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

[StreamOfTheSky]

Man, this brings back memories. I haven't read that adventure in years, and I'd forgotten about some of the stuff.

I do recall not being sure how deadly to make the elevator, because it's hard to guess how healthy the PCs will be when they tackle it.

I wasn't sure either, and they had a trapfinding person so they ended up disabling all of them anyway (well, they failed on one floor, but that was the one trap you could disable in advance...so lucky). As written, it's terribly easy if they cure Gorquith because he just outright tells them the sequence and gives them a map of every floor. I had him only provide the first two positions and the layouts of the first two floors so the elevator wasn't a joke (and thus re-wrote the backstory that the rebels gave up attempting to ascend and never got to the top floor b/c the deaths weren't worth it), and since there are items laying around the castle to cure Gorquith...it's not that taxing or intellectually difficult to restore him to human.

[sblock]I did nudge them to check out the elevator before they rested for the night (it takes 12 hours for the water to fill up, so it's a natural resting point) b/c I wasn't sure if the nasty little surprise encounter inside of it would drain them of resources too much just before the big final fights, if it occurred first thing in the morning instead of right before resting.[/sblock]

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

[[Sorry, posted this in the wrong thread...]]

 

[Mrpereira]

It will also depend very much on the optimization of the party, in general I think the elevator is quite good as it is. I had to turn it up a notch, but most other parties probably won't have to. I am glad I got to run it, even if it was just a premonition, the players need to know that sometimes they are in too deep and that the need to rethink their approach.

My biggest concern for the next session is to make the fight on the top floor a good one, now that they most surely will get the combination for the elevator and thus won't be softened up when they arrive on the top floor.

 

[Mrpereira]

At long last the Trillith Reality let go of her evil hold of me, just long enough to make the next and quite long post.

The party
Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 9 / Arcane archer 3 (I allowed him the feat Sword of the arcane order to qualify for Arcane archer)
Shaith – Fire elf fire domain wizard lvl. 5 / Incantatrix 7
Killian – Human priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Church Inquisitor 1 / Ordained champion 5/Divine Crusader 3(variant)

NPC
Deena – Rogue lvl.7 / Fighter lvl. 5

DM note: As written in the first entry I had given the players the task to keep a journal, partly because of the large amount of information and length of the adventure and partly because of the time between sessions. The decided that whoever wrote the journal decided the point of view. Typically it has been Killian’s task and his entries have been very subjective, which has led to quite a lot of laughs.

We typically start each session with the author of the last entry reading it aloud – sometimes if there has been a very long break we read the entries of several sessions to recap everything.
The last couple of sessions, however, the journal had been neglected, so when I asked Killian to read the latest entry he said that he hadn’t updated it. I asked him to read it anyway, leading to a suspicious stare from him. He opened the journal, and would you believe it, there was a new entry 

I had decided that I would make the entry this time, and of course it would be from my point of view – which in this case meant High Inquisitor Griiat’s point of view, where the defenders were righteous and the players were the wielders of evil and black magic. The players loved it, and by the end of this session there was a new entry made by Killian.

Before this session I had advised Gallion the read up on his backstory carefully, as there would be scenes in the next session, where his knowledge would be relevant, and a hell of a lot more fun if he just knew the answers and could pick up on hints without having to roll dices or having to spend time reading in between. Luckily for me he did just that.

June 11 - continued
The last session ended just after the fight with the devils, but before searching the area. This session began with the search. The first thing they find is a big black cauldron boiling with pieces of one of the hafling helpers in it. At the same time Grellfin storms into the room to help and to free his party member, but he was too late. They fish out the bits of Halfling and he wraps them in the cloak and brings back the body to his companions to give him a proper sending off. The party continues their search

DM note: not much compassion there, they didn’t even offer to come to a ceremony or later asked what was done to the body so they could pay their respect. They never said a word about it. Clan Millorn can’t have been too happy about that.

During the search they find a captured skeleton sergeant that attacks them and they quickly vanquish him. The only special part about this fight was that finally Killian had gotten his hands on a bludgeoning weapon, which helped quite a lot. He did feel a bit of a conflict with his religion, as his god’s favored weapon is the longsword, and he hates using any other weapon. However, the difficulties they faced forced him to make the choice and make amends later on.

In one of the rooms they find a cracked mirror, which activates some kind of scrying when Gallion touches it.

DM note: Telling the players about a cracked mirror and describing how it was cracked led to a feeling of dread in the players of what to come. Some time ago we played a very good scenario “Cracks in the mirror” made for Kult system. The scenario was one of the best we have played and had a lot of atmosphere and underlying horror. I described the mirror as a tribute to that experience.

Suddenly they were watching something through the mirror, a Ghost watching other mirrors. Shortly after activating, the ghost turns around as if he feels being watched, and starts studying the players through the mirror, from the other side.

They decide to turn the mirror over, to break the link. A moment later they regret it and turn it back again, but the link is broken. They know what they are looking for but find nothing. They did however find the secret rooms, where the worshippers’ tribute was collected. They decided not to take any of the money.

DM note: They do have respect for the gods, or fear my evil side enough not to press their luck 

Having found nothing, they turn to magic, and succeed finding the healing stash. They decided to uphold the bargain with Lord Gorquith, as they see no other way of obtaining the password, and he lives up to his part of the bargain. He is grateful to be alive and he is very glad that Coaltongue is dead. He tells them that the rebellion will recover now that he is back, and Ragesia will have a fight on their hands. The immortal emperor is dead and the dead leader of the rebellion has risen from the dead as the savior and proof of righteousness of the rebellion.

DM note: The obvious rhetoric and parallels to the story of Jesus Christ in his resurrection will no doubt fill the rebellion with hope, and maybe even create a new legend and worship. Did they make a new friend? Well that depends on how they support his story, if they start telling the truth about him being undead, he will hate them for undermining his powerbase. If they support his miraculous story, then they will have made a friend and an ally.

After getting the code word for the elevator, all that remains for the players is to wait for the elevator to be powered. They rest up, rememorize and gear up for the next stage of the exploration.

DM note: As it turned out, I could have waited with levelling them up, but I wasn’t sure that they would wait the feeling of a time constraint I had given them. As it turned out it was probably quite a good idea as the next stage pressed their resources to the limit.

I decided to skip the nightly assault, partly because I thought that Griiat would realize attacking the combined force of the players and the Clan would only result in a weakening of his forces with no real gain. The other reason is that I wanted to have a tougher fight upstairs as they would need a tougher foe with all their preparations. For that reason I had divided the enemies in groups, and added a few more skeletons, so there would be the sense of a lot of chaos.

June 12
After what seemed like an eternity the background sound in the castle changes slightly and they feel a silent hum in the walls. They agree that this must be a sign that the power is back on, and the elevator is working. They prepare themselves for a tough fight and then head out towards the elevator. Out of the blue, more specifically around a corner, a Ragesian knight appears, surprising both sides. The knight dies before he gets to react.

The party rush to the main entrance to determine if he was alone. In the distance they see a dust cloud, enhancing their sense of urgency. They determine that the cloud means that a large body of people is coming, most likely the Ragesian army, and they are pretty close.

They hurry towards the elevator and enter alongside Grellfin, Jorrina and Oller. The remaining members of the clan will hide in the pipelines or the tunnels.

DM note: At least that was the plan. In reality they didn’t last long before deception killed them off, and followed the party upwards.

