Once again, I am dreadfully behind. Here is quick story summary, just an hour before our next session and the XP details.
The party sends Rhaegar ahead, a Dragonborn to scout Gharash Vren's gang (also a Dragonborn). He manages to at least delay the action and as the action unfolds, Rhaegar uses his leader abilities to convince several of the foes they would have to fight to instead fight the werewolf escaping its prison. Impressively, our level 5 party defeated a level 12 encounter.
Our party then makes it into the inner chambers were not even Gharash Vren's gang lingers long. They find a succubus trapped in a cathedral which they have to fight while simultaneously disarming a trap that summoned demons to fight. Our party, victorious, at Vryellis's encouragement, finds a trap door and a life force splinter of Vrylellis. At this Vyrellis, is positively enamored with the party and Jadis, and has become quite helpful.
To finish out the night, the heroes enter the final room before wrapping around back to their destination. They find that the room was setup quite defensively, for those entering from the other side. Even so, our party has great difficulty overcoming their foes and somehow end up on the defensive. With some well timed heals (and revives) our party eventually vanquishes the foes and takes a now much needed long rest before venturing out into the rest of the pyramid.
Session 13: 908 XP - Shava, Yelsha, Rheagar, Jadis, Varis, & Glyth
Location 12 (G2) - Chamber of Doors: 3450 XP
Location 13 (G3) - Inner Chambers: 2000 XP
Location 11 (G1) - Guard Chamber: 2000 XP
Session 13 Total: 5450 XP
Session 12: 466 XP - Shava, Yelsha, Rhaegar, Jadis, Varis, & Glyth
Session 11: 626 XP (this was stated incorrectly last post as Session 10)
Session 10: 225 XP + 362 XP for Doz (this was omited last post)
Session 9: 342 XP
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total Adventure XP so far: 6481 XP
Level 6 = 7500 XP
As always, I appreciate player corrections, and feed back from anyone on embellishing the story as it happened, should of happened, or should happen.
Session 14 is planned for TODAY at 4pm. (June 9th, 2012). Hope to have these notes posted with a week instead of over a month.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Session 12 Adventure Notes
Sorry for the long delay from action to post. Got really busy between Gnomecon, the J-O-B, D&D, and would you believe Ballet? Maybe that should be a different blog.
Given the long space, this post may be a bit more summary than usual. To business!
Our party entered the hermitage and found more Eaters of Knowledge and fought a "assimilation" of Karavakos. After a really tough battle, Karavakos fled. Our intrepid heroes, even after clearing the area, had to navigate through some magical strangling curtains and pick some locks to find an angel statuette worth 250gp, a silver necklace that once belonged to Vyrellis worth 250gp (and who noted she no longer had a neck on which to adorn it), 4 pieces of cut jade worth 100gp each, and 800 gp. The also found an inscription in one of the rooms which Rhaegar was able to read that said, "The key of knowledge shines beneath a ring of holy stars." They also had to work to disable a trap at the guardian statue that failed to fire during combat for some reason.
From the hermitage, being a dead end, they go back through the library, and the hall way, and take the only remaining unexplored hallway down into a flooded room with moving water. The fight some swamp walking Aboreans who utilize a pipe system in the room to be sneaky. These same pipes trapped and damaged a few of our heroes before they were discovered and ultimately utilized to their advantage. After clearing the room of foes, they spent quite some time trying to get up on slipper platform that led to a room. The room had statue with a moonstone in its forehead. At this site, the Head of Vyrellis pipes up asking Jadis to obtain the moonstone for her.
Once retrieved, and the party, specifically Jadis, FEELING STRONGER, the Head of Vyrellis seems quite partial toward your party. She is a bit more talkative now. She reveals that the moonstone contains a part of her life force and that there are two more pieces in the pyramid. With them, she will be more able to help everyone escape, and maybe even reincorporate her physical being.
Your party then searches the remaining entrances and exits from this room, and the Head of Vyrellis starts revealing what she knows about them. Your North and South entrances (you came from the west) circle back to each other and are the home of Gharash Vren's gang. Gharash Vren is a dragonborn criminal and new to the pyramid. He has only just carved himself out his own place. She reveals the entrances to his area will be well guarded and that they keep a potential enemy in their midst.
Your party heads north contemplating the meaning of her words. You discuss methods among fight, diplomacy, and even subterfuge of the enemy in their midst, before you world is sucked to gray and you return to the alternate dimension known as real life.
Encounter H2, Location 15 - The Hermitage - 1050 XP (Karavakos escaped)
Encounter P5, Location 5 - Flooded Chamber - 1750 XP
Session 12: 466 XP - Shava, Yelsha, Rhaegar, Jadis, Varis, & Glyth
Session 11: 626 XP (this was stated incorrectly last post as Session 10)
Session 10: 225 XP + 362 XP for Doz (this was omited last post)
Session 9: 342 XP
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total Adventure XP so far: 5523 XP (most should be at Level 5 now, a few just behind)
Level 6 = 7500 XP
As always, I appreciate player corrections, and feed back from anyone on embellishing the story as it happened, should of happened, or should happen.
Session 13 is planned for Sunday, April 29, 2012, noon-7pm. Looks to be a pretty full game.
Hope to see you at the Encounters session Wednesday at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. This season is coming to its finale, and I think I have heard that the big battle will be this week with a wrap up the week after.
Given the long space, this post may be a bit more summary than usual. To business!
Our party entered the hermitage and found more Eaters of Knowledge and fought a "assimilation" of Karavakos. After a really tough battle, Karavakos fled. Our intrepid heroes, even after clearing the area, had to navigate through some magical strangling curtains and pick some locks to find an angel statuette worth 250gp, a silver necklace that once belonged to Vyrellis worth 250gp (and who noted she no longer had a neck on which to adorn it), 4 pieces of cut jade worth 100gp each, and 800 gp. The also found an inscription in one of the rooms which Rhaegar was able to read that said, "The key of knowledge shines beneath a ring of holy stars." They also had to work to disable a trap at the guardian statue that failed to fire during combat for some reason.
From the hermitage, being a dead end, they go back through the library, and the hall way, and take the only remaining unexplored hallway down into a flooded room with moving water. The fight some swamp walking Aboreans who utilize a pipe system in the room to be sneaky. These same pipes trapped and damaged a few of our heroes before they were discovered and ultimately utilized to their advantage. After clearing the room of foes, they spent quite some time trying to get up on slipper platform that led to a room. The room had statue with a moonstone in its forehead. At this site, the Head of Vyrellis pipes up asking Jadis to obtain the moonstone for her.
Once retrieved, and the party, specifically Jadis, FEELING STRONGER, the Head of Vyrellis seems quite partial toward your party. She is a bit more talkative now. She reveals that the moonstone contains a part of her life force and that there are two more pieces in the pyramid. With them, she will be more able to help everyone escape, and maybe even reincorporate her physical being.
Your party then searches the remaining entrances and exits from this room, and the Head of Vyrellis starts revealing what she knows about them. Your North and South entrances (you came from the west) circle back to each other and are the home of Gharash Vren's gang. Gharash Vren is a dragonborn criminal and new to the pyramid. He has only just carved himself out his own place. She reveals the entrances to his area will be well guarded and that they keep a potential enemy in their midst.
Your party heads north contemplating the meaning of her words. You discuss methods among fight, diplomacy, and even subterfuge of the enemy in their midst, before you world is sucked to gray and you return to the alternate dimension known as real life.
Encounter H2, Location 15 - The Hermitage - 1050 XP (Karavakos escaped)
Encounter P5, Location 5 - Flooded Chamber - 1750 XP
Session 12: 466 XP - Shava, Yelsha, Rhaegar, Jadis, Varis, & Glyth
Session 11: 626 XP (this was stated incorrectly last post as Session 10)
Session 10: 225 XP + 362 XP for Doz (this was omited last post)
Session 9: 342 XP
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total Adventure XP so far: 5523 XP (most should be at Level 5 now, a few just behind)
Level 6 = 7500 XP
As always, I appreciate player corrections, and feed back from anyone on embellishing the story as it happened, should of happened, or should happen.
Session 13 is planned for Sunday, April 29, 2012, noon-7pm. Looks to be a pretty full game.
Hope to see you at the Encounters session Wednesday at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. This season is coming to its finale, and I think I have heard that the big battle will be this week with a wrap up the week after.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Session 11 Adventure Notes
It felt like a strong poker game. It was a full house. Seven players, myself as DM, playing eight characters. It worked. The extra bodies were useful considering I pitted our level 3-4 characters against two level 7 encounters and one level 8 encounter.
Our heroes were warped out of the forest last session to land in a pit on top of a pile of bodies. Right as they landed Minron, the minotaur, landed on top of Revots as he caught up to the party in the forest just as they were being magically propelled to this pit. The pile of bodies is 20 feet deep, and its 10 feet to the top, where a two headed giant ettin waits to cleave your heads from your body so he can add them to his trophy case. Your party also notices some movement from under the pile of bodies where two giant carrion crawlers emerge.
Through various means of escape the party teleports, climbs, and jumps its way out of the pit, some taking longer and less graceful methods and others having to be hauled up by a rope. The controllers of the party light the pit on fire with spells such as burning hands and fountain of flames, while the rest of the party discovers that the ettin is almost impossible to hit with standard attacks. Fortunately, several party members have some reflex and will based attacks which prove much more fruitful and the party is victorious.
Shava finds an alcove with heads on hooks displayed like trophies. One hook has a heavy bag on, which a female eladrin voice was calling out "We can help each other!". After waiting for his party to discuss the precautions, over what seemed like hours, Shava opens the bag and begins a dialogue with what turns out to the head of Vryellis. Vyrellis offers information and guidance on escaping the Pyramid of Shadows. if you your party would carry her with you. She seems to be more partial toward elves, and since Shava is already carrying a very powerful artifact with him, he passes the head to Jadis, the elf mizard.
Your party the has to decide on the direction to travel from here. All four cardinal points are available. To the east is a T intersection. To the south, some bushes can be made out. To the west, is a bridge descending over water onto a platform with more bridges. To the north is a hallway with an opening to the east, doors to the west, and doors to the north. The Head of Vryellis' only guidance is that you need to explore the Pyramid and get to know its inhabitants and ways. Your party chooses to head North.
Checking each direction in that north hallway, you smell a dirt like smell coming from the west doors, the east hallway seems to descend to a body of running water, and the north door is quiet. Opening the west door with Jadis' mage hand you see piles of bones and another set of doors in the room heading north. Still, in the hallway, another application of mage hand opens the north doors and an avalanche of bones pours out, causing 16 charnal rats to appear out of the various piles of bones. They rush at the party.
The party has some difficulty planning their entrance into the room through a narrow passage way with 9 characters (including Yelsha's summoned wolf, Revots). Using lots of blast spells several rats are dropped, and Doz creates a cordon of bones zone at a choke point. The clever rats head toward the walls to help get around it, but still made for easy pickings by your party. A few of them got close enough to make you lose health due to their aura of rot, but it ended up being a pretty easy encounter.
The only feature of interest in this room was that there was a rat size hole in the room that the north doors contained that lead straight up. Varis, summoned an invisible spirit companion who could travel up there and report on what it saw. It went up two stories, and found a crypt room with sarcophagi along the walls and around a center structure. That is all it could tell.
The party, reluctantly lead by Shava with Minron close behind, goes back to the main hallway peaks into the north doors. The sites and Vryellis confirm that this is a library. At its center is grass and a status of Vryellis as she appeared in life. Vryellis seemed like she was looking for something in the room she did not find, and that bothered her. All the books and scrolls in the library were whispering alluringly to the party. As the whole party spilled into the room. Two Eaters of Knowledge became visible on top of the book cases surrounding the walls carrying long bows. As the party engaged, two more Eaters of Knowledge appeared wielding scimitars, and ultimately, as Shava rounded a book case, some sort of Eaters of Knowledge mage appeared. Their screams frequently dazed the party, and while they made pretty short work of the mage and sword fighters, the position of the archers made it quite difficult to end the encounter. Finally, enough party members got up on the book shelves via climbs, jumps, and ladders that they were surrounded and forced to fight with their own, less skilled, swords and ultimately succumbed to the injuries the party inflicted.
The mages of the party searched the books and scrolls, finding many of them blank, probably some sort of damage from the Eaters of Knowledge. However, Doz found a bone case with a scroll of RAideJadis found a scroll of Consult Mystic Sages. The books also seemed valuable (roughly 5-10gp each, but they weighed 2 lbs each). Some party members starting stuffing their sacks with what they could carry. Hmph, as if they are going to live to profit from it.
On top of the book cases that surrounded the library, there was a set of doors in the North. The party opened those doors, and saw a room made of several small rooms, with a statue of an angel in the front room. And that is where we ended...
Encounter P1, Location 1 - Entrance Pit - 1714 XP
Encounter P2, Location 2 - Chamber of Rats - 1500 XP
Encounter H1, Location 14 - Library of Whispers - 1800 XP
Session 10: 5014 / 8 PC = 626 XP ea
Session 9: 342 XP
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total so far: 5057 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Level 5 = 5500 XP
As always, I appreciate player corrections, and feed back from anyone on embellishing the story as it happened, should of happened, or should happen.
Session 12 is planned for Saturday, April 14, 2012 4pm-11pm. I believe we have had heard that Doz and Minron may not be able to make it.
Session 13 is planned for Sunday, April 29, 2012, noon-7pm. I haven't heard of can't make it's so far.
Hope to see you at the Encounters session Wednesday at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. This season is really shaping up to be a good one.
Our heroes were warped out of the forest last session to land in a pit on top of a pile of bodies. Right as they landed Minron, the minotaur, landed on top of Revots as he caught up to the party in the forest just as they were being magically propelled to this pit. The pile of bodies is 20 feet deep, and its 10 feet to the top, where a two headed giant ettin waits to cleave your heads from your body so he can add them to his trophy case. Your party also notices some movement from under the pile of bodies where two giant carrion crawlers emerge.
Through various means of escape the party teleports, climbs, and jumps its way out of the pit, some taking longer and less graceful methods and others having to be hauled up by a rope. The controllers of the party light the pit on fire with spells such as burning hands and fountain of flames, while the rest of the party discovers that the ettin is almost impossible to hit with standard attacks. Fortunately, several party members have some reflex and will based attacks which prove much more fruitful and the party is victorious.
Shava finds an alcove with heads on hooks displayed like trophies. One hook has a heavy bag on, which a female eladrin voice was calling out "We can help each other!". After waiting for his party to discuss the precautions, over what seemed like hours, Shava opens the bag and begins a dialogue with what turns out to the head of Vryellis. Vyrellis offers information and guidance on escaping the Pyramid of Shadows. if you your party would carry her with you. She seems to be more partial toward elves, and since Shava is already carrying a very powerful artifact with him, he passes the head to Jadis, the elf mizard.
