bolt in its chest. The pain enrages the demon, but doesn’t destroy it.
Just before Jove withdraws and Delilah can strike and finish the babau demon, the three succubus in the room focus their supernatural powers and try to charm Cade, Delilah and Alistair. Initially, Delilah and Alistair resist their charms. Cade is not so fortunate and he succumbs to one of the succubuses, and it establishes a telepathic link with him. Jove withdraws from combat and retreats up the short staircase. Wan then uses his shadow step powers to teleport into the chapel room. With Jove clear of the babau demon, Delilah cleaves the wounded fiend open with her axe. It detonates in a burst of acid, sending it back to the Abyss. The acid sprays hers, Cade and Alistair. The damage almost causes Cade to shake off the charm effect, almost. Instead, he shrieks at Alistair for looking at Delilah, shouting something to the effect of, “I saw you looking at her. She’s mine!” Much to the noble’s surprise, the savage little halfling suddenly starts attacking him.
The four masked drummers continue to beat out a steady rhythm on their drums while the succubus queen chants and moans. All the while, the battle continues, and her minions expend great effort to destroy the adventurers. Jove conjures melf’s minute meteors and moves back down the stairs to get line of sight on the orb. He then launches a meteor at the vile sphere. Flames wash over the orb, but appear to have no affect on it. The babau demon that remained near the orb, casts a heat metal spell on Delilah’s armour, causing the half orc great pain. Ainara strikes at one of the succubuses, soon wounding it enough that it shifts into a ghostly form and vanishes from sight. Unfortunately, it’s not the one controlling Cade, and the halfling slashes at Alistair, wounding him. The remaining succubus that isn’t controlling Cade, then gains control of Alistair and orders him to start firing on his allies. Seeing this, the succubus controlling Cade has him turn his attention on Delilah, as Alistair is now their puppet, and there is no more need for Cade to be attacking him.
Wan deftly makes his way through the drugged out cultists, crossing the chapel to reach the orb. Here attacks the babau demon guarding the orb. He lands some solid strikes on the demon, causing it to loose concentration on its heat metal spell, but it slashes back at him with its claws, leaving him with some nasty wounds. Wan tries to ignore the pain, and he smacks the orb with his staff, hoping to shatter it. He connects with a solid hit, and as he does so the orb unleashes a psychic blast that rends at his mind. He realizes he can’t continue to attack it without risking it destroying him. Thus, he retreats away from the orb and the demon. Unfortunately the demon pursues him and continues to slash at him with its claws. Wan weaves and dodges, avoiding some of the demon’s attacks, but others get through, leaving him bleeding profusely.
Jove looks again at the frothing pool. He determines that the ritual appears to be on verge of reaching its climax. He sees a magical gate forming in the pool, a gate to the Abyss itself. He calls out to his companions, shouting that if they are going to stop the ritual it needs to happen in the next few seconds. Ainara darts back into the action. She notices that Wan’s attempt to destroy the orb has failed, so she tries a different tactic. She throws a dagger at the chanting succubus queen. The woman is too enthralled to notice her throw the weapon, and it embeds itself in her chest, just above a naked breast. The dagger is not enchanted, so it is not as deadly to the demoness as it could be, but it is well placed shot all the same. The demoness hisses at Ainara and glares at her, eyes burning with rage, then she turns her gaze back towards the pool and keeps on chanting.
Delilah goes after one of the remaining succubus, hoping to destroy the fiend and free one his friend’s from magical control. The demonesses aren’t overly hearty, and with a great swing of her axe, she cuts the throat of one wide open, sending the b%$+! back to the Abyss. Now, of the demons, only one succubus, one babau and the succubus queen remain. Destroying the succubus frees Alistair from her control, but Cade is still charmed and continues to attack Delilah. The little halfling has soon caused Delilah significant injury, which is really starting to piss her off. She starts smacking him, hoping to shake him out of the mind control. However, she is raging and has consumed a potion of fire giant strength, so a “smack” from Delilah really hurts. Cade’s face is soon a big purple bruise, and he has still failed to shake off the succubus’s enchantment. It’s starting to look as though the two friends are going to kill each other.
With Alistair having regained his senses, he makes a final push to destroy the orb. He hastily loads a bolt and fires at it again. His bolt flies true, and he hits with a shot that shatters it! At this instant, the orb unleashes all the psychic energy trapped inside of it. The wave of psychic damage radiates outward. It washes over the cultists, killing them instantly. It also hammers, Ainara, Wan, and the surviving demons, but it just fails to reach the rest of the heroes. Ainara and the demons all survive, but Wan was already badly hurt, and the surge of psychic energy is enough cause the “old” monk to collapse to the ground unconscious and dying. He immediately transforms back to his true changeling form.
The orb is destroyed. The pool immediately stops frothing, and the gate to the Abyss that was opening closes. The succubus queen shrieks in frustration. She turns her attention on Alistair and flies towards the nobleman. She attempts to charm him with her alluring gaze. Somehow, he manages to resist, and this enrages her even more. At about this time Delilah, with the aid of Toothless, finally manages to knock some sense into Cade, and he snaps out of the enchantment. It takes him a moment to figure out what is going on, but he soon realizes that the orb is destroyed. He also sees Novo unconscious on the ground. He rides over to the changeling and heals him with one of his final spells. Novo regains consciousness and gets to his feet. He looks at Cade, who is barely conscious himself and says, “We need to get out of here now!” He then uses his supernatural powers to shadow step out of the chapel and into the hall of the catacombs.
Jove has already called for a retreat and started to flee. As soon as he saw the gate close, he realized it was time to go. With everyone so badly wounded, he is certain that trying to finish off the succubus queen and the remaining demons is a death sentence.
Delilah heeds his call and starts to withdraw, but she stops at the base of the exit stairs, as she wants to make sure her friends get out alive. Cade rides towards her, and the final babau demon bounds after him. Meanwhile, the last succubus (not counting the queen), has flown to near the altar. From here she charms Ainara, and telepathically orders the rogue to come to her. Ainara can’t resist and soon the pair are passionately kissing. It is no ordinary kiss, for a kiss from a succubus can be death, and the demoness sucks the very life force from Ainara. Alistair see the angry succubus queen coming at him, and he considers running for his life. However, he wants to try to save his companion, so he fires across the chapel at the succubus that is killing Ainara. His shot misses, and the succubus queen is on him.
The furious succubus queen claws chunks out of Alistair. A horribly wounded Cade comes riding to his aid, but the babau demon is right behind him, and it pulls Cade off of Toothless. It tears into him, leaving him on the verge of death. Delilah, who is also near the pair, fends off the demon, grabs Cade off the ground and throws him over her shoulder. Alistair orders her to run, so she bounds up the stairs, carrying the halfling, with Toothless following along.
By this time, Jove is already out of the catacombs and Novo isn’t far behind the wizard. The final succubus drains the last of Ainara’s life force and drops her withered husk of a body to the ground. She then flies across the chapel to join her queen. Alistair starts to follow Delilah, but he can’t move fast enough to escape the babau and the succubus queen. It looks like the noble is going to die as well. Suddenly, Cade regains consciousness (nat 20 on a death save, puts him at 1 hp). He sees Alistair is in trouble, and he can’t abide leaving one of his pack members behind. He demands Delilah put him down, and he rushes back with Toothless to help Alistair. Delilah can’t imagine leaving a halfling behind (she was raised by halflings), so she follows Cade (both only have 1 hp each). They engage the remaining demons and order Alistair to run. The noble, considers dying with them, but he doesn’t have any crossbow bolts left, and he sees no sense in their sacrifice being in vain. Thus he flees.
Toothless, Cade and Delilah make a last stand against the demons, but their wounds are already so extensive that they only survive long enough to buy time for their companions to escape before being torn apart.
Some time later Jove, Novo and Alistair rendezvous at Ublyn’s Swap Shop. The session ends with the survivors taking an extended rest in Ublyn’s attic.
Session #19 (Showdown at the Pearl Necklace, Part #3)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 6, Druid 1)
Ainara (air genasi, Rogue/swashbuckler 7
Jove (human, wizard 7)
Delilah (half orc, fighter 5, barbarian 2 )
Alistair (human, fighter 7)
Cade and Toothless (halfling, ranger 7, with wolf animal companion)
The heroes have found their way into a series of crumbling catacombs beneath the basement of the Pearl Necklace. Here they have come across an secret chapel where a demon cult is in the midst of performing a profane ritual.
Jove and Alistair stand at the bottom of a short flight of stairs, looking out on the scene. Before them is a pool of frothing liquid. Naked, drug addled cultists surround the pool where they engage in a perverse orgy. Four masked cultists beat on large drums, while vile succubus demons mingle with the cultists. Beyond the pool is an altar, and hovering just above the altar is a magical orb. The orb appears to channel psychic energy to the pool. A pair of babau demons gleefully monitor the orb.
Jove and Alistair had just attacked the orb. Jove’s magic missile spell was reflected back at him, and Alistair missed with his crossbow (session #18). The babau demons look out towards the stairs and see the pair. One of the demons vanishes in a poof of black, oily smoke, reappearing in front of Alistair. The second babau stays near the orb.
Ainara, who is at the top of the stairs, is quick to react. She darts down the stairs, stabs the lanky babau demon with Raven’s Warning and dances back up the stairs out of harm’s way. Alistair continues to fire at the orb with his crossbow. This time one of his bolts connects and seems to inflict damage on the orb, but it doesn’t destroy it. Delilah comes to her companions’ aid, striding into the chapel with her greataxe ready. She lays eyes on the scene for the first time and is a little overwhelmed. She raises her weapon to attack the demon, but she recalls that they tend to detonate in an acidic explosion when they are destroyed. She sees how wounded Jove is, so she orders him to get away from the thing before she strikes. Next Cade descends into the unholy room mounted on Toothless. The pair enter the combat, also attacking the babau demon. Toothless sinks its fangs into the demon’s leg and pulls it off its feet. Then Cade slashes it with his enchanted kukri and puts a hand crossbow bolt in its chest. The pain enrages the demon, but doesn’t destroy it.
Just before Jove withdraws and Delilah can strike and finish the babau demon, the three succubus in the room focus their supernatural powers and try to charm Cade, Delilah and Alistair. Initially, Delilah and Alistair resist their charms. Cade is not so fortunate and he succumbs to one of the succubuses, and it establishes a telepathic link with him. Jove withdraws from combat and retreats up the short staircase. Wan then uses his shadow step powers to teleport into the chapel room. With Jove clear of the babau demon, Delilah cleaves the wounded fiend open with her axe. It detonates in a burst of acid, sending it back to the Abyss. The acid sprays hers, Cade and Alistair. The damage almost causes Cade to shake off the charm effect, almost. Instead, he shrieks at Alistair for looking at Delilah, shouting something to the effect of, “I saw you looking at her. She’s mine!” Much to the noble’s surprise, the savage little halfling suddenly starts attacking him.
