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Flying Dutchman
2009-09-23, 02:16 PM
Campaign Journal... Blood Lords Reign

This is my first post so take it a little easy on me. I just started a 3.5 campaign with some buddies of mine, and people seem to really like reading campaign journals. So since I’m board at work I thought I’d give it a Go. Hopefully I’ll keep updating this , although our DM is have some issues with school, so I don’t know if this will get completed .

Characters: All level 8 to start

Rhogan Bloodwolf: Human fighter

The party needed a tank at the time, however I end up playing more of a barbarian role. I thought I would make a character based on bull rushing to be funny, however it has worked out better than I expected so far. I’ve taken Improved bull rush and sunder, with combat brute and I’m going to pick up shock trooper next, for added hilarity. The rest of my feats are weapon focuses and such to boost my +attack way up for max power attacking with my combat brute feat. I use a maul normally, but I carry around some javelins for ranged attacks if I need to make some.

From An RP standpoint I’m the son of a renowned swordsman who was taught to stand up for what’s right, However I was sickly as a youth so my father could never teach me to fight like him. When I was a adolescent my father was killed by thieves when we went to town to buy my a birthday gift, In my rage I killed them all, although I’m not sure how. That night I prayed for the power to stand up for those who couldn’t fight for themselves and to destroy the evil in the world to carry on my fathers legacy. After that night I got over my childhood frailty and begin to grow… FAST. Eventually turning into the 6,6 260 hulk I am now. When I reached age 18 I set off to keep my bargain with the fates, now I wander the world in a vigilante role, pretty much slaying anyone I see as evil. Our DM gave us a lot of attribute points to play with, so my Char is pretty high, so I picked up bluff and A LOT of intimidate with some diplomacy to have some fun with NPC interactions.


Bob the dwarf: Dwarven Lawful Incarnate/Ironsoul Forgemaster

This char is played by my buddy ham’s. He was gonna play a support role initially, but he found some funny ways to use his char, so he picked up a self-forged tower shield, which he used he incarnium juju to animate. And with an AC soul meld his AC is pretty colossal so he’s playing the main tanking role. He uses a long spear since neither of his classes has anything above simple weapon prof’s.


He worked for a Dwarven mining company. However he’s ability to pull random souls out of the air and bind them into armor, outcasted him from his fellows a bit. He spends most of his time drinking away his sorrows with typical Dwarven pessimism.


Mortimer : Human Shadowcaster Extraordinaire

This char is played by my friend kelty, who loves playing the dark magician role. He has a lot of spells to alter terrain which makes from some pretty funny battles. He def has a lot of shenanigans to bail us out of things.

His character was an underling at one of the vampire courts, with enough skill to be helpful to them, but enough guile to keep his head down, so he doesn’t end up dead, or undead as the case may be. He spends most of his time being creepy, and bragging about how much more awesome he is than arcane casters.


Maximums and Cassandra: Psion juju healer

This is actually 2 char’s combined, Forest wanted to play a psychic however our DM thinks they are massively OP, so in order to compensate for this he did a little rule creating. And is making forest’s char transport around an unarmored 8 year old girl that is the source of his psychic powers, so he has to defend her not to mention if he’s more than 20 feet away from her he can’t use any abilities.


Forest is the escort of the tiny girl super physic, which he calls one of the "bridaled" , and goes out of his way to defend her at all times. He worked at an organization called core doing god knows what before our campaign begins. He's chaotic netral atm, i'm pretty sure he's going to end up on the evil side of things however.



The World

The world is one large continent Divided by a HUGE mountain range. It's almost imposable to get across and the two sides have been at odds with one another for a very long time. The western have is dominated by the Psychics, They worship the dragons, the decedents of the great red worm who came to the world, and established order from the chaos. The Psychics use children and turn them into "bridals" focusing their power directly through them. The "bridals" are treated with the utmost respect and protected with the lives of there keeper, however they end up little more than slaves.


The Eastern Half of the world is dominated by the courts of the Blood Lords. Who have been reproducing heavily, they manage the population also as a Shepard to his flock. Pretty much every position of power is held by a vampire. They ARE the law. Most conflicts are plays for power between the Vampire courts; there has not been an uprising against them in centuries. They outlawed the old religions, and starving them of followers they have almost managed to slay the old gods. And thus eliminate clerics who would wield considerable power against them.





None of our chars know each other, and we are all from different parts of the world. So we’ll see how jack pulls this one together; Lets begin.

DM: “You are all going about your business on a normal morning when you suddenly wink out of existence. Although none of you know it at the time you are basically being teleported although none of you are sure how or why. You wake up in a cabin with 5 other people whom you’ve never seen before”

Section 1: Into the storm


Well interesting way to begin, I’m now in a cabin with a young child( cassandria) a very wiry old man whom by his dress I’m assuming is a wizard, a dwarf(hams) with a shield rotating around him with shiny armor on. A creepy looking guy in some robes(kelty), and a lightly armored pretty plain looking guy carrying a mace(forest). We are all looking pretty surprised when the wizard starts shouting. “run there is no time”

I step forward, I have a few ranks in spell craft(don’t ask) so I’m acting under the assumption that I recognize the wizard as a wizard and realize I’ve been teleported. “If you didn’t want us to be here then why did you teleport us all here wizard?”

