Githyanki Campaign Journal: The Incursion Begins NOW!

[SleepyShadow]

Hey all, guess who is shackled to the table behind the DM screen back to running the game? Yup, it's me. Unlike last time I started a campaign journal, I waited several sessions before posting to ensure I would be able to actually keep posting at least once per week.

A while back, Dragon, Dungeon, and Polyhedron magazines did a collaborate campaign stub featuring a rather unappreciated classic villain: the githyanki. Taking the material the provided, I expanded upon it and modified it to be a full-fledged campaign that should (in theory) run into the early epic levels.

For a campaign setting, I adapted the Sundered Empire of Western Oerik, modified it a bit, and set it some time before the start of the Godwars. I really needed a place without preexisting high level NPCs (%*@! you Elminster :smallfurious: ), and this place was perfect.

With all that said, let the campaign journal begin!

The Party
Breken Kolthune - An Abjurer who oddly loves Evocation spells, and bears a striking resemblance to Gambit from The X-Men. He considers himself the party leader and often a master strategist.
Vincio Vincetto - An Italian azurin halfling Cleric/Incarnate of a "very serious mind" and Breken's estranged cousin. Being the most level headed of the party and being the primary source of healing, he is the glue that holds the team together. He was recently reincarnated, and seems to have taken a liking to Willory.
Hikari Hotori - Dead.
Elena - Retired.
Vincent - Also a silverbrow human, Vincent is a Fighter/Marshal who adores his exotic fullblade. Gruff, crude, and a bit of a womanizer, from what I can tell.
Jarah - Dead
Acacia - A druid with childlike fascinations and the attention span of an eight-year-old, apparently all derived from her eight intelligence. She also loves dinosaurs.
Scarlet - A warblade/bloodstorm blade who is a blatant ripoff of Yuffie from Final Fantasy 7, right down to the giant shuriken as her weapon of choice. Absolutely refuses to engage in melee combat.


Cohorts, NPC Party Members, and Other Important Folk
Willowry - A rather shy young halfing woman. As a rogue/sorcerer, the party tends to be rather protective of her in combat. Vincio's cohort.

"Hey Guys, We Own A Castle!"
Our story began with Brekin and Vincio attempting to reclaim an old keep that had been left in their names by their uncle. Along the way there, they met Hikari wandering the road spouting "sagely wisdom" and Elena gleefully slaughtering bandits. Together, these four traveled to the tiny fishing village of Branlec, which was situated on the eastern shore, and only a short distance from the keep.

During their hike through the woods, they encountered several odd creatures not native to the region. Although they were able to identify the things they slaughtered (hydras, owlbears, and even an otyugh), they were perplexed as to why the bodies dissolved away into ashes and muck.

Since no one had Knowledge: The Planes, I certainly wasn't going to tell them that the critters were Fiendish.

Once the party arrived at the keep, they effortlessly carved their way through mobs of orcs and bugbears that occupied the keep's courtyard. Though the party had depleted almost all of their resources (spells mostly, they were still in good shape HP-wise iirc), they sauntered into the keep through the front doors, the players chortling among themselves about how relatively easy things had been.

That was when the orc fighter/rangers fired at them from inside the keep.

The first volley of arrows from the composite longbows dropped Elena and put Vincio down to single-digit health. The combat went in the orcs' favor at first, but once the shock of the sudden change in difficulty wore off the party pulled its act together and triumphed over the orcs, looted the bodies, and promptly hobbled back to town to nurse their wounds and discuss some battle plans.

Looking back now, my only regret about that encounter design is that I didn't provide the orcs some waist-high cover. :smalltongue:

The party's second foray into the keep initially proved less dangerous than the players had feared. A few dire rats, some mild traps, and a locked door were all that they had to contend with in the beginning, and the locked door was only a problem until the next time Breken could memorize Knock.

When they entered the dining hall, they were surprised to find an equally surprised tiefling fellow having just sat down to lunch. A few minutes of conversation with the tiefling (who was unintentionally dressed in a similar fashion to Breken) revealed that while he was in league with the occupying orcs and bugbears he was not really in charge. The party threatened to kill him on the spot, but he requested to have the help of his partner, since "Four of you against one of me ain't too sporting."

Much to my surprise, the entire group agrees to let him get help. One Message spell later, and Damiano the tiefling conjurer is joined by his sultry companion Feliciana, a tiefling fighter/rogue/monk.

After introductions were politely made, the fight ensued. In theory, I had planned Damiano to be the power of the pair, while Feliciana simply ran interference via trip attacks and stuns. In practice, however, the conjurer got off one summon and I believe an ineffective Glitterdust before going down like a punk while the monk dropped half the party unconscious with little or no help from the summoned Fiendish Ape. Once Damiano went down, Feliciana grabbed him and busted out through a window while leaving the ape to slow down Breken and Vincio, an escape tactic my players would come to both hate and love.

Regardless of Team Tiefling's escape, the party celebrated their victory with an IC trip to the tavern back in town and an OoC order of pizzas. After all, they had a castle of their very own! Only a couple of rooms on the second floor were left to explore.

Oh, and that locked door that led to the tower with the roof broken off. But surely nothing in there would prove overly threatening, right?

[Yora]

Oh, cool!

I always thought it looked like an awesome setup for a game, but really doesn't fit with the types of games I run myself. Really waiting to see how this turns out.

[SleepyShadow]

Well Yora, I'll be doing my best to catch up to the party's current predicament. Thanks for reading :smallsmile:

Eggs of a Different Yolk
The next few days were spent in Branlec, carousing around and getting to know the local folk. Breken got the deed to the keep formalized by Laura the clerk at the town hall. Elena purchased a finely crafted bow from Lorien the half-elven fletcher, and our resident hexblade failed to acknowledge the fellow's painfully obvious advances. Vincio spent much of his time in town engaged in friendly theological discussion with Felicia, a priestess of Kord who held sermons in the front lawn of her cottage rather than at a temple of some kind. He also learned that she was extensively knowledgeable of battlefield tactics and warfare.

Being a bit of a black sheep, Hikari got to know Geoph the innkeeper and tavern master. It was through him that she got to know Kolbrek the Bold, a popular half-orc bard famed for tales of the grand exploits of bygone heroes. She introduced him to the party, and after brief deliberation they decided to hire him on to record their exploits and spread their fame.

As it happened, our group's fifth member was able to make it to this session, and Kolbrek gave me the opportunity to easily introduce his character to the party. The half-orc introduced them to Vincent Pallentino.

"He's a good guy to have around," Kolbrek explained. "Traveled with him a couple times."

Introductions were made, the marching order was adjusted, and the party of six headed back to finish clearing out the keep of 'squatters'. The journey back was uneventful, further reinforcing the idea that they had already achieved victory. While poking around on the second floor, they discovered a secret door. A couple Mountain Hammers from Hikari removed the necessity to search for locks and traps.

Inside, they found a small chamber with a black and silver suit of armor, complete with helm, shield, and a matching sword. Resting on a pedestal in the center of the room was a bookmarked tome detailing ancient and long forgotten gods. The one bookmarked was a passage detailing Stratis, the ancient god of war. Apparently defeated but not slain, Stratis still slumbered, awaiting a great conflict "the likes of which have never been seen" to awaken once again.

After Vincio donned his long-lost family armor and sword (gear that had various effects and scaled with his level, but only when worn as a set), the party finally entered the unexplored tower, this time using Breken's trusty Knock spell. It was a circular area choked with rubble, with large mottled yellow eggs in three or four piles sheltered with the rubble. What caught their eyes, however, was the small mound of treasure in the center of the room.

However, it was about this time that the red dragon pounced in through the hole in the roof.

The battle was a fierce one, leaving Kolbrek dead and most of the party badly wounded, but in the end they prevailed. After briefly lamenting the loss of their NPC bard, the treasure was divided and gathered. Vincio passed on his share of the treasure, saying that the armor and sword were more than enough for him. They party started cracking and crushing the eggs after that, but they were surprised not to see tiny dead dragons, but instead yellow skinned, needle teethed elf-like creatures.

Breken's player (being a bit of a metagamer) let out a loud whimper. Seems someone has been reading the Monster Manual lately :smalltongue:

[Brookshw]

Thanks for starting up this campaign log, always fun to hear others stories, especially with the promise of planes :smallbiggrin:

[SleepyShadow]

Thanks Brook, hope you enjoy reading our exploits!

This Isn't an Escort Mission, Is It?
After several Knowledge checks, the tiny that were in the eggs were identified as Githyanki. Breken then informed the rest of the group that because githyanki live on the timeless Astral Plane, they have hatcheries on the Material Plane.

Using OOC knowledge to extrapolate on IC knowledge. I guess it works.

The next few days were relatively quiet in-game, though we spent about ten minutes total on them around the table. They hired on some workers from the village to help rebuild the keep, caroused around town, and divided the rooms of the keep among the party for private use.

About two weeks after they had reclaimed the keep and christened it Greyskull Manor :smallsigh: Lorien the fletcher ("Who?" "That one half-elf, right?" "Half-elves exist? Those aren't optimized!" "It's the bowmaker that likes Elena, dude." "Huh?") came bursting into the keep.

"The merchant! She's under attack!" he cried.

This caused a bit of confusion, since none of the shopkeepers that the party had met were women. They followed Lorien through the pine forest down to the main road out of town where they spied an elf woman bound and gagged on the ground near a small caravan. Four dead guards were sprawled across the road, and five githyanki warriors were unloading goods from the caravan onto a hand cart. After Lorien found a good hiding spot ("No, the level four Expert is not helping you guys fight"), the party rushed into action.

The fight was a short but brutal one. The githyanki had low health, but their damage output per round put quite a dent in the PCs' health. The party prevailed, and after checking to see that all the caravan guards were indeed dead, they untied the elf woman. A Cure Light Wounds spell brought her to consciousness, and began to question her.

She told them that her name was Kyshara, and that she was an alchemist. She also informed them that she was "the only gunsmith north of Mordendraak", and that was likely why her caravan was attacked. The party checked her caravan and found that while she still had crates full of mundane goods and alchemical items, all of the crates that contained her firearms and magical goods were gone. According to her, at any rate, and the party was inclined to believe her. The party was about to help haul her caravan into town (since her horses had all bolted), when Kyshara asked if they were going to track down the githyanki that stole her goods.

Now between all of the PCs at this point they had enough ranks in Spot and Search that they might be able to find a glowing neon sign in the dark. After explaining to Kyshara that they wouldn't be able to find them, the elf woman offered to track them if they would help her catch them.

