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Kaveman26
2012-04-19, 10:21 AM
I felt it would be interesting to share the oddest campaign I ever took part in. I found a bunch of my old notes from this campaign run by a friend and while it was certainly the strangest and least balanced campaign we ever participated in, it was also amongst the most fun.

The DM:
It’s necessary to say a few words about the guy that ran this was campaign. First, he had never DM’d before. Second he told us straight from the start “My goal is to kill your characters. If I do that I win. If you stay alive you win.” He was a rather organized individual that also had the habit of winging things. To our advantage I think we were smarter, but he learned quick and his encounters evolved rather quickly.

The Characters:
Eek. We were a motley bunch. The least synergized group possible. We rolled 4d6 reroll 1’s with keeping best 3. No substitutions. This was principally a core rules campaign. We got to bring in about three to five things total from sourcebooks other than DMg,PHB,and MM. But it was very sparse. A true 3.5 low op campaign.

Me-I rolled a houserule “20” for Charisma. We ran a houserule where if you roll 4 1’s it’s a 19 and 4 sixes is a 20 for an ability score. I ended up with Str15 Dex 9 Con 11 Int 17 Wis 14 and Charisma 20 as my base scores. I went Bard. I took Skill Focus Perform and Combat Expertise with the intent to eventually go the trip route. I played this character as more of Viking wanderer. He took Singing as his main performance and would chant in combat. Character name Caramis…but I will mostly refer to everyone by class for simplicity.

2nd group member rolled Str 13 Dex 10 Con 17 Int 11 Wis 16 Cha 17 and decided to go Paladin. He took Combat Expertise and Improved Trip. Our thought process being we could both work to trip targets and provoke extra attacks. Kyr Prentice was his character name. He worshipped Torm.
3rd member rolled Str 17 Dex 16 Con 12 Int 9 Wis 15 Cha 14 and decided to go Half-Orc Monk. With +2 str and +2 Wis he had fairly solid stats. He took Combat Reflexes and eventually planned on going for spiked chain to gain reach.

So we had a Paladin as tank and healer, with a monk as “skirmisher” and self healing and a bard for whatever else came up. I will repeat eek. We really could have used a 4th member as anything but we ended up going with 3 pc’s.

The First Session (level 1-3):

Our first order of business is to locate a horse. The Paladin desperately wants us to get mounted for mobility and encumberance purposes. We randomly set off for hilly plains territory searching for wild horses to hopefully rear and keep as mounts. Late in the 1st afternoon we stumble upon a wagon caravan that was ambushed by orcs. Half a dozen orcs are looting the three wagons and multiple dead humans are visible amongst the battle scene. We do a quick huddle and decide we need subtlety like only a ragtag group such as our own can accommodate. Its worth noting that I spent 7 or 8 skill points on various languages. Orcish was amongst them.

So as these six orcs are finishing their clean up on an ambush they hear a very loud and somewhat stilted orcish tongue singing bawdy orcish tunes at the top of his lungs. I expend a use of fascinate to try and gather as much attention as possible. I have these orcs chuckling at me and have their full attention as I sing and incorporate the corpses into even more outlandish lyrics. Enough so that they horrifically fail the Spot checks to see the monk and paladin ambush them from behind. The Paladin taps an orc on the shoulder and says “In your afterlife you would be best advised to wear a helm” at which point he caves in the orc’s head with a heavy flail in the surprise round. The monk flurries and connects killing a second orc. For my surprise action I charge and draw my rapier and roll minimum damage to wound my orc. The paladin has first action in the round and kills another orc. The remaining two healthy orcs bug out, and the monk finishes my wounded orc. The monk charges off after the runners and the paladin checks for signs of life amongst the corpses. The paladin gives me some serious glares for incorporating corpses into my act and in character I promise we will give them every dignity in burial and that I will sing a hymn for their posthumous assistance. We get a bunch of arrows, some shortbows and random weapons from the dead caravan and orcs. We take the best condition wagon and the one surviving horse.

The Paladin is stoked to start training a mount and is heavily angered when told the horse is very hearty and strong, but no warhorse. We tongue in check name the horse Buttercup and hook it to the wagon. The monk returns to inform us the runners are dead and after proper observances we head on in the direction the wagons seemed to be heading. Hoping to contact someone about the murders. And then the “im out to kill you all “ comes into play. As we are meandering on the loose road to wherever we are headed we spot six very LARGE dead bison about two hundred yards away. We stop the wagon and try to figure out what is going on from the distance. My first thought is trap. Naturally. We steer clear and very purposefully state we are getting nowhere near them and are carefully observing them. Lo and Behold…the “bison” stand up to reveal six ogres that were wearing bison hides as crude gilly suits.

Quick Math Test for those following. A level 1 Bard in 3.5 rules has a d6 for HD and with max hps I have 6. Paladin has a d10 with +3 for 13 and monk has 9 hps. An ogre does 2d8+7 with a greatclub. That means any swing that connects on me or monk renders us into unconscious or negatives. The paladin can take two swings if they roll for half damage or less on first swing. We do a quick mental check…the horse (big and hearty) is said to have a con of 20. The ogres as best as we can recall have less. Ergo…the horse can run longer than the ogres. We immediately apply the reins and have the horse head hellbent for the horizon. We want absolutely nothing to do with this battle. The ogres begin chasing after us. For amusement I grab a shortbow and start taking potshots from the back of the wagon at the ogres. I am told that galloping in a moving wagon with unsteady footing shooting at a moving target I am -10 to hit. I laugh and replay “I have a dex penalty and no BAB bonus…im already a negative -4 to 7 based on range and my crappy dex…I need a 20 to hit no matter what. At which point the paladin and Monk realize that 3 arrows a turn with a 5% chance to hit is better than nothing. We start taking pot shots off the back of the wagon and all miss horribly after a couple turns the paladin drops a twenty and we plink an ogre for all of 3 damage. We were challenged as to how the paladin could drive the wagon and shoot and the guy playing the paladin put a pencil in his mouth and with pencil in mouth stammers “pencil is the reins” and he then turned in his chair and pantomimed an over the shoulder draw and loose. Our first time DM shook his head and kept him rolling Ride checks.

After 15 rounds the ogres have to slow down and we slow down Buttercup in turn and start circling the ogres at range still taking pot shots. 10 rounds of circling while they kind of lope towards us and we land about 4 more arrows. At which the point the ogres begin to flee half heartedly. I am ready to celebrate and the paladin grins and says “Torm suffers no cowards and these brutes will not plaque further travelers” and he begins driving Buttercup in a parallel course to continue shooting at the ogres. We are now chasing them down! 25 rounds with three arrows a round and we have about 45 arrrows left. At which point the monk laughs and says “they don’t know that” We play cat and mouse for about 5 more rounds with them trying to reengage and us evading and it is clear the DM is beginning to realize that lack of a ranged option isn’t going to cut it. We hand the reins off to the monk who allows the paladin to focus as our sole archer.

I inspire courage to give a bonus and we manage to get the paladin to a +2 to hit so a 13 connects. We actually manage to kill 2 ogres before we run out of arrows and the remaing ones are tired and spooked. I actually have to convince the paladin to avoid further chasing since melee will end us in a hurry.

We kind of haggle over the details but basically we are granted that we overcame a nearly impossible CR for level 1 characters and that merits a boost to level 2.

I take Sleep and Silent Image as first level spells. But more importantly I roll a 5 for hps and am now able to potentially withstand a single ogre swing.
We find our way into a small town…to call it a one horse town would be drastic understatement. Our horse is the only horse in town. They do have some woodsmen that are willing to barter with us and we manage to buy another 100 arrows. We ask about the caravan and are told that a family on the outskirts of “town” was expecting family. I should say that the “world” was basically being ad hocked on the fly and we really had no main story to begin.

I digress…being the good citizens we were (well at least the paladin is a good citizen) we move on to the Miller Farmstead to inform them there family may or may not have been massacred by orcs. We arrive at dusk to see their farmhouse in flames and small lizard like forms running to and fro. We see a small boy run from the flames and a blowgun drops him in his tracks. A quick knowledge check confirms these are in fact kobolds. From a quick Spot check we figure there are at least nine. The Paladin and Monk decide to go in hard and I drop a Sleep from range to try and put down 3 in a group. Only 1 is affected. The Paladin charges and connects for 9 damage…and the kobold doesn’t go down. That does not bode well. We manage to kill 2 of them which by our estimate have about 13 hps each. Before I get hit with a blowgun and get knocked out. The monk soon follows and the paladin decides to play possum. The kobolds strap us to makeshift guernies and drag us off into the woods. I come to a while later tied to an X on the wall of an underground burrow. The remaining family of the farmhouse and the monk are in smiliar positions tied to the wall. The paladin is free and removing his flail from the shattered form of a kobold. They left a cursory guard in the room we were in, and the minute it turned its back he stopped playing possum and wrecked it. I jokingly throw out “so much for bravery” and he smirks and replies “cunning is the greatest ally to courage one can hope for”
We get cut down and do our best to barricade the crude door to the chamber while reviving the farmer’s remaining family. Mom,Dad, and two youngin’s are dead. Two brothers and a sister are alive along with an aunt. We decide to try and thin the ranks a bit. We drag the dead kobold out of the way and the paladin and monk stand on either side of the door. I stand back a ways and wait. After about ten minutes a pair of kobolds comes into the room and we jump them. I carry a whip for tripping purposes and try to trip the one in front as the other two flank and pummel the trailer. I succeeded on the trip and when he tried to get up he took 2 AOO and went down. We rifled their stuff and found each carrying a clay vial of poison. A Knowledge Check tells me that I am fairly sure its drow poison. Kobolds with class levels and drow poison *sigh*.

Paladin wants to get out and get family to safety. Monk wants to stay and keep hitting them before they know we are free. I err on the side of getting non combantants out of harms way. But the monk and I are were catching some sleep while getting dragged in here, and the paladin is the only know that has any clue of where we are underground. He thinks we aren’t too deep, but isn’t sure.

We decide to set up one more ambush then make a run for it. We all make Listen checks and we hear more coming. I guess 3, the paladin guesses 6 and the monk says 4. I translate enough of what I pick up that they are angry that their comrades are “starting dinner” without them and that the chief will be punishing them severely. We set up on the door again and this time there are four, they are more leary this time and cautiously open the door before going in. I end up getting hit with a blowdart and make my saving throw this time. The paladin and I both start tripping and the monk’s combat reflexes start paying off. We kill 3 of the 4 and the fourth takes off screaming for help. At that point we take the opposite path he took and start high tailing it out of there. We follow a straight path about a 100 feet out and upwards and emerge from what looks like a large groundhog hole.
Sitting near the entrance is our wagon and still hooked up is Buttercup our horse. Almost instantly the Paladin barks “do we see any other way in?”

DM: Entrances? Just this one. Roll a Spot Check for further details. Monk rolls 20…
DM:Roll again add the two results.
Monk: 17…
DM: You see a small plume of smoke about 20 yards up the hill trailing from what looks like an old well.
Paladin: I need you all to help me flip the wagon. We are going to wedge it against the ground entrance. Then I’m going up that hill to crack anything that decides to stick it’s pillaging head up from that well.
Me out of character: Whack a Mole engage!

We flip the wagon to wedge it against the hole’s entrance. Its close to a full seal. There is a small gap where the tail end of the wagon has a gate. The Monk and I wait at that gap while the Paladin goes up the hill to engage in some heavy flail whack a mole.

Me: we could use some added incentive to help them come out. Grab as many leaves and brush as you can.

We are having a kobold slow cook.
I won’t say it was terribly effective but we started stuffing burning material down the well and into the gap on the wagon as best we could. Within about a minute we started to hear yelling from inside and a kobold popped its head up from the well only to get cracked on the skull. We kept throwing more and more material in and ended up spending about three hours in game time smoking them out. At one point they tried to mass push the wagon out of the way and we had the farmers help us shoulder the wagon and keep them bottled up. In the end we killed about 30 kobolds. During mop up we actually let the mound air out and then went in to “bayonet the wounded” as the monk put it.

The kobold warren was actually a burial mound as we found several very old carvings and sculptures along with a masterwork greataxe and a chest of silver coins. We also found a suit of full plate that seemed in very good condition. Detect Magic confirmed it was magical but without identify we were not allowed to know what properties it might bear. We took a guess it was at least +1 and gave it to the Paladin. The coins and other goods went into the now very charred and soot encrusted wagon.

As we are making our way back to the farmstead we get randomly attacked by a lone ogre who is still peppered with about 5 arrows… he charges from the woods and knocks the monk into negative with a single attack. I win init and cast Sleep.

DM:You get 1 spell per day you already used it.
Me: I put my stat boost in Cha, I have a 22 that is two spells. Roll a will save
DM: 9+1…
Me: Goodnight…
The Paladin goes to revive the monk with a lay of hands and we all three circle the ogre to ensure proper killing blow.
The farmhouse is ruined. The livestock dead and barn is ash.

We take the surviving family back to the village and vow to scour for the area for any further threats. In hindsight offering to search for viable threats would have been much more feasible if one of us could actually, you know…Track. In essence we just wandered around the following day hoping to stumble into something of note. We did backtrack to the burial mound to see if any additional kobolds had returned. I had taken the liberty of hanging the body of the apparent chief on the wall with a message in draconic that said “Justice comes to those who kill the innocent”

For three nights we go out looking for trouble and come up blank. We have about decided to move on and try and find a town of decent size and on our way back to the hamlet we get attacked by five worgs. I manage to get both of my Sleep spells off and connect with the second, the first saves. Stunning Fist connects on a second. I end up in negatives and monk is one hit away. Paladin smites evil to kill a wolf and he and the monk manage to kill a second. Two worgs are disabled and two are dead. Paladin does a Lay on Hands and gets the monk back up. Paladin is sucking fumes on hp, but they flank the remaining wolf and it bugs out and flees. They stabilize me and kill the stunned wolf. We kill the sleeping wolf, and try to figure out if we can track the survivor. Are limited resources are about spent and we are heavily wounded. We decide to get back to town and then return the next day to this area to look for tracks or easy to follow trails. Purely on a whim I cut off the dead worg’s tails and tie them to my belt.

Paladin: Uh?
Me:Anything that wants to take a bite out of me, you better believe I’m going to carry a piece of it as a warning to others…

We rest up and head out the next morning still pretty banged up, but with all available resources back to being available. We find the corpses and in the light of day do a more detailed examination. We oddly note that each wolf corpse is scarred with frost damage.

They left very little in the way of a trail but we decide to set out towards the direction we think they came from anyway. We are starting to find a trail even we can reasonably follow, lots of prints and damage to underbrush and the like. At this point a worg leaps from the underbrush and tackles me to the ground. It connects with its bite attack and im back into negatives…
If there is an upside to this, I was travelling in the middle of our little line. So the Worg tackled me and left itself flanked. The Monk full attacks and the paladin connects.It misses the monk and they both attack again. Both miss. It then tries to run for it and the paladin connects on an AOO and the monk misses.

Our little healing once again goes towards lay of hands to get me back to positives. We now are approaching whatever these worgs are using as a lair and that they are not happy. We go back to town and tell them there is nasty stuff in the area and that it is no longer safe. We then proceed to rest for two entire days to get everyone back to full capacity. We were close to 3rd level despite the relatively low number of encounters.

We hitch up the now fixed wagon and buttercup and start heading towards the worg territory. We figure stealth is not our strong suit anyway, and the wagon gives us some cover bonuses and the horse will be another warm body in a pinch. We end up transistioning from wooded forests to some hilly terrain. From this area we stumble upon an old crypt, stone opening visible from the trees. There are two ogres standing sentry and we hear very loud howling and yelping from the inside. They seem more preoccupied with whatever is happening inside than us approaching. We decide to go in guns blazing. I cast Daze to try and prevent one action from an ogre and paladin and monk go for the second. It fails its Will Save and both Paladin and Monk connect with attacks in surprise round. Monk goes first in standard round and flurries connecting once. I daze the previously dazed ogre again and he fails. Ogre misses paladin and they drop him the next round. We gang up on the 2nd ogre and as he is falling (I got a kill shot with rapier! Actual melee damage!!) I get charged by a worg from inside the hill. I take 10 damage…bringing me back to 1. Monk drops a Stunning Fist and Paladin cracks it hard with a crit for about 19 damage. Next round all three attacks kill it. Paladin burns 5 points of LoH to bring me to 6. I take a quick moment to cut off the tail and tuck it in my belt.

We start creeping inside and see a lot of old stone coffins and statues. Lots of tracks in the dust and grime on the ground. The passage takes us to a central chamber that has three branches. In the center chamber a medium sized gold dragon is chained to the floor and several worgs and a white wolf are nipping at it and harrying it. We count five worgs and a white wolf. Ugh.
The quick huddle gameplan is fairly similar to what we have been doing. I am going to Sleep and Daze worgs as best as im able. The monk is going to try and use his second Stunning Fist to render the white wolf useless for a round, and hopefully these things are already injured. Paladin says “aim for the worgs closest to white wolf and go for it first”

I throw a Sleep on the worg to the left of WW and paladin and monk both charge it. Paladin hits it solid and monk connects for mediocre damage. Worg fails its save and takes a siesta. Dragon wins init and breathes on two worgs. One goes down. Monk goes next and tries to Stun the WW…makes save. I throw my second Sleep and connect ( thank you for poor will saves) Dragon is attacked by remaining worg and is knocked unconscious. White Wolf attacks monk and knocks him down to 4. My next turn I draw rapier and move within range of the White Wolf and start inspire courage. Paladin throws a smite evil with +1 from inspire running and hit solids again. Wolf attacks Monk and rolls a 6 on the d8+6 and adds 3 from cold damage….Monk is at -11 and is killed outright. Gack. Remaing worg moves to a flanking position on paladin and hits him solid. Next turn White Wolf hits paladin bringing him next to nothing. Paladin lands a crit for almost 25 damage and we know the WW is got to be close to nothing. I am faced with a gamble…try to Daze remaining worg? Or swing with rapier and hope to take down the WW. I swing at WW with rapier and hit. I get +2 str +1 inspire courage and roll a 2….5 damage, which is apparently enough to drop it into negatives. Remaining worg bugs out and runs. We deliver killing blows to sleeping wolves and then try to figure out what the heck to do next.

We get stopped and told we advanced to level 3, that the monk needs to roll a new character and we will pick up next session in this chamber.
Paladin is sticking with the path he is on.
I am sorely tempted to take a level of wizard for flexibility. Sorcerer would be more spells, but I need options and wizard is wider spells. Cleric is sorely tempting for added healing, but next level of bard is BAB, New spell per day and new spell known.

I decide to wait and see what the monk rolls into.
Monk rolls Str 11 Dex 17 Con 15 Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 11
We have some skills in my bard
We have some durability in saves and armor with paladin
We have no tracker, no healing, no stealth, and little casting ability. He elects to go ranger2/rogue1. We will pick up tracking, we pick up some ranged damage and potentially an animal companion in a couple levels.
Its tough but I decide a level of Cleric will pay dividends. I take Magic and Healing as my two domains. We are desperately in need of healing and Identify is something we lack. My new gameplan is to go Bard 4/Cleric 3 then Mystic Theurge for time being.

Kaveman26
2012-04-19, 11:19 AM
Session 2

Second Session (3-5):
Quick update on the characters as they stand:

Paladin-Level 3 in service to Torm. Good Con and Cha, defacto leader and best armored and highest health pool. 33 HP and full plate+1. Mainly still uses a heavy flail. He has Combat Expertise,Imprvoed Trip and Weapon Focus Heavy Flail

Bard2/Cleric1- Originally I was going to be a trip support character. Lack of healing and casting is shifting me towards cleric. When asked how I justified cleric as a multi class I had a somewhat smart ass response, “In the last week of game time I have been savaged attacked and nearly killed at least four times by forces unlike I never expected. Only the healing hands of a holy warrior kept me from Death’s sitting room. If that ain’t enough to find faith what is?” My feats are Skill Focus Perform, Combat Expertise and Scribe Scroll. I rolled a 4 on my cleric HD so Im at 15 HP. I feel very squishy.
Monk-dead

Ranger2/Rogue1:We hadn’t reintroduced his character at this point but had the benefit of at least knowing what he would be playing. He took Point Black Shot, Precise Shot, Two Weapon Fighting and Improved Init. He knocked HP out of the park rolling 10 8 and 8 for 32 total.

The Action:
The Paladin and I are standing in a central chamber with four dead worgs and what we are guessing based on the cold damage is a Winter Wolf corpse. A medium sized gold dragon is chained to the center of the floor and knocked out. Paladin stabilized the dragon with LoH knowing that the monk is dead. We don’t really want to go looking for trouble but we also don’t want to get jumped on the way out. And at this moment Paladar was conceived. Detect Evil at will became the Paladin-Radar. This would get silly in creative ways shortly. The Paladin does a 360 degree scan for evil as the monk makes radar “bong” noises. We detect nothing. The paladin smashes the chains holding the dragon and he begins to drag it outside. I take rearguard and look for anything that wants to eat me. We get the dragon in the wagon and then go back for the monk’s body. As we get back I pause to cut off more tails and then announce…

Me: I want to make a third trip for the winter wolf’s corpse.
DM: You already have it’s tail…
Me: I want the whole damn thing.
Paladin: Why? We have more pressing matters.
Me: You build monuments to honor your god, you give the fallen all proper dignity and respect. I intend to honor our friend in my OWN way, and right now I want that bastards carcass to make a full damned cloak and boots. Besides…I think the white fur will look intimidating.
Paladin: To each his own. But make this quick.

So the two of us uneventfully drag a 450 pound snow white wolf corpse to the wagon where we drop it in alongside the sleeping dragon and dead half orc. Not knowing where else to go we head back to town and do our best to make the dragon comfortable. We bury the monk and then retire to the small inn that has been “home” that night my character prays in earnest and I hear a response…(ahhh cleric spells)

The following morning the dragon is still out but we know have more healing. The paladin puts 1 point at a time in LoH into the dragon until it awakens. Groggy and still woozy it tells us that it was kidnapped and to be ransomed. When I inquire as to the amount it says “20,000 gold” that gets me sputtering a bit as my next question “did they pay?” is met with “yes”. They were keeping it drugged but shortly after the gold arrived it woke up and that is when we showed up. I am practically drooling at that amount of gold for our level. The Paladin is “kind” enough to remind me any money belongs to the dragon and not us. The dragon was by it’s account captured by drow that taken to this remote nowhere to be hidden. He informs us the drow were taking orders from a bizarre snake woman. Snake woman? Torso and arms a woman, body of a long constrictor. I roll a Knowledge Arcana check…nothing. Knowledge History. That tells me I think they are called Yuan-Ti. Spiders in league with snakes kidnapping dragons? Ok.

When we come downstairs everyone in the town is milling around all curious to see the dragon. I do a Diplomacy check to try and get everyone to act business as usual. Telling them he needs rest and some peace for right now and that they would be better served erecting a fence or similar barricades for the time being. Its moderately successful.

We are interrupted by the door to the Inn crashing open. A large man, easily six foot six barges in demanding to know what happened to the Miller Family. A longbow and several weapons bristle amongst his chain shirt and he looks very imposing. Turns out it’s the monk’s new character. He is the mother’s brother and a former army tracker and scout. We fill in Uncle Emilio on recent events and offer our sympathies. He firmly requests we accompany him to the family for them to verify our story. They do so quite readily and we acquire a new party member. I ask him to assist me in the barn with the wolf…

Me: So you think you can skin this thing? I would really like to wear this one as a cloak and maybe some boots…
Ranger: I can do better than that.

A few fluffy minutes of Survival checks and out of character wisecracks and my bard is now wearing a full length white fur cloak with the upper part of the wolf’s head as a cowl. I stand up at the table and in a very exaggerated bravado announce “FROM THIS POINT FORTH LET IT BE KNOWN THAT I-CARAMIS WOLFSBANE WILL SUFFER NO FURTHER INJUSTICES FROM THESE FOUR LEGGED FIENDS”

I mockingly ask the DM if I can get a DM Fiat’ed Favored Enemy as a cleric….
He shrugs and says “sure roll a Knowledge Religion check and see if any gods are willing to grant this request” I roll a 9…”nope looks like they are not inclined to grant this request”
Oh well.

All three of us set out to the Wolf Den Crypt to see if they left the ransom or anything else. We find about 20 doses of drow poison which the ranger eagerly snatches up, along with several valuable gems and a magic light crossbow. We also recover the 20,000 in coins stuffed into several chests and I angrily agree it needs to be returned. The Paladin does another Paladar 360 and this time he pings something in the direction of a statue. We get a bit closer and do some search checks…nada. But there is definitely evil beyond that statue. We decide not to risk a primary weapon and the Paladin grabs the greataxe we found earlier and starts hammering at the statue. We break through to find a small secret room with a serpent talisman on a pedestal. Hung on the wall is a tapestry, very elegant and by our view very expensive. It depicts a lake of fire and molten slag. You can almost feel the heat coming off it, and both it and the talisman are giving off strong evil. The Paladin takes the talisman and we roll up the tapestry and put it in the wagon.

I tell the DM I am going to take 20 and do some extensive studying of the talisman for the next day or so to try and determine what it is.
We also have some questions like:
Why didn’t this get detected yesterday?
Did it recently get moved there?
Was it pre-worg/winter wolf or did they bring it?
DM mostly just shrugged and smirked.
DM:Figure it out.
With a tracker on board
we start looking to follow some trails, we found several nests or beds inside the crypt and one of the three offshooting chambers was heavily frosted and there appeared to be two winter wolves lairing there. We stay out until late in the evening and at that point the ranger quietly gets our attention in character as he comes back to our wagon.

Ranger: I got slipped the results of a listen check. Something is out there and I have almost picked it up twice, but its moving quietly and stalking us. It might be listening right now, Im not sure.
Paladin: We know there is probably a second winter wolf out here.
Ranger: They tend to mate for life and travel in pairs so that makes sense.
Me: So how do we draw it out?
At this point the ranger and paladin both laugh and the paladin in real life leans in real close to me and whispers.
“You are dressed head to toe in the furs of what could be the dead mate. You have a string of worg tails hanging from your belt….taunt it and im pretty sure it will come straight at you.
Me: Uh…that could kill me!
Paladin: We will put you in the middle so that if it charges you it will be flanked.
Me: And if I die??
Paladin: Then you will be able to address the god of your newly found faith in person on his failings. I trust in Torm to keep me safe…do you lack even that small amount of devotion?
(What makes this fantastic is that he doing this all completely stone faced with this condescending “Im disappointed in you fatherly voice” at the table)
I hold the severed tail of the winter wolf up and shout to the darkness in general…

“This one died a whimpering coward covered in its own excrement begging for mercy and I gladly took its skin to keep the bite of the wind off my back…will you die the same?”

And for what must now be the fifth time (maybe fourth) a wolf comes charging from the darkness and leaps to tear my throat out.
Now I’m wearing a plain jane chain shirt and I have a dex penalty. I have mostly lived to this point by being the least threat. I take a charging bite attack that does 10 damage dropping me down to 5.

Once again the Paladin clobbers it for a good chunk and now the ranger is swinging with a greataxe. He took Magical Beasts as a favored enemy, so he gets +2 damage which is nice to know when a savage and highly angered wolf is tearing you apart. I attack with my rapier and do manage to connect for my whopping 1d6+2. I roll a 5 so 7, that is respectable right?

This initiative roll is kinda crucial, strong probability I am dipping into negatives or dying this turn. Ranger wins, following by Paladin, we actually roll the init checks in the open like we are playing friggin marbles I roll a 9-1 for 8, its +5 so I need a 1, or 2 to act first he rolls a 3 in the open. We reroll and I drop a 14-1 for 13 and he rolls a 6+5 11. I get one more action before conceivably dying. Paladin smites evil and misses. There is an audible groan at the table. The Ranger rolls a 19 and Im wishing with ever fiber of my fictional being for that die to flip to a 20. Rolls an 11 and adds+2 from favored enemy and almost frantically I blurt out “he’s flanked you got sneak attack damage!!!!” he adds the d6 and rolls a 4.

DM is grinning at me. I got a few options. I can poke with rapier. I can try to start a performance and let the effects linger a bit after death. Or I can cast one of my two non domain spells. I prepared Cause Fear and Obscuring mist as my non domain spells. An AOO could kill me, but getting this thing to flee for 1d4 rounds might save me.

Me: I’m going to give it my best this might be my last action in life grin and cast Cause Fear. I am also going to laugh at it as I cast and chuckle “Your hide will make a fine pair of pants to accompany my cloak!”

The Winter Wolf rolls an 8 and fails its save. It flees for 2 rounds. (the paladin passes me a note that says”winter wolf has 6HD but I don’t think he realizes that”)

As it flees it takes 3 AOO and paladin and ranger both hit. As it flees the ranger drops his axe and grabs bow. He puts an arrow into it with sneak attack damage and that slows it down. I take my action next turn to cast CLW from domain slot and roll a 5 so I get back to 13 with +2 from domain and level. We start tracking the wolf and as we catch up to it, the wolf launches a breath attack for 4d6 it rolls 16 paladin makes his save, and I fail. Welcome back to negatives…we have missed you. Paladin and Ranger do manage to finish it off and they stabilize me at -7. LoH gets me back to conscious and I spontaneous my Mist to a CLW for a roll of 3+2. *Sigh* 6 hps and Im nearly out of spells again.

My next action is to brush self off and then stalk to the wolf corpse.
DM: You are going to make me skin it and make pants aren’t you?
Me: Damn Right I am , maybe a a nice waist coat and some gloves too!

I burn four Cure minors to get back to 9 and we hunker down the night. We actually sleep under the wagon which may have saved our bacon. We set up a rotation of watchers. We light a small campfire and then make our camp just outside of the fire’s range. The Paladin and I are asleep under the wagon and the ranger is waiting in the tree line to our left. At about 3 am fictional time a groaning hiss emerges from our wagon and an eerie crimson light spill forth. Lo and Behold 4 dretches have just emerged from our tapestry and are now standing in our frigging wagon! The strange shuffling and weird groan wake me and the paladin up and he instantly detects evil. The Ranger shouts a warning from the trees and then snaps off an arrow in the surprise round at one of the dretches. 1d8 with no damage bonus + sneak attack gets him 9 damage, but from our perspective it barely hurts the dretch. The next round sees the ranger going first and hitting again this time for 7 damage which is knocked down to 2. I hold my action and the paladin holds his. The dretches jump from the wagon and start to charge the ranger. I sleep one and the paladin tries to trip it from under the wagon. It’s a small creature and surprised and he succeeds despite akward footing. He then takes a move action to get himself upright. Two dretches focus on the paladin and remaining one heads for the ranger. Next Turn Paladin connects on a nasty crit for nearly full damage and pancakes a dretch. Ranger drops bow and grabs the axe, and I am beginning to wonder why he took two weapon fighting. But DR is nasty and big attacks are better than little ones. I sleep the one on the paladin. And then get up from under the wagon. We have one remaining dretch on the ranger and it is not looking too keen on fighting. Paladin renders this a mute point as he charges for a heavy swing. Ranger reacts in turn after eating a claw attack. I wade in with my rapier and prove ineffective against damage reduction. Paladin finishes it off next turn. We are left with two sleepers and we kill one of them. We want to question the last of them but a knowledge planes and arcane is enough to remind me they don’t speak and can only communicate in Abyssal. We elect to kill last one and then figure out what to do.

Paladin: That was unexpected
Ranger: And frightening. Arrows barely penetrated.
Me: I’m more concerned with demons erupting from our wagon. What do we do.

We argue back and forth for a bit while eying the tapesty suspiciously. I vote to bury it. Paladin vetos that idea. We are leaning towards taking it back to town and having the dragon look at it, but Paladin is leery to bring a potential demon gateway to a small hamlet. We go with Plan C, we will work our way back towards town but stay just outside then flip the wagon and leave tapestry under it. We will then finish sleeping on top of the wagon.

The remainder of the night is uneventful. I prep Obscuring Mist and Prot from Evil as my cleric spells and CLW in domain slot. Rest gets me back to 12 hps. Paladin and Ranger rest back to full. In the light of day we take the tapestry back to the town only to be informed the dragon left.
Me Under my breath: so much for giving back the gold.

The Paladin on a lark decides to detect evil every 2 hours to see if anything changes on the tapestry or the talisman. We do pick up a pattern as the day turns to dusk, it is getting stronger the closer to night. Paladin asks if it is stronger than when we first detected it. Yes, Yes it is.

We kind of jump to a few conclusions and decide to proceed from these ideas.
1st. The Tapestry is growing stronger each night and that is why we didn’t detect it the first time in the Wolf Den Crypt.
2nd This mean it may be completely unrelated to the worgs and winter wolf.
3rd it gets stronger at night and last night it spit out demons. We are expecting more of the same again tonight.
4th We need to figure out something to do with the damn thing. The Ranger…fictional gods bless him comes up with this plan.

Ranger: Is there a well in the town?
Innkeeper: Yes, there is one just behind the Inn.
Ranger: lets face the tapestry hanging face down into the well. Then pile up some rocks and logs as falling weapons. How deep is the well?
DM: About 25 feet.
Ranger: Is there a temple anywhere near here? Anywhere that sells holy water?
DM: Maybe half a day’s ride there is a temple to Pelor…

We kind of chuckle at the half a day’s ride comment and the Paladin grumbles about there not even being a horse, the whole reason we set out in the first place. All is we have is ButterCup.

We hang the tapestry face down into the well and pile up as many good sized rocks and chunks of log as possible. We have the Wagon up on it’s side to function as a seal to the well and the Paladin and I are on either side of the well waiting. The Ranger is standing ready with greataxe and long bow prepped. We are going to try and last the night tonight then come morning frantically try and make it to the temple to Pelor for holy water and gods willing some cold iron. We light the area as best as possible (DM has not been a tyrant on sight and lighting sources but it never hurts to avoid tempting fate)

3am or so on night two and the same groaning and hiss with crimson light erupts and a grotesque hideous form plummets to the bottom of the well with a moaning wail.

Me: I think that was an Annis….nasty hag. Spells are probably not going to do much against her.
Paladin: Did you roll falling damage for her?
DM: What?
Paladin: She just fell close to 30 feet with no way of knowing she was falling.
DM: She fell into water.
Paladin…ok, but fair to say we have surprise?
DM:*sigh* yes.
Paladin: Dropping a rock into the well
Bard: Dropping a rock
Ranger Out of charater: How dignified and heroic…we stalwart three, adventurers and seekers of fortune. Chucking rocks down a well.

We have fairly decent sized rocks and since she is large size and there is little room to maneuver she doesn’t get a dex bonus falling rocks are treated as 3d6 damage and one hits for about 7.

After the surprise round Ranger goes first and puts an arrow into her for 9 damage with sneak attack. She then starts casting Fog Cloud.

Paladin: you know that doesn’t function underwater.
DM: She is ranging up above at the entrance.
Paladin: Ok cool, then she is granting us concealment but not her…
DM: *sigh*

It wasn’t heroic. She didn’t really have a climb skill, and we kept throwing rocks. In truth the aftermath was the hardest part. We had a dead hideous humanoid sitting in the town’s well. And about a dozen big rocks in there now too. Following morning we lowered the Ranger down and used a bucket to haul her out as best we could. She was rather large and we weren’t exactly the burliest of men. We got her out and the rocks. Then we hitched up buttercup and made hellbent for the Temple of Pelor.

The temple was a small compound with a central stone church and a few small universal chapels. I swear I heard the DM die a little bit inside when the ranger asked if there was a well. There was not. They created their own water. We inquired about holy water and were told they had about 50 flasks of it available at 25 gp each. We elected to spend some of our own money and buy all fifty. We poured one on the tapestry and one on the talisman to see what would happen. The talisman had no effect. The tapestry steamed and sounded like water on hot coals. The “heat” from that section of the tapestry seemed to dissipate a bit. Hmmm. We ended up filling a trough with 25 flasks of holy water and submgerging the whole thing. It evaporated all the holy water but was noticeably dampening, both with moisture and from the standpoint of its evil emanation.

Paladin: Well if we had blessed the well that would have worked even better….

We now kind of had a plan for the tapestry and just needed a bigger church to keep it submerged til it was destroyed or we found a way to destroy it. We were directed to a larger town 3 days ride from where we were. We decided to make a run for it. We donated 500 silver to the temple in return for their trough.

Ranger out of character: So they make their own water, but have a water trough. They don’t have a horse but have a water trough, yet they were loathe to part with their water trough…

That night we encountered nothing. Apparently our holy water rinse dampened it enough to give us a night of peace. We elected to not submerge it on day 2, but instead use remaining amount on day 3. Night Two, we flipped the wagon and aimed for whatever it was that popped to pop stuck under the wagon. I think this was the first time we heard a mumbled “f***ing wagon” from the DM. We get the groan and light show and this time a hell hound pops under our wagon and almost instantly it uses its breath weapon to light our beloved wagon.

It emerged to get a smite evil smash and some greataxe loving. I tried to daze it and it made its save. Next turn it bit the paladin for a fair chunk of damage, I dazed again and it passed save again. Another flail smash and greataxe whack and it went down. We put out the fire as best as possible and while the wagon was still intact its integrity was now in question. This left us in an akward predicament. We still had a lot of coin in chests and that wagon was getting us around encumberance issues. We chanced loading it back and evenly dispersed the weight. The Third Night we submerged the tapestry in remaining holy water and its steamed off very quickly. We got a lone dretch the third night and dispatched it without incident.

Finally on the fourth day we found a good sized city. There was even a temple of fair repute dedicated to Torm. We had been playing for about five hours at this point and got a “welcome to civilization and thanks for advancing the plot bonus of hitting level 4” We took a pizza break to watch some football and advance characters to level 4. We also received a Sending from our errant dragon. He told us that urgent matters had drawn him away quickly. He urged us to use the money if had been recovered for good. We also got a boon in the form of a stat boost to a single stat in addition to our level 4. Oh lord, the madness that ensued around that extra stat boost…it was embarrassing to be honest.

Paladin bumped Charisma from 19 to 20 and Con from 17 to 18 he also rolled a 9 for HP. He stayed Paladin He got to 46 hps.

Ranger bumped Str to 12 for a +1 bonus and Dex to 20 he took another level of rogue to get evasion. He rolled a 3 for hps that took him to 37 total.
I was very tempted to take both in Charisma to a 24. Instead I bumped Con to 12 and Dex to 10 to eliminate a negative and gain a positive. I went up in bard for BAB, New Spell Known and another spell per day. I rolled a 4 for hps. That got me to 23 with new bonuses and level. I took Hideous Laughter as new spell.

We ended up being put on a waiting list at the largest church in town and told to come back in late afternoon. We then went shopping. We had 20,000 in gold and about 3,000 left in silver. We had a magic crossbow that was not getting much use and a few mundane average weapons. We split it up 7,000 each and went to go spend it. I bought a wand of CLW (CL3) with 50 charges, a Wand of Magic Missile (CL3) 50 Charges that I could take 10 to UMD. I also bought a +1 Chain Shirt to shore up my AC a bit. We run a complicated haggling system that involves a lot of rolling on homemade excel sheets that the DM made. I also managed to wrangle a +1 Spear.
The Ranger came back with a +1 comp longbow (+2 str) and a belt of giant str +2 he also snagged several cold iron weapons and about 50 cold iron arrows.

The Paladin…well the Paladin bought a heavy flail +1 and he started the designs of what became known as Das Vagon. In essence it was a covered wagon with a mounted ballista and several enhancements. The whole thing was reinforced with metal bands and had murder holes for archery on all sides. The Ballista was designed to rotate using a system of gears. He even built in storage for extra wheels. He literally built blueprints for the thing and took a Warhammer 40K Land Raider kit and heavily modded it for a scale model in game. Absolutely bad ass.

With our new found equipment and a commitment for the Das Vagon to be completed within the week we met back up at the Temple to describe our problem. There was some clunky role playing but we were basically told that they didn’t want the thing in town for longer than a week at which it needed to be removed. They would do everything they could think of in that week to destroy or render it useless. The Paladin made stipulation that they grant him a single request in return we would take the tapestry away from the town and ensure they didn’t suffer from its denizens. We did everything we could think of to burn it, drown it, freeze it, cut it, electrocute it, everything. Holy Water was losing its effectiveness and it was taking more and more to keep it suppressed.

We did manage to get a lead on the serpent talisman. I was able to discern that it was a Yuan-Ti relic from a tribe that had previously resided deep to the south from where the town was. It was meant as a focus for their sorcerers and enhanced certain Yuan-Ti spells and rituals. We decided to take the tapestry with us and head towards this Yuan-Ti area. We also came up with a stronger band-aid solution for the tapestry. We shoved the damn thing into a bag of holding. We were fairly confident that it wouldn’t work, but it went in with no apparent problems. We collectively decided to watch it for a few days and be leery of the bag opening on its own. Surprisingly it worked flawlessly. As we loaded Das Vagon with our equipment and a stash of holy water the Paladin almost casually requested his favor.

Paladin: Before we leave I was hoping you could provide us with a blessing.
High Priest: Of course brother…I will be happy to bless you and your compatriots.
Paladin:No not us, the Wagon. I want you to make it Hallowed.
DM: What??
Paladin: I want them to cast Hallow on our wagon, It will functionally be a travelling temple and shrine for those who honor law and order. For the rider spell Protection from Energy-Fire would be fantastic.

At this point the Ranger dove right into a movie quote from Ghostbusters where Bill Murray talks about letting the ghost back into the hotel…I damn near lost it at the table. I am also fairly certain that drastic measures would be enacted to destroy Das Vagon but to an extent I think Rule of Cool won out here and we left the town on a travelling Wagon that was Hallowed ground.

We felt that we know had a decent grasp of the big picture and figured the Yuan Ti would be next best source of information. From what we gathered the Tapestry was at minimum an artifact that allowed creatures to enter the Material Plane in the middle of the night. Our primary goal at this point was finding a way to permanently destroy or render useless the gateway. We thought that the Yuan Ti may have been experimenting to see if a dragon’s breath could destroy the thing as that was historically a main means of destroying artifacts, and that is the real reason they kidnapped the gold.
We were also pretty stoked that we finally got horses. We had Buttercup still pulling the wagon and we each had light horses that while not fully trained warhorses were at least not overly skittish in combat situations. The Ranger was driving Das Vagon while the Paladin was on top manning the ballista. He would constantly crank the gears to turn it while detecting evil…the Paladar was evolving. As for my squishy self, I was happily inside the wagon with huge cover bonuses and the ability to cast or shoot from the murder holes. We had the horses in a string behind the wagon while travelling.
We figured ten days in total to reach Yuan Ti territory, and we were maybe eight hours out of town when we caught our first random encounter…
The Paladin picks up a ping on Detect Evil and from overhead a Manticore launches a rain of spikes at us. Paladin takes 1 spike for 5 damage and the ranger eats 2 for 14 damage. We roll for init Ranger pops off a solid shot 11 damage and Paladin announces he is going to fire the ballista
DM: With what?

Paladin: A Ballista bolt…
DM: Did you actually buy any…
Paladin: Well ****…ok I move to the wagon front seat to provide cover for the ranger and then hit him for 10 on a LoH
Me:How far away is it?
DM: Just under 60 feet.

That rules out most of my spells so I lob a Magic Missile. I do a little fist pump as I roll 4 4 for 10 damage.
The Manticore tosses another six spikes and this time he hits the the paladin twice for 15 and the ranger twice for 11
Next Round Paladin expends remaining 6 points of LoH on ranger and Moves down from the wagon to create distance.
Ranger fires again this time and rolls a 20…confirms crit with a roll of 16 and drops an 8 and 6 on d8’s, add 10 from bonuses and we got 24 damage, we can see its in rough shape but its not fleeing.

I lob another missile and put 7 more damage on it. We are pretty confident that if we hit next turn we can kill it. We just want to use as few resources as possible in doing so. I roll a 20 for init and lob a third missile for 6 damage…and the manticore comes plunging from the skies. I use my domain slot CLW on the paladin and expend a charge from wand on Ranger. We hold off on further healing for the time being and search the manticore corpse. I make the connection that the manticore bears a sigil that resembles the sigil on serpent talisman. So we are potentially being targeted. We stop to make camp at that spot as we are approaching evening and we are still worried about demons and other such entities emerging from our bag of holding. We vote against opening it to check and just remain careful through the night. I expend all my Cure Minors and CLW from spont casting as we rotate watch. We are at nominally full resources come morning and pass the night without incident.

Mid afternoon we come to a small temple that now lies in ruins. From about 150 feet away we see several statues amidst the ruins. For sake of paranoia we convince the ranger to put an arrow into one of the statues from range. It connects and the statue shrieks in outrage and at least four others take wing and are coming in our direction. Ranger confirms they are gargoyles. I throw a sleep on one from range and it fails its save falling the 20 or so feet to the ground. The falling damage actually wakes it up…*Sigh* Ranger puts an arrow into the lead one, the one he already shot and within one round they are in range. As they start to attack us in range of the wagon I smirk and mention…

Me: Hallow functions as a magic circle against evil…only the one who fell and the one we shot can pass the range of the wagon. The other three will have to wait outside.

The DM actually references the spell and realizes that only two can approach us. Paladin cracks the injured one with a flail and ranger puts another arrow into it bringing it down. I daze the one that fell and it makes its save. It claws for 5 damage on the ranger. Next turn with spear, flail and bow we all hit the gargoyle. It launches a full attack on the paladin and hits twice for 9. Next turn we kill it. We now have two dead ones and 3 that are chomping at the bit to get closer to us and are stopped by Das Vagon. We form up in a triangle on top of the wagon and the ranger and I send an arrow , magic missile volley at a gargoyle who can now move past the ward, where paladin is waiting to hit him. We repeat this process three times taking some damage from each one, but nothing critical. We creep the wagon up on the ruins and Paladar does a scan for any further gargoyles. Nothing pings so we decide to examine the ruins and gargoyle corpses. No markings or sigils on the gargoyles but we do find some gems and about 500 in gold pieces in a small trunk.

For sake of not exhausting detail on each encounter I will say this. Over the next eight days we got hit from every side. The 1-3 encounters a day went away and we started getting five and six a day. Das Vagon more or less saved our bacon several times through cover saves and magic circle against evil. We leveled to 5 by the time we got to the outskirts of where we expected the Yuan Ti to be located.

Paladin stay Paladin(5) and now can summon a heavy warhorse. He rolls a 4 for HP and caps at 54
Ranger2/Rogue3 he takes a 3rd level in Rogue for sneak attack boost and rolls a 6 for HP bringing him to 45
Bard 4/Cleric 1, I go to 4th in bard to get 2nd level spells and the limited selection is brutal. I badly want to take Cure Moderate Wounds and Mirror Image, but I also really want Glitterdust, Summon Monster 2 and Hold Person. I go with Glitterdust and Hold Person. I roll a 6 for HP which I am stoked over. I now have 30 HP.
This was a 13 hour session as we started around 12pm and went til nearly 1 am.

Kaveman26
2012-04-19, 11:37 AM
Third Session 5th-6th:

This session was our first true Dungeon Crawl. Ten days of travel had brought us to a swampy marsh territory with stifling humidity and the stone face of an ancient temple beckoning us to enter. This left us in a very uncomfortable spot. We were going to have to leave the wagon behind. We were very reluctant to do so, and the Paladin most of all. He ended up removing all the wheels from the wagon and loading them in the back. He placed all the necessary pins and bolts into his backpack so that if anyone wanted the wagon they would have to drag it. We crudely camouflaged it and for the first time in ages we had to pay close attention to encumberance and what we were carrying. As we entered we assumed what would become kind of our standard marching order. Ranger in Front, Me in Middle, Paladin in Rear. The temple had a central tunnel that led down and in running about 100 feet.

