Wing Three

ADVENTURE 44 - REVENGE OF THE BLOODY HAND

PC Roster:
NPC Roster:
This was a short follow-up to "Tribe of the Bloody Hand," where Galrich Slayer got to slay the orc who had picked on him the most when they were both growing up in the tribe. It used the same forest road map (the foldout that had come with "Fields of Ruin") in which the previous "Bloody Hand" adventure had taken place, and the main story was that while the PCs had been going through their last two adventures, the rest of the Tribe had found the slain orcs the PCs had left where they fell, and were looking for some revenge.

When the PCs traveled back through the Vesve Forest on the way back to Greyhawk City, they heard drums beating. Galrich recognized them as orcish drums, a means by which messages could be sent great distances. It took a bit of effort on his part to recall what the drum-beats meant, but he finally pieced the message together to read: "Half-human monster, return to the location of your recent butchering and face the leader in combat." When the PCs showed up, they faced the current leader of the Bloody Hand, an enormous orc chieftain named Jorrak, plus three of his lieutenants and a troll ranger allied with the Tribe. The orcs were all mounted on stolen horses.

It was basically just one big battle with four very high-level orc barbarians (and a troll ranger straight from the Monster Manual), and the end result was as expected: Galrich killed Jorrak, while the others took care of the troll and the other three orcs. (Infernia was very useful in fighting the troll, as might be expected.) During the battle, I had Jorrak say something to the effect that he should have killed Slayer when he was born and saved himself all this trouble, hinting that Jorrak was indeed Slayer's father (and thus responsible for the kidnapping, slavery, and eventual death of Queen Kathenta, Galrich's mother), but I'm not sure if Jacob picked up on that. But in any case, the battle went well, they looted the orc (and troll) bodies, and left them to rot at the side of the road just like they had with Brogek and his band. The Tribe of the Bloody Hand would likely end up in a civil war of sorts as its stronger members determined who the new ruler would be, but the PCs weren't interested in hunting down the rest of the Bloody Hand and exacting retribution any further, as those directly responsible for Slayer's miserable childhood and the death of his mother had been dealt with.

I had Jacob roll a series of DC 12 Intelligence checks for Slayer to figure out the drum message; in each case I had a success give him a word or phrase of the message exactly as intended, and a failure meant he came up with the wrong word or phrase. He liked that part of it, and in fact I think he really enjoyed the fact that Galrich was in the spotlight (and in a good way) for the majority of the past few adventures.

ADVENTURE 45 - THE STICK PALACE

PC Roster:
This adventure came about as a result of my desire to flesh out Delphyne's background a bit. Thus far, all we knew about Delphyne was that her parents had died when she was eight years old, she was subsequently raised by her grandmother, and that her grandmother had taught her the ways of witchcraft, then sent her out into the world once she had taught her all she knew. I sent Vicki an email, asking her to come up with Delphyne's grandmother's name, which grandmother she was (the mother of Delphyne's mother or of her father), the name of her black cat familiar, a childhood nickname that her grandmother called her, and the name of the stuffed animal she had carried around with her as a child. The results Vicki sent me back were as follows

• Delphyne's maternal grandmother was Esmerelda Blinx.
• Esmerelda's black cat was named Pitch, after the darkness of her fur.
• As a child, Delphyne's favorite stuffed animal was a rabbit named Babbit. When Delphyne went off to see the world for herself, she left Babbit behind with her grandmother to remember her by, and so she "wouldn't get lonely."
• Esmerelda used to call Delphyne "Prattle," both because of her tendency to chat on and on about nothing as a child, and as a bit of a pun on the first part of her surname, "Babelberi."

I think Vicki knew I was building a Delphyne-centered adventure, and was eager to see what would come of it.

I don't think she was expecting what she got as a result. I started the adventure with another dream:

You are on a hill, alone, with storm clouds rushing through the sky at incredible speeds. "It is time, Prattle," whispers a familiar voice from the skies above. Looking up, you see the clouds take the form of the face of your maternal grandmother, Esmeralda Blinx, the woman who raised you since you were eight years old and who first set you on the path of witchcraft. "Time for you to return to the Stick Palace, so I can see you once more before I pass on to the next life. I have foreseen my death, child, and it will be very soon...perhaps only days away."

Despite the bulging storm clouds, it hasn't started raining yet; nonetheless, you find your cheeks are wet. "I’m coming, Grandmother," you reply – then awaken in your room at Guild Headquarters, knowing that you must immediately prepare for a journey back to your grandmother’s Stick Palace, two days away to the south.

Click to expand...

- - -

The years seemed to fall away as Delphyne approached the Stick Palace; all seemed the same as when she last saw it. She smiled as she spotted the weathered skull embedded in the massive tree’s trunk just to the left of the front door, and it greeted her warmly. "Miss Delphyne! I’ll alert the mistress that you've arrived! She will be pleased."

"Thank you, Percival," replied Delphyne. "How is she?"

"Oh, moving a bit slower now these days, but there's still life in her yet!" the skull chuckled. Rale gave it a worried look, but Delphyne seemed to be taking the animated skull in stride, so he assumed everything was okay. Chalkan didn't seem bothered in the least; Akari gave it a quick sweep of his ability to detect evil and then ignored it once it was clearly not of an evil bent. The three passed their reins on to Old Clem, who gathered them up and tied them to a series of trees not far away, then settled in to brushing them down after their travels.

Soon thereafter, there was a call from the window above. "I’ll be right down, Prattle! Give an old woman a moment to handle the stairs!"

In a minute or so, the door opened, and Esmerelda Blinx appeared. Although she had been an old woman for as long as Delphyne had known her, she seemed appreciably more ancient than the young witch had ever noticed before, but a spark of energy still flickered behind her mismatched eyes – the left one green, the right one blue. "Oh, and you've brought friends! Come in, come in!"

Suddenly, the old witch spotted the symbol of Hieroneous around Akari's neck. "A paladin?" she asked, confronting the elf. "You're not one of those hard-nosed types, who thinks all witches are evil and need to be burned at the stake, are you?" she glowered.

"No ma'am," replied Akari with a smile. "If you're at all like Delphyne, I'm sure we won't be needing any stakes today."

"Me like her?" squawked Esmerelda in mock indignation. "Just who raised who, now? I'd say she's like me!" But she gave the elf a smile and ushered everyone to follow her up into her home, basically a tree house perched on the outthrust branches of an old oak tree, and accessed through its hollow trunk. The elderly witch leaned heavily on a crooked walking stick. "I need to talk to you about a possible threat from the forest," the elderly witch said to her granddaughter over her shoulder as she slowly mounted the stairs one step at a time. "But tea first, I think!"

The stairwell led up to a wide open area which obviously served as a dining room. Four wooden chairs, apparently handcrafted from branches and tree limbs, sat around a simple wooden table. Another stairway stood directly across from the entry stairs that led up to a closed door, and the dining area branched off to a small kitchen to the right and what seemed to serve as both a small library and a storage location for various arcane paraphernalia on the left.

“You make yourselves right at home,” called Esmerelda to her visitors, hobbling towards the kitchen. "I’ll get the tea on. Prattle, there are tea-cakes on the tray, if you’d like to pass those out. Then we can have our little talk."

As Esmerelda fussed about in the kitchen, a black cat sidled up to Delphyne and began rubbing at her leg. "Well, hello, Pitch!" said Delphyne, scratching her grandmother's familiar between the ears, just as she liked. "You want up, don't you?" The young witch easily lifted the cat and plopped her down on her left shoulder, where she purred contentedly and looked across Delphyne's back to Iggy, who sat perched in his accustomed place upon the witch's right shoulder. The two familiars glared at each other, each seeing the other as a rival for Delphyne’s affections. Despite the extra weight on her shoulders, Delphyne managed to pass small plates to each place setting and distribute the tea-cakes to her friends.

Esmerelda had Delphyne pull up her rocking chair from its place in the kitchen, where she liked to sit by the cook-fire, over to the head of the table, then joined the others. Satisfied that everyone was comfortable, the elder witch began her tale.

"It all started a few months ago. I’d get this feeling that I was being watched, from a distance; it always seemed as if my watcher was hidden deep, deep in the shadows of the forest. In my younger days, I would have simply stormed out into the forest to confront whoever it was that was a’spyin’ on me, but I’m afraid I don’t move so fast these days. So I’d just ignore it, and send old Pitch – you like it up there on little Prattle’s shoulder, don’t you, you naughty kitty? – here to go do my spyin’ for me. But try as she might, Pitch could never find whoever it was that was so interested in us.

"Then, one day, I heard this deep voice coming from the forest; it says 'VLOKT!'" Esmerelda called out that last word in a rough voice, and the adventurers all jumped a little at the unexpected power in the elderly woman's voice. They didn't get to jump very far, though, for upon vocalization of the command word, the four chairs the group had been sitting on immediately sprouted extra limbs and entwined around them, pinning their bodies to their chairs and their arms tightly to the arms of the chairs. They struggled briefly, to no avail.

But Esmerelda wasn't done yet. "Einnich! Zveinnin! Dreischu!" she called out, and at each new command word one of the chairs dropped through the floor and out of view, leaving a bound and confused Delphyne alone in the room with her grandmother and the two familiars. "Who are you?" she called out. "You're not my grandmother!"

"Well, maybe I wasn't up until a few days ago, dearie," replied the old crone, "but I certainly am now. But don't worry, I won't be her for much longer - I think I'll get much more use out of your body than your old granny's!" And the old witch cackled out loud at the anticipation. Iggy, frightened and unsure of what to do, flew off of Delphyne's shoulder and flapped over to a kitchen shelf. The old witch then repeated the command words, sealing off the three extradimensional links on the floor underneath the dining room table, from this side at least. But she wasn't overly concerned, confident that the surprises she had readied on the other side of the passages would keep Delphyne's adventuring companions busy for more than enough time for her to complete her wicked plan.

Any retort Delphyne might have given was cut short by the stinging sensation in her neck. Turning her head, she saw that Pitch was grinning evilly at her, and that while she still retained the majority of her black cat form, her tail had become that of a scorpion. As she watched helplessly, it stabbed her again and again, and the young witch felt the venom entering her system, making her lethargic and unable to move.

The old witch ambled over and inspected Delphyne with a critical eye - the blue one, in fact. "A few more for good luck," she advised, and the cat-thing that definitely wasn't Pitch complied, stabbing Delphyne a couple more times for good measure, until the young witch could no longer even move her head from side to side. "There we go," cooed the usurper of Esmerelda's body, and said the command word that released the bindings of the wooden chair. She then addressed the rooms at large, readying the defenses of the Stick Palace in the event Delphyne's adventuring companions escaped the extradimensional trap the old witch had readied for them.

"Souldrip, be my eyes, and prepare for action – remember that Bocklereave owes us a boon! Punkin, be vigilant, and fight off any intruders! Nooser, be alert for trespassers and strangle their very lives from them! Cracklespark, obey my second’s orders as you would my own, or suffer the consequences! In the meantime, we shall be upstairs – and we do not wish to be disturbed!" And with that, the old witch cackled in delight and pulled a ladder from the ceiling over by the library nook, hoisting the helpless Delphyne effortlessly over one shoulder with surprising strength and climbing to the branches above.

- - -

As visits to a friend's grandmother's house go, this one is slightly sub-optimal, thought Akari as he plummeted through the floor, bound to a chair. The lighting changed as he passed through the floor, going from that of a well-lit, sunny room to a shadowy murk all at once. The bound paladin hit the floor with no sound at all, not even as his chair splintered at the crash and broke apart. He extracted himself from its once-clinging embrace and looked around at his surroundings.

He was in a nondescript room some 15 feet by 20 feet, with a closed door at either end. There were no visible light sources, yet the room was lit by a feeble illumination nonetheless. And there were three skeletons bearing down on him.

"Crap!" called out the elf, pulling Deathstriker from his belt - or tried to, in any case, but his attempted vocalizations made no sound at all. He hurled the hammer at the closest skeleton, and it smashed the thing to bits with little effort. When Akari raised his hand to catch the hammer upon its return, he noticed his own hand was skeletal as well. No, not skeletal, he amended, touching one hand to the other and definitely feeling skin. But any further thoughts as to puzzling out the odd effects of the room he was in took a back seat to survival, as the remaining two skeletons closed on him.

- - -

This sucks! thought Rale as he plummeted into a murkily-lit room. He tried voicing his opinions to the world around him, but his words were magically silenced. He extracted himself quickly from the chair he had been bound to as a burly orc skeleton came rushing his way, a wickedly-curved sword in one hand and a round shield in the other. Then he scrambled to get a weapon out and just barely parried the skeleton's sword-thrust with his own new weapon, Belladonna. He kicked the skeleton away from him long enough to try to activate his Guild ring, but it was ineffective; wherever he was, it didn't seem like he was on the material plane any more. And worse yet, his Guild ring was on what looked to be a skeletal hand, despite his ability to feel the warmth of his own unseen skin. Then the rogue had no time for further introspection about the cruelties of fate as he battled for his life.

- - -

What in the--? thought Chalkan as he suddenly plummeted through the dining room floor and into an eerily-lit room with four skeletons eager to chop him into pieces. He had the misfortune of his chair surviving the fall, and it tried clinging to him as he in turn tried to extract himself from its embrace before the undead were upon him. He got himself free and got his longsword out before he could be cut to ribbons, and while he realized that a blade was a poor weapon against skeletons, it was all he had to work with at the moment - the undead were too close for him to use his bow, and the innate silence of the room prevented him from casting even a magic missile spell at them. So he fought them off as best he could, slowly making his way towards the closest of the two doors in this room.

Then he noticed that his skin was invisible, making the hand holding his sword look like it was skeletal.

What in the--? he thought yet again.

- - -

Delphyne was laid out on her back on a small table, on a platform open to the skies above the forest in which the Stick Palace sat. The intruder in her grandmother's body had stripped her of all jewelry, including the Guild ring which could have teleported her back to Guild Headquarters had she been able to move enough to activate it. But she was completely immobilized, unable to even protest as her pouches and bags were removed from her belt; all of her spell components were in those containers, which were dumped unceremoniously in a small sack along the access hole of the treetop platform.

The elderly witch placed a gemstone upon Delphyne's forehead, and started painting arcane symbols upon the young witch's face and brow, including special runes all along her mouth. "I think I’m going to like that body of yours a lot more than I like this one, 'Prattle,'" the old witch cackled. "Your grandmother was but a means to an end. I had to endure this body of hers for the past three weeks making my preparations, but now the time has come for you to be evicted and for Hagatha to take control. Oh, what fun I shall have in that body! Not to worry, though, dearie – you won’t feel a thing! And there’s no use in struggling, as my sweet little Souldrip has envenomed you to the point that you shouldn't be able to move a muscle for the better part of a day! I've taken the liberty of giving back the use of your mouth, so that we can talk in your final moments as you, before I take over. Now then, whatever shall we talk about?"

"You won't get away with this," snarled Delphyne, somewhat surprised that her mouth was able to move once again. She tried moving her hands, but no luck; only the runes painted along Delphyne's mouth were allowing her to speak.

"I won't?" asked Hagatha in a mocking tone. "I can't imagine why not. This process worked just fine with your grandma; I don't see why it should be any different this time." And she chuckled quietly to herself, before turning her attention to a small mirror she had perched in the crook of a branch. She focused her attention on carefully placing a similar gemstone on her own forehead, keeping it in place with a drop of sovereign glue, and then painting similar runes upon her own face. While her attention was thus diverted away from her helpless captive, Hagatha failed to notice a small movement in that direction.

Painfully, slowly, a stuffed bunny climbed up onto the table next to Delphyne. She stifled a surprised gasp, afraid that the usurper in the corner of the platform would hear and investigate. The young witch knew immediately who and what this was - it was Babbit, her old stuffed bunny, the one possession she had had with her when she first went to stay with her grandmother, Esmerelda Blinx, upon the sudden death of her parents. And she knew there was no way her bunny would be able to move around on its own - unless her grandmother was behind it somehow. A silent tear slid down the witch's face at the sight of Babbit pulling itself to its full, if insignificant, height.

The stuffed bunny had no fingers or individual digits on its stumpy foreleg; nonetheless, Delphyne understood when it held a stumpy paw up to its mouth and turned to look at Hagatha that her grandmother was warning her to remain absolutely quiet. Delphyne tried to nod but couldn't, but was sure that her grandmother knew she'd do as she had been told. Then the bunny reached into a rip along the seam of its side and pulled out a small flask. It was a bit of an effort to pop the cork off using only two stuffed paws, but Babbit somehow managed, and carefully tipped the flask between Delphyne's lips. Delphyne swallowed greedily, and immediately felt a tingling throughout her body. She still couldn't move, but she knew now that she should be able to soon.

Hagatha finished her facial runes and turned to Delphyne. Babbit had just enough time to hurl itself off the side of the table and fall to the floor; fortunately, its plush body made little noise upon impact, and Hagatha failed to notice. "It's time," she said, grinning wickedly at Delphyne.

The hag began chanting an unholy ritual in a elder tongue. Almost immediately, the sky turned dark, and a terrible wind set the branches of the forest's trees whipping back and forth. As clouds flashed by in the sky overhead, a sudden bolt of lightning hit the hag. However, instead of hurting her, it was absorbed by the gemstone on her head; then, just as suddenly, an arc of lightning jumped from her gemstone to the one on Delphyne's forehead and stayed in place, joining the two figures, old and young, forehead to forehead. As this occurred, strange and awful images began flooding Delphyne's mind, as memories that weren't hers own began taking up residence in her brain.

Delphyne screamed, not from pain but from pure hatred and a sense of violation.

- - -

The three adventurers had each, independently, learned a bit about the trap they were in. They were on a part of the Ethereal Plane somehow, in a closed ring of eight more-or-less identical rooms. Each was 15 feet wide by 20 feet long, with a door on each of the shorter walls. Going through a door led to the next room in sequence, and when you got to the end of the eight rooms you ended up right back at the first. Despite none of the rooms appearing to be made of anything but right angles, somehow they all curved together into a closed loop. And they had been "seeded" with plenty of undead to fight; not only orc and human skeletons but a necrophidius (an undead construct made from the skeleton of a serpent and the skull of a man), and the animated remains of a sail-finned, fossilized dinosaur. Fortunately, the fact that the adventurers' skin was all invisible and they had no way to talk aloud to each other had not prevented them from figuring out that when they first met up with each other in the Ethereal Ring they weren't encountering undead versions of their companions. No doubt Delphyne's evil grandmother had hoped they'd have attacked each other upon meeting, but they were too wise for that.

Now that Rale, Akari, and Chalkan had met up with each other and fought off the undead menaces, they had to figure out a way to return to the Stick Palace. They figured their best bet was to return the way they had come; while there were no indications that the portal in the ceiling was still there, there was a chance that it might still be active. Chalkan and Akari, by dint of wearing the heaviest armor, got to be the stable platform upon which Rale scrambled; then the rogue, balanced upon their shoulders, reach up at the ceiling until his hand plunged right through it. He got himself a good grasp, then pulled himself up through the invisible hole in the ceiling, and found himself back under the dining room of the Stick Palace, his flesh fully visible, his ears once again picking up sound - and an angry quasit staring down at him from the edge of the table.

"Ah-ah-ah," scolded Souldrip, now looking nothing like Pitch the cat. "You stay down there where you belong!" And he launched himself at Rale, who rolled out of the way at the last moment. A scorpionlike tail stabbed out and struck the floor by his neck, but the rogue scrambled to his feet and pulled out his short swords.

"Cracklespark! Deal with this human!" commanded the quasit, unsure of his ability to deal with a fully-prepared adventurer on his own. Immediately, the cookfire under the kitchen cauldron blazed to life, then ambled out from the pot and assumed the form of a small fire elemental. "Nooser - get him!" cried out Souldrip, and a loose rope uncoiled itself from a library shelf and slithered towards the rogue.

