that's why I convert numbers that large to metric. 750m is huge!
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that's why I convert numbers that large to metric. 750m is huge!
Actually, it was sort of lame. I stated that the cliff was half a mile tall, and that Spider Climb lets you move at two miles an hour. The math shouldn't have been that hard, but no one managed to connect the two statements. Oh well.
but.. basic math is hard!
My group decided to fly (they still have the boon of indomitability, so winds woudn't harm them) and they had to calculate whether or not one fly spell per person would suffice if they "hustled" (it did!).
Dramatis Personae
Kjolmar's contribution, like the time before last.
Simeon's Sending
Near the top of the Glaskeel Cliffs,, Amelia mysteriously starts mumbling: "Balan dead in Steppengard. Working with Gallo. Gathering Dashgoban, Timor, to stop Steppenhard's raid into Gallo. Ragesia gathered at end of pass. Wish us luck."
She explains that Simeon's voice appeared in her head to request a status report.
We spot Timor's Castle, a fairy-tale confection of soaring towers and bridges, a mile off. The guards are decidedly relaxed as we approach. Kjolmar is suspicious of their lack of armor or weapons!
"Ah, yes, Mistress Amelia and companions, you are expected. Please, use these rooms to freshen up and I will inform Lady Timor of your arrival..."
The tower appears to have been carved whole from living stone, with no joins or mortar, no tool marks. The rooms are well-appointed and comfortable.
Kjolmar is really, really suspicious!
Lady Timor
We go up, up and more up to an open balcony, which is calm and pleasant despite the winter weather just out of reach. Kjolmar and Eriel both keep their backs firmly against good solid stone walls.
Lady Timor greets us warmly: "Instructor Amelia! Are these your bodyguards?" She is already aware of the general nature of our diplomatic mission.
The meeting quickly turns rather grim, though, as Amelia recounts recent events, skirting the issue of Steppengard's loyalties, but detailing Ragesian attack on the watchtower and recovered orders, of Balan's torture by a Ragesian Inquisitor in Steppengard's dungeons and so on, and then explains our mission: "We seek the aid of Timor to bring a quick end to Steppengard's assault on Gallo, so that we may preserve Dassen's defense against Ragesia. Dashgoban has allied with Gallo."
I don't understand the comment about Steppengard's loyalties, and suspect it's actually an error in the notes. Kjolmar did want to bring up Steppengard's mental state, so maybe that's what he really meant here. Then again, bringing up the torture in Steppengard's castle puts a whole new light on the king's behavior, even if he probably wasn't aware it was happening.
Lady Timor asks our permission to have her diviners verify the authenticity of Jaas's orders. In the meantime, she oh-so-innocuously asks if we came through Innenotdar when we went to Seaquen. "Oh, no, that was a different group. Two of them died exploring a tomb in the sunken city to the east of town." Lady Timor, taken somewhat aback, expresses her condolences before mumbling something about Innenotdar being open to the Ragesian army and then offering everyone some more wine.
Wow, that comment about two of them dying sure shoved the issue back into Lady Timor's face! The funny thing was, discussing this exchange afterwards, the only reason Amelia did that was because she was confused about the geography and was trying to change the subject.
Lady Timor quickly agrees to send 50 battle wizards, a battalion of infantry, and a company of cavalry just so that Dashgoban doesn't get all the credit for the cavalry charges.
Then there's the little issue of getting us all back to Gallo as quickly as possible. By dawn's early light, we are back to the Cliff tops with a Timor wizard, looking far, far down, while he ties a couple of bits of twine to his cloak and ankles.
"Now, we'll just tie us together with this twine..."
"Uh, I don't think that will hold us..."
"Oh, it's just to keep us together when we leap off!"
"oh, yeah, ... sure ... Are you NUTS!?!? Maybe you could demonstrate..."
At which he tosses some fluff in the air, which blows back over all of us, and says: "That's not good. Oh well, here goes..." and leaps from the cliff. And plummets like a stone til near the bottom, when he suddenly slows, glides around a bit, and then flies back up; "Now, everybody ready!"
"uh, uh... AAIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" (Who knew Kjolmar could shriek like a little girl?)
"Hey, can we do that again?!?"
"No time, got to get you to Dassen quick! Hey, Pres..."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" (OK, we all knew Amelia could scream like a little girl)
"...to-changeo - it's just a horse, for you to ride."
"Oh, sorry, thought we might need asbestos undies for a moment. Anyway, I'll call her Smokey!"
Yes, Amelia is giving names to all her mounts, even the quasi-real horselike ones that will only stick around for a few hours. She is a city girl, after all.
We set out at incredible speed toward Gallo's Fend.
Council of War
We arrive to find Steppengard's army encamped about a large hill to the southeast. Looks like the battle shall begin in a few days.
We meet with Gallo: "We have several objectives:
At which a functionary pipes up with: "And then there's the fourth option..."
Gallo angrily interrupts. "I thought we agreed we did not want to discuss that!"
In a rare show of party unity, we all pipe up with "We would!"
Duke Gallo glares at the functionary and says, "Although it would be very dangerous to approach, Konigsmarshal Malkan's tent lies near the center of the army's camp on the far side of the hill. If the battle goes badly, we..."
Kjolmar cuts in before the duke can finish. "Oooh, cut off the head, and the battle may be over immediately!" Gallo smiles thinly.
Pulting The Catapults
Turns out Gallo's sappers have already run mines under part of the battlefield; they can get us close to the enemy catapults, and maybe provide an escape after.
We hatch our careful plan: disguised as enemy troops, and Invisible, Pass Without Trace, Messaged -- let's just sneak through the lines...
Clank Clank rattle CLANK
"Hey, whazzat noise like a dwarven tank in a snow bank?"
"Shhhhhhhhhhh! let's just be really still..."
At which point a dragon passes over, turns, alights and then alights us: "Three of 'em, right where my fiery breath is melting the snow!"
Dragon, meet Eriel, a.k.a., anti-aircraft suppressing fire. And then Amelia rubs acid in the wounds, all the way down to its brain stem.
The foe is undaunted by the instant demise of their fearsome fire-breather. (I dunno, would have given me a moment's pause...)
Everybody's a critic!
Really sad -- put together a nice red dragon, decked out with some useful potions, and she gets knocked down to a mere 3 hit points thanks to a critical hit in Eriel's initial volley of arrows. It was sort of dumb of me to have Scarlet land right near them, but I doubt it would have mattered -- even without the sneak attack, Amelia's acid orb would have done the dragon in.
The battle is joined, with each catapult guarded by five or six warriors. Eriel and Kjolmar begin dispatching ground troops, while Amelia effectively cuts support from further up the line with a sleet storm, some glitter dust on the one person trying to give orders, a dash of haste, and a quick illusion or two (or maybe they just looked like illusions). Larger-than-Life Kjolmar hastily starts chopping the first catapult to kindling; catapluts one and two succumb quickly as the sleet storm clears.
Enlarged and with a big heap of Power Attack, Kjolmar was able to destroy the catapults with only four blows each.
The guards have regrouped beyond the third catapult -- but can't see us in the dark! As Kjolmar moves towards the third catapult, Eriel puts them all in the dark with a nicely placed Quench. Hmm, bad move; suddenly their arrows seem to start hitting home, now that they are firing blindly.
Yeah, the catapult guards did get a lot of natural 20s.
I was really impressed with that use of Quench. I'd thrown it into the stash they picked up when they raided Lee Sidoneth's place during the warm-up sessions in hopes of them finding a clever use for it, and they certainly did!
