It didn't take long to deal with the lone hobgoblin but things got a little more serious when the big wyvern attacked the cleric. At least for a little while. The still enlarged and hasted fighter stepped up and hammered the wyvern to death.
The rogue then unlocked the gate across the cave mouth and the others moved in, only to be breathed on by two gorgons hidden in the darkness at the back of the large cave.
Both cleric and fighter passed but the wizard, flying, failed both saving throws and crashed to the ground as a statue.
The rogue (just outside the blast) snuck in and applied stone salve, quickly restoring the wizard (who made her save to recover) and the fighter closed on one of the gorgons before they could breathe again. They tried to trample the fighter, but one got stopped in its tracks. The other rolled through.
The beasts finally dropped just as Krahdahk: a hobgoblin battle priest, and Repral: a hobgoblin hunter with her companion snake Tikik (now enlarged to huge size) entered the room, arguing with each other as they turned to attack.
The wizard open a pit beneath them as the snake moved forward, but it only caught Krahdahk, who quaffed a potion of fly and escaped the next round.
Tikik attacked the fighter as the rogue moved past it, unnoticed by the snake (she had quaffed a potion of Hide from Animals), and Krahdahk summoned a flame strike, which Tikik and the rogue both dodged but which caught the fighter.
Thankfully his necklace of fireballs made its save and didn't go off. At the same time Repral had cast Chill Metal on him, showing the lack of coordination between the Ironfang leaders.
The rogue managed to kill Tikik with a well-placed sneak attack and the fighter closed in on Repral who had just been adversely affected by the wizard's summoned Lantern Archon's Aura of Menace.
Repral finally went down and the rogue vanished and then used her wand of snowball to catch Krahdahk unaware, dropping the flying warpriest with her attack, but not before Krahdahk had one last attack, successfully casting blindness on the cleric.
After the battle the party found and released the captives and also freed the animals that had been penned outside.
A chamber with a well was found through some narrow cracks, through which only the rogue and a reduced wizard could pass, and at the bottom of the well, with the help of a summoned water elemental, the rogue brought up the bones of a harpy plus treasure.
Some scrolls were found in the overseers chamber and some ankheg scales in a side burrow.
The rest of the campsite was looted and then everyone made their way back to Longshadow.
Been a while!
As my PCs rolled into town, they immediately wanted to see Mayor Thom. Due my changing some of the layouts of the maps, they already had refugees with them. As they went to the city hall, they saw Greygallow (sic-forgot his name) last leaving the city building to go to the inn Thom was at. The fighter, with soldier history and Intimidate build, got a crit on his intimidate, leaving Gregallow shaken, and they all traveled to the inn. Once here, the verbal ‘duel’ began. The druid used a spell that actually gave spotlight to a character, and the Oracle with stats in Perform began to tell their story. Another PC, with Local knowledge, and being from Ecru, and along with all the edges they had, and bad rolls by the dopplegangers, utterly ruled the table. By the end of the duel, Mayor Thom was genuinely pissed at his advisors, and sent them off to get their affairs in order and contact their agents to find the breakdown in communications.
Now, Mayor Thom was torn up about this; the councillors have been trusted people for years, but admits to feeling frustrated with them in the last 3 weeks. Thom said ‘he would rather trust in carelessness on their parts than think on treachery’ at this point.
Thom thought the night through, brought the PCs into a private meeting the next day. Seeing as how the PC group has fought and done so much for others, and fearing who he could trust in town, asked if the PCs would once again risk their all and more for Longsaddle. So began the mini-game of Longsaddle Defense points. The group had 2 with Local Knowledge, one with Soldier and Intimidate skills, another with Cooking Profession actually!, another Dwarf with engineering, and others with Healing as well. The druid of the group my group level is a bit higher than the book’s recommendation) actually caused some cursed terrain by the river and siege engines, effectively blocking them for miles, and I ruled that encounter to have ended! Great extra thinking.
That first night, sabotage! Food and internal planning were wrecked and confusion was laid in. The PCs had agreed, or forced the issue for daily meetings with Thom and his 3 councilors. The councilors were greatly apologetic on Day 2’s morning, and reported that yes, suspicious activity was noted, but nothing that their ‘agents’ found to be alarming, so it was not reported ‘Ah, sir, Mayor Thom, we are most apologetic for this oversight! We, ah, are doubling our efforts right now to ascertain the truth, the validity, of what was brought before you!’
Pissed about the sabotage, the dwarf rogue, who was in charge of city planning, decided to stake out what was going on. When he saw himself come back with some of his laborers, well, he didn’t hesitate to shoot the copy of himself in the back from the shadows, actually critting and laying his precision damage too! His copy fled, and the dwarf made sure his planning stayed on task.
The next morning, at the Councilors meeting, the half-elf was ‘far too busy’ to come from her shipyards to the meeting. ‘Trying to design an escape for the city was taking all her time’ as the PCs had the suggestion of having the ill, non-combatments and children flee in that manner. The group, suspecting the councilors the whole time, forced the issue to go to her dockyards office, with everyone in tow, and confront her. She bore some marks of injury, and when pressed, she shouted ‘now!’ and I had the bugbear shadow infiltrator assassins descend on the Mayor and assassinate him there. And they were within 2 hit points of damage of outright killing him! Battle ensued, yaddy yadda, and the PCs won out. Mayor Thom survived (barely!), and the hidden form of the half-elf was found in the secret area, along with the communiques from the Legion about orders and attacks.
The city now fully came around to the idea an attack was imminent. Thom and the Local hero boy from Ecru made the rounds of the city gathering up recruits for training and fighting. The Defense points were made to be maxed out, and the group decided to explore and go out after the various strategic sites that the Legion and Kosseruk were not moving and shifting around.
Heading out the group now went to the Ridgeline Camp, and with Invisibility and silence, took out once sentry tower, and still had silence to sneak towards the camp. The stone oracle took the intimidate fighter under ground to pop up within the campfire space and use a feat to cause everyone to be shaken. Combat was fun, Dargg entered at end of round 2 to try and rally the failing troops to his cause, but a crit fail on his will save for hypnotic pattern ended his usefulness.
Went down to rescue the prisoners, and had discussion with the Carrion brides. Attempting to use their Diplomacy and Intimidate to browbeat the Brides into doing what the group wanted, the roles went against them. Then, the arcanist says ‘well, why don’t you just take this 10 grand in gold we got from the tent.’ Both dwarf characters passed out, stunned at no haggling and just giving all that gold away. But the harpies left and swore to stay out of this annoying fight, as long as their grounds were left alone. No amount of cajoling or pleading would convince the harpies to fight for Longshadow.
Travel went to the Wyvern scout camp. Attacked at nightfall, only did the briefest of recon, as they didn’t bother to check for perimeter guards after seeing a door guard only. Good first attacks, perimeter guards got the alarm out, wyvern scouts took to sky with riders. The druid met 2 of them as a giant celestial eagle. The scouts were strafing enemies with spear attacks (again, I had to boost the enemies up here), but rolls be damned! Not one person poisoned. Sigh. Also, the druid criticaled on his Handle animal to bring a young wyvern along to train. Oh boy!
Next, it was off to the warbeast camp. Planning actually ensued; the druid went mammoth to trample the guard tower after the stone oracle raised a wall to separate Old Mama from her trainers and cut the direct line from the campsite to the battle (and also cut noise going into the caverns too). I had extra minotaurs outside along with the hobgoblin legionnaires. Highlight here was one of the dwarf rogues has the feat to use worked or unworked stone walls as an ‘ally’ to get sneak attack damage on his opponents. He also has the feat to give up his precision damage to make an opponent flat footed to another -like the ranged dwarf rogue who has more precision damage. Good combos for this group.
They finished off this fight, and started to make their way inside. No successful Perception checks this time to notice the two angry gorgons coming from the cave they were resting in! Roll initiative -for next time!!
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After a bit of discussion and the realisation that hustling mounts resulted in lethal rather than non-lethal damage it was decided that the wizard would summon up enough mounts for everyone to ride double, and that the cleric would channel positive energy twice along the way to keep the mounts alive. The group then hustled back to Longshadow, making it after a long day riding.
A belated visit to Rutra's Trading Post resulted in some trades, and then the following day the cleric and rogue with assistance from the fighter did more to build up the defence of Longshadow while the wizard checked to make sure everything else that had been done was still in order.
On the morning of day 9 during the countdown extra work was done preparing the river side of Longshadow before taking a ferry across to the far side.
Scoping out the area where the river crossing was due to take place the next day, many troops were noted crossing the river on barges and 4 large catapults were brought into the makeshift campsite along with about 20 human slaves.
High vigilance by the hobgoblins prevented any activity at night, particularly since they had darkvision while nobody in the party could see in the dark with aid.
The rogue was sure she could sabotage the siege engines but before she could a creature emerged from the Marideth River, pools of polluted water dripping from its body.
As a discussion started between the lead hobgoblin and the nuckelavee; the creature from the river, and the other hobgoblins watching on, the party quickly buffed and the fighter charged in to hit the lead hobgoblin.
A well placed holy smite from the cleric finished off the lead hobgoblin and blinded the troop and nuckelavee who had quickly cast obscuring mist.
The rogue sneak attacked the blinded troop and the wizard erected a wall of fire between the slaves and the combatants.
The fire burned away a large chunk of the mist and the fighter finished off the troop and nuckelavee with well placed hammer strikes.
Gorgon’s only ended up stoning one person for 2 rounds. Gored the heck out of some people for a while...until a minotaur came to help protect the gorgons...follow up by a cleric...followed up by Repral and Tikik after that. A very moving combat. Seeing as how there hasn’t been much magic affects in these battles, a cleric ready to drop some hurt (I have to upgrade encounters due to numbers in my group), a flamestrike was suddenly very lethal and a surprise to such a militant fighting, animal/beast engaging group.
The staff was luckily to be found, as the dwarf rogue actually has some good points spent in Escape Artist, great Perception, then had the druid shape change to go down to retrieve the staff, a fun, hidden goodie of everything here.
Since I skipped Navah’s towers, I decided that Hilmer would be here and chained up, deemed not trainable for the Legion, and to be destroyed. The Druid spoke with Animal, befriended Hilmer, and offered Hilmer a chance to kill more hobs, and Hilmer accepted.
Returning to Longshadow, with another group of refugees willing to be trained and fight for the city’s defense, the group found itself being told and totally conscripted as ‘general’s by Mayor Thom. as the group was mulling things over, they did decide from this point on, to be very wary of attacks any day-they ‘know’ it should happen within 4 days, but with what they’ve affected, it could be sooner.
The Ironfangs lined up in 2 days. The Onyx Tower grew, Kosseruk began her first offensive; time for the group to Rally the Troops!
That was a flat fail by all involved. Defense points lost. But, in Turn 1, due to knocking out the siege engines, I allowed new actions of Rallying. Oh, a nat 20 in Soldiering by the perceived soldier’s General “We didn’t come to drink tea! Let’s kill some a**holes!” and with a heroic stand on the parapets, arrows bouncing off his shield, and his axe smashing down into hobs and orcs trying to use ladders and climbing ropes, the troops responded!
I decided to use and utilize more of the Soldier/Sense Motive and Bluff from Kosseruk to anticipate moves. Seeing this, and having a Push on a dice roll, they knew the Athach was being brought in, covered in a wagon, until getting to the gate. The dwarf who had the Engineering skill for Wall repair Defense sought to fortify the gate quickly, but just used a Wall of Stone. My Soldier leader (since I’ve comboed this with Giantslayer) failed a will save since he was using an artifact hand that caused him to lose control if a giant was sighted, and leapt off the wall to attack. Using spells and materials, the fight grew to be outside the wall, and the athach and support shield guardians (my addition) were defeated with a lot of damage dealt out, but not a lot of resources used up for so early in the night. After all, it’s event turn 2, and there isn’t another until 5, and there are no Carrion Brides, so the ‘Puny’ wyvern (befriended and taken from the wyvern scout camp) and druid will get to rule the skies as there is no resistance to be needed to be ‘met’ this Turn.
The next few events had been mitigated by earlier actions; getting the Carrion Brides to not interfere, the Dream-sisters are already dead. However, Panic in the ranks turned out to be a bit of a hard roll.
I made it that so each PC, who was in 'control' of certain defenses needed to roll to settle through group down. The backbone of the engineers, trying to keep the gates up and also keep the walkways safe, well, the dwarf oracle could never give them an encouraging word. The group, my Stormbreakers, they are called, had to leave for the dockside assault, and never got the morale up for that group.