Rale wasn't particularly thrilled with fighting either opponent, but he judged the rope to be the lesser threat and attacked it first. A sideways swipe with his magical blade severed off the thing's "head" - little more than a fancy knot - and it fell to the floor, lifeless once more. Rale kicked over the kitchen table, scooped up the rope, and fastened it to a table leg while the fire elemental made its way around the obstacle. By the time it had circled the table, Rale had dropped the rope onto the space of the floor he had just crawled out of moments before, but the rope just sat there - the link had closed! Then he tried repeating the three command words the old witch had used - "Einnich, Zveinnin! Dreischu!" - and the rope fell through the extradimensional space, now active once more. Akari caught the rope, and allowed Chalkan, being lighter, to climb up first. Neither of them had any idea what to expect up above, as the Ethereal Ring's silencing effect prevented them from hearing what was going on in the Stick Palace.

By the time Chalkan was climbing back into the dining room, Souldrip realized he was going to need even more reinforcements. "Punkin, activate!" he called off, while flying up a short stairwell on the far side of the kitchen. A pumpkin on a kitchen shelf started rapidly growing vines, which knitted and merged into a simple skeletal structure while the pumpkin itself popped out carved facial features along one side. Then the animated scarecrow jumped to join the fray.

By the time Akari had climbed back into the dining room, there was a pitched battle between Rale and Chalkan against a small fire elemental, a scarecrow, and a hill giant who had been released from the bottle in which he had been imprisoned by Hagatha. As the elf flung Deathstriker at the confused giant, the latest combatant entered the room from the small summoning chamber off the kitchen: Bocklereave the vrock, summoned by Souldrip the quasit to repay its prior debt to Hagatha and her minions.

In the midst of all of this chaos, another entity approached. Iggy flew down through the hole in the library ceiling, calling out a warning to the group: "Delphyne's in trouble! At the top of the tree!"

Akari didn't like the odds, so he summoned his griffon to him. Tsukitora manifested in the crowded kitchen, and at his master's command burst through an outer wall of the Stick Palace to the open air outside. "Go save Delphyne!" commanded Akari, hoping to be able to follow shortly after he had dealt with the demonic vrock.

Rale didn't hesitate - at the sound of Delphyne in peril he had abandoned the fight and scrambled up the ladder and out of the library. He soon found himself climbing a more natural ladder composed of carefully arranged tree limbs, and popped up through a hole in the floor of an open-air platform, where Delphyne was writhing on a table, an arc of electricity dancing between her and her grandmother. She had regained a slight bit of mobility, enough to wriggle her way to the edge of the table and gracelessly fall off of it, but Hagatha scooted to the side and the electricity arc continued undisturbed, each moment further filling up Delphyne's brain with Hagatha's memories and knowledge.

"I’m not sure how you’re able to move," the hag howled over the wind, "but it won’t make any difference in the long run! You can’t get out of range of the download, and before long, I’ll have taken over your mind, while your soul gets booted out to whatever afterlife you’ve earned. You’re finished, girlie!"

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" yelled Rale, racing towards the hag with his swords in hand, his rush silently applauded by Iggy, flapping to a branch nearby.

"You don't," commented Hagatha, spitting off the words to a spell that struck Rale smack-dab in the face. He stopped, staggered, and then shifted into the form of a frog, which hopped around the floor in wild confusion.

By this time, Delphyne had enough movement restored to be able to stand. She tried pulling the gemstone from her forehead, but it had been glued in place. Suddenly, a massive form rose up behind her grandmother's form, and the young witch had only a moment to stifle a cry before the winged beast was upon her. It gripped her in its curved talons, then hoisted her up into the sky with him. Tsukitora's strong wings flapped in the storm as he verified his grip on the young witch.

"No!" cried Hagatha, as the link between her and her next body was severed. The lightning was cut away from Delphyne's gemstone once the griffon had pulled her out of range, and the arc lashed out in all directions. Everywhere it struck – the side of the table, the floor, a branch of the tree – the wood took on the semblance of the hag’s face, and began speaking about whatever memories were transferred there. Within mere moments, there was a confusing babble of voices – or, more accurately, the same voice – blathering on simultaneously about a myriad of different memories, as the hag screamed out in torment and frustration, her life-essence dissipating in all directions.

The multiple lightning strikes from Hagatha's forehead gem started the upper platform of the Stick Palace on fire. By the time Akari and Chalkan had dealt with the monsters in the Stick Palace's kitchen and dining room and climbed up to the Stick Palace's upper levels, the battle was over. Hagatha had collapsed as her consciousness dissipated among the burning surfaces of the treetop platform. Chalkan entered the inferno to see Delphyne's grandmother lying in a heap and Iggy desperately trying to pull a sack containing Delphyne's belongings over the side of the platform to safety. Chalkan pushed it over the side, then, at Iggy's urging, grabbed up a stuffed bunny from the side of the table and a small frog that had been hopping around in terror among the flames. Everybody climbed down to the forest floor, as Tsukitora landed with Delphyne, now just barely strong enough to stand. Surprisingly, the young witch reached out immediately for her stuffed bunny.

With shaky movements that mirrored the young witch's feebleness, Babbit rose up a final time. Its seams were ripped in several places, with stuffing falling out, and one button eye hung by a thread. "You take care of yourself, my little Prattle," whispered the stuffed bunny in what was inarguably the voice of Esmerelda Blinx. "It was good to get to see you again...I’m so proud of you....” And then the bunny fell over, and Delphyne could tell that whatever final spark of life essence had been keeping it animate was finally extinguished.

"Goodbye, Gramma," she cried, hugging her stuffed bunny tight.

Hagatha's ritual, which had called forth the lightning bolt which had in turn enabled the mental download process, now culminated in a full-blown storm. Sheets of rain blasted down from the skies, eventually putting out the blaze that had started at the top of the Stick Palace. The group spent the night in the treetop building, in the morning burying the body of Esmerelda Blinx - freed, in death, of the possession of Hagatha the greenhag. At Delphyne's request, Akari said a few words over her grave, and the group spent the next few days cleaning up and repairing the Stick Palace, until all evidence of the battles fought there had been removed. Delphyne found a set of her grandmother's diaries, in which the witch had been faithful in recording entries daily, up until a date three weeks ago, when they suddenly stopped. That, Delphyne realized, was the day that her grandmother had been overpowered by the greenhag. Pitch must have likewise been killed, her place taken by Hagatha's own familiar, Souldrip. But Esmerelda, though slain, had found a way to hold out, to keep one last little bit of herself alive in the form of Babbit, to keep her granddaughter safe this one last time.

Delphyne sadly closed the front door to the Stick Palace and said her farewells to Percival, who gave her his laments and offered her best wishes in the days to come. She thanked the old skull, touching the cool bone at the side of his temple, and promised she'd be back from time to time. Then she turned to her companions, who were gathering up the horses. "I'll meet you back at Headquarters," the young witch said quietly, mounting her broom and dashing off into the sky before they had a chance to argue. They did have time to notice that Babbit was tucked protectively under her arm.

"She just needs some time alone," Akari said, watching her disappear into the distance. Then, without another word, he turned his horse and headed back towards the road to Greyhawk City. The others followed suit.

- - -

This adventure was a bit of a concern for me. I was afraid it might be a bit too much of a railroad, considering that the whole thing pretty much fell apart if the PCs didn't all get captured as I had planned, and that Delphyne spent a good chunk of it paralyzed and unable to do anything constructive. But everyone had a good time, even though we did have a bit of fun comparing Galrich's secret backstory ("I'm the next king of my own country!") to Delphyne's ("My evil grandmother is trying to kill me--what the Hell?") Vicki was furious at Delphyne's "grandmother" before she found out that Esmerelda's body had been usurped. And when I showed her the initiative card I had made of Babbit, and explained that this is what she saw crawling up onto the table with a paralyzed Delphyne, Vicki knew right away that Esmerelda was somehow in the stuffed bunny.

As for the rest of the guys, they had an interesting time trying to communicate in the Ethereal Ring - I didn't allow them to talk or explain their hand gestures, but rather made them pantomime their actions as if they were their PCs.

In the end, we all had a good time, and while the other PCs didn't get much in the way of treasure, Delphyne was Esmerelda Blinx's sole living relative, so she inherited the Stick Palace and all of its contents. She didn't keep everything; anything she saw that she didn't remember as belonging to her grandmother, she destroyed, including the slinky black outfit that Hagatha had planned on wearing once she was comfortably inside Delphyne's body. It would have provided a +4 deflection bonus to AC and granted the wearer a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves vs. spider venom; nonetheless, it was Hagatha's, so Delphyne burned it. Likewise, the ring of mind shielding that hid Hagatha's true alignment was potentially valuable, but it was Hagatha's, so it was destroyed. While Delphyne has some of Hagatha's memories implanted in her head, she's managing to ignore the more vile stuff. On the plus side, she learned a few useful spells and a rudimentary understanding of the Giant language from her ordeals.

And now Babbit sits on Delphyne's bed in her room at Wing Three of the Greyhawk City Adventurers Guild, his previous duty - keeping Esmerelda Blinx from being all alone when Delphyne was sent out to see the world on her own - having been fulfilled in a commendable fashion.

Oh, and Cal managed to restore Rale back to human form, so he didn't have to live out the remainder of his life on a fly diet.

ADVENTURE 45 - THE SWAMP KING

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Having just fleshed out the respective backstories of Galrich and Delphyne, I was in the mood to do more of the same. However, just to be different (and to keep the players on their toes), I decided to be sneaky and make it Old Clem, their hireling, who was the focus of the adventure for once. This whole adventure was written around one of Logan's D&D Miniatures, a sorcerer riding a Large black dragon. They became my main bad guys for the adventure, which suggested a swampy locale, which tied in nicely with Old Clem's fishing village.

- - -

Old Clem enetered the common living area of Wing Three, holding a folded letter in his hand. "Beggin' yer pardon, milords," he said, "but I was wonderin' if I might take some time off to visit my old fishin' village? Y'see, my little niece is gettin' herself married and all...."

He passed the letter over to be read by the group. It was a wedding invitation from his niece, and Old Clem being her oldest living male relative, she was asking if he would mind giving her away at the ceremony. The letter also stated that Old Clem's "adventuring assistants" were welcome to attend if they'd like; they'd be honored guests at the wedding, bringing much prestige and good fortune to the newlyweds. In addition, the letter mentioned some mysterious disappearances by members of the fishing village that the group might be able to look into while they were there.

Chalkan, the one responsible for originally hiring on Old Clem to tend to the horses and cook the meals while the group was out in the field, took it upon himself as the "leave granting authority." He stated his intentions of going with Old Clem, and Delphyne, Rale, and Telgrane all decided likewise. That settled, the fishing village was about three days south of Greyhawk City, and while the wedding was still a week away, the group decided to head out in the morning. After all, one never knew what hazards would be met on the road, and if they got there days in advance they could always check into the disappearances.

The three days of travel were surprisingly uneventful, and the group arrived in Old Clem’s remote fishing village, where he was greeted by the villagers, both old and young. Rale and Chalkan, the only two to have visited the place before, noticed one difference right away: there were fishermen on patrol along the outskirts of the village, armed with gaffs and fishing implements. They by no means gave the appearance of hardened warriors, but they looked like they were willing to put up a fight if they had to.

It turned out that since the wedding invitation had been written and sent to Old Clem via courier, there had been six more abductions of village members. Only with the most recent attack were the perpetrators identified: a small band of bullywugs who snuck into the village at night and made off with a fisherman’s wife. The other victims had been of all ages and both sexes; there seemed to be no real rhyme or reason for the abductions, nor did the victims seem to have anything in common other than the fact they all lived in the same village. There was apparently some kind of a specific selection process going on, though, because on two separate incidents in the past week the bullywugs knocked out or killed one or more villagers on guard, only to capture someone else from the fishing village rather than abduct the already-unconscious guardsmen.

The fishermen knew of a tribe of bullywugs living somewhere deep in the swamps beyond the town, but they had never caused any trouble before; they'd stayed in their hidden swamp dwellings while the fishing village had always focused its attention on the coast and the schools of fish to be found in the sea. Nobody knew why the bullywugs had suddenly started making off with the fisherfolk, and while some of the younger men wanted to make a foray into the swamp to rescue their kidnapped kin, the wiser heads of the village counseled patience, knowing that Old Clem the Adventurer and his band of assistants would soon be here. (Apparently, Old Clem had been embellishing his "adventures" with the group, and his role in their heroics, just a bit in letters back home.)

Tracking the bullywugs would be problematic, as the creatures lived in the marshlands and had the ability to travel across the top surface of the bogs without leaving any trace. The fishermen of the village had several small boats they were willing to lend to the group if they wanted to try to navigate through the swamps, but they warned the odds of them stumbling upon the bullywug encampment were virtually nil.

However, since there had been abductions nearly every night of late, there was a good chance that the adventurers might be able to capture a bullywug in the coming night’s raid and interrogate him, or follow the bullywugs to wherever it is they’d been taking the captured villagers. So that was the plan eventually decided upon.

That night, the group spread out among different huts in the small fishing village, and gathered the majority of the remaining fisherfolk into two of the larger huts for their own protection. Old Clem, with a reputation as a "powerful adventurer" to uphold, opted to gear up and stand guard with the rest of Wing Three. They didn't have long to wait, for shortly after midnight the group heard a croaking noise coming from the swamplands behind the village. This was apparently a signal, for several squat figures were soon thereafter spotted creeping between the huts of the village. The adventurers crept out of their own huts as quietly as possible, and the first one to get a good shot at one of the bullywugs was Chalkan. He shot a scorching ray at the bullywug in front of him but the toad-man, acting on some unknown instinct, ducked and crouched at the last moment and the spell went whizzing by his head to strike another - fortunately unoccupied - hut, setting it quickly ablaze.

With that, the bullywugs dropped all pretense of subtlety. There were apparently only four of them, but they were being accompanied by an ever-increasing line of creatures coming up out of the sea: first a water mephit, who flew to the top of a hut and called out battlefield updates to the bullywugs, then a water elemental, and finally a fiendish crocodile. Telgrane quickly figured out that there must be a hidden spellcaster somewhere in the area, and he sent Infernia out to help him find the bullywug mage. In the meantime, those who ended up fighting the bullywugs quickly learned that these were disciplined fighters, well trained in the use of the halfspears they wielded. Still, three of the adventurers the bullywugs were fighting had spell usage on their side, and that eventually turned the tide of battle - soon, only the hidden bullywug spellcaster was left of the abductors. His relative position having been deduced, Delphyne and Telgrane blanketed the area with area-effect spells, fireball being particularly useful in that regard. The bullywug spellcaster, one Mud Lord Bloggleborp, was eventually located, captured, and interrogated. He refused to tell the group anything more than that he was honored to have been selected as a "harvester" for the Swamp King. Once it became apparent that the Mud Lord wasn't going to be of any further use to the group, Rale executed him on the spot, slicing through the many wattles at his neck and spilling his blood down his chest. Bloggleborp collapsed like a punctured balloon.

"So now what?" asked Delphyne, a little aghast at the cold-blooded killing.

"We'll just have to go out into the swamps ourselves and see what we can find," replied Rale, as he wiped the bullywug blood from his blade using the Mud Lord's own robes. "You guys said something about a boat we could borrow?"

The boat was gathered up, and the four adventurers - five, if you counted Old Clem - climbed in, promising to try to find the bullywugs' lair and rescue any of the captured villagers who were still alive. Nobody wanted to speculate on just who the Swamp King might refer to.

Old Clem, with his years of expertise handling a fishing boat and his general knowledge of the area, took up the rowing duties, supported on the other side by Chalkan. They made slow going, what with the darkness of the night and the many low-hanging creepers and vines, but within a few hours the sun started its slow climb into the sky, and the group got assistance from an unexpected source.

"Hello!" called a voice from the trees. "Hello! Can you help me save my master?"

The voice belonged to Stormwing, the raven familiar of one Thulian Flamewand, a sorcerer from an adventuring party that recently ran afoul of Zarzabond, an adult black dragon. During the battle in the dragon's lair, it apparently used some foul magics to make Thulian turn against his friends, for he suddenly betrayed them and killed the dwarf and halfling before anyone could react. Together, Thulian and the dragon then slew the other two members of the adventuring band. Stormwing escaped from the dragon's cave and has been hanging around in the area, unsure of what to do. He said he could still feel the empathic link between sorcerer and familiar, but it was very faint, almost as if his master’s mind were being submerged. Upon interrogation, the raven was able to confirm that the dragon has met almost daily with a small band of bullywugs, often dragging human captives with them. Best of all, Stormwing could not only show the group where Zarzabond's lair was located, but also warn them about some of his allies.

Chief among this group was a small tribe of lizardfolk who worshiped the dragon as their god. This tribe was led by a much larger lizardman with a much darker scale coloration than the others. There was also something the raven refered to as a "bat-snake" that was often seen in the area around the lair. Finally, there was his master, Thulian, who was often seen riding on Zarzabond's back, doing whatever it was the two did together. The raven testified that the sorcerer was apparently more powerful in recent days than he'd been, and that he'd been seen giving the lizardfolk orders which they obeyed without question.

As for the lair itself, the passageway that Stormwing had used to escape Zarzabond's lair was much too small to permit entry by any of the adventurers. The main entrance was via an underwater passageway, constantly guarded by lizardfolk, although the lair itself was on dry land. The raven eagerly took flight, flitting from tree to tree as Old Clem and Chalkan paddled their small watercraft in pursuit.

The lair took the form of a small hill rising up from the murky waters of the swamp. The group tied their boat up to a tree some distance away and scanned the area from the safety of the shadows of the trees. One side of the hill had a small cave opening which was probably the main entrance; upon careful examination, it looked like there were several "bumps" floating in the water there that could be the eyes of mostly-submerged lizardfolk sentries. Talking it over, the group decided on a two-pronged attack: Delphyne and Rale would use the witch's broom to fly around to the back of the hill. Once they were in place, Chalkan, Telgrane, and Old Clem would paddle their boat blatantly up to the entry cave and draw out the lizardfolk sentries, where they could be ambushed from above by Rale and Delphyne.

The plan worked like a charm - at first. Four lizardfolk sentries swam towards the group's approaching boat, ready to do battle with their longspears. However, they had backup in the form of two crocodiles and Skessthissk, a half-dragon lizardman, waiting further back in the cave's recesses. Worse yet, Delphyne and Rale had no sooner started attacking the lizardfolk below (with spells and a shortbow, respectively) when a large divot of earth popped up behind them and the "bat-snake" emerged from a vertical tunnel; this was Hissk, a half-dragon water naga, sired by none other than Zarzabond himself. Hissk kept Rale and Delphyne busy at the top of the hill, leaving the others to deal with the lizardfolk and crocodiles by themselves.

Fortunately, Chalkan put his bow to good use and Telgrane did likewise with his spells, opting for a barrage of magic missiles that he knew couldn't miss. Seeing the others in trouble up at the top of the hill, Telgrane took the time to summon a trio of celestial hippogriffs and sent them after the naga; that turned the tide up at the top of the hill, allowing Rale and Delphyne in turn to assist in cleaning up the lizardfolk sentries and crocodiles down below. Eventually, the path was clear to enter Zarzabond's lair, and Delphyne flew Rale and herself down to meet up with the others.

After Chalkan healed up the others with his staff, the spellcasters applied their various buffing spells before they each took as big a breath as they could and submerged under the water's surface. A sunrod lit the murky water, showing the aquatic passageway leading deeper into the hill, and everyone was pleased to be back into an air-filled passageway again. Telgrane popped open his tinder box and let Infernia out; she had adamantly insisted on remaining inside its waterproof confines while surrounded by swamplands.

