RangerWickett
Legend
Damn, that's some good work, guys.
Do they intentionally take turns seducing NPCs?
Do they intentionally take turns seducing NPCs?
WotBS Lylandra's War of the Burning Sky continued
That session was great, indeed.
And no, there is no intention involved. At least not from what I know
Generally, Tinuviel is the more active seducer and he's the only one who uses his charms to gain more information (as with Sheena or Melanie). Cuin is all flirty, but he needs a certain chemistry to really act on his attraction (Torrent between adventures 1 and 2, Pristina in 3 and now Lady Timor).
And no, there is no intention involved. At least not from what I know
Generally, Tinuviel is the more active seducer and he's the only one who uses his charms to gain more information (as with Sheena or Melanie). Cuin is all flirty, but he needs a certain chemistry to really act on his attraction (Torrent between adventures 1 and 2, Pristina in 3 and now Lady Timor).
When they return to Gallo's Fend, Cuin'halar and Tinuviel are greeted by Lord Gallo's soldiers and treated most respectfully. They learn that Lord Gallo is already busy with preparations for the upcoming battle. When they meet up with him, he is more than just relieved to hear that the elves managed to eliminate the dragon, wizard and siege weapon threat in one swipe. He congratulates them on their clever plot to poison the dragon and let the enemies sabotage themselves. Gallo adds that he wished he could have been there to witness the chaos and mayhem, but “unfortunately had other things to do”.
The elves and Torrent ask Gallo about the upcoming battle as they plan to support the “rebel forces” to their best abilities. As Gallo is already sure that the Seaquenians are more than capable combatants, he offers them to be part of a mixed group of infantry, healers and war wizards of Timor. The overall command of this group falls to commander Hertiage whom they already know and trust. The party agrees to this proposal and get ready for battle.
During the first attack on Hertiage's group, Cuin and Tinuviel make sure to intercept the stronger foes like the sphinxes and Brakken as they try to keep them away from the “softer targets” (read: the wizards and the foot soldiers). Torrent goes into melee and heals the wounded soldiers while Hertiage directs their attacks.
Then the invisible sphinx strikes terror to their group. Half of the foot soldiers and Hertiage flee in fear. As they fear things going downhill, Cuin turns Tinu invisible and starts taunting the whole approaching second wave. They coordinate with the still standing wizards who use their fireballs to nuke the cavalry. Before they can trample down the wizards, Cuin calls for the soldiers to halt their horses while he sword-dances through several of the knights. Meanwhile, Tinuviel sneaks up on the trolls while Torrent tries to impose a threat by whirling her acidic axe around.
After several rounds of battle, they manage to save all of their soldiers and chase the enemies away. Hertiage returns, looking pretty embarassed ater his sudden flight. He thanks the party for keeping an eye on his troop and keeping everyone safe.
Note: I let my players play all the defenders while playing the Steppengard forces. While we all found the idea of mass combat pretty charming, it quickly became complicated and pretty time-consuming and we came to the conclusion that maybe D&D/PF are not the best systems to play big battles with. I promised my players to use the unit template for most of the upcoming mass combat battles to speed up combat. I did use the full amount of soldiers for Second General Signus' forces in adventure 5 though.
After a while, a messenger of Lord Gallo arrives on the field. He asks them to come to his Lord as he has an interesting, albeit dangerous proposal for them.
In his planning tent, Gallo explains the party that the battle is basically won. However, combat might not end until later this afternoon and might cost more lives on both sides. He assumes that Königsmarschall Malkan, the strategic mastermind of the Queen, might have orders to fight until the very end. Therefore, further combat could be prevented by eliminating (or, preferabley, capturing) the Marschall and forcing the Steppengard forces to yield and accept defeat. In addition, intel told him that Nina Glibglammer might be in the very same bunker where Malkan is currently operating. He knows, however, that this mission is pretty dangerous and possibly lethal. Gallo doesn't want his most trusted allies to risk too much, so he leaves the decision on whether or not to go on this mission up to them.
Note: They already had more than enough VP to win the battle. But after the mass combat, I wanted to offer them both a challenge and a satisfying end to the “civil war” as goodie.
Needless to say that they all immediately agreed. After all, they still have to settle some scores with Glibglammer and suicidal is their favorite middle name or so. They team up with some dwarven sappers who wait for them at the entrance of the tunnel which leads to the bunker. The dwarves explain their tactics of breaching the final wall with explosives and they warn them that the detonation will cause a lot of noise and will attract attention from the other Steppengard soldiers. Torrent offers them to dampen the noises with a well-timed silence spell.
For the ambush, both Tinuviel and Cuin'halar turn invisible. Then Torrent casts her silence spell and the sappers set off the detonation. They quickly climb the ladder they brought with them and see that a very dusty Marschall has barricaded himself behind his planning table while Nina took a dive and crouches below the table. Two guards guard their commander.
The two elves use the element of surprise to block the doors leading to the tent in hope to delay reinforcements. Malkan calls for help and speaks of a supposed ambush from below. Then Cuin summons an unseen servant and turns visible. He orders the servant to harass/poke Glibglammer, hoping that she might get horrified and flee from her hideout. Malkan does not seem that surprised and fires at the “assassin” Cuin with his crosssbow, but misses. Cuin taunts the man, doubting that he'd know how to properly handle such a complicated weapon. Malkan laughs at the “cocky boy” and promises that his next bolt will hit its mark.
Glibglammer doesn't seem too concerned with the unseen servant. Then Tinuviel starts singing the Song of Forms and Nina cries out in horror and pain. She instantly transforms to her multi-tentacled Madness form which surprises everyone in the room. Tinu, Torrent and Cuin realize the aberration from the failed abduction of Erdan Menash in Gate Pass and they instantly link it to some sort of mind control. Cuin calls for a ceasefire with Malkan and declares this “snake madness” the enemy of Dassen. He says that this entity has somehow hexed the Queen and hopes that Malkan might help them defeat it.
Malkan believes the evidence in front of him. He had never been very fond of Nina Glibglammer and finally understands why he was feeling so uncomfortable in her presence. So he joins them n combat and together they slay the Trillith. In her dying breath, Madness declares that the end of this world is nigh, but her words are ignored as they are relieved to see the schemer gone for good.
In the light of these events, Malkan agrees to end this battle and capitulate. He is relieved to see that the war against “Gallo the Rebel” will come to an end soon, even if the Queen has yet to sign her agreement to the ceasefire and a possible peace treaty. Cuin apologizes for taunting Malkan and he praises his prowess and calm mind in the battle against Nina/Madness.
They return to a more than happy Lord. Gallo is as relieved as Malkan to hear that the whole battle and conflict was set up by a third party who wanted to re-ignite the Blood Wars. They even have come evidence that the Ragesians might have set this all up as the nascent Madness in Gate Pass was used by a Ragesian spy against their Councilman Menash. They muse about whether or not Kelkin Thravamvost might have already found out more about the case of the Book of the Eight Lands and why the Queen is no longer protected by the artifact.
Gallo then invites them to dinner and all of a sudden promotes them to knights of the Lands of Gallo and proud defenders of his realm. The group feels more than honored and thanks their new Lord. They swear to stay by Lord Gallo's side until this conflict has come to an end and hope that the Queen might be free of Madness' influence now.
A few days later, they receive word from Queen Steppengard. She agrees to an end of the hostilities and invites them all to a peace conference which shall be celebrated by a grand tourney and festival. In the light of the news of the ragesian conquest of an outpost in the Alydi Gap, the Queen has ordered her troops to stay in Gallo and defend the Gap, should the need arise. Still, Gallo is worried that this all might be a well-planned trap. He says that he trusts Malkan and his integrity and that he will travel alongside the Königsmarschall to Bresk. He still asks his knights to keep an eye open for any kind of nasty surprise and he orders Hertiage to send word to him immediately should something suspicious happen in his absence.
On their way to Bresk, the Gallo entourage meets up with the representatives of Dashgoban and Timor. Cuin'halar and Lady Timor use the time to inform each other about the course of events and the Lady seems glad that the newly knighted Cuin is doing well. She says that her cousin and proxy, Melanie Ursin, insisted to accompany her to Bresk when she heard that the Seaquenians would attend the conference as well. Speaking of Melanie, the young proxy is more than happy to see Tinuviel, her “hero”, again. She is obviously crushing on the handsome elf who risked his life to rescue her from the Queen's prison and doesn't want to leave his side which makes Tinu feel a bit uncomfortable. After all, he helped Melanie because it was their fault that she got imprisoned, so he was just doing what's right. Entering a committed relationship with her would be on a whole different level, though...