And Amelia ... goes off by herself?!? "Does she have a death wish or something?" Nope, she has a plan, which seems to involve five of her and a cloud of knives sneak attacking from the dark of the open field. Suddenly confused and surrounded, the assembled guards do little to slow Kjolmar's destruction of the third catapult; and then they surrender, rather than suffer more losses from unseen sources.
On to number four! Eriel summons a thoqqua in a hyacinth of fire to attack number five. And then the cavalry arrives -- their cavalry, unfortunately, and air cavalry at that.
Another unexpected and clever use of magic on the ranger's part. Woo hoo! Not enough to finish off the catapult, but it would have been enough to let Kjolmar move on to the next one a lot faster.
Oh, incidentally, I have the ranger casting spells using the bard schedule and character level. I figured I'd make the ranger a bit less nerfy, relatively speaking (that dungeoncrasher build that is Kjolmar is pretty awesome), and give the player an opportunity to explore using magic more. Seems to be working!
Lions pounce from the sky. The first lion gets spitted on Kjolmar's pike, but there are two more for each of us. Kjolmar and Eriel are close enough to trade attackers, though Eriel gets repeatedly mauled in the process. Amelia simply vanishes from sight, but then manages to haste us again. She is also severely wounded and playing hide and sneak with an opponent with sharp hearing (to say nothing of scent, of which nothing was ever said...). The soldiers who surrendered stay honorably surrendered, but those further along continue to rain arrows down upon us. Kjolmar notches four more kills before the last two flying lions beat a retreat - but we can hear enemy horses approaching now: Time to retreat! Kjolmar is normal-sized, save a big, wide, blood-spattered grin showing the splinters stuck between his teeth, Amelia is trying to save a few spells for later, and Eriel is running out of both spells and arrows. One last axe blow to destroy catapult four, and maybe five is sufficiently damaged to be out of commission.
I replaced the cavalry with a CR-equivalent pride of criosphinxes -- and then grabbed the hieracosphinx page instead! That was a lucky mistake on my part, because Eriel would have gone down in a bloody heap had I used the right monsters. I think replacing the horses was the right thing for me to do: Since I had decided that all the snow was impeding movement, the cavalry couldn't have done any interesting maneuvers anyhow.
Oh, and I did let them know that the last sphinx to arrive was simply looking for a better position, not actually retreating....
We make the escape tunnel and the sappers blow it behind us.
The party now has exactly ten victory points -- in theory, enough for Duke Gallo to declare a truce, but there's no way for him to know that with any confidence, and I might as well let them go pick on Wiz Kelkin anyhow. Kjolmar thinks it would be just as dangerous and more worthwhile to attack Malkan in his tent (not to be confused with Achilles in his tent
), so I need to more clearly communicate the danger involved.
- Amelia, a human spellthieving acetomancer
- Erielle, an half-orc (formerly elven) archer ranger
- Kjolmar, a dour dwarven dungeoncrashing deepwarden
Kjolmar's contribution, like the time before last.
Simeon's Sending
Near the top of the Glaskeel Cliffs,, Amelia mysteriously starts mumbling: "Balan dead in Steppengard. Working with Gallo. Gathering Dashgoban, Timor, to stop Steppenhard's raid into Gallo. Ragesia gathered at end of pass. Wish us luck."
She explains that Simeon's voice appeared in her head to request a status report.
We spot Timor's Castle, a fairy-tale confection of soaring towers and bridges, a mile off. The guards are decidedly relaxed as we approach. Kjolmar is suspicious of their lack of armor or weapons!
"Ah, yes, Mistress Amelia and companions, you are expected. Please, use these rooms to freshen up and I will inform Lady Timor of your arrival..."
The tower appears to have been carved whole from living stone, with no joins or mortar, no tool marks. The rooms are well-appointed and comfortable.
Kjolmar is really, really suspicious!
Lady Timor
We go up, up and more up to an open balcony, which is calm and pleasant despite the winter weather just out of reach. Kjolmar and Eriel both keep their backs firmly against good solid stone walls.
Lady Timor greets us warmly: "Instructor Amelia! Are these your bodyguards?" She is already aware of the general nature of our diplomatic mission.
The meeting quickly turns rather grim, though, as Amelia recounts recent events, skirting the issue of Steppengard's loyalties, but detailing Ragesian attack on the watchtower and recovered orders, of Balan's torture by a Ragesian Inquisitor in Steppengard's dungeons and so on, and then explains our mission: "We seek the aid of Timor to bring a quick end to Steppengard's assault on Gallo, so that we may preserve Dassen's defense against Ragesia. Dashgoban has allied with Gallo."
I don't understand the comment about Steppengard's loyalties, and suspect it's actually an error in the notes. Kjolmar did want to bring up Steppengard's mental state, so maybe that's what he really meant here. Then again, bringing up the torture in Steppengard's castle puts a whole new light on the king's behavior, even if he probably wasn't aware it was happening.
Lady Timor asks our permission to have her diviners verify the authenticity of Jaas's orders. In the meantime, she oh-so-innocuously asks if we came through Innenotdar when we went to Seaquen. "Oh, no, that was a different group. Two of them died exploring a tomb in the sunken city to the east of town." Lady Timor, taken somewhat aback, expresses her condolences before mumbling something about Innenotdar being open to the Ragesian army and then offering everyone some more wine.
Wow, that comment about two of them dying sure shoved the issue back into Lady Timor's face! The funny thing was, discussing this exchange afterwards, the only reason Amelia did that was because she was confused about the geography and was trying to change the subject.
Lady Timor quickly agrees to send 50 battle wizards, a battalion of infantry, and a company of cavalry just so that Dashgoban doesn't get all the credit for the cavalry charges.
Then there's the little issue of getting us all back to Gallo as quickly as possible. By dawn's early light, we are back to the Cliff tops with a Timor wizard, looking far, far down, while he ties a couple of bits of twine to his cloak and ankles.
"Now, we'll just tie us together with this twine..."
"Uh, I don't think that will hold us..."
"Oh, it's just to keep us together when we leap off!"
"oh, yeah, ... sure ... Are you NUTS!?!? Maybe you could demonstrate..."
At which he tosses some fluff in the air, which blows back over all of us, and says: "That's not good. Oh well, here goes..." and leaps from the cliff. And plummets like a stone til near the bottom, when he suddenly slows, glides around a bit, and then flies back up; "Now, everybody ready!"
"uh, uh... AAIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" (Who knew Kjolmar could shriek like a little girl?)
"Hey, can we do that again?!?"
"No time, got to get you to Dassen quick! Hey, Pres..."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" (OK, we all knew Amelia could scream like a little girl)
"...to-changeo - it's just a horse, for you to ride."
"Oh, sorry, thought we might need asbestos undies for a moment. Anyway, I'll call her Smokey!"
Yes, Amelia is giving names to all her mounts, even the quasi-real horselike ones that will only stick around for a few hours. She is a city girl, after all.
We set out at incredible speed toward Gallo's Fend.
Council of War
We arrive to find Steppengard's army encamped about a large hill to the southeast. Looks like the battle shall begin in a few days.
We meet with Gallo: "We have several objectives:
- "Steppengard has entrenched engines of war; they must be destroyed or disabled for us to control the field of battle.
- "Kelkin Thravanvost the War Wizard has set his tent somewhat apart from Steppengard's army; he may be vulnerable to a quick strike, and that would gravely wound Steppengard's magical support.
- "Commander Hertiage would appreciate your assistance as he orders his troops to defend his section of the line on the field of battle.
At which a functionary pipes up with: "And then there's the fourth option..."