The four masked drummers continue to beat out a steady rhythm on their drums while the succubus queen chants and moans. All the while, the battle continues, and her minions expend great effort to destroy the adventurers. Jove conjures melf’s minute meteors and moves back down the stairs to get line of sight on the orb. He then launches a meteor at the vile sphere. Flames wash over the orb, but appear to have no affect on it. The babau demon that remained near the orb, casts a heat metal spell on Delilah’s armour, causing the half orc great pain. Ainara strikes at one of the succubuses, soon wounding it enough that it shifts into a ghostly form and vanishes from sight. Unfortunately, it’s not the one controlling Cade, and the halfling slashes at Alistair, wounding him. The remaining succubus that isn’t controlling Cade, then gains control of Alistair and orders him to start firing on his allies. Seeing this, the succubus controlling Cade has him turn his attention on Delilah, as Alistair is now their puppet, and there is no more need for Cade to be attacking him.
Wan deftly makes his way through the drugged out cultists, crossing the chapel to reach the orb. Here attacks the babau demon guarding the orb. He lands some solid strikes on the demon, causing it to loose concentration on its heat metal spell, but it slashes back at him with its claws, leaving him with some nasty wounds. Wan tries to ignore the pain, and he smacks the orb with his staff, hoping to shatter it. He connects with a solid hit, and as he does so the orb unleashes a psychic blast that rends at his mind. He realizes he can’t continue to attack it without risking it destroying him. Thus, he retreats away from the orb and the demon. Unfortunately the demon pursues him and continues to slash at him with its claws. Wan weaves and dodges, avoiding some of the demon’s attacks, but others get through, leaving him bleeding profusely.
Jove looks again at the frothing pool. He determines that the ritual appears to be on verge of reaching its climax. He sees a magical gate forming in the pool, a gate to the Abyss itself. He calls out to his companions, shouting that if they are going to stop the ritual it needs to happen in the next few seconds. Ainara darts back into the action. She notices that Wan’s attempt to destroy the orb has failed, so she tries a different tactic. She throws a dagger at the chanting succubus queen. The woman is too enthralled to notice her throw the weapon, and it embeds itself in her chest, just above a naked breast. The dagger is not enchanted, so it is not as deadly to the demoness as it could be, but it is well placed shot all the same. The demoness hisses at Ainara and glares at her, eyes burning with rage, then she turns her gaze back towards the pool and keeps on chanting.
Delilah goes after one of the remaining succubus, hoping to destroy the fiend and free one his friend’s from magical control. The demonesses aren’t overly hearty, and with a great swing of her axe, she cuts the throat of one wide open, sending the b&#!! back to the Abyss. Now, of the demons, only one succubus, one babau and the succubus queen remain. Destroying the succubus frees Alistair from her control, but Cade is still charmed and continues to attack Delilah. The little halfling has soon caused Delilah significant injury, which is really starting to piss her off. She starts smacking him, hoping to shake him out of the mind control. However, she is raging and has consumed a potion of fire giant strength, so a “smack” from Delilah really hurts. Cade’s face is soon a big purple bruise, and he has still failed to shake off the succubus’s enchantment. It’s starting to look as though the two friends are going to kill each other.
With Alistair having regained his senses, he makes a final push to destroy the orb. He hastily loads a bolt and fires at it again. His bolt flies true, and he hits with a shot that shatters it! At this instant, the orb unleashes all the psychic energy trapped inside of it. The wave of psychic damage radiates outward. It washes over the cultists, killing them instantly. It also hammers, Ainara, Wan, and the surviving demons, but it just fails to reach the rest of the heroes. Ainara and the demons all survive, but Wan was already badly hurt, and the surge of psychic energy is enough cause the “old” monk to collapse to the ground unconscious and dying. He immediately transforms back to his true changeling form.
The orb is destroyed. The pool immediately stops frothing, and the gate to the Abyss that was opening closes. The succubus queen shrieks in frustration. She turns her attention on Alistair and flies towards the nobleman. She attempts to charm him with her alluring gaze. Somehow, he manages to resist, and this enrages her even more. At about this time Delilah, with the aid of Toothless, finally manages to knock some sense into Cade, and he snaps out of the enchantment. It takes him a moment to figure out what is going on, but he soon realizes that the orb is destroyed. He also sees Novo unconscious on the ground. He rides over to the changeling and heals him with one of his final spells. Novo regains consciousness and gets to his feet. He looks at Cade, who is barely conscious himself and says, “We need to get out of here now!” He then uses his supernatural powers to shadow step out of the chapel and into the hall of the catacombs.
Jove has already called for a retreat and started to flee. As soon as he saw the gate close, he realized it was time to go. With everyone so badly wounded, he is certain that trying to finish off the succubus queen and the remaining demons is a death sentence.
Delilah heeds his call and starts to withdraw, but she stops at the base of the exit stairs, as she wants to make sure her friends get out alive. Cade rides towards her, and the final babau demon bounds after him. Meanwhile, the last succubus (not counting the queen), has flown to near the altar. From here she charms Ainara, and telepathically orders the rogue to come to her. Ainara can’t resist and soon the pair are passionately kissing. It is no ordinary kiss, for a kiss from a succubus can be death, and the demoness sucks the very life force from Ainara. Alistair see the angry succubus queen coming at him, and he considers running for his life. However, he wants to try to save his companion, so he fires across the chapel at the succubus that is killing Ainara. His shot misses, and the succubus queen is on him.
The furious succubus queen claws chunks out of Alistair. A horribly wounded Cade comes riding to his aid, but the babau demon is right behind him, and it pulls Cade off of Toothless. It tears into him, leaving him on the verge of death. Delilah, who is also near the pair, fends off the demon, grabs Cade off the ground and throws him over her shoulder. Alistair orders her to run, so she bounds up the stairs, carrying the halfling, with Toothless following along.
By this time, Jove is already out of the catacombs and Novo isn’t far behind the wizard. The final succubus drains the last of Ainara’s life force and drops her withered husk of a body to the ground. She then flies across the chapel to join her queen. Alistair starts to follow Delilah, but he can’t move fast enough to escape the babau and the succubus queen. It looks like the noble is going to die as well. Suddenly, Cade regains consciousness (nat 20 on a death save, puts him at 1 hp). He sees Alistair is in trouble, and he can’t abide leaving one of his pack members behind. He demands Delilah put him down, and he rushes back with Toothless to help Alistair. Delilah can’t imagine leaving a halfling behind (she was raised by halflings), so she follows Cade (both only have 1 hp each). They engage the remaining demons and order Alistair to run. The noble, considers dying with them, but he doesn’t have any crossbow bolts left, and he sees no sense in their sacrifice being in vain. Thus he flees.
Toothless, Cade and Delilah make a last stand against the demons, but their wounds are already so extensive that they only survive long enough to buy time for their companions to escape before being torn apart.
Some time later Jove, Novo and Alistair rendezvous at Ublyn’s Swap Shop. The session ends with the survivors taking an extended rest in Ublyn’s attic.
So this was probably the toughest 5e fight I've run so far (including my last 5e campaign). It's been a while since I've had half the party die in a single combat. Fortunately, my players said that despite having their characters die they really enjoyed the session, and they were quick to start throwing out ideas for new PCs.
RIP Ainara who lasted only 4 sessions heh. I felt that Ainara was the best one to get to the orb and crack it open since she could bonus action dash back to the party afterwards - alas :|
Sad to see that Delilah's quest for romance also ended too young.
It also means that the new party will never be without it's lucky charms.... so we should be safer now :)
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Session #20 (New beginnings)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 7, Druid 1)
Jove (human, wizard 8)
Alistair (human, fighter 8)
Floki (human, warlock 4/bard 4)
Sariel (aasimar, oath of vengeance paladin 8)
After spending the night tending to their wounds and otherwise suffering from their ordeal at the Pearl Necklace, Jove, Alistair and Novo decide their next move. Novo has had enough of Melvaunt and is ready to leave immediately, but Jove really wants the gold they left behind in the vault of the Pearl Necklace. He insists they return and Novo grudgingly agrees.
Thus, the trio returns to Pearl Necklace for what they hope will be a quick and final visit. Jove casts a potent invisibility spell that makes all three of them invisible, and Novo channels his shadow ki powers to cloak them in shadow and make them even more stealthy. Inside the Pearl Necklace, it is dark and quiet. The corpses of the guards they had previously killed are nowhere to be seen, but a trail of blood suggests that they were taken down to the basement.
They move like whispers to the vault, and as they approach, they see that there are three figures gathered around the door. One is clearly a rogue type who is attempting to pick the door’s highly complex lock. The other two seem more like his muscle, one being a female clad in plate armour, and the other being a tall male northman. Jove and his crew wait silently, hoping that the three will get frustrated trying to pick the lock and be on their way. Novo decides to delve into the mind of the northman with his medallion of thoughts. He learns that the trio are fresh off the boat, having just arrived in the city that very morning aboard a merchant ship from Hillsfar. While aboard the ship, they had heard tales of the luxurious Pearl Necklace. When they found that the city was in a state of civil war, their rogue convinced them to go to the Pearl Necklace in hopes they might make an easy score of loot. This confirms for Novo that they aren’t demons or cultists in disguise, which is somewhat reassuring. However, the northman detects Novo’s mind probe, and he starts calling out for whoever is there to reveal themselves.
The invisible wizard sighs and decides to converse. A long, awkward parlay ensues. Jove warns the would be thieves that the place is infested by a demon cult, and he tries to convince them to leave, but they seem equally intent on securing the contents of the vault. The wizard has seen enough violence in the past couple of days, and he really isn’t in the mood for a fight, so he offers to help them get into the vault in exchange for 60% of the wealth. The three thieves want a 50/50 cut, but Jove won’t have it. As the negotiations begin to break down, a third party arrives on the scene.
