The party
Galion – Elf ranger lvl. 9 / Arcane archer 5
Shaith – Fire elf fire domain wizard lvl. 5 / Incantatrix 9
Killian – Human priest of Heironious lvl. 3 / Church Inquisitor 1 / Ordained champion 5/Divine Crusader 5(variant)
NPC
Lieutenant Waxillian Ricky – Paladin 14
July 4 continued
After the party has studied the walls a bit and finding a way out, they waste no time climbing up and entering the hidden city; Phorros Irrendra.
The city is emanating with life, compared to the Ycengled Phuurst. The city lies in perpetual shadows, yet it is nice and warm and the temperature actually reflects the time of year, unlike the outside world. The party quickly deduces that they must be in some kind of other realm.
DM note: I decided that the 60 feet limitation on divination still existed. My reasoning was that as the city could withstand being found from the outside world, there would be some kind of limitation on divinations.
I also made up several minor encounters based on the sidebar in act 1. They all had the theme of having the party noticing a shadowed form, which looked like a person. One time it was a tree with a form like a person, another time there was nothing (or was there) and the third time there was an actual person/shadow that moved away – but only Galion with very high spot saw it. It gave the party the feel of being hunted. As I told them: All your senses tell you that you are alone her, no one can be seen or heard, yet still… you have very hard time believing it. It set the stage in a nice way.
The party quickly decided travelling in the trees was the best solution as most things worth finding seemed to be up in the trees as well. At the first platform the two elves see a sign pointing towards different location in the city. Killian just sees some trees.
DM Note: As the party didn’t have a map of the city I decided that they could use a little help in the beginning. As this city used to be on where people came to visit, it made sense to me that there would be some information as to where to go, it is a rather large city after all. I had the sign point out which way to go if one wanted to find the library, the forge, the grove of fallen hallows, the emerald green peak and Syana’s cave.
After a brief discussion the party decides, with a majority vote, to go to the library first. Galion wanted to go to the grove. As they arrive at the library they are fired upon by a person behind cover on the roof of the library. The assailant hits Shaith with a dispelling arrow. The party starts to advance and return fire. Shaith remains at the top of the stairs, thereby avoiding the trap as it is suddenly activated. The others all drop down to the forest floor taking some hard hits. Shaith only has a few moments to rejoice, as he is suddenly hit with two more dispelling arrows and one other arrow.
The arrows dispel quite a lot of his spells, leaving him feeling quite vulnerable, especially since his spot check fails and he cannot see who fired the arrows. Luckily for him Galion can, even if he is standing on the ground 90’ feet below. Galion fires a round of arrows at the attacker, whom they correctly deduce must be Rhuarc. After being hit quite hard, Rhuarc withdraws and is gone.
DM Note: and the hunt begins…
The party wonders a bit about the attack. Not so much that they were attacked, but by the fact that he was alone. Where were the drow? And what was the idea with the attack? Shaith did not like the situation, without his protective spells he felt that he was a sitting duck.
DM Note: Well, they pretty soon realized that the idea was that he was hunting and wearing them down and succeeding quite well.
It only takes them a few minutes of searching to realize that the library was empty of anything interesting, and it had been for a very long time before it was collapsed in the trap.
Afterwards they head back towards the platform with the sign and decide to head towards the Grove. It is very slow going for the party. Killian and Wax have very poor balance skills in their heavy armor, so they move at half speed, which is already lowered due to the heave armor. The option of not wearing armor is not something they want to test.
DM Note: I have been harsh in other places, so I was lenient with the balance skills and made it less of a challenge for the party; no one was going to drop down from the bridges and branches every time they moved. However, I let them know that they moved at half speed and both Killian and Wax were considered to have their dexterity negated.
After quite a while they arrive at a point where the path split in two. If they took the left one, they would head towards the Emerald peak, the highest point in the city. If they took the right one, they would be heading towards the biggest tree that they had ever seen. They all agreed upon heading towards the tree.
As they get closer to the tree they see a big mansion higher up in the tree that is not falling apart. Expecting the worst, they head up higher in the tree.
