A World Torn Campaign Log

[MrEdwardNigma]

Okay, so this is a sequel to this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168323) where someone gave me the idea to make a campaign log.

I'm going to do this for several reasons. Firstly to always have a recap handy of past events, secondly to get readers' advice on what to do next and thirdly because I enjoy it, and hope you will too.

So maybe I should first introduce you to the player characters.

There's our human fighter, Ezrael Shadowbane, who's got a hatred for paladins because they allowed his parents, a rather evil duo of nobles, to die in a fire. Ezrael has probably got the best stats in the whole party and is played by the player who goofs around the most.

Leah Ellinit, a halfelven female monk, has a strong dislike for all men, stemming from her mother's fourth huspand trying to rape her. Leah is played by an architect who goes back and forth between silly and very capable.

Arkan Andon is an ugly elven ranger with a strong hatred for everyone. This is not uncommon for elves in this setting, but Andon has taken it to new extremes, spending most of his life alone in the forest after a failed and youthly idealistic raid on a human village (the nature loving elves of this setting tend to lean towards eco-terrorism). The ranger is played by an engineer, who tends to approach problems from a very, let's say, engineerlike angle. I've often seen him trying to build stuff all kinds of contraptions that could utterly break the game. His character also has some of the worst rolls, including an abominable charisma stat.

The final character is Roscoe Goodbarrel, a halfling rogue, who tends to hang around and swindle or rob people until he's driven out of town. He is played by my most serious player, perhaps sometimes too serious. I have no doubt that if he wouldn't be as utterly new to this as the rest of us, he would be a rules lawyer.

What brings these characters together at the start of the game is a trip to Highhaven. Highhaven is a haven for, well, prostitutes. This was something I had the PCs decide on at the start of the game. I told them they'd be on a coach together and they could pick where it was heading. The men are going there to have a good time, Leah is planning to set some of the women free (not that they're slaves or anything) in a delusional fit of feminism. However, they get unexpected company along the trip...

The Hellpit
Joining the party in the coach is the prince of the human lands, Octavus. In this setting there are three great races: humans, dwarves and orcs. The dwarves and humans are considered the civilized great races while the orcs are mainly tribal. This makes the prince one of the four or five most important people in the entire setting. Also joining them is the prince's personal bodyguard, Devon Wallander, though he remains outside, circling the coach on his steed.

The prince doesn't even make any attempt on hiding who he is and freely admits to the PCs that he is going to Highhaven for the same reason the men among them are. He is, however, more worried about the opinion of the court and therefore only a few people know where he is, and only Devon is accompanying him.

Inevitably, disaster strikes, sleeping powder is tossed into the carriage and just before they drift off completely the PCs can see the prince being carried off by what looks to be an elf in a red mask. Somewhat later, they awake in a prison cell. Not of the people who attacked them, but of Highhaven. It turns out that the attack had been carried out with dwarven tactics and came with a dwarven ransom note, and subsequently war was declared on the other great nation, that of the dwarves. When Devon woke up and told the soldiers of the elf, it was decided he needed to be silenced. War had been declared, there was no turning back. They couldn't have people spreading doubt among the ranks. So he and any other witnesses had been imprisoned.

They remain imprisoned together for four days, making friends with the guard in the process. He tells them they are having trouble deciding what to do with them. Eventually, when Devon is taken away for questioning, the guard comes and informs the PCs that they are going to throw him in the Hellpit.

When people originally settled on the Highhaven hill the Hellpit was a bit of a strange feature. This enormous pit sometimes had monsters flying out of it at night, so it soon became the habit to place guards there. Superstition caused many to believe the pit was the gate to hell itself. Any monsters that attacked town and survived were tossed in there as a way of execution. Later came the theory that, well, perhaps it wasn't so definite a punishment. The hole never having been fully explored, it was possible that it had some sort of exit. So, if they tossed someone in the hole and hte gods smiled upon him, he might make it out. Thus it became the habit to toss in people whose guilt wasn't completely proven. Devon had been tossed in with a shipment of criminals.

What was worse, this was going to be the fate of the PCs as well. Being their chum and all though, the guard decided to give them a fighting chance by giving them a knife (they would be sent into the hole without any of their worldly possessions, so a weapon, no matter how puny, is a good gift).

Then they were led out to a sqaure full of people, gathered before the Hellpit. On the other side of the pit there was a wooden construction, leaning over it, with ropes to lower people on and guardposts with crossbows and boiling oil and such in case anything tried to come up through the hole. The heroes were tied tighly and pretty much tossed down.

Their ropes turned out to be somewhat too short, leaving them all dangling about fifteen feet above the bottom. They could have been less lucky though, as the previous load seemed to have had too long ropes, and had died upon impact (all except Devon, who'd somehow managed to save himself, as appropriate for a character of his level).

Now, an important thing to know about this campaign is that it's sort of a tutorial dungeon I'm having my players run through. Neither me nor them have any experience playing DnD. This means that pretty much every room and encounter, certainly in the beginning of the dungeon, exist to to teach them some kind of rule. This first room served to teach them about falling damage :smallamused:

The room also served to teach them about skillchecks like escape artist (to get out of the ropes), tumble (to prevent falling damage) and move silently though. As they were hanging there, you see, a stone was pushed out of the wall and a big fat guy crawled out, and started to loot the corpses of the unfortunate team that had come before them, not noticing the PCs dangling above his head. They managed to free everyone and swing to a ledge at about ten feet high without alerting him, and then finally the monk made her way down to kick his ass, unarmed style, while the rest stood atop the ledge and threw rocks at him.

So now I could teach them about improvised weapons and unarmed fighting, as well as most other combat rules. The level one barbarian would turn out to be one of their toughest foes throughout this entire game. Though he was easy to hit (AC 9) he had a ridiculous amount of hitpoints, especially when raging, and when he managed to hit someone he did a whole heap of damage. He ended up running away with 4 hp left (2 when the rage had worn out).

The PCs decided to explore his little hidey hole behind that rock before moving on, and discovered that he'd been feeding on human meat from the people who died upon impact. When they tried to exit the lair again the barbarian was waiting for them outside, at an advantage since the only way out was a crawl. They did manage to kill him though, but urgently needed healing.

Now, the story behind the Hellpit is that it used to be a research base of a race predating all or most current races where they in fact created creatures. This sort of laboratory of course had a need for medical equipment, and so there are healing pads spread out throughout the building. Any healing pad has a number of charges and each charge can fully heal someone using it. This was a way for me to make their tutorial dungeon not too difficult, and also to compensate for their lack of a healer.

They soon found one of these healing pads, and after being paranoid about it for some time (throwing rocks at various parts and eventually wasting a heal on a dead guy's hand) they managed to heal everyone to full health and deplete the charges. I also allowed them to improvise slings out of cloth for everyone (30% break chance upon use) and a bone club for the fighter.

Next they came upon a room where Devon had already passed. The floor was filled with slaughtered goblins, but four of them were still more or less standing. I had some fun here by giving three of the goblins a handicap (one had a miss chance due to blood running across his face, one couldn't move due to his legs being damaged and one had particularly low hp). It turned out though that even if they hadn't had these handicaps my PCs would have easily wiped them out.

They found a note by Devon telling them to go left, not right (to the right there was an immense colony of goblins) and another note (after being ambushed by a darkmantle in a small hallway) telling them to go right at the next intersection, but the way was blocked. Whatever had happened here, it had caused the hallway to cave in, so they were left with no choice but to go left. They found a suit of scale armour here for the fighter and some fish eggs in one of the labs which they toyed around with some time, smashing some.

Their next encounter was at an underground river, where a kuo-toa was fighting a horde of kobolds. The kuo-toa begged for help so they slaughtered the kobolds and had their first actual NPC interaction with him. The kuo-toa claimed to be able to show them where the exit was so they decided to follow them. At some point Ezrael was foolish enough to mention the fish eggs (which turned out to be the kuo-toa's brothers and sisters) but he managed to deny doing anything to them with a lucky bluff check.

Next they had to cross the river. Now, there was a bridge, but it was built for and by kobolds so I'd set a maximum weight it could take. The fighter obviously surpassed it, what with his scale mail. The bridge crumbled to bits and everyone but the fighter managed to jump to the other side. He had to try to balance on the piece of bridge he was still standing out, but utterly failed and got washed somewhere downshore by the river. They spent some time mucking about here with the fighter taking a lot of damage simply by falling into the river so many times and bashing into rocks, but eventually managed to drag him across with a rope.

They had now arrived at the kobold lair which was filled to the brim with traps, but I'd forgotten kuo-toa have such a high spot check, so all of the traps were found and ignored immediately. They made a massacre of the kobold camp, killing the last three pesky goblins with an improvised firebomb (a pint of oil, some rags and a tinderstick with a lucky craft check) but let their young live (except one, which they accidentally scared to death).

I had foreseen a fight atop a bridge next, but since the kuo-toa had told them the shortest way to the exit was by jumping off the bridge and getting ashore to the right as quickly as possible, they just ignored the fight and jumped into the water. Now, they were supposed to make a swim check to get ashore before the waterfall. However, each and every one of them, even the kuo-toa managed to botch their rolls and ended up going over.

Anothe opportunity to teach them about falling damage, I guess, except now with some water beneath to catch them. I had a whole zombie encounter planned in the room they were supposed to end up in, the last laboratory where some leaking liquids would bring back to life some of the guys Devon just slaughtered, but everyone but the fighter was at 0 health when they ended up in the underground lake at the bottom of the waterfall, so I decided to skip it. The room was shut off from the lake with a gate and after the fighter spent some time mooning the zombies they noticed Devon lying upon the beach, dying.

Devon might have been much higher level than them, but he also passed through a much harder part of the dungeon, not taking quite as many shortcuts. They managed to stabilise him, and then the kuo-toa took a dive in the lake, telling them the exit was underwater. Only the fighter could safely make the trip, so he dived to the outside and found himself in Highhaven's sewer system, where he found a gondolier who would help transport his friends. Next session will start in the criminal underworld (quite literally) of the already pretty criminal city of Highhaven.

So, as you can tell the first session was pretty railroady (not that they were ever forced to go anywhere or take certain decisions, but they were confined to this dungeon) but that won't be true for the second session. For now the PCs don't seem too concerned with the main plot, revolving around the war between the humans and the dwarves, but that was, I guess, to be expected. All of their characters are sort of outsiders, so why would they care?

I expect the main plot to go on in the background for some time until at some point it starts affecting the PCs personally. In the mean time, they are more settled on short term goals.

When I asked the PCs what they would be looking for in the next session, the answers were the following:

Healing (makes sense, considering three of them are disabled, the fighter is at 3 hp and they are carrying around Devon at -1 hp)
Weapons (also makes sense, the only decent weapon anyone found in the dungeon was a longsword for the fighter, and he took that from Devon. There was a room with some weapons, but they just breezed right past it, and the kobolds they burned had a bow, but it went up in flames with them. They're making due with two daggers and some slings right now)
Mercenary work (they made 27 gold in the dungeon, so if they want to go shopping they'll have to look for work)
Hookers (Yes, despite recent events they all still want to do what they originally came to town for. For Leah that means some kind of mission to free them. I'm not quite sure what I'll do with this yet)


So that gives me some stuff to work with. Other plots threads I still have floating around:

The kuo-toa: they went their seperate ways, but not exactly on good terms, since he left while Devon was still dying and didn't help them get out of the underwater hole. He was supposed to betray them in the zombie battle by running off and shutting the gate behind him, but that never happened, so I guess I'll now slowly turn him into a returning character.
Devon: the PCs might not care too much about the main plot, but their high leveled friend does. As soon as he gets better, I expect him to take some sort of initiative to go track down the prince.
The PC's items: their original possessions were confiscated, but what happened to them? I'm thinking of perhaps having one of their original weapons turn up in a shop when they're looking for weapons.
The war: a war as big as this one has noticable side effects everywhere. I expect there to be some sort of draft for soldiers, decreased guard activity leading to increased criminal activity, perhaps some sort of initiative against dwarves who happen to be present in the human realm?
The dungeon: the Hellpit is somewhat of a strange place with strange magical devices and unrecognisable writing. Two possible ways for this to develop into a plot thread is for the PCs to go back to the dungeon (a fairly easy way to get some money and weapons now that they've leveled) or for them to try to find a scholar who can decipher the couple of pages of strange writing they found.


So I think I've got enough material for the next session. What would you guys do with it? Any hints or tips?

[Quietus]

As for the "Leah wants to save some hookers" - I'd have a split in the ranks, so to speak, of the hookers in the city. There are some who came there of their own will, absolutely - these tend to be the high-class ladies, though. The ones that *know* what they're worth, and charge accordingly. Then scale back the quality based on what your players are looking for; Say, 1 gold for your baseline "She does the job and leaves", 5 for "She makes it seem like she enjoys it", 10 for "She makes sure *you* enjoy it", and 25 for "Best. Night. Ever!" Below these, you can even go cheaper; Say, 5 silver for the "Vaarsuvius special", as detailed in the last frame of this strip : http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0584.html

In that last cast, and maybe some of the 1 gold cases, you're looking at a lady who's got a bodyguard with her, both to protect her, and make sure she doesn't run off. She might want out of the "industry", she might never have wanted into it at all.. and if your party's male members are interested in getting services on the cheap, they might run into some of these ladies. If you're lucky, they might bring the news back to Leah, or if Leah's got hide/move silently, she might shadow the cheaper members of her party and learn about them herself.

I think this is probably the way I'd go, personally; The motivations you were given amount to "get laid" for three members, and "save damsels in distress" for the last. Cater to all of them, give a plot hook with the last, and if she's successful in getting any of these girls out of the life they don't want to be in any more, they drop criminal attention on themselves. Introduce some conflict between the group and the criminals, and if they go vigilante about it between them and the city. Then the war hits, the guard gets thin, have a convenient confluence of consequences where they get cornered by the coppers, then... offer them jobs. They become a "special squad", working under the city, reporting back regularly but mostly left to their own devices to keep the criminal elements somewhat low, without totally crippling the sex trade, since that's the city's major draw.

[Eadin]

Looks like fun.
I'd get some of them conscripted into the army, force the war on them.
Have the whole crew 'help' Leah save the hookers, just so they would thank them with free sex or something...

[MrEdwardNigma]

After loads of preparationwork (I prepared three "dungeons" and statted some twenty NPCs, as well as making a flowchart for the game with a whole branching series of possible events) we finally got to play that second session. I'll have to wait for next session, alas, to Februari. Though on the bright side it does give me ltos of time to prepare. :smallamused:

Anyways, I'm typing up the session we just had (playing for twelve hours straight) right now and should have it for you soon, should there be any interest :smallsmile:

[MrEdwardNigma]

Okay, so prepare for a long but eventful session which didn't go anywhere near according to plan.

Welcome to Town

When we last left our heroes they were being rescued by a Highhaven sewer gondolier. The halfling introduced himself as Milo Armourfoot and turned out to be even more friendly than first anticipated. He warmly offered the PCs to stay in his home (a shack in the sewer) and share his food (rat stew).

Now, while Armourfoot was up to some shady business (along the boatride he also had a female passenger with a mysterious whale brand on her clavicle whom he dropped off with some thug and at the back of his shack there was a door in the stone sewerwall which he told the PCs explicitly to stay away from) he was also quite welcoming and by far the nicest person the PCs had met so far. After some talk of sneaking in the door in the back they decided to let it be and leave Armourfoot a goldpiece (a fortune for the halfling) as they went to look for healing aboveground, for both themselves and Devon (who was still out).

The PCs swiftly discovered all the temples in town were closed since the clerics and paladins had been sent off to help the war effort. There was one exception though: an ancient priest of Pelor, too old to travel to the front, had set up shop in the temple of St. Cuthbert (the actual temple of Pelor in town being too small to house all the sick) and was offering free healing. One drawback: there was a three day waiting line.

Leah, the most charismatic player but not the most charismatic character, managed to cut a deal with the priest. They would all receive healing and their friend Devon would stay in the care of the priest's aides and get healing once they carried out a task for the father. Father Elbereth, as was his name, was besides a very charitable person and a slightly dementing old man also a scholar on the subject of the ancients. Scholarship in this context meant merely having looked at some of their texts and artifacts. These are of course the very same ancients that built the Hellpit dungeon originally.

The cause of the father's interest in them? Their healing methods of course! Pieced together only from rumours Father Elbereth believes that he might be able to heal people better with more knowledge on the ancients, and it just so happens a translationbook has just come onto the market for their language which would allow the father to translate the few scraps of text he owns. This is of course not a coincidence. Unbeknownst to the PCs the Kuo-Toa was carrying this translationbook all along and cashed in on it as soon as he reached the city.

So the PCs head to Treasure & Trinkets, the local pawnshop, to buy this book. Interestingly, Treasure & Trinkets turns out to have strong ties to the city management and is selling one other item of interest: Arkan's family bow, which was taken from him upon being thrown in the dungeons.

It turns out though that all other weaponsalesmen in town have been moved to the front to make weapons there and manage supplies, so the prices here have skyrocketed. Both the bow and the book turn out to be much too expensive. What's worse, someone walks in and buys the book.

This guy was supposed to lead them to Lord Aspereti's mansion. Lord Aspereti is also a scholar on the matter of the ancients, more so than Father Elbereth even, and the PCs had previously heard of him when asking for someone to translate the documents in their own possession. Aspereti had all kinds of stuff going on in his mansion, but the PCs were smart and mugged the courier in some alley before he could reach the mansion.

The PCs took the book with them to an inn, where they bought the fanciest meals they could get (goose cooked in it's own fat, vegetable soup and rice pudding). Originally I had expected the PCs to stick around with Milo, but as it turns out they went the more realistic route and used their gold to buy some luxury. The Drunken Swan has become kind of their basis of operations and I quite like it. Unlike Milo's shack the Swan has plenty of opportunities to meet new people and get all sorts of quests from them.

The most interesting regular they've met so far in the Swan is probably this jolly fat fellow who insists on buying everyone copious amounts of booze. Little do they know that he is actually a recruiter for the army. He's already managed to get two of the PCs so drunk (botched fortitude checks) that they signed up. Both the fighter and the ranger are in for a surprise when they try to leave town.

They slept at the Swan and took the opportunity to translate their own pieces of ancient writing with the book. The gist of the notes were that some sort of experiment was being held with accelerated growth. Realising they found these notes where they also found the fisheggs, this worried the PCs slightly. Of course, they still have no idea of the effect of the same stuff on dead creatures.

The following morning they delivered the book and had Devon healed. Father Elbereth asked them that if they found any more notes from the ancients they should bring them to him, but offered no reward so they kept their mouth shut about the papers they did have.

Devon set forth a plan (as was to be expected from him) immediately. He tells the PCs the army occupying the town is being led by Fieldmarshal Varkas, a sort of crisis manager working for the king. The normal ruler however is the feudal knight Sir Hugo Von Brandt. Von Brandt might listen to reason where Varkas would not. Devon proposes to meet some contacts in town and arrange a meeting with Von Brandt to get them their paperwork (required to leave town) as well as some equipment so they could go investigate the site where the prince was kidnapped to find the real culprits.

In order not to spook his contacts however, he asks to do this alone, meeting the PCs the next evening. I mainly did this in order to have the high level NPC away from the party, and also to give them some more time to spend in the city as they pleased, as they'd finished healing Devon much sooner than expected. Devon gave them the advice to go make some money and get some equipment, since they were still walking around in the rags they got in the Hellpit.

After some asking around it turned out that Treasure & Trinkets was indeed the only open weaponshop in town, but there WAS one other option. There was a dwarven smithess in town, reknowned for her work, but she had gone into hiding due to the war. The PCs decide to try to find her but only do so as she and her cohorts are being attacked by eight city guards. The PCs wait a long time before they decide to intervene and Helga ends up being knocked out, while the PCs have to flee.

Left with no other options the PCs decide to look for opportunities to make some money to be able to afford Treasure & Trinkets gear. They find a number of good jobs in the Swan and elsewhere which I'll enumerate now.

The army recruiter mentions that the city guards are looking for some sort of escaped animal which has been tearing people apart in the poor region of town. Despite Devon telling them not to get involved with the guards and their recent brush with the law when attempting to help the dwarven smithess, the PCs go and track down the animal, which turns out to be a simple hobo on a homebrew drug. They turn in the hobo but find they cannot get paid without showing some paperwork. With the excuse that they left it at home they leave.

While turning in the hobo they are also told that if they could cut short the supply of drugs to the town, they would also get paid. Of course, they don't even try as there would yet again be a problem in getting paid. Besides, the fighter has been buying the homebrew drug, which works as a barbarian's rage, only with the slight side-effect you might go mental and kill whomever is nearest. So far that side effect hasn't come into play yet, so he's quite content with the drug, and slowly getting addicted.

An old man staying in The Drunken Swan tells the PCs his daughter was kidnapped and he travelled to town to find her. According to him she has been forced into prostitution. Leah grabs the quest with both hands and during a trip to the House of Seven Delights they find the daughter. However, it turns out she is there voluntarily and doesn't wish to go back with her dad, who is a bit of a tyrant.

While the PCs are at the house though, Leah, who has to wait while the others do their transactions with the ladies, talks to the owner of the joint, Madame Aradia, and is told that there IS an illegal prostitution network in town where the girls are being forced to work and branded with a small whale. She offers 200 goldpieces for the head of their ringleader, branded with the whale.

The PCs soon find a girl who has the brand and is willing to take them to the hide-out, a place called Moby ****'s, but decide to put off actually busting in.

Also at The Drunken Swan the PCs meet up with a depressed longfaced fellow who complains his family tomb has been robbed in the absence of the clerics and paladins of the town. Lord Aspereti is secrectly having some men rob graves to be able to experiment on the corpses in his cellar.

Finally the PCs met up with the Kuo-Toa again, now fairly rich by selling his translationbook, and he offered them 100 gold a person to go get his brothers and sisters, the fisheggs, back from the dungeon.

Moby ****'s, Lord Aspereti's mansion and the Hellpit are the three dungeons I had planned out (or expanded) but the PCs have gotten to none of them yet.

We ended the session after Ezrael spent the night with the most beautiful and expensive girl in town and fell deeply in love.


Okay, our next session is in Februari, so I have plenty of time to prepare. What's more, at least two of the dungeons I already prepared will likely still get visited next session.

Do you guys have any advice for how I should handle next session? Any plot ideas?

It would also be nice to get the party rogue, Roscoe, more involved since all of the others got some personal stuff (Leah's quest to free hookers, Arkan's quest for his bow, the fighter falling in love...) going on but he doesn't. His main motivation so far appears to be cash and he is easily the least scrupulous of the bunch.

[mootoall]

This is shaping up to be a pretty excellent looking campaign! Some ideas for the rogue's personal quest: perhaps Milo decides that the rogue is a man after his own heart, and includes him in a little ... "project" of his. The specifics are up to you, but that seems appropriate.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Thanks :smallsmile:

And yeah, I like your idea. Milo is tied to some other plot threads too (the prostitutes he transports, and in his locked room he keeps the rage drugs being sold in town) so it would be a nice way to bring back that NPC and get the rogue tied up more in one of those plots.

[MrEdwardNigma]

A brief session this one, at least in description, the actual thing was about nine hours, but mostly combat, so easy to cover.

Heavy Combat, Hookers and a Halfling
Finding themselves in rather poor condition the party decides to get some healing. However, when visiting their friend Father Elbereth for his services, they are met by a crowd fleeing the temple. It's being attacked by a bunch of thugs. When they finally cut their way to Father Elbereth's room, they find the leader of the thugs has already escaped, WITH the translation book AND all of the good father's notes on the ancients...

Oddly, the father describes the leader of the assailants as a halfling about the same age has he is. Which would make the halfling very nearly ancient. The PCs check out the secret stairs in the closet which the halfling used to escape, but it ends up in the endless sewers of Highhaven. Father Elbereth heals them anyways for their trouble.

Besides healing, they are also heavily in need of proper weapons (the rogue and ranger are still handling most of their combats with the slings they improvised in the Hellpit). This is why they decide to check out the abandoned smithy of Helga, the dwarven smithess they failed to save from the city guards. Honestly, this whole prosecution of the dwarves thing reminds me a little bit too much of the second world war, but I suppose it's just a very gritty setting.

Besides some rubbish they also find a note in the smithy, by their sewer gondolier chum Milo Armourfoot, stipulating a meeting point and time in the sewers. The party held onto this note, intending to check out what exactly Milo has to do with the dwarves. It's becoming increasingly apparent their kind friend is mixed up in a whole lot of shady business in town.

Another thing Milo was involved with for example was the transport of kidnapped countryside girls into town so they could become very poorly treated hookers for the illegal Moby **** prostitution ring. How much Milo knows about this business is of course unclear, but the PCs decide not to sit by idly and let this go on.

They tricked the guards at the door by pretending to be customers and very suddenly drew their weapons and started slaughtering them as soon as they got past the three gates separating the inside of the building from the exit. The fights downstairs were rather tame, mainly featuring guards who had just woken up from the noise and were therefor neither armoured nor properly armed, but upstairs I'd set up a whole different scène for them.

On the top floor there was a poker game going on, in a huge attic with a floor that was about to collapse in many places. The PCs tried to prevent the ringleader to escape over the rooftops (having been hired to take his head), in the process of which Leah sank through the floor and fell back to the floor below. The ringleader gave them some trouble with some mean tricks like flasks of acid, smokesticks to cover his retreat and ducking into the smoke of rooftop chimneys, but with a lucky shot the ranger managed to nail him with one of their homemade firebombs. The ringleader ended up barely recognisable enough to collect the bounty.

Despite the monk having sunk to a single hit point due to her crash through the floor, the PCs decided to check out the graverobbings they'd heard about before getting any healing. Admittedly, they have to economise on healing, since it's very hard for them to get by (they have to trade in one of their few ancient manuscripts or do some kind of job for the priest every time to skip ahead of the three day line). I'd told them in advance not having a cleric would be hard, but they chose to do it this way, and heck, so far they're not doing too poorly!

The graverobbings were taking place in the Temple of Heironous, which was of course empty, the army having enlisted all of the clerics and palladins. Now, two of my players picked evil gods to worship when the game started, despite their characters' neutral alignements. The palladin-hating fighter's choice for Hextor made some kind of sense, but Roscoe's choice for Nerull was really out there. I tried getting the message across by installing a sort of alarm system on the Heironous temple for invading followers of evil gods, featuring a huge glowy eye in the wall and two metal hands, firing jolts of electricity at trespassers (reminiscent of Heironous' emblem).

The ranger and the monk went in alone, as the alarmsystem would not target them, and made their way to the crypt, where they encountered a half-orc twin, and a very, very old halfling. Surprisingly, it took some time for the players to make the connection with the halfling who robbed Father Elbereth. In fact, they only figured it out once they let him walk out, the old halfling kindly spinning some lie about coming to visit the grave of his son. When they tracked the halfling, the trail again deadended in the sewer, but not before they caught a glimpse of the halfling's rowboat.

The next morning, healed in trade for their last scrap of ancient parchment, they were woken up by Devon Wallander, bodyguard to the kidnapped prince. He gave them the what's what, telling them that in order to leave town and to go investigate the place where the prince was kidnapped for tracks, they would have to get their paperwork back, and the best way to do that would be to talk to Hugo Von Brandt, who might be sympathetic to their cause. Since they were still owed some money by the city guard which they couldn't get without their paperwork the PCs were quite keen on meeting Hugo.

Devon suggested they could meet Hugo at one of Lord Aspereti's balls. As you've read, I'd prepared this "dungeon" for last session, but didn't get to use it, which was quite dissapointing, so it seemed like a nice way to bring it back. What's more, when checking out the mansion for possible underground entrances in the sewer (as the PCs aren't exactly invited to the ball) Arkan discovered a small subterranean dock, with the old halfling's boat moored to it...

Okay, so that wasn't exactly as brief as I thought it would be. :smallbiggrin:

Next session we'll probably tackle the PCs actually infiltrating the party, and finally confronting the halfling, who's a character I put a fair amount of work into. I'd forbidden my players to be bards, and that is in fact what the halfling is. I'm also planning to play him like a really sly old bastard, always pretending to be a frail old man and hiding behind his goons.

What's more, we'll get ahead with the main plot some, and with those papers they'll make some more money, though with today's antics they've already managed to earn enough to get back Arkan's ancestral bow. They also might find out some more about the ancients in Aspereti's zombie filled basement...

Comments are really, like, very, very welcome! :smalltongue:
Even moreso are ideas about stuff to do next!

[Eadin]

The 'alarm' at the Temple of Heironous was a fun idea.
Also if they're taking a secret underground entrance, won't they have to go through the zombie basement before getting to the party?

I can't believe you spent most of those 9 hours on combat :smalleek:

[MrEdwardNigma]

Yes, they would indeed, and that is in fact what they ended up doing. After about two hours of deliberation... :smallannoyed:

But anyways, when the game finally shifted into gear...

The Party Goes to the Party, and Ends Up in the Gutter

The party yet again made their way down to the sewer. It was beginning to dawn on them they were spending more time down here than in the actual city and the most important reason to even bother paying for a stay in an inn these days was the use of a bath. Even with the twice-daily scrubbings they got pretty odd looks from most who weren't trying to kill them and were in full possession of their olfactory senses. That was the good thing about hanging out with dirtpoor Milo Armourfoot, the subterranean ferryman, he smelt worse than them.

Since the underground dock they had found at Asperetti's mansion could only be reached by boat, they chartered Milo and his gondola to ferry them back and forth. They would soon discover that the halfling's rates for a boatride there and back for four were lower than the price of a single matchstick in town, so it came at no great cost to them. They even gave him a two silverpiece tip, feeling particularly generous.

This time the mysterious elderly bard's boat was not moared at the dock, which the party considered good news. They proceeded to make their way down the corridor, only to be faced with a series of traps. Since the rogue of the party has a pretty abysmall Search skill (sinking most points in Hide and Move Silently) they failed to spot the spiked pit trap, but were saved by the rogue's great reflex saves. Then Ezrael, on tank duty as always, soaked all the damage from an arrowtrap and managed to hoist up a gate that had come clattering down after the party set off all the defences.

Still, with the party going on upstairs, Asperetti was none the wiser, and the PCs had plenty of time to loot the books Asperetti had stolen from poor Father Elbereth as well as his own notes and the first part of a mysterious device. They also found a series of zombies caged up in the basement and were wise enough not to set off a device hooked up to some still-dead corpses.

Fearing Arkan's horrible charisma score and Ezrael's terrible stealth, the rogue and the monk went up alone. They exited the secret entrance to Asperetti's basement of horrors, which was hidden by a particularly gruesome statue of a huge maggotlike creature, and managed to knock out a party guest on her way to the loo. Not exactly being a mannered bunch, the team undressed her, tied her up, and stashed her in the toilets. No, not in a bathroom stall or something of the sort, actually in the toilet. The medieval sort, the board with holes in it...

The monk's appetite didn't exactly seem to be affected though. After wringing herself into the dress (taking 20 on the disguise check) she made her way to the buffet at the party and started stuffing herself. The halfling snuck in under the hoops of her dress and spent most of the party idly pointing his dagger at people and begging for scraps from Leah.

Leah finally managed to locate Hugo Von Brandt, the man they came to see, and started up a conversation with him. Von Brandt was a large, gruff and surprisingly practical man. He cut straight to the chase and didn't seem very perturbed at Leah's offer to go investigate the scène of the prince's kidnapping. He agreed to provide them with their passports and a small amount of money to help them on their way and then told Leah to shoo as Fieldmarshal Varkas walked up to him.

The PCs snuck out the way they came, but found an unpleasant surprise waiting for them: the elderly halfling and his two half-orc goons. One of the orcs had taken Milo hostage and was holding him up over the thick waters of the sewer, his big feet bound in heavy chains. The halfling bard suggested a non-violent solution, but the PCs were against it. They charged the half-orcs, but neglected the sway the bard had over their will-save challenged partymembers. Ezrael (whom they really rely upon to tank) and Roscoe (whom they need for sneak attack damage) were soon off to the land of dreams, Ezrael again tipping over and landing unfortunately in the sewer waters.

Leah saw no choice but to dive in as well to rescue both the fighter and Milo, who were each sinking rapidly in the sludge. Meanwhile the ranger was left to his own devices facing the two half-orcs and the bard, none of them damaged. He loosed some shots with his very small supply of arrows and, well, in that moment it looked very bad for the PCs. It looked very much like they were going to croak. Arkan didn't really have a history of dealing a lot of damage and certainly couldn't take much himself. At first level pretty much the whole party had been wiped out by a single brute and now he was facing two plus buffs.

The ranger fled, jumping over the spiked pit trap in the corridor (remember that from earlier?) and managed to land one of the orcs in there with a lucky shot. One of his henchman impaled, the bard swiftly starting rowing away while the half-orc dived in the water to dispatch the monk. Alas, swimming penalties cost him his victory, and he too was downed. Or should I say drowned?

The elderly halfling was caught and Milo and Ezrael were saved. The party returned to Father Elbereth to receive their reward and some healing. The father was not so much interested in the thief, but more in his notes, but the party knew the perfect place to get a profit out of the bard anyways: the man who had promised a reward for the graverobbers. The racist thug was pleased that the trespasser had been a halfling and decided to give the bard a little "taste of his own medicine" as he called it. When the racist was about halfway through burying the halfling alive the PCs got remorse and decided to save the bard, reward be damned. They left the racist beat up in the graveyard and had the bard sail them to Milo's secret meet-up with the dwarves.

If you remember, they had found some scraps of paper indicating Milo was smuggling fleeing dwarves out of the city. Now was the time to confront him. Of course, since the dwarves in question had been captured by the city guard before their eyes, it wasn't long before things went terribly south. The city guards barged in and the PCs, Milo, the bard and the single dwarf that had showed up to the meeting (a paraplegic whose only reason for not attending the meeting at the smithess' was probably that he couldn't take the stairs) escaped narrowly amongst a hail of arrows.

Milo decided to skip town together with the bard and the dwarf and asked the party if they wanted to join them. They were also headed for Bree, the village near the site of the kidnapping, as it happened to be conveniently located nearby a pass to dwarven lands, or in other words: freedom. However, the party decided to stay, to handle unfinished business. Now I had planned on them coming with, or leaving through the gate, which would end them up drafted for the army. In either case they would have had a muchneeded cleric with them (the paraplegic dwarf happens to be a cleric), but they decided against it.

Of course, they couldn't possibly know I had prepared it this way and had valid reasons for staying in town, so I did not protest. Milo parted after a private conversation with Roscoe in which he confessed to all his little pieces of dirty business and asked him to finish some last tasks (thank you mootoall!). I like the way the party has now established a small group of seperately travelling friends who are also headed the way they ultimately will. It makes for a nice set-up for future plot.

After this, storywise, the session was fairly uneventful. The party handled a bunch of Milo's business (the rogue electing to let the others in on his business), did some shopping to prepare for the wilderness, and ended the session by heading back into the Hellpit. Yes, back.

I was as surprised as you might be. They didn't seem too keen on heading back for the kuo-toa's eggs, despite the high pay, and I didn't exactly think it was going to make a difference when Father Elbereth studied Asperetti's notes and the mysterious device and decided a next piece might be found in the ruins below the city. But apparently it did. The party has taken a liking to combat, and the fact that they are going to level at the beginning of next session does make them feel more confident about tackling this dungeon again.

