The Adventures of the Endhome 6+1. Rebirth of Barakus! (9-27-06, 19 and 20 back up)

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Adventure 10 Summary

We had a full house once again for our latest session in Barakus. I was getting a little lazy in my prep work since the party was intent on cleaning out the northern section of the second level. I was familiar with what was there so I just jotted down a few notes and drew out some of the maps on the one-inch grid tablet.

After resting up in the mausoleum room, the group decided to head to Vladoff’s area and explore the rest of it. They came upon the room filled with five zombies that started stumbling towards them. Micca noticed the aura of evil that filled the room and could define where it started and ended. A bit of meta-gaming took place here where the group guessed (correctly) that the zombies would keep coming back if left in the area of evil. They lured them out one at a time and destroyed them. You learn something new everyday and my lesson was that zombies are sloooowwww….

They then entered the room with the pool in the center and evil infernal writings on the wall. No one could decipher it but they new it was just plain bad. The grate in the pool was spotted but they decided to do nothing about it. Instead they decided to strike out to the east from Vladoff’s area.

Absinthe led the way as they descended a flight of stairs. The ceiling did not descend with the stairs, eventually reaching up twenty five feet above them. The poor elf rogue was the first target of attack as stirges came swooping down from the darkness above. One latched on to her and next round it would start sucking blood and draining her constitution, something that sent her into a panic for obvious reasons. Fortunately she and others rolled high on their inits and the stirge was killed before it could do any damage. The rest were taken care of in short order.

At the bottom of the stairs the group stood around wondering why they ended in a dead end. Some quick searching revealed the secret door high above on the wall which led to some speculation about who had designed this fun house of a city. Some climbing and rope use got the party up through the secret door and into a square room containing a well with the water level way below. Absinthe just knew there was a secret door down there and she tied a rope to the iron hook above the well and descended down to look for it. Her keen elf eyes found what she knew was there and she managed to open it and jump inside.

Micca and Keldin followed her down, which was just as well since a group of dire rats decided to jump them at that moment. The rats swarmed over them and the walls in the cramped tunnel, provoking AoOs but getting behind those trapped in the tunnel for flank attacks. After a few panicked rounds of combat they managed to slay the rats. The rest of the group climbed down the rope and they continued on to the room beyond.

The group moved into the area inhabited by Basil the Ghost. I had some worries that this could turn into a TPK but the book was very specific about how Basil reacted to intruders into his lair. The party slowly edged forward into the lairs, creeping around corners and getting very paranoid. I was playing up how spooky the room was and they knew flavor text sometimes equals pain.

Basil started throwing rocks and debris at them from unexpected angles using his telekinesis but the group was not frightened off. The ghost finally decided they had come in too far and he let out a horrific howl. Micca and Curley promptly turned around and ran for it, unmanned with fear. Basil then revealed himself and combat was engaged.

He let out a sleep spell that affected no one. Absinthe, Keldin, Aislenn, and Adson attempted to strike at the ghost but to no effect. Ravenspur then realized what they faced and that no normal weapon could do anything. He decided it was time to cash in on his investment. He whipped out his wand of magic missiles and started firing away. Basil attempted another sleep spell and failed while his ethereal form was torn to shreds by the magic missiles. It then turned into what I refer to as a crotch-kicking contest between the ghost and the gnome sorcerer and the gnome was ahead in the game as magic missiles were exchanged back and forth. Basil realized that he could probably lose the fight and made a run for it. Micca and Curley had shaken off their fear and were charging back into the area. Basil tried to head for his hide out, attempting to reach an area where he could phase through the wall easily but that was his downfall. He came to a screeching halt when he ran into Micca, expecting that the cleric would attempt a turning and his hesitancy was his downfall as one last magic missile from Ravenspur dispersed his ghostly form and sent him on to his final reward.

“Best investment of 750 GP, EVAH!” roared Ravenspur.

The party explored the rest of the lair and found Basil’s hidden room and his treasure. There was some oohinh and ahhing over the magic ring since it was probably the best treasure they had come across even though they had no idea what it did (it was a ring of jumping). Finding no other exit from the area (due to the cave in to the south) they decided to go back and investigate the grate back in the pool room.

