Since my first update got a good amount of responses, I have posted a few of these, but none in about six months now.
Warning - this is long>>>
The original summary is here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=7232307March 2008 update:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=7605614May 2008 update:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=7754871At the start of the day, the party was
Delvaris, an elf fighter/paladin (level 2/4)
Scandalarian, a Halfling psion (level 5)
Hurdan, a human rogue (level 6)
Janayla, a human cleric (level 6)
Aerol Stonesplitter, a dwarf fighter, (level 5)
Jinyth, a human sorcerer (level 6)
>>>
The party used the power invested in the cleric’s new “unicorn” bow to teleport to the Crondor Woods, and were soon greeted by a scouting party of hostile wood elves.
The elves informed them that they were recently fooled by a group of humans claiming to be followers of the Guardian and Great Huntress, so any visitors were to be taken to the king for judgment. The previous group had managed to trick the elven prince (and king’s son) and killed him. Plus, they were suspicious of humans because of an evil presence that was growing in the now lost human town of Hatden nearby (Garin the ranger was from there…)
The party was brought before an aged elf, who was the king of the wood elves of the Crondor Woods. However, it soon became apparent that his granddaughter Telonna had assumed a lot of power since the death of her father. She was also a cleric and ranger who followed the Great Huntress and said that spells of detection can often be fooled, but the Great Huntress would never allow an imposter to win an archery contest over a true believer – meaning, our party cleric would need to win the archery contest to prove she was a true believer.
She implied dire consequences for the players if they lost, and the elf princess was 3 levels higher than the party cleric, and also had ranger levels, so had a strong advantage.
But, the party’s priestess of the Great Huntress rolled phenomenally well (natural 19, 20, 19) on her first three arrows, and was insurmountably ahead, even though I rolled decently for the princess and got a bulls-eye on the fifth arrow. The party priestess used her bow’s one/day special power to give her last arrow True Strike and split the princess’ bulls-eye arrow to the “oohs” and “ahs” of the mostly elven crowd.
The party Priestess then gained a rank in the church and the forgiveness of the elves, who quickly guided them to where they wanted to go – which was to investigate the growing evil in Hatden. (There was a lot more role-playing than that, but I'm too lazy to write about it!)
On the way to the remains of Hatden, the players were struck by an unusual blast of chill air – out of place for the warm climate in late spring. Soon, a feeling of palpable evil hung over the party as they proceeded to approach the town. The vegetation itself was blackened and the area was almost silent, except for the caw of the occasional crow.
Upon entering the town, most of the buildings looked like burned out husks of their former selves, but on the site of what was the town’s chapel dedicated to the goodly Church of the Life’s Fire, a large stone fist (the symbol of the Overlord) seemed to be bursting through the ground. (It was carved to look like a statue of a fist bursting through the ground)
Chained to the ground was a human figure, and standing above the chained figure was an imposing winged humanoid – a half-fiend cleric of The Overlord, who immediately moved to attack the PCs after they refused his request to pay homage to the Overlord. (gee, what a surprise there!)
He attacked with Unholy Blight and took off into the air and perched himself on the stone fist. Then, the chained figure got up and was revealed to be a Kyton/Chain Devil that the half-fiend had just summoned, and it also attacked.
The party felled the devil quickly, but had a tough battle to defeat the half-fiend, as they had not run into too many flying baddies before. After the battle, the palpable sense of evil was gone – but, the party was soon attacked by a blackened treant with flaming embers flying about – a charred horror (a treant that died a horrible death by fire, only to come back as angry undead treant)
In another tough battle, the party won when the Halfling pulled a rhino out of his Bag of Tricks – which subsequently charged the charred horror and scored a crit doing nearly 40 points of damage.
And, just in the nick of time, the wood elves arrived, and had several of their clerics perform clerical magics to purify the remains of the town.
The party then headed to the priestess’ old hometown of Vrindven (I love the Kalamar Atlas!), to check in on her estranged, but sickly, mother and her sister and to also catch a boat upriver to Ospolen.
On the way to Vrindven, the party found signs of battle – a small group of dead dwarves amidst a larger group of orcs and goblins, and a huge amount of footprints along the road.
Worried, the priestess and the other three speedier party members double-timed it going into town, leaving the slower Halfling and dwarf behind.
Soon, the party ran into orcs running in their direction and away from the town, and quickly dispatched them. They also spotted several large flying figures in the distance. They ran into a few more orc groups running away from the town, and then a hill giant. The flying figures then revealed themselves to be elves mounted on hippogriffs who had come down from the Lendelwood. With the help of the elves, the party quickly dispatched the hill giant. The elves revealed that the giant and orcs were fleeing from Vrindven, where they had attempted to sack the town. However, with the help of some dwarves and elves, the town was able to defeat the attackers.
At the town, the party ran into the aftermath of the battle (if the party had left Hatden earlier, they would have been involved in repelling the assault… )
The party priestess ran into her sister, who was now a priestess of the lawful good Knight of the Gods, where she bitterly informed her sister that their mother had passed away and that she had become a cleric in a failed attempt to heal the mother’s sickness and was attracted to the Valiant One’s idea of duty, honor and loyalty. (Ouch!)
