| Bjørn Røyrvik |
It's official, I've run out of Adventure Paths to butcher.
Mostly.
I just scavenge for scraps now, in this case some elements from Hell's Rebels and Council of Thieves but not following the plot of either.
Othariel Ainamar the Silver Arm, Princess of the Principality of Thunder Rift, has come to the conclusion that she is too effective for the good of her domain. She did an amazing job of unifying the disparate races in the Rift under a single leader through a lot of charm and diplomacy, with a little force to enfore the peace. This meant her heirs had too much to live up to and a country based on what was in many ways a cult of personality fell to bad hands and external threats.
Having seen this future, she determined the strengthen the Rift militarily so that it is better equipped to withstand external threats. This resulted in her paladin order becoming a lot less paladin-y and a lot more mercenary, and while this protected the Rift against the first threat of Wendar and then Glantri trying to take over and preventing the rise of Ileosa, the Order were out of town when another invasion happened nearly a century later. Othariel defeated the invaders fairly handily but left afterwards, leaving the Rift to clean up the mess. The then-leader of the Rift (Othariel's daughter Rahnee) was the target of local ire - if the majority of the supposedly military might of the Rift was always out campaigning, who will protect the Rift against invaders? What were they for if not protection?
Giving in to pressure Rahnee abdicates and her most vocal opponent, Dengar Thrune, takes the throne. Initially well-meaning, Dengar enacts a number of reforms that strip out the Good of the Rift and strengthen the Law, all in the name of security. Having been through a brief but devestating invasion, most of the Rift agrees. 70 years later and the Thrune dynasty has been in power and kept it that way and the current ruler, Barzillai, is enacting harsher laws and increasing taxes. Lots of people take this the right way and rebellion is fomenting in the Rift, primarily in the capital city of Stormhold.
Though many gripe about the new laws, the one person who voices the complaints loudly and clearly is Arael, a young elf from abroad. Unbeknownst to the locals he is Rahnee's son, who came to see the realm his grandmother founded and mother abandoned. He dislikes it, having been raised on stories from his mother about the golden age, now some 400 years past. Barzillai arrested the young elf for rabble rousing and sentenced him to doghousing.
His friends - fellow young revolutionaries, to be precise - currently under the nominal leadership of Janiven, who runs the Sarcastic Goat Inn*, devise a plan to rescue him.
The PCs are:
Pattinathar (don't call him Patty), a bugbear with an arnarchistic streak who will go into Alchemist when he gets his first level.
Marianya - an elf Phoenix Sorcerer with no fire spells. She wants to loosen laws and ensure freedom for all.
Dru - a half-orc/half elf outcast Rogue/Liberator who is best friends, possibly family, with Marianya.
Cirion - a breath-takingly beautiful young human male, lacking his right hand, and who is a bit vague about his capabilities. Maybe he's bard or something. He is very quiet about what to do and how to go about it, following the others' lead.
Fortunately for the PCs. they know where the doghousing takes place - in the couryard of Stormhold Castle, which is mostly inside the city. With at least two decent sneaky bastards in the group decides to sneak over the wall and extract Arael before being discovered. They scout out the guard shifts and know they should have the better part of a minute to get over the wall unseen. Having done so, they hope to hide, rescue Arael, then use the next opening to exfiltrate him.
They start the operation by worrying how to climb the sheer wall, but Cirion casts Spider Climb on Patty. A couple of the players are rather curious as to how he has 2nd level spells at 1st level. Some mumbled explanation about how it used to be a 1st level spell and he didn't know that things had changed, and a final explanation of 'I have a wand' - how a wand of 2nd level spells is better at 1st level than a single spell was left unexplained.
Not questioning the useful spell, Patty climbs to the top of the wall, fastens a rope to help the others and turns around to find a guard coming up the stairs after having visited the jakes. They stare at each other in amazement. (low Stealth and Perception roll for Patty, high Perception roll for the guard, bad Luck die roll for the party).
Patty wins initiative, reverses the spear to do non-lethal damage on the guard, and rolls a 1 on his attack.
At this point one of the players puts on Yakety Sax.
The other PCs scale the wall and orc guard is defeated through a combination of stabbing and being bashed in the face with a puch of gold used as an improvised sap, but not before he yelled an alarm. The PCs are in the process of carrying the guard away when the rest come. Combat is swift but surprisingly easy for the PCs Patty takes a little damage but is fully healed by the cure spell Cirion casts. Patty's player wonders what the hell sort of class Cirion has that let's him roll a handful of dice to heal at 1st level. The first wave of guards are defeated by Cirion, Patty and MariRanya (as she soon cme to be known as) while Dru uses the combat as a distraction to get Arael out of the doghouse unseen. Though they try to avoid killing the guards, Patty does manage to crit a charging orc with a braced spear, tearing through his stomach and severing the spine.
With Arael rescued, Cirion tells the others to get him to safety while he provides a distraction, and proceeds to toss alchemists fires on the empty doghouses nad along the wall. The three other PCs get Arael safely to the Sarcastic Goat Inn.
Some time later, bruised and charred, Cirion shows up, and the session ends.
As one of you, probably my only reader, may have guessed, Cirion is Othariel in disguise. She came to see how the Rift was getting on after the Ironfang Invasion and was saddened to see the current state of affairs. She could charge in, force things back to what she wanted and spend some more time putting things straight, but she's on the path to becoming Immortal and cannot afford to get bogged down in micromanaging people. So she adopts a new persona - Cirion. Using her best friend Grund's Amulet of Disguise, she puts most of her gear in a portable hole and secrets it on her person, then wanders around the Rift seeing if any people are willing to take a stand against the budding tyrant Barzillai.
She quickly fell in with Arael's gang. Arael is quiet about his origin because he doesn't want people to follow him because of his grandmother but because the cause is just. Also, trying to live up to Othariel's name is a helluva big task. Othariel suspects Arael might be Rahnee's kid, but hasn't asked him so as not to tip her hand. In any case, she feels a strong desire for justice from the kid and suspects he might become a cleric of hers should she succeed in her Quest.
Throughout the fight with the guards - members of the Order of Thunder**, the paladin order she founded - Othariel has done her best to keep the orc guards alive. Patty killing one of them was unfortunate. When she sends the others off, she uses her Ultimate Mercy to bring the slain guard back before melting into the night.
The orc guard who got killed, Garguax, had his world changed forever. He died, and while his spirit was still getting used to the idea Othariel herself appeared and offered her hand to him, giving him a second chance at life. Garguax knew of Othariel of course. Legendary uniter of the Thunder Rift, founder of the Order of Thunder he is a proud member of. but according to modern history someone who got by on charm and luck more than strength of arms. Now he was face to spectral face with her in all her glory and he realized just how wrong the histories were. She was by far the most powerful warrior he could imagine. He realized just how utterly insignificant he and his friends were to her skills if she had decided to kill them. But she didn't want that. She just didn't want them to die and his death had been a mistake. She offered him a way back. In awe, he took her hand.
When Garguax woke up he saw no sign of Othariel. Nothing but his superiors yelling at him and his squadmates for having let the prisoner escape. In a daze he gives his report but omits the part where he died. Formerly an adherent of Vanya, Garguax found his pro forma faith gone and rote worship now entirely meaningless, replaced with a fascination with Othariel. He knows Vanya is a powerful god and Othariel nothing but a mortal, but he actually met Othariel and she sure as spit seemed like a god to him. For now he's wrestling with his feelings, trying quietly learn more about her and find out why he suddenly feels less at home in the Thunderknights than he used to.
*
The Sarcastic Goat Inn was originally run by the eponymously epitheted dwarf who founded it - unfailingly polite to newcomers, increasingly sarcastic to those he considered friends. This is where Othariel and her friends first met and used as a place to relax every time they came to Melnir. The Inn was sold by the Goat's son, the old place closed and the name moved to a new place in Stormhold. To Othariel it's a bit like walking into what was once your favorite pub and finding it has become a Wetherspoons.
**
The Order of Thunder started out as a paladin order but expanded to accept non-paladins and slowly became a mercenary company. More like Phelani Company from the Deed of Paksenarrion than Wagner, but still mercenaries. During this time the orcs and bugbears of the Rift entered in great numbers and make up a significant part of the Thunderknights now. Though Othariel founded the Order, as it became more warlike and less paladin-y, they took to idealizing Grund as the ultimate warrior - harsh, strong and lawful and great at forcing other people to do what he wanted. Grund himself would have been wracked with guilt it if he had ever learned that this was how people saw him
During their work abroad they came into contact with the Heldannic Knights and many Thunderknights turned to the worship of Vanya. The Thunderknights have somehow acquired the nickname Helknights, despite having nothing to do with Hel.
The current Order of Thunder is strongly LN, bordering on LE. No paladins left, and with people who enjoy exercising power and force of arms in charge.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The next morning after a few hours of fitful rest, the gang wakes up. Arael, looking much better now than he did when they rescued him, gives the PCs his heartfelt thanks for the rescue and a short speech about how his arrest and punishment was a perfect example of why Thrune needs to be deposed, the Order of Thunder disbanded or seriously reorganized, and better people put in charge. The first thing they need to do, apart from immediate escape, is determine exactly how many people they can call on to openly oppose Thrune and the Thunderknights.
Despite my best efforts I couldn't help but make him sound like someone one red flag away from being a full-on Marxist.
Whatever the actual politics involved, the gang feels it's best they head out of town. Stormhold isn't that big and they expect Thrune to send people to find them. They send Janiven out to shop for a few necessities, mostly some new clothes, food and some bedrolls, and try to get out of town before midday. Their suspicions are justified as they see squads of Thunderknights making their way through town interrogating people. A quick use of a disguise kit and some Bluff rolls let the PCs make their way to the town gate where they see one of the orcs they beat up the night before looking at the faces of everyone passing through.
Hoping that their disguises will hold, they try to go past. There aren't a lot of bugbears in Stormhold so the guard questions Patty closely. The disguise holds but when asked "Where were you last night?" Patty panics and answers "Uh, not beating you up." (nat 1 on Bluff roll). The guards draw weapons and demand that he lie down on the ground. Combat ensues. Cirion yells to the others to run and he'll extricate Patty, and she pulls a smokestick from her bag. Patty fails to hurt a guard, the leader rings an alarm bell, and one of the guards crits Patty, whose player is very grateful he started with 3 HD.
Arael and Marianya scream and run past, pretending to be scared of the situation. Dru runs up to one of the guards and attempts to club him into unconsciousness with a sap. The player first said he moved to flank position and later claims he tried to just hit one of the guards in passing. Marianya turns and fires off a Magic Missile at one of the guards, and Arael sighs, runs back and heals Patty. Cirion/Othariel is frustrated at the slow and inexperienced kids she's babysitting but realizes this is good for her so doesn't say anything.
The PCs manage to escape and head out into the Great Grasslands. It's not quite a praerie but the grass is tall and thick off the roads and away from the farms, so they manage to hide and sneak away before mounted troops catch up with them.
They had intended to head straight east to the big Gauntlin forest and talk to the elves but decide to cross a river and head north to the Wizardspire to try to get support of the wizards. The party finds their way up the mountain, subtly guided by Othariel who remembers the way from when she and her friends had dungeon crawled through the place in their youth. The wizards greet them and cast Detect Magic to determine if any of them have any magical effects on them. The greeter's eyes widen when he focuses on Cirion, whose player looks chagrined. The other players don't comment on this, possibly because they didn't catch that bit. Either way, the party is showed to guest quarters, which are student dorm rooms.
The next day they are granted an audience with the masters of Wizardspire, which include an aged elf by the name of Phaendar. The masters listen to the impassioned speech given by Arael but decline to give any aid since they have a mutual non-interference agreement with the government of the Thunder Rift. Plus, taking lessons from the Wizard War centuries before Othariel's time, they are reluctant to get involved with mundanes and ignite a new war. Disappointed, the party makes ready to leave Wizardspire to visit the elves.
