Arthurian Adventures (in Ireland)

[Particle_Man]

Good thing there is this story hour! I had to review it myself to remember what was what.

We had a late start (fire alarm went off) and an early finish (bad weather made us want to take the bus sooner not later), but got some gaming done. Sir Andrew, Sir Anton and Prince Hammoton were not appearing in this episode, so I used a new explanation to get rid of ‘em (can’t use Titania when she is imprisoned, and Auberon’s powers are unreliable). So I had one of the mini-“statues” crack open, releasing some insects that seemed nasty. Lady Leanne cast a gust of wind spell to get rid of them, and one of them flew at the device in Sir Toby’s shoulder, setting off a ray that hit the “non-present characters” and shrank them and their horses to tiny size. So the party carried them around in an envelope of parchment. And now they wonder about the other “Statues”, some of which might be at the wedding, and perhaps one of which “Magnus?” is at Castle Anguish. The party later cracked open another mini-statue to find little black balls that did not burn (but could be cut). They think they gathered all the little black balls up. (For those who can guess what these are, note that my guys have red eyes instead of green because red eyes is iconic for EEEEEEEVIL!).

They were traveling to the Lady of the Lake, but on the way there were attacked by some Cath Palug (big mean cats). One of them roared and summoned others out of thin air! (Changeling prestige class allows Summon Nature’s Ally while in animal form, as well as rage). Anyhow, the party trashed them (and to think I was worried the encounter would be too hard!), especially with Toby as powerhouse. But then the “main” cat turned into…a woman! (Sir Toby’s destiny at work?). Oh, and Lady Leanne found two black pearls on her (remember the pearls?). They saved her, and realized that she was the former Fox who was thrown out of the druid’s grove in the dreaming wood for being too violent. They spared her but kept her unconscious and tried to find some other druids near them. They did, at the silver spring, but since druids are mainly pacifists in my world (otherwise they would take it over!), they (the spokeman's name was Sandy Hawkins) didn’t know what to do with her. The party then woke her, while she was tied up and with swords at her throat, and offered to let her live if she answered some questions and promised not to bother any of Anguish’s subjects. She agreed and told them that she got the pearls from the dragon Arumtinivorax (a big red one) in exchange for helping some Saxons trash a small village. And her attack on Lady Leanne (the new Fox) was personal. She also revealed herself as a zealot, violently against the new faith of Christianity. The party then let her go, trusting her to keep her word (and she seemed to be honest, according to the sense motive checks).

Then the party arrived at the place where Lady Leanne dreamed the Hag would be (and had dreamed similarly for the last three nights!). And they arrived just in time (sort of!). Lady Leanne overheard the beginning of the conversation! They tried to sneak up to see if they could catch a glimpse of the Hag’s companion, but were heard and so found no one there. Perhaps the Hag will not be there now. They did find footprints indicating a Hag and someone with soft, courtly shoes…

They then arrived at the Lady of the Lake, who took the mini-knights and said she would try to “fix” them, but it would take time, since the artifact was so very powerful. I think that we left it with the party traveling back to Baron Ivo’s for the wedding between Prince Lucius and Lady Brigit.

A new player may be joining the group next time as a druid, but he can only make it for the latter part of each session. I have an idea of a druid from ancient times, sent into Toby’s artifact long ago to guard against the return of Albion. But since Toby isn’t a master of his artifact, and since the artifact seems to be a little “off”, the druid now gets summoned and unsummoned at what will seem to the party to be random intervals. Maybe this will work, and it could give more info on the giant Albion.

I am still wondering if druid spell lists are too "Blaster" for the Arthurian mythos. I did prune down Summon Nature's Ally to take out a lot of the extra-planar stuff, since that stuff simply doesn't exist (except for some demons, which druids don't deal with via this spell).

Oh yeah, I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but Consecrate and Bless Water are useful spells if you have undead and no one in the world has the ability to turn them. Just so you know. We found this out in the 36 ghoul fight, when Hobb was looking for something to do (well, he didn’t do Bless Water, but I thought it would have helped too).

 

[Toby of Kusman]

Centaur is BROKEN.

But then the “main” cat turned into…a woman! (Sir Toby’s destiny at work?).

Well... it IS my destiny that I will always accidentally hit a woman or hit a woman without knowing it. At least I didn't kill her. Thanks, God. I love subdual damages, it saves me so many times. Centaur is BROKEN.