The group didn't get too far before they were in combat again, this time by a pair of female lizardfolk druids, spider climbing along the ceiling and dropping down gouts of fire from produce flame spells upon the group. But the two were outmatched in spellpower and were quickly dispatched.

Moving deeper into the cavern system, the group next found a wooden cage almost completely submerged in a pool of water. Pulling it out, they found it was inhabited by Erma Kettle, the latest member of Old Clem's village to have been taken captive by the bullywugs. She was covered in leeches, leaving her at such a weakened state she could hardly keep her head above water in the cage. Chalkan smashed the cage open and the others pulled the leeches from her (Delphyne shivering in revulsion all the while). Old Clem took it upon himself to help Erma along, holding her arm across his shoulders, and Chalkan's healing staff was used to restore some of the villager's vitality. Then the group moved on, Old Clem and Erma safely in the rear of the formation.

Another pool showed the corpses of two more villagers. A quick examination showed that each had been stabbed through the heart by a sword, then dumped here to float lifelessly, probably for several days at least.

However, there wasn't time for further examination of the corpses, for a deep roar from across the cavern told the group they'd been discovered by Zarzabond, and he was none too happy to learn that his lair had been penetrated. The group only got a quick glimpse of him - being ridden into battle by a young human sorcerer who could only be Thulian Flamewand - as he entered the radius of their illumination before a caustic gout of acid was spewed their way.

Rale dodged around a corner, avoiding the dragon's breath entirely. Likewise, Old Clem and Erma were far enough in back to miss out on the action, although once Old Clem realized what was going on her steered Erma into a side passage and stayed put out of sight. The others weren't so lucky, and got to experience the burning sensation of an acid bath for the first time in their adventuring careers.

That wasn't the worst of it, either, for an all-too-familiar marble of flame came whizzing past their heads to explode into a fireball, engulfing Chalkan, Telgrane, and Delphyne - and Infernia, too, for that matter, although the fire elemental wasn't in the least bit discomfitted. Telgrane responded with an immediate magic missile barrage at the enemy spellcaster, and was amazed when his foolproof spell was finally fooled. Then he took a better look at the human dragonrider with his arcane sight-enhanced eyes, and called out to the others, "The sorcerer's an illusion! We're only facing the dragon!"

Sadly, that wasn't entirely accurate, for Thulian was indeed there in the cavern with them. He had stayed behind at the far side of the dragon's treasure cave, casting a series of spells upon himself before committing himself to battle (although he did cast a fireball spell to make it appear as if the illusory version of himself seated on the saddle on Zarzabond's back was actively engaging the enemy). Now, his preparations complete, he strode fearlessly into combat, an ebony-bladed longsword in one hand.

Fearing another acidic breath weapon from the dragon, the group scattered. This allowed them all to get in ranged attacks - arrows in the case of Chalkan and Rale, and spells in the case of Delphyne and Telgrane - without all being targeted by Zarzabond. However, that only meant the dragon focused his physical attacks on one target at a time, and it was only the fortunate preparatory casting of stoneskin that kept Delphyne alive after being ravaged by a draconic flurry of attacks. She staggered away from his ripping teeth and claws and buffeting wings, hanging onto her broom of flying with one hand and using it to speed her away from the dragon's immediate reach.

Rale realized that "dragonslayer" was not a title he had any particular interest in applying for, and thus crept along the edges of the shadows of the cavern, slowly making his way towards Thulian. This was much more his speed: a single human opponent. After all, even those who could fling spells left and right (as Thulian was demonstrating was well within his power) definitely felt it when you thrust a blade into their liver. Rale did just that; the sorcerer cried out in pain and spun around, ebon blade raised to fend off the attack; and Rale swatted it away with the blade in his other hand. The black sword fell with a clatter amongst a pile of loose coins.

This had a profound effect upon the young sorcerer: his eyes glazed over, he looked down at the wound in his side, he managed to blurt out "What...?" and then keeled over. Rale checked to see that he was out for the count, then gave a quick mental sigh and steeled himself to go fight that damned dragon after all. Fortunately, he was a bit late to the fight: Delphyne and Telgrane had, between the two of them, summoned in a host of temporary allies to help not only assault the dragon but shield them from some of its worst attacks, and they had whittled Zarzabond down to a shell of his former self. They had even taken a moment of respite provided by their summoned allies to cast protective spells upon themselves, so even if they got caught up in another acid bath the worst of the effects would be diminished. Zarzabond roared, Zarzabond screamed curses, Zarzabond bellowed defiance -- but Zarzabond eventually died at the hands of the adventurers.

The dragon slain, the group headed over to the vast pile of treasure laying strewn about the cavern floor. Among the loose coins and gems they found a few scrolls and potions and the partially-eaten remains of the four adventurers from Thulian's original party. Rale was about to pick up the ebony sword that he had knocked from Thulian's hand when Telgrane stopped him with a shout.

"Don't touch that!" he yelled. "It's got a really powerful aura, and it's radiating enchantment magic practically off the scale!" Nobody wanted to touch the sword after that, and once Telgrane started wrapping it up in a scrap of canvas (being careful not to actually touch it himself), the sword started calling out telepathically to select members of the group. "Chalkan," it called, "just think of the power you'll have by wielding the mighty Jezaroth in battle!" When that didn't work out, it tried again: "Rale, I can tell you appreciate a fine blade! We can carve up your enemies together, you and I!" In desperation, it tried a final time: "Clement, I can give you the power you need to be a real adventurer! You could easily lead this group, instead of tending to horses and cooking dinner!" Old Clem, after seeing that Erma was okay, walked over to the sword (making the others nervous as he did so); Chalkan made to block his way but the elderly hireling dodged around him, to get just close enough to the sword to present it with his own version of a breath weapon: a gob of phlegm, which he expertly targeted on the sword's fine ebon blade. "That fer you and yer promises - now get outta my head!" he declared.

Delphyne noticed that Thulian, though unmoving and with an ever-increasing bloodstain pooling around the ground by his waist, was still breathing. "I'll take care of that," promised Rale, advancing upon the sorcerer.

"No! Wait! Stop!" called out a familiar voice - and it was indeed the voice of a familiar. Stormwing came flying into the cavern. "The link with my master has been fully restored! He's heavily wounded, but he's back to himself again! What did you do to break the curse?"

Over Rale's objections, Delphyne sat Thulian up and poured healing droughts down his throat until he regained consciousness and the gash in his side knitted itself back together. Then, together, they patched the whole story together: Thulian and his band had stormed Zarzabond's lair, hoping to slay the dragon and make off with his loot. In the midst of a fierce battle, with his most powerful spells depleted, Thulian grabbed up an ebon sword from the dragon's hoard - and was instantly made a thrall to the intelligent blade. Jezaroth the Swamp King was a "deathcheater" - it had the evil mind and intellect of its original creator, and attempted to control those who touched it. Unable to regain its spells through rest like a normal spellcaster, it did so by absorbing the life energy of good-aligned victims - but only good-aligned victims, which is why the bullywug fighters were always accompanied by a wizard on their attacks on the fishing village, who could cast detect good upon potential victims to see if they were worthy of feeding the Swamp King. Thulian and Stormwing were thus allowed to go free.

The trip back to the village was uneventful, although since none of the adventurers had any means of extradimensional storage with them they had to make several trips in the boat to gather up all the dragon's treasure, and return the bodies of the slain villagers - and those of Thulian's adventuring partners - back to Old Clem's village for burial. Thulian had allowed the adventurers who saved him to have all of his former band's gear, in gratitude for their having saved him from a lifetime as Jezaroth's thrall. The group decided to give several hundred gold pieces to the village as a whole, and Chalkan gave another several hundred to Old Clem's grand-niece and her betrothed as a wedding gift. The ceremony was a simple one, as befitted a small fishing village, but it was a much-needed positive event after weeks of abductions and deaths. The adventurers didn't even give Old Clem too much grief about their alleged status as his "assistants," allowing the elderly hireling his moment in the spotlight among the people he grew up with. (Erma Kettle fed those flames with her first-hand account of being saved from the dragon by Old Clem.) But eventually, it was time to head back to Greyhawk City and whatever adventures waited in store for the group next.

- - -

One of Thulian's former adventuring partners was a dwarven cleric of Moradin. He had a holy symbol of Moradin, which the group took with them and gave to Aerik when they got back, as he was a follower of Moradin even as a fighter. I later used that as a plot hook for another adventure a bit down the road.

ADVENTURE 47 - DEAD AND BURIED

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Remember back in adventure #6, "The Mad God's Key," when I had the idea that the two clerics of Vecna who had been slain by Akari (in his blinded "Zatoichi" mode, no less) might come back as unusual undead, given that the pages of the stolen book detailing strange new forms of undead had not been recovered? This is the adventure where I finally got around to tying up that plot hook - and yes, as a result, none of the players even remotely remembered those two guys.

Still, I had some new D&D Miniatures I wanted to use in an adventure, and this was written specifically to use them. I had received the Beholder boxed set as a Christmas gift, so I knew I wanted a beholder in the adventure somewhere. I also had a Gargantuan white dragon that was far too tough a challenge for the PCs' current level, but I thought there might be a way to tone down the CR somewhat. I also had purchased an Iron Golem Juggernaut that I was itching to use, and Logan had amassed three hammerer automatons which I thought I might finally have found a use for. (I ended up buying three more for myself, so we'd have a total of six.) And the D&D Minis line had just come out with a brain in a jar in their latest set, which I purchased as well for this adventure.

- - -

"This is what we know at present," began Altamaic. "Some of the clerics of my Order are cataloguing various sections of the Cairn Hills to the north. We have a team out in the field that has failed to check in for three days now. If possible, I’d like you to go up there and check out the situation. I can provide you a map of the sections they were cataloguing, and show you where they were when they last checked in. Will you help me?"

"Sure," replied Akari, eager to assist the young cleric of Boccob who had recently pointed them to the Crypt of Joniah the Avenger, where he had unearthed his magical hammer, Deathstriker. "What can you tell us of the group?"

"There are four of them, each a cleric of Boccob, and each with at least several months of field experience. The leader is Madraskan the Learned, a human in his 60s, and occasionally a bit forgetful. It’s possible that he’s gotten caught up in an earnest investigation of something worthwhile he discovered out in the Cairn Hills and has simply forgotten to check in with the Order – it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened.

"The second in command is Phyllianna Goldenleaf," Altamaic continued. "Her elven heritage should be well-suited for the outdoor environment that the team would be facing, and she’s familiar with the local wildlife.

"The other two team members are Holden and Helga Bookbinder, a brother and sister. While relatively new to the Order, they have each been to the field several times before. This was their first trip to the Cairn Hills, however.

"Normal protocol calls for an end-of-day report via the sending spell back to the Church of Boccob. The first day, when a sending was never sent, the cleric in charge of receiving the report wasn’t particularly concerned, assuming that it was merely another case of Madraskan’s forgetfulness. On the second day without a report from the field, though, he mentioned it to his superior, who sent a sending to Madraskan asking about his team’s status. No response was heard. Additional sending spells were sent, in turn, to Phyllianna, Holden, and Helga, with no response.

"While their deaths is certainly one explanation for the failure of the team to report in (or answer the sending spells sent their way), it’s by no means the only explanation. The Cairn Hills are home to pockets of strange magical effects; it’s possible that they’re currently in an anti-magic field, either knowingly or unknowingly, or accidentally activated a portal that sent them to a different plane of existence, or set off a trap and are being held in magical stasis, or any of a hundred different possibilities. Still, it would probably be best to check the situation out as soon as possible."

"We'll gear up and be on our way," replied Akari, and Altamaic breathed a sigh of relief, knowing he'd soon have an answer one way or another. He passed the map he had mentioned over to the elf, pointing out the locations where Madraskan's team had been when they last checked in with the Order of Boccob. Akari looked it over, memorized the location, rolled it up, and stored it in a scroll case for safe keeping. Then, with a nod and a reassuring smile to Altamaic, he headed back to Guild Headquarters to gather up a team of his own.

- - -

The first several hours of the trip were uneventful. Then, as the group rode up over the crest of a large hill, they spotted a horse up ahead. The horse was limping, favoring its front right foot. A rope dangled from its harness.

"I got it," remarked Galrich, trotting his horse up and leaning over to grab up the dangling rope. Aerik grimaced, his every instinct to stay close to his liege, but he relented and let the half-orc ride up alone, confident that he would be able to spot any approaching danger before it threatened Galrich. The limping horse, however, shied away from the mounted half-orc's approach, no doubt smelling the scent of Fang the dire wolf, who had stayed back with the rest of the mounted adventurers on Galrich's instructions.

"Let me try," replied Feron, jumping down from her own horse and approaching the frightened and wounded beast slowly, making shooshing noises as she came nearer. The horse allowed the half-elf to approach him, and nuzzled her shoulder as she patted the side of his head. Feron noted there were several rake marks along the creature's right side, as well as what looked like bite marks, seemingly from a human or humanlike creature.

"There, there, now," she said, saying the words to a speak with animals spell. "What's your name, sweetie?"

"Zephyr," replied the horse.

"Do you have someone who takes care of you?" Feron asked.

"Zephyr's mistress is Phyllianna."

"Where is she now?" asked Feron.

"Zephyr doesn't know. Several nights ago, many bad ugly men came to the camp and tried to kill and eat the horses and the people."

"And you got away from the bad ugly men?"

"Yes. Helga cut Zephyr free from the tree with a knife. Helga is good. Sometimes Helga gives Zephyr apples."

"And when you were free from the tree, you ran away?"

"Yes. Zephyr was scared. Zephyr ran away from the bad ugly men."

"Could you take me to where the bad ugly men attacked you, so we can find Helga and Phyllianna?"

"Yes," replied Zephyr, leading the way. Feron walked along the horse's flank, pulling the reins of her own mount and casting a few healing spells upon Zephyr as they walked. That taken care of, she passed on what she had learned from the horse to the others.

"Could be zombies," remarked Cal.

"Could be zombies, could be orcs, could be bugbears," snorted Galrich. "'Bad ugly men' could be just about anything. Couldn't it be a bit more specific?"

"He's a horse!" argued Feron. "I doubt they bother to differentiate between humanoid species."

"Ask it if they smelled like they were dead," prompted Galrich.

"Ask him yourself. My spell's ended, and that was the only speak with animals I prepared this morning." Galrich snorted in disgust, seeing this as further proof of the limited usefulness of magic.

The group approached what was apparently the last campsite of Madraskan's team, which showed signs of a recent struggle. The tents were half-collapsed, bedrolls and blankets were cast about in all directions, and, most damning, a leather tube containing hand-drawn maps of the local area - the results of the team's efforts in the area thus far, no doubt - lay abandoned near the cold remains of a campfire. There were numerous footprints in the dirt, all of them human-sized, and all but one of them barefoot. The one set of non-barefoot prints looked to be from someone wearing a pair of boots; judging from the size of the boots, likely a woman. Several of the human-sized footprints bore impressions indicating ragged, clawlike toenails. The group split up and searched the campsite for clues.

Feron and Akari checked inside the tents. One tent contained an elven chain shirt obviously cut for a woman, still positioned on a wooden stand, although the stand was tipped over; this was no doubt Phyllianna's tent, and she had apparently been resting in the tent when they were attacked.

Galrich spotted numerous hoof prints over by a large tree not far from the campsite; this was likely where the horses had been tied for the night. One rope was still attached to a branch – it was apparently cut by a bladed weapon. A bunch of the bare, clawed footprints converged near the tree and followed one of the sets of hoof prints as the horse sped away from the tree. "I'll be right back!" Galrich called to the others, mounting his horse. "I'm going to see where these lead!" Fang dutifully trotted off after his master, and Aerik spurred on his own mount, eager to keep up with the impulsive half-orc it was his job to keep alive.

Cal, meanwhile, was investigating two piles of an odd, grayish dust over on one edge of the campsite. Each vaguely held the shape of a human lying down on his or her back with arms outspread. He nodded to himself, certain he knew what that foretold.

Galrich returned to the campsite and jumped down from his horse. "The trail goes on for about half a mile," he said. "There's a horse’s remains, mostly skeletal - it was picked clean by about a dozen of those 'bad ugly men.'"

"So what are we dealing with?" asked Feron.

"Corporeal undead," replied Cal, pointing to the patterns of gray ash. "Something taking up the general physical space of a man - not skeletons, but maybe well-preserved zombies, ghouls, or wights."

"Not zombies," remarked Galrich. "Zombies shuffle. These things ran."

"So what happened to the group?" asked Akari. "Are they likely to be dead?"

"Not necessarily," replied Cal. "Let's assume it was night, the horses were tied to the tree, and everyone else was asleep. We'll say it was Helga on guard duty; she'd be the one still wearing her boots. A group of undead shows up and attacks the campsite. Helga screams out a warning to wake the others, and runs to free the horses. She can't get Zephyr's reins untied in time, so she cuts him loose from the tree. The others come out of their respective tents, and one of them manages to turn two of the undead, blasting them to ashes, before the group is overwhelmed. A bunch of the undead chase down one of the horses and devour it, but we don't see any such skeletal remains from our group of Boccobian clerics here. That means either they were overcome and turned to undead themselves, or perhaps - if we're lucky - taken alive, for whatever reason. Galrich? Can you track the group from where they left the horse skeleton?"

"Sure can - let's go!"

The tracking was fairly easy at first for the half-orc barbarian, but as the terrain became more and more rocky it became more difficult to find the spoor. The group was encouraged by the drops of blood that accompanied the trail, for that could be an indicator that the clerics were at least still alive when they had been taken this way. Eventually, though, the trail gave out to hard stone, and the group had no choice but to keep heading in the same general direction as the trail had been going, and hope that the undead horde hadn't switched directions on them.

The assumed trail led to a gully. Rocks rose up on either side of the group, boxing them in. Ahead, there were rock slopes separated into various layers, with several overhangs that could hide cave entrances. A few scant scrub-brushes were the only signs of plant life in the area. The group separated to search the area for cave openings, Old Clem taking the reins of the horses and leading them to what plant life was available for nibbling. Galrich scampered up a rock face, hoping that the higher ground would allow him to see something that might not be visible at ground level. Aerik dutifully followed him up the precipice.

"There's a narrow cave opening over here!" called out Feron.

"I got something up here, too!" called back Galrich. "Ah, crap, it's just writing!"

Feron's cave opening was at ground level, and only wide enough to permit a single person to enter at a time. That seemed the logical way to go, but the group decided to check out the carved words that Galrich had found before they entered any passageways. Aerik called down the carved passage exactly as written. The caption was as follows:

REMEMBERING PASSWORDS CAN BE HELL
KNOW THE TRICK, AND ALL IS WELL

ABADDON​

Click to expand...

"Any idea what it means?" called back Cal.

"Maybe 'Abaddon' is a password," mused Feron. She flew up to Galrich and Slayer in eagle form, then resumed her half-elf form and tried calling out "Abaddon!" but nothing happened. Then she decided to fast-forward to the answer, and cast a stone tell spell on the rock face near the carved words.

"What is the password?" she asked the cliff face.

"What's a password?" asked the cliff face in return.

"It's something that's said to allow safe passage, or to open a secret door," replied the half-elf. "Is there a word or phrase that people have said here that allowed them to enter a secret passage around here?"

"Yes," replied the cliff.

"What did they say?" she pressed.

"'Webweddon,'" replied the cliff. Feron puzzled over this for a moment, then a smile lit up her face. "Very clever!" she admitted. "'All' is 'well' indeed!"

"So what's going on up there?" asked Cal from below.