The only two characters with a decent swim skill were Aislenn and Micca. They both stripped down to their skivvies and dived in. They managed to wrestle the grate loose and Micca had a rope tied to him. He took a deep breath and dove through the hole. The dwarf managed to reach the other side with little trouble but the two squids sensed him coming and attacked. He pull on the rope and signaled that he wanted to be yanked back ASAP. The others started hauling him and one of the squids who grappled him back through the underwater tunnel while Aislenn swam near the hole so she could help as soon as he was through.

What then ensued was a very frustrating combat of tug-of-war and blind-mans-bluff as the squids grappled and tugged while releasing inky clouds in the water. In brief they managed to kill both squids but not without nicking each other up. The group, as a whole, was pretty soured on attempting any further combat underwater. I recalled a fight I got into back in “Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil” with a chuul and decided I would not put them through this again either.

A quick exploration of the cave beyond turned up some treasure, particularly the +1 staff. The group was happy that they were finally getting some decent loot out of this level. They camped out for the night in the pool room and we ended the session for the night.

Next Session: Massive Goblin Smackdown!

 

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Adventure 11 Summary

Before this session, I decided that Curley had been mapping the dungeon. I went through the Barakus book and drew out a crude map of what the adventurers had explored so far and peppered it with miscellaneous notes that the bard had written. I handed this out as a prop so the group could decide what they wanted to do next.

Based on what they had explored so far I had a good idea of three things they would want to do: Explore the rest of the first level, wander south into goblin territory, or wander east and run into some drow, orcs, and flesh golems.

The group went for door #2 and head right into goblin territory smack dab in the middle of the second level map. They did not try to hide their progress since Aislenn had no chance of even making a basic move silent check. The goblin guards heard them coming from outside the entrance to their area. As soon as Absinthe opened up the door to the death trap that was the goblin entrance, they slammed shut the opposite door and barred it while the archers got ready.

Absinthe decided there was no way in hell she was going down that corridor so the party decided to hunker down outside the door and had Ravenspur loudly announce that they would instead go another way. Ghost sound was then cast to make it sound like the party had moved off when in reality Aislenn was standing right by the door as still as she could waiting for an opportunity.

The gnome sorcerer had made a very good bluff roll while the goblin guards had nothing even resembling a good sense motive roll so after ten minutes they choose one of their number to go out and investigate. I rolled a 1 on a straight INT check and the goblins forgot to close and bar the inner entrance door. As soon as the poor fool opened the outside door, Aislenn smashed right past him with a held action and charged through the deathtrap corridor, avoiding arrows sent her way by the goblin archers, and right into the first guard room. She took in the situation and decided to rush around the corner to take out the first set of archers on the east side. Meanwhile the goblin archers in the second room started firing at her.

Keldin let out a war cry, happy to be fighting goblins, and led the charge with the rest of the party following. While Aislenn was slaughtering goblins, the ranger headed over to the west side to take care of the archers over there. Micca went for the door to the second guardroom and discovered that it was barred. He started smashing away at it while taking fire from the archers in the second guard room. Ravenspur took care of them by going right up to the archer slit and throwing a sleep spell through taking out first one set of archers then the other.

Aislenn joined Micca in smashing away at the door while Keldin finished up the remaining goblins in the first guard room. The door finally caved in and the group rushed into the second room. Ravenspur and Absinthe went around killing the sleeping goblins as Aislenn and the others went running down to the third guard room, taking fire from the goblins there throwing javelins. The main goblin room was alerted to the presence of the invaders and their chief, the cleric of Orcus, was organizing them for battle. I divided the goblins into groups of five and had each member of the group move on the same initiative. It made things a lot easier. As for miniatures, I was in heaven since I got to break out and use EVERY single goblin miniature I had including the goblins from the Lord of the Rings miniature game. My only regret was that I did not have a Hirst Arts block set built for the room since I had the exact pieces needed. I had decided it was too much of a hassle to haul them over from home, especially since I was not even sure the group would come to this location.

The third group of goblins fell and the group attacked the door leading into the main goblin warren. They smashed the door off of its hinges and were immediately under fire from javelin throwers. The goblin chief started buffing himself up. Absinthