Horror Campaign (prev. Army of Commoners)

[Grey Watcher]

DM oversight. Also probably the fact that part of it the DM makes up on the fly.

It hadn't occured to me, I wonder if it's occured to anyone else. I don't think I'll bring it up though, that'd just be petty. Also, he can just Rule 0 it and give any reason.

Eh, it's explained easily enough. The Vestiges (what the heck is a Vestige, anyway?) don't have any means of predicting where or when a new entrance will open up. Granted, the smarter, more powerful Vestiges are specifically looking for more useful portals, but that doesn't stop a lucky lesser Vestige from taking advantage when a door opens up right next to him.

From a meta-game perspective, does that mean each of those Will saves you made was against a separate Vestige?

Also, you're in deep doo-doo. You better hope that most of these people were Level 1 Commoners and Experts, and thus, aren't any deadlier than a standard zombie.

[Solmage]

Damn, this is an awesome campaign! Please keep it coming!!

I even refrained myself of going into that morals debate, SEVERLY biting my tongue, just not to interrupt the grandiose storytelling!

I even got the shivers when picturing the scene, but I do have a question: Exactly what were you thinking when you decided to go after a HUGE alien-like critter to TALK to it? I'm quite brave but frankly, After the previous battle I'd have said 'err.. aha.. yes.. we're leaving now! kthanxbye!'

[Korias]

Eh, it's explained easily enough. The Vestiges (what the heck is a Vestige, anyway?) don't have any means of predicting where or when a new entrance will open up. Granted, the smarter, more powerful Vestiges are specifically looking for more useful portals, but that doesn't stop a lucky lesser Vestige from taking advantage when a door opens up right next to him.

From a meta-game perspective, does that mean each of those Will saves you made was against a separate Vestige?

Also, you're in deep doo-doo. You better hope that most of these people were Level 1 Commoners and Experts, and thus, aren't any deadlier than a standard zombie.

A Vestige, from my knowledge, is a creature of power that resides in the ethereal plane. Binders make pacts to add the Vestige's power to their own, and gain some nifty abilities and drawbacks. One mentioned earlier gives you a better shot with a bow, but you look sick and cant shoot elves.

Seek out the Binder Fluff for more info. I belive its PHB2.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Binders make pacts to add the Vestige's power to their own, and gain some nifty abilities and drawbacks. One mentioned earlier gives you a better shot with a bow, but you look sick and cant shoot elves.

Wow, that's useful. Since people don't fight elves too much, that's useful.

[Xefas]

A Vestige, from my knowledge, is a creature of power that resides in the ethereal plane. Binders make pacts to add the Vestige's power to their own, and gain some nifty abilities and drawbacks. One mentioned earlier gives you a better shot with a bow, but you look sick and cant shoot elves.

Seek out the Binder Fluff for more info. I belive its PHB2.

The Vestiges aren't in the ethereal plane, to my recollection. I'm pretty sure they exist in a state of non-existence in a non-plane of nothingness.

[Grey Watcher]

Xefas appears to be correct. I managed to find a Wikipedia article about binders.

[SilverClawShift]

Although I was wondering if the rest of the world was undead-ified.

Yeah. In retrospect, it should have hit us when we learned more about the vestiges pushing through. That's not exactly a localized problem

Then it should have hit us again when we noticed undead sea creatures.

And it REALLY should have hit one of us when we realized the town was empty. But nope. No one's perfect I guess (or if someone did suspect something, they didn't say it aloud).

The player who said they were shouting out to the figure didn't even realize it, but that's when the rest of us did. The archivist honestly even jumped at the other player .

And if you wanna clear a path out, use spheres and walls of fire. They'll save your ass, since you can spam 'em for a while before going down.

That would've worked great, if we had someone capable of doing that, hehe. While almost everyone in the party has some kind of magic (the dragon shaman has auras, and I have UMD, but that's not exactly the same).

First, thanks for putting the effort in to keep us posted.

No problem, it's fun to talk about it

Is your DM single and female?

