WotBS MrPereira's WOTBS D&D 3.5 Campaign (SPOILERS IN THE POSTS)

That makes sense in my head as it is what Pilus would do to ensure that no one ever again got to have the power Ragesia had - himself excluded in that equation naturally. The way chapter 11 plays out unfortunately has him making his move before reaching said aftermath and thus it feels a little odd. That said - my players are going to enjoy killing Pilus, they never liked him. For some reason they felt that he was totally untrustworthy from the first time they met him

I was kind of thinking the same route, but play with the idea of Pilus nuking Leska's palace in Ragos and then turning his attention to Calanis afterwards. Shaaladel will not use his full forces to join the Resistance and Pilus knows he's probably going to be the next war-monger soon. Seaquen doesn't really have power, it is just the planning base of the allied forces and the alliance with Shaaladel is pretty fragile (and most certainly only temporaray). As in my campaign the alliance started infighting over something as simple as the fates of Guthwulf and Koren, Pilus wouldn't assume that the alliance to last long after a presumed victory against Leska.

The party

Neferitt – Seela Paragon lvl. 2 / Paladin 15
Shaith – Fire elf Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/Druid 6/Arcane Hierophant 10
Killian – Human Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Mystic theurge 10 / frost mage 3

NPCs

Wax – Paladin lvl 17
Guard Captain Tintra Stargazer – Fighter 8/Rogue 4/Wizard 5/

It takes a while after the fight before everything is calm again. There is still fighting in the city, but the threat from Trillith is over and the survivors head to the tent, they have been given. It is time to mourn their fallen comrade, and to lay plans for the next step of the journey.

DM Note: I always hate it when you have to introduce new characters into an existing group – it often tends to be a bit awkward, as the players want to include their friend, but the PCs ingame don’t often know the new person and as such shouldn’t have the same acceptance of a new teammate that just happens to walk by.

To make it a bit more annoying this time, was the fact that Wax is a Paladin, the same as Neferitt, the new Galion (Henceforth called Neferitt). Having two paladins, where one is an NPC, wouldn’t allow Neferitt to shine with her powers as much as the others as Wax would be able to do many of the same things. With that in mind, I decided that once Neferitt joined the party, then Wax would leave it, which in turn meant that I also had to make a new NPC and make up an excuse for yet another addition to the party.

So… I decided to mix things up a bit. I talked with Neferitt and asked if she (now this gets confusing to write as the player is male and the PC is female) was up to helping me out a bit with my problem, and she was. What I came up with was that Neferitt would take the role of Guard Captain Tintra Stargazer – the new NPC – and play that character until Neferitt arrives, and Wax leaves. It worked nicely as to get the new faces integrated, but it was a bit confusing when Neferitt became Neferitt instead of Tintra

In the tent the mood is somber, while in the city the celebrations are starting to warm up again. The group spend a while remembering Galion, although Shaith is pretty silent and upset. He spends most of the time looking at The Stick a.k.a. the formerly known as the living blade.

After a while they all turn in and the day ends.

July 22

The next morning the party is woken up by a soldier standing guard outside their tent. He says that a messenger from Seaquen has arrived and that he wishes to speak with the party.

The messenger tells them that Sequen intelligence has reported that Pilus has allied with Leska and is taking his airship to Seaquen. The intelligence is not very accurate in terms of how long they have until the ship arrives. Most likely they will have about a week or two.

The party discusses the situation and agrees that they need to end the Trillith threat once and for all and if possible they need to do it before Pilus arrives in Seaquen, so they don’t have to fight a war on two fronts.

Vigilance spent the night in their tent and is present for the discussion. He tells them that what he knows of ways cannot help them without the help of Lyceum. He knows that there are some rituals that ought to help them get to the dreamworld, but he does not know them. His best advice is that they will have to travel to Seaquen and study the books at Lyceum. He does tell them that no matter what, they will have to be able to fly in some way in the dreamworld to get to where they need to go.

DM note: I added the amount of days to give them some kind of time pressure, even though it will never be relevant – thanks to the dreamworld logic I will make sure that they get back in time to handle Pilus, no matter how long they take getting there.

Vigilance will remain in Gate Pass to ensure that the seal holds.

The party gathers their belongings, including Galions. Rantle arrives at the tent, clearly not in the best of moods, but he doesn’t elaborate. He gives the party a gift from Gate Pass as a reward for their help.

DM Note: This made sure that they had wealth they ought to have at level 17.

Rantle leaves again without saying much else. Before the party really has time to digest the situation, they have another visitor. This time it is Shalosh, who has clearly spent some time crying recently.

