The second post will be a timeline of the adventures in the campaign (the name of the adventure and when each adventure happened). (also updated as new adventures ocure... fair warning though, I do not get to DM my greyhawk campaign on a weekly basis, it is ussualy bi or sometimes even tri-weekly most of the group that I DM in this campaign lives a hundred miles away from where I do).
later on I will post basic summeries of the individual adventures as time and inclanation allow.
Please feel free to comment on this thread, about anything you find interesting about my campiagn
Wes
Amyra Moondance, Neutral elf rogue.
Amyra Moondance was born in 484 in Celene. Her mother, Jassima was a prominent druid, and her farther, Vielin was a ranger that patrolled the Welkwood. When she was still young she traveled with her father to Safeton on the wild coast, and fell at once in love with human cities. Amyra Had an aurgument with her mother soon after the trip, and ran away from home… she traveled to the human city that she had liked so much, and found it much harder to get along in then she had imagined. Amyra soon found herself homeless and forced to steal to survive. She was quick, and smart however, and soon found away to make herself a decent living. She moved north to the free city of Greyhawk as the wild coast was buried under the onslaught of Turrosh Mak and his orcs. She has lived in the free city ever since, her stealth and skill at picking pockets earning her enough to survive on. She supplements her income by claiming to be a minstrel and singing in taverns, her singing voice is good enough, but she lacks the true skill of a bard.
(Note: it has since been revealed that Amyra is in fact her “middle name” with her first name being Kalindre)
Larg Moonshine, Lawful Good human cleric of Heironeous
Larg is a fairly typical looking human of oeridian stock, with olive skin, brown hair, and gray eyes. He was born in the year 570, in Admundfort the former capital of the Shield Lands. His parents moved to the free city when he was still a toddler, but he grew up on tales of the glory of the shieldlands, and the might of heironeous. Larg was outraged and saddened by what occurred in the shieldlands during the greyhawk wars, and entered the clergy of Heironeous hoping that the arch-paladin would choose him to help reclaim them from the forces of Iuz. Larg is handsome and somewhat vain, always trying to look his best. He can appear inflexible and stubborn in his zeal to uphold the tenants of law and good, but he has a compassionate heart and is especially fond of children. He is currently petitioning the higher ups of the temple of Heironeous in the free city to fully fund an orphanage in the river quarter.
Maliska Moon, Chaotic Good Half-Elf fighter
Maliska strongly favors her human mother, and only her slightly pointed ears belie her heritage. She is fairly tall and although not unattractive is heavily muscled for a woman. She has the same bronzed skin tones and dark brown eyes as her Flan mother, and she wears her wavy black hair slightly below shoulder length. She was born in Fireseek of the year 568 in the Duchy of Tenh. Her father was killed when the Hold of Stone fist invaded, kicking off the greyhawk wars, and Maliska fled with her mother to the south east, ending up in the Theocracy of the Pale. There she lived until she was old enough to go out on her own. Her mother had gotten a job as a maid for a rich family in Holdworthy, but Maliska did not see such a life for her self. When she was 19 she joined a caravan heading south as a hired guard, and has never looked back. She has traveled over a good deal of the flanaess, working as a caravan guard, but not seeing much action. Recently a caravan brought her to the free city, and she decided to try her hand at seeking her fortune there.
Turgon Monathar, Chaotic Neutral Human fighter
Turgon is a huge mountain of a man with a ready grin and a bushy beard, Turgon looks loder then his 19 years would indicate. He has brown hair and green eyes, and is of mixed Baklunish and Oeridian extract. He has a good sense of humor and a friendly demeanor, but can be unpredictable in his actions. Turgon was born and raised in the free city, has never been more then a league from its walls, it is not that he fears or shuns the outside world, but the free city has always provided him with every thing he has ever needed. Turgoth’s mother dies when he was very young, but his father, Belthrain is a cooper who lives and works in the artisans quarter. Since moving out on his own Turgon has supported himself as a bodyguard for hire, and recently he did several freelance jobs for the city watch. It was on the last of those jobs that he met the other party members.
Xan Xanthar, Lawful Evil Human Monk
Xan was a small wiry man of pure suel stock, although he claimed to be a follower of Wee Jas, he was in fact at low ranking Scarlet Brotherhood spy. He was killed by a half-orc cleric of Iuz during the adventure the “Iron Hook Outpost”, and so his longer range plans and goals were never revealed. The present Character still look upon him as a fallen comrade and hero.