Note: Seems like Tinuviel does love his freedom. In her eyes, Melanie did risk her life for “him”, so she kind of wants to see that it was worth it. Plus she's still recovering from her interrogation by the Talons, so she's in desperate need of comfort. Lady Timor on the other hand is fascinated with Cuin, but she's much more realistic.
As my party not only defeated, but killed Madness, I had to somehow explain why the Queen would still be under her influence at the conference. I imagined a sort of psicrystal-like shard of madness' essence which she implanted in Steppengard and which contained a good portion of her essence. So they would have to beat that out of her as well to finally set her free of Madness.
The elves and Torrent ask Gallo about the upcoming battle as they plan to support the “rebel forces” to their best abilities. As Gallo is already sure that the Seaquenians are more than capable combatants, he offers them to be part of a mixed group of infantry, healers and war wizards of Timor. The overall command of this group falls to commander Hertiage whom they already know and trust. The party agrees to this proposal and get ready for battle.
During the first attack on Hertiage's group, Cuin and Tinuviel make sure to intercept the stronger foes like the sphinxes and Brakken as they try to keep them away from the “softer targets” (read: the wizards and the foot soldiers). Torrent goes into melee and heals the wounded soldiers while Hertiage directs their attacks.
Then the invisible sphinx strikes terror to their group. Half of the foot soldiers and Hertiage flee in fear. As they fear things going downhill, Cuin turns Tinu invisible and starts taunting the whole approaching second wave. They coordinate with the still standing wizards who use their fireballs to nuke the cavalry. Before they can trample down the wizards, Cuin calls for the soldiers to halt their horses while he sword-dances through several of the knights. Meanwhile, Tinuviel sneaks up on the trolls while Torrent tries to impose a threat by whirling her acidic axe around.
After several rounds of battle, they manage to save all of their soldiers and chase the enemies away. Hertiage returns, looking pretty embarassed ater his sudden flight. He thanks the party for keeping an eye on his troop and keeping everyone safe.
Note: I let my players play all the defenders while playing the Steppengard forces. While we all found the idea of mass combat pretty charming, it quickly became complicated and pretty time-consuming and we came to the conclusion that maybe D&D/PF are not the best systems to play big battles with. I promised my players to use the unit template for most of the upcoming mass combat battles to speed up combat. I did use the full amount of soldiers for Second General Signus' forces in adventure 5 though.
After a while, a messenger of Lord Gallo arrives on the field. He asks them to come to his Lord as he has an interesting, albeit dangerous proposal for them.
In his planning tent, Gallo explains the party that the battle is basically won. However, combat might not end until later this afternoon and might cost more lives on both sides. He assumes that Königsmarschall Malkan, the strategic mastermind of the Queen, might have orders to fight until the very end. Therefore, further combat could be prevented by eliminating (or, preferabley, capturing) the Marschall and forcing the Steppengard forces to yield and accept defeat. In addition, intel told him that Nina Glibglammer might be in the very same bunker where Malkan is currently operating. He knows, however, that this mission is pretty dangerous and possibly lethal. Gallo doesn't want his most trusted allies to risk too much, so he leaves the decision on whether or not to go on this mission up to them.
Note: They already had more than enough VP to win the battle. But after the mass combat, I wanted to offer them both a challenge and a satisfying end to the “civil war” as goodie.
Needless to say that they all immediately agreed. After all, they still have to settle some scores with Glibglammer and suicidal is their favorite middle name or so. They team up with some dwarven sappers who wait for them at the entrance of the tunnel which leads to the bunker. The dwarves explain their tactics of breaching the final wall with explosives and they warn them that the detonation will cause a lot of noise and will attract attention from the other Steppengard soldiers. Torrent offers them to dampen the noises with a well-timed silence spell.
For the ambush, both Tinuviel and Cuin'halar turn invisible. Then Torrent casts her silence spell and the sappers set off the detonation. They quickly climb the ladder they brought with them and see that a very dusty Marschall has barricaded himself behind his planning table while Nina took a dive and crouches below the table. Two guards guard their commander.
The two elves use the element of surprise to block the doors leading to the tent in hope to delay reinforcements. Malkan calls for help and speaks of a supposed ambush from below. Then Cuin summons an unseen servant and turns visible. He orders the servant to harass/poke Glibglammer, hoping that she might get horrified and flee from her hideout. Malkan does not seem that surprised and fires at the “assassin” Cuin with his crosssbow, but misses. Cuin taunts the man, doubting that he'd know how to properly handle such a complicated weapon. Malkan laughs at the “cocky boy” and promises that his next bolt will hit its mark.
Glibglammer doesn't seem too concerned with the unseen servant. Then Tinuviel starts singing the Song of Forms and Nina cries out in horror and pain. She instantly transforms to her multi-tentacled Madness form which surprises everyone in the room. Tinu, Torrent and Cuin realize the aberration from the failed abduction of Erdan Menash in Gate Pass and they instantly link it to some sort of mind control. Cuin calls for a ceasefire with Malkan and declares this “snake madness” the enemy of Dassen. He says that this entity has somehow hexed the Queen and hopes that Malkan might help them defeat it.
Malkan believes the evidence in front of him. He had never been very fond of Nina Glibglammer and finally understands why he was feeling so uncomfortable in her presence. So he joins them n combat and together they slay the Trillith. In her dying breath, Madness declares that the end of this world is nigh, but her words are ignored as they are relieved to see the schemer gone for good.
In the light of these events, Malkan agrees to end this battle and capitulate. He is relieved to see that the war against “Gallo the Rebel” will come to an end soon, even if the Queen has yet to sign her agreement to the ceasefire and a possible peace treaty. Cuin apologizes for taunting Malkan and he praises his prowess and calm mind in the battle against Nina/Madness.
They return to a more than happy Lord. Gallo is as relieved as Malkan to hear that the whole battle and conflict was set up by a third party who wanted to re-ignite the Blood Wars. They even have come evidence that the Ragesians might have set this all up as the nascent Madness in Gate Pass was used by a Ragesian spy against their Councilman Menash. They muse about whether or not Kelkin Thravamvost might have already found out more about the case of the Book of the Eight Lands and why the Queen is no longer protected by the artifact.
Gallo then invites them to dinner and all of a sudden promotes them to knights of the Lands of Gallo and proud defenders of his realm. The group feels more than honored and thanks their new Lord. They swear to stay by Lord Gallo's side until this conflict has come to an end and hope that the Queen might be free of Madness' influence now.
A few days later, they receive word from Queen Steppengard. She agrees to an end of the hostilities and invites them all to a peace conference which shall be celebrated by a grand tourney and festival. In the light of the news of the ragesian conquest of an outpost in the Alydi Gap, the Queen has ordered her troops to stay in Gallo and defend the Gap, should the need arise. Still, Gallo is worried that this all might be a well-planned trap. He says that he trusts Malkan and his integrity and that he will travel alongside the Königsmarschall to Bresk. He still asks his knights to keep an eye open for any kind of nasty surprise and he orders Hertiage to send word to him immediately should something suspicious happen in his absence.
On their way to Bresk, the Gallo entourage meets up with the representatives of Dashgoban and Timor. Cuin'halar and Lady Timor use the time to inform each other about the course of events and the Lady seems glad that the newly knighted Cuin is doing well. She says that her cousin and proxy, Melanie Ursin, insisted to accompany her to Bresk when she heard that the Seaquenians would attend the conference as well. Speaking of Melanie, the young proxy is more than happy to see Tinuviel, her “hero”, again. She is obviously crushing on the handsome elf who risked his life to rescue her from the Queen's prison and doesn't want to leave his side which makes Tinu feel a bit uncomfortable. After all, he helped Melanie because it was their fault that she got imprisoned, so he was just doing what's right. Entering a committed relationship with her would be on a whole different level, though...
Note: Seems like Tinuviel does love his freedom. In her eyes, Melanie did risk her life for “him”, so she kind of wants to see that it was worth it. Plus she's still recovering from her interrogation by the Talons, so she's in desperate need of comfort. Lady Timor on the other hand is fascinated with Cuin, but she's much more realistic.