DM note: Rantle and Shalosh haven’t really made up yet over the “minor” detail of Shalosha killing Katrina – which the PCs rather quicky deduce.

Shalosha is not alone, she has another female elf with in the Princess’ Guards livery. She tells the party, that she knows that their journey is far from over and that she knows that where they are going, there will be a great chance of them not returning. She knows that her father won’t send anyone with them as he is focused on liberating Northern Shahalesti. Fortunately Shalosha has a small guard, which is loyal only to her. She asked her own elite guard for volunteers to go with them, and to her great pride, the entire guard volunteered. She chose their Captain – she points to the other elf – Tintra Stargazer as the one to help the PCs.

DM note: Neferitt/Tintra took action here and presented her as Tintra Stargazer and expressed how proud she was of being able to serve her Princess in the quest to save the world. The other two – as players do – accepted this as the new PC… which she of course wasn’t.

The party teleports back to Seaquen and meet with the council at Lyceum; Simeon, Kiernan and Haddin. The council informs the party that to the best of their knowledge and intelligence they have 7-10 days, depending on what route Pilus takes, how many stops he makes and how long time he takes making them. They will of course keep gathering intelligence on the approaching monk

DM note: I decide that wanted to outline the scope of the rest of the campaign for the part as there was no longer any reason to keep them in the dark. First end the Trillith, then handle Pilus and finally face Leska. It sounds so simple when put that way.

The party informs the council about the Trillith and why they believe that taking out that threat is the most pressing matter right now. The city will have a lot of people capable of building up the defenses, and the party won’t make as much difference helping with that as they will in taking out the Trillith threat. The council agree with the party (well Haddin never agrees with them, but the other two did).

Returning to their rooms after the meeting the party formulates a plan on how to move on. Suddenly they hear a knock on their door. Outside they find Tiljann, who is smiling and vibrant with energy. She is so happy that she almost cannot contain it. She tells them that she is so happy that they are here as she has a surprise for them. There is someone they need to meet, and she almost runs out of the room and pulls back another Seela with her. This is my cousin Neferitt, and she is the biggest hero I know besides you guys, and she is looking forward to meeting Galion…. Where is Galion by the way…?

After a short awkward silence the people start talking and Neferitt introduces herself as the defender of Innenotder

DM Note: I gave Neferitt that idea, as she was the defender for a long time. The funny part is that Shaith unofficially has been calling himself just that .

Luckily Shaith and Neferitt quickly created a bond centering on the Stick and a wow of bringing it back to life to save Innenotdar.

DM Note: And that is how Neferitt joined the group. It got a little confusing on who Neferitt really was the first few minutes as the others thought she was still Tintra.

As a side note I can tell you, that a Seela Paragon Paladin is one nasty combination. The paragon and Seela build both give Charisma bonuses, and with the right feat you have a character who adds her Charisma bonus to both Wisdom and Fortitude for saves, on top of a the paladin bonus of adding charisma bonus to saves. And as a Seela Paragon you add your Charisma to HP. Now with a start stat of 18, +4 for being Seela and Paragon, +4 for levels and +6 from Items, you now have +22 on both fortitude and will saves, +11 + dex modifier on reflex plus whatever your class gives you. And that is before we talk about adding 187 hps before rolling the dices. The build has other weaknesses, but it was fun when the others realized that giving Neferitt a 150 HP heal spell only gave her back about half her HPs…

Wax took this as his cue to tell the others that his heart was with Crystin and saving the town more than it was on travelling to some obscure dreamworld. He wouldn’t be able to fly anyway and his abilities would be of greater use on building the city defenses.

DM note: And that is how Wax left.

July 23

Tintra buys a biomantic Pegasus, while Killian is capable of casting enough overland flight spells to keep flying – at least according to himself. Neferitt has both her own wings and her loyal mount, which is a griffon. Shaith decides that he will do something a bit different. His animal companion is a direbear, and he buys a biomantic upgrade for it, so it is now a biomantically enhanced direbear with wings.

DM Note: A druid with a not so natural companion.

July 23 - 25

The party spend two days at the library studying the rituals. They find that they need the help of some primordeal forces, kind of demigods, who helped creating the world. They are unsure if they need all four of them or only some of them, so they decide to use the time needed to get the names of all four.

July 26

The first day of the summoning the party fails their diplomacy.

DM Note: both as a check and in roleplay.

July 27

The second day they let little miss sunshine, I-have-32-Charisma- Neferitt, do the talking. That helped and Earthsong Worm and Tidereaver Kraken send them on their way to the dreamworld. Neither the Flamebringer Dragon nor the Stormchaser Eagle came even though the party tried calling them.

