Alright, another session! It lasted just shy of four hours, and the Scout player was about an hour late. Since the players just hit level 10 at the end of last session, I told them I was going to transition them into their Paragon Path choices (which I'd asked them all to pick out between sessions). Let's dive in!
[sblock]So, they started off the session talking to the dwarves for a little bit, and having a feast in their honor that was mostly glossed over. After some talk amongst each other about what to do, they decided to wait for a few days and maybe leave with the dwarves back across the sea to their abandoned frost giant castle in the mountains (where the dwarves will be installing several magical items, as well as establishing a permanent teleportation circle between the PCs castle and the dwarven city).
After a couple of days, Loase (the revenant seer of The Raven Queen stretching back all the way to our very first session) showed up. He had been given a vision a couple of months ago to come to the dwarven city and find the Warpriest/Invoker of The Raven Queen. He spoke to the Warpriest alone, saying that The Raven Queen wanted the Warpriest to learn how to project his spirit into the passage between Life and Death, where all souls travel. After a Religion check, the Warpriest got the urge to go from his goddess, and agreed to leave, alone with Loase, about a month into the Underdark. They arrived at holy ground of The Raven Queen (an inter-species graveyard of sorts), and Loase began to teach the Warpriest how to meditate to achieve such a feat.
About a day after the Warpriest left, the remaining PCs were approached by Gortha, the ambassador from Kord Clan (that the dwarven Knight/Paladin of Kord had become a member of back in May, right around page 24). She had crazy good wind, lightning, and thunder powers, as she had been gifted from Kord. She told the Knight that if he wanted to learn how to control Kord's elemental forces (since he had nearly mastered the martial aspect of combat), she could take him back to Kord Clan and teach him how. The Knight ran it passed the Scout and Elementalist, and they had no real problem with it, so he left with her. The local kingdom of Kord Clan was located in a small section on the other side of the mountain they were in, and the Knight arrived there after close to a month.
Not a day after the Knight left, the Scout was contacted by the druid elders back home (via his Whispers in the Willows alternative power). Apparently, a powerful primal spirit of wind had recently been captured and imprisoned. The druids said that this was a wilden matter, and asked that the Scout help them. He agreed, to go, since he was giving small trees out to the other PCs as they left anyway (so he could communicate with them via his Whispers in the Willows power).
Now left alone, the Sorceress asked if she could go back to their frost giant castle (the PCs all still communicated to one another by speaking to the Scout through the small trees and passing messages along through him). None of the PCs objected, of course, as they'd recently told her that she's a full member of the party and their friend. She wanted to go study frost giant magic, and this also allowed her to oversee the dwarves during construction.
With the party all split up, there was a time skip of about seven months. It only took about a month for the Warpriest to master the ability to send his soul into the passage between Life and Death, but it was taking him longer to be able to see the spirits move through it. The huge majority of souls were moving from the light (the mortal world) towards the darkness (after they'd died), but every once in a while some would pass the other direction, often marked for death (from the marks that the Warpriest could see). The Knight was developing wind and thunder/lightning powers, but they only worked within a holy room of Kord in the Kord Clan mountain. The Scout was tracking down the forces that had hidden the primal spirit of wind, but had only found leads so far.
It was then that the Elementalist called for help. She was with the dwarves in the frost giant castle, when a particular sight had scared her: a frost giant was seen in the castle. The dwarves had fled to the teleportation room, but the teleportation circle had been half disabled; people could teleport in, but couldn't teleport out. Luckily, the elementals of Winter and Earth had called for their powerful masters (Yone, a Spirit Guardian of Winter, and Eoh, a Spirit Guardian of Earth, both fought and bested by the PCs beginning as far back as September of last year). The Spirit Guardians had blocked off the entrance with magical earth and ice, stopping the frost giant(s) from reaching them. However, they were trapped in the room, with only the occasional re-supply from the dwarven castle (they'd send a dwarf loaded with supplies, though he'd be stuck too).
The PCs traveled back to the dwarven castle, met up, and teleported into their frost giant castle. The Elementalist was sad that they hadn't brought more help from the dwarven king (the king had expressed that he didn't mind helping send them, but he was waiting to see if they succeeded or failed against the invasion; if they failed, he was going to send his champions to take a shot at acquiring the castle for himself). The PCs went to go find the intruders, and I started a small skill challenge (6/3), but with no advantages available to them (a resource that lets them reverse failures in skill challenges).
