No Sterling for this session again; I've decided I will be retiring Seamus if I don't have some sort of idea if Sterling will be playing more regularly again, and Nirreh will also be retiring in mid-January, so we may be back down to 4-5 players again. On to the recap.
The party, not wanting to return the treasure they'd recovered, fought Gregor and his soldiers - or, tried, at least, but Seamus fell quickly and, when Gregor threatened to execute him, the party relented, handing over the treasure. Gregor left, laughing all the way, leaving the party extremely frustrated.
They returned to Amberforge and slept in an inn (making a point NOT to sleep at the Amberforge Inn), then went about resurrecting Vorgym. With the party back together, they decided to figure out their next move - after some deliberation and exploration of their options, they decided to break into Amberforge Manor and steal the stuff they'd recovered back from Gregor. They decided to use a menagerie entrance to the manor that was left unguarded; we had to stop here because it took a very long time for us to load the next map. We'll pick up next time with the party's infiltration into Amberforge Manor.
Probably going to figure out some way of getting map information to you guys in advance so we don't have this problem again; stay tuned. Session for next week should be on as normal.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Session #32: The Big Bad
No Sterling for this session, so Andrew played Seamus. Sal was an hour late. On to the recap.
A large part of tonight's session was taken up by a puzzle involving the two doors leaving the room the party found themselves in at the end of last session. They found 4 inscriptions in this room - 1 each in front of the gray & yellow stone doors leading out of the room, and 2 on the back of the largest throne in the room. They were as follows:
After dealing with the rust monsters, the party set about solving the other puzzle. Eventually (with a lot of hint-dropping from me), they worked out that the first inscription referenced the famous Riddle of the Sphinx: the person represented the riddle's answer. The riddle itself was, of course, "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night?" This led them to be able to figure out that the numbers they needed to work with were 4, 2, and 3. From here they performed the necessary operations: 4 + 2 + 3 = 9 coins for the first door. The second door had a dash with a slash through it, meant to indicate that they should remove the negative symbol from the result they would get from 4 - 2 - 3, which would be -1; however they figured this out by dropping the 2 out of the equation, a conclusion which I'm not sure how Traver reached, but he did reach it. The final door was 4 x 2 x 3 = 24, which they figured out rather easily (despite some silliness about not using "x" for multiplication - fuck algebra, honestly.)
Within the vault they found a great wealth of treasure - along with a very large troglodyte. This was the boss encounter, and it proved to be a difficult one - Seamus was brought into dying, and the party's dailies were depleted by this encounter. However, the party triumphed in the end, and the massive troglodyte was felled. They gathered all the loot they could carry (about 2500 gold pieces in valuables, the Silver Mask of Kas they'd been sent for, an Amulet of Vigor +2, a set of Magic Chainmail +3, and a rare item, the Helm of Seven Deaths) and left the vault - where they were immediately stopped by a smug Gregor Amberforge and his large force of guards, including a young white dragon, "requesting" the return of his family's treasure from the vault they'd just cleared for him.
With this cliffhanger in place, we should be set up for a good session next week. Hope to see everyone there!
A large part of tonight's session was taken up by a puzzle involving the two doors leaving the room the party found themselves in at the end of last session. They found 4 inscriptions in this room - 1 each in front of the gray & yellow stone doors leading out of the room, and 2 on the back of the largest throne in the room. They were as follows:
- In front of the gray stone door, there was a cross inscribed, followed by a dash, and then an X, like so: "+ - X"
- In front of the yellow stone door, there was a dash and a cross, like so: "- +"
- On the back of the throne were two inscriptions. The first showed a semicircle with lines coming out from it laid on a horizontal plane, with a "_" next to it, indicating a blank space meant to be filled in, followed by a circle with lines coming out from it with another "_" next to that, then a crescent with yet another "_" next to it, and finished off with a stick figure-like pictograph of a person.
- The other inscription showed a pictograph of a spider, then a pictograph of a horse.
After dealing with the rust monsters, the party set about solving the other puzzle. Eventually (with a lot of hint-dropping from me), they worked out that the first inscription referenced the famous Riddle of the Sphinx: the person represented the riddle's answer. The riddle itself was, of course, "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night?" This led them to be able to figure out that the numbers they needed to work with were 4, 2, and 3. From here they performed the necessary operations: 4 + 2 + 3 = 9 coins for the first door. The second door had a dash with a slash through it, meant to indicate that they should remove the negative symbol from the result they would get from 4 - 2 - 3, which would be -1; however they figured this out by dropping the 2 out of the equation, a conclusion which I'm not sure how Traver reached, but he did reach it. The final door was 4 x 2 x 3 = 24, which they figured out rather easily (despite some silliness about not using "x" for multiplication - fuck algebra, honestly.)
Within the vault they found a great wealth of treasure - along with a very large troglodyte. This was the boss encounter, and it proved to be a difficult one - Seamus was brought into dying, and the party's dailies were depleted by this encounter. However, the party triumphed in the end, and the massive troglodyte was felled. They gathered all the loot they could carry (about 2500 gold pieces in valuables, the Silver Mask of Kas they'd been sent for, an Amulet of Vigor +2, a set of Magic Chainmail +3, and a rare item, the Helm of Seven Deaths) and left the vault - where they were immediately stopped by a smug Gregor Amberforge and his large force of guards, including a young white dragon, "requesting" the return of his family's treasure from the vault they'd just cleared for him.
With this cliffhanger in place, we should be set up for a good session next week. Hope to see everyone there!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Session #31: When Dice Attack
Sterling said he would be able to make it for this one, albeit 2 hours late - never showed up, so we NPCed his character for the duration. Had a lot of lag problems as well. To the recap...
The party got into combat pretty quickly, finding themselves facing a number of troglodytes at the end of the gray stone door wing of the vault. The room also contained a platinum-embossed pouch on a pedestal. The party fought the troglodytes, and things went rather well at first - until Vorgym was struck with the troglodyte curse chanter's dead-eye gaze, and fell unconscious, leaving him open to coup de grace attacks from the troglodyte thrashers. This was the first in a series of horrible dice rolling incidents: Vorgym failed multiple attempts at saving against the unconscious effect, and despite the party's efforts to keep him alive, he nonetheless went into dying and only managed to escape the unconscious effect by being revived after going into negative health. The rest of the party wasn't too severely injured, but a number of saving throw failures painted a foreboding picture of what was to come...
With Vorgym's healing surges depleted and not enough time having passed since their last extended rest, the party soldiered on - I gave them a break, due to lag concerns, and moved them past the trap room without incident this time. They used the pouch, which turned out to be a Pouch of Platinum, a magical item allowing the party to convert any amount of gems or coins placed into it into an equal value of platinum pieces, to get past the steel door they'd found last session. On the other side of the steel door, they found a great hall with a number of dwarven statues carved into the walls, and a number of stone thrones guarding another pair of smaller gray & yellow stone doors. In this room were more troglodytes: a temple champion, two deepscourges, a number of grunt minions, and an otyugh which emerged from a hole in the center of the room - likely the entry point the troglodytes had used, though no one knows what exactly made the hole. The encounter began immediately.
This encounter, unlike the previous one, was designed to be brutal, and normally it would've been rough, but not a party-killer - unfortunately, a combination of the party's bad luck on the previous encounter, and continued bad luck in this encounter, led to what probably would've been a TPK without a healthy bit of "divine intervention". More saving throws were failed, particularly death saves - I gave Vorgym an extra chance, and he still managed to die. The rest of the party probably would have joined him, had it not been for my decision to relent and stack the odds in the party's favor, to the point of turning a critical failure on an attack into a successful attack. It's something I will likely not do again, and I'm not proud of having to do it this time, but with how horrible the dice were in this session something had to give - either we were going to have our third TPK or I was going to have to pull a number of life-saving DM decisions out of my ass. I opted to go with the latter this time.
So this is where we stand: I've allowed the party to extended rest under the pretense that they were so utterly beaten up last encounter that they more or less passed out, and Vorgym is dead, though the intention is to resurrect him. Our session for next week is still scheduled to happen as normal, though this may be subject to change as holiday plans are made - keep me posted on your availability please, everyone. Either then or the next week we have people available, I have a few ideas for how to approach keeping Andrew involved:
1) If Sterling does not show, Andrew will play Seamus.
2) If Sterling does show, Vorgym may become a "ghost" for the time being, and be allowed to help the party in a limited fashion.
3) Keeping with the ghost theme, I may have Vorgym possess Misha, if Deckard finds this permissible.
4) Alternatively, if Andrew would be interested in playing a new character instead of resurrecting his old one, I may be able to figure out a way for this to be worked in.
Those are the possibilities I'm currently considering, let me know what you think guys. See you all next Wednesday (hopefully)!
The party got into combat pretty quickly, finding themselves facing a number of troglodytes at the end of the gray stone door wing of the vault. The room also contained a platinum-embossed pouch on a pedestal. The party fought the troglodytes, and things went rather well at first - until Vorgym was struck with the troglodyte curse chanter's dead-eye gaze, and fell unconscious, leaving him open to coup de grace attacks from the troglodyte thrashers. This was the first in a series of horrible dice rolling incidents: Vorgym failed multiple attempts at saving against the unconscious effect, and despite the party's efforts to keep him alive, he nonetheless went into dying and only managed to escape the unconscious effect by being revived after going into negative health. The rest of the party wasn't too severely injured, but a number of saving throw failures painted a foreboding picture of what was to come...
With Vorgym's healing surges depleted and not enough time having passed since their last extended rest, the party soldiered on - I gave them a break, due to lag concerns, and moved them past the trap room without incident this time. They used the pouch, which turned out to be a Pouch of Platinum, a magical item allowing the party to convert any amount of gems or coins placed into it into an equal value of platinum pieces, to get past the steel door they'd found last session. On the other side of the steel door, they found a great hall with a number of dwarven statues carved into the walls, and a number of stone thrones guarding another pair of smaller gray & yellow stone doors. In this room were more troglodytes: a temple champion, two deepscourges, a number of grunt minions, and an otyugh which emerged from a hole in the center of the room - likely the entry point the troglodytes had used, though no one knows what exactly made the hole. The encounter began immediately.
This encounter, unlike the previous one, was designed to be brutal, and normally it would've been rough, but not a party-killer - unfortunately, a combination of the party's bad luck on the previous encounter, and continued bad luck in this encounter, led to what probably would've been a TPK without a healthy bit of "divine intervention". More saving throws were failed, particularly death saves - I gave Vorgym an extra chance, and he still managed to die. The rest of the party probably would have joined him, had it not been for my decision to relent and stack the odds in the party's favor, to the point of turning a critical failure on an attack into a successful attack. It's something I will likely not do again, and I'm not proud of having to do it this time, but with how horrible the dice were in this session something had to give - either we were going to have our third TPK or I was going to have to pull a number of life-saving DM decisions out of my ass. I opted to go with the latter this time.
So this is where we stand: I've allowed the party to extended rest under the pretense that they were so utterly beaten up last encounter that they more or less passed out, and Vorgym is dead, though the intention is to resurrect him. Our session for next week is still scheduled to happen as normal, though this may be subject to change as holiday plans are made - keep me posted on your availability please, everyone. Either then or the next week we have people available, I have a few ideas for how to approach keeping Andrew involved:
1) If Sterling does not show, Andrew will play Seamus.
2) If Sterling does show, Vorgym may become a "ghost" for the time being, and be allowed to help the party in a limited fashion.
3) Keeping with the ghost theme, I may have Vorgym possess Misha, if Deckard finds this permissible.
4) Alternatively, if Andrew would be interested in playing a new character instead of resurrecting his old one, I may be able to figure out a way for this to be worked in.
Those are the possibilities I'm currently considering, let me know what you think guys. See you all next Wednesday (hopefully)!
Monday, December 12, 2011
Session #30: The Time We NPCed Two Characters
Sterling did not make it to this session - in addition, Jordan got sick before we started and had to leave, so I NPCed Deckard and Sal NPCed Seamus. On to the recap.
After escaping the pit with the otyughs, the party continued to navigate the room - due to a bad Perception roll, they failed to find any other pit traps, and ended up falling down into the pit. This time, they decided to just kill the otyughs. After killing them, they found a secret passage in the pit, and took it up to another room. Beyond this room, they found a room which seemed harmless enough at first - until they stepped inside, which immediately set off a number of deadly traps - the room was filled with poison darts firing from the walls, scythes began swinging across the chamber, and Vorgym, who had managed to avoid all of this, fell into a pit filled to ankle height with acid. To make things worse, the door was trapped with a number of kissing maidens, hidden pillars that swing up from under a panel in the floor and knock back anyone in front of them - right into the pit.
The party had a hell of a time in this room, and Vorgym was left with no surges; many others were left at low health, with low surge reserves, but the party managed to enter the next room. This room was not trapped aside from the standard traps around the coin-operated doors, but this room had a steel door as opposed to a stone door. The party, through somewhat painful trial-and-error, eventually figured that the door took platinum coins - as a result, they decided to head back through the trap room and explore the other wing of the vault after an extended rest.
Their second journey through the trap room proved to show the dangers of the scythe traps, which connected with a number of targets, namely Amnon & Vorgym. After finally escaping the dastardly trap room a second time, the party opened the remainder of the golden doors after heading back through the pit, as the doors only open from one side, and headed back to the wing with the gray stone doors. There they returned to the room with the pit, and attempted to cross - they ended up having Amnon fall into the pit, where he took damage from a 20-foot drop and a set of poisonous spikes. He also encountered a trio of green slimes waiting to feast on anything that fell in.
This encounter proved simple enough, as the party had already eluded the most diabolical part of it - a gelatinous cube on the northern end of the thin hallway they were in was supposed to drop down from the ceiling, and push the party into the pit along with the gelatinous cube at the southern end. However, they disabled the trap trigger for dropping the cube, and as such they only had to deal with the pit, the slimes and the southern cube. After this encounter, the party took a short rest and we ended the session there.
Andrew says he may not be around; so long as we've got at least 5 players around we will be going ahead with the session as usual, I'd like to stay away from having to NPC more than one character though. See everyone Wednesday, sorry for the late recap!
After escaping the pit with the otyughs, the party continued to navigate the room - due to a bad Perception roll, they failed to find any other pit traps, and ended up falling down into the pit. This time, they decided to just kill the otyughs. After killing them, they found a secret passage in the pit, and took it up to another room. Beyond this room, they found a room which seemed harmless enough at first - until they stepped inside, which immediately set off a number of deadly traps - the room was filled with poison darts firing from the walls, scythes began swinging across the chamber, and Vorgym, who had managed to avoid all of this, fell into a pit filled to ankle height with acid. To make things worse, the door was trapped with a number of kissing maidens, hidden pillars that swing up from under a panel in the floor and knock back anyone in front of them - right into the pit.
The party had a hell of a time in this room, and Vorgym was left with no surges; many others were left at low health, with low surge reserves, but the party managed to enter the next room. This room was not trapped aside from the standard traps around the coin-operated doors, but this room had a steel door as opposed to a stone door. The party, through somewhat painful trial-and-error, eventually figured that the door took platinum coins - as a result, they decided to head back through the trap room and explore the other wing of the vault after an extended rest.
Their second journey through the trap room proved to show the dangers of the scythe traps, which connected with a number of targets, namely Amnon & Vorgym. After finally escaping the dastardly trap room a second time, the party opened the remainder of the golden doors after heading back through the pit, as the doors only open from one side, and headed back to the wing with the gray stone doors. There they returned to the room with the pit, and attempted to cross - they ended up having Amnon fall into the pit, where he took damage from a 20-foot drop and a set of poisonous spikes. He also encountered a trio of green slimes waiting to feast on anything that fell in.