After a strange vertigo-like trip the party arrives in a cave with two crystal dragons that they find they have to fight. The fight is tougher than they expected, partially because of the moving wall of forces. After defeating their enemies, the party finds a way out.

DM Note: And that is when the adventure became surreal.

They walk out through a tunnel and suddenly find themselves sanding on top of a spire in the middle of the sky, with a seemingly endless fall if they ware to jump off. They can see several places to go, but decide to start off going to the castle they can see in the distance.

The jouney doesn’t take them long and they easily take out the Varguile Swarm. The lord of the castle, Sakramar welcomes them with kindness and is a charming host.

DM note: He doesn’t dare do anything else.

The party tells him that they are looking for Trilla and that makes him happy as he loves to trade and he knows what they need to know. The talk a bit about what he wants and they learn that Sakramar has a fondness for the unique and special, including knowledge. Shaith says he has just the thing to trade with, and he hands Sakramar the Necromantic Cheese Artifact.

DM note: I did not see that coming, but Sakrakmar told them all he knew to get his hand on an artifact.

Sakramar tells what he knows of the place, the Trillith, Trilla and about how to get there. He tells them he knows a guide, but they will most likely have to play a game with him first and that he is somewhat childish. He also offers to contact the guide and arrange a meeting.

After the details are sorted, the party travels on to meet flight. The game he wants to play is a game the party has no chance of winning.

DM note: It only took a few rounds of playing before I realized that they had no chance really unless they set up things in an exact sequence, and I took over paraphrasing it. I had them take some damage from flight playing rough and the regroup, where they decided to breakt the rules themselves, by working as a unit and using teleports to win.

Flight is a little sad at having lost, but he is impressed by their tactics and promises to take them through the mural.

End of session.

Man, I totally forgot about this thread and stopped checking for updates, crazy how long it's been. And...somehow I'm ahead of you when your sessions seem to move stuff along a lot faster? Heh. We're just starting chapter 11; I made a *lot* of changes to the plot that came to a head last chapter. Now that the major plot twists are out of the way, I might actually start posting my own synopsis/review, like you've meticulously been doing. Need to catch up on your logs, though it's a bit late to talk about Ch. 7 now (my favorite chapter, too).
Have to agree that Ch. 11 seems "light" and the motivations a bit lacking. I came up with a justification for my campaign, based on how easily the PCs set aside their better judgement in Ch. 5 to make an alliance and the degree to which I made the final boss (you know who) far more formidable than the campaign already makes it.
In short:
[sblock]Pilus saw the war breaking down into Leska vs. those opposing her, and sought to give some aid to the weaker side to even things out so each would severely cripple the other, leaving him free to swoop in and wipe out both. But, he was extremely unimpressed with the party upon meeting them and decided they were no match for her (and given recent events in my game...her forces look more unstoppable than ever right now). Since at the moment she appears unbeatable, he decided in order to survive and bide his time for a better opportunity he had no choice but to side with her for now and curry her favor by attacking the resistance.
I plan to actually have him have the audacity to scold *them* for forcing him into such a situation by being so disappointing. It's still a bit flimsy of a rationale, but hopefully the sheer brazenness of it will distract them from that fact. [/sblock]
Haven't caught up on your logs, not sure if any of that would be useful to you. When in doubt, "He's crazy" works.

Yeah, it has been a long time since you posted - and I updated

We don't play as often as we would like to. Our last session was in june and the next is in October. Our session in september got cancelled. My campaign is currently about halfway through chapter 11. They have just entered the insides of the flying ship, so to speak. I am a bit behind in the updates - as usual

At one point I actually thought about uploading my updates as a file on the homepage here as a ressource in case other GMs would want to have a complete play-through as a companion guide when playing the adventure path, so I write the updates in a word file and paste them here. 70.800 words later, translating to being at the bottom of page 128 in said file, I doubt that anyone would want a complete edition, it is most likely too big a file to be of much use.

And considering how comprehensive Zeitgeist is, I doubt I am going to be doing updates of this kind if we start on that adventure path after WOTBS - but hey, one never knows

And I finally got around to writing a few things up. This update is the rest of chapter 10.

July 27 continued
After the taking them through the mural Flight wishes them a fond farewell and tells them that they are welcome to come and play anytime they want to.

After he leaves them, the players notice that it has become evening and they go to sleep

July 28
The next day is a somewhat surreal experience for the players, who see a lot of strange sights, including a half-eaten gigantic cow. Time flows in a strange way in the dreamworld, so it is hard for the party to orient themselves timewise. During the day they are attacked by a bunch of Nightmare Trillith led by a Fire Giant Vampire. They are given early warning by the sound of a trumpet, and the fight is almost over before it began.