As my party not only defeated, but killed Madness, I had to somehow explain why the Queen would still be under her influence at the conference. I imagined a sort of psicrystal-like shard of madness' essence which she implanted in Steppengard and which contained a good portion of her essence. So they would have to beat that out of her as well to finally set her free of Madness.
RangerWickett
Legend
I don't remember whether I ever planned for PCs fighting Madness before the finale, but good on your party.
The early death of Madness was really a chain of events. From what was written, Nina was intended to be with Malkan, but she turned incorporeal and was pretty amused when the fight broke out. She wanted to watch her enemies kill each other and slip away before anything could happen. Now it was said that Madness would try to flee in panic should someone sing the Song of Forms, as this would turn her corporeal and reveal her true, serpentine form.
However, fleeing was kind of tricky as Cuin and Tinu used their first actions to barricade all the exits while still invisible. No one was able to really percieve this action as the room was still all dusty from the detonation. The party originally simply intended to cut the Königsmarschall off from reinforcements, but ultimately ensured Madness' demise.
However, fleeing was kind of tricky as Cuin and Tinu used their first actions to barricade all the exits while still invisible. No one was able to really percieve this action as the room was still all dusty from the detonation. The party originally simply intended to cut the Königsmarschall off from reinforcements, but ultimately ensured Madness' demise.
The grand tournament
As they arrive in Bresk, they see a hastily constructed festival site which is still surrounded by masses of snow. Lord Gallo tells them about the traditional contests at the tournament and hints that he might be among the participants, should the opportunity arise. Tinuviel says that he never participated in a joust before and might want to give it a try.
Before they can delve deeper into Tinus riding skills, they arrive at the city wall where they are hailed and asked to parade through the streets to celebrate the end of the brief war. Gallo and his entourage are surprised by all this pomp, but they accept the honor and present themselves to the citizens of Bresk.
They reach Castle Steppengard and are greeted by the Queen and the other Lords and Ladies. The Queen looks pretty well again and speaks about the end of strife, claiming that brighter days will come to Dassen and that the country will hopefully soon come to an agreement on who the true enemies are. She praises Gallo's steadfastness when she and him had their disagreements and promises to listen to his counsel once again as Dassen has to stand united against their common enemies.
Gallo seems a bit surprised, but as the Ragesians who were previously standing in the background start retreating, he feels that the nightmare might be over at last. The Queen declares the coming days as holidays and announces a big tournament for the next day.
Lady Timor has a small chat with Lord Gallo and then declares that she has a distant cousin in Bresk who might have some rooms to spare in her residence. Lord Gallo, who already noticed that his new knights are on more than just good terms with his ally, agrees to her plan. After all, he would like to discuss the upcoming conference with both Timor and Dashgoban, so they might as well meet up at Timor's place.
Before they call it a day, Cuin and Tinu ask a favor of Lady Timor as Kelkin was clearly missing this afternoon. They would like to see the Book of the Eight lands just to be sure that the artifact is alright. Timor agrees and mentions that it was rather strange to have the royal war wizard miss such an important ceremony.
She leads them to the vault in the castle where the book is stored. She explains that basically every Dasseni has the right to take a look at the book as it is considered a common property. She also mentions that she is lucky that her proxy, Melanie, is her blood relative so she will be protected by the book's magic and cannot be magically charmed. Of course, Cuin uses this opportunity to tease both the Lady and Tinu that there are much more effective means to charm a beautiful woman like Melanie than magic.
They all are relieved to see that the book is still in its place. However, none of the guards who are currently guarding the vault has seen Kelkin for a couple of days. This seems rather odd, so the elves make sure to bring Lady Timor home safely and then head back to the castle to gather more information on the missing mage. They learn that Kelkin arrived just before the battle for Gallo's Fend started, took his Sphinx with him and went to the vault to examine the Book of the Eight Lands. However, no one has seen him return afterward. As they cannot find any evidence that something bad happened in the vault, they decide to delay further inquiries until after the tournament.
On their way back, Cuin'halar sneaks into the royal garden to pick a rose for Lady Timor to thank her for her help. Tinuviel feels inspired and asks some of the Castle's staff about Melanie Ursin's age. He then collects (or plunders) 22 roses as a gift for the proxy. “You'd always have to out-do me, eh?” Cuin said. Back in their residence, Tinuviel decides to restrain from further contact with Melanie though and asks a maid to bring her the flowers. Cuin mentions that his brother is really bad at deciding what he really wants and heads over to Lady Timor's quarters to give her the rose and spend some time with his Lady.
The next morning, Cuin and Tinuviel escort the Timor cousins to the tournament. Tinuviel tries to play distant with Melanie as he fears that Torrent might get jealous (which she doesn't, because why would she?). When they arrive at the festival ground, Cuin takes the opportunity to talk about Melanie. He learns that she's really in love with Tinuviel, even if Lady Timor tried to explain to her that this relationship would lead her nowhere. Tinuviel doesn't feel ready to be in a committed relationship though, so Cuin puts him aside and tells him to explain his feelings to Melanie, even if that would leave her heartbroken. Tinu feels uneasy at the thought of hurting another woman (he already did that with Katrina...), but he promises to be honest.
To put these thoughts aside, Tinuviel decides to partake in the jousting competition. He says that he has never done that before, but he'll give it a try and he's sure it wouldn't be that hard. Cuin'halar on the other hand, hears of the performance competition and instantly wins the first round of auditions with his famous magical sword dance. Tinuviel feels inspired again and also gets to the final round with an old elven song.
After the first round of both the performance contest and the jousting (which Tinuviel wins), they get all hungry and visit Randas' cart. For a good fortune they get the best food they've ever tasted at a food cart and ask the gnome why he doesn't open a fancy restaurant with all of his expertise. When they mention that, Randas gets all ranty and tells them that he is usually cooking for the Queen, but he got ditched for some “specialists” who shall prepare the food this evening. He's pretty pissed at such a disrespectful treatment and the party does his best to praise his food and calm him down. They do find this rather odd and suspect that someone in the Castle might be up to something sinister.
Unfortunately, Tinuviel loses his second jousting round to Grim Morgensen and claims to a concerned Melanie Ursin that he's really better at fighting on his own feet. When it comes to the performance competition, the gang is surprised to see that both Malkan and Lord Gallo are among the participants. They are pretty impressed by Gallo's humor and sarcasm and Malkan's inspiring words. Nonetheless, Cuin totally nails his Gabalian sword dance and wins the overall contest. Which means that he gets a parcel of land from Lady Dene and some serious side-eyes from Dorn as she whispers her thanks to the elf.
Note: Cuin really invested in a good portion of performance skill points just for fluff. I altered the Living Blade's properties a bit so that it would give him an increasing bonus on his sword dance. At this point he planned on maybe becoming a Lycean instructor on a new “school” of magic, so he did a lot of sword-magic-dance training.
After this competition, Silvia Cossala easily wins the joust against Grim Morgensen which concludes the bigger sports events for this day. The group decides to use their spare time to relax and maybe gather some more information about the replaced cooking staff.
They stumble across the wizard Zachar Fillip who asks them for alchemical fireworks or maybe some components he might use for his show as he'd like to entertain the children. He says that he was impressed by Cuin's magic show and thought that a wizard that magnificent must have some components to spare. Cuin explains to Zachar that his magic doesn't really rely on alchemical components, but he'll see what he can do. They still happen to have the tunderstones they looted from the Black Horse mercenaries, so they offer Zachar some of them. The wizard explains that he'd usually get these materials from his trusted alchemists, but they all seem to have their shops closed for the festival. He had hoped to find them here, but they seem to have gone missing.
This all sounds fairly familiar and Tinuviel muses that maybe someone might have hired alchemists to prepare the dinner for the conference. The others hope that Tinu's just joking (usually, Cuin is the one who's making all the prophetic comments) and proceed to the next tent.
There they are approached by a dwarf who wants to talk to them in secret. He tells them that he's a guard who's usually stationed at a watch post outside the city walls. He also mentions a secret entrance to the catacombs below Castle Steppengard and that he was recently reassigned to the vaults with no replacement. He has then been dismissed again from his post at the vault so he can take the day off to celebrate. However he's quite sure that no one has taken his place as guard for the Book and that leaves him pretty worried. What's even more troublesome is that he saw people smuggling crates and barrels into the castle through the secret tunnel (SECRET TUNNEL! I somehow always have to sing this. Damn you, Avatar!).