A new player may be joining the group next time as a druid, but he can only make it for the latter part of each session. I have an idea of a druid from ancient times, sent into Toby’s artifact long ago to guard against the return of Albion. But since Toby isn’t a master of his artifact, and since the artifact seems to be a little “off”, the druid now gets summoned and unsummoned at what will seem to the party to be random intervals. Maybe this will work, and it could give more info on the giant Albion.

I have wanted a Druid cohort for so long. He is my cohort, right? Hehe.

Did I mention Centaur is BROKEN?

 

[Particle_Man]

Hmmm...well the Lady of the Lake was able to cure the might mini-knights eventually, and sent them to join their friends, who had been led by Auberon to a snowy Fairyland. Meanwhile, Sir Andrew was visited by an angel and told that as Knight of the Pearl he must learn patience. His statue is now mobile, but he looks kind of pearly and is kind of rocky (+6 Natural Armor, but moves at half speed and only one action per turn (like a zombie, I guess). Auberon gave the party a book that looked like the one Candar the Wily used to raise his wife. Auberon called it a book of Quarrels and wants the party to get it to Albion, without making it look too obvious. Also, Auberon broke some branches with blue flames off of a tree and gave them to the party telling them that he dreamed that they would need these. They are cold fire branches (they do 1d6 cold, or 2d6 cold vs. fire creatures, but you don't add str. -- it is as if you had the sword with frost enhancement, but without the sword).

Party gets sent back almost on target, runs into the NUN! She is drunk and doesn't recognize them. She drops hints to a disguised Lady Leanne that her mistress is scared of the "Spectral Knights" that she has seen in a dream that will one day oppose her (the party hasn't yet all become spectral, so this is a future vision). She regrets what she has done (she has a ring of Albion's service on her finger) and is trying to find the party and help them slightly by giving them info on the Fingerbones of Christ, said to cure all ills (she knows that one of the party is a centaur, and another a dwarf, and thinks they might want their humanity back). Leanne gets her a room and leaves her in a drunken stupor, but Caius robs her of the map to the Fingerbones.

On the road, the pack containing the statue arms started moving and bursts open to reveal two rapidly growing wasps! They start combat large and get to huge. The party finished them off without too much trouble.

At the castle of Baron Ivo, things heat up. Ivo is still coughing, but is warned by Caius to give warning to all the land about these statues. Some at the castle here are found and destroyed (whew!). Then the party splits up and some go shopping for wedding gifts. Hobbs tries to remove disease on Baron Ivo, which causes the swarm of insects inside him to spew out in a torrent! Lady Leanne arrives on the scene and they hold the wasps off enough with wind spells and coldfire branches that Caius and older brother Lucius can arrive and help. Ivo is left alive, but isn't conscious, despite all that everyone can do.

Meanwhile, Prince Hammoton links up with the dwarf goldsmith that married Faith the smith's daughter and finds out that Gotch the Giant was murdered last week! Hammoton also sets up his messenger/spy network through the smith and the fool.

Then youngest daughter anastasia is kidnapped by a Black Knight. Trouble is 4 black knights flee in four different directions with blond women. The party thinks to use a wolf to scent the correct trail (south). Also, a new Legion of White Knights (12 in number) is heard of, so the party sends for help from them and they arrive after the wedding.

And Queen Morgan arrives (yay! she's so nice!). Leanne shares info about the nun with her as a possible lead to find the mysterious enchantress helping Albion.

The wedding takes place. And then the party is deputized to find and rescue the princess. The party found a note with a lock of golden hair asking for a 50 000 gp ransom!

So we leave the party with White Knights in tow, about to go south now that the wedding is done.

Also, the druid was introduced. Formerly a powerful druid, she has lost a lot of power (less gods around) so is only 5th level. she was stored in Toby's device, and comes out of it (as do her horse and wolf!). She is confused by what she sees, but knows that her purpose is to fight Albion, since she was stored there against the day of his return. She looks at the night sky and calculates that she has been stored for between 6 000 and 12 000 years.

Can't remember what else, but the party can fill in what I missed.

Oh, Brigit wasn't thrilled about the wedding, but was less thrilled about taking orders from Acting Baron Roderick. She wanted to escape to Fairyland, but Leanne said that was a bad idea right now.

Oh, and Leanne has crows feet! The dwarf smith has grey hairs! The fey are beginning to age...