DM Note: They never realized she was a Vampire, until after she was killed. She lasted all of 3 seconds (½ round).

They spend some time looking for the horn that warned them, but find nothing. The party travels on and at some point as it becomes evening again, they reach the Abyssal Pillars.

The area is filled with trillith, and the party decides to travel along them as silently as possible. Out of the blue the pillars start to shatter, alerting a bunch of Nightmare Trillith to their presence. The fight commences and the party is quickly on top of things, when suddenly they hear the same horn as earlier. This time the horn blower shows herself, turning out to be a creature they have seen before. They recall the visions they had in the Temple of lost souls, where they saw the forging of the torch. The trumpet archon from that vision is the same being that they are facing now, except for the fact that she is now a fallen angel.

The Angel, Jeffa, is accompanied by a host of wraiths and dreadwraiths, turning the battle into a somewhat trickier one than before. It is quickly apparent that they Trillith are not allied with the newcomers, so the fight is actually three-wayed.

The fight ends up with the party being victorious, but Jeffa got away. She was outmatched and more or less neutralized and decided to use her high flying speed to get away.

DM Note: I am considering adding her to chapter 12 during the fight with Leska if either side is doing too well. I figure that she can be used as a wild card, as she can be seen helping both sides. She could be against the party as they defeated her and have the torch, or against Leska as she could be seeking redemption in helping to destroy Leska and the torch. Either way, she can be used if needed, and to tie up a loose end.

After the fight, the party keeps flying along the abyssal pillars until they reach a cozy shore, just as dawn breaks. They know that they have to follow the red trail during nighttime, so they decide to make camp and get some sleep.

July 29
When the moon rises the red trail appears in the water, and the party follow it along the way until they reach a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. The trail end at the island and they land on it. As soon as they land a lout clanking noise is heard, and they realize that they need to move, as the sound is getting louder by the second.

They fly out of the way in the last instance, just as the end of a bridge strikes the tiny island. At the other end of the bridge they see a palace. All around the palace they seem a huge amount of Trilliths flying but they seem to be unable to enter it.

After a short moment’s hesitation, they cross the bridge and head over to the palace. Standing before the doors, they hear a voice welcoming them and inviting them inside. They enter the palace and in the first room they meet Freedom, who is standing on top of one of the staircases. She invites them to sit down, and engage them in conversation.

She presents her view of the world, and how both the party and Trillith wants the same things, albeit with some significant differences in their approach. She believes that the party has misunderstood what the Trillith want. They do not want to destroy all life; they want to set everyone free from the restraining bonds of physicality. It is all about the free will and free choices of the souls.

Fredom offers the party to be the first physical entities to embrace the transformation, and she even offers to hold off the Trillith for a period of time, in case the party feels the need to prepare themselves to the shedding of the physical forms.

Eventhough they have a long philosophical discussion, in the end, the party is not swayed, and Shaith tries to take her by surprise by initiating an attack. Freedom however is ready for it, and a long drawn fight breaks out.

The first many rounds the party chases Freedom around in the first room, as she had a tendency to leave the room and return through one of the other doors the following round

DM Note: I managed to keep them from leaving the first room for several rounds, and thereby from finding out how the rooms worked.

After some rounds, it dawns on the players that she happened to appear near the exit furthest from where they were, as if to try and keep them in the room. From this point on they take the fight to her through the many rooms.

DM note: The logic defying layout did not really have much of an impact on them. They were too focused on the fight, which took hours to finish.

At one point they manage to capture Freedom behind some wall of forces, trapping her with them. Fortunately for Freedom her unseen helpers cast Maze on each of the players, and while they fought to leave the Maze, the helpers helped her out of the predicament by stone shape.

After finally exploring the eight outlying rooms, the ninth room opened up, and they had access to the central room, which forced Freedom to stop running and fight them head on, with the eventual result that she was defeated.

With Freedoms death the Prismatic sphere in the central room disappeared and the sleeping form of Trilla was revealed. On her body the party found three keys, which matched the keyholes in the circle under Trilla.

With fight over the party turned their attention to Trilla and the next dilemma, what to do with her. One option would be to try and wake her, but if she would be hostile, they did not feel that they were ready for a fight with a big gold dragon. The alternative would be to kill her.

In the end the party decided to go with the merciful approach and try to wake Trilla. After a little experimenting they figure out how to enter Trilla’s dream.