Wizard: “ look there’s no time to explain, You were all summoned here because you are the only ones who can stop blood lord Galamoth, but I can sense him coming he must have felt the spell, and if you’re here when he gets here you are all dead, and it was all for nothing now RUN.”

At this point we notice that it’s VERY VERY cold in the cabin because there seems to be a blizzard going on outside. Which brings up a whole other heap of issues. Kelty decides to chime in at this point.

“ So let me get this straight, you summoned us here to stop a blood lord, but put us directly in the path of his killing rampage. Our alternative is to run out into a GOD DAMN BLIZZARD in a country we’ve never been without proper clothing with no idea of a destination. I’m pretty sure I like our chances here about the same.

(kelty having worked for the vampire courts has heard of Galamoth, who’s kinda a half demon and pretty much runs around and kills things for no reason at all because he can, and although he’s never really risen to power in the courts it’s only because all of the other blood lords are scared of him and always gang up to stop his bids for power.)

Wizard: “I know, and I’m sorry, but there wasn’t a choice. Make your to the temple of lost knowledge, It’s our only hope, but please just GO. Head Northwest it’s your best option for the moment, but please run.”

I Finally recognize the desperation and fear in his voice, and having never even heard of a vampire let alone the blood lords, I’m pretty sure I’ll take my chances with the elements. So I pick up my hammer and head for the door. The rest of the gang decides to follow me out into the storm…..

Judging by the position of the sun and the mountainous terrain the consensus among us is that we are in the north. We take the opportunity to introduce ourselves and get an idea of the capabilities of each other, since we are all fairly sure a fight is inevitable. The Shadow-caster and the dwarf are pretty forthcoming with information; however the Psion keeps pretty much to himself, talking quietly with the young girl from time to time. He does tells us that he’s a healer, and he will help us if we get in a scuffle.

(ooc) This is where the DM steps in and asks us to roll a fort save, against the cold, since we were all basically snatched out of bed and none of us have the proper gear for walking threw a damn blizzard. We all pass except the shadow-caster, who gets slapped with some non-lethal damage and a negative to his rolls. Then we see why the DM has softened us up as we are suddenly ambushed by wolves.

The blizzard was intense enough that we didn’t see the pack of wolves sneak up on us. Luckily we caught them before they could get into striking range. The 5 of them move around us in kind of a half-circle. The Psion is the first to react conjuring up a giant line of flame and toasting one of the wolves pretty thoroughly. It doesn’t go down but it doesn’t look terribly happy about the experience. The dwarf charges into the fray and gets a pretty solid stab on the same wolf, which is then rocked by electricity. The dwarf seems to have some pretty strong weapon enchantments. The wolf is VERY injured but is still on it’s feet when the wolves start on the offensive. They all use the same tactic which is unloading on us with an icy breath-weapon. The Psion dances out of the way of the ones aimed at him. The dwarf sneaks away from one, but another one hits him pretty solidly as it steps inside of the range of his spear. I see my chance, and charge headlong into the injured wolf, slamming into him and sending him tumbling backwards giving the dwarf a chance to sneak in his spear and finish off the wolf. Then the shadow caster wins the battle for us by laying down some kind of shadow murk on the ground. The wolves get stuck fast in it. And we spend the next minuet or so mopping them up while they are immobilized.



Section 2: To the temple


With our first battle off under our belt and the weather STILL getting worse we continue to trudge through the mountains. Making light conversation, we have another bought with the cold(fort save) and this time even my massive fighter fortitude is starting to fail under natures onslaught.

(ooc) The DM steps in again, and this time we all have to roll survival checks which none of us have trained. We fail and the DM informs us that we have failed to notice we have been walking down a hunting trail for winter wolves…

We’ve been hearing howls all day, but unfortunately the storm lets the next batch of wolves sneak in under our guard. We didn’t even see them before we are rocked with the first ice breath. We find ourselves completely surrounded by another 5 wolves and we are all packed tightly together….. not good. After the first barrage of breath weapons pretty much everyone in the party is hurting, with the exception of the little girl, her psychic powers have seemed to shield her from most of the attacks. The healer gets into action starting to battle the frost bite. While the dwarf and myself have busied ourselves with counter attacking. I circle outside of the wolves so they have to turn away from the group to attack me. The shadow-caster then pulls another trick out of his hat, and lays down some shadow-fire stuff on the ground, unfortunately the black-fire didn’t seem to have any effect on the wolves. So he tries the goop again next and we come out victorious once again. However the whole party has taken massive damage from the wolves and the healer has exhausted himself, so the situation has become pretty dire.

We continue to trudge through the snow when finally we get our first break… We see a temple in the far distance at the base of a mountain, with some hot springs in the area between us and it….. oh thank god. So we all hustle toward the spring since we are all about to succumb to the cold. Unfortunately for us, the reason there is steam coming out of the ground in that particular area, is a giant fire centipede has made his home there, and isn’t terribly happy to see us. The dwarf being the least injured of the party takes the initiative and charges headlong into the centipede. The Psion also heads in and starts taking whacks. I however am barley standing and don’t want to go toe-to-toe with something that’s easily 10 times my size and could eat me without my effort. So I pull out my javelins and move over to the side and start hurling away. Apparently that was the wrong thing to do, because then the centipede runs at me and tries to devour me, luckily I catch a break, and the attack the dwarf gets off as it moves away kills it, and it falls dead at my feet. Which is good because I’m pretty sure the whole party was about to go down, and I KNOW it would have killed me.


