[DnD 3.5] The Shackled Sun [Campaign Journal]

[Shrikethrush]

Put out with the DMing style of the only other DM on campus at my college, I decided to start a new campaign.

Allowed sourcebooks: PHB, PHB II, DMG, all Monster Manuals, Frostburn, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Oriental Adventures, selected portions of any campaign world sourcebooks.

We've had three sessions so far.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In the year 2402, the sun disappeared from the sky, replaced by a massive black sphere shackled by a hundred tremendous chains to the face of the earth.

Surface temperatures dropped to freezing within the day, -100 within the first week. Glaciers re-formed, oncoming ice-shelves grinding their way across the continents.

Less than one in every hundred-thousand humans survived, retreating the sea floor; Iceland is still holding out, owing to ready access to geothermal energy and life-giving heat.

Creatures from myth and prehistory emerged to take our place - frost giants, snow-goblins, dwarves, and vampires - no running water, no garlic, no wood, no sun, making them practically invincible.

The trees lost their leaves, remaining alive on stored sugars. They turned black and their roots drove deep. They stand in silence, accompanied by gargoyles and iron-druids.

The campaign starts off in the Faxaflói or Faxa Bay of Iceland.

Session One
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Everyone was scattered to start with, seeing as this was the first session and they were a diverse party:

- a 2nd Level Human (Earthborn) Fighter (and a Cultist of Osiris-Ra)
- a 1st Level Half-Giant Psychic Warrior (son of Jotuun Harfneir)
- a 2nd Level Half-Elf Ranger (Equipped with a few magic arrows.)
- Devan, a 2nd Level Halfling (Strongheart) Artificer (A scientist at heart.)
- a 2nd Level Half-Elf Druid, albeit unconscious.


We began with Harfneirson, who was going on a hunting expedition with his father when they got wind of a Nemesis moving about. In the interest of curtailing these dangers in advance, they changed course to go deal with the issue, which was near one of the Great Chains that connect the earth to a ring-world, which is in turn attached to the Dyson Sphere surrounding the Sun.

(A Nemesis is a creature from the Far Realm that tries to kill psychics, since they are aware of the Disagreement between Infinity and Eternity and so, by the rules of engagement, may be recruited to either side. Since Eternity would prefer everything ceased to exist, they try to pre-emptively kill anyone aware of the Disagreement before Infinity can offer them infinite power in exchange for being a war-slave. Psychics usually try to avoid being annilhated by a Nemesis until they can find a way to stop being psychic. Power Points roll over from day-to-day. If you spend any power points, you reveal your position to any Nemesis hunting about. If you don't spend any power points, you begin to glow bright, and they can track you . . and for every day you stay above you normal maximum, you have to make an increasingly difficult Will save vs. insanity. Fail the will save, and you have to make a Fort save vs. disintegration. In short, being psychic sucks, but you're also one of the only people who can fight these things.)

Meanwhile, the Artificer was traveling with a guide to investigate the chain, after dealing with some Snow Goblins in the area. A Cultist of Osiris-Ra was also interested in the Chain, and was en route, after having hired the Half-Elven Ranger as a guide, and a Psion of the Cult.

The psion got munched by a Nemesis, and the Fighter and the Ranger decided to deal with it. The Ranger shot a magic arrow, which was a flash of light in the dark that was seen by Harfneirson and his father.

The Artificer also saw the arrow, and contributed towards fighting the Nemesis – a Beast of Zion, it’s head separated from it’s body, riddled with bullet-holes but still moving – with Infused bolts.

The Fighter took his AOO and hit the Nemesis, dealing some fire damage. Then Harfneir swung by and skewered the thing, and Harfneirson finished it off with an amazing critical – 47 damage! - shattering the skeleton of the Nemesis into fragments. (He's a wielding a Large greatsword and has 20 strength. Whoa.)

After greeting each other and getting a general idea of each other’s demeanors, the Half-Giant and the Halfling did a series of Knowledge and Spellcraft/Psicraft checks to figure out what the hell they were dealing with.

They discovered the chain was making the water boil, and that it radiated intense heat. It was also vibrating and under immense stress, and was made of a unfamiliar inky black metal.

It was also thinking, and when the Half-Giant tried to connect to that thoughtstream, he only got an idea of crushing immensity – and made his Will Save avoid being stunned.

