the Kyri Chronicles - last updated 22 Oct

[Plane Sailing]

To save time and reduce risk, M’ir and Trajan go down the slope together whilst the others stay up in the dragons treasure rooms. Waving briefly at the girl in the waterfall, they proceed down to the mines, dig out Syl’s body and drag it back up the slippery ramp.

After an hour, they return to their companions. Azrin thinks that he has puzzled out how to use the Raise Dead scroll. Normally the spell must be cast on a consecrated altar on holy day, but since the scroll was probably created in those conditions, it should be OK to use now right? Right?

Syl is laid out and Azrin starts reading the scroll. Divine power is unlocked and surges through Azrin, making his hair stand on end, crackling with blue-white flames. He can’t hold the power, it seems beyond him… and then suddenly he feels power flow out through him and into the body of Syl, which takes a shuddering breath. Azrin feels cold and weak, and is suffering from three negative levels which have stripped his most powerful remaining spells from his mind.

Azrin says “Wow, no wonder the priests don’t like casting that spell!”

Dmsnote: Azrins attempt to use the Raise Dead scroll resulted in a backfire – yay! It seemed at the time that the best way of handling this was a strangely botched version of raise dead, where the spell works but it draws its power from the caster instead of the divine. Azrin picked up 3 negative levels, and Syl was raised but is also suffering from 3 negative levels too

After much discussion about the corridor of statues, M’ir eventually demonstrates that it is safe, and the company proceed along it into a huge cavern, outfitted with horrific copper statues (apparently people who had been dipped alive into molten copper), rotted drapes, a huge stone house-like structure (but with a big handle on its roof) and adjacent to that an enormous laboratory table, with glittering crystalline things just visible on it.

With the aid of Trajans grappling hook, M’ir shins up to have a look at the things on the table. There are magical crystals ranging in size from that of a head to that of a cow, there are gem cutting tools fit for a enormous dragon to use – and a dissecting kit fit for a enormous dragon to use too. There is also a glowing crystalline structure apparently composed of interlocked stands of crystal. M’ir attempts to manifest his ability to read psychic impressions near it, but instead of the normal result he feels anger and frustration and reels back as he takes some heat damage. He is astounded, and keeps saying “that shouldn’t happen. Nothing should be able to reach across time and hurt me like that”.

After some discussion about the possibility of dismantling or destroying the crystalline structure, Azrin and Syl wander round the corner of the cavern – and find a ramp leading to an illusory wall.

Bringing the others up the ramp, they all look through the illusion which is now just a pale mist to them. Beyond they can see a couple of vast chambers, again plated with copper on the walls and floor. Over to one side there is a simple corral with some sheep and pigs in. Over to the other side are a few small cages, with a couple of children in! What really grabs their attention though, is a group of goblins around a central table, holding down a small child who is shaking with terror, while Gnoll guards look on.

In the room beyond they can just see the mummified remains of a gargantuan dragon, whose jaws are propped open by spears. Out of the dragons mouth comes another goblin, clutching something in his hand. He calls out to the centre room

“Now, child, your time has come – you are going to be joining us in a new world… or die in the process! Mwahahahaha”

[Darklone]

Nice idea with the neg. levels. Like it more than simply saying it didn't work!

[Piratecat]

Mwahahahaha!!!

[Plane Sailing]

Without pause for thought or consultation the company spring into action. Darra twists his fingers and then points them down, and a web explodes over the table, sticky tendrils lashing out in all directions.. but not reaching any anchoring walls falls into a sticky mess on the floor and dissipates. Trajan and Lysander both jump down the 20 foot from their viewing place and run towards the goblins. K’tan is out of power, so he loads his crossbow. M’ir crouches down in cover and prepares to give someone an intimate recollection of past pain. The others await their chance.

Down on the floor, the goblins and gnolls react quickly to the surprise situation. Several of the gnolls move to engage the two Jazumai, one blue skinned goblin looks up at M’ir and amidst the tinkling sound of bells grabs him with a brain lock

”Hah, I only need a 1 to fail a save against that DC” says M’ir. Rolls a 1.