The night before this meeting, Phanedar had a quiet meeting with Othariel. Using True Seeing he had recognized her, and wanted to talk. He filled her in on some details of the past 400 years that she did not know, and she told him of her attempts to quietly guide and aid the young heroes in their attempt to put the Thunder Rift on the right track again. They share a moment of exasperation at how difficult it is to be patient and let the young and ignorant learn rather than expect them to be super accomplished right off the bat. Phaendar informs Othariel of the outcome of the next day's meeting in advance and assures her that Wizardspire will remain neutral unless attacked by Thrune. Though Othariel would have appreciated the magical might of Phaendar she accepts this decision. She is somewhat relieved to learn that Thrune has little arcane might to back him up, though there is a notable contingent of Vanya clergy. He does give Othariel some hope by mentioning that the elves are generally less pleased with Thrune's rule and they will most likely support any effort to reform the leadership of the Rift.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The heroes catch a riverboat from the base of Wizardspire to the middle of the Gauntlin Forest, home of the elves and gnolls. Marianya is from the orest so she shows the party the way to the home settlement of the elves.
They are met on the way by an advance guard of three gnolls, who recognize Marianya and let the PCs pass without comment. The elves are unused to having non-elves in their home, even after all these centuries of greater participation with the other races of the Thunder Rift, but they are cautiously welcomed since they are in the company of one of their own. Marianya asks for an audience with Ronorin Silvercrest, de facto leader of the community.
Othariel remembers Ronorin from before, though she is old. Marianya sets forth the current condition of the Rift and Thrune's latest misdeeds. The elves are not fans of Thrune or the current iteration of the Thunder Knights, but are cautious about doing anything about it. They hope that Thrune will just die of old age before things get too bad and hope that the next Prince is better. The PCs make impassioned arguments against this, and reluctntly Ronorin agrees. The elves and their allies the gnolls (ancestral enemies, recently enough that both Othariel and Ronorin remember this vividly) are united in their distaste for Thrune's greater and greater demands on their resources and loyalty.
Ronorin points out that if the party really wants to get a revolution going, they need some form of leadership. The natural choice is Arael, who has the highest Charisma and Diplomacy and Perform (oratory) skills, and has been speaking out against Thrune for years. Arael is reluctan; he isn't a local and does not want to be a leader. The PCs ask if Ronorin would consider the job, given her wisdom.
"Kid, I'm 700 years old. I'm tired, I could die at any moment and I'm too concerned with the elves to be a good leader for the whole Rift. Pick your young firebrand here."
With no other obvious choice, Arael concedes. Ronorin wishes to speak to him alone and shoos the PCs out.
Though she has never seen him, Ronorin is pretty sure Arael is Rahnee's son and wants to make sure of that. He admits to this, and has to confess to some resentment towards his mother for abandoning the Rift and letting things get so bad. Ronorin is of much the same mind but is pleased to see he takes his new job seriousloy. Much of Arael's reluctance to be a leader is because he wants the people of the Rift to choose a leader based on dedication and competency, not because of ancestry. He has a lot to live up to and for better or worse wants to be acknowledged for who he is, not who his mother or grandmother are.
While this is going on the PCs are taken to Marianya's modest home and fed and given a place to sleep for the night. When Arael comes back they start planning for the future. They stay up long into the night.
This being my players, someone has some very odd ideas about what to do about the Thunder Knights. Marianya wonders if flat out 'disappearing' small patrols would be a good way to start. Arael frowns and says that even ignoring ethics this would be bad. Cue a long tangent about the "I'm not evil, I'm Chaotic Neutral" Marianya argues with the rest of the PCs about ultimate goals and how to accomplish these. Almost before the group has been formally organized it threatens to split into two directions. This, coupled with trying to figure out what name the group should have, leads to many jokes about "The People's Front of the Thunder Rift" vs "The Thunder Rift People's Front" vs. "The Popular Front of the Thunder Rift" were made.
Marianya backs down and goes along with rest of the party, Name Pending.
Once this tangent is done there is a discussion IC and OOC about what form of government to have once Thrune is ousted. Cue many references to strange women lying in ponds distributing swords (someone showing up with Othariel's sword would have a fair amount of legitimacy to any claim) and anarcho-syndiclist communes (Arael would like people to choose Good and cooperation of their own accord rather than be lorded over by an autocrat).
The rest of the session is hammering out what to do next in the short term, which is find out what sort of support they can expect from the rest of the Rift, and try to get some information about the inner workings of the Thunder Knights, who are notoriously tight-lipped to outsiders. Some plan to infiltrate under the guise of recruits and gain information that way, possibly convert some people to their cause.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Not too much happened last night. The first 20 minutes were spent arguing about party name, to no decision.
The PCs spend the better part of a couple of months wandering the northern bit of the Rift, talking to the people who live there. Even after the centuries since unification there is still a strong racial divide in where people live, though not as absolute as it used to be. The kobolds and goblins eked out a living on the fringes. They have been ignored and overlooked for quite some time now. They are used to this at an almost genetic level and despite being rather poor, are content to not rock the boat and attract actual hostilities from the ruler of the Rift. Still, the PCs got the idea they would be amenable to a change in leadership and fairer living conditions. Cirion left behind a small pile of gold at each farm they visited, in Arael's name
The halfling farmers disliked the taxes and oppressive nature of the Thunder Knights but had to admit they were better than bandits, and banditry was down when the Thunder Knights were around.
The human villagers of Kleine and the surrounding human farmers and ranchers seemed happy to leave things as they were, with much the same opinion as the halflings.
The orcs in the Farolas Hills were fine with the way things were going. They have a strong cultural admiration for violence and forceful leadership, and as many orcs enter the Order of Thunder they do pretty well for themselves.
The dwarves of Hearth-Home kept the door closed and told the PCs to go away and stop making a nuisance of themselves. Dejected, the PCs head south again, stopping by Stormhold to check out the rumors they heard about some fires.
Arael and Patty stay hidden well outside the city (because they are too well known and bad at lying) while the rest enter and try to find out what has happened while they were gone. It seems that just a day or so after their escape from STornmhold, a number of fires erupted in various parts of the city, killing a few people and several others being unaccounted for afterwards. Among these are the Sarcastic Goat and Janiven. People do not want to talk too much about it but targets were all places or people known to be critical of Thrune and the current regime. Cirion tracks down Janiven, who has lived on the street and in the sewers since the fires, and smuggler her out. Marianya immediately calls for retribution, wanting to burn down a few of Thrune's allies. "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs", she says.
"You don't have to burn down the entire coop, though," Arael responds, nixing the idea of more arson. Cue another argument about 'disappearing' Thunder Knights and Marianya not quite understanding that even ignoring moral issues, that's poking a bear the PCs can't handle.
The group makes their way to Melnir, narrowly avoiding a Thunder Knight patrol on the way. Melnir is a quiet, old town, eclipsed by Stormhold. It boasts a surprising number of cathedrals - a total of three, which is kind of a lot for a town with barely a couple hundred inhabitants. All of them were built because of Ranya - one to her patron Valerias, one to herself, and one to her husband's, and later Othariel's, patron Khoronus. The cathedrals to Valerias and Ranya no longer belong to those faiths, having been repossessed by the government for failure to pay taxes. Valerias' cathedral has been taken over by Vanya's faith and Ranya's temple looks abandoned and full of grafitti.
For reasons unknown to her, Marianya feels deeply and personally offended by this.
Next time, The PCs decide to stop gathering info and start building an actual power base, including stronghold and doing good to show people things can be better than Thrune's regime.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Short session with lots of OOG talk and one player who had to take care of his kid and couldn't make game night, another who had to quit early because of lack of sleep the previous night.
The PCs find Janiven's contacts and secure a temporary HQ where Arael can hide out of sight of the Thunder Knights. Once this is done they spend the day asking about town to see if there are any specific problems they could conceivably handle. Apart from the usual griping about excessive taxation - a common complaint driven home by their current abode being a coffeehouse that sees precious little by the way of customers due to people not having money to go out and drink - they are told of a gang of punks called the Bastards. Said gang is a collection of youths (mostly with minimal or no parental figures) somewhere between an annoyance and a terror. They rough up people going home late at night, are blamed for a string of minor burglaries and robberies, are generally unpleasant when encountered, etc. The Thunder Knights curb their worst excesses since the gang doesn't want to tangle with them, and so the population of Melnir has a generally grudging preference for the TKs and Thrune's arguments that one needs a strong armed presence to preserve Law and Order.
The PCs decide to try to find the Bastards. They start off by sending Dru to scout out the abandoned Ranya temple which has been boarded up and is covered in grafitti, most of if making unflattering remarks about Ranya.
Dru cannot find a way in that is easily accessible and fails to quietly pry some boards away from the windows, and decides to leave rather than risk making noise trying to enter. He did determine that the places was not empty, however.
Out on the town the PCs easily find the Bastards going around acting like dumb gangs and teens everywhere: thinking that they are cool and tough because they are crude, loud and walk with an unearned swagger. The PCs confront them and easily Intimidate them with threats of the wrath of the Immortals for their desecration of a temple, though Marianya's excessively aggressive attitude provokes them into fighting. The PCs easily knock out half of the gang in the first round and the rest run for their lives. They heal up the little damage they took and follow the escaping Bastards to a secret entrance leading in to Ranya's temple. Here they overhear the remaining Bastards babble about their encounter with the PCs. The PCs show themselves and a fight occurs.
Low-level fights have a charm about them. Pattinathar spent almost the entire combat fighting a single skeleton, with both of them either missing or not doing significant damage to fell the other. Dru was quite effective with his sneak attacking rapier. Cirion spent most of the time fighting the Bastard's leader. The cleric of Nyx the Bastards were working with proved difficult - 4th level vs a bunch of 2nd levels, after all. The PCs made most of their saves but the negative energy channels were punishing, dropping all but Patty, who after having finally taken out the skeleton he'd been working on all night managed to drop the cleric and heal up the dying PCs. Choosing to retreat and rest rather than explore the rest of the temple, the PCs leave and the session ends.
Othariel really feels the frustrtion of watching what are in effect little kids fumbling aboutm, trying to accomplish things she could do in fraction of the time it takes them. She knows this is what being an Immortal and working through mortal followers must be like, but it doesn't make this any more enjoyable. She would break cover to save the lives of any PC in danger, but is glad she hasn't had to yet.
Next session, return to the temple and see if they can find some clues.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Cirion stabilizes the surviving Bastard before the PCs loot the bodies and look into the secret door in the temple. They find a nice little stash of loot and a discussion about whether it's ok to take stuff from the temple of an Immortal they all like is OK takes place. Cirion(Othariel) obviously thinks it's ok, knowing that Ranya would be fine with it, and 'he' argues that they should take the stuff in case someone less nice should come along and find it. They retreat to Arael, get healed up, and Arael concludes that for the moment they should use the stuff. They can confess their sins to any Ranya cultist they happen to meet later and worry about trying to fix the problems of the Rift now. Though he never met Ranya, he heard enough about her from his mother that he feels confident She would be OK with the group putting the stuff to good use.
After healing up the gang returns to Ranya's temple and explore the rest of it. The temple needs a good cleaning: the various artwork depicting Ranya has been painted with garish colors, lewdly emphasizing her 'attributes', and the rest of the place looks like a bunch of careless teens have been sleeping, eating, and f!#*ing for a few years without cleaning up. Then follows a discussion about what to do with the surviving Bastsard. Marianya says that the punks would probably kill the PCs if given a chance and she sees no reason not to do the same to them - pretty soon her CN will become CE if she's not careful. The rest of the PCs do not agree and they heal and wake up the surviving youth and question him. He tells of how the Bastards teamed up with the Nyx priest for mutual interests and how they have an agreement with a couple of mages - the mages use the Bastards as cheap muscle and in return the mages tell keep the temple magically protected so that the Thunder Knights won't bother the Bastards there, and the mages also warn the Bastards of impending TK patrols in the area so they can avoid them. They don't know exactly where the mages spend most of their time, though they assume it's Mage's Island, but they know they have something going on at the abandoned mines just north of Melnir, since the Bastards moved a few carts of stuff to the mines a few days ago. With some stern warnings to not go back to a life of crime and hooliganism, the PCs let the Bastard go.
