Here we are: Born to be Pirate Kings! [Campaign Journal]

[Morph Bark]

It's been a while!

Mostly due to the holidays and all, many of us not being available at the same time and such, hence why I decided to hold out with posting the bare few sessions we've had since so I could just post up the little arc we've just finished. What follows is the first two sessions of this arc, the third will follow tomorrow hopefully, using a "special" format.


The Tenth Session - Take To The Town

Spoiler

Show

We return your every-so-oftenly scheduled BORN TO BE PIRATE KINGS.

In the previous episode our intrepid not-really-heroes (no really) fled from an erupting volcano after slaying Vlad, the sparkling bandit lord mecha pilot, and returned to the camp of the shifters. In the meantime they have reported back to the beige dragon and learned his name is Bob (short for ‘Bobrazivanzevox’), Aaron Senior has talked to Annie in private and bestowed upon her a little gift and the party has voted to keep going onwards to the north, aiming straight for Las Sangas.

We now join them as they sail the beachy sands around the mountain range of the Lepryesz peninsula, where they make their Survival checks every day to feed themselves and their crew as they make the three-week trip necessary to reach their next stop: a town in the desert halfway towards Las Sangas.

Along the way very little happens, other than three of their freed Mongrelfolk criminal crew members falling ill from food poisoning and one of them dying from it. In the meantime, Nadia picks out three of the Mongrelfolk to train them to become warblades. (I had previously told my players that if they wanted to they were free to train them to gain a single level in one of their classes or a similar class.)

In the meantime some of the party members discuss possible names for their crew, figuring they require one, and they settle on The Flaming Blackskull Pirates, after the pattern on Boa’s butterfly-like wings (despite it not being black, I guess they figured it was more ‘piratey’).

When they spot the town in the distance, they park their ship on a sandy hill and venture out with the party to find some food and get some news. Nadia asks an elf passing by but receives no reply as the elf continues by walking briskly away from the strangers. Vido asks another elf for some food and is likewise ignored. Then Atrox decides to stick his scythe in front of the next person possible and shout “What the hark is going on!?”

It turns out the man is a human soldier, his cape and helmet designating him to be a lieutenant by Atrox’ knowledge, which instantly conveys his folley, though not as much as the lieutenant then proceeding to disarm Atrox and holding his own scythe by the kobold troat. Annie and Nadia immediately react with their spiked chains by lashing out simultaneously, their chains wrapping around the scythe’s haft and pulling it out of the lieutenant’s hands, disarming him. Nadia quickly tries to disarm the situation by hastily attempting some diplomacy and offer her apologies for their hasty friend. Vido asks the lieutenant what is going on, but the man refuses to answer, stating he has more important work to do than give strangers news.

Next, Aaron and Nadia (with Nadia’s three mongrelfolk students) split off from the rest of the party to go to the town’s marketplace while the other four enter an alleyway and hatch a plan to ambush an elf and question him. They manage to catch a rich-looking elf in a turban (common among the elves here) and ask him what is going on when they got him surrounded. Heavily intimidated and close to pissing his pants, the elf stutters that the human soldiers in the village are part of a mercenary company that suppress the elves since a few months now after helping them get rid of a problem with raids by desert pirates. Since then the humans have confiscated all weapons, citing that they need them in their fight against raiders and invaders. Some elves resisted in the beginning, but that has since been quelled.

Nadia and Aaron meanwhile chat up a goblin merchant at the marketplace, which is looking pretty desolate, having only three goblin merchants present and only a handful of elves occasionally coming by. They’re told that there are roughly 50 soldiers in total, that the elves are yearning for their freedom of the humans and that the soldiers have stolen all of the goblins’ explosives. Nadia makes a deal with the goblin that they can get 25% of the explosives if they get them back for the goblins. (After some haggling of course, goblins don’t go easy on a trade! “40%.” “15%.” “35%.” “20%.” “30%.” “25% and this piece of magical message rope.” “Deal.”) They fistbump to settle the deal as goblins do and then part.

Nadia and Aaron meet up with the others in the alleyway and discuss plans. They decide to take rooms in an inn and go out at night to kill some soldiers and question survivors. Quickly finding a local run-down inn, a young elven male leaning lazily on a broomstick leads them to their rooms and then leaves them for the night.