Svendor Magadorn, Lawful Good Human Sorcerer
Svendor is a tall, well built man, not nearly the sort of person that springs to mind when a sorcerer is mentioned. He has long blond hair, and a small goatee, and dresses in the traveling furs of a northern barbarian. He was born and raised among the frost barbarians, although they ostracized him when his magical talents began to develop at puberty. Seeing his magic as a blessing, Svendor left the lands of the barbarians to try to use his gift to help others, and has succeeded in doing so thus far. His sister, Borya, came with him when he left the barbarians, and now lives in Blackstone.
Zygros Treestrider, Chaotic Good Elf Ranger
Zygros is tall for a wood elf, with short coppery hair and green eyes. He was born 129 years ago in the Vesve forest, and has grown up with a hatred of Iuz and the evil humanoids at that foul beings command. Trained since his youth as a hunter, tracker, and woodsman, Zygros used his skills as a ranger against the forces of the Old One during the greyhawk wars, and afterwards decided to travel the flanaess in order to see more of the world.
“Down in the Dumps” takes place on Readying 3, 591
“Iron Hook Outpost” takes place on Readying 12-13, 591
“Dezrin’s Hole” takes place on Coldeven 6-9, 591
“The Master of Zombies” takes place on Coldeven 20, 591
“Damsel in Distress” takes place on Coldeven 27-28, 591
“Dorshank’s Rest” takes place on Planting 3, 591
“Devil’s of Blackstone” takes place on Planting 5th-6th, 591
“Cairn of the great goblin” takes place on Planting 26th-28th, 591
"Heart of Nyr Dyv" takes place on Flocktime 19th-22nd, 591
Hired to investigate some mysterious happenings at “Garbage Hill” (the city dump) the party (Amayra, Larg, Maliska, and Xan) uncovered a kobold band lurking amongst the refuse. They found a secret entrance to a small cave complex. The party decided to clear out the group of kobolds that lived there, and had a fairly easy time overcoming the traps and guards. They found indications that the leader of the kobolds (a female kobold sorcerer) was working with somebody inside the city walls to smuggle illegal contraband into the city through a connection to the sewers that existed in the kobold cave. The party captured the Kobold leader and turned her and the evidence over to the city watch.
The watch suitably rewarded the party, and the kobold leader was hanged. Both Amayra and Xan made special note of the hidden sewer access (although for different reasons) Amayra wanted to be able to have a secret way into and out of the city for her own reasons, while Xan saw it as a possible weakness that his scarlet brotherhood superiors might be able to use to their advantage. None of the characters did anything singularly spectacular during the adventure, but they did demonstrate an ability to work well together as a team.
The party (Amayra, Larg, Maliska, and Xan) was next asked by the city watch to investigate the disappearances of several teenagers from a small farming community a half days walk south of the free city (The watch was too busy to investigate themselves, and the small community of a dozen or so farms was well with in their jurisdiction still). After heading for the community, the party asked a bunch of questions, and did some investigating of the area where the teens had vanished, eventually discovering that a bunch of human and orc slavers operating under the name of the “Iron Hook” were kidnapping the teens to be shipped north to slave markets in Dorakaa. The party managed to find the slavers hidden hideout and infiltrate it. They killed most of the slavers, and managed to rescue all of the teens. The slaver leader, Keth the Golden, a half orc cleric of Iuz, managed to escape though, and before he got away he managed to kill the monk Xan by casting hold person on him and pushing him down a well (he was knocked unconscious by the fall, and then drowned before the party could rescue him, Xan had ventured away from the party, and thus nobody was around to help him when he met Keth).
Although the slaver leader had escaped, and Xan had been slain, the party did manage to free the missing teens, and destroy the slaving operation. So the mission was an over-all success. The party excepted the hospitality of the farmers (all the reward they could offer), and got rewarded by the watch on their return to the free city. Xan was buried in the small cemetery that the farmers used for their own dead. Although once again none of the party had any stand-out performances (If you discount Xan’s untimely demise), they did learn a valuable lesson about sticking together.
