Like before, i'll update this weekly.
Here is the first summary of what the story is so far, clipped from the "scooby do" thread:
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In my campaign, which has been going on for a while now, it is the year 1005. The Pcs at the moment are:
Sir Firearm: Avenger lv. 16 (of vanya)
Corwyn of Darokin: A cleric of Asterius Lv. 14 (i think)
Galafilus: A halfling from Karameikos, sheriff Lv. 8
Hathalon Mealidil: An Alfheim elf, lv. 8
Alendalan Callari: An elf of Karameikos Lv. 7
The PCs had started in 999 as a party of Karmeikan adventurers; of that original group only Firearm and Galifilus have been uniterrupted party members. Alendalan was also an original party member but had been petrified from 1000-1005, after an unfortunate cockatrice encounter.
The party started out in Threshold, went to the keep on the borderlands, did a bit more adventuring in Karameikos, then took a ship to Minrothad, in chase of the evil wizard Bargle, who had become their enemy. They ended up going to the Isle of Dread, and then sailed back via Ierendi to the Known World, eventually suffering a shipwreck near the black eagle barony.
It was 1000 by then, and Alendalan was petrified around that time. Later they got into a scrap involving having accidentally found, unwittingly carrying, and eventually losing an immortal artifact called a Powerstone, the power of which they never realized until after it was already lost (stolen by a treacherous party member who left them).
After this, and a lot of trouble running into very powerful people who mistakenly thought their party still had the stone, the gang travelled to the Five Shires, where they spent almost 2 years. Galafilus became the boyfriend to the sheriff Delune, and the party dedicated themselves to seemingly killing every last monster in the Shires. It was here that they met the Cleric of Asterius, and the Alfheim elf.
Finally in 1002 they left to Darokin, where they very quickly ended up falling through a gate in time, and ending up in the distant past long enough to witness the destruction of Blackmoor. The Cleric also met Asterius himself back when Asterius was still a mortal, as well as Rafiel, and would find out about the existence of the power source known as the Radiance. Warned that it could still exist, and endager all of the world, in their own time, the party returned to the present but ended up missing the target by a couple of years and ending up in 1004.
From there, they went to Darokin city, where they spent nearly the entire year training in weapons, magic, and making research to try to determine if the Radiance still existed, and if so where it could be found.
Based on some of this information they travel west to Akesoli, reaching the city in late 1004. By this time it is clear that there is about to be a war between Alphatia and Glantri, and their investigations in that city reveal to them that the Radiance is in fact somewhere in Glantri. In Akesoli, the PCs find the petrified body of Alendalan, and finally manage to de-petrify him.
However, in Communing with his immortal, the Cleric learns that apparently the party is meant to travel south, to the Atraughin plateau. They proceed to do so in early 1005, leaving just after they hear of the formal declarations of war between Alphatia and Glantri, Thyatis and the Heldann Freeholds. In the Atraughin lands they meet the friendly Atraughin tribes, whose Shaman tells them they that Atraughin has foretold of their coming and instructed the natives to guide the party to the "palace of Atraughin". They travel there, dispatching some monsters on the way and finding the strange head on top of the temple of atraughin, something the Shaman had mentioned to them.
Entering the head, they are jolted downwards, trapped in the head travelling for what seems like ages, until they arrive in a mysterious place, a jungle not unlike the one they left, but where the horizon curves upwards, there are floating islands in the sky, and a huge red sun.
That's where things are at up to now.
RPGpundit
How much are you sticking with the "official" time line and how much are you shaping things to your own plan ?
I'm almost entirely planning to follow the official timeline, except inasmuch as the PCs themselves change things.. if they were to (for whatever reason, and I certainly wouldn't give them one myself) decide to assasinate Duke Stefan Karameikos, then so be it, that would certainly change the timeline.
But essentially, I'm expecting the events of WoTI to play out as per book standard.
RPGpundit
Does your players know how things unfold, or will this be their first time ?
Its their first time. I'm in Uruguay, and Mystara never got here. so none of them have any idea what will be happening in the WoTI, nor do they know much about the setting, only what I've told them. So its been great fun to watch them "discover" the new places that they hadn't heard of, or had heard of but knew very little about.
RPGpundit
Did I mention I've also managed to get ahold of Cyclopedia, the entire Gazeteer Series, Dawn of the Emperors, Wrath of the Immortals, the Hollow World set & Hollow World "gazeteers" (Azcan, Nithia, and Milenian Empire), and the Princess Ark?
So basically, the entire setting.. there's enough there to last a good long while, which is a good thing because my gaming group is determine that we will play from level 1-36 and the immortality quest.
RPGpundit
I have some similiar players this time around. They know DragonLance
and Middle Earth fantasy only, and had never heard of Mystara. I told them about it and at first they weren't into it, they wanted Krynn of Tolkien. SO then... :lightbulb I realized that there are tons of comparisons of theose worlds and convinced them that Mystara is far more intricate and has the ability to include similiar situations and stories as those others, but not vice versa. I also told them they could play virtually any race, unlike those other settings. So they... :surrender and then once they starting looking into what races they could play, 
Mystara fans in the making.Im looking at starting a Hollow world game soon, if I can rally up the locals. It seems like a rather fresh thing. Im still hunting gazeteers on ebay
The Hollow World is a really cool setting. I've only used it once though, and it was when I ran the Blood Brethren Series (HWA1-3).
I think the Hollow World works alot better using native Hollow World characters though, because my players were only concerned about how to get out of the place instead of taking interest in the wonderful world they were travelling through.
I like the Lost world aspect of the HW and its cultures, but there are some other wierd elements that sort of bother me:
- Red Sun, giving everything a red hue
- Always day
- Weird horizons, makes descriptions funky
- Dinosaurs everywhere
- Spell of Preservation. This really got on my players nerves, how they really werent able to change anything. I guess I stressed this way too much last time, but next time I will probably more or less ignore it
Some weirdness is good, it gives the setting flavor, but too much of it can make the flavor get lost in weirdness. I think I'll downplay these other aspects in any upcoming HW campaign and emphasize on the Lost World feeling.
Also, a few cultures, mainly the Blacklore and the Gentle Folk tend to get portrayed as silly. They can be made into serious cultures, but it takes a bit of work.
You don't really need the HWR books. Using the HW box is more than you need to run a campaign there, but ofcourse the HWR series help add detail. Too bad only 3 of them were published. Mischa E Gelman made a few more though available at the Vaults.
Håvard
You don't really need the HWR books. Using the HW box is more than you need to run a campaign there, but ofcourse the HWR series help add detail. Too bad only 3 of them were published. Mischa E Gelman made a few more though available at the Vaults.
Håvard
Wait.. where exactly are you talking about? Where can I find the other parts of the HWR series???
RPGpundit
Wait.. where exactly are you talking about? Where can I find the other parts of the HWR series???
RPGpundit
The Official HWR series were:
- HWR1 Sons of Azca Campaign
- HWR2 Kingdom of Nithia
- HWR3 Milenian Empire
The following countries have been given Net HWRs:
- Hutaakan Valley , I guess I was also given some minor credit for this one.... :embarrass
- Jennite Horsemen
- Kogolor Dwarves
- http://pandius.com/krugelh.html
- Malpheggi Lizardmen
- Selhomarr Empire (unofficial nation)
- Tanagoro Plainsmen
More HW stuff can be found over at the Atlas section at www.pandius.com
EDIT: Tags fixed
Håvard
Of course, change may be difficult anyway, especially due to the increased xenophobia in the Hollow World. There is a definite disdain for foreigners present in most of the Hollow World cultures, which, while potentially interesting, can get to be a bit of a pain I think.
Sir Firearm's player was ill and could not attend, as such, very soon after arriving on the Hollow world he comes down with a very bad jungle illness, and falls into semi-consciousness.
The pcs spend a few hours getting used to their wierd surroundings, and discovering that some of their spells don't work.
Then one of them, with boots of levitation, flies up to get an aerial view, and sees only jungle, some lights across the bay to the south (he doesn't really know its south, since he can't orient himself here), a big swamp to the south and west, mountains to the north, and ocean to the east.
The pcs decide to go around the bay toward those lights.
After a day of travel they come across an abandoned camp, very recently abandoned. They theorize they are being watched, but fail to spot anyone.
That "night" (not really night in the HW, but when they're resting), they run into an old indian, deformed, and with some symbols the cleric identified as probably religious. He doesn't speak a word of common, but they make out that he belongs to a tribe called the Atrauhualco, and that he's impressed they came out of the ruins where the "head of atruatzin" resides. He warns them about the lights to the south, they make out that he thinks its a bad place, and that the people there follow Atzanteotl, who they already know as a bad dude. He also notices that two of the party are elves (calling them Tzevel), and implies that there are some elves in this world, far far to the west.
Based on that they decide to avoid going south, and head straight west instead.
They travel on for several days through the jungle. On another moment where the Halfling uses his boots to get an aerial view, he gets attacked by a Pteranodon. He and the cleric start wrestling with the pteranodon in the air, getting it to fall enough that the elf, who was a bit behind the others using Fly, could cast "charm monster"; figuring that it would be REALLY COOL to have a pteranodon mount to get them places faster. Unfortunately, after some wrestling, biting and fighting, they find out that Charm Monster doesn't appear to work in this world. With no other choice, they fight the monster till it crashes to the ground dying. At least they get some pteranodon meat for supper.
Continuing on, they skirt along the north of the swamp, following the course of a river. Up ahead they see a fort with the same kind of pyramid-architecture that the ruins of atraughin's palace had, but at that moment the magic metal-detecting sword tells them it detects metal in the swamp, and they decide to go their first. Making their way through the swamp, they find a bog with a huge tree. Inside the tree is a demon, who taunts them, and then charges out to attack. The Cleric casts dispel evil, the demon fails its save, and is banished back to the plane of entropy.
Finding very little treasure there (only some silver pieces and a wierd tablet), the pcs are told of more metal to the south (again by the sword), and follow it till they are eventually beset-upon by a party of faeries (who look like little winged aztec warriors). Trying to parley rather than fight, the pcs manage to communicate with the faeries that they killed the demon in the bog, and the faeries, suitably impressed, stop attacking and instead lead the pcs to their grove. There the Pcs meet the Faerie Queen herself, who appears as a woman of extreme beauty, based on what each pc imagines as extreme beauty. She speaks common, and expresses her gratitude for the work they have done ridding this swamp of the demon. She asks them for the tablets, warning them that the tablets contain a powerful entropic ritual. They choose to give it to her freely, and she rewards them by telling them a bit about the world, telling them where they are (the hollow world), what this place is (a kind of museum to preserve extinct cultures), and that there are people from the surface world here (a colony of Heldanners on one of the floating islands and a community of Alphatians deep in the jungles west of here, expressing her dislike of both groups). Finally, since the pcs are unable to teleport, and with her immortal magic she can do so, she agrees to help them by teleporting them near one of the two groups. They choose the Alphatians.
The party ends up in the jungle some distance from the colony, and they begin heading there. Along the way they run into a squad of Alphatians capturing a bunch of Nogai warriors to take them to Haldemar for "re-education". They reluctantly help the Alphatians (since the Alphatians are only capturing, not killing the natives), and take them back to Haldemar. Once there, they are interviewed extensively by the General in charge of the settlement, who determines that they are not agents of an enemy government, and he basically believes their story of how they got there. They manage to avoid pinpointing where on the surface world the mystic conveyor of atraughin is to be found, and because two of them were once hired as spies for Alphatia, the General agrees to let them stay in Haldemar, and send word (through the tunnel that links Haldemar to Aegos on the surface world) to the Empress herself about the PC's presence here.
In exchange, while they wait for the word to be sent and a response to arrive, the pcs are thuroughly debriefed about everything they know about Karameikos, the Shires, Darokin and Minrothad.
Hathalon also has an affair with a female skyship captain and goes flying; Galafilo hangs out with the halfling engineers, Alendalan learns how to make scroll paper, and Corwyn spends time talking to the chief cleric, whom he learns is deeply opposed to the use of Nogai slave labour. The cleric comes to trust Corwyn and expresses his feeling that his immortal wishes him to put an end to the abuse of the Neathar peoples.
After a few more days wait, while the only thing interesting that happens (other than Hathalon bonking the captain) is a Tyrannosaurus Rex hunt, the Head cleric confesses to Corwyn that he's done something drastic, and revealed the defences of Haldemar to the Heldannic Knights. He warns Corwyn because he thinks Corwyn is a fellow thinker, and offers to take the party with him in highjacking one of the digger machines used to build the Aegos-Haldemar tunnel and fleeing before the Heldanners arive. Corwyn refuses, but sensing the Cleric is only following what he believes to be the wishes of his immortal, he is reluctant to hand the cleric over to the General, so he gives him an hour to leave.
An hour later, just as Corwyn confesses everything to the General, several Heldannic warbirds de-cloak and bombard the town. Most of the Alphatian skyships are docked and get destroyed in the first attack. Only the Tyrant, Hathalon's captain-girlfriend's galleon, gets into the air on time.
The PCs get into action. Hathalon and a young leiutenant board one of the shuttle-boats and fly toward one of the Heldannic Warbirds, despite being totally overmatched. Corwyn, realizing there's no chief cleric present, takes over the sick bay. Galafilo initially helps the halflings turn around the lightning-bolt artillery on the defensive wall, and then joins Alendalan and a group of Alphatian commandoes in doing a "fly"-based boarding of one of the Warbirds.
The battle progresses. Hathalon gets close enough to one of the warbirds, avoiding its cannons as best he can, to allow the lieutenant to cast Web over one of the cannon turrets, causing it to explode and crippling the ship. Corwyn watches as the General singlehandedly downs another warbird with a meteor swarm, only to hear an explosion coming from the tunnel site. He and the general realize that the attack was a distraction while someone (presumably the Heldanners) sabotaged the tunnel, and they both run toward the site. There, while the General fights off a team of Knights, Corwyn gets into a long battle with the Knight-Cleric who led the strike team; its a tough battle but eventually he defeats the heldanner.
Galafilo and Alendalan board another warbird, fighting the knights on board, while Alendalan uses his rod of cancellation, cancelling the ship and causing it to come crashing down.
Between the PCs, the Tyrant, and the Halfling Lightning Artillery, they manage to turn the tide, and the two remaining Heldanner ships limp away.
But the damage has been done, the Tunnel that linked Haldemar with the outside world is destroyed, as are most of the Alphatian skyships. The general orders one of his officers to take the last remaining digger and start tunneling to the surface world, and he orders the captain of the Tyrant to fly through the skyshield; figuring one or both of them will be able to reach Alphatia and inform them of what happened here.
Since the PCs excelled in the battle, the general decides they can be trusted, and offers them the option to travel either with the digger or with the Tyrant, back to Alphatia. The pcs debate this, and decide to go on the Tyrant.
So ends this session.
RPGpundit
So ends this session.
RPGpundit
Cool!
I am going to have to steal some of these ideas for my campaign :D
:-) Jesper
All players were present, as such Sir Firearm recovered from his illness.
He awoke to find himself along with the other PCs on the Tyrant, an Alphatian skyship, heading straight up toward the polar regions in an attempt to get out of the Hollow World.
The PCs flew north at great speeds, over the course of several days passing through plains, hills, mountains, and finally Tundra.
There were precious few encounters along the way: A group of Pteranodons, destroyed by the alphatian boltmen; in the hills some beastmen, which they slew easily, finding little treasure.
Finally, after several days, they arrive at the polar regions. Magic doesn't work there, in the netherspace between the hollow world and the outer world, so the skyship was forced to land and the player characters had to walk alongside the alphatians, who set up a pulley system to drag the great skyship through the tundra in the darkness of the eternal night of the polar zone.
The immortal-made metal-detecting sword still worked, and helped to warn the PCs of the impending arrival of a heldannic warbird, also earthbound. Choosing to avoid combat with the powerful heldannic knights, the party moved on by another route.
Finally, they got far enough past the hollow world for magic to function again, and once more the skyship set to the skies.
The very next day the ship encounters a flight of Large Rocs, who they fight. Alendalan charms monster on one of them, taming it, and after the battle they fly down to the Rocs' nests. There they find that the Roc they had tamed had eggs, so Alendalan chose to leave the mother Roc there safely with her future children. They did take the considerable number of gems that were present though.
A while later, they ran into a group of gargoyles, which Hathalon did short work of with his Ice Storm, one of the new spells he'd learnt from the alphatians on the trip. They searched some ancient ruins the gargoyles were guarding, but whatever treasure had been there was long since gone.
A few days after that, Captain marakaz announced that they were in arctic waters near the known world, and the Tyrant sets course for Norwald and the Alphatian empire. Its Thaumont of 1005.
The Pcs at this point are:
Sir Firearm: Lv. 16 Avenger of Vanya
Corwyn: Lv. 17 Cleric of Asterius
Galafilo: Lv 8 Halfling sheriff
Hathalon: Lv. 9 Alfheim Elf
Alendalan: Lv. 8 Karameikan Elf
That's it for this week.
RPGpundit
The party was flying on the Tyrant, headed toward Alpha, some of the crew teleported ahead to Alphatia while the ship made its way. The PCs were mostly taking it easy, as there was nothing but ocean below at the moment.
They were, that is, until Alendalan decided that he wanted to polymorph into a walrus and explore the ocean.
No sooner does he drop down there than his swimming draws the attention of a giant great whale, that promptly swallows him alive, and digests him to death.
When the other PCs notice Alendalan isn't coming back, they launch the rescue. The players use the metal seeking sword to find where Alendalan is at, and it ends up leading them to the whale.
Galafilo takes the initiative, and jumps down to attack the massive beast. He hits, but then the whale swallows him alive too!
Corwyn goes second, and jumps down to try to cast Poison on the whale, but activates his boots of levitation a little too late, and ends up hitting the water at terminal velocity, dying instantly.
Sir Firearm drops next, cautiously, ready to singlehandedly do battle with the whale.
Meanwhile, Galafilo, still alive but being digested, decides there's too much risk of a TPK (Total Party Kill), and uses their old Ring of Wishes (that had only one wish left). He wishes for everyone to be back on board the ship, safe and sound.
They all end up alive, healed and on board the Tyrant; except Hathalon (whose player hadn't arrived yet); he ended up mysteriously disappearing (not to conveniently reappear until his player arrives).
Following that total bust the players are told by the captain that they are forbidden to do any more ocean exploration.
A few days later, the Tyrant finally gets past the arctic ocean and flies over an island, nondescript, with only cold semi-frozen plains and a pair of mountains.
Nevertheless, the sword detects metals down there, so away the players go. They were told by the captain that the isle doesn't even have a name, and this region is totally uninhabited by humanoid beings, so whatever is down there is probably quite old and powerful.
The pcs get to a bog at the base of the mountain, and find a cave surrounded by a greenish fungus. Wandering in, one of the Elves determines that the fungi are a poisonous mushroom common in areas where there is a high level of chlorine gas.
They get to the interior of the cave, whose floor is filled with the green mushrooms. Sir Firearm uses his detect evil ability and senses evil all around him!
So he and Galafilo, after being hasted by Alendalan, decide to start madly hacking at the mound of green mushrooms beneath their feet. To their surprise acidic green blood spurts out all around them and the mound beneath their feet starts to spasm.. its not a mound at all but a great Green dragon. So old that its back was covered with the mushrooms. Galafilo and Sir Firearm's mighty blows are so powerful that they kill the creature.
Everyone is getting ready to celebrate and check out all the loot when the OTHER huge green dragon rears its head up and breathes gas on the group!
Alendalan dies instantly. The others are all badly wounded. Fortunately the players get the initiative, and being hasted they manage to quickly strike down the second dragon.
They find an astounding treasure trove of coins, giant rubies, emeralds, and a large cache of magic items: scrolls of communication, a returning warhammer +2/+4 vs. dragons, a Plate mail +4, and a Sword +2 that turns out to be intelligent and able to detect traps, secret doors and see invisible.
Returning to the ship, the cleric reads his scroll of raise dead to restore Alendalan to life for the second time in one adventure, and as a result Alendalan will need two weeks of bedrest. The Cleric decides now is a good a time as any to cast Restore and return a long-lost drained level to Sir Firearm, and so doing, the cleric too will be out of action for the next 9 days.
