[3.5/Pathfinder] Another Age of Worms Journal

[Epinephrine]

So, I decided to join the throng talking about their adventure path.
The Age of Worms is an adventure path from Dungeon Magazine, and involves the approach (and hopefully, the prevention) of said age.
In a nutshell, Kyuss (after whom the eponymous Spawn of Kyuss are named) wishes to rise again, and has whispered to a dracolich. The dracolich started a fake cult to worship the Ebon Triad, with the idea that in order to raise their evil god, they would first need to raise his harbinger - Kyuss.

The campaign started out as a gestalt campaign, but against my better judgement. As the campaign progressed, I realised that I didn't like the power level the characters were achieving (more so than I had thought I would) and asked them to rewrite the characters as single class characters - we were also in the process of switching from 3.5 to Pathfinder, so it was easy enough to do both changes at once. The drop in power level made my job a lot easier, as I no longer had to tweak absolutely everything in order to present the party with challenging foes.

The party consist of:

Draelin - a dwarf warrior who is in Diamond lake working to pay off debts, incurred when he caught a disease raiding a cairn in the hills. Gruff, but soft hearted when it comes to children and animals, he's somewhat stereotyped. The least charismatic of the group, he is pretty much content to follow the lead of others, shining mostly when there is combat or when traps abound. After change to non-gestalt, chose a level of rogue to maintain the ability to do trapfinding. Will likely pick up a second level when he gets halfweight armour, for evasion.
Gestalt (3.5): Warblade//Artificer
non-gestalt (Pathfinder): Rogue2/WarbladeX, converting to Pleor later and retraining as Rogue 2/Paladin X (yes, really)
Yes, it's odd to retrain partway through a campaign, but he felt that his character was seeing Lilly's crusade against evil becoming his own, and decided to pledge himself to her cause. Probably helps that a Pathfinder paladin will be pretty darn tough against hordes of undead...

Sandurel - the second melee combatant, Sandurel is human, and hails from the Twilight Monastery - and as a result was distrusted when he came to Diamond Lake. A student of strange texts, a master of unarmed combat, and an athlete, his physical abilities allow him a manoeuvrability unmatched by the others.
Gestalt (3.5): Swordsage//Shadowcaster
non-gestalt (Pathfinder): Monk (but Pathfinder monks are not bad)

Lilly - a 17 year old human girl from north of Diamond Lake, Lilly was the healer for a small village, having stepped into the role when her mother passed away. Lilly is touched by divine and arcane powers, and claims to hear the voices of angels, who give her advice. Charismatic, and possessing a rare innocence, she can easily diffuse the most tense of situations thanks to her diplomatic ability.
Gestalt (3.5): Warlock//Favoured Soul
non-gestalt (Pathfinder): Warlock/Favoured Soul/Eldritch Disciple multiclass

Kallbrand - a halfling, hired as a tracker, but providing aid in many small ways. Possessing a smattering of various knowledges, able to find his way across the wild as easily as charm his way into a free pint at a pub, the halfling complements the abilities of the others, making them more than they might otherwise be.
Gestalt (3.5): Bard//Marshal/Dragon Shaman
non-gestalt (Pathfinder): Bard

Class changes:
Marshal: the Marshal minor auras are too tempting to dip, as a result I am capping the benefit to a maximum of the Marshal's class level - still a decent ability.
Favoured Soul: Lilly's player is a new roleplayer, and didn't want a long spell list, but likes the idea of turning undead; We are treating her in fact as a Cleric, but with the spontaneous spellcasting that a favoured soul has instead of the normal cleric spell advancement.

Invocation changes:
Lilly is a really interesting character - the player roleplays the voices in her head, often talking to nobody in particular, and even having arguments with nobody. She selected the invocations "Otherworldly Whispers" and "Beguiling Influence", and requested that she could have Knowledge(Local) rather than Knowledge (Planes), and Sense Motive rather than Bluff for the Beguiling Influence - for the character concept. She doesn't see Lilly lying, but sees it as being very difficult to lie to her, and she doesn't know much about other planes, but knows a lot about small towns (and apparently big towns too).

So, the Knowledge (Religion) is the voice of an vengeful male "angel" named Morgan, who passionately hates the undead and unholy. He provides insights, but also screams for the destruction of all that is impure.

Knowledge (Arcana) is a female "angel", rational and precise, even detached. She is intrigued by all things magical, and tries to get Lilly to lay claim to things that would boost her power.

Knowledge (Local) is the voice of a young boy who seems to know where all the hiding spots are, when the guards get off shift, where to get the ripest blackberries, etc. It can be hard to get him to focus on what she needs right then, but he'll talk her ear off about what's going on in every community they pass through.

Sense Motive is her dog Fluffy. Fluffy died when she was young, but now lives in her mind. He barks, growls, yips excitedly and so on to convey his impressions of the people around her.

[Tam_OConnor]

Yay, someone else posting theirs! Looking forward to the first adventure. As to the 'voices in the head' schtick, Werebear pulled something similar in a zombie campaign of mine. It all ended well (near TPK :smallbiggrin:).

[Epinephrine]

Session 1 Summary (long)
Draelin has been frustrated by the rate at which he is working off his debt to the Dwarven mine manager, Ragnolin Dourstone, and is looking for a chance to escape the town of Diamond Lake - cairn diving seems a promising way to earn some coin, though it's exactly what landed him in his current predicament. When a monk arrived in town and approached him, offering to pay him double his current wages to accompany him on just such an expedition he eagerly agreed, with one small catch - that they find a healer to accompany them.

The local clerics tend to be grouped into two sects - the fervent worshippers of St. Cuthbert, who are unlikely to take time away from their confessions and self-flagellations to aid the pair on such a mission, or the fanatic followers of Wee Jas. The latter can generally be found patrolling the bone yard, ensuring that none disturb the peace of the grave. Convincing them to raid a cairn seems unlikely, to say the least, and they are not friendly at the best of times.

Fortune (or fate?) has played its part however, as just the previous day a young lady, said to be a follower of Pelor, had arrived in the town. She made herself quite at home in the abode of the local sage Allustan, and while the locals find it odd that she talks to (and listens to) voices that no other can hear, they have grown fond of her already.

The Dwarf and monk take turns trying to convince Lilly (the young lady of faith) that they need her assistance more than the miners in town do, and some of their words set their host and Lilly talking. Draelin mentions a cairn called the whispering cairn, which he believes may hold riches still (it was on a map in the mine manager's office, circled as a potential target for an expedition), while brother Sandurel reveals some prophetic verses that an evil may be rising, and that "the whispers" may hold a secret. The whispers may be a reference to the whispering cairn, and as Lily recognises the evil mentioned by brother Sandurian as the Ebon Triad (a cult dedicated to merging the gods Vecna, Erythul and Hextor into an over god) she agrees that it may be important to accompany the pair to this cairn. The group also enjoy a nice bottle of port, discusses telescopes, Dragon Chess, etc...

The trio head over to the Feral Dog (first Draelin ducks into the Able Carter to have a couple of bottles of Port sent up to Allustan's and pockets some silver for his effort), a rough tavern that boasts a dog fighting ring and more knifings than any other establishment in town. Here they seek their guide, Kallbrand the Nimble. The young Halfling has been drinking, and has started something of a small riot by convincing the dogs not to fight one another.

Fortunately, nobody seems to know it was the Halfling's doing, and most are busy trying to convince the house that they deserve their bets back (while trying to avoid seeming aggressive enough to warrant the bouncer's attentions). Kullen (the bouncer) stands 7 feet tall, tattooed, and ugly as a warthog with a hangover. Rumour has it that he's half ogre or orc or something, and he's already knocked one patron unconscious.

After seeing to the unconscious man with her divine magic and sending him home, Lily approached the owner of the bar to try to convince him that dog fights are barbaric and cruel. Despite her diplomacy, Gorvic is not swayed, and gruffly ignores the complaint. Draelin decides to help out, by pointing out that properly trained dogs provide much more of a spectacle, and that this could reduce the number of dogs that Gorvic needs to acquire and dispose of. Unfortunately, talking about a bigger crowd and a better fight reminds Gorvic of how big the crowd was last time they caught a wolf. Gorvic breaks off the conversation to serve other patrons (who are starting to get angry), smiling and trying to think of where he can get a wolf to put in the ring, while Draelin and Lily grit their teeth.

Tirra, a comely elf with a brace of throwing daggers on her side (one member of a group of adventurers from the Free City) is in the tavern, and engaging people in a throwing competition. Sandurel tries his hand at dagger throwing, as does the Halfling, but ultimately one of the local miners hits the bull's-eye and steals Tirra's attentions away from the party. Having survived the night at the Feral Dog without injury, Lily, Draelin, Sandurel and Kallbrand head off to sleep, preparing for their journey.

The next morning the group heads into the hills north-east of the town, looking for an old abandoned mine, which they know to be near the cairn. A few hours later the group arrives at the mine, and the group combs the woods near the mine to find the overgrown entrance of the Whispering Cairn.

Here they feel a slight breeze from the entrance of the tomb, carrying what might be faint voices through the air. The dust in the passage has been disturbed by at least one animal, likely a pair of wolves according to Kallbrand. Lilly listens to the whispers, and says "that's not very nice. I don't think they should talk that way." Apparently the voices warn of danger, death, and misery for those who enter the tomb, in a language unknown to any but Lilly.

Starting into the darkness, the group finds that the decorative stonework has been hacked at with blades, and in the second branching passage they notice a black, glasslike frame emerging from a carved block of marble. Draelin finds a few shards of it that look large enough to polish, and pockets them after examining them briefly. The runes covering the frame are from an ancient language related to Auran, the language of creatures from the plane of Air (at least, according to Morgan, one of the voices Lily reports hearing), and the large rune at the base is a name, with an indicator of rank of some sort. Draelin voices the opinion that it's an object of magic, as it has runes running where the glass would have been seated. Apparently the name on the base of the frame is pronounced "Icosiol". The matching passage to the east has collapsed, but likely led no farther than this passage, a mere 40 feet or so. Returning to the main hallway, Lily sees a faint green light a ways off to the north. It flickers as if behind a curtain, or perhaps as a small flame dancing in a breeze and it seems elevated, as if the passage must rise, or open into a large, domed room.

DM commentary
Well, it's a first session. You don't actually expect to accomplish a ton, right? Get people introduced, get them acquainted with the town, start things rolling. Was a bit surprised at the effectiveness of the Otherworldly Whispers, the +6 bonus to knowldege skills at 1st level and her 14 Int puts Lilly at an impressive +12 Knowledge(Arcana), rivalling much higher level characters.
Her having chosen Auran as a language, because it sounded neat, was a strange coincidence, but players do pick odd languages - Draelin has Terran, since he thought it a useful language for a dwarf, and Kallbrand has Draconic, to pick up Dragonsong in the future.

[Epinephrine]

Yay, someone else posting theirs! Looking forward to the first adventure. As to the 'voices in the head' schtick, Werebear pulled something similar in a zombie campaign of mine. It all ended well (near TPK :smallbiggrin:).

Yes, I've heard of people doing it before, but given that she's only playing for the second time, I was surprised at how well she managed it. It's a lot to tackle, but she seemed to be having a good time - and it was her idea!

:)

[Tam_OConnor]

The irony is that Terran and Auran are the only two languages they need in the first adventure, and Draconic will come in handy in the third. My PCs never go for the elemental tongues, for some reason.

[Epinephrine]

Re: languages - I only listed the few languages they know that matter. Between them they also have Dwarven, Gnome, Celestial, Undercommon, and Halfling, at a minimum. Possibly a few others, as the bard invests in languages, and the Warblade has a high Int (I think a base of 17, 18 Int at 4th level? He has more Int than Str, and keeps it that way, even after the switch to non-gestalt).

Session 2 summary; pretty long session, they got a lot done:

The green light still flickers up ahead, and from the room they hear growls. Kallbrand recognises it as a dog or wolf, and the party readies for combat. Draelin stand in the lead, with a Stone Bones strike readied, and as a result he soaks most of the damage easily, while his dwarf frame makes him too tough a target to trip up with a bite. They choose to use subdual damage as much as possible, and end up stabilizing the wolves after downing them.

Exploring, they see the fresco with the 7 coloured lanterns lit, and then search the wolf den, finding the indigo lantern. Heading toward the green light again, they arrive in the false burial chamber, with the lanterns hanging from the chains. Putting two and two together, they light the available lanterns (all but the missing red one), and failing to see anything interesting, begin searching the room. Lilly finds the skeleton at the base of the blue lantern shaft, and recognises that the injuries look like a fall from some height, leading them to investigate the chamber. They manage a climb to the hallway above the blue lantern and head down it - soon a face begins to appear out of the gloom ahead - a huge stone face, and its eyes flare up with dancing red flames, while wind begins to whistle out of its mouth. "Trap!" yells Draelin, and they all begin running from the mouth. Kallbrand (small size) is blown right by them, but stops short of the ledge. By the next round all but the Dwarf have made it out onto the rope/chain, and Draelin is actually hurled out of the hallway like a big dwarf pop-gun. Luckily he makes his reflex save, and I only assign some non-lethal damage from the tumble and jarring stop. They decide to come back later.

Back by the sarcophagus, they decide to inspect it, and determine that it can be rotated. Doing so, an elevator starts to rumble, and opens in the yellow lantern's hallway. Not trusting it, they load it with the skeleton they had found as well as a pile of rocks, until it slides out of sight. A few return trips and they decide to trust it, and take turns riding it down. Below they climb over a large stone block, squeezing into a narrow passage, and are ambushed by the lurking strangler that got stuck in here. Nobody fails a save, and they pretty quickly down the enemy, thanks to a critical hit from the dwarf's hand axe.

They then advance toward the large spill of orange gloop, which hides a brown mould. the cold damage from approaching it knocks the two lead characters (Sandurel and Draelin) unconscious, and the other two look for the source of the attack. When nothing is immediately obvious, they grab their frosty comrades and drag them to safety, rousing them with heals.

Lacking any way to damage the mould, they decide to simply go through the wall. The dwarf removes the maul from his pack, and has at the wall. After a considerable amount of time and effort, he's through. They wake the earth elemental, Draelin answers its challenge in Terran, and then while the elemental is looking at the smashed wall they attack it. easily downing it.

They finish searching around here, find the various items under the block trap (including the mithril armour), and return to the sarcophagus room.

Turning the sarcophagus again, they start up the green shaft's elevator, and again they test it by placing things in it. It collapses after a couple of return trips, and a chittering sound is heard. The dwarf readies a stone bones manoeuvre again and stand in the lead, telling the others to be ready. The mad slasher and swarm appear, and the mad slasher charges the Dwarf, whose stone bones again soaks a ton of damage. The mad slasher goes down pretty fast to the flanking manoeuvres of the monk and Dwarf, and they use oil flasks to burn away the swarm pretty quickly after that.

They climb down the ruined elevator shaft, kill the beetles in the various rooms, and finish the session after being attacked by the water elemental at the flooded section. Having defeated this foe, they replenish their health, and we call it a night.

DM comments:
The party are a little paranoid, but it's serving them well. I am a little worried that since they only saw the red flames (as opposed to many colours, then red), they may not catch on to how the face trap works.

Draelin's knowledge of Terran was funny, when asked "who invades Nadroc's chambers?" he simply answered that they had come bearing gifts for Nadroc, then jumped the elemental while he was distracted with the damage they had caused breaking in.

The readied action stone bones is serving the Warblade very well, soaking the enemy's first attacks. He generally positions himself in the lead, and no sensible enemy is going to try to get by his attacks of opportunity, so it's protecting the others well. Then Sandurel steps up beside him, and suddenly everything is flanked.

The party has some strong synergies - Sandurel's Island of Blade stance is pretty decent, but paired with Kallbrand's marshal aura (Master of tactics, adds his Charisma bonus to flanking damage) they are simply destroying everything they face. Kallbrand is also singing (Inspire Courage and Inspirational Boost, for +2/+2), so they're getting a massive +6 damage per flanking hit. A bit powerful. In another session or two I decide to cap the minor aura bonuses to the minimum of the Marshal level and the Charisma bonus, but it's still a ton of extra damage. They are a little worried about the underwater portion coming up, as this will stop the bard's song, and prevent his marshal auras from working. Good :)

[Epinephrine]

Session 3 - exploring the water, meeting a ghost, and the abandoned farmstead.

The party had arrived at the water-filled portion of the cairn, and fought a water elemental. Considering the dark water in front of them, Draelin ties a rope around his waist, draws a pair of daggers, and secures the other end of the rope to his pack (which stays behind, wedged around the corner). The others hold onto the rope with the dwarf in the lead, and hold their breath to do a few excursions into the flooded portion.

As they explore, they kick up the silt that has settled to the floor, making visibility poor, even with darkvision. Suddenly a creature emerges from the gloom to rake at Sandurel with its claws. Sandurel is hit, and stiffens, unable to move. Lilly recognises the creature as a ghoul, and brandishes her holy symbol - managing to hold it in place. The dwarf grabs Sandurel and drags him out of the water, while Lilly holds the ghoul in place with her divine power. A few rounds later, the Dwarf returns (and unknown to him, Sandurel has recovered and is following him back in). They attack the ghoul, releasing it from Lilly's hold, but the ghoul fails to connect with its claws, and soon the party has killed it.

They return to get some air, and after a few more excursions they have searched the flooded chambers, and found a red lantern (the only lantern missing from the false tomb, above). Satisfied that they've found everything of interest, they return to the tomb, place the red lantern in its alcove, and decide to open the sarcophagus - which proves to be empty. Having exhausted themselves, they leave the cairn to rest for the night.

The next day they return, planning to again investigate the passage with the face - but more carefully this time. They are surprised that the sarcophagus has returned to its starting position (since there are some minor wind servants that do this) and waste a good half hour scouring the area for signs of trespassers. They then wheel the sarcophagus through the rest of the positions (setting off the false elevator trap), and finally return to the passage with the stone face. This time, the dwarf alone goes down, searching for traps every 5'. He locates the trapped section, and decides to bypass it by leaping across. Getting to the face, he realises that to open the face he has to set off the trap. He does so, ready to run if necessary, but this time no howling wind erupts, and he calls the others to join him.

Beyond the face is a pit full of iron spheres with a beam across the middle. Not trusting the beam, they decide to lower themselves to the spheres, Sandurel first. The Grick hidden in the room attacks the lone swordsage, while the others attempt to hurt it from above. Between the Eldritch blasts and Sandurel's flaming fists (he uses a manoeuver) they deal enough damage that the Grick retreats and buries itself, and they safely cross the floor of the room (avoiding the trapped beam).

Once across, laughter echoes through the room, an d a ghost appears, mocking them. The ghost explains that he died here, and that he will open the next room for them if they bring his bones back to be buried with his family, and provides them with directions. They find this is a fine arrangement, not wanting to face an angry ghost.

They recover the bones, and seek the farmstead that the young man described. Arriving there they can tell that others have been here not long before (maybe a day or two), and they follow the tracks which seem to enter and then leave the building in a hurry. They cautiously peek in the windows, and see a large form moving about in the house. Entering, they find an owlbear, and manage to drop the creature (amazingly, the swordsage stuns it with a stunning fist, impressing everyone!) - and being soft-hearted, they again don't kill it. Lilly of course stabilises it once it's unconscious, since she figures they invaded its home. When they discover that there are dead owlbear cubs (chicks?) and one live one (chewing on a severed human arm, with a tattoo they recognise as the same Tattoo that Kullen's gang in town wears), Lilly insists that they move the owlbear and young one away from the town, to somewhere safe but where folks from the village won't stumble across it.

Lilly returns to town, and borrows a cart and some horses (she's very charismatic, and has a huge diplomacy score).

While Lilly's away, the group search, and realise that the Land family bodies have been stolen, likely by whoever had been here before them (Kullen's gang?). They curse a bit, bury the bones they do have, and decide that they'll have to track down Kullen's gang to "ask" them about the missing bodies.

With Lilly's return, they manage to calm the horses enough to pull the unconscious owlbear, and set off with the two owlbears. They figure that a day's travel will probably be enough, and begin searching for a safe home for the two. Finding a cave with some shelter, they drag the owlbear to it, and they then retreat. Kallbrand uses his familiar to deliver a cure light wounds to the owlbear, to ensure that it regains consciousness, and they beat a hasty retreat.

DM commentary:
Wow. We are using the variant turning rules from UA that can either result in a partial turn (holding a creature, concentration each round) or a full turn (they flee), and it seems to have worked well for them.

The ghost of Alastor Land tried to spook them, but failed, so it then invaded the body of the Dwarf, and delivered its speech that way. Nobody wanted to mess with the ghost after that little display.

Once at the farmhouse, they recognised the tattoo on the arm that the baby owlbear was gnawing on, and Lilly wants to take revenge on the brutes that would slaughter owlbear cubs. Yeah, she's got a "loves animals" thing happening, and despite the fact that owlbears are not actually animals, they are apparently close enough. She does figure that its dangerous for the owlbears to be so close to town, so they move them.

I was a little stunned that they went to all that trouble to move a vicious creature, but hey - they're an odd group. Since they already rubbed the local thugs the wrong way when in town, I decide to ambush them on their return trip. Kullen's gang (mentioned in the module) have learned that the baby owlbears are worth something, and have decided to come back and get the young one, killing the mother. Since they discover that the owlbears are gone, and a wagon track disappears away from town (along with tracks that could well be a halfling, dwarf, and two humans), the gang decide that they will go and reclaim their baby owlbear (or its value in gold) from the party.

[Wagadodo]

So far an interesting Journal. With my group it always tends to be destroy first ask questions later. It is good to see a group not taking the life of the things that out there so callously. It does GM in some good to see how things ar working out.

Keep it up.

[Epinephrine]

Thanks Wagadodo - good to know someone is enjoying the extra reading.

Short session for #4 - attack in the woods

A bit of background
In the first chapter of Age of Worm, three adventurers are present in town: Auric, Khellek, and Tirra. They are meant to be possible nemeses for the party, or minimally to be faced later in a gladiator style combat, so I felt it was vital to gestalt them to bring them up to the type of power level that the players would be working at. As a result, Auric went from being a fighter to a Warblade/Barbarian, Khellek branched out from Wizard to Sorceror/Warlock, and Tirra went from being a Rogue to a Ranger/Spellthief.

Later, we opted to reduce everyone's power a bit by ditching gestalt (to my relief), so the three adventurers have likewise been reduced to single classes; Khellek back to Wizard, Auric reduced to a straight Warblade, but Tirra became a Spellthief.

The thing is, when I introduced them originally, Tirra had a wolf as an animal companion (from her Ranger side); Lilly and Draelin both have this thing against hurting animals, and tried to talk Gorvic (the owner of the Feral Dog, a seedy bar in town that features dog fights) into stopping dog fights. Instead, they managed to implant the idea that a wolf would be a good draw...

Of course, the Party left town to go to the Whispering Cairn, but Gorvic hired Kullen's gang to snatch Tirra's Wolf in secret. The wolf killed the gang member that came to take him, the body was found, and the town decided they should put down the vicious animal, and Auric's warband fought their way out of town (rescuing Tirra's companion, of course). Tirra returns to town in secret, and finds Gorvic, who admits to trying to steal the animal, but explains that it was the PCs who had suggested it to him (not entirely true - but it's how he remembers the incident). Tirra left after hearing this, leaving Gorvic bleeding and poisoned (he did recover though).

So that sets the stage for what happens in the woods. Gorvic decided that the PCs owe him for his healing costs, since it was their suggestion that he steal the wolf (wrong, and horrible logic, but I've known people who think like that). Kullen and gang are angry at the death of one of their gang, and finding the owlbear and cub vanished (along with wagon tracks) they are easily hired by Gorvic to track down the party - they want money for the owlbear cub they feel the party stole from them.

Anyway, since Tirra's wolf featured strongly in this portion of the campaign, he had to stick around; as a spellthief she took the feats Obtain Familiar and Improved Familiar to get a wolf (just using worg stats essentially, it's a big wolf).

The adventure:
After having delivered the owlbear to the wild, the party retreats back the way they've come. The group pushed themselves, clearing as much of a trail as they could manage to bring the horses and wagon as far from the town as they could. 6 hours travel should provide a buffer zone minimally for the owlbear, and perhaps it will move on when it is able to roam once again - at least it spares the inhabitants of Diamond Lake troubles in the near future, and allows the beast a chance at survival.

Making camp that night, the group is awakened by Kallbrand, whose familiar has spotted trouble. Shortly after rousing, the group sees light coming through the brush, along the path they had followed. A small group is following their tracks, but they're not particularly stealthy (talking? carrying a light? they were obviously hoping there wouldn't be a lookout). Tracking them was rather simple - a horse and wagon loaded with several hundred pounds of owlbear makes for easy tracking. The tracker spots signs that someone has gone into the brush, and warns his group that the party is likely nearby, off the road. A dozen seconds later they've had a chance to gulp a potion and prepare a few spells, and begin crashing into the woods, shouting at the group, telling them to surrender their gear if they want to live.

