Session 13 Adventure Notes

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.

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.

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.

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:

“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 Doz
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.

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 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.

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.

Experience Points:
   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.

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.

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 :)

"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.

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.

Session 5 Adventure notes

Played from 4pm to 10pm tonight.  Seemed like our players were challenged enough in the 2.5 encounters we finished.  Here is what happened.

Our characters found themselves still in the cave they cleared last session with the noises coming from the right cave and quite coming from the left.  They stood behind their decision to go left, but though they had discussed leaving Yelsha's summoned wolf to guard the right cave, they decided to take the wolf with them in their adventure.

Early Day 7: After several hours of traveling in the caverns at an incline and steadily decreasing temperature, the came to a wider cave area approximately 20' wide and 20' tall.  In the center of this area was a chasm they found to be 20' wide and 30' deep.  Upon closer inspection (with light) two fire bats flurried out of the dark chasm and harried our heroes.  While fighting the very hard to hit fire bats, more critters were heard deeper in the chasm.  They kept trying to climb out, and on occasion one would escape.  When they did they were discovered to be fire beetles, who frequently sprayed fire in a blast 3 hitting many of our heroes.  In all, there ended up being 4 fire beetles and the 2 difficult fire bats.  Yelsha (druid) and Abraxus (dragonborn) were knocked unconscious during the battle (Yelsha twice).  Fortunately, the party has 3 characters who can heal).

After dispatching the fire creatures, they had to face the challenge of crossing the chasm.   There happened to be a log on the far side of the chasm.  The party lowered Keira (elf rogue - striker) down the chasm with a rope (successfully) and then Kiera free climbed the other side of the chasm.  It took her 3 tries, but she succeeded with out harm.  After further discussion they decided to tie her rope to the log (Keira is awesome at knot tying) and the party was able to pull the log across the chasm.  They took turns crossing the log, and they all were acrobatic enough to cross without incident (less exciting,
I know).

As they traveled further in from there, the temperature continued to decrease and the gradient of uphill increased.  They finally reached a round room with 6 caves entrances to choose from (aside from the way they came in).  The tried pretty much every skill in the book on each cave to try and determine the correct path.  The ruled out 2 pretty quickly, found that 2 more probably contained more Kobolds, and were left with 2 suspects.  Keira stepped in one and determined the path was dangerous and the cave may collapse.  During their inspections they heard popping in cracking and the earth and felt rushed to make a decision so they went into the 4th cave from the left with a leap of faith.

Midday, Day 7: On that path, they come to an area where two shadow bats attack out of the darkness.  The air is quite cold and a breeze has begun to be noticed.  As they are fighting the two shadow bats, a baby dragon stumbles into the narrow tunnel at the opposite end.  It's look is more of curiosity than menace, until the dragon witnesses the destruction of a bat at our hero's hands.  Abraxus, tried to communicate with the dragon (both speaking draconic), but only got "Goo-goo, gaa-ga, poor batty" out of it.  Shava (cleric), wanted a pet and tried to calm the dragon down.  With some success the dragon did calm, (buying the party an extra round), before the dragon became enraged by player attacks.  Yelsha, used a turn to run under the dragons legs, granting a failed opportunity attack, but putting herself in flanking position.   First, Yelsha used her wolf companion as a harrier to give the party combat advantage.  When the dragon finally killed the wolf (with 2 sets of double claw attacks, and a left claw that could never seem to hit), Yelsha used a power that caused herself to grant combat advantage against the dragon for her nearby presence.  Shava's strategy at this point, now get this, was to jump on the dragon's back (clever), but then he proceeded to "hug" the dragon.   This is not a miss print.  I almost imagined him wearing bell bottoms and tie die.   "Make peace not war."  The dragon was not impressed, especially while all of Shava'a allies were hitting the dragon with arrows, lighting, halberds, and swords.

Ultimately, our heroes slayed the baby dragon.  During the aftermath, Shava mourned for the dragon while Yelsha explored her surroundings on the back side of the dragon carcass.  She found the entrance to a large cavern with a beam of light shining down on a large pile of silver treasure.  She could tell the breeze from this cavern was gentle, then calm, gentle, then calm.  Most importantly, she found a bag of 376 silver pieces with a sword laying next to it. After close inspection by the party, they determine that this is not only a Faelwyn's sword, but a +1 Lifedrinker Long Sword.  It has a value of 1000gp, but Faeilwn is offering 1200gp for its return.   The party lets Varis (Elf Ranger - Scout) carry the sword as he could use it to assist in their retreat or attempt to gain the treasure in the next room.  He may even be weary to give it back.