They enter a very dark world, with a glowing flying dragon that sings, while an elven girl in a golden dress chases the dragon, while crying blood red tears. Suddenly a soul shaking roar from something gigantic rocks the entire world. The elven girl looks over her shoulder in desperation and hurries after the dragon. Behind her in the distance the party sees a colossal black dragon.

The party tries to speak with the elven girl, but nothing they say seems to affect her. The colossal dragon roars again, and the girl falls. The golden dragon lands beside her, and takes a defensive position over her prone body.

The party considers fighting the black dragon, but they feel quite banged up, and instead of getting ready for a fight, they focus on finding the last key.

DM note: Had they been in a better fighting shape I might have considered letting a fight with Annihilation play out, but in the state they were in, it wouldn’t have been fun for anyone.

Luckily for them Shaith finds the key before the black dragon arrives and the party leave the dream and unlock the fourth and final keyhole. And with that action, Trilla wakes from her troubled nightmare filled sleep.

The first thing Trilla does, after thanking the party for waking her is asking after her mother. The party decided to not answering her question directly. They did not tell her about her mother’s fate. Killian steps forward and tells Trilla that they need her help to fix the torch, as something I missing. Trilla looks at the torch and instinctively knows what is missing. She bites her arm, smears some blood on the torch, and starts couching and having spasms. Out of her mouth flies a black shadow that is absorbed by the torch.

After a moment she gathers herself and blows her breathweapon over the torch… and the party.
And suddenly they find themselves in their command tent in Gate Pass, with a fully functional Torch of the burning sky.

End of Chapter

Dm note: This chapter was very surreal, and also a bit too much for our party. The stor as such was fine, but the surreal surroundings and three dimensional fights were hard to get a good grip around. I think that the travel in the dream world would have been better without the fights, but in a more storytelling mode, with other kinds of challenges. I am not sure how to do it, however.

The fight with Freedom was epic and challenging, with lots of ups and downs for the party, making it a very sweet moment when they finally killed her. Personally I liked the initial conversation, where her very well thought and rational arguments made for a very interesting discussion, and I could see at least one of the party members considering her offer seriously.

I don’t consider this chapter the best in the series, but it had some nice memorable moments and a very interesting final fight with Freedom, mixed with a room puzzle.

The party
Neferitt – Seela Paragon lvl. 2 / Paladin 16
Shaith – Fire elf Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/Druid 7/Arcane Hierophant 10
Killian – Human Wizard 1(with precocious apprentice feat)/priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Mystic theurge 10 / frost mage 4

NPCs
Rantle fighter 5/rogue 3/ranger 2/paladin of freedom 3/commander 4

July 30
When the party gets their bearings in the command tent they realize that it is the next day. The first thing that happens is that they are approached by a messenger from Seaquen, which informs them that they have approximately three days until the arrival of the airship. They are also tasked with trying to find somewhere between 10.000 – 15.000 soldiers to help with the defense of the town.

The party sits down and discusses their options. It is obvious to them that Dassen is a very logical place to go for help, and they expect Duke Gallo to help them out. Another obvious place to go is to talk with King Shaaladel of the Shahalest as he is still in town. Gate Pass also might be willing to help, as they just helped saving the city. Finally they think of General Magdus bring and the Ragesian rebels who has an entire army they could bring with them, Lord Gorquith and the Sindairese rebels, and finally there might be some allies in Innenotdar that could help them out.

The first person they seek out is King Shaaladel. He looks at them and says that their request is against the agreement they made with him. He will agree to change the wording of the agreement and put all his soldiers at our disposal, if they hand over the Torch to him. They decline his offer and leave the meeting without any soldiers.

Next they travel to Innenotdar, where they find a lot of new devastation. Some army has clearly been wreaking havoc at select places. Nefaritt wanted to talk to Nell about some help, but they cannot find him, but they do find a lot of blood on the ground.

DM note: Yeah, I am evil once more. As Nefaritt had a story with Nell, I decided that the unicorn in the airship would have to be Nell, so Pilus and his men made a detour on the way to Seaquen.

Next stop is Dassen, where they hope to secure a few thousand soldiers. They arrive late in the evening but are invited in like long lost relatives by the Duke himself. They tell him about the situation and he immediately put 8.000 men at their disposal. He tells them that it will take some hours to get them together.

They retire to the suites that Duke Gallo gives them and talk the day through. Killian is looking thoughtful. He tells the others that he heard a voice today, a voice that fills his nightmares and one that he will never forget. He heard the voice from the nightmare dream where he was ordered and forced to try and kill the others.

DM note: The nightmare that Aurana cast on them affected him deeply, so I decided that the next time they heard her speak he would recognize the voice.