"A ranger's eyes never lie," she said with a wink.

Armed with only Vincio's spare dagger, Kyshara led the party through the forest to the south. A few random encounters later, the group came upon the four githyanki in question, who seemed to be loitering around and waiting for something. The party leaped into action, and the battle ensued.

This one was quite a bit more difficult than the last bunch, since instead of five Warriors the githyanki party were two Fighters, a Rogue, and a Sorcerer. Spells flew in all directions as swords clashed in a ring of steel! Kung fu! Cheesy one-liners! NO ONE LOOKED AT EXPLOSIONS!

At last the battle was won, and the party victoriously carted off the stolen goods without a care in the world as to what the githyanki were waiting for. Once back on the main road, Kyshara made an offer to the party.

"I don't have much with me worthy of your heroics," she said, "but if you can take me to Durstin I can craft some items for you worth far more than what I have with me."

After consulting their map, the party determined that the small city of Durstin was only about thirty miles down the western road. They quickly agreed to her offer now that it was clear that their new companion was not a helpless damsel but a moderately competent Ranger/Sorcerer. So they set off for what all heroes desire most: cheap magic swag!

Unbeknownst to the party, about ten miles south of their location, the githyanki recon team was severely angered at finding their allies dead at the rendezvous point.

[SleepyShadow]

This post may be a little less descriptive than before, due to the players thoroughly enjoying campfire dialogue with one another and Kyshara, which (while entertaining for us) ate up a lot of play time and my memory isn't good enough to remember all of the conversations. Another contributing factor was little of note happening on the road beyond the usual array of random encounters. With that said, let the Incursion continue!

Creatures, Cameos, and Cities
A lot of the next few sessions were on the road to Durstin, where the party got to know everyone better, both in and out of combat. For example, Kyshara spoke with a Southern Belle-esque accent, and preferred firearms and alchemists' fire over using her spells. Vincio, despite having a completely Italian name, had not even the faintest hint of an accent, and disliked wine to top it off :smalltongue:

Anyway, one encounter on the road stood out from the rest. Breken had contracted the dreaded Vanishing Disease, so Kyshara's less than optimal casting suddenly became the primary source of arcane utility. Letting nothing keep them down, the party soldiered on down the road until a deafening sound split the still air. It was something akin to "a steel beam being ripped in half". The party hunkered down for a full minute, expecting some eldritch abomination to drop down upon them. When nothing happened, they all breathed easy again.

A terrified scream off in the woods caught their attention, and with Vincent leading the charge the party raced off to see what was amiss. A red-haired elf girl (actually a nymph, but no one had the skills to identify her as such) was being savagely attacked by a treant with black bark that periodically flaked off and turned to ash. Flinging its helpless prey into the trunk of a nearby tree, and knocking her out via the power of PLOT, the fiendish treant attacked the party.

With the party's preferred method of attack (fire) having surprisingly little effect on the monster, the battle was a lot more dangerous than I had initially thought it would be. Half the party was knocked out, and Vincio hovered at -9 hp before the thing was finally toppled by a well-placed Mountain Hammer from Hikari.

After the grueling battle, the party revived the unconscious nymph, who gave them a silver amulet for rescuing her. She explained that breaking the necklace would summon her to their aid, regardless of where they were at (yes, I know, stolen almost straight from OotS, but no one caught it).

A couple days more travel ensued afterward, with everyone scratching their heads as to the source of the strange noise from before. However, on the eve of their final day of travel, the party encountered a ragtag bunch of halflings heading down the road from Durstin to Branlec, leading a small train of pony-drawn carts along with them. At the head of the train was a friendly but shy young halfling woman, and a grizzled old halfling garbed in tight grey leathers, a bandanna, and an eye-patch.

"War has changed ..." the old halfling said bitterly to the party in a raspy, gravelly voice.

Sadly, no one caught the reference to my favorite game series.

After talking to the two lead halflings, Willory and David Hannigan (three guesses which is which), the party learned that the halfling commonwealth outside of Durstin had come under attack by "yellow-skinned elves with eyes like demons" that came pouring out of a portal that had opened with a sound akin to tearing steel. The portal had remained open for almost two full minutes before the horde stopped pouring out.

The surviving halflings fled while the suddenly appearing army quickly moved on to attack Durstin itself. Though the halflings didn't know the city's fate for certain, Willory sadly guessed that it had not fared well. Informing the halflings that they would find a safe haven at their keep in Branlec, the party moved quickly down the road to ascertain the fate of Durstin for themselves. The city walls had been blasted apart by the looks of it, and the bodies of human, gnome, and halfling soldiers lay scattered across the countryside. They quickly entered the city, hoping to find some way to be of help.

The party was met only with absolute silence.

[SleepyShadow]

It's Headed For the Power Lines!
The party poked around a bit for free gear and loose change, but they soon realized that all they were going to find were mundane items and copper pieces (Who knew the githyanki would take the good stuff?). Soon enough they found Dereth, a town guardsman buried under the rubble of a collapsed house. He was the first person they found who was still alive, so they pulled him out of the rubble and healed him back to consciousness. He told them that the githyanki rode on the backs of dragons and flew in ships of black steel.

As soon as he hinted at the githyanki having airships, it immediately became a group goal to steal one.

Shortly after Dereth bade farewell to the party, the group was met by another fellow. He introduced himself like this:

"So, there is sanity in all this madness. If you are not in league with the evil that attacked this sorry place, Yojimbo begs your assistance!"

It had been a long day at work and I wasn't feeling creative. Sue me :smalltongue:

Yojimbo explained to the party that he was a bounty hunter who had been hired to track down some troublesome gnolls, but he had become far more interested in fighting the githyanki after seeing what they had done to Durstin. It was about this time that the campaign swung into left field.

"Wait, did you say gnolls?" Vincent asked.

"Uh ... yeah," Yojimbo replied. "Some gnolls from Naresh. They seem to be a rather small problem at the moment though ..."

"What were these gnolls doing?" Vincio chimed in.

Yojimbo was a little unprepared for this. "Er, they are looting in the wake of githyanki raids. The gnolls ... ride atop a reptilian beast so large they have built a castle atop it!"

"By the Four Winds!" Hikari cried. "We must stop these foul gnolls at once! Are you with me?"

"To protect the world from devastation," Vincent began.

"To unite all people within our nation," Vincio continued.

"Please stop," Kyshara said before fading into the background again.

"Yojimbo, what do you do?" Vincent asked.

"Whatever you need, I do it well," he answered with a grin.

"Can you pick locks and disable traps?"

"I can dance on the head of a pin as well!"

"Ninja Man is hired!"

Once our laughter had died down, the intrepid heroes marched off in search of the gnolls. They made sure to bring along Yojimbo, which meant now I had two NPCs to run. Lucky me :smallannoyed:

Anyway, tracking down the massive lizard wasn't hard, and they followed its trail east to where it rested just outside of a forest. The party spied a pair of gnolls at the bottom who were loading crates of stolen goods onto a platform attached to a winch-and-pulley system. Once the platform was full, they rang a little bell to signal the gnolls at the top to work the crank and haul the goods up. About thirty seconds of deliberation occurred before the party charged out of their hiding spot, killed the gnoll loaders, waited for the platform to come back down, hopped on, and rang the bell. Imagine the gnoll workers' surprise when their next cargo load was a group of unwanted adventurers.

Battles raged across the back of the great beast, and suffice it to say that Naresh tactics were no match for the party's brutality. The party carved its way through the loosely connected howdahs that made up the "castle" atop the giant lizard, pausing only once after a particularly rough battle against a gnoll druid. Looking out the window of the druid's howdah, the party saw two things of importance: The beast was moving again, and its path would take it directly through the party's keep!

It was about this time that Breken returned to the party after recovering from the Vanishing Plague, only for Elena to succumb to it and disappear.

Anyway, the party continued to fight its way from howdah to howdah until it reached the head of the great beast, where they squared off with the leader of the gnoll raiding party: a fallen hound archon with the appearance of a hyena instead of a dog. The battle was close, but even his fearsome might was no match for the party's combined strength. Shortly after his defeat (just enough time to loot him), the monstrous lizard began to fade away back to whatever plane it had been conjured from.

Thinking fast, Breken used his fly spell, grabbed Kyshara, and flew away with her to safety. Vincio used his incarnum sandles to Hulk jump off and into a nearby tree. Vincent, Hikari, and Yojimbo had to jump for it.

The beast faded away and the howdahs came crashing down just under a mile from Greyskull Manor. Their keep and the village of Branlec were saved!

I like it when my players decide to go off and do their own thing in the game. Best side quest ever! :smallbiggrin:

[SleepyShadow]

I hope people are still reading this :smallsmile:

For Plot Thickness, Just Add Exposition
After a couple days of relaxing in Branlec, the party headed out more in search of adventure. Yojimbo politely took his leave from the group, saying that he had other obligations to attend to. Elena had recovered from the Vanishing Plague by this time, so the whole gang was together again!

On the west road, they bumped into a mysterious stranger swathed in dark blue robes, with a hood and cloth face mask to completely obscure his identity. Once the party had ascertained he was not a lump of XP to kill, they talked with him for a while. He revealed that 'his people' had learned from a captured githyanki that the invading forces were attempting to reclaim their home world, and the githyanki didn't want to share it with the people already living on it. They also seemed intent on unearthing 'The Ruins of Gith', though the stranger (an illithid in disguise) did not know why. However, he believed that the dwarves to the south would be able to uncover the ruins location, and thus be able to learn what the githyanki were after.

Taking him up his advice, the party traveled south. Three weeks (and several random encounters) later, they arrived in the arid desert where the dwarves of Mordendraak made their home. The fortress-city was holding a festival at the time of the party's arrival, so getting in was not a problem. The party split up to search for clues (cue Scooby Doo references), but shortly after they began to ask around about the location of the ruins, screams pierced the air. The party rushed over to the source of the noise and saw half a dozen wererats scrambling up out of the sewers and slaughtering townsfolk left and right. Being the good natured adventurers that they were, the party stepped in to protect the dwarves.

The battle went well for the most part, though Vincio and Vincent were largely unable to bypass the wererats' DR. The leader of the wererat attack (a wererat rogue) managed to escape with his life, but the rest were put down by the party. The dwarf guardsmen arrived late to the scene, but they were very thankful for the party's intervention.