Having learned the password they use it and the elevator ride is uneventful. Arriving at the top they see two doors, and decide to open one of them, revealing the mechanism for the elevator. They decide that the Ragesians most likely know the password, so they decide to take the time it takes to ruin the mechanism.

Satisfied that the elevator is out of order, they open the other door, revealing some skeletons at the end of the hallway firing arrows at them. Killian decides to charge down the hallway, triggering the Dispel magic traps on the way.

DM Note: With their many persisted spells I had doubled the amount of traps. Killian would end up being dispelled 4 times during the combat, each time losing a few spells, but was lucky enough not to lose the most crucial ones. Lucky for him, and probably also for the session as they managed to scrape by in the end.

After defeating the skeletons, and noticing the ones in the secret hallway, Killian notices the big dragon skeleton in the next room, and heads in to see what it is. The rest of the party had moved up to the end of the hallway, except for Shaith, who was halfway up hallway. Entering the Dance Hall he notices a plaque reading ‘Syana – worthy foe’ which he reads out loud, just as the doors open and enemies pour into the Dance hall, as well as from the other hallways.

DM Note: Killians actions triggered two things at once. First of all his mentioning of Syana led to a Gallion realizing a link to his backstory. Shaith might have recognized the name too, but he didn’t have the same luxury of being warned by me to prepare. Gallion is a Taranesti elf after all.

Second of all, entering the Dance Hall leads to a massive combat, in which the players are placed tactically very poorly. From behind them came the incorporeal undeads, and from the elite quarters came skeletons, led by some sergeants. All in all they were spread thin, with enemies all around them. I would lie if I said that they didn’t think I was unfair and that this would be the end of the party.

I did pull a few punches regarding the incorporeal undeads, who just attacked the nearest enemy, which turned out to be the tiny white dragon, giving the party just a little more time to regroup.

The odds looked bad for the party, and they did the only sensible thing, they eliminated the enemies in one hallway, to make sure they only had one front. Gallion, wielding the living blade as a bow, took out the tragedies pretty fast due to the ghost touch ability. Reddengot decided to vacate that hallway as he learned how vulnerable he was, leaving the party room to maneuver a bit. Luckily for the party Killian cast a spell at the very beginning of the combat, learning of the quickened effect on spells. This ensured that the enemy did not have an advantage at the very beginning.

DM note: During the first few rounds of combat both Oller and Jorrina died. Grellfin lived a little longer but he too died during the fight, thereby ending the Clan Millorn alliance and deal for dividing treasure.

It was a very tough fight, taking a very heavy toll on their resources. Shaith and Killian were both all but out of spells when the fight ended.

DM Note: Griiat turned out to be a very capable leader of the combat, as he was the last enemy left standing. To think, that they could have ended the fight much earlier had they only concentrated on him early on in the combat.

Regarding the gravity effects I did not use it very much. It was too hard to depict with so many enemies and PCs/NPCs on the battle map -37 miniatures – and keeping track on who was on what wall.
In the end I only used it once or twice and played out the rest of the combat quite ordinarily. I used the debris to reduce sight, until Shaith fire a fireball in the area, pushing the debris to the sides.
Having vanquished the enemies, looting the corpses of friends and foes, they turned their attention back to the dragon.

DM note: We have a miniature of a dragon just the size of Syana, that I placed on the battle map depicting Syana, so they had a sense of her size and presence. They were completely convinced that the dragon would come to life and attack them during the combat. They were so relieved that it did not happen… for now.

The dragon remains turns out to be the former defender of Ycengled Phurst, Gallion’s homeland. It has a visible effect on him learning that her remains are in Castle Korstull. He has always believed that the Shahalesti killed her, but seeing her as a trophy in Coaltongue’s castle makes him reconsider a bit. Did the Ragesians help Shahalesti kill the Taranesti or did they just take out the guardian?
Gallion tells the others that he would be happy if they could find a way to get the body out of the castle, she should not be a trophy, honored or not, she deserved better.

After talking a bit they realize that they hear some noise from the elevator, someone is clearly trying to get it to work. They clearly sabotaged it just in time. They also know that it will most likely only be a question of time before the Ragesians arrives.

They search the floor, finding the Pyre with the shadows in the flames and the sun chariot, the scrying room and the secret door leading the throne room. Here they find a mad man, mumbling to himself, scratching words on the floor. The words and sentences make sense in some cases, seeming to be words of prophecy. Some of the things seem to have happened, other parts of the scribblings make no sense, leading the players to conclude that it relates to the future.

In the bedroom they find the bloody bed and the empty holder for the torch. And finally they find the treasure room, finding more treasure than they can carry in one go. The one thing they did not find was the torch. With the Clan dead, the party loads up on all they can carry and go back to the madman to give him the cure they also found.

DM Note: They were out of options to detect magic and identify the items, so they took what they liked best, including the cheese; it intrigued them that there would be a cheese in the treasure room.

For some reason I decided to let them have a guessing contest – what do you expect to find in the treasure room. It was a bit of harmless fun, or so I thought. As it happened Gallion had prepared well, so on one of his turns he said that he expected to find a black-bladed scimitar, something that would lead to quite a fun scene a little later.

The mad man turns out to be Darius, one of the Emperor’s bodyguards. He is crushed that he failed in his duty, and has no idea what really happened these last many months. He does, however, recall the fateful night quite vividly. He describes how the assassins were two Drow female and a man with a black-bladed scimitar.

DM Note: The look on Killians face, followed by his stare on Gallion was priceless. He was immediately wary of treason, not knowing what to believe, but expecting foul play from Gallion. Intrigue is always fun, especially when it leads to a little paranoia among the players .

Shaith and Killian look questioningly on Gallion, who has mentioned a black-bladed scimitar before, but they decide not to bring it up in front of Darius.

Darius wants to get in contact with the Ragesians and the party wants to show him some things on the top floor to see if it triggers some memories. He agrees to do this first, as he understands that the Ragesians are on their way up, when the elevator is fixed.

DM Note: I did not realize it at the time, having clearly been focused on something else, that they wanted to take him to a room outside the throne room to kill him.

As they head down the stairs they hear someone laughing. They see the mute Halfling slowly transforming into Deception, their old foe from Innenotdar. Even worse than this, they see him activating some kind of device and a life force flows into Syana, reanimating her, not as a skeleton, but actually building muscle, flesh and hide – Deception has somehow brought Syana back to life, and she, whatever she is now, is on his side.

In Gallions mind the creature is no longer Syana. That said none of them are in any way fit for a fight with a huge dragon. They run full speed towards the Sun palanquin, after Darius tells them to do so; it is their only way out.

DM Note: It states that the palanquin is powered by a soul gem, but I couldn’t see where they could find one or even know about it. Therefore I had Darius take the lead, both by telling them they could get out, and activating the Palanquin with a soul gem.

They jump into the palanquin, Gallion by the reins, and power through the “window”. Much to their delight the Dragon is very unsteady at first, and with their escape they expect to be able to power away at high speed. The disappointment is very obvious as they realize that the palanquin goes no faster than 80 feet.

On the ground they see the Ragesian army, mixed with Shahalesti elves, something that take them by surprise. They did not expect that combination. Someone from the ground starts to fly up, shouting for them to surrender and to land. Much to the surprise of the party Deena jumps out of the palanquin and flies straight down towards the army. At first they think she is attacking, but then they hear her shouting:” Captain Deena, Ragesian special forces coming in – do not shoot”.