He's taken, and very male. Fortunately, his girlfriend understands him dedicating large amounts of time to this.

I'd suggest you have the wizard flying person rest while you guys keep the zombies out.

No more wizard. He's a zombie. Or a vestige. Or, whatever. A duskblade, a bard, an archivist, and a paladin, are our spellcasters.
And our DM does keep track of what spells we have access to, and makes us follow the rules on learning new spells fairly strictly (which is actually a lot of fun, once you get used to it).

After the previous battle I'd have said 'err.. aha.. yes.. we're leaving now! kthanxbye!'

Beleive me, I WANTED to. But I was, unfrotunately, our party face in this instance. I was the only one who could communicate with it, and it was the only kython who would even tell us to leave before it ripped our faces off, so we had to try.

************************

As for vestiges, yeah. They don't really 'exist' in the same way anything else does. They are literally nowhere, don't truly exist in any way we can understand, and aren't even really creatures/outsiders/ect of any type.

They don't even have alignments. They just are. Or aren't. Depending on how you look at it.

They're from the tome of magic, for the binder base class. Which is a very fun class that I highly recomend. Binders (who are usually considered heretics and burned at the stake by any organized religion, in fact, the book has an organization which is a collection of 4 otherwise un-associated churches who would gladly fight each OTHER, except they're more conerned with wiping out binders). Anyway, Binders can write seals and 'summon' forth a vestige. The vestige doesn't really exist in any physical way, and they usually appear as something that wouldn't even be capable of physically maintaining itself (even beyond the magical monstrosities normal in D&D).
But they can make pacts. They latch whatever trace of their essence still remains onto the soul (or essence) of the binder, called a 'pact'. The vestige gets to experience reality through the body/eyes/ect of the binder who is tied to them, albeit in a limited way. Other than that, they are in the 'void', the nothing, the place that doesn't exist.
When the pact is made, they give the binder a list of at-will abilities (with recharge periods, usually) and sometimes other cool stuff like damage reduction or elemental resistances or such. In return, they influence the way the binder looks (called the sign) and acts (called the influence) in some subtle ways.

Vestiges can be really creepy, but the creepiness is very superficial. Once you get over the disturbing nature of the pacts, and the pact making processes, a binder is just another character with a weird way of getting power. They're harmless.

Except in this campaign apparently. They found some way to force themselves back into reality, and they're going for it, regardless of the costs to us.

The 'millions of weak vestiges' thing is something our DM made up, it's not in the real binder fluff, it's just why nothing, regardless of type of creature, will stay dead

Anyway, we played a while on sunday, got together but couldn't actually play today, and are going to have another session tommorrow. I'll try to make some time to update on what's going on :).

Thanks for the words of praise to the DM everyone. He deserves it. He makes up a lot of stuff on the fly, but he spends a lot of time between sessions coming up with ideas and material so he can weave it all together easily. We the players are all really greatful to have someone happy to play on the other side of the table, and good at what he does.

[Korias]

The Vestiges aren't in the ethereal plane, to my recollection. I'm pretty sure they exist in a state of non-existence in a non-plane of nothingness.

Its also been... God, I havent lookd up binders in ages. I should go find that book. My memory is a bit screwy at the moment, anyway.

[Anxe]

Seriously. I want to play with you guys.

My second idea for what you should do is collapse the tower somehow. Have it fall sideways though, so it crushes a bunch of Zombies. Then you have a little island of upper ground to fight them off from as well.

[Tor the Fallen]

DM oversight. Also probably the fact that part of it the DM makes up on the fly.

It hadn't occured to me, I wonder if it's occured to anyone else. I don't think I'll bring it up though, that'd just be petty. Also, he can just Rule 0 it and give any reason.

Whew, that's good. Nothing insidious then

[shadowdemon_lord]

I just assumed it was because the wizard was killed by the Kython horde. He was probably either eaten after they killed him (thus making it impossible for him to come back with no body) or simply promptly killed again once he came back.

[Porthos]

I wonder if this port town has a shopping mall.

Might come in handy, you know.

[Tor the Fallen]

I wonder if this port town has a shopping mall.

Might come in handy, you know.

Until the motorcycle gang shows up.

[shaddy_24]

Thanks for updating us on this. This just conferms that your DM is absolutely amazing and that must be a really fun campagne. I would love to play in it.

[Solmage]

[..] (who are usually considered heretics and burned at the stake by any organized religion [...] , in fact, the book has an organization which is a collection of 4 otherwise un-associated churches who would gladly fight each OTHER, except they're more conerned with wiping out binders). [...]

[..] but the creepiness is very superficial [...] They're harmless. [..] Except in this campaign apparently.

NOW you see why they were being hunt down by those churches and burnt at the stake! Those irresponsible binders are what caused this, each little bind empowered the vestiges a bit more, and over millennia they finally are able to breach the barrier!

So, when all is said and done, remember, have YOU burned a Binder today?

[Ikol_777]

Against the BBEG I reccomend a couple wands of:


Ray of Enfeeblement
Necromancy
Level: Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Ray
Duration: 1 min./level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes

A coruscating ray springs from your hand. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack to strike a target. The subject takes a penalty to Strength equal to 1d6+1 per two caster levels (maximum 1d6+5). The subject’s Strength score cannot drop below 1.

T

[Anxe]

Why would you need a couple of wands of those? 3 or 4 scrolls would be enough to hit him I'm sure.

[Grey Watcher]

Given that the campaign is based around a systemic problem with the nature of the afterlife, one has to wonder how a BBEG would work. I mean, yeah, they could square off against an uber-vestige-zombie, that's got both the vestige's and the victim's powers intact, but what are the odds such a being will be standing between the players and the Cosmic Mojo That Will Set Everything Right Again? (My sense of drama and plot construction says "pretty good, actually.")

[Alex12]

Given that the campaign is based around a systemic problem with the nature of the afterlife, one has to wonder how a BBEG would work. I mean, yeah, they could square off against an uber-vestige-zombie, that's got both the vestige's and the victim's powers intact, but what are the odds such a being will be standing between the players and the Cosmic Mojo That Will Set Everything Right Again? (My sense of drama and plot construction says "pretty good, actually.")

Well, perhaps it could be that the MacGuffin, when activated/destroyed/whatever, also forces all "improperly bound" vestiges (read:those inhabiting corpses) back into the proper place, and naturally any vestige that realizes this is going to try really hard to keep that from happening.

That's my guess about what happens, anyway.

[Grey Watcher]

Well, perhaps it could be that the MacGuffin, when activated/destroyed/whatever, also forces all "improperly bound" vestiges (read:those inhabiting corpses) back into the proper place, and naturally any vestige that realizes this is going to try really hard to keep that from happening.

That's my guess about what happens, anyway.

True enough. I was imagining that the MacGuffin would only stop new vestige-zombies from coming into being and all those that are already there would still have to be dealt with, but then, that would be a less satisfying victory, wouldn't it?

[Alex12]

True enough. I was imagining that the MacGuffin would only stop new vestige-zombies from coming into being and all those that are already there would still have to be dealt with, but then, that would be a less satisfying victory, wouldn't it?

Plus, the vestige-zombie would definitely have a motivation for being there: "What? You mean if this thing is activated I'll have to go back?! HELL NO!"

[Anxe]

I think the BBEG would be a flesh and blood Vestige.

[SilverClawShift]

Okay, have some free time, so here's what's up.

Our standing group, (level 8, all around the board), Rogue/factotum, Duskblade/Swashbuckler, Archivist, Bard, Dragon Shaman, and a Paladin/Death Delver (who is still virtuous and true and good and all, but is starting to flippin LOSE IT as far as sanity goes. He's hit negative hit points one too many times).
(we also still have "Cap'n Carver", the us).

