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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Particle_Man" data-source="post: 1830807" data-attributes="member: 892">Finally, on to the “haunted” castle! On the way there there is a flash of light and a new party member shows up (Leanne the minstrel, secretly an elf (keeps her hair over her hears, plub a head shawl – in my world elves and dwarves don’t look THAT different from humans, (well dwarves are short and bearded). Since the party is used to members disappearing and reappearing, they accept Leanne’s story that she was kidnapped into fairyland and released, and would like to accompany the knights to sing of their noble adventures. [her fate was to prove that humanity has noble worth – she voiced this notion to Titania and for this reason she was thrown out of fairyland]. They first pass a peasant’s hut (the peasant is caring for his sick wife and acts scared of them at first (seems to think that they are bandits)) and then arrive at the castle. They find evidence of haunting (sounds, white sheetlike things in the distance) but it turns out that this is all faked up. There are what look like malformed children here that are warning others to stay away and avoid their curse. They say they were children in the castle when the curse hit, killing all adults and making them as you see them. Now the only way to break the curse is if a suitably noble person undertakes a special ritual. And Andrew walks right into the goblin’s trap, of course. J After self-flagellation (for a total of 17 damage!), he then allows himself to strip and take the special bath, with special salts, a special paste, and eventually special carrots, onions, etc. (at this point he realized the jig was up, but was alone! The rest of the party tried a little exploring, but didn’t get far (and when they tried to force their way through, were blocked by lots of goblins, and eventually (as the jig was up) attacked). The party won, but then saw more goblins kidnapping poor Hubert, the 12 year old boy left with the horses! The party made a “hostage” deal in which the goblins let the boy go and were allowed to leave. They find out from the goblins that a human was by earlier and stole a bowl from the castle.Note that when goblins are killed, they disappear and leave behind small objects (buttons, bananas, strawberries, etc.) (the latter being relevant to Hamilton!). [this is part of the fey deal: dwarves would leave gold statues, elves would leave fine pieces of jewelery; the latter two facts are not known to non-fey). Toby saves some strawberries for Hamilton (who is in fairyland this time around). Oh, and Toby finds a weird device among the goblins (kind of a large circular bronze (but un tarnished) pendant with jewels in it that can be depressed!)On exploring the castle itself, the upper levels have a bat swarm (left alone) and a Ghoooooost! This ghost was the ghost of a priest who convinced the last knight of the castle to not only abandon the old faith (a la lady of the lake) for the One God, but also to force all the castle servants to “convert or die”. Thus the castle really did come under a curse (and the knight was turned into a fish). Father Janus has haunted these halls ever since.Downstairs there is a gigantic room with a gigantic mirror. In the mirror are strange things (Sir Andrew’s reflect carries a large shield, for instance!) [this is where I start unloading magic items on the party – for the most part, I am going to go the “few items that gradually gain more and more powers” route. So Andrew “touches” the shield reflection and suddenly is holding a magic shield! (it currently has a small healing power). Now with Ciaus having the ancestral sword (cold iron, auto 20 on init 3x per day), the purple knight in fairyland receiving a horse-headed scepter (purple, with glowing eyes, looks mean “devil magic!” but grants +10 to diplomacy and intimidate if he dares use it), Toby gaining the weird device (which grafts to his shoulder during the knight, and gives him the ability to haste 2x a day (there may be side effects…), I need to get something for the Blue Knight.Ok, on to a nearby lake, where there appears a Lady coming from the water. Anton is determined to follow his dream, and agrees to go with the lady into the lake. He then for the sake of breaking the castle’s curse [and getting some Blue Knight prereq’s out of the way] forswears his allegiance to the One God and Caius’s dad Anguish, and transfers it to the old faith and the Lady of the lake here (this breaks the curse because of the symmetry – that other knight switched from her to the One God!). This costs a LOT of nobility, so the lady is appeased, and gives him some armor (+1 scale, dr 1/-).Right. Now they ask the lady for help tracking down Candar the Wily. She can track the bowl, and says she will allow them to reach it’s location via the magic mirror. So the party gets horses downstairs (never leave without the horses!) and through that mirror, and they find themselves outside that peasant hut! Ok, so they are too late to stop the ritual