Killian tells the others, that he is convinced that the voice belongs to Aurana, advisor to King Shaaladel. It gives them something to sleep on, or at least to get some rest. As Killian pointed out, the dream came to them the first time they refused to give Shaaladel the torch, it might come again tonight.

It didn’t.

July 31
The party starts the morning in good spirits. No late night attack and 8.000 men getting ready to assemble. They have discerned the location of General Magdus and journey to him with an uplifted mood. That changed after the meeting. They had fully expected to get his 5-10.000 soldiers, but they had forgotten that they broke a deal with him. He hadn’t.

DM Note: Remember, they promised that whoever found the torch would invite the other two to a meeting, to discuss what to do next. It does not help them a lot that Shalosha also broke the deal, as they are allied with the elves.

The meeting results in a shut door and no soldiers. They leave with the feeling that while Magdus might be against Leska, he is not a friend or an ally to the party.

The next stop is Lord Gorquith, whose location they have also found. He is more than willing to help them. It is almost a patriotic duty for a Sindairese to help in any fight against Ostalin. He can pledge 2.000 soldiers, which is the total sum of soldiers he has at his disposal currently. It will take a couple of hours to gather the men.

A bit frustrated, the party decides to spend the time scouring the area for a living creature to fuel the torch.

DM Note: And to vent some frustration at their lack of success.

After a successful hunt they return and take the army with them to Dassen. In Dassen the army is ready for travel. Killian asks Duke Gallo for a good hunting area, but the Duke refuses. Partly there is no guarantee and partly because the army is ready to travel now. Duke Gallo instead turns to the soldiers and asks for volunteers to give their life to fuel the torch.

Killian looks sick at the thought as three soldiers step forward. Killian had to make the choice as to whom he had to sacrifice for the greater good.

DM note: Or at least for the Torch.

He chose the man the seemed to have lived his live best, had fewest years left and was ready to meet the gods with raised head and a heart filled with the live they had given him.

DM note: At least that is what he told himself 

Then they travel back to Gate Pass, where they find a camp in chaos. A ghost is loose, looking for the party while killing soldiers. The party hurries off and find Caela the ghost, Pilus’s former assistant. She is trying to get the torch, and fails miserably once more.

In Gate Pass they get 5.000 men and Rantle joins the party for the coming adventure.

Well back in Seaquen the army settles in and the party has a short time to admire the defenses that have been built. At Lyceum they are tasked with examining what is going on below the city, as there have been a lot of activity and the Headmaster suspects that it is part of the invasion plans.

As it is evening by this point, the party agrees to look in on the problem the next morning. And it gives them time to do some shopping to get prepared for the coming challenges.

August 1
Once more the party head out to the cliffs overlooking the sunken prison, and once more they travel into the prison and through the portal.

In the tomb of the pyromancer they find Longinus with 12 west wind monks. Killian asks him what he is doing, and Longinus starts to answes. He is interrupted by one of the monks that accuse Longinus of treachery for not killing the party, and then the monks attack.

Longinus melts into stone and the party kills off the monks. After they fight they have a long talk with Longinus. He believes that his brother will attack Lyceum with his biomantic contraption, something Longinus does not approve of. He will however not fight against his brother. He tells the party how to destroy the eye of the airship using the portal and the torch, combine with a scroll that he hands them

He then removes the warding that keeps the plane of fire at bay. Longinus finally tells the party, that if they kill his brother he will be their enemy for the rest of their lives. He acknowledges that his brother might not give them much choice, but nevertheless, if they kill him they have an enemy for life.

DM note: To their credit they did try take him out without killing him, it failed, but they tried.

And then Longinus disappears. The party head outside planning to spend the rest of the day preparing for the fight the next day, the third day when Pilus would arrive. As the leave the prison they realize that the Intel was wrong. Pilus has arrived with his airship one day earlier.

DM note: The aim of the chapter is to pressure the party on resources, so they did not get that last day.

They hurry back down to the portal, and following Longinus instructions they destroy Tempest’s eye. With that taking care of the party teleported back into Seaquen and the assembled army. Then, using the torch, they brought the army onto the deck of Tempest, where they were faced with the Ostalin army.

Only at that point did they realize how big the ship was. Both armies are surprised the first few seconds, and then the battle commenced. The party left the fighting to the armies, heading towards one of the entrances to interior of the ship.

Dm note: To the insides of the ship might have been a more fitting description.

DM Note; This is where the session ended, but I am writing the entire chapter, so I will ignore the break.

August 1 continued
It is very quickly apparent to the party that the ship isn’t built from ordinary building materials, but rather is composed of living material.

