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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6195477" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 73: NATURAL DISASTER, PART 2</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Andalarinda, dryad ranger</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Bellarosa, dryad ranger</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Callionda, nymph druid</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Sapphirelle, nymph druid</p><p></p><p>Having planned for the contingency without knowing whether or not it would actually be needed, I was somewhat pleased to see that my preparations weren't going to have been in vain. The PCs who had run through the first part of "Natural Disaster" were stranded in the Untamed Wildlands and a plague serpent had made it to Ehlonna's Grove. It looked like I was going to have a battle between the plague serpent and the Sisters after all.</p><p></p><p>Once the plague serpent made it through the fairy ring and the players exhausted all avenues of getting themselves back to Oerth, I passed out the simplified one-page character sheets I had devised for the Sisters. Dan ran Callionda and Logan ran <strong>Sapphirelle</strong>, both 16th-level nymph druids, while Jacob ran <strong>Andalarinda</strong> and Joey ran <strong>Bellarosa</strong>, dryad rangers of 16th and 12th level, respectively. Andalarinda had a dire wolf animal companion and Bellarosa had an owl animal companion, and there were three unicorns in the grove that I had Logan, Jacob, and Joey each run as well. Vicki, naturally, ran Feron Dru, her other PC, who had been recuperating in Ehlonna's Grove after having cast an <em>awaken</em> spell to bring Coventry to sentience.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>A serpentine head popped up out of the ground in the center of the fairy ring. The creature's sinuous body arced up out of the ring like a crashing wave, and the plague serpent took a moment to completely encircle the ring of toadstools before moving on to its true goal. Once its entire body - some 100 feet or more in length - had exited from the fairy ring gate, it manifested its innate powers of corruption and the toadstools began withering and sinking into themselves, turning black as they were instantaneously overcome by infection. Mere seconds after the plague serpent had exited the fairy ring gate, its aura of corruption had shut it down completely. Ehlonna's proxies were now stranded on the Untamed Wildlands, with no way to pursue the serpentine monster back to Oerth.</p><p></p><p>Turning toward its true goal, the Great Oak of Ehlonna's Grove, the means by which the Goddess distributed spells to her faithful on this material plane, the serpent gave a hiss of satisfaction and began crawling intently once more. As it moved, the grass underneath its body turned brown, shriveled up, and then became a black mass of sickly-looking vegetation.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, Callionda's tender ministrations towards the unconscious Feron Dru had already been completed, and the half-elf druid had recovered her strength and had time to gear up for battle, donning her dragonhide armor, praying to Ehlonna for her daily allotment of spells, and gripping her scimitar. As the plague serpent spent time ensuring the fairy ring could not be used as a <em>gate</em> by those who were pursuing it, Feron deployed the Sisters and their companions against the scaled threat.</p><p></p><p>Feron began by casting a <em>baleful polymorph</em> at the snake-beast, hoping to turn it into an inoffensive bunny, but the vile serpent shook off the spell with little effort. The dryad rangers Andalarinda and Bellarosa let loose with a barrage of arrows from their finely-crafted bows, while the trio of unicorns charged from another direction. The first of these opted not to stab at the invading beast with its spiral alicorn, but rather to tap it in an almost gentle fashion, channeling a <em>neutralize poison</em> spell through its magical horn. As the other two unicorn horns pierced the serpent's side, it felt the power of its poisonous venom and the equally poisonous clouds of gas it could breathe out of its mouth dry up and become inert. In one fell blow, the lead unicorn had deprived the beast of two of its most powerful weapons. It hissed in frustration and almost wasted time biting at the magnificent unicorn in retaliation, but then recalled its primary mission and turned its attention back to the Great Oak. The beast needed neither its venom nor its poisonous breath to destroy the massive tree.