The PCs were intrigued by the strange attack, and so put aside their search for the ruins and instead began to investigate the fortress-city. More self-generated plot. I like it when they do that!

The party split up while they were out and about gathering clues, so it was rather lucky when Breken noticed that he and Kyshara were being followed by a pair of shady looking fellows. Breken pulled her into a nearby shop and waited to see what their pursuers would do, watching them through a window. The wizard was nearly out of spells at this point, and didn't feel confident in fighting two full-strength enemies, so when it was clear that the thugs were waiting for them outside the front door, he pushed past the shopkeeper and hustled out the back door with Kyshara close behind him.

Once the party had reconvened, he relayed what had happened to the rest of the group. As it turned out, a few Gather Information checks revealed that a) an unusual amount of rats had been seen around the old clock tower, and b) strange sounds have been emanating from a local bookstore called At Time's End. Going on a hunch, they decided to investigate the clock tower.

It didn't take long for the party to find the wererats inside, including the wererat rogue that had escaped them the first time. This time he was backed by a trio of fighters (two of which were the thugs that had been tailing Breken and Kyshara) and a rat swarm. However, with nowhere to run, the wererats were on the losing end of the battle. Breken had been reduced to spamming his wand of magic missile, but that didn't seem to bother him at all.

Note to self: Use tougher enemies.

Though the wererat problem seemed to be dealt with, the party still seemed curious about those strange noises at the book store. Despite the fact that it was night and the party was rather drained of strength, they marched off to investigate.

After all, nothing bad ever happens at night, right?

[VariSami]

Oh yes, still reading. I somehow missed the update before the last.

[Stake A Vamp]

brilliant campaign, though you j=have to admit, durstin kinda reminded me of this (https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR0Gp5843NW1JSdRgCBoV6w-mC3B_ymQ0S_pIz9poflNmDqrCUu)

[SleepyShadow]

Thanks for reading, glad you guys like it :smallbiggrin: I have no idea what that is, Stake, but it looks awesome and you're probably right.

Never What You Would Expect
When the party drew near the area where the bookstore was, the first thing they noticed was the thick fog throughout the streets. It didn't take a ranger to tell them that fog isn't normal in a desert. They proceeded with caution, at least until they heard a scream somewhere nearby. They bolted for the sound, tripping over debris in the alley, fumbling with a garden gate, and I believe Vincent even ran headlong into a wall.

In a narrow side street they found a trio of robed figures struggling to lift and carry off a young woman in full plate. As soon as Vincio caught sight of the holy symbol of Heironeous around her neck, he charged in to defend her, the rest of the party close on his heels. The trio of 5th level wizards were no match for the party, and the fight was over before the villains could even act. They roused the girl, and learned from her that she was a paladin-in-training, and that the majority of the wizards had already left, kidnapping her mentor in the process. Being a priest of Heironeous himself, Vincio insisted that they go rescue her. The rest of the party (other than Elena, who fervently hates paladins) agreed to help rescue the woman.

The party (correctly) assumed that she had been taken to The End of Time bookstore, and quickly made their way there. As they drew near the building, a mingling of strange voices echoed through the fog filled nighttime streets.

"Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Ftahgn!"

The looks I got from my players were priceless :smalltongue:

The genre immediately switched back from horror to action as Vincio kicked down the front door of the bookstore with a mighty battle cry worthy of Heironeous himself! The cultists were taken by surprise, and their numbers were cut in half before the end of the first round. Spells flew wildly throughout the room, demolishing bookshelves, glass cases, and all manor of odd trinkets. One of the cultists literally exploded from the sheer BADASSITUDE of Hikari's "Burning Mountain of the Bladed Hammer!" The cult leader fell to a scythe crit from Elena, and even the cultists' gibbering mouther allies were slaughtered in the relentless onslaught. Kyshara even got a little spotlight when she headshot a rogue with her flintlock rifle before he could sneak attack Breken.

"I wish Call of Cthulhu was more like this," Vincent's player commented.

The cultists were defeated, and the paladin Alma was found imprisoned in the basement. She was released from her shackles and carried out on Vincio's back. Once out of the bookstore, Alma recovered quickly and profusely thanked the party for her rescue. She informed the party that the cultists had kidnapped her to prevent her from stopping "The Great Undoing". Alma didn't know what they meant by that (the cultist leader stopped his underlings from being too explanatory), but she was rather certain that things would go back to normal with all of the cultists dead.

The paladins and the local dwarves hosted a celebration in honor of the PCs' victories, and much food and drink were consumed (by both the characters and we real-life gamers :smallbiggrin:). The session was wrapped up a little earlier than usual, to further emphasize that the trouble was over in Mordendraak.

I am also a devious scoundrel.

The next session started with the PCs staggering out of the tavern the following morning, still a bit hung over and feeling none too keen on the bright daylight. As soon as they were out of the building, they were greeted by someone shouting at them from above. "Hey there, heroes!"

That was when the fiery breath weapon hit.

After the initial shock was over and initiative was rolled, they saw a black armored githyanki riding a red dragon perched atop the tavern. The villainous duo took flight and began to circle the party as onlooking dwarves fled the scene for fear of being caught in the crossfire.

The battle was a brutal one. Breken and Elena went down before they could even kill the githyanki knight. Hikari and Kyshara dropped once the dragon got off his breath weapon again. Vincio even broke the silver amulet and summoned the nymph, but her help wasn't enough to prevent Vincent's defeat. The battle ended with the dragon killing the nymph and carrying Kyshara away in his claws, leaving the badly wounded priest of Heironeous to tend to his fallen comrades. He had just enough spells left to bring them to consciousness, and the battered party limped off to the temple of Moradin in hopes of getting a full recovery.

However, they stopped when they saw a nervous crowd of dwarves gathered around the emperor's tower, where Emperor Gomlar stood making a proclamation. I don't remember word for word what he said (a combination of late night ad-libbing and a couple of Irish coffees), but here's the gist of it:

"These outsiders brought ruin and filth upon us! They disrupted arcane study and completely halted the reclamation of the old clock tower! The very tower *I* commissioned to be built to honor my glory! Outside traders threaten our business! Elven firearms were brought into *my* city! These outsiders sympathize with those Heironeous wenches! They shame the city watch, proving how worthless and incompetent all of you are! Therefore I am issuing two mandates that are effective immediately! First and foremost, those outsider adventurers are the enemy of Mordendraak! They are to be killed on-site, and any of you seen conspiring with them will also be brought to justice! Second, in order to enforce this, I am allowing a gracious body of soldiers free reign in my city. Any who defy them will be put to death!"

The party went from the heroes of Mordendraak to enemies of the state, and the dwarven dictator had just handed the reigns over to the githyanki. The party's troubles were far from over.

[dysprosium]

Subscribed. I always wanted to run the githyanki incursion . . .

[Yora]

As soon as he hinted at the githyanki having airships, it immediately became a group goal to steal one.
You really should give them lots of opportunities. Cruising around raiding supply ships could be incredibly awesome.

[Stake A Vamp]

What yora said!
if they do steal a zepplin, it would invite a zepplin VS. Strafing Githyanki-mounted Red dragon
Just picture it

the githyanki ordered their mounts close with the foe as the came within 30 meters a bolt of brilliant blue electricity struck the closer of the githyanki, and it's mount. the githyanki fell from it's saddle, blade still in hand as it plummeted. the now-riderless dragon was infuriated and loosed it's burning breath at the mage on the airship. The mage had the good sense to, after infuriating a dragon, take cover. as the exhaled inferno ceased, the dragon examined it's handiwork and lamented to see that, while it had damaged the ship badly, it had not felled the Blasted mage. as it inhaled for another gout of flame, a bolt fired from the ships balistia struck it. it hurt badly, the dragon was truly enraged now. just after the balistia was fired, one of the operators was struck by a pale blue ray and collapsed to the floor shuddering. the remaining githyanki, a mage in it's own right, had struck, seeing the balistia as the greatest threat. the rider-less dragon hurled itself at the airship, determined to tear apart the puny mortals who dared to strike it! he crashed headlong into the ship and began to tear at the siding in an attempt to reach the fools. he was met by a warrior, who charged at him and plunged his blade deep into the dragons bosom, through the crack in his armour from the balistia, it finally felt the fear and pain it had inflicted on so many in it;s dying moment, and seconds later it's corpse plummets to join that of it's rider. the remaining githyanki attempts to loose a spell, but as it nears the apex of it's magical energy, an arrow strikes it in the gut, it tries again, this time aiming at the mysterious sniper, and again the sniper is able to interrupt it, however, as it attempted to use it's third incantation, the snipers arrow missed it's mark, and a bolt of lightning struck it, the sniper falling to the floor twitching. just as it is victorious, a bolt from the balistia, whose operators had recovered, struck it, punching through it's sternum. the force of the bolt tears it's corpse from the saddle, and sends it flying down toward the ground below. the dragon, sole remaining foe on the battlefield, felt the full wrath of the air-ships crew. another bolt from the balistia struck it, the mage struck it with some conjured arrow which continued to burn after it struck, and the dragon-slayer loosed a javelin at it with such force that it stuck in it's left foreleg. it made a split second decision and tore into the airship like it's comrade had, this time piercing through the siding and tearing through the wooden floors until it reached it's target, the magical heart of the airship. it bit down and tore out the heart, sinking the airship. as it withdrew it saw the crew jump out and begin to fall as if they weighed little more than a feather. it launched itself at them, determined to destroy these fool. as it sped toward them, the mage, floating as a leaf on the wind,, loosed his final spell, a bolt of ice. the final injury proved too much for the dragon, and as uncontioness engulfed it, he fell, fast and hard, the party touched down several minutes later and surveyed the wrecked ship and mangled corpses of the foe. the dragonslayer spoke first, saying "Brilliant, now we have to steal another airship!"

put some effort into those fights, trust me it will be Legen... wait for it... Dary!

[void7shade]

This is epic! I've ran 2 Incursion campaigns and they were both really fun! Keep up the great work! I enjoy reading your progress!

[SleepyShadow]

Oh, don't worry everyone. They've had a sword fight atop a githyanki battle cruiser, a running aerial battle with a squadron of the equivalent of TIE Fighters, and they've commissioned the gnomes from Thalos to build what amounts to a battle zeppelin. I'm doing my best to catch the journal up to the current point in the campaign, I promise :smallsmile:

Looks Like Team Tiefling Is Blasting Off Again!
The party skulked around town for a bit, looking for a way out of the city, but found that all of the gates were closed and guarded. Since they were still battered from the fight with the dragon, the party chose the better part of valor and headed to where the two human paladins they rescued were staying. When they got there, they found that the ladies had already been captured by the dwarven soldiers without a fight. It was clear (after a Sense Motive check) that the dwarves were equally unhappy with what was happening to their town. Vincent stepped up to the plate to put his Diplomacy skill to work.

