die_kluge's story hour - The Lost Continent

[der_kluge]

That was the end of game #5, it was cut short. Dzintra was home not feeling well because she was pregnant. Her husband, Mournax came, but had to leave when she called him because she was experiencing pains. Later that night, early in the morning, she gave birth to a beautiful little girl named Cassidy.

And Nytor was out for personal reasons, so after the troll battle. we were down to half the group.

We all gave the guy playing Mournax a hard time for gaming and leaving his wife at home the night she would give birth.

 

[der_kluge]

The 4 reds move in, closer to the party into the center of the village. Two of the frogs pause, and Gate in two more red slaads - one each. The first two frogs move close to Mournax and attempt to engage him.

Dzintra scurries up a tree, Rath takes to the air, and Bax readies his bow. Nytor casts Prayer on the party, and Ivo moves in beside Mournax.

From the air, Rath begins raining down explosive death, and Mournax hurls his axe at the lead Slaad. The reds counter with a loud CROAK which attempts to stun those in the area, but is unsuccessful. Another attempts a gate, but fails. One Slaad goes down from Mournax's full attack.

The Gripplis all scurry into the huts for safety.

At this point, two Blue Slaad have emerged from the other side of the village, and close in on Ivo. And at this same time, a Chaos Hammer effect activates in the center of town, mildly affecting several in the area. Rath shouts down, "I can see a Green Slaad over behind those bushes", pointing to behind the red slaad.

The Blue Slaad paralyze Ivo momentarily with a Hold Person effect, and Nytor responds by blasting them with a flame strike. Bax continues to unleash arrow after arrow into the reds, and has now turned his attention towards the blues. Mournax proves to be far too tough for the reds, who at this point have lined up to die in front of him.

Rath encases the Green Slaad in a Otiluke's telekinetic sphere. The remaining red slaad go down, and Mournax and Ivo, who has awakened at this point move into to finish off the blues.

Once the blues go down, Rath flies to the ground and instructs Dzintra and Bax to tie up the red slaad, who are merely unconscious from a nonlethal blast of force that Rath had laid down a few rounds before.

"Let's gather around this green slaad. Perhaps we can coax some information out of him.", Rath says, flying down to the green, who is furiously pounding on the sphere from the inside.


___________________________________________________________________
ed. note: My party walked through this encounter (6 red slaad (CR 7 each), 2 blue slaad (CR 8), and a green (CR 11 I think)) like they were orcs just getting over the flu. It prompted me to drastically change my Slaad (Reds are now CR 10, Blues are CR 12, and greens are CR 15. I gave greens actual levels in wizard, and reds and blues have Spring Attack. You can see my revised slaad in my rogue's gallery thread. The next encounter with slaad would prove to be much, much more to my liking (coming up in game #7)

 

[der_kluge]

The party gathers around the green slaad, and Rath gives the motion to lower the resilient sphere. In a forceful tone, Rath raises his voice at the slaad, "If you cooperate, we may be lenient on you. Why have you attacked this village!"

The slaad, carefully assessing his opposition, darts his eyes back and forth and glares at Rath. "It is in our nature."

"Bah", Rath exclaims. "kill him!"

At that, the party cleaves into the slaad fully, rending him in short time.

Moving to the three reds that are now waking up from their unconscious state, they find themselves tied up.

Rath lears over the reds and demands answers. "Tell us why you are here, and we might let you live."

"Talk to the green one. He is our leader.", the red replies, smuggly.
Rath crouches down, and smiles, "Your leader is dead."
"Oh", the red says, looking down.
"Now, tell us why you are here. Why have you attacked this village?"
"These creatures bellies make great hosts for our offspring.", the red replies, proudly.
"Look creature, I have little patience for you. Why have you come here? What is your purpose?!", Rath demands.
Confused, the red replies, "I don't know, these decisions are made by slaad more powerful than me. We're searching... oh", the red stops abruptly, feeling as if he said something he shouldn't have.
"You're holding out on me!", Rath explains. "I've no qualms about killing you and your friends."
The red sits silent.
"Mournax, kill that one there", Rath says, pointing at another red sitting nearby.
Mournax lumbers up to the pathetic creature, and raises his axe high above the creatures head."
"Wait!", the slaad screams, "wait!"
Rath, moving to the new slaad demands, "is there something you'd like to share?"
"We're here for items of power. We're searching for items of power."
"Yes, go on", Rath asks.
"We were told there is something of great power here. We're all over, scouring for the source of power. We sensed a great power here and came to see what it was."
"The talisman", Rath says, holding up the talisman. "Is this what you seek?"
"Yes", the slaad replies, "we can sense its power. It is very strong."
"What are you looking for?", Rath asks.
"I don't know. Only the greens know."
"You said that you sensed this power. How far away were you able to sense this?"
"Two days away or more, there is... oh"
"Creature, you try my patience! Tell me what you know", Rath demands.
The slaad, afraid continues, "there is another source, I can feel it from here. To the southeast of here!"