At the docks, the arcanist, seeing her group and the phalanx just grinding it out, was actually bamfing around and restoring order and directing the chaos to safe avenues, since her job was actually Townsfolk readiness, and got people to the places she knew they would be safe.
The battle did run a bit long, and then with all the Healing, there was no more time to run to the gates and walls, but head to the city center and fight some greater fire elementals! Took a bit to funnel the elementals towards near alleywalls they couldn't get down, and then cones of cold, Wall of ice, and Ice javelins just wrecked the snot out of one while the energy protected warriors went after the other.
And then, dawn came, Kosseruk pulled back, and the arcanist, knowing it was about 1000ft out...with some invisibility....dimension doored to the very limits of range...and with the utter limit of range...dropped a Cloudkill at the base of the bulwarks and Onyx Tower....and dimension doored back (yes, she had working levitate too).
Suffice to say, that attack won't happen twice. Much of the larger creatures/Kosseruk won't outright die from this. However, those wounded tents? Yeah, they just got killed. Kosseruk is going to be hella pissed.
When next we play, there will be a call that all will be murdered now. Kosseruk was offering the town to lay down arms, surrender, still know life and serve. She was even trying to not destroy the city outright until her frustration showed at the end with dropping in the elementals. But killing her wounded, who had pulled back off the battlefield?
She intends to slaughter the city now. That'll be fun to thematically put into effect.
With the slaves liberated and the siege engines destroyed the party made its way back along the river bank to opposite Longshadow, whereupon the wizard flew across and got the ferry to come over to carry everyone else back to town.
The freed slaves were only too happy to join the growing militia and the party then took the ferry back across the Marideth and headed for Ecru.
Use of a spyglass a long way out picked up movement at the open-cut mine and a couple of goblins guarding the main gate, but no other activity.
The wizard cast Invisibility on the rogue and she snuck in to town to reconnoiter.
She returned 40 minutes later with a map of the town and notes on where the munitions were likely being stored, plus information that a troop was patrolling the interior of the town.
Resting overnight, the party used the figurine of the dragon to fly in over the back wall to land on the roof of the storehouse. The cleric cast Silence and the fighter started bashing a hole in the roof, while the wizard stayed just outside the range of Silence and cast Haste.
The roof was breached but not quite wide enough to easily slip inside when the troop spotted the activity on the storehouse roof and headed over, shooting volleys of arrows as they came. The rogue slipped inside as the cleric, fighter, and the dragon figurine took damage. The wizard flew to the side (invisible) and summoned some lantern archons.
The cleric healed the damage taken and cast confusion on the troop but it seemed to have no effect. The fighter fired arrows at the troop when a call came from below from the rogue saying that there was some creature in the storehouse attacking her.
The wizard dimension-stepped the dragon to just outside the town walls while the fighter and cleric slipped in through the hole in the roof, the cleric not quite succeeding on making a graceful landing.
The fighter and rogue battled the creature, a swirling mass of barbed tentacles and wind, while the cleric cast Holy Smite on it, though failed the check to get past its spell resistance.
The wizard noted the troop setting up formation outside the storehouse while raising the alarm, enough to bring the 2 goblins in from outside the main gates.
The fighter finally downed the creature, then smashed the wooden covering on the floor in case there was something else hiding underneath it. The cover gave way too easily and the extra momentum carried him down the 50' pit to the spikes at the bottom.
Outside the troop finished off the lantern archons.
The cleric healed the fighter's damage while the rogue dropped a rope so that he could climb out.
The wizard flew inside and summoned a fire elemental while the rest put some of the munitions into the bag of holding.
The wizard dimension-stepped everyone outside to where the dragon was waiting; the party mounting and flying around to come over the town wall closer to the other side.
That was when the fire elemental burned the remaining munitions, causing a huge fireball to erupt, destroying the storehouse and damaging the troop and goblins.
An opportunistic fireball from a wand from the rogue and Chaos Hammer cast by the cleric did some more damage to the troop, but not enough to dispatch it. A couple of hobgoblins were also noted at the door of the burnt out church before they ducked back inside.
The dragon landed the party there and the fighter proceeded to smash the door in, the party seeing the 2 hobgoblins preparing for battle while standing behind 2 rickety-looking constructions, each made of glass tubing, metal, and wood, with a brain and two eyes afloat in a glass skull.
Awesome with that fire elemental explosion!
Awesome with that fire elemental explosion!
There were lots of Marvin the Martian impressions, and certainly more reliable than trying to lob a spark or fireball in from a distance.
The party slept after the first night's defense of Longshadow, and awoke later to see a much, much large horde of tight formations of hobgoblins, savage bugbears milling in the front, and Warmaze masters keeping ranks tight and controlled.
Kosseruk bellowing from the opening of the Onyx tower (how else do you get acoustics to reach a city 1000ft away?) "You were offered a chance to take the knee and receive succor and continue to live and work for General Azaersi! Combat was given, and you gave great defense! Yet you attacked and killed all the wounded that were removed from the battlefield in an act of cowardice! NOW EVERYONE YOU KNOW WILL DIE. YOUR CHILDREN FIRST, THEN THE WEAK AND OLD. EVERYONE WILL FALL TO THE SLAUGHTER. ATTACK!"
Then it's an all out numbers rushing attack as the hordes close into the walls of Longshadow, trying to highlight there is no strategy now. Hence, event 1 occurs as the first door is broken through by the spearhead of the Warmaze Masters, and it's fighting in the streets with the PCs taking on a minotaur group appropriately sized to combat my group of 7.
Game wise, the PCs had done everything to blunt the worst of the attacks that required their attention, but themetically, the city was falling back from the walls in all regions, and fighting tight on the inner street that mirrored the wall. The PCs were allowed to use their skills of Soldier, Local, Oratory to help where they could regarding the militia, internal defenses, reinforcements, and townsfolk readiness, but everywhere they made gains or stopped the next crush of enemies (through the quiet events of 4-5), they realized it wasn't enough.
They responded to the ankheg battle (which I didn't put conveniently just underneath their feet as the book suggests). They fought that easily, or well enough, but with info coming in from Mayor Thom (game over man, game over!), Cirrieo (we are holding tightly, but barely, and perhaps not able through to the next day, let alone the morning) and an aerial recon druid noting most of the base camp around the tower is empty, and the group patently looking sidelong at the ankheg hole and tunnel, the group decided to make a spearhead charge of their own to the Onyx tower to shut down the active doorway and perhaps take Kosseruk out.
This Sunday!
And lo, they arrived at Kosseruk’s encampment. Sneaky was the way to go coming out of the hole in the beasts’ paddock. The behir was on the south part of the map, resting, and none though to investigate further. Using an invisibility sphere, they as a group moved towards the Onyx tower. The tents to the north? Where most of the injured were yesterday? Yeah, that’s where the cloudkill the prior day floated to, and that’s what incensed Kosseruk so much. Investigating at the tower, they found the stairs up and took them.
Invisible, they came upon Kosseruk and her hobgoblin shielding protectors, as they looked out upon the battle, trying to read flags and banners for attack movements and messages. And..the group engaged, springing from invisibility!
This boss battle was hard. Also, roll20 screwed my one fighter over where he missed 6 rounds in a row!!! Didn’t roll above a 3 on the first attack during that time. Just ridiculous. Shield champion fared the same way during a 4 round burst. I was getting near to a TPK because of horrible rolls for them.
The hobs did as they should; granting the +2AC with Aid from the feat, saved Kosseruk more than a few times. Healing themselves to stay up and be the delaying fighters they were. Due to my party’s size and level, stone skin was an option for both sides, and did that swing things around in this fight.
While fighting, when getting backed up, I had Kosseruk and her Ironfang protectors jump the window sill to the lower part of the stairs, and they called forth a warmaze legion to ascend the stairs. Well, a druid, oracle, and arcanist with lots of rough terrain spells, holds, and AoE damage ruined that back up plan.
For all the PCs had done for Longshadow, their backup arrived through the tunnel to engage all the phalanx mobs as well(Chernarsdo Rangers, refugee combatants, recruited Longshadow fighters). This now alerted the behir to come and attack. Knowing he had family amongst the refugee combatants in danger, the shield champion abandoned the Tower battle with Kosseruk (who had by that time made her way back up to the top with the Gaseous form potion) who was fighting the split group, with heroism and haste about her.
Split as they were, with bad rolls, things were not going great. The clerics were killed on the tower steps by the fighter and dwarf rogue, who made their way back to the top to rejoin the battle. Ruling that the Chernasardo rangers where an archery phalanx, they aided the lone shield champion against the behir.
2 PCs dropped against Kosseruk, the Behir rolled low on lightning breath recharge and kept using it, plus all the extra leg attacks….and then the battle just ...finished. Some great last round rolls, 2 criticals, and both Kosseruk and the Behir fell. Just barely eked out that battle win!
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The wizard summoned some leopards and sent them off to find the invisible goblins.
The cleric cast invisibility on the rogue, and sent her off to kill hobgoblins.
The fighter also entered the burnt-out church and the alchemical golem moved forward to attack.
The fighter traded blows but ended up on the red side of the ledger, a long way in the red, enough to be dead, however the cleric managed to cast breath of life and channel enough positive energy to bring him back into the action.
He tried to stand and strike again but got knocked out.
The rogue struck one of the hobgoblins but not enough to drop it.
One of the leopards found the goblins by dying with the goblin's teeth and claws in its hide.
The wizard cast glitterdust, temporarily blinding the other goblin.
The cleric was saved from being attacked by her adoration ability and got the fighter back on his feet to again battle the golems while the rogue whittled away at the hobgoblins.
The wizard cast a fireball at the goblins, but they had started to blink, one dodging out of the way, though it did wipe out the remnants of the hobgoblin troop that were trying to make their way to the combat. A created pit caught one of the goblins but it levitated out the next turn then transformed into a large wolf.
The fighter managed to finish off the golems and when the cleric came to flank the remaining hobgoblin, the rogue finished the job.
Outside the goblin and wolf finished off the leopards.
Heading outside the fighter went for the goblin that was still a goblin, but the blinking goblin was hard to hit, and also struggled to hit back. The wolf dimension doored to flank the fighter and 2 more hobgoblins arrived from the other side, along with 4 morlocks. The rogue had vanished and caught one hobgoblin unaware. The cleric got the dragon figurine out of harm's way. The wolf got bigger after casting crushing despair revealing the true nature of the goblins as barghests.
Eventually dispatching the barghests, hobgoblins (one running away but being chased down), and 3 of the morlocks, the remaining morlock begged for release, seeking to just leave and return to his goddess (though his description of her seemed to indicate a dark naga rather then any true deity of Golarion).The party showed mercy and he raced off, while the party looted the rest of the ruined village before the wizard teleported everyone back to Longshadow (almost getting the right room in the Canary Inn).
Great to hear!
My group and I are switching gears for a bit. One of them really wants to run Deathwatch from Warhammer40K universe, so we are off to explore that for a while (how long? don't know!), so it will be some time before my adventurers come back to task.
Maybe we continue to the Valley of Aloi..or they hit the other plot point of gathering giants from my mash up adventure path of 'Invasion' and 'Giantslayer.'
But I'll still be back here to read the stories! I know I am excited to see, and run myself, Book 4 'Siege of Stone.' I really want to spend some time (if possible) rooted in a dwarf society.
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After arriving back in Longshadow the party conferred and decided to plant the explosive charges that had been liberated from Ecru outside the city walls in the hope of doing some damage to the expected assaulting forces.
The wizard spent time learning Cloudkill from Navah, the fighter checked that all the other defence preparations were still in place, and the rogue went off selling as much of the accumulated loot as she could, taking advantage of the need in Longshadow for weapons, armour, and magical protection.
The NPC wizard showed what he had been up to during the past 5 day: an empty wand, and then 50 arrows that had had continual flame cast on them and then the tips covered in a thin clay shell. They could be broken open to reveal the light by tapping the end, or shooting the arrow and have the clay break off when the arrow landed.
Day 12, the day the Ironfang Legion was due to arrive, dawned, and in the distance a few hundred hobgoblin soldiers could be seen setting up camp.
It wasn't until dusk that the assault began, starting with the appearance of an obsidian tower rising from the ground and the emergence of thousands of hobgoblins from an opening at its base.
The first task was to calm the populace of Longshadow, which the cleric accomplished with a rousing speech.
The walls were assaulted by hastily cobbled-together catapults; replacements for those destroyed at the river crossing a few days prior, but they were ineffective and pretty much broke apart when used.
<<Kudos to @Benjamin Bruck's suggestion for this - worked well>>
Then an odd-looking giant with 3 arms rushed the south gate, crawling over the top of a mass of hobgoblins who had fallen into the covered pit that had been placed just outside the gate.