The way I run social encounters is that in order to use Bluff/Diplomacy/Gather Information/Intimidate, the player has to roleplay what their character says. Simple enough, and probably how most groups are, but I just wanted to clarify for future reference.

Vincent managed to convince the dwarves to spare the lives of the paladin women, and once tension between the soldiers and the party had simmered down a bit, the dwarves revealed that they had no real choice in what they were doing. If they didn't obey Gomlar and his ruling caste of nobles, the townsfolk themselves would be put to death.

"If we topple this tyrant for you, will you cease hostilities toward us?" Vincio asked.

Perfect. I can't explain how much I had hoped for them to do that :smallbiggrin:

"Alright, you have a deal," the leader of the dwarf squad said.

The party was offered shelter in the tiny shrine to Heironeous, so they rested up with the paladins safeguarding them. Once healed up and ready to go, they began to discuss how to get into the Emperor's tower without being noticed. A few suggestions were thrown out, ranging from "let's see if the sewers will lead us underneath the tower" to "I'll Hulk-jump up the side and lower a rope from a window".

I hadn't actually considered the party taking a stealth approach (very different than how they usually go about things), so I let them banter it out for a while. Finally, the party heard a sharp whistle from the shrine's window as Yojimbo smiled and waved at them.

"Hello once again, my friends," he said as Breken let him in. "You require my council, yes?"

No one questioned where he had come from or how he found them, so Yojimbo didn't bring it up. Eventually the party settled on the sewers (Yojimbo's "council" was hilariously unhelpful, since he had no idea what was going on), and all seemed to be going according to plan until Hikari threw a spanner in the works.

"The paladins are coming too, right?" she asked.

"Yeah, definitely," Vincio said. "I mean, they're paladins. They *have* to help topple an evil dictator."

I honestly couldn't think of a logical reason why the paladin women would stay behind, so I shrugged, scribbled down some stats on some notebook paper, and handed their character sheets to anyone who wanted them. I politely declined doing the same thing with Yojimbo, saying "Nah, I'm fine running one NPC with you guys". Right. Yeah. :smallamused:

Anyway, the group pried open a sewer entrance and began to look around. Once they had a rough idea which way they needed to go, Yojimbo offered to scout ahead for any trouble. The party had already seen his Shadowdancer abilities at work, so no one had any problem with it. After all, "All the world is blind to my passing".

He came back, reporting it was completely safe "although a tad slippery on the walkways", so the group marched in single file along the catwalk just above the level of sewer water. I believe it was Breken who postulated that "with the amount of alcohol dwarves consume, this place is like super flammable". The idea of a fiery ball of sewage being used as a bomb was joked about and then forgotten.

True to his word, Yojimbo guided the party safely through the tunnels. He had even "managed to find" a secret passage that led up to the tower's cellar. Great! The party entered, no questions asked, and lo and behold the secret passage led up to the cellar. Once again Yojimbo offered to scout ahead, and once again the party accepted his suggestion.

"I don't like him going off by himself," Vincio said. "We'll probably have to rescue him."

"Yeah, more than likely," Elena replied. "Stupid ninja-wannabe is gonna ruin everything."

Yojimbo returned unharmed, and said that while he had been forced to kill a guard (still no Sense Motives? Okay then), the passage above led right to where Gomlar was at. The party saw no evidence of a dead guard or any sort of violence at all, but it was immediately dismissed as "ninja stealth kill" without even mentioning it to Yojimbo. The party busts into the room that he indicated, and found Gomlar ready for a fight. With him were Damiano and Feliciana, the two tieflings the party had violently evicted from their keep back in Branlec.

The battle was underway, and things looked like the party had the advantage until Yojimbo's turn came around. He sneak attacked the paladin apprentice from full health to somewhere below -20 hp. Combat ceased for a moment as he flicked her corpse off of his katana.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Breken asked, clearly worried since Yojimbo was directly adjacent to him.

"Do you know what a geas is?" Yojimbo questioned.

"Yeah, why?"

"The githyanki queen ... she got to me long before I even met you folk. I was simply tasked with infiltrating and eliminating resistance to her cause."

"You don't have to fight us!" Hikari cried.

"Actually, he does," Vincio replied. "It'll kill him if he disobeys, and no way in hell any of us can dispel it."

"Right you are, my friend," Yojimbo said somberly. "I would rather die in battle against you all then slowly wither away in a painful death. I have no choice!"

"There has to be something we can do," Hikari insisted.

Breken shook his head. "I wish there was, but we can't stop the spell."

"Fine then," Vincent said. "I'll fight Yojimbo. You guys take care of the dwarf and the tieflings."

Yojimbo gripped his katana tightly and aimed the tip of the blade at Vincent's chest. "No redemption, no second chances. To die in battle is an honor, but Hell will take my heart no matter what!"

Proof that none of my players ever played Baldur's Gate 2.

With the battle suddenly going from 8v3 to 6v4, things were not as easy as the party had hoped. However, Yojimbo was no match for Vincent one-on-one, and Breken was clearly better at being a wizard than Damiano. Gomlar was able to take quite a beating from Hikari, Elena, and Alma, but he ultimately went down. Unfortunately, the round before he died, he scored a rather hefty crit on Hikari and cleaved her head from her shoulders.

First party death, everyone!

With Yojimbo and Gomlar dead, and Damiano unconscious, Feliciana picked up her conjurer companion and leaped out the window. Breken was having done of this, and fired of his almighty 'Fell Drain Scorching Ray' at the fleeing tiefling woman.

He rolled a 2.

Not only did he miss, but Feliciana was finally given a chance to use spell reflection, the AFC that replaced her rogue evasion (since she already had it from monk). She spun around and kicked the ray back at Breken, who promptly exploded to his own near-max damage spell.

Party death #2, and hilarity ensued.

[VariSami]

Geas, eh? So obvious yet I have never even considered the possibilities. And Spell Reflection also seems like something i should use some time. Too bad most of my players prefer using melee and area blasting.

[Orran]

Loving this, the 2 party deaths were good too. Keeping them on their toes. Toppling dictators is hard work.

[Brookshw]

Sleepyshadow - impressive sir! I have to admit the first few posts read like bullet points to some extent (sorry, I mean this constructively), but that last post and the hypothetical airship theft really drew out more of your descriptive side and really helped reader immersion! Well done:smallbiggrin: I look forward to continued reading!

[SleepyShadow]

Thanks for the support everyone :smallbiggrin: I'm glad you guys enjoy reading my group's shenanigans. Brookshw, I appreciate the constructive feedback. I apologize if my posts can be a little description-light at times; I'm trying to mash three or so sessions together into each post while I'm trying to catch up to our current predicament. I'll try to be a bit more descriptive.

The Fellowship of The Incursion
The party spent about a week relaxing in the city while they recovered from their ordeal. The party only had enough funds for one Raise Dead, so after much table deliberation they decided to bring back Breken, while Hikari rolled up a new character. Breken himself took up a personal crusade to kill Feliciana for killing him, or as he put it, for her "Stupid ass monk bullsh*t".

The party received a messenger from Thalos, who requested their presence immediately since they were reported to be heroes of great reknown. He was a bit character, but I vaguely recall roleplaying him like The Scout from TF2. The party accepted his invitation to meet with the war council being held by Princess Almira, and so they left the newly christened People's Republic of Mordenguard and headed north for the kingdom of Thalos.

As an aside, Elena's player decided to retire his character to try out something new. Although he liked the hexblade's damage output he felt that his new character would be more versatile. We wouldn't know what his new character would be until two sessions later. He's very meticulous with his character builds. So Elena parted ways with the group to become an NPC off somewhere else.

Several random encounters later, the (now much smaller) party at last arrived at the war-torn kingdom of Thalos. Princess Almira's father had been assassinated last month, so now the burden of ruling fell upon her young shoulders. At least, that's how it was initially presented. As soon as the party entered the council chamber inside the palace, the real story became apparent. Almira's uncle, Nerull's High Priest Ahmut, constantly stood at her side with his hand on her shoulder. When he introduced himself before the new queen spoke, the party realized that he was the one that was really in charge.

Over the course of an hour, an odd assortment of representatives arrived in the council chamber. A grey elf from Ravilla, a dwarf from Mordenguard, a hobgoblin from the desert, a gnoll priest from Naresh, and a drow woman from House Veljiss. Once the party realized that it wasn't immediately time to roll for initiative, the grey elf stated that prior hostilities among the various nations needed to be set aside to deal with this global threat. It was at this point that everyone in the room (except for downtrodden Almira) turned to the party for guidance.

"Aren't these guys higher level than us?" Vincent's player asked me.

"Most everyone here is either a Noble or an Expert," I explained. "Having a level or two on you really doesn't matter."

Breken's player looked astonished. "So these guys are the best and brightest around?"

"No," I replied. "You guys are."

With the OOC chatting done, the party got down to deliberation with the war council. They learned that Thalish elite were paladins of Heironeous as well as gnome craftsmen, Ravillan grey elves primarily fielded warblades, Mordenguard had few soldiers to offer but their masons were the best in the land, the hobgoblins had a strong military but were so isolated that coordinating an attack would be difficult, the gnolls of Naresh specialized in guerrilla warfare, and that House Veljiss was the only faction from The Vault willing to aid the surface races.

"The other houses are blinded by arrogance," the drow representative explained, "but our high priestess received a vision from Lloth portending our race's extinction if we stood idly by. Do not think we are helping out of charity. We fight for self-preservation, just as all of you do."

Not surprisingly, the party decided to take on all important missions themselves. When the gnoll complained that the party was trying to take all of the glory of war, Vincio made a "brilliant" suggestion.

"You could send a single soldier or something with us," he said, "that way your people get credit for saving the world as well."

"All of you should do that!" Vincent chimed in.

"If they do that, we'll have a nine-man group," Breken said. "It'll be like the Lord of the Rings, except without Frodo's whining."

"Perfect!" Vincent exclaimed. "The Fellowship of the Incursion is official!"

