Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rabbitbait" data-source="post: 6677439" data-attributes="member: 60100">Adventures in Womford14th to 15th of Vult, 1036The heroes spend the day travelling away from the Rivergard Keep without incident. They find another place to camp the night out of sight and spend another cold but uneventful night.The next morning they reach the main Xandrar road and start heading South towards the Womford turnoff. As they travel, a rider approaches from the south. It is Morythas. The friends tell their stories and then decide what to do.They are keen to return to the feathergale keep and see whether they can convince the knights that they are following an evil cause, and to shut down operations pending an investigation. Tur Turro is pretty sure that the knights are well indoctrinated though and that it won’t be that easy.In the meantime, since they are close, they decide to travel to Womford and follow up the book that they found in Drum Keep that was bought from a merchant here. The book was the property of one of the missing delegations members. They travel through the day and arrive in Womford hungry and ready for dinner.[ATTACH]69657[/ATTACH]As they walk into this ramshackle town they are approached by a portly fellow who says “I haven’t seen you before strangers. I think I should give you some friendly advice”. Upon questioning he tells them to avoid a tavern called the Broken Helm. He says that there are a group of traders who frequent the town, and one of them – Shoalar Quanderil is drinking there now. He says that the traders spend a lot of money in the town and don’t like newcomers. Upon further questioning the man reveals that the ‘traders’ are actually pirates that prey on the Silver Lake and Lake Galifar, and that he believes their base is at Rivergard keep. He also warns the group not to go out at night as the ‘Womford Bat’ is the cause of many disappearances.The heroes decide to listen to this mans advice and visit a few other locations (a shrine to The Seven, a bakery, a smithy and a butchery where they also meet the local constable) before they head to another inn, ‘The Swinging Sword’.[ATTACH]69658[/ATTACH]The innkeeper is very pleased to have such a formidable group visit her establishment and ensures they are well fed and well stocked with ales. The group are beginning to relax when the room begins to rattle. Suddenly screams can be heard outside and the group run to see what is happening. 3 ankhegs have suddenly appeared out from the ground and are killing the townsfolk indiscriminately. Most of the part climb up to the roof of the inn (or in Aur Keers case fly up), which being the tallest building in town gives good vantage for ranged attacks. Morythas does a frontal attack while the rest pepper the beasts with missile fire. They manage to kill two of the horrors while the constable and a group of four others defeat the third.Now the group are very popular with the innkeeper and other locals. While there is much despair over the deaths of the locals, the group are feted as heroes, their bill is wiped and many people want to talk to them. They try and find names of anyone who has been acting suspiciously. They are quietly told by the innkeeper that Ulhro Luruth the local tanner and Albaeri Mellikho the stonemerchant are not the same people they used to be and that they may be worth talking to.The group retire for the night, but a few hours later Layna and Tito head out again in the moonlight to check out the establishments of the two leads they have been given. As they are walking around the stonemerchants building, Layna finds a hidden tunnel in the nearby quarry. They return to the inn, rouse the others and return.Aur Keer is very scared of entering such an enclosed space, but swallows his nerves and follows the heroes. The narrow passage goes on some way before ending at the back end of a secret door. Talking can be heard from the other side, so the group quickly open the door and rush inside. The space opens up into a large chamber full of stone monoliths, and slabs with humanoid bones around the outside. A lantern sits on the middle of the floor and they see two scholarly types who turn to face them.“Who are you”, one of them says, “you shouldn’t be here – this is private property”.“Yes, please leave”, says the other, “You are not welcome here, you might disturb the stones”.However the party move further in, causing the scholars to move further back in nervousness. They question the scholars aggressively about what this place is.“This is an archeological study”, one of the scholars says, moving back towards a nearby door, “it is most unusual to have dwarven ruins so close to goblin ruins and away from the hills or mountains. The university will be interested in what we find”Tito tells the scholars to stop moving towards the door, but the scholars continue to back away. The tension continues to ramp up, and then Layna noticed one of them quietly muttering mystic words – He is beginning to cast a spell.The group pull out their weapons and attack. The scholars cast spells that shake the earth but it is fairly obvious that they are outmatched. One casts a spell on himself that makes his legs blur and he runs unnaturally fast towards the tunnel they entered from, but he is cut down. The other surrenders and is tied up.Then the group notices that the stones in the chamber are now floating slightly above the ground….[ATTACH]69659[/ATTACH]The Cast:Tur Turro - A halfling from House Jorasco, but he has no dragonmark. His father paid a lot of money to encourage the feathergale knights to take him on, but Tur Turro found himself ridiculed for his race. He also discovered that the knights were involved in some sort of cult so decided he needed to escape.Layna - A member of house Deneith, but in exile from the house. Now works for Sir Isteval.Aur Keer - An Aarockra, part of a group searching for an artifact called the Rod of Seven Parts. However he has changed his goals based on the apparent emergence of elemental evil in the area and joined the group.Morythas - A dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut and a follower of the example of Galerius Ka’Mazka Tito - A halfling monk, trained by the gatekeepers but without the temperment needed to watch and guard.DM's notes:Very interesting - the group never followed up on the big dangling clues right in front of them - Schoalar Qaunderil in The Broken Helm, and going to shops that might be selling plunder to follow up on the book. They didn't even ask anyone about the book.I think their previous experiences have made them worried about jumping into situations, so when they were warned to stay away from the Broken Helm they paid heed to the warnings.They also found the back entrance to the tomb before I even really reached a point where the earthquake and collapse needed to occur.This is now a mashup of two towns in the module - Womford with Schoalar Quanderil, and Red Larch with the other locations. I wanted to do this because Red Larch is cool, but the party started this module at level 3 and pretty much went straight to Feathergale Keep - they never got to explore Red Larch. This gives me an excuse to use it.</blockquote>

Verification