UnknownAtThisTime
First Post
Potential Slaying Stone Spoilers:
When we last left our new heroes, they had recovered Traevus' box, the contents of which had been revealed as ... a skull. It turns out, it was a Tiefling skull......
If you've read the first post, you know that I introduced 4 new players to the game via the red box last Christmas. Circumstance granted that the same participants would again be together this year for an extended time, and each of them asked me prior to the holidays if we could continue the game.
Well...twist my arm .....
I recovered the original character sheets we had used from the player that had kept them, and created L2 versions in character builder, printed, and brought them with me.
I wanted to put "Slaying Stone" to use since I had bought it months ago, and I figured this was a good time to do so, even though it is an L1 adventure as written, and has no connections to the red box adventure. I opted to simply add a few extra minions to some of the encounters, and also use the "simple math" version to level up the monsters on the fly (+8 HP, +1 attack, +1 Defense, etc). I super modified some of the monsters that were week on HP, especially since we had picked up a 5th player and
this party was actually super optimized. Essentials: Rogue, Mage, Warpriest, Knight plus a newly arrived Paladin.
So I brought my core essentials books, battlemat, tons of dice, a couple of copies of 'the Dungeon' tiles (To build the encounters in Slaying Stone that did not have a printed map), about 5 random preprinted battlemaps, many tubes of cardboard monster minis, The player minis, etc.
The day we played, we started around 9 am. As stated earlier, we added another player to the group - one with significant experience - to make a cameo experience as a Cavalier on a mission. But I am getting ahead of myself.....
As the heroes exited the Twisting Halls, they began making plans about how to approach Traevus. Was he in on something nefarious? Did he even know what was in the box? Where did he get it?
Although the initital reaction was "get him!", cooler heads prevailed, and the "original four" headed to Fallcrest to track down Traevus, collect their payment, and more importantly, see what he was (or wasn't) up to. They opted to deliver what they were sent to collect: The box. Naturally, Traevus is no fool, and when he opened the box and found it empty, they had some explaining to do. A simple (succesful) Skill Challenge, as well as effective role playing led to a fairly cordial explanation by the dwarf Merchant: He was paid by an old lady named Treona in the west to retrieve and transport this skull. He had no concrete detail on what she wanted it for, but he did mention to them it is curious that this is the skull of a Tiefling. (They had not bothered to ask/check on what kind of skull it may be).
But the original four were not the only adventurers with business with Traevus. The Dragonborn Palladin (sent on a secret mission to investigate recent rumours of increased Tiefling activity in the West) had located Traevus right before the party arrived, having been tipped off that he had been trading in Tiefling artifacts.
Traevus had told the Palladin (privately) that a lady named Treona had paid him for delivery of the skull.
Traevus, being an enterprising Dwarf, suggested that he would pay the four to deliver the skull to it's ultimate buyer, Treona. The Palladin asked to come along, having taken hold of this new lead. (FWIW, The Palladin did not share his secret mission with the rest of the party, his mission had been given to him privately).
As follows in Slaying Stone, the party was attacked by wolves as it reached Treona's tower. They quickly dispatched the beasts and went inside to hear her story, and meet Kiris Alkirk. She told the 5 that she had been expecting them, and was glad they arrived so that they could complete the next part of her work - to retrieve the last hidden Slaying Stone from the fallen city of Kiris Dahn. She explained that the stones had been crafted centuries ago by Tieflings, and she need the skull (now delivered)in order to perform the ritual to safely destroy the stone. She explained also that the stone was very powerful, and could instantly kill one enemy if used within 5 miles of the city simply by wishing them dead. Before setting off, the heroes were told that hundreds upon thousands of Goblins now inhabited Kiris Dahn, and they were provided a sketched map of the city to assit with their work. With that, the heroes were off, and plotting their entrance in to Kiris Dahn.
A quick discussion had our heroes deciding on crossing the forest and small river to sneak in to the city. They passed the Skill Challenge with flying colors due to red hot dice. I knew we only had "one day" to complete the adventure, and was hoping we could get through three or four (instead of 7 or 8) encounters before they retrieved the stone and set up the final ambush encounter with the invading Orcs. Wee had a few skill challneges to keep hidden, and things went mostly as planned, with the heroes having fun encounters with the Tomeripper (a very fun bad guy), the robot building ankheg summoner (who cares if the ankeg mini was a rust monster?), and the were-rat/Kiris Hoyt (They tried VERY hard not battle him, even as he was giving gthem filfth fever). Ultimately, time was running short, and they discerned that they needed to investigate the big hole under the hot baths. Their dice stayed hot.