Great ... :smallsigh:

[SleepyShadow]

Party Mix Up and Hilarity Ensues.
The players were quite insistent on bringing along a representative from each of the factions present, so I was left with little choice but to bring a bevy of NPCs ready to go the next session. Luckily, the newly introduced PC was a wood elf, so Jarah became the de facto representative of Ravilla. With that established, and the other new PC still not ready, the party was introduced to quite the group:

Malgrim, the gnoll ranger.
Lualara, the drow bard/warblade.
Sir Befrin, the human knight/paladin.
Hogan "The Rock" Stonecold, the dwarf fighter.
Galior, the hobgoblin samurai.

Just in case anyone got crafty, I made sure that all of the NPCs were two levels lower than the party on the off-chance someone wanted a Leadership cohort. With the LOTR soundtrack playing on my laptop, the hideously large party set off for Stratusfall, the place where Malgrim had seen githyanki scouts lurking around. The gnoll ranger explained that Stratusfall was a lake, fed by a waterfall, where the ancient god of war was reputed to slumber. Malgrim feared that the githyanki were attempting to reawaken Stratus from his eternal sleep.

As the party traveled, they began to learn the NPCs' strengths and weaknesses in battle. It soon became apparent that Malgrim, Lualara, and Galior were the party favorites, for personality if not function. However, tragedy struck during a nighttime attack by a rather nasty random encounter: a pair of fiendish dire bears. During the fight, Galio and Hogan were both killed by the fiendish creatures' bear hands. Sorry, I can't resist an unbearable pun when I see one :smalltongue:

Vincio was also killed in this fight, and thus the string of repeated deaths for this unfortunate cleric began. He was hugged to death by the demonic carebears. In an effort to commemorate his valiant and frequent deaths, I shall start a count for him.

Vincio Owned Count: 1

Immediately following this battle, Breken contracted the dreaded Vanishing Plague, and it was rumored that he was dragged down to hell to fight a balrog so that the rest of the party could pass. With the wizard gone, the remainder of the party made their way through the dense forests of Ravilla to the nearest elven village in order to resurrect Vincio. Lualara opted to wait outside of town so that she wouldn't feel the urge to "slaughter some bleached out knife-ears". Oddly enough Vincent decided to hang out with her.

The priest gave the party a discount since Jarah was a local, and so by the end of the day Vincio was back on his feet. The party camped outside of town to avoid any trouble with the locals.

"The Fellowship has failed," Sir Befrin muttered as he roasted a rabbit over the campfire.

"You're a knight of Heironeous," Vincio reprimanded him. "Keep a stiff upper lip. You're representing both our Queen and our church, after all."

"I can't blame him for feeling gloomy," Lualara chimed in.

"Neither can I," Vincent agreed. "We lost a third of our companions and we don't have a way to bring them back."

Jarah piped up in her best Romanian accent. "We cannot give up hope now, or eet will all have been for nozing. Zis iz too important to fail."

"You're right," Vincio replied. "We'll set out in the morning."

"Let's hunt some gith," Malgrim said with a nod.

The next morning the six of them headed out, following Malgrim's expert knowledge of the land. The gnoll lead them safely through the woods, and the party arrived at the base of a mountain. Malgrim explained to everyone that the mountains had once belonged to a large tribe of minotaurs, but they turned on their Naresh allies in a surprising act of betrayal. The gnolls pushed back, and when the bloody battle was over the entire tribe of minotaurs had been eradicated.

"None escaped the slaughter," Malgrim growled darkly. "Now these mountains and the tunnels beneath act as a barrier between Naresh and Ravilla."

Travel through the mountain tunnels was going well until the party was ambushed by a pair of zombie minotaurs, which Malgrim assured the party hadn't been there last week when he had made the trip the first time. The battle was harsh, and although the party was successful in defeating them, a few bad rolls caused the deaths of both Vincio and Jarah. The battle dancer held her own in hand-to-hand combat with a zombie for several rounds but was ultimately defeated, while Vincio was on the receiving end of a Minotaur Grand Slamma Jamma, or a max damage greataxe crit.

Vincio Owned Count: 2

Jarah's player was excited to have died (she hated the battle dancer for some reason), so Vincent was left with the decision of what to do about Vincio. He knew that the party was on a timeline, but he didn't know how long he had before the villains succeeded at whatever they were doing. I had given them ten days, and I knew that the bad guys would be finished if Vincent went back to town to resurrect Vincio again. Since he was indecisive, he turned to the remaining NPCs to help him noodle it out.

"Befrin, what do you think we should do?" Vincent asked.

"It's Sir Befrin, thank you," the knight replied crossly. "As for what we should do, there is no clearer choice. We must restore Vincio to life. He's a priest of Heironeous!"

"Lualara?" Vincent questioned.

"He died twice in two days. Let him rot," she replied.

Vincent was getting worried now. "Um, Malgrim? Any thoughts?"

"We may be too late if we return to the elves," the ranger answered thoughtfully, "but we may not be strong enough if we press on in our current condition."

Despite my best efforts to be unhelpful, Vincent was finally able to make up his mind :smallwink:

The party returned to the elves and spent every last gold coin they had on a second resurrection for Vincio. I knew that the githyanki forces had just scored a major victory, and I was quite certain my players were in for a surprise when they finally got to Stratusfall.

[tomandtish]

Party Mix Up and Hilarity Ensues.
During the fight, Galio and Hogan were both killed by the fiendish creatures' bear hands. Sorry, I can't resist an unbearable pun when I see one :smalltongue:


Groan. That was unbearably painful.

[Palanan]

Reading and enjoying. This is the campaign journal I've been looking for: action, fun, hilarity, global doom. And, apparently, the birth of dwarven socialism on the side.

Waiting eagerly for the next installment, yar.

[SleepyShadow]

Thanks for bearing with me; my schedule is a bit odd. Glad you guys like the journal :smallbiggrin:

"... And That's How I Became A Halfling."
Vincio was resurrected, and the newest party member was added to the roster. This time the battle dancer was replaced by an elven druid with her 8 intelligence played to a tee. Acacia made her introductions to the party in the city, and the intrepid group set off once more for Stratusfall.

No, Elena's player still wasn't done with his character.

Malgrim was once more assigned to lead the party, since the gnoll ranger was the most knowledgeable of the area. He led them quickly back to the minotaur tunnels, past the area where the zombies had ambushed them, and into a large circular room.

"Big dumb boss fight?" Vincio's player asked.

"Big dumb boss fight," I replied with a nod.

Stomping into the room was a massive creature stitched together from gnoll corpses. It had two heads and four arms, each hand wielding a hefty battle axe. This modified flesh golem blender of death proved quite effective, but ultimately fell to the party's sheer damage output.

"What mockery is this?!" Malgrim shouted in rage.

Vincent proved bad at calming down the ranger. "Hey, relax, the thing is dead now, right? No big deal."

"That thing was fashioned from my people's fallen soldiers!" the gnoll shouted. "The bodies were fresh! Someone is slaughtering my people!"

"How do you know the bodies were fresh?" Acacia asked.

"They show little sign of decay," Vincio answered. "Indicating that death occurred within the past twelve hours."

"Thanks Grissom," Vincent snorted. "Let's go."

The party hurried through the tunnels, doing their best to keep up with Malgrim's rapid pace. The tunnel sloped upward, and they soon squinted under the welcome glare of daylight. However, as soon as they broke the surface, Vincent contracted the dreaded Vanishing Plague, leaving Vincio and Acacia, along with the three remaining NPCs, to deal with whatever lay in store.

The party crept along a rocky ledge that overlooked Stratusfall. The lake was surrounded by a small army of skeletal warriors, and on the other side the party saw three githyanki soldiers conversing with a tall figure swathed in black robes. Malgrim's howl of rage at the sight of the slain gnolls was matched by Vincio's own shout when he recognized the robed figure.

"Ahmut!"

The high priest of Nerull turned to see what the commotion was about while the three githyanki soldiers Dimension Door'd out of there, taking with them a strange red flask. Ahmut gripped his red-bladed scythe tightly, the army of dead began to crawl up the side of the ledge, and initiative was rolled for.

The party cut through the skeletons like cheese, using the high terrain advantage to keep the undead from surrounding them. Ahmut proved far more difficult to deal with. His offensive spells pummeled the party mercilessly, and his high AC and HP proved troublesome to overcome. Acacia and Malgrim focused all of their attacks and spells against the evil priest, while Vincio, Lualara, and Sir Befrin held the line at the edge of the cliff against the undead that threatened to overwhelm the party.

For a moment I was worried that the encounter would prove too much with three party members gone, but a high damage critical hit from Malgrim's bow coupled with a failed reflex save against Acacia's Flame Strike proved just enough to finish off Ahmut. The skeletons crumbled into ash when the priest died, since there was no real point in making the party hack through twenty or so CR 1 critters. Victory was savored, XP was given, and Ahmut's body was searched for goodies.

Among the loot they found on the priest the party found a crumpled up note in his pocket. Plot Senses tingling, Vincio eagerly unfolded the paper and read the short message aloud.

"Once the soul of Stratus has been absorbed by my phylactery, be sure to return with it immediately. This will secure my immortality and our inevitable victory.

-Vlaakith."

"That's ... bad," Acacia said after a good hard thought.

"Well goddammit, the Lich Queen is even more powerful. Now what do we do?" Vincio asked irritably.

"I will return to my people to survey the damage," Malgrim said as he shouldered his bow.

Lualara gave a sigh and a shrug. "I guess I'll be off to tell the Matron we screwed up."

As the gnoll and the drow parted company with the party, Sir Befrin grinned excitedly at Vincio and Acacia. "Don't worry, I'll stick with you until the end!"

"I was afraid he'd say that," Vincio grumbled.

Disheartened, the trio made their way back the way they came, intent on reporting to Queen Almira what had transpired. Unfortunately, luck was not on their side during their jaunt through the woods of Ravilla. A rather nasty troll, with just enough wisdom to have a few levels of psychic warrior, ambushed them in a ravine. Sir Befrin died horribly, and the troll managed to kill Vincio just before the ticking damage from Acacia's Creeping Cold spell knocked it out.

Vincio Owned Count: 3

The druid bashed the troll with a lit torch until it died, and then turned her attention to the fallen cleric. I believe the conversation I had with her went something like this:

"I'm going to cast Reincarnate on Vincio," she said.

"You need oils and stuff," I reminded her. "Do you have that sort of thing?"

"Duh, she's an elf girl. Of course she has sex oils and incense and ****."

"Um ... I guess that works, just ... mark off the gold from your inventory."