This encounter proved simple enough, as the party had already eluded the most diabolical part of it - a gelatinous cube on the northern end of the thin hallway they were in was supposed to drop down from the ceiling, and push the party into the pit along with the gelatinous cube at the southern end. However, they disabled the trap trigger for dropping the cube, and as such they only had to deal with the pit, the slimes and the southern cube. After this encounter, the party took a short rest and we ended the session there.
Andrew says he may not be around; so long as we've got at least 5 players around we will be going ahead with the session as usual, I'd like to stay away from having to NPC more than one character though. See everyone Wednesday, sorry for the late recap!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Session #29: The Tug-of-War
Sterling did not show up for tonight's session. He did not give us any notice, so we don't know why he didn't make it...just sort of no-showed. Fortunately it didn't spoil what ended up being a great session, maybe our best yet!
The party decided to turn back from the passage they were heading through and pass through the yellow stone doors. After going through an empty transitional room, they found themselves in a room full of devilish statues - there were also dwarven statues, or so they thought...they discovered that the dwarven statues were actually duergar statues when the statues came to life, along with a number of stone warrior statues and a pair of gargoyles. The gargoyles managed to knock Amnon into dying with their brutal attacks, but the party handled this encounter with relative ease; the stone warriors were a non-factor, and the duergar guards couldn't do much to the party.
In the next chamber, they immediately found themselves in a new encounter - a mesmeric-eye basilisk and its master, a troglodyte curse chanter, clad in an animal skull. This encounter started out rather simply - the party focused most of their attacks on the basilisk, while a few ranged attacks were thrown at the curse chanter. Things got interesting, however, when Deckard triggered a pit trap and fell down onto a greased slide which deposited him into a small cavern. Inside this cavern were a pair of otyughs, named "Gutter" and "Yummer"...apparently pets of the troglodytes. Things looked bad for Deckard, who brought Misha down to help - he chewed through a number of dailies and all of his healing abilites to keep himself alive. Above, the party dealt with the basilisk and the curse chanter, then set about figuring out what to do about the pits. This is where things took a turn for the ridiculous.
First off, Sal had to leave for dinner - as a result I ended up running his character, and I decided based on previous roleplaying decisions that Nirreh's character would be likely to head down into the pit to try and help Deckard. Her heart was in the right place, but her Athletics check to climb down the rope Shivra lowered down was not, and she fell down into the pit as well. Confusion began to set in as the party tried to decide what to do - Seamus nearly followed Nirreh down, but was convinced not to by Vorgym. The otyughs made getting to the ropes extremely difficult with their tentacle attacks, pulling Deckard and Nirreh away from the rope. Eventually, the party finally came to the decision that they would have Deckard & Nirreh tie themselves to the rope, greased from rolling down the slide, and the party would pull them up. At the same time, Sal got back and wondered quite aloud why the hell he was down in the pit. Let this be a lesson, players - when you leave, the DM gets control of your characters, and his decisions may not always be your decisions =P
With their plan in mind, the party set to trying to pull up Deckard and Nirreh. Unfortunately, the otyughs had other plans, and the party ended up in a tug-of-war. With Shivra having the main hold on the rope, Seamus & Vorgym made assist rolls to try and get the two pulled up - unfortunately, Shivra's +2 strength modifier didn't match up well with the otyughs' +9 modifiers. After a lot of joking around and cul-de-sac activity, Seamus took the rope from Shivra and pulled the group up the rest of the way.
This was quite a session...Deckard made a point of using Misha as cannon fodder for the otyughs, Sal lost his shit over Deckard being a mute, and Deckard & Nirreh got some much-needed bonding time...looking forward to next session, guys, see you then!
The party decided to turn back from the passage they were heading through and pass through the yellow stone doors. After going through an empty transitional room, they found themselves in a room full of devilish statues - there were also dwarven statues, or so they thought...they discovered that the dwarven statues were actually duergar statues when the statues came to life, along with a number of stone warrior statues and a pair of gargoyles. The gargoyles managed to knock Amnon into dying with their brutal attacks, but the party handled this encounter with relative ease; the stone warriors were a non-factor, and the duergar guards couldn't do much to the party.
In the next chamber, they immediately found themselves in a new encounter - a mesmeric-eye basilisk and its master, a troglodyte curse chanter, clad in an animal skull. This encounter started out rather simply - the party focused most of their attacks on the basilisk, while a few ranged attacks were thrown at the curse chanter. Things got interesting, however, when Deckard triggered a pit trap and fell down onto a greased slide which deposited him into a small cavern. Inside this cavern were a pair of otyughs, named "Gutter" and "Yummer"...apparently pets of the troglodytes. Things looked bad for Deckard, who brought Misha down to help - he chewed through a number of dailies and all of his healing abilites to keep himself alive. Above, the party dealt with the basilisk and the curse chanter, then set about figuring out what to do about the pits. This is where things took a turn for the ridiculous.
First off, Sal had to leave for dinner - as a result I ended up running his character, and I decided based on previous roleplaying decisions that Nirreh's character would be likely to head down into the pit to try and help Deckard. Her heart was in the right place, but her Athletics check to climb down the rope Shivra lowered down was not, and she fell down into the pit as well. Confusion began to set in as the party tried to decide what to do - Seamus nearly followed Nirreh down, but was convinced not to by Vorgym. The otyughs made getting to the ropes extremely difficult with their tentacle attacks, pulling Deckard and Nirreh away from the rope. Eventually, the party finally came to the decision that they would have Deckard & Nirreh tie themselves to the rope, greased from rolling down the slide, and the party would pull them up. At the same time, Sal got back and wondered quite aloud why the hell he was down in the pit. Let this be a lesson, players - when you leave, the DM gets control of your characters, and his decisions may not always be your decisions =P
With their plan in mind, the party set to trying to pull up Deckard and Nirreh. Unfortunately, the otyughs had other plans, and the party ended up in a tug-of-war. With Shivra having the main hold on the rope, Seamus & Vorgym made assist rolls to try and get the two pulled up - unfortunately, Shivra's +2 strength modifier didn't match up well with the otyughs' +9 modifiers. After a lot of joking around and cul-de-sac activity, Seamus took the rope from Shivra and pulled the group up the rest of the way.
This was quite a session...Deckard made a point of using Misha as cannon fodder for the otyughs, Sal lost his shit over Deckard being a mute, and Deckard & Nirreh got some much-needed bonding time...looking forward to next session, guys, see you then!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Session #28: Entry into the Vault
Sal was unable to attend this session, and Andrew missed a good chunk of it. On to the recap.
The party was taken to see Gregor Amberforge, who informed them he had been told of their coming by a half-orc. He explained to them that the Amberforge Vault had been broken into from below by a group of troglodytes, and they had made a home out of it. He offered to let them take "what they could carry" from the vault if they cleared it out for him, and the party agreed.
They were escorted to the vault by some of Gregor's guards, and there they met a large nest of spiders guarding the entrance. The party used the spider rod to navigate past the spiders in a tense stand-off - they entered the vault by having Seamus bull-rush into the heavy vault door to knock it open. Once inside, they found a dead dwarven guard of the vault had activated its defenses. Past the next door, they encountered a large group of troglodytes, who attacked the party immediately - this battle sent Vorgym into dying and nearly did the same to Seamus. Notably, the party failed 4 out of 5 coup de grace attempts when 2 of the maulers were put to sleep.
After this encounter, the party recovered 900 silver pieces from an altar which had an inscription on it in dwarven. It read: "Abathor Amberforge, father of our house, passes on this knowledge to all who enter. Wealth be the key for which all doors open. Your key be as the door." The room had a yellow stone door to the west and a gray stone door to the east; each door had a small slot in it with Dwarven tally marks above indicating a specific number. The party first went to the yellow door, which had the number "14" over it, and put 14 silver pieces in. This caused a trap to trigger, dropping a large jar of acid on Seamus - this did damage and weakened his armor, giving him a -2 penalty. After this, they went to the gray door and put coins in - this caused the door to open. They established that the doors would only open if the correct amount of coins of the corresponding color (gold for yellow doors, silver for gray doors) were put into the slot.
This knowledge in tow, the party headed through the gray door and 2 more doors, finding themselves in a larger chamber with a tapered passage. Shivra found a number of traps in this room - a pit trap in the large northern part, a pressure plate (which she disabled) at the northern part of the passage, and another pit trap in the middle of the passage. We stopped here for the night.
Hope you enjoyed the read. I'll see everyone for next session!
The party was taken to see Gregor Amberforge, who informed them he had been told of their coming by a half-orc. He explained to them that the Amberforge Vault had been broken into from below by a group of troglodytes, and they had made a home out of it. He offered to let them take "what they could carry" from the vault if they cleared it out for him, and the party agreed.
They were escorted to the vault by some of Gregor's guards, and there they met a large nest of spiders guarding the entrance. The party used the spider rod to navigate past the spiders in a tense stand-off - they entered the vault by having Seamus bull-rush into the heavy vault door to knock it open. Once inside, they found a dead dwarven guard of the vault had activated its defenses. Past the next door, they encountered a large group of troglodytes, who attacked the party immediately - this battle sent Vorgym into dying and nearly did the same to Seamus. Notably, the party failed 4 out of 5 coup de grace attempts when 2 of the maulers were put to sleep.
After this encounter, the party recovered 900 silver pieces from an altar which had an inscription on it in dwarven. It read: "Abathor Amberforge, father of our house, passes on this knowledge to all who enter. Wealth be the key for which all doors open. Your key be as the door." The room had a yellow stone door to the west and a gray stone door to the east; each door had a small slot in it with Dwarven tally marks above indicating a specific number. The party first went to the yellow door, which had the number "14" over it, and put 14 silver pieces in. This caused a trap to trigger, dropping a large jar of acid on Seamus - this did damage and weakened his armor, giving him a -2 penalty. After this, they went to the gray door and put coins in - this caused the door to open. They established that the doors would only open if the correct amount of coins of the corresponding color (gold for yellow doors, silver for gray doors) were put into the slot.
This knowledge in tow, the party headed through the gray door and 2 more doors, finding themselves in a larger chamber with a tapered passage. Shivra found a number of traps in this room - a pit trap in the large northern part, a pressure plate (which she disabled) at the northern part of the passage, and another pit trap in the middle of the passage. We stopped here for the night.
Hope you enjoyed the read. I'll see everyone for next session!
Thursday, November 17, 2011
iPlay4e
I discovered a website which might make managing our character sheets easier - http://iplay4e.appspot.com/. This allows you to upload your exported file from the Character Builder to a personal account, and run an interactive copy of your character sheet in your browser. Since it's not on one account, we should all be able to use it at once - talk to me if you want more information about this, guys!
Session #27: Bears in Sweaters
Sterling was unable to make it for this session. I rolled for curing his filth fever, and he managed to cure it. On with the recap.
The party went up to the Lolth statue and inspecting it, discovering that a necromantic arcane residue lingered around the empty sarcophagus in the statue's base. They then managed to find a switch hidden on the sarcophagus which, when pushed, cause it to slide out of the way, revealing a stairway. This stairway led into a giant spider nest with a number of human-shaped cocoons. Inside these cocoons were the bodies of the previous party: Iados, Gwenn, Erik, Aludiana and Reed. Erik & Reed had identifying medallions on their corpses which were recovered by the party. The party also managed to recover a pair of Boots of Rapid Motion, which Vorgym took. Unfortunately, picking these boots up also awoke the ancient tomb spider the party had encountered earlier.
This encounter, however, showed the party that the spider rod would allow them to exert limited control over spiders. This allowed them to keep the ancient tomb spider from attacking them before they were able to escape. They returned to Cairnmoor and found out who the medallions they recovered belonged to. They recieved a 500 gold piece reward, and free rooms at the Misty Morning Inn - the innkeeper, Torrin McCarver, also said he would try and get them some winter clothes for their trip through the Winterspring Mountains to Amberforge.
The next morning, Torrin did indeed have winter clothing for him - including a sweater for Misha. Their clothing in tow, the party headed up the trade road to Amberforge, encounting a group of bears along the way. They defeated the bears fairly easily, and arrived in Amberforge. There they found a number of shops where they could buy some magic items, and after doing so they headed to the inns and went to sleep. Their sleep was interrupted by a large force of Amberforge guards who ordered the party to come with them, as Gregor Amberforge, a member of Amberforge's ruling clan, had asked to speak wit them. The party reluctantly agreed, and were escorted off - we ended the session on that cliffhanger.
A few logistical notes - since Amberforge has a much more active trade community than Cairnmoor, the party can find common & uncommon magic items up to level 4. If you are interested in buying something, please log into D&D Insider and check out the Compendium or the Character Builder's magic item database - if you see anything you'd like to shop for, write down that information and come prepared for next session on Wednesday. Additionally, Sterling - please add 249 gold pieces & 91 experience points to Seamus' total!
Thanks for reading guys - since next Wednesday is close to Thanksgiving, please let me know if this will create a schedule problem for anyone. Thanks!
The party went up to the Lolth statue and inspecting it, discovering that a necromantic arcane residue lingered around the empty sarcophagus in the statue's base. They then managed to find a switch hidden on the sarcophagus which, when pushed, cause it to slide out of the way, revealing a stairway. This stairway led into a giant spider nest with a number of human-shaped cocoons. Inside these cocoons were the bodies of the previous party: Iados, Gwenn, Erik, Aludiana and Reed. Erik & Reed had identifying medallions on their corpses which were recovered by the party. The party also managed to recover a pair of Boots of Rapid Motion, which Vorgym took. Unfortunately, picking these boots up also awoke the ancient tomb spider the party had encountered earlier.
This encounter, however, showed the party that the spider rod would allow them to exert limited control over spiders. This allowed them to keep the ancient tomb spider from attacking them before they were able to escape. They returned to Cairnmoor and found out who the medallions they recovered belonged to. They recieved a 500 gold piece reward, and free rooms at the Misty Morning Inn - the innkeeper, Torrin McCarver, also said he would try and get them some winter clothes for their trip through the Winterspring Mountains to Amberforge.
The next morning, Torrin did indeed have winter clothing for him - including a sweater for Misha. Their clothing in tow, the party headed up the trade road to Amberforge, encounting a group of bears along the way. They defeated the bears fairly easily, and arrived in Amberforge. There they found a number of shops where they could buy some magic items, and after doing so they headed to the inns and went to sleep. Their sleep was interrupted by a large force of Amberforge guards who ordered the party to come with them, as Gregor Amberforge, a member of Amberforge's ruling clan, had asked to speak wit them. The party reluctantly agreed, and were escorted off - we ended the session on that cliffhanger.
A few logistical notes - since Amberforge has a much more active trade community than Cairnmoor, the party can find common & uncommon magic items up to level 4. If you are interested in buying something, please log into D&D Insider and check out the Compendium or the Character Builder's magic item database - if you see anything you'd like to shop for, write down that information and come prepared for next session on Wednesday. Additionally, Sterling - please add 249 gold pieces & 91 experience points to Seamus' total!
Thanks for reading guys - since next Wednesday is close to Thanksgiving, please let me know if this will create a schedule problem for anyone. Thanks!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Falconia: A Visitor's Guide
- Written by Orvel Fireside, legendary explorer & Captain-Confidant of the Redbeard Clan, 6th of Winterseve, 100 C.E.