A group of a dozen city guards enter the Pearl Necklace through the front doors. They see the northman and the armoured woman, but Jove, Alistair and Novo remain invisible, while the rogue is out of sight in the vault room where he is still busy trying to pick the lock. The guards ask them their business in the place, and the northman, who sounds like a chatty leprechaun, explains (lies) that he and his companions had encountered a demon in the streets and after wounding it they had chased it into the place. The deception is pretty far fetched, but the guard captain starts looking about nervously. Afterall, there have been reports of demons roaming the streets, and the Pearl Necklace has had some sinister rumours circulate about it, regarding its connections with demon cultists. Floki keeps the conversation going, trying to buy his rogue companion time to finish picking the lock. This pays off and the rogue finally beats the complex lock. He opens the door to the vault. He sees the magical darkness that fills the vault and steps inside.
Suddenly, something bites him on the leg, two somethings in fact. He staggers out of the vault as poison courses through him. There is a set of puncture wounds that have pierced each of his boots and have sent burning poison streaking up his legs. He puts a hand out to grab the nearby table and nearly falls to the ground. Then he slams the door to the vault shut and staggers out of the room to join the Sariel and see what is going on with Floki and the guards. It seems that the guards aren’t looking for a fight, but are corrupt themselves and want to score some loot. They are in the midst of telling Floki and his crew to be on their way. Jove takes advantage of situation; he walks invisibly up to the vault, sticks the key that he previously found in vault door and opens it. He then whispers the pacification word and steps into the darkness. The iron cobra guardians lurking inside heed the magical command and leave him be, so he starts filling his pack with the sacks of gold coins the heroes had left behind.
The rogue has keen ears and hears Jove’s whisper. He darts back into the room that accesses the vault and sees the door open. He hears the jingling sound of coin sacks. He again shuts the door, hoping that he can trap whoever is in there inside. Jove is resourceful. He swigs a potion of gaseous form he’d been saving and he and his pack full of gold turn to vapour. He flies out through the key hole and leaves the building.
Meanwhile, Floki finally convinces the guards that he and his companions can help them break into the vault. He negotiates a 50/50 split with the guard captain. The rogue then goes to work on picking the lock for a second time. Eventually he succeeds and opens the door. Floki’s warlock pact allow him to see through magical darkness, and he can see the two iron cobras waiting in the vault. He also sees several sacks of coins (there’s still lots of silver in there). He says that since they took care of the lock the guard captain should go in and get the treasure. She is suspicious, so she sends in one of her lackeys. He immediately gets bitten by the iron cobras and falls dead inside the magical darkness. Instead of sending someone else in, Floki casts a cloud of daggers spell inside the vault. The iron cobras are programmed to remain in the vault and they make no effort to escape the spell. He keeps concentrating on the magic and eventually the swirling force daggers destroy them. With the guardians dealt with, the remainder of the treasure is easily looted. The guards take half, and Floki and his crew take the other half (3000 sp). Then both parties head on their way.
Meanwhile, Jove reunites with his companions back at Ublyn’s swap shop. They load up their gold and purchase some travelling supplies. They put Alistair’s brother’s body in a rickshaw cart with a tarp covering it and head out of the city. Tully and Connor, the two changelings, join them and are charged with pulling the cart. Near the end of the day, they reach the village of Dunheath- the village they had previously helped rid of a wyvern problem. Here they rest for the night and claim their horses, which they had been stabling in the village. The following day, they set out for Thentia. They have six horses altogether, so they use two to pull a cart holding Dustin’s magically preserved body, which Connor drives, and the others ride the remaining horses.
Floki and his two companions are also headed for Thentia, but they are travelling on foot. During the third day of travel, they are ambushed by a large band of kobolds. The kobolds attack from rocky slopes looming over either side of the trail. For the most part, the little buggers fire on the trio with slings, but a few spell casters are among them, and the most powerful of the lot drops a fireball on them, while his two apprentices bombard them with magic missile spells. Fortunately, Jove and is crew are also travelling the trail, and they recognize the three from the encounter in the Pearl Necklace a couple of days earlier. They arrive in time to save Floki and his companions from the ambush, and they even decide to help. Jove starts obliterating kobolds with minute meteors; Alistair picks them off with his crossbow, and Novo darts among them and takes them down with flurries of unarmed strikes and blows from his staff.
The kobolds aren’t eager to die, and soon they scatter like cockroaches. Floki and his two allies have suffered signifiant injury, particularly from the kobold sorcerers. Novo generously helps heal them with his staff of healing. Floki thanks them and makes introductions. At no point do Jove and his friends bother to mention that they recognize them, but Sariel the paladin does think Jove’s voice is very familiar. The two groups agree to travel the remainder of the way to Thentia together.
Early that evening they arrive. They stable their horses and find accommodations. That evening they all gather for a drink at the Giant’s Axe Tavern to celebrate their safe arrival in Thentia. It is also a chance for Jove, Alistair and Wan to finally properly toast their fallen companions. Alistair drinks more than his share, and seems to be the one that is suffering the most from the deaths of his friends.
Over the course of the following days, the heroes attend to various items of personal business. Wan introduces himself to Oswald, the bar tender at the Giant’s Axe. Wan has heard that Oswald has connections to the changeling enclave in Thentia and that he’s the one to speak to about contacting the community. He, Connor and Tully all discreetly prove to Oswald that they are changelings and Oswald agrees to meet with them the next day and take them to the enclave.
The following morning, Oswald makes good on his offer. The changeling enclave is essentially a cluster of shops and homes in the southwestern part of the city. Here Oswald introduces them to several of the changeling residents. Wan also explains to Oswald that he is looking to purchase real estate and start a fighting school where he can train changelings (and members of other races) how to fight in his special style. Oswald seems to think that the skills Wan has to offer would be a benefit to the community, and he shows him a series of interconnected cellars that join the buildings of the enclave together. Here he offers Wan a place to both stay and train students. Of course, only changelings would have access to the hidden dojo, but Wan is fine with that for the moment. Wan spends the next several days getting to know the people of the community, and recruiting pupils. He opens the hidden dojo and begins to take on more changeling students, which include both Connor and Tully. By the end of a ten day, he has 7 pupils training under him.
Jove and some of the others pay a visit to a street called Wizard’s Alley, so named because it has a number of shops that all cater to wizards. Thentia is known as a city that is home to several capable mages, and this is where they come to buy their supplies. Here they learn of a few magic items available for sale, and here Jove purchases the supplies he needs to transcribe new spells into his spell book. He spends the next several days in his private inn chamber, adding new spells to his spell book.
In addition to learning new spells, Jove also spends time analyzing the map that the heroes found in Melvaunt (dropped by fleeing wererats in an alley). He cracks the code used in the notes on that map, and he identifies it as a rough depiction of the ruined city of Hulburg. An “X” focuses on a place labeled the White Tower, which is attached to Hulburg castle. The notes say the following:
“In the bottom of the White Tower is the entrance to the crypts of the Hulmaster family. Access to the crypts is said to be guarded by a powerful construct. Anyone wearing one of the Hulmaster family warding amulets can safely pass the guardian and open the magically sealed doors.
Somewhere within the crypts is a secret door that accesses hidden chambers built by the wizard Londar Hulmaster. It is believed that these rooms hold many secrets including Londar’s arcane research and magical treasures. The most potent of these being his staff of power.
Members of the Hulmaster family still reside in Thentia. It is possible one of the warding amulets is still in their possession.”
Alistair takes time to bring his brother’s body to the temple of Selune. Here he pays to have it stored safely and to have gentle repose spells cast on it to preserve it until such a time that he can see it back to his homeland of Cormyr. During this time, he also pays to have a magical message sent to his homeland to inform his parents of his brother’s death.
Sariel keeps mostly to herself during this time. She is a woman of few words with a strange accent that suggests she is from a distant land. The common tongue doesn’t seem to be her first language, and she isn’t the type to make friends quickly. Their rogue companion who helped them break into the vault has disappeared with his share of the silver, and seems to have no interest in following the path the Floki has planned.
Floki is much more outgoing. He spends his days visiting the local inns and taverns where he earns room and board putting his skills as a skald to good use. However, he and Sariel have come to Thentia for a reason. Thentia is the closest settlement of note to the ruined city of Hulburg, and they have heard rumours that a white dragon has taken up residence in the ruins. Floki believes that this dragon is named Rhime and is the dragon responsible for the death of his sister. He and Sariel intend to slay this foul worm, but they know that if they are going to succeed they need to be prepared. To that end, Floki spends time hunting for rumours about Hulburg, hoping to gather any information that might help them. His hunt leads him to an adventurer named Tarl. Tarl has recently returned from Hulburg. He claims to have gone there in hopes of slaying the dragon. White dragons have a reputation for being fairly bestial and solitary creatures, and he and his companions were unprepared for the amount of minions the dragon had. Tarl explains that the dragon has established itself in the remains of Hulburg castle and that it has tribe of ice trolls serving it. He was the only one of the group to escape alive.
Floki also meets a mage named Fingol Firefingers. He learns that Fingol is the most renowned mage in the city, and as it turns out he’s looking for a group of adventurers to do some bodyguard work for him. He doesn’t give a lot of details, but mentions needing capable and trustworthy individuals who can protect him on a potentially dangerous journey. A journey that he says won’t take very long, but it involves going very far away. Some negotiating ensues, and Floki convinces Fingol to pay his party 6000 gp. However, Fingol insists that they first demonstrate their commitment and competence. He tells them to bring him some evidence that they know their business- some giant hands or something comparable.
The session end with the heroes gathering at the Giant’s Axe tavern to discuss how they wish to proceed. A lot of new adventure options stand before them.
So my plan to bring the new characters together at the Pearl Necklace was a big flop/fail. Fortunately, the second attempt in the form of the kobold encounter was more successful. At any rate, new characters are now in place to replace those that died fighting the demons at the Pearl Necklace.
Session #21 (Fingol Firefingers)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 7, Druid 1)
Jove (human, wizard 8)
Alistair (human, fighter 8)
Floki (human, warlock 4/bard 4)
Sariel (fallen aasimar, oath of vengeance paladin 8)
Malik (halfling, rogue1/ storm sorcerer 7)
The heroes find themselves in the Giant’s Axe tavern in Thentia discussing their options when they are approached by an grizzled old halfling. He introduces himself to Alistair as Malik. He claims that he is from the village that Delilah was raised in (although Delilah was a half orc, she was abandoned as a baby on the doorstep of a halfling family in the halfling village of Babblebrook in Shadowdale. Thus, she was was raised by halflings). Malik goes onto share his story. He explains that Babblebrook was recently raided by slavers. The slavers were led by a savage warrior with a blade tinged in magical frost. Novo suspects the man might be Delgar the Blade, a dangerous mercenary they had a run in with back in Phlan many ten days earlier. Some halflings were killed defending the village, others managed to escape, but many were captured and taken north. Malik was among the halflings that escaped.
