Session #68: Lair of the Fangs, Part 3 - Anathema!

This was a short session, which we also had to postpone from the original time due to some absentees.

The entirety of this session consisted of the party's battle against a yuan-ti anathema, a conglomeration of snake swarms around a massive yuan-ti, and a pair of snake swarms. The anathema was created by Vak'shasz the Sly Tongue, the high priest of Zehir and main public point of contact for those looking to hire the Fangs. Amnon managed to interrupt this ritual with a slide, and the anathema was summoned half-finished (causing it to start at bloodied). This turned out to be quite beneficial, as this was a difficult fight for the characters, primarily due to the snake swarms - when the anathema connected, however, it hit HARD, and it was more or less responsible for Vorgym going down. Deckard dropped as well in this encounter, leading to a healthy use of our new injury system.

Eventually, the characters won out, and decided they had to extended rest, so they left the lair and rested in the sewers. Fortunately Deckard was able to prevent their wounds from being infected, but 2 of them woke up feeling not all that well (Vorgym & Amnon) - as such, they are each one healing surge down. In addition, Vorgym now has to roll a saving throw every time he takes damage: if he fails this saving throw, he will begin taking 5 ongoing poison damage (or 10 if this happens while he is bloodied) until he saves, as the poison of the anathema now courses through his blood. Deckard has a less potent version of this, as the snakebites he took cause him to take 5 poison damage the first time he is bloodied in each encounter. We had to stop here, as time had run out for some players.

Session #67: Lair of the Fangs, Part 2 - Grasema & The Bridge

In this session, we finished up the encounter from last session with the characters winning out. They then built themselves a small army using the petrified victims in the statue garden.

Next, they faced off against Grasema, the Oracle of Zehir & leader of the medusas, along with her guardian naga. The fight proved pretty easy at first, and the naga didn't get to do much - until it turned into a bone naga and began dazing and doing heavy damage in a burst around it. Fortunately, the damage was dealt to Grasema as well, and this encounter proved to be fairly easy in the end - though Shivra was petrified as part of the fight.

The characters feasted here, regaining surges and a daily power, and headed to the eastern wing of the lair after shutting off the water flow into the main exchange. There, they had to cross a bridge with a side-winding viper etched onto one side of it, and a group of snaketongue cultists & a yuan-ti on the other. The assassins ambushed them here, as they tried to cross the bridge, which led over two pits of vipers; the bridge proved to be the most difficult part of the fight, as the illusions were difficult to detect and the party didn't figure out the trick at first. Vorgym & Deckard in particular were heavily damaged by the pit's vipers, but in the end the characters made it across. We ended the session there.

Session #66: Lair of the Fangs, Part 1 - The Statue Garden

This session ended up starting an hour late, as Traver was a bit late, and we had some pre-session discussion to have. Just to recap, our subscription to D&D Insider runs out September 26th; we will be splitting the new 1-year subscription 5 ways, so the cost should be $14.28 per person. I will be checking with the group weekly to see where we're all at on this, and once we've got it together I'll renew the sub. Our last session before the expiration is September 23rd, so we need to have the money together by then! Additionally, we talked about what we want to do with getting a new player (or players), and the possibility of starting a new campaign in my custom campaign setting after this adventure is done. I'll be sending out some info on that campaign setting this week so you guys can better make a decision on that.

Now, on to the recap - we started with the party heading toward the yuan-ti abominations after determining this was their only way in. Shivra failed a Stealth check, and as such the abominations knew they were coming, though they couldn't see them in the darkness; we roll initiative. As they approached the abominations, Cyrus set off a footchopper alarm trap, causing an alarm bell to be rung, and a scythe blade to sweep out and chop at Cyrus & Vorgym's ankles. Vorgym managed to avoid the blade, but Cyrus was taken down by it. Thereafter, the party engaged the abominations & their leader, a yuan-ti berserker named Uhlaash. This was a very easy encounter for the group, and Uhlaash never really got to take advantage of his powers due to his being dazed for the duration of the encounter. The party recovered a crank with a square-shaped peg on its non-crank end and headed inside.

Inside they found a large exchange, with raised drawbridges to the east and the west - each drawbridge appeared to be tied to a nearby dais. The dais by the western drawbridge had a square hole in it, so they put the crank's peg in the hole, and lowered the drawbridge. Inside they traveled through hallways of terrified statues (which were implied to be victims of the medusas that no doubt lurked here) until coming upon a larger room, a "statue garden" of sorts, well-lit by sunlight from the grates high above and with a large golden doorway shaped like a female medusa's head serving as its only other exit. The characters were not alone in the statue garden, however - a pair of medusa spirit charmers and four medusa bodyguards awaited them.

The battle began, and Cyrus was quick to charge ahead and engage the spirit charmers. The rest of the party dealt with the bodyguards, attacking according to their marks. The spirit charmers began to free their petrified victims and send them against the party, which they did out of fear more than any sort of loyalty or belief that they would be set free. The battle seemed to be going smoothly until a pair of yuan-ti assassins jumped the characters. These proved to be very nasty enemies, capable of dealing vicious strikes to enemies they are hidden from, blinding their targets to enable this vicious strike, and using blinded enemies as human shields against attackers. Matters were complicated by the fact that Cyrus was permanently petrified (at least, as far as the characters know at this point) by the spirit charmers' glare attack, and Vorgym was brought down by an assassin's death strike. Deckard expended life blood harvest, one of his major daily healing powers, to get Vorgym back up, and as it stands, the party has the enemies under control at the moment, thanks to Amnon's visions of avarice spell. Vorgym has managed to take down an assassin, Shivra has managed to take down a spirit charmer, and the tide of battle seems as though it may be turning, but with the ever-present threat of petrification by the spirit charmer, the characters are by no means assured victory...

Session #65: The Arrival in Vulkannen

This was our first session at our new time, Sunday 2-6 Pacific. Sal didn't make it.

We finished up the encounter with the Fangs of Zehir under Tovin & Alesia Gravelstoke's command, with Cyrus riding in on his liondrake, Shir, to help the party as Hefeweizen was spontaneously knocked unconscious. Cyrus informed the group that Lady Millenbras had asked him to come help them, as she thought they may be in danger. Thereafter, the party learned from Shivra that Baroness Valarde wished to see them - as such, they decided to head to Vulkannen, seeing as they'd need to go there to deal with the Fangs anyway.

They were immediately taken to Valarde upon arriving in Vulkannen, and they learned that she had a number of problems in Vulkannen - Dythan's Legion is throwing its weight around; citizens are disappearing from the streets in the Hub, the traveler's district and main entry district into Vulkannen; the Drow Quarter is nearly in open revolt; and now a group of adventurers have come to her city. Valarde admitted she'd been following the party's progress and knew they would be coming to Vulkannen soon, though she didn't seem to explain why she knew that. She also admitted she'd considered destroying them before they could cause any trouble, but decided they would be much more useful as assistants. She refused to explain what jobs she would need them to handle, but instead asked for them to agree to help her - in exchange, she would give them access to the lair of the Fangs of Zehir, allowing them to deal with that problem quickly. They agreed, and Valarde removed Shivra's collar at last.

After this discussion, the party was lead into the sewers by Kiaron, the captain of Vulkannen's guard; he led them near the entry to the Fangs' lair, then headed off as they sized up the entry - two yuan-ti abominations, large serpent-bodied humanoids, stood guard over the entry, wielding nasty-looking bastard swords and large shields. We stopped there.

Ch-ch-changes, Part 2: Speeding Up Combat

Something I've noticed, and something you guys may have noticed as well, is that combat takes a long time in our sessions. Many, if not all, of our combats last upwards of 10 rounds, and our average encounters seem to last a minimum of 2 hours. In my opinion (and maybe you guys will disagree with me here), this is way too long - these numbers are reasonable for major set-piece combats, but not for every single one. To that end, I've come up with some things I'm thinking of implementing at the table to speed things along.

- Timed turns: 90 seconds for each turn, to be exact. I've been doing some research into the matter of lengthy combats in 4th edition, and this seems to be a popular suggestion. I haven't timed the average turns in our games, but I believe they tend to take upwards of 2 minutes - going from memory, oftentimes the first 20-30 seconds of someone's turn seem to be spent in silence as they decide what to do. I think combat would be a lot faster if we set a time limit on turns to cut down on this - it would help us focus on what we're going to be doing, giving us incentive to have a decision made on what to do before our turn comes up. On paper, this might seem like undue stress or pressure to put on everyone, but really this is just a means of encouraging everyone to focus their attention more effectively, and 90 seconds should be more than long enough for this to happen; this is a number we can work with if need be. This is one thing I'm really considering strongly.