A color-coded chart of the sections & districts of Falconia.
Falconia, the City on the White Crest. Once a simple port town established by the empire of Nerath to allow them to better transport goods to the old imperial capital in Highroad, Falconia has grown into the largest and busiest of Titania's cities. Though Highroad remained the capital until well after the collapse of Nerath, Falconia was made Titania's seat of power in 71 C.E., approximately 30 years ago. This change was necessitated not only by Falconia's growth into Titania's largest city, but by the ascension of King Justician Hawklane. Though his rule was brief and the four major cities of Titania have since returned to recognizing their own rule, many, particularly humans, still see Falconia as Titania's capital, and in a sense it still is - Falconia continues to host the Wintersend Assembly, a meeting of the leaders of the four major cities with various other diplomats in attendance, as it has done since Justician's ascension.
Most visitors to Falconia will enter the city in one of two ways: either along the High Road (highlighted in gray) passing through the miles of farmsteads which provide food for the city (highlighted in red), or through arriving by boat at one of Falconia's two large harbors (highlighted in purple). From there, most visitors will head to the Wayfarer's District (highlighted in green) to shop at the markets, rest in one of its many inns or revel in the taverns of those inns. The Wayfarer's District is built to be welcoming to all travelers, and it is known for the Wayfarer's Grand Basilica, a large temple near the center of the district dedicated to the worship of Avandra, Corellon, Kord & Moradin.
Visitors of a more noble persuasion often bypass the Wayfarer's District, instead heading into the Manor Rows (highlighted in gold) - city's upscale aristocratic district, where the many Falconian nobles reside in grand manor houses. Many of the more upscale guildhouses are also found here, as well as the Cathedral of St. Valerus, a church near the southern part of the district dedicated to worship of Bahamut, Erathis & Pelor.
At the very tip of the peninsular cliff (known as the White Crest) upon which most of Falconia is built sits Castle Seahawk (highlighted in royal blue), Falconia's seat of power and home to the ruling family, House Hawklane. The grand castle overlooks Titan's Breath Bay and its parapets burn with great bonfires, allowing the castle to serve as a lighthouse of sorts. Falconia's current ruler, Duke Graeme Hawklane, holds court here, and the Falconian leg of the High Road ends at the gates of the castle.
Though the above covers the areas of Falconia that most visitors would frequent, for completion's sake, the Tracts (highlighted in brown) must be discussed as well. Originally carved out from the sheer cliffs to facilitate passage between the harbors below and Falconia proper above, the Tracts have since been claimed by the poor, the destitute and the criminal as residences. Citizens in the Tracts live in hovels built into carved-out sections of wall originally used by workers or precariously hung along scaffolds. The great roads once used to take caravans through the passages have been claimed by these citizens; black market stalls, criminal guildhouses and various other unsavory establishments clog the roads down to winding horse-paths. Though the flow of goods into Falconia continues unimpeded thanks to more modern roads passing through the farmsteads, most of Falconia's citizens see the Tracts as a cancer upon their city and make a point of avoiding them.
This covers the various districts of Falconia - before ending this guide, it would be beneficial to speak briefly on the Falconian citizenry. Most of Falconia's citizens are human, but there are a number of half-elves found in the city as well. The other races are found in smaller numbers, primarily made up of small communities of dwarves, halflings, elves and tieflings, but Falconia is a large enough city that all Titania's races have a few representatives living within the city. No matter what race you are or where you hail from, you should be able to find a little bit of home when you visit the City on the White Crest.
Falconia, the City on the White Crest. Once a simple port town established by the empire of Nerath to allow them to better transport goods to the old imperial capital in Highroad, Falconia has grown into the largest and busiest of Titania's cities. Though Highroad remained the capital until well after the collapse of Nerath, Falconia was made Titania's seat of power in 71 C.E., approximately 30 years ago. This change was necessitated not only by Falconia's growth into Titania's largest city, but by the ascension of King Justician Hawklane. Though his rule was brief and the four major cities of Titania have since returned to recognizing their own rule, many, particularly humans, still see Falconia as Titania's capital, and in a sense it still is - Falconia continues to host the Wintersend Assembly, a meeting of the leaders of the four major cities with various other diplomats in attendance, as it has done since Justician's ascension.
Most visitors to Falconia will enter the city in one of two ways: either along the High Road (highlighted in gray) passing through the miles of farmsteads which provide food for the city (highlighted in red), or through arriving by boat at one of Falconia's two large harbors (highlighted in purple). From there, most visitors will head to the Wayfarer's District (highlighted in green) to shop at the markets, rest in one of its many inns or revel in the taverns of those inns. The Wayfarer's District is built to be welcoming to all travelers, and it is known for the Wayfarer's Grand Basilica, a large temple near the center of the district dedicated to the worship of Avandra, Corellon, Kord & Moradin.
Visitors of a more noble persuasion often bypass the Wayfarer's District, instead heading into the Manor Rows (highlighted in gold) - city's upscale aristocratic district, where the many Falconian nobles reside in grand manor houses. Many of the more upscale guildhouses are also found here, as well as the Cathedral of St. Valerus, a church near the southern part of the district dedicated to worship of Bahamut, Erathis & Pelor.
At the very tip of the peninsular cliff (known as the White Crest) upon which most of Falconia is built sits Castle Seahawk (highlighted in royal blue), Falconia's seat of power and home to the ruling family, House Hawklane. The grand castle overlooks Titan's Breath Bay and its parapets burn with great bonfires, allowing the castle to serve as a lighthouse of sorts. Falconia's current ruler, Duke Graeme Hawklane, holds court here, and the Falconian leg of the High Road ends at the gates of the castle.
Though the above covers the areas of Falconia that most visitors would frequent, for completion's sake, the Tracts (highlighted in brown) must be discussed as well. Originally carved out from the sheer cliffs to facilitate passage between the harbors below and Falconia proper above, the Tracts have since been claimed by the poor, the destitute and the criminal as residences. Citizens in the Tracts live in hovels built into carved-out sections of wall originally used by workers or precariously hung along scaffolds. The great roads once used to take caravans through the passages have been claimed by these citizens; black market stalls, criminal guildhouses and various other unsavory establishments clog the roads down to winding horse-paths. Though the flow of goods into Falconia continues unimpeded thanks to more modern roads passing through the farmsteads, most of Falconia's citizens see the Tracts as a cancer upon their city and make a point of avoiding them.
This covers the various districts of Falconia - before ending this guide, it would be beneficial to speak briefly on the Falconian citizenry. Most of Falconia's citizens are human, but there are a number of half-elves found in the city as well. The other races are found in smaller numbers, primarily made up of small communities of dwarves, halflings, elves and tieflings, but Falconia is a large enough city that all Titania's races have a few representatives living within the city. No matter what race you are or where you hail from, you should be able to find a little bit of home when you visit the City on the White Crest.
Lore Dumps
For those of you interested, I plan on posting "lore dumps" from time to time - "articles" written by various in-game characters on certain aspects of Titania. I've already posted one of these, "A Summary of the Dwarven Caste System". I plan on posting more intermittently. Sometimes I'll do it just because I'm bored, sometimes I'll do it because it relates to something which has recently come up in the campaign. If people like it, maybe I'll set up some sort of schedule in the future - we'll see. For now, hope you like reading these, and thanks for your participation & interest in the game =)
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Session #26: Saving Throws - The Encounter
Everyone was here for this session, but we got a really late start due to having everyone level up preemptively. We ended up having about 2 and a half hours of actual play.
The session consisted entirely of the major encounter of this adventure - the party's match (and the rematch of some players) against the tomb spider and its master, Lazlow "Laz" Dirgwyn. This fight was absolutely LADEN with saving throws, with many of the players having to make 4 a turn. Seamus & Vorgym spent almost the entire fight unable to move, which hampered the party's ability to coordinate their attacks. Amnon & Shivra both fell into dying status, and both nearly ended up dead - Amnon had one death save failure left before death, Shivra was one turn from being killed off by ongoing damage. This was an intense combat, and a long one as well.
Lazlow used his powers to heal himself by damaging the tomb spider, using its large health pool (226 HP) to keep himself in the fight. Before long, however, the party managed to get the upper hand, killing the tomb spider & Lazlow, leaving themselves with a broodswarm of the tomb spider's young to fight. This broodswarm managed to escape underneath a bronze statue of Lolth; this statue contains an open sarcophagus in its base.
The party recovered a veritable hoard from Lazlow's body: a spider-silk robe & a bronze spider crown worth 250 gold pieces each; a golf ball-sized black opal worth 500 gold pieces; a pouch of 180 gold pieces; an Amulet of Health +2 which went to Seamus; and a suit of Shadowdance Leather Armor +2 which went to Nirreh. We ended the session there.
I will be sending out PDFs of character sheets to Seamus & Shivra; Seamus' sheet will have the Amulet he received on it & equipped. Good job on this encounter everyone - this was a hard one and you prevailed! Seamus, I need to have you make an Endurance check to see what your filth fever did during the last extended rest; please remind me of this next week!
We will not be having the extra Saturday session this week, too many people unable to make it. See you guys Wednesday!
The session consisted entirely of the major encounter of this adventure - the party's match (and the rematch of some players) against the tomb spider and its master, Lazlow "Laz" Dirgwyn. This fight was absolutely LADEN with saving throws, with many of the players having to make 4 a turn. Seamus & Vorgym spent almost the entire fight unable to move, which hampered the party's ability to coordinate their attacks. Amnon & Shivra both fell into dying status, and both nearly ended up dead - Amnon had one death save failure left before death, Shivra was one turn from being killed off by ongoing damage. This was an intense combat, and a long one as well.
Lazlow used his powers to heal himself by damaging the tomb spider, using its large health pool (226 HP) to keep himself in the fight. Before long, however, the party managed to get the upper hand, killing the tomb spider & Lazlow, leaving themselves with a broodswarm of the tomb spider's young to fight. This broodswarm managed to escape underneath a bronze statue of Lolth; this statue contains an open sarcophagus in its base.
The party recovered a veritable hoard from Lazlow's body: a spider-silk robe & a bronze spider crown worth 250 gold pieces each; a golf ball-sized black opal worth 500 gold pieces; a pouch of 180 gold pieces; an Amulet of Health +2 which went to Seamus; and a suit of Shadowdance Leather Armor +2 which went to Nirreh. We ended the session there.
I will be sending out PDFs of character sheets to Seamus & Shivra; Seamus' sheet will have the Amulet he received on it & equipped. Good job on this encounter everyone - this was a hard one and you prevailed! Seamus, I need to have you make an Endurance check to see what your filth fever did during the last extended rest; please remind me of this next week!
We will not be having the extra Saturday session this week, too many people unable to make it. See you guys Wednesday!
Amnon's Backstory
Full Name: Amnon Eskandarian
Gender: Male
Age: 33
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 165
Hair: Black
Skin: Pale red
Eyes: White
Body Build: Average
Distinguishing Features: Carries a red orb clasped in a dismembered vrock's talons known as the Crimson Orb of Marothal
The story of Amnon begins with the story of the red orb he carries and its heritage. His family, the Eskandarians, were one of the founding families of Vulkannen's wizard guild. Lord Marothal Eskandarian was a wizard who once used a powerful implement, depleted of its power when he died, which was passed down through the generations of the Eskandarian family - this implement is known as the Crimson Orb of Marothal. Through each generation, the owner of the orb would pass it down to their most favored child, along with their blessing (usually in the form of a greater amount of wealth than what was given to the other children).
Subsequently, this orb was passed down to Amnon's father, Akmenos Eskandarian, much to the dismay of his siblings. Finding Akmenos to be cunning, cold, ambitious, manipulative, and unsympathetic, Amnon's grandfather found Akmenos to be the perfect heir to the Eskandarian name, and the greatest hope to bring that name to new heights of power. Becuase of this, Akmenos was isolated from the rest of the family, and developed a condescending and arrogant view against the rest of his family.
Throughout his life, Akmenos did acrew a great means of wealth, but with it, a great deal of enemies. He had only one wife (later dieing of disease, although many suspected foul play by Akmenos himself), and one heir to the orb, his son Barakas. Six years after Amnon's birth, a rich family of merchants, known as the Graymantles, had decided they had enough of Akmenos' political and militaristic stifiling of their profits, and decided to do something about it. They hired a group of assassins through the Cult of Zehir. The assassins were thorough, killing both Akmenos and Barakas, ensuring there would be no retaliation, or anyone to inherit Akmenos' holdings - but Akmenos has another son.
Written out as part of his will, Akmenos expressed a deep hatred for his son, Barakas, describing him as weak, and unfit for the Eskandarian name. In this letter, he described another son recently brought to his attention, living within the poorest section of the Wards, Vulkannen's primary residential quarter. As a final insult to the rest of his family, he belligerently gave the orb away to this illegitimate son to spite the son he so hated and the family he so looked down upon. Amnon was born to Bryseis Grisepian, a poor tiefling who would sometimes turn to prostitution to make ends meet. Throughout his life, Amnon never knew who his father was, or that he was heir by blood to such a fortune.
The orb was brought to him by some prominent mages connected to the Eskandarian family who Akmenos had made executors of his holdings - they relayed the story of his heritage to him. They quickly discovered, however, that this young child had an affinity for magic. Some thinking it to be fate, some the will of the gods, and others, the will of the orb itself, that the only, and most unlikely heir their legacy, also be gifted with magical talent, took it upon themselves to enlist him within the ranks of the wizard's guild. Though Amnon wanted to keep the name of his mother, they insisted he carry on their family's name. They also agreed to comfortably finance his mother for the rest of her life, if he agreed. So for over two decades Amnon trained in the magical arts.
Throughout his training he became friends with a high ranking member of the guild, Archmage Sirilis Starsburden, a female eladrin who specialized in enchantment and illusion. She shared with Amnon views and opinions unpopular with the guild as a whole, and eventually took him on as her own personal apprentice. She explained to Amnon that throughout its history the guild had more and more continued to stifle, restrict, and regulate itself from the true potential of the power they could attain. She explained how the Eskandarians were once not limited to such rules, and had a deep desire to test the boundries of all magical fields to their fullest extent.
Though he not fully convinced of his own opinions on this matter, he shared a deep respect and agreement of her teachings, but never acted upon them against the guild's wishes. Amnon had eventually become a somewhat respected member of the guild, and had taken on many an assignment for them. Unbeknownst to the guild however, he was also set upon secret assignments for Sirilis. Though the purpose of these assignments were unclear, they never yielded the results she was looking for. Until one day, Sirilis said that she had found what she was looking for. "A new era is rising, a time of great reckoning, and purification is at hand!" she exclaimed. With that she once again set forth Amnon in secret, explaining that he was to go alone, and seek out any information regarding the recent outbreak of necromatic activites. Along with this he was to bring back proof of this powerful necromatic magic.
With this, Amnon set off to Falconia, seeking both information and funding for his newly assigned quest, not knowing what he will yet find or what will become of it.
Gender: Male
Age: 33
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 165
Hair: Black
Skin: Pale red
Eyes: White
Body Build: Average
Distinguishing Features: Carries a red orb clasped in a dismembered vrock's talons known as the Crimson Orb of Marothal
The story of Amnon begins with the story of the red orb he carries and its heritage. His family, the Eskandarians, were one of the founding families of Vulkannen's wizard guild. Lord Marothal Eskandarian was a wizard who once used a powerful implement, depleted of its power when he died, which was passed down through the generations of the Eskandarian family - this implement is known as the Crimson Orb of Marothal. Through each generation, the owner of the orb would pass it down to their most favored child, along with their blessing (usually in the form of a greater amount of wealth than what was given to the other children).