At night all six of them sneak out, leaving the mongrelfolk behind in their room. While sneaking around, Atrox is spotted by a group of three guards, at which point Aaron uses his silence spell-like ability and one of the soldiers drops dead by an arrow through the throat, courtesy of Boagetash. Aaron whacks down a second with Mountain Hammer and Nadia mimics the move on the third. The group then gets into an argument about what to do with the corpses, Atrox figuring he should let them be eaten by summoned zombies. In the end, Annie cuts up the guards’ clothes to just make it look like a zombie attack (how that is supposed to work, I dunno) and they erase their tracks and traces of a fight. Atrox coup de graces the guards that are still alive to question them with his speak with dead spell, learning barely more about the situation.

At that moment a second patrol passes by the alleyway they’re in, so they quickly hide and the patrol simply passes by. Nadia then uses her Shadow Jaunt maneuver to teleport with one of the corpses from rooftop to rooftop to dump it in the river that runs through the town. In the meantime, Atrox summons a large troll zombie that eats pieces of the remaining corpses to make them unrecognizable. After Nadia returns, they backtrack to the inn and go to sleep.

In the morning the innkeeper enters the room shared by Annie, Atrox and Boa and asks if they know anything about corpses found earlier and he warns them that the guards might find it suspicious that right at this time there are strangers in town while strange things are happening. Before the PCs can come far on a decision, there comes a knocking on the inn’s front door and a soldier’s voice shouts “Open the door! Inspection!”

Nadia and the mongrelfolk stay inside while the others sneak out of the window, as the mongrelfolk are neither stealthy nor great climbers, nor can they teleport or fly like most of the party members. Three guards enter along with their commander, who wears a plumed helmet and has more stripes on his cape than the lieutenant from before. Seeing trouble, Nadia activates her amulet of glibness to Bluff her way through.

Eventually though, the commanders orders his soldiers to take Nadia’s and the mongrelfolk’s weapons in “so we can protect the town”. Nadia instead tries to persuade the commander that she and her men could be hired to help, which the commander declines. Nadia refuses and instead disarms the guard holding her spiked chain and strikes the commander with it, moving around him to set up a flank with one of the mongrelfolk. The commander takes out his sword, which folds out into a large cleaver with glowing runes on the blade and strikes Nadia with it, causing a sick feeling in her gut, but nothing horrible. The mongrelfolk meanwhile engage the soldiers and Aaron finally sees something being wrong from a rooftop across the street.

And this is where we had to end the session due to lateness.

The Elventh Session - Take To The Town II

Spoiler

Show

The eleventh session continues! THE FIGHT RAGES ON!

The commander spins around like a whirlwind and strikes Nadia and all three mongrelfolk at once, dealing most of the damage to Nadia. Nadia disarms the commander, but subsequently two mongrelfolk are struck down and killed while they lie unconscious on the floor. Dangerously low on health, two of them leave the room while the third grapples Nadia. At this point Aaron Shadow Jaunts into the room through the window. The commander, seeing another threat enter, then puts on a gauntlet with glowing purple gems, telekinetically pulls his sword towards him from the ground, casts one last look at Nadia and then disapparates, leaving the soldier on his own. Nadia easily breaks his hold and unleashes all of her anger on the poor man and slays him thoroughly.

After a quick looting of the corpse the party swiftly returns to the ship. Nadia tries to cheer up her single remaining student and tells him they are going to be training super hard to make the humans pay.

The next night, the party returns to the town to seek out another patrol and slay them in silence. One of the soldiers is knocked out by a sleep spell from Vido and is kept alive, dragged back to the ship for questioning. The guard tells them that there are 20 more men left now and they find out that the commander Nadia met previously is one of the three leaders, known as Darion. His brothers are the other two leaders, but they are rarely seen. When asked about specifics regarding their fighting style, he tells them that one of them is a melee combatant (Darion, obviously), one of them fights at a range with a crossbow-like device that sounds like thunder and one of them is a spellcaster.