The combat is short and ugly. The enemy's mage, Merovin Bask, hangs back, using a wand of Ray of Enfeeblement, Colour Spray, and Tasha's Hideous Laughter against the party over the course of the battle, but to little effect (though he does manage to reduce Draelin's effectiveness some). The enemy Ranger, Rastophan, goes down quickly, but before doing so has managed to provide a flanking opportunity for the polearm-wielding fighter, who ends up tripping Kallbrand and managing to land a deadly hit, nearly killing him (-8 HP). Kullen, the raging half-orc, moves in from the side, to avoid the strange writhing shadows (some shadowcaster mystery) that have sprung up in his path, but is remarkably ineffective, as Sandurel's mobility causes him to miss attack after attack. Lilly manages to tag the enemy mage with an eldritch bolt, and hits Kullen a few times with her eldritch glaive, contributing to his difficulties in landing a blow as he becomes distracted by daydreams and sudden flushes of dizzying giddyness, but when Kallbrand goes down Lilly rushes over to stabilise him.

Draelin quickly chops the enemy ranger down, and manages to seriously wound the trip-happy guisarme wielder, later finishing him off. When Merovin was foolish enough to close with the group (trying to catch a few with his colour spray), he comes withing range of Sandurel, who lands a devastating punch, causing him to gasp for air, trying to recover himself. Lilly is busy tending to the fallen halfling, and Kullen sets his eyes on this new target, managing to catch her with a devastating cut of his great axe.

Lilly is at 2 HP with a raging barbarian beside her, Kallbrand is stable but unconscious, Sandurel is at full health, and Draelin has taken a hit or two and is weakened by a ray of enfeeblement. Lilly decides to try to convince the enemy mage that hed be better off siding with them, against Kullen, and after having a short while to think about it, he apparently decides that he indeed is better off that way, and casts a Colour Spray in the direction of the Half-Orc. Predictably, the raging bouncer has a horrible will save, and succumbs to the spray of light, and blind and stunned he is quickly finished by the heroes.

Merovin made the right choice for himself, and one that likely benefited everyone; Kullen was sure to fall in the next round or two, at which point the mage was likely to find himself at the mercy of a group that may have seen a casualty or two; this way both he and the party escape with their lives.

On questioning, Merovin tells the group that Kullen's gang dug up the bodies at the old Land farmstead at Balabar Smenk's request, and that they had simply been asked to leave the corpses by the old observatory. He doesn't know why, but fills the party in about what has gone on in town, including the fact that Gorvic told the elf adventurer Tirra that the idea to steal her wolf had been Lilly and Draelin's. Apparently Gorvic felt that this was all their fault, and hired the gang to go get him the party's gear - it would fetch enough to cover his healing bills, and the group was already spoiling for a fight after losing a man to an owlbear, and then another on a simple task of fetching a wolf. Kullen learned that owlbear young are worth a fortune, and when they tracked the party to the Land farmstead he was enraged, certain now that the party was trying deliberately to rob him of what was rightfully his, the owlbear cub! If the party put up a fight they could be killed, but Kullen wanted that owlbear.

The party head back to town the next day, and approach the sage Allustan with tales of their adventures in the Cairn, the ambush by the gang of toughs, and the news about the possible necromancer (why else would anyone want bodies?). Allustan is initially dismissive about the idea of a necromancer in the area (though admits that it's a possible, if unlikely explanation), but is intrigued by the Vaati Cairn - he refers to the Vaati by the name "Wind Dukes of Aaqa", and seems to know a bit about them. He fills in some details in Lilly's recounting of the battle of Pesh, including the fact that Icosiol slew the wolf demon Mishka with an item called the staff of law, which broke into seven parts as a result of the forces involved - earning its name, the rod of seven parts. He listens to all the delightful details of a wind duke cairn - mostly he was curious about the architect's lair and the labourer's section - cairns have been mapped before, but finding an old shower room, dormitory and so on is fascinating to a historian like Allustan.


DM commentary
Wow, that was very nearly a couple of deaths. Lilly has a solid diplomacy check, and managed to convince Merovin to side with them - she took a penalty for the rapid nature of the exchange, but given his options ((a) stay loyal to Kullen, likely get killed by adventurers as retribution for the deaths of their friends, or b) take out the half-orc, and very likely live) I figured it was actually the smart option as well. Which is good, as I didn't really want party deaths over such a silly thing.

The player's faces as Merovin revealed that the other party had been told that the PCs were responsible for the attack on the wolf were priceless. Especially as two of them (Lilly, Draelin) have a flaw about not harming animals. It was a pretty short night, but it had plenty of action with a pair of possible deaths looming during the fight.

[Tam_OConnor]

...merciful heavens. I begin to see where people take nine months to finish off an adventure path. Clearly, your group gets deeper into this whole roleplay thing than mine. My commendations to Sandurel: dodging Kullen's attacks is impressive. Was Lilly diplomacizing during combat, -10 as a full-round action and all?

We've typically been running through an adventure a session, though the fourth one should seriously slow that down (random encounters, the Free City, shopping, dropping plot hooks, everything in the 4th adventure...). Sounds fabulous, all in all.

[Epinephrine]

...merciful heavens. I begin to see where people take nine months to finish off an adventure path. Clearly, your group gets deeper into this whole roleplay thing than mine. My commendations to Sandurel: dodging Kullen's attacks is impressive. Was Lilly diplomacizing during combat, -10 as a full-round action and all?

We've typically been running through an adventure a session, though the fourth one should seriously slow that down (random encounters, the Free City, shopping, dropping plot hooks, everything in the 4th adventure...). Sounds fabulous, all in all.

Hehe, yeah, it takes us a while for each section. They do a lot of talking in town... We're on session 17 now, and are about halfway through the 4th adventure.

Sandurel (as an unarmed swordsage/shadowcaster) had an insane AC; it's better now that we dropped gestlalt. There's a 1st level shadowcaster spell that grants a +3 AC bonus and a +3 shield bonus (like mage armour, but better), and another spell that grants a deflection bonus. On top of that he has a solid wisdom of 20 (thanks to the circlet from the cairn), and a 16 Dex IIRC. I think he had an AC of 24-25 or so for the fight, but it's a while ago - whatever it was, it was solid for the level, and Kullen was Shaken from one of Lilly's blasts.

And yes, Lilly rolled well on her (full round) diplomacy check; she was probably 2nd level (so 5 ranks of Diplomacy) with a synergy bonus or two IIRC, and her 18 Charisma, plus the warlock invocation that grants a +6 bonus to diplomacy. So her Diplomacy check was at least a +17, maybe even +19 at the time - I know that after the -10 she still had a 25, which seemed like enough to make Merovin reconsider his position.

[Hunter Noventa]

I played most of this campaign, sadly had to leave a good chunk of the way through it. I really hope you enjoy it. And I'm totally stealing the voices in the head thing next time I play a warlock or sorcerer, that sounds like fun.

[Epinephrine]

Argh, I've fallen behind...

Ok, on to Session 5. The party have survived the cairn, the owlbear, and managed to fight off Kullen and gang. They actually spend a long time talking with Allustan, and we roleplayed a nice dinner with Alustan and Velias Childramon (a priest visiting Allustan, and taking advantage of his library).

DM notes:
I found it completely unbelievable that a low-level wizard would have so many undead under his control; I decided to rewrite Filge completely, making him a Dread Necromancer (level 6, IIRC). I also fleshed out his personality; we know that he was sent for by Balabar Smenk to investigate the strange worm he had found, and has little personal involvement with anything here. I decided that he is self-important, puffed up, and arrogant - but also a coward. He's not particularly evil, just lacking in morals, and he requested the bodies because he's paranoid. While he is a cold blooded murderer, he is only that way when he has a reason - mostly he wants to be left alone, to pursue his study of death.

On to the necromancer's tower: Rather than summarise it, I'll just post the email summary I sent the players.
Having visited with Allustan for several hours, the party excuses themselves after a small dinner to head toward the old observatory past the edge of town. The rocky terrain lends itself well to the study of stars, as the ground rises steeply up above the town, culminating in a stony promontory on which sits the old rundown monastery. Lights flicker in the second and third story windows, and faint glow shines from the slit atop the tower, whence Allustan's fine telescope was recovered. A thin and winding set of steps climbs the side of the hill, leading to the observatory's only door.

While the party tries to approach silently, they can't help but notice that Draelin's new armour squeaks, clangs, and announces itself with jingling sounds, ruining any attempt at a subtle approach. Instead choosing to be direct, they simply follow the burly dwarf up the stairwell to the observatory's door. A large, solid looking lock is mounted in the centre of the double door, but Draelin scoffs at the feeble attempt to prevent entry, and manages to pick the lock with a spike from his gauntlet, rather than bothering to dig out his tools.

Showoff...

A dozen seconds later the lock pops open and the dwarf eases the door open, only to be greeted by the distinctive sounds of a trio of crossbows firing, their quarrels clattering against the door frame and the dwarf's plate armour. "Lilly, we've got undead," he calls out.

Lilly brushes past the dwarf, holds the symbol of Pelor aloft, and says in a calm voice laced with a hint of steel, "You can rest now."

Light erupts from he holy symbol, bathing the skeletal warriors and hounds in a golden nimbus - the archers collapse immediately, the spells that held them together unraveling in the light of Pelor's grace, while the three hounds flee, trying to hide from the radiance behind the overturned tables that had until then provided cover for the archers. Sandurel, Lilly, and Draelin quickly dispatch the three hounds, who offer no resistance, merely trying to flee the young girl whose eyes blaze with fury, her face grim as she sends her enemies to their eternal slumber. "The dogs didn't deserve their deaths, and they certainly don't deserve to be abused this way. Also, I think we've found the Land family - those bones show signs of the Red Death."

I added several undead dogs (from the pit into which the bodies of dogs from the dog fights are thrown) to the battle, as the skeletons would be a pushover. I didn't reckon how strong Lilly's turning would be, and it became a cakewalk anyway. It had the added effect of REALLY annoying Lilly, who has a flaw that she can't abide animals being hurt. Seeing their bodies animated for these ends stoked her rage. She ends up using most of her turn attempts on the zombie dinner party and the harmless mummified goblin upstairs...

Leaving the bodies for now, the group continues to scout the observatory, checking some small coenobitic chambers and an office, before opening the door to a lavishly decorated dining room.
The authors really like the word coenobitic; it's used here and as well in the 5th chapter, in which the group stay in an area called the coenoby

The smell is appalling, and the silence is interrupted by the buzzing of flies. Of the ten places at the table, are occupied by bodies in various states of decomposition, with fresh food and half finished glasses of wine before them. The last seat sits empty, with a clean plate and glass in front of it. Unwilling to take chances, Lilly calls upon her faith, and immediately the nearest of the corpses flee her radiance. Again she summons forth her divine power, and the two melee fighters sweep in on the terrified zombies, hacking them down as they stumble away from Lilly's furious beauty. Soon the room has fallen silent again. A hurried check of the other doors leading from this room reveals only the occupant's poor taste in foods and a storage cupboard.

So I didn't get to play out the macabre feast. On the plus side, it saved Filge's life, as they would no doubt have killed him outright if they had heard the dinnertime conversation

Draelin leads the way up the wide staircase to the tower's second floor, which has been converted into a bedroom. Red and black curtains frame a large bed on a dais, while an untidy desk and small dresser lie along the wall nearby. Across from the stairs stands a white marble statue of a tall, thin, powerful man smiling angelically, a sword in one hand and a harp in the other, with feathered wings jutting from his shoulders. Most disturbingly, a small mummified figure holds a silver tray, on which rests a woman's severed head, its mouth open, with a platinum coin on its outstretched tongue. Lilly attempts to turn the figure, which doesn't move. She uses a second turning attempt, and when this fails, Draelin steps up, severing the creature's head with a clean blow. The body tumbles to the floor, the tray clattering to the ground, and the head from the tray begins shrieking "INTRUDER! INTRUDER! INTRUDER!"

The four turn and charge up the stairs into the top chamber, and with the need for stealth suddenly gone; Kallbrand begins singing, buoying the party's spirits. A thin voice calls "Flee now, intruders, and I will let you live!"

Arriving at the top of the stairs, the group see a caricature of the man in the statue below - scrawny rather than thin, stooped rather than proud, and plunging a syringe of brown soupy liquid into his arm rather than wielding a sword. A small skeleton follows him, bearing a tray of instruments. It drops these and scoops up a rusty scimitar from a nearby counter.

Draelin moves in, taking position halfway around the edge of the room. The necromancer is standing in a depression which must have held the telescope at one time, now converted to an operating theatre. Surrounding the theatre are four tanks filled with a translucent yellow liquid, in which float some large humanoid shapes. On the table in front of him is an owlbear's massive frame, the bones gleaming white, obviously freshly cleaned of flesh; springs, ligaments and cables have been attached to its bones and sharpened steel blades fixed to its claws. Filge shouts "Arise and defend me," but before he can act Kallbrand blows on his panpipes, and a shivering note seems to make the necromancer stumble and hesitate. Sandurel moves to flank Draelin and Lilly faces the monstrous skeleton from atop the ledge, shouting one word - "be gone!" The nearest tank shatters, and a hulking figure bursts out, fleeing from the girl - a bugbear zombie, armoured in rotting leather by the look of it. The small skeleton with the scimitar falls to the floor as the force animating it is sent fleeing. The owlbear is unfazed however, and the three remaining tanks also shatter as the creatures within begin their long trudge to face the party.

Yeah, I decided that Kullen's gang had dragged one owlbear body back to the necromancer. It was he who told them that young owlbears are valuable. I also gave Filge the feats Corpsecrafter and Vicious Claws (attaching blades to the skeleton's claws). If the party hadn't rested for a day they'd have faced an Owlbear zombie, but instead they gave Filge enough time to strip the flesh off it.

Filge retreats to near the owlbear, conjuring a spectral hand, and Lilly looses a bolt of divine energy that knocks him back a step, while Draelin and Sandurel engage the troglodyte zombie that has finally stumbled forward enough to engage them. Kallbrand stays back, shouting instructions while singing and accompanying himself on a small drum hanging from his belt. Filge comes out from cover to send a bolt of black energy at Draelin, who seems staggered by the sudden loss of strength, his armour suddenly weighing him down. Lilly catches Filge again with her energy and he seems fearful, more miserable than before. Sandurel and Draelin make short work of the zombies in front of them in the mean time, with Sandurel's fists exploding in flame to drop the third zombie. The two engage the skeletal owlbear. Again and again the owlbears attacks glance off Draelin's armour, only managing to catch him with its bite. Filge is clearly more worried about the monk darting in with flaming fists, and begins muttering an incantation while facing Sandurel. Lilly had been waiting for this, and energy flashes across the room, sending Filge spinning, but amazingly he manages to keep his concentration and releases the spell. Sandurel's eyes suddenly cloud over and he shouts out "Draelin, I can't see anything!" The dwarf responds helpfully, telling him, "the big guy's still right where you left him," and Sandurel explodes into the owlbear, connecting with a flurry of blows that shatter the monster's shoulder joint and mandible, sending it's bones crashing jarringly to the floor.

Filge realises that he's in trouble, and desperately calls on a swarm of bats, hoping that the distraction may allow him to escape, but ends up cornered by the two melee fighters. "Spare me, I yield! I'll stop the bats!" Draelin hefts his axe, waiting for the necromancer to stop the swarm. The necromancer begins to move toward Draelin, shouting, "Let me by, I need to be closer!" As Draelin hauls back his axe for a mighty swing, Lilly's voice calls out from across the room, "he's telling the truth!" The axe halted, Filge brushes past the dwarf into the midst of the swarm, and a black halo of energy surrounds him, accompanied by the sound of hundreds of lifeless bats raining to the
floor.

Cowering, the necromancer explains everything - how he was hired to find out about the green worm that Smenk stole from the temple under Ragnar's mine, the Ebon Triad's activities, and their hold on Smenk. After promising Lilly that he won't use any animals for guards and that he'll help out an orphanage on his return to the Free City, the party pinch everything they can lift pretty much, from the rug on his bedroom floor to the amulet he wears, leaving him only his operating tools and basic furnishings. The heroic burglars return to Allustan's with their loot, where Velias examines Sandurel and pronounces the blindness treatable - in the morning, after he has prayed to Pelor.

The next morning Velias tends to Sandurel's sight, and the party head out to the Land estate, burying the bodies they have worked so hard to recover. They then travel to the cairn, which now sits empty - the wolves have left for a less traveled den. Pushing the sarcophagus to face the blue lantern once more, the party climbs up to the ledge, passes through the mouth, and faces the ghost of Alastor Land once more. Alastor thanks them for their kindness, and disappears through the wall - and the door at the end of the chamber of iron spheres rumbles upward, revealing a massive cylindrical chamber. A central pillar is joined to a walkway by four bridges, two of which have collapsed over the ages. Around the walkway are animated bas-relief
scenes, showing the start of the battles between Aaqa and the servants of Mishka, culminating with the battle of Pesh, and Icosiol slaying the wolf-spider herself with the Staff of Law.

The party begins heading toward the center column, across one of the stone bridges spanning the deep pit. A column of air in the center of the room swirls more violently as two armoured figures step out. Each floats above the surface of the bridge, holding two long swords at the ready. Lilly acts first, stepping to the fore, and loosing a bolt of energy at the closer of the two figures, overcoming its will with her resolve. "Wind warriors - shock troopers from the armies of Aaqa," she calls out, presuming that this will be helpful to the others. Kallbrand begins a song, to bolster the party's accuracy and deadliness, and Draelin and Sandurel ready themselves for the attack, moving up on the bridge. This leaves Kallbrand isolated however, and the two wind warriors swoop around to flank him. Only one of the warriors lands a blow, but it leaves a cut in the Halfling's mithril chain. He decides to tumble away from them, but takes a hit while doing so, and looks to be in bad shape. Lilly catches the other wind warrior with her energy bolt, causing it too to seem shaken by her power. Draelin and Sandurel both attack the wind warriors, landing a few solid hits, and in response the wind warriors duck away, clanging their swords together to create a vibrating column of air - Draelin and Sandurel are caught in it, feeling the sound tear at their insides and rattle their bones.

Realising that they can't face a foe that can simply stay away and attack with sound, Draelin advises a retreat, and moves back onto the walkway. Kallbrand announces that he'll try to counter their blasts, and begins a complex melody on his flute - it may dull the effects of the blasts, but it's unlikely to prevent it from causing injury.

Sandurel and Lilly stay near the Halfling. Draelin, alone on the walkway, finds himself surrounded as the two wind warriors swoop down around him, but takes only a single cut; retaliating, he sends one staggering with a cut of his hand axe. Lilly charges up behind the closest wind warrior, a long blade of shimmering energy springing from her hands, and lances it into the enemy's shoulder from 10 feet away, and Sandurel smoothly flows into the space between them, landing a vicious blow that finally causes the warrior to collapse, it's armour and sword crumbling to dust. The last warrior tries to drop his Dwarven foe, but fails, and falls to a barrage of axe blows from the enraged dwarf.

Lilly tends to the party's wounds, and they cautiously approach the center of the room. As Draelin and Sandurel step into the column of air they begin to float upward, until they float through a hole in the ceiling about 50 feet above them. Seeing how slowly and calmly the two were lifted, Kallbrand and Lilly follow them. The four end up standing about a sarcophagus identical to that found in the entry hall. An animated mural shows a demonic figure with black horns tipped in red, motioning with a small loop - and a sphere of purest bblack leaps forward, touching the proud Vaati warrior across from him, who disappears in an instant.

As Draelin searches the sarcophagus for traps, a ghostly figure rises out of the sarcophagus, staring the dwarf directly in the eyes. It addresses him in Dwarven, asking only, "what is my name?" Draelin looks to Lilly, and then responds, "Zosiel." A blue light begins to shine through the stone of the sarcophagus, and the lid slowly fades from existence. Inside rest a pair of horns with red tips, a diadem, and a leaded box soldered shut, on which writhe runes in infernal. The secrets of the whispering tomb are uncovered, and perhaps this will aid in battling the darkness that rises.

[Epinephrine]

Session 6: The three faces of evil, in which the adventurers explore a hidden temple coplex dedicated to uniting three gods into a single evil overgod. The group can't seem to remember the words "Ebon Triad" and have variously called it the Black Triangle, the Dark Triangle, and recognizing their inability to get it right, the Evil Threesome. They later toy with calling themselves the Alabaster Tetrad or the Sacred Square, but decide that they don't want to call that much attention to themselves.

DM notes:
I decided that for Smenk to be as powerful as he is, and to control as many mines as he does, he's got to be charismatic. I borrowed heavily from the character of "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Dresden_Files_characters#.22Gentleman. 22_Johnny_Marcone), a mafia don from the Dresden Files (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dresden_Files)books by Jim Butcher (I *highly* recommend these, they're great fun). So the Smenk I played is meticulous, runs his operations well, and rewards those who do a good job. He is well liked by his employees, and gets more out of them as a result. I figure he's a somewhat neutral-lawful evil; he engages in illegal activities when they work for him, but he'll happily use the law to his advantage - his lawful side is more the personal code he lives by, and the organised way he runs his businesses.

As a general change, I gave all enemies maximum hit points. I found that the damage output the group has by this point is just scary; Sandurel is always in Island of Blades stance, which grants flanking if he's beside Draelin; Kallbrand has the marshall aura Master of Tactics up, and is adding his Charisma as a bonus to everyone's damage, and is maintaining (most times) an inspirational boosted/Song of the Heart boosted Inspire Courage. This means that since they are likely flanking, they have +2 to hit from flanking, +3/+3 from Inspire Courage, and +5 damage from Master of Tactics. If Kallbrand uses his spell Tactical Precision, he can add another +2 Insight bonus to hit when flanking and +1d6 damage to all attacks when flanking.

That works out to +7 to hit and +8+1d6 damage on each attack. Kallbrand, who does little but sing in most encounters, may well be dealing more damage than the two melee guys combined (of course, completely dependent on the melee guys as well).

Characters at this point:
Lilly, 17 year old Human Warlock 4//Favoured Soul 4
Draelin, ~50 year old Dwarf Artificer 4//Warblade 4
Sandurel, 25 year old Human Monk 2/Unarmed Swordsage 2//Shadowcaster4
Kallbrand, 30 year old Halfling Marshal 4//Bard 4

The adventure:
The party seeks an audience with Balabar Smenk - who seem pleased to meet them. An urbane, polite man of middle years, he seems at ease with the rapier at his hip and confident in himself. Leading the quartet into his manor, 3 dire apes come bounding into the room with them - stopping at Smenk's raised hand. They shadow the party into a study, where they seem to dote on Smenk, having a child-like attachment to him. He in turn is fond of the apes, ruffling their fur and making certain that they have the finest fruits (which are shared with Draelin). Smenk is an oddity - he has distaste for laws and regulation, but believes in rewarding his employees and in maintaining good relationships. He's reputed to be cold and calculating in business, but clearly is charming with those he likes. After some discussion about the cult, Smenk explains that he would very much like them eliminated - they're a threat to the town, which is a threat to his livelihood - plus they've all but threatened his life already. He offers the group 500gp each if they successfully end the threat from the cult, and wishes them good luck.

Having observed the compound, the party decides to sneak in at night; Draelin cloaks the group in a silence spell, and the party easily climbs the barrier in between patrols. Still silent, they move from building to building until they are into the mine proper. Following the directions provided by Smenk, they find a tunnel that is marked as dangerous, blocked by a wooden barrier. Draelin produces some tools, and begins to carefully dismantle the barrier, and soon the party are through, and stand before a massive elevator. It easily weighs 500 pounds, and a crank in the centre serves to lift the device.

The elevator descends into the darkness, the chain rattling through the slot in the floor and winding around the winch, uncoiling off the other end and exiting through a slot in the roof. Draelin grunts as he bears most of the load of the elevator, tendons standing out on his neck as he wrests the crank about, the ratchet groaning between heaves. After descending for several minutes, the cart comes to rest in a pitch black room. Three guards stand bored, but seeing that the visitors are not cultists, they snap into action, swinging their weapons down and forming a line.

I gave the Tieflings a few fun feats, including Formation Tactics, so they do very well when they can line up. They didn't get much of a chance to, but later they do manage to make a little wall in a corridor, and it was nasty.

Each wears a chain shirt and helmet, with a mask of mail hanging across their lower face, but from underneath the rim of their helmets juts two small horns. The guards' tabards bear the symbol of Hextor, a gauntlet clutching 6 arrows. Lilly is the first to act, a brilliant burst of energy leaping from her outstretched hand, striking one of the guards in the shoulder. One guard yells something in a guttural language and the guard on the right turns and runs, while the other two guards step in, thrusting their halberds at Draelin and Sandurel - Sandurel is hit, and bleeds from a slash to his thigh, while Draelin's armour has repelled the blow.

Sandurel tumbles past the two guards, and disappears around the corner, his footsteps fading in the direction that the guard ran in. Draelin steps up, his axes weaving past the closest tiefling's defences, opening him up with a pair of slashes to the neck. The last guard steps back, ready to attack should anyone approach. Lilly lashes out with her blasts, causing the guard to look panicked, and Draelin smoothly rolls past the enemy's weapon, dropping him with a heavy blow. Draelin calls to Kallbrand, telling him that the time for stealth is over, and the Halfling lights a sun rod and begins singing.

Sandurel has been trying to stop the runner, managing to catch him with a stunning blow, but the tiefling's determination is making it difficult.
This guy just would not drop; he took attacks of opportunity, but Sandurel would miss, or deal minimal damage; Despite managing to stun him and land a full attack on him the guard full withdrew, and managed to get away to warn pretty much everyone.