So what will our characters do?  Do they venture into the large cavern, that seems to be the cavern that Faelwyn fled from an Adult White Dragon, to gain even more treasure?  Or do they retreat back through the caves to back through the possibly collapsing hall of tunnels, and then have to recross the large chasm?  What was in the cave to the right at the beginning of the Session?  Do they return the sword to Faelwyn gaining 1200gp, and the experience of completed minor quest, or do they wield his family's heirloom in bloody battle to help complete their primary mission?

Stay tuned next time.  We hope to convene again January 2nd at noon but we have a few members to check their schedule before we verify.

Also, we are looking for 1 more player to join our party.  We are playing Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, but for our current portion of the story line we would probably ask any new players to play an existing character (Glyth, I believe).

As always, any feedback is welcome.  I would love to incorporate some in upcoming encounters/adventures.  We haven't really even cracked the surface of the overall story that started with King Hrothgar's summons to the Arena of Trials and the mission that he gave on its successful conclusion.

     Experience Points:
          Encounter 11 - Left Entrance (Chasm) - 900 XP
          Encounter 12 - Cave Level 2 (aMAZEing) - TBD upon successful exit
          Encounter 13 - The Final Approach - 1050 XP
     Total Experience: 1950 XP, by 7 players (1 NPC), 278 XP each player

I would expect several characters to level after an encounter or two next session, so bring level 3 characters with you just in case.

Alas, poor D&D Dungeon Tiles!

Gotta love my players, but I owe them some extra torture next session.  I posted earlier how excited was to get an early Christmas present.  My wife even paid to express ship my new D&D Dungeon Tiles so I could have them for the game last session.   Would you believe my players found every encounter they possibly could, that did NOT use the tiles, and ended the session just before I got to use them?

So next session, I should definitely get to use them.  I think I am going to make them fight some extra dragons now, too.  Those promised dungeon pictures using the tiles are still coming, but now I have to wait for two more weeks before I can share them...

OOOooorrrr...I could just say <SPOILER ALERT> here and give you a preview of one of them.  Here it is. 

It's not exactly possible to design any dungeon you want, but it is pretty flexible.  Typically, I describe the features I want in my handmade DM guide and then start playing with tiles until I get something that fits.  In this case, I wanted a narrow, constricted path to enter, an open area, followed by another narrow, constricted path.  Sometimes the details grow as your tiles fit right, and in this case, I kept replacing some tiles to make it look more right.  Specifically, I like to get the black edges (impassible terrain) around the edges for more definition.  In one tile, I couldn't quite get the black edges to match (see the wide tile just before the bottom constricted path).

As my last steps, I photograph the dungeon and then import the picture into my DM guide and add monster notes on top of it.  I can't keep the tiles out and arranged indefinitely so the picture helps me rebuild it.  I stack all my tiles from largest to smallest, so I can roughly find the pieces I am looking for (and I can keep the tiles fairly compact for protected storage.

I can't wait to see how easy or hard this system is actually going to be.

Session 4 Adventure Notes

Our dubious characters ended the last session having defeated a group of humans at the encampment NW of Palancia.  They knew more guards were on the way.  I certainly did not disappoint them.   Three more guards appear from each opposing side of the map, each with an animal in toe (2 had hyenas, 1 had a guard drake).  After ending the lives of the animals and every human who might have some information, they searched the battlefields and picked up some useful contingent weapons such as a cross bow and a halberd (with reach).  They also found a crudely drawn and deteriorating map of the lands between Palancia and Hilliana.  They had to transcribe the map to their own work to preserver the information.  Basically, they can now tell that from the encampment NW of Palancia, to a cross road is a day's ride.  The can see that the path west at the crossroads leads to a cave in the side of a mountain range that seems to fit the description of where Faelwyn lost his sword and captured the hatchling frost dragon.  They also see that Hilliana is a days ride North of the crossroads, and seems to be surrounded by 3 other encampments. 

After their discoveries they headed back to grab their horses and wagons to bring them to the encampment they just cleared.  When they got there, a roving wolf pack encircled them.  A murmur of TPK occurred (from Varis's player as usual) but they again were successful, despite being knocked prone a few times.  They gathered their horses and wagons and headed back to the encampment. 

End of Day 4: Our adventurers arrive back at the encampment and start a long rest, which is promptly interrupted in the first hour by howling.  Varis is on first watch, and what is his solution?  Arouse all the adventurers, and yell, "Climb up the trees!"  So, of 7 characters, Shava fails to climb the tree and lands prone on his butt.  Abraxus (A large dragonborn) runs around going "what do I do, what do i do? as he is too heavy to climb a tree.  He ultimately darts into the covered wagon right before a large dire wolf mounted by a guard, and 2 gray wolves appear from the trail.  Our heroes target the rider first, mostly from the trees, and eventually drop him.  Abraxus blows his cover to run out and attack, but quickly finds him self surrounded, knocked prone, and then unconscious.  Shava, having stood up off his butt, at this point, uses his Healing Word, to revive Abraxus, but Abraxus is still surrounded and weak.  She cleverly uses her Bluff skill to play dead, and the wolves move on to another target.   The Dire Wolf is the last left, and begins to run away when the party sees fit to dispatch their foe like so much fertilizer.

