NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="THEMNGMNT" data-source="post: 8614991" data-attributes="member: 6809274">20th session of Monte Cook's 3E Banewarrens campaign run with Shadow of the Demon Lord on Owlbear Rodeo.Five player characters at Level 4:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dwarf Fighter/Warrior. Heir to a lost kingdom. His trinket is half of a treasure map.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Elf Wizard/Magician. Outcast from elven lands, raised in Ptolus, keeper of a dark secret. His magical traditions are Arcana, Teleportation, Chaos, and Fey.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Goblin Oracle/Magician. Responsible for the destruction of his tribe. Specialized in the Fire and Forbidden magic traditions.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Changeling Spellbinder/Magician. Created by House Vladaam to replace a child they kidnapped and held in servitude. Naturally, she wants revenge. Celestial and Battle traditions.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Human Paladin/Priest. Cleric of Lothian, the primary god of Ptolus. His magical traditions are Life, Theurgy, and Battle. His wife was murdered by undead and now he seeks answers.</li> </ul>The PCs are nearing the end of the Outer Vaults. In the published adventure, it calls for one of the adventurers to be kidnapped by the Pactlords of the Quaan. Only problem with that is it's exceptionally hard to orchestrate in reality. Player characters do not seem to be kidnapped as easily as a movie characters. Basically, I was skeptical of being able to pull it off, so I planned to skip it.Enter the PCs...In this session the PCs finished exploring the Outer Vaults. They reached a Sealed Door. They could immediately tell this was the entrance to another level of the dungeon. They debated whether or not to proceed -- sure, the Banewarrens were breached, but this Sealed Door effectively kept anyone from going any further. If the characters stopped here, they could contain the damage. Or, if they used the Bane Key to unlock the door, they could continue the quest to find the key that would allow them to seal all the doors -- but they would be leading their foes deeper into the Banewarrens. Ultimately, they decided to continue.And that's when things went wrong.See, they had found a trio of automatons elsewhere in the dungeon which they were using to set off traps, etc. They had positioned one of the automatons at a lower level to sound an alarm if anyone tried to come up behind them. The dwarf's player said he'd go back to get the automaton."So...you go down to the lower level by yourself?""Yes," said the player."Okay." I turned to the other players (virtually) and said, "Ten minutes go by and Ragnar does not return. Then twenty minutes. Then thirty. What do you do?""Oh, no," said the original player, laughing.The other characters went down to the lower level, where they found the automaton destroyed and their friend missing. And a ransom note. It told them to leave the Banewarrens and wait for additional communication.Immediately the players suspected House Vladaam of the kidnapping. Especially the dwarf's player. Of course, it's not the Vladaams. So I'll need to correct that eventually...The characters exited the Banewarrens, trudged through the sewers, and climbed the rope up the hole leading into the abandoned manor. The human paladin was the first in line. As his head came up through the hole, he found himself surrounded by a dozen guards from House Vladaam. All aiming crossbows at his face. With them were a group of evil adventurers led by the dwarf, Astrid Nightstone. Astrid signaled for him to be silent and come inside. He thought about it for a moment and said, "We've got company!"A dozen crossbow bolts fired at him at once. Nine of them missed! The three that hit did 30 points of damage...and he had 31 hit points!The paladin slid down the rope and landed in the muck of the sewers. The characters started firing spells up through the hole, including a couple doozies that disrupted the Vladaams. They decided to stand their ground, using it as a chokepoint, and taking out as many enemies as possible.The players are more convinced than ever the Vladaams are responsible for the kidnapping. In fact, they simply tracked the players to this abandoned manor after numerous forays in and out of the dungeon.Assuming the player characters survive this fight, they'll hit Level 5 soon after.Next session: Battle in the sewers!</blockquote>

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