Campaign Log: Vampires Abound

[McToomin]

Hey everybody. With last night's session, our ongoing campaign took a turn for the epic (not literally epic levels) (and I was already having a ton of fun anyway), and I thought it was good enough to share with everyone. We have a great cast of characters (PCs and NPCs), and a really interesting ongoing story. So here we go (I took a lot of inspiration from the SilverClawShift campaigns, so you'll probably see that here)!

The Characters

Thomas
http://images.wikia.com/suikoden/images/a/a5/Thomas01.jpg
Class: Rogue
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Description: Thomas is great, because just to look at him, you would assume he's a Fighter. He is 100% Rogue, but wears full plate and carries around a shield. We're on Pathfinder rules, so for his Rogue talents he took the spell-like abilities talents, and grabbed Grave Strike, allowing him to sneak attack undead (very useful for this campaign). Thomas is the face of the party, having a ridiculously high Charisma (typically makes Diplomacy checks in the 40's). He also has a loyal cohort, Cecile:

http://images.wikia.com/suikoden/images/5/52/S3-cecile.jpg
Class: Fighter
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Description: Thomas' loyal follower. Cecile serves both as Thomas' flanking buddy, and the DM's voice if we're about to do something particularly stupid and/or are totally overlooking something. The DM doesn't hold our hands, but sometimes there are things our characters should know/remember that we as players have forgotten (Symphonii's Int is 29 for crying out loud, she should remember pretty much everything ever).

These characters originally began as expies of characters from Suikoden III, but from what I understand (I haven't played the game) they deviated from that pretty quickly, and now only resemble them in appearance and name. Both are good-aligned.


Dominic Jindo
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v423/McFox9/IMG_1997.jpg
Class: Spirit Shaman
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Description: Dominic is basically a voodoo-type character, and has a lot of powers with druidic or spiritual flavor. He can blast spirits, stick someone's soul back in their body who has just died 1/week (this comes up several times), and has a lot of utility. He is unabashedly neutral and, despite Thomas being the "official" face of the party, has a stronger personality and will oftentimes take matters into his own hands.


Symphonii

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v423/McFox9/IMG_1998.jpg
(Symphonii with Gobold (see below))
Class: Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil
Races: Sun Elf
Gender: Female
Description: Symphonii is obsessed with rainbows, which is why she became an IotSV. It had nothing to do with the power granted by that class, but nevertheless she is easily our strongest fighter by a mile. 99% of the spells she knows are rainbow-themed (Prismatic Spray, Prismatic Ray, Rainbow Beam, etc.), and 100% of the ones she prepares (being a wizard) are her rainbow spells. Symphonii is neutral, but less chaotic than the Spirit Shaman. She is mostly interested in collecting prismatic gems of varying worths, in order to create a bed for the prismatic dragon she one day hopes to have. She is romantically involved with Gobold (her player is my fiancee).

Gobold

Class: Enlightened Fist
Races: Kobold
Gender: Male
Description: Yes, a kobold Monk-like character. Gobold has a touch of air elemental in him, and while I consider his "true" alignment CG, he always tries to act as LG (not just for advancing his Monk abilities, but due to incidents in his backstory that cause him to want to be that way). Gobold tries hard to do the right thing, even with two neutral characters in the party who don't always see the point. His battle tactics consist of running directly at the enemy and giving it everything he's got. This... isn't always the smartest battle tactic, especially when you're a squishy little kobold.

And so there we have it! We began the game at lvl 10 (I had already had my Enlightened Fist character drawn up just for fun, but really wanted to play him, so that's why we began the game at that level). I only mentioned the characters' defining classes above (My full build at the time (for example) was Sorcerer 3/Monk 2/Enlightened Fist 5, but he's really just an Enlightened Fist). Also, we began the game in 3.5 and then converted to Pathfinder (I'll note when the change occurs). So here we go with the first session! The session was months ago at this point, and we have never taken any notes, so I'm only going off of memory here.

"He's a vampire!"
Our characters slowly awaken from a daze. We've been adventuring together for a while now as part of our backstories, so we know each other. We wake with amnesia of anything that has taken place in the last week. All we can remember is flashes of a battle... a hooded figure and a huge hulking monster... a carriage on fire... people running for their lives.

That's all we get. We look around to find we are in what appears to be an old farmhouse, except with no furniture aside from the table we are seated at. The table has a single candle flickering in the darkness. The rest of the first floor is completely empty. The five of us wake up (four PCs and the cohort), but one person is still left asleep. A Gnome who had more recently joined our party ("Ugh, Gnomes" my character thinks). He's still out. The Rogue begins to check him out to see why he hasn't woken up, when all of a sudden its hand shoots out and grabs him in an icy grip. This was at the exact moment the Rogue noticed two puncture marks on his neck.

Needless to say, our "friend" the Gnome is already gone and is now a vampire trying to kill us. We begin fighting immediately. I use my Enlightened Fist abilities in addition to my absolute favorite feat in the entire world: Controlled Immolation (I can be set on fire without taking damage) in order to hit him with a double dose of electric and fire damage. His DR cuts through a lot of it.

We fight him, and he gets some good shots in on the Rogue, who are both still fighting while grappling. I find out that Ki Blast (another of my feats, it's basically a Kamehameha) cuts cleanly through his DR, and so I hit him with those for the rest of the fight.

Eventually, we down him without anyone getting turned into a vampire or anything.

I'm a pretty new D&D player, and so know next to nothing about most of the monsters we face. Which is fine, as the only Knowledge my character has is 5 in Arcana in order to qualify for Enlightened Fist.

"I automatically assume now that every person we meet is a vampire."
The Gnome goes into gaseous form when he dies. However, it's daylight outside (we now notice), and so he can't leave the building. He hovers around menacingly, but can't actually do anything. He dropped his gear when he died, so we grab it. Then we ignore him and search the building.

It turns out, all the missing furniture has been moved upstairs. Along with the family who lived here, who are now dead. We search through the belongings but even the neutral characters don't find anything worth taking. It smells really badly up here.

We open the door and look outside. We are in a nondescript farmland. Farms dot the landscape, but we don't see any kind of central town.

I use my Hat of Disguise to assume a Halfling form (people are very xenophobic of Kobolds, "If you see 1, there's 1,000 you don't see" as the people (our DM) says). We walk to the nearest farmhouse, looking for any information we can get.

We knock on the door, and an elderly old woman answers. We ask if she has any information about the people in the farmhouse over there *point*, or any strange goings-on in the area. She begins to say something about the farmhouse, but then adjusts her glasses, has a panicked moment of realization, and slams the door in our faces and locks it.

...