As far as out of character concerns go, the paladin has seriously cracked. I mean, the PLAYER is fine, he's just embracing the idea of a paladin gone loopy . The DM is letting him keep his paladin abilities as long as he stays 'good', and he's still all about the paladin leanings and behavior and moral code. He's just getting creepy.
The kython plated armor and shield probably doesn't help his image, cause he's in glossy black armor and all. But more to the point, him and the DM have been discussing something behind the scenes, and they've agreed that the paladin is losing his celestial horse. A celestial mount is kind of a reflection of the person riding it in some ways, and the noble angel-horse was fine when he was a sword-and-board paladin straight up, but now?...
Thing is. He's KEEPING a celestial mount. WHAT he's keeping as a mount was revealed to the rest of us as a surprise, and I'll tell you when, and what

In character

Our next session started in the same spot the other left off. We're pinned in a rather plain belltower, the streets are pretty much flooded with zombies. There's random houses that are boarded up, and the church is heavily barricaded, but we have no guarantee that anyone is actually in these places.

We're at the top of the belltower, the wind is picking up and it's obviously about to storm hard. The zombies are circling us. They're not completely thick around the belltower yet, but they're COMING, and it's just a wall of corpses past the few gaps anyway.
The relatively weak barricades we threw up start to give, and then finally let go with a whimper. The zombies come shambling in, moaning hungrily. Lots and lots of them. Even if they're all mook-strength, we're going to have a hard time with the numbers alone.
The duskblade, no hesitation, jumps up, grabs a wooden beam, and gives the rope holding up the big heavy metal bell a quick swip. It falls, tears up the internal structure just a teensy bit, and pancakes a bunch of corpses. It also acts as a choke-point in the bottom of the tower itself, so we basically are seeing LINES of zombies coming up, instead of mobs. So that's a little good, but we're still in bad shape.

The archivist comes up with an idea, and gets the DM to agree to it 'behind the scenes' (read: in notes).
Now, in our group? Prepared casters tend not to prepare all their spell slots unless they know something's coming up. If we're about to trek through the woods, they'll fill their slots with buffs and useful stuff of course. If they know they won't get a chance to prepare spells later, they'll fill it up with what they think will come in handy. Otherwise? They leave their spell slots open. It still takes time to sit down and ready them all to be cast, but personally, I kind of like that. It makes magic something a little more cinematic and a little less "machine gun"ish. Spells take time to prepare, so if you have the time, you can prepare what you need. Otherwise, be ready with your best guesses.
Our archivist has his spell slots unprepared. So what does he do? He touches the paladins shoulder (in and out of character) and says "Buy me some time. I need to pray."
The dragon shaman, leaning over the railing and looking down at the corpses groaning upwards at us, says "Yeah, we ALL need to f***ing pray".

So the archivist kneels in the corner, prayerbook open, wind whipping throughout the wall-less area we're in, while the rest of us try to find ways to make ourselves useful.
The paladin rushes down the stairs (actually cackling 'heroically', would be the best way to put it) spinning his sword above his head. Takes up a natural chokepoint on the stairs and starts trading blows with corpses. The Duskblade/Swashbuckler readies herself behind the paladin and curses about not having a reach weapon. The dragon shaman keeps a little distance, but gets in aura-range of the paladin and puts up some damage reduction for him. The warforged bard sits calmly at the top of the stairs and begins a creepy flute song (...), and I perch on the stairway higher up and start plunking stuff with my crossbow.
This goes on for a while, the paladin is taking some injuries, but is still fighting like a pro. The bodies are piling up in front of him and slowing the zombies down, but also confusing matters some (they all look dead anyway, I can't tell what I'm chopping at! It's just a wave of teeth and rotten faces)
Finally, the archivist shouts down "I'm ready, I still need more time!"
And starts climbing outside to get to the pointed roof of the freaking belltower. In what's about to become a torrential downpour. Lunatic.
I ask what in the nine hells he thinks he's doing, and he says "Hemmoraging divine magic, just get me time!"
The thing is, he wasn't just casting spells. He was giving spell slots, but he was also asking for a miracle in a way. He's perched up there, clinging to a lightning rod (!!!) and reaching up towards the sky. Fog and vapour are drifting past, and he's running his fingers through it, mumbling chants and giving up his spell slots. All of them. For?
The storm breaks. The DM makes him roll a reflex save (failed) and takes heavy electrical damage, and is temporarily deafened, but survives it. Slides down the rooftop weakly, the bard grabs him and pulls him in, and the downpour begins.

