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...
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
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...
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...
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