Your party the has to decide on the direction to travel from here. All four cardinal points are available. To the east is a T intersection. To the south, some bushes can be made out. To the west, is a bridge descending over water onto a platform with more bridges. To the north is a hallway with an opening to the east, doors to the west, and doors to the north. The Head of Vryellis' only guidance is that you need to explore the Pyramid and get to know its inhabitants and ways. Your party chooses to head North.
Checking each direction in that north hallway, you smell a dirt like smell coming from the west doors, the east hallway seems to descend to a body of running water, and the north door is quiet. Opening the west door with Jadis' mage hand you see piles of bones and another set of doors in the room heading north. Still, in the hallway, another application of mage hand opens the north doors and an avalanche of bones pours out, causing 16 charnal rats to appear out of the various piles of bones. They rush at the party.
The party has some difficulty planning their entrance into the room through a narrow passage way with 9 characters (including Yelsha's summoned wolf, Revots). Using lots of blast spells several rats are dropped, and Doz creates a cordon of bones zone at a choke point. The clever rats head toward the walls to help get around it, but still made for easy pickings by your party. A few of them got close enough to make you lose health due to their aura of rot, but it ended up being a pretty easy encounter.
The only feature of interest in this room was that there was a rat size hole in the room that the north doors contained that lead straight up. Varis, summoned an invisible spirit companion who could travel up there and report on what it saw. It went up two stories, and found a crypt room with sarcophagi along the walls and around a center structure. That is all it could tell.
The party, reluctantly lead by Shava with Minron close behind, goes back to the main hallway peaks into the north doors. The sites and Vryellis confirm that this is a library. At its center is grass and a status of Vryellis as she appeared in life. Vryellis seemed like she was looking for something in the room she did not find, and that bothered her. All the books and scrolls in the library were whispering alluringly to the party. As the whole party spilled into the room. Two Eaters of Knowledge became visible on top of the book cases surrounding the walls carrying long bows. As the party engaged, two more Eaters of Knowledge appeared wielding scimitars, and ultimately, as Shava rounded a book case, some sort of Eaters of Knowledge mage appeared. Their screams frequently dazed the party, and while they made pretty short work of the mage and sword fighters, the position of the archers made it quite difficult to end the encounter. Finally, enough party members got up on the book shelves via climbs, jumps, and ladders that they were surrounded and forced to fight with their own, less skilled, swords and ultimately succumbed to the injuries the party inflicted.
The mages of the party searched the books and scrolls, finding many of them blank, probably some sort of damage from the Eaters of Knowledge. However, Doz found a bone case with a scroll of RAideJadis found a scroll of Consult Mystic Sages. The books also seemed valuable (roughly 5-10gp each, but they weighed 2 lbs each). Some party members starting stuffing their sacks with what they could carry. Hmph, as if they are going to live to profit from it.
On top of the book cases that surrounded the library, there was a set of doors in the North. The party opened those doors, and saw a room made of several small rooms, with a statue of an angel in the front room. And that is where we ended...
Encounter P1, Location 1 - Entrance Pit - 1714 XP
Encounter P2, Location 2 - Chamber of Rats - 1500 XP
Encounter H1, Location 14 - Library of Whispers - 1800 XP
Session 10: 5014 / 8 PC = 626 XP ea
Session 9: 342 XP
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total so far: 5057 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Level 5 = 5500 XP
As always, I appreciate player corrections, and feed back from anyone on embellishing the story as it happened, should of happened, or should happen.
Session 12 is planned for Saturday, April 14, 2012 4pm-11pm. I believe we have had heard that Doz and Minron may not be able to make it.
Session 13 is planned for Sunday, April 29, 2012, noon-7pm. I haven't heard of can't make it's so far.
Hope to see you at the Encounters session Wednesday at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. This season is really shaping up to be a good one.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Current Happenings
A lot of new leaves turned up this week. Let's see, I can think of three things worth mentioning here.
First, my daughter and I were able to make it to a Shadowrun 3.0 game this Friday with some new friends (thank for the invite!). The game involves some similar ability scores to D&D 4e but all the skills seem ad hoc to fit the story. Also the game runs entirely on d6. You get to roll more d6 the higher your level of a particular skill is (including your various fighting skills). All in all, I did not enjoy the game as much as D&D 4e, but I also know better than to judge a whole gaming system on a single encounter. If you want to learn more about Shadowrun, I found the wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun a great overview on not to many pages.
In this encounter, my daughter got to roll a bunch of important skill checks, while my friend and I got lost and had to find our way back. I do look forward to giving it another go someday. I also wanted to commend the GM. He ran the whole campaign from his mind, never referencing a book or story. He reviewed what he wanted pregame and just made it work. Our part was essentially on three different action paths though we were in the same area and he kept us in turn and engaged. He also created a father-daughter team in game for us with the requisite skills to survive the encounter. I have a few things to learn.
In case any of my new friends are reading this, thanks for a great game, I really enjoyed the role playing, and hope to be able to make it back soon.
Second thing of interest this week was a continuation of one of my conversation regarding D&D 4e at Gnomecon. They don't have a game going yet, and with greater participation of conference attendees than expected already registered, they haven't had a chance to organize a D&D 4e game. I had already volunteered to run a game or two for them, but now I am also going to contact Wizards of the Coast and see if we can get a sanctioned game going. Either way, it will be a blast and I encourage you to come join us.
I think I wanted to try to write an appropriately timed adventure involving gnomes and HumanCon. I have only had a hand at writing "Thank you, but our princess is in another castle!" which feels like I have barely begun so far. At least the Gnomecon game can be smaller in scope and hopefully easier to write.
Lastly, a friend of mine and I are looking at starting a small business providing some custom tools for table top RPG gaming. I would love any thoughts on this. There are so many things I wish I could customize for my DMing or playing, but honestly don't always have the time or skill to do. If I could pay a nominal fee for someone else to customize a DM Screen for me, for example, it would be worth to me. Lots of other ideas going on, and I need to get some more experience with other game systems as well.
First, my daughter and I were able to make it to a Shadowrun 3.0 game this Friday with some new friends (thank for the invite!). The game involves some similar ability scores to D&D 4e but all the skills seem ad hoc to fit the story. Also the game runs entirely on d6. You get to roll more d6 the higher your level of a particular skill is (including your various fighting skills). All in all, I did not enjoy the game as much as D&D 4e, but I also know better than to judge a whole gaming system on a single encounter. If you want to learn more about Shadowrun, I found the wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun a great overview on not to many pages.
In this encounter, my daughter got to roll a bunch of important skill checks, while my friend and I got lost and had to find our way back. I do look forward to giving it another go someday. I also wanted to commend the GM. He ran the whole campaign from his mind, never referencing a book or story. He reviewed what he wanted pregame and just made it work. Our part was essentially on three different action paths though we were in the same area and he kept us in turn and engaged. He also created a father-daughter team in game for us with the requisite skills to survive the encounter. I have a few things to learn.
In case any of my new friends are reading this, thanks for a great game, I really enjoyed the role playing, and hope to be able to make it back soon.
Second thing of interest this week was a continuation of one of my conversation regarding D&D 4e at Gnomecon. They don't have a game going yet, and with greater participation of conference attendees than expected already registered, they haven't had a chance to organize a D&D 4e game. I had already volunteered to run a game or two for them, but now I am also going to contact Wizards of the Coast and see if we can get a sanctioned game going. Either way, it will be a blast and I encourage you to come join us.
I think I wanted to try to write an appropriately timed adventure involving gnomes and HumanCon. I have only had a hand at writing "Thank you, but our princess is in another castle!" which feels like I have barely begun so far. At least the Gnomecon game can be smaller in scope and hopefully easier to write.
Lastly, a friend of mine and I are looking at starting a small business providing some custom tools for table top RPG gaming. I would love any thoughts on this. There are so many things I wish I could customize for my DMing or playing, but honestly don't always have the time or skill to do. If I could pay a nominal fee for someone else to customize a DM Screen for me, for example, it would be worth to me. Lots of other ideas going on, and I need to get some more experience with other game systems as well.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Session 10 Adventure Notes
It's hard to believe that we are already at Session Ten and yet we have been playing for four months now. It's also hard to imagine that we have had yet another unique session, so different than all the rest. To summarize the oddness, we only had one combat encounter at the very end, and our heroes have opened up three more minor quests and ignored the major quest while in the very castle they were supposed to go for the quest.
Some other interesting session numbers:
10 sessions
4 months
~2 lbs of Swedish fish (that surprisingly don't taste like fish)
4 pizzas
1 potato chip bag of bring your own strength to open it
and a "golden sack"
Here is our per player XP so far, before we get to the story:
Session 9: 342 XP
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total so far: 4206 XP
We opened on our party late in the morning of Day 12 walking out of the Ye Olde Shop of Magic empty handed. Rhaegar buys a few miscellaneous items and the decide to see what they can find at the Dog's Wag, before sunset.
Through conversation with the barmaid, Helga, and the games master, her husband, Bastrad, they learn that Carric, the Cavalier that was sacrificed at the altar of Vecna, had frequented this establishment, drinking and gambling between jobs. They also learned that the cloaked figure had not been seen before he met with Carric, but has been back fairly often around sunset, and doesn't ever buy anything, to Helga's dismay.
The whole party, except for Varis sent down to enjoy some dice and card games at the Dog's Wag. Jadis was the first to break the ice with some play at Roman's Dice and then Chuck-a-Luck. Eventually others joined him, starting with Yelsha, and then everyone but Varis (who kept watch) playing Three Dragon Ante Emporer's Gambit. Overall the party did well at the games adding about 100gp to their coffers before realizing the sun was settings as they were cashing out their chips back to gold.
As they were, Varis noticed that a cloaked figure opened the door into the Dog's walk, seemed troubled at seeing Shava, Yelsha, Jadis, Glyth, and Varis, and closed the door and hurried off. The party followed outside and began to track the figure. They could tell he was running fast, and despite enthusiasm by Shava, they decided not to run after the trail grew cold.
The party felt that the cloaked figure was most likely gathering forces, so they rented a few rooms at the end in strategic outlooks locations, they had Yelsha and Jadis sneak around the back so the barmaid wouldn't know they were here (in case she was interrogated), and Doz waited down stairs while chatting up a Minotaur patron. Those upstairs (sharing some rooms) took turns sleeping and keeping watch. Around three hours in, the cloaked figure indeed returned, but alone, and Doz overheard him talking to Helga. He simply asked what she knew about the adventurers that were in earlier (he did show that we felt superior to the barmaid), and having learned little left. Having been alerted to his presence by a mage hand from Doz, Rhaegar and Jadis moved into a vacant room and caught his return path. The cloaked figure had headed into the castle, and was not stopped or questioned by the guards.
From then, our heroes decided to take a long rest if nothing more than to prevent from being tired later. During the night Shava, again had difficulty sleeping, and as he later reported to the party, his dreams are becoming more clear and compelling. He is being called by Pelor, to a pyramid in the midst of a clearing in a thick forest to the north west. After they woke on the morning of Day 13, our party decided to send Doz, someone that the cloaked figure did not seem to recognize and was not with them at the arena (they assumed that based on who the cloaked figure noticed this figure must have been at the arena), to the castle to seek an audience with King Helgon. Yes, they just split the party.
Doz, who later confesses he expected death on this errand, comes to the guards at the castle entrance. The guards stop him stating that only those on the King's business may enter. Doz attempts a diplomatic approach with the guards and convinces them to let him pass so that he may offer the king his services to gain his favor.
As he is escorted into the throne room where King Helgon sits, he notices that the cloaked figure is standing behind the left shoulder of the king. Doz appeals to the king in speech by seeking a homestead and safe passage through his land, in exchange for whatever service the King wishes. The King offers him a quest to seek out his missing powerful mage. Helgon had sent the Mage to the Maze of Madness, west from the North Gate of Hilliana through a pass called Tock's Crack in the mountain range to the west. The mage was to retrieve a "trinket" for him and he has asked Doz to retrieve the trinket with or without the mage.
Doz accepted the quest and after stating that he would gather six other adventures for the task, had a page draw up mission documents that would be proof the party was on the king's business while travelling.
Doz reported back to the party, still at the Dog's Wag, and they were excited to hear about the safe passage. They didn't, however, seem interested in the new quest, and on their way to the north gate of Hilliana stopped by to see the Eladrin at the Religious Center to see how her research was going.
She was excited to see them as she indeed has found something. Here is what she shared:
Adventure Experience: 4206 XP + 225 XP = 4431 XP + 50 XP for Shava/Yelsha, & 362 XP for Doz
Level 5 at 5500 XP
DM Ruling: I awarded the XP for Encounter 27 to Doz only. Had it not been for a lucky Diplomacy role, he could have well triggered a combat encounter by himself and died before his party could assist. Give that Doz is also behind in experience points, I doubly felt this was fair for everyone.
Some other interesting session numbers:
10 sessions
4 months
~2 lbs of Swedish fish (that surprisingly don't taste like fish)
4 pizzas
1 potato chip bag of bring your own strength to open it
and a "golden sack"
Here is our per player XP so far, before we get to the story:
Session 9: 342 XP
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total so far: 4206 XP
We opened on our party late in the morning of Day 12 walking out of the Ye Olde Shop of Magic empty handed. Rhaegar buys a few miscellaneous items and the decide to see what they can find at the Dog's Wag, before sunset.
Through conversation with the barmaid, Helga, and the games master, her husband, Bastrad, they learn that Carric, the Cavalier that was sacrificed at the altar of Vecna, had frequented this establishment, drinking and gambling between jobs. They also learned that the cloaked figure had not been seen before he met with Carric, but has been back fairly often around sunset, and doesn't ever buy anything, to Helga's dismay.
The whole party, except for Varis sent down to enjoy some dice and card games at the Dog's Wag. Jadis was the first to break the ice with some play at Roman's Dice and then Chuck-a-Luck. Eventually others joined him, starting with Yelsha, and then everyone but Varis (who kept watch) playing Three Dragon Ante Emporer's Gambit. Overall the party did well at the games adding about 100gp to their coffers before realizing the sun was settings as they were cashing out their chips back to gold.
As they were, Varis noticed that a cloaked figure opened the door into the Dog's walk, seemed troubled at seeing Shava, Yelsha, Jadis, Glyth, and Varis, and closed the door and hurried off. The party followed outside and began to track the figure. They could tell he was running fast, and despite enthusiasm by Shava, they decided not to run after the trail grew cold.
The party felt that the cloaked figure was most likely gathering forces, so they rented a few rooms at the end in strategic outlooks locations, they had Yelsha and Jadis sneak around the back so the barmaid wouldn't know they were here (in case she was interrogated), and Doz waited down stairs while chatting up a Minotaur patron. Those upstairs (sharing some rooms) took turns sleeping and keeping watch. Around three hours in, the cloaked figure indeed returned, but alone, and Doz overheard him talking to Helga. He simply asked what she knew about the adventurers that were in earlier (he did show that we felt superior to the barmaid), and having learned little left. Having been alerted to his presence by a mage hand from Doz, Rhaegar and Jadis moved into a vacant room and caught his return path. The cloaked figure had headed into the castle, and was not stopped or questioned by the guards.