The party proceeds to walk into the village the following day like they own the place. They discover the goblins to be gone, due to them having been imprisoned within the fortress’ dungeons. After discovering this, they start to lurk in the dark alleyways again, with the plan of using spiked chains and Mighty Throw a soldier passing by into the alleyway. After several hours of waiting however, no soldier has gotten close enough to the alleyway -- they’re on their guard more than before. Instead, Vido walks out into the open and tries to charm a guard to lure him into the alleyway.

Then, all of a sudden, the alleyway is filled with a darkness spell and Aaron and Nadia both take damage from slicing cuts that hit home dearly. Nadia, Annie, Atrox and Boa immediately flee further into the alley to escape, while Aaron remains behind and hides. He spots a figure rising up from the shadows, who then looks straight at him (note that Aaron is amazing at hiding), then points at the end of the alleyway where the others have run off to. Aaron proceeds to take this as a warning and get out while the figure walks out of the cloud of darkness, passing by Vido, who has since turned invisible for his own protection. While the figure passes by, he touches Vido on the shoulder, as if to notify him he knows he’s there. Seeing this as an opportunity, Nadia jumps up, runs across the rooftop, leaps off and Shadow Jaunts right in front of the figure, initiating a duel of wills that she wins and then proceeds to ask questions. The others join up and they surround the figure, who writes down his answers on a piece of paper in ornate writing, also in Elven, meaning only Boa can read it (and he sagely agrees with some writing making some unflattering commentary regarding Nadia and Atrox).

Then, all of a sudden, Nadia is hit by something at the sound of thunder and soon after Boa as well. With a quick Spot check he notes the shooter to be somewhere on the fortress’ walls, far out of their range, so the PCs flee, during which Nadia is hit another time. Back at their ship, they heal up and discuss what happened and Annie, Atrox and Boa think they should leave the next day as it is too dangerous for them in this town. Nadia does not agree, but for the moment the argument is dropped as the session draws to a close.

[gibbo88]

Awesome! what is this contest of wills thing that you have in the story? I apologise if it has been explained before, I've missed it if it was.

[Morph Bark]

The duel of wills is part of the Intimidate skill as outlined in Tome of Battle. Winning, losing, ignoring or submitting to a duel of wills can give small bonuses or penalties to AC or attack for the encounter (iirc, nothing with regards to damage), but only between the two people in the duel of wills.

[Morph Bark]

Special format session report! At the time I was too busy writing it myself, so I asked one of my players to write up the session in my place, the results of which you can read below!


The Twelfth Session - Nadia's Diary

Spoiler

Show

Dear Diary,

This is just NOT my day…I’m not a particular fan of being stuck under a ton or so of rock and adamantine. Why was a lying under a pile of rumble you ask? Well, that’s quite a long story and like always, the fault of those blasted gnomes! I mean, Aaron is nice enough, but Vido is just a douchbag.

But anyway, back to the story. I’ll start on the morning of this unlucky and terrible day. Our joyful little group just retreated to the ship after running into 1 of the captains of the Redbolt mercenairy company. And 1 of the others shot me square in the shoulder, the lil’ runt! The insolence! I should have killed him when I had the chance… At any rate, back at the ship, we discussed the matter of storming or infiltrating the fortress. The opinions were mixed, so we decided to think it over overnight and see what the morning brought. So, next morning when we woke up, smoke was rising from the village, and Boa saw a caravan heading out of town. They must have some info, we thought, and proceeded to intercept them to question them about the business in the city.

The caravan was let by a elderly elf who rode a cart in front of it. After explaining who we were and what we were up to, he told us that 1 of the captains, Derrick Slaighil (The surname of the brothers is Slaighil, apparently) had been assassinated by a assassin send by this “Dark King” figure. He must be some real bigshot somewhere, although the reason why he wants the town liberated totally escapes me. The elder also tells us that the remaining 2 brothers tightened security around town and at the fort and are planning on unleashing a freaking DRAGON upon town, which is rumored to be as large as half of the fortress itself. Would make a nice zombie in the hands of Atrox, I’m sure, but I wasn’t quite fond of hearing this. This would not stroke well with my party members and I was keen on sneaking in, although in hindsight, this wasn’t a very good idea.