</p><p></p><p>The Great Oak's stout trunk was easily 40 feet in diameter. From Ehlonna's Grove, it rose up to the very heavens, but this was a magical place holy to the Lady of the Forests - from outside the grove, one could fly above the entire Vesve Forest and never encounter it or even know of its existence. The plague serpent initially ignored Feron and the Sisters, who hurled spells at it as it approached, and wound itself several times around the Great Oak, damaging the armorlike bark by mere contact with its corrosive touch. Once it had a tight grip around the Great Oak, it knew it would remain in place and drain the tree of its life energy, or die in the attempt.</p><p></p><p>Feron and the Sisters, of course, did what they could to prevent the Great Oak's demise. Callionda ran to the opposite side of the mighty tree and placed her hands upon the rough bark, channeling a <em>death ward</em> spell into it in an attempt to fend off whatever effect the serpent's foul body might produce. The unicorn trio stabbed their ivory horns at the beast's body where it was still low enough to reach, and Andalarinda's dire wolf did its best to chew through the serpent's scaly armor, not realizing that it would have likely died immediately from the attempt had the serpent's poisonous blood not been neutralized by the first unicorn's primary attack. Knowing the importance of this battle, Feron even sent her eagle companion Felix to do what he could; the brave bird of prey raked at the serpentine beast with its talons and beak, to little effect. Bellarosa's tiny owl companion was nowhere as fierce as Felix, but it too did what it could to stop this travesty from occurring.</p><p></p><p>Safely nestled in the Great Oak, the plague serpent was now confident enough of its tight perch to strike out at its enemies. It struck at Feron with blinding speed, catching her in its open jaws, and if its fangs were currently unable to pump venom into the druid's body they at least pierced her armor and her flesh and brought about an unwanted grunt of pain from the half-elf.</p><p></p><p>Seeing the thick bark of the Great Oak start to blacken beneath the plague serpent's coils, Sapphirelle began casting healing spells at the massive tree while Callionda cast a <em>mass bear's endurance</em> at her Sisters and their companions to help keep them in the fight. Still pinned inside the serpent's mouth, Feron managed to cast a <em>finger of death</em> spell at the serpent, but while it did some visible (and audible, judging by the fierce hissing on the part of the serpent after the spell had been cast) damage, it failed to kill the beast outright. The dryad rangers continued pumping the serpent's sides full of arrows and their animal companions and the unicorns did what they could. Together, they were visibly weakening the serpent; thick, viscous blood dripped from its foul body in a dozen different places.</p><p></p><p>Callionda and Sapphirelle continued casting healing spells onto the Great Oak, doing what they could to keep it as healthy as they could under the plague serpent's continual vile touch. From what they could see of the blackness staining the tree's bark, they were keeping it at a fairly even level, and at least preventing it from becoming more damaged than it already was.</p><p></p><p>Up in the serpent's mouth, Feron was giving serious thought to wildshaping into a fire elemental, certain that <em>that</em> would be enough to convince the serpent to release her, when the point suddenly became moot. The iron grip of the beast's jaws started to slacken as the last of its life blood oozed out of its vile body, and its muscles relaxed as death came to it swiftly. Feron leaped out of its mouth and rolled to the ground, continuing rolling as the plague serpent's unliving body fell with a mighty crash to the ground.</p><p></p><p>The Sisters had done it: the plague serpent was dead, and the Great Oak was still living. Bands of evil-looking black rot ran around its trunk where the plague serpent had gripped its bark, but healing spells from the three druids soon took care of that.</p><p></p><p>The battle between proxies now being over, Ehlonna was free to interact directly with the Sisters and their allies. With a mere thought, Coventry and the adventurers in the Stick Palace disappeared from the Untamed Wildlands and appeared in the Grove of Ehlonna, where they marveled at the death of the plague serpent who had gotten past their guard. Ehlonna didn't manifest into physical form, but her presence was felt by all there; not only did Delphyne's dead form begin glowing with a healing energy, culminating with her sitting back up, puzzled as to what she was doing in the bathtub in the Stick Palace, but all of the adventurers began glowing with a green verdant aura, as the Lady of the Forests boosted their bodies, each in a specific way, tailored to their individual needs.</p><p></p><p>Feron rejoined her companions, and the heroes said their grateful goodbyes to the Sisters of Ehlonna. With the last of his Goddess-given power, Coventry stepped back into the shadows, transporting the group through the Plane of Shadows back to the outskirts of Greyhawk City.