Subsequently, this orb was passed down to Amnon's father, Akmenos Eskandarian, much to the dismay of his siblings. Finding Akmenos to be cunning, cold, ambitious, manipulative, and unsympathetic, Amnon's grandfather found Akmenos to be the perfect heir to the Eskandarian name, and the greatest hope to bring that name to new heights of power. Becuase of this, Akmenos was isolated from the rest of the family, and developed a condescending and arrogant view against the rest of his family.
Throughout his life, Akmenos did acrew a great means of wealth, but with it, a great deal of enemies. He had only one wife (later dieing of disease, although many suspected foul play by Akmenos himself), and one heir to the orb, his son Barakas. Six years after Amnon's birth, a rich family of merchants, known as the Graymantles, had decided they had enough of Akmenos' political and militaristic stifiling of their profits, and decided to do something about it. They hired a group of assassins through the Cult of Zehir. The assassins were thorough, killing both Akmenos and Barakas, ensuring there would be no retaliation, or anyone to inherit Akmenos' holdings - but Akmenos has another son.
Written out as part of his will, Akmenos expressed a deep hatred for his son, Barakas, describing him as weak, and unfit for the Eskandarian name. In this letter, he described another son recently brought to his attention, living within the poorest section of the Wards, Vulkannen's primary residential quarter. As a final insult to the rest of his family, he belligerently gave the orb away to this illegitimate son to spite the son he so hated and the family he so looked down upon. Amnon was born to Bryseis Grisepian, a poor tiefling who would sometimes turn to prostitution to make ends meet. Throughout his life, Amnon never knew who his father was, or that he was heir by blood to such a fortune.
The orb was brought to him by some prominent mages connected to the Eskandarian family who Akmenos had made executors of his holdings - they relayed the story of his heritage to him. They quickly discovered, however, that this young child had an affinity for magic. Some thinking it to be fate, some the will of the gods, and others, the will of the orb itself, that the only, and most unlikely heir their legacy, also be gifted with magical talent, took it upon themselves to enlist him within the ranks of the wizard's guild. Though Amnon wanted to keep the name of his mother, they insisted he carry on their family's name. They also agreed to comfortably finance his mother for the rest of her life, if he agreed. So for over two decades Amnon trained in the magical arts.
Throughout his training he became friends with a high ranking member of the guild, Archmage Sirilis Starsburden, a female eladrin who specialized in enchantment and illusion. She shared with Amnon views and opinions unpopular with the guild as a whole, and eventually took him on as her own personal apprentice. She explained to Amnon that throughout its history the guild had more and more continued to stifle, restrict, and regulate itself from the true potential of the power they could attain. She explained how the Eskandarians were once not limited to such rules, and had a deep desire to test the boundries of all magical fields to their fullest extent.
Though he not fully convinced of his own opinions on this matter, he shared a deep respect and agreement of her teachings, but never acted upon them against the guild's wishes. Amnon had eventually become a somewhat respected member of the guild, and had taken on many an assignment for them. Unbeknownst to the guild however, he was also set upon secret assignments for Sirilis. Though the purpose of these assignments were unclear, they never yielded the results she was looking for. Until one day, Sirilis said that she had found what she was looking for. "A new era is rising, a time of great reckoning, and purification is at hand!" she exclaimed. With that she once again set forth Amnon in secret, explaining that he was to go alone, and seek out any information regarding the recent outbreak of necromatic activites. Along with this he was to bring back proof of this powerful necromatic magic.
With this, Amnon set off to Falconia, seeking both information and funding for his newly assigned quest, not knowing what he will yet find or what will become of it.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Session #25: "A Giant-Ass Spider"
Everyone was here for this session. We had some connection problems at the start, but they got fixed and we moved on ahead.
The party jumped down into the spider tunnels to clear out the spiders who had escaped. It was a slow process, as the party made a point of being careful, but they dealt with the remaining monsters quite easily. At the end of the tunnels, they found a path leading deeper, and navigated more spider tunnels until they found a widened tunnel.
In this widened tunnel, the party encountered a giant spider, far larger than anything they'd ever seen. They fled from it, but were eventually cornered, with only a small tunnel to escape through. The spider proved far stronger than them, and they were forced to escape through the tunnel, but not before the spider managed to knock Amnon unconscious and bite Nirreh. The party managed to escape through the tunnel, and found themselves in a hatchery. They destroyed the eggs inside, and decided to extended rest inside the hatchery.
After their extended rest, they headed north and found a hunched-over human man in a spider-silk robe with a purple spider-capped rod in his hand, and a large spider radiating shadow energy from its body, somewhat like a smaller version of the giant spider they'd encountered earlier. The spider and its master were ready for them, and Seamus was struck by two nasty attacks as soon as he entered their chamber. The stage was set for the battle, and we stopped there after rolling initiative.
There was a lot of action in this session. We won't have an extra session this Saturday; hopefully everyone can make it this Wednesday, as this is going to be a big battle!
The party jumped down into the spider tunnels to clear out the spiders who had escaped. It was a slow process, as the party made a point of being careful, but they dealt with the remaining monsters quite easily. At the end of the tunnels, they found a path leading deeper, and navigated more spider tunnels until they found a widened tunnel.
In this widened tunnel, the party encountered a giant spider, far larger than anything they'd ever seen. They fled from it, but were eventually cornered, with only a small tunnel to escape through. The spider proved far stronger than them, and they were forced to escape through the tunnel, but not before the spider managed to knock Amnon unconscious and bite Nirreh. The party managed to escape through the tunnel, and found themselves in a hatchery. They destroyed the eggs inside, and decided to extended rest inside the hatchery.
After their extended rest, they headed north and found a hunched-over human man in a spider-silk robe with a purple spider-capped rod in his hand, and a large spider radiating shadow energy from its body, somewhat like a smaller version of the giant spider they'd encountered earlier. The spider and its master were ready for them, and Seamus was struck by two nasty attacks as soon as he entered their chamber. The stage was set for the battle, and we stopped there after rolling initiative.
There was a lot of action in this session. We won't have an extra session this Saturday; hopefully everyone can make it this Wednesday, as this is going to be a big battle!
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Session #24: Surprise Spiders
Sterling was not present for this session, so I NPCed Seamus in his absence. Sal rejoined the group for this session; his character has ended his association with the Black Wolves.
With Nirreh back in the group, the party put her to work right from the start, leading them through the network of spider tunnels with her +13 bonus to Nature checks. They successfully navigated the tunnels, finding themselves in a room with a fountain of black water, a number of dire rats and undead, rotten-looking beasts called corpse rats drinking and wallowing in the water. Members of the group's first party recognized this room. The rats were quickly engaged, and they made a point of boxing the party in the cramped spider tunnel. Seamus took a lot of punishment in this encounter, going through all 3 of his combat healing surges. The corpse rats attacked in swarms, which proved difficult for most of the party besides Amnon to affect with their resistance to more focused assaults like melee and ranged attacks. Before long, the rats were defeated, but not before they infected Seamus with filth fever. Between the surge lost to the fever and the 2 surges Seamus had to spend to raise his health, Seamus was left with very few surges.
DM's Note: As I did not have Seamus' number of surges as of when we ended last session available, I figured on him having 9/12 at the start of this adventure. He spent 2 getting his health back up after combat and 6 in the above encounter, leaving him with 1/12 - he was granted an additional surge by Amnon, giving him a total of 2/12 surges moving forward. Sterling - if Seamus had more surges than 9/12 in your notes as of last session's end, please let me know and we'll adjust the number he has accordingly.
The party then went about exploring the area - the room they were in only had one usable exit; there had been another, but a cave-in of large rubble had blocked it off. A flight of stairs led up, and the party took them - they emerged into a mausoleum, finding it to be morning outside. It seemed their navigation of the spider tunnels took several hours, long enough for night to pass and come back around to day again. They left the mausoleum, finding a graveyard and the barest ruins of a burnt-down shack at the south. To the southeast, they could see Cairnmoor in the distance. After some nostalgia by the members of the original party, they went about exploring - and Nirreh's exploration drew her right into the trap of a doomspinner spider. The spider drug her down into the network of spider tunnels directly below the surface of the graveyard, and the spiders proceeded to erupt from the ground and attack.
This turned out to be one of the most intense (and enjoyable) encounters thus far, with the spiders providing a solid challenge to the party. Attacking in a group of two doomspinner spiders, giant beasts that use their webbing as a prominent part of their attack, and four deathjump spiders, which the party are previously acquainted with, the monsters put Shivra and Nirreh in trouble early; Nirreh was likely saved only through the use of a well-placed cloud of darkness. One of the doomspinners and two of the deathjumps were decimated by the party - the doomspinner was particularly roughed up by a nasty combined attack from Deckard & Misha.
In the end, the party proved triumphant, at least for the moment, as they drove the spiders back into the tunnels below - tunnels which, as Nirreh had discovered, were full of zombified corpses mummified by webs and used as walking egg sacs by the nefarious spiders. Vorgym sent his lesser planar ally down to scout the tunnels, finding the spiders and a number of these "web mummies" below. With this information in hand, the party decided to head down into the hole and hunt down the spiders rather than let them escape. We stopped there, with everyone poised at the edge of one of the two holes made, ready to head down.
There will not be an extra session this Saturday again, as Traver & Sterling cannot make it, so I'll see everyone again next Wednesday! I still do not have backstories from anyone besides Traver and (technically, anyway) Jordan; please get these to me, as the sooner you do, the sooner I can weave your character's personal plotline into the greater arc of the campaign!
With Nirreh back in the group, the party put her to work right from the start, leading them through the network of spider tunnels with her +13 bonus to Nature checks. They successfully navigated the tunnels, finding themselves in a room with a fountain of black water, a number of dire rats and undead, rotten-looking beasts called corpse rats drinking and wallowing in the water. Members of the group's first party recognized this room. The rats were quickly engaged, and they made a point of boxing the party in the cramped spider tunnel. Seamus took a lot of punishment in this encounter, going through all 3 of his combat healing surges. The corpse rats attacked in swarms, which proved difficult for most of the party besides Amnon to affect with their resistance to more focused assaults like melee and ranged attacks. Before long, the rats were defeated, but not before they infected Seamus with filth fever. Between the surge lost to the fever and the 2 surges Seamus had to spend to raise his health, Seamus was left with very few surges.
DM's Note: As I did not have Seamus' number of surges as of when we ended last session available, I figured on him having 9/12 at the start of this adventure. He spent 2 getting his health back up after combat and 6 in the above encounter, leaving him with 1/12 - he was granted an additional surge by Amnon, giving him a total of 2/12 surges moving forward. Sterling - if Seamus had more surges than 9/12 in your notes as of last session's end, please let me know and we'll adjust the number he has accordingly.
The party then went about exploring the area - the room they were in only had one usable exit; there had been another, but a cave-in of large rubble had blocked it off. A flight of stairs led up, and the party took them - they emerged into a mausoleum, finding it to be morning outside. It seemed their navigation of the spider tunnels took several hours, long enough for night to pass and come back around to day again. They left the mausoleum, finding a graveyard and the barest ruins of a burnt-down shack at the south. To the southeast, they could see Cairnmoor in the distance. After some nostalgia by the members of the original party, they went about exploring - and Nirreh's exploration drew her right into the trap of a doomspinner spider. The spider drug her down into the network of spider tunnels directly below the surface of the graveyard, and the spiders proceeded to erupt from the ground and attack.
This turned out to be one of the most intense (and enjoyable) encounters thus far, with the spiders providing a solid challenge to the party. Attacking in a group of two doomspinner spiders, giant beasts that use their webbing as a prominent part of their attack, and four deathjump spiders, which the party are previously acquainted with, the monsters put Shivra and Nirreh in trouble early; Nirreh was likely saved only through the use of a well-placed cloud of darkness. One of the doomspinners and two of the deathjumps were decimated by the party - the doomspinner was particularly roughed up by a nasty combined attack from Deckard & Misha.
In the end, the party proved triumphant, at least for the moment, as they drove the spiders back into the tunnels below - tunnels which, as Nirreh had discovered, were full of zombified corpses mummified by webs and used as walking egg sacs by the nefarious spiders. Vorgym sent his lesser planar ally down to scout the tunnels, finding the spiders and a number of these "web mummies" below. With this information in hand, the party decided to head down into the hole and hunt down the spiders rather than let them escape. We stopped there, with everyone poised at the edge of one of the two holes made, ready to head down.
There will not be an extra session this Saturday again, as Traver & Sterling cannot make it, so I'll see everyone again next Wednesday! I still do not have backstories from anyone besides Traver and (technically, anyway) Jordan; please get these to me, as the sooner you do, the sooner I can weave your character's personal plotline into the greater arc of the campaign!
Thursday, October 20, 2011
A Summary of the Dwarven Caste System
- Written by Archmage Davic Malatankion, Chief Scribe of Elanath's Tower, 12th of Harvestfall, 103 C.E.
Dwarves are peculiar among all the races of Titania for their very unusual method of determining one's lineage. Dwarven ancestry is determined via a very simple process, and parentage has something to do with it just as it does in any culture - but where dwarves differ is in the methodology they use to determine one's noble ancestry. Quite simply, any dwarf from any clan can be considered "nobility" to a certain extent - providing, of course, their hair is the right color. There are four common hair colors among dwarves, and their meanings are as follows:
- Brown, the most common hair color, is considered the "ignoble" color of the four, and dwarves with brown hair are almost always seen as commoners, serving as laborers, enlisted soldiers, and servants. Many brown-haired dwarves choose to live among the surface races rather than be relegated to such a status, and for this reason, most dwarves found in Falconia and other cities of the like are brown-haired.
- Black, the next most common color, is considered a color denoting minor nobility. Traditionally, black-haired dwarves have been peerless military leaders among their people. All black-haired dwarves are allowed to claim some percentage of ancestry from the noble Blackhammer clan, and most black-haired dwarves are groomed for lives in the military from an early age.
- Blond, the second-rarest of dwarven hair colors, is a color which denotes aristocracy and refinement. Blond-haired dwarves are known for their shrewd mercantile experience and acumen for business; as such, many blond-haired dwarves use their noble lineage to establish themselves as prominent merchants. Blond-haired dwarves can claim ancestry from the Amberforge clan, however many choose to refrain from doing so as a result of the Amberforge clan's recent history - namely, their exile from the primary dwarven seat of Kinsfort.
- Red, the rarest dwarven hair color, signifies the blood right of leadership, and is considered the most noble of any hair color for a dwarf to be born with. Although not all red-haired dwarves become great leaders, all are treated as the ancestors of kings in some respect. Red-haired dwarves count themselves among the ancestors of the legendary Redbeard clan, a noble clan which has produced many great kings of the dwarven people. Though not all dwarven rulers are red-haired, most of the greatest and oft-revered rulers have been of the Redbeard line.
- Though not technically a hair color found a birth, dwarves with white or gray hair should be mentioned here, as they are afforded their own special status. Elderly dwarves are considered to be a unique caste "outside" the system of nobility - they are revered as elders of their people, and whether their hair was brown, black, blond or red in their youth, they are all seen as equals in their later years. Most elder dwarves technically remain in their original caste, however, staying with their sons and daughters, whose responsibility it is to care for them.