Well, that's all I need to hear to know that something is up. We run around to the backdoor to see the couple (the man is as old as the woman) awkwardly shuffling away. The Rogue and I stand in their path, trying to get them to talk. The IotSV and the Spirit Shaman go into the house through the back door. The Spirit Shaman starts looking around for any valuables. The IotSV comes across a bathtub with a warm bubbling liquid in it. She strips and gets in.

...

"Why would you take a bath in that??"
Eventually, the Rogue and I give up on getting anything useful out of the couple (they are more senile than evasive). They definitely know something, but we figure we'll try our luck elsewhere. We go into the house. The couple shuffles away as quickly as they can.

We discover Symphonii completely unconscious in the brown goop in the bathtub. The Spirit Shaman tries to pull her out, and is instantly paralyzed. Around this time, we hear a loud skittering underneath the tub. The Rogue attempts to pull her out without touching the liquid, but ends up touching a little bit and so is partially paralyzed. From beneath the tub emerges a carrion crawler.

Being the only person left who is able to move, I attempt to battle the carrion crawler while preventing the rest of the party from falling into the goop, which will paralyze them more. As I'm battling the crawler, the couple returns to the house, having forgotten about us entirely and wondering what we're doing in their house. They begin awkwardly hitting me on the head, not doing any damage but reducing my movement options. I bull rush them into the hallway and shut the door. The Rogue and I prop a chair against the door and finish off the carrion crawler with the fire that was boiling the water. We wrap our arms in several layers of towels and manage to drag the IotSV out of the tub. The carrior crawler is still on fire as we drag the IotSV and the Spirit Shaman out of the house. This is important.

Eventually, she recovers and we decide to gather information about where the nearest city is. We need to figure out what our vision (carriage on fire, hooded figure and hulking monster) means.

That was the end of the first session.

[McToomin]

Here's where my memory is the fuzziest (as I mentioned, these sessions were months ago and we don't take notes). But I'll do the best I can.

"And what do we burn apart from witches? More witches!!"
So we begin to ask around at other farmhouses. We learn of a witch who lives in the nearby woods whom everyone is afraid of. We also figure out which direction the nearest town is, and head that way. It's a port city, and a fairly large one at that. We head to the Sorcerer's Society to grab some magic items and other magical things. While there, we also ask about our vision and what it could mean. Among the sorcerers here is a neutral-aligned lich, who ends up being one of our closest friends here. His name is Demitrius, but I've taken to calling him Demi Moore since it's easier to remember.

We are told that the vision is probably of a carriage of supplies that were being sent to the Sorcerer's Society from another city. They say it's important for them to get the supplies, and they hire us to find out what happened to the carriage, and if at all possible, to recover the supplies. We mark the quest in our questbooks and continue on.

So now we have two quests, Find Out What's Up with the Vampire, and Recover the Supplies. I forgot to mention (since I forgot to remember) that among the Gnome's personal effects after we killed him, we found a note telling him to kill us, and then wait three days to be retrieved.

We decide we need to deal with the vampire first. We assume that the original vampire will be showing up to recover the Gnome and our bodies. He shows up, we jump him, bing bang boom. Vampire plotline would be over with, and we could deal with the supplies.

Unexpected Welcome Party

So we stock up on stuff and then go live in the farmhouse for a few days. Finally, on the third night, we prepare ourselves. I stand in the middle of the (empty) first floor, using my Hat of Disguise to look like our vampire Gnome buddy. The rest of the party is at the top of the stairs (the only place they can be ready for action from without being seen). Finally, we hear shuffling outside, and someone begins to open the door. We prepare for action. I'm going to try and lure the vampire in, and then we all jump him at once. Solid plan, yes?

The door opens to reveal one glassy-eyed guy. He begins to walk towards me slowly. I speak to him, but he doesn't say anything and just continued to approach. I keep backing up, going up the stairs, and he just keeps walking towards me without a word. I was a little creeped out, to be honest.

Finally, we deduce that he is mind-controlled and will take us to the vampire. Not exactly the plan, but we decide to go along with it.

Over the River and Through the Woods...

So he leads us out to a carriage, where he has a coffin waiting for "me" (the Gnome whom I'm impersonating). I get in, and then he nails the lid shut. The rest of the party follows and gets on the carriage, but he ignores them. They pry the lid off of the coffin immediately, and he ignores that too and sets out.

So for several days, we hang out on the carriage as he follows a single windy road. Eventually, the road turns towards the forest (the forest that the witch lives in, of course).

We eventually stop to make camp, and one of us (sure as hell wasn't me) notices movement. We are being watched, by a large figure. Very large. There is also a small hooded figure with it.

Uh oh.

The carriage driver is asleep at this point. I climb up into the treetops and make my way closer to the figures. The rest of the party begins shouting at the figures. I'm ready to get the drop on them if they try anything. Being this close, I can see that the large figure is a wolf-man with a humongous sword, and the cloaked figure is a tiny old woman.

We ask who they are. They say we should be careful in the woods. We ask if they know about the carriage. They say that we must mean the necromancer.

We tell them that it is assumed that they are to blame. They're outraged, saying they unfairly get persecuted just because the woman has magical powers, and because her son is a giant wolf-man. Yes, her son. I don't think he was an actual werewolf, he was just in hybrid form all the time, or something.

They say that they can lead us to the necromancer. We decide to trust them, so they go over to the party. As the wolf passes beneath me, he smells me and gets angry. I meekly return to the party.

They ask what we're doing camping out in the woods at this time of night, and I reveal my true nature and say that we've been impersonating a vampire to get to the master. The carriage driver, who is apparently now awake (we were shouting at each other for a while there), realizes I'm not the Gnome and immediately leaves...

With the carriage...

In the middle of the forest...

I immediately break into a sprint, having the fastest movement speed. He tries to get away, but eventually I chase him down and deal enough nonlethal damage to knock him unconscious. Then I put him in the coffin and move everything to the side of the road. My reasoning for doing this (beating an innocent guy unconscious and leaving him in a coffin on the side of the road in the middle of a dangerous forest) was: we need a way to get out of the forest after we deal with the necromancer, and I didn't have many options.

This initiated a series of "What alignment are you again?" questions around the table.

"He has something that's mine. I want it back."
Eventually I make my way back to the party, and we learn that the necromancer in the woods has stolen the witch's magic staff, and also has something else that she wants. Her son agrees to help us (the woman is kind of crazy, and doesn't understand everything), and begins leading the way.

We make our way through the woods for a while until we come across a clearing. In the clearing we see: a decrepit shack, a small hooded figure, mumbling to himself, and two hulking monsters flanking him.

Hmm...