Of course, this time they don't have Devon to clear the road for them... the path just might prove very dangerous...

So, what do you think? Have we gone in an interesting direction storywise?
How do you like the players?
How do you like the NPCs?

Let me know. Please do let me know, I feel like I'm begging here! :smalleek:

[Eadin]

The halfling sneaking in under the monk's skirt made me laugh.
They don't seem to think over their combat moves very well though.

[MrEdwardNigma]

I'm back with more. Barely anyone's reading this, but whatever.

The Party Goes To War

The party found themselves facing a dungeoncrawl. One they had already done, but would now do again, in reverse. Through the sewers they had made their way back into The Hellpit, the dungeon the whole adventure started in.

Of course, first they got to level, making them more apt to tackle the dangerous depths of Highhaven. Ezrael Shadowbane now has three times as much hit points as Roscoe, while Roscoe took two-weapon fighting as his new feat and has pretty much become the silent murdermachine he had always hoped to be. When flanking he gets to deal two hits, both with 2d6 sneak attack damage :smalleek:

The zombies that were blocking the only entrance pretty much proved no problem. Much less the bugbear that I had planned to be utterly destructive to a level 2 party. However, they got cocky and headed down a hallway splattered with blood and the scratchmarks of those dragged down it, only to meet a whole horde of bugbears and have to retreat.

Eventually they found themselves in a section of the dungeon they'd already passed through and found the young of the kobolds they had slaughtered on their first time through hiding there. They had been joined by a kobold known as Thing, a horribly scarred creature who had spent some time as a pet to some abusive humans (the kind that were dropped down the Hellpit to die). In his time with the humans, Thing had learnt some Common, so he was able to ask the PCs for help. Basically he needed the party to guide him and the other kobolds to another kobold camp in the dungeon, because after the party had breeched their defences here, the goblins had overrun the camp.

Ah yes, the goblins. As it turns out, they were taking over pretty much the entire dungeon under the leadership of one Yossoth the Mighty. The party's murderous passage had upset the balance in their favour, and Yossoth was pretty close to exterminating the kobolds pretty much entirely. The party agreed to help them, which, in hindsight, was a good thing. They almost ended up getting slaughtered by some goblins and when three of them were ganged up to coup de grace a downed Leah Ellinit, the kobolds threw themselves at the goblins, providing just the edge the PCs needed to win.

I think at this point it was proven that death is a very distinct possibility in this game, adding to the gravity of the whole thing. The PCs had retrieved the kuo-toa eggs they came to get, but were now all the more inclined to keep searching the dungeon for the missing artifact. Once they found this part of it, they might be able to fix it up and have their own little healing machine to carry with them...

The kobolds rewarded the PCs for their help with a big party and some homemade trinkets (not the kind that are worth anything) and finally their leader worked up the courage to ask them if they might be so kind as to take out Yossoth. To my great surprise, they seriously considered it. The kobolds had no cash or goods to offer, and the great mobs of goblins they'd have to face to even get to Yossoth promised to be overwhelming, but somehow these kobolds had struck a sensitive chord, especially with Roscoe, normally the coldest and most calculating of the bunch. It might have been sort of a shared-size sympathy...

Even as they headed back into town to cash in their reward for the eggs and get some healing from Father Elbereth, the Pcs were seriously divided on whether or not to head back. I ended up dissuading them somewhat, since the dungeon chapter had taken a lot longer than I'd expected anyways, and I hadn't planned anything exceptionally interesting about Yossoth. In fact, I thought it would be more interesting if he could live to see another day :smallamused:

So they spent another day in town lazing around, visiting the hookers, getting a whole lot of drinking done, or, in Roscoe's case, sitting in his room guarding the pile of gold the party had gathered. The next morning they snuck out of town through the sewers, passing through the swamp of **** locals called the Dredge. After a particularly disgusting random encounter there with a crocodile who managed to submerge all of them in the murky Dredge waters, they headed out on the River Filth.

As they were making a pitstop to get themselves somewhat washed up, a carriage passed on a road very near the river, and stopped. The halfling used his ridiculous +12 hide check to pretty much vanish in a patch of grass while the others were immediately spotted by the soldiers exiting from the carriage.

At this point I'd pretty much thrown away the "PCs get drafted into the army" plotline, but it proved I needed to dig it back up. The soldiers asked for the PCs passports, and not only Arkan and Ezrael, but also Leah (on one last drunken night in town) had volunteered for the army. Roscoe hadn't, and how could he considering he spent all his time in his room at the Swan, but that didn't matter as the soldiers hadn't even seen him. The party (sans Roscoe) was shoved onto the carriage with the other soldiers and the convoy departed. Roscoe managed to slip onto the supply wagon.

When the convoy met up with some civilians fleeing to town at sundown, they all set up camp together and a sort of party was held. One last night of freedom before the war begins, that sort of thing. While the monk, still the most sociable player and character, and the fighter were making friends with some of the armymen, Arkan spent his time away from the camp, tightening his bowstrings and contemplating the stars. His seclusion from the group was of course very much in character, considering his poor social skills, his loner lifestyle and his hatred of all mankind. This made it not so surprising that when a little farmgirl came up to him to ask for help, he just snapped at her until she cried.

The little girl, finding no help in the soldiers, decided to sneak onto the supply cart, as she was looking for a way back to Bree, where her parents had left her grandmother behind. Roscoe was also still on this cart, stuffing himself with the army supplies, but he was so well hidden she couldn't even see him while sitting next to him. They spent the rest of the trip in silence. As did Arkan, who, even when offered to switch with someone and take a seat inside the carriage, preferred to stay on top of it, to have a better view of the surroundings and not have to interact with anyone.

Ezrael and Leah had taken a completely opposite approach to things and had quickly found some people they knew amongst the soldiers. I'd thrown a couple of minor characters from earlier in their group to make things interesting. Notably, a Highhaven guard whose life Ezrael had not only spared but saved in combat (pulling him out of the sewer water while he was drowning), the hobo whom they had arrested in the sewer for tearing people apart while on the buzz of what the party has dubbed "ragevials" and finally the prison guard, from waaaaaaay in the beginning in the game, who gave them the dagger that helped in their escape from the Hellpit.

They finally arrived in Bree but rode right past it and to the Dunkragg Pass, which basically leads to dwarven lands. Here a fort was established to guard the border, and here they would be stationed. When they arrived Roscoe disguised himself as a soldier to join his friends and actually helped the farmgirl exit the fort. The PCs were then introduced to their drillmaster, a huge man (think Brian Blessed) with a whip, a voice like rolling boulders and two huge dogs flanking him. They spent about a week in training, and let me tell you, it was hell.

All of them at some point got their hair shaved off, and most of them at some point had to take care of the drillmaster's dogs, which mostly involved cleaning up after them. Each day at least two of them collapsed in exhaustion. The end of training was marked by gladiatorial combat amongst the trainees, where, eventually, they had to fight each other.

Arkan had to fight Roscoe, who threw up a dust curtain for cover in the terrible heat of the Dunkragg pass, but was still eventually put down by a well-aimed arrow. He then had to face Leah, which was a problem considering her "deflect arrow" feat. Still, someone threw him a blade so he at least stood a chance, and he just barely managed to take her down. Finally he was up against the fighter. And was one-hitted.

The fighter, declared most competent amongst the trainees, was commisionned by the drillmaster for a special task, despite their initial differences. They were going to blow up the Dunkragg Pass.


So next session will begin with an explosives run to an old dwarven mine.

[Jallorn]

I'm reading, I'm just lurking.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Glad to know there's some interest :smallsmile:

[Eadin]

They still seem to be doing pretty well.

[MrEdwardNigma]

The Hunt for Red
We find our heroes sleeping restlessly in the army barracks of Dunkragg Fort. Their dreams transported them to a time in the past, when all was still well. The players were surprised to be handed different charactersheets. These sheets described their characters before the start of the game. I'd hidden some interesting knowledge on the sheets, mostly in the form of inventory items, but most of that was missed out on. That didn't matter much though, as I plan to hand them these sheets more often.

The heroes found themselves transported to the very beginning of the story: the carriage to Highhaven, together with the prince. There was of course some initial confusion as they didn't really know what was going on and the prince got to do a whole lot more of his monologue about his past adventures with hookers than I had planned. At least it led to the players liking the prince, which I consider a pluspoint when the main mission of the entire campaign is to save him.

It was at this point that the coach was, unavoidably, ambushed. This was the ambush where the prince would get kidnapped, the players now realised. They were able to dodge the capsules of sleeping gas that were shot into the coach, allowing them to stay awake longer than they had the first time through. Leah, however, was instantly one-shotted by an arrow when she tried to escape the carriage and her limp body rolled away into the forest underbrush. Without their de facto leader the party didn't manage to put up much of a fight but at least they got a good look at the leaders of their ambushers: a redhaired elf, an enormous lanky man with bulging muscles and a bespectacled fellow handling a huge dwarven gun. All of their ambushers were wearing a piece of bright red cloth somewhere. The designated antagonists at last.

They all woke up in the barracks and heard a tapping at the wall. When Ezrael went to investigate he found Hugo Von Brandt's raven, sent to them with a message. I had a handout for this occassion:

Restorers of the Pact,

I have received word that you have joined up with the army at Dunnkrag Pass, though there is no record of your halfling companion. I hope he is well. As far as covers go, this is probably the best thinkable one for your mission. A band of unallied mercenaries in war territory draws much suspicion, a group of rowdy soldiers much less. I see that my confidence in you was not in vain.

The power balance in Highhaven has shifted heavily, though I hesitate to say it has been restored to its former self. The day after your departure creatures started surfacing from the sewers. This subterranean invasion is led by a certain Yossoth, or The Mighty as his people erronously refer to him.

Fieldmarshal Varkas and his men have left the city to fend for itself against the infestation, returning me to my seat of authority. I believe they felt they could not spare the manpower. I cannot help but smile on this development. However, the nightly attacks have also been accompanied with many problems. A great deal of the wealthier citizens of Highhaven have fled for safer places, and the curfew we've had to enforce combined with the threat and the looming war have brought tourism to a complete standstill.

I have opted to transform the city into a fortress, as safe from both foreign as internal invasion as is possible. The sewers have been locked down entirely and a heavily armed watch patrols the streets at night. We have withdraw from the affairs of the empire almost entirely.

Your Ally,
Hugo Von Brandt

P.S. Destroy this message upon reading it and send back the raven once you have relevant information pertaining to your investigation. In the mean time, take good care of her. She can feed herself with small rodents and such but is especially fond of the tender parts of chicken. You may give this to her as a treat.

It seemed to help give the feeling I was going for: that this was a living and vibrant world where things continued to happen even when the PCs weren't present. It also shed some new light on the consequences of their own actions. They cursed themselves for not taking care of Yossoth when they had the chance, but at least Von Brandt seemed to have thing under control.

Back to the here and now! The party was to retrieve explosives from a nearby abandoned mine to blow up the Dunkragg Pass. For this purpose Ezrael had been allowed to select a team of six, himself included. The first three choices were of course obvious, but the latter two were more interesting. He chose the NPC dwarf that was being held captive in the fort as one companion, since dwarves are pretty much the sole race with a handle over explosives in this setting, and the final teammember was... another PC.

Yes, that's right, we had been joined by a fifth player for the duration of this session. He was being played by someone completely unknowledgeable in D&D to whom we were trying to prove the merit of our hobby. This meant I had to provide a character for him, and I went all out, providing four sheets of background story, which he had been immersed in reading as the other players took care of the flashback.

His character was Jacob Miller, a Rogue 1/Fighter 2 who dualwielded a sword and "Elaine's Knife". Elaine being his wife who nearly killed him by stabbing him in the heart with that very knife for being a lowlife. Now he is seeking redemption in the army and he has been approached by the drillmaster to be his spy in the little team of PCs. Should they try to desert or otherwise disobey orders, he was to send word. I'd carefully hidden this snippet of information at the end of the four pages of background. Miller, however, turned out to be a bit of a wildcard.

The party set off, but of course their first stop wasn't the mine. In fact, they never got to the mine during this session. Miller anxiously made note of this fact. Instead they went to the scène of the ambush, which was their original reason for coming to Bree. One very poor tracking check later they discovered that the only traces they could find were those of the coach itself, which had been dragged away. With some more luck on a spotcheck, they also found out they were being watched by a very large bird.

The owner of the bird was a mysterious man known as Alexander Ducroix who didn't seem to mind particularly that his pet had been followed. Ducroix was a junior officer of the post, a Postmaster, and had been sent to track down a missing shipment of mail that had been on the same carriage the heroes had. He had managed to follow the coach's tracks, but they ended up at a large bandit camp in some ruins, so he was happy to meet some people who were heavily armed and also intending to tackle that problem. Ducroix offered them payment for the missing mail, and promised to await them in the local inn, exercising one of his hobbies: sitting hooded in a corner being mysterious.

So they went the only way that made sense: to the bandit camp. Which meant that again they weren't headed for the mine. Miller took note.

They took out some guardposts with ease before arriving at the main camp and discovered that all these bandits wore the same pieces of red cloth their ambushers had. The actual bandit camp was located in a ruin, which was basically a big pit with a single access point: some ancient stairs. The heroes took advantage of this, bottlenecking their assailants when they were discovered. During the confusion of the combat the NPC dwarf found himself alone with Ezrael Shadowbane, and decided this would be the opportune time to flee. He was wrong. He hit Ezrael over the head with his mace, which barely even dented his helmet, and was hit back in retaliation.

Ezrael forgot to mention "non-lethal" damage and made some pretty good rolls, shattering the dwarf's skull with the wooden beam the fighter used as a weapon. When the bandits regrouped inside the ruin, far too many to fight in their weakened condition, the PCs stood bent over the dwarf's corpse. His death changed a lot. He had been an important character in the plot, but they of course didn't know about that. What they had known about was that the dwarf was Miller's responsibility. Miller grievingly threw away his notebook. There was no way he'd be returning to the army without being courtmarshalled.

Before the party could flee the ruin, they suddenly found themselves surrounded by kuo-toa. 8 of them: their old "friend" and his seven brothers and sisters, now hatched from their eggs. The frogpeople were working for a mysterious employer and had business here, same as the PCs. However, all they were interested in is what lay inside the central pit in the camp, where the bandits sometimes chucked prisoners in, to keep the monsters below happy...

They made a deal: they would cooperate, and the PCs would get everything aboveground, the kuo-toa everything below. With the help of eight extra snipers to position around the edges of the pit they had no trouble slaughtering what was left of the bandit troupe, even though the PCs ended up taking the brunt of the combat damage, being stationed at the stairs to prevent them from escaping.

Their weakened status made the party unable to question the kuo-toa, so they just took what they were allowed to, being glad to be given that at least. From the interrogation of one of the bandits who hadn't fled into the ominous pit or died at the volley of arrows and some notes that were lying around in the leader's quarters they managed to piece together quite a bit of information. The three men they had seen in their dream/flash-back belonged to this group of thugs, and the red haired elf was in fact their leader. He was referred to simply as "Red". The man handling the dwarven equipment was his second in command, Doctor "Serious" Sirius, and the monstrous fellow was know simply as "Mutton", and feared for his great strength.

It appeared that Red had spent some time planning the assault, purchasing dwarven equipment through a particular dwarf... the NPC that lay dead right outside the ruins. After the ambush Red and his most loyal men had crossed the pass with their kidnappee, most likely headed for Sanctuary, the nearest city across the border, and also the origin of the dwarven equipment.

Where they would head next seemed pretty straightforward, but then Jacob Miller exited the room where the bandits kept their loot, loaded with everything they'd ever robbed, including the bag of mail from the coach. He grinned at the PCs, and made a small bow. Before anyone could stop him, he leapt down the pit, loot and all.

The player had to head home at this point, and felt the move made sense for his character. They'd allowed him to loot the stash by himself, and coming back home to his wife wealthy might just be the sort of redemption he needed. I agreed that it made perfect sense, and allowed it, much to the chagrin of the other players.

They grudgingly headed back to the local Fork Inn, the kuo-toa threatening them with death should they follow their friend into the forbidden depths, and met up with Ducroix. They related what had happened to him in a hushed conversation, and were soon joined by the halfling bard from back in Highhaven. He, Milo and the paraplegic dwarf had made it to Bree some time ago, and the bard made them some money by occasionally playing in the inn.

The three of them wanted to cross the border through the same mine the party should be headed to for explosives to blow up the pass. The party admitted that this was their plan too, but they were afraid to be tracked magically through their paperwork when deserting the army. Ducroix smiled. He happened to be a bureaucrat, he knew something about this matters, surely he could hide them from detection if he were to travel with them? Of course, he would only be this kind should they retrieve his bag of mail for him after all...

Oh yes, they were heading into another Pit.

Comments and ideas are very welcome!!!

[Bob the DM]

I am enjoying reding your campaign. It seems like the plot is well thought out and tht the players each have crafted characters that have life and are entertaining (ie. Halfling-under-the-skirt entertaining).

It's good that you have many things happening in the background as well, so it doesn't seem like the pc's have to do everything to make anything progress.


I'd put forth the suggestion that at some point towards a natural break point, like the pc's switching sides in the war or finaly solving the hellpit issue, that the pc's should be pitted against foes that outclass them as those fights, as long as the pc's have a chance of survival, are very entertaining and further help to set the precident of the world moving on it own course as not all encounters are tailored to the pc's power level, although you should definately ensure that you don't wipe them all out as you're just starting to get to know and like their characters now. For example, the pre climax mini climax of phase 1 of my campaign (shameless thread plug: A Swordsage's Journal, the gladiator pits. Soon to be a new HBO hit series), will see 5 level 4 charcters pitted against a level 9 templated pc class villian and his 8 minions, half higher level than the pc's, half lower, along with 3 "secrect weapon" monsters who far outclass them. My pc's will have a few allied npc's, but I expect a number to die on Sunday (although I'm probably a little more ruthless and bloodthirsty a dm than you). I find that capstone encounters that are incredibly tough, maybe even too tough, are fun to run, fun for the players to try to survive and either gives the survivors great sense of accomplishment and any who die a great story about it, instead is just, "I died when a goblin hit me in the head after I killed 4 other goblins.". As long as the pc great risks/deaths enable the game to move on where it would othwerwise not or at a transition between the "phases" of a campaign, when the new characters come in, they'll be excited about picking up where they left off. Think "the Magnificent 7", if Yule Brenner and Steve McQueen then formed another outlaw band and went hunting for aztec gold. :). The kind of stupidly overpowered villains I'm planning on using might not suit your campaign, but capstone threats that truely push the limits of your players are great.

[MrEdwardNigma]

I do try using stuff like that. The intention is definitely not to have all fights scaled for the players, and I do believe they have gotten wise to this.

Digging deeper in the Hellpit for example, especially on their first run through, would have proven to be very lethal (think of the chamber of bugbears they had to flee from). The recent bandit encounter would have had overwhelming odds too, and they were wise to flee while they could, until of course they got back-up by the kuo-toa mercenary band. Can anyone guess who those guys are working for by the way? I wonder if it's too obvious.

I'm mainly planning on the most lethal encounters taking place in these dreams they have started having. Their first encounter with what appear to be the main villains for now, Red the banditleader, Doc Serious and Mutton, was pretty much impossible to win, as the one-shotting of the monk before combat even started properly showed. I'm doing this to instill a certain awe of their opponents. They are not scaled villains who they merely have to find to be able to beat up. They are dangerous and should be treated with extreme care and smarts, but if the PCs don't do it, no-one will, and this war will consume their world.

[TurtleKing]

I like it and is very well done. I wouldn't say at Saph's or even SilverClawShift's level but better than some I have seen. Love how organic the characters and world feels. Keep it up I am looking forward to the next session.

[Savannah]

Hey, you're back! :smallbiggrin: Did Miller's player like the game? Will he be coming back?


Can anyone guess who those guys are working for by the way? I wonder if it's too obvious.

Hmm...not off the top of my head. I think you're safe.

[MrEdwardNigma]

While Miller's player enjoyed the game much more than he'd like to admit; I discovered having five players was getting in the way of moving forward with the story, especially because he was as loud and impulsive as Ezrael and Leah's players (great guys, but you don't want three of them in a room together).

So he probably won't be returning. I believe his character will return though, especially since he's now lugging around all that treasure they want back.

[loopy]

Play more, as I need to see where this story goes. Your sessions are very entertaining. :D

[MrEdwardNigma]

I wouldn't worry about that, the next session is tomorrow :smallsmile:

The plan right now is to head after Miller, and I'm guessing they'll encounter a whole host of problems.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Miller's Tale, or How The Party Found Death
When we last left our heroes they had decided to embark on a gambit to find their traitorous former partner, Jacob Miller, to take from his a bag of mail (and a bunch of money and jewels while they were at it) to then return these to Alexander Ducroix, postmaster and bureaucrat, so he would hide them from detection as they ventured forth into the Dwarven lands, where they would try to track down Red and his compatriots. It was not a very elegant plan.

However, at this very moment, it all boiled down to "jump into the pit". The gruesome screams coming from the pit each time before they had witnessed someone jump in there made the party a bit cautious, and they took care to break down the entire wooden plateau covering most of the pit. At this point they discovered the source of the screaming had been some Shriekers, mostly harmless mushrooms. Just to be sure they destroyed every single one of by slinging small rocks at them from a large distance.

Then they headed down into the pit and were so clumsy with the ropes that both the monk and the ranger were almost brought down to zero hitpoints through falling damage. To make matters worse, their clumsiness had pretty much destroyed their way back, so now they had to find another way out of the dungeon.

One scuffle with some gnolls later (who survived down there mostly by eating whomever the bandits threw in the pit) the monk had been brought down to -2 hit points. She was dying. Everyone failed their heal checks, so they decided to feed the monk one of the rage vials they'd been saving, to temporarily boost her health. As the turns she was alive through the singular grace of raging ran out the party was lucky enough to find a healing pad like the one in the first dungeon. They were actually just lucky here, since it had been in my plans all along, and wasn't just added to help them out of this situation.

The party proceeded into the darkness and after hacking their way through some huge spiderwebs and more mushrooms they found a little girl, mostly intact. The monk pressed her to her bossom and consoled the poor thing, who had lost her parents in the dungeon. The fighter just thought it was mighty suspicious she'd lasted this long and decided she must be evil. From this moment forth he refused to go in front of the girl in marching order, insisting to be right behind her with his blade drawn at all times. He also kept proclaiming she was evil. Eeeeeeevil!

However, the girl had seen their "friend", Jacob Miller, pass by, and could lead them through the mazelike corridors in the direction where he went. They followed her and walked right into a gnoll ambush. The fighter of course blamed the girl, until they took a proper hack at her, from which point the party practically threw themselves onto gnoll blades to save the girl. The ranger went so far as to taunt the gnolls into mostly attacking him, instead of the monk, who was again down to below zero hitpoints, or the girl.

This had a rather nasty ending. The ranger, Arkan Andon, reluctant hero of the human continent, found death in that corridor, by two good whacks of the gnolls. While the monk recovered again from her little trip into negatives, Arkan did not, and we hit a low-point. The party sat down and grieved as I thought about how to handle this.

Death was everything but easy to fix in this setting. I'd already told the players Raise Dead was basically unavailable (not per se impossible, but unavailable), besides, no-one felt like trucking down to the next big city to find someone who could help them. They needed to head to Sanctuary, and detours would only make Red's trail even colder.

A second option was letting him roll up a new character, which I would strongly suggest he would make a cleric. However, we'd grown attached to the grouchy and solitary elven sniper. I briefly contemplated rerolling the damage, perhaps not killing him this time, but quickly decided this woud set a poor precedent.

It was at this point the fighter surfaced two green vials from his backpack. The fluid which had turned dead creatures into zombies in the first dungeon and in Asperetti's secret cellar. He smashed the glass and poured them on the corpse of Arkan, whom I allowed a will save to retain his personality. He succeeded.

We messed around with his character sheet a bit until we found a suitable compromise between zombiehood and still being sentient. He'd gotten less agile, but stronger, his lowlightvision had been turned into darkvision, and his -2 modifier for charisma had become a -5. Arkan rose, and the party rejoiced.

They then continued following the little girl, and moments later the fighter was screaming "I was right, I was right!" as she spat some webbing to block him and the rogue off from the monk and the ranger, whom she'd led to her little lair. She was an Aranea (not sure how commonly this monster is actually used, but it's a spider who can take human and hybrid form) and the scariest thing in the entire dungeon. Her lair was filled with corpses, taped to the wall with webbing, and mostly eaten. Her favourite part seemed to be the face.

The fighter, who only managed to struggle through the webbing after Arkan had already killed the girl with his newfound Zombie Powers, spent about half an hour beating the corpse into a bloody pulp as the rest of the group searched the lair. They quickly discovered Miller had passed through, but had escaped from the webbing. They picked u the few coins and letters that had gotten stuck in the webs and followed the tracks Miller was now making: bloody ones.

They got disctracted on the way there by noises from an adjacent hallway. Calls for help. Very careful after the encounter with the spider, they sent the rogue there with his ridiculous hide and move silently checks and had him check it out, looking around corners by means of a mirror. He discovered a pit where one of the kuo-toa had fallen in to. They pulled him up, and then had a long debate about whether they REALLY felt like rescuing him. The debate was only decided once the kuo-toa said he was a cleric, and could help them.

Newly healed, they found the exit of the dungeon, an underwater swim through a narrow corridor. Miller had headed outside, so they followed. Outside they found traces of the rest of the kuo-toa (who had built a grave for the one that was tagging along with them, probably thinking him dead) and somewhat further on a stranded cart full of beer. The driver of the cart told them his horse had been stolen by a man passing by without a face: Miller, whose face had been eaten by the Aranea.

Over a few beers, the group discussed what to do next. The kuo-toa admitted that his brothers were looking for Miller as well, as he probably had the item they needed from the ruins. He wanted to join back up with his family, so he asked to join the party as they searched for Miller. The cartdriver needed to get this load of beer to Sanctuary, but first he needed to get his horse back, from Miller. He asked the party to arrange both these things when he found out the Dunkrag pass had been closed off.

Somewhat inebriated, the group of five headed off, following the horsetracks to a huge farmstead, surrounded by a moat of 25 foot wide, and closed off with a huge gate. Zombie Arkan decided the moat was no problem and just swam across, while the other decided to simply ring the bell. A farmer with one arm in a sling and a crossbow in his other arm soon arrived. He walked with a limp, and his face was covered in scars.
"Whattayawant?" he asked, dangerously waving around his crossbow with one hand.
"Uhm, we want to stay her tonight, is there like an inn or something?"
His mood swayed.
"Oh, no, there's no inn, but we always welcome travellers! Come in! Have you had dinner? There's someone else staying, and the wife just made him a good stew, you want some too? Homegrown veggies and homebred beef! Hrm, not sure about that frogfellow pet of yours though, you might wanna keep him on a leash not to scare the wife and daughter"
He walked them to the farmstead. Besides the actual house there were three other buildings surrounding the courtyard: the stables, a huge barn, and an even bigger barn with a walkway on top.

The other guest turned out to be an albino elf named Snowy, who wasn't exactly good at conversation. Most of his answers were wordless nods of yes or no. As the others were being bathed and fed, the lone ranger wandered around the courtyard, and finally found what was probably Miller's horse in the stables. Not knowing what else to do, he just sat down in hiding somewhere, and waited for something to happen.

The night proceeded somewhat calmly. The fighter was insensitive about Snowy's lack of pigmentation, after which he retired to his room, and Ezrael then tried to hit on the farmer's daughter. Only for some fun though, as he was still deeply in love with the Highhaven prostitute. His logic must have been: if she gets to sleep with others, so do I, but he failed somewhat and sleeping arrangements were made so that the monk (the only girl in the party) slept in the daughter's room, the rogue and the kuo-toa slept downstairs and the fighter slept in the storage room.

I asked the ranger to roll a spotcheck. He failed horribly. I rolled some checks myself. I asked him to roll a listencheck. Splashing in the water. Curious, he went over to the moat. It seemed three large Orcs had gotten the same idea as he. There was a glint in his eye as he reviewed his character sheet and found the bit saying "Favoured enemy: Orc". Then he rolled a 2 for initiative and they a 20 and they beat him to a pulp with their falchions (non-lethal damage, thank Gruumsh).

It was right about then everyone decided to sneak around the house, looking for Miller, whom the farmers must be hiding. Unfortunately they weren't the only ones to be sneaking around. Leah opened her door (using the excuse that she was going for a glass of water to the daughter) only to get a face full of sleeping gas. Ezrael tried to get out of the storage room, but someone had put a padlock on the outside of the door. Roscoe and the kuo-toa ran for the stairs as they heard Leah bump onto the floor, and were met by Snowy.

The elf grinned, and tossed another vial of sleeping gas. Two failed will saves later the dynamic duo was out for the count. It was down to Ezrael. He rammed his door, unhinging the thing and bursting out into the hallway. Right across the hallway the Farmer did the same.
"Where's my daughter!" he growled as he shook the monk back to life.

His daughter was outside, being mounted onto a horse by some veyr unscrupulous orcs. Snowy grinned, but his smile soon faded as the rogue, the kuo-toa and the fighter ran onto the courtyard. Then the upstairs window smashed and the farmer stepped out, blasting a crossbowbolt at one of the orcs and fiercely yelling "Wife! Reload my crossbow!". Then the monk smashed through the window, ran across the roof of the porch, jumped down into the courtyard, tumbled, and threw a spear, right into the horse, which ran off into the night after throwing off the daughter and an orc.

Snowy swore and mounted his own horse, riding off (and leaving behind the orcs). The orcs mostly ran instead of putting up a fight, recognising a superior force when they saw it. However, suddenly they turned around, and started running towards the PCs. The rest of the kuo-toa group had tracked Miller here as well, and was now walking into the farm's gates.

Caught between two fires, two of the orcs were quickly dispatched, while a third fled into the farm. The fighter ran after him, but then he heard noise both upstairs and downstairs. He went for the upstairs noise. Miller bolted past him, smashed a window and tried to vault across the chasm between the first floor of the farm and the walkway on top of the big barn. He missed, smashed into the wall and fell, failing a tumble check.

The fighter and the monk started pursuit, while the kuo-toa held the rogue and the ranger (retrieved from the mud) hostage. They really wanted that artifact.

The chase was sort of crazy. Miller climbed up a tree, jumped onto the walkway, and jumped off, into the moat, trying to swim across. The fighter followed from below, the monk from above. Miller dramatically failed his swimcheck, and sank to the bottom of the moat, where the fighter had to save him.

Naturally, when the kuo-toa arrived at the scene, they'd already pocketed all of Miller's money, the jewels, the bag of mail (thoroughly soaked), the artifact, his precious knife and a sunrod. They denied having seen or found the artifact, and the kuo-toa sent two of their number to investigate the room Miller had been staying in, where they found the last Orc.

The combat that ensued providing enough noise and distraction for the rogue to pocket the artifact and hide it properly upon his person. The kuo-toa were unable to find it when they searched his bag, which was absolutely stuffed with the weapons of fallen foes. The rogue shrugged and said he wanted to sell them in the next city they came to.

Dissapointed, the kuo-toa dragged Miller off to the place where the Farmer slaughtered his cows, to "question" him. They bade the party farewell, healed the ranger, and witnessed them quickly leaving, claiming they'd just sleep somewhere else, as it was nearing morning already.

They then returned to the cart of beer and celebrated.

A nice, self-contained story, even if I do say so myself. As soon as they took care of the Miller problem the session seemed sort of wrapped up. Crossing the mountains will be for the next session.

Oh, and somehow it wasn't mentioned in the log, but the farmer's big barn was where he bred his velociraptors. He only kept the cows as velociraptorfood. I was hoping someone would open up the velociraptorpatch at some point, or at least fall inside and die horribly, but alas.

When they recompensed the farmer for his dead horse, he gave each of the party members a ticket for the arena though, for whom he bred the raptors. Should they ever go to that part of the world, they will have free entrance and a complimentary snack! Yay!

Comments are as always thoroughly welcome and appreciated.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Fire and Ferocious Fighting
When we last left our heroes, they were in dire need of sleep. As once before, when they started playing, they were handed character sheets of their past selves. This time however the dream took them back further in the past.

The party found themselves in an armoury, where Ezrael was absentmindedly honing his blade. Arkan and Leah's sheets were pretty much unchanged from their last visit to the past, but Roscoe found himself shackled without any memory why. It is important to mention that this far in the past, the characters didn't know each other and Arkan, leah and Roscoe really have no place in this setting. This is Ezrael's memory, and a very tragic one at that.

A small serf entered, and asked Ezrael if he was ready for the fight. He nodded, and the serf ran out. Outside, someone was calling for Ezrael. "Shadowbane, you blasted coward, come out and face your beating!". The warrior picked up his blade and exited into the courtyard, where a man in gilded armour with a toothpaste smile was waiting. Maximus, a fellow trainee at paladin school, because that is where this particular memory has taken us. "Ah, there he is! Let's make this quick, shall we? I have some maidens to please! Haha!" laughed the hulk. A circle of men formed around the two combatants. Maximus took out his flail.

Meanwhile, inside, the others had made a pitiable attempt to free the halfling from his shackles. This having failed, Leah headed to the kitchens for something to eat, as she felt just as hungry as during the fasting in the monastery. Arkan headed up some s tairs to a gallery to overlook the battle, and Roscoe followed, hopping clumsily up the stairs.

The battle was quite a sad affair. Both me and Ezrael's player rolled a load of critical fails and the epic confrontation was sort of reduced to a slapstick farce. Still, I spiced the thing with a whole lot of banter from Maximus. "Is that all you've got? Haha!", "Stand still and take your beating like a man!" or "Tis but a scratch, you hit like a commoner, sir! Haha!".

Ezrael eventually beat Maximus down to one hitpoint, but then he noticed a plume of thick smoke rising from across the street and remembered what day it was: the day his parents died in a fire. He ran off, Maximus shouting "Like the dog you are, fleeing with your tail between your legs!" after him. He plummeted in through the blaze in the front door, into the hall, where he found his father's corpse, thoroughly hacked to death. He sunk down to his knees crying (a nice feat of roleplaying), closed his father's eyes, crossed his arms and switched his blade for the ancestral heirloom his dad was wielding. Then he followed the bloody footsteps to the courtyard, again diving through a wall of fire and taking damage.

There he heard a soft scream from inside the stables, where he found his mother, floating about four feet above the ground. Lucinda Blackwater-Shadowbane, not as common a woman as she had always seemed. The revelation that his mother had magic powers sort of startled my player. He'd never imagined there could be a twist to the background story he had made up for himself. Showing himself a true roleplayer, he tried to talk to his mother, even when she tried slinging spells at him and when the others entered and started firing at her.

Roscoe was the only one who'd stayed outside. Due to his low hitpoints and shackles, the player decided he'd be better off trying to put out the fire. No-one would help him because everyone hated the evil Shadowbanes (present company excluded) and he was forced to hop two streets further where there was a well. He spent pretty much the rest of the dream trying to hop there and fill a bucket of water, difficult tasks when shackled.

