renau1g
First Post
Shoot... I just realized that. Sorry. I've removed from the post, but great narrative.
Dr Midnight's Keep on the Shadowfell - Unbelievably updated on 7/30
Shoot... I just realized that. Sorry. I've removed from the post, but great narrative.
Mathew_Freeman
First Post
I have some inside knowledge of the spy, but I enjoy the candor so far between the characters and note how different we RP the same NPC's. Your a great DM from what I've seen/read and I'm taking notes, I just hope that you can get your games in faster than I can, so you pass where my group is. I'd like to "borrow" (ok... steal) some of your ideas.
Oh boy, your players are really enjoying themselves, aren't they?
I'm loving this - the characters are great fun, and Padraig's attitude is just something I'd never had thought up in a million years. Here's hoping the PC's actually pull this off!
Of course, if they don't, the next set of PC's come with a ready-made backstory...
Dr Midnight
Explorer
How so?
Well, there's tumult at the gametable... we've lost Lathon's player, Greldo's player AND Moltezom's player, all due to scheduling. We're going to try to keep the same characters as new players come in (Lathon, this week, was played by new player Hugh). Hopefully the characters will continue to come across.
renau1g
First Post
I know I played him quite differently, as he was a man of the people in my game (being that he frequented the drinking establishment). Lord Pardraig was not quite the statesmen that he was in your game, in fact, the recent troubles of the town have caused him to try to find the answer at the bottom of the bottle. The PC's are all born in the town (known as Timmins in my game, a previous character's keep that was established years ago) and so have their own motivations for helping out.
I hope your new player(s) work out, it can be quite difficult to recruit new gamers.
I hope your new player(s) work out, it can be quite difficult to recruit new gamers.
What's going on? Why are your players leaving? Are you pushing them out?
Dr Midnight
Explorer
Nope... one just said they were unavailable for the foreseeable future, and that was it. One has their wedding coming up and I guess the month before a wedding is a tough time. One coaches kids' football and will be insanely busy at the beginning of the season.
renau1g
First Post
Yup... like pull your hair out as you need to decide every minutia of the wedding. I mean I thought I was a micromanager, but man alive.... well if it's not meeting with the florist, its the photographer, or dj, or the reception hall.....*Phew* gets me tired just thinking back to it.
Mathew_Freeman
First Post
Just that I read the adventure and it put me in mind that Padraig would be reasonable, calm, and ordinary. You've given him a lot more life than I would have considered doing - so I'm probably going to steal the idea and make him a bit more abrasive!
Dr Midnight
Explorer
Session 3 – Chapter 3
Poor First Impression
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Poor First Impression
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The adventurers walked north for miles on a hard-packed road that had not seen regular use in years. Festive sprigs of weeds grew amongst the wheel ruts. Moving in this direction for two days or so would take the traveler to the northeast, beyond the Cairngorm foothills. The road would wither to a rocky footpath long before passing Lake Wintermist which lay at the vast Winterbole Forest’s southwest edge. The road would go long, up into the Stonemarch with its tribes of warring orc clans. The road had once served as a trade route between orcish and human settlements, but it seemed by the condition of the road that such agreements had long since degraded.
An overgrown path branched off to the right. Greldo re-checked his pockets and sheathed knives, saying “I should go in first and take a look around.”
“Good thinking,” Gloraen said. “We’ll stay here. If you need help…”
“…I’ll scream girlishly,” the halfling finished. “Wish me luck.” The rogue disappeared into the foliage.
Greldo crept along the edge of the old path until he came within sight of the Keep. It really wasn’t anything special, it was like any of the broken-down castles that littered the countryside. Tumbledown piles of ruined granite and stacks of broken timbers lay about the center of a clearing. The vague shape of rooms was shown by the rotted foundation. Something had laid rubble aside and created a path into the debris, but from here Greldo couldn’t make out what it was.
He wanted to make a full sweep of the area, but for some reason he felt hesitant to step out into the clearing. There weren’t any guards watching, he felt quite sure of that. It was more of a creepy feeling, one that in childhood Greldo and his sisters might have referred to as “getting the squidgies.” The area was fully lit in daytime, but there was no denying that it was eerie here.
Greldo stepped out with light feet and padded softly around the ruins. He saw that the path that had been cleared away went to a staircase that descended down into darkness. He made a note of that and walked around to the east.
The eerie feeling was present here as well, and Greldo tried to put his finger on what it might be. It occurred to him that the birds weren’t singing; in fact, there were no woodland noises of any sort. No chitters of squirrels, no persistent knocking of distant woodpeckers. The halfling looked to the trees and to his surprise saw that the birds were there. They were watching him. A squirrel, too, was perched on a stump at the edge of the forest and staring at him with its black eyes. Greldo’s flesh broke out in goosebumps and he drew a dagger. The noises had ceased, he realized, the moment he had entered the clearing. Not only this, but the clearing itself was void of life; there was a radius around the ruins where the grass ceased to grow, giving way to the kind of cracked hardpan he had once seen at the edge of a desert.
Greldo hurried back to the group and passed on everything he’d seen. “I’m just glad to be back among people,” he said. “That was not fun.”
Osivan rubbed his chin and said “It’s the rift. Sometimes around areas of ancient infections of dark magic, a localized blight will overcome the area.”
“What about the animals, though?”
The wizard smirked with a twinkle in his eye. “They’re just curious. They’re not ignorant of evil energies… in fact, they’re more attuned to them than we are. I’d say they were wondering what you were doing there.”
The halfling sneered. “So they’re not likely to swarm us in a nightmarish frenzy of flashing teeth or anything?”
“No, no. A more superstitious man would call their silence a bad omen… though superstition and study add up to the same thing, in this case.”