The party then got some information from the dwarves and elves, as well as those in town – the dwarves informed the party dwarf that they had heard that a group of dwarves training near the Straits of Svimozhia were assaulted and killed by a vicious pirate named Hovarin Gelig, but the dwarf who listed the dead did not count our party dwarf’s nephew among the missing, even though it was his group of dwarves.
The next day, after the heat of battle died down, the sister of Janayla was a bit warmer to her sister and wished her well on her journeys. The party managed to hook up with a merchant who was sailing upriver to Ospolen.
After an uneventful river journey, the party arrived in Ospolen. They had two things to do – one, deliver Cardor’s message to the king and; two, inform the merchant that hired them in the beginning about what they discovered about his missing daughter.
They first delivered the message to the king, who informed the party that Cardor had been officially named Duke and was very complimentary of the players for their heroic actions. In a meeting with the King and some of his top military people, the king then asked them a favor – they had been having a lot of problems with pirates in recent years and it was growing. The pirates had a secret base that they could not get to, and all of their spies had turned up dead. So, he asked the PCs to help him, and then promised them a fast ship to Dalen if they were successful.
He also invited them to a banquet the next night, which would be before their journey to Liaven.
But, the party then went to visit the merchant that had hired them way back at the beginning of the campaign. Unfortunately, they found out he had recently been killed. A hooded stranger asked for a private meeting with him, and then when the room grew silent, they found the merchant’s headless body and no sign of the stranger. By all accounts, he matched the description of the hooded stranger asking about the party rogue way back in Yelden.
The widow informed the party that she had hired a man named Rolf to find out more about this stranger, but she had lost contact with Rolf the past few days. The party volunteered to find Rolf and see what info he had.
They met up with Rolf in a local dive, and he informed the party dwarf that whoever killed the merchant was somebody that he should not be asking about, and that he had a new, more lucrative, job now working for a local wizard.
He then hightailed it out of the bar and went to the wizard’s home. The party tailed Rolf because they figured he was not telling them the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Rolf entered the wizard’s home and then re-emerged a few minutes later. Rolf then sped down the street and was tackled by a couple of the PCs, while the other PCs went to investigate the wizard’s home. The tacklers then intimidated him into telling more – the wizard was performing a dark ritual with a mysterious book they had found, and the ritual would unleash a horde of demons into the city.
The other PCs did not know about the demon ritual and were at the wizard’s house when the rogue did some breaking and entering into a lit second floor room. After poking around the small room for a couple of rounds, a huge flesh golem burst into the room and slammed into the rogue, who promptly tumbled out the window after taking a pretty good hit.
Right at that time, a pair of gargoyles flew off the roof of the wizard’s home and attacked the other PCs at the wizard’s home. The gargoyles were quickly defeated, and the party regrouped and immediately entered through the front door, and were promptly set upon by the flesh golem… since only three PCs had weapons that could harm the golem, the party had to protect them and allow them to flank it. It took a few rounds, but they managed to take it down (though, I did barely miss my “berserk” roll once, needing an 05 and getting an 06!)
The players proceeded up to the roof of the home, where they encountered a mage figure behind an altar with a scantily-clad woman chained and unconscious before him. The rooftop was filled with smoke, and the players proceeded to challenge the mage, who promptly promised them a quick death – a glowing figure dropped down onto one PC, and a huge gorilla-like demon charged into the midst of the players, seriously wounding the party sorcerer, while the one PC who managed to get ahead and actually charge the mage was bitten by a summoned Mordenkainen’s hound.
Eventually, the players managed to defeat the Bar-Llgura demon and the luminous assassin and ganged up on the mage. (the demon turning into half fire and half ice upon expiring, with the fire half melting and the ice half shattering…)The Halfling pulled a lion out of his bag of tricks, which charged the mage with his pounce attack and overwhelmed him, putting the mage on the defensive. Amazingly, the mage rolled a 20 the next round on his grapple check and tossed the lion off, and managed to inflict more damage before finally falling… he dropped his mysterious tome as a great hand opened up in space and snatched him through, much to his surprise.
Then, Rolf tore through the crowd and pounced onto the tome, which promptly folded up upon itself and Rolf followed suit, disappearing into a magical mist.
The girl was then awoken by the party rogue and was very grateful for her rescue.
The players reported the goings-on to the authorities in town, who thanked them and began an investigation. The players then returned to their inn for an evening of rest before the banquet.
The banquet was an interesting affair and a chance for a lot of role-playing. The players got to chat with several members of the nobility and some high profile merchants and ambassadors/dipomats. The most interesting encounter was an attractive young noblewoman who announced to the party sorcerer that she had a message from his family, but needed to see him in private. Soon, she left and the sorcerer quickly followed.
Maybe 30 minutes later, they returned and he announced she was coming with the party as his new apprentice.
