Campaign journal
by RPGPunditThe 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 kilometres 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 centre 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 realising 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 realise 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 realises 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!
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