Arthurian Adventures (in Ireland)

[Particle_Man]

Pain is relative, and nothing is truly permanent. Or so I claim.

Ok, lots of stuff. First they fought the four ghouls, who were polished off with little trouble. One of them tried to bite the elf (Lady Leanne). Silly ghoul!

Oh, a one-shot character was introduced: a dwarf fool (with Int 5!). This led to an idea where many nobles have dwarf fools (but don’t realize that they are THAT kind of dwarf…). A network of agents for Queen Titania, methinks. Anyhow, she played her to the hilt to be useful, yet annoying…really annoying.

After the battle, the characters ran into Friar Hobb, who was a Hermit/Rogue (in fact, the reformed rogue that had earlier been one of the 24 that tried to kill them, traveled with them to many realms (including Hell), and now was there to rescue them). He was told in a dream that three green hags were sending a tornado down this path. He begged the party for forgiveness, and to be believed about his warning. He was believed, and they went off track for half a day to a grove.

In that grove, they talked (the fool started telling a joke). Then a spear pierced Hobb and two giants (ogres, really) sprang into view. And the party polished them off.

This is where I had to realize that I needed to “tone up” the critters slightly (but as we see later, sometimes the monsters are too tough…hey, I am still learning how to DM, and it is harder to measure CR when people sometimes do the single combat thing and sometimes don’t)!

Anyhow, the fool had run off into the woods, and so had a private encounter with goblins (to make it more fun for the others, I let each other player play a goblin). They were fairly evenly matched, I thought, but the goblins started a grapple and things were going downhill for the fool. But then one of the goblins used sleight of hand to steal a “pretty” from another goblin. And many rounds were wasted with goblins ripping the same “pretty” from each other’s hands (a silver comb) and some ran off after the goblin that had it. Then the fool could polish off the remainder. By the way, if you ever let your players run temporary monsters like this, remember that the level of the tactics of the monsters suddenly increases to make them MUCH tougher! On the other hand, it was a fun way to break the “serious” mood of high chivalry for a while.

Meanwhile, back at the grove, the party was struck with a variant Veil spell, after fog descended on them. As the fog cleared, Green Hags surrounded the party, or so they thought. (4 of the party looked and sounded like Green Hags, so we had party members fighting party members for a while, until a lucky dispel magic got rid of them). I used the opportunity to let Sir Andrew do extra damage to his ‘hag’, Sir Anton (and blew some destiny points).

Sir Toby went into the woods to look for the Fool. He saw a goblin and fired two arrows. The first hit and killed the goblin, and the second hit the apple that that goblin became as it died while the apple was still in mid-air! Great shot! Too bad no one else saw it…

Ok, they link up with the fool and go back to the grove. The wind goes up a bit, and then they rest for the night. The next day, they return to the path and find scenes of devastation. The friar’s dream of a tornado was true, it seems…

They eventually reach what seems to be a castle, flying King Hammoton’s flags. But then the fool climbs the “portcullis” and makes a save and realizes it is only a hut. The others then make their saves. All of them. Darn! And then they get initiative ahead of all the 3 Green Hags! But considering how the party faired against them, I still worry that they were not ready to face these hags yet. I guess I will see how the players react next week.

The inside of the hut is much bigger than the outside. Combat ensues. 5 goblins spring out of a cupboard and start firing arrows, but they die quick. One of them has the silver comb with purple gems (the “pretty”, and recognized by Lady Leanne as being the remains of a fallen elf). Being nasty, the Hags tried to curse or weaken Toby and failed. Then they just ganged up on him, eventually “killing” him and moving on to Prince Caius, doing the same, etc. (Both players blew their remaining 2 fate points to have some means of being saved. In this case, I will wait until next session to say what became of them. In game, both disappeared in flashes of light, as did Lady Leanne’s Weasel, temporarily. It returned bigger (see below). Toby and Caius have not returned…yet).