The fighter and the rogue rushed out the sally ports as the beast started to break down the gate, with enough damage being done to kill him before he could enter the town, but not before he broke a sizeable hole through the city entrance.
The wizard covered the gap with a wall of stone; not as strong as the gate, but hopefully strong enough to prevent an easy influx of the enemy.
Then there was an aerial assault as the skies came alive with the call of flying beasts, but a continual flame arrow showed it was just a few small wyverns and night birds rather than anything more serious, and the Longshadow militia took delight in handling this themselves, bringing one of the wyverns crashing down in the city while the others fell out of the sky into the Marideth River.
That was when word arrived that the Mayor was under assault.
An enemy bugbear had appeared out of nowhere and the Mayor was in a fight for his life.
Arriving just in time to see the remaining Dreamstalker sister kill the Mayor, the wizard cast haste, and the fighter and the rogue moved to flank the enemy. The cleric stepped up and used her Breath of Life to bring the Mayor back from the dead. The assassin was incensed and tried to suggest the fighter move out of the way so she could complete her task - again - but the fighter managed to resist the suggestion and together with the rogue dispatched the bugbear before it could cause any more damage.
But damage had been done. While the cleric cured the Mayor enough to restore him to health (and command), those townsfolk nearby had seen an enemy breach all of their defences and fatally attack the most important person in Longshadow.
The cleric tried to settle the crowd with assistance from the wizard and the fighter, as well as a potion of guidance but to no avail, however the rogue also tried, and with help from another potion of guidance was glib enough to diffuse the situation before the panic took hold.
That's when the next call came - enemies at the dock. Several boats had hit the docks and while the militia had managed to sink a couple of boats; sending their cargo of hobgoblins into the river, one troop had managed to make it ashore and were closing ranks to control access to the dock and allow more hobgoblins to land.
The fighter charged in but was surrounded and tripped.
The rogue vanished; hoping to inflict sneak attack damage the next round, while the wizard flew up and fireballed the troop. The cleric cast blessing of fervor, allowing the fighter to stand without being attacked, and he then scored a critical hit with a mighty overhead hammer-strike on the wall of shields in front of him, enough to collapse the entire troop into oblivion.
Things settled into a rhythm for the rest of the night with the hobgoblins rushing the walls but being pushed back by the defenders, the occasional ballista bolt hitting the wall, and the Mayor moving among the populace, lifting spirits by proving to his people that despite some persistent rumours, he was in fact very much alive and reassuring them that the heroes defending the town were dealing with the big problems when they arrived.
Just as the eastern sky was beginning to lighten, a flurry of fiery projectiles were launched over the walls, starting many spot fires and drawing defenders away from the walls so they could douse the flames before they got out of control. A couple of fires were spotted that were well beyond their capacity to manage. Twisting living columns of flame would reach out and incinerate anyone who got close. The fighter rushed in to engage while the wizard summoned 3 hound archons and the rogue took aim with her wand of snowball.
Enough damage was done to one of the greater elementals to finally destroy it, a final snowball finishing it off, but not before it and the other had significantly burnt the fighter, causing him to catch alight. The cleric channeled positive energy to keep him alive and successfully used dispel magic to unsummon the other tower of flame, sending it back to the plane of fire. The fighter rolled on the ground and managed to smother the flames out before taking too much extra damage.
The populace eventually managed to put out the rest of the spot fires and the lightening sky revealed that during the night a network of trenches and barricades had been erected in the darkness by the Ironfang Legion. Horns sounded from the distant (and now quite extensive) camp, and the Ironfang forces withdrew from the city walls, back behind their defences.
It would be just over 9 hours before the sun was due to dip below the Mindspin Mountains again, and the next night begin.
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Reporting in: The Gobstoppers have spent the last 2 days ranging around the hills taking out the wyvern scouts and the warbeast camp. Remember that wyverns have language and intelligence when your party decides to murder the chained young wyverns like mine did. Then when they get to the warbeast camp and kill Old Mama, have her say with her dying breath, "At least my babies are still alive out there... somewhere.."
They've been using the druid to wildshape and fly ahead, then scry on her at the new location where the witch studies the area for a teleport spell. This leapfrog travel method has allowed them to make fairly good time with their sabotage efforts.
We ended last session after dealing the killing blow to Repral in the back of the cave. Next time we'll go through the loot, release the prisoners, and come to terms with the implications of the aftermath. They will learn the disturbing fact that a giant monster of an ankheg used to lair here, but the big bug is nowhere to be found.
This has been my favorite part of GMing the AP so far. Can't wait for the actual battle. Not sure exactly where my group will head next. The munitions camp and seige crossing encounters are both still up for grabs, but they might return to Longshadow first where they will get a nasty surprise. None of the townsfolk will seem to realize they've been gone for 2 days, and will express their condolences about 'the accident', and generally the town's opinion of the heroes will seem to have soured for no good reason. Until they find out that sabotage has occurred, and furthermore that the townsfolk claim that the PCs themselves were present when these accidents occurred. Of course, this is the work of the doppelgangers. As soon as the PCs realize this fact, it'll be a scramble to deal with the sabotage from the inside while enacting their own sabotage against the Ironfang forces assembling across the Hills.
Cherry on top: Mayor Thom is going to plead desperately with them to check on his old friend (and flame) Navah who he hasn't heard from in some weeks (not unusual in itself, but he's worried now that he is taking the Ironfang threat seriously.
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... a nasty surprise. ...
nice.
My group accompanied the rescued slaves to make sure they got back to Longshadow (at least 20 minutes spent discussing options), so will be interesting to see how your teleporting group deals with them.
I must also remember to play out the off camera action with Navah, Hilmer, Robyn, and the owlbears during the second night, as well as the wider actions of the townsfolk to paint the bigger picture. First night was 95% focused on the PCs. The inclusion of details showing the impact of the PCs' actions pre-assault once the actual battle began were very welcome (and required some players explaining to others what was going on when one player missed the storytelling cue). ;)
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It was the calm of the storm. The hobgoblins had pulled back for the daylight hours providing Longshadow with some respite.
The cleric spent the time praying with incense of meditation while the others rested and prepared.
As daylight faded a steady drumbeat started from the Ironfang camp and more hobgoblins could be seen emerging from the base of the onyx tower, reinforcing the remaining sieging forces.
As the sun dropped below the Mindspin mountains and darkness increased a shield wall of hobgoblins approached and launched smoking bundles at the base of the walls creating a wall of rising smoke, further obscuring the advancing Ironfang forces.
The wizard summoned some air elementals to push away at the smoke but it was barely a dent in the screen, though enough to see more advancing forces using the smoke to conceal their approach.
The hobgoblins emerged to a hail of arrows not far from the walls and then repeatedly tested for weak points to get through.
One group did enlarge a gap, enough for a strike force of minotaurs to get inside the walls, though they did suffer a little from the explosives that had been placed outside the walls before the battle began.
Rushing to engage, the rogue vanished, the wizard, flying, enlarged the fighter, and the minotaurs attacked, forming a line to stop the party getting past to flank them. They missed the rogue though and the rogue snuck behind and delivered a sneak attack while the fighter responded from the front, the cleric kept him healed, cast holy smite, and the wizard fireballed the monsters, and within a few rounds the minotaurs had been defeated.
The party noticed Hilmer and the owlbears moving along walls tossing hobgoblins back into the oncoming horde, though one group of attackers did wend their way through the defenses, a troop of morlocks leaving a trail of dead defenders in their wake as the leapt, and crawled, and jumped between buildings.
The rogue vanished again and got out of the way but both the fighter and the cleric were caught as they made their next attack. Another morlock grew to large size as the troop moved forwards, and cast a spell that caused a pair of oversized fangs to appear next to the wizard, attacking her.
The wizard moved beyond the visual range of the morlock to escape the fangs, which then moved to attack the cleric. The fighter managed to smash the troop into oblivion and the rogue launched an attack on the oversized spellcasting morlock, who eventually succumbed with the cleric delivering the final blow.
Another aerial assault began, but without wyverns, the militia of Longshadow, supplemented by the Chernasardo Rangers and others from Misthome, were able to shoot down the few rocs and their riders as well as smaller creatures.
The assault continued and the mayor continued to lead the locals in repulsing the groups that made it past the walls, but some continued to slip through.
A large globe of water was seen rolling through the town, picking up hobgoblins as it swept past. When they were ejected, eager defenders finished off the battered Ironfang invaders. Navah was seen moving the aqueous orb as it went past.
Though the walls had been breached in multiple places, the line was being held and the Ironfang were prevented from rushing through in overwhelming numbers, though there seemed no end to the troops outside, especially with more coming through the onyx tower's portal.
The major part of the night had passed and dawn was not too far away when the ground beneath the party shifted and collapsed, dropping all but the flying the wizard into a 20' deep pit, though she quickly cast feather fall on the fighter and the cleric, and the rogue managed to avoid any damage through successful reflex and acrobatics rolls. A 10' wide passageway in the eastern wall of the pit extended into darkness.
At the bottom of the pit were two hobgoblins mounted on wolves and a huge ankheg which immediately grabbed the fighter. The wizard summoned a celestial ankylosaurus. The rogue was backed into a corner as she attacked one of the hobgoblins. The cleric cast bull's strength on the fighter and was tripped as the other hobgoblin and wolf attacked. The ankylosaurus managed to daze the ankheg with its stun attack, causing it to drop the fighter. The wizard enlarged the fighter and after several blows, along with the summoned dinosaur, managed to drop the giant bug. The cleric defensively cast Blessing of Fervor which allowed her to stand up safely, and channel energy to keep the party in health, while the wizard created a pit beneath the wolf and hobgoblin, dropping them a further 30 feet.
The fighter's larger size allowed for the rogue to flank the hobgoblin and wolf and drop them with repeated sneak attacks, while the fighter finished off the others when the created pit eventually disappeared.
The sounds of battle still echoed from above, showing no signs of abating while the eastern sky was starting to lighten, but this had not stopped a group of the locals from watching the battle in the pit, the mayor among them.
He congratulated the party for holding the town together so far after they had climbed out, but followed up saying “With our walls broken, nothing defends Longshadow but spears and stout hearts. We can hold the Legion at bay only until we begin dropping from exhaustion—twelve hours, maybe a day. But we can’t stand against an endless flow of reinforcements no matter how brave our soldiers.”
The onyx tower and the portal spewing reinforcements awaits.
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Last session was a huge culmination of planning for my game. The party made their way through Navah's tower. During the confrontation at the top, she rolled a bad confusion roll, attacked herself and was immediately put to sleep by the witch. But that wasn't the fun part. After some fun roleplaying involving the Skelterhide and some funny pantomiming, they convince Navah to teleport with them back to Longshadow.
That's when the bomb is dropped. Navah is the witch's mother. She recognizes the witch during their confrontation in the tower, but due to her insanity, thinks it must be some sort trick of her hag mother. Thom Crawbert is the father. This led to a dramatic confrontation. Thom had recognized the witch as his and Navah's child before he sends them to check out the tower, but neglects to reveal the truth at that time. Navah casts Expeditious Retreat and Kung-fu Hustle blasts across the city streets to the Town Hall to confront the mayor. The mayor is so flustered he can barely speak. Navah has the spear that she had commissioned for the mayor to patch over their awkward relationship. Meant to be a thoughtful gift, she how has nothing but sneering disdain for the mayor, she tosses the spear onto the floor of his office and leaves. But not before declaring that she will aid in the battle, but makes it clear, she's not doing it for Thom.
We end the session with the party finally managing to track the doppelgangers using scent back to an abandoned house. A sign on the door says "Condemned, DO NOT ENTER. Direct further inquiries to Solomon Zane." Inside the find "Garret Greygallow" and he keeps playing dumb. He draws his cane sword when the party makes it clear they are there to subdue/arrest him, and that's where we ended things.
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Wasting no time, in fear that the other end of the tunnel might be discovered, the party headed into the darkness of the passage that the ankheg had dug into Longshadow.
The rogue quaffed a potion of darkvision and then at the other end of the tunnel, potions of heroism, fly, and blur while the fighter took a potion of remove fear.
The cleric and the wizard cast invisibility on themselves and the wizard used vanish on the fighter and the rogue.
They managed to stealthily make their way past the behir and the warmaze disciple troop undetected, spying a hobgoblin phalanx to the left of the stone tower, and making their way around the tower to the right, seeing 4 ballista arrayed to defend the tower in one corner of the camp.
