Copperheads: Betrayal and Strange Runes and Burning Dead, oh my (short update 02/12)

[Durhon]

Ah... a great campaign and group of characters that one. Set in the Forgotten Realms. There was Simon the Cleric, Drakius the Halfing Wizard and Justice the Barbarian.

We had set up our own keep... called Khest Keep and discovered that some demons wanted our land to form a new layer of the abyss. There were demon armies all over the countryside and no one would believe us.

Drakius and Justice set off to try and get aid from a rather large city to the north however they found it hard to believe us. We told them of these armies and how the majority of them had demonic dragons with them. So as a test for the truth the leader of the city gave us a special dragon summoning flute (i think) and told us to blow it and if there was a dragon in the area of effect they would give us aid. However they made us do it outside the city incase it summoned one. We also found out too that the city had a protective circle around it.

So... Drakius blew the flute and poor ol' Justice took a pounding!! LOL. Once we resurrected him we then proceeded to keep blowing the flute and summoning dragons one at a time (with Simon this time) until the various armies were very weakened. I think once we summoned two as we got two camps in the flutes radius.

Shame we didn't story hour that campaign as it was really good.

Some of my facts may need some varification.

That particular campaign ended when we accidentally teleported into the Demon Leaders floating fortess and Simon dismissed it with a fluke arse roll!!

(ps... keep an eye out for Justice's son as he makes a Copperheads appearence later on.)

 

[Lela]

It does sound interesting. Thanks for the info Durhon,

 

[Khynal]

Um, that's not quite the way it happened. But close.

The quote comes from that moment outside the city walls after the dragon killed Justice, but decided it had taken too many injuries itself to risk fighting on, so it teleported away.

Simon True Rezed Justice. The three of us took stock of our situation and realised that we were still at practically full readiness. If we blew the flute again, the dragon would have to come back and we could try to finish it before it got a chance to heal.

It's always struck me as an incident that said so much about us as a group. It's an example of the strange things we did.

BTW, Arwink has mentioned a plan to chronicle the Khest Keep tale in Story Hour format, either here or on his website.

 

[Lela]

BTW, Arwink has mentioned a plan to chronicle the Khest Keep tale in Story Hour format, either here or on his website.

Great, yet another Story Hour I simply couldn't stop myself from reading if I tried.

 

[arwink]

Great, yet another Story Hour I simply couldn't stop myself from reading if I tried.

Maybe.

The main problem is that it's a good two or three years since we ran that campaign, and it was a good three years in the running. I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to reconstruct it. I'm going to run a thread on the Seldarn boards to see how much I can coax from the memory of those who were there, and then see how much I can formulate into a coherant timeline.

This will probably take a while

 

[arwink]

Friday, August 25th, 508 AF, continued

The next chamber appears to be the remains of the mines of bunkhouse. Rotting wooden timbers and mattressesses attest to the beds that filled the room, although the swarms of small beetles that scatter from the groups light hider such diagnoses for quite some time. As soon as they are sure the beetles pose no danger, Geoffrey orders everyone to spread out and search the area.

Twenty minutes of poking through the room turns up little of value, but they do find several carcasses amid the pile that appear to have been stripped of bone and flesh. More intriguing, however, is the large mural that covers one wall.

The mural is large enough that they can't see it all at once with the sunrod's light, having to move from one end to another to fully realise what the painting is of. Such examination shows that the mural is done in three panels, two showing a large dragon with coppery scales hovering over human miners and blacksmiths like some benign deity and the third showing awe-struck worshippers offering tribute to the bowl at the foot of their "God.". Geoffrey is particularly affronted by the representation, spending several seconds muttering about false gods.

"What do you think it means?" Halgo from the darkness. The dwarf has wondered out of the range of the sunrod to get a better view of the whole mural with his darkvision. The color is drained, but he's hoping for some clue when he sees the mural in its entirity.
"I don't know," Geoffrey says.
"Not just picture?" Yip asks. "Maybe dragon like picture?"
"No," Halgo says. "There's something about the picture, something we should be seeing but can't."
"Maybe dragon really a god?" Yip says. He flinches visibly when Geoffrey glares at him.
"No," Halgo says, stepping back into the light. "There's something odd here. Look at the coloring of the wyrm. Copper dragons are supposed to be honorable, not slavers and certainly not prone to delusions of godhood. And the talk of mind control in that diary, the lack of chains on the worshippers arms and legs. There's something about this dragon that isn't right."
Blarth, bored with the picture in a matter of moments, pipes in.
"Does it matter? Blarth thought dragon was dead?"