And this brings up an interesting point. Sir Andrew and Sir Anton, for most of the fight (Sir Anton for all of it), did not ever “Double Team” a hag, because that would be ignoble (not your standard D&D flanking here!). And this, plus the greenhags having no problem with teaming up, led to character “deaths”. Sir Anton and Sir Andrew were almost completely unharmed in the battle. This is part of the DM problem with the “Single combat” thing…it is hard to balance, and characters can die more. But we’ll see.

Oh, and I have decided that Lady Christine’s “magic item” (every party member eventually gets one) is actually that her familiar weasel will be treated as tougher. So now it is a Dire Weasel, and will gain HD to be one behind Christine’s level as a Hedge Mage (getting Large when appropriate). The weasel actually helped kill a hag, but Sir Anton nearly killed it, thinking the medium sized creature was a monster. Then Lady Christine punched him in the nose, and Hobb cured the weasel.

In the hut, they find various nasty things. A baby’s crib with rat skulls in it, a stew pot with a human hand, nasty stuff. Of note is a box, that when the fool opened it, restored memories to Caius’s older brother (tied up as a dangerous “wolf man”, although is memories as a “wolf man” are hazy, at best) and Sir Anton (so he remembers what actually happened at Hammoton’s castle). They also find stuff that the Fool takes with her (back to Queen Titania), and some papers describing King Anguish’s immanent assassination (taken by the fool but at least read by Lady Christine). But Lady Leanne also finds tracks outside of the last hag. The party is divided over what to do next, to the point of maybe splitting the party.

Oh, Sir Anton foolishly agreed to give the “pretty” to the Fool (likely out of frustration at the fools constant pleading). But Lady Leanne secretly stole the “pretty” from Sir Anton after he got it off the goblin he killed. Makes it kind of hard to keep that oath, unfortunately. But so long as he is “on the quest” to find it and give it to the fool, he technically has not broken his word.

Well, next time they might go after that last hag or not. And two players might make new characters or might not. I have an idea for Toby, but not sure about Caius yet. Hmmm...

 

[Particle_Man]

By the way, you may have noticed that Lady Christine, a hedge mage, often does meelee type stuff and does it well, while Sir Anton often has trouble in meelee. This has nothing to do with their character stats. The player running Lady Christine is the luckiest dice roller that I have ever encountered. She regularly rolls 18's on the d20. Using my own dice! Sir Anton's player, on the other hand, has had a few bad sessions where he couldn't roll above a 3 on a d20 to save his life. But that is that the nature of a partially randomized game, where you can have the "weaker" charactes get lucky and the "stronger" characters get unlucky. And surely the lucky/unlucky streaks have to run out eventually (I hope! ).

 

[Particle_Man]

I think I have an idea on Caius now. I don't know if his player, or the player of Toby, will like my proposed changes though. We shall see.

 

[Sir_Andrew]

For whom the bell tolls

The deaths of Prince Caius and Sir Tobey were tragic, but they died nobly. I take solace in the fact that they sacrificed themselves fighting hideous devil worshipping hags, and so they will receive their just reward from the One God.

I am sure that I speak for Sir Anton also when I say that it is difficult for a knight to see the son of his liege slain before his eyes. The weight of this failure presses on my heart, and I have to seek the wisdom and strength of the One God to carry me through these dark times. Friar Hobb and the miracles of Prince Hamilton and Lady Christine's pet reassure me that our cause is right and just, and that the One God watches and protects us.

It is doubly unfortunate that we hasten to carry news of his son's death with the news of a plot to assassinate him to his Majesty, King Anguish. Perhaps he can find comfort in the return of his other son, Prince Lucius.

By the will of the One God, we shall punish this evil hag and stop King Anguish's assassination.

 

[Roman]

I could not make it to the session due to work. Unfortunately, my boss decided that I would be working this Saturday till 11pm, by which time the session was long over.

 

[Sir_Andrew]

Plethora of Evil

Unfortunately, dark forces were afoot in King Anguish's castle, so the session did not end until around 11pm. But the demons, who had been plaguing the land, have been driven off or contained by our heroes.

 

[Roman]

Unfortunately, dark forces were afoot in King Anguish's castle, so the session did not end until around 11pm. But the demons, who had been plaguing the land, have been driven off or contained by our heroes.