Khorvin Tharn, a wizard of the free city, hired the party (Now sadly down to three adventurers, Amyra, Larg, and Maliska) was to find his run away apprentice Marl. Marl was the nephew of a member of the ruling oligarchy, and Khorvin wanted to make sure nothing bad happened to the young wizard who had stolen one of the old wizards minor spell books and a wand of magic missiles, and set out on his own.
The party tracked the lad to the mining town of Blackstone in the cairn hills, where the locals remembered him and told the party that he had ventured into a local “Dungeon” known as Dezrin’s hole the day before the party had arrived in Blackstone (the hole was a small natural cave system that seemed to attract monsters, it was named after the local miner who first discovered it.) Descending into the hole the party found traces of Marl’s passage, and fought off an attack by dire rats. Searching further they found a shaft leading deeper into the caverns. At the bottom of the shaft they found Marls broken body, along with the bodies of some more dire rats. They gathered up the stuff that Marl had stolen when he had run away, but decided to leave his body where it was for a time, because they could hear a strange moaning sound coming from down a passage to leading away from the bottom of the shaft and wanted to investigate.
The group found a circular cavern at the end of the passage, with a strange metal “doorway” against one of the walls, although the metal simply outlined a door, with the same stone of the wall inside the frame as with out, the moaning seemed to come from the metal door frame. As the party approached to look more closely at it, a grell descended from near the ceiling and attacked the party by surprise. There followed a hectic battle with the grell, which the party barely one, Amyra was reduced to –2 hp by one of the grell’s attacks, and may well have died had Larg not healed her with a cure light wounds as she lay bleeding. The casting of the spell with in the chamber activated the portal to the abyss (the framework doorway) and a Shadow Demon (BoVD) came through it (Although the party didn’t notice, as they were busy concentrating on the grell.) Being interested in more then just random slaughter, and seeing the PC's already occupied the Shadow Demon simply left (and will appear again in the future). Finally, Maliska killed the grell with a mighty blow of her great sword (a critical hit that did maximum damage). And the party turned their attention back to the “doorway” seeking to discover more about it Larg cast detect magic, which activated the portal and a an Abyssal Maw (MM2) came through. While battling the minor demon, Larg cast protection from evil, which activated the portal again, releasing another Abyssal Maw. The party managed to make short work of the demons. Although they could find no way to damage the portal (Maliska tried attacking it with weapons to no avail).
The party gathered up Marl’s corpse and took it back to the free city, where they returned it along with the spellbook to Khorvin Tharn (Amyra secretly kept the wand, and told him that the party hadn’t found it). Khorvin was disappointed that Marl was dead, but he paid the agreed upon price to the party anyway. The party also told him of the strange portal, and Khorvin agreed to look into it.
Children had been turning up missing from an orphanage in the river quarter of the Free City of Greyhawk, 6 had vanished over the course of the last 6 weeks, and then the day before the characters got involved 6 more vanished in the same night. The party (Larg, Amyra, and Maliska) got involved due to their past connection to the city watch, and because of Largs connection to the orphanage (he donated to it regularly). The party gained a new member (Turgon) who was working at the time as a freelance investigator for the watch.
Once the characters got involved a little investigation on their part lead them to believe that whoever was taking the children got there through a sewer grate in the alley behind the orphanage. They then went to see the person who was on duty in the orphanage the night that the six children had vanished at once to see if he had heard anything. When they arrived at his home in the oldcity they got there just in time to see him murdered by zombies. They followed the zombies to a nearby sewer grate, and then after following them into the sewers they lost them.
They did some more research and found that several sewer workers had not returned after their shift form a place under the river quarter, so they went back into the sewers to investigate that area, there they found signs of the zombies they had followed earlier, and found a secret door. The door led to a hidden temple of Nerrul. Searching the temple they fought a bunch of normal zombies and some zombie dogs. They found the six most recent kids that had been taken and freed them. They left the kids in the cell (Although unlocked and with food and blankets) while they continued the search of the temple.
They found the main temple and saw to their horror that the first 6 kids that had been taken were now zombies... and they felt bad as they killed them. Then they found the culprit behind the kidnappings. They fought and destroyed Thar Veel the zombie master (A 6th level human cleric of Nerrul with the corpse template from BoVD).
Thar Veel had found an ancient scroll detailing an ancient ritual that when performed would cause all of the dead with in a 5 mile radius to rise as uncontrolled murderous zombies. Thar Veel planned on working the ritual under the Free City in order to bring glory upon his deity. The ritual required the ritual sacrifice and animation of 12 children. The scroll detailing the ritual was destroyed when Turgon tossed a vial of alchemists fire at Thar Veel, but missed and hit the desk behind him by mistake.