Meanwhile, Lucinda escaped in a magical fog, shedding doubt over whether she ever actually died in the fire, and the party discovered a secret entrance beneath the statue of a Shadowbane ancestor in the courtyard. Beneath the earth they found a complex with prisoners, all trying desperately to escape the flaming inferno, a torture chamber, a huge hexagram attached to machines much like those in the ruins of the ancients, and finally, a creature.

They found the thing in the armoury. It had a yellow blob of a body, one eye, six limbs and robes with a symbol with an uncanny resemblance to the maggotlike creature they had seen as several ancient statues. They found another one of the bodies,d ead and with a huge hole in the back of it's skull near the hexagram. This one had armed itself with two shields and two swords. This is a homebrew creature that can make an attack with each limb each turn, when holding a weapon, can use extra limbs for walking for extra speed (up to four) and can stack shieldbonuses by carrying several. With some luck the fight was over sooner than it should have been.

The PCs woke up at their camp near Bree, and for a moment they thought the smell of the fire had lingered, only to discovered there was a new inferno: The Fork Inn was on fire. The wheelwhair-bound dwarf and Milo Armourfoot related some vague story to them about how the halfling bard had set up some deal in the tavern and was still there, probably. In truth he'd gone to sell ragevials to the hobo from Highhaven who had been drafted into the army. Animal, they had dubbed him.

After some dangerous climbing through the remains of the crumbling building, there was a climactic showdown between Leah and Ezrael on the one hand, and Animal on the other, and like any good showdown, it took place on the rooftop. Animal had been transformed by the new batch of ragevials into a reddishly scaled humanoid with huge claws, and he was holding the bard hostage. I thought it funny the PCs were now willing to risk their lives for a PC they had previously intended to kill themselves, without any promise of reward whatsoever.

The battle was fierce, but finally, as the building collapsed under them, Ezrael managed to chop the hopped-up hobo in half, and Leah saved the bard from a plummet to his death. Before the armed forces from the fortress could arrive, the party escaped and rode out to the mines with the cart of beer they were going to sell in Sanctuary.

The trip was a difficult one, even with the dwarven cleric. When they hit some very loose sand, they were forced to abandon the carriage, and move on by foot. They soon found out the reason for the loose sand: an Ankheg.

It turned out that despite all their power, the hit-and-run tactics of the Ankheg were very effective. It snatched Leah, reduced her to below zero hitpoints, and dragged her off into the walls, collapsing the tunnel behind it.

The situation seemed pretty desperate, but eventually they were able to lure out the Ankheg with a mating call (imitated by an original use of Talk to Animals), strapping the undead Arkan to it, as he wouldn't need to breathe when dragged down to it's lair, and then digging to it's lair as Arkan fed Leah their last ragevials for temporary hitpoints and made noise so they could be found.

The Ankheg, previously only scared off by one of their improvised molotovs, later again ambushed them on a rickety elevator, and finally met its death at the tip of Ezrael's blade. It is a fate many of my monsters share.

With a final explosion with some found dynamite they blew their way out of the mines, and exited on the other side of the mountains, Dwarven lands. Levelling, which they had so been looking forward to, would be for the start of next session.

Please comment :smallsmile:

[MrEdwardNigma]

It's been about three sessions since the last time I posted, so a lot happened, which I will try to summarize entertainingly below.

Sanctuary, Last Home of the Free
The party crawled out of the mine in an old abandoned railyard. It appeared the mine was to provide a railway connection to human lands but construction was abandoned before it was finished. They crawled out of the railway pit and found themselves in a forest. After some aimless wandering, the four heroes decided that they couldn't orient themselves after the twists and turns of the mine, so they sent Leah up to climb a tree. Ezrael stuck with her, as did the two halflings and the dwarf, but Roscoe and Arkan went off to investigate some howling they'd heard in the distance.

They found a corpse of an elf, nailed to a tree with a strange ornamental spike. Some wolves were feeding off the dead man as they arrived, and Roscoe decided to sneak closer to see if he recognised the elf as belonging to Red's party. Unfortunately, he hadn't taken into account the wolves' sense of smell.

Combat ensued, but with two frontline fighters short it proved difficult for Roscoe and Arkan. Eventually they managed to scare the wolves away, and Arkan caught one, which he calmed down with animal empathy. As the party had just leveled, Arkan had unlocked his animal companion, but I had ruled that he had to find and tame one first. This wolf (he picked the most slobbery and drooly one of the bunch) was to become Horf, his companion.

More bad luck hit the two as an elf appeared out of the woods. He introduced himself as Keeper, a druid, and a guardian of the Forgotten Woods. These woods, aptly so named as the forgotten lands above the dwarven cities, except for this particular cult of treehugging elves, and Sanctuary, a city of hovels home to scoundrels and thieves of all sorts. What's more, the dead elf belonged to his cult, and the treetops were filled with hidden archers. Roscoe and Arkan had some explaining to do.

Without Leah to act as the face of the party Roscoe soon put his foot in his mouth and mentioned that he worshipped Nerrull. As it happens, these guys worshipped Obad-Hai, and weren't exactly friendly with the local cult of Nerrull. In fact, the other cult came around every fall to kill a bunch of them and nail them up on trees. Ouch.

At the point where diplomacy was going to help no further, Ezrael stormed out of the treeline and attacked the druid. Pure muscle soon turned out not to be enough though to bring down the group of elves and after a few quick rounds of combat Ezrael got a final whack in the head with a Shillelagh. With a few good rolls and a great monologue though, Leah managed to save the day and convince the druid they weren't the bad guys. She mostly pulled it off by promising they would bring down the cultists. They took the spike with them for investigation and set off for Sanctuary, which Leah had spotted from the treetops. It was the only bit of civilisation in the vicinity and lay on top of the entrance to a great dwarven city, so it was their best chance of finding a trail of the kidnappers.

Highhaven was a sleazy city and rife with crime, but Sanctuary as it turns out is playing in a whole other league. The streets were crawling with thugs and brawlers, from patchy and scarred humans to luggish ogres, the city was built entirely out of wood, except for a central structure called The Sinking Stone, a Dwarven watchhouse, stalls and vendors lined the swirly avenues and more than a couple pickpockets pushed through the crowds.

This was not what they had expected. The least common race in this city appeared to be dwarves. In fact, the dwarven cleric they had brought with them was regarded with surprise and sometimes hatred. After questioning some of the many pamphletmen patrolling the streets (and getting in brawls with some of the bruisers guarding them) the party managed to get some updates on the political situation and history of the city.

The area lay right across the border with human lands and very near one of the only easy passageways through the mountainrange, the Dunkrag Pass. As such, the area had become flooded with men fleeing justice in human lands and the dwarves had granted them asylum, but no permission to enter their underground cities, and honour reserved for dwarves and a very small number of lucky others. The brigands had thus established a city around the entrance to a dwarven city, The Sinking Stone, which had soon also become a watchhouse.

About half a year ago a series of murders started, targetting dwarves. These attacks were claimed by a mysterious figure known as The Black Hand, because of the calling cards he left at the scenes of the crimes with the imprint of a black hand on them. When a week or two before the start of the adventure a whole dwarven watchpatrol went missing, the dwarves decided to shut down the watchhouse and the entrance to the city and to let Sanctuary fight amongst themselves.

When the war came The Black Hand started having leaflets distributed supporting the human forces that would likely soon invade the city. Opposite The Black Hand rose a man called Broghan "The Bear", a former circus strongman who had established a permanent circus/bar in Sanctuary several years before when justice was on his heels for manslaughter. Broghan claimed that the dwarves had taken them in when the humans wouldn't, and it would only be fair if the city of Sanctuary would support their side of the war. He too started hiring pamphleteers and gangs of bruisers to rough up the opponent's leafletmen, and the violence in the streets escalated. Sanctuary now finds itself in a state of virtual civil war, with the real war soon to come knocking.

In this turmoil the party had to find a trace of Red, the elven revolutionary who had started the war. Since it was getting late and they realised they might take more than a few days, the party hired an appartment in one of the huge living towers at the edges of town. They even hired a seperate apartment for the dwarf and the two halflings. After some trouble with the outlandish and loudmouth orcish neighbours they went to sleep.

In the morning a group of dwarves knocked at their door. It was Helga Bolderd, the dwarven smithess who was arrested in Highhaven, and her followers. They had escaped their captors and crossed the mountainrange, hoping to flee into dwarven lands, only to find the entrance to the city closed. They had then heard that their friend, the dwarf in the wheelchair, was staying here, and made their way up. The dwarves were in good spirits and one of them, a small and very jolly dwarf called Tiny joined the party as they went to run errands on the market.

And that's when disaster struck. My players were just raving about how much they loved the cute and silly Tiny, when his head was blown off. The party had heard about The Black Hand hitman called Red Eye, but they had no idea how dangerous he was. Now they discovered he wielded a dwarven technology sniperrifle and blew dwarven heads off from atop the huge towers lining the town. They also discovered he appeared about two weeks after the kidnapping... Red Eye was very likely connected to Red, and they wanted revenge on him for Tiny, but just like his employer The Black Hand, he turned out to be very elusive.

They spent days and days chasing a ghost. They tailed pamphletmen for their providers, asked around about the murdered dwarves, spent their days scouring the black market (the only kind of market Sanctuary has) for any place one could purchase the kind of weapons Red employed. It seemed that every other trail would lead them to The Knave, a dodgy local bar run by an old man called Mephisto. Mephisto liked to gamble, and every time they wanted to squeeze some information out of him, they had to win it by way of the dice.

In the mean time dwarves were dropping like flies. Helga's crew was reduced to her, the wheelchairbound dwarf and three others. Every shooting the party tried to catch Red Eye, but each time they narrowly missed him.

During the nights they spent most of their time in Broghan's circus. They made quick friends with John The Dwarf, a persistently drunk clown, and Leah and Ezrael joined the annual fighting games in the circus ring, eventually being beaten respectively by the leader of their orcish neighbours, and a huge metal man dubbed Colossus, hellbent on beating Broghan in the final round.

There were some other diversions. They bought a chest of gadgets off the black market that used to belong to the circus magician, the Great Dalmutti, broke into an apartment that was used by Red in one of the towers and were attacked in their apartment block by Black Hand mercenaries (which they eventually managed to solve with a little help from their orcish and dwarvish neighbours and by bribing the hell out of the ogre working for the mercenaries).

Then there was another flashback dream, this time taking the party into a memory of Roscoe he could himself not remember. They found themselves in Tartarus, the biggest and worst of human prisons. They met some of the highleveled wardens: Roscoe was questioned about the location of something called The Worm's Tongue by a female spellcaster called Lethe, Ezrael and Arkan were led to the achaierai torturer Acheron to be questioned about how they got into the prison and Leah's attempt to evade detection was thwarted by a flying Azer called Puri. They also learned the prison was guarded by an army of undead controlled by the necromancer Styx and somewhere below, where the prison was being expanded by forced labour, in a lake lay the horror that had swallowed Cocytus, the final warden, and that now claimed that it was Cocytus. The flashback ended quite dramatically with Leah and Roscoe's deaths.

The next day they went to see the fight between Colossus and John The Dwarf, which Colossus won (leaving only Broghan to be fought). Afterwards the party consoled John, and John told them the sob story of his girlfriend. She was part of a pair of midgets acrobats, but one day she and her brother, Bobo, left Sanctuary by coach for a trip. She never returned. She and her brother were murdered by The Black Hand, but he had never been able to recover her corpse and give her a proper burial. He'd only lost to Colossus because of all the drinking he did, and he only drank because he missed her. All that was going to stop, and to give her a burial, he would have to go to The Winter Palace, and he needed the PCs help.

They travelled to the nearby winter palace, but en route they encountered a couple of human soldiers. They were hiding in the bushes, so the PCs assumption was that they were going to ambush them and they beat them up. The soldiers were not much of a match for the destructive power of the party, and they beat two of them half to death and a third fled. They then had some degree of remorse and stabilised the dying soldiers, only to then run after John, who had simply walked on.

The Winter Palace was a frozen castleruin in the midst of an otherwise autumnal landscape. Above the frozen fields with large icespikes surrounding the castle a white dragon circled. Oh yes, John forgot to tell them about that. Also, a death cult had taken residence in the castle, as they do every fall. And yes, they spend most of fall hunting down people and killing them horribly in Nerrull's honour in the castle, but you're not wussies, are you? John ran off across the ice fields, taking cover in the frozen coach that was still lying there.

The actual corpse though, was in the palace itself, dragged there by the cultists for decorative purposes. Bobo's corpse was nowhere to be found. The party however was having trouble even getting to the coach, the halfway point between the castle and the edge of the iceplain. Besides Ezrael, everyone was too cowardly to try to cross the plain without being seen by the dragon. Ezrael wrapped himself in a blanket and covered the blanket in snow. Some poor rolls later he landed facefirst on the ice, and the dragon landed a couple of feet away. He managed to get away by the hair on his teeth by staying very quiet, and because the rest of the guys threw some rocks as diversion.

He ended up crawling back to the treeline, where the party stood and discussed whether they were willing to take the risk of crossing. They had just about decided to retreat when the dwarf ran back to them, scalded them for being cowards, and then ran across to the coach again. They followed in groups of two, always leaving two behind to provide distractions should the dragon show up.

They got into trouble again when the first group left the coach (the midpoint) and Leah tripped loudly over the edge of the coach. Ezrael kept running to the castle, where he was attacked by two cultists, and Roscoe and Arkan sweat bullets in the coach as the dragon landed on top of it. He did not spot Leah yet, due to the nightfall and Leah's snow camouflage, but the way he was sniffing the air was not promising much good. It is at that point Arkan remembered the power fo the tophat that had belonged to the Great Dalmutti, one of many trinkets that was in the chest. He produced a pigeon from it, and let it fly free. The dragon followed it off into the night.

The party then got a chance to investigate the castle. In the main room, a series of sacrifices were nailed on a great round table, and six cultists were waiting for them. The combat that ensued was one the players would later describe as the most epic combat yet. It was a tough one, as the cultists had a lot of tricks up their sleaves, summoning monsters and sucking the sacrifices dry for hitpoints, but the players showed great strategy and won. It was a win they needed badly, after suffering defeat at the hands of Red Eye and the Black Hand repeatedly, but they certainly deserved it. They used a pincer movement to ward off the cultists so Arkan was covered from both sides and could freely snipe the cultists across the table, and Roscoe took cover under the table and started making sneak attacks from there.

This was a good session for Roscoe's player, as he is always complaining about his low effectiveness in combat, but now took the effort of jutting down some statistics. For the final battle they boil down to the following:

Roscoe:

Total DMG: 56
Accuracy: 83%
Average DMG: 11,2
Median DMG: 7


Leah:

Total DMG: 52
Accuracy: 86%
Average DMG: 8,7
Median DMG: 7


Arkan:

Total DMG: 43
Accuracy: 83%
Average DMG: 8,6
Median DMG: 9


Horf:

Total DMG: 18
Accuracy: 60%
Average DMG: 6,0
Median DMG: 6


Ezrael:

Total DMG: 21
Accuracy: 50%
Average DMG: 7,0
Median DMG: 5


This makes Roscoe firmly the most effective fighter in a combat. Ezrael's results are highly dissapointing considering he is usually seen as a power house, but no track was kept of the damage soaked, which he usually excells in. Furthermore, Roscoe got his own flashback, and at the end of the session they found an ancient book in the castle that whispers to him, and only him. The book is called The Book of Worms and speaks dreadfully of an end of times, rapidly approaching, and of Roscoe being chosen to wake it.

I am the smoke that rises beyond the mountains.
I am the funeral pyre that eats at the flesh of the dead.
I am the beginning and the ending.
I am what slumbers beneath.
I am what waits.
I am the fire that burns without heat.
The ending is nigh, and I shall return.
Only one can make me rise from burial mound.
Only one will control my power.
You are chosen.
Come to me, I will show you the way.

This caused some conflict in the party. The others seemed to want to destroy the book, but Roscoe insisted on keeping it. The session concluded with the decision that they would take the book, but Roscoe was to consult the others whenever it spoke to him.

Comments are very welcome, as always. I'd also welcome some input on what to do with Colossus. I threw him in the rankings for the circuscombats sort of spur of the moment and merely described as a huge man made out of metal and gearwork, but I'm not sure whether to make him some creature in a clockwork suit, or some kind of robot, or... You tell me what you guys think.

[fishbrains]

I'm late coming to this thread (I've still got the last two posts to read through) but I wanted to let you know I am really enjoying it so far. It seems like you've brought life to this world and have drawn your players into the plot quite nicely.

EDIT: For the Colossus, I would make it a Warforged Juggernaut (Eberron Campaign Setting pg. 83). You can easily make a background to have it fit in with the world. Perhaps ancient dwarves created it years ago, and it has only just recently been reawakened. There's an excellent sample Juggernaut on page 84 named Battering Ram.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion :smallsmile:

It's always great to hear someone is enjoying this.

I'd considered warforged myself as the most plausible option, so it's good to be given a place to find a suitable one. I've mostly been getting my material from the basic sourcebooks and my own homebrew so far, but I don't think finding the aapropriate material will be a problem :smallsmile:

[MrEdwardNigma]

A Little Life and a Lot of Death
The players found themselves in the Winter Palace, amidst a bunch of half-dead elves they'd saved from the death cultists. After they helped John the Dwarf load the skeletonised remains of his beloved into a handcart and promised to come to the funeral later that day, the druid they'd met earlier in the woods arrived together with some of his followers.

They were very grateful the PCs had saved their kin, and promised each of them a boon (at this point Roscoe jumped out from under the table, having hidden fearing they still wanted to hurt him for following Nerull). One of the boons the druid suggested was the transferral of a human scout they had caught in the woods, the one that had escaped the PCs last session, to their custody, but they refused this boon. A shame, because the scout could have told them about Dog's imminent attack plans.

A second boon the druid suggested was safe passage at some point through the Forgotten Forest, that cover all of the surface of the dwarven lands. They decided to keep this in mind for later. Ezrael used his boon to get a curse the death cultists had put on him removed. Arkan asked if the deity both he and the druid served, Obad-Hai, could restore him to life. This was agreed upon, and Arkan accompanied the druid and his men into the forest, where he was allowed into the Hidden Wood, the realm of Obad-Hai. The druid explained that he was lucky he followed the same god, for only worshippers of Obad-Hai were allowed entry.

Meanwhile the others returned to Sanctuary and somewhat aimlessly continued their investigations into The Black Hand and Red Eye. In fact, they didn't get much of anything done while Arkan walked through the lush lands of the Hidden Wood and was brought to a circle of ancient stones were a group of druids was meeting with an ancient man, swaying slightly in the breeze. The ancient man communed only in whispers to the druids, who had to repeat what he said to Arkan and the others, and asked everyone but the undead ranger and one druid to repeat his words to leave.

The druid asked Arkan to repeat his request, and the ancient man frowned his thick eyebrows. He told him, through the druid, that this was an important crossroads. Should Arkan decide to abandon the path he walked, there would be concequences, and there would be no going back. Arkan agreed all the same and was asked to lie down on a central stone in the circle. The ancient man then scattered some leaves over Arkan, and breathed into his mouth. Arkan woke up back in the Forgotten Forest, alive. That is, un-undead.

He returned to the rest of the party just in time for the funeral of John the Dwarf's girlfriend, where John had promised they'd have the chance to meet Broghan. The others had brought along Mr. Sunday, who was working on yet another new businessplan. Well, it wasn't very novel: he'd brought in a load of rage vials and was planning to sell them to Broghan so he could have an edge in the fight against Colossus. If Broghan would approve of the vials, surely he'd order more for all of his fighters once the war started good and proper in Sanctuary.

The funeral took place in a church that was abandoned in the midst of construction. The church was in Whisper Lane, a place they'd visited before, which was home to the city's temples. It was also covered in a permanent thick fog, related to some sort of strange incident years ago in the temple to Vecna. This is relevant, because it meant that when a bullet suddenly pierced the coffin as it was being lowered, sending a shower of splinters around, they didn't know where it came from.

A horde of armed men and three ogres stormed into the graveyard's only gate as the party sought cover behind the tombstones, and another bullet shrieked through the mists, this time striking through, and blowing off John's arm entirely. The fight turned out to be harrowing. Even with Broghan at their side, they appeared to stand little chance against the Black Hand's hitsquad. As Arkan, Ezrael and Roscoe were desperately fighting off the waves of thugs, Leah scaled the walls of the graveyard and tried to find the tower where Red Eye was sniping from.

The sniper only fired once every two rounds, but the shots, when they hit, were devastating. A second shot meant permanent death for John the Dwarf. He fell back onto the coffin of his beloved, and the two sunk into the pit. The others were fighting a losing battle, even though Leah had almost made it to the sniper. It looked fairly hopeless until Mr. Sunday conjured an illusion of a huge worm ripping the earth apart. It was soundless, but he pulled off the bluffcheck and sent the thugs running.

Leah triumphantly flapped open the hatch to the correct tower, only to see Red Eye glide down a zip line. She quickly cut through the wire and saw him plummet into a house in the residential area below, crashing right through the roof. Leah jumped out the tower, feather fell down, pushed herself off the wall when she reached the end of her featherfall distance and tumbled onto the rooftop, into the house, and right on top of Red Eye. They'd caught the elven sniper, alive. Sort of.

They dragged him back to Broghan's circus, leaving Broghan to bury his friend and Mr. Sunday to try to pitch his ragevials as the fistfighter dug. The questioning proceeded rather well, I'd say. They got a lot of information about the Black Hand, mostly technical details, and some useful leads. They discovered The Black hand was really Grim Untersberg, one of the only dwarves left in Sanctuary, and the person running the expansive archives. The irony was that Grim was being guarded by Broghan's men, because they feared he might become one of Red Eye's victims. Grim was also responsible for running the presses and printing pamphlets for Broghan, and by night it appears he would use those same presses to print Black hand pamphlets.

Despite hating Red Eye for understandable reasons at first (the multitude of homicides of likeable characters, as well as being aligned with what seems to be the main bad guy (Red) and the main bad guy of this arch (Grim)), the party grew to have sympathy for Red Eye. Perhaps they couldn't forgive him entirely, but his talk of the crimes that had been done to the elven race, of the only solution to him being these desperate measures... It softened them. In return for full disclosure, they decide to spare him Broghan's torturesessions that were no doubt coming up, even at the risk of angering this important ally. They slit his throat and walked out of the cell in the circus' bellows.

They decided to wait for nightfall until they'd try to breach the archives' defences, opting instead to sleep the rest of the day, a decision they would later regret. They woke up just in time for Broghan's fight with Colossus. It was spectacular. I simply described the battle, but my players were listening mouths agape. They had really been looking forward to this clash of titans, so I made sure to make it long and juicy. Broghan finally emerged victorious but heavily wounded.

As the crowd's cheers were dying out, a voice suddenly called out for every to surrender. The building was surrounded by the empirial army. It turned out Dog had foreseen most of Broghan's supporters would be gathered in the circus during the fight and had strategically chosen this moment to attack. The PCs started a brawl, and once the fighting got going they leapt into the arena and followed Broghan, who walked into the dark corridors without a word. There he crushed what ragevials he had received from Mr. Sunday in his hand and drank them all, then ripping the locks off the cages with dangerous beasts. The wave of lions and bears stormed up the stairs, and Broghan followed, transforming along the way much like Animal had done in the Fork Inn.

The party followed and used Broghan's brute assault as a distraction for their escape, though they did stick around long enough to see Broghan and Dog fight. A few arrows tipped the fight in Broghan's favour, and he tore the army drillmaster limb from limb.

That was the last they saw of Broghan. They fled into the now burning streets of sanctuary, soldiers and thugs clashing at every streetcorner and griffins soaring across the town, dropping balls of fire on the wooden structures. It was clear that the empirial army would soon reduce Sanctuary to cinders.

It was at this point they ran into Maximus, Ezrael's haughty sworn rival from his flashback. Maximus was clad in gilded armour from head to toe and headed a regiment of soldiers, most of them archers clinging to the rooftops around the alley they were in. Maximus mocked Ezrael mercilessly, assuming his presence in Sanctuary meant he himself was one of the cutpurses and rogues making a living here. He then challenged Ezrael to a duel. If he fought fair, he would not have his troops interfere.

Ezrael agreed, but did not like his odds here, and almost immediately betrayed Maximus' confidence. Roscoe unleashed one of the artifacts they'd gathered on Maximus, a coil of rope that would constrict any nearby targets as soon as it is unleashed from it's bag. Unfortunately this included Ezrael and with Maximus summoning his steed and the archers bearing down from the rooftops, they were soon at an impasse. Ezrael demanded they'd kill Maximus, wanting to take care of his rival once and for all, or that at least they'd leave him there naked and dishonoured, but the party had very few bargaining chips, and eventually it was agreed they'd go to the edge of town together and they'd be allowed to depart, in return for Maximus' life. Maximus himself did not at all agree.

It was funny imaging the sight of the two rivals, hogtied together, their allies making deals to save their lives and them all the while demanding they'd be merciless and kill the other. That was the way it came to pass though, and Ezrael was dragged into the woods by his friends, where they soon found the druid. They asked for another boon. They wanted safe passage to The Isle of Storm. The druid looked at them solemnly.

"The Forgotten Forest burns already with empirial fire, and the flames spread faster than any man can run. However, you have saved the lives of many of us, and I have sworn an oath to grant you safe passage. I have also sworn many other oaths, most of which I shall now have to break"

He sighed, steeled his look, and then took them into the Hidden Woods.

So we have ended the Sanctuary chapter and will now be heading to the Hidden Woods, the realm of Obad-hai. My knowledge on the subject is somewhat lacking, so thusfar I've mostly filled it with what seems logical to me. However, if someone could enlighten me somewhat on the subject of this realm, that would be great.

Also, it seems a whole load of important NPCs died this session. I never quite had this big a killstreak, normally being quite careful with my NPCs. However, it just fit into the story, the PCs actions led to this course of events, and for some of them (like John the Dwarf), I didn't have much future use anyways. I do think the party got the vibe that anyone can die in this setting, and I far prefer that over seemingly immortal NPCs. What do you guys think?

[MrEdwardNigma]

Not out of the Woods yet
The party left the burning forest within the view of the crumbling city of Sanctuary, and found themselves deep within the Hidden Forest. I described the place as having thick, ancient trees, covered in sprawling mosses and unkempt bushes, every step you take there having to wrestle free from the wild vegetation.

The group, led by the druid, moved on in silence, but it wasn't long before they were found. A man in wooden armour, with a thick, woven beard, was standing among the trees. He introduced himself as Loremaster Tarwick, and asked them to come along quietly. A couple of perception checks revealed a number of hidden archers in the trees, and reluctant to get into another fight with so few hitpoints, the party agreed to surrender. Loremaster Tarwick summoned some woodland creatures, a bear and two stags, and had the party's menacing collection of weapons packed up and carried by the beasts.

They proceeded through the woods, and once they reached the end of the woodlands and the beginning of nigh-endless rolling farmland, it turned there were a great deal more archers accompanying them than they had been able to spot. They passed by the ancient circle of stones where the old man had breathed new life into Arkan, and proceeded to yet another vale of trees, this time behemoths big as houses. They were ushered into a hollowed tree, and a druid closed it up with bars of ironwood. They were told they would be on trail the next day. Then one of the druids lulled the party to sleep (immunity to sleep for the Elves was circumvented due to Obad-Hai being able to change the properties of his realm).

Another flashback happened during their rest, this time delving into Arkan's past. They found themselves at the edge of a forest with a blind druid (lotsa druids in this session, they proclaimed to be sick of "old bearded men" at the end of it). The druid informed Arkan (as he wasn't aware the others were there as well, and they weren't supposed to be in this timeline) that in order to proceed with the plan, he would have to make his way to the centre of the nearby lumberjack town, into the great wooden citadel, and there he would need to kill Lord Strongfell, head of the lumberjacks. This was based on the character background Arkan's player gave me at the very start of the campaign: he attacked a town with some Elves because they were destroying the forest, but got caught, and was whipped and tortured as a punishment. It's why Arkan is covered in scars, and why he has a Glasgow smile.

I also informed them of something new: Arkan had a sister, Anastria Andon, and she would be leading another part of the attack. They did some messing around with the blind druid. The three who weren't supposed to be present kept talking, scaring the hell out of the druid because he thought the humans had found them. Luckily he was very old and suffered from dementia, forgetting the incidents every time after a couple of seconds. A lot of fun was had with that, and each time the druid forgot they just couldn't help themselves and scared him again.

Eventually they moved on and snuck down the slope towards the village, hiding and ducking away behind the stumps of trees. Once there, Ezrael boldly stripped off his shirt and armour, grabbed an old axe that was lying around, and strode into town. His ruse worked and everyone believed he was one of the lumberjacks, but for the elves and the halfling things weren't so simple. They found an old rickety ladder, and decided to approach the citadel over the rooftops. Where Ezrael found a closed door and some very burly guards, the others were able to bridge the gap with a ladder, and climb in through a window on the second floor.

By that time however, Anastria had struck, and the whole town was panicking. Some men walked in on the party sneaking in, and they were forced to flee, but not before setting fire to the citadel. Ezrael however, unaware of what was going on with his friends, saw the rising smoke, and joined the guards in their efforts to go put out the fire. Once inside, he ran up the stairs, to the top floor, where he found a huge lumberjack, Lord Strongfell.

I switched quickly back and forth now.

The group of three fled out of town in the confusion and watched the burning silhouette of the citadel.

Strongfell was in no mood to talk or fight. He and Ezrael fled the tower, ending up at the village well.

Anastria appeared in the forest, a smirk on her face, and her pet snake crawling across he shoulders.
"I didn't think you had it in you, brother"

One of the soot-covered lumberjacks walked towards the well, to get a drink. Strongfell stopped him with a shout.

"We Andons, we do whatever is necessary, to protect the forest, and to rid this world of the plague known as man"
"What did you do, sister?" Arkan asked.

"It's been poisoned!" Strongfell bleared.
"He drank it... My son, he drank it..."

"Whatever was necessary" she answered.

The flashback ended, and I allowed the players to level. I had been intending to once they left Sanctuary, but I had to wait for them to take a rest. Level five was a fairly uninteresting one for their classes, so there is not much to be said there.

The party was released from their prison and brought to the circle of stones, where the old man, Loremaster Tarwick, the druid that had saved them, and a whole collection of old, beardy men had gathered. Cue sighs from the group. I painted the old men generally as a collection of foggy minded idiots. Tarwick, on the other hand, not so much. He viciously prosecuted them and the druid both, suggesting that the druid should be stripped of his powers and banned, and that they should suffer a punishment no lesser than death. The old men cheered in agreement, mumbling their approval.

Then, it was time for them to defend their cases. The druid argued that he would take a different path, and prove himself by fighting the most gruesome beast in the Hidden Woods. Should he lose, the beast devour him, and this would be his punishment, should he win, he would have proven his devotion. This, apparently, was customary, and the old men cheered him on for his bravery, murmuring their approval. The final decision, however, appeared to be up to the old man, who communicated only through whisperings to Loremaster Tarwick. The druid got what he wanted.

This was proving an ugly kind of justice, was the general sentiment of the party. Arkan could easily escape persecution, as he was a follower of Obad-Hai and had broken no laws. The rest of the party had more trouble, arguing this way and that, rolling a whole score of diplomacy and bluff checks. What eventually turned the tide is when Leah noticed what got the old men most riled up and supportive had been Loremaster Tarwick's story of their past. Deciding they must be suckers for a good story, she set off on a story of her own, illustrating the bravery of the party and the terrible fates that had struck them. The old men cheered and wept at all the right moments, and stroked their beards in approval.

Eventually the old bearded man whispered something to Tarwick. Somewhat grudgingly, he announced that the verdict had been decided: the party would not be harmed, and would be returned their possessions, but no further breaches of holy canon would be made, and no druid would be allowed to take them out of the Hidden Woods. Essentially they were prisoners.

A third case was presented: apparently some woman, also a follower of Obad-Hai, had appeared in the Hidden Wood and was heading towards a dungeon to pick up the Armor of the Fallen Leaves, supposedly to return it to Obad-Hai.

The history of this dungeon is somewhat complicated, but essentially it comes down to this: the city Leah grew up in (before the monastery) was the last city of the Elves, all others had been abandoned due to the forests around them being destroyed by humans. It was called Tarwa Linga (or the hanging garden in Elvish) and most of it's inhabitants worshipped Ehlonna. In order to escape the destruction of the forest that was also rapidly approaching this city, they took a risk and transported the entire city to the Hidden Wood, breaking the very same laws the party had broken, only more excessively so. Obad-Hai's favorite disciple at this time, and bearer of the Armor of the Fallen Leaves, led a party into the city to fight the intruders, but failed, and died there. The Armor of the Fallen Leaves was never returned, having originally been a gift of Ehlonna to Obad-Hai, and their relations had now soured.

Are we all caught up? Good. The woman heading to the dungeon was described as malodourous, pale and unhealthy, and more importantly: accompanied by a snake. The party quickly drew two conclusions from this: she was Arkan's sister, Anastria, and she was the new chosen one of Obad-Hai, a zombie, like Arkan had been before. Oh, how cruel the twists and turns of fate can be! She was overheard talking to her snake, saying that she'd use the Armor of the Fallen Leaves in her fight against mankind instead of returning it. Arkan realised that his choice to abandon the path fate had laid out for him had indeed had dire consequences, as the old man had predicted. He had not wanted to be chosen, and certainly not a zombie, but now his sister was, and according to some of the ancient prophecies if she died eternal winter would follow.

I'm not sure how clear this is to you all, because now that I've explained it it seems a bit complex. The PCs were totally on board though.

Anyways, then more stuff happened. It was announced some cultists of Nerrull (the guys they fought at the Winter Palace) had also made it to the Hidden Wood, and a Wild Hunt was declared on them. For the duration of the hunt Obad-Hai would colour the foliage of the trees above them red, so they could be found easily.

The party left the stone circle, and started to discuss how they would leave. Ezrael was in favour of finding the druid, and helping him fight the beast, but some of the others thought that would invalidate the verdict. Arkan wanted to chase down his sister, possibly to talk, possibly to kill her. Leah then, quite astutely, pointed out that Roscoe was a follower of Nerrull, and that they couldn't cross the woods to Tarwa Linga until the Wild Hunt was off, or they'd be hunted down too. She also expressed her need to go to the ancient city, as she wanted to visit the place where she was born.

Roscoe was quiet throughout all this, and eventually suggested a solution: they would go and join the Wild Hunt, in order to kill al of the cultists and end it sooner. Meanwhile, he would simply wait in the fields.

They quickly agreed and set off, but Roscoe had no intention to sit around. He had his own hidden agenda. His Book of Whispers, the dark artifact he'd picked up in the Winter Palace, had spoken to him.

This dimension is your prison, mercy your shackles.
One of two must be fed to the gaping maw of death.
One walks with a cane, the other shambles.
One breathes life, the other death.
One dies eternal, the other dies not at all.
They have violated the laws of decay.
They thwart the call of the grave.
Your blades must colour crimson.
The soil upon which they fall shall not be that of the Hidden Forest.
Winter is coming.

His player isn't very good at riddles, so he'd been thinking this one through throughout the trail. He'd eventually figured out who one of the people referred to was though: the old man. Rather than stick around to find out who the other was (it's Anastria, in case that wasn't clear!), he decided to set to work, and started asking questions on the whereabouts of the old man.