50 feet in the Ranger spots a large snake coiled in the shadows of the ceiling in a partially hidden alcove. He fails to spot the one hidden in the alcove behind us, and the paladin takes a surprise attack and get grappled. I snap off a glitterdust at the snake ahead of us and it fails its save. The Ranger does an about face and yanks a pair of short swords and finally two weapon attacks the snake on grappled paladin. The paladin cracks it with flail and takes more constrict damage…to the tune of about 30 damage in two rounds. The glitterdusted snake misses me outright from concealment and take a five foot step away from it. Paladin and ranger both swing away and we argue a bit as to the flanked status. We are given the benefit of the flank and ranger connects with two hits and gets to add 2d6 to each, that ends up being huge as he rolled 15 in sneak attack damage. Enough so that the snake lets the paladin go and launches at the ranger. I grab my spear and jab at the heavily injured snake , and I do a whopping six damage. Next turn the ranger takes a full bite attack and fails his grapple and gets constricted. 1d8+10 x2 is nasty damage for level. Paladin can probably kill it with a solid hit, and he naturally misses. Ranger hits once and the snake looks damn near done. I jab it with the spear and do 7…toppling the snake down. Glitterdusted snake manages to bite me and I horrifically fail the grapple…roll of 6 and roll of 4 +20 and the snake brings me to zero. The Paladin and Ranger maneuver to try and reflank the glittered snake and do about 20 damage.

Its enough for the snake to leave me unconscious and attack the paladin. He is the only one with armor high enough to have a negilible miss chance and concealment saves his bacon. They manage to kill the second snake but we are in tatters from first encounter.

Ranger took 30 damage or so, I took 30 and Paladin took about 40. We end up using 15 LoH healing, the paladins CLW, my CLW, and eight charges from the wand. I made one half in character half out comment about a snakeskin belt and three voices all shout NO! at the same time.

We decide to press our luck and push forth, we examine alcoves for any treasure and come up blank.
As we press forth we find a lot of abandoned chambers and blood spatter, but little in the way of inhabitants. We end up going down a flight of stairs deeper into the temple and see a room with several large stone chests inside. There is an ornate framework on the door and it seems a bit out of place to have random unguarded treasure. I roll a knowledge arcana check and I make the guess that the chests may in fact be Mimics.

We set up ranged as best we can and send a Magic Missile, Arrow Volley (paladin even snaps off an arrow from shortbow) and pepper the front chest. And it sprouts arms and starts to charge us. We put a second volley into it then proceed to make reflex saves every time we swing as it starts adhering weapons to itself. We kill the Mimic and after retrieving our weapons I confidently stride into the room to see what the real treasure is.

Remember what I said at the very beginning about our DM getting trickier over time? That ornate doorway…it was a second Mimic. And it had my ass cold as I walked into the room. I take a full attack and get pummeled. The Ranger start pumping arrows into it and the paladin gets his flail stuck on the mimic he grabs my spear from the ground and that gets stuck to. The Mimic full attacks me again and I drop to -4. It then starts heading for the ranger. Paladin is out of weapons and uses the last 5 of his LoH to get me conscious. The Ranger is back pedaling to avoid a full attack but he is still slam damage. I hit it with a magic missile and the ranger drops it with a his fifth arrow. We burn another eight charges from the wand of CLW and put test arrows into damn near everything in the room before even attempting to open anything. We find 1 item in a secret compartment of a chest, everything else is empty. The one item is an Iron Golem Manual. THAT is a very interesting item.

As we press further into the bowels of the temple we begin to hear draconic voices. Almost instantly we all recognize the voices as belonging to kobolds. There is a stone room with two kobolds standing sentry they are chatting to themselves about the big find. Each one has a spear and they are carrying slings. We have no clue what type of class levels or tricks they may have so we decide to go in heavy. I lead with a glitterdust in surprise round and Ranger and Paladin both charge with weapons drawn. They both fail their saves and the combat is rather one sided. They do take almost 40 damage each which means they are packing some serious class levels. We back off a bit from the noise of the battle and wait to see if anything is coming for us. Nada. Detect magic shows the spears are magical. They are functionally short spears for us, and the Paladin straps them to his pack. We open the door to the stone room and find a snake woman bound with adamantite chains inside the room. She hisses at us and seems surprised to see us, she also seems to know who we are.

Yuan Ti: You should be far from here humans…and moldering as corpses by now.
Me: We do tend to surprise.
Paladin: We found your tapestry….we thought it would be polite to return it to you.
Yuan Ti *very depressed*: It is not mine. But it was my responsibility.

We spend about ten minutes chatting with the bound yuan ti and a lot of the puzzle pieces fall into place. The tapestry is an artifact that brings creatures to our plane. It grows in power with darkness and bright light and holy water can dampen it. For millennia the Yuan Ti kept it hidden and dormant in their temple. A few months back they were attacked by a force of kobolds led by a black dragon that began assaulting their warriors and protective wards. An empire’s wealth was buried under the temple and the dragon discovered this. The Yuan Ti hired drow and a mercenary band of ogres/worgs to remove the tapestry beyond the reach of the dragon. They believed that a gold dragon’s breath may be enough to destroy it, but they were unable to convince or capture one strong enough or old enough to make a full attempt. The Yuan Ti were wiped out and she is the last of their tribe. With adequate resources and some rare materials she tells us that she could temporarily restore the protective barriers that kept it safe. But it would require the focusing talisman to make the wards strong enough.

ME: We have the talisman and the tapestry but how can we trust you?
Yuan Ti: Where is the tapestry.
Ranger: We stuffed it into a bag of holding…
Yuan TI *enraged*: YOU DID WHAT? YOU FOOLS. It gathers strength from darkness and you put into a space beyond space that is nothing but darkness. There is no light no substance…only the dark of the void between dimensions. It will feed like a man dying of thirst and gorge itself beyond all measure.

Paladin: So what happens when we open the bag.
Yuan TI: We all die. Everyone and everything.
Me: So we don’t open the bag….ever.
Paladin: Until it decides to open itself. I am inclined to believe you snake woman, even If I bear no trust in your motives truth is truth. We might be willing to provide this talisman and allow you to raise these wards. But we lack the means to break these bonds and we are outnumbered by forces beyond our ability to vanquish.
Me: If the dragon failed to destroy it, what was your next plan?
Yuan Ti: Then my minions would have taken it to the Tomb of Coiled Kings.
Me: Which is?
Yuan Ti: The burial chambers of our most revered god-kings, the resting place of those who chose undeath to serve the greater causes of our kind. They are amongst the most powerful and most knowledge creatures in existence.
Paladin: Why didn’t you take it to them to begin with?
Yuan Ti: My tribe hoped to control it for our own gains. We failed.
Ranger: How do we get there? Can you tell us?
Yuan Ti: No, you must bear the mantle of a Sarrukh to gain entrance to the Tomb. A mantle is amongst the wealth our empire held beneath this temple. But the cursed dragons kobolds are constantly excavating and bringing their spoils to their master.

From that our new short term goal is to try and make it to the treasure chambers and eliminate kobolds and hopefully avoid the dragon.

Me: So we are carrying a constantly expanding Armageddon in a small bag of holding that may erupt with arcane forces of evil beyond all hope of salvation. We are outnumbered and out equipped by a superior force that knows the terrain of this ancient temple that was the pinnacle of an advanced race that kept this thing under wraps for the better part of 2 thousand years, and we struggled to manage it for a week. And now we are going to pilfer treasure from a dragon that will have us for breakfast without a second thought if it sees us.
Paladin: Things could be worse…
Me: How…How could they worse…
Paladin: There could be more wolves…

We end up sneaking around very poorly and manage to dispatch four more groups of isolated kobolds as we work deeper inside. I am out of bard spells and have a single Cause Fear prepared as a cleric spell. The paladin has burned both smites and is tapped out of LoH. I have 2 CMW remaing for stabilization and we have 27 charges left on CLW wand. So we are kind of sucking fumes on resources at this point. We are deep in the temple and clearly in an underground segment now. We come to the bottom of a stairwell that opens up to a wide open chamber. The Ranger bellies down as he is the closest to a stealth character we have. Holy Monte Haul Batman…
The DM hands a sheet to the ranger who reads it over then in an excited voice the ranger comes back to tell us what is in the chamber.

Ranger: We found the treasure chamber…its half full.
Us: ok.
Ranger: I mean like a 200 foot wide 100 foot high circular chamber that is half full with weapons, coins, armor, and everything else you can imagine. There are kobolds filling wheel barrels with treasure and they are bringing it to a chute and just dumping it in.
Paladin: how far away is the chute…

Ranger shows us the sketch of the room and it is about sixty feet down and to our left on the wall to the right of where we are. From a rough count there are 30 or so kobolds in the room. We narrowed down they are fifth level variants of fighter and sometimes a caster. So Cause Fear could spook one of them. We can’t take 30 of them though.
We elect to run a misdirection and then run for the chute.

Me: One problem…assuming they are dumping this to the dragon’s chamber what do we do if the dragon is there?
Ranger: Try to reason with him?

The Paladin summons his mount and its first course of action is run a suicide mission as a distraction for us. He sends the warhorse full speed ahead making as much noise as possible in the opposite direction of the chute. We then all make a break for it and try to dive down the chute. It works almost flawlessly…except for the one kobold who is dumping his barrel down the chute. He starts to raise an alarm and shout and we are told to roll for init.
The Ranger wins and announces he is going to bull rush the kobold down the chute with us. He is larger and charging and manages to pull it off. The full plate paladin is the slowest and last down the chute. We are told that the Mount is killed off screen and the paladin will now be without a mount for 30 days or until we gain a level, and he gets a -1 to all rolls. Such thoughts would soon be rendered moot. The chute did in fact lead to the dragon’s chamber and by providence or DM fiat the dragon was not home at that time. We more or less just maul the lone kobold and take him out.

It was the motherload. Our somewhat sub par wealth just went through the roof. We are basically operating under the assumption that Big Daddy Dragon will be back any minute or any round. We are frantically rolling Spot checks to try to line up what we are looking to grab. The Paladin announces armor, longswords, and the mantle are the three things he most fervently searching for. The Ranger is looking for weapons of any kind, and I announce that I am looking for bags,rings and staves.

On the third round I spot a bag amidst the piles. I hastily pull it open and just start shoveling in everything around it. If it keeps taking it all then its probably a bag of holding, and I score a bullseye from the get go. I am basically just ransacking piles of treasure and shoving them into the bag. On round five we spot the mantle and the paladin snatches it. We are running around like mad men grabbing items as we spot them and on round nine we hear a loud roar…oh **** Big Daddy is back.

Paladin: I don’t see a way out other than the ceiling.
Ranger: Im searching for a way out.
Me: I am going to roll a Spellcraft check to try and blindly identify the school of magic associated with magic items I see. I am looking for Conjuration.
DM *somewhat confused*: ok DC 30…
I have eight ranks in Spellcraft and +3 int modifier so a 19 or 20
I roll a 17…
DM: Next Round…the roaring is closer and definitely angry
Ranger and Paladin haven’t found a way out.
Me: Ok Im doing a bardic knowledge check to see if there is an open of great power that would be known to be my appearance especially anything that can move us. Anything that would be in stories…
DM:DC 25…
I have four levels in bard, +3 int and get +2 bonus for knowledge history synergy. So a 16 or higher and I can decipher something.
I roll an 18. We actually kind of pause in game as the DM consults what is easily a 30 page printout of magic items in the room. After about five minutes of consulting he very slowly says
DM: You do see a strange Cube that is tickling something at the back of your mind.

I run to the cube and see six sides with different symbols. I have to make Knowledge Planes and Knowledge Arcana Checks and am able to determine they are symbols of different Planes. I figure out which one is the Material Plane…and I then attempt to activate it blindly.

UMD on activating blindly is 25…I have eight ranks…a +6 cha bonus and get +1 from one of my domains being Magic. So a ten works. I roll a ten on the dot. And open a random gate to a spot on the Material Plane. I do make an offhand comment about how I caught flack for taking magic as a domain.

DM: I seriously expected you to all die in that room. I never expected you to pull a runner into the chamber, not for at least 7 more levels.
Me:So where are we?

Where we are ends up being 1,000 miles on a d12 for direction away. We roll a d 12 with each number corresponding to the direction of a clock. We roll a 3, pushing us about seven hundred miles east from the town we had set out from. We average about 20-25 miles of travel a day so we are about 40-45 days away from the dragon at our speed. That is where we are geographically in relation to the plot. Where we are in terms of the present is a sprawling dense bog. We are also advanced to level 6. We have no means to really identify magic items and I get the impression that I have used up any discretion in terms of knowledge checks and bardic knowledge. We are just going to have to wing it for a bit longer.

Paladin decides to take a level of sorcerer as he has decided to take some levels in Dragon Disciple. He takes power attack as his feat and very nearly takes Identify as one of his spells. We have a lot of items and not much to go on in terms of what they do. They could very well be cursed and part of a trap. He takes Shield and True Strike. We are banking on making it a large enough city to identify them and when I hit level 3 cleric I get identify as a domain.

Ranger2/Rogue3 adds….barbarian he rolls an 11 on the d12 getting to 58. He takes Rapid Shot

I level up in Cleric which adds BAB, Saves and another spell per day. I roll a 3 so I move to 34. I take leadership as my feat.

We very badly want to rest and regain spells and abilities, but we are in the middle of unknown territory and in high tension mode. The ranger tells us that this is bad terrain and we shouldn’t stay here long. We elect to push west. An hour of rough travel through bogs and dense marsh and we pick up shapes moving towards us fast. Ranger makes the highest check on a Knowledge Nature and gets a small note passed to him.

Ranger: So we do have any fire?
Us:Nope
Ranger: Well…we got trolls coming in fast

Smelling dinner we have three trolls heading straight towards us. Paladin cues up a true strike and then preps all his BAB into power attack. Ranger takes shots at range and we all focus on the lead troll at range. As they close paladin cracks the damaged troll for about 20. The ranger drops his bow and goes for both short swords and then goes into a rage and attacks damaged troll. The lead troll engages paladin, one goes for ranger and one comes for me. We start taking claws attacks, and in second melee round they drop one troll then move to flank the one on me. Sneak attack damage is making a big difference coupled with rage str bonus. We are taking some nasty damage but we get the second troll down. I am dipping real low in health and the third troll has maybe two or three rounds left in him.

Paladin: I’m going to try and trip him. I need to beat him by 8…
Dm rolls a 5 Paladin rolls a 14…and we have a tripped prone troll. I dance back and drop spear and grab wand to use a CLW on myself. The ranger and paladin wreck it as it tries to get up. We end up burning another 11 charges from the wand and are down to about 15. We spend four more to get everyone back to full health and make sure all three trolls are dead.

We get attacked by three more groups of trolls two sets of 2 and a set of 3. We mostly end up fighting in an organized retreat trying to pepper them at range and isolate one at a time. We still burn seven more charges from the wand and are getting very desperate. We are performing coup de grace on the dead trolls but are still leery of them regenerating back up since we have no fire. Its deep into the night and at this point our characters have been going for about 19 hours, in real world time we are at about 1am. The swamp is starting to thin out and the ranger thinks we are close to breaking through to more open ground with hopefully less trolls. When we come to the edge of the bog and see lights from a house in the distance we cheer in character and out. We end up covering about five miles at a hustle to the lights in distance. It’s a real fringe territory hunting lodge. We are spotted and several rough looking swamp folk with crossbows bark out orders to stop. Going back and forth a bit they are willing to let us sleep at their lodge for the night but they want my cloak. It seems that white wolf fur is a rare thing at the swamp’s edge. I offer them a 500gp gem instead. The ranger practically chokes and the paladin shakes his head. What can I say, I didn’t want to part with my cloak…

The swamp lodge hotel ends up our home for 3 days. We fully rest up and try to take stock of what we grabbed from the dragon’s lair. There is a moment of sheer panic when I open the bag of holding and start pulling everything out, cause a large rolled up tapestry comes out…

Paladin: What in Torm’s name are you doing??? You opened the Armageddon bag???
Me: No you are carrying that bag…
Ranger: So now there are two tapestries…?
DM: Why don’t you unroll it.
So we unroll it and its about 5 feet by 10 feet. I prep all my 0 level slots as Detect Magic and at least manage to sort everything by strength of aura. Inside the bag of holding we kind a very ornate dark cherry hard wood case that looks almost like a folding wardrobe. When opened up it has a veritable kit of items. There is a pair of rings, a rod a staff and a longsword. We end up with the following list:

Ring1: Wardrobe Ring-strong conjuration
Ring2:Wardrobe Ring-mod evo
Ring3:Faint trans
Staff:Wardrobe-mod evo
Rod:Wardrobe-strong trans
Amulet-moderate trans
Belt-strong trans
Carpet-Mod Trans
Cube-strong conj
A second Iron Golem Manual
Bag of Holding Type3-we just stuffed it til it couldn’t take anymore and came to conclusion that way
Headband-strong
Longsword 1:Wardrobe-mod evo
Longsword2:mod
Greatsword:mod
Comp Shortbow: Too much for any of us to draw strong
Morningstar:mod/strong

We are assuming there is some real horsepower in there but the DM is not budging without Identify. For fun I invite anyway to go through core rule for DM guide and try to fill in the blanks of what each item might be from these descriptions. We started to putz around with this a bit but ended up just deciding it was worth the wait. We ended the session here at about 3am staring down a pile of swag and surrounded by swamp people.

4th Session:

We start our fourth session with the swamp people and are trying to fill in the world map so to speak. Ideally we need a large city and the nearest the better. They direct us to a massive city amongst the world’s largest 10 days southwest from where we are. Somewhere around two hours after we leave the hunting lodge we hear a ton of noise and loud hisses coming from behind us. The terrain is sparse forest and mostly open ground. The Ranger and I split and grab some cover behind trees with the paladin waiting in the middle. I have my wand of magic missiles at the ready and for what seems like the first time in ages I have a full compliment of spells. Driving six giant crocodiles are four of the trapper/hunters we just rested up with. The trappers are all carrying bows with knocked arrows.

Me: Are you f-ing kidding me?
DM: Was that in character or out?
All three of us in unison: Both

They are close enough that I can just about hit all four trappers with a glitterdust and maybe catch a croc. We hastily throw out a slightly different battle plan. I am going to drop an obscuring mist on the position we are in after glitterdusting the trappers. The Ranger and I are then going to peel off in separate directions and plink the crocodiles from range while the paladin goes solo against the trappers. The ranger and I spend about four rounds dropping arrows and magic missiles on crocodiles while the paladin closes range with four blind trappers, he is scoring a fair amount of AOO’s as are dropping bows and grabbing melee weapons. He kills two trappers before the glitterdust wears off and we have aggravated but not killed any of the crocs.

They elect to surrender and one of them blows a whistle which causes the crocodiles to back down and basically defend the squares they occupy.
Their leader was apparently one of the two that was killed and he intimidated the other three into following his plans to bushwhack us. They tell us that he overheard our assessment of the items we found and figured it was worth the risk to ambush us and try to get the magic items.

I decide to make what I feel is a rather convincing bluff check…

Me: In my hand I hold a cube…each side of this cube corresponds to a different plane of existence. With the press of my finger I can open a gateway to say… the Plane of Fire, or Limbo…or maybe even the Abyss. It would take minimal effort to shove both of you through the gate and simply amuse myself with the thoughts of what might happen. However…I could decide to let this matter rest as is…IF…you tell me whether or not there is actually a city in this direction. Tell me the truth and you can head back to your swamp. Lie to me and we will let fate decide your final resting place.
Everything I said is true…each side goes to a different plane and I while I have a general idea of which side is which, I don’t actually know.

The youngest one starts stammering and saying that they were telling the truth. The second one is in shock. The Paladin is in favor of binding them and bringing them to local magistrates. The ranger just keeps eying the crocodiles. We do a quick huddle and decide to leave them, prisoners is too much work with our limited resources. As we are preparing to leave the younger one, the one that talked asks if he can go with us. Says his name is Boy…they never gave him a different name and he has always wanted to see a real city and they never let him off the countryside. I ask what level the kid is and what skills he has. DM says he is level 2 1 level of ranger and 1 of barbarian but without rage. He has ranks in Handle Animal, Craft Trapmaking Spot and Profession Hunter/Trapper. I tell him that I would be willing to take him along providing he can earn his keep. I promise him hard work, certain peril and a fair and generous hand for diligent service.

And lo it was on the fifth day of the sixth level that I Caramis Wolfsbane acquired my first follower. A second level woodsman…

Boy had mediocre stats, 12 str 11 Con Dex 12 Int 9 Wis 12 Cha 9 he pretty much close to baseline with elevated dex and str from hard work and elevated wis from being self reliant and living off the land. He had Skill Focus Craft Trapmaking as his level 1 feat and Track as his human feat.

At this point you may be asking yourselves why I originally alluded to this being an Adversarial Process. At this point we are gaining levels, getting treasure and while some of the encounters are outlandish for the level and group make up we have gotten very good discretion in terms of rules or skills going our way, and for the most part surprise has worked in our favor where it wouldn’t always do so. We much later found out this was because we had thrown the DM for a loop by tossing the tapestry in the Bag Of Holding and disrupting his plans, and then later we disrupted him again by escaping the dragon’s treasure room. I will add the original plans as an appendix to the end of this campaign.

The party gets back on the road with all three of us keeping an eye on Boy, but we start making good time and for several hours we run into little trouble. The terrain gives way from scrubland loose forest to open plains and with the change in scenery comes a new encounter.

The Ranger hears heavy panting and running but we can’t see anything. From seemingly out of thin air a Web drops onto our group and a cackling gnome riding a dire weasel loses its invisibility as it streaks by us in a flash. As soon as the web lands from almost 350 feet away a pair of hill giants puts two boulders into the air heading towards our pinned position.
All three of us: Oh ****…

The Paladin makes his reflex save and the rest of us fail, so he can move a bit, but not quickly. I take a boulder for 12 damage and the ranger has one veeerrrry nearly take his head off, it just misses and then careens away. Next round the cackling gnome must have won init because he chucks a flaming sphere at us then turns invisible again.

Paladin: Did he just drop two spells in one round?
DM: Yep…
All three of us: OH ****

Ranger tries to snap off a pair of arrows and first misses due to concealment, second just stops dead in it’s tracks in mid air. Paladin gets free of the Web effect with five foot move and double moves to try and get close to the gnome. I ready an action to Hold Person the gnome once I can see him. Ranger gets hit with flaming sphere damage and burning damage from the web. Then more boulders come in. The paladin eats one, and I get missed by the second. As im stuck in a now burning web where a rolling ball of fire is heading towards me the gnome reappears to cast another spell…and I try to Hold Person the little bugger…We respectfully request an open roll for it’s Will save…and I swear I have never a 20 sider roll longer and wobble to settle on a 20. FML. The Web gets consumed and we try to scatter. The paladin managed to get within range of the gnome and snaps off a trip attempt. Small size creature with unsteady footing (mounted) and he yanks the little bugger off it’s weasel. Boy puts an arrow into the weasel. The hill giants start running towards us and we assume they ran out of rocks. The ranger rips both shortswords free and charges the prone gnome for a single sneak attack.

I toss a CLW on myself and move towards the gnome as well.
The ranger and Paladin just absolutely unload on the gnome who just eats sneak attack and power attack damage like it’s nothing. As the giants get within range I cast hideous laughter on 1 and it fails, then falls to the ground laughing hysterically. The second manages to close range and bull rushes the Paladin off the gnome with a charge. The gnome eats an AOO from the ranger as it casts a spell in melee range then Teleports away. Hill giant is flanked and starts taking sneak attack damage from the ranger and gets some solid hits from paladin. I lob magic missiles at it as the dire weasel nips at paladin. Ranger eats a full attack from club and gets knocked down to single digit hps. Boy tries to keep shooting the weasel, the only thing he gets any bonuses against since his favored enemy is animals but without precise shot he has crap bonuses shooting into melee.

We manage to drop the active hill giant but he knocks the ranger into negatives and cleaves the paladin for substantial damage. Hideous Laughter is about gone on 2nd giant and Paladin eats an AOO from weasel to LoH the ranger for everything he has. I daze the Dire Weasel to give the two warriors a chance to get up on 2nd giant. This frees up the Boy to shoot freely and he wounds the weasel enough for it run off. I put a CLW on the ranger to get him in the 20’s as the second giant stands up. Ranger and Paladin both take AOO, and then I try to renew the hideous laughter to buy more time. It passes save and clobbers ranger who is now back to 10 or so. I get one more hideous laughter out and this time I connect. Ranger steps back and Paladin steps back. Paladin burns his CLW on self and I burn 3 rounds worth from my spells and wand on both ranger and paladin. Found before the laughter wears off Paladin cues up a True Strike. I start inspire courage and Paladin rocks out a full power attack/smite evil/inspire courage boosted AOO. The ranger lands sneak attack damage and the giant just gets absolutely rocked. He lasts another round but we drop him and are once again looking at depleted resources with our second encounter of the day. I get us back nearly to full health but we have 1 charge left on wand and paladin and I are out of healing spells. I have some zero level cmw available and the paladin has a 1st level spell…we are out of smite evil for what meager boost that is. Upon closer examination the giants are dressed in remarkably strange clothes, like satin and silk strange, and their clubs are sculpted with bass relief and intaglios.

Ranger: I think
…I think they actually tried to brush their hair.
Paladin: I have NEVER even heard of giants that acted this way.
Boy(through DM): We should probably follow the weasel back home…
All three of us: Wait what?
Boy: Them giants didn’t pop out of thin air…they must have walked here, and when we train up riding animals they learn to go home almost from the get go. Thar weasel prolly just limped back to wherever they came from.
Me: Do we want to go follow the wild cackling gnome that was tossing two spells a round at us?
Paladin: He is injured and used up spells just like us, chances are these giants were the best offense he carried we may be able to catch him off guard.
Me: And if he is still feeling psychotic?
Paladin: You could always try to reason with him…
Me: Like with the dragon?
Paladin:Gnomes are far different from dragon from what im told
Boy(through DM): Yeah and they are much better in stew.

The trail to follow the weasel is surprisingly easy to pick up with two trackers and within an hour we have tracked it a small valley with a squat stone tower. It was surrounded with immaculate gardens,ornate flower beds, and flowing banners dripping all over the walls. Half a dozen gnomes were gardening in the flower beds and a Hill Giant was holding an enormous watering can and watering the plants. Four gargoyles sat on the four corners of the tower, they were all wearing cherubic type toga’s and were obviously posing in uncomfortable positions like bizarre cupids. A Stone Giant in full butler regalia exited the tower’s entrance and starting distributing drinks to the workers.

Me:Well…this is certainly not what I was expecting…
Paladin: Maybe we tracked back to the wrong place.
As he said this the DM told us we could see the dire weasel limping in through the front door. Shortly after the weasel went inside a pair of goblins in absolutely shining plate armor rode out on mastiffs bearing a white flag on the end of a pole, they immediately headed in our direction.
Paladin: I guess they wish to parley…
Ranger: This is just seriously strange.
Paladin: Be alert, but polite. Perhaps we CAN reason this out. It would be nice to actually talk to someone instead of killing them for once. So far about the only thing we met that hasn’t ended up dead is the serpent priestess Yuan TI…

The goblins ride up to us and stop a respectful distance…in somewhat gritty Common they beckon us to meet with their master and discuss reparations for the earlier inconvenience.

Me: Inconvenience! A half crazed wizard burst from nowhere to engulf us in flames while giants hurled boulders at us.
Goblin Herald: Full crazed to be accurate, but we can explain…please follow
Ranger: I’m game. Based on the exterior of this tower I can’t wait to see the inside.

The party follows the two heralds into the stone tower and the inside is positively immaculate. A testament to opulence and splendor. The Stone Giant offers us refreshments which we somewhat cautiously accept. The goblins drink first and we follow suit. It is a type of goodberry punch that has curative effects and grants us an additional 8 temp hps. The inside of the tower seems impossibly large compared to the outside and from a staircase that ascends the center of a massive hall the gnome we saw earlier descends. He is now dressed in the most expensive silks you could imagine and he is carrying his arm in a sling and walking with a limp.

Gnome: Reginald Barchester Covington Winthrop the 4th, master of this tower and humbled host to you our honored guest…if you would but give me the honor of your names I will happily seek to make recompense for my earlier and unfortunate behavior….
Me: Caramis Wolfsbane…
Paladin: Kyr Prentice…paladin in service to Torm
Ranger: Emilio Miller…
Ranger out of character: Feels weird to actually use our character names…
Reggie: Splendid I am eager to hear the details of your exploits and what brings you to our territory. But first I do sincerely apologize. I am afflicted with a curse that I have been unable to dispel, and on occasion it seizes control of my normally benign nature and causes these dreadful outbursts. I am truly sorry for you coming under peril due to my condition and would happily offer you the sum of 10,000 gold as a means of showing my repentance. I don’t suppose that Bernard and Ernst followed you back did they?
Paladin: Who?
Reggie: Bernard and Ernst the two large hill giants that were at my side.
The three of us have an uncomfortable moment of wondering what happens when we explain they are dead…
Paladin: I am somewhat pained to say that they fought bravely and fiercely but ultimately in defense of our own lives, we caused them to lose their own. They must have been extremely loyal to have fought so vigorously.
Reggie: That is sad news indeed. I supposed another donation to the church of Waukeen for payment to resurrect them will be in order. Fonzworth!
Fonzworth is the Stone Giant butler and he bows to the gnome and awaits instructions.
Reggie: Hitch a wagon up and recover our two brothers, the priests of Waukeen will attend to them. Now…can I invite you to join me for dinner?
Paladin: We are grateful for the offer of monetary recompense and for the meal which I am sure will be exquisite. I speak on behalf of my companions when we say we would love to stay for dinner, but we can’t accept money. If you did however have the means through which to identify properties of enchanted items that would be a wonderful boon…
Reggie: I am afraid that divination is amongst the disciplines that I have forsworn.
Me ooc: Damnit…..
…but I may have a scroll or two that could be put to use in such a fashion.

That is the single best news we have heard in ages, we have a bag full of items that have been burning a whole in our pockets for days now and we can’t be safe that they aren’t cursed and we have little clue on their function. We are given the ability through scrolls to identify 3 items, we are pretty confident the carpet is a carpet of flying, we can’t think of or find a single other magic carpet. We ultimately elect to identify the rod hoping it could be a metamagic rod, the greatsword, and the bow. The greatsword turns out to be a frostbrand which is rather cool and a definite two hander upgrade. The paladin has all but given up on tripping at this point and it seems like a good fit for him. The bow through trial and error with the giant is determined to be a +3comp shortbow (+5str) of speed. The ranger nearly drools over this but he lacks the strength to draw it. We have a magic belt that could very well be a belt of giant str and an upgrade for him , but no way to identify it yet. The rod…is a rod of flame extinguishing. *sigh*

Reggie the sometimes psychotic gnome wizard tells us how he angered a druid with his excessive spending and was afflicted with bouts of pure insanity. He had tried dispelling, remove curse and half a dozen other means including a sizeable amount on procuring a wish to remove it to no avail. He had gathered several unusual members of their collective race who now lived a mostly good life. They were very grateful for a chance to be something other than fodder for stronger members of their race and all were loyal to a fault. He basically ran a valley of misfit toys turned good.

We are a bit leery but decide to share a palace sized single bedroom and stay the night. We still set up a watch and rotate through the night. Come morning we begin our farewells to our bizarre host and his strange retinue when one of the goblin heralds comes running into the dining hall in sheer panic.

Herald: The Green Man is coming! And he brought every troll for a hundred leagues with him!
Reggie: That is peculiar, we did pay him his monthly sum for keeping the trolls in the swamp didn’t we?
One of the gnomes grabs a ledger and confirms that they did in fact pay him.
Reggie: I didn’t kill any trolls during my little tiff did I?
Me: Um, why would killing trolls be bad?
Reggie: Oh, its just that the druid who cursed me controls the trolls in this region and I have been paying him protection money for nearly 10 years now to keep them in the swamp, in return he promised to someday cure me. Part of our agreement was that if he found his trolls murdered he would wipe me from the earth and grind my bones to dust.
All of this was delivered to us with cheer and apathy.
Ranger: Did I hear this right? There is a mafia-oso druid who is shaking down people for protection money then using trolls as button men? How much weirder can things get
Paladin: Well we did kill trolls…
Me: they tried to eat us…
Paladin: This Green Man probably doesn’t care. All men who try these types of schemes always grow greedy and try to push for more. I am amazed that our host has managed to gather such wealth and still remain so gullible.
Exiting the tower we find out just how bad things are. There are nearly a hundred trolls gathering at the mouth of the valley and at their forefront is a seven foot tall gaunt elf with moss growing in his tangled hair. A pair of dire bears at his side.

At this point I actually slammed my pencil at the table and groaned holding my head in my hands. We got dozens of trolls descending on us and we just identified a rod of flame extinguishing…and a sword that puts out magical fires. *sigh*

The group and I looked at the clock and decided we would set up a gameplan and then pick up events at the next session. The DM gave us a full breakdown of the gnome’s forces and the resources he could put available. At our disposal:

Warm Bodies:
Reggie: 9th level gnome wizard (barred schools divination and necromancy) specialist evocation. Reggie had a Rod of Lesser Metamagic Quicken Spell, a Wand of Web CL 9th and boots of teleportation. He also had decent bracers of armor +5 and a huge Con of 29…he used his massive wealth to acquire a +5 manual.
Four standard chaotic good gargoyles
Six gnomes all with 2 levels of expert (a lawyer, an accountant, a sculptor, a decorator, a carpenter and a tailor)
A hill giant named Oscar…also chaotic good
2 Goblin Heralds (Fighter 4) with Mounted Combat and lances…basically chargers
Two Hill Giants and a Stone Giant that are currently MIA and a long shot to potentially return tonight but very likely by the middle of day the next day.
A stone tower with ample interior resources and decent defenses. Walls are thick and 30 feet high with crenallations and good cover. The gate is the weak point and could be breached. There is no moat to speak of or siege type equipment.
Gear:
Wand of Bulls Strength 9 charges at CL 9
Wand of Acid Arrow 40 Charges CL 9
2 scrolls of Wall of Fire CL 9
12 Potions of Cure Moderate Wounds CL 6
I really wish there was more to add to the list but this is what we were given. There a couple options as we see it…
Pop the Material Plane Side of the cube and roll the dice to see what happens. That is assuming we can get it to work.
Try to kickstart the Carpet of Flying and fly out if we can somehow get the weights right. Paladin is opposed to leaving good folk behind to be massacred
Make a break for it and run like hell
Hold the line and get some giants as reinforcements and try to resist an overwhelming force that has fast healing, druid support and strength in numbers
Or…”try to reason with them”

TheDarkSaint
2012-04-20, 11:45 AM
I have to say, this stuff is gold. I about died at Das Vagon. :) keep it coming

Kaveman26
2012-04-20, 01:08 PM
Fifth Session (6th to 8th):

Well…we didn’t reason with them, we decided to do the dumbest thing possible and try to defend the keep against 100 trolls and a druid. Our gameplan was for the gnome to load up on fire spells and use the gate leading into the keep as a chokepoint and throw Walls of Fire when we desperately needed to regroup. We put the unidentified belt on the ranger and hoped it would lead to a bigger strength boost. We stockpiled a bunch of heavier objects on the roof and assigned the gargoygles the duty to bombard the trolls from the air. The gnomes were put to work building crude barricades inside the tower where we could fall back. We put Boy, the Ranger and Reggie on the Roof. The paladin, hill giant and two goblins were tasked with holding the doorway. I stayed with the giant and paladin to provide support as healing and crowd control. We were banking on the belt being a higher strength bonus and hopefully with bulls strength the ranger could use the bigger bow and passdown his bow to the Boy.

We were allowed to re-pick spells for the day in prepation of what we expected to be a pitched battle.

The gnome got prepped with: 5 Enlarge Person and 1 magic missile for 1st level. Enlarge Person and Bulls Strength would definitely get ranger to 20 str and we figured same thing wouldn’t hurt on paladin either.
2nd Level:6 Scorching Rays
3rd: 5 Fireballs
4th 3 Walls of Fire
5th 2 Walls of Force
We loaded him up for full blown explosive goodness and some walls to slow down trolls with walls of force to maybe set up a trap or stop them cold.
The two goblins get hit with bulls strength from the wand as does the paladin when the trolls first charge. The gnome high tails it to the roof and gets Ranger. First wave of trolls is about 20 in total coming from 500 feet or so. At a flat out run the trolls are going to need 4 rounds to get to us. That means I can get four acid arrows in the air or the gnome can get four fireballs in the air before they get to us. Ranger can take long shots with penalties but with speed and rapid shot he can drop a lot of arrows now. The gnome drops a pair of fireballs at range and we pepper them with arrows. As they close the gnome scrolls out a Wall of Fire in front of the first group. Then can’t slow down and have to run full through it, none are outright killed from the initial volleys but they are all banged up bad and most don’t last more than two rounds. The goblins fight the first wave from horseback and mostly maneuver to get the paladin flanks. It’s somewhat counter intuitive but the cold damage from the frostbrand makes a formidable difference. The Hill Giant cracks skulls and for the most part I plop a few magic missiles and toss a CLW on the hill giant who ate the most damage.

The Green Man waits out the fire wall before having a second group of trolls start heading towards the keep. These are strung out and spaced instead of being bunched together and this time there are only 10 of them. Ranger and Boy focus on the one on far left and I launch a pair of acid arrows at the straggler far right. The goblins get green lights to take a charge at the center troll then they split left and right to swing around for the ones on the corners. They pull off two sort of figure eights to work back to the wall for when they all approach. Triple damage from a lance is pretty sweet and the troll getting peppered by ranger goes down. We end up with six at melee range and the gnome starts dropping some nasty scorching rays. We take moderate damage and take out the remaining wounds ones.

There is a lot of furious arm waving and posturing from the distance and for several hours we sit tight as nothing happens. It becomes apparent to us that the “rush and claw” method is no longer going to be relied on. As we approach evening the trolls are seen bringing in additional forces and gathering rocks, timber and lots of hides. Before nightfall we see them assembling crude tower shields and battering rams along with large and nasty looking slings and spears. Perhaps scarier is the sudden chanting and roaring as a MASSIVE troll with armor and a wicked looking falchion enters the valley horizon. The troll voices all start a thundering chant of “Puxdool! Puxdool! Puxdool!”

We settle in for a long and tense night, and try to figure out for next step. The good news is that we advance to level 7. That opens up some additional options for the morning. Paladin takes a level in Dragon Disciple which bumps him to two attacks per round and gives him a slight edge in natural armor. He rolls an 8 and gains some solid health.

The Ranger/Rogue/Barbarian adds a level of fighter…he takes improved two weapon fighting as fighter bonus feat and rolls a whopping 4 for hps.
I go to Bard 4/Cleric3 and pick up level 2 cleric spells and I can now cast Identify as my domain slot. Never has lack of a level 1 spell been so vexing. Roll an 8 for hps and do a small in seat happy dance. I also get some staggering news about future levels. I got a greenlight to take Sublime Chord as a prestige class. So if I take Mystic Theurge as my 8th,9th,and 10th levels I can then take Sublime Chord as my 11th, then go back to MT and “level” as a chord. Oh my that is huge news in a limited rules campaign. I also get a greenlight to take Practiced Spellcaster which will help immensely.
The following morning we see that the trolls and the Green Man have been busy little bees. There is a line of crude hide covered tower shields assembled along with a turtle. A battering ram covered with soaked hides and timber. There is also a line of trolls forming up with javelins and slings, at the center of this all is the large troll Puxdool who we can hear from the tower. He is barking out orders to move faster and threatening to kill the slowest workers. The Green Man is following him around like a puppy. The gang is setting up in a similar fashion to the day before when the Green Man, The troll captain, and the two dire bears comes to about the 300 foot range holding a white flag.

Paladin: I think they want to talk
Me: I’m pretty sure they want to kill Reggie, but they think talking will save them time.
Paladin: Well yeah that is what I meant.
Because we are foolhardy and PC’s we of course leave the confines of a secured and defensible position to ride out and treat with superior forces in open territory.
Green Man: My lord and liege demands the surrender of the accursed wizard and orders you to give him into our possession to answer for his crimes.
Me: Who is your lord?
Puxdool: I am.

Up close the troll is bad news, he is clearer larger than the rest of the trolls and he speaks stronger giant than they do. He is also wearing armor and bears an absolutely wicked falchion.

Me: Well we are not opposed to giving up the gnome depending on your terms. He does seem a bit dangerous.
Paladin (as an aside): Not opposed?
I gesture to “go with it” and proceed to say “What crimes has he commited? And what shall be his fate?”
Puxdool: He has killed five of my tribe, one of whom was my offspring and protégé. I will strip the flesh from his tiny frame and season our cookpots with the marrow of his bones.
Me: So not a stern warning?
Green Man: I can think of no warning sterner.
Paladin: And if he is innocent of these charges?
Puxdool: He is not. The druid has ways of knowing when the curse is upon him and it was the day my heir was killed.

And in what has to be the worst timing possible the Bag Of Holding that the tapestry is inside starts glowing a bright red and smoke starts billowing forth…
Green Man: What trickery is this?

The paladin just shouts “Run!” and we scatter. In midstride the bag of holding slips free from the paladin and just sits there in mid air, lightning and thunder swirl above it and a massive groan loud enough to make us stumble fills the valley a swirling vortex of oh holy **** that can’t be good rips a hole in the sky and the Green Man, Puxdool , and the two Dire Bears get sucked into it in an instant and then everything goes quiet and the bag falls to the ground sealed shut. The paladin does an about face and grabs it then we hightail it back to the tower as the trolls forces start to rouse themselves for all out attack.

Me: Well that was a neat trick.
Ranger: We did that on purpose?
Paladin: I am certain we didn’t, and that can’t bode well for the future.
As the three of us run back to the keep Reggie greets us with a smile and pat on the back “nice trick…wish I knew that one”

All hell broke loose at that point. We had taken out 30 trolls and there was now at least another hundred outside the walls. All with some means of cover and now armed with missile weapons. All one hundred formed up in thin ranks and just started stampeding for the tower. We gave up all pretense of holding outside the keep and just barred the door as best we could. The Hill Giant and Paladin along with the gnomes and goblins just kept piling up stuff on the door to try and hold it fast. Reggie, the ranger and I myself started unloading every ranged resource we had at the oncoming horde. The gargs we sent up as high as they could reasonably go and had them start dropping makeshift bombs.

To get height and avoid javelins and slings they could only manage a rock or stone every 3 rounds that did 3d6 from falling damage. They basically got a % chance to hit based on target density and for the most part they added peripheral damage and not enough to be game changing. We organized a code word so that if things got dicey they would descend to melee range and start slicing and dicing. I had about 38 charges on the Wand of Acid Arrow, I burned the thing out. Whenever they bunched up even a little bit the gnome would drop a fireball and we kept a wall of fire up around the front gate as best as possible. The trolls were fighting like absolute berserkers and they took the fire damage as almost a cost of doing business. We ate a lot of damage from thrown weapons and after about 20 rounds the front door starting giving way.

The inside of the tower had a pair of parapets to either side of the door. The Ranger set up at the window of one parapet inside the keep and started peppering the trolls working there way through the gaps in the door while I worked on them from the other window parapet. Reggie kept sniping from atop the tower but he was almost out of spells. I gave him the magic missile wand and kept plugging with the acid arrows. Our fourth wall of fire was burning at the entrance and we had severely wounded or killed 30+ trolls, but we were running out of spells and walls. We dropped a wall of force and dropped back to regroup, we chugged 8 of our 12 potions and the paladin and I used a few CLW spells. We had 60+ trolls remaining all injured with fire and acid and we were almost out of resources. Gnome had a Scorching Ray and a Wall of Fire, and 1 Wall of Force left. I had used everything but my cantrips and a level 1 bard spell. I had a 2nd level cleric domain slot for Cure Mod Wounds and the Paladin had his lay of hands remaining. The gnome had several hundred arrows for us to use, but even those were dipping below the 100 mark now that we were dropping 3 or 4 a round with the Boy shooting too.

A loud crunching noise from outside got our attention and Boy took a few steps down the parapet…

Boy: There are a couple giants out there lobbing some of them shields and other stuff at the trolls!

Reinforcements! And there was much rejoicing. Most of the trolls turned to attack the targets they could reach and we decided to push forth and try to punch through the middle to join them. The Hill Giant formed up at the head of a wedge with the Paladin to his left and ranger to the right. The goblin knights split to either side with me and Reggie in the middle. We punched through the center group at the gate as the wall of fire expired and we took off heading for the three giants. The Gargs stop their bombing runs and joined up with us and the goblin knights were set loose In the field to snipe charges where they could. First couple rounds go ok. Then the goblins get bull rushed off their mounts and then swarmed and killed. The little buggers were doing good damage and losing two warm bodies hurt. We lose the hill giant despite trying to keep him healed and the paladin starts taking the brunt of damage. We do manage to kill about 3-4 trolls a round as most are injured good with fire and acid. But they are taking big chunks out of us and we lose 3 of the 4 gargoyles. Me and Reggie start eating some missile damage and Paladin can’t get any breathing room. One of the newly resurrected giants goes down and the Stone Giant (who is in a fencing stance and using a rapier) starts to get overwhelmed.

All told we are something like 50 rounds into combat and we spent every charge on our wands and every scroll. I am down to jabbing things with a spear and keeping an open for people that fall and need to be stabilized.
The Stone Giant kills a troll on the Paladin and he finally gets free space to use a full LoH on himself. We remember the Wand of Web and with the trolls strength its not a major deterrent but we lob some webs at isolated trolls and that slows them down some. Several of the trolls begin limping off, generally the ones most damaged by fire and we survey the battlemat and count 7 still engaging. The Paladin and Ranger are both in single digit health and Im at like 18. The gnome has eaten a lot of damage and is down to about 15. Boy is knocked out but not dead and both hill giants are down, maybe dead. The Stone Giant is sucking fumes on health and we have one gargoyle left. We divvy up the last 3 potions and Paladin, Ranger and Stone Giant all drink one. We are working hard to avoid full attacks on us and trying to maneuver flanks. Ranger eats a few more hits and drops into negatives, -2. I risk an AOO to toss a Cure minor with the hopes of expending a second next round and getting him conscious. Stone Giant takes two hits and is wobbly on it’s feet. We kill two more trolls and have five left. Paladin kills one next round and then is hit and brought to 3 hps.

We are agonizing over every roll at this point and Reggie is reduced to using a sling for next to nothing in damage, but every little bit could count at this point. Fast Healing on the trolls is brutal with no more fire damage available. Reggie gets isolated and ripped apart by 2 trolls. Ranger gets up and managed a full attack on a troll and garg finishes it off. That is just enough to swing things in our favor. Paladin get knocked to negative 6 and I use last Cure Minor to stabilize him. The ranger starts backing up and shooting one arrow a round. Remaining Garg goes down and the Stone Giant dispatches another with a crit. I eat a Cleave attack and am dropped to 6. Remaining two trolls are killed and he are left with an empty battlefield. There are about a dozen trolls fleeing, but in total we killed 86 trolls…

As a final tally the survivors of this battle were the Stone Giant-Fonzsworth, the Boy, and Ernst the Hill Giant. Paladin finished the battle at -5 with no spells or LoH left, Ranger finished at 1 health, and I finished with absolutely nothing left in terms of resources and 6 hps. Fonzsworth assures us that Reggie will be resurrected shortly and that we should await his return at the Keep. The gnomes meet us back at the keep and we re-barricade the door. In character and at the table we were completely exhausted at this point. I mean just spent. We started first wave of trolls at about 11:30 AM and the collective battles took us literally all day. On the plus side we didn’t spend long at level 7, the conclusion of this encounter put us at level 8.

Paladin takes another level of Dragon Disciple and gains a bonus spell and str boost on top of BAB. He rolls a 10 for health…which is huge.