An hour later, a very naked halfling fellow wandered into the camp, drawn their by some unknown force that pulled on the strings of his very soul.

"Wait, I'm a halfling?" Vincio cried out.

Acacia nodded and smiled. "That's what the chart said."

The little cleric looked at her, dumbfounded. Fourth Wall, rest in peace. We hardly knew ye.

[SleepyShadow]

From Bad to Worse
After a good bit of griping about having lost four feet of height, some strength, and an incarnum point, Vincio found some cold comfort in that his family equipment magically resized itself to fit his new body.

"How are we supposed to defeat Vlaakith?" Vincio asked sadly. "We were a group of nine, and now we're the only two left. Hell, you barely joined a few days ago."

"Maybe we'll find help back in Thalos," Acacia suggested brightly. Also, I have a dinosaur!"

It was about this point that she finally finished writing up her animal companion, and so the nasty little swindlespitter dinosaur came leaping out of a bush and failed miserably in its attempt to tackle Vincio. The little raptor-like creature then perched on Acacia's shoulder and sat there quietly.

"Don't let it eat me," was all Vincio had to say about it.

As the two of them resumed their trek back to the capitol of Thalos, they finally encountered their newest party member and replacement for Elena. The new character (http://static.tumblr.com/hokc2hw/yQom0zhaa/yuffie_ac.jpeg) introduced herself as Scarlet, and when I realized no one else caught on to who the character was ripping off, I felt the sudden urge to make everyone go play FF7 :smallannoyed:

Anyway, the trio made it just outside Thalos when they came upon a lone gnome skulking around the tall grasses. He wore the blue sash of a Thalish officer, so the party trusted Captain Gammal quickly enough. He informed them that Thalos had been occupied by githyanki forces, and he was trying to rally the troops for a counter attack to push the invaders out of the city. However, they had captured Queen Almira, and Gammal was not going to risk an assault when the young queen's life was at stake. Vincio quickly volunteered to rescue her, and the rest of the party agreed. Captain Gammal led them to a secret tunnel that he and several civilians had used to make their escape. He informed them that there were many such old tunnels beneath the city, but only officers in the military were permitted knowledge of the entrances' locations.

"Hey," Vincio's player asked me rather suddenly, "I'm almost level nine. Can I take Leadership when I level up?"

"Yeah, sure," I answered, "just remember my rule. You can only have an NPC that you've met as a cohort."

"That's fine. I wanted to bring Willowry along," he replied with a smile.

It honestly took me a minute to remember who he was referring to, but a quick review of my notes told me she was that halfling lass from the Durstin commonwealth. I shrugged and gave her a couple more levels as the party crawled through the gnome tunnels beneath the city. The tunnel eventually opened up into a cellar guarded by two gnome sentries. When the soldiers saw that the group of strangers was accompanied by Captain Gammal, they let the party pass.

Once on the surface again, the gnome sentries informed the party that their scouts had determined that Queen Almira was being held at one of three locations: the old wizard's tower, the temple of Nerull, or the palace itself. Acacia offered to wildshape into a bird to scout out the city, which seemed like a good idea to everyone else. While she was away, Vincent made his miraculous return. Vincio and Scarlet heard a great commotion coming from the cellar entrance, and found Vincent being accosted by Captain Gammal. The gnome captain was far more gentle with the halfling lass who surrendered quietly.

"Willowry, what are you doing here?" Vincio asked, actually surprised.

"Is ... is that you, Vincio?" she asked hesitantly.

"Good to see you too, Vincio," Vincent grumbled.

The born-again halfling nodded. "Yeah, I'm Vincio. It's a long story."

"I came looking for you," Willowry explained. "I decided I couldn't be at the commonwealth when I knew all of this terrible war was going on. I wanted to do what I could to help."

"That's great! You're more than welcome to join us, Willowry," Vincio said happily.

"Easy, cowboy," I informed his player. "She's not a cohort until you level, so she'll be getting a share of the experience just like a party member until you level."

"I'm alright with that," he replied. "She's a rogue/sorcerer, and that's going to be really nice to have around. Besides, she seemed to be a likable character to me, so I'd rather have her around than some bitch who's more mechanically potent."

I couldn't help but smile at his reply.

Accacia returned to the group, introductions were made all around, and info was discussed. The druid had seen that the palace was guarded by a fierce-looking red dragon, and that the temple was being patrolled by undead warriors. The wizards tower was only lightly guarded by a small contingent of githyanki soldiers.

"I doubt Almira is at the tower," Scarlet said.

"We may want to check it out anyway," Vincio suggested. "It's the closest of the three and it has the least opposition to get inside. Better we start with the easy levels first, you know?"

I cursed silently. My bluff hadn't been seen through, it was being treated like a tutorial mission. I had really wanted to say that their princess was at another castle!

[Yora]

Remember the rules of Schrödingers Gun. No element of the game world or plot is actually fixed before the players interact with it.

[SleepyShadow]

I suppose that's true, Yora. I just felt like changing Almira's location just to make the players work harder would be like cheating, you know?

It's Like That Tower Level in Soul Calibur
Stealth was not the party's specialty, and so they were quickly spotted outside of the tower. The githyanki soldiers rallied whom they could, and the party was met in glorious combat at the tower's base. The PCs were outnumbered two to one. Did that even cause them to bat an eye? Not at all! Vincent had Cleave!

The githyanki warriors fought valiantly, but they were no match for the party. Still, the encounter gave them a few good licks and they proceeded more cautiously once inside the tower. 'Caution' is a relative term for the group that really only meant having Willowry search for traps before kicking down a door. Out of curiosity more than anything else, they began their sweep of the tower with the basement. The basement was the laboratory for the wizard who used to own the tower, but since his death several of his magical experiments had escaped their cages and now roamed free. One of them (a rather nasty chimera) had decided not to leave, and was none too pleased about having a bunch of upstart adventurers in its den.

Vincent ended up going down to the beast's repeated full attacks, but no one actually died in the fight. The creature was killed, and a sad amount of loot was discovered.

After Vincio healed up the party, they made their way to the second floor of the tower, where they had a brief skirmish with another group of githyanki. Not even bothering to loot them, the PCs trudged up the tower, where they were finally met with a proper challenge.

A lone githyanki, wielding a spiked chain, challenged them to honorable combat. The party had none of this "fight me one on one" nonsense, and attacked him en masse. The swordsage put up a much better fight than I expected him to. With his reach, Stand Still, and counter maneuvers, he was able to keep the party at bay for several rounds before finally succumbing to the sustained spellfire from Willowry and Acacia.

The forth level of the tower brought the party's advance to a screetching halt. The clay golem that guarded the level beat down the party so badly that they were forced to retreat, dragging both unconscious Scarlet and Vincio back down to the third floor. It even managed to kill off Acacia's animal companion. Vincio was actually killed, but Acacia used Last Breath or whatever that one round resurrection spell druids have is called. Still, I declare it!

Vincio Owned Count: 4

Since I didn't want to party wipe them, the golem did not pursue the party down the stairs. Acacia did what she could to patch up Vincio, who took over for the healing once he was conscious again.

"What do we do about that thing?" Vincent asked.

"Do we know anything about golems?" Scarlet questioned.

Vincio shook his head. "Not a damned thing."

"Magic doesn't work on them," Acacia said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Good work, Druid Obvious," Scarlet groaned.

Vincent spoke up again, sounding a little more hopeful. "What if we wait for its Haste spell to wear off? We should be able to handle it then."

"How long will that take?" Willowry asked timidly.

Vincio knew the answer to that. "Should be down in about ten minutes."

"Easy enough to wait that out," Scarlet said. "It sounds like a terrible idea though."

"I didn't say it was a good idea, I just said it was an idea," Vincent countered.

"It's the only one we have," Vincio said. "Let's try it."

Vincio blew all of his remaining spells healing up everyone as much as he could, Acacia used a couple of buffs, and they sat around for about ten minutes before they marched back up the stairs all full of fire and vinegar. Now that the golem was only getting two attacks instead of three, and because it had not recovered any lost hp, the clay guardian went down on attempt #2. Believing that they did not have time to rest in the tower, the PCs soldiered on upstairs to the fifth and final floor of the tower.

Who should await them but the indomitable Team Tiefling! Unfortunately, both Damiano and Feliciana lost initiative. The party focused all of their remaining firepower on Damiano, and the flat-footed wizard went down in the first round of combat. Per usual, Feliciana grabbed him by the belt and leaped out the tower window, escaping with her boots of flight.

Looks like Team Tiefling is blasting off again!!!

[SleepyShadow]

Better than Brindol
Deciding on a hunch to examine the room a bit more thoroughly, the party discovered a secret door hidden behind the tieflings' bed. Vincent tossed the bed aside and he and Vincio pulled open the hidden door, revealing Queen Almira held prisoner in a tiny chamber.

"Wait, she was at the first place she looked?" Vincio asked, puzzled.

"I totally thought that the Nerull priests had her," Vincent said with a shrug.

"I am glad that you've come to my aid," Almira said, "and not a moment too soon. Our allies from Mordenguard and Naresh should arrive this morning and will help push the githyanki out of the city. We must aid them!"

"Wait a second, we just rescued you and now you want to rush off to battle?" Vincent asked.

"Not yet," Almira replied coolly. "I'm going to need a weapon, obviously."

"Why isn't Ravilla sending any help?" Acacia asked.

Queen Almira sighed and shook her head sadly. "I wish I knew. They seemed determined to isolate themselves in this war."

Suddenly, the sound of deep horns blared throughout the city. The party rushed to the window and saw the golden armor of the Mordenguard glinting in the light of the rising sun. The quickly assembled forces of Thalos marched alongside their dwarven allies, and a small contingent of gnolls brought up the rear, ready to assist with hit-and-run attacks once inside the city.

"There they are!" Almira cried excitedly as she rushed for the door.

"Wait!" Vincio shouted.

Almira turned to the halfling, one hand still on the doorknob. Vincio tossed her the shortsword that he had purchased at character creation and had neither used nor gotten rid of. With a nod of thanks, the young woman turned and led the way back down the stairs, the party hot on her heels.

It was at this point that I stole a page almost directly out of the Red Hand of Doom adventure. For the city battle, I used a similar CR pacing as the Battle of Brindol, but I did my best to have them flow together more naturally, rather than having Colonel Cambell call the PCs on their codec the wizard tell them what to do.