The sword, being chaotic, is passed over to Alendalan, who is both chaotic and in need of a sword, unbeknownst to the PCs the sword is more mentally powerful than the elf and is now dominating the Elf's psyche. Since the Sword was an artifact of Valerias, immortal of love, this shouldn't be too terrible a thing, right? :wink:
The Tyrant keeps going on the long treck to Alpha, and the PCs rest and recover. At that point in the evening the player of Hathalon arrives, so Hathalon mysteriously appears again, back from wherever the ring of wishes took him.
One note about Raphael, the guy who plays Hathalon: The other players have decided that Raphael is somehow an anti-treasure shield. Any time Raph hasn't made it to the game, the group has had some kind of massive encounter, usually with dragons, and taken a ton of treasure (and therefore xp). Then when Raph is around they can travel for leagues with no big encounters or big encounters with no big treasure.
Tonight became an unbelievable example of this. For the first half of the evening, when Raph wasn't there, the PCs ran into the dragons and got more treasure than they had ever managed to before in the entire campaign. After Raph arrived, they got squat...
Except for a short encounter with some Stone Giants. Detecting metal below (after Corwyn and Alendalan are fully recovered), they fly down to the primitive stone huts only to have boulders thrown at them by the three mighty stone giants. The pcs land and make short work of them, and Hathalon goes to check out the huts. He runs into the giant's Cave Bear pet, but sir Firearm rushes in and quickly slaughters it. Sadly, they find no great treasure there, only about five grand in gold pieces.
However, the sword senses more metals and the pcs go to investigate. They get to an area that is much colder than the already cold environment, and end up facing an Ice Salamander. It takes them a while to take it down, but again, no great treasure horde.
After that, they have no further encounter till Alpha. They arrive at Alpha late in the night, and are taken to a meeting with King Ericall. Along the way the PCs learn that the biggest news item in the last few months they've been gone from the known world is that the kingdom of Sind has been invaded by someone the alphatians call the "Master of Hule". The PCs know nothing about Hule or its master, and the alphatians don't know much either, but since Sind is right on the border with Darokin the PCs reason that this can't be a good development.
Captain Marakaz of the Tyrant is sent in to speak with King Ericall alone. While she's gone the crafty counsellors of Ericall try to grill the PCs as to where they had travelled, but the PCs, wisely figuring that these guys probably aren't supposed to know about the Hollow World, choose to play dumb. "we came from Darokin, in a roundabout way", they say.
Marakaz comes out of the meeting looking upset and angry, and tells the PCs that they are leaving immediately for Sundsvall, to meet the Emperess. After they get back on the Tyrant, she rants about Ericall's stupidity, and his intent to try to order her to deviate the Tyrant from its mission just to help him defend Landfall from a Heldannic attack he's sure is forthcoming. Marakaz rightfully reasons that what she has to tell the Emperess is far more important than that, and that Ericall is a small-minded fool. Unfortunately, like most Alphatians she associates his stupidity with his lack of magic-using abilities, giving the Pcs a taste of the standard Alphatian prejudices.
The tyrant takes off, heading for the continent of Alphatia.
RPGPundit
The pcs have just left Alpha, heading across the Sea of Dawn toward Alphatia.
The trip takes 5 days, during which time there really isn't any serious action; Alendalan practices his scroll-making skills, Hathalon makes whoopie with Captain Marakaz, and the others mostly sulk from lack of combat.
They head for Trollhattan, passing a little too close to Alphak's Volcano on the way. There they run into a swarm of Robber Flies, which some heavy spellfire makes short work of.
Making it to Trollhattan the pcs are shocked by the wierdness of Alphatian culture (especially the culture of Trollhattan), but adapt as best as possible. Before touching down, Capt. Marakaz had warned Galafilo and Sir Firearm that as non-magic users they would be treated as second-class lifeforms; she also warns the party as a whole that Trollhattan is largely populated by spellcasting monsters and even the undead, and that all of these beings are legal citizens of Alphatia, who should NOT be killed for the loot!
The majority of the PCs choose to stay in the ship that night, rather than risk injuring some kind of Alphatian cultural taboo. But the two elves, as usual, choose curiosity over security. Hathalon takes Marakaz out to an expensive Ogrish restaurant, while Alendalan meets a group of Dryad chicks and takes them out to "Vlad's", a hot nightclub ("don't worry", he's told, "Vlad's not a vampire.. he's just a Lich").
:heehee
Hathalon only has a night-time encounter with a rogue Mummy, who he and Capt. Marakaz dispatch with little difficulty.
But Alendalan, after a night of wining and dining the ladies, finds himself having to pay a large bar-tab without any Alphatian currency. He manages to reach an accord with Vlad, paying him with a +2 Sword instead of money.
But it turns out the Dryads were just playing Alendalan, they let him walk them to the palatial estate of "their lady" and then bid him goodnight. Alendalan feels suckered, but is about to bow out gracefully anyways, when his intelligent sword (crafted by Valerias) decides that Alendalan must find love; so the sword takes control of Alendalan's mind, and therefore the character.
When the rest of the PCs wake up the next day they find out that Alendalan did not come back that night. After a bit of investigation, they discover that Alendalan tried to illegally break into the palace of the king and queen of Limn, and has been detained by the Ministry of Homeland Defence on suspicion of being a Thyatian spy.
They set about a plan to get him out, by hiring Korg, the brilliant Ogre-Mage/Lawyer ("he's multi-class!"), to try to get Alendalan out. Korg declares that he laughs at the MHD, and swears to the PCs that "Korg will free your puny elf-friend!".
While Sir Firearm and Corwyn were exchanging money to pay for Korg, Hathalon and Galafilo went to the University of Trollhattan to have a chat with a Gold Dragon who teaches history there. He's a friendly sort of guy, and invites them back to his tower (A twenty-story building with 19 floors of loot!) for tea and conversation. They have a very pleasant time, learn a few useful things about Blackmoor and the history of Glantri, and manage to trade some trinkets they picked up at the hollow world for alphatian currency and a bag of holding.
Once that's done, the whole party heads off to the detention camp where Alendalan is being held. He is interrogated as a suspected spy, and the Alphatians let slip that even though Alendalan appears to be telling the truth, they no longer trust their truth-detecting magic, since the Glantrian assasins who killed General Torenal, and the ones who destroyed the Temples of Asterius and eventually destroyed Aasla also got unclear results from truth-detection. The MHD suspects that the Glantrians have some kind of artifact that thwarts truth-detecting magic.
Korg gets to make his case before a magistrate, and the PCs await nervously, but finally Kort returns proclaiming Victory!
He managed to convince the "puny judge" that the "puny Elf's" sword had dominated him, and since the sword is both intelligent and magic-using it should be the one detained, and not Alendalan.
As such, Alendalan is freed, but loses his just-acquired intelligent sword. Plus, the fact that just a day earlier he had given away his other magic sword means that he's reduced to using his normal sword (of continual light); pretty sad for a tenth level elf.
Capt. Marakaz orders the Tyrant to make way to Shiye Lawr immediately, en route to Sundsvall. The PCs say their thank-yous and goodbye's to Korg, and head off.
The next day they are flying over the mountains toward Alfleish when Alendalan spots a gargoyle trying to hide from the Tyrant. The Alphatians mention that its probably part of a gang of rogue (masterless) gargoyle bandits who have been causing trouble in that region.
The PCs decide to go down and investigate.
They get down there, and get into combat with five gargoyles, which they dispatch quickly. They head into the cave where the gargoyles made their hideout, but suddenly hear a rumbling up ahead of them.
They see, making its way toward them, a Gargantuan Gargoyle!
The PCs rush back to the mouth of the cave, Hathalon fires a lightning bolt, and Alendalan casts Conjure Elemental to get an earth elemental to start fighting the Gargoyle.
Corwyn casts dispel evil, but the gargoyle makes its save.
But then Sir Firearm rushes in. He is hasted, thanks to the spell Hathalon cast earlier. In one round, he drops the massive beast.
(this, by the way, has convinced me that I'm going to have to start pitting them against seriously tougher opponents)
The PCs find a bit of loot, only a few thousand gps worth, a potion of dreamspeach, and a +2 dagger of silencing.
They travel on, and the next night arrive in the city of Alfleish.
So ends this session.
RPGPundit
.Anyway, i'm hooked. I wanna know what happend next.
He put down a Gargantuan Gargoyle in 1 round? Wow that is a tough dude.
Well, he put down a gargantuan gargoyle in 1 round with grand mastery in longsword, and while under "Haste".
Sir Firearm when hasted is a force of nature. Mightier than a force of nature, actually.
RPGpundit
The PCs continued in their journey to Sundsvall, it was another four days of flying from Alfleish, but uneventful. Except that it was Alendalan's birthday en route, and they had a huge party where yet again Sir Firearm fell grossly ill.
"The man has unpierceable skin, but a pathetic digestive system"
(yes, once again sir Firearm's player was not around, so I wrote him out).
When they get to Sundsvall, the Empress wishes to speak with the party members, and by party members she means the spellcasters in the group.
They tell her about how they got to the Hollow World, the mystic conveyor of Atraughin, figuring its safe enough to assume that it won't be an easy means of travel for the Alphatians, since the conveyor seems to work only as Atraughin wishes. They also tell Eriadna about the Radiance, and she expresses great interest in the whole story. The players do choose to hide the fact that through Commune they've been able to pinpoint the exact location of the Radiance, figuring that it would be dangerous if Alphatia decides it wants this powerful artifact for itself.
Finally, the council debates what it wants to do with the PCs. While this goes on Master Terari has some interesting discussions with the PCs, he seems particularly interested in Karameikos.
When the council reconvenes, the Empress announces that she has reached the decision that since the PCs themselves expressed that they don't wish other people to know about the hollow world (since the PCs feel its the immortal's wishes that the H.W. be presevered as a "museum"), she feels it is safe enough to allow them to leave. But just to be extra careful, she has them all Geased to be unable to reveal anything about the hollow world to the outside world.
After that she givest he Pcs the options of leaving by sea or leaving by teleportation to a location of their choice. The PCs choose to leave by teleportation, to Akesoli. Hathalon says a sad goodbye to Captain Marakaz, who tells the PCs that the Tyrant's next assignment is to the Isle of Dawn, where both Alphatia and Thyatis are heavily mobilizing forces.
The PCs are all teleported straight to Akesoli, except Alendalan who wishes to make a quick stop off at Trollhattan to say goodbye to Vlad the Lich. Master Terari was an old schoolmate of Vlad's back when Vlad was alive, and decides to accompany and escort Alendalan. Alendalan says his goodbyes, and takes the opportunity to make a quick stop at a liquor store and buy some wierd Alphatian Liquors (like Arrhelm's Unction of Madness, Slothrob's Creamy Explosion, and Brother Abelard's Total P*ss-Up).
When the PCs arrive in Akesoli they realize that Sir Firearm is missing. Apparently there was a malfunction in his teleport and he's ended up in another plane (again, since the player wasn't here). The PCs are suspiciously unworried for him, and head to their favourite tavern in Akesoli. They find that Akesoli has greatly changed since their last visit. Since the Master of Hule invaded Sind, Akesoli has turned into a fortified town, with a garrison of Darokinian troops placed there, and all of the good rooms at the inn taken. The prices of everything has gone up radically too, as merchants engage in profiteering off the fear that the Master might attack Darokin too.
The PCs decide to try a drop (literally) each of Brother Abelard's Total P*ss-Up, and within five minutes they're all on the floor of tavern singing songs about goblins. Alendalan goes blind, but not before projectile vomiting all over hathalon. Eventually they all pass out.
The next day Corwyn casts Cure Blindness to restore Alendalan's sight, and they buy the supplies they need to head on the journey to Darokin City. They head out that same day, hoping to run into some monsters and loot along the way.
But they get to Fort Anselbury without any encounters other than a band of berserker paladins headed off to fight the Master. Fort Anselbury is also changed from their last visit; its got tents of Darokinian legions parked outside the fort, and it seems the troop complement here has doubled since their last visit.
They continue the journey, reaching Akorros still without any encounter. Akorros has only changed slightly, its population swollen by citizens of Akesoli who've decided to move to the safer end of Lake Amsorak. Bored out of their skulls, the PCs decide that instead of continuing on the highway to Darokin they'll take the longer route through the hills, hoping that in the rougher wilderness they'll run into a few enemies with loot.
They step off the beaten path and for a few hours it seems like their plan might not work. Alendalan gets so desperate that he starts to bash his swords together, making a terrible clanging noise, and no sooner does he do so than eight (8!) fire salamanders come out of the hills to attack! The PCs lose the initiative, and the Fire Salamanders charge forward, doing serious damage from the heat they emanate. Serious enough that Galafilo falls! Corwyn grabs him quickly and levitates with his boots, while casting a cure serious wounds. The other pcs follow Corwyn's lead, and fly out of the salamander's range, then go on to blast the Salamanders into oblivion.
They find the path back to the salamander's lair, and find it too hot to enter; so Alendalan Polymorphs himself into a fire salamander and heads in. He finds a pool of magma, goes for a swim, and fishes up three very pretty gems, which the PCs later learn to be very valuable sunstones.
That night, they are attacked by a pair of Were-tigers and their Tiger pets, which take the party by surprise. They beat the monsters easily, but Galafilo took a nasty bite, so Corwyn casts a Cure Disease on him just to be careful.
They get to a small town nestled between the hills, and Corwyn casts a Commune spell where he finds out that the Alphatians are watching them, almost certainly to try to find out the location of the Radiance. This will seriously complicate things for them if they want to do something about this artifact.
The PCs keep going, and in the next couple of days get to Darokin City. The house that Corwyn, Galafilo and Sir Firearm had bought is still there and in good shape, so the PCs move in, and decide they will wait for Sir Firearm's return there, making plans to spend some time training, making items, and other things before deciding what if anything to do about the Radiance.
Its now early Klarmont 1005. Corwyn is 20th level, Hathalon and Alendalan are both 10th level, and Galafilo is 8th. And Sir Firearm, if I recall correctly, is 19th.
RPGpundit
The PCs decide to try a drop (literally) each of Brother Abelard's Total P*ss-Up, and within five minutes they're all on the floor of tavern singing songs about goblins. Alendalan goes blind, but not before projectile vomiting all over hathalon. Eventually they all pass out.
:heehee
Classic!
More !!
Aww.. don't cry. There'll be another update on Monday night, and after every game.. promise!
RPGpundit
The PCs found themselves in Darokin City, and decided to spend the next 12 weeks living there (in the house owned by Corwyn), training their weapon slots, and trying to work on the construction of a few magic items.
Besides that Galafilo and Corwyn started work on their future dominions, Corwyn securing permission to start a monastery/temple just outside of his birthtown of Mar. Galafilo had long ago gained permission to move his clan from Threshold (Karameikos) to Heartshire (in the Five Shires) and start a new town, and he now sent word to his clan to get ready to move, and confirmed that the site he had chosen in Heartshire was still available.
Corwyn also has enough income to become Elite "Platinum" Class, the "aristocracy" of plutocratic Darokin, and joins the Merchant's Guild in preparation to start his own Merchant company.
When the group gets back together and is ready to go, they prepare to travel south to Mar, where they'll clear out the hex that the Darokinian government granted to Corwyn. In the interim, Galifilo bought himself a trained Hippogrif, transported all the way from Thyatis, and Alendalan made himself a Surfboard of Flying. Thus, between that and some creative uses for rope and boots of levitation, the party heads out flying toward Mar.
On their first night out the party is attacked by a pair of very large Wyvern. They manage to kill the creatures, but not before Galafilo's hippogrif is very badly wounded. It turns out that Wyverns were some of the monsters that Alphatian wizards have been teleporting to Glantri to wreak havoc with Glantri's infrastructure and hamper their war effort. Only these two managed to fly away south into Darokin. The party learns this when Corwyn casts Find The Path to try to discover the Wyvern's lair only to learn that their lair is not on this continent.
The PCs continue heading south the next day and end up detecting (with the help of the metal-detecting sword) a community of Goblins who've set up camp in the hills north of the Malpheggi Swamp. The goblins (about thirty of them) initially threaten the party, declaring that their mighty chief is "almost Expert Level". When the PCs retort that they're Companion level, the Goblins nearly **** their pants with fear. The PCs realize that the goblins aren't worth killing, they don't even have magic items, so they scare the Goblins into retreating back into the swamps from whence they came, and go on their way.
That same night, the PCs are attacked by surprise by a band of brigands. Hathalon wipes them all out with a single Ice Storm. These brigands turn out to be carrying a great deal of loot with them, more than would be expected. The PCs are left wondering about this, but happy for the find.
They move on the next day, and again the metal-detecting sword goes off, pointing the PCs toward the hills near Mar, but off the main road. There they find a makeshift fortress, headquarters of the brigand band of which those men were just scouts. There's 160 men holed up there, a small army of bandits clearly there to raid the mountain pass between the Shires and Darokin. In their lead is a 9th level fighter, three 5th level lieutenants of his, an 11th level wizard, and an 8th level cleric! They're armed to the teeth with weapons and magic.
The Wizard gets the first hit in, blasting the entire party with a Fireball, when they're still out of arrow range. The party moves in, and with combination attacks manage to kill the wizard before he can do any more damage. The warriors try to hit Hathalon, Alendalan and Corwyn with slingshots, and the enemy cleric tries to rush to save the wizard, but Corwyn blocks his path with a Barrier.
The brigands then let loose with a sea of arrows, enough to drop Galafilo who falls on the wall near the cleric.
Alendalan summons a Fire Elemental to start killing off the brigands, while Hathalon flies down to the wall to use a potion of healing on Galafilo. Sir Firearm sets loose on the warriors, killing the Brigand chief.
Corwyn finishes the job of healing Galafilo, but then the cleric hits Hathalon and drops him. Sir Firearm takes down the other fighters, and Alendalan directs the Fire Elemental in a gross slaughter of the mooks.
Galafilo isn't having much luck with the Cleric, but Corwyn heals up Hathalon and Hathalon blasts the cleric with a lightning bolt. The cleric desperately fires off hold person spells at the three, but they make their saves and finally Corwyn cuts the cleric down.
With all their leadership dead and no way to stop the Fire Elemental the remaining brigands run for the hills and disperse.
The PCs find droves of treasure, which they proceed to identify the next day, when they at last get into Mar. They find a +5 shield, a ring of spell turning, some +1 leather armors, a couple of +2 chain mails, a +3 warhammer, a +2 sword, an amulet of protection from ESP and Crystal Balls, and a potion of invisibility.
They draw lots for the ring of spell turning, which everyone wants, and it turns out Galafilo wins. But when Alendalan (who'd done the analyze) moves to take the ring off and give it to Galafilo he finds that he can't! The ring appears to be cursed.
Alendalan is confused but not immediately worried. When he tries to cast remove curse the next day, and the ring stays on, and eats all his remaining memorized spells, then he panics! Its the dreaded Ring of Spell Eating! Until its removed by a 25th level spellcaster, the ring will eat all memorized spells the moment he casts his first spell. Essentially, the cursed ring has reduced Alendalan to being able to cast only one spell a day!
With that difficult scenario, we pause for the day, with the party still having to clear out Corwyn's future temple site, and planning on taking a trip (to either Corunglain or Thyatis city) to try to get the curse lifted.
RPGPundit
The PCs continue heading south the next day and end up detecting (with the help of the metal-detecting sword) a community of Goblins who've set up camp in the hills north of the Malpheggi Swamp. The goblins (about thirty of them) initially threaten the party, declaring that their mighty chief is "almost Expert Level". When the PCs retort that they're Companion level, the Goblins nearly **** their pants with fear. The PCs realize that the goblins aren't worth killing, they don't even have magic items, so they scare the Goblins into retreating back into the swamps from whence they came, and go on their way.
:heehee
:heehee
THat goblin part is too funny. My bloodthirsty party would have massacred them for the tidbit of xp they would get and to make sure they didn't harm anyone else. At least that would be their excuse. :P
I love the cursed ring part too. That is too wicked. ;)
In any case, Sir Firearm was called up by the temple of Vanya, and had to leave to join the Avengers of Vanya in defending the borders of Darokin.