“Fantastic. Let’s go.” Greldo continued to eye the wildlife as they walked to the clearing. He didn’t trust the birds.
At the staircase’s crest, Greldo could see the dim flickering of torchlight on the steps below. A shifting could be heard- something below was alive.
It was decided that they would descend as a group. They began to step lightly down the stairs. Lathon, being a dragonborn wearing plate armor and unskilled in the art of stealth, trundled a bit over a root. His armor pieces clanked together and Greldo shot him a nasty look.
Once they’d descended far enough, they saw that the room ahead was square-shaped, with four pillars supporting the ceiling. Corridors branched off to the east, south and west. The southern passage held a lone goblin who was holding a spear and grimacing at them as fearlessly as he could.
Immediately the group launched into various attacks. Gloraen moved forward and shot a beam of holy energy that pierced the creature. Greldo fired his crossbow and moved forward, creeping along the wall.
Well-damaged already, the goblin continued to beckon them forward but didn’t move. Gloraen, seeing this, glanced around. He found what he was looking for at the center of the room. A stone-painted patch of canvas was lying there, masquerading as solid floor. Lathon was running up and brandishing his sword. Gloraen looked back and held up a hand. “Lathon, no, it’s a trap!”
Lathon had a good deal of momentum now and could hardly stop. He hopped, trying to sidestep around a pillar and to the left of the canvas, but fumbled his footing and plunged with the canvas into a pit. He landed, grunting, in a mass of fur. The swarm of rats began to boil upward to his face. The rats hadn’t been fed more than scraps by the goblins. They were starving.
Lathon was screaming from the bottom of the pit. Gloraen looked down and saw him covered in a moving coat of vermin. “Continue fighting, get that goblin- I’m going to help Lathon.” The others ran around him as he whipped a rope around the nearest pillar and tossed the coil down to Lathon, who caught it and began climbing, panic in his eyes.
Two more goblins had appeared at the end of the south passage, each bearing crossbows. They began firing with deadly precision, and Greldo and Moltezom rushed forward to meet them in the cramped hallway. Another spear-wielding goblin emerged from the eastern corridor. Osivan fired at the goblins from the safety of the north staircase.
Lathon reached the top of the pit and Gloraen blessed him with the power of Bahamut. White radiance filled the air around him and the rats that clung to him fell off as if shaken free. The dragonborn ran back into battle. “You’re welcome,” Gloraen muttered. A second goblin warrior rushed at him, screaming madly, and the cleric hit the fiend with a bolt of light before taking a spear in the ribs.
Greldo and Moltezom were trying to pin down the two goblins in the hallway. The goblins dodged a good number of blows, shrinking back and firing again over and over. The dwarf and the halfling were already stuck with multiple bolts, and their strength was beginning to wane. Greldo made a wild swing and connected, carving out a hunk of goblin flesh. The goblin cursed, jumped back and fired another bolt into Greldo’s chest. The rogue fell with a grunt. “Greldo, no!” Moltezom cried. “Such bad timing, to leave me like this now…” The dwarf would have to make quick work of at least one of the goblins, or he’d be joining his friend shortly. He applied a tactic he’d learned in military training and whirled, applying angles and leverage to hit the goblin at just the right place under the armpit. It cleaved him into two glistening hunks. “Harr!” Moltezom shouted. “Just you and me, now!”
Gloraen was cornered by the goblin he was fighting. The goblin rushed him and Gloraen stepped out over the pit, leaping around the pillar. It was a hop of a mere three feet, but with his full attention on the goblin’s attacks he misjudged his footing and fell into the pit. The rats began to churn once more. The cleric screamed as the rats began to eat him. He lost consciousness and the darkness swallowed him.
Lathon saw Gloraen’s fall into the pit and cursed. He picked up the rope that was tied around the pillar and rappelled down. He hit the bottom praying and slapped a hand against Gloraen’s chest. A flash of light infused the rat-swarmed cleric with life and he stood, streaming blood, from the pool of rats. “Give me your hand,” Lathon said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Osivan was concentrating his fire on the crossbowman at the end of the hall. By the time he saw the goblin warrior rushing at him, it was too late. A spear gouged across his side. The other goblin warrior fell in behind him, and the two began taking turns cutting meat out of the wizard. Panicking, Osivan tried to run. A spear struck him in the small of his back, and he fell.
The goblins laughed. They’d not made a kill like this in some time. “Five adventurers, Plork! This is too rich,” one said.
“Agreed, Gungk. It’s too bad the rats will get the meat from those two,” Plork said, gesturing into the pit.
“Ahh, let them feast. We can watch.”
The two adventurers in the pit were crawling with rats and scrambling to climb a blood-slickened rope. “Dinner and a show,” Plork chuckled as he raised a dagger to cut the rope.
“RRRRAAAAAHHHHH!” Moltezom crashed into Plork like a dwarven cannonball. The force from the blow cracked the stone behind him and the goblin was killed instantly. Moltezom parried a thrust and buried his maul in Gungk’s skull.
The exhausted dwarf dropped the maul and grabbed the rope. “Hold fast!” The holy men in the rat pit gripped the rope with white-knuckled hands that were covered in tiny rat bites. Moltezom heaved and grunted. His neck bulged with straining muscle and he pulled. His friends reached the top of the pit and collapsed on the floor. Moltezom slapped away the gnawing rats that still clung to them.
Gloraen lurched to his feet and healed Greldo and Osivan. The group huddled in the entranceway to the Keep. “Do we even continue?” Osivan gasped.
Greldo replied “We could go back to town and recuperate, get more supplies.”
“Rest,” Moltezom wheezed. “Maybe some rest.”
“This adventuring life is tough after all,” Gloraen laughed, “But honestly, how much worse could it get?”
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Next Time
Worse
Next Time
Worse
