maddman75's Knights of the Gran March

[maddman75]

The campaign takes place in the Gran March, in the world of Greyhawk. I'll start here with a brief description of the characters and bring everyone up to speed on the events of the campaign. Its turning into quite a good group, so I thought I'd share the experience. I'm listing the classes and levels as they are now. They started at third level and are now close to ninth.

Helios - A native of the Gran March and one of the few Knights left in Hookhill. Most of the others have gone over to fight the giants in Geoff or the Ketites in Bissel. He's a warrior-priest who has had special training from the church in slaying undead. (Ftr5/Clr2/Hunter of the Dead1)

Vartan - A Keolandish man who grew up in the city, but left it for the freedom of the more rural lands. He fell in with bandits right after leaving, learning much of woodcraft from them. He didn't like life as a simple bandit and met Ellaria, a reclusive druid. She taught him not just how to live off nature, but to live with it. In the wilderness he is the party's strongest asset. (Rngr2/Drd7)

Rytalyn - She didn't have a glorious background like the rest of her companions - she was a simple barmaid. An orphan, the local innkeeper in Hookhill took her in and gave her a place to liev and work. He was a kindly man that she loved dearly. One fell day, some travelers got into a brawl in the bar. One side said something about 'you'll learn to mess with the Horned Soceity' and magical lightning and fire began to fly. The old innkeep pushed her out of the way and was killed by a bolt of energy. Rytalyn stood and looked at the travelers with intense hatred. Before she knew what she was doing, she raised her hands at them and muttered strange words. Bolts of energy flew into the intruders. They were slain, but so was the innkeep, and the tavern burned to the ground. With her newfuond sorcerous powers, she looked to the life of an adventurer. (Sorc 8)

Salton - A warrior that the group picked up in the war in Geoff. His term of service was up and he decided to travel with the heroes rather than continue in the war. (Ftr 8)

Ameral - A shadowy character that joined with the group midstream. He doesn't talk much, but he's very capable with a sword and an excellent scout (ftr4/rog4)

Jellyroll - The half elven maid is the group's archer and scout. She's pretty quiet too, though she seems to have a knack for figuring out the best path to take (Ftr4/Rog5)

Coop - This monk came from the City of Greyhawk with two missions. The first was to find Meditations of the Stars, a sacred text of his order. He was also to start a monastery in the Gran March, as that kingdom is in need of protectors. (Clr1/Mnk8)

Fallen Heroes

The following characters were also members of the Heroes of Hookhill, but they gave their lives for the cause

Beltar - A shaman from the northern barbarian tribes, he was also on a quest. He came to the Gran March seeking the Mantle of Beorn. It was once held by a great chieftan of the bear tribe. He fell fighting giants in Geoff. He didn't want to return, as he was a hero of his people for recovering the Mantle and was happy in the afterlife. (Sorc1/Barb7)

Assarial - He was a half-celestial paladin that fought with the group for a time. A stern, arrogant man who knew full well that he was on the right side - the blood in his veins was holy. He also fell fighting giants in Geoff and as an outside mortal magic couldn't return him to life (Pal6)

Other Allies

Coal - Vartan's longtime animal companion, he was Awakened by Ellaria recently. He sticks to Vartan, and thinks of the other members of the party as Vartan's lackeys. He's a fierce warrior but even more useful as a scout. (panther ftr4)

Rel - A hobgoblin that was captured by the group and disillusioned with his people. Some time spent with Helios has convinced him that the ways of Heironious are much superior to the Hextorian faith that helped lead to his tribe's downfall

Ellaria - Vartan's teacher and old friend, she lives in the wilderness around Hookhill and occasionally lends a hand.

Curate Malken - An old cleric of Heironious, he runs the temple in Hookhill and acts as an advisor, provider of healing magic, sage, and ally.

 

[maddman75]

Mine troubles

The characters adventures together began when ord Eldrad, Lord of Hookhill in the Gran March put out a call for adventurers. Most of his knights were off fighting the wars, and there were a band of orcs harassing the local miners. To make matters worse, the nearby dwarven mine was getting upset because they felt that the humans were starting to mine into dwarven territory. The group was sent to investigate.