Not know what else to do with the corpses, the PCs hide them in the secret room in the Temple, hoping they won't decay too much before they can come back and do something about them. Jokes about getting flasks of acid and a bathtub were made.
Secretly, Othariel returns to the temple and attempts to Raise the dead Bastards. She leaves the Nyx priest and the leader, both who struck her as being unlikely to respond to her offers of a better life. The young Bastards deserve a second chance, however. The kids accept and are brought back to life. The youths accept in awe and in fear and shame listen to her stern lecture about Not Being Bastards, and then she gives them a few coins and some advice about how to improve their lot in life. It remains to be seen how they will react to this but they will not be an issue for the rest of the campaign. Othariel is all about second chances, giving people the opporunity to repent and improve themselves. She isn't much for third chances, however, so she hopes the kids get it right this time around.
The next day, after a good rest, the PCs set out to the abandoned mines. The mines were abandoned in Othariel's time, and in the intervening centuries has been used as bandit hideout, storage area, shelter from invading armies, haunted by minor undead, and finally marked as off-limits because of danger of collapse. The PCs see signs of activity in the area despite the signposts warning against entering. The wall blocking the entrance is on closer examination easily moved and they enter. The wander about a short while before finding the right tunnels to follow. With no one on the team who knows about mining they don't know if the mines actually are unstable, but they see no signs of it. They find an area with some light, a barred area and a couple of guards lounging outside. The PCs have surprise but Marianya descies that the best thing to do is walk out and try to talk to them. This is the player's normal MO. It doesn't work this, as the guards do wht guards are supposed to do and raise the alarm. The fight that follows is basically Pattinathar killing half the guards while Marianya insists on using her crossbow and misses all the time. To be fair, the player rolls s@+$, as usual, and refuses to use Mari's spells, which is unusual. Once Mari ignores her bow and uses Magic Missile, she actually helps in combat.
The guards, the mages and the dwarf leader of the gang eventually fall, and the PCs stabilize the survivors (again, to Mari's suggestions that they should just gank them). They keep the survivors alive and go in to explore the area. There they find some prisoners, who they recoginize as some of the people who went missing in the fires weeks ago.
At this point we end the session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs do what they can for the prisoners but one of them is dead. After giving them some food and water, the PCs begin to question them. Their stories are basically the same: they were at home when a bunch of thugs burst in, beat them up, and spirited them away, and set fire to their homes. The kidnappers were all foreign mercenaries and none would say who orderd the operation, but the victims were all people who were loudly critical of Thrune and his policies.
The PCs escort the victims to Melnir and sneak them into the coffe house they use as a temporary hideout. They are desperately feeling the need to find a bigger stronghold and a more secret one. This will probably be the next item on the list.
The PCs suddenly remember that they had taken a couple of the mercenaries alive and rush back to the mines. Fortunately, two of them were still there, groaning and nearing consciousness. The third was nowhere to be seen. The two remaining, which include the leader, are questioned. Marianya and Dru and Pattinathar fail miserably at their Intimidate rolls but Cirion succeeds despite the failed initial rolls giving the prisoners a bonus to resist.
The mercenaries admit they have done a variety of smuggling and bandit work in the Rift for a while. They have a contact, and they suspect said contact has contacts in the Thunder Knights, since the bandits are always given notice where it is safe to raid. All useful information recovered, the PCs decide to kill the prisoners. This really sticks in Cirioni's craw but they cannot see a viable alterntive.
The gang then plans some more.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
After some discussion the PCs plan to escort the freed political prisoners to the elves in the Gauntlin forest, in hopes that they will be safe there for a while at least. On their way they stop by Torlynn, which has been haunted by some shadowy monsters the last week. Four people have gone missing and the residents have sent for the Thunder Knights to aid. When the PCs offer to look into things the villagers gratefully accept.
The PCs hang around until the beasts show up some time after nightfall. The fight is intense - shadow mastiffs are nasty against a 3rd level party. Half of them flee at the baying and the rest take a lot of damage. They are saved by GM brain fog (I was rather tired throughout the session) since I forgot the 50% miss chance throughout the fight and only one of the hounds bayed. Still, it was a close thing with two PCs falling unconscious and the rest saved only because there were two NPC clerics healing them. They survive and slay the beasts.
Some time after sunrise, rested and replenished, they head out. Luckily the shadow mastiffs left a track to follow, which leads straight to Barrik's Keep (a house, really), where Othariel and her friends had saved one of her clanmates and the town of Torlynn from eternal winter. The place is clean and mostly empty, with a few books in the study. No fire wood, no food, no sign of anything in the kitchen other than a glass with some disturbingly red congealed remnants in the bottom. When the PCs find four hastily made boxes about the size and shape of a coffin,containing four pale and seemingly unwounded corpses, their Knowledge (religion) checks go into overdrive.
The corpses do not react to the noise going on around them so Cirion pours a bottle of holy water on one. The corpse sits up screaming and the PCs nearly panic. The heroes win the initiative and ll cleric types channel and the corpses turn to mist, swirl about a moment, then start to reform. During this time the group hurridly makes stakes and stake the creatures.
A brief discussion about the creatures follows. They quickly come to the conclusion that these four vampires were the unfortunates that disappeared and that they were in turn created by a more powerful vampire. They wonder if they should pull back and prepare but decide to keep going, since the spawn went down easily enough and they still (hopefully) have the element of surprise. They find the coffin of the master and attack but the master knew of their coming. Dru is hit once and beats a hasty retreat. Cirion decides to tank and is hit but keeps it busy. All the clerics channel two rounds later the vampire is mist, then staked.
Cirion did seriously consider smiting the bloodsucker but was glad he could maintain cover a bit longer by keeping it focused on him.
The staked vampires are dragged out into the sun and the place thoroughly searched. The PCs now feel they have a safe place as their base, return to Torlynn with the sad news about the four missing youths, and we end the session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The party secures some supplies for Arael and leave him at Barrik's Keep House, send the elf they rescued back to the elves, and escort the last three people back to Stormhold. One is a cleric of Ranya who ministers to the less fortunate in the city. Though technically held accountable for his orders supposed debt, he is obviously of poor means and quite popular, so any overt action against him by the authorities would drastically increase unrest.
The second is a young dandy who was caught when his mother was assaulted. His mother died in captivity and he is now very much out for blood. He will leverage his connections with the well-to-do in the Rift and try to sawy opinion against the Prince.
The last is an orc grocer who has been loudly disapproving of his kind being used as troops for the Thunder Knights.
The trip starts off well enough but they soon encounter a band of Thunder Knights who inquire what the situation in Torlynn is like. The PCs, under Marianya's lead, start prevaricating for no adequate reason, things like 'just a bunch of overly exciteable youths who were pulling a prank', were made. The cleric of Ranya, despite being a local, does his patron proud by adding a completely unnecessary and unbelievable story about how he's a tourist who has heard so much about the Rift and wants to see it, and the rest of the group are his guides/guards.
I got some vague answer about the players not wanting the Thunder Knights to go to Torlynn because they might conceivably follow the trail to their new secret hideout, but failed to make clear that at the beginning of their mumblings. In any case, Bluff is not a skill they are particularly good at and even without any ranks in Sense Motive, the Thunder Knight in charge could tell something was off. She questioned the PCs closely individually and then let them go, which they found rather disconcerting. In short, the Thunder Knight thinks they are hella suspicious but has no idea about specifics and doesn't want to increase trouble for herself on the grounds of 'they seemed to be hiding somthing'. For the moment she has their fake names and their faces and will be keeping an eye out for them later on.
Back in Stormhold the PCs get a room in one of the dive bars, and wait for a bit, trying to discretely gather information about what life is like now. The dandy they escorted home is given a place to stay by a friend, announces his survival and the mostly true story of his abduction and rescue (carefully edited to leave out any suspicions of the Prince's involvement), and starts the process of trying to get his family's fortunes handed over to him. This will prove to be a bit more troublesome than hoped since the law moved quickly to seize his family's assets and give them to 'the Rift' (i.e. the Prince).
While this is going on the dandy asks the PCs to look into one of his family's estates which was sold off recently. He hopes to prevent its looting. The PCs face off against a number of undead, leading them to suspect that the church of Nyx is going to be one of the main antagonists in their quest to free the Rift from tyranny. The undead were far more impressive opponents than the cleric and his monk bodyguards.
Before leaving Barrik's 'Keep', Othariel in her guise of Cirion, discretely pocketed the strange artifact thehead vampire had in hand when the PCs defeated him. As close to Immortality as she is, she could identify it and most of its properties far more easily than most mortals. It turns out it was an artifact of Nyx' that turns the bearer into a vampire and enhances their vampiric abilities. Othariel is pretty sure she'd be immune to the effect but doesn't the other PCs to fall prey to it, so she stuffs it in her Portable Hole. She briefly considers destroying it but destroying artifacts is often difficult and tends to piss off the god who made it. She keeps it for later, hoping to get a minor favor from Nyx for its eventual return.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs clear out the building and start interrogating the Vanya cleric they took alive. He tries to brazen it out but cannot resist their Intimidate check and starts talking. He claims he is here on behalf of one of the richest people in town, doing an inventory and preventing any looters like the PCs. He keeps throwing glances over the PCs' shoulders and they notice this. A short while later the PCs hear the grind of stone on stone and the priest yells for help. They rush out into the hall to see a previously secret door now open and a surprised looter looking at them. They beat him up, tie him up with the rest, and three of the PCs head down the now revealed secret staircase, leaving Dru to watch over the captives.
The stairs go down a surprising distance and opens up into a pleasant underground complex. The PCs try to sneak their way through it but the first group of enemies they come across roll very well on Perception. The looters are dangerous enough and pummel the PCs hard but their boss who manages to sneak up on the PCs from behind is far worse. I roll abysmally, so she only gets in two hits over the course of a minute or more of in game combat. The PCs are concerned to see she has regeneration but after a tough fight manage to subdue her. She Dimension Doors away when she wakes up, leaving the PCs to quickly gather what stuff they can from the complex and high-tail it out of town, Cirion staying behind to inform their employer about the result of their little adventure.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs left the Vanyaists alive but bound, hoping to get time to get out of town before they are found. Cirion reports the result if the investigation to their patron, who fills them in on a few details about the information they had uncovered. The existence of the secret underground complex was news to him and really drives home exactly why his mother was targetd by the Prince in the first place. He expands a little more on the legal problems he is facing and likely outcomes. Cirion then escapes the city and the PCs head back to Arael in Barrik's Keep.
Arael is going a bit spare being all alone and having nothing to do so he decides to travel with the PCs a bit. They head back into Torlynn and see how the town is getting on - much better now that monsters aren't preying on them. To their consternation, the Thunder Knights they met on the way asked for them and is now aware of the PCs' true names.
They then head to Melnir to see how things are going there. They are surprised to see one of the youths they killed up and about. Said youth's face drains of blood when he sees the PCs, he throws up his hands and yells "don't touch me, I'm not doing anything wrong" and runs off. The PCs find this a bit suspicious and spend a couple nights prowling the streets for him but don't find him. They conclude the most likely scenario is a rich parent raised him and he is keeping his head down from now on.
They head back to Stormhold, in new disguises, and make contact with their nob friend. He informs them that the Prince wishes to honor them for their daring rescue of 'valued citizens of the Rift' in a public ceremony. Everyone thinks this sounds hella sus, but can't decide if showing up and saying 'thanks but no thanks' to any honors or gifts is better or worse than not showing up at all.
The session ends here.