DM Note: Even if their target was the Grove, they were not willing to pass this place by. They expected it to be a trap, and they were not surprised when it turned out to be a dangerous place. They were surprised at how dangerous, however.
When they arrive at the platform with the bridge connecting to the manor, they stop for a while, looking around for ambushes, but not finding any.
DM Note: Being the evil bastard that I am, I had them hiding in the manor, just inside the door, getting ready for the big fight.
Gallion moved slowly across the bridge, with arrows on his bow ready to fire. The rest of the party was waiting anxiously on the platform just waiting for things to go south.
DM Note: Since they were alert like that, I decided to roll initiative – that way they could act in turn and as soon as they wanted to. It also meant that my two drow could act when they wanted to. It meant no surprise for anyone, but it also meant that drow could get a full round in when the action started.
Galion keeps moving over the bridge, finally ending his move 10 feet from the platform around the manor, 15 feet from the door at the end of his third round, when the action kicked off. Yvonnel used her move action to open the door, and then her standard action to throw her returning two-bladed sword at Galion, who was hit. And it got worse for him. Quillathe used her whip from the 20 feet range, and combined it with her swift feint. She aimed her whip for his feet, and Galion avoided the attack, only to realize too late that it was a feint as the whip closed around his neck. To make matters worse he also lost his grapple and was mercilessly pulled into the manor, and stabbed to death with her rapier.
DM Note: I created a deathtrap, especially since he rolled so lousy. He missed his sense motive spectacularly, and then rolled poorly on the grapple while I rolled a natural 20. The odds of her winning the grapple were very low at best. Since she was making a full round action, she was able to stab him three times with her sneak attack (he was both flanked and had lost his dexterity to the feint) permanently killing him. Or at least she should have, if I had not used the special scenario I had created for just this instance. I am not always THAT evil, but I won’t save them next time someone dies. Anyway, more on this issue in a little while.
For the rest of the encounter Galion handled playing Wax, and I am sure he was already mentally getting ready to play him for real.
Shaith acted next, and did so in a quite spectacular way. He took a 5’foot step touching both Killian and Wax and then teleported the three of them into the manor, thereby negating the advantage of the drow. From there it was a bloody melee; something the drow had no chance of winning. They did give it their best shot, and did manage to get in some hits.
Quilathe decided to go down in a spectacular fashion. She moved into position to flank Killian and gave him the royal treatment. She bit her arm and moved in to kiss him. Killian was not very gallant about it and gave her a big hit, but not enough to drop her, so she delivered her poison. Then Yvonnel launched a full round of attacks, hitting on all 6 of them, which hurt him quite a bit.
DM note: Killain was looking at me like I was completely out of my mind. At that point he had not realized that Yvonnel was not a rogue. He believed that he had been sneaked 6 times, getting ready to receive 48d6 points of damage plus the damage from the weapons, effectively killing him too. I have seldom seen anyone being so relieved to having his ass kicked badly, as he survived to attack, barely.
After this, Quilathe got killed quickly and Wax used his Healing Spirit allow Killian to get fully healed. Even if Yvonnel got another round of hits in, it was not enough to do any real damage, and she too died.
DM Note: They were quite surprised when I told them later that the drows could easily have been friends, but that they only talked from a position of strength. As I had predicted in an earlier post, once they had gotten a few hits in, no amount of talking could have salvaged that encounter, perhaps excepting me managing to kill off Killian as well.
To everyone’s big surprise, including Galion, he was not dead, but stabilized at death’s door.
DM Note: As mentioned in an earlier post I had the ghostly figure of the man take his place at death’s door. I made it as a repayment for saving the kids soul when they buried the bones. No one in the party realized that this was not in the books, quite the contrary. They all seemed to think that it made sense and that the only problem was that Galion had already “wasted” the gift they didn’t know they had received .
After collecting the magical items from the drow they decide to move upstairs, Killian goes first, and walk straight into the pit trap and drop to the floor of the forest… again.
DM Note: I got it a bit mixed around, as I read it as if the trapdoor on the map was where Coaltongue was hidden, and since I had already told them where it was, I placed the trap near the staircase, which would make sense as the drow could easily avoid by flying and levitating.