Rath moves to Yogli, the grippli leader. "Yogli, you were right in relinquishing the talisman. These creatures can sense its presence. He mentions an area southeast of here."
"The spider canyon! It is where my people found the talisman. It's a dangerous place, full of spiders!"
"Yogli, these creatures are creatures of chaos, and are unredeemable. What would you have us do with them?"
"Kill them. They have caused us a great suffering."
"Very well", Rath says, "that is a wise decision."

"Kill them", Rath says calmly.

 

[Rath Lorien]

Boy, that Rath sounds like a real rat bastard.
I'd hate to meet up with him in a dark alley.

It is always interesting to see how different people remember events in the game. The various accounts do not always match up. But as they say, "Perception is reality". I guess that is especially true when it is the DM.

 

[der_kluge]

Feel free to correct me on anything. It's been a few weeks since that exchange, and it went a lot longer than this post implies, but I think I pretty much covered the gist of it.

 

[Mournax]

I finally found a scribe to read this to me in exchange for a handful of coins. I pounded him unconscious for lying to me, but the new scribe says the same thing and is typing my reply.

I am guessing that Rath paid a bard to sing this tale, he comes out looking so good. I recall a spirited discussion about whether is was worth questioning such obviously dishonest creatures since most of the party was unwilling to tolerate any worthwhile methods of getting information. Given this, I wanted to kill the creatures immediately, but was asked to wait. Rath at one point even offered to release the creatures unharmed in exchange for information. I figured this was a good trick, until Rath said that he meant it. I said no way and that these creatures would reveal all they could about us to their comrades if released, so I would kill them no matter what he promised. Rath then said if he gave his word he would PROTECT the creatures and help them leave unharmed. He basically threatened me. That takes some king size, well the scribe says he can't use the word I want, so let's just say it takes guts. Still, I can respect a threat, and it is always wise to tread carefully with touchy wizards, but helping the evil frog creatures leave was such a bad idea that we would have had to see who has the biggest horns. Luckily, Rath came to his senses and I put the frog things to the axe. I can't help thinking though that Rath and I will lock horns on this kind of thing down the road.

And, oh yeah, the next bard that says I "whined" about anything is going to get kneecapped and fed to the carrion crawlers.

**OOC** I really enjoy games where it is possible to role-play disagreement and keep it in character. It allows for far more interesting interaction and more possible directions for character development. I hope the GM will report on the background and interaction that occurs, because some of it has been pretty cool. I would, however, like to correct one egregious error. NO ONE in the group gave me a hard time for gaming the night my wife went into labor. This was because she wasn't due for another THREE WEEKS. I may be a gaming addict, but I'm not that bad.

 

[der_kluge]

We didn't give you a hard time about it, but I think we would have been justified in doing so. It all worked out though. And Cassidy is such a cute baby.

That said, I've been really lax on this story hour, so I shall have to work extra hard to catch up.

 

[der_kluge]

With the Slaad defeated, the Gripplis emerge from the huts.

"I have found this letter for you in there", Yogli says, handing the party an old piece of parchment.

 

[der_kluge]

The party bid the Gripplis farewell, and given the directions from the grippli leader the location of the spider canyon, they set out to see what they might find there.

An uneventful 4 days later, the party arrives at the edge of a short cliff, at the edge of thick forests that they had been walking through for days.

The cliff was a short ways down, but led into a much larger ravine. The top of this ravine, further inwards, was obscured by large spider webs. "This must be it", Bax intones.

Just then, the party spies some Slaad moving into the canyon - two reds and two blues.

"Careful", Dzintra says, "they'll see us."