using book, staff (wand) and bowl (cup), (there was a small earthquake) and the “peasant” now looks older (white streak in his hair) but his wife (who was not sick but dead) is alive! Candar (who had shaved his distinctive salt and pepper beard, by the way) says he did it all for her, and that he would surrender the objects to the knights and submit to their judgement if he could just spend an hour alone with his wife. Ok, so the knights retreat a respectable distance from the cottage, Andrew, Leanne, Anton and Toby keeping watch while the others ride back to the castle to return the bowl. An hour later, Anton opens the door to find that Candar is not only dead, but half eaten! The wife is strange, with clawed hands and lots of blood on her face and down her nightgown. And combat ensues (basically, I used ghouls, and will later intro wights, but I don’t have any spawning). They defeat the “madwoman”. Leanne lootsWhen the party is reunited, they discuss this unusual turn of events, and then Caius finally agrees to go to Baron Ivo’s to meet the daughter he is supposed to marry. At this point the Hedge Mage Lady Christina joins the party (she was a follower of Caius’s older brother, who disappeared, and was told in a dream that she should protect Caius).Oh, in the distance they see a dragon flying south.On the way back, they meet a woman on the road that seeks justice. Her father was murdered by the people of Littleton! Well the knights agree to help Grace, the blacksmith’s daughter. From her, they find out that Littleton came to be haunted by spirits, that a holy woman appeared who was able to banish them, but said the town was under a curse and had to get rid of all of its metal (she (along with some helpers) would take it to Canterbury to have the archbishop remove the curse). The blacksmith objected, but then spirits were seen above his home, so the townsfolk thought he was the source of the curse! So anyhow, the blacksmith was lynched, and the holy lady left with a wagon loaded with metal (iron, gold, silver, copper, etc.). Yeah, sounds like a scam, right?So the party comes to Littleton, and Caius starts ordering people around (cause, y’know, he is prince here!) and tells them that they were likely fooled by an enchantress, and which way did she go? So they follow the path, find some abandoned metal (big non-valuable things, like farm implements, blacksmith’s forget, etc.) not too far out of town. They ride on and eventually catch up to six rogues and…the nun! A fight ensues.Now I was going to do the usual “nun harasses party but gets away” trick, with swarms, fly, invisibility, etc. I didn’t count on Leanne’s wand of faerie fire. And the hedge mage Christina could then counter protection from arrows with magic weapon on party members’ arrows [this was a new player, so she was relying on other party members for guidance – maybe I should not have given her a hedge mage but she is set on becoming an enchantress eventually]. The short version: Toby slays his nemesis the nun! Caius knights Toby on the spot (so he can take a Knight level now!).So much of the loot is recovered, and Caius orders the money returned to the village, but 2/3 of that to be given to Grace as compensation. But there is more money there than the village lost, so Caius has an extra 3 800 gp!And in the distance, they see a dragon flying north. Oh, and Toby has a dream that someone with dark hair (no face seen) picked up the nun’s body, waves here hand, and both disappeared! (I spent a destiny point to bring back the nun. Can’t keep a good villain like that down, especially since Toby’s player said “I didn’t expect the fight with her to be so easy!”)Ok, next they run into two little girls running from Dire Wolves.  Toby and his horse nearly die saving the girls, and a knight in Black Armor appears, who says "why are you attacking my pets!".  Sir Andrew challenges him, and they fight (I say that they charge at each other with lances, and just make initiative simultaneous).  After the wolves are defeated, teh other knights ride up to the solo battle but don't interfere (because ganging up on a person is considered bad form).  But Hamilton is able to use diplomacy to say "you have had enough passes to test each other's mettle.  I suggest you both can retire from the field with honour."  Sir Andrew agees, and the black knight (who may or may not have the Black Knight prestige class) also agrees (perhaps sensing that if Sir Andrew goes down, the others might ignore the "no ganging up" ettiquite).  But Leanne did sneak in some healing on Sir Andrew via sleight of hand and a wand, so even Andrew didn't detect it (rolled a 1 on his spot check -- this guy is lucky.  If he had noticed he would have had to refuse magical aid, and have had to deal with knowing that there is a magic using character in the party, which would freak out his character to say the least).  Note that he would not use his healing shield in the combat, because it would have been an unfair advantage.  Ok, the Black Knight leaves, the girls are saved, the dire wolves are dead.</blockquote>

Verification