They found the miners were attacked whenever they tried to move the iron and gold into town. The heroes took a wagon along the trail with the warriors in the wagon instead of metal. Before too long they were indeed attacked by a small group of orcs. Vartan entangled them, the archers cut down whoever tried to escape. After some brief interrogation, they learned the orcs were holed up in an old fort to the south. They tied the prisoners up on the wagons and had the driver take them back to the mine, figuring the miners would figure out how to treat them. They took off for the fort.

There they found a ten foot brick wall with orc on the wall. Vartan and Rytalyn hid beyond the back side. The rest of the group prepared the horses. Vartan started loosing arrows and Rytalyn fired magic missiles. The orcs on the walls started running to that side of the fort. With the front walls undefended, the rest of the group charged.
As Vartan and Rytalyn knocked orcs off the walls, Helios and Beltar burst open the gate by charging a horse into it. Coop and Coal leapt on the walls and started taking out archers. Helios and Beltar cut through the orcs. By the time the chieftan emerged, the forces were all but defeated.

After some brief interrogation, one of the orcs claimed that a dwarf comes and gives them money and weapons every couple weeks to attack the humans. Dwarven minted coins in the chieftan's chambers and high quality weapons seemed to pan this out.

This seemed odd - dwarves may get terrirotial, but surely they wouldn't collude with orcs! They decided to stay in the fort and wait for this dwarf to come by and get the truth out of him.

Sure enough, after a couple days the dwarf came right on time. He seemed to be a noble man and certainly had a slippery manner around him. After being threatened with being dragged before the king, he confessed. He claimed that Dumathoin himself had appeared before him and commanded him to pay the orcs to harass the humans. He was utterly convinced, but after asking a couple simple questions, they figured it was something a trouble maker with a couple of illusions could have pulled off.

They took off to the dwarven hold to explain this matter to the King.

 

[maddman75]

Fighting for peace

The King agreed to see them, especially given the nature of the charges they brought against the guildsman. They were under heavy guard and the citizenry seemed to look on them with distrust. The King listened to the story, and the nobleman denied nothing. The King ordered him stripped of all titles and sent to the slums to live as a beggar.

Vartan spoke up here, and beseeched the King to be merciful. After all this dwarf may have been foolish, but he thought he was following the edicts of his god. The King relented, and allowed him to work as a miner.

However, all was not peaceful. The dwarves and humans had broken into the same cavern, and the dwarves had several scouts disappear from there. They accused the humans of murdering them. The PCs promised to find out what was going on.

After traveling to the human mine, they discovered the same situation. The humans claimed that the dwarves were murdering their scouts. The PCs decided to scout the area themselves and find out the truth. They went out into the cavern and looked for anything unusual.

They were soon attacked by a pair of grimlocks. The creatures were tough, but defeated after a scuffle. They had a small lair off to one side with several half eaten human and dwarven bodies. The odd thing was that all the heads were missing!

The only other passage led to a chasm decending into the darkness. They first cast a coin over the edge to see if it landed on rock or water. They didn't hear it land at all!

Vartan next tossed a torch over to see what happened. The torch tumbled down about a hundered feet and stopped. Then flames spread out from it and it tumbled on down.

They were perplexed and spent several minutes trying to figure out what was down there. Finally they decided to tie a lantern onto a rope and lower it into the chasm. It went down to the same level as the torch had but no farther. Unable to explain what was going on, Beltar voluneered to climb down and have a look.

When he got down there, his foot got tangled in something. Suddenly it made sense - his foot was in a spider web. And three very large spiders were scuttling toward him.

He fought them as best he could - as the rope was in teh webs as well, his friends couldn't pull him up. With his strength sapped from the creature's poison, he barely managed to fight them off. He burned the webs away and the group got down to the bottom.

They found a small chamber off to one side. It was an ancient burial place, and a couple wraiths gave them quiet a scare. A second room had some type of summoning circle. When they entered it, an earth elemental rose up and attacked. Luckily Helios had a couple Protection from Evil spells to keep it at bay.

In the third room was a small desk with a few scraps of paper and quill shavings. In one corner was a sack. Opening it Helios lifted out the head of a dwarf. It had a hole in the forehead and the skull was completely empty.