Section 3: Order of the Shapless One

Well with that wrapped up we limp towards the temple in the hope that we can at least have some shelter. As we approach we notice that the building is rather ominous, and the large oaken door is adorned with a vampire knocker with the ring hanging from it’s teeth….. how quaint. Well at this point I’ve changed my mind about the whole taking the cold over the vampires’ thing, so we knock. We are greeted by a wiry man of average height, wearing the brown unadorned robes of a monk. He greets us and asks us what we are doing on his doorstep which doesn’t exactly see a lot of visitors. The Psion steps up here and tells a semi-lie that we are travelers seeking shelter from the storm. He says he heard sounds of battle and highly doubts that travelers would have anything to see up here. He does however thank us for killing the giant centipede which he calls a fancy name I can’t remember and offers us the shelter we so desperately require as repayment.

Our luck doesn’t exactly hold because it’s not long before death comes calling. As we are being shuffled off to our rooms, there is another knock on the door, we decide to let the caster listen in, while we all make ourselves scarce. When the monk goes to open them they are knocked off the hinges, and a vampire comes in out of the cold.

Galamoth: “hello again Maldavian. It’s been a while”

Maldavian : “ yes it has, to what can I owe the pleasure, of this visit blood lord”

Galamoth: “ I’ve been pursuing a group of travelers trespassing on my land, and I was wondering if you had seen them come by this way”

Maldavian: “No I’ve seen no travlers, I’m sorry I can be of no help bloodlord.”

Galamoth: *eyes him suspiciously* “very well, Have a good evening… But know that if I find out you are hiding them I will wipe your silly cult off the face of the earth.

The Monk comes back to us and gathers us into his room, when he begins to question us. “ So tell me why exactly why I just risked my life, not to mention the lives of everyone here to save you?”

Kelty: “We were kind of curious about that ourselves, we do however think you for it.”

Monk: “We are what most people would call evil, we are worshipers of the Shapeless one. WE are however our own evil and have no love for the Bloodlords, Especially Galamoth. That is why we’ve done this to ourselves”. He pulls back his sleeves

I hadn’t noticed before but the flesh was flensed from his arms in a spiral pattern.

Monk: “ This ritual will prevent us from being raised as undead. We refuse to help the vampires for their ends. Now tell me how you ended up on my doorstep.”

Me: “I’ll take this one…. Well I was enjoying my morning breakfast when suddenly things go all wonky, and then I’m in a cabin with these people and some crackpot old wizard, who had apparently summoned us there for god knows what reason. The first thing out of his mouth is ‘RUN the bloodlord is coming’ I don’t know what the hell a blood lord even is’ But I damn sure wasn’t gonna stay and find out. Then we are running for a damn lives through a blizzard in a place we’ve never been in, with no idea what direction we are going. Then the wolves came. THEN we about freeze to death, THEN! We are all like, ‘hey a hot spring lets go check it out’ WHERE WE ARE ATTACKED BY A GOD DAMNED GAINT CREATURE. *calming down* then we came and knocked on your door.

I’ll call it good enough Here, there is more but this is A LOT of text. It’s gonna take my forever to proof read this as it is. So stay tuned for future updates if you like it leave a sweet response so I can have that sweet warm fuzzy feeling that I’ve entertained the internet masses.

Fayd
2009-09-23, 04:01 PM
I'll read through this later tonight/tomorrow when I get the chance...It looks like it could be interesting.

Bigbrother87
2009-09-23, 08:52 PM
I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward for more.

If you're worried about the wall of text effect, you may consider breaking the adventure into sections and putting the sections in spoilers, so it's less intimidating for readers.

Flying Dutchman
2009-09-25, 01:07 PM
Well, I've got one reader anyway so I'll polish off the first session. We're playing again this sunday so hopefully I'll have some more good stuff to write next week.

Section 4: Quest for the Kama


Monk: Well.... That's a very colorful story. I'll belive you, for no other reason than i don't think you'd make all that up. Seems your competant enough of a group. I'm giving you a job, as partial re-payment for me not selling you out to the blood lord. There is temple dedicated to the shapless one farther up in the mountains. It's a holy site for us, so none of us my enter, you however can go an retrive it for us. None of us have every been inside, so we do not know what you will find. The kama however is inside some where. If you find it for us, I'm sure we could find a suitble reward for you.


We talk the issue over as a group and decide that;

A we have no real objective except to find the "temple of lost knowlegde" what ever that is. This place is obviously not it, but there might be clues in the next temple, or we might get REALLY lucky and the place in the mouitains are what we are looking for.

B. we need to camp out for a few more days to heal and rest up, So we might as well stay in the temple.

C. we like money and cool stuff, a reward sounds pretty tempting plus we might find something cool in the temple.

So we agree, The monk says we can stay in the temple a while to prepare, but he would like us out in a week or so incase the bloodlord comes back. which we agree would not be a good thing. So we decide that we will set out in 3 days.


Maldavian gives us a guide to lead us up the mountian passes, as well as a scroll, with a poem on it and a silver key. The scroll reads as follows.