Before we can do anything, a huge skeletal monsters bursts from the ground. We stay at the edge of the forest and immediately begin peppering them all with our ranged attacks. The necromancer disappears almost immediately, and we begin fighting the huge skeleton, and the other hulking figures, which turn out to be ogre mages. The fly into the air and begin throwing fireballs/shooting crossbows, and the skeleton comes upon us and begins wailing on us.

Symphonii puts up a veil of something that damages the skeleton every time it attacks us. We, however, can attack through the veil normally, and hit the skeleton with everything we've got. Meanwhile, the ogre mages are harassing us, as we have no ability to fly. The mages are running low on spells, when Thomas the Rogue discovers that throwing rocks at the mages is turning out to be a decent strategy. He begins throwing rocks.

Eventually, our buddy the werewolf dies, and immediately the necromancer pops into view from his invisibility and resurrects the werewolf as a skeleton. Ignoring both skeletons, I make a beeline for the necromancer with the use of a Lion's Charge spell (full attack after a charge) and hit him with everything I've got. I kill him instantly.

(The Spirit Shaman called shenanigans, saying that at lvl 10 there's no way a powerful necromancer's health should be as low as it was, but the DM claims that's his real health.)

We return to the fight and take out the large skeleton and the werewolf's skeleton. We run into the little shack to find the remaining ogre mage (the first one died to thrown rocks, really) and make quick work of him.

Spoils

We see that the necromancer has been wearing a wolf pelt for the entire fight. The Spirit Shaman casts a resurrection spell on it, which causes it to become a random creature (I forget the exact spell). The werewolf's father (the witch's husband) is resurrected as a bugbear. We allow her to keep the magic staff the necromancer had stolen from her, and they go on their merry way. The woman is too far gone to really notice that her son has died. We couldn't resurrect the son because the necromancer got to him first, turning him into a skeleton. There was nothing we could do.

We go into the shack to see the supplies we had been hired to retrieve. I lead the party back to the carriage, and we get it through the woods to the shack to load it up. We allow the carriage driver to leave, since he knows I'm not the vampire he was sent to retrieve, and in fact that vampire is dead. He was just an innocent mind-controlled guy, so we didn't feel right killing him. We let him go.

We got the carriage back to the road and then headed for the city.

Random Encounter!
It's the next day, and we're but a few hours from the city. Suddenly, the DM opens his book, and we prepare ourselves for a random encounter. On the side of the road, we see... an Iron Golem (Apparently, it's a hugely unlikely roll on the random encounter table, but the DM decided to stick with it. This is important later.). It looks like it can't move, and there is a small can of some sort next to it.

The Spirit Shaman, possibly getting a Tin-Man-from-the-Wizard-of-Oz feeling from the situation as I did, decided to pick up the can (assuming it was an oil can) to try and oil the golem. The instant he picks up the can, the Golem comes to life and begins to attack him. We flee on our carriage, and the golem is left far behind. We assume it will stop chasing us once we are out of its sight for long enough. I stay behind (being able to outpace the golem easily). I want to kite it in a different direction away from the city, and then outpace it and catch up later.

The rest of the party arrives at the city around the time I discover that the golem can't be enticed to chase me and continues making a beeline (as much of a beeline as an iron golem can make) towards the city. This is the moment the Spirit Shaman remembers that he's still holding the golem's can, as he never specifically said that he dropped it.

So the Shaman tosses the can into the guard tower on his way into the city, and they continue on to the Sorcerer's Society to collect the quest reward. I, meanwhile, have just arrived at the city, and stop to tell the guards that an iron golem is approaching. I run to the Sorcerer's Society looking for some kind of rust-inducing magic item.

The party has just returned to the society, and has been told they may either have 3 minor magical items, or 1 major magical item. Among the minors on display is a rust gauntlet. I am just about ready to steal it and run, when I am informed that if I take it, it will be one of the quest rewards and we cannot get a major item. I am the only person concerned with the golem headed our way, and my character has not deduced that it was after the can. Finally, the party convinces me not to take the gauntlet, as they want to decide as a group what would be better. I run out with nothing.

"I need a riding dog!"
I run back to the guard tower hoping to help them when it shows up, but it's too late. The golem smashes through the tower and downs several guards. One is unconscious, but a lucky untrained heal check saves him. Then I notice the golem walking away with the can in tow.

I decide that this will not stand. What's the stop it from going on more rampages when unsuspecting citizens also mess with it? I come up with a plan. First, I quickly find somewhere in town that has a riding dog. I get a Saint Bernard that I name Bear. My plan is to snatch the can from the golem, and then run to the nearest coastline. I will look for a cliff, and try to throw the can off and have the golem smash itself uselessly into the water. I haven't told this plan to the DM yet, I simply buy the dog.

So I set back out on the road, and it isn't long before I run across the golem. I leave Bear behind, and then rush forward and successfully sleight of hand the can away. The golem immediately begin to chase me. I run back to Bear and begin running away (the golem is still much slower than us, so we aren't in danger).

"I start heading for the nearest coastline."

"Well, the city you're near is a port city."

"...what?"

Yeah, either he neglected to mention it, or I just forgot or didn't hear, or something. But getting Bear was completely pointless. Oh well.

We head for the coast, looking for cliffs. We find a beach full of people. And the golem is still coming.

I run a ways out from the beach, telling people to run! RUN! Iron golem incoming! They laugh, because it isn't here yet.

Golem Battle
I continue running, knowing it's following me, and eventually do find some cliffs near the end of the beach, where there are still people around. I'll have to be extra-careful. I leave Bear in a safe place and wait.

It isn't long before the golem shows up. I kite it up the cliff, staying just beyond its reach. Finally, we reach the cliff. I throw the can off and just as I'd hoped, it leaps off after the can. I watch it plummet to its doom.

It smashes into the water, and I clap my hands together on a job well-done. Then, the golem gets up, can in hand, and begins walking away.

...what

Apparently, it's DR and hardness and etc. is enough to where, while the fall hurt it, it was not enough to kill it.

Sigh.

I run to the bottom of the cliff face and Ki Blast it. Ki Blast cuts through its DR and hurts it normally, but it ignores me. So I sleight of hand its can away again.

It begins chasing me, and so I make my way up the cliff, Ki Blasting it all the way. Eventually, we make it to the top, and I go Gaseous Form. I figure that it won't make the same mistake again without more enticing. I float just out of its reach on the cliffside. Eventually, it makes a wild grab and misses, falling again.

At this point, the golem is in serious trouble. It's no longer concerned with the can, and is just trying to escape with its life. Not a chance.

I run back down the cliff face and give it my final Ki Blast remaining for the day. It is enough to finally kill it. It begins emitting poisonous gas all over the beach (still full of people, who have been watching the spectacle), but I put up a Wind Wall to direct the gas away. Eventually, it stops emitting gas, and I keep the can as my trophy.