He looked at the group and said one word

"Mind Flayers."

 

[Tempest]

Hey maddman,

It's always good to see a Greyhawk Story Hour on the boards! You're off to a good start and I'll be watching for future installments.

BTW, the hobgoblin, Rel (and his whole tribe) worshipped Hextor?

Cheers,

Tempest

 

[maddman75]

For the most part. Most of the tribe were Hextorians, but the shaman of the tribe sort of leads them astray. Rel comes in pretty soon. All this happened quite a while ago, I'm basically catching up the campaign to where it is now. I wanted to just pick up in the middle, but the game would make little sense without background.

The wars in Bissel and especially Geoff will become relevent soon as well - you might have seen in the descrtiptions above that we lost two PCs against the giants. In the same battle as well!. After that, things in my little corner of Greyhawk are going to take a serious turn for the worse .

I'll post another update tomorrow.

 

[maddman75]

The Horde

After putting the dwarf and human mines at peace, the characters returned to Hookhill. There were mind flayers about, but they'd seen no more evidence of them.

Relaxing at the bar, they were approached by a half elf. By his gear he looked to be a ranger or some type of explorer. He also walked with a limp.

He told the heroes that the town was in grave danger - a horde of hobgoblins were gathering on the plains outside of town. He'd spent several days eavesdropping and learned that the chieftan wanted the town. The shaman however wasn't as foolish. He wanted them to travel out to the south for more fertile grounds. However, he was discovered before he could do anything about it.

If the characters would go and take out the chieftan, the horde would move on. He offered them potions of invisibility to help them sneak in. The only thing he asked was that they retrieve a small pink stone pendant. It wasn't worth much, but his father had given it to him. The chieftan took it from him when he was found and beaten.

The heroes took off to the encampment and had little trouble sneaking in and suprising the chieftan. They threw a detect magic to quickly find any treasure. They got a couple potions, a nice greataxe, and the pendant that the ranger had mentioned also glowed.

They made it back to town and met with the ranger. He was most happy to see them. On impulse, Coop put the gem to his eye and looked at the ranger through it. He saw the ranger, but could also see his true form superimposed on him. It was a purple skinned mind flayer. He told his freinds and they leapt to attack. Their attacks seemed to be innefective, and the flayer shifted form to a red dragon and flew off. Appearantly they were dealing with a mind flayer wizard.

There wasn't much to go on, they figured they'd have to wait for him to make another move. A lead came in though. A traveler was talking to Vartan in the tavern. He had seen Ellaria, his druid mentor. She'd disappeared a couple months back - it was what led him to travel to civilized lands in the first place. She was headed to cleanse a place called Shadow Thaxus, an abandoned temple of Pelor.

Beltar also perked up at hearing this news. Shadow Thaxus was the place that his tribe's great hero Belorn was to have fallen. With the two of them having personal reasons to go, the entire group headed west.

 

[maddman75]

Shadow Thraxus

As the group approached the ancient temple, they saw that Pelor's blessings were long withdrawn. The engravings and columns in the front were crumbled and overgrown. The back wall seemed to have collapsed at some point.

They made their way inside. The altar was destroyed, having taken the brunt of the collapsing wall. The roof, once open to the rays of the sun, was thick and overgrown. The shadows seemed especially thick here. It had an eerie beauty, that was only enhanced by a lilting song that descended from the overgrown roof.

They all listened for a moment, but Jellyroll was paticularly enraptured. She grabbed a nearby ladder and began climbing toward the source of the music. Helios called out to her, but she completely ignored him.

Beltar went up right after her. At the top, a harpy was perched, eagerly awaiting those who listened to her song. Jellyroll started walking toward her, but the barbarian simply shouldered her aside. He swung his greatsword, catching her shoulder and stopping her song.

Below, Vartan called out.

"Hey, you need some help up there?"

"No, I got it," he replied as he lopped the creature's head clean off her shoulders. The group regrouped and explored the ruined temple.