Meanwhile, Hathalon was slipped a shot of Brother Abelard's Total P*ss-Up by Alendalan, and became violently ill for the duration of the session.
So the Party at the moment is just Galafilo (8th level Halfling Sheriff), Corwyn (21st level Cleric of Asterius) and Alendalan (10th level Karameikan Elf Lord-Wizard).
Speaking of Alendalan, he used his one spell per day to teleport to Darokin city, found a cleric there who was high enough level to help him, and paid 60k gold pieces and had to hand over the ring as the price for his Remove Curse. But Alendalan did it willingly, and then teleported back safe and sound to Mar.
The trio then decided to go and spend the next two weeks thruroughly cleaning out the hex where Corwyn will be building his temple. They marched over there, and started looking for monster activity.
Within a few days, the metal-seeking sword alerts them to some metals up in one mountain, and they head up there. Getting to the entrance of a cave, Corwyn detects a trap at the cave entrance, and Alendalan uses a wizard eye to look inside the cave. There he sees a few goblin watchmen in what appears to be a goblin lair. The PCs decide a goblin trap can't be all that dangerous, and not having a thief with them they can't really do anything about it, so they march up to the mouth of the cave, which promptly explodes and injures all of them.
At that point the goblins are alerted and come rushing out, droves of them. They are fairly intelligent for their species but make the mistake of erroneously thinking the PCs are low-level (because Alendalan's first spell is a magic missle, which only injures two of them). The Goblins get in close formation to shoot arrows, and that's when Alendalan fries them all with a fireball.
They go into the dungeon, and find that in the guard room there is a secret door that leads down into a cave. With his wizard eye, Alendalan sees that the cave floor is filled with bones, and seems to have a small exit.
They go down there to check it out, and once there Galafilo notices that a particular rock is slowly moving toward them. Out of the rock pokes a head, and the PCs realize they are confronting a dreaded Giant Snail! One of the most dangerous monsters in existence (I kid you not) !
The PCs try to attack it and see they have little impact, so they make a run for it just as the snail makes its Acid Spit attack. Barely avoiding it, they thank the immortals that the exit is too small for the gargantuan Snail to escape from, it must have been grown inside the cave.
They double back again to the guard post, and head from there to the main chamber of the Goblins. Its full of goblin women and cubs, and the PCs don't really want to slaughter them, but Corwyn must get rid of them if he's to be able to declare this hex clear for habitation.
They ask if anyone speaks Common. One old crone steps forward and says she does. They tell her that the men of the tribe are all dead, and that the women and children must now leave this place forever. The Crone responds that the King yet lives, and that they must obey his order to stay and die. But, she quickly adds, they must only obey his order as long as the King lives.. "he's in there.." she points to a door.
Alendalan summons Carlitos, his Earth Elemental (yes, he started naming them), to go in and kill the king and his bodyguard. The Earth Elemental does just that with little fanfare, and the women and children now prepare to leave. "But beware" says the old crone, "the Mighty Gary The Destroyer will take revenge upon you all".
The PCs ransack the king's room first, looking around they find only a few electrum pieces. But behind his shrine there's a secret panel, with what the pcs suppose to be the handle for a secret door leading to the treasure room. They tug on it, but unfortunately the handle was actually a lever of some kind, and the entire mountain shakes for a few seconds. The PCs are ready for anything, but nothing more happens. Confused, they keep searching and finally find the "treasure room". Its empty except for one item, a beautiful crown of gold with jewels encrusted upon it, looking extremely valuable. Corwyn fails to correctly appraise its wealth, but Galafilo notices that the crown has Dwarvish runes upon it. He figures that sometime down the road a trip to Rockhome will be in order.
The PCs camp there for the night, and in the morning, more prepared, they decide to face off against the Giant Snail. But when they go back down to the cave they find that the outer wall has caved-out and widened, and the Snail is gone. That's what the lever did, and the Snail must be Gary the Destroyer. They see a trail of slime headed in the direction of Mar.
Flying quickly (Galafilo on his Hippogrif, the others on Alendalan's Surfboard of Flying), they catch up to the slow-moving Snail, and try to stay out of the range of its spit while throwing spells and missle attacks at it. Its remarkably resistent to most forms of damage, and the battle is quite drawn out, especially once Gary digs underground, making a tunnel. Finally Alendalan ducks down there while invisible and fires a magic missle, rushing back out again on his board (he's the Sylvan Surfer, you know). Then Galafilo collects a huge pile of leaves, throws it into the hole and sets fire to the whole thing.
The PCs wait for a time, but finally one of them bravely checks, and sees that Gary is finally definitely dead. The fight happened in a lovely valley in between the mountains, and Corwyn decides his temple will be built here, and it will be called Gary's Demise.
The PCs carry on with their hex-clearing. They later run into Smiley the Barbarian, who has been living in a mud-and-stick hut in the mountains for the last three years, ever since the PCs witnessed him and his band of men getting their asses kicked by huge blue dragon the PCs later killed. Smiley was the only survivor of his party, and since he has the No Direction Sense skill he had been running around in circles in the same hex for the last three years, only a few hour's walk from Mar. When Galafilo's hippogrif walks up Smiley assumes its a wandering monster and nearly kills it (Smiley is a grand master with his 2-Handed Sword +4 named "Wee Bonnie"), and to stop Galafilo and Smiley from going at each other, Corwyn tells Alendalan to fly Smiely back to Mar. Alendalan does so, but before flying back he offers Smiley a cupfull of Brother Abelard's Total **** Up. "Sgot a bit of a sting to it", says Smiley, just before passing out cold.
Carrying on.
The subsequent night, during the second watch, Galafilo spots an oncoming huge Red Dragon, and warns the others just in time. Galafilo has 90% hide in wilderness, and Alendalan casts invisibility, leaving Corwyn as a very visible target. The Dragon swoops in and attacks the Cleric, dropping him, and Galafilo attacks the Dragon while Alendalan fires an arrow of curing at Corwyn bringing him back to conciousness, and then fires a lightning bolt at the dragon. The Dragon, an unintelligent variety, then charges Alendalan and nearly rends him to bits. Galafilo keeps at the dragon with his hand axe, and Corwyn stands ready. Alendalan desperately casts Conjure Elemental and summons up an Air Elemental to distract and attack the dragon, while Alendalan scampers up a tree to hide. The dragon takes to the air to attack the elemental and as he does so Corwyn casts Barrier, making the dragon fly through and take serious damage, but the dragon lays some serious harm on the air elemental too. Galafilo and Corwyn keep bashing it while its distracted by the bigger menacing elemental, and the Dragon breathes fire on the Elemental killing it. Galafilo makes another palpable hit on the dragon, Alendalan a magic missle volley, and finally Corwyn drops it with his Dagger of Returning.
The next day Corwyn does a Find a Path to the dragon's lair, on top of an extinct volcano. Wisely, Alendalan does a wizard eye, and he sees another red dragon, the first one's mate, asleep in the lair. The three wait outside the lair while Alendalan summons up Carlitos the Earth Elemental to go in and hit it. Carlitos hits the dragon, but she hits back, and then decimates it with its breath weapon. The PCs just wait, at ready. The Dragon smells them, and flies out of its lair entrance, right into Corwyn's barrier, taking serious damage. But it breathes on Alendalan, killing him. Corwyn and Galafilo hit the beast, but on its next round the Dragon cuts Galafilo to pieces, killing him too!
Now only Corwyn is left. He drops a hundred feat and reactivates his boots of levitation hard, and the Dragon comes swooping down to get him. But Corwyn had a second Barrier memorized, and the dragon crosses it fatally. Even so, Corwyn is almost impacted by the falling dragon carcass. Corwyn quickly scoops up all the massive treasure in the cave, and flies back to Mar with Galafilo and Alendalan's corpses.
Once back there, he sees that the town is badly damaged! Apparently, Smiley woke up, still in a drunken haze he mistook the town for an orc encampment, went apeshit and destroyed much of the town in an orgy of killing and projectile vomiting before running like a madman back for the hills. :D
Corwyn casts Raise Dead on his two teammates, and they spend the next two weeks in bedrest while Corwyn trains himself to basic level with the sling, and finishes up some details of the construction of his stronghold.
When the PCs are recovered, they head back to the adjacent hex to finish the clearing out process, pausing only long enough for Galafilo to pick up some special barding for his vulnerable Hippogrif.
The rest of the clearing out process is pretty straightforward. The PCs only encounter one valley with a tribe of Centaurs. The Centaurs are semi-barbaric, and end up being of neutral disposition. Corwyn reaches an agreement with him that his people will leave them alone in their valley, and in exchange they won't attack or raid his stronghold.
The PCs head back to Mar, and Corwyn commisions the Engineers to start the 14-month long building process for his temple. They are preparing to head back to Darokin City to hire some more experts for his stronghold, when the news arrives: The Master of Hule has invaded Darokin along the Western Border! Akesoli is being besieged! Darokin is at WAR!
That's it for today.
The PCs are:
Sir Firearm (19th level Fighter Lord Avenger of Vanya)
Corwyn (24th level Cleric of Asterius)
Galafilo (8th Level Halfling Sheriff)
Alendalan (10th Level Karameikan Elf Wizard Lord)
Hathalon (10th Level Alfheim Elf Wizard Lord)
RPGPundit
Love the stories, please keep them coming!
:-) Jesper
I'm surprised they didn't die more against those Red Dragons. I also love the name of that snail. Gary. Any relation to the underwater meowing variety? :D
Indeed there is. There are plans for a future encounter with a Gargantuan Pink Starfish that goes on a rampage and smashes up Shireton.
RPGPundit
Any chance of a diabolical piece of plankton taking over Ierendi? Or a magical ocean-going vessel known as the Hassalhoff?
Now that would just be silly.
I, Sir, am running a SERIOUS campaign here! ;)
RPGPundit
It is entertaining so far.
The group this time was Corwyn (C24 of asterius); Alendalan (E10, karameikan), Hathalon (E10, alfheim), Galafilo (H8) and Li Ho (Mystic 6). The latter had played exactly one game several months back, had to quit for girlfriend related issues, and is now back!
The PCs are in Mar, having just heard of the invasion of the Master of Hule. They decide there's not much they can do about it and prepare to head to the Five Shires as they had planned, to clear out Galafilo's planned dominion hex. THey're eager to get there before the 22nd of eirmont, as its the winter festival then, and Halflings really know how to party.
But first, Corwyn travels up to Darokin city, to settle a few more details about his dominion construction. There, he is surprised with how militarized the city has become. He buys a +2 sling, and manages to get a dwarf to translate the runic inscription that was on the crown he'd found last adventure. turns out its the lineage and titles of a Dwarvish king who lived some two thousand years ago.
Meanwhile, Alendalan is sent back to Threshold by Galafilo (via teleport) to send money to Galafilo's clan who live there, and get them ready to travel to the five shires. He does so with little difficulty, visiting his own mom while she's there, and then heads back to Mar.
Meanwhile, Li Ho, the Ochalean monk, has heard that the Cleric Corwyn is back in Mar and decides to rejoin their party. He'd been briefly with them about three years ago. They welcome him back, and when Corwyn and Alendalan return the whole group travels to Sateeka.
They get there, with little incident, and Galafilo catches up with Delune, sheriff of Heartshire and his girlfriend. They actually got there a bit early and start spending a lot of money to contribute to the winter festival.
Alendalan at that point decides to play a practical joke. He buys a ton of cheap karameikan wine back in threshold (again, teleporting), and fills them in nice bottles, into each of which he puts a drop of Brother Abelards Total P*ss-Up.
On the day of the festival, he hands them out to all the town, far and wide. Naturally, the party turns into an orgy of drunkenness and projectile vomitting very quickly. The whole party except Li Ho try to get laid (with all of them succeeding except Alendalan, who decides to try some of the Unction of Madness on himself and the elf girl he's seducing, and she goes nuts and tries to stab him to death). Li Ho, meanwhile, makes it clear that his vows do not include sobriety, and gets massively drunk along with the halflings.
By the next day it turns out that part of the town got wrecked inthe drunken orgy, and three halflings died in drunkeness-related accidents. The other pcs figure out that Alendalan had spiked the wine, and get prepared to kill. Delune makes it clear he will face halfling justice. Alendalan, meanwhile teleported off to darokin city, where he hires a crew of workmen to travel to sateeka to undergo repairs.
The others are about to organize a search party, when Alendalan comes back and surrenders himself, handing over his spellbook and possessions and making it clear that he's willing to face justice and make reparations. Corwyn casts raise dead on the halflings, and Delune says his judgement will be in two weeks, once the halflings are fully healed.
In the two weeks, the other PCs practice their weapon skills, except for Hathalon who makes a Wand of Mindmasking, and Galafilo who spends his time boinking Delune. Finally, the trial comes, Alendalan admits guilt and takes responsibility, and as a result the Halflings are lenient. They sentence him to three kicks in the balls, one from each of the resurrected halflings!
A few days and several icepacks later the PCs are ready to go clear Galafilo's hex at long last. The Darokinian clean-up crew have arrived, and they bring the terrible news that Akesoli has fallen to the forces of the Master of Hule.
Corwyn does a Commune, and determines that the Master would be far too powerful for the PCs to try to assasinate, so they decide not to do anything about this for now, hoping that the legions of Darokin will be able to regroup and stop the Master at Ft.Anselbury.
The PCs head off to the hex, and start their scouring. They first run into a band of hill giants, that they make short work of. The next day, its a 12-headed Hydra, that Alendalan turns into a shrubbery.
After that, its some stone giants.
That night, the PCs are attacked by a pair of grizzly bears. They kill them off easily, and the metal-detecting sword detects no metal, but Hathalon wants to track them to their lair anyways. The rest of the party doesn't, and he ends up going that way alone.
He travels a very long distance, and eventually finds their cave in a hill. The cave has nothing in it, but once there he notices a second cave. Meanwhile, Alendalan has been following him. Hathalon was about to head back when Alendalan shows up, and they decide to check out the second cave using Alendalan's wizard eye. Inside the cave, they see three Frost Salamanders!
Alendalan sends in a conjured Fire Elemental. They hear some fighting noises, and then Alendalan sense the elemental is destroyed. He reactivates the wizard eye, and sees the salamanders rushing up toward them. He launches a fireball at them, but they keep coming, and start cutting the two elves to bits!
They fly out of reach with Alendalan's Sylvan Surfboard of flying, and bombard the Frost Salamanders with some more fireballs and magic missles, and the salamanders retreat back into their cave. They fly back in on the offensive, and a strategic fireball into the cave kills one of the three salamanders. But the other two charge, and manage to drop Alendalan. hathalon manages to revive him and the two flee for their lives!
They get to the camp, Corwyn heals them up and the next day they head over there to kick salamander ass. The battle is over pretty quick (the two remaining salamanders were pretty wounded) and the pcs find some treasure, including a potion. Alendalan tries to analyze it and almost dies, as it turns out to be a potion of poison! Fortunately he makes his save.
The pcs continue scouring the hex, and find their way to a forest where they run into a group of Treants. The Treants are friendly, but are curious as to why the Halfling is in their forest. They explain in torturously slow common how by ancient accord with the halflings, this forest is their territory. The hills above the forest are not, however, and Galafilo gets their blessing to put his dominion there. They leave the very very slow talking Treants on good terms.
Travelling on a ways, they run into a band of Centaurs on the hills. These centaurs are surprised to see Galafilo too. THEY explain how by ancient accord with the halflings, these are THEIR hills. Galafilo finds himself screwed.
But finally they work out that the road that crosses this hex belongs to neither the treants nor the Centaurs, and since Galafilo wanted to have a kind of merchant-stop-over town/wilderness fort, the road area would be an adequate place to put his dominion. The PCs thank the Centaurs and move on.
They start scouring the road area, when they suffer an aerial bombardment from some flying rocks. There are two Frost Giants with their Polar Bear pets, shouting at them that the road is THEIR property, by ancient accord with the halflings, and to get the hell out of there!
But at this point the PCs are no longer willing to buy that line, and Galafilo shouts back, "who did you make the accord with?"
The Frost Giants look at each other, seem to be thinking, and finally one of them says, "ummm.. with a sheriff.. yea.. some sheriff guy.."
The PCs realize the giants are full of it, and the elves blast out a few fireballs. The polar bears all die, and the frost giants scream "they ain't buying it!! Run away!!!" and try to run for it.
The PCs pursue them aerially, and a well placed Barrier spell by Corwyn drops the giants. They Find The Path back to the Frost Giant's giant house, and collect the loot, including a scroll that has the Steelform spell, a legendary Girdle of Giant Strength, and another potion... which Alendalan tries to analyze and AGAIN almost dies because its once again a potion of poison!
The PCs have at this point finished the scouring of the hex, and head back home to Sateeka. When they get there, they learn that the Darokinian army has suffered a massive defeat at Fort Anselbury, and that the Master's army is now marching to Akorros. If Akorros fall, nothing will stand between the Master and central Darokin!
The PCs realize that now they must do something to help Darokin, or the entire country, and Corwyn's future dominion, will fall.
At this point, the game ends for the night.
Corwyn is now 25th level. The others haven't gone up.
More next week!
RPGPundit
Fortunately he did, so the party was Corwyn, Alendalan (the late one) and Li Ho.
The trio started out in Sateeka, with the absence of Hathalon and Galifilo explained away as those two going off to try to convince their respective nations (Alfheim for Hathalon, and Galafilo's adopted homeland of the Five Shires) to come to Darokin's aid in its desperate war against the Master.
Meanwhile, Corwyn decides that this dwarven crown of his might just be useful in trying to convince the obstinate dwarves of Rockhome to come help too. But first, he decides he needs to learn more about the crown and this "loktar Ironshield" fellow who owned it.
So the gang decides to head out to Darokin. Alendalan has two teleport spells memorized, so he teleports Corwyn out there first, and then Li Ho, and decides he will catch up with them tomorrow.
Corwyn and Li Ho arrive in darokin city. Corwyn goes off to find some sages, hiring them to research into the history of Loktar Ironshield. He finds the city vastly changed, as desperate refugees from Akesoli and the west stream into the city, and important citizens stream out, deciding that Darokin as a whole is just too dangerous for comfort. Martial Law is in place and Darokinian troops roam the streets.
Meanwhile, Li Ho has never been to Darokin City before, so he decides to wander around a bit. He finds a tavern that looks nice enough, where he sits down to have a drink. The bartender tells him that he has just received a shipment of a dwarvish beer called Grum, that's very strong. Li Ho likes the sound of that, and orders a pint, which costs him a whopping 12 gold pieces! "war economy", he's told. He finds the beer to be absolutely disgusting, and he says so, only to hear the sound of a half dozen dwarves stand up at the table behind him.
"Those are fighting words!!" say the dwarves.
Li Ho moves toward the door, but four of the dwarves charge him and try to hit him. He easily avoids their attacks, and punches one of them back. His punch snaps the dwarf's neck, killing him instantly.
Li Ho runs away, but is soon caught in the market by the guards. Ochalean monks are not exactly common in the Darokinian market, so its easy to catch him. Officer Sully, the darokinian cop that caught him, takes him down to the station house of the 55th Darokinian police precinct, where he's subjected to a lineup. The other dwarves identify him easily, and he's arrested for murder. Officer Bosco spits on him; "you people make me sick, killing a helpless dwarf, he wasn't even expert level?! You think because you're a mystic you can do whatever you like, just because you have the hardest class requirements? Its people like you that give adventurers a bad name!"
Meanwhile Corwyn has no idea all this is going on. He went home, and when in the morning Li Ho hasn't shown up (and Alendalan has by then teleported in), Corwyn casts Find The Path to localize him, only to discover he's in jail.
Corwyn and Alendalan get there and find out what's what, and proceed to go hire a lawyer. Benjamin Metlock is a little old, but the best darn country lawyer ever to work in the big city. He assures the two that he'll be able to get their friend off on the lesser charge of accidental death, which only brings a 10 year prison sentence, rather than death and cremation. Also, the 10 year prison sentence can be remitted if the accused can come up with 50 000 daros. In any case, the trial will take 2 weeks, so the PCs will have to wait until then.