"I've got the password to a secret passage," she called back, then said "Webweddon." A shimmering area, some 40 feet to a side and centered around the carved message, suddenly became translucent. Feron put her hand through the rock face experimentally and was not the least bit surprised to see that it went right through the once-solid rock. "There's a really big passageway up here!" she called down to the others. However, after some discussion, the group consensus was that it was more likely that a band of savage undead would have used the narrow passageway at ground level than climb up here and activate magical doorways, so Feron, Galrich, and Aerik climbed back down and the group readied themselves to enter the passageway single file. Before doing so, Akari called forth his griffon, Tsukitora, from the celestial realms and bade him stay with Old Clem and the horses, to help Fang protect them from any danger in this area believed to be home to ravenous undead. Then the paladin activated a sun rod and led the way down into darkness.

The narrow passageway wound back and forth as it descended deeper into the earth, and before long a noxious stench foretold that this was a nest of ghouls the group was entering. The discovery came mere seconds before the first of the ghouls was upon Akari, who easily dealt with it, swinging Hoardmaster deep into its shoulder and nearly cutting it in twain. Fortunately, the tunnels widened a bit here, and Cal was able to squeeze up to the front line and blast a group of the ghouls - and ghasts, as it turned out - with the might of his faith in Kord.

The battle in the ghoul caverns was short-lived, for the ravenous undead were no match for the experienced adventurers, but two mysteries had been solved: not only the type of undead, but also the fate of the Boccobian clerics, for four of the undead horde wore blue robes identical to those of their friend Altamaic. Madraskan, Phyllianna, Helga, and Holden - all had been turned into ghasts or ghouls and added to the numbers of the undead who laired here in the dark recesses of the earth. There was nothing to be done for them but to put them out of their misery, so their souls could pass on to the afterlife, or be returned to life here if that's what the Order of Boccob wished to do.

After the undead had been dealt with, the group decided to check out the rest of the caverns. After all, there was some indication, judging from the magical doorway up above, that something was lairing here a bit more advanced than a cluster of ghasts and ghouls. In looking for an exit from the ghoul warrens, Akari found, among the remains of previous meals, a ceramic drinking vessel marked “VIRULENCE.” Nobody was eager to try it out, but they did store it away in the Heward's handy haversack that the elf paladin wore.

Eventually the group found a passageway that led into an enormous, natural cavern, easily over 100 feet wide and perhaps almost half that high, with an enormous opening and a standard, doorway-sized opening at the far end of the chamber showing that someone had made extensive modifications to the natural cavern. Stalactites hung from the cavern's ceiling, but any stalagmites that might have been formed on the stone floor had been destroyed by the massive bulk of the creature that faced them in the center of the room: a gargantuan white dragon, half rotted away but just as ambulatory as the ghouls had been. The sound of an enormous bellows was heard throughout the chamber; belatedly, Cal realized it was the zombie dragon's still-present lungs filling up with air as it inhaled. And that could only mean one thing--

"Run!" called Cal, as a blast of frigid cold encompassed the entire group, still bunched together from exiting the ghoul warrens.

In the meantime, the cavern started raining skeletal bats. Great hordes of the things dropped down in waves from the ceiling every few seconds; while they were ineffectual in combat, Cal learned to his chagrin that they served to "soak up" the power of his turning attempts, such that he couldn't seem to affect the massive dragon. Each time he channeled positive energy through his holy symbol, dozens of skeletal bats exploded into dust but the dragon corpse ambled on, snapping at the group with a set of massive teeth while its bellows-like lungs started noisily filling up with air again.

That suited Akari just fine; he danced his way in between the dragon's legs and stabbed up at the beast with his magical longsword. It was about this time that the group became aware of another group entering the fray: all along the natural cavern was a ledge, about 30 feet up, and spreading out along this ledge was a small group of four archers.

Feron wanted nothing to do with the undead abomination to the natural order, and decided to leave the dragon zombie to the guys, who were all trying to be the one to drop the beast. She, meanwhile, took on the form of an eagle and flew up to the ledge; once there, she reverted to her normal form and blasted the first of the archers with a call lightning spell. This close, she was able to discern that the archers were undead as well; vampires or their unholy spawn, judging from the fangs protruding from their mouths and the hungry way they stared at her neck as they shot arrows at her. They didn't last long under her initial spell barrage; vampire spawn, then.

By the time the zombie dragon had been destroyed, Feron had taken care of the vampire spawn archers, but the combat had been heard by the spawn's sire, a vampiric cleric of Vecna named Luciern Dalbago. The two traded spell blasts while the guys scrambled to find a way up to the higher ledge from the massive cavern below. Once he had climbed up, Galrich raged and ran straight towards the vampire, while Aerik, still climbing up the steep wall, cursed at his liege's recklessness. Fortunately, the dwarf was able to make it to the top of the ledge and race over to protect his kingdom's future ruler.

By that time, the others were up on the ledge and Luciern decided he didn't like the five-to-one odds so much anymore, since he had been greatly wounded by the adventurers' various attacks. He shrunk down to bat form and flew across the cavern, but Cal caught him up in a cylindrical wind wall from which he couldn't escape in either bat or gaseous mist form. To add insult to injury, Cal then dropped a blade barrier around the wind wall to keep him from walking out in human form, and then Feron dropped down bolts from her call lightning spell until he had been fried to a crisp.

The group discovered several chambers nestled along the ledge overlooking the central chamber, including a temple to Vecna, God of Secrets; the coffins of Luciern and his vampire spawn; an alchemical lab (in which a batch of what the group assumed was "virulence," a red, frothy liquid, was being distilled by Luciern); and a clump of five cells. Two cells were occupied, the center one by Marlanna, a young woman who sat staring blankly ahead at nothing, her neck a series of bruises and clotted blood; and the farthest one by Galen, a poor unfortunate whose mind must have snapped long ago, for he cowered on his filthy bed and repeated, over and over, "Not the blood, not the blood, keep it away, not the blood...." Not wanting to bring these two with them, Cal promised that they'd be back to free them once they had cleared the area of undead. He asked them not to tell anyone of the group's presence, but Marlanna just stared right through him and Galen continued his babbling. The group moved on.

The next room they encountered had two combatants going at it in mock combat, using maces and shields. They wore greatcoats over their armor, and despite normal-looking bare heads they seemed incredibly emaciated. One of them, Veltargo, recognized Feron (his actual words being "Hey, it's that elf bitch from the group that killed us!") when the group entered, and the two moved to attack. Aerik swung his dwarven greataxe at the other combatant, Isalnarr, and heard an unexpected metal-on-metal sound when the axe struck the evil cleric's arm. Over the course of the battle, the group discovered that the only parts of Veltargo and Isalnarr that were still alive were their heads, which had been impaled on metal skeletons with a spike in place of a neck. These constructs provided the undead heads mobility, but, as Cal learned when he channeled positive energy at Veltargo's head and watched it disintegrate into dust before him, the metal skeletons were able to fight on their own without a head guiding them. The two metal-framed constructs gave the group a bit of a fight, but in the end they were eventually destroyed.

Akari discovered a large, octagonal shaft rising vertically back down to the lower level and up to the ground level above; no doubt, had the group opted to go through the magical "webweddon" door on the surface they'd have ended up here. Testing showed that if this had a feather fall effect like Nakariah's "magic elevator" in the Crypt of the Avenger it wasn't automatic like that one had been. Lacking a means of figuring out any command words, Feron stabilized herself at the top with her boots of spider climbing and the others climbed down, one at a time, from the rope she held for them, then she climbed down herself.

On the lower level, the group found a construct lab manned by "unattended" impalers and overseen by two bedraggled-looking humans. The impalers were assembling more of their own kind, plus several black spheres. The reactions of the two human overseers was at odds with each other: the younger one, a teenaged girl, called out "Have you come to rescue us?" while the older one, a man in his forties with the build of a blacksmith, snarled "Don't waste your time, Natalya - if they've made it this far they're no fools!" and shot off a lightning bolt at the heroes clustered in the doorway. A pitched battle ensued in the cramped confines, with the two wizards backing into the room beyond while the impalers tried to hold the heroes at bay. The room they had backed into was a storage facility for another type of construct: hammerer automatons, seeming designed for mining operations. The wizards tried activating the constructs to aid them in battle against the heroes, but they were cut down before they were able to do so. And then it got weirder, for as each slain wizard began oozing blood from every orifice, and the blood pooled together to form two distinct entities, which chased after the heroes in an attempt to take over their bodies from the inside. Feron gagged and choked as one of the blood puddings crawled up her body and started oozing into her nose and mouth, but Cal, assuming that she'd easily forgive him for the peripheral damage, blasted her with a flame strike to ensure he destroyed the undead ooze. It worked, and the other ooze was similarly blasted with ranged spells until it too was dead.

There were only two other rooms of note in these back caverns. The first was some sort of large, octagonal raised platform of unknown purpose, set in the "elbow" of a bending passageway that led to the final room of the complex. In this final room was an unusual sight: another octagonal room, this one 40 feet in diameter, in the center of which was an octagonal platform, upon which stood a sealed glass jar containing a pulsing brain immersed in bubbling fluids. The platform was flanked at four corners by four small pillars which each spouted white steam into the room. As soon as the doors to this room opened, there was a brief flicker of energy from the four pillars, as a force barrier snapped into place, protecting the disembodied brain.

"It-seems-we-have-visitors," boomed a mechanical-sounding voice from the direction of the brain’s jar. "Activate-defenses!" With that, a floating black sphere emerged from each column of steam. The four spheres paired up, as black lightning arced between each of the two pairs, which levitated through the air towards the heroes. Anyone caught between the arcs of black lightning felt a leeching of energy as their life essences were drained away. Cal threw a death ward spell upon himself, and, thus protected, concentrated on smashing the necrospheres with his mace.

In the meantime, the floor had opened up beneath the brain in a jar, and it was slowly lowered to a chamber beneath. Akari tried forcing his way through the walls of force, to no avail. Half a minute later, the force barriers snapped off, and it was fortunate that the heroes had dispatched the other three necrospheres by then, for rising up from the floor was the brain in a jar again - only now, it was encased inside the chest of a huge iron golem equipped with a massive sword.

"None-dare-intrude-upon-the-lair-of-Doctor-Praemortus-without-dire-consequences!" called out the embedded brain, lights on either side flashing with each word it spoke. The golem swung its sword, and Aerik jumped into its path to protect Galrich from a vicious cut. "Not-even-my-natural-death-could-stop-me-from-my-labors!" cried the undead brain inside the mechanical construct. "My-work-will-go-on!" And it demonstrated that it was not limited to physical attacks, as an arc of electricity jumped from the golem's chest to strike Feron, sending her spinning away in a heap.

However, it was up against five seasoned adventurers, and although it could dish out significant amounts of damage, Cal's healing spells kept the heroes in the fight, and it was unable to quickly heal itself of similar damage. The clincher was when Feron cast a rusting grasp spell upon the construct, eating away at a good chunk of its left leg. Doctor Praemortis decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and staggered out of the room, down the hall, and onto the raised octagonal platform. "By-the-will-of-Doctor-Praemortis!" he intoned, and disappeared from view.

Fortunately, the others were right behind him and not only saw what he had done but heard the command phrase. They all piled onto the platform and Akari repeated the phrase. In an instant, they were elsewhere.

The platform they now stood upon was the same, but everything else was different. They appeared to be standing in the cargo hold of a large ship of some sort, but none of the group had any time for looking around much, as their immediate attention was focused on the fact that they were all being drained of life energy. Seeing that everything in view, themselves included, was in black and white, Cal was the first to recognize that they were once again on the Negative Energy Plane, and he scrambled for the scroll of attune form he had purchased shortly after Telgrane and Delphyne had learned the arcane version of the spell from the grateful professors at Graymalkin Academy. As Cal read the words of the scroll, the five adventurers felt themselves being attuned to the lifeless plane of negative energy, and the draining of their life essences stopped immediately.

None too soon, either, for they had other things to worry about. A ten-foot-wide ramp lowered down from the cargo bay floor to the surface of the ground below, and hovering up the ramp was the familiar form of a beholder. This one was pasty-white in color, but the group knew that wasn't necessarily its true coloration, merely what they could see on this gray plane. It didn't seem as tough as a normal beholder, though, for its central eye and half of the orbs in its eyestalks were milky-white and filmy, and it seemed somewhat sluggish as it floated up towards them. This first impression showed itself to be false, however, as a beam of arcane energy shot from one of its five remaining eyestalks, hitting Aerik in the chest and immediately petrifying him. Galrich, standing behind the stone dwarf, realized that he would have been petrified had his bodyguard not once again stepped in front of him to save his life.

That got Galrich mad. He allowed the rage to build inside of him, then leapt from behind Aerik's calcified form and attacked the death tyrant with his greatsword. Akari rushed in with Hoardmaster from the other side, and Cal and Feron used what attack spells they had remaining upon the floating menace. Between the four of them, they soon destroyed the undead beholder, and moved on down the ramp to confront Praemortis in his iron golem body.

Outside the vessel, the group could see that it had the appearance of a great metal insect; in fact, the name "Flea" could be seen on its prow. The Flea was perched on a chunk of rock adrift in the vast emptiness of the Negative Energy Plane, and a diagonal hole into the ground showed that there was a mining operation going on in this forbidden realm. Doctor Praemortis called for assistance from the mines, and soon a small group of hammerer automatons, accompanied by a half dozen human skeletons with pickaxes, scurried up out of the mine entrance. Cal used another turning attempt to destroy all of the skeletons in one fell swoop, while Galrich took on the hammerers and the other two concentrated on taking down Praemortis. Before too long, Feron and Akari had crippled the iron golem, leaving the whimpering brain of Doctor Praemortis begging for his undead life from inside his jar. "I-have-so-much-yet-to-accomplish!" he whined.

"Sorry - time's up!" snarled Akari, as he smashed the glass jar, allowing the spongy brain to fall to the ground amid a rapidly-expanding puddle of preservative fluids. Then, just to be sure, he ground the brain under the heel of his boot.

After that, it wasn't long before the hammerers had been destroyed as well. The group entered the mines just to be sure, but no other servants - undead or construct - remained. Re-entering the Flea, the group had only to deal with the ship's captain, a deathlok sorcerer named Wilhelmina Darkblossom, but she wasn't able to put up much of a fight. Looking through the ship's records, the group determined that they were mining a mineral called "calcimortum," which was used to channel negative energy through construct frames - in fact, it was vital ingredient in the construction of both impalers and necrospheres. Doctor Praemortis, an avid student of both necromancy and automation, had invented both devices, as well as the unnatural process to keep his intellect alive after his own death by old age.

The group struggled to lug Aerik's petrified form over to the octagonal platform, but they managed to do so, and activated the command word to return back to the Prime Material Plane. After that, it was a simple matter to rescue the two humans from their cells and lead them to safety. They left Aerik behind for the moment, being unable to restore him to flesh without resting up for a day and preparing the appropriate spells. Galrich opted to stay behind and look over the petrified form of his faithful bodyguard, not wanting to take the chance that there might be some undead monstrosity that had been away from the lair during their recent explorations, something that might take its rage and frustration out on a helpless, petrified Aerik. But Cal returned the next day, Aerik was returned to the flesh, and the trio mounted their horses and rode back to meet with the others.

ADVENTURE 48 - SEKARVU'S LAIR

PC Roster:
"Sekarvu's Lair" was one of the mini-adventures that was included in Lords of Madness, the monster book from Wizards of the Coast that featured aberrations of various sorts, like beholders, aboleths, and illithids. I chose it because I wanted to use a beholder as a main enemy in an adventure, since I had received the D&D Minis Beholder boxed set as a Christmas gift, and it was level-appropriate for the average level of the group by that point. I made a very few number of changes to the adventure as written, swapping out the ethereal filchers (I've never been a fan of them) with advanced gargoyles and changing the charmed gnome's name from Ilirik Jadewhisper to Ilirik Ponkadoodle (because gnomes in my campaigns must have prodigious noses and ridiculous-sounding names).

I set the adventure up by having Ponkadoodle show up at Wing Three with a proposition: he had recently won a treasure map from a cleric of Fharlanghn in a poker game. The map showed the location of a medusa's lair, a simple two-story affair with one large chamber on each level. Ponkadoodle wasn't up to clearing it out himself (I gave him a prominent limp), so he was willing to give the PCs the map if they'd split any treasure with him 50/50. He name-dropped "his good friend Dundernoggin" but in reality had only met him that morning, upon arriving in town and asking for a group of prominent heroes. Sekarvu the beholder had charmed Ponkadoodle into finding adventurers and luring them back to its lair, where it could slay them, thus gaining their flesh for its belly and their treasure for its hoard.

The adventure went well; one of the things I had liked about the map was that it was made up of multiple vertical levels, as made sense for a hovering sphere monster with access to a disintegration ray at the end of one of its eyestalks. The group ended up fighting the beholder several levels deep, and it surprised them by popping down a vertical shaft, then disintegrating its way below them and then up from the floor. The PCs were standing in a stone chamber deciding how best to go down the vertical shaft after the beholder when the floor started disintegrating beneath them - that was a cool mental image, and the players definitely didn't expect that! (I gave their PCs Reflex saves to dive out of the suddenly-appearing pit in the floor.) Sadly, Sekarvu didn't fare all that well after that, as Telgrane cast a disintegrate spell at him and beat him at his own game.

At the end, the last enemy left fighting was Ponkadoodle, and he threw himself on the floor before them begging for mercy, claiming he'd been charmed by the beholder and unable to resist its instructions. The PCs weren't buying it for a minute, but they bound him and lugged him back to Guild Headquarters, where a zone of truth spell (cast by either Cal or Akari - we tend to handwave who's got what spells prepared when they aren't actively adventuring in that session) verified that he had indeed been acting against his own will. So they decided to let him live, but made him forfeit his share of the beholder's treasure in return for his life. Ponkadoodle was all too eager to accept their offer.

Oddly enough, he now works at Piddilink Dundernoggin's magic shop as his assistant, so the group gets to see him every now and again.

- - -

And since this writeup is relatively short, I should probably mention what Joey had been up to. By this time, he was probably close to seven years old, and he habitually sat at the table with us and played his version of D&D. His version involved him moving his miniature (usually a humanoid droid from a Star Wars Miniatures set) around the map, and when it was his turn (he had his own initiative card), he'd tell us what his character was doing. Often this involved flying around with a jet pack, or firing tactical nukes at the bad guys, but occasionally he'd stray a little closer into D&D territory and have his PC attack a monster with a sword or drink a potion.

By this time I had made Logan a bunch of tokens for the creatures that Telgrane summoned most often (he was pretty much an elementalist, so he tended to summon a bunch of elementals, plus the occasional celestial bison or hippogriff), and he carried them around in his Telgrane box. (Surprise, surprise, this was another old check box - it's amazing how much use I've gotten out of old check boxes over the years!) Anyway, Joey created a massive fire elemental and a water elemental of his own by drawing them on a piece of paper, coloring them in with crayons, and cutting them out, so once he had these props ready to go he would usually have his PC summon one of them and he'd have not only a Star Wars mini on our dungeon map but a homemade elemental token as well. (We limited him to one at a time.) We all just put up with it, because we knew his attention span was such that within an hour or so he'd likely excuse himself to go play video games or whatever, or stand in the kitchen by the counter and play with the D&D minis we'd already used; I had a habit of keeping them in the "Current Adventure box" (made out of a - what else? - used check box) until they were needed, then plunking them down on the geomorphs when they were in play, and then "discarding" them on Dan and Vicki's stove after use. Joey would often stand by the stove and play with the minis that had already seen play in that session's adventure, dividing them up into teams and having them fight each other.

However, as time went on, I noticed that Joey's attention span was increasing, he was paying attention to what was going on in the game (often more so than his older brother), and every once in a while he'd suggest a pretty good in-game idea. I realized it wouldn't be too long before he'd likely be joining our ranks for good!