The rest of the party just thought he was trying to fill his time as he did this, and they went on to do some battles with cultists, winning each with relative ease.

Meanwhile, Roscoe had been pointed to the clearing where the old man stood, besides an open grave. The single tree in the clearing coloured red as he approached, and the old man positioned himself in front of the pit.
"Are you sure?" he whispered, as Roscoe sliced deeply into his flesh with his daggers. He fell, back into the pit, and it instantly closed up, the tree withered, and the plain gave place to an immense charred forest. The party was reunited, and in the big tree three birds rested, each with a message for them. One was the raven they already knew, from Hugo Von Brandt, one was an owl, from Devon Wallander, and one was a woodpecker, from an unknown source.

They read these letters (included seperately below) and then quickly concluded they were back in the real world. Precisely what had happened wasn't clear to them (even when Roscoe explained what he had done), but they had no choice but to move on to the next stop on their route, the trade post.

I had actually not foreseen it taking Roscoe so little time to kill one of the intended victims. Perhaps I'd anticipated his conscience slowing him down, but it seems some halflings are simply too small to have room for a conscience. I'd prepared a whole bunch of stuff for Tarwa Linga, but now we had to skip all that, and in order to get in some good combat (the session had been fairly low on it), I had Loremaster Tarwick track them down.

Now, Tarwick was never built to be fought. I mean, it was a fair fight, he was a cleric and level 5, like them, and he had four archer cronies of level 3. In the Hidden Wood he would have had a lot of terrain advantages and extra archers and would have been an exceptionally tough challenge, but here I thought the playing field had been leveled. I was wrong.

Loremaster Tarwick tore into them with rightful vengeance and due to bad rolls he soon decimated the party to just Roscoe and Horf, Arkan's wolf companion. The rest of them were sprawled about the forest, bleeding to death. Tarwick himself had, by this point, had his throat torn out by Horf, but three of the archers were still standing, and loosing arrows on Roscoe.

By some miracle he managed to intimidate one into running away, and resuscitated the others, who in turn could kill the remaining archers. They then limped their way on, finding the druid who'd saved them from Sanctuary, equally wounded as them, but in his case from the claws of a huge beast. He was never able to explain whether he'd won, because as soon as he'd guided them to the clearing surrounding the trade post, a sort of crater with a big house and a metal framework tower in the middle, he was shot. Sniped. Dead.

They took out their own sniperrifle, which they didn't know how to use, and looked at the tower through the scope. At the top three dwarves were hanging from the side by leather straps, each with a huge sniper rifle. The party decided to take a detour.

While circling the crater, they discovered another abandoned railyard. This time they were able to force open one of the doors, and proceeded through a dark tunnel. Eventually they hit a shaft, where rising and lowering platforms continually passed. They each hitched a ride on a seperate platform, hiding themselves in minecarts. Each minecart went somewhere different, up to the tradepost. Ezrael, with his inability to stay quiet, was quickly discovered by some dwarves, but a dwarf in gold armour stepped in to save him. He smiled broadly.
"Now, now, gentleman, as we all know that sort of violence isn't allowed around here. Yet. Now let me take this young man to dinner, and let's see what he has to say for himself"
At that point Ezrael looked up at the building in front of him, and the metal framework tower. On the building, huge white letters read "BARTERHOUSE".


Letters:
I try to give each letter the party receives its own personal style. I hope I managed that.

Von Brandt
Restorers of the Pact,

I write to you from dire straits. Since I last wrote to you Highhaven has been overrun by these subterranean fiends. They, and their legions of shambling undead, now control the city, and I have been forced to barricade myself in the citadel with a few squadrons of soldiers and what notable citizens had not yet fled the city.
Yossoth's treatment of what citizens could not be taken to safety has been cruel and vicious. I dread to speak of details. I begin to fear that his ambitions go beyond the possession of my fair city, but find myself powerless, and still no help from the army is forthcoming.
Yet, I find myself more concerned with the progress of your mission than my own fate. I am glad to hear you have successfully crossed the mountains and are arduously tracking the brigand known as Red. I no longer receive communications from the armed forces at the border, so my overview of the situation is lacking at best, and I am in no position to provide you with any further details as to the war. In fact, the last message I received announced your desertion, a sad but inevitable fact indeed if you need to travel deeper into Dwarven territory to complete the heavy task put upon you.
Your Ally,
Hugo Von Brandt

P.S. Destroy this message upon reading it and respond as soon as possible. I yearn to hear of your fate, as the future of the entire world lies in the scale, and I have no other means of informing myself.


Wallander
Brothers in arms,

As promised, I have reached the capital Drakespire.
I am employing my every effort to stop the conflict.
Alas, the machine of war keeps grinding.
In the north, there is daily combat at the gates of the Second City.
In the south, Sanctuary was overrun and the Fifth City lies under siege.
The Dwarves have so far taken no initiative.
This worries me.
Other parties have yet to take sides and remain neutral.
The orcs vie for leadership of the tribes.
Once they have a leader, the question remains who he will lean to.
The Elves can only be happy to see Dwarven and human blood spilt.
The Gnomes choose to sell their weapons to the highest bidder.
A time will come when they too must make a choice.
Time is vital.
Every day men and Dwarves alike perish.
Stronger proof of innocence is needed.
I rely on you.

Your friend,
Devon Wallander


Forger
Esteemed Gentlemen,
You have not yet experienced the honour of meeting me, nor, I fear, will you ever. Since you merely know of me, rather than know me, allow me to briefly introduce myself. I work for three men (or more, but I am willing to speak of three). Two of those men should be in some measure familiar to you, as you certainly were to them, frustrating their efforts at every turn. Grim Untersberg, whose secret identity, much like many other mysteries, was not a secret to me for long, took an interest once you were joined by your Dwarven compatriots and styled yourselves as defenders of all things Dwarven. He was surprised to find I had already compiled files on the whole lot of you and had tracked your movements since weeks before, more or less since your arrival in Bree.
These files I had compiled on behalf of a second employer, a man whose name appears to refer just as much to his haircolour as the amount of blood he leaves behind in his wake. As a concession to you those files are now ablaze, like the rest of this city, and will no doubt be destroyed along with me. I should warn you though that my previous communications with my second master have been very fruitful and informative, for both parties involved.
This is where my third, or rather first, employer comes in, a man of my blood, and a man I owe my loyalty to, insofar as I possess any at all. His name is Dante Rossi and he awaits you in the Mirrorcloud. To gain entrance to the cloud you will need to be shareholders. For outsiders it is difficult to acquire shares in the Mirrorcloud, but I have personally stashed some in case I wish ever to return, and it appears I shall be needing them no longer. Below the floorboards of room 24 in the Barterhouse you will find five shares.
There is no need to reply to this message, by the time it reaches you I shall long be part of the dwindling ashes of Sanctuary, consumed by the hot inferno of war. Do with my woodpecker messengerbird as you wish, though I doubt he will be much use to you, as he is loyal only to my charred corpse.

Sincerest Regards,
"The Forger"


My players loved the story this time round, but they thought the combat was lacking. They're probably right since, flashback excepted, they only got one proper fight (the cultists were pushovers) and that ended up almost killing them.

I did like how since this session the party doesn't really think as one unit anymore. Everyone appears to have their own goals and drive, and is forced to think for themselves.

Comments, appreciations, thoughts, as always welcome and almost begged for!

[Axinian]

Haven't read all of this yet, but I'm really enjoying it. If you want more visibility, you can try and get the thread moved to the General RPG forum.



Oh, and somehow it wasn't mentioned in the log, but the farmer's big barn was where he bred his velociraptors.
That's awesome. So stealing this.

[MrEdwardNigma]

That's awesome. So stealing this.

Permission whole-heartedly granted :smallsmile:

[MrEdwardNigma]

It's been a long time since I've updated this thread, and not one, not two, not even three, but four sessions have passed. Below I'll try to offer as accurate an account as my memory will allow. I've split the story into two parts: the first three sessions, which form a nice unity, and then the most recent session. I will begin, however, with a tiny tidbit of something different.

Three men are hobbling through the ashen remains of what used to be the Forgotten Forest. The one at the back of the little group is having throuble keeping up, and keeping upright for that matter, leaning heavily on his ranseur. They stop in a small clearing, with a pond.
"Water!" one of them yells elatedly, and he pulls off his soot-covered leather jerkin, revealing a tattoo across his back that says "SANCTUARY SCUM". He plunges into the water, but the others stick to the side, merely splashing the cool water on their faces.

A branch snaps amongst the burnt trees, and the three men, still on edge, draw their weapons.
"Who's there?"
Something big moves behind the trees. An Orc, no, a half-orc, steps into the clearing. He is big, very big, but manages not to look threatening. His armour is covered with travel-worn robes, and he leans on a staff with a holy symbol etched into it. A man of the cloth then. The three grin.

The half-orc holds up a hand and says "They call me Seawrack, and I have travelled long and far, and am in need of a drink."
The three laugh.
"Well, well, a weary traveller, backpack jingling with gear, and we all just happen to have lost our homes and livelihoods"
"We'll just have to relieve you of those possessions" the guy with the ranseur says, reading it as a weapon instead of a cane.
"Farlangh frowns upon those who would make the roads unsafe" the half-orc says earnestly, readying his staff.

The three goons storm Seawrack, or Wrack, as he's commonly referred to, and soon discover they are far outmatched. One of them tumbles and falls, cracking his head on a rock in the pool.
"Mercy to the weak" Wrack says, as he shatters the second one's kneecap with an expert blow from his staff.
"Death to the transgressors" a voice speaks from the trees, as an arrow pierces the poor thug's skull. The third tries to run, and gets quite far, before another arrow hits him in the back.
"This forest is not yours, Orc" the elf in the trees speaks, nocking another arrow. Wrack's feet leave the ground, and he levitates up to the tree.
"That would not be wise, Lord Elf"
The elf scowls, and puts away his arrow.
"I seek merely passage, nothing more" Wrack says.
"These woods belong to the Keeper, to the god Obad-Hai. Strangers are not welcomed. I've been tracking these three since near Sanctuary. They made more noise than a pack of boars, and are in part responsible for the burning of the great woods."
"If you'll direct me to the nearest inn, I will leave these woods post-haste. Though no road should be closed to travellers"
The elf gestures off into the distance.
"Due south you'll find the Barterhouse, home to Dwarves and Gnomes."
Wrack descends.
"Then that is where I shall head. One last stop before the shores of the Sea of Storms. I serve my god as you serve yours"

Seawrack is a new addition to the group. He is a half-orc cleric of Farlangh, and the only Lawful Good member of our little band. His origins are unclear, or at least to the rest of the players, and to keep it that way I'll have to be concise here, since one of them has started reading this thread. What can be said is that he has a history of piracy, and a strained relationship with both his parent races. His player is a (currently) unemployed writer, and Wrack's character sheet is already twenty pages thick.

Into the Eye of the Storm, and Back Again
Chapter one: The Barterhouse
The dwarf in gilded armour kept his end of the bargain, and guided Ezrael into the Barterhouse, buying him a fancy steak dinner. He introduced himself as Gildram Edelweiss, a member of the ruling family of the nearby Fourth City of the dwarves, and an ambassador sent to the Barterhouse to evaluate and rectify.

Gildram proposed a deal to Ezrael: there were a number of guests in the inn, and he needed to know why they were staying there, and how they got past the snipers. In return he was willing to offer a gold bar, per tidbit of information. Gildram explained the situation at the Barterhouse: anchored to the metal tower at the side was the Mirrorcloud, an invisible airship that is home to the gnomes. The gnomes had decreed the area below the ship neutral territory, and they would descend every once in a while to sell the technological marvels they produced in their ship by way of auction. The dwarves agreed reluctantly to the neutrality of the area, but decided to cheat: they posted snipers atop the tower, who would kill any non-dwarf trying to approach the Barterhouse through the crater. There was an upcoming auction, and clearly Brom, the innkeeper-governor, had done his job poorly, for plenty of non-dwarves had slipped past the defences. As a sign of good faith, Gildram asked Ezrael to tell him how he got there.

Ezrael had stopped listening at the mention of gold and had focused on stuffing his face. When prompted about his arrival, he gladly told Gildram about the tunnel and his three friends (and their dog). The very next morning Gildram would have the tunnel collapsed with explosives.

For those of you who are curious what's going on here: what's happening is basically a change in policy. Brom is considered to be an incompetent bumbling fool (there may be some truth to that) and Gildram is there to make sure no advanced gnomish weaponry can fall into the hands of the humans by blocking off all the routes to the Barterhouse, and "taking care" of any unwanted buyers. He is willing to jeopardize trading relations with the gnomes for this, if necessary, which Brom would never do.

Also interesting is that Ezrael's player started speculating about Gildram's last name. He noticed that while most dwarves have rather generic names (such as Bolderd or Thundershield), some have notably germanic names (Edelweiss, Matterhorn or Untersberg). He concluded that this was a sign of nobility, and while no-one would believe him, in the third session he would turn out to be right.

Ezrael got right into finding about about the guests of the inn and asked Brom who was staying there. As Brom dropped a number of trays, mugs and plates, got a lot of beer sprayed over his beer and was shouted at by his wife a lot, he managed to give the following concise list of guests:
Captain Harken Krieg: No real captain of any sort that dwarf, I assure you, but he does lead the largest standing army in existence: the Sons of Slaughter, a nomadic band of dwarven warriors who work for the highest bidder. Also, as you can see, he has no table manners whatsoever.
Gloin Depthdweller: Another dwarf. Bit of an odd one. Some sort of Gnomish groupie if you ask me. He's also selling books that strangely reek of cultism.
Pierce: The most unorclike Orc I've ever seen. Krieg might eat with the pointy end of his urgrosh, but Pierce takes using knife and fork to a whole new level. Not sure why he's called Pierce by the way. Might have something to do with the way his blue eyes seem to bore through you, or maybe with his skill with a lance.
Seawrack: That scar-covered half-orc sitting with Pierce? Some sort of cleric, I hear. Bit unorclike as well. Haven't seen him sacrificing any virgins to his god yet.
Alexander Ducroix: Now there's a spy if I ever saw one! Of course, we can't do anything about it as long as he's our guest, but I can certainly spit in his food and piss in his ale! The moment he tries to leave though, it's splattered brains all over the crater! Hah!
Roscoe and Leah: Well, uh, they just walked in. From somewhere down in the cellars, apparently. Can't tell you much about them besides their names. The beefy chick who looks like she just crawled out of a hole bought them some drinks. Quite charming, actually. Not sure about the halfling. His eyes seem too shifty.
More halflings: Ah, yes, the musical entertainment is starting! Thank Moradin those jolly fellows arrived here when they did, a jolly bit of music is just what we needed down here! Things get so grim, you know? The one playing the lute is Mr. Sunday. Kindly, respectable old fellow that one. The one shoving meat pies down his gullet is Gobo Briarpatch, though they should have called him Gobbles. The quiet one is Milo Armorfoot.

Lots of familiar faces then. While Leah and Roscoe had ended up in the beer cellar and laundry room respectively, Arkan was still stuck, because he had ended up in a safe. Filled with gold bars. But also closed.

As can be expected of a session largely taking free in a combat-free zone, most of it consisted of diplomacy, though there were some exceptions. The party got to know all of the characters and figured out how they got to The Barterhouse without becoming a big red stain in the crater. They also figured out most reasons for their presence. They then sold all of this information to Gildram, who kept his part of the deal and provided them with lots of gold bars. They were now unspeakably wealthy. Below is a summary of these reasons and methods, though you can just skip right past that to the action and the hijinks if you like.

Captain Harken Krieg: Krieg just walked in, since he's a dwarf and has no reason to fear dwarven snipers. He made no secret of this, but his brutish behaviour might just be an act, since he was one of very few who managed to keep his motives hidden from the party. Later, during the auction, it turned out he had been hired by the gnomes to drive up the prices, without actually buying anything. All the gold he had resting in the safe for the auction was just a loan from the gnomes. The Sons of Slaughter don't actually have any money, since they tend to spend all their earnings quite vigorously.
Gloin Depthdweller: Got in by underground train from the Fourth City, but again a dwarf, so he had no real problems. He was there because he hoped to find a way onto the Mirrorcloud, since he is in fact pretty much a Gnomish groupie. He is also the only existing dwarven cleric of Garl Glittergold and says he owes it all to the books he's selling: Deities and Dimensions, a very complicated essay on the mechanics of godhood and worship by a figure known only as The Omnitheist, who promotes a worship of a pantheon rather than any single god.
Alexander Ducroix: The postmaster they had previously met in Bree had fallen upon ill fortunes. After returning the bag of mail, reduced to mulch by the water it had been dragged to, to the royal post, he was sent on a suicide mission of sorts: spying behind enemy lines. He bought the fastest horse he could find and had hoped to race it through the crater, to spy on a war council in the Fourth City. However, he only made it half-way through before his horse was shot dead and has been stuck in the Barterhouse ever since, earning the ire of the local dwarves.
The halflings: After the war in Sanctuary, Milo and Mr. Sunday were taken prisoner by the humans, but Mr. Sunday somehow struck a deal for them and a third halfling with his silver tongue. They were granted a reinforced metal carriage filled to the brim with gold and sent to the auction to buy weapons of mass destruction for the human war effort.
Pierce: Pierce was similarly there in human employ. He rode a giant eagle over the clouds, thus avoiding detection of the snipers. The party only found out about this by meeting the eagle in the flesh, quite unexpectedly.
Seawrack: The party quickly made friends with their new party member. They found out his motive for being in the Barterhouse was pretty much "just passing through, not afraid of a few snipers". That along with some kind of dogmatic belief that all roads should be open to travellers. He'd gotten in by using his fly ability and racing through the crater, only resulting in a single new scar on his cheek, but he didn't tell the party about his abilities just yet. They would find out later. In the mean time, they did all the traditional friendmaking rituals: Leah bought him some drinks, a favour which he returned, Ezrael and him had some sort of "who's the toughest guy here" staring and muscle-rolling match, and Roscoe stole his purse. Arkan was absent due to being locked in a safe, but he was never very good at making friends anyways, so not direly missed. Imagine him as the hitchhiker lurking in the bushes while the cute girl flags down a car.

So, action. If you'll remember, the party had gotten a mysterious message by a man calling himself the forger, who told them that there would be shares for the Mirrorcloud hidden in one of the rooms of the inn. Roscoe quickly picked the lock on the room in question, but what he found there was not to his liking: a giant eagle, curiously tilting his head at the strange intruder. The whole table was yelling at Roscoe to just slam the door shut and get out of there, but he had a plan. The floor of the room was covered in eagledroppings, and Roscoe decided that, well, the eagle wouldn't be able to tell the difference, would he? So he rubbed eagle excrement all over his body and clothes and attempted to sneak in further. The eagle then gave him a pretty foul (though quite possibly also amused) look and Roscoe proceeded to run out in terror.

Meanwhile, Arkan, who had rejoined the party, was on the lookout outside the door. He had run into a dwarven maid, and had found no better option to distract her from cleaning the very room Roscoe was trying to rob than to seduce her. To everyone's great surprise, this is one charisma check he didn't botch (well, it was a very ugly maid). Arkan winded up "keeping her busy" in the adjoining room.

One floor lower, Leah had thought up a plan of her own. Since the shares were hidden under the floorboards, would it not be possible to get to them through the ceiling of the room below? This was in fact a very effective strategy, but alas, the shares were gone. In their stead? A single sheet of paper, with a print of a black hand. Dunnn-Dunnn-Duuuuuuuunnn.

Finally, Ezrael got into some sort of sparring match with Pierce. I can't recall the exact reason why, but Pierce might have found out they had broken into his room, or maybe it was just a display of Ezrael's machismo. In any case, this is where they really got to know Seawrack better. He offered to be the judge in the sparring match, and also offered free healing (which is one of the party's favourite things) to Pierce and Ezrael. Pierce is a member of a class I hadn't used before: the cavalier. That means he is quite deadly with his lance, and has some pretty unique tactics. Of course, he'd be far more deadly when mounted on his giant eagle, but the match was to be taken man to man. It was a match of honour.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, and I might be, because this was a long time ago, Pierce won and thereby considered the insult forgiven. He appreciated Ezrael's bravery in facing him. Seawrack healed up Ezrael and they bonded further. At this point they found out that Seawrack was headed towards the Isle of Storms. He must head there because he is on some sort of pilgrimage to drink the waters of every sea. Yes, I know, it's strange. In any case, this meant that decided to team up, at least until they reached the Sea of Storms.

Mr. Sunday and the other halflings, who had dissappeared for a while, had returned, and it turned out they had gotten a hold of the shares somehow. After some negotiating, they provided the party with four shares. The fifth share was still with Gobo Briarpatch, who had decided to stay on board the Mirrorcloud. Their business on board the Mirrorcloud is, until now, still pretty unclear.

The party headed up, though they elected to take Seawrack up with them instead of Arkan (considering him to be least likely to be of use in diplomatic relations with the gnomes). Besides, Seawrack really wanted to meet the fabled Professor Galvanus, the gnomish inventor responsible for most of the devices put up at auction.

Seawrack was hoping to talk Galvanus out of producing these weapons, in order to stall the war and prevent further casualties, but the man would not listen to reason. He was disconnected from the world beneath, and honestly couldn't care less about what his inventions were used for. He wished merely to create. As it turns out, he was also the manufacturer of the ubiquitous rage vials which had caused so much trouble in previous sessions. He distilled these from chemicals drawn from the brain of a special kind of homebrewed drake, called a rage drake, from my setting. He had caught one of these drakes and had it chained up in his laboratory, but of course the creature chose that exact time to escape in a series of explosions and attack his captor.

The rest of the party had split of from Seawrack to visit Junior Executive Director Dante Rossi, a gnomish big-shot who had invited them through the Forger's letter. Rossi explained that while the gnomes valued inventiveness as the highest good in their society and frowned heavily on replicating the works of others, he had decided to take a different path. He had been tracking the party and noticed that they showed up at several locations of "powerspikes". These brief powerspikes, at locations that always show a certain otherworldly background radiation, took place at Goldenbough (where Ezrael grew up), Bree and the Isle of Storms. Further places with this radiation, though with no spikes thus far, were Sanctuary and High Haven. This seemed too large of a coincidence to ignore. He wished to reverse-engineer the "portals" that could be found in these locations, and asked the party to retrieve the machinery causing them from the Isle of Storms, since they were heading there anyways. He couldn't have gnomes do this task, as the very act of reverse-engineering would be considered a betrayal by his people.

The party went to find Seawrack, but the laboratory, which was located at the belly of the Mirrorcloud, was only connected to the rest of the ship by a couple of slim bridges, and those had been withdrawn automatically as soon as the explosions started. This didn't seem to provide a problem for the drake, who had snatched up Galvanus and was now trying to make an extra snack out of the partymembers.

What followed was an epic airborne battle. The two most notable things that happened were the following: Seawrack was forced to take a moral decision: does he save the man who makes these awful weapons and refuses to stop, or does he let him die? True to his Lawful Good nature, Seawrack decided on the former. Furthermore, at some point, he slipped off the edge of the Mirrorcloud. The party tried a series of last ditch efforts (such as the monk making one of her spectacular jumps), but nothing seemed to be able to save him. It looked as though the newest partymember would die in his very first session.

This is when he surprised everyone by flying. Now remember, everyone thought he was a lost cause, and no-one was aware he had this ability. As a reveal, it was a pretty big whopper.

The drake escaped, Galvanus was saved, and the party returned to the Barterhouse, where Gildram gave them a choice: they could leave through the crater right now, before the auction started, and he would guarantee the snipers wouldn't fire upon them, or they could stay and would be bereft of any way for leaving, since he had shut down all routes with their own information.

The party chose to stay, but they passed word of the small window of opportunity to Alexander Ducroix, who took his chance to finally leave. They then spent all of their hard-earned gold bars on various devices from the auction, which I won't go into detail about here.

Then, they gave a share to Gloin Depthdweller, so he could board the Mirrorcloud, and in return Gloin smuggled them onto an underground train, headed for the Fourth City.

Chapter two: the perilous journey there
As the party rested onboard the train, they were hit with another flashback. Of course, the most anticipated flashback was Leah's, since she was the only player character without one so far, but it turned out to be a flashback for Seawrack, confirming his status as a true partymember and their strangely intertwined fates. Notably, Jacob Miller, the other player character who briefly joined, never had a flashback, and was thusly always somehow separated from the rest of the group.

We flashed back to a defining moment in his life: that where he almost drowns. They wake on board a pirate ship, crewed with orcs, that Seawrack used to sail, before he was "Seawrack". As soon as he hears the rumblings of cannons, he knows when and where this is. The ship is being attacked by a second pirate crew, that of Captain Thornbaugh. Thornbaugh, notably, has existed long before Seawrack's character was conceived, and one of the players ominously had an item belonging to him in his inventory in one of the previous flashbacks.

The players joined the melee on the ship, but unlike the true past, now they also had to fend off the orcs, since they considered everyone who wasn't an orc an enemy. Seawrack ended up at his predestined confrontation with Thornbaugh, who eventually decides to let him live. Sort of. He lets the fates decide. He beats Seawrack spectacularly, and has his lashed to the ship's mast, as the sole survivor, and then sinks the ship.

We return to the present. The train has arrived in the Fourth City, and the party does a whole lot of sneaking, crawling back and forth, and hiding in crates to avoid detection by the dwarves. Eventually they find a number of crates that are being sent to Fir Am See, a dwarven village bordering the Sea of Storms. Since it's completely dark in the city and all writing is in dwarven, they have to do this by having Seawrack identify the markings with darkvision, and having him describe them to partymembers who can read dwarven.

Once they arrive in Fir Am See, they soon manage to fail avoiding detection, and end up in a confrontation with the villagers. But then the village is attacked. By a pirate ship. Captained by... you guessed it, Captain Thornbaugh himself.

The party chooses to flee in the confusion rather then fight, they highjack a small boat and set off for the Isle of Storms. The island comes as advertised and is surrounded by awful weather conditions. They have many troubles keeping the boat afloat, often hoisting out water in groups as others steer, and sometimes even having the flip the boat back up when it capsizes. To make matters worse, some terrible guardian creature of the island attacks their boat. This was a Dragon Turtle, and clearly far out of their league.

Against all odds, they manage to make it onto the island, dragging their boat onto the beach to prevent it being further damaged, and using it as a temporary camp. During the night they are attacked by Locathah, but manage to easily dispatch them.

Chapter three: the eye of the storm
When dawn comes, the party starts to explore the island. They soon spot a crumbling tower at the very peak, but the climb appears to be treacherous, and instead they elect to enter a mysterious black doorway in the rockface.

Inside, they find a labyrinth. It is another one of those ancient ruins they've been finding, but it is constructed differently. Hallways slip shut behind them once they are in deep enough with gelatinous cubes, and it becomes a game of cat and mouse. To make matters worse, there is a minotaur stalking the labyrinth as well, launching powerful assaults on the party.

They make it through, of course, decimating the minotaur and finding the way through his hidden lair at the centre of the labyrinth to the rooms above. The room is filled with ancient tubes with strange creatures in them, and one of Red's flunkeys guarding the only exit. He opens a couple of the tubes and combat begins. They manage to quickly take him out before he can activate any more tubes, and then finally manage to slay the gibbering mouther, the toughest creature released.

Beyond the doors, they find what could easily be described as an end-boss: Red. Not only Red, of course, but also his monstrish goon Mutton and his maverick lieutenant Doc Serious. Red delivers a short speech, in the nature of, I have been waiting for you, yadda, yadda, yadda. Everyone draws their weapons. And the session ends.

This is what they've been striving towards the very of the beginning of the game. They've been chasing Red for kidnapping the prince since day one, and now they have finally found him. Remember, this is a campaign that's been going on for, what, four years or something now? And they've finally found what they were looking for. This could be the end of the campaign. The anticipation is palpable. But they're only level five. And they know I'm a bastard. I leave them to simmer for a month or so.

One day I'm driving back from the Netherlands from some event, and two of my players are in my backseat. A discussion begins between them. Endgame strategies. What will the fight be like? They know that their opponents will have some tricks up their sleeve. They predict, correctly, that Red will probably have the ranger class. Since he's their main foe, he will at least equal them in level, which means he must have some sort of animal companion. Whom they haven't seen or heard about.

They discuss possible plottwists. Is Red really the final boss? But what about all the storylines that haven't been tied up yet? Where are the flashbacks coming from? What about all their other foes? What about all those ancient ruins? WHO IS THE BLACK HAND? And they haven't seen the prince yet. What if he's already dead? How will they stop the war then? What else could I pull out of my sleeve?

Finally, it's time for...

Chapter four: the final (?) confrontation
Red has taken up a strategic position, standing aloft on a platform hoisted up the ceiling by chains. A murky water basin lines the room. Beyond it lies a gallery of pillars, about ten feet high. Doc Serious is standing there, taking cover behind the pillars, and readying his huge dwarven gun. Mutton is simply standing in the middle of the room, beating his chest and roaring.

The combat starts with a barrage of sleeping vials from the good doctor's gun. Some of the party are instantly, but temporarily taken out of commission. As planned, they fan out, to avoid all getting his with another one of those vials. Ezrael draws his massive (and no doubt phallic) weapon and engages Mutton. Arkan tries to find a spot appropriate for sniping. Roscoe joins the melee, unleashing a flurry of backstabs on Mutton. Red answers the attacks with a series of arrows, shooting several at once. Leah goes for the big gun, ignores the stairs, and tries to jump the water to scale up to the gallery of pillars.

Then, of course, there is surprises. Mutton is dealt massive damage, but doesn't seem phased, not even when one of his limbs comes off. Probably because, moments later, it grows back. They had always thought that there was something truly monstrous about Mutton, but Troll blood? That's just mean.

Meanwhile, Leah makes acquaintance with Red's pet. While they had predicted an animal companion, no-one had guessed it might be hiding in the water basin lining the room. A huge crocodile shoots out of the water, snatches Leah, and drags her underwater.

Red keeps happily making pincushions out of the whole party, and at some point Seawrack decides he must be stopped. He uses his flight power, and tries to ram Red off his perch. I say tries, because he doesn't quite get there. Red launches some sort of a, what shall I call it... mindblast. Homebrew, of course, but where does he get it, if he's a ranger? Seawrack is paralysed in midair.

Of course, as soon as the bag of tricks runs out, the tide begins to turn. The PCs quickly adapt. Red's crocodile isn't much of a challenge as soon as it is lured out of the water, and that leaves Leah free to go after Doc Serious. Seawrack eventually does manage to dethrone Red. Through the combined efforts of Arkan, Ezrael and Roscoe, Mutton is felled. Ezrael proudly severs his head and holds it as a trophy.

They find the prince, alive and well (more or less) in an adjoining room, locked in chains and severly dehydrated. They question Red, but don't get much out of him besides ominous ramblings, and then allow the prince to kill him. Creatively. Octavius apparently possess the power to control dragons by song, as predicted by his last name, Drakesong, and the island happens to be infested with Pseudodragons. he calls them down and has Red torn asunder. They then try to question him again with speak with dead, but don't get much more than furiatingly exact answers to their questions and ominous announcements of a reckoning day to come.

Doc Serious is a different story. Like many villains in this setting, he is, when questioned, able to provide a somewhat redeeming story. He has been led by blind friendship and trust in his friend, and could not but follow Red. He does, however, regret what they have done, and wishes merely for a chance to return to his original passion: medicine. Red had saved his life sometime in the past, but now that this debt can no longer be truly paid, he wants to go to the armycamps and help the wounded as best he can, hoping for some amount of redemption. The PCs agree to his bargain, and decide that he will accompany them back to human lands. Because, yes, the war can not truly end until the prince has been returned home. To Drakespire. To the capital.

Chapter five: the equally, or even more so, perilous journey back
The party rounded up things on the island. They decided against searching the labyrinth some more for another part of the machine they are assembling for Father Elbereth, but did choose to take a look at the portal, since it happened to be close to their current location. When they arrived, they found a man already there, utterly failing at hiding under a table. He looked sort of like... Ezrael's dead father. But before they could study him further, the man morphed into a bearperson. He proceeded to swear a lot, went off on a tantrum about how all the portals should be destroyed, destroyed the portal, and then buggered off through an air vent. Not before handing Ezrael a heraldic Shadowbane axe though (any heraldic Shadowbane items offer a +1 for Ezrael Shadowbane). He also told them that if they were ever looking for them, they could just ask for Roark in pretty much any pub.

The party headed back to the beach, with the prince and Doc Serious, and found their boat stolen by the Locathah. It had been dragged off to some cave, and there been dragged off into an underwater cave network. They elected to take the boat that Doc Serious had arrived in instead, which was hidden on another part of the island.

On the way back they were again harassed by the Dragon Turtle.

Fir Am See was a mess when they anchored there. The whole village had pretty much been destroyed, and everyone in it was dead. A dwarf, Hondo Reich, staunch defender of the dwarven realm, happened to be searching the ruins for clues when they arrived, and quickly decided to arrest them. They resisted arrest for a moment, but when it turned out the dwarf had a number of earth elemental aides hidden under the muck, they soon surrendered.

They rode back to the Fourth City in Hondo's personal train. They had already told Hondo that they had the prince with them, but this made Hondo only more eager to arrest them. He brought them to war council: the Council of Seven.

Each of the seven dwarven cities has a ruling family, and each of these ruling families has a keeper, and each of these keepers have a seat on the most important political organ among the dwarves: the Council of Seven.

This is when the discussion about dwarven last names came into play. Reich, Untersberg, Edelweiss, Matterhorn, all of these were names of ruling houses. The final houses were Zacher and Dammerung. Each of the seven houses had their own styles, opinions and traditions and now the party had to navigate this council, with their lives at stake.

There was a lot of lying, coaxing, bribing and promising, but eventually the party managed to get a pretty good deal (compared to the alternative). The prince would be brought to the human army and sent home. The rest of the group would be sent to join the Drehadaxa, which is dwarven for "the walking dead". It doesn't imply zombification, but it implies a sort of legion of rejects, looking for redemption by taking on suicide missions. They would join the few Drehadaxa already gathered for transport to the Fifth City (which lies beneath the ruins of Sanctuary). Their mission their would be simple: they would be sent to cross a portal.

It bears mentioning that their greatest ally in the council turned out to be Captain Harken Krieg, whose family used to rule the second city until it was overrun by dark orcs, and who now only has half a seat on the council. This means that he is only called in when the votes are a draw among the six other houses. He also spent most of his time present in the councilhall being rude to the other councillors and breaking all of the established traditions of the council.

Their greatest nemesis was keeper Yngvar Matterhorn, a nearly senile and mostly deaf old man. Yngvar was related to a dwarf the party killed earlier in the game, and has stubbornly decided that now all humans must be exterminated to pay for the loss of his son in the war. Not that he remembers that particular son's first name.

Chapter six: one small step for man, one giant leap for dwarvenkind
The idea was simple. Supposedly, there are these ancient ruins strewn about the world. Supposedly, inside you can find these mysterious portals. Now, if you were to step through one portal, to where-ever it leads, perhaps you can exit out another. So the dwarves had excavated the portal located near their Fifth City and were planning to send troops through, hoping to land them behind the front lines of the human army.