The PCs convinced the spirits to let them out, and went exploring through the castle, which was now cold. Ice covered the walls, but not the ceiling or floor. They wracked up two failures pretty quickly, and I told them they were attacked by a young white dragon each time (echoing back to an earlier epic fight back at level 5 that took place in this very castle). The failures cost them 20 hit points each, 6 healing surges each, and a daily of my choice. They scored a few more successes (bluffing the rest of the dragons away from the castle by using Bolstering Speech to mimic a loud giant's voice; using Intimidate to call out to the frost giants, asking them to reveal themselves [a loud voice shook through the walls, rattling the ice off onto the ground, daring the dwarf to come to the throne room). But, they finally hit their third failure (on a group Stealth check into the throne room), taking another 19 damage each (bloodying everyone but the Knight), and giving them a -1 penalty to all defenses going into their final fight.
The PCs made their way into the throne room (the doors opened as they approached, showing their failed Stealth check). In the back on the giant throne sat a giant frost giant, marked for death by The Raven Queen. A couple of checks revealed a few facts about him: he was the leader of the frost giants originally driven out of the castle, and he had been killed before his subjects had retreated. He was also undead, brought back into a lesser form. The Warpriest also recognized him as one of the souls that he had seen travel from Death to Life in the passage, meaning his return was recent.
As they approached him (he called for them to come to him), they noticed two ice elementals hidden behind pillars, as well as an orc frost mage (also undead, and also encountered and killed by the PCs when they took the castle all those months ago). Combat began as the ice elementals attacked. The Scout took them out in round one (one approach and hit took the first out, and an action point and bow shot took out the second). They party was wounded, though, and the frost giant started tearing them up pretty quickly. The frost mage started creating ice walls to separate the Elementalist and Warpriest from the frost giant, Scout, and Knight. The PCs were pretty good at avoiding the tactic, and even trapped the orc frost mage in a few times (with a daily from the Sorceress to conjure elemental guardians to block squares and trapping him against his own ice twice). The Elementalist was basically acting as a controller/leader this fight, as she was taking a -12 to damage from cold resistance (she was only dealing 1d12+9), which also slowed down the combat a little bit.
Though the party dipped low a couple of times, the Warpriest's frantic healing (with a couple of dailies healing spells from the Sorceress/Bard, and the Knight granting 14 THP to his allies) kept everyone but the Sorceress up. She purposefully put herself into damaging or threatening situations multiple times in a row and was dropped, though she had faith that she would be brought back to consciousness before her next turn (to spend a minor to sustain her elemental guardians). Her faith was well-placed, and her tactics helped block the frost mage off while they finished the undead frost giant off, and then trapped the frost mage in place while the Knight and Scout finished him off.
With the invading forces defeated, the Elementalist kept the bodies so she could study them. With the frost giant magic in the castle slightly reactivated, she was sure she could learn something from it before it faded away (she's going into the Blizzard Mage Paragon Path, and this will serve as her segue). After the combat, she was rewarded with the Flickers of Faith alternative reward from the goddess of winter, The Raven Queen.
The PCs split up again. Two months later, the Warpriest was ready to move into the passage physically to be tested, but he knew it would be dangerous. He asked the people he knew would risk their lives for him, the other PCs, if they would assist him. The PCs met him in the Underdark, and we started another skill challenge (6/3, no advantages). They only failed one check this time (taking 21 damage this time, and 3 healing surges each), and made their way to the first of two challenges. A Spirit Devourer sat at the other end, and the Warpriest knew it had to be defeated. They'd previously dispatched in when it was hungry and weakened in the mortal world (months ago, while investigating a cult that was conspiring against The Raven Queen). It was guarded by two large monster spirits with resist 25 all (though any radiant damage disabled it for a round).
The fight would've been a little tougher if not for the Elementalist shining in the first round, dealing 31 damage to both monster spirits and killing them (they were minions). The Spirit Devourer basically ate the Scout for the entire fight, but he was overwhelmed pretty quickly and killed. With the first challenge completed, the PCs took a moment to heal up and then rearrange their healing surges with a ritual.
When they left the room, they entered a 40 foot by 40 foot room. It was a large, spiritual chess board (it had black pieces on one side and white pieces on the other). At the other end of the room was a wraith-like dragon, which the PCs recognized as the young white dragon they had killed when they first took the frost giant castle. They knew it was much more dangerous in this state (I'll go into more on our next session report). On every other square in the room stood a spirit. The party could pass through them (enter their squares without issue), but there was a problem for the Warpriest. In this challenge, he knew he had to protect the souls, and he knew the wraith dragon could consume them to heal itself.[/sblock]
We rolled initiative, but called the session there. We'll pick the fight on the spiritual chess board next session against the wraith dragon, as we complete the mission to transition the Warpriest/Invoker of The Raven Queen towards his Soul Reaper Paragon Path. I'm excited about it, as well as his reward. But we'll get there. And it should be fun