What was in the can, you ask? Chocolate sauce. It was a can of chocolate sauce. And don't bother wondering if it's explained later because, at least at this point in time, it hasn't been. The golem was guarding chocolate sauce. Random encounter.

...

"Store credit! Store credit!"
"It's not a store."
While the iron golem battle is going on, the rest of the party is at the Sorcerer's Society, negotiating our payment for the supplies. If you recall, they were given a choice of 3 minor magical items, or 1 major item. The party asks what their choices are. The DM rolls for the major item...

He rolls Mirror of Life Trapping.

It is a mirror that traps people inside in extradimensional space, and leaves all their valuables outside for you to take.

The cost of this mirror is 200,000 gp.

The DM begins to reroll, thinking that item inappropriate for our level, but then we remind him that he also stuck with the iron golem and was ready to kill us with that. He relents and allows the mirror.

Instantly, they begin bargaining for "store credit, store credit!"

Somewhere in this negotiation, I arrive back at the Sorcerer's Society, looking pretty messed up (the golem did get some solid hits in). "I have a dog now," I announce and ask what's going on.

"We're getting store credit for our item! Store credit!"

"...this isn't a store."

Eventually, the SS decides that they will allow us to have "store credit" ("It's not a store!") for less than half of the item's full worth: 90,000 gp. We still accept this, as it's an amazing amount of money for our level.

"Yeah we got store credit!"
"It's not a store!!"
It was the end of a long night, and the DM just decided to give the entire party full XP for the iron golem, which levels us. So we gain our next level (up to 11), and we have 90,000 gp store credit at the Sorcerer's Society. We decide to "shop" during the week between sessions and level up.

[McToomin]

When last we left our heroes, they had "store credit" to spend and had leveled to 11.

Doom Snail
So everyone had decided over the week what they wished to buy with their money. It's been a while, so I don't know what the other characters got with their reward. For myself, I purchased two gloves of Spell Storing, allowing me 2 extra castings of a 3rd level-or-lower spell per day. I have several useful spells in this category, so it was an easy choice for me.

Symphonii: I upgraded my +4 Int item to a +6 Int item. And more crystal prisms!! :3

We make our purchases and are about to start asking about the vampire when we hear a huge commotion outside. We go outside and look out to the ocean, where it appears as though an enormous snail has fallen into the water. It is floating there, several miles offshore.

We ask what happened, but nobody knows. They say it just appeared in the sky and crashed into the water. We ask the guards if they're going to check it out, but they're only really interested if it actually comes to port. So far, it isn't moving.

Being adventurers, so we decide to deal with it ourselves. We charter a boat (10 gp, I almost laughed at the price) to take us out there. We assure the crew that they don't need to come aboard with us. As part of my backstory, my character was a pirate for a while, and so has a few ranks in Profession (sailor). I help as part of the crew.

"It's a boat..."
We come upon the snail to discover that it is a boat. A very weird-looking boat with sails that look useless. We make our way aboard and find several slaughtered crew members, whose heads have been torn apart, leaving them brainless. Their bodies lie strewn about the deck. Those of you with more D&D experience than me may recognize what we're about to face, but I had no clue.

So we make our way aboard the ship, carefully stalking about. There's weird lighting, and the whole thing looks alien. We hear shouting upstairs and book it.

We come across an illithid about to flay the mind (so to speak) of a guy. It sees us and immediately lets loose what has become a campaign in-joke sound effect:

"FWEEEEEM!"

We stave off the effects and begin to fight, just as four mind-controlled guys appear on stairs above us and begin shooting crossbows. I spider climb my way up and engage the guys (seeing as how my Fort save is abysmal). They get crossbow bolts in most of us, and we all take some damage, but finish the fight. We shoot a flare gun out the window for the captain of our chartered boat to come close so he can pick up the two survivors we have found (one of whom is now insane thanks to Symphonii's prismatic ray).

Searching the Ship
The survivor tells us that they were slaves aboard this ship, and doesn't know how they ended up here. There should be more illithids around, he tells us. Our chartered boat comes closer, picks up the two survivors, and then moves back out to a safe distance. The survivors are basically from another dimension, and have no idea what this "water" that we're floating around in is.

We begin to carefully explore the ship. At one point, we opened a door, and a lucky Spot check by me revealed an illithid hiding behind some kind of curtains. I leapt forward and hit him with Shivering Touch, and then full-attacked him, taking him out before the rest of the party could react.

At another point, we saw two more of them down a hallway. I immediately ran to engage, only to get jumped from a side-room by a more melee-oriented one with a sword. Symphonii put up a wall that separated the sword one from us. We finished off the first two and then gave chase and got the sword one too.


"FWEEEEEM!"
At this point, we've all taken a good amount of damage, and the Spirit Shaman is saving his spells in case we get into more trouble, and he's our only healer. We've been getting FWEEEEMED the whole time, but luckily I've made most of my Fort saves.

We've searched most of the ship at this point, and then we come across the captain's quarters. We assume this is the final battle and prepare ourselves. To the side of the captain's quarters are a set of double doors.

We throw them open to reveal three illithids behind a wall of six mind-controlled slaves. All three of them FWEEEEM immediately, taking out Symphonii, the Rogue, and his cohort, along with several of their slaves. Meaning they're paralyzed and helpless. The three mind flayers are still up and ready to go, and only the Spirit Shaman and I are left.

Luckily, we'd recovered a Cape of the Montebank (lets us dimension door (teleport) once per day) from the necromancer in the woods. We can only transport three people with it at a time. So the Spirit Shaman went incorporeal so I grabbed our three downed companions and teleported to the deck of the ship...

The Captain
...to find about 6 of them flying in the air, waiting for us. Luckily, the Spirit Shaman hit them with a dispel that dispelled all of their flying at once, sending them plummeting to the deck. Symphonii was out for the duration of the fight, and Thomas the Rogue was out until there were only a handful of rounds left. There was very little movement in this fight, the Spirit Shaman and I sat still and hit them with everything we had.

The one remaining (sane) slave we had rescued armed the cannons of the ship we had chartered and was blasting the illithids for decent damage. At some point the ones we had run into downstairs arrived, and we had to deal with them too. Several of the illithids were able to go back to their home dimension before they died, although we got most of them, including the captain before he could escape.

Riches!
We went back to the captain's quarters to look at his booty, and found many riches and gold and stuff. We leveled again (to 12) too. Our other spoil of war was the ship itself.

We began to search the ship, looking for just what had happened here. We ran across those six slaves who were prepared to fight us during the final battle. They were no longer mind-controlled and happy to help us.

We found the "mast" of the ship, which was inside the snail shell. Basically, the illithid captain would "sync up" with the ship, and power it with his mind. This required a battery. The battery was baby illithids...