Do not fear the darkness or his minions will take you
Bend your left knee our false masters and your right knee to our true lord
Only your blood will show you the path


He said he has no idea what they was for, but was told by his predessor if the someone was ever sent for the kama the information and key would be very helpful to them. The the trip there was blissfully uneventful giving us time to . When we get in sight of the temple however our guide says he can go no farther or risk defiling the temple. As we near the temple we see that the front door has been smashed in. Judging by the snow that has blown in, it appears not to have happend very recently. As we enter the temple a large open room is spread out infront of us. There are various cabinits and things ravaged by time spread through the room. With a large common looking chest in one corner.The sunlight filteing in through the door has cast the rom in a half light with the corners of the room in shadow. As we begin hunting around, the shadows in the corners of the room begin to slither out in the middle of the room forming themselves into some shadowy-dog things..... great.


Section 5: The Kama's Tomb.


They waste no time in rushing at us. I quickly despatch the first dog, with one hard swing. My compains also take up the fight but some of them are having trouble making contact with there weapons the shadow-dogs seem to be able to evade attacks by un-solidifing there bodies. When the dogs go on the offensive one unleashes and un-earthly howl paralizing me with fear. Luckly my companions seemed to shake it off, and quickly put down the dogs without much difficulty, I however took quite a bit of damage sence one dog was chewing on me while I was unable to move, but the healer patched me up and i'm good as new.

After we dissapte the dogs. We spread out and begin to search the room. Most of the stuff is beyond repair. Or rotted from the mosture of the snow. Judging by the bones laying and refuse around it seems that the shadow dogs had ben using this as a lair for quite a while. There is only one other door in the room a large ornate oaken door with a lock. When our pyion goes over and tries to open it a wave of fire bursts out of thin air but he dodges out of the way. Hmmm.... Interesting.

After some experimentation, and a few minior burn wounds we decide that the trap only springs if you make an attempt to open it. Well luckly for us the monk gave us that key.. However it didn't fit the door, and out dwarf ended up a little well-done. We deicde to see whats in the chest, before trying to open the door anymore.

Not having anyone who can jimmy the lock on the chest we decide brute force may be in order. The Psyion says he can target the lock directly with his powers. He strains for a minut and the lock seems to buckle, but doesn't break. We tell him not to waste anymore of his power on the lock, because we may get into another scuffle later, and we need him fresh..... Looks like this problem calls for brute strength. Not wanting to damage the chest i grab the lock in my bare hands and try and crush it.... Surprisigly it did the trick and the lock crumbles. Theres a pretty solid amount of gold in the chest as well as a very well crafted silver box, also with a lock. We decide to divide it 5 ways. With the girl and his keeper being one, and putting the last share in kind of a communal fund for supplies and food. It ends up being about 200g each. This time our key does work, and the silver box opens and reveals........ another key. The second key DOES indeed open the door and we decend down a starway into the darkness.

Section 6: Hall of the keepers.


At the bottom of the stairs we come to another open room, this one with 7 stone statues. 6 arranged down the two sides of the room and one on the opposite wall from us.

A dwarven warrior

An elven archer

A human lord

Another Human lord but it has more jagged features and noticable fangs... a vampire

A halfling with a dagger

and on the opposite wall is a Large hound, but the craftsmen ship on this statue is not the same as the others. It's very blurred and hard to make out individual features.

We start by searching the room over from top to bottom. Cheaking every nook and cranny, cheaking the walls for hidden dorrs and such. The only thing we find is a small cubic creace in the base of the human lord statue. Looks like this is a pretty complex puzzel. so we decide to re-read the scoll.

[I[ Bend you left knee to the flase masters [/I]

Well thats an easy one, we know the monk seemed to have no love for the vampires. so i take a knee infront of the vampire staure, and feel a pressure plate give way under my left knee. The satue of the dog vanashes and we hear a ghostly howl.... damn it.


The shadow caster reacts first laying down some of that sticky shadow goop in arc around us cutting us off from the side of the room where the dog was. Making us safe for the moment. Apparently the Healer had a revalation and douses the torch he'd been holding. The Dog re-appers with a glowing white outline.... the first line of the poem genius!

Wanting to keep the caster and the healer safe I wade out through the sticky goop to tangle with the dog hopeing to keep him busy so Kelty can and the pysion can blast away at him. poor plan on my part. The Dog leaps at me hitting with with all 4 claws and a biting my face.. he hits true and I take ALOT of punshiment. I counter back with a soild smack and the battle begins in earnest. The dog is a tough opponet but he has little chance to win sence he's un-able to get to the healer. The psyion finishes him off by slamming him into one of the statues with some kind of solid wall of fire spell. But after that we are back where we started exept I'm a little worse for wear.


Well i go re-kneel by the vampire, and after a little discussion we pick the lord as the true master The dwarf goes and kneels down with his right knee. We hear some machinery working behind the walls and the statue sinks down revealing a large stone box. This time i think i've got the solution sence i'm bleeding anyway. So i smear some of my blood on the box and it collapses into a small stone cube. Which we THEN put into the petistal, which abruptly sinks down into the floor reaveling another door.