DM Note: I am not really sure what hurt them most; that she betrayed them / was a traitor or that she got away with almost 20% of the treasure  Most of the treasure measured in wealth was in the bag of holding, which she did not carry.

Out of the broken window Syana shoots out, heading straight towards the party. Their resources being depleted they expect this to be the end. They notice the Princess Shalosha flying towards them, shouting for a parlay. They accept on the condition she flies to the, and not that they go to ground.

DM Note: It had been a long day, and we were well past midnight. Combining this fact with the issue of the players being out of resources, I decided that the fight with Syana would not be beneficial to anyone. The treasure loving Gallion even mentioned that he could live with losing their hardfought treasure if it meant surviving. That said a lot of the situation they found themselves in.

The party negotiated a truce with Shalosha, and the combined Ragesian-Shahalesti force killed the dragon, with heavy losses. Part of the truce was accepting to land the Palanquin and attend a parley in General Magdus’ tent. During their talk with Shalosha they learned that this branch of the Ragesian army is basically a rebel army, not accepting Leska as the emperor. That fact explained a lot to the party as to why the Shahalesti were working together with them

The players try to postpone/avoid the parley by telling that the firestorm could close any minute, as they were only guaranteed 50 hours, and they are about to be up. The elves seem unconcerned, as their specialists have determined that the breach will easily last 50 hours or longer than that.

Being out of options, they are escorted to the tent for the parley. The party is treated well, and with respect and are not disarmed. They do, however, feel that the status is symbolic and expect to be seen as prisoners.

During the parley they get to meet Magdus, who sees himself as the leader of the Ragesian branch that does not accept Leska as the new emperor. He has Deena as one of his aides at the parley as well as Darius, who recounts his story once more. Shalosha tells the players that the one thing that all parts of the conflict agree upon is that finding the torch is imperative. She proposes a deal where each group goes off on their own to be able to cover as much ground as possible. The party to find the torch is obliged to inform the others and there will then be a meeting to determine how to use the torch best and who should wield it in the fight against Leska.

All parties agree to the deal and the parlay ends.

DM Note: The players felt they had no choice but to accept. As to whether or not they will live up to their part of the deal remains to be seen.

Finally understanding that they are not prisoners they ask for horses and saddlebags so they can be on their way, which they naturally are given.

End of chapter

End of chapter: This was one long chapter, basically being a dungeon crawl chapter with a lot of fighting. The party enjoyed the chapter and the ingenuity of the castle. From my point of view I really could have used some better maps of the smaller areas, as it was a bit hard to portray to the party how the different areas where placed in relation to the others, specifically the chapel, the hall with Lord Gorquith and the rest of the ground floor. That said, it was a nice dungeoncrawl and it had a lot of interesting features and enemies.

From my seat the one thing I disliked most was that it took so long to get to Darius and advance the story and plotline. That is not to say that it wasn’t fun, but somehow it could have been nice with a few more plot enhancers on the ground floor. It didn’t help that they only got to Lord Gorquith and the devils at the very end.

I guess a party with a priest geared up for some real undead turning might find the chapter a bit too easy. Luckily I did not have one of those – Gillian turns as a level 3 priest, so he is basically useless that way – and I also had a party without bludgeon weapons for a long while, so I ended up having a group of players who had a lot of fun balancing on the edge several times.

And we are back up to date, with the next session coming up soon.

I am really looking forward to chapter 7; it seems to be one of the best chapters in the story, especially the third chapter. I have prepared special visions with the focus on each player in turn. These visions will reveal some secrets about the players, some they don’t even know themselves. The secrets will twist part of their backstories to be seen in a different light. I am sure it will be fun 

Now the next issue is the Cheese they found… what to do with it?

I have decided to settle on it being an artefact giving eternal life. What it does is that the use must eat some cheese, making it an artifact of limited use. The user will sense that the body does not agree with the cheese and either have the body fight the effect like a poison, or will the body to accept it. (Will DC 35 to force the body against its will – otherwise it is a fortitude save DC 35 to avoid the effects of the poison). If the poison save fails, the user takes 3d6 con damage – only the strongest of mind and body can attain eternal life. If the poison does not kill the user, the secondary effect of the poison takes place. If the user makes the safe nothing happens. If he fails, he dies. 1 minute later the dead will rise again as a vampire – eternal life is granted.

Any comments/thoughts about this idea for the cheese?

 

[RangerWickett]

Ah, the necromantic cheese. Piratecat years ago asked people to suggest treasure for a dragon hoard, and someone came up with cheese that appeared to have intense necromantic magic, but didn't do anything. I stole the idea for this treasure hoard.

I occasionally ponder different options for what it could be. Lately I'm thinking, some wizard was *really* tired of his cheese going bad, so he enchanted it to kill any mold on it. So any small piece of the cheese could be thrown at a plant monster to deal tons of damage.

 

[Mrpereira]

We played the first act of chapter 7 yesterday - a more in depth update per my usual standard will be written at some point, hopefully sooner than later - and I had very high expectations for this chapter from reading through it.

The first act exceeded my expectations - that was one hell of an eerie experience for the players with so much atmosphere that they sat at the edge of their seats. Another highlight was actually before the chapter started for real. They were en Seaquen and had a nice scene discussing their knowledge of Ycengled Phuurst at Lyceum, so I thought it would be the right time to give them some more information on Rhuarc, delivered by Kiernan.

I used the story that RangerWickett posted in this post: Timeline and other questions They were already in the right mindset, so I managed to retell the story (with some omissions) with so much atmosphere that they actually sat in silence for a while after the story ended. A bonus is that I have a Taranesti in the party who sees Rhuarc as a kind of hero figure. This story has given him some things to consider about what he believes is the truth.

All in all - great session and great experience with the first act.

 

[Mrpereira]

I am glad I kept a copy of my campaign in a word document.

It is sad to see how much was lost. I will repost every entry at some point, when I get some breathing time from work.

 

[Mrpereira]

Pfff - this really made me sad - which is why I haven't been posting for a long time. Luckily I had the file in a word document, but I lost recaps worth almost 33 word pages... that is quite a lot.

Anyway, here we go with reposting the entries

 

[Mrpereira]

The party

Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 9 / Arcane archer 4
Shaith – Fire elf fire domain wizard lvl. 5 / Incantatrix 8
Killian – Human priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Church Inquisitor 1 / Ordained champion 5/Divine Crusader 4(variant)

NPC
None at the start of the chapter

June 12 continued

The party did not want to spend more time than necessary at the camp, so they mounted the horses and rode off. They travelled throughout the evening until they reached the small village at the edge of the firestorm, where they made camp and rested.

DM note: As we are halfway through the campaign I made a short resumé of what had happened in the global setting of the world, just to recap the story, we have been playing for quite a while now, almost 1½ years, so somethings will have been forgotten. I also made a recap of all the deals they have made, quite a few as well, and asked them what they felt about the different parties and how they felt about the deals. They all agreed that Shahalesti and The monks are untrustworthy, and expect to break the deal themselves with these two parties. Killian felt that Ragesia was the greatest threat in the world, while the two elves believed it to be the Shahalesti.

All in all it was a quite interesting discussion. The party was in agreement about most things, but not all.

