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.