Casting invisibility on himself, and Dzintra, Rath and Dzintra move down to the floor and follow in behind the slaad to see what they are up to.

They watch as the slaad make their way past a small pond fed from an underground stream that trickles out of the cliff wall. Past this stream, the slaad enter into heavy webs. The ground covered in webs, and the walls, and large strands and columns of webs that connect the floor to the ceiling. The sky above here - all but greyed out because of the webs.

As the slaad enter the webbing, they are immediately descended upon by literally hundreds of spiders. Each spider is approximately 1-2-ft. in diameter. As the slaad begin swiping their claws into the spiders, a horrific sight is witnessed by Rath and Dzintra. As the spiders are wounded, they back off, and *split* into two. Where once was one spider, now two appear shortly after, and continue to join the fight.

After a few moments, the slaad are overrun in spiders, and visible bite wounds are seen in their legs and arms. The slaads slump over - first the weaker reds, followed shortly by the blues. The slaad are quickly wrapped into tight cocoons, and drug off into the thick webby darkness.

 

[der_kluge]

Dzintra turns to Rath, "Um...", she says, solemly.

Rath and Dzintra return back to the party, and lower their invisibility. "Let's scope this place out. We saw some Slaad go in there and get eaten alive by spiders.", Rath says, to the party.
"And this is a good idea, because???", Bax says, smugly.

The party makes their way to the valley floor, at the entrance of the canyon. Here, the canyon walls just form from the floor. A dozen yards into the canyon, a small stream trickles ever so gently pouring into a pond that resides in the center, calmly hiding the chaos that just ensued beyond it.

"There's another thing", Dzintra says, "those spiders that came out and attacked those slaad aren't natural."
"How do you mean - not natural", Mournax asks, rubbing the bloodstone amulet around his neck tightly.
"Well, when the slaad attacked them, they... they split in two and their numbers multipled.", Dzintra responds.
"That's not natural", Bax replies.
"Indeed", Mournax agrees.

Rath says, "I'm going to fly above the canyon to get a better look at what we're dealing with here."

Flying upwards, Rath immediately spots a female figure behind the party, and he returns to the ground as soon as he spots her. Turning around to greet her, the rest of the party responds in turn, surprised by what they see.

"A nymph!", Rath says.
"Greetings", Nytor says.
The Nymph, a creature of ultimate beauty, clad only in a revealing deerhide, and a crown of ivy, bows slightly, and speaks in a delicate, light Fey tongue, that unfortunately no one understands.

"Um", Rath replies, "Nytor, got any translation spells?"
"All out", Nytor replies, "I'll begin praying for a spell." And with that, Nytor sits down in a meditative state to begin acquiring the spell he needs to communicate with the nymph.

The Nymph, sensing the confusion, pauses. At that moment, Bax's hawk, which had been snuggled tightly in his familiar's pouch, wiggles his head free, and leaps from Bax, and lands on the arm of the Nymph. "Traitor", Bax mumbles sarcastically.

The nymph smiles gently at the hawk, and pets its head softly, and then whispers into the hawks ear.

Bax remarks, "She's a friend - an ally", and then pauses a bit as the nymph continues to whisper in the hawk's ear. "She seeks our help with something", he continues. The hawk lets out a scream, and Bax responds, "the nymph will wait for the magic of the translation spell, and will tell us the details when she can speak. There is much that is impossible for my hawk to translate."

After a few moments, Nytor arises, and casts the tongues spell on the nymph. Afterwards, the nymph speaks.

"My name is Merenya - a nymph of this area. My grove is not far from here. Here, in this place, I have lived my entire life. I humbly ask your assistance in a matter of great importance. I am not powerful enough to fulfill this task on my own, but I believe with your power at my side, we can accomplish the goal that I seek."

"What is it you seek?", Rath asks.

"There is a great power trapped in this canyon. It is no less than the avatar of Elbard himself."

Stunned, the party looks into the canyon, and looks back at Merenya.

"An avatar!?", Nytor asks, perplexed.

"Yes, the child of Elbard. When Elbard was destroyed, he...."

"Wait", Rath asks, interrupting briefly, "who is this Elbard you speak of. We found some ruins that mentioned his name, but it is not a name that we are familiar with."

"Forgive me", Merenya says, "I assume too much. Let me start at the beginning."