The rest of the task proves to be fairly simple the door opens easily into a tomb with out coffin. I heave of the lid reaveling some dust, which was prolly a corpse at one time.... This kama must have been in here a LONG time to turn bones to dust. and the kama, which I pick up sence the rest of my party is scared is cursed. We decide to rest for a bit before setting back off down the mountain.



Section 7: Down the mountain


The way back proves to be more interesting than the trip there. While we are walking down a narrow winding path two fark shapes leap up from a small creavice near the path. It's what i'm assuming is a vampire and one of his underlings. The vampire starts ranting.

Vampire: FINALLY!, Galamoth has had me waiting on this god forsaken mountain for the last 70 years waiting for those idiots monks to find someone to fetch there kama. I wont Fail him.

I remeber getting rdy to bullrush the small one of the mountain when things go blank...... I come back to myself- to find myself brandishing my hammer over the little girl who looks worse for wear. I notice a dark mist floating off in the distince.

Me: what happend?

Kelty: The vampire dominated you, You've spent the last couple of minues beat the hell out of a little girl, I hope your proud of yourself.

Me: I what? They can accualy Do that? I heard some myths about it, But I didn't think it was accualy possible.

Kelty: Well you didn't think vampires were real either. Now your wiser on two accounts.

Me: *turning to the girl* I'm sorry, i didn't know.

Cassadra: *mechanicly* You are forgivin, I Am aware you mental capabilites did not allow you to stop yourself.

God she's creepy, but at least I don't have a very scary phycic child angry at me. Well we steal everything left behind after the vampire "misted". Which turns out is some gold and a nice spiked chain, which appears to be magical in some nature. We finish the treck back to the Monastary and give Maldavian his kama, he thanks us and rewards us with 300g each. and then an option for 500 mroe gold each. Or a ceramonial scarring that will help protect us from fear. I think .... What the hell? scar me up. All in all not a bad take.

Before we head out we ask maldavian if he's ever heard of a temple of lost knowledge, he hadn't. So now we have a bit of a problem. We have no idea where we need to go and no real task, But hell i spend most of my timing smiting evil anyway and vampires are about as evil as they come. Seems like this might not be such a bad time after all.



Thats the end of the first session. This is shaping up to be a pretty fun campaign.

PS. Incomming spelling edits when i get some time. I was just trying to get it down.

Recoome
2009-09-25, 11:26 PM
"and pretty much runs around and kills things for no reason at all because he can"

best part of that chapter xD
good story, very well written from what i've read so far. (only chapert 1) >_>

Flying Dutchman
2009-09-28, 01:13 PM
We had our offical 2nd session this weekend. It also went pretty well, the plot is starting to thicken a bit. I'm gonna edit the first post with some info on the world as it stands, since the DM finally told us what was kind of happening with it. I apparently I was the only one out of the loop, but i'm the only player who doesn't still go to Bradley, so I don't see them as much anymore.

As a brief synopsis, In the first session we were randomly teleported to cabin in the middle of no where. We spend a good part of the first session running for our lives through a blizzard in the North Country. Where NONE of our characters had never been before. And we were charged with finding the "Temple of Knowledge Abandoned". On the way we took shelter in a temple with some crazy evil monks who made us go get a magical kama for them.

Section 8 : The Sunwell Inn



Well after Mortimer and I receive our ritual scaring, and the rest of the group finishes counting their gold. We decide to head out, after a little debate (and a few knowledge checks). We decide that there are 5 or 6 places in the world, that we know of, that COULD possibly the "Temple of Knowledge Abandoned". So we use the most obvious method of selection and head toward the nearest one. It lays a few weeks journey to the southwest, down out of the mountains, and into the more settled plains. After a couple days travel we stumble upon the tiny town of Dunlap, a one horse town of no real interest, but we head down to the market because we are in dire need of provisions and adventuring supplies.

At the market things start to get a little weird. Maximums and Cassandra are approached by what appears to be a beggar holding a piece of parchment.

Beggar : *looking at them oddly* Are you the guys?

Maximus: *looking very disgusted* I highly doubt it.

Beggar: well I think I’m supposed to give you this.

He hands Maximums the paper, and then abruptly turns around and disappears into an ally. The parchment is sort of a flyer for the sunwell inn and tavern in town. Well we needed a place to stay anyway, and it's not like we have anything better to do at this point.

The Sunwell is actually a fairly bustling place for such a small town. It also has the VERY interesting attribute of being illuminated by a permanent Daylight spell. Which Mortimer is constantly grumbling about. I sit down and the dwarf and I begin to celebrate the fact we're still alive, and our pockets are a little heavier than they were previously. Somewhere between pint 4 and 8 we are approached by another beggar.

Beggar: How are you this evening?

Me *drunkenly*: pretty good acually.

Beggar: I'm a monk of Iliak(god of mercy) and I’ve been sent to you with a message.

Me: A man of the cloth. Respectable occupation, I like that.

Mortimer: From whom?

Beggar: An old man told me that if a group of travelers past this way to bring them here and tell them that what they seek is under this inn.

Maximus: The old man was killed.

Beggar: That does not change the situation. But him being dead i feel no obligation to insure it is done. But you have been told. Search under the inn for what you seek.

I guess I had a few to many. I get up from the bar and move over to the door i'm assuming leads down the basement and kick it in. The rest of the group reluctently follows.



