InzeladunMaster
First Post
A black dragon arrived in the midst of a rainstorm and attacked Amelkhar for not sending the required ransom of virgins. As the dragon roared with omnipotent glee, the city began to sink into a quickly appearing swamp. Noxious mud and water began to rise between the cobblestones, and buildings sank. The dragon blasted outward with its acidic swamp-slime breath, dissolving the flesh off the people. The people tried to escape, creating bottle necks of chaos at the exits - and the dragon blasted these easily, killing massive amounts of people at once. Other people began to change, to become serpents and reptiles and worse.
Our heroes fled to the central temple. Perhaps the crypt thing could help or perhaps Hamdin could access his extra-dimensional escape hatches he discovered in the last adventure.
Meeting Sailor John and Omar, the heroes fled through the small door which opened for Hamdin. They wound up in Ugot, where a festival was happening. The main instrument in an Ugottian dance is the drum, which is beaten with bare hands or sticks to provide a rhythm. Other instruments are added to enhance the mood, the sound or the numinous quality of the event. Dances may be old traditions handed down from ancient times or they may be new innovations created by recent experts. Some dancers vibrated their bodies in a passionate frenzy not unlike fighting madness, while others performed impressive standing leaps in their dances. Dancing also involves frightening costumes. Masks, face paint, costumes, stilts and even live snakes are used to transform the dancers into mystical beings representing some natural or supernatural concept. The festival was to celebrate the sending of a virgin to the dragon.
Hamdin also discovered that next week a cannibal sorcerer was exacting his due from the city as well - and that all the condemned persons were his top three students at his Ugottian school. Having witnessed the fate of a city which ignored its due to the dragon, they opted to forgo that one for now and get rid of the cannibal sorcerer. Hamdin spoke the headmaster of his school about the wizard.
He told Hamdin of the monstrous Degella, who demands monthly sacrifices of young boys and girls for his ghastly appetites. The villages and the city of Ugot pay this ransom because of the terrible monsters and unholy powers Degella possesses. Degella, an acolyte of the black dragon, can command the weather to devastate the villages, or unleash undead assassins to slay his foes. He lives among baboons and can understand their language. People who enter his region of wilderness (dubbed Kujamii) never return.
As they travelled north, they reached the wizard's sorcerous garden. The terrain became more and more rainforest-like. Hamdin discovered seventeen Gahleb Duhr stones at the outskirts of Kujamii and Sailor John met his first treant.
Once in Kujamii, they were attacked by an assassin vine, which nearly killed the witch Ulalia. After the near party-kill by the assassin vine, they encountered a large number of baboons. Sailor John calmed the baboons down, but the cannibal himself was nearby, watching in hiding. As the heroes passed through the crowd of baboons, the wizard shouted "Attack!" for he had trained the baboons in the attack trick (as per Handle Animal). He also sent in his favorite pet, Senubora, an elite baboon animal ally to attack. Although easy to kill, the sheer numbers of baboons almost overwhelmed the party.
The party then chased after the wizard, who tried to send his mkovu (an undead familiar the size of a child) away. The wizard fought back with mirror image and a +2 ebony thundering war club and nearly killed Achis.
With the wizard dead, the party found his tower in the center of the garden.
The library offers 6 virtual ranks in Craft (Herbalism), Knowledge (Nature), and Knowledge (Ambulatory Plant Life) (or +3 to skill checks for characters with 6 or more ranks already), gained after 2 days of study for a particular question. Other books in the wizard's library include "Dragons of the Vipnaal Swamp" by Brard, "Seventeen: The Secret to Escape" by Zealia of Tsath, "The Eaters" by Mukhali Checheg of Süke-Bator, "The Unholy Mysteries of Ragnfast" by Ugot, "Ecology of the Assassin Vine" by Degella, "Shambling Mounds of the Vipnaal Swamp" by Degella, "Habilum the Iron Maw" by Degella, and "Entangling Plants of Vipnaal" by Degella.
Also, one can find his spellbook, which has the spells: Splash of Vipnaal (Acid Splash), Disrupt Undead, Alarm, Charm Person, True Strike, Identify, Mirror Image, Magic Mouth, False Life, Summon Swarm, Summon Monster (only summons plant monsters or baboons), Summon Monster II (only summons plant monsters or baboons), plague of death, sorcerous garden, raise corpse, the dead speak, spirit of the land. The spellbook is rectangular. The pages are papyrus and the cover is made of large, thick leaves. Three ambulatory vines surround the book - they allow the book to be opened if a drop of blood is dripped into the three pods.