Despite the dragon, the fact that there were only 2 brothers left persuaded Vido, Aaron and Boa to tag along. So, 2 nights after we intercepted the caravan, we planned on invading the castle. We snuck into the village under the cover of night, making our way towards the castle walls. When we arrived there, I teleported up the walls, with Aaron and Boa following soon after. I get spotted by the sniper brother though and end up with a bullet in my left arm. It wasn’t a serious wound however, so I pressed on. Fortunately, the rest manages to stay clear of the sniper. Once we settled under the tower the sniper was on, out of his reach, we consulted what to do next. Vido would use his magic to climb up, invisible and under the cover of 1 of his silence spells. He would then try to charm the sniper while Aaron, me and Boa waited for the safe or the “OH MY GOD I’M DYING!!” signal. As it turned out, we got the “Huh, there is nobody here” signal.

We climbed the tower and after leaving Boa outside for guard duty, went inside, on our guard for any ambush the sniper might have laid. And once we reached the next floor, sure enough, that thunderous clap of his weapon was heard. 1 problem though, he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. We checked everything, even going as far as ransacking all his stuff and putting it in Aaron’s “bigger that it seems” bag. As we were about to go further, other claps could be heard, and we saw flashes of light appearing. Aaron did his darkness thing to protect us against him, which seemed to work. He then blinked in sight, allowing us to take his out in a flash and disarming and claiming his weapon for our own. We questioned him for a lil bit and we found out that the band was planning to skip town and terrorize another city, taking the dragon with them via some strange teleportation ritual. Hey, don’t ask me, I’m not a magic expert nya’know! So we took him hostage in a attempt to get his brother to comply to our demands. Sometimes, you gotta fight evil with evil, so even Aaron agreed.

From this point on, we decided to have a few objectives. Firstoff, interrupt the Teleporting of the Dragon. Second, Free the goblins who were captured. Third, ransack the whole place for loot. Especially the third objective sparkled my interest. While we went on further into the fort, we asked our new prisoner a few questions, once of which was how he felt now 1 of his brothers was dead. “The magic using one, what was he to you?” We asked. “Magic using?….You thought he was the one practicing magic?” He replied. “Well, yes, with all the darkness and such.”He displayed a sly smile and said: “You were wrong. I…..am the magic user.” And suddenly he disappeared into thin air. We struck the air of the place in which he was standing, but to no avail. He got away. After we cursed ourselves for our carelessness, we took off.

On the second level, we came across the prison of the fort, which contained the people who went missing inside the village. Because we’re not all evil, we decided to open a few cells and get some information on the layout of this place. The intel we got was highly valuable, the prisoners said that the dragon and the remaining brother were at the third level from here. Furthermore, it seemed that the assassin who killed Derrick was also running around inside. We send the prisoners on their way out of the castle (We killed all the guards anyway) and rushed towards our goal with grim haste. When we had almost arrived at the chamber with the dragon, our path was obstructed with a battalion of archers, ambushing us and nearly downing Aaron and putting Vido to sleep. We were able to get to cover in time, but we saw more archers coming up behind us, the way we came. Suddenly we realized….We were surrounded. The call sounded for surrender or death, like usual. Without further thought I went invisible and shadow jaunted. I intended to warn Boa and set up a escape plan. But….after I was halfway it occurred to me…I can’t leave my crewmates..no, my friends alone. With this, I ventured back to where the archers were. Aaron and Vido were already taken away, but 2 archers were still on guard at the corridor entrance. They couldn’t have gotten far. 20 seconds later, 2 archers lying dead on the floor, I proceeded further to search for my friends.

After a tedious maze of crawling tunnels and dark corridors I finally came at a gigantic hall, in the middle of which, a HUGE brown dragon was chained to the ground, roaring in anger and frustration. In the background, the assassin was fighting the brother I had been up against, with the strange sword. The archers were also firing at him, causing his to lose his concentration and take a heavy blow, knocking him down and unable to act. I shifted my view. In front of the dragon, I saw my friends fighting against the archers, clearly winning the fight. Until Vido went down…one of the archers took him hostage and demanded Aaron to give up fighting or let Vido suffer the consequences. I spurred to 1 of the archers, took her hostage, and demanded the same thing. With a little bit of help and a good measure of intimidation, the archer lowered her bow. And died 3 seconds later. At that moment, I heard a splintering sound. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw the dragon ripping his chains apart and storming towards us. Relinquishing Vido, I spurred towards the exit, hearing a blood-freezing scream when the dragon tore Aaron apart. Teary-eyed, I managed to get to the corridor, where I went invisible and hide behind a pillar, I could hear the dragon sniffing and searching for me. Suddenly, a wave of acid fumes washed over me, tearing me apart. Everything went black……..