- Halve hit points OR double damage on both sides. This is another popular suggestion: you simply halve the hit point totals of both the PCs and the monsters, or alternatively, you leave hit point totals the same, but double all damage results. In both cases, combat will be sped up by the fact that things go down quicker. The drawback here, though, is exactly that: things, including the PCs, go down quicker, and combat is going to be more deadly in this situation. Personally I'm not sure about this one, as I can see a single critical hit from a Brute-type monster taking a character from full hit points into negatives.

- Any ideas you guys might have. I've presented a couple ideas here, but maybe you guys have an idea I haven't considered. If so, please, suggest it! Alternatively, maybe you don't think encounters are taking too long; that's valid as well. Whatever your opinions, I'd like to hear them, so that we can figure out how to go forward on this. Thanks for reading, and see you Sunday.

Ch-ch-changes, Part 1: The Injury System

Okay guys, this post is to inform you about two things: the injury system I discussed implementing, and a discussion about speeding up combat. I'll be breaking this up into two posts for easier reading.

First of all, the injury system. Here are some of the main points:

- There are two types of injuries: minor injuries, and major injuries.
   * Minor injuries can be inflicted when the character is reduced to a negative hit point value, and, while they do hamper the character, they do not impose a major handicap on their capabilities. When the circumstances required for a minor injury to be sustained are met, the player rolls a saving throw: on a success, no injury is sustained, but on a failure, a minor injury is sustained. If a character succeeds on this saving throw, but meets the requirements for an injury to be sustained a second time, they roll another saving throw, this time with a -2 penalty. If these circumstances are met a third time, the character sustains a minor injury, and is not allowed a saving throw.
   * Major injuries are inflicted when the character fails 3 death saving throws, or is reduced to their bloodied value in negative hit points. These injuries impose major handicaps on a character's capabilities. When the circumstances required for a major injury to be sustained are met, the injury is sustained; the player is not allowed a saving throw.

- A character can have multiple injuries at once, but can only sustain one type of injury in each encounter. The type of injury sustained will be either determined randomly (in most cases) or assigned (in cases where it would be the only injury to make sense).

- The process for recovering from an injury depends on the type of injury. If it is a minor injury, the character must make an Endurance check during an extended rest; if the check is a success, the injury is healed, and if the check is a failure, the injury remains. Major injuries are more difficult to recover from, and the character must succeed on a more difficult Endurance check to reduce the injury to a minor injury, and another for the minor injury during their next extended rest. Optionally, a single ally trained in Heal can make a Heal check in place of this Endurance check; such an activity requires constant vigilance on the ally's part, therefore this particular ally can only do this for one of their allies per extended rest.

- Though this injury system will be used in most cases, it will not entirely replace death. A character whom an opponent moves specifically to kill, by delivering a coup de grace for example, is dead. Situations a character would not be able to survive, such as being melted, disintegrated, etc. will still kill the character.

My intent with implementing this system is twofold. One, it will add an element of realism to encounters by inflicting demonstrable damage to characters in a way more significant than simple Hit Point loss. Two, it will greatly reduce (though not eliminate, as stated above) the possibility of character death, while still making the prospect of dropping into negative hit points, failing too many death saves or hitting negative bloodied value a palpable threat.

Please let me know what you think when we come together on Sunday.

Session #64: The Fangs Return

In this session, the characters each resolved their respective trips - Amnon to the Tower of Heiserrah, Shivra to the Thieves' Guild in Vulkannen, and the rest of the group back to Falconia. Amnon reported on Orcus' death and the origin of the Doresannic shards to his master, the Archmage Sirilis Starsburden, who didn't seem interested, much to Amnon's chagrin. She seemed quite distracted with her research into the shard, and remarked that she was close to a breakthrough. She advised Amnon to continue looking for the other members of the Clawed Gauntlet.

Shivra, hoping to have her collar removed, went to pay her debt, only to learn that Baroness Valarde herself had requested they hold off on removing the collar. Shivra went to see the Baroness, and learned that she has need of the party's services - in exchange, she promises to remove Shivra's collar, as well as make her leader of the Thieves' Guild.

Vorgym, Deckard & Hefeweizen reported back to Sir-Commander Wolfswift, and learned that while they had been gone, Lady Francesca's manor had been attacked. She was badly burned in the attack, with her right eye & left hand completely bandaged, with burnt areas and other areas of her body bandaged as well. She told them that the Fangs of Zehir had attacked the manor, and that they knew Amnon was alive. She urged them to head after him immediately. Hefeweizen, who had headed to see his sister at Lady Millenbras' estate, told the Lady of what had happened at the steading, and of Orcus' demise. Concerned, she remarked that she would need to leave immediately to consult with a friend at the Tower of Heiserrah. Stefan was taken off to be bound to the knife ritual, and Sangria remained at the estate - her attraction to Vorgym becoming all the more evident.

The party all came back together on the road, where they were ambushed by the Fangs of Zehir - they had been waiting to ambush the group in the hopes that they would be able to confirm that all of them were, in fact, alive. This group, a squad of medusa assassins, was led by two more members of the Gravelstoke family, Alesia & Tovin. We had to stop midway through his encounter, as time ran out.

Remember guys, D&D is Sunday 2-6 Pacific/4-8 Central/5-9 Eastern this week. See you then.

Sessions #62 & 63: Steading of the Hill Giants, Finale

Two session recaps this week, since there was a short window between Sessions 62 & 63. Sal missed half of the second session.

In the first session, the party successfully negotiated an end to the war with the hill giants, convincing the Earth Titan to end the war and prioritize the Clawed Gauntlet. Nosnra, the Hill Giant Chief, offered to give the characters a peace offering, and led them down to his treasury - where he proceeded to ambush them with the help of his pet purple worm. They defeated him and his worm, collecting the treasure in the process (along with a map which pointed to 3 locations: the hill giant steading, a location marked with a blue X labeled as "The Great Rift", and an unlabeled location marked with a red X which seemed to be around the area of Kinsfort), and learned that Nosnra was both working at the behest of the Fire Giant King, Snurre Iron-Belly, against Falconia, and working for the Clawed Gauntlet to allow one of the death knights to kill the Earth Titan in exchange for becoming the Earth Titan himself. Boulderfist, the Earth Titan, punished Nosnra by turning him to stone, then set off to speak with the other titans, as he knew the fire & frost giants meant to start their own war soon.

The first session ended with the primary events of the second session - the introduction of the Red Rider of Wrath, Sir Eoric Cairnstone, and the party's fight with him and his hell knights. They managed to defeat them after a battle which took up the entirety of the session's time, and learned from Cairnstone in a vision that Orcus, the Demon Prince of the Undead and a very powerful demon lord, had been killed by the Clawed Gauntlet and their true leader, Doresain, the King of Ghouls, someone previously thought to be one of Orcus' loyal servants. After being given this vision, Amnon set off quickly for the Tower of Heiserrah, ostensibly to speak with the archmages there, though he traveled with an unusual sense of anger the Red Rider of Wrath had bestowed upon him. Shivra set off for Vulkannen to pay off her debt and get her collar removed; the rest of the party went to return to Falconia so that they could report on these new developments to the Wolfswifts (as well as escort the recovered prisoners back).

Session #61: Steading of the Hill Giants, Part 3

Phil didn't show up, Sal had to leave early, Bibart's power went out causing him to miss the end.

The party decided to check out the guards' room in the guest quarters, and there they found a staircase which led down into the dungeon. In the dungeon they found survivors of Orcbane Keep, including a familiar face (Steve, the lone survivor of the soldiers outside with the adventurers), being tortured by a pair of chain devils and a wrath devil interrogator. The party surprise-attacked, which drew the jailer, a hideous, deformed hill giant known as the Keeper, and his pets, a pair of displacer beasts named "Stalka" and "Gnasha", but managed to prevail in the end.

Afterward, they learned that Steve and the others had been brought here and interrogated for answers the giants didn't seem to care about - they were being tortured for the sake of torture, it seemed. They convinced Steve not to take bloody vengeance on the giants, retrieved his gear, and helped escort the prisoners from the steading. After that, they did a little bit of exploring, and decided they needed to find the hill giant chief - Steve was able to tell them that the chief spends most of his time in the great hall, the large room in the center of the steading. They opened the door, and did indeed find Chief Nosnra, along with emissaries from the frost giants and the fire giants, as well as an unexpected guest who may complicate things severely...