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>This half of the adventure didn't take nearly as long to play as the first half, especially once Logan's unicorn completely nerfed my plague serpent's poison breath and poison bite. (What can I say? I rolled a natural "1" on its saving throw - them's the breaks.) I was left with one monster with a rotting touch and a bite/improved grab/constrict attack against three druids, two rangers, three unicorns, an eagle, a dire wolf, and an owl. I did some damage to the Great Oak (it had 999 hit points, and for every 111 hit points of damage it took, the highest level of druid spells from Ehlonna were lost, so had it dropped to 888 hp no druids of Ehlonna would have been able to prepare 9th-level spells; had the plague serpent killed it entirely, Ehlonna's clerics wouldn't have been able to prepare any spells at all), but not enough to have any sort of an impact, even temporarily. But again, as is usually the case, I didn't know which PCs would be going through this adventure (other than both Feron and Delphyne) when I wrote it, and I had no idea how many of the Despoilers (Incabulos's proxies) would make it to Ehlonna's Grove to wreak mischief.</p><p></p><p>Joey (8 years old) wasn't particularly thrilled with having to play a girl, even for about a third of a session, but he liked the fact that the only miniature I had to represent Bellarosa's tiny owl animal companion was a giant owl D&D Mini, which he thought was cool-looking. (And he's right: it is.)</p><p></p><p>Vicki was a little worried that Ehlonna would return Delphyne to life as an elf, as had happened earlier in the campaign with Akari (the last time a PC had been brought back to life by the direct will of a deity), but I pointed out to her that Corellon Larethian, the Elf-God, had been responsible for Akari's "upgrade" to elven status, whereas Ehlonna was a Goddess of Nature, not tied to any particular race. In any case, Delphyne returned to life at her normal level, still quite human, and I hand-waved the XP cost of the <em>awaken</em> spell for Feron since I had pretty much forced her to cast it as a plot device.</p><p></p><p>Oh, and while this adventure had no real treasure, the effect of the glowing, green auras at the end of the adventure was Ehlonna's gift to her proxies: each of the PCs' lowest ability score was raised by two points. That turned out to be Cal and Thunderwolf's Intelligence, Chalkan and Feron's Constitution, Delphyne's Charisma, and Telgrane's Strength.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6195477, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 73: NATURAL DISASTER, PART 2[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Feron Dru, half-elf druid[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Andalarinda, dryad ranger Bellarosa, dryad ranger Callionda, nymph druid Sapphirelle, nymph druid[/INDENT] Having planned for the contingency without knowing whether or not it would actually be needed, I was somewhat pleased to see that my preparations weren't going to have been in vain. The PCs who had run through the first part of "Natural Disaster" were stranded in the Untamed Wildlands and a plague serpent had made it to Ehlonna's Grove. It looked like I was going to have a battle between the plague serpent and the Sisters after all. Once the plague serpent made it through the fairy ring and the players exhausted all avenues of getting themselves back to Oerth, I passed out the simplified one-page character sheets I had devised for the Sisters. Dan ran Callionda and Logan ran [b]Sapphirelle[/b], both 16th-level nymph druids, while Jacob ran [b]Andalarinda[/b] and Joey ran [b]Bellarosa[/b], dryad rangers of 16th and 12th level, respectively. Andalarinda had a dire wolf animal companion and Bellarosa had an owl animal companion, and there were three unicorns in the grove that I had Logan, Jacob, and Joey each run as well. Vicki, naturally, ran Feron Dru, her other PC, who had been recuperating in Ehlonna's Grove after having cast an [i]awaken[/i] spell to bring Coventry to sentience. - - - A serpentine head popped up out of the ground in the center of the fairy ring. The creature's sinuous body arced up out of the ring like a crashing wave, and the plague serpent took a moment to completely encircle the ring of toadstools before moving on to its true goal. Once its entire body - some 100 feet or more in length - had exited from the fairy ring gate, it manifested its innate powers of corruption and the toadstools began withering and sinking into themselves, turning black as they were instantaneously overcome by infection. Mere seconds after the plague serpent had exited the fairy ring gate, its aura