The party then returned the kids to the orphanage and used most of the wealth they had found in the temple as a donation to help improve conditions at the orphanage.
It was during this adventure also that Larg came up with the idea of building an Inn in the cairn hills, along the road to Blackstone, at a place where travelers often stopped for the night. Doing some research on his own he found out that Lord Silverfox owned the land in question and after dealing with Thar Veel, Larg and Amyra went to lord Silverfox’s estate to try to get permission to build an inn there. (Larg did not plan on running the inn himself, rather seeing it built as a safe way stop for travelers. Amyra’s idea was that the party would share ownership, but would hire other people to run it, so that they would always have a “safe” base of operations in the cairn hills outside the city.) After talking to Lord Silverfox’s representative Larg was told that he would be contacted in the future.
The party (Turgon, Amyra, Larg, and Maliska) was in the river quarter, heading toward the Green Dragon Inn when they heard a muffled cry of help from an alley. Investigating they found a woman being threatened by six large thugs, and a smaller, shifty eyed man with a hat with a large red feather. The woman’s two bodyguards already lay unconscious on the ground.
The group rushed to the woman’s aid, and succeeded and quickly dispatching the thugs, although the thugs leader a distinctive looking man with a broad-brimmed hat with a red feather got away, and they over heard his knick name “Dandy”. Maliska was spectacular in the battle, making good use of the cleave feat she had just picked up, although truthfully I didn’t expect the thugs to stand any chance at all, considering they were simple 1st level warriors.
Helping the woman, the party found that she was lord Silverfox’s daughter, and that the leader had gotten away with her jewelry, and more importantly her father’s signet ring, which she had taken with out his permission. The party agreed to help her, by trying to get the signet ring back. After escorting her home the party returned to the river quarter to seek clues as to “Dandy’s” where abouts. Several hours (and a gather information check from each party member) later the party found some clues. “Dandy” worked for a man named Rude, who was running a small gang that was unaffiliated with the thieves’ guild. And “Dandy” could be found at the River Rat tavern on most nights.
Heading for the River Rat, the party finally caught up with “Dandy” but he noticed them as they entered and made a run for the back door, there followed a hectic chase through the night shrouded streets and alleys of the river quarter. Finally, thinking that he had lost the party, “Dandy” circled back to the warehouse that Rude used as his headquarters. Amyra had been tailing him stealthily however, and the party learned where the head quarters were located.
The party made a grand entrance, bursting through one of the warehouses windows, interrupting “Dandy’s” conversation with Rude. Gaining surprise the party acted first, with Amyra, Turgon, and Maliska moving to better positions, while Larg shouted for the villains surrender. (what follows is a round by round account of the climatic battle in the adventure)
Rude a rogue/wizard cast invisibility on “Dandy” while his three bugbear bodyguards came out from behind the pile of crates they were hiding behind (the bad guys rolled very well for initiative, beating the entire party). The bugbears moved into melee with Amyra, Turgon, and Maliska, while Rude and the now invisible “Dandy” hung back.
Amyra and Turgon battled their bugbears, while Maliska dropped the one she was fighting with a single blow and ran toward Rude. Larg cast hold person at Rude, but Rude made his save.
Rude hit the party with a magic missile spell (dividing the missiles between Amyra and Turgon) while the invisible “Dandy” sneak attacked Maliska, nearly dropping her. The bugbears kept attacking while Amyra and Turgon kept fighting them off (Turgon managed to slay his). Larg moved forward to help Amyra with her bugbear. Maliska’s counter attack against “Dandy” was a critical hit, which killed “Dandy” outright, and her cleave took half of Rude’s HP away.
Rude cast Jump and leaped away from Maliska, to land on a pile of crates out of the parties reach. The bugbear hit Larg, but since it was now flanked Larg and Amyra made short work of it. Turgon made a show of carefully stowing his melee weapons and getting his crossbow ready to fire, smiling at Rude the entire while. Maliska drank a potion of cure light wounds.
Rude surrendered, but he had already sold the items taken from Lord Silverfox’s daughter at a local pawnshop.
