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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 4912249" data-attributes="member: 386">We played again last night.  It was the last session for Armok/Hekubus' player, so we started off with a discussion of what the PCs were going to do.  Previously they discussed going to Winterhaven to see what was up with the cult there; I put an undead version of Armok in the Keep on the Shadowfell for Hekubus to confront.Shamon's player had expressed an interest in going to Harken Forest, so I brought that up as a possible course of action.  I wasn't sure if I should tell them that I put Armok in the game up near Winterhaven.  I didn't want to railroad them.  I did anyway though, and the players decided to head off that way.I rolled some random encounters for the trip to Winterhaven as prep for the game.  The first was with a merchant caravan making its rounds through the borderlands; 60 guards and a number of wagons.  I didn't set up this scene very well, so there was little roleplay.  The PCs bought a few items.  The merchants warned them about bandits in the Gardsbury Downs.That evening they came across two Tigerclaw Barbarians peddlers who were selling furs, travelling down south to Winterhaven.  (I figured they were clan outsiders, peddling goods, not really Tigerclaw but part of their society.  This never really came up though.  Were they worshippers of Tiamat?  Maybe.)  They had been ambushed by bandits and robbed, a number of their party killed.They asked to spend the night with the PCs and shared a story.  The Tigerclaw Barbarians are planning to go to war in the spring.  One of the chieftans seems to be pushing for it all of a sudden - cult activity?  (No.  I haven't decided what's driving them yet, but it's not Orcus.)  The PCs showed the TC Barbs an ancient shield they found in a burial chamber in Fallcrest; the peddlers tried to get the PCs to give it to them so they could take it back and be treated like heroes for returning the ancient relic.  The PCs didn't give it to them.  In the morning the TCs left.We'll see if the PCs do anything with the Barbarians.The next day Aiden, the elf Ranger, spotted a bandit trailing them.  He snuck up on him and tried to Intimidate the man into surrender, but failed.  He started moving back cautiously.  Aiden, an elf, easily kept pace.  He gave the bandit one last chance to give up, failed a check, and the man ran off as fast as he could.  Aiden cut him down.Aiden then shadowed the party, and in the evening he noticed about a dozen bandits coming to the road to intercept the party, moving at a pretty good clip.  He warned the party using a signal light (his sword) and the PCs set up an ambush of their own.When the bandits were preparing to attack, Tieva opened up on them first, burning a number of them and wounding their seargent.  The bandits moved in on the PCs in three waves, with two crossbowmen providing cover.  They were easily cut down.The seargent (a Human Noble from MM2) did absolutely nothing during the fight; he tried to jump down from a small cliff and failed, landing prone, then was cut down by Umar.The fight was pretty fun, mostly because of the utter incompetence of the bad guys.  We laughed at them, and it gave the PCs a chance to shine.  I used regular human bandits as the bulk of the enemy, but made them minions - I just gave them 1 HP, otherwise they were the same.  (I also added 2 to all their attacks because human bandits are the suck.)Onto Winterhaven.  Everyone was happy to see them.  They heard a rumour that there was something haunting the woods near the ruined Keep - Tibon, a farmer, was found dead with his skin ripped off.The PCs talked to Tibon's family who was packing up to move south.  They showed the PCs the spot where he was killed and described the wounds he suffered - no cuts, claw wounds, no bites; his skin was just missing.  The PCs noticed some odd tracks, something making a furrow in the ground like a snake, but they had no idea what caused it.  They followed the tracks; they seemed to be going in a circle around the Keep, but at one point they just lost the trail.  They checked for tracks near the Keep's entrance and found a number of footprints and pawprints.  Some of the footprints had ice and snow in them.  The PCs didn't know what that was about, but they figured something was up to no good in the Keep.While the PCs were searching about I rolled for a random encounter.  The thing that killed Kibon - a forsaken shell - spotted them and, very quietly, started tracking them.The PCs entered the Keep and went straight for the Shadow Rift.  In the Cathedral of Shadows they came across a wight, two skeleton archers, and two zombies decked out in plate armour (dread zombies).  The wight acted quickly and immobilized Hekubus, and the zombies moved up to block the PCs in the entrance.Shamon and Umar were able to push one of the zombies down the pit into the Shadow Rift room, at which point they heard Armok's voice screaming.  "Kill them!  I must have my soul!"  Umar and Aiden rushed at the wight after he tried (but failed) to send Umar fleeing into the pit using his horrific visage.  He was quickly cut down.Then two slithering forsaken shells came down the stairs.  Hekubus recognized one as Jace!  (Jace was an old PC, played by Umar's player, killed a long time ago; he was tortured to death, his skin flayed, and it was animated by dread necromancy into a forsaken shell.  The other one was Tibon.  Poor Tibon.)  They grabbed onto Hekubus and Sharok and started trying to rip their skin off while dragging them into the pit.They could also hear the howl of nearly a dozen gravehounds coming at them; Hekubus sent his dire boar to hold them off.  I gave them 5 rounds before the boar would be killed.Umar and Aiden were making pretty good work of the skeleton archers (who could deal quite a bit of damage).  The zombies were holding their own with a bare few hit points (the one who had fallen climbed back up the pit).  Sharok was getting very low on HP and very close to the pit.Umar charged the forsaken shell of Jace and ripped it apart.  Then a pair of specters appeared from out of nowhere and started assaulting the PC's minds.  At one point every single PC was prone!The PCs, very low on resources, were able to clear out the rest of the undead (one specter fled) and retreat back to save the dire boar with one round to spare.  Armok cried out to Hekubus, cursing the name of the Raven Queen, still crying about how he would find his lost soul.We ended there.  It's too bad we didn't get to the fight with Armok.Armok is a wight now; I statted him up as an NPC wizard, but undead (he has a wight's normal claw attack).  He's trying to open the Shadow Rift to get to the Shadowfell so he can reclaim his soul.  He's also got a pair of Chillborn Zombies and a pair of Burning Skeletons (I did that so the PCs can push the fire guys into the cold guys and hurt them both).  Armok is a cold-based wizard so that should be a tough fight.There's also a chance to get Armok to stand down and stop fighting; that would be a skill challenge, if the PCs wanted to go for it.Next time the PCs are going to rest; I'm not exactly sure what Armok is going to do, but I think he might make a move against the PCs.  He doesn't have the ability to open the Shadow Rift (he's been there for about a week).</blockquote>

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