Our heroes, finally get a chance for much needed rest and get spend a good bit of the night sleeping and recharging their powers and health.

Morning Day 5: Feeling well rested, and having reviewed their crudely drawn map, our heroes decide to at least go as far as the crossroads and decide what do from there.  Shockingly, they reach the crossroads without incident, and with a little daylight to spare.  They decide to east toward their quest for Faelwyn's sword despite trepidations as a how a party of their experience level will handle a dragon that must surely live there, and entrusting their lives to fate (just call me fate). 

Evening Day 5: They don't want to kill themselves traveling toward danger, so they rest along side the road again for the night.  The rest is uneventful, and they head out in the morning while it is still dark.

Late Day 6:  They see the mountains rise on their approach, and eventually an area that must be the cave on the map, and the start of their quest for Faelywn's sword.  They dismount and proceed cautiously on foot toward the opening.  They approach the final few feet cautiously, but then Shava runs out and trashes through the bushes discovered a goblin corpse.  He screams out to the party, "Guys, look at this."  At his symphony of noise induction, dozens of foot falls are heard coming from the cave.  Lines of Kobolds start pouring out of the caves from multiple entrances, some that were obscured by bushes as well.  Most surround Shava and few head toward the flank.  Jadis remains in the rear casting spells from across the small creek.  Yelsha can't see over a rock protrution so gracefully climb  onto the shoulders of the tall Abraxus and loses and arrow from that position.   Abraxus then abruptly drops Yelsha on her butt, and runs into battle to try and help Shava.  Keira also runs to Shava's aid, and Varis approaches but from a small distance and picks them off of Shava from relative safety.  Glyth works on the contingent coming from the flank with help from Jadis in the rear.  Shava takes a beating, but eventually the horde thins out and the Kobold's lose their nerve and begin to head back into the cave toward an opening on right rear of the cave.  Our heroes give chase and drop the last two kobolds, just before they disappear into the darkness of the entrance in the right side of the cave.  As the party is cleaning up, they hear disturbing noises from the cave the Kobold's were trying to escape through.  They decide to have Yelsha summon her wolf companion to guard that entrance while they explore the quieter path to the left of the cave.

And here is where we paused until Saturday, December 17th, at 4pm.  Our players will have to hold their breath to find out what might come from the right side cave, or to see if the quite path of the left cave leads to adventure...or misadventure.

Experience Points:
     Encounter 6.1 - NW Encampment Wave 2 - 825 XP
     Encounter 7 - Roving Wolf Pack - 750 XP
     Encounter 8 - Roving Wolf Pack 2 - 850 XP
     Encounter 9 - Cave Entrance - 600 XP

Total XP - 3025 divided by 7 characters (1 NPC, 6 PC) = 432 XP each

As always, I am looking for comments from players and non-player alike.  Players, help me fine tune the story that you played through, this is all from memory.  Non-Players, any where you think the story should go?  Is there a particular plot point that was lame or admirable?

Almost Game Time

Wow, over a week off from playing D&D.  Refreshing, but I am ready to go back at it.  During the break I "volunteered" (read: pushed) to DM for the Wednesday night Encounters games.  On the plus side, I get D&D stuff for doing it, including a few cool paper maps, AND our usual DM may get a chance to play.

Also, since we last played, I have been able to flesh out some more encounters for "Thank you, but our princess is in another castle."  I have over 10 encounters detailed out (all but the map layouts) and have completion on a minor quest story line.

My dear wife has ordered me my first set of DM Dungeon tiles for Christmas, that I hope arrive in time for Saturday's game.  Hopefully this will make building all these quest maps easy, varied, and fun.   I'll report back on the results.

Now, off to add more encounters for the main story line.

Session 3 - "Thank you, but our princess is in another castle!"

Session 3:

Your party met Abraxus, a dragonborn Warlord (Marshal) in the great hall.  She looked “fighty” and speaks Draconic which was your justification to your party members and the king for allowing him to join the party.

King Hrothgar finally sent his page for you and you appeared before the King in his war room just off the great hall.  He first apologized for summoning you to the arena and then explained why he has done so and what is afoot.  In summary, he was looking for a brave group of heroes who could not only stand toe to toe with beast and foe, but a group that could think on their feet to solve any issue laid before them.  You see, an encampment has been setup NW of town, and they had raided the castle (quite stealthily I might add).  The spoils of that raid were the king’s eldest daughter, Lorgar.  The King has asked that you return her safely for a reward of 5000gp, but there is a catch.  That encampment in the NW bares the coat of arms of Hilliana, ruled by King Helgon, a longtime friend of King Hrothgar.  Hrothgar knows something is wrong in Hilliana and is trying to prevent war.  He is even willing to sacrifice his daughter if it means preventing a war that will kill thousands (though he will do just about anything else for her).  Therefor he also offers you a 2000gp reward for returning Lorgar’s body, if you can get revenge and not implicate Palancia in any way.  While you are up north in Hilliana, he will also offer an additional 1000gp reward for information on what the heck is going on in Hilliana.  Your party was respectful to the king and accepted his quests.