As a race which bears as its most prominent physical feature the growth of a beard, it shouldn't come as a surprise that hair plays a role in determining such an integral part of their society. What is surprising, however, is the social mobility this can provide (or afflict) a member of dwarven society with. A red-haired dwarf born to brown-haired parents can often move several social stations above his parents, despite his family name; whereas a brown-haired dwarf born to blond- or red-haired parents is doomed to the life of a commoner. Though it is deeply unfortunate, many brown-haired dwarven children are killed or abandoned, as their "noble-blooded" parents would rather lose their child than face the shame of birthing a common dwarf.
Though it is not entirely unheard of, hair dyeing is severely, severely discouraged among dwarven society. A dwarf who attempts to alter his or her social status by dyeing their hair puts their life very much in danger, as those found guilty of trying to cheat the system are relegated to a "dishonored" status below that of even a commoner at best; more often, they are put to death.
As one of Titania's oldest societies, the dwarves are a race known for being steeped in tradition and history. This tradition of nobility by hair color, while perhaps idiosyncratic by all other races' standards, should no less be revered and respected, and other races would do well to be mindful of this tradition when interacting with dwarves.
Dwarves are peculiar among all the races of Titania for their very unusual method of determining one's lineage. Dwarven ancestry is determined via a very simple process, and parentage has something to do with it just as it does in any culture - but where dwarves differ is in the methodology they use to determine one's noble ancestry. Quite simply, any dwarf from any clan can be considered "nobility" to a certain extent - providing, of course, their hair is the right color. There are four common hair colors among dwarves, and their meanings are as follows:
- Brown, the most common hair color, is considered the "ignoble" color of the four, and dwarves with brown hair are almost always seen as commoners, serving as laborers, enlisted soldiers, and servants. Many brown-haired dwarves choose to live among the surface races rather than be relegated to such a status, and for this reason, most dwarves found in Falconia and other cities of the like are brown-haired.
- Black, the next most common color, is considered a color denoting minor nobility. Traditionally, black-haired dwarves have been peerless military leaders among their people. All black-haired dwarves are allowed to claim some percentage of ancestry from the noble Blackhammer clan, and most black-haired dwarves are groomed for lives in the military from an early age.
- Blond, the second-rarest of dwarven hair colors, is a color which denotes aristocracy and refinement. Blond-haired dwarves are known for their shrewd mercantile experience and acumen for business; as such, many blond-haired dwarves use their noble lineage to establish themselves as prominent merchants. Blond-haired dwarves can claim ancestry from the Amberforge clan, however many choose to refrain from doing so as a result of the Amberforge clan's recent history - namely, their exile from the primary dwarven seat of Kinsfort.
- Red, the rarest dwarven hair color, signifies the blood right of leadership, and is considered the most noble of any hair color for a dwarf to be born with. Although not all red-haired dwarves become great leaders, all are treated as the ancestors of kings in some respect. Red-haired dwarves count themselves among the ancestors of the legendary Redbeard clan, a noble clan which has produced many great kings of the dwarven people. Though not all dwarven rulers are red-haired, most of the greatest and oft-revered rulers have been of the Redbeard line.
- Though not technically a hair color found a birth, dwarves with white or gray hair should be mentioned here, as they are afforded their own special status. Elderly dwarves are considered to be a unique caste "outside" the system of nobility - they are revered as elders of their people, and whether their hair was brown, black, blond or red in their youth, they are all seen as equals in their later years. Most elder dwarves technically remain in their original caste, however, staying with their sons and daughters, whose responsibility it is to care for them.
As a race which bears as its most prominent physical feature the growth of a beard, it shouldn't come as a surprise that hair plays a role in determining such an integral part of their society. What is surprising, however, is the social mobility this can provide (or afflict) a member of dwarven society with. A red-haired dwarf born to brown-haired parents can often move several social stations above his parents, despite his family name; whereas a brown-haired dwarf born to blond- or red-haired parents is doomed to the life of a commoner. Though it is deeply unfortunate, many brown-haired dwarven children are killed or abandoned, as their "noble-blooded" parents would rather lose their child than face the shame of birthing a common dwarf.
Though it is not entirely unheard of, hair dyeing is severely, severely discouraged among dwarven society. A dwarf who attempts to alter his or her social status by dyeing their hair puts their life very much in danger, as those found guilty of trying to cheat the system are relegated to a "dishonored" status below that of even a commoner at best; more often, they are put to death.
As one of Titania's oldest societies, the dwarves are a race known for being steeped in tradition and history. This tradition of nobility by hair color, while perhaps idiosyncratic by all other races' standards, should no less be revered and respected, and other races would do well to be mindful of this tradition when interacting with dwarves.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Session #23: Playing Roles
Sal missed today's session as well; in-story, Nirreh has separated from the party for the time being to attend to issues in her homeland, the Whitebough Forest. A familiar face returned to fill her spot for the time being...but more on that later, on to the recap.
The party all received their training of choice from Marshal Rendon, and woke up the next morning to find their presence requested by him. Heading to his office, he relayed that he wanted them to check on one of his runners whom had not returned, and they had found no body of. The party agreed, and headed off in the direction the runner had been sent - north, toward the towns of Kinderwood and Cairnmoor. Conversation was in great supply during the trip, although the great majority of it was the ongoing argument between Seamus and Shivra.
The party made their first stop in the halfling town of Kinderwood. Finding it to be quite busy with all the halflings home for the winter, they headed to Kinderwood's Skippin' Stone Tavern seeking information on the runner. After a run-in with an odd little fellow in a fake beard named Ferrel, they met with the tavernkeep, Elian, to ask about the runner. Seamus joined in a drunken halfling chorus in a rousing rendition of "Gold River Down the Barnside" as Vorgym spoke with Elian, though he ended up calling Seamus over to loosen Elian's tongue with a generous purchase of ale. Elian relayed that the runner had come through seeking reinforcements for Orcbane Keep, and headed northwest to Cairnmoor upon finding that the halflings had none to provide. The party bought rooms for the night in Kinderwood, with Amnon having a fitful sleep opposite a sick fellow patron, and headed for Cairnmoor.
Upon arriving in Cairnmoor, they found that the rumors of a plague were true - bodies lay burning in mass graves outside the town's walls, and what few people still remained in the town seemed to largely be preparing to depart. The party learned that, though the zombie plague had passed, it had already done its damage, and the town seemed to most beyond saving - the guard they spoke to, himself about to set aflame a mass grave, estimated Cairnmoor would be a ghost town by next year's beginning. They were given directions to the one structure they might find their runner at, the Misty Morning Inn, and headed there accordingly.
Inside they found a half-elf with an eyepatch grilling a dwarf by the name of Smolkin. The rest of the bar sat in tense anticipation of what might happen next as the party entered. Seamus was quick to challenge the half-elf, a man by the name of Managath, and the party soon found themselves roped into an attempted Bluff check to claim that they were the Blacksword Band adventuring company assigned to the task Smolkin had been given. Their bluff was called, however, and Managath ordered his men to attack. The battle quickly turned as Managath's men were slaughtered, and those who realized their grim situation quickly enough managed to flee. Managath surrendered, and the situation was resolved, with Smolkin and Managath agreeing to officially consider this new group of adventurers the Blacksword Band, for fear of retaliation from the noble patron they had been hired by.
Smolkin explained their task - that of recovering an artifact known as the Silver Mask of Kas from the Amberforge Vault, which rumor said had been lost to the creatures of the Underdark. Additionally, Smolkin suggested the party search the area around Cairnmoor for a spider rod - a magical implement used by drow arachnomancers, one of whom was supposedly buried in the area. The party also managed to locate Rendon's lost runner, a man by the name of Leoren, who had been unable to leave Cairnmoor due to the grave injuries he had suffered outrunning the orcs he had been pursued by. Smolkin agreed to pass on the fate of Rendon's runner to him in Falconia for the party, and they agreed to recover the artifact.
It was about this time that the party head a loud crash from the back room of the Misty Morning Inn - a drow patron of the inn who had assisted the party with Managath, Malthus, recognized the sound as that of a spider, and aided the party in fighting the beasts off. They dealt with the last of them in the spider web-laden cellar, and found a tunnel leading off into the darkness. This is where the session ended.
There was a lot of good roleplaying in this session - as a result, I am going to give 20 XP as a roleplaying bonus to Seamus, Shivra, Vorgym & Amnon. That's 20 XP each, so go ahead and add it to your totals. We will not be doing an extra session this Saturday again, as not enough people can make it - I will see everyone next Wednesday!
The party all received their training of choice from Marshal Rendon, and woke up the next morning to find their presence requested by him. Heading to his office, he relayed that he wanted them to check on one of his runners whom had not returned, and they had found no body of. The party agreed, and headed off in the direction the runner had been sent - north, toward the towns of Kinderwood and Cairnmoor. Conversation was in great supply during the trip, although the great majority of it was the ongoing argument between Seamus and Shivra.
The party made their first stop in the halfling town of Kinderwood. Finding it to be quite busy with all the halflings home for the winter, they headed to Kinderwood's Skippin' Stone Tavern seeking information on the runner. After a run-in with an odd little fellow in a fake beard named Ferrel, they met with the tavernkeep, Elian, to ask about the runner. Seamus joined in a drunken halfling chorus in a rousing rendition of "Gold River Down the Barnside" as Vorgym spoke with Elian, though he ended up calling Seamus over to loosen Elian's tongue with a generous purchase of ale. Elian relayed that the runner had come through seeking reinforcements for Orcbane Keep, and headed northwest to Cairnmoor upon finding that the halflings had none to provide. The party bought rooms for the night in Kinderwood, with Amnon having a fitful sleep opposite a sick fellow patron, and headed for Cairnmoor.
Upon arriving in Cairnmoor, they found that the rumors of a plague were true - bodies lay burning in mass graves outside the town's walls, and what few people still remained in the town seemed to largely be preparing to depart. The party learned that, though the zombie plague had passed, it had already done its damage, and the town seemed to most beyond saving - the guard they spoke to, himself about to set aflame a mass grave, estimated Cairnmoor would be a ghost town by next year's beginning. They were given directions to the one structure they might find their runner at, the Misty Morning Inn, and headed there accordingly.
Inside they found a half-elf with an eyepatch grilling a dwarf by the name of Smolkin. The rest of the bar sat in tense anticipation of what might happen next as the party entered. Seamus was quick to challenge the half-elf, a man by the name of Managath, and the party soon found themselves roped into an attempted Bluff check to claim that they were the Blacksword Band adventuring company assigned to the task Smolkin had been given. Their bluff was called, however, and Managath ordered his men to attack. The battle quickly turned as Managath's men were slaughtered, and those who realized their grim situation quickly enough managed to flee. Managath surrendered, and the situation was resolved, with Smolkin and Managath agreeing to officially consider this new group of adventurers the Blacksword Band, for fear of retaliation from the noble patron they had been hired by.
Smolkin explained their task - that of recovering an artifact known as the Silver Mask of Kas from the Amberforge Vault, which rumor said had been lost to the creatures of the Underdark. Additionally, Smolkin suggested the party search the area around Cairnmoor for a spider rod - a magical implement used by drow arachnomancers, one of whom was supposedly buried in the area. The party also managed to locate Rendon's lost runner, a man by the name of Leoren, who had been unable to leave Cairnmoor due to the grave injuries he had suffered outrunning the orcs he had been pursued by. Smolkin agreed to pass on the fate of Rendon's runner to him in Falconia for the party, and they agreed to recover the artifact.
It was about this time that the party head a loud crash from the back room of the Misty Morning Inn - a drow patron of the inn who had assisted the party with Managath, Malthus, recognized the sound as that of a spider, and aided the party in fighting the beasts off. They dealt with the last of them in the spider web-laden cellar, and found a tunnel leading off into the darkness. This is where the session ended.
There was a lot of good roleplaying in this session - as a result, I am going to give 20 XP as a roleplaying bonus to Seamus, Shivra, Vorgym & Amnon. That's 20 XP each, so go ahead and add it to your totals. We will not be doing an extra session this Saturday again, as not enough people can make it - I will see everyone next Wednesday!
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Session #22: Steve vs. the Giants
Sal wasn't present for this session, as he was on a date (hopefully he used a condom) - Nirreh was put on the wall of the keep as a result.
The second wave came hard, with hyenas swarming the group. More dangerous, though, were the orc rampagers, who used their rampage ability to essentially "bladestorm" through the group, swinging their flails all over the place. The party took a loss here, with one character going into dying status. The guards holding the line had to be called up to help clear out the rest of the orcs.
With the orcs defeated, the giants finally advanced, led by four orcs riding a battle worg. The party handled the orcs rather easily - but once the giants arrived, they found themselves quickly in trouble as the giants crushed the town guards, one by one - only three managed to escape the initial assault and build a line in front of the keep gates. The party hardly escaped damage - Shivra was crit for 40 damage after carelessly drawing an opportunity attack; Seamus was knocked unconscious by a swing from a giant's massive club; Vorgym & Deckard were also taken out by attacks from the hill giants. One by one, the ballista picked off the giants until only one remained - unfortunately, only Amnon and a single guard, "Steve", remained among the allied forces (although Marshal Rendon joined the battle when the third and final ballista shot was being prepared). The highlight of the final moments of this encounter was, of course, Steve nailing the giant's 25 AC with his measly +8 crossbow attack. Oh, and the final ballista bolt splitting the giant's head like a melon as it sailed clean through.
In the end, Seamus was unconscious, Vorgym & Deckard were both dying with 2 failures, and Shivra was dead after 3 straight failures. Only Amnon remained standing, and he was one solid hit from the giant away from joining the others. 9 of the 10 guards on the battlefield had also been killed, with only Steve (Keep Guard 5, who had started the battle utterly terrified) still alive. Orc, hyena & giant corpses littered the battlefield, 4 stacked on top of eachother in many cases. Yet the party was victorious - the siege broken, the orcs routed. They shared a victorious feast all together, including Shivra, who Marshal Rendon generously resurrected (with the help of the party's intended gold piece reward, of course).
I think we all agreed this was a very fun encounter, and tense as well toward the end. The hill giant was basically a turn away from TPKing the active group by crushing Amnon into paste. In the end however, the party triumphed, taking its only loss on an ill-drawn opportunity attack which ended up critting. I opted to grant mercy (at a price, of course) to Shivra in this particular case because 1) Traver is the only one who's given me a backstory so far, and 2) the hill giants were level 13 brutes; brutes hit harder than most other monsters at standard level, but these particular brutes had an 8-level advantage over the party. Beyond this point, though, you're all on your own!
We will be looking to have an extra session on Saturday at the usual time, noon - 3 PM Pacific/2 - 5 PM Central - I don't think Sterling will be able to make it, but as we did tonight, if we are able to have everyone else present we will go ahead and play it. I have confirmation from everyone but Sal, I will post an update depending on his response.
Additionally, regarding the Grandmaster Training rewards which each member of the party will receive from training with Marshal Rendon - everyone needs to make sure they pick one from the following selection by next Wednesday at the latest, although having one chosen by Saturday would be preferable: Insight of the Vault, Climb the Giant, Advanced Delver's Training, Davros Elden's Defensive Step, Drizzt's Kick or Davros Elden's Hasty Resurgence. Note that multiple people can choose the same training - just pick one of the six listed, and you can add it to your magic items!