They succeeded in getting all the way around and being unobserved when a hobgoblin troop emerged from the archway in the tower's base. The troop headed towards the phalanx, and then continued on down into the darkness beyond the camp in the direction of the lights of Longshadow in the distance.
Some muffled voices could be heard from the darkness at the top of the tower.
The wizard cast enlarge person on the fighter who then set about hitting the archway, after a successful knowledge (engineering) check determined that destroying it would prevent any more troops arriving.
After seeing that it would take a lot more hits, the wizard summoned a celestial ankylosaurus and the cleric cast spiritual weapon. A few more hits weakened the structure a little more when an alert was raised from the direction of the phalanx.
A couple of more rounds passed and the archway was close to falling apart.
The rogue vanished as the phalanx advanced as the fighter kept hitting the archway. The wizard made out some of the dwarven runes along the arch - describing glory and honor to the Stone Road and Kraggodan and many dwarven names, while the rogue spotted some older Terran runes but was unable to decipher them.
The phalanx arrived and launched volleys of arrows once they could see the party, damaging the fighter, the cleric, and the dinosaur.
The fighter managed to deal a blow to the archway causing it to crack and start to fall apart, a final following blow accelerating the process, dropping the archway's keystone and blocking the Stone Road from any further incursions. Cracks continued to spider out across the tower's structure and it's collapse was imminent.
As there were no other light sources, the party couldn't effectively return the phalanx's fire, so the cleric put some distance between her and the approaching hobgoblins but ended up being charged by an enraged minotaur. Kosseruk and 2 hobgoblin clerics had appeared in the darkness, having feather falled down from the tower top with snapleafs when the alert had been fully raised.
Kosseruk did some major damage to the cleric as the rogue sought to flank the minotaur, but not only did Kosseruk see her coming, but was also able to dodge out of the way of any sneak attacks.
The wizard summoned a hound archon as Kosseruk dealt with the dinosaur and turned to the approaching the fighter.
The phalanx moved closer and fired off another volley, dropping the cleric.
One hobgoblin cleric cast righteous might while the other cast cure critical wounds to heal some of the damage the fighter and the dinosaur had done.
The wizard, still invisible, managed to skirt the battle and apply a potion of cure serious wounds to the cleric, bringing her back to consciousness just before Kosseruk killed the fighter.
The rogue used her wand to throw a snowball at the enlarged cleric after it had cast cause fear on her (though she made the save).
The wizard dimension stepped the cleric to next to the fighter's body, and the cleric cast breath of life, and as it had been maximised by the incense of meditation it was enough to restore the fighter back to life. The cleric used her last channel positive as a swift action to further recover both herself and the fighter.
The fighter, still prone, hit the phalanx as it finally closed on the battle.
Kosseruk dispatched the hound archon and the first hobgoblin cleric channeled negative energy which affected the rogue, the fighter, and Kosseruk! The minotaur made her save and looked askew at her cleric guardian, and with a smirk noted that half of the small amount of damage she had sustained had gone back on the originating cleric due to shield other.
The wizard summoned yet another hound archon.
Kosseruk used her scroll of fireball to target the wizard and show the others where the invisible mage was lurking.
The second hobgoblin cleric had been dispatched before a holy smite from the cleric dealt damage to the phalanx, enlarged hobgoblin cleric, and Kosseruk (who was the only one to fail her save). Well, it should have done significant damage to Kosseruk, but half went to the hobgoblin. Kosseruk was still blinded though.
This gave the rogue an opportunity to do sneak attack damage, but for the second time failed to hit the touch armour class with a 1 on the attack.
The fighter finally managed to destroy the phalanx.
Kosseruk killed another hound archon, but her last cleric was killed and despite a missed acid splash from the wizard and several misses from the rogue, enough damage was done to the minotaur from the fighter, the rogue, and the cleric's spiritual weapon to finally fell her.
The rest of the encampment was wrapped up when the cleric successfully used charm monster on the behir to attack the warmaze disciples who had been trapped within the wizard's black tentacles, and subject to the cleric's confusion. The wizard's flaming sphere also did damage. The rogue and the fighter knocked off any of the troop who tried to break away and then finished off the behir.
The tower had by now fully collapsed and the sun breached the eastern horizon. Dawn had come.
This has essentially wrapped up Book 3 for us. Great victory for Longshadow, but without breath of life and swift, selective channeling would have meant the end of the fighter.
I didn't apply Kosseruk's spell resistance, but I did have her used Power Attack which significantly upped her damage (from +9 to +21) and that proved lethal. With her ability to see invisible, not be flanked, and spell immunity (I had it set against fireball and snowball as both had been used previously and reported back to Kosseruk), and as well with the shield other protecting her hit points she is a very tough opponent - almost as if she is designed to be protected against most damaging attacks.
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The infiltration has been uncovered. After confronting "Garret", they quickly knock him unconscious, revealing his true doppelganger form. Detecting magic, a necromantic aura leads them to some loose floorboards where they discover none other than the Gently Reposed corpses of all three advisors. The party brings the corpses and the unconscious doppelganger straight to the Town Hall and the mayor's office. The mayor breaks down, deeply saddened by the lost of three of his best friends, but is strengthened in his resolve to aid the party and unequivocally believes the PCs about the Ironfang threat.
The mayor dusts off his old half-plate, and has the party help him into it (it's a bit tight around the waist after all these years), he thinks about taking Navah's +2 Huntsman spear, but grabs his trusty +1 adamantine halberd instead. He immediatlely makes a proclamation to lock down the city. All three main gates are shut and placed under 24/7 guard, and the river ferries temporarily shut down. Together, they make their way up toward Seneka Volstadt's home knowing 'she' and 'Solomon Zane' are still at large somewhere in the city. I placed her home among the wealthier homes in the Northeast district. When they arrive, they find a well-kept, stylish home, but no Seneka. Only her live-in cook who hadn't seen his mistress all day. The mayor tearfully reveals that she has likely been killed and replaced. And for the first time the party starts to get some idea of why this man became mayor in the first place. Despite his laziness and cowardice, he has a real way with people. He knows almost everyone (even a lowly cook) by name, knows details about their lives, their kid's names, etc. He tells the cook (and himself), with tears in his eyes, that Longshadow folk don't back down, and they are going to need each and every person to pull together to survive this onslaught.
Between the combined scent abilities of the lynx animal companion and an Evolution Surged eidolon, and a few lucky rolls they manage to pick up the scent trail of an inhuman creature. They trace it back to the safehouse where they found 'Garret', but find no one. At the temple of Abadar, they manage to find the trail again and follow the trail (presumably Solomon) to the south gates where it becomes clear that they just missed the imposter. The signs show that a single humanoid came out here and launched a rowboat into the river, which is where the trail goes cold.
Meanwhile, a large group of freed slaves (from the warbeast camp) arrive at the Longshadow gates. As evening falls, they have a few precious hours of R&R at the Canary. Aubrin the Green, Cirieo Thessaddin, and Vane Oreld are here with a contingent of the PCs' militia.
During the night, the PCs make a few perception checks while they are asleep, but not good enough to notice a lock of hair being stolen from the witch in his sleep. In the morning, they quickly notice a chunk of hair sheared from the back of his head. They surmise it must be for Scrying. Fine by me!
But this weirdness will have to wait. With only 4 days until the assault is set to occur, the PCs still have 2 major sites left to visit in the Hollow Hills. The druid flies out and scouts both the river crossing as well as the village of Ecru. Ultimately they teleport a few hundred feet from the river crossing where the Nuckelavee lowers the water and the catapults start their transit. The defenders put up a fight but it's not enough and as soon as the Nuckelavee falls, the water comes crashing down sweeping away all 4 catapults. Across the river, the assembled hobgoblin troops begin to panic and scatter into the Hills. I had to think fast here, because my PCs wanted to immediately dimension door to the other side of the river (into more than 100 hobgoblins). I stressed that there was a group of injured and traumatized slaves standing nearby, as well as describing the hobgoblins scattering.
Ultimately the party decided to split up. Two members teleport back to Longshadow to complete a couple more Defensive activities, while the other 2 escort the refugees back to the city on foot. When they have almost made it back to Longshadow, two more ragged refugees stagger out of the wilderness asking for help. But a Detect Magic spell reveals these guys are packing heat, literally. As soon as the Summoner starts casting a spell, they attack, throwing their fireball beads at the party. It's the two remaining Infiltrators here to make a desperate play to recover from their failure in the city. With the party split, this is their best chance, but alas, even two Gobstoppers deal with the doppelgangers handily.
We end the session with the party back in the Canary settling down for rest. The witch rolled an unbelievably lucky will save to resist a Nightmare spell effect. He gets some kooky visions, but no damage and no fatigue. But whatever did this to him is still a mystery.
Great stuff guys, keep it going!
I loved the Kosseruk fight; what a warrior!
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Midwinter celebrations in Longshadow had a distinct edge of enthusiasm about them. The feast to mark the passing of the darkest part of the year and the return of life and warmth was doubly significant considering the survival of perhaps the greatest army to attack Longshadow in its history, and the opportunity to rebuild and return to a life of (relative) normalcy again now that the Ironfang Legion had pulled back south of the Marideth River.
While the fighter, the wizard, and the rogue helped lead the rebuilding of the city walls, restoring the southern gate, and extending militia patrols with the Rangers back out into the Hollow Hills, the cleric got busy crafting.
During this time the wizard also used Permanency to give herself permanent See Invisibility, Tongues, and Reduce Person. The rogue successfully made the Use Magic Device checks to gain permanent Darkvision from scrolls scribed by the wizard.
[Item crafting / upgrade / purchasing omitted]
After 28 days the snow in the Mindspin Mountains had begun to retreat and by sourcing local knowledge it was determined that the Valley of Aloi was a likely place to investigate next. It had previously housed a dwarven settlement, but was now the reputed home of a tribe of morlocks. Previous expeditions from Longshadow had seen the dwarven ruins and promised the possibility of mining success, but most who went there never returned, and those who did spoke of relentless morlock attacks in the otherwise sheltered valley.
[5 day journey there omitted]
The cleric checked the weather for the next 48 hours and determined that the fog would clear about 2 hours before sunset, and the same would happen the day after; fog through most of the day until late in the afternoon, and then a storm would roll in off the mountains on the morning of the following day.
The party waited until the fog cleared and made their way down to the valley floor, but were almost immediately set upon by two rocs, flying down from the surrounding peaks.
Both the cleric and the wizard were targeted by the gigantic raptors.
The wizard cast haste, the fighter changed to his bow, the cleric cast bull's strength, and the rogue disappeared thanks to the ring of invisibility.
The rocs' flyby attacks kept them out of range of most melee weapons, except for the cleric's whip, and she managed to inflict some damage on one, but the fighter was having more success firing arrows at the other one.
The wizard summoned some celestial dinosaurs, and the rogue used her wand of snowball to damage one roc enough that it decided it had had enough and flew away. A fireball from the wizard turned the retreating roc into a flaming pile of feathers and cooked meat on the ground.
The other roc was now the focus of the fighter's missile barrage and after vanishing, another snowball from the rogue again brought it low enough to reconsider the party members as a potential dinner. The dinosaurs managed to hit the roc with one enough to daze it, turning its diving attack into an uncontrolled fall which landed on the party members.
The fighter and the wizard managed to duck out of the way taking minimal damage and the rogue rolled away unscathed, but the cleric took the brunt of the falling beast as its hitting the ground broke its neck and killed it.
A channel of positive energy from the cleric was enough to restore the party to almost full health.
The fighter wondered whether roc tasted like chicken, and how many meals he could get out of a single drumstick.
The party moved further into the valley, trekking to the buildings in the south western corner, discovering a pile of black stones, higher than a tree, in a circle in the centre of a makeshift campsite, the earth in the area packed solid as if it had been underfoot to an army of hundreds or thousands. Dozens of fireplaces, and a sea of tattered canvas and tent poles supported this scenario.
the cleric scanned the area with detect magic and found a response from one building.
Entering, the party found a pile of coins and objects in one corner of what looked like a barracks with oversized beds. The smell of the room was heavy on the musk, mostly bovine, but overlaid with some other sweaty odors. Several hundred gold and platinum coins and items were starting to be cataloged when the outside light coming into the building was blocked by several large humanoids, ogres, making their way inside, none too pleased with interlopers pawing through their haul.
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One ogre had entered the room and another was visible just outside the door when the battle was joined.
A Cold Ice Strike from the wizard plus damage from the fighter and the rogue dropped the first one, and then the others entered the room.
It was a bloodbath, for the ogres, especially after the party were hasted.