The dwarf then leaves as quickly as he came as he fears that someone of the royal guards might have seen them. This leaves the party more than worried. While they discuss what they should be doing next, they are approached by Lady Timor who says that she'll head to the conference soon. She suggests that the knights of Gallo might wish to meet up with their Lord and accompany him in his entourage.
Tinuviel uses this opportunity to ask Lady Timor whether she could carefully explain her cousin that he and Melanie are not meant to be. Timor reluctantly agrees as she already knew that both of them were not really on even ground. Then they tell Timor what they have learned from their various encounters at the festival. They are worried that something might be afoul and they say that they have to investigate, even if that means that they cannot accompany Lord Gallo. Cuin asks Lady Timor to stay safe and to take caution as there might be an assassination attempt or some poisoned food. She thanks them for their warning and promises to warn Lord Gallo as well.
As they arrive in Bresk, they see a hastily constructed festival site which is still surrounded by masses of snow. Lord Gallo tells them about the traditional contests at the tournament and hints that he might be among the participants, should the opportunity arise. Tinuviel says that he never participated in a joust before and might want to give it a try.
Before they can delve deeper into Tinus riding skills, they arrive at the city wall where they are hailed and asked to parade through the streets to celebrate the end of the brief war. Gallo and his entourage are surprised by all this pomp, but they accept the honor and present themselves to the citizens of Bresk.
They reach Castle Steppengard and are greeted by the Queen and the other Lords and Ladies. The Queen looks pretty well again and speaks about the end of strife, claiming that brighter days will come to Dassen and that the country will hopefully soon come to an agreement on who the true enemies are. She praises Gallo's steadfastness when she and him had their disagreements and promises to listen to his counsel once again as Dassen has to stand united against their common enemies.
Gallo seems a bit surprised, but as the Ragesians who were previously standing in the background start retreating, he feels that the nightmare might be over at last. The Queen declares the coming days as holidays and announces a big tournament for the next day.
Lady Timor has a small chat with Lord Gallo and then declares that she has a distant cousin in Bresk who might have some rooms to spare in her residence. Lord Gallo, who already noticed that his new knights are on more than just good terms with his ally, agrees to her plan. After all, he would like to discuss the upcoming conference with both Timor and Dashgoban, so they might as well meet up at Timor's place.
Before they call it a day, Cuin and Tinu ask a favor of Lady Timor as Kelkin was clearly missing this afternoon. They would like to see the Book of the Eight lands just to be sure that the artifact is alright. Timor agrees and mentions that it was rather strange to have the royal war wizard miss such an important ceremony.
She leads them to the vault in the castle where the book is stored. She explains that basically every Dasseni has the right to take a look at the book as it is considered a common property. She also mentions that she is lucky that her proxy, Melanie, is her blood relative so she will be protected by the book's magic and cannot be magically charmed. Of course, Cuin uses this opportunity to tease both the Lady and Tinu that there are much more effective means to charm a beautiful woman like Melanie than magic.
They all are relieved to see that the book is still in its place. However, none of the guards who are currently guarding the vault has seen Kelkin for a couple of days. This seems rather odd, so the elves make sure to bring Lady Timor home safely and then head back to the castle to gather more information on the missing mage. They learn that Kelkin arrived just before the battle for Gallo's Fend started, took his Sphinx with him and went to the vault to examine the Book of the Eight Lands. However, no one has seen him return afterward. As they cannot find any evidence that something bad happened in the vault, they decide to delay further inquiries until after the tournament.
On their way back, Cuin'halar sneaks into the royal garden to pick a rose for Lady Timor to thank her for her help. Tinuviel feels inspired and asks some of the Castle's staff about Melanie Ursin's age. He then collects (or plunders) 22 roses as a gift for the proxy. “You'd always have to out-do me, eh?” Cuin said. Back in their residence, Tinuviel decides to restrain from further contact with Melanie though and asks a maid to bring her the flowers. Cuin mentions that his brother is really bad at deciding what he really wants and heads over to Lady Timor's quarters to give her the rose and spend some time with his Lady.
The next morning, Cuin and Tinuviel escort the Timor cousins to the tournament. Tinuviel tries to play distant with Melanie as he fears that Torrent might get jealous (which she doesn't, because why would she?). When they arrive at the festival ground, Cuin takes the opportunity to talk about Melanie. He learns that she's really in love with Tinuviel, even if Lady Timor tried to explain to her that this relationship would lead her nowhere. Tinuviel doesn't feel ready to be in a committed relationship though, so Cuin puts him aside and tells him to explain his feelings to Melanie, even if that would leave her heartbroken. Tinu feels uneasy at the thought of hurting another woman (he already did that with Katrina...), but he promises to be honest.
To put these thoughts aside, Tinuviel decides to partake in the jousting competition. He says that he has never done that before, but he'll give it a try and he's sure it wouldn't be that hard. Cuin'halar on the other hand, hears of the performance competition and instantly wins the first round of auditions with his famous magical sword dance. Tinuviel feels inspired again and also gets to the final round with an old elven song.
After the first round of both the performance contest and the jousting (which Tinuviel wins), they get all hungry and visit Randas' cart. For a good fortune they get the best food they've ever tasted at a food cart and ask the gnome why he doesn't open a fancy restaurant with all of his expertise. When they mention that, Randas gets all ranty and tells them that he is usually cooking for the Queen, but he got ditched for some “specialists” who shall prepare the food this evening. He's pretty pissed at such a disrespectful treatment and the party does his best to praise his food and calm him down. They do find this rather odd and suspect that someone in the Castle might be up to something sinister.
Unfortunately, Tinuviel loses his second jousting round to Grim Morgensen and claims to a concerned Melanie Ursin that he's really better at fighting on his own feet. When it comes to the performance competition, the gang is surprised to see that both Malkan and Lord Gallo are among the participants. They are pretty impressed by Gallo's humor and sarcasm and Malkan's inspiring words. Nonetheless, Cuin totally nails his Gabalian sword dance and wins the overall contest. Which means that he gets a parcel of land from Lady Dene and some serious side-eyes from Dorn as she whispers her thanks to the elf.
Note: Cuin really invested in a good portion of performance skill points just for fluff. I altered the Living Blade's properties a bit so that it would give him an increasing bonus on his sword dance. At this point he planned on maybe becoming a Lycean instructor on a new “school” of magic, so he did a lot of sword-magic-dance training.
After this competition, Silvia Cossala easily wins the joust against Grim Morgensen which concludes the bigger sports events for this day. The group decides to use their spare time to relax and maybe gather some more information about the replaced cooking staff.
They stumble across the wizard Zachar Fillip who asks them for alchemical fireworks or maybe some components he might use for his show as he'd like to entertain the children. He says that he was impressed by Cuin's magic show and thought that a wizard that magnificent must have some components to spare. Cuin explains to Zachar that his magic doesn't really rely on alchemical components, but he'll see what he can do. They still happen to have the tunderstones they looted from the Black Horse mercenaries, so they offer Zachar some of them. The wizard explains that he'd usually get these materials from his trusted alchemists, but they all seem to have their shops closed for the festival. He had hoped to find them here, but they seem to have gone missing.
This all sounds fairly familiar and Tinuviel muses that maybe someone might have hired alchemists to prepare the dinner for the conference. The others hope that Tinu's just joking (usually, Cuin is the one who's making all the prophetic comments) and proceed to the next tent.
There they are approached by a dwarf who wants to talk to them in secret. He tells them that he's a guard who's usually stationed at a watch post outside the city walls. He also mentions a secret entrance to the catacombs below Castle Steppengard and that he was recently reassigned to the vaults with no replacement. He has then been dismissed again from his post at the vault so he can take the day off to celebrate. However he's quite sure that no one has taken his place as guard for the Book and that leaves him pretty worried. What's even more troublesome is that he saw people smuggling crates and barrels into the castle through the secret tunnel (SECRET TUNNEL! I somehow always have to sing this. Damn you, Avatar!).
The dwarf then leaves as quickly as he came as he fears that someone of the royal guards might have seen them. This leaves the party more than worried. While they discuss what they should be doing next, they are approached by Lady Timor who says that she'll head to the conference soon. She suggests that the knights of Gallo might wish to meet up with their Lord and accompany him in his entourage.
