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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Roderick" data-source="post: 547000" data-attributes="member: 5950">THE STORY SO FAR (PART 2)Meanwhile the players traveled from Amalthea south to Ontenazu, and were ambushed by the remains of the Kethian pursue party. They defeat them with the help of an elven border patrol, and continue their way through the canyon of souls into Vesh.On their way through Vesh I was running them through the Evil Unearthed adventure from Dungeon Magazine 82. I just replaced the main villain of this adventure with a titanworshiping druid, who after removing the village priest was masquerading as his successor, using his new resources to unearth an ancient evil from a titanwar battlefield nearby. After eradicating this nuisance they continued their way.  Three days before reaching Mullis Town the the cult of Belsameth striked. A hired band of coal goblins stole the device, and brought it to an abandoned fortress, deep in the Blood Steppes. I used the floorplans of an old MERP introduction adventure for this, the one with the main tower in form of of a squeezed hexagon. There a priestess of Belsameth worked to create surgical improved werecreatures. She had the order, to guard the device, until the cult sends a party to collect it. The players were able to track the goblins with the help of the wizards hawk familiar. They stormed the tower, killed the guardian creatures and captured the priestess. Four of the characters (all true neutral) wanted to execute the priestess for her misdeeds and the cruel experiments she was conducting, but were kept from it by the party cleric (lawful good), who spoke against killing a fellow cleric, who surrendered, even if she was serving an evil diety. This earned him some extra XP, much to the chagrin of the other players, who were already forming a lynchmob.The fortress was the scenery of the last stand of an corean/madriel company against an overwhelming force of titanspawn towards the end of the titanswar. When it was clear, that they were loosing, and no reinforcement would come to rescue them, they took their dead and the treasures they didn’t want to fall into the hands of the enemy into the lowest level, and sunk them in a great cistern there. Afterwards, they poisoned the water, and placed a magical barrier on the entrance to this level, so that only people accompanied by a priest or paladin of Corean or Madriel could enter.The party, now feeling save, dawdled too long in the lowest level, diving for treasure in the cistern, as long as the diver was protected by one of the two meagre slow poison spells Ulfgar could cast per day at this point. The fact, that Ulfgar insisted on bringing the bones of his brothers and sisters in faith to the surface, so that he could give them a proper burial, did’nt help either. Although this earned him some extra XP again.Nobody bothered, to watch their back, the hawk familiar couldn’t warn them, because there was a flock of dread ravens in the vicinity. A nuisance noone bothered to eradicate. So they were suprised by the pickup party, six barbarian horseman, led by a shadowsorcerer. They took one player as a hostage, and traded him for the priestess, and the device. Then they rode away, with the partys horses.The Slacerians not happy with the way the events unfolded, sent a party of githyanki assassins, to reunite the device with the living key. They ambushed the pickup party in the sleep, and butchered them. the priestess escaped, and fled to the main Belsameth temple in western Ghelspadh, to report her failure.She was severly punished and given among other disfigurements the gift of lycanthrophy, and will resurface as a nemesis of the party later in the campaign.The party found the device sitting in the middle of their slaughtered enemies, which led them to the conclusion, that the device itself was responsible for the carnage. They continued their way to Mithril. While travelling the Cordrada corridor from Mullis to Mithril the druids of Khet made their last halfhearted attempt to regain that enigmatic device. They still hadn’t a clue about the function of the device, but they didn’t like being robbed and with so many parties interested in the device, it just had to be something important. Anyway, all that they could muster in such a short time were a high, and two low gorgons. One might say, this is an overkill for a fourth level party, but help was on the way. The word had finally gotten from Amalthea to the Behjurian Vigil, that a certain party was on their way to Mithril, so about two days after the players left Mullis three vigilants were sent after them, to escort them. Meanwhile the players encountered the high gorgon, disguised as a peddlar along the way. He suggested, that he and players should travel together, because there is safety in numbers. He was planing to drug the players during the next rest, and butcher them in their sleep. Shouldn’t this be possible, he planned to resort to brute force, calling upon the two low gorgons, he had positioned one day of travel ahead. The players didn’t trust him (two very good sense motive rolls), and declined his offer. As they moved on, the players watched him through Thalions hawk familiar. They noticed, that the “peddlar” was abandoning his cart, and left the road for the hills, where he vanished in a cave. This was the entrance to a vengaurak infested cave complex, a shortcut that  would allow him to resurface ahead of the players, and rejoin with his brethen. In the cave he doused himself with vengaurak musk, to make him smell like a vengaurak, so he could travel through the complex unmolested.The players seeing that, rode back in order to investigate the cave. The hawk also noticed three riders (the vigilants) about four hours behind them. Being rather paranoid, the players covered their tracks, as they rode to the caves. They did a very good job, so the vigilants didn’t notice, that they had left the road and rode on by. In the