Session #60: Steading of the Hill Giants, Part 2

Sal had to leave halfway through the 1st encounter, but managed to come back for the 2nd encounter.

In this session the party recovered treasure from the guardhouse by the courtyard and checked out a number of rooms in the main building, discovering the northern bedroom area full of young hill giants, a central great hall where the sounds of revelry could be heard, and a southern area where the kitchen and the guest quarters are found. They explored the southern area in this session.

First, the party fought the hill giant cooks and their slaves in the kitchen, defeating them without too much trouble. Then, the party headed over into the guest quarters area, where they found an emissary of the Clawed Gauntlet, the master vampire Zeras. He had with him two bodyguards, large undead constructs known as boneclaws. Engaging the vampire, the party was faced with the boneclaws and a number of ogre guards who came out of a room behind them when the party attacked.

This encounter proved to be more difficult, but in the end the party beat Zeras, preventing his escape, and easily scattering the ogres. Afterward, the party recovered some treasure from a chest in the guest quarters and a letter which confirmed what Canis had suspected - the Clawed Gauntlet had used zombies in Falconian livery to attack the hill giants and bait them into going to war with Falconia. The letter also stated that the fire and frost giants would be ready to aid "us" (the "us" being undefined) soon. The letter had not been addressed, as the party interrupted Zeras while he was writing it. We stopped here.

Session #59: Steading of the Hill Giants, Part 1

Extra-long session this week.

The party returned, having rescued Sangria, and learned that she had been used for an "Elemental Messenger" ritual - that is to say, she was used to communicate with the king of the fire giants, Snurre Iron-Belly. She could not remember what message she communicated, but she did note that she felt the presence of another dwarf - Seamus - being used to communicate with the frost giant leader.

After dealing with Sangria the party received their monetary reward from Lady Heathlana, and learned a number of things. First, she sent them after the Coterie because she is a follower of the Raven Queen, and the Coterie had attacked a church of the Raven Queen - for that she had them destroyed. Second, Cyrus has been brought back by the Raven Queen as a form of undead called a revenant; he maintains his personality, more or less, but he realizes that he only lives so long as it takes for him to fulfill the purpose vested in him by the Raven Queen, and the experience of dying has changed him considerably. Third, Lukash is performing some sort of ritual to enable him to provide the party with a way of reinforcing themselves in a pinch (OOC: to temporarily replace party members who are unavailable).

Also, the party was given a new task by Sir-Commander Canis Wolfswift and his father, the Duke-General Theron Wolfswift. They have found a way of ending the stalemate with the hill giants - by having the party, the only people strong enough and clever enough to handle this situation, infiltrate the steading and either make peace with or destroy the hill giants' chief, Nosnra.

The party set out on a many-days journey to the steading, and spent quite awhile staking out the place to figure out the best method of entry. After retiring to a cave and fighting a group of hill giants and bugbears who'd followed their tracks, they finally decided to sneak in the next night by climbing up the steading and moving across it. They jumped down into a courtyard, and were soon attacked by trained bulettes and their hill giant masters. The battle proved difficult, but the characters prevailed in the end, and this is where we stopped for the night.

Sessions #57 & 58: The Ritual

Two-part recap this time since my post for Session #57 didn't show up.

The party headed to Gravestone Hill Abbey, where they found a priest, Father Dameron, in disguise - the priest turned out to be a follower of Vecna in disguise, with two doppelganger assistants. The party defeated them then headed down and found a dwarf paladin being subjected to a ritual by another follower of Vecna - they freed the dwarf, despite their mistrust of dwarves in general, and defeated the follower, Lis the Vile, and his skeletal minions. They learned that the dwarf, Hefeweizen, was here looking for his sister, who had gone missing.

Heading deeper into the secret tunnels below the abbey, the party was subjected to a powerful sleep spell which trapped them all in a nightmare. They each had to navigate the nightmare and the dangers within to escape - Deckard was confronted by a room of unusual shadows which attacked him, Hefeweizen was trapped in a pit full of snakes and spiders, Vorgym was forced to navigate a cave full of swarming bats, Amnon had to contend with a haunted house full of ghosts, and Shivra was pursued around a field by a scarecrow.

One by one, the party escaped their nightmares and found themselves in a cave. Sangria was being subjected to a ritual by a lich, accompanied by a brain in a jar they recognized - Lazlow Dirgwyn, back for a third time. Sangria seemed to be possessed by some sort of fiery disposition, her eyes burning like flame, her hair flickering in the air as if it were fire, and her mouth moving as if she spoke wordlessly to something. The party attacked Lazlow, and were confronted by a number of nightmare incarnations corresponding to what they'd fought in the shadows. The battle proved immensely difficult, and by the end they were nearly defeated, but Lazlow's lich form was shattered, the nightmare incarnations were dispersed, and the brain in the jar was crushed. The brain in a jar turned out to be the lich's phylactery, its destruction destroying the lich for all time, it would seem.

The party managed to rescue the unconscious Sangria, upon which the hold of the strange ritual was broken, and we stopped there for the night. The Coterie is defeated - what will be next for the "Heroes of the North" and their new dwarven companion?

Session #56: Faked Deaths (or, the Rigamarole)

Traver did not show, nor did Sal for his first session.

The delvers of House Millenbras attacked the party, capturing most of them - Amnon went invisible and managed to escape. Once in the estate of House Millenbras, the party learned that the delvers had sought to fake their deaths - it hadn't been meant to turn into such a mess, but Amnon's invisibility trick led to the delvers choosing not to take any more chances. Meanwhile, Amnon returned to House Francesca, seeking to find a way to rescue the party - they didn't have many ways to help him, unfortunately.

They learned from Lady Heathlana that Lady Kesselia had been amassing powerful artifacts only, rather than powerful ones as well as valuable or beautiful ones - and that she was hoarding them rather than exchanging them as most of the other noble houses do. Heathlana admitted she was unsure what Kesselia was up to, but she suspected something. She stated that she needed their help with something major, but that first she would need to gain their trust - by having them deal with the Coterie, the organization which sent the Fangs of Zehir after them, allowing them to accomplish something they already wanted to accomplish anyhow. They are using the sewers to travel, so that their faked deaths are not revealed - they fought a group of chuuls in the sewers, which they quickly defeated, and we stopped there.

Hopefully more people show up next week - Sal's character may have to sit out for a bit while the party gets to the proper introduction point, however.

Session #55: The End of House Trannyth

Technical problems abound in this session - as such, we only had time for a single encounter.

The party discovered that Dorian had killed his parents and returned his family to noble status, using disguised monsters to impersonate his family members. He had hired the Fangs of Zehir to kill the party because an organization known as the Coterie, a group with ties to the Clawed Gauntlet, wanted them dead so that their interference with the plans of the two organizations would cease. The fight then began.

It was a brutal encounter, and in the end, Cyrus lay dead. Due to the technical problems we really only had this encounter to get done, and after that we had to stop due to time constraints. The party is down to 4 characters as it stands - Cyrus' resurrection is in great jeopardy due to the warning he received from the Raven Queen about the return of his soul from the Shadowfell as many times as it has causing too much of a disturbance - and they have Dorian as their prisoner, ostensibly to interrogate.

Big things are about to go down...the characters have all but destroyed a Falconian noble house, and such an action is sure to carry consequences. We'll have to see what happens to them next time...

Session #54: Their True Nature

Some issues with the port number we've been using for all this time caused us to have to start quite late. Traver had to leave an hour before the end.

In this session, the party descended into the basement, sneaking past the guard patrols, and confronted Une Trannyth, who was summoning a blood demon. In the first part of the fight, the party faced Une, her dretch lackeys, and the summoned blood demon. They went down quite easily - the encounter took off in difficulty when Une revealed her true form, that of a night hag.

Une herself didn't prove to be very difficult, and the blood demon, once defeated, gave the party use of a healing surge - the vrocks that Une summoned, however, were quite a challenge, tearing into the party with their sharp talons and nearly killing Cyrus several times. In the end, the party defeated them, however.

After, they discovered that the Trannyths, aside from Dorian, had been killed - impostors, it seemed, stood in their places. They also discovered that House Millenbras would be coming to meet the Trannyths tonight to give them the Hand of Vecna. The party learned of the last hiding place where the Trannyths could be found, and headed down...it is here that we stopped for the night, saving the confrontation with the Trannyths for next time.