Tinuviel uses this opportunity to ask Lady Timor whether she could carefully explain her cousin that he and Melanie are not meant to be. Timor reluctantly agrees as she already knew that both of them were not really on even ground. Then they tell Timor what they have learned from their various encounters at the festival. They are worried that something might be afoul and they say that they have to investigate, even if that means that they cannot accompany Lord Gallo. Cuin asks Lady Timor to stay safe and to take caution as there might be an assassination attempt or some poisoned food. She thanks them for their warning and promises to warn Lord Gallo as well.
The Queen's crazy dinner
The party travels to the abandoned watchpost and remember that they've already seen this place once: During their flight from Bresk. They find the hidden entrance to the aqueducts near a graveyard and enter the tunnel. They immediately notice that something heavy must have been dragged through recently and decide to dig a little deeper.
When they reach the city again, they are attacked by the two tragedies. One of them drains a good portion of Tinuviel's life force. Fortunately, Torrent can heal him up after they banish the malevolent creatures.
Note: I really like the fluff of the Tragedies. My players managed to avoid their first tragedy in the Fire Forest as they saved the Seela. So this was the first time they encountered them and they scared the hell out of Tinu's player.
They follow the tunnel until they reach the room with the frozen Zombies and Torrent starts destroying them with holy energy. This causes the Zombies to moan loudly which leads to Jutras the Mohrg jumping down from the torture chamber. Cuin'halar remembers the story of demon worshipping criminal and also his fear of chickens. He does his best to impersonate a chicken by using an illusion and some cluck-acting and is more than amused to see Jutras flee in terror.
When they try to attack him, the Mohrg comes back to his senses and promises to feed their souls to his demonic master. He manages to wound Cuin, but is ultimately slain by the group's combined effort.
Note: The Strength check to lift the grate would have been pretty hard for them, so I just let Jutras do the thing for them. This made the fight with the Zombies a bit harder than intended, but they had plenty of Torrent's channels left, so the frozen Zombies were no real threat.
Tinuviel volunteers to climb up the shaft first. He finds and disables the alarm and then helps his fellow friends to enter the torture chamber. The find recently used torture tools, but fortunately no victim. They surprise inquisitor Torrax and ambassador Serrimus in the guard post as they are about to prepare a sending spell. With them are some undead knights and a flayer devil.
They split up as Cuin heads directly to the devil while Tinuviel charges the inquisitor with whom he's still got scores to settle. Which is on a second thought not the best idea as this leaves Torrax enough space to safely heal his devil companion and / or interrupt Cuin's more dangerous spells. Torrent harasses Serrimus enough that the ambassador surrenders and pleads for his life. Cuin decides to join up with Tinuviel to cut down the Inquisitor and finally down the devil as well. Meanwhile, Torrent uses her channels to keep the undead knight at bay. When they finally get to fight the undead, the elves are a bit surprised to see commander Thurask among them. He's no match for them though.
Note: I thought the Inquisitor battle needed a bit more of a challenge as my players were pretty strong at this point and would have easily overpowered Torrax and his minions. So I added a devil minion which was sent by Guthwulf to check up on Torrax' progress. Serrimus didn't pose much of a threat anyway.
The group accepts Serrimus' surrender. Cuin uses the opportunity to intimidate the man to write a confession about their involvement in the assassination of the Queen's children. He also finds the contents of the Sending which includes the information that the Elfroad via Innotendar is open again. They also conclude that Guthwulf wanted Torrax to keep an eye open for a sorceress called Katrina. And they finally find the recipe for the Red Madness poison. When questioned about the poison, Serrimus explains that Torrax wanted to put it into the food for the banquet.
Now that they got this information, they know that time is pressing. Still they take the time to free the chef, Randas, from the prison and tell him to flee immediately. Then they hurry to the banquet hall where the dinner is about to begin.
They inform the guards outside of the hall that they are the missing knights of Lord Gallo and that they have to get in immediately as the lives of the Queen and her Lords and Ladies depend on it. Then they kind of kick in the door and order everyone to stop eating immediately as the food is most certainly poisoned.
Everyone is shocked at this revelation. Everyone, except Queen Steppengard who is laughing manically as she explains that justice will be finally served and that everyone who killed her family will today ultimately meet his or her end. She grabs her flail and starts attacking a very surprised Lord Gallo who does his best to take cover. The other nobles (except Lady Timor, Lord Gallo and Melanie Ursin) suddenly all show symptoms of the Red Madness and chaos breaks out.
Cuin senses that this situation is pretty dire, so he starts sword-dancing towards Queen Steppengard while trying to knock out as many affected nobles as possible. Tinuviel rallies the unaffected guards and explains that they have all been poisoned by the Ragesians and that they all should do their best to wrestle the nobles down and avoid casualties. After a rather short fight, they manage to subdue all of them and to knock out the mad Queen.
Note: This was actually pretty easy as Nina/Madness was missing from the fight. Plus Tinu got the guards to help them by presenting the evidence that the Rags were behind this plot.
To stop this madness, Tinuviel asks Lady Timor to accompany him to the vault to check up on the Book once more. There they find the rope tricked book dangling in an extradimensional space. They put the book back to its place and Tinuviel finds the situation a bit funny since he and Cuin discussed the effects of extradimensional spaces on the book's magic days ago.
Meanwhile, Torrent and Cuin'halar do their best to release the unconscious Queen of her madness. They manage to push out a black sliver made of maddening energy which looks eerily familiar to them.
Just when Lady Timor and Tinuviel return from the vault and all the Lords and Ladies regain their sanity, the Queen regains consciousness. She realizes what she has done and is instantly overwhelmed with grief and regret. She declares that she is unfit to rule Dassen as she almost sparked another civil war and put her own bloodline above the fate of her nation. She also wasn't able to see the change in Nina Glibglammer and is embarrassed to having been tricked this easily.
She's about to throw her crown away when Cuin intervenes and tells her that right now, Dassen needs its Queen more than ever. They all were tricked by the Ragesians and a good monarch would never surrender after just one defeat. He says he understood the Queen's need for justice when he heard about the assassination of her children, but now all of Dassen needs justice and she was the one who unified Dassen, so she'd better keep the responsibility that was given to her.
Gallo agrees with Cuin'halar. He adds that only a unified Dassen could hope to stand up against the Ragesians and that he also believes that Seaquen and its brave citizens should be allies of Dassen, standing together like siblings instead of rivals. Queen Talia Steppengard sees reason in their pleas and thanks them both for their trust. She insists, however, that the other Lords and Ladies of the Eight Lands have to express their confidence in her reign as well or she'd resign. In the light of these events, they all vote for a continuation of Steppengard as monarch of Dassen.
Note: Again, a very powerful and inspiring speech from Cuin'halar. He loves talking reason into people. I am fortunate that I often don't have to ask for diplomacy rolls and simply let him (or both of them) talk as they are in most cases exceeding expectations.
Steppengard then proposes an emergency meeting of the Council. Fortunately, all members are already present (and healed up!), so they only have to ask for someone who'd take the role of ambassador of Seaquen. Both Cuin and Tinuviel have to decline the invitation as they are not really Seaquenians, but rather citizens of Gate Pass. Torrent is Dasseni, but no diplomat. So Tinuviel does what Tinuviel can do best: He performs an emergency teleport to Gallo's Fend to get Balan into action.
While the Council discusses the future of Dassen, the party tries to find out what in the nine hells happened to Kelkin Thravamvost. They head back into the dungeons and find a protesting, imprisoned Nashara in another wing of the prison. They ask her about Kelkin and all of a sudden she gets enraged and tells them that the stupid dwarf got what he deserved. It turns out that Nashara and Kelkin found out that the Queen was no longer protected by the books magic, but they got surprised by Torrax on their way out of the vault. Kelkin and his “friend” started fighting the Inquisitor and Thurask immediately. Torrax then dispeled the seeming “buff spell” on Nashara which turned out to be the long time charm. When Nashara realized what happened she turned on the wizard and tore him to pieces before he stood any chance. She then killed Thurask, but was subdued and imprisoned by Torrax.
Note: Someone *had* to die in the dungeon. I admit it, this was a kind of cheap way out of a tricky situation. Had Kelkin succeeded, then the whole adventure could have ended without the final confrontation. And I wanted them to challenge Steppengard and to put their new friends and allies at risk.
Proud Nashara demands to be released immediately and to be brought to the Lyceum where Kelkin promised to send her someday. The party agrees to get her out of prison if she swears to stay peaceful. They offer to accompany her to the Lyceum school as they are Lyceans themselves and the sphinx agrees.