First of course, it would have to be tested. They'd send some Drehadaxa through first. First through the breach was practically their motto and purpose anyways. Then, once they sent a signal back that they were still more or less alive, they send through some troops. Not real troops of course, still too risky. No, Sons of Slaughter. Brigands willing to do anything for money. A dangerous army, but also conveniently free if it turned out a one-way trip. Krieg himself would join on the expedition, as well as his right hand man, Stormbeard, so if they wouldn't return that would save a lot of embarassing moments in the council.

Of course, then there were those that wanted to be first to make a name for themselves. Loki Untersberg, vastly in love with all kinds of dangerous research but otherwise unapproachable, decided to slip along, against great protests of his father, the councillor.

So, what lousy heap of Drehadaxa have we gathered?
Hilde Holderhek, chapter leader, a very manly woman with altogether too many axes about her body. Den Brenner, a deep dwarf unaccustomed to social situations, but with a great affection for explosives. Gimli ****shoveller, terribly shy, probably about his inability to grow a beard, until he goes beserk. Fjol Dammerung, a very distant relative of the leading house of the Sixth City, who has been running his own private inquisition for years, while the real institution hasn't existed for ages. Death Tenfold, a bit of a self-aggrandizing nickname for a slim female halfling. And then these new guys: six non-dwarves, and their dog.

Understandably, there wasn't much bonding among the Drehadaxa. Hilde was a bit like a motherfigure, but the other Drehadaxa were downright unsociable. Fjol couldn't manage to have a conversation without turning it into an interrogation, licking his blades and getting indecently excited.

Of course, the new Drehadaxa, in other words the party plus Doc Serious, would be the first to go through the portal, as tradition dictates. Beyond was a whole other dimension. Three vast upturned pyramids in an endless ocean of sand, beneath a thunderous purple sky. Each of the pyramids was topped with a portal, and the architecture was wholly alien. I don't think I have the space to go into some of the details they found in the pyramids.

They could gather though that some sort of alien species had lived here, but they were now extinct, leaving only monsters, formerly their prey or beasts of burden. The party explored two pyramids, quickly deciding to advance without the other Drehadaxa in the hopes to escape. The first pyramid was mostly devoted to the manufacture of food, weapons and armour. The second seemed to contain both living quarters, and a place of worship for the maggotlike creatures they had seen many statues of in ancient ruins, and in Lord Aspereti's manor.

They entered this second pyramid with Harken Krieg joining them. He had run away from his troops since Stormbeard had concocted some sort of mutiny, and was now hoping to escape, same as them. On the way to the portal on the top of the pyramid, they had to fight one of those maggot-worm-catterpillar things they had seen depicted in all the statues. Close to the terrible creature were its hatching, some sort of small parasites.

Then a number of things happened, all setting up cliffhangers:

The portal at the top did not work. They would have to try for the portal atop the third pyramid.
Doc Serious, seeing the parasites, finally decided to share some information he had been witholding: Red had retrieved one of those creatures from the portal on the Isle of Storms. He had then had Serious open up the prince's skull and place the parasite within, afterwards closing the wound invisibly.
Only now did some previous encounters in the pyramids begin to make sense. They had met and fought people Ezrael knew from his childhood: the kindly neighbourhood baker, a local beggar, a friendly priest.
As they reached the top of the pyramid, Stormbeard and his troops arrived at the square in between the three pyramids and spotted them.


On a small scale, they knew the following: they probably wouldn't be able to get out of this dimension without first confronting Stormbeard and his troops.

On a large scale, they knew the following: these three pyramids were probably connected to the Fifth City, to the Isle of Storms (causing the now broken portal) and to Goldenbough (explaining the presence of locals from that area). Their next stop then would be Goldenbough, the city of Ezrael's childhood, and more specifically they would probably end up in the ruins of his old manor. In the dungeons beneath it, during the flashback, they'd seen several creatures that are strewn about the pyramids, dead. The former inhabitants of this dimension, no doubt. They'd seen a portal, only then they didn't know what it was.

On an even large, campaigndefining scale, they could decide the following: the parasites, once attached, take over the body. The real beggar, the real baker, the real priest, they were dead, but their bodies still walked under the control of these creatures. There was one inside the prince now. The prince who was, really, dead. The prince, whom they'd sent back home, to the capital. The prince, who could control dragons. The prince, who would likely need to be stopped.

There. That should tie you over. The next session will be sunday, but I'll likely only be able to post the log much later. In the mean time, please do comment, ask, speculate, compliment.

[MrEdwardNigma]

As predicted, this summary arrives far later than the actual sessions. Again, I will be describing three sessions rather than one.

A Crisis of Faiths
Despite anticipations, there was no major showdown with Stormbeard's mutineers. The Drehadaxa the party had abandoned earlier burst onto the scene in the square between the pyramids where Stormbeard's troops were gathered, and for as of yet unknown reasons a battle erupted. The party made use of the distraction by having Seawrack fly them over to the next pyramid, effectively taking a shortcut to the portal out of this dimension.

They arrived, as predicted, in the secret dungeons beneath the ruins of Shadowbane Manor, in Goldenbough. The dungeons had remained basically undiscovered since the manor burnt down, and the party took advantage of the quiet to take a rest. As per usual, this brought with it a flashback scene. Finally Leah got her flashback.

This flashback took place in Tarwa Linga (or the Hanging Gardens) the last city of the elves, which had popped up before in Obad-Hai's realm without the PCs ever taking the chance to visit it. If you'll remember, this is where Leah grew up, and where she was raped. This flashback then was just about the darkest bit of the campaign so far (but hey, I have to roll with what the players provide me with, right?).

Since this took place during Leah's childhood, and she has an elven lifespan, Roscoe, Ezrael and Seawrack weren't born yet, and got to play as their respective fathers. We had seen Beau Goodbarrel and Harlan Shadowbane being played before, in Arkan's flashback, but Seawrack's father was an entirely new character. He got to play as the very inappropriately named orc Bloodcock, who raped Seawrack's mother. I don't know what it is with my players and rape...

For most players the flashback consisted of sneaking around, trying not tog et spotted by the very xenophobic elves. Arkan, being an elf himself, had less trouble getting around and took advantage of the opportunity to sneak a peek at the Armor of Fallen Leaves, kept within Tarwa Linga. Meanwhile, Leah followed the path destiny had laid out for her: she joined her mother, The Moonlit Lady, queen of Tarwa Linga, outside in the hanging gardens, watched her get frenched by her newest human boyfriend, and then she set off on her coming of age ritual.

The ritual, I explained, works as follows: at a certain age elves of Tarwa Linga are sent into the woods alone, following mystic signs to their spirit animal. This animal symbolizes the god they will worship for their entire lives. For the elves of Tarwa Linga, it is not they who pick their god, but the gods who pick them. Usually, the spirit animal would be a unicorn, symbolising Ehlonna. The animal then draws their blood, completing the union.

Leah followed the signs, but when she arrived in a small clearing, her unicorn lay in a puddle of its own blood, dying (I know, very Harry Potter of me). There was haughty laughter from the bushes, and Rolland Magnusson, the Moonlit Lady's boyfriend seen earlier, entered, wiping his blade on his cape. He was a mighty warrior, clad in armour with the eye of Boccob, and hung with mystical scrolls. He explained how he'd rode ahead, beating Leah to the clearing, and how there was no escaping him. He explained how he would become her god, instead of Ehlonna. He explained how he would draw her virgin blood (yes, ick). After this classic bad guy speech, for decency's sake, the flashback ended with him advancing on her.

I had discussed the matter of Leah's rape before with her player, and we had agreed it was a repressed memory (explaining why most of this came as a surprise for the character), explaining both her deep-seated hatred for men and religion. The memory now coming to light allowed some character development for Leah: her wrath would come to the surface, and she would multiclass to barbarian. This was convenient, as again per habit, at the beginning of a new arc after a rest, the whole party got to level.

Since Ezrael was born and raised in Goldenbough, I provided them with some basic information about the city, and I will do the same for you. The city is known as the hub of all (non-evil) religion in the world and was founded near a huge marble quarry, meaning most of its temples were huge, magnificent structures erected out of white marble (the architect and engineer in the group scoffed at this suggestion).

The city is run by a knight, elected yearly by the temples. This is unusual, as most cities simply have a knight appointed by the king, who rules for life, or until the king decides a new knight should take over. For the past years, that knight has always been Thomas Grout. Grout leads a very minor faction in Goldenbought, the cult of the Open Palm, brothers who are sworn atheists. Grout is hated by pretty much all of the temples, yet he is elected year after year because the alternative would be electing a representative of one of the temples, and they hate each other even more than they hate him. Electing a representative of any temple would seriously tip the scales, while Grout, for all his flaws, is at least neutral. No wonder then that the seat of power in Goldenbough is the ancient House of Scales, home to the fighting monks of the Open Palm.

Krieg, still with the party after their adventures in the other dimension, pressed hard for a meeting with Grout. His plan was to offer the services of the Sons of Slaughter to the highest bidder, even if that bidder were not a dwarf. Sir Thomas Grout, as a representative of the king, would serve his plans nicely. This also shed a new light on Stormbeard's betrayal. Was Krieg the real traitor in Stormbeard's eyes? In any case, meeting Grout face to face would not be an option for Krieg. In human lands he would be carted off to prison or work camps on sight, and as such he had to rely on the party while he remained hidden in the ruins of Shadowbane Manor.

These ruins had remained intact for one purpose only, it appeared: as an example. A small bronze plaque was mounted in front of the charred building, which read "Evil reaps what evil sows".

From here on out the business conducted in Goldenbough becomes complicated. It might be best to view it as a ball of yarn, several storylines intertwined. As such, I will not be narrating them chronologically, but rather yarn by yarn.

Leah's Yarn
Seeking to get a feel for the city, the arty chose to take a walk along the Temple Route, a walk through the city showcasing several historical and religious highlights, of which the ruins of Shadowbane Manor were but one stop. One of these stops was a statue labeled "The Omnitheist". The party remembered the name well, he was an esoteric figure, known for his bestseller "Deities and Dimensions", a notoriously complicated book on the subject of religion. He argued for the worship of a pantheon, rather than any single god. However, they also recognised the face of the man. Rolland Magnusson.

Leah boiled with rage. Some quick information gathering revealed that Magnusson had been, and still was, a devotee of the temple of Boccob, but had returned after long years of mysterious travels preaching a new philosophy. He was rumored to older than any man could grow naturally, and was pent up in the temple of Boccob, an enormous library tower. His power, it was said, was rivalled by none. More importantly, he would be going up against Grout in the coming election, only a few days from now.

Leah wanted to go bash his face in right then and there, but the others argued that would be unwise. They had business to take care of in town, and Goldenbough was not Sanctuary. You could not just kill someone and the go on as if nothing had happened. The temples enforced strict laws, and many had groups of clerics and paladins patrolling the city looking to right wrongs. Any attack on Magnusson would mean fleeing the city after, and considering Magnusson's power their victory was far from a sure thing.

Instead they would go to see Grout, post haste, hoping to find an ally in this city of strangers. The House of Scales was big and black, constrasting sharply with the white marble temples that graced the city. It was more ancient than any other building, and its namesake were apparently the training grounds, a collection of gigantic scales, set above a deep drop into water. Anyone wishing an audience with Grout would need to cross these scales, opposed along the way by his fighting monks. Leah, Arkan and Seawrack thought for some time on how to tackle this problem, the rest of the party having scampered off. When Seawrack attempted to fly over, only to discovered all clerical magic was blocked within the confines of the House of Scales, Leah's patience ran out, and she decided to try to cross by herself, with only some ranged support by Arkan. Arkan was hampered by the rules of the House of Scales: non-lethal damage only, and the scales proved too big of a challenge for Leah alone. She got about halfway before toppling off one of the scales and unceremoniously landing in the murky waters beneath. They would need to return, but this time as a team.

Roscoe's Yarn
Upon arrival in Goldenbough, Roscoe's unholy Book of Worms whispered to him once again:
Holy men wander the streets, the air fills with lies.
Their efforts, their struggles, soon it will all be in vein.
Truth lies hidden, buried deep beneath the house built by Paine.
A weapon to grace your hand, a power with which your foes shall be slain.
Only that which is reaped with this, ever truly dies.
Rends through flesh and bone and heart and brain,
The soul burnt by my fiery breath, never to rise again.
Find it, wield it, hold the hilt and take me to the skies.
Pull it from the traitor's back and return me to my reign.
Descend upon the blackened steps and claim your final prize.

He kept these words hidden from the rest of the party and decided to ask around for a man called Paine. He soon found out there was a weaponsmith in town with this last name, and when he set off to see him, Ezrael joined him, interested in buying some new weapons or armour.

Paine turned out to be a good natured man, enthusiastic about his craft, and especially about anything to do with spikes. He sold all sorts of weapons and armour, but most of it had spikes on it. Spikes on shields, spikes on helmets, spikes on spears, spikes on swords, spikes on armour, even in places that seemed inconvenient, like between the thighs, "just in case you ever clamp someone with your legs". Ezrael placed some orders, getting enormous discounts because he was willing to have spikes all over, while Roscoe kept harrying the man about "a special weapon". Unsure what the halfling meant, Paine kept introducing new and inventive weapons: a stick with spikes on it, a whip with spikes, a rapier with spikes, a dagger with spikes, a bow with spikes...

Soon Roscoe stormed out in frustration, leaving Ezrael to deal with the spike-obsessed salesman. He ran into a patrol of clerics of St. Cuthbert, whom were trying to beat the evil out of a man, and dodged into some alleys just in case one of them decided to try "detect evil" on him and his book. In the alley he discovered a corpse, pierced all over, with what could have been nothing else than a suit of armour purchased from Paine. Just as he was about to rifle through the poor dead cleric's pockets, the corpse rose, and attacked him. Not exactly a force to be reckoned with by himself and in plain sight, and up against the undead, Roscoe was forced to flee further and further into the twisting alleyways of Goldenbough. It was then that he failed a spotcheck (particularly unlucky considering his number of ranks) and was pierced by an arrow.

Ezrael's Yarn
It was on the Temple Route that they discovered a pedestal of particular interest to Ezrael. It was empty, but the plaque on the pedestal read "Maximus". Ezrael gritted his teeth until they found some likeminded hecklers, who were proclaiming loudly that Maximus was just a wet blanket, and that the statue that was going to be erected was really just a waste of good marble. The men were led a by a tiny gingerhaired fellow who introduced himself as Minimus, brother to Maximus. Apparently the two brothers didn't get along very well. The elder, Maximus, had been privileged his entire life while the younger, Minimus, had had to make due with scraps. Something to do with their father being less than fair.

In any case, Minimus and Ezrael got along famously and soon Ezrael was invited to a little outing that was to take place that very evening. When Roscoe stomped off from the weaponsmith, he saw his chance and went to find the men at the temple of Heironous. Their little outing consisted of amusing but relatively harmless vandalism. They broke into the temple, smashed some windows, and pissed on the altar. Minimus told Ezrael that his elder brother had been lauded for rescuing the prince, and that there would be a parade in his honour in two days, where they would unveil the new statue. If it were up to Minimus though, he and Ezrael would be pissing on that very parade. He had another plan and told Ezrael to meet him the very next night at the stonecutter's guild, a group of clerics specialising in stoneshaping.

Leah's Yarn
The group retrieved Ezrael at a late hour at the agreed upon meeting point: the temple of Olidammara, which was more of a tavern than a temple. Drinks were free, and the party engaged in one of their famous bouts of debauchery, soon forgetting that Roscoe was missing in action. They were pickpocketed several times, apparently a habit in the temple, but since Roscoe carried must of the party's funds the losses only came down to about what they would have lost paying for drinks. There were also a couple of shenanigans with "kick me" signs being placed on their backs and their drinks being switched with vinegar. Finally they retreated to a local house of beds, more staggering than walking.

Upon the morrow, the party headed back to the House of Scales, in full force, finding Roscoe waiting to join them by the door, joined by some unsavoury types in black cloaks. The cloaked men were content to wait outside, after a brief talk with Roscoe, and this time the party was more succesful in crossing the scales. The tactic they had worked out hinged on Leah getting across, while the others ran interference with the monks.

This led to leah being by her lonesome when meeting Grout, who was sitting crosslegged, sunk into meditation, in a room with scarcely more furnishings than a rug. Grout turned out to be a stern, humourless man, but not altogether uncooperative. He told Leah he had been expecting her. That is to say, he had hoped she wouldn't visit, as that might force him to confront the problem their little merry band posed. The party was still wanted for desertion from the army in human lands, and added to those charges had been war profiteering, no doubt added by the prince upon his return. They were lucky, Grout said, that he had more pressing concerns, but walking into his residence might just prove a little too much to ignore.

Still, Grout was in no rush to see them in chains, and very much willing to listen to reason. He was more concerned with the election than with any small band of outlaws running amuck in his city. The Omnitheist provided an alluring alternative for Grout. A man who worships all gods would surely be a more pleasing consensus for the temples than a man who worships none. In fact, the latest tally implied that all temples would be voting for Rolland Magnusson in the upcoming election, and none for Grout. His forces were spread too thin to do much about this: a number of evil cults had sprung up in the city and were murdering people left and right. People were turning up ripped to shreds, beaten to a pulp, pierced with invisible weapons or riddled with tiny holes. To make matters worse, the corpses were more often than not rising up again, zombies equally bent on destruction as their killers, no doubt the work of yet another cult.

Leah and Thomas Grout soon came to an arrangement. She and her party would convince the temples to vote for Grout, and if they managed to make him win the election, Grout would fund the Sons of Slaughter. Not as a stand-in for the king, but as the party's personal army. It was a good deal, but they only had two more days to convince all of the temples. Still, it seemed the best course of action. Winning the election for Grout would seriously hamper The Omnitheist, and it would land them a small army with which to free Highhaven.

Roscoe's Yarn
The last thing Roscoe remembered was the arrow piercing his chest, and then dissappearing, from whence it came. When he woke up, he was in a small apartment, surrounded by men in black cloaks. The local cult of Nerull, it appeared. They had found him, dying, recognised him as a follower of the god of death, and provided healing. Their leader, a character I played as a cross between a goth and a stoner, told him they were looking for the weapon too.

"That Paine guy, he is just a descendant, man, a distant relative of the real Paine. Like, way watered down, man. The real Paine though, oh brother, he was the ****. Lieutenant to the Dragon King, man! Like, the real Dragon King, from the stories. The guy who burnt down the known world and took over, spreading darkness and stuff across the land. He was epic, man! But this Paine guy, see, he couldn't be trusted, so the Dragon King shanked him, back to the ashes! You know why they call it the House of Scales, right? Anyways, there's some real dark voodoo down there, way below, in the vaults..."

As it turned out, the cult had been trying to get access to a secret passage, hidden underwater beneath the scales, that led deep into a crypt hidden beneath the House of Scales. Only, they couldn't have the monks see them going down there, so they needed a distraction that would last long enough, someone who could put up a good fight.

When they reached the House of Scales together in the morning, Roscoe convinced them his party would make a good distraction, and when he fell off the scales, as planned, he dove. He soon found the ancient grate and crawled through a rusted hole, down into the darkness beneath. After what seemed like an endless walk through the darkness, he found the crypt, with the tomb, Paine's skeleton interred inside, a bone dagger still stuck through his heart.

When he removed the dagger, the skeleton rose, and attacked Roscoe, screaming slackjawed about it's soul. Roscoe fled and made it out just as Leah was returning from Grout. When the party exited the House of Scales, the cultists were waiting for them, eager for the dagger. They had been joined by two men, nicknamed the Walrus and the Carpenter. Combat inevitably ensued, and I'd built the Walrus and the Carpenter to be a themed tagteam. The Walrus was built to grapple, and covered in spikes, really dishing out the hurt. The Carpenter would take advantage of grappled foes by nailing their limbs to the ground. That is, with a hammer and nails.

It was a close call for a while, two or three of the party members being nailed down and having to rip their hands or feet off the ground, but once they took out the Carpenter and the walrus, the rest of the cult turned invisible and fled.

That was one cult taken care of, which would no doubt prove useful in currying favour with the temples.

Arkan's Yarn
Arkan insisted they would make the temple of Obad-Hai their first stop on their route of the temples. This turned out to be a good choice, as the temple had been suffering attacks from Nerull cultists lately, and taking out the cultists pretty much guaranteed their support in the election. However, one of the priests took Arkan aside to tell him that while they would be participating in the election, the temple would probably not exist much longer. Most elves were leaving the city, headed for the promised land Tarwa Linga, where the disciple of Obad-Hai was raising an elven army. This disciple, the PCs quickly understood, was Arkan's sister, Anastria.

The priest's warning of the radicalisation of the elves had not been without truth. As soon as the party left the temple, they were attacked. Shot at with arrows from the rooftops, by elves. These were the very same arrows that had earlier pierced Roscoe. Upon hitting a target, they returned to the bowman, and they dealt a fair bit of damage too. After a wild pursuit across the rooftops, the party managed to take out one of the archers, and got their hands on one arrow.

They then moved on to the temple of Ehlonna, seeking further information on the elven exodus. However, they were not greeted warmly. The priests saw Arkan's brand new arrow in his quiver, and quickly identified it as a Raptor Arrow, an artifact of Ehlonna recently stolen from the temple by Obad-Hai radicals. The situation escalated as Arkan refused to hand over his new toy to the priests. Eventually Leah managed to calm everyone down with soothing words: they promised to use the arrow to retrieve the rest of the arrows from the cultists, and then return the full set to the temple.

Once they had exited the temple, Arkan repeated that he wouldn't be handing over his new weapon. He had won it in combat fair and square, and it was his to keep. Leah had realized this all along and had decided they would not be returning to the temple of Ehlonna. They only needed half the votes and would chalk this one up as a loss.

Ezrael's Yarn
It was at this point Ezrael realised he needed to pick up his order from Paine's. Seawrack joined him, as he too wanted to make an order for new gear. Seawrack ended up ordering some new armour, covered in spikes, but he decided to pay even less than Ezrael and allowed Paine to forge spikes even onto those places of the armour where you really don't want any spikes. He also coöperated with Paine to devise a morningstar that could dispense a trickle of holy water with every swing, hoping to give himself an extra edge in combat.

Ezrael absconded during Seawrack's lengthy discussion with the weaponsmith, and headed to the Stonecutter's guild, where he was met by Minimus. Once the guild was closed, they forced their way in, and found the statue of Maximus that would be unveiled the following evening. They then vandalised it mercilessly, replacing it's head with a pot of particularly sad looking flowers if I remember correctly. Minimus hooted with laughter at Ezrael's inventiveness, and informed him they would be meeting again the next afternoon, in an alleyway where the parade would be passing by. He urged Ezrael to "come prepared".

Seawrack's Yarn
Roscoe turned up at some point. I don't know from where. Usually nobody knows from where Roscoe turns up, the guy has like a +20 in hide and move silenty for christ' sakes! Oh, and Doc Serious, the NPC they had been dragging around since they murdered his old boss was also with Wrack, and had been around the whole time. It's something we often forget about, but canon states that Doc Serious is always holding Seawrack's hand, because Seawrack doesn't trust him to go anywhere by himself. Either because Doc Serious was the lieutenant of one of the most evil people the party ever fought, or because he has a tendency to run into danger, I'm not sure if Seawrack even knows which.

Anyways, when Seawrack was done ordering (and Roscoe quite possible done with robbing Paine's house clean in retaliation for costing him so much time before) they decided to get back on track and try to find some cultists or something. It was a tried and proven tactic in getting votes, and so far nothing else had worked. With Roscoe's high gather information check they soon found out that strange things had been happening in the quarry.

Seawrack and Roscoe set to asking the last stonecutter for information as he was closing up shop. Meanwhile, somewhere in the back of the building, glass could be heard shattering as Ezrael and Minimus snuck in with a minimum of guile. The stonecutter told them that, indeed, strange things had been happening in the quarry as of late, as large block of fresh marble had been dissappearing.

Roscoe and Seawrack spent some time stumbling about the quarry after that, until a cultist ran in, apparently in a hurry, and then dissappeared into thin air. Before they could set to investigate though, his pursuers, a number of clerics of St. Cuthbert, ran in. One thing led to another, and soon Seawrack saw no other choice but to fight the clerics. Mind though, these guys were pretty high level, as their full-time occupation was pretty much "beating the wicked over the head with cudgels until they repent".

The combat that ensued was pretty disastrous. Roscoe vanished somewhere in the middle (either through his hide skill or whatever magic was making the cultists dissappear, the difference was hard to tell) and eventually Seawrack had to run. Luckily, his daily fly ability made absconding easy.

Finding the rest of the party turned out to be more difficult when the first resort in such cases, heading to the nearest bar, failed. Seawrack found himself drinking alone in the temple of Olidammara, until he was joined by a man in a travelstained brown cloak. They shared some smalltalk, and the man bought him a drink. When Seawrack brought it to his lips, it turned out to be a mug full of seawater. To any onlooker, this would seem a typical joke in the vein of Olidammara, but to Seawrack it meant much more. His personal quest, his Eternal Pilgrimage undertaken in the honour of Fharlanghn, took him across the world to taste the water of all seas.

The man introduced himself as Stranger-Come-Knocking, a cleric of Fharlanghn. His personal pilgrimage took him to all those who had lost the path. Seawrack quickly admitted fault. He was not permitted to travel the same path twice or revisit any locations, but had done so several times while with the party. "Consider this your final warning" Stranger-Come-Knocking said, his voice ominous, "Mend your ways before it is too late".

Seawrack instantly decided he wouldn't be rejoining the others at the house of beds, his most likely shot of finding them. Instead, he sought a different inn, and spent the night there.

Roscoe's Yarn
Roscoe had run as soon as combat had started to go south. He found himself panting up against a moist brick wall in an alleyway as suddenly a voice spoke to him from the darkness, "I have come to warn you". It was a night of grave warnings, it seemed.

The voice in question belonged to Death-Tenfold, the halfling member of the Drehadaxa, whom the party had so recently betrayed. Apparently the Drehadaxa had followed them through the portal, to Goldenbough, and were hellbent on revenge. Death-Tenfold had deserted as soon as she could, but this was the last kindness she would be doing them. She would be seeking her fortune elsewhere, but wished Roscoe the best of luck.

When she'd retreated back into the darkness, too hidden even for Roscoe to spot, Roscoe rushed to the house of beds, where he ran into the others as they were about to enter, all save Seawrack. Before entering the house of beds they spotted a dwarf, trying to hide away in a nearby alley. They ambushed the ambusher and questioned him. Apparently he was part of a cult of Moradin, the remainders of the temple, who had hidden from the humans in tunnels they had dug underneath the city. The Drehadaxa had joined forces with them and had stuffed one of these tunnels, which ran straight underneath the house of beds, with explosives. This lookout was supposed to give the signal to blow up the building once the party had entered. If he didn't give a signal for long enough, the building would be blown up regardless, under the presumption that he had been compromised.

They bound and gagged the dwarf, quickly dashed in to retrieve Krieg, whom they'd moved from the Shadowbane ruins earlier that day, and behind the building exploded in a fiery blaze, sending guards running from across the city. They decide to use the tunnels to escape notice from the guards, but resurfaced before encountering any Drehadaxa.

Seawrack's Yarn
When Seawrack returned to the house of beds in the morning, to wait for the party at some distance, he found nothing but a smoldering ruin. Having no hopes of finding the group any time soon (it was too early for them to be at a bar), he set off on his own, trying to find Stranger-Come-Knocking. He considered persuading the temple of Fharlanghn his personal duty, and as it turned out it was led by whichever high-ranking clerics happened to be passing through the city.

He found Stranger-Come-Knocking gathered with three other clerics only through great effort, in a walled up garden in the older districts of the city. They voted amongst each other, and as he got a vote and he managed to convince Stranger-Come-Knocking and the Trashmaster, a cleric whose pilgrimage took him past all the great garbage dumps in the world, he could count the temple of Fharlanghn as another win.

Ezrael's Yarn
In the afternoon, Ezrael yet again split off from the party to go find Minimus. Minimus explained the plan: they'd wait until the parade had advanced along its route enough for maximus to pass by the alley, and then they'd burst out and murder Maximus. This... This was a bit too extreme for Ezrael's liking. Maximus was his sworn enemy and all, but at the end of the day he was a good guy. He resolved to agree to the plan, but once they actually burst out he attacked Minimus in the back. With Maximus and Ezrael joining forces, Minimus, though a capable warrior in his own right, and his cronies were easily dispatched. Maximus thanked Ezrael and asked him to bring Minimus to their father's manor, where he would be meeting him after the parade.

The rest of the party, and Seawrack as well, easily found Ezrael because of the commotion he had caused, and they all went to the manor together. The inside was splattered in blood, the corpse of Maximus and Minimus' father laid out on an altar to Hextor. Minimus had been running a small cult here, killing his father in retribution for many years of mistreatment once Maximus left for the war. Minimus made a whole speech about how really he and Ezrael weren't that different, always outshined by Maximus, worshipping Hextor out of spite, but this only made Ezrael question his faith.

When Maximus finally arrived, he arrived with a detachment of soldiers. The atmosphere was tense. To Ezrael's annoyance, some of the partymembers took the trouble of asking for the lauded hero Maximus' autograph. They then explained the paladin what they had been going through, the whole story from the kidnapping of the prince to his presumed possession by an otherworldy parasite. Maximus remained stoic. "Maybe you are telling the truth" he said, "In fact, I believe you. However, you are criminals wanted by the crown, and I am sworn to bring you to justice".

The party was smart enough to run at that juncture. They wouldn't be able to face the sheer number of soldiers Maximus had brought. Arkan cast entangle on the garden in front of the manor, they left Minimus behind to be arrested, and they escaped through the rear of the manor, being lucky enough to find an open window leading to an adjoining garden.

Leah's Yarn
Two, maybe three temples out of thirteen. That was the current tally. They had one more day before the election, but they were being chased by both the Drehadaxa and Maximus and his soldiers. Most clerics would be on the lookout for them too, now, so visiting any more temples was almost out of the question. It seemed hopeless. So the party decided, after urging by Leah, to take a different approach. Instead of influencing the voters, they would be taking out the competition.

They made their way to the temple of Boccob, an immense tower, and snuck in. They finally found Rolland Magnusson at the very top. Magnusson had been designed to be a nigh-insurmountable challenge, but perhaps I'd underestimated the party. The House of Scales had mostly been difficult because of the puzzle, and most other recent combat had seen the party seperated. They also happened to have the perfect answer for each of Magnusson's moves, countering his spells. They curbstomped The Omnitheist, against all expectations, and Leah killed him in cold blood.

They soon heard the noise of soldiers running up the stairs, and Seawrack sent down his summoned celestial bison, whom he'd named "Moomie Van Doren", to plow them off the stairs. Even Moomie's advance though was eventually halted by the neverending influx of soldiers. The party joined the fray themselves, but they were fighting a losing battle. Eventually Krieg decided to jump down the side of the stairs, taking the falling damage in stride. The others joined and they fled.

Before leaving the city, they passed by Thomas Grout, letting him know the mission was accomplished. Grout lent them a bureaucrat who could keep others from tracking them and agreed to fund the Sons of Slaughter. There was some discussion on where they would be headed next, but eventually the party settled on Highhaven, electing to save their friends there from the goblins and undead that had overrun the city rather than trying to solve the bigger problems of the world.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Back to Square One

Return to Highhaven
The trip to Highhaven was long, but altogether rather uneventful. The party suffered some delays due to the bureaucrat Grout had lent them. It turned out he wasn't exactly the most adventurous of types and needed frequent bathroom breaks along the way, each of which would take up an unreasonable amount of time (for which I would roll with a D100, translating the outcome to minutes). The halfling bureaucrat also suffered from terrible flatulence, an alarming number of allergies and a nasal voice. Furthermore his favourite topics for conversations were his various ailments and his stamp collection, all of which was recounted in excruciating detail. Despite his obvious flaws, the party rather grew to like the whining bureaucrat, probably because I played his as some welcome comedic diversion. I've discovered that it is not unusual for the party to grow fond of these kinds of characters I improvise on the fly.

The only other incidents worth mentioning on the road were an encounter with low-level bandits, which I had mostly engineered to give the group a feeling of success after recent hardships, and a brief visit to the city of Stahl, the closest city to Highhaven. Stahl was known as "the forge of the empire" and was the perfect place for the party to have some modifications made to their weapons and armour. It was also probably the first city they visited where they weren't confronted with some internal struggle for power. I think it is important to add places like these to the setting to make it feel more vibrant and alive, rather than just as a backdrop for their adventures. Not everything exists as an excuse for an adventure.

Upon reaching the village of Bree the party discovered a wall had been built around Highhaven and its environs to keep the goblin and undead army from running rampant over the countryside. This is where the bureaucrat bid the party farewell, announcing that his stomach did not handle danger well and he was in no way equipped to join them any further than the wall. Besides, surely no-one would be crazy enough to follow the party into the lawless wasteland that lay beyond the wall?

Soon after the bureaucrat's departure the party received a letter from Devon Wallander, former bodyguard of the prince and the man they had been in cahoots with since the start of the campaign. It read as follows:
Brothers in arms,

The Prince has not been his own self since his return.
Until the arrival of your letter, I could not but presume the scars of what he's been through caused this sudden change.
Your words have come too late.
My influence is exhausted.
Word of your attempted assassination has quickly reached the capital, and you have been declared enemies of the crown, and I, your accomplice.
The Royal Guard will no doubt soon be beating down my door to drag me to Tartarus.
I can only guess at your motives, but I trust they were just.
Yet, Rolland Magnusson still lives.
The four of you, Harken Krieg, Sirius Fennec and Tristram Pennyfeather are all ranked as highly dangerous fugitives.
A force has been tasked with tracking you down, and bringing you to justice for your perceived crimes.
They are lead by the paladin Maximus, of Goldenbough.
Rolland Magnusson, also known as the Omnitheist, joins him on this quest.
Another volunteer, Lord Strongfell, has joined.
A Drakespire bureaucrat by the name of Eclair has been tasked with the tracking.
Finally, the Prince has dispatched one of the Tartarus jailors to join up with them.
Their hooves thunder across the King's Road as I write these words.
Make no mistake.
The Light Brigade is coming.

Your friend,
Devon Wallander

This letter certainly scared the party, as it was designed to do. Their calm little trip to Highhaven was over, and ****, once more, was about to get real. If they didn't already feel like they were on the clock to save Highhaven, they certainly did so now. Magnusson had been a serious threat on his own, but joined by Ezrael's archrival Maximus, one of the hyped-up jailors of Tartarus and two more characters, each probably powerhouses in their own right, The Light Brigade would probably prove unbeatable. They needed to free the city before the Light Brigade came knocking.

After a night in The Knife, a new inn built straight across the burnt wreckage of the old Fork Inn, the party set off past the wall. They soon came upon some women in rags, dragging some roadside corpses into a cart. These were the Women in Rags. They were the wives of men who had been enslaved by the goblin army, and were now forced to excavate deeper into the Hellpit at the center of Highhaven, the very place where the campaign started. The women explained that in return for corpses to resurrect as zombies, the goblins would treat their enslaved husbands marginally better, giving them a larger share of food, sparing them some of the habitual whipping, or working them less hard. In a sense, the women were also slaves, fueling the ever growing undead army within the walls of Highhaven, retrieving the corpses of countrymen and old friends ditched unceremoniously by the road by the goblinoids.