So I started inserting D&D rules into his "Joey rules." He had a bunch of dice of his own (mostly d6 "pip" dice, but also a yellow d20 and at least one d8). Early on, he'd declare he was shooting a tactical nuke at the monster, grab up as many dice as he could hold, throw them, and then we'd let him spend the next couple of minutes adding up all of his "damage." We'd move on to whoever's turn it was in the game, and once he told me the total ("I did 67 points of damage!") I'd make a scribble next to my monster stat sheet as if I were subtracting that from the monster's hp total, tell him how the monster looked a lot weaker now, and we'd move on.

About this time, I started having him roll his d20 to see if he hit the monster, usually just deciding that a big number hit and a small number missed. If he hit, we'd have him roll his damage dice (usually a d8 and/or a d6), and I'd still "fake update" my monster stat sheet and tell him how much he hurt the bad monster. On occasion, if a monster died in the game right before Joey's turn, I'd silently gesture to the player that the monster was dead, but then allow Joey's PC to kill it; he liked it when "his" damage killed the monster and I took it off out of the game as a result. So we slowly weaned him away from tactical nukes and lasers and got him used to the idea of his PC using a hand-held weapon instead. (Sometimes he decided it was a sword; at others it was an axe.)

ADVENTURE 49 - BALLYHOO'S TRAVELING CIRCUS

PC Roster:
NPC roster:
This adventure involved me being a bit sneaky and misleading, as I specifically wrote it as a surprise for the players, to spring it on the PCs while they were on their way to a different adventure. I often sprinkle in the occasional wandering monster when they're "on the road" - this was more in the form of a "wandering adventure." Knowing that there was an aspect of the adventure that had the potential to creep the players out, I began the adventure session with a "Written Statement from the DM," which I read aloud to them. I'll post it below.

A WRITTEN STATEMENT FROM THE DUNGEON MASTER said:

Before running this adventure, I would just like to say, now and for the record, that I am so, so sorry for the events that your PCs are about to encounter. I know that you have no doubt become somewhat attached to your characters, and I have every reason to believe, for reasons I cannot go into at this time for fear of spoiling plot elements, that the events in this adventure are going to cause undo hardship for at least one of you currently sitting at this table. Well, most probably two of you at the bare minimum. Okay, let’s be fair, three – there is indeed a very good possibility that at least three of you are not going to be particularly fond of this adventure, again for reasons that I can’t go into at the moment but should become very, very apparent during the course of the events that are about to happen in the very, very near future to your hapless PCs. And, okay, fair enough, it’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility that these events will adversely affect up to four of you, not only today but in the days to follow as you look back upon the horrors your PCs will have encountered – and with any luck survived – during the course of this adventure.

Five if you count Joey.

The sad thing is that I can’t even say with any certainty that the horrific, nearly unspeakable things that are about to occur to your PCs won’t ever be repeated over the course of the remaining adventures in this campaign. It’s a rough old world out there, and the PCs never know just what will hit them. All I can do is say once again that I am so, so sorry about all of this, and while I cannot promise that such events will never occur again in the future, I can promise that at the very least I will do my absolute best not to giggle like a crazed madman as the events unfold.

Thank you now for your time, and thank you in advance for your understanding. Let’s begin.

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That got them all worried!

- - -

Aerik Battershield approached the rest of the Wing Three adventurers, Galrich in tow. "I wanted to let you folk know that we're off in the morning," commented the gruff dwarven fighter. "That holy symbol of Moradin you gave me, that you got from that black dragon's hoard in the swamp? Well, I been wearing it, as you all know, and it's apparently decided I'm worthy or somethin', 'cause it's telling me about a dwarven testing facility up north in the mountains. I figger it's Moradin's will that I go there, and since I’m charged with keepin' Lord Slayer here alive, I figger he's gotta come with me. Any of you lot are welcome to tag along, too, if'n ye wanna."

Talking it over amongst themselves, they decided that Cal, Feron, and Akari would join Aerik and Galrich on their quest to Moradin's Forge. Old Clem would come with to tend to the horses, and Fang would guard Old Clem and the horses while the adventurers entered the Forge. The amulet was basically sending telepathic instructions to Aerik on where to go to find the dwarven testing facility, but it wasn't an actual intelligence, that could be communicated with or carry on a conversation.

The group packed up their things and made their arrangements for the journey the next morning.

- - -

On the way to Moradin's Forge, the group passed through the small town of Crestfallen, one of the last towns they'd see before the road entered the actual mountains. After stocking up on basic supplies, the group was approached in the street by a young boy of about 8 or so, named Wendell. "Are you guys 'venturers?" he gushed in surprise and poorly disguised glee. "Have you ever fought a dragon? What kinds of weapons do you have? Can I have one?"

Talking with Wendell, he passed the following information on to the group: His father was one of the townsfolk killed by a goblin incursion last year. His mother was still very sad, and lots of men come by to comfort her. When there were men comforting his mom, he had to stay out of the house and not bother them. His mom took special medicine for her sadness, and Whiskey Joe from the bar usually brought it to her. Sometimes Wendell slept in the hay of the stables where it was warm, and sometimes, if he went to the farmhouses on the outskirts of town, a few of the farmers' wives would give him some food. Otherwise, there were some apple trees nearby.

But the bestest, most excitingest news Wendell had to pass on to the group was that there was a traveling circus in the area! Another 'venturer was in town just last week and said there was a traveling circus over in Rutherton that would probably be coming this way next. It had been a whole week since the 'venturer had said that, so the circus could be here any day now!

Wendell had practically given up breathing, so excited was he about meeting a group of 'venturers and the impending circus visit. Cal tried to calm him down, and Galrich showed him some of his weapons, let him hold them, and demonstrated how best to attack enemies with them. Cal gave him a few quick wrestling lessons, and Wendell was practically in heaven. But eventually the group had to move on, so they said their goodbyes to the young lad, Aerik surreptitiously passing him along a few coins for when he needed some decent food in between the few times when Wendell's drunken mother actually took care of him. Wendell waved to them from the edge of town and watched them until they vanished over the horizon.

After leaving the town of Crestfallen behind, the road began meandering between and over small hills, getting increasingly larger as the mountains rose up ahead in the near distance. Mist streamed along the road at the deeper valleys between the hills, covering the ground in a soft, white haze. The sky seemed slightly overcast, with a single dark rain cloud hanging in the sky promising at least a scattering of rain in the near future.

As the group climbed the latest hill of the road, they could hear the tinkling of exotic music coming from the other side. Rising over the hill, they saw a strange caravan emerging from the covering mists and heading towards them: horses pulled wagons of various sizes, as did at least one other creature – a hill giant near the front of the train pulled a large wagon by a heavy chain. Several workers walked alongside the wagons, one accompanied by a mechanical man some eight feet tall. Judging by the way many of them were staggering, the wagon train seemed to have been traveling for a long while, as the men and animals were near exhaustion. In fact, Akari identified the exotic music as a typical circus tune, only played at about a third of its normal speed. It was apparently some sort of automatic clockwork mechanism attached to one of the carts, but at the speed they were going, the normally happy tune sounded more like a dirge.

As the two groups approached each other, the adventurers were able to make out a few more details. The lead wagon was pulled by a light horse, staggering as if on its last legs. The words "Ballyhoo's Traveling Circus" was painted on the side of the wagon in bold, gaudy letters, so it looked like one of Wendell's dreams were about to come true after all. Staggering next to the lead wagon stood a gaunt man in a flashy red outfit and a black top hat. The mechanical man was identifiable as a shield guardian; several members of Wing Three had met up with others of this type before, most recently in Graymalkin Academy. The music was coming from the lead wagon, but it was accompanied by a buzzing noise as well.

The rancid smell of death hit the adventurers at about the same time that they could make out the bloodstains and missing chunks of flesh apparent on the bodies of the ringmaster and his horse; simultaneously, the buzzing noise was identified as the drone of a cloud of flying insects swarming around the traveling circus.

Akari focused his internal sight on the group, and confirmed his suspicions: the ringmaster, his horse, and the hill giant pulling the next wagon were all radiating strong auras of evil. He unleashed Hoardmaster, called "Zombies!" to the others, and leapt down from his horse, the better to meet them at their own level. The others followed suit, and Old Clem chased around gathering up the horses' reins and leading them back the way they'd come until the heroes could deal with the threat. At Galrich's order, Fang accompanied the elderly hireling.

By this time, the lead zombies had finally noticed the group's approach, and their lumbering gait became stronger and more focused. The ringmaster ran forward, teeth gnashing at Akari, who happened to be the closest to him. His horse strained to pull its loaded wagon in the same direction, eyes blaring in hatred and teeth eager to bite into the elf's flesh. Akari swung Hoardmaster into the ringmaster's chest, and in doing so incurred the shield guardian's wrath. It ran forward to protect Ballyhoo, its erstwhile master in life who enjoyed the same status despite his undead state. Belatedly, Akari noticed the amulet around Ballyhoo's neck, no doubt the control device for the construct.

Cal and Galrich, meanwhile, ran to the side to deal with the hill giant. As they approached, they could see it was wearing a leopard skin strongman's outfit, upon which were printed the words "Big Dummy." Big Dummy - apparently multitasking in the circus as a strongman, a clown of sorts, and a pack animal - carried a greatclub in one massive hand and was chained to the front of the large wagon, similarly emblazoned with the name of the circus. Two circus workers shambled along at his side, the three of them all obviously zombies. Cal and Galrich flanked Big Dummy, while Aerik took on the approaching circus hands. Despite their undead nature, they were all moving as fast as a normal human now that their attention had been drawn to possible new sources of food, and the adventurers found them more difficult to defeat than they would have expected from zombies.

Feron, meanwhile, opted not to take on the obvious zombies but to focus her attention on the droning flies that were swarming all around them. The flies themselves were undead, but still able to fly, still able to bite, and a possible source of contagion - after all, there had to be some explanation for the sudden zombification of an entire traveling circus, and the flies seemed the most apparent cause. The half-elf druid cast flame strike spells in the areas of thickest concentration of the swarms of flies.

While all of this was happening, the slow-moving circus train continued trudging along, so there were continually new wagons coming into view. The next wave consisted of a light horse zombie pulling a wagon painted with the legend "Mistress Zambori – Fortune Teller and Mystic" and a pair of draft horse zombies pulling a barred wagon whose logo proudly informed the viewers that housed within was "Kongo, Ape-Monster of the Dark Jungle!" Alongside the former wagon shambled what must be Mistress Zambori herself, her fingers curved into claws as she raced to devour Akari, who had by this time managed to slay Ballyhoo the ringmaster and had just about taken care of the shield guardian as well, which had apparently targeted the elf above all others. Aerik, having dispatched the two circus hands, ran over to intercept the undead fortune teller, while Cal and Galrich between them killed Big Dummy. Kongo, a dire ape zombie, stretched his rotting, simian arms as far out of the bars as he could, but was unable to reach any of the living foes in the area. He roared in frustration.

Feron had burned the zombie fly swarms, and raced ahead to help the others. The draft horses dodged over to bite her, tipping Kongo's wagon over and causing an obstacle in the road that the following wagons had to avoid. Kongo took advantage of the slight damage to its wagon to rip its way through the weakened wood, and Feron blasted away at it with ranged spells before it could fully free itself.

Still the wagons came. The next was a single undead horse shambling along, pulling a small wagon behind it. This one proclaimed to hold the “Reptile-Man of the Marshlands.” Surprisingly, amidst the sounds of combat all around her, Feron heard a noise emanating from the cage: "Ssethla scaboroth vernisshus?" it called from the shadows of the wagon’s interior. Feron recognized the language as Draconic, and although she didn't speak it, she was able to ascertain that the lizard man inside was still alive. He didn't speak Common, or any of the other languages Feron knew, so the two performed a pantomime while around them her companions battled against zombies of various types. The lizard man signaled that the zombie plague had started with a rainfall; Feron glanced up suspiciously at the sole rain cloud they had spotted before the undead nature of the traveling circus had been discovered, and sure enough it was still there. The lizard man indicated that the rain had turned the others into zombies, and that the zombies could create more zombies via their bite; he had escaped by dint of his roofed wagon keeping the rain off of him, and an amulet of hide from undead that he wore around his neck. He was a spellcaster, and had been surviving for days on the pure water he was able to summon through his own feeble spells. Akari was able to determine that the lizard man was not evil, so he helped Feron break through the wagon and release the reptilian cleric. The lizard man gave them both a grateful nod and then hightailed it away as fast as he could run.

In the meantime, another group of wagons had approached. A wagon similar to Kongo's, pulled by a pair of zombie draft horses, announced in bright letters it carried "The Man-Eater of the Moors." This was obviously a dire wolf that had succumbed to the zombie plague, but it was unable to get out of its cage, so Galrich and Cal took care of the draft horses and left the undead wolf for later, while it snarled and growled helplessly from inside its barred cage.

Coming up behind it were two more wagons, one larger than the others and one much, much smaller. The large one was pulled by a zombie elephant, who snorted as it saw potential prey and tried goring Aerik with an ivory tusk. The little wagon at its side was less than three feet tall and pulled by a single pony, flesh rotting from its bones. There was a grinning clown's face painted on the tiny wagon's top, and as it approached Cal and Feron, two little doors popped open and two clowns stepped out.

These clowns were unlike any clowns Cal had ever seen. Their white facepaint was streaked with gore, and their lips were as red with dripping blood as they were with makeup. They cocked their heads to the side upon exiting the too-small cart, as if testing their surroundings and sniffing the tantalizing scents of living flesh through their bulbous, red noses. Then, spotting the adventurers, their faces twisted with horrible grins and grimaces and the clowns raced towards the heroes with eternal hunger gleaming in their insane eyes.

Cal resisted a bleat of horror and called upon the power of Kord through his holy symbol, blasting them into oblivion.

But there were more. The doors to the tiny wagon opened again, and out stepped two more clowns. They were followed in turn by two more, and two more after that. A total of eight zombie clowns had exited the tiny cart, which had to be an extradimensional space of some sort, similar to the Heward's handy haversacks worn by both Feron and Akari. The zombie clowns shuffled at first in their ridiculously oversized shoes, then loped after the adventurers with cries of undead glee on their horrible lips. Cal blasted them with wave upon wave of positive energy, not wanting to let them anywhere near him. After they had been dispatched, Feron took care of the undead pony with a produce flame spell, burning the wretched thing where it stood.

The others were all ganging up on the zombie elephant, who in life (according to the advertisement on the side of the massive cart she pulled) had been named Ellie. Ellie was surrounded by another cloud of biting, undead flies; Feron took care of them while the others cut great hunks of rotting flesh from the elephant, who barely noticed their efforts until she suddenly collapsed in a heap, destroyed by their concentrated efforts.

Fortunately, Ellie's wagon and the pony-driven "clown car" were the last of Ballyhoo's Traveling Circus. After Cal healed everyone up, it was time to strike at the cause of the zombie plague itself: the rain cloud, which, as if sensing their attention, started dropping thick, viscous drops of black rain down on them. It followed this up with a blast of lightning which narrowly missed Feron, who dived to the side at the last moment. While the others took cover as best they could, Akari called forth his griffon, Tsukitora, from the celestial realms, and he and Cal leapt upon the beast. Cal was not an experienced griffon rider, but he held on as best he could as the magnificent beast took wing. Tsukitora flew away from the motionless wagons of the shattered circus, gained an appropriate height, and then flew directly into the black cloud.

Almost immediately, the two heroes were bombarded by a series of images, which flashed by in their minds in rapid succession. The first was of a strikingly handsome man of about 30 years, wearing dark robes and holding a staff of fused bones; the name Nestor Blackheart flashed through the heroes' minds as the image flashed by. One image showed him sacrificing a series of young women to a skeletal carving in some deep dwelling; another showed an arcane explosion ripping through the spellcaster’s ritual chamber; yet another image showed the wizard’s body being ripped apart and transforming into a nebulous cloud of energy. A final image showed the rain cloud spilling black rain down upon the circus troupe.

Together, the cleric and the paladin put together a sequence of events: Nestor Blackheart, a necromancer, had attempted a ritual to attain lichdom, but its failure transformed him into the semi-sentient nephomorph whose body they currently inhabited - Tsukitora was hovering in place inside the rain cloud - which now existed merely as a primal force with the nebulous desires to both protect itself and further the cause of the undead.

With a start, Cal realized that merely breathing in the vapors of the nephomorph was infecting him; Akari's immunity to diseases was protecting the paladin, but probably not his flying mount. Cal gathered up his holy symbol and channeled a burst of holy energy through it. Coming as it was from inside the nephomorph's very body, the cloud-creature was harmlessly dissipated as once. Tsukitora landed, and Akari used his inherent remove disease ability to counter the effects of the virulent disease running through Cal's body and that of the griffon.

The others, meanwhile, had spent the time that Cal and Akari were airborne to dispatch the dire wolf zombie still trapped in its cage. They then began a systematic search of each wagon, removing any valuables and setting the wagons ablaze to burn to ashes. The bodies of the slain zombies were put to torch as well.

"That could have been very bad," remarked Cal as they watched the circus wagon train burn. "As contagious as the zombie plague was, it could easily have spread beyond the ability to control."

"It's a good thing this happened in a relatively desolate area," replied Feron. "Can you imagine if this had happened in, say, Greyhawk City, or some other heavily-populated urban area?"

"Hey," piped up Akari, "do you think this counts as saving the world again?"

"I'd say so," assessed Cal, after giving it some thought.

"I'm counting it," confirmed Akari.

"You know," said Aerik, looking at his liege, "the ghost of yer mother - may the Gods Above rest 'er soul - said you had some world-savin' to do afore ye'd be ready to take on the throne fer yerself. I betcha this was one of them tasks ye was supposed to accomplish." The half-orc looked thoughtful and nodded his assent.

"So, we ready to move on?" asked Galrich. "We've still got Moradin's Forge ahead of us. Let's gather up Old Clem, Fang, and the horses, and get on with it."

Several minutes later, the reassembled group continued on down the mountain path, following the mental summons emanating from the dwarf's holy symbol of Moradin. They left a blazing inferno behind them, the flames completely destroying the virulent corruption of the infected circus troupe.

"Those clowns gave me the willies," admitted Cal as they rode, suppressing a shudder.

ADVENTURE 50 - MORADIN'S FORGE

PC Roster:
NPC roster:
And now we come to "Moradin's Forge." And rather than write up a description of this adventure, I'm going to try something a little different.

About this point in time, I got a hankering to write up another "Challenge of Champions" adventure, which, for those of you unfamiliar with them, are each a series of ten puzzles that the PCs have to work through; they're kind of like an obstacle course for the PCs using various pre-positioned magic items. However, I figured if I were going to write it, I might as well try to get it published, which meant I couldn't use the "Challenge of Champions" name - WotC owns the rights to that, and while I might have been able to sell them on the idea of a 4E "Challenge of Champions," I didn't have the 4E rules and had no desire to switch horses mid-stream in this campaign (especially considering I had three players who were first introduced to 3.5 via this campaign). So I decided to go a more generic route, and rather than have it be a contest sponsored by the local Adventurers Guild (Wing Three's own Guildmaster Farthingale appears throughout the "Challenge of Champions" series) I turned it into an abandoned (but still active) dwarven testing facility. I wrote the adventure up as "Moradin's Forge" for my own campaign use, but I also, once it was done, rewrote it as "Anvil of the Forgefather" - the same adventure, but with all of the product identity filed off. I thought I might be able to get it published somewhere.

Well, no luck. I discovered that I was entering the 3.5 adventure-publishing realm just a few years too late, and nobody seemed to be interested in it. (Some of the companies I wanted to send it to had since converted to OSRIC or other versions of the game.) My best bet in getting an adventure published would probably have been with Paizo, but I knew better than to approach them with this one, as James Jacobs had already expressed a personal dislike for the "Challenge of Champions" series on the Paizo messageboards, and Sean K. Reynolds absolutely hates word-based puzzles in adventures, of which this had quite a few. So it remains unpublished to this day.