And so it was that the gang of five found themselves face to face with a brass dragon, trying every trick in the book to bluff, sweet talk, impress, and entertain. Six consecutive attempts led to six consecutive successes, and the balance being role played, the dragon handed over the slaying stone with an indifferent yawn.
Then something suprising happened.
After leaving the lair, the wizard, convincing 'most' of the rest of the party that that dragon's hoard was too enticing to let go, (succesfully) snuck back down to the lair, intending to wish the dragon dead, and take the hoard.
Remember that guy in my OP from last year that refused to label his allignment "good" like the rest of the party? Yep.
He turned the corner, caught the dragon unaware, looked him square in the eye ... and wished. He saw the dragon crumble to dust falling toward the floor of the lair, and he felt the stone turn to dust in his hand. His first thought: make sure you put this dust in a pouch to take back to Treona. His second thought: why is the floor shaking?
OK guys, why don't you go break for 10 minutes while I set the last encounter up? I grabbed the red map (from I think Vor Rukoth) that depicts a big red chamber with a crevace in the floor. PERFECT. I grabbed some devilish looking minis. I grabbed my pit find token. I consulted the Monster Vault for some Tiefling and Devil monsters,
made some minor modifications to them, and called the players back.
The room continued to shake, and as the rest of the party finished the run down the hall to see what the commotion is, they all feel as if they are falling hundreds of feet. Unfortunately, all five end up prone on the floor of a glowing red chamber, surrounded not only by glowing runes but also by several menacing looking tiefling devils and one horned devil that is much, much larger, & wielding nasty looking chains in each hand. Although the fighter and the rogue would both fall unconscious at
various points in battle, the healing support of the Palladin and Cleric were too much for the devils, and the party ultimately dispatched them back to the 9 hells without losing anyone. The trip back to Treona's was quick, and as joyful as can be expected after having the image of devils and magic runes seared in your mind's eye.
That was it. I had recalled reading here that somenone suggested using the final stone would open a rift to the 9 hells - sort of a nasty suprise the original Tieflings built in to the stones. I was not sure if Treona was good or evil as we were playing - and I am still not. The party questioned her upon their return, and naturally she was incredulous that they used the stone, shouting "This is exactly why you were to return it to me so I could SAFELY destroyt it!".
Maybe we will find out next year.
When we last left our new heroes, they had recovered Traevus' box, the contents of which had been revealed as ... a skull. It turns out, it was a Tiefling skull......
If you've read the first post, you know that I introduced 4 new players to the game via the red box last Christmas. Circumstance granted that the same participants would again be together this year for an extended time, and each of them asked me prior to the holidays if we could continue the game.
Well...twist my arm .....
I recovered the original character sheets we had used from the player that had kept them, and created L2 versions in character builder, printed, and brought them with me.
I wanted to put "Slaying Stone" to use since I had bought it months ago, and I figured this was a good time to do so, even though it is an L1 adventure as written, and has no connections to the red box adventure. I opted to simply add a few extra minions to some of the encounters, and also use the "simple math" version to level up the monsters on the fly (+8 HP, +1 attack, +1 Defense, etc). I super modified some of the monsters that were week on HP, especially since we had picked up a 5th player and
this party was actually super optimized. Essentials: Rogue, Mage, Warpriest, Knight plus a newly arrived Paladin.
So I brought my core essentials books, battlemat, tons of dice, a couple of copies of 'the Dungeon' tiles (To build the encounters in Slaying Stone that did not have a printed map), about 5 random preprinted battlemaps, many tubes of cardboard monster minis, The player minis, etc.
The day we played, we started around 9 am. As stated earlier, we added another player to the group - one with significant experience - to make a cameo experience as a Cavalier on a mission. But I am getting ahead of myself.....
As the heroes exited the Twisting Halls, they began making plans about how to approach Traevus. Was he in on something nefarious? Did he even know what was in the box? Where did he get it?
Although the initital reaction was "get him!", cooler heads prevailed, and the "original four" headed to Fallcrest to track down Traevus, collect their payment, and more importantly, see what he was (or wasn't) up to. They opted to deliver what they were sent to collect: The box. Naturally, Traevus is no fool, and when he opened the box and found it empty, they had some explaining to do. A simple (succesful) Skill Challenge, as well as effective role playing led to a fairly cordial explanation by the dwarf Merchant: He was paid by an old lady named Treona in the west to retrieve and transport this skull. He had no concrete detail on what she wanted it for, but he did mention to them it is curious that this is the skull of a Tiefling. (They had not bothered to ask/check on what kind of skull it may be).