Doz, who later confesses he expected death on this errand, comes to the guards at the castle entrance. The guards stop him stating that only those on the King's business may enter. Doz attempts a diplomatic approach with the guards and convinces them to let him pass so that he may offer the king his services to gain his favor.
As he is escorted into the throne room where King Helgon sits, he notices that the cloaked figure is standing behind the left shoulder of the king. Doz appeals to the king in speech by seeking a homestead and safe passage through his land, in exchange for whatever service the King wishes. The King offers him a quest to seek out his missing powerful mage. Helgon had sent the Mage to the Maze of Madness, west from the North Gate of Hilliana through a pass called Tock's Crack in the mountain range to the west. The mage was to retrieve a "trinket" for him and he has asked Doz to retrieve the trinket with or without the mage.
Doz accepted the quest and after stating that he would gather six other adventures for the task, had a page draw up mission documents that would be proof the party was on the king's business while travelling.
Doz reported back to the party, still at the Dog's Wag, and they were excited to hear about the safe passage. They didn't, however, seem interested in the new quest, and on their way to the north gate of Hilliana stopped by to see the Eladrin at the Religious Center to see how her research was going.
She was excited to see them as she indeed has found something. Here is what she shared:
“I believe I have found something, though obscure. I found a reference to both an artifact and Vecna in a tome regarding the goddess Melora. I found it so quickly as our center had recently researched Melora on an errand from one of the King’s pages. Melora is the goddess of the wilderness and the sea. She is not known to be good or evil and tends to want nature to be untamed and unfettered with. Sometimes her acts can seem cruel to humans, but she is the closest thing to what some ancient tribes called ‘Mother Earth’.
“What I found in the tome is that there was once a cult, that one reference called them The Ancient Ones. The Ancient Ones performed some form of dark ritual and/or quest that allowed them to steal power from the gods. It is written that they were able to channel the power of several gods into a single artifact.
“This tome describes the powers of Melora, Gruumsh, Sehanine, Moradin, Tiamat, and Vecna. I can’t tell if that is all the gods trifled with or gather much more than that from this text on Melora, except that there was a new cult formed in the aftermath that were called ‘Light Seekers’ who found a way to destroy the artifact.
“This is the part that excites me as a student of tomes and proud sister. My sister, Meriele, has been studying the rise and fall of the ancient ‘Light Seekers’, at the Abbey for the Religious Arts on the Isle of Fire. I haven’t had word from her in a few months with all the road blocks around Hilliana.
“Would you mind carrying her this package along with this tome of Melora? The book has a note in it to help her see what references I am talking about for you. We usually send each other little pleasantries every few months, and it’s been dreadful not hearing from her. Also, and I hate to ask you this, but these books are invaluable and I am already breaking protocol loaning this to you. Would you be willing to place a 10gp deposit so I can at least fall back on that, if my superiors come complaining? I will hold it here for you safely on your return of the tome.”
The party asked where the Isle of Fire was. “Oh, I’m sorry; you must be new in this region. Most take a ship from the docks at Palancia. Weather permitting, it’s about two days sail south east to the isle. They call it the Isle of Fire, because the mountains that make up the isle are frequently throwing smoke into the air.”
Before departing, they had Meriele's sister draw them a map of the northern regions of Hilliana, which was mostly nondescript hill country and the mountain range to the west wrapping around to the north and ending in a dense forest. It also showed a road heading North from the Hilliana and the splitting into a West and East road. The west road heads into the mountains through Tock's Crack, and the east road heads closer to the river going east and past the docks that server Hilliana.
Our heroes accepted the package and proceeded out the North Gate. When they get to the end of the north road before it heads east and west, they ask Shava for directions who feels that heading due northeast is the proper course. They walk through the hilly country for over two days before coming to the edge of a dense forest at the morning of Day 15. Shava again leads the way northeast through the dense forest. Around midday of Day 15, they come to a clearing in the woods with pile of rumble in the middle. Some arcana checks, which Yelsha ultimately succeeds in shows immense magic flowing from the rubble.
During their inspection, three dwarves, two humans, and a drake spring from the trees surprising all but Varis. Midfight, a dwarf asks, "What have you done with our leader?" to Varis. Varis answers, "We ate him!" The dwarf was surprised by the answer. Our heroes killed all their foes except the dwarf who asked about his leader, who they knocked unconscious for interrogation. As they revived the dwarf, he burst into ashes and a spectral image of a tiefling appeared over the pile of rubble.
The image of the male tiefling asked "What do you seek in the Pyramid of Shadows?" and Shava immediately answered "The answer to my dreams!" The image responds, "So shall it be! Welcome the Pyramid of Shadows. The only way to win your freedom is to kill us - three times." and the world went black then returned with the absence of the smell of a forest and the stench of too many animals in too small a space in its place. I think I heard Glyth say, "Shava, what have you gotten us into this time?!?"
And this is where we ended Session 10. What is the Pyramid of Shadows and what did he mean by kill us three times? What will happen to the other gazillion quests our party has collected? Stay tuned; we may have some more answers next session.
Players: feel free to correct and update the story in the comments. Anyone is welcome to make story suggestions and comments as well. We actually just transitioned into a pre-made module called Pyramid of Shadows. Another new and very different session awaits.
Also, we are tentatively schedule to reconvene on Saturday, March 24th, at 4pm. This is not as firm as we usually have when leaving a session, but a few folks had to do some more thorough calendar checking. Let me know!
Games of Chance - 175 XP
Encounter 25 - Chasing Shadows - 0 XP
Encounter 26 - Fighting Shadows - 0 XP
Encounter 27 - Hilliana Castle Gate - 362 XP - Doz only
King Helgon - Safe Passage
Encounter A1 - Forest Clearing - 1400 XP
Session Experience: 1575 XP / 7 PCs = 225 XP + 362 XP for DozEncounter 25 - Chasing Shadows - 0 XP
Encounter 26 - Fighting Shadows - 0 XP
Encounter 27 - Hilliana Castle Gate - 362 XP - Doz only
King Helgon - Safe Passage
Encounter A1 - Forest Clearing - 1400 XP
Adventure Experience: 4206 XP + 225 XP = 4431 XP + 50 XP for Shava/Yelsha, & 362 XP for Doz
Level 5 at 5500 XP
DM Ruling: I awarded the XP for Encounter 27 to Doz only. Had it not been for a lucky Diplomacy role, he could have well triggered a combat encounter by himself and died before his party could assist. Give that Doz is also behind in experience points, I doubly felt this was fair for everyone.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Encounters New Season
Last week, we met at Morningstar Games for a new twist on an Encounters session. We got together to build our characters for the upcoming adventure starting this coming Wednesday. I also have decided not to DM Encounter this session so I can have a change to play along side my daughter as opposed to opposed to her (pun intended).
We have two new DMs for this season, one of which was my first DM, and another who I can't wait to see her style of DMing. Should be interesting.
This new season, lots of Dwarves and Elemental themes. The Elder Elemental Eye is the name of the Adventure and you can read more about it at http://wizards.com/dnd/Event.aspx?x=dnd/4new/event/dndencounters.
Hope to see you there. Feel free to RSVP so we can make sure we have seats and tables enough for everyone to enjoy.
We have two new DMs for this season, one of which was my first DM, and another who I can't wait to see her style of DMing. Should be interesting.
This new season, lots of Dwarves and Elemental themes. The Elder Elemental Eye is the name of the Adventure and you can read more about it at http://wizards.com/dnd/Event.aspx?x=dnd/4new/event/dndencounters.
Hope to see you there. Feel free to RSVP so we can make sure we have seats and tables enough for everyone to enjoy.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Encounters Session 13 - The Finale
It is done. Our party slayed Soryth, whom had just completed stealing all of Caerwyn's sould, releasing the trapped soul back into the crypt that contained Porpherio and Caerwyn. As soon as that concluded, all the fey creatures that were barred from entering the Palace of Spires came and in turn called forth their Fey Lords. All were allowed to drink from the Fountain Heal All without the curse of being trapped on the island forever and be granted one wish each. Juliana and Orlando were wished back to their realm to live happily ever after and our heroes were celebrated in the three cities. A heroes reception waited for them Sybar where they were rewarded from completing the Count's Task. From their, our adventuring heroes broke apart and went their separate ways, to find the results of their wishes waiting for them (and we heard fame, glory, and power among a few of the wishes).
The End.
I hope to have some announcements for you shortly regarding the next adventure and what we will be up to this coming Wednesday at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads.
The End.
I hope to have some announcements for you shortly regarding the next adventure and what we will be up to this coming Wednesday at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Encounters Sessions 9-12
Sorry for the delay in updating the story notes. Sometimes work gets in the way of my D&D habit :)
Lady Anya Tamora, Ruler of Crystal Brook
Lord Carric, Ruler of the Sildaine Forest
Count Varis Sybar, Ruler of Sybar (mediator between Tamora and Carric)
Juliana, daughter of Carric
Orlando, son of Tamora
Caerwyn, inside Juliana, daughter of Oran
Porpherio, inside Orlando, adopted son of Tiandra
Oran, archfey, Green Lord
Tiandra, archfey, Summer Queen
Ragnar, agent of Oran, a verbeeg mercenary
Uma, agent of Tiandra, a briar witch dryad
Basal, Ragnar's cousin, sent to kill Orlando/Porpherio
Soryth, Dream Queen, hag, at the Palace of Spires
Kalbon, Soryth's partner in crime?
In Encounter 9, our party traveled with Basal and Orlando back to Ragnar's camp. They fey were more united now. Uma asked that the party be gentle on any fey that Soryth must certainly be swaying if at all possible and the party is led to the maze entrance that guards the Palace of Spires. Before getting to rest fully, our party is ambushed by Xivorts rolling down logs down a hill toward their camp. Our party is ultimately successful, and finally gets a much needed long rest before entering the maze.
In Encounter 10, the wander the maze getting lost several times and upon finally finding the center, where they enter their leaf keys, two boggles steal their keys and run off in the maze. Our party gives chase and fights these boggles in the close and confusing confines of the maze. Some neat tricks of the boggles allowed them to divide the party some but, as seems typical in these matters, the party ends up victorious once again. They come back to the center and reinsert the keys, to be whisked away to a glorious courtyard in front a palace.
In Encounter 11, our heroes fought two possessed fey berserkers, two xivorts, a boggle snatcher, and a xivort shadow caller. The party broke the spell on the two berserkers and dispatched the rest of the foes. The few turn out to be from the rescue party and are brothers. Alain finds a magical chrysanthemum in the courtyard and decides to take it with him. They then figure out a puzzle where the door to the palace is reflective and has no reflection, but their reflections in the pool in the center seem "independent". They ultimately ask their reflections to op en the door for them and they do. Two lifelike statues around the door speak "Enter in Peace," Our heroes sheath their weapons and enter.
Lastly for this update, in Encounter 12, the party explores the castle entrance and finds a fountain with nymphs playing. They ask the party to solve a few puzzles in the room. Our party takes some damage removing some glyphs that turned a room for night to daylight, and they located some "crystal" ware that chimes to teach some squawking birds to sing. Having completed these two challenges, the nymphs form a water stairway to the chamber above, just as Kalbon and two pixies drop from above to engage the party.
In nearly one hit, a party member bloodies a pixie, who then recognize the party as friends thanks to their saving of previous fey creatures such as the two fey berserkers from the previous encounter. They flee the battle. Unfortunately, when our characters draw their weapons, the status just outside the door come to life and engage the enemy. They do not engage Kalbon because he fights with his horns. Our party concentrates their attacks on Kalbon, nearly avoiding the statues, killing Kalbon in three rounds and quickly sheathed their weapons. Once all sheathed, the statues immediately regress back to their pedestals and turn back to the stone. They hear a scream from upstairs and approach up the stairs as the session ends.
The final encounter of Beyond the Crystal Cave, Session 13, will be this Wednesday at 6pm at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. If you would like us to save you seat, and allow us to prepare for the right number of folks, please feel free to RSVP by commenting here.
Lady Anya Tamora, Ruler of Crystal Brook
Lord Carric, Ruler of the Sildaine Forest
Count Varis Sybar, Ruler of Sybar (mediator between Tamora and Carric)
Juliana, daughter of Carric
Orlando, son of Tamora
Caerwyn, inside Juliana, daughter of Oran
Porpherio, inside Orlando, adopted son of Tiandra
Oran, archfey, Green Lord
Tiandra, archfey, Summer Queen
Ragnar, agent of Oran, a verbeeg mercenary
Uma, agent of Tiandra, a briar witch dryad
Basal, Ragnar's cousin, sent to kill Orlando/Porpherio
Soryth, Dream Queen, hag, at the Palace of Spires
Kalbon, Soryth's partner in crime?
In Encounter 9, our party traveled with Basal and Orlando back to Ragnar's camp. They fey were more united now. Uma asked that the party be gentle on any fey that Soryth must certainly be swaying if at all possible and the party is led to the maze entrance that guards the Palace of Spires. Before getting to rest fully, our party is ambushed by Xivorts rolling down logs down a hill toward their camp. Our party is ultimately successful, and finally gets a much needed long rest before entering the maze.
In Encounter 10, the wander the maze getting lost several times and upon finally finding the center, where they enter their leaf keys, two boggles steal their keys and run off in the maze. Our party gives chase and fights these boggles in the close and confusing confines of the maze. Some neat tricks of the boggles allowed them to divide the party some but, as seems typical in these matters, the party ends up victorious once again. They come back to the center and reinsert the keys, to be whisked away to a glorious courtyard in front a palace.
In Encounter 11, our heroes fought two possessed fey berserkers, two xivorts, a boggle snatcher, and a xivort shadow caller. The party broke the spell on the two berserkers and dispatched the rest of the foes. The few turn out to be from the rescue party and are brothers. Alain finds a magical chrysanthemum in the courtyard and decides to take it with him. They then figure out a puzzle where the door to the palace is reflective and has no reflection, but their reflections in the pool in the center seem "independent". They ultimately ask their reflections to op en the door for them and they do. Two lifelike statues around the door speak "Enter in Peace," Our heroes sheath their weapons and enter.
Lastly for this update, in Encounter 12, the party explores the castle entrance and finds a fountain with nymphs playing. They ask the party to solve a few puzzles in the room. Our party takes some damage removing some glyphs that turned a room for night to daylight, and they located some "crystal" ware that chimes to teach some squawking birds to sing. Having completed these two challenges, the nymphs form a water stairway to the chamber above, just as Kalbon and two pixies drop from above to engage the party.