The party captured Rude and turned him over to the city watch, the next morning they went to the pawnshop, and using the pawn slip found in Rude’s possession, they got the items back. They took the signet ring (and her jewelry) back to Lord Silverfox’s daughter, and in her gratitude she talked her father into leasing them the land that Larg wanted to build the inn on for a much-reduced price. The party also received a small reward from the city watch for the capture of Rude, and the destruction of his small but growing organization. The adventure also brought the party to the attention of the thieves’ guild, who had been planning on doing something about Rude and his men themselves. This would have some dire consequences for the party in the near future.
Amyra was approached by members of the Greyhawk thieves’ guild, and asked to come to a warehouse in the river quarter. Since she was a freelance thief in the city, she was worried about her safety and decided to bring Larg and Maliska along as back up (she would have brought Turgon as well but couldn’t find him, as his player had not been able to make it that night).
The meeting was with Tomas Ratek, the master thief of the river quarter. He started by thanking the characters for taking care of the problem of Rude’s gang for them. He then offered Amyra a proposition, if she preformed a small task for the guild her past freelancing would be forgotten, and she would be offered membership, if however she refused she would have to leave the free city, the Greyhawk thieves’ guild does not take kindly to freelancers. Amyra decided to except the mission.
They were told to go to the mansion of Dorshank Krangul, a former guild operative who lived in the high quarter. Dorshank had been missing for over a week, and the guild was worried that he had died (Dorshank was in poor health, the joke was that only his greed had kept him around this long, Dorshank was a terrible miser). The party was to look into Dorshanks disappearence, and also to try to recover the deeds to some mines in the town of Blackstone that Dorshank held as legal owner for the guild (to make it look more legitimate), they were also supposed to try to recover Dorshank’s will if they could find it. The party suspected at once that Tomas Ratek wasn’t telling them everything, and of course they were correct, he failed to mention that he had sent two separate groups of thieves to investigate already, and both had failed to return.
He party headed to the high quarter and scouted the exterior of Dorshank’s mansion, looking for likely ways in, etc.. Then they left and waited till nightfall, as they didn’t want to be seen breaking into the mansion. On their scouting expedition they noticed that the yard looked like it had been growing wild for years, rather then the week that Tomas had led them to believe that Dorshank had been gone, and this puzzled them.
When the party returned they snuck in through the over grown backyard, and forced the dorr of the greenhouse that was attached to the back of the house, as they made their way through the over grown mess they were attacked by a killer plant! A vampire rose (I took the one that the creature catalogue had converted and tweaked it a little). The party fought it off, although Maliska was seriously hurt by it, and required two cure moderate wounds spells from Larg before the party felt comfortable continuing on. The way into the house from the greenhouse lead into the dinning room, and the party found everything covered by dust covers and such, as well as a lot of dust, leading them further into the belief that the place had been abandoned far longer then a week.
The party searched the downstairs of the mansion, and found that only certain rooms seemd to be used recently, they found Dorshank’s office and noticed that his chair and desk were upset. On the second floor they found more of the same thing, a few rooms had been used, but most others looked like they had been abandoned for years… the second floor also had the faint but ever present scent of decay every where. One of the upstairs bedrooms had a broken window, and the party found several medium sized monstrous spiders with in, as well as the bodies of one of the groups of rogues that the thieves’ guild had previously sent. The party easily defeated the spiders (although Larg got bit by one, and although he made his initial save, he failed the secondary one a minute later, and took 4 points of temporary strength damage).
Eventually the party found their way to the attic, where once again everything was abandoned looking and covered with dust-covers… however in here they could see several foot tracks leading through the dust, and Amyra noticed that the attic seemed shorter on the inside then it had appeared on the outside, and that a window was missing that could be seen from the outside of the house. Realizing that there was a false wall the party rushed over to it, to search for secret doors and was surprised by the ambush of several ghouls (The remains of the second group of thieves that Tomas Ratek had sent). Larg managed to turn some of them, and the party fought the rest of them off with out getting paralyzed. While Maliska was battling the final two ghouls, Amyra found the secret door and opened it, but was instantly over come by the stench that poured out, then Dorshank rushed out in all his terrible glory… Dorshank had died of a heart attack, but his miserly greed would not rest easily, and he had risen as a ghast the night after his death.