That at least is good news. Sir Anton will sleep easier at night knowing that Sir Andrew overcame the forces of evil even without his help.

 

[Particle_Man]

On the hag hunt! [Sir Anton went to Fairyland for this one. I guess his player had to work or something ]. The party was undecided over what to do (pursue the last hag or go after the king to save him from assassination!). Lucius (npc older brother of Caius) proved to be the tie-breaker and said they should stop the hag first and perhaps get information about the assassination.

Meanwhile, Caius and Toby awaken in goblin bodies (argh) and with the “stepmom” hag (not recognizing them) telling them what to do (argh!). So Caius "played along" as a goblin. He even finagled a tile of invisibility from her (like a potion), and found out that the hag was spying on the group through some item the group had (the goblin “pretty”, actually, was a hag’s eye).

Caius was a bit, shall we say, upset, at Sir Anton and Sir Andrew not helping out with his battle with the Green Hags (the old “oh, you wish to fight this hag? Then I shall not interfere, my lord”, nobility thing). So he sneaks up and steals most of the horses (except the ladies’) and leaves a note mostly explaining his condition with Lady Christine, with instructions to inform Lady Leanne (shortly thereafter Lady Christine’s player had to go for a while (she is in so many extracurricular things at university I wonder she finds time for schoolwork, never mind D&D!), so she won’t reappear until the final fight in this post).

Ok, the bulk of the party, after dealing with an Assassin Vine, meets a “giantess” (ogress) with a tree through her gut. She is dying, and wants the group to save her baby that a hag had stolen. The party agrees and since Hobb has used all his spell points for healing the party earlier, Sir Andrew administers a Coup de Grace in its original form, that to put her out of her extreme pain and misery. A pity the minstrel wasn’t able to stop him in time to, y’know, heal the giantess, but it was hard to act fast and keep a low profile (the minstrel doesn’t want Sir Andrew to know ANYTHING about her using magic, or being an elf).

Ok, the bulk of the party arrives at a foggy patch, with a tree at the edge of it, and a large baby at the base of the tree. Sir Andrew picks up the baby, which touches him on the nose, causing some strength damage! (yeah, this was the baby Greenhag, disguised as a baby ogre). This was the signal for Caius to shoot Sir Andrew from the bushes, which he actually does! (I guess he was REALLY angry about the whole dying and coming back as a goblin thing). The Annis (the stepmom hag) then steps out of the mist, and throws an iron sphere at Prince Lucius, which expands and binds him within Iron Bands! So Lucius the powerful npc is out of the fight. And Hobb the npc is pretty much a coward when it comes to fighting, especially nonhuman foes. Great for healing afterwards, though. (I don’t want uber-NPC’s stealing the limelight from the pc’s)

Ok, the fight ensues (Caius did a clever trick with stampeding the stolen horses at the Annis, and then helped out with trying to actually kill her, and the Minstrel fended off the evil Greenhag (mobile, snarling and with a fanged mouth that dripped blood!) baby. They triumph, and the fog clears, to reveal a lake with a Sea Hag standing on it! Two more players lose strength just by looking at her, which puts Caius out of the fight. She turns her evil eye upon Prince Hammoton, who as a noble is immune! (One of these days I will actually read the rules, grrr...). With the death of the Sea Hag there is an explosion of white light – the swamp is purified, and the characters’ magic items get an upgrade. This included Prince Caius’s sword granting him Alter Self at will (so he could look human during the day) and Sir Toby transforming from goblin to centaur. The Sea Hag’s final words were “No, they mustn’t get into the cave!” Prince Caius thought it was a trap, and so ordered Sir Andew to check it out (Talk about holding a grudge!). Inside was a large dire bear that did not appreciate being awoken. The minstrel followed, and was able to sooth the dire bear back to sleep after it was about to eat Sir Andrew. And they found the “sadly, dead” ogre baby that the baby Greenhag had previously fed on.