The King then pulled from the chest in his war room some rewards for your fight in the Arena of Trials that he said you could use in any way to aid you in your quest.  You received:

·         an Amulet of Protection (+1 Fortitude, Reflex, Will and resist 5 poison)

·         a Magic Staff (+1 attack and damage as implement, critical hits do 1d6 extra damage)

·         a Darkleaf Leather Armor (+1 Armor Class, +2 Armor Class against first attack each encounter)

·         500 gp

·         6 horses (including 1 war horse)

·         The services of the King’s mage who can enchant Shields with a 50% success rate (failure destroys the object).

·         Lodging in the palace for the night.

You accept his gifts, distribute them as appropriate to your party, and request a large and small shield be enchanted.  Both attempts fail, destroying the shields.

Late in Day 2: Your party decides to head into town to find Keira and spend some hard earned gold.  At the town crossroads, a group of 12 kids surrounds with sticks and starts to fight you.  They are playful but probably a little over stimulated from the recent Arena battle they witnessed.  During your encounter with them they shouted things they heard in the arena.  Fortunately, using spells such as sleep, and several Intimidating yells and growls, you are able to scare them all off without having to hurt any of them.

Jadis, Varis, and Glyth suddenly feel stronger and stand outside the tavern to discuss how to utilize their new found strength.  Abraxus, Shava, and Yelsha visit the armorer and buy him out of scale armor, large shields, and small shields.  The party regroups and enters the Tavern to retrieve Keira.  Upon entering the tavern, you find Keira drinking ale with a body bleeding out at her feet.  She is surrounded by four other bandits and a berserker.  The confines of the tavern are limiting, but your party, with the aid of Keira, manages to dispatch the foes.  “This town is falling apart by the minute.  Let’s get out of here,” says Keira.

You head back to the palace for a good night’s rest before setting off. 

Early in Day 3: After about 6 hours of sleeping, the elves in your party are awakened by noises down the hall.   The party is woken and you creep down the hall, in the pitch black, all the way back to the great hall.  There are 4 guards fighting 2 other guards into the corner.  Once spotted, each group of guards pleads for your help claiming the other group is spies.  Jadis casts sleep on most of the group and finds success in only the group of two, but the four others continue to attack the sleeping guards.  Your party uses that clue to begin attacking the group of four.  Once attacked, each guard in that group of four reveals their true identities as doppleganger sneaks.  Your party kills the four spies, and helps the guards up.  They run off to report the incident and tell King Hrothgar of your cunning and bravery.

Your party then heads to the stable to secure your promised horses and you find your latest challenge in getting the heck out of town…   Abraxus weighs too much to ride on a horse without slowing down the party.  You overcome the challenge by spending your hard earned gold on an additional horse and a wagon.  You then send a page to request the court mage to try enchanting your new shields.  He succeeds on a small shield, destroying a small and a large shield in the process.  Fortunately, the enchantment on the small shield negates the loss of the large shield to its wielder, Shava.

At last, your party takes the road between the stables and the castle to the road North.  Once behind the castle you ride NW toward the reported camp.  After a several hours ride, you spot smoke which leads you to the campfire of the camp. 

Midday Day 3: Approaching the camp, you encounter a group of 2 guards, 3 lackeys (who seemed to never miss), and a pseudodragon.  During the encounter, which you quickly handled, a guard managed to throw some sort of capsule into the fire that caused an explosion that did damage to one of your party and themselves.  More importantly, it alerted a nearby party with high red smoke, who now has you surrounded.

You’ll have to come back December 3^rd to find out what happens next.  Will you find any clues as to what is happening in Hilliana?  Will you find the princess and is she still alive?  How will you handle the quest for the old man?  Is Keira really worthy of your trust?

                Experience Points:

                                Encounter 4 (Kids) – 372 XP
                                Encounter 5 (Tavern) – 550 XP
                                Encounter 3 (Spies) – 600 XP
                                Encounter 6.1 (Camp – 1^st wave) – 725 XP

                                Total XP: 2247 XP divided among 7 (6 PC and 1 NPC) for 321 XP each.

DM Ruling on the NPC, Keira’s, effect on XP.  Keira is quite a powerful striker and as such your party is stronger.  Therefor your XP will be divided to include her in the division.  You can gain more XP per encounter by asking her to leave.