Off to the left they found a hallway that led to a set of stairs. At the bottom was a door made of iron. It was locked and labeled "Disturb not the dead, Pelor has turned his favor from this place." Coal sniffed at the floor, looked at Vartan, and pawed at the door. He remembered Ellaria and could smell her. She had been this way recently.

Amaril took out his lockpicks and worked at the door. Before too long, he was rewarded with a resounding click.

Inside was a small chamber with a table and doors in front and to the right. The table had a small dish that once held holy water. Now it held blood. Helios dumped it out and said a small blessing.

They opened the door to the left. Several shadows emerged and tried to pull the life from them. Beyond that, they had to cleanse a couple mummys.

Opening the door across from the stairs, they found a set of spiral stairs leading furthur down. They came into a large circular chamber, full of bones. They bones clattered together into skeletons and came at them. The heros made short work of the simple animations.

After exploring a side passage, Vartan saw Ellaria in a cage back in a corner. He stared over, but just before he got there she sat up and yelled "No!"

From a darkened corner a voice said "Halt!" Vartan felt his muscles stiffen and was unable to move. The rest of the group moved in and threw a torch into that corner. A man in soiled robes stood there, holding a wand. They could see straight through him and coal laid his ears back, refusing to enter the room. He told him that he loved Ellaria, they couldn't have her. He was once a cleric of Pelor, but when the temple fell he was trapped in the crypts. He believed that the love of Ellaria would free him of his curse.

They tried to reason with him, but that didn't work out. Coop ran over and threw some blow into him, but to no avail. Helios ran over and sliced into him with his blade. He began using his wand to incapacitate the party, but both the monk and cleric were too well trained to succomb to the wand's magic. Within a few minutes, the undead had been laid to rest.

Ellaria was freed, and the party returned her to town. They planned to retun to the dungeon though, as Beltar had not found his mantle. The group got her to her woods, but needed to have the clerics restore Helios the energy he's lost fighting the undead.

They returned and found the place undisturbed. The spectre's lair had a tunnel dug into to and there was the signs of a struggle. Beltar found a bit of cloth that was of the style his tribesmen wore.

The group followed the tunnel to a cavern. There was a wide opening in the front. The cave was filled with gold, a mithril longsword, and a mantle of bearskin. Near the exit was a single claw print. Most cautiously, they examined the area, coop making sure that no invisible dragons were lurking about in the caves.

None was found, so the heroes gathered the treasure and nervously moved back to town. Within an hour, they heard a voice scream "THIEVES" and a rush of wind over them.

An emerald green dragon swept down from the trees. Luckily, they'd suspected such a beast and had spread out. The beast breathed poison gas down into the forest. Amarel rolled to the side, his eyes burning and his lungs searing. But Vartan was not so lucky. The druid tried to leap away from the gas, but tripped over a log and landed in the middle of it. Unable to get air and the gas eating at his lungs, he breathed his last.

The dragon next landed and started swiping at Beltar. The huge barbarian was hit badly, but managed to drive his greatsword into the beast. It lifted off, Beltar getting one last swipe across its belly before he lifted off. It circled overhead, building up its breath again. Rytalyn coninued to pelt him with magic missiles. He pulled into a dive and charged at her. He bit into her deeply, leaving her near death. Helios and Beltar charged over and flanked the creature, finally managing to put it down. Vartan was dead, and Rytalyn and Beltar were about to join him. Still, they had survived their first dragon.

They carried Vartan back to town, and the old curate raised him. He was back amoung the living, but the magic had left its mark upon him.

 

[maddman75]

Hey - just to let whoever's reading I'm working on catching up to the group's current adventures. They are currently in the Heart of Nightfang Spire. We went through almost the entire dungeon in one session. I had to call an end to it after 16 hours - I'm getting to be too old for that stuff .

I got some page views, so I know someone has been reading besides tempest . Plus at least one of my players has started coming here, Helios's player. Maybe he'll pop in from time to time or to call me out if I remember something wrong .

madd

 

[CRGreathouse]

I don't have anything in particular to say, other than that I like your story so far. I just thought you'd like to know you have readers...

 

[maddman75]

Thanks Charles . Before long we'll see what the Mind Flayer is up to, and the characters manage to get some wishes, and sort of make a mess of things.