As they work their way through the insides of the ship they notice that magic is somehow siphoned off from the casters and into the ship. This makes the party a little uncomfortable. The sounds and feel of the insides make them a lot more uncomfortable. They also found that they could not teleport inside the ship

DM note: I made an effort of making gross squishy sounds accompanying their travel through the ship, at least in the beginning to set the tone. They really did not feel at home. The non-teleport was something I added to prevent them from jumping to the end with a greater teleport. I did not challenge their conclusion, as I had decided that inside the heart chamber you could teleport out and around – just not into the area where Pilus stood.

After the first few encounters they realize that they more or less entered the ship from the rear, and are now working their way upward through the body.
In the first big area, the stomach area, they find more or less mentally digested bodies in the walls, and they face off with Pilus, in meat form for the first time of three in their journey.

DM note: King Meat Pile as he was dubbed. The following clones were suitable named King Meat Pile II and King Meat Pile III.

They kill him off rather easily but learn that he has a somewhat nasty surprise when killed; he blows up.

In the lung area they fight a cloud giant who has a magical item that temporarily takes Nefaritt out of the fight, by grappling her and making her unable to fly. Fortunately the party manages to free her before things turn bad.

They bring the manacles after the fight, as they plan on using them on Pilus, and that way take him out without making an enemy of Longinus.

The journey puts the party on edge, but not enough to kill their lust for loot. At the end they arrive at the heart area, where they find some rooms. They take a lot of caution entering the rooms, but find that nothing is wrong, and the quickly set to looting the valuables. Rantle is asked to open the chest in the finely decorated room. He tries, but fails and even worse; he sets off the trap killing himself.

The party decides to cast a Raise Dead on Rantle as they see him as an important figure in the fight for freedom. After finshing looting, they head further down the hall way, setting off the next trap.

This time Shaith’s winged bear companion, as well as Rantle (again), turn insane.

Luckily for the party they manage to handle the challenge before things go wrong.

Finally, they arrive at the heart of Tempest, the control room where Pilus is connected to the ship.

DM note: And in the room were a lot of well-prepared enemies, as they did make quite a lot of noise with the trap fumbling.

Pilus sets off rambling like a good megalomaniac, telling the party that they are lost and that he will not be easily conquered. Actually he will beat them. They have heard it all before.
It is quickly apparent to the party that while Pilus and Khagan Onamdammin might be allies, they are not exactly on the same page on how to approach this fight. It takes a few rounds before the Khagan is pulled into the fight.

Pilus sets off with an evil combination, where he casts Time Stop, and when the time starts again, the party is facing an Earth elemental Monolith.

DM note: Thanks to Streamofthesky and his ideas for chapter 5, which I put to use in this chapter.

They beat the first monolith, but Pilus being a sorcerer just repeats his trick, and seasons it with a few well-placed wall of forces to split the party.
In front of him he has placed a wall of greater dispel magic, to make things even more challenging.

DM note: I also decided that some of the siphoned off magic from the ship was directed to Pilus’ allies, who cast their spells at a slightly heightened level. That made the monks quite a handful with their magic missiles on unprotected enemies.

While to low-level monks individually weren’t a challenge the sum of them with their spells meant that the players took quite a lot of damage in the fight, as they also had to focus on the Monoliths.
At the end, when Khagan Onamdammin could see that the fight was lost, he teleported away.

DM note: Thus revealing to the players that they could teleport as well.

In the end they managed to get in to Pilus in his cage and beat him to death with physical violence.

DM note: I wasn’t done being evil, as I decided that it would be in line with Pilus megalomaniac character to have cast Death Throes. If he couldn’t win, then no one should.

As he died, his body exploded blasting everyone, resulting in Rantle dying again, and later getting raised again.

Dm note: THAT move was not popular. The party absolutely hated it, and retrospectively I probably wouldn’t use it again. They found it in extremely poor taste, whether or not it would fit with his character. Luckily “only” Rantle got killed again, meaning that he will only be level 16 in chapter 12 if they call on him for help.

With Pilus dead, the ship starts blowing up. Luckily they now know they can teleport out, so they do so. Killian teleports to the deck of the ship, the rest do some quick looting and teleport to the ground. Killian decided to teleport both the Rebellion army and the Ostalin army out.

The Ostalin army surrenders and the battle is over.

DM Note: In the lava tunnels in the previous session the party met Glurthog the Huhhoad, but did not defeat him, as Glurthog hid in the lava when he was too much under pressure; regenerating. So they did not get Pyronax.

After the fight they experience an earthquake as the prison collapses, and out comes Hedrenatherax who just retrieved his sword. The party recognizes the fiend from the visions in the Temple of Echoed souls, where they learned that he was the reason that some elfs turned into fireelfs.