Now you may ask…How am I able to write this diarypage? Well, maybe I’m in heaven writing it, maybe I’m not. But I’ll guess you’ll find out eventually. My legacy will not be forgotten. My fate will not be decided by anyone except me. Till the next time we’ll meet….

xX Nadia Stormclaw

DM's Perspective - My Favourite Parts

Spoiler

Show

Also known as "some of the little bits where Nadia wasn't there or were just too great for me".

I personally loved the part where I could reveal that the brother they had captured actually was the mage amongst the three brothers. It felt like such a perfect delivery, especially with him immediately disappearing afterwards. (A good alternative could have been something like fog cloud and AoE spells and debuffs, but so soon that would just have been mean. Plus it seemed more logical for him to go inform his brother about this, especially since he had lost his primary weapon.)

The best part though? The best part happened after Nadia had already passed out and Aaron had been eaten. I went over some things in my mind concerning things that had happened earlier in the session, the stuff they had looted and the female soldiers they had killed until I remembered something... "Wait, who had the bag of holding?"
The late Shadow Sun Ninja's player's hand rose up slowly. "I had it."
"So... if Aaron had it... then the dragon ate it as well."
"...yeah! Scheisse, that's gonna suck loot-wise."
"...actually..." *dice roll dice roll, dice roll dice roll* "...it kills the dragon."
"...what." "WHAT?" "What." "HA!" "Waitwut?" "LOL. WHY?"
"It's stomach acid is dissolving it, destroying it, causing everything that was within it to spill out, which is too much for the dragon's guts to hold. Vido, as you wake up, you turn over and see the dragon groaning on the ground as its stomach bulges greatly and the dragon roars out in pain as its flesh begins to rip and tear until it explodes in gorey fashion, guts flying around, blood spilling everywhere as pieces of gold and magic items are flung around, forcefully emitted from the destroyed bag of holding."
"...I... blink I guess?"
"Congratulations Aaron, you posthumously killed a dragon."
"Trollface!"

After this Vido ran out of the fortress as it was slowly collapsing due to the dragon have thrashed around while he was knocked out, goes past Nadia's body -- temporarily trying to pull her along but finding himself too heavily encumbered, so he abandons her -- spotting the two brothers and one surviving female soldier atop the tower flying away as he comes out and finding Boagetash unconscious at the base of the tower, whom he pulls along out of the fortress before it completely collapses in on itself.

R.I.P. Aaron Barwann
R.I.P. Nadia Stormclaw -- or not?!

Spoiler

Show

Drawing by the player himself. Atrox' and Vido's players have also drawn their characters, which may be posted later on if it seems a good idea to anyone.

[gibbo88]

Poor Aaron....

[KotserB]

I can't understand Nadia blames me for her death.
I fell asleep at the feet of the dragon. That wasn't my fault.

What I don't understand is why she didn't try to save Aaron.
After all, there are more Catfolk on this world then Gnomes, since we were a few of the last Gnomes.. stupid housecat.

[RoyVG]

Poor Aaron....

At least I managed to get into the Shadow Sun Ninja before dying. That was my greatest achievement in this campaign. (next to killing a dragon with a CR at least twice my level )

-----SPOILER ALERT------

He will be replaced by a draconic dragonborn warforged Crusader.

inb4 ancestory impossibility. Fluff wise it's that dragon blood was used in the forging proces resulting in this strange combination.

------SPOILER END-------

I can't understand Nadia blames me for her death.
I fell asleep at the feet of the dragon. That wasn't my fault.

What I don't understand is why she didn't try to save Aaron.
After all, there are more Catfolk on this world then Gnomes, since we were a few of the last Gnomes.. stupid housecat.