of corruption had shut it down completely. Ehlonna's proxies were now stranded on the Untamed Wildlands, with no way to pursue the serpentine monster back to Oerth. Turning toward its true goal, the Great Oak of Ehlonna's Grove, the means by which the Goddess distributed spells to her faithful on this material plane, the serpent gave a hiss of satisfaction and began crawling intently once more. As it moved, the grass underneath its body turned brown, shriveled up, and then became a black mass of sickly-looking vegetation. Fortunately, Callionda's tender ministrations towards the unconscious Feron Dru had already been completed, and the half-elf druid had recovered her strength and had time to gear up for battle, donning her dragonhide armor, praying to Ehlonna for her daily allotment of spells, and gripping her scimitar. As the plague serpent spent time ensuring the fairy ring could not be used as a [i]gate[/i] by those who were pursuing it, Feron deployed the Sisters and their companions against the scaled threat. Feron began by casting a [i]baleful polymorph[/i] at the snake-beast, hoping to turn it into an inoffensive bunny, but the vile serpent shook off the spell with little effort. The dryad rangers Andalarinda and Bellarosa let loose with a barrage of arrows from their finely-crafted bows, while the trio of unicorns charged from another direction. The first of these opted not to stab at the invading beast with its spiral alicorn, but rather to tap it in an almost gentle fashion, channeling a [i]neutralize poison[/i] spell through its magical horn. As the other two unicorn horns pierced the serpent's side, it felt the power of its poisonous venom and the equally poisonous clouds of gas it could breathe out of its mouth dry up and become inert. In one fell blow, the lead unicorn had deprived the beast of two of its most powerful weapons. It hissed in frustration and almost wasted time biting at the magnificent unicorn in retaliation, but then recalled its primary mission and turned its attention back to the Great Oak. The beast needed neither its venom nor its poisonous breath to destroy the massive tree. The Great Oak's stout trunk was easily 40 feet in diameter. From Ehlonna's Grove, it rose up to the very heavens, but this was a magical place holy to the Lady of the Forests - from outside the grove, one could fly above the entire Vesve Forest and never encounter it or even know of its existence. The plague serpent initially ignored Feron and the Sisters, who hurled spells at it as it approached, and wound itself several times around the Great Oak, damaging the armorlike bark by mere contact with its corrosive touch. Once it had a tight grip around the Great Oak, it knew it would remain in place and drain the tree of its life energy, or die in the attempt. Feron and the Sisters, of course, did what they could to prevent the Great Oak's demise. Callionda ran to the opposite side of the mighty tree and placed her hands upon the rough bark, channeling a [i]death ward[/i] spell into it in an attempt to fend off whatever effect the serpent's foul body might produce. The unicorn trio stabbed their ivory horns at the beast's body where it was still low enough to reach, and Andalarinda's dire wolf did its best to chew through the serpent's scaly armor, not realizing that it would have likely died immediately from the attempt had the serpent's poisonous blood not been neutralized by the first unicorn's primary attack. Knowing the importance of this battle, Feron even sent her eagle companion Felix to do what he could; the brave bird of prey raked at the serpentine beast with its talons and beak, to little effect. Bellarosa's tiny owl companion was nowhere as fierce as Felix, but it too did what it could to stop this travesty from occurring. Safely nestled in the Great Oak, the plague serpent was now confident enough of its tight perch to strike out at its enemies. It struck at Feron with blinding speed, catching her in its open jaws, and if its fangs were currently unable to pump venom into the druid's body they at least pierced her armor and her flesh and brought about an unwanted grunt of pain from the half-elf. Seeing the thick bark of the Great Oak start to blacken beneath the plague serpent's coils, Sapphirelle began casting healing spells at the massive tree while Callionda cast a [i]mass bear's endurance[/i] at her Sisters and their companions to help keep them in the fight. Still pinned inside the serpent's mouth, Feron managed to cast a [i]finger of death[/i] spell at the serpent, but while it did some visible (and audible, judging by the fierce hissing on the part of the serpent after the spell had been cast) damage, it failed to kill the beast outright. The dryad rangers continued pumping the serpent's sides full of arrows and their animal companions and the unicorns did