Delilah had been in regular contact with her kin through a set of sending stones she had shared with her adopted halfling parents. Consequently, Malik knew that she had been in Melvaunt. He also knew that Delilah’s parents had lost contact with her and were concerned for her well being. He decided to travel north to seek out Delilah in hopes that she might help him battle the slavers and potentially free some of her kin. When Malik arrived in Melvaunt he met with Ublyn Blackulbuck, the halfling Harper. He learned that Delilah had been killed battling a demon cult. He also learned that Delilah’s surviving companions had travelled to Thentia. Malik decided to head for Thentia in hopes of recruiting Delilah’s friends to help him fight the slavers and free his kin.
Alistair has spent much of the past 15 days drinking away his sorrows around the loss of his brother and three of his companions. He has also been making regular visits to the temple of Selune to check on his brother’s body, which he has been paying to have preserved with gentle repose spells until such a time that he can take it back to Cormry. He is somewhat drunk that evening at the Giant’s Axe, and upon hearing Malik’s plea, he is eager to take up arms on the halfling’s behalf. He staggers to his feet and heads for the door, ready to go that instant. The other heroes are less enthused about aiding a strange old halfling that they only just met. Jove is interested in making money to keep funding his arcane studies, and he sees no significant opportunities for wealth in this task, so he isn’t overly interested in helping the sorcerer. In fact, he even accuses him of being a coward for abandoning his kin and not staying around to try to rescue them. Floki has his own business in the area and isn’t in a hurry to suddenly head off to the Dalelands. In fact, he has a line on some potentially lucrative work for a local wizard that he had been in the midst of explaining to the heroes. Sariel is a follower of Hoar the god of vengeance. She is happy to aid the halfling in seeking revenge against the slavers and seems willing to go with him. Novo has just started putting down roots in Thentia. He’s started his dojo and made connections with the changeling enclave, so he isn’t eager to to pack up and trek hundreds of miles to the southwest. Malik pleas and pleas, trying to convince the heroes to help him. In the end, they convince Malik to join them in aiding the wizard, Fingol Firefingers, with the job he wants done. They explain to the halfling that Fingol Firefingers might be able to teleport them to the Dalelands after they finish the job for him, which would be much faster than travelling overland, and even if he can’t Jove may have access to the teleportation circle spell in the near future, which he could use to take them to his former master’s tower in Essembra, which would be quite a bit closer to Shadowdale than they currently are, and they could then help Malik deal with the slavers (presumably the Iron Ring).
The following day the adventurers head north into the dangerous wilderness known as the Thar. Fingol Firefingers had demanded that they bring him proof that they are capable of handling themselves before he hires them, and to prove their skills they have decided to go on a giant hunt. A little west of Thentia is a river that leads north. Several small, fortified villages are built along the river. The river is broad, but shallow. In fact, the water level is exceptionally low even for the time of year (Elient- aka September). The land along the river is a little more fertile than rocky wastes that make up most of the Thar. Some stands of trees actually grow along the river, and the locals have found a few patches of ground where they can do some farming. They travel on foot with a single pack mule, leaving their horses in Thentia. As the day wears on, they pass a final village and enter into the true wilderness. It is around this time that they encounter a patrol of rothe riders out of Thentia riding back south towards the city. The riders intercept them, and the heroes explain that they are hunting for giants. The riders encourage them to keep following the river. They explain that it will eventually take them to Lake Thent. Lake Thent has several ogre settlements built along its northern coast. They also mention rumours of a vile hag lairing in a series of caves on the lake’s southern shore. The heroes thank the riders for the information and continue on their way. They make camp for the night in the wilderness. Jove protects them with Leomund’s Tiny Hut ritual.
The next day, they continue their trek along the river. They pass by the ruins of several homesteads that failed to take root in these wild lands. On occasion, they see herds of wild rothe grazing in the distance. Late in the afternoon they find what they are looking for. A band of ogres, accompanied by a hill giant and a few worgs emerges from behind a small hillock. The heroes waste no time with parlay and attack. They focus their fire on the giant, bringing him down with spells and arrows before the massive brute can close in melee. The worgs are fast and race across the rocky ground to attack the lead heroes- Floki and Sariel. They engage Floki and Sariel, but the pair, with the aid of Novo make short work of the hulking wolves. Malik proves his capabilities by blasting several ogres with a magical lighting bolt and thunderous shatter spell. Jove finds his melf’s minute meteor spell effective, hurling several motes of flame into the ogres. The foul creatures hurl javelins as they try to close on the heroes, and they hit with a few of their attacks, causing some injuries. Unfortunately for the ogres, the magical might of heroes is devastating, and after the casters have wounded them with spells, the warriors in the party finish them off with ease.
The heroes collect the ears for bounties and evidence to show to Fingol. They then make camp for the night. They briefly discuss the idea of continuing north in hopes of finding more giants to kill, but they soon decide that they have sufficient evidence to prove to Fingol they are up for the job he has in mind.
The next day, they begin their journey back to Thentia. It takes them nearly two days, and they are weary when they finally make it to the city. They decide to head straight for Fingol’s tower. His tower is an imposing structure well suited to a wizard. It is hexagon shaped, 5 stories all and is made of dark granite. There are a few windows on the upper floors that look like they have metal shutters. There are no windows on the first two floors. It has a domed roof that is plated in copper. However, the roof can’t normally be seen because of an over-sized continual flame type enchantment that makes the entire top of the tower appear to radiate fire. Steps lead up to bronze double doors with a stone arch above them. The lintel of the arch features a key stone with an image of skull wreathed in flame, and the doors are hot to the touch. They feature heavy knockers.
Fingol’s apprentice, Astrid, answers the door. She leads them through a foyer and into a sitting room on the ground floor. She provides them with wine, bread and cheese while they wait. Eventually, Fingol strides into the room. He’s tall, gaunt man with scarlet robes and wild orange hair and beard. The heroes show him the collection of ears, and although he isn’t overly impressed (perhaps because there is only a single set of giant ears), he decides that he will offer the job. As he explains the task he has in mind, Novo monitors him with his amulet of thoughts, scanning his surface thoughts for signs of deception. Fingol tells the heroes that he is not originally from Faerun. He claims to be from a city called Altdorf on a distant world on the material plane. He arrived in Faerun after a magically mishap on his home world shunted him to the astral plane. From the astral plane he gained access to a colour pool portal that returned him to the material plane. Unfortunately, he was not returned to his home world. Instead, he ended up in Faerun in the Moonsea region.
Fingol has made a life for himself in Thentia, but he has always been searching for a means of returning home. Now he thinks, he has found a way. He does on to tell the heroes of the Infinite Staircase, a strange pocket dimension that provides access to doors that are in fact portals. The stair holds numerous, stairs, landings and portals, and such portals can take a traveller to almost any plane or world in the multiverse. It is place of infinite possibility. It is also a place of great potential danger, for nearly any manner of creature might be found on the stairs.
Fingol goes onto explain that he believes he’s found a door to the Infinite Staircase in Thentia. He wants to hire the heroes to be his escort as he travels the stairs and to help him find the door that will take him to his homeworld. The heroes are intrigued by the job and agree to help. Fingol says he’s willing to pay them each 1000 gp, and he will give them his tower as part of the payment. Novo senses that Fingol is being mostly honest, except about the money. Novo doesn’t think that Fingol has a much money as he claims. The adventurers have a little chat, and Novo explains his concerns. Floki decides to get Fingol to show him the money before he takes the job. Fingol agrees and brings down a sack of coins. He estimates there are about 3000 gp in the sack, half the money that Fingol was promising. Fingol apologizes for the deception, but he informs them that the value of the tower will more than make up for the missing gold. The heroes agree this is the case, and accept the job offer.
The next day, they meet Fingol at his tower. He and Astrid are ready to go. Fingol leads the heroes to the street known as Wizard’s alley. He takes them down a lonely narrow alley. Here, hidden behind some old barrels, he shows them a small wooden door. They move the barrels out of the way and open the door. A strange mist fills the doorway, and Fingol explains that he believes this door accesses the Infinite Staircase.
One by one, the adventures pass through the door into the mist. When they emerge, they find themselves standing on a landing. A set of marble stairs leads upward into a misty grey “sky” with no visible means of support. Off in the distance it reaches another landing where more stairs branch off it, leading to other far off landings. It is by far, the strangest place any of them have ever seen before. There is no sign of a light source, yet the whole place is lit by a dim ambient light.
The adventures begin climbing the stairs. As they go, Fingol teaches them a song from his homeland about an alliance between men and dwarves and their battles against the green skin races. He believes that singing the song will help them find the door to his homeworld faster. They climb the stairs for hours with no sign of another living soul. Finally, as they crest a landing, they see a being on the landing before them. It is a strange creature. It’s upper body is that of a beautiful elven woman, but her lower body is that of serpent with scintillating scales. A set of feathered angelic wings grow from her back and she carries a fine a harp. She addresses the heroes telepathically, introducing herself as a magical creature called a lillend. The lillend are custodians of the stairs and servants of Selune the Moon Maiden. She notices that Floki and Sariel both carry instruments, and she explains that she has a great appreciation for music and the arts. She asks if they would be willing to share a song with her. Floki is a gifted bard and more than happy to oblige. He plays a traditional northmen song and Sariel provides backup on her flute. The lillend is impressed with their performance, and offers to aid them finding Fingol’s way home- in exchange for a service. She tells them that a foul demon spider from the Abyss has taken up residence on a nearby portion of the staircase. She wants to see the fiend destroyed or banished, and for that she needs the aid of a capable band of adventurers. The heroes think it over for a couple of minutes and decide that earning the favour of the lillend and possibly Selune herself would be wise, so they agree.
The session ends with the lillend leading the heroes towards the lair of the demon spider.
Session #22 (A Tale from the Infinite Staircase)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 7, Druid 1)
Jove (human, wizard 8)
Alistair (human, fighter 8)
Floki (human, warlock 4/bard 4)
Sariel (fallen aasimar, oath of vengeance paladin 8)
Malik (halfling, rogue1/ storm sorcerer 7)
The heroes have entered the mythical Infinite Staircase in an effort to help the wizard Fingol Firefingers find his way back to his home world. There they met a Lillend, one of the custodians of the stair. The lillend has offered them her aid in exchange for helping to remove a foul demon spider that has taken up residence on the stair (see session #21).