The next morning, Tinuviel takes his silver plate and the inquisitor's mask and hands them over to Lady Timor. With a stern expression he offers her to bring her the heart of that bastard as well should she prefer a more bloody token, but she fortunately declines. Nonetheless, she thanks him for finishing this business. She also tells him that she cleared up the relationship between Tinu and her cousin, but he'd better say goodbye to her in a courtly manner.
At noon, the Queen officially announces that Dassen will make a stand against the Ragesians and that they will send ambassadors to Seaquen soon to discuss further actions within a possible alliance. Ragesia is officially condemned as the driving force behind the assassination of the Queen's children and ambassador Serrimus is to be subjected to further interrogations. The troupe from Seaquen is praised as heroes and defenders of Dassen and each of the heroes recieves the Dasseni Star of Courage.
Melanie Ursin and Lady Timor say goodbye to their personal heroes. Cuin'halar promises to return to his dear friend to show her the beautiful, regrowing Forest of Innotendar should the opportunity arise while a pretty sad, but nonetheless prepared Melanie declares that even if Tinuviel doesn't return her feelings, she'll love him forever. Ouch, you did it again.
Then Tinuviel, Cuin'halar, Balan, Torrent and Nashara say goodbye to Bresk and head back to the Lyceum in Seaquen.
The party travels to the abandoned watchpost and remember that they've already seen this place once: During their flight from Bresk. They find the hidden entrance to the aqueducts near a graveyard and enter the tunnel. They immediately notice that something heavy must have been dragged through recently and decide to dig a little deeper.
When they reach the city again, they are attacked by the two tragedies. One of them drains a good portion of Tinuviel's life force. Fortunately, Torrent can heal him up after they banish the malevolent creatures.
Note: I really like the fluff of the Tragedies. My players managed to avoid their first tragedy in the Fire Forest as they saved the Seela. So this was the first time they encountered them and they scared the hell out of Tinu's player.
They follow the tunnel until they reach the room with the frozen Zombies and Torrent starts destroying them with holy energy. This causes the Zombies to moan loudly which leads to Jutras the Mohrg jumping down from the torture chamber. Cuin'halar remembers the story of demon worshipping criminal and also his fear of chickens. He does his best to impersonate a chicken by using an illusion and some cluck-acting and is more than amused to see Jutras flee in terror.
When they try to attack him, the Mohrg comes back to his senses and promises to feed their souls to his demonic master. He manages to wound Cuin, but is ultimately slain by the group's combined effort.
Note: The Strength check to lift the grate would have been pretty hard for them, so I just let Jutras do the thing for them. This made the fight with the Zombies a bit harder than intended, but they had plenty of Torrent's channels left, so the frozen Zombies were no real threat.
Tinuviel volunteers to climb up the shaft first. He finds and disables the alarm and then helps his fellow friends to enter the torture chamber. The find recently used torture tools, but fortunately no victim. They surprise inquisitor Torrax and ambassador Serrimus in the guard post as they are about to prepare a sending spell. With them are some undead knights and a flayer devil.
They split up as Cuin heads directly to the devil while Tinuviel charges the inquisitor with whom he's still got scores to settle. Which is on a second thought not the best idea as this leaves Torrax enough space to safely heal his devil companion and / or interrupt Cuin's more dangerous spells. Torrent harasses Serrimus enough that the ambassador surrenders and pleads for his life. Cuin decides to join up with Tinuviel to cut down the Inquisitor and finally down the devil as well. Meanwhile, Torrent uses her channels to keep the undead knight at bay. When they finally get to fight the undead, the elves are a bit surprised to see commander Thurask among them. He's no match for them though.
Note: I thought the Inquisitor battle needed a bit more of a challenge as my players were pretty strong at this point and would have easily overpowered Torrax and his minions. So I added a devil minion which was sent by Guthwulf to check up on Torrax' progress. Serrimus didn't pose much of a threat anyway.
The group accepts Serrimus' surrender. Cuin uses the opportunity to intimidate the man to write a confession about their involvement in the assassination of the Queen's children. He also finds the contents of the Sending which includes the information that the Elfroad via Innotendar is open again. They also conclude that Guthwulf wanted Torrax to keep an eye open for a sorceress called Katrina. And they finally find the recipe for the Red Madness poison. When questioned about the poison, Serrimus explains that Torrax wanted to put it into the food for the banquet.
Now that they got this information, they know that time is pressing. Still they take the time to free the chef, Randas, from the prison and tell him to flee immediately. Then they hurry to the banquet hall where the dinner is about to begin.
They inform the guards outside of the hall that they are the missing knights of Lord Gallo and that they have to get in immediately as the lives of the Queen and her Lords and Ladies depend on it. Then they kind of kick in the door and order everyone to stop eating immediately as the food is most certainly poisoned.
Everyone is shocked at this revelation. Everyone, except Queen Steppengard who is laughing manically as she explains that justice will be finally served and that everyone who killed her family will today ultimately meet his or her end. She grabs her flail and starts attacking a very surprised Lord Gallo who does his best to take cover. The other nobles (except Lady Timor, Lord Gallo and Melanie Ursin) suddenly all show symptoms of the Red Madness and chaos breaks out.
Cuin senses that this situation is pretty dire, so he starts sword-dancing towards Queen Steppengard while trying to knock out as many affected nobles as possible. Tinuviel rallies the unaffected guards and explains that they have all been poisoned by the Ragesians and that they all should do their best to wrestle the nobles down and avoid casualties. After a rather short fight, they manage to subdue all of them and to knock out the mad Queen.
Note: This was actually pretty easy as Nina/Madness was missing from the fight. Plus Tinu got the guards to help them by presenting the evidence that the Rags were behind this plot.
To stop this madness, Tinuviel asks Lady Timor to accompany him to the vault to check up on the Book once more. There they find the rope tricked book dangling in an extradimensional space. They put the book back to its place and Tinuviel finds the situation a bit funny since he and Cuin discussed the effects of extradimensional spaces on the book's magic days ago.
Meanwhile, Torrent and Cuin'halar do their best to release the unconscious Queen of her madness. They manage to push out a black sliver made of maddening energy which looks eerily familiar to them.
Just when Lady Timor and Tinuviel return from the vault and all the Lords and Ladies regain their sanity, the Queen regains consciousness. She realizes what she has done and is instantly overwhelmed with grief and regret. She declares that she is unfit to rule Dassen as she almost sparked another civil war and put her own bloodline above the fate of her nation. She also wasn't able to see the change in Nina Glibglammer and is embarrassed to having been tricked this easily.
She's about to throw her crown away when Cuin intervenes and tells her that right now, Dassen needs its Queen more than ever. They all were tricked by the Ragesians and a good monarch would never surrender after just one defeat. He says he understood the Queen's need for justice when he heard about the assassination of her children, but now all of Dassen needs justice and she was the one who unified Dassen, so she'd better keep the responsibility that was given to her.
Gallo agrees with Cuin'halar. He adds that only a unified Dassen could hope to stand up against the Ragesians and that he also believes that Seaquen and its brave citizens should be allies of Dassen, standing together like siblings instead of rivals. Queen Talia Steppengard sees reason in their pleas and thanks them both for their trust. She insists, however, that the other Lords and Ladies of the Eight Lands have to express their confidence in her reign as well or she'd resign. In the light of these events, they all vote for a continuation of Steppengard as monarch of Dassen.
Note: Again, a very powerful and inspiring speech from Cuin'halar. He loves talking reason into people. I am fortunate that I often don't have to ask for diplomacy rolls and simply let him (or both of them) talk as they are in most cases exceeding expectations.
Steppengard then proposes an emergency meeting of the Council. Fortunately, all members are already present (and healed up!), so they only have to ask for someone who'd take the role of ambassador of Seaquen. Both Cuin and Tinuviel have to decline the invitation as they are not really Seaquenians, but rather citizens of Gate Pass. Torrent is Dasseni, but no diplomat. So Tinuviel does what Tinuviel can do best: He performs an emergency teleport to Gallo's Fend to get Balan into action.
