Campaign Journal: Age of Worms

[desmond1323]

So at first I wasn't going to do a journal, but tonight's session more or less demands to be recorded...and if I'm going to record one, I may as well record them all.

So! Age of Worms--this 12 part adventure path was put out by Dragon magazine and is a fantastic piece of work, in my opinion. It's a 1 to 20 adventure that ends with the players (hopefully) slaying a god. It's full of a lot of things I've never been able to do with my players, and I totally can't wait til we get to some of the higher level stuff.

The adventure is set in my own campaign world of Alandria, so expect some different stuff to come up now and then.

So, without further preamble--the party!

Grigori, a CN human savage bard with battle-trained horse.
Leanna, a LG aasimar paladin (originally a CG tiefling rogue, but chose to change characters in order to give the party a much needed tank).
Zotar, a CN human Fey Pact warlock and sylvan raven. (The Fey Pact is something of my own working, and details--if important--will be revealed later.)
Jeremey, a LG human artificier (originally a CN human sorcer, changed for bollocks if I know).
Chaliff, a N halfling druid with riding dog.


In the first part, The Whispering Cairn, the party was brought together by the one-time rogue to escape from the city of Diamond Lake. It's a disreputable mining town, full of vice, corruption, and terrible greed. Driven by rumors of a group searching some of the nearby (emptied) cairns, the few members who had grown up in Diamond Lake knew of a hidden cairn that might not have been looted let. Deciding that it may be easy treasure to get their journey started, the party descended into the Whispering Cairn and explored--they disarmed the main wind tunnel trap, avoiding a few other deadly ones, contended with a fallen adventurer turned ghoul, barely survived against swarms of acid beetles, and almost died completely from a couple of the tombs guardians known as Wind Warriors. In the interim, they learned of a massive war between Chaos and Law in the form of the Wolf-Spider demon Mishka and the empire of Aaqa. This war led to the creation of the Rod of Law which would become the Rod of Seven Parts. This cairn was a tomb for one of their ancient warriors. During the raid, the party came to an impassable door--which the ghost of a long dead teenage thrill seeker said he would open, provided they took his remains and buried them next to his family. A seemingly simple task.
Leaving and going to his family's old home, they discovered his family's graves had been opened and the bodies taken. Checking the farmhouse, they were attacked by a wounded owlbear, which they barely killed. Afterwards, they found an owlbear cub--which they adopted--and a leftover arm, which led them to a group of enforcers in town. Questioning the enforcers led them to an old observatory, the hiding place for a necromancer. Breaking into the old place, they found the fiend and killed him and his evil creations. They also discovered a connection with the necromancer and a local business named Smenk.
The party returned after recovering the remains they needed and burying them, so that the ghost let them further into the tomb--after finding the real tomb, they came across an odd magic item they could not identify.

One of the party was a local and so directed them to a wizard named Allustan, the so-called 'Smartest man in Diamond Lake'. Along the way, the party split and searched for info....two members left, to be replaced by the current paladin and artificier.
After finding Allustan, having him recognize the odd magic item as a talisman of the sphere, showing him the odd green worm they found in the necromancer's lair, and generally swapping information...the party, with Allustan's help, decided it would be a good idea to question Smenk and find out what he was up to, hiring necromancers and the like.

A simple questioning it seemed to be, but alas, not all would go according to plan.

[Coidzor]

And thus, with Filge's death there began a tradition of killing people we meant to capture for information and leads as to what the heck was going on. (ed:Then again, the ghost teen was already dead, so maybe it's more anyone with plot relevance is doomed, even before they entered the picture :smalleek:)

Diamond Lake is boned.

edit: On the other hand, we're at least... uh.... "Representing" our party's overall chaotic outlook on life?

...Though I think the two LG guys should start balancing that out... maybe...

edit2: Oh, and in the first stint of the whispering cairn there were two characters who scarpered with the magic items they'd gotten their mitts on when we first got back to town.

They were a CN(?) rogue tiefling whose name I don't recall, whose player would then bring in the Paladin of Hieroenous, and a CN or NE sorcerer focused on illusion and enchantment and trying to realize the trickster archetype of this guy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZAY-78zhmw).

Can't remember the name of the sorcerer either, was something along the lines of Badman though, I think anyway, and his player replaced him with Jeremy. Partially about playability concerns and multiclassing with warlock at low levels to realize his concept being more than a bit painful for a sorcerer base.

Presumably they went off to go try to get up to more schemes together after trying to entice the rest of the party into a (hastily rigged?!) preliminary game of 3 Dragon Ante while waiting for the last member of the group to show up, but we haven't heard hide or hair of them, possibly because we've gained more notoriety than renown.