It is about here I should note that I have made a mistake as a DM. I should not redesign player’s characters for them. I liked the whole “nothing is permanent, even your forms” idea of fairyland-style fantasy, but when you change a character’s race, it pisses off the players. Sir Toby did not like being a centaur (to the point of frantically hitting random buttons on his dangerously random magic item, to try to change things!), even though he admitted that it was more powerful. Prince Caius really hated being a goblin. Prince Hammoton actually made it his new fate to regain his humanity and stop being a dwarf! Ok, lesson learned, and I will try to find an in-game way to fix that…eventually. Already, Prince Caius is thinking of making a deal with Queen Titania when he sees her next, so wheels are in motion. Hey, a quest can solve this. Quests solve everything, right?

Ok, now they get back to Prince Hammoton’s castle and heal up (with the aid of priests that are there), and get a blacksmith to remove the iron bands from Prince Lucius. Sir Toby stays in the woods, helps some kids out (as a voice warning them away from a dangerous man down the path) and gets healing from the rogue/hermit Hobb. The next day, they set off to save King Anguish! And Prince Caius was a bit annoyed that no one told him until the next day that his DAD was in danger of assassination.

Ok, the party splits up, because Prince Caius and Prince Hammoton have the fastest horses. So they arrive to see King Anguish and…Sir Andrew! Who introduces himself as Sir Andrew, defender of the faith, order of the dove, yadda yadda, special agent to Baron Ivo, Witch-Hunter, Slayer of Heretics, and Executioner of Traitors! This Sir Andrew is the right hand man of King Anguish, after discovering the treachery of Sir Linus and personally capturing and executing him. (Prince Caius remembered the nobility of Sir Linus, and finds this hard to believe, but wants to play along for now). This Sir Andrew has been leading a campaign to capture witches (sort of a mini-Inquisition), and attacks on the “heretical” druids in the Dreaming Woods, has been quite, shall we say, thorough. Also, there has been a strange series of illnesses that have struck the ladies of King Anguish’s court, leaving many dead, although without any marks on them. Oh, and the castle has not yet been rebuilt, since there were no sons to marry off, and the money King Anguish had went to buy food for his people this winter, after the devastation of the attack on his castle and surrounding farmlands.

Meanwhile, Sir Toby is hiding in the middle of his companions as he goes through his home town, doesn’t get noticed (Embarrassingly low spot check on my part!) and notices that his village seems to have no women around. The Minstrel later investigates and finds out that Sir Andrew has been raiding the villages, capturing women after accusing them of witchcraft, upon which they are never seen again! The few remaining women are in hiding. The minstrel is offered a place to hide but she gets back to her party and warns them (good thing elves only need 4 hours down time a night!). Oh, the Sir Andrew at court has a lightning bolt on his shield, while the Sir Andrew with the party has that magic shield with the cross on it). Ok, Prince Hammoton is sent back to warn the party, and so Sir Andrew marches in to challenge Sir Andrew, who demands a joust “to the death!” So they do (Sir Toby is outside at this point, as he is frightened to reveal himself). And the real Sir Andrew rolls so incredibly lucky I can’t believe it. He nearly kills the false Sir Andrew with a single blow! These causes the false Sir Andrew to teleport out of his full plate and shield, and reveal him as the flying demon from wayyyy back that through that woman that Sir Andrew caught. The flying demon then swoops down towards the Queen! Sir Toby sees the flying demon and races into town, activating his haste item to do so. Prince Caius does the brave hero thing and leaps upon the demon to try to save the mom. The demon summons a BIG demon to kill the Queen. The Demon (a Vrock) appears next to her and wounds her severely. The minstrel gets the unconscious and bleeding Queen away, and heals her, but takes damage in getting her away (heals her 9 points and she is still unconscious!) The Vrock then turns on Caius, and the first demon gets away (teleport again!). The Vrock brings down Caius, who is also dragged away, but at this point King’s guards arrive, as does Prince Hammoton, Sir Andrew, and Sir Toby! Sir Toby is the last one to hit the Vrock before it disappears (it was only there for a little while anyhow) and so gets credit for the “kill”, which helps mitigate the whole centaur thing (the minstrel is the party “spin doctor” and is spreading tales of heroic centaur protectors of the woods). So it is a good day. King Anguish regains two of his sons thought dead (Lucius and Caius), and a demon is revealed and (presumed) driven off!