Despite a barrage of blows from Sandurel, the fleeing guard manages to open a pair of double doors with Hextor's symbol on them and flees into another chamber, from which clanking and ringing sounds emerge. Clad in rusted plate armour with bells welded to it, skeletal warriors come striding to the pair of double doors to defend the temple, while the tiefling hollers in a strange language.

The dog-headed skeletons swing ineffectively at Sandurel, while Draelin moves up to join him on the front line. Confident in her power over the undead, Lilly raises her holy symbol and speaks a few words. Armour crashes ringing to the floor as the skeletons become no more than bone, making way for Draelin and Sandurel to charge into the room. Their enemy has fled into a small room set to the side, and seems to be rallying others to come out. A hurled axe and a blast from Lilly's hands are not sufficient to drop the guard, who emerges with 2 companions, forming a wall of polearms once again. While Draelin and Sandurel work at taking this new threat down, cultists pour out of the room opposite them, behind Lilly and Kallbrand. They manage to surround the pair fairly well, and begin to form up in the hallway, attempting to slow the advancing dwarf and monk. In the end, the three guards and 6 of the 10 cultists fall to the adventurers' axe, fist, blast or shield, but 4 cultists manage to escape and seal doors behind them after having unleashed a huge Dire Boar on the party.

In a quick but somewhat terrifying confrontation, Sandurel and Draelin stand up to the boar. The boar only manages to catch Draelin once with its tusks, but one taste of the razor sharp tusks is more than enough. While the others are loathe to harm an animal, Sandurel shows no mercy, and soon the giant beast collapses under the onslaught. Taking stock of their situation for the first time, the group can hear voices and footsteps from behind the huge double doors at the end of the hallway. The doors are elaborately decorated with Hextor's gauntlet and arrows, and flanked with two everburning torches - it seems to be the entrance to the temple proper.

Comments:
The party is really starting to shine; the gestalt is starting to work for them. Draelin's Artificer side is a little scary; the two melee each have human-bane weapons thanks to Draelin, and I seem to recall a lot of armour buffing. It gets stupid eventually, which is one reason that we later dropped the gestalt. That and the insane flanking combos; Draelin wanted to pick up Tactics of the Wolf to add half his initiator level to everyone's flanking damage.

[Coidzor]

Yeah, that is an impressive amount of flanking shenanigans they were able to get going. It's a pretty good read so far, and I have to agree that the voices aspect seems to be played pretty well.

[Epinephrine]

Yeah, that is an impressive amount of flanking shenanigans they were able to get going. It's a pretty good read so far, and I have to agree that the voices aspect seems to be played pretty well.

Yeah, and it was going to get so much worse - the Warblade gets Int to damage when flanking at higher levels, and with Tactics of the wolf would add half his level to everyone's flanking damage. By level 8 they'd have had:
+7 or so from Master of Tactics,
+4 from Tactics of the Wolf
+1d6 from Tactical Precision (if cast)
+4 from Inspire Courage (on all attacks)
+2 from Marshal Major aura (on all melee, motivate something or other),
+4 for the Warblade (Int to flanking damage)
for +17(or +21)+1d6 damage on every flanking attack.
And with the to-hit bonuses they've got stacked up, they're not missing.

So that had to stop.

On to the 7th session, the fight against the Hextorites. We finished the Hextor temple that night and called it quits, it was a long evening. They had alerted everyone in the Hextor temple at this point.

DM changes, notes
So, I made a few changes. I added a set of stairs to the upper level of the temple's combat arena, but had it on pulleys so that it could be lowered and raised, for two reasons:
a) The idea that you have to knock over the statue to get up there was ludicrous, and
b) Many of these guys WANT to be in melee. Being stuck on a balcony sucks for them.

I made the altar portable from the priest's area, so the zombies that arrived to reinforce them have brought the altar with them - I didn't want them just ignored. They'll carry it forward and set it down to fight, bringing a portable desecrate with them.

What else - I made the half-orc priest a gestalt Marshal, boosting the effectiveness of the remaining troops, and gave him a commander aura as well. The female priest gained a level of sorcerer, so she could use the Wand of Enlarge Person under her bed. I mean, it's silly to have it there otherwise.

I also changed up the spell selection like crazy, the biggest change being Mass Aid on Theldrick's part. I decided that they really want to alert the other temples, but that there was no system in place - so they'd need to get runners out. Once the party moved by the side door in the hallway, the remaining cultists (2, I think?) will break out and make a run for the other temples, forcing the party to split their attention. If they're stuck in the arena they're screwed, since the runners will no doubt return with piles of grimlocks and kenku.

Test runs had the party pretty much slaughtered, if they played badly. This is deadly - if they open the doors and run in, Theldrick uses a lever to slam the doors shut behind them, and then conjures while the melee move in on the trapped party. The 2 cultists have an easy time alerting the other temples, and the party has to bust free and get up the elevator shaft or something - no way can they take on the combined forces of the other 2 temples.

The Party:
Draelin and Sandurel hammer the doors to the temple down with a couple of well placed blows, Sandurel's kick shatters the weakened bar, leaving both doors to swing open wildly.

So, no slamming the doors shut behind them. That's good! But Theldrick will think fast, run up along the balcony and summon something big to block the exit - maybe a huge fiendish centipede.

Facing them, across a sandy floored combat arena, are a quartet of Tiefling archers on stairs rising to a balcony; three troglodyte zombies, one of whom is carrying an altar; a pair of the cultists with long spears; Theldrick, an older man in plate armour, missing one eye, with a long scar across his face; a 12 foot tall half-orc in half-plate armour, carrying a heavy flail as long as Draelin is tall, and beside him a human woman in half-plate, scarred from years of battle. The room is clearly an arena, and a statue representing Hextor rises in six-armed splendour from a plinth in the centre of the floor. A viewing box and balcony suggests that the fights are watched from above, and the pattern of blood splatter on the sand and a few walls suggests that a very large foe has hurled bloody and broken bodies with great force. Lilly feels her gorge rise as she interprets the patterns - they sacrificed people to their god here, by having them face the great boar in combat, while they watched gleefully from the safety of the balcony.

Pushing into the room, the party realises that they will be overwhelmed, and as the high priest circles around on the balcony they retreat back to the safety of the hallway - the female cleric growing to a stature matching the brutish half-orc. Some casualties have already been accomplished, as Sandurel conjures flickering black flames under the feet of the two acolytes, a zombie and one of the cultists and the cultist slumps into the floor, patches of frostbite forming on his skin as his body stiffens. The high priest calls on his god to lend his followers stamina for the battle, and Garras, the gigantic half-orc, blesses them in Hextor's name that they might strike their foes with surety and prevail in this battle. Kallbrand recognises the way that Garras is shouting orders, and warns the others that Garras is a marshal - as Garras presumably does in return, but his troops can't close with the diminutive Halfling, who stays at the rear throughout the encounter.

Having pulled back into the hallway, the group intercept the remaining two cultists who were trying to sneak back out to sound an alarm, dropping them before they can flee.

Well done - the party decided to pull into tighter quarters to prevent being surrounded, and did so just as the cultists were coming out (having heard the doors smashed in and the party charging into the room) - no alerting the other temples!

Holding a strong position in the tunnel entrance, they slowly grind away at their foes, suffering only minor injuries - Theldrick shouts in a guttural language almost painful to the ears, and two of the Tielflings flee up the stairs and disappear through a doorway.
They are going to try to pop out that door and pressure the party's back line, it takes them 6 rounds to get there though

The Enlarge Person spells the priests used are actually working against them - they can't as effectively get at the party who have pulled into the hallway. While it'd be great if the party were trapped in the arena (making for huge trip rolls, for example, and providing reach advantage with their flails). they do cast their Spiritual Weapons, as does Theldrick, and these are swinging away at the group.

Eventually, having slain the zombies and driven away Garras (who is tended to by the female acolyte), the remaining two Tieflings move into position and Theldrick gets the chance to attempt some casting - but is forced to take shelter from Lilly's celestial bolts. Lilly has been taking readied actions to interrupt the priest.

Once Lilly is occupied with other tasks, Theldrick attempts a summoning, and despite taking a hit from the warlock's eldritch energies he manages to complete the casting, summoning a giant fiendish ape to block the hallway *behind* the party. Fortune shines on Kallbrand, as all three of the ape's attacks miss him, and he manages to tumble past Lilly to end up back-to-back with Draelin, who still holds the front of the tunnel. Lilly moves to join him, and the group are now surrounded, with a fiery eyed gorilla behind them and the acolytes and fierce Tiefling warriors to their fore.

The battering of the ghostly weapons that the priests had summoned finally ends, though, relieving Sandurel and Lilly of some pressure.

The two Tieflings who had been ordered away earlier emerge behind the ape, having flanked the party through the passages of the temple. Realizing their compromised position, the party surges forward back into the main arena, making room for their less protected comrades to escape the simian's rending claws.

Garras falls to a blow from Draelin's axe, while Lily drops one of the remaining Tieflings with a bolt of energy. Draelin bears a blow from the female acolyte, who has managed to flank him. With Theldrick now in the fight things are beginning to look bad for the beleaguered group - they have managed to drop the Ape before it caused too much damage, but flanked by the Tiefling halberdiers from the rear and a warblade and priestess at the front they are reaching the end of their stamina. Having previous dropped the female acolyte, Sandurel smoothly steps past Draelin to stun the high priest with a flurry of blows - and shortly after Theldrick recovers, Draelin surprises him with an upward cut of his Dwarven axe, slipping under the priest's shield and dropping him to the floor. Theldrick is bleeding heavily from the gap in his armour, the Dwarven axe having bitten deeply into his chest, nearly severing the arm from underneath. Sandurel has been badly wounded in the exchange however, and Lilly steps up, healing him before yet another blow from a halberd connects, likely sparing his life.

Draelin rushes to try to drop the last two Tieflings, but stumbles into the path of one of their swings and takes a nasty blow to his leg, dropping unconscious to the floor and bleeding heavily from his thigh.
(critical hit AoO!)

Kallbrand manages to raise him to consciousness with a quick heal, but as he is still vulnerable the Dwarf must lie there, hoping that he can avoid being a target.

Sandurel advances on the remaining enemies who withdraw to attack him. This grants the Dwarf space to stand again, and with a touch from Lilly his pallor melts away while his wounds close even further. A furious assault by the two melee fighters finally dispatches the two Tieflings, but not before they manage to score a couple more hits on Sandurel, who is once again having difficulty standing due to his wounds.

The two tieflings had gotten past the party into the same narrow hallway the party had used, and readied actions to attack. This made quite the nasty setup, and surprisingly they nearly drop the two meleers by readying actions, and attacks of opportunity, retreating down the hall slowly. They did eventually drop, though they almost managed to get far enough back to full withdraw and make a break for the other temples.

While Lilly tends to their wounds, Kallbrand begins collecting some of the items from the fallen, and soon he and Sandurel head to bar the double doors to the elevator area (in case of more enemies). Draelin settles to identify some items as his wounds slowly heal, and Lilly begins deciphering the scrolls carried by the priests. A couple of minutes later, having fully healed, the party sweeps quickly through the temple - it's a compact affair, with a few spartan bed chambers, a prayer room, a kitchen and pantry. They find nobody waiting to sneak out, nor does Lilly sense any magical auras that could be hiding anyone - though they do recover another potion and several objects of value from a chest under a bed, and Lilly grabs a scroll and a book from the high priest's room - the book is a journal, and may provide clues as to the cult's activities, while the blank scroll radiates a weak universal magic aura, and she suspects it will have hidden writing of some sort. The quick search doesn't reveal any traps or secret passages, though a loose flagstone had hidden a few treasures, and Draelin settles back down to enchanting gear while the others finish identifying the potions that they have collected and sort the gear they've stripped off the bodies into piles - well made weaponry in one, cheap gear from the cultists in another - taking stock of the treasure from the temple, and determining what might help them prevail against the foes they will be facing shortly.

So, no deaths - Sandurel dropped to 1 HP once and to 3 HP another time, Draelin was dropped to -7 by a crit on an AoO, and they barely stopped the last two Tieflings from making it down the hallway. Pretty close call, and it cost them some of their resources, since the Dispel Magic that Theldrick got off dropped the enchantments off Draelin's gear and dropped Sandurel's mage-armour type spell. Luckily, they each have some more buffs, so they re-apply them.

[Epinephrine]

Placeholder, will enter a post here shortly (tonight) - we had a baby, which has slowed down gaming/entering long forum posts, but from what I can tell it isn't thread necromancy (yet!!).

[Tam_OConnor]

Man, I don't know what it is about the Age of Worms and real life stuff. It is cursed, I say! CURSED! But yeah, looking forward to the update, and contributing a spell slot to the circle magic necromancy.

[Epinephrine]

Sessions 8 and 9; the temple of Erythnul.

Characters are up to 5th level partway through this, and knowing how deadly it is, I let them level.
The party was thus:

Draelin, Warblade 5//Artificer 5
Lilly, Warlock 5//Favoured Soul 5
Sandurel, Shadowcaster 5//Monk 2/Unarmed Swordsage 3
Kallbrand, Bard 5//Marshal 5

I bumped the difficulty a bit, boosting a few foes with extra levels, giving a couple of combat maneuvers to the grimlock in the tunnel, and maxing the hit points of all the foes.


Returning to the large chamber with the elevator, they notice for the first time (as they aren't chasing fleeing tieflings) a dark pool of water in a domed chamber at the far end of this room.

They avoid the strange pool of water, and inspect the other two doors. As expected, one bears the hand and eye of Vecna, while the other is a rough, unmarked stone door. Draelin has no desire to face a group of mages while his less robust enchantments are active, and the group enter the unmarked door to face what they hope will be the worshippers of Erythnul.

This passage is dark and rough-hewn, a newer bit of construction than the main hallway. Indeed, scree remains in some areas, as well as the occasional large boulder that was apparently easier to simply ignore rather than shift. The passage descends deeper, via crudely formed stairs, and begins to look more like a natural passage, opening into a cave complete with stalactites and stalagmites. The air is somewhat humid, and moisture glistens on the surfaces of the cool stone spires. As Draelin leads the way into the chamber three large forms emerge from behind the stalagmites, hurling stone-tipped javelins at the Dwarf. The enemy's aim is good, but the Dwarf's thick armour protects him from the assault, the tips of the missiles shattering against his full plate.

Despite the surprise round, the grimlocks fall quickly to the party, who continue to explore more deeply.

Moving quickly, the party hustles through another thin passage to a chamber that ends abruptly at a cliff; stalactites hang from the ceiling, merging with the floor to form pillars in some areas, and out past the edge of the cliff is a veritable curtain of stone, a forest of stalactites. As they move into the chamber another Grimlock appears, and he calls out in a different guttural tongue. As he hurls his javelin, two cat-like creatures emerge from behind a pillar and begin yowling - and as they do so their faces peel back, revealing bone and muscle in a gory display. The display visibly affects only Draelin, who seems poised for flight, but Kallbrand switches songs and the new mocking melody eases the magical fear, allowing the dwarf to compose himself rather than flee. Again, they easily dispatch the attackers, the grimlock trying to escape by climbing down the cliff face, and falling to his death when Lilly fires an eldritch bolt at him.

Not wasting any time, Draelin ties a rope to a stalagmite, and begins rappelling down the cliff's face, but no more than 20 feet down the cliff he is struck by two clay pots, and finds himself stuck in place with some kind of tarry substance. "Ambush!"

On a ledge across from the cliff face a curtain of grey cloth has been dropped, revealing a pair of Grimlock archers, who now take aim at the trapped Dwarf. A pair of shafts are loosed, and one finds its mark - not a deep wound, but Draelin starts to feel sluggish as some form of venom on the arrow begins to flow through his veins.

I added a curtain that could be raised or lowered to hide the archers. They can "see" through it with their blindsight.

Sandurel slides down the first 10 feet of rope and drops to the floor of the cave, landing beside the Grimlock corpse, then Lilly climbs down the rope just far enough to take aim at the enemies on the ledge, catching one with a bolt of light. More arrows clatter against the stone wall while Draelin attempts to free himself, he finally manages to cut the last of the tar away and hurls a hand axe at the more exposed enemy. Lilly fires again, and climbs back up to the top of the ledge, while Sandurel also fires a blast of dark energy at the enemy. Draelin's second axe takes the Grimlock in the shoulder, dropping it bleeding to the ledge. Kallbrand descends the rope, and gestures at the ledge, and sound fills the chamber - crashing cymbals, smashing glass, screams and whistles - and the remaining Grimlock seems flustered, unable to locate targets clearly through the cacophony.

A good knowledge check, I figured I'd share the info about loud sounds blinding them.

Sandurel uses his shadowcasting to lift the rope through the hole on the ledge, and to guide it back toward his allies. A sound of gravel sliding and skin rubbing on rock alerts Sandurel to a new enemy's arrival. A tentacled beast with a huge gaping maw emerges from under the lip of the rock lashing out at the monk with rubbery suckers, but Sandurel's agility pays off and the behemoth grabs nothing but air. Sandurel dances about the enemy, while still concentrating on bringing the rope across to his comrades, and Lilly aids him by pelting the beast with energy, causing it to shrink back in fear. As Sandurel tumbles past its reaching limbs, Lilly smites it once again, and having had a taste of Lilly's anger the otyugh grabs the fallen Grimlock as a tasty reward for its bravery and slinks back under the rocks to consume its prize in safety.

Draelin has finally managed to grab the rope, and swings down to a small tunnel on the opposite wall. He motions to Kallbrand and Lilly to join him, and they climb down the rope, the Halfling's spell ending just before they reach safety. Knowing that the Grimlock will cut the rope, Draelin quickly plucks the two climbers to safety. Sandurel tries to climb the wall, but pestered with arrows from above he can't manage to make his way up the rocky surface, eventually moving to wait under the ledge, to avoid further attacks.

Kallbrand notices a figure in the dark, lazily spinning two nasty looking stone blades, and asks if Draelin wouldn't mind switching spots with him. A husky voice calls in undercommon, "Come Dwarf, and bleed for me," and a yellowed smile cracks the darkness. Kallbrand and Draelin change spots, and the dwarf is ready for the Grimlock's attack, but his foe is more agile than he suspected, and his hand axe misses his foe by a handbreadth. As the Draelin and the Grimlock exchange blows, the Grimlock smiles, and compliments the dwarf on his skill with his blades. The Dwarf is suffering from several cuts already, and when Kallbrand asks if he needs healing he snaps, "No, make some noise!". Kallbrand fumbles for some bells from his pouch, and shaking them the tiny tunnel is flooded once again with sound, clearly putting the hulking Grimlock at a disadvantage. Lilly manages to aim a bolt past the dwarf, shaking the Grimlock, who snarls, "Your allies have no honour!" and swings at Draelin, who manages to avoid two of the cuts in the dark. "I know," he comments,” they just won't let me fight without helping." Soon after, the Grimlock succumbs to the wounds Draelin has managed to inflict, and as she dies she smiles at the dwarf. "You fought well. May your foes be slaughtered," she whispers, and her laboured breathing is stilled. Sorely wounded, Draelin returns to help haul Sandurel up from the cave floor, and the monk uses the assistance to gain the ledge above, finishing off the last of the Grimlocks, and the party catch their breath in the calm after the storm.

Following the battle with the female grimlock barbarian, Draelin helps Sandurel up to the tunnel and the party rests briefly. Far too soon a voice calls out to them in the grimlock's harsh tongue, and rather than risk an alert Sandurel and Draelin decide to rush the waiting enemy. The three grimlocks stand across from the party on a small ledge, a rope bridge stretching across a cavern from which rending sounds rise - the otyugh is having a snack. Sandurel seems to meld into the shadow until he has vanished, reappearing behind the surprised grimlocks, while Draelin rushes across the bridge. As the Dwarf nears the far edge he slips, nearly falling, but Lilly cries out and ghostly wings shimmer into existence briefly, stabilising him enough to regain his footing, before fading away. The fight is short and bloody, the three grimlocks no match for the two experienced warriors.

From this ledge, a long tunnel extends upward, disappearing into the rock. Kallbrand stays a good distance back so as not to alert the enemy by his singing, and they begin the long climb. After rising about 150 feet the tunnel opens up into a chamber with a rocky floor, rising in several cliff-like ledges - atop the nearest, a pair of grimlocks wrestle, oblivious to the group's presence. Sandurel and Draelin go to work once more, the monk disappearing into shadows to once again appear behind his opponents, while the dwarf clambers up the steep slope to face the eyeless foes. As the second of the grimlocks falls he shouts out, and the sounds in the chamber seem to change - before the sound of carousing and rough play came from a side chamber, but now the sound is of warriors girding themselves for battle - additionally, Sandurel calls out that he has heard what sounds like a chest being thrown open from the opening to the right. Correctly guessing that this is the leader's chamber, the group quickly spring into action, climbing the cliffs to the leader's abode.

Arriving at the top of the ledge, they see a huge grimlock hefting a dwarven-made long axe. He turns from the chest he was rummaging in and advances on the party, swinging his axe at Draelin, who has taken the lead once again. Surprised by the reach that the long axe provides, Draelin takes a nasty blow to the shoulder - his armour has stopped the blade, but the muscles underneath are already swelling from the force of the hit, and he has no desire to test his armour again. Sandurel moves to support the Dwarf's attack, but the pair realise that this foe is too canny, and can't be caught off guard by Sandurel's monastic fighting style

Improved Uncanny Dodge... I boosted a few enemies to make them tougher

While the melee rages on, the grimlocks have arrived from the side chamber, and rush to try to support their chieftain. Lilly and Kallbrand try to stop them, and succeed in holding their ground, but Kallbrand's stature proves his downfall when one of the beasts shoulders by him, sending him sprawling. Prone, he can do little else but sing, hoping that it will be enough. A bit of poor timing when the group try to switch position results in Kallbrand taking a trio of blows from the grimlock's stone clubs, and when Lilly drags him to safety another pair of hits render him unconscious. The battle is already turning though - the chieftain has fallen while Lilly and Kallbrand held off the guards, and now that they face the monk and the warblade rather than the party's support casters the Grimlocks fall quickly. The last of the enemy tries to flee, but trips as he comes off the last slope, and as he rises he finds himself flanked, the Dwarf and monk having leapt down to land beside him.

But for the continued chanting from the last passage, the foes have fallen silent. While Kallbrand sings, Lilly tends to the injured, and a few minutes later they are ready to face the last of the grimlocks. As they enter the huge cavern, the shaman drops a maimed eyeball into a cauldron, and faces the party. While most grimlocks have only empty eye sockets, this one stares straight ahead, a pair of sightless orbs stitched into his leering visage. "You are too late! The ebon overgod stirs even now. May his worms feast on your souls." Three grimlocks with long spears stand ready at the edge of the cliff, making the prospect of climbing up dangerous indeed.

Sandurel slides into the shadows, appearing on top of the small cliff, beside the shaman. The smell of the cauldron is nauseating, three hands float in a dark broth, surrounded by a matching trio of eyeballs. Staring in disgust at the cauldron, Sandurel misses his chance to stop the shaman from backing off, and ends up flanked by the three spearmen, taking a dangerously deep wound from one of the spears. Lilly had been poised to interrupt the shaman's attempts to cast, but spooked by Sandurel's sudden appearance the shaman has retreated back the ledge, and can no longer be targeted. He casts his first spell, which Lily identifies as a circle against good, and calls his guards to protect him. The cliff edge is now unguarded however, and Draelin and the others easily climb the cliff. While Sandurel and Draelin attempt to down the shaman, the guards deliver their attacks on the pair, and Lilly manages to shut down the shaman's spells with blast after blast of energy - including shattering his concentration when he attempted to dispel the magical protections that the party are relying on. Frustrated and wounded, the shaman calls for his guards to "Grab the girl!"

Free of interference, he manages to heal himself, and the fight begins to shift. Initially the guards had been missing often, Kallbrand's ghost sound serving as a continual distraction. Now Lilly has been grappled, and can no longer interfere with the shaman's spells, and the sounds subside.

As Sandurel moves to rescue Lilly, he steps in the way of a vicious thrust from one of the grimlock guards, dropping to the stone floor. Draelin must also break away from the caster, who now casts a sanctuary spell, to ward off further attacks. Soon the party has Sandurel back on his feet, but the situation is still dire. Draelin turns on the second last of the guards, dropping him with a blow of his Dwarven axe, and with the momentum left to him, he spins, slashing at the shaman. For once luck is on the party's side, and the shaman steps right into the cut and falls to the floor, dead before he hits. The last Grimlock is no match for the party, and they swiftly dispatch him, earning a chance to rest.

As Lilly tends to their wounds they begin gathering the spoils of their battle - and Sandurel notices that the shaman's left eye is shrivelling, wrinkling and darkening to resemble a blood-red prune. A small tremor shakes the chamber.

[Gwynfrid]

A very nice journal and a great read. The same applies to Tam OConnor's, too. Comparing the two, with their widely different play styles, is all the more interesting.

I hope I'll be able to run Age of Worms one day (that might be in a long, long time; our group is involved in a long campaign and we can't play nearly as often as you guys). So, I'm noting with great interest your views of what works, what's too weak or too strong for the PCs, and especially what changes you bring in.