I wanted nothing to do with that. I got the former slaves rowing, and went outside to set up a wind wall into the sails to get us back to port. Meanwhile, Thomas (being the only good-aligned character left with the "battery" or baby illithids) argued that they should destroy it. The other two wanted to leave it intact, assuming that it would be worth more if it worked correctly. But Thomas wouldn't allow them to use baby illithids to power the ship, even if they are baby bloodsucking psychic monsters. They destroyed the battery of the ship, meaning it could no longer go back to its home plane.

[McToomin]

"You're attacked by an iron golem!!"
So we bring the ship back into port. Naturally we draw a crowd, but then we hear commotion further into the city. I spider climb my way up above to see further, and see an iron golem tearing a path of destruction directly towards me.

Man, what is up with that chocolate sauce?

So I sprint directly at the golem. My plan is to Tumble past it, and then run directly out the way it came, so at least it won't destroy anything else. Then I'll deal with it and then find a way to safely get rid of the chocolate.

So I break away from the party, just as they notice something suspicious out of the corner of their eye. They suddenly get jumped by guys in hoods. They were taken by surprise and immediately begin fighting for their lives. I've left them far behind at this point.

So I run towards the iron golem, and successfully tumble past it. However, from out of nowhere, a second golem busts out of a building to my side and grapples me.

The golems have ridiculous strength, and mine is subpar at best. My escape artist isn't high enough; going gaseous form wouldn't help; I'm completely screwed. I can't even reach around to my haversack to take out their stupid can of chocolate sauce and just give it to them. I'm pinned badly.

The rest of the party finally cleans up the guys killing them and runs to my aid, but it's too late. They arrive just as the golems finish smashing me into nothing. They grab my haversack, pull out the can of chocolate, and begin to leave.

"But I don't want to be a bugbear!"
At this point, a real resurrection (one that wouldn't turn me into a random creature like we had used for our werewolf friend's father) would cost around 30,000 gp. We had spent most of our spoils up to this point at the Sorcerer's Society.

I didn't say much at this point, as I was technically dead. I did remind the party that "Gobold" was a nickname (his true name is Rapscallion), and he was very fond of being Gobold the Kobold. Gobold the Bugbear would just be ridiculous. So at this point, since I was dead anyway, I left to pick up food for everyone.

When I returned, they had brought me back to life, selling most of the treasure from the ship along with the ship itself. I got back just around the time we got a random encounter, a swarm of gigantic wasps.

Bug Zapper!
The wasps descended on us, and we prepared to face them. However, Symphonii's reactive warding basically smashed anyone who attacked her with electricity.

So she put up an electric warding, and then just starting running around, provoking as many attacks of opportunity as she could. Each time a wasp attempt to attack her, it was zapped with a million volts and exploded. She single-handedly took care of this entire encounter, pretty much. There was one "leader" wasp that was bigger than the others, but without his minions he was worthless. We easily finished him off.

We caught up to the iron golems in a forest, and I wanted to run in there and fight them (I had by this point gotten my hands on a Ring of Adamantine Touch, meaning all my attacks would cut through their DR). However, Symphonii ended up blasting the can of chocolate they were holding with a ray, destroying it. The golems kind of walked away, confused. We decided not to retaliate. No, I still don't know what the deal with the chocolate was.

"Well of course he's a vampire."
While I was gone (and before setting out after the iron golems), they had also interrogated the guys who attacked them. The interrogation ended up being pretty brutal, frighteningly so. I think at one point they even killed the leader and then brought him back to life to continue interrogating him. It turns out that they were sent by their lord (who we got to calling Valvatorez since that's the name of a vampire from Disgaea 4, a game that was just released) to kill us, since for some reason he thought we were part of a notorious gang called the Kukri Cutters. We are not, of course.

My memory's a little hazy, but we put 2 and 2 together and figured out that this lord was also the one who had sent the Gnome after us at the beginning of the game. Meaning he was probably a vampire. Yup.

So we went to our friends at the Sorcerer's Society and got some aide, and they told us where he lived and what we could do. He was basically a lord whom no one knew was a vampire (not even them at the SS). But we knew the truth, and now had to get over there and convince him that we weren't in the Kukri Cutters. Or kill him. Either/or.

"Transport via what now?"
So our Spirit Shaman has a spell called Transport Via Plants. Basically you jump into a plant of a certain type (oak tree, apple tree, rasberry bush, etc.) and then teleport to the closest plant of that type for wherever you were trying to go.

So we jump to a city that's relatively close to Valvatorez's castle town. He knows who we are, so we want to be able to sneak up on him. The Spirit Shaman also buys a hat of disguise, so he and I change our appearances.

As soon as we get into town, however, we see a commotion and rush over. It seems as though my character's brother, Too-old, has been captured and is about to burned to death by angry townspeople. Gobold is the unique one in his family, the rest of his kin are still evil as normal kobolds tend to be. But I still want to save him.

The Spirit Shaman and I, using a combination of low-level effects like Light, Ghost Sound, and so on, create an illusion of an angel descending from heaven. She rescues Too-old, and scolds the town for attempting to kill him. We then flee at high speed.

Too-old is curious whether I ever got over that "goodness" kick that I had been on when I was younger. I simply describe the kind of "interrogation" that took place on the leader of the band of mercenaries. Too-old seems satisfied with that, and tells me that he was headed for Valvatorez to pledge his services. I tell him that Valvatorez is a vampire, which only makes him want to do it more. He goes invisible and is on his way before I can stop him. Oh well.

"You're attacked by a death slaadi!!"
We were going to end here for the night, but then we calculated up XP and realized that we were 19 xp away from leveling. 19. So we beg the DM to give us a random encounter.

He rolls, and then smiles. He tells us that we head for the inn (no real objections from us). The barmaid comes up to take our drink orders. And then kills every single person in the inn and blinds us.

Turns out, she was a death slaad. He decided to have it pretend to be a barmaid, even though we're still in 3.5 at this point and Disguise is NOT a death slaad skill. So we had a good laugh at a death slaad dressed up in a frilly dress with a bad wig on, walking around and doing the job just waiting for us to show up.

So everyone in the group goes blind for several rounds, I get hit for the entire fight (several minutes). We are all also deafened for about 5 rounds. Luckily, one of my Enlightened Fist abilities allows me to turn any ray spell into a touch spell.

So the others fight as soon as they can see, I stand around and try to be threatening. They're hitting it some, but it has high spell resistance and AC, so they're having a really tough time with it. Once I can hear again, they're able to direct me in its direction and I take 50% miss chance on attacks, but at least I get to fight.

At this point, we decide to switch to a new strategy. We're just going to Strength-drain it into oblivion. So the Spirit Shaman has moonbolt, and I have ray of enfeeblement. Each round, we stack more strength penalties onto the slaad. Eventually, the weight of his own clothes are too much for him and he falls over.