I felt rather sickly last night, had done no prep due to a minor family emergency that took up much of my time the last week, and the PCs immediately ran away from the one half-baked idea I had come up with beforehand. Fortunately Marianya's player did a great job of dragging stuff out of my foggy brain with his questions and actions, and I got the PCs at least introduced to the next hook by the end of the session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The session started with some more discussion about whether to show up to the Prince's ceremony. They worry about traps, about legitimizing the Prince, about PR and politics, and all sorts of issues. Eventually decide they decide to attend. They have a week before the award ceremony takes place.
The PCs wake up that night to find Othariel standing over them, commending them for their desire for good and their resolve to make the Rift a better place. She grants them a Wish. Interestingly, none of the PCs tell the others of this visitation. Othariel also appears before the previously captured Vanyaists in disguise as an angel and tells them they are being very naughty in supporting the Prince and that they should stop it. She doesn't really hold much hope that they will change their mind but she is giving them a chance.
Othariel also visits a few Thunder Knights she has had her eye on and tries to convince them that the current situation is far from what she had intended when she founded the Order, and that they need to kick out the Vanyaists and become more paladin-y. They are in awe but will take some time to process the idea.
Lastly, Othariel visits Arael and gives him her stamp of approval. Arael is conflicted. On the one hand he finally gets to meet his legendary grandmother and is glad that she agrees with him on most things. On the other, he is pissed that she has never bothered to show up in his life before this, is angry at how she 'abandoned' the Rift and his mother when they could have used more stability and strength, and her seemingly capricious help now. He will need some time to process his emotions.
She gives him a Miracle.
Having the better part of a week before the award ceremony, the PCs spend time trying to scout out the site of the ceremony before hand. They can find no signs of nefarious activity. The actual ceremony is short and straightforward. It's an excuse for the Prince to look good, cast doubt on his connections to the events that necessitated this ceremony, and get a good look at his enemy. In addition to the Prince, the leader of the Thunder Knights and the archpriest of the Vanyaists in the Rift present. The Prince himself gives off a dangerous vibe and seems very comfortable with the sword he has on his hip. He has a one of the guards who was on duty the night the PCs rescued Arael, which the PCs correctly guess is there to hopefully recognize anyone who may have participated in that event. The PCs are not complete idiots (shocking, I know) and had disguised themselves well beforehand so said guard could not recognize them. They also left Patty behind (player was absent), so the racial composition of the group was not as singular.
The Prince made short speech about how horrible the fires were and how awful the whole captivity situation was, and how grateful the Rift is for heroes of such pluck and skill. He presents the PCs with some useful magic items, toasts them, and the crowd makes a polite golf clap. The Prince and his entourage return to the Keep, and the PCs melt into the crowd. The items seem legitimate, but since none of the PCs have Detect Curse or Arcane Sight they have to rely on Identify to see if things are ok. One assumes they are fine, a couple others are less convinced.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Shortly after the award ceremony, their noble contact informs the PCs that a new play is being put on. He knows the director and got an advanced copy of the script. The comedy is a thinly-veiled satire of Othariel and her companions, portrayed as a bunch of idiots, who take over a country and drive it to the brink of ruin with their smooth-brained policies. A character who is an obvious stand-in for the current Prince continually points out how the policies are going to end badly and has to clean up the mess when they inevitably do.
To paraphrase Sir Hmumphrey, plays criticizing the government are the second most boring form of theater, surpassed only by those that praise the government. The PCs decide to make this a memorably bad play and audition for roles in order to ruin the play. Many references to "The Producers" were made.
Cirion and Marianya impress the director with their acting skill and get the roles of "Othariel" (naturally) and the functionary who tells the main cast of the problems arising and the result of any policies.
The players use a variety of skill rolls to deftly convince the diva-ish lead role to make the role of the "Prince" even more dickish, subtly rewrite the "Othariel" character to come off less dumb and more forgiving, and last minute Dru disguises themself as the director and hands out a re-write that makes the Othariel-expy look better and the Prince-expy crueller.
On the opening night the Prince is in attendance, eager to have his ego stroked. The first act went mostly well though the director screamed quietly at the actors after the first act at the unauthorizd changest that had been made. He assumed so far that they had merely misspoken lines and ad libbed a bit.
Dru has spent his time in the crowd, moving around and heckling the "Prince" character, cheering on "Othariel" and making sure everyone has a supply of rotten tomatoes.
Cirion and Marianya, having two of the three most powerful roles, make a lot of unauthorized changes that have "othariel's" dicisions be far better and the "Prince"'s cruel and pointless. The other actors struggle to play along, being out of their depth and feeling the harsh gaze of the actual Prince on them as the play gradually turns into a farce.
The Prince and the director are visibly upset by the end of the second act, and behind stage the diva-lead has his ego crushed when he 'accidentally' ovrhears a conversation between the two PCs that disparages his acting ability and manliness. The third act is dreailed before the play is over by excessive boooing and rotten fruit directed at the "Prince" character and a short but powerful monologue by Cirion about how the people need kindness and support, not blood-sucking tyrants. Some minor pyrotechnics and the PCs beat a hasty retreat as a minor riot forms and the Prince demands his guards arrest the actors.
The PCs keep their heads down for a few days. They feel some guilt when they hear that the director is doghoused and the diva has disappeared.
All in all, the players enjoyed this session. Once they heard there was a play involved they took the adventure hook and ran with it.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Extra short session yesterday. The PCs discuss their plans for the future with Arael, the nominal leader of the resistance. The play was a hit and is the talk of the town for a few days and the Thunder Knights are in force trying to find the actors responsible for the affront to the Prince. Though a PR victory, the resistance needs some more to work with. They are slowly gathering allies but for the moment those willing to oppose the Prince and the Thunder Knights are too few, too poor, and too weak.
They need money, they need experience, and they will probably need weapons. With th Rift itself lacking any good adventure seeds, mostly thanks to Othariel and her friends clearing out the last of them when she was young, they decide they need to go abroad. They head to the Adri Varma plateau, where the Thunder Knights have made a name for themselves as mercenaries fighting for various city-states over the last several centuries.
One player mentioned she'd felt I pushed them in this direction while I was rather surprised by them heading out. Either way, the session had to end early since they bypassed what little I had prepared, and now I have to read up on the Adri Varma, advance it a few hundred years, and make all new adventures.
I could have forced the players into what I had prepared but I don't like doing that sort of thing once the players have actually decided to do something.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs make their way out of the Rift, well laden with beer and wine, and follow the road through Wendar into the Adri Varma plateau. The plateau is well named: once they exit the Wendarian mountain range and head west they see the Adri Varma rise out of the horizon. It's an imposing sight, looking like nothing so much as a large bit of the continent that was raised and put on top of the rest. The road is one the Thunder Rift (primarily the Thunder Knights) have used to get to and from the AVP. Technically it goes through Wendar but old treaty means the Rift/TK can travel freely on it. The PCs stop in last town in Wendar before the AVP and get some information on the AVP. The map they bought is generally considered to be accurate enough (some people had a few quibbles about exact locations of certain things).
The top of the AVP is mostly a dry desert, often cold and with harsh winds and bright sun. They make it to the first town of Nurestani and ask around a bit to get a feel on local politics. Some suspicions are confirmed, some are not, but the most interesting bit was the ruins of a Thunder Knight fortress a ways outside the town. The PCs go there to investigate. They dungeon crawl through the first level, finding a Thunder Knight who happened to be there at the same time as them. They are wary but introduce themselves and make an alliance of convenience, and clear out the rest of the first floor of the crumbling fortress.
So I actually did do a bit of prep for this session. By 'prep' I of course mean 'did a little thinking about the background and setting and powerdynamics of political entities' instead of 'make adventure hooks or NPCs or locations for encounters'. The choice to leave the Rift and explore the AVP was a good one for me, because it will allow me to introduce a few aspects of the Thunder Knights and their history.
Now to whinge a bit: I stole the fortress and Thunder Knight/Hellknight encounter from the first book of Age of Ashes and if I had thought a little bit more about the details of the place before throwing the PCs into it I would have had an easier time last night. Man, that place is badly designed. It's almost like a 1e dungeon in how little thought was put into how things worked.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs and their momentary Thunder Knight companion feel the fort they are currently exploring probably had a cellar of some sort and start looking for hidden doors but find none. After this the PCs pore over the few surviving papers they found and are annoyed to find it exclusively logistics and inventory. A small comment ignites their curiosity: a note about things to be moved to the basement. They search everything again and move their attention to the outside and find a hidden door in a nearby pile of rocks. Entering they find a half-finished subterranean stronghold with a few honored dead of the older Order of Thunder plus a few minor relics, including a banner bearing the Order's insignia and the legend "The Last Faithful".
This arouses the group's curiosity and their companion's consternation. They encounter a few undead warriors in Thunder Knight armor - amor of an older design that is much less fierce than the current design and without Vanya's holy symbol on it. The undead all attack the Thunder Knight for preference, which really puts him off. The skeletal champions are easily dispatched but the barrow wights' Insanity gaze affects everyone but Cirion. The PCs are a greater danger to themselves than the wights, who roll terribly on all attacks, and Marianya nearly dies and Dru is severely injured.
Cirioin sighs and mutters something about how this always happens, pulls out a Staff of Life, and bonks people on the head to cure them - putting a bit more oomph into the bonks than is strictly speaking necessary.
The rest of the complex is empty but for a small collection of papers which is a brief account of a schism within the Order of Thunder over a century ago. In short, while the OoT had slowly been moving away from its origins as a paladin order for quite a while, focusing more and more on mercenary work. At one point the faith of Vanya was introduced to the OoT though contact with Heldannic Knights and it found fertile ground in the minds of many in the Order. Many in the Order still held true to Othariel's original vision, especially amongst the leadership and most highly ranked and powerful members, but they were a minority. For a while the Vanyaists worked alongside the traditionalists without issue but as their number and influence grew the differences between Vanya's ideals and Othariel's became too pronounced for the Order to bear and they started disagreeing about how the Order was to conduct itself and the ultimate goals. The most extreme of the Vanyaists eventually turned to violence to purge the traditionalists and turn the Order fully to Vanya. The traditionalists had suspected this was coming and were making preparations to survive, including the secret hideout at this fort, but were unable to finish them before the Vanyaists struck.
The notes metion a few names of people and places, mostly of little current interest intriguingly the city of Tuma, where the bulk of the traditionalists were stationed and how they suddenly disappeared without trace.
Again, the dungeon design in Hellknight Hill was bad. Bad architecture, lots of things lacking (where are the latrines?), and little thought put into how certain monsters would affect the dungeon (the gelatinous cube, sepcifically).
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
After looting reclaiming the magic left here to put it to better use, the PCs and their friendly Thunder Knight return to Nurestani to spend the night. Alak is visibly troubled by the revelations here but says nothing and is hard to talk to. However, Cirion is very good at talking to people and gets him to open up somewhat. With some work Alak may be turned from Vanya to the original vision of the Order.
Poring over the recovered texts the PCs notice a city called Tuma mentioned. Alak bestirs himself to note that it too was a stronghold of the Order of Thunder and that it fell about the same time that the fort they just explored fell. The official story is, again, that locals attacked it but the PCs and Alak are not sure that is entirely true. They decide to investigate. They make the two week trip from Nurestani to Gulluvia, only proper city on the plateau and political and economic center of the entire region. Not coincidentally the main stronghold of the Order of Thunder is here (the Adri Varma bit of the Order, that is), as Gulluvia is one of the main employers of the Order in their mercenary work.
They say farewell to Alak, who has to return to duty, and explore Gulluvia, which is the largest city most of the PCs have ever seen. They set out to learn more about Tuma. They learn that Tuma was actually quite near Gulluvia, in what is now called the Lost Warrior Mountains (though looking at the map it was probably called 'mountains' by Danes or Dutch). They manage to find an elf local who visited Tuma centuries ago and they manage to convince him to guide them.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The guide they hire is a Wendarian ex-pat who adventured the Adri Varma in his youth and settled in Gulluvia afterwards. He demands a rather stiff sum for his services, expects hazard pay for any danger, and the understanding that he will only protect himself and let the PCs do any actual fighting. They grumble a bit but accept his conditions.