And even if I never get to run the campaign, reading both of your stories is greatly enjoyable on its own. Thanks !

[Epinephrine]

Thanks, glad you're enjoying them. I actually only started because of how much I loved reading Tam's posts about his campaign - and after we finish off any section I regale the group with how "the other party" handled things - it's quite funny to see the huge differences. They love hearing about Tam's group, too!

On to the temple of Vecna...

At this point, all characters are 5th level;
Recapping:
Draelin, Dwarven Warblade 5//Artificer5
Lilly, Favoured Soul 5//Warlock 5
Sandurel, Shadowcaster 5//Monk 2/Unarmed swordsage 3
Kallbrand, Halfling Bard 5//Marshal 5

Having been through 2 temples aready, they are running really low on resources - I've levelled them in session, and since they all cast spontaneously, they do have access to the new spell slots, but it isn't much.

----------------
One change that may be needed is to separate the three temples. As they are written, the three temples are joined, and under a mine. This forces the party to do quite an endurance run, since they can't just go to sleep. If they don't finish up in one go, things will doubtless be harder for them, assuming that they don't subsequently get murdered in their sleep by vengeful followers. I didn't bother separating the temples, as the party is pretty solid - a warlock never runs out of blasts and invocations, the warblade and swordsage recharge maneuvers. Healing is a concern, but they find enough healing potions to patch themselves up, so they aren't actually hurting as badly as most parties would be.

Specific to the temple of Vecna, I'd suggest changing the labyrinth to a misty demi-plane, as Tam has done. Running the labyrinth was simply frustrating for the players, and took all night pretty much. We could have done the following in a session without the delay of the labyrinth.

----------------
Changes to the encounters:
I hadn't read the changes done by Tam, so I kept the labyrinth as it is. For those who don't know it, there is a labyrinth filled with kenku (mostly 1st level rogues), and doors that can be opened as a free action by worshippers of Vecna. I decided that it was too hard to get surprise as it is, so the doors are also ghostly transparent to the kenku and other Vecna worshippers. I limited them to one free action opening or closing of a door each round, and each door can only be opened or closed; otherwise, readied actions make it a pain, as the kenku would pop a door open, fire away, then close it.

I decided that since the party were tougher (gestalt) and had really solid ACs, the kenku were all warlocks (pretty much, a couple of leaders weren't), and that it makes sense for warlocks to be worshippers of Vecna. The Kenku all have the darkvision/see invisible invocation, so that they need no lights, and as Warlock2/Rogue 1 have a nasty sneak attack with a ranged touch. After all, none of them could really have hit the party ACs otherwise. I also gave them caltrops and a set of jumping caltrops, which would be great fun. Kenku as good at flanking, but the labyrinth doesn't actually set that up well at all, so hitting from a range with eldritch blasts is likely better.

One kenku leader became a Scout with spring attack, to annoy the party, and I put three traps in the labyrinth, all with bypass buttons. The area on each side of every trap was marked with scents to warn the Dire Weasels that patrol in here away from them. One strategy I wanted to employ was to lead the party into the traps (a pit, a blade, and a razorwire trap), another was to try to separate the party and use the kenku's mimic ability to further confuse them.

For the big enemy, I made the Faceless One a gestalt Hexblade 6/Sorcerer 6, and gave him some conjuration boosting abilities (Conjuration focus, augment summons), as well as the spell baleful transposition, which he would use to bring a weak party member into his summoned creatures, then trying to dispatch others with his swordplay/spells. All in all, it sounded pretty nasty

The Allip has a nasty effect, but since you're immune to it for 24 hours after being exposed, I figure the kenku are forced to endure it every morning, making them resistant for the rest of the day. This has driven them a little crazy...

Preparation:
Knowing that Vecna is a god of magic, Draelin uses his last couple of buffs on himself and Lilly - Lilly, as she's the healer, and Draelin, because he wants to live... Now, I was not that familiar with artificers, so this came as a surprise - he granted both he and Lilly SR 19 with an infusion. This, after I had stuck warlocks all over the place. SR 19? At this level? The warlocks would need to hit the touch AC (not too hard, mostly) but then roll a 17 or higher to have a chance to hurt them! This was not looking good.

The adventure:

The labyrinth was a nightmare - walls that shift, hidden traps, and the bird-men popping out to fire bolts of energy at the group. If it weren't for the magical protection that Draelin had placed on Lilly's armour she may well have fallen to the cunning foes, but the eldritch energy dissipated away every time she would have been struck. Despite being well prepared to face these foes, Kallbrand was surprised by one of the dire weasels that patrol the labyrinth, and very nearly died as the beast latched onto him and dragged him to the ground. With the arrival of the Allip the kenku seemed to rally, and poured at the party to dispatch them - a strategy that may have worked in the past, but not against the heroes. Steeled against the Allip's wails, the party fought through and dispatched the guardians of the temple.

So, the warblade nearly ran into a trap following the scout, but since it was dark and there were shifting walls, he declared that he was using his stance that grants him Scent. I figured I had to tell him that there was an acrid odour as he rounded the corner - it's strong enough to warn off the dire weasels, after all. He spends a round looking for it, as the scout is gone around a corner up ahead, and decides to rejoin his group when he finds that the walls have been sprayed with something like lye, down low.

The ferret managed to grapple the halfling, and between Con damage and the bites had him at -6 HP when they killed the weasel. The Allip actually managed some wisdom damage to Lilly, but they dropped it pretty quickly

Draelin led the group carefully through the labyrinth, tapping on walls and inspecting the floor, until at last he found a door that led to the hidden temple of Vecna. Once inside, the group were unnerved by the strange bulges on the walls, and the pillars of dark stone that were wreathed with green energy. Sandurel heard whispered voices ahead, and leads the charge into another room, with pillars that bulged with shifting forms. At the far end of the room, a pair of mages stood, ready for the party's arrival. One weaves his hands in a complex pattern, and colours spray forth, stunning the monk before he can reach his target. Draelin charges past, and the other sorcerer tries to bind Draelin's weapon with necromantic energies (a Backbiter spell)- but fails, as Lily hurls a bolt of energy at him, disrupting his spell and sending him lurching back. The sound of chanting arises from a doorway, but the reinforcements have arrived too late - the first two sorcerers have fallen to the monk and warrior. A sorcerer in a mask can be seen now down the narrow hall, and he retreats back past a hairy arm, out of sight. Pursuing their foe, the group finds themselves faced with a fiendish gorilla, and the mighty beast catches Draelin with a paw as the dwarf tries to tumble past. Joined by Sandurel, the two quickly drop their foe, but the Faceless One has managed to complete another summoning, and when his ray of fire dissipates harmlessly around the armoured dwarf he decides to retreat to his laboratory.

So, the SR eats the Backbiter and the Scorching Ray. The acolytes went down too fast for the faceless one to get off more than one summon, so he's retreated into a small room, around the corner. He's got a Huge Fienndish Centipede blocking the entry, so anyone who chases after him will be in trouble, and he can go out the other door.

Pursuing his foe, Draelin rounds the corner to come face-to-mandible with a 20 foot long centipede; thinking quickly, he rolls back out of the way as the insect lunges at him. "Go around, head him off," he yells to Sandurel in Undercommon, and the monk heads off to ensure that the mage can't escape. With a host of illusionary duplicates, the Faceless one steps back into the small hallway and casts a spell of transposition, switching places with Lilly, and runs for the labyrinth.

Yay! He beat SR! This land Lilly right in front of a Huge centipede, while the Faceless One tries to get away.

Sandurel is in position to stop him however, and the Faceless one becomes caught up in melee before he can make his escape. Lilly is fortunate enough to evade the huge centipede twice, and runs back to support the rest of the party. The Faceless One decides to make use of the narrow hallway and doorway to prevent the warrior and monk from working together to defeat him, and makes a stand in the small hall. Little did he know that he isn't the only one capable of teleportation - Draelin readies his axe and calls out to Sandurel "'port to flank him," and the monk vanishes into shadows, emerging to threaten the foe from behind. Draelin manages to connect with an axe, and Lilly catches him with a shining bolt of energy.

The Faceless One glares at the party and yells "Vecna take you!" With these words, he swings his sword, taking off his left hand and falling lifeless to the floor. The hand vanishes, and the floor trembles, as if an earthquake has struck. Quickly grabbing some of the obvious valuables, the four heroes run back through the labyrinth to the entry chamber.

Opening the door to the entry hall, the crashing sounds are nearly deafening, and their source is apparent. A 15 foot tall beast is tearing the elevator chain into small lengths; hundreds of feet of chain coil around the creature's feet, amid the ruins of the elevator car and the rubble of smashed pillars. The huge foe has six beast-like arms, three of them ending in clawed hands, the remainder only stumps. Its mouth gapes open in a horrific smile, full of needle-like teeth. Though one side of its face is a flat sheet with an empty socket for an eye, the other eye gleams red in the dim light. Seeing foes that may suffer more than the chain has, it tosses its metallic victim to the side and advances a step, clearing out a pillar or two as it crashes forward.

Draelin charges in, connecting with his battle axe, and taking a glancing blow from one of the beast's clawed hands. Rather than risk being opened up by one of the enemy's flailing arms, Sandurel vanishes into the shadows, reappearing behind the foe. Lilly lets loose with a blast of eldritch energy, and the fight is on. The Ebon aspect is a fierce foe, attacking savagely with its many limbs - but the party's teamwork is simply too great an advantage. The spiritual flail the beast summoned fails against Draelin's enchantments; Lilly's holy might soon has even this mighty opponent shaken, and with Sandurel and Draelin flanking it Kallbrand's tactical knowledge is put to good use, the pair's blows staggering the huge brute. The fight isn't one sided, though - Draelin takes slash after slash from the enemy's paws, and only with Lilly's healing can he continue the fight. Finally, after a nightmarish combat Draelin sees an opening and his trusty hand axe spins in under the avatar's guard, spilling it's lifeblood from an opened artery. With a surprised look the great beast collapses to the floor, and silence falls.

What worked and didn't work:
The Faceless One's was indeed tough - if he'd had another couple of rounds he would have been really nasty, and if the centipede hadn't rolled horribly it could have been very bad for the party.

Sandurel's ability to Shadow Jaunt (standard action 50' teleport) was instrumental many times in this module. It allowed him to flank for Draelin numerous times, Draelin would delay his action for after Sandurel appeared behind a foe.

The SR 19 from an infusion is ridiculously overpowered at low levels. By the time one can afford it normally it's actually rather weak; I don't know that I like that ability. Likewise, being able to get XXXXX-bane weapons easily is a lot of power. I wasn't sorry at all when we switched to single class and the artificer side was dropped.

The labyrinth was a pain to run. I had to have a second copy on which I marked positions, and I had to remove all the non-visible kenku from the map. It was slow, and what could in theory have been fun was instead a chore.

All in all the second module was good - it certainly had tension, and you want a strong party with a lot of endurance. I'd suggest dropping a wand of CLW in the treasure early on, if you plan on running it with the three temples attached.

[Tam_OConnor]

Shiny! Another update- *reads* Silly artificers, with their potent infusions. I thought you said something about being further ahead in the sessions than you are in the journal? What adventure are y'all up to, if I'm not crazy and misremembering? Because I'm about to playtest #10, and it is crazy...

[Epinephrine]

Yeah, those artificers are potent. Fortunately, we switched from Gestalt to single class soon after this, and the party become a warblade, a monk, a bard, and an eldritch disciple, which is much more managable.

As for where we are, we're wrapping up #5 IRL, and here I'm only up to the end of #2 :) They'll tackle the Ulgurstasta this session I imagine; I left a note in your campaign actually to ask for advice, as I'm unsure as to what the mover and shaker behind the plot of #5 would do at this point.

I'm also looking for ways to make the enounter at the beginning of #6 a little more interesting, as I don't like the feats they chose for Ilthane the Black, nor the way they recommend that combat proceed. It's their first time encountering anything like her, and it should be memorable!
I'm thinking of giving her an eversmoking bottle, digging some trenches around the cairn filled with corrupted water, giving her the blind fight feat, and having her engage them that way. That or using a Fog Cloud to hide the terrain - either way, she gets to see what she's doing much better than they do.

[Tam_OConnor]

Hi again. I responded to the question about big, bad and ugly in my thread, and figured I'd respond to the other question here.

Spoilers for #6; forbear until y'all get there, please
Oh, Ilthane the Black (Or the Pitch, as I called her). She's just in the wrong place in the adventure, in my opinion. I'd have her hit the PCs as they leave the Cairn, not as they enter. I mean, Dragon. She knows they messed up her plans for the Twisted Branch, she knows they're allies of Allustan, she knows Allustan is hiding in the cairn. Conclusion: wait for PCs to enter cairn and bring Allustan out, then strike when they're stumbling out. Besides, epic fight to end the session.

I love the breastworks, eversmoking bottle, all that; I might have to steal it for when my PCs leave the crypt (not that they'll have any connection to Ilthane; there are downsides to TPKs). But since they'll be a few levels higher after they clean out the vault, I'd consider giving Ilthane a level or two of sorcerer (depends on how extreme you make the trenches and whatnot; the playtest group was semi-aerial at that point). If you've got the Draconomicon, I wouldn't shy away from giving her [metabreath] feats as well (Clinging Breath springs to mind). If you've got Dragon #296, I'd recommend the Dragon Mystic prestige class. I'll re-stat her myself once I've got access to my books again, and post it here, if you'd like. Middle of next week, probably.

But yeah, Ilthane definitely gets the short end of stick in the Path. If she's getting utterly trashed, I'd even recommend she retreat. The PCs could hunt her down immediately, or she might pop up in #8 (though that would change events to an extent).

Oh, and I'm curious: how'd Lilly do against the Ebon Aspect's SR and blessing of Vecna? Oh, and how was the Fury of Erythnul? I had to spend it on Elden's mount so it didn't kill a PC.

Hope you don't mind if I advertise our Journals in my sig?

[Epinephrine]

Awesome, I look forward to seeing your rejigging.

I hadn't considered her allowing the characters in, figuring that she'd rather not face them with Allustan as additional support. I can see how she might want to do that, though, as she wants them all.


Oh, and I'm curious: how'd Lilly do against the Ebon Aspect's SR and blessing of Vecna? Oh, and how was the Fury of Erythnul? I had to spend it on Elden's mount so it didn't kill a PC.

Lilly fired off maybe 2 bolts during the fight - she didn't actually net much damage, since she healed it with one of them. Her contribution was that the aspect failed his save against fear, and was Shaken by the blast. She fell into a healing role instead, just patching up Draelin and Sandurel pretty much constantly. Kallbrand stayed back at the doorway to Vecna's temple, singing.

At this point the party was at nearly its most absurd. Sandurel has Island of Blades, so he and Draelin flank everything they fight (+2 to hit), Kallbrand sings and casts (Song of the Heart, Inspirational Boost, Inspire Courage, Master of Tactics, Tactical precision, Motivate Attack), addding +6 to hit (+3 morale, +2 insight, +1 circumstance) and +8+1d6 to damage (+3 morale, +5 circumstance, +1d6 from Tactical Precision), so they're getting a rather massive bonus to hit and damage. I forget if Draelin was full power attacking, but he can ditch his whole BAB and reduce the to-hit bonus from a total of +8 to a mere +3.

The ebon aspect was effective, but the dwarf has a really solid HP (and he's the one that the aspect could more easily hit*. Draelin has d12 HP and a starting Con of 18 I think (16+2 for dwarf?), so he's the one that can take a massive amount of damage. When you loko at the damage from the fight, he took well over enough to kill him, but it was parceled in such a way that Lilly kept him from dying. He'd attack, take a 5' step back, Lilly would take her delayed action, 5' step back and heal him, while Sandurel held his ground. I don't recall exactly what the Fury of Erythnul is (is that the epic DR?). I remember having a bit of an argument with a character over that.

Ebon aspect activates its DR/Epic on the same round that Draelin unloads with a Mountain Hammer. I explained that the blows hardly seem to faze the beast, and that his blows seem muted against the beast's rage. Player points out that mountain hammer ignores all DR. I point out that this is DR/Epic, and that I doubt that a level 2 manoeuvre can overcome that, regardless of what the text says. He later agreed with me, and admitted that it was that "power gamer" urge in him to try to rules lawyer it, and that he'd have ruled the same way.

*The shadowcaster/monk was very agile, he's got a spell that grants a +3 Armor and a +3 Shield bonus, as well as a potion of Barkskin active - on top of his Dex and Wisdom bonuses - I think he was around AC 24-26? The circlet from the cairn was a +2 Wis, so he's wearing that, and Dex and Wisdom were his strong stats. Heck, he may have had a ring of protection by then too.

I was very glad to go to single class rather than gestalt. Made everything so much easier.


Hope you don't mind if I advertise our Journals in my sig?

Not at all :)

[Epinephrine]

Session 12-14 summary

Having finished the 2nd module, we hit the 3rd. The party is still gestalt, and are beginning to get overpowered. The bard//marshal/dragon shaman is particularly effective in this bit, as part of the mission is to defend a keep under attack by lizard men. With song, auras, and draconic auras boosting the effectiveness of all the fighting men, the lizard folk invaders simply don't have a chance.

Changes to the module:
I improved all the lizard men, making them all at least Fighter 2. They also are wearing armour (equivalent of studded leather, though made coarsely of various tough leathers/chitin) and using heavy wooden shields. The 5 extra AC should have helped, but the party's attack bonuses are just too solid.
As well, I boosted the level of the lizard men leader-types, and I added the half-dragon template to the lizard man chief, also giving him a tail attack and boosting the effectiveness of his breath weapon. All foes have maximum hit points for their HD.

Politically, I had the old shaman (the druid listed in the module) replaced by a new shaman (a dragon shaman, who fully supports the chief). The druid (Hishka) was banished from the tribe, but as she is pledged to serve the lizard folk has returned to beg that she be allowed to remain, to serve the tribe as needed - her knowledge of poisons and remedies is unmatched, and she can help keep the tribe alive if the chief insists on war. He's reluctantly agreed, so she serves now in a low-ranking position, training his troops on how to use the terrain and to tend one another's wounds (Heal and survival training, among other things). I also boosted the shaman to level 9, figuring that she'd help defend the tribe if attacked, but may serve as a potential contact if they decide to be sneaky.

This was the last module for which they were gestalt - following this, we changed to single-class characters to reduce the amount of work I had trying to prepare challenging encounters. Given the amount of tweaking and the ease with which they crushed these guys, I was glad for the change.

The adventure
Back in town, Allustan is interested in the news about the triad, and by the mention of the worm-ridden undead in the marshes. Since conversation has turned to the marsh, Allustan explains some of the history of the lizard folk and the founding of Blackwall Keep. Sandurel continues to have strange dreams - a woman's voice calling for help; screaming children running, as a giant black egg rolls about, crushing them; and Blackwall keep, lit by the light of a waning gibbous moon. As the gibbous moon is a few days off, the group decide on haste, and set forth for Blackwall Keep.

ok, so maybe a bit of a hint as to where they should go. Sandurel's back-story is that he's a monk from the Twilight monastery, where they practice various ways to predict events - mostly from the stars, but also from dreams. I had fun with this, since had him interpret the sending into his dream - he heard a woman calling for help and children fleeing the huge egg, when it's actually the lizard man shaman Hishka sending for help and the "children" are the lizard folk eggs.

Thanks to some luck at finding a decent trail through the edge of the marsh and some of Kallbrand's insights the party manage to arrive that night, to a castle besieged. Fires from the burning stables and roasting pits show at least thirty lizard folk warriors celebrating. Unlike most lizard folk, these are wearing armour fashioned from crocodile skins, spider chitin, strange marsh woods and even bone. They are clearly prepared for war, and the party wisely chooses to skirt them and approach the keep itself.

This is a balance issue for the module - 30 lizard folk aren't a huge threat unless you give them some major boosts. I having a marshal/dragon shaman with them makes for some extra power, while providing a tactical target for removal. Thankfully, the party decided not to test whether they can take 30 lizard folk on, as they might have prevailed anyway. but if the lizard folk are much tougher, why haven't they taken the castle yet?

Managing to sneak up to the wall, the call up to one of the few sentries posted, who urges them to flee while they can - instead, Sandurel teleports up to the battlements, lowers a rope, and soon the party are discussing tactics with the guards. The lizard men have apparently managed to carry off four of the keep's inhabitants (including the sorceress that was posted here to assist them), while slaying the captain and 17 others, another 8 are unconscious, but with Kallbrand and Lilly tending them are soon fit for duty.

In the morning, the remaining 22 soldiers are placed 7 each on three walls, with Lilly, Draelin, Sandurel, and one archer manning the wall over the gate. Kallbrand in on the keep's tower, able to command the battle, and is singing to inspire the soldiers. Right before the battle, Draelin decides to enchant the weapons of four of the soldiers, and his makeshift sling as well - as reptile-bane weapons they should greatly improve the firepower that the soldiers can bring to bear.

Reptile-bane weapons? This is so unfair.

Obligingly, the lizard folk charge all four walls - a large club-wielding lizard man leading the charge toward the gate, while a shaman stays back out of bowshot range. The bane weapons are telling - while the other bows mostly rattle off the lizard men’s thick skins or inflict grazing wounds, the bane bows are dropping lizard men as they charge. As soon as one falls, another will turn to pull him back out of range. Kallbrand orders the non-enchanted bows to concentrate fire on the fallen, to keep them from being healed up and returning to the fray.

On the gate side, things are also gong well; Lilly's first bolt blinds the raid-leader, while Sandurel hurls a rope of shadow energy which wraps around the lizard's throat. The raid-leader's blindness causes him to stumble forward slowly rather than charge the gate, and the archer with them manages to drop one of the lizard men before he reaches the wall. Sandurel calls for Kallbrand's aid, and the shadows about him darken as his power intensifies, a strange chorus seeming to hum about him. With a wave of his hand the marsh about the lizard folk’s ankles writhes, shadows grasping and clawing immobilizing half of them. A few seconds later, a black fire erupts under the attacker's feet, and those trapped in the shadows burn without a chance to free themselves. Lilly continues to pelt energy at the leader, who recognizes that the situation has changed - this is no longer a battle that the lizard folk can win. Calling the retreat, he and two other lizard man manage to get free. As they run from the gate, Sandurel vaults off the wall, runs after the fleeing attackers, and hurls a bolt of dark flame at the nearest lizard's back, dropping it. In the end, only 10 of the attackers make it back to the shaman, and they turn and flee into the marsh. The soldiers are amazed to be alive, and thank the party profusely. Without the group's arrival, the soldiers would almost certainly have perished, and they swear they'd follow any of the party into battle.

Draelin shouts to look for survivors, and while Lilly and he run out the front gate, Sandurel teleports himself out to the most recently fallen foe, 60 feet out from the east wall. "This one's still breathing! I'll try to stabilize him," he calls out, and bends to his work.

A half hour or so later, the party interrogates the captive. At first he is very aggressive, but Lilly's diplomacy and her magical command of the lizard folk’s language seems to be working in the party's favour. The lizard man accepts that perhaps some "tribes" of soft-skins aren't enemies. He reveals that the attacks are to take revenge on the soft-skins for the magical attacks the tribe has suffered - a whole generation of their eggs failed to hatch, and when they were examined, the eggs each contained several worms. Shortly after this, a "great one" - which the party identifies as a black dragon - apparently brought a new chief to the tribe - a mighty warrior escaped from the gladiator pits. He assumed control of the tribe, and they began breeding warriors, to take vengeance on the soft-skins. When asked about whether there was anyone they might speak to in the tribe, he reveals that there was a falling out between the new chief and the elder shaman, who was stripped of her rank and banished, apparently for opposing the attacks against the soft-skins. Shikshik, the captive warrior, agrees to take the party to the shaman's home, but warns them that his tribe won't listen to soft-skins.

As the lizard folk only have a half hour or so head start, the party prepare for a wet hike and follow Shikshik into the marsh. Shikshik is a competent guide, and with Kallbrand to help out the party makes great time, covering the distance to the shaman's home in about 7 hours. The signs are that the shaman has left, likely having returned to her tribe based on the direction taken. As the lair tribe is nearby, the party follow Shikshik to the lair, and ask the lizard man to bring the shaman out to speak with them.

The shaman, Hishka, arrives with a large viper hanging from her shoulders, and as soon as she speaks Sandurel recognizes her voice as the one from his dream. She explains that she has returned to help her people - but it's clear that it is not out of loyalty to the new chieftain. She has sworn not to raise a hand against him, and to serve the tribe to the best of her ability. After some discussion, it seems that Hishka is convinced that the party might truly be the saviours she has called for, and she sends Shikshik off to fetch her some clay.

While he's gone, she casts a few protective spells on the party, as they "may have a dangerous hike back out of the marsh". She also points out that one of her duties is to train the lizard folk in the ways of nature, so she may take a large number of the lizard folk out to teach them about how to find food and track in the marsh when she returns to the lair. In the interest of educating the party, she explains that lizard folk culture allows the leaders to have their chambers on the south side of the lair, and draws a map in the clay Shikshik has brought, to give them an example of the layout of a lair.