Gallo angrily interrupts. "I thought we agreed we did not want to discuss that!"
In a rare show of party unity, we all pipe up with "We would!"
Duke Gallo glares at the functionary and says, "Although it would be very dangerous to approach, Konigsmarshal Malkan's tent lies near the center of the army's camp on the far side of the hill. If the battle goes badly, we..."
Kjolmar cuts in before the duke can finish. "Oooh, cut off the head, and the battle may be over immediately!" Gallo smiles thinly.
Pulting The Catapults
Turns out Gallo's sappers have already run mines under part of the battlefield; they can get us close to the enemy catapults, and maybe provide an escape after.
We hatch our careful plan: disguised as enemy troops, and Invisible, Pass Without Trace, Messaged -- let's just sneak through the lines...
Clank Clank rattle CLANK
"Hey, whazzat noise like a dwarven tank in a snow bank?"
"Shhhhhhhhhhh! let's just be really still..."
At which point a dragon passes over, turns, alights and then alights us: "Three of 'em, right where my fiery breath is melting the snow!"
Dragon, meet Eriel, a.k.a., anti-aircraft suppressing fire. And then Amelia rubs acid in the wounds, all the way down to its brain stem.
The foe is undaunted by the instant demise of their fearsome fire-breather. (I dunno, would have given me a moment's pause...)
Everybody's a critic!
Really sad -- put together a nice red dragon, decked out with some useful potions, and she gets knocked down to a mere 3 hit points thanks to a critical hit in Eriel's initial volley of arrows. It was sort of dumb of me to have Scarlet land right near them, but I doubt it would have mattered -- even without the sneak attack, Amelia's acid orb would have done the dragon in.
The battle is joined, with each catapult guarded by five or six warriors. Eriel and Kjolmar begin dispatching ground troops, while Amelia effectively cuts support from further up the line with a sleet storm, some glitter dust on the one person trying to give orders, a dash of haste, and a quick illusion or two (or maybe they just looked like illusions). Larger-than-Life Kjolmar hastily starts chopping the first catapult to kindling; catapluts one and two succumb quickly as the sleet storm clears.
Enlarged and with a big heap of Power Attack, Kjolmar was able to destroy the catapults with only four blows each.
The guards have regrouped beyond the third catapult -- but can't see us in the dark! As Kjolmar moves towards the third catapult, Eriel puts them all in the dark with a nicely placed Quench. Hmm, bad move; suddenly their arrows seem to start hitting home, now that they are firing blindly.
Yeah, the catapult guards did get a lot of natural 20s.
I was really impressed with that use of Quench. I'd thrown it into the stash they picked up when they raided Lee Sidoneth's place during the warm-up sessions in hopes of them finding a clever use for it, and they certainly did!
And Amelia ... goes off by herself?!? "Does she have a death wish or something?" Nope, she has a plan, which seems to involve five of her and a cloud of knives sneak attacking from the dark of the open field. Suddenly confused and surrounded, the assembled guards do little to slow Kjolmar's destruction of the third catapult; and then they surrender, rather than suffer more losses from unseen sources.
On to number four! Eriel summons a thoqqua in a hyacinth of fire to attack number five. And then the cavalry arrives -- their cavalry, unfortunately, and air cavalry at that.
Another unexpected and clever use of magic on the ranger's part. Woo hoo! Not enough to finish off the catapult, but it would have been enough to let Kjolmar move on to the next one a lot faster.
Oh, incidentally, I have the ranger casting spells using the bard schedule and character level. I figured I'd make the ranger a bit less nerfy, relatively speaking (that dungeoncrasher build that is Kjolmar is pretty awesome), and give the player an opportunity to explore using magic more. Seems to be working!
Lions pounce from the sky. The first lion gets spitted on Kjolmar's pike, but there are two more for each of us. Kjolmar and Eriel are close enough to trade attackers, though Eriel gets repeatedly mauled in the process. Amelia simply vanishes from sight, but then manages to haste us again. She is also severely wounded and playing hide and sneak with an opponent with sharp hearing (to say nothing of scent, of which nothing was ever said...). The soldiers who surrendered stay honorably surrendered, but those further along continue to rain arrows down upon us. Kjolmar notches four more kills before the last two flying lions beat a retreat - but we can hear enemy horses approaching now: Time to retreat! Kjolmar is normal-sized, save a big, wide, blood-spattered grin showing the splinters stuck between his teeth, Amelia is trying to save a few spells for later, and Eriel is running out of both spells and arrows. One last axe blow to destroy catapult four, and maybe five is sufficiently damaged to be out of commission.
I replaced the cavalry with a CR-equivalent pride of criosphinxes -- and then grabbed the hieracosphinx page instead! That was a lucky mistake on my part, because Eriel would have gone down in a bloody heap had I used the right monsters. I think replacing the horses was the right thing for me to do: Since I had decided that all the snow was impeding movement, the cavalry couldn't have done any interesting maneuvers anyhow.
Oh, and I did let them know that the last sphinx to arrive was simply looking for a better position, not actually retreating....
We make the escape tunnel and the sappers blow it behind us.
The party now has exactly ten victory points -- in theory, enough for Duke Gallo to declare a truce, but there's no way for him to know that with any confidence, and I might as well let them go pick on Wiz Kelkin anyhow. Kjolmar thinks it would be just as dangerous and more worthwhile to attack Malkan in his tent (not to be confused with Achilles in his tent
), so I need to more clearly communicate the danger involved.
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Adventure IV: Battle for Gallo's Fend, continued
Dramatis Personae
Kjolmar's contribution, yet again.
Oh, We're Off To See The Wizard...
We take another tunnel to somewhere in the woods on the hill a half mile from Kelkin's tent. The trip to his tent is uneventful...until we approach the contingent of dwarves around his tent that gives lie to "all alone in the woods".
After the strategic fiasco at the catapults, I made the guards here a bit smarter -- dwarves for the darkvision, and dogs for the hearing and scent. Of course, this time they simply walked right up....
"Halt, who goes there!"
Amelia wings it: "Lady T... of Iz, here with important news about tomorrow's battle for Wizard Thravanvost!"
"Hmmm, come this way."
Oh, look, a lovely (and suspicious) gynosphinx. Amelia tries the Haughty Lady routine, but it doesn't go so well. After a few rounds of "I'll only talk to Lord Kelkin!" and such, the gynosphinx beckons our dwarven escort.
DING DING DING!!!!
Grandma, What A BIG War Pike You Have!
Kelkin finally emerges from his tent, via a door(?), glowing slightly. Amelia tries resorting to Old School Ties: "You're just as Gabal said!" Amelia's ruse wears thin under Kelkin's rude interrogation: "Why have you come here prepared for battle? How many spells are on you?"
"Well, yes, we're in a battle zone, and I can't see in the dark!" Even Kelkin seems momentarily mollified. Or as mollified as he's ever likely to get: "Why are you really here?! No, you'll tell me right now, right here."
Amelia decides to play the almost-the-truth gambit: "Inquisitors torturing in Steppengard's dungeons, Ragesians capturing towers, murder, mayhem, what ho!" Alas, it does not to sway Kelkin.
I'm not at all happy with how I ran this interaction. Amelia was seriously attempting to sway Kelkin into changing sides, or at least standing down against Gallo's forces. I'd come to the session ready for them to attack the mage, and just assumed it was her latest bit of subterfuge, and so was completely focused on not letting Kelkin get caught in some parley-turned-trap. Kelkin standing down would have been much more interesting. She probably still even had the note from the tower in Alydi Gap as evidence. If I'd had a bit more warning (or brains), I could have treated this as a diplomacy check similar to their audience in Bresk.