In nearly one hit, a party member bloodies a pixie, who then recognize the party as friends thanks to their saving of previous fey creatures such as the two fey berserkers from the previous encounter. They flee the battle. Unfortunately, when our characters draw their weapons, the status just outside the door come to life and engage the enemy. They do not engage Kalbon because he fights with his horns. Our party concentrates their attacks on Kalbon, nearly avoiding the statues, killing Kalbon in three rounds and quickly sheathed their weapons. Once all sheathed, the statues immediately regress back to their pedestals and turn back to the stone. They hear a scream from upstairs and approach up the stairs as the session ends.
The final encounter of Beyond the Crystal Cave, Session 13, will be this Wednesday at 6pm at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. If you would like us to save you seat, and allow us to prepare for the right number of folks, please feel free to RSVP by commenting here.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Session 9 Adventure Notes
Our last session was an interesting twist. We played during daylight only, had a new young player, and had a lot of party discussion regarding alignment how to handle story elements. We also went back to the beginning to recalculate experience points, as some how, our players lost track of their most prized position, Experience Points. Here is our experience totals thus far:
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total so far: 3864 XP
Basically, most of the party felt stronger at the end of last session, and didn't realize it.
Now to the story.
Our party was taking a long rest after getting their butt kicks in the Desert Cave. During the long rest Varis noticed that Shava was sleeping well. When confronted Shava just brushed it off as a dream. As they were packing up camp a tall figure approached their camp from the west. From the looks of him, he looks like a Minotaur Paladin. Yep, a Minotaur Lawful Good Paladin named Minron (not Nimrod as was pointed out to me on more than one occasion) joins the party.
Minron hears of their troubles with the Pentagon of Vecna and inspects. He determines that it must be evil and recommends its destruction. He also finds it difficult to put it down but does accomplish the task. They carefully put it back and in Shava's pack after deciding that Shava is the best choice based on will and alignment (a nod to Glyth with the higher will and "lower" alignment).
After a lengthy discussion they decide to head West, early in Day 11. back to the crossroads from whence they came and from there to head North toward Hilliana. Some of the debate was between the princess rescue, and dealing with the Pentagon, but they concluded that their only clue regarding the Pentagon was in Hilliana as was the princess so they proceeded there.
As they approach Hilliana, they make out an encampment blocking the bridge across the river to Hilliana castle. They choose between approaching the encampment with various methods of accomplishing that, and following a path they discovered that ran parallel to the road through the woods to the west. To take the path, they had to ditch their cart and felt that the going would be tough with their horses as well, thought the brought them anyways. They ditched their cart in the woods and covered it with limbs, and then took any stuff they couldn't carry and buried in deeper in the woods, supposedly taking good notes on how to retrieve it later.
Along the first half of the trail, several of the party just didn't have the skills to navigate their horse through the tight trail and the party lost of two of their six horses. During the last half of the trail, they lost two more (one of them their warhorse). They emerged on a bank of land between a rushing river and think wood to the West of the encampment. As they march further west, upstream of the river, they begin to smell a foul smell in the air and eventually see an opening on the other side of the river. A closer inspection (though still across the river), they suspect that it is man made and the source of the stench, possibly a sewer from Hilliana and a stealthy entrance into the town.
After inspecting the river more closely, they decide their best bet is ford it and to head further upstream should the rushing current carry them. As they head further upstream, the luck up and find a narrower part of the stream and its a bit calmer. They also found a dying tree near the river bank. The party decides that not everyone is so athletic so they send Rhaegar across first with a rope tied him. He fords the river by starting with a running jump crossing almost half the distance at once. He then loses a few feet downstream but crosses unscathed.
Rhaegar and Minron hold both ends of the rope and Minron ties another rope to each party member who attempts to cross. Glyth gets part way then teleports the rest of the way providing assistance to Rhaegar on the far side of the river. The rope makes it easier for most of the players to cross river but the current keeps sweeping their feet out. They frequently use the rope to drag a character back to the near shore. Some have difficulty getting across, and ultimately Minron takes a few attempts to throw an end of the rope across the river to Rhaegar. Now when a character lets go of the rope across the attached rope to their body can drag them to the far shore. This gets the rest of the party across though Jadis and Varis take some drowning damage from being submerged while drug to the far shore. Everyone catches their breath before heading into the suspected sewer entrance.
Dark? Check. Smelly? Check. Damp? Check. Sewer? Definitely. Any monsters, just a baby crocodile 45 years after being dumped into the sewer out of a chamber pot. Our party deftly converges on the poor lonely Vicejaw Crocodile bloodying him quickly before four more Crocodiles emerge from the murky sewer water to bite our party. Several crocodiles bite and clamp down on the party in a grab, and then did massive damage as the grab continued. That is, until Rhaegar burned her daily which allowed party members to slide other party members on a hit. The DM's parade being rained on, a Cavern Choker emerges around a bend in the sewer line and lashes out with tentacles at Shava who is in the front. The Choker begins to drag Shava away from the party before Shava finally gets in an escape and retreats closer to the party. Another Choker emerges from the opposite direction slinging tentacles at Varis and after a few tries grabbing him. The slide powers prove to difficulty and very little additional damage is done, even with a sixth crocodile shows up. One Choker did get in a very clever hit by using Varis as a human shield when Minron closed for an attack. Varis tries to forgive, but Glyth still seems to carry a fire in her eye when looking at Minron.
Having cleared the sewer, Rhaegar since that he felt stronger and as he suggested to the party that they step back outside away from this smell so he could do some exercises to make him stronger, Shava, Yelsha, Glyth, Varis, and Jadis, say "Hey, wait a minute, I think I need to do some studying, too." Low and behold, six of our party members advance to the fourth level while enjoying a long rest after a long day of travelling. This rest carries them into the dark hours of Day 11, and then they reenter the sewer.
After making their way through the sewer, they discover two discernible exits. One, a ladder up to a trap door, and the other, a open exit into the town itself, probably an entrance for the unfortunate souls how have to perform maintenance down here, that also allows for water runoff. Glyth stealthily checks the trapdoor and finds that it leads to the storeroom of a tavern but store room door is open and there seemed to be a good bit of foot traffic by the door. They nominate Glyth to then poke her head out of the open exit and slightly startle an old man, dressed in rags, with "crazy eyes" who slightly startles them back with "Hello dare!". A very difficult conversation ensures with a few of the characters revealing themselves at a time, usually greeted with another surprised "Hello dare!". This crazy old man, though speaking in riddles with phrases such as "I is invisible and he sees things" and offering the "pears of his presence". He also mentions that "pears are fruits" before holding out his hand.
Minron gives the old man a gold piece and the old man offers additional cryptic information. It takes numerous gold pieces, and a (failed) attempt at silver pieces from Glyth, to get some additional information. Our party learns that the King has gone mad, he found something, and that he is sending folks to find more things. He even suggests that maybe the party could go find something for the King. As is typical with this party, things started to get a little rough when the well was running dry, so he yanked a last coin out of Minron's hand and bolted off into the dark cackling all the while.
Our heroes finally get a chance to see their surroundings and they see the sign for the Dog's Wag not 30 feet away from them. They also describe this area of town as "Seedy". Rhaegar decides he is too good for this side of town, passes the Dog's Wag and asks a towns person about a nicer place (speaking of payment). Our citizen takes them to the Gilded Flute tavern further East in town. As she does so, Rhaegar suddenly gets a little cheap and the middle-class citizen makes an idle threat of making sure folks knew the party was in town and leaves. Rhaegar then rethought the situation and chased after the citizen offering her a gold piece for the escort and an extra for her silence. The citizen smiled, took the gold and was off.
Our heroes then found themselves in an empty (it's pretty late at night) but nicely maintained hotel with a female human as the bar keep. She cautiously offers them rooms (the party really stinks) and says she only has deluxe rooms for 2 gp each, and that a bath was available AND REQUIRED to stay here at 1gp each. There were two baths available so the party took turns washing up. With seven rooms, Glyth and Varis bunked up and they converted the seventh room into a meeting room so they could discuss issues (especially the Pentagon) in private. The sun rises signaling Day 12 during these conversations and, being still rested, they decide as a group to find a place where they can do religious research, possibly check out the Dog's Wag before the Cloaked figure is due to show up, and see what's around town.
The barkeep obliges them with a hand drawn map of Hilliana. It appears that Hilliana is broken up into districts, with the poor section along the west wall, the great Manors of the wealthy along the south wall, the middle class homes near the west wall. The Dog's Wag is South East marker and separator between the poor section and the Manors (As well as some space). The Gilded Flute is the West end marker of the Middle Class section. Just North of the Middle Class section are the shops. West of the shops is a small religious center and library with an open park and then cemetery further west. In the center is Castle Hilliana complete with moat and walls. There are also large walls around the town with a North and South gate for entrance and exit to the city.
They proceed to the religious center where they diplomatically and discretely talk to the Eladrin female who offers to help them there. Based on the sketchy information the party provides, she mentions a work of fiction regarding a Ring of Power and a Mountain, but offers to do further research, on how one might destroy an artifact regarding Vecna. She would not let anyone touch their books due to their value and age, but did seem genuinely intrigues to do the research. She hopes to have some research completed by tomorrow.
Next our party headed to the merchant district for a little shopping. They immediately spot a store offering magic items and get to window shopping before realizing they don't have as much money as they had thought. There were some negotiations and trades transpiring, but everything "cool" someone wanted and thought they could get into their price range, would cost the party almost all their gold, including a one-of-a-king bag of holding. Glyth had her eye on a few rods <snicker> but ultimately left empty handed and disappointed <snicker, snicker>.
GAMES OF CHANCE.
And that is where we leave our adventures late in the morning of Day 12.
What will the Eladrin woman find out for our party regarding artifacts of Vecna?
What is waiting for them in Dog's Wag?
What is the name of this campaign and will they ever find out why?
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Experience Points:
Encounter 17 - River Crossing - 1000 XP
Encounter 22 - Sewer Passage to Hilliana - 1400 XP
Session Experience: 2400 XP / 7 PCs = 342XP
Adventure Experience: 3864 XP + 342 XP = 4206 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Level 5 at 5500 XP
Session 8: 787 XP
Session 7: 524 XP
Session 6: 562 XP
Session 5: 278 XP
Session 4: 432 XP
Session 3: 321 XP
Session 2: 585 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Session 1: 375 XP
Total so far: 3864 XP
Basically, most of the party felt stronger at the end of last session, and didn't realize it.
Now to the story.
Our party was taking a long rest after getting their butt kicks in the Desert Cave. During the long rest Varis noticed that Shava was sleeping well. When confronted Shava just brushed it off as a dream. As they were packing up camp a tall figure approached their camp from the west. From the looks of him, he looks like a Minotaur Paladin. Yep, a Minotaur Lawful Good Paladin named Minron (not Nimrod as was pointed out to me on more than one occasion) joins the party.
Minron hears of their troubles with the Pentagon of Vecna and inspects. He determines that it must be evil and recommends its destruction. He also finds it difficult to put it down but does accomplish the task. They carefully put it back and in Shava's pack after deciding that Shava is the best choice based on will and alignment (a nod to Glyth with the higher will and "lower" alignment).
After a lengthy discussion they decide to head West, early in Day 11. back to the crossroads from whence they came and from there to head North toward Hilliana. Some of the debate was between the princess rescue, and dealing with the Pentagon, but they concluded that their only clue regarding the Pentagon was in Hilliana as was the princess so they proceeded there.
As they approach Hilliana, they make out an encampment blocking the bridge across the river to Hilliana castle. They choose between approaching the encampment with various methods of accomplishing that, and following a path they discovered that ran parallel to the road through the woods to the west. To take the path, they had to ditch their cart and felt that the going would be tough with their horses as well, thought the brought them anyways. They ditched their cart in the woods and covered it with limbs, and then took any stuff they couldn't carry and buried in deeper in the woods, supposedly taking good notes on how to retrieve it later.
Along the first half of the trail, several of the party just didn't have the skills to navigate their horse through the tight trail and the party lost of two of their six horses. During the last half of the trail, they lost two more (one of them their warhorse). They emerged on a bank of land between a rushing river and think wood to the West of the encampment. As they march further west, upstream of the river, they begin to smell a foul smell in the air and eventually see an opening on the other side of the river. A closer inspection (though still across the river), they suspect that it is man made and the source of the stench, possibly a sewer from Hilliana and a stealthy entrance into the town.
After inspecting the river more closely, they decide their best bet is ford it and to head further upstream should the rushing current carry them. As they head further upstream, the luck up and find a narrower part of the stream and its a bit calmer. They also found a dying tree near the river bank. The party decides that not everyone is so athletic so they send Rhaegar across first with a rope tied him. He fords the river by starting with a running jump crossing almost half the distance at once. He then loses a few feet downstream but crosses unscathed.
Rhaegar and Minron hold both ends of the rope and Minron ties another rope to each party member who attempts to cross. Glyth gets part way then teleports the rest of the way providing assistance to Rhaegar on the far side of the river. The rope makes it easier for most of the players to cross river but the current keeps sweeping their feet out. They frequently use the rope to drag a character back to the near shore. Some have difficulty getting across, and ultimately Minron takes a few attempts to throw an end of the rope across the river to Rhaegar. Now when a character lets go of the rope across the attached rope to their body can drag them to the far shore. This gets the rest of the party across though Jadis and Varis take some drowning damage from being submerged while drug to the far shore. Everyone catches their breath before heading into the suspected sewer entrance.
Having cleared the sewer, Rhaegar since that he felt stronger and as he suggested to the party that they step back outside away from this smell so he could do some exercises to make him stronger, Shava, Yelsha, Glyth, Varis, and Jadis, say "Hey, wait a minute, I think I need to do some studying, too." Low and behold, six of our party members advance to the fourth level while enjoying a long rest after a long day of travelling. This rest carries them into the dark hours of Day 11, and then they reenter the sewer.
After making their way through the sewer, they discover two discernible exits. One, a ladder up to a trap door, and the other, a open exit into the town itself, probably an entrance for the unfortunate souls how have to perform maintenance down here, that also allows for water runoff. Glyth stealthily checks the trapdoor and finds that it leads to the storeroom of a tavern but store room door is open and there seemed to be a good bit of foot traffic by the door. They nominate Glyth to then poke her head out of the open exit and slightly startle an old man, dressed in rags, with "crazy eyes" who slightly startles them back with "Hello dare!". A very difficult conversation ensures with a few of the characters revealing themselves at a time, usually greeted with another surprised "Hello dare!". This crazy old man, though speaking in riddles with phrases such as "I is invisible and he sees things" and offering the "pears of his presence". He also mentions that "pears are fruits" before holding out his hand.
Minron gives the old man a gold piece and the old man offers additional cryptic information. It takes numerous gold pieces, and a (failed) attempt at silver pieces from Glyth, to get some additional information. Our party learns that the King has gone mad, he found something, and that he is sending folks to find more things. He even suggests that maybe the party could go find something for the King. As is typical with this party, things started to get a little rough when the well was running dry, so he yanked a last coin out of Minron's hand and bolted off into the dark cackling all the while.
