Storminator
First Post
Having escaped Vralkek after the "murder" of Glory, the group flees across the plains. Krusk, the new guy, is a wilderness guide. He knows the lay of the land, and starts by directing the group to one of the hunting lodges outside the city in order to buy supplies for the overland journey. Leaving the rest of the group hiding in the bushes, he enters the lodge and negotiates for meat.
While there he learns that Gorodan Ashlord, the fire giant ruler of Vralkek and the father of Glory, has sent harpy messengers out all over the country with descriptions of the group and a reward for their capture - 1000 gp each.
Deciding the open plains are unsafe for two reasons - the gnolls are gathering to renew their Znir Pact and there's nowhere to hide from the harpies - the group crosses the Scar River into the Watching Woods. This lets them avoid the gnolls, but puts them into werewolf territory.
Meanwhile, Merrix d'Cannith has found them by scrying. Turns out he had a hard time scrying the Hand, because Locate Object no longer works on it now that it's incorporated into Tuktuk. Merrix scries the group every day, multiple times a day, and trash talks constantly while doing it. An excellent Arcana check indicates that Merrix spends over 10000 GP in ritual components to keep scrying. He also explains that he killed all the goblins from the restaurant. Afterwards he examined Floatstone (which the group has been sacrificing the homeless into) and it has grown and spread into stones all over the Bazaar level, so it can't be removed to his workshop without destroying the Dura district. Also, it can be used to power eldritch machines! He's only done tests so far tho. During these discussions Merrix offers Krusk 15000 GP for Tuktuk. Krusk seriously considers it.
The group fought a group of harpies and gargoyles and a strange devil that could change shape and dominate. It wasn't particularly difficult, but demonstrated that the group doesn't have a lot of ability to deal with flying creatures.
One of the gargoyles got away to report on the group.
The next day the group found an ancient monument from the Dhakaan/Daelkyr wars. It granted the group some healing during the fight with the werewolves. The leader werewolf was a bit tough, and the archer woman was pretty effective (then she changed to wolf form and ran away), but the werewolf lackeys were pretty unimpressive.
Finally, the group neared the edge of the forest, and had to cross a minor tributary of the Scar River. Then the dragon attacked. Merrix sent a steam powered warforged dragon after the group. It flew around and pushed everyone around, including pushing a couple people off the cliff! After a few rounds of getting tooled by the stick and move dragon the group immobilized it repeatedly, dominated it, dazed it, grabbed it, restrained it, and finally beat it into submission. But you could hear it taking notes during the combat, and before it died it shot off it's Final Messenger to report back to Merrix.
The session ended with the group exiting the forest with the Great Crag in the distance.
We did the fights in this session on wargame terrain, with no grid. Everything was measured with tapes, blasts were 90 degree arcs, and adjacency and melee attacks were a little looser than usual. It played pretty well, and we'll probably do it again. Not every time, but definitely again.
While there he learns that Gorodan Ashlord, the fire giant ruler of Vralkek and the father of Glory, has sent harpy messengers out all over the country with descriptions of the group and a reward for their capture - 1000 gp each.
Deciding the open plains are unsafe for two reasons - the gnolls are gathering to renew their Znir Pact and there's nowhere to hide from the harpies - the group crosses the Scar River into the Watching Woods. This lets them avoid the gnolls, but puts them into werewolf territory.
Meanwhile, Merrix d'Cannith has found them by scrying. Turns out he had a hard time scrying the Hand, because Locate Object no longer works on it now that it's incorporated into Tuktuk. Merrix scries the group every day, multiple times a day, and trash talks constantly while doing it. An excellent Arcana check indicates that Merrix spends over 10000 GP in ritual components to keep scrying. He also explains that he killed all the goblins from the restaurant. Afterwards he examined Floatstone (which the group has been sacrificing the homeless into) and it has grown and spread into stones all over the Bazaar level, so it can't be removed to his workshop without destroying the Dura district. Also, it can be used to power eldritch machines! He's only done tests so far tho. During these discussions Merrix offers Krusk 15000 GP for Tuktuk. Krusk seriously considers it.
The group fought a group of harpies and gargoyles and a strange devil that could change shape and dominate. It wasn't particularly difficult, but demonstrated that the group doesn't have a lot of ability to deal with flying creatures.
One of the gargoyles got away to report on the group.
The next day the group found an ancient monument from the Dhakaan/Daelkyr wars. It granted the group some healing during the fight with the werewolves. The leader werewolf was a bit tough, and the archer woman was pretty effective (then she changed to wolf form and ran away), but the werewolf lackeys were pretty unimpressive.
Finally, the group neared the edge of the forest, and had to cross a minor tributary of the Scar River. Then the dragon attacked. Merrix sent a steam powered warforged dragon after the group. It flew around and pushed everyone around, including pushing a couple people off the cliff! After a few rounds of getting tooled by the stick and move dragon the group immobilized it repeatedly, dominated it, dazed it, grabbed it, restrained it, and finally beat it into submission. But you could hear it taking notes during the combat, and before it died it shot off it's Final Messenger to report back to Merrix.
The session ended with the group exiting the forest with the Great Crag in the distance.
We did the fights in this session on wargame terrain, with no grid. Everything was measured with tapes, blasts were 90 degree arcs, and adjacency and melee attacks were a little looser than usual. It played pretty well, and we'll probably do it again. Not every time, but definitely again.