Alenalan uses that time to train in the long sword. :fight!:
Corwyn tries to do a ritual to enter in direct contact with Asterius, desperate for something more than the info he can get from a mere commune, since he's not sure what Asterius wants from him, and whether the Master of Hule is the real problem or the Radiance, or what. Sadly, he doesn't beat the required roll and ends up just getting a week-long bless spell instead.
And Li Ho is stuck in his cell until the trial.
Also, the new year rolls around. Its now 1006. Corwyn has to pay taxes to support the Darokinian war effort, but his social status remains at platinum-level. Following up on his plans to visit Rockhome, he finds out that Loktal Ironshield was a dwarven king who had lived about 1900 years ago. He'd invaded the lands now known as the Five Shires, interested in the mountain range in the north of that country. He'd defeated the orc hordes who were overrunning the country at the time, but went on to enslave the halflings and force them to work in his mines. Eventually, new hordes of Orcs and Gnolls began to invade his kingdom. Loktal went out to face them, and defeated the Orcs, but as he was about to face the Gnollish army his halfling slaves revolted and cast down their oppresors in a bloody retribution. Facing the Gnolls on one side and the halflings on the other, he fled into the mountains with what was left of his men, and disappeared.
Corwyn also learns the Dwarves have stricken Loktal from their memory, claiming he never existed and that its all a fairy tale made up by the Halflings.
Anticipating that he might have some trouble, Corwyn uses his connections with the church of Asterius to secure himself a embassadorial license from the Darokin Diplomatic Corps; making his mission to Dengar a formal one in the service of the Darokinian government.
Finally, the day of the trial. Mr. Metlock does a stirring job of planting his client's defence, arguing that it was easy to mistake these dwarves for being higher level than they actually were, and that the death was purely accidental. The prosecution, however, argues that a monk as powerful as Li Ho ought to have attacked with the intent of doing subdual damage, and clearly did not, indicating he was out to kill. Li Ho's defence that he didn't know there were subdual damage rules is considered inadequate. He is sentenced to death.
Mr.Metlock lets the Pcs know that all is not lost, they can appeal. After that, they could go on to appeal to the supreme court. And even if that fails, a raise dead fully spell would be able to restore Li Ho. Even so the appeal will take some time, time the PCs haven't got. The next day the news arrives that Akorros has also fallen now to the Master's hordes, and that the only thing that stands between the Master and central darokin (and Darokin city) is the 3rd legion and what's left of the 2nd, who have bunkered down in the hills. The city is in panic, and Corwyn and Alendalan decide they have to go to Rockhome now, otherwise help from the dwarves would arrive too late.
Li Ho will spend the rest of the adventure rotting in his cell.
Alendalan has never been to Dengar (or anywhere in Rockhome), so the chance of a catastrophic teleport failure are fairly high. To be safe, Corwyn casts Survival on himself, and Travel, before Alendalan teleports him. After he's gone, Alendalan teleports himself to Dengar after him.
Alendalan ends up in a room surrounded by monsters! There's a bugbear, a Rust Monster, a Giant Snake, and others. Panicking, he sees there's a window that seems to look outside, and he quickly casts teleport on himself to the outside. He ends up on a busy street, and notices that the building he'd just teleported himself out of was a Taxidermists.
The sudden teleported arrival of an Elf in the middle of the Dwarven capital makes for quite a scene, and Alendalan is quickly surrounded by Dwarf guardsmen. There's no sign of Corwyn, and his best efforts to convince the Dwarves is meeting with trouble. Luckily for Alendalan a Ylari cleric named Hasim was in the area, and he helps Alendalan defuse the situation. The Dwarves find Alendalan's story "highly improbable", but let him off with a warning. Alendalan decides to wait right where he is for Corwyn to arrive, figuring that Corwyn's teleport was faulty.
Meanwhile Corwyn is in a subterranean cave, at the shore of a great underground lake. Having done some research he knew that Dengar had huge underlevels where the Dwarven aristocrats live, but he appears to be in an unused natural cave on the other side of the lake from the underground city. He decides to fly and shift through the rock up to the surface, but finds that his spell appears not to be working. Hearing something behind him, he turns around and finds himself face to face with a dreaded Beholder!
Unable to use spells against the beholder he turns and tries to run past the beast into the hallway. Underestimating him at first, the beholder only hits him with the "cause critical wounds" eyebeam. This gives Corwyn time to flee into the corridor, and once he's out of range of the Beholder's antimagic range he reactivates his Travel spell and phases up to the surface.
Once there he's reunited with Alendalan, but once more the City Guard show up, finding his whole story about being a Darokinian diplomat and his encounter with the Beholder to be "highly improbable". Nevertheless, Corwyn does have the official DDC papers, and its some Beholders have been known to show up in those caves, coming up from the lower mines where the dwarves had once "dug too deep.. we always seem to make that mistake". So the Dwarves agree to let Corwyn off with a warning.
Corwyn asks to see King Everast, but the dwarvish guardsman finds that "highly improbable". Corwyn insists, and the guards agree to send up a counselor the next day, to consider whether Corwyn ought to be granted an audience with the Dwarven King. They warn him that the chances of that happening are "highly improbable". :D
After spending the night at the Darokinian embassy, Corwyn and Alendalan meet the next day with Koris, the dwarven counsellor. Luckily they see past Koris' thick beard and realize that Koris is a female dwarf, and thus avoid making an unpleasant social faux pas.
Corwyn tells her about the Master of Hule, and the threat he presents. Koris insists that the chance of the Master actually being able to threaten Rockhome is "highly improbable", and that its "highly improbable" that he king would be interested to hear them out, since he's already rebuffed previous pleas for help from the Darokinian government. That's when Corwyn shows her the crown of Loktal Ironshield.
She is stunned by the existence of a Crown, clearly of dwarven make, of a king who their records say was only a myth. Realizing the dangerou scandal this could cause she orders the two to remain in the dwarf hall where she received them, and promises that she will talk to the king to find out what he wishes to do with them.
In the end, they are granted an audience, for which they are lead through the great stone gates down into the undercity of Dengar, a city far more impressive and majestic than the small upper city. Corwyn and Alendalan both marvel at the stunning beauty of the Dwarven architecture, and in particular of the gigantic royal cavern of Dwarfheart, a palace-fortress hewn in a cavern as big as the entire upper city.
They are taken to Everast's throne room, and while at first the King finds Corwyn's story "highly improbable", Corwyn explains that the crown proves that king Ironshield was real, and that in fact he was a deeply heroic figure who fought courageously against the orcs and gnolls. He gifts the crown to King Everast, feeling that this long-lost king's memory should be restored to the Dwarven People. Everast is duly impressed, and faced with undeniable evidence that Loktal's existence is true, he is forced to quickly rethink the interpretation of events: the Dwarves had wiped Loktal from their records because of the shame of being defeated by the halflings, but Everast reinterprets the story as one where Loktal heroically fell, a great Dwarven Lost Cause, betrayed by the very Haflings he'd "saved" from the humanoid conquerors.
In gratitude, Everast considers Corwyn's request for military aid, and offers Corwyn an army of 2000 dwarves, if Corwyn is willing to pay for their expenses to go and fight in Darokin. Corwyn agrees readily, since he can easily afford it. Everast proudly proclaims that his Dwarven army will make short work of the Master's minions, and that after that, at the dwarves own expense, they will go down to the Five Shires and "teach those halflings a dire lesson, and make them pay for what they did to the Dwarven people!"
Corwyn realizes he's just set up a situation for a war between Rockhome and the Shires.
Still, he figures he can find a way around that later. For now, the Master is the bigger problem and Darokin needs the Dwarves to help them. Corwyn and Alendalan agree to be the King's guest for the next couple of days, and when he mentions the Beholder to the king, Everast decides that after a feast, the Dwarves will accompany Corwyn and Alendalan to go take out this beholder, offering them a share of its loot, of course.
Meanwhile back in Darokin, Li Ho's appeal goes well, and his sentence is reduced to ten years or fifty thousand daros. Unfortunately, since Corwyn is the one with the money, Li Ho will have to serve out his sentence until his friends come back to bail him out.
That's it for today. A lot of RP this session, but there was no treasure gained, and the only actual monster killed was the Dwarf that Li Ho accidentally murdered. As such, this session actually had the least amount of XP ever in the campaign; only 7 experience points, not counting the roleplay bonus!
Ah well, that's what happens when you're playing the game "by the book". The players had fun anyways.
RPGPundit
Anyway, I enjoyed reading that session, you sound like a very good DM. I need to make my games funnier I think. I used to, but this newest campaign has been too dark and my players are so focused on just surviving long enough to steal their treasure.
I hope Li Ho gets off easily. I love Mystic characters.
So to review we have:
Corwyn, Darokinian Cleric Patriarch of Asterius lv. 25
Alendalan, Karameikan elf Lord Wizard lv.10
Galafilo, Karameikan/Five Shires Halfling Sheriff lv. 8
Sir Firearm, thyatian-Karameikan Fighter Lord Avenger of Vanya lv. 19
So the adventure starts out with Corwyn and Alendalan still in Dengar, in rockhome, ready to kill a beholder alongside about twenty of King Everast's best men.
Corwyn casts a find the path, they manage to sneak up on it using Silence 15'. Alen is also invisible and he flies around the beholder, avoiding the central eye.
On a signal from Corwyn, he and the dwarves charge. They hit the beast, doing it some damage; and the beholder stares back at them and undoes their magic. He also puts some of the dwarves to sleep. He tries to disintegrate Corwyn but fails. He bites the dwarf captain, for good measure.
Then its Alendalan's turn. Alen casts teleport on the Beholder, from behind, teleporting it to the middle of Alphak's Volcano. Just like that, the fight is over. Surely, the Beholder is now dead and will never bother the PCs again, right? I mean, they sent it right into the middle of a place of great entropic energy... that couldn't be a bad thing, could it? :coolcthul
Anyways, Corwyn tries one last shot at convincing King Everast that he really shouldn't invade the Five Shires after they win the war with the Master of Hule, but Everast won't hear any of it. The only concession he gives Corwyn is that he's really only interested in the Mountains of the Five Shires and some of the nearby plains hexes for farming. "I don't really like the coasts.. its highly improbable we'll conquer all the way to the coasts. I really just care about the mountains and all the delicious gold that's in there!"
Unable to deal with the Dwarves' racial insanities, Corwyn and Alen head back to Darokin City via teleport. When they arrive, they are surprised to find an old friend in their house.. its Sir Firearm! You all might recall, gentle readers, that he had been called up by the Church of Vanya to participate in Darokin's war against the Master of Hule. So far, he had spent the last two months in Selenica, on the other side of Darokin from where Hule was invading. So he hasn't actually seen any action. But now that Akorros has fallen to the Master's forces, his unit has been called back to Darokin City to supplant its defences, and for now Sir Firearm is on leave until something happens.
Shortly thereafter Galafilo reaches the city and joins the group. Galafilo had been away last adventure, along with his girlfriend Delune the High Sheriff of Heartshire, he had attended a meeting of all the high Sheriffs in Shireton, where the leaders of the halfling nation discussed the war in Darokin. Some, like Delune, want the halflings to send troops to help Darokin in the war. Others disagree, arguing that if Darokin loses the war, the Shires will need all its people to defend the Shires on their own territory. And that it will be easier to fight in the Shires than in Darokin. Essentially, the Sheriffs who want to send troops are the ones who's shire is in the north, in other words the ones on who's land the fighting will happen if the Master's troops come to the shires. The sheriffs of the coastal shires appear rather more willing to risk that happening, rather than sending their boys prematurely to die on darokinian soil. In the end, the hafllings vote to send supplies to darokin, but not troops. Although, at the end of the meeting, the Karameikan ambassador to Shireton requests of the halflings that they keep an open mind and reconsider this idea "if things change in the near future".
Now all in Darokin, the pcs take a few precious days to do personal work.
Corwyn goes to inform the Darokinian government about his success in getting 2000 dwarven fighters to come join the war effort. When the news comes out he is quickly sent to the "ovoid office" to meet President Corwyn Mauntea himself. Mauntea is the consumate politician, who immediately gets Corwyn the cleric to agree to a press conference and a portrait session, and basically plans to turn Corwyn into a national hero through the magic of propaganda. After all, the darokinian people desperately need heroes!
Plus he makes sure Corwyn joins his political party, and tells him that "if you don't have any skeletons in your closet, no regretable sexual incidents with orcs or something like that, I promise you that by 1008 you'll be a Senator!"
Sir Firearm decides that it'd be a good idea to find out some more about the Masters forces from the people who've actually been there, so he visits the Military Hospital. There he finds hundreds of soldiers maimed, with amputated limbs or missing eyes. The soldiers welcome him and are quite willing to talk of the horrors they've seen. They explain that the Master's nomads are not the barbarians they seem, that they fight with remarkable discipline, and are backed up by "clerics who are at least companion level" and "magic users who are at least expert level", as well as undead and terrible entropic creatures. Without a sufficient quotient of mages, the Darokinian army didn't stand a chance.
They also tell Sir Firearm the troubling news that they all think that the 1st and 3rd legion, currently stationed in he hills between Akorros and Darokin City, couldn't possibly hold that ground against the master's army, and that Darokin's government must know this. The vets think that Pres. Mauntea has sent those legions to the slaughter just to buy himself and his political buddies some time.
Alendalan, meanwhile, goes off to get a few new spells. At first he goes to the Mages' guild and buys himself a membership, but then he finds out that he can get a cheaper deal from the Alfheim Elven consulate. He finds the consular office to be a lovely sylvan park where the elves are running around frolicking, and so he joins in the frolics and trades a few spells. He realizes that the hippie-like Alfheim elves are way more his type of person than his own highly conservative Callari people. And by "more his type of person", I mean total degenerates. :D
He spends the next couple of days in gay frolics.
Finally, Galafilo finds himself a teacher who can train him in the offensive use of the shield.
Eventually, Corwyn gets the gang together, and explains to them that Pres. Mauntea wants him to go try to use his diplomatic magic on Karameikos, the Shires, and Ylraum. The party's original plan was to go behind enemy lines and try to wipe out some of the enemy leaders, but the darokinian government doesn't actually want that. Firearm expresses his concerns from his visit to the veteran's ward, and the gang agree that they need to meet with someone from the government to clear up exactly what Darokin's plan is, before deciding if they should help the politicians or not.
A meeting the next day with the Minister of Defence turns out to be promising. The minister explains to them that first of all, darokin doesn't want adventurers going behind enemy lines because such attacks could prompt the Master's forces to hasten their invasion of central Darokin. He tells the pcs that the darokinian government is painfully aware that the legions in the hills can't possibly hold out, and that at this stage they have to desperately hope for sufficient time. The longer the master hesitates with his forces looting Akorros, the better the chance that Darokin will be able to get help from its allies. He explains that the government has no intention of letting the legions die in the hills, and that the legions will pull back as soon as the master's troops invade. The first legion will move north to Corunglain, where it will hopefully be joined by armies from Alfheim as well as Corwyn's Dwarven battalion, and the third legion will move south to Athenos, where they hope to be joined by whatever help may come from the Shires or Karmeikos. Meanwhile, the 2nd legion has been hard at work preparing Darokin city for a seige.
The darokinian forces in the north and south will wait for its allies to arrive, and then will move in to relieve the seige of Darokin city in a pincer maneuver. The whole plan depends, of course, on the Master's forces going straight for Darokin rather than moving north or south first.
The PCs feel a lot more secure now that the Darokin government does actually have a coherent plan, and they are willing to try to help recruit allies. The party is in a good position to attempt this with the Shires and Karameikos, since Galafilo is currently dating one of the five High Sheriffs of the Shires, and Sir Firearm is a distant relative a few times removed of the Duke Stephan of Karameikos; he also reminds the group that his second cousin, Alexius Korrigan, is the Seneschal of Karameikos. (the pcs met Alexius once early in the campaign. It turns out Alexius is actually a Vampire, but while its painfully obvious to the players, none of their characters have clued into that yet, nor have the Karameikan people.. they all just think he is really dedicated to his job, working late into the night hours).
So with that, the PCs decide that first they will teleport to Specularum, and try to talk to the Duke there, and then later they will go to the Shires. The Darokinian minister informs the PCs that Darokin's spies have reason to suspect that Duke Stephan is thinking of formally separating from Thyatis, they have heard Stephan comment in public that he thinks the Thyatian empire is doomed for trying to war with Alphatia, the realm of high wizards. And, the minister counsels them, Darokin would be willing to recognize any Karameikan declaration of independence, if in exchange Karameikos sends troops.
The PCs are ready to go, but Alendalan only has two teleports and there are four of them. So they hire a very deadpan mage ("hi.. I'm a mage") from the Darokinian magic guild, to teleport two of them.
He gets his teleports totally wrong, and Galafilo ends up teleporting into solid rock. Fortunately, Corwyn had cast Survival on everyone before leaving. So Galafilo is alive but stuck.
Corwyn, himself the other one teleported by the incompetent mage, ends up in a room in what appears to be an ancient dungeon deep below Specularum. In the room with him are four medusas! Fortunately, none of them petrify him straight away, and after that he closes his eyes and gradually kills them all. The first two are easy, but the other two decide to back away and play the waiting game with him, waiting for him to open his eyes. But instead, Corwyn just casts two "Find the Path" spells to lead him straight to where the medusas were hiding! After that he uses Travel to get up to the city surface, where a confused Sir Firearm and Alendalan were waiting. He uses his last Find the Path to go rescuse Galafilo, and then they all head to the bar.
The city of Specularum hasn't changed much since they were last here. Its a big city, a little bigger than Darokin city, in fact, but its strictly backwater in comparison to Darokin. Magic items are hard to come by, and everything is cheap. Firearm and Galafilo are extravagant tippers at the tavern, and the party is surprised by just how rustic they find the land that all but Corwyn had started in, remembering the beginning of the Campaign when they all thought of Specularum as "the big city" and oh- so cosmopolitan.
The gang decides that they're in desperate need of some monster-killin and loot-gettin, and Corwyn lets them know about the Medusas and how there appears to be an old dungeon about a hundred feet under the surface of town, probably ruins left over from the old Traladari metropolis of Krakatos on who's ruins Specularum is built.
First they agree to have Firearm arrange a meeting with Lord Alexius (Firearm's vampiric second cousin, the Seneschal of Karameikos), and Corwyn to meet with Madame Elena Whitehall, the old consul from Darokin to Karameikos.
Madame Whitehall proves to be very useful to Corwyn. She lets him know that she knows for a fact that an agent of Alphatia has just visited Karameikos in secret last month, and that its known that Duke Stephan is planning to declare independence from Thyatis. She tells Corwyn that even now Teldon, the head of Karameikos' (rather pathetic) school of magic has gone off to Alphatia. She thinks Duke Stephan is trying to secure a treaty of neutrality and recognition from Alphatia, something that would royally screw Thyatis. If Karmeikos separates with Alphatia's help, then emperor Thincol of Thyatis couldn't invade his rogue ex-province without giving Karameikos an excuse to invite Alphatian troops to come in and start attacking Thyatis from that front as well. Thyatis would have no choice but to recognize Karameikos' declaration of independence. Especially, adds Whitehall, if Darokin recognizes Karameikos' sovereignty, a move that would mean almost every other nation in the known world would do the same.
Obviously, this info is invaluable to Corwyn. Now he knows to be bold in offering Stephan direct recognition, not to beat around the bush. Unless whitehall is drastically wrong, Karameikos will be more than willing to send troops to darokin in exchange for this kind of political gravitas. Plus, it doesn't hurt that Corwyn has been allowed to suggest that Darokin could make specularum a more frequent stop in the darokinian trade routes.
Meanwhile Sir Firearm has managed to arrange a meeting that evening with his second cousin the Seneschal. The whole party agrees that its a bit odd that he'd meet them at night, but they are all duly impressed with just how dedicated a public servant Korrigan must be to work so late.
:DSo with a little while to kill the PCs Travel down to the dungeon Corwyn had stumbled upon. In the dungeon, they only find a couple of nasty traps, a pair of huge rock pythons that Corwyn gleefuly casts Snake Charm on (from a scroll, its the first time he's ever been able to find a use for that damn spell), and a rust monster that Galafilo slays with a couple of quick arrows.