While the Council discusses the future of Dassen, the party tries to find out what in the nine hells happened to Kelkin Thravamvost. They head back into the dungeons and find a protesting, imprisoned Nashara in another wing of the prison. They ask her about Kelkin and all of a sudden she gets enraged and tells them that the stupid dwarf got what he deserved. It turns out that Nashara and Kelkin found out that the Queen was no longer protected by the books magic, but they got surprised by Torrax on their way out of the vault. Kelkin and his “friend” started fighting the Inquisitor and Thurask immediately. Torrax then dispeled the seeming “buff spell” on Nashara which turned out to be the long time charm. When Nashara realized what happened she turned on the wizard and tore him to pieces before he stood any chance. She then killed Thurask, but was subdued and imprisoned by Torrax.
Note: Someone *had* to die in the dungeon. I admit it, this was a kind of cheap way out of a tricky situation. Had Kelkin succeeded, then the whole adventure could have ended without the final confrontation. And I wanted them to challenge Steppengard and to put their new friends and allies at risk.
Proud Nashara demands to be released immediately and to be brought to the Lyceum where Kelkin promised to send her someday. The party agrees to get her out of prison if she swears to stay peaceful. They offer to accompany her to the Lyceum school as they are Lyceans themselves and the sphinx agrees.
The next morning, Tinuviel takes his silver plate and the inquisitor's mask and hands them over to Lady Timor. With a stern expression he offers her to bring her the heart of that bastard as well should she prefer a more bloody token, but she fortunately declines. Nonetheless, she thanks him for finishing this business. She also tells him that she cleared up the relationship between Tinu and her cousin, but he'd better say goodbye to her in a courtly manner.
At noon, the Queen officially announces that Dassen will make a stand against the Ragesians and that they will send ambassadors to Seaquen soon to discuss further actions within a possible alliance. Ragesia is officially condemned as the driving force behind the assassination of the Queen's children and ambassador Serrimus is to be subjected to further interrogations. The troupe from Seaquen is praised as heroes and defenders of Dassen and each of the heroes recieves the Dasseni Star of Courage.
Melanie Ursin and Lady Timor say goodbye to their personal heroes. Cuin'halar promises to return to his dear friend to show her the beautiful, regrowing Forest of Innotendar should the opportunity arise while a pretty sad, but nonetheless prepared Melanie declares that even if Tinuviel doesn't return her feelings, she'll love him forever. Ouch, you did it again.
Then Tinuviel, Cuin'halar, Balan, Torrent and Nashara say goodbye to Bresk and head back to the Lyceum in Seaquen.
Intermezzo, Pt. 1
Back in Seaquen, the party immediately pays headmastress Simeonne a visit. They report on what happened in Dassen and Simeonne is surprised to hear that a Trillith seemed to be working with or for the Ragesians. She's happy to hear about the rather peaceful solution to the almost-ignited third civil war. Also, having the combined armies of Steppengard and Gallo at the Alydi Gap will help fend off Revulus' army so they'd have more time to do proper planning and information gathering.
Simeonne calls the party her most successful agents and mentions that she sent two other adventuring parties out to get more information about the Burning Sky and possible countermeasures against it. One of these groups was sent to Ostalin to make peaceful contact with the Monastery of the Two Winds, a mystic place her advisor Lee Sidoneth often spoke about before his untimely demise. The other group is on a mission to Sindaire to examine what might be the source of the Burning Sky from a closer distance. She explains that she's in contact with both groups via sending, but she's also a bit concerned about the fact that Tashalanos' expedition sounded a bit disinterested in their mission lately.
Note: I kind of wanted to hint at both of the next adventures. Especially because Tinuviel's player (being an avid teleporter) had a particular interest in the Burning Sky phenomenon. At that point I thought it would be very well possible that they'd want to go to Sindaire first and I would have converted both adventures a bit if they really wanted to explore Korstull before meeting Pilus.
Still it is yet too early to come to any conclusion and if there's work to be done for her personal heroes, then she'll send word to them. Now is the time for celebration and rest and they have all earned a bit of a break.
When they get back to the common room of the Lyceum, they are all greeted by Kate, the friendly neighborhood bard. She says that she did some research about the Taranesti (as Cuin asked her to) and found some ancient texts about a pyramid structure in the swamps between Seaquen and Vidor. Cuin remembers pyramids to be older versions of Taranesti graves which are reserved for great heroes of their people, so he's totally keen on going there.
Tinuviel hasn't seen Crystin for quite a while now, so he visits her room to check up if everything's alright. The young woman is happy to see her friend alive and kicking and she's even happier to hear that Jinis, Jineer's father was rescued from prison by the party.
She tells Tinu that she's started to make notes on her visions and that she had some recently:
She saw a wall of fire raining on a dark castle and a fire storm raging in a world made of crystal.
She saw a person with a face split in black and white and a small, ethereal, blue dragon coiling around it. She felt that the person was really serene, but starting to grow weaker.
She heard the phrase “No one wind may destroy the torch's flames, but a second wind could be its ruin”
She saw Guthwulf climbing a mountain, trying to grasp something above him only to come falling down laughing.
She saw a young woman being attacked by a fiery ray which she dissolved with antimagic.
Note: Hints of things to come: The Burning Sky / Rain of Fire over Korstull, Balance, the divination for the second wind, Guthwulf's downfall and Leska's discovery of her powers.
Crystin is also keen on going on an adventure with her friends again, so she agrees to visit the Taranesti Pyramid with Kate and the rest.
They travel to Vidor the next day and hear that people are missing. Also, Trolls were spotted recently and some people believe that the missing townspeople were eaten by the Trolls. The party decides to proceed with caution. They search the swamp for the pyramid and find a stony platform which might be a pyramid's tip after some hours.
They head to the structure and find a gap through which they can reach the inside of the pyramid. They are, however, surprised to hear chanting coming from down there. They sneak down a bit and see a huge Troll who seems to be performing a crude ceremony. He's holding a human body over his head and tries to weave some magic to connect with the person's soul.
Cuin and Tinu decide that they cannot simply let that happen, so they toss all caution aside and jump down on the Troll. Meanwhile, Kate starts an inspirational performance and Crystin throws psionic shards. This troll doesn't like being cut however and deals a massive blow to Cuin. Torrent runs down the stairs to heal him up while Tinuviel tries to keep the brute in check. Together they manage to finally kill the Troll.
They are relieved to see that the woman (which the troll tossed aside when he got attacked) is still breathing. They find some other dead (and partially eaten) bodies near the ritual's place which have been lying there for quite a while.
Cuin takes some time to study the paintings and frescoes at the tomb's walls. He sees scenes from the life of the person who might be entombed here: A Taranesti woman who exchanged magic or some sort of energy with a golden dragon. She got great powers in the process and traveled the world and visited the Tree of Innotendar. When she was about to die, she performed a ritual to send back her magic to the dragon. The last picture shows elves who erect the pyramid and place her body inside.
They continue to search the pyramid and find a sarcophagus and an inscription which says “Amalthea, champion of Syana, first of the Syllith”. They come to the conclusion that the Troll saw the pictures of this Syllith and tried to emulate the rituals of the Syllith. He just happened to suck out the souls of humans instead.
Cuin realizes that his mother must have done the very same ritual when she became a Syllith. He feels honored to have found such a place and uses some time to get in tune with this place. Something here feels eerily familiar...
After that, they take the Vidorian woman (whom they heal up), the dead troll and the human remains and leave the pyramid. They seal off the gap with a large stone to prevent further desecration. Then they head back to Vidor and bring the woman and the dead back to their people.
Note: So this was “Kate's little sidequest”. I used “Haddin's sidequest” from the 4e version as inspiration, but, as mentioned before, didn't want to include a troll-infested Taranesti city. It didn't make too much sense for me. But I liked the general idea of some Taranesti presence outside of Ycengled. So I invented the story of Amalthea, the first Syllith (yeah, a total rip-off of Lady Amalthea) who exchanged part of her soul with Syana. Syana's soul magic would become a central theme later and I wanted to make sure my players knew what being a Syllith (like Cuin's mother) was all about.
Back in Seaquen, the party immediately pays headmastress Simeonne a visit. They report on what happened in Dassen and Simeonne is surprised to hear that a Trillith seemed to be working with or for the Ragesians. She's happy to hear about the rather peaceful solution to the almost-ignited third civil war. Also, having the combined armies of Steppengard and Gallo at the Alydi Gap will help fend off Revulus' army so they'd have more time to do proper planning and information gathering.