Our heroes finally get a chance to see their surroundings and they see the sign for the Dog's Wag not 30 feet away from them. They also describe this area of town as "Seedy". Rhaegar decides he is too good for this side of town, passes the Dog's Wag and asks a towns person about a nicer place (speaking of payment). Our citizen takes them to the Gilded Flute tavern further East in town. As she does so, Rhaegar suddenly gets a little cheap and the middle-class citizen makes an idle threat of making sure folks knew the party was in town and leaves. Rhaegar then rethought the situation and chased after the citizen offering her a gold piece for the escort and an extra for her silence. The citizen smiled, took the gold and was off.
Our heroes then found themselves in an empty (it's pretty late at night) but nicely maintained hotel with a female human as the bar keep. She cautiously offers them rooms (the party really stinks) and says she only has deluxe rooms for 2 gp each, and that a bath was available AND REQUIRED to stay here at 1gp each. There were two baths available so the party took turns washing up. With seven rooms, Glyth and Varis bunked up and they converted the seventh room into a meeting room so they could discuss issues (especially the Pentagon) in private. The sun rises signaling Day 12 during these conversations and, being still rested, they decide as a group to find a place where they can do religious research, possibly check out the Dog's Wag before the Cloaked figure is due to show up, and see what's around town.
The barkeep obliges them with a hand drawn map of Hilliana. It appears that Hilliana is broken up into districts, with the poor section along the west wall, the great Manors of the wealthy along the south wall, the middle class homes near the west wall. The Dog's Wag is South East marker and separator between the poor section and the Manors (As well as some space). The Gilded Flute is the West end marker of the Middle Class section. Just North of the Middle Class section are the shops. West of the shops is a small religious center and library with an open park and then cemetery further west. In the center is Castle Hilliana complete with moat and walls. There are also large walls around the town with a North and South gate for entrance and exit to the city.
They proceed to the religious center where they diplomatically and discretely talk to the Eladrin female who offers to help them there. Based on the sketchy information the party provides, she mentions a work of fiction regarding a Ring of Power and a Mountain, but offers to do further research, on how one might destroy an artifact regarding Vecna. She would not let anyone touch their books due to their value and age, but did seem genuinely intrigues to do the research. She hopes to have some research completed by tomorrow.
Next our party headed to the merchant district for a little shopping. They immediately spot a store offering magic items and get to window shopping before realizing they don't have as much money as they had thought. There were some negotiations and trades transpiring, but everything "cool" someone wanted and thought they could get into their price range, would cost the party almost all their gold, including a one-of-a-king bag of holding. Glyth had her eye on a few rods <snicker> but ultimately left empty handed and disappointed <snicker, snicker>.
GAMES OF CHANCE.
And that is where we leave our adventures late in the morning of Day 12.
What will the Eladrin woman find out for our party regarding artifacts of Vecna?
What is waiting for them in Dog's Wag?
What is the name of this campaign and will they ever find out why?
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Experience Points:
Encounter 17 - River Crossing - 1000 XP
Encounter 22 - Sewer Passage to Hilliana - 1400 XP
Session Experience: 2400 XP / 7 PCs = 342XP
Adventure Experience: 3864 XP + 342 XP = 4206 XP + 50 XP for Shava and Yelsha
Level 5 at 5500 XP
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Session 8 Adventure Notes
We had a last minute cancellation and a no show but we managed with 4 players and 6 player characters. Our heroes ventured into the desert cave to discover what treasure lay within.
Our party woke during pre-dawn of Day 10 fully rested. They found that Doz had fled in the night (our cancellation) and Jadis was feeling his prior self again (our no show player was run by his original creator). After taking stock of these changes, they entered the desert cave.
Our party is greeted by hot humid air coming from the cave entrance and find a narrow passage with a small lava flow across their path. Two lava hurlers emerge and start throwing lava balls at our party artillary style. As they work on their approach, two magma claws (think lava scorpions) break free of their cave wall camoflauge and charge the party. The heroes take the fight to the magma claws, and as they fight inch by inch down the cave, two fire bats show themselves in the distance, and two more magma claws emerge from their camoflauge hiding place.
While the battle was ultimately won, our party took massive damage, burning through all of their healing options, including first aid, potions, and a seed of healing, and were running dreadfully low on surges during the first encounter of the day. The fire bats were constantly using a fiery swoop to attack multiple players on a single turn, not only doing some damage, but catching them on fire. Shava was kept busy attempting to grant saving throws, and heals. The magma hurlers weren't particullary hard hitting, but when they aimed at a character and missed, their lava ball would hit a nearby ally. As their enemy's became fewer in number, the badly injured lava hurlers soaked back into the lava flow, and our party was finally allowed to all cross the laval flow and take a much needed short rest.
As they enter the next section of cave, several party members wisely inspected their surroundings and found evidence of a trap in holes in the ground and several pressure plates. They successfully map out the dangers, but in one area, where they had to jump over a pressure plate, Varis tripped and fell on the pressure plate, causing spears to stab up through the holes mildly injuring Shava. The spears, now being visible through the holes, proved an easy way to avoid future incident, so Varis sat on the pressure plate and let everyone cross safely, before stepping off, causing the spears to receed again. As this is occuring a foul smell had been growing and some distant, plentiful foot steps were heard.
Dretchs and their poison clouds behind, our heroes help each other across the chasm, though Varis missed his jump and fell in, catching on fire. Rheagar, tried to get fancy with a save, by jumping to the far side of the chasm, and catching the ledge to lend Varis a hand, but he missed the ledge, also catching on fire, but quickly climbed up to grab purchase and lend Varis a hand. The party then prepares behind the Fountain of Flame and enters the Fountain as one to take on the Gnaw Demons. The Gnaw Demons didn't prove much of challenge, though once party members or themselves were bloodied, they were able to teleport great distances breaking their choke point, but alas, six heroes versus two Gnaw Demons proved no match. I will note that this encounter took them quite some time to get through, with the spear trap, magma crossing, and a cave that was over 40 squares long, not to mention fighting eight demons in a space only ten to twenty feet wide.
Our heroes finally come to a dead end expecting treasure, they instead find an altar to Vecna. The altar consisted of a blood stained stone in the middle, and eight pillars around the stone with writing on them. After some nature and history checks, they discover that the writing on the pillars is probably Barazhad (Abyssal). They inspected the altar every way they could, including Rhaegar almost bleeding out trying to create a blood sacrafice on the stone. The finally give up, noting in their quest log that they either need to learn Abyssal or find someone who knows it.
As the come back across the long cave where they fought the demons, they hear foot steps and talking coming from in front of them, barring their path, but unaware of our party. They hid in the naturual terrain and allowed the party to approach. They snickered as they heard one of the oncoming fall dead after setting off the spear trap. A Human Cavalier became visible and challendged the only visible party member. Rhaegar asked the Cavalier to let them pass or join, but was rejected so that the Cavalier could "collect the bounty." Behind the Cavalier a host of Human Lackey's and a Human Hexer emerge. Many Lackeys lost their life trying to cross the chasm as the Hexer cast spells from afar. Our heroes ganged up hard on the Cavalier droping him uncoucios with a well placed blow, and taking a few errant swings at the Lackeys. The few that were left after the Cavalier died tried to jump back across the chasm and lost their lives. The Hexer, who we later learned is named Tiana, conceeded and offered her ability to speak Abyssal and read Barazhad. The party scrutinized her intensly and determined that she was quite eager to do the task and detected no malice (aside from a morally absent acadamic interest in reciting rituals at Vecna's altar). Knowing they might need a blood sacrafice they (okay, mostly Rhaegar) tie up the Cavalier and carry him with them back toward the altar.
With great anticipation and wariness our party ends up back at Vecna's altar with someone who can read the writing on the pillars. Rhaegar proceeds to interrogate Carric (we learn the Cavalier's name) through some pretty bloody torture, and knowing a sacarafice may be next, Yelsha invites Shava and Varis to explore some other cave areas. Our interregators do learn that they are to go to the Dog's Wag Tavern in the SouthWest region of Hilliana around sunset (the cloacked figure will show on days he is able) and they are supposed to meet the cloaked figure there to claim their bounty of 2000gp. Our party also infers that this is the very same ruffian that was speaking to the cloaked figure when the guard overheard the directions being given to this cave (and whose directions they took).
---### Warning - if you are good aligned IRL, you may want to skip this section ###---
Our good aligned party members safely out of the room, Tiana finishes her study of the writings and begins to recite a ritual in Abyssal as Rhaegar slices the neck of the Cavalier, spilling ample blood on the altar.
---### End of an emotionless act by Rhaegar ###---
Suddenly, the room shakes and bright lights exudes from the blood soaked altar. The light grows so bright that no one in the room can see, except, somehow, Tiana who recited the ritual. A shiney trinket of a somewhat large size, shaped like a pentagon emerges from the center of the stone. Before Tiana can grab it, she notices the room darkens breifly, somehow cancelling out the light for a breif moment before its intesity returns.
For party of heroes that were still int he room, they found themeselves blinded. Tiana yells out, having been spared blindness, that 6 dark figures have entered the room. Rheagar swings blindly at approaching figures, Glyth and Jadis back into a wall for cover, and feeling the rumbling, the rest of the party runs back into the altar room. As the dark figures close with Tiana, Rhaegar's vision clears, and he tries to start hacking at enemies that are pounding Tiana. Jadis' vision clears so he can begin hurling spells, and a round later, Glyth is back in action with Varis at her side. Tiana is getting desimated as Rhaegar continues to drop foes near them, and Shava works on healing Tiana, while Yelsha attacks with her Revots, her wolf.
The six figures are shadow creatures, and there appear to be 3 brutes, 2 artillary, and a controller leader. One of the brutes steals the pentagon shaped Artifact from Tiana. As this occurs, Tiana becomes dazed and confused and seemingly unable to act or comprehend during battle. The theiving shadow brute, attempts to run the artifact over to his leader, but is slain by Varis. Shava is next to act and he instinctively picks up the artifact. He felt something that he had to shake off, and realized that thsi artifact must reveal secrets. He is suddenly aware that they have been fighting a three Hex Knights, two Shadow Bolters, and one Shadow Speaker. These creatures are from the shadowfell, and prize most shiny things, but also worship and prize all things associated with Vecna. They have no heroes of their own in their realm nor no artisans, and thrive but stealing things that others fine. They have been monitoring this altar for ages and sprung their ambush as soon as the artifact was free. Shaking off this rush of images, Shava rejoins the combat, seemingly the new target of all attacks. From this point our heroes quickly dispatch the rest of the shadow creatures.
They then decide what to do next. Shava, again, had to shake off some strange feeling. He wisely decides to take the artifact out of his hand and place it in his backpack. The party makes there way back to the mouth of the cave, where they find their horses and wagon missing. Fortunately, they had convinced Carric to spill everything (words and plans before blood) and they find their stuff hidden behind a high spot in the hills.
We leave our adventurers attempting to rest at the same camp site they rested this morning, ending Day 10 of this campaign.
In my own summary I am going to attempt to list some questions or quests that may be on the mind of our party:
Encounter 20 - Desert Cave Entrance - 1100 XP
Encounter 21 - Desert Cave Level 2 - 1400 XP
Encounter 22 - Well & Poorly Met - 1050 XP
Encounter 23 - Cave Treasure - 1175 XP
Total XP: 4725 XP / 6 PCs = 787 XP per character
I believe this brings most or our original players right next to level 4 and that they are bringing level 4 characters with them next time so be prepared to level up.
It took me quite a while to get all this written up, so our next game is already upon us. We are scheduled for Sunday noon-6pm, and expecting a new player (who is a well known power gamer) and Jadis' alter ego is supposed to be back.
We also already have the next game scheduled for Saturday, February 25, 2012 from 4pm until our blood thurst is quenched.
As always, I look forward to comments and PMs regarding story ideas and especially comments on story and flavor corrections from above. I write this all from memory and my original adventure outline.
Our party woke during pre-dawn of Day 10 fully rested. They found that Doz had fled in the night (our cancellation) and Jadis was feeling his prior self again (our no show player was run by his original creator). After taking stock of these changes, they entered the desert cave.
Our party is greeted by hot humid air coming from the cave entrance and find a narrow passage with a small lava flow across their path. Two lava hurlers emerge and start throwing lava balls at our party artillary style. As they work on their approach, two magma claws (think lava scorpions) break free of their cave wall camoflauge and charge the party. The heroes take the fight to the magma claws, and as they fight inch by inch down the cave, two fire bats show themselves in the distance, and two more magma claws emerge from their camoflauge hiding place.
While the battle was ultimately won, our party took massive damage, burning through all of their healing options, including first aid, potions, and a seed of healing, and were running dreadfully low on surges during the first encounter of the day. The fire bats were constantly using a fiery swoop to attack multiple players on a single turn, not only doing some damage, but catching them on fire. Shava was kept busy attempting to grant saving throws, and heals. The magma hurlers weren't particullary hard hitting, but when they aimed at a character and missed, their lava ball would hit a nearby ally. As their enemy's became fewer in number, the badly injured lava hurlers soaked back into the lava flow, and our party was finally allowed to all cross the laval flow and take a much needed short rest.As they enter the next section of cave, several party members wisely inspected their surroundings and found evidence of a trap in holes in the ground and several pressure plates. They successfully map out the dangers, but in one area, where they had to jump over a pressure plate, Varis tripped and fell on the pressure plate, causing spears to stab up through the holes mildly injuring Shava. The spears, now being visible through the holes, proved an easy way to avoid future incident, so Varis sat on the pressure plate and let everyone cross safely, before stepping off, causing the spears to receed again. As this is occuring a foul smell had been growing and some distant, plentiful foot steps were heard.
When they clear the spear laden section of the cave, they came to a larger lava flow set ten feet down a chasm ten feet across. The party catches their first glimps of several Dretchs (stink demons). Rhaegar attempts dimplomacy, and as skilled and well executed as he was, the Dretchs just didn't seem interested and seemed rather simple minded. A few other party members, Shava and Glyth, begin to check their exits when they hear the word "demon". However, our party cleverly used the chasm as a barrier from the unathletic Dretchs, with Jadis even using ice spells to slip them into the magma. A cunning use of Fountain of Flame, also by Jadis, at a choke point caused some minor damage to the Dretchs, but more importantly cut off the approach of two flying Gnaw Demons who stood back, waiting for the party to come through the Fountain of Flame. They found that the Dretchs would resist either the ice or the magma they fell in, but not both. The dretchs eventually began to cross the lava filled chasm. As the dretchs were defeated, the left short lived clouds of poison behind.