The party was very protective of Almira as they slaughtered their way through droves of githyanki warriors. They never let her engage more than one at a time, they prevented the enemy from setting up a flank on her, and I don't think Vincent ever got more than ten feet away from her. All of this despite the fact that Almira (a 7th level duskblade) had proven herself capable in combat.

"I don't care if she's good," Vincio's player said at some point. "If she dies than we've effectively destabilized an entire nation."

The party fought their way to where Malgrim, Lualara, Alma, and Captain Gammal fought back to back against the surrounding horde of githyanki forces. It seemed that the four of them had been cut off from their unit.

"Let's go!" Vincent cried as he charged into the throng of enemy soldiers.

Fighting side by side with the NPCs, the party beat back the overwhelming githyanki forces and enabled Malgrim and company to rejoin the main force of the army. Suddenly, a black shadow passed overhead. Soldiers of all stripes fled and scattered as the red dragon swooped down to engage the party.

"How dare you sully my good name like this?" the creature roared.

"That voice," Acacia said, recognizing him by sound alone. "That's the dragon that kidnapped Kyshara!"

"Damn, you're right!" Vincio agreed.

"Kick his ass!" Scarlet cried.

The battle was fierce, and looking back I'm really glad I had decided not to upgrade the dragon from the last time the party fought him. The only difference was that he cast mage armor on himself before he began to steam roller the party. Willowry ended up being quite the star player in this fight, because while the dragon's 32 AC was laughing off the party's melee attacks, his 11 touch AC ate an awful lot of lesser acid orbs from the little halfling sorceress. About halfway through the battle, Vincio ate a full power attack bite crit from the dragon and died horribly.

Vincio Owned Count: 5

Luckily Acacia was able to revive him with her second Revivify spell, and a couple rounds later the dragon at last lay dead in the city street, his blood running down the gutters and dribbling into the sewers.

"This is so much better than the city fight you ran," Vincent's player said to Vincio's player.

"I was just running a module," he countered.

"Well yeah, I know. I'm not saying you did a bad job," Vincent's player said. "I'm just saying it felt like playing Star Fox with all the NPCs telling us what to do."

"Do a barrel roll!" we all shouted in unison.

"Do you think we won?" Acacia's player asked.

"No chance," Scarlet's player said.

Vincio's player agreed. "Definitely not. The dragon was like a sub-boss or something."

"Hey, at least we leveled from him," Vincent's player said with a grin.

Scarlet's player was less enthused. "I don't feel like I did much."

"Use your maneuvers more," I suggested. "You are a warblade, after all."

"I don't like Tome of Battle," Scarlet's player said.

"So why are you playing a warblade?"

"Because I have to be one to get into Bloodstorm Blade. Duh."

I was at a loss for words, but about this time everyone was done leveling up their characters, so I was able to start off the next encounter with a bang. Literally!

[Doorhandle]

"So why are you playing a warblade?"

"Because I have to be one to get into Bloodstorm Blade. Duh."

The attitude is understandable. Who DOENS'T want to throw swords at people?

Awesome campaign journal by the way.

[SleepyShadow]

The attitude is understandable. Who DOENS'T want to throw swords at people?

Awesome campaign journal by the way.

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Work has been crazy lately, and I've also been editing the YouTube videos my friends and I have been making. Thanks for the patience.

Big Dumb Boss Fights
An explosion was heard down the street, and the party raced in that direction, Queen Almira right behind them. They saw a lone githyanki walking away from the decimated ruins of several gnome constructs. He turned his attention to the party.

"So you are those upstarts I've heard so mu-"

"He's trying to monologue! Quick, get him!" Vincent shouted.

Willowry let loose with a fireball spell and caught him dead center in the blast. To the party's dismay, the githyanki in the trench coat walked out of the fiery debris completely unscathed.

"Freaking evasion..." Scarlet grumbled.

The githyanki pulled out his twin hand crossbows and the battle commenced. He managed beating the party in initiative and let loose volley after folley after volley. Every time he threatened a critical hit, he got another attack, and if he confirmed the crit he got another attack. Thanks to Blood in the Water stance, his damage output kept growing and growing. At the end of his turn he had dropped Acacia and Almira and almost brought down Vincio as well.

It turned out putting on such an impressive display was a good thing, because the rest of the party engaged in melee and killed him before the start of the next round :smallsigh:

After patching up their wounds and looting the githyanki gunslinger, the party turned their attention to the palace.They had received word that the leaders of the army had been spotted there, but until now the party had been too busy dealing with more imminent threats. However, the time had come to route the invading army!

"There's a secret passage that leads inside the palace from the rear," Almira informed them. "If the giths haven't found it, we could use it to get behind their lines."

"That's a good idea," Vincio replied.

The party followed the Thalish and dwarven troops as they fought the githyanki toward the palace. The fighting was fierce and bloody between the two sides, but inch by inch the githyanki were being pushed back. The party only caught fleeting glimpses of Malgrim and his guerrilla unit of gnolls, but they seemed to make an impact wherever they showed up.

The secret entrance at the back of the palace was unguarded and locked, and the party seemed relieved not to have to fight through who knows how many layers of defenders to reach the githyanki generals. The passageway was narrow and choked with cobwebs, but Vincent cleared the way forward. He made sure to keep the queen directly behind him in order to protect her better. Although she had proven herself capable in combat, she was lower level than the party and equipped only with what could be scrounged off the dead. The party knew she was a liability, but one they had to keep safe.

The secret passage led to the council chamber where the enemy commanders were busy discussing plans. Team Villain consisted of a psion, an archivist, a Setting Sun style unarmed swordsage, a hexblade, and a goliath bard/crusader.

Lets get ready to rumble!!!

The enemy team was coordinated, efficient, and ruthless. The party was on the losing end of the fight for the first half, and could not seem to make any headway against them. Quite literally, the only reason the party won at all was because Acacia managed to polymorph the archivist into a toad about halfway through the battle. Even with the spellcasting advantage taken away, the enemy team gave the party a good run for their money. By the end of the TWO HOUR battle, only Vincio and Scarlet remained standing.

However, the victorious cheers outside the palace let the party know that their allies had triumphed. The day was theirs for all time!

[VariSami]

That gunslinger sounds fun. Care to share the gist of his build? I think I have heard of such a trick using psionics but I cannot remember the exact feats and powers necessary.

[SleepyShadow]

The gist of his build was Roundabout Kick and Lightning Maces while he was wielding Adaptive Hand Crossbows.

[Stake A Vamp]

permission to plug my own campaign journal, as people reading this thread seem to like campaign journals?

[Yora]

The gist of his build was Roundabout Kick and Lightning Maces while he was wielding Adaptive Hand Crossbows.
Damn, man! That's some really smelly cheese you brought to that fight there.

Not that it did any good. :smallbiggrin:

[SleepyShadow]

Damn, man! That's some really smelly cheese you brought to that fight there.

Not that it did any good. :smallbiggrin:

Never doubt the power of player determination. It is a mighty thing that can topple worlds.

Oh Right, We Had Plot in the Desert
After a week or so of rest and celebration, a dwarf messenger informed the party that the fabled Ruins of Gith had been unearthed as the party had requested. The messenger suggested that the party hurry to the desert, since The People's Republic of Mordenguard was making a mass migration to their ancestral homeland in the mountains north of Thalos.

"Ruins of Gith?" Scarlet asked.

"It's where Gith is buried," Vincio replied. "We had asked the dwarves to find it for us while we took care of business up here."

Vincent gave a massive grin. "I love it when NPCs are helpful."

Before the party departed for the desert, Vincent announced that his newly gained feat was Leadership. Queen Almira was naturally off-limits, so instead he chose to bring along Lualara. And lo, the chaotic neutral drow warblade/bard joined the party and foretold of wonderful times to be had by all.

The journey south was long and uneventful, punctuated only by several brief random encounters. Once they arrived at Mordenguard, the dwarves marked the location of the ruins on the party's map. The PCs rested up and headed out at daybreak.

"So let's be honest here," Vincent said. "Does anyone actually remember why we're going to these ruins?"

"To get Gith," Vincio answered.

"The girl that's been dead for three thousand years?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because the githyanki want to destroy her body."

"So what you're telling me is that our logic to this mission is 'do it because it directly contradicts the desires of the bad guys'?"

"Pretty much."

"Works for me."

The journey to the ruins was uneventful, and the party arrived at the ancient tower that jutted from the shifting sands. Without hesitation, the party entered. Acacia's pet pterodactyl was too big to fit in the ruins, so they left it outside to guard the camels.

The first obstacle within the ruins was quite unusual. A large room guarded by a trio of skeletal warriors riding inside an armored battle wagon that was pulled by four skeletal war horses. The skeletons got a couple of good hits in, but they were smashed to pieces in only a few rounds. The highlight of the battle was when Vincio made a running leap to get inside the battle wagon and flung the driver to the ground.

With their foes overcome, the party ventured deeper down inside the ancient tower. At length they came upon a fork in the road, with a door to the left and right while the passage itself continued straight ahead.

"I vote left," Vincent said.

Vincio nodded curtly. "Agreed."

"Why do you two always want to go left?" Acacia asked.

"We never go right. Snow monkeys..." they replied with a shudder.

"Jeez, I said I was sorry about that years ago," I grumbled.

Taking the left door, the party found a small room with a statue of a man that was missing its head and right arm. It was at this point that the party created its own side quest.

"It radiates Conjuration magic," Vincio informed the party after a few minutes of scrutiny.

"What activates it?" Scarlet asked.

"No clue," the halfling said.

Vincent snapped his fingers excitedly. "Dude, we need to find the head and arm."

"That's a great idea!" Acacia exclaimed.

I shrugged my shoulders and went with it. If they wanted to go on a bug hunt, who am I to stop them?

[SleepyShadow]

Let's Call it a Win and Move On
The party wandered aimlessly around the first level of the dungeon for quite some time, fighting off various insignificant encounters, until they came upon the ruined remains of a marble fountain. The basin around the fountain was filled with murky water coated with thick algae.

"Hey Vinnie," Acacia said, "go touch it."

It was around this time that Scarlet contracted the dreaded Vanishing Disease, leaving the three PCs and their two cohorts in the dungeon. Like the trooper that he is, Vincio walked straight up to the fountain and stuck his arm shoulder-deep into the water. To his surprise, nothing attacked him. Instead, his bravery was rewarded by finding the missing head of the statue. Naturally, Vincent had to fish it out since it was too big for the halfling to lift. The party proudly hauled the stone head back to the statue and put it on the base of the neck. With a small crackling of magic, the head stuck back onto the statue and the damage was repaired. However, nothing further happened.