He has no fight with anyone, and no one feels like picking a fight, so he leaves with his sword.

End of chapter

DM note: Personally I think that the chapter went better than I had feared as it is the weakest chapter in the campaign.

The PCs did not appreciate the trip through Tempest, they felt it wasn’t in the spirit of the rest of the campaign. It was kind of a weird gimmick to make them enter through the rear and fight their way through intestines etc. They would have preferred having the ship built in some different way, where they could have faced opponents, and still have the living ship feel, without all organs.

I guess they have a point in the fact that, with all the traps and difficulties in getting through the ship, the ordinary crewmembers must have had another way to get around the ship.

The fight with Pilus was fun, but I did need to boost it some. The end of it was not to their liking, but that is not on the campaign but on me, as it was my addition.

Overall it was the weakest chapter, but it went better than feared.

A quick note on our progress:

We started on chapter 12 yesterday, and got through act 1, and the first three fights in the Opaline wastes, ending with the party slaying General Titus. So we are nearing the end of this amazing campaign. Once again I can only say that converting the big information scenes to council session, where the PCs play the NPCs have been an extraordinary success in our game. They love it, we all have fun, and they get a much better grip on the information they receive. It takes some time writing the scenes, but the information is in the game already, and a bonus is that the NPC come much more alive

Heh, you're ahead of my campaign finally. We're still in Ch. 11, though I expanded it out to make sure they get to enjoy being level 20 for all of Ch. 12.
I really need to start posting my own campaign notes... Now that the big plot twist I added in Ch. 10 has gone by, I can pretty much talk about anything w/o worry if my players see it.

I actually liked Ch. 10, even aside from the plot stuff I added to it. The Trillith are my favorite thing about WotBS and it was great to have a whole chapter focused on them. But it was very frustrating, in the chapter w/ the most alien and strange landscapes and situations, that it was also possibly the most map-devoid chapter in the book. I had to add a ton of my own maps to make it work, and still resorted to blank grids and "use your imagination" several times.
The palace itself is a bit underwhelming and I honestly don't like the the idea of a continuous fight through the whole place right from the start w/ Freedom. Sounds cool on paper, but in practice I felt it'd just be a huge drag and honestly...she doesn't have the hit points to withstand it. Instead, I had her skirmish them twice before the final battle, retreating in between to fast heal.
I also had the dream encounter w/ Trilla and retrieving the white key happen before entering the palace. Freedom's the final boss of the chapter (unless you're using it as the final adventure, of course...), so IMO it should be the last fight. Plus, encountering the sheer unstoppable terror of Annihilation and realizing that's the thing they need to prevent from being born I think adds a lot more urgency and importance to defeating Freedom than experiencing it after the palace has already been cleared.
And it lets them interact w/ Trilla before actually reaching her.
Not much point going into my unique plot here, but I think it helps tie this chapter and Ch. 11 together a bit, when as written they're kinda dis-jointed.

Ch. 11...not much to say. It's definitely as written one of the weakest chapters in the book. I feel like all the Two-Winds related chapters (3, 5, and 11) comprise the weakest chapters in the campaign and I'm not sure if that's a coincidence.
Glad at the very least the stat block for that Earth Elemental Monolith was useful to you. Seems out of context completely at that point, though. Whole reason for having that as (spoilers I no longer care about concealing since it's a contingency neither of us ended up needing)
[sblock]...the enemy Pilus leaves behind for the party to fight in Ch. 5 if they try to attack him is so it can be sufficiently near-impossible to beat but give an easy out. It's purpose isn't to kill the party, its purpose is to show his brother the party's "true colors," as he figures they'll flee to save themselves and allow the innocent monks to be left in its path of destruction. Since it's earth element and he knows his brother has Banishment prepared and the whole temple is FULL of wind-related items that boost the save DC for an earth creature, it won't actually put the temple at risk. But the party won't know that and its sheer might is a good way to "expose" their selfishness, foolishly picking a fight and then letting others deal with the consequences. Of course, if they stand and fight and are about to die, Longinus can banish it as well.
Ultimately, it's not about the party. It's about Pilus's relationship w/ his brother after the party's made accusations that hurt his standing in his brothers' eyes, trying to prove the party is dishonorable and untrustworthy.[/sblock]
I forget...did Paradim die in Ch. 5 in your campaign or did you get to use him yet again? I'm definitely planning on having him make his third and final appearance this chapter, he's turned into such a great recurring minor villain for us.

Paradigm died in chapter 5 in my campaign.

I actually like your view on the Trilla dream encounters, should have thought of that