While they wait for him to tidy his affairs before setting out they learn what they can of rumors of the Lost Warriors Mountains and Tuma. Stories are conflicting. Mostly they involve ghostly riders scaring the s*@& out of those who encounter them. No one they encounter has actually seen the haunts in question but rumors abound of people who saw them or who set out t find Tuma and disappeared.
One evening a small group of Thunder Knights, in what can be called 'casual armor', show up. They are lead by an attractive woman who starts buying rounds for people and talking and smiling and lauging. It does not take the PCs long to realize she is basically on a recruitment drive. Many other patrons at the tavern also realize this and accept the free drink but keep their distance, while a few young and impressionable people get hooked and might be future members. Marianya strikes up a conversation but declines when the knights suggest she might find adventure and riches in the Order.
The trip to the Lost Warrior Mountains is as eventful as the trip from the Rift to Gulluvia was uneventful. They were barely a few hours on the road before being set upon by an immense spider which scared off their horses.
They defeat the spider, recover their mounts and continue to the Vark mines, source of much of Gulluvia's wealth. There is a small town there where they set up camp before heading ut the next day.
They soon leave semi-civilized lands behind and start wandering in the wilderness. Their guide warns them that it he only visited Tuma once a couple centuries ago and that the roads he took then might well be gone now, so things might not take the shortest route.
They are nearly ensnared by a bunch of harpies, one PC and all but one of the horses falling for their captivating song and headed blindly towards a cliff. Fortunately, everyone makes their second save and the harpies are soundly beaten.
Then breaks for dog walking and an extended discussion about Indiana Jones takes up the rest of the evening.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Soon after the harpies, their guide spends several days leading the group in what they soon realize is a bunch of circles. When confronted he says, annoyance masking embarrassment, that he was pretty sure that the city of Tuma was right in this area but cannot seem to find it. Slowing down and taking some more time the group soon realize that most of the area is overgrown farmland with a few ruined buildings hiding out. They think it odd that a city could disappear entirely in 200 years with no trace, but they must admit they are rather lacking indetail about what happened. The official story is it was "destroyed by enemies" and nothing more is said on the matter.
A few days of tedious, cold and wet exploration and they come across the ghostly warriors that some rumors spoke of. The party feels rather intimidated by their menacing demeanor but they are relieved when the ghostly figures, all clad in what looks to be ancient Thunder Knight armor, ask their allegience. The situation is resolved peacefully thought Marianya (her player, rather), as usual, tries to do things they claim are mere precautions and is surprised when NPCs find their actions objectionable - in this case pulling out a weapon and casting a spell.
Fortunatley this situation is resolved by showing off a variety of holy symbols of Immortals other than Vanya. The next day the group is annoyed to find a big, obvious city sitting right where they have explored already and found nothing. The city is weird. It is a curious mixture of utter devestation and pristine health. Part of the city is no more than rubble, while many buildinings are without a scratch. Siad buildings are odd. Many are surprisingly large, some of the hundreds of feet tall, and none have doors or windows. The ruined buildings show no signs of ever having had anything inside them - no remains of furniture, food, cloth, and no signs of life of any sort. The tall buildings also give the impression of leaning over the group no matter which side they face.
Cirion feels something is very off about the whole thing and pulls out a scroll of True Seeing. The city looks far more reasonably sized through True Seeing, and the buildings have normal windows and doors. It is also clearly tied to the Ethereal plane in some way. True Seeing does not let the PCs enter the buildings and Detect Magic merely blinds the caster with overwhelming auras. After a little more thinking and discussion, they conclude they cannot do much of anything with the city now and resolve to go somewhere else and see if they can find some way of identifying the effect on the city and undoing it.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Double update, which still makes for slim readings, due to poor prep on my part and delays and early endings.
The PCs send a message to Wizardspire to get some arcane muscle to help them solve the mystery of Tuma. Secretly, Cirion teleports to talk to Phaendar and manages to convince him to get off his lazy arse and do some work. Phaendar has to work through the odd feelings of realizing that though when he was younger he looked up to her with admiration and a feeling of never being able to reach her heights, he was actually only a few years younger than Othariel but is now much older and full of old man grumpiness at the impetuousness of youth.
Back in Gulluvia, Viron, their guide to Tuma, asks the PCs to check in on the N-granddaughter of an old adventuring buddy of his. She married a minor noble halfway across the plateau last year and sent frequent letters but has not been heard from in the last six months or so, soon after she had informed her family of pregnancy.
The PCs accept the quest and head across the Adri Varma, a rather dull affair through badlands which turn into grasslands as they near the village of Thorold. Here they come upon a town with some obvious problems. Lanterns are hung at every street corner and the manor house local lord has people preparing large bonfires around it. They knock on the door and are made welcome by a butler-y type of person who shows them to a sitting room where they can wait for the lady of the house.
Said lady soon shows up and puts to rest any fears of something unpleasant having happened to her - she looks a bit tired but assures the group that she has merely been busy with her infant. Upon being questioned about the odd goings-on outside she admits that the village has been plagued with disease and disappearences and shadows roaming the streets. She says the manor has been blessedly free of any of those ills but her husband has become very distraught and withdrawn, presumably weighed down by responsibility.
The PCs wrangle an audience with said lord who definitely shows signs of fatigue. The lord is initially a bit curt but mostly within boundaries of expected discourse but soon starts rambling about curses on his family and assumptions that "Tanyt" will save them and how good a job the priest is doing at saving people.
Cirion is the only one who recognizes the name, an alias of Nyx (Immortal of Night and Undeath) and the party excuses themselves. The presence of a Nyx cult is bad(ish) news but it does explain the rather dark and foreboding church they passed on the way through town. They visit the Nyx church first and are invited in by resident cleric. He and Cirion look down their noses at one another but are otherwise civil. Though the PCs are sure this priest is evil they get the feeling he is innocent of the specific ills plagueing the village at this time and so continue their investigation elsewhere.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs wander around town a bit and find clues leading to a chandlery. They break in and soon encounter a very bright little fey and some unfortunate victims.
Most of the session was taken up by combat, since said fey was invisible in light and they had no good way of removing the light in the area. Though Marinaya had See Invisible, she failed her save against Blindness/Deafness twice. The fight was a bit of a slog but the PCs managed to drive off the little pest and save the few victims who were still alive.
Though sorely depleted on spells, they decide to confront the local lord with some accusations based on something the fey said. The lord confesses to a host of crimes, starting with making a deal with a nasty entity in a mirror he found in the basement to summoning a light fey to deal with the shadows plaguing the town. (in case you haven't noticed, I'm running Midnight Mirror). The PCs investigate the mirror and Marianya greatly annoys Cirion by pulling her gun and shooting the mirror. Cirion berates Marianya for her foolishness and threatens to take the gun from her until she learns to behave.
The PCs decide to rest and look more closely at the artifact in the morning.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The sorcerer identifies the mirror and is informed that it has to be destroyed from the inside with an artifact-level weapon or a weapon blessed by Nyx, creator of the Mirror. Cirion/Othariel has an artifact weapon and I had expected her to find some way of getting the other PCs to look away when she kills the Heart, but to my surprise she pulls out an artifact they found in the Rift, another one created by Nyx and that turns people into vampires. She reasons that since Dru is an expert at using improvised weapons, this should be enough. I did not expect that but I'm all for clever solutions and have privately OKd this. The PCs will still have to try it out and hope for the best.
The next day the PCs get ready to enter the mirror. The baron repeatedly informs the PCs that the mirror is a one-way trap, barring the mind-swap effect. They are confident they can handle things.
They make their way quickly to the first fetchling encounters and talk to them and get the feeling they are not fans of Nicosar. Then they head straight up to him and get into a long, frustrating fight with the shae (pl) and loyal fetchling servants. No one had Daylight so the locals had their miss chance, and a nominally 50% miss chance turned out to be at least a 70-80% miss chance. as people spent most of the combat missing. The shae did little better due to poor rolls on my part and some impressive AC on the PCs. The best thing the shae could do was use their Lesser Shadow Evocation to emulate Magic Missile. Marinanya, despite having Magic Missile herself, decided to spend almost the entire fight shooting her gun and missing after failing to cast Burning Hands.
This fight took most of the session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
After defeating the shae and fetchlings, the PCs briefly loot anything obviously magical and make a quick sweep of the rest of the mirror-prison, fighting the few hostile things left in here. They quickly surmise they have to chop their way into the heart of the prison and do so. The fight against the Heart was long. The PCs' main damage dealer, Patty, was quickly immobizlied for much of the fight after being grappled by the Heart. Other than that, the Heart couldn't hit very well but hurt a lot when it actually connected, and the PCs had a hard time hitting the Heart due to its high AC and generally poor rolls. Eventually, they did manage to defeat it and bludgeon it into paste using the Nyx artifact. The prison starts collapsing and the PCs make a beeline for the mirror mirror in the basement.
The entire trip probably didn't take more than 20 minutes, so the baron was still hovering around anxiously. In addition to the PCs, the first NPCs they met in the mirror had managed to make it out, and are standing stunned by the sudden heat, color and brightness of the outside world. The baron and the PCs attempt to make things more comfortable for them. The baron is extremely grateful to the PCs for fixing his problem. The PCs level up and we call it a night early.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs hang around for a week cleaning up the residual shadows and enjoying the baron's hospitality. Oddly, they don't do anything about the released fetchlings or take the baron to task for his crimes in offing his father and brothers. They are also surprisngly accepting of the baron's faith in Nyx. Partly because Othariel already allowed Nyx to set up a church in the Rift, partly (I suspect) because they are too full of modern ideas about moral and religious equality.
They decide to head back to Gulluvia but take a slight detour with a small band of traveling merchants so they can see a bit more of the Adri Varma. On their trip they head to a small village in the big central marsh of the plateau. They PCs are relieved to have some moisture in the air again but this find there is a bit too much, and the clouds of bugs are bothersome. The clouds of bugs turn into a stirge that bursts out of the brush along the road and attaches itself to Marianya. Shortly after a small...kid?...bursts out, yelling something. Through luck Marianya failed to hurt the stirge, and the peddlers manage to warn the rest of the PCs to not hurt the giant bug. The child, who would remind readers of a series of stories in a certain other world of the description of a young Nobby Nobbs. The stirge is successfully retrieved and the peddlers explain that the inhabitants of this village are short on traditional animals but have plenty of bugs of various sizes.
The clouds of bugs don't get any better in 'town' though the locals don't seem to pay them much mind. The party arrived just in time for a local festival and the merchants peddle their wares. The PCs wander about trying to make themselves understood when no one has the local language on their character sheet and need to prepare spells before getting something useful. The locals definitely look at bit inbred and fulfill just about every stereotype you might have about the appearance of dirty, poor, inbred and ignorant dwellers of remote pockets of nigh-civilization. Still, they are not outright unfriendly, more xenophobic from lack of understanding of how to relate to outsiders than actual ill will, or so the PCs feel. There isn't even much worth shopping for, though Cirion garners goodwill by healing the pockmarked and anemic cattle that she soon realizes are kept to provide blood to the stirges and giant ticks in the area. Later, Cirion notices a silver raven sitting discretely in a bush and she retrieves the message.
It is from Pheandar, who has some information to impart. Cirion teleports to him and he imparts the knowledge he's gained of Tuma.