Worse yet, because I was all focused on battle, so Kelkin blew his Globe of Invulnerability
And then we hear the cavalry in the distance. Again, not our cavalry, but at least it's horses.
Amelia tries for the haughty-turn-on-heel-walk-away. Kelkin directs the approaching cavalry: "There, preparing to attack!" Oh well, looks like the jig is up.
A lighted arrow lands near our feet: Kjolmar steps on it. The cavalry... uh, two riders charge us. Kjolmar spits one of them, and Eriel trips the other horse: "Gettin' the hang of your new look?"
Silly me, I tried to use the trample rules. Not only did the half-orc archer rebuff the horse, but she managed to trip it. Really?
A group of Amelias forms amid many clouds of knives, tossing a blade at a third. That rider charges Kjolmar, and nearly invents pole-vaulting.
Kjolmar succeeds at a surprisingly dexterous side-step of a sudden six-foot sable sphere: "Oh, look - cover!" We hide behind it.
The dwarf made his reflex save against the Resilient Sphere? That was probably Kelkin's cue to flee right there.
The horsemen rally behind us, knocking Eriel to the ground. A flaming sphere hits us from the other side, and we're set upon by the Dogs of War... one bites an image of Amelia most viciously. Then Amelia enlarges Kjolmar, and the three of us lay waste to our enemies.
"Forget retreat. Let's go get that Wizard!" Kjolmar stomps towards the dwarven phalanx in front of Kelkin.
Amelia moves to her accustomed "I'll just sneak attack from the dark" flanking position. Turns out that gynosphinxes can see just fine in the dark, thank you! It flies at Amelia. Amelia casts a spell... and is countered! Eriel fires an arrow ... and misses!
Kjolmar charges the dwarves, weapon suspiciously quivering in his hand, knocking one dwarf back into another and tripping it in the bargain. Kelkin seems surprised, or maybe amused, by this strategy -- and doesn't seem to do anything? The dwarves move to encircle Kjolmar.
I had Kelkin keep readying Shatter spells against his opponents weapon. He only ever got one off, and the target made their save. Destroying Eriel's bow would have really gotten her attention, though. On the other hand, there was probably a great opportunity to throw a Fireball or Cloudkill at the whole group, but I blew it.
Eriel and Amelia recover from a bad start to quickly dispatch the gynosphinx.
Kjolmar steps around the dwarves to trip Kelkin: "Yield!" Kelkin makes no response, and Kjolmar does a full John Henry on him.
"ung... STAND DOWN!" The dwarves back off. Unfortunately, Kjolmar mishears the order as coming from elsewhere, and chucks Kelkin on the chin to knock him out, then tosses him over a shoulder. The dwarves react to grab Kelkin and stop Kjolmar. Eriel shoots a couple, and Amelia blinds the rest.
Time to beat yet another retreat!
Into The Woods!
Kjolmar runs for the escape tunnel, Amelia and Eriel trailing (for a change!). More lit arrows land, revealing us to yet more approaching cavalry. Amelia casts a sleet storm to try to block them; they ride around it.
We make the woods, but with deep snow and no longer hasted, they're gaining on us -- quickly! Eriel and Amelia combine to cast a Wall of Ice and Obscuring Mist as another impediment; they ride around it.
"Looks like we're gonna have to stand and fight!" The lead rider, a dwarf, casts Spiritual Weapon: yep, they're close, all right. But the six or so riders are also bunched up after skirting the ice wall, enough to be entirely caught in Eriel's Entangle.
"Hah, now we'll just pepper 'em with arrows and spells..." until the leader creates a Fog Cloud of her own. "Oh, wait, can she can do that?!?"
We take positions and wait for them to emerge. The first out gets hit by knives, magic missiles and maybe an arrow or two, and runs to hide in that other obscuring fog bank, so recently evaded. The leader emerges next, and is instantly greeted by more missiles and Kjolmar's pike: dead in the saddle. The third out sizes up the situation, shouts "Commander down! Retreat!!" and follows his own advice back into the fog and entangling brush.
We hear nothing more except attempts to retreat, and we make our final sprint to the tunnel.
and home before dark! ...er, light!
A Present for Gallo
Late for the Battle
What, we've done enough?
Truce or Dare?
As a truce is called and the dead and wounded are carted off (not necessarily in that order), a courier rides out from Steppengard’s camp with a message for Duke Gallo. King Steppengard does not wish for more fighting. He is recalling his army and requests that Gallo attend a peace conference in Bresk.....
This is a very suspicious announcement, and Lord Gallo knows it. However, he has no choice but to accept.... Besides, if there is any chance that the country can be united to stand against Ragesia’s invasion, they must take it.
So we get knighted!
Dramatis Personae
- Amelia, a human spellthieving acetomancer
- Erielle, an half-orc (formerly elven) archer ranger
- Kjolmar, a dour dwarven dungeoncrashing deepwarden
Kjolmar's contribution, yet again.
Oh, We're Off To See The Wizard...
We take another tunnel to somewhere in the woods on the hill a half mile from Kelkin's tent. The trip to his tent is uneventful...until we approach the contingent of dwarves around his tent that gives lie to "all alone in the woods".
After the strategic fiasco at the catapults, I made the guards here a bit smarter -- dwarves for the darkvision, and dogs for the hearing and scent. Of course, this time they simply walked right up....
"Halt, who goes there!"
Amelia wings it: "Lady T... of Iz, here with important news about tomorrow's battle for Wizard Thravanvost!"
"Hmmm, come this way."
Oh, look, a lovely (and suspicious) gynosphinx. Amelia tries the Haughty Lady routine, but it doesn't go so well. After a few rounds of "I'll only talk to Lord Kelkin!" and such, the gynosphinx beckons our dwarven escort.
DING DING DING!!!!
Grandma, What A BIG War Pike You Have!
Kelkin finally emerges from his tent, via a door(?), glowing slightly. Amelia tries resorting to Old School Ties: "You're just as Gabal said!" Amelia's ruse wears thin under Kelkin's rude interrogation: "Why have you come here prepared for battle? How many spells are on you?"
"Well, yes, we're in a battle zone, and I can't see in the dark!" Even Kelkin seems momentarily mollified. Or as mollified as he's ever likely to get: "Why are you really here?! No, you'll tell me right now, right here."
Amelia decides to play the almost-the-truth gambit: "Inquisitors torturing in Steppengard's dungeons, Ragesians capturing towers, murder, mayhem, what ho!" Alas, it does not to sway Kelkin.
I'm not at all happy with how I ran this interaction. Amelia was seriously attempting to sway Kelkin into changing sides, or at least standing down against Gallo's forces. I'd come to the session ready for them to attack the mage, and just assumed it was her latest bit of subterfuge, and so was completely focused on not letting Kelkin get caught in some parley-turned-trap. Kelkin standing down would have been much more interesting. She probably still even had the note from the tower in Alydi Gap as evidence. If I'd had a bit more warning (or brains), I could have treated this as a diplomacy check similar to their audience in Bresk.
Worse yet, because I was all focused on battle, so Kelkin blew his Globe of Invulnerability
And then we hear the cavalry in the distance. Again, not our cavalry, but at least it's horses.
Amelia tries for the haughty-turn-on-heel-walk-away. Kelkin directs the approaching cavalry: "There, preparing to attack!" Oh well, looks like the jig is up.
A lighted arrow lands near our feet: Kjolmar steps on it. The cavalry... uh, two riders charge us. Kjolmar spits one of them, and Eriel trips the other horse: "Gettin' the hang of your new look?"