Dretchs and their poison clouds behind, our heroes help each other across the chasm, though Varis missed his jump and fell in, catching on fire. Rheagar, tried to get fancy with a save, by jumping to the far side of the chasm, and catching the ledge to lend Varis a hand, but he missed the ledge, also catching on fire, but quickly climbed up to grab purchase and lend Varis a hand. The party then prepares behind the Fountain of Flame and enters the Fountain as one to take on the Gnaw Demons. The Gnaw Demons didn't prove much of challenge, though once party members or themselves were bloodied, they were able to teleport great distances breaking their choke point, but alas, six heroes versus two Gnaw Demons proved no match. I will note that this encounter took them quite some time to get through, with the spear trap, magma crossing, and a cave that was over 40 squares long, not to mention fighting eight demons in a space only ten to twenty feet wide.Our heroes finally come to a dead end expecting treasure, they instead find an altar to Vecna. The altar consisted of a blood stained stone in the middle, and eight pillars around the stone with writing on them. After some nature and history checks, they discover that the writing on the pillars is probably Barazhad (Abyssal). They inspected the altar every way they could, including Rhaegar almost bleeding out trying to create a blood sacrafice on the stone. The finally give up, noting in their quest log that they either need to learn Abyssal or find someone who knows it.
As the come back across the long cave where they fought the demons, they hear foot steps and talking coming from in front of them, barring their path, but unaware of our party. They hid in the naturual terrain and allowed the party to approach. They snickered as they heard one of the oncoming fall dead after setting off the spear trap. A Human Cavalier became visible and challendged the only visible party member. Rhaegar asked the Cavalier to let them pass or join, but was rejected so that the Cavalier could "collect the bounty." Behind the Cavalier a host of Human Lackey's and a Human Hexer emerge. Many Lackeys lost their life trying to cross the chasm as the Hexer cast spells from afar. Our heroes ganged up hard on the Cavalier droping him uncoucios with a well placed blow, and taking a few errant swings at the Lackeys. The few that were left after the Cavalier died tried to jump back across the chasm and lost their lives. The Hexer, who we later learned is named Tiana, conceeded and offered her ability to speak Abyssal and read Barazhad. The party scrutinized her intensly and determined that she was quite eager to do the task and detected no malice (aside from a morally absent acadamic interest in reciting rituals at Vecna's altar). Knowing they might need a blood sacrafice they (okay, mostly Rhaegar) tie up the Cavalier and carry him with them back toward the altar.
With great anticipation and wariness our party ends up back at Vecna's altar with someone who can read the writing on the pillars. Rhaegar proceeds to interrogate Carric (we learn the Cavalier's name) through some pretty bloody torture, and knowing a sacarafice may be next, Yelsha invites Shava and Varis to explore some other cave areas. Our interregators do learn that they are to go to the Dog's Wag Tavern in the SouthWest region of Hilliana around sunset (the cloacked figure will show on days he is able) and they are supposed to meet the cloaked figure there to claim their bounty of 2000gp. Our party also infers that this is the very same ruffian that was speaking to the cloaked figure when the guard overheard the directions being given to this cave (and whose directions they took).
---### Warning - if you are good aligned IRL, you may want to skip this section ###---
Our good aligned party members safely out of the room, Tiana finishes her study of the writings and begins to recite a ritual in Abyssal as Rhaegar slices the neck of the Cavalier, spilling ample blood on the altar.
---### End of an emotionless act by Rhaegar ###---
Suddenly, the room shakes and bright lights exudes from the blood soaked altar. The light grows so bright that no one in the room can see, except, somehow, Tiana who recited the ritual. A shiney trinket of a somewhat large size, shaped like a pentagon emerges from the center of the stone. Before Tiana can grab it, she notices the room darkens breifly, somehow cancelling out the light for a breif moment before its intesity returns.
For party of heroes that were still int he room, they found themeselves blinded. Tiana yells out, having been spared blindness, that 6 dark figures have entered the room. Rheagar swings blindly at approaching figures, Glyth and Jadis back into a wall for cover, and feeling the rumbling, the rest of the party runs back into the altar room. As the dark figures close with Tiana, Rhaegar's vision clears, and he tries to start hacking at enemies that are pounding Tiana. Jadis' vision clears so he can begin hurling spells, and a round later, Glyth is back in action with Varis at her side. Tiana is getting desimated as Rhaegar continues to drop foes near them, and Shava works on healing Tiana, while Yelsha attacks with her Revots, her wolf.
The six figures are shadow creatures, and there appear to be 3 brutes, 2 artillary, and a controller leader. One of the brutes steals the pentagon shaped Artifact from Tiana. As this occurs, Tiana becomes dazed and confused and seemingly unable to act or comprehend during battle. The theiving shadow brute, attempts to run the artifact over to his leader, but is slain by Varis. Shava is next to act and he instinctively picks up the artifact. He felt something that he had to shake off, and realized that thsi artifact must reveal secrets. He is suddenly aware that they have been fighting a three Hex Knights, two Shadow Bolters, and one Shadow Speaker. These creatures are from the shadowfell, and prize most shiny things, but also worship and prize all things associated with Vecna. They have no heroes of their own in their realm nor no artisans, and thrive but stealing things that others fine. They have been monitoring this altar for ages and sprung their ambush as soon as the artifact was free. Shaking off this rush of images, Shava rejoins the combat, seemingly the new target of all attacks. From this point our heroes quickly dispatch the rest of the shadow creatures.
They then decide what to do next. Shava, again, had to shake off some strange feeling. He wisely decides to take the artifact out of his hand and place it in his backpack. The party makes there way back to the mouth of the cave, where they find their horses and wagon missing. Fortunately, they had convinced Carric to spill everything (words and plans before blood) and they find their stuff hidden behind a high spot in the hills.
We leave our adventurers attempting to rest at the same camp site they rested this morning, ending Day 10 of this campaign.
In my own summary I am going to attempt to list some questions or quests that may be on the mind of our party:
- Returning the +1 Life Drinker sword that Varis carries to Faelywn will complete a minor quest and gain them 1200 gold. But it fits so well in Varis' hand.
- They may want to try and meet the Cloaked Figure who offered Carric 2000gp to lead a party into this cave and retreive an artifact for him.
- They have promised to rescue King Hrothgar's daughter, Lorgar, or exact vengence for her death without starting a war for 2000gp
- While exploring Hilliana, should they ever get there, they will also be paid 1000gp from King Hrothgar if they can find out what is going on with King Helgon and why he is attacking Palancia.
Encounter 20 - Desert Cave Entrance - 1100 XP
Encounter 21 - Desert Cave Level 2 - 1400 XP
Encounter 22 - Well & Poorly Met - 1050 XP
Encounter 23 - Cave Treasure - 1175 XP
Total XP: 4725 XP / 6 PCs = 787 XP per character
I believe this brings most or our original players right next to level 4 and that they are bringing level 4 characters with them next time so be prepared to level up.
It took me quite a while to get all this written up, so our next game is already upon us. We are scheduled for Sunday noon-6pm, and expecting a new player (who is a well known power gamer) and Jadis' alter ego is supposed to be back.
We also already have the next game scheduled for Saturday, February 25, 2012 from 4pm until our blood thurst is quenched.
As always, I look forward to comments and PMs regarding story ideas and especially comments on story and flavor corrections from above. I write this all from memory and my original adventure outline.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Session 7 Adventure Notes
First off, we were glad to welcome 3 new players to our campaign. One player took over the role of Jadis (who proved himself valiantly), and we welcomed Doz (a warforged wizard) and Rhaegar (A dragonborn hexblade).
We last left our heroes camped out just east of the frost dragon cave taking a well deserved extended rest and waking up pre-dawn on Day 9. They haven't seen much sign of Keira or Abraxus. Upon waking two strangers approach, and introduce themselves as Doz and Rhaegar. They don't know each other but both had decided to adventure in this direction. Upon exchanging stories, our heroes add Doz and Rhaegar to their party on their quest for King Hrothgar.
Toward that quest, they head back to the crossroads, and then barely get started north toward Hilliana when a roving Guard Band confronts them, and our heroes, with a growing history of violence from Hillianian guards take first blood. The fought 3 Human Guards, 8 Kruthik Hatchlings, 2 Kruthik Young, and 1 Ettercap Fang Guard. The guards affected numerous knock-downs with their halberds and reach our heroes prove tough and quickly start dispatching foes. One guard pleads for his life and tries to run away as only the ettercap and himself remain. Shava, with assistance, disarms the pleading guard, and uses his turns to hold the guard down while everyone else finishes off the Ettercap. As payment for his life, the guard offers the party notes he took from overhearing a cloaked figure and ruffian discussing the path to a treasure at the tavern in Hilliana. After some interrogation and discerning that this guard is just a peon without a clue, they send him packing, forcing him south with naught but his nightie.
The party fairly quickly decides to reverse course from heading to Hilliana to go seek the treasure from the notes. The notes head them through 4 landmarks East of the crossroads across the desert to a cave nestled in the hills.
Our party finds the first landmark fairly easily, but then strays off course going to the second landmark, running into a pack of 6 Hyenas and a large Cacklefiend Hyena. The expansive desert with its sand caused all areas to be difficult terrain and create a large field to battle in. The party focused their efforts on the large Hyena and dispatched him quickly picking off the smaller Hyenas later. Though they fought smartly, the hyenas pack tactics did create several group damages to a single player characters of 25-35 HP, in one case causing Rheagar to go unconscious. Fortunately, they had two healers with them who quickly recovered Rheagar. Rheagar continued to fight valiantly but was constantly plagued with healing surge management from that point on.
After clearing their surroundings of Hyenas, they gathered their bearing and found the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th landmarks without event. However, in finally locating the cave in the hills, they once again strayed off course, and found themselves surrounded by 8 Stormclaw Scorpions. Our party was fighting in a circle back-to-back against surrounding scorpions. The scorpions kept grabbing player characters and when the players wound break free attempt to sting them. Oddly, though players were grabbed and stung frequently, they almost always shook off the grab, poison, and immobility immediately. Especially powerful, was an encounter long ability that Rhaegar used that allowed each member of the party to slide an adjacent party member after an attack. These slides were helping them break free of the scorpions grab. Rhaegar and Varis were also frequently tag teaming Scorpions with combined attacks. Two more scorpions dug up from the sand after the first two scorpions were dispatched.
Alas, our party escaped mostly unharmed, and came to the greener pastures in front of the cave entrance and decided on a long rest. Varis checked for tracks during the rest and saw nothing discernible near and around the cave entrance.
Our heroes are now packing up camp in the pre-morning of Day 10 ready to enter the cave where they hope treasure awaits.
Experience Points:
Encounter 16 = Roving Guard Band -1123 XP
Encounter 19 - X Marks the Spot - 450 XP
Encounter 19.1 - Lost with Hyenas - 1050 XP
Encounter 19.2 - Lost with Scorpions - 1000 XP
Total XP: 3673 / 7 PCs = 524 XP each
Our next game has been scheduled for February 4th, Saturday, at 4pm.
We last left our heroes camped out just east of the frost dragon cave taking a well deserved extended rest and waking up pre-dawn on Day 9. They haven't seen much sign of Keira or Abraxus. Upon waking two strangers approach, and introduce themselves as Doz and Rhaegar. They don't know each other but both had decided to adventure in this direction. Upon exchanging stories, our heroes add Doz and Rhaegar to their party on their quest for King Hrothgar.
Toward that quest, they head back to the crossroads, and then barely get started north toward Hilliana when a roving Guard Band confronts them, and our heroes, with a growing history of violence from Hillianian guards take first blood. The fought 3 Human Guards, 8 Kruthik Hatchlings, 2 Kruthik Young, and 1 Ettercap Fang Guard. The guards affected numerous knock-downs with their halberds and reach our heroes prove tough and quickly start dispatching foes. One guard pleads for his life and tries to run away as only the ettercap and himself remain. Shava, with assistance, disarms the pleading guard, and uses his turns to hold the guard down while everyone else finishes off the Ettercap. As payment for his life, the guard offers the party notes he took from overhearing a cloaked figure and ruffian discussing the path to a treasure at the tavern in Hilliana. After some interrogation and discerning that this guard is just a peon without a clue, they send him packing, forcing him south with naught but his nightie.
The party fairly quickly decides to reverse course from heading to Hilliana to go seek the treasure from the notes. The notes head them through 4 landmarks East of the crossroads across the desert to a cave nestled in the hills.
Our party finds the first landmark fairly easily, but then strays off course going to the second landmark, running into a pack of 6 Hyenas and a large Cacklefiend Hyena. The expansive desert with its sand caused all areas to be difficult terrain and create a large field to battle in. The party focused their efforts on the large Hyena and dispatched him quickly picking off the smaller Hyenas later. Though they fought smartly, the hyenas pack tactics did create several group damages to a single player characters of 25-35 HP, in one case causing Rheagar to go unconscious. Fortunately, they had two healers with them who quickly recovered Rheagar. Rheagar continued to fight valiantly but was constantly plagued with healing surge management from that point on.
After clearing their surroundings of Hyenas, they gathered their bearing and found the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th landmarks without event. However, in finally locating the cave in the hills, they once again strayed off course, and found themselves surrounded by 8 Stormclaw Scorpions. Our party was fighting in a circle back-to-back against surrounding scorpions. The scorpions kept grabbing player characters and when the players wound break free attempt to sting them. Oddly, though players were grabbed and stung frequently, they almost always shook off the grab, poison, and immobility immediately. Especially powerful, was an encounter long ability that Rhaegar used that allowed each member of the party to slide an adjacent party member after an attack. These slides were helping them break free of the scorpions grab. Rhaegar and Varis were also frequently tag teaming Scorpions with combined attacks. Two more scorpions dug up from the sand after the first two scorpions were dispatched.
Alas, our party escaped mostly unharmed, and came to the greener pastures in front of the cave entrance and decided on a long rest. Varis checked for tracks during the rest and saw nothing discernible near and around the cave entrance.
Our heroes are now packing up camp in the pre-morning of Day 10 ready to enter the cave where they hope treasure awaits.
Experience Points:
Encounter 16 = Roving Guard Band -1123 XP
Encounter 19 - X Marks the Spot - 450 XP
Encounter 19.1 - Lost with Hyenas - 1050 XP
Encounter 19.2 - Lost with Scorpions - 1000 XP
Total XP: 3673 / 7 PCs = 524 XP each
Our next game has been scheduled for February 4th, Saturday, at 4pm.
Find and Search
I just went back through my posts and worked on better tagging. Now if you are looking for the home campaign, and only the home campaign, you can click on the tag "home campaign" or search for the same. Same is true for "Encounters" if that is all you are interested in.
If I missed a tag, or mistaged a post, please let me know.
If I missed a tag, or mistaged a post, please let me know.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Great Participation Anticipation
Holy cow! Eight players expected to show up this afternoon. I am busy rearranging my house as well as the usual last minute cleaning. I might need more tables. Oh, and more monsters :)
Sunday, January 15, 2012
"Thank you, but our princess is another castle." Scheduled to resume.
Finally have my custom campaign scheduled to play again. We have seven players who said they would like to come at this date and time, so we may see some new personalities emerge in a characters. Looks Glyth is scheduled for take over, and slight chance for an Abraxus take over as well. That would still leave 1 new character joining the campaign. Fortunately, our party left off on the open road, so they are bound to run across some player characters before much else exciting happens.