The Gnolls are considerably tougher than others that they have met before, stronger and with apparent insight into how to hurt humans… they must be gnoll rangers!

Trajan manages to catch one of the goblins flat-footed, and with his quickdraw focus and his new sword exploding with lawful energy he does tremendous damage to it – and is astonished to see the goblin shrug it off. Flying into a fearsome rage, the goblin draws a shining longsword which crackles with electricity. “You!” cries Lysander – it is the one-time leader of the barbarian goblins who has slain Lysanders first friends in this land with his magic sword!

Darra launches another web, this time attempting to catch two goblins which are between the table and a wall. This time the web takes, although a bodyguard gnoll frees himself and engages Lysander, the blue goblin is caught, crying out “Thimdrul, save me!”. K’tan and Syl start missile fire against goblins and unengaged gnolls. Meanwhile, the goblin who is evidently named Thimdrul changes… with a grotesque sound of cracking bones his body grows and reshapes itself into the form of a large troll !

Trajan is under attack from two gnolls, the barbarian goblin and another roguish goblin who gets in a nasty flanking attack. One of the gnolls is taken down but Trajan cannot stand against their combination of blows and falls.

Darra, seeing his companions in difficulty jumps out of their lookout post and featherfalls to the ground under the influence of Syl’s magic. Landing lightly he shouts the syllables to unlock the lightning and once more throws his hands outward – his lightning bolt killing one gnoll and seriously wounding the blue goblin who is still struggling to free himself from the web.

Unfortunately, none of his other companions move to join him down in the chamber – with Trajan down and Lysander hard-pressed, one Gnoll and a goblin with a crown on his head run across to flank him

And as the goblin-turned-troll steps nearer, huge bear claws spring into existence on the ends of his enormous arms…

[Plane Sailing]

Darra unleashes another lightning bolt, attempting to catch the approaching goblin and gnoll. The gnoll is badly burned but the goblin neatly evades the blast. Their axe and sword bite home, and Darra realises that he is running out of options.

Above him, Azrin sums up the situation – Syl is weakened, K’tan has no power left and can only use his crossbow, and M’ir is still brain-locked. If nobody goes to Darra’s aid, the young sorcerer is doomed. Without any more thought, and with bravery that the young librarian would never have imagined when he left his cloistered halls last year, Azrin tumbles down from the opening, landing behind the goblin and landing a solid blow against it, knocking its crown off.

Thimdrul the troll thing stalks nearer, and the huge claws turn two dimensional and impossibly sharp…

Lysander finally takes down the barbarian goblin who had been hacking at him, and his remaining gnoll.

Azrin, having distracted the goblin prince, backs off and starts to cast a spell – but he underestimated the trollish reach of Thimdrull, and as an AoO a casual swipe tears his head clean away from his body, slicing neatly through his garments and bones with equal ease. Blood fountains from his neck as he falls.

Darra casts defensively and blasts the trollish figure with lightning. Syl and K’tan both fire their missile weapons and K’tan shouts out “He’s a METAMORPH”

Galvanised into action, Lysander picks up the magic sword which the goblin barbarian had been using against him and charges in to attack Thimdrul with the unfamiliar weapon. Likewise, the stabilised Trajan gulps down a healing potion and rises from the floor swinging his Harthar-wrought sword into action. Electricity and lawful energy flare as both weapons strike home.

Thimdrul swings back at his attackers, but is somewhat off balance and misses wildly, gouging furrows in the copper plated floor. Nevertheless, some of his wounds heal while they are watching. The goblin prince runs across to Azrins body and grasps a wand, attempting to use it against Trajan and Lysander – but holds it by the wrong end and burning flames lick out and end his miserable life

he rolled particularly badly on his “use magic device” and I’m quite brutal when someone does this with wands – normally explodes in their face

Several of the remaining gnolls and goblins have started running for the exit where the mummified dragon body is – and Darra whips out his recently acquired fireball scroll, launching a fiery pellet into their midst which blossoms into a scarlet flower of death, scattering their bodies.