[Side note: Centaurs are not seen as evil so much as mythical. The centaurs were fey creatures like elves and dwarves, but were hunted to extinction by the giants. The last centaur died a millennium ago; Sir Toby is not just a centaur, he is THE centaur. Little children in and around the court all want to ride Sir Toby].

Sir Andrew is healed by a nun, who learns of what happened to Prince Caius and offers her services to help him (this nun is an old woman from Rome, looking to this “mini-inquisition” to see if it is a good idea to duplicate in other countries). The nun helps Caius at night at his request, with only Sir Toby as a witness. And unfortunately, the nun is a bad guy, and dominates Prince Caius! First he is ordered telepathically to act normal, but later, he is told to assume Sir Andrew’s (via Alter Self) form and kill King Anguish!

At this point, I allow party members to blow fate points to be in the right place at the right time. They consent and so are warned by a dream to get to the king!

Ok, another Sir Andrew vs. Sir Andrew. Sir Toby was there (it is a wide hallway) and strikes to subdue both of them, which gives them both a nice fat unconsciousness cushion (smart move of Sir Toby) since at first no one knows which Sir Andrew is the real one. Then Prince Hammoton (who didn’t blow a fate point because he was worried about another strike vs. the king, and so had independantly decided to spend a watch outside the king's chambers) goes into the king’s chamber to see if he is alright (he is, although bewildered, angry and frightened), and hears a scream from the adjoining chamber, the Queen’s chamber! Going in, he see another “king” bent over a now unconscious queen! So Prince Hammoton goes after that “king” (the demon again) as does the Minstrel (with a Shillelagh cast upon a chair). Sir Toby goes to stand guard over the queen. [I was thinking of a third “Sir Andrew” but felt that would be too cheesy even for me].

Caius/Andrew takes the real Sir Andrew down, but falls victim to Lady Christine’s Dire Weasel (which nearly died!). Although I was trying to spend Prince Caius’s destiny points to make certain he could get to the king, I only used them to make sure that a) he failed his saves vs. domination, and b) that his misses turned into hits. So only 4 of his 18 destiny points were spent. Ah well. Another time, perhaps.

So at the end of the day, both Sir Andrews are in separate cells. Prince Caius is unconscious, meaning that he will revert to goblin form soon, and is still dominated!

Also, people have leveled up and some are getting Leadership. I hear that Hobb and Hubert are candidates for cohorts. This could get weird!

 

[Roman]

[Sir Anton went to Fairyland for this one. I guess his player had to work or something. ]

You guessed correctly. I usually finish work just before 5pm on Saturdays but this Saturday I worked till 11pm and I did not know I was going to have to do that until the Saturday hit.

It is about here I should note that I have made a mistake as a DM. I should not redesign player’s characters for them. I liked the whole “nothing is permanent, even your forms” idea of fairyland-style fantasy, but when you change a character’s race, it pisses off the players.

Well, I would not really have minded if it ever happened to Sir Anton, so long as he was not totally 'screwed' by the change of his race of course. In fact, I thought the concept of blowing fate points to prevent death, but something strange happening to you interesting. In my view, death should not be without consequences and the way you approached it was quite interesting. I can see, though, how it can upset some players if their race changes - I guess it depends on the player and what the race changes to. Also, you need to ask whether it upsets the players or merely their characters.

 

[Particle_Man]

Prince Caius was in trouble. Fortunately, he leveled up and got leadership, so I let him play his soon-to-be-cohort, Hobb (former Rogue, now Hermit). Hobb had a dream in which he was visited by an angel and told to rescue the man whom he would serve and keep to the path of faith in the one God. He was told to rescue a gem, from a box, in a room, but not to attack the person in the room, for he would surely die and not save his charge.