Game time schedule for 4pm, Saturday, January 21st, 2011. My home, in Richmond Hill. Typically we do serve some sort of dinner (frozen pizza is common), but your welcome to bring whatever you like, if anything.
Feel free to sound off in the comments whether or not you can make it.
Game time schedule for 4pm, Saturday, January 21st, 2011. My home, in Richmond Hill. Typically we do serve some sort of dinner (frozen pizza is common), but your welcome to bring whatever you like, if anything.
Feel free to sound off in the comments whether or not you can make it.
Encounters Session 8
Would you like to join us this Wednesday at 6pm? We play at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. No experience or materials needed. We do recommend you RSVP by commenting on this post. Also, if you usually come and can't make it, post a comment and let us know. If you are running late the same.
A note on coming late: We really want to let EVERYONE who wants play. This last encounter was difficult, and possibly less fun, because our party of 6, became a party of 9 (before 1 regular dropped out to make room - THANK YOU!) after 6pm. If we would have known you were coming, we could have easily set up a 2nd game in preparation. Food for thought; now for our regularly scheduled program.
As has become tradition for this campaign, let's update our list of names. For the record I am not listing EVERY name, or this would be a VERY long post. Just the names that seem to matter for the overall story:
Lady Anya Tamora, Ruler of Crystal Brook
Lord Carric, Ruler of the Sildaine Forest
Count Varis Sybar, Ruler of Sybar (mediator between Tamora and Carric)
Juliana, daughter of Carric
Orlando, son of Tamora
Caerwyn, inside Juliana, daughter of Oran
Porpherio, inside Orlando, adopted son of Tiandra
Oran, archfey, Green Lord
Tiandra, archfey, Summer Queen
Ragnar, agent of Oran, a verbeeg mercenary
Uma, agent of Tiandra, a briar witch dryad
Basal, Ragnar's cousin, sent to kill Orlando/Porpherio
Soryth, Dream Queen, hag, at the Palace of Spires
Kalbon, Soryth's partner in crime?
Overall, a simple encounter, where our party finally comes the protected Water Palace and discovers Orlando/Porpherio in a trap door hiding from would be captors (our party). He is cordial enough once he finds out who the party is and that they know of Julianna/Caerwyn and that she has been captures. He is ready to head off and help us rescue her. However, as our party turns to head out they find the large Verbeeg Basal, Ragnar's cousin, barring the door. Before blood shed, he offers a contest (a fight until submission) for the rights to Orlando/Porpherio. Our party of EIGHT succeeds in 3 rounds of beating him to submission, and they head off back to Ragnar with Orlanda/Porpherio. They also find roses on the island giving our party their fourth and final key to the Palace of Spires (Soryth's base), though no one know hows to get there, so far.
Hope to see you Wednesday!
A note on coming late: We really want to let EVERYONE who wants play. This last encounter was difficult, and possibly less fun, because our party of 6, became a party of 9 (before 1 regular dropped out to make room - THANK YOU!) after 6pm. If we would have known you were coming, we could have easily set up a 2nd game in preparation. Food for thought; now for our regularly scheduled program.
As has become tradition for this campaign, let's update our list of names. For the record I am not listing EVERY name, or this would be a VERY long post. Just the names that seem to matter for the overall story:
Lady Anya Tamora, Ruler of Crystal Brook
Lord Carric, Ruler of the Sildaine Forest
Count Varis Sybar, Ruler of Sybar (mediator between Tamora and Carric)
Juliana, daughter of Carric
Orlando, son of Tamora
Caerwyn, inside Juliana, daughter of Oran
Porpherio, inside Orlando, adopted son of Tiandra
Oran, archfey, Green Lord
Tiandra, archfey, Summer Queen
Ragnar, agent of Oran, a verbeeg mercenary
Uma, agent of Tiandra, a briar witch dryad
Basal, Ragnar's cousin, sent to kill Orlando/Porpherio
Soryth, Dream Queen, hag, at the Palace of Spires
Kalbon, Soryth's partner in crime?
Overall, a simple encounter, where our party finally comes the protected Water Palace and discovers Orlando/Porpherio in a trap door hiding from would be captors (our party). He is cordial enough once he finds out who the party is and that they know of Julianna/Caerwyn and that she has been captures. He is ready to head off and help us rescue her. However, as our party turns to head out they find the large Verbeeg Basal, Ragnar's cousin, barring the door. Before blood shed, he offers a contest (a fight until submission) for the rights to Orlando/Porpherio. Our party of EIGHT succeeds in 3 rounds of beating him to submission, and they head off back to Ragnar with Orlanda/Porpherio. They also find roses on the island giving our party their fourth and final key to the Palace of Spires (Soryth's base), though no one know hows to get there, so far.
Hope to see you Wednesday!
Monday, January 9, 2012
Just Grrrr...
Okay, I'm still new to D&D. I hear stories of D&D being out for 40 years, and I am playing 4th edition. 4th edition which is new, like only 4 years old. Now I hear that 5th edition is well in the works.
http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/dungeons-dragons-plans-comeback-200249601.html
Remember, I am the cheapest gamer I, or most people I play with, know. I think I can still invest time in D&D, though this was not my first reaction. I just will not buy anything else that is not reusable. Minis, fine (I hope). D20s? Surely sacred. More rule books and add ons? Forget it.
I'm just so...grrrr... I don't know the word. Wait a minute? Is this one the 3.5 fan boys sounds like to me?
Fortunately, all 1 of our followers has signed up to be a beta tester. Dude, keep up informed!
I am glad to see that they are taking feedback, but I also hope they keep in mind that the loudest isn't always the best. One thing, in my uninformed, only played 4e opinion, is that 4e is structured enough to bring in fresh blood and is less scary to start. Kudos to the Encounters initiative as well for being accessible and a gateway a drug.
Sound off!
http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/dungeons-dragons-plans-comeback-200249601.html
Remember, I am the cheapest gamer I, or most people I play with, know. I think I can still invest time in D&D, though this was not my first reaction. I just will not buy anything else that is not reusable. Minis, fine (I hope). D20s? Surely sacred. More rule books and add ons? Forget it.
I'm just so...grrrr... I don't know the word. Wait a minute? Is this one the 3.5 fan boys sounds like to me?
Fortunately, all 1 of our followers has signed up to be a beta tester. Dude, keep up informed!
I am glad to see that they are taking feedback, but I also hope they keep in mind that the loudest isn't always the best. One thing, in my uninformed, only played 4e opinion, is that 4e is structured enough to bring in fresh blood and is less scary to start. Kudos to the Encounters initiative as well for being accessible and a gateway a drug.
Sound off!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Encounters Session 7
Interested in joining an Encounters game? Read the bottom. If you want to participate in a group story telling experience, you can catch up on the story in this blog and then come join us Wednesday at 6pm.
As has become tradition for this campaign, let's update our list of names. For the record I am not listing EVERY name, or we would be here all day. Just the names that seem to matter for the overall story:
Lady Anya Tamora, Ruler of Crystal Brook
Lord Carric, Ruler of the Sildaine Forest
Count Varis Sybar, Ruler of Sybar
Juliana, daughter of Carric
Orlando, son of Tamora
Caerwyn, inside Juliana, daughter of Oran
Porpherio, inside Orlando, adopted son of Tiandra
Oran, archfey, Green Lord
Tiandra, archfey, Summer Queen
Ragnar, agent of Oran, a verbeeg mercenary
Uma, agent of Tiandra, a briar witch dryad
Soryth, Dream Queen, hag
Kalbon, Soryth's partner in crime?
After questioning Rosaline last week, your party starts by going to visit Oakstaff,a treant who was chjarged with protecting Orlando/Porpherio. The long winded, and frequently reminiscant Oakstaff, reveals that he as taken Orlando/Porpherio to an enchanted island that is full of magic wards to protect him. He gives you each a bottle of Rider's Water, that allows you to convert any tiny creature, to a large mountable creature. He then points you off in the direction of the island.
When you arrive, you find a raft with room for 4 and a large expanse of crystal clear, 8' deep water. Your party boards, with your pixie member flying. Brandis grabs the pushing stick with both hands and starts to push your party across the water. A good ways in, a loud voice sounds from the shore you just left. As you look back, a pixie with a cloud like face above its head is the source of the sounds. The face commands the pixie to stop you, but fades as the pixie crosses the water. The pixie, Ariel, summons 4 water spouts, and creates a large area of tempest hendering your party.
Your party is clever, and decides to spend their move actions, standard actions, and action points, pushing the raft across the water. A solid plan, except for that the player pixie, Briarthorn, is flying and gets left behind. Briarthorn's diminutive health is quickly overwhelmed and she falls unconcious into the water. The remaining party decides to get to the otherside first. While pushing the raft, Fargrim lasso's an otter that was nearby, pulls him in, then uses his Rider's Water to make him large and mountable. He hops on the otter, and starts to ride to Briarthorn's rescue. Simultaneously, Brandis reaches the far shore, and then tuns back to assist with Briarthorn. He quickly gets in range and heals Briarthorn. They then make their way swimming and attacking where they can back to the far shore. Other party members, continue their ranged attacks from the shore. Once on shore, they take a few more shots, and drop Ariel dead. After evaluating their position, with several surges gone, most healing spells used, our party wisely continues onto the island leaving the water and its deadly creatures behind.
I will note that I enjoyed DMing this particular session more than any other session I have ever done. I have hard from a couple of other players that said they also enjoyed this one more than most.
Hope to see you guys this coming Wednesday at 6pm at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. Anyone can come, no preperation needed.
As has become tradition for this campaign, let's update our list of names. For the record I am not listing EVERY name, or we would be here all day. Just the names that seem to matter for the overall story:
Lady Anya Tamora, Ruler of Crystal Brook
Lord Carric, Ruler of the Sildaine Forest
Count Varis Sybar, Ruler of Sybar
Juliana, daughter of Carric
Orlando, son of Tamora
Caerwyn, inside Juliana, daughter of Oran
Porpherio, inside Orlando, adopted son of Tiandra
Oran, archfey, Green Lord
Tiandra, archfey, Summer Queen
Ragnar, agent of Oran, a verbeeg mercenary
Uma, agent of Tiandra, a briar witch dryad
Soryth, Dream Queen, hag
Kalbon, Soryth's partner in crime?
After questioning Rosaline last week, your party starts by going to visit Oakstaff,a treant who was chjarged with protecting Orlando/Porpherio. The long winded, and frequently reminiscant Oakstaff, reveals that he as taken Orlando/Porpherio to an enchanted island that is full of magic wards to protect him. He gives you each a bottle of Rider's Water, that allows you to convert any tiny creature, to a large mountable creature. He then points you off in the direction of the island.
When you arrive, you find a raft with room for 4 and a large expanse of crystal clear, 8' deep water. Your party boards, with your pixie member flying. Brandis grabs the pushing stick with both hands and starts to push your party across the water. A good ways in, a loud voice sounds from the shore you just left. As you look back, a pixie with a cloud like face above its head is the source of the sounds. The face commands the pixie to stop you, but fades as the pixie crosses the water. The pixie, Ariel, summons 4 water spouts, and creates a large area of tempest hendering your party.
Your party is clever, and decides to spend their move actions, standard actions, and action points, pushing the raft across the water. A solid plan, except for that the player pixie, Briarthorn, is flying and gets left behind. Briarthorn's diminutive health is quickly overwhelmed and she falls unconcious into the water. The remaining party decides to get to the otherside first. While pushing the raft, Fargrim lasso's an otter that was nearby, pulls him in, then uses his Rider's Water to make him large and mountable. He hops on the otter, and starts to ride to Briarthorn's rescue. Simultaneously, Brandis reaches the far shore, and then tuns back to assist with Briarthorn. He quickly gets in range and heals Briarthorn. They then make their way swimming and attacking where they can back to the far shore. Other party members, continue their ranged attacks from the shore. Once on shore, they take a few more shots, and drop Ariel dead. After evaluating their position, with several surges gone, most healing spells used, our party wisely continues onto the island leaving the water and its deadly creatures behind.
I will note that I enjoyed DMing this particular session more than any other session I have ever done. I have hard from a couple of other players that said they also enjoyed this one more than most.
Hope to see you guys this coming Wednesday at 6pm at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads. Anyone can come, no preperation needed.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Session 6 Adventure Notes
Wow! What an interesting session. While not a whole lot of story plot, there was a ton happening within the party.
To start off our session, Abraxus, the dragonborn, fled the way they came. His fate is unknown and we didn't see him the whole session (read: his player was absent). The rest of the party tiptoed into the suspected dragon lair. An adult frost dragon was present, and the party was still winded (no dailies or action points). The party decided to turn tail, but Keira saw her opportunity and bolted for the treasure pile. Most of the party couldn't see the action from their vantage point, but Keira return slightly heavier and with a bit of frost dragon from being attacked by the dragon as she fled.
Now the whole party headed back into the cave, thinking they may come back after they find a place to rest. When they reentered the aMAZEing caves, they triggered the pending rock slide. Only Yelsha snuck through without triggering it, and three rounds of rocks came tumbling down on the rest of the party. Some where able to use their dugeoneering skills to avoid as much damage as others, but all but Yelsha were hurt. The way through Cave C was now blocked (how they got to the dragon).
As the rock slide came to a halt, a commotion was heard coming from the eastern caves were kobolds were suspected. The party finished a short rest and dug in for battle. Coming from the east cave, enter 3 Kobold Dragonsheilds, 2 Kobold Slingers, and 1 Koblod Wyrmpriest. They came out in advantageous formation with the slingers throwing glue and stink pellets, the Wyrmpreists buffing their allies and throwing energy orbs at foes. Our party departed their foes with no unconscious characters and an effective use of the sleep spell.
They make it back tot he chasm and feel sufficiently tired enough to take a long rest while the chasm protects their flank and they only have to guard one entrance. The rest went well, and they marched back toward the dragon lair. In the aMAZEing Caves, the found that Cave D was actually the right choice, and met back up to the same path as Cave C, but without a rock slide.
Early Day 8: As they enter the dragon lair, the dragon immediately fixates on Shava and Yelsha (we later guess that its because they were carrying baby frost dragon teeth). The frost dragon rushes the player party blocking their entrance into the wide open cavern and uses lots of fear and breath attacks. Occasionally switching up with a double claw attack. The party uses their standard retinue of attacks, with Shava also busting through a cave wall with a strength check to give the party a safer egress from the entrance tunnel and a way to surround the dragon. After sufficiently being surrounded, the dragon makes a bold run for better position granting 4 opportunity attacks. From there he kept wailing on Yelsha who was near and carrying her kids teeth. As the dragons health began to fail, she would shift back after each attack looking for an escape, but our heroes kept pressing and ultimately defeated the adult frost dragon.
There was a moderate amount of silver mundane treasure found. Perhaps, less treasure than there used to be.