Thimdrul doesn’t like the way the odds are going, and suddenly shifts form into a small bird – flying up and over the heads of his attackers, being clipped by their swords on the way, he speeds back into the concealing darkness by the head of the dead dragon.

Battered and bloody, the company assess their situation. Darra in particular looks across at the body of Azrin, without whose sacrifice he would certainly have died. Then grim-faced they turn to look at the remains of the dead dragon in the next room…

To be continued this Sunday. Yay!

[Ziggy]

WoW !

Excellent combat scenes, I loved the way you describe this battle, it really sucked me into the action.

I noticed that you scaled to adventure to a higher level party, and it seems to work well. I'm thinking of running it myself for a bunch of 5th level PCs, and wondered how much work it was to adapt it ? PC has a few pointers in the adventure, but you seem to have changed it is bit more (e.g. gnolls).

.Ziggy

[Old One]

PS -

I guessed that Azrin and Syl would fall! Does that mean I win the prize?

~ Old One

[Plane Sailing]

Thanks for the compliments, Ziggy - I was hoping to capture something of the way the big fight felt for us.

re: scaling, Piratecat kindly sent me privately suggestions for scaling it for my (average 6th) party, most of which I took up.

I increased the class levels on levelled foes, introduced some Gnoll ranger mercenaries since they are going to be featuring more in my campaign but kept the general goblin thing because it was an opportunity to tie up a loose end, by having the Barbarian goblin chief from depths of rage turn up here - At the conclusion of that adventure (in my first storyhour) that particular nasty killed three of the four PC's (including the highest level ones), basically putting my campaign plans back about three months. Lysander knew the party well at that time but missed out on the climactic adventure when that goblin threat was finally put down - but at the cost of the lives of every other party member except one. This was a great opportunity to finally close that chapter.

I changed Thimdrul from a Seer to a Mutable (aka Egoist) since Mutables and Telepaths are the two "banned" evil disciplines amongst the mages in my world... and I wanted to demonstrate just why that was so

The horses had slightly more powerful powers, the Bonetangle was bigger and stronger and the stone dragon was bigger too.

The adventure was quite easy to scale at this kind of level - PC noted that 5th level upwards is when "fly" spells appear which could make frontal assaults more appealing to the adventurers, but this didn't work out too badly in my campaign. So much of the really good bits of the adventure are in the setting and atmosphere, and they work well for nearly any low-mid level, I think.

Cheers

[Plane Sailing]

Old One, you were prophetic in your utterance. Spookily so. Inspired guesswork, or??

Rather than a cookie, I'll treat you to a drink of your choice and pat on the back when you manage to rearrange your plans to visit London!

Cheers

[Ziggy]

Thanks for the advice PlaneSailing, I guess its not to much work to do it this way.

I've already used the bonetangle (stole it from the description in the Iconics Adventure), so I'll probably substitute it with something else.

And I guess I can put my own twist on the gnoll/goblin variant, I've got plenty of villains to put in there. Drow will probably not go well with the goblins, but some orcs should work.

I wondered how many class levels you put in there. The original NPCs are 1-3 level, did you scale this linearely all the way to level 8, or is that to challenging ?

I might also do something else I love to do, put a competing (evil) party in there who is after the same goal. I've got a couple of handy ones, and at least on of them have fling capabilities for an arial assault. If the PCs go in through the mines, we could end up with a big three-way fight at the end !

.Ziggy

[Plane Sailing]

Originally posted by Ziggy
Thanks for the advice PlaneSailing, I guess its not to much work to do it this way.

I've already used the bonetangle (stole it from the description in the Iconics Adventure), so I'll probably substitute it with something else.