But most amusing is the PCs way of travelling through the dungeon, the "submarine method": Corwyn casts Travel, and casts Survival on the whole party, and then they phase through the floor travelling under the surface, while Alendalan casts wizard eye and uses it as a "periscope" to view whats in each room above them.
Eventually the PCs run into a level of caves that are under the dungeon, and they set about exploring those caves. There they run into a cavern where there's a sarcophagus made of stone and a black pool. Cautiously, they go in there, expecting the sarcophagus to have some kind of asskicking undead. Their divinations reveal no such thing, and the indication that there's treasure inside the sarcophagus, so they open it up. Indeed, it is full of treasure. That's when the black pool/black pudding attacks them all from behind. :evillaugh
They manage to kill it with fire, but not before it rots away much of Alendalan's prized scale mail. He switches to elven chain instead, but is highly ****** off about it.
With some of the caves left to explore the PCs realize that they must return to the surface to meet with the Seneschal. And the players realize its time to end the session. We leave it with the PCs about to go visit the Seneschal in specularum, Newmont 23, 1006 ac.
RPGPundit.
So I wonder, is that Beholder going to come after them if it survived?
Ah, the wonderful world of politics. Nice to have insider info too.
So I wonder, is that Beholder going to come after them if it survived?
Now what makes you think being teleported into the greatest nexus of entropy on the planet is something that will make the beholder survive, or become more powerful, or come after the PCs with a vengeance?
I'd have to be a real bastard to do that. :D
RPGPundit
I'd have to be a real bastard to do that. :D
OMG!!! I'M a BASTARD!!! :evillaugh :D
I'm enjoying reading these, RPGpundit. Sometimes sessions without combat are among the most memorable (and fun).
I have things that my players kill come back many times stronger and more enraged and ready for vengeance. Sometimes I even trick players into thinking they are battling the forces of evil, but in fact they are helping it unwittingly and find out almost before it's too late. :evillaughNot much to report this time, as there was little development in the overall storyline in this session. Only three days of gametime went by (from Nuwmont 23-26, 1006ac), but that isn't to say that it wasn't a fascinating session.
In fact it was a highly fascinating session. Why? Because the PCs, all in the high companion-range of power, went on a dungeon crawl. Deep under specularum they had found a bunch of ancient Traladari ruins, and in today's session, after meeting with Seneschal Alexius Korrigan, they spent a couple of days cleaning out the dungeon.
The players absolutely loved it. One thing that amazed us was that, while Companion-level games were clearly meant to focus on the kind of bigger political issues (the war, etc) that the campaign has been all about lately, the OD&D system is in fact EXTREMELY well balanced for high-level dungeon crawling. The players, all of whom have extensive experience with 3.x edition D&D, were astounded by how in OD&D its possible to have this kind of high-level dungeon crawling in a way that D&D 3.x just wouldn't be enjoyable to do.
The pcs met with Korrigan, they still didn't figure out the guy is a vampire (they just think he's a "wierd guy"), but on the whole the meeting was very productive. Thanks to skillful diplomacy on Corwyn's part, and family connections with Sir Firearm, they got Korrigan to virtually admit that Duke Stephan is in secret negotiations with Alphatia, and on the verge of declaring independence from Thyatis. They negotiated a top-secret treaty between Darokin and Karameikos by which Darokin will immediately recognize a declaration of Karameikan independence, in exchange for Karameikos sending troops to help Darokin's war effort against the Master of Hule. At the same time, Galafilo worked out a treaty between Karameikos and the Five Shires whereby Korrigan agreed that Karameikos would enact tighter control on the illegal raids of the Black Baron against the Shires, so that the Shirefolk could feel secure about sending its armies to also help the Darokinian war effort.
The important business done, what followed was a five-hour session of high level dungeon crawling in the deep ruins under Specularum. They fought two Purple Worms, overpowered Ogres, avoided some nasty traps, dispelled a Spectral Hound, destroyed an entropic shrine, and Sir Firearm even managed to get four Minotaur followers (he's an avenger, you know).
The dungeon crawl was a welcome change of pace, and ended up being fairly fruitful. Galafilo and Alendalan's attack ranks went up, Sir Firearm is now level 20, and Corwyn has now become the first Master in the group, at level 26.
By the end of the night one level of the dungeon remained unexplored, the pcs figuring that they'll probably finish off the dungeon before getting back to the business at hand of saving Darokin from the Master of Hule. Ah, the tough responsibilities of high-level D&D heroes. :D
RPGPundit
When last we left the PCs they were still in the dungeon, with one more level to explore. Since the Priest didn't have enough Survival spells on him, and couldn't take everyone with Travel, they decide to leave behind the four minotaurs Sir Firearm had found and made into followers.
They went on up to the last level to explore, and there they find the entrance to that level blocked by a large iron door. Under the door is a Dwarf, sleeping uneasily. The Dwarf is the PC of our newest player, who has just joined.
Alendalan plays a trick on the dwarf, making a phantasmal force of a Beholder that scares the crap out of him, but then they introduce themselves. The party is surprised to see a Dwarf of only Basic levels this far down in the dungeon. His explanation: His party of dwarven would-be adventurers "dug too deep" (as usual) and fought a terrible monster (probably a bugbear) that wiped out his entire group except him. His name is Duroc, and he's a skilled caver and engineer, but unfortunately has no cartography skill, so he's become hopelessly lost.
The party quickly decides to adopt him as their pet basic-adventurer, and take him with them through the rest of the dungeon. They fight some three-armed giants, Corwyn's full plate is destroyed by a green slime, and they face off a few white cave gorillas.
When they finish up the dungeon, the gang Travels back up to Specularum, and there they await the announcement of Karameikan independance, which they are told is immanent.
And indeed, on the 1st of Vatermont, the news is spread through the streets, Karameikos has declared its independence, and is now a Kingdom, with Duke Stephan declaring himself to be crowned King Stephan I. Corwyn is teleported off to Darokin to rush the news to President Mauntea.
Meanwhile, the other PCs unwisely choose to stay in Specularum, having forgotten that 1 Vatermont is tax day. Galafilo, Alendalan and Sir Firearm are all citizens of Karameikos, despite their time away, and they are all forced to pay the exorbitant 25% taxes of Karameikos.
Duroc is a citizen of Karemeikos as well, but he's dead broke, so it doesn't really matter.
Meanwhile Corwyn gets the news to Pres. Mauntea, who sends back an immediate recognition by Darokin of Karameikan sovereignty, and a plea for immediate military support against the Master of Hule. Corwyn spends the rest of the day buying, identifying, de-cursing, and getting ****** off about what he thought was a wand of teleportation but was in fact a wand of delusion.
He gets back the next day, and the party get the documents to the government. The day after that, there is an announcement that Karameikos is joining the war effort. Thanks to his own time lobbying, plus a good sized donation to the temple of Vanya, Sir Firearm manages to get to church of Vanya in Karameikos to declare a Crusade against the master of Hule. Now all the paladins and avengers in Karameikos will be obliged to go fight the master.
Surprisingly, Galafilo and Duroc have really hit it off, and the two of them spend the days at the tavern contendedly discussing plans for building some very elaborate defences for Galafilo's upcoming stronghold.
Next, the gang meets up with the Master Terari of Alphatia, who is in Specularum to cement the treaty between Karameikos and Alphatia, by which Karameikos will not participate in the Alphatian-Thyatian war, so long as Alphatia recognizes its independence and agrees to protect Karameikan sovereignty.
Terari is an old buddy of most of the gang from when they were in Alphatia. He mentions to them that in fact, the idea of Alphatia "buying off" Karameikos was in part formulated thanks to the PCs and the information they gave Terari about Karameikos.
Sir Firearm dares to ask Terari if he would cast a Wish to give him more wisdom, but Terari is fairly antagonistic to Firearm because Firearm isn't a spellcaster, and because firearm is an avenger of Vanya (like the Heldannic Knights that cause his homeland so much trouble). In the end he tells Firearm that he would give him a wish only if he would sabotage the Heldannic war effort, a price that Firearm is just not willing to pay.
Still, Terari agrees to help the party teleport to Sateeka, and they do so, taking a letter from the Seneschal of Karameikos to the Five Sheriffs, one that proposes that the Five Shires joins the war effort against the Master (in exchange for which Karameikos promises to keep the Black Baron under a tighter rein).
They go see Delune who, after a quick bit of rumpy-bumpy with Galafilo, quickly agrees to call another meeting of the Five Sheriffs at Shireton, which will take place in a week.
Finally, Corwyn and Alendalan go back to Darokin once more, in order to gain information about Ylaruam, the last nation they intend to visit to seek aid from.
That's where we paused for today. At the end of the adventure it was the 5th of Vatermont of 1006, and the pcs were:
Sir Firearm: Fighter-Avenger of Vanya lv 21
Corwyn: Cleric Patriarch of Asterius lv. 26
Alendalan: Karameikan Elf Lord-Wizard lv. 10
Galafilo: Halfling Sheriff Lv.8
Duroc: Dwarf lv. 5
RPGPundit
Not really, since I'm using all the other optional rules. Which means that demi-humans keep gaining weapon and skill slots, and certain other improvements, beyond maximum level. The only thing that ends up frozen is really their hit points, and spells for elves, but even the latter can be rectified if an Elf pc bothers to go to alfheim and try to study with the alfheim wizard-elves.
So I think given that in my campaign the 8th level maxed-out halfling is still holding his own with 26th and 21st level human PCs, it pretty well proves that you don't actually have to use those optional rules.
As for mystics, they're freaking powerhouses at high levels. Easily equivalent to someone of double the level in any thing else.
So up till now, I've seen no reason to think that the level limits are actually "too restrictive". I think that the players of the Elf and the Halfing would both agree, given that neither has felt particularly put upon by being at maximum level.
It would be a very different story if I wasn't using, say, the weapon mastery and skill rules.
RPGPundit
My changes to the mystic will be meant for the full 36 levels maybe. I'll have to see how the first 16 turn out when I'm done.
The session began with Alen and Corwyn in Darokin city, and with Corwyn becoming increasingly insecure about his chances of convincing anyone in Ylaruam of joining the Darokini cause.
Finally he speaks with the Darokin Diplomatic Corps and asks them to send someone else, as he feels that he would be stuck, based on the wierdness of Ylaraumi philosophy/religion.
They agree, and tell him not to worry, they'll send a guy named Lawrence instead. :D
Meanwhile Alendalan has been hanging out at the Alfheim embassy, and after a night of frolicing he wakes up besides a comely elven lass. "Want to get married?" He asks her.
"Um, ok!" she replies.
So Alendalan is getting married. Mostly its a tactic to get into an alfheim clan (in this case, the Grunalf clan) and thus have access to the higher-level spells for elves from the Alfheim gazetteer. either that, or its just another excuse for a three-day party. I'm not sure which.
In either case, Alen teleports over his buddies Duroc, Galafilo and Sir Firearm (who were all still hanging out in Sateeka), and they have a very big very elven three-day wedding. Now, Alfheim elves are basically hippies, and pansexual ones at that, with a very fast and loose sense of ethics. The Dwarf in particular is nervous, and manages to come prepared, buying something called "Smiley's Amazing ****-Bum-Cover" at a discount store for 39gp 9sp. It ends up not working, but the Dwarf manages to intimidate his way out of the party with his honour intact.
Three days later the party is at an end. The bride and groom do it one more time, mostly because they weren't totally sure they had actually done it until then; and they want the wedding to be official. After that, they shrug, "well, see ya later?" "Yea ok bye", and go their seperate ways.
Meanwhile, Corwyn has cast Commune, and is informed that the Master of Hule will be attacking within a week, but not less than in two days. This means they must hurry, and since they won't be going to Ylaraum after all, they decide to head to Shireton to observe the Halfling meeting of the High Sheriffs.
They teleport over there, and Corwyn's teleport malfunctions (it seems to happen with him more often than most), and he ends up under the city, underwater, and facing a pair of giant crocodiles. He travels back up to the surface, but when Galafilo and Alendalan hear of this, they decide that they want to go down there and capture the things. They travel there, and Alendalan polymorphs the two huge crocodiles into frogs, and then stores them in a wicker cage.
After that, the gang speaks at the meeting of the Sheriffs. Some of the sheriffs wish to join the fight with the master, but others feel the halflings have nothing to gain and everything to lose. The ambassadors of Darokin, Karameikos and Alfheim are all there, and they all speak out, pleading for halfling aid. The elf ambassador trades spells with Alendalan.
In the end, the halflings vote to send food and supplies to the darokinian war effort, but aside from a unit of snipers they will not send troops. They will, however, allow Karameikos to ship troops through the shires as necessary to aid Darokin.
Having done all they can, the frustrated heros decide they're going to go after a gigantic red dragon they knew was living in the Black Eagle barony. They set out to fly over there.
Along the way they run into a gaggle of cockatrices, which are no challenge to them, nor are the crab spiders they find in the cockatrice cave.
They keep making their way across the Blight Swamp, and end up in the Black Eagle Barony.
The night they arrive they are camped out near the seaside, when they run into a certain Lord Dastardly of the Barony, and his men, who are at first neutral toward the PCs. But Alen and Galafilo's goading soon leads Lord Dastardly to draw arms against these adventurer scoundrels in the name of the baron! :evillaugh
Dastardly fights much better than what the PCs are used to in an opponent. He drops Galafilo, his captain injures Alendalan, and Dastardly appears to have a seriously bad-ass magic sword.
But his error is in levitating to try to get away, when Sir Firearm can also levitate. Firearm finishes him off. The pcs find a +3 shield, some +2 arrows, a potion of climbing, and the sword of Dastardly. Firearm detects that the sword is an entropic artifact.The PCs are willing to cross a lot of moral lines it seems, but not the line into entropy. :coolcthul
They're unwilling to risk Alen casting Analyze on it either, for fear that it might take over his mind. Alen wants to but the rest of the party outvotes him. They can't just leave the sword there either, so instead they very carefully wrap it up and take it with them, planning to hand it over to some cleric who could take care of it.
The next day they get to the outskirts of the great Red Dragon's cave. The gang found their way there thanks to Corwyn's "find the path", and before reaching the dragon's lair, they cast Bless, Haste, Find Traps, and Invisibility 10'. Corwyn also has cast Survival on all the party, and has cast Travel on himself.
Thus prepared, the group phases under the ground and begin to approach the dragon's mountain. at about 100' out, Corwyn Finds a magical trap barrier sphere blocking their way. They phase back up to the surface, and after confirming that the trap is indeed a sphere that toally surrounds the cave, they debate what to do. Finally they decide that Alendalan will send his wizard-eye to cross the barrier and see if that does anything. When the wizard eye reaches the inside of the cave, Alendalan sees that the dragon has just finished casting mirror image and haste and then goes invisible.
The party members activate or guzzle down their various items of seeing invisible. Only Duroc is unable to see the dragon, and they decide that its best that he sit this fight out, so they phase him into the ground and leave him there. Duroc is highly worried about the prospect that they all might be killed, and he would be stuck in solid rock waiting out his last few hours until Survival ran out, but he agrees that he would be dead meat against this dragon, so into the dirt he goes.
Meanwhile, the dragon has grown tired of looking around, so it flies back into the cave, still invisible, still alert.
The party moves into the cave, still invisible as well, but not before Alen does a number of false alerts through the magic warning trap with his wizard eye, to confuse and unnerve the dragon.
They sneak up, and charge to the attack. Galafilo tries first, but misses the creature. Alen casts polymorph, but the dragon saves. Then Corwyn casts speak with monsters, insuring that the dragon won't be able to attack anyone who doesn't directly attack him. He offers the dragon his life in exchange for servitude to Sir Firearm (who is, I remind you, an Avenger).
The dragon expresses great doubt that the party will be able to defeat him. So Sir Firearm attacks it a few times and wipes out all his mirror images. Then he and Galafilo hit it for some serious damage. they offer the dragon a second chance to surrender. The dragon decides to breathe fire on Galafilo. Galafilo saves and has halfling resistance to breath weapons, but still takes a huge amount of damage (enough to have dropped him, if not for the fact that he'd taken a potion of Fortitude, which temporarily ups his hp).
Once the dragon sees that his breath isn't able to drop the halfling in one blow, he immediately surrenders. He has a grudging admiration for the adventurers, the first to beat him in a long time. They in turn have an admiration for the tactical sense of the great Dragon (who's name, they find out, is the very original Smog). ;)
The dragon lets them take his treasure, and agrees to precisely 24 hours of servitude for the Avenger. The 24 hours will begin when they choose, but it will not be a minute more. Planning to send him against the Master of Hule when the time is right, the pcs agree and head off on their way.
That day, Galafilo receives a notice on his scroll of communication, from his family. The Master's forces have started to attack the hills past Akorros. The last part of the Darokin-Hule war has begun.
It is Vatermont 16, 1006
The PCs are now:
Corwyn, cleric of asterius, lv. 27
Sir Firearm, Avenger of Vanya, lv. 19
Alendalan, Elf lord-wizard lv. 10
Galafilo, Halfling Sheriff Lv. 8
Duroc, Dwarf lv. 7
RPGPundit
Your players have a lot of fun. Someday, I'll get a player who can DM as well as me and I can play for a change. I really miss it.
Nice Lawrence of Arabia tie in. Or am I mistaken?
Your players have a lot of fun. Someday, I'll get a player who can DM as well as me and I can play for a change. I really miss it.
You are not mistaken. It was an interesting turn of events, since I was all ready to run a Ylaraum adventure, had been studying the GAZ for the past week, and then all of a sudden the guy who plays Corwyn decides his PC won't be able to handle it. Ah well, they'll go there eventually.
Meanwhile, we'll see how much success Lawrence has in convincing the Ylaraumi into action, and just what kind of action...
As for me, I have no desire to play. I love DMing.
RPGPundit
RPGPundit
When last we left our heroes, they had finished defeating a gargantuan red dragon, and making him swear 24 hours of servitude to Sir Firearm (who's an avenger).
Also, they had discovered (through a message on Galafilo's scroll of Communication, sent by his family in the Five Shires) that the Master's forces have marched form Akorros into the hills, engaging the Darokinian legion there.
The PCs start to fly north, heading to Darokin as quickly as they can. They travel up to the hills south of the Cruth mountains, and they find a nest of Griffons and Rocs, living together as one tribe. There's a heated battle, the aerial attacks of the cretures taking the PCs by surprise and keeping them off-balance, but eventually with some strong teamwork they defeat the creatures (8 griffons and 7 rocs).
In the nest they find some treasure, and single Roc's egg. Knowing that such an egg could be very valuable if they sell it quickly in Thyatis, they decide that the next day Corwyn will teleport very quickly with the egg to Thyatis city and sell it while the others keep moving north, and then the day after Alendalan will teleport to pick him up.
Corwyn teleports, and as usual, the teleport misfires. For some reason, whenever Alendalan teleports Corwyn, he tends to misfire the spell and Corwyn ends up underground. This time was no exception, and he finds himself in solid rock. Luckily he was prepared, having cast Travel and Survival and starts to travel up to the surface. Along the way he passes a cave with a large Crystal Dragon, which he flees from quickly, rather than risk confronting.
He gets to the surface, finding himself in a very lovely garden in what appears to be the center of the city. Around the garden are walls, and a huge palace. Then he notices a group of armed guards in legionairre armor with black capes rushing toward him. A little too late, as they win initiative and kill him outright with multiple Smash attacks!
The other PCs are blissfully unaware of this, meanwhile, and continue to proceed north, getting to the Cruth mountains.
The next day, Alendalan teleports to Thyatis, informing the others that he'll just go, pick up Corwyn, and be right back. They wait... and wait.. and wait.. until several hours go by. Unable to do anything else about it, they continue to wait out the day.
Alendalan, meanwhile, ends up in the same garden, and gets slaughtered in one round by the same Praetorian guards.
When Corwyn wakes up, he finds out that he's been "Raised Fully" by a patriarch of Valerias, and that he's currently in the prisons of the Emperor's palace. The Praetorians are trained to Smash first, Raise-dead-and-ask-questions-later, when it comes to people unexpectedly appearing in the palace grounds, especially in these times of war with Alphatia.