Funny thing about Jeremy, was that everyone failed their knowledge roll to recognize his family name when the player brought it up.

[desmond1323]

Now, the first part was simply a quick run down of the details...this one may be too, but for future posts I'll give more detailed and entertaining posts and also any mechanical details as they are important. My party is slightly more powerful and larger than the module's expected group of four, so I figure as time goes on I'll have to adapt some and make the encounters slightly more difficult. Otherwise, unlike Red Hand of Doom (which gets journal-ed quite a bit), this module seems very well put together...although a few of the story connections between episodes are a little weak. So I'll be talking about those changes as they come up.

This past session the party's plan was to find the corrupt mine owner Smenk and question him about his association with a necromancer and possibly even a strange cult or dark temple hidden underground. Upon reaching his mansion, the outside guards even told the party that Smenk wanted to speak to them (or rather, the "one's poking their noses where they don't belong)...it seemed so easy. So easy.

After being told by the outside guards that Smenk wanted to talk to them, the party entered the mansion. They were told to stay on the central hallway to the door at the end, and for good reason. The outside hallway that ran the circuit of the building was guarded by three bestial apes, chained to a railing along the ceiling. These apes were trained to attack anyone not bearing the scent of a special needlefolk perfume Smenk wore...immediately one of the apes charged the party, but could not reach them on the central hallway.

However. The druid and the warlock (who was a bit of a nature lover) did not like seeing animals kept in such a horrible condition. After a few animal empathy checks and a casting of speak with animals, the pair decided to free the apes. Using a wand of shatter found earlier, the warlock broke the chain, allowing the ape to run outside (and chase the pair of guards outside) and escape. Walking along the hallway, the party repeated this twice. The other two apes, however, decided to chase after Smenk and began to beat down his door. Just before they smashed through, the party arrived...the door then exploded into splinters and the apes charged.

Six bolts found their targets, and the two apes went down to the ground...Smenk's guards ran to the door and commanded the party to halt while they figured out what the hell was going on. Well, the druid was having none of that and moved forward to stabilize and heal the apes.

Initiatives were rolled and combat began.

Smenk and four more of his guards were hiding inside the inner chamber, so first the party had to deal with the two guards at the doorway. They did so, while the warlock spiderclimbed the wall and the druid healed the apes.

It would be the artificier who made it inside to attack the inner guards first, and he who would be hit by a very painful sneak attack by an invisible Smenk. The artificier would go down, but stabilize.

Shortly after, the warlock made it inside and began to blast Smenk as the paladin took up the front lines with the guards. The bard would begin a powered up bard song, granting everyone a +3 that would shorten this battle significantly.

Having drunk a potion of fly and figuring the warlock to be the prime damage dealer, Smenk went after him and struck a critical blow!...for minimum damage. It would only be another couple rounds before Smenk was knocked unconscious and fall to the ground, twenty feet below--thereby taking enough falling damage to die, cutting off yet another source of info for the party.

After cleaning up the remaining guards (who actually surrendered, having watched their boss die), the party decided to leave and follow up the only remaining lead they had--another infamous mining owner named Dourstone. The party had actually come to ask Smenk (a business rival) for help in infiltrating one of Dourstone's mines. Now they were on there own.

But not before searching the house for information and loot. Which led to a near party split as the paladin and artificier--whose LG natures would not let them steal, even from a criminal whom they kiled--argued against taking anything valuable. However, a truce was reached, and the party left (some of them with some hidden riches).

However, a few town guards had investigated reports of animals running amok...and knew that Smenk kept apes as guards. Seeing the party come out of Smenk's house, they investigated. But thanks to some fast talking from the paladin (and the guards being worshipers of Heironeous as well), the party managed to avoid arrest (for now) and go on about there business.


What will the party do now? The next session shall be this weekend, and hopefully we'll actually get something DONE in part two. A full session, and the party accomplished nothing within the module...*shakes head* It was hilarious and fun, but so off the rails--now it's time to see if the party can fix their mistakes and get to the bottom of what's going on in Dourstone's mine.