Tuma was the home of some fairly powerful Glantri expats who protected their city with magic. The magical protection was somehow coopted by some curse which trapped the inhabitants in a form of stasis and caused the city to drift in and out of the Ethereal plane and regular intervals. The intervals were based on the phases of both moons, but since Phaendar was initially only aware of one moon, finding out the schdule was difficult. The nature of the curse has proven frustratingly opaque - Phaendar likened trying to identify it like trying to determine the color of an invisible object by looking at the distortions it makes in the air. His extraplanar allies are also very unhelpful when it comes to providing useful information. The bets he can say is that he thinks the curse is an ongoing emenation from some source rather than an instantaneous or permanent effect. He can only recommend the PCs that they wander around the plateau and poke and prod into everything in search of answers. He also hands over the Ring of Invisibility Othariel gave him when he was young saying he had no need for it and the new generation of heroes probably could use it. Cirion thanks the archmage and returns to Ravenmoor.
The night of the festival the PCs are invited to take part in the celebrations and various games. Pattinathar rolls very well on several checks and impresses everyone with his strength, agility and accuracy. The other PCs do not do quite as well, though Marianya manages to out-throw Dru on the knife-throwing contest. The PCs do not take part in the raven fights.
The session ends just as the crowd are getting ready for the greased pig event.
I'm running the Feast of Ravenmoor, which I will tie into Speaker in Dreams and make them part of the mystery of Tuma, which will manage to tie in to existing adventures from Othariel's past.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The greased pig goes as written, and the PCs easily kill the infected pig/qlipoth. They are a bit disconcerted that the locals do not really panic and soon get back to party mode. When questioned about the monster the locals shrug and say that this evil has been in the marshes as long as the village but is generally held at bay by the Dream Tender, though out in the marshes it can get worse. The PCs are unfamiliar with this Immortal and determine to head out into the marshes the next day. The rest of the evening passes without unpleasantness. The PCs are adventurous in many respects and try all the dishes, even the giant bug ones. Shel Luperscu is 'wins' the contest and attempts to seduce Cirion, which fails miserably.
That night Shel tries to sneak into Cirion's room and get him out of there but manages to wake Cirion and Dru, and fails to convince either of them to come along on their own. The cultists do not to attempt to nab the PCs to sacrifice: that night they were very impressed by their skills, especially Pattinathar, and figure they wouldn't have much chance against the PCs.
The next day the PCs head out to the deep marshes. There is an intriguing landmark on their map called the Black Pyramid. They spend a week or more trudging through the hills and marshes, their going made extra slow due to the general wetness of the terrain. They eventually find the pyramid, a sad moss-covered thing. They have to dig a bit to get in and the first floor is mostly covered in water. The actual site is a let-down. There are the remains of some constructs but the place has been thoroughly looted. It was obviously once covered in wonderful artwork but the wet air has taken its toll on the paint, to the point where there is little detail left. They manage to get enough information to gather that the place was the grave of someone called Chalchiuhtlicue, and she was probably a noble of some sort.
Disappointed, they leave the pyramid and look around some more. The area may or may not have had more buildings, but if it did they are all swallowed by the marsh. They feel that digging everything up would be a pain, and so wander the marsh a bit more. After some more pointless roaming and finding no more nastiness than a couple of trolls, the PCs decide to head into the center of the marshes, place their map calls the Misty Swamp. Here they run in to a group of hobgoblins and barely manage to understand their dialect, to the point where only very simple ideas can be communicated. The hobgoblins indicate that the swamp is bad place but can't say anything more than 'bad' and 'dangerous'. The PCs enter and soon wish they had canoes. Cirion pulls out his turtle Figurine of Wondrous Power and the PCs ride on it for a few hours. Then they are attacked by spectres with some strange form of magic resistance. A couple negative levels later and the PCs are sure they are on to something.
I tried to dangle the Shel Lupescu hook in front of the players but no one cared. They took the vague reference to the evils being 'out there' and ran with it. So Shel gets sacrificed and the cultists carry on their merry way sacrificing people until that head cultist hatches.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
After some time wandering around the swamp they find some hints of strange creatures but none that wish to engage with the PCs to any great degree and they find no obvious source of the evil supposedly found in the marsh and swamp. Dejected they return to Ravenmoor to pick up their horses and head back to Gulluvia. They notice Shel and her parents are missing and so make inquiries. Shel had apparantly had a very public tantrum about how she hated life in the village and was going to run away, and her parents were heartbroken and headed out to the moors to watch over flocks of livestock. THe Pcs thought this was suspicious and so tracked down the parents and were immediately met with what looked like grief-stricken parents who harrangued the PCs. Since they do not speak a common language the two were reduced to loud voices and gestures. The PCs, concerned, head back to Ravenmoor and confront Kriegler ni the dead of night. Some very good Sense Motive checks make Kriegler panic and he stalls for time, hoping his 'brother' will notice and get back-up. This happens and the big show-down occurs, with the PCs being easily victorious.
Since this battle happens in the middle of town the rest of the villagers are terrified of the PCs and run and hide. The PCs poke around a bit and find the sacred grove of the Dream Tender cult but find nothing other than a vague background evil field in the area. They return to the village once more to try to find someone to question but again all the villagers run and hide. Since they are dependent on Share Language to communicate effectively, they would need to break into a house and force it on a terrified civilian, and three of four PCs thinks this is going to far, so they decide to leave.
They head out of the marsh and after a few hours of travelling uphill they get to the central plains of the Adri Varma and revel in the bright sunshine and dry wind. They stop to dry out their belongings, which are all varying degrees of wet, and to remove a striking variety of small bugs from them. While doing this they meet a couple of young ranchers who can speak rather broken Wendarian, and they exchange news. The ranchers warn the PCs that the Thunder Knights are roaming and looking for people, probably the PCs. The PCs decide to find the TKs.
A couple of slow sessions, mostly due to my innate dislike of telling players what to do even if it would make everyone happier (and waste a lot less game time) if I did.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs find the Thunder Knights easily, having apparantly just missed them heading into the plains from the mountains. The TK party consists of two full knights and a handful of armigers, and they are ready for battle. They do not initiate, instead calling out to the PCs by name and ordering them to surrender. To their surprise the PCs recognize a few of the TKs, including Alak Stagram, Garguax (the orc Pattinathar slew on their first adventure) and the recruitment sergeant they briefly encountered before leaving Gulluvia. After some basic questions like "why?" and "on whose authority?" (to which the answers were basically "because" and "the boss says so") a brief discussion takes place among the PCs where they conclude they should let themselves be captured and see if they can get more information as prisoners than taking prisoners. Marianya strongly objects to this course of action but goes along with the rest of the party.
The PCs are disarmed and stripped of gear (though Dru manages to secret two daggers on his person), bound and all but Dru are gagged. The individual PCs are separated from the rest of the party and subjected to an initial interrogation. The first three PCs go through a mix of quiet insistance they will not do anything wrong and loud verbal abuse of the TKs and all they stand for. When it is Cirion's turn to be questioned the leader of the TKs is disturbed by the amount of magic Cirion has on him and attempts to relieve him of it. After being told gently to stop doing that the TKs try using force and are easily disarmed and thrown to the ground by Cirion. He tells the chagrined TKs that he and his friends are coming along peacefully and have give up their weapons and are tied up and the TKs should be happy with that. More than a little intimidated the two Knights keep this event to themselves and let Cirion keep hius stuff.
The PCs are allowed to ride to Gulluvia. Though two of the armigers are rather unpleasant, most treat the PCs well enough with no unnecessary cruelty if without gentleness, and the worst excesses of the two bullies is held in check by the leader. Dru attempts to make conversation with their captors but rolls an impressive -2 on Diplomacy and is told to shut up. When the group stop for the evening Cirion enacts his plan of reverse-Stockholm Syndrome. Considering Othariel has an impressive Diplomacy score, this goes very well over the week it takes to return to Gulluvia. He even manages to convince the TKs to remove the gags on the party since everyone is on their best behavior.
Garguax the orc shows a lot of displeasure at the presence of Pattinathar and eventually confronts him. "Don't you remember me?" he demands of the bugbear.
"No."
This is a bit crushing for Garguax who was so easily dispatched earlier and not even worth remembering. He is mollified when Cirion whispers to him that the PCs all work for Othariel. Garguax had suspected as much and is glad he didn't have to fight them, though he is concerned for their well-being now that they are prisoners.
Another of the armigers as a young rakasta with an oddly shaped longbow. Cirion recognizes it as one similar to that used by her good friend Tomokato and gets the young lady talking. The rakasta is easily drawn into conversation about her bow and her great idol, the Immortal Tomokato who wielded one like it. Cirion regales her with tales of Tomokato's deeds and the rakasta is spellbound. Within a couple days the young rakasta, who only joined up with the TKs because she had heard Tomokato was in some way connected with them, has been convinced to stop paying lip-service to the TK's patron Immortal Vanya and worship Tomokato directly. Cirion was rather surprised to hear that Tomokato was considered an actual Immortal now and not just a legendary hero, but considering Ranya is a god it couldn't be ruled out. What's next, Arly as a god? Cirion delicately shudders at the thought.
Alak is very taciturn though obviously in some discomfort at the PCs' presence. Perhaps he is having some doubts as to the righteousness of the Order's leaders in light of the revelations at Breachhill. He does not interact with the PCs if he can help it but obviously keeps an ear open for everything Cirion talks about.
The leader of the TK party keeps herself at a distance and does not interact with Cirion if possible, though occasionally Cirion manages to work his wiles on her a couple of times. Cirion learns that this woman is pretty decent for a Thunder Knight, more interested in glorious battle against actual evil enemies than policing people who just want to be left alone. Once this 'weakness' was discovered Cirion played on it for all tis worth, emphasizing how the Order's original goal was far more noble and altruistic than what it currently is, and how Vanya is a bad god to follow.
On the trip the PCs discuss a little what they intend to do - escape before they reach Gulluvia or allow themselves to be taken into the stronghold of the TKs in hopes of getting more information and a larger audience for their message. Marianya strenuously objects to getting even further into danger but is overruled by the others. They are taken to the heart of the TK presence on the Adri Varma, with even more warriors than the real headquarters in the Rift. After a brief meeting with the leader for the local TKs the PCs are thrown into prison. The PCs instantly set about relieving themselves of their bonds but Marinaya's method is flashy enough that it attracts the attention of the prison guards. The PCs try to hide in hopes that the guards will come in and inspect the seemingly empty cell. The guards don't fall for that old trick but instead order the PCs to line up facing the wall opposite the door. The PCs refuse and after several more orders the guards leave. The PCs set about unlocking the door with Dru's hidden daggers (luckliy for them it is barred on the outside rather than locked) and Marianya casts Fireball down the hall in hopes of killing the guards. Instead of dying the guards yell and ring an alarm bell.
By the time the PCs get out the hall is empty and they head towards the only way out, another door at the end of the hall that is barred from the outside. Dru manages to unbar it and it opens to show another hall, this one full of armigers.
Cliffhanger!
I was about 20% expecting the PCs to surrender at the initial confrontation rather than defeat and capture the TKs, but I was surprised at them choosing to head into the lion's den and had to wing it from there. Dru's rogue archetype is made for this sort of thing and the player is thrilled at the chance to do what the character was built to do. Maraianya was right about one thing: getting away would have been a lot easier before they went into prison.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs defeat the armigers rather handiy, with Marianya's Fireball downing a couple who were already wounded and the rest failing their saves and being reduced to 0 hp. The armigers break and run, and Marianya Fireballs them in the back, killing them all. The PCs now have a few minutes to take stock of things. A serious argument is brewing amongst them, however. Marianya has been very blood thirsty this entire campaign, suggesting that the PCs basically start a campaign of assassination against the Thunder Knights and showing no pity to any members. This is fine in and of itself but the rest of the PCs are less interested in murder and more in liberation. While some blood shed is inevitable, killing fleeing/surrendered characters is seen as going too far. This is a discussion for a later time, however.
The PCs examine the prison but sadly, it has only a single exit they can find except for a very narrow chimney. When they peak outsdide they see a number of full knights gathering outside. Said knights move in and start hacking down the PCs. Dru shimmys up the chimney but no one else can fit or manage the significant skill check required to make it up.