After the banquet, the players rested up and journeyed by sea to the town of Narlven. From there, they hooked up with the ship The Dark Glory, which was en route to the large and mysterious pirate gathering on Liaven. A large storm delayed the ship about half a day, and the party arrived late at night.
Liaven was packed with pirates, celebrating the anniversary of the town’s founding. The players found many toasting the name of Liamar due to the good quality free booze being handed out to everybody. It was a very diverse crowd – humans (Brandobian, Svimzohian, Kalamaran, Dejy mainly), hobgoblins, Halflings, half-orcs, orcs, goblins, half-hobgoblins, as well as a few elves, half-elves, dwarves and others, but largely male (probably 85% or more)
The party managed to intimidate their way out of one potentially hostile encounter, and then the halfling psion did some sort of mind spell on another pirate, doing nearly 30 points of damage to him, and almost dropping him. Needless to say, he backed off. The party then went to a tavern, but the halfling stayed outside with the dwarf. Inside, the party saw a pirate they thought was Hovarin Gelig, and an interesting priest of The Fate Scribe, a neutral deity into prophecy & divination, who was protected by a hulking hobgoblin. The priest, named Cordrel, said he was sent here for missionary work and was not one to question his goddess, who works in mysterious ways. However, he seemed pleasant enough.
Thinking the town unsafe, the players looked to spend the night in the forest outside of town, and managed to get in a few hours of rest before three huge tree/vine type monsters tried to attack them. It was a tough fight, and both the Halfling and the sorcerer had to be saved from falling into the gaping maws of the tendriculos monsters after being snatched by their viney appendages.
The next day, the party scouted around town, got accosted by a drunk, and then were set upon by pirate ambushers when they entered the even worse area of Liaven. The pirate sorceress managed to cause some havoc with her Stinking Cloud and Web spells, but the party managed to win the day out in the end.
A rumor spread around town that they were out of food, and the magical spheres that protected the ships were not working… however, Cordrel and Liamar managed to calm the potential riot by saying a ship with food was on the way, and that Liamar had underestimated how many pirates would show up (and, with his Bluff and Diplomacy skills of +30 or so, it worked)
The next day, the party decided to try to ambush Hovarin Gelig when he was separated from his hulking gnoll first mate. However, the warlock working with Gelig spotted the ambush, and the PCs were ambushed by Gelig and crew instead.
The party was in for a tough battle, but they managed to stop the warlock from doing much damage (he then vanished in a poof of smoke… heh heh heh), and slowly and methodically wore down the pirates, though they all took a lot of damage themselves. Strangely, the halfling tried a Dimension Door, which did not function.
The party also saw Aerol’s nephew, dressed as a pirate, and charging towards them. However, a web spell cut off their charge…and the party managed to finish off Gelig and the gnoll and a score of other pirates, and got a Belt of Giant Strength and Boots of Striding & Springing in the process.
They also discovered their super-duper teleport didn’t work anymore and that they were trapped on the island with everybody else.
After this, the party met with Liamar and he apologized for the lack of food, saying it was his fault. They also noticed his nice in-town manor house was rather barren – he said he was redecorating to keep up with the latest styles, but he needed to go back to his House on the Hill (outside of town) to work on creating more spheres.
The next day, when the food didn’t arrive, the riot started for real. Oddly, when a few pirates were struck down, the party cleric noticed that the dead pirates started rising up and attacking the still living pirates, which made the panic even worse.
The party also found that Liamar had deserted the island, so they made their way to his big House on the Hill, where they found out that Liamar had sold the island to the priest, Cordrel, who was really a cleric of The Overlord (much to everybody’s surprise) and who had just summoned a barbed devil to help him destroy the party.
It was a mega-showdown, with every party member in serious danger – and one dropping to below 0 – but, the group managed to barely kill the priest, the devil and his hobgoblin bodyguard… however, by that time, almost the whole island had gone zombie.
The party also found a gnome wizard who was formerly a prisoner of Liamar and who had invented the magical spheres – with his help, and with the help of some friendly pirates – the players managed to escape the island via ship and made their way back to Ospolen.
We expedited the killing of over 1,000 zombies to a summary on our group email list, but the party found out the following:
1) The warlock was also a vampire, who converted several others into vampires in the chaos, and managed to also escape the island via ship.
2) Included in the converted was apparently, the dwarf nephew.
3) They did find about a dozen survivors.
At the end of the day, the party was:
Hurdan, Level 8 Rogue/Level 1 Fighter, Human
Delvaris, Level 2 Fighter/Level 7 Paladin of Freedom, Elf
Jinyth, Level 9 human Sorcerer (raise dead level)
Janayla, Level 9 human Cleric
Aerol, Level 9 Dwarf Fighter
Scandalarian, Level 9, Halfling Psion.
Unfortunately, the guy playing Jinyth had a job change and will not longer be able to game with us regularly – so, he will be an NPC who shows up once in a while.
The party is about to meet the sage (finally) and are in for a bit of a surprise there.
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