Section 9: Down the Well



As we stumble down the stairs... well i guess it was probably just me stumbling. A serving wench comes and calls down the staircase. " What are you guys doing there's nothing down there accept bread and Ale". I call back (intimidate check) "I'd like to see you stop us!" The dwarf groans something about us all getting arrested and she leaves. We find a well covered with a big rock slab, but it's no match for my drunken strength. I uncover it, and the well appears to be dry all the way down. It's about this time that the inn keeper comes down.

Keeper: What in the HELL are you guys doing?

Maximus: (bluff check - semi supported by the fact he's from the other side of the world, and really DOES have no idea how an inn works) I'm sorry Sir, we are foreigners, and I was under the impression that our lodging for this evening were down here.

Keeper: *shaking his head* fine just don't break anything

He heads back upstairs. The Dwarf at this point channels some of his juju and takes flight, and floats down the well. He calls back up to us that there is a locked grate at the bottom and seems to be a large tunnel behind it. We use a rope and a climbing kit we picked up today, and lower all of us down into the well. I take my hammer and smash down the grate. It opens up into a small unadorned room. Judging by the amount of dust here, it's been a LONG while since there has been anyone down here. As we explore the room our shadow caster gives us a warning he senses something, and lets us avoid being taken off guard by some shadows that materialize out of the wall. We make fairly short work of them, but our healer gets some of the life sucked out of him, and is feeling a little woozy after the encounter.

The door on the opposite side opens out into a hallway. There are stairs leading down to a door at one end, with another door on our side. We take the stairs first. Our dwarf finds the trap on the door, but fails to disable it, and takes some obnoxious damage from a spear that shoots down out of the ceiling. But we manage to work around the door and it opens up into a room FULL of zombies.... crap.

I waste no time and charge into the fray, I dig a little deeper than usual since zombie’s aren’t exactly tough targets to hit. My initial charge bull rushes the zombie stright in front of the door all the way against the back wall. I use my momentum from the rush, and squash him flat with my hammer. Zombie parts go flying. The rest of the party piles in the room and starts hacking away. The shadow caster uses his goop spell again, sticking me fast in the middle of 3 zombies, but I make pretty easy work of them, although one of my heaviest attacks did miss spectacularly and leave me a little wobbly (critical miss dazed for 1 round). We scavenge the place which turns out to be a crypt, but alls we find is a ring, which is magical, but doesn't appear to be very heavily enchanted.

While the dwarf is opening coffins, he suddenly falls into one..... I go over to investigate and a purple tentacle shoots out of the coffin and jabs me in the neck, I feel a little woozy for a moment but i shake it off and remain un-effected. I can see the dwarf however was not so lucky he's lying in the bottom of the coffin with his eyes wide open staring at the ceiling. Then I see what did it. The skeleton in the bottom of the coffin has been animated by some crazy purple worm thing. It stands up out of the coffin and the fight begins in earnest. I over-swing on my first attacks and come up hitting air. The skeleton things moves over to the Psion and paralyzes him as well... oh great there's half our party down. I do manage to get a solid hit on him when he moves over to the healer though. With him down the shadow caster and I formulate a plan. The shadow caster covers the floor around the thing in cold fire, while i step back into the middle of the room. When the thing comes
To attack me I bull rush it back through all the fire. It smashes into the far wall as the worm burns up and the bones crumble.




Section 10 : The Temple of Knowledge Abandoned


Well we’ve had just about enough excitement for one evening, the fights have sobered me up a bit, and I’m starting to get a headache. We take the next door in the hall working our way clockwise. It's appears to be an abandoned armory although all we can scrounge up is a shield and a javelin, with some little hand axes as extra.

When we open the door to the next room there is a visible difference in the architecture. It's all very well made, and although aged still has retained its beauty. There are stairs leading up to a Dias sitting on the stairs is a winged creature looking board.

Winged thing: Greetings adventurers, I thank you for clearing out the evil in this place.

Maximus: You’re welcome.... What exactly are you doing down here?

Winged thing: I am the guardian of this place. I was tasked by the great author to defend it until the right people came to relive me of my post. I sense no foul intentions about you. It must be you who have been chosen. This was once a temple to Pelor, but when the vampires took over they outlawed the old religions. The followers were wiped out and the gods lost their power as they were forgotten. Behind this door is an alter. Kneel before it and place your hands on the orbs. It once was believed that it would show Pelor to you. I do not know who or what you shall see now, but I feel it is part of your destiny. Fare thee well travelers

The Winged thing pulls light around him and in a flash is gone..... and the plot thickens. We waste no time in opening the door and entering the sacred room. The dwarf is the Bravest and goes and kneels down on the alter and puts his hands on the orbs. His head snapped upward and his eyes open wipe.

ooc: I'll recount the visions each person has through their eyes.

Dwarf: The room around me evaporates and I'm suddenly standing in a forge. The only person around is a small gnome working on something.

Dwarf: what are you working on?

Gnome: Something that will be lost in broken, but something that will be remade by you, to help you on your journey.

Dwarf: So I’m in the past?

Gnome: Or the future depending on how you look at it...

Dwarf *looking confused*: I need a drink

Gnome *chuckling*: leave it to a dwarf, there's a cabinet over there with anything you want.

Dwarf: who are you?

Gnome: I am called many things, but being a forge master you would probably know me as Otto.