Our party makes their way back to the cave entrance without further surprises. They then decide not to rest further and plunged into the cave to the right where there was still some noise coming, mostly draconic speech. As they entered an open room with a long narrow approach and a long narrow exit, Glyth triggers a pressure plate as a stone mechanical device of some sort rumbles. The party quickly works on figuring out what is going on. The best they can tell is that there is 30' of danger ahead, and they take turns running the distance while bull rushing 2 dragonsheilds that block the cave entrance. I felt the run/bull rush tactic was a genius move. It took our players clearing the room before they could find the control panel AND disable the pendulum scythe blades, but no one was hurt from them. Harassing our players while fighting the kobold dragonsheilds were two more kobold wyrmpreists.
Once the room was clear, a repeat of their entrance occurred with an accidental trigger of a pressure plate trying to exist the room. They employed the same strategy of run past danger and then disabling the trap. The finally come to a dead end where sits a larger treasure chest with a beam of light.
Our party approaches the chest, wisely, with caution. Keira discovers that the lock is "special" in that too many failed attempts will cause the lock to be unpickable for a period of time, and that it has 4 tumblers to succeed. Glyth then discovers that there is a magical trap on the chest that will radiant a 5' blast of moderate cold damage. They send Keira in to pick the lock, full of health, while the rest of the party stepped back to watch. Keira corrupted the lock on her 3rd tumbler (2 failures). But our heroes are not about to give up!
While I liked the idea of dragging the chest back with them to wait for lock reset, they prefer to explore EVERY idea including hoisting in the air and dropping it, beating the crap out of the lock, breaking directly through the chest, etc. After seeing how difficult most of these challenges would be (most impossible or improbably for their level), the find the iron hinges are a weak spot and take turns beating on them. Each failed beat caused a burst of frost damage, with another final burst on opening the chest. Everyone survived, and they were able to retrieve some magical weapons and armour (+1 Bloodthread Cloth Armor, +1 Frost Scimitar, and +1 Magic Holy Symbol of Pelor).
Somehow, after so much loot in a day, gold lust set in. Varis questioned Keira, politely on her loot from the dragon, but Keira successfully bluffed him. Shava wouldn't let it go, and a fight was about to break out. Glyth then attempted to cast sleep on Shava and Keira to break up the fight. Shava shook it off and Keira was put to sleep. Glyth quickly woke Keira up, but Keira was pissed at having a spell put on her from her own party, and stormed off. Wanting some time to cool down, she reset the traps on her way out. Our party, after a brief moment of mourning, headed out, essentially just gracefully tumbling through the traps before they could go off. They came back to where they had left their horses and wagon so many days ago and found one horse missing.
I would say it is now late afternoon Day 8.
There we decided to call it a night. A lot of drama in an 8 hour session. At this point several days have passed getting to, through, and out of the cave. What in the world has been going on? Our party seems to be keen to hold on to Faelywn's sword, at least until they have completed their quest for King Hrothgar. So, it sounds like they will most likely head north, toward Hilliana. The map the retrieved from a guard at the NW Encampment shows trouble ahead. Good luck to all!
Session Experience:
Encounter 12 (again) - Rockslide - 100 XP
Encounter 13 - Kobold Scouts - 725 XP
Encounter 15 - Mother Dragon - 1500 XP
Encounter 9 (again) - Cave to the Right - 900 XP
Encounter 10 - Chest in Dead End - 150 XP
Total Experience 3375 / 6 = 562 XP each player
As always I welcome feedback from friends and strangers alike. Players, I especially am looking for corrections and flavor additions. No time for the next has been set, but hope to by Wednesday.
To start off our session, Abraxus, the dragonborn, fled the way they came. His fate is unknown and we didn't see him the whole session (read: his player was absent). The rest of the party tiptoed into the suspected dragon lair. An adult frost dragon was present, and the party was still winded (no dailies or action points). The party decided to turn tail, but Keira saw her opportunity and bolted for the treasure pile. Most of the party couldn't see the action from their vantage point, but Keira return slightly heavier and with a bit of frost dragon from being attacked by the dragon as she fled.
Now the whole party headed back into the cave, thinking they may come back after they find a place to rest. When they reentered the aMAZEing caves, they triggered the pending rock slide. Only Yelsha snuck through without triggering it, and three rounds of rocks came tumbling down on the rest of the party. Some where able to use their dugeoneering skills to avoid as much damage as others, but all but Yelsha were hurt. The way through Cave C was now blocked (how they got to the dragon).
As the rock slide came to a halt, a commotion was heard coming from the eastern caves were kobolds were suspected. The party finished a short rest and dug in for battle. Coming from the east cave, enter 3 Kobold Dragonsheilds, 2 Kobold Slingers, and 1 Koblod Wyrmpriest. They came out in advantageous formation with the slingers throwing glue and stink pellets, the Wyrmpreists buffing their allies and throwing energy orbs at foes. Our party departed their foes with no unconscious characters and an effective use of the sleep spell.
They make it back tot he chasm and feel sufficiently tired enough to take a long rest while the chasm protects their flank and they only have to guard one entrance. The rest went well, and they marched back toward the dragon lair. In the aMAZEing Caves, the found that Cave D was actually the right choice, and met back up to the same path as Cave C, but without a rock slide.
Early Day 8: As they enter the dragon lair, the dragon immediately fixates on Shava and Yelsha (we later guess that its because they were carrying baby frost dragon teeth). The frost dragon rushes the player party blocking their entrance into the wide open cavern and uses lots of fear and breath attacks. Occasionally switching up with a double claw attack. The party uses their standard retinue of attacks, with Shava also busting through a cave wall with a strength check to give the party a safer egress from the entrance tunnel and a way to surround the dragon. After sufficiently being surrounded, the dragon makes a bold run for better position granting 4 opportunity attacks. From there he kept wailing on Yelsha who was near and carrying her kids teeth. As the dragons health began to fail, she would shift back after each attack looking for an escape, but our heroes kept pressing and ultimately defeated the adult frost dragon.
There was a moderate amount of silver mundane treasure found. Perhaps, less treasure than there used to be.
Our party makes their way back to the cave entrance without further surprises. They then decide not to rest further and plunged into the cave to the right where there was still some noise coming, mostly draconic speech. As they entered an open room with a long narrow approach and a long narrow exit, Glyth triggers a pressure plate as a stone mechanical device of some sort rumbles. The party quickly works on figuring out what is going on. The best they can tell is that there is 30' of danger ahead, and they take turns running the distance while bull rushing 2 dragonsheilds that block the cave entrance. I felt the run/bull rush tactic was a genius move. It took our players clearing the room before they could find the control panel AND disable the pendulum scythe blades, but no one was hurt from them. Harassing our players while fighting the kobold dragonsheilds were two more kobold wyrmpreists.
Once the room was clear, a repeat of their entrance occurred with an accidental trigger of a pressure plate trying to exist the room. They employed the same strategy of run past danger and then disabling the trap. The finally come to a dead end where sits a larger treasure chest with a beam of light.
Our party approaches the chest, wisely, with caution. Keira discovers that the lock is "special" in that too many failed attempts will cause the lock to be unpickable for a period of time, and that it has 4 tumblers to succeed. Glyth then discovers that there is a magical trap on the chest that will radiant a 5' blast of moderate cold damage. They send Keira in to pick the lock, full of health, while the rest of the party stepped back to watch. Keira corrupted the lock on her 3rd tumbler (2 failures). But our heroes are not about to give up!
While I liked the idea of dragging the chest back with them to wait for lock reset, they prefer to explore EVERY idea including hoisting in the air and dropping it, beating the crap out of the lock, breaking directly through the chest, etc. After seeing how difficult most of these challenges would be (most impossible or improbably for their level), the find the iron hinges are a weak spot and take turns beating on them. Each failed beat caused a burst of frost damage, with another final burst on opening the chest. Everyone survived, and they were able to retrieve some magical weapons and armour (+1 Bloodthread Cloth Armor, +1 Frost Scimitar, and +1 Magic Holy Symbol of Pelor).
Somehow, after so much loot in a day, gold lust set in. Varis questioned Keira, politely on her loot from the dragon, but Keira successfully bluffed him. Shava wouldn't let it go, and a fight was about to break out. Glyth then attempted to cast sleep on Shava and Keira to break up the fight. Shava shook it off and Keira was put to sleep. Glyth quickly woke Keira up, but Keira was pissed at having a spell put on her from her own party, and stormed off. Wanting some time to cool down, she reset the traps on her way out. Our party, after a brief moment of mourning, headed out, essentially just gracefully tumbling through the traps before they could go off. They came back to where they had left their horses and wagon so many days ago and found one horse missing.
I would say it is now late afternoon Day 8.
There we decided to call it a night. A lot of drama in an 8 hour session. At this point several days have passed getting to, through, and out of the cave. What in the world has been going on? Our party seems to be keen to hold on to Faelywn's sword, at least until they have completed their quest for King Hrothgar. So, it sounds like they will most likely head north, toward Hilliana. The map the retrieved from a guard at the NW Encampment shows trouble ahead. Good luck to all!
Session Experience:
Encounter 12 (again) - Rockslide - 100 XP
Encounter 13 - Kobold Scouts - 725 XP
Encounter 15 - Mother Dragon - 1500 XP
Encounter 9 (again) - Cave to the Right - 900 XP
Encounter 10 - Chest in Dead End - 150 XP
Total Experience 3375 / 6 = 562 XP each player
As always I welcome feedback from friends and strangers alike. Players, I especially am looking for corrections and flavor additions. No time for the next has been set, but hope to by Wednesday.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Encounters Session 6
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
No, I am not so obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons that it is the first thing I did on the new year. Scheduled posts are awesome!
Light attendance this Wednesday, most likely due to the holiday (and flu) season. With our three players we experimented a little and all played more than one character. An interesting treat.
Let's first update you on the name game again:
Lady Anya Tamora, Ruler of Crystal Brook
Lord Carric, Ruler of the Sildaine Forest
Count Varis Sybar, Ruler of Sybar
Juliana, daughter of Carric
Orlando, son of Tamora
Caerwyn, inside Juliana, daughter of Oran
Porpherio, inside Orlando, adopted son of Tiandra
Oran, archfey, Green Lord
Tiandra, archfey, Summer Queen
Ragnar, agent of Oran, a verbeeg mercenary
Uma, agent of Tiandra, a briar witch dryad
Soryth, Dream Queen, hag
Yes, I agree. The list of names is getting ridiculous. Imagine reading through this adventure the first time as DM.
So you finally earned your way to see Ragnar. You learn in your conversation that the Soryth's spell caused the agents to forget how to get to the Palace of Spires. Ragnar has also enlisted his cousin Basal to hunt down and kill Porpherio/Orlando as that would thwart the hags plans (apparently the dispute between he and Uma was exactly this kind of thinking - kill for a solution, or find another way). The Dream Queen, Soryth, wanted control over this magical island, but the control was with the souls of Porpherio and Caerwyn. To prevent triggering the wards on the couples' souls, she devised a plan that involved Juliana and Orlando. It now seems as if a partial soul swap has occurred (there is some conjecture here on Ragnar's part, but he is pretty confident). It's safe to say that a full soul swap was Soryth's goal before being interrupted.
Ragnar knows that Porpherio is still alive because he has not heard from Basal yet. He last saw Porpherio in the arms of a lovely nymph. As you give chase you run into some plants and barkburrs that give you a challenge.
After completing that encounter, you find a hill where the nymph, more radiant and lovely than previously described, waits. What happens next is for Session 6, but we did take a sneak peak as a party.
The nymph, Rosaline, tells you that she lured Orlando/Porpherio here for his protection. She has since placed him under the care of Oakstaff, a treant. She tells you that Juliana/Caerwyn is safe with Soryth for so long as Orlando/Porpherio is safe. She gives you 2 bottles of Horse's Breath for agreeing to seek out Oakstaff and do as he bids.
Looking forward to seeing everyone at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads Wednesday by 6pm. For our regular players, if you know you can or can't make it, comment here, with the character you intend to play. As new players show up early, I will now what characters are taken and how many seats are available.
New players, RSVP if you can as well. A lack of RSVP won't stop you from coming, but it will certainly help us better prepare for you. We now have 2 Dungeon Master's available, so if we know we are going to have a party of 8 or more again, we can break it into 2 sessions.
No, I am not so obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons that it is the first thing I did on the new year. Scheduled posts are awesome!
Light attendance this Wednesday, most likely due to the holiday (and flu) season. With our three players we experimented a little and all played more than one character. An interesting treat.
Let's first update you on the name game again:
Lady Anya Tamora, Ruler of Crystal Brook
Lord Carric, Ruler of the Sildaine Forest
Count Varis Sybar, Ruler of Sybar
Juliana, daughter of Carric
Orlando, son of Tamora
Caerwyn, inside Juliana, daughter of Oran
Porpherio, inside Orlando, adopted son of Tiandra
Oran, archfey, Green Lord
Tiandra, archfey, Summer Queen
Ragnar, agent of Oran, a verbeeg mercenary
Uma, agent of Tiandra, a briar witch dryad
Soryth, Dream Queen, hag
Yes, I agree. The list of names is getting ridiculous. Imagine reading through this adventure the first time as DM.
So you finally earned your way to see Ragnar. You learn in your conversation that the Soryth's spell caused the agents to forget how to get to the Palace of Spires. Ragnar has also enlisted his cousin Basal to hunt down and kill Porpherio/Orlando as that would thwart the hags plans (apparently the dispute between he and Uma was exactly this kind of thinking - kill for a solution, or find another way). The Dream Queen, Soryth, wanted control over this magical island, but the control was with the souls of Porpherio and Caerwyn. To prevent triggering the wards on the couples' souls, she devised a plan that involved Juliana and Orlando. It now seems as if a partial soul swap has occurred (there is some conjecture here on Ragnar's part, but he is pretty confident). It's safe to say that a full soul swap was Soryth's goal before being interrupted.
Ragnar knows that Porpherio is still alive because he has not heard from Basal yet. He last saw Porpherio in the arms of a lovely nymph. As you give chase you run into some plants and barkburrs that give you a challenge.
After completing that encounter, you find a hill where the nymph, more radiant and lovely than previously described, waits. What happens next is for Session 6, but we did take a sneak peak as a party.
The nymph, Rosaline, tells you that she lured Orlando/Porpherio here for his protection. She has since placed him under the care of Oakstaff, a treant. She tells you that Juliana/Caerwyn is safe with Soryth for so long as Orlando/Porpherio is safe. She gives you 2 bottles of Horse's Breath for agreeing to seek out Oakstaff and do as he bids.
Looking forward to seeing everyone at Morningstar Games on Montgomery Crossroads Wednesday by 6pm. For our regular players, if you know you can or can't make it, comment here, with the character you intend to play. As new players show up early, I will now what characters are taken and how many seats are available.
New players, RSVP if you can as well. A lack of RSVP won't stop you from coming, but it will certainly help us better prepare for you. We now have 2 Dungeon Master's available, so if we know we are going to have a party of 8 or more again, we can break it into 2 sessions.
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