"Theoretically," Halgo says. "Theoretically dead. Nobodies been up here for a long time, and there's definately something strange going on in town. I'm not assuming the dragon's truly gone until I see proof that it's so."

THe dwarf scratches his chin, running his fingers through the well-kept goatee he sports.

"And even if it is dead, it doesn't hurt to find out everything we can. There might be another one of those things out there. It's rare that such powers manifest in just one creature."

Halgo goes back to studying the portrait with Geoffrey's help. Yip takes guard by the door, using his darkvision and keen senses to keep watch on the corridor. Blarth picks at the wreckage for a while, then gets bored and starts playing with the screaming elf head he stuffed into his sack. He tosses it from hand to hand for a few minutes, then takes the sock he'd stuffed into its mouth to see if it's still making noise.

It is. The heads scream echoes through the quiet chamber with a sudden intensity, causing everyone to jump.

"Blarth, shut that thing up," Geoffrey hisses angrily. Blarth shakes his head, suddenly realising he's heard a faint echoe of Goeffrey's statement in his blocked ear.
"What you say?" Blarth asks.
"I said shut that thing up." Geoffrey repeats. Blarth listens carefully for the echoe, but it's gone. With a sigh he stuffs a sock back into the elf heads mouth. He can't shake the feeling that something strange has happened. He sits on the remains of a bed and tries to work out what. While he's puzzling it out, he doesn't notice the others finishing their examination of the mural.

"Blarth, come on. We're moving," Halgo calls. Again Blarth hears the words echo in his bad ear.
"Say that again," He demands. "Say exactly the same."
"Blarth, come on. We're moving." Halgo repeats. His expression is confused. "Why?"
"Blarth hear twice, like sound bouncing back off rocks."
"An echo? Why, there's nothing like that in here. The rock formation is wrong."
"Blarth not know. One of Blarth's ears go funny, feel dead. Now he start hearing things twice when someone say Blarth's name."

Halgo looks suddenly interested, jogging over to examine the half-orcs new earing.
"I wonder," Halgo muses, examing the earing in detail. "hmm. Go to the other side of the room for a second and let me know what you hear."

Blarth shrugs and runs to the other side of the room. He sees Halgo put his hand over his mouth for a few seconds, then the dwarf calls out.
"Did you hear anything?"
"Did you say something to Blarth?"
"Hold on, I'll try again."

Halgo puts his hands over his mouth again, but this time Blarth hears a quiet whisper in his bad ear "Blarth, walk here and stop when you can no longer hea..."
Blarth stops instantly.

"Why you stop talking to Blarth?" he asks. Halgo doesn't answer, just runs back with a huge grin on his face.

"Looks like you've got a magic earing," he tells Blarth. "I think it's triggered by someone saying your name, but it appears you can hear what they say for a few seconds after whateversets it off. About five, judging by when you stopped just then."

Blarth thinks about this for a few seconds.

"Hmm. This mean Blarth hear things people don't want him to know they say?"
"I'd say so," Halgo says. "I'm not sure of the range, but it'd have to be pretty good to stay out of ordinary healing range."

Blarth thinks about this for a few seconds.

"Blarth think this a good thing," he says. With a wide grin, he pats Halgo on the back. "Maybe dwarf not all puny after all."

 

[incognito]

Bah! Elf earing is puny! Blarth just have new magic ear!

Love this story hour. I'm on the lookout for low level PC parties who make it up to higher level.

 

[Capellan]

Bah! Elf earing is puny! Blarth just have new magic ear!

Love this story hour. I'm on the lookout for low level PC parties who make it up to higher level.

That'll be us. Halgo has big plans



crosses his fingers that he stays alive long enough to make good on those plans

 

[arwink]

That'll be us. Halgo has big plans

crosses his fingers that he stays alive long enough to make good on those plans

Oh, I think he'll be fine. Even if he dies, you're at the level where you at least have the option of coming back.
(Note: Assuming you don't screw things up with the dwarves next game )

 

[Capellan]

you're at the level where you at least have the option of coming back

I guess we are, now. The sad thing about that, is that at the point where the story hour is up to, we were all still 1st level