The women revealed that they dropped off the corpses at the gate to Highhaven, and that it had become a heavily guarded control point manned by a small legion of goblinoids. The players spent some time discussing how they would enter the hostile city, but eventually elected not to take the main gate, nor the rear gate (probably equally heavily guarded) and instead to try to sneak in the way they snuck out last time: through The Dredge, the swampy sewer output of the city.

However, on their way along the ****creek, the river leading up to The Dredge, the party made a stop at a water mill. The Women in Rags had told them there were some corpses there that they didn't dare remove, arranged in a feature ominously referred to as "The Message", and the party was intrigued. The wheel was covered in letters, slowly turning around. At the very centre it read ROUMJ. The second tier read YA KOLVA KERNA. The third read WHAT GOES ROUND. The fourth and last was a lot more wordy, reading "...it ends where it began and so you return and I wait and my brethren pace in endless circles around the manor because it ends where it began and so..." and so on. The word "manor" was encircled. Finally, four mutilated corpses were strapped to the outside of the wheel, each with a name carved in them: ROSCOE, EZRAEL, LEAH, ARKAN.

"The Message" was specifically directed towards the party, but who did they know that would adress them like this, and what did it all mean? Interestingly, Wrack wasn't mentioned anywhere; either they ran out of corpses, or this related to events before they even met the cleric.

The party pushed on, and finally reached The Dredge. Perhaps contrary to expectations, it was very well guarded by a small legion of goblinoids. This should prove no real surprise to anyone paying attention, as the goblinoids themselves originated from the sewers, so they would definitely know about this exit.

The party decided to venture forth anyways, seeing little other options. A battle ensued with a veritable horde of goblinoids. Since Roscoe had slain Obad-Hai, the country had been plunged in winter, and the Dredge had frozen over, so this battle took place on the sheet of ice covering the foul waters. Furthermore, the goblins had been strapped with both ragevials and vials with the fluids from the ancient ruins. How is that for continuity? The goblins by themselves proved little challenge, but they were backed up by bugbears, and every slain goblin would rise again (undead vials) and gain some extra stats (rage vials) through the smashed vials entering their bloodstreams. Additionally, placing too much weight on a small curface would crack the ice and plunge characters in ice-cold water. While this proved little challenge for the featherweight goblins, certain armourclad PCs had more issues.

This battle took up an enormous amount of time. Even with mob rules for the goblins, the sheer amount of opponents dragged things on immensely. The tide finally turned when Seawrack used "Control Water" to make the water beneath the ice sink. As a consequence, large parts of the ice cracked, and plunged a whole army of goblins into a deep pit. Falling damage and cold damage all around.

The party made short work of the outliers left over and rushed into the sewers. After an encounter with a massive patrol of goblins, they fled and started to look for someplace to lick their wounds. They chose to return to the Hellpit, where they hid behind a waterfall to take a prolonged rest.

Upon awakening, they discovered a small patrol of kobolds. These kobolds were of the tribe the party had shown mercy to in their first trek through the Hellpit, and were more than willing to help them out. The kobolds had been preparing for the return of the heroes, and were more than eager to dish out the information they had gathered on their sworn enemies, the goblins.

Yossoth the Mighty, hobgoblin leader of the goblinoids, had apointed seven commanders to his army. In order to pacify the region, all seven (plus Yossoth) would probably have to be taken out.
Bismuth the Bold: A hobgoblin outrider in charge of patrolling the waste surrounding Highhaven. The goblins they killed at The Dredge had sworn "Bismuth will destroy you for this!". As his monicker suggest, very rash and volatile.
Grognak the Weary: A hobgoblin ranger, whereabouts unknown. A dangerous quantity and probably one of the smater commanders.
Vesrath the Cruel: A hobgoblin slavemaster, in charge of the excavation of the Hellpit.
Kahl the Destroyer: A brutish bugbear, known for crushing men with his bare hands. In charge of the siege on the citadel, where the last nobles and city guardsmen had holed up.
Melmuk the Crafty: A goblin bureaucrat, in charge of the general coördination of the army. Clearly the brains of the operation, but due to his race he commanded little respect from the ranks.
Drapood: A kuo-toa cleric, and an envoy of Lord Asperetti. Asperetti, a human lord with great ambitions, had previously been a thorn in their sides, and now it turned out he was directing the goblinoid invasion from afar.
Roumj: An ungodly amalgam of sewn together corpses, that somehow possessed the ability to control the other undead.

The party now had several angles they could tackle, and a discussion of tactics ensued. They could try to "cut off the head of the snake" as it were and assault Yossoth, who had holed up in the House of Seven Delights, previously a brothel. This option was heavily encouraged by Ezrael, who knew that the woman he loved, Lust, was held captive there by Yossoth. The most urgent angle seemed the assault on the citadel. If they could halt Kahl the Destroyer and his troops they would prevent a gruesome death for what remained of the citizenry and gain some new allies who could help liberate the rest of the city. However, sentiments aside, it was unlikely the battle-worn city guard would prove much help.

Another angle was the excavation of the hellpit. Clearly, whatever was down there was important for the enemy, and if they reached it, that could spell doom for everyone. The PCs discovered that Asperetti's wife had arrived to personally oversee the excavation, and from this they correctly drew two conclusions: they had nearly arrived at their destination, and their destination was a portal, like the ones previously encountered in all ancient temples. Asperetti had previously proven his obsession with the temples, and since then they had forayed into the alien world beyond. Whatever Asperetti and his wife were looking to retrieve from there, it would be bad news.

However, Krieg suggested another way to look at the portal: if they could take over control, they might be able to use the portal to bring in the Sons of Slaughter, Krieg's mercenary company, as had been planned with the portal in Goldenbough. With the Sons at their side, and funding provided by Grout, the army might not be all that hard to fight off.

The final angle however turned out to be the one the PCs chose: Roumj. If more than half of the army were undead, and every fallen goblinoid would become undead, taking out the controller of that faction would not only decimate the army, it would also lead to a lot of infighting. The goblinoids would lose control over the city, and probably be distracted enough not to be able to focus their efforts on the citadel, or any other plan. Besides, the morbid message Roumj had placed at the water mill had intrigued the party, and now they knew that the "manor" encircled in the message was the old Asperetti manor, they felt they needed to pay Roumj the visit he had asked for.

In order to avoid any other subterranean encounters, Seawrack cast Breathe Water on the whole party, and they set off through the sewer, hidden by its rank waters. Guided by the kobolds, they soon found the underground entrance to the manor. This being their second visit to the manor, they easily avoided the traps in the underground, and made it into the grand hall, where they were confronted with Roumj.

Roumj was massive, the product of some ten to twenty elven and orcen corpses being sewn together and reanimated with the fluids from the ruins. He wasn't the only flesh hulk they found in the grand hall, and certainly not the only zombie, but unlike the others, Roumj had somehow retained sentience. Some part of his body and brain had once belonged to Jacob Miller, an unlucky soldier who had been so foolish as to double-cross the party. He had been a player character, but his little stunt of stealing all the parties earnings had eventually left him in the hands of the kuo-toa commanded by Asperetti to be tortured for information he did not have.

Whether through the torture, the shock of being turned undead, or the fact that his brain had been cobbled together with a slough of other brains, Miller, or Roumj, as he had dubbed himself, had gone quite insane. His philosophy, which he explained with a booming voice echoing off the grand hall, was that life, and fate, were circular. All things were destined to happen, again and again, and again, like a giant turning wheel, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Roumj himself would evermore come into power or riches, and lose it at the hand of the party, and then return, for he was, in his mind, everlasting. He had died twice before, and had returned twice, and now he would once more confront the party, and once more perish, this he doubted not. But then he would return. Until the end of times.

Hence the wheel, hence the monickers Roumj and Ya Kolva Kerna, both meaning more or less "the wheel keeps turning" in respectively orcish and elvish, hence the inevitable confrontation.

The scene was somewhat sad. Miller hadn't been a bad guy per se. He had become this horror solely through the party's doing, and he didn't even want to do this. He just believed there was no other way. They briefly tried to reason with him, and gave him back the kitchen knife his wife had stabbed him with, which they had stolen from him before dumping him with the kuo-toa. Despite the sentimental value of the item, there was nothing that could steer Roumj from the path he had set out upon. To make matters worse, the knife gave Roumj personal bonuses, just like Ezrael's heraldic armour or Arkan's family bow gave them personal bonuses.

Fighting Roumj was tough, but not as tough as it would have been without Wrack's frequent uses of "turn undead". This made sense, from a story perspective, as Roumj was never expecting the party to bring a fifth member. As it were, they took out the undead commander, and the zombies soon ceased their relentless assault on the manor.

The next priority was to bring in the Sons of Slaughter, so with the help of the kobolds, the party snuck into the Hellpit, disguised themselves as slaves, and joined the new shift heading down the tunnels. As they headed down they had a brief spot of trouble when they encountered Vesrath the Cruel, surveying the entrance to the tunnels from atop a make-shift tower. It happened to be the time of day when the worst worker was picked from the slaves, usually a skinny wretch worked to the bone. The slave was brutally eviscerated as an example for the other slaves. The party had some trouble calming down Seawrack, who could not let this stand, but eventually succeeded in light of the greater good.

Deep in the caverns, it turned out the goblins had already unearthed the portal. Now Mrs. Asperetti was trying to figure out how to activate it. This also proved a nice shocker, as Mrs. Asperetti turned out to be Ezrael's mother, Belinda Blackwater-Shadowbane (and now Belinda Blackwater-Asperetti). Through some clever stealth manoevres the party succeeded in holding her hostage and talking the troops down until they activated the portal (they had previously observed how to do this when they were sent through one by the dwarves).

Between Battles
The other dimension was not populated by horrors this time. It was just an abandoned alien temple, strewn with alien corpses from a dead civilization. The party rushed through it, and out to the only other operational portal. This sent them to another ancient ruin, in some kind of control room. Through screens of black glass, they could see a party of battle-worn soldiers resting by a fire in the dungeon, talking about the horrors of war. From the context, the party could make out they had ended up right below the greatest battlefield on the planet. There were only two passages between the mountains where the human and dwarven armies could clash: the Dunkragg Pass near Bree, guarded by a fort and too narrow for any serious conflict, and The Children, a series of hills between the human city of Bulwark and the Dwarven Second City, flanked by two enormous mountains known as The Lovers. The Children were the backdrop for the main conflict, and these soldiers had found their way through a tunnel off the battlefield and into these ruins, where they had some welcome reprieve.

This, however, would not last long, as a new party entered onto the scene. A huge man with a silver moustache and a massive warhammer, a prancing pony carved on the side, appears from the darkness. Following him are five heavily armed figures. Through the context of the conversation, it quickly becomes clear that this man is Sir Walter Ducaine, knight overlord of Bulwark, and reknowned badass. He is here trying to cross the ruins to get to the other side of the battlefield, avoiding the dwarven artillery, and singlehandedly cave in the skull of Keeper Jorrin Zacher, leader of the Second City. He is joined by his three squires, Wildcat, a vicous whirl of blades, Greenhorn, a massive hulking orc whose main task appears to be handing Ducaine various implements of destruction like a golf-caddy, and Whittling Jack, a laid-back but lethal farmer's son. Also joining him are Sir Barbos, a bushy-bearded minor lord and Ducaine's best friend, and The Black Knight, a mysterious giant in full black armour whom they whisked up out of a very one-sided massacre on the battlefield.

Sir Ducaine demonstrates what kind of man he is by proclaiming the soldiers are cowards for leaving the battlefield. Even though they are on his side, Ducaine and his group proceed to make short work of the soldiers, brutally butchering them. It becomes clear that Ducaine and his band are a human wrecking ball, and a force to be reckoned with. What's more, Ducaine isn't evil per se. His motivation is to end the war the only way he knows how: by smashing someone's head in with The Foehammer, his ancestral weapon.

That, at this juncture, is all the party really needs to know about Ducaine: he is dangerous, he is no diplomat, and his goal is to pass through the very dungeon they are in post-haste. He also is very likely to kill anyone he encounters along the way for no other reason than that they are costing him precious time.

Of course the introduction of Ducaine and a slough of important NPCs at this juncture may seem a bit weird. The goal is two-fold. On the one hand, I like to remind the players that this is a vibrant, living world, and even as they are doing important stuff, on the other side of the world more important stuff is happening. Whether or not Ducaine makes it across this dungeon will have an enormous impact on the war. What's more, these aren't some two-bit flat NPCs. Ducaine is a layered, complicated character. Sure, he is a bit like his warhammer, a blunt, nigh-unstoppable force smashing through all opposition, but he is also a caring and gentle man, who has recruited as his squires some characters who might not otherwise be given the light of day: a lowly farmboy, an orc, and (unbeknownst to the players) a woman (Wildcat is short for Wild Catherine).

The second objective is to set up characters for later use. Instead of introducing a whole new cast for every city the party ventures into, which seems artificial and negatively impacts whether or not the PCs will care about these "temporary" people, I can now have characters they already know (and love or hate) return, making them seem far more alive. These are characters who have their own stories, and don't serve as mere cardboard cut-outs to support the antics of the PCs.

The goal here then was not to have the two parties clash, which would almost inevitably lead to the total annihilation of either one. Instead I had devised a system where the PCs could, through clever manipulation of the control room, open and close gates in the dungeon, and thusly direct Ducaine's party to the exit, or to its doom. They could also choose to steer Ducaine away from them, or have them come up close. It soon proved though that locking down the area Ducaine and his compatriots were in was not an option. The massive strength of Greenhorn could demolish any door if need be.

The players hog-tied Belinda Blackwater, not certain yet what to do with her, and after some attempts to clear the dungeon themselves, started directing the Ducaine party through it to clean up the various ghouls populating it. Krieg explained that the location they had ended up in was ideal: the Sons of Slaughter would inevitably be near the battlefield, and if they could contact Goldenhands, Krieg's most loyal luitenant and treasurer of the Sons, they could surely get a large share of them to defect and return to Krieg. Wrack quickly used Sending to contact the dwarf. Then they realised they needed to get Ducaine out of the dungeon before he was faced with a horde of dwarves.

The party decided to talk to Ducaine's band, luckily from behind one of the closed gates. First Ezrael, de facto leader of the party and usually first through the breach, tried to have a chat with Ducaine, but their hot tempers and easily-slighted honours soon clashed, seeing them vow to destroy one another. As Ducaine ordered Greenhorn to start breaking down the gate, a new attempt was made where Leah talked to Whittling Jack, clearly the more compromising of both parties. They soon came to an agreement: the party would let Ducaine's group pass, saving them a lot of time and grief, if they would just pass the control room by (where the party would wait until they had passed). However, the Black Knight would not agree to this deal and demanded to speak to Ezrael.

It turned out he was Roark Shadowbane, Ezrael's mysterious uncle they had earlier met on the Isle of Storms. Roark was on a mission to destroy all the portals and had infiltrated the army to get to the very portal that had led the party here. Some negotiation brought them to Roark's final offer: he would let those of the party who would choose to return to Highhaven use the portal one last time before he destroyed it.

Initially, this was going to be the entire party, but as they waited and Ezrael chatted with his uncle, the tide started to shift. Roark told the story of Ezrael's father, Harlan Shadowbane, the man who tortured kidnapped townsmen in his dungeon and was preparing an invasion from the other dimension. The Shadowbanes had always defended the world from these very portals, but Harlan had fallen in love, with Belinda Blackwater, Ezrael's mother, and she had convinced him to take a different path. The things you do for love... Harlan had broken off all contact with Roark and Roark had stepped up his game: instead of travelling the world to defeat whatever horrors the portals spewed, he decided to take out the portals once and for all. Roark saw no hail in half-measures. Whatever speech I gave as Roark must have been very rousing, and resonated with not only Ezrael, but also the rest of the party.

The parallels between Ezrael and his father were obvious: they had both given up their quest to save the world for love. The party had chosen to return to Highhaven, in Ezrael's case to save the hooker he had fallen in love with, instead of facing the threat to the world head-on. They had been shirking the real problem, the possessed prince, and merely fighting its symptoms. If you really want something, Roark said, you had to go straight for your target, no matter what the danger or consequences.

I hadn't intended to change the party's mind, merely to make them look at the problem from another angle, perhaps be conflicted, but four out of five players decided they would abandon their quest in Highhaven, and instead head straight to the capital, Drakespire, to confront the prince. Only Seawrack, a lawful good bastion of virtue, could not stand to leave Highhaven to its fate. A decision was made: Seawrack would return to Highhaven and finish their business there. The NPCs travelling with the party, Captain Harken Krieg and Doc Serious, would accompany Seawrack. Krieg because they needed to send his army to Highhaven, Doc Serious because he felt he would be more useful helping the wounded in the besieged city than joining the party on another one of their insane quests. The party had long surpassed Doc Serious, and he wasn't really relevant in terms of fighting power anymore.

The Sons of Slaughter arrived led by Goldenhands. In the brief time he had been given, he had managed to rally about a third of the Sons for his cause, the rest remained with Stormbeard, the traitor who had usurped Krieg. Once the army, Goldenhands, Krieg, Serious and Seawrack had filed through the portal, Roark smashed it. Then he pointed out he would not leave until one more thing was taken care of: Belinda Blackwater-Shadowbane-Asperetti. Ezrael took the no half-measures approach here, and beheaded his evil mother.

This is where that session ended. I had effectively split the party. However, by the next session, I was prepared...

We will hear more about the adventures of the party in Drakespire soon, but now we return to Highhaven.

Return to Highhaven Redux
Imagine the camera panning down from the sky. We are near the Dunkragg Pass. Large swaths of forest have been burnt down since our last visit. The camera approaches The Knife Inn, where two blazing balls of fire are spiralling through the sky, joyfully chasing one another. Two strangers approach.

From the wilds beyond the Dunkragg Pass comes Eglion Taurith, a half-elven druid who has led a sheltered life in the forest, raised by his traditionalist Elven (adoptive) father. Eglion is young and naive, but has set out to discover his own path in the world after the trouble in Highhaven had reached even his ears. His player knows next to nothing about Dungeons and Dragons, which makes him, like his character, somewhat hesitant. Flanking Eglion is his yet-unnamed mountain lion animal companion.

On the King's Road a small party approaches. Eager young farmboys seduced by the glory war has to offer, led by a gnome of diminutive stature, Fabio Phaedra, ominously nicknamed The Jinx by his people before his banishment from the Mirror Cloud. Fabio's player is, like his character, reckless and manipulative. Fabio is an all-talk no-grit nightmare. He is a bard specked to be absolutely useless in combat, but very competent with social skills (bluff skill through the roof). He has taken the leadership feat, and all that is standing between him and a well-deserved beating is usually Cupcake, his half-orc fighter, dumb-as-bricks cohort.

Before heading into the inn, the two new players characters met, and quickly came to realize they were headed in the same direction: to the besieged city of Highhaven. each had their own reasons that they were not exactly willing to share. Eglion had learnt from his adoptive father that his real father was Lord Asperetti, who had raped his Elven mother. After hearing that Asperetti was working from the shadows to rule over Highhaven, Eglion had set out for revenge. Fabio, on the other hand, had heard of the goblin army amassed in Highhaven and had seen an opportunity. He was looking to recruit the goblins for his own nefarious purposes. I had allowed the player to take the Neutral Evil alignment, on the condition that he would hide it and play along with the other characters. Since he is surprisingly skilled at playing the game I have fair confidence that he will pull this off in an interesting way.

The newfound friends headed into the inn with two goals: figuring out what those two balls of fire were all about, and getting a good meal. The latter turned out to be the most difficult, as both of them had started the adventure pretty much skint. I think we spent about an hour real world time on the back-and-forth haggling who was gonna pay for what and what discounts they could get from the innkeep. The balls of fire were easier to figure out: they harkened the presence of The Light Brigade.

That's right, after having been previously announced, the band of anti-PCs had finally arrived near Highhaven. I thought it was interesting introducing these characters as a group to the two new players, who had never even heard of The Light Brigade, while Wrack's player was sitting next to them at the table gnawing at his nails in suspense.

In short order, The Light Brigade's ranks were made up of:
Maximus: Haughty paladin and sworn enemy of Ezrael. Clad in golden armour. Crossed the party multiple times. Convinced (and quite possibly not wrong) he's the good guy of the story.
Rolland Magnusson: Or the Omnitheist. An ancient, megalomaniac and malicious cleric, who is cheating the gods by worshipping the all at once as a pantheon, and is trying to himself become a god. Leah's sworn enemy, rapist, and previous husband to her mother. The party destroyed him before, but it was nothing a good old resurrection couldn't solve.
Puri: An Azer from the elemental plane of fire and a highly skilled pyromancer. Responsible for the burnt down forest. Has been locked away in Tartarus, serving as a jailor, ever since he was summoned into this dimension, guarding, amongst others, Roscoe. Recently released (temporarily) to join The Light Brigade. Looking to make the most of his time out by laying waste to everything he encounters.
Salazar Strongfell: Strongfell senior once clashed with Arkan, capturing and torturing him for the poisoning of his son. Salazar is that son, who has mriaculously survived, but not without a few horrible defects. Salazar has a ridiculously low hitpoint pool and looks the part. He's pale and thin to the point of being almost skeletal and he's covered in leech-scars. He's adapted a combatstyle that avoids close confrontations, becoming a ranger. He specializes in poisons, drawing them from both his own blood as from the fangs of his monstrous spider companion and only friend Spot. Salazar is essentially Arkan with a dark twist and has only one goal in his life: revenge for the wretch he's become.
Eclair: A high-level bureaucrat sent from the city of Drakespire with little personal involvement in the matter. Eclair cares more about the shine on his boots than about the welfare of the rest of the Light Brigade (or of anyone). That being said, he does care about the shine on his boots a lot. Eclair is more dangerous than you'd expect from a bureaucrat, having access to some never-before-seen spells of this homebrew class. He is also the party's prime tracker, being able to locate anyone, anywhere, through his bureaucratic magic.

This encounter allowed me to showcase these antagonists without an actual confrontation taking place, much like I did with Ducaine earlier. I view it as setting up pieces on the board for the future. More importantly, it gave the players a sense of urgency. These badasses, whomever they were, were headed to Highhaven. If they wished to accomplish anything in the city, they would have to get there before The Light Brigade did.

Luckily, The Light Brigade was dealing with a slight hiccup. Eclair was tracking the primary party (henceforth referred to as The Core Four) on his map, when they suddenly blipped out of existence. In other words, this scene was taking place while the party had just gone through the portal, away from Highhaven. This gave the players some frame of reference for how much time they had until Seawrack would pop back up on Eclair's map and The Light Brigade would set forth.

After interacting with The Light Brigade (mostly Fabio incurring their wrath, but not enough of it to get him killed) and some other inn-guests Fabio en Eglion set off past the wall. On the road to Highhaven they had an encounter with some goblinoids attacking a farmer. Instead of fighting these goblinoids, Fabio fascinated them, and then used suggestion on their leader. Though the manoevre did give them a big advantage, they were eventually forced to kill them as one of the goblinoids broke free of the spell. They left a bugbear alive, and with suggestion sent him on his way to delivered the farmer to The Light Brigade, hoping to curry favour with them.

This is when I skipped back to Seawrack, discussing tactics in the other dimension with Goldenhands and Krieg. Finally they opened the portal atop the ancient temple, but it turned out the goblins were prepared. A flood of water came rushing through, washing a whole bunch of dwarves off the tower. Seawrack himself barely held onto something for his dear life. When he did make it through the portal, it turned out the goblins had submerged the cave. This meant that all the armoured dwarves funneling through just found themselves stuck at the bottom of a lake. Using water breathing, Seawrack struggled up to the shore. The goblins had redirected the river from the Hellpit to this particular cave and had built a stockade over it, from where they were shooting arrows at anything surfacing from the water.

Seawrack magicked a hole in the floor of the tunnel, so the water had somewhere else to go, and so the lake would eventually run dry, blasting all the water to the other dimension. Igave Eglion and Fabio's players temporary control over dwarves caught in the fight. They had to cross the gap Seawrack had created, dodge rolling boulders the goblins threw off the stockade, then fight their way up and through the entire tunnel. There they were met with Vesrath the Cruel, casting area spells to kill off as many dwarves as possible while surveying the scene from atop his dire bat. Seawrack took to the sky, and finished the battle by taking out Vesrath.

Back to Eglion and Fabio. Not really looking forward to fighting off hordes of goblinsoids, they hatched a plan: they would disguise themselves as slaves being brought in, with Cupcake holding the leashes (orcs, goblinoids, close enough, right?). Eventually though, it was decided fabio should do the honours, as his bluff-checks were more spectacular. No betrayal followed. The plan worked without a hitch. Clueless as to where to go, Eglion and Fabio headed to the citadel, where they converged with Seawrack and his dwarven army. They quickly beat off the assault, and went in to have an audience with Sir Hugo Von Brandt. Von Brandt more or less assumed all three PCs had been sent by The Core Four to liberate Highhaven, and thanked them earnestly. They agreed to have a meeting on the future of Highhaven with all concerned parties as soon as Yossoth the Mighty was taken care of.

The PCs headed to The House of Seven Delights, backed up by a regiment of dwarven snipers, and confronted Yossoth. Fabio easily convinced Yossoth he was some sort of god with a display of fireworks, some minor illusions and one heck of a bluff check, but this wasn't enough to convince Yossoth to withdraw. This would not, he claimed, be honourable. So, instead, he challenged Yossoth to single combat. With Cupcake. And then he cheated, having the rest of the party join in anyways. Yosoth was knocked out and dragged to the dungeons of the citadel.

While having absolutely no business there, Fabio barged into the strategy meeting with Von Brandt. Krieg, Goldenhands, Seawrack and several higher placed guardsmen were also in attendance. It turned out Highhaven no longer felt like being part of the kingdom, seeing as no-one actually sent them any help during the siege. They were vying for independence. With the war on-going, and an army of dwarves within the walls, this did not seem so far-fetched. Goldenhands even agreed to loan money from the Sons of Slaughter's coffers until the promised funds from grout could arrive.

However, there were a number of issues. The main issue was the dwarven army. They could not, would not, work regular jobs. All they were good for was fighting, drinking, and perhaps here and there a little mining. The supplies in the city would quickly run out if they had to feed a standing army that itself produced nothing. Krieg proposed feeding the army by expanding the territory in the direction of either Stahl or the nearby Staffordshire, but these suggestions were quickly swept off the table by the peace-eager Seawrack.

Another issue was the Dunkragg Pass. While the kingdom would not intervene with the siege, it would never allow a sovereign nation so close to such a strategic hotspot. An issue with an easy solution, it was soon decided: they would collapse the pass, robbing it of any strategic utility. In order to do this, they would have to run a false flag operation, sending the goblins in to do their dirty work, Fabio suggested. They could simply have their prisoner Yossoth denounce his reign and hand control of the remains of the army to Von Brandt, allowing him to direct the goblins to the Dunkragg Fort. Once the pass was unsupervised, the dwarves could collapse it in a matter of days.

While a lot of responsibility was heaved onto Seawrack, who had hoped freeing the city would be the end of it, Fabio took care to mingle in all the important strategic decisions. He was, after all, hoping to control the goblins himself, ensuring their survival seemed vital. Wrack, however, refused to stay in Highhaven to oversee the proceedings. He decided he would head to Staffordshire, in order to broker an agreement for supplies, and then to Freeport, further along the shore, to aqcuire some boats. With these boats he hoped to have the remains of the human army evacuated once the Dunkragg Pass was collapsed.

After the strategy meeting, Father Elbereth, an ally to the party and a scholar on the topic of the ancient temples, called the PCs in. He had learnt of the situation with the prince through Von brandt and suggested a different solution than blindy storming towards the prince (as The Core Four were doing). The prince had outsmartened the party at every turn, and had always been several steps ahead. It was Father Elbereth's opinion that they could only vanquish this threat once they fully understood it. In order to do this, Father Elbereth wanted to restore the Collegiate of Archaic Endeavours. This was group of scientists he had been involved in until it had been revoked by the king. Most of the original members were dead, but Father Elbereth had made a list of scientists whose help he could use to investigate. His wish was for Seawrack and his helpers to gather these scientists. Luckily, at least one of them lived close to Freeport: Lord Asperetti.

Soon after this, the party had to saddle up and evacuate the city. The Light Brigade had arrived at the gates, and while the captain of the guard promised he would try to stall them, they had no time to waste.

On the way out of the rear gate of the city, the party was halted by a mysterious cloaked old man with a walking staff. It seemed Seawrack's actions had caught up with him, for this was Farlanghn The Traveller himself. Seawrack had sworn to the Eternal Pilgrimage, whereby he could only visit each location once, yet he had returned to Highhaven. Since he had already been warned what the consequences of his actions might be in Goldenbough, Farlanghn now saw no choice but to strip Seawrack of his powers.

The party could not stop to think about this and instead hurried on to Hanging Oaks, a village on the way to Staffordshire. Instead of going round when faced with an infestation of goblins however, they decided to push forth. Soon they came upon Kahl the Destroyer and Grognak the Weary. They were gathering an army here, preparing to invade Staffordshire, after hearing of the fate of Yossoth. Perhaps the PCs might have been able to talk their way out of this, or sneak through, but instead Fabio decided to challenge Kahl to single combat. With Cupcake, of course.

A circle of shields was formed, and they started fighting, but it soon turned out the cohort was no match for Kahl. As soon as things started looking ugly, Fabio intervened, effectively once more breaking the rules of single combat. However, this time they were surrounded by goblinoids, and Grognak was watching the match from the sky atop a dire bat.

I'm still not sure if the intervention turned out to be a good move. Cupcake ended up splattered under Kahl's club all the same. The entire party was wounded. However, Grognak was blasted out of the sky and fried by one of Egloin's lightningbolts, and Kahl was eventually killed, right before slaughtering the rest of the party, by one of Fabio's followers with a ridiculously lucky roll. As soon as the leaders had been taken out, the rest of the goblinoids fled for their dear lives. A war had been avoided, but a dear friend had been lost. Fabio cut off Cupcake's pinky finger, and swore to have her ressurrected. I'm still not sure if this was for the emotional attachment or the combat bonus.

We ended the session at nightfall, with the party approaching a wagon along the road to Staffordshire. On it, in gaudy letters, stood written "Mistress Shortweed - Fortunes and Misfortunes".

[MrEdwardNigma]

So here we are. I have a split party (or more optimistically, two parties running rampant over the same world). Seawrack has been stripped of his powers, and new addition The Jinx has already lost his cohort to recklessness.

Of course, the intention was always to have the second party consist of four players as well, but one of them couldn't make it to the last session. To get him up to speed I organised a solo session.

The last new player will be playing Chiron Asphodel, human ranger and mercenary. His player can only be described as meticulous. He also likes to be prepared for all occassions, and by the grace of the carrying capacity of his dire bat animal companion and mount has an inventory list spanning two pages. Chiron is described by the player as "looks like he can take a beating, and has", and that is true in more than one sense. Chiron has seen all the other mercenaries he ever worked with slaughtered over the years, most of which due to the work of a necromancer, Father Griswold, whom he has never faced in person. Yet, despite all setbacks, Chiron has accepted a new contract. One that will lead him straight to Highhaven.

Highhaven: the sequel in which none of the original cast were involved
Join me as we once again whizz back in time. This is after Eglion and Fabio set off past the wall, but before Seawrack returned to Highhaven. We find ourselves, once more, in Bree. It is noon, and atop his pet dire bat (yet unnamed), the gruff mercenary Asphodel approaches The Knife Inn.

Chiron has been hired by the Von Graff family, the ruling faction in the city of Monolith. He has received the following message from them:
Dear Mr. Asphodel,
Considering our successful collaborations in the past, we would once again like to employ your services. The matter for which we currently require your assistance, however, is more clandestine than previous endeavours. Considering your solitary nature, we presume you will be sufficiently discrete for this assignment. It is self-evident that if our assessment of your acumen should be in error, certain measures will need to be taken, but you are familiar with the standard clauses in these sorts of arrangements.
The mission in question is a simple search and deliver. Included with this message are five sealed envelopes. These are to be delivered to the addressees, as per usual. Under no circumstances are the letters to be opened nor read by anyone other than the intended recipients. This includes you, Mr. Asphodel, as you will imagine. All you need to know is that the letters contain personal invitations to Monolith for individuals that we esteem to have certain valuable qualities. Any further elaboration would be irrelevant for your purposes. The letters are to be delivered personally, from your hand to theirs, and you will see to the destruction of the messages after delivery. You will be paid a sum of one thousand goldpieces, a small fortune, per addressee who accepts our offer. This ensures that you do not merely deliver the letters, but also present yourself in a manner fitting of the city you are representing.
When all addressees have been informed, or otherwise accounted for, you will destroy this message and return to Monolith for your payment. There is no particular urgency to your return. Rest assured, our compensation will be waiting for you, whenever you are ready, and we have other agents under our employ, so we will not be in particularly dire straits during your absence. However, the delivery of the letters must occur posthaste. We are certain that you are aware that in these volatile times the continued existence of the addressees is by no means assured. In fact, we expect that due to their particular nature they may be in troubled waters already by the time you reach them. Our last information places all five recipients in the environs of Highhaven, currently a hotbed of turmoil. Hence why we are employing a man of your particular talents, instead of a mere errand boy.
Additionally, we will expect you to inform us immediately upon delivery (or failure of delivery) of each letter. To that purpose, five slivers of our skin are included in this message, to be fed to a messenger bird of your choice. We urge you not to make use of the Royal Post in this matter. Should your mission be inappropriately delayed, we will be forced to send another agent to finish the task and forego all payment.

Our Best Wishes,
Ser Osrick Von Graff
The five adressees are Mr. Miller, Mss. Weaver, Mr. Naïfo, Mr. Asperetti and Mr. Andon.

After spotting some of the burnt down forest from the sky and the two blazing balls of fire whipping back and forth above the inn, Chiron decides to make a landing, and pay a brief visit. He encounters Eclair pouring over a map in the common room and decides to have a chat. After discovering he is a bureaucrat of great power, Chiron decides to enlist his aid to learn more about the adressees, as last names alone aren't much to go off of. This plays out like a game of cat and mouse, both Eclair and Chiron trying to outsmart the other and get information without revealing information. Eclair turns out to have the better hand, as his powers allow him to tell when Chiron is lying, as well as what his real name is.

Still, a deal is struck. Since one of the adressees is Arkan Andon, a member of The Core Four, and Eclair needs to track him down, Eclair agrees to divulge more information if Chiron will let him know where to find Arkan, or other members of his party, once he has tracked him down. The following information is revealed:
Jacob Miller: Also known as Roumj. Quite definitely dead. Well, there is some doubt, but definitely no bodily presence in Highhaven? Eclair is unsure what to make of the strange readings he is getting.
Weaver: Also known as Greed. One of the prostitutes of the former House of Seven Delights. They were twins, one of them is undead and in Highhaven, the other still alive.
Naïfo: Could refer to either one of two elven brothers. Slick, undead and in Highhaven, or Snowy, not in Highhaven. Both have been encountered by The Core Four before. Slick was killed by them, Snowy merely beaten.
Lord Asperetti: No longer present in Highhaven. Retreated to his estate at Adder's Nest.
Arkan Andon: No longer present in Highhaven.