Maliska finished off the ghouls while Larg tried to turn Dorhsank to no avail, Dorshank attacked Amyra, wounding her severely and leaving her paralyzed. The next round Larg used a scroll of searing light, which did quite a bit of damage to Dorshank, and Maliska rushed in to attack. Several rounds later Maliska was paralyzed, and Larg was forced to battle the ghast alone. He eventually managed to destroy Dorshank, but barely. The ghoul ambush folled by the battle with ghast had been the toughest fight that the party had faced thus far.
After the Amyra and Maliska had recovered, the party searched Dorshank’s secret room, they found not only the deed to the mines and his will, but also quite a lot of treasure that the miser had collected during his mortal existence as well. Gathering every thing the party made a fateful decision, one that would affect them profoundly. Amyra and Larg together decided to take the Will and Deed not back to the thieves’ guild but to the city authorities. Needless to say the made some powerful people angry, and the next night Amyra found a dagger in her pillow when she retired for the night. Taking the hint the party slipped out of the city through the secret sewer exit that led to the kobold caves, and made their way into the cairn hills, heading to the small valley on the way to Blackstone that they were leasing from Lord Silverfox.
I like the changes you made to The Final Resting Place of Dorshak Krane ;)
Originally posted by cwslyclgh
the 2e city of greyhawk boxed set
A first-rate product.
:bounce:
Originally posted by Damio
A first-rate product.
:bounce:
indeed it is.
Move to Durham, NC (or nearby Raleigh - home of NC State, or Chapel Hill - home of UNC) so that I can join your group.
--Glenn / Seeker95
Keep it up, I enjoy reading about it.
Ume... feel free to barrow, steal, generate ideas from, what ever... have fun, and if what happens in my campaign can make yours better more power to you
Edit: I am very particular about my spelling...
After spending the night at the place where they wanted to build the inn, the party decided to venture into the mining town of Blackstone to find supplies and laborers to get construction underway. (Once again Turgon’s player was absent, so he played no part in the adventure). As they entered the town they noticed that some things were different then the last time that they had been there (see Dezrin’s Hole). Some of the outlying buildings looked abandoned, and very few people were out and about in the town. Those few that they tried to approach hurriedly avoided them. Searching around to try to find out what the problem was, they eventually found somebody willing to talk with them, it was the innkeeper who had proved most helpful the last time the party had been here. It seemed that a mysterious group of clerics, and their warrior guards had come into town the week before, and taken everything that the miners had stored in the town depository, then they had proceeded to kill several of the towns folk and carry several others away. The town had sent out riders to Greyhawk and Steaming Springs asking for aide, but none had ever arrived (in reality the riders never made it more then a mile from Blackstone). Then the day before, as the party had been fleeing Greyhawk, the mysterious clerics had returned. Once again they had taken every thing that the miners had mined, and took more people with them when they left. The Innkeeper, had little more information, other then that the clerics and their guards always came out of the hills from the north-east, past several worked out gem mines.
The party decided to valiantly go find the clerics and end their threat to the town, and so started past the mines following a old, seldom traveled trail into the hills. Almost as soon as they were out of sight of town a cleric and several skeletons attacked them. The party made short work of them, and searching the dead priests body they found a holy symbol that was very odd, only Larg (with a successful Knowledge – religion check) recognized it for what it was, the symbol of Dispater, one of the foul Lords of the Nine, it seemed that the clerics plaguing Blackstone were Devil worshipers. The party kept searching the area (encountering a wandering monster, a Leucrotta, while doing so), and eventually found a side trail that was little more then a faint track, this track lead to a ravine about 3 miles from town. Nestled down in the ravine the party could see a building, it looked as if somebody had fortified an old blockhouse. the party cautiously approached the building, and found the doors locked, but Amayra quickly took care of that problem and the characters walked on in.
They saw an entrance chamber with a single door opposite the one that they had come through, the walls were covered with religious art, depicting Dispator and other devils doing horrid things, and six suite of what appeared to be decorative full plate lined were standing against the walls, armed with halberds. The helms on the plate armor were very distinctive, being carved to look like devilish faces with long curving horns. As the party started crossing the room, four of the suites of armor charged forward to meet them. The party defeated them handily, and found that each suite of armor contained a hobgoblin, which had been standing quietly on guard. (The hobgoblins were actually each fighter 3’s so I was a bit surprised at the ease in which the party defeated them).