The next four who entered the room suffered enough hammer strikes and sneak attack damage to drop all of them. The one remaining outside, despite its low intelligence, thought better of following its companions and, calling out "Origa!" turned and ran.
The fighter and rogue chased after it, and while catching up and dropping it too, were caught in a pincer by two other ogres, who, along with their wolf companions, charged the pair.
Neither wolf could beat the fighter and rogue's armour but the ogres did some damage before the fighter retaliated and killed one, and the rogue dispatched both wolves.
Bolts of lightning appeared from the sky and anther ogre wielding a bow, crackling with energy, appeared.
The cleric cast Holy Smite, blinding the one on the ground, but the flying one avoided most of it.
The flying ogre cast a Cone of Cold, catching everyone, but everyone managed to save.
The rogue dispatched the blinded ogre while the fighter shot at the flying one.
The flying ogre tried to charm the fighter, but he saved.
The wizard used Greater Invisibility on the rogue, who then used her wand of Snowball, doing significant damage, before using her celestial armour to fly up on the other side of the still flying ogre.
The ogre had had enough and cast darkness on herself before flying away, right past the invisible rogue who took an attack of opportunity to drop the enemy, the ball of darkness dropping to the ground as the sun dropped below the western peaks.
Looking up the party saw 3 drakes circling overhead, steadily coming lower.
The party did some quick looting before heading undercover.
The drakes flew down and grabbed up 2 ogre bodies and both wolf carcasses and flew off.
The rogue went invisible and followed, using the rest of the celestial armour's flight capabilities while the rest investigated the remainder of the campsite in the fading light.
Setting up for the overnight stay in what was the command center, the party looked through old Ironfang correspondence.
The rogue eventually returned, having found where the drakes were nesting, before the night was fully dark and the mists again started filling the valley.
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btw - the rogue has the Major Magic rogue talent plus quickened spell-like ability feat and is using it for Vanish most of the time, but if she swapped to Snowball, and had the wizard cast Greater Invisibility on her, then it turns into an insane amount of sneak attack damage, especially if Hasted as well. With debilitating injury (AC) making TWF workable, and weapon finesse for both weapons, if she hits with all attacks it's 36d6 damage just in sneak attacks and with the quickened Snowball (5d6) going for touch AC it makes the likelihood of landing at least 3 (first 2 and 1 haste) of the melee attacks very high.
On average she outdoes the fighter using Power Attack (unless he crits - warhammer is x3).
Huge difference in how long the combats last if the rogue can't do sneak attacks.
I actually finished this a couple of months back. My party wanted to reach a diplomatic solution and used a lot of divination magic to clue them in on there being something which could incriminate Zanathura in the Onyx Citadel. So rather than fight the last dungeon they snuck in, stole the journal, and then contacted Azaersi for a meeting. The party had let Kraelos, Oktar, and Taurgeth return unharmed to her as a demonstration of good will, so she agreed.
The influence encounter I made worked incredibly well. It was high stakes and dynamic. Azaersi brought her 3 top commanders plus Zanathura, more than enough concentrated power to crush the party. The party wanted to save journal reveal for a pivotal moment, but when it became clear Zanathura would be actively undermining the peace talks they dropped it in round 2. Zanathura fled and they managed to convince Azlowe to purse the tasty arcane morsel.
In the end we wound up with the "canon" ending. The party ceded some fairly useless territory in the Five Kings Mountains and returned the Sardonyx Shard. Azaersi ended hostilities and formed a two year trade and non-aggression pact.
... In the end we wound up with the "canon" ending. ...
Was wondering how you were going.
Have really enjoyed reading your recaps especially as it gives me a heads up on what to be mindful of in the future.Any reflections on the AP as a whole or whether Book 4 and 5 were seen as a deviation from the main theme, or things you might have done differently (including seeding things for a later pay-off) would be appreciated.
... In the end we wound up with the "canon" ending. ...Was wondering how you were going.
Have really enjoyed reading your recaps especially as it gives me a heads up on what to be mindful of in the future.
Any reflections on the AP as a whole or whether Book 4 and 5 were seen as a deviation from the main theme, or things you might have done differently (including seeding things for a later pay-off) would be appreciated.
Happy to provide them. Overall I loved this AP and it is the first one I finished. One thing the game does incredibly well is set the stakes. Many APs don't even tell you who the actual villain is until like book 3 or 4. Ironfang players will probably know General Azearsi's name before the end of the first session. And when the call to adventure comes knocking, it literally breaks down the door. The game also uses concrete time limits at key points, and I think making time matter is something more adventures should do. And it signposts its most dangerous foes: enemies like the bandersnatch or Ibzairiak are well integrated into the story and have ample opportunity to be hyped up before they are fought. (This is something recent APs like Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse are really bad at.)
The fact that this AP establishes what it is so well out the gate is part of why the departures of books 4 and 5 didn't bother me. Book 4 also ties into the meta plot much more than book 5, but even there the Darkblight was already established and it is neat returning to a higher level version of the hostile wilderness of book 1 and 2. That said, I did have some tweak things to maintain the focus.
1) Ignore Militia rules. The militia concept is thematically great but the rules have very little intersection with the story. I tried to make them work, and it ultimately wasn't worth it. So I instead used the militia as a narrative tool-- largely happening off screen running raids and gathering intelligence to keep the PCs aware of the war as a whole. If you can come up with a way to use it to make book 1 refugees feel like they still matter, all the better. And it can be a good vehicle to...
2) Keep the villains in the forefront. I added two major moves by the Ironfang Legion. The first was a Monster Recruitment rally, where a Legion officer shared the "inspiring" story of how Azaersi survived the goblinoid wars as a teen and her dream of starting a nation for monsters. I think this is important if you want a diplomatic resolution to be possible-- Azaersi's goals and motivations are understandable even if her methods are not. Probably best done somewhere between the end of book 2 and the battle for Longshadow.
The other addition was the Legion attacking Molthune's army outside of Kraggodan while the party watched from the citdadel's walls. This happened at the end of book 4, right when the party was about to prove Molthune's innocence. It helped that my own group had been running false flag operations-- staging raids on the Legion to look like they were Molthuni soldiers to try and pit two enemies against each other. An onyx tower emerged and Zanathura used magic to help Azaersi broadcast a message to the entire battlefield-- telling Molthune that this was retribution for those attacks. Then Zanathura dropped some meteor swarms on the human soldiers and Kraelos's cavalry began mowing down the broken ranks. The players the slaughter was their fault. They didn't know Azaersi already had plans to conquer Molthune.
3)Replace random encounters with scripted ones. The backmatter of the books have some really neat encounters in them, but the actual methodology of rolling for encounters mid-game is a poor fit. Instead, I looked up what the listed monsters were ahead of time and sprinkled in encounters that I thought would be interesting, and often not involve rolling initiative so the party can observe cool creatures in their natural habitat-- like having a Pookah stealthily poke fun at the party, a witch crow steal a favored crown of blasting, a fey that will do drugs and tell riddles with the party, a manticore being pursued by a pack of forest drake. This is also a good way to...
4)Make travel matter. The biggest culprit here is the journey into the Darkblight. Book 5 does very little to define how long the trip lasts or how often the party should be exposed to the titular disease along the way. A big oversight, giving the hostility of the environment is such a major theme. I posted the rules I came up with to the forum, IIRC. In retrospect I think you could probably ditch the deeper reach's map and have the encounters there happen throughout the journey, perhaps intersecting with skill checks to determine if the party sees signs of the encounters ahead of time.
The other was the Longwalk. The events listed are good, but the journey is long enough to encounter more. I used these to flesh out the world and try to break the illusion that everything scaled to the party's level. I threw some wandering monsters in that the party had to hide from and several that I handwaved the party killing without rolling any dice. I had some drow who were smarter than the duergars the party meet, sizing the party up and deciding not to pick a fight they wouldn't win.
5) Let villains monologue, and be open to alternative encounter solutions. Ironfang Invasion does a fair amount of this already, but I don't think it hurts to lean even more into it. Fey in particular should be something you can negotiate with or bluff your way past their short attention spans. But even if it devolves into a fight, many villains have interesting back stories and a little conversation can set the mood quite a bit.
Happy to provide them. ...
Gold! Thank you so much.
I still have a chance to weave in Azearsi's backstory thanks to the papers found in the Valley of Aloi.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks Captain Morgan for the idea of a scripted (off-camera) encounter.
New player joined and took over the rogue for the session.
The sound of predators prowling around (and above) during the night kept the party indoors and in the chilly morning air the party emerged from the building to see themselves totally encased in the Valley's mist.
The fog prevented clear vision beyond 5 feet, but the lightness showed that the sun had risen over the eastern peaks.
The group made their way through the fog towards the other side of the valley where the rogue had found the drakes' nest the previous evening. There were noises in the distance but the party kept their way, eventually making it to the valley's eastern edge, where a bit more searching uncovered the location of a rocky outcropping that the drakes were using.
Tired from their night of hunting, and replete from the meal of ogre and wolf, the party attacked with surprise. the rogue dispatched one thanks to a full set of sneak attacks while one was still flatfooted. The wizard hit 2 with a Fireball, then the fighter killed the second. The third expired from the wizard's Ice Strike, followed by another Fireball, and finished off with a Ray of Frost sneak attack from the rogue before it could get off a breath attack.
The party looted the nest and then looking out over the mist-covered valley saw in the distance some yrthaks rising occasionally above the foggy blanket as they hunted, as well as the top of the weatherbeaten tower they had espied the previous day.
Making their way back to the valley floor they found the base of the tower and four smashed carts around a ten-foot-wide drop in the ground. Scattered bones and shreds of tattered clothing caught on wooden splinters were also present. the cleric found a half buried lockbox which contained numerous mineral samples including two fist-sized uncut rubies, and a deed to the mine.
Moving further north, the sounds of a battle between huge beasts was heard through the mist. The sonic attacks of the yrthaks reverberated across the ground, followed by a wave of icy-cold air before finally an explosion of cold air and screams ripped through the mists, ending in silence. The conclusion was that perhaps a frost worm had met its demise and in dying had taken the yrthaks with it.
Ignoring the deviation, the dwarven ruins at the end of the valley finally emerged from the mists. Thinning slightly between the once magnificent edifice, the sight of 4 large headless statues of dwarves surrounding a downpour of water from the aqueduct hidden overhead that disappeared below ground through a 10 foot-wide well caused the party to pause.
Trepidatious of possibly animating the statues, the group bypassed the ruined dwarven hall and made its way to the edge of the chasm.
Thanks to a number of light spells sent hurtling into the abyss, the wizard found a large hole in the side of the chasm wall, and handholds indicating a slightly easier climb to it from the ground above.
The fighter and the rogue climbed down as the wizard dimension stepped the cleric to the opening, where the party was swarmed by the morlocks there. the rogue managed to move through the morlocks to attack from the other side while the fighter finally got the chance to try out great cleave. the wizard summoned some hound archons and the morlocks didn't last long.
Moving through the caverns the party found the morlocks' food store, and a swarm of rot grubs, which were promptly firebombed. They also found where the water from above came through the ceiling as a waterfall and kept going through another hole, falling below. This was in a section that was obviously dwarven ruins, the worked stone different from the natural earth and rock warrens formed from morlock mining.
Continuing to move west and leaving the worked stone, the group found a nest of morlocks. The hound archons moved to attack, along with the fighter and the rogue. These weak morlocks were no match for the party, but then from the rear some more powerful morlocks attacked. the cleric was almost knocked unconscious, and the wizard suffered strength damage due to poison from a blowgun dart, and consequently learning that her periapt of proof against poison was actually a periapt of placebos. The fighter managed to avoid suffering strength damage, and with help from the cleric's Holy Smite the remaining morlocks in this area were defeated.
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If people would rather me post short updates instead of full summaries then let me know. I do a summary email for the players, so I just change the names (to class) and remove treasure listings, but otherwise copy and paste here. I recently reread the start of this channel though and we've certainly gone a long way from the short status reports, so am also happy to move my stuff to a separate channel and just tag things here.
Despite the wizard being down to 3 Strength, the party pushed forward, or rather down, descending the shaft in the morlock nest area to the level below; a literal s$#!hole.
Circling to the north there was another large cave that opened onto the chasm. The cleric circled through a side chamber which looked like a shrine and had a pile of coins and other objects, but decided to leave them there.
3 morlocks were found crawling along the ceiling in the large cave, shooting at the party with their blowguns. The wizard got off a glitterdust, blinding one, before being hit by a dart and suffering enough strength damage to fall unconscious.