Yeah, she was caring more for the loot, damn pirates.
THAT's why I became a ninja. So nobody knows I'm there when take it from them, so they can't blame me.
JK Nadia

[KotserB]

so i was bored a few days ago so i decided to play a little guitar and suddenly: LIGHTBUBBLE.
I thought it would be cool to write a parody on a song which would represent some things happened so far in our campaign.

so hear it is, my parody on Amy MacDonald's This is the Life (its not in a spoiler thing, since i dont know how to do that, but as soon as i know ill fix it :D):

Ooh, the fume’s coming down
From Vlad’s HQ today
And the party they were running
From the stone rain

And the Gnome hits the Kobold on its big ugly head
While the rest of the group waits way up ahead
And the loot gets higher, each stash bigger then before

Chorus (2x):

And you’re asking yourself, is this really my life
And you wake up by a dragon which somehow did not survive
Am I gonna go, am I gonna go, am I gonna sleep tonight?

Am I gonna sleep tonight?

So you’re heading down the desert in your ship full of loot
Some Mongrelfolk say they don’t feel so good
While Boa is out, collecting more bad food.

So you’re waiting in a town with nothing to do
Killing the guys of the Redbolt Mercenary Crew
And am I gonna go, am I gonna sleep tonight?

Chorus (2x)

Am I gonna sleep tonight?

Chorus (4x)

Am I gonna sleep tonight?


tell me if you like it.
ill probably make more of these parodies...

[Ananasridder]

I really like your song dude! Even though you didn't mention me at all
For your next (awesome) parody i demand MOAR pineapple

[KotserB]

Well I thought about mentioning you bringing the ship to us which almost got you the Badazz level but i eventually decided to go with this :P

if somebody has a proposal for a parody, just post it :D

[Morph Bark]

Hello all.

This campaign has since yesterday been put on the shelf, paused if you will, after I've kept being unable to keep up with the journal due to school and also started losing inspiration for the campaign itself. Since I figured I should at least tell y'all what's happened since the last update, here is it, in short:


Thirteenth Session: Having leveled up, Annie had taken Mountain Hammer so she could dig up the loot from the fortress, which had entirely collapsed, as well as find Aaron's remains, which were still pretty intact after being partially digested (Nadia's weren't found other than her spiked chain and ioun stone). Atrox, Vido and Jim (played by Nadia's player) went around town trying to find food and ended up at a run-down old temple where they found an elven priest by the name of Petrovo, who promised to help them with the dragon, cutting it up and preserving the meat by salting it.

Atrox wanted Petrovo to help him animate the dead dragon, as he needed a desecrate spell to be able to do so, but to do that Petrovo wanted to be turned invisible so that the townsfolk would not see him helping them animate their once-protector. Vido did not want to do this, as it would only serve to give Atrox an incredibly powerful minion, so Petrovo searched the temple's library and enacted a ritual that made Vido and Atrox swear an oath that they would never cast spells on one another and that Atrox would never command any of his undead to harm Vido. After this they animated the dragon (as well as eight skeletons so that Atrox now has a bodyguard surrounding him), which they tied to the front of the ship to pull it. Atrox promised Petrovo a bottle of whiskey that the priest asked for, bought at a fancy shop in Las Sangas.


Fourteenth Session: The party makes a slight detour after Boagetash receives a letter from his great-grandfather, so they go to the forest where he is from, which is a two-week detour from Las Sangas, but the party has enough food now to last them a while. Once there, Boagetash and Vido get off (Annie's and Atrox' players were not present) and go into the forest where they are met by ravens with swirly rainbow eyes that speak in cryptic poetry.

In the middle of the forest they find a giant caterpillar on a giant mushroom smoking a pipe the size of a horse, with many thin arms folded over its bulging belly. He greets them and introduces himself as Beerf, Boagetash' maternal fey great-grandfather. He asks some questions about Boa's adventures since he left the forest and then tells them he has some people to introduce him to. Through the brush enter a broad-shouldered human man in a long grey coat, a rock-like humanoid with draconic features bearing a large sword and a skeletal robed figure, the latter of whom is presented as Boagetash' elder half-brother.

The human tells his draconic and undead companions (he is clearly their master) that he has other business to attend to and wishes for his apprentice, Boa's half-brother Zetsumei, to join a group of like-minded, power-mongering individuals to expand his experiences and allow his power to increase more rapidly as is common among adventurers. He also orders the other one, a warforged apparently, to act as Zetsumei's bodyguard during this time. With this reasoning, Zetsu appears to agree and greets Boagetash after going back to pick up his jaw, which had fallen off in the surprise at Boa being his half-brother.