Ranger takes another level of fighter bringing him to Ranger2/Rogue3/Barbarian1/Fighter2 he takes Weapon Focus:Swords

I take a level of Mystic Theurge…I take Cure Light Wounds and Cure Moderate Wounds as my two new bard spells. I can now cast Identify as my domain spell and DM gives us the boon of letting me prepare in in my normal slots too. We stay defensive minded for a full day and when nothing rears itself at the valley mouth or from the bag I load up on Identify. What I’m about to say may shock you and it nearly got the table flipped at our DM. Here is our fully identified item list…

Ring1: Wardrobe Ring-Ring of Spell Storing
Ring2:Wardrobe Ring-Ring of Elemental Command-Fire
Ring3:Ring of Feather Falling
Staff:Wardrobe-Staff of Fire (48 charges)
Rod:Wardrobe-Rod of Flame Extinguishing (pre-troll battles)
Amulet-Amulet of Natural Armor+3
Belt-Belt of Giant Str+6
Carpet-Carpet of Flying (duh-but now we have activation word)
Cube-Cubic Gate (Material Plane, Limo, Plane of Earth, Plane of Earth, Plane of Water, Plane of Air)
A second Iron Golem Manual
Bag of Holding Type3-we just stuffed it til it couldn’t take anymore and came to conclusion that way
Headband-Headband of Intellect+4
Longsword 1:Wardrobe-Flametongue
Longsword2: +3 keen
Greatsword:Frostbrand (pre troll battles)
Comp Shortbow: +3 comp shortbow (+5str) speed (pre troll battles)
Morningstar:+4

Yes…in our possession the entire battle was a flipping Ring of Elemental Command Fire, a Staff of Fire nearly full charged, a Flametongue and a Ring of Spell Storing. Note that all the fire items were in the dark cherry folding wardrobe. We identified the absolute wrong items out of that case…Add access to 20+ Walls of Fire or 48 8d6 fireballs to that encounter. Add unlimited CL 15 burning hands and a pair of flamestrikes and a pair of Wall of Fire and some flaming spheres….(he actually gave us a few scrolls because he felt bad about us going into the fight without the items)we took 100+ trolls with those sitting in a bag. I can say with 100% adamant fervor that we NEVER played a single session of D&D ever again without access to identify. In one fell swoop we just went through the roof in terms of firepower and wealth by level.

I get the Ring of Spell Storing, the Staff and the Ring of Elemental Command. The Ranger takes the two longswords and the paladin takes the Morningstar. Paladin also takes the Amulet. We end up taking three days to get all our ducks in a row, we also get our hands on a decent world map and get a good concept of where we are and the places we have been. We figure we can actually make the trip to a major city in 30 hours if we push the flying carpet non stop and rotate to sleep and rest. We call it a night there and meet back up the next week in town.

Sixth Session (8th):

This was without a doubt a unique session. We reached The City. No title no description just The City. The world’s largest metropolis, a haven for just about everything. Our DM is an accountant who lives and breathes Excel and he went completely off the deep end with this place in terms of magic items. He wrote several excel formulas based around Appraise, Bluff and Sense Motive that affected the price of items in the town. He had something like 100 pages of magic items and materials that were present in the town and organized by vendor. Every item had the Vendor’s appraised price of what he thought the item was worth and a Bluff ceiling of what he would offer on a given item. For one game session we stopped being adventurers trying to rid the world of a cursed wall hanging and we became middle men market speculators. I don’t mean we puttered around for an hour and threw some dice. I mean we broke up assignments and spent 13 hours haggling and bargaining. The paladin kept a ledger that showed what we could buy or sell a given item at, and the ranger made a wish list and distributed potential item packs to each of us. I had to role play each “haggle” and mostly make the rolls. Amongst the biggest items on our list were:

Ring of Elemental Command Earth:
Ring of Protection +5
Cloak of Resistance+5
Belt of Giant Strength+6
Cloak of Charisma+6
Cloak of Charisma+4
Gloves of Dexterity+6
Holy Avenger
+3 frost shortsword
+3 shock kukri
+4 Full Plate
Chain Shirt+5
Heavy Steel Shield +5

All these were items available in The City and our goal was to acquire as many of them as possible. I won’t go through everything we did because it was a full 13 hour day of item shopping.

*We got 225,000 for the Cubic Gate. I positioned it as being a safe means of acquiring special materials and having strong application by attuning to each elemental Plane.
* We nearly got into a fight after a horrific price on a Cloak of Displacement Major. It led to a long recurring joke where someone would shout out at random “80,000? I might as well kill my own blink dogs and make my own for that price!” I got a bit confused and mistook blink dogs for displacer beasts…kind of a “you had to be there moment” but it stuck with us.
* I got an offer of 15,000 for my +1 spear…we took that almost faster than the DM could blink…
*We had a very shady wizard offer us 300,000 for the Armageddon bag…we turned him down.

Collectively we ended up selling the Cubic Gate, the Morningstar+4, The Headband of Intellect , the Ring of Feather Falling, and all our +1 stuff. We resold and haggled over the better part of 150 items and collectively we ended up purchasing the following….
Wand of Cure Serious Wounds CL7th 50 charges
Wand of Cure Moderate Wounds CL5th 45 charges
Wand of Bulls Strength CL5th 50 charges
2 Scrolls of Permanency
Heavy Steel Shield +5
Chain Shirt+5
Gloves of Dexterity+6
Belt of Giant Strength+6
Cloak of Charisma +6 and +4
Full Plate +4
Cloak of Resistance+5
+3 frost shortsword
Ring of Protection+5
Manual of Strength Boost+1

We put the Holy Avenger on a sort of strange layaway. We put 20% of asking price as a down payment and are given a bag of holding. It takes all coins and gems and gives a fair market price for them then when the sword is paid off the Holy Avenger will be drawn forth from it. Quirky.

The other two big developments from this session became campaign changing. I scoured for a cohort during our time in The City. I specifically was looking for a Wizard and a Druid. We ended up with candidates for both. I will get back to them in a second though.

The biggest thing we did was arrange for two bodies to be built for our golem manuals. We spent every last scrap of coin we had left and traded back in the Cloak of Charisma+4 but we got two fully functional Iron Golems…One was made in the semblance of Torm and was an armored warrior shell. The second was made to be a minotaur…look up Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger…yes just like that.

Back to the cohorts. We had a half orc druid level 6 that was eager to join us, he was had Augment Summoning, Natural Spell and Extend Spell as his feats and from our perspective a summoner. Anything that could flood the battlefield or help with flanks was welcome and we liked the idea of having buff spells and extra healing

We also had a Level 6 dwarf wizard that was an abjurer (barred schools necromancy and enchantment) that had our attention. Much like Reggie the gnome he had some monster con and could provide buff spells.

I ultimately ended up taking the druid as my cohort. We more or less agreed to treat him for purposes of EXP as a full pc and forgo the cohort rules. He just couldn’t close more than two levels from me.

Boy was also bumped to level 4 and he got some decent hand me downs
Our wealth by level is off the charts at this point and we are strapped to the gills for level 8 characters.

We ended up looking something like this by the time we got back to the real action:
Kyr Prentice (Paladin5/Sorcerer1/Dragon Disciple2) Str22 Dex10 Con18 Int11 Wis16 Cha20 with a Frostbrand, Flametongue, Heavy Steel Shield+5, Full Plate +4, Amulet Natural Armor+3, Ring of Protection+5, Cloak of Resistance+5, Belt of Giant Str+6 and an Iron Golem under his Mental Command. He was loaded up with AC and could build up some nasty single strikes by prepping true strike then Power Attack Smiting.

Emilio Miller (Ranger2/Rogue3/Barbarian1/Fighter2) Str20 Dex26 Con15 Int14 Wis 14 Cha 11 with Chain Shirt+5, +3 comp shortbow (+5str) of speed, a longsword+3 keen a +3 frost shortsword, belt of giant str+6 and gloves of dexterity+6 and a full complement of arrows and a cache of cold iron arrows. He had bow feats and two weapon fighting feats. He also took the +1 str manual and his level 8 stat boost to get to an unbuffed 20 str to pull the bow back.

Caramis Wolfsbane (Bard4/Cleric3/Mystic Theurge1) Str15 Dex10 Con12 Int18 Wis14 Cha 26, with Chain Shirt+1 Cloak of Charisma+6, Ring of Elemental Command Fire, Ring of Spell Storing (2 Cure Mod and a CLW) a Staff of Fire, a few wands and an Iron Golem under my mental command
Boy aka Trollbane (Ranger3/Barbarian1) Str 14 Dex 12 Con12 Int 9Wis12 Cha9 with a Belt of Giant Str+2 a comp longbow (+2str)+1 a masterwork greataxe and Skill Focus Trapmaking Track, Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot as feats.

Pudnokker (Druid 6): Str 16 Dex 13 Con 14 Int 11 Wis 17 Cha 11 with a +1 quaterstaff, leather armor+1 and Natural Spell, Augment Summoning, and Extend Spell

Party Possessions:
Bag of Holding Type 1: With a nasty world ending evil artifact tapestry
Bag of Holding Type3: Caches of extra arrows, a rod of flame extinguishing 2 scrolls of permanency. And a few cold iron mundane type weapons. We have some assorted odds and ends like rope etc as well.

We also have a Yuan Ti relic that functions as a focusing talisman and a Mantle that is worn by a Sarrukh. We were told that the mantle would enable us to find a Yuan Ti holy place called the Tomb of Coiled Kings. In our frantic escape from a treasure hoard we never forgot about that small detail.
The City should be a place to get more answers and for the most part we come up surprisingly blank. The Bag of Holding is definitely unstable at this point and we are very worried about another lighthouse that could suck down a whole city block. Holy Water has no more visible effect and every mage, druid, cleric and loremaster we track down comes up with nada in terms of advice. We reluctantly make the paladin wear the Sarrukh Mantle and see what happens. We figure with his saves being the best if bad things happen, it will happen the least to him. The Ranger does helpfully point out that if the Mantle takes control of him we are pretty much screwed as we won’t be able to dent his AC and he has the best saves of us all. Putting on the mantle he describes seeing things in a haze and he has multiple rapid visions that show various landmarks in quick glimpses. From that and our map we are able to fix a good starting location to search. We have been bounced all over the continent and are now on a south west course from where the original dragon lair was at.

Kaveman26
2012-04-20, 01:52 PM
These are the last two sessions i have recapped and prepped.

Seventh Session (8th to 10th):

We pick up events the next Saturday with our group leaving The City and heading towards the Tomb of Coiled Kings. I am alone of the flying carpet and overhead about 40 feet from the rest of the party with the Armageddon Bag, and the Paladin is out in front with the Ranger in the Rear. We have Pud and Boy in the middle and they are flanked by the Iron Golems. From the map and our rate of travel we are five days from the area we expect to find the Yuan Ti burial ground, and that will put within a hundred miles of where the Dragon’s Lair is at. Had we not Cubic Gate’d to the middle of nowhere we would have been there long ago. We are on day 3 of our journey and come nightfall we come under attack from a Kobold Commando Squad.

As we are prepping for the night we are doing some of our ususal paranoid stuff, sleeping away from the campfire we had lit etc. Just as we are bedding down a trio of magic missiles slams into the Paladin and we are set upon by invisible attackers. By our count there are six attackers, all with Greater Invisibility. Boy gets knocked out with some type of poison and is unconscious, and there are two attackers on the Paladin, Two on me and 1 on Pudd and 1 on the Druid. We take a bit of a pounding as we try to figure things out, and I take a nasty AOO when I try to glitterdust the paladin’s vicinity. Glitterdust reveals two kobolds on the Paladin. I won’t go blow by blow other than to say it was pretty ugly. We sent both golems on one glitterdusted kobold and the paladin and druid lit into the second one. The ranger was trying to fight his invisible attacker and on my next turn I decided to heat things up a bit. I dropped a pillar shaped Wall Of Fire on myself. I ate an AOO and dipped to about 15 health…but two kobolds screamed out in pain as they went up in flame. DM wanted me to roll for my own fire damage, but the Ring gives Fire Resistance and I kind of grin as they burn next to me. The Wall of Fire is enough to get them off of me and as they back up I toss a Burning Hands at them. With cover blown on four of them we clean up the remainders. The Golems are superstars in this, the DR is insane and they come through unscratched. We examine the corpses are the reason for the heavy damage we took becomes apparent.

The group was five warrior/rogue types with a caster that buffed them with a Wand of Bulls Strength and scrolls of greater invisibility. Each of them has a weapon with human bane and we are all human except for the half-orc druid. We strip them of their gear and debate on destroying the human bane items, they strike us as evil and the Paladin is against any type of profit in their use or resale. We keep the Wand of Bulls Strength (10 charges at CL 11) and there are two scrolls of Greater Invisibility CL 11 that we elect to keep. There is a scattering of small coin that we toss into the layaway bag.
The Ranger actually clues in on these kobolds wearing some clothes that resemble the ones from the kobolds we encountered carting treasure to the dragon’s lair. Ruh oh. It seems that the dragon may be sending out squads to intercept us. We all figure on a dragon attack at some point soon. At the first sign of trouble we all concur that acid resist is our first priority.

The next afternoon we get hit by another commando squad, but this time they are flying kobolds and they all have human bane bows. We take a lot of damage in this fight. The ranger is a stone cold killer at range, but the rest of us are rather lacking. I burn five charges from Staff on Fireballs. We can reload a staff with two spells slots expended to match 1 charge in the Staff, Im not sure if this was a house rule or a standard rule, but it meant we could reload the staff with extra juice. I didn’t have 3rd level spells, but the druid did and he could expend two 3rd level slots to replenish a fireball in the Staff of Fire…

Day 3 became a constant swarm of tactical kobold teams, I swear the DM had a friggin kobold fetish because we had been fighting the buggers since level 1. By the end of the day we get hit by an all monk kobold squad that spammed stunning fists, an all sorcerer kobold squad and a group of five axe wielding berserker kobolds. All of whom had human bane weapons. By the end of the third day we were ragged on resources and pissed off both in character and out. Collectively we had 30+ human bane weapons that we needed to figure out what to do with. The Golems are so overpowered in these encounters it wasn’t even funny. And for the first time since we had to abandon Das Vagon we hear a grumbled “****ing golems”…and there was much rejoicing.

Day four goes without much incident and we can now see in the distance a hazy fog over what looks like a verdant jungle valley. We push on deep into the night and make camp just at the outside of the jungle. We spend almost two days resting and making sure we are full on everything. No more kobold hit squads attack us and as the Paladin puts the Mantle back on the haze parts and the jungle gives way to a shadowy entrance leading into the ground.

Paladin: I think we are here.
Me: Do we really want to go in?
Ranger: Better than random lizard assassins….
Me: A shadowy hidden entrance to a burial ground of certain peril?
Ranger: ANYTHING is better than kobold hitmen at this point
Paladin: Damn Straight.

We wind our way down lots of staircases and open chambers filled with bones. We are jumping at just about every shadow and we assume every bone belongs to a skeleton ready to leap and attack us. We travel for hours and figure ourselves to be miles underground when we finally come to a squat underground pyramid. Standing sentry to the entrance of the pyramid are two shadowy figures that were once Yuan TI…we all make knowledge checks and I get a short note passed to me.

Me: I…I know what they are…
Ranger: Well?
Me: They are Sarrukh…Dread Wraith Sarrukh.
Paladin: That…that spells neigh unto certain death.
Me: Then let’s talk to them….put on your snake shoulderpads and reason with them.
The Paladin approaches with cautious footsteps to these sentries while wearing the Mantle and with exaggerated slowness they heft their ghostly glaives and turn to look at him.

Wraith: you bear the Mantle of our Egg-Fathers…speak your purpose
Paladin: We need the knowledge and wisdom of your lieges

The wraith nods and the two of them turn and drive their glaives into the stone….a snake head emerges from above the doorway leading to the pyramid. He very slowly places the mantle on the snakes head and the wraiths disappear from view as the door to the temple opens. The pyramid is one massive chamber. Inside are several hundred adamantite and mithral coffins. In the Center of the Room is a massive pure diamond throne, and upon the throne is a Sarrukh covered in dust motionless, the moment we enter the chamber it looks up at us and in a voice that sends shivers down our spines it speaks…

Sarrukh Guardian: No human has ever stepped foot on these grounds in ten thousand years. How have you found this place?

We give a stammering explanation of the tapestry, the Yuan TI priestess and the mad escape from the dragon who is pilfering their heritage. The guardian listens to everything then gestures for the bag holding the tapestry. He stares at it for close to an hour as we stand there in silence and when he speaks it is a voice from a whole different dimension.

Guardian: This is an evil that existed before my people rose to power. It does not drink the darkness…it breathes in the night and exhales doom and death. You have suffocated it with darkness and soon that darkness will spread. You are wrong to call it a gateway…the denizens that emerge are native to no plane and beholden to no master. They are their own masters and only heed the word of the one that resides at the heart of this darkness.
Ranger: The heart?
Guardian: This is not a portal, it is a prison and the captive yearns for freedom it’s anger and rage and deceit are manifested in the creatures that come forth. The tapestry can’t be destroyed until it is.
Paladin: How do we destroy it?
Guardian: You must go forth into the prison and travel to the cell in which it is held, there you must vanquish this presence only then will the dark give way to light. You are not prepared to face what lies ahead.
Me: Are you?

A loud hissing emerges from all over the chamber and the lids of every coffin are thrown open and hundreds of Yuan Ti emerge from their tombs. I whisper…”I think I pissed them off”
Guardian: No…we are not. But we can push back the darkness to buy time for you to make yourselves ready.

The guardian rises from it’s throne and pounds a scepter on the arm of its throne. Every Yuan Ti in the room comes to attention and faces him.

Guardian: The Sleep of a thousand generations is over. Our end time has come. Rise with me brothers to fight back a force we are responsible for. We will not be wiped from this plane as a mere whispered legend. Let it be known that our last legacy was to provide a light that pushed back the darkness of infinity.
Paladin: I detect Evil….
DM: Seriously?
Paladin: Seriously…
DM: Ok…to describe the evil of this room as overwhelming is an understatement. Every single Yuan Ti in this room is a lich with at least 10 class levels and they are all evil. You are knocked senseless for at least the next couple hours.

As the paladin passes out and we start to panic the Guardian tears open the bag of holding and hurls it to the far end of the chamber A gaping vortex opens on the wall and almost instantly dozens of demons begin pouring out. The collective liches of the room start launching every spell imagineable and the carnage is unreal. The Guardian comes to us and gives us a scepter, on it are hundreds of lights and as we see a lich literally torn to shreds by a Marilith a light goes out on the scepter.

Guardian: We will stem the tide and clear a path. You must return before the last light goes out and face the darkness inside. Go back to the temple where the priestess is held, and place this scepter at the heart of the reliquary where the mantle was found. It will open a chamber that leads to the vault where are our most hated items were hidden. Take forth these items and return. GO NOW!

As he screams he opens a satchel and removes a dozen Gems of Brightness, and the Yuan Ti liches start blistering the portal with blinding flashes of light. The flood of creatures abates and the liches push back the ones in the chamber. We frantically high tail it out of there and try to recover. This is all seriously above our pay grade…I mean damn.

We drag the paladin out and the DM has me make a Diplomacy check for both Boy and Pudnokker, they are rethinking their service with us. I assure them I won’t make them risk their lives needlessly and that they don’t have to enter the tapestry when the time comes. We know the dragon is pissed and any attempt to re-enter that treasure room is going to be met with stiff resistance. We aren’t too sure what approach we can bring and we need to figure that out in a hurry. When the Paladin comes to we fill him in on events and he is adamantly in favor of marching in and just tearing apart the dragon’s forces and the dragon himself. We decide to basically go Matrix lobby on the dragon’s lair and just bring some offense.

In route we finally encounter something other than kobold bushwhackers. From my vantage on the carpet I spot four fire giants lobbing rocks at something darting through the air. We are too far away to determine what it is, but we decide to investigate. Pudnokker tosses bulls strength on the melee and we set up a hasty ambush. As we get closer we see that the creature evading is a gold dragon…in fact…it is the gold dragon we saw what seems like ages ago. We send an Iron Golem to two of the Fire Giants and the Paladin closes in for a flank on one, while the druid summons a hippogriff to provide a flanker on second golem’s giant. I have a DC20 on Hideous Laughter but they get a +4 bonus and we are now encountering creatures that have some real Will Saves…I got about a 35% of connecting and I decide to try to and incapacitate one of the remaining two. He rolls a 2 on save and I have a little fist pump moment.

The remaining Fire Giant stops focus on the dragon and tears into a golem. The Paladin’s first swing is a charging attack with true strike prepped, full power attack with smite evil and a frostbrand against a cold vulnerable creature. He rolls a 19…rolls to confirm and Rolls a 16, We added up close to 70 damage on one swing. Ranger puts a full attack with rapid shot and speed and sneak attack into the second flanked giant and he hits high 60’s for damage. The Boy snipes at the ranger’s target and I start to wonder who’s follower he really is. Our summoned Hippogriff gets cleaved into oblivion, and the druid summons another one to take it’s place. The Paladin and Torm Golem combine to kill their giant and the Minotaur Golem on the ranger target connects on both slams bringing his giant down. The remaining upright golem bugs out and runs. We surround the laughing golem and within two rounds he is brought low as well. The gold dragon lands and is clearly exhausted.

Gold: I never expected to see you again…
Paladin: What happened? Why didn’t you flee.
Gold: Sadly I can’t…
Me: Why…?
Gold: Because I’m bait….

As he says that we get ambushed from all sides as invisible kobolds pour into the area flinging spells, darts, spears and some just come howling swinging axes. All told 23 varying dice enter the battlemat, color coded by “type”. We get absolutely smashed in the surprise round. The Boy is killed outright…the Druid is brought to single digit hps and the Paladin even takes close to 30 with his out of this world AC. I get knocked down to 15 and we haven’t taken an action against them.

Out of character I shake my head and grumble “ all right time to whip it out put it on the table and measure who’s got the biggest. “

The paladin drops his greatsword and draws shield and flametongue as he moves closer to me. The Ranger draws his longsword and shortsword and moves to me as well. I drop a Wall of Fire on my Golem and step into the flames. We send the Golems as a pair against single targets and let them burn and slam one at a time.

We got Green Dice Kobolds with bows…
We got Red Dice Kobolds with axes…
We got Blue Dice Kobolds with wands…
And we Got Black Dice Kobolds with Spears and Armor…
We focus on the blue dice first.

The Druid moves closer to us and casts a Cure Moderate on Himself. Red Kobolds advance on our wedge and Green ones are shooting at us. The blues are all trying to Slow the Golems. The Black Dice ones are casting spells that we can’t identify but they seem to have no real affect on us. We still take some ugly damage but for the most part they aren’t rushing us. Next Turn the Paladin full attacks a red kobold and kills it with 30+ damage. The Ranger takes one out as well, and I Wall of Fire the second Golem. That sucks two charges from Staff. Druid puts a Cure Mod on me for his action. Golems are killing two kobolds a round and they are start running from the golems. 3rd round all the remaining kobolds try to dogpile one of the golems and they manage to get 15 or so damage through. With a grin I remind the DM that my golem have fast healing…

DM: Golems don’t have Fast Healing…
Me: Burning Golems do…they heal 1hp per 3 fire damage and mine are taking 20 or so fire damage a round from the walls…so Fast Healing 6 give or take.
DM: ****ing golems!

We take 11 rounds to kill the 23 kobolds and I end up using just about all my cleric healing and the druid runs out of prepped healing. We start to regroup and find the gold dragon right where we left him. The Gold informs us that he had a Geas placed upon him that prevented him from leaving the area, he was there to bait out our group, and let the kobolds get into place and ambush us. The Fire Giants just happened along and felt like having a bit of fun. We give Boy a proper burial and the Paladin says a quiet prayer for the fallen swamp boy turned adventurer. I was a bit angered by his death. The hatred of kobolds was set in stone for all of us by this point.

We can’t do much for the dragon and opt to try and kill the black dragon who is the presumptive caster of the spell. We press on towards the dragon’s lair with the goal of camping and resting and then assaulting it at first light. Given that we advance to 9th level and make camp.

The Paladin takes another level of Dragon Disciple he is following the Silver dragon path and picks up a cone of cold breath weapon that brings him to Paladin5/Sorc1/Dragon Disciple3, and for his level 9 feat he selects Cleave
The Ranger takes another level in Fighter bringing him to Ranger2/Rogue3/Barbarian1/Fighter3 and he takes Improved Critical

I advance to Bard4/Cleric3/Mystic Theurge2 and pick up level 3 cleric spells and sadly no new bard spells. I take Practiced Spellcaster as my feat to fix the MT gap.

Pudnokker is advanced to level 7 and that means fourth level spells, that opens up Dispel Magic, Reincarnate, Flame Strike and Ice Storm. From that we actually back track and go back to try and reincarnate Boy…we bring him back and roll a 28…so he comes back as a gnome…now a level 3 ranger gnome that gets a Con boost and loses Dex. We re-dub him Manuel and call him Man for short.

It cost us half a day and a fourth level spell but from a compassionate or loyalty standpoint we felt it worth while. 48 hours have passed since we left the tomb of coiled kings and of the 204 lights on the scepter 199 remain lit. The Paladin has a blinding moment of obvious on the way back to the dragon’s lair.

Paladin: I want to go find our Wagon…

There is a chorus of “Das Vagon!” from the table and we burn another half day to go beating the brush for Das Vagon. We are positively shocked that it is right where we left it the first time. We take the same route from first trip in, even broke out the graph paper we used to map it and take same path in. This time we have Torm Golem in front and Minotaur Golem in Back with Ranger and Paladin spread out in front and the other three of us in middle. As we are getting deeper and deeper we are finding nothing. All the rooms are empty, no patrolling groups, no color coded kobold assassins leaping out from the shadows….just empty halls and empty rooms. The chamber where the Yuan Ti priestess was being held…empty. We travel all the way to the massive treasure chamber and there not even a single copper piece left in the room. The chute that led to the dragon’s treasure chamber…sealed. We start cautiously searching the deserted chamber figuring that kobolds will start leaping from the woodwork any moment. Hidden from view we eventually find a pair of small tunnels that descend out of the room in separate directions. As medium sized character we can squeeze in the tunnels but the golems won’t fit. For a few minutes we debate on re-preparing a bunch of Stone Shape, Soften Earth spells etc to try and widen the passages, but ultimately we get a slight DM foreshadowing that says the tunnels run for several hundred feet and it would take a solid week to widen them enough to fit the golems.

Its heartbreaking given their utility so far, but we leave one at each entrance to act as sentries. Never Split the Party…that has to be Rule #1 of D&D paranoia. We follow the rules and elect to go with the passage to the left, the Paladin goes in front, me second, the druid third following by Ranger. We actually leave Mannie with the golems and he has orders to haul ass through the tunnels if anything pops in and starts messing around. We figure that with the two healing capable members in the middle we can reach both melee for heals and get maximum spellcaster protection. As indicated we follow the tunnel for several hundred feet and finally come to a fork. We continue going left and take that for a several hundred feet, that tunnel ends in an opening about 10 feet off the ground inside a worked stone room. It’s large and filled with lots of weapon racks and metal working supplies. We drop in and start surveying, as best we can tell it’s a foundry where the kobolds have been getting there weapons. 20 of the weapons show magic when we use a Detect Magic and we have already seen 50 or so human bane weapons so we can tell these are more of the same. More intriguing is a section of not yet finished items that are being made of adamantite…hmmm someone is getting tired of DR/Adamantite Golems apparently. We pile nearly a hundred pounds of adamantite metal into the bag of holding and keep moving. The foundry opens to a training facility, and there are a dozen human sized training dummies all peppered with arrows, darts and spears. Vital organs are outlined on the dummies and there are anatomical charts on the walls of the room.

Ranger: This is seriously strange, like a damned Kobold Dojo.
Paladin: So where are all the students? And where are their masters?
Me: Maybe we killed them all…
Doubtful right?
We find a fully stocked but unattended larder, and a fully stocked research laboratory that we happily pilfer. Lots of scrolls, lots of potions and several wands. The noteworthy find being a Wand of Greater Invisibility with 10 charges left on it.

As we are exiting the training facility we finally hear something other than our own footsteps, a slow shuffling sound is audible from the hallway outside the training facility. We go to the door that leads out and try to key in on what we are hearing. Whatever it is, it is heading towards the door and we elect to take cover in the room and wait for whatever it is to enter before acting. A few rounds later we are all still holding actions when the door slowly opens, and a plate armored, mummified figure with a holy symbol enters the room. The paladin hisses very quietly after getting a note for his Knowledge Religion check…Mummy Lord. As we are announcing our actions the Mummy Lord chuckles in a raspy gravely voice and two scorpions drop from its bandages and rapidly grow into huge sized scorpions…oh crap.

The Mummy Lord is a crackling voice rasps: “Find the little hiding mice and devour them”
I get first action and decide to drop a big bomb from the Ring…
Me: Flamestrike…targeting the Mummy.
I roll 42 damage…we add 50% for vulnerability to fire , but only half is fire damage so it ends up being 53 damage with 10 knocked off for resistance so 43 damage…not too shabby.

Paladin charges with a smite evil from the flametongue he adds a solid chunk and we think that we may be able to drop him within the round. The Ranger only lands 1 arrow and damage reduction takes a good chunk of the sting off. Druid fails his despair check and is basically cowering.

Next Round the Mummy jumps up two more huge scorpions just in front of him and then exits the room. The first scorpions start taking shots at the paladin and they are unable to really hit him. The rest of us all back up and start taking ranged shots at the two newest ones. I expend a fireball from Staff and hit both well. It takes us the better part of six rounds and while the two on paladin can barely connect the rest of us are playing hide and seek with the two on us. I use Burning Hands every round and we avoid poison damage. We get all four down and I top off the bit of damage we did take from the Ring of Spell Storing. The Paladin pokes his head out the door and the Mummy Lord is nowhere to be seen. We go right out of the training facility and head down the hall we believe the Mummy Lord originally came from. We make a few more turns through halls that differ widely in design from everything else we have seen and start to descend down a new stairwell, the steps going down are heavily worn and save for a few sparse tracks are covered in dust. We enter an old tomb and find two hallways branching off once again…there are tracks going to both. We again go left and this time find a MASSIVE pair of double doors, they are carved from marble and covered in glyphs and relief. It takes all four of us pulling hard to open one of the doors, which opens into a burial chamber the Mummy Lord is waiting for us and he has six buddies with him.

Me: Listen, we don’t care about you…we are here for the dragon!
The Mummy lord doesn’t appear to be relaxing but he is not attacking…
ML: Lies…all who desecrate the rest of the fallen seek ill gotten wealth and and can’t be trusted.
Paladin: He is speaking the truth…We want the Dragon…
ML: The cursed wyrm dug too deep and it’s lust could not be sated. It roused me from slumber and it’s minions paid the price. The wyrm itself eluded me…he has taken his hoard and fled the wrath of my might.
Me: Then we will let you return to that peace…leave us be and we will leave you be.
The mummy lord shakes it’s head: If only it were that simple. That one (he gestures at the paladin) will never compromise. His very nature compels him to drive this confrontation. I have felt his sting and can’t abide his leaving.
Paladin: Then let this be a test of wills, Single Combat you and I. If I am proven victorious my companions will leave this place untouched, but you will be no more. If I fall they leave my remains for you to do what you will and they may then leave unharmed to never return.
ML: You would subject your mortal remains to my touch?
Paladin: I have faith that is unshakeable I will not break my word.
ML: Then prepare yourself…Say a farewell to your companions…
We are given three rounds to “prepare” and as we start brainstorming buff spells the Paladin waves off us.
Paladin: Just me and him, no spells from anyone else.
DM: So you are going in unbuffed?
Paladin: No **** that noise…Im prepping Shield, True Strike and Protection from Evil from my paladin list. Then Im going to frostbrand power attack and smite him back to dust.

We burst out laughing and had to stop playing for a good five minutes.
They roll for init and the Mummy Lord leads with Searing Light and blasts the paladin for 18 with no save. The Paladin sinks 8 points into a two handed power attack with smite evil boosting another 5. So he is swinging for 2d6+16(powerattack)+7str+5smite+3enhancement+1d6fr ost he deals out 42 damage in one swing. Not too shabby for level 9. The next round Mummy goes first and casts Slay Living, DC20 and he gets +18 on Fort Save…so 10% chance…we wince a little bit as he rolls a 5. He swings again this time no power attack boost and no smite and he does about 15. A couple of searing lights and a few more swings later and he takes the mummy lord out. He took about 60 damage in the process but he takes it out. He actually pauses and says a quick prayer over the dusty remains.

We are a little anxious about leaving mummies behind but we insists that we made a pact and we turn about and head back up to our golems and Mannie. The Golems are waiting and Mannie is nervous but has nothing to report once we get back. We squeeze back into the right hand tunnels and this time we end up in a maze of criss crossing tunnels and crudely formed rooms. There are dozens of small nests dug into the walls and loads of clues that these were kobold warrens. We stomp around and squeeze through tunnels for what seems like in game hours and finally come to an underground grotto. There is a small island amidst an underground lake and it is barricaded with an assortment of just about everything. Behind the barricades…small lizardlike heads are visible and we hear panicked warning cried out in Draconic. There are maybe ten kobolds behind the barricades and none of the class level apparent signs we are used to seeing. We spot one ornately equipped kobold on the island who is barking out orders to the rest of his warriors. As I speak draconic I approach them looking to parley

Me: We don’t want trouble with you, we are looking for a black dragon that was once here.
The kobolds all get riled up at the mention of the dragon and the “leader” freaks out screaming for them to hide. He pushes them all behind him and vows to defend his people to the death. There are tears streaming down his face.

I actually break out something I haven’t used in I can’t remember how long and fascinate them with a soothing chant. Anything to calm them down and get them to listen. As they settle down they fill us in on what has happened.
We are the two legged devils with thumbs…for years the black dragon has fostered their tribe beneath his lair and constantly pushed them and tested them to cultivate the strongest of their race. These he trained in the various disciplines and honed their abilities to be his troops. Their brightest and best were constantly plucked from the teeming warrens and transformed into powerful warriors and sorcerers. And for the last several weeks the dragon grew more and more furious with their failures. After the treasures were depleted he forced them to dig deeper and deeper in search of more and their uncovered the mummies. The mummies slaughtered nearly the entire tribe and raised them as zombies and they were forced to destroy their own re-animated dead. A few days back the last of their warrior elite left in a final surge and were not seen again. The dragon himself transported his treasure hoard and fled. He also found an unbreakable sarcophagus well over a thousand pounds, more akin to a house than a coffin which he took with him. They are all that remains and they are absolutely terrified of us. After multiple kobold ambushes and seeing the little buggers come at us in frenzied waves…we kind of feel bad for the little guys.

Me: I have an idea…follow my lead and act scared.
I turn to the huddled mass and their leader and in a loud firm voice chant
Me: You are right to tremble, for our wrath is terrible to behold. Those who are undeemed unworthy will be stamped out and vanquished. Those who show their worth will be rewarded and spared. We are not devils, we are your saviors. You have suffered much and that suffering ends today. I shall walk through flames and burn away the weakness you have displayed, when I emerge you shall be spared and allowed your freedom. Should the flames consume me, then my anger will ignite and consume you all.

With a flourish I create a wall of fire beyond the range of their island and the rest of the party cringes in feigned terror. Arms out and hands empty (well empty except for my staff and the ring that gives me fire resist) I walk through the flame and exit in exaggerated slowness to kneel before their barricade.

Me: The flames have deemed you worthy and you live in freedom from tyranny for the remainder of days.
Our DM is laughing his ass off at my theatrics and with his head shaking declares…
DM: Congratulations Mr. Melodramatic you now have a cult of kobolds that worship you and are devoted to your personage. Add 11 level 1 followers and a level 4 cleric kobold thanks to your leadership.
Paladin: I can’t allow this. Ultimately these are still evil creatures that have had access to human bane weapons, I can’t risk them having a cache of those weapons hidden and for them to one day decide to honor their new leader by raiding a town and making sacrifices to the flames or other such nonsense.
Ranger: Yeah…that would be bad
Me: Then convert them…build a statue to Torm and erect a small knave or something. Make an alter to Torm…you got a few hours to preach before we probably need to get moving.
Paladin: You can’t find faith in an instant…
Me: I did. Just took some wolves trying to tear me apart. They have had everything they hold tear ripped away and destroyed. A devotion to protection and Law is probably an ideal they would embrace.

Kyr Prentice, a paladin in service to Torm, a slayer of ancient evils and stalwart bastion of protection and law…sat down with 12 kobolds and brought them to the light. They were shifted to LN and vowed to preserve the basic ideals he put forth. They vowed to seal off the mummy’s tomb and leave it undisturbed. And somewhere in my gamer’s heart I smile at the prospect of Paladin Kobolds in full plate riding forth….

Exiting back to the original treasure chamber we more or less confirmed what we already knew. The chamber that the dragon took with him, was precisely what we had been sent for. Three more lights were burned out on the scepter and we were starting to feel a time crunch.

A lot of spell slots had been expended and we were nine hours into this session. He pressed forth without resting and tried to brainstorm the next place to go. Our line of reasoning was that the dragon must be nearby. He couldn’t transport all that treasure over vast distance in a short time, and the “trap” was not all that far off. As we brainstormed the Paladin had Torm Golem grab the wagon and start pulling it. Buttercup was long gone…but we know had an iron golem that would never tire to pull our wagon. We had reclaimed Das Vagon…now with Golem power! Our means of picking next location was very thought out and scientific…

Paladin: Where is next closest mountain?
DM: Fifty miles north there is a hill large enough to be considered mountainous.
And we’re off. We rested in transit and traded off golems to let the other controller rest. We ended session with a reward of level 10 for bringing peace to the old lair, slaying the mummy lord and forming a new kobold church in honor to Torm.

Paladin took a fourth level in Dragon Disciple to gain str boost and natural armor boost, then he planned on resuming Paladin.

Ranger went to level four fighter and took Weapon Specialization: Bows

I went to Bard4/Cleric3 Mystic Theurge3 and unlocked third level bard spells. I took Invisibility as second level bard spell and for 3rd level Haste and Remove Curse. Next level I planned on taking Sublime Chord then dipping back to MT.

Pudnokker hits level 8 and boosts his Wisdom to 18

Kaveman26
2012-04-20, 03:45 PM
If this gets enough traction I will try to write up the remainder which ended up being about a 15 session dungeon crawl that was taxing beyond belief. It will probably take me a good two weeks as in word format these first eight sessions were about 90 pages.

Eighth Session to 11th level:

The gang picked back up the action at the foot of a mountain we hoped was the dragon’s new lair. There are several paths going up , and we take the one to the far right. We have Torm Golem pulling the Wagon and Minotaur bringing up our rear. I am inside the wagon with our few loose possessions. Boy and Pudnokker are on either side of the wagon and Paladin is up with Torm, and Ranger is back with Minotaur. We are a few hundred feet up the paths and it is getting narrower. Ranger makes a spot check and sees forms flying in at us…definitely dragon in shape…and there are eight of them. Eek. As they approach they were identified as Wyverns. On the plus side…Paladin gets to try out his breath weapon….on the negative side they target Pudnokker and myself, or at least our wagon. Pudnokker gets snatched by a swooping wyvern and thrown off the mountain. Five Wyverns dive bomb the wagon and try to knock it off the path. The Paladin has to make a reflex save to command the golem to grab the wagon. He pulls that off but the wagon with me in it is too heavy to prevent from falling. I ask if I have enough time for a standard action before falling….long pause followed by yes.

Me: Let it go, keep the golem in combat.
Paladin: alright…

As Pudnokker plummets from the mountain and the wagon plummets from the mountain a few things happen. The ranger starts lighting up a wyvern. The paladin breathes fire at a flyer-by, and then the druid turns into an eagle and swoops back in to the group. This is shortly followed by my bard pulling a silver surfer as he emerges from the wagon riding on the flying carpet. I follow suit and swoop back into the group. We start plinking them with arrows the occasional fire breath and I hold actions to throw burning hands as they swoop in. The golems are constantly trying to grapple them as they come by. As the golem hugs one it gets crushed by the paladin and other golem. We kill three in this fashion and the remaining ones bug out. I am tempted to throw some fireballs, but hold back, im sub 40 charges on the staff and we aren’t sure what else is ahead of us.

We see a lot of wyverns on the path up, but they mostly just circle and hiss at us. The ranger snaps off the occasional arrow and they circle away much further. The ascent continues and maybe 500 feet up we come upon a cave entrance with an opening in the ceiling that leads from the mountains top. The second we break the plane of the cave entrance alarms go off all over the place. From the ground eight huge earth elementals take shape and begin to advance towards us. As the earth elementals move to engage the Wyverns start to dive through the hole in the roof and we have about 4 wyverns taking flyby attacks at us as well. The Golems and Paladin form a tank line with the rest of us lobbing ranged attacks and supporting with heals. The Golems are taking damage from the ele’s and I shout for the Paladin to move left as I wall Of Fire the one on far right. He actually steps back a few steps and I shift left to try and get an angle where burning hands will hit the second golem and catch an ele as well. Pudnokker holds his action to try and catch a pair of wyverns and some elementals at same time with a flamestrike. We are holding our own quite well, the earth elementals have deep health pools but the golems are sturdy and the paladin has great AC. The wyverns are more nuisance than fatal. Then we fail some spot/listen checks.

I feel a slight tremor behind me and turn to see a pair of earth elementals on either side of me from behind. Oh yeah they can walk through earth, and just went under us and around. My AC is garbage, and they can only miss me on a roll of 1, technically a 1 still hits. I eat two slams get rocked. 2 more with almost certainly drop me to negatives, or kill me outright. They are on me and will be able to full attack next turn. Next turn Pudnokker hits me with a cure serious wounds, but that won’t be enough for me to take four attacks. Paladin moves to support me and ranger grabs his swords and starts swinging in melee. I move out of the threatened squares and eat two AOO, hoping for mediocre damage…no such luck, I get cracked and cracked hard and end up at -7, I end up prone and dying in the wall of fire aura. It’s bad that I feel safer on fire than upright. The earth elementals are doing some serious damage now that they are past the golems and paladin, the ranger is getting pummeled and Pudnokker is taking heavy damage as well. We dance around for a few rounds and Pudnokker stabilizes me before he goes down as well. The ranger ends up down and Mannie is killed again. (ranger says “we may have to re-name him Kenny”). Paladin goes completely defensive and stabilizes Pud and the Ranger. My minotaur golem is still burning and following my last command to destroy the elementals, and Torm Golem has taken 50+ damage but is still swinging. Paladin is the only one still up and we have five golems and currently three wyverns left active. So….quick breakdown on Paladin’s armor class

Base 10…Full Plate+4 brings him to 23…Heavy Steel Shield+5 brings him to 30….Ring of Protection+5 brings him to 35…Amulet of Natural Armor+3 brings him to 38…he gets+2 boost from Dragon Disciple to Natural Armor….so 40. Huge Earth Elemental gets+19 to hit…but with a flank they can hit on a 19. So he pumps one point from Combat Expertise to boost AC to 41…Natural 20
is the only thing that hits him.

Around 15 rounds later the Wall of Fire expires and amidst the smoke left in the room and the haze, the Paladin stands alone covered in mud and grime with a badly battered golem that is an icon of his god. He actually pauses to toss a one liner before getting us back on his feet…

Paladin: Those in service to Torm are made of harder stuff than earth…we are steel and iron.

We use all of our prepared healing, and I use all my bardic healing and keep some cleric spells prepared and available. We still have to drain the Spell Storing ring again and use 8 charges of Cure Mod Wand. I burning hands the Torm Golem back to full The wyverns want nothing else to do with us.

Me: Well they know we are here.
Paladin: Good I would like a challenge for once…
Me: We need better defenses *gestures to everyone but paladin*
Ranger: I imagine there is better protection amidst the treasure hoard.
Paladin: Then let us go “reason” with the wyrm

The cave descends into the mountains core and gives way to a deep well shaped chasm that drops into the mountain itself.

Me: So how do we get down there?
Ranger: We have the carpet…
Me: Golems are too heavy for the carpet.
We have no feather falling (sold the ring), no one has levitate prepared, and we cant fly outside of the rug.
Paladin: Falling damage caps at 20d6 just throw em down and burn em back up.
Me: And if we immediately get attacked by the dragon?
The ranger who is looking through the inventory in our bag of holding breaks out laughing…I mean big time hardcore laughing.

Ranger: We have scrolls of permanency.
Me:…yeah.
Ranger: So cast Wall of Fire on both of them and make it permanent. We are lighting them up like candles all the time anyway, saves recasting.
Paladin: And when we go into town or through a city with two walking towering infernos? Get me around that and I’m on board….

With his stomach shaking from laughter he points to a line on the inventory list…Rod of Flame Extinguishing…we actually have to look it up and are a bit disappointed to see that is capped with charges…but we look up the Frostbrand…which will work perfectly. The druid loads up us with buff spells we all have protection from energy Acid and Bulls Strength, Cats Grace and Bears Endurance are loaded up. I put an eagles splendor on the paladin and I have a Bestow Curse available for the dragon. We light both golems up and cast permanency then have them step down the well. The rest of us pile on the carpet which is absolutely groaning as we are right at the weight limit. And start the descent down.

We hear the golems thud at the bottom and hear a distinct metallic ring, we can see the fire from the walls and they are about 200 feet down from us. We can see that they are fighting things in the space below but its hard to tell what. We get to make attack rolls and we get update on the damage they are taking. Entering the cavern at the base of the well we see a trio of night hags engaged in battle with the golems. They are getting their asses handed to them on a silver platter. They got nothing that can really affect the golems and while the fire isn’t hurting them the slam damage is. We have much larger and scalier problems to deal with very quickly. A huge old black dragon is waiting for us, it has a strange harness strapped to its back and there are five kobolds buckled into the harness. The dragon immediately lets loose a line of acid. 40 acid damage is coming our way. Paladin makes the save with ease, and the rest of us fail miserably. We scramble off the carpet with the Ranger going left, me going right and the Paladin staying on the carpet as he charges the dragon. He has a true strike prepped and is swinging the flametongue. He hits solid but is now in air with dragon who can full attack him next round.

Next rounds init roll is very intense…Dragon rolls an 8 and with bonuses is at 12, Paladin rolls a 15. He misses standard attack and moves away, he eats the bite as an AOO and even his 40 AC is not enough to be safe. I toss a fireball from Staff that gets spell resisted into uselessness, based on what I need to roll, any spell I have has a 40-50% chance of actually breaking spell resistance. The kobolds act before us and from we spot and spellcraft they cast healing spells and what we are taking a long shot to assume is fire protection. Damned dragon has kobold cleric duct taped to its back…*sigh* The Ranger snaps off a full attack from the speed bow and pincushions a kobold. Pudnokker throws his flamestrike at the kobolds and 2 of the remaining four blow their saves. Dragon makes a spell resistance save…The Paladin is having trouble actually hitting the dragon without true strike and it takes us three rounds of the paladin playing aerial tag and eating AOO’s to kill the ride along healers and have the golems kill off the night hags. Ranger stops rapid shotting and just uses full attacks with speed to plink arrows at the dragon. With the golems free up we desperately want the dragon to land. Paladin swings down with carpet to try and get me on board and close enough to try a Bestow Curse. We are pretty spread out and the dragon launches the acid line at our golems on the ground. Paladin gets close to me and I hit him with a Cure Serious and Pudnokker follows with a Cure Mod from wands.

Without dragging this description out ad nasuem we fought a very delicate tactical fight the streams of acid got through our protection and we fell back to resist energies and the scant remaining protection from energy. We were doing damage from the arrows that hit and the occasional crit from paladin, but the acid was going to win out over our spell protection before we could kill the dragon. I was burning through charges on the staff like crazy trying to land some damage and as we were running out of time. We go for broke with Paladin dropping shield and snatching the frostbrand he loads up a true strike with power attack and smite and I jump on the carpet to try and get the Bestow Curse off, I got 28 acid resist left on my protection and I know full well that if we juke at the wrong time I could get full attacked into a new character sheet. Paladin lands a monster shot from second true strike and my Bestow Curse penetrates spell resist but Dragon makes its will save. Pudnokker is damn near out spells and is basically just a cure wand monkey at this point. The Paladin is out of true strikes and smites, and I got fumes for spells. We spread out and try to keep mobile on the ground for a few rounds and finally the dragon dives for the ranger who is at this point the biggest threat in the fight.

Ranger eats a bite attack and we lose init badly the following round…he eats all six attacks and while his AC is better than mine he gets ripped up bad…I mean from near full health to low single digits in a heartbeat. We sick both golems on the dragon and Paladin has Torm Golem try for a grapple…its like a 20% chance and it fails…Minotaur Golem ends up trying the same and he fails. We end up flanking the dragon and Paladin puts two hits in one a crit on a natural 20. Ranger is kind of stuck where he is and he drops bow and draws swords. I move in close and try a burning hands…actually make the spell resistance check and do some piddly damage. Next round ranger full attacks and lands a crit with sneak attack damge, the paladin full attacks and hits once for standard damage and Torm Golem wins a grapple check. Minotaur Golem rolls a 19 on its grapple check…dragon rolls a 3…Minotaur Golem wins its grapple check. Hmmm. Dragon tries to take off and we all stop for a minute. Based on dragon’s strength, the fact that he is huge and a Quadruped we calculate around 10,000 pounds. Golems weigh about 5,000 pounds each and for a moment it looks like the dragon is about to take off with both golems in tow. But sometimes life gives you a moment…
Ranger: He has five dead kobolds too…add (flips through Monster Manual) 45 pounds each times 45 pounds plus gear. He is just a bit beyond heavy capacity.