So, getting back to this Story Hour, I could write up this in standard Story Hour fashion, which would end up with you reading a series of 12 puzzles and me describing how the PCs made their way through them, or I could just skip that part and jump to the end.

I realize that's kind of a rip-off to those of you who have trudged through this Story Hour thus far, so I'd like to make it up to you by providing you with the adventure itself, should you be so interested. There will be three files, each a Word document; over the years I've gotten fairly proficient at building simple maps in Word, so I think you should be able to run the adventure with the three files provided.

The first file is the adventure itself. It'll be the generic "Anvil of the Forgefather" version of the adventure. The second file is the Player Handout maps. The third file is the GM's Maps, with the layouts of each test and the solution.

Those of you interested in seeing the adventure itself may drop me a line at buntleby (at) hotmail (dot) com - where "(at)" = "@" and "(dot)" = "." I generally check my email daily in the early evening, so please give me a day or two to get back to you after you email me.

- - -

As for the Story Hour, the PCs encountered a frost giant and his trained remorhaz on the way up the mountain to Moradin's Forge. (Guess what two D&D Minis I had recently purchased before writing this adventure?) During the subsequent battle, Jacob did something mind-boggling odd: despite having almost thrown a temper tantrum when he thought Slayer's greatsword was going to be dissolved by purple worm stomach acid during the "Crypt of the Avenger" adventure (see the adventure #37 writeup) and despite evidence that the remorhaz was generating enormous heat from its spines, and despite having one of Aerik's weapons melt upon striking the polar worm, Jacob had Slayer attack it with his favorite greatsword, which promptly failed its saving throw and melted to slag. Jacob shrugged it off as no big deal and continued the assault with a different weapon. While I was glad there wasn't a second set of histrionics, I was still somewhat puzzled by the abrupt change of attitude. (Maybe he was just maturing - it happens.)

Anyway, the five adventurers made it through all 12 puzzles without incident, and were met up with a celestial azer at the end who congratulated them on their successes and offered to upgrade their weapons as a reward. Aerik, being the only dwarf among the party, was sent first, and his dwarven greataxe became a giant bane icy burst greataxe. In addition, he was branded on his forehead with the holy symbol of Moradin, which faded to invisibility within seconds. The azer explained that the symbol could only be seen by dwarves of lawful good alignment, and it would identify them as "favored by Moradin." Galrich's backup sword was made to be keen, Akari's Hoardmaster became axiomatic in addition to its other enhancements, and Feron's thundering longbow gained the construct bane weapon property. (Each weapon was upgraded in terms of how well its wielder mirrored the lawful good dwarven ideal, so lawful good dwarf Aerik Battershield gained a +3 bonus to his weapon of choice, while chaotic neutral half-orc Galrich Slayer only gained the minimum +1 bonus.) When it came time for Cal to step up to the anvil and receive Moradin's blessing, he respectfully declined, not wanting to wear the brand of a different god upon his forehead, even if it was invisible to all but lawful good dwarves. So he turned down the reward he had earned equally with the others. I vowed to give him an appropriate "backup reward" at a later date. (And I did, in adventure 53, which you'll read about before too long.)

ADVENTURE 51 - BEYOND THE LIGHT OF REASON

PC Roster:
"Beyond the Light of Reason" was an adventure from Dungeon issue #96. It was written by Caine Chandler for a group of 13th level PCs, and I wanted to use it while it was still level-appropriate for my group.

I don't think I changed much in the way of the adventure itself. I did come up with a new innovation to my geomorphs for the adventure, though. I created each room on the back of a 1-inch gridded sheet of paper from a used desk calendar, as I had often done before. However, I was suddenly struck by the notion (something that had never occurred to me before) that I could overlap these sheets of paper as necessary. So I'd draw up one chamber with solid walls, and I'd draw up the adjoining room, which was accessible via a secret door, such that the second room overlapped the first, with the same chunk of wall but this time with the secret door shown. (After all, they'd only see the second room if they'd already discovered the secret door in the first place.) I also added a bit of color; most of my previous geomorphs used a thick black Sharpie for the outer walls and a thin black Sharpie (or black ink pen) for interior details. This adventure mostly took place in an underground series of natural caverns, with a subterranean stream winding through it. I used a blue Sharpie (purchased for this very reason) to show where the stream and its multiple branches ran. This has now become my default geomorph procedure.

My notes show that the above four PCs were sent through this adventure, although I recall that this happened on the way back from Moradin's Forge. I seem to recall Logan and I came up with an "important holy day at the Temple of Hieroneous" excuse for binking Akari out and Telgrane in in his place, but I don't recall how we got Chalkan in and Galrich and Aerik (and Fang?) out. I know Jacob had once again realized that Slayer was getting to be the highest-level PC in the group and Chalkan was similarly lagging far behind. I do recall that Dan had stated he was going to create a one-shot word of recall device that would allow Aerik to return to Guild Headquarters in place of a Guild ring, so maybe that was activated? I'm sorry, I no longer recall the specifics.

In any case, as is my tradition when it comes to published adventures, I'm not going to write this up in Story Hour fashion. You may take comfort in the fact that the next 17 adventures in a row are all ones that I wrote myself, so those will be all done up in a fiction style. (And that will take us all the way to adventure #68, at the time of this writing the most recent - but certainly not the last - adventure in this campaign.)

However, I would be remiss if I failed to mention a cool thing that Telgrane pulled off in this adventure. (Well, it was cool from his perspective, in any case.) One part of the cavern complex was dominated by a fairly large band of grimlocks. There were normal grimlocks, grimlocks with barbarian levels, and noncombative women and children. I had made great pains to differentiate between them when I made my tokens for this adventure, using one image for the standard grimlocks, a different one for the barbarians, an image-reversed version of the "standard" grimlock for the women of the tribe, a scaled-down version for the children, and so on. Each had a number in the corner so I could tell the difference between them on my "monster-stats" sheet.

And then Telgrane cast a cloudkill spell in the cavern, which the adventure even specified went downhill toward the back, and from which which there was no other exit. He wiped out a good 95% of my grimlock force with that one spell. All that monster token work for nothing!

ADVENTURE 52 - INCURSION INTO THE BEASTLANDS

PC Roster:
NPC roster:
For this adventure, I decided to delve a little into the background of one of the characters in the Wing Three band. And then I got sneaky again and decided not to flesh out any of the PCs, but rather Tsukitora, Akari's griffon mount.

- - -

Four of the members of Wing Three had been out shopping, checking out a new weaponsmith's shop that had opened up on Blacksmith Street, on the outskirts of the Greyhawk City Market Square. Since Galrich was among their number, that meant Aerik was with them as well. They had each brought the bulk of their adventuring gear, in part so they could compare and contrast the quality of the weapons the new smith had to offer against those that they had been using. This particular smith had no dweomercraft, but quite a few of the weapons he churned out were of masterwork quality.

Suddenly, Akari felt an odd buzzing in his head. It was similar to the sensation he got when he opened his mind and called forth his griffon mount, Tsukitora, from the celestial realms where he lived his life when not called forth into battle. In fact, the more Akari thought about it, it was an almost identical feeling - almost as if his mount were calling him, instead of the other way around.

"Guys?" warned the paladin to his companions, raising a hand for attention as he opened the link and called forth Tsukitora. The others turned in astonishment as there, in the midst of the Market Square, manifested a bright light that coalesced into the form of a handsome griffon with feathers of a snowy white. Tsukitora gave forth a call, flapped open his wide wings, and enfolded the entire group of adventurers inside a feathery embrace. "What the--?" called out Galrich, unused to getting hugged by a griffon. Bystanders ran away from the great beast, unsure of what to think. It didn't seem to be attacking the quintet, but you could never be too careful....

And then, in the blink of an eye, they were gone. The griffon had vanished as quickly as it had appeared, taking the five adventurers with them. "Weird," commented the blacksmith, and went about his business. He'd heard there were some strange goings-on in this city, and it looked like the stories he'd heard were true.

- - -

In the blink of an eye, the group found themselves in a completely different world. Gone was the Market Square of Greyhawk City; in its place stood an expanse of mountainous terrain, looking down over a mighty forest. Gone, too, were the murky clouds threatening rain; instead, a yellow-white sun blazed in a cloudless sky of pure blue. It was brisk up here among the mountain-tops; Delphyne pulled her cloak around her shoulders. Seeing an opportunity, Rale put his arms around her shoulders as well, and for once she didn't complain.

Akari looked down at his feet, and saw a collection of sturdy sticks, some of them entire branches, woven into a large nest - Tsukitora's nest, the paladin realized at once, for the construction was big enough to hold his griffon quite comfortably. Tsukitora fidgeted uncomfortably, and the paladin started receiving a series of images through the empathic link he shared with his bonded mount. In rapid succession, he saw another griffon, this one with light brown feathers darkening at their tips; three eggs in a nest; Tsukitora and Akari riding into combat; one egg in a nest; Tsukitora under attack by the tan griffon and backing off; the tan griffon flying with an egg in its foreclaws; Tsukitora fighting three winged insects. Then only a deep feeling of sadness and confusion, and a silent plea for help.

"So, just what the hell is going on here, exactly?" asked Rale.

"Hang on, Tsukitora's explaining...kind of," replied Akari, patting the side of his mount's neck in reassurance. "I'll try to translate. This is his nest, where he lives between the times I summon him to Oerth. He lives here with his mate...let's call her 'Hoshitaka,'" decided the elf, choosing a name that meant "Star-Hawk."

"Mate?" repeated Rale, then grinned and elbowed the griffon in the side. "All right, Tsukitora!"

"They had three eggs here in the nest the last time I summoned Tsukitora to help us fight," continued Akari, "but when he returned here, all but one of the eggs were gone. Hoshitaka soon returned, snapping at Tsukitora and driving him off, then grabbing up the last egg and flying away with it. Tsukitora followed, but was attacked when he got too close, so he backed off and followed her at a distance. Then he was attacked by three large insects, and by the time he had fought them off, Hoshitaka and their last egg were both out of sight. Tsukitora doesn't know where they went, and has no way to find them, nor does he understand why his mate is absconding with their eggs."

"Some kind of mind control?" asked Delphyne.

"Possibly," admitted the elf.

"I got a question," piped up Aerik.

"Yes?"

"Where the bloody hell are we?"

"This is the Beastlands," remarked Akari. "It's comprised of three different layers. This is the upper layer, Krigala. The centaur god, Skerrit, lives down there in the forest somewhere. Or maybe not that forest, but a forest somewhere on this layer. It's an infinite plane, after all."

"So what's the plan?" asked Rale. "How are we going to find Hoshitaka? You don't have a link with her like you do Tsukitora, do you?"

"No, I don't. We'll just have to have Tsukitora fly in the direction that Hoshitaka was going when he was attacked by the insects, and see if we can see anything from the air."

"Um, just how are we going to do that?" Galrich wanted to know. "Feron's got the dollhouse. We can't all five of us ride on your griffon at one time."

"I've got my broom of flying," Delphyne reminded the half-orc. "I can support one more besides myself."

"Dibs!" called out Rale before she had even finished her sentence.

"Okay, the other three of us will have to ride Tsukitora," said Akari. "He can handle two of us on his back; the third will have to be held in his foreclaws." Aerik just about turned white at the thought, and swallowed nervously at the thought of dangling by a griffon's claws hundreds of feet in the air, but stepped forward to volunteer rather than risk his liege.

"No, I got it," said Galrich, seeing the brave front Aerik was putting on for what it was. The stout dwarf was not a big fan of open heights.

And so it came to pass that Delphyne rode her flying broom with Rale perched behind her, holding on tight and loving every minute of it, while Akari sat between Tsukitora's broad, flapping wings and directed his mount, with Aerik behind him afraid to look down and Galrich dangling by the straps across his back which kept his various weapons in place. He had his longbow in hand with an arrow notched, just in case, and was obviously having the time of his life.

Tsukitora followed a sweeping dive down the mountains, skimming just over the forest below. A dead insect lay in the upper branches of a tree just ahead, showing where Tsukitora had been attacked earlier, and where the griffon had last seen his mate flying away with their egg. The group continued on in the same direction for half an hour or so, then Akari voiced his concern - "translating" the feelings he sensed from Tsukitora - that anything that would have taken over Hoshitaka's mind would likely have done so near where she was normally found, and they were straying out of the griffons' normal hunting territory. So they backtracked, and spent another hour sweeping the area, searching for anything that might lead them to the missing griffon.

In the end, it turned out that they only had to get close enough to find Hoshitaka, and then she took matters into her own talons. The tan griffon suddenly flew up from between the trees, followed by another trio of winged insects. Galrich got off the first strike with an arrow, which buried itself to the feathers between two plates of chitin on the lead bug's carapace. The creature staggered in mid air and flew erratically for a bit, but continued on with the attack.

This proved to be a difficult combat for the group, not only because they were unused to fighting aerial battles, but also because they didn't want to hurt Hoshitaka. As such, they concentrated their initial attacks on the winged insects, whose preferred method of aerial combat involved flicking spines from their tails in the same fashion as a manticore. Akari put Deathstriker to good use, and was pleased to learn that the magical hammer would return to his hand even if he had moved a significant distance after throwing the weapon. Delphyne tried charming Hoshitaka but failed - it seemed as if there were already some sort of mental dominance holding sway. After the last of the insects had been slain, Hoshitaka suddenly broke away from combat and started fleeing. Delphyne tried casting a dispel magic on the griffon, to no avail.

"I've got one more left!" she called out.

"Give it a shot!" called back Akari.

The young witch cast her last dispel magic spell of the day, and to everyone's relief, Hoshitaka started flying erratically, as if mentally shaking herself from an unwanted mental influence. She suddenly dived down to a clearing below and came to a graceful landing. The others followed suit. Tsukitora landed on his back legs, released Galrich from his grip, and raced over to his mate. The two griffons rubbed necks in greeting.

"Okay, so that's that," said Rale, sadly dismounting from Delphyne's broom. "Now what? I suppose we're going to track down whoever was dominating the griffon...?" Akari emphatically agreed, eager to find whoever had disrupted the life of his bonded mount. He was unable to communicate with Hoshitaka, but he was able to convey to Tsukitora the need for Hoshitaka to lead them to whoever was responsible for her mental dominance. She led the others through the thickets, and after a few moments peered out into a different clearing. Everyone followed her lead, peeking through the brush to an odd sight in the clearing beyond.

There was a canopy of sorts built of sticks and branches constructed over an opening that led into a small hill. Before this canopy, two centaurs and a satyr worked with a four-armed white ape - a girallon, the group knew from experience - to cut up slain game animals into chunks, which were then taken by small, dog-sized ant-creatures under the canopy and into the opening into the hill. As the group watched, five other creatures approached the clearing: another girallon walked beside an even larger ant-creature, this one the size of a pony. Walking single file ahead of them, displaying no fear whatsoever, three deer entered the clearing. They came to a stop before the centaurs and stood motionless as the centaurs slit their throats with sharp blades. As the deer fell lifelessly to the ground, the two girallons started ripping off the deer's limbs and setting them aside. One of the smaller ant-creatures scuttled out from underneath the canopy, grabbed a dismembered deer limb, and struggled with it back into the darkness of the hillside opening. Looking closely, the group could see another of the larger ant-things standing in the shadows of the canopy, observing the proceedings closely.

"Any idea what's going on?" whispered Rale to the others.

"I think those ant-things are formians," whispered back Delphyne. "There are many different types, some of them rumored to be able to dominate others. I'd say the bigger ones are the dominators, and those little guys are just worker drones. Apparently they're gathering food for the nest...which must be in that opening in the hill."

"So the griffon eggs are probably in there!" reasoned Akari. "I hope they haven't been eaten yet." Then another thought crossed his mind. "Are these formians local? I don't recall them living in the Beastlands."

"I don't remember," admitted Delphyne. "It's possible they're expanding their territory into other planes. In any case, if we're going to attack them, we'd better make preparations. We don't want to end up dominated ourselves."

Galrich noticed everyone was looking at him. "What?" he hissed. "I've only been dominated a couple of times! Well, okay, plus that once...shut up!"

"What about the centaurs and the satyr?" Delphyne wanted to know. "They're probably just as innocent in all this as Hoshitaka."

"Well, we'll try not to kill them," conceded Akari. "But they're going to be sent against us, so we'll have to defend ourselves. Let's concentrate our fire, as much as possible, against those two bigger formians, though - if we can take them out of the fight, we might be able to release their dominated slaves without harming them."

After a short span of time spent on buffing spells - including an owl's wisdom spell on Galrich, hopefully enough to boost his mental willpower to avoid being dominated - the group attacked on Rale's signal.

The formian taskmaster out in the open was the sudden recipient of a fireball spell, a hurled Deathstriker, and an arrow, all in sequence. He staggered from the sudden onslaught, but did not drop. Aerik and the griffons, lacking ranged attacks, crashed through the brush into the clearing, making as loud of a distraction as they could as they closed with the enemy.

The reaction was almost instantaneous. The female centaur whirled around and started casting a spell of her own, and Aerik and Tsukitora found the grass at their feet tangling around them, trying to bind them in place. The male centaur dropped the blade he had been using to slit the throats of willing deer, reared up, and grabbed a bow from his back in one smooth motion. He concentrated on the foes he could see, primarily the two griffons. The satyr pulled out a set of pan pipes and started playing, adding a sweet melody to the area of sudden carnage. And the two girallons bounded over to where the group stood peeking through the foliage, ready for combat.

At that point, the second formian taskmaster stepped out from under the canopy, standing beside the first. The two stood apart from the battle, using their dominated puppets to do their work for them. And since the first one had been dominating three deer who had since been slain, his mind could handle a couple of new puppets....

Galrich felt a familiar sensation tickling his mind before things got all muddled once again. He had raced forward into melee combat with the nearest girallon, when he suddenly cursed himself for his stupidity and took a swipe at Rale with his greatsword. What was he thinking? The girallons were his friends, helping him to protect the Nest. Nothing was more important than protecting the Nest!

Rale had to stop his fight against the male centaur to defend himself from Galrich's sudden betrayal, and threw in a few curses himself. One of these days, he promised himself, I'm going to get one of the Guild wizards to craft a magical helmet to prevent mental attacks from reaching its wearer, and Slayer's never going to be allowed to take the damn thing off his stupid orcish head! He did his best to slam some sense into the half-orc's head, using the side of his shortsword since he knew Galrich could take a decent pounding without harm. Of course, that didn't sit too well with Aerik, who now wasn't sure which of the two had been dominated - he'd been too busy extracting himself from the centaur druid's entangle spell. Still, right or wrong, it was his duty to protect Galrich from harm until he could assume the throne of Kordovia, so he veered over to keep Rale at bay. The frustrated rogue did his best to explain the situation to Aerik, and since Rale was talking reasonably and Galrich was muttering "Protect the Nest!" to himself, Aerik did the first thing he could think of - he dropped his weapon and tackled his liege to the ground, simultaneously keeping him out of the fight and preventing him from attacking any of the other party members.

With Galrich taken care of, Rale was able to concentrate his efforts on the formian taskmasters, scowling to see that there were now two of them. Still, he could see which of the two was more badly damaged, so he and Delphyne pooled their efforts and took him out. Upon its death, Galrich's mind got all muddled up again, and he realized he had been fighting on the wrong team once again. He managed to explain his way out of Aerik's grappling embrace, and the two gathered up their weapons and headed back into the fray. As they did so, they saw one of the girallons bounding away, apparently also freed from its mental dominance and wanting nothing to do with all of this strangeness.

Akari had started work on taking out the other formian taskmaster, and despite its best efforts at gathering its remaining mental slaves into position to protect it, it too was slain in short order. This released the centaurs, satyr, and remaining girallon. The latter joined its mate in high-tailing it out of there, while the other three stayed around long enough to thank the groups for releasing them from their mental bondage. The druid pulled a stone of good luck from a leather thong around her neck and pressed it into Delphyne's hand, apparently assuming that as the only female in the group she must be the leader, and then the woodland trio departed as well.