Edit: Finding the Grandmaster Trainings in the character builder is a bit of a hassle, as there doesn't seem to be an implemented category for them. This might be because they're not really something characters are supposed to be able to buy for themselves - anyway, in order to pick one, you will need to search for it using the "Search" button in the marketplace, the bottom option on the left. Put in the EXACT name of the training, and then you can add it.
The second wave came hard, with hyenas swarming the group. More dangerous, though, were the orc rampagers, who used their rampage ability to essentially "bladestorm" through the group, swinging their flails all over the place. The party took a loss here, with one character going into dying status. The guards holding the line had to be called up to help clear out the rest of the orcs.
With the orcs defeated, the giants finally advanced, led by four orcs riding a battle worg. The party handled the orcs rather easily - but once the giants arrived, they found themselves quickly in trouble as the giants crushed the town guards, one by one - only three managed to escape the initial assault and build a line in front of the keep gates. The party hardly escaped damage - Shivra was crit for 40 damage after carelessly drawing an opportunity attack; Seamus was knocked unconscious by a swing from a giant's massive club; Vorgym & Deckard were also taken out by attacks from the hill giants. One by one, the ballista picked off the giants until only one remained - unfortunately, only Amnon and a single guard, "Steve", remained among the allied forces (although Marshal Rendon joined the battle when the third and final ballista shot was being prepared). The highlight of the final moments of this encounter was, of course, Steve nailing the giant's 25 AC with his measly +8 crossbow attack. Oh, and the final ballista bolt splitting the giant's head like a melon as it sailed clean through.
In the end, Seamus was unconscious, Vorgym & Deckard were both dying with 2 failures, and Shivra was dead after 3 straight failures. Only Amnon remained standing, and he was one solid hit from the giant away from joining the others. 9 of the 10 guards on the battlefield had also been killed, with only Steve (Keep Guard 5, who had started the battle utterly terrified) still alive. Orc, hyena & giant corpses littered the battlefield, 4 stacked on top of eachother in many cases. Yet the party was victorious - the siege broken, the orcs routed. They shared a victorious feast all together, including Shivra, who Marshal Rendon generously resurrected (with the help of the party's intended gold piece reward, of course).
I think we all agreed this was a very fun encounter, and tense as well toward the end. The hill giant was basically a turn away from TPKing the active group by crushing Amnon into paste. In the end however, the party triumphed, taking its only loss on an ill-drawn opportunity attack which ended up critting. I opted to grant mercy (at a price, of course) to Shivra in this particular case because 1) Traver is the only one who's given me a backstory so far, and 2) the hill giants were level 13 brutes; brutes hit harder than most other monsters at standard level, but these particular brutes had an 8-level advantage over the party. Beyond this point, though, you're all on your own!
We will be looking to have an extra session on Saturday at the usual time, noon - 3 PM Pacific/2 - 5 PM Central - I don't think Sterling will be able to make it, but as we did tonight, if we are able to have everyone else present we will go ahead and play it. I have confirmation from everyone but Sal, I will post an update depending on his response.
Additionally, regarding the Grandmaster Training rewards which each member of the party will receive from training with Marshal Rendon - everyone needs to make sure they pick one from the following selection by next Wednesday at the latest, although having one chosen by Saturday would be preferable: Insight of the Vault, Climb the Giant, Advanced Delver's Training, Davros Elden's Defensive Step, Drizzt's Kick or Davros Elden's Hasty Resurgence. Note that multiple people can choose the same training - just pick one of the six listed, and you can add it to your magic items!
Edit: Finding the Grandmaster Trainings in the character builder is a bit of a hassle, as there doesn't seem to be an implemented category for them. This might be because they're not really something characters are supposed to be able to buy for themselves - anyway, in order to pick one, you will need to search for it using the "Search" button in the marketplace, the bottom option on the left. Put in the EXACT name of the training, and then you can add it.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Deckard's Backstory
Full Name: Deckard Daleborn
Gender: Male
Age: 25
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 220 lb.
Hair: Brown
Skin: Light Tan
Eyes: Hazel
Body Build: Athletic
Distinguishing Features: Carries a letter bearing his father's last wishes, covers his face with a leaf-like camouflage paint
Deckard was born in the city of Highroad to House Daleborn, a minor noble house in Highroad responsible for overseeing the maintenance of the city's beautiful parks and nature preserves. House Daleborn was unique in that it was the only human house responsible for such a task; all the others were half-elven, and indeed most of those who worked for House Daleborn were half-elves. Deckard's father was Micah Daleborn, and his mother was Caite Daleborn. His mother died giving birth to Deckard and his twin brother, Marian.
The two boys were raised to have an appreciation of nature, primarily under the care of their half-elf nanny Ieris. Deckard loved the parks, and took to the appreciation well - Marian was not so appreciative. As the boys matured, Marian became more and more ambitious, driving his father to seek greater standing. Deckard, on the other hand, became less interested in his family's dealings and more interested in the wonders of nature. Ieris trained him in the ways of the druid, and before long Deckard learned to summon an animal companion, a bear he named Misha. Deckard and his bear became a common sight around Highroad's parks and the Daleborn manor.
Deckard's life went on largely carefree until his father's health began to sour. The question began to arise in House Daleborn - which of Micah's sons would rule over the house when he passed? Most of the Daleborn servants felt Deckard held the house's duty closest at heart, but Marian, with his wild ambition, seemed to be more interested in the task. When Micah was ready to pass, he called Marian and Deckard to his side. He informed them of his decision, which was to have both sons rule the house in his absence - Marian would carry the formal title, and Deckard would see to the house's affairs. Micah provided Deckard with a letter confirming this information. Already an introverted young man, Deckard seemed to withdraw further with the passing of his father.
With no interest in the concerns of House Daleborn, Deckard kept the letter to himself and conceded rule of the house to Marian. Despite Ieris' protests, Deckard took what little belongings he wished to keep and left Highroad. He no longer had any interest in the house or its fate - he wished to see more of nature than just what he'd seen in Highroad's parks.
Deckard took to the wilds with Misha, honing his skills as a druid, living entirely apart from society on the outskirts of the Elven Wildlands. For 10 years, he lived in the forest, conversing with no one - this, combined with his introverted nature, led Deckard to become essentially mute, never speaking and communicating only through gestures and postures, as the animals he lived among did. Save for his mental link with Misha, he found little purpose for the complex expressions only words would require, though he retained his understanding of them. Deckard only returned to society when he received a letter from Ieris, carried to him by animal messenger. He learned she was in Falconia, and went to visit her - what he found when he arrived did not please him.
Ieris, he learned, had been an indentured servant to House Daleborn - legally, she was a slave, although the house had never treated her as such. With Marian becoming the house's leader, though, Ieris' position became quite tenuous. Deckard learned that she was only in Falconia because she was on her way to become a servant to House Trannyth, a formerly disgraced noble house which had only recently been returned to noble status - Marian had traded her and several others away to further his ambitious designs. Though this saddened Deckard, Ieris seemed resigned to her fate and Deckard, who had little understanding of society and its workings after his prolonged departure, had no idea how to resolve the dispute. He decided that he would return to society once more, making a living through his skills as a druid and seeking a way to free Ieris from her fate.
Shivra's Backstory
Full Name: Shivra Gen'thac
Gender: Female
Age: 16
Height: 5'6"
Hair: White
Skin: Medium Purple
Eyes: Bluish White
Body Build: Slim
Distinguishing Features: Has an enchanted slave collar around her neck & a thieves' guild tattoo on the back of her right hand depicting a dagger balanced by its tip on the surface of a gold coin
Likes: darkness/shadows, money, jewelry, the thieves' guild, Vielia (guild's leader), Cairc (guild's treasurer)
Dislikes: brightness, elves, the slave collar, Irving (guild's 2nd-in-command), being poor, complainers, working with other people
Shivra was born and raised in the Drow city of Nightshore in the Underdark. Her mother Pellanistra, father Gwylyss, and 2 older brothers Sordryn & Morennel all raised her to be stealthy and stay in the shadows so she could be trained as an assassin. However, as she trained and learned how to surprise her targets, she started to like robbing her targets, rather than just killing them. More and more she opted to rob her targets after killing them. Her family and the assassin's guild she was apprenticed to were not very pleased with this, as it violated their code - all assassins were instructed to leave their victims' valuables as a means of making sure the message that the victim was meant to be murdered was properly delivered.
At the age of 14 she became suspicious that the guild would have her killed or sold away for disobedience; her family would be no help, as the Gen'thacs were prominently known as assassins and saw her as an outcast from them. She snuck into the guild's clerical offices and found that there was an order to kill her, because the guild didn't need a money glory assassin. She quickly ran home, got together what supplies she could, and fled to Vulkannen.
Despite the awful quality of life most drow in Vulkannen found in the city's Drow Quarter, Shivra managed to do alright for herself for about 2 months by pickpocketing and burgling. For one of her burglaries, she unwittingly targeted the safehouse of a prominent thieves' guild. She was caught almost as soon as she touched the money. The guild members were impressed that she even managed to get into the safehouse, much less find and access their stash of valuables. They struck up a deal with her, allowing her to have the safehouse and the money within if she worked for them in return. She agreed and started training at the guildhouse, coming to see the guild's members as a sort of surrogate family, particularly the guild's human leader, Vielia and the guild's dwarven "banker", Cairc.
Though she'd initially been recruited with little choice, she liked the life that she had been given, being able to steal for a living and having a place to belong. Yet things became bland and boring after a couple years, so she started to take riskier jobs almost exclusively. She would up the risk further by purposely alerting guards just so she could outwit and escape them. This did not sit well with Vielia's second-in-command, Irving, seeing her careless stunts as being dangerous to the guild. Vielia and most of the rest of the guild didn't mind, however, as long as she got the job done and didn't get caught. In addition to her work, she went back to her old ways of pickpocketing and burgling in her spare time, furthering the risks she took. This ended up being her downfall, as it got her into trouble with more then just her guild - the merchant's guilds which paid the thieves' guilds protection to avoid being stolen from were being victimized by her, and they began sending assassins after her.
One day she pickpocketed a man in the street, thinking that it was just a normal traveler. Unfortunately, the man turned out to be an assassin's guild plant. He caught her attempted theft and chased her through most of the city. She eventually managed to flee into a bar, looking to disappear into a crowd. This, however, wasn't the time she should have entered the bar, as members of the merchant's guild she'd stolen from and the assassin's guild sent after her were present. The man chasing her entered the bar and pointed her out, inciting a fight. Before the fighting could be stopped, 3 members of the assassin's guild and 5 members of the merchant's guild had been badly injured. She could not hide this from her thieves' guild, and was brought before Vielia and the leaders of the guilds she'd offended. As she had since liquidated the assets she'd stolen from the merchants, she was informed that she would have to pay all of it back, in addition to what it had cost to heal those injured in the fight she'd started. She would also wear an enchanted slave collar that would prevent her from further disobeying orders or escaping her penance.
So it was that Shivra was made a slave to the guilds, doing whatever they asked of her and having no course to refuse. It soon came to pass that the guilds decided to put her to use as a mercenary, and sent her to Falconia to seek work. Irving would serve as her handler, operating out of Falconia and sending her to assist with any task that would pay. She hated the idea of having to work with others, but found herself with little choice in her new life...
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Session #21: The Siege Begins
We introduced some new characters and new players this session. Sterling plays the defender, a dwarf knight name of Seamus (that's Shay-mus) Silvershield; Jordan plays the leader, a human sentinel named Deckard, with a bear companion named Misha; Traver plays one of our strikers, a drow scout named Shivra; Andrew plays the other striker, a drow hexblade named Vorgym; Andrew's brother Phil plays one of the party's controllers, a tiefling mage named Amnon; and Sal has retained his character from the party's TPK, the party's other controller, an elf hunter named Nirreh.
The party was sort of mashed together at the request of a town crier in Falconia, looking for adventurers to reinforce the besieged Orcbane Keep. They headed east toward the river crossing, and came upon a number of dead Falconian soldiers around the burnt bridge. Suspecting a trap, they found their suspicions confirmed when orcs shot ropes tied to arrows across the river to allow their raiding party to climb across. The strategy proved less than effective, and the only real damage the orcs did to the party came from their archers. High points included a bear nimbly crossing the weakened bridge, and a rope being cut to send a pair of orcs into the freezing snowmelt water of the river below.
After dealing with the ambush, the party headed on to Orcbane Keep, and were fortunate to arrive in the midst of a lull in the siege. They met with Marshal Rendon, the famous master of the keep, known for his exploits in the Howl War against the gnolls and their demon lord leader, Yeenoghu. He gave them the task of drawing the hill giants involved in the siege within range of the keep's ballista - the keep's soldiers could deal with the orcs easily enough, even with their numbers in the 50s as opposed to the 200s, but not the massive hill giants and the boulders they besieged the keep with. The party joined the front line before the gate, and engaged the first wave of orcish forces. They managed to defeat this wave with relative ease, but now another wave approaches, with more fearsome orcs and a pack of vicious war hyenas...
We ended the session here - there were some technical issues early on, and both of the encounters described here proved to be quite complex and took up a lot of our time. Such is the case with large set pieces like this, though =) See everyone for next week's session!
The party was sort of mashed together at the request of a town crier in Falconia, looking for adventurers to reinforce the besieged Orcbane Keep. They headed east toward the river crossing, and came upon a number of dead Falconian soldiers around the burnt bridge. Suspecting a trap, they found their suspicions confirmed when orcs shot ropes tied to arrows across the river to allow their raiding party to climb across. The strategy proved less than effective, and the only real damage the orcs did to the party came from their archers. High points included a bear nimbly crossing the weakened bridge, and a rope being cut to send a pair of orcs into the freezing snowmelt water of the river below.
After dealing with the ambush, the party headed on to Orcbane Keep, and were fortunate to arrive in the midst of a lull in the siege. They met with Marshal Rendon, the famous master of the keep, known for his exploits in the Howl War against the gnolls and their demon lord leader, Yeenoghu. He gave them the task of drawing the hill giants involved in the siege within range of the keep's ballista - the keep's soldiers could deal with the orcs easily enough, even with their numbers in the 50s as opposed to the 200s, but not the massive hill giants and the boulders they besieged the keep with. The party joined the front line before the gate, and engaged the first wave of orcish forces. They managed to defeat this wave with relative ease, but now another wave approaches, with more fearsome orcs and a pack of vicious war hyenas...
We ended the session here - there were some technical issues early on, and both of the encounters described here proved to be quite complex and took up a lot of our time. Such is the case with large set pieces like this, though =) See everyone for next week's session!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
New Character Tracking Pt. 2
I will keep track of what everyone still needs to do for their new characters here. Of the steps listed, you guys need to get everything but the backstory part done by this Wednesday, October 5th if we're going to have characters ready for next session!
Andrew: Drow Hexblade (Striker)
Jordan: Human Sentinel (Leader)
Sal: Elf Hunter (Controller)
Traver: Drow Thief (Striker)
Phil: Tiefling Mage (Controller)
Sterling: Dwarf Knight (Defender)
Andrew (Vorgym, Drow Hexblade)
- Physical description of character: height, weight, age, hair color, eye color, skin color, body build (see your race's description for the averages/standards of these)
- Backstory
Jordan (Deckard, Human Sentinel)
- Choose a different language (Dwarven, Elven, Deep Speech, Draconic, Giant, Goblin, or Primordial)
- Backstory
Note for Jordan: I figured out the staff fighting issue - there is a bug with the program which causes Staff Fighting to overwrite the Summer Sentinel's class feature. I fixed this by finding a sentinel I could import which had the d12 damage dice for the staff AND the staff fighting feat. It may be an issue with the d12 boost being applied to staff IMPLEMENTS, and the Staff Fighting feat only applying to quarterstaffs. Either way, I think I've fixed it for now - only problem is that the AC doesn't show up, but that can be put on your token.