June 13

The next morning Shaith readies several polymorph spells as well as a Teleport. He polymorphs the others and himself into small dragons who are immune to fire damage, and teleports to Seaquen, where they are caught in the cell with the teleporting pole underneath the sunken prison.

DM Note: I decided that Seaquen would ensure its safety by making an antimagic area around the pole, so while it was magic, every other part of the cell was not. And of course set some archers to guard the locked cell. No matter how powerful you are, that is a deathtrap and the players realized and appreciated it – Seaquen’s safety matters to them.

After a little time they are released and escorted to Lyceum, where they are called into a meeting a in a few hours. They spend the time in between selling loot, and buying new items.

DM Note: I allowed them to buy single items up to a value of 20.000 gp. I also allowed them to commission items of greater value, but with the timeframe it meant that these items will not be available until the next chapter. I am going to keep scaling up the value at each level, so that approximately 20-25% of their wealth by level is the maximum item value. They should be allowed to have some of the more fun items.

At the meeting the council is gathered, Kiernan, Katrina, Haddin and headmaster Simeon. The players are a bit late, the acquisition of new items took longer than they expected. They have all but just arrived when there is a knock on the door. No one in the room expects more company. Outside stands a very correct and rigid man in spotless clothing. He introduces himself as Lieutenant Waxillium Ricky. He is here to help the party on the dangerous journey to the dark forest of Ycengled.

DM note: I made him obnoxiously correct and loud. On top of that I had him arrive before they had told anyone where they were going, so having him come in and announce his intention of joining the on the journey to Ycengled made it all much more interesting.

The new guy put the party a bit on the edge, both with his awkward stiffness and with his knowledge of their plans. They asked him who he was and how he thought he knew where they were heading. Simultaneously they heard Haddin mumbling in the corner, something along the lines of: “I don’t know who will be in greatest danger, you or them when you swing that metal piece around. “Hrumph… good riddance”.

Wax, as he quickly was named, is a Paladin of Pelor and told them that his fiancé had told him that they would be here know, a little late, and that he was to go with them to Ycengled or they would die. When they asked who his fiancé was he proudly answered that she was the honorable Mister Ja-Laffas daughter Crystin.

DM note: The collective groan around the table was priceless. Haddin is not thrilled with the young man, but they know for sure that he will dislike them even more if he dies, and it is nice to be able to say all those positive things about Mister Ja-Laffa watching them try to be diplomatic 

Also, I wasn’t really sure whether or not they were inclined to talk much about their destination, and I wanted Katrina to know it.

Being a Paladin of Pelor cleared Wax of any mistrust about his intentions and about telling the truth. His entrance and outburst opened the topic about the destination pretty fast, although Simeon first asked what they had learned since the last meetin. Kiernan, being the war expert, then asked about what they knew about the area of Ycengled. They told what they knew in general, and Kiernan then asked if they knew the story about Rhuarc. They didn’t and he told them the long and very fascinating story.

DM Note: As mentioned in a previous post, I used the story that RangerWickett had posted, with very few modifications. I had Kiernan tell the story in a way that the story ended up being a very powerful and strong story that left the party speechless for a few moments afterwords. It was one of many highlights that session. Gallion, the Taranesti,was left with a sense of doubt about his hero, because he did not really sound like much of a hero in that version.

The party talked a bit more with and then made an appointment with Kiernan on the 20th, where he will help them teleport. The party then spends a week recuperating, arranging a few practical things like learning spells, writing scrolls and finishing their shopping. They would have liked to spend more time, especially Galion who had ordered a new armor made, but they decided that time was still of the essence.

June 20

They met up with Kiernan on the morning of their departure, planning to enter the forest in daylight. To their dismay realized that they had forgotten that they had to travel well into the swamp to avoid the teleportation pillar. Several hours later, well past midday they arrive at the outskirts of the Ycengled Phuurst.

From the scribblings on the floor in Castle Korstull and with their knowledge of the area and history, they deduce that Phorros Irrendra lies somewhere on the banks of the Nallanthes river. With that knowledge they chose their landing spot close to the river and enter the dark forest.

DM note: I compared the entering of the forest to standing in the shower under the hot water which suddenly turned icy cold.

The dark, eerie and oppressing darkness clearly makes the party feel uncomfortable. Killian quickly realizes that his connection to Heironious is impeded, and that it takes a lot of effort to produce a lot of his usual powers.

DM Note: I may have been too harsh in my judgment of the limitation, but in the end they managed well enough, even though he did complain a bit about it. The book states that spells using positive energy is impeded. But what spells, apart from cure spells really are based on positive energy, if one has to make a general ruling. I decided that all spells that had holy, sacred and divine in their description were affected. In hindsight the divine part might have been too much, but as I said, it did work out well enough. I also set the DC a little higher as the party have high stats and high skills, so they would feel impeded.

The forest is not only dark and impeding on good, it is also extremely quiet. Not a sound is to be heard in forest, apart from their footsteps and the rattling of chains tied to many trees.

DM note: I used a lot of the small gimmicks from the sidebar Eerie effects to make the experience even more intense. Both the red eyes and the corpse of Shaith that turned into snakes put them on the edge, not knowing what to expect. I did not let them see the chained body before the encounter with the Nightwing. I had message I wanted to deliver to them first, so I changed the order of the encounters.

As the day turned to night, they started to look for a suitable camp site. Travelling through the forest was slower going than they had hoped. At some point after making camp they hear an otherworldly kind of music and see a soft ghostly light some distance away. They move closer to it and see a procession of ghostly figures.

DM Note: I used the scene from the Lord of the Rings where the Elves are leaving the world as inspiration for the scene. I reminded them of that scene and told them to imagine the music, but instead of living elves travelling; they saw ghostly elves fleeing from something. They were not fleeing head over heels, but they were refugees.

A male elf at the edge of the procession looks to the side and his gaze passes over them not noticing them. Then he stops and turns his attention back to them. Galion feels he is looking specifically at him.

The elf slowly rises his hand and points, while saying a dark ghostly voice: “Shahalesti traitor. The dead know the truth. The dead know”. Suddenly all the ghosts turn into a swarm of bats gathering into a nightwing.

The fight really pushed the party to the limit, but in the end they won a hard fought battle. Galion felt the lack of divine connection as a problem in this fight. Luckily for the party they have a stockpile of potions to use, as their wands won’t work in the forest.

DM note: It was a fun fight and I liked the fact that the undead punished them so hard, especially with the messaged they delivered. As the party does not see their alliance with the Shahalesti as binding in any way they did not really understand that part. Galion mentioned somewhat in a joking note, that if he was a Shahalesti traitor then his backstory was wrong. Well Galion, it isn’t wrong, and the undead did point at you…  He will be wiser as to what the undead meant when we come to the trials and the visions. As the elf said: The dead know the truth 

After the fight they return to camp and try to settle in for the night. Some hours pass and they suddenly hear a gigantic snap some hundred feet from the camp. Expecting the worst, they gear up and get ready. When nothing comes to them, they decide to investigate. They find a gigantic tree that is broken apart, as if something escaped out of it.

DM note: Thank you eerie sidebar 

They find nothing else, no tracks… nothing. Having no other clues as to what to do, they head back to camp and go to sleep.

June 21

Their dreams are filled with torment and being captured and held against their will. They wake up freezing and drenched in sweat, but not feeling any adverse effects apart from that.