We went absolutely berserk at the table…dragon was literally a few dead kobolds above capacity to move. It wasn’t going to last long but a round or two but that was enough for us to unload everything we had for full attacks and golem slams. We had the thing staggered and in rough shape, the walls of fire are still burning and with sneak attack damage trickling in from ranger we got him on the ropes. I expend my second Flamestrike from the ring for the week and manage to beat spell resistance...the golems basically wash in damage as the fire helps them but I get through some good damage and the dragon goes to a knee…its is burning and ripped up bad…the Paladin lands the killing blow two rounds later a crit from the frostbrand and we celebrate.

We burn a lot of charges healing everyone back to full and aside from healing wands we are down to nothing (we spent a lot of time in that situation) The Golems are still burning and are back to about full. There are three adjunct chambers to the main cavern and all three are loaded with treasure. We retrieve weapons and get ourselves reorganized and the Paladin enters the first chamber…alarms sound once again and 6 huge earth elementals form up from the ground and begin to engage…*sigh* We have the Steel Curtain (Paladin and both Golems) try to keep them occupied while Ranger plugs away with bow and I throw a flaming sphere.

Pudnokker is assigned “don’t let any damned elementals get behind us duty” and clean up pretty efficiently. We repeat this process for the other two chambers and dispatch 12 more elementals. As number 18 goes down we do a little fist pump…and are then almost knocked from our feet as the whole cavern trembles. From each of the three treasure rooms an absolutely massive Greater Earth Elemental arises and from the central chamber a dozen earth mephits erupt as well. Torm goes for one of the greaters, Minotaur on the second and Paladin on the third. That leaves us waist deep in mephits that are spraying pebbles and rocks as breath weapons. The Ranger eats a couple AOO to snipe off three of the little ones in a single round and I am burning hands them two at a time. Pudnokker actually swings a melee weapon for what might be the first time. We eat 60 or so damage spread out from the mephits before we drop them, and the big ones are putting some real damage on the golems and Paladin. I get behind paladin and I am putting a cure serious into him each round and he is still dropping slowly. It gets easier when the first one goes down and we can double up on a remaining one. We weren’t really in danger but it was stressful.

No more elementals burst out and we start to examine the treasure. My first priority is to cast detect magic in each chamber then look for bags….we find two bags of holding and quickly calculate that provided these are bags of holding and not bags of tricks, and are type 4, we wont be able to fit a fraction of what is here. We decide to stay here overnight and rest, and load up with a new set of spells. We take every earth shaping and affecting spell along with identifies that we can acquire. We get the greenlight for level 11 and are allowed to process the new level as part of prep process for next morning.

Paladin goes back to taking Paladin level and goes to Paladin6/Sorc1/Dragon4

Ranger wants to take a level of Paladin…he is shifted to LG and loses any barbarian perks such as rage and fast movement. That makes him a quite silly Ranger2/Rogue3/Barb1/Fighter4/Paladin1.

I get permission to dip into Sublime Chord and then return to the Theurge route. That makes be Bard4/Cleric3/MT3/Sublime Chord1. I pick up Stoneskin,Stoneshape and Shout as level 4 spells. And Break Enchantment as level 5

Pudnokker makes level 9 and he takes scribe scroll for 9th level feat.
We are faced with some tough choices the next day, we have a mountain of treasure to sort through, and no clue what else may be gunning for us in the area. I will include the full list minus minor items. I added our eventual sell price for each item

Medium Armor:
1.+3 armor full plate- 6,000
2.Darkwood Shield-100
3.+2 shield animated-light wooden shield-5,000
4.+1 shield heavy steel shield-500
5.+1 shield heavy steel shield-500
6.+2 armor improved silent moves-10,000
Major Armor:
1.+4 armor improved sonic improved fire full plate (Kept)
2.+4 shield tower-8,000
3.+4 armor hide-2,500
4.+4 shield heavy steel shield 12,500
Medium Weapon
1.+2 defending short sword 14,000
2.+3 short sword frost shock (Kept)
3.+3 dwarven waraxe 6,000
4.+3 greatsword 15,000
Major Weapon
1.Frostbrand (Kept)
2.luck blade 2 wishes (Kept)
Medium Ring
1.Ring of Protection+3 (kept)
2.Ring of Invisibility-15,000
3.Ring of Spell Storing-Minor (kept)
Major Ring
1.Ring of Evasion (kept)
2.Ring of Energy Resist Major Cold (kept)
Medium Wands
1.Wand of Owl's Wisdom 22 (kept)
2.Wand of Invisibility 32 (kept)
3.Wand of Acid Arrow 42 (kept)
4.Wand of Bear's Endurance 15 (kept)
5.Wand of Bull's Strength 5 (kept)
Medium Wond Item
1.Robe of Scintillating Colors-20,000
2.Circlet of Blasting Major-15,000
3.Iridescent Spindle (kept)
4.Pearl of Power 5th level (kept)
5.Lyre of Building (kept)
6.Cloak of the Bat-15,000
7.Bracers of Armor+3 16,000
Major Wond Item
1.Tome of Understandng+4 (kept)
2.Manual Quickness of ACtion+5 (kept)
3.Bracers of Armor+6 (kept)
Bag of Holding Type 3 x 2 (kept)
Medium Rod:
1.Lesser Metamagic Silent -1,500
Major Rod:
1.Rod of Python (kept)
2.Metamagic Empower (kept)
3.Lesser Metamagic Quicken (kept)
4.Greater Extend (kept)
Medium Staff
1.Staff of Illumination (kept)
Major Staff
1.Of Abjuration (kept)
2.Conjuration (kept)
3.Staff of Fire -25,000
750,000 copper pieces
250,000 silver pieces
125,000 gold pieces
20,000 Platinum
Assorted 50,000 in gems…

Collectively we have three bags of holding type 3 and can carry 3,000 pounds of gear in bags and then our carrying capacity. The Staffs are a huge bonus in terms of group capability and having metamagic rods is salivating worthy. There is a set of awesome full plate and a luck blade with wishes. There are some stat manuals and a few decent weapons. The paladin spends hours pouring copper pieces into his layaway bag and when the copper is expended he goes to the silver. The bag eats a huge amount of coins and we are into the gold pieces when the hilt of the holy avenger appears. Chalk off all the copper, all the silver, and 75,000 of the gold. We pack up as much of the remaining coin as possible and load into chests which we pile on the flying carpet. We manage to fit everything except some minor items in the three bags and then stop and look around.

Ranger: Uh…is there a way out?
DM: You haven’t looked for a way out yet, so you don’t know.

We end up searching the whole place high and low and for the most we are coming up completely blank. We do find a ring stuck on a stalagtite on the cavern roof. A Ring of Elemental Command Earth. From what we gather from some fluffy lore checks the dragon uncovered a means to bind earth elementals as parts of alarm spells using the ring. We can’t find a way out so we put the druid on soften earth duty and have the golems use the +4 tower shield and a heavy steel shield as crude shovels. I also get gently reminded that I am in fact a bard with perform ranks and the lyre of building is thrown into my lap and I enact the lyre to help with the excavation process. During this process we pack everything else up and we get a confused response again from the DM…

DM: Why not just take turns with the carpet and fly out.
Me and Paladin: We aren’t leaving our golems…

Time is our biggest constraint right now and wedesperately want to make it back to The City to turn over some of this hoard into more ideal items for our group. We are somewhere around 3 days from leaving the Tomb of Coiled Kings and 30 or so lights are out and they are going faster. We figure we have five, maybe six days. We don’t have time to haggle over every single item like the previous time so we decide to have the paladin bulk n buy while the druid and I scribe scroll like mad. We get a not so subtle nudge from the DM in the form of a Sending from the Yuan Ti Guardian

“The heart is buried deep in darkness, none who have entered have returned. Time grows short. “

Me: So we can expect a long nasty fight with no easy meaning of backing out?
D: Yep

Our five day gameplan is to prepare for a very long haul. We cash in as much of the garbage-y magic items as possible and look to shore up our weaknesses. With all the items we sold we have around 475,000 in liquid funds to play with.

*We pick up 4 Efficient Quivers, 2 for Ranger, one for me and one for Pudnokker. (470,000)
*Ranger gets Greater Bracers of Archery for 22,000 (448,000)
*We find a Robe of the Archmage and I turn in the Bracers of Armor+6 and 50K to pick it up for myself (420,000)
*Wand of Cure Critical Wounds 50 Charges x2 42,000 (378,000)
*Wand of Stoneskin (33,500) (344,000)
Wand of Protection from Energy (CL10) x2 45,000 (299,000)
*Two +3 adamantine Morningstars 50,000 (249,000)
*3 amulet of natural armor+4 96,000 (153,000)
*4 Boots of Speed 48,000 (108,000)
*Cloak of Charisma+6 36,000 (72,000)
*Ring of Protection+4 32,000 (40,000)’
*Staff of Frost that brings us to zero
*Crafted Scrolls 2 Break Enchantment 3 Stone Shape 10 Identify

We spent four days crafting, shopping and equipping. I took the book for wisdom boost, and the ranger took the dex boost. By the time we were ready to roll out only 40 lights remained on the scepter and we figured that would dip to the teen’s by the time we got there. We reached the Tomb encounter free and as we entered the central chamber with the Yuan Ti undead the scene was far different than when we first left. Of the two hundred coffins, seventeen were still intact and the scant remaining Yuan Ti were haggard beyond belief. Demons, Devils and other evil creatures were still coming through the gate. I’m going to spell out a few things in perhaps too much detail, but for good reason. The DM was at times a bit lax in terms of being strict about spells prepared etc, we had default marching orders based on situations etc and default spell lists for travelling,wilderness etc. He firmly requested exact details on who was carrying what item and how, along with exact spells prepared and marching order. Here is the group composition as we entered this gaping chasm into a world of twisted nightmare and darkness…

Kyr Prentice (Paladin6/Sorcerer1/Dragon Disciple4) Str22 Dex10 Con18 Int11 Wis16 Cha26with a Frostbrand strapped to his back, a holy avenger sheathed at his hip a adamantine morningstar+3 on the other hip , Heavy Steel Shield+5, Full Plate +4 improved sonic, improved fire, Amulet Natural Armor+3, Ring of Protection+5,Ring of Major Resist Cold Cloak of Charisma+6, Belt of Giant Str+6 , Boots of Speed. and an Iron Golem under his Mental Command. With a 16 Wis he gets a bonus spell and from dragon disciple he gets 3 additional bonus spells so he has five 1st level spells he prepares:Lesser Restoration,2CLW, 2 Divine Favor. He again has access to his mount which has not been summoned or used. He is also carrying a Bag of Holding3:A

Emilio Miller (Ranger2/Rogue3/Barbarian1/Fighter4/Paladin1) Str20 Dex31Con15 Int14 Wis 14 Cha 11 with Chain Shirt+5, Ring of Protection+4,Ring of Elemental Command Earth Amulet of Natural Armor+4,Cloak of Resistance+5 +3 comp shortbow (+5str) of speed, a longsword+3 keen a +3 frost shock shortsword, an adamantine Morningstar+3belt of giant str+6 and gloves of dexterity+6 He had bow feats and two weapon fighting feats. He has two efficient quivers one loaded with arrows and a second with cold iron arrows. He is carrying Bag of Holding Type3:B. He also has Greater Bracers of Archery and Boots of Speed. He also has a frostbrand strapped to his back

Caramis Wolfsbane (Bard4/Cleric3/Mystic Theurge3/Sublime Chord1) Str15 Dex10 Con12 Int18 Wis18 Cha 26, with Robes of the Archmage Amulet of Natural Armor+4 Cloak of Charisma+6, Ring of Elemental Command Fire, Ring of Spell Storing (2 Cure Mod 1 CLW) Boots of Speed And an Efficient Quiver and Bag of Holding 3:C. My Cleric Spells prepared are:
1st1.Shield of Faith2.Entropic Shield3.Obscuring Mist4.Protection from Evil*CLW2nd1.Eagles Splendor2.Hold Person3.Lesser Restoration4.Resist Energy*Cure Mod3rd1.Bestow Curse2.Dispel Magic3.Stone Shape*Cure Serious

Pudnokker (Druid 9): Str 16 Dex 13 Con 14 Int 11 Wis 18 Cha 11 with a +1 quaterstaff, leather armor+1,Amulet of Natural Armor+4, Ring of Protection+3 and Natural Spell, Augment Summoning, and Extend Spell and scribe scroll. He is carrying a scroll of Stone Shape and the Staff of Fire (50charges) and an efficient Quiver. He has prepared: 1st.CLWx5 2ndCure Modx53rd1.Stone Shap2.Stone Shape3.Stone Shape4.Wind Wall4th1.Air Walk2.FlameStrike3.Ice Storm5th1.Baleful Polymorph

Caramis Efficient Quiver:
18 Slots:Wand of Cure Critical 50 charges, Wand of Protection from Energy (50 charges), Wand Cure Mod 22 charges, Wand Cure Serious 25 charges, Wand of Acid Arrow 42 charges, Wand of Bears Endurance 15
6 Slots:Staff of Illumination,Staff of Conjuration, Staff of Abjuration, , Metamagic Empower Rod, Lesser Quicken Rod, Greater Extend Rod
Pudnokker Quiver:
18 Slots: Wand of Bull's Strength 5, Wand of Invisibility 32, Wand of Owl's Wisdom 22, Wand of Protection from Energy 50, Wand of Cure Critical Wounds 50, Wand of Cure Mod 18 , Wand of Cure Light 40 (CL5)
6 Slots: Rod of Python
Bag A: Flying Carpet, 500 feet of rope and assorted pitons, hamers, pry bar portable battering ram
Bag B: 1500 arrows
Bag C: All our scrolls and 6 months iron rations.

There is a brief lull at the gate and Paladin and Torm golem lead the way in, Me and Minotaur Golem go next and Pudnokker and Ranger enter 3rd.
The three pairs of us all go through the gate and end up in 3 different locations. The permanent walls of fire on the golems are dispelled and 3 charges from Pudnokkers protection from energy wand are snuffed out. We end the session split into three different two man/construct teams and wait a full week to find out what is in store for us.

Kaveman26
2012-04-20, 03:51 PM
If this gets enough traction I will try to write up the remainder which ended up being about a 15 session dungeon crawl that was taxing beyond belief. It will probably take me a good two weeks as in word format these first eight sessions were about 90 pages.

Eighth Session to 11th level:

The gang picked back up the action at the foot of a mountain we hoped was the dragon’s new lair. There are several paths going up , and we take the one to the far right. We have Torm Golem pulling the Wagon and Minotaur bringing up our rear. I am inside the wagon with our few loose possessions. Boy and Pudnokker are on either side of the wagon and Paladin is up with Torm, and Ranger is back with Minotaur. We are a few hundred feet up the paths and it is getting narrower. Ranger makes a spot check and sees forms flying in at us…definitely dragon in shape…and there are eight of them. Eek. As they approach they were identified as Wyverns. On the plus side…Paladin gets to try out his breath weapon….on the negative side they target Pudnokker and myself, or at least our wagon. Pudnokker gets snatched by a swooping wyvern and thrown off the mountain. Five Wyverns dive bomb the wagon and try to knock it off the path. The Paladin has to make a reflex save to command the golem to grab the wagon. He pulls that off but the wagon with me in it is too heavy to prevent from falling. I ask if I have enough time for a standard action before falling….long pause followed by yes.

Me: Let it go, keep the golem in combat.
Paladin: alright…

As Pudnokker plummets from the mountain and the wagon plummets from the mountain a few things happen. The ranger starts lighting up a wyvern. The paladin breathes fire at a flyer-by, and then the druid turns into an eagle and swoops back in to the group. This is shortly followed by my bard pulling a silver surfer as he emerges from the wagon riding on the flying carpet. I follow suit and swoop back into the group. We start plinking them with arrows the occasional fire breath and I hold actions to throw burning hands as they swoop in. The golems are constantly trying to grapple them as they come by. As the golem hugs one it gets crushed by the paladin and other golem. We kill three in this fashion and the remaining ones bug out. I am tempted to throw some fireballs, but hold back, im sub 40 charges on the staff and we aren’t sure what else is ahead of us.

We see a lot of wyverns on the path up, but they mostly just circle and hiss at us. The ranger snaps off the occasional arrow and they circle away much further. The ascent continues and maybe 500 feet up we come upon a cave entrance with an opening in the ceiling that leads from the mountains top. The second we break the plane of the cave entrance alarms go off all over the place. From the ground eight huge earth elementals take shape and begin to advance towards us. As the earth elementals move to engage the Wyverns start to dive through the hole in the roof and we have about 4 wyverns taking flyby attacks at us as well. The Golems and Paladin form a tank line with the rest of us lobbing ranged attacks and supporting with heals. The Golems are taking damage from the ele’s and I shout for the Paladin to move left as I wall Of Fire the one on far right. He actually steps back a few steps and I shift left to try and get an angle where burning hands will hit the second golem and catch an ele as well. Pudnokker holds his action to try and catch a pair of wyverns and some elementals at same time with a flamestrike. We are holding our own quite well, the earth elementals have deep health pools but the golems are sturdy and the paladin has great AC. The wyverns are more nuisance than fatal. Then we fail some spot/listen checks.

I feel a slight tremor behind me and turn to see a pair of earth elementals on either side of me from behind. Oh yeah they can walk through earth, and just went under us and around. My AC is garbage, and they can only miss me on a roll of 1, technically a 1 still hits. I eat two slams get rocked. 2 more with almost certainly drop me to negatives, or kill me outright. They are on me and will be able to full attack next turn. Next turn Pudnokker hits me with a cure serious wounds, but that won’t be enough for me to take four attacks. Paladin moves to support me and ranger grabs his swords and starts swinging in melee. I move out of the threatened squares and eat two AOO, hoping for mediocre damage…no such luck, I get cracked and cracked hard and end up at -7, I end up prone and dying in the wall of fire aura. It’s bad that I feel safer on fire than upright. The earth elementals are doing some serious damage now that they are past the golems and paladin, the ranger is getting pummeled and Pudnokker is taking heavy damage as well. We dance around for a few rounds and Pudnokker stabilizes me before he goes down as well. The ranger ends up down and Mannie is killed again. (ranger says “we may have to re-name him Kenny”). Paladin goes completely defensive and stabilizes Pud and the Ranger. My minotaur golem is still burning and following my last command to destroy the elementals, and Torm Golem has taken 50+ damage but is still swinging. Paladin is the only one still up and we have five golems and currently three wyverns left active. So….quick breakdown on Paladin’s armor class

Base 10…Full Plate+4 brings him to 23…Heavy Steel Shield+5 brings him to 30….Ring of Protection+5 brings him to 35…Amulet of Natural Armor+3 brings him to 38…he gets+2 boost from Dragon Disciple to Natural Armor….so 40. Huge Earth Elemental gets+19 to hit…but with a flank they can hit on a 19. So he pumps one point from Combat Expertise to boost AC to 41…Natural 20
is the only thing that hits him.

Around 15 rounds later the Wall of Fire expires and amidst the smoke left in the room and the haze, the Paladin stands alone covered in mud and grime with a badly battered golem that is an icon of his god. He actually pauses to toss a one liner before getting us back on his feet…

Paladin: Those in service to Torm are made of harder stuff than earth…we are steel and iron.

We use all of our prepared healing, and I use all my bardic healing and keep some cleric spells prepared and available. We still have to drain the Spell Storing ring again and use 8 charges of Cure Mod Wand. I burning hands the Torm Golem back to full The wyverns want nothing else to do with us.

Me: Well they know we are here.
Paladin: Good I would like a challenge for once…
Me: We need better defenses *gestures to everyone but paladin*
Ranger: I imagine there is better protection amidst the treasure hoard.
Paladin: Then let us go “reason” with the wyrm

The cave descends into the mountains core and gives way to a deep well shaped chasm that drops into the mountain itself.

Me: So how do we get down there?
Ranger: We have the carpet…
Me: Golems are too heavy for the carpet.
We have no feather falling (sold the ring), no one has levitate prepared, and we cant fly outside of the rug.
Paladin: Falling damage caps at 20d6 just throw em down and burn em back up.
Me: And if we immediately get attacked by the dragon?
The ranger who is looking through the inventory in our bag of holding breaks out laughing…I mean big time hardcore laughing.

Ranger: We have scrolls of permanency.
Me:…yeah.
Ranger: So cast Wall of Fire on both of them and make it permanent. We are lighting them up like candles all the time anyway, saves recasting.
Paladin: And when we go into town or through a city with two walking towering infernos? Get me around that and I’m on board….

With his stomach shaking from laughter he points to a line on the inventory list…Rod of Flame Extinguishing…we actually have to look it up and are a bit disappointed to see that is capped with charges…but we look up the Frostbrand…which will work perfectly. The druid loads up us with buff spells we all have protection from energy Acid and Bulls Strength, Cats Grace and Bears Endurance are loaded up. I put an eagles splendor on the paladin and I have a Bestow Curse available for the dragon. We light both golems up and cast permanency then have them step down the well. The rest of us pile on the carpet which is absolutely groaning as we are right at the weight limit. And start the descent down.

We hear the golems thud at the bottom and hear a distinct metallic ring, we can see the fire from the walls and they are about 200 feet down from us. We can see that they are fighting things in the space below but its hard to tell what. We get to make attack rolls and we get update on the damage they are taking. Entering the cavern at the base of the well we see a trio of night hags engaged in battle with the golems. They are getting their asses handed to them on a silver platter. They got nothing that can really affect the golems and while the fire isn’t hurting them the slam damage is. We have much larger and scalier problems to deal with very quickly. A huge old black dragon is waiting for us, it has a strange harness strapped to its back and there are five kobolds buckled into the harness. The dragon immediately lets loose a line of acid. 40 acid damage is coming our way. Paladin makes the save with ease, and the rest of us fail miserably. We scramble off the carpet with the Ranger going left, me going right and the Paladin staying on the carpet as he charges the dragon. He has a true strike prepped and is swinging the flametongue. He hits solid but is now in air with dragon who can full attack him next round.

Next rounds init roll is very intense…Dragon rolls an 8 and with bonuses is at 12, Paladin rolls a 15. He misses standard attack and moves away, he eats the bite as an AOO and even his 40 AC is not enough to be safe. I toss a fireball from Staff that gets spell resisted into uselessness, based on what I need to roll, any spell I have has a 40-50% chance of actually breaking spell resistance. The kobolds act before us and from we spot and spellcraft they cast healing spells and what we are taking a long shot to assume is fire protection. Damned dragon has kobold cleric duct taped to its back…*sigh* The Ranger snaps off a full attack from the speed bow and pincushions a kobold. Pudnokker throws his flamestrike at the kobolds and 2 of the remaining four blow their saves. Dragon makes a spell resistance save…The Paladin is having trouble actually hitting the dragon without true strike and it takes us three rounds of the paladin playing aerial tag and eating AOO’s to kill the ride along healers and have the golems kill off the night hags. Ranger stops rapid shotting and just uses full attacks with speed to plink arrows at the dragon. With the golems free up we desperately want the dragon to land. Paladin swings down with carpet to try and get me on board and close enough to try a Bestow Curse. We are pretty spread out and the dragon launches the acid line at our golems on the ground. Paladin gets close to me and I hit him with a Cure Serious and Pudnokker follows with a Cure Mod from wands.

Without dragging this description out ad nasuem we fought a very delicate tactical fight the streams of acid got through our protection and we fell back to resist energies and the scant remaining protection from energy. We were doing damage from the arrows that hit and the occasional crit from paladin, but the acid was going to win out over our spell protection before we could kill the dragon. I was burning through charges on the staff like crazy trying to land some damage and as we were running out of time. We go for broke with Paladin dropping shield and snatching the frostbrand he loads up a true strike with power attack and smite and I jump on the carpet to try and get the Bestow Curse off, I got 28 acid resist left on my protection and I know full well that if we juke at the wrong time I could get full attacked into a new character sheet. Paladin lands a monster shot from second true strike and my Bestow Curse penetrates spell resist but Dragon makes its will save. Pudnokker is damn near out spells and is basically just a cure wand monkey at this point. The Paladin is out of true strikes and smites, and I got fumes for spells. We spread out and try to keep mobile on the ground for a few rounds and finally the dragon dives for the ranger who is at this point the biggest threat in the fight.

Ranger eats a bite attack and we lose init badly the following round…he eats all six attacks and while his AC is better than mine he gets ripped up bad…I mean from near full health to low single digits in a heartbeat. We sick both golems on the dragon and Paladin has Torm Golem try for a grapple…its like a 20% chance and it fails…Minotaur Golem ends up trying the same and he fails. We end up flanking the dragon and Paladin puts two hits in one a crit on a natural 20. Ranger is kind of stuck where he is and he drops bow and draws swords. I move in close and try a burning hands…actually make the spell resistance check and do some piddly damage. Next round ranger full attacks and lands a crit with sneak attack damge, the paladin full attacks and hits once for standard damage and Torm Golem wins a grapple check. Minotaur Golem rolls a 19 on its grapple check…dragon rolls a 3…Minotaur Golem wins its grapple check. Hmmm. Dragon tries to take off and we all stop for a minute. Based on dragon’s strength, the fact that he is huge and a Quadruped we calculate around 10,000 pounds. Golems weigh about 5,000 pounds each and for a moment it looks like the dragon is about to take off with both golems in tow. But sometimes life gives you a moment…
Ranger: He has five dead kobolds too…add (flips through Monster Manual) 45 pounds each times 45 pounds plus gear. He is just a bit beyond heavy capacity.

We went absolutely berserk at the table…dragon was literally a few dead kobolds above capacity to move. It wasn’t going to last long but a round or two but that was enough for us to unload everything we had for full attacks and golem slams. We had the thing staggered and in rough shape, the walls of fire are still burning and with sneak attack damage trickling in from ranger we got him on the ropes. I expend my second Flamestrike from the ring for the week and manage to beat spell resistance...the golems basically wash in damage as the fire helps them but I get through some good damage and the dragon goes to a knee…its is burning and ripped up bad…the Paladin lands the killing blow two rounds later a crit from the frostbrand and we celebrate.

We burn a lot of charges healing everyone back to full and aside from healing wands we are down to nothing (we spent a lot of time in that situation) The Golems are still burning and are back to about full. There are three adjunct chambers to the main cavern and all three are loaded with treasure. We retrieve weapons and get ourselves reorganized and the Paladin enters the first chamber…alarms sound once again and 6 huge earth elementals form up from the ground and begin to engage…*sigh* We have the Steel Curtain (Paladin and both Golems) try to keep them occupied while Ranger plugs away with bow and I throw a flaming sphere.

Pudnokker is assigned “don’t let any damned elementals get behind us duty” and clean up pretty efficiently. We repeat this process for the other two chambers and dispatch 12 more elementals. As number 18 goes down we do a little fist pump…and are then almost knocked from our feet as the whole cavern trembles. From each of the three treasure rooms an absolutely massive Greater Earth Elemental arises and from the central chamber a dozen earth mephits erupt as well. Torm goes for one of the greaters, Minotaur on the second and Paladin on the third. That leaves us waist deep in mephits that are spraying pebbles and rocks as breath weapons. The Ranger eats a couple AOO to snipe off three of the little ones in a single round and I am burning hands them two at a time. Pudnokker actually swings a melee weapon for what might be the first time. We eat 60 or so damage spread out from the mephits before we drop them, and the big ones are putting some real damage on the golems and Paladin. I get behind paladin and I am putting a cure serious into him each round and he is still dropping slowly. It gets easier when the first one goes down and we can double up on a remaining one. We weren’t really in danger but it was stressful.

No more elementals burst out and we start to examine the treasure. My first priority is to cast detect magic in each chamber then look for bags….we find two bags of holding and quickly calculate that provided these are bags of holding and not bags of tricks, and are type 4, we wont be able to fit a fraction of what is here. We decide to stay here overnight and rest, and load up with a new set of spells. We take every earth shaping and affecting spell along with identifies that we can acquire. We get the greenlight for level 11 and are allowed to process the new level as part of prep process for next morning.

Paladin goes back to taking Paladin level and goes to Paladin6/Sorc1/Dragon4

Ranger wants to take a level of Paladin…he is shifted to LG and loses any barbarian perks such as rage and fast movement. That makes him a quite silly Ranger2/Rogue3/Barb1/Fighter4/Paladin1.

I get permission to dip into Sublime Chord and then return to the Theurge route. That makes be Bard4/Cleric3/MT3/Sublime Chord1. I pick up Stoneskin,Stoneshape and Shout as level 4 spells. And Break Enchantment as level 5

Pudnokker makes level 9 and he takes scribe scroll for 9th level feat.
We are faced with some tough choices the next day, we have a mountain of treasure to sort through, and no clue what else may be gunning for us in the area. I will include the full list minus minor items. I added our eventual sell price for each item

Medium Armor:
1.+3 armor full plate- 6,000
2.Darkwood Shield-100
3.+2 shield animated-light wooden shield-5,000
4.+1 shield heavy steel shield-500
5.+1 shield heavy steel shield-500
6.+2 armor improved silent moves-10,000
Major Armor:
1.+4 armor improved sonic improved fire full plate (Kept)
2.+4 shield tower-8,000
3.+4 armor hide-2,500
4.+4 shield heavy steel shield 12,500
Medium Weapon
1.+2 defending short sword 14,000
2.+3 short sword frost shock (Kept)
3.+3 dwarven waraxe 6,000
4.+3 greatsword 15,000
Major Weapon
1.Frostbrand (Kept)
2.luck blade 2 wishes (Kept)
Medium Ring
1.Ring of Protection+3 (kept)
2.Ring of Invisibility-15,000
3.Ring of Spell Storing-Minor (kept)
Major Ring
1.Ring of Evasion (kept)
2.Ring of Energy Resist Major Cold (kept)
Medium Wands
1.Wand of Owl's Wisdom 22 (kept)
2.Wand of Invisibility 32 (kept)
3.Wand of Acid Arrow 42 (kept)
4.Wand of Bear's Endurance 15 (kept)
5.Wand of Bull's Strength 5 (kept)
Medium Wond Item
1.Robe of Scintillating Colors-20,000
2.Circlet of Blasting Major-15,000
3.Iridescent Spindle (kept)
4.Pearl of Power 5th level (kept)
5.Lyre of Building (kept)
6.Cloak of the Bat-15,000
7.Bracers of Armor+3 16,000
Major Wond Item
1.Tome of Understandng+4 (kept)
2.Manual Quickness of ACtion+5 (kept)
3.Bracers of Armor+6 (kept)
Bag of Holding Type 3 x 2 (kept)
Medium Rod:
1.Lesser Metamagic Silent -1,500
Major Rod:
1.Rod of Python (kept)
2.Metamagic Empower (kept)
3.Lesser Metamagic Quicken (kept)
4.Greater Extend (kept)
Medium Staff
1.Staff of Illumination (kept)
Major Staff
1.Of Abjuration (kept)
2.Conjuration (kept)
3.Staff of Fire -25,000
750,000 copper pieces
250,000 silver pieces
125,000 gold pieces
20,000 Platinum
Assorted 50,000 in gems…

Collectively we have three bags of holding type 3 and can carry 3,000 pounds of gear in bags and then our carrying capacity. The Staffs are a huge bonus in terms of group capability and having metamagic rods is salivating worthy. There is a set of awesome full plate and a luck blade with wishes. There are some stat manuals and a few decent weapons. The paladin spends hours pouring copper pieces into his layaway bag and when the copper is expended he goes to the silver. The bag eats a huge amount of coins and we are into the gold pieces when the hilt of the holy avenger appears. Chalk off all the copper, all the silver, and 75,000 of the gold. We pack up as much of the remaining coin as possible and load into chests which we pile on the flying carpet. We manage to fit everything except some minor items in the three bags and then stop and look around.

Ranger: Uh…is there a way out?
DM: You haven’t looked for a way out yet, so you don’t know.

We end up searching the whole place high and low and for the most we are coming up completely blank. We do find a ring stuck on a stalagtite on the cavern roof. A Ring of Elemental Command Earth. From what we gather from some fluffy lore checks the dragon uncovered a means to bind earth elementals as parts of alarm spells using the ring. We can’t find a way out so we put the druid on soften earth duty and have the golems use the +4 tower shield and a heavy steel shield as crude shovels. I also get gently reminded that I am in fact a bard with perform ranks and the lyre of building is thrown into my lap and I enact the lyre to help with the excavation process. During this process we pack everything else up and we get a confused response again from the DM…

DM: Why not just take turns with the carpet and fly out.
Me and Paladin: We aren’t leaving our golems…

Time is our biggest constraint right now and wedesperately want to make it back to The City to turn over some of this hoard into more ideal items for our group. We are somewhere around 3 days from leaving the Tomb of Coiled Kings and 30 or so lights are out and they are going faster. We figure we have five, maybe six days. We don’t have time to haggle over every single item like the previous time so we decide to have the paladin bulk n buy while the druid and I scribe scroll like mad. We get a not so subtle nudge from the DM in the form of a Sending from the Yuan Ti Guardian

“The heart is buried deep in darkness, none who have entered have returned. Time grows short. “

Me: So we can expect a long nasty fight with no easy meaning of backing out?
D: Yep

Our five day gameplan is to prepare for a very long haul. We cash in as much of the garbage-y magic items as possible and look to shore up our weaknesses. With all the items we sold we have around 475,000 in liquid funds to play with.

*We pick up 4 Efficient Quivers, 2 for Ranger, one for me and one for Pudnokker. (470,000)
*Ranger gets Greater Bracers of Archery for 22,000 (448,000)
*We find a Robe of the Archmage and I turn in the Bracers of Armor+6 and 50K to pick it up for myself (420,000)
*Wand of Cure Critical Wounds 50 Charges x2 42,000 (378,000)
*Wand of Stoneskin (33,500) (344,000)
Wand of Protection from Energy (CL10) x2 45,000 (299,000)
*Two +3 adamantine Morningstars 50,000 (249,000)
*3 amulet of natural armor+4 96,000 (153,000)
*4 Boots of Speed 48,000 (108,000)
*Cloak of Charisma+6 36,000 (72,000)
*Ring of Protection+4 32,000 (40,000)’
*Staff of Frost that brings us to zero
*Crafted Scrolls 2 Break Enchantment 3 Stone Shape 10 Identify

We spent four days crafting, shopping and equipping. I took the book for wisdom boost, and the ranger took the dex boost. By the time we were ready to roll out only 40 lights remained on the scepter and we figured that would dip to the teen’s by the time we got there. We reached the Tomb encounter free and as we entered the central chamber with the Yuan Ti undead the scene was far different than when we first left. Of the two hundred coffins, seventeen were still intact and the scant remaining Yuan Ti were haggard beyond belief. Demons, Devils and other evil creatures were still coming through the gate. I’m going to spell out a few things in perhaps too much detail, but for good reason. The DM was at times a bit lax in terms of being strict about spells prepared etc, we had default marching orders based on situations etc and default spell lists for travelling,wilderness etc. He firmly requested exact details on who was carrying what item and how, along with exact spells prepared and marching order. Here is the group composition as we entered this gaping chasm into a world of twisted nightmare and darkness…

Kyr Prentice (Paladin6/Sorcerer1/Dragon Disciple4) Str22 Dex10 Con18 Int11 Wis16 Cha26with a Frostbrand strapped to his back, a holy avenger sheathed at his hip a adamantine morningstar+3 on the other hip , Heavy Steel Shield+5, Full Plate +4 improved sonic, improved fire, Amulet Natural Armor+3, Ring of Protection+5,Ring of Major Resist Cold Cloak of Charisma+6, Belt of Giant Str+6 , Boots of Speed. and an Iron Golem under his Mental Command. With a 16 Wis he gets a bonus spell and from dragon disciple he gets 3 additional bonus spells so he has five 1st level spells he prepares:Lesser Restoration,2CLW, 2 Divine Favor. He again has access to his mount which has not been summoned or used. He is also carrying a Bag of Holding3:A

Emilio Miller (Ranger2/Rogue3/Barbarian1/Fighter4/Paladin1) Str20 Dex31Con15 Int14 Wis 14 Cha 11 with Chain Shirt+5, Ring of Protection+4,Ring of Elemental Command Earth Amulet of Natural Armor+4,Cloak of Resistance+5 +3 comp shortbow (+5str) of speed, a longsword+3 keen a +3 frost shock shortsword, an adamantine Morningstar+3belt of giant str+6 and gloves of dexterity+6 He had bow feats and two weapon fighting feats. He has two efficient quivers one loaded with arrows and a second with cold iron arrows. He is carrying Bag of Holding Type3:B. He also has Greater Bracers of Archery and Boots of Speed. He also has a frostbrand strapped to his back

Caramis Wolfsbane (Bard4/Cleric3/Mystic Theurge3/Sublime Chord1) Str15 Dex10 Con12 Int18 Wis18 Cha 26, with Robes of the Archmage Amulet of Natural Armor+4 Cloak of Charisma+6, Ring of Elemental Command Fire, Ring of Spell Storing (2 Cure Mod 1 CLW) Boots of Speed And an Efficient Quiver and Bag of Holding 3:C. My Cleric Spells prepared are:
1st1.Shield of Faith2.Entropic Shield3.Obscuring Mist4.Protection from Evil*CLW2nd1.Eagles Splendor2.Hold Person3.Lesser Restoration4.Resist Energy*Cure Mod3rd1.Bestow Curse2.Dispel Magic3.Stone Shape*Cure Serious

Pudnokker (Druid 9): Str 16 Dex 13 Con 14 Int 11 Wis 18 Cha 11 with a +1 quaterstaff, leather armor+1,Amulet of Natural Armor+4, Ring of Protection+3 and Natural Spell, Augment Summoning, and Extend Spell and scribe scroll. He is carrying a scroll of Stone Shape and the Staff of Fire (50charges) and an efficient Quiver. He has prepared: 1st.CLWx5 2ndCure Modx53rd1.Stone Shap2.Stone Shape3.Stone Shape4.Wind Wall4th1.Air Walk2.FlameStrike3.Ice Storm5th1.Baleful Polymorph

Caramis Efficient Quiver:
18 Slots:Wand of Cure Critical 50 charges, Wand of Protection from Energy (50 charges), Wand Cure Mod 22 charges, Wand Cure Serious 25 charges, Wand of Acid Arrow 42 charges, Wand of Bears Endurance 15
6 Slots:Staff of Illumination,Staff of Conjuration, Staff of Abjuration, , Metamagic Empower Rod, Lesser Quicken Rod, Greater Extend Rod
Pudnokker Quiver:
18 Slots: Wand of Bull's Strength 5, Wand of Invisibility 32, Wand of Owl's Wisdom 22, Wand of Protection from Energy 50, Wand of Cure Critical Wounds 50, Wand of Cure Mod 18 , Wand of Cure Light 40 (CL5)
6 Slots: Rod of Python
Bag A: Flying Carpet, 500 feet of rope and assorted pitons, hamers, pry bar portable battering ram
Bag B: 1500 arrows
Bag C: All our scrolls and 6 months iron rations.

There is a brief lull at the gate and Paladin and Torm golem lead the way in, Me and Minotaur Golem go next and Pudnokker and Ranger enter 3rd.
The three pairs of us all go through the gate and end up in 3 different locations. The permanent walls of fire on the golems are dispelled and 3 charges from Pudnokkers protection from energy wand are snuffed out. We end the session split into three different two man/construct teams and wait a full week to find out what is in store for us.

TheDarkSaint
2012-04-21, 09:31 AM
How long has all of this taken to do, real time?

Kaveman26
2012-04-21, 12:25 PM
We played every saturday for months. I think this campaign ran almost six months every saturday. In terms of the actual write up, I spent about 30+ hours referencing notes and writing down the events. Hardest part was tracking down the sections for sessions I haven't written up yet. The guy who played the Paladin has boxes of all our old campaign stuff and I had to hassle him to find the maps for the never ending dungeon crawl that finished this campaign.

We very rarely went past 10th level with a group of characters. This was one of three campaigns we ever did that hit high teens for character levels. This one stood out for some of the remarkably unbalanced encounters and staggering jumps in magic items. It was absolutely the longest dungeon we had ever done as well. But I couldn't resist the urge to recap it after reading the SilverFang horror campaign journals.

TheDarkSaint
2012-04-21, 12:35 PM
I have to hand it to you guys, very inventive. I loved how much use you got out of a simple wagon and the Iron Golems were priceless.

I've actually gotten quite a few ideas from what you've posted up here. Really enjoyed it.

Kaveman26
2012-04-22, 11:00 AM
Originally the end plan for the Wagon was to convert it to glass steel and use permananent illusions to allow us to see out while nothing could see in. The paladin actually at one point wanted to hook up multiple flying carpets and attach them to each wheel to make it fly. It was deemed excessive and veto'd.

And yeah the Iron Golems were all stars. Coupled with elemental command fire ring they were wicked. We got way more mileage from them than I ever dreamed possible.

Kaveman26
2012-04-25, 12:26 PM
9th Session:

An interesting fact about the guy playing our Paladin. He is meticulous in mapping. I swear he has asked for angles of elevation and included 3D scale to his graph paper maps. He has stock keys for symbols: the works. The next several month were like heaven to him. We were A Team, B Team, and C Team. He kept separate maps for each of us based on what we ran into, and when we did meet back up, he re-rendered the map to sync up as a single structure. Restrictions on meta gaming were devastating here. We knew a lot of what was happening but had no means in which to interact with other party members. I will recap most of the next couple sessions in chunks from each perspective. A few quick notes first…

*Food was rarely ever a concern, we had a ranger and we spent a lot of time in the wilderness. It was assumed we hunted/forages etc. With a deep dungeon delve we were instructed that food would matter. Hence the extensive iron rations.
*Our 0 level slots were typically used on the fly and this was one area where we didn’t get absolutely hammered.

Paladin:

The Paladin was in fairly good overall shape for his solo portion of this campaign. He could self heal with LoH, and he had Cure Light Wounds. He had huge AC, great saves, and resists. He had a flanking buddy in his golem and he could create water. He also had a holy avenger in a place filled with evil. I will give some basic descriptions to identify rooms because this place was massive and room backtracking became integral.

P1:The Room Stolen from Cube
Paladin finds himself in an all steel room with doors on three of the four walls. The room is completely empty save for himself and the golem. All three doors are locked and detect evil shows a constant evil everywhere. With no way of unlocking the doors he resorted to his “lockpick” the adamantine Morningstar. He opens all three doors by mangling them beyond belief. The forward door advances to a descending stairwell, and the two side doors lead to hallways. He follows the hallway to the left to see where it leads and it comes to a dead end. The hallway to the right does the same thing. The stairwells go down to another locked door. This one receives the lock pick treatment as well and he enters…

P2: Minotaur Hotel
P2 is a series of columns and stand alone walls. Loud Snorting and Footsteps are audible but no visual is available. As he tries to get a gauge of the room and it’s layout he turns a corner and takes a greataxe to the face from a fiendish minotaur with class levels. It swings then maneuvers out of vision behind other columns and segments of wall. After about five rounds of playing hide and seek with a minotaur in a mini-maze he realizes there are more than one. He goes back to back with the golem and just starts attacking walls with the Morningstar trying to knock them down. He goes through some nasty back and forth with a total of 3 minotaurs and he knocks down half a dozen walls in the process to clear room. Between his holy avenger and the golem’s slams they kill all three and ensure the room is clear. He takes close to 40 damage in the process and burns two Cure Lights to recover 22. The Minotaur Hotel room is 90x90 feet with two exits, one going further down and one to the left. The stairwell going down is long and winding. The exit to the left locked. He smashes another door and this one opens up into a fiery lava pit with dozens of fire mephits. He sends in Torm Golem and just waits in the doorway for the horrified screams of mephits to die out.

P3:Mephit Hot Tub
The Mephit Hot Tub is an open chamber filled with pools of lava and searing rocks. Movement is possible through the chamber, but the extreme heat results in a day’s worth of water loss in minutes. From the entrance he can’t see a whole lot of the room. He decides to go down before trying to investigate the Hot Tub Room.

P4: The Giant Freaking Door with Keyholes
The winding stairwell ends at a giant door with three keyholes. The lockpick method is ineffective on this door. With little other choice he is forced to backtrack to the Hot Tub room and investigate.

Navigation is difficult as he has to follow winding routes to avoid lava and steam. He does find a boulder on the far end of the room that the golem pushes out of the way to reveal another winding staircase. This one branches off to three separate rooms. The Black Room, The White Room, and the Blue Room.

P5:The Black Room
All polished obsidian and onyx. Razor sharp columns and reflective obsidian make this room a nightmare to see anything or discern location. Making things worse it prevents functional camouflage for the Dread Wraith and 8 smaller Wraiths that make this room their lair. Incorporeal is brutal here. The Holy Avenger is nasty when it connects, but 50% of the time he is swinging through mist. They were treated as having concealment so he also had a 20% concealment miss chance. We really thought he was going to be left a wraith that gets killed by his own golem. He ate two Con Drains from the Dread Wraith and lost 8 Con, once the dread wraith dropped the remaining ones weren’t too hard to contend with. He took another 15 damage and used 10 points from LOH to stem a bit of the damage. He uses a lesser restoration and gets back 3 of the Con. He drops all the way back to the Cube Room and has the Golem stand sentry while he removes armor and tries to rest. We will come back to the Paladin in a little while

Ranger:

R1:Spirally Tower
Pudnokker and the Ranger emerge at the top of a tower with windows that open to nothingness. There are three staircases winding their way down. They go down with the ranger at forefront and decide to start with the left first. That path takes them on a long winding path down which ends at a deep well with no visible bottom.We will refer to that as the Bottomless Well R2. They backtrack up the to the top and take middle that one takes them outside the tower…but while the stairwell extend four or five feet out, after that there is sheer darkness all around them. They estimate that they climb a good 500 feet up just spiraling up into darkness. As far as they can estimate they are easily a 1,000 feet above their original starting point when they find an anvil with a glass dagger driven into the steel. It is just sitting on a step that seems to end the ascent. The Ranger tries to pull it with no luck. They try to pick up the anvil…no luck. They use a 0 level detect magic…yep its magic. They then try to push the dagger further in…it slides in with little resistance and the anvil splits in two, freeing the dagger and revealing a small empty locket. They take both and start the long climb back down. The Long Winding Stair is R3. The third stairwell takes them to a underground bog teaming with moss, lichen and pond scum.

R4:Naga Pond
Cobblestone form a path through the murk to a tunnel at the far end. Midway through the room, snakelike creatures with humanoid faces emerge from the bog and start throwing spells at them. A full nest of four dark naga start flinging magic missiles, scorching rays and lightning bolts at the two. Pudnokker throws some fireballs from his staff and ranger start pumping arrows into them. They take a fair amount of spell damage, but they take out each naga within a total of four rounds. Pud uses a cure mod and cure light on each of them to top them off near full and they finish their trek across the room. The tunnel is very long, like winding for miles. They are three-four miles in when they decide it might be worthwhile to backtrack, but as they decide to do so, they emerge at the top of a stairwell that has a split anvil in it. There 2 hour walk down a tunnel at least 4 miles long just spit them out at the top of the Long Winding Stair. WTF.

R2: Bottomless Well
Seeing practically no other choice they decide to explore the bottomless well. Druid wild shapes into an eagle and tries to glide/fly down the shaft. He casts light on himself and the glowing bird goes down the well, he glides down a few hundred feet and emerges in the Naga Pond. Double WTF.
They join back up at the Spirally Tower Room and try to figure out what to do. The dimensions of the tower make no sense, and there is no way out other then the empty void of darkness outside the tower. They play around with the glass dagger for a bit and nothing happens. They open the empty locket and on a whim push it out of one of the tower windows. THAT gets the ball rolling as the darkness is sucked into the locket at an alarming rate. As the dark disappears into the locket the three stairwells merge into one singular path that levels out in the tower and goes forward in a forked tunnel.