After having Shaith picking Killian up from the ground they search the rest of the manor, finding nothing of real value, other than realizing that only two people slept in the house, and in the same bed. Rhuarc was clearly not living her, which wondered the party. They were also wondering where he was, since he did not help the drow in the fight. The party went downstairs to open the trapdoor. Inside they find the corpse of Former Emperor Drakus Coaltongue, something that also made them wonder. But before they could discuss it much, 5 tragedies moved in through the walls to attack them, while Rhuarc shot at them through the door, from the other side of the bridge, ensuring that unless they teleported somehow, they could not reach him easily.
As he did the other times, after a few shots he retreated again, and left, while the party got further depleted for resources fighting the tragedies.
After the fight they turn their attentions back to Coaltongue, wondering why they kept him preserved, and also how he was preserved. When they examine him they find that he looks like he is in very good shape, and actually very truly alive, except for the stake in his heart and the fact that his body seems like an empty shell, devoid of a soul.
Shaith made a few rolls, and deduced that the stake in his heart as such was not the main reason for him being out cold, but rather the fact that Rhuarc stole his soul with his sword.
Galion meanwhile tries to track Rhuarc and much to his own surprise manages to find some tracks. They follow these through the city until they reach the forge. There they sneak closer and notice a figure, Rhuarc, rummaging through a chest after something.
DM note: As Rhuarc had gotten their measure; I changed his illusion a bit. The plan was now to have the party see him run downstairs, instead of having him being a sitting duck. I had the party roll initiative and initiated combat rounds.
The party slowly moved closer to the forge, hoping to get everyone closer for the surprise and to keep him from using the shadow to jump away. Rhuarc in the forge notices something and hurries downstairs.
Having missed their chance for a surprise the party move less stealthily towards to forge, and once they all stand on the platform, and most of them even indoors, they hear the dreaded noise; someone is cutting a wire. At the same time as they realize that they have entered a trip the world drops out under them.
DM Note: As Killian drily commented: “We should have known. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…” Well, he did fool them twice, didn’t he?
As the world drops out under them, the forge comes down on top of them, burying them all alive, way below the debris.
DM Note: Two things happened next. Firstly Rhuarc made a mistake, he was overconfident. Having seen them all buried he left, leaving his shadow to keep watch for a while, just in case one or two managed to dig out. Secondly the Killian asked what the odds were of them being buried close by, since they were standing on adjacent squares. I let the dice decide their fate in that respect, and they were quite lucky. Both Galion and Shaith were buried together with Killian, leaving only Wax buried alone.
Killian, Galion and of them used a dimension door to get out of the mess and on to save ground. They then spent some time localizing Wax, who at the same time was trying to free himself. He was choking a bit, and hurt from the fall, but got out alive, all of them did.
After spending quite a lot more healing charges, they are ready to go again
DM Note: The game has really not been sparse on healing, so they have quite the stockpile lying around. For once they were forced to use some of the items they had.
Once again Galion picks up Rhuarcs trail, this time leading to the Grove of Fallen Hallows, the place Galion wanted to examine from the beginning.
The grove is a clearing, roughly half a mile in diameter, with a little house in the middle. All around the house, the grove is filled with flowers. Galion looks around and with his knowledge of the nature he identifies them as being quite poisonous, especially distilled, not as much in their raw form. However, moving through the field at any speed above 5 feet per round will make the flowers release spores.
Having studied the plants a bit, Galion concludes that even if they are poisonous, he is pretty sure, that he is capable of withstanding the danger. He also reasons, that if he can, then both Wax and
Killian ought to as well. He is uncertain about Shaith. Shaith has an ace up his sleeve for just such an instance. He transforms himself into a stonebody, making him immune to poisons, and persists the spell with one of his daily instant metamagic spells.
With that out of the way, and a consensus of them being unable to sneak close enough to the house without getting noticed, they start burning larger areas of the field with Shaiths fiery blast.
DM note: And to think that he sees himself as a bit of a defender of the nature, but then again, he really loves fire too
The blasts at some point reveal quite a lot of ghasts, but they are really no challenge to the party, and Wax proves his worth by turning them, and destroying them that way.