DM note: Having described their gruesome details of their dreams, it was clear that they expected to have some kind of adverse effect placed on them, like not being able to memorize. They looked so surprised when they realized that they were good to go .

They head deeper into the forest encountering more disturbing scenes. Gallion is breaking the trail for the party and suddenly he notices a young elven boy. As he sees the boy, the boy turns around and runs into the forest. The party decides not to follow.

A little while later Gallion again notices the boy staring at him. This time he is at the side of the party, not in front of them. As Gallion sees him, he runs off again. Gallion estimates that it is the same direction as the last time. They discuss whether or not to follow him, but once again decide against it and move on.

About 10-15 minuttes later Gallion has the feeling of being watched. He looks around and behind the party he spots the boy once again. This time they decide to follow him.

DM Note: I thought that one nightwing would be enough so I made the boy reappear until they followed him.

They follow the boy into a clearing where they are attacked by treants. The fight was oven in a blink of an eye, the trees never stood a chance or saw what hit them.

DM note: To call it a fight would be generous, they didn’t even last one round.

After the action is over they spot a tree with a boy skeleton chained to it. They deduce that it is the skeleton of the ghost. They give him a decent burial and return on their path towards the hidden city.

As day turns into night they once again see the ghosts. This time, however, there is a small boy holding the hand of the elven male. When the elf notices the players he does not point at them this time. Instead he stops and nods respectfully to the party and keeps walking with the boy.

DM note: It is a nice feeling seeing how they got confirmation of having done something good. It was a real feel good moment in a dark disturbing place.

The night however is not as nice as that moment. Their dreams are still plagued by nightmares.

June 22

The day passes without anything special to note other than they get closer to the point they expect the city to be

June 23

A short time after setting off on the day’s journey they find a group of dead Shahlesti soldiers, dead within the last days. They do not find any tracks worth following and instead decide to throw the corpses into the river, hoping that the current will flush the Shahalesti out of the forest.

DM note: It was a small token gesture, but a sign of their thoughts of the Shahalesti.

Less than an hour later they see the first living creature so far. A fox steps out of the undergrowth and studies them. Before they can do much, they hear a voice behind them, Fayne; the leader of the surviving Taranesti.

They talk to her for a while and her attitude is indifferent. One of the reasons that she is not hostile is that she recognizes Gallion’s facial traits and deduces he must be the son of a former Taranesti that she knew. She does not believe that he is still Taranesti though; he lived far too long in Gate Pass to be a real Taranesti.

She confirms that someone is in Phorros Irrestra, but it is not the Taranesti, they live in the forest. In the end she agrees to help them get into the city, if they do something for her first. They have to clear a holy Taranesti circle from its Shahalest infestation and free one of her soldiers. Seeing no other way out of the situation, the party agrees to help. It takes them several days to get to the northern part of the forest.

June 26.

They arrive at the area with the Stonehenge. Fayne tells them that it is a religious site and only few select Taranesti priests are allowed to set foot in the henge. The Shahalesti are thus both committing sacrilege as well as placing them out of harm’s way from the Taranesti, by making their camp in the henge.

DM Note: I found the description confusing a bit when it came to the henge. Is it in darkness or not?

The party decides to scout the area first and end up being in a bit of a dilemma. Once again the elves have angelic allies. Gallion believes that they are bound against their will, while the others aren’t convinced. Wax is very disturbed by their presence, if the forces of good are allied with the elves, how come we are allied with their enemies? It took some convincing before Wax accepts the fact that both sides could and most likely are forces for good, even if they are enemies.

DM Note: I loved that discussion, both because it emphasized the campaign feeling of things being shades of grey and that it is much more important to talk about friends and foes, rather than just good and evil. The second thing that made it a good discussion is that it turned from just a discussion with the annoying NPC into a discussion of the entire situation and they ended up accepting that the Avoral and Leonal were most likely there as allies, and not bound.

After scouting the area with spells they find no trace or sign of a prisoner.

DM Note: Yeah… I kinda forgot about the divination limitations in that scene, and so did the players. The Henge just simply must have been an exception to the limitation, since it was a holy place not in the woods as such… or something 

They return to Fayne and tell her that her friend is not there, and that they needed her to be more specific about the deal she offered. Was it primarily to free her friend or to kick the Shahalesti out of the henge. Fayne thinks about it for some time, and end up deciding that the deal is for her friend mostly because her friend has information she does not want the Shahalesti to have. She is, however, not overly happy about the party’s decision of making it a question of one or the other, especially Gallion is clearly proving not to be a real Taranesti in her eyes.

DM note: I decided that her friend meant more to Fayne than ousting some Shahlesti, especially since the henge most likely would be taken back again later. Also, I saw no need for an extra combat that would add nothing to the story, especially since the important part for me was the dilemma of the enemy having good aligned allies.

The outcome of the deal is that Fayne will guide the party to the Shahalesti camp in the south of the forest, which turns out to be a 5-day uneventful trek.

July 1

The party arrive at the Shahalesti camp, which is fortified with wooden walls, and spells. The latter Shaith learned as he tried to fly into the camp invisible and was stopped dead in the air.

Before trying that stunt they had staked out the camp and easily found the cage in the middle of the camp with the prisoner. She was under a constant guard of alert soldiers. Shaith quicly deduced that the only real way of getting the prisoner out would be by teleporting, and that it may cost her life, but leaving her prisoner would mean her death anyway. Fayne had no real alternatives to the solution, as she also agreed that leaving her in the cage would mean her death.

The party moved crossed their fingers and Shaith tried his invisible penetration attempt, and failed. With the direct option eliminated, he decided to move to the gate. He still had a lot of time left being invisible, so he waited hoping someone would come that had a password.

DM note: I let the dice decide if they were lucky, and they were.

A courier arrives and as he nears the gate he stops and puts his hand on the invisible barrier and speaks the words. Shaith hears them and flies back to his original position, speak the words and fly into the camp. He quickly flies to the cage, touches the prisoner and they teleport out of the camp before anyone has a chance to react.

DM note: I made this part pretty easy for them, as they had spent a lot of time roleplaying the situation, so they deserved it. I decided that the ranger had about 20 hps left, and the teleportation damage almost killed her, but she actually got to live, and this part of the story had a happy ending.

After rescuing the elven prisoner, the party quickly move away from the fortress, and with Fayne’s help easily avoid any pursuers. Fayne is grateful for their help and tell them how to enter the city.

This leaves the party with yet another long trek through the forest.

July 3

On the evening on July 3 the parties arrives at the bank of the Nallanthes again and start looking for a spot to camp. Their task is interrupted by a loud, chilling howl the makes the blood in their veins freeze to ice. The howl is answered by more howls all around them. At the outskirts of their vision they see some undead elfs in wolf clothing as well as 3 big undead wolfs. Shaith immediately starts singing the song of forms, and it is the most hauntingly beautiful thing anyone has ever heard.

DM Note: He did roll a natural 20 and reached DC 40, which must be quite the performance.

The fight starts pretty ok for the party; the spectres in corporeal form aren’t much of a threat, although one of them manages to score a hit. The big wolfs are a different matter; they are a handful. The challenge does not get any easier when a vampire-wolf-hybrid appear in the middle of the party.

DM note: I made him into a real vampire, I have no idea what a Heartsblood vampire is. It is one of the things that I am a bit annoyed about in the adventure, the use of classes I have never heard of, when there is no description of what they do.