Traver (Shivra, Drow Thief)
- Backstory
Sal (Nirreh, Elf Hunter)
- Backstory (include basic summary of events of Nirreh's involvement in the story to this point; Nirreh's character has been possessed by Elaureth's spirit; she still has control but is motivated to accomplish his goal of finding out what happened to Inastara)
Phil (Amnon, Tiefling Mage)
- Backstory
Sterling (Seamus, Dwarf Knight)
- Backstory
Andrew: Drow Hexblade (Striker)
Jordan: Human Sentinel (Leader)
Sal: Elf Hunter (Controller)
Traver: Drow Thief (Striker)
Phil: Tiefling Mage (Controller)
Sterling: Dwarf Knight (Defender)
Andrew (Vorgym, Drow Hexblade)
- Physical description of character: height, weight, age, hair color, eye color, skin color, body build (see your race's description for the averages/standards of these)
- Backstory
Jordan (Deckard, Human Sentinel)
- Choose a different language (Dwarven, Elven, Deep Speech, Draconic, Giant, Goblin, or Primordial)
- Backstory
Note for Jordan: I figured out the staff fighting issue - there is a bug with the program which causes Staff Fighting to overwrite the Summer Sentinel's class feature. I fixed this by finding a sentinel I could import which had the d12 damage dice for the staff AND the staff fighting feat. It may be an issue with the d12 boost being applied to staff IMPLEMENTS, and the Staff Fighting feat only applying to quarterstaffs. Either way, I think I've fixed it for now - only problem is that the AC doesn't show up, but that can be put on your token.
Traver (Shivra, Drow Thief)
- Backstory
Sal (Nirreh, Elf Hunter)
- Backstory (include basic summary of events of Nirreh's involvement in the story to this point; Nirreh's character has been possessed by Elaureth's spirit; she still has control but is motivated to accomplish his goal of finding out what happened to Inastara)
Phil (Amnon, Tiefling Mage)
- Backstory
Sterling (Seamus, Dwarf Knight)
- Backstory
Session #20: Back to the Drawing Board
The party left Silvershade and headed for Inastara's tomb, encountering a number of dire boars along the way. They defeated them rather easily, then went on to the tomb, finding it already open. Inside the tomb, they encountered a number of ghosts - phantom warriors and wraiths. They were defeated by these ghosts, and only Nirreh managed to escape, though she felt another power pushing her to survive...
A very short recap for this session, as the party has TPK'ed. I will keep track of the development of the new party's characters for each player in the next post.
A very short recap for this session, as the party has TPK'ed. I will keep track of the development of the new party's characters for each player in the next post.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Session #19: Dickwolves!
The session started a bit late due to the map download - always going to happen with a new adventure. Maybe I can start bringing the server up early so people can download the map before start time.
The party headed into Whitebough Forest, and immediately found something unusual about it. The forest was shrouded in fog, a weather phenomenon that Nirreh & Elaureth, both residents of Whitebough, found anomalous for the area. They also felt themselves being watched as they moved through the forest...and eventually they discovered why, as they spotted a party of elves hidden among the trees, watching them, appearing to be waiting for something. When they outed the elves, they immediately went into combat. This didn't prove to be a very difficult encounter - the elves were routed, and the worst damage of the encounter was (again) levied upon Pieter, who wandered ahead of the party and was caught by a pair of elf scouts. Elaureth, Thomnall & Pieter were also hoisted up by snare traps the elves had placed. They had apparently been looking to rob the party.
Moving on, the party followed Elaureth's directions to Silvershade, where he was revealed to be an exile from the community by the eladrin guards who refused the party entry. They offered their help with Silvershade's problems, and were reluctantly allowed in - Elaureth, however, was made to wait outside. He asked Nirreh to show his raven's feather to the village's leader, Lady Wandalyssa Harpsong, and she agreed.
Heading into the village, the party met with Wandalyssa and the organizer of the village's guard patrols, Fruian Greensleeves. They found out from her that Whitebough Forest was under terror from a plague which specifically targeted fey creatures (as opposed to Cairnmoor's zombie plague, which could not affect beings of fey origin). She said that her people may have a way to cure Cairnmoor's plague, but would require the party's help first. When Nirreh showed her the raven's feather, Wandalyssa discovered that Elaureth had accompanied them - she seemed visibly shocked by the feather's state, and explained that the feather had turned blood-red when the village's founder, Princess Inastara Silvershade, had been killed. Elaureth had killed her, saying it had been for her own good, and he had been exiled for doing so. It was then that Elaureth entered the village, and Wandalyssa threatened to kill him if he did not leave immediately.
The tension was broken by the arrival of a heavy fog which greatly impaired the party's ability to see; Wandalyssa & Fruian left to attend to the village's defenses when this happened. From the fog, werewolves attacked the party, making sure to bite every fey-origin member of the party. After they had accomplished this, the werewolves used the fog to execute hit-and-run attacks: they would hide in the fog and regenerate while waiting for one of the party to become isolated, then focus their attacks on the isolated target, attempting to bring it down. This proved an effective and a daunting strategy, leaving the targeted party member nearly knocked out of the fight on several occasions.
Little by little, the party managed to isolate the werewolves and kill them off, winning the battle of attrition. Wandalyssa & Fruian then returned, impressed to see what the party had managed to accomplish. Unfortunately, the werewolves' attacks had infected Elaureth & Ilivarra with the moon frenzy plague; Ilivarra removed hers immediately, and managed to cure Elaureth of his plague during the party's extended rest at the end of the session. Wandalyssa explained that the fog was being created by Volaz, a former eladrin druid resident of Whitebough who had left on a journey, and only recently returned - his return had coincided with the return of the plague, curiously enough. She asked the party to find and eliminate Volaz's pack, then went off to attend to the people of the village. Fruian did the same, but not before asking the party to recover an ancient sword known as Moonclaw from the tomb of Princess Inastara - it was the weapon of one of her personal guards, and had been buried with that guard at the time of his death.
Elaureth, too, had a task to ask of the party - though he was hesitant to allow the party to enter Inastara's tomb, he permitted it on the condition they check what had happened to Inastara. His raven's feather indicated she was still alive, and he had to know why this was. The party agreed to do this, and we ended the session with an extended rest in Silvershade.
Though the werewolf encounter took up most of the session, it was probably the most detailed encounter strategically the party has gone up against so far - the werewolves used very effective tactics which put a significant stress on the party's ability to fight, forcing the party to develop a cohesive strategy: draw the werewolves out, then pick one and focus it down. With the heavy fog still shrouding the air, the party is sure to have more tactical encounters to follow.
Remember, guys - we are doing an extra session this week on Saturday, October 1st! We will start at 12 noon Pacific/2 PM Central and end at 3 PM Pacific/5 PM Central (or whenever you guys would like to stop). See you there! Additionally, I still need backstories from Baril & Pixie!
The party headed into Whitebough Forest, and immediately found something unusual about it. The forest was shrouded in fog, a weather phenomenon that Nirreh & Elaureth, both residents of Whitebough, found anomalous for the area. They also felt themselves being watched as they moved through the forest...and eventually they discovered why, as they spotted a party of elves hidden among the trees, watching them, appearing to be waiting for something. When they outed the elves, they immediately went into combat. This didn't prove to be a very difficult encounter - the elves were routed, and the worst damage of the encounter was (again) levied upon Pieter, who wandered ahead of the party and was caught by a pair of elf scouts. Elaureth, Thomnall & Pieter were also hoisted up by snare traps the elves had placed. They had apparently been looking to rob the party.
Moving on, the party followed Elaureth's directions to Silvershade, where he was revealed to be an exile from the community by the eladrin guards who refused the party entry. They offered their help with Silvershade's problems, and were reluctantly allowed in - Elaureth, however, was made to wait outside. He asked Nirreh to show his raven's feather to the village's leader, Lady Wandalyssa Harpsong, and she agreed.
Heading into the village, the party met with Wandalyssa and the organizer of the village's guard patrols, Fruian Greensleeves. They found out from her that Whitebough Forest was under terror from a plague which specifically targeted fey creatures (as opposed to Cairnmoor's zombie plague, which could not affect beings of fey origin). She said that her people may have a way to cure Cairnmoor's plague, but would require the party's help first. When Nirreh showed her the raven's feather, Wandalyssa discovered that Elaureth had accompanied them - she seemed visibly shocked by the feather's state, and explained that the feather had turned blood-red when the village's founder, Princess Inastara Silvershade, had been killed. Elaureth had killed her, saying it had been for her own good, and he had been exiled for doing so. It was then that Elaureth entered the village, and Wandalyssa threatened to kill him if he did not leave immediately.
The tension was broken by the arrival of a heavy fog which greatly impaired the party's ability to see; Wandalyssa & Fruian left to attend to the village's defenses when this happened. From the fog, werewolves attacked the party, making sure to bite every fey-origin member of the party. After they had accomplished this, the werewolves used the fog to execute hit-and-run attacks: they would hide in the fog and regenerate while waiting for one of the party to become isolated, then focus their attacks on the isolated target, attempting to bring it down. This proved an effective and a daunting strategy, leaving the targeted party member nearly knocked out of the fight on several occasions.
Little by little, the party managed to isolate the werewolves and kill them off, winning the battle of attrition. Wandalyssa & Fruian then returned, impressed to see what the party had managed to accomplish. Unfortunately, the werewolves' attacks had infected Elaureth & Ilivarra with the moon frenzy plague; Ilivarra removed hers immediately, and managed to cure Elaureth of his plague during the party's extended rest at the end of the session. Wandalyssa explained that the fog was being created by Volaz, a former eladrin druid resident of Whitebough who had left on a journey, and only recently returned - his return had coincided with the return of the plague, curiously enough. She asked the party to find and eliminate Volaz's pack, then went off to attend to the people of the village. Fruian did the same, but not before asking the party to recover an ancient sword known as Moonclaw from the tomb of Princess Inastara - it was the weapon of one of her personal guards, and had been buried with that guard at the time of his death.
Elaureth, too, had a task to ask of the party - though he was hesitant to allow the party to enter Inastara's tomb, he permitted it on the condition they check what had happened to Inastara. His raven's feather indicated she was still alive, and he had to know why this was. The party agreed to do this, and we ended the session with an extended rest in Silvershade.
Though the werewolf encounter took up most of the session, it was probably the most detailed encounter strategically the party has gone up against so far - the werewolves used very effective tactics which put a significant stress on the party's ability to fight, forcing the party to develop a cohesive strategy: draw the werewolves out, then pick one and focus it down. With the heavy fog still shrouding the air, the party is sure to have more tactical encounters to follow.
Remember, guys - we are doing an extra session this week on Saturday, October 1st! We will start at 12 noon Pacific/2 PM Central and end at 3 PM Pacific/5 PM Central (or whenever you guys would like to stop). See you there! Additionally, I still need backstories from Baril & Pixie!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Session #18: The Emissary
The session started an hour early this week because (at least at the time) Traver had to work on Wednesday nights. I am unsure whether or not we will need to continue this, get back to me on this please Traver. If we don't, then I'll leave it up to you guys to decide whether we want to stick with this time period or go back to the original. On to the recap.
We began with the party fighting the glowing zombies. They managed to defeat them rather easily by funneling them all through the doorway. A few party members were hit with things that caused plague contamination before, but none of them were contaminated - more on that later. After defeating the zombies, the party gathered the gold they could find in the last clerical room, and then unlocked the mayor's office. Inside they found Mayor Lundgrave having a conversation with himself - one side in his own voice, one side in an entirely different voice. Three dread guardians stood guard, freshly dead reanimated humanoids clad in heavy armor. The party attacked, and quickly found that Lundgrave had been possessed by a being known as Rahzintel, who referred to himself as "the Emissary".
The battle did not prove terribly difficult - Elaureth took most of the damage, and Malthus was knocked unconscious, but the enemies were unable to do much to the party. The worst hits the party took were from Rahzintel's possession of Thomnall, which led to Elaureth being severely bloodied and Malthus being knocked unconscious. The dread guardians fell, one by one, and Rahzintel was eventually defeated. Before he dispersed into nothingness, he warned the party that a "dark tide" was coming, and it would drown all of them...
The party found that Lundgrave's soul had died with Rahzintel, and returned to the Misty Morning Inn with his body. They were provided with several rewards - gold from Halpern for dealing with Lundgrave; a +1 magic weapon, armor or amulet of protection from Geoffrey Black for rescuing Halpern; and free rooms from Torrin McCarver for recovering food supplies for them. They then retired to their rooms for the night.
The next morning, the party was met by Smolkin, who asked them to undertake a task he had been given by a noble patron; he introduced himself as an adventurers' herald, and stated that he needed to get the job done. Malthus refused to hear the proposal - Smolkin asked him to leave the room, then explained that he needed the party to recover the Silver Mask of Kas from the Amberforge Vault. When asked if he wanted them to steal it, he stated that word out of Amberforge indicated that the vault had been lost; he suggested they offer to clear the vault out and ask for the mask as a reward. Smolkin added (DM's note: this is retcon and was not explained during the session) that, as a former resident of Amberforge, he knew of the nature of the ruling clan, the Amberforges, warning the party to be wary of their shrewdness and trickery. The party agreed; Smolkin provided them with an address on where to find him in Falconia when they had the mask, and asked them to refer to themselves as the "Blacksword Band" so that the noble patron would not know that the job had been given to a new adventuring company.
After Smolkin departed, the High Priestess of Pelor who had been attending to healing the wounded in the inn, Adra, came to them and told them that she had discovered that creatures of fey origin, such as elves, eladrin & drow, were immune to the plague. This led her to believe they may have some sort of cure, and she asked them to head to Whitebough Forest and the community of Silvershade to try and find it. They agreed to this as well, though Ilivarra was hesitant to agree to head into elf territory.
Finally, the party ran into a wounded soldier riding a winded horse along the road heading out of Cairnmoor toward their destinations. The warrior's back had been littered with orcish arrows, and when the party healed him he revealed that he had been sent as a runner to seek reinforcements for Orcbane Keep, which had come under siege by a combined force of orcs and giants. The party noted this, and returned the soldier to the Misty Morning Inn. There they were met by Elaureth, whose blood-red raven's feather had turned black - he said that he would accompany them, though he wished to head to Silvershade first.
So, with options on the table, the party has determined that they shall head for Silvershade first - Amberforge and Orcbane Keep await soon after. Malthus has left the party, as he considers his oath of service to Lucas Black sacred. Elaureth has joined, though he seems to have personal reasons for wanting to return to Silvershade.
Some out-of-game notes: we will figure out what time we'll be doing next Wednesday's session soon, and I'll let everyone know as soon as I do. There will be no extra session on Saturday as Pixie will be busy; we'll look at doing one next week. Finally, about tonight's session - I realize that I lost some of you with the set-up for the three adventures I've given you to choose from. I take responsibility for that - looking back on my notes I strayed from what I had planned out in many cases; that's fine when the players do it by accident, but when I do it myself it can complicate things unnecessarily. Hopefully it didn't spoil the session (or even the campaign) for anyone, and we can get right back to the good times next week =) See everyone then!