Silly me, I tried to use the trample rules. Not only did the half-orc archer rebuff the horse, but she managed to trip it. Really?
A group of Amelias forms amid many clouds of knives, tossing a blade at a third. That rider charges Kjolmar, and nearly invents pole-vaulting.
Kjolmar succeeds at a surprisingly dexterous side-step of a sudden six-foot sable sphere: "Oh, look - cover!" We hide behind it.
The dwarf made his reflex save against the Resilient Sphere? That was probably Kelkin's cue to flee right there.
The horsemen rally behind us, knocking Eriel to the ground. A flaming sphere hits us from the other side, and we're set upon by the Dogs of War... one bites an image of Amelia most viciously. Then Amelia enlarges Kjolmar, and the three of us lay waste to our enemies.
"Forget retreat. Let's go get that Wizard!" Kjolmar stomps towards the dwarven phalanx in front of Kelkin.
Amelia moves to her accustomed "I'll just sneak attack from the dark" flanking position. Turns out that gynosphinxes can see just fine in the dark, thank you! It flies at Amelia. Amelia casts a spell... and is countered! Eriel fires an arrow ... and misses!
Kjolmar charges the dwarves, weapon suspiciously quivering in his hand, knocking one dwarf back into another and tripping it in the bargain. Kelkin seems surprised, or maybe amused, by this strategy -- and doesn't seem to do anything? The dwarves move to encircle Kjolmar.
I had Kelkin keep readying Shatter spells against his opponents weapon. He only ever got one off, and the target made their save. Destroying Eriel's bow would have really gotten her attention, though. On the other hand, there was probably a great opportunity to throw a Fireball or Cloudkill at the whole group, but I blew it.
Eriel and Amelia recover from a bad start to quickly dispatch the gynosphinx.
Kjolmar steps around the dwarves to trip Kelkin: "Yield!" Kelkin makes no response, and Kjolmar does a full John Henry on him.
"ung... STAND DOWN!" The dwarves back off. Unfortunately, Kjolmar mishears the order as coming from elsewhere, and chucks Kelkin on the chin to knock him out, then tosses him over a shoulder. The dwarves react to grab Kelkin and stop Kjolmar. Eriel shoots a couple, and Amelia blinds the rest.
Time to beat yet another retreat!
Into The Woods!
Kjolmar runs for the escape tunnel, Amelia and Eriel trailing (for a change!). More lit arrows land, revealing us to yet more approaching cavalry. Amelia casts a sleet storm to try to block them; they ride around it.
We make the woods, but with deep snow and no longer hasted, they're gaining on us -- quickly! Eriel and Amelia combine to cast a Wall of Ice and Obscuring Mist as another impediment; they ride around it.
"Looks like we're gonna have to stand and fight!" The lead rider, a dwarf, casts Spiritual Weapon: yep, they're close, all right. But the six or so riders are also bunched up after skirting the ice wall, enough to be entirely caught in Eriel's Entangle.
"Hah, now we'll just pepper 'em with arrows and spells..." until the leader creates a Fog Cloud of her own. "Oh, wait, can she can do that?!?"
We take positions and wait for them to emerge. The first out gets hit by knives, magic missiles and maybe an arrow or two, and runs to hide in that other obscuring fog bank, so recently evaded. The leader emerges next, and is instantly greeted by more missiles and Kjolmar's pike: dead in the saddle. The third out sizes up the situation, shouts "Commander down! Retreat!!" and follows his own advice back into the fog and entangling brush.
We hear nothing more except attempts to retreat, and we make our final sprint to the tunnel.
and home before dark! ...er, light!
A Present for Gallo
Late for the Battle
What, we've done enough?
Truce or Dare?
As a truce is called and the dead and wounded are carted off (not necessarily in that order), a courier rides out from Steppengard’s camp with a message for Duke Gallo. King Steppengard does not wish for more fighting. He is recalling his army and requests that Gallo attend a peace conference in Bresk.....
This is a very suspicious announcement, and Lord Gallo knows it. However, he has no choice but to accept.... Besides, if there is any chance that the country can be united to stand against Ragesia’s invasion, they must take it.
So we get knighted!
Dramatis Personae
Tournament of Unity
Our heroes are dragged parade through Bresk and reach the palace. They listen to Steppengard's speech and their immediate reaction, similar the duke's, is that he didn't mention the Ragesians once in that speech. Anyhow, the evening passes fairly uneventfully, although Amelia and Kjolmar are apalled to learn that Gate Pass has falled and Eriel is appalled to learn that there is now a second Ragesian army marching through Shahalesti.
I could have sworn I'd asked the players to make characters with an attachment to Gate Pass....
The next morning, they head off to take part in the Tournament of Unity. They first run into a food vendor throwing coins and steak at a paying customer. Eriel, of all people, manage to chat him up and find out he's been booted from the kitchens. Immediately, the heroes start speculating about the banquet being poisoned.
Eriel finds horseshoes too easy, although Amelia has a lot of fun despite having a hard time hitting the pit, let alone the stake. No one gets terribly drunk, but that could simply because the beer is terrible.
Kjolmar, surprisingly, goes to sign up as a jouster, although he does ask if he has to ride the horse to joust. In the meantime, Amelia finds Gallo in the stands and tries to subtly hint to him that there may be something up. The message goes totally over Gallo's head, so she takes him for a little walk to explain their concerns. She then goes back to the joust and seeks out the Megadon entourage, chatting them up in hopes of determining if they're up to something. Instead, she ends up with a date to the banquet with Megadon's son. Meanwhile, Kjolmar knocks someone off their horse, advancing to the quarter-finals.
I can only assume that the heroes have a lingering hatred for Megadon after being mocked by some of their agents when they visited Dene's holdings. Amusing, in any case.
Maybe I was doing it wrong, but jousting turned out to be really dull -- Kjolmar won the first two rounds in a single pass, then got unseated in the semi-final just as quickly.
Eriel keeps saying they need to find out if anything's going on in the kitchens, so Amelia eventually gives in and uses Disguise Self to pose as a scullery maid. She notices that there are small casks everywhere in the kitchen containing something being put into all the food. She manages to scrape up a sample of it and gets thrown out of the kitchen in the process. She then corners Gallo and, with the help of one of his clerics, determines that her sample is indeed poisoned. Gallo's appalled, and is at something of a loss, but Kjolmar eventually suggests that a cleric consecrate the banquet, cast Detect Poison as part of the ritual, and announce that everything's poisoned.
Now I've really done myself in! I liked the idea of sneaking into the kitchen so much that I couldn't resist giving a clue. I didn't notice until after the session that the food wasn't supposed to be poisoned until the last minute. Now, in theory, the whole poisoning attempt should fail totally. However, I noticed one little detail that might give me an acceptable escape hatch: Maddening Spirit. If Glibglammer gets hit with the Detect Poison, the cleric will end up getting confused and do something that gets him locked into the dungeon. The dinner can then proceed, but at least the heroes get some information about some magic that they might be able to tie back to her.
On the other hand, I'm not convinced that's plausble. It would make more sense if Nina or Steppengard were to have Gallo arrested before he can warn anyone, but then the heroes don't get anything resembling a reward for finding out about the poisoning before it should have been possible for them to do so. Decisions, decisions....
They go back to play horseshoes again. Kjolmar throws one hard enough to knock the stake out of the ground while Eriel goes back into Bresk to buy a bunch of antitoxin for everyone -- only to discover that all the alchemists are closed. They also discover that the castle cook's food truck had been shut down.