The fight is very tough and involves a lot of level draining. In the end they manage to win and use some spells to restore the lost levels.

The vampire gets away in the snakeform. They are expecting him to return any time soon.

July 4

They continue their journey along the riverbank and finally they arrive at a beach with black sand with a cave mouth close by.

They follow the instructions and enter the cave. All in all, the entire journey through is done without many hurdles. The succubi tried to lead them astray with charm spells, and manage to send them back to the start once, by getting Wax to hold up a light in front of him. Other than that, they are no hindrance.

The demon appeared to be a big challenge, but he failed his saving throw on a dismissal and was gone before the fight began. As he is sent back, he tells the party that they can find the man they are looking for at the Grove of Fallen Hallow.

The final challenge in the tunnel is much more dangerous. The basilisk all but destroyed the entire party. As they realize that they are at the end of the journey they allow themselves to use light. Killian draws his magical sword and the light illuminates the basilisk, thus enabling it’s gaze attack.

DM Note: Killian is using the sword from the treasure room in Castle Korstull

The initial Gaze attack petrifies Shaith and Wax. The following round Gallion also fails his saving throw, leaving Killian all alone. Luckily he is quite capable of fighting blindly and defeats the basilisk, thus saving the day.

DM note: Yeah… I was actually thinking that this was the end of the party, and what a lousy end.

With the help of scrolls of Break enchantment and a single memorized version of the spell, the entire party is turned back to flesh, and they walk the final few steps towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

End of session.

DM Note: It was a very good session one of the best, if not the best so far in the campaign.

 

[Mrpereira]

The party

Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 9 / Arcane archer 5
Shaith – Fire elf fire domain wizard lvl. 5 / Incantatrix 9
Killian – Human priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Church Inquisitor 1 / Ordained champion 5/Divine Crusader 5(variant)

NPC
Lieutenant Waxillian Ricky – Paladin 14

July 4 continued

After the party has studied the walls a bit and finding a way out, they waste no time climbing up and entering the hidden city; Phorros Irrendra.
The city is emanating with life, compared to the Ycengled Phuurst. The city lies in perpetual shadows, yet it is nice and warm and the temperature actually reflects the time of year, unlike the outside world. The party quickly deduces that they must be in some kind of other realm.

DM note: I decided that the 60 feet limitation on divination still existed. My reasoning was that as the city could withstand being found from the outside world, there would be some kind of limitation on divinations.

I also made up several minor encounters based on the sidebar in act 1. They all had the theme of having the party noticing a shadowed form, which looked like a person. One time it was a tree with a form like a person, another time there was nothing (or was there) and the third time there was an actual person/shadow that moved away – but only Galion with very high spot saw it. It gave the party the feel of being hunted. As I told them: All your senses tell you that you are alone her, no one can be seen or heard, yet still… you have very hard time believing it. It set the stage in a nice way.

The party quickly decided travelling in the trees was the best solution as most things worth finding seemed to be up in the trees as well. At the first platform the two elves see a sign pointing towards different location in the city. Killian just sees some trees.

DM Note: As the party didn’t have a map of the city I decided that they could use a little help in the beginning. As this city used to be on where people came to visit, it made sense to me that there would be some information as to where to go, it is a rather large city after all. I had the sign point out which way to go if one wanted to find the library, the forge, the grove of fallen hallows, the emerald green peak and Syana’s cave.

After a brief discussion the party decides, with a majority vote, to go to the library first. Galion wanted to go to the grove. As they arrive at the library they are fired upon by a person behind cover on the roof of the library. The assailant hits Shaith with a dispelling arrow. The party starts to advance and return fire. Shaith remains at the top of the stairs, thereby avoiding the trap as it is suddenly activated. The others all drop down to the forest floor taking some hard hits. Shaith only has a few moments to rejoice, as he is suddenly hit with two more dispelling arrows and one other arrow.

The arrows dispel quite a lot of his spells, leaving him feeling quite vulnerable, especially since his spot check fails and he cannot see who fired the arrows. Luckily for him Galion can, even if he is standing on the ground 90’ feet below. Galion fires a round of arrows at the attacker, whom they correctly deduce must be Rhuarc. After being hit quite hard, Rhuarc withdraws and is gone.

DM Note: and the hunt begins… 

The party wonders a bit about the attack. Not so much that they were attacked, but by the fact that he was alone. Where were the drow? And what was the idea with the attack? Shaith did not like the situation, without his protective spells he felt that he was a sitting duck.

DM Note: Well, they pretty soon realized that the idea was that he was hunting and wearing them down and succeeding quite well.

It only takes them a few minutes of searching to realize that the library was empty of anything interesting, and it had been for a very long time before it was collapsed in the trap.

Afterwards they head back towards the platform with the sign and decide to head towards the Grove. It is very slow going for the party. Killian and Wax have very poor balance skills in their heavy armor, so they move at half speed, which is already lowered due to the heave armor. The option of not wearing armor is not something they want to test.

DM Note: I have been harsh in other places, so I was lenient with the balance skills and made it less of a challenge for the party; no one was going to drop down from the bridges and branches every time they moved. However, I let them know that they moved at half speed and both Killian and Wax were considered to have their dexterity negated.

After quite a while they arrive at a point where the path split in two. If they took the left one, they would head towards the Emerald peak, the highest point in the city. If they took the right one, they would be heading towards the biggest tree that they had ever seen. They all agreed upon heading towards the tree.

As they get closer to the tree they see a big mansion higher up in the tree that is not falling apart. Expecting the worst, they head up higher in the tree.

DM Note: Even if their target was the Grove, they were not willing to pass this place by. They expected it to be a trap, and they were not surprised when it turned out to be a dangerous place. They were surprised at how dangerous, however.

When they arrive at the platform with the bridge connecting to the manor, they stop for a while, looking around for ambushes, but not finding any.

DM Note: Being the evil bastard that I am, I had them hiding in the manor, just inside the door, getting ready for the big fight.

Gallion moved slowly across the bridge, with arrows on his bow ready to fire. The rest of the party was waiting anxiously on the platform just waiting for things to go south.

DM Note: Since they were alert like that, I decided to roll initiative – that way they could act in turn and as soon as they wanted to. It also meant that my two drow could act when they wanted to. It meant no surprise for anyone, but it also meant that drow could get a full round in when the action started.

Galion keeps moving over the bridge, finally ending his move 10 feet from the platform around the manor, 15 feet from the door at the end of his third round, when the action kicked off. Yvonnel used her move action to open the door, and then her standard action to throw her returning two-bladed sword at Galion, who was hit. And it got worse for him. Quillathe used her whip from the 20 feet range, and combined it with her swift feint. She aimed her whip for his feet, and Galion avoided the attack, only to realize too late that it was a feint as the whip closed around his neck. To make matters worse he also lost his grapple and was mercilessly pulled into the manor, and stabbed to death with her rapier.

DM Note: I created a deathtrap, especially since he rolled so lousy. He missed his sense motive spectacularly, and then rolled poorly on the grapple while I rolled a natural 20. The odds of her winning the grapple were very low at best. Since she was making a full round action, she was able to stab him three times with her sneak attack (he was both flanked and had lost his dexterity to the feint) permanently killing him. Or at least she should have, if I had not used the special scenario I had created for just this instance. I am not always THAT evil, but I won’t save them next time someone dies. Anyway, more on this issue in a little while.