We began with the party fighting the glowing zombies. They managed to defeat them rather easily by funneling them all through the doorway. A few party members were hit with things that caused plague contamination before, but none of them were contaminated - more on that later. After defeating the zombies, the party gathered the gold they could find in the last clerical room, and then unlocked the mayor's office. Inside they found Mayor Lundgrave having a conversation with himself - one side in his own voice, one side in an entirely different voice. Three dread guardians stood guard, freshly dead reanimated humanoids clad in heavy armor. The party attacked, and quickly found that Lundgrave had been possessed by a being known as Rahzintel, who referred to himself as "the Emissary".
The battle did not prove terribly difficult - Elaureth took most of the damage, and Malthus was knocked unconscious, but the enemies were unable to do much to the party. The worst hits the party took were from Rahzintel's possession of Thomnall, which led to Elaureth being severely bloodied and Malthus being knocked unconscious. The dread guardians fell, one by one, and Rahzintel was eventually defeated. Before he dispersed into nothingness, he warned the party that a "dark tide" was coming, and it would drown all of them...
The party found that Lundgrave's soul had died with Rahzintel, and returned to the Misty Morning Inn with his body. They were provided with several rewards - gold from Halpern for dealing with Lundgrave; a +1 magic weapon, armor or amulet of protection from Geoffrey Black for rescuing Halpern; and free rooms from Torrin McCarver for recovering food supplies for them. They then retired to their rooms for the night.
The next morning, the party was met by Smolkin, who asked them to undertake a task he had been given by a noble patron; he introduced himself as an adventurers' herald, and stated that he needed to get the job done. Malthus refused to hear the proposal - Smolkin asked him to leave the room, then explained that he needed the party to recover the Silver Mask of Kas from the Amberforge Vault. When asked if he wanted them to steal it, he stated that word out of Amberforge indicated that the vault had been lost; he suggested they offer to clear the vault out and ask for the mask as a reward. Smolkin added (DM's note: this is retcon and was not explained during the session) that, as a former resident of Amberforge, he knew of the nature of the ruling clan, the Amberforges, warning the party to be wary of their shrewdness and trickery. The party agreed; Smolkin provided them with an address on where to find him in Falconia when they had the mask, and asked them to refer to themselves as the "Blacksword Band" so that the noble patron would not know that the job had been given to a new adventuring company.
After Smolkin departed, the High Priestess of Pelor who had been attending to healing the wounded in the inn, Adra, came to them and told them that she had discovered that creatures of fey origin, such as elves, eladrin & drow, were immune to the plague. This led her to believe they may have some sort of cure, and she asked them to head to Whitebough Forest and the community of Silvershade to try and find it. They agreed to this as well, though Ilivarra was hesitant to agree to head into elf territory.
Finally, the party ran into a wounded soldier riding a winded horse along the road heading out of Cairnmoor toward their destinations. The warrior's back had been littered with orcish arrows, and when the party healed him he revealed that he had been sent as a runner to seek reinforcements for Orcbane Keep, which had come under siege by a combined force of orcs and giants. The party noted this, and returned the soldier to the Misty Morning Inn. There they were met by Elaureth, whose blood-red raven's feather had turned black - he said that he would accompany them, though he wished to head to Silvershade first.
So, with options on the table, the party has determined that they shall head for Silvershade first - Amberforge and Orcbane Keep await soon after. Malthus has left the party, as he considers his oath of service to Lucas Black sacred. Elaureth has joined, though he seems to have personal reasons for wanting to return to Silvershade.
Some out-of-game notes: we will figure out what time we'll be doing next Wednesday's session soon, and I'll let everyone know as soon as I do. There will be no extra session on Saturday as Pixie will be busy; we'll look at doing one next week. Finally, about tonight's session - I realize that I lost some of you with the set-up for the three adventures I've given you to choose from. I take responsibility for that - looking back on my notes I strayed from what I had planned out in many cases; that's fine when the players do it by accident, but when I do it myself it can complicate things unnecessarily. Hopefully it didn't spoil the session (or even the campaign) for anyone, and we can get right back to the good times next week =) See everyone then!
Monday, September 19, 2011
A Clarification on Wishlists
Something I forgot to say about the wishlists, which I will go ahead and say now. Due to the rate at which magic items are meant to be given out, you will not receive everything on your wishlist - rather I will use the wishlists to have a selection of options which your characters would benefit from. Most likely, you will receive 1 item from each category - the other & wondrous slot items you may not end up getting any of, but you will get at least a +2 armor, weapon & neck slot. Thanks!
Session #17: Haughty Eladrin & Ominous Hounds
Our Saturday session did not have Sal present, but since we are unlikely to get the chance to do a makeup next week, we went ahead and played it.
The session started off right away with the encounter against the wights. This encounter did not prove to be particularly difficult in terms of the damage output, but the fact that the wights took healing surges from the characters every time their attacks hit may become a serious problem later on. The situation was alleviated by the arrival of an eladrin in dark plate armor who began cutting through the wights. Before long, the wights were defeated.
The party then met the eladrin, a blackguard by the name of Elaureth. He was highly condescending toward the drow in the party, and somewhat condescending to the party themselves, referring to them as "rabble" at one point. Malthus & Ilivarra have developed a healthy & righteous dislike for Elaureth, but Pieter managed to maintain cooperation for the time being. The party, now with Elaureth in tow, headed to the next room over and found the key to the office they could not enter before. Before entering that office, however, they decided to explore the rooms in the eastern wing. There, they were met by a number of dread protectors, and a pair of spectral hounds known as hounds of ill omen.
This encounter proved much more difficult, though the party did manage to attain a strategic advantage by using the stairs. During the encounter, Nirreh was cursed by the howl of one of the hounds of ill omen; this curse has the effect of causing Nirreh to take 3 psychic damage every time she makes an attack which does not hit any target. This did not come into play during this encounter, however.
After defeating the hounds and the protectors, the party continued to explore, checking the furthest room east, which the monsters had emerged from, and the room next to it - they found gold within both rooms. In the final room, they found a number of glowing zombies - we stopped here to allow everyone present to level their characters to Level 5. Sal, contact me when you can to discuss Nirreh's experience.
See everyone Wednesday at the usual time! We most likely will not have access to the DDI tools; I've made a point of saving all the information I'm going to need to run the next session, and I have everyone's level 5 sheets saved (including Nirreh's for when she levels) as PDFs. I have everyone's money but Sal's, and everyone's wishlist but Andrew's - Andrew if you don't get your wishlist to me by tonight, I won't be able to give you any rewards, you need to do it immediately!
The session started off right away with the encounter against the wights. This encounter did not prove to be particularly difficult in terms of the damage output, but the fact that the wights took healing surges from the characters every time their attacks hit may become a serious problem later on. The situation was alleviated by the arrival of an eladrin in dark plate armor who began cutting through the wights. Before long, the wights were defeated.
The party then met the eladrin, a blackguard by the name of Elaureth. He was highly condescending toward the drow in the party, and somewhat condescending to the party themselves, referring to them as "rabble" at one point. Malthus & Ilivarra have developed a healthy & righteous dislike for Elaureth, but Pieter managed to maintain cooperation for the time being. The party, now with Elaureth in tow, headed to the next room over and found the key to the office they could not enter before. Before entering that office, however, they decided to explore the rooms in the eastern wing. There, they were met by a number of dread protectors, and a pair of spectral hounds known as hounds of ill omen.
This encounter proved much more difficult, though the party did manage to attain a strategic advantage by using the stairs. During the encounter, Nirreh was cursed by the howl of one of the hounds of ill omen; this curse has the effect of causing Nirreh to take 3 psychic damage every time she makes an attack which does not hit any target. This did not come into play during this encounter, however.
After defeating the hounds and the protectors, the party continued to explore, checking the furthest room east, which the monsters had emerged from, and the room next to it - they found gold within both rooms. In the final room, they found a number of glowing zombies - we stopped here to allow everyone present to level their characters to Level 5. Sal, contact me when you can to discuss Nirreh's experience.
See everyone Wednesday at the usual time! We most likely will not have access to the DDI tools; I've made a point of saving all the information I'm going to need to run the next session, and I have everyone's level 5 sheets saved (including Nirreh's for when she levels) as PDFs. I have everyone's money but Sal's, and everyone's wishlist but Andrew's - Andrew if you don't get your wishlist to me by tonight, I won't be able to give you any rewards, you need to do it immediately!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Thomnall's Backstory
Full Name: Thomnall
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 220 lb.
Age: 25
Eye Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Brown
Skin Color: Slight tan
Body Build: Solid
Distinguishing Feature(s): Keeps clean-shaven; keeps hair cut short; wears a necklace with a quartz wolf head pendant, a symbol of the noble Falconian House Wolfswift
Thomnall was born in the village of Windknell, a small hamlet on the borderlands to the east of Kinderwood. Thomnall is the oldest son of a fairly large family - he has a two younger brothers, Wallace (9) and Wiley (15), and a younger sister, Niamh (12; pronounced "knee-a-mah"). His mother died giving birth to Wallace, but his father Caden managed to provide well enough for the family. Thomnall was trained as a paladin by an order of paladins who maintained a small temple in Windknell. Known as the Wildguards, these paladins came from a number of different denominations, and though they all worshipped their respective gods in their own way, their order held no specific denomination. They had banded together to protect small hamlets such as Windknell from the dangers of the wilderness, especially those coming from the borderlands. Thomnall's training with the Wildguards left him with a respect for many gods, but a dedication to none.
A year after Thomnall's training was finished, he was sent on a short mission to some of the outlying farmsteads to aid ailing families there. From them, he discovered that orcish raiding parties had become very active in the area. He feared that they might have designs on Windknell, and when he returned from his mission, his fears were confirmed. The Wildguards, outmatched by the orcs, had been killed defending the village; the village itself had been razed, and most of its people lay dead. Thomnall was fortunate, as his family managed to escape mostly unharmed to Orcbane Keep - tragically, Wiley was not so fortunate, and Thomnall arrived at Orcbane Keep to find the rest of his family grieving.
With their livelihood burnt to the ground by the orcs, Thomnall's family headed to Falconia to try and find a way to get by. As the lone surviving member of the Wildguards, Thomnall spent his late teenage years and early twenties serving the people of the borderlands and the various small hamlets as best he could. The rest of his family was fortunate - due to his father Caden's former military service to the noble House Wolfswift, they were able to find work as an instructor and lodging in barracks maintained by the Wolfswifts.
In recent times, Thomnall has found that the hamlets and villages he has spent his time helping have either been abandoned to the wilderness or negotiated for protection from larger settlements nearby. With his way of life disappearing, Thomnall decided to put his skills to use as a mercenary - to this end, he has joined the Black Wolves as one of their newest recruits.
The necklace Thomnall wears is a keepsake from his father, given to him as a boy shortly after Caden retired from the military to support his budding family. His well-kept appearance is a holdover from his days as a recruit for the Wildguards - one of their tenets was that in the grizzled wilderness, they should always maintain the good habits expected in more civilized regions.
Elaureth's Backstory
(Note: Elaureth is a new character I plan on playing in the campaign; he will take the place of Malthus, and will be introduced most likely during the next session.)
Full Name: Elaureth Ravenlost
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 180 lb.
Age: 306
Eye Color: Black
Hair Color: White
Skin Color: Pale
Body Build: Solid
Distinguishing Feature(s): Keeps his ears covered with his hair; carries a raven's feather attached to the clasp of his cloak
Elaureth was born in Illuvanath, the Celestial City, a beacon of light in the Feywild known for its astronomers and its famous observatories built into the spires of some of the tallest buildings in the Feywild. Illuvanath is ruled by Vanathir, a member of the Summer Queen's Court known in Illuvanath as the "Ember King". Elaureth was a member of House Moonstride, a lesser noble house in Illuvanath. His father, Panendithas Moonstride, was one of the city's greatest astronomers, and his mother, Hollyatris Moonstride, one of its finest courtiers. They groomed Elaureth for a proper upbringing, and saw to it that he was trained as a Paladin of Corellon when he showed an acumen for battle. His older brother Elben, meanwhile, was groomed to become the next ruler of House Moonstride, and already had a stellar reputation in Vanathir's court.
The course of Elaureth's life was laid out before him, and he followed it diligently - at least until he met Princess Inastara of House Silvershade. Inastara, a daughter of Vanathir, was the considered the most beautiful of the women in Vanathir's court, and a very powerful one at that, considering her status as next in line to rule Illuvanath. House Moonstride was considered to have been granted a great honor when Elaureth was selected to serve as part of Inastara's personal guard. He took this honor quite seriously, and before long Elaureth began to harbor feelings for Inastara. These feelings made things quite complicated for him when Inastara, seeking an escape from the destiny set before her, declared that she was leaving Illuvanath, House Silvershade, and all her life behind. Most of her personal guard refused to follow, save for Elaureth & four others.
When Elaureth told his parents of his intent to leave with Inastara, they banished him from their house and stripped him of his family name. The procession set forth from Illuvanath and headed to the Fey Gardens, the primary link between the Feywild and Titania. When they arrived in Titania, they found no home in the Wildwood; after a long journey, what was left of Inastara's host settled in Whitebough Forest, establishing the community of Silvershade.
In Silvershade, the eladrin of Inastara's host lived in harmony with the local elves. Though some of the elves wanted nothing to do with the eladrin to the point of hostility, most were welcoming, and the community flourished with Inastara as its leader. Elaureth served faithfully in her personal guard for many decades. One by one, Inastara's personal guard fell to age or to disease, until finally only Elaureth and one other, Lady Wandalyssa Harpsong, remained. These two were at Inastara's side during one of her walks through the snow-covered trees when they were met by the Prince of Frost, a powerful archfey & lord of the Winter Fey. Inastara died that day in the forest; Elaureth & Wandalyssa do not speak of what happened that fateful day, but the incident led to Elaureth being exiled permanently from Silvershade by Wandalyssa, who became the community's new leader.
His love for Inastara ultimately unrequited, Elaureth sunk into the depths of despair. He renounced Corellon, and took on the path of the blackguard, living as a hermit in Whitebough Forest. He made a point of building his domicile very near to the tomb in which Princess Inastara and her host had been buried, so that he could stand guard over her still. Elaureth spent many years surviving alone in the forest, and seldom stirred but to chase away would-be defilers of his mistress's tomb.
One day, Elaureth was awoken by the sound of the tomb door slamming shut. He rushed outside to find a robed figure disappearing into the mists. Furious, he swore revenge against those who would disturb his mistress's sleep, and began tracking the robed figure. His search eventually led him to Cairnmoor, cloaked in mist and silent but for the low discord of deathly moans...
Elaureth is a detached, stern, and fierce individual. He is single-minded in his pursuit of his goals, and only furthers other causes when they provide some benefit to his own. Elaureth carries with him a raven's feather, a magical object which can be attuned to a person, and turns blood red when that person dies. The feather is attuned to Inastara, a holdover from his days as part of her personal guard, and blood red in color. He keeps his elven ears covered with his hair, something considered a taboo among those of elven descent, as a sign of his exile and a sign to others to keep their distance. Elaureth adopted the family name "Ravenlost" after Inastara's death; the name signifies the new deity he began to worship when he abandoned Corellon, the Raven Queen, and also what he sees himself as: a raven in flight, lost and far from home. Though he is curious about what has happened to the noble house of his birth, he has no interest in returning with his task left undone.
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