Even so, they check out Corwyn's papers, figure out that he's a Darokinian diplomat and not an Alphatian assasin, and give him his stuff back. They inform him that Alendalan is here too, currently in a number of different small bags, and that they'll raise him tomorrow. Meanwhile, Corwyn gets invited to an audience with Emperor Thincol. Thincol thanks Corwyn profusely for the "gift" of the Roc egg, and spends the day chitchating with him (it turns out Thincol is a bit of a blowhard, pontificating about every topic under the sun). Corwyn listens with polite attention, and learns that the war with Alphatia is not going too well for Thyatis. The Emperor wishes he could help Darokin, but obviously Thyatis has its own problems right now, and can't provide any aid in the struggle against the Master.
Finally, the day after, Alen is revived, and the two of them leave Thyatis with a bad taste in their mouths (and not just because of the fish sauce). They teleport back to the others, who have been waiting bored and half-frozen in the mountains, and proceed north into Darokin.
It takes them another three days to get to Darokin city, and when they do they rush to see the Defence minister (the President is no longer there, he's fled to Selenica in order to maintain the government if Darokin city should fall).
The defence minister looks like he hasn't slept in days, and has been drinking heavily. He informs the PCs that the latest message from the 3rd legion, in the hills, is that they can only hold out against the Master's army for another 24 hours. The Dwarves and elves are already in Corunglain, but the Karameikans have not yet arrived in Athenos. Once the hill troops fall, there will be nothing standing between the Master's troops and the lush Darokin valley (and the capitol).
The Defence minister proposes to the PCs that there is one more thing they can do, one more ally they could gain that would make all the difference. That ally is Sind, or rather the Sindi people, who have fallen under the yoke of the Hule's occupation. If the PCs are willing to travel to Sind, they could try to attempt a revolt against Hule there, and the disruption that would cause might destabilize the Master's entire war effort.
The PCs come up with a plan. They read the intelligence reports on Sind, and learn that the Maharajah of Sind, Chandra, is likely dead, overthrown and replaced by a relative of his, a puppet of Hulean rule. The plan would be to travel to Sayr Ulan, use a Raise Dead Fully scroll on the Maharajah, and help him to lead a rebellion against Hule. The Defence minister agrees, and manages to get them a Raise Dead Fully scroll. After confirming the viability of the plan with a Commune spell, the PCs agree that will be their next step.
That's it for this session. At the end of the session, the PCs are:
Corwyn, Cleric of Asterius lv.28
Sir Firearm, Avenger of Vanya, lv. 22
Alendalan, Karameikan/Alphatian(by marriage) elf, lv.10
Galafilo, Halfling Sheriff lv. 8
Duroc, Karameikan Dwarf lv. 8
RPGPundit
Funny how Thincol "stole" that egg from them. That sounds about right.
The PCs started out in Darokin city, with the news that the Master's armies had broken out of the hills. They were given a scroll of "raise dead fully" and the mission to go find the Maharajadimaharajah Chandra Ul Nervi and raise him, and then help him start a revolt in Sind against the master, as a way to cut off the Master's lines of supply.
The PCs all teleport to a spot a few kilometers away from Sayr Ulan, the Sindi capital, and Corwyn casts Find the Path to seek out the remains of Chandra. His ashes are in a mausoleum of sorts in the Jit Mahal, the majestic royal palace in the center of Sayr Ulan, and proceed to Travel (as in with the spell) underground to reach the palace.
They get easily enough to the walls of the palace. Crossing inside they find themselves inside a cell with eight spectres! A fight ensues, and Sir Firearm is hit, losing two levels (this has happened to him before, he appears to have a propensity to level loss)! Some guards show up too, but the PCs act quickly and take the opponents down, fleeing downwards into lower levels before reinforcements arrive. Before that, though, Corwyn had cast "speak with monsters" with one of the guards, and asked him if he thought that king chandra was murdered (he did think so), and if he would serve chandra if chandra was alive (he said he would not because he is loyal to kali and the new Maharajah Kirtan).
They run using Travel past mazes of rooms with treasures, traps, strange living statues with multiple pairs of arms, poison gas, and more. Finally they are under the mausoleum, and phase up to the interior. One more gas trap, which they all avoid, and Corwyn has the urn with Chandra's ashes. They flee at top speed from the palace, back out to the desert, and Corwyn reads the "Raise dead fully" scroll.
At first, Chandra is apprehensive. His common isn't very good, and the PCs know no Sindi. He knows his brother/cousin Kirtan has betrayed him, but is surprised to hear that the Master of Hule has invaded, only now realizing the extent of his brother's foolish greed.
Slowly, they come up with a plan. Chandra suspects that the Rajahs of either Kadesh or Peshmir will likely be putting together a resistance force. Either Kadesh in the various mountain monasteries of Kali, or in the hills of Peshmir where there are various nomad tribes that have allegiance to Peshmir's Rajah. Chandra believes either Rajah are good men who would be loyal to him, but admits he couldn't be absolutely certain.
They stay there for the night, and in the morning Corwyn makes a clever use of Find the Path to determine whether the Rajahs in question are still alive. He finds out they both are. And that the Rajah of Kadesh is in his capital, but the Rajah of Peshmir is out in the hills. Since the forces of Hule would have to get through Kadesh to get to Peshmir, it seems unlikely that the Rajah of Kadesh could be in his capital unless he's betrayed Sind to the Huleans. The fact that Kadesh's rajah and people are loyal to Kali, an entropic immortal (and Huleans are entropic too) makes everyone increasingly convinced that this would be the case. So the gang decides that Corwyn and Alendalan will teleport with Chandra to the hills where the Rajah of Peshmir is supposed to be, instead.
They teleport away, and Sir Firearm, Galafilo and Duroc are left behind to wait 24 hours till someone comes back to tell them how things went. They don't wait long, however, before a Hulean patrol marches in their direction; clearly they realize what has happened and are looking for Chandra or his remains.
The Hulean warband includes 30 desert nomads, 15 hobgoblins, 9 gnolls, three manscorpions, a Hulean wizard and a Hulean cleric. The PCs split up, Galafilo and Firearm moving around the band to attempt an ambush, with Galafilo camouflaged with a potion of blending, and sir firearm having drunk a potion of invisibility. Duroc, meanwhile, stays over at the camp, under cover waiting till the battle starts.
Unfortunately, the Hulean wizard was ready with a potion of seeing invisible. That's the first surprise, revealed when he drops a fireball on Firearm and Galafilo. The second surprise is when he orders the Efreeti to make itself visible. It does so and starts to attack.
Firearm and Galafilo quickly make some distance between each other, Galafilo taking on the Efreet while Firearm moves toward the Cleric and Wizard. The Hulean wizard keeps firebombing Firearm, and the nomads start firing rains of arrows on Duroc. Duroc charges at the nomads, figuring he's got nothing to lose.
Firearm rushes the Manscorpions who are acting as the spellcasters' bodyguards. Having activated his ring of quickness, he manages to kill all three in one round. Meanwhile Galafilo kills the Efreet, and Duroc is wading through the nomads.
The wizard fires another lightning bolt at Firearm, and the hobgoblin lieutenant throws a magical returning spear at Firearm, and Firearm falls. Galafilo has to spend the round shooting Firearm with arrows of curing to get him back up, which gives the cleric and wizard time to get on a Disk of Flying and take to the air. They start bombarding Galafilo with ice storms.
Duroc, meanwhile, is accumulating a small hill of nomad corpses.
Firearm is back up, and he and Galafilo are rushing around, trying to get under the wizard and cleric so they can use their boots of levitation to reach them, but its very difficult to handle levitation against an opponent who's got full-blown flying.
Galafilo decides to take a round to kill the hobgoblin leader, while the wizards keep lobbing ice storms at him. Firearm is running around in circles, and Duroc is steadily piling up the nomad bodies.
Finally Galafilo manages to drop the hulean wizard with his throwing axes, and Firearm gets under the disk, levitates up, and slaughters the cleric. The remaining Hulean troops flee back in the direction of the Hulean garrison at Sayr Ulan.
The PCs loot the bodies and move to another location, trying to avoid what they figure is bound to be more troops coming after them.
Meanwhile, Corwyn, Alendalan and Chandra have gotten to the hills of Peshmir. There they see a large army of about five thousand, a ragtag mix of Sindi loyalist troops, free nomads, elephant cavalry (and even a few black-skinned humans riding triceratops!), a unit of 100 mystics, and several hundred Darokinian soldiers, mercenaries and adventurers who were forced to flee in the wrong direction from the Master's sacking of Akesoli.
There is some initial confusion, but when the Rajah of Peshmir realizes it is Chandra, and one of the Brahmins of Ixion confirms it to be so, everyone is rejoicing. When Chandra sees Kela, the beautiful daughter of the Rajah of Peshmir, the two glance mystified in each other's eyes, draw closer, closer, and... everyone breaks into song and dance in classic Bollywood style!
:D After the musical number is over, Corwyn and Alendalan meet with Chandra, the Rajah of Peshmir, and a Darokinian soldier who can act as a translator. Chandra expresses his gratitude to the PCs, and explains his intention to send messengers to all the provinces of Sind announcing his return to life and calling for rebellion. The Rajah of Peshmir's army will march to Sayr Ulan. But, he adds, Sind can only succeed in its revolt if Darokin and its allies will agree to push forward and fight on in Sindi soil if they succeed in driving the Master's forces out of Darokin. Surely the Master's army will have to retreat with its supply lines cut off, and they will retreat into Sind. Chandra needs assurances that Darokin and the allied forces of the known world will come in and help liberate Sind. Corwyn gives that assurance, as a diplomat of Darokin.
With that agreed, the next day Alendalan teleports Corwyn back to the desert to find the others, while Alen himself teleports back to Darokin city with a message from Corwyn to the Darokinian minister of defence, informing of the mission's success.
When Alendalan arrives in Darokin, he sees the city surrounded by a massive army of the Master's dark forces, including demons, dragons, and all other manner of foul monsters, besieging the city.
Its the 28th of Vatermont, 1006.
The PCs are:
Corwyn, cleric of Asterius, lv. 29
Sir Firearm, avenger of Vanya, lv. 22
Alendalan, karameikan/alphatian Elf lv. 10
Duroc, karameikan dwarf lv.9
Galafilo, halfling sheriff lv. 8
RPGPundit
I was wondering. So does Corwyn have some item that is cursed that is causing his mis-teleporting? Or is he just really unlucky.
Funny how Thincol "stole" that egg from them. That sounds about right.
Yup, it was funny. And no, its nothing to do with Corwyn, and everything to do with the player playing him's bad luck.
For some reason, certain players seem to have a propensity for certain crappy things happening to their characters in particular. For ex, Corwyn almost always is mis-teleported underground. And if there's a level-draining creature around you can be Sir Firearm is going to be drained.
RPGPundit
When we left the group, the majority of the PCs were in Sind, while Alendalan had returned to Darokin city to send word of the rebellion in Sind.
Today Duroc's player couldn't make it, so Duroc was bitten by a strange fly that left him in a deep sleep. The players knew he'd come out of it eventually so they just carried him along on the flying disk and let him be.
Alendalan sees that the Hulean army is huge, and has surrounded the city and are building their own siege walls to cut the city off and to give them a defensive position from which to fire their artillery. They are bombarding the city with fireballs and other such spells, while the defenders of Darokin do the same back to the Huleans. Alen helps out, firing off what offensive spells he has, but ducks out after being hit by a fireball. He heads to the Defence Minister's offices in the presidential building, and sends word of the group's success at having Raised the Maharajah and the request for a peace treaty. The defence minister tells them to offer Chandra whatever he wants to convince him to go through with the rebellion. Then he wishes Alen luck and gets back to work, but not before making mention of the fact that they have recieved sad news from Ylaruam, of Lawrence's death at the hands of a giant mutant beholder that is very slowly floating this way.
:evillaughMeanwhile, the other PCs are making their way through the desert of Sindrastan, and they encounter a Grey Worm that eats most of the camels they had captured from the Hulean soldiers, and scatters the rest. They slay the worm after a short bit, and keep heading to the hills where they had agreed to meet Alendalan the following day.
Unfortunately, Alen doesn't remember exactly where he was supposed to teleport. So he takes a wild guess, and ends up in the middle of the Sindi desert, but doesn't see the PCs anywhere. He does see the hills though, and figures that's a good place to go, so he teleports to the top of the nearest hill he sees on the horizon.
When he arrives there, he finds the hill inhabited by a Cyclops. The Cyclops attacks him, and Alen goes invisible. Thinking he's scared the elf off, the Cyclops goes back into his cave, and Alen sneaks in there, still invisible. Unfortunately, while the Cyclops is very stupid and has no depth perception, he does have a great sense of smell.
"Fee fi fo fum.. I smell the blood of an Elvenman!" ;)
Alen figures, "ah, screw it" and fires off a lightning bolt. :D
The Cyclops panics, and runs for it, but Alen dusts off his old longbow and fires off a few shots into the Cyclop's back. The Cyclops turns around and starts throwing rocks, so Alen polymorphs him into a one-eyed cat.
Meanwhile, the other PCs have followed the trail of the Grey Worm back to the hills, where they find a cave that was the worm's lair. It has a few coins scattered on the floor, but the large cave also has a HUGE metal statue of a dragon!
The PCs are naturally wary. They investigate a bit and notice that the centre of the cave has a deep well that's been filled with sand. The gang decides to try to find Alen before doing anything else there, and they do after a bit of searching. Alen checks out the Statue and determines that its actually a Drolem (a Dragon Golem, created by powerful magic, usually to guard something). They also find out it has symbols pertaining to the immortal Atman (known elsewhere as Ixion). Corwyn casts a Commune and tries to find out what the Drolem is there for. He finds out that whatever its guarding isn't treasure, but that its down at the bottom of that well.
The group decides to get rid of the Drolem first; they all hit it at once, hasted, and Sir Firearm does short work of it, slicing it to pieces.
Alen casts Conjure Elemental (earth) and sends "juan carlos" down to retrieve whatever is in the bottom of the well. I should note that because of the pet names he's invented for them, and the way he treats them, the Elementals have a serious hate on for Alen at this point. If he should ever travel to the elemental planes he will be one elf with serious problems. :D
Anyways, the Earth elemental comes back up with a potion bottle.
Alen opens it to cast Analyze, and hot whirlwind bursts out of the bottle! Its a Pasha, a Djinni King! The pcs all take some serious damage from the whirlwind. Corwyn casts "Speak with Monsters" to keep the pasha busy, but they all take another round of damage from the massive whirlwind, and Alen and Galafilo both die, and Corwyn falls unconscious. Sir Firearm is the only one still standing, and he hits the Pasha with everything he's got, dispelling it.
Corwyn regains consciousness, and casts Raise Dead Fully on Galafilo, and then on Alendalan the following day. They discuss what to do next, and conclude that they should go meet up with Maharajah Chandra's rebel army. Casting "Find the Path", Corwyn finds out that Chandra is still up in the hills, but seems to have moved south since the last time, and deduces that the army is slowly on the march to Sayr Ulan. The group confers, and they decide it'll be better to travel there rather than teleport, figuring that the army won't move any quicker with them than without them anyways, and that they might have some good encounters (and loot) along the way.
So they start travelling across Sind. A few days go by without encounters, and then one night they are attacked by a pair of Jade Dragons. They take the group mostly by surprise, during Galafilo's watch. Galafilo takes to the sky, and fortunately for them the Jade Dragons underestimate the party and choose to attack them physically rather than with breath weapons. They manage to drop one of the dragons, and then the other wisens up and breathes toxic gas at them. Alen drops, but Corwyn chooses to Fly sir Firearm up to smash the dragon while Galafilo uses the last of his arrows of Curing to bring Alen back up to positive HPs.
They Find the Path back to the dragon's lair, and find a great deal of Jade gems and jewels, as well as a few spell scrolls, a scroll of protection from undead (added to the scroll of prot. from Elementals that Alen had found in the Cyclop's lair), a +2 light crossbow, and some +2 arrows. They also analyze a spear Alen had found in the Cyclops lair (its a +1 returning spear), and a couple of potions (water-breathing and super-healing).
The group travels on, and the day before they estimate they'll meet up with Chandra's army, they find a small group of four Hill Giants. The giants are agressive to start out, but Galafilo kills one; Corwyn Speaks with Monsters on another, and Alendalan Charms Monster on the third.
Finally Sir Firearm intimidates the three survivors into servitude. The one that Alen charmed is very pleased with the elf ("I will hug him and kiss him and call him George!!")
They find a few coins, and when they ask the Giants if they have any other treasure, the Giants answer in the negative but seem like they're hiding something (badly). The PCs decide to tell the Giants to wait there, and will go to meet up with Chandra first, and come back later to bring the Giants along to join the Maharaja's forces.
The PCs travel on, and meet up with the rebel army, who are pleased to see them.
That's where we stopped for the night.
Its the 9th of Thaumont, 1006 ac.
The PCs are:
Corwyn, Patriarch of Asterius lv.30
Sir Firearm, avenger of Vanya lv. 22
Alendalan, elf wizard-lord lv. 10
Duroc, Dwarf Lord Lv. 10
Galafilo, halfling Sheriff lv. 8
GW
Finally Sir Firearm intimidates the three survivors into servitude. The one that Alen charmed is very pleased with the elf ("I will hug him and kiss him and call him George!!")
:heehee
Sorry; stay tuned next week for another update.
RPGPundit
GW
The PCs had left off having just re-united with Chandra's troops. They pow-wow with him and his generals, and he explains to them that the army is moving toward Sayr Ulan gradually, stopping off in places to build up troops (peasant forces and freedom fighters from all the provinces joining up with them as they move along) and that they should be in Sayr Ulan in about 8 days.
They warn the PCs that while Chandra is convinced his army will be able to handle the Hulean forces here, there are also a powerful band of Hulean Champions that must be dealt with. These adventurers are the best Hule has to offer and have been left in Sind to help cement the occupation.
Corwyn does a Find the Path to find them, and determines they're way down south in Jaibul, so off go the PCs flying south to hunt these "heros" down.
They travel for several days, flying over the Salt Swamp where they have an encounter with some mummies and wierd extraplanar creatures (malferas) in the sunken ruins of a city under the swamp. As part of the treasure horde from that find they get a scroll of protection from magic. As it turns out, this will be very important later.
During the trip Corwyn casually talks about his medallion of ESP. When Alen hears he has it, he complains to Corwyn that the medallion would have been useful in improving their odds of teleporting correctly. Corwyn gives him the medallion, and Alen does an Analyze to be sure he understands it correctly, learning that each time he uses the medallion there's a chance that instead of reading his chosen target's thoughts, he could instead end up projecting his OWN thoughts to everyone within 30'. He isn't bothered by this much, but the rest of the party is highly nervous at the thought of receiving Alendalan's thoughts in their heads!
They keep going, travelling for about six days in all, each day casting "find the path" to make sure that the Champions of Hule are still in Jaibul. Unfortunately for them, on the seventh day when they cast the "find the path", they see that he Champions are now in Sayr Ulan.
Its too late to fly back there, so instead they teleport back (for once having no serious errors). They see the vast Hulean army about to face off with the equally vast Sindi rebels. The PCs plan is that this would be the right time to go fetch the great Red Dragon that owed Sir Firearm 24 hours of servitude. Unfortunately, they don't have enough teleports for Alendalan to take the Dragon and come back himself. Without a clear solution at hand, they decide to go to the Sindi army and ask if one of Chandra's Rishis have the spell on hand.
None of them do, and they start to think of other options. They plan to send either a dog or the dwarf to the dragon, when one of the Darokinian soldiers in Chandra's army comes up to them and informs them that he found a mage from another region that's in the army and claims to have teleport.
They go see the mage, a bald bare-chested man with only shorts, a cape and cross-straps as clothing; and the mage indeed confirms that he has teleport and will help them. They explain that they need him to teleport Alendalan to Karameikos. Since the mage doesn't know Karameikos, they give him the medallion of ESP so he could read Alen's mind to have better knowledge of the place.
When he puts on the medallion, suddenly everyone within 30' hear in their minds: "The Fools! I have them now!"
The mage blinks.
Everyone else blinks.
Then its a mad dash to catch the guy. He wins initiative, and plane shifts out of there (taking the medalion with him).