For the rest of the encounter Galion handled playing Wax, and I am sure he was already mentally getting ready to play him for real.

Shaith acted next, and did so in a quite spectacular way. He took a 5’foot step touching both Killian and Wax and then teleported the three of them into the manor, thereby negating the advantage of the drow. From there it was a bloody melee; something the drow had no chance of winning. They did give it their best shot, and did manage to get in some hits.

Quilathe decided to go down in a spectacular fashion. She moved into position to flank Killian and gave him the royal treatment. She bit her arm and moved in to kiss him. Killian was not very gallant about it and gave her a big hit, but not enough to drop her, so she delivered her poison. Then Yvonnel launched a full round of attacks, hitting on all 6 of them, which hurt him quite a bit.

DM note: Killain was looking at me like I was completely out of my mind. At that point he had not realized that Yvonnel was not a rogue. He believed that he had been sneaked 6 times, getting ready to receive 48d6 points of damage plus the damage from the weapons, effectively killing him too. I have seldom seen anyone being so relieved to having his ass kicked badly, as he survived to attack, barely.

After this, Quilathe got killed quickly and Wax used his Healing Spirit allow Killian to get fully healed. Even if Yvonnel got another round of hits in, it was not enough to do any real damage, and she too died.

DM Note: They were quite surprised when I told them later that the drows could easily have been friends, but that they only talked from a position of strength. As I had predicted in an earlier post, once they had gotten a few hits in, no amount of talking could have salvaged that encounter, perhaps excepting me managing to kill off Killian as well.

To everyone’s big surprise, including Galion, he was not dead, but stabilized at death’s door.

DM Note: As mentioned in an earlier post I had the ghostly figure of the man take his place at death’s door. I made it as a repayment for saving the kids soul when they buried the bones. No one in the party realized that this was not in the books, quite the contrary. They all seemed to think that it made sense and that the only problem was that Galion had already “wasted” the gift they didn’t know they had received .

After collecting the magical items from the drow they decide to move upstairs, Killian goes first, and walk straight into the pit trap and drop to the floor of the forest… again.

DM Note: I got it a bit mixed around, as I read it as if the trapdoor on the map was where Coaltongue was hidden, and since I had already told them where it was, I placed the trap near the staircase, which would make sense as the drow could easily avoid by flying and levitating.

After having Shaith picking Killian up from the ground they search the rest of the manor, finding nothing of real value, other than realizing that only two people slept in the house, and in the same bed. Rhuarc was clearly not living her, which wondered the party. They were also wondering where he was, since he did not help the drow in the fight. The party went downstairs to open the trapdoor. Inside they find the corpse of Former Emperor Drakus Coaltongue, something that also made them wonder. But before they could discuss it much, 5 tragedies moved in through the walls to attack them, while Rhuarc shot at them through the door, from the other side of the bridge, ensuring that unless they teleported somehow, they could not reach him easily.

As he did the other times, after a few shots he retreated again, and left, while the party got further depleted for resources fighting the tragedies.

After the fight they turn their attentions back to Coaltongue, wondering why they kept him preserved, and also how he was preserved. When they examine him they find that he looks like he is in very good shape, and actually very truly alive, except for the stake in his heart and the fact that his body seems like an empty shell, devoid of a soul.

Shaith made a few rolls, and deduced that the stake in his heart as such was not the main reason for him being out cold, but rather the fact that Rhuarc stole his soul with his sword.
Galion meanwhile tries to track Rhuarc and much to his own surprise manages to find some tracks. They follow these through the city until they reach the forge. There they sneak closer and notice a figure, Rhuarc, rummaging through a chest after something.

DM note: As Rhuarc had gotten their measure; I changed his illusion a bit. The plan was now to have the party see him run downstairs, instead of having him being a sitting duck. I had the party roll initiative and initiated combat rounds.

The party slowly moved closer to the forge, hoping to get everyone closer for the surprise and to keep him from using the shadow to jump away. Rhuarc in the forge notices something and hurries downstairs.

Having missed their chance for a surprise the party move less stealthily towards to forge, and once they all stand on the platform, and most of them even indoors, they hear the dreaded noise; someone is cutting a wire. At the same time as they realize that they have entered a trip the world drops out under them.

DM Note: As Killian drily commented: “We should have known. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…” Well, he did fool them twice, didn’t he? 

As the world drops out under them, the forge comes down on top of them, burying them all alive, way below the debris.

DM Note: Two things happened next. Firstly Rhuarc made a mistake, he was overconfident. Having seen them all buried he left, leaving his shadow to keep watch for a while, just in case one or two managed to dig out. Secondly the Killian asked what the odds were of them being buried close by, since they were standing on adjacent squares. I let the dice decide their fate in that respect, and they were quite lucky. Both Galion and Shaith were buried together with Killian, leaving only Wax buried alone.

Killian, Galion and of them used a dimension door to get out of the mess and on to save ground. They then spent some time localizing Wax, who at the same time was trying to free himself. He was choking a bit, and hurt from the fall, but got out alive, all of them did.

After spending quite a lot more healing charges, they are ready to go again

DM Note: The game has really not been sparse on healing, so they have quite the stockpile lying around. For once they were forced to use some of the items they had.

Once again Galion picks up Rhuarcs trail, this time leading to the Grove of Fallen Hallows, the place Galion wanted to examine from the beginning.

The grove is a clearing, roughly half a mile in diameter, with a little house in the middle. All around the house, the grove is filled with flowers. Galion looks around and with his knowledge of the nature he identifies them as being quite poisonous, especially distilled, not as much in their raw form. However, moving through the field at any speed above 5 feet per round will make the flowers release spores.

Having studied the plants a bit, Galion concludes that even if they are poisonous, he is pretty sure, that he is capable of withstanding the danger. He also reasons, that if he can, then both Wax and

Killian ought to as well. He is uncertain about Shaith. Shaith has an ace up his sleeve for just such an instance. He transforms himself into a stonebody, making him immune to poisons, and persists the spell with one of his daily instant metamagic spells.

With that out of the way, and a consensus of them being unable to sneak close enough to the house without getting noticed, they start burning larger areas of the field with Shaiths fiery blast.

DM note: And to think that he sees himself as a bit of a defender of the nature, but then again, he really loves fire too 

The blasts at some point reveal quite a lot of ghasts, but they are really no challenge to the party, and Wax proves his worth by turning them, and destroying them that way.

Finally they reach the house, wary of traps from their previous experiences. They are quite thorough in their search finding nothing, except for Shaith managing to detect some magic in the hut. They enter the hut and find a parcel under the bed, roughly the size of a torch. Expecting a trap, since the magic is too weak to be the torch, they still feel compelled to open it, and trigger the trap.

DM note: At this point Killian uttered another true sentence. Although it was as much out of character as in character, they point made was quite valid, both to them as well as to me.
What he said was: “I am starting to feel like this is one of those hero movies, where they only catch the bad guy because of the story. He has no reason to ever place himself in a situation where we can catch him.”

And quite honestly it is true; he really has no reason to endanger himself to be caught if it was not for the story. He can run around sniping them close to forever in this city. He might run out of traps, but with his arrows and a lot of stealth, they are in dire straits. Luckily for me and for the story, it turned out that their next move gave me an option to end this, without compromising the story or Rhuarc and his skill set, something the party appreciated quite a lot afterwards.