But the original four were not the only adventurers with business with Traevus. The Dragonborn Palladin (sent on a secret mission to investigate recent rumours of increased Tiefling activity in the West) had located Traevus right before the party arrived, having been tipped off that he had been trading in Tiefling artifacts.
Traevus had told the Palladin (privately) that a lady named Treona had paid him for delivery of the skull.
Traevus, being an enterprising Dwarf, suggested that he would pay the four to deliver the skull to it's ultimate buyer, Treona. The Palladin asked to come along, having taken hold of this new lead. (FWIW, The Palladin did not share his secret mission with the rest of the party, his mission had been given to him privately).
As follows in Slaying Stone, the party was attacked by wolves as it reached Treona's tower. They quickly dispatched the beasts and went inside to hear her story, and meet Kiris Alkirk. She told the 5 that she had been expecting them, and was glad they arrived so that they could complete the next part of her work - to retrieve the last hidden Slaying Stone from the fallen city of Kiris Dahn. She explained that the stones had been crafted centuries ago by Tieflings, and she need the skull (now delivered)in order to perform the ritual to safely destroy the stone. She explained also that the stone was very powerful, and could instantly kill one enemy if used within 5 miles of the city simply by wishing them dead. Before setting off, the heroes were told that hundreds upon thousands of Goblins now inhabited Kiris Dahn, and they were provided a sketched map of the city to assit with their work. With that, the heroes were off, and plotting their entrance in to Kiris Dahn.
A quick discussion had our heroes deciding on crossing the forest and small river to sneak in to the city. They passed the Skill Challenge with flying colors due to red hot dice. I knew we only had "one day" to complete the adventure, and was hoping we could get through three or four (instead of 7 or 8) encounters before they retrieved the stone and set up the final ambush encounter with the invading Orcs. Wee had a few skill challneges to keep hidden, and things went mostly as planned, with the heroes having fun encounters with the Tomeripper (a very fun bad guy), the robot building ankheg summoner (who cares if the ankeg mini was a rust monster?), and the were-rat/Kiris Hoyt (They tried VERY hard not battle him, even as he was giving gthem filfth fever). Ultimately, time was running short, and they discerned that they needed to investigate the big hole under the hot baths. Their dice stayed hot.
And so it was that the gang of five found themselves face to face with a brass dragon, trying every trick in the book to bluff, sweet talk, impress, and entertain. Six consecutive attempts led to six consecutive successes, and the balance being role played, the dragon handed over the slaying stone with an indifferent yawn.
Then something suprising happened.
After leaving the lair, the wizard, convincing 'most' of the rest of the party that that dragon's hoard was too enticing to let go, (succesfully) snuck back down to the lair, intending to wish the dragon dead, and take the hoard.
Remember that guy in my OP from last year that refused to label his allignment "good" like the rest of the party? Yep.
He turned the corner, caught the dragon unaware, looked him square in the eye ... and wished. He saw the dragon crumble to dust falling toward the floor of the lair, and he felt the stone turn to dust in his hand. His first thought: make sure you put this dust in a pouch to take back to Treona. His second thought: why is the floor shaking?
OK guys, why don't you go break for 10 minutes while I set the last encounter up? I grabbed the red map (from I think Vor Rukoth) that depicts a big red chamber with a crevace in the floor. PERFECT. I grabbed some devilish looking minis. I grabbed my pit find token. I consulted the Monster Vault for some Tiefling and Devil monsters,
made some minor modifications to them, and called the players back.
The room continued to shake, and as the rest of the party finished the run down the hall to see what the commotion is, they all feel as if they are falling hundreds of feet. Unfortunately, all five end up prone on the floor of a glowing red chamber, surrounded not only by glowing runes but also by several menacing looking tiefling devils and one horned devil that is much, much larger, & wielding nasty looking chains in each hand. Although the fighter and the rogue would both fall unconscious at
various points in battle, the healing support of the Palladin and Cleric were too much for the devils, and the party ultimately dispatched them back to the 9 hells without losing anyone. The trip back to Treona's was quick, and as joyful as can be expected after having the image of devils and magic runes seared in your mind's eye.
That was it. I had recalled reading here that somenone suggested using the final stone would open a rift to the 9 hells - sort of a nasty suprise the original Tieflings built in to the stones. I was not sure if Treona was good or evil as we were playing - and I am still not. The party questioned her upon their return, and naturally she was incredulous that they used the stone, shouting "This is exactly why you were to return it to me so I could SAFELY destroyt it!".
Maybe we will find out next year.
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