The rogue blasted the other end of the room with 2 fireballs from her wand, knocking over some basins containing a bubbling red liquid, while the fighter used his bow. After 2 of the morlocks fell, the third retreated out of sight. The rogue went to follow but it had disappeared around a corner and all that could be seen down the corridor was a soft green glow and a much larger cavern. Looking at the spilled liquid, one of the basins was sitting on its edge, being held up by the stirring stick that hadn't moved when upended. Turned out that the stirring stick was actually an immovable rod. The cleric used Bull's Strength to get the wizard moving, and she teleported the party back to the abandoned command centre that had been used the first night the group spent in the valley, before collapsing again.
The cleric restored the wizard to full health the next morning, and the wizard cast darkvision on herself, the fighter, and the cleric before everyone headed back across the valley to the chasm and the morlocks.
A quick sweep through the top level showed no morlocks had come back there, so the group descended the same way as previously to the second level.
This time they headed into the room where the waterfall from above came through the ceiling, the column of water falling through another hole in the floor.
The rogue, invisible, moved into the room, and while she could see a single morlock working at an altar and hear him talking, she couldn't understand what he was saying. She moved into position to attack, still undetected by the morlock. When she struck, she did significant damage, the morlock stepping back and calling out again. This time the wizard could hear that the morlock was calling out in Undercommon for negotiations. The wizard was the only one who could understand what was being said as the morlock unsuccessfully tried to use telekinesis to throw the rogue into the column of water. The fighter rushed in to attack, and the rogue then struck again, the morlock cursed the party for consigning his tribe to the machinations of their false goddess as he fell to the ground and died.
Following the southernmost passage, it led to the soft green glow again, a massive cavern with a fissure running through the centre, the green glow emanating from crystals embedded in the walls. On the other side of the fissure could be seen several morlocks. The rogue and the wizard sent off fireballs while the fighter fired his bow and the cleric used Spiritual Weapon, but a wave of nausea rolled over the group, all saving except the rogue, who felt weaker. Identifying it as blightburn sickness via a combination of heal and dungeoneering knowledge checks, the group fell back to the area with the waterfall. The rogue looked to attack some more but retreated when 2 colossal centipedes crawled out of the fissure into the cavern. She used her wand of mage armour to protect the cleric and the fighter, the wizard already having it in place from the morning. The cleric cast bull's strength and sacred bond on the fighter, the wizard cast haste, and then summoned 4 hound archons, before casting greater invisibility on the rogue.
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Now buffed and protected from blightburn (at least those who hadn't already succumbed), the party re-entered the cavern.
One centipede managed to trample the fighter, the rogue, and the hound archons, but there was enough melee might to eventually drop both, one literally as it slid unconscious back into the chasm.
After the wizard had fired off a fireball hitting 3 of the morlocks, the rogue leapt the chasm and snowballed one of them from her wand. The wizard then sent in another fireball, just missing the rogue.
Meanwhile the fighter and the hound archons had also leapt across to tackle one of the other morlocks.
Chatter among the morlocks revealed their dismay at the falling of the centipedes, and some decided to get away to warn their chief and goddess.
As they headed down the chasm, the cleric let off a Holy Smite, catching 3 of them, one having taken too much damage and falling the rest of the way to its death. The others were blinded but continued to tentatively make their way down.
The last standing morlock followed his kin into the chasm. The cleric redirected her spiritual weapon to attack it, and one of the hound archons jumped after it in an attempt to grapple it from the wall. The grapple failed, but did knock the morlock loose for 40 feet. The archon perished as it fell the rest of the way while the morlock, now almost beyond the range of the party's darkvision, started to crawl back down the chasm wall.
The rogue climbed down the chasm, catching it at the bottom, while the rest of the party and remaining archons floated down courtesy of the wizard's feather fall.
The rogue almost did enough damage to drop the morlock, but it was the cleric's spiritual weapon that managed to knock it unconscious. The other morlocks were still just in sight, and with some missile fire, another snowball, and then the rogue positioning for an attack of opportunity as the last one tried to get away, the morlocks were finally all dropped.
The large chamber the party found themselves in had 2 visible exits; one to a chamber that seemed to be the end point for the cascading water from the surface, and another passage that the morlocks had been making for.
Following the passage, it opened up into another cavern wherein was spotted another chasm (this one much smaller) descending yet further and with a violet glow at the bottom, plus a large door wedged into crumbling stone.
Another passage south ended in a chamber with a large stone door depicting two dwarves with crossed bladed polearms. A recess in the shape of a 4 pointed star just underneath the crossed weapons. The wizard spotted magic on the door and the rogue found a magical trap, which she then proceeded to disarm.
The fighter tried to open the other large door after moving some of the stone out of the way but had no luck.
The wizard had a closer look down the chasm at the violet glowing fungi, but it didn't seem dangerous (at least as long as it wasn't eaten).
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The rogue picked the lock for the door, though it took a while. The fighter stuffed the other items found in his bag, and then pushed into the previously locked room.
Inside was a handful of morlocks and a naga, presumed to be Zanathura, the so-called goddess of the morlock tribe.
As the fighter entered the naga cast a spell and black tentacles erupted from the ground, catching the fighter, the rogue, and the wizard in their area, but just missing the cleric.
Everyone managed to avoid getting entangled and the fighter engaged some of the morlocks. the rogue moved through to engage other morlocks and the wizard hasted the party (except the rogue) while the cleric had called down a flame strike.
Zanathura vanished and moved so that the wizard could no longer see her. The rogue vanished to get a sneak attack against one of the morlocks, and the cleric delayed so that the wizard could dimension step them both past the black tentacles to the far side of the room.
Zanathura attacked the fighter and inflicted significant damage, but he was healed by the cleric before he dropped. The cleric also provided flanking assistance for the rogue, who then proceeded to finish off the morlock on the other side of the room.
The fighter dropped both morlocks before taking on the naga. When she eventually dropped she collapsed into a pile of snow and ice. Hmm. Not the real Zanathura after all.
After searching the rest of the room while waiting for the black tentacles to disappear, the party then checked the rest of the level.
[We did the rest as a narrative rather than dicing each encounter since I wanted to speed up the return to Longshadow so that in the next session the new player could introduce their character, and the player of the cleric could shift their character design to one more enjoyable.]
A giant mantis shrimp in the cistern at the bottom of the column of water battled the fighter, but silence from the cleric stopped the extra sonic damage and it succumbed to multiple hammer blows.
Navigating the passages on the bottom level and avoiding most of the sickly looking fungi, until finding the chief's domain. The fighter was enlarged to fight the oversized morlock and while going toe to toe, the rogue finished off the chief's retinue and the wizard and the cleric created a funnel of death as other morlocks raced down an adjacent passageway to help from a nearby chamber.
Climbing up to the previous level after cleaning out the bottom level, the fighter eventually managed to open the large door that had been wedged in stone.A long dark passageway led down into darkness, and notes from Zanathura's study indicated that this might join up with the Long Walk; a major highway on the uppermost level of the Underdark, and a way of getting to Kraggadon without crossing open country and two armies.
The wizard teleported the group back to Longshadow.
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The party's time in Longshadow resulted in the cleric having a career-change (gaining arcane trickster after some other dips), the acquisition of some more magical items, and the summoner joining the team. By having the summoner join meant that her eidolon, (lillend azata), also joined.
Teleporting back to the Valley of Aloi, the group made its way through the morlock warrens to the previously wedged shut door, and then proceeded to head down a very long and winding sloping passageway until finding some caverns that opened onto the Long Walk, the only major route through Nar-Voth, several thousand feet below the surface of Golarion.
The rogue decided to go invisible and range ahead, her See In Darkness ability allowing her to spot even those with Darkvision out to 120' before they got anywhere near her, even if they could see invisible.
She reported that after a couple of hours that a duergar patrol with slaves in tow was moving up from behind.
The patrol had three well-armed duergar soldiers and a half-dozen duergar and dwarf slaves, all led by another duergar. Nine giant stag beetles were also present, 8 of them laden with pack saddles, chests, and boxes. The other flitted around near one of the duergar slaves.
The party stopped and hailed the patrol, who demanded that the party stand down while the duergar soldiers enlarged themselves.
The wizard responded with casting Haste while the cleric/arcane trickster cast Holy Smite, catching the entire patrol and slaves.
The duergar all disappeared and a stinking cloud sprang up over the party. Everyone made their fortitude saves and a further will save revealed the cloud to be conjured by shadow magic. Still managed to block sight though.
The wizard, being able to see the invisible duergar once she had emerged from the fog, caught one with Glitterdust, giving the cleric/arcane trickster a target for a scorpion whip attack with fire and sneak attack damage rolled in.
The fighter and eidolon also emerged from the cloud and were attacked, breaking the duergar invisibility, but now giving a visible target for them.
The summoner also left the cloud and fired an arrow at the one duergar she could see.
The rogue had made her way around the outside and struck, downing one of the duergar.
One of the duergar slaves, seeing all of the guard drop and only the leader still up, also struck, in the back of the patrol leader. Once the leader was down she dropped to her knees and begged for mercy.
The duergar patrol members who were only unconscious were dispatched, and then the cleric/arcane trickster provided some healing to the rescued slaves and damaged party members.
The slaves were given their freedom and the duergar, in exchange, provided a sign the party could use for future patrols to indicate that they had paid their tolls.
The slave who had attacked the leader indicated that she was willing to be a guide for the party on their journey along the Long Walk, in exchange for money to pay off her gambling debt. Negotiation from the cleric/arcane trickster reduced this amount significantly, and Kiseger, along with her beetle named Chen, joined the group for the ongoing journey.
After the end of Book 3, there's been a bit of a break in the action. First a militia turn:
Spread Propaganda raised Fort Phaendar from Hostile to Unfriendly. The way I spun it was their new Longshadow Irregulars crew managed to infiltrate and make contact with the slaves kept in the complex, so next time maybe a latch will be left open here, a door left ajar there, etc. Also a way to do a bit of foreshadowing - they learn the bridge has been completely rebuilt, walls have gone up around the place, and it's patrolled night and day by elite soldiers and specialists on the ground and in the air.
Gather Information sent their conspirator team out to the Valley of Aloi, where they scouted the old dwarven highway and the mountain pass. They report back that the place was totally shrouded in fog except for around 2 hours at dusk, and that some kind of fearsome flying beasts lived up in the mountain aeries surrounding the valley, but they weren't sure if they were drakes, wyverns, or something else.
Lastly, since they've kept their notoriety low, events have been rare, but this time we got one, and as luck would have it they got 'Festival' the day after winning the Battle of Longshadow. Okay then!
After dealing with their militia, they went on a shopping spree with a dose of character backstory. First to Korvosa, where our Acadamae dropout witch ran into some old classmates and the party got to see some of what had happened since our last campaign (CotCT). Next, they teleport back to Trevalay, where they reunited with some old NPCs from previous books, though their destination is Crystalhurst. The druid wants to return home and touch base, and is upset to learn that her parents along with several other druids and animals from the village have gone missing, this has coincided with a renewed advancement of the dreaded Darkblight. More foreshadowing for Book 5, I'll try and impress that they aren't quite ready for the challenges there yet, perhaps even give them a taste of the disease/curse thingy.
Eventually, they will hopefully make their way to Aloi and the breadcrumbs there will take them through to the Darklands and Kraggodan.
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Progress continued along the Long Walk but the beetles slowed the pace. Another patrol took the party to task for using signals reserved for duergar, but with the wizard (disguised as a grey dwarf) and Kisegar vouchsafing the others and pleading ignorance, the patrol showed the correct sign and waved the group on along with a warning to keep out of trouble.
The continuing darkness was interrupted on occasion by some passing groups as well as phosphorescent fungal growths. One such spread of fungi, identified as twilight mushrooms, seemed to be covering something magical.
Wary of a trap, the fighter first moved up to try and scrape away the 'shrooms from a distance, but wasn't having much success. He moved back and the eidolon moved in, with the summoner confident that she could unsummon her if things got too dangerous.
On getting within 10 feet, a cloud of spores and dust erupted, covering the eidolon and just missing the other party members. The eidolon made her save, but was still disabled and hidden under the cloud as two other large forms were detected moving through the dust and spores.
The summoner unsummoned the eidolon while the rogue aimed a snowball from her wand at one of the obscured shapes. The snowball managed to hit and it was noted that there seemed to be a lessening of the dust and spore cloud in the vicinity of the blast, when from the other creatures a spray of spines erupted.
The rogue and the fighter both evaded taking any damage, while the cleric/arcane trickster dodged most of the projectiles.
The wizard cast Freezing Sphere which not only damaged the two creatures, but also destroyed the twilight mushrooms, including the spore cloud, revealing the spiny dragons within.