Dwarf: The maker?

Gnome: That is another name I go by, but our time runs short. If you find this, please re-make it for me, I would appreciate it. Oh and make sure your friends use the alter as well.

The vision ends.

The dwarf stands up looking a little shaken. “I…… ummmm……… just do the thing.

Well I guess that means I’m up next. I knell down on the floor and put my hands on the orbs. Suddenly I’m in a bar in my hometown. Sitting at the bar is a man as large as I am, but looking a little aged.

Man: come sit

Me: So how’s it going?

Man: better now…. Listen I am one of the forgotten, you must come to us at Iselburgh we are stronger there. I feel that you will be a great champion of good, but you must learn to tolerate the some of the evil in this land. If you spend all your time swatting flys you will be overrun by rats. Remember come to us in Iselburgh.

And I come back to myself. Speechless but determined.

The dark-wizard is up next.

I’m surrounded by an impenetrable darkness, but I feel strangely comfortable…. The plane of shadow, I’ve come home. A man wearing a hooded black robe appears before me.

Robed man: Good evening Mortimer

Mortimer: Why have you brought me here?

Robed Man: We need your help in order for us to be returned to power. The vampires must be cast down. You’ve chosen a path few choose to walk, but we both know it is a Nobel endeavor. Come to us in Iselburg and we can show you how to truly master the shadow.
Mortimer: I will be there.

He stands up. Turns to the Psion and says, I guess your up.

The Psion has his vision and returns looking very shaken and more than slightly annoyed. We discuss it among ourselves and decide that going to iselburgh is the only real lead we have. Although the Psion just wants to return to his home. He grudgingly agrees to come with us.


Well there is a little bit of action left in this session, but I’m going to call it here for today. Our DM seems to be staying in school. So hopefully I’ll put together a solid story over the course of the year.

Flying Dutchman
2009-09-30, 09:00 AM
I'll pick up whats left of the second session here. I forgot my book at home today, so I'll spend most of the day editing my previous posts.

Section 11:

As we head back out of them temple and back into the main hallway we run into a pair of vampire spawn. My inital charge hits square, the Psion finishes the first vamp by cooking him with one of his walls of fire. The second vamp died terribly atempting to sneak past me into the casters(3 AoO by me :P). We now however have a VERY large problem. The vamps know we are here and they can muster the numbers pretty quickly to overwhelm us. Luckly however we get a little help. The air before us shimmers and in a flash the winged man appears before us. "I see you are having some trouble leaveing". He helps us back up the well and out into the tavern. There we find 3 vampire spawns escorted by what appears to be a wizard.

Wizard: ahhh Mortimer, I always knew they would send me to hunt you down.

Mortimer: What have we done?

Wizard: surely you should know that the old religions are aginst vampire law.

Moritmer: I saw no old religions, some interesting archetecture, but there we not gods worshiped there.

Wizard: I have no time for this, kill them and be done with it..... (roll initiative)

OOC: Apparently Mortimer and the wizard had gone to school together but had been employed with different vampires, since they used different magic. This was the court wizard of one of the Blood lords, and most likely not a push over.

The battle begins, The winged creature attacks one of the vampire spawn who return the favor and circle in around him. The caster yells to me he has a plan and not to rush in, so i stay back and hurl a javelin. The dwarf flys in and stabs the vampire spawn the winged guy has been working on and puts him down. Then the shadow caster reaches over and grabs me, A flash of blackness swirls around us, and i suddenly find my self looming over the wizard with hammer in hand. I look down at him and smile.

He apparently was having none of that though, he steps back out of my reach and unloads a spell on us.

OOC: he def hit both me and the shadow caster with a cone of terror and panicked us both, The DM however let us use the action point he gave us for the session retroactively and we got to add a d8 to our save roll. Ee both make it although me not by much...... I REALLY need to work on my will saves for a vampire campaign.

I'm suddenly very VERY afraid, I however manage to regain my composer, but I'm still not feeling fighting fit(shaken). The Psion calls to me and says to shove him backwards. I weakly manage to push him up into the table. He stumbles and falls prone onto it. Then the Psion lights up the world. He calls out "Cassandira to me Maximum power". The vampire spawn in attacking the winged creature had lined there selves up in front of him. By bullrushing the wizard onto the table he had all 3 of them in a prefect line. He unloads a Line of fire that shakes the whole building. Incinerating the two vampires and leaving the wizard clinging to life(1 hp exactly) . Knocked prone with me standing over top of him he starts begging for mercy.

Wizard: "You wouldn't kill an old friend would you Mortimer? I always knew you were on to something with that shadow stuff, but I knew I was never the wizard you were"

Mortimer just looks at me and nods. I get the message; the evil must be purged so the good may flourish..... Although I don't think they will EVER get the stains off the wall.

After sawing off the heads of the vamps and pitching the bodies back down the well in the basement. We head to Iselburg to meet the forgotten.




Welp that wraps up the second session. I'll have more for you next Monday.
.

Flying Dutchman
2009-10-12, 09:39 AM
I'm behind a couple of sessions I kind of forgot about doing this, sense we were busy at work. Luckily our 3rd session was short due to A: our party circumventing about 50% of the plot due to not asking the right questions. B: Our DM was sleep deprived and didn't want to sit through 4 hours making everything up.