[dhusarra]

:)its very good campaign i think.my players are in the second part and almost got killed in the temple of Hextor.3 trapped inside and one was outside of the door.inside tieflings had cast darkness and silence imba combo :)outside they tried to flank them(one tiefiling and the priest garras).from the beginning they managed to kill all the cultists and skeletons and the 2 tieflings but one cultist escaped and warned the others high priests.until now the dire bear is chained :)and theldrick is alive with the roleplaying as mentioned inside of the pages.all the others are dead.theldrick will appear later to confront the players.

players

half giant barbarian ( will be frenzied berserker)
human monk(bloodline silver dragon) imba stun DC (18 Fort 3 tries all failed ahahah) will be (deadly venoms boxer/five animals fist fighter)
human paladin will be(annointed knight/kensai)
human rogue shadow walker will be (swashbuckler)
human chaos mage

saturday will play the next part in the caves of Erythnul :) and all are very excited :)

[Tam_OConnor]

Gaze at the skeletons of those before you, and do not make the same mistakes...
One (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109209) and Two (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110851). And uh, spoilers ahoy.

Looking forward to your adventures!

[Coidzor]

Gaze at the skeletons of those before you, and do not make the same mistakes...
One (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109209) and Two (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110851). And uh, spoilers ahoy.

Looking forward to your adventures!

Hey! I remember reading those back in the day. :smallbiggrin: *warm fuzzies of nostalgia*

I'm playing Grigori (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=323844), by the by. Sheet'll get more complete with time... and once I get my mitts back onto it.

[DiBastet]

My players made to the super doppelganger and even defeated him. However things became crazy after that and I don't know why... oh, suddenly remembered: They lost a friend that was sent to a random plane on one of those extradimensional space inside extradimensional space, and convinced a psion friend to take them there.

I said "you really shouldn't do this" in the voice of the psion, but they knew it was risky but needed to save her...

It was a mechanus-like place, and the psion was crushed in one of the cogs.

They died slowly, one by one, to the monsters of the place.


...tsc... and the arena was the next, awesome part.

-.-

[desmond1323]

Gaze at the skeletons of those before you, and do not make the same mistakes...
One (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109209) and Two (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110851). And uh, spoilers ahoy.

Looking forward to your adventures!


Heh, thanks...I'll be sure to read over those. And it's nice, hopefully having some readers...I was kinda worried this was pointless, ask Coidzor--I have confidence issues like that, heh.
Anyways, these first two were pretty quickly (and lately) done...so hopefully the quality will improve as I get used to being back in school and being dedicated to doing a full journal.

As always, comments and encouragements are wonderful...to me as the DM, and to my players too, I'm sure.



I'm playing Grigori (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=323844), by the by. Sheet'll get more complete with time... and once I get my mitts back onto it.

We really should have the whole party do this....let's work on that this weekend, yeah? Remind me.

[DiBastet]

As always, comments and encouragements are wonderful...to me as the DM, and to my players too, I'm sure.

Keep it going kid. We'll keep reading.

[Coidzor]

We really should have the whole party do this....let's work on that this weekend, yeah? Remind me.

Indeed.

I'm personally figuring we'll try to bluff our way in to Dourstone, the druid and warlock won't be having any of that stuff, the Paladin and Artificer will be filled with righteous indignation at something, we'll end up trying to murder him in the face too or provoke him into trying to murder us in the face first.

That'll end up with us getting run out of town, or effectively so, while the town itself goes crazy with the little fish trying to fill the vacuum of the two biggest fish in town getting killed in the face if the party succeeds.

...That reminds me though, when did we get that whole bard song takes a round to go into effect thing anyway?

edit: and does it state how much iron (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm)is in the ball pit or give figures such that the amount thereof could be derived? I just remembered the lulziness of that.

[desmond1323]

Indeed.

I'm personally figuring we'll try to bluff our way in to Dourstone, the druid and warlock won't be having any of that stuff, the Paladin and Artificer will be filled with righteous indignation at something, we'll end up trying to murder him in the face too or provoke him into trying to murder us in the face first.



I'm sure hilarity will abound, no matter what happens.




That'll end up with us getting run out of town, or effectively so, while the town itself goes crazy with the little fish trying to fill the vacuum of the two biggest fish in town getting killed in the face if the party succeeds.



Well, as generally heroic as the Saviors of Seawell tend to be, I suppose it's time for us to have a party be a bit more infamous than famous, huh?



...That reminds me though, when did we get that whole bard song takes a round to go into effect thing anyway?



Y'know, I wonder if I've been getting into some mind altering drugs somewhere and didn't notice...I coulda SWORE I saw this (as you know, I like playing bards, so I found the turn to take effect an unfortunate thing) but I'm looking now and don't see it. Heh, maybe my head's more screwed up than any of us realize mate, and I keep imagining things. Anyways, we'll talk details Sunday.




edit: and does it state how much iron (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm)is in the ball pit or give figures such that the amount thereof could be derived? I just remembered the lulziness of that.

Well, when I get the magazine back from Beau, we can check...I think there's enough detail to figure it out.