They have tea with Beerf and then return to the ship, where they are promptly greeted by Jim trying to tackle everyone and hug them. (It is important to note that this session actually came earlier than the thirteenth one, but in-game chronologically comes later, hence why it is posted like this. This is also why Zetsu's player wanted to play Jim during the thirteenth session.)


Fifteenth Session: The party arrived at Las Sangas after a three-week trip and they park the ship a little ways away from the city, paranoid as they are. They enter the city and stay at an inn, after which they go out their seperate ways, with Atrox, Tharion and Zetsu going to the whiskey store where Atrox proceeds to get drunk after just one shot of the black-labeled Black Wind. They leave with a bottle of Desert Storm for Petrovo and some information about the Lich Count who rules Las Sangas. Vido in the meantime makes errands of his own and Boagetash is dragged along by Annie to go out stealing, because she desires for some reason not to pay for a bag of many things that she has heard of and really wants to have. She goes in to scout the shop during the day and breaks in in the middle of the night, causing an alarm to go off and a goblin samurai member of the goblin mafia of Las Sangas to come after her, tracking her movement with a magical device that she steals from him before teleporting away to Boagetash. The two promptly flee the city to the ship.


Sixteenth Session: At the inn, Atrox wakes up with a huge hangover, to Vido's delight. They, Zetsu and Tharion go out again, their seperate ways, with Atrox, Zetsu and Tharion trying to find some coconut oil, having heard at the whiskey store that to get an audience with the Lich Count of Las Sangas they should present him with something - and the Lich Count is very fond of keeping his skull shiny and oiled up, considering it's rumoured to be an artifact. They run into trouble with a one-eyed goblin with an eyepatch, a member of the goblin mafia, who takes them along to their headquarters to meet their boss. When they arrive at the mafia boss' pagoda, they find him drinking tea with Vido, who appears to be very surprised at their appearance there. The boss introduces himself as Don Corpardune, and he specializes in exotic creatures, being interested in Atrox' dragon that he heard of. "It's kind of hard to miss..."

They discuss the matter, but Atrox is unwilling to part with the dragon, which he has affectionately named Herr Klaus (due in part thanks to Annie's player). They very nearly end up provoking a fight, but through diplomacy it is prevented and the party can leave in peace, albeit with a semi-threat from Don Corpardune. "I will have that dragon."

In the meantime, while Boagetash is sleeping on the ship (player absent, so yeah), Annie is visited by a tall, lightly-dressed man who bids her to come with him. She refuses and he assaults her, grappling her and dragging her out of her cabin. On the way off the ship she sees that all the Mongrelfolk and the elves are knocked out on the deck. Eventually she manages to escape and hides on the ship. After this happens, she suddenly feels the ship move as it is actually pulled towards the city.

When the others arrive back at the ship, it lies just barely 30 ft outside the city walls, with a note attached to the hull. "Sorry for the disruption. Orders have been called off. - Guy"

In the middle of the night that follows (after the ship is sailed to a different position again), Atrox is visited by two men who stand in his room, apparently having snuck past the crew and having gone unnoticed to his skeleton bodyguards. They speak to him of the goblin mafia and warn him about them. They also want to know about Nadia for some reason, addressing Atrox as "a member of Nadia Stormclaw's crew". They are quickly informed that she is dead, upon which the two men decide it is time to leave again, leaving behind a card that invites the party to the assassin's guild.

The invitation is taken and the party goes to the address provided where they are let in by a little girl, whom is scared off by Atrox and Zetsu, after which the door is opened by Guy, the tall man, bearing a heavy frown on his face after the little girl was scared so. He lets them in and guides them down a stairway to a room, where he closes the door and announces that they will be tested. Instantly they are attacked by a woman with a scythe and a spellcaster, while someone in the back of the room pulls a lever that drops Atrox and Vido into a poisoned-spiked pit after Atrox one-hit-kills the scythe-wielder with a Phantasmal Killer. An ooze drops right on top of them and the two rapidly drop towards the negatives, while Zetsu flings AoE spells until he two is dropped into the pit due to Guy punching him into it. With the two initial assailants quickly dead, Guy is the only one left and he surrenders after a mighty blow from Tharion.