The group easily find the entrance of the lair, as they've seen a few dozen lizard folk leave with Hishka, and they sneak their way in. After a nasty tangle with an assassin vine, they surprise a large lizard man and his mate, standing over a pair of unconscious guards. With Lilly's blinding blasts the foes fall easily - Sandurel quickly drops the female, thinking that she may be the other shaman they had previously faced at the keep. Soon they hear shouting from another chamber - bursting in, they find the chieftain dressing down his raid leader for having failed to take the keep. A quick fight results in the death of the enemy lizard folk, the chief only managing to escape Sandurel's writhing shadows shortly before falling.

What an anticlimax - big bad guy, gets blinded, mired down in entangling shadows, and falls to the flanking shenanigans. At least he did manage a breath of acid that caused some pretty decent damage, and caught Draelin with a few jabs of his trident. Thought it'd be harder than that.

Sandurel and Draelin are sorely wounded, scorched by the leader's acidic breath, and Draelin having taken a few vicious strikes from the chieftain's trident. A few minutes of healing (with time taken to identify a few choice treasures) and the party sets off again.

Following the twisting path deeper into the lair, the party must swim underwater to reach the hatching chamber. Here there are hundreds of eggs - four or five hundred small, leathery eggs, with a single black egg standing over 3 feet high near the center. Guarding the area are eight dragonwrought kobolds, but they are no match for a group as well armed and protected as the party, and they fall swiftly to axe, fist, and blast.

Having discussed the situation with the voices in her head, Lilly has several insights. "Firstly - dragons lay clutches of eggs, not typically single eggs. Secondly, a black dragon egg couldn't hatch in this environment; it needs to either be fully immersed in swamp water or bathed in a fairly strong acid. We've decided that this is a trap of some sort."

"Sounds sensible to me," growls the dwarf, "what do you suggest then?"

"Well, given the past attempts to infect eggs, it may be that this egg is a vehicle for some giant worm-creature. The whole plan of raising a lizard folk army from a swamp makes no sense - they'll be overwhelmed by an army from the free city. Exploiting the lizard folk nursery as a way of feeding a giant worm hatchling would be conceivable. An army of self-healing zombie lizard folk that infect those they kill would also be conceivable - a self fuelling army that doesn't need supply lines. Either way, the egg is the danger. We have to isolate it from the lizard folk eggs, and destroy it."

This is the least experienced player, hypothesizing. Scarily accurate. Of course, she thought it would be a single big worm, but I loved how she dismissed the idea of a Lizard man army, as it's clearly never going to work

"While the egg is proof against acid, I could likely scorch it with shadowflame to some effect. It would damage any lizard folk eggs in the vicinity though," says Sandurel.

Draelin grins, and comments, "Right - how about we build a dam about the egg - we have mud, rock, and kobold bodies - that should be sufficient to hold back the water, and allow you to burn it easily. We can even douse it with oil."

With a plan of action decided on, the group works for the next 20 minutes or so building a dam about the egg, bails it of water, and pours oil over the dragon's egg. They then step back while Sandurel sets the plan in motion, conjuring inky black flames that quickly lick up the sides of the dragon's egg, setting it ablaze. The heat cracks the egg open, spilling writhing worms all about, but the worms have no chance to escape the flames, and soon the worms that have fallen into the flames are nothing but ash, while those that remained in the shell are dead from the heat. The party decides to take a few of the dead worms with them, in case they can learn something from the bodies.

Content that the danger here is averted, the group returns to the shaman's lair, to rendezvous with her, and to report their success. While pleased that the chief has fallen, the news of the worm infected egg greatly troubles Hishka. She decides that the best course of action is to disappear - the Twisted Branch are no more - and to relocate elsewhere in the swamp. She fears the revenge that the "great one" may visit on her tribe otherwise.

Returning to the Keep the next day, the group arrives after the sun has fallen, having pushed for a couple of hours to make it back. The gate is barred, and when they pound on it a voice shouts from the 2nd floor parapet that the keep is under attack, from inside. One of the soldiers had been infected by a worm-thing a few years back, but rather than slay one of their own, they locked him in the cellars, hoping that he'd either recover or die of his infection. Over the years, his presence has been largely unnoticed - the creature that he became simply waited for a chance to escape. Evidently one of the lizard men broke the outer door of the creature's cell and sometime in the past day or so the creature realised it could free itself, and snatched one of the soldiers. Earlier that day, the two creatures managed to break out of the cellar, and caught a third soldier, sending the men scurrying for safety on the second level, behind the reinforced trapdoor that accesses the upper levels.

Despite the obvious danger of facing the worm-ridden Spawn of Kyuss, the party calmly climbs the wall, opens the doors of the keep, and annihilates the undead - Lilly's blasts of positive energy scorching their flesh, Draelin's axe biting deeply into undead flesh, and Sandurel sensibly using his daggers against the obviously infected enemy.

With the keep again safe (and the soldiers chastised for keeping an undead menace in their midst), the party heads back to Diamond Lake, to tell Allustan of their encounters, and ask what he might know about the strange worms. On close examination, Allustan discovers that these worms may be juveniles, or specialised in some way - they don't seem anatomically capable of burrowing into a human, but may have been a threat to the unhatched eggs. The idea that there are worms specifically bred to infect the lizard folk eggs sends chills down the group's spines - this is a calculated move, and their foe has resources they hadn't suspected. It unnerves Allustan as well, who reluctantly suggests that they might be better off asking an old colleague of his about the worms. Eligos lives in the Free City, and knows a great deal about this sort of thing - moreover, he has access to a bigger library, and may be able to find some information simply not accessible to Allustan.

DM Comments:
The 3rd module is a cakewalk compared to the first two. There is no real danger from most of the foes, and it's as if the designers have no idea what a 5th-6th level party is capable of. The plot is a little weak - it serves as an introduction of the dragon Ilthane, but the timelines are confusing, I couldn't figure out when Ilthane would have started this plot, how she had tried previously to infect the eggs, etc. It was fun to have a swamp adventure, but since the party used diplomacy the lair wasn't actually very deadly - had they been forced to fight the shaman as well as all the lizard men it might have been tougher, but even then only because I boosted the foes a lot - lizard folk are just too weak otherwise. I was glad to finish this chapter off and get the party on route to the Free City - they really need real gear - up until this point they've been stuck with the 900gp limit of Diamond Lake.

This was the party's first encounter with the Spawn of Kyuss, and while they were dreading it, it was a bit on the easy side. I hadn't realised how outclassed the undead were, and I fail to account for it in later chapters; as of the 6th chapter though I will replace all Spawn of Kyuss with Favoured Spawn of Kyuss, making them a bit deadlier.

[Tam_OConnor]

Shiny. I can't imagine how easily they plowed through this one; it was practically a cakewalk with five single-classed (well, the Gibbler would disagree).

Hopefully the next one went better for your PCs than mine. Though, it'd be hard to do worse...

I'll PM you a certain creature's revised stats sometime tomorrow. Hope it's not too late.

[Epinephrine]

Session 15: To the Free City

We have finally ditched the gestalt that was driving me up the wall; the party are 7th level after having finished the rescue of the soldiers at Blackwall Keep, and head to the Free City to speak to a man named Eligos, who may know more about these worms.

The Party: We've gone to single classes, and have adopted Pathfinder beta classes for some.
Lilly, Human Favoured Soul* 4/Warlock 1/Eldritch Disciple 2
Draelin, Dwarven Warblade 5/Rogue 2
Kallbrand the Nimble, Halfling Bard 7
Sandurel, Human Monk 7 (has a maneuver and stance from ToB via feats)

*Lilly really wanted Turn Undead, so her Favoured Soul is in fact simply a Cleric with Favoured Soul progression for casting.

The Plot for this section:
The next part of the adventure basically is bringing the party to a bigger city, meeting Eligos (a sage, with connection to Allustan), and to set the party up to want to fight in the Champion's games, which are coming up. Word of their assault on the Ebon Triad has made its way to ears in the Free City, so there will be assassination attempts.

The Adventure:
On their way, they are nearly ambushed by a group of elves, who demand money for passage. Initially they ask for 500gp, but a Sense Motive check by the leader results in him lowering his price substantially - he knows that this group is no pushover.

The leader claims the presence of a dozen of his men (a lie, they are only 6), and points out that nobody really wishes to take heavy losses over the rather insignificant 50 gp they are requesting for safe passage. After a long discussion, it turns out that the elves do in fact keep the highway safe (having run off a band of trolls recently), and the party decides that while they are no doubt villains of a sort, they are less of a problem than the trolls/other bandits. As the healing cost may well exceed the 50gp involved, they decide to pay up, leaving the elves unmolested, and later emerge from the wooded areas without resembling porcupines or pincushions.

I put the elves in to teach the players a bit of a lesson - I wanted them to have to back down from a fight for once, and a half dozen sneak attack shots at their least armoured member would probably reinfoce that point. I get the feeling that they'd try to fight the Tarrasque if I dropped him in their way, a tendency I am trying to curb.

Arriving in the great city of "Free City," they are mildly harassed by a city guard, whose mood immediately improves on being offered a drink. Making their way into the streets, they come upon a parade, but as chance has it, the Chimera that was in one of the cages breaks free right as it passes. Draelin acts quickly, getting between the beast and some of the crowd, presenting a tempting and irritating target for the chimera. Sandurel quickly joins him, and Lilly begins savaging the beast with her eldritch blasts. A lone chimera is no match for the adventurers, who dispatch it with ruthless efficiency, leaving the performers looking quite disappointed. Having heard that beasts are kept imprisoned under the coliseum, Lilly seems to have a new quest... Lilly is determined that she'll figure out a way to free the animals that are used for sport, and wants to start right now.
Draelin spends a good 10 minutes examining the cage, as it can't be chance that the Chimera broke out right as it passed them. That's just too unlikely. I told him that it looked fine, but in retrospect, it should likely have shown signs of tampering. It's far too coincidental otherwise, and there are doppelgangers out to kill the party or frame them - why wouldn't they sabotage the cage?

They seek out the sage Eligos, who is intrigued by the tales of Vaati, worms, and the Ebon Triad, and surprised to hear from Allustan. He tells them to stay in a nice Inn called the Crooked House, in the foreign quarter, and explains that it could take him a while to track down all the books he'll need. After visiting an enchanter (with whom Kallbrand leaves his cloak, while Draelin purchases a potion and scroll (for armour crafting)), they head to the Inn for a meal and some rest.

The patrons confirm the story of the escaped lizardman (The party thought that the lizarrdman chief from the marsh must surely have been planted, but he really is an escaped gladiator) - none of the accounts are identical, but all those with an interest in the gladiators know of the lizardman gladiator that got away. After performing for a while on stage (and getting a lot of free drinks), Kallbrand withdraws upstairs. Shortly afterward, he reappears, only to stab the innkeeper and flee back up toward the party's rooms.

This is in fact a doppelganger, who is appearing to be Kallbrand, framing the party

Draelin rather astutely notices that the Halfling moved rather quickly (and non-drunkenly, while the real Kallbrand is pretty hammered), so while Lilly tends to the fallen innkeeper and calms the crowd (Who want blood! Well, maybe not blood, but a reasonable vengeance for killing their host. Wounding their host? Hmm, he seems fine now, and the young lady is pretty persuasive that it couldn't have really been the Halfling...maybe we'll just have a drink and wait for the watch to show up...), the Dwarf blocks the stairs, and demands that nobody leave.

One by one, they question the various merchants and tourists, until they think they have found one who seems to be a bit too evasive. Lilly casts a spell of thought detection, and asks the seemingly guilty merchant why he attacked Tarquin; the answer, in his head, was "to frame you". When she asks him, "why would you want to frame us?" he thinks, "how does she know that? She's reading my mind? You are! You are in my head! Die, human!"

This was a little odd. The doppelganger was reading her thoughts by this time as well, so I imagine there was a little feedback as he sees her react to his own thoughts. Made for an interesting evening.

Despite the mental warning, Lily isn't able to step back quickly enough to avoid the savage slashes that the merchant has made with his shortsword. Draelin and Sandurel quickly flank him, cutting at him and trying to subdue him, while Lilly retreats and launches a shimmering bolt of energy into his chest. The merchant seems shaken by the bolt, but tumbles past Draelin and slides around Sandurel's kick to attack Lilly again. Kallbrand had expected that he may have to move Lily out of harm's way (readying an action), and uses his wand to transpose her with Draelin. Faced with an armoured Dwarf warrior rather than an injured human female, the merchant makes one slash at the Dwarf and again slides around his defences, making for the stairs. Lilly lashes out again with her bolts of energy, and Sandurel and Draelin chase him, barely managing to take the foe down with a glancing blow from one of Draelin's axes. Unconscious, the merchant's face seems to droop, then melt away to reveal smooth grey skin on a wiry alien physique - a doppelganger.

Minutes later, the city guard have arrived. They agree to keep themselves busy downstairs while the party "interrogates" their captive, but are insistent that once they've finished, they must take it into custody - this isn't the business of the citizenry, no matter how competent they are - a full investigation is going to be launched into what is occurring. As Lilly needs to rest and meditate before she can attune herself enough to again detect the thoughts of another, they decide to simply visit the doppelganger the next day to further question him, and the guards take the limp form away to be locked up. Before he was taken away, however, the party confiscated several pieces of magical gear, as well as a key which (according to Lilly's voices) bears the mark of one of the shipping companies that used to operate on the riverfront.

DM Comments:
Draelin used his scent ability to sniff the doppleganger, and now wants to sniff everyone they meet pretty much, to see if they are doppelgangers or not. I'm not certain whether a doppelganger's scent changes... I eventually decided that it does, but fair warning to those who may run this with a warblade around - scent is an irritatingly strong ability.

Things are set up very nicely - Lilly was nearly taken out by the sneak attack, and the whole party has a new level of respect for their opponents - nobody thought that an enemy would dish out over 40 damage in a round like that, so I've got them on their toes. I laughed that they allowed the doppelganger to be taken away by the guard - there is no way he'll stay in prison.

Lilly's Detect Thoughts is a very powerful ability - with her concentrating and the others asking questions you can almost guarantee that she'll be able to ferret out some information.

Still, the party are now aware that someone wants them framed, and have a lead as to where to start looking.

[Tam_OConnor]

Ah, nothing like the adventure functioning as planned. *Evil laughter*

[Epinephrine]

Session 16 - to the warehouse.
Fairly role-playing heavy session, mostly interacting with folks in town.

Following the attack in the Crooked House, the party sets out the next morning to investigate whether their old "friend" Filge had followed their advice. Asking around leads them to the shrine of the weeping woman, and a man named Forwell Hog. Forwell runs a group that provides support and charitable services in the neighbourhood of the "midnight muddle", a poor area of town, and charges visitors to see the sacred statue for which the shrine is named. He has had a run-in with Filge and doesn't seem to like him much, but is evasive about exactly why. Speaking to the followers who were about Lilly had the sense that they are very loyal, believing strongly in both Forwell and the good that they do in the neighbourhood. The lady inteverviewed travels across the city to take part in the sermons 3 or 4 days a week.

Following the visit with Forwell, they drop by Filge's, which seems to be an orphanage. The kids are healthy, but dirty, and while they air a laundry list of complaints:
bathing them in smelly chemicals (to get rid of lice)
forcing them to do things they don't want to do (like return stolen objects)
injecting them with things in syringes (when they've hurt themselves or if they are sick - he brews CLW and remove disease this way)

At first the party are incensed that he's dunking kids in chemicals (he was a necromancer/alchemist, recall) - but it becomes apparent that in fact he's doing a very good job looking after them (as he promised, when the party spared his life back in Diamond Lake). It certainly sounds like he has lived up to his word. Filge claims that Forwell blew up at him when he was asking about two of his orphans who had been seen around the shrine, but had disappeared. Both boys were outgoing and foolhardy, but the reaction struck Filge as peculiar - and Forwell seems like a con man to the jaded necromacer, who admits that he doesn't have any specific complaints other than Forwell's overreaction.

Draelin gives Filge 25 gold to help with his expenses, and Lilly brings toys for the kids, and they head to the library, to ask Eligos about the key they've found. Filge asks if they'd permit him to animate a few guardians for the orphanage, but they warn him that that wouldn't be a good idea.

At the library, Draelin is told that he can't enter as he is - bristling with weapons, and wearing armour. This is a place for scholars - Lilly is wecomed though, as she easily sweet-talks the gentleman at the entrance to allow her and Sandurel in. Eligos is less than thrilled to see her, reacting very angrily at what he sees as a waste of his valuable time and perhaps a lack of trust that he was doing the research. He pointedly comments that he's doing this as a favour to friends of Allustan, and to leave him to his research - not to trouble him with every scrap they manage to find.
Wow, they really aren't used to having someone yell at them, and call them idiots. I think I nearly made a player cry, but seriously, pestering a noted sage who is doing you a huge favour of free research about a key you found in someone's pocket after a bar-room stabbing? Yeah, he's going to react badly.

They then head to the guardhouse, where the doppelganger they caught last night was imprisoned. He's disguised himself as one of the guards, and is complaining that he's not a doppelganger, the doppelganger has escaped. Of couse, it's true. The "captain of the guard" (actually a doppelganger accomplice) arrived to interrogate the doppelganger, so he took a guard on duty with him to do so - and of course the doppelganger immediately switched his appearance to match the guard, mocking him the whole way to the interrogation room. The two doppelgangers roughed up the guard for a believable while, then chucked him into prison and headed back to the lair, to start trying to do damage control. The party solves this little mystery, explain what doppelgangers are capable of and leave frustrated.

Returning to the inn to wait for some gear to be finished, they find a pair of women waiting for them. One is in leather, with a variety of knives strapped to her body; she's not attractive per se, but has a bright, cheerful manner that makes her very likeable. The other is a stunning lady in a fine gown - something a noblewoman would wear. Her hair is piled in an elaborate cascade of curls, and her little dog is curled at her feet. To their shock, they realise that this is Tirra, the knife throwing rogue that had accompanied Auric and Khellek, the adventurers who had been in Diamond Lake a month or so ago. She cleans up very well, and the little dog "woofikins" must be her wolf companion, in a disguise of some sort.

In the original module Tirra was a rogue; I had rewritten her as a gestalt ranger/spellthief when the party first met her, as they were gestalt. They had managed to get her wolf companion attacked, and she bore them a grudge for a while, but having tailed them figured out that they hadn't intended it. In the interest of maintaining the wolf, she is a single class spellthief with an improved familiar awakened wolf (using Worg stats) - this has the advantage of making her charismatic, and she can be more of a special agent for the guild, as a spellthief is a rarer commodity.

Tirra introduces the leather-clad woman as Celeste, and Celeste explains that a friend of hers is looking to hire a competant team of gladiators for the Champion Games which are fast approaching; having managed to get his hands on one of the 24 manager's licences, he finds himself without a team. The cash prizes are fairly substantial, but the party aren't that tempted - they say they'll think about it. Celeste explains that she has ugent business to do out of town, but that she'll stop by again to see if they've decided to help her friend out before she leaves. Draelin, curious about the situation, discovers that Celeste is non-human, as he doesn't recognise her smell, but she's definitely not a doppelganger.

That night (having retrieved Lilly's cloak from the enchanter) the group head out to the dock area to check out the waterfront warehouses. Scouting around it, they see no other way in, and decide to enter. Draelin searches for traps, but only 10 feet into the room a barrel suddenly sprouts arms and lashes at him, while a pair of crates likewise grow arms and lash at Kallbrand. Kallbrand is struck by the barrel-beast, and seems to be stuck to the appendage, while Draelin manages to deflect the blows with his heavy armour. Kallbrand teleports out of the beast's embrace, and casts a glitterdust to try to blind the three attackers. Sandurel steps up and he and Draelin assault the first of the creatures, while Lilly uses her eldritch energy to great effect on the nearest crate-monster. Draelin and Sandurel manage to drop the second of the creatures (which had managed to hit Sandurel in the mean time, constricting him with its malleable appendage), while Lilly finishes off the third, blowing a hole clean through it. The creatures begin dissolving into thick goo, and Lilly says that she thinks they were mimics, but she had no idea that they were sticky.

Scouting around, they find a secret door that leads off the catwalk in this room to a small chamber with a few chests in it. Having checked that they are safe, they open them, and find that three are empty, while the other two contain clothes, personal items, and a few interesting items - a periapt of health, some signet rings from the Starmane family (an elven noble house), and a bag of holding filled with gold and some ledgers of some sort, tracking bills and money exchanged. (they're tax records).

Opening the door out of this small chamber, they find themselves in a jail-like setting, with 5 cells, 3 of which are occupied. A nearly dead man lies on the floor in one cell, a pair of men with the build of city guardsmen or bouncers are in another, and in the third sits a young elven lady. The two men want out, while the elven lady ignores the party. Lilly steps out of the room and casts Detect Thoughts, coming back in to scan the surface thoughts of those in prison. The unconscious man isn't faking - he's likely in a coma; the elven lady doesn't trust them, and wants them to leave. One of the two men resists the spell, but the other is clearly not what he seems - he is planning how he will attack once released. Suspecting that he is in fact a doppelganger, they unlock the cell, readying to attack when the man exits. The two men move out, and the party attacks, catching them by surprise. Sandurel lands a blow to the first man's temple that leaves him reeling, unable to focus, and Draelin cuts a crimson line across his side. The second man rolls out, but is unable to avoid the pair's attacks, taking a light blow on his way out. Despite their obvious skill and strength, the two men fall quickly, unable to work together. The skin on their bodies settles into a greyish purple, while their faces take on the featureless look of doppelgangers.

Deciding that they can't leave the young lady imprisoned, Kallbrand casts an Alarm to mentally alert him if anyone enters/leaves the warehouse, and they guide her out. Hailing the city watch, who they instruct to bring the girl to a temple of Pelor, telling her to remain there util they return, and *not* to go home until they can accompany her, in case the doppelganger is there. They then hurry back to the warehouse, hoping that nobody will discover the intrusion.

DM Comments:
The mimcs were fun, but a little ineffective. I was hoping for more with the ambush by the "prisoners", but detect thoughts is foiling much of these intrigues. Then again, using one of her small number of spells known for it is a penalty for the favoured soul, so I can't be too upset. They avoided one trap by not even trying the false door.
The background information on the Free City was fun, and the players seemed to really like exploring the "Muddle", nearly the whole session was spent roleplaying, not fighting.

[Tam_OConnor]

*Further laughter* Yeah, I'm not sure what it is about my players: they seem to have an aversion to non-combat spells like detect thoughts. Their loss, I suppose.

[Epinephrine]

Session 17, the warehouse, continued.

Changes to the adventure
Since I knew that the doppelganger/betrayal plot of the original module wouldn't work with my group (they wouldn't enjoy it), one of the rooms needs a major revision. The module suggests putting Aranea in the room, but frankly, other than being another shapechanger, I don't see why.

Why would they need another shapechanger anyway? What they do need are some cheap muscle, and the type of thing that can easily patrol for them where they don't wish to go. I elected to replace the chamber of with the party's doppelgangers with a barracks room for several Skum with ranger levels and polearms. Skum are naturally tough and strong, and are fully amphibious, allowing them to patrol the sewers, the coast, wherever they are needed.

Another change was to that annoying maze. There is a maze of mirrors in which the party has to fight some doppelgangers. After the last maze fiasco (in the temple of Vecna, 2nd module), I have no desire to run a maze-based encounter. Instead I borrowed Tam's room of fog, and allowed the doppelgangers to see through it, thanks to *insert magic here*. This gives a trio of doppelgangers the edge they need to harrass the party.

The adventure:
Returning to the warehouse quickly, the group find it as they had left it; the bodies of the two doppelgangers are still buried in straw, and no sign (nor smell) of passage. Opening the door to the great chamber beyond the jail cells, Draelin eyes the beams spanning the gaps in the collapsed floor, and begins to set foot on them, when Lilly comments that there are two large figures hovering in the air above the beam (she can see invisible, thanks to a warlock invocation). Draelin pauses to ask, "What creatures?"

Having a moment to think about it, she explains that there is a pair of invisible stalkers waiting in the chamber. The group decide to stay put and fight at the doorway, rather than risk the treacherous beams, and Lilly starts the fray with a blast of eldritch power. Her aim is off, however, and the nimble air spirits flit away unharmed, taking cover around the corner. If the party wishes to engage these foes, they have no choice but to enter the room and face them at a disadvantage.

Deciding that the safest spot would be the far corner, where a portion of floor is still supported, they come up with a plan: Draelin and Sandurel will advance to the corner, at which point Kallbrand will swap Lilly for Sandurel using his wand of Benign Transposition; Sandurel is fast and can easily balance on the beams, while Lilly may otherwise fall. While Lilly begins attacking them, Sandurel can approach again along the beams (since he seems perfectly comfortable on them), while Kallbrand waits for Lilly to call for a Glitterdust, to reveal the creatures. After a few false starts as Draelin stumbles along the beam, Sandurel reaches the platform and Lilly is transposed out there. Kallbrand readies his wand as Sandurel heads back out the beam. Lilly manages to blast one stalker, and the stalkers swoop in to attack - one waits by the beam, while the other heads to attack the girl, whose aim has clearly shown that she can see her invisible attackers.

Lilly twists to avoid the massive fist, and calls for Kallbrand to cast his spell, which coats both the enemies with glittering dust. One swings blindly at Sandurel, missing with both his attacks, while the other tries vainly to attack Lilly - Draelin has managed to land a few blows on the now-visible stalker, and it falls to his and Lilly's combined assault. With the enemy blinded, Kallbrand has begun singing, and is taking cover behind the doorframe. Sandurel has hurt the stalker with a flurry of blow, but rather than try to swat at Sandurel, the air elemental simply crashes into him, sending him spinning into the water, where blades hide under the surface. Slashed by the hidden weapons Sandurel opts not to swim but simply melts into the shadows, reappearing on the platform.