Session #53: Krista's Seduction

Phil never made it, so Amnon was played by Jordan in this session.

Looking to escape the patrols, the party headed into the manor, which, curiously, the trolls didn't seem to check. They went to hide the bodies first, concealing them in the brush by the wall. They found in the manor house a library, where they found several books on summoning - pages on summoning a blood demon and a vrock were found missing from one of the books. They also found two stairwells - one leading upstairs, where a woman could be heard singing, and downstairs, where they found a door.

After investigating the library, the party heard barking off toward the gate they'd entered through - the patrols had found the unconscious guards they'd hidden. They decided to head upstairs first, and there they found Dame Krista Trannyth, the daughter of House Trannyth's Lord Tramorn, singing a song about a princess who had been captured and was being kept prisoner in a tower. They took her hostage, and after assuring her that they meant no harm, they asked her about the Trannyths' plan to assassinate them. She told them she knew nothing of it, and urged them to stop her mother, who had gone mad and was summoning a powerful demon in the basement. She provided them with a key to to the basement, and asked one of them to stay with her - Vorgym volunteered, and he remained with her while the rest of the party headed back downstairs.

Once the party had left, Krista moved to seduce Vorgym, seeking to "repay" him for being her daring rescuer. Despite his trepidation, he gave in - and when Krista kissed him, she placed some sort of bewitchment upon him. She ordered her guards to attack the party down below while keeping Vorgym with her. Once the party defeated the guards below, nearly drawing the attention of another patrol, they headed up and confronted Krista and Vorgym. Vorgym was convinced by Amnon to let the party deal with Krista, though he was (and is still) unable to raise a hand against her in violence. The rest of the party attacked Krista, and she attacked back, showing that she was more than just a mere frightened girl. She escaped when the party bloodied her, to the sound of beating wings - afterward, the party heard the sound of a door opening and closing underneath them.

We stopped here; the party is now level 12, and everyone should be leveled up by this Wednesday. I will cover loot from this encounter before next week's session.

Session #52: Visiting the Trannyths

Traver left about an hour before the end of this session; didn't seem like we got much done but them's the breaks.

The party began the night by figuring out what they wanted to do - which was more difficult than it sounded. Admittedly all they really had to go on was that the Fangs of Zehir had been contracted to kill them, and that House Trannyth, a Falconian noble house, were the ones putting the contract on them. They headed to talk to the Trannyths, but were accosted by more assassins, led by another member of the Gravelstoke family. They defeated these assassins rather handily.

After the assassins had been dealt with, the party realized that they didn't really have a plan of action. They did some research about the family, learning of their recent past - they had been disgraced for conspiring with Albacoran pirates, and they had recently been reinstated as a noble house by Archduke Graeme; rumor had it that this reinstatement had been secured through the family's use of the dark arts. They also spoke with Iankul Glimmergaunt, House Kesselia's retainer, and learned something about each member of the family: Baron Tramorn Trannyth, head of the house, is rumored to be a great swordsman and very much of a recluse; the Baroness Une, as they had already heard, is rumored to be a witch, even among the nobles; Dame Krista is a flirtacious woman who has many suitors but has refused all of them; and Sir Dorian is the most public, relatively speaking, member of the house, handling most of its business and being the one who primarily leaves the house. The family is a reclusive lot, and only leave their estate for very important matters - even Sir Dorian only leaves every few weeks.

They eventually decided that they needed to go directly to the Trannyths, and to that end they attempted to break into the estate by enchanting one of the guards - they discovered that the guards were themselves enchanted, and when Amnon's enchantment failed, the guards attacked. The party took some licks, but managed to knock all of the guards unconscious. Once inside, they noticed that a number of guard patrols were moving along the grounds. We stopped here.

Session #51: Elanath's End

The party started where they had left off, heading to the Jolly Knave to seek answers on Elanath's whereabouts. There they found a group of pirates, and pretended to be assassins asking the captain for payment. The pirates turned out to be forced into silence by a hermit mage, one of Elanath's apprentices, who attacked once the characters' ruse started to show holes. This proved to be an easy encounter, as once the hermit mage was defeated, the pirates surrendered. They directed the party to Elanath's location, a secret cave inside the cliff wall, and offered their help should the party require it.

Inside the cave, they found Elanath and Sejuk, the apparent leader of the group of Fangs of Zehir sent after them, talking with a group of people from the entourage of House Millenbras. They looked to be exchanging the Hand of Vecna, and were arguing over price. The party tried to sneak up and steal the hand, but failed, and combat began. The House Millenbras entourage fled, and the party was left to fight Elanath, Sejuk, and a pair of bronze warders. They had a fairly easy time with this encounter, all things considered - there was one death at the end, the result of Elanath using an encounter power that was lethal on a failed saving throw on Vorgym.

Recovering what loot they could, the party returned to Kesselia's manor and gave her the Hand of Vecna; she seemed distressed that House Millenbras had apparently been after the Hand as well, and did not seem to understand why House Trannyth, who had placed a seal on the assassins' contract given to Sejuk, would want the characters dead. We stopped here, after the characters were given some information on House Trannyth: they had lost their status as a noble house for conspiring with Albacoran pirates, but had recently been reinstated by Archduke Graeme for reasons unknown. Rumors are abound that the family regained their influence through use of the dark arts, and some even say that the house lady, Baroness Une Trannyth, is a witch...

Session #50: The Wintersend Assembly

This session began with the party finding out from Lukash that Elanath had most likely fled the tower with the Hand of Vecna. They returned to Falconia to inform Prince-Commander Wolfswift of their success in defeating Ctenmiir, and as a reward, he granted them permission to attend the Wintersend Assembly. He also gave them dire wolf mounts - Vorgym claimed a black one named Fury, Shivra claimed a white one named Whitewind, Amnon claimed a white one named Landes (which he renamed Akmenos) and Deckard claimed a light gray one named Karren.

The party then attended the Wintersend Assembly, where they found nearly all of Titania's major players in attendance: the noble houses of Falconia (House Wolfswift, House Urthadar, House Trannyth, House Millenbras & House Francesca); the ruler of Highroad, Count Adrith Loyalar; the master of the Tower of Heiserrah, Archmage Desehr; the ruler of the Tarranine Dragonborn, Ataxaxes Ironscale; the general, or "legatus", of the recently-arrived Dythan's Legion, Legatus Darius Dythan; the Arkhosian dignitary Cyrus works for, Zanuss Atraxas; the ruler of Vulkannen, Baroness Valarde, and her personal bodyguard, Andrei "The Bastard" Blackgate; and dwarves from the Amberforge, Blackhammer & Redbeard Clans. Additionally, the Archduke Graeme Hawklane and his family, Princess Terina Hawklane (his daughter) and Countess Daran Hawklane (his sister) presided over the assembly.

Things at the assembly ended up being quite eventful: the dwarves (apparently at the behest of the Amberforge Clan) broke their ties with the rest of the assembly, stating that they would stand on their own from now on, since they now had a king for their queen. Count Adrith, noticing his sister's absence, questioned why Archduchess Lyriana was not in attendance; when Graeme attempted to avoid the question, Baroness Valarde surmised that Lyriana had been kidnapped, which sent the assembly into an uproar.

This uproar was interrupted, however, by the Earth Titan, an ancient being made of the stuff of the earth who has long ruled over the hill giants as one of the last remaining titans on Titania, only known about through tomes written by the most intrepid of explorers. The Earth Titan claimed that the Titans had long tolerated mortals on Titania, but would do so no longer, because Falconian soldiers had apparently killed several hill giants in cold blood. The Earth Titan and the hill giants responded by destroying Orcbane Keep, providing evidence of this to the assembly by dropping Marshal Rendon's broken body into the middle of the assembly floor. The Earth Titan and its subjects then left, stating that they were now at war with the mortals.

After this, we skipped a month of story time - Amnon returned the Doresannic shard he had taken from Elanath's Tower to his master Sirilis Starsburden, informing her of the events which had transpired; Shivra returned to Vulkannen to deliver her money to the thieves' guildmaster, Vielia, personally, discovering along the way that Dythan's Legion had cultivated a heavy presence in the area. Cyrus was allowed to remain in Falconia and aid in the war effort, his friend Zanuss remaining with him to assist in whatever ways he could. After waiting for Kesselia's informants to drudge up some information, the party finally found that Elanath had come to, of all places, Falconia - they headed to the Tracts, the slummy section of the city, to speak with the informant. Amnon & Shivra briefly had their coin purses stolen before they killed the bandit and recovered them. The informant, Norros, agreed under duress to lead them to where he had last seen Elanath, but was quite concerned for his life due to the fact that he believed others were tailing him.