The cleric/arcane trickster used Grace to move to the fighter and then cast Bull's Strength on him.
The fighter then stepped up and critically hit the dragon, dropping it.
The other dragon breathed a line of fire at the fighter and the rogue. The rogue dodged out of the way, but the fighter didn't.
The rogue fired off another snowball at the dragon before it too was dropped by the fighter.
The cleric/arcane trickster provided healing to those who had taken damage.
Locating the dragons' lair, the rogue managed to squeeze past all the poisonous spines that obstructed the opening, and fished out what she found.
A couple of days later a pack of ghouls was detected travelling down the Long Walk, looking as if they were being chased by something. The party shifted to the side as much as possible when it became evident that what was chasing them was an enormous worm with a gaping maw full of teeth. The summoner and the rogue with their superior vision watched the beast lumber past, out of range of its darkvision and tremor sense, with the rogue seeing a duergar patrol in the distance also back away as far as possible while the worm lurched on after the fleeing undead.
After a few more days had passed, a caravan consisting of somber men and women swathed head to toe in dirty rags towing a makeshift wagon approached heading in the opposite direction. The caravan wagon looked laden with supplies: blankets, sleeping mats, rations, water, ropes, canvas, oil, and lanterns. As it was about to pass, one of the troop stopped and after a moment of looking at the party called out the cleric/arcane trickster by name.
What had appeared to be a dark creeper turned out instead to be Novvi. She also recognised the fighter and (when she became visible again) the rogue, and was introduced to the wizard, the summoner, and the eidolon. She invited the party to share camp with them and swap stories.
The party traded with Novvi then continued on the Long Walk.
Kisegar pointed out numerous places along the way where there were passages to the deeper Underdark, or dangers to avoid.
On spying a double-sized duergar patrol controlling a narrowing of the Long Walk, She said that the patrols would squeeze any travellers for more tolls regardless whether they had paid before or not. Kisegar suggested a side passage that would bypass the shakedown.
The party agreed and Kisegar took them down a narrow passage that widened before opening into a slightly larger cavern before the passage continued on beyond.
Kisegar stopped the party just before the cavern, pulling them to the side and said to wait. Soon another group of about half a dozen pushed past the party, one of them decrying the constant tolls from the duergar patrols and pleased that they had found this bypass.
Kisegar whispered to the others to be prepared to move quickly.
As the other group moved through the cavern they were suddenly attacked by a stalagmite that sprouted tentacles and grabbed a couple, while another two were grabbed by huge insectlike creatures that sprang from holes hidden in the ceiling and walls. As the attackers were preoccupied with dragging their prey away, Kisegar quickly ushered everyone through the cavern, following the remaining few of the first group as they fled.
The passage rejoined the Long Walk a couple hundred feet past the patrols' choke point.
Soon enough the party reached a wider portion of the Long Walk next to a large underground pool and an immense but half collapsed statue of a dwarven woman with five eyes holding up the ceiling.
Kisegar said she could guide the party no further, having no experience of the tunnels beyond the water, so she took her promised money and left with her beetle.
Camped by the pool was a duergar caravan fixing up some damaged wagons. The leader of the caravan saw that the party was aiming for the tunnels on the other side of the lake after the cleric/arcane trickster had cast water walk, and called out for assistance in retrieving some lost slaves. The cleric/arcane trickster instead offered to help fix the wagons by casting mending, when she noticed the symbol of Droskar etched into the caravan leader's forehead as well as the beetle she was riding. In return the caravan leader recognised the cleric/arcane trickster's garb as a priestess of Calistria, and she retorted "or maybe I'll just replace the lost slaves with you!"
The fighter immediately reacted by stepping up and critically hitting her. The wizard cast haste, and then the duergar guards stepped up, doing some damage to the fighter, but also enough to knock the cleric/arcane trickster unconscious. Their leader went invisible.
The eidolon moved up to hit one of the guards and the summoner followed to cast barkskin on the eidolon.
The fighter tried to hit the invisible duergar leader but didn't connect. The wizard cast Sirocco, successfully dropping some non-combatant duergar pilgrims, but the others resisted the full effects and moved out of the hot winds.
A hemisphere of ectoplasm then appeared, trapping the fighter and the downed cleric/arcane trickster inside with 3 of the duergar.
The summoner tried to dispel the wall with the wand but failed. The eidolon managed to cut a hole in the wall, but it reformed, shrinking as it did, which fortunately caused it to slide over the cleric/arcane trickster's body.
The wizard, being able to see the invisible duergar leader, cast Cone of Cold and Cold Ice Strike, doing enough to drop the duergar and damage the ectoplasm a bit more, shrinking it further.
The fighter battled the duergar still within the ectoplasm while on the outside the rogue dropped one.
The summoner restored the cleric/arcane trickster to consciousness with a potion of Cure Serious Wounds and the sole remaining duergar outside the ectoplasm charged at the wizard, hitting her with his axe before he was taken out as well.
The fighter finished off the remaining duergar inside the ectoplasm, then continued to hit the wall surrounding him until it eventually collapsed. The fighter was also pretty wounded so quaffed a potion of Cure Serious Wounds, before the cleric/arcane trickster finished healing him and the wizard back up.
With the remains of the caravan and duergar likely to invite unwelcome attention from the next patrol that came along, the eidolon helped fly the bodies and debris over the centre of the pool, dropping them into the depths, trusting in the fish and insects that lived in the water to eventually dispose of the bodies.
Crossing the pond, the party entered the tunnels on the other side, following the twists and turns and finding some dead ends before, after a few more days, finding a chamber lit by illuminated crystals.
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There were 2 visible exits from the crystal cavern, and a quick detect magic from the arcane trickster showed something on the ground towards the one straight ahead.
Most of the party had entered the chamber when everyone except the arcane trickster and the summoner were stunned. Some things covered with sharp crystals peeled themselves off the walls and slammed into the fighter and the eidolon, entrapping the fighter as well. The arcane trickster used Grace to move away from the attacking crystals while the summoner healed the eidolon.
The fighter failed to escape from the entrapping crystals after he and the wizard managed to recover from being stunned. The wizard summoned some earth elementals.
The fighter and eidolon continued to take damage with the arcane trickster keeping the fighter alive with some healing, but it wasn't enough to help the fighter avoid becoming petrified by the crystal's attack.
The summoner opened an acid pit under the eidolon and the crystal that had attacked her, both toppling in and falling to the bottom, whereupon the eidolon was unsummoned.
The wizard summoned an aqueous orb as the earth elementals finally did enough damage to destroy the crystal attacking the fighter.
The arcane trickster cast Flame Strike on the pit, and the rogue (now far enough away from the remaining crystal) recovered from being stunned and moved up to the fighter to unpetrify him with stone salve.
The wizard's aqueous orb kept the crystal in the pit.
The summoner summoned an air elemental as one of the earth elementals fell in the pit, knocking the crystal out of the aqueous orb.
The air elemental created a whirlwind that sucked the crystal up out of the pit and within reach of the fighter who took his revenge by smashing it to pieces.
The previously detected magic had fallen into the acid pit, but miraculously had managed to avoid being destroyed before the pit vanished.
The summoner spent time bringing the eidolon back and then using fast healing to restore her to full health.
Moving forwards, sibilant voices were heard from further down the passageway, arguing over preparations for an expected assault and who had control over their trox bodyguard.
The arcane trickster cast Bull's Strength and Sacred Bond on the fighter while the wizard cast Haste.
Moving up the wizard went first and cast Freezing Sphere while the fighter, eidolon, and an invisible rogue moved in. The fighter and eidolon both got charmed and the trox attacked the fighter to protect the nagas. The rogue quaffed a potion of Protection from Chaos and the arcane trickster moved up to cast Protection from Evil on the fighter, breaking the charm on him.
<TBC next session>
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While the fighter was battling the trox, the eidolon moved to attack the female naga, along with the trickster.
The rogue had an attack on the male naga, succeeding in dismissing a lot of the mirror images.
The trickster's attack looked to strike true but did not land due to displacement.
The fighter succeeded on saving vs hideous laughter but along with the summoner failed against a fireball that the trickster and wizard managed to dodge most of.
After taking some more damage from the fighter, the trox seemed to shake off being charmed and yelled at the male naga while still defending the female one. Switching to non-lethal damage he managed to finally knock the trox out and join the trickster and eidolon in attacking the female naga, though many hits that should have landed went wide due to displacement.
The wizard summoned some hound archons as the rogue knocked off more of the male naga's images. The hound archons, split between the two nagas, hedged them in and eventually the fighter finished off the female naga, while the male disappeared and tried to sneak away, though was still visible to the wizard and rogue.
The rogue chased after and managed to drop it with a sneak attack on a snowball.
The wizard targeted the unconscious naga with glitterdust and the hound archons finished it off while the trickster healed the damaged party members.
The trox was restored to consciousness and while angry that her friend the female naga had been killed, was overall pleased to be given her freedom and ownership papers. In return she presented the party with a lockbox, twin to the one that had contained the trox's papers from the slavers' caravan.
The party moved further on, first finding a sweltering hot chamber with a cave-in at the other end. Crude paintings of three-eyed circles with bat wings lined the wall, but no-one could decipher what they were representing. Retreating they found another cavern that was faintly lit by an orange light coming from beyond.
Within the cavern floated a strange creature consisting of plates of rock and metal orbiting a churning nucleus of multicolored fluid, four tentacles sticking out and ending in different coloured gems.
The party delayed to let the wizard cast haste on everyone (except the summoner), the creature managed to move and shoot a ray of fire and another of acid, both hitting the rogue.
The party moved in to surround it but most of the attacks missed. The trickster cast light and that seemed to negate the weird effect causing the misses. The creature continued to attack and moved away back into dim light. The rogue eventually recalled that this creature, a khardajeen, possessed a defensive ability called darkvision adaptation that made enemies using darkvision to target it miss half the time.
The wizard summoned lantern archons and the summoner cast shield on the eidolon.
The light provided by the archons flooded the rest of the chamber and negated the darkvision adaptation effects.
The summoner shot an acid attack at it but the khardajeen seemed resistant to the acid.
More rays, acid on the trickster and fire on the fighter, and the wizard responded with a fireball (against which the khardajeen again seemed to resist some of the damage).
the trickster healed the rogue who hit the khardajeen with a snowball while the eidolon attached with her wand of magic missiles.
The khardajeen tried to remove the light from the archons by shooting rays at them, but the acid missed and the fire was resisted enough by the other lantern archon to avoid being killed.
The wizard cast colour spray but the khardajeen resisted, as it also resisted being blinded by the trickster's searing light.
It eventually succumbed to enough blows, having no safe place to escape the light, and falling apart on the ground.
Some final checks of the area before resting showed that the orange light was coming from a massive cavern filled with lava, and narrow passageway ascending the interior wall to darkness overhead.
Another chamber filled with carbauxine gas was also uncovered further back with a rubble-filled pass beyond, luckily identifying the gas before spending too long in the chamber and either succumbing to fatigue or inadvertently causing it to explode with an errant spark.
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There is a massive showdown in the Water Hall. This has been a long time coming.
Qa'al the gunslinger and Gaugagh the medium had first ambushed the party all the way back at the ruins of Redburrow in early Book 3. They harried the party briefly while they were busy with the trench mist, before escaping on their wyvern mounts. However, since the witch managed to sleep hex the medium, she dropped her +1 bastard sword, and using this the party would scry on her a handful of times over the coming weeks.
This was a great way to show the Ironfang camp in the Valley of Aloi, and foreshadow the size of the invading force coming to Longshadow. During these scrying sessions, the PC's learn a few more tidbits of lore. They see the neat and orderly rows of tents teeming with hobgoblins, minotaurs, and morlocks. At thh center, a handful of wooden barracks and the Stone Road tower, standing tall.
The two unusual hobgoblins are bounty hunters are encamped a fair distance away from the main force, not official members of the Legion. Qa'al is cool and collected, focused on the mission and the money. He cleans his guns, inspects and organizes his ammunition. Gaugagh is slowly descending into madness (RP of the spirit influence class mechanic). She has been channeling the spirit of a party member's mother (champion spirit), who she had killed some 20 years ago during a raid on this PC's village (Palette Falls) giving him his Unbreakable Survivor campaign trait. The unquiet spirit of this PC's mother is straining at her captivity just as Gaugagh channels the spirit's power to enhance her own abilities. She also completely freaks out all the superstitious hobgoblins. Just one reason why she isn't at the Battle of Longshadow.