The downpour with faint but present traces of holy water throughout the entire cloud system. Oh yeah.

Apparently, the archivist got his miracle. He gave up his spell slots for the day... ALL of them, to pour as much divine and personal energy into the air as possible. He cast Bless Water a few dozen times in every spell slot he had available (except 0 level) and prayed that it would distribute throughout the clouds. And it did.
It wasn't KILLING anything, it was too dilluted. But the zombies were flailing and collapsing in divine agony. The more vaguely-not-stupid ones shambled for cover, but most of them just collapsed groaning in fury.

And it got us what we needed. With the warforged bard carrying the injured archivist (yeah, not anything in D&D rules, but the DM and us all agreed that he wasn't going to be sprinting after getting hit by lightning, high level or no), we broke for it. We fought viciously through the zombies still in the belltower and broke out into the rain. Heavy heavy rain. Heavy...holy water rain. Hmmm, seems like we're forgetting something, seems like, seems....

Oh right, I'M NOT FREAKING ALIVE ANYMORE.

So >I< start screaming in agony too, much to everyone elses surprise. Luckily I'm a player character. I'm taking divine damage (1's not even dice, and sporadic at that, but still). I manage to put on my gloves while we run and put up my heavy black hood. I also dig through my packs and manage to find a plain cloak to hold over my head, which doesn't doo much, but the "one divine damage" thing came less often.
Jeez.
So we make it to the church and start hammering the doors and shouting as intelligently as possible. "Please we're alive, let us in!"

And? After a moment, we hear running towards the doors. A slot opens up, and we hear a lot of confused conversation, but the guy at the door says "Go somewhere else!" Another voice behind him shouts "Open the door gregor!" Enter a shouting match. He's refusing to risk opening the locked door, people behind him are agreeing, people behind him are shouting to open it anyway, we can't leave them out there, it's too dangerous, open the god **** door, it could be a trick, ect. We're shouting at them to open it, it's not a trick, for gods sake the zombies are weakend but still COMING FOR US.

Me? I'm shrieking in burning divine pain. The paladin, in a panic seeing me in pain, starts slam-kicking the door to get it open. The group gets even more riled up, the screaming is reaching a peak, the zombies wails are getting closer, angrier, and hungrier.

Dm: "<silverclaw> you take one more divine damage"
Me: "oh F*** IT! I go ethereal and through the door, ready for trouble"
Everyone, DM included: ....*jaws dropped*

Anyway. I ask if I catch 'gregor', the guy at the door off guard for a sneak attack. The DM says "You just turned into a spectre, floated through the door at 60 feet a round, and dropped back into a solid shape with a thud. You're darn right you caught him flat footed".
So I elbow him to the back of the head, unarmed attack, sneak attack subdual damage. With the sneak, it was enough to send him way down, down for the count.
I throw the wooden beams back and start unlocking the door. The paladin kicks it in, breaking the last few locks, and in we come. A big wild eyed guy with glistening black armor and a sword and shield (also glistening black), a freaky rune carved golem holding a singed and injured dark-eyed archivist (who, really, are creepy no matter how you cut it). A dragon shaman who's starting to show traces of lizard, and... well, I guess the duskblade schoolmarm with a rapier still looks pretty normal, but drenched.
We immediately slam the doors shut and start re-barricading them. I'm sizzling like a smokebomb, and start tearing at my holy-water soaked clothes and stumbling and screaming in a pained panic. The warforged sets the archivist on a pew and makes sure he's okay.