Now the lillend leads them through the bewildering maze of stairs that defy the known laws of physics. After what feels like several hours of tough stair climbing, they reach a darkened portion of the stair that has become tainted and fouled by the evil of the abyss. At this point, she tells them that they have reached the entrance to its lair. Fingol, his apprentice Astrid and the lillend remain on the landing near the entrance to the tainted region, while the heroes gather their courage and descend down a steep stone stair. The strange ambient light of the stair case has vanished here, and Malik casts a light spell to produce a light source.
At the bottom of the stair is a long but narrow landing. Several doors of varying size and style stand along the perimeter. There are no walls surrounding the landing, so the doors are supported only by their frames. A stone throne sized for a giant is opposite the bottom of the stair, and an ancient and dusty skeleton sits slumped on the throne.
The heroes scan for signs of the demon spider. Nearby they notice that a pair of steep stairs running parallel to one another that leads down from the landing they have arrived at to another landing. Here signs of the fiend are evident in the form of a massive network of webbing that has been built between the flights of stairs. Floki’s devil sight allows him to see great distances in darkness, further than anyone else in the party. He spots the shadowy form of the demonic spider nested in its web. The horror is massive, much larger than even a horse (huge size). It notices the heroes and scuttles forward. As it comes into view, Malik unleashes a bolt of lightning that blasts it and damages its web. However, the fiend seems resistant to lightning and the attack isn’t overly harmful. Alistair has his enchanted crossbow ready, and he fires a barrage of bolts at it. Three of the four shots penetrate its chitin, and two of them embed themselves directly into its head, causing it terrible damage (2 crits.). It then teleports itself and appears among them.
The combat immediately becomes far more dangerous as the creature incapacitates Alistair with a stream of webbing and then starts slashing at the heroes with its bladed fore legs and biting them with its deadly, poisonous mandibles. Yet as dangerous as their foe is, they have it outnumbered six to one. Jove, and Malik start blasting it with their spells, while Floki, Old Wan, and Sariel engage it in melee. The fiend continues to teleport about the landing, making it difficult to pin down, but since its offensive options are mainly its natural weapons, it never moves far from the heroes. It inflicts several nasty injuries on various party members, but before it can bring any of the adventurers down, Alistair is cut out of the webbing, and he puts it down with a final crossbow bolt. Its body then melts away into a pile of foul ooze as its essence is banished back to the abyss.
The lillend is pleased with their efforts, and she promises to help them find the door that will take Fingol back to his homeworld. After a short rest to heal their wounds, they continue on their journey. More hours pass on the stair, and the heroes are growing weary. Finally they reach the top of a set of wide stairs and find themselves on a sprawling landing with many doors and many stairs branching out from it. On the landing is a large encampment, the first sign of civilization they have seen since arriving on the stair. The lillend calls it the Nowhere Inn. It appears to be a gathering of planar travellers, and here the adventures can see all manner of sentient races mingling with one another. Some are races that are familiar to them, but others are stranger creatures that they have never seen before.
The camp is centred around a massive mead tent that appears to be run a half orc. Several smaller tents and merchant stalls have gathered around the central mead tent. An open common area in front of the mead tent has been made into a fighting circle, and the half orc, who claims to be a follower of a god called Kord, is overseeing some kind of unarmed fighting tournament. This catches Old Wan’s interest and he wanders over to observe the contest. He’s just in time to see a githerzai monk take down a warforged. However, he isn’t familiar with either of these races, but the skills of the githerzai monk impress him, and when the half orc asks for a new challenger, Old Wan steps into the ring. He notices that the monk is one of several githerzai watching the fight. The others are standing on the sidelines with their sifu, and Wan gets the sense that the one he is facing is a talented pupil, but not a true master in his discipline. The conflict is a tense one, and the githerzai holds his own well. However, Old Wan proves to be the more skilled warrior and in the end he defeats him.
The heroes rest the in a Leomunds’ Tiny Hut, which Jove casts on the edge of the encampment. There is no real sense of day and night on the Infinite Staircase, but once they feel rested, they continue on their journey. The remainder of their trek on the stair is uneventful, and eventually they reach the landing that the Lilend claims holds the door to Fingol’s homeworld. As Fingol is about to step through the door, Astrid speaks up, and tells Fingol that she doesn’t wish to join him. He’s not pleased by this and tells her that as his apprentice, it is her duty to do as her master requests, but she argues that when she swore to serve him she hadn’t agreed to travel to an entire other world to do so. She thought she would be doing her apprenticeship in her home city of Thentia. The heroes are forced to intervene in the argument, and they managed to convince Fingol to release Astrid from his service. Thus, the wizard gives the heroes what money he still has and the key to his tower. He steps through the door on his own and presumably returns to his homeworld.
The lilend escort the adventures to a door that will take them back to Faerun. However, the door they find proves not to be the door that leads back to Thentia. Instead it drops them in the basement of a tavern in the town of Arabel in Cormyr, not far from the lands of the McKormike family (Alistair’s kin). The heroes spend a couple of days in Arabel while Jove masters the teleportation circle spell. He then uses it to teleport them to Mantor’s library in Phlan, where there is another permanent teleportation circle that he knows of. From Phlan they make the lengthy overland journey along the northern coast of the Moonsea to Thentia.
DM's Notes: The fight with the demon spider was one of the first times I've run a solo encounter against a legendary creature, and the first time in this campaign. The legendary actions are handy, but can cause some confusion regarding the initiative order since such creatures constantly act off their turn. It gave the PCs a decent fight, but overall the encounter wasn't really that challenging for them. The heroes do enough damage that even with the extra actions, having all them focused on that single opponent made him go down fairly easily.
I do have plans to use a few more legendary creatures before the end of the campaign, and I set up this encounter mainly to give those mechanics a test run. As I suspected would be the case, even legendary monsters need minion support. Thus, I doubt I'll have them face anymore legendary monsters without the support of minions.
I just have to say that I love reading these journals you keep. I also DM 5e and was wondering if you made your Demon Spider or just reflavoured something else? I also wanted to know if you are doing all homebrew or taking stuff and adding things to it, because this is great.
@ Steven Dunham- thanks for checking it out. The demon spider was intended to be a conversion of a bebilith, but since I wanted it to be a solo monster I gave it legendary actions. I find creating a 5e monster is fairly easy, so I sometimes throw "new" stuff together, usually using previous edition stats as a reference.
I'd say that so far this campaign has pretty much been entirely home-brew. I've used various sourcebooks as reference for location details, but the adventures have been home-brew. However, they're pretty straight forward so planning them hasn't been that much work. The main work has come from building maps and things like that on roll20 (I run this campaign using roll20, which is a virtual table top- in case you aren't familiar with it).
I've been trying to make the campaign fairly sandboxy, and give players freedom to choose their own objectives and goals. I tend to put out some adventure hooks and see what they bite at and then plan in response to their actions. My sessions are fairly short (2.5-3 hrs), so I get time in between to think of how I'm going to respond to whatever choices they make. For instance, I hadn't really intended to do the Infinite Staircase adventure, but Floki decided that the wanted to try and find some adventuring work in Thentia, so I threw a quick quest idea together for him. I knew his player was a planscape fan and a warhammer fan, so I decided to kind of combine the two ideas.
Session #23 (Shadowdale and Voonlar)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 8, Druid 1)
Jove (human, wizard 9)
Alistair (human, fighter 9)
Floki (human, warlock 4/bard 5)
Sariel (fallen aasimar, oath of vengeance paladin 9)
After the heroes rest for a few days in Thentia, Malik finally convinces them to help him try to save the halflings from his village that were enslaved by the Iron Ring or if that isn’t possible- avenge them. Malik’s problem isn’t really that big of concern for the group, but since Malik was from the same village where Delilah was from (she was left as a baby on the doorstep of a halfling burrow, and the halflings adopted her as their own), and they wish to do right by Delilah, they agree.
Jove, who’s magic has grown in power, opens a teleportation circle to the tower of his former master, a half elf mage named Finn Greencloak, who dwells near the Daleland town of Essembra. From Essembra they make a several day long overland journey through Mistledale and the great elven wood to the village of Shadowdale. Sadly, over the course of the journey, Malik’s health takes a turn for the worse. The halfling sorcerer had been quite old, and the journey to the Moonsea and adventure on the Infinite Stairs had been highly taxing. As the heroes follow the river Ashaba towards Shadowdale, his little heart gives out and the halfling passes on, leaving the rest of the party to finish the quest without him. The heroes give him a burial by the river and continue on to Shadowdale.
Eventually, they arrive in the village of Shadowdale- home of the famous wizard Elminster. Here they spend the night at the famous Old Skull Inn where Floki there is much feasting and drinking. An attractive female halfling musician named Olive Ruskettle is performing that evening, and Floki engages her in a contest of bardic music that draws a large crowd to the inn. Floki wakes up the following morning with the halfing bard sharing his bed, Novo in his new guise as a dwarf (with the help of a recently acquired belt of dwarvenkind) passed out on the floor, and very fuzzy memories regarding the details of the night before.
That morning, while the heroes take their breakfast in the common room, they chat with the inn keeper and learn that the Iron Ring slavers have been raiding homesteads in the northern part of the dale for a couple of months now. The slavers are known to be operating out a town to the north of the dale called Voonlar, a town that has historically been a rival and enemy of the people of Shadowdale. It is also known that the slavers are led by a mercenary warrior named Delgar the Blade. The heroes have already had dealings with Delgar from back in Phlan, and their former gnome companion Pinky had been wanting vengeance against him for killing her sister. In addition, they learn that a band of dalesmen calling themselves Company of the Falcon have taken up arms against the Iron Ring and have been waging a guerrilla style war against them from the forest. In fact, the innkeeper tells them that she heard that a member of the Company of the Falcon arrived in town the previous evening to report to Lady Ulphor, the dale’s ruler. The heroes ask where they can find this man and they are directed to one of the town’s most famous landmarks- the Twisted Tower.
As they approach the Twisted Tower, they see a young man mounting a horse in front of the castle preparing to ride off. They intercept him, and after explaining who they are and dropping Delilah’s name, which the man recognizes, they gain his trust enough for him to talk to them. He introduces himself as Levin, and it seems he is a member of the Company of the Falcon. He explains that he has come to Shadowdale to report to Lady Ulphor that their secret camp had been discovered and attacked by the Iron Ring. A man named Alagar Falconhand is their leader, and Levin believes he was captured along with his son Brandis, who also happens to be the son of Lady Ulphor (the relationship between Lady Ulphor and Alagar is “complicated”). He also tells them that a gnome priestess of Mystra named Pinky had recently joined up with Company of the Falcon, and he believes that she too was taken. This is shocking news to most of the party, as Pinky is the former companion of Jove, Novo and Alistair. They knew she had gone south to report on events in the Moonsea to Harper contacts, but they haven’t heard from her in several ten days. Only about a dozen members of the Company survived the raid, fleeing into the woods before they were cut down or captured. The heroes decide that they would like to meet what is left of the Company of the Falcon, as they may be useful allies. Levin agrees to take the heroes to them.