Not long before he's dead, he summons a green slaad, but I hit it with a single shivering touch (draining its Dexterity) and it falls over immediately, unable to move. The entire fight, I didn't miss a single time due to my miss chance (really lucky rolling there).

Even completely strength-drain, the slaad had several options for spells to cast, and ended up hitting Cecile (the cohort) hard. The Spirit Shaman grabbed her soul and shoved it back into her body as she was dying, something he can do once per week. Eventually, Thomas the Rogue was able to coup de grace it and the green slaad. The inn was saved! And more importantly, we leveled! It only took a whole inn of dead people to get it done.

That was the end of that session, and it was at this time (between sessions) that we upgraded to Pathfinder. We didn't lose anything from 3.5, the DM said that the main difference is that the Player's Manual is now treated as the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. Beyond that, we get to keep our supplement classes (Spirit Shaman, Enlightened Fist, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil), and all our other stuff. Thomas got rogue talents, which is great for him.

[McToomin]

So finally we've caught up to the recent past. I can remember these sessions a lot better (there were several gaps in playing between some of those sessions where we couldn't meet for a week, or what have you). There are two more sessions left, and then I'll be updating in real time. Here we go!

"I want the inn!"
When last we left our heroes, they had just killed a random death slaad who was waiting for them in an inn. He had murdered everyone else in the inn in a single blast.

Symphonii decided that she wanted the inn for herself. As part of our loot from the "store credit," Thomas had purchased a Lyre of Building. But before we could use that, Symphonii decided that we needed to drag all the bodies outside.

And burn them.

So in the middle of the night, we drag roughly 50 dead bodies out into the middle of the street, and set them on fire. We're obviously getting stares, and eventually a small crowd forms. She asks someone who the owner of the inn was, and the fearful man points him out.

We put him out, and drag his body to a nearby temple, that we nicknamed the Temple of Apathy since they decided to help us (to this day I have no idea who that temple is dedicated to). But we brought the body to the temple and had them cast Speak with Dead, so that we could ask the inn-owner if we could have his inn. He agrees to give it to us.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow
So we head back to the inn. Just as we arrive back, there's a knock on the door.

"Tax collectors!"

We stare at each other in confusion. Before we can even answer (we sense some kind of ambush), they burst the door in. Symphonii readies a rainbow beam. They simply walk into the now busted-down door and hold out large sacks.

"So what do they do?"

"They tax collect."

"What do you mean?"

"That's their standard action. They demand taxes."

Symphonii, saying that she had readied to blast them if they came inside, gave them a taste of rainbow beam.

After this, we told them we wouldn't be paying taxes to their corrupt, vampire lord.

"They know!"

Instantly, they draw swords and advance on Symphonii, being the closest target. However, she is much stronger than them and simply blasts them again, killing them both. We draw down their hoods to discover that they have also tattoed identical hoods onto their heads.

Huh.

Back to the Temple of Apathy
So we drag another one of the dead bodies back to the temple of apathy, and hit it with speak with dead. We ask it everything we can think of about the vampire: weaknesses, hidden entrances, etc. He doesn't know about any extra weaknesses beyond normal vampire ones. But there is a secret underground entrance to the castle. He doesn't know where, but it's a start.

So finally, we rest for the night, and in the morning we use the Lyre of Building to recreate the building the way that we want it to look. We leave a large opening in the middle of the building, where we surmise that we will plant a giant oak tree, which will serve as a point for the Spirit Shaman's transport via plants spell. Excellent.

So we decide, since the vampire has surely heard that we are in the area by now, that we've lost the element of surprise. We decide to lie low for a week (so that the Spirit Shaman's "save someone right after they die" ability will come back).

Base of the Cliff
So after a week, we transport via plants to somewhere near the vampire's castle. His castle is on top of a cliff near the sea, overlooking a small town. We were told the castle and town were similar to Castle Skingrad from Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

So we make our way to the base of the cliff. We find a tunnel flooded with water, but luckily my new spell for leveling to 13 was Elemental Body I. I went into water elemental form and swam in to check it out.

Almost immediately, I began having to make Fort saves. Uh oh. I have terrible Fort, and began failing almost right away. My Strength was draining away quickly. And I started getting negative levels.

I swam for my life and emerged just as we saw shadows ready to fight. The negative levels and damage they had done while I was alone were too much though. I died. The Spirit Shaman grabbed my spirit and stuffed it back into my body.

These things were made to be killed by the Spirit Shaman. He had some kind of spirit blast which would just annihilate them if they came too close, or within range of one another (so he could get more than one).

We healed up, and prepared ourselves again. We were going to try to make a run for it (underwater) and see if we could come up on the other side into air before anyone started drowning.

"Maybe this was a bad idea?"
So I went water elemental again, and we moved as a group this time. I swam as fast as I could, dragging the others through the underwater tunnel. We only had a single coin with a light spell cast on it that allowed us to see.

We eventually reached a basement-type room, and the Spirit Shaman could keep tabs on the shadows that were swarming around us but not yet attacking. We found, among other things, a large coffin. However, more shadows showed up, and Symphonii in particular was not far away from drowning. The shadows began to move in.

I handed her my Cape of the Montebank, and she grabbed the other characters and dimension doored their way back outside. Then I swam for all I was worth and made it out before the shadows reached me.

They finally decided to attack, and the Spirit Shaman took care of most of them single-handedly. We helped a bit, but his class abilities were made for this encounter.

Through the Water
We decided that, since the Spirit Shaman could handle everything, he should just go ahead and clear the way of shadows. He grabbed a kind of plant that was nearby and then went incorporeal, bringing it with him. He moved upward, no longer hindered by the water, and blasted any spirits that came close to him.

I, meanwhile, while I still had elemental body up, wanted to ruin that coffin. Once I surmised that the basement was clear of shadows, I swam in as quickly as I could and started wailing away on the coffin. Inside was a small bit of dirt, which I'm told was necessary for a recovering vampire. I destroyed the coffin and scooped out the dirt from the pieces just in case, and rejoined the party.

The Spirit Shaman, meanwhile, headed up through many, many basements. There were too many levels in order for the rest of the party to swim through without drowning, and no one had water breathing.

He ended up inside a cupboard in the kitchen. He checked outside to see cooks and staff preparing the day's lunch. Then he transported via the plant he had grabbed from the forest back to us. Now we had a way in.

"It's a what?"
While I was underwater, I had seen several suits of armor. I thought maybe someone could wear it as a disguise. So I went back in and retrieved the armor. The DM noted for me that it was "unusually heavy," however, I did not realize that I was apparently transporting it AS a full suit of armor. I assumed that I had disassembled it and was bringing back the pieces, but no. It was the full suit.