Norros' suspicions proved to be correct, and he was killed by yuan-ti assassins who then turned their weapons on the party. The assassins were led by a human man in a black coat of studded leather, Vincent Gravelstoke. After a healthy fight, the party defeated the assassins and recovered a note from Vincent stating that they should head to the Jolly Knave, a ship docked in the harbor at a pier indicated within the note. They also heard some about a group of assassins known as the Fangs of Zehir, and the "Great Fang" in taunts thrown at them by Vincent. We stopped here for the night.

Session #49: The Vampire in the Tower, Finale

This was the final session of Elanath's Tower, and of the heroic tier in general. The party was faced with Ctenmiir the Cursed and his minions, and it was a hard battle (with 2 PC deaths), but in the end they were victorious.

They began by opening the way to the observatory, an enclosed dome with a slot for the telescope (closed at the start of the fight) - within, they saw Ctenmiir conversing with five distinctly-styled death knights, their images presented by large scrying pools. The death knights appeared to be the leaders of the Clawed Gauntlet, or at least higher-ranking members. There was a male of a humanoid race in red armor with a bull-horned full helm and black cloak; a female eladrin with solid violet eyes and white armor, face covered by a silver visor; a male drow in gray armor with a black hood shrouding most of his face; a male dwarf in gold armor, wearing a full helm with a visor patterned like a skull and a red crest; and their apparent leader, a male humanoid in black armor wearing a full helm with sharply-pointed horns, his eyes glowing green. Two of these death knights were referred to by name: the eladrin was referred to as Inastara, the eladrin princess who established the mixed elven/eladrin community of Silvershade in Whitebough Forest, and the apparent leader was referred to as Kas. They dismissed Ctenmiir from the Clawed Gauntlet, much to his chagrin as they had apparently promised to remove the curse that prevented him from leaving the tower, and left him to die at the hands of the party.

This proved to be a very difficult battle; Ctenmiir wielded a legendary dwarven warhammer known as Whelm, and he wielded it to great effect, crushing the party members with its every swing. To boot, his dread zombie knights proved to be un-killable (at least by any means the party discovered), returning to life nearly as soon as they had been put down. This battle took nearly the entire session, as Ctenmiir regenerated constantly, and had a very high Armor Class - 31, to be exact. Laz's Brain in a Jar was brought out to help the party about halfway through, but once it was in danger of being destroyed, it fled - its location is currently unknown. Cyrus was brought down despite all manner of healing effort being expended by Deckard, then killed outright when Ctenmiir's attempt to force the party's surrender was rejected - both Shivra & Vorgym went into dying twice, and Shivra failed 3 straight death saves to become the 2nd death of the encounter.

With Cyrus and Shivra both dead and Vorgym dying, the encounter was left to Deckard & Amnon. At this point, I threw them a bone and pointed out something that they had failed to notice to this point - this observatory, windowless and lit only by the magic of the scrying pools, had a slot in its wall for the large telescope within to look out of. This telescope had a switch on it which allowed them to open the slot and expose the room to sunlight - the great weakness of any vampire. Deckard rushed for the switch, flipping it and opening the slot - but the sunlight did not reach Deckard. Ctenmiir, confident in his victory, laughed and prepared to finish them off, when Amnon broke away from the dread zombie knight engaging him and used his beguiling strands power to push Ctenmiir into the light. Real fear crossed Ctenmiir's face for the first time as the sunlight incinerated him, wiping out what little health he had left.

With the battle over, the party took two consecutive extended rests to use Deckard's restore life power on Cyrus & Shivra, keeping the current party intact despite Ctenmiir's best efforts. Cyrus now wields Whelm, a weapon which is outside the spear style he learned to fight with and will take him some training time to get used to - perhaps a time skip is in order...

With the heroic tier finished and all of the party now at level 11, we are now looking at the beginning of paragon tier. There will be some story situations to resolve once the party sets out again; thereafter, I am currently unsure where we will go. We'll be discussing sometime before or after the one-off on Sunday what we want to do going forward.

Session #48: The Vampire in the Tower, Part 4

This week, the party continued to the laboratory's workshop, having Shivra walk the pointed surface in the disposal room over to the door, unlock it, and deactivate the angled floor panels, allowing the rest of the party to cross. Within the workshop they found a headless monstrosity - Vrikus's swollen body - with a heavily-armored brain in a jar attached to it. This turned out to be the brain of Lazlow "Laz" Dirgwyn, another foe from their past. Ctenmiir activated the monstrosity, and it rampaged through the party, dealing serious damage to them and chewing through many of their healing surges, but they managed to bring the beast down. Afterward, Laz asked them to bring him (it?) with them, and Amnon stowed the jar in his pack.

Next, the party returned to the main hall and ascended, heading up a circular walkway while under attack by wyverns and their dread zombie archer riders. The archers and wyverns tried to push the party off the walkway, but failed, and the party reached the aerie at the very top of the tower. There, a dracolich swooped in and attacked them, giving them no time to rest. This proved a very difficult battle, and Shivra was taken down twice, but the party managed to win in the end as the dracolich's overconfidence got the better of it, despite most of the party's horrible luck with dice rolls for most of the encounter.

With the dracolich defeated, the party is now left in the aerie, a number of barrels filled with Doresannic shards their only company. They have yet to decide what to do with the barrels, but their next destination is obvious - only an observatory with a midnight blue marble dome remains for them to explore now. It would seem their encounter with the vampire himself draws near...

Session #47: The Vampire in the Tower, Part 3

In this session the party entered the laboratory, learning that they could perhaps find a way to permanently revive Deckard inside, and also needing to deactivate the lightning barrier blocking access to the next level of the tower. Their first encounter was with a creature known as a zombie cactus in a greenhouse-like section of the lab, which constantly dominated them. Though the domination effects wore on them, they defeated it easily enough.

Next they found a puzzle involving 3 specimen tanks - 2 50-gallon ones, one of them empty and one of them full, and a 30-gallon tank which was full. They had to put 40 gallons into the empty 50-gallon tank. They managed to do this easily enough, and gained access to a wealth of potions, as well as a potion which allowed them to properly revive Deckard. Lukash also regained the use of his body, though it is now an undead body.

In the final encounter of the night, the party entered a room full of corpses, and were attacked by rot grub zombies. The zombies proved simple enough - until the room began to lose its floor and dump the party into the offal-filled pits below, where a charnel otyugh awaited them. They managed to defeat these challenges, though it took awhile, and decided to head back to the main hall to extended rest, putting them on day 2 of the 3 days they have to stop Ctenmiir. Everyone save Deckard resolved their memory loss; Deckard's worsened, locking out one of his daily powers. Vorgym was cured of his greater moon frenzy by Deckard. Cyrus, who had also been infected by filth fever in the encounter with the otyugh, did not manage to cure any of his conditions. Deckard & Shivra's nightmare visions both worsened, and have begun to affect them physically.

The party is very near the end of the laboratory, and access to the next floor...what horrible monstrosity will serve as the final challenge of the labs, and what awaits them on the next floor? We shall see next week...we shall see indeed.

Session #46: The Vampire in the Tower, Part 2

This week, the party awoke to find that Ctenmiir would now be following their progress through the tower, and had released one of his laboratory "experiments" into the courtyard to waylay them. Now on Day 1 of the 3 days they would have before Ctenmiir attacked Falconia, they set out back through the courtyard and found that the topiaries in the topiary garden resembled their party. When they went to investigate, the topiaries attacked, along with their master - an oblivion moss mindmaster. This encounter didn't prove terribly taxing on the party, but did saddle all but one of them (Amnon being the one) with a memory loss disease which has locked out one of their encounter powers.

Continuing on, the party found the kennels - inside they found a hill giant werewolf, Varrg, the kennel master they had been searching for. He had 3 large gravehounds which sicced on the party - this battle proved challenging, but ultimately manageable, as despite Varrg's regeneration ability, the party took him down. Cyrus & Vorgym were infected with a disease from Varrg's bite. After returning to the main hall, the party had their first feast, which went off without a hitch.

With their ability to advance to the next floor secured, they opened the way and ascended to the second floor. There they found a beholder waiting for them, and were "congratulated" by Ctenmiir on defeating "a hobgoblin that wallows with spiders" and "a hill giant who runs with a pack of rotting curs". The beholder then attacked, using its eye rays to inflict a bevy of conditions on the party. Through petrification, blindness, near death and near disintegration they prevailed, and the beholder fell.