Then the assassins' guild leader appears and drains the ooze away (Vido at -7 hp and 1 Con, Atrox in coma due to a spell bringing his Wisdom down to 0). He tells them he wishes to recruit them in their fight against the goblin mafia, which has made it so that the assassins have no business, and the goblins refuse to hire them also. Halfway through his speech he is interrupted by a minion who whispers something in his ear. The leader then informs the party that a giant skeletal dragon has crashed into the harbour.


Seventeenth Session: The party moved towards the harbour, Tharion carrying Atrox. Once there, they discovered that cannons were already being brought in place by soldiers, to attack the dragon. Boagetash comes flying from the ship, staying high enough to remain safe. They see that the dragon is digging with its head in a hole from which shines a golden light. A giant zeppelin appears with a tower atop it and three huge dragon skulls on either side of the zeppelin, the tower being surrounded by purple lightning. Boagetash flies towards it, intending to ask them to stop, thinking they want to destroy the dragon. He is struck by the lightning and quickly changes his mind. The zeppelins zaps the dragon, connecting to it with the lightning and levitating it upwards, shrinking it into a psychic ball and finally encasing it in a black cube that is eaten by the zeppelin.

The party, helpless to stop this, simply watch on and decide to help Atrox first. Boagetash lands when he sees a pod detach from the zeppelin and come down to the hole, where he spots paw prints of a cat in the dust on the ground in the hole the dragon has created. The Lich Count and several undead stop at the edge and Boa overhears him grumbling about danger to his power, after which he orders an undead to go fetch a squad to enter the hole. Boa tries to converse with the Lich Count and is instead promptly drafted into coming along with the undead squad.

The rest in the meantime go back to the ship where they find Annie. They turn the ship and go to another harbour of Las Sangas, close to which Tharion knows is a temple to the god Arthasz, run by his High Priest Sauron (hence the running out of inspiration :P). The temple is frozen over with "frozen lava" surrounding the complex. Tharion does not want to go inside, but Annie, who is weak to cold, takes Atrox inside. There they meet Sauron, who turns out to be a midget wearing heavy armour frozen together. Annie instantly converts in an attempt to convince Sauron to let Atrox heal there. Sauron tells her that he is willing to cast restoration on Atrox if she can go to the recently-uncovered ancient Paladin temple on which the city was built 400 years ago by the Lich Count. She agrees to the deal, goes out and explains it to Tharion, then meet up with Zetsu at the ship. (Vido is once again gone into the town, where he is chased by Jim, who has chased Boagetash to the city, but gotten lost there.)

Eventually they all meet up at the hole, aside from Boagetash, who has been forced inside the hole with a group of undead, who keep pushing the unwilling Boa forth as a trap-triggerer. He dodges a few bolts here and there but eventually comes cross a trap that apparently strangely heals him. He tricks an undead into it and watches it disintegrate, after which the other undead stay behind, resulting in a stalemate. This stalemate is broken once Jim suddenly appears and charges in towards Boagetash to hug him, straight through the trap, accidentally pushing in another undead. Boagetash convinces Jim he will give him lots of steaks if Jim brings him more of the undead to hug, to which Jim happily agrees. The undead promptly flee, chased by the hug-happy hungry Jim, who has not eaten all day, resulting in three more destroyed undead. Boa and Jim meet up with the others outside the hole after night has fallen, while the others stand at a hot dog stand where the salesman tries to sell them some t-shirts. (Annie ends up buying two, Boa one. Including I travelled for months to Las Sangas and all I got was this lousy T-shirt and one featuring a picture of the dragon and the hole.)


- - - PAUSE - - -


Atrox

Spoiler

Show

[Chief]

Thanks for DM-ing this campaign, it was epic :P

I should ad something to session 16 though:

I, Atrox Morbus, did not get my wis dropped to 0 by a lousy spell!
O no, I dropped my con to 1 because of this ooze and then i tried to heal it with a random potion. (The assassin leader let me chose which of the 3 I wanted)
I choose all of them! That's when my wis dropped to 0.
No one but I, Atrox Morbus, has enough power to do this!

Greetings,

Dr. Morbus