Me:
My opening room is a limestone tomb B1. With no doors, entrances or exits. Just a 100x100 tomb with two dozen stone coffins. In the walls of the room are carved niches the same size as the coffins. There are 21 niches in the wall and 24 coffins in the room. I do a few search checks and use a detect magic to determine the coffins do have magical effects going on. I also determine that the coffins are on primitive rollers and that with heavy exertion I could move them on my own. But luckily I have a big ol golem to do the heavy lifting. I get the Minotaur to lift the lids on all 24 coffins and they are empty. I also determine that there are eight symbols in sets of 3 amongst the 24 coffins. So if I put seven sets of 3 in the walls I will be left with a set of 3 on the floor. I use every knowledge check resource at my disposal and come up with 8 probable meanings to the symbols on each set.

Earth,Water,Fire,Shadow,Air,Limbo,Astral,and Death. Ok then…the golem puts 21 coffins in the wall and we leave the 3 coffins that are marked fire in the middle of the room. The whole room shifts somehow and air escapes from the lids of the three coffins on the floor, the three coffins on the floor all flow together and shape themselves into a large doorway. Flowing forth into the chamber from this doorway are four average salamanders and a noble salamander.

Me: Well greetings planar travelers. Do you by chance know where you are?
Salamander Noble: Yes…we exist in the master’s nightmare. The nightmare breathes and lives and now we draw breath as well
Me: Do you like it here?
I think I really confused the DM by talking here instead of lobbing spells.
Salamander Noble: We have no choice
Me: If I could offer you a choice? A chance to live on your own and act in your interests?
Salamander Noble: Tempting but impossible.
Me: You see this ring? It grants me power over flame. You see this Iron Minotaur? Fire fuels it and drives it. Nothing is impossible, only difficult. You know what this ring symbolizes and you know that in order for me to bear it, I am not to be trifled with. Tell me where this master is and I will do the impossible. In return for this information I will give you freedom to set your own destiny.

I put the DM back on his heels enough to trigger a diplomacy check with some nice bonuses. They yearned to believe what I offered, and having the ring does grant me a healthy measure of respect from denizens of the Plane of Fire. They don’t exactly know where the Master is located but they do give me a general layout of the world inside the tapestry. There are five portals that lead into the tapestries world. One is sheltered by an Infinite Staircase (Ranger+Pud), One by a twisting puzzle of stone (My entrance) a third is bound by an unbreakable door (Paladin) a fourth is a small platform surrounded by a twisting mass of ravening vermin and a fifth rests on a platform of razors and chains. Each portal is isolated and leads to a central defensive structure, the Master resides in the 9th level of this structure and each is protected by a puzzle or trap.

Me: Will you aid me in escaping this entrance?
Salamander Noble: Hope drives us to desperate measures. But we would rather miss an opportunity than provoke disaster. Prove to us you are capable and we may assist you in our own manner.
Me: How can I prove myself?
Salamander Noble: Face Death….
Me: Open the gateway to Death?
Salamander Noble: Eight Seals must be opened to leave this place. Defeat Death and we will aid in breaking the remaining seals. Fail and join the guardians.
Me: One question…what does your master want?
Salamander Noble: To destroy the light…

The Salamander keep a wary eye on me then retreat back to a segment of wall, which opens to reveal a secret door and small crystal room. They seal themselves inside the hidden room and the coffins all start to align on their own volition. I move back and cast Stoneskin on myself. As the coffins realign the room shrinks by a few feet and a huge portal opens in the room’s center. A very large basilisk comes out, a greater abyssal basilisk to be accurate. DR,SR and a Petrifying Gaze attack, oh goody. Golem and Basilisk start duking it out and Minotaur is taking some serious damage. I cast a Wall of Fire from Ring on the Golem and for the most part try to look harmless. I dip in to spray some burning hands which helps top the golem, but does next to nothing against the Basilisk. Even with the Wall going and the burning hands, the Golem is starting to lose the race and I hastily look through character sheet for non fire based options. I do have Shout, which gets past SR. I let one loose and 5d6 comes up 20 damage. That swings the race in favor of golem who outpaces the basilisk. He is pretty banged up when the Wall runs out and I start Burning Hands him back up.

Me: Death is no match for me
A voice slowly whispers in the room “That was not death…only my hound”
Over my shoulder is a towering Mass of Shadow in humanoid form. It’s a Nightwalker. I am caught by surprise and it leads with an Unholy Blight…Caster Level 21…I eat the 10d6 cut in half after failing save. On my turn I’m fairly stumped on what to do. It has big time spell resistance. The Golem starts dutifully wailing on it, but I know he ain’t going to take this guy single handed and burning hands won’t cut it. I am loathe to dip into Flamestrike from the ring as I only get two and I really want those for the potential Master. I ultimately elect to take a move and eat an AOO. On my move I draw the Staff of Illumination and cast Sunburst from the Staff, the staff is caster level 15 and I get +2 to overcome Spell Resistance from the Robes of Archmage that gives me a 12 or higher success to overcome spell resistance. I roll a 14 and hit it with 15d6 in damage. 54 damage…it makes its save so 27. Still respectable. Over the next four rounds it damn near kills my golem. I go through 15 charges from the staff and connect 2 of 5 sunbursts. I launch a 6th and it fails this save eating 43 damage, that is enough to topple it. I ate a cone of cold and a second unholy blight and with my limited hp pool I am in real bad shape. I drain my ring of spell storing and use the cure mod domain slot. As im standing there cursing the salamanders emerge somewhat impressed.

They set up a cordon around the next gate and the 3rd triggered gate was Water. Packs of Chuul start lumbering through the gateway and are quickly engaged by salamanders and Minotaur Golem. Lots of fire damage and ambush advantage and the water gate is vanquished.

Ranger:
The Ranger and Pudnokker leave their starting room and make their way into the dungeon proper (they don’t know this yet, but meta-wise we do). The long tunnel opens into (D1-1) an alien metal room with complex doors to the left and right. The moment they enter the room the locket start vibrating violently, it floats to the room’s center and darkness bursts into the air. It dissipates quickly and they are left scrambling to find the source. While looking Pudnokker spots something in the room’s ceiling corner, something that promptly puts a poisoned arrow into him knocking him unconscious. The ranger recognizes the arrow as a drow design but more wicked and otherworldly. They were fiendish Driders, a trio of which was clinging to the ceiling of the room’s corners. Two of them starting peppering the ranger and the third came to engage him directly. He moves back into the hallway and eats an AOO, then puts an arrow into the grounded drider. The next round all three descend and start engaging him at range. He fails a fort save and takes 3 str damage from poison. That is nastier than you can imagine…it means he can’t pull back his bow. He draws both swords and runs further back the tunnel. He wins init next round and readies an action then waits. The first of three drider comes up the tunnel with the trailers close behind.

Ranger: I am ready for my held action…
DM: Go for it…
Ranger: Wall of Stone from the ring to cut off the lead one from it’s two buddies.

1vs1 the drider is outclassed and the ranger rips it apart. The trapped duo is hammering at the wall and chipping away…after killing the lead drider the ranger backs up further and readies another action. When they finally break through he stone shapes the wall of stone to form a blockade cutting one off from its partner. 1vs1 he tears it apart again, though he does eat another failed fort save and takes 2 more str damage. He dispatches the 3rd one and comes through having taken not a whole lot of damage, but eating five str damage is brutal since it renders his bow useless. He goes to wake up Pudnokker and Pud hits him with a cure mod wounds. They can cast a Bulls Strength from Wand, but that is not enough to get him back to 20. They plan on resting and re-preparing Restoration spells.

DM: Ok, then we will cut back to Caramis until he rests.

Me:
For the sake of a feigned brevity I will gloss over the remaining elements of my opening room. With each gate vanquished the room gets a bit smaller. I expend all my cleric spells except for Dispel Magic and Bestow Curse. I have a scattering of bard spells remaining by the time the last gate is destroyed and a new tunnel opens up into the dungeon proper.

At this point I decide to rest and regain spells and recharge the ring of spell storing before continuing on. I expend bard spells to recharge ring and use all my remaining spell slots to get 3 charges back on the Staff of Illumination. I need to repeat that last sentence…I expend ALL my spells slots. As I announce that I am going to rest and pray with the golem standing sentry the DM informs us of the following.

DM: While the inter-dimensional space inside an interdimensional space didn’t cause a rift into the Astral Plane, it is creating the side effect of making divine contact exceedingly difficult. All attempts to prepare a spell of divine origins is subject to a 90% chance of failure. Already prepared spells are unaffected and can be retained. And I think I heard the door bell….sooooo I am going to get the pizza while you all pick up your jaws from the floor.
This is world shattering and enormously game changing.

The Paladin expended two cure lights and a lesser restoration. He is aching for Con ability repair and decides to roll the dice on regaining 3 lesser restorations. He fails all 3. He is also told that he has now gone an entire day without water or food.

Pudnokker used 3 spells and can abandon slots to attempt to re-prepare other spells. Getting the ranger’s bow back online is a huge priority and he is left with a nasty choice, give up spells in hand for potential spells needed and most likely lost? He gets ruled against rolling for the 3 spells and then giving up prepared. All decisions on preparation must be made prior to rolling. He decides to reroll all 5 1st level slots for lesser restorations and try to regain the 2nd level cure mod. He goes 1 for 5 and gets back a lesser restoration, he fails the cure roll. I have never seen a d4 roll with so much anticipation. He rolls a 4. There is a huge sigh of relief at the table. The alternate was to constantly pepper the ranger with bulls strength.

I roll miserably for regaining cleric spells. I get a Lesser Restoration for a 1st level and a Stone Shape at 3rd level. That is it. Bard spells are going to be my main staple until we find a way to circumvent the 90% failure…if there is a way.

We also fully understand the tighter restrictions on metagaming.
Here is the real rub. I have plenty of food since my back has all the iron rations. But I need to create water to drink. Suddenly that is a resources issue. The Paladin and Pudnokker can do the same, but they are in even more desperate straights for water and don’t have food. That became the overwhelming arc to this section of the campaign. We needed to join up to share food and figure out a means to procure consistent water.

We more or less called it early this week and decided to restrategize a bit. We also had to take time to really research different cleric spells and the rules on starvation/thirst.

Bigbrother87
2012-04-26, 09:00 AM
Let me applaud you and your group, sir. With the DM giving the "I win if I kill you" statement at the start, I figured you'd be doomed pretty quickly, but you've been doing brilliantly!

I'd also like to compliment you on your records. These were all interesting to read, very detailed, and I look forward to finding out what happened next...

Kaveman26
2012-04-27, 11:37 AM
I cut a lot of the detail oriented stuff and tried to stick to events, somewhat shorter update.

10th Session:

I am going to forgo the detailed descriptions of encounters from this point until the party starts to get back together.

Paladin:
Rested, and low on spells and still suffering from Con damage the Paladin takes his golem back to the mephit room and basically lets him soak in the fire until fully repaired. He then makes his way back to the Black Room and takes twenty to search it as best as possible for anything he misses. Nada is discovered.

He moves on to the Blue Room which is made from pure sapphire. An entire 30x30 room that is entirely constructed of sapphires. It’s breath weapon is a cone of cold. It is also stronger than his golem and despite his efforts his golem is finally destroyed. It takes nearly all the damage and it was close but Torm Golem is destroyed and he finishes off the Sapphire Golem two rounds later. We practically have a minute of silence at the table. The paladin is definitely frustrated and somewhat irked. He searches the blue room top to bottom and stumbles on an orb hanging from the ceiling. He breaks into the bag of holding and uses rope and pry bars to pull it down. Its maybe the size of a bowling ball and kind of slippery. He backtracks to the Black Room and with looking for it specifically he finds a similar orb on the ceiling almost completely concealed.

He advances to the White Room and as he enters a pair of Ice Devils engage him. Their melee attacks are next to useless against him, and he makes just about every save you can imagine with his high charisma and paladin-ness. He has cold resistance which renders their spells almost meaningless and holy avenger cuts them to shreds. He retrieves the White orb and takes all three to the Giant Door with 3 Locks. In proximity to the door all three orbs change into keys and he is able to enter the dungeon proper.

Ranger:
The Ranger and Pudnokker start their session with entering the dungeon proper.

The moment they enter we all get a monologue from the DM…
DM:As you all enter the dungeon proper a fast whispered voice enters each of your minds, the words are coming so quickly that they are hard to decipher and they are rapid cycling through multiple languages.

“Hasten your destruction by seeking my embrace. I yearn for fresh memories to purge and corrupt. I will twist your souls into thread for my new puppets just like the rest…Come to Me”

We all make assorted Knowledge Checks, and I get a small clue in the form of the accent or dialect being Drow in origin.

Dungeon Level 1-Ranger
The first level of the dungeon is like an alien spaceship crash landed into the underdark. We see a bunch of extraplanar creatures that you generally just flip past in the Monster Manual, and they are all modded with class levels, templates or bizarre tactical sets. There are long winding tunnels that tend to spill out into smaller joined chambers in sets of typically four or five rooms. Almost the entire structure is comprised of foreign metals and obsidian/marble. At this point the Paladin made what ended up being the GREATEST SINGLE LINE of this entire campaign and a very accurate description of the dungeon

“Its like David Cronberg hijacked HR Giger’s subconscious and mind raped Labyrinth”

The Ranger and Pud start out making slow progress and they are getting help with mapping from the Paladin who is basically our cartographer. He is making the slowest progress and tends to cede “playtime” to the ranger and I. They run into a lot of Bodak’s and Devourer’s with fighter levels and the occasional caster level. They also find several chaos beasts, but nothing they can’t handle. Their biggest concern is healing resources. With casting difficult to recover they are loathe to expend any spell slots, but also don’t want to burn through wands. They clear about ten rooms and have killed maybe 8 Bodak’s and 6 Devourer’s and a pair of Chaos Beasts, nothing too threatening.

Then they hit the first creative encounter. It was years later that I heard the term “Tucker’s Kobolds” we knew of this independently from a campaign the Paladin had run. We knew what smartly run monsters could do. We met the Tuckers Kobold equalivents in Ethereal Filchers. They weren’t exactly ninjas…they were more like fremen or nomads. They all had cloaks of displacement and thrown splash weapons. Their lair was a large open cavern similar to the dragons with stalagtites made of glass everywhere. The minute he entered the cavern an adamantine portcullis slammed shut behind them and a floating apparition appeared in mid air at the room’s center.

It was our first glimpse of The Master

The Master was a frail albino drow with actual diamonds for eyes. I mean the actual gemstones were present in his eyesockets. His voice was quivering and faint but their was real malice in his words.

“Have you enjoyed a taste of what I have been forced to endure for these countless millennia? Do you savor the despair? I sense your discomfort and it pleases me. So far you have barely scratched the surface of my jailors, now I feel it is time to meet creations of my design. They are far less blunt”

As it finishes speaking a dozen ethereal filchers all move to the Material Plane, they are hard to focus on with the cloaks and the glass stalagtites and stalagmites make their reflections even harder to pick up. They played the most wicked game of cat and mouse I could ever imagine. They would toss varying styles of grenades with acid, fire, a kind of homebrewed liquid nitrogen that did frost damage and even some home brewed lightning damage bombs. The moment their bomb was away, they would jaunt out. Even worse some of them had boots of levitation and they would drop the glass stalagtites from the ceiling as falling bombs. The concealment bonuses made this tedious. The Ranger could take one out in a full attack, but between cover and concealment he rarely got to set up on one. He and the druid were too busy diving around making reflex saves. They took a lot of damage and had to burn 10 charges from the Staff of Fire with Fireballs, they also burned all 18 charges from Pud’s Cure mod Wand. They recovered 12 cloaks of displacement major and 4 boots of levitation. They piled them all in the bag and tried to figure out an exit from the cavern.

Dungeon Level 1 –Paladin
The Paladin probably caught the worst of it from this point on. He fought against similar Bodak’s, Devourers, and Chaos Beasts, but he found a small polluted oasis. Very akin to the underground bog the ranger started out near, but this one was clogged with dead ironwood trees and small bogs of fetid water choked with algae and lichen and mold. He too gets treated with an appearance from the Master

“Such strength, such bravey, such stalwart fortitude. It makes the crackling marrow of your friend’s bones all the more succulent. I have not feasted this well for an eternity. I do wonder if brawn is a match for speed? I imagine not, as my most stalwart captor also discovered, that which you can’t catch you can’t kill.”

From the knotholes of the ironwood trees a trio of Grigs fly out. They are clearly demonic and each carries a tiny longbow of brilliant energy. So that means the Amulet of Natural Armor and the Ring of Protection still apply, but not the plate, or shield. They hit for 1d4-3+1 so 2 damage…never more never less, just 2. They have levels in something as they get 2 attacks per round.
We are a bit worried here. If you have been following this whole adventure he doesn’t really have a ranged weapon. He does have a breath weapon through dragon disciple that does 2d8, but as he found out after a few rounds, their cold resistance makes this nearly useless. He is taking 4-10 damage per round and getting fed up quick. He true strikes up an attack and flings his Morningstar as a thrown weapon at one with penalties and all and he hits hard. He then flings the frostbrand and finally the holy avenger, then calmly goes about picking them back up while taking arrows. With his upgraded Charisma he manages to get 5 sorc spells per day and uses up all five true strikes and manages to kill 2. The third plinks him for multiple rounds as he throws weapons and misses. He took a total of about 80 damage by the time he knocks third one out of the air. He falls all the way back to the opening room and again tries to rest. He does recover a single restoration and is nearly back to full Con. He is exclusively using LoH at this point.

Dungeon Level 1-Me
My salamander posse more or less refuse to go deeper into the dungeon and they do some funky stuff with the remaining coffins and disappear. I am back to just my golem and me. I descend into the dungeon proper and am treated to the same baddies as everyone else. I am kind of in heaven though, Bodaks and Devourers take fire damage just fine and the golem is practically untouchable by them. In time I reach my “creative” room and get my own personal message from The Master

“The screams of the holy man were the finest music these ears have heard in ages. His wails a testament to my own suffering. But you…you will make a sweeter sound than even he…of this I am sure”

Me: You can expect only the sound of my laughter as we crush you into dust.

The image had started to fade…but as I responded it flared back up.

Master: You dare to mock me! I will rend your soul into chafe and flay your mind into ribbons you horrid wretch.
Me: Do your worst chicken****…I’ll settle up later
Paladin out of character: A Blade quote? Really?
Master: Chicken? I had a different sort of fowl in mind. *wild cackling*

As he says that nine harpies with frost longbows start swooping throughout the room and they drop 24 arrows into my golem. I laugh that off as they the most damage they can do with a single arrow is 18, so with DR 3 damage is most they can do. Unfortunately…the golem doesn’t fly, and my carpet of flying is with the paladin. That means I need to dig into the quiver…and whip out the Staff of Frost.

Paladin: Gahhhhh! I really need to pay better attention I had the carpet all along.

I try to back myself into a corner and use my golem for cover as the harpies keep launching arrows. They stay spread out and keep moving to render the Cone of Cold’s less effective and I still end up eating a couple arrows each turn. I cast a Stoneskin on myself and tuck in for the long haul. I am eating a lot of arrow damage and going through staff charges like mad. The harpies outlast my Stoneskin and I am through nearly 20 charges on the Staff. I am also sucking fumes on hps with stoneskin expired. I end up burning a Stone Shape scroll to create a bunker for myself. I expend all my first level spells for Cure Light Wounds on myself as the harpies bank in and screech and try to get arrows through my bunker. I get just about back to full then go back to Coning. I take more arrows and manage to finish off the last of the harpies after burning through 30 charges on staff. I declare my intention to stay in my makeshift bunker and rest with golem on sentry.

We are declared to be at a good spot and get bumped to level 12. That means, Stat Bump, New Feat and a very welcome and unexpected Re-Training. I am backdated and allowed to switch out 3 old bard spells, and we are allowed to change out 2 feats if we so desire.

*Paladin changes out Combat Expertise and Improved Trip for Improved Init and Iron Will, he bumps str to 23

*Ranger keeps his feats as is and bumps dex to 32 he takes Improved Precise Shot and Levels in Paladin

*I take another level of MT and bump Cha and I change out Combat Expertise and Scribe Scroll for Spell Penetration and Improved Init, I take Greater Spell Penetration as my 12th level feat.
I replace Sleep, Silent Image and Hideous Laughter with Grease, Feather Fall, and detect secret doors
That opens up fourth level spells in cleric list (if I can make the rolls) and to be honest I am going to be leaning very heavily on bard spells for healing until we find a way to get clerical healing back in force.

Dungeon Level 1-Ranger
The ranger and Pudnokker find a path leading out of their cavern and follow it to a strange underground bog with ironwood trees. From there they find the shattered remains of 3 grig and back track through all the way to the main tunnel. They come upon the Paladin who is sitting at his starting point with chapped lips and a sunken look on his face. There is much rejoicing at the table as some of the party is brought back together. Combined the three of them circle back to the portcullis’d chamber and work to find another path to follow, they are confident they will find me soon. They actually do find the segment I am in, but not before I manage to get myself into a spot of trouble…

Dungeon Level 1-Me (Mini BBEG)
I work my way out of my segment and stumble upon a path down, basically a long winding staircase that descends deeper into the level of the dungeon. From there I find what I jokingly think of as The Freezer. A room encased in solid ice with ten doors carved from ice. Upon entering the room a mist begins to form. I almost jump out of my skin as I stammer out “Casting Stoneskin and drawing Staff . In total mist rises from all ten doors and then forms into ten Frost Giants…frost giants with pale white skin and the predatory look of vampires.

Me Out of Character: Are you describing Vampire Frost Giants….
DM (with an amused grin): Why yes, that is precisely what I am describing.
Me: Ten?
DM: Ten.
Me out of character: Well this should be fun…someone hand me a blank character sheet this could get messy.

I am fully expecting to die at this point. With the Paladin at the forefront, the ranger peppering them with arrows and Pudnokker lobbing fireballs we might be able to take out ten frost giants, add a vampire template and that is brutal. Alone…I don’t like my chances.

Me: Good morning, or is afternoon? So hard to tell these days. Just passing through…
Largest Frost Giant: The Master told us you had a smart tongue. He wants you coherent when he shatters your mind, he wants to see how smart that tongue is when it has tasted the bittersweet of oblivion.
Me: How coincidental, we are aching to meet your master as well, and since you need me alive I suppose you could just direct me towards him and I will be on my way.
All ten giants chuckle…
Largest Frost Giant: Alive? We said nothing about alive. Only that you be coherent.
Me: oh…well in that case…
I throw wall of fire on the golem and draw the Staff of Illumination along with the empower rod. They all scatter and return to gaseous form and I am left standing there ready to unleash the full fury of the sun at the slightest movement. I am slowly working to back out of the room but the entrance I came through is blocked.
The Master voice fills the room.
“My minions need never sleep, they are eternally vigilant and loyal. You must close your eyes eventually, and when you do…you are mine.”

We ended the session at this point and it felt like a real cliffhanger.

Lord Torath
2012-05-04, 07:47 AM
Any chance of another update? I'm really enjoying reading this!

Morghen
2012-05-04, 10:04 PM
This is great stuff.

The people have spoken. Give us more.

Kaveman26
2012-05-05, 01:34 PM
Session 11:

We picked up session 11 with the Paladin and Ranger moving back through a now mostly vacant series of tunnels and caverns. They were searching for me to reform the party. I was stuck in a room filled with gas formed hiding frost giant vampires. I have Sunburst with empower capabilities online and am stuck playing a waiting game. It takes the better part of six hours in game time but the Paladin and Ranger find the room I am in and as they approach a trio of vampire giants attacks them.

I get a nasty surprise when a FLYING vampire giant engages me with spells from the roof of the ice chamber. What does this giant with massive melee bonuses etc do? It casts grease on my staff. Grease. What a **** move. I fail the reflex save. My vampire boom stick is now on the floor and the mists start reforming in the room. I do what any reasonable person would do given the circumstance, I yank out the Staff of Frost… and make myself a little ice prison. I then declare this to be my “home”, I get vetod on the whole a vampire has to be invited weakness. I am told that while I can call it my home, this lair is their home, and I am basically just hiding under the rug in their living room.

The three giants outside the chamber mostly just tie up the paladin and ranger, they keep moving and evading defensively. The seven inside are pinning down my golem with heavy damage and pounding away at my ice wall. I really wanted to avoid using them, but I elect to drop a Flamestrike from the ring to hit four giants. I put some real damage, and since they are fire vulnerable it reallys connects hard. I use second Wall of Fire on the Golem and then move, eating an AOO to get a bit of distance. I am trying to get close enough to the golem to stand within the fire. The entrance to The Freezer was blocked with a wall of stone which the paladin starts punching through using the lockpick. Loss of Con actually makes these giants lower in hp even with the d12. I use the second flamestrike and it looks like I just might be able to fend them off long enough. Then I get grappled by the big vampire and he starts draining me. The surviving vampires all converge on the golem, and the trio harrying the group outside gang up on the golem as well. Minotaur golem goes down for the count. Paladin is just about through the wall and I am cringing at each d4 con damage roll. 4…3…3…the giant who is draining me wins init and if he rolls a 1…I am barely alive…a 2 and Im vampire kibble. He rolls a 4. Paladin and ranger break into the room on that turn and within a few rounds they route what remains. Pudnokker grabs the staff of illumination and lets off a sunburst…there is nothing but frosty dust left of the giants, and my dead corpse.

I am looking for a character sheet when the DM hands me the details for Vampire Template.
*blink* *blink*
Me: Uh…
DM: Welcome to Undeath…
We have to stop everything for a minute to try and figure out what this all means game wise and party politics wise. Hear is the long story short. What it translates to is this:
*I am now a vampire under The Master’s control.
*I am shifted to CE and lose all my contact with my previous deity.
*I become an NPC under the DM’s control and disappear from the room
*If…if …if they can find a way to free me or redeem me its possible I could return to PC status
*All my possessions are taken with me, and the Staff of Illumination is left behind.
*But sadly Caramis Wolfsbane has met his current end and it is time to roll a new character.

I will introduce what I rolled up when the character joins the action.
The Paladin and Ranger smash apart the frozen coffins and do the final kill steps on the frost giant vampires. With their destruction a long winding staircase descends to the dungeon’s next level. Pudnokker was my cohort…but its not like he has many options other than going forth and he becomes the pseudo companion of the Ranger. As they are preparing to move on the paladin makes an offhand comment that radically alters things.
Paladin: I wish we still had the golems….

The ranger who has been reorganizing inventory lists with my departure realizes that we have a luck blade with two wishes. After a lot of at table haggling the cloaks of displacement, the brilliant energy pixie bows and any other random stuff we picked up are offered up as gp value sacrifices to fuel a pair of wishes to restore our two golems. The Paladin gets Torm Golem back and the Ranger gets his own which he shapes in the form of a Large Bipedal Wolf. The Staff of Fire has 18 charges remaining and Illumination has 15.

They descend down the stairwell to see what awaits below and find… a pathway leading deeper into the dungeon is revealed. If level one could be described as alien, the second level is simply described as draconic. The winding path down opens up into a wide open landscape with a lightning streaked sky. For all intents and purposes we walked down a dungeon and came out into a wilderness. Five squat temples are spread out across several miles and atop each is a beacon that is firing a ray of energy at a swirling portal in the center of this valley. It looks like each temple is fueling a shield around a portal. We figure the portal is most likely the path to our next segment and that we will need to disable each beacon. Also of note is a single shaft of light that is descending on a random spot amidst the valley.
The shaft of light becomes our first priority and we make our way to that location first. The terrain is comprised of a strange very fine sand that makes movement troublesome. We figure five hours or so to each the point of light and from our in game “character time clocks” that will be the end of a long day. Passage is going fairly well when the first of many like encounters begins. A flight of half dragon sphinxes drops from the lightning strewn sky and start buzzing us with fire, cold and lightning breath weapons. The Paladin grumbles and unslings his bow taking pot shots from the ground while the ranger goes into full blown Legolas mode, snapping off lots of arrows very quickly. Pudnokker tries to isolate fire vulnerable sphinxes and chucks a couple fireballs to stay busy. They are not threatening but they do make us absorb more charges from staffs and from healing wands.

There are a pair of surprises waiting for us at the shaft of light. First and foremost, the moment we enter the shaft the divine interference vanishes, and we feel that connection to our deities again. Second and more pressing waiting within the beacon are Puxdool and the Green Man and boy are they surprised to see us.

The troll is sitting on a small boulder and the druid is kneeling in meditation. As we enter the light the troll looks up at us and with desperate anger struggles in rising to his feet. The wicked falchion rests on his shoulder and his knees are trembling…the druid painfully rises as well and the two look like they have been through the ringer.

Puxdool: For months we have survived against all odds. We have preserved against hell itself and witnessed terrors NO mortal should be subject to. My only strand of hope was to one day take off your heads and shrink them into my totems to decorate my grave. Now you have come to take even that from me.
Green Man: What devious treachery is this? Months on end without respite and the moment we find peace these honorless bastards come to finish their butchery.
Paladin: It was only days ago that we had our unfortunate parley, I assure you the circumstances that brought you to this place were accidental and beyond our control. We are here to set that mistake aright. I have no qualms doing so after we bury you. Perhaps your revenge can wait long enough for a fulfilled parley.
DM: They are exhausted…both literally and game wise. They are willing to do just about anything as long as they can sit down and relax.

The troll and his second join us in the most uncomfortable parley you can think of. From their perspective they were sucked into this twilight realm of temples and dragons nearly 3 months ago and since then have been constantly harried by half dragon and draconic creatures of all manner. The trolls regeneration and clever use of druidic magic kept the alive. A few hours ago the beacon came down and they managed to reach it and discover its ability to restore divine communication.

*time is flowing far differently in this place, and it is ever shifting in shape.
*dragons dominate the landscape and hold control of each temple.
*In short order we realize the beacon is closing and that time is short.
*The Master is aware of their presence and wants them as playthings.
*The druid found an onyx crystal ball of drow origin that keeps calling to him.

It is determined that the beacon will close or vanish within 10 hours so we all agree to not kill each other and try to tactfully rest/pray/recuperate to the best of our abilities. The Paladin comes to an agreement with Puxdool and Green Man…they are still enemies ready to take each other’s heads, but they will put that battle on hold until we are free of this place…then all bets are off. We talk strategy with the duo and press the benefits of strength in numbers and the whole enemy of my enemy thing. They don’t join our group but they will reluctantly accompany us and provide aid and support that they feel doesn’t endanger themselves.
Pudnokker prepares:

Pudnokker:5/5/4/4/2
1st:CLW 5
2nd:Resist Energy 5
3rd:2 Cure mod 2 Protection Energy
4th:FlameStrike 4
5th:Stoneskin 2

We don’t know what Green Man prepares but we are told he is level 11 and that Puxdool is a level 12 troll barbarian with great con and str.
The Paladin loads up on lesser restoration and cure light wounds.
The five temples are each controlled by a different dragon, the troll duo knows that a white, black and blue are in control of 3 of the 5, they aren’t sure what the other two are. We assume a green and a red. The consensus is to approach the white temple first. Three sets of flying sphinxes buzz us on the pathway to the white temple. As we get near 3 huge white dragons all take flight and start circling us far overhead . Resist Energy Cold goes up from Pud on himself and Puxdool, and paladin has the ring. The Paladin mounts up on the flying carpet and Puxdool joins him. . I’m not sure how to describe what the paladin does, its mostly like jousting. In real time this battle takes forever. The dragons are constantly moving and weaving in and out of spell range. It feels more like a baseball game than a true battle.
(Side Note: We rarely ever use flight in ANY of our games. Its practically an unspoken rule that Fly is no go. It becomes a game requirement that flight become an option once it is initially used. So levitate is as far as we normally go)

The dragons have deep health pools and with resists and them mostly using breath weapons they eat a lot more damage than they put out. We take a slight change of tact, the Paladin lands from the carpet and the ranger and pudnokker go dragon skeet shooting. The Paladin takes both golems and Puxdool/Green Man into the temple while the dragons keep up their evasion tactics. THAT gets things changed up.

Upon entering the temple they locate a crystal column that is emitting the light. The Paladin immediately starts bashing the crap out it with his “lockpick”. The ranger manages to kill one of the dragons with a pair of crits in one round and the remaining two head back in a fury to the temple to disrupt the paladin. Torm and Wolf Golem get their hands on a landed dragon and get to smashing. The paladin and puxdool do very unnatural things to the second one and rip it apart in devastating fashion. It takes a fair amount of swinging but the column is destroyed and the light being emitted is destroyed. The fluxing vortex/portal thing becomes a bit easier to see into and a gargantuan human shape is visible.

The team next assaults the black temple. No large dragons or sphinxes encounter them on the path leading to the temple. Instead they are faced with a three pronged Half Dragon Centaur squadron. There are flying black dragon centaur archers, a group of black dragon heavies with lances that are using a series of interconnected hallways to perform ride by attacks and a group of well armored half dragon two weapon fighters. The lancers focus on Pud and Green Man while the ranger is getting a taste of his own arrows and the flyers all light into him. Paladin Pux and the Golems get tied up with the two weapon fighters and collectively they all hold their own quite well. The lancers are the biggest threat, they land some nasty hits on our casters and they dip into some stone shapes to create obstacles for the self mounted centaur chargers. More healing charges are expended and already it feels like we are hitting more spell desperation for prepared slots.

As the second column is destroyed the shield around the portal starts to waver ever so slightly and movement is visible inside the vortex.
The third temple goes deep into the ground and resembles the arc chamber from Indiana Jones. A loose sandy floor in a wide open high ceiling chamber with the crystal column in the center of the room. This room is guarded by a quartet of four adult blue dragons. This one got hairy. Lightning all over the place, dispel magics to get rid our protection/resists and stoneskins, blue dragons bursting from the sand to attack then burrowing back under to pop out in a different spot, and worst off…lightning slows the golems and they are our all stars for pinning down or grappling/flanking enemies. There are some real close calls with failed saves and we are groaning over every failed dice roll that makes use another wand or staff charge. He keeps us dancing a lot, trying to avoid getting full attacked, the blues work together to constantly be shifting and always have at least one in the air, and one moving below ground.

When they can line it up and get a full attack or power attack lined up the troll and paladin are just devastating in tandem. They are happy to eat a dragon dance full attack if it means they can deliver two in return. The ranger ends up focusing exclusively on whatever target the paladin is on and they start to turn the tides when they kill the first dragon. Pudnokker starts going for broke as they are all fairly injured and he starts dropping flamestrikes. Green Man puts a lot of support spells and healing into the mix and golems slam attacks are taking their toll. Being a man down hurts even with the golems back. Then the Ranger confirms three critical in a single round. 19,20,17 for his attack rolls and he confirms all three. We get it described as him putting in an arrow in each major artery on both sides of a dragon’s neck with third one penetrating the windpipe. The dragon drops like a stone down a well. We play conservation from that point and nickel and dime the remaining two who fight to the death with no thought of escape. With all four dragons dead the column smashing commences. Except we get an added effect this time around. As the column smashes and lights flickers out, the sand starts draining from the chamber and exposes an adamantine box, there are mithral chains surrounding it and its damn near impossible to stop ourselves from opening the thing. As the paladin smashes the last lock a hissing gush of air escapes and they all jump back. Amidst the smokey gas and clearing dust a immense 7 foot tall man in pure adamantine plate with a hulking sword strapped to his back stands up. Behind him a slim creature that is clad in the most basic of robes and unarmed. It is clearly not from this Plane.

DM: As the dust settles a voice that sounds like it has lain silent for centuries booms out in a strong tone a guttural roar and stretches. It is muscled beyond belief, making the paladin seem slight by comparison. It is clear to the naked eye the sword strapped to his broad back is adamantine. It speaks…

Me: FREEDOM. I thought it only the faded vestige of a dream long turned nightmare. Under what auspice have you entered this realm? State your intentions clearly and without delay, 2,000 years in captivity have dulled my patience.

Meet Lord Rasmusen….the long captured crusader and holy man who attempted to conquer the evil of this place long ago. Rasmusen is a cleric/thaumaturgist from a long dead civilization that acted as a seeker of fugitives and wandering judge. His deity preferred greatswords and he is head to toe in adamantine. He considers himself incorruptible and has a cohort level 10 monk that is planetouched.

I ended up with :
Str 26
Dex 14
Con 16
Int 11
Wis 22
Cha 16
I decide to go Cleric 7/Thaumaturgist5 with War and Destruction as my domains
Feats:
Human:Spell Focus:Conjuration
1st Power Attack
3rd Cleave
6th Leadership
9th Spell Penetration
12th Greater Spell Penetration
I was instructed to take up to 400,000 in treasure for “starting gear”
I take +5 adamantine full plate (45,000)
+5 holy adamantine greatsword (140,000)
Ring of Greater Fire Resist (44,000)
Ring of Greater Cold Resist (44,000)
Belt of Giant Str +6 (36,000)
Periapt of Wisdom +6 (36,000)
Amulet of Natural Armor+5 (50,000)


Spells Prepared (7+1…6+1…5+1…4+1…4+1…3+1)
1st: Divine Favorx3 CLWx4 Inflict Light Wounds*
2nd:Bulls Strengthx3 CMWx2 Hold Person Spiritual Weapon*
3rd:Dispel Magicx2 CSW x2 Bestow Curse Magic Vestment*
4th:Summon Monster x3 Divine Power Divine Power*
5th:Flamestrike x 5
6th:Heal,Heal,Planar Ally Harm*

My monk cohort is level 10 and has some outsider ancestry. He got 150,000 in gear and ended up looking like this:
Benedict-Monk10 Str 20 Dex 24 Con 14 Int 11 Wis 20 Cha 12, Gloves of Dexterity+6, Belt of Giant Str+6 , Monks Robe and Cloak of Resistance+5 and Periapt of Wisdom+6
1st Iron Will
MBF Stunning Fist
MBF Combat Reflexes
3rd Lightning Reflexes
6th Improved Initive
MBF Improved Disarm
9th Great Fortitude

We ended session with introduction of my new character…the slightly crazed gigantic cleric of war and destruction.

Roguenewb
2012-05-05, 05:18 PM
Excellent work sir, I can't wait to read the next installment.

zagan
2012-05-06, 09:17 AM
Very nice read. Thank you for sharing it. I can't wait for the next part. Again thanks.

Kaveman26
2012-05-08, 12:15 PM
Dragon level write up almost done. For those following these recaps I ha e a question. Next couple sessions are very room by room intensive do you want the small detail stuff or just main story of what we are encountering?

Bigbrother87
2012-05-08, 12:34 PM
Dragon level write up almost done. For those following these recaps I ha e a question. Next couple sessions are very room by room intensive do you want the small detail stuff or just main story of what we are encountering?

I vote that you go with what you enjoy, because I like aspects of both. I enjoy the overall story and ideas of the rooms, but I can't fully appreciate when something impossible is pulled off unless I am given the small details.

Fluff & Napalm
2012-05-08, 12:56 PM
Yeah, go with what you feel like illustrates the story best. Details are awesome, but can slow the story down. I have faith in you though :smallbiggrin:

zagan
2012-05-08, 12:59 PM
I vote that you go with what you enjoy, because I like aspects of both. I enjoy the overall story and ideas of the rooms, but I can't fully appreciate when something impossible is pulled off unless I am given the small details.

I agree with that. I would enjoy both version. You could use a miw of both only giving the general happening if it's nothing special and for the more important event give more detail.

Ecalsneerg
2012-05-09, 06:44 PM
While I'm normally against the "GM is the enemy" mindset, I have to say, this is a refreshingly fun take on that. Especially given as he said it up front, and seems to be using it not as an ego trip, but to force you guys to be awesome in order to succeed.

The Bandicoot
2012-05-09, 07:32 PM
One thing you could've done. Y'know that bag of holding with the tapestry in it? Stab it. With a dagger. Would've ended the campaign right then and there.

Kaveman26
2012-05-10, 07:52 AM
We had thought of doing exactly that, we were also pretty sure that DM Fiat would cause it to not work in that fashion.

Kaveman26
2012-05-10, 03:12 PM
Session 12-14:

There is some head shaking at the table as I unveil my towering cleric and some chiding for taking a divine caster given all our interference with recovering spells. Personally I just wanted to play a big home run hitter with healing and summoning abilities. I was banking on capabilities to recover more spells and in a pinch cut stuff in half. I was allowed to start with a cohort from leadership, but not from the prestige class. That would have to occur in game. I also knew ahead of time that my leadership cohort would be replaced by my planar cohort but it was assumed that I would have a cohort in similar fashion to the druid…where else would he go?

In game we abbreviate an extended meet and greet where I establish my character and his nature and we get our characters caught up to date with details of where we have been and what we are doing. A interesting element of what I was allowed to bring is details of The Master. My character knew several things about our eventual end game villain.

*He was an albino drow with a crippled physical frame.
*His mental abilities were on a level unparalleled in known history
*The nature of his abilities is considered unique and unduplicated for the framework of our campaign.
* He has been imprisoned for the better part of the world’s history and this is his third known escape attempt. Never before have his minions exited the realm of the tapestry.
* His name is Dayvid Allain Ko

We are marshalling our forces and are debating on pressing on to the next temple when a sudden *pop* noise encompasses the entire valley. We rush out to see what the noise is and bear witness to the other two lights extinguishing. The swirling shield around the vortex fades and as it does A Titan immediately begins running hellbent from where the vortex was centered. As it runs a dragon takes flight from each of the two remaining temples, a collassal red and a collassal green. They start strafing it with breath weapons and just as we are starting to weigh in on options to assist the titans…a second shape emerges from where the shield was held. It dwarves the dragons in size and lets out a roar that leaves us all trembling. 70 feet long and well over 100 tons, we watch as the Tarrasque takes off at a run to intercept the titan. If it wasn’t in unison it had to be microseconds away from being in unison but all three of us said

“We disbelieve!”

DM: I would tell you to roll Will Saves, but I will save you the time…it is not an illusion. You watch in horror as the Tarrasque and a pair of ancient dragons rip the titan asunder, unfortunately for the dragons the Tarrasque is none too interested in their assistance and it manages to catch one of them and proceeds to become a snarling pile of horns and fangs as it rumbles with the red. The red’s breath weapon is useless against the fire immune tarrasque and within minutes it twitches it’s last. The green decides it has had enough and flees through the vortex now vacant from the titan and tarrasque.

As the tarrasque roars in frustration a slight figure appears from the vortex, it is floating in a crystal chair and even from this distance the voice is audible…it is the Master
Master: Is embracing death too much to request you simple brute? Perhaps you would prefer your own existence? Yes I think that is precisely what is called for here.
You can’t tell what happens but the Tarrasque seems to fade through a gap in reality to what you are guessing is the Astral Plane. The Master turns in his chair to face you and mutters a single phrase
“I will be waiting for you”

We really felt like this was an over the top moment in terms of drama and hyperbole, but I guess it served the purpose of showing we are up against a very powerful foe. As I said what feel likes ages ago this was his first campaign DM’ing and I felt like this was the first real stumble in terms of feel so far.

We perform searches of the other two temples and come up with very little. The paladin smashes the other two columns on instinct. The group then approaches the swirling vortex and we hesitantly step through…

Dungeon Level 3-Megiddo

I had once heard that Megiddo is the phrase for where the final battle between heaven and hell will be fought. Megiddo is the best description I can manage for the third dungeon level. We emerge in a cordoned area in the midst of a pitched battle. There are four Solar-Angels at the compass points of the circle and maybe a dozen trumpet archons and a dozen Astral Devas. Everywhere beyond the circle are swarming masses of every demon you can imagine. The angel cordon is contained within a beacon and we can feel the connection to our perspective deities. Our group draws some double takes especially my cleric, but almost immediately we are urged to join in and assist. Most of the smaller demons are apparently unable to enter the circle and the ranger starts plunking them at range. The larger demons such as Nalfashae and Marilith are able to pass through and we set the golems and Puxdool to assist wherever possible against these. The Paladin is positively chomping at the bit to spot a Balor. Thankfully we see none of those.
We engage in about 20 rounds of combat with most of the angels rolls and activities more or less happening off camera. Our presence helps turn the tide and the snarling masses of demons fall back. We get some very important plot/informative advances from the angels. They are responsible for the beacons of light, it seems they too found a way to enter the tapestry and these beacons are residues from their very nature and fade over time. They have been working their way past the various levels for weeks and originally there was three times their number. They are not familiar with the means in which the realm was created, but they confirm that we are in a different plane altogether and while entry is not exceedingly difficult, exit proves neigh impossible. We also get these tidbits:

*There is more than one tapestry, at least three are known to exist
*The Master…is older than even the angels recall
*They recognize the insignia on my armor and are very surprised that anyone from my civilization still lives.
*There is a gateway under heavy guard across the battlefield that they have been unable to reach.
*The Master is capable of reshaping the very fabric of the realm but he does have limitations. He can not kill an entity outside of his core prison cell…not yet at least
*He is still bound to the core prison and what we saw is most likely a projection of himself.
*The Tarrasque was actually brought here in a gambit conceived by a wizard centuries ago. He found a way to teleport the tarrasque here but it was contained in a stasis prison with one of the original jailors, a titan of ancient lineage.
*They have knowledge of other guardians inside the tapestry realm, but have been unable to contact any of them. The titan was definitely one of them.

They also drop a bombshell on us. By their very nature they can’t enter the gate that leads deeper into the prison. Only non immortal beings can pass through. That is what they think anyway. We pause at table to lament possibly losing the golems, but as the paladin reminds us, the hundreds of demons preventing us from reaching this gate are a more pressing concern.
The Solar’s have a plan…they are confident they can provide us with a much more condensed version of the cordon they have in place. If they combine all their divine prowess and ability in a single aura sort of a metamagic concerted consescrated/hallowed protection from evil bubble we should be able to reach the gateway untouched. There is one big giant nasty “but” in this plan. If there is a Balor out there it might be able to still breech the circle. They need two days to prepare the spell and as soon as they begin…they will not be able to support us in protecting the cordon.

WE take that to mean “everything that can be thrown at you for 48 hours is about to pop off and the big guns are offline”

There is a lot of at table meta gaming at this point as we try to formulate a playbook. We all argue about the best course of action in terms of supporting/resting etc. After a good deal of back and forth we break down the following:

*We have lots of “tanky” type personnel. We have the Paladin,2 Golems,Puxdool and my Cleric
*We have 3 divine casters with healing capability
*We have one very nasty ranged combatant
*Resource management has been the single most critical part of this extended dungeon trip and our staves are running low on charges.

The resource management was the biggest thing we got caught up in. If we have to leave these angels behind the chances of us finding another resting area to recover spells is much lower. The Paladin and Puxdool take 12 hour shifts along with both golems to function as tanks. The 2 druids will take 12 hour shifts as well to provide healing and tactical support. The monk is held in reserve to help with any overwhelming scenario. The Ranger is basically going to be roaming support as much as humanly possible. My Cleric is tasked with pouring every ounce of casting he possibly can into the staffs and charging the ring of spell storing. We figure I can get 3 bursts of all my slots to charge staffs. I can get both staffs back to 50 charges and finish with enough time for the two druids to also rest and refill their slots in the 48 hours we have available.

The DM had an unusual means in which to show what was being deployed against us at any given time. He had five bags of dice, each with about a hundred dice inside ( I will one day post a screen shot of the Paladin’s dice collection…it is immense). Black six siders were Bebiliths, blue were Glaberzu and red were Hezrou. Nalfashnee were 12 siders and Mariliths were twenty siders. He shook up the bag and then just started spilling them out around our graph paper safe cordon. Where the dice fell is where they stood and then he would begin to maneuver them from there. I don’t know how he timed it, but periodically as a “wave” was being cleared or forced to flee a new wave would get dumped out. We quickly realized that the Nalf and Mariliths were critical, taking them out would often cause several lesser demons to flee or teleport away.

I will be honest though, this part of the campaign ran almost two full sessions and for lack of a better term it was tedious. The Paladin is a holy terror against demons and his saving throws are just disgustingly good. We had to scramble quite a bit to heal the golems…angels don’t have many fire spells so we ended up summoning a crap ton of Fire Mephits to constantly breath on the golems and use their 1/hour scorching rays to help keep them in fighting shape. I basically turned into a weak fighter with a holy greatsword as I was consuming just about every spell I had in recharging staffs. I was not in the same league as the Paladin but I contributed a lot of damage and held my own.