Moving on the party explored more of the blockhouse, finding a shrine to Dispator and several clerics along with some skeletons, they plowed through every thing that they encountered, and emerged with hardly a scratch thanks to a series of lucky rolls. Hearing the commotion Gerygis the teifling cleric in charge of the blockhouse, came to investigate, but fled after seeing his underlings and lieutenants decimated. The party gave chase and followed Gerygis into the basement of the blockhouse, when they got to the basement they saw the teifling standing by a tunnel that lead deeper underground. Gerygis pointed at the party and shouted “kill them” before turning to run down the tunnel, as he did so Maliska shot him in the back with her crossbow (a critical hit). As the party hurried to chase after him, they saw a darkness growing in the center of the room. Larg told the others to get the cleric, and that he would handle what ever this was, so the others chased Gerygis into the tunnel while Larg stayed to face what ever was coming out of the darkness.
The tunnel wasn’t very long, and the teifling was standing at the far end, by a door, as Maliska and Amayra ran into the tunnel he flipped a switch and two portcullises fell, one blocking the entrance and the other about 10 feet from the end where he was standing. Thinking he had them where he wanted them the teifling started taunting them and told them what was going on (like any good comic book villain would), he told them that the Horned Society was not extinct like everybody thought, it had just gone underground. But even secret societies need funding, so he and his followers had fortified the blockhouse, and stolen everything the could from Blackstone, they were on a schedule, and were supposed to have left the area with their ill-gotten gains the next week after a final trip into town, but now because of the characters meddlesome ways he was going to have to teach the town a lesson, and before he left he was going to kill every man, woman and child in the town on his final visit. Tired of his speech Maliska shot him with her crossbow again, and Amayra shot at him with her short bow but missed. Gerygis retaliated with a darkbolt spell (BoVD) that nearly killed Maliska. Worried that the teifling might realy have them right where he wanted them Amayra blindly activated a wand that they had found (in Dorshanks’ attic), using her use magic device ability, and hit the evil cleric with a chaos hammer. Which severely messed him up, and Maliska then dropped him with another shot from her crossbow.
Meanwhile Larg wasn’t doing so well. Out of the darkness emerged a Bulugon, a devil of gluttony (from Green Ronin’s excellent supplement, Legions of Hell) that Gerygis has summoned earlier using a scroll of plannar ally. The first thing the devil did was vomit acid onto Larg and cut his HP in half. Larg battled the Bulugon with sword and spells, healing himself every couple of rounds, and eventually he started to wear the thing down, Maliska and Amayra, after their defeat of the cleric managed to get back in time to help him finish it off. (Working together the two woman adventurers had managed to lift the gate blocking the passage). They found every thing that had been stolen from the town, and returned it, but the people that had been taken were gone, sacrificed to Dispator and then devoured by the Bulugon.
The town of Blackstone rejoiced that they had been delivered, and welcomed the characters as heroes, they were overjoyed to find that the character were building an inn a half days ride outside of town, and several laborers offered to help build it for free. (because of the free labor, the inn is only costing about 5,000 gp to build, this doesn’t include the land lease which is separate, nor the cost of buying supplies and hiring a staff).
(A note on the goblins in this adventure… all of the goblins that the characters faced where elite warrior 2’s)
A little over two weeks later (the inn is about half done), Larg and Amyra met up with a mysterious man from land of the frost barbarian. (Maliska had gone back to Greyhawk for extra supplies, and to try to find Turgon… in reality my wife had forgotten her character--Maliska at home, so she played Svendor who was originally slated to be an NPC this adventure). It seemed that Svendor had heard of the group from the citizens of Blackstone, and decided to approach them for help. Svendor’s sister’s fiancé was a paladin who served Pelor, and he had had a premonition of a great evil rising in one of the cairns near Blackstone, the paladin and his band had gone to confront the evil, leaving Svendor’s sister in Blackstone. They had been gone for a month with no word, and Borya had turned to Svendor for aid. Svendor had hurried to Blackstone from the free city as soon as he got word from his sister that she needed help, after learning what had transpired he resolved to find the fiancé and to that end set out looking for companions to help him, the towns folk of Blackstone quickly told him of the greatness of the player characters, and Svendors way was set.
Larg immediately offered his assistance when he heard Svendor’s tale, and Amyra (who thought Svendor was “cute”) agreed to go along also. The cairn was well known and had been plunderd countless times in the past, as it turned out it lay about 8 miles due south of where the inn was being built, close to the edge of the hills.