Finally they reach the house, wary of traps from their previous experiences. They are quite thorough in their search finding nothing, except for Shaith managing to detect some magic in the hut. They enter the hut and find a parcel under the bed, roughly the size of a torch. Expecting a trap, since the magic is too weak to be the torch, they still feel compelled to open it, and trigger the trap.
DM note: At this point Killian uttered another true sentence. Although it was as much out of character as in character, they point made was quite valid, both to them as well as to me.
What he said was: “I am starting to feel like this is one of those hero movies, where they only catch the bad guy because of the story. He has no reason to ever place himself in a situation where we can catch him.”
And quite honestly it is true; he really has no reason to endanger himself to be caught if it was not for the story. He can run around sniping them close to forever in this city. He might run out of traps, but with his arrows and a lot of stealth, they are in dire straits. Luckily for me and for the story, it turned out that their next move gave me an option to end this, without compromising the story or Rhuarc and his skill set, something the party appreciated quite a lot afterwards.
After having run around in the city most of the day chasing a ghost, never getting close to capturing him, as well as expending most of their resources, left the party quite frustrated. Galion wanted to turn the table somehow, forcing Rhuarc to come to them on their territory, while Killian stuck to his belief, that he would have no reason to. He could probably outlast the party, even if it was one against four.
They decide to spend the night in the hut, simply because it is the only place in the city so far, that they would have a clear view all around them.
DM Note: This is what gave me an out regarding finding a compromise between story and a cheesy solution. He had put a lot of pressure on the players, using a lot of his own special arrows. While he might make more of those, he really did not like the idea of having the party regain their resources, with an optimized set of spells to take him out. In other words, his best chance of eliminating them was to kill them now, thus forcing a showdown everyone could live with.
Not to mention the fact, that by the time they finally managed to put him down, he had them chasing him in the city for about 10 hours of the game session.
Galion takes the first watch, the others go to sleep. He sets up a routine, where he patrols every 30 minute. He spends 15 minutes at the front door, then moving around the house pausing 5 minutes at each corner of the house. Rhuarc being very patient and moving in very slowly observes the routine, and after Galion’s second pass he releases some tragedies from the sword. They spent 3 rounds moving in, and then strike from the back of the house, through the walls, taking the party by surprise.
After dispatching them, Killian gives Galion a dressing down for his poor watchmanship, and then they all go to bed again. About 2 minutes later another batch of tragedies arrives and attack them, with the same outcome, both with regards to the result, as well as the dressing down.
The party is close to giving up the idea of getting some sleep and regaining their resources, when they had a sudden insight. For Rhuarc to send the tragedies with such a precision in both timing and location, he would have to be relatively close to the hut to make sure that they attacked from the rearside compared to the guard.
DM Note: Well maybe not that sudden, as I did kind of paint them a pretty picture.
The realization hits them all quite of a sudden, they have a chance, maybe their only one to take him out now. They mimic going to bed again, discussing loudly for Rhuarcs benefit, while making plans quickly. They plan to take out his biggest advantage, the shadows, by piercing him with an arrow with a daylight spell, thus forcing him to stay in the fight for just a little while longer. On top of this Shaith plan on catching him with a Black tentacle spell.
They set their plan in motion, and start of well. Rhuarc is pierced with light, thus eliminating all shadows around him. The spell of course cannot catch him, but the area is big enough to hinder his movement for a while.
They also notice that his next round of tragedies is on the way.
The fight is short but intense. Rhuarc once again fires dispelling arrows on Shaith leaving with almost no spells left, but his arcane sight and stone body. His downfall is the fact that Galion is a much better archer than he is, and in the end that makes the difference. Rhuarc falls and dies, sending his soul to the depth of his sword.
The party is jubilant, finally they have beaten him, and even better they find that he has the torch in his backpack, the fable artifact that they have dreamed about for so long.
DM note: A fun fact, since the first session they have been joking about the torch being a side quest for them, and it was their artifact just waiting to be found. Now that they have it, it turns out that they really are quite divided about what to do about it.
On Rhuarcs body, along with the treasure they find a letter addressed to his enemies. The letter simply reads: “To my enemies. Don’t let my work be in vain. Don’t let the world go to hell. R.” Galion takes the words to heart, while the others have less respect for their fallen foe.