Simeonne calls the party her most successful agents and mentions that she sent two other adventuring parties out to get more information about the Burning Sky and possible countermeasures against it. One of these groups was sent to Ostalin to make peaceful contact with the Monastery of the Two Winds, a mystic place her advisor Lee Sidoneth often spoke about before his untimely demise. The other group is on a mission to Sindaire to examine what might be the source of the Burning Sky from a closer distance. She explains that she's in contact with both groups via sending, but she's also a bit concerned about the fact that Tashalanos' expedition sounded a bit disinterested in their mission lately.
Note: I kind of wanted to hint at both of the next adventures. Especially because Tinuviel's player (being an avid teleporter) had a particular interest in the Burning Sky phenomenon. At that point I thought it would be very well possible that they'd want to go to Sindaire first and I would have converted both adventures a bit if they really wanted to explore Korstull before meeting Pilus.
Still it is yet too early to come to any conclusion and if there's work to be done for her personal heroes, then she'll send word to them. Now is the time for celebration and rest and they have all earned a bit of a break.
When they get back to the common room of the Lyceum, they are all greeted by Kate, the friendly neighborhood bard. She says that she did some research about the Taranesti (as Cuin asked her to) and found some ancient texts about a pyramid structure in the swamps between Seaquen and Vidor. Cuin remembers pyramids to be older versions of Taranesti graves which are reserved for great heroes of their people, so he's totally keen on going there.
Tinuviel hasn't seen Crystin for quite a while now, so he visits her room to check up if everything's alright. The young woman is happy to see her friend alive and kicking and she's even happier to hear that Jinis, Jineer's father was rescued from prison by the party.
She tells Tinu that she's started to make notes on her visions and that she had some recently:
She saw a wall of fire raining on a dark castle and a fire storm raging in a world made of crystal.
She saw a person with a face split in black and white and a small, ethereal, blue dragon coiling around it. She felt that the person was really serene, but starting to grow weaker.
She heard the phrase “No one wind may destroy the torch's flames, but a second wind could be its ruin”
She saw Guthwulf climbing a mountain, trying to grasp something above him only to come falling down laughing.
She saw a young woman being attacked by a fiery ray which she dissolved with antimagic.
Note: Hints of things to come: The Burning Sky / Rain of Fire over Korstull, Balance, the divination for the second wind, Guthwulf's downfall and Leska's discovery of her powers.
Crystin is also keen on going on an adventure with her friends again, so she agrees to visit the Taranesti Pyramid with Kate and the rest.
They travel to Vidor the next day and hear that people are missing. Also, Trolls were spotted recently and some people believe that the missing townspeople were eaten by the Trolls. The party decides to proceed with caution. They search the swamp for the pyramid and find a stony platform which might be a pyramid's tip after some hours.
They head to the structure and find a gap through which they can reach the inside of the pyramid. They are, however, surprised to hear chanting coming from down there. They sneak down a bit and see a huge Troll who seems to be performing a crude ceremony. He's holding a human body over his head and tries to weave some magic to connect with the person's soul.
Cuin and Tinu decide that they cannot simply let that happen, so they toss all caution aside and jump down on the Troll. Meanwhile, Kate starts an inspirational performance and Crystin throws psionic shards. This troll doesn't like being cut however and deals a massive blow to Cuin. Torrent runs down the stairs to heal him up while Tinuviel tries to keep the brute in check. Together they manage to finally kill the Troll.
They are relieved to see that the woman (which the troll tossed aside when he got attacked) is still breathing. They find some other dead (and partially eaten) bodies near the ritual's place which have been lying there for quite a while.
Cuin takes some time to study the paintings and frescoes at the tomb's walls. He sees scenes from the life of the person who might be entombed here: A Taranesti woman who exchanged magic or some sort of energy with a golden dragon. She got great powers in the process and traveled the world and visited the Tree of Innotendar. When she was about to die, she performed a ritual to send back her magic to the dragon. The last picture shows elves who erect the pyramid and place her body inside.
They continue to search the pyramid and find a sarcophagus and an inscription which says “Amalthea, champion of Syana, first of the Syllith”. They come to the conclusion that the Troll saw the pictures of this Syllith and tried to emulate the rituals of the Syllith. He just happened to suck out the souls of humans instead.
Cuin realizes that his mother must have done the very same ritual when she became a Syllith. He feels honored to have found such a place and uses some time to get in tune with this place. Something here feels eerily familiar...
After that, they take the Vidorian woman (whom they heal up), the dead troll and the human remains and leave the pyramid. They seal off the gap with a large stone to prevent further desecration. Then they head back to Vidor and bring the woman and the dead back to their people.
Note: So this was “Kate's little sidequest”. I used “Haddin's sidequest” from the 4e version as inspiration, but, as mentioned before, didn't want to include a troll-infested Taranesti city. It didn't make too much sense for me. But I liked the general idea of some Taranesti presence outside of Ycengled. So I invented the story of Amalthea, the first Syllith (yeah, a total rip-off of Lady Amalthea) who exchanged part of her soul with Syana. Syana's soul magic would become a central theme later and I wanted to make sure my players knew what being a Syllith (like Cuin's mother) was all about.
RangerWickett
Legend
I never actually read that part of the 4e modules.
Ah okay.
So the general idea seems to be that the themes of adventure 7 are hinted earlier to not deus ex machina some players who'd have maybe never heard of the Echoed Soul or the Taranesti. (I know there are enough hints in the background materials and adventure 3 if you are an attentive reader, but... they can be missed quite easily)
in the 4e version, adventure 5 starts with people missing in Vidor and some recent troll attacks on the village. The party can track the trolls and run into Haddin, who's been hunting trolls because he wants to experiment on troll flesh to help regenerate missing limbs of the war's victims. Or so he says. (He really wants the troll pieces to find a way to Lichdom to cure his coughs once and for all...). On their search they can briefly encounter the fox of Fayne Rawnbeck, but not the Ranger herself.
When they follow the trolls, they find the ruins of the city of Yrteb Freaf, an empty Taranesti city. They city was abandoned by its 1500 citizens fifty years ago when the Taranesti of Ycengled called out for help during the attack of Coaltongue who slew Syana back then. There is a map to Ycengled on the wall of the library and they have some pyramids in the city, too. One of the tombs was meant to be constructed as a second temple of echoed souls and it has its very own version of 41, a formerly imprisoned troll partiarch named 6. But he's really just a soul-magic enhanced troll mage who's commanding trolls and attercops.
So yeah, it didn't make too much sense to me. I mean, having a 1500 citizen Taranesti city in front of Seaquen until 50 years ago would have been something of common knowledge in both Dassen and Seaquen. And I really didn't want to spoil the "ancient evil" who drove away the monks of the echoed soul and tainted all of Ycengled with a weak copy. Plus my Cuin would have certainly gone after the "fox with the Taranesti markings", met Fayne and ran off to Ycengled with her.
So the general idea seems to be that the themes of adventure 7 are hinted earlier to not deus ex machina some players who'd have maybe never heard of the Echoed Soul or the Taranesti. (I know there are enough hints in the background materials and adventure 3 if you are an attentive reader, but... they can be missed quite easily)
in the 4e version, adventure 5 starts with people missing in Vidor and some recent troll attacks on the village. The party can track the trolls and run into Haddin, who's been hunting trolls because he wants to experiment on troll flesh to help regenerate missing limbs of the war's victims. Or so he says. (He really wants the troll pieces to find a way to Lichdom to cure his coughs once and for all...). On their search they can briefly encounter the fox of Fayne Rawnbeck, but not the Ranger herself.
When they follow the trolls, they find the ruins of the city of Yrteb Freaf, an empty Taranesti city. They city was abandoned by its 1500 citizens fifty years ago when the Taranesti of Ycengled called out for help during the attack of Coaltongue who slew Syana back then. There is a map to Ycengled on the wall of the library and they have some pyramids in the city, too. One of the tombs was meant to be constructed as a second temple of echoed souls and it has its very own version of 41, a formerly imprisoned troll partiarch named 6. But he's really just a soul-magic enhanced troll mage who's commanding trolls and attercops.
So yeah, it didn't make too much sense to me. I mean, having a 1500 citizen Taranesti city in front of Seaquen until 50 years ago would have been something of common knowledge in both Dassen and Seaquen. And I really didn't want to spoil the "ancient evil" who drove away the monks of the echoed soul and tainted all of Ycengled with a weak copy. Plus my Cuin would have certainly gone after the "fox with the Taranesti markings", met Fayne and ran off to Ycengled with her.