*EDIT* Also, I forgot to mention. Cap'n Carver got red-shirted on the fight through the rain *END EDIT*

So, now I'm basically naked. And dead. And smoking with holy "acid". Ans stitched together.
Someone in the crowd: "She's one of them!"
Paladin: "No she's not!"
Someone else: "Who they heck are YOU?"
Paladin: *readies sword and steps between me and the crowd* Someone willing to die defending the innocent!
Crowd: "You killed gregor!"
other part of the crowd: "No, he's still breathing!"
Someone else in the crowd, pointing at the warforged: "What the hell is THAT THING"
Warforged, calmly: "I'm a housekeeper."

...

*cough*

(also, for anyone who wonders if my group can keep in character and out of character stuff seperate? And wonders about group dynamics and things like that? The paladin who was ready to die defending me from an angry crowd? Same player who was the rogue who gave me TO an angry crowd to be burned at the stake in another campaign.
It's a game everyone, keep that in mind if you get mad at each other over stuff that goes down )

So, anyway. I managed to scrounge up, what basically amounts to a hobo outfit from the dry miscellanous gear we had in our packs. A lot of nothing, tied cloth, cloaks folded into each other and held together with pins. My armor class sucks, but at least I'm not naked.

We managed to get the crowd convinced that we were the good guys, somehow, but they remained pretty divided and not many of them trusted us. We got the archivist healed up, but he was completely out of magic. He's basically down to dark knowledge as far as class abilities go.
The dynamics of the crowd were fairly interesting, as was their situation. They'd been in the church for days and days, no one trusted each other, they still weren't sure what the heck happened, they were out of food for the past few days, a lot of them were dying or dissapearing.
It was actually a little confusing. Not that we couldn't tell what was going on, it was just that the DM did a good job of feeding us information second-hand, with commoners bickering at each other and contradicting each other.
Then Gregor started coming around, and that just made things worse.

What we established was that:
No one trusted us. Especially me.
There was no food left in the church.
People kept dissapearing or dropping dead.

Now, I'll condence down a lot of this part, not because it's not interesting, but because it's a pain to keep straight i conversation, let alone typing it all down. The game went murder-mystery on us. We're talking to people, trying to establish who knows what/was where/likes who/trusts who/is lying/isn't lying. It's an uphill battle since they don't like us anyway, and don't feel compelled to tell us a lot to begin with. The duskblade is making more progress than the rest of us.

Finally, we start figuring out what's up. The duskblade starts accusing two women of being the murderers, and they freak out and start crying. A guy, (Levain was his name) starts getting in her face and growling at her, how dare she be trying to stir up trouble when there was allready too much of it going on, she should be greatfull they don't throw us through the windows and back to the zombies, ect.

Duskblade: My hair's still wet?
DM: You're all drenched, except for <silverclaw> who took the time to dry off specifically because she was burning to death.
Duskblade: I wring out my hair casually, catch a handfull of the water, and throw it in Levains face.

...Oh HELL yes. We figured it out (well, she did. Well, the player (he) controlling her did. Whatever).

Levain SCREAMS, the same way I screamed, and falls back clutching his burning and smoking face. The crowd immediately backs away from him with gasps and screams. Levain bares his fangs and charges the duskblade.
Yeah, Levain was a vampire. People weren't just being killed in some random pattern, they were being EATEN. The archivist and duskblade collaborated information and figured out that much. No one knew who the vampire was, but the duskblade was trying to draw him out, making him go on the offense before he got put on the defense. It worked, and he was exposed.
The interesting thing? Levain wasn't part of this undead swarm. He'd apparently been a vampire for a good decade, and this situation was very bad for him. He had feeding grounds, but no good way of covering his tracks.

Ballroom Blitz
You want chaos? This fight we had next was chaos.