We stopped at this point, as my ping had been driven too high for us to continue and we had run up against our time limit anyhow. An update on the ping situation: it wasn't a result of the virus as I feared, but rather my sister attempting to video chat with someone. Hopefully it won't become a regular problem =) See everyone next week: the laboratory awaits!

New Houserule: Feasts

Starting next session I'm going to be testing a new houserule: feasts. A feast is, essentially, an intermediary point between extended rests and short rests. When the party decides to feast, they must spend one hour in the same location and eat a meal. By doing so, characters can recover 2 healing surges, or their Con mod in healing surges, whichever is higher.

To provide an example: Deckard has a Con mod of 3. When Deckard feasts, he recovers 3 healing surges. Conversely, Vorgym has a Con mod of 0 - when he feasts, he only recovers 2 surges. This should help ease the necessity of taking extended rests.

Feasting can be done a maximum of twice per day, and characters cannot feast a second time for 4 hours after their first feast. If a feast is interrupted, characters only regain half the surges normally gained, and cannot resume the feast after the encounter.

Rather than having characters track the amount of food in their possession, I will be having everyone pay 5 gold pieces, the standard price for a feast, every time they do this. We'll be testing this out, as I said, so I may tweak this rule as we go along. Thanks for reading, see everyone Wednesday!

Cyrus' Backstory

Full Name: Cyrus Dythan (adopted name)
Gender: Male
Age: 25
Height: 6' 6"
Weight: 305 lb.
Hair: Black
Skin: White
Eyes: Icy Blue
Body Build: Solid
Distinguishing Features: Unusual ice-blue eye color, Turathi slave brand on his chest

Cyrus was born in the former territories of Arkhosia, in the early stages of the empire's resurrection, on a continent to the south of Titania, across the Strait of Dragons. He knows little of the dark days the dragonborn faced before this point in time; an only child, he lost his parents at a very early age, and was taken in by Dythan's Legion, a 500-man army groomed by its leader, Legatus ("General") Darius Dythan, as an imperial expeditionary force. Cyrus took to his training as a squire of the legion, and by his teenage years, he was a bona-fide legionary himself.

By his 16th year, Cyrus had become one of Dythan's most trusted soldiers: Dythan was with the group that first found young Cyrus, and became as a surrogate father to him. Cyrus was raised primarily by Thaenar ("Major") Cairith, Dythan's wife. Though his youth held his ascension in check, Cyrus managed to attain the rank of Farang ("Sergeant"). The most tragic incident of his youth came when he and Cairith were scouring the Moon Hills for artifacts, not long after Cyrus had been promoted - they encountered a pack of dark drakes, vile beasts of shadow and death. Cyrus & Cairith were alone, and they fought bravely - but in the end, Cairith fell. Cyrus survived, having fled at Cairith's urging, but he grappled with that retreat, something he continues to do even today.

To Cyrus' surprise, Dythan handled Cairith's death with little ceremony - aside from a token funerary service, it seemed he did not care that she had died. He was more concerned with their failure to locate any artifacts: when Cyrus confronted Dythan about his lack of concern over the death of one of his most trusted officers, Dythan discharged Cyrus from the legion. Stripped quite quickly of his purpose in life, Cyrus took the first job he could - a job as a bodyguard for an Arkhosian dignitary by the name of Zanuss, who had himself been disgraced and was being shipped off to the ruins of Io'vanath, a former dragonborn colony.

Cyrus served with the dedication and loyalty he'd learned in Dythan's Legion, and after a decade of service, he is a personal friend to Zanuss. With the recent surge of Arkhosian interest in Io'vanath, Cyrus is as busy as ever. With the Wintersend Assembly imminent, he has spent most of him time with Zanuss in Falconia. Though he resents Dythan for discharging him, he tells no one of his true feelings, not even Zanuss, for his upbringing as a soldier precludes him from believing he has the right to do so. He is a moral, good-hearted individual who believes in duty, but also believes that the mission should not be completed at the cost of the individual - he is loathe to compromise his morals or endanger others to accomplish his goals. He carries with him the permanent mark of a Turathi slave, a brand all members of Dythan's Legion are given as a reminder of their history, in the center of his chest.

Session #45: The Vampire in the Tower, Part 1

This week the party started the final adventure of the heroic tier - "The Vampire in the Tower", their final battle with the tier's villain, the vampire Ctenmiir the Cursed. This one went well over, which I think is a good thing - I think the party had a lot of fun this week!

We started by finishing up the Dead Man's Dagger ritual with Elanath; the party was quick to leave afterward, making their 4-day trek to the tower and crossing the mire. There they found wyverns with zombie archer riders flying, scouting the region below - Vorgym bluffed their way past one, and they reached the tower to find a puzzle chamber guarding the entrance. They were presented with a slide puzzle with one missing tile, and hundreds of replacement tiles scattered through the chamber. There were also four pictographs under the puzzle - each representing a wizard's cantrip (though it took awhile for the party to figure this out). The tile puzzle was merely a red herring - the answer was to cast one of any of the mage's cantrips on the door, which would cause it to open.

After figuring this out, the party entered to find Lukash, the tower's spectral castellan, who explained to them some of the workings of the tower as well as some of its history. He also offered to provide them with "lodging", which he does by using an item called an Exodus Knife to carve out a doorway to a dimensional bedroom. They learned that they would have to kill two of Ctenmiir's lieutenants to advance to the next floor of the tower: Gokof, a hobgoblin totemist leading Ctenmiir's spiders in the tunnels; and Varrg, a hill giant kennel master in charge of tending to Ctenmiir's many hounds in the kennels past the tower's courtyard. These lieutenants had crystalline "keys" which, when used together, would shut down the lightning barrier blocking their ascension to the next level.

They headed into the tunnels first, finding a sarcophagus in which a great vampire had been sealed by a dwarven hero who sacrificed himself to seal the vampire in; this hero's name was lost, but it was clear from the inscriptions on the sarcophagus that he wielded an ancient dwarven warhammer known as Whelm. Passing through the tunnels, the party was ambushed by a pair of ropers and a number of umber ravagers - this encounter proved to be somewhat difficult, but they overcame. The next encounter was more difficult, as the party ran into Gokof - they defeated him easily, but found that defeating him threw his small army of spider minions into a rage, and they dealt 105 dmg to Cyrus in a single round. The spiders turned out to be the true boss of this encounter, but the party prevailed in the end, and recovered Gokof's key and spider totem, which had a valuable black pearl in its mouth.

Next, they returned to the main hall and slept in the room Lukash provided. Thereafter they headed into the courtyard, which seemed quite peaceful...until they ran into a roving pack of hounds. This pack, composed of hounds of ill omen, war hounds and howler dread hounds proved to be the end of Cyrus & Deckard, who both died in this difficult encounter. Deckard was saved by an unlikely rescuer, however...Lukash, who possessed Deckard's body in order to return him to life. The party then hauled Cyrus back to the main hall, and Lukash provided them with his dimensional bedroom again, temporarily killing Deckard again in the process by leaving his body. Cyrus was revived by Deckard's resurrection power, and the party seems to be back together again. Ctenmiir is now aware of their presence within the tower, however, and has advised them that they have 3 days before he attacks Falconia; he also implied that Lukash possibly has ulterior motives for possessing Deckard, which could be a problem later. They have hit level 10, however, which should be a vital extra level for the challenges ahead...

Oh, and we came up with a couple minigames...Chess and a card game called Liar's Tongue.

Session #43: Going Along With It

Speaking to the wizard's guild in Falconia, the party learned an alternative way into Elanath's Tower - they could hire a ship, sail to the cliffs below the tower, scale the cliffs, and navigate the caves until they find the tunnels below the tower. With this and their other option, speaking to Elanath, in mind, they opted to head to speak to Elanath in Nogram. Along the way, their carriage was stopped at Blackhammer's Watch, and they learned that only dwarves were being allowed into Kinsfort as a result of the royal wedding going on between Queen Coratra Redbeard and Gihren Amberforge, son of Thanos Amberforge - a family the party has some familiarity with.