Akari healed the adventurers of the worst of their wounds by laying on hands and calling upon the power of Hieroneous, and a few them swigged down a healing potion or two as well. (It was at times like this that they missed Cal when he wasn't adventuring with them.) Then they prepared to enter the hole in the side of the hill. Akari bade Tsukitora and Hoshitaka remain behind, concerned that they'd be cramped in an underground passageway, but the griffons were having none of it - their eggs were likely ahead, so they were coming along. Light sources were passed to those who needed them (Akari had long ago gotten a good deal by bulk-purchasing sun rods), and the group entered the cave opening and proceeded into the tunnel beyond.

The tunnel was about 20 feet wide and about 8 feet tall in the center. It went uphill for a short way before sloping deeper into the ground. The passageway curved to the right as it descended, and before the group had gone more than a hundred feet they met up with their first wave of enemies: four formian warriors, racing up to meet them. They were quickly followed by a second wave of a trio of formian workers, a dozen feet behind the warriors.

"How'd they know we were here?" Rale groused, weapons at the ready.

"Crap, I should have thought about that - they've probably got a hive mind," remarked Akari. "Kind of like everybody in the hive sees everything that all of the other formians can see."

"So the whole hive knows exactly where we are?" asked Rale, not too keen on this new development. But then there was no time for further discussion, as the formian warriors and workers were upon them. Still, these were smaller and less of a problem than the two taskmasters the group had dealt with up on the surface, and they were quickly dispatched by the melee fighters, the spellcasters opting to save their spells for any more powerful foes they might encounter down here.

The group continued on down the passageway. There were several side-chambers, some of them containing mold colonies and special fungus, others empty - the latter likely being where the workers and warriors dwelt when not otherwise needed. But the curving, descending main tunnel soon opened up into a large, circular area some 80 feet in diameter with a ceiling height of about 30 feet. Two colossal scorpions flanked another weird-looking formian, this one even slightly bigger than the taskmasters they'd encountered. A crude wall behind him seemed to cover over a small tunnel. Piled in front of this wall were the butchered chunks of various animals - and, they saw with delight, three griffon eggs.

At a silent, mental order, the first of the scorpions skittered up to meet the adventurers, its claws opened wide. Rale tried tumbling past it and into the room, but the scorpion was much quicker than any would have guessed, and it snapped him up between its pincers. Rale screamed as it crushed him, threatening to snip his torso in two.

Delphyne grabbed up her broom and flew into the chamber and above the fray, hoping to stay out of reach of the snapping pincers. But she failed to take the scorpions' tails into account, and was almost skewered by the rearmost one, who was apparently remaining behind as a guardian while the foremost scorpion dealt with the adventurers. She dodged on her broom, flying up to the very top of the ceiling and sending a chain lightning down at the formian myrmarch, causing arcs of electricity to jump to the two scorpions as well.

Akari leapt upon Tsukitora's back and allowed his griffon to fly him into the room, then leaped back down upon the broad back of the scorpion that held Rale in an ever-tightening grip. He stabbed down with Hoardmaster, but failed to penetrate the beast's chitin as much as he had hoped; a quick scan showed that none of the combatants in the room detected as evil, so the full magical enhancements of his longsword weren't able to come into play.

Rale, meanwhile, knew that he had time for one more action before he was likely cut in two by the massive scorpion's pincers. There was no way he was going to get out by his strength alone, which paled in comparison to the arachnid's grip. He briefly contemplated grabbing up a healing potion, but realized that was a stop-gap measure that would buy him mere seconds of further life. Then he smiled, grabbing up a different potion from his belt, popped off the stopper with his thumb, and managed to get it close enough to his mouth that he could bite down on it and lift his head back. As the contents of the potion of gaseous form slid down his throat, the scorpion's pincers clicked together, meeting each other. But by then, Rale was mere mist, which floated serenely over to the other side of the room.

In the meantime, Galrich and Aerik had attacked the lead scorpion with their weapons. Galrich, predictably, was likewise snagged up in the creature's other pincer, but the tough half-orc had plenty of life left in him and merely attacked the scorpion's pincers from where he was. Aerik, concerned that his liege was about to be snipped in twain, threw all of his attacks at that scorpion as well, and the creature skittered sideways in concern.

Seeing that Rale was safe - in fact, he was remanifesting into solid form in the shadows at the back of the cavern - Delphyne switched targets and unleashed a fireball spell at the scorpion that was currently holding Galrich in a death-grip. Fortunately, the beast was large enough that the young witch was confident she could cover the majority of the scorpion in her blast radius without affecting Galrich or Aerik. She was correct, and focused her attention on that scorpion from the relative safety of the top of the cavern. After all, she reasoned, even if the two scorpions were released from the formian myrmarch's control, they'd still likely fight off anyone who wanted to steal back the griffon eggs from their nest.

In any case, the myrmarch had problems of its own - namely, two furious griffons who saw it as the likely cause of their eggs' current dangerous situation. They dived at the insect, biting and ripping at it until the myrmarch had to bring the second scorpion in to rescue him from their assault.

That gave Rale the opening he'd been waiting for. Ever curious, the young rogue wondered just was so important that it was being walled up and guarded by the largest pair of scorpion's he'd ever set his eyes on. The wall looked hastily made, consisting of stones from the surface mortared together by a combination of what he assumed was mud and worker spittle. He pulled down the first few stones, and the way was easier from then on. Once he had made an opening large enough for him to squirm through, he did just that, and found a rubbery, pale white egg on the other side. That's it? he thought. All this for a crummy egg? The rogue lashed out at the egg with his boot, kicking a hole in its side and revealing a partially formed insect inside. Who knew what kind of stupid formian this one was? Still it was his favorite type of target - helpless - so he sliced it up with his twin blades.

Rale didn't get to see it, but the myrmarch's reaction to the unborn formian queen's death was instant. He went from a confident warrior doing his best to fight off two furious griffons to a quivering mass of panic in an instant. The pathetic bug did its best to curl itself up into a ball on the ground, and the griffons made short work of it thereafter.

In the meantime, Delphyne's prediction bore fruit, as the colossal scorpions, now released from their mental bondage, continued to fight for the safety of their nest. By this time, the combined melee might of Galrich, Aerik, and Akari had just about finished the first scorpion; Delphyne, sensing just how close it was to death, finished it off with a blast from her wand of magic missiles. Its body relaxed as it died, and Galrich was finally able to extricate himself from its pincers.

That left the remaining scorpion. It rushed out at the invaders, and the melee combatants ran to either side, opting to attack it between its legs rather than face those pincers head on. The griffons, having slain the myrmarch by this time, took to the air and leapt upon the vermin's back, clawing and biting it near the beginning of its tail. With so many allied combatants in the way, Delphyne opted to forgo her remaining fireball spell and pumped out a series of blasts from her wand of magic missiles - it took longer that way, but the end result was the same, and the second scorpion eventually collapsed to the ground in death.

Rale crawled back out over the partially-demolished wall, holding a small cube in his hand. "What's that?" asked Aerik, the closest to the rogue as he rejoined the group.

"No idea," admitted Rale. He passed it to Delphyne for her scrutiny. As she turned it over and over, examining each face, she commented, "These are symbols for the Elemental Planes."

"That's only four. So what are the other two?" asked Rale.

"This one might be the Prime Material Plane," she said. "And this one, I'm not sure. Is this the Beastlands, maybe?" Akari gave it a look, and confirmed her guess - that was, indeed, the traditional symbol for the Beastlands.

Piecing together what they could from the facts they had on hand, the group assumed that somehow, a nest of formians had gotten their hands on this cubic gate - possibly looted from an adventurer who had encountered their nest in his travels - and they opted to use it to begin a new nest in the Beastlands. Sending over a myrmarch, two taskmasters, a handful of warriors, winged warriors, and workers, and, most importantly, the egg of an unborn queen - who, despite her unhatched status, was still able to link the new colony together telepathically to form their hive mind - they had everything they needed to start a new formian colony right in Tsukitora's backyard. Only their direct intervention had prevented the formian race from establishing a beachhead in the Beastlands, which, if not stopped, could eventually have made them a permanent presence on the plane.

Akari dug through the pile of jumbled body parts - a first meal, no doubt, intended for the ravenous queen upon her imminent hatching, seeing as how the scorpions hadn't been allowed to touch it - and pulled free the three griffon eggs. Then the group carefully returned them to the surface, and stood guard over the third egg while Tsukitora and his mate Hoshitaka each hefted one in their foreclaws and flew back to their nest with them.

"Hey, what the Hell?" asked Rale, gazing up at the sun overhead. "It's still noon!"

"It's always noon here on Krigala," explained Akari.

"Weird," commented Rale with a look of disdain.

Tsukitora returned alone several minutes later, and Akari passed him the third and final egg. "Goodbye for now, old friend," he said, ruffling the feathers at the side of his mount's head. The snow-white griffon cawed in response, then grabbed up his egg, and with a flap of his mighty wings, took to the air. Akari watched him until he was no longer visible in the sky, then turned to Delphyne.

"Shall we?" he asked.

"Indeed we shall," she replied, pushing the side of the cubic gate that held the symbol of the Prime Material Plane. In an instant, the five adventurers were gone.

They didn't end up anywhere remotely close to Greyhawk City, but after resting up for the night, Delphyne prepared a teleport spell and they all made it back to Guild Headquarters in one piece.

- - -

There was one main reason I wrote this adventure: my local Target store had a bunch of plastic bugs on sale for a dollar each. I picked up two scorpions (each about 7 inches long and 5 inches wide, and that's with the tail curled up over the body) and a spider (built like a tarantula, with a 9-inch diameter legspan). So that's the main reason the formian incursion into the Beastlands began with a mated pair of celestial scorpions. And, equally eager to put my spider to good use, I inserted it into the very next adventure.

ADVENTURE 53 - THE GAUNTLET OF KORD

PC Roster:
If you'll recall, Cal went through "Moradin's Forge" but opted to forego the reward at the end, not wanting to wear the holy symbol of another god on his forehead (even if it was only visible to lawful good dwarves). At the time, I decided I needed to give Cal a suitable substitute reward; this is the adventure where I made good on that vow.

Also, despite the fact that I usually allow the players to decide which PC they'll be running each adventure, I informed everyone at the start of this session that this was going to feature Cal in the spotlight, so naturally Dan would be running Cal, but that for reasons that would make sense later it would be best if Vicki ran Delphyne, Jacob ran Galrich, and Logan ran Aerik. Since Aerik was an NPC and Logan wouldn't be gaining any XP for either of his PCs in this adventure, I said that any XP he gained as Aerik in this session would be given to either Akari or Telgrane (his choice), who would be off having a solo adventure "off screen" while we ran through this adventure. Everyone agreed, and we were off!

- - -

Arriving at the Church of Kord, Cal was ushered through the chapel and into the Head Cleric's inner offices. There, the grizzled old priest, Father Maldavius, greeted him and asked him to have a seat. At his side, a scowling cleric gazed at Cal through a multifaceted gem. "He's clean," he grunted, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

"You must forgive Cankerleigh," sighed the elderly priest, "but he’s been leading up the taskforce to cleanse the Church of the taints of lycanthropy. We've had a rash of young adepts purposefully contracting lycanthropy as a quick-and-easy method of increasing their strength. Pure foolishness on their part; they never seem to think through the consequences, and it does the Church no good to have its adherents suddenly turning into wereboars by moonlight." Father Maldavius shook his head sadly, then said, "But that's not why I called you here this morning." Cal sat patiently and waited for the Head Cleric to explain.

"I have had a vision, I believe from Kord Himself. Tell me, Cal, have you heard of the Gauntlet of Kord? It's an ancient artifact of great power, a shining metal gauntlet that grants its wearer three wishes – if he can keep the Gauntlet for himself for a full 24 hours. Furthermore, if the Gauntlet ever falls into the hands of one who does not worship Kord, it sends out a message in the form of a vision – a sort of distress signal, if you will – to a random cleric of Kord. This message is called the Challenge of Kord, and it's a personal challenge to those who follow Kord's path to send a champion to wrest the Gauntlet away from those unworthy of its boon.

"Tradition calls for the Church of Kord to send but a single champion to the location identified in the vision. I have received such a vision this morning, Cal, and in it, I saw you – and three others, unknown to me – fighting a shadowy enemy on a dark and dismal plane. I have no doubt that you have been chosen by the Lord of Strength to answer this challenge, to go forth and fetch the Gauntlet of Kord back from this enemy and return it here, to the Church. So tell me, Cal, what do you know of the Windswept Depths of Pandemonium?"

Cal admitted he didn't know much about the place, other than it was one of the outer planes of the cosmos. Father Maldavius explained it was a plane of raw chaos, composed of four different infinite layers, each with shifting gravity effects. Powerful winds blew constantly through its pitch-black caverns, drowning out words spoken at less than a shout, wreaking havoc with ranged weaponry, and eventually causing deafness and even insanity. Undead wights were common throughout the plane, and both demons and slaadi were likewise known there. There were also rumors of small communities of outcast humanoids and giants living in scattered villages, although the majority of these beings were undoubtedly insane.

"As I mentioned, we must send only one champion to answer the Challenge of Kord, yet I saw you with three companions in my vision," said Father Maldavius. "I can only imagine that Kord, who values not only physical strength but also strength of will and the strength of friendship, will provide companions for you as you strive to meet this task. Do not fail us, Cal – the Gauntlet of Kord must be returned here, to its rightful place; this is your primary goal above all else. To aid you in your quest, I can provide these." And with that, the Head Cleric handed Cal a small handful of items.

The first was a parchment scroll. "Cast this when you arrive in Pandemonium; it's an extended find the path spell that will lead you to the area I saw in my vision," Father Maldavius explained.

The other item was a small cloth bag containing a large crystal and three others just like it, only smaller. "These will help you in returning home," the Head Cleric explained. "Place the smaller crystals in a triangle around you, and they will aid you in concentration. Focus your mind on the Church of Kord as you gaze into the larger crystal, and you – and everything within the triangle of smaller crystals – will be gated back here into the main chapel. This is much safer than a plane shift spell – who knows where you'd end up?

"You may use my private rooms to prepare your daily spells, if you wish. When you are ready, just step into the side room, where a gate circle has been prepared. It will whisk you away to Pandemonium when you say, 'I stand ready to do Kord's will.'" And with that, Father Maldavius stood up, gave Cal a slap on the side of the arm for good measure, and excused himself from his own office.

Cal wasted no time. He knelt down and began his morning prayers, rifling through the various spells he knew and choosing those he thought would best aid him in his holy quest. When he was ready, he walked into the room beyond, surprised to see no magic circle on the floor as Father Maldavius had described. Scratching his head in puzzlement, Cal happened to look up and spotted it inscribed on the ceiling above him. "What in the world?" he said aloud, then shrugged, and said in a loud, booming voice, "I stand ready to do Kord's will."

Upon uttering the words, a great whirling circle of winds descended from the ceiling. The winds sunk down to encompass Cal, and he found himself being turned around and around, buffeted by savage winds the likes of which he’d never experienced. Suddenly, there was a wrench of mystical origin that he felt in his very bones, and the light of the Head Cleric’s side room was replaced with an inky darkness. Cal was deposited roughly in a heap upon what felt to be cold, hard stone as a powerful wind whipped past him, its roar occasionally sounding like screams, or laments, or the whimpering of cowering cowards.

"Looks like I'm here," Cal muttered to himself, glad that he'd had the forethought to roll up the scroll he'd been given and place it in a scroll tube; otherwise, it would likely have been snatched from his grasp by the powerful winds. Of course, that brought on another thought: How the hell am I going to read the scroll without any light, and without it blowing away from me? The first problem was easily solved; Cal spoke the words to a light spell and his Guild ring blazed with a bright illumination, exposing the area around him as a natural-looking cavern. The winds roared down the cavern's length, powerful enough that a smaller man might well have been pushed off his feet. Cal saw there was a section of cavern tunnel to his right that jutted out into a wider area; thinking that the winds might be less strong there, he headed in that direction.

And that's when he saw three figures in the periphery of the illumination from his light spell. They saw him and pointed, but anything they might have said was taken away by the screaming winds. As they staggered toward him - they were traveling into the winds, while Cal had the winds at his back - they entered the radius of illumination, and with a small relief Cal saw that they were none other than Delphyne, Slayer, and Aerik. Their faces brightened when they recognized Cal, and he rushed over to meet them - which, given the powerful winds at his back, wasn't difficult.

Talking was only possible by putting one's lips against another's ear and shouting. "What are you doing here?" yelled Cal to Delphyne.

"No idea!" she yelled back. "I was at the vegetable market, then I got whisked here!"

"Same here!" screamed Slayer. "Aerik and I were back at that weaponsmith's, and we got caught up in a whirlwind that dropped us here! Any idea where we are?"

"We're on Pandemonium!" Cal screamed back. "I'm on a quest! Hang on, let's get some shelter!" It took some doing, but eventually Cal got Aerik and Slayer to hold onto his cloak with their hands while stepping on the bottom of it with their feet, thus making a windbreak of sorts that Cal and Delphyne could hunker down behind. It was enough to allow them to talk without screaming quite as loudly, and Cal felt confident enough to unroll the scroll containing the find the path spell. He cast it without problems, and a series of arrows suddenly appeared on the ground, showing the way he was supposed to go.

"Cool!" yelled Cal. "Do you see that?"

"See what?" Delphyne yelled back. Apparently Cal was the only one who could see the magical arrows, which made sense once he thought about it. Oh well, he would be leading this little expedition anyway.

The first matter of concern was that while Cal had packed for an adventure, the others had not. Slayer carried his greatsword and Aerik carried his greataxe, and the dwarf wore his customary armor (nobody could ever remember having seen him not wearing it), but neither had any of their potions, backup weapons, or other gear. Delphyne had the dagger at her belt, but no other weapons, and she was without the broom of flying she always brought with her on adventures. She didn't have any of her wands or potions, either. "I didn't know I was going on a quest for anything other than tomatoes!" she complained.

Cal prepared his group the best he could. As had become his habit when adventuring, he cast a stoneskin spell upon himself; fortunately, he realized that sprinkling diamond dust upon himself would be nearly impossible in this wind, and cast it from a backup scroll instead. When Delphyne went to check her mental spell inventory, though, she said she felt her prepared spells shifting and sliding around in her head; she chocked it up as an effect of the chaotic plane she was on, and pressed on. She was pleased to note that she could cast a stoneskin upon herself without the material components, and yelled to the others that she was ready to go.

Cal led them carefully down the tunnel, following the arrows that only he could see. He knew his light spell wouldn't last for long, so he found a sunrod in his pack and held it at the ready. Traveling downwind was slow going, as you had to constantly fight the wind from knocking you over. It was about this time that Cal suddenly realized he could no longer hear the winds.

It wasn't just the winds, either; Cal was deaf. He called out as loud as he could - nothing. He banged his mace onto his shield - nothing. Gesturing to the others, he indicated that he couldn't hear, and got similar responses from his companions. Great, they were all deaf. This was going to complicate matters somewhat.

After several minutes of traveling down the same tunnel, the group encountered their first denizens of Pandemonium. There were about a dozen of them, staggering into the wind, long hair whipping about in all directions, approaching the adventurers from the long, winding tunnel just ahead. The first thing they noticed was that they weren't just walking on what the group normally considered to be the ground, but also on the walls and the ceiling - admittedly, somewhat abstract concepts in a tunnel mostly circular in cross-section, but it still seemed odd to see gravity conforming to whatever solid surface was nearest. As an experiment, Aerik and Delphyne veered over to what they considered to be "opposite walls" and found that they served just as well as the floor. Weird.