what they could. Together, they were visibly weakening the serpent; thick, viscous blood dripped from its foul body in a dozen different places. Callionda and Sapphirelle continued casting healing spells onto the Great Oak, doing what they could to keep it as healthy as they could under the plague serpent's continual vile touch. From what they could see of the blackness staining the tree's bark, they were keeping it at a fairly even level, and at least preventing it from becoming more damaged than it already was. Up in the serpent's mouth, Feron was giving serious thought to wildshaping into a fire elemental, certain that [i]that[/i] would be enough to convince the serpent to release her, when the point suddenly became moot. The iron grip of the beast's jaws started to slacken as the last of its life blood oozed out of its vile body, and its muscles relaxed as death came to it swiftly. Feron leaped out of its mouth and rolled to the ground, continuing rolling as the plague serpent's unliving body fell with a mighty crash to the ground. The Sisters had done it: the plague serpent was dead, and the Great Oak was still living. Bands of evil-looking black rot ran around its trunk where the plague serpent had gripped its bark, but healing spells from the three druids soon took care of that. The battle between proxies now being over, Ehlonna was free to interact directly with the Sisters and their allies. With a mere thought, Coventry and the adventurers in the Stick Palace disappeared from the Untamed Wildlands and appeared in the Grove of Ehlonna, where they marveled at the death of the plague serpent who had gotten past their guard. Ehlonna didn't manifest into physical form, but her presence was felt by all there; not only did Delphyne's dead form begin glowing with a healing energy, culminating with her sitting back up, puzzled as to what she was doing in the bathtub in the Stick Palace, but all of the adventurers began glowing with a green verdant aura, as the Lady of the Forests boosted their bodies, each in a specific way, tailored to their individual needs. Feron rejoined her companions, and the heroes said their grateful goodbyes to the Sisters of Ehlonna. With the last of his Goddess-given power, Coventry stepped back into the shadows, transporting the group through the Plane of Shadows back to the outskirts of Greyhawk City. - - - This half of the adventure didn't take nearly as long to play as the first half, especially once Logan's unicorn completely nerfed my plague serpent's poison breath and poison bite. (What can I say? I rolled a natural "1" on its saving throw - them's the breaks.) I was left with one monster with a rotting touch and a bite/improved grab/constrict attack against three druids, two rangers, three unicorns, an eagle, a dire wolf, and an owl. I did some damage to the Great Oak (it had 999 hit points, and for every 111 hit points of damage it took, the highest level of druid spells from Ehlonna were lost, so had it dropped to 888 hp no druids of Ehlonna would have been able to prepare 9th-level spells; had the plague serpent killed it entirely, Ehlonna's clerics wouldn't have been able to prepare any spells at all), but not enough to have any sort of an impact, even temporarily. But again, as is usually the case, I didn't know which PCs would be going through this adventure (other than both Feron and Delphyne) when I wrote it, and I had no idea how many of the Despoilers (Incabulos's proxies) would make it to Ehlonna's Grove to wreak mischief. Joey (8 years old) wasn't particularly thrilled with having to play a girl, even for about a third of a session, but he liked the fact that the only miniature I had to represent Bellarosa's tiny owl animal companion was a giant owl D&D Mini, which he thought was cool-looking. (And he's right: it is.) Vicki was a little worried that Ehlonna would return Delphyne to life as an elf, as had happened earlier in the campaign with Akari (the last time a PC had been brought back to life by the direct will of a deity), but I pointed out to her that Corellon Larethian, the Elf-God, had been responsible for Akari's "upgrade" to elven status, whereas Ehlonna was a Goddess of Nature, not tied to any particular race. In any case, Delphyne returned to life at her normal level, still quite human, and I hand-waved the XP cost of the [i]awaken[/i] spell for Feron since I had pretty much forced her to cast it as a plot device. Oh, and while this adventure had no real treasure, the effect of the glowing, green auras at the end of the adventure was Ehlonna's gift to her proxies: each of the PCs' lowest ability score was raised by two points. That turned out to be Cal and Thunderwolf's Intelligence, Chalkan and Feron's Constitution, Delphyne's Charisma, and Telgrane's Strength. [/QUOTE]
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