Collectively by the end of day two we had lost 4 Trumpet Archons and 5 Angels. As the Solars were approaching completion of their spell we got hit with one last huge wave of demons that forced us to disrupt our staff charging plans. We got to 40 charges on each but with 4 mariliths and a ton of lesser demons in final wave I had to keep my prepared spells to help hold the line. The two session long marathon chess match turns into all out brawl. The protective cordon and some nice bonuses disappear in the last hour and angels and archons start dropping like flies. The table is just loaded with dice and nothing is running away now. I start pouring out healing like water on sand and it is barely stemming the tide. Every spell like ability, full attack and every grappling type ability gets amped up by the demons and even the paladin starts taking HEAVY damage.

*Green Man gets overrun and torn apart by a Marilith...
*Puxdool goes into a big time rage and starts cleaning house
*My monk fails a pair of saves and ends up at -11

Its getting VERY dicey. I end up expending both of my Heals to keep paladin and ranger upright. It gets to the point where we are sucking fumes again on abilities and spells and it is looking like a TPK in a few rounds. We are getting pretty desperate and then the Solar’s finish their thing. The whole area is flooded with pure white light that rapidly shrinks and becomes a 40 foot diameter around our group. All demons within that range are vaporized, everything else for a hundred yards is forced to recoil back. A small shaft of light rises from the distance and one of the Solars shouts out “the gate is through is the light. The salvation of all Planes rests with you”.

We head at an urgent pace towards the shaft and we see the remaining angels go all out and start reaming demons behind us.

Its well over an hour at a hustle to the gateway and we can see the light growing dimmer by the minute. The gateway itself is almost visible when a Solar appears before us. It is in very rough shape…I mean it should be dead five times over from its wounds bad shape. It hands us a small silk satchel then smiles weakly.

Solar: I fear that our assistance has reached its limit. From this point forward you are all that stands between the drow’s escape and the end of our reality. I can offer you one last boon…I give my life force to allow you a short respite. Stay strong and fight back the darkness.

The Solar bursts into another light show and for a short time we are transported off Megiddo and into a peaceful and tranquil garden, in this place our ability damage and wounds start healing rapidly and we feel at peace for the first time in weeks. We are bumped from 12th to 14th level and end session after opening the bag.

Inside the bag are five marble rods with gold filigreed runes. Each bears an symbol of what it provides. The five rods are described to us as item enhancements in condensed form.
We have a rod of bane
A rod of speed
A rod of +4 to a stat (any item)
A rod of +2 bonus to any X
And a rod of flaming burst

Any of the rods can impart their enchantment to an existing weapon or item, and the process is nearly instant. We end session to process levels and try to figure out where to use these enhancements.

Kaveman26
2012-05-11, 07:07 PM
Session 15: Partial Session

After some serious deliberation the Paladin takes two more levels in Paladin, the Ranger adds Barb 2 and 3, and I add two more levels in cleric. Pudnokker advances to 12th and adds a dire bear animal companion from our garden respite. He takes Natural Spell as his feat

The Paladin adds +2 bonus to X…and by X I mean we don’t know. He had a whole separate breakdown with the DM and after some serious head shaking/chuckling the rod is used in secret.

Paladin also adds speed to his holy avenger and I take his Boots of Speed
The Ranger adds Demon-Bane to his bow and +4 to his Charisma to gains saves and loh/smite damage from his Paladin levels.

I get to add Flaming Burst to my greatsword

We pick up the action at full strength and full capacity once our little garden break is finished and are immediately returned to the place we left off. Our group is moving at a hustle because we have no clue how long we have in our little bubble. The gate comes into view and it is not alone. There are lots of demons all around it and standing dead center in front of the Gate is a Balor with a Marilith on either side of him. We are given added descriptions of the Mariliths as they bear insignia unlike any we have seen. My Cleric and the Paladin both immediately know what they are. They are blackguard elite…the most foul and brutal of all Marilith and higher in rank than some Balors.
Collectively the following facts become rather important…Paladin has a +22 fort save and a +20 Will Save without buffs. Add our consecrated aura and he gets +4 to all saves. With Eagles Splendor he picks up +2 more across the board that means he is +28 fort and +26 Will at the start of this encounter. His AC is in the 44-45 range. He attacks at 4d6+11 against demons and has a to hit bonus of 26/21/16. That is before Buffs. He gets Eagles Splendor, Bulls Strength, Protection from Energy Fire, Bless , Stoneskin and Divine Favor. That gets him to 30/30/25/20 and he attacks for 4d6+16 with the holy avenger and speed.

Not to long ago I mentioned him positively aching for a shot at a Balor. I wasn’t joking. He is seriously amped up both in character and out of character to lock horns against a Balor at level 14. To an extent we have to talk him out of trying to fight it one on one! The whole group gets their similar buffs up and running with me waiting to trigger Divine Power at the last second. We actually match up fairly well in this fight. We all can overcome damage reduction, we all have fairly good saves and we can dish out a LOT of damage against demons. But this really comes down to two factors.

1. Does the Balor dance away from the Paladin while he tries to Implode someone else that can fail the save?
2. Does our Super Holy Aura help prevent unholy aura and blasphemy? If it does then we have a chance. Otherwise CL20 on those two spells means we are hosed.

We stop short of the Balor and his guards, we measured it at 100 feet. The Paladin is flanked by the two golems in the front, the Ranger is at the rear and I am directly behind the Paladin. Puxdool and Pudnokker and are behind the golems on either side of me. The Paladin steps to the outer limits of our circle and “tries to reason with the Balor”

Paladin: I require passage through the gateway you are presently blocking. If you wish to avoid a 100 hundred years of ridicule for your failure to defend this path, by all means step aside and the matter is ended. If not prepare yourself.
DM: The Balor looks at you with amusement then begins to chuckle very slowly and softly. The five hundred other demons all join him with great waves of laughter.
Balor: Bravery in the face of oblivion. So typical and so misunderstood. The Master has grown weary of your antics and desires you to be gone. In his endless mercy he is willing to you offer a single chance for this to end. Leave this place now and spend what time you have left with those you deem kin. He will open an exit to leave this place and allow you to escape. Otherwise I will bring your corpses to his side to serve as playthings in undeath. He tells me that the screams of your fallen companion are everything he had hoped for. Such a lovely voice as it howls in agony.
Paladin: I trust in my god to ensure we will not share the same fate as he.
Balor: Your god? Your Precious Torm has no power in this place. He has abandoned you…

I swear I have never seen a bigger grin on a player’s face in my life.

Paladin: My god is ALWAYS with me. He has been my side from the moment we stepped foot in this place. His likeness has fought by my side against forces I never imagined possible. Perhaps you would like to see him for yourself?

The DM is shaking his head during this little monologue and he seems to already know what this is about. The ranger and I are just looking at each other and shrugging our shoulders.

The Paladin turns to face his golem and kneels placing both his hands on the pommel of the holy avenger he starts praying to his golem…

Paladin: Salvation may be found through service. Every failure of duty diminishes Torm and every success adds to his luster. Strive to maintain law and order. Obey your masters with alert judgment and anticipation. Stand ever alert against corruption. Strike quickly and forcefully against rot in the hearts of mortals. Bring painful, quick death to traitors. Question unjust laws by suggesting improvement or alternatives, not additional laws. I come to you upon humbled knee and beseech you aid me in this the darkness hour.

As he finishes his prayer the spectral image of a celestial steed comes tearing across the broken landscape, it is moving FAST…I mean very FAST. It charges directly into the Golem and for a shining moment the Golem pulses with energy and looks like a shimmering vestige of Torm himself. As the energy fades the Golem grows more substantial, the battered iron starts to shine like the finest steel. Mithral chain and adamantine plates fuse into place and the girth of its arms and span of it’s shoulders expand.

The paladin turns back to the Balor and rolls his shoulders bringing the shield and sword into a ready position.

Paladin: A true servant to duty and justice is NEVER abandoned…
We are sitting at the table…somewhat awestruck.

Me (OOC): What the hell was that?
Paladin (OOC): I gave up the ability to summon my mount and the ability to remove disease and used the +2 rod to turn my golem into my companion and a backup holy symbol. Twice per day for 10 rounds each he gets +10HD +8 Str and +8 NA. He also gets the other perks a paladin’s mount receives.

The DM coughs before we can get much deeper into his upgraded golem and says

Balor: Impressive, but futile. Your vampiric bard has shared many details to earn a respite from his suffering. You will all still die quickly.

We roll for initiative and the Ranger with Improved Init and Huge Dex goes first. He launches a full attack…His BAB is 13/8/3…he has weapon focus…greater bracers of archery a +3 bow, Cats Grace, Bless, which brings him up to 33/28/23 and he attacks at 1d8+2d6+11 for an average hit of 21…he has speed and rapid shot So he has 31/31/31/26/21 the Balor has an AC of 35, he lands four arrows, and puts 109 damage on the Balor in 1st round.
The Balor has second action, he moves up 40 feet and casts Implosion…he first targets the druid, and instantly kills my old cohort. Well so much for wasting it on the Paladin…he apparently got the scouting report from my vampire bard.

The Mariliths follow suit and move up to either side of the Balor.
Puxdool has next action and he charges the Balor with roar and goes into rage mode. He lands a solid shot on the Balor for 25 and is left there.
The Paladin grunts in frustration, with speed he can make it to the Balor in a charge, but the troll is in the way. He elects to charge the left Marilith and he Torm goes with him soon after. I take a full move with speed and cast Destruction from my domain slot to target a Marilith. I overcome its spell resistance, but it makes its save…I deal 24 damage.

The second round ranger wins initiative again and he puts 3 arrows for 55 damage into the Balor.

The Mariliths both move to target the Paladin and he takes four hits from the 12+ attacks. He collectively eats 65 damage from the longsword attacks. 40 of which gets absorbed from Stoneskin.

The Torm Golem slams the Marilith it is targeting but the damage reduction renders his damage below 20. Wolfie the Ranger golem adds about 10 more. The Paladin takes a five foot step and puts a smite evil into the Balor he connects with two attacks and does 66 damage. That is 240+ damage on the Balor. The Balor blows its concentration check and loses Implosion. It moves out of combat and eats 25 damage from AOO. I move next to the Paladin and cast cure critical wounds to get back 30 health.

The next round the Balor drops a fire storm on us and then moves away again. Puxdool howls from the fire damage and the Mariliths put 12+ attacks into Puxdool. He is killed outright amidst the flame damage. We are so used to our Paladin being the brick wall it is a bit disheartening to see what happens when you don’t have super high end AC. If the Balor dropped Unholy Blight the protective aura around us seems to be disrupting it. I cast Cure Serious Wounds Mass and try to top most of us off. Ranger puts another volley of arrows into the Balor and lands 3…he does another 55 damage which puts it above 290…and it isn’t down.

We also realize that we have a slight problem…the Balor is 80+ feet away and the protective aura seems to recenter wherever it can cover the most of us. The Ranger who has not yet moved is out of the range of our circle. The Golems each start a grapple with a marilith and try to hold them in place. Torm wins, and Wolfie fails. The Paladin debates chasing the balor and ends up putting a full attack on the wounded Marilith. He confirms a pair of crits and lands three attacks for almost 100 damage. The wounded/grappled Marilith goes down.

The next round the Balor teleports right on top of the Ranger.

The remaining Marilith lights into Wolfie Golem and puts some serious damage on him. The Paladin takes a double move to get back towards the Ranger but is still some distance away. I take a full move to get next to Paladin and cast another Cure Serious to get him back to full. That puts the ranger just outside the range of our circle and me and the Paladin in it. The Torm Golem acts next and makes a single attack against the remaining Marilith then takes a move action, eating an AOO to move back towards us. Wolfie Golem…is now isolated, and unprotected. The Marilith and the slavering horde of other demons all barrel into him.

Ranger: Oops….

We are in a very good and bad situation now. One Marilith dead, and the Balor is HEAVILY wounded. The ranger can probably put him down with a full attack…but he is vulnerable to AOO and the whip can trip him and then really put him in trouble. The Death Throes are also a concern. Puxdool, Wolfie Golem, Pudnokker are all toast.

The fifth round Init breaks down like this:
Ranger
Balor
Marilith
Cleric
Torm
Horde
Paladin

The Ranger grins at the Balor and flips it the middle finger. That particular finger also holds the Ring of Elemental Command Earth, which he triggers to form a Wall of Stone between him and the Balor.

The Balor growls and casts Blasphemy. The Ranger is dazed, no actions for a round, he takes 7 str damage from being weakened and is paralyzed for 3 minutes.

The Marilith moves up on me and cracks me for about 15. I cast Divine Power and eat the AOO. The Paladin casts true strike, and moves forward enough for aura to protect ranger. Torm grapples the Marilith and wins its roll.

The Balor flies up 90 feet in the air then uses quickened telekinesis to fling a nearly 400 pound boulder at my cleric. I get clocked for 40 damage. The Paladin pushes everything he has to power attack all out in a charge attack on grappled Marilith and rolls a 19…he confirms critical and lands a monster shot for 50+. I full attack the Marilith and with a +5 holy greatsword and divine power, bulls strength and divine favor I put almost 100 damage on it. Marilith 2 goes down.

I win init the following round and move to the ranger and cast Heal. The Paladin moves up to me and uses LoH to bring me back to full. The Balor uses quickened telekinesis again and flings another boulder at me. Torm golem waits near us but we are almost out of enhanced golem time.

On the 9th round the Balor divebomb charges me and connects for 30+. The Ranger gets back to his feet and takes a full move action away. Torm golem grapples the Balor and loses its roll. The Paladin casts another true strike and holds his action. I take a full move action to get some distance and cast CCW on myself. I eat an AOO for the movement but I have some burly strength avoid getting whipped back in.

The next round ranger wins init and takes a move action to get further distance and snaps off one arrow at full bonus he hits for 24. The Balor is absolutely tattered at this point and our only concern is getting out of blast range. The Balor full attacks the Paladin and brings him to about 60 health. I am at the very outer range of the 40 foot zone and the Ranger is beyond it, he is more than a hundred feet away and the horde starts charging him.

Paladin: If I fail the save…I will see you in the afterlife.

He puts 5 points into power attack and full attacks the Balor…80+ damage and the Balor goes boom. He has a +18 reflex against the death throes so he needs a 12 or better. The ranger stops him before the save and we scavenge to check every possible means in which that number may be affected.

Ranger: Haste gives +1 bonus and he has boots of speed.
Me: I took the Boots of Speed and he has the weapon enhancement. So no +1
He rolls a 14…
The table goes wild.

We unceremoniously grab Pudnokkers remains and Puxdool’s and stuff them in a bag of holding. We had done similar with my monk cohort and the Green Man and it retrospect we should have ransacked their gear to augment their own. Looking their gear got the Ranger thinking about the extra bonuses we might have access to. The remaining horde is unavailable to pierce the cordon which is starting to grow smaller, it is down to 30 feet by the time we pass through the archway that the Balor was protecting.

Kaveman26
2012-05-15, 08:55 AM
Session 15-Continued

Dungeon Level 4: The Prison Block

There is a dramatic lurching sensation as we cross the threshold of the gateway and we are badly disoriented as we stumble into an all metal room with a single towering door. It has a very hellraiser feel to it. Crimson lanterns cast an errie red light and everywhere are black metal chains hanging from the walls. The door has a wheel like you would see it an submarine, but its almost four feet across and it takes the Paladin and Golem turning in unison to open it. Before we go through we top off healing all three of us and set the golem as a sentry on the gateway we just came through.

The Paladin takes the Periapt of Wisdom and Gloves of Dex from the monk’s corpse. I take the Cloak of Resistance+5. We feel a bit dirty but ultimately we decide that if we make it out alive we will return the items and resurrect them. I can physically cast the spell if we find the diamonds. Somehow that seems unlikely.

Apparently this level is not subject to the same divine interference we have previously experienced as I can feel my deity, as does the Paladin. We elect to pause and reorganize in this room and put ourselves back together. I take the time to cast Planar Ally. I bring in a Trumpet Archon to bear as my planar cohort. We give the archon the monk’s belt of giant str+6. We actually work on summoning an additional pair of Trumpet Archon’s through the standard Planar Ally Spell. We barter to get 1 week’s service as support for the trip to confront the drow master and since its clearly in line with their endeavor we get support in this regard. We give away several of the troll’s magic items in payment, and have a trio of Trumpet Archon’s in our service. The DM who is a big time music fan names them Alice, Neill, and Ozzie. Ozzie is my cohort and Neil and Alice are the contractors. We alternate resting in the prison chamber then refresh spell lists and decide to press forth. I wont do a full spell list but here is what I prepped for 5th through 7th

5th: Flamestrike*Rightous Might Flamestrikex3
6th: Harm*Blade Barrier,GDM,Heal,Summon Monster 6
7th: Disintegrate*Summon Monster7x2

The very large door opens to a long hallway with a grate on the floor. Beneath the grate is a pit 50 feet deep with multiple gargantuan black puddings. The dead and rotting remains of all manner of humanoids are being dumped in from places we can’t see. To us it seems like a macabre garbage disposal. The hallway runs for quite some distance and eventually branches off in three directions. We roll a six sided and assing 1,2 for left, 3 and 4 for center and 5,6 for right. We roll a 1 and in scientific fashion take the branch to the left. A few hundred feet in and find a circular stairwell moving down. From the stairwell we hear lots of metal on metal sound and we send the ranger ahead to do some scouting. He creeps down the stairwell then reports back that it opens up into a foundry area where several Bearded Devils are forging torture instruments and weapons. He spotted four Horned Devils, but there could be more. There are multiple prison cells around the perimeter of the central foundry and moans, screams, whimpering, howling and weeping are all audible from the prison cells.

This opens up a lot of possibilities. There could be potential allies amidst the cells, there are definitely people suffering that we can’t allow to continue and this could certainly be a trap. The staircase is rather wide open and despite the metal construction we are worried about the golem breaking the stairs. We decide to go down as quiet as we can, and have the golem jump down and just eat the 5d6 or so falling damage. The gameplan is for the trumpet archons to provide us spell support while we try to take out the horned devils.

The fight begins much as we expected it would, the ranger gets set up on the lower portion of the stairwell and the paladin and I nearly make it down unseen/unheard. A bearded devil spots us as we are about to engage and an alarm is raised.

The ranger full attacks a horned devil and the Paladin and I go charging in on the ranger’s wounded target. I got Divine Power up and running and we have bulls strength up on all of us. We put a big time hurting on the first one and then everything descends into pure chaos as bearded devils snatch glaives and tear after us.

There is a very loud thud and the Torm Golem makes its entrance. The trumpet Archons put a holy smite volley amidst the various devils and every failed save gives us a little fist pump. Within a few rounds we have taken some non neglible damage, but most of the bearded devils are down and 2 of the horned devils are down with the other two banged up. Then the Foreman…or more accurately the Forewoman arrives with half a dozen Nightwalkers.

The Forewoman is a lean Succubus studded with piercings and a black silk clingy body suit. Her wings are gone, the stubs are heavily adorned with rings and she is unarmed. The ranger who has an actual perception check worth something sees what he believes to be poison on her talons. Spell Like ability hell breaks loose as cones of cold, fireballs, unholy blight, and lightning bolts starting going off like popcorn.

Our tidy little ambush gets frantic in a hurry. I gave Ozzie my cohort The Staff of Illumination and Sunburst becomes huge. We are all backed into a corner with the Paladin, Myself and Golem forming a wall. The ranger is up on the stairs behind us with the archons as they toss heals and lob arrows/spells over our heads. We are once again gaining control and getting tempo in our favor, and then from the cell areas six more nightwalkers and 4 more Horned Devils arrive as back up.

Paladin activates the enhanced Golem and I step back to cast Flamestrikes on the nightwalkers. This whole time the Succubus is barking out orders and seems to evade or save every spell that comes her way. She is staying well out of the action and has not yet engaged us. In total we take down 18 nightwalkers, 12 Horned Devils a handful of Bearded Devils and expend 15 charges from the Illumination Staff and 4 from the Staff of Fire putting Wall of Fire on Torm Golem. The Succubus flees down one of the halls when the tide turns. We hear a cell door open and hear a loud scream in Common “No don’t!” then there is a loud crack and the scream is silenced.

Me: I think she is killing the prisoners…

The Paladin swears and pulls the Torm golem with him chasing her down the hall. We are still in clean up/recovery mode and have a pair of horned devils still fighting. So much of how we are able to endure is based around him being such a durable tank, and with him out of the way the ranger and I eat a lot more damage. The three of us and the 3 archons are all pretty banged up and spell lists are feeling strained. It takes us a couple rounds to finish the devils and follow in pursuit.

The Paladin is trying to catch up to the Succubus but she is moving in a blur. We figure she is covering at least 60 feet a round or more. Every cell has a small antechamber with a pair of bearded devils. They are of little consequence to him, but they do get in the way. She is running room to room and killing the prisoners, and as she exits the room the 2 sentries leave their now dead prisoner and slow down her pursuer. As we try to catch up the Ranger throws a wall of stone in front of the succubus and we are positive that her running at 50+ miles an hour means she is going to faceplant into it. She instead runs up the walls and pulls off a tight turn, the SECOND she turns she starts lobbing a crap ton of darts in our direction.
She throws 15+ darts in 3 rounds and they sting a lot. After 3 rounds the bearded devils are cleared out and we start dialing in on her…and she then promptly teleports to the other side of the wall and resumes her coup de grace scurrying.

I have to waste my Greater Dispel on our own wall of stone and we are once again in pursuit. We turn a corner and see her sprinting down a 300 foot hallway…she covers the entire distance in just over 6 seconds. At the end of the hallway is a narrow bridge suspended with wires. Standing sentry on the the near side are a pair of horned devils. We watch as she flings a handful of shuriken to either side of her and then connect with support wires on the ceiling. Plink Plink Plink Plink, four support wires are severed and the bridge starts to fall. She clears a 40 feet gap that leads down to the pudding garbage disposal and then starts to unlock a series of complex locks on the final cell.

As we are scrambling and watching this the paladin is fumbling with his bag of holding and he fights to pull out the carpet of flying. He doesn’t stand up on it so much as he throws it out in front of him and lies down on to it. The second the ranger is within range he pulls up short and starting trying to pump arrows into the succubus. Several of which she just snatches out of midair like its nothing.

The Paladin gets some air and starts flying over the gap to attack her. The Horned Devils make moves to knock him out of the air. One of them rolls a natural 20. He tries to make a Dex check to recover. He rolls a 2…and is knocked from the falling carpet and plummets the 50 feet into the pudding pit.

He does manage to mentally command the Torm golem to engage the devil that knocked him down and it starts slamming away. I tie up the second devil and the Trumpet Archons fly above us and start peppering the Succubus with more spells. They put up a Blade Barrier at the doorway and the succubus starting dancing between the blades, the archons keep putting fireballs and a second blade barrier up, even adding a wall of fire so that we now have a burning blade barrier in place.

I am damn near pulling my hair out as the DM keeps up a constant stream of “She made the saving throw, takes no damage”

The Blade Barrier gives her a cover bonus and the ranger is pumping arrows like a fiend, but many are deflected or snatched away. The ones that land hit solid and she is clearly not happy with them.

The Paladin is knee deep in gargantuan ooze and he is eating a lot of acid damage. The flying carpet is just kind of hanging there in mid-air. He hollers for a trumpet archon to come help him, and Neil dives down to grab the paladin, as he does the Succubus makes a leaping bull rush tackle to grapple the archon in mid air. She basically bull rushes the archon into the walls and then tries to pin it’s wings. They are caught up in a kind of controlled fall and the archon manages to recover and right itself. I do something very stupid and jump for the flying carpet. I miss terribly but manage to grab the carpet and at least drag it down with me. My horned devil turns to the ranger who is forced to backpedal back and start targeting the devil.
The Paladin and I scramble to get on the carpet and as we do the Succubus lands a Stunning Fist on the archon…uses the wall to slow her fall then lands amongst the oozes.

This leaves us in a very tight spot. More oozes are coming and the archon is going to get acid hugs from just about everything if we don’t aid him. The ranger is now backpedaling from a partially damaged devil and Torm golem is mostly just trading damage with his target. We make the decision to assist Neil and get back up to the prison cell. The Succubus blows us a kiss and then sprints through the ooze pit.

We regroup up top and kill the two horned devils. We ferry everyone across to the last cell and dismiss the blade barriers. We have Torm take a Wall of Fire bath until it wears off. As we start burning through wand charges to provide healing the Ranger pauses and snaps off

Ranger: That bitch don’t play…

Our best guess is that she is some kind of nasty monk hybrid. For the most part she handed us our own asses and saved/evaded just about everything we threw at her.

Entry into the final room is painstaking. The door is sealed with a series of interlocking bolts that form a crude puzzle. They have to be turned and drawn in a specific order to open. We spend about twenty minutes turning the locks and finally pop open the cell.

Inside, bound with thick chains and spread eagle in the center of the room is a bizarre four limbed reddish creature with mandibles and loads of scar tissue. It weakly raises its head and looks at us with what think of as apathy. The Xill communicates telepathically with us…

Xill: New tricks? After months of torment this is the best you can come up with? Just kill me already, I know nothing else.
We all give each other some odd looks and then the ranger responds
Ranger: I honestly have no clue how we can prove that we are not your captors. I am open to suggestions though.
Xill: There is no way for me to believe you.
The Paladin wordlessly takes a damaged limb from the Xill and heals 5 points of damage through LoH
Paladin: No creature of evil can replicate that effect through any means. You can believe us

The Xill then proceeds to spill his life’s story. And by His…I mean the Master’s. The xill was his first mentor and the first to recognize what he was.
I will go through a summarized version of what the backstory he gave is, the DM gave us like a 20 page short story from the Xill’s point of view. In essence Dayvid Allain Ko-The Master was one of the last remaining drow deep in the future. Outsiders took full control of the Material Plane and the drow were reduced to a band of guerilla fighters in the Underdark. While Githerzai and Githyanki, Rakshasha, Xill and other outsiders fought for control the drow clung to survival. The Psionic powers of these outsiders was something the Material Plane had never manifested…until him. The Master was a psionic wilder of staggering capability. Long deemed aberrant and twisted by his own race his visions of other planes and the horrific events he had witnessed were dismissed. The crippling injuries he acquired in his sleep were considered self induced.

In reality the drow was subconsciously created demi-planes through the Genesis capability and then his true heritage was causing them to be twisted. Somewhere in his families bloodline was a coupling with a hag. The twisted nightmares a hag was able to visit upon their prey had become manifest in his dreams generations later. The twisted visions were then brought to creation by uncontrolled Reality Revision and Psionic Major Creation. He was creating new realities in his sleep and his nightmares were being turned real. The Xill was a psion of great capability that discovered this psychic juggernaut and sought to train him, then subvert him to his own means. Once they brought control to his abilities, the drow quickly ascended to nearly complete dominance over the Material Plane and began his invasion of other planes, by bridging his demi-planes into theirs. An ancient drider sorcerer helped him craft four tapestries spun with silk from Lloth herself, these tapestries functioned as the means for him to connect his realities to the other Planes. A concerted effort from nearly every outsider capable of psionic powers managed to trap him within a prison of his own mind. They found themselves unable to destroy the tapestries and instead flung them to different periods of history hoping the separation in time would make release from the prison more difficult.

The knowledge of psionics in our campaign was non-existent at this point. During character creation psionics were not an option and unknown to the world we were playing within. That was because according to the DM psionics weren’t discovered in this world until much later on.
The back story let us know several things.

*The Master was a very powerful Wilder, easily capable of manifesting 9th level powers.
*He was twisted beyond all reason by his very nightmares becoming reality.
*His prison was eroding. The guards that were meant to contain him were overrun
*The Xill and several other high priority targets were held in this prison block.
*The majority of the Xill’s powers had been stripped away and by his reckoning he had been tormented for millennia.
*He considered himself the Teacher. The Student, and The Hunter were two other captives he had knowledge of.
*The shackles that held the Xill were unbreakable by the means we had.
*The “Mistress” was our Succubus monk. She was responsible for overseeing the torture and control of this section. The Xill found her to be seductively cruel. He assured us she was deadly.
*With no means to free him, he firmly asked us to kill him. There was some back and forth over this but ultimately we elected to honor his wishes and my Cleric took his head off.

We were tempted to spend a night in the prison cell figuring it was the most secure location we would find. We also were granted Level 15 status for rescuing the Xill and getting a big plot advancement. The DM said we were nearing the end of events…one way or another it was all going to be over soon. On that note we advanced to level 15, had Torm Golem stand sentry and block the doorway so we didn’t get locked in, and then hunkered down.

Bayonet Priest
2012-05-16, 08:23 PM
Beautiful.

I haven't enjoyed reading a campaign recap this much since Silverclaw's Horror and Crystal Cantrips campaigns.

Kaveman26
2012-05-17, 01:23 PM
Session 16:

Paladin took Leadership as his level 15 Feat, the Ranger got Shot on the Run, and I took Empower Spell.

Our reliance on resting and recovering spells and recuperating finally bites us in the hindquarters in a startling fashion. Midway through the night a wild shrieking wakes those of us sleeping and greatly panics those of us awake. A mass of nightwalkers and horned devils is absolutely choking the hallway leading to our very secure cell. The ground beneath the cell is teaming with gargantuan acid secreting oozes. At the rear of the hallway awaits the Succubus Mistress who once again blows us a kiss. This doth not bode well.
Torm Golem is isolated on the other side of where the oubliette type cell the Xill was locked up in. If the masses attack he is toast. Then could just group bull rush him into the gap and the oozes acid will eventually melt him. We couldn’t figure out a way to ferry him across so we left him. The Paladin wants to bring us across and just start carpet bombing the hallway with sunbursts til the staff runs empty. We can lay down a lot of damage in that fashion but ultimately that is a resource we really want for our fight against the Master.

I actually cast a vote for making them come to us. The cell creates a natural chokepoint where we can set up flanks and shred anything coming at us directly. The Ranger would get full cover and isolation from ranged attacks. The downside…the golem is toast and if they don’t immediately attack, they may bring additional reinforcements.

The Ranger throws out option three…take the sewer route where the oozes are. He and the Archons will draw them away and keep ahead while us slow movers bring up the rear. If they can keep the oozes chasing them and we trail from behind hopefully we find a different way through. He can throw up a Wall of Stone that will slow down the nightwalkers, the devils and succubus will just teleport through, but it will buy some time.

Paladin comes up with option 4. We hold the line at chokepoint in hallway while the archons clear a pathway by attacking from the air and clearing oozes. If they clear enough oozes we have an escape route. We form a wedge with the Golem in rear center and myself and Paladin on either side of the golem. Alice goes with the ranger and they start some harrying tactics to draw away the oozes massed beneath us. Neil and Ozzie start putting Wall of Fire and Sunbursts to soften up the hallway and we start swinging and hacking.

Ranger runs into much more trouble than he expected. The sewer system is a complicated warren of dead ends and paths that double back on themselves. The Paladin’s mapping skills pay remarkable dividends as he is mostly able to avoid getting pinned down. The biggest surprise of the sewer system? There is an organic turret system in place…black dragons chained to raised pedestals are spewing acid at the guerilla fighting team in periodic locations. They aren’t doing massive damage, but they are definitely filling in the map for us. We are holding our own fairly well in the hallway. I eat a considerable amount of spell damage and as they start backing off and thinning to focus on spells we start pushing forward. The archons keep us both topped off, and the Wall of fire on Golem trick is still an all star. Then we get a bit carried away. We end up moving the scrum back to the central chamber and as we fight our way in the Succubus gets behind us. She unloads a full flurry of blows from an admantine kama with construct bane on Torm Golem. He goes from 75% ish health to single digits.

Paladin (ooc): Whoa…you are telling me that overnight she managed to come up with probably the single most narrow minded focused item to kill my golem?
DM: Its on the level…if you survive much longer you may even find out why.

Ozzie starts pumping fireballs on him and the Paladin and I move into flanking position on the Succubus. She is damn tough to hit. Generally our full BAB attacks are the only thing to land on her. We do land a pair of crits that makes her hiss and then tumble out of the action as her masses re-engage us.

We are getting our formation back together and there a piles of dead devils and undead everywhere, then from the twisting stairwell a pair of Pit Fiends start moving their way down.

Ranger: I think its time to meet up with the ranger
Paladin: I reluctantly agree…

Sadly we didn’t defend the hallway in stunning 300 type fashion. We bravely make a tactical withdrawal to join back up our forces and start running through the sewer complex. We are pretty shocked when the forces don’t come after us. We manage to join up with the ranger who is still hit-and-running like mad. We start declaring actions on how we will engage the oozes when we get the following announcement.

DM: A minute or two has passed since the group all went down to the disposal level. As you are preparing to open up on the oozes the entire floor starts to rumble. The Pedestals with the dragons all raise up, and the oozes all retreat at their highest speed to disappear down the holes beneath the pedestals. A demonic and melodic voice calls down from above.

Succubus: My Master has enjoyed this little game. He is pleased that you have proven a match for his pawns. Now he thinks its high time for you to meet his rooks. If any of you survive I will eagerly await you in my playroom.

As she gives her little speech a circular stone rolls away and a worm of pure midnight and staggering size emerges from the wall. From the description they practically scream “advanced in size and HD”

Ranger (ooc): Try black puddings for your average clogged dungeon, but for those really tough adventurers try new extra strength nightcrawlers….

Paladin calls out for acid resist and we get some protection from energy acid love from our archons, then we declare actions.

Me: I am going to Flamestrike it then move away.
Ranger: Full attack from where I stand
Paladin: I am going to engage it head on and voluntarily fail the grapple check to avoid getting swallowed. If you can start a wall of fire on Torm before he gets swallowed that would be awesome…
Me/Ranger: Your going to do what??
Paladin: I can make the fort save to avoid energy drain by yawning. I will absorb most of the acid damage, so I just take the bludgeoning damage each round. That is less than the full attack damage and it has a much lower AC on the inside then the outside. That sunofabitcch is about to get a Paladin Sized Enema. Im going to do a little interior redecorating with a holy avenger then crawl out from the corpse.

What can I say other than it went down just about exactly as he described. He lands just about every attack from the inside and tears it apart within three rounds. We just kept plinking it and moving while the paladin sliced and diced from the inside.

We got hit by a total of 4 nightcrawlers and I have to say our DM was getting very aggravated that they more or less turned into a cakewalk for us.
As the nightcrawlers go down the ooze plugs get opened and they start pouring out from their holes again. We scurry for several rounds and eat some damage that cant be dismissed as minor. We finally find a secured stairwell that leads up to a different section. The Paladin and golem start hammering away at it and have slow going breaking through. Ranger is dropping a boat load of arrows and the archons are dropping spells to keep oozes at bay.

We are really starting to feel pressure when the locking mechanism finally gives way and we scatter up the stairwell and the ranger puts a wall of stone behind us to block the path. We pause to collect ourselves and top everyone off with healing. Things are getting tougher, the encounters are getting more versatile and we are growing used to being drastically outnumbered. We slowly creep up the stairwell to figure out where we are now at. We collectively decided that we needed to rescue/locate the other two high priority captives as they would either be major assets or provide valuable information.

The area we move into is by our estimation more of a living quarters segment then a prisoner holding area. There are several similar in design stairwells going down from this segment, most likely to other areas of the disposal level. There are also four stairways going up and one going out. Assuming the way out leads back to the three-way hallway we are more immediately interested in the four stairwells going up. We roll a d4 and with a roll of 1 we take the one to our immediate left. Paladin leads in front with Golem behind him. I take up the rear with the ranger and archons in the middle. The left stairwell leads to a sepulcher of misery. There are easily four dozen nightwalker sized standing sarcophagus, all of which are empty. We killed 18 on our first encounter and about 10 more during our hallway stand. So we calculate at least 20 more are active and dispersed throughout. The rear of the nightwalker depository leads to another ascending stairwell. From the top of this stairwell is a circular room lined with hundreds of monk weapons. There are stairs carved into the wall that let one climb the exterior of the room to reach different levels. Nearly every single weapon is made of some special material and every single one is unholy+bane in some combination.

Paladin: I think we found the playroom
“You most certainly did” comes the response from the Succubus who is at the ceiling of the roof leaning against the wall.
Me: I hate teleport.
Ranger: Are you going to make us another weak attempt at dissuading us from our mission?
Succubus: no…I’m going to suck the life from your bones and then take a deliciously long time to corrupt your souls to the point where you willing embrace murder and rapine for even the smallest reprieve from my caress.
Paladin: We do not fear torture
Me: Nor suffering. We are concerned with justice and consequence
Succubus: Consequence? Allow me to show you consequence…

From the center of the playroom the floor opens up and we instantly hear a screaming louder than we should be humanly possible. Rising from below the floor in a macabre iron maiden esque fountain is my old bard turned vampire. He strapped into a fountain and forced spread eagle where small wicked stone cherub spray water onto him. It must be holy water because he is screaming in agony.

Succubus: A vampire can regenerate, and the flow of water is just enough for him to break even….but the pain is exquisite. The longer a vampire is exposed to holy water the more profound the effect. He has been patiently waiting for hours now. I wonder if he will suck the marrow from your bones for ten minutes of rest? Let us find out…

The room explodes into action as Caramis is freed from his bonds. With a wordless shriek he snatches a staff from his quiver and we start rolling for initiative. The Ranger tries to snap off a full attack at the monk. She snatches the one arrow that would have hit and casually tosses it down. In response she sends a flurry of shuriken at the ranger that must have human bane as enchantments. He eats a nasty chunk of damage.

The vampire throws a cloudkill from the staff into the room. We all make our saves, but still take partial con damage. The Archons all try to get height and Ozzie dispels the cloudkill. Paladin charges the vampire and lands a big shot. I cringe as I do likewise and charge my former character. The Golem tries to grapple my vampire and as he does the vampire turns gaseous and start floating up in the room.

The odd nature of the stairs on the wall makes this a tricky fight. My cleric, the paladin and golem are at a big disadvantage. We have the flying carpet but the monk has shown a tendancy to knock flyers from the sky.

Second round the vampire reforms then drops another cloudkill. This one at the top of the room targeting the archons. The monk makes a standing leap across the room and snatches a singham from the wall. She then turns invisible. The archons all light into the vampire with greatswords and tear it up pretty nasty. I drop a flamestrike in the area I figure the monk to be in.
DM: She makes her saving throw, no damage.

We pick up the monk a round later as she flurries a full attack from a brilliant energy unholy singham into the paladin. Torm goes into his advanced mode and starts a grapple with the succubus. She rolls a 2…he rolls a 19.
Paladin: Alright this bitch is toast

The grapple negates her dex bonus and now the golem is landing slam attacks each round. Paladin gets off a full attack and connects twice. I am moving into position and still eating cloudkill con damage when the succubus makes an escape artist check and tumbles away from danger.

Me: Nimble little minx…
DM: No more ghostbusters quotes!

The archons have put an absolute beating on the vampire and mists again and moves out of the room. We send all three archons to track him down.

Paladin: Have Ozzie make a wall of stone that acts as a mini prison for him.
Me: nice…

We keep trying to pin down the succubus who is still bouncing all over the place and snatching weapons from the walls. The archons manage to pin down the vampire and finish him off for good. (sniff sniff…I had hoped to get him back at some point).

The archons start making swooping charge attacks from the air and I keep tossing heals and trying to work the occasional swing in, but over time we manage to pin her down in the play room and after a long tedious battle we FINALLY have her on the ropes. We are all in tatters, no one is above 40hp. The Paladin ques up a true strike and drops an absolute bomb charge attack that finally drops her. It was far less climatic and even more satisfying than the balor kill.

We pick up a boat load of items from this encounter. The Succubus had Gloves of Dex+6, Str belt+6 Cloak Charisma+6, she has boots of speed, an amulet of health+6 and several unidentifiable profane items. One of which our spellcraft equates to epic mage armor. As a side note he showed us the full stat block for the succubus monk at the campaign conclusion. She was a Succubus with very high baseline stats, 15 levels of monk 2 levels of blackguard and 2 levels of assassin. She was loaded up with profane bonuses and epic inertial armor. Her saves and Dex were ungodly, and her AC was huge from Dex and inertial armor. She had obscene movement speeds and literally millions in specialized weapons. We grumbled a little bit at the remarkable wealth for an npc and we got in reply "have I bugged you guys about appropriate items? You had elemental command ring at what level 9? I am just extending them the same courtousy as you"

More importantly Caramis still had all his original gear…minus some charges and a few small items are missing. We also have several million in value evil monk items. That means we have our staffs and full range of wands back, along with ring of elemental command fire. My cleric takes the elemental command fire ring and the amulet of health. We load up the archons with considerable upgrades to various stats and items.

Then we hit a snag. We are racking our brains trying to find a way to turn these evil weapons into some kind of advantage. Anything we bring in through Planar Ally is here to stay. We have noticed that anything we summon does disappear when its time is done. Alice has a single sending spell prepared. We wanted a contact to other archons/angels if we elected to planar ally anyone additional. We take a break for dinner and the three of us put our heads together for a very silly plan.

It goes like this: We will put out a Sending to a known Hound Archon we will instruct him to gather diamonds and other valuable gems. We will then summon as many hound archons as possible to carry all these profane items to be destroyed/redeemed/blessed/sanctified. In exchange they provide us with much needed resources in game. When the summoned hound archons expire they will then return with the items we give them.

The Ranger wants to summon devils and make some bargains for extra items and wands etc. THAT is definitely veto’d as it would trigger both our Paladin and our multi class paladin/ranger to fall hard.

We bring our proposal to the DM who does not immediately shoot down the idea. He starts going through some of his excel sheets and asks for a longer break. We putz around for a while and when we re-convene we get a sort of thumbs up. The Sending is the tough part.

We word this sending:Assemble highest value diamonds gems. Fate of World at stake. Greatest Good Possible. Hundreds Evil Weapons need evacuation. Need millions. Will Give Millions. Urgent.
We get an immediate response…Assembling. Breaking the Bank. All eyes on your situation.

We all roll 2d6 and on 6d6 we get 26. We summon a total of 16 hound archons and manage to load them up with all the evil weapons we can get. About a dozen are left behind and they get smashed up by the paladin as best as he is able. In return we get 3 10,000 value diamonds, and 230,000 in other valuable gems. The die roll was for how much money the archons managed to scrounge up.

We are planning on resurrecting the fallen cohorts when time permits. We also know that taking our time now bears larger consequences and we have to move with a greater urgency. We blow through a lot of healing wand charges and then start working back towards the central four stairwell chamber. On our way back we run smack into the group of nightwalkers returning to their waiting room. We start eating waves of Cone of Cold and have to juggle making Unholy Blight Saves. Sheer numbers are nearly overwhelming without a real bottle neck to work from. We end up falling back and fighting from the stairwell to get some more confined fighting space. Things are going in our favor and we have full control of the situation when the ranger hits us with a small detail…

Ranger: Uh guys…I am almost out of arrows. I got 50 cold iron arrows and 152 normal arrows left.
Paladin: Didn’t you have like 2,000?
Ranger: I had like 2,000 but I shoot a lot.

We have faced demons, dragons, massive undead, vampires, devils and even one our own party. We have surmounted challenges far beyond our level and come out on top. Now after 4 months of campaigning we are looking a true dead end. How the freak do we get more arrows? The Ranger has good feats for two weapon fighting, but he has really shined as an archer and his bow is absolutely bad ass in that regard. We can make arrows through minor creation on the staff of conjuration…but that is barely anything. There were harpy archers and centaur/half dragon archers, but those are on different dungeon levels that we most likely can’t go back to.

Paladin: If we raise Pudnokker he can wood shape the physical shafts…
Ranger: With no tips or fletching though.
Me: We can order take out arrows through summoning more archons.
Paladin: We only prepared one Sending…so that would have to wait until at least tomorrow.

We finish the nightwalker encounter with the ranger switching to his melee weapons and he grumbles the whole time. I have a planar ally spell available and we come up with a possibly workable plan to acquire more ammo. We decide to try and fight our way back to the original holding cell area. There was a great deal of tools and weapons and equipment available. The Ranger can potentially craft his own arrows, but we come up with a plan to get him some help. I would use Planar Ally to bring in a trio of azer, we pay them for 24 hours of service and set them to work in the forge and help the ranger forge more arrows. Originally we were told working on his own he could craft 40 arrows in a day. With a trio of skilled workers assisting and working with him to set the molds etc we got that number up to 300. Our biggest problem was going to be fletching. There was not an over abundance of birds where we were at. We came up with a creative alternate solution.

We double back to the central chamber then take the path out hoping it leads back to the original intersection. Thankfully it does and we run into no other resistance. We head back down carefully to the first holding area and it is visibly abandoned. The archons and Paladin go down the gap and find a black dragon which they actively engage and work to kill, while the ranger and I start organizing the shop and I prepare my planar ally spell. A few minutes later the paladin and archons return with large handfuls of dragon scales which they hope to double as fletching.

We set up a perimeter of archons and the paladin for sentries and then I cast my planar ally spell to bring in the azer. They dutifully set to work with the ranger and we all hold fast hoping not to get ambushed while we wait. The dragon scales are house ruled into working, they are announced as adding velocity which will make dragon fletched arrows do an additional 1 damage, but due to their inflexibility and rigidness they are less accurate, receiving a -2 to hit. We are ok with that and they get to work. It grants us enough time to work on recovering spells and we really get unusual with spell prep. Lots of Wall spells, lots of planar ally/summoning type spells and each Archon preps a Sending. There is debate about repeating this process a second day to top off arrows, but we can’t keep tarrying and the azers leave. With closer to 500 arrows we feel a bit better.

The group makes their way back to the middle path and we resume exploration of that section. We make our way to section 2 and locate the devil’s headquarters. We make that assumption based on the massive obsidian desks and multiple ledgers bound from once living hide. Infernal writing and runes cover the walls and there is a large open map showing a demi-plane. From all the infernal documents we surmise that the devil’s are being granted their own private hell. From their own plane they will be self sustained and form a splinter from the primary seven hells. Asmodeous can’t be happy with that. There are 3 massive desks each with their ledgers and agendas, we figure that means there are 3 total pit fiends. There is a large open room adjunct to the “office” which looks to be a general barracks for the horned devils and bearded devils. That room is also empty. But rough estimates lead us to believe the better part of 15 horned devils and a few score bearded devils are still kicking around.

The 3 section has to be a dragon section. We know a red and green made their way to this level, and the 3 section has to be their lair. The stairwell opens to a pair of cavernous rooms piled high with mountains of coins and gems. Neither dragon is present. Neither room is accessible either. The emptiness makes us worried.

Ranger: Maybe they called an all hands on deck and they put the other two prisoners on a big time lockdown.
Paladin: That means we are looking at very tough fights to get to any remaining prisoners.
Me: It also means they are very valuable. If we are right and they are being preserved that means killing them is a very last resort. The Succubus was desperate in trying to kill the Xill. If they pulled everthing they had to guard those two it means they have something we need.

(Side Note-As you will see that is exactly what they did. Because we waited in the prison cell for a day we more or less hosed ourselves. The DM reasoned they would put everything on max security once the Xill was compromised and he pulled everything else he had in the dungeon to secure the two remaining prisoners)

Section 4 reallllly worries us. It is completely different from everything we have seen. The entire section is a maze of clockwork machinery, strange crystal formations and schematics written on material we can’t recognize. There are entire wings of hollowed out earth and various workshops, foreign tools and stuff that outstrips our ability to recognize through Spellcraft. The only thing we come up with from searching this whole wing is that many of the schematics and designs we looked at are functional elements of what we have seen in the prison level. Whoever built this level, they worked in this section.

The middle path being mostly clear, we are expecting heavy resistance in the far right path. With that said we decide to get ready for some end of the world type encounters. I cast resurrection on Pudnokker and work to get him back in fighting shape. I also cast Greater Planar Ally to bring in a Planetar to help us for a day. The Paladin takes leadership over Pudnokker and while it sucks that he loses a level, he comes back to us as level 11, he does get pretty well loaded up on gear. The Robes of the Archmage, Ring of Spell Storing, a Greater Fire Resist Ring, and a variety of other goods gets him into respectability in a hurry. We now have the Staff of Illumination in Alice’s hands, the Staff of Conjuration in Pudnokkers, the Staff of Fire in Ozzie’s and the Staff of Abjuration in Neil’s hands. The metamagic rods are the more important. The Quickened goes to Pud, the Empowered goes to me.
We begin our path down towards the remaining prisoners with a cadres of extraplanar beings and we are ready for a big nasty fight. We end session before the battle…

I should have everything wrapped up in two more write ups. They may be a bit longer, but they will end the entire campaign.