So I bring it back, and as soon as I lay it next to the party, it lifts up its visor and gives us a DEATH STARE.

It's a bodak. In the suit of armor. Just chilling underwater for some reason.

We fight the bodak as quickly as we can and abandon that plan. We're just going to go up and pretend and see what happens.

"I was just here a minute ago."
So we discuss strategy for a bit, and conclude that we will enter through the cupboard, try to pose as workers, and see what we can discover. The Spirit Shaman and I still have hats of disguise, so we're ready.

We transport via plants to discover... a bunch of dead bodies. It seems that when the Spirit Shaman started blasting them, the other spirits went berserk and began killing everyone in the castle.

We come across the captain of the guard almost immediately. We tell him the shadows have gone crazy and that's what's killing everyone. The captain was definitely not in the loop, he had no idea shadows were patrolling a secret entrance.

He runs to find more guards, while we decide to do what we can to stop the massacre. We run to a main hall of sorts, but it's too late. Pretty much everyone in the castle had run here for safety, but they're all dead now. Shadows are emerging from their dead bodies, as apparently they can make more of themselves.

The Spirit Shaman blasts a bunch of them with his spirit powers and destroys the majority of them instantly.

Suddenly, we hear a booming voice. "STOP." We look up to see a man who is clearly the vampire count, flanked by 7 suits of armor. The captain of the guard runs up just as the suits of armor lift their visors. The captain is hit by 7 simultaneous death stares and immediately bites it.

That's where we end for the night.

[McToomin]

So, here was last night's session. It's pretty epic!

Fight for Your Life
When last we left our heroes, they had been killing spirits but were about to be accosted by the vampire himself!

The Spirit Shaman and Symphonii blasted what remained of the shadows around us. The vampire was impressed.

"Not many people see my true form."

He then began to grow larger. A skull-like face burst out of his normal face, as he grew large horns and horrible wings unfurled from his back.

He was a black dragon.

A vampiric black dragon.

Uh oh.

He charges us, and Symphonii puts a warding to protect us. However, it only gets put up around creatures adjacent to her. And Cecile the cohort is not adjacent.

The vampire dragon hits Cecile with about 6 or 7 attacks, ending with an acid spit. She is suitably melted and destroyed, WAY beyond her negative hit point total. She is ****ed up.

I punch uselessly at the dragon. I really don't want to spend my spells, since they're all kind of worthless against undead. I have a lot of ability-draining spells, or spells that it is resistant to. And Symphonii can deal over 100 damage if she gets lucky. I simply punch as best I can. Thomas is also kind of left in the dust as our two real casters blast the dragon with everything they've got, including dispelling his many magical buffs.

Symphonii gets a lucky roll on her prismatic ray and deals significant damage. The dragon flies away, since as a vampire it has fast healing. We want to follow it, but the 7 bodaks have been moving steadily toward us and are now within range. The Spirit Shaman sets up death warding on Symphonii and myself, and puts acid resistance on Symphonii.

We begin fighting the bodaks, and the vampire dragon flies back within range. He does an acid line targeting myself, Symphonii, and Thomas. However, I successfully evade, and Symphonii's acid resistance takes the brunt of the blow. Now that his health is lower, I begin firing Ki Blasts at it.

It realizes its in trouble and goes invisible (we're basically ignoring the bodaks, since their death glares are no longer affecting us since we have death warding, they aren't really doing much). However, the Spirit Shaman hits it with fairy fire and outlines it in glittering dust.

Seeing that it has been revealed, the dragon goes gaseous form and attempts to escape through the floor. Symphonii tells the bodaks that if they help us kill the vampire dragon, we'll let them live. They immediately change sides (since they're all about to die) and begin to hit the dragon as he attempts to descend through the floor. With a combination of all our attacks, we able to kill it before it escapes.

"I didn't promise them anything!"
So the vampire dragon goes gaseous form again, being a vampire that has died, and heads directly downward, presumably in the direction of his coffin. I go gaseous form and attempt to follow him, but I only have a fly speed of 10 ft. in that form, and I quickly lose the trail.

The Spirit Shaman, having made no promises to the bodaks, finishes them off.

Everything I'm about to tell you took place in half-time. That is, the DM decided that, since we had one actual in-game hour to find the dragon before he respawned and his fast-healing took him back to full health, we couldn't just dawdle around. For every one real minute, two minutes passed in-game.

We know we need to finish off the vampire before he can "respawn". I go into water elemental body and begin searching the basements, but they are specifically designed to be confusing for someone looking for anything in particular, and my Perception is terrible. I'm not able to find anything.

The rest of the party decides we need magical help locating the coffin. The Spirit Shaman and Thomas transport via plants directly into Demi Moore's room (the neutral lich from the Sorcerer's Society). They get the point across that they're in a terrible hurry and need a Discern Location (or something like that) scroll. Demi Moore, however, doesn't know where such a scroll is.

"I do have two Locate Objects though."

"Couldn't we use Locate Object to find the scroll of Discern Location?"

"...I suppose."

During their conversation, they also mention that they have stakes to kill the vampire. However, they have normal-sized stakes, and we're dealing with an Adult Black Dragon. They ask what kind of stake would be necessary, and Demi Moore sharpens a quarterstaff into a makeshift stake.

So they quickly pay for the two locate objects and use one immediately. They find that the discern location is in the curator of the SS's room.

They knock on the door and demand the scroll (which they will pay for). The curator doesn't know where the scroll is, until the Shaman points directly to it. They pay for it along with several teleport scrolls (part of their plan), and also have Demi Moore cast water breathing on them, and then transport via plants back to us.

The Most Confusing Plan Ever
So basically, their plan is to let Symphonii use the teleport scroll to teleport them to the coffin, since teleport is not on the Shaman's list. However, Symphonii would then not be able to escape, since she couldn't cast it underwater (it has verbal components). However, I have one more elemental body remaining, and teleport is on my list too.

I cast it and bring the three of us to the coffin, where Thomas and I finally get to do some real damage. The Shaman doesn't have much to break a stone coffin, however, I still have some Ki Blasts and freedom of movement underwater in water elemental form, and Thomas is also swinging at the coffin. Eventually, we crack it and pry it open. The Shaman stakes the vampire through the heart (with the quarterstaff) and then transports via plants it outside, where it burns up in the sunlight and is finally truly dead.

We made it with not much time left to spare. At this point, we ask about the fight. In addition to being an Adult Black Dragon with the vampire template, it also had 8 levels of Swordsage.

...