The paladin does a detect evil. The DM informs him "You get pings all over. The whole group isn't evil, but some of them are."
The paladin charges Levain for a smite evil, hits him hard. So hard, Levain immediately turns into a swarm of bats and flies down into the church basement to retreat. The paladin charges after him, the duskblade is in hot persuit.
Another guy from the crowd (he had a reason) takes the opportunity of the confusion to tackle the dragon shaman and starts fighting him. Isolated, the dragon shaman is doing fairly well in the fight, but his main party roll of 'making everyone better' gets weakened when he starts having to back up the stairs to the second level to retreat from the (now two) guys attacking him.
The crowd starts fighting itself, accusations are flying, who knew what, why did you let this happen.
A large part of the group swarms me. The warforged-bard runs to help me, and gets me a flanking position where I actually start getting sneak attacks (sub-dual still... I didn't want to kill the confused commoners unless it became me or them).
The dragon shaman takes a running leap from the second level balcony and back to ground floor, softens some of the damage with tumble, but still hits negatives. One of the guys who attacked him moves for a coup de grace, the other comes after me.

And then the archivist opens fire from the pew with his kython dart gun. 1 peircing damage to both of them.

Attacker: "What did you think that'd accomplish? Oh no, a splinter, I-" and then falls to one knee, breathing heavily as the venom eats 4 of his CON right then and there. "What...what was"
The other attacker loses enough hitpoints that he drops into negatives. The crowd backs away from the archivist and the three of us group together. The bard manages to get the dragon shaman back into positives, and the four of us go running after the paladin/duskblade/vampire combo while the first attacker limps after us.

(I hope I'm explaining this clearly).

Now, while this was going on, the vampire raked over the duskblade in bat-swarm form, and she's bleeding heavily. The vampire reforms, the duskblade gives him a whack, he gives the paladin a whack, they all trade blows for a few rounds while the vampire tries to turn the situation to his advantage (spider climb? still getting stabbed. Cover from the table? paladin kicked it over my head, ect)
They drop the vampire, but, you know how that goes. He turns into a mist and seeps through a bunch of cracks in the stone wall (...and we all get hit with a heavy clue-by-four). We catch up, the paladin lays on hands on the duskblade so she stops losing hitpoints, and the paladin starts hammering away at the wall and trying to tear at the stones.

Anyway. We get through the stone wall with some effort, and we find? Stone passges. Filled with spiders, webs, dust... A few doors here and there leading to other hallways and rooms. We know there's a vampire coffin in here somewhere, but it looks like something more too. There are unholy symbols, small altars, bloodstains.
After a few looks around, the Archivist informs us that it's a 'temple' to the demon prince of undeath, Orcus. It's less of a full blown temple, but it's likely a place that a cult of orcus can meet in secret. The layout also suggests that it will lead to under the cemetery too.

We trek in a ways, carefully. We're looking for a vampire coffin afterall, it's recovering down here somewhere. But after a few passages? We hear a thunk behind us. An oil barrel was just punctured and pushed over by the guy who attacked the dragon shaman, and it sloshes around our feet. He's looking sickly from the venom, but is standing strong.
He strikes a torch and gives us this line. "Orcus prefers his sacrifices be made in the darkness, not the flame. But this will have to do", and starts lowering the torch to the oil.

Paladin, out of character: Then I guess it's time for me to summon my mount.
Warforged, out of character: Yeah, a horse probably won't help us much down here.
Paladin: Yeah, I don't have a horse anymore. Trust me.

The DM smiles slyly, and tells us what we see. A dark shape melts from the ceiling and descends slowly towards the attacker. We can't make it out in the shadows, but it's big.
Paladin, in character, to the attacker: "As a warrior of all that's virtuous and honest in this world, I need to inform you that a giant spider is about to attack you from behind."
The attacker smirks.

And finally we see it. The flame from the torch reflects off its segmented eyes, and we see the dark, but somehow 'silvery' carapace of a celestial monstrous spider grapple the attacker effortlessly and spin him up in a bundled web before pulling him up and dropping the torch to the stone ground harmlessly.

...CELESTIAL MONSTROUS SPIDER?

Yup. Our paladin has a brand new bag. And it's AWESOME. First off, a silvery carapace and golden eyes? Oh yes. And it's slower than a horse, but it has a climb speed, and webs (no venom. Paladin spiders don't get venom, fair enough). And he can RIDE it, and it's INTELLIGENT, and friendly towards us. I think it's less physically durable than a horse, but I don't care. CELESTIAL SPIDER MOUNT.
Our paladin is still a good guy, and a warrior of paladin morals. But he's become, uh, 'dark' and insane enough that heaven isn't giving him a horse anymore. He's gonna be riding around on a Large sized spider.