Qa'al and Gaugagh remain in the Valley during the invasion, their orders come from higher up and they don't answer to Kosseruk. When it becomes clear the invading force has been defeated against all odds in Longshadow, the bounty hunters take to their wyvern mounts, and with a grenadier troop at their command, they camp in the heights of the valley, waiting for the PCs to inevitably arrive. I leveled Gaugagh up a few times (8->11) to keep her viable in the combat vs my 11th level PCs.
Flash over to the PCs who have made their way through the valley recovering the treasure and intel from the abandoned encampment. They face down Origa and her ogre minions. They almost kill her as well, but she uses everything she has to flee. She recognizes the PCs for who they are, and as a specialist of sorts herself, knows of the 15,000gp bounty on each of their heads. Thus, she resolves to go find the bounty hunters and throw in with them.
Fast forward to the Water Hall, the PCs have dropped the final of the four cephalophores, but before they can figure out their next step, a challenge rings out. Gaugagh is stepping onto the scene. She speaks an incantation, lifting up a handful of iron powder. She snorts it and grows to immense proportions. Qa'al pops from around a chunk of rubble with his loaded musket and takes a shot. Meanwhile an invisible Origa, flies into position to flank the party's squishy casters, nocking two arrows in her +1 shock longbow.
What followed was an intense battle in the atmospheric water hall with the summoner's wall of flame and the druid's ice storm in play. The grenadier troop joins the fray in the 2nd round. The NPCs use everything they have. Gaugagh's array of buffs (mirror image, displacement, haste, heroism, protection from good, and enlarge person) keep her standing way longer than most foes.
After finally dropping Qa'al to negative hit points, the battle is over. In this holy site of Grundinnar, the PC's mother (a dwarf) miraculously manifests for a brief moment, and our pyrokineticist gets some closure, as his mother's spirit is finally put to rest.
How divination heavy are your parties? Mine got hella into it, and a lot of creative energy was spent on omens.
How divination heavy are your parties? Mine got hella into it, and a lot of creative energy was spent on omens.
We have a witch and a druid, so mainly just scrying an area, studying it for several minutes, then teleporting. In total, they spied on Gaugagh three times using her bastard sword to lower the DC. It was a fun way to give the players some tidbits and background info on these NPCs, as well as the Legion and the adventure in general. It was their first glimpse of Aloi, although they didn't realize it. They got a look at the size and composition of the army camped there. They saw the onyx tower at the center of camp. They saw that Gaugagh was shunned by the rank and file hobgoblins. They overhear Qa'al cautioning Gaugagh that she needs to stay in control and disciplined. Gaugagh paces nervously and mentions that "this dwarf in my head won't shut the hell up!" referring to the pyrokineticist's mother/Gaugagh's medium champion spirit.
I actually haven't experienced a game where players really made a lot out of the divination spells.
How divination heavy are your parties? ...... I actually haven't experienced a game where players really made a lot out of the divination spells.
Same. Apart from clairvoyance for Fort Trevalay and the Munitions Camp they have done remarkably little.
Rested up the party headed back to the cavern with lava.
The intense heat led to Resist Energy all round, but before heading up the narrow passageway, the wizard, summoner, and eidolon, all flying, had a closer look at a stone block that was jutting out of the lava, about 20 feet from the shore.
A large crack revealed a hollow space within which could be seen a large amount of molten electrum and a shield floating on top.
The eidolon entered to try and retrieve the shield, but once inside, the summoner and wizard were attacked by 3 magma elementals that emerged from the lava.
The wizard got hit by a swinging arm and retaliated with a freezing sphere and cold ice strike, dropping one of them back into the lava.
The rogue fired off a snowball from the shoreline but missed.
The trickster buffed the fighter with bull's strength and the fighter shot at the elementals with his bow.
The eidolon came back out of the hollow and attacked with her longsword.
The wizard cast baleful polymorph, and while the targeted elemental saved, she had used her rod of metamagic bouncing and redirected the spell to the other elemental which failed.
It turned into a chicken, which managed to flap its way to the shore line.
The rogue went invisible and moved up to attack the chicken.
The trickster fired off magic missiles at the remaining elemental while the summoner positioned herself on the other side of it from the eidolon, setting up the conditions to create an electrical shock.
The wizard cast cone of cold and the rogue used her wand for another snowball before the trickster finally killed the elemental with more magic missiles.
Only the chicken remained and the fighter directed a kick at it, sending it out to the lava, but it managed to keep aloft for long enough to reach the stone block, where it was attacked by the eidolon and summoner. The chicken tried to run away and fly off the block back to the shore but didn't gauge the distance well enough, falling short and sinking into the lava with a puff of fiery feathers.
The shield was retrieved and a scroll case was also found with it.
Ascending the narrow passageway and seeing metal pipes and ceramic tubes descending from above down to the lava below, the party found a landing and stone arched entrance to a long tunnel. At the end of this the trickster found and disarmed two alarm spells but couldn't pick the locks on the door. The rogue had a go and managed to unlock them.
Also discovered hidden just to the side of the door were a set of restless lockpicks, in a leather case bearing the insignia of the Ironfang Legion.
A bit further on and the passage opened into a chamber wherein lay the mummified bodies of 2 dwarves. And standing guard at the door at the other end of the chamber were what looked like the same dwarves, but now 7' tall, very much alive, and identified as einherji.
They would permit none but dwarves to pass, resolute in their duty to keep Kraggodan safe.
The wizard, still invisible, retreated to the back of the group and used her hat of disguise to make herself look like a dwarf. She quaffed a honeytongue elixir, and used glibness from her bracers of the glib performer, then turned visible, strode forwards, and managed to bluff the guards into believing that the entire party were actually dwarves, but were in disguise so as to travel the paths of Underdark more safely. Yeah, it was quite a stretch, but the einherji bought it all, and allowed the party to pass through the door and into Kraggodan.
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Zanathura the Second falls and the party advances to 12th level! Iuwlas is tentatively helping the party, but now that the simalcrum is destroyed, their usefulness to the morlock is running thin. He's planning to have Grax and the other morlocks below ambush the PCs and tie off this loose end. Iuwlas hopes the party will dispatch Grax for him and he can take over, leading the remaining morlocks deep into the Darklands to await the return of the "true goddess".
Immediately after entering the lower levels of Kraggodan the party encountered dwarven guards, and a group approaching which included a heavily armoured dwarf, and another wearing robes.
The robed one inquired as to the party's reason for being in Kraggodan, seeing through the wizard's disguise and spotting the invisible rogue.
He introduced himself as Karburtin and escorted the party out of the vault and to temporary accommodation at Clan Greathammer's estate.
The party was allowed to do some (escorted) sightseeing around the mountain hold, before being summoned to retell their adventures before the Evenhanded Synod.
The arcane trickster started the tale, being the only party member who was present in Phaendar, describing everything she saw and more as the Ironfang Legion poured out of their black stone tower, and the Phaendarites fled across the Marideth River, blowing up the bridge, and seeking refuge in the Fangwood.
The rogue then took over the story, one of stealth and guerilla tactics, fighting the Ironfang in the forest and then the troglodytes in the caves before claiming Misthome.
The fighter finished off the first part of the tale, describing the engineering skills deployed to circumvent Camp Red Jaw's defenses and finally bring down Scarvinious.
The second part of the tale was started by the arcane trickster again, this time performing in oratory style the further exploration of the Fangwood and encounters with a wood giant, a logger stuck up a tree, and more.
The wizard picked up the shenanigans of the revel at Fort Ristin, describing in detail the various fae, with visual support from her hat of disguise.
The fighter then concluded the Fangwood tale with the reclamation of Fort Trevalay and defeat of Ibzairiak the black dragon, including mention of his frequent visits to Naphexi in the blighted region of the Fangwood to the north. This tale of survival and eventual triumph, freeing the Chernasardo Rangers only just held the Synod's attention, but the showing of dragon teeth and Naphexi's scale was enough to validate the story.
The recitation was then put into recess until the following day.
Guys... Never stop this posting!I love coming here to continually read this.
I'm in Giantslayer right now .. But we might be switching gears to come back to Siege of Stone!
The next morning the wizard cast extended Heroism on herself, the trickster, and the rogue, and gave the rogue the bracers of the glib performer. The trickster was prepared with the guidance orison.
The rogue started things off with the influx of refugees from the Hollow Hills, the rescue of entranced dwarves in the forest, and finally the venturing out into the Hollow Hills with the discovery of devastation and danger at Redburrow, Radya's Hollow (rescuing another dwarf), meeting the griffons and finally the discovery of plans to attack Longshadow at the ridgeline camp.
The wizard continued with the preparations within Longshadow and without, saving Navah, dealing with the evil tree (quickwood), wyverns, warbeasts, siege engines, and munitions, as well as uncovering the doppelgangers who had replaced Longshadow's Mayor's advisors.
The trickster then detailed the battle of Longshadow, playing up the use of magic and a focus on the appearance and later destruction of the onyx tower.
A short break before continuing, and the wizard covered off the journey to and through the Valley of Aloi. Spending time detailing the engineering specifics of the dwarven ruins piqued Hikal's interest, before the tale then went underground into the morlock warrens, ending with the encounter with Zanathura's simulacrum. The note retrieved there detailing the way to Kraggodan's Furnace was of particular concern to the Synod.
The rogue then described the journey following the Ironfang Legion's steps along the Long Walk to the 5 eyed matron and then in through Kraggodan's furnace to enter Kraggodan itself.
The trickster finished off the presentation with an impassioned plea to allow further investigation of the Onyx Key in the Reliquary of Ascension and to establish proof that it was the Ironfang Legion, not Molthune, that had broken in 2 years prior.
The Synod agreed that further investigation was warranted and permitted the party to enter the Reliquary, giving them a sigil of Kraggodan to help open the vault door and deal with some of the defenses within.
If proof was found then a reward would be provided and a discount on any items to be purchased from the vendors in Runesmith Alley.
Just posting to say thanks for this thread. I'm still reading/lurking, and would love to play/GM this AP one day.
I prefer Pathfinder but my group is switching to 5e based on our limited meetups. Maybe I'll keep an eye out for a pbp. :)
<GM note - the summoner's player was not able to join for this session>
Karburtin led the party into the lower levels and through Vault Way to the Reliquary of Ascension.
Entering the Reliquary the party found a statue of a dwarven woman, and when checking it out a ghostly form appeared, informing the group that she had been part of the dwarven force that had investigated the breakin but that a band of vicious gugs had interrupted them and that a medusa, betrayed by her master, had been at the centre of the vault and had lashed out turning her to stone. She asked that the party destroy the gugs and then bring others from the Synod down to talk to her so that they could more fully understand the crimes that Molthune had committed. She asked not to be restored as she had been absent from dwarven society for too long and would no longer have a place.
The party decided to restore her anyway, using a potion of stone salve, and after restoration the dwarf, Bellachal by name, was very tthe fighterful and said that during their investigations, her group had felt that the evidence against Molthune seemed too conveniently placed, but that they were interrupted by attacking gugs and the last thing she remembered was glowing blue eyes.
She left the party and exited the Reliquary, saying that she would pass word on to the Temple of Trudd.
The party then discovered another statue in a side room. This was only the upper torso and once again a ghostly form appeared, explaining that he had been part of the Molthuni group that had infiltrated the Reliquary to steal the Onyx Key, but that he could not move on to the afterlife until he had confessed his crime to Kraggodan's authorities, asking the party to take word so that the dwarven rulers could come down and hear the truth for themselves and maybe find some forgiveness in their hearts.
This statue would definitely not survive restoration, so the party left the room, after looking for, and finding nothing else of value.
Across the other side of the main hall the stone had been excavated into a large irregular cavern and the party encountered four gugs, who came to attack.
Two hit the trickster before the fighter managed a critical hit on another and the wizard cast haste on the party. The trickster tried to cast flame strike but did not successfully cast it defensively, being interrupted by the nearby gug.
The rogue snowballed one, then vanished and tumbled around the back of the attacking gugs.
More blows were traded and the wizard summoned 3 dinosaurs.
The trickster and rogue landed blows and the gugs hit back, though one got a bit tangled while going for the fighter and ended up biting itself.
The fighter did more damage before the dinosaurs appeared and did landed some more blows.
The wizard turned one gug into a chicken via baleful polymorph before the rogue finished off the last gug and the dinosaurs killed the chicken.
the trickster healed and channeled positive energy to restore the party to health.
Crossing back to the other side of the main hall more tunneling was found through another side chamber.
For my gestalt campaign(s), we have crossed back over to Kraggodan, and have come downstairs into the Reliquary as well! But my stories will be for later. Too tired right now...