Gorshed
2012-05-18, 05:53 PM
This is awesome. A friend told me about it and it is even better then he described. Keep it up. Even after you finish this campaign, you have a great style. Keep writing

Kaveman26
2012-05-19, 10:32 AM
Session 17:

The Paladin was the guy hosting all our gaming sessions. He is a lifelong gamer and his house is like the Smithsonian of D&D. He has mountains of dice, every book ever printed from every edition and tons of premade casting templates, minis, and maps. We are all really good friends and the DM was actually a blood cousin to the Paladin. Most of our sessions would go from 12pm to anywhere from 11pm to 1am. The DM started set up around 9:30 in the morning and me and the ranger came over closer to 12. All three of us headed downstairs at about 12:30 once we got the thumbs up.
I add the following because I know there are some hardcore gamers at this site. In addition to a sprawling battlemap with loads of dice layed out, there was a pair of coolers loaded with drinks and ice, and bags of chips all prepped and ready to go. He had a whiteboard with dry erase for us to mark init rolls.

The map is summarized like this: Closer to underground valley then cavern, there is a hard packed earthen floor with large boulders and crude stone alters strewn throughout. The ceiling is littered with stalagtites. The whole room is inhabited by multitudes of patiently awaiting devils. Towards the rear center is a deep pit, deep enough for no bottom to be visible from where you are at. A small casket is suspended from a stalagtite above the pit, it is swinging ever so gently on a chain. A trio of Pit Fiends line the area in front of the pit and you approximate 40 bearded devil spread out in ranks interspersed with 15 Horned Devils. Lurking in the shadows and the fringes you pick up movement from 15-20 bone devils.

Paladin: I got a bad feeling about this fight. That is a lot of devils. We were borderline with a single Balor, 3 pit fiends and a ton of support makes this unwinnable.
DM: You guys gave them a full 48 hours to coordinate and support. They decided to load up and protect their prisoners. You guys have outclassed everything I have thrown at you so far…so prove me wrong again.

The Paladin makes a little speech that makes up our mind for us.

Paladin: You know…I always hated RPG console games. Things like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. I would always find these cool items that were single use, or limited use and I would be so afraid of using them that I would beat the game with an inventory full of stuff that I never touched.
Me: your point being?
Paladin: Lets light em up. We have been too caught up on preserving the staffs for end game. Lets burn the staffs dry if we have to. Lets throw it all out there and light em up. Lets run the wands dry and just go at this fight.

Amongst our assets are 3 Trumpet Archons and a Planetar. We have a level 11 druid and an Iron Golem. We have a nasty tank in the paladin and a strong support healer/melee in my cleric. The Ranger is lethal at distance and we have quite a few tricks up our sleeve. What we don’t have is our super bubble to protect us from things like Blasphemy and Unholy Blight. We decide to make the pit fiends come to us if they want to engage us. We form up a roaming melee wedge consisting of me, paladin and golem. The Trumpet Archons are going to roam in a group together and stay airborne while dropping summons, sunbursts and cleric spells. The Planetar and Pudnokker are going to form ranged support in conjunction with the ranger. General Plan is this:

*The Ranger is going to focus fire on the Pit Fiends and force them to move and engage him. If they do its our angel against the demon with casting support in place.
*Our roaming wedge is going to try and draw attention of everything in midfield. The archons are going to aoe where they can and clean up stragglers.
*We need to cut numbers and dish out damage.
*We buff everthing we can. Every buff across the board we can muster we put up.
*If we end this fight with a per day ability or item still online then we fail. Smoke em if you got em is our battle cry.

This was a heck of a battle. Tons of spell like abilities and tons of saving throws. The paladin and I got into the thick of things pretty quickly with us getting toe to toe with horned devils and bearded devils. The bearded devils were more nuisance than anything, but they gave flanking bonuses and helped push power attacks from the horned devils. Enhanced Torm and holy weapons let us keep cutting a swathe through everything, and the bearded devils helped us get cleave attacks.

The Ranger puts a nasty hurting on the first pit fiend in a hurry. The archons are raining down sunbursts and holy word to stun the bone devils and bearded devils. They mix it up a bit with righteous might, divine power and get to making charging attacks from the air.

The Pit Fiends spend the first couple rounds using greater dispel magic and tossing fireballs at us. They don’t target the golem (boo!). Then on round three the Pit Fiends all greater teleport directly onto the Archons and hug.
We are pressing home very well on the ground and the ranger is putting a major hurt on the devils. But their constrict damage along with point blank meteor swarms on each archon leave all three archons in crispy now dead piles.

We have the horned devils nearly routed, but we are in tatters, sheer attrition has left us borderline dead. A bad roll here or there and any one of us is going down. The first of three pit fiends goes down for the count, and the two remaining ones are badly wounded. The two remaining pit fiends land 40 feet away from the paladin and I and leave 80 feet between them. They are telegraphing Blasphemy which doesn’t outright kill us but will incapacitate us.

The Paladin makes a charging attack at one of them and adds smite evil for added crunch. He hits heavy, but not fatally. I turn to look at my target and then pop it with a power word stun from my domain list. No save. But he gets spell resistance. I have a +4 bonus from Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration. I need a 13 or better….I roll a 16. It had 55 hps left so he gets stunned for 2d4 rounds. He rolls a 6. I take a move action to get closer to the stunned pit fiend and away from the paladin’s target. Next turn the Planetar comes swooping in to our direction and lays down a flamestrike on a massing group of bearded devils and horned. The flame damage is mute, but the divine damage is nice in mass.

The following turn the Paladin gets stunned by a blasphemy and I pop a charge attack with Divine Might and Destruction 1/per day ability to add +10 damage to my swing. I land 40+ damage on it, and it’s almost down. The Ranger puts two arrows in it and it drops to its knees and hits negatives.
I get the Paladin back up and active with a Heal and we are swarmed by remaining devils before we can get to the Pit Fiend. I am VERY close to dropping. The Paladin throws a full 100 LoH in me to bring me right about to full. The ranger and planetar are full engaging melee at this point and while we have the biggest threat down we are desperately trying to avoid someone dying. It takes us four full rounds to carve a path to the pit fiend. The Paladin and I both land power attack boosted shots on the stunned pit fiend and we kill it.

There are still several furious melee rounds as the two teams try to meet back up. I am in full blown triage mode as the Planetar and Paladin are cleaning up the last of the devils. A bone devil that we missed makes a sprint for the chain holding the cage above the chasm in the floor. We all kind of groan when the chain is snapped and the casket starts to fall. The Planetar takes off and eats an AOO that dips it around half health and makes a flying sprint to snatch it out of the air. She just barely has enough move to reach in time and grabs the chain as the presumed prisoner begins its plummet.

Me: That was close

As soon as the words are out my mouth a presence that is terrifying beyond reason rushes from the depths of the pit. The ancient red dragon we previously saw tearing a titan asunder emerges from the pit and puts a point blank range fire breath into the angel. She goes from savior to extra crispy in a heartbeat. The momentum of her being burned to a cinder causes the casket to fall just beyond range of the pit.

Ranger: remember how we used to obsessively detect evil all the time?
Paladin: Yep.
Ranger: why did we ever stop doing that?

The prospect of fighting an ancient red with full capacity a wide range of spells and full health is daunting. The three of us just put everything we had into taking down a small legion of devils and their Pit Fiend commanders. We lost all three archons, and the Planetar just got incinerated. The ranger has a decent reflex save, but nothing near to making it consistent to dodge the breath weapon.

Paladin: Average breath weapon damage is a 100, none of us can take 2 with failed saves.
Me; I have a plan *laughing*
Ranger: I am all ears mate
Me: try to distract it for a round or two.
Paladin: Whats the plan?
Me: I can’t tell you…
Ranger: Uh…
Me: Trust me…
I get some head shaking and sighing but they run with it. Paladin pounds the avenger against his shield and tries to taunt the red’s attention. Pudnokker puts up fire protection and the ranger puts a full volley at the dragon but only lands one arrow. The red scrambles towards the paladin and lands a charging bite attack.

I put up a Blade Barrier near the Paladin and then move closer to the pit…the ranger puts another volley and lands a pair of arrows. The Paladin makes a single attack then moves away to get behind the blade barrier and force the dragon to move. The Dragon takes wing and flies up dropping a lightning bolt spell at the Ranger as it gains altitude.

When the dragon takes wing I make a mad dash towards the casket and the pit…I snatch the chain and leap into the chasm…20d6 falling damage beats 20d10…

Paladin: That was your plan? Leaping down a hole?
Me: They showed their hand. We are meaningless compared to them not losing the prisoner. He has to chase me now.
Paladin: Why not tell us?
Me: Too much chance DM would alter the action if he knew

The ranger takes his next action to put a thick wall of stone blocking a portion of the hole…then we moves away.

The Paladin gets distance from the dragon who roars in anger and moves to go down the hole. He has to waste a round breaking the partial barrier and when he finishes the ranger puts another volley in him.

I plummet over 500 feet and crash for 70+ damage. I make a cursory attempt at communicating with the prisoner who responds with a low groan. I think its gnomish…but cant be sure. I find myself in a loose tunnel that seems to run slowly uphill and around. I put up a thick wall of stone and start dragging the casket behind me. There have been several surreal visuals throughout this campaign. The furious red dragon chasing me down a hole to get foiled by walls of stone was fantastic. The rest of the group regroups and moves towards the hole while healing themselves up. The Paladin, ranger and pudnokker get on the carpet and chuck torm down the hole. They start scrambling to catch up to me and chase the dragon.

I have ten scrolls of Wall of Stone and I use one every turn while dragging my prisoner further. I can actually make them pretty darn thick and the dragon has to spend 2 and sometimes even 3 rounds to break through. I don’t have a blistering movement speed and I am not getting very much separation. So I make an attempt at hiding instead of running. I use stoneshape to make a covey in the wall where I drag the casket in and then seal it behind me.

The paladin and ranger are using the piles of rubble for cover and are taking potshots from distance at the red who is too far away for his breath weapon. When the dragon hits an open patch he tears off at speed and my little ruse works. I stoneshape my way out and the whole group meets together and we start backtracking to where we came from. We figure we bought some time but not a whole lot. The paladin and I pile onto the carpet with the casket and move off while Pud shapechanges to a big cat for speed. The Ranger has nice movement anyway and he is able to keep up. While flying the paladin the starts trying to work a way to open the casket. He hear a very loud roar and figure the dragon has caught on and is coming back our way. We Stoneshape torm into a hiding spot then throw the kitchen sink to plug the hole with everything we got. We ferry everyone back up to the top of the hole and then try to get the casket open. We as tradition dictates end up smashing the thing to bits and freeing a very polite looking and banged up gnome.

The ranger alerts us to a crashing deep below and we realize the dragon has hit our wall. The ranger then blows his 2 stone shapes and a wall of stone to create barriers in the hole coming up.

The gnome is the Student. He was a scholar and loremaster who investigated the rumours of the Master millennia ago. He predates even my ancient cleric. He assembled every scrap of fact, rumour and extraplanar gossip about who and what the Master was. He actually managed to locate the first tapestry and established crude communication with the drow who was trapped inside. They developed a sort of working relationship and the gnome scribed out a full account of his deeds and goals. From our perspective more importantly he is a 20th level caster. He has no spellbook and no prepared spells, but he has the capability to drastically change things for us. His name is Lemmie Waits.
He is not exactly on our side, but he does express concerns over his most recent treatment and acknowledges that some adjustments may be required.

By our calculation we have nearly a 100 damage or a bit more on the dragon. We manage to get everyone back up to max health and then use whatever buffs we have left prepared. We get bulls strength, fire resist, stoneskin on the paladin, divine favor on both the paladin and myself and some of the fringe things like eagles splendor and cats grace. I have a heal spell left and then we are down to Pud’s CMW and CSW and wands. We give the Staff of Conjuration to Pudnokker with orders to spam Cloudkill on the Dragon. No spell resist, and fort for partial save means he takes a minimum of 1 con damage every round. If he rolls a 4 he ends up taking 2 con damage, 2 con damage=34 health. The gnome is given the Staff of Illumination and we beg him to spend the remaining 15 charges putting sunbursts on the dragon.
We drag several of the largest boulders we can physically move over to the hole and plan on doing some improv bombing.

Ranger: Well I guess we finally found another well to chuck rocks down…

The second the dragon breaks through the walls below the ranger puts some very desperate long shots down the hole. The miss chances basically mean a 20 hits, but we are going to try and scratch out every bit of damage possible. The boulders all go down the hole, the paladin even gets off a few arrows from his bow and the ranger lands a couple hits as the dragon works his way back up. We put another 150 damage over 3 rounds as it rises up. Its starting to get close to the top so the paladin grabs his sword and shield and preps a true strike. Pudnokker put 2 cloudkills in the hole that siphon off 3 con. He gets 2 more off before retreating away and we manage to siphon 5 total con to drop another 68. The ranger and I both split off in separate directions and leave the paladin alone at the entrance. Torm is unfortunately still stuck down the hole.

The Paladin lands a nasty power attack aided smite evil as the dragons breaks the surface and rolls a 19 for a possible crit, he confirms and takes a very needed 50+ off. He also eats a breath attack for 110, he needs a 16 to save and rolls a 9, fire resist and protection from fire stem the damage down to 70 ish, but that is brutal. I move up to the paladin and toss my last heal on him. The “I don’t want to get full attacked by a dragon and I don’t want to be close enough to eat a breath weapon” dance takes off in full with everyone taking move actions and standard attacks to try and avoid getting cornered and torn asunder. 3 rounds go by without a breath weapon and the Paladin mostly taking bite attacks. Stoneskin helps, but his AC is nearly meaningless against something that has more than a +40 to attack. In those 3 rounds Pudnokker puts 3 more cloudkills into the dragons face and we get 4 more con damage. The ranger lands more arrows and I start getting braver knowing we have put a mountain of damage on the dragon. By the time the dragon inhales for another breath weapon we collectively have 450 damage on him. The second breath weapon puts the Paladin into single digit health, and I can’t reach him in time to be of much help. He blew his entire LoH into me earlier to get us past the pit fiends, and we are thinking this might be it for him.

I have a 7th level domain slot assigned for Disintegrate and more or less decide every last bit of damage could be the difference maker. I expect it to make the Fort Save and am really just wanting the 5d6 to put anything on it. The Ranger could land a pair of crit and Pud could roll a 4 for cloud damage which by our guess puts us very close to killing it. The sunbursts have been majority ineffective and the gnome stopped casting with 3 charges left in the staff. I make the touch attack and the DM rolls for the fort save. We are so busy table talking strategy that we almost don’t even notice when he lifts the DM screen and shows us the d20 sitting on a 1. I have never felt so excited over a single damage roll. Its takes us a couple minutes to pick out 30d6 and we all agree to roll 10 each. We roll 97. It’s not enough to kill it. But it sure as hell gets it attention. The Paladin swings and connects for just over 20 and the Ranger lands another arrow. The dragon turns, and puts 30d10 fire on me. I need a natural 20 to save…I roll a 6. I take almost 90 after resists and protection. That leaves me just about in single digits. More importantly the dragon is backing off. Pudnokker rolls a 20 for init and per our house rules rolls another d20 and adds the results. Init goes Pudnokker, Ranger, Dragon, Cleric, Paladin. Pudnokker puts another cloudkill in it’s face and chips away 2 more Con…the dragon is choking and gasping and with a shudder it gurgles and falls down twitching.

There is a brief moment of silence at the table when the ranger breaks it with
Ranger: Dude…your cohort just killed an ancient red dragon.

We get a little slow clap from the DM as he smirks.

DM: I apparently need to make my encounters tougher.
I would not be lying when I said dice were flung at him in a violent fashion after that statement. The Paladin actually moves towards the still quivering corpse and stabs it in the throat to ensure it is dead. Then the gnome casually walks over and starts examining its claws. He pulls off a transparent ring from a claw and unclasps it. He seems genuinely excited about it.

Me: What is that?
Lemmie: It’s the attuning focus for the wall of force that blocks off his horde chamber. I have wondered for some time whether those were actuall put into use after I designed them.
Paladin: So with that we can enter his treasure hoard?
Lemmie: That was it’s design intent.
Me: What else did you design?
Lemmie: Oh just about everything. Dayvid had fascinating ideas and it was positively delightful to conceptualize them. I just wish I had my tools and spellbook handy.
Ranger: Where did you leave them?
Lemmie: Oh I’m sure Dayvid has them all in his prison chamber now. He was very upset when you entered and had them all confiscated from me. I have been stuck in that cage ever since. I do have a back up in my workshop though.
Paladin: I think we saw your workshop…we could escort you back there if you wish.
Lemmie: That is a lovely offer but I’m afraid you gentleman are soon going to be dead.
Paladin: Why is that?
Lemmie: You killed one of his dragons. Now he will have no choice but to let his Children out…
Me: Children?
Lemmie: Yes they aren’t his actual children, he used reality revision to alter reality and their genes to bear some of his abilities. They used to be Halflings…
Ranger: So we are going to be fighting against half drow Halflings with psychic powers?
Lemmie: Oh no it will be much worse than that. I never actually saw them but he described them as the final defense. He described them as silent death incarnate.

The group assembles at the bottom of the chasm and retrieves Torm we follow the long winding tunnels until they finally emerge amidst the dragon’s hoard. Lemmie initially just walks in and no one else can follow. Some trial and error later it is determined that one must be touching the ring to gain entry.

With that knowledge we burn a healing wand dry and then make the trip to what we believe is the gnome’s study. He collects a back up spellbook a few odds and ends, tools, maps, ledgers and a small bag of holding. Everyone is on high alert with the knowledge that viscious little drow Halfling assassins may be coming for us. The whole group reassembles in the dragon’s lair and we feel pretty safe knowing that nothing can really get to us. We make level 16 on the merits of saving Lemmie and defeating a trio of pit fiends and an ancient red dragon. The Druid gets a special “you got the kill shot on a dragon” jump to 14th. The process of making changes from the level up and then indexing the dragon’s hoard takes the better part of 2 hours. The group decides to keep playing and press forth. The hoard has very few notable items in it. There is over a million in raw coin and gems, that aren’t of great use to us. A Staff of Life is our biggest find. Then Lemmie hits us with a big time bombshell.

Lemmie: Didn’t you say the Sarrukh helped you to enter the tapestry?
Me: Yes.
Lemmie: They didn’t have you open their vault?

There was a bit of confusion, it had been weeks since we fought the black dragon and in the course of fighting off waves of earth elementals and then sorting out dragon hoard treasure we had nearly lost track of the sarrukh vault.

Ranger: yeah we located it. The only thing inside it was a Rod of the Python.

The little bugger chastises us for judging a book by it’s cover. He points to both my ring of elemental command and the rangers.

Lemmie: You should know that not every item shows its full potential from a simple identify. Why would a progenitor race, one of the more prominent in history urge you to find a rod of the python.

The gnome then ruffles through his notes and asks who has the mantle of the sarrukh…the Paladin realizes that he does still have it. After donning the mantle and activating the rod of the python a serpent nearly the size of the room takes spectral form. It asks if we seek redemption or glory.

Paladin: I seek redemption and justice
Serpent: Then you will face a long path with no succor. The might of the Serpent Kingdom is faded and tattered. New races take command of progress and new powers reveal themselves. For centuries beyond reckoning we have sheltered these items which I now impart unto you.

The spectral serpent disappears and leaves behind a small marble egg, a few magic items and a book. I will include a final summary of our characters in a moment as after this point we got no more items of any kind and we only gained one more level.

Lemmie spends an entire day studying the items which he is positively ecstatic about. We reorganize character sheets and make some tweaks to who has what loot etc.

Kyr Prentice (Paladin11/Sorcerer1/Dragon Disciple4) Str24 Dex16 Con18 Int11 Wis22 Cha26
HP:165 AC:45 Fort:+23 Ref:+14 Will:+23
Weapons: Adamantine Morningstar+3, Holy Avenger with speed, Frostbrand, +1 frost comp longbow (+1str), 25 arrows
Armor:+4 full plate improved sonic% improved fire resist, Heavy Steel Shield +5, Ring of Protection+5, Amulet of Natural Armor+5,
Rings: Ring of Frost Resist Major
Misc: Cloak of Charisma+6, Belt of Giant Str+6,Periapt of Wisdom+6 Boots of Striding and Springing, Gloves of Dexterity+6
Iron Golem under his Mental Command.
Prepared Spells:1st Dvine Favorx3 2nd Eagles Splendorx3 3rd CMWx4
Human Iron Will
1.Improved Init
3.Weapon Focus Longsword
6.Power Attack
9.Cleave
12.Improved Critical
15th Leadership
Sorc Spells:
True Strike
Shield

Emilio Miller (Ranger2/Rogue3/Barbarian5/Fighter4/Paladin2)
Str20 Dex32Con16 Int14 Wis 14 Cha 16
HP: 147 AC:39 Fort:26 Ref:27 Will 13
Weapons: Adamantine Morningstar+3, +3 comp longbow demonbane of speed (+5str), +3 keen longsword, +3 frost shortsword, 20 cold iron arrows, 240 arrows
Armor: Chain Shirt+5, Ring of Protection+5, Amulet of Natural Armor+4
Ring: Ring of Elemental Command-Earth
Misc: Cloak of Resistance+5, Belt of Giant Str+6, Gloves of Dexterity+6, Boots of Speed, Greater Bracers of Archery
Human Point Blank Shot
1.Precise Shot
RCBF.Two Weapon Fighting
3.Improved Init
6.Rapid Shot
FBF Weapon Focus Swords
FBF Improved Two Weapon Fighting
9.Improved Critical
FBF: Weapon Focus Bows
12.Improved Precise Shot
15:Shot on the Run




Pudnokker (Druid 14: Str 16 Dex 18 Con 20 Int 11 Wis 24 Cha 11
HP:115 AC:23 Fort:18 Ref: 12 Will 20
Weapons:Staff of Conjuration(22), Staff of Abjuration (40), Staff of Fire (14), Staff of Life (38)
Armor:Robes of the Archmage, Ring of Protection+3,
Rings:Ring of Spell Storing (5CLW)
Misc:Periapt of Wisdom+6, Amulet of Health+6, Gloves of Dexterity+4, Boots of Speed, Cloak of Resistance+4 Rod of Metamagic Empower, Lesser Metamagic Rod of Quickening

1.Spell Focus Conjuration
3.Augment Summoning
6.Extend Scroll
9.Scribe Scroll
12th:Natural Spell



Lord Rasmusen Cleric 11/Thauma5
HP: 151 AC: 31 Fort: 18 Ref 11 Will 24
Str 30 Dex 16 Con 24 Int 13 Wis 27 Cha 20
Weapons:+5 admantine holy greatsword flaming burst
Armor:+5 adamantine full plate, Amulet of Natural Armor+5
Ring: Ring of Greater Cold Resist, Ring of elemental command fire
Misc:Gloves of Str+6 Periapt of Wisdom+6, Cloak of Resistance+5 , Boots of Speed
Feats:
Human:Spell Focus:Conjuration
1st Power Attack
3rd Cleave
6th Leadership
9th Spell Penetration
12th Greater Spell Penetration
15th Empower Spell
That is about accurate for what we had on our persons and equipped. We also have the following items shared between our various bags of holding, I won’t give the full list only a few important highlights:
Wands of Cure Serious Wounds 20 charges
Wall of Stone-6 scrolls CL 15
Stone Shape-5 scrolls CL 10
Wand of Bulls Strength-12 charges CL 12
Wand of Protection from Energy 31 charges CL 15
Cloak Of Charisma+6
Mantle of the Sarrukh
Small Marble Egg
Spectral Serpent Book

The gnome tells us that the Serpent Book is basically a bound ritual that will allow a single party member to ascend to a different form.
The Marble Egg is a sheltered pocket extra-dimensional space that is a one shot use.
Amongst the magic items is a strange new rod of the python. The gnome tells us that it will function as a summoning instrument, but how exactly he is not sure.

We further inquire about the book and are told that the spirits of a mighty dragon and powerful celestial were bound by the yuan-ti millennia ago and they attempted to corrupt and usurp their power. When that proved futile they left them incorporeal and trapped. If we open the book the essence of one of these creatures will bond to the one that freed it. Instead of making a pragmatic approach to who should open the book we roll d20 and the highest roll gets to open it, I roll an 11 which ends up high. My cleric opens the book….

Warm and rich light bathes the entire cavern and my cleric is picked up from his feet as rays of pure sun burst across his body. A low chanting hum builds in the room and when the light dissipates my cleric now has large feathery wings and an aura around him. Meet the new and improved Half-Celestial Lord Rasmusen. The above stat block reflects the stat changes.

We are just about ready to prep spell lists and move out when I ask a dumb honest question.

Me: We have a mountain of gold and gems and no great way to carry it, and not much reason to carry it. Why don’t I just prepare ALL my spell slots as Planar Allys and bring in a mass of reinforcements. Then we move out and count on them as healing support.

DM: Time out guys. For the most part I have been very allowing of just about everything. With only three PC’s I have not been too worried about cohorts and things like that because you have been undermanned from the beginning. I am not telling you that I WON”T allow that…just be prepared for escalation.
Ranger: Escalation?
DM: You bring a knife…I bring a gun…you put one of mine in the hospital I put one of yours in the morgue…you know escalation.
Paladin: What have you been doing for the last five months then?
DM: Getting ready for the next 4-5 encounters… *grins*
Me: Ok…but at a minimum I want to replace the allies we lost.
DM: Sounds good.

I burn all my non domain 8th slots on Greater Planar Ally. I bring in a trio of Planetars and I use a Planar Ally to bring in a Trumpet Archon. They are none too pleased about Alice, Ozzie and Neil. We basically tithe the entire hoard to their purposes to be distributed as they see fit. I don’t know how but they basically disappear the entire horde and agree to serve us to the end. I name the three new Planetars John, Paul, and George…the Trumpet Archon is Ringo.
We assign a default spell preparation on the Planetars of:
8/8/7/7/6/6/4/3/2

1st:CLWx8
2nd:Bearsx2 Bullsx2 Eag Splx2 Owl Wisx2
3rd:Dispel Magicx2 Stoneshapex2 CSWx3
4th:Restorationx2 CCWx2 Sending Divine Powerx2
5th:Flamestrike, Right Might, Wall of Stonex3, Break Enchantment
6th:Blade BArrierx2, Healx4
7th:Cure Serious Massx2 Summon7 Greater Rest
8th:CCriW Mass x 3
9th:Mass Heal,Implosion

All told we burn almost two full days in preparation and at the end we feel ready to take on just about anything. The gnome is pretty confident that the third prisoner has been executed at this point. He tells us that he has no interest in going along with us what so ever. He tells us that the Master has a VERY deep pool of power, that he is principally a shaper and will likely have an assortment of bodyguards that were once his jailors. He further explains that the Hunter was most likely a Psychic Assassin…a Slayer. He knew that the drow was keeping him alive as a means to potentially kill anyone that might challenge him once he was free, but that as soon as Lemmie was lost he would have cut his long term plans in favor of short term protection. (we later found out this was a pre-planned development. Unless we showed remarkable creativity we would only rescue 2 of the 3 captives). After four plus months of campaigning and dozens of encounters, astral projections and a whole range of impossible the ranger asks the million dollar question.

Ranger: So how do we find the actual Dayvid Allain Ko?
Lemmie: His prison is located in a sub dimension of this structure. The central chamber where stairwells leads both up and down is the central access point of the entire confines. If you each take a different stairwell up, there is a small handle at the top of each stairwell. Once 3 of the 4 handles are engaged a path leading to the sub dimension will open. He is very crafty and bears tremendous anger. I really hope you find a way to reason with him and get him to abandon his plans to destroy everything.
Paladin: We have had little fortune in reasoning, but we will try little friend.

After 17 weeks of campaigning and a variety of curveballs, Kyr Prentice, Emilio Miller and Lord Rasmusen, along with their valiant cohort Pudnokker and a quartet of angels descended to the final section of our dungeon…

Kaveman26
2012-05-23, 03:28 PM
Session 18-Finale

Crystal Maze-

The DM was one of my best friends. I stood in his wedding and helped carry him home when he passed out after his bachelor party. But for the next couple encounters…we were to ready to strangle him.

We make the passage into the final dungeon level, the true holding area of The Master. The terrain is largely crystalline. The surrounding are drastically disconcerting. Everything is constantly shifting and it is hard to tell if there is a ceiling or just a swirling sky that rapidly cycles night and day. There is a constant dim pallor to everything. Jagged crystal outcrops form crude roads and treacherous pillars. Visibility is limited.

Forward progress is hampered by maze like corridors and passages that double back upon themselves. In this twisting maze of razor sharp crystal and eternal dusk we meet the first of the Children. The Paladin is in the lead with myself in the rear and everyone else in the middle. The Angels tell us that flight is severely limited here. The moment they get more than 10 or 15 feet off the ground an overwhelming vertigo and weight settles upon them, as if the laws of gravity and their ability to overcome it rapidly alter.
As we make the turn on a corridor we see a small Halfling boy in purple silk. He is laughing and using a crystal whip as a jump rope. From all that we have experienced we know that he is also a vampire.

Child: Have you come to play with us? Our father told us we get to have fun with the shiny men.
Paladin: We have come to free your father. Where can we find him?

The freaky little half drow vampire Halfling laughs his head off at that comment and dramatically clutches his sides. “I like you. I think that when my brothers and sisters are done playing with your friends I will put you in my toy box. Daddy is where he needs to be. Do you like to play tag? I loooooovvve tag” at the mention of the word tag the Paladin gets outlined in faerie fire “TAG your it!” yells the Halfling and as he does a sling stone comes from an unidentified direction. It clinks off the paladin’s armor and as it lands on the ground smoke rises and a huge Earth Elemental takes shape. Two more sling stones from unknown origin peg him as well and a huge Fire Elemental and Huge Water Elemental all take form.

We are now plunged into a fight against three different elementals and the jump roping Halfling is gone. The are fairly hum drum in terms of ability but anything that size with 200+hps is going to get some damage done. We have shelled out considerable damage over 3 rounds when the ranger gets pegged with a stone and he gets the faerie fire outline from a place he can’t see and a different voice yells “tag he’s it!” in answer come two more stones and we have 3 huge air elementals joining in. As the air elementals start lighting into us the nearly vanquished earth elemental starts slamming a crystal pillar, and one of the air elementals forms a whirlwind to ensure it falls towards us…
Quick check on creature background…aside from spiders and drizzzt what are some of the most iconic drow qualities? Oh yeah at will Silence, Darkness and Faerie Fire. Guess what their doing? They are creating a focus target using faerie fire, they are using silence and darkness to conceal their location and then using Elemental Gems as ammuniation for their slings.

The Air Elementals are the worst. We have fire resist across the board and great AC, if we have a chink in the armor its reflex saves. The Air Elementals are flinging us around with whirlwinds and now with crystal shattering all over the place we are triggering more and more reflex saves. The Ranger is chomping at the bit to make a spot check or a listen check to give him a target to aim for. He has improved precise shot and once he knows where his target is at he can negate concealment. We break out detect evil again and the paladar looks like the echo display from Aliens. Evil blips are friggin everywhere.

If you have ever played Diablo 2, then remember act 3 and the ankle biters…the little pygmies that would rush out then disappear in the brush. That is how we looked at them. Ankle Biters. Everyone starts focusing on patches of darkness and the paladin is spinning in circles trying to lock down a target to engage. 15 Elementals later and we still have made a check to pin down a target.

Paladin: Gotta nuke em from orbit…only way to be sure. Lets start carpet bombing.
We translate that to: Flamestrike everything.

The Beatles all drop a wave of flamestrikes to cover as much real estate as possible and everyone else goes on duty to spot. The Ranger FINALLY catches a shape disappearing into a hidey hole patch of darkness and he puts a full attack into it. John throws a dispel magic and gets the darkness and silence. The ankle biter shrieks as it pats out flames and tries to yank arrows from it’s chest. Then it turns and stares the ranger dead in the face…”WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY YOU WANTED TO PLAY CATCH INSTEAD” and it hurls a bottle at him. We all pause as the bottle misses VERY wide left…and then we ask for a better description

DM: It’s a metal container inlaid with a brass plug and silver runes…the stopper appears to be unplugged.
Collectively: Oh ****….
The Iron Flask he threw at the ranger is unstoppered and a massive Glaberzu emerges.
Me: Well that isn’t too bad.

From the various points around us a chorus of amused tiny voices all chime in with “CATCH!” at the same time. 8 more flasks go airborne from various locations and soon we have an assortment of Glaberzu,Horned Devils and Hezrou all taking form. The battlemap is a freaking mess. We have shattered piles of crytal everywhere, elementals and demons clogging up the clean areas and we still have ankle biters running amok cracking us with sling stones that turn into additional combatants. I flip Holy Aura from my newfound celestial-nes and we try to stem the tide. The Ranger and Planetars all try to peg a Halfling and pin one down. The Paladin, Golem and I are swinging like crazed holy lumberjacks trying to fell demons and elementals. Ringo is in the middle throwing out healing spells every round.
There are a lot of furious rolls as we try to take out ankle biters and not get over-run by elementals. Thankfully the sling stones stop hurling huge elementals, and are downgraded to much squishier large elementals. The group recovers pretty well and we have the non vampire minions just about routed. Then a much deeper and much more definitely female voice booms out from a distance “Time for Hide and Seek little brothers”, a great deal of squeeling arises from the vampires, none of whom we have managed to kill or even force into mist form. They scatter and darkness/silence starts going up all over the place. Keeping track of the ankle biters prove neigh impossible and for a brief moment there is a respite.

The Beatles (3 Planetars) are soaking us with cure light wounds when a chorus of little voices all shout “Surprise!” and from much different positions throw glass vials at us from a distance. As they land we all make fort saves against cloudkills. This is getting aggravating fast! The Paladin stops and busts out a calculator he does a bunch of geometry and then makes a template from graph paper and writes “wall of stone prison” Its basically a 5 foot high cylinder maybe 15 feet across. His new agenda put a lid on the Ankle Biters. He has a Planetar get some altitude and use detect evil, when he pings they drop a Wall of Stone Prison onto a Halfling. We then drudge our way in that direction. We end up splitting up and spreading out to find shortest paths to approach. Lack of visibility is making it hard to find ways to get to our trapped targets and soon the Paladin and golem are just smashing their way through crystal formations. By the time we reach the first trap the Ankle Biter inside has managed to chip a hole away and is now slowing seeping out in a gassy haze. The Ranger sprints the last thirty feet and throws his body against the hole to plug it up. The vampire is forced to reform from the inside and the ranger takes a dagger in the back for his trouble.

It does enable us to absolutely unload on him and with everyone dog-piling we reduce him to mist in a matter of a round. Following him back to a potential coffin and destroying multiple coffins sounds awesome, but he can move in places we can’t. The the Ranger finds a work around.

Ranger: I am going to trap the Ankle Biter in an Iron Flask.
All three of us are natural gaming scavengers and we snatched up every one of the flasks that got hurled at us. With ten attempts we manage to suck him into a flask and seal the stopper. 1 Down. 9 to go.

In game time we wander around for hours. Periodically we get ambushed by more Ankle Biters who repeat mostly the same tactics. They function very guerilla and elusive. For the most part the elemental gem ammo is confined to standard large elementals and we go sometime without seeing a huge one. The same capture and smash tactics that worked on the 1st work on 2 more. Then the big sister joins in the fun.

From a distance we see a flash of something rising then we lose it in the haze. A few seconds later a massive ice boulder smashes near our position and a dozen huge elementals all form up from the shards of ice. 3 of each type. After the crash the same voice that called them off shouts out “Go Fetch little brothers!”

As we are knee depth in elementals the Halflings all swarm us. They have rogue levels as they all get within 30 feet in various spots and starting flinging sling stone elementals at us. From the damage we are absorbing those flanked by elementals are taking sneak attack damage. I burst a Holy Smite and a 2nd Holy aura. The ranger is actively working to pincushion an ankle biter and the beatles are all wailing away on his target. The Paladin and I focus on the Fire Elementals which I have a marginal chance of controlling through the ring. We instead clear the fire elementals and then I drop a pair of flamestrikes to cover majority of remaining ones. In an open fight we are fairing much better and we have reduced 3 more to mist, 1 more of which we capture. The remaining ones bug out and start crying and shouting “They don’t play fair!”

We hear a rumbling and then the ground shakes and a furious female voice responds as it grows rapidly closer “Then I will show them some proper manners!!!” A furious vampiric storm giant with crystallized full plate and a scythe comes barreling into sight and the retreating ankle biters all cheer as their “big sis” arrives. I have no idea how he put her together but good lord she swung hard and took a mountain of damage. The sheet I had where we marked down her health added up to over 900, it filled 3 separate columns. The Paladin ate a crit that put him to 3 hps, she swung for over 100 in a single shot. That is after stoneskin and damage reduction. The swings in health here got our adrenaline pumping. The ranger periodically would shift focus to target ankle biters trying to snipe easy attacks and in the end we dropped big sis after huge volumes in healing and damage. 1 final Ankle Biter survived the scrum and it was the purple silk jump roper. He pouted at us and stammered “I hope Daddy leaves you in the Toy Box forever!”

Paladin: I’m afraid you are going to have to go to your room. Consider yourself grounded.

When I alluded to a grueling map and tedious room by room progress this section was it. We had to wander around and fill in a complicated map for what seemed like ages. We were on page 10 of our graph paper map when patience really wore thin. Especially because the vampires that had managed to evade us had now regenerated from their coffins and once again we started getting peppered from the shadows and cubby holes of the crystal walls by Ankle Biters. Gone were the sing song taunts, now they just stalked us ruthlessly and constantly kept us harried and on edge. An added wrinkle…the elementals were huge again and this time they were also demonic. Added HD, Added DR, added resists, and SR. It was a constant battle of attrition that we were slowly losing. When we did kill a vampire they misted and if the iron flasks failed (which now that we were repeating attempts was more and more likely) then we had to fight them all over again.

There was an audible sigh of relief when we stumbled into the central point that was where their coffins rested. Cathartic is the best way I can describe smashing their crystal coffins and staking the somewhat spectral forms of cherubic little Halfling vampires. At the heart of the Children’s room is a swirling nexus of prismatic light. It appeared that we had finally found the Master’s actual prison.

Toy Box-

The swirling nexus gives way to an open all adamantine tomb. The whole space is shaped from a single overwhelmingly large chunk of adamantine. There are no gaps in the walls, or joints whatsoever. A single doorway forged from pure diamond rests at the opposite end of the room. Standing at attention like a patient terracotta army are 50 stone golems and 50 Iron Golems. At attention in front of the diamond doorway is Big Sis.

Ranger: So apparently this is the toy box. Why am I not surprised that he had an army of 100 golems as his toy soldiers?
Big Sis: Your toy inspired father and he decided he wanted some of these mindless creatures for himself. I think you will find they are quite potent.
Me ooc: I don’t think this is winnable.
Paladin: I think this is going to be a cakewalk.
DM: Huh?
I have never seen somewhat more perplexed than when he said that. The Paladin had this tiny little smirk on his face as he said it.
Paladin: My Golem is treated as a holy symbol.
DM: yeah….
Paladin: And he gains the nice mount bonuses associated with a Paladin’s mount right?
DM: Yeah.
Paladin: And we agreed that 2/day Torm can expand his capabilities to HD,Str etc?
DM:Yeah…
Paladin: I can command other Golems through Torm. In enhanced format that would theoretically be greater command. They share his type. Big Sis there is a vampire. If I want her to she has to recoil from a holy symbol…Torm is my Holy Symbol.

I had never even considered those type of capabilities being a side effect. There was a certain amount of head scratching and book checking over this. We kind of got leeway here. Torm was granted that he could functionally use Command 6 times per day, and that the effects of Command would last as long as his enhanced state would allow. He wouldn’t get greater command which would have let him make 12 golems flee every round for 6 rounds for 12 rounds each. That would have been hilarious. And he was a holy symbol. Big Sis basically just got a restraining order put against her. We asked why he hadn’t busted that little tidbit out earlier….his response? “We didn’t need it”
There was some weapon shuffling at the onset of this encounter. The Paladin flipped his adamantine Morningstar to the ranger who dual wielded morningstars, and I flipped my greatsword to the Paladin who slung the shield on his back and went two handed. I was going to be dedicated healing and control. The Beatles were designated back up and melee support. The same flying problems we found in the crystal maze were prevalent here as well. They could get off the ground but not high enough to gain true tactical benefit.

This was an out and out slugfest. The Paladin was barely targeted at all. Nearly every attack that could be directed at the ranger and myself was. The Paladin barely got swung on. The Angels and I kept a cycle of Wall of Stone and then stone shaped the walls to try to tie up as many of the golems as possible. Torm commanded 1 to flee each round for the first 6 rounds. Being able to overcome DR here was monumentally important. Shaving 15 off an attack was paramount to making Torm work, and being able to prevent that same advantage to them meant that each golem was typically five swings deep for health. An interesting logistical question was raised in this fight…just what happened when you start piling up dead golems? In game this became a scenario where we were forced to move around a lot to prevent golems from pushing piles of dead golems on top of us.

For the first time in about 7 or 8 levels of play, I think the first time since we left The City back at level 8 or 9 we ran out of healing. The healing wands ran dry, every prepped spell we had like CSW, Heal or even Cure light Wounds was exhausted. The Staff of Life from the dragon’s hoard becomes our last Ace in the Hole. Ringo is relegated to hitting anyone with 80+ damage on them with a heal from the Staff. That staff started with 40 charges. It got run down to 4 charges.

When the final golems were crashing to the ground the Vampiric Frost Giant shook her head and laughed in desperation.

Big Sis: Many have come to this point. None have ever prevailed. Father has wondered for a long time what would happen if he was ever forced into direct confrontation. It has been ages since he raised his own hand in aggression. The time for him to find out has come.
She evaporates and passes back into the crystal maze without confronting us.
Ranger: Well this is it…what do we you do know?
Paladin: Crack the Egg…

The egg furnished to us by the Sarrukh vault forms into a basket upon the ground and a spectral flute starts playing a snake charming tune. A hooded cobra rises from the basket and climbs straight up into the air disappearing from sight.
Me: The treasured possession of the yuan ti hidden for millennia and protected from outsiders is a friggin rope trick in an egg?

Boy was I in for a surprise when we climbed the rope. As we climb up the rope we materialize in a wide open bazaar that spreads farther than the eye can see. Djinn,Efreets and all manner of outsiders are scurrying all over the place. In the middle of the bazaar a dome of solid platinum rises a good five miles in the sky. A genie covered with a king’s ransom in jewels approaches us and says “Welcome to the City of Platinum…where anything can be purchased for a price…”

The Ranger and Paladin both turn and shoot me a look of doom
Ranger: hey you remember when you hired those angels and gave away millions as payment instead of negotiating. That extra money would sure be nice right about now huh?

We have to forgo any major shopping sprees as we don’t have multitudes of cash or excess equipment. We spend 150K of what we do have to buy another Staff of Life and get our secondary nearly expended one recharged to 30 for 80 total charges. The group replenishes all ability damage, health and spell slots and we get our last level bump to 17. The plan is to expect a 30+ round fight and we look to keep a lot of buff spells up and active for 30+ rounds. I prep a lot of low level slots as buff spells and Pudnokker prepares some mass versions once initial burst wears off. The Angels stick with their mostly default set up and we designate Ringo the primary Staff of Life filter, with Pudnokker his back up. The Planetars we want to focus on support and offense if at all possible. Here is what Pud and I had prepped for the final fight


7+1 7+1 7+1 7+1 6+1 5+1 4+1 3+1 1+1

1st:ILW* Divine Favorx3,Blessx3 CLW
2nd:Spiritual Weapon*Bulls Strengthx3 Eagles Splendorx3 Bears Endurance
3rd:Prayerx3, CSWx2 Dispel Magicx3
4th:Divine Power* Divine Powerx2,Restoration CSWx4
5th:Flame Strike* Rightous Mightx2 Wall of Stonex2 SUmmon Monster Vx2
6th:Blade Barrier* Healx4 Summon Monster 6
7th: Disintigrate* Summon Monster7x3 Destruction
8th: Power Word Stun* Shield of Law Summon Monster8x2
9th:Implosion* Miracle

Pud
7 7 7 5 5 4 2 1
1st CLWx7
2nd:Owl Wisdomx6 Lesser Resto
3rd:Protection from Energyx5
4th:Flamestrikex3 Ice Stormx2
5th:Stoneskinx5
6th:Mass Bull Str, Mass Bear, Mass Cat Grace, GDM
7th:True Seeingx2
8th:Sunburst

We are not too sure what to expect. Most of the encounters we have faced have been wars of attrition or outright insurmountable foes that we beat through guile and abuse of game mechanics. If our DM had more experience and was more accustomed to high level creatures he could have fried us easily on several occasions, but in all honesty we rarely ever played past level 10 and I am fairly certain this is the first time we ever fought against a Balor or Ancient Dragon outside of just play testing type stuff. From Lemmie and the Xill we know the Master is a drow with substantial psionic ability. From our intelligence he is principally a shaper and is capable of manifesting 9th level powers. He also by our accounts has to be at least level 21 because one of his minions had an epic inertial armor buff. We know he is stark raving mad based around everything we have seen and we know that he has a hag’s bloodline. Reality Revision and Genesis are definitely abilities he has, and we have seen lots of creations that mean he can probably make constructs with a high degree of lethality.

We load up on buff spells and take a deep breath…then we enter the final room.

The Master’s Prison:

The complexity of this room’s set up and the encounter set up dwarf anything we have born witness to at this point. This was easily the single most creative battle he ever conceived. The Room looks like a cross of Enter the Dragon’s Mirror corridor and the Thunderdome from Mad Max. The whole area is rough black pig iron in a sphere with multiple platforms that hold mirrors that lead to other Planes. Attending each of the room’s mirrors are a trio of shackled genies. Two efreets flank either mirror and seated upon a small platform above the mirror is a djinn. They all have a sinister shadowy quality to them and while they appear substantial, there is movement within their forms that implies they are incorporeal. Every efreet and djinn bears a stone on it’s forehead that pulses with ebony light. The trio’s are all chained together and a fourth chain extends the length of the room and connects to a frail and crippled drow who is kneeling on a dais supported by nothing other than the air in the room’s center. 25 chains extend from the 25 portals and somehow the drow and these genies are all connected. Proximate to each mirror is a crystal spire that swirls with energy. From our conversation with the Xill we know these are likely cognizance crystals that provide reserves of psychic energy. Our personal entrance is a platform that fairly tight to fit us all. Beneath the initial platform and beneath the other platforms supporting the portals is nothing…just darkness that descends into oblivion.
Before a word is spoken several things raise alarms for us:

*Flight is crippled here. The Angels are struggling to move even 10 feet a round when off the ground.
*The Master himself is physically going to be hard to reach. It’s going to take some big time jumping and maneuvering to get within range of him
*Failing jumping and acrobatics, someone is going to have go tarzan on a chain to reach him.
*50 Efreets and 25 Djinn with who-knows-what kind of templates and advancement are present in the room. If our count of 25 cog crystals is accurate that is potentially 25 9th level manifestations possible from his storage alone.
*Our last alternate is to climb and slide along the walls which do have crude handholds and work our way to a genie platform, that would leave us very vulnerable.
*The angels CAN move but very slowly, like moving through molasses. They could carry 1 of us at a time to the center but that is from our estimate a 4 round journey to reach the platform at the center. A lot can happen in that time.
Master: I have not found many sources of enjoyment in my time sequestered. You three have proven entertaining. So many have fallen into my domain with delusions of grandeur or malicious hopes of acquiring power. You are the only living beings to ever get past my children and their toys. I applaud you.
Paladin: Several being that gave us little reason to doubt their intent have told us you plan to destroy reality, is this true?
Master: Completely. Reality is overrated by all. Illusion is a crutch for the weak and perception is always warped. Oblivion is the only answer.
Me: There has to be answers other than that.
Master: In this case Violence and destruction are the answer. They may not always be the answer, but there is never a time when they are NOT an option. You have come to this place against all manner of obstacles. You have been presented a chance to leave voluntarily, yet you proceeded to hasten my demise. A fraction of my being embraces the thought of death. I have spent millennia yearning for death…only the savor of revenge and the knowledge that I can’t be forced back by my own mind have driven me to endure.
Paladin: We are here to stop your plans, not destroy you. If we must destroy you we shall. But there is plenty of time for that later. I have questions before we clash.
Master: Questions? You seek to parley after all this time? Fascinating.
Paladin: Why has it taken you so long to escape?
Master: An interesting question…did you know that a genie can grant it’s wishes only a certain number of times per year? With 75 jailors and 3 wishes each, they can process 225 wishes, their first measure was to change the number of days in a year to 225 in this place. Such a small oversight they made. It left me but a single day where they could not interfere. I used my own abilities to subtly alter this worlds reality. I had to remain timid and cowed so as not to arouse suspicion. I became content to change things bit by bit until I could fully control my confines and extend my reach. Eventually my jailors became my allies and control reached expansive proportions. I have but one remaining hurdle. These chains are remarkably problematic to break. It has taken me far too long to unravel these bindings. The solution was an oversight nearly as simple as the ones my jailors made.