They decided to head back to Iceburg, the nearest city, and the Half-Giant's home town.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I'll mock up the next two session reports in the morning. Since each session is only two hours long, we tend to only get one issue dealt with per session.

[Shrikethrush]

[Apologies if these reports aren't particularly interesting or well-written - this the first campaign that I've run, and I'm writing significantly after-the-fact.]

Hm. It's been awhile, but from what I remember, here's what went down after that:

Devan and Harfneirson took turns using Knowledge, Spellcraft, Psicraft, and Craft skills to investigate the skull of the Nemesis they retained. The Half-Elf Ranger, who had punched the the thing in the skull, was suffering from an infectious version of frostbite; they discovered the bone portion of the skull was cursed/contaminated, and that the horns were made of adamantine. They broke the skull and pocketed the horns.

Harfneirson intuited that the thing might . . come back, somehow.

The Cultist (Formerly Fighter 2, but switched to Duskblade 2; this character was just a temporary char to start with, but he decided he liked playing a cultist. NE alignment.) started talking about the greatness of Osiris-Ra and how it would be an excellent idea if they cut the massive chain anchoring the sun to the earth. Understandably, the Desert-God worshippers are a bit pissed about the unearthly cold. Thank the (gods) for Endure Elements, in this case the Artificer having a Wand of such.

After dithering a bit, they decided to head North, towards the Icelandic mainland. The heard wolves howling in the distance, a streak of light flashing through the heavens, and then - the hooting calls of snowgoblins.

The Druid, recently awoken, was still pretty pissy about losing her animal companion, but OOC didn't pay much attention to the game, and so didn't bother to inform the rest of the party that the Snow Goblins might want to eat them in particular.

(they were using Devan's sled and team of riding dogs to get around - Harfneirson's father, Harfneir, used blink dogs for the same purpose, albeit at a much faster pace since they could Dimension Door the whole sled every so often.)

Devan, who had hired the Druid as a guide, was more aware, and when they spotted a Goblin Wargsled on their tail, told everyone they were likely being hunted, and the party got ready to fight.

Harfneirson tried to hide behind a snow-dune (The goblins spotted him.) The Half-Elf Ranger tried to hide behind him (Half-giants are pretty big, I guess.) and the Cultist hid behind an adjacent snow-dune; there were about nine such dunes, since they were in the Drifts, the area where the hot wind from the volcanic mountains blows down into the frozen sea, sweeping snow ahead of it.

The others - Devan and the Druid - hung back on the sled, readying a crossbow and a shortbow, respectively.

The Worgs unhitched themselves from the sled and split aways around a large snow-dune, while the three snow-goblins fanned out and readied their javelins.

Their was quite a bit of confusion until improvised a mat and used dice as minis, which helped to clarify what was going on. The Cultist and Harfneirson ran out to do battle with the larger of the two wargs - one was a runt - while the (half)-elves hung back to shoot arrows at the smaller warg.

The Snow-goblins had a lot of trouble hitting anybody's AC. The Worgs were pretty nifty, since their high attack bonus made them a credible threat, especially to Harfneirson, who due to LA has precious few hitpoints. The Snow-Goblins were more effective when they managed to flank Harfneirson, getting in a couple of hits.

The bigger Worg was taken out by Harfneirson with a trip attack with his glaive - even though the Worg has four legs and thus greater stability and rolled a natural twenty on the opposed strength check, Harfneirson's prodigious strength and Powerful Build and good roll (18) beat the Worg out by 1. My players actually sat back a bit and asked how I was going to call it, since they're used natural twenty = success, period. I went with Harfneirson succeeding on his trip, setting a precedent.

The runt actually did better, possibly because it had slightly higher AC - in two rounds, it nearly killed Harfneirson.

After killing the two Worgs, the snow-goblins tried to flee but were downed by missile fire. A search of the bodies revealed a number of odds and ends - bone dice, bone daggers, an iron dagger with acid damage, and most interestingly, every one carried a strange talisman bearing a holy symbol - a circle within a regular triangle within a circle, decorated with semiprecious stone beads - which they identified as the Eye of Rizzun, associated with the Fierce Deity, an enemy of Osiris-Ra (the Cultist's deity.)

They also discovered the half-eaten remains of the Druid's wolf familiar on the sled :frown:

Possibly as a post-mortem vengeance, they skinned and preserved the larger Worg, and then headed north-east towards Iceburg.