Audience with the King
So everyone makes their way back to the main hall. Symphonii was left there, Thomas and I have to swim, and the Shaman has to walk from the forest. We dust ourselves us and congratulate ourselves on a job well done. Just at that moment, two messengers arrive. They say that the king has requested an audience with us within a week. We don't now whether he'll be pissed, or congratulate us. The Shaman assumes that as soon as we appeared at the Sorcerer's Society and told them what was going down, they used a Sending to send word to the king.

We spend the next week basically squatting in the castle. We go down to the village and tell everyone what happened, but Thomas' diplomacy is so great that the people all love us regardless. We go through the vampire's loot and claim it as our own, of course.

I don't normally listen to loot descriptions, since I don't know what the items do anyway, and it isn't my job to write down the loot itself. I wait until they can explain to me what the various magic items do. So I was only half paying attention when the words "...dragon skull with adamantine teeth" floated through my ears.

I stopped them and had them repeat it. It was a gilded (gold-plated) and covered in jewels dragon skull with adamantine teeth.

I suddenly had to have this masterpiece as a new weapon. I decided I would wear the skull as a gauntlet and wield it as one, and it would literally be the greatest weapon ever wielded. Luckily, my DM is awesome. Technically the item is an "art piece," but he said as long as I enchanted it as a weapon (which of course I was going to do anyway), he'd let me use it.

So I took it to Demi Moore (the lich) at the Sorcerer's Society and had him enchant it to be identical to my current gauntlet (+1 Spell Storing). He said it would be ready before my audience with the king. Awesome.

During this time, Thomas also took Cecile's body to a temple and had her resurrected. It's much cheaper in Pathfinder than it was in 3.5, so it wasn't as big a hit to our party fund.

"I don't want evil minions!"
On the fourth day, two of the hooded tax collectors showed up at "our" castle. They were there to pay us the taxes they owed to the vampire, since apparently we were in charge now. We asked how they got the taxes, and figured out they were just a thieve's guild that stole from commoners.

Since Thomas has leadership, the Shaman suggested he turn them into his followers. However, they were all unabashedly evil, and Thomas is good-aligned. The Shaman was really trying to force him to take them as followers, but he really didn't want them. From what I understood, it was still kind of up in the air, but I don't think they're going to be his followers.

We didn't want to completely revolutionize the country in one day, however. We surmised that these "tax collectors" had been "tax collecting" for a while now, and the people were used to it. We couldn't just obliterate taxes immediately, it would throw the system into chaos. We told the collectors to keep what tribute they had brought us and not collect any taxes for two weeks, and then to come back and see us. Somewhere along the way, Symphonii obliterated one of them for trying to run away. The rest agreed to the deal.

Car Insurance
So I'm told that my new dragon-skull gauntlet weapon is ready, and eagerly head down to the Sorcerer's Society to retrieve it. When I get there, Demi Moore tells me to be careful, he thinks something is wrong with it.

I put it on, and it wrests control of my arm and looks up at me and begins speaking in a deep forboding voice (which the DM actually did). It told me its name was Kahren Shuren, and that once they enchanted it, its soul returned to this skull. It used to be a silver dragon who lived in the skies over the mountains to the north. Below them, on and in the mountain, lived an Ancient White Dragon who was a vampire, along with the rest of his white dragon vampire coven. Kahren Shuren asked me if I would help him vanquish these enemies, and in turn he would help me vanquish mine.

I mean, how can I say "yes" forcefully enough to that?

So in addition to being my +1 Spell Storing gold-plated jewel-encrusted adamantine-teeth-sporting dragon skull gauntlet, it ALSO has its soul bonded back to its body and has access to many of the powers it had in life. These include:

Darkvision 120 ft.
17 Int ~ 10 Wis ~ 17 Cha
Lawful Good aligned
Speaks: Common, Draconic, Auran
detect evil at-will
feather fall at-will
hold person 3/day, 30 ft. cone
in the presence of vampires, continuously emits a 60 ft. cone of cold that deals 12d8 damage

It roars its cold breath mightily all over Demi Moore, but luckily as a lich he's immune.

I immediately began calling the dragon Car Insurance (Kah-ren sure-en is how you pronounce its name). He says the problem is that, as white dragons, his cold breath would be useless against them. We will need to find a way to make his breath powerful against white dragons. Right now I am unconcerned with that, being too amazed with my new toy.

You Will Each Receive a Boon
So we were planning to end the session there, but the DM asked if we could stay and do the audience with the king, so we agreed.

We transported via plants directly through an apple that was being sold at an outdoor bazaar. The merchant immediately began selling them as "magic apples" that summoned adventurers from distant lands, and began pretending he could control us. We ignored him and headed for the castle.

We were shown inside and as we were being lead down the halls, the Shaman asked if we had outfitted ourselves properly for an audience with the king. The answer was: of course not. At this point we're in the hall standing in front of the king. After we've been introduced to the king, the Shaman and I use our hats of disguise to adopt appropriate formalwear.

The king thanks us for killing the vampire black dragon lord that had ruled a part of his kingdom. He says that we will each receive a boon.

To Thomas, he bestows the title of Sir Thomas, and grants him official control of the former vampire's castle. Thomas names the castle Budehuc (another Suikoden III reference, where his character originally came from).

To Symphonii, he says that he will attempt to find her a prism dragon egg of her very own. He doesn't have it yet but says he'll work on it.

Dominic the Shaman wanted magical items to be created for us in record time whenever we needed them.

As for me, I asked to meet with magical advisors to see if they had any ideas on changing Car Insurance's cold breath into fire breath (which the white vampire dragons should be vulnerable to).

I did so immediately, and they said that their best idea was the get ahold of a Philosopher's Stone. It has the power to change metals into other metals. Their idea was to use it on Car Insurance himself, to change his dragon type from silver to gold. As a gold dragon, he would have fire breath. This sounds great to me.

Before we can learn where the philosopher's stone might be there, a paige runs up to the king.

"Your highness! It's back..."

We look outside to see what "it" is.

"It" is a chicken.

A devastation chicken.

Being a newish D&D player, I was sitting there wondering how big a chicken would have to be to incite such panic. Then I was told that it was roughly the size of Godzilla.

Thursday is Thanksgiving, and then we will play on Saturday. The fight with the black dragon vampire was a holdover from Halloween, as we didn't get around to it until now for various reasons. And now next week, we'll have our Thanksgiving special. Should be a good session. :)

So now I'm caught up to the present. I hope people read this and enjoy it! I know the beginning parts are kind of rocky, and that's because I couldn't remember as many of the details. That sucks, because the game has been consistently great. But hopefully people enjoy reading this. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

[DemonKitty]

it was really fun to read... i hope you keep writing... characters seem very funny... when will there be more? :smallsmile:

[The Anarresti]

Seriously, why would you want to take a bath in that? What was the IotSV thinking?