"We still need the arm," Vincio said.

"Well we went left to find the head," Vincent commented. "The straight path probably leads to the next level down or a boss fight or something, so let's go right instead."

The party rested in the statue room to recover their health and spells before they continued on. To Vincio's credit, he prepared a Locate Object spell that morning and used it to divine the missing arm's location. Sure enough, his spell guided him down the path to the right. This part of the dungeon was all but devoid of enemies, and they arrived at the arm's location with little difficulty. However, retrieving the arm proved to be difficult, since the spell told Vincio that it was at the bottom of a deep well filled with water.

"I could turn into a fish and go explore it," Acacia suggested.

Vincio shook his head. "I don't know if that's a good idea. We don't know what's down there."

"Hey Lua, what do you suggest?" Vincent asked his cohort.

"I say we cast a Light spell on Willowry and drop her down to test the depths," she replied with a smirk.

Suddenly, a massive tentacle shot out of the well, grabbed Vincio, and pulled him into the dark depths. Thanks to the permanent aura of light that surrounded the halfling, he was able to see the six unblinking black eyes of the horrid squid-like creature that held him helpless.

"It's a goddamned aboleth," Vincio's player said as he dropped his head against the table.

The rest of the party spent a good two rounds panicking and being thoroughly useless. In that time, the aboleth had squeezed Vincio down to half health. Vinnie managed to hold his breath while the creature crushed the life out of him, but he knew that even if he escaped the grapple he would simply sink to the bottom and drown. It turned out he wasn't too far from the bottom, since he could see the stone arm of the statue just below the aboleth. Off to the left was a much larger passage that led off into even deeper inky depths, likely where the aboleth had come from.

At last Acacia leaped into action as she wildshaped into an octopus ... and Vincent picked her up off the ground and put her in the well. She sped down to where the aboleth was just as the creature dropped Vincio's lifeless corpse to the bottom of the well.

Vincio Owned Count: 6

The aboleth did not feel like tangoing with a mid-level druid, so he took the path further down and vanished into the darkness. The monster was content to live with little victories. A few minutes later Acacia returned to the surface and flung her cargo over the side of the well where Vincent examined the arm.

"Great," he said, "where's Vinnie?"

"Um, hang on a sec," Acacia replied sheepishly as she returned to octopus form and dove back down to retrieve their companion's body.

The echoes of the facepalm that followed reverberated throughout the house :smalltongue:

[SleepyShadow]

Attack of the Lava Drake
Once Vincio was alive again thanks to a scroll of Resurrection, the party merrily trotted back to the statue with the stone arm. They stuck the arm onto the statue's stump, and lo and behold the arm stuck on and fused itself with magic. Many high fives were passed around the table when the statue began to speak.

"What do you seek?" the statue asked.

"We are searching for Gith," Vincio replied.

A shimmering blue portal opened before the party and they eagerly jumped through to claim their reward. The portal was a one-way drop off in a pitch black room, and resting on an altar by the east wall was a coffin fashioned from iridescent red scales. Lualara, acting as the party Poke'dex, identified the scales as those of a red dragon.

"Hey Vinnie," Vincent said, "go touch it."

"Why am I the sacrificial lamb?" Vincio asked irritably.

"Just go do it."

Luckily Vincio did not die when he touched the coffin. Getting a bit more confident now, the halfling opened the coffin. The body of a woman floated within the coffin, her pale form swathed in a shimmering white burial gown, her corpse untouched by the ravages of time. Though she had the same pale yellow skin and similar facial features to a githyanki, she did not have lumps of bone protruding from her joints, nor did she have their needle-like teeth.

"I think we found her," Vincio said.

"Great," said Scarlet. "Now what?"

"I've got it!" Vincent replied. "You and Acacia hold open the bag of holding and Vinnie and I will shove the coffin in."

Here they are, ladies and gentlemen. The saviors of the world working together to fit more stuff in their loot bags!

With that done, the party began to search for an exit out of the room. The portal was gone, they had no idea where they were, and no idea how to get out. Eventually they found a secret door and were immediately jumped by a pair of vampire shadow dancers.

From that point on the party spent the next two sessions wandering aimlessly throughout the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk dungeon. After fighting through the better part of the monster manual, they at last came upon an ancient stone bridge that spanned a river of magma that split the massive chamber in half.

"Progress?" asked Scarlet.

Acacia shrugged. "I wish I knew."

Suddenly a massive form burst forth from the lava river and planted itself firmly on the bridge. The dragon's black scales were ringed with red and the creature glowed with unholy power.

"That bitch's scent lingers on you still," the creature roared. "I will slay you and destroy that corpse for the glory of the Astral Masters!"

"We found plot and it wants to kill us!" Vincio shrieked.

[Yora]

I have to admit I have a bit of a hard time following why they are going to the places they go to and seek the things they do. But even so, it's great entertainment.

[SleepyShadow]

I have to admit I have a bit of a hard time following why they are going to the places they go to and seek the things they do. But even so, it's great entertainment.

If you ever figure out their motives, please tell me. I want to know too :smallbiggrin:

Also, I would like to apologize for not updating this campaign journal in quite some time. Work has been a nightmare as of late, and just recently the campaign came to a screeching halt in a very unpredictable way. However, I will continue to work on this journal, though my posting may be slower than it used to be.

Played to the Tune of Yakkety Sax
The party scattered like dry leaves before the dragon's initial onslaught. They ran around in all directions for a couple of rounds until they regrouped and fled across the bridge as the dragon swooped down for another strafing attack. The party ran like bats out of hell through the twisting dungeon corridors with the dragon hot on their heels, the beast constantly snapping at whatever character happened to fall to the back of the group that round. All hope seemed lost until Lualara pointed out a five foot wide corridor; too narrow for the dragon to continue pursuit. The party dashed through the gap and the dragon crashed face-first into the doorway. He let out a mighty roar of rage and unleashed his fiery breath down the passage in a last ditch effort to finish of the intruders. However, his wrath only claimed the life of one.

Vincio Owned Count: 7

Acacia revived the charbroiled halfling, and the party cheered at their clever escape from such a powerful foe (not that I was going to say he was easily in their CR range). The celebration intensified when they realized where they had gotten to: they were back in the statue room!

The party happily left the dungeon, but they were annoyed to find that Acacia's pterodactyl had eaten the camels that the rest of the party had traveled on.

"Bad dinosaur!" Acacia scolded him.

"Hey, you should have told him not to eat our mounts," Vincent grumbled.

The druid shrugged. "How was I supposed to know he'd get hungry?"

After much groaning and griping, Vincent, Scarlet, Lualara rode on top of the pterodactyl while Acacia wild-shaped into a giant eagle and carried Vincio and Willowry. They flew back to Thalos in good time, all the while discussing what should be done with Gith's body now that they had it. They had no real idea by the time they returned to the city, so they decided to put it off until they could think of something. It was at this point that Scarlet contracted the dreaded Vanishing Plague.

A messenger from the queen approached the (now smaller) party and asked them to accompany him to the palace. They agreed, and upon arriving at the throne room were surprised to find Malgrim talking with Almira.

"What are you doing here?" Vincent asked.

"Your Queen Almira has asked me to act as her strategist and advisor," the gnoll ranger replied. "I had no objections."

Vincio shrugged. "So what's going on?"

"I'm glad you're here, my friends," Queen Almira said calmly. "I have just received a most dire report from the small island to the northwest. Flame, the Demon-Dragon of the Shooting Star, has awoken from his thousand year slumber. His armies of draconic kobolds and fire giants are ravaging the land. What's worse is that githyanki have been spied making talk with the monsters. I fear they wish to ally themselves with Flame."

"Roger that, my Lady," Vincent said with a wink. "We're on the job."

"Be careful," Malgrim warned.

His words were barely heeded by the party as they walked out the door of the palace.

"What's the worst that could happen?" Vincio asked over his shoulder.

[SleepyShadow]

Never Underestimate the Power of an Intelligently Played Wizard
The trip to the island was relatively uneventful. The party encountered a few uninspired random encounters (I was random rolling out of the DMG :smalltongue:), but otherwise traveled safely to the coast. Once they arrived at the port town, we had quite a bit of fun as they had to charter passage across the sea on a pirate ship. Diplomacy was not a strong skill in the party, so they had to rely on their reputation to convince the scurvy orange-eating pirates to help them. Eventually a debonair bard pirate captain agreed to ferry them to the island.

The sea voyage was calm for the most part, although once they were boarded by a kuo-toa raiding party. However, the PCs beat them back and arrived safely on the island. The pirate captain dropped them off in a small fishing town, and told them that he would wait a few days before leaving for the mainland. The PCs asked around town for what was known about the activities of the githyanki, and learned that while no githyanki had been seen, unusual looking kobolds had been congregating in the swamps.

Off we go!

At this point, I was feeling a bit cheeky. I knew that mechanically their party of five (three PCs plus two cohorts) should handle just about anything given their level of optimization. However, I knew that their tactics often left a lot to be desired. So in order to challenge them I decided to have them face a mechanically weaker foe that relied on superior tactics to win his fights. Of course, I would not stoop to metagaming. His tactics would be just as applicable against any group of foes.

The party traveled along the road through the woods, calmly chatting among themselves and making conversation with the cohorts. Suddenly a tiny red bead dropped out of the sky and exploded in their midst. A moment later the cacophonous sound of war drums filled the air. The PCs clustered together, standing back to back and scanned the area for enemies. However, there were none to be seen. Another fireball rained down from above, and this time the party scattered in different directions so as to not present an easy target for more AoE attacks.

Not a problem for our villainous wizard.

A storm of magic missiles rained down from the heavens, effortlessly foiling whatever cover the PCs had managed to find. Willowry began to frantically lob her own fireballs into the sky to no effect. Acacia took to the air in the form of a giant bat, hoping to pick up on the enemy's location with her blind sight. Another spell barrage sent the druid crashing to the ground and barely clinging to life. Willowry was the next to fall, as she inadvertently struck the wizard with her last fireball, although she did not inflict any damage to him. With their primary offensive casters down, Vincio, Lulalara, and Vincent gathered up the fallen and fled back to the village. The enemy wizard's parting gift was an ice storm, which forced Vincent to come back and pick up the unconscious drow girl as well.

The enemy wizard was satisfied with the message he had sent, and flew off to report.

[dysprosium]

Glad to see the campaign is truly not dead.