That darn shadow jaunt maneuver is so handy. Who in their right mind would make a teleport available at level 5?

The elemental's rush has brought it within range of the dwarf, and Draelin moves out the beam to finish the creature off. With their foes defeated, the party crosses the beams to a door, which leads to a smaller room with a water filled shaft, in which a barrel floats. A rope ladder descends to the surface of the water, so it is likely that this leads to the doppelganger's lair. The shaft is quite deep, descending 35 feet to the water below, and another 40 feet or so below that. Rather than take a dip in water that might be guarded by yet more elementals, the party waits. An hour passes, and most of another hour, when a sound like water draining fills the room. The water level is lowering, slowly. After 10 minutes or so it has dropped a good 25 feet, and is below the end of the shaft, clearly opening into a larger room. A short while later the sound or moving water announces the water rising again and two figures are holding onto the barrel, rising as the water rises. The party stays low, so as not to be seen around the shaft, and waits for the pair to climb out, attacking them as they emerge.

The advantage of surprise is simply too great, and the two guards fall quickly to the group's teamwork, one plunging down the shaft into the water, sinking quickly to the bottom (he never even made it off the ladder). The second is taken captive, and Lilly uses her ability to detect thoughts to help question the doppelganger.

The captive reveals (unwillingly) that there is a pump below that can raise and lower the water, and that he receives his orders from Telakin. He also believes that there are about a dozen still remaining in the lair, though he knows nothing of why anyone would have tried to frame the party. Draelin finishes off their captive (yup, they are killing captives), and Kallbrand and Sandurel descend the shaft together, to look for the pump. They find a mechanism on the top of a central pillar, and activate it to lower the water level. Curiously, the guard that fell into the water is absent, though his sword still lies at the bottom of shaft; Draelin, unwilling to lose such loot, dives down and retrieves it.
The party were very confused by this, as they were pretty sure that the doppelganger was dead. Now they're wondering if he faked it (bluff check?), and are alarmed about moving on. I figured that the guardian of this chamber, a giant octopus, would gladly accept a free meal, and would likely crawl back into its home to eat in peace, so they avoided a pretty deadly underwater confrontation, thanks mostly to the luck of having killed a doppelganger before he was out of the shaft.

A trapdoor above the central pillar leads up, into the lair proper. The party advance down a hallway lined with doors, moving silently, checking the passage for possible traps as they advance - when they reach the last door and ensure that it's safe, Kallbrand has a listen (all clear), and Draelin asks him to stand aside. Stepping to the left, Kallbrand discovers a pit trap (the unsafe way), and disappears from view as the floor opens beneath him then snaps back shut.

Using a staff (that the dwarf has stowed in his bag of holding, apparently), Draelin pushes on the floor until it springs open, and then jams the staff in to prevent it fully closing. The walls of the trap are bare, and the stone floor 30 feet below is seamless - but there is no sign of the Halfling. They call down quietly, but no answer returns. Wondering if perhaps there is magic responsible for Kallbrand's disappearance, Draelin asks Lilly, "Is it magical?"

This was so much fun. They were discussing teleporting traps, or whether it had simply disintegrated him, or what.

"Yes," she replies, "it seems to be... illusion magic? Perhaps a figment?" Puzzled, the Dwarf drops a door spike into the pit, and it vanishes as it hits the floor, seeming to pass through it, but no sound rises from the pit. Shortly, he spots a glimmer, as if the spike has flown back up through the floor and fallen back again. Every few seconds the spike twirls into the air, emerging from the floor and falling back again.

This also had them puzzled. They were having trouble with the idea, as they were sure that Kallbrand was gone, so maybe the spike is bouncing back through the floor? Kallbrand, however, saw a spike drop silently through the ceiling above him, and is throwing the spike through it repeatedly, hoping someone will realise that he's stuck down there.

Finally it dawns on them, "Kallbrand's below the illusion!" Draelin yells, and tries lowering his rope through the floor. It passes through, but no luck (it's too short to reach the halfling).

Creatively, Draelin decides to cut up his bedroll, and to tie strips to the rope, to lengthen it. Despite being crouched by a pit in an enemy lair, no patrols happen upon the group, and this time they succeed, hauling the Halfling back out. Apparently the pit is about 60 feet deep, with a spiked floor, and a silence effect below the false floor.

Glad to be reunited, they wait while Kallbrand's wounds are tended to, and then open the door they have been gathered beside. At a glance, it seems to be an empty room with a few bunks. Moving to the next room, they open the door carefully, and find two sleeping doppelgangers. The two are easily dispatched in their sleep, and Lilly scans the room for magic; realising they hadn't done this in the previous room, they return, only to find that the rear wall is in fact an illusion, hiding a door.

Beyond the door are four strange amphibious humanoids drilling with long spears. They have heavily muscled bodies and huge jaws like fish. The four stop, staring at the party.

Here I had a sudden realization - these Skum are used to seeing all sorts of "humans" and "elves" etc. wandering around. The module describes the doppelgangers sitting around practicing disguises, so I imagine it isn't the first time they've looked up to find non-doppelganger-looking folks watching them.

"Carry on," Draelin calls out, and closes the door again. With the door closed, the party decides that they should try to separate the fish-folk, so Kallbrand opens the door and calls, "You two, come with us. There's something suspicious moving around in the water near the entry shaft." The Skum look from one to another, and one asks, "what about the beast? He should take care of it."

The party hasn't encountered the beast, but Kallbrand bluffs through and yells, "I told you two to follow me, now move!" The two quickly follow the Halfling out of the chamber; as the door closes behind them the party attacks. Caught by surprise, the two Skum quickly fall, but the combat has alerted the two remaining Skum, who enter the small chamber to join in battle. Outnumbered two-to-one, they stand little chance, but manage to inflict some serious wounds before perishing. Searching the little room that the Skum had been drilling in, they discover a secret door leading out the far side.

DM comments:
Illusions are very odd, in that they radiate illusion magic. I may have to come up with a feat that allows hiding of the aura - maybe a +1 metamagic that can be applied to illusions? Scanning an area with detect magic , and realising that there is illusion magic is just a dead giveaway.

The Skum weren't that tough taken on in pairs. I realised that the doppelgangers wouldn't worry much about people who don't look like themselves. They must have a way of telling who is really a doppelganger? Or maybe they just trust that with guards posted, a pair of invisible stalkers, and a giant octopus, anyone in here really is meant to be.

I decided that most of them are sleeping - it's the middle of the night. The only ones awake are the Skum (as they work in shifts, these ones were waiting for the patrol currently out to come back) and the guards in the next chamber.

The guards in that chamber will activate an alarm though, which could well kill the PCs, as it'll wake all the doppelgangers left in the complex. I decided that they have a standing practice - they scan the minds of all who come into the room. Those who resist (taking a will save) are automatically treated as intruders, and they can tell doppelgangers by their thoughts (typically, any doppelganger entering this room is thinking that they wish to speak to their great leader, Telakin - and the party won't be - and they must then divine the number that the guard is thinking of, which is random (so they must be reading the guard's mind in return))

[Gwynfrid]

I'm a bit disappointed that you elected to skip the treachery part of the plot, because I wanted to see how it turned out for your clever group. Would Detect Thoughts make the challenge moot, for example, is a good question. You could have made the thing extra nasty by making Lilly the target of the impersonation... Oh, well. Your judgment regarding what the players would enjoy must take precedence.

[Epinephrine]

I'm a bit disappointed that you elected to skip the treachery part of the plot, because I wanted to see how it turned out for your clever group. Would Detect Thoughts make the challenge moot, for example, is a good question. You could have made the thing extra nasty by making Lilly the target of the impersonation... Oh, well. Your judgment regarding what the players would enjoy must take precedence.

I was a bit disapointed too, but I know this group. The most experienced of them (Draelin's player) is very good, and would likely have been able to pull it off and probably cause the deaths of a player or two. Lilly's player is his wife however, and is new to the game - and wouldn't take well to her husband stabbing her in the back. Heck, she might blame me :P

There was also the issue that there is nobody in the party that is easy to imitate. If they had a vanilla rogue or warrior type, sure, but two of the party use Tome of Battle stances and maneuvers (which would require the enemy to either pick those up or be painfully obviously fake), and the main warrior-type is also the trapfinder. The other two have casting abilities and such that are hard to fake. Plus Draelin's always using that scent stance, so he'd be able to sniff out any imposter (unless one rules that doppelgangers match scents too, which I'm still not certain about - the description of Change Shape says that you keep most of your physical qualities, and it only grants bonuses to Disguise) - so the only party member that could "easily" be replaced is the dwarven warblade with trapfinding, tracking, and the ability to smell the enemy - so unless they had a rogue-type who can also fight in full plate armour while using ToB maneuvers he'd be tough to replace. And if you were going to pick a party member to try to take out, he'd be the hardest - lure the warblade into an alley with you? That's a recipe for disaster. Honestly, the doppelgangers would have had a hard time appearing to be any of the party members.

And yes, after the doppelganger imitated Kallbrand for the attack in the pub, Lilly ended every night by scanning everyone's thoughts (spontaneous casters FTW, all she needs is a spell slot left over). When they were in the doppelganger base for the invasion they realised that they could get impersonated, so Sandurel pulled out some chalk from his pack, broke it into pieces, and passed one piece to each party member, to be able to tell a
party member from a non-party member easily.

------------

On the subject of how smart they are, I witnessed some of the worst deduction ever during the warehouse invasion. They had found the jail, and the elf woman, two guards (doppelgangers), and the insane tax collector. 5 Jail cells. 5 chests, two of which contain stuff (one has the elf's gear, the other has tax rolls and other tax collector belongings).

So what do they determine?
1) The cloak and signet must belong to the elf (Bingo!)
2) The chest full of gold and lists of payments/collections must be some sort of doppelganger payoff sheet. They grab the gold as loot. (What? What about the tax collector, in the cell 2 over from the elf?)
3a) Since there were 2 doppelgangers in the cells, and 2 chests had gear in them, there must only be 3 more doppelgangers in the building. (What the heck?)
3b) This guess is then revised - clearly 3 doppelgangers are out on duty (hence the empty chests), the other two are already dead (they killed them). No more doppelgangers! (Ouch! Logic fail!)

Such flawed, flawed logic. They eventually worked out that the 5 chests probably correspond with the five jail cells, and that it means that there were only two prisoners (bingo!), but cognitive dissonance kicks in, and they decide that the gold was probably a stockpile for doppelgangers to use when leaving the grounds, and never think to give the gold to the insane tax collector (or his family, if he has any).

[Gwynfrid]

About impersonation and the player's feelings: in such a case I would target the unexperienced player and hope that her experienced husband would be understanding :smalltongue:

About how easy a spellcaster is to imitate: sure, that could require some tricks, like adding spell storing of some sort. And you'd have to decide there is a doppleganger warlock on hand. But I think the guild has some good means to spy on the party, so they are fairly well informed about what abilities they need to emulate.

Now, they were clever enough to take good preventive steps, so any attempt was likely to fail. Fair enough and kudos to them. Actually, I would have rewarded them by making the attempt and failing - but that's just me. In my experience, few things make players more happy than having their smart plan just... work as expected.

That said, I did not find anything about using Scent to penetrate a disguise in the SRD, but if it is automatic, then surely it is overpowered. Generally speaking, Scent is a powerful thing to have at 1st level. I'm not sure how these manoeuver tricks impact game balance. I do not own the Tome of Battle, but from the look of it, there are a few things (like a 50-ft teleport at will) that don't belong in a 5-6th level game.

Finally, about smart people: sometimes, smart persons produce truly absurd ideas, that would never occur to the average guy. Being a group of smart people only makes this worse, I think.

[Epinephrine]

... they were clever enough to take good preventive steps, so any attempt was likely to fail. Fair enough and kudos to them. Actually, I would have rewarded them by making the attempt and failing - but that's just me. In my experience, few things make players more happy than having their smart plan just... work as expected.

If I were to abduct a character and they were to immediately discover the betrayal (more than likely), does one player just sit out the action until they can rescue him/her? That doesn't sound like much fun either, sitting on the sidelines for a couple of sessions. The abduction only really works if the inserted doppelganger can stay until the big reveal, played by the player whose character he is replacing.


That said, I did not find anything about using Scent to penetrate a disguise in the SRD, but if it is automatic, then surely it is overpowered.

The SRD does state that, "Creatures with the scent ability can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights." So unless a doppelganger's Change Shape ability also copies the smell of a target, it's foiled by this.

Change Shape reads: "A creature with this special quality has the ability to assume the appearance of a specific creature or type of creature (usually a humanoid), but retains most of its own physical qualities"

It's a tough call - the text pretty much suggests that change shape affects appearance. Given that scent is accurate enough to follow a given person's scent trail hours later, there is little doubt that you can identify people you are familar with by smell, and can likely identify the species of most creatures that you are familiar with (in the same way that I can, by looking, tell the difference between a cat and a dog).


Generally speaking, Scent is a powerful thing to have at 1st level. I'm not sure how these manoeuver tricks impact game balance. I do not own the Tome of Battle, but from the look of it, there are a few things (like a 50-ft teleport at will) that don't belong in a 5-6th level game.

I agree; it's one of the things about the ToB that I don't like - it does completely change the game, requiring rebalancing everything. While the damage output is high, it's not the damage that is broken. It's the access to abilities like 50 foot teleports at 3rd level, or Scent at 1st level that make it a bit rough. The eternal argument over whether ToB is broken will never be resolved.

Whether it's broken or not, I personally don't like it, and I've finally gotten all the ToB stuff out of the campaign (the account here is about 10 sessions behind where we are, and Draelin has converted to follow Pelor as a paladin, giving up his warblade training/abilities for divinely granted powers). Sandurel's monk was only taking ToB stuff for fun (and because when he was a swordsage he could shadow jaunt, and wanted to maintain that ability for flavour). Since he has gained the ability to teleport as a monk (12th level ability), there is no reason to keep a feat in Shadow Jaunt. Woohoo! No more ToB!

[Gwynfrid]

If I were to abduct a character and they were to immediately discover the betrayal (more than likely), does one player just sit out the action until they can rescue him/her? That doesn't sound like much fun either, sitting on the sidelines for a couple of sessions. The abduction only really works if the inserted doppelganger can stay until the big reveal, played by the player whose character he is replacing.


Good point. At the end of the day, your call was probably for the best.

About ToB: On the basis of your feedback, I'll be avoiding that book. You're saving me a world of trouble... I was very attracted by the concept of manoeuvers for fighter-types, but if I need to rebalance everything then it's not worth it.

[Epinephrine]

Session 18 - still in the warehouse

Adventure:
Returning to the first hallway, the group finishes off two more sleeping doppelgangers, explores a lavatory, and hesitates at the set of double doors. Rather than going deeper into the building via what would seem to be the main doors, they elect instead to use the secret door they have found.

The small passage that they enter delivers them to a mist-filled room. The smell of humans and doppelganger is in the air. The party decide rather than lose one another in the fog to tie themselves together with a rope. Once they have entered the fog they are attacked from three sides by what seem to be human guards. An initial stab manages to catch Kallbrand under his shield, and punches through his mithril shirt, leaving him bleeding, but Lilly and Draelin's armour holds up to the assault. Kallbrand manages to cast a Haste spell, despite the threat of attack, and Lilly strikes her assailant with a bolt of energy. Draelin and Sandurel manage to land several hits on the foe in front of them. Soon Sandurel has dropped the lead doppelganger, and Lilly finds herself flanked by two, and takes a pair of nasty cuts as a result. Soon only one doppelganger remains, and without his comrade to back him up he is easily dispatched by the four heroes. Finding their way through the mist, they locate a door that leads to a large chamber.

On one wall of the room sits a large apparatus, designed to hold a person in place while a helmet-like device is attached to them. On the other end of the chamber, a dais rises on which rests a throne, and sitting in the throne is Allustan. Allustan greets them, and invites them up to his throne. Draelin leads the way, but falls into a pit trap at the base of the stairs. Sandurel easily leaps over the pit, and engages Allustan (narrowly avoiding a spear trap he didn't know about).

Kallbrand steps to the edge of the pit, and using his wand of benign traspostiion swaps Draelin and Sandurel, putting the Dwarf in position to full attack, which he does with pleasure (and now the monk is in the pit). Lilly joins the fray with a bolt of energy, and soon Sandurel is out of the pit, having used his ability to shadow jaunt to reach the edge.

Outnumbered, Allustan morphs into a brutish orc barbarian, and swings a greataxe at Draelin, connecting with a pair of heavy blows. His position is hopeless though; having circumvented his traps, the party are far too strong. Falling to their attacks, the orc's skin pales to a greyish-purple, with odd eyes like a squid or octopus. Lilly recognises him as a greater doppelganger - they gain the abilities of those that they imitate, provided they have eaten the brains of their victims. Some panic ensues about whether this means that it ate Allustan's brain, or whether perhaps Allustan was in fact a doppelganger. Thinkning about it, they can't recall him casting any spells while seeming to be Allustan, so they conclude that he hasn't killed Allustan, and was simply taking on his form.

Searching the room, Draelin finds a secret room behind the throne, and in a chest here they find a note explaining that there are some "small minds" that need to be taken care of, along with a scroll of Dominate Person and 1,500gp. 2 gems are also in the chest, and they have some sort of magic about them - Kallbrand identifies them as Mind Clones - Lilly (using her Detect Thoughts) identifies them as copies of the minds of a Captain of the watch, and of a noble with an interest in winery.

Searching the complex, the group find a planning room, with reams of maps, ledgers and papers strewn across and in the desks and tables. They spend some time searching this room and tucking the documents away, when Sandurel hears footsteps approaching the room. The group quickly array themselves for combat, and throw the doors open, revealing a pair of drow warriors, with a tentacle-faced creature a few steps behind them. Sandurel attacks the first drow, landing a flurry of punches, but the ilithid is quicker than the rest of the group, and a wave of mental pressure rolls over the party, stunning Lilly, but leaving the others with little more than a headache.

Holy crap! 3 of them made DC 23 will saves! They got really lucky that first round. Granted, Draelin used his mindarmour enhancement and he can only do that 3 times a day, but it's still amazing.

Kallbrand uses his Battle Hymn to ward off further psionic assaults (they may make a second will save whenever a save is called for), and Sandurel manages to stun the ilithid with a well-placed kick, despite the effects of a displacement at work. Kallbrand dispels magic, while Draelin and Sandurel move to flank the ilithid. Finding itself unexpectedly at a disadvantage, the ilithid retrets to the ethereal plane, fleeing the combat.

Shaken by this encounter, the party question the drow warrior they have taken captive, then decide to hide for the night. They return to the temple of Pelor, return the elven noble to her estate, and disappear into the city, planning how they will assault the ilithid's lair.

DM comments:
Kallbrand getting Draelin out of the pit with his wand made the fight against the greater doppelganger. If they had been down a player for that fight it could have been bad, but a cheap little wand not only brought the dwarf out of the pit but set him up for a full attack. Again, Sandurel's teleport came in handy. Kallbrand isn't very effective in combat, but he doesn't need to be, his actions are all about empowering the two melee guys, and getting them into position certainly does that. Between a teleporting monk and a wand of benign transposition they are very mobile.

The fact that they got some lucky saves versus the ilithid made the fight much easier, and Sandurel tumbling through the drow guards and hitting the ilithid with a stunning fist was brilliant. With his displacement down, flanked by the monk and the dwarf, and having already taken a full attack from the monk he decided that his chances would be be greatly improved if he fled. He is now worried - 1 of them escaping his mind blast would have been fine, 2 of them might have worried him, but he can try to catch them again. 3 of them shrugging off his blast, then stunning him, flanking him, dropping his defenses, and putting up a spell that makes mental attacks even harder? He knows he's outmatched, and is going to gather his forces to take this threat out.

Modifications:
I made all the doppelgangers fighter 2/rogue 3 to get them some sneak attack and a couple of feats, as well as boosting their BABs and their hit points. While it did help (making for some nice flanking on Lilly), it clearly wasn't enough to really slow down the group.

Originally I had reduced Zyrxog's (the ilithid) difficulty substantially. As written in the module he seems ludicrously overpowered, coming in with a DC 23 mind blast and some absurd amount of SR. When the first save rolled was a 25 and the next was a 27, I decided that he was just fine as is, and reverted to the stats from the module. He could still be a threat, but since they can prepare it's much less of a concern.

[Tam_OConnor]

Bloody PCs, never doing what you want them to. Making saves against the right things at the wrong times, dying at the wrong times. *grumblegrumble*

[Epinephrine]

Bloody PCs, never doing what you want them to. Making saves against the right things at the wrong times, dying at the wrong times. *grumblegrumble*

I was just glad they didn't kill him. It was a close call, Ilithids aren't built to stand there stunned for full attacks.

[Gwynfrid]

On the other hand, this DC23 might just as well have resulted in a TPK, had the dice gone just a bit different, right ? It's always a hard balance with this kind of thing.

The short range teleport seems to be a recurrent theme with your group. Neat tactical options. Now, I think this Benign Transposition is awfully good for a 1st level spell. That, on top of the Shadow Jaunt, gives them great defensive and offensive potential.

[Epinephrine]

On the other hand, this DC23 might just as well have resulted in a TPK, had the dice gone just a bit different, right ? It's always a hard balance with this kind of thing.

The short range teleport seems to be a recurrent theme with your group. Neat tactical options. Now, I think this Benign Transposition is awfully good for a 1st level spell. That, on top of the Shadow Jaunt, gives them great defensive and offensive potential.

Absolutely - when I saw the DC I thought "you've got to be crazy!" It's TPK material for sure, especially if the enemy gets the initiative, so you can't even scatter out of the cone. If he had stunned most of the group he would have Plane Shifted away and let his minions finish them off (giving them a chance to survive, at least)

Now that they are knowing to expect a mind flayer though they'll prep for it, so DC 23 isn't so unreasonable.

Benign Transposition is a very strong 1st level spell. It can swap any two willing people within range (medium, or 110' for a 1st level wand). Of course, it uses an action. Would be harder to justify as a spell memorised or known, but at 15gp per shot the wand is super cheap.

Since most of Kallbrand's actions in combat are pretty much "I sing" at this point (with the occasional spell), he often uses the wand to shift people around - like readying an action to swap Lilly and Draelin, and Lilly can run out to blast at an enemy, looking all vulnerable. Enemy closes with vulnerable girl, who is replaced by the full attacking dwarf who was readied to attack once transposed. Yeah, they're a really tactical group.

[Epinephrine]

Sessions 19+20


Adventure:
Having realised that their foe is a mind flayer, the party return to the temple of Pelor (they had sent the elven woman and mad tax-collector there earlier), and having awoken the priests, they implore them to prepare an emergency scroll of Resurgence (and get dinged for double the normal cost) and Kallbrand asks them to pray for a Greater Resistance for himself, explaining that they will return in the morning to collect them. They decide that they had best not return to their beds, and hide out in a poor area of town; Kallbrand disguises himself as a youngster, and they find 2 rooms under false names, arriving in pairs so as not to seem to be together.

Knowing roughly where to start, they head to the Cold Forge, where after searching for a while they find a patch of the yellow fungus that had been on the drow's boots. Searching the area, they find a secret passage into a cavern-like structure. A vast stretch of yellow fungus lies before them, but recognizing it as yellow mold they avoid the spores by virtue of Sandurel's Shadow Jaunt and the wand of Benign Transposition. Lilly casts her Mass Conviction on the party, to protect them from the effects of the mind flayer's attacks. Soon after, Draelin scents the presence of drow within 30' or so, and looking around the party notices a ledge overhanging the passage, whence an ambush could come. Draelin and Sandurel appear on the ledge (using their anklets of translocation to travel the 10'), surprising the three drow on watch and easily dispatch them, while Kallbrand casts silence on his dagger, and throws it down the passage to muffle the noise of the combat.

Having slain the guards, the group come to an underground river, home to a spirit naga. After some diplomacy, the naga wishes a ring from the ilithid's finger as payment for her cooperation, and Draelin implies that they'll return with it. Having bought the naga's silence with this bribe, they manage to surprise the drow in their lair, and easily dispatch the guards and priestess, Lilly catching several with her holy storm. In a locked door off this lair they find 5 prisoners, who they decide to leave locked up unitl they are returning, and they set off down a tunnel to a great pair of marble doors. Strange tentacled aberrations pounce from behind the stalagmited ceiling, lashing out with their long, clawed tentacles and gazing hypnotically with their single eyes. Twice Draelin feels their gaze slowing his movements, but he's rescued fom the effect both times - once by Lilly's magic (resurgence), the second time by his martial training (iron heart surge). Kallbrand, despite his attempts to avoid attack, manages to get savaged by a pair of claws, and nearly goes down as he is rended by the beast. Lilly's bolts prove deadly, able to hit the beasts even while they attack from the ceiling, and the 3 guardians fall.

Healing up quickly, they take a few poitions to buff themselves and open the double doors.