...but, strangely, neglect to inquire with any of the other vendors about what happened.
Amelia decides to try her hand at the shell game, claiming she needs money to buy a new dress for the banquet -- and then wagering one measly silver piece. By the third round, she's convinced to wager a gold piece or two, just in time for the guy working the cups to palm the coins. They catch him in the act, and he turns over the coins, with surprisingly little acrimony from all concerned.
After the disappointment at the shell games, she lets herself get talked into a single round of the spell games. The sorceress from the Lyceum doesn't mess around -- she is able to cast two spells in quick succession before her opponent finishes even one. The second spell knocks her opponent out cold. The audience stands in stunned silence, and eventually thank her for her participation.
Beware the sneak-attacking spellduelist with Improved Initiative and swift-action spells! I'll have to decide if the mages of Bresk decide to bone up on their spelldueling or instead find a small hole to crawl into until the war's over -- that duel was brutal.
The heroes catch sight of Whizbang, and are disappointed to discover that the explosions are over for the day. They do manage to tie together Whizbang's woes with Eriel's trip into the city.
As the heroes head for the exits and their final chance to catch up with Duke Gallo, a dwarven soldier from the castle sidles up to the group, tells them that the back end of the castle and the Book of Eight Lands are both unguarded, and then disappears into the crowd.
Gallo promises the heroes that he'll inform Lord Dashgoban and Lady Timor about their discoveries so that they may also protect themselves against poison and asks them to investigate what's going on, making sure to check on the Book of Eight Lands while they're at it.
Up The Castle's Hind End
The heroes make their way back into the sewers and run across the tragedies floating guard in the walls -- one of which briefly looks like Hrumbrand. Kjolmar gets severely touched by the first one without landing a single blow on it himself and has to beat a retreat. In the meantime, Eriel and Amelia let loose with their Magic Stones and Magic Missiles, causing the first tragedy to vanish forever. The second one pursues them out into the graveyard and, since Amelia is unable to outrun it, they have to stand and fight. It's at this point that Amelia realizes they all have healing magic. The tragedy and the heroes exchange touches, but the heroes get the final touch and it, too, disappears. At this point, Amelia observes that the touches' effects will wear off in an hour, so the heroes go to the tower overlooking the graveyard to rest up.
Kjolmar was down five negative levels -- yipes!
Although the heroes didn't realize it, hiding in the tower was a mistake. By the time they're done, the parade celebrating the jousting victor will have finished and the nobles are starting to gather for the banquet. The timeline should be enough for Nina and/or Steppengard to arrest anyone who might interfere with their plans.
The heroes make their way into the prison again and manage to make their way into the chamber Torrax used to make the Red Madness.
After the session had broken up, I realized that Amelia would know that the Book of Eight Lands should protect the nobles. She immediately began speculating on ways to keep the Book from protecting the nobles, including -- hang on, wait for it -- Rope Trick. This last section is just too easy, I guess!
- Amelia, a human spellthieving acetomancer
- Erielle, an half-orc (formerly elven) archer ranger
- Kjolmar, a dour dwarven dungeoncrashing deepwarden
Tournament of Unity
Our heroes are dragged parade through Bresk and reach the palace. They listen to Steppengard's speech and their immediate reaction, similar the duke's, is that he didn't mention the Ragesians once in that speech. Anyhow, the evening passes fairly uneventfully, although Amelia and Kjolmar are apalled to learn that Gate Pass has falled and Eriel is appalled to learn that there is now a second Ragesian army marching through Shahalesti.
I could have sworn I'd asked the players to make characters with an attachment to Gate Pass....
The next morning, they head off to take part in the Tournament of Unity. They first run into a food vendor throwing coins and steak at a paying customer. Eriel, of all people, manage to chat him up and find out he's been booted from the kitchens. Immediately, the heroes start speculating about the banquet being poisoned.
Eriel finds horseshoes too easy, although Amelia has a lot of fun despite having a hard time hitting the pit, let alone the stake. No one gets terribly drunk, but that could simply because the beer is terrible.
Kjolmar, surprisingly, goes to sign up as a jouster, although he does ask if he has to ride the horse to joust. In the meantime, Amelia finds Gallo in the stands and tries to subtly hint to him that there may be something up. The message goes totally over Gallo's head, so she takes him for a little walk to explain their concerns. She then goes back to the joust and seeks out the Megadon entourage, chatting them up in hopes of determining if they're up to something. Instead, she ends up with a date to the banquet with Megadon's son. Meanwhile, Kjolmar knocks someone off their horse, advancing to the quarter-finals.
I can only assume that the heroes have a lingering hatred for Megadon after being mocked by some of their agents when they visited Dene's holdings. Amusing, in any case.
Maybe I was doing it wrong, but jousting turned out to be really dull -- Kjolmar won the first two rounds in a single pass, then got unseated in the semi-final just as quickly.
Eriel keeps saying they need to find out if anything's going on in the kitchens, so Amelia eventually gives in and uses Disguise Self to pose as a scullery maid. She notices that there are small casks everywhere in the kitchen containing something being put into all the food. She manages to scrape up a sample of it and gets thrown out of the kitchen in the process. She then corners Gallo and, with the help of one of his clerics, determines that her sample is indeed poisoned. Gallo's appalled, and is at something of a loss, but Kjolmar eventually suggests that a cleric consecrate the banquet, cast Detect Poison as part of the ritual, and announce that everything's poisoned.
Now I've really done myself in! I liked the idea of sneaking into the kitchen so much that I couldn't resist giving a clue. I didn't notice until after the session that the food wasn't supposed to be poisoned until the last minute. Now, in theory, the whole poisoning attempt should fail totally. However, I noticed one little detail that might give me an acceptable escape hatch: Maddening Spirit. If Glibglammer gets hit with the Detect Poison, the cleric will end up getting confused and do something that gets him locked into the dungeon. The dinner can then proceed, but at least the heroes get some information about some magic that they might be able to tie back to her.
On the other hand, I'm not convinced that's plausble. It would make more sense if Nina or Steppengard were to have Gallo arrested before he can warn anyone, but then the heroes don't get anything resembling a reward for finding out about the poisoning before it should have been possible for them to do so. Decisions, decisions....
They go back to play horseshoes again. Kjolmar throws one hard enough to knock the stake out of the ground while Eriel goes back into Bresk to buy a bunch of antitoxin for everyone -- only to discover that all the alchemists are closed. They also discover that the castle cook's food truck had been shut down.
...but, strangely, neglect to inquire with any of the other vendors about what happened.
Amelia decides to try her hand at the shell game, claiming she needs money to buy a new dress for the banquet -- and then wagering one measly silver piece. By the third round, she's convinced to wager a gold piece or two, just in time for the guy working the cups to palm the coins. They catch him in the act, and he turns over the coins, with surprisingly little acrimony from all concerned.
After the disappointment at the shell games, she lets herself get talked into a single round of the spell games. The sorceress from the Lyceum doesn't mess around -- she is able to cast two spells in quick succession before her opponent finishes even one. The second spell knocks her opponent out cold. The audience stands in stunned silence, and eventually thank her for her participation.
Beware the sneak-attacking spellduelist with Improved Initiative and swift-action spells! I'll have to decide if the mages of Bresk decide to bone up on their spelldueling or instead find a small hole to crawl into until the war's over -- that duel was brutal.
The heroes catch sight of Whizbang, and are disappointed to discover that the explosions are over for the day. They do manage to tie together Whizbang's woes with Eriel's trip into the city.