Something that I think would probably work well is to do more with the "enlarged vermin" kind of thing. By the time they meet the trog, they have become quite used to seeing those beetles scuttling around everywhere - I used the 4th level spell vermin growth (or whatever it is called) to give the trog some instant allies - you might be able to do something more interesting along those lines?

I wondered how many class levels you put in there. The original NPCs are 1-3 level, did you scale this linearely all the way to level 8, or is that to challenging ?

I think I went for a fairly linear scaling of the levels - the Trog became Clr8, Thimdrul became (effectively) an Egoist 8, the other goblins ranged from Rogue 7 (the spy), Barb 6, Rogue 6 (the prince), Telepath 4 (the apprentice). The Gnolls each had 2 levels of my own alt.ranger - basically exactly like a barbarian but without the rage and with the rangers skill list and favoured enemy.

I have to admit that for the battle above, this was too much. With good tactics (and in the face of abominable initial tactics by the party - no planning at all!) I could have had a TPK. Two of the goblins are not interested in stand up fights though, and I decided that their gnoll mercenaries would quit if the tide turned against them (thats what you get for CE mercenaries!), but even so one of the players emailed me afterwards and said he thought I'd let them off lightly in the circumstances.

Still, I had one major death, so I hope I don't get thrown out by the RBDMC

In case you are interested, my version of Thimdrul used Polymorph Self to become troll-sized. Gave him oodles of Str and Con (great for his power DC's), he used Claws of the Bear (which as a Large size creature went from d12 to 2d8) and then duodimensional hand to increase his claw threat range from 20 to 17-20. He also manifested Schism, so the other part of his mind could continually manifest Body Adjustment to heal himself during combat. My version started off with a great Con, giving him a fair few hit points to start with. If he had stuck in the fight I would certainly have killed Trajan and probably got Lysander as well - but He was seeing his allies decimated and from his POV it was time to bale out and regroup.

I might also do something else I love to do, put a competing (evil) party in there who is after the same goal. I've got a couple of handy ones, and at least on of them have fling capabilities for an arial assault. If the PCs go in through the mines, we could end up with a big three-way fight at the end !

An interesting possibility in this respect is if the Heroes of the Bell were somewhat higher level than expected, and the two which never made it past the Fey actually ganged up with her. Perhaps the Heroes of the Bell had actually been captured and got a crystal in the head themselves for their trouble

Best of luck with the adventure - I'm sure you'll have a great time with it!

[Piratecat]

Azrin, having distracted the goblin prince, backs off and starts to cast a spell – but he underestimated the trollish reach of Thimdrull, and as an AoO a casual swipe tears his head clean away from his body, slicing neatly through his garments and bones with equal ease. Blood fountains from his neck as he falls.

Holy CRAP! That's amazing! Critical? Please tell me it was a critical.

[Darklone]

First of all kudos to the Old One for guessing the deaths!

Originally posted by Piratecat
Holy CRAP! That's amazing! Critical? Please tell me it was a critical.

Uhm... Considering the damage you need to down Azrin... and the troll strength... I don't think he needed a crit to kill him on the spot.

I am partially relieved that both players met a real heroical end. Nothing tragically like "I dropped into a hole" :rolleyes:

*twinkles to Old Ones campaign*

[Plane Sailing]

Originally posted by Piratecat


Holy CRAP! That's amazing! Critical? Please tell me it was a critical.

Sorry, not a critical... the ordinary blow did about 24 damage (what with enlarged claws of the bear, trollish strength and a good damage roll).

Poor old Azrin was suffering from the 3 negative levels he picked up when raising Syl from the dead, plus damage from the fight so far here, plus some earlier half-healed wounds (he had tended to use his healing for his friends rather than himself). The damage was enough to kill him instantly.

I'm rather sad to see the clumsy and weak librarian of "Asura the Knowing" bite the dust - he was a fun character, often despised by the other characters and often facing theological disagreements with Lysander, but with a heart of gold... and able to read just about any language they came across.