 

[Particle_Man]

One game note: I had thought about replacing a family member of Baron Ivo's with a Simulacrim, but then discovered that the spell does not exist in the Arthurian game. I decided that I would remain true to the Arthurian Mythos and do something else. It is the first time I deliberately limited myself in order to fit the mythos. Mind you, I did put in a slightly modified (long "gestation" period) Hellwasp Swarm coming out of Baron Ivo...

 

[Particle_Man]

Little tidbits:

The wedding bouquet: Since Lady Leanne was a lady in waiting (and since it would be funny) I had us both roll a d20 to see if she would unwillingly catch the bouquet. We both rolled 17. The dice can be great like that.

Also, in Fairyland, Sir Anton expressed misgivings about the Book of Quarrels being secretly slipped to Albion. "This sounds like trickery, Lord Auberon!" To which Auberon replied "Oh no, not trickery, merely a bit of misdirection and subtlety." This satisfied Sir Anton and all was well. (It got a double take from the player of Sir Andrew, though).

And Roderick has not given up on his pursuit of Lady Leanne, even though, sadly, she won't give him the time of day.

 

[Shadowleaf]

I have wanted a Druid cohort for so long. He is my cohort, right? Hehe.

Keep it up Centaur and I will be forced to hurt you. I can and will send a pack of wolves after you if I have to... or maybe i'll just carbonize you...i'll have to think on it.

Cassandra

 

[Particle_Man]

Oh, good news, Prince Caius will be posting character stats when he gets around to it. Hopefully Cassandra the druid from ancient times will post character stats as well. Maybe Prince Hammoton will too one day...

 

[Roman]

I just want to welcome all my fellow players who have started posting in this thread.

BTW: Sir Anton is still not too happy about the possibility of using 'subterfuge' (trickery) to slip the book to Albion, but sees no point arguing about it now, since he does not believe it will be relevant in the near future given that in his eyes there are more immediate troubles to deal with (he does not yet comprehend the disaster in Fairyland - not having been briefed on it by members of the group with knowledge of such).

 

[Námo]

The story gets even better, it seems. Druids from ancient times can be fun, I'd wager

 

[Particle_Man]

The troupe goes South, with 12 White Knights in tow. The first night, the White Knights all stay up all night, none wanting to admit weakness before the others. In addition, they talk about initiating Sir Andrew into their ranks. Lady Leanne actually has to use her minstrel suggestion ability on Sir Andrew to make sure he gets enough sleep!

Then they start the first part of the initiation process, during a watch (it is to be bare-handed fighting, then swords, then lances). 11 of the Knights form a circle around Sir Andrew and the 12th takes him on. But takes off his gauntlet first to reveal a clawed hand…

Yes, that’s right! The White Knights are, in fact, Wight Knights (I can’t resist a good pun). This is the real reason they didn’t sleep (this is what we in the DM business call a Clue). So 8 of them go for Sir Andrew and the other 4 go for other characters. Much combat ensues. Since the Knights are wearing armor, they have serious armor check penalties. This means that they actually only ever his Lady Christine (once) and Sir Andrew 3 times (they needed natural 20’s but would have needed that even without the armor check penalty). Oh, the Wights also boast that they killed the giant Gotch.

After the battle, Hobb helps Lady Christine, and Sir Andrew toughs it out and makes his saves the next day (with an Endurance spell to help out).

After that, we are introduced to Sir Arbutus (a one-shot knight I stole right out of the back of the book under NPC knights when a player wanted to try out the game). He is charged by Baron Roderick to help in the quest, and was given the fastest horse to catch up. And to report to Baron Roderick the events that transpired, of course.

He also reports good news and bad. Sir Mordred apparently showed up and did well at the wedding tournament, winning all three events. But Baron Ivo passed away.

Oh, Sir Anton’s player and Prince Hammoton’s player show up, mid-battle. King Auberon’s magic misfired, and sent Sir Anton to the Arctic (a natural one followed by the same number on a d8 as sent Lady Leanne there earlier – go figure). He chops a hole in the ice and calls on the Lady of the Lake. Some fate points later, he gets back to her, and then she sends him to his friends.

The party has more dreams. Of Auberon talking to Cassandra about the dangerous alliance, segwaying into an attack on Camelot by giants riding dragons, and a sorceress leading a pack of Wights. Arthur dies, and Camelot falls, in the dream. Also, the sorceress is seen in another dream talking to the young nun, saying “I am disappointed in you”. The nun screams. The sorceress’s face is still not seen (a mirror takes the place of the face). The voice sounds familiar to Lady Leanne, though she can’t quite place it.