I simply need someone to take my place. These chains are attuned to my blood and my very being. I can’t break them, but I can change places with someone else. Unfortunately I have never had the ability to compel a person to enter this location. Now that I have candidates available that is no longer a concern.
Paladin: Why not let the Succubus take your place?
Master: They are under my control and I was restricted from compelling anyone under my control from doing just that. You are not under my control and not bound to the same restrictions.
Me: I don’t think he can reasoned with.
Ranger: Nope. But it was worth a shot.

We pause and take an extended dinner break. During that time we extensively try to come up with a gameplan. Our biggest point of talk is how we do get to the drow? Miracle is our biggest wild card in terms of “we need something impossible right now”, and there is talk of using miracle to make us all move to his platform. The Angels can carry all three of us across and leave pud with the golem, but that has major dangers.

Assessing whether we even attack him absorbs ten plus minutes. The room set up has to play a factor in this fight. But the question is: does killing the genies strengthen or weaken his abilities? What part do these Planar Portals play? We aren’t sure.
We settle on this:

The Paladin and I are going to join up on the flying carpet and work our way to the middle. The Ranger and Pudnokker are going to start taking exploratory attacks against the genies while the Angels spread out and work their way to the central platform. The Golem is pretty much stuck where he is. The Ranger is happy to be where he is until something forces him to move.
Everyone rolls for init and our Ranger leads off the final encounter with a speed aided rapid shot full attack. He lands 2 arrows which have no noticeable impact on the drow. It is visible that something pulsed from his chain and was dispersed to the various genie. Hmmm. The angels all start moving to come at him from various angles and the Paladin and I start our trip towards the center of the platform. Pudnokker puts a Flamestrike into the nearest grouping of genies and the fire damage seems to have no effect, the divine damage does get through.

The Master’s first action is a telekinetic maneuver to bull rush the Paladin off the flying carpet. It’s not even close for the opposed check and the Paladin is knocked off into the oblivion in the very 1st round. As he hurls downward he disappears from our sight and a instant later he is falling sideways through one of the portals in the room. There is a random dice roll and he falls through a portal that the DM labels as The Land of Riddles. Waiting in this sub-plane are a trio of Sphinxes…

On the off chance that he could somehow hear us we shout at him to command the golem to make a nosedive into the dark, hoping that it will land on a platform or be able to exit through a platform and get involved. No such luck.

2nd round the ranger full attacks the flame-struck Djinn. He lands four arrows only 2 of which seem to actually impact. The arrows trigger something as all the genie in the room suddenly grow more substantial and from what is described to us…more alert.

The Paladin sees a doorway standing open in mid-air and can see the drow’s prison from his sub-plane he tries to make a run for it and has all three sphinxes block his path. With little other choice he is forced to engage them. They are pretty weak but they are costing him time which ends up being a big factor. I continue my movement towards the platform and for sake of keeping busy I put my domain slot Flamestrike into the drow. Spell Resistance renders it useless.

Each of the three angels puts a blade barrier onto their closest platforms. The Blade Barriers are sporadically impacting the genies present and whatever alarm system or fail safe in place goes off in full effect. The incorporeal nature of the genies evaporates and they are now fully solid and active. That becomes painfully obvious when eldritch blasts start erupting from the Djinn atop each platform.

Then the drow takes his second action…another telekinetic maneuver to bull rush me off the carpet. I have a monster strength score and with divine might a solid base attack, I roll a 15 and he rolls a 7 and still I am nearly pushed off the carpet. That raises some big red flags…either he is VERY high level or his INT is somewhere in the stratosphere.

The Ranger puts another full attack into the now eldritch blasting djinn and 3 arrows lands…we again see something pulse across the chains, this time the chains connecting the djinn to his two efreets. The physical damage done and the scorching from the flamestrike are trickling down. What injures the drow is being spread out amongst all the djinn and what is injuring the djinn is being diluted into the efreet. That little wrinkle is going to make this encounter much more delicate. We can’t just gang up on the drow and burn em down. We are going to need to work our way through the support he has before engaging him directly. That also means we are basically 3 rounds behind in what we need to be doing.

The next couple rounds see us shifting focus to attack the djinn’s who are now actively blasting us with eldritch abilities. Warlock levels are a blatant part of their build. The blasts are hitting for 20-30 at a shot and the energy types are constantly shifting. The drow knocks me off the carpet in the 3rd round and I go tumbling through a portal he labels The Ugly Room. The ugly room has a dozen various night hags and sea hags. The Paladin emerges from his portal on round 5 and he gets filled in on current events. Torm makes a nosedive into the darkness and he is thrown through: The Goblin MoshPit. A thousand puny 1HD golblins with slings and shortspears block the exit. The Paladin’s mental commands are still active and he gets shared senses to an extent from his mount bond. The Golem uses it breath weapon and starts smashing a path back to the platform.

The ugly room is not too much of a threat and I hack my way back through to the portal. The Ranger manages to finish off the first djinn who takes the two efreets with him. As he does the portal that the Djinn stood over winks out and the platform they were present on expands by about 5 feet. The chains holding the djinn to the drow all break free from their suddenly disappearing forms and they swing freely in the air.

The drow at this point has done little other than bull rush anything approaching him away while the djinn blast us. With the first chain broken he telekinetically takes control of the three hanging chains and animates them to lash out and attack on their own. Then he starts dumping energy waves into the ranger and Pudnokker.

By Round 9 everyone has escaped their little pocket sub-plane and we are all actively engaging different djinn. The Angels are all forced to fall back and we end up with Paladin+john, Pud and ranger together, Me with Paul and Torm has George on his platform. Ringo is in transit to support Torm golem. We fall into a pattern where one character attacks their djinn while the healing support has to spend every other round using healing spells of some manner. As a djinn is slain the portal it stands above closes and the platform it stands upon expands by 5 feet. Functionally for us this means as more and more djinn fall we get more maneuverability. By round 15 we are falling behind. The eldritch blasts are adding up coupled with various energy waves coming from the drow. Round 16 we spot a cog crystal go dark. As it does an ectoplasmic shambler materializes on the platform where the Ranger has been camping. They start taking 12 damage per round from being exposed to it and Pud is now really struggling to make concentration checks. A proximate platform has been cleared from our entering point and the ranger is tempted to take a shot at jumping it. Pud is more of less forced to take a header into the oblivion and see what portal he gets flung through. The Ranger takes a running leap and rolls a 2 on the check…he misses by about 3 feet. He gets a reflex save which he does make and manages to hold his bow and get a grip on the edge of the platform.

We get our first curveball at this point. The Drow holds his actions for 5 rounds and during those five rounds we manage to get ahead in the health department then five more crystals go dark and the whole room lurches. We are all once again on the opening platform and eating damage from the shambler, the whole layout of the room is altered. The drow is still in the middle on his dais but now the remaining 17 Djinn are all arrayed across the rear of the room at maximum distance from us.

Me: What the F was that?
Drow: Reality is a groveling wench on her knees when I demand her to be….

The beginning pattern of us trying to reach other platforms is repeated as we are all forced to again take the plunge into the dark. The portals are less random and the Paladin and I actually tumble through the same one. The encounters inside are getting tougher though. An array of CR10-15 stuff instead of the lower level stuff we initially ran into.

By the time we start emerging and reforming our attack we can see the damage done on the existing Djinn has been partially repaired/healed. The Paladin emerges from a platform close enough and high enough above the drow that he decides to make a blind leap and try to reach the drow’s platform. He make a flying mid air charge attack and manages to stick the landing on the drow platform.

Paladin: No style points from here out, I am going to hack like a madmen and just deal as much damage as possible.

He dials in and we put the Drow AC at 40. He starts landing swings each round and the ones that get through set all the remaining chains to pulsing like crazy. He is also isolated and we can’t reach him for heals.
Three more crystals go dark and the drow performs some psychic time stop equalivent, because he lands a pair of sonic energy waves with big damage rolls that are followed by a telekinetic bull rush in a single round. The Paladin is knocked to -1 and he falls off the platform into the darkness and goes through a portal…a portal that is held open by a Djinn that is right on the bleeding edge of going down. To quote Scooby Doo “Ruhr oh Raggy”
The Ranger and I start shouting out for everyone to stop everything. We all take blind dives into the darkness and try to hope someone goes through the same portal he fell through. We have 7 chances at what are now 15 portals…almost 50% chance. Ringo falls through the same portal…which is a mirror of the Abyss. Tons of Herzou and Glaberzu are charging towards the fallen paladin. Ringo puts a heal from Staff of life into him in order to get him upright, and for a moment disaster is averted. By the time we all get out of our relevant portals the Djinns still standing are nearly all healed and there is an ectoplasmic shamble on all but 5 of the platforms. Only 5 cog crystals are still lit though. We take that as an encouraging sign.

We are treated to even more energy waves and eldritch blasts and while we are not getting overwhelmed we are running out of prepped healing and are leaning heavily on the two staffs. With everyone spread out its getting harder to keep people in safe health. Then we approach round 30 and most of the buffs we had started with are wearing out. The order is shouted to rebuff when you are going through a portal and save action economy for when we are able to engage the Djinn. As the number of eldritch blasts goes down we start getting back into the green.

I put a critical hit on a djinn that reduces him to nothingness and then the whole room lurches again. The one I killed drops the total from 11 to 10 and once again everything shifts. A solid platform now fills the entire outer ring of the room and there are small outcrops that extend towards the middle where everything reforms. The Djinn and Efreet now become mobile and the Efreets are suddenly equipped with brilliant energy spears. They are leashed to their Djinn and only have a range of 30 feet or so, but we are now facing extra attackers in addition to the blasting Djinn. A dome of energy surrounds the Drow and he appears to be meditating.

The whole group all comes together and we frantically rebuff ourselves and expend heals while engaging the efreets. We manage to kill 2 more djinn who take their efreets with them in the next 5 rounds and on round 6 the pulsing effect along the chains goes dark. A surge of energy rushes to the drow in the center and the efreet are all consumed in the process, they wink out and the cog crystals in the room all start to light back up. The Djinn all grow in scale to gargantuan and they are now physically attacking us like ragdolls. The handholds on the wall are all warped into short sharp spikes and the djinn begin grappling us and throwing us into the walls.

We are casting Heal twice a round from the staffs and Pud and the remaining angels are frantically casting heals everywhere. Pud spends any action he can afford to summon huge elementals and I put celestial dire bears and celestial elephants into play to try and soak up some djinn damage. The Angels put up their remaining blade barriers and the djinn are now mobile enough to move around them.

The Ranger is afforded a chance to make a spot check and he realizes that every djinn we have slain vanishes, but the stone they had on their head has remained behind. The dark onyx stones blend in with the pig iron and for the most part we missed noticing this. The DM rolled blind spot checks for us each turn so as to not tip us off and as the Djinn grew in size so did the stones, the Ranger finally made the check to notice this.

Paladin: The stones….stay behind…ok
Me: Not sure how we can use that….
Ranger: He is a hag…
Paladin/Me:?
Ranger: He has a hag’s bloodline…that means he has a focus…a heartstone, the thing that lets them invade nightmares.
Paladin: So one of these stones is his heartstone?
Me: yeah, but which one. I am going to redirect all my summoned creatures to find and crush stones in the room. Maybe we get lucky.

We kind of got lucky in this respect. A celestial elephant managed to locate an ever so slightly different stone that he trampled and crushed. It was not a golden bullet, and it was not an Achilles heel. It was the conduit that was allowing access to the various sub-planes and as it crushed the portals all slam shut. The whole room lurches a third time and when it reforms the entire room is now a half sphere with a solid floor. The drow is still kneeling upon his dais and he is surrounded by 9 large sized djinn that are now directly chained to him.

I start Implosion as my 9th level domain spell and I manage to pop 3 of 4 Djinns with it. Pudnokker casts his Sunburst which does some very hefty damage against the djinn. The energy wave attacks all start popping off from the drow again, and each round another cog crystal goes dark and as it does the djinn’s eldritch blasts start to hit very ugly 50-60 damage levels. The Paladin and Enhanced Torm start pounding the drow directly as the ranger start pouring arrows into a single target.

There are mountains of damage exploding everywhere and pencils are constantly in motion adding and subtracting hp totals. We lose Ringo. A failed save and a big nasty blast+energy wave leave him as a corpse. Everyone is dancing on the edge on a given round.

The Drow has Psionic Iron Body, Epic inertial Armor and then a forced pain share effect that causes feedback damage to us from hitting him. He also keeps hitting us with telekinetic maneuvers that either knock us back or trip us. The Paladin preps a true strike as he get knocked back then moves back into position. I put my destruction damage bonus into a brutal power attack aided swing against the last Djinn and we are finally one on one against the Master. For what it’s worth…that turned out to be a bad thing. As the last djinn goes down a massive psychic wave bursts and knocks just about everyone flying through the air into the walls. Everyone but Kyr, our paladin who rolls a natural 20 on the opposed roll. He follows that up with an 18 and manage to stand his ground. The drow’s crippled form is replaced by a nearly seven foot tall, slender but ripcord muscled hauntingly perfect drow with cascades of golden hair. His hands end in ragged hag like talons but otherwise he is like a sculpture come to life. Every Cog crystal in the room is shattered and he howls in exultation.

Master: Freedom! The shackles are gone and I can move once again. A thousand times greater than the sliver of hope I held. I will give you all a shining day of perfection in the paradise that your mind’s conceive before shattering your souls mortals. I am that grateful.

The Paladin taps him on the shoulder as he doesn’t realize that he has someone next to him.

Paladin: If you wish to continue making speeches then I advise that you wear a helmet.

The Paladin lands a true strike, smite evil power attack aided swing then connects with a second. Everything goes ballistic at that point as we start pouring everything we got into him. The pain sharing effect is still constant and hits for truckloads of damage through his energy waves which he is constantly alternating. The Planetars are swinging for the fences and me and Pudnokker end up just spamming as many Heal spells as we can while everyone else hacks away. John and Paul both get creamed . John basically gets lobotomized by a Deceberate and then the drow starts ultrblasting like a crazed lunatic with wild surges augmenting the attacks. George is knocked out cold and reduced to 0 on the button. Pudnokker goes next and the Ranger is sucking fumes on health.

The Paladin is still hacking away despite the damage he is doing to himself. He is finally forced to take a break from attacking and uses his full LoH on himself to get back to nearly full. He gets a bull rush in response and gets knocked back again. I get a heal off on Pudnokker and move to aid the ranger. The drow moves to the unconscious George and assimilates him. As we watch in horror he sprouts angel wings and gains the same regeneration the planetar had. It also heals him for a considerable amount. It buys me enough time to heal the ranger but it was my last charge on the staff. I have Miracle, Disintigrate, A few Cure Serious Wounds and Power word Stun left in terms of notable spells. Pud has an Ice Storm, and some Cure Light wounds. His staff has 8 charges left on it.

The Paladin expends his final smite evil and then drops his shield and starts swinging two handed for a bit of a str attack boost. I decide its time to go for broke, I pop my last Divine Might and move up to point blank range. The Ranger stops rapid shotting and just takes his two highest attacks each round…he is under 30 arrows total.

We are formed up with the Golem smashing the Drow from behind and me and the Paladin on either Flank. Pudnokker steps right up into the drow’s face and get to a position where he can hit me or the Paladin. The Ranger is at his max range hoping that he doesn’t eat any major direct attacks.
The drow is panting from exertion and the waves of nasty ultrablast dissipate. He is now putting out ultrablasts but much tamer ones. All the same we can now only expend one Heal spell a round and we are all banged up. After 6 more rounds the psionic iron body effect fades and the pain share fades. He is in tatters but still upright. The Paladin is sub 30 health, I am in lows 50’s and Pudnokker is in the 20’s. The Ranger has caught peripheral damage but nothing too direct or focused, he has 65 ish. Pudnokker puts a heal on the Paladin, and the next round the drow ultrablasts again, that takes me into the teens, pud makes a save but hits negative 4 and paladin is in high 90’s. The Ranger goes for broke and puts a full attack with rapid shot in the drow and Paladin full attacks for everything he has dipping for a +5 power attack damage. I do likewise and just about have him on the ropes. He makes one last psionic maneuver and mass fling us all to the wall…I hit 3 health. Pudnokker is left unaffected, and the Paladin takes 15 damage but is out of range to swing. The golem is knocked back as well. The drow falls to his knees at this point sweat pouring off himself and then he starts laughing like the world’s most cliché comic book villain. From his vest he pulls a cog crystal…it is fully lit.

Drow: A final means to an end. You have exceeded every expectation I ever imagined. This has been resoundingly refreshing. No entity has tested me so severely.
Ranger: while he is waxing poetic I am going to put three arrows into his chest.
The DM looks back through the tangled mess that is all the init sheets we have been keeping and realizes…the ranger has not yet acted for this round. The ranger actually puts four arrows from his standard attack, a fifth from speed and a sixth from rapid shot. Four land. Two are criticals. As the drow looks at the feathers sticking out from the shafts on his chest he looks surprised. Then he collapses and the room starts shaking.

Drow: I take relief in the knowledge that what has trapped me here for all this time will now trap you. This prison must have a prisoner. My blood is on your hands…it will take you all as it’s new prisoners…
With those words a single portal to the Material Plane opens…
…the last of you to exit…will take my place.
Paladin: I will stay you all go.
Ranger: Shove the heroic sacrifice stuff…I got a better idea. I’ll go last
As the ranger says that he draws a circle on his character sheet and scribbles a little note. He passes it around the table and we all smile…
Me: I am going to stabilize Pud with a cure light wounds then carry him through the portal.
Paladin: Ill grab my shield and follow him through.
DM: Alright…ranger is the last one out…that means you got a new home.
Ranger: I am going to unstopper an iron flask with a bottled up vampire Halfling. You know his CHILDREN. There is your new prisoner of his blood….as the Halfling forms back up I am stepping through.
DM: Outstanding…

We leave The Master who finally found peace, if not the peace he was interested in lying on the ground as the chamber reorganizes itself and chains start attaching to the Halfling. The five of us step back into the daylight and our home Plane for the first time in ages.

The group has exited to a wide open grasslands amidst a herd of a 100 proud horses, all of them outstanding in strength and grace. Fantastic stock for training as warhorses….

Paladin: Where were these 17 levels ago?

Kaveman26
2012-05-23, 03:37 PM
I am going to post an Epilogue and some Notes to this in the next few days, but I wanted to get the central finale posted. I really hope people enjoy this, I had a blast putting it all together and I have enjoyed the feedback from other folks on the site that liked some of the stuff we did. This was hands down the most far fetched campaign we ever ran. The guy who played the paladin was our main DM and he ran drastically different adventures that I may one day add if there is an interested audience.

Fluff & Napalm
2012-05-23, 04:00 PM
That was awesome. I'd be most interested in anything else you write.

Kaveman26
2012-05-23, 04:29 PM
Epilogue:

I expended the last few healing resources we had left and got the gang out of the danger zone. We were pretty sure everything was done…but we figured to be safe rather than sorry. Then I cast miracle to teleport all of us to The City. Over the course of that afternoon we met with all the higher level people of the world and started to form a coalition for future protection against similar threats. There was overwhelming confirmation from nearly every deity supporting everything we relayed. In a manner of days a coalition of wizards, clerics, druids, paladins and other extraplanar entities located all four tapestries. Parallel to these events I used Greater Planar Ally to request a new Planetar cohort. I actually got a full audience with several highly ranking Solars who applauded us for such bravery. They made a tithe of 2 million in gold from what we donated to them to help fund a temple on the Material Plane dedicated to housing the four tapestries until a final solution could be discovered.

While a spark of the same magic that allowed them to escalate in the first place was present, there was nothing approaching the levels of what the Master had created.

The Paladin tracked down his small tribe of Kobold worshippers and brought them to assist in the founding of the new temple. They became this campaign worlds first Dragon Shamans. They also became caretakers and guardians of the tapestry temple and over time they rose to great respectability. The Paladin himself became a leader in the Church of Torm and helped train a new generation of warriors. In time we were told that exit from the tapestry world was possible using the rod of the python we never figured out how to use. With that knowledge Kyr Prentice would lead yearly pilgrimages into the shadowy realms and demi-planes of the tapestry seeking a way to end the danger they posed and curbing their growing influence.

The Ranger continued his life of soldiering and fighting, becoming a ranking general in the armed forces of civilization. He also became this world’s first psychic warrior ushering in a new era of psionics in this particular campaign world. He helped to funnel wealth and renovation to the Miller homelands where our whole adventure began. He also had his quiver with it’s final three arrows placed in a display at the Tapestry Temple where generations of archers and would be warriors could see.

Pudnokker travelled back to Reggie the gnomes tower where he tried to fade into obscurity and live amongst the other oddities of the realm. He was deeply scarred by the events he witnessed and wanted to live out his days as a gardener.

My Cleric also wanted a life of peace after so much war. He helped to found the library wing of the Tapestry Temple and made quite a name for himself as a historian given his unique knowledge of the world thousands of years ago. He did bring himself to shoulder greatsword and armor on several occasions in joining the Paladin on his pilgrimages, but for the most part he was content to play chess and study texts with Hendrix his Planetar companion.
A small wing of the temple was dedicated with memorial statues for Caramis the fallen bard, Boy who became Mannie, and the monk cohort who barely saw playing time. On a quirkier related note the Paladin made the very drastic measure to true resurrect Puxdool and the Green Man. He immediately had them placed under arrest and transported to the regional governor office that oversaw legal matters in swamp territory. They were given appropriate counsel and trial, then summarily executed for their crimes. He had a morbid sense of humor.

Our DM told us that if we ever let him run another D&D campaign after this one we would have full access to Players Handbook 2, Psionics, and the Complete book line. He had wanted to narrow scope of feats and abilities until he had more experience under his belt and had incorporated elements from other source books to add diversity in means that he could control.
We enjoyed the idea that decades after our characters had passed into their afterlife that an Iron Golem in the shape and appearance of Torm would stand eternally vigilant near a twilight tapestry while kobolds in armor with morningstars at their hip would patrol the halls and tell stories about Kyr Prentice, Emilio Miller, and Lord Rasmusen who saved the world and brought a new future to the kobold race.

zagan
2012-05-23, 04:31 PM
Really awesome story. Frankly impressive. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed being in a fight for my life all the time, it does get tiring. But as you tell it you all really enjoyed it and that's what count. Thank for sharing that with us.

Averis Vol
2012-05-23, 06:04 PM
absolutely, i'v been following this for weeks and my hats off to you and your group. this is THE coolest campaign i have ever read, from the combination of how leniant your DM was to the crazy crap you guys came up with, the phrase "****ing wagon..." will always keep me chuckling

Kaveman26
2012-05-24, 01:16 PM
Really awesome story. Frankly impressive. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed being in a fight for my life all the time, it does get tiring. But as you tell it you all really enjoyed it and that's what count. Thank for sharing that with us.

There were several sections were it became a grind. Especially against the demons and the "Toy Box". The constant stress was a departure from our standard campaigns.

absolutely, i'v been following this for weeks and my hats off to you and your group. this is THE coolest campaign i have ever read, from the combination of how leniant your DM was to the crazy crap you guys came up with, the phrase "****ing wagon..." will always keep me chuckling

We have been abusing wagons for years now. I don't really know how it all started but nearly everything we have gamed has involved a wagon in some fashion. ESPECIALLY after this adventure.

Bigbrother87
2012-05-24, 03:46 PM
Wow. That was an amazing end.

Thank you for writing this out. This is one of the best campaign journals I've read, as good a read as Silverclawshift's stories, and with moments just as good when something forgotten came into the spotlight. The Ranger's actions at the end there were amazing, very well played.

And kudos to the DM! This was an interesting story, and it seemed like you were all on the razor's edge of failure so many times! I know your successes are mostly due to player brilliance, but it seems to me that he was doing very well at his role. Applause for everyone!

The Bandicoot
2012-05-25, 02:03 AM
Pure amazement. Best story I've read in a long long while. If you ever have another campaign feel free to share it. Because all this has done is left me wanting MORE!

EDIT: I despise autocorrect.

Kaveman26
2012-05-25, 10:29 AM
Footnotes/Appendix:

The original adventure plan was for us to be overwhelmed and captured by the group of six ogres. They would have brought us to the winter wolf lair and we would have shared confines with the gold dragon. over the course of several days we would be forced to fight off what emerged from the tapestry. After a period of time the kobold tribe we ended up wiping out playing whack a mole would have raided and attacked the wolf's lair. They would have liberated the dragon and asked to have us as sacrifices. A larger wave from the tapestry would emerge and the kobolds would have become reluctant reinforcements. By evading and defeating the ogres we drastically altered his starting plans.

The other big curveball was the bag of holding. From the beginning he adopted the standpoint of "If I kill them then someone else will just start a new campaign. I will not purposefully kill them on a whim, they will have to fail the encountered I set up. I will find a way to say yes to almost any reasonable request as ultimately it won't matter too much". When we shoved the tapestry into the bag he was baffled on what to do next and just started improvising things on the fly. Originally we would have just been sucked into the tapestry to fight off various mini-dungeons and then emerged to resupply and go back to town etc. Instead he decided to create a mega-dungeon in the bag with echos of The Barringer Rebellion (See Knights of the Dinner Table). Everything with Reggie the sometimes crazed wizard, the troll and Green Man was ad hocked in the course of a weeks downtime.

Our suicidal plan to just leap down the chute in the dragon's lair should have killed us. He was fully ready to straight up acid breath us into a whole different campaign. The only reason he gave us an out was because I specifically asked for the exact type of item that he had to look up after generating. When he rolled a Cubic Gate and looked it up he had no clue what one did. When he read the description and saw the high value he decided to give it a special placing in the hoard. The fact that I announced I was looking for something along those lines, he felt obligated to give us a chance to use it.

Some of the more outlandish encounters we experienced, especially in the prison block were the direct result of us again doing the unexpected. When we camped in the prison room overnight he reasoned that they would put the two remaining prisoners on very high lockdown. Had we gone to rescue the Slayer first, we would have encountered the 100 Golems. The reasoning being that a character designed to counter psionics would be rendered nearly mute against golems. The massive single encounters were originally intended to be spread out over a full wing of the prison.

*The manner in which the tapestry functioned was explained to us post adventure as a combination of The Master’s dreams becoming reality through uncontrolled access to reality revision and major psionic creation. As the Master created demi-planes through Genesis he would then populate them with the things he had accidentally encountered through his travels.

*The strange djinn/efreet set up in the final encounter was supposed to an epic version of affinity field. His one time captors were absorbed into a permanent link through which he turned their wish abilities into 7th level psionic manifestations. I thought that was pretty sweet.

*Pudnokker was originally an Ultima Online character. Ultima being the first MMO had some very strange habits. One of which was that there were no orc characters in the game. So players would wear the armor and helm of an orc and carry orc weapons and name their characters orcish names. Our friend the Paladin had made an “orc” character in Ultima named Pudnokker that would steal other players boats…when he got caught he would remain in character as an orc. We had so many great memories of Ultima that Pudnokker was an automatic name for our half orc druid.

*There was a split second when I almost got to play my vampire bard as an actual character. We were going to burn a wish to change him from Chaotic Evil to Neutral Evil. But that got Veto’d. We skirted issues that would make a Paladin fall multiple times, but fully associated even with a redeemed vampire would have gone too far.

*There was a scrapped dungeon level where we would have found the surviving Sarrukh liches that had made in before us. It was deemed excessive and dropped.

*This was the DM’s very first time at the helm. Given that we had some very odd encounters. I give big time kudos for the ethereal filcher grenadiers, the final encounter and the brilliant energy bow pixies. He should also serve as a lesson for other recently new DM’s. Sometimes all the brute force in the world can be negated by a ranged weapon. Sometimes what works for the PC’s won’t work for the DM. DR made the golem shine in conjunction with fire, just lining up a 100 of them against people that can overcome the DR won’t cut it. And finally dragons are nasty. Flat out. Don’t get too fancy. Force the PC’s to eat a full attack, if he had just crawled up on us and made us stand still we couldn’t have survived.

*Bigger is not always better. Was it cool fighting off 100 golems? Yes… but also very repepitive.

*Final Thought: This adventure made me appreciate wealth by level in a whole new way. Overgearing PC’s lets them do things far beyond what they should have the capability to do. The Paladin’s AC became functionally high enough to avoid most attacks from anything other than a high CR creature with class levels. Our saving throws reached huge levels and made some fights that should been routs cakewalks. The relative wealth by level makes an even playing field and we adhered much more strictly to it from that point on.

I am going to start posting a recap from a campaign the Paladin DM'd pretty soon. It's a very different take on gaming and we had a blast. It is also much shorter...which my fingers will appreciate.

Treblain
2012-05-26, 04:56 PM
I've finally caught up to the end, and it was a great read. Thank you, this was very entertaining.

WhiteShark
2012-05-30, 07:33 AM
Just wanted to say that this was an incredibly fun read. Thanks for taking the time to write this all up.

Sampi
2012-05-31, 07:38 AM
You, and especially your DM, Win At D&D.

(And my players will groan at the encounters I've soaked up from these stories.)

Kaveman26
2012-05-31, 11:29 AM
You, and especially your DM, Win At D&D.

(And my players will groan at the encounters I've soaked up from these stories.)

At some point I will post a recap from a campaign where I was the DM. Bluntly speaking when I DM my players cringe whenever I get a smile and start describing an encounter. I have come up with some real off the wall fights that stretch the boundries of creativity and set up.

Sampi
2012-06-01, 02:48 AM
At some point I will post a recap from a campaign where I was the DM. Bluntly speaking when I DM my players cringe whenever I get a smile and start describing an encounter. I have come up with some real off the wall fights that stretch the boundries of creativity and set up.

Goody! I can't wait to read that!

SlyGuyMcFly
2012-06-01, 10:09 AM
Bloody excellent campaign journal, thanks for writing it up!

Kaveman26
2012-06-05, 01:04 PM
I just finished the recap for a second campaign Calimshaw-Shank Redemption

For those that enjoyed reading these campaign recap would you rather see...


An open sandbox style campaign of a more chaotic but not exactly evil nature, where I was the DM.

A more traditional overland adventure with dungeons run by the guy who played the ranger in this recap.

A dark and ruthless campaign set in the city run by me as DM

A short "follow up" campaign to the Adversarial Process where we played in the same world with some more expanded rules.

Averis Vol
2012-06-05, 02:07 PM
I'd like to see the city campaign, I always enjoyed a gritty game.

Vixsor Lumin
2012-06-09, 02:11 AM
These are awesome! Please please please, keep doing them!:smallbiggrin: my vote goes to the city game, or the sandbox game

PrismCat21
2012-06-09, 11:04 AM
I spent the last three days reading this campaign. I love it. It's given me the itch to play again :)

I would very much like to read the short follow-up, I now have this thread bookmarked on my phone :)

Kaveman26
2012-06-10, 11:26 AM
Session 19: Short Follow Up Campaign

After a certain degree of struggling to organize the notes and character sheets from the city campaigns I decided to take a little break and throw out a two session follow up to this campaign. In the midst of a separate set of adventures our DM asked for more prep time and when we decided to do something short for D&D the original DM for Adversarial chimed in that he had 1-3 session follow up for the original campaign he could run. We were a bit scarred and leery but our old characters were calling and beckoning us to do something with the first characters that we ever took all the way to 9th level spells.

The follow up was set in the same world but with psionics and most source material now open and fair game. 35 years had passed from the finale of our previous campaign and the Tapestry Temple was now a world recognized institute. It was a flourishing location for scholars and would be holy warriors. It was also built in an isolated location owing to the dangerous nature of the evil artifacts housed within. When presented with the option to keep our old characters or start new ones, the Paladin and I kept our original characters and Lord Rasmusen and Kyr Prentice came out retirement to don sword and armor one last time. The Ranger elected to roll a new character up, and we added a fourth player to the campaign. We also made level 18 based on the events to defeat the Master and life experience of 30+ years.

The Paladin stuck with Kyr and basically brought his character out of retirement. He made a few tweaks to his character, the one central change was adding Knowledge Devotion with strong rolls in Religion and the Planes.

I kept Lord Rasmusen largely the same and the only real changes to my character were the added wisdom and charisma from reaching venerable age. I used Miracle on the Paladin and myself to alleviate the ravages of time and prevent str, con and dex damage.

The Ranger’s new character was an archivist that had been working at the compound and studying the tapestries for the last 3 decades. His new character name was Robes Pierre (*sigh*) the DM only let him play an archivist with the provision that he couldn’t go crazy abusing spell lists or turn him into a severe cheese character.

Our fourth player (the guy who ran the Psychic Warrior in the Calimshaw campaign) created a gish type character. Fighter1/Abjurer3/Master Specialist5/Init of the Seven Fold Veil7/Abjurant Champion2. He called him Castor (again *sigh*)

The premise for our characters return…the tapestries have all changed their appearance….each one now looks like a pool of sheer darkness, like liquid night in fabric. At the center of each tapestry is a single spec of red light…it is slowly growing larger. Our archivist tells us that it’s a sign of impending doom and that the forces which united to create these tapestries as a prison are coming back from the flow of time to shatter them and release their full evil upon the world. He estimates we have three days before our temple becomes ground zero for the world’s ending.

The Paladin and I enter the tapestry realm as we have done for years and navigate the twisting paths to locate the Halfling captured at the heart of the realm. A Professor X/Magento relationship has developed between us and he is eager enough to tell us that the forces coming have contacted him. He further tells us that our archivist was close but slightly off. The red lights mean that a coalition from the future is coming back to take the tapestries and use them to wipe out reality itself. Their transportation of the Master causes immeasureable shockwaves through the course of history and their world is a twisted nightmarish place of torment and suffering. A small band of the future’s most desperate are coming back to shatter the tapestries and try to kickstart a new reality.

As an added complication…being at the epicenter of the four tapestries means that all attempts to teleport away or send requests for aid are useless. The temporal storm that is growing in our vicinity means we are stuck alone. Well not quite alone. The temple is popular despite it’s isolated nature and we have reinforcements. At our disposal are:
Hendrix, my planetar cohort
A cadre of 10 Kobold Dragon Shamans that serve as a ceremonial (and functional) honor guard for the tapestries. They are all level 9 and fairly well equipped.
A sect of 8 clerics all level 7 and willing to do whatever is necessary to protect their temple.
A “heart “ of 16 Paladins in service to Torm, all level 8. For simplicity these will be referred to as crusaders

As we return to the temple a strange and very ancient elf is seen riding up to the temple atop a haggard mule. He introduces himself as Kordley the Diviner. He is way past venerable from the description. Neigh unto a corpse is how he appears to us. His voice is quavery and barely a whisper but he his mind is still sharp.

Kordley:I have been haunted by visions of a moment I knew would one day come. My mind has witnessed the horrors of these coming days a thousand times and I have researched for the better part of three hundred years for a way to steer ruin into a sliver of salvation.
Paladin: Welcome aboard…
Me: Together we shall achieve just that.

From our elderly elf we learn that we are going to be up against hordes of undead and several creatures that are unlike anything we have ever imagined. Bundled to his pack mule is a bag of holding with 1,000 scrolls of bless water, five Morningstar+1 of ghost touch and bracers that give ghost touch to the wielder, and five +1 light crossbows with ghost touch. He also gives us the good/bad news that they will appear a few miles from the temple and will have to walk the remaining distance to attack us.

With all the players on board for a good ol fashioned end of the world defend this temple showdown we start prepping for a big throwdown. We put the clerics to work filling barrel upon barrel with holy water and intend to use them as part of anti siege missiles and bombs. The Paladin then runs upstairs and fiddles on his computer for a while and when he comes back he has some images of various aqueducts and water distribution systems. From his pictures we end up stone shaping like crazy and building a series of aqueducts with holes throughout. We stage water barrels en masse and can now make it rain holy water across the front of the complex. We build a thicker overhead duct at the front gate and place a lot of water to act as a sprinkler for the gate defense.

Those initial preparations take up the 1st 24 hours of time. We are working out very configurations for to get everyone into maximum production. We separate our forces in four parts.
*The Paladin takes center stage at the front gate with his Iron Golem and 4 Crusaders and a pair of Clerics. 2 crusaders have ghost touch morningstars.
*I await in the courtyard with 8 Paladins and 2 clerics to provide back up wherever it is needed.
*We put 2 paladins with 3 dragon shamans on each side of the main gate. The remaining Paladins have light crossbows with ghost touch.
*The Archivist joins the left side group and the Abjurer takes the right.
*My Planetar takes the remaining dragon shamans and remaining Paladins to form a skirmishing party afield.
*We put the remaining four clerics in the central tapestry room to act as messengers if things start popping out from there.
*The group is allowed to prepare spells once the forces we are up against are revealed.

The Invasion:
At dawn of the 3rd day a storm cloud forms up overhead and lightning starts to strike with overwhelming frequency. Dozens upon dozens of bolts all strike the same spot and from the craters hordes of zombies,skeletons, ghouls, and ghasts are shambling into formation. From a great distance we see the familiar forms of Nightwalkers organizing undead into ranks. The distant tree lines also begin to reveal scores of gargoyles taking flight and moving back and forth. They are much larger than any gargoyles we have seen, and their form is from a different stone we are unfamiliar with. They are also armored.
From the initial spot checks we don’t see anything too alarming, and for the most part we just hold steady. Then the nightwalkers start to pull capsules from the lightning strike craters and spectral/shadowy Minotaurs with huge axes half float and half lumber out to instantly start felling trees. They are building battering rams, catapults and and trebuchet.

Each time we think we have reached the end of the description a little bit more gets tacked on. The DM has them prep for a full five days, during which more and more lightning strikes bring additional forces. The majority of which are mooks by our standards, wights, ghouls etc. At the end of day 5 the biggest lightning storm falls and from the craters come dread wraiths of a substance we have never seen. They are shadow but deeper and fuller.
A wailing screech rises from all the gargoyles and the massed forces all come to attention with a path in their middle. A rakhasa with the head of a cheetah, mounted upon a nightmare comes to the center…he surveys our temple then recedes to the rear of the forces. From the path in the center comes a swarm of goblins…hundreds.
DM: Now is probably the time to declare what spells you are going to prepare.

So we have:
Hundreds…maybe in total a thousand undead mooks and goblins
From our spot checks 60 specialized gargoyles
8 specialized dread wraiths
20 specialized minotaurs
12 Nightwalkers
1 Rakhasa??? And a nightmare
Several siege equipment rigs.

We load up on a lot of area of effect spells. Wraiths and Nigthwalkers being first priority for us PC’s and anything that can drain abilities like the wights for our shamans and crusaders.

The undead are all massed in a big wave at the front and we are getting ready to start buffing spells…and then the goblins are yanked from the ranks by the minotaurs and dragged into lines by each catapult and trebuchet. The wraiths then grab each goblin by the head and drain them to death…the corpses are loaded into the buckets and then flung at us in the keep…

Paladin: Um…refresh my memory, does anything killed by a wraith become a wraith the next day or just about immediately?
Archivist: Within seconds…
Me: Oh ****….

Some of the goblin corpses actually transition to wraith-hood mid flight and within seconds our temple walls and courtyard are being peppered with goblin-wraith bombs. They don’t pause to even look at us…they just start flying through the walls straight for the tapestry chamber. And once again it is reaffirmed that our DM can be very nasty when he wants to.

I take my team and head to the tapestry chamber to try and cut them off before they ambush our clerics. They have six catapults running and 6 trebuchets and we get hit with 6 a round for the entire battle.

A horde of undead bolstered by the wraiths that fell short begin to assault the temple. The Abjurer puts up Walls Of Force to corral everything towards the Paladin and full pitched battle is engaged. The wall perched support starts to crack open barrels of holy water and funnel into the sprinkler system to burn the undead, and the archivist and abjurer lay out area of effect fireballs, flamestrikes and burst holy damage. The Paladin is hacking back and forth and laying out lesser undead with the holy avenger and I set up shop inside the tapestry chamber where we are constantly fending off wraiths.

Some of the clerics and shaman are eating ability damage and level drain effects but no one is in danger of dropping. We are slaughtering waves of undead and holding on smoothly.

The gargoyles all start to make strafing bomb runs after about six rounds. They are clutching large dark glass barrels which they drop from on high, the barrels plummet and shatter sending chunks of obsidian shrapnel everywhere, and most are loaded with flasks of oil and acid which start to dissolve and burn anything they contact. Our support staff is getting battered by the bombs and undead horde. The Paladin makes a snap decision to fall back towards the tapestry room and focus everything on supporting that single room. He and the abjurer are the last ones to fall back and we go very quickly to last stand mode.

We end the session with everyone barricaded into the tapestry chamber fending off the incorporeal undead while the rest of the hordes all make their way through the temple. The last thing we hear before calling it a night is great chunks of stone being peeled away and discarded as the forces outside are literally tearing the building apart to bring more creatures at us.

Ramen&Malt Liqr
2012-06-11, 05:39 PM
*Slow claps* Thank you for sharing that. I would have read it all in one day, but when it came time to change to page two for the big finally: DATABASE BACK-UP IN PROGRESS. I nearly threw my monitor through a window.

This is the first campaign log I've ever finished. Good work, I look forward to your next campaign.

Morghen
2012-06-12, 07:25 AM
The DM has them prep for a full five days, during which more and more lightning strikes bring additional forces.What.

You let them build their forces for FIVE DAYS? And didn't do anything in the meantime?

shortbow
2012-06-20, 01:17 AM
I sat and read through this campaign like the boy in never ending story. Thank you for this, you truly inspire me to roleplay.

Vixsor Lumin
2012-06-20, 02:07 AM
I would like you to know, that you inspired a duo survival campaign that seems to be going well so far

Kaveman26
2012-06-26, 02:58 PM
I would like you to know, that you inspired a duo survival campaign that seems to be going well so far

I would love to hear a bit about how that is going and what adaptations or tweaks you made.

Vixsor Lumin
2012-06-26, 03:51 PM
Well we just started, and so far we've made friends with a couple dragons, been paranoid about anything that isn't us, walked past six unprotected and probably untrapped diamonds out of paranoia, and managed to pull open a door with a DC 30 strength check without magic or class features at lvl 3

Morghen
2012-06-26, 09:36 PM
I would love to hear a bit about how that is going and what adaptations or tweaks you made.I will give you a million pretend dollars if you start updating at least one of your campaign logs.

Kaveman26
2012-06-27, 09:40 AM
I am working on it. I should have collective updates for just about everything by week's end.

Kaveman26
2012-06-27, 12:20 PM
Session 20:

To our benefit the tapestry room is very well protected. We have Walls of Force, Adamantine laced through the exterior walls, and the area is consecrated and hallowed.

To our disadvantage...we are overwhelmingly outnumbered and have no idea what they have to do to make the tapestries explode.

All four tapestries are piled up and the Abjurer puts up a prismatic sphere around them. The Paladin and I along with Torm Golem take up a cordon around the sphere and the Abjurer and Archivist are spread out with the remaining clerics and dragon shamans+crusaders.

We fend off an endless steam of lesser wraiths and for the most part our only concern for ourselves is to avoid expending too many spells. The lower level allies are protected as best we are able. It becomes clear to us that the initial assaults are just designed to cull our support.

We elect to not just sit back on defense (as Morghen alluded to, sitting and waiting for 5 days was not a good desicion) and the triangle of Paladin+cleric+Golem goes on offense and we decide to hunt down and find the higher ranking minions. Together we make our way out and encounter a range of minotaurs and gargoyles all hacking apart the temple to make more room to attack en mass. The minotaurs are advanced enough to hit our bloated AC's and overcome our DR from stoneskin etc. Ganging up on one at a time they take 1-2 rounds to drop. The Rakhasa is nowhere to be seen and forward progress is slow.

The casters are doing quite well on their own and continue to mow down swarms of wraiths.

At about hour 4 of the session the three of us manage to get free from the insides of the temple and find the exterior is being filled with nightwalkers who are now acting as bodyguards for the Rakshasa. The Paladin wants to go for broke and bee-line for the presumed leader. I am game for that as well and against what might be the wiser choice, we decide to barrel into the probable end game villian without the aid of our casters.

Yeah...big mistake. The Rakshasa is a very high level wizard and the first thing he does is cast Disjunction...which has the effect of disrupting all our wards and negating our cold resist. With our "shields" down the nightwalkers all start to Cone of Cold us. The Paladin manages to take a swing at him and as he connects a contigent spell goes off and the Rakshasa is teleported 100 feet away.

(more to come)

Kaveman26
2012-06-28, 12:28 PM
Session 20 Cont:

As we are getting rocked outside the Paladin super charges his Golem and tells my cleric to run for back up. He figures he can buy enough time to survive while I get the casters. It doesnt quite work that way.

I do manage to get back to within shouting distance of the central chamber and I eat a lot of AOO to do it. In the intervening rounds the Paladin is straight getting his ass kicked though. He has the Golem stalking the Rakshasa and he is doing everything he can to evade multiple strikes from the Nightwalkers. The wizard and archivist along with a pair of clerics and shamans all sprint back out to the temples courtyard where the Paladin has dipped to single digit health after using his full LoH.

The Abjurer casts Anti Magic Field and more or less bull rushes the rakshasa. The archivist start using Holy Nova to knock nightwalkers out of commision and the Disjunction effect starts to wear off our magical gear.

A well aimed Cone of Cold drops both clerics and one of the shamans. The Paladin gets knocked into negatives and the shaman's aura stabilizes him. The Golem grapples the wizard stuck in the AMF and the abjurer basically stands there waiting as an anchor. There is a mad rush to pile on damage against the Rakshasa as literally every baddie is filling up our battlemap and swarming us.

The Rakshasa manages to wiggle free from the grapple and get loose and he starts lobbing meteor swarms like they are going out of style. We are getting completely overwhelmed and hurting bad. THe Paladin gets back to his feet and makes a last ditch charge from behind wielding his sword in two hands with a big power attack. He knocks the Rakshasa to it's knees and Torm Golem slams it twice knocking him into negatives. The Archivist gets grappled and pinned and ripped to shreds as he can't get a spell off. The Paladin is outright killed when our shaman drops. My Cleric makes a go of it for a few rounds trying to clear a path to the Abjurer, but he too gets swarmed and overhwhelmed.

As the rakshasa hits -10 and actually dies the collective lightning storms all swirl together and start randomly stabbing patches of earth, and wherever they strike monsters start dissapearing. Within seconds the Abjurer is left alone amidst our corpses and only a small silk ball remains from where the rakshasa fell.

Our characters are ressurected within the next few days and we identify the silk as enchanted spider silk from a future version of Lloth. The archivist creates a specialized needle that can be threaded with the silk and binds the four tapestries together into a closed cyclinder. The effect of which makes anything that exits a tapestry to immediately re-enter a different tapestry. Owing to the impervious nature of the tapestries we reason this creates an infinite loop where in no other creature will ever escape the tapestries no matter there nature.

I kept these much briefer owing to lack of detailed notes on the follow up. We had some real sloppy play in the second session and definately got overcocky. We liked the prospect of true closure to the whole chain of events but all agreed these characters had run their full course and it was time to leave them in boxes/binders from then on.