cave, they encountered two vengauraks. Realizing, that this was just the vanguard of a larger hive, they decided wisely to leave the cave alone. To bring some distance between them and cave they rode back to the road and made their camp there. Meanwhile the vigilants came to the conclusion, that they should have reached the party by now, they questioned the local fauna, and learned that no group of travellers had come this way, they also learned that three gorgon roamed the woods around there. They retraced their steps and searched for tracks and found the players the next morning. After gaining the trust of the players (as I said, they were rather paranoid at that moment), they finally joined forces. Being forewarned, prepared and reinforced the gorgon ambush next night wasn’t excactly a piece of cake, but the gorgons were beaten without any loses, and the players made some amicable low-level contacts in the vigil.Upon arriving in Mithril the players immediatly went to the church authorities. They degreed that the device and Calendula should be tested in the wizard guild under supervision of the church of course. After placing Calendula under quarantine for two weeks, checking for signs of some kind of slarecian virus, the tests began in earnest. So far the following things were learned:1.    Calendula can cast her “spells” while inside an antimagical field2.    Her spells cannot be counterspelled, and she cannot counterspell. This was learned, when she was pitted against a lowly wizard apprentice, and forced by Danye Blackfire to attack him with a magic missile spell. An event she hasn’t forgiven Danye yet. 3.    Her spells cannot be dispelled.4.    She can’t use magic items like normal sorcerers. She can read scrolls with her read magic spell, but cannot cast them from the scroll.5.    The magical failure chance for wearing armor doesn’t apply to her.6.    On very rare occasions instead of a spells some other mysterious powers manifest themselves.I’m picturing Danye Blackburn as very businesslike, unemotional, no nonsense person, who treads Calendula like a guinea pig. For the next two months she summoned her three or four times a week making her casting spells till she droped from exhaustion, sumitted her to very unpleasant scrying sessions, and the like. Through some of his new friends in the church hierachy Ulfgar heard, that Danye even petitioned the council to imprison Calendula till she could be 100% sure, that Calendula is a danger to the community. Needless to say Calendula hates her with a passion.So far the church authorities give her the benefit of doubt, because although being rather undisciplined (on one occassion she told a high ranking paladin to stuff his haughty attitute, and better going on a crusade against poverty in the stormside than riding around in plains of Lede, slaying titanspawn. Her alignment is slowly but steadily drifting from true neutral to chaotic good), she helped eradicating some minor problems to the city along with her friends.During the quiet winter months, as Calendula was tested, Thalion wrote a backup copy of his spellbooks, while making sure nothing to terrible happened to Calendula, Ulfgar installed himself as an inofficial church observer of Danye Blackfires experiments.  Landorn after wandering aimlessly through Mithril hired himself as parttime watchman to the wardog mercenary company to get some combat training.Towards the end of the winter I was giving them a tour through the sewers of Mithril were they hunted a band of stranded and desperate slitheren, who were hiding themselves, desperatly trying to figure out a way home, and causing all kinds of mischieve and mysterious giant rat sightings in the stormside district. The players accompanied a taskforce of vigilants and crimson legionaires bound on anihilating the aforementioned vengaurak hive.Finally I was running them through the Cradle of madness adventure from Dungeon Magazin 87. I just changed the Thardizun cult into a cult of Mesos whorshippers.The cult operated from an abandoned farmhouses a few days south of Mithril, wherethe cult leader had located his twin sister, from who he had been separated by birth. Together they sired a child, who would be turned into a vessel for an avatar of Mesosupon birth. Not enough, the twins also tried to blackmail the merchant family, who had adopted the girl at birth. Anyway the players foiled the foul plot, and a certain cleric of Coren again gained some faithfull adherance to alignment XP. After they figured out, that the door to the cult treasury was warded by some kind of disintegration spell, and that a person wearing the ring the cult leader was carrying could probably enter the room unharmed, they fetched the cult torturer they overbeared earlier, and promised him, that he was free to go, if he opened the door for them. Ulfgar didn’t like this deal at all, but was overruled.So when the dirty dead was done, the other players intended to slaughter the man, because he was the torturer of an evil cult. Ulfgar intervened on his behalf make sure that he could make his getaway. A deal is a deal after all Meanwhile the cult of Belsameth has learned through a mole in the wizards guild, that the halfling was already tranformed into a living key, and has ordered her death. The party has already dealt with the first wannabe assassins, but now they are facing a real danger. Two bloodhounds (a bountyhunter prestigeclass ) Segad (Mnk7/Bhd3) and Varden (Rgr8/Bhd2) have chosen our halfling as their next target. These two are old rivals, who do the odd job for the paladins of Mithril by bringing wanted criminals to justice. They took this assignment, because of the prestige and the challenge. They don’t want to jeopardize their good reputation by murdering an innocent in the city of Corean, by the orders of an evil goddess. But they made it clear, that as soon as she leaves Mithril, she is fair game. Segad even went so far, as introducing himself.</blockquote>

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