Bright and early the next morning the group mounted up and headed out toward the cairn. About half way there Amyra saw two worg mounted goblins watching them from a ridge about a half mile away, but the goblins rode off before the group could approach them. Three miles later they saw a large oak tree on top of a hill, hanging from its leafy branches was a corpse that looked to have been lynched. The party approached to make sure that it wasn’t the Paladin that they sought, and when they did so a goblin hiding in the tree cut the rope and the body fell into the middle of the group. The body had several sheeps bladders full of gas hidden beneath its ragged clothing and these burst when the body hit the ground causing the party and their mounts to have to save vs. poison… they all saved (except Amyra’s horse, which lost 6 points of Dex to the “goblin mist” (type: Inhaled, Fort Save DC 14, initial/secondary damage: Nausea for 1 minute/1d6 dex) Amyra saw the goblin in the tree and shot him out of it with her bow. After searching the goblins body they moved on.
When the party got to with in sight of the cairn they were attacked by the three worgs with goblin mounts (the two they had seen earlier and another one). The battle was quite lengthy, and the worgs inflicted some serious damage to the party until Amyra managed to get into flanking position for sneak attacks. This battle also marked the first time I had seen the spell “scorching ray used” and I was not overly impressed, Svendor missed the worg he used it on. After the fight Larg did some healing, and the party continued on into the cairn.
Inside they found a worg lair and killed a few more worgs, and found several rooms with small numbers of goblins in them. Then they came across a room with a large number of goblins in it, and charged in… they started getting their rears handed to them, and fell back into the hall, as the goblins kept pelting them with arrows Svendor read the scroll of fireball that he had (making the caster level check) and took care of the goblins in the room, the few survivors fled down one of the two other tunnels out of the room. Larg did some healing, and the party continued on, they followed the goblins that had fled and found them holed up in a dead end room that had been converted into a small armory… they took one of the goblins there captive and killed the rest in a furious melee, and then searched the armory (not finding much in the way of useful items, an they were all sized for goblins). Their prisoner offers to show them a secret treasure if they spared his life, they agreed and he took them back to the room that had been fireballed, in a corner untouched by the flames he opened a secret panel and spun around, to their horror the little guy was holding a neclace of fireballs (type 2) in his hands… Amyra jumped for him and a tug of war over the necklace ensued while Larg and Svendor ran for cover. Amyra managed to get the necklace away from the goblin with out anybody blowing up, and they shoved him in the secret niche (it was about the size of a locker) and closed him in.
They then headed off down the other corridor, they found a room with a worg in it, but when the went in to fight it they were attacked from above by the biggest goblin they had ever seen. It wasn’t realy a goblin, of course it was a Barghest, who had been leading the goblins here and feeding on adventurers who had come to the cairn. What followed was a very tough fight, with Barghest taunting them the whole time, during the fight he told them that he had killed and devoured the paladin. Svendor used scorching ray again in this fight (3 times, he hit the barghest with it twice and missed the worg with it once). The fight was brutal, and I don’t think that anybody had more then 4 hp left when it was over. After the Barghest and worg were slain Amyra found a secret door that lead to a secret tunnel, mid way along the tunnel was a locked chest and the gear of many adventurers (most of it non-magical, rusted and worthless) including that of Svendor’s sister’s fiancé. Inside the chest was the money that the berghest had taken from its victims (lots of copper and silver, but some gold as well, plus a couple of holy symbols and such). The party gathered the loot and headed back to Blackstone (well Svendor to Blackstone, and Larg and Amyra to the inn site). Svendor had to give the unhappy news to his sister, who wasn’t happy to hear it. The party left about half of the cairn unexplored, and that will come back to haunt them later, as the Barghest was not the evil that the paladin had the premonition about.
(I have decided that Svendor will stay around as an NPC who doesn't accompany the aprty on adventures... he will be availabe for use as a PC if anybody forgets thier character in the future, or somebody shows up unexpectedly).
Originally posted by cwslyclgh
I should be doing another update this week.
I will be waiting eagerly :D
Good continuation and go on!
What I do as a DM is to have, each session, a different player in charge of taking notes. Then he hands me the summary which I post in a web site.
Gabriel
www.uru-dnd.tk