Campaign journal
by RPGPunditThe 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 "heroes" down.
They travel for several days, flying over the Salt Swamp where they have an encounter with some mummies and weird 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 Analyse 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 medallion with him).
They realise he must have been one of the Champions of Hule, in disguise. The PCs realise 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 kilometres 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 centre 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 armour with a lightning bolt on his chest.
Alendalan casts Charm on him and surprisingly he fails his save. Charmed, they realise 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 assassin.
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 realise 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 centred 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, realising 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, paralysing 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 realise 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 triumphant 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 heroes 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.
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