Thus, the adventurers travel north through the farmlands of the dale and again into the great elven wood. About three days after leaving Shadowdale village, they arrive at the entrance to stream side cave deep in the forest. Here they find the new camp of what remains of the Company of the Falcon. Levin introduces them to their current leader, a young dale’s man named Corrian. They forge an alliance with Corrian, and he agrees to give them the support of the Company of the Falcon in their efforts to free captives and bring Delgar the Blade to justice.
The heroes decide they will go to Voonlar where they will pose as sell swords. They will try to learn more of their enemy and the location of any prisoners. From there they will come up with a plan to take out Delgar and rescue any slaves they can. The Company of the Falcon will camp in the woods near Voonlar, and with the aid of Alagar Falconhand’s falcon animal companion (Alagar is the leader of the Company of the Falcon, and he is currently thought to be a prisoner of Delgar the Blade), they will send messages back and forth.
A couple of days later, the adventurers arrive at the gates of Voonlar. Voonlar is reasonably well fortified. The town itself is surrounded by a sturdy wood palisade wall. A steep hill dominates the southeastern quarter of the town and crouched on the hill top is a squat stone fortress known as Locktower Keep. Sharing the hill top with the castle is a temple of Bane. Their story of being sellswords gets them past the gates, and they find their way to the town’s most prominent inn- the Manticore’s Tail.
Floki puts his bardic skills to good use and draws a large crowd to the inn to see him perform. Among the audience Jove, Alistair and Novo recognize some of Delgar’s most loyal mercenaries, men they had met previously in Phlan, including a belligerent northman named Olstag. The next day, as they take their breakfast, they are inquiring with the inn keeper how best to get mercenary work with Delgar, when Olstag enters the tavern and seeks them out. He was impressed by Floki’s talents as a skald, for it had been a long time since he had seen a skilled skald perform. He and Floki converse, and Floki learns that Olstag is also from the distant island Rauthym. Olstag has heard of Floki’s deceased older sister, who was great warrior and raider, and the two of them speak for some time. Floki explains that he and his companions wish to work as sell swords for Delgar the Blade, and they ask if he will help them get an audience with the mercenary. Olstag tells them that he thinks that Delgar would enjoy being entertained by Floki in his hall, and they should come to Locktower Keep that evening.
So that evening heroes head for Locktower keep. In the great hall, they meet Delgar the Blade. He invites Floki to perform, and there is much drinking and feasting. During the feasting Olstag takes an interest in Sariel. The fallen aasimar has no interest in the brute and rebuffs his advances. However, by the end of the night, he passes out on top of the plate armoured woman. By this time Delgar has retired to his quarters, and the hall is filled mainly with those of his men that have passed out drunk. Sariel hefts the unconscious Olstag over her shoulder and carries him up a spiral staircase to the next floor. Here she considers doing some investigating, but she sees a couple of guards stationed here, so she instead dumps Olstag in a window alcove and returns to the hall.
The next day Delgar agrees to sign the heroes on as mercenaries in his service. He orders them to return to the Manticore’s Tail and says that he will send word for them as soon as he is ready to put them to work. They spend a couple of days hanging about town, but soon enough they are given notice that Delgar wishes them to join his forces on a slave raid. That evening they make contact with the falcon and send a message to the Company of the Falcon that they have will be accompanying Delgar’s forces on a slave raid, and that the Company of the Falcon should prepare an ambush. The following morning, they gather in the bailey of Locktower Keep. Here they are introduced to a man named Barik who is Delgar’s most trusted soldier. Jove, Alistair and Novo recall having met Barik back in Phlan. Fortunately, their disguises hold up just fine, and he doesn’t recognize any of them. Barik is leading the raid with Olstag. He inspects each of the new warriors. It is is easy enough to see how the likes of Floki, Sariel and Alistair fit the description of mercenaries. Novo has assumed the form of a human that he calls Travis the Slaver, so he too makes a passable warrior, though the magic staff he carries and the lack of armour he wears makes him stand out as being different than a typical mercenary. Jove is the one that seems most out of place among all the warriors, and Barik asks what skills he offers. In response, Jove gives a minor demonstration of his magical prowess by sending a bolt of fire up into the air, revealing that he is a mage.
Under Barik’s command, the adventurers, along with Olstag and twenty Iron Ring soldiers, ride out from Voonlar on a slave raid. The heroes stick near the rear of slavers forces. They ride through the farmland outside Voonlar. Soon they enter the elven wood. At this point the slavers become more alert and ready for danger. They haven’t gotten far when suddenly, arrows start to fly from the forest, taking down slavers, as the ambush begins. Before the slavers can do much to defend themselves, the heroes turn on them as well. Jove brings to bear a powerful new spell that he has recently learned- cone of cold. The cone of cold freezes nearly the entirety of the iron ring slavers and their mounts, leaving them standing in the road as frozen statues. After that it is easy enough to finish off the few that remain, including Barik and Olstag.
After the slaughter, the heroes decide that it will look very suspicious if only they were to return alive from their first mission. Novo decides that he will take on the guise of Olstag, and he dons the warrior’s arms and armour, hiding his own gear away in the saddle bags of his horse. The heroes leave the Company of the Falcon and ride back to Voonlar. Back in Voonlar, they explain to Delgar that they were ambushed in the woods just outside of town, and that a powerful mage destroyed most of the raiders with ice magic. They only barely escaped with their lives. Delgar is clearly angered and upset by the death of his Barik, his closest companion. He is also suspicious of the adventurers’ story. It seems rather odd that on their very first mission they were ambushed and that the heroes were nearly the only survivors. Fortunately, “Olstag” survived. Delgar speaks privately with “Olstag", and Novo in the guise of the barbarian confirms the adventurers story. For the moment, this appeases Delgar. Still Delgar wants blood. He wants to finish off what remains of the Company of the Falcon. He mobilizes his men, and the session ends with heroes getting ready to go with Delgar to hunt down the remnants of the Company of the Falcon. They hope to try the same trick of ambush and betrayal again, but this time the plan is to take down Delgar.
So, I had helped build the quest hook for this next part of the campaign with Malik's player as part of his character's backstory. In character, he worked real hard to convince the rest of the PCs to get on board with helping him on the quest, but now that they are starting, Malik's player had to leave the campaign due to a change in his schedule, which has caused him to be unable to attend the sessions anymore. Consequently, I ended up having to write Malik out of the adventure, just as the party is starting out on his quest. For this reason, I decided I needed to bring back Pinky as an NPC that I could use as a hook for the characters to keep them on the quest. The end goal for me here is to bring them into a final conflict with the Iron Ring organization.
Ideally, I had hoped they would first follow a hook around a map they recovered back in Melvaunt that would take them to the ruins of Hulburg. Here they would confront the white dragon that Floki has been hunting (as part of his backstory) and they would have a chance to get their hands on a staff of power. Then they would go deal with the Iron Ring as a possible finale to the campaign. However, since they decided to follow Malik's quest first, it looks like the order will be reversed. Oh well.
I'm trying out a new format with the journals, to make them a little faster to right, but hopefully keep them interesting.
Session #24 (Death of Delgar the Blade)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 8, Druid 1)
Jove (human, wizard 9)
Alistair (human, fighter 9)
Floki (human, warlock 4/bard 5)
Sariel (fallen aasimar, oath of vengeance paladin 9)
Summary: The characters escorted Delgar the blade, along with his most loyal mercenaries, a wizard named Rost, and some 50 Iron Ring guards to the site of the ambush where Jove froze the previous slaver raiding party with a cone of cold. Here, in the forest, just south of Voonlar, the Company of the Falcon once again staged an ambush, attacking the Iron Ring from the woods with bows while the heroes were “investigating” the scene of the previous attack. The heroes turned on the Iron Ring and helped the Company of the Falcon slaughter Delgar the Blade and his men.
Important Details:
• Delgar the Blade brought the imprisoned leader of the Company of the Falcons (Alagar Falconhand) with him as a hostage. Jove rescued him during the battle by using a dimension door spell to teleport him to safety. Alagar’s thumbs had been cut off by Delgar.
Delgar mentioned to Alagar that Pinky and his son Brandis had been sent on to Zhentil Keep for the Lord of Shackles to deal with.
• Rost the wizard, claimed to serve another wizard named Elkennor, who is known to have close ties to the Lord of Shackles. Rost escaped the ambush.
• Delgar the Blade was killed. Floki claimed his frost brand sword, Alistair claimed his gauntlets of ogre power, and the party gained a suite of +2 chainmail, as well as the Pinky’s dagger- Dancing Flame.
Memorable Moments:
• Jove first rescued Alagar with a dimension door spell. Jove returned to the battle and used cone of cold to obliterate a large chunk of Iron Ring guards. He also made effective use of lightning bolt and melf’s minute meteors to get rid of more Iron Ring guards. Jove suffered a critical hit from an “Iron fist ki strike” by one of the two Iron Mask monks. The blow destroyed his arcane ward and caused him substantial damage
• Floki got rid of Rosa the wizard right at the start of the fight with a suggestion spell. He then spent the remainder of the battle facing Delgar the Blade. His liberal use of the shield spell helped save him from being cut down by Delgar. He also used a heat metal spell effectively to heat up Delgar’s frost brand, making it painful for him to wield and reducing Dlegar’s ability to fight (Delgar was stuck fighting with disadvantage for much of the combat). This also saved him from several potential hits, and eventually Delgar dropped the blade and started fighting with Dancing Flame. Towards the end of the fight Floki was forced to put up darkness spell to save himself.
• Alistair spent much of the fight in the woods sniping with his bow. One of Delgar’s mercenaries found him and stabbed him good a few times with his rapier. Alistair eventually took him down with point blank shots from his crossbow. After dealing with this foe, he turned his attention on Delgar and did significant damage to the warrior.
• Novo was disguised as a mercenary named Olstag, and he had to run into the forest to remove his armour before joining the battle. He then put his monk skillz to good use, taking down wounded Iron Mask monks, a number of Iron Ring guards, and finally helping to defeat Delgar. Unfortunately, he suffered his own share of wounds, and he was knocked unconscious towards the end of the fight.