After Marianya and Pattinathar go down and Dru disappears up the smokehole Cirion sighs, suppressing extreme displeasure with Marianya, and drops his disguise. The Thunder Knights are taken aback but attempt to subdue Othariel. She takes a few hits but otherwise easily disarms them and sends them out to send their boss in. While this is being done she gears up, in case things go bad. The leader of the Thunder Knights here on the Adri Varma and her personal retinue of high-ranking warriors come down about 15 minutes later, geared up for combat. A brief discussion takes place and Othariel realizes that even her impressive Diplomacy score is unlikely to shake the TK leadership from their dedication to Vanya and the current order of things, certainly not in a short amount of time.
Combat occurs and Othariel takes a number of grievous blows but in the end she defeats all of the warriors here, disarms them, and tells them to tell their boss and the high priest of Vanya that she is quite displeased with how things are going now and she is coming to do some house cleaning. Throwing them out of the prison, Othariel then pulls out her Portable Holes, gathers up her friends, the dead armigers (with plans of gradually Raising them with Ultimate Mercy), turns invisible and Locate Creatures Dru, knocks him unconscious, finds their gear, and teleports to a safe location. She then relieves Marianya of her magic items, dons her disguise again and wakes everyone up.
For the rest of the PCs it seems like a miracle. One moment they were about to die and the next they wake up in an inn with all their gear, sans horses. The big discussion about what to do with Marianya takes place and Cirion takes her to task, commenting on the unrighteousness of killing beaten enemies and how that one act of murder probably undid all the work Cirion had been doing to make friends with the TKs. I have to step in as GM to keep things civil and make sure everyone knows this is an in character discussion and not an attack on players. In the end Marianya goes along with Cirion's leadership, mostly the player not wanting to make another character, I think.
With this taken care of, the PCs spend the night in rest, and the next day are visited by Phaendar, who informs them of the information he has found investigating Tuma. Patti asks if he can give them some money/loot for a good cause, and he hands over a sack of potions, wands and scrolls, including some quite high level scrolls. He also whisks them to the Argent Font, which he and some friends found in their youth and which after the party divided on less than amicable terms, he Wished away to a secret location. Dru is greatly relieved to be rid of his negative levels and the PCs in general are happy to be able to Teleport here (in a few levels at least), should the need arise.
After this there is a long discussion about what to do. Cirion wants to stay on the Adri Varma and figure out what happened to Tuma and work on subverting (restoring, he calls it) the TKs here. Dru wants to return to the Thunder Rift because he feels the group is basically turning into the TKs - mercenaries operating outside their home territory for gold and glory, not morals.
The player is making a back-up character in case the others decide to stay on the plateau.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
A week off due to health and computer issues amongst my players but back again yesterday. Dru left the party, complaining that he wanted to save the Rift, not become mercenaries. An odd sentiment, most of the party felt, considering they did exactly one mission at the behest of other people and otherwise have either been working on 'corrupting' the Thunder Knights or doing things to help people. Either way, Dru headed back to the Rift. Still in Nurestani the rest of the PCs debate what to do now. They meet the merchants they met on the way out of Thorold, and the merchants mention that it is Nurestani's turn to have a village festival (lots of those happening in these pre-made adventures, aren't there?). Both the players and PCs see where this is headed but gamely play along. They wander about town watching people get ready for the big event. Suddenly they hear screams, as they half-way expected, and see people fleeing the main street.
They push through the crowd to see a group of dire rats eating the food being set out in the stalls. The rats look diseased, with great swollen pustules and what looks like mold in their fur. The PCs attack the rats and from the other side a new hero shows up. The rats burst out into what look like fungal creatures with giant flytrap-like jaws emerging from their back and thick vine-like tendrils spilling out their sides from the open wounds. The PCs defeat the creatures easily and introduce themselves to their new party member. He is a rakasta, obviously based on Puss in Boots from the Pixar movies, but the player unthinkingly itroduced himself as the Cat in the Hat (Dr Seuss not being quite as big a thing in Norway as it is in the US, though not unknown).
Rakasta do not like being called 'cats' any more than humans like being called monkeys. Despite my continual emphasis on this point the players keep referring to rakasta as cats, even the rakasta PCs. I sigh and move on.
The PCs get to know their new companion and answer questions posed by the town guard -basically just locals working part-time in the role rather than a professional force - and quickly decide to look into the matter. The rats seemed to be infected with the same sort of aberrant disease as the pig in Ravenmoor and they want to find out about this thing. They manage to track the rats, who by all accounts were invisible when they snuck up on the festival stalls, to the largest building in town.
The session ends here.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs enter the clocktower and are immediately set upon by some more enemies. The rats, both human and dire, all show signs of the same sort of infection that the first dire rats the PCs met had. At least they don't turn into unholy aberrations. While three of the PCs enter the ground floor and fight their way up, Banderios Antonios, their new rakasta friend, climbs the tower and moves down to catch the enemy from behind. Obviusly he runs into an encounter on his own. The PCs handle things wll and though Marianya was heavily bitten by wererats she made all her saves against disease and lycanthropy (would that be arouraianthropy?). The PCs manged to take a couple wererats alive and convicen them to talk.
The wererats were out minding their own business when they started hearing a voice in their head ordering them to go to Nurestani and hide there. Those who resisted found themselves doing what they were ordered to anyway. On the way this disease started infecting the flock, and some of the dire rats became very ill and ran off not long before the PCs showed up. The wererats did not know who/what called them or why.
Cirion heals the two surviving wererats and sends them off with a warning not to bother anyone else. The PCs then start to look about town for more clues. The local guard say nothing particularly strange has happened other than that the Thunder Knights have been absent for a few days. The PCs don't feel like looking into that. They do want to visit the Odin temple in town and find it closed. The townspeople think it's a bit odd but nothing to worry about right now. The PCs smell a hook. They can't get in without breaking and entering and the temple is in the middle of town and any attempt to enter would be very obvious. They decide to wait until nightfall.
The town festival that was being prepared for when they woke up in town starts that afternoon and continues well into the night. The PCs attend for a bit but then head over to the Odin temple to break and enter.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Banderias is the only one with a climb speed so he breaks open a window some feet above the ground and enters. He intended to open the door and let the others in but is immediately set upon by a shoggti qlippoth*, which Fascinates him and damages his Wisdom until he is nearly comatose. Once he is able to act normally again he doens't both yelling for help but does shoot his guns.
Marianya casts Fly and goes to help but Cirion and Pattinathar are stuck outside until the battle is over. After the initial Wisdom damage the shoggti is pretty useless, especially since Banderias crits twice. It DImension Doors away before it is killed. The battle allows the other enemies - three priests, some hellhounds and the shoggti - in the place to react and prepare, then they storm out and try to kill the PCs just as the doors are opened and Cirion and Patti come in.
The battle is pretty easy, though as usual Marianya refuses to cast spells if at all possible and focuses on using her gun. We later have a tense confrontation on the subject which boils down to "why don't you play a Gunslinger if you want to shoot things?" but nothing is resolved. Banderios crits a ridiculous number of times this combat but fails all Will saves bar his first, which leads to him dying to a Death Knell. This being a Death effect means he needs a Resurrection to return and everyone decides this is too much effort and expense to put into bringing back someone they met yesterday. New character incoming.
After briefly checking the fallen for signs of life, they stabilize one of the fallen clerics for questioning, and determine they were all Thanatos worshippers. The PCs then explore the little temple and notice that the intruders were not interested in riches but had ransacked the temple's tiny library.
Finally they find the Odin priests dead and obviously tortured, as well as a third person, horribly beaten but alive. They heal the elf up and set her free. She is Aurora, a priest of Ilsundal who had dropped by the temple to say hi to some friends and was set upon and captured by the Thantaosians and the shoggti. They brutally questioned her about a number of things, specifically about Tuma. She learns of the PCs' origin from the Rift and their quest to end the rule of Thrune and reform the Thunder Knights. Aurora tells them she was a knight of the Order of Thunder over 200 years ago, and remembers the time they Order started to stray from the path of good to Vanya. She was out on a mission when she heard that Tuma had disappeared with the leadership of the Order and learned that the Vanyaists were all that were left. She left the Order and retired for a couple of centuries, providing healing to a small community in Wendar.
Hearing that some people are trying to fix things as well as the news that Othariel is back and looking to put things right makes her think that maybe she should come out of retirement.
This bit of new character introduction out of the way (Cirion is going to leave the party soon), Cirion, Marianya and Pattinathar say "You seem trustworthy, will you join us?"
The PCs then wake up the surviving Thantaos cleric and interrogate him. He confirms that they were interested in a city called Tuma and stories about powerful magics on the Adri Varma plateau. He doesn't know why - the leader didn't tell him. The PCs then discuss what to do with the priest. Most of them, even Cirion (!) vote for killing him until I point out they can just leave him with the town watch and let them decide his fate.
The PCs then head out, inform the town watch, and spend the rest of the night split up. Patti goes to sleep. Aurora gets a room, a meal and a long bath. Marianya parties the rest of the night. Cirion helps dress the corpses of the Odin priests into a more dignified position, cleans them and readies for funeral services they may require.
*I use the stats but have given them a different origin and place in Mystaran cosmology.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Retconning a bit, Patti, Cirion and Marianya happened to find two living captives at the Odin temple: the aforementioned Aurora and a half-orc by the name of Thorg, a Thunder Knight on sabbatical.
Thorg explains he has for some time now felt increasingly ill at ease with the Thunder Knights and the raid on Ranya's temple was the final straw. He wandered away trying to come to terms with things, came to the Odin temple here in Nurestani to see if Odin fit his tastes better than Vanya. There he caputred along with the Odin priests when the Thantaos cultists intruded. So far Thorg seems to think Ranya sounds like a good deal.
The next day the PCs go through the notes in the Odin temple along with the city guard. There is little of interest here other than a note that the wizards who run the local scriveners/lawyers firm have been incrasingly erratic over the past few months and have been entirely incommunicado for several days, much to the increasing annoyance of the Odin priests. A quick talk around town confirms this. The wizards were always rather bookish and introverted and their services are not in constant demand so people haven't really thought too much about them being hard to get hold of.
The PCs seek out the wizards but find their office building closed and locked. The PCs get permission from the town guard to break and enter, and do so, with Cirion staying behind to see to the dead. The PCs enter the building and are a immediately confronted by a dishevled man with bloodshot eyes and drool running into his scraggly beard. The PCs are told by the obviously disturbed man that they need to leave immediately because he is busy. The PCs refuse and soon the situation devolves into violence. The man is joined by his colleagues, who all look as out of sorts as he does, and some strange creatures they have not seen before - looking like a snake mating balls but instead of snakes it's worm-leeches. In truth it is a reskinned gibbering mouther but the PCs and players do not cotton on.
The combat is not particularly difficult, depsite Aurora being engulfed by the worm-ball, though it is tiresome with the PCs failing most of their Will saves against Glitterdust and Color Spray, as well as Thorg's combat gimmick*. Even the surprise appearance of an ogre mage does not harm the PCs much. The ogre mage manages to escape and the PCs round up the surviving wizards and question them. It soon becomes apparant that they are not right in the head, and questioning leads to a number of stock answers along the lines of "we must work" and "the dreams speak to us". Fortunately the wizards are nothing if not meticulous in their note-taking. The wizards were apparantly very interested in Tuma though the details of their research must wait until the PCs have had time to read the notes.
That time is not now, as the ogre mage has returned with a horrible bipedal worm-creature and ambushes the PCs. Thorg is reduced to negative HP with a single mind-blast, and Pattinathar follows the next round. Aurora channels to get them on their feet, but the ogre mage fells Patti with an unfortunate critical hit. Thorg successfully taunts the ogre mage and is felled by him soon after. Luckily Aurora and Marianya do better with their Will saves and manage to stave off the mental assault of the psurlon and take out the ogre mage, who was still grievously wounded from the first encounter. Once the psurlon runs out psychic energy it is basically useless. It hits well enough but not enough to fell the two spellcasters before it is killed.