Yes! They finally drink the tainted Bull's Strength potion from Ilthane's fake hoard - Draelin fails his Spot check, swallowing the slow worm. It ends up not important, as Draelin eventually suffers from the slow worm, feeling sick, and of course has Lilly check him out. She decides that he may have been exposed to something (mould? sewage?) and casts a remove disease, causing the worm to burst out of him. Panic ensues, as they try to figure out when he could possibly have come in contact with it. They go to ELigos, who is fascinated, and determines that this is something called a slow worm, and is hidden in drinks. They then try to figure out when someone could have slipped it into their drinks. I encourage them to list all the things they had to drink. They eventually realise that it might be that someone has put worms in their potions, and check them all. Only a few have worms, so they try to figure out where they got those potions - curiously, all from Illthane's chest. Was fun to have them worried :smallbiggrin:

A great chamber with a stone brain in the centre holds benches with manacles. On entering the room a wave of mental pressure assaults Draelin, who manages to fight through it, sustaining only some mild mental bruising. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valour, the party avoid the room, relying on Kallbrand and Sandurel's teleportations to hop across without being subjected to the stone brain's effect.

The next chamber they enter is a laboratory of some sort, and while they look at the door leading out they are attacked by another octopin, this one larger than the last ones. It flails ineffectually at them, never managing to connect with both its razor sharp claws, and the party escapes with barely a scratch, easily slaying it.

The hallway leads to a museum, which houses many strange objects, and radiates abjuration magic. Rather than risk the alarm on the chamber, the party retun to the door, and find themselves in front of a large scrying pool, currently showing an image of the dopppelganger Telakin, lying dead before his throne. They advance to the large chamber ahead, in which the Mind flayer floats over the edge of a large pool, apparently meditating.

He spins to face the party, but Sandurel and Draelin are quick, and dash into the room, too far from one another to be targeted with a single mind blast. Deciding that Sandurel is the greater threat, he unleashes a violent storm of psionic energy at the monk, stunning him. Lilly is quick to the rescue, however, and rushes to Sandurel's side, reviving him with her healing touch (another resurgence), while Kallbrand begins a Battle Hymn that will reinforce the party's will to fight (it's from spell compendium, allows a second chance at all will saves while it's active). The Octopins that were lurking at either side of the huge pillar at the end of the chamber decend to the floor, rushing to engage the intruders. Sandurel handles one of these beasts on his own, while Draelin and Lilly take care of the other; Kallbrand has now begun his song, inspiring the two warriors to greater accuracy and power. As the last octopin falls, Kallbrand dispels magic on the mindflayer, dropping him to the floor. Sandurel and Draelin converge on the mind flayer, and it dies to one of Draelin's axes which connect no fewer than four times (with two crits...).

Thinking that the danger is over, the party begin searching the museum, when the statue of a Vrock demon comes to life. Lilly uses her holy storm, filling the small chamber with a pure rainfall that burns the demon's flesh as it falls. The demon manages to catch Lilly while she is vulnerable, and tears into her flesh in return with its bite as well as 3 of its clawed limbs. Barely standing, Lilly retreats, using her anklets to gain some distance, and healing herself up. In the meantime, Sandurel and Draelin are dispatching the mirror images that the Vrock has called up, while Kallbrand manages to cause the Vrock to hesitate with a spell (Hesitate, the demon doesn't get to act). Kallbrand's next spell, haste, endows the warriors with extra speed, and Sandurel manges to land a stunning kick to the demon's midsection, setting the stage for Draelin to attack 5 times on the stunned, flanked demon.

As they search the library, Kallbrand finds a cursed tome the hard way, and suffers some permanent mental injury as a result (ouch! 2 wisdom!). Gathering the loot, they retreat, planning to read through the documents they've found at a later date (they have documents from here as well as from the doppelganger's lair to go through).

Having returned finally to their base, they find Celeste waiting for them, wondering if they've had second thoughts about joining the championship games. Delighted to hear that they have, she explains that they'll receive an invitation to the banquet opening the games, held at Lord Raknian's manor, and that they should meet up with her friend Ekaym, who most likely wants to get to know the gladiators he is sponsoring for the games.


DM comments
Pretty much what I expected - they have the melee punch to drop foes that they can get to, and despite not having "full" casters, more than enough casting power. Their knowledge checks had revealed that spells would likely be wasted on the mind flayer, so they stuck with dispelling.

Glad to see they are paranoid enough to realise that going back to their previous inn may have been a bad idea, the caution will serve them well :)

[Tam_OConnor]

Oh, I wish my PCs were that paranoid. Instead, it's the traditional 'rope trick, sleep for eight hours.' Time to start mucking about with the Astral plane...

We're actually getting fairly close to what you're playing, right? Started the evil abomination that is #7 yet?

[Epinephrine]

We're just into #6 actually, they fought the previously discussed opponent Saturday night, and have only gotten a few rooms into chapter 6.

I'm trying to speed up the recaps to catch up to where we are in game - it was such a fabulous encounter, I want to write it up right away!

[Epinephrine]

Sessions 21-23 (slow sessions)

The Party:
Draelin, Dwarven Rogue 2/Warblade 7
Sandurel, Human Monk 9
Kallbrand, Halfling Bard 9
Lilly, Human Favored Soul 4/Warlock 1/Eldritch Disciple 4

Changes to the adventure:
Well, I wrote up all the competitors, and balanced them a bit better against the party.

I also completely redid all the betting and odds, as I didn't want a windfall from betting to happen. The odds weren't very well done, and I play with mathematicians - if they see that they can make guaranteed money on a given fight by playing the spread they'll do that.

Specific changes:
Arcane Auriga: All elves become rangers, boosted their level enough that each had 1st level spells, (and the wisdom bonus for a spell); gave them all Hunter's Mercy and a pearl of power, so they can do 3 Hunter's Mercies a day. The leader had more of a boost, also getting ranger spells - her Arcane Archer shtick was weak, so just loaded her up as a 9th level ranger.

Joren and gnolls. I didn't like the feel of a druid with disposable gnolls, so he became a gnoll druid. He was there as an ambassador from the gnolls, and when Raknian wouldn't listen to his plea to stop harming animals in his games he enetered, to make a point in the ring. The party immediately decided that the gnolls were the badguys and that the archers were good guys, but actually ended up befriending Joren and now have him as a contact.

Sapphire Squadron. Buffed their mounted combat a bit, and their gear. Didn't matter at all - the archers took out the Janni so darn fast it wasn't funny.

I also played out all the other matches ahead of time, and described them to the players - they were impressed by some of the opponents, and it meant that they didn't know for certain who they'd be facing. Unfortunately in a way, they got some ideas from it...

Adventure:
Having accepted Ekaym's offer (80%-20% split of winnings); the party attended a pre-championship gala held by Lord Raknian, at which the various gladiators were introduced. A few were absent (e.g., Pitch Blade, The Unhumans), and much cheering was done for last year's returning champions, Auric's Warband. They noticed Ekaym spent a lot of time watching Raknian and talking with others. Following the dinner, the party were shown down to the Coenoby (the cave system where the gladiators wait), and the following morning they saw the schedules posted. There was little chance to explore, as the guards were omnipresent and vigilant - diffusing the fights that might have broken out by threat of disqualification.

With the fights posted, the gnolls came to talk, suggesting that they wished to attack the mounted group, offering to ignore the party while they did so (it turned out that the druid leading them had come to the games to seek vengeance against those who would slaughter or endanger animals in the name of entertainment, and was angry that the riders would endanger their mounts). Of course, the party had already visited with Arcane Auriga (a team of Elven archers), and had determined that they would work together against the Janni. The group thus counter-offered that all three groups could attack the Janni and his men, and then offered to gang up on the Elven archers with Joren and the gnolls. They also agreed that whoever won the match would try to free any animals they could find, releasing them to the other party, who would wait outside of the arena.

The first fight was a literal slaughter, with the relatively unknown Pitch Blade actually killing several of their opponents. The party's fight was rather predictable. A 3 on 1 assault against the Janni and his men was brutally effective, and the archers fell quickly to the druid and the party working together. Facing off against Joren and his gnoll halberdiers afterward was challenging, but the party won and there was much cheering; Raknian seemed annoyed as he awarded them the bronze bull trophy and cash prize, though Ekaym beamed and waved like a good manager.

Following the fights (and collecting gambling winnings), Ekaym came to see them, to explain that he had other motives for entering the games. He actually had planned to get any old team of gladiators, and to use the excuse of being a manager to get a chance to search for his missing sister in the normally off-limit areas under the arena complex. It turns out that managers are kept from visiting save in a manager's room (likely to prevent them from trying to sabotage other teams, etc.), so he asked whether the party would be willing to try to find any information about the whereabouts of his sister. As an aside, he mentions that someone called Eligos was asking to speak with them, about some scrolls or something.

The Coenoby is much less crowded following the 6 battles of the day, as only 6 teams remain in an area meant to hold 24; the guards are not patrolling nearly as much. Pitch Blade have shut themselves in their room once more.

With no fights tomorrow the guards are pretty lax, and the gladiators are free to spend some time enjoying the city (many have travelled from afar to be here; return no later than dusk the following day).

With the games at a lull, and a summons to see Eligos, the party heads into the city to pick up a few items they had been eyeing - Draelin manages to track down a magical adamantine kukri-axe, Kallbrand picks up an amulet of natural armour, and Sandurel buys the finest Guisarme he can find, having decided that he needs a reach weapon that can trip.

Eligos is excited to reveal that the Spawn of Kyuss are in fact one of the weakest of the Kyuss-born undead. For example, there exist creatures called Ulgurstasta, which are huge worm-like creatures that can swallow people whole and regurgitate them as walking undead. Fortunately, their creation methods have been lost, found only in books like the Libris Mortis, the Apostolic Scrolls, or the Book of Vile Deeds. The party look to one another, and Draelin holds up a sheet of parchment detailing the purchase of a copy of the Apostolic Scrolls to an L. Raknian. Eligos seems quite concerned - he's not sure what powers an Ulgurstasta has, exactly, but fears that they are very dangerous - plus the scrolls are said to hold ritual magic that can further strengthen them. He says that he must hurry back to the library, and that he may have to consult with Allustan and his master about this, as clearly there is great evil rising. Draelin warns him to be careful - with someone as powerful as Lord Raknian behind this, and with the assassination attempts on the party, it's entirely possible that poking around could attract unwanted attention.

Having seen Eligos, the group set out to explore the coliseum’s under structure. Heading first to the south, the group find an old set of structures that look to have once been surface dwellings. In the centre of this area is a statue of what might be a titan, wielding a huge mattock. The area is abandoned, and shows signs of instability - many of the houses are partially collapsed. A pool of water that reaches about a 10' depth is at the southeast corner of the cave, and a plug of stone is visible, blocking what seems to be an underwater tunnel. An underground river also flows in one side of the pool, and out the other, though it is only a couple of feet wide. A voice in Lilly's head reminds her of the story that Raknian himself fought off a group of ghouls and sealed them up in their lair with a massive stone - this could well be the root of that story.

Deciding that this is unlikely to be an entrance to a hidden chamber with a huge worm-thing, they return to explore the service level of the under structure. There are a few guards posted, but between Lilly’s charming ways and Kallbrand's deceptions (oh, Lord Raknian himself said we could look around. I'm sure I have the note here somewhere...) they are permitted to have a look around. They find little of interest, though Lilly has a talk with the animals that are caged here, and tells them that she will return and set them free later, if they promise to behave. The one passage that they are warned away from has the death row prison cells, but a bribe and a bit of diplomacy sends the guards for a smoke break, and Lilly goes to see whether she can tend to the prisoner, to at least make him more comfortable. Draelin sees a door leading into a wine cellar, and searches in there quickly, while Lilly finds a deaf-mute vagabond huddled in one of the cells. Unable to talk to him, she resorts to using detect thoughts, but the vagabond is clearly insane, and all that he thinks of is that "the man will come with the worm. The man, he's there, with the worms, and he'll put the worms on me!"

This worries the group - now there is a connection between the Ebon Triad and lord Raknian - Draelin produces one of the dead Kyuss worms he has kept, and shows it to the prisoner, who shrieks, and huddles in the corner. Confirming their suspicion that it's Kyuss worms that the man is frightened of, Draelin leads the others back to the wine cellar, closes the door behind them, and explains that he's found a secret door, but would like to know if there's anything magical about it. Lilly examines it, and declares that there isn't, at which point Draelin slides it open, revealing a stairwell descending deeper into the earth, while a smell of death and decay washes into the room. To Draelin's sensitive nose, it smells of the undead. Some careful examination of the stairwell reveals a hidden glyph, set to detonate should anyone pass under it, but probing at it carefully, Draelin manages to deactivate it, scratching a delicate pattern of lines across it and defusing the magical energies stored within.

The party close the secret door behind them, and descend the stairs, emerging into a room with several coffins lying about, and a trio of Kyuss Spawn waiting for them. Blindingly fast, Sandurel brushes past Draelin (who was in the lead), tripping the closest of the undead, and then triggering his Anklets of Translocation to position himself to block one of the exits. One of the spawn tries to get by the monk, but ends up flat on his back, so the second attacks him, while the last stands up, grabs a gobbet of wriggling flesh from its face, and hurls it at Sandurel. The monk has managed to avoid the clumsy swing, but was not expecting a worm to be flung at him, and it finds its mark, writhing against Sandurel's neck. With no easy escape, the Kyuss spawn fall to the axe and eldritch blasts that rain down on them, while Sandurel (remembering Lilly's advice) draws his silver dagger and dispatches the worm on his neck.

To one side of this chamber is a pit that has a sour, acid smell to it; when Draelin drops a rock in there is a small splash from below. "Acid, heh..." the Dwarf chuckles, "I'll not be jumping in there." Some scraps of food suggest that this may be a garbage disposal, and the group head toward the door visible at the end of the hallway. Opening this, they see another half dozen worm-infested Kyuss spawn, and an undead creature with a long, purple tongue lolling from its skeletal visage. "A Mohrg?" Lilly exclaims, "Don’t let it lick you!". Again, the monk proves quickest to respond, and he blurs into motion, seeming to cross the intervening distance in a blink, as he puts his Chronocharm to good use. Finding himself beside the Mohrg, he lets loose a flurry of kicks and punches, but only manages to connect once. The Mohrg opens one of the doors that exit the room, calls out, "Alert the master!" and its purple tongue lashes out, leaving a trail of slime across Sandurel's chest - but while he feels a chilling sensation, he is not paralysed by the necromantic saliva.

Lilly steps into the room, unleashing her fury in a burst of positive energy; undead flesh sizzles as she does so, but although injured, all the foes remain standing. Kallbrand starts his bard song, inspiring the others to remain courageous, and the spawn begin their shambling attacks. Three converge on the young girl who wields the power of the gods, while the others try to get past the monk. Sandurel manages to stop all three from getting past him, but 6 worms wriggle on his arms and legs by the time he is finished, and while Lilly avoids most of the blows aimed her way, one fist does connect, leaving her with a worm trying to burrow beneath its way between the links of her chain shirt.

A second burst of holy energy drops the six Kyuss spawn to the floor, their worms bursting out of their bodies to writhe on the cool stone. Draelin moves past Lilly, flicking an axe at the worm that is about to burrow into her flesh and sending it falling to the floor in pieces, then suddenly leaps through the air to land behind the Mohrg, who is trying unsuccessfully to get past Sandurel. The flanking pair unleash a storm of blows on the Mohrg, even as the worms burrow into Sandurel's flesh, leaving writhing lumps that squirm their way up his torso. Lilly moves up, finishing of the Mohrg with a bolt of eldritch energy, with Sandurel moving in behind her, still singing. The sound of spell casting comes from the next room, but more pressing matters must be attended to - Lilly retrieves the Remove Disease scroll from her bandolier, and quickly casts it on Sandurel, causing a half dozen worms to burst from his upper torso and neck.

Rather than let the opponent cast more, Draelin moves up and kicks the door open, revealing a short, pudgy tiefling standing behind a glowing scroll that hovers in mid-air. A lance of greenish light extends from the scroll to a set of double doors. Sandurel rushes toward the tiefling, only to rebound silently off an invisible wall, and runs tracing the wall in the air till he reaches the far end of the room - it seems that a curved barrier about 10 feet from the tiefling is preventing him from closing. Sandurel's mouth moves silently in speech - he can't be heard at all. Kallbrand attempts an area dispel, hoping to drop the effect that is preventing Sandurel from being heard, as well as the mystical barrier. He's unsuccessful; the barrier stands, though the Mass Conviction that Lilly had cast earlier is dispelled from Sandurel.

The tiefling follows this up by casting, and Lilly identifies the spell he is chanting as Spell Resistance, so she counters by swiftly using Assay Spell Resistance to pick holes in his mystical protection, and readies an action to disrupt his next spell with a bolt of energy. Draelin and Sandurel wait for the barrier to drop, tracing their hands along the invisible wall, and Kallbrand again tries to drop the spells, this time with a targeted dispel on the tiefling. With a popping sound the barrier drops, and the monk and warrior charge in to flank the priest. With his armour enchantments dropped to the first dispel magic, the priest is easily caught by a trio of punches and four vicious axe blows, and is dead in seconds, before unleashing a single offensive spell of his own.

Unable to communicate in the room (the silence is still in effect), the group discuss in the hallway, and determine that they should minimally identify the necklace and brooch the tiefling wears, as well as trying to move the scroll. The scroll appears to be frozen in place, and can't be shifted in any way. The necklace and brooch are identified as a brooch of shielding and a strand of prayer beads, which are handed to Lilly to use.

Opening the great double doors, the party sees that the light continues down this hall, stopping at a shimmering green sphere, enclosing a gigantic, pale yellow worm at least 40 feet long, curled up and pulsing with energy. A swing of Draelin's axe rebounds harmlessly from a rubbery barrier of force. Lilly attempts to dispel it by unleashing positive energy at the barrier, but a backlash of green light washes by her, catching her with a few stray tendrils of energy, and she looks weakened by this exchange. Studying the sphere carefully with her detect magic, she decides that it most resembles a wall of force, and that they lack the means to disrupt it at present, though it did respond to her attempt to dispel it, and may succumb to a sufficiently powerful channelling of energy.

DM commentary:
They killed the tiefling in seconds. That was meant to be a big fight, a real challenge. Instead it was a speed bump. So I decided to be mean, and he's rising as a ghost in a few hours - after all, he's on a mission for his deity, he's not going to let a little thing like being hacked apart stop him.

The fight with Joren and gang was easy for them, but only because they were diplomatic. They were smart and let Lilly do the talking with Arcane Auriga (well, she's the diplomat anyway, but it really helped that they had a female leader), and Lilly was all over helping animals, so she and Joren saw eye-to-eye.

Their most amazing bit was in controlling the battles on the way to the tiefling priest - Sandurel's mobility and trip attacks (and combat reflexes!) allowed him to dominate that - they may have thought it was minor, but it's the difference between having a fully buffed priest to deal with or a priest still buffing. When I described the writhing worms under his flesh, and the feeling of one moving up his neck? He wanted that Remove Disease right away! But they learned that they can afford to take a kyuss worm for their goal, even if it means that they have to remove disease after the fight.

The unfortunate idea part? Well, there was a team called the Gravediggers, which I decided were a pair of Dwarves and a Goliath, paladins all. I made certain that they were 6th or 7th level, and they each bonded another with Shield Other. With the Pathfinder Paladin's ability to Lay on Hands as a swift action, or to expend multiple uses for a healing burst on an area, it meant that they soaked damage impressively and could heal up fast (I described them taking hits and seeing the wounds affect another member, then all three held aloft their blades and healed in a burst). The party caught on, and Lilly is making this amazing spell her next priority.

[Epinephrine]

Sessions 24-25

Changes to the module:
Well, we are in the process of switching to Pathfinder, so Pitch Blade were written up with the Rage Powers from the pathfinder beta. I also boosted their stats a bit to make up for the party's point buy.

The party had creamed Bozal when they first met him, so I brought him back as a ghost, which was entertaining. It frustrated the players a bit to fight the same enemy twice, so I'm not sure that I'd recommend it for other parties - I liked it, as I thought it fit the feel of the adventure path (god of undeath, undead enemies, powerful priest thwarted?).


Adventure:

Having discovered the gargantuan worm-thing growing in the central chamber, the party decides to avoid combat with it for now, and continue searching the temple complex. While Kallbrand identifies some items, Lilly peruses the scrolls that float in the air (Morgan apparently speaks both Abyssal and Infernal, all the better to kill the fiends, and translates it for her), and explains to the party that the Ulgurstasta's ritual isn't finished - it must still consume a mighty champion to unleash the necromantic energy bound up in it. Putting two and two together, the group realises that the whole point of getting Auric back is to feed him to the beast - the returning champions typically get to fight a beast on the 4th day - what better way to present a champion as a meal to the Ulgurstasta. With a timeline in mind, the party is confident that they can return and deal with this abomination later on.

The next room is the priest's bedchamber, and sitting in a chair is a well preserved zombie - one that is almost certainly the missing sister that Ekaym was looking for. Lilly examines the sister's un-corpse (who is not a threat, as she sits motionless the whole time), and explains that she was strangled, and that the killer was large, probably male, with strong hands and a serpent-shaped ring. A ring resembling the one Loris Raknian was wearing at the award presentation.

Some speculation over why Raknian would want her corpse kept (let alone animated) leads the group to conclude that it wasn't Raknian's doing - the priest must have been keeping her as a weapon against Raknian. The chest in the room is the only object of obvious value, the panels on it showing scenes of nightmarish apocalypse - risen corpses and worms filling the landscapes. Draelin approaches it carefully, ensures that no traps are present, and goes to open it - recoiling as a worm bursts from his chest and falls writhing to the ground. Searching again, the dwarf finds a subtle magical trap, and asks Lilly to bless him with the ability to cast spells. Lilly imbues Draelin with divine insight, which allows the dwarf to easily disarm the trap on the chest.

Inside is a trove of treasure - a wand, scrolls, potions, incense... they spend a few minutes while Kallbrand identifies the objects, and then stuff them away in their bags of holding. Having finished with this room, they continue to a waiting room of sorts, with a curtain hanging ceiling to floor against one wall. As Draelin enters, the curtain is flung out, and a man-sized blob of bubbling acid and waving pseudopods lashes out at the party with a cone of cold. Despite the surprise, the party press themselves to the sides of the passage and avoids the worst of the gale. Lilly shouts out, "Alkilith demon! It's acidic, and you'll want blessed weapons!" Draelin and Sandurel prepare their weapons with blessed oil, while the demon backs up and lashes out at the dwarf with an enervation, but only grazes the dwarf with its beam.

With Lilly and Kallbrand withdrawn around the corner (Kallbrand singing, and Lilly casting), the demon splits the party with a wall of ice, but the monk and warrior descend on the demon, their blessed weapons finding their mark again and again. While Lilly tries to blast through the wall and Kallbrand struggles to dispel it, the demon dispels the blessings on the group's weaponry and begins to attack with its acidic limbs. Kallbrand finally manages to dispel the wall, allowing Lilly to cast a holy storm, the blessed rain searing the demon's flesh. Rather than stay and fight the demon flees, teleporting to safety. The party group up, heal, Draelin coats his weapon with blessed oil again, and having determined that the only other exit leads in the direction of Raknian's manor they backtrack through the complex. Entering the room with the Apostolic Scrolls , the again encounter the Alikilith demon, who is leading ochre jellies back to his lair. The demon is slow to react to the adventurer's presence, and Draelin manages to act first, pouncing across the room to engage the demon. With his weapons blessed again the demon succumbs to the flurry of blows, leaving the ochre jellies to be assaulted by Sandurel and Lilly.

Running low on resources, the party decide to try the pit to see whether they can make their way back via a new route. Having already dispatched the ochre jellies, they make their way south-east through narrow tunnels until the smell of ghasts assaults their senses - the room ahead holds several of the undead, but with Lilly's ability to channel energy they make short work of these foes. They finally locate the back end of the submerged plug that they had found in the Titan's House, and with Draelin putting his maul to work they emerge in the Titan's House, and return to their rooms. After a short discussion they decide to tell Ekaym of his sister's fate immediately, and he requests that they bring her back, which they agree to and easily accomplish.

With their magical abilities substantially weakened and a combat the next day against Pitch Blade, they elect not to return immediately to finish off the Ulgurstasta - they can do so after battling Pitch Blade, before Auric faces the undead horror on the 4th day.

The afternoon battle with Pitch Blade has finally arrived, and the party are led up to the arena, sharing a lift with the gruff dwarven barbarians. Once in the arena, with the cheering settling down, the referee gives the ready signal and both teams begin to prep - Pitch Blade are drinking potions, and right before the buzzer sounds they both swell in height, 10 feet tall angry-looking dwarves wielding their maul and war hammer.

Sandurel likewise swells to a great height, while Lilly and Kallbrand prepare spells of their own. The opponents don't realise this, but thanks to Lilly's imbue with spell ability, all 4 members of the team have managed to cast a shield other, so incoming damage will be divided between two pairs, with Kallbrand and Sandurel sharing their combined health, and Lilly and Draelin likewise bonded.