[Coidzor]

Welp. Guess who just died?

Half the party! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213315)

That's the Temple of Hextor, for ya.

Grigori was gored into chunky salsa by an enraged dire boar, cursing the druid, Chaliff, and her absence against the great beast.

Seeing this, Jeremy rushed to fight back to back with the paladin, Liana, breaking off his exultant slaughter of commoner cultists after recognizing the combined threat of trained fighters and the great beast.

However the cost in blood of felling the great beast was too much, and Jeremy was greatly weakened and had his head parted from his body by the last of the fell tieflings before the Paladin dispatched him with a simple shove and easily dispatched the last of the cultists that had answered the guardian skeletons' summons.

edit: And, for some reason, the warlock decided that it was in his best interest not to heal the paladin before fleeing the scene to see if they could reconnect with their druid friend and get their compatriots brought back in some form or another at the local druid sacred stones.

And were confronted, quite promptly, upon leaving the mine, by Dourstone's guards. The combination of Liana's words and evidence of hextorite cultists in the mines was enough to sway a few of the guards, erstwhile devotees of Heironeous.

Cue Yakety Sax (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ), as the Paladin refused to fight the majority of the guards, and made a break for it with the spider-climbing warlock.

Like, as I type this.

edit2: Finding the Menhir, an elderly druid there sent the warlock on a mission to get the reagents necessary to reincarnate the two former adventurers.

Jeremy was brought back first, in the guise of a dwarven lad of around 45.

Some difficulty was encountered in the process of bringing Grigori back, the body seeming to fluctuate between 3 different elven bodies of various sexes, a goblin, and an unidentifiable, featureless grey humanoid before finally coalescing into the form of a gnome.

A quick scuffle over Jeremy wanting to shave off his beard for itching all over as a side effect of the new bodies later and Grigori pointing out that all of them was itching because they had new, sticky, disgusting, naked bodies that needed to be broken in, and the party was left pondering how to stop the cult. And where the heck their druid was wandering if she hadn't gravitated to the menhir yet. (Meanwhile, Jeremy's player was tickled pink to realize this gave him 3 18s, in Constitution, Strength, and Intelligence. Ahh,the luck of the dice, how the RNG would giveth and taketh away with this one)

The parephenalia they'd taken from the slain hextorites was deemed, upon retrospect, to be insufficient evidence to justify even a search of the mines on the side of the town, in light of Dourstone's position and reputation for bribing the government to turn a blind eye to his criminal organization anyway.

Allustan was written off as too risky for the lot of them to meet with, and probably angry at them for not being able to get a better path of entry from Smenk before his grisly demise.

Upon retrospect, the party realized that there had to have been a secret passage, as questioning the miners had indicated no way for the townspeople to have gotten into the hextorite temple through the path the party had taken, and the tiefling guards were complacent enough that they didn't bother to look at the elevator as it came down when they heard it.

And so the party sets to plotting something more clever than charging through the guards at the mines that had been quintupled in strength.

Spending a few days, the party acquired new clothing and gear for Grigori and scrolls of invisibility to sneak into the mines.

Upon sneaking into the mines while invisible, after dealing with a quartet of guards blocking the path to the broken barricade, a search for such a path to the elevator prove fruitless, despite employing the magical abilities of the warlock and grigori's newly child-sized goggles of minute seeing.

With no real incident beyond the few knocked out and tied up guards, the party slowly lowered themselves down the elevator after satisfying themselves that it was not trapped...

[desmond1323]

To continue from Coid's previous post...


After taking the elevator back down, the party was somewhat tempted to take a different path (having two besides the Hextor door to choose from)...finally, they decided, having already defeated a fair portion of the Hextorites, to finish off there. They reentered the temple and saw a few changes.

Firstly, all the corpses had been removed. The two party members' previous corpses had been desecrated, marked by symbols of Hextor, and hung on the wall as warning.

Secondly, all the side doors had been sealed off, forcing the party to go down the main passageway. There was some grumbling amongst the party about playing straight to their enemies' hands, but seeing no other choice the party bravely entered the large chamber at the end of the hall.

Hearing a cry of, "You fools!", the heavy stone door swung shut behind the party and with a loud "click" locked itself. Then, a onetime handsome man--scarred from battle and even missing an eye--stood above the party.

The party had found themselves in a large room that had an upper balcony lining three of the four walls, twenty feet up. Center in the room and quite formidable was a large statue of Hextor.

"Infidels. Heretics. Even a foolish follower of the lesser half! You did not learn from your first attempt--and failure!--you can not defeat those of us loyal to Hextor! Now, in Hextor's name...show them the power of true Law! Of tyranny and war!"