DM Note: It was a spur of the moment thing, but seemed like something a jaded, tragic figure would do. His letter was something they all appreciated out of characters. Not one of them suspected that it was not part of the scenario as written; it just fit so well into the lore of Rhuarc, that they accepted it straight up. I can only recommend it to others, and maybe even prepare it as a handout.
The first joy of finding the torch is quickly replaced by annoyance, as they realize that it is broken. Also when Shaith pick up Rhuarcs sword he seems quite surprised. It turns out that it spoke to him. After a while Killian takes the sword to try and get it talking, since it is offering a deal, but he quickly realizes that there is nothing to talk about, the deal is not negotiable, and they hide the sword away.
July 5
After a good night’s sleep, the first in a very long time free of nightmares, they wake up ready to clear out the rest of the city. They explore Syana’s cave and find it trapped and dangerous. They find nothing of value in the cave. They decide not to explore Rhuarc’s mother’s house, simply based on pure caution. They have had enough of traps for a long while.
They spend a long time that day discussion what to do, not really reaching a unanimous decision. Do they wake Coaltongue somehow and give him the torch to secure peace again? Do they give it to one of the warring factions? Do they keep it themselves? Or give it to Lyceum, simply because they have no better choices? The solutions are many, but none that really appeal to them all, maybe except for keeping it themselves, but especially Galion fear that they are not strong enough to keep it against the superpowers of the world.
DM Note: They wanted it since day one, and one of the first things they discuss is giving it away… who would have thought
Another thing they discuss is the torch, what is wrong with it and what to do?
DM note: I used a real world analogy here. If the torch was a car it was missing to things, an engine and some fuel. The engine being the most important thing here of course; the torch was missing a soul; its own specific soul.
All the talk about souls didn’t actually ring a bell, which is fair enough since we play once a month, sometimes less. Remembering all the details is quite difficult, so I pushed them on the right track, by asking them if they knew anyone in the area who knew something about souls.
Having discussed the torch a bit, as well as Coaltongue’s situation suddenly gives Shaith a spark of insight. The order of monks that Ravens came from, the order of echoed souls, had a temple in this region, close to Ycengled Phuurst and it was called the Temple of echoed souls. If someone might have an insight to what to do, it would probably be in that temple. They all remembered the fact, however, that the monks had been driven out a long time ago.
They experiment a bit with waking Coaltongue, by pulling out the stake for instance. As he doesn’t wake from it, Shaith forces the stake back through the heart, and they dump him in their portable hole.
Then they test a bit of teleporting with the torch, finding that when someone with the torch is teleported, no one receives any fire damage. It also explains why nothing seemed to happen to Rhuarc.
July 6
After yet another good night’s sleep they are ready to head off to the next chapter.
End of session
DM note: Another very good act, in the best chapter so far. They enjoyed the hunt tremendously, even if they were frustrated with being the prey and not the hunters, as one would expect. While there were only three real enemies in this act, there was no lack of action of any slow periods.
My two additions, the PC save and the letter both fit perfectly into the story, and was quite successful, even if PC saves really should not happen, at least not without a very good reason. My best defense is that the way I did it made sense regarding the story and actions they had so far.
Next up is the final act of the chapter, and as always the big question is, how long time will it take? I am torn a bit with what to prepare and how much to prepare in case they finish the chapter fast enough for us to have a lot of time left to play. One option is to incorporate the bonus adventure #5, which is written as an extra sidestory with the PCs as the main characters. The other option is starting Chapter 8, and break of the session at a reasonable point, without killing the suspense and story.
For chapter 8 I have prepared the second war council in just the same way as I did the first; by making speaking roles out of the NPCs for the players to play. It is basically a 16 page play, if listed chronologically, where the different persons are given a few lines as inspiration to what to say and with the information about what is critical. It will be up to the players to improvise how to relay the information. The material is in Danish, in case anyone was wondering, but if anyone wants it just let me know.
That’s it for this time, next session is in a couple of weeks, and I am looking forward to their reaction to the scene with the visions. It is going to be quite fun.