• Sariel was caught in the middle of the ambush with Floki, surrounded by enemies. Her plate mail armour came in handy, saving her from a number of injuries. She spent much of the fight battling Delgar’s mercenaries and cutting down guards. She eventually joined Floki who, by this time, was badly wounded and in need of healing. Sariel used her full lay on hands allotment for the day on him, keeping him alive. Then she and Floki together took on Delgar.
Session #25 (Zhentil Keep)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 9, Druid 1)
Jove (human, wizard 10)
Alistair (human, fighter 10)
Floki (human, warlock 4/bard 6)
Sariel (fallen aasimar, oath of vengeance paladin 10)
Summary: The characters arrive in Zhentil Keep with the intention of rescuing Pinky from the Lord of Shackles and hopefully killing the Lord of Shackles in the process. They enter the city under the pretence that Alistair is a noble looking to buy slaves and that the rest of the party are his entourage. In Zhentil Keep, they meet an urchin named Anlow, who shows them around. They find lodgings at the city’s finest inn, the Silver Trumpet.
The following day they head to the slave market. Here they try to find out if Pinky is being held in the massive slave warehouse nearby, and if they can perhaps purchase her. When Alistair indicates that he’s interested in buying a gnome slave, the auctioneer claims to have only a single gnome, and brings out an older male gnome- definitely not Pinky. They eventually goad him into revealing that he did recently have a young gnome woman at the warehouse, but the Lord of Shackles took her for himself. Alistair inquires about getting an audience with the Lord of Shackles, and the man tells him that The Lord of Shackles is also the High Imperceptor of Bane, and he can often be found at the Temple of Bane. They decide to purchase the gnome anyhow, and they discover his name is Gamble. They take him back to the Silver Trumpet and leave him in their chambers.
They then pay a visit to the Temple of Bane. The temple is located in the large ruined area of the city, and the Lord of Shackles is in the process restoring the temple to its former glory. The dome is the main section of the temple that still needs repair, and workers are busy at this task. Alistair makes a donation the temple, and convinces the acolytes to let him and his companions in to tour the place. There is one wing of the temple that they can’t access, which catches their interest. Unfortunately they see no sign of the Lord of Shackles.
After their visit to the temple, they decide to hide among some of the ruins along the road back from the temple to the intact portion of the city. Here they wait, hoping to ambush some acolytes returning to the city with the intent of interrogating them for more information and perhaps acquiring their vestments to use as disguises. Eventually such a party passes them, but it also consists of several labourers and Iron Ring guards. The heroes are worried they would have to kill the labourers in the process of taking down the acolytes, so they decide to abort the ambush.
After dark they return to the temple, approach from ruins of the northern hillside. Novo does some stealthy scouting, climbing up the temple to its dome and peering down through the hole, but he doesn’t see or hear any sign of activity in the temple after dark. All is quiet. He reports back to the rest of the group, and Jove decides that he will try to dimension door himself and Floki into the one wing of the temple they were unable to visit during their earlier tour. Jove turns himself and Floki invisible as soon as they appear, and they discover a large room with a wide stair descending downward in the middle of it. Several Iron Mask monks meditate in the room. The monks hear them, but presumably can’t see them. Jove decides to cast another dimension door and teleport the pair back to the rest of the group. They return to the city proper and rest the night at the inn.
The following day they gather up their gear and horses. They bring Gamble the gnome with them and exit through the northwest gate into the ruined portion of the city. They make their way towards the old gate, but after passing the temple hill they duck off the road into the ruins. They find the remains of a building to set up a camp. They explain to Gamble the truth who they are, and Jove uses a ritual to protect the gnome and their horses with a Leomund’s hut. They then head back to the temple hill to do a little more recon.
The session ends with them spotting a pair of priests come around behind the temple with a stone mason. The group is looking at some architectural plans and pointing up towards the dome to examine its progress. The heroes need to decide if they want to try to grab one of the priests. The main complication is that Floki noticed 8 or so gargoyle statues in alcoves above the north doors. They can’t tell if they are just statues or real gargoyles, but they are worried that if they make a move the gargoyles will animate and attack.
Important Details:
• The Lord of Shackles is also the High Imperceptor of Bane
• The heroes believe Pinky is the prisoner of the Lord of Shackles, but they don’t know exactly where he is keeping her.
• The Temple of Bane is being rebuilt in the ruined section of the city. It is almost finished, just the dome needs to be completed.
• The Lord of Shackles is not pleased with the speed of progress being made on the completion of the temple.
• The is massive warehouse near the docks that is protected by the Iron Ring. This is the main storage area for slaves before they are shipped to markets abroad.
• It doesn’t seem like Pinky is being held in this warehouse.
• The slaving operations will, for the most part, be shutting down for the winter in the near future.
Memorable Moments:
• Floki punching a nobleman in the face at the slave auction and nearly starting a fight in the middle of the city
Session #26 (The Lord of Shackles)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 9/Druid 1)
Jove (human, wizard 10)
Alistair (human, fighter 10)
Floki (human, warlock 4/bard 6)
Sariel (fallen aasimar, oath of vengeance paladin 10)
Summary: The heroes find themselves hiding among the rubble of some ruined buildings behind the Temple of Bane. They decide to jump a pair of priests of Bane who are standing near the temple with a stone mason looking at some architectural drawings and staring up at the damaged dome of the temple. The plan is to interrogate them for information about the lower level of the temple. Floki casts a hypnotic pattern that entrances them, allowing him and Novo to successfully get the drop on them. Floki kills the lowest ranking priest and the mason with his frost brand. They take the final priest captive and drag him and the two bodies back to the cover of the ruins. Here they interrogate the priest. His name is brother Tarmond, and they learn from him that the Lord of Shackles maintains a dungeon somewhere past the crypts of the temple’s under level. He claims only the Lord of Shackles has access to that part of the dungeon, and the priests rarely enter the crypts. Upon completing the interrogation, Floki kills the final priest.
The party then forms a plan to get down to the crypts. Novo, uses his changeling powers to assume the guise of brother Tarmond (priest of Bane), and he uses his disguise kit to help Alistair take on the appearance of the acolyte that was with him. Jove then casts a potent invisibility spell. He makes himself, Floki and Sariel invisible. Novo uses pass without trace to make them more quiet. Then the heroes enter the temple, heading for the east wing where they hope to bluff their way past the Iron Mask guards and gain access to the stair that will take them to the under levels. Unfortunately, as soon as they enter the main sanctuary, they run into the Lord Shackles himself. The tiefling high priest of Bane is with several lesser priests, and they are looking up at the hole in the dome, clearly analyzing the progress of the repairs. Novo and Alistair, who are in disguise try to make their way through the sanctuary to the doors to the east wing where the stair into the dungeons is located, but the Lord Shackles spots them and calls Novo (Brother Tarmond) over. Novo obeys, and he and Alistair approach the Lord of Shackles. They are asked where the mason and his plans are, as they are needed immediately. Novo explains that there is a problem with a buckle on his armour and he needs to go repair it. This excuse doesn’t fly with the Lord of Shackles, and the tiefling demands that he go get the mason (who is dead thanks to Floki).
Jove sees that Novo’s conversation with the Lord of Shackles isn’t going so well, so he decides to make a bold move. He is standing silently beside Novo, invisible. The Lord of Shackles, and the priests are all bunched together, so he casts cone of cold. The freezing blast doesn’t have a huge effect on the Lord of Shackles, but it nearly freezes all of the lesser priests to death. Upon casting the spell, he turns visible, and as one might expect, a huge battle erupts. The heroes take out the half frozen priests quickly, though the Lord Shackles has another potent priest with him, and the pair are formidable. The Lord Shackles retaliates against Jove with a harm spell that causes the wizard serious wounds. He then tries to separate the party with a blade barrier, while his second in command blasts them with a flame strike. To make matters worse, eight gargoyles swoop down from their perches high above to defend the temple. The heroes focus their attacks on the Lord of Shackles, and they kill him early in the battle. His second in command and the gargoyles continue to defend the temple, despite the death of their master. As the battle rages, the doors to the east wing open, and the six iron mask monks move to enter the sanctuary, but while they are still clustered in the hall, Jove hits them all with his second cone of cold spell. It doesn’t kill any of them, but it seriously weakens them, making it possible for the heroes to finish them off before the monks can take down any of the wounded heroes. The temple’s defenders are fanatical and fight to the death, but finally the battle comes to an end, and the heroes are victorious.
The session ends with the heroes looting the body of the Lord Shackles and deciding on their next move.
Memorable Moments
Jove deciding to make the big opening move to attack the Lord of Shackles and his priests with cone of cold
Sariel doing huge damage to the Lord of Shackles with her blazing great sword (lots of spell slots smiting expended)
Alistair getting swarmed by gargoyles and Sariel having to rush across the battlefield to save him
Novo shadow jumping around the sanctuary, coming up behind foes and smacking them with his staff of healing.
Floki casting a spirit guardians spell that summons spiritual warriors around him that help him against the gargoyles and wounded Iron Mask monks.
Important Details:
The heroes successfully kill the Lord of Shackles, but all of them have taken significant wounds and are low on resources. Among the gear they take from him is a ring of keys that they suspect will give them access to nearly any door in the temple. They also gain an enchanted rapier, ring of protection, magic studded leather of cold resistance, a highly valuable holy symbol of Bane, and expensive spell components.
Session #27 (Beneath the Temple of Bane)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 9/Druid 1)
Jove (human, wizard 10)
Alistair (human, fighter 10)
Floki (human, warlock 4/bard 6)
Sariel (fallen aasimar, oath of vengeance paladin 10)
Summary: After taking a short rest in the sanctuary of the Temple of Bane, the heroes venture down a set of stairs into the under level of the temple in hopes of finding and rescuing their former companion Pinky.
The wide, stone stairs to lead them to a large landing with two flights of stairs continuing down to the floor of a cavernous chamber. When Floki steps onto the landing, he triggers a glyph of warding that blasts the party with lightning. This attracts the attention of a pair of flesh golem guardians and a pair of hell hounds. In addition, there is a balcony on the far side of the room. Hiding in the shadows, on the balcony, are three barbed devils that repeatedly conjure balls of fire into their hands which they hurl at the heroes. Despite being low on spells, the adventurers decide to fight their way through the guardians. It proves to be a tough battle, and although they destroy the golems and send the hell hounds and devils back to the lower planes, they are nearly completely out of spells and are pretty battered and fatigued by the end of the fight.