With that, four commoner zombies stepped from behind the statue. From the balcony stood three more tiefling fighters on the left, two troglodyte zombies on the right, and two more apparent clerics next to the imposing figure who spoke.

Unknown to the party, these three were the main priests to Hextor in the temple. The leader was a level 5 cleric named Theldrick, backed by two lovers...a male half-orc cleric 1/fighter 1 named Garras and a female human cleric 2 named Kendra.

The battle was on!

For the majority of the battle, the party remained where they were...attempting to deal with the mook zombies. The warlock spiderclimbed sideways onto the wall, but did not climb up...letting loose a blast towards one of the trog zombies. The bard began to sing.

More or less, the entire enemy force went together starting with their leader. He proceeded to summon a fiendish ape that began to attack the party. The trogs attempted to throw javelins at the party and missed. The tieflings readied their bows and let loose a volley into the party. The half-orc drank a potion and the human cast silence onto the bard successfully.

This would more or less continue for several rounds, with the paladin, artificier, and bard getting swamped up by the commoner zombies, the fiendish ape, and eventually three lemures that the leader cleric summoned. The trogs would throw javelins and miss every time. The tieflings would continue to shoot, having varied success at hitting and missing. The half-orc drank potions for four rounds and then jumped down to fight the party. The warlock eventually focused his blasts against the leader cleric, eventually getting into a 'I-blast-he-heals-rinse-repeat' cycle for several rounds. At first, the female cleric cast spells at the party--her bane failed, but she hit the whole party with a sound burst. After depleting her spells and scrolls, she went to assist the leader by using her cure light wand.

After aporting up to the leader cleric, the artificier and the warlock managed to bring down the leader twice, before also getting the female cleric to stop his heals.

Meanwhile, the melee-ers had finished off the ape, had no problems with the lemures and ignored them, and were having some problems with the commoner zombies. Finally, the half-orc arrived and proved to be powerful due to hus buffs...which got worse after the trogs ran out of javelins and jumped down to join the fray.

After the fall of the two clerics, the battle seemed like a simple enough matter to just clean up. Aporting again next to the tieflings, the artificier felt he would be able to finish them off. However, one round later, a tiefling pulled out his greataxe and criticaled the artificier for thirty damage, killing him.

Another tiefling had run over to the leader cleric and gave hm a potion, bringing him back up again.

Finally, the party was more or less at the mopping up stage. The warlock was all but untouchable from the tieflings thanks to his shield and he took out the last major threat by blasting the half-orc, the bard began a game of cat and mouse....swiping a dagger at a zombie and then tumbling away, the paladin had been knocked to negatives but stabalized, and the artificier was dead.

After finishing off the zombies, the warlock revived the paladin and the party slayed the three tieflings, ending the fight.

After that, they looted, explored the rest of the temple (missing out on a little treasure, but meh), each party member took a hand or foot to reincarnate their fallen comrade, and had to figure out a way to sneak back out and SNEAK BACK IN AGAIN. *facepalm*




A EPL 3 party successfully defeated an EL 9 encounter, with only one loss. Not bad, quite epic in fact.

One note to DMs running this....think out, very clearly, what will happen if the party exits and enters a lot. There should be ramifications for them just breaking into the mine if they haven't established a clear way in. Like my party.

*sighs*

Thankfully, I have a week to figure it out and we've now completed about 33% of the module! Tune in next week for part 2 (technically 3!) of The Ebon Triad!

[desmond1323]

Since it's changed up a bit (and I have corrections to make), here's the party as a refresher! I think I'll ask peeps what they plan on doing and make records of that, eventually...just to give you guys some idea.


Grigori, a CN forest gnome savage bard with battle-trained horse.
Leianna, a LG aasimar paladin, here on personal mission assigned by Heironeous.
Zotar, a CG human Fey Pact warlock. (The Fey Pact is something of my own working, and details--if important--will be revealed later.) (The Fey he is Pacted with is a member of the Winter Kingdom, and is related to the woodlands.)
Jeremey, a LG human artificier.
Chaliff, a N halfling druid with riding dog.


A few notes...
Grigori was once human, but was killed and reincarnated.
Jeremy was originally human, killed and reincarnated as a dwarf, then killed again and reincarnated back into a human.

[Coidzor]

That reminds me. As a forest gnome, I can talk to forest animals now.

Trippy. :smallconfused: Too bad I didn't put points into diplomancy, I guess. :smallamused:

edit: and I managed to give myself a headache while trying to figure out scent (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#scent) and pass without trace (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/passWithoutTrace.htm) interacted.