They realize he must have been one of the Champions of Hule, in disguise. The PCs realize that NOW is the moment to attack, since it will take that guy at least 10 minutes to come back to this plane. Its not clear if he was the wizard, or the cleric, or even the orc shaman in disguise, but in any case, it will mean the champions have one less member to their party present.
They quickly write a letter with a map and strap it to a dog, teleporting the dog to the great Red Dragon's lair, in the desperate hope he will get the note and show up as agreed.
After that, Corwyn casts "find the path" to determine where the Cleric from the Champion's party is, and determine that the cleric is several kilometers UP from where they are!
First they prepare: casting Haste, mirror image, bless, and most importantly reading the scroll of protection from magic!
Then the party starts to fly up there. They fly for a great distance, and then see something, up in the clouds, looking like a gigantic bat! Its moving, faster than they are.
They try to follow it, and suddenly see something else, below them, and moving in the opposite direction, a green light.
Following the slower green light they catch up to it and see that its a man, surrounded by a green force field. He is dressed in green clothes and unarmed other than a ring in one hand.
Galafilo throws a hand axe but it just bounces off the force field. The guy mocks them, telling them they will fail against the champions. They keep chatting with him and learn he's the Champion's mage, and that the Orc Shaman (the guy who had been disguised) had been following them invisibly for some time now. He knows they've read the scroll of protection from magic and won't fight them until the scroll runs out.
The PCs wonder out loud what might happen if they and their anti-magic field were to fly up to him and his impenetrable force field. The mage suddenly looks worried, "You don't want to do that! Its two supposedly indestructible objects of opposite charges! No one knows WHAT might happen!"
The PCs respond in unison: "COOOOOL!!"
Duroc tells the mage: "You shouldn't have told them that"
They immediately try to fly up to the guy, to have the two fields hit each other, and he teleports away in a panic! "You people are out of your mind!"
The PCs having lost the mage, and lost sight of the giant bat, decide to fly back down just to check if their Dragon has shown up yet. Indeed he has, and when the PCs get back down to the surface they see the two armies are now in battle, and the dragon has cut a swath of destruction in the center of the Hulean lines.
However, the Dragon is now resting in tiny pieces on the battlefield, and Flying over him is another of the Hulean champions: This one in blue and red platemail with a cape and a huge "H" on his chest.
They fly after him and he starts to fly away heading toward Sayr Ulan.
Looking behind them, a couple of the PCs suddenly notice a red flash streaking behind them toward the Dragon carcass, teleporting it away so the PCs couldn't Raise it.
The PCs turn back toward that reddish flash, but don't see the source of it anywhere. They recall the Darokinian captain telling them that the Hulean's rogue uses an artifact that gives him a permanent quadruple-Haste.
Looking carefully, they spot him Hiding in Shadow, behind a pile of bodies!
It is indeed a rogue, in red leather armor with a lightning bolt on his chest.
Alendalan casts Charm on him and surprisingly he fails his save. Charmed, they realize he is wearing an ear-ring of communication, and can talk to the other Champions. They tell the Champions to come face them now. The Champions, through the charmed rogue, respond that some of them are on their way now, but one of them will be busy "taking care" of King Chandra.
Realizing that Chandra is in danger, the pcs prepare to go looking for him. They ask the rogue to turn around slowly, and he cheerily does so, and they're just about to kill him from behind to get rid of him, when the green mage with the power ring shows up in a flash of light and pulls the rogue down into the ground Travelling.
Realizing they can't waste time chasing those two, they go find Chandra. Corwyn casts a truesight, so that in theory no one should be able to sneak up on them invisibly or in disguise. Still, he gets the feeling he's forgetting something.
Suddenly, a funny-shaped boomerang flies from out of nowhere heading right toward Chandra! Sir Firearm leaps in the way and takes the blow. They look around desperately to see who threw it, but even with Truesight Corwyn can't find the would-be assasin.
That's when the large bat-shaped skyship comes soaring down, raining hot lead on everyone. The PCs and Chandra all take damage, and they realize they have to try to take that skyship out. Sir Firearm, Galafilo and Corwyn fly up to face it while Alendalan and Duroc stay near Chandra to protect him.
Suddenly, the green mage shows up. Noticing that Corwyn and Galafilo are no longer inside the circle of protection vs. magic (its centered on Sir Firearm); Power Ring casts Meteor Swarm on Galafilo and Corwyn, killing both of them instantly.
Meanwhile on the ground, a menacing looking Mystic wearing a bat-costume appears out of nowhere and hits Chandra and Alen with his Gentle Touch attack, killing both instantly. Surprisingly Duroc survives. He hits the Bat-mystic back with all he's worth but its not enough to drop him.
Sir Firearm is in a panic, realizing that they're one round from a total party kill. He rushes down to Corwyn's corpse and revives him.
The Bat-mytic intimidates Duroc, not even bothering to attack him since the dwarf is clearly out of his league. Duroc doesn't intimidate though, and tries to hit the bat-mystic again.
Then Sir Firearm charges the bat-mystic, killing him. Corwyn Fully Raises Alendalan.
Then Corwyn and Alen fly up to the bat-ship, where they see Hule-man and the cleric of their party, a beautiful Amazon woman with a pair of bracers and a lasso.
Winning initiative, Sir Firearm manages to get in and Smash Huleman to death before he can fight back. Corwyn casts Speak with Monsters on the cleric.
The Power Ring mage attacks the two, and down on the ground the speedster Rogue hits Alen and Duroc hard. But instead of hitting back, Alen fires a lightning bolt at the Power Ring mage, hitting him. Power Ring retreats into the bat-ship.
On the bat-ship, the Oricsh Manhunter, now back from the astral plane and no longer disguised as a human, attacks Sir Firearm, managing to injure him but not kill him.
The Wonder-Cleric was not in fact affected by Speak with Monsters, thanks to her Bracers of Spell Turning, and she Speaks with Monsters on Sir Firearm, paralyzing him.
But Corwyn has truesight up, and he can tell that he's higher level than Wonder-Cleric. He casts dispel magic, freeing Sir Firearm and Firearm in turn kills the amazon first, and then the Orcish manhunter.
Suddenly, the bat-ship explodes! Firearm and Corwyn are injured, but survive. When they look around and find no bodies, they realize the explosion of the bat-ship was a contingency (probably by Power Ring) that allowed him to teleport himself and the bodies of his team-mates out. The flashing Rogue is nowhere to be found, nor is the bat-mystic's body. The Hulean Champions were defeated, but got away.
Still, Chandra's forces are winning the battle, and when Corwyn once more Fully Raises Chandra, the Maharajah's victory is assured.
The PCs march triumphally into Sayr Ulan and feast with much curry and bollywood dancing!
The next day they meet with Chandra in his restored throne-room. He expresses his infinite gratitude to the heros for having saved him and his kingdom, and offers them whatever prize they want as a reward, if he can manage to grant it.
Duroc asks for and gets a magic shield.
Galafilo and Sir Firearm ask for magic items too, but theirs must be made, so they don't get them just yet. Chandra promises them that if they come back in three months or so they will have them.
Corwyn asks for his weight in rubies. His wish is granted. :D
And of course Alendalan asks for spells, and he's given a huge load of them to add to his spellbook.
The PCs spend a couple of days resting and recovering in Sayr Ulan but they are eager to get back to Darokin and see if the war against the Master is going as well over there.
It is the 20th of Thaumont, 1006
The PCs are:
Corwyn, Patriarch of Asterius cleric lv. 31
Sir Firearm, avenger of Vanya lv. 22
Alendalan, Karameikan/Alfheim elf lv.10
Duroc, Dwarf Lord lv.10
Galafilo Halfling Sheriff lv.8
RPGPundit
If it hadn't been for the scroll of protection from magic the "Hulean League of Justice" would have wiped the floor with the PCs.
RPGPundit
That was a twisted look at the Justice League there. Can't wait to see them face off again. I thought for sure your players were goners.
What is the Justice League? I thought the bad guys were made up by RPG Pundit? Are they actual characters (NPCs) from some source?
:-) Jesper
The PCs started out in Sayr Ulan, but with the victory there over the Master of hule, they had no reason to stay there anymore, so they decided to head back to Darokin City, and see how the war was going there.
Since Duroc's player didn't show up today, he disappears mysteriously in a teleportation accident. The PCs have seen this happen before, so they're unfazed by it and carry on without him, knowing he'll turn up at some appropriate moment.
Turns out it was going well. The bad news for Corwyn was that his stronghold (still being constructed) was badly damaged by the Hulean forces, but the good news was that a great alliance of Darokinians, Karameikans, Elves, Dwarves, some independent halfling snipers, and paladins and avengers of Vanya managed to lift the siege on Darokin City, and push the Huleans back to the hills.
The President of Darokin, Corwyn Mauntea, who had been hiding out in Selenica all this time, flies triumphally back into the capital on a flying carpet in full armor, and declares this to be "Mission Accomplished"!
However, there is another menace, one the PCs were responsible for. The minister of Defence who Corwyn talks to tells them that the giant mutant Beholder is heading straight to Selenica and is over the Altan Tepes mountains as they speak. He makes it clear that Darokin's government expects them to take care of this little problem before it reaches Selenica.
So they teleport over there, and fly over the mountains. And they see...
(cue "flight of the Valkyries" on my computer at that moment)
A huge Undead Beholder the size of a three story building, with two rows of teeth, flying slowly over the peaks of the mountains, heading to them!
Luckily, Alen had cast invisible on the group, so they fly at a good distance, around the beholder till they're behind its main eye, and Alen "dimension doors" Sir Firearm to smash it.
Sir Firearm hits it hard, but doesn't kill it. The beholder turns around and fires its eyebeams: it hits galafilo with the paralysis beam. And, tragically, it hits Sir Firearm with a 1 level energy drain beam.
This makes something like 500 000 xp that Sir Firearm has lost over the years due to energy drain.
Corwyn uses Cure Paralysis on Galafilo, and Alendalan Dimension Door's Galafilo down to join the Beholder-bashing. Galafilo misses, but Sir Firearm hits with multiple very palpable hits, and the beholder explodes, deflating all across the mountains like a popped balloon.
Their own "mission accomplished"; the PCs head back to selenica where Corwyn casts a Restore on Sir Firearm, taking Corwyn out of commission for 10 days. During that time Galafilo travels back to Darokin City and learns basic training in the Torch, probably the wierdest weapon slot he could find. Sir Firearm slips into a deep depression and starts drinking heavily, and Alendalan starts making a "top secret" magic item in his room.
When Corwyn is better, Alen is still working on the "top secret" item, so Corwyn decides to contact his immortal in a ceremony, to find out what he needs to do to begin the immortality quest.
He succeeds in the ritual, sees Asterius in a dream, and first asks about the Radiance. He finds out that a cabal of immortals is using the Radiance for their own ends, but that it is a very unstable power source and the rest of the immortals want it shut down, as it could destroy the whole world. Unfortunately, this Cabal has used certain barriers to prevent other immortals from accessing the Radiance, so Asterius hopes to use the mortal PCs to get to the radiance, and shut down the barriers so that the immortal rogues can be dealt with.
Then Corwyn asks about immortality, and finds out he must travel to one and only place in the universe where Asterius receives requests for patronage, and that he must bring a gift suitable to the immortal. He may travel with friends, but the last five miles he must travel alone, and once he reaches the site and makes the offering he must wait there as long as is necessary. Corwyn agrees, and cuts off the immortal contact. The last things he hears as he fades out are "wait.. you never asked WHERE my place of petition is....."
Alendalan finally finishes the "top secret" magic items, and they turn out to be little pink booties of flying for Sir Firearm.
The rest of the gang head off to rejoin Galafilo in Darokin City. There, they learn the war effort is going really well. Akorros has been retaken by the allied forces, and Akesoli is about to be retaken. Since everything is going so well, the PCs don't feel rushed for the first time in ages, and stay in Darokin city doing some business.
Galafilo realizes he should start his immortal quest too, and goes with Sir Firearm to ask the Patriarch of Vanya to perform a Ceremony to see if Vanya is disposed to consider his petition and what he needs to do to present the petition.
Alendalan hangs out with the Alfheim elves, and finds out that his wife Arewyn is pregnant! And the kid is "probably almost definitely" his! ;)
Fortunately, there are no real parenting requirements on his part, since elven children are raised by the clan and not the parents per se, so he says "cool" and then heads on his way, travelling to Alfheim to try to get into the college of advanced elven magic in Mealidon.
The others also hire a number of sages to learn different things they've been meaning to learn about for a while. They discover the secret formula for creating scrolls of protection from magic (it requires a high level mage), and Corwyn asks about immortal artifacts that let one travel or teleport (after finding out that the only way to get INTO the radiance is using a gate, wish, or immortal magic). He is given the names of certain artifacts, and their alleged origins, and uses find the path to discover a few of their locations.
Meanwhile, they hear that "Power Ring" has been sighted appearing as a messenger from the Master of Hule to the armies of the darokinian alliance. He tells the armies that the Master will no longer attempt to invade the known world, but he is Cursing it, with a revenge that will strike the entire known world like the fist of an angry immortal.
No one makes too much of the warning, and the PCs are carrying on with their business. Galafilo is waiting for an answer from the temple of Vanya, Alendalan is testing to be admitted into the school of magic (he fails the first exam, and can only try two more times or be rejected forever), and the others are getting ready to start some training or magic item construction, when suddenly, on the 25th of Yarthmont, people throughout the known world are suprised to see a big black thing streaking down from the daytime sky. Its a meteor, and it comes crashing down north of Lake Amsorak, creating a mushroom cloud that can be seen for miles around, causing the ground to rattle as far away as Darokin city, and over the next 24 hours covering the entire sky above most of the known world with a thick black cloud of dust.
The PCs realize: this ain't gonna be good.
RPGPundit
Its the 16th of Yarthmont, 1006 AC
The PCs are:
Corwyn, Patriarch of Asterius cleric lv. 31
Sir Firearm, avenger of Vanya lv. 22
Alendalan, Karameikan/Alfheim elf lv.10
Duroc, Dwarf Lord lv.10
Galafilo Halfling Sheriff lv.8
With the PCs back in Darokin city (and Alen in Alfheim) they decided to spend their time in training this whole session, and constructing items, and basically getting an ungodly quantity of power-elevations.
Duroc came back, and Sir Firearm (the only one who had no weapon slots to train or magic items to build) spent nearly six months on a constant bender, getting drunk out of his mind, still depressed from having been energy drained the previous adventure, and further depressed when he found out that Sind had been retaken by the Master of Hule after the Darokinian army didn't fulfill its promise with Chandra and cross the border into Sind to push out the Master's forces.
"By thunder any country I liberate STAYS LIBERATED!" he declared.
A lot of the PCs were bothered by that turn of events, but at the moment there was nothing they could do about it. Alone, they lacked the power to take on the entire Hulean army, and they couldn't get Darokin to attack because the meteor strike had sent up clouds into the air that lingered for weeks, killing the entire crop and causing famine in the land; and the ash fall that followed seems to be affecting the trees of Alfheim, twisting and deforming them in some strange disease.
All was not bad news, however. After some initial setbacks, Corwyn's merchant company has started raking in some serious profit, enough that the whole party has started up a second merchant company that will travel all through the known world doing business.
Also, Alendalan finished all the training he could, now having access to some sixth and seventh level spells, and he petitioned the clanleader of the Grunalf clan for a hex to call his own, where he plans to build a dominion.
The PCs plan to go there next week to clear it out.
Also, Sir Firearm did finally manage to cheer up when he managed to buy a cool +5 shield of returning, and is now looking for some magic chain mail. He's taken to wearing a big A on his chest, inspired by Huleman's H, and is calling himself "Captain Avenger".
Anyways, that's it for today. More next week.
Its Eirmont, 1006.
The PCs are still:
Corwyn, Patriarch of Asterius, lv 32
Sir Firearm, Avenger of Vanya lv. 21
Duroc, Karameikan Dwarf Lord lv. 10
Alendalan, Alfheim/Callari Elf Lord Wizard lv. 10
Galafilo, Karmeikan/Shiresfolk Halfling Sheriff Lv. 8
What is the Justice League? I thought the bad guys were made up by RPG Pundit? Are they actual characters (NPCs) from some source?
:-) Jesper
They are actually superheroes out of DC COmics best superhero team. The Justice League. There was a cartoon and everything. Superman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash, Batman, etc.
The only thing missing was the Hawkman and Woman and the Wonder Twins. Of course they were the lamest of the group.
Nice tie in to the meteor. I love that Sir Firearm is taking on the Marvel Universes counterpart to Superman, Captain America. Or am I wrong in assuming that? Will be interesting to see how the players deal with the Radiance and the quests to Immortality.
You're absolutely right in assuming that. He's even going so far as to try to find an old +5 chain mail to replace the +1 full plate he has now, because the chain mail is more "captain america".
RPGPundit
The PCs decided to spend this session clearing out Alendalan's forest hex in Alfheim in preparation for his dominion.
Sir Firearm wasn't present. His player was ill, and of course, so was sir firearm. If he ever survives his immortality quest, no doubt he'll be the immortal patron of explosive diarrea.
The PCs go to the alfheim hex, with travel being much simpler now thanks to the scroll of shelter (everyone crams in there, and Alen casts Teleport Object on himself).
And they start the work of clearing out. Alen finds out that his hex is bordered on two side by the River of Monsters, and that a confluence of magical influences make the place succeptible to the random appearance of monsters. They also learn that at this point, something like a third of all the trees in alfheim are infected with this mysterious disease that is causing them to twist and warp.
This bears itself out early one night in their examination. Corwyn is on patrol, when suddenly he notices a Gate forming in the ground below them, and out spews a Horde of earth elementals!
Now, if you've not been a very attentive reader, you might have failed to notice that Alen has a long history with the Elementals. Ever since he learnt "Conjure Elemental", hes been giving them silly names, making them do pointless tasks, and generally abusing of them. The players had heard that the entire elemental planisphere was ****** off with him, but they had yet to suffer that wrath.
This night, they did, in the form of eight giant earth elementals who came looking for Alen. It was clear that they only wanted him, the other PCs could have just let them take him, but they felt too much loyalty, and joined the fight. These weren't ordinary Elementals though, they were the tough guys of their plane; and the fight only ended because corwyn very cleverly flew with Alen high enough that the elemntals couldn't reach. Their lack of flight made success impossible, so they returned through the gate to their plane, and the gate shut down.
The next day, Alen decided it was time to talk with an elemental to find out how he could make things right. He conjures an earth elemental up, and corwyn casts speak with monsters. He asks the elemental what he must do to set things right.
The Earth Elemental responds that he personally would like Alen to be mashed into little bits, but he's not the one who runs things in the plane, he just works in an office. For a start, though, they don't like being conjured, much less for silly things.
A very depressed Alen agrees not to conjure him anymore. He asks the Earth Elemental if there's anything he would like, thinking of a gift for him.
"well, I like a bit of zinc now and then, but who doesn't?" :D
The PCs don't have any zinc, so they give him a handful of gold coins. "Here you go!"
The Earth elemental looks at the coins incredulously, "what are these for?"
"well, we don't have any zinc, but you can have those..."
*blink* "I can't have sex with THESE!"
Anyways, the PCs let him go and continue on their way, leaving the greater elemental problem unresolved for now.
They keep travelling through the woods, with one night having an encounter with some dire giant flying squirrels, but nothing major happening for a bit.
Then suddenly, as they're walking one day through the woods, they all feel a great chill. Galafilo shoots up into the air, knowing that "great chills" are usually a sign of impending doom. Looking around, Corwyn spots a creature in between a couple of warped trees. Its a giant black humanoid figure; and by black i mean as in "negative space", a great empty shadow, nothing, where there should be something.
Its a nightwalker.
Galafilo throws an axe at it. Its a +1 axe but even so absolutely nothing happens.
Corwyn decides to turn it. It SAVES. This scares the hell out of corwyn, becuase he had no idea that any undead could have a save vs. turning.
Galafilo fires a lightning bolt that gets sucked right into its blackness, for no effect.
And Duroc, Duroc charges at the Nightwalker, hits it, and does 20 damage! The little dwarf that the others had along as a mascot is all grown up, and doing massive damage!