Plus he was a walking plot-hook

[Plane Sailing]

Originally posted by Darklone

I am partially relieved that both players met a real heroical end. Nothing tragically like "I dropped into a hole" :rolleyes:

*twinkles to Old Ones campaign*

There have been a couple of near-death experiences, like when Syl was knocked off the mountainside by a boulder earlier on in the adventure - fortunately she was the one character with Featherfall! During the fight with the Bonetangle K'Tan would have gone down if he hadn't given himself affinity with a tortoise and boosted his Con considerably. Trajan nearly copped it in this battle when he got himself surrounded.

I hear that actors particularly look for good death scenes when they are checking a potential script. At least all of these guys who died have had great death scenes!

Cheers

[Little_Buddha]

Damn, that's a great fight. I've *yoinked* the metamorph and his power combo for sure!

Originally posted by Ziggy
... put a competing (evil) party in there who is after the same goal... at least on of them have fling capabilities for an arial assault.

Fling capabilities for an aerial assault? Damn those tinker gnomes!

[Ziggy]

Originally posted by Little_Buddha

Fling capabilities for an aerial assault? Damn those tinker gnomes!

Well, the gnome aerial assault cannon(TM) can fling any creature up to medium size with a range increment of 70. Of course you better put some points into profession(aerial assault bomb), or take serious falling damage on impact

.Ziggy

[Plane Sailing]

Phew!

The adventure came to it's senses-shattering conclusion last night! Fun and surprises to the very end - I'll starting writing it up tonight.

Cheers

[Ziggy]

Looking forward to the conclusion PS

BTW, I've decided to use In Sound Mind IMC, planned the plot hooks for my game tonight, will probably start it next game (in two weeks). But no gnome assault cannons, just plain ol' Fly...

.Ziggy

[Plane Sailing]

Enter the Dragon…

While Lysander, Darra and Syl free the imprisoned children and help to calm them down (Lysanders tremendous diplomacy and personality really helping here), K’tan, M’ir and Trajan approach the huge dried dragon corpse. They can see where Thimdrul flew down the gullet, and quickly circling around the back they can’t see any other way out – so they remove the spears which hold the jaws open.

K’tan and M’ir then cover Trajan with their crossbows as he starts hacking away at the side of the dragon, in roughly the location where its stomach should be. They all have pounding headaches now, and the voice which they have each been hearing in the heads is talking incessantly – threatening, wheedling, demanding.

The magical blade taken from the dragons horde starts slicing through the hard old scales. Suddenly there is a blue light leaking out from the sword rents, glowing and pulsing. Angling his cuts a little, Trajan makes an opening which he could squeeze through. Inside he can just about make out a small man clutching a melon-sized throbbing blue crystal.

“We are evenly matched” he cries. “You have spoilt my plans here, but let me free to rejoin my brotherhood and I’ll let you live!”

Trajan grimly presses through the hole he has carved, steeling himself to resist attacks – and he feels razor sharp claws slice his skin before he gets into the cramped confines himself.

M’ir can’t see to act past Trajans bulk, so calling for help he runs round to the dragons head – and as companions hoist the jaws open, he starts crawling down the dead dragons gullet in the most bizarre attempt to start a flanking manoeuvre that he has ever experienced.

In the cramped conditions inside the belly of the dragon, Trajans bulk and the size of his longsword both play against him – but he is still skilled, and lands as many blows as he receives – each one joined by a blast of white light as lawful energy ploughs into the body of Thimdrul, whose schismed mind continues to heal himself.

Sweating, knowing that one more decent blow will kill him, Trajan presses his attack, and with a critical hit thrusts his sword straight through Thimdruls chest. Thrimdrul falls, gasping for air but Trajan keeps the sword in place – lawful energy continuing to blast into the mutables body until it dies, and the energy stops coursing.

“Wow” says M’ir, who has just finished his gullet crawl. As he watches, Trajan spins his sword round and decapitates his erstwhile foe.