After having run around in the city most of the day chasing a ghost, never getting close to capturing him, as well as expending most of their resources, left the party quite frustrated. Galion wanted to turn the table somehow, forcing Rhuarc to come to them on their territory, while Killian stuck to his belief, that he would have no reason to. He could probably outlast the party, even if it was one against four.

They decide to spend the night in the hut, simply because it is the only place in the city so far, that they would have a clear view all around them.

DM Note: This is what gave me an out regarding finding a compromise between story and a cheesy solution. He had put a lot of pressure on the players, using a lot of his own special arrows. While he might make more of those, he really did not like the idea of having the party regain their resources, with an optimized set of spells to take him out. In other words, his best chance of eliminating them was to kill them now, thus forcing a showdown everyone could live with.

Not to mention the fact, that by the time they finally managed to put him down, he had them chasing him in the city for about 10 hours of the game session.

Galion takes the first watch, the others go to sleep. He sets up a routine, where he patrols every 30 minute. He spends 15 minutes at the front door, then moving around the house pausing 5 minutes at each corner of the house. Rhuarc being very patient and moving in very slowly observes the routine, and after Galion’s second pass he releases some tragedies from the sword. They spent 3 rounds moving in, and then strike from the back of the house, through the walls, taking the party by surprise.

After dispatching them, Killian gives Galion a dressing down for his poor watchmanship, and then they all go to bed again. About 2 minutes later another batch of tragedies arrives and attack them, with the same outcome, both with regards to the result, as well as the dressing down.

The party is close to giving up the idea of getting some sleep and regaining their resources, when they had a sudden insight. For Rhuarc to send the tragedies with such a precision in both timing and location, he would have to be relatively close to the hut to make sure that they attacked from the rearside compared to the guard.

DM Note: Well maybe not that sudden, as I did kind of paint them a pretty picture.

The realization hits them all quite of a sudden, they have a chance, maybe their only one to take him out now. They mimic going to bed again, discussing loudly for Rhuarcs benefit, while making plans quickly. They plan to take out his biggest advantage, the shadows, by piercing him with an arrow with a daylight spell, thus forcing him to stay in the fight for just a little while longer. On top of this Shaith plan on catching him with a Black tentacle spell.

They set their plan in motion, and start of well. Rhuarc is pierced with light, thus eliminating all shadows around him. The spell of course cannot catch him, but the area is big enough to hinder his movement for a while.

They also notice that his next round of tragedies is on the way.

The fight is short but intense. Rhuarc once again fires dispelling arrows on Shaith leaving with almost no spells left, but his arcane sight and stone body. His downfall is the fact that Galion is a much better archer than he is, and in the end that makes the difference. Rhuarc falls and dies, sending his soul to the depth of his sword.

The party is jubilant, finally they have beaten him, and even better they find that he has the torch in his backpack, the fable artifact that they have dreamed about for so long.

DM note: A fun fact, since the first session they have been joking about the torch being a side quest for them, and it was their artifact just waiting to be found. Now that they have it, it turns out that they really are quite divided about what to do about it.

On Rhuarcs body, along with the treasure they find a letter addressed to his enemies. The letter simply reads: “To my enemies. Don’t let my work be in vain. Don’t let the world go to hell. R.” Galion takes the words to heart, while the others have less respect for their fallen foe.

DM Note: It was a spur of the moment thing, but seemed like something a jaded, tragic figure would do. His letter was something they all appreciated out of characters. Not one of them suspected that it was not part of the scenario as written; it just fit so well into the lore of Rhuarc, that they accepted it straight up. I can only recommend it to others, and maybe even prepare it as a handout.

The first joy of finding the torch is quickly replaced by annoyance, as they realize that it is broken. Also when Shaith pick up Rhuarcs sword he seems quite surprised. It turns out that it spoke to him. After a while Killian takes the sword to try and get it talking, since it is offering a deal, but he quickly realizes that there is nothing to talk about, the deal is not negotiable, and they hide the sword away.

July 5

After a good night’s sleep, the first in a very long time free of nightmares, they wake up ready to clear out the rest of the city. They explore Syana’s cave and find it trapped and dangerous. They find nothing of value in the cave. They decide not to explore Rhuarc’s mother’s house, simply based on pure caution. They have had enough of traps for a long while.

They spend a long time that day discussion what to do, not really reaching a unanimous decision. Do they wake Coaltongue somehow and give him the torch to secure peace again? Do they give it to one of the warring factions? Do they keep it themselves? Or give it to Lyceum, simply because they have no better choices? The solutions are many, but none that really appeal to them all, maybe except for keeping it themselves, but especially Galion fear that they are not strong enough to keep it against the superpowers of the world.

DM Note: They wanted it since day one, and one of the first things they discuss is giving it away… who would have thought 

Another thing they discuss is the torch, what is wrong with it and what to do?

DM note: I used a real world analogy here. If the torch was a car it was missing to things, an engine and some fuel. The engine being the most important thing here of course; the torch was missing a soul; its own specific soul.

All the talk about souls didn’t actually ring a bell, which is fair enough since we play once a month, sometimes less. Remembering all the details is quite difficult, so I pushed them on the right track, by asking them if they knew anyone in the area who knew something about souls.

Having discussed the torch a bit, as well as Coaltongue’s situation suddenly gives Shaith a spark of insight. The order of monks that Ravens came from, the order of echoed souls, had a temple in this region, close to Ycengled Phuurst and it was called the Temple of echoed souls. If someone might have an insight to what to do, it would probably be in that temple. They all remembered the fact, however, that the monks had been driven out a long time ago.

They experiment a bit with waking Coaltongue, by pulling out the stake for instance. As he doesn’t wake from it, Shaith forces the stake back through the heart, and they dump him in their portable hole.

Then they test a bit of teleporting with the torch, finding that when someone with the torch is teleported, no one receives any fire damage. It also explains why nothing seemed to happen to Rhuarc.

July 6

After yet another good night’s sleep they are ready to head off to the next chapter.

End of session

DM note: Another very good act, in the best chapter so far. They enjoyed the hunt tremendously, even if they were frustrated with being the prey and not the hunters, as one would expect. While there were only three real enemies in this act, there was no lack of action of any slow periods.

My two additions, the PC save and the letter both fit perfectly into the story, and was quite successful, even if PC saves really should not happen, at least not without a very good reason. My best defense is that the way I did it made sense regarding the story and actions they had so far.

Next up is the final act of the chapter, and as always the big question is, how long time will it take? I am torn a bit with what to prepare and how much to prepare in case they finish the chapter fast enough for us to have a lot of time left to play. One option is to incorporate the bonus adventure #5, which is written as an extra sidestory with the PCs as the main characters. The other option is starting Chapter 8, and break of the session at a reasonable point, without killing the suspense and story.

For chapter 8 I have prepared the second war council in just the same way as I did the first; by making speaking roles out of the NPCs for the players to play. It is basically a 16 page play, if listed chronologically, where the different persons are given a few lines as inspiration to what to say and with the information about what is critical. It will be up to the players to improvise how to relay the information. The material is in Danish, in case anyone was wondering, but if anyone wants it just let me know.

That’s it for this time, next session is in a couple of weeks, and I am looking forward to their reaction to the scene with the visions. It is going to be quite fun.