There is no time for another rest, so they press on. They head to the right, following directions given to them by a priest they had interrogated (see session 26). They hope to find the catacombs, which are said to lead to the dungeon where Pinky is held. The hall they follow doesn’t immediately take them to any catacombs. Instead, they round a bend and spot a priest of Bane making his way down the hall, towards them. He is accompanied by another hell hound. The adventures easily destroy the hell hound, though not before it breaths a gout of fire at them, which Floki mostly blocks with his shield. Novo shadow jumps behind the priest and smacks him on the back of the head with his staff, knocking him out. They drag his unconscious body into a store room filled with coal. Here they revive him and do an interrogation. He gives them directions to a stair that he claims will lead them to the crypts and the dungeon. They bind him and leave him in the coal room. Then they follow his directions, making their way through the dark halls of the stairs. The stairs are guarded by a pair of hellhounds, but the heroes deal with the canine fiends with ease.
They cautiously descend the stairs. The stairs open into a massive, chamber with a stone balcony wrapping around it and two rows of thick, stone columns that support a the high, vaulted ceiling above, creating an aisle up the middle of the room. Large, cauldron like braziers carved from black stone sit on the floor near the columns, blazing with flame and providing illumination to the chamber. The room is far from empty. Lining the balcony, are several animated skeletons carrying bows and wearing chain armour. A couple of gargoyles can also be spotted perched on the balcony on the opposite side of the room. Of much greater concern, a horrible aberration hovers at the back of the room above the balcony. Based on its distinctive appearance, the heroes suspect it is a beholder, and they recall from their knowledge of the church of Bane, that the faith has long had a strange relationship with these horrors, often allying with them and using them as advisors and oracles. They go still, remaining on the stair. Floki and Novo tap the others on the shoulders and motion for them to quietly go back up the stair. Thus, they decide to go no further. They creep back upstairs, leaving the room. They decide to leave the temple and return to the ruins of the old city where they plan to hide and take an extended rest. Unfortunately, when they are about to enter the temple sanctuary and head for the exit, they discover the sanctuary is swarming with priests and Iron Ring guards that have discovered the carnage left behind by the heroes. Their exit is blocked, and they have limited options. The session ends here.
Memorable Moments:
• Novo crossing the battle field and shadow jumping up onto the balcony to cast silence among the devils, hoping to prevent them from being able to use their fire magic. He soon discovers they aren’t casting spells and can conjuring flame without needing words. The devils then swarm him, and he has to flee.
• Flesh Golems hammering the crap out of Floki and him needing to make use of a potion of supreme healing taken from the Lord of Shackles.
This journal is all caught up now. The characters are in a bit of pickle since they have basically no resources left and are low on hp. Next session should be interesting.
Sessions #28 and 29 (Beneath the Temple of Bane, Rescuing Pinky)
Characters:
Novo/Old Wan/Anna (changeling, Monk 9/Druid 1)
Jove (human, wizard 10)
Alistair (human, fighter 10)
Floki (human, warlock 4/bard 6)
Sariel (fallen aasimar, oath of vengeance paladin 10)
Summary: With their exit from the temple of Bane blocked, the heroes bar the door that accesses the sanctuary. Their priests and monks of Bane start trying to break it down, intent on killing the infidels that dared to assault their temple and slay the Grand Imperceptor. The heroes are too badly wounded and depleted of magic to risk entering another fight, so Jove decides to trick them into thinking that they have fled with magic. He sketches an almost accurate teleportation circle on the floor with chalk from his component pouch. While he does so, the other heroes head back downstairs to the under level of the temple. Just as the doors break open, Jove dimension doors downstairs, joining his companions and making it appear as though he just teleported away via the teleportation circle.
The heroes the hide behind some large containers in the back of the coal storage room. Floki executes the priest of Bane they had left tied up in the room (last session), and Novo takes on his guise. They manage to take an extended rest, though a search party does look into the room. When they do, they see Novo (disguised as a priest of Bane) pretending to fetch coal. The rest of the party is well enough hidden that they aren’t noticed. The priest leading the guards asks him if he’s seen intruders, and Novo explains that he hasn’t. The priest, not realizing the man he is talking to is a changeling, then orders him to come with them, and he shows Novo that the the flesh golem guardians have been destroyed, and that the devil and hell hound guardians have all vanished. Clearly the intruders attempted to come down below. Novo suggests that perhaps guardians harmed them enough that they decided not to go any further and they went back upstairs without further exploring the dungeon level. The priest agrees that might be possible. He also tells Novo of the recent slaughter of the Lord Shackles in the sanctuary. Novo joins the patrol on a tour of the under level as they do a search to ensure that the intruders truly did leave using a teleportation circle spell. This allows Novo to get a good sense of the layout of the under level, which includes learning locations of the treasury, the armoury, and a room that contains a permanent teleportation circle. In order to maintain his disguise, he spends the night in the barracks chamber with the priests. Early the next morning, he sneaks away and rejoins companions in the coal storage room.
With Jove having recouped his spells, the party uses invisibility magic to move through the under level in secret. The priests have mainly gone off to an emergency meeting above, and only a few acolytes remain below, saying prayers for the the dead priests and monks, who have all been laid out on the floor in the entry chamber. With the aid of the keys they acquired from the Lord of Shackles, they loot the treasury, and then visit the room with the teleportation circle. Jove takes time to copy it into his spell book in case they ever want to make use of it.
Next, they pay a visit to the crypts, which they have finally located- thanks to Novo’s tour. Here they find a stairs that Novo believes will take them to the dungeons where Pinky is held. The priests hadn’t taken him down the stairs and were terrified to go below- they mentioned devils. However, access to the stairs proves to be guarded by one of Alistair’s ancestors, a man named Sir Keegan, whom was priest of Tyr that was corrupted and transformed long ago into a death knight by the clergy of Bane. They are forced to fight Sir Keegan, and he proves a deadly foe, especially with the aid of his summoned undead minions (wights), which emerge from various sarcophagi. It takes a great deal of effort to best the death knight, but the heroes prevail. They destroy the undead. Alistair claims the knight’s enchanted great sword and short sword (they are family heirlooms), and he offers the warrior’s enchanted adamantine plate armour to Sariel.
They venture down the stairs into the dungeon level. At the bottom of the stairs, they find a short hall that leads to a set of doors, which access a large torture chamber. This room is infested by four bearded devils and two massive bone devils. Pinky is strapped to a torture rack at the far end of the room. The devils are eager for bloodshed, and don’t hesitate to engage the heroes in combat. Sariel and Floki take up position in the entrance while Jove, Alistair and Novo hang back to use ranged attacks. Sariel finds herself facing off against the bearded devils, while Floki has the misfortune of being attacked by a bone devil. The heroes soon learn how dangerous the poison stingers on the ends of the bone devil’s tails are, and Jove realizes that cutting their way through their enemies without at least some of them dying is unlikely. Thus, he teleports to Pinky with a dimension door spell, Novo accompanies him, using his ability to hop from shadow to shadow to make the jaunt. Jove reaches out, grabs Pinky by the wrist and dimension doors her back up to the crypts.
With Pinky in their hands, the rest of heroes start a retreat. By this time, Floki is unconscious, and requires healing before he can flee. Novo shadow jumps to him and pours a potion down his throat, while Sariel covers them and holds off the devils. Then Novo, Alistair, Floki and Sariel withdraw up the stairs. Sariel is the slowest, due to her plate male, and she is the one forced to hold the devils at bay as she retreats, though truthfully the vengeful aasimar paladin probably wouldn’t have it any other way. This buys the rest of the party time to get to Jove, but in the process, Sariel sustains terrible wounds from the devils. As she fights her way up the stairs and finally reaches the top, the fiends cut her down, leaving her to bleed out, as they surge past her to hunt down the remaining heroes. The combat continues in the crypt, as Jove starts blasting them with the few spells he has left (lightning bolts and some magic missiles). Floki has had time to consume some of the healing potions they had previously looted from the temple, and he is reinvigorated enough to hold the devils at bay, while Alistair hammers at them with bolts from his enchanted crossbow. Now that Pinky is free, she uses a few of the prayers she has left, to heal herself and hurl magic missile spells into the fray.
Novo takes advantage of the distracted devils to shadow jump behind them and then race over to Sariel. He finds that she still lives, and he feeds her a potent healing potion, which revives her. She heals herself some more with the last of her divine magic. She and Novo then rejoin the fight, and together the heroes somehow manage to find the strength to send all the devils screaming back to the Nine Hells with no losses of their own. However, it was by no means an easy battle, and the heroes are all spent on resources and suffering extensive wounds by the time the devils have been defeated.
After the fight, Pinky indicates that Brandis, the son of the Lady of Shadowdale, is being held in one of the dungeon cells. They return to the dungeon, unlock the cell and rescue Brandis. Jove then pulls out a scroll with a teleportation circle spell that he acquired from a wyvern’s nest in a previous adventure. He teleports the heroes safely back to his tower in Thentia where they can take time to recover from their harrowing expedition.
Over the next several months the heroes take some extended and much needed downtime. Jove focuses on his studies, and he works with Novo to craft a magic cloak that can take on the appearance of any outfit he needs it to and cannot easily be detected as magical. Novo also continues to train students in his secret dojo. Floki spends his days drinking, feasting and performing in the taverns of the city, doing what he can to spread word of the deeds of himself and his companions- particularly himself. Alistair takes an extended journey back to Cormyr, so that he can return the body of his dead brother back to his parents (he’s been paying to have gentle repose cast on the corpse for many ten days now). Pinky and Brandis accompany him. Alistair escorts the pair to Shadowdale, and then continues onto Cormyr in the company of a small merchant caravan. Sariel, well we aren’t really sure what Sariel gets up to during the long winter.
With the coming of spring and the first merchant ships willing to brave the icy waters of the Moonsea, Alistair returns to rejoin his companions. By this time, Floki is going stir crazy and restless. He is reminded of his days as a youth in Rauthym and the long winters that he endured between raiding seasons. The heroes prepare themselves for adventure once more, and they being preparations for an expedition to the ruined city of Hulburg to the east. Here Floki hopes to avenge his sister’s death by slaying the dragon Rhime, whom he has been tracking for what feels like years. Here, Jove has heard of a dead mage named Londar Hulmaster, who, according to notes on a map he acquired in Melvaunt, had a secret lair beneath the family’s crypts that houses much of his accumulated arcane research and treasures, including a staff of power.
I'm going to take a little break from this campaign to run a bit of Call of Cthulhu for my group, and then come back to this to run what I think will be the final adventure of the campaign for the time being. However, that won't start for a few weeks.