But its the Nightwalker's turn. It summons up a Phantom Shade to attack Alendalan, tries a gaze attack at Corwyn, and proceed to beat the crap out of Duroc, injuring him seriously and destroying his prized +4 shield!
On their turn, the others fight back with a barrage of spells (alen), turnings (Corwyn), and cowardice (Galafilo, surprisingly, who decides to stay in the back "covering" Corwyn, rather than go in and fight the Nightwalker with Duroc). None of these tactics work. The only one who's doing damage to the thing is Duroc, with his mighty blows. Corwyn manages to destroy the Phantom Shade with this turning attempt, though.
Then the Nightwalker pounds on Duroc, bringing him down to only 1 hit point above zero! He also destroys Duroc's armor, leaving him with nothing on but his undies!!
At this point, its unclear which is the greater horror to behold, the nightwalker or the dwarf in boxer-briefs.
Next round, Corwyn casts a full cure on Duroc, Alen fires an arrow at the Nightwalker (no damage), and Galafilo finally grows a pair and charges the thing. Unfortunately, his +2 axe doesn't do any damage either. He notes Duroc is hitting (and doing damage) with a +3 warhammer. So Galafilo grabs Corwyn's +3 mace.
The nightwalker pounds Duroc and Corwyn this turn, injuring them both seriously.
Corwyn retreats, and Alen Dimension Doors down to the level of the battle (he was up in a tree until then), and tells the others to hold on till they can get to him, not to run.
They keep bashing the creature, but after all these rounds they estimate the creature still has something like 70% of its hit points. The Nightwalker bashes them some more, and Alendalan gets to them, casting Haste. Duroc and Galafilo hit, hard.
But that's not all. Corwyn had retreated in order to read a scroll. He reads it. Raise Dead Fully, cast on the Nightwalker. Now, the creature is looking seriously hurt.
It fights back, though, its gaze attack finally hitting the mark, as Galafilo drops dead.But now Duroc hits it twice as hard with the haste, and Corwyn reads yet another Raise Dead Fully.
The Nightwalker fights on vainly, Duroc hits it again, and it is no more.
When it explodes, a number of items shower to the ground where it once was. The PCs check it out, and end up discovering among the items a Rod of Inertia, an Ear Ring, a sword +1, +3 vs. Giants; and most importantly, another scroll of protection from magic. Corywn casts Raise Dead and Full Cure on Galafilo, and they move on.
There's also a treasure map there, which the PCs decide to follow the next day. It leads them to a small cave filled with Thouls. They bash the Thouls, and find some good coins and jewels.
Later, they get to a particularly infested area, filled with the warped trees. Among the trees, they spot a strange creature with the body of a buffalo, a long tail with a bony point at the end, a craned long neck, and the head of a boar. A dreaded Catoplebas! And it has a mate.
The PCs attack with their eyes closed, avoiding the death gaze of the creatures. They kill it rather quickly, as besides the death gaze the Catoblepas isn't all that deadly. They find a pair of huge diamonds stashed beneath one of the twisted trees, and a lucky rabbit's foot.
That night, they are attacked by a giant dire rabbit. Alen charms him, and charmed, he agrees to serve Alen, though the bunny swears that someday, he will "feast on Alen's liver".
They keep going, narrowly missing encounters with giant dire kittens and a giant dire mole with gender identity issues.
They cannot escape the gang of giant dire butterflies, though. They attack in the night, trying to buffet the PCs with their wings. When Corwyn casts Speak with Monsters on them, and asks "why are you attacking us", the butterfly replies, "eh, it seemed like it would be fun at the time". Corwyn manages to determine that these are a gang of teenage Giant Dire Butterflies with bad attitudes.
Fighting them, they kill all but one, that gets away, and another that Alen turns to stone.
Corwyn comments at this point: "Alfheim DEFINITELY has an um... interesting ecology" :D
The following night, they run into a giant owl with high-level clerical spellcasting abilities. This is a Hsiao, the guardian of the woods. The PCs aren't sure what to make of him, till he casts "Speak with Elf" on Alendalan, and asks him why he's disturbing the poor woodland creatures.
Alen responds that he's just clearing his hex to make a very nice eco-friendly stronghold and that he's killing monsters, but not woodland creatures, unless they attack him first.
The Hsiao responds: "I'm investigating reports that you assaulted some giant butterflies"
"They assaulted us!! They attacked us first! They're gangsters!"
"Surely not! That butterfly is from a nice family."
"Its true, I swear!"
"You swear you won't harm any woodland creatures?"
"I swear."
"Alright, but you watch out, because if I hear anything else I'll come here and cast some serious clerical smackdown on you".
The next day the PCs, nearly done their work of wood-clearing, run into a band of Grunalf elves, who tell the PCs that they're on their way to a Juvenile Court Proceeding at the request of the Hsiao. The PCs tell the elves about how they have heard a lot of rumours about Shadow Elves being around (The Grunalf clan, ever paranoid about the massive international shadow elf conspiracy, are convinced the shadow elves are causing the warping of the trees). The PCs ask where the elves heard about those rumours.
"A giant butterfly told me"
"Watch out for those! Some of them attacked us and later told the Hsiao that we attacked them!"
"Frankly"; replies the elf leader, "I'm not surprised. Those giant dire butterflies are always causing trouble, most of them come from broken homes you know."
"Really? But the Hsiao said they were from nice families"
"Between you and me, the Hsiao is pretty naive. Hell, he's so out of it, he even thinks the Giant Mole is straight."
Corwyn mumbles, "definitely an interest ecology, this alfheim..."
But by then, the PCs are done their scouring, and the elves bring them some surprising news: Ylaruam, or at least one Emir and warband from the same, has invaded the barony of Biazzan in Thyatis! This bodes very poorly for Thyatis, and it also bodes very poorly for the PCs trade routes, as a war in that area would cut off the routes that the PCs caravans were taking.
Indeed, while Alen goes to the Grunalf clanhold to work out the cost of his dominion construction (it only costs him 50k gold pieces, and will be ready in 90 days), Corwyn and the gang return to Darokin City, and Corwyn learns that his caravan has come back thirty thousand gps in the hole. Its been a very bad year for Darokin economically, and the trade routes are suffering.
The PCs determine that next, they will set about figuring out a possible dominion site for Duroc, but that will have to wait till next week.
For now, its Kaldmont 28, the last day of 1006. And what a mess of a year its been.
The PCs are:
Alendalan, Patriarch of Asterius lv. 32
Duroc Dwarf Lord, lv. 11
Alendalan, Elven Lord Wizard, lv. 10
Galafilo, Halfling Sheriff, lv.8
Today, Duroc's player wasn't present, so we assume Duroc spent the adventure in a fairly vain effort to singlehandedly gain permission to have a dominion in the Cruth mountains in Darokin.
When we left the gang, they were all in Darokin city, after having finished the clearing of Alen's hex in Alfheim.
It was the 1st of Nuwmont, so taxes were due in Darokin. Corwyn and Sir Firearm chose to pay those taxes, but Alen now felt himself more closely tied to Alfheim, and Galafilo has always felt closer to the Shires, so Alen hightails it out of Darokin in a quick act of tax evasion, teleporting Galafilo to the Shires and himself to Alfheim.
In the Shires, its Winterfest, so Galafilo spends the time with his family, in a (relatively quiet) halfing feast, getting some time in with Delune.
Meanwhile, in Alfheim Alendalan pays a donation to the Grunalf clan, and then goes to his hex, trying to find "useful" herbs (which to him is anything he can consume in some form that will result in an altered state of awareness).
Along the way, he runs into an old friend: Hathalon. Hathalon's player had left several rt months ago, unable to keep playing at the time, but tonight he's come back and may be able to continue in the near future. It turns out that Hathalon has also had a bad year. He spent some time in Alfheim, until news reached him that Captain Marakaz, his old beau, had died in combat on the Isle of Dawn. Deeply depressed from this, he'd gone off to "find himself"; ending up accidentally travelling to another plane of existence (one of my other campaigns), and then back again.
He gained a lot of gold, then spent it.
He gained a lot of XP, but then suffered a level drain.
So by a bizzare coincidence, he now has exactly as much gold and exactly as much experience as when the party last saw him.
Alen learns that Hathalon has spent the better part of the last year in the depths of the Alfheim woods, buggering squirrels. His natural response is to invite Hathalon to "come back to my place"; which Hathalon does.
Some gay elven frolicking ensues.
A couple of days have passed, and Sir Firearm and Corwyn are getting bored. They had expected Alen and Galafilo to come back right away, but three days have passed and there's no sign of either of them. So Firearm and Corwyn decide to travel south to the hills and then the Malpheggi swamp, to see if they can't kill some things and take their stuff.
After their fun and romp in the buff, Alen has to go back to the grunalf clan hold, and Hathalon wants to see Galafilo, so Alen teleports Hathalon, still half naked, to sateeka. Hathalon rushes to cast invisibility, but not before an old halfling woman sees him on the roof of the inn with his pants down. She waves her walking stick at him, "you elven pervert! If I was younger, I'd climb up there and give you a kick in the nuts!"
Hathalon finally gets his pants on, and becomes visible again and starts wandering through the streets of sateeka calling out Galafilo's name. He finds Galafilo, interrupting a romantic encounter Galafilo is having with Delune, and naturally galafilo is less than pleased to see Hathalon. However, he gets over that fast, and ends up organizing a big halfling feast in Hathalon's honour.
Meanwhile, after stocking up on drugs, Alendalan teleports back to Darokin only to find that absolutely no one from the party is there. He goes around the city trying to find the guys but can't.
Meanwhile, Corwyn and Sir Firearm run into a gang of giant bats, which they kill quick, and then some Vampires, which takes a bit more time. Still smarting from the last time he suffered an energy drain, Sir Firearm in particular is very anxious, but they manage to kill the vamps off without incident. Among the treasure, they find a scroll of protection from Undead, which Sir Firearm naturally snatches up.
Alendalan, failing to find anyone, goes off to the Alfheim embassy, and has some more fun and romp with his wife Arlewyn, trying some magic mushrooms along the way (and I don't mean the kind that glow with a detect magic).
Galafilo and Hathalon tire of waiting for ALendalan, and decide to travel the three-day journey to Darokin themselves.
Corwyn and Sir Firearm double back heading to Darokin again, and along the way they run into a group of seven trolls. One Barrier spell, several smashes, and one lit torch later, no more trolls.
Finally, the whole party ends up back in Darokin. Sir Firearm and Corwyn are pleased to see Hathalon, and Corwyn manages to accurately update Hathalon about what's been happening in the known world in this last year (Alendalan had told him previously, but gotten most of the events totally mixed up).
With the whole group reunited, Sir Firearm reminds the gang that he wanted to track down his old chain mail +5 of reflecting. Since Firearm is trying to take the "captain avenger" route, the chain mail would look closer to the "style" he wants (ie. emulating captain america).
So Corwyn casts a Find the Path and determines that the chain mail is in Specularum. The whole gang teleports there, find Specularum to be in a pretty prosperous state these days since Karameikos separated from Thyatis, and head to the tavern where the chain mail had been.
They get there, and find that the Chain mail is now in the possesion of Lord Flasheart, the dashing but completely insane master-level fighter that always talks very loudly, enjoys the prostitutes, and ultraviolence.
"Holy crap!" says Firearm, "He's the guy who once wiped out half of the callari elves in a crazy rampage!" (it wasn't actually half, though the event had been pretty shocking to the PCs way back when they last saw Flasheart, because back then he was already a Master while they were just barely out of their basic levels).
Now, Alendalan is a Callari elf, and he had no idea that this massacre had occured (at the time it had happened, he'd been petrified). Being told of this very suddenly, and unaware of Flashheart's incredible power level, he instantly starts verbally and then physically assaulting Flasheart.
He casts Mirror Image first, which gives Flasheart all the excuse he needs. Spellcasting in public is forbidden in karmeikos, and since Flashheart is a Karameikan count now, as well as the Minister for Agriculture and Racial Genocide, he decides to make a "citizen's arrest". He smashes Alen with five attacks in one round, blowing away all four of his mirror images and dropping him.
Corwyn cures him, and the city guard shows up to arrest him. Flashheart, in the meantime, is not at all put out by the Elf's situation, and summons the prostitutes and beer, while chitchatting with Sir Firearm about the chain mail. He tells Firearm he's not interested in selling the chain mail, but he'll gladly trade the chain mail for some other armor with Firearm if Firearm can bring him something of equivalent power.
After the guards are taking Alen away, Alen teleports back into the pub, verbally harrangues Firearm and Galafilo for their flippant attitude about the massacre of his people, and then surrenders himself again. After they take ALen away, Corwyn also reams out Firearm and Galafilo, and then goes off to hire Lord Yarlov, the best lawyer in the city.
Yarlov manages to make a brilliant legal argument, convincing the judge to annul the sentence against Alendalan, due to Alen's altered mental state at the time of the assault.
The group decides that they should head back to darokin, and get into the scroll of shelter for Alendalan to teleport them all back, but Alen holds Corwyn back for a second, gives him the scroll, and then teleports Corwyn away to Darokin by surprise. Clearly, Alendalan is planning to stay in Specularum and seek revenge against Flasheart.
That's it for today's adventure. Its the 10th of Nuwmont of 1007, and the PCs are:
Corwyn, Patriarch of Asterius, lv. 32
Sir Firearm, avenger of vanya lv. 21
Alendalan, Elf Lord Wizard lv.10
Hathalon, Elf Lord Wizard lv 10
Galafilo, Halfling Sheriff Lv.8
Alendalan had stayed behind in Specularum when the others were teleported, taking the party by surprise, and bent on revenge against Lord Flashheart.
First though, he teleports to Alphatia and picks up a couple of bottles of Father Abelard's Total P*ss-up.
Coming back to Specularum (after being mistaken for an "illegal magical immigrant" by the Alphatian police, and being told to leave immediately), he heads back to Flash's favourite bar, and polymorphs himself into a female human.
Meanwhile, Corwyn gets the guys out of the scroll of shelter, and teleports back to Specularum with Hathalon. His plan is not to stop or help Alen, just to be around for what he assumes will be the inevtable Raising Dead.
Duroc, who is at the Darokinian bureau for Dominion Allotment, is still going from one office to another trying to get permission to set up his domain. Suddenly the office where he is waiting gets swarmed by Rust Monsters!
"Wandering Monster!!" someone shouts. But its too late. Duroc tries to fight the beasts, and ends up losing his +3 warhammer and both his +1 rings of protection.
Hathalon in the meantime forgets all about the law against public spellcasting, and casts fly to get off the roof of the inn he ended up teleporting onto, and is promptly arrested. He offers the city watch a ridiculously expensive bribe, and even though Karameikan police are pretty honest, its more than they earn in ten years, so they take it and let him go.
Alen, polymorphed, seduces Flash, gets him up to a bedroom and plies him full of Brother Abelard's until Flash drops dead. Then he cuts his head off, chops him to bits, and stuffs him into a bag of holding so none of Flash's high-level buddies could possibly "find the path" to him.
Alen, noticing that the room is absolutely full of blood, de-polymorphs the Dire Rabbit he was carrying around, slays it, and starts screaming "Wandering Monster!!!"
The tavern owner comes in, apologizing profusely and swearing that they hardly ever get wandering monsters in his establishment. Alen shrugs it off, and leaves the tavern owner to clean up the mess of "dire rabbit blood"!
"Gosh, that Dire Rabbit sure bled a lot.."
"A wandering monster in a tavern? But that's where you start adventures..."
"well, it might be one of Gygax's..." :D
Alen meets up with Corwyn and Hathalon, both of whom are surprised to see him alive. They teleport back to Darokin and Alen asks Corwyn to plane shift to the elemental plane of fire to dispose of the corpse.
Alen does so, encountering a giant Phoenix there! He quickly creates food and water, distracting the phoenix, flees, and plane shifts back to the prime material plane.
Unfortunately, he appears in Ierendi, not Darokin.
So three days later, he finally makes it back to Darokin, with a lai of flowers, a straw hat, and sipping a mai-tai. He's brought back enough tacky souveniers for everyone.
That issue resolved, the party decides that its about time they helped clear out Duroc's hex, except Duroc is still going through the Maze of Beaurocracy to try to get a hex.
Corwyn goes over there and uses his political connections to accomplish in ten minutes what Duroc has been trying to get done for the last three weeks.
He gets a hex at the very southwesternmost tip of the cruth mountains, close to the road between Mar and Athenos. The party travels over there and determines it will take them more or less 32 days to clear out the hex.
It turns out to be the most boring clearing-out ever. Astoundingly, they only have four encounters.
The first is with a nest of Giant Bees, that they make short work of.
Second is with a group of what appear to be Giants. In reality they are Earthdrakes, small dragons from the elemental plane of earth, who are lost. Duroc is in charge of the team while they clear his hex (as is the tradition with any of the "clearing out" adventures, the guy who owns the hex makes the rules) and he chooses not to just attack the "stone giants" right away. Instead he parlays with them offering them peaceful co-existence.
They start talking in earth elemental, about "tricking the dwarf", and Duroc quickly calls them on it, thanks to his "Helm of comprehending languages".
The Drakes are astounded, asking how he knows their language.
He answers that he speaks giant. Only, of course, the Drakes weren't speaking that.
After some confusion and tension, the "giants" finally come clean, after Corwyn uses Truesight and sees they aren't giants at all. They polymorph back to their Drake form and explain that they are lost and trapped on the material plane.
Corwyn offers to take them back to the plane of earth, and they readily agree, thanking the PCs profusely.
This time, Corwyn takes Hathalon with him (choosing Hath over Alendalan because of Alen being on the Elemental's "most wanted list"), and when he and Hath shift back to the middle of vast wasteland, Hath just teleports them both back to the rest of the party.
The third encounter in the mountain hex is with a rare Mountain Druid. The "old man of the mountain" is 34th level, and confronts the party at night during Corwyn's watch. He warns the Dwarf not to desecrate the land or the wildlife. Duroc responds without fear or grovelling, making it clear that he WILL be lord of this hex, but that he plans to make most of his community subterranean and will not disrupt the forested parts of the mountains or cause environmental damage.
The Druid leaves, warning the party and especially Duroc that he'll be watching carefully.
The last encounter is with Smiley the Barbarian, who had been last seen in this very same mountain range over a game year ago. He's still lost here, hasn't managed to move more than three hexes in two years, and in the wrong direction at that.
The PCs offer to send him to Darokin, and he eventually agrees. He also lets the PCs know that in reality he's not a "barbarian" but an exile from Klantyre, in Glantri, a pariah by virtue of his total lack of magical ability and an unfortunate habit of beating the cr*p out of magic users. :D
Apparently, he now plans to return to Glantri to avenge his father, Angus Flip Flop MacPlop, deceased professor of Magical Dung Gathering Techologies at the Magical College of Glenmoorloch.
They teleport Smiley away to Darokin, as he claims he can find his way to Glantri from there (a dubious assertion, given his direction sense thus far), and just as he's being teleported away, he mumbles something about "having to deal with the Rad--" just before being cut off.
With their hex-clearing job done, the PCs fly back toward Mar, and no sooner are they across the border of Duroc's boring hex than they're attacked by a pair of Large Rocs. Taking them out after some effort, they get a stash of jewels from the Roc's lair, the only serious xp gain of the night.
Finally, the reach Mar, and from there will be starting the running of their respective Dominions as of next week.
The Party is:
Corwyn, Patriarch of Asterius, lv.32
Duroc, Dwarf Lord lv12
Alendalan, Elven Lord Wizard of alfheim(ex-karameikos) lv. 10
Hathalon, Elven Lord Wizard of Alfheim lv. 10
Galafilo, Sheriff Lv.8
(Sir firearm was absent tonight)
RPGPundit
But just to give the brief form of the update: Alfheim has now fallen to the shadow elves, Corwyn is now 35th level, and the group had a rather nasty encounter with a group of poltergeists that led to both Corwyn and Sir Firearm being excessively aged.
Sir Firearm resolved the problem by making an oath of service to the temple of Vanya in Thyatis, while Corwyn is trying desperately to find enough wishes to be able to increase his wisdom to 18 to cast Wish, before his time runs out.
RPGPundit