We leveled up at the end of the second session.

I took shock trooper for added bull rushing hilarity. Our shadow caster took dark vision I think it was. And his favorite ability (flesh fails) is now a super-natural ability aka; no magic resistance. Our Lawful Incarnate took short haft, so he can actually threaten things next to him and have no idea what our Psion did, but I remember him saying he has real healing spells now.

So without further adieu:

Section 12: The Shadow Carnival



After the incident at the bar we know the vamps aren’t super happy with us so we flee quickly. We delay only long enough to buy another map, and head towards Iselburgh. On the first night out from Dunlap our shadow caster wakes us all up tossing and turning in his sleep. When he finally wakes up he tells us that he had a strange dream about a carnival, a young woman and fire. He also recognized the masked figure from his vision in the temple.

Well not really knowing what that meant and not really having anything else to do we continue on with our journey to Iselburg. The next town we run into is also just a small village; however it has the added benefit of having a carnival in town. It’s a traveling carnival so hopefully they’ll have some news and some good eats. So we all take down to the carnival since Mortimer’s vision did hint at it, and it's generally a good time. Me and the dwarf go grab some ale. While The Psion just looks around curiously, He's never seen a carnival before and is very confused about the whole deal.

The dwarf starts asking people about Otto(the maker god) trying to find out information about the weapon he was charged with re-forging. He does get some interesting information about the fall of the old gods, but nothing specific. I spend most of my time looking for pick pockets and the like, but i do go take my turn at the mallet game, with the bell. I win since I've got 20 str and all, not to mention a maul is my weapon of choice.

While all of this was going on Mortimer goes and identifies/sells all the fat loot we've collected. Oh i forgot to write down that in the temple we found an off shoot room that was an old armory, we found some hand axes, which I took, A large javelin of unknown magical properties and a very polished shield. The ring we found in the crypt was a Ring of climbing, Which we decide to keep. The javelin is a Javelin of Lighting, which I put in my javelin quiver, after tying a ribbon around the haft so I remember which one is which. The shield is a Blinding Shield which we sell, and we also keep the adamantine dagger we found on the wizard, The dwarf asks the DM if he could find a place to melt down the adamantine if he could forge it into something, cause that’s what he does. The Dm says he can if he can find some more. So we stash away the dagger hoping we can find some more of the precious metal. We also hock the stuff we found on the vamps up in the mountains when it's all said and done we all get about 1500gp.



Section 13: The Forbidden Forest

So not really sure what we are supposed to be doing at the carnival, we restock and continue to head towards Iselburgh, which after some asking around isn't really a town so much as the ruins of one, and it is of course strictly forbidden for anyone to go there. Well being adventure's and not ones to be deterred by the threat of being wiped out by ignoring the laws of an entire nation of vampires. We continue our journey once again. At last we come to the town of last stand, which is at the end of the known world... supposedly; behind which lays the forbidden forest... the DM was obviously short on time for names. We restock on food ask around a bit, but don't turn anything up and head off into the forest, we make it oh about 1000 yards MAYBE before we are set on by a patrol of vampire spawn.

It's the normal mop up work for us vampire spawn have never been a real issue for us. Between the Psion hurling walls of fire and me crushing skulls with my hammer while the dwarf gets beat on and takes no damage it's a pretty easy battle. The caster just uses his crossbow not needed to waste his spells which is good because right after we put down the vampires we get ambushed by freaking medusa...

This battle was a little more hairy I’m not terribly afraid of them since my fort save is huge, what with being a fighter and my cloak of resistance. The rest of the party doesn't want to risk turning to stone, so they pretty much run around helplessly while I whale away on the snake women, although I cut it close on a few occasions with really bad rolls. But we survive and I lop of the heads and hurl them into a bush. When suddenly a man steps OUT OF a tree, not around it, just out of it....

He's dressed in very natural garb, animal skin, browns and soft greens and such. He looks a little worse for ware but appears to still be a potent individual.

Me: Hail traveler(diplomacy roll)

Nature guy(success): Your not vampire what are you doing here?

Mortimer: we are on our way to Iselburgh, we wish you know harm.

Nature guy: I hope not, I'm sword to protect these forests, although the vampires have made things interesting.

Me: Well you should have a few less to deal with we wiped out a patrol of them. They are not the sharpest of enemies.

Nature guy: (smiling) good, I try to keep them cleared out, but they can over whelm me with their numbers. It's actually quite funny to watch them; they literally spend the day running in circles.

Dwarf: How about the medusa, are they common around here?

Nature guy: No, The vampires treat these woods as kind of a refuge for all the things they don't want on there lands, So things like the medusa get driven in here... Then I have to deal with them, but I thank you for removing them.

Me: Can you tell us which paths to take to reach Iselburg? None of us are very good woodsmen and you look like you know your way around.

Nature guy: You've done a favor for me I can repay it in kind, I will lead you to your destination.


So we set out with the Druid to Iselburgh traversing the forest without hassle. This is where the session ends, The DM looks like he's about ready to die, and we were apparently supposed to ask around at the carnival about the girl, so we skipped like 1/2 of what he had planned for the session. Oh well....

I'll Start on the next session today it was a 5 hour marathon and ALOT of cool stuff happened, so it'll take me a while to finish.