So that was a rather depressing session. Will saves have long been the bane of this group, no matter which PCs they play, and this time it really hit them hard. It didn't help that most people rolled rather poorly on them. Some unfortunate choices, like hanging around the place after the ogre mage left, meant the PCs were not rather under-prepared for the final boss. I had also counted on Cirion being there when I planned things instead of only Aurora, so that was on me. Still, if PCs never die there isn't much point in combat. Othariel may raise Thorg but Patti's player will probably make a new PC.
*Thorg is an Intimidation build. The player has a tendency to get an idea for a gimmick and plays into it at the expense of everything else. In this case Dazzling Display and Call Out and more, to the point of only attacking once of his own volition in the entire fight. Usually successfully but to the detriment of the overall group compared to what more damage would have been.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Aurora and Marianya gather their wits and once again make sure that the captive lawyers are still thoroughly bound. They poke and prod at the psurlon a bit to see what sort of monstrosity it is but do not come away much wiser. Then Marianya runs off to find the town guard and Cirion, while Aurora watches things here. The captives express extreme distress at the death of the worm-thing.
Cirion comes and uses the Staff of Life to raise Thorg, and otherwise sees to Pattinathar's corpse. The guard are close to despairing at the carnage here but are grateful that adventurers were around to fix things. After some questioning and transfer of the captives into Cirion's care. The next day the wizard-lawyers are seemingly recovered and tell of how some months ago they all started getting dream visions to go and seek out Tuma and study it. They eventually did so on their time off but soon the dreams became mental compulsions and they did so to the exclusion of other things. Cirion's ministrations last night seemed to have cured them of their mental affliction.
They are happy to be free even if they are slightly resentful of the deaths caused by the PCs. Even so, they swallow their emotions and give the PCs all relevant information. Fortunately, they have kept thorough notes, which the PCs skim through. They realize that someone far more knowledgable and powerful than themselves needs to look at this and see if they can make use of it. Phaendar seems the obvious choice. Cirion decides to head back to the Rift with Patti's corpse, and takes the copious notes to Wizardspire. Before they can depart the city they are summoned before the local lord to report on things. They are honest about everything, including their goal to depose Thrune in the Rift and dismantle or reform the Thunder Knights. The lord is happy to hear that, since though the town needs to have a good working relatinship with the Knights, she dislikes them personally and wants greater autonomy for her town and the Adri Varma in general. Friendly merchants will give discounts to the PCs and their allies in the Rift.
Before they leave town what can best be described as an emo-weeb elf shows up and says she got a vision from her Immortal patron Tomokato that these people need help. Cirion mutters something along the lines of 'm%!&!!++@#*~!', sighs and says "fine". The new PC is introduced to the party and the goals and Cirion takes off, muttering something about interfering old busybodies.
The party decides to head back to Gulluvia. Only Marianya is left of the group that is wanted by the authorities and some disguise should go a long way to avoiding issues. Gulluvia is the largest city on the plateau and the wizards in Nurestani suggested that any more inquiries into the local evils and the Dream Tender they were introduced to in Ravenmoor should be directed to the sages in Gulluvia.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
On their way to Gulluvia the PCs overtake two armigers of the Thunder Knights heading in the same direction. Not wishing to seem overly suspicious, especially since one of their number is to all appearances a Thunder Knight, the PCs talk to the armigers. The armigers start to talk to Thorg, see Marianya, and turn pale and nervous. They demand to know what Thorg is doing in the company of 'that woman'. It turns out these two armigers were part of the group that Marianya Fireballed in the back when they tried to run, during PCs' attempt at escaping captivity at Citadel Thunder.
A tense standoff occurs where Marianya tries to lie about the circumstances of the event but is caught in the lie. She eventually mumbles an entirely unconvincing and frankly insulting apology. The two newly raised armigers do not want to risk her ire so they say no more on the subject. They choose to be concerned with Thorg's presence and when the half-orc more or less admits to leaving the Order they warn him of interesting times in the TKs. Thorg for his part wonders why the armigers were raised. It is not unheard of for the most powerful and influential Thunder Knights to be raised if they should die in battle but it is unheard of for young nobodies like the armigers to receive such a blessing. Why they should be heading towards the Citadel as if they came from Nurestani is also a puzzling question, and the young warriors are reluctant to shed any light on either subject.
Before their death the armigers would have reported Thorg's behavior to their superiors - the Thunder Knights do not take kindly to those who abandon their oaths to the Order - but after having been raised by Othariel and given a bit of a crash course on how the Order of Thunder was supposed to operate they are questioning their place in the Order.
In any case the two groups part ways peacefully and the PCs continue to Gulluvia.
Though Marianya is a wanted criminal she was last seen in the company of a bugbear, a half-orc and very pretty man, so a little disguise is all that is necessary for her to enter the city without trouble. Here the PCs go on a shopping spree, buying tons of stuff with the money Othariel unobtrusively deposited in their midst before they left Nurestani. They then seek out the sages.
One of the them, and elderly elf who invites the PCs in on the strength of their letter of recommendation, promises to look up three things: any reference to the Dreamkeeper, anything about Tuma, and anything related to the 'evils' on the plateau.
This takes some time as she has to go through a buttload of texts, and in the meantime Marianya seeks our Viron Red Oak, who hired them to go to Thorold not so long ago. The PCs make sure the letters they were supposed to hand over were delivered, which they were, and they catch up on things. It turns out that Aurora and Viron were acquatinted and had even gone on an adventure together once, clearing out the black pyramid the PCs found in the marsh. They also question Viron about the 'evils'. He has encountered a couple of the monstrosities during his time on the Adri Varma but only one at a time and with a lot of time and distance between the incidents. The issue of dreams is something he notices - that he doesn't sleep quite as well here as he did in Wendar. He put that down to age and experience changing a person but the PCs' interest in dreams makes him wonder if there is something more to it.
When the sage has finished preliminary research the PCs are moderately more englightened. They don't learn anything new about Tuma - the notes the wizard-lawyers had taken were quite extensive. The is so far an unknown entity - there may be more somewhere in an obscure document hidden under centuries of other stuff but it will take time to dig through everything.
The evils are also not particularly well documented. They are documented but very little is known about them other than that they seem to be unique to the Adri Varma plateau. The evils do not seem to be concetrated in any particular area on the plateau and what few corpses have been recovered and autopsied showed no reproductive organs. Some seemed warped versions of natural creatures, some like no creatures recorded elsewhere. The sage makes clear that she has more stuff to go through but that will take a long time.
Viron helpfully mentions that the only other people he knows of that might be useful are the Thunder Knights - the PCs are reluctant to go to Citadel Thunder and ask to use the library - and possibly the so-called ice elves in the Dark Woods north of Thorold. Viron met them once when he entered their woods. They told him to leave and not come back. He didn't want to make a scene so he acquiesced.
The PCs head north and reach the Dark Woods without any trouble. The PCs wander about for a few days in what appears to be ancient forests, untouched by civilization. Eventually the local elves make their presence known by an arrow at the feet of the party and a disembodied voice telling them to leave. Marianya immediately turns invisible and flies away while Almithra draws her sword. Aurora is the only one who can vaguely understand what they are saying because the dialect is very 'inbred'. My favorite scene from Hot Fuzz is brought up for the Nth time, as well as my GF grumbling about what it's like trying to talk to my father's side of the family.
Some issues aside the PCs manage to convince the ice elves (so called by Viron because of their chilly reception of visitors, and not to be confused with the ice elves in southern Davania) to talk to them, which will happen a a couple days' time on the edge of the forest. When the meeting finally happens the ice elves thankfully have a Tongues spell active so communication is not an issue. The elves are cool and remote and ask for many details before they offer up any information themselves. Once they are satisfied with the PCs' current goals they ask for a proof of competence before they give any aid or information. The PCs are told that there is an artifact of Nyx in Thororld, one which was used to capture some of the elves some centuries agod. The elves want the item. Marianya is pretty sure this was the mirror she and her companions destroyed the last time they were in Thorold. The elves question her thoroughly about the incident and seem to accept the result even if it was probably not quite what they were hoping for.
In return the ice elves tell the PCs of the Burrowers. Gigantic wormlike monsters that created the multitude of underground tunnels and caverns that fill the planet. The existence of the vast underground network of tunnels is new to the PCs but they accept it. The Burrowers were stopped by the Immortals and one of them is sleeping under the plateau, one that exerts a strong mental pressure even in near-stasis, one that warps the bodies creatures that get to near it. The ice elves blame the 'evils', what they call the Warped, on this sleeping Burrower. In the past couple of centuries the Burrower has started to stir, and the Warped have become more common, to the point where a concentration of them occurred in Nurestani (and the PCs took care of that).
The players and PCs immediately think 'adventure hook' and are ready to go find the Burrower but the elves assure them that they are in no position to do anything about it; after all if direct intervention by the Immortals was required to stop these creatures in the first place the PCs are unlikely to be able to do anything other than possible make things worse by encountering it. However the elves have encountered a few Warped coming from the north and encourage the PCs to go there to investigate.
The PCs head north in appropriately ominous weather. Ever since they left Gulluvia the weather had been warm and sunny but the moment they head north to the Moorfowl Mountains it turns dark and cold. They soon come across a small farm under attack by a horrible warped giant creature with oversized tusks and a third weird tentacle-like arm protruding from its chest. The PCs engage and take it down without much trouble, though Thorg is severly weakened by its poison.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
After healing the poor farmer lying on the ground, the farmer's wife and kids come running out from the cottage and are profusely grateful to the PCs. The farmer is a bit gruff and embarrassed and tries to pretend that things aren't usually that bad. His wife takes him to task and indicates that they should have left ages ago. The PCs get the story, that while occasional odd monsters do exist they generally don't result in more than a couple of lost sheep or crops each year, but the last couple of years have seen a steady increase in attacks. Half the 'village' (an ambitious name for a cluster of farms totalling no more than a couple hundred people in the valley) has already left and the rest are not far behind. While the farmers pack up their stuff the PCs follow the tracks made by the beast and come across a pair of trolls resting at a campsite. A brief fight later and the PCs find out that the campsite was made recently by Thunder Knights - the remains of the armor strewn about but disturbingly no corpses are found. The PCs head back to the 'village' and find a fairly new pallisade surrounding the largest farm and the few remaining farmershuddled inside. They acknowledge that they had seen a small band of Thunder Knights pass by only a couple days ago and assumed the PCs were attached to them, considering Thorg's armor. They said they had been complaining to the local 'lord' for quite some time and assumed Milo Mather had finally done something about their complaints.
The next day the PCs set out to find this lord. The journey is easy and uneventful and they come, in rather bad weather, to the Mathen estate. The place is surrounded by a large, solid fence, practically a wall, and everything inside seems pretty calm. They are met by what looks like the most archetypal farmer imaginable who shows the PCs inside to a waiting room. A fair few minutes later the master of the house arrives and apologizes for the wait, saying he had to make himself presentable first. Milo Mathen is charming and likable and the PCs (or at least the players) are instantly suspicious of him but cannot find anything in his demeanor or words that seems suspicious. He claims to be ignorant of the Thunder Knights that were summond, saying he and his family have been virtual prisoners of their estate for several months. Attempts to leave have seen several servants fall prey to the monsters in the area and the family barely making it back to their house. All communication with the outside has been severed. Now that the PCs are here he hopes they can perhaps clear out the area to make it safe for his family to escape. He suggests they look into the local mines, since he heard something about the miners getting attacked before losing contact with the outside world. In the mean time he invites the PCs for a sumptuous dinner and gives them a chance to dry off and warm up before heading back out.
The family seems very clean and refined for being so far out in the sticks, though the children, about ten years of age, are a bit suspicious, with one being overly stiff and genteel adult and the other making a few alarming comments that the adults hush away. In any case, the PCs think that problems in the mine is indeed something to investigate and head out. They kill a surprising variety of aberrations in just the first few tunnels before we call it a night.