The dwarves are faster to act than any of the crusaders, and begin by slinging a silenced stone into their midst and charging; Drusfen makes it all the way to the front rank, and having avoided Sandurel's attack, swings his terrifyingly huge war hammer, connecting with a staggering blow. As he hits, he yells in Dwarven, "be gone," and Sandurel shrinks in size, dropping back to his regular form. Gone too is the shield spell that would have protected him from some of the pair's swings. Lilly and the Crusaders drop back out of range, Sandurel failing to evade the swing of the maul while doing so, but managing to land a kick on the barbarian on his way out, while Lilly blasts at the dwarf with her eldritch blast. Kallbrand dispels magic on the lead dwarf, stripping him of several buffs - he shrinks and his actions slow down, but he is still fearsome to behold in his rage. The two dwarves charge again, both using guarded stances to reduce the chance of being hit, but their swings fail to connect.

Having established a position outside of the silence, Draelin and Sandurel stand their ground, while Kallbrand and Lilly both take flight. Kallbrand uses a second dispel, this time on Pharbol, who similarly dwindles in size back to his usual 5 foot frame, while Lilly again blasts the two dwarves, her eldritch blast leaping from one to the other, causing Drusfen to look somewhat shaken.

While at first the party were on the retreat, the two melee teams now exchange blows. The barbarians can't chase the flying casters, so continue to work together to try to drop the agile monk, while Draelin and Sandurel focus their attacks on the maul wielding Drusfen, landing one punishing combination after another on him. Were it up to the melee folks alone, the barbarians would likely have prevailed, but Lilly's continued barrage wears at the dwarves and shakes their confidence, while Kallbrand's spells manage to toss Pharbol to the ground, and a wave of black energy seems to sap the Dwarven barbarian of some aggression - and all the while, the punishment that the pair inflict on Sandurel is blunted, though bruises and contusions are appearing on Kallbrand's form. Soon Sandurel manages to stun Drusfen, and Draelin finishes the dwarf with a storm of blows with the flat of his blades, sending the enemy reeling into unconsciousness. Pharbol follows soon after, and the crusaders are greeted with roars of approval - Draelin's name is chanted by the crowd, and Raknian is forced to present them, yet again, with a victory trophy - this time of a silver dwarf in armour.

Sneaking away from the rest of the afternoon's events, the party returns through the caves to try to attack the ulgurstasta, but are surprised when a ghost materialises in front of them, raining fire and hurling spells. Bozal's soul evidently felt it had work to continue, and the priest fights fiercely, trying to keep the party from disrupting his life's work - the bringing of this apostle of Kyuss to power. Despite managing to reduce Kallbrand to a helpless, writhing state, the priest is ultimately unsuccessful - Sandurel uses a shadow jaunt to bypass the priest's anti-life shell, and his ki-fueled assault manage to find ethereal flesh often enough to disperse the angry spirit. Reviving Kallbrand, the party asks him to dispel the unhallowed chamber, and the Halfling manages to break the enchantment with ease, but warns them that his command of 3rd circle energies is at an end - if they wish to fight the ulgurstasta it will be without the benefit of his spells of slowing, of haste, and his ability to dispel magical energies. The group decide that it's too dangerous at this juncture, and that they will have to return the following morning, before Auric faces this monstrosity in the arena.

Having arrived back at their chambers, the talk among the guards is that Auric's team isn't facing the beast - to give the crowd a show, the newly rising stars, Lilly and the Crusaders, will be facing a beast called Madtooth the Hungry. Asking around, Lilly finds a guard who is more than willing to talk to her, complaining about how he has to haul bags of ice over to a secret warehouse - apparently this beast likes it cold. Confused, the team return to their chambers - are they mistaken? They assumed that the match between a beast and last year's champion would be the battle between Auric and the Ulgurstasta, to finish the ritual described in the floating scroll.

[Tam_OConnor]

Madtooth!!! Madtooth!!! Madtooth The Hungry!!!

[Epinephrine]

Session 26: Madtooth and the Worm

The party:
Draelin, Dwarf Warblade 9/Rogue 2; party tank and trapfinder
Sandurel, Human Monk 11; maneuverability and combat control
Lilly, Human Warlock 1/Favoured Soul 4/Eldritch Theurge 6; Healer/Buffer/Ranged combat and diplomat
Kallbrand, Halfling Bard 11; utility, buffing, tactical casting

Changes to the adventure
The party are a little stronger than they should be, but the changes to the adventure as suggested might be too great. I improved Madtooth by adding a small number of HD, and by giving it elite stat array, as well as Combat Reflexes. Also pre-buffed it with Stoneskin. I felt that the bump the module suggested (going to gargantuan!) would be excessive. Given how close the fight came to killing them, I'm glad I didn't go with a gargantuan froghemoth, it might well have killed both the melee on the opening attack. The gnome clowns were simply a fun flavour addition, which reinforced to the party what a jerk Raknian is - after all, they could have thought it was an illusion or something and simply unloaded at the "gnomes".

I improved the Ulgurstasta a little as well (elite stat array), though I didn't want it to grow larger - colossal would be a bit much. This bumps up DCs, makes it a bit tougher to kill. In Pathfinder undead use d8s for their HD, but gain their Charisma bonus instead of Con. They also get a medium BAB instead of a poor BAB, so it worked out well enough.

Adventure:
With the stands very nearly full, the party is lifted into the arena by the main shaft; ahead of them sits a gigantic wooden crate, with pins holding the sides. They've already put their long-term buffs up (Lilly has imbued spell ability for the other three, passing them each a shield other) Raknian announces the battle, the referee calls, "Get ready!" at which point the party uses a few buffs, and when the crate falls open it reveals 20 or so gnomes and Halflings in jester's motley, armed with pies. Confused, Lilly and Sandurel delay, waiting to see what happens, when the gnomes begin running about throwing pies at one another. After a short while the audience starts laughing, and with their pies all thrown, the gnomes take a bow and are escorted from the arena.

Raknian's voice echoes through the arena once again, thanking the party for their good humour, and explaining that they had a delay in getting the beast into the crate - and figured that rather than leave the audience waiting, some entertainment was better than nothing. The true fight will start shortly. Minutes drag by, and Draelin starts to boo, shouting "bring out the beast!" Soon Kallbrand is pitching in, using his perform skill to sing a song about an incompetent manager who can't find a beast for his gladiators to fight, and the audience start getting annoyed too. It's too late for the party though; their round/level and minute/level buffs are down by the time the second crate arrives.

This crate is likewise a gigantic box, 20 feet on a side, and something shifting about inside it causes it to rock from time to time. Raknian begins announcing, again, and there is a note of obvious satisfaction in his voice, " As you all know, Lilly and the Crusaders have already shown their skill at handling monstrosities, when they defended the Free City against a rampaging Chimera; with the fan following they have developed, it was decided that these new challengers to the Champion's Belt should have a chance against a real beast. From near the great crater at the foot of the Barrier Peaks, we have found one of the most brutal creatures known to man. Its appetite knows no limit, and its tentacles can crush anything it can grasp. Can the Crusaders prevail against the gluttony of Madtooth the Hungry?"

A roar of applause fills the stands, and the Referee calls the ready signal, and shortly after, blows his whistle. The walls of the crate fall, and blinking in the light sits a huge frog-like creature, with eyes on a stalk over its head and 4 great tentacles sprouting where its forelimbs should be. It is an incredibly rare beast called a Froghemoth.

OMG! I ran the original Expedition to the Barrier Peaks when I was young, and the Froghemoth was amazing. I was so happy to see it return to the spotlight, I just had to make one for the players to fight! I linked some images of making it in Tam O_Connor's Age of Worms journal (link in sig), but here's a shot of it with the players (they stayed farther back than this, I just wanted a shot of them near it).
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9121/img6607b.jpg

Sandurel is the quickest to act, and decided to charge at the beast, 100' away, hoping to close and catch it before it can respond. After Sandurel has run 70' the beast responds almost as if by reflex. The Froghemoth's tongue shoots 30' through the air, entangling the monk and dragging him toward the cavernous maw. Sandurel activates his anklets of translocation and frees himself from the tongue's coils and punches the froghemoth, though its heavy skin barely responds to the force of the blow. The froghemoth turns its attention on the morsel that has struck it, and lashes out, connecting with 3 of its
tentacles, its tongue, and its bite. Without the link provided by Draelin the monk would surely have died, but instead Draelin staggers with the blows he feels at a distance, and both the monk and warrior are sorely injured.

Rather than close with the beast, the party backs off, Lilly ready to use a burst of healing energy when the monk can catch up, and Draelin and Kallbrand tending to the Dwarf's wounds. Sandurel Shadow Jaunts away from the froghemoth, and runs as well as he is able toward his comrades, managing to get within range of Lilly's healing burst.

The froghemoth follows, slowly at first, watching the strange bugs retreating. After a few of Lilly's eldritch bolt, though, the froghemoth begins running at the party, as fast as it can, trying to close the distance. Lilly activates her bracers, entangling the beast
to slow it, and they manage to skirt it along the side of the arena, continuing to backpedal down the arena wall. The audience start booing, and chanting "fight, fight, fight!" A chorus of "Madtooth!" can also be heard.

Playing keep-away, Lilly relies on her Rod of Eldritch Power to launch her blasts farther than normal (Eldritch Spear), along with the Entangling blasts to keep it at range, while Draelin fires crossbow bolts at it. When his first bolt failed to penetrate its hide, he tried adamantine bolts, which sunk deeply into the froghemoth's flesh. Eventually out of entangles and eldritch spears, they prepare to make stand. Stopping 120' from it, it runs up to 40' away. Sandurel activates his amulet of teamwork and tumbles in; managing to hit it, though he barely manages to harm it. Draelin charges in, and actually manages to not get hit by the lashing tongue, and with an adamantine axe in one of his hands (and his Pouncing Charge and Raging Mongoose) manages enough damage to drop the beast.

The crowd erupts in applause and cheering, and the stunned Raknian must present them with a trophy. They hustle away from the festivities, claiming that they must thank the gods for their victory, but can't make it down to the Ulgurstasta's chamber before several of their spells fail.

Again, had to make an Ulgurstasta - it's just too unique an enemy, and it wouldn't make the right impressionotherwise. The players were pretty dumbstruck when I produced it.
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6417/img6606i.jpg

Facing the worm, Lilly prepares with a Death Ward, and then tackles the glowing green shield surrounding the worm. The shield falls to her first turning attempt. Kallbrand casts haste, and Sandurel and Draelin step up and unload on the Ulgurstasta. It spews out its undead, and the acid coated undead try in vain to grab the attacking foes. Draelin and Sandurel assault it again, while Lilly arcs an eldritch blast through the spawn of Kyuss, trying to ensure that they can't interfere in the battle against the gargantuan undead worm-thing. The Ulgurstasta manages to bite Draelin twice, grappling him on the second bite, a terrible wound that is thankfully divided between the dwarf and his monk ally. Kallbrand recognises that the enemy is too fast and must be under the effect of a haste spell, and casts slow to counter it. Lilly is taking care of the enemy and the undead by chaining her blasts, while Draelin uses his boosts to teleport out of the grapple, and unloads another full attack on the enemy, as does the monk. The worm breathes its breath weapon, spewing necromantic acid down the passage and catching all but Kallbrand with it, but the party's reflexes are good enough to avoid the worst of the
spray.

Kallbrand decides to try his ironthunder horn, and amazingly, the blast of sound unbalances the gargantuan beast, which crashes to the ground. The pair of meleers finish it off as it writhes on the ground, ending the threat.

DM comments:
Despite the keep-away nature of the Froghemoth battle, the players said it was the best battle of the campaign. The brutal opening assault on Sandurel forced them to think on their feet, and allowed Lilly to shine. Sure, Draelin finished it off, but without Lilly wearing it down, and without her entangling blasts to get them away from it several times they would have suffered casualties.

The shield other links that the party has decided to use is a powerful technique, though it does use three 4th level spells as well as four 2nd level spells, so it is a resource hog.

[Tam_OConnor]

Very nice. Good to know that both of them are actually defeatable. I must just be mean. Have you and yours started #7 yet?

[Epinephrine]

Very nice. Good to know that both of them are actually defeatable. I must just be mean. Have you and yours started #7 yet?

You're not mean - Sandurel took 140+ damage from the Froghemoth, which would have killed him outright if not for the Shield Other that Draelin had cast on him (thanks to Lilly's Imbue with Spell Ability). It had done some damage the previous round as well. If Sandurel had remained grappled (he escaped the froghemoth twice; once with anklets, once with his Shadow Jaunt) he'd have died and taken Draelin to unconsciousness or death with him (they wanted to be similar in health, so Sandurel was running an empowered false life potion, IIRC, so he could have easily dropped the dwarf if he went down. I think they each had in the 90s of HP, which meant a pool of 180 or more between them - and they were in jeopardy after 1 full attack by the thing. It's a party-wiping machine). The fact is that those 1,400gp boots saved their lives TWICE this session.

Luckily, it has an int of 1, so I didn't have it play very tactically - it's main idea was to get into range, which meant that the party managed to slip by it when it was entangled by Lilly's bracers of the entangling blast, and got a little more time to be pummeled.

Later, Draelin was bitten and grappled by the Ulgurstasta, but again, he used his anklets to escape the grapple, so he didn't get swallowed (which would have killed him most likely, and possibly led to a party wipe...)

Anklets of translocation are a little bit overpowered. I've actually nerfed them now to require a move action (command) rather than a swift, and they're still a bargain, since they can still get you out of a grapple.

Yes, they're nicely into chapter 7 now. They had an amazing encounter which I can't wait to write up - my jaw almost literally dropped.

[Epinephrine]

Session 27 summary:
Not much this session - final battle in the arena, and some wind-down.

Raknian has apparently fled the city, but before he did so he apparently engineered the murder of Eligos the Sage. The party accept this news, and prepare for their fight, turning down Auric's offer of cash for them to surrender in the arena. The battle is mercifully short; while Khellek acts quickly, defending the group from attack with a glodbe of invulnerability, Lilly's new Dimension Door spell brings the party into range in the blink of an eye, and Draelin pounces on the wizard (taking a hit from Auric while doing so) and drops him with a storm of axe blows. Despite being defended by mirror images, a displacement, and stoneskin, Draelin's adamantine axe and the Blindsight he has running permit him to deliver the deadly barrage. From this point it is impossible for Auric to recover - he delivers some serious damage to Draelin, who retreats, but facing 4 foes with his golems unable to fly, there is little he can do.

After collecting the prize, the group head to Eligos', to try to figure out what has happened. Breaking in, they scout about and find a stack of papers - academic stuff, linking events across the world to the prophecies of the Age of Worms. The note on top is addressed to Allustan, asking him to bring this to his one-time master. The party pack this up, but decide to track down Raknian and his cohort, who have fled the city. Lilly's divination tells them that he "heads to the land of the Prince of Redhand," which they interpret as him fleeing to the bandit-nation of Redhand, whose prince sits in the city of Alhaster. Deciding that they need help, they follow Joren's path out toward the gnoll lands, and finding him they ask him to aid them in tracking down the man responsible for running the arena these many years. Joren agrees, and accompanies them for a few days, until he reports that there are a pair of riders several miles ahead of them, at which point he wishes them luck and returns to his people.

They were intent on hunting down Raknian, and weren't going to stop, so I allowed them to catch up to the druid they had befriended. How? I guess he was sightseeing.

When Raknian and Okoral see the party following, they dismount and head into the woods. The group buff, but Kallbrand's short legs don't help matters, and they make little gain on their quarry. After 2 hours of crashing through the bush after them, they come across Raknian who stands across a small clearing. He explains that he's ready to face them, and when asked about Okoral he responds that the coward ran off faster than he could follow. Obviously, this isn't the case - Okoral gets time to study and launches a poisoned crossbow bolt to try and kill the healer before battle can be engaged. Lilly manages to survive the surprise assault (and death attack), and Okoral falls back into the brush, only Sandurel managing to track his movments back toward Raknian. Sandurel and Draelin close with Raknian, managing to deliver several hits, and Raknian responds in kind, swinging his bastard sword in vicious arcs. Okoral appears out of the bushes and takes advantage of the fact that Sandurel is engaged to deliver a series of deadly
cuts - were it not for the divine link between the dwarf and monk he surely would have fallen. Raknian falls first, and without support Okoral quickly succumbs to the party's attacks.

After resting up, the party release the horses and Lilly concentrates on the town of Diamond Lake, deciding that they should hurry and deliver these papers to Allustan. The group appear in the yard of Allustan's manor, but the house is a ruin - the walls caved in and melted in places, great furrows scratched into the lawn. Looking about they see signs that a dragon has come to town - buildings destroyed, trees uprooted, and a populace living in fear. Questioning the locals they discover that a great black-scaled dragon arrived, asked about the party by description and about the sage that lives there. Not knowing where the party was, several of the inhabitants were killed by this monster until it finally decided that the most it could learn was that the party had gone to the Free City, and that Allustan had been spending time in the Cairn to the west of town. It then screeched and flew off to the west, leaving the town in shambles.

[Epinephrine]

Session 28
The Party:
Lilly, human female, Warlock 1/Favoured Soul 4/Eldritch Theurge 7
Draelin, dwarf male, Rogue 2/Fighter 10
Sandurel, human male, Monk 12
Kallbrand, halfling male, Bard 12

Changes to the adventure:
Ilthane was less than impressive as written, and certainly wasn't a CR 13 fight (they added a minor breath effect and a few attribute points to a CR 11 dragon). To make her harder (more a CR 14-15) I bumped her an age category, gave her the elite stat array as a base, and chose new feats for her (while keeping the attribute bonuses they had given her and the breath weapon modification). I also gave her new spells, including Blood Wind and Scintillating Scales, as well as some items (resistance +2, claws of the ripper, gem of fortification, healing belt, poition of healing. Her power attack is a respectable Bite +25 melee 2d6+23, 2 Claws +23 melee 1d8+11 (x4 crit), 2 Wings +23 melee 1d6+11, Tail Slap +23 melee 1d8+34

Adventure:
Having found Diamond Lake in shambles, the party asked for any information that could help them locate the dragon. According to the townsfolk, it asked where the sage was. Allustan has been spending much time at the cairn, and on hearing this the dragon winged away to the west, toward the cairn. That was about a week ago, the townsfolk figure that it found Allustan, as the old man hasn't returned.

Rather than waste time in the shattered community, Lilly teleports the party to the little house they had found on their first excursion to the cairn. No sign of a dragon there, so they set out toward the cairn on foot. Soon enough they can smell an acrid smell, and the light coming through the foliage is getting brighter. Peering through the leaves, they see that the forest around the cairn has been destroyed, as if an acid breathing toddler has had a tantrum. Not a tree remains standing, and closer to the cairn the ground is churned and clawed with trenches, logs, and patches of acidic mud - not easy footing. The entrance of the cairn has seen abuse as well, though the ancient stone has fared better, only a small pile of rubble, some scratches, and light patches scoured clean by the dragon's breath reveal the attack.

Nervous that they might be observed, the group scout about through the forest, looking for signs of the dragon. Finding none, they decide to check out the cairn. Their shield other spells are still active (linking Lilly and Kallbrand, and Draelin and Sandurel to one another in pairs), and Lilly has blessed the group with a spell of acid resistance as well as a mass conviction to bolster their reflexes, willpower and fortitude. They cautiously make their way up the hill. About 20 feet into the worst of the terrain, Lilly gasps, as her warlock powers reveal an invisible dragon swooping up from the far side of the cairn - clearly it has used the hill to hide its approach. A gout of acid is the first warning the group get but the caustic slurry barely harms them, and they manage to hold their breath against the fumes. The attack has revealed the dragon, and Lilly responds by assaying the dragon's spell resistance, retreats a few steps, and readies an action to call a potent downdraft should the dragon dive at them.

"Dragon!" Draelin yells, but Kallbrand is already in motion, starting up his bardic song and casting a spell of haste over the group. Ilthane yells, "Dragotha take you, the mage is mine," and dives toward the party, claws outstretched. Lilly's hand clenches and jerks downward, calling the pent up power of a storm into a burst of wind, driving the dragon out of the sky and smashing it into the earth only a few feet from the party's front line. Sensibly, she had fallen back 15 feet or so. Draelin and Sandurel step up and unload on the dragon, but a few blows seem to stop short of the dragon, revealing the presence of a mage armour spell. Kallbrand has noticed, and uses a dispel magic to strip this spell (falling back to Lilly's side as he does so), while Lilly lets a bolt of eldritch energy fly at the dragon, singeing it despite its spell resistance.

Ilthane cries, "No warlock stings me and lives! Taste a sorceress' fury," and traces her claw through the air, triggering a spell of blood wind. The warlock is well within the dragon's reach with the spell, and blood begins to spray into the air as the dragon's attacks rend her body from afar. Kallbrand, too, staggers under this attack - were it not for the bond between them, Lilly would be a corpse. Having stayed within range of the warriors, Ilthane tastes Draelin's axes several more times, while suffering Sandurel's unarmed assault as well. Kallbrand reaches his hand out to grasp Lilly's, and the two of them step through space to reappear 150 feet farther back, thanks to a dimension door spell. Lilly channels energy, healing the two of them, but both are sorely wounded still. Ilthane breathes a cone of acid at the two melee foes, and then takes to the air, shrugging off their attacks. 75 feet in the air, she laughs and says, "run while you can, little warlock, you can't outpace me."

Kallbrand has readied to dimension door himself and Lilly back to the cairn's entrance if the dragon gets within 50 feet, while Lilly readies another downdraft for when the dragon drops below about 50 feet, to smash her yet again into the ground. The dragon screeches, diving toward the casters, but again Lilly's spell smashes through her spell resistance, plummeting her into the muddy slope. Spitting with fury, the dragon rights itself and shrieks, "I'll gut you, bitch!" She is faring poorly though, and is debating the wisdom of pressing the attack.

Just over 100 HP left out of 319, but the fight is not going well. Downdrafts punching through her SR thanks to Assay Spell Resistance, teleporting enemies, and shield other links protecting her foes are a lot of defense.

Sandurel uses his abundant step to appear by the dragon's side, and lashes out with a vital strike, providing a flank for the Dwarf. Draelin manages to close with the dragon, engaging his anklet of translocation to cover the last 10 feet, avoiding an attack of opportunity. Kallbrand sings, standing ready to teleport again, while Lilly channels energy again, healing herself and Kallbrand once again.

Bleeding, her pride battered, flanked by a pair of warriors, and her enemies healing themselves while keeping distant, Ilthane decides to flee. She flies straight up with a double move, provoking attacks of opportunity, but rising high enough that she can't be plummeted to earth by the downdrafts the warlock/priestess can summon. She takes a hit from the dwarf's axe on the way up, and Lilly manages to strike her with an eldritch spear.

Ouch, the AoO, the vital strike, and Lilly's Eldritch blast dropped the dragon to somewhere in the teens of HP - but she's too high for a downdraft, and will be out of range of even Lilly's eldritch spear shortly. Then Draelin's player announces that he drops his axes and produces his crossbow. He has to bring it to bear, so he only gets a standard action with it...

Draelin drops his axes and pulls his recently purchased crossbow off his back, sighting the dragon, and fires.

He rolls a 20. And then confirms the critical. The bard song that is still up pushes the damage high enough to KO the dragon.

The bolt strikes her in the neck, and the dragon goes limp, plummeting to the earth. Draelin and Sandurel, directly under the beast, dive for safety and avoid being crushed, but the dragon's form is still, shattered by her 150 foot plunge to the earth. And thus the crossbow got its name, Dragonslayer.

Spending a while to heal, the party loot Ilthane's corpse of gear, and Draelin uses a potion of gentle repose, so that he can return and skin the dragon later. In the cairn they find that Allustan has managed to clear a new passage, revealing a shimmering black portal. On approach, black claws lash out at Draelin. Figuring that perhaps Allustan has managed to get by it, Sandurel attempts to tumble through the portal, and succeeds, appearing in a wind-filled chamber in which a half-dozen belkers lurk. Sandurel retreats back through the portal, and since he can see through the portal somewhat when touching it, he decides to use his abundant step to bypass the guardian. Revealing this to the others, Kallbrand decides to simply bypass the creature in the portal, and the party teleport into the wind-filled hallway. The belkers are fast, and move to the attack, but Lilly manages to cast a wall of good behind them, preventing their retreat. Soon, the belkers are trying to flee, as Lilly has called a holy storm, and Draelin and Sandurel's weapons are finding their marks. Soon the belkers perish to the party's weapons, and the group advance further into the cairn. Kallbrand follows tracks left by someone's recent passage, and avoiding the traps in a large chamber, the group open a set of double doors, revealing an intersection in which a statue of a wind duke stands, a balance in one hand, and a mithral sword held in the other.

DM comment:
Really, making the decision to flee at ~100 HP felt safe, but clearly it wasn't. I had substantially buffed her - to the point that I thought she might force the party to teleport to safety, and after the blood wind, it certainly looked that way - but Assay Spell Resistance and Downdraft are a nasty combinationagainst flyers.

[Tam_OConnor]

Very nice. Sounds like your Ilthane was even nastier than mine. Of course, I suppose I'll never know now.

Two adventures, and then we get to the very best one of all!

[Gwynfrid]

Congrats to the players. Persistence in going after Raknian is both good roleplaying (he should not get away with what he did) and good strategy (if left alone, he might come back with a vengeance later). And their preparation against the dragon was pretty good, with a fine choice of spells. Once again, we see that Shield Other and short range teleport capabilities are major contributors to victory.