As the heroes head for the exits and their final chance to catch up with Duke Gallo, a dwarven soldier from the castle sidles up to the group, tells them that the back end of the castle and the Book of Eight Lands are both unguarded, and then disappears into the crowd.
Gallo promises the heroes that he'll inform Lord Dashgoban and Lady Timor about their discoveries so that they may also protect themselves against poison and asks them to investigate what's going on, making sure to check on the Book of Eight Lands while they're at it.
Up The Castle's Hind End
The heroes make their way back into the sewers and run across the tragedies floating guard in the walls -- one of which briefly looks like Hrumbrand. Kjolmar gets severely touched by the first one without landing a single blow on it himself and has to beat a retreat. In the meantime, Eriel and Amelia let loose with their Magic Stones and Magic Missiles, causing the first tragedy to vanish forever. The second one pursues them out into the graveyard and, since Amelia is unable to outrun it, they have to stand and fight. It's at this point that Amelia realizes they all have healing magic. The tragedy and the heroes exchange touches, but the heroes get the final touch and it, too, disappears. At this point, Amelia observes that the touches' effects will wear off in an hour, so the heroes go to the tower overlooking the graveyard to rest up.
Kjolmar was down five negative levels -- yipes!
Although the heroes didn't realize it, hiding in the tower was a mistake. By the time they're done, the parade celebrating the jousting victor will have finished and the nobles are starting to gather for the banquet. The timeline should be enough for Nina and/or Steppengard to arrest anyone who might interfere with their plans.
The heroes make their way into the prison again and manage to make their way into the chamber Torrax used to make the Red Madness.
After the session had broken up, I realized that Amelia would know that the Book of Eight Lands should protect the nobles. She immediately began speculating on ways to keep the Book from protecting the nobles, including -- hang on, wait for it -- Rope Trick. This last section is just too easy, I guess!
The mad king's banquet, at last!
Dramatis Personae
Second Battle of Steppengard Prison
Having heard some sort of innocuous activity behind the door between the store rooms and the guard room in Steppengard Prison, the heroes tried sneaking up to the door, only to hear someone casting some sort of spell. So, after buffing themselves up, Kjolmar yanked open the door. However, Torrax was ready -- he set the entire hallway on fire as soon as the door opened. Eriel let loose with her bow, only to discover that magical fire can be somewhat hard on arrows. Kjolmar pressed forward and manages to trip both Torrax and Serrimus, and the heroes eventually brought down Serrimus and incapacitated Torrax -- but not until Torrax managed to bring a column of flame down on everyone, including the unconscious Serrimus. Apparently, Serrimus knew too much for Torrax to allow him to be caputred.
Kjolmar got a 0 on a Move Silently check. Good thing he was wearing masterwork breastplate, rather than something noisy!
I was a little surprised he used a pole arm in that scenario, and I probably shouldn't have allowed it. There really isn't enough room in a dungeon like that to swing something that long around, and that's why Kjolmar was able to trip both of the bad guys in a single round.
While Amelia was the first to notice the prisoners in the prison, she lets Kjolmar and Eriel take care of them while she busied herself with stealing Torrax's spells. They immediately recognize Duke Gallo and his chaplain, and fairly quickly recognize the king's chef. Alas, the duke doesn't recognize anyone at all, including himself, as he is suffering from severe amnesia. The chaplain, on the other hand, refuses to leave his cell because someone suggested that he needs a full interrogation after he attacked Nina Glibglammer immediately after he cast detect poison in the banquet hall. Fortunately for the chaplain, Kjolmar was willing to declare the interrogation complete after the chaplain answered a couple questions. The heroes tried a few spells on Duke Gallo in hopes of restoring his memory, but nothing was effective. They eventually decide to press on to check on the Book of Eight Lands while they let the chaplain tend their duke. The chef decides to look for work someplace very far away.
The Book of Eight Lands
The heroes dash up the stairs and enter the museum and antechamber for the Book. Amelia sees the honor guard defending the hallway to the room containing the book itself, and...uses a wand of sleep in him. Amelia's rash behavior shocked everyone, but the guard himself was so shocked that he didn't have time to utter a peep before Kjolmar hacked him down where he stood. As he slumped onto the floor, he revealed the writing on the wall that gave the ritual sentence for requesting permission to view the book.
This bit of play was pretty sad. Amelia had pulled out the wand in preparation for there being guards in the prison's guard room, and so she was fixated on using that wand, dammit. Mind you, they had done a very bad job of researching the Book, but, as the party face, she could easily have found a non-violent solution.
So, they proceeded to go find the book, carefully uttering the ritual sentence as they walked past the guard's corpse. Surprise -- the book was nowhere in the room! Well, ok, no one was surprised, so Amelia cast Detect Magic, scanned the walls of the room, and then looked straight up into the 3'-by-5' magical square ten feet above her head. One quick human/half-orc/dwaren pyramid later and Amelia produced a rope hanging in mid-air. She climbed up, handed down the book, and then dashed down the rope and out the door to make sure her handy haversack, which she had been unable to bring into the room, was still there. It was there -- as were a half dozen guards looking at their comrade's corpse. "He, uhm, stole the Book of Eight Lands, but we've recovered it! No worries!" This puzzles the guards, but they are willing to follow Amelia into the room.
"See, there was a bad wizard, and he was hiding the book at the top of the rope to, uhm, do something bad, but we recovered it, so everything's fine now! Only, uh, we need to chase down that wizard" The guards, satisfied that the book was safe and the details are being tended to, remove their dead comrade.
What can I say? Amelia was having a hard time with her storytelling that day. Still, good enough of a bluff to get them on their way.
After some amount of cajoling by the DM about the significance of hiding the Book and their recovery of it, the heroes decided to go find Duke Gallo, who happened to be heading up the stairs at the same time. He explained that Nina had turned into a giant mass of snakes and and attacked him. The heroes are now worried that everyone in the banquet will have forgotten who they are. Quick, to the banquet hall!
The Banquet
The Duke ordered the guards to let him into the banquet hall, stepped in, and declared, "That gnome is a traitor!"
Note to self: Only allow players to drive NPCs during combat.
"Traitor?! You slew my wife and my bright children! ...land I kill!!" exclaims the king. He whipped out his magic flail, knocked Lady Namin's chair out from under her, bashed her head in, whipped around to knock the chair out from under Lord Iz, and knocked him unconscious as well. Nina gleefully applauds the carnage.
A little Cleave, a little Improved Trip, and the eight lands are down two nobles, all in the space of a standard action.
Amelia quickly responded by evoking a force globe that traps but protects the king. Our other heroes started attacking Nina, who eventually gathered her wits and turned into Madness, engulfed them, and was quickly defeated, although Eriel, unable to step out of reach, got bitten several times as she tries to shoot Madness with her bow (and attacked by a couple confused associates of Lady Namin) before Madness is defeated. As Madness collapsed into a pile of tiny snakes that quickly vanished, her lingering smile mockingly said, "I'll be back!"
I'm not sure engulfing was the best idea, although I was a little surprised that Kjolmar opted for -- and made! -- the reflex save rather than the attack of opportunity. She never did get a full attack in, let alone use her spell-like abilities. On the other hand, Amelia's quick application of the resilient sphere pretty much won the battle right at the start. With the king safely incapacitated and unable to order his troops, all that was left was to attack Madness and beat down typical noble who'd been poisoned. Sadly, I'm not convinced anybody understood that they'll be seeing Madness again.