Our heroes fled to the central temple. Perhaps the crypt thing could help or perhaps Hamdin could access his extra-dimensional escape hatches he discovered in the last adventure.
Meeting Sailor John and Omar, the heroes fled through the small door which opened for Hamdin. They wound up in Ugot, where a festival was happening. The main instrument in an Ugottian dance is the drum, which is beaten with bare hands or sticks to provide a rhythm. Other instruments are added to enhance the mood, the sound or the numinous quality of the event. Dances may be old traditions handed down from ancient times or they may be new innovations created by recent experts. Some dancers vibrated their bodies in a passionate frenzy not unlike fighting madness, while others performed impressive standing leaps in their dances. Dancing also involves frightening costumes. Masks, face paint, costumes, stilts and even live snakes are used to transform the dancers into mystical beings representing some natural or supernatural concept. The festival was to celebrate the sending of a virgin to the dragon.
Hamdin also discovered that next week a cannibal sorcerer was exacting his due from the city as well - and that all the condemned persons were his top three students at his Ugottian school. Having witnessed the fate of a city which ignored its due to the dragon, they opted to forgo that one for now and get rid of the cannibal sorcerer. Hamdin spoke the headmaster of his school about the wizard.
He told Hamdin of the monstrous Degella, who demands monthly sacrifices of young boys and girls for his ghastly appetites. The villages and the city of Ugot pay this ransom because of the terrible monsters and unholy powers Degella possesses. Degella, an acolyte of the black dragon, can command the weather to devastate the villages, or unleash undead assassins to slay his foes. He lives among baboons and can understand their language. People who enter his region of wilderness (dubbed Kujamii) never return.
As they travelled north, they reached the wizard's sorcerous garden. The terrain became more and more rainforest-like. Hamdin discovered seventeen Gahleb Duhr stones at the outskirts of Kujamii and Sailor John met his first treant.
Once in Kujamii, they were attacked by an assassin vine, which nearly killed the witch Ulalia. After the near party-kill by the assassin vine, they encountered a large number of baboons. Sailor John calmed the baboons down, but the cannibal himself was nearby, watching in hiding. As the heroes passed through the crowd of baboons, the wizard shouted "Attack!" for he had trained the baboons in the attack trick (as per Handle Animal). He also sent in his favorite pet, Senubora, an elite baboon animal ally to attack. Although easy to kill, the sheer numbers of baboons almost overwhelmed the party.
The party then chased after the wizard, who tried to send his mkovu (an undead familiar the size of a child) away. The wizard fought back with mirror image and a +2 ebony thundering war club and nearly killed Achis.
With the wizard dead, the party found his tower in the center of the garden.
The library offers 6 virtual ranks in Craft (Herbalism), Knowledge (Nature), and Knowledge (Ambulatory Plant Life) (or +3 to skill checks for characters with 6 or more ranks already), gained after 2 days of study for a particular question. Other books in the wizard's library include "Dragons of the Vipnaal Swamp" by Brard, "Seventeen: The Secret to Escape" by Zealia of Tsath, "The Eaters" by Mukhali Checheg of Süke-Bator, "The Unholy Mysteries of Ragnfast" by Ugot, "Ecology of the Assassin Vine" by Degella, "Shambling Mounds of the Vipnaal Swamp" by Degella, "Habilum the Iron Maw" by Degella, and "Entangling Plants of Vipnaal" by Degella.
Also, one can find his spellbook, which has the spells: Splash of Vipnaal (Acid Splash), Disrupt Undead, Alarm, Charm Person, True Strike, Identify, Mirror Image, Magic Mouth, False Life, Summon Swarm, Summon Monster (only summons plant monsters or baboons), Summon Monster II (only summons plant monsters or baboons), plague of death, sorcerous garden, raise corpse, the dead speak, spirit of the land. The spellbook is rectangular. The pages are papyrus and the cover is made of large, thick leaves. Three ambulatory vines surround the book - they allow the book to be opened if a drop of blood is dripped into the three pods.