The group then travels on the trail of the black knight, and come to a large paved clearing surrounding a tower. A man in black armor, with a black shield, on a brown horse, introduces himself a Melvin, a bastard son of Baron Ivo, and asks who dares to challenge him. Sir Arbutus takes up the challenge. Ladies Leanne and Christine cheat like m…that is, they offer their favors to Sir Arbutus and cast spells to buff him up (while he is blissfully unaware). They get their horses lined up for a joust, charges, and then…Sir Arbutus’s horse (and he) fall into a 10 x 10 x 80 pit covered up by an illusion. The Black Knight’s horse flies over and attacks Sir Andrew! The horse is now revealed as black, with flaming hooves and mane, and the ability to breathe smoke! Like something out of a Nightmare!

Since the horse can fly, this puts the party at a disadvantage. But Lady Christine casts a fly spell on Sir Andrew’s horse, Rebel. Meanwhile, the Black Knight has nearly killed Hobb and has wounded Cassandra the druid (basically, I did attacks on the people on the ends of the line the party was in, observing the “joust”. Cassandra changes into an eagle and gets a devastating Chill Metal off on the Black Knight.

Eventually, it is mano-mano between the Black Knight and Sir Andrew, with others contributing arrows, spells, etc. A Wind Wall helps to dispel the smoke of the Nightmare.

Some party members go into the tower to try to rescue people. Inside the cellar they find a blond woman whom they are suspicious of as being unfamiliar. She is escorted out and runs to the protection of Sir Arbutus (who is finally out of the pit, being helped by Lady Leanne, a rope, and the horse Justice). They also find the Nun! (The young one). She is in a locked room. Upstairs, they find a room with 6 ducks, a room with an expensive mantle (like a cloak, but fancier), and a room with Lady Anastasia, younger sister of Baron Roderick. (The ducks were Anastasia’s and effectively held as hostage to her coming with Melvin, and her good behaviour). The mantle is made of velvet and covered in jewels. Fit for a king.

“You shall fall” – This is what Sir Andrew says after he has been brought to negative hit points and healed by his shield. He then rolls 2 natural 20’s in a row – a crit, which knocks the Black Knight unconscious! I don’t know how he does it, but he consistently pulls this off when the chips are down against the big bad evil guy. After that, there is the mopping up of the Green Hag (the blond woman) and the Nightmare. The ladder is taunted by Caius to come to the Tower. And it flies, disappears, and reappears in the tower! Then Caius cuts off the dead body of the Black Knight with a lucky blow to the saddle strap. And he uses a grappling hook and rope to jump out the window. The Nightmare bites the rope, but Lady Leanne on Justice catches Prince Caius. The Nightmare decides it has had enough for now, and disappears.

The ducks are fine. Just thought people might be concerned.

Then there is the interview of the nun, whom the party distrusts. She says that she was a prisoner because she was trying to break away from her evil mistress, whom she could not name because of her enchantment. She had stolen the mantle to try to get it to King Arthur to protect him, but she was caught. She entreats the party to deliver the mantle to King Arthur to save him from the spells of her mistress. Then, to prove herself truthful, she takes off her ring, and turns into a pile of sand, which blows away in a sudden whirlwind.

Things of note: It is really hard to balance things out. I went for a 12th level villain (fighter 7/black knight 5), which would have killed the party if less people were there. As it was, it was a near thing for Sir Andrew. Sir Toby (the tank of the party) was the only one absent this time, although some people were a bit late. Also, I was a bit worried that party members that didn’t have anything to do were a bit bored at times. And it did take a while to prep. the villain.

The party has enough people that leveled up that now we have the prestige classes kicking in. So we have Red, Blue, Green, White and Purple Knights! The Spectral Knights live! Time to throw in some more dragons…

Oh, I used the “dreamtime” to power up a lot of the magic items of the party. Caius got improved evasion and the 3x/day feint as a free action on his sword. Sir Anton got fire resistance 10 and +1 saves on his armor. Prince Hammoton’s mace is noble, and allows him to intimidate as a free action 3x/day. Lady Leanne’s ring allows her to use touch spells as short ranged attacks, 3x/day. Cassandra has a staff that is in permanent Shillelagh mode. Oh, and Lady Christine was in fairyland and gambled away her ability to cry, but has gained a 5 point mana stone. Sir Andrew and Sir Toby are buff enough, thanks (although I did speed up Sir Andrew’s speech to normal, so…that…he…no… longer…talked…slow…all…the…time). And Lady Christine has her super-weasel for her main “item”.