Hobb was sneaky enough to get in and pick the lock and get the gem (which throbbed with a steady pulse), and put in it a chest pocket in his tunic. When he left, he tried to find Sir Caius in his room, but he was not there. Then he looked for Sir Toby in the stables (he’s a centaur) but on the way felt a chest pain, and found that when he pulled out the “gem”, instead he had a beating human heart in his hand. Also, the steady pulse of the gem was coming from inside of him. Then he found that he could (from then on) always locate what direction Prince Caius was in. But when he followed his urge (followed by Sir Toby) he found only a cell in a dungeon with one of the two Sir Andrews within it. He felt that this Sir Andrew was the man he had to heal, and healed him, upon which Prince Caius awoke, but still looked like Sir Andrew (since his sword of Alter Self was taken from him). So Lady Christine had to find the sword, and it turned out that Prince Lucius had it, and knew it was Caius’s and would not part with it. This led to Hobb lying (ohh, bad for nobility), using Obscuring Mist, and in the hullabaloo (with help from that tile of invisibility) Prince Caius changed into a goblin, escaped his bonds, used the tile, and scarpered off. Everyone praised Hobb for “Banishing the Demon”. Meanwhile, Prince Caius, no longer dominated, decided to coup de grace the “nun” in her sleep, which cost a severe amount of nobility points, but was the easiest way of killing the villain. Caius told no one about this.

The next day was marred by the murder of a distinguished visitor, but the killer was not discovered. There were still festivities over the death of the false Sir Andrew, the return of two sons, etc. During these, the minstrel Leanne got some songs going about the party, and the centaur gave rides to kids. One child found him later, in tears, because her sister was missing. So Toby tracked her into the dream wood, but found a child’s comb on the path. Then he turned and got his friends (returning the first girl to her mom).

In the woods, the party discovered a group of 8 troubadours, who offered Sir Andrew (one of the only two characters not hiding out) some stew and a place by the fire. Sir Andrew refused, and Prince Hammoton noticed a child’s finger in the stew. Upon leaving, Prince Hammoton revealed this to others and combat ensued against the 8 ghouls (these ones were a hair smarter – they knew enough to shave their givaway braided beards, and to lure people off into the woods). The party just aced the ghouls. I may have to upgrade the monsters soon. They rescued one little girl, but another was already in the stew. Also, the party was set upon by a centipede swarm (the minstrel did will to defeat that with a fire spell that Sir Andrew did not notice was cast by her!).

Then the party returned, and the mother was grateful to have her daughter back.

The next day, Lucius was sent off to get married in Caius’s place to the eldest daughter of Baron Ivo. Caius was given a peace-making mission to go to the druids in the Dreaming Woods (the false Sir Andrew had caused a lot of trouble there). He got the rest of the party to accompany him.

They had some dreams (yay! More dreams!) and then ran into a druid, called Fox. Sir Andrew did his usual introduction, and then the druid agreed to take the party to Raven and the dryad so that they could return the staff. She led them to a clearing and said “I think you will find what you are looking for here, Sir Andrew”, turned into a fox, and left. Then a very young red dragon came down, (breathing on them first), and Sir Andrew challenged it to combat (note: dragons get a few perks in Arthurian Adventures). Well, the dragon nearly killed Sir Andrew, and then Caius cheated and attacked from behind, and hand-signalled Toby to attack as well, and together they killed it (Sir Andrew backed off, of course, being honourable).

Then came a Troll, followed by a Hill Giant, both of which Sir Toby took out, although the last was a very near thing. During the last battle, some of the party sought out other druids (the minstrel wanted to talk, but got a summoned dire wolf set on her (she used hide from animals to evade it)), and eventually that part of the party found the stone henge with a raven on it. Prince Caius addressed it, and it became Raven. Prince Caius explained what had been going on with the false Sir Andrew, and that he wanted peace. Raven agreed to bring other druids there, and said that the false Sir Andrew had killed the dryad and chopped down her tree. So after that, they waited, and the rest of the party caught up. The druids appeared, agreed to the peace (mentioning that there was one druid, Fox, that refused peace, and had been kicked out of the Dreaming Woods), but mentioned that some villagers were trying to burn down the woods right this moment. So the party went there and sorted that mess out. Finally there was peace. A good stopping point.