And I fully approve.

Anyway, more has actually happened since then, but I'm getting tired, and the writing is starting to wear on my mind. We managed to find the vampires coffin and stake it.
The townspeople are pretty overwhelmed at this point. Too much going on. The zombies, the murders, us busting in, the vampire, and now there's a demon worshipping cult in town and we have no idea who are members of it?

But, they found out that in about 17 hours, the archivist is going to be able to summon enough food for everyone, and then some. It's going to be bland oatmeal, but nutritious, and people on the brink of starvation usually aren't upset about oatmeal.
Suddenly they like us a whole lot more, which is fair I guess. They've even agreed not to kill me when no one else is looking. I'm still wary though.
The paladin has opted NOT to let them know he rides a giant spider. Seems...uh, yeah. But we found a few rooms full of ancient religious lore, and a few useful items. I even found some decent makeshift armor that's good for me, and a collar that keeps me under a constant "Gentle Repose" to prevent me from rotting so the archivist can use his spell slots for more important stuff. (the collar was the vampires actually).

So, yeah, when I have more mental energy, I'll keep going. But I will say that I don't think the BBEG will be a straight up vestige. (if we even have one straight up like that, our DM doesn't always give us one big "Mwuhahah" kinda guy. In fact it's kinda rare). I also don't forsee a macguffin, but it is possible. That's nother thing our DM doesn't like to do, big "Omg reach this to save the world" buttons.

I dunno how this is going to go down, truth be told. (also, we're higher level at this point, but we were 8 at the start of this section, so yeah)

[bingo_bob]

I envy you SOOOOO much right now. It's not even funny.

[bugsysservant]

"Now children, thank the nice lady for her post."
"Thank you SilverClawShift."

Seriously though, very cool. Again, thanks for the time put in. And the part about the detect undead with hair: pure win. You, and your DM, rock.

[Anxe]

Your DM's probably gonna give you an escape passage through the basement temple you found. You've still gotta get to those other people in the other random barricaded houses.

[Arraxis]

That game you are having sounds so cool! I really want to see some more updates for it later on. I wish I could get in on a game like that :D

[Anxe]

So have you considered my application to your group yet?

[Doresain]

ok, so i got tired of reading the same battle strategies over and over again after page 3, so there is probably a lot that i missed in between there and here...but in regards to the warlocks, you dont have to make a pact with a demon to gain a that power...on an island where the dead simply rise up for kicks, wouldnt it make sense that some of the townsfolk would have such fiendish power bred into them?

so far, warlocks seem like the way to train these commoners...roughly 43 warlocks, each with eldritch spear makes for 43 ranged touch attacks per round at d6 damage, not to mention what the PCs can do...take out some of the bigger kythons first, as well as a number of the smaller ones...swarm the xenos with their own undead brethren as well as the zombies already present...

another good training outlet would be 43 dread necromancers with tomb-tainted soul at first level...unlimited heals for the commoners, rebuke undead and summon undead, good armor and weapon useage...

of course, both of these options leave quite an interesting effect on the town should they all survive...

EDIT: i feel like an idiot for not readin the rest...my bad

[SilverClawShift]

One thing I forgot to mention. The archivist is spending a lot of time 'researching' the religious information we found in one of the stoney 'dungeon' rooms. So he's pouring over ancient cursed texts by candlelight, the duskblade and dragon shaman are sleeping upstairs with the commoners, and me, the warforged, and the paladin are all actually bunking in web-hammocks in the room with the archivist. I wanted to be high up and hard to reach, we figured the warforged would be better off that way too, god knows what some random commoner with a knife will decide to do to us.
The paladin is too, not because he wants to be away from them, but cause it's his spider webs :-p.

I just thought that was kinda cool and worth mentioning though.