They had to set out on foot from there, and the first night, they were attacked by bandits - the bandits were easily trounced, however, and the next day, the party arrived in Nogram. There, they fought a group of zombies until Elanath came out and stopped them, revealing that the zombies were actually people disguised by a ritual. Speaking to Elanath, the party learned that the vampire cursed to be unable to leave the tower was indeed Ctenmiir, and that the Mire of Deathly Grasp, a mire of skeletons and acidic quicksand, could only be crossed by undead. Elanath explained that he could perform the same ritual on the party that he did on the village's defenders. Cyrus took serious issue with this, and had to be convinced to go along with it, but he now mistrusts Amnon's motives and will be keeping an eye on him, which could be an issue for the party down the road.

Session #42: Attack of the Burning Barn

Amnon missed the beginning.

Most of this session consisted of the battle with the charnel cinderhouse; most of the monsters were wiped out fairly early, with the skeletal legionaries being mostly non-factors and the vampiric mist (which Ctenmiir was apparently using as a proxy) being destroyed before the party really started to work on the cinderhouse. This proved to be a tough encounter, as the melee-heavy party was faced with an opponent that did large amounts of fire damage to anyone adjacent to it. Every healing power and most second winds were expended; by the end of it all, Cyrus & Shivra were both dying, with Shivra being a few hit points from outright death. The cinderhouse finally fell as a result of the party kiting it to death, working it over with ranged attacks until the horrible thing finally fell, the Doresannic shard within it disintegrating.

After this, the party returned to Falconia, and learned that the guard was being kept largely in Falconia due to the Wintersend Assembly - their odds of receiving help would be slim going forward. They informed Harwick of his wife's fate, Cyrus' Arkohsian delegation was permitted to attend the Wintersend Assembly, and the party learned that Elanath's Tower would be very difficult, if not impossible, to access, though they did not learn the specifics.

Cyrus and Amnon then split from the party; Cyrus to inform his superiors of their granted permission to attend the Wintersend Assembly, and Amnon to head to the Tower of Heiserrah to report to his master, the eladrin Sirilis Starsburden. Sirilis expressed particular interest in examining one of these Doresannic shards, and explained (to Amnon, who was alone) that Elanath's Tower had fallen to darkness as a result of dark experiments performed there. Ctenmiir, she inferred, was the vampiric servant once employed at the tower who had been cursed never to be able to leave it. The tower's builder, Elanath, had relocated to Nogram, the Village of Hermits, and become Elanath the Hermit. Sirilis said that he may know of a way to enter the tower, but that he would be difficult to talk to, as Nogram's inhabitants despise visitors.

We stopped after this, leaving the Falconian contingent of the party's visit to the wizard's guild there for next time. Amnon is on his way back from the Tower of Heiserrah with instructions to recover a Doresannic shard for investigation, and Cyrus has agreed to assist the party further once he has handled his duties with the Arkhosian delegation. Looks like the events of this tier seem to be building to a conclusion...

Session #41: The Hellhouse

This week the party found that the chapel they took shelter in was full of mutilated corpses, as the survivors who took shelter here had been slaughtered. They also recovered some loot, and found that the priest they'd encountered earlier, Brellac Monsen, had been decapitated. They took an extended rest, and resurrected Cyrus; afterwards, they cleaned up the chapel, and discovered that the ghouls had disappeared from Hampstead, howling and all...or so they thought at least.

Taking this opportunity to try and make it to Falconia, the party found a large procession of ghouls heading toward the farm that Brellac Monsen had mentioned as the home of a particularly troubled individual, Vrikus. The party followed this procession, and found the ghouls being ushered into a large barn. They found no organizer for this, and the only other building on the farm property was the farmhouse - they entered it, finding mad writings scattered within. Upon trying to read this writing, the house's structural integrity returned to an earlier time, the house filled with blood red fog, and the party lost track of eachother. The encounter then began.

It took awhile for the party to figure out what they needed to do; particularly Vorgym, who was confronted with Vrikus all alone early in the encounter. Vrikus made an effort to rip Vorgym in half, and Vorgym was bloodied early in the encounter- but in the end, the party figured out the illusion, though a few of them went insane temporarily in the process, and broke through to fight Vrikus. Once the illusion had been broken, Vrikus went down easily. They learned that Vrikus had been taken to Elanath's Tower, and a shard of bone pulsing with black light had been placed within his chest - a shard which emerged upon his demise. However, this would not be the end of their encounters in Hampstead...

Outside, the party found that Brellac Monsen, who they thought was dead, and a group of skeletal minions had set aflame the ghoul-filled barn. Monsen took the shard from the party, and then revealed himself as Ctenmiir the Cursed, the villain responsible for most everything that had happened to this point. He then threw the bone shard, which he identified as a Doresannic shard (a piece of bone from one of the Ghoul King Doresain's victims), into the barn, which animated into a swirling, burning mass of wood, metal and bone. We ended there, with the threat of more of these shards being used on Falconia looming.

Session #40: Flirting with Death

Had everyone for tonight's session, some AFKs here and there but the main problem was lag. On to the recap.

We picked right up where we left off with the encounter in the wizard's tower; the howling ghouls unleashed their screaming terror attacks, nasty push attacks which tore through the party and left all but one person bloodied. Despite Deckard & Amnon being knocked out the windows, the party managed to overcome the ghouls and drove them off. Amnon discovered what his new robes did, and they decided to depart the tower after a short rest.

The party then headed toward the chapel - their trail through the ruins ended up leading into another pack of ghouls. They had to fight through them, then they managed to arrive at the chapel proper. They were quickly set upon by ghouls, and cornered at the side of the chapel for quite a long time. Unfortunately, I had to railroad them a little by insinuating the chapel was the most secure building they'd be able to find in the area. After this, they made for the chapel doors - this is when things started to go downhill. After having their surges chewed through by the previous two encounters, the party started to drop - the worst was endured by Cyrus, who was actually dead at the end of the encounter.

Fleeing toward the doors, the party locked themselves in the courtyard and tried to escape inside - the ghouls made it difficult for them, however, by grabbing Cyrus (who had gone down) and leaping from the roof to attack. The party managed to escape, however, and entered the chapel (which had quite an odor coming from inside it) to find a horrifying spectacle inside...which I decided to hold off on describing until next session, because we had gone way over.

Hope everyone enjoyed the session - see you guys next week!

Session #39: Another Long Encounter

Had Traver missing for much of the first part of this session.

The session started with the party waking to the words of a priest dressed in robes made from human flesh. The priest, referring to the characters as "lost sheep", requested that they surrender themselves to the ghoul hordes and join them. He claimed their flesh was sacred, whether it be used to feed the ghouls, or converted and made one of them. He had an army of ghouls with him to enforce his will if he so desired, but he did not. Instead he offered the party a peaceful chance to surrender to them. When they did not respond, he took is as a refusal, and stated that this would be his last peaceful offer. He withdrew his ghouls, and the party set out again.

First they went to the Harwicks' home; it didn't take them long to find Beth Harwick, converted to a raging ghoul and locked in the home's cellar. Down there with her was a doomspinner spider she referred to as her "child"; the party did not find out about this until Deckard was knocked down into the cellar. The encounter started out simply enough, but eventually Beth managed to get Deckard, Vorgym & Shivra down into the cellar, while ghouls above ravaged Cyrus & Amnon. The party was victorious in the end, but not without taking a beating. This encounter proved to be quite long.

The party managed to recover some valuables from Beth Harwick, including a wedding ring by which she could likely be identified; they took it and then decided they should go back to the western side of Hampstead and check for clues. In the west, they headed to the wizard's tower they'd seen, arriving without much incident. They recovered a chess set on the first floor, then headed to the second, where they found a rune-inscribed cloth robe, a potion of healing, and an intricate golden sphere. The sphere turned out to be an arcane recording device of some sort; it activated while they investigated it, and the loud volume of the sphere drew a number of ghouls, including a very large, hulking, green-skinned ghoul who droned out a cry for meat which made the party feel as if their skin were being "tenderized". The ghouls moved to attack, and we stopped here, just as the encounter was beginning.

Hope everyone enjoyed the session, see you all next week.

Session #38: The Ruins of Hampstead

In this outing, the party made their way to Hampstead, finding a destroyed ruin infested with ghouls. I used a new approach to skill challenges, treating them more as prolonged, roleplay-style sequences of skill checks. They set out to head to the river and find Mr. Harwick's wife on the other side. Along the way, they discovered a pair of landmarks in western Hampstead - a wizard's tower, and a chapel with a number of spires. Their trip through the ruins resulted in them nearly navigating through them without incident, but Vorgym failed a Streetwise check and led the party right into a pack of hungry ghouls.