The king slumped and eventually started to weep. Amelia tried to organize people to make sure the king was safe before releasing him; it doesn't help that a few more proxies succumbed to the poison, and that Eriel pointed her bow in the king's direction on the theory that she'll shoot anyone who attacks him (like the guards are going to stand for that). Amelia dismissed the sphere, the king apologized to Duke Gallo, contemplated his crown, and threw it away.
The adventure ends on a pretty sour note at this point. Eriel's player loudly and repeatedly proclaims, out-of-character, that the king can't quit, while Kjolmar and Amelia politely wait for the nobles to to talk Steppengard into remaining king. Eventually, one of them puts words into Gallo's mouth to the effect that the country really needs the king to unite them against Ragesia's treachery. And no one ever did make me a construction-paper crown.
A bit later, Amelia uses the dream scroll she found on Serrimus's charred corpse to give Simeon a full report. In return, Simeon sends a dream to the three of them, telling them that he needs them to proceed to....
Dramatis Personae
- Amelia, a charming human spellthieving (and spellwarping) acetomancer
- Erielle, an half-orc (formerly elven) archer ranger
- Kjolmar, a dour dwarven dungeoncrashing deepwarden
Second Battle of Steppengard Prison
Having heard some sort of innocuous activity behind the door between the store rooms and the guard room in Steppengard Prison, the heroes tried sneaking up to the door, only to hear someone casting some sort of spell. So, after buffing themselves up, Kjolmar yanked open the door. However, Torrax was ready -- he set the entire hallway on fire as soon as the door opened. Eriel let loose with her bow, only to discover that magical fire can be somewhat hard on arrows. Kjolmar pressed forward and manages to trip both Torrax and Serrimus, and the heroes eventually brought down Serrimus and incapacitated Torrax -- but not until Torrax managed to bring a column of flame down on everyone, including the unconscious Serrimus. Apparently, Serrimus knew too much for Torrax to allow him to be caputred.
Kjolmar got a 0 on a Move Silently check. Good thing he was wearing masterwork breastplate, rather than something noisy!
I was a little surprised he used a pole arm in that scenario, and I probably shouldn't have allowed it. There really isn't enough room in a dungeon like that to swing something that long around, and that's why Kjolmar was able to trip both of the bad guys in a single round.
While Amelia was the first to notice the prisoners in the prison, she lets Kjolmar and Eriel take care of them while she busied herself with stealing Torrax's spells. They immediately recognize Duke Gallo and his chaplain, and fairly quickly recognize the king's chef. Alas, the duke doesn't recognize anyone at all, including himself, as he is suffering from severe amnesia. The chaplain, on the other hand, refuses to leave his cell because someone suggested that he needs a full interrogation after he attacked Nina Glibglammer immediately after he cast detect poison in the banquet hall. Fortunately for the chaplain, Kjolmar was willing to declare the interrogation complete after the chaplain answered a couple questions. The heroes tried a few spells on Duke Gallo in hopes of restoring his memory, but nothing was effective. They eventually decide to press on to check on the Book of Eight Lands while they let the chaplain tend their duke. The chef decides to look for work someplace very far away.
The Book of Eight Lands
The heroes dash up the stairs and enter the museum and antechamber for the Book. Amelia sees the honor guard defending the hallway to the room containing the book itself, and...uses a wand of sleep in him. Amelia's rash behavior shocked everyone, but the guard himself was so shocked that he didn't have time to utter a peep before Kjolmar hacked him down where he stood. As he slumped onto the floor, he revealed the writing on the wall that gave the ritual sentence for requesting permission to view the book.
This bit of play was pretty sad. Amelia had pulled out the wand in preparation for there being guards in the prison's guard room, and so she was fixated on using that wand, dammit. Mind you, they had done a very bad job of researching the Book, but, as the party face, she could easily have found a non-violent solution.
So, they proceeded to go find the book, carefully uttering the ritual sentence as they walked past the guard's corpse. Surprise -- the book was nowhere in the room! Well, ok, no one was surprised, so Amelia cast Detect Magic, scanned the walls of the room, and then looked straight up into the 3'-by-5' magical square ten feet above her head. One quick human/half-orc/dwaren pyramid later and Amelia produced a rope hanging in mid-air. She climbed up, handed down the book, and then dashed down the rope and out the door to make sure her handy haversack, which she had been unable to bring into the room, was still there. It was there -- as were a half dozen guards looking at their comrade's corpse. "He, uhm, stole the Book of Eight Lands, but we've recovered it! No worries!" This puzzles the guards, but they are willing to follow Amelia into the room.
"See, there was a bad wizard, and he was hiding the book at the top of the rope to, uhm, do something bad, but we recovered it, so everything's fine now! Only, uh, we need to chase down that wizard" The guards, satisfied that the book was safe and the details are being tended to, remove their dead comrade.
What can I say? Amelia was having a hard time with her storytelling that day. Still, good enough of a bluff to get them on their way.
After some amount of cajoling by the DM about the significance of hiding the Book and their recovery of it, the heroes decided to go find Duke Gallo, who happened to be heading up the stairs at the same time. He explained that Nina had turned into a giant mass of snakes and and attacked him. The heroes are now worried that everyone in the banquet will have forgotten who they are. Quick, to the banquet hall!
The Banquet
The Duke ordered the guards to let him into the banquet hall, stepped in, and declared, "That gnome is a traitor!"
Note to self: Only allow players to drive NPCs during combat.
"Traitor?! You slew my wife and my bright children! ...land I kill!!" exclaims the king. He whipped out his magic flail, knocked Lady Namin's chair out from under her, bashed her head in, whipped around to knock the chair out from under Lord Iz, and knocked him unconscious as well. Nina gleefully applauds the carnage.
A little Cleave, a little Improved Trip, and the eight lands are down two nobles, all in the space of a standard action.
Amelia quickly responded by evoking a force globe that traps but protects the king. Our other heroes started attacking Nina, who eventually gathered her wits and turned into Madness, engulfed them, and was quickly defeated, although Eriel, unable to step out of reach, got bitten several times as she tries to shoot Madness with her bow (and attacked by a couple confused associates of Lady Namin) before Madness is defeated. As Madness collapsed into a pile of tiny snakes that quickly vanished, her lingering smile mockingly said, "I'll be back!"
I'm not sure engulfing was the best idea, although I was a little surprised that Kjolmar opted for -- and made! -- the reflex save rather than the attack of opportunity. She never did get a full attack in, let alone use her spell-like abilities. On the other hand, Amelia's quick application of the resilient sphere pretty much won the battle right at the start. With the king safely incapacitated and unable to order his troops, all that was left was to attack Madness and beat down typical noble who'd been poisoned. Sadly, I'm not convinced anybody understood that they'll be seeing Madness again.
The king slumped and eventually started to weep. Amelia tried to organize people to make sure the king was safe before releasing him; it doesn't help that a few more proxies succumbed to the poison, and that Eriel pointed her bow in the king's direction on the theory that she'll shoot anyone who attacks him (like the guards are going to stand for that). Amelia dismissed the sphere, the king apologized to Duke Gallo, contemplated his crown, and threw it away.
The adventure ends on a pretty sour note at this point. Eriel's player loudly and repeatedly proclaims, out-of-character, that the king can't quit, while Kjolmar and Amelia politely wait for the nobles to to talk Steppengard into remaining king. Eventually, one of them puts words into Gallo's mouth to the effect that the country really needs the king to unite them against Ragesia's treachery. And no one ever did make me a construction-paper crown.
A bit later, Amelia uses the dream scroll she found on Serrimus's charred corpse to give Simeon a full report. In return, Simeon sends a dream to the three of them, telling them that he needs them to proceed to....
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