Of his five adressees, only two seemed to be somewhat in reach. Despite discovering that Roumj is dead, Chiron decided to hold off on warning the Von Graffs. Instead, he set off for Highhaven posthaste.

He flew his dire bat over the walls, high enough to evade any archers, and landed in an apartmentbuilding, where a lenghty battle with a horde of goblinds on the staircase ensued. Eventually he managed to question one of them, and discovered that the undead head of Slick was being carried by Melmuk the Crafty, who was using it to control the undead. It was not by far as effective as having Roumj though, as he could only control undead within reach, and only when the head was conscious, which it wasn't most of the time. Melmuk was rumored to be fleeing towards Staffordshire.

Chiron made a stop over at the citadel, flying across the besieging army and requesting an audience with Von Brandt, hoping to get some information out of him. He discovered that Von Brandt and Arkan were friends, more or less, and had a message sent to Arkan through Von Brandt's messenger bird. He also learnt that the prostitutes that were still alive had banded together as rebels in the woods near Hanging Oaks, the Copse of Thieves.

Chiron flew there and helped the rebels ambush the rear of a convoy of goblins headed to Hanging Oaks. The army that was passing by here would later become the army surrounding Eglion, Wrack and Fabio. A quick conversation with the rebels led to the discovery that Greed had been caught some time ago by the goblins, and was now being held hostage in a small village along the shore.

By the time Chiron arrived at Harbourthingamajig, the shoreside village, all hell broke loose. Something was firing at the village from the sea, blasting houses to bits and scattering goblins, but even though it was a fairly clear day, he couldn't make out any ships among the waves. Chiron ignored the whole situation, quickly searched the village, and took the tormented girl with him out of the line of fire. Greed explained that the goblins had been doing awful things to her (she wouldn't get into further detail and seemed quite distressed) and whenever they would, she would zone out, trying to get away, not have to be there. Whenever she would do this, she would inhabit the body of her dead sister, shambling through Highhaven, with the undead at her beck and call, and she would send them down on the goblinoids in the city in her fury.

Chiron tried to calm the girl down, but she was very distraught. Eventually he just handed her the letter, and set her off in a small boat, so she wouldn't have to cross the goblin-infested lands again. He then moved on to Hanging Oaks, where in the mean time the other PCs had passed through. He questioned one of the leftover goblins, and discovered that Melmuk was headed in the direction of Staffordshire, waving a white flag, and still carrying the undead head of Naïfo.

[MrEdwardNigma]

And now we return to the original players, who have decided to go straight for the BBEG instead of the more tactical approach the B-team is taking. We find them on the road to Drakespire, where they expect to find and kill the prince (or rather, the alien parasite that has taken over the prince's body). This is a write-up for the past three sessions, comprising what I would like to call the Drakespire Arc.

Capital Conspiracies
The convoy from Bulwark was slow-moving, streaking across the landscape like a giant, lazy snake. Appearances could be deceiving though. While the top speed was just about a brisk walking pace, the convoy kept moving day and night, making steady progress to Drakespire. It transported cartloads and cartloads of wounded men, returning from the front to the capital. Some of these men needed help, fast, and while the army could only miss a few clerics to send along, base-camp in Drakespire was swarming with them. Every day they stalled they lost more men, and so it kept moving.

We find the Core Four, as they have dubbed themselves, in the back of a cart, napping, as the convoy comes upon the city's outer gates. They are fast asleep, and find themselves in another time, the far-flung past, during Roscoe's first visit to Drakespire. An alley, somewhere in the city-centre. It reeks of thrown out garbage and human waste. An ancient archway, commemorating some forgotten minor hero, spans the breath of the alley. A fat man appears in the darkness, jittery, spoons on his belt clanking together rythmically.
"You were told to come alone"
The man turns out to be Leeky, the shifty palace cook, who has been bribed by Roscoe to smuggle him into the castle.
The party tries to convince him to smuggle them all, instead of just Roscoe, but he explains that he is planning to smuggle the halfling in in a crate of turnips, parked in a cart at the end of the alley, and there won't be room for more of them. Before they can actually get to this plan, two half-orc thugs show up. They are clearly inebriated, and let slip that they've been told by someone the party is carrying a significant amount of money. Before combat even starts, Leeky is shot in the throat by a well-placed crossbow bolt seemingly coming from nowhere, killing him instantly.
Ezrael and Leah, both failing their spot checks, opt to attack the thugs instead of dealing with the invisible threat, while both Arkan and Roscoe, the perceptive members of the party, spot a man perched on the archway.

Arkan shoots off some arrows, but Roscoe notices the grappling hook he is carrying with him. It bears a reminder that during these flashbacks I give all players whatever information they ask for concerning their past, except Roscoe's player. This is because his character is apparently suffering from amnesia, and his past is as much a mystery to him as to the players. The grappling hook and some other equipment I jotted down in the character sheets I prepared for the past version of his character were intended as clues towards what past Roscoe was planning. However, in a rare display of ingenuity, Roscoe hooks the mysterious assailant with his grappling hook and drags him down from the archway, causing falling damage. Now that the attacker is closer by, it is revealed that he is Jacob Miller, who later became Roumj. Since this is the past, he is still a regular human rogue. However, it soon becomes apparent that the madness of Roumj has already infected him. He shouts something about the wheel turning round and round (or whatever philosophical nonsense this villain is prone to shouting) and retaliates. This reveals to the PCs that Miller has, similar to them, had his mind travel back to inhabit his past body. In other words, he's stalking them, even in their dreams.

Since his hitpoints as a level one rogue are terribly low though, the party makes quick work of him, killing him once more. Of course, as they have come to realise, there really isn't any apparent way to permanently get rid of Roumj, and he will undoubtebly resurface in the future.

While some of the partymembers are heavily wounded, Roscoe got out of the encounter relatively unscathed, and they decide to send him up to the Spire as planned. The Spire being the enormous rocky spike at the centre of the city in which the palace and most of the headquarters of local law enforcement are embedded. While the party tries to dodge the Dragon Guard, the halfdragon elite guardforce of Drakespire, Roscoe is sent up in an elevator in a crate of turnips. He manages to evade all of the guards in the Spire and discovers the Magpie Tower, which he is inexplicably drawn to.

The palace is basically surrounded by a number of towers, jutting out of the rock and only connected with the palace by slim 5-foot bridges. These towers are the Tower of Chains (headquarters of the Inquisition), the Fowl Tower (headquarters of the Royal Post), the Seagull Tower (headquarters of the Harbourmaster), the Griffin Tower (headquarters of the army), the Dragon Tower (headquarters of the Dragonguard), the Banshee Tower (abandoned and supposedly haunted) and finally the Magpie Tower, also known as the royal treasury.

Inside the Magpie Tower, Roscoe finds a bell glass covering something that looks like an enormous rotten worm. Upon closer inspection, it turns out to be an outsize tongue, ripped from the mouth of some creature. Roscoe can't stop himself from removing the glass bell, and suddenly the tongue springs to life, leaping onto him and crawling into his throat.

"My legs! Where are my legs!!!"
The party wakes up in the back of a cart to the sound of a disabled soldier first discovering what he has lost in the war.
There is a knock on the side of the cart and one of the soldiers riding alongside the convoy announces that they are arriving in Drakespire.
They are warned to keep their passports at the ready, as they will be checked when entering the outer city (also known as the Districts).
While this makes the players somewhat nervous, all their passports being fakes and they themselves being wanted criminals, it turns out the check-up done at the outer gates is rather cursory.
Supposedly, the checks done at the gates to the inner city are far more thorough.

And so, the party splits up from the convoy in Tellanoron, the Elvish district of Drakespire, while it heads on to Arkenheim, formerly the Dwarvish district, but now an army camp.
They stretch their legs a bit, marvel at the enormous treehouses in the middle of the city, and try to get their bearings by heading to the nearest watchhouse and reading the newsplates.
They learn a series of things there, most of which turn out to be rather relevant:
1) The old Master of Coin, a dragon called Zaphyr, has dissappeared mysteriously and promptly been replaced by their old friend Mr. Sunday, now a Lord.
2) The old Postmaster has departed to Orcish lands, leaving his duties in the hands of Lord Dalmutti, previously known as The Great Dalmutti. The party already knows about this magician and his quest to end the war.
3) When Devon Wallander, their ally and former bodyguard of the prince, was dragged off to Tartarus, the prison beneath Drakespire, his father, Lord Wallander, was demoted from Judge to head of the Night Watch, a rather thankless task.
4) The Third City of the Dwarves was taken by the humans after Sir Walter Ducaine bravely killed their ruler, letting his own life in the process.
5) There is talk of a rebellion against the government in the districts, so a curfew has been enacted.
6) The king has been murdered by dwarves, by means of an explosion in the palace. Only one of the guilty dwarves, Fjol Dammerung, has been apprehended, but vanished from his cell overnight.

Mostly that last bit of news hit hard. They knew Dammerung as one of the Drehadaxa, a small taskforce of dwarves they had previously tangled with in Goldenbough, and who were likely on the side of the prince (or the alien parasite in his brain). If the king had been murdered, that meant the prince was now king, making him a far more severe threat. They would have to move fast if they were to take him out.

The curfew brought with it a sense of urgency. They hardly felt like attracting the attention of the guards, so they needed a place to stay.
They elected to take a half-orc rickshaw to Maidenburg, the mostly halfling district, which was also the district bordering the main entrance to the inner city, the Porta Major.
There they found the closest inn to the gate, which happened to be the Goodbarrel. The sign hanging outside was a mostly innaccurate woodetch of Roscoe Goodbarrel hauling a bag of loot over his shoulder and grinning widely. Apparently his burglary of the Magpie tower and subsequent escape from Tartarus had made him something of a local hero, and he was soon recognised by the local patrons, who were all too eager to buy him drinks.

During the night, it turned out the party had drawn quite too much attention to themselves, as Roscoe was snatched by a huge ape and abducted in a burlap sack.
The next morning, Arkan tracked the ape all the way to the other side of the city, half a day's travel away, to a warehouse in the Docks district.
There, Roscoe was greeted by Victor and Morticia Von Graff. It appeared they too were interested in breaking into the Magpie tower.
While they were unwilling to share what exactly they were looking for they did point out that they could contribute a way into the spire from the inner city, as well as a way out of the spire, and a way out of the city once the heist had taken place. Now, this may sound appealing, but the party wasn't exactly happy about one of their own being kidnapped. The others burst onto the scène, weapons drawn, and combat ensued.

Both of the Von Graffs apparently possessed extra-ordinary powers. Victor Von Graff controlled the massive ape, known only as Kong, and Morticia Von Graff apparently could move her consciousness back and forth between her goons. The goons were referred to as her "suitors", and the fact that the party witnessed a ritual where-in she drank their blood didn't exactly help warm them to the Von Graffs. As a spellcaster though, Morticia's power to move her mind through different bodies was very convenient, as no-one could tell where the next fireball would be coming from. Eventually they fought to some sort of stalemate, made some empty promises to the Von Graffs, and absconded.

During the evening they were met by Milo Armourfoot at the Goodbarrel. He too had heard of their arrival.
He'd travelled to Drakespire with Mr. Sunday and had become the leader of the resistance, though all that was secretly an operation led by Lord Sunday.
He suggested that the party would be much safer staying with members of the resistance, rather than in the inn, and they soon agreed.

While Milo tried to engage the party to steal a load of weapons for the resistance, they still elected to put their personal goals first, despite any sympathies they had for the small-time halfling criminal, and crossed the Porta major the next day.

The inquiries made at the gate did turn out to be rather strict. They had to pay a load of taxes for various things (the owning of a pet, importing of money to the inner city, racial denomination, ...) and had their weapons temporarily stripped from them. They also only got a temporary visum for one day (after which time, if they hadn't left the inner city, the guards would track them down).

They then proceeded to track down Leeky. After a further payment, stripping them of most of the money they had left, Leeky agreed to smuggle them into the spire. All of them.

Of course, this couldn't quite go according to plan. Leeky never showed up to the meeting. So they went where he had stashed the cart of turnips in the flashback, and found him murdered.
They promptly stashed the body and absconded with the cart, trying to avoid any undue attention from the watch.

There was then a brief scène where they went to the turnip emporium to buy several loads of turnips, as this was clearly the tried and true way to get into the spire.
Now, in Dutch, which is the language I and my players speak, there is a rather large amount of puns you can make with the Dutch word for "turnip", which is exactly what they did.
At every turnip joke, the turnip salesman would go red in the face and laugh hysterically. They, in fact, pushed it quite so far, that the man eventually ended up collapsing, out of breath, purple in the face, and quite cold. It seemed he'd been killed by a heart attack.

Saddened by this great loss to the turnip industry, they nonetheless went on with their plan.
Roscoe impersonated Leeky's nephew, who'd come to deliver the turnips, and the rest of the gang stashed away among the crates.
Sadly, this meant the rogue was left behind, and promptly kidnapped again and stuffed in a burlap sack.

Meanwhile, the others made their way up the spire in a service elevator. Once in the kitchen, a small melee ensued with one of the kitchen maids.
This turned out to be Elaine, the woman who had been Jacob Miller's wife, and had stabbed him quite to death. It was a small world after all.
Eventually the party dumped her unconscious body down a garbage chute.

Now, while the fight hadn't been particularly challenging, and had mostly consisted of trying to prevent her from screaming for the guards, the party did realise they were at a disadvantage here.
They were missing Roscoe, as well as Horf, Arkan's animal companion, whom they'd left behind with Milo in order to avoid the pet-tax. They were also unarmed and had been stabbed a number of times by the kitchenmaid.

That being as it were, they decided to visit Postmaster Dalmutti in the Fowl Tower, who was, of course, expecting them.

Dalmutti turned out to be a rather amiable gnome, who could offer them the services of some of the palace's clerics as well as some standard issue weapons.
He, however, proposed an alternate plan. He believed that if he could just talk to the prince face-to-face, he could make him see the error of his ways.
Even when the party told him about the parasites, he was not swayed. However, ever since the royal quarters had been blown up, the prince had taken refuge in the Magpie Tower, communicating only through the king's former bodyguard, Damien Hertzog, a massive monk. Supposedly Hertzog had many years ago ripped out his own eyes after seeing the queen naked, in a display of loyalty to the king. That was the kind of man he was, and he spent his days balancing on the very narrow bridge to the Magpie Tower, blocking the way for everyone.

This gave the party an idea though: since the prince spoke through Hertzog, Hertzog had to present at all councilmeetings, so whenever a meeting was held, the bridge would be unguarded. Dalmutti wouldn't be able to cross at that time, because his presence too was expected at the meetings, but plausibly, this could give the party an opening.

They decided to regroup and return in full force during the next councilmeeting.

Meanwhile, Roscoe was rolled out of his burlap sack on a rickety peer at the docks. He'd been kidnapped by Morticia Von Graff's suitors, but this time he'd been brought to see a raggedy old man, sitting at the edge of the peer, slowly cradling a small bundle. Trinkets and baubles lined the old man's clothing, and his face was obscured by a scruffy grey beard. Of course, Roscoe has questions.
The old man simply answers that he is the Fisher King, while shushing the silent babe in his arms. Some succesful perception checks allow Roscoe to notice that the child is, quite possibly, dead. He is also wearing a small amulet in the shape of a millstone, but the significance of this is lost on Roscoe. It turns out that the Fisher King, though most likely mad, is the Von Graff's way out of the Spire. They are, after not hearing from the party for a while, demonstrating value.

The Fisher King though, has his own motives. He has grown up in the Shades, the poor district of town right next to the docks, named as such because it is constantly in the shadow of the Spire. It is also adjacent to the Aqua Regna, a stretch of the Silver Tongue river below the Magpie Tower. He and his compatriots manage to eke out a living by dredging the bottom of the river for artifacts that have fallen down from the treasury tower. However, since he is upon death's door, he wishes to see the tower from the inside by himself. His men could, maybe, catch the party were they to jump out of the tower to the Aqua Regna. It is a rather feeble exit strategy, but it is better than the one the party currently has (none).

Roscoe still distrusts the Von Graffs, probably due to all the being stuffed into bags, and proposes to cut them out of the equation, working directly with the Fisher King.
He agrees with little protest, and points out that he also knows how the Von Graffs were planning to get into the Spire.

Now that Leeky is dead, his position as Head of the Kitchen (and person responsible for ordering the turnips) has been taken over by Elaine, who might quite possibly be open to a bribe.
That's right, Elaine, Jacob Miller's former wife, and the woman the party recently dumped down a garbage chute.

Roscoe returns to Maidenburg at about the same time as the rest of the party, and without ever meeting up, they each go to their respective dedicated safehouses, where they are staying with some hospitable halflings. Roscoe, it bears being mentioned, is staying with Death Tenfold, formerly a member of the Drehadaxa, and now a high-ranking part of the resistance. She is, however, not at home, and has left a note explaining that she has a lead on Fjol Dammerung, the apprehended Drehadaxa dwarf who subsequently dissappeared from custody.

During the night, the players were ambushed, again. I was really trying to give them the feeling that they were in a bit over their heads here. Drakespire, more than anywhere else, is home to a number of very important characters with some rather big agendas. Usually I try to prevent being confusing, but here it was just what the plot called for. They were essentially walking right into a very complicated web of conspiracies without having a clue of what they were getting into, so the hits kept coming. This time it wasn't the Von Graffs either, but some rather peculair acting watchmen.

The players soon figured out that the watchmen weren't after them, but rather after the resistance fighters they were staying with. Well, "fighters" is probably rather a stretch. One of them was a woolly-eared halfling who was deaf as a post and another was a rather obese little lady who kept offering everyone porridge. Their main target though, appeared to be Milo, whom none of the PCs were staying with. So, if they hadn't figured this out, they would have never gotten there in time to stop the guardsmen.

While not exactly very formidable or numerous themselves, the guardsmen were armed with magically animated swords and shields. Still, they managed to wrestle Milo from guardsmen.
However, as soon as one party of nightly visitors had left, another arrived. This time they were military men, headed by The Midnight Crusader. He was a savage ragebeast (quite literally, underneath his concealing helmet) who had become addicted to ragevials during the war. Somehow, he'd figured out that Milo's vanishing from Highhaven had something to do with the flood of vials being stemmed. He was also Fieldmarshal Varkas' right hand man.

The party had nowhere near the necessary amount of hitpoints left to fight these guys, so they bolted, with Milo. Except for Ezrael, whose rolls were abysmall, and who was left behind grinning sheepishly at the Midnight Crusader. He managed to convince the crusader though that he wasn't worthwhile prey, and wouldn't fight back. Honestly, the Crusader wouldn't have had any trouble killing a man in an unfair fight, but his addiction to rage meant that he wanted to feel the adrenalin of the men he killed (by drinking their blood), and Ezrael just sort of slumping down and asking for mercy provided none of that. So he got to walk away, with the promise that they would meet again.

They quickly regrouped and made sure that everyone was accounted for. Milo decided a meeting with Lord Sunday was in order, and they agreed to meet with him at a set time in the inner city, though well outside the walls of the Spire, in a designated resistance safehouse. While Milo absconds to check up on other resistance hide-outs, the party patiently waits for Death Tenfold, to inform her that the cover of her current safehouse is blown. While they are meeting up with her anyways, they decide to check out the lead she has on the Drehadaxa.

She takes them deep into Arkenheim, to an old abandoned building where some off-duty soldiers are hanging out. The players soon identify them as Black Hand goons by their distinctive tattoos (of, you'll never guess it, black handmarks!). As a reminder, The Black Hand is a mysterious foe they last encountered in Sanctuary with a fervently anti-dwarven agenda. Back in Sanctuary they failed to unmask his true identity and as a consequence he managed to orchestrate the fall of the city. This fiery invasion of the human army is now known as The Sacking of Sanctuary, from which the party barely managed to escape with their lives. It seems that some of the soldiers that took part in that particularly bloody excuse for a battle took up The Black Hand's cause and are now, on the side, working as his minions.

They circle the building and at its rear find a cellargrate, through which they see Fjol Dammerung, tied to a chair, and being beaten black and blue by the goons. They are questioning him about the whereabouts of the rest of the Drehadaxa that murdered the king, but Fjol is a tough bastard and isn't letting anything slip. He looks like he hasn't been letting anything slip for quite a while now, and the goons are getting frustrated. The party wisely wait until they go out for a break and then sneak in through the cellargrate. They then make some poor attempts at questioning Fjol themselves, but aren't having much more luck than the goons. Fjol is quite literally mad, and believes himself to be part of the dwarven inquisition, an institution which hasn't existed for centuries. Furthermore, in his delusions, he interprets every conversation as an interrogation, where he is the interrogating party. All they get in return for their questions and more questions, and lots of threats of violence.

They spend a lot of time discussing back and forth what to do with the dwarf, until Ezrael points out that they can't hang around until the goons get back, and just sets Fjol free. The others curse and swear at him for a bit, until he explains his plan, which is elegant in its simplicity. Fjol will want to find his comrades in arms. Now, a normal person would easily perceive the ruse of being set free and check if they're being followed, but this is where they can use his insanity in their favour. Paying no heed to anyone or anything, Fjol simply struts through the army-occupied Arkenheim (and army that is at war with the dwarves, I'll remind you), and somehow, in his brazenness, manages to strut into the defunct church of Moradin.

By the time the PCs enter, he has vanished. Of course, once they've figured out there must be a secret passage, it isn't hard to find. A smoothly carved tunnel leads them all the way from Arkenheim to an ancient dwarven manor in the inner city, where they are met by the Drehadaxa in full force. These dwarves have some nasty tricks up their sleeve. First of all, the room is completely pitch-black, providing a severe disadvantage for the party, but no hindrance whatsoever for the dwarves. Soon, there are some small sources of light, which turn out to be lit barrels of gunpowder, rolled down from the staircase by the dwarven explosives expert, Den Brenner (another complete lunatic...). Once things start being mostly on fire, the dwarves have the cleric they picked up in Goldenbough, Brottor Darkdelver, cover the room in magical darkness. The rest of the encounter is mostly a lot of stumbling around, deafening explosions, and splashes of blood that seem to come from nowhere.

Eventually they manage to emerge victorious, and only two dwarves survive: Den Brenner, who bolts out of a back window, and Brottor Darkdelver. The party manages to convince the cleric to lay down his arms by caving in the skull of the Drehadaxa leader, Helga, and proving to him that there was an alien parasite crawling around in her brain. They make a somewhat uneasy peace and agree not to notify the authorities, if, in return, they can use the tunnel to go back and forth to the inner city with their weapons, and without having to pay ludicrous taxes.

Now that they have a route into the city, they need a way into the Spire, and decide to finally visit Elaine. At first there is obviously a lot of shouting (as is to be expected from someone you dumped down a garbage chute), but once it becomes clear to Elaine she has something the party wants, her mood changes. She is willing to sneak them into the castle, like Leeky would have done, but at a much higher cost. The party is quick to point out that with all the bribes and taxes they've been paying they're running pretty low on funds, but she isn't after money exactly. She has a number of outstanding debts and she feels that her debtors might be otherwise persuaded, in ways that she couldn't possibly manage, but a party of powerful adventurers might...

You see, when Jacob Miller, her no-good deadbeat huspand, skipped town, all his debts transferred to her. He owes a great deal of money to the church of Wee Jas, for his resurrection after she stabbed him (in some sense it seems fair for that particular debt to be left to her), his gambling debts with the local crime boss Bloodbath need to be paid, and last but not least he has a great deal of outstanding taxes with the realm. Reluctantly, the party agrees.

The obvious first step is meeting up with Lord Sunday, Master of Coin (and taxes), since they have a meeting with him planned anyways. He agrees to simply wave the debts and bury them deep in the archives somewhere. They also discuss the attack on the resistance with him. He asks them one simple question: whom do they know that could create the kind of magical artifacts that those guards were brandishing? "Dalmutti..." Arkan whispers. Before any further plans can be discussed, the dragon guard barges in on the meeting and they have to flee in differing directions through a convenient escape tunnel.

Up next is Bloodbath, since the party knows a thing or two about dealing with ultra-violent criminals. He is the leader of the local orcish community and has received his moniker because he is always to be found at the slaughterhouse, which he runs. They find him amongst boiling vats of offal, brutally bashing a crony's head against the wall for spilling cow innards all over a walkway. It turns out his name isn't solely related to his craft and this particular beserker isn't to be reasoned with. The single half-orc barbarian manages to hold his own against the entire party, giving them quite a whupping, but eventually starting to falter under their superior numbers.

Just before they manage to land the killing blow though, the Midnight Crusader drops in through a skylight, steals their kill, and feasts on Bloodbath's blood. He then advances on Ezrael once more, being more articulate this time about what he's after: ragevials. His only trail in discovering why the flow of this drug stopped is Milo, and as long as he doesn't get any he's forced to sate his hunger with the rage pumping through the veins of barbarians. They reveal to the Crusader that the vials are made by the gnomes, and he departs, seemingly satisfied with this answer.

Their final stop is the church of Wee Jas, who are willing to wave the debt if the party takes care of an infestation of undead in the Necropolis. Now, it bears mentioning that Roscoe consulted his evil Book of Wyrms upon arriving in the city, and it commanded him to seek out the Necropolis, but he had so far neglected this quest. This was fairly new to me, as the player had up until that point always neatly confirmed with its orders. I'm still not sure if he simply forgot about it, was waiting for the right time, or had decided that perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to take advice from a book bound in human skin.

Whatever the case might be, they all headed into the Necropolis, and found themselves lucky enough not to have to fight the undead. They merely parted like the Red Sea and led their way to a crypt, where the necromancer Father Griswold was waiting for them. The conversation that followed was very entertaining, if somewhat disturbing. It had clearly been a long time since Griswold talked to other people, and he came off as positively creepy. He was trying very hard to be hospitable though, but the PCs made a point of not accepting any of the Melba toasts with pâté he surfaced from one of the slabs in the crypt. The necromancer introduced himself and his best friend, the mummified, gape-jawed remains of his colleague Father Gregorius, as followers of Nerull, and he was in town to retrieve some artifacts from the Spire. Since one of those artifacts was the Wyrmtongue though, unbeknownst to the necromancer stolen many years ago and lodged in Roscoe's throat, they knew in advance they wouldn't be able to help him. So they lied, told him they needed a few days, and Father Griswold quickly agreed to have his undead minions back off.

With the secret dwarven tunnel and their deal with Elaine the party had secrured a pretty good route into the Spire, so now they were looking for a safe route out (despite Ezrael's suggestions that they would just have to "wing it"). They had found out that both the Drehadaxa, the Von Graffs and Griswold were shipped into Drakespire by the harbourmaster, Grubwiggler, in return for generous bribes, so they decided to look him up the docks district. Getting an audience with the harbourmaster turned out to be difficult though, until they found out that he was rumoured to spend time alone on a rickety pier in the dead of night every other day.

The party had Brottor Darkdelver cast waterbreathing on them and hid beneath the pier until Grubwiggler showed up. They waited for a while, until his guards retreated to the shore, and that's when something big showed up in the water. Several slimy tentacles slipped out of the water, but underneath the murky surface they could only spot a large blackness, punctuated by three burning red eyes. They soon guessed that this must be Cocytus, the fish-like monstrosity resting at the bottom of Tartarus, the prison beneath Drakespire, and one of its wardens. Obviously the creature is an Aboleth, but my players aren't that familiar with the monster manual and didn't figure this out.

This is actually one of the great advantages I have as a DM. While two of my players (Leah in the "Core Four" and Wrack in the "Other Guys") know the player manual from cover to cover, they have all been so courteous as not to look into the Dungeon Master Guide or Monster Manual, and none of them have played D&D in any other context but my game. This means that it's very hard for them to metagame when encountering monsters, and it makes every new monster a mysterious challenge. The first time they met a troll they didn't even know to use fire against it.

So they wait out this meeting between man and fish, not wanting to tangle with the massive nautical horror, and pop up out of the water when its good and gone. While they haven't been able to catch any of the conversation between Cocytus and Grubwiggler, the harbourmaster still reacts like he's been caught with his hand in the cookiejar and quickly agrees to stash them on a ship out of town whenever they like, free of charge.

By the way, yes, I did steal Grubwiggler's name from the OotS character, but otherwise the two are nothing alike. It would have probably been more appropriate to name Father Griswold "Grubwiggler", but that particular character has been alluded to in the past, so I no longer had that option. I chose the name for three reasons: first of all I just like the ickiness it conveys. I knew that I was likely not going to get much "screen-time" for the harbourmaster and wanted to instantly establish that he was dishevelled and somewhat disturbed. I described him as unkempt, and frequently scratching himself to stave off the legion of flees that had made his beard their domicile. The harbourmaster is being mind-controlled by Cocytus, a spell which he refreshes during these nightly meetings, and the ancient fish doesn't really care about his thrall's personal hygiene. Grubwiggler is quickly falling apart.

A second reason for the name is the nautical implications it has. Someone who wiggles grubs might be a fisherman, which I thought would be apt as well as somewhat ironical, considering he's being controlled by a fish. He is also the right kind of jittery and twitchy for the name, as if he himself is the grub being wiggled. The name conveys a sort of sad disgust that I really wanted in this character. Finally, Cocytus is using him to sabotage the stability of the kingdom every which way he can, mostly by sneaking dangerous elements into the city, much like grubs might tunnel under something in the darkness, secretly rotting something from its core. He represents the very decay of the monarchy.

This dubious deal being cut, the party finally felt like they were ready to take on the prince. Hedging their bets, they decided to work together both with the Fisher King, who personally accompanied them, as with the Von Graffs, who sent Kong along with them. They infiltrated the Spire, this time being shipped in with a load of potatoes (the turnip economy had really collapsed after one of their foremost dealers died) and decided to wait until the next councilmeeting. Having discovered that Dalmutti wasn't quite trustworthy, and working on several shady schemes of his own, they forewent his suggestions, and instead crossed the bridge to the Magpie Tower while Hertzog was at the meeting.

The Magpie Tower was the treasury, where all magical artifacts were stored, and only once the king's quarters were blown up did the prince decide to make it his new residence. Only, it turned out, it wasn't really the prince. In a ploy my players call "your princess is in another castle", a different man entirely was waiting for them. He had piercing blue eyes and smirked at them smugly. He announced that it had been a long time sincehe'd last had visitors, and he'd been very bored, so they would play a game: he would allow them three questions, and then he would kill them.

At first the party wasn't very impressed. A single guy they'd never even heard of who looked very much like a milquetoast, what challenge could he possibly provide? Then again, he seemed very confident. They asked him who he was. "Zaphyr" he answered. Now the pieces started fitting together. Zaphyr had been the previous Master of Coin, who had vanished. Up until this point, they'd just assumed Lord Sunday had gotten rid of him to take his place, like everyone else had. In fact, the dragon guard had been hounding Lord Sunday over this, the very reason that they burst into the secret meeting earlier. They'd done some cursory research into Zaphyr's dissappearance, discovering that one of the last people to visit him was the prince, but had quickly given up on this for more productive endeavours (like securing a route into the palace).

It appeared that the prince had engaged Zaphyr specifically to pretend to be him, to pretend that the monarch was still in Drakespire, while in truth, he was long gone. In return, the greedy dragon got to stay in the Magpie Tower, amongst all the greatest treasures. This begged the question: where did the prince go?

"He went to find my father" Zaphyr answered. This meant nothing to the party. Clearly, once more, the prince was three moves ahead of them. They forewent the third question in order to get the drop on Zaphyr, and he quickly morphed into his true form.

The fight that ensued was pretty chaotic. They were fighting a dragon, for the very first time, in confined quarters. Neither of their companions turned out to be pretty useful. The massive ape abstained from the fight, instead focusing all his energy on throwing a massive magical suit of armour with the letters SHELL engraved on it out of the tower. The Fisher King betrayed them, joining the dragon. It turned out that the dead child was really Jacob Miller's stillborn son, and he was currently possessed by the spirit of Roumj. Obsessed with the circular nature of time, Miller had once again accompanied them to an important fight, only to betray them (much like in Bree).

It was quickly becoming clear how much they were in over their heads. They had guessed the motives of none of the parties involved. They'd been surprised by the dragon, they'd been surprised by Roumj, they had no idea what Grubwiggler, the Von Graffs, Dalmutti, the Black Hand or indeed even Lord Sunday were really up to. They had played a game wthout even beign able to see the board. However, while no Macchiavellian geniuses, the Core Four were still a force to be reckoned with. The Magpie Tower was filled with magical artifacts, most of them going off willy-nilly as people were smashed into them, and they somehow managed to turn this to their advantage.

The worst of the artifacts was probably a painting of an undersea still-life, which, once the canvas was torn, poured in a geyser of salt water and the occasional fish. Leah also found an orb which teleported her randomly when thrown through the room. Scaling walls and bookcases, she finally managed to get on top of the dragon, wrestled his wings together, and crashed him into the tiled floor. Once he was downed, they made quick work of Zaphyr. His final words were in defiance, "My father will destroy you!". The Fisher King, on his own, proved no real threat, despite a collection of magical wands and trinkets.

The fight did leave them extremely low on health though, and the noise had drawn attention. Steel-clad boots were quickly stomping their way across the bridge. They decided to hide inside one of the magical artifacts, a doorway that led to a small pocketdimension, a square white room with nothing but a table, a teapot, some cups and a tray of cookies. They waited out the inquisitive guardsmen here.

Only, it turned out that once the door was closed, the pocketdimension was cut off from time. So nothing actually changed while they were waiting. Instead, they decided to run in the only direction they could: across the bridge to the haunted Banshee Tower. At least they'd had cookies and tea.

They left the Magpie Tower to the sounds of Kong battling the guardsmen, and with what little headstart that gave them breached the eerie Banshee Tower. It was clear no-one had set foot in there for centuries. The place was dilapidated and covered in cobwebs. It also seemed to have been a torturechamber, with a closed iron maiden in the centre of the room. In an old, crumbling book they discovered that the last person to have been "questioned" was a certain Cade Goodbarrel, at the end of the rule of the Dragon King. After that, it seems the place was just abandoned. So once crates and torture-implements started floating around menacingly, they quickly figured out whom the ghost must be, and Roscoe tried to appeal to his ancestor.

Cade's ghostly form appeared and grinned. He decided to let them live (probably for the better, considering their low health). He then explained why. He was once the Dragon King's most trusted lieutenant. When the Dragon King was murdered by his sons, the first of the Bloody Kings, Cade attempted to set a plan into motion to bring back the Dragon King as a lich. Everything had been prepared. He was simply to get the phylactery and then set free the lich from The Dragon King's Vault, a magic ring he kept on him at all times which contained a pocket-dimension. He had used this airless, void pocket-dimension to imprison many of his foes from the past, and had set himself to regenerate there, where no-one could get to him. However, several problems arose. The Vault had been stolen by parties unknown before the death of the Dragon King, and before Cade could retrieve either the phylactery or the ring, he was dragged off to the torture-chamber by the Bloody Kings.