As the two groups converged, the adventurers saw that the newcomers were all dressed in tattered rags. This wasn't a surprise; Cal noticed the edges of his own cloak were getting ripped under the constant battering of the wind as well, and could only imagine what would happen to clothes over time in this environment. As the groups got even closer yet, Cal could finally make out the faces of the nearest of the visitors, and saw looks of hatred, envy - and hunger. He'd seen creatures such as these before, and suddenly recalled what Father Maldavius had said about bands of wights roaming among Pandemonium.

Cal grabbed up the holy symbol of Kord he wore around his neck, held it before him, and channeled a blast of positive energy through it. Those wights in the front ranks jerked upright as if hit by a solid force, several of them being lifted up off their feet and whisked away by the powerful winds roaring down the tunnel. Slayer and Aerik raced up to the next ranks and attacked with their weapons, while Delphyne stayed behind and tossed a magic missile barrage at another. Cal stepped forward and turned another clump of the wights, sending a bunch more of them screaming through the tunnels, battered as they hit the stone sides and bounced off, and falling away into the distance. Before long, the wights had all been dealt with, with very little injuries on the parts of the adventurers. They moved on.

Following the arrows superimposed onto the ground, Cal led the group to the end of the tunnel, which exited into an enormous cavern stretching out above and around the group. A narrow stone bridge, apparently part of a natural formation, spanned the cavern from one end to another, and the arrows continued along its length. As Cal first stepped onto the bridge, several things became apparent: first, the winds were now blowing crossways from his original direction of travel, threatening to blow Cal off the span. The strength of the winds was if anything even more powerful in this vast cavern. Finally, although Cal couldn't see either the ceiling or the floor of the immense cavern, it appeared as if the bridge spanned an enormous star field, with individual points of light winking along a vast plane below him.

Carefully, Cal maneuvered along the circumference of the stone bridge so that the winds were now blowing down on his head. From his original orientation in the first tunnel, it now appeared as if he were standing sideways, but the cleric found it was easier to walk along the bridge that way, and he beckoned the others to follow. As Slayer followed Cal, he looked down at the star field, and his inherent darkvision allowed him to see what the cleric couldn't: the "star field" was really the shining eyes of an immense gibbering mouther, several miles long at least. It looked like the creature's immense bulk had taken from it any means of mobility, but it was still able to form little tendrils of matter and wave them around feebly. Slayer decided he did not want to end up down there with the beast, so he kept close watch on his footing.

As Cal got what he estimated to be about a third of the way along the bridge, several dark shapes came whizzing by the bridge; from Cal's orientation, it looked like they were raining down on him. They were five-foot bubbles of swirling dark matter, carried aloft by the roaring winds. A final bubble crashed into the bridge and splattered, then coalesced into an amorphous shape and started oozing in Cal's direction. The cleric recognized it as a gray ooze, adapted to this surreal environment. As it headed his way, Cal looked past it and saw another group of wights headed his way from the far side of the bridge; they looked to be several score in number. There wasn't room on the bridge for more than one person to stand safely; they were all single file. Cal didn't relish the notion of having to fight off a gray ooze and then several dozen wights all one at a time, but then he paid attention to the arrows and saw that that needn't be the way of things. He blasted the ooze with one of his more powerful spells, watching at it was blown to smaller pieces that were each carried away by the powerful crosswinds, then motioned for the others to hurry after him and raced as best he could towards the advancing wights. When he was at the stone bridge's midway point, he ran to the "top" of the bridge once more - having traveled mostly on what his mind still considered to be the "side" thus far - and jumped off, allowing the winds to take him aloft. The others, looking at themselves in concern, gave a mental shrug and followed suit. After all, Cal seemed to know what he was doing, and he was their only way home.

The four adventurers flew helplessly sideways down the shaft of this larger cavern. Only Cal had the sense of knowing that all was right, for as he sped by he could see that he was still following the path of the glowing arrows, the product of his find the path spell. The others followed behind him, their screams being torn away by the constant winds.

The ride came to an abrupt end as Cal crashed into what he first thought was a net of some type, strewn across the wide cavern to catch falling debris like himself, and, in the seconds that followed, his companions, who each crashed alongside him. Then they noticed they couldn't move, and that there was an enormous shape scuttling toward them.

Cal tried to recall if he'd ever seen a spider that size, and came up short.

Fortunately, he had readied a freedom of movement spell that morning in Father Maldavius's office, and while he couldn't actually hear himself say the words to the spell, he could feel that it had taken effect. The colossal spider's web went from a entangling trap to a bouncy floor, and Cal raced over to Delphyne to help pull her out of the web's embrace. He could see Slayer extricating himself and helping Aerik to get free, the little dwarf not nearly as strong as his half-orc liege. Delphyne cast a magic missile spell at the oncoming spider - fortunately, the web was as large as the wide cavern, and the monstrous spider still had a way to go to get to them - but Cal, paying attention once again to the arrows, noted that they were pointing to the far side of the web, away from the spider, and onto a ledge outcropping. He motioned for the others to follow him, and made his way to the edge. Slayer took the rear, so he could help extricate Delphyne and Aerik when they got stuck in the web. They made it to the web's edge and onto the stone outcropping in one piece before the spider could get to them, and by that time several wights had fallen into the web, attracting the spider's attention away from the adventurers. They had to fight their way against the wind up the ledge, but then it turned a corner, where Cal found to his surprise that the arrows from the find the path spell led directly to a tower shield pressed up against the wall by the force of the wind. With Slayer's assistance, Cal managed to move the shield sideways, revealing a narrow passage into the stone. Once everyone was in, he and Slayer wrestled it back into place behind them, and for the first time since their arrival on Pandemonium, the winds were suddenly cut off.

Being inside this cavern was no different from being inside a cavern back on their home plane, and it was amazing how much that little fact made such a world of difference. Finally able to catch his breath, Cal took stock of everyone and was pleased to find his hearing returning; without the constant buffering of the winds, his body was restoring its normal senses. The same thing was happening to the others, and as Cal cast healing spells on those who needed them, he filled them in a bit more on the specifics of his quest now that he could actually talk to them without having to shout. He finished up with a holy aura spell, just in case the group would be fighting evil creatures ahead.

"So where are your arrows pointing to now?" asked Delphyne.

"This way," replied Cal, and led the group down the narrow tunnel. The others followed as the tunnel twisted back on itself twice, forming a sort of "Z" shape before finally opening into a small cavern, from which emanated a flickering light. Cal entered the cavern, the others stepping into place behind him.

They weren't alone. Across the cavern they saw a blue slaad lying in a heap on the floor, and standing beside it was a powerfully built woman wearing a monk's tight-fitting combat garment, with the holy symbol of Kord embroidered on the front. She held a metal-tipped quarterstaff with flames burning brightly from either end, and her right hand sported a brightly-shining gauntlet with three rubies embedded on the back. She smiled crookedly at Cal. "My name is Virilia Flamestaff," she said by way of introduction. "I imagine you were sent here for the same reason I was."

"It would appear so," replied Cal cordially, while slipping his hand into a pouch and extracting his gem of seeing. Holding it up to his eye, he added, "But then, appearances are often deceiving, aren't they?" With that, he flung a harm spell at the young monk, whom he had seen clearly through his magical gem as a green slaad.

"Crap!" called out the monk, reverting to her true form. "Get up, Blunk, you idiot, they're on to us!" The blue slaad sat up and roused itself to its feet, apparently nowhere near as dead as it had first appeared. Then the battle was on.

In the cramped quarters of the small cavern, space was at a premium. "Virilia" - in truth, a green slaad named Venkreth - blasted a fireball at the group with her flaming quarterstaff, enveloping all four of them easily. Blunk took the occasion to repeatedly drop down below the surface of the cavern floor, only to pop back up behind (or occasionally under) the adventurers, but his partner, Venkreth, had been severely damaged by Cal's harm spell, and when Blunk popped up one time to see that Venkreth had been slain, he immediately popped back under the stone floor and never reappeared.

"We did it!" called out Delphyne. "We got the Gauntlet of Kord!"

"That remains to be seen," replied Cal, ever the cautious one. He gingerly pulled the metal gauntlet from the green slaad's hand, then examined it with his gem of seeing to make sure it wasn't a fake. Sure enough, it looked to be the real thing, so he reverently placed it upon his own right hand.

Immediately upon having done so, the Gauntlet sent a series of images cascading into everyone's mind.

- - -

...And, with that, I'm going to have to stop the story right here and provide some behind-the-scenes stuff. When Cal activated the gate spell in Father Maldavius's side room, I handed each of the players a handout that described what their PC had been doing when they were suddenly swept up by a whirlwind and deposited in a dark, windy cave. Each PC's handout was more or less the same, but the only reason I did so was so that it wouldn't appear odd when I gave everybody their own handout again later in the session.

At this point of the game session, I explained that the Gauntlet of Kord was sending images into everyone's brain, but that they weren't all necessarily receiving the same images. And then I passed around player handouts to each of my four players. Here's what I gave Dan, who was playing Cal:

DAN HANDOUT #2 said:

As you first touch the Gauntlet of Kord, your mind is bombarded with a series of powerful images. In turn, you see the following:

• A group of monks gathered together around a forge. Their flowing robes all sport the holy symbol of Kord on their backs. At the forge, a powerful monk with a shaven head, the top half of his robe hanging down from the belt at his waist, hammers the Gauntlet of Kord into shape on a black anvil.
  
• A giant, bearded man, standing nearly twice as tall as normal man, strides across the monastery's courtyard and strikes a defensive pose. The monks bow to him in respect and then immediately attack, and he flings them carelessly about in all directions, laughing heartily all the while.
  
• The bald monk, who appears to be their leader, gets in a flying kick at the giant's forehead, opening a bloody gash. The bearded giant seems surprised, then bursts into gales of laughter. He wipes the blood from his forehead with his hand and casually flings the droplets onto the Gauntlet. The blood is instantly absorbed into the Gauntlet, causing it to briefly glow a bright red as if from an inner fire, which then coalesces into three dark red rubies on its outer surface, just below and between the knuckles.
  
• With that, the giant – you realize now that this was an Aspect of Kord Himself, Lord of Strength, Master of Might – nods his shaggy head in admiration and respect to the monks, and slowly disappears from view.
  
• On some later date, an attacking horde of demons tears through the monastery. The bald monk – now significantly older – uses the powers of the Gauntlet of Kord to destroy wave after wave of the demons, but is eventually killed from behind by an invisible hellcat. Upon his death, the fight goes poorly for the monks, and they are eventually overcome. Several demons start squabbling amongst themselves over the Gauntlet.
  
• In the next image, a horned, winged demon now wears the Gauntlet of Kord, opening a gate to another plane of existence. You immediately recognize it as the Windswept Depths of Pandemonium.
  
• An armored man wearing a holy symbol of Kord appears before the winged demon, and the two fight. The cleric is victorious, and removes the Gauntlet of Kord from his vanquished foe. However, before he can place it onto his own hand, he is struck from the side by a grayish bubble flying through the air. The Gauntlet of Kord is dropped, but before it can reach the ground it is captured by the powerful winds and flies away out of sight. The upper half of the cleric’s body disappears under the flowing mass of protoplasm, and he collapses to the ground to be devoured and digested.
  
• In the next image, a green slaad, easily recognizable as the one you just defeated, discovers the Gauntlet of Kord in the corner of a cavern, surrounded by loose rocks. He places it on his right hand, grinning evilly.
  
• Finally, you see Father Maldavius jolting upright from his desk, his eyes glazing over as he sees a vision of future events.

The Gauntlet of Kord also transmits its abilities directly into your mind. Besides the three wishes, the requirement to wear it for 24 hours before the wearer can access its wishes, and the Challenge of Kord "distress signal" aspect of it (all of which works exactly as explained to you by Father Maldavius), it also grants its wearer a +2 deflection bonus to AC, a +2 to Fortitude saves, and a +4 effective Strength bonus for feats requiring only one hand (like bending an iron bar or crushing a skull).

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In the meantime, the other three players each got a different handout. Theirs were virtually identical, with only their names and genders changed as appropriate. Here's the one I gave Vicki:

VICKI HANDOUT #2 said:

First of all, it is very important for you to keep a poker face while reading what follows – don’t show any reaction as you read the remainder of this handout. Got that? Okay, good. Then here goes.

For the entirety of this adventure, you have not been playing Delphyne, but rather a doppelganger – a shapeshifting monstrous humanoid capable of reading minds. Jacob and Logan are also playing doppelgangers (and are just now finding out about it, as you are) – the only one really running his own PC through this adventure is Dan. Don't worry, though – your real PCs will each earn the experience points that your "doppelganger versions" earn for this adventure; we'll just assume that they're off having an unspecified adventure in Greyhawk City "off camera," as it were. (In fact, you can decide whether to assign the XP that "Doppelganger Delphyne" earned to either the real Delphyne or to Feron.)

In any case, all three doppelgangers (your name is Vix, Jacob's is Jax, and Logan's is Lex; they're your younger brothers) are part of the Banished – descendants of Prime Material Plane creatures who were banished to Pandemonium centuries ago. Your whole miserable lives you've dreamed of finding a way back to the Prime Material Plane of your ancestors, and now fate has kindly dropped a human cleric into your laps. You quickly scanned his mind and each chose a trusted adventuring companion to impersonate from his memories; you took the form of Delphyne, as her abilities were similar to yours (you’re a doppelganger sorcerer). Your original plan was to stick with the human, Cal, long enough for him to lead you out of Pandemonium, but reading his mind you've learned that he'll be returning back to the Church of Kord of Greyhawk City, with numerous clerics, among them a contingent who are scouring their members seeking out shapechangers – granted, they're looking specifically for lycanthropes (wereboars, to be exact), but their magical scrying methods will surely see you for what you really are, and you'll be forced to try to fight your way out of a church full of clerics of all levels of power. This is no longer a viable plan.

However, the discovery of the Gauntlet of Kord changes everything. Right now, while Cal's being given a description of the Gauntlet of Kord's powers directly from the artifact itself, all three of you doppelgangers are reading his mind and finding out its abilities as well. It grants its wearer three wishes, but must be worn for 24 hours before you can activate any of the wishes. So, quick, new plan: If you kill Cal now, you can gain the Gauntlet of Kord for yourselves and use it to gate to any destination on the plane of your choice, plus still have two other wishes to use in any way you see fit.

So, right now, you're all reading your respective handouts. Once everyone's finished and we get back to the game, you three will each get one surprise attack against Cal (attacking against his flat-footed Armor Class), after which we'll roll for initiative and run the combat like normal. There's an XP bonus for your real PCs if you manage to kill Cal – and don’t worry, the Church of Kord, who sent him on this quest, has the resources to resurrect him if you succeed.

Good luck, you neutral evil doppelganger – enjoy your free reign of terror, and I hope you're looking forward to the look of abject surprise on Dan's face as much as I am!

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So, that's about all you need to know before we get back to the story portion of this post. Ready? Then let's go!

- - -

Vix the doppelganger, still wearing Delphyne's form, cast a lightning bolt spell that blasted into the unsuspecting cleric's back. Unfortunately, it was blocked by the spell resistance conferred by Cal's holy aura spell. She scowled at her luck. Still, her brothers might succeed where her spell had failed. Lex leaped at the cleric, brandishing an extension of his hand that looked like a dwarven waraxe, and his blade bit deep. Cal turned at the sudden attack, astonished at this betrayal, and in doing so opened himself up to a sneak attack from Jax, who still wore the form of Galrich Slayer. His "greatsword" - again, an extension of his own fluid body - slid between Cal's protective armor and deep into his side, dealing more damage than normal due to the doppelganger rogue's advanced training in such sneak attacks.

However, these surprise attacks came at a cost. Lex staggered back, crying out "I can't see!" The holy aura spell had blinded him. Jax felt a similar effect starting to cover his vision, but he shrugged it off.

Cal was unsure of what to make of his friends suddenly attacking him like that. At first he assumed someone was controlling them somehow, but then he realized that his holy aura spell would only trigger blindness when evil creatures attacked - if "Aerik" had been blinded, then that wasn't Aerik after all. How long had these imposters been with him? Had they been fakes from the start?

These were all questions for later. For the moment, Cal cast a mislead spell, which simultaneously turned himself invisible and created an illusory duplicate of himself writhing in pain on the cavern floor. Vix was tricked long enough to fire off another spell at the illusion, by which time Cal had quietly made his way to the back of the cavern and into the narrow tunnel. By the time the doppelgangers had realized this illusion had no mind to read, Cal had sealed off the dead-end cavern with a wall of stone spell, leaving the three murderous doppelgangers trapped on the other side. Still, they had the light from Venkreth's flaming quarterstaff to see by, and her cooling corpse to eat, in a cavern entirely devoid of wind - by Pandemonium standards, it was practically a paradise in which to spend one's last few hours before suffocating to death.

Cal spread out the three small crystals in a triangle around him in the narrow tunnel. By the light of his sun rod, he focused his attention on the larger crystal, thinking about the Temple of Kord. Within a couple of seconds, the cavern disappeared around him...

...to be replaced by the temple arena in the Temple of Kord in Greyhawk City. Cal appeared in its center, directly in front of the statue of Kord Victorious in the alcove behind the arena. He quickly got to his feet, faced the packed pews (stationed like bleachers along four sides of the octagonal arena), and raised his right hand, bearing the Gauntlet of Kord, in a victorious fist above his head.

The Church members, who had sat in these pews awaiting Cal's return, leaped to their feet and roared in victory. Cal basked in his moment of victory, turning to face each of the four rows of pews in turn.

Suddenly, if anything, the crowd's roars became even louder, and looks of astonishment passed over their faces. They seemed to be focused behind Cal. He turned, wondering what other surprises this day might bring...and found himself staring up at an Avatar of Kord, Lord of Strength.

The bearded giant was grinning down at Cal as he pulled his massive greatsword from his back with his right hand. Then, in a lightning quick motion, he cut across the palm of his left hand and held it out to Cal. Cal extended his own, and made no sign of weakness as Kord's blade sliced across his own left palm. Then the two gripped left hands, allowing their blood to intermingle. The Avatar of Kord crushed Cal in a massive bear hug, then stepped away, gave a quick salute to the assembled crowd - who cheered and roared even louder, if such a thing was possible - and then disappeared from view.

Father Maldavius stepped down from the front row of one of the pews, where he had witnessed the miracle of Kord's appearance himself, and raised Cal's right hand with his own. Together they faced the crowd of worshipers, and the ongoing roars of victory brought many passersby into the church to see what was all the fuss was about.

Cal wore the Gauntlet of Kord for the rest of the full 24-hour span, as dictated by Kordian tradition. Then the Gauntlet was given to the custodianship of Father Maldavius, who displayed it in the Church of Kord where it was revered as a holy relic. In the days that followed, Cal found that he had earned a significant amount of respect among those of his Church - after all, not everyone could boast of having the divine blood of Kord flowing through his own veins.

- - -

And not only that, but Cal gained the "Kord-blooded" template as found in Monster Manual V.

This was one of my favorite adventures from this campaign. I had long wanted to use the old "a doppelganger infiltrates your party" ruse, but had never found a way to successfully employ the gambit. This was the best way I could figure out to do it. And the players loved it! I was having a great time watching Vicki, Jacob, and Logan reading over their handouts informing them that they had all been playing doppelgangers this whole session, and to their credit, nobody gave anything away. (Although I could tell by the eagerness on Jacob's face that he couldn't wait to surprise attack his dad's PC.) Dan, for his part, was completely surprised by the sudden betrayal of his entire party, and if it hadn't been for the blindness effect kicking in (which immediately told him they weren't just his companions being dominated, they were evil creatures), I think he might have been tempted to try to fight them all off without killing them. I'm glad it ended like it did, though.