This encounter was fairly quick; the party had to escape the ghouls, as the sounds of battle drew more and more ghouls to the scene. Cyrus absorbed most of the damage the ghouls dished out, but had to use a number of healing surges to get his health back up; this would be important later.

Arriving at the river, the party looked to cross the bridge and engage a small group of ghouls. It seemed easy enough at first, then a number of aquatic ghouls known as lacedons infiltrated the party's lines and began to attack them. They tried to drag a number of characters into the water, nearly sending Cyrus over; Amnon was actually dragged into the water, and only managed to escape thanks to ranged coverage from the rest of the party.

Between the healing surges lost in traversing the ruins and the healing surges the lacedons took from the party, healing surge economy ended up being a serious problem in this encounter, and the session in general. Cyrus ran out of surges, and ended up at -21/70 hit points by the end of the encounter. The party eventually managed to escape the ghouls and cross the bridge, but were very beat - Vorgym's bold gambit to rescue Cyrus left him weakened, and Cyrus was left unconscious.

The party had to again navigate the ruins; they lost a few more healing surges along the way, and managed to find a house which they could fortify for an extended rest. The party did their extended rest here, and we ended the session for the night. See everyone next week!

Session #37: Don't Go Into the Tall Grass

Latency cooperated for the most part during this session. Here's how things went.

The party discovered that the unconscious man was a trader from Hampstead who was on his way back there when he and his trader friend, Alvis, were attacked by the ghouls. Alvis was killed; the man, Janus Harwick, passed out during the attack. The party sent Harwick back to warn Falconia of what was going on, and he asked the party to find his wife, Beth Harwick.

Heading further toward Hampstead, the party emerged from the forest into rolling fields of tall grass, crops, and grain. A powdery white substance began falling from the sky as they moved closer to Hampstead; they discovered this to be powdered bone, though it resembled snow or ash in the way it fell from the sky. A similar powder falls from the sky in the abyssal domain of Doresain, the Ghoul King & one of the prime exarches of the Demon Prince of the Undead, Orcus.

Eventually, the party found a boarded-up farmhouse. They couldn't find anyone inside initially, so they decided to have Cyrus break down the door. He succeeded, and they found a family hiding inside. The noise they had made quickly drew ghouls to the house, and they came under siege. Byron was nearly dragged off in the battle, as the ghouls swarmed the house, but the party managed to save him and drive the ghouls off.

After this battle, the party decided to help the family escape the fields around Hampstead, which were crawling with ghouls using the tall grass for cover. This led to an exceedingly long encounter where the party escorted the family through a field of tall grass while being attacked by a constant stream of ghouls. The grandfather of the family was lost in this battle, but the party managed to get the rest of the family out of the fields and to the relative safety beyond.

The last encounter took us 2, maybe even 3 hours - it was a lengthy affair to be sure, but the party managed to succeed well enough, save for the grandfather's death. See everyone next week!

Session #36: Cyrus Has Joined Your Team

Traver missed the beginning of our makeup session on Saturday, was there for the rest. On to the recap.

Our first session without Sal & Sterling as part of the party started off...inauspiciously. The party spoke to Lady Kesselia Francesca, and were handsomely rewarded for recovering the Silver Mask of Kas. Additionally, she deputized them as delvers in her service, giving them a seal of her house (a purple seal with three black fleur-de-lis symbols on it) to use to open up opportunities previously sealed off to them.

After this, they went looking for work, having no task from Kesselia currently. They were led to the city watch, where they found the commander, Sir-Commander Canis Wolfswift, arguing with a dragonborn named Cyrus: Cyrus wanted permission for diplomats from the reformed Arkhosian empire to attend to the Wintersend Assembly with the dragonborn of the Tarranine Wastes, and Wolfswift refused him permission. Upon noticing the party, Wolfswift asked them to check on an overdue patrol that had been sent toward the farming community of Hampstead, to the northeast of Falconia. They agreed - Cyrus asked to accompany them in the interests of showing that the Arkhosians had interest in helping Titania.

Five characters strong now, the party headed toward Hampstead, and encountered a barricade along the way - a group of guards led by the leader of the overdue patrol, Sergeant Hargrove. The guards claimed a plague had taken Hampstead; however it turned out that these weren't the guards at all. The patrol had been killed, and these "guards" were zombies who had disguised themselves as the guards. This proved a fairly easy fight for the party, and after defeating the guards they continued on toward Hampstead.

Along the way, they found a ravaged campsite, with an unconscious man beneath a fallen tent and a corpse with a large chunk of flesh removed from its back. They were attacked by ghouls and gravehounds suddenly; the fight proved to be simple enough, though, and they defeated these beasts as well. We stopped here, without consulting the unconscious man.

Remember guys, if you need to take care of any item shopping, take care of it ahead of time in the builder and let me know what you got so I can check it and approve it. We may have a new party member joining soon as well.

Session #35: End of a Chapter

2 missing people tonight. On to the recap.

We picked back up with the battle with Blazewing. He nearly killed Seamus, bringing him to -31 with an ongoing damage attack that Seamus could not break out of, due to it being based on a grab. In the end, Deckard, Seamus & Vorgym were all down, but the rest of the party managed to bring Blazewing down.

After this, I (unfortunately) railroaded the party a bit, turning them off from taking an alternative route to pursue the Amberforges - I'll get to the reasons for this later, but a significant part of it was me just not having the energy/heart to improvise tonight =\
This alternative route led them to fight Gregor and his spirehorn behemoth mount, along with three dwarf clan guards. This was a long fight, and took us a bit over time, but in the end the party defeated the guards, the behemoth, and Gregor in order. Gregor went down so quickly that he didn't get a chance to unleash the other beast in the room - a young blue dragon =D

At this point, the story is reaching the end of a chapter. The party will have a new face or two next time - I've given people permission to change characters if they like, providing we can maintain the group's integrity. Additionally, Nirreh (played by Sal) will be stepping out for a few months due to school, and Seamus (played by Sterling until ~1 month ago, played by me thereafter) will be retired in order for a new character to be introduced - a dragonborn fighter named Cyrus. If anyone wants to make a new character, please let me know, but be advised that we will need to maintain class integrity - at least one of each role. If necessary I will make a new character in Cyrus' place, but I'll need to have some notice, so let me know.

I apologize for railroading tonight - I should have let the party explore the alternative option, but I wasn't feeling up to it, and I also wanted to make sure we had the current conflict resolved before our party underwent the coming changes. All apologies, players =( Next week, we will be opening a new chapter in the campaign - with the mask in the party's grasp, we will return to Falconia and the next part of the story will begin. Hope you're all looking forward to it as much as I am, and see you next week!

P.S.: Farewell for now, Sal & Sterling =)

Session #34: Entering the Manor

No Sterling again. No Phil either. On to recap.

The party Stealthed through the menagerie and found a number of dwarves in the main hall above. They managed to kill one without alerting the others, but decided that they may as well just engage in combat with them. They took out the dwarf warriors rather easily, and the dwarf clan guards didn't prove to be much trouble. The trained owlbear was a bit difficult, but it was focused and thus went down quickly. The party, specifically Vorgym, found their biggest issue with the dwarf captain who led the guards. He had a power which allowed him to mark two of his foes for the duration of the encounter; he did this to Vorgym & Shivra, the two damage dealers. He also had a nasty power which allowed him to counterattack any attack made by someone he had marked, and he used this on Vorgym twice. Eventually, he went down; the party short rested thereafter.

Next, the party explored the rooms downstairs, finding two fancy bedrooms. They found a diary in one which stated that the password to the manor's vault, where they figured their treasure would be, had been recently changed to "something that was different, and yet the same, in all the bedrooms." (Note: I went ahead and retconned this - the original message had said "something that was the same in all three rooms", but to prevent confusion I have adjusted the message accordingly.)

After exploring these rooms and finding nothing else of real interest, the party headed into the big double doors one of the guards who had attempted to escape had unlocked. Inside they found a library, along with Gregor Amberforge, his father Thanos Amberforge, and their personal bodyguard, Mullas Stonefist. Thanos & Mullas left to attend a wedding; Gregor was to stay behind and deal with the intruders, which he sought to accomplish by setting loose a young red dragon, "Blazewing", and another dwarf captain on them. The fight is roughly in the home stretch at this point - the captain has been taken down, and Blazewing has been bloodied; his immediate recharge and usage of his fiery breath weapon (which is much hotter & much stronger now that he is bloodied) has sent Deckard into dying, and both Vorgym & Seamus into bloodied. We will have to see how this turns out next week!