Whatever weird magical fluke had cursed the Banshee Tower with Cade's spirit had also tied his family line to the return of the Dragon King. They were destined to somehow return the lich to the kingdom, if not now, then at some distant point in the future. For all intents and purposes, Cade had already won, but only if he ensured the continuation of his family line. This is why he showed mercy. He needed Roscoe to live.

These facts shed some new light on the tendency for Roscoe to come into possession of ancient and most likely evil artifacts. The Wyrmtongue, the Book of Wyrms, the Soul-eater, none of that had been just flukes. He was being carefully guided by destiny to an end he might not wish to achieve.

Once they heard the renewed approach of the guard, the party fled onwards, to the next tower: the Dragon Tower. They already knew that was where their trip would end, but needed to ask their leader, their mother, Ruby, a question: where had her former huspand, Zaphyr's father, gone?

The dragon-mother wasn't particularly perturbed at the arrival of the PCs, neither was she very hostile. She'd already heard about Zaphyr, but mostly seemed to think it was his own foolishness that led to his death and was grateful to the party for finding him. She was willing to share the location of Khan, Zaphyr's father. He had been exiled for showing dangerous behaviour, as so many dragons have before him. Khan has been spending his exile on Skybreaker, a massive mountain near the centre of the kingdom. While she was sympathetic towards the party though, Ruby could not allow them to escape, and had her guards drag them off to the council, who would decide their fate.

The councilmeeting dealing with these extra-ordinary circumstances was rather too lengthy and complex to fully describe here, but I'll try to summarize the important points.
1) It was decided that any decisions made by Zaphyr pretending to be the prince were null and the council would rule Drakespire (and the kingdom) until the prince returned.
2) The party outed Grubwiggler as a traitor, causing his arrest as well as the shut-down of the harbour. Shutting down the harbour was also meant to prevent the invasion of a dwarven submarine they'd heard rumours of.
3) Hertzog was instated as a tie-breaker voter in the council. It appears that the party respects his dedication and loyalty.
4) After the death of Ducaine, his son Walter Ducaine Junior was instated as ruler of Bulwark (rather than any of his loyal squires).
5) The council decided to hire the mercenary army of Stormbeard (half of the Sons of Slaughter) to assist in their military campaign.
6) The military would deploy a new secret weapon known only as "The Final Solution", developed by the gnomes.
7) The council was informed of the brain-bugs, but were highly skeptical. The inquisition did promise to keep an eye out for any signs of them.
8) For their crimes, the PCs would be sent down to Tartarus. They only managed to have Horf spared.

Up next, The Tartarus Torment!

[MrEdwardNigma]

The Tartarus Torment
When last we left our heroes, they had been condemned to an eternity in the worst prison. I mean, it is like, literally, the worst.


A New Home
As a formality, they were sent to Judge Redriver, who quickly sentenced them, and then prodded forward with spears into the dark hallways that lay below Drakespire. Travelling along with them were:

The Midnight Crusader. Sentenced for trying to breach the gnomish airship in search of ragevials. Not really up for conversation.
Harbourmaster Grubwiggler. Even twitchier than usual, to a psychotic breakdown level.
Den Brenner. Already talking about escaping, preferably using explosives.
Kong. Victor Von Graff's ape companion.
The Amazing Snake. She claims that Dalmutti arranged this whole thing, including their sentencing, as part of a plan to break Broghan out of Tartarus. She is also a snakewoman, and could therefore slip out of her cell when necessary. I don't believe the party ever bothered to make use of this ability.


Eventually they are herded into a dark room, one by one. The first to enter, Ezrael as always, is quickly assaulted by a Cerberus, locked away at arm's length by a chain. He manages to quickly flee into a teleportation circle and pops out, deeper into the prison.

Now, as the party progressed deeper into Tartarus, I took great care to describe the various security measures they encountered. This served a dual purpose. On the one hand, I wanted to impress on the players how secure this prison was, and how challenging it would be to escape, but on the other, I also wanted to give them the lay of the land, so they could start thinking about ways to escape. Now, they never ended up taking this route back, but I will describe it in this post, so you can try to find your own gaps in security to escape through, and perhaps so you'll better understand why they didn't just walk out the way they walked in.

The Cerberus I would say could hardly be considered a true obstacle. The chain keeps it from actually reaching the path to the teleportation circle, so it is only reall there to provide a jump scare and a sense of being hurried. In-game, I would say that it was put there to prevent prisoners from just lingering outside the circle. Out-of-character, I also felt somewhat obliged to put a Cerberus at the entrance to a prison themed after the roman/greek underworld.

When Arkan went to the circle, Grubwiggler tried to tackle him. Arkan swiftly kicked the harbourmaster off, and right into the maw of the Cerberus, who proceeded to use him as a chewing toy.

The idea here was that Grubwiggler was being mindcontrolled by Cocytus, one of the wardens, and an ancient evil. As he'd missed his nightly appointment with the aboleth, Grubwiggler was slowly slipping out of his control, explaining his weird behaviour. This was the fish's move to get rid of this loose end. The players could have also saved Grubwiggler, and perhaps later grilled him for information, once he was feeling more cooperative.

At the other end of the teleport was a tunnel through the rock, going straight down. At the end of the tunnel lay an enormous cavern, where the characters would, in the darkness, be able to make out a bird's eye view of the industrious forges beneath, at the centre of the cavern, but nothing else, due to the total darkness. This was meant to convey mostly a sense of how huge Tartarus was.

The plummet ends in a lake, where they are picked up a ferryman who will take them to shore, to the forges. These ferrymen were bearded devils, and besides a security measure, also another nod to greco-roman mythology.

Beyond the greco-roman, there were also other underworld analogies. Tartarus is organised in nine circles and guarded mostly by devils. These are the circles, working from outward to inward:

Unhallow: surrounding the entire prison is an unhallow spell, preventing teleportation in, or out.
The Dome: the actual cavern. Tartarus is deep, deep under the earth.
The Vale of Tears: The circular lake at the edge of the dome.
The Forges: The nearest shore-line. Here are the barracks for the forces guarding the prison, as well as enormous forges worked by salamanders.
Disposal: right above the forges, a narrower level which deals with the processing of garbage and corpses.
The Circle of Pain: even narrower, and above disposal, this circle is ruled by Acheron, and mostly functions as an enormous series of torture chambers.
The Circle of Chains: higher than all aforementioned levels and above the shaft is an enormous network of chains, worked by chain devils.
The Shaft: the actual prison, at the centre of the circles, is an enormous shaft, ever downward, with many tunnels at the sides where the prisoners reside. At the bottom is a lake, where Cocytus lives.
Styx: high above, hanging from the dome, is a stalactite that is home to the warden Styx. Styx controls his undead minions from here.


The tunnel that the PCs had just fallen through was supposed to be the only tendril stretching outside the area of effect of unhallow. The teleportation circle is only one-way, but you could teleport at the end of the tunnel if you had the ability. Of course, you'd also have to be able to fly to get up there.

Leah actually chose to dive under instead of being picked up by the ferryman. Some excellent rolls allowed her to escape detection and swim all the way to shore by herself.
She soon discovered that The Forges were lined with barracks, filled with an army of bearded devils, or "ferrymen", as they were referred to here.
A number of narrow escapes later (scaling rooftops, running from troops, sliding through their legs and losing them only to find more around the nearest corner), Leah tracked down the others and stealthily joined them, deciding to escape another day.

The ferryman took the party to a small artificial island in the canals where salamanders were working their forges.
The party was outfitted with manacles, and all spellcasters or magical beings (Arkan and Kong) got manacles made out of an Arkenstone alloy.
Whatever conduit had allowed Victor Von Graff to channel himself into the ape immediately broke, leaving only a dumb, primal creature.
Even the ape understood though that compliance was the only route from here.

The next stop along the canals was a small temple on the edge of the shaft.
Here they were met with a Nalfeshnee, whose job was to explain the rules of the prison to newcomers.
They would be taken into the shaft to their cell in one of the tunnels.
They would sleep in their cell, as well as eat and drink.
Water dripped into the cell at a steady rate and gathered in puddles on the floor.
This water fed a subterranean fungus growing on the walls that could be eaten, eliminating the need for guards to bring them food.
Prisoners were themselves responsible for making sure the fungus did not die.
If the fungus did die, the prisoners would likely starve, and themselves become the new basis for a new fungus colony.
They would also have a bucket, to "do their business in".
In the morning, or whatever passed for morning in the sunlight deprived depths of Tartarus, the guards would take them to empty out their bucket, guide them down into the shaft, and provide them with pickaxes. Then they would have to work all "day" on excavating new tunnels, half submerged in the water of the subterranean lake.
Some of them would get to roll wheelbarrows of ores up to the forges, or dead fellow prisoners to Disposal.
If at any point anyone tried anything funny, went into the wrong corridor, tried to smuggle a pickaxe, did not work hard enough, or anything unusual, the guards would have no qualms about killing them.

The warden, a fat bearded devil referred to as "The Keeper of Keys", grinned as he recognised Roscoe.
"I've kept your old cell available for you" he said, smirking.
He took them on an elevator suspended by chains into the shaft and stuffed all four party members into Roscoe's old cell.
Right across from Prisoner #88.

Now, at this point, I'm realising that I've probably neglected to type out Roscoe's first flashback, many sessions ago, in full.
At the time it wasn't very relevant, and I may have skipped it entirely, but since it took place in Tartarus, it might be good to reiterate briefly.
Essentially the party discovered that Roscoe had been locked up in Tartarus for stealing something.
I don't think at that juncture it was ever explained what he'd stolen, but it was clear it was something powerful and important.
During this interlude I introduced the party to the five wardens of Tartarus as well as the general working of the prison.

Styx, necromancer, controls the skeletons guarding the prison. Hung like a shadow over the flashback, and while his influence was everywhere, he himself was never seen.
Puri. Azer warden who freely wandered the corridors of Tartarus incinerating prisoners that did not obey the rules. Could fly.
Acheron. Achaierai torturer who briefly threatened Roscoe with torture until Lethe picked him up for a different type of questioning.
Lethe. This female witch with powers over memory and mind expressed regret at what the wizards had become, but also attempted to steal Roscoe's memories, explaining why the player had no recollection of his character's time in prison.
Cocytus. Lethe explained that one of the original mages had been Cocytus, an ice mage, but he had been swallowed by some dark denizen of the deep who lived in the lake. Now that creature claimed to be Cocytus reborn. The flashback ended with one of the players plummeting down in the shaft, seeing a number of large red eyes appearing in the water, and the water freezing over, causing them to die upon impact.


For those of you who know anything about greco-roman mythology, I had themed the mages after the five rivers of Tartarus.
Lethe had explained to Roscoe that originally there had been four mages: she, Styx, Cocytus and a fourth mage.
All of them had been offered a deal by the inquisition: serve as wardens in their own prison, or die.
Puri and Acheron had actually arrived through a portal in the dungeon to the plane of fire, and had been added to the staff.
Lethe did not trust these cruel otherworldly creatures.
Cocytus was eaten and replaced by the creature in the deep (an aboleth), Styx stopped sleeping and spent all his time sitting in his throne controlling his legion of skeletons, losing all traces of humanity, and the fourth mage was eventually deemed "too dangerous to walk freely" and locked up, as Prisoner #88.

Prisoner #88's power was that he, apparently, knew everything, both future and past.
He knew, during the flashback, that Roscoe was in a flashback, and that Lethe would not be able to steal his memories from him, as they had already been stolen by her.
Is the tapestry I'm weaving still making sense to anyone?

I neglected to go into detail about this four years ago because back then, it was hardly relevant to matters at hand.
I was already preparing, way back then, for them to eventually end up in this dungeon.
I had already laid the groundwork, and I feel like that really paid off during these sessions, as Tartarus had been very highly anticipated, and felt like an important part of the game world because it had been so present, and already established. I think that the impact would have been far lesser if I had just come up with this place out of the blue. It would have just felt like another dungeon.

In any case, back to the game.
The players knew more or less about the powers of Prisoner #88 and tried to leverage him for information.
However, the whole idea is that this man can see how his every action changes the world, the entire ripple effect of his every movement, as, in his view, he is the only non-constant factor in an otherwise predetermined world. To minimise the agony of seeing these ever fluent, infinite futures, he had put himself in a situation where he could have as little effect as possible.
Therefore, he wasn't exactly very forthcoming with information.
He also already knew what would happen to the party, so he only offered them the following:
"Whatever the cost, stay away from Lethe, do not come near her, and certainly do not allow her to touch you. She has chosen a different master. Also, I should add that perhaps I am lying, but since I already know how you will take my words, I may have chosen them exactly to make one impression or the other. I wish you the best of luck."

The party was sort of dumbfounded. Here was a character who had no concerns about whether being believed or not. Whatever action the party would take, he already knew it would be the action he wanted them to take. If they would choose to believe him, his words would have been intended to be believed, and if they would choose to do the opposite of what he said, that would have been his intention all along.

I could have made this little trick work easily by only deciding on Prisoner #88's motivations after the fact, but I decided to take the opposite approach and accurately predicted what my players would do with the information given. They were a careful bunch, and would therefore avoid Lethe at all costs.

The party went to sleep in their new abode, and I hit them with another flashback.
This time it was the tale of Roscoe's first escape from Tartarus.

The Great Escape
The PCs woke up in the exact same cell they had gone asleep in, and for a moment, it seemed like it was just the next "morning".
That is, until Prisoner #88 came up to the bars of his cell and said "wait, and see...", and I switched out their charactersheets for their flashback (level 1) character sheets.

A skum came up to the cell, unlocked it, and then gestured to follow him.
At this point they didn't know who the skum was working for, but they decided to play along to figure out as much information as possible.
When they got to the shaft, they could see and hear a huge fight going on up at the forges.
The skeletal guards and the bearded devils were engaged in combat with a cloud giant, dressed as another prisoner.

This distraction allowed them to descend without too many issues.
At the bottom of the shaft, at the lake, Cocytus appeared, and it turned out he was trying to help them (or at least Roscoe).
I used the aboleth's mucus cloud ability to allow them to breathe underwater, and then the skum dragged them through an underwater tunnel until they ended up in the docks of Drakespire, where a ship was waiting for them, dragged them onboard, and into barrels of water that had been prepped (as the mucus cloud ability changes regular breathing to waterbreathing for three hours).

On the one hand, I was allowing the players to gather new information for a potential jailbreak, but on the other, I also wanted to show them that great preparation had gone into Roscoe's last escape, and that he'd only been able to make it because he had some very powerful allies.

Preparations
The PCs spent the next few days, perhaps even a week, feeling out the security of the prison and thinking about an escape plan.
They found allies in the many dwarves working in the shaft, as they were led by Helga Bolderd, an NPC they'd befriended all the way back in the very start of their adventure.
Helga informed them that a couple of days before they'd arrived, a tunnel had collapsed upon breaching a natural cave, and the wardens had decided not to reopen it, abandoning the dwarven mining team that had become stuck on the other side. This sounded like an opportunity to escape.

A key component of their plan would be Den Brenner.
The dwarf promised them that he could build them a powerful bomb, if they were able to gather the right materials for him.
The key ingredients were

Sulfur, sometimes found while digging tunnels
Green slime, used in the pit they dumped their buckets in every morning
Carrion crawler venom, found on the disposal level


Sulfur was the easiest.
They simply convinced the dwarves to keep hold of any sulfur they found for them, so that they wouldn't have to wait to find it themselves.
I had a random rolling table of what they would find every day while digging tunnels, but luckily they managed to smoothly avoid that particular bit of RNG.

Green slime was harder.
They could easily find an unguarded moment in which they could inspect the pit, but transporting the slime would be the real hassle.
As it says in the rules "Green slime devours flesh and organic materials on contact and is even capable of dissolving metal."
They crafted a small stone bowl and stone tip that would fit in the bowl, tied the tip to a piece of rope (made from the clothes of the dead), dipped it into the slime, and then fit the two stones together. This only after a series of failures though, including lowering Roscoe by the rope to the slime.

For the carrion crawler, they had to find an excuse to go up to disposal.
That was as easy as waiting around for someone to die and carting them up there in a wheelbarrow, but none of them wanted to go face the crawlers alone.
So instead, they decided to hang around The Midnight Crusader, known for his temper, and goad him into conflict.
Eventually he snapped and killed four dwarves.
They snuck into the disposal level and fought the crawlers.
This was very difficult fight, and their first one in Tartarus.
Not having any of their equipment was really turning out to be an awful drawback.
Roscoe eventually figured out that he didn't really need a good weapon, as long as he had A weapon, to apply his sneak attack damage.
He ended up using a small piece of metal wire, barely bigger than his hand, to concistently deal 4d6 damage.
He didn't even bother rolling for the wire's actual damage.

Finally, they had the dwarves organise another distraction, snuck up to the collapsed tunnel, and blew it open.
They also made sure to collapse it again behidn them, to prevent pursuit.

This was the end of that particular session.
That's twelve hours, just getting to know the dungeon and thinking of an escape plan.
And they had a blast.

An Old Friend
It bears mentioning that besides Den Brenner they'd also dragged along The Amazing Snake.
Broghan, now more beast than man, had last been seen near the collapse, and since no-one had been torn apart recently, it was presumed he'd been involved, and also stuck there.

They soon discovered traces of the dwarven mining team, and their tracker, Arkan, could deduce they had been running from something. Broghan.

As they navigated the natural dangers of the cave, jumping across chasms and climbing down steep slopes (losing a lot of hit points in the process), they started finding half-eaten dwarven corpses.

Eventually, the trail split. One wounded dwarf versus two okay ones.

They tracked the okay ones to another collapse. They'd become stuck behind there, but only one single dwarf would answer them through the small hole in the rocks.
They soon deduced that he'd killed and eaten the other dwarf, desperate for food.
They then threw their last bomb through the hole, killing the dwarf. A mercy killing.

The party returned to the trail and eventually found Broghan.
He'd grown scales and claws, much like they'd already seen on the beast that dwelled in the sewers of the Highhaven ghetto.
Combat ensued, but as it was going very poorly against this creature, they soon switched tactics, and tried appealing to the remains of his humanity, mostly through The Amazing Snake.
Every time they managed to calm him down a bit, Den Brenner (not informed of the plan) would use the opportunity to get in another strike.
On the second strike, Broghan struck back, ripping the dwarf's heart from his chest.
After that they managed to calm Broghan down, and continued their path downward, realising fully well that down was not the way they wanted to go.

It got colder, and frost showed up on the walls of the cave.
The floors became ice, and they started taking cold damage.
Then they ran into a small patrol of skum.

With a distraction from the others, Roscoe managed to obliterate them with his little piece of wire.

By now, they already knew who the skum were working for: they were Cocytus' drones who guarded the lake at the bottom of the shaft.
And it was getting colder.

With no other avenue to take, they continued down, until they reached the skum breeding pits.
Dozens of skum, or prisoners half-way towards becoming skum, submerged in pockets of aboleth slime in a layer of water.
On the other side of the breeding pits, there was another tunnel, so they tried to cross.

Ezrael, even without armor, failed his move silent check dramatically, and the skum started crawling out of their pits.
I'd probably somewhat underestimated the disadvantage the water would give them here.
While not fully submerged, the party could only move at half speed, while the water did not slow down the skum at all.
They soon ended up in a losing battle.
Broghan was killing skum left and right, but he was all the way at the back of the convoy, surrounded, and taking heaps of damage.
Ezrael and Leah made it across, but then went back in to drag out Arkan once he'd been downed.
It was only as he received what would have been a killing blow that I revealed the skum were dealing non-lethal damage.
For some reason they wanted the party alive.

Without Broghan, they made it to the next cave, which had a small beach with all kinds of washed up refuse from the city.
And a tunnel. UP.
They tried the tunnel, but bumped into some kind of forcefield.

It was then that Cocytus showed up in the water.
He revealed that he had helped Roscoe escape last time, and the party had just proven themselves worthy of another escape.
However, they wouldn't be able to escape from here.
The entire dungeon was protected with an inverse magic circle of protect against chaos.
The diagram projecting this circle was inside Styx's headquarters, the stalactite, in turn protected by a magic circle that would only let evil creatures pass.

Cocytus proposed a deal. He would again provide them with transport out, from the lake, but only if they took Snowy along with them.
Snowy was a minor villain they'd encountered many levels ago, at Bob's farm, and they'd already noticed him among the prisoners.
What's more, they would need Snowy, of evil alignment, to disturb the innermost circle.

Of course, in order to do all that... they'd have to go back.

In, Not Out
Cocytus dragged the party through the lake, all the way back to the shaft, where they rejoined the miners as if nothing had happened.
The skum pretended not to notice.

Broghan wasn't with them. That was part of the deal, non-negiotable: Cocytus got to keep him.
No-one particularly felt like challenging the aboleth on that.
Strangely, The Amazing Snake agreed as well.
Unbeknownst to the party, she had been hit by the aboleth's Enslave ability.

They set to work figuring out a new plan.
Snowy was easily convinced of joining them.
There was a whole seperate plotline with Snowy that tied him to the undead remains of Slick, which would show up near the other party, the B-group.
However, the whole thing is probably too complicated and irrelevant to fully detail here.
I might get to explaining it when I start on the next chapter in the B-group's adventures "That Sinking Feeling" (coming soon to theatres near you!).

They then enlisted the help of Olaf Thundershield, a crippled dwarven cleric in the service of Helga Bolderd.
They used the green slime to free him of his Arkenstone bonds, so they could access his spellcasting.
This was a tactic they had already employed earlier, to free Arkan of his Arkenstone and themselves of their regular shackles.

They had him cast "Hide From Undead" on the party, including Snowy.
This was a tactic I hadn't foreseen, and certainly a clever one.
I had put Thundershield in the dungeon partly so that they would be able to access his spells, but I hadn't really looked over his abilities in detail like the party did.
I had mostly imagined that waterbreathing or "protection from energy: fire" (one of my anticipated routes of escape was the portal to the plane of fire) might be useful in an escape attempt.
I like their creativity here, and the spell was able to shield them from the mainstay of the dungeon's guardians: Styx' skeletons.

They headed back up to disposal, avoided the carrion crawlers this time, and moved on to the next room, where the corpses were dragged by skeletons once no flesh was left on them.
This room was guarded by the skeletal remains of the cloud giant seen in Roscoe's flashback.
He wielded a stone pillar as a weapon, and would have been a formidable opponent, had he been able to see them.

Instead they were able to sneak past to the elevator.
I then tried to tempt them into ****ing up by having both Kong and The Midnight Crusader show up, intent on getting onto the elevator too.
However, they smartly decided to ignore them.
As the skeletons and the cloud giant became embroiled in battle though, the elevator would not move.

At this point they still did not know that the elevators were powered by sentient beings, the chains devils, or "Masters of Chains".
Leah decided to crawl up one of the chains attached to the elevator platform, and soon found out.
The devil though could see her, and a battle ensued, one-on-one, in a web of chains suspended way high above the shaft.
Leah had some trouble, both trying to avoid falling and touching the pieces of chain that the devil could grow spikes on with its abilities, but eventually managed to grapple the thing.
Chain devils have damage reduction 10 (!)/good, so this could have ended poorly, but it turns out Leah has Ki Strike for overcoming damage reduction.

Now, in hindsight, I realise I may have dropped the ball there.
Ki strike at Leah's level only overcomes damage reduction/magic.
The ability does expand to make the fists "lawful" aligned, and since Leah is a Chaotic Good monk (not allowed by RAW), we had already agreed that they would become "good" aligned instead.
However, she had not yet reached tenth level, and wasn't supposed to have this ability yet.
That being as it may, I'm sort of happy I made this mistake.
Without the "good" aligned weapons, Leah might not have stood much of a chance.
Additionally, she'd had this ability for a long time now (since 4th level), but it had never so far been relevant.
I was sort of glad she finally got to use that very specific ability (even if she shouldn't have).
In a normal game she would have gotten that opportunity long ago, in all likelihood, but the game I'm running is so low-magic that encountering a creature with that specific damage reduction is a very long shot.

Besides, it was an epic moment as she single-handedly knocked unconscious the chain devil, wrapped him up in his own chains, and then just continued climbing, all the way up to the stalactite.
The others followed, though their inferior climbing abilities meant that they had a number of close shaves with death on the way there.

They ended up in a room where two skeletons (animated) were carefully lining up skeletons (non-animated) on the floor.
I informed them that they still had a little time left on their "hide from undead", but not much.
The only other exit was obscured with a curtain.
Wisely, Arkan decided to eavesdrop at the curtain.

What followed was a series of ****-ups.
I don't recall exactly how everything went awry, but I do recall some details:

Arkan rolled a natural one when trying to eavesdrop, held on to the curtain, and ripped both it and the curtainrod off the wall, causing a whole lot of clattering.
At this point, not everyone had even crossed the room. The three others scrambled to cross.
The players had neglected Ezrael's lack of darkvision, and he ended up tumbling into a pile of corpses. More noise.
Roscoe ignored his comrade's misfortune and forged ahead into the next room.
The next room held Styx himself.
A skeleton was commanded by Styx to block the doorway, cutting off Roscoe and Arkan from the others.

The problem with "Hide From Undead" here was that these skeletons were controlled by Styx, a living creature.
Since he could see the party, he could control his skeletons and have them attack the PCs.
Luckily for the party, he decided to flee, but by that time several of the PCs had already attacked the skeletons, dispelling "hide from undead".

Roscoe ignored the fight in order to search Styx's throne, and quickly found a mysterious stave.
He immediately used it, raising one of the skeletons on the floor.
The party then started fighting this skeleton as well.

Unbeknownst to them, skeletons raised by the staff are hostile to everyone, so also the other skeletons.
However, since Ezrael was the only one close enough to this particular skeleton and he couldn't see in the dark, I just had it roll attacks every turn, and neglected to tell my players it wasn't actually attacking them.
They eventually killed the skeletons (and might not have made it if it hadn't been for their secret helper) but by then the alarm had been raised.
They knew Styx controlled all the undead, and they could already see them piling up at the elevator below.

They quickly descended the walkway that curled around the stalactite, ignoring several rooms that could have made for very interesting encounters.
There was a laboratory controlled by gnomes (Professor Galvanus, if anyone recalls?) who experimented on prisoners, as well as Lethe's bathhouse, that stored stolen memories in soap bubbles.
I had so much cool stuff planned for that bathhouse, and had mapped out flashbacks they'd be getting through the soapbubbles and everything, and whole lists of mechanics...
But alas, such is the fate of well-designed encounters: PCs ignore them.

Instead they managed to find their way into a dining hall and kitchen, fumbled around there a bit, and then went on to the diagram room.
Here they were met with a Mohrg.
If they had gone to Lethe's bathhouse, they might have been through a flashback that revealed the Mohrg's past as a serial strangler, but alas...

The creature had cleverly placed itself within the magic circle that would only let evil creatures through, and used this as a combat tactic.
The first part of the combat consisted of the PCs attempting to convince the cowardly Snowy to come closer to the monster and disturb the circle.
Once that had been done, they just ran, all five of them, and the Mohrg followed (at a somewhat slower pace).

Halfway up the stalactite, they were met with a veritable army of skeletons.
They ran back, until they were about halfway between the Mohrg and the skeletons, and started breaking apart the wooden walkway to protect themselves.
When the Mohrg showed up, they lassooed him (not knowing what else to do).
Then they tied a very heavy piece of furniture to the rope and tossed it down into the abyss.
It was a very Wile E. Coyote moment.

When they became aware of the skeletons fixing up the boardwalk on their end, they decided to crawl underneath, balancing precariously on the support beams.
In this manner, they passed by the undead legion, and then took the elevator down as it went to pick up more skeletons, and jumped off one floor earlier, onto The Circle of Pain.
Not, perhaps, the best place to get off.

The Circle of Pain
They had gotten separated on the way down.

They hadn't dared to all pass through Styx's room together, gambling the odds of someone (*cough* Ezrael *cough*) failing their hide or move silently checks being too high.
Instead they'd gone solo, each and every one of them.
And Ezrael had failed his rolls.

He wasn't the only one though: Snowy had also failed his rolls.
He was captured by the skeletons, and led back to the elevator.
Arkan, who was next in line, snuck onto the elevator and took out the skeletons, mostly by pushing them off the platform.
He only had to face four skeletons, but as a ranger specked towards archery, with no weapons, this was a pretty tough battle for him.

Ezrael had no-one in line behind him and was also taken away by the skeletons.
They were smart enough to send a whole bunch of guards.

Through various circumstances, all of them ended up in The Circle of Pain, Acheron's domain.
Now, Acheron's official duty was to extract information from the prisoners, but everyone sort of knew that wasn't his real purpose.
It was far more efficient to have Lethe extract information after all.
Instead, Acheron served as a deterent.
He was the one thing they could do to the prisoners that was worse than the prison itself.
He was the only reason for them to obey.

Acheron ran his Circle of Pain like a gameshow.
It was basically an obstacle course, and once Roscoe and Leah arrived, he made them run the gauntlet, and in the mean time he'd be torturing Ezrael.
They needed to arrive in time, before Ezrael died, but the gauntlet itself was designed in a way that you'd take far more damage and pain if you were rushing.

Roscoe was quickly left behind, due to his limited movement speed.
Leah however ran the gauntlet like a champ.
The most memorable encounter was probably a tunnel filled with boiling water.
There was the option to go round, but that would obviously take much longer.
Instead, Leah decided to jump.
We agreed that if she could estimate how far her initial jump would be accurately enough (result of the jump check) she could push off against the wall to do a second jump.
She guessed more or less the highest possible result, made it, and then aced her second jump as well, avoiding pretty much all of the boiling water.

Meanwhile, Acheron was playing another game with Arkan and Snowy.
He promised freedom to whomever would be left standing after a fight to the death, and gave them both barbed cudgels.
Arkan argued against fighting, but failed his diplomacy rolls, and as a result Snowy attacked him.
Arkan ended up very narrowly killing the albino elf.
Acheron then simply allowed him to leave, true to his word.

Leah made it in time to save Ezrael, and Acheron was about to let them go when Lethe entered and demanded the prisoners.
Leah picked up her badly beaten friend and simply ran (ridiculous monk movement speed comes in handy so often...).

They all joined up again at the lake and convinced Cocytus there had been no way to save Snowy.
What was more, they also convinced him to let The Amazing Snake go with them.
Cocytus of course did not object to sending his thrall out into the world.

Soon after, the party surfaced in the waters of the docks and were picked up by one of the Fisher King's old men.
They were brought to an abandoned warehouse where Milo Armourfoot was waiting for them with their gear, and Brottor Darkdelver for healing.
They were also informed that the Von Graffs had kept their end of the Drakespire deal and would be providing them with a way out of the city.
In a back room, a summoning circle had been drawn onto the floorboards, and soon enough a demonic creature appeared (a Xill, but even with a picture my players did not know this).
He introduced himself as Gottfried Von Graff and told them he'd been sent by his brother and sister to teleport them out.

Where would they be going though?
"Skybreaker" they all said in unison.


If you have read the above, it is worth mentioning that Arkan, sometime during their stay in Tartarus, had a strange dream.
I didn't know where to fit it in, but it seems worth jamming it in here, since it sort of foreshadows part of how organised everyone was once they'd finally escaped.
Suffice to say though that all of their allies really pulled together to make that little reception happen.

A Strange Dream

You wake up in the fading glow of the hearth. The last embers slowly dance through the air. The aroma of charred meat wafts towards you. You patter to the bowl where the small man always leaves you some of the prime cuts. You’ve learnt his name. Milo. He reeks of sweat and rancid water, and the mud caked on his boots. You’ve grown rather fond of him, in this short time. You feel that the two of you are alike, in a way. You smell alike, too. He is a man of dirt, and water, and wetness.

He is nervous, you can tell, as he shuffles about his seat. The other man isn’t. He smiles and chatters and gestures idly. He gets up with some effort, but you can tell he is far more spry than he lets on. They shake hands, exchange some words, and then he leaves. Milo sits in silence for some time as the old halfling’s perfume lingers.

“Tonight then” a voice speaks from the shadows.

You startle. You hadn’t noticed her. She smells only very faintly, of fresh rain dripping on the carpet, and something else too, something dangerous. You calm down as Milo acknowledges her.

“Tonight” he says, and nods, “Sunday is right, we may not have much time.”

She grits her teeth. There is anger in there, controlled.

“I don’t like how he’s right all the time.”

“They may have already talked.” He runs his fingers through his hair, slicking it with the grease off his palms. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but the time to move is now.”

He gets up and picks up his quarterstaff. It is a familiar movement, but he is slow, tired. He gestures towards you. “C’mon.” She follows too, without a word, and once you’re outside, at a distance.

You soon meet up with the men you’ve come to think of as the visitors. They’ve all come around Milo’s place at one time or the other, but never all together. They’re halflings, all of them, and working men, with coarse hands and sweat on their brows. They’re armed, with hammers and sticks and tools of their trades, and they’re on edge. They’re waiting on a corner near the warehouse. You’ve watched the place with Milo numerous times over the past few days. Men walk back and forth, along traced lines, over and over again. All of them armed too, with swords and spears and shields. Practiced men, but not many, not compared to the halflings. You know what comes next.

What follows is short, but bloody, and loud, and messy. You do your part, of course. You’re dripping with blood by the time the shouting stops. The workers aren’t used to combat, and you finish off some of the half-dead half-living. You toy with one of them for a while, until he tries to stab you. You then rip his throat out with a practiced movement and end it.

The men start hastily going through the boxes and coffers stacked at the warehouse. You’re about to return to Milo when you’re distracted by a familiar smell. Your heart beats a little faster as you track it through the winding corridors of the warehouse, over boxes and crates, until it leads you to four large backpacks, stashed in a wooden crate. You holler, calling over Milo. He quickly understands the importance of what you’ve found and gets his men to load it onto the cart with the rest of the stuff. Wings beat overhead, but they’ll be too late. You and Milo know these streets. You’ll be gone before they land. The master will be pleased.
The dream also announces another plot element I'm weaving in.

Yeah, maybe it's a bit much?

If anyone's excited about more adventures from the Core Four, hold your horses, because next couple of sessionlogs are going to be all about the B-Group.

You can be expecting "That Sinking Feeling" sometime soon, swiftly (hopefully) followed by "The Dropping of Masks".

[TeeHee]

Just so you know, I and several of my friends are reading this log. I only just stumbled upon it, but now that I am caught up, I am eager to hear more about the Core Four and the B-Group. Will there be another update sometime soon? Has it moved to another thread? Or (heaven forbid) has the game come to an anti-climactic end?

[MrEdwardNigma]

Just so you know, I and several of my friends are reading this log. I only just stumbled upon it, but now that I am caught up, I am eager to hear more about the Core Four and the B-Group. Will there be another update sometime soon? Has it moved to another thread? Or (heaven forbid) has the game come to an anti-climactic end?

Hi TeeHee!

I'm glad to see that people are actually reading and enjoying this.
Sometimes it really does feel like screaming into the abyss.
It's an extra motivator to get back to work on my campaignlogs.

They are not dead by a long shot, I've just been slacking off, and it's been getting harder to write them since I'm running so far behind.
I have yet to write the following chapters, all of which already took place:
"That Sinking Feeling"
"The Dropping of Masks"
"In Sheep's Clothing"
"Mr. Jinx Goes to Whisper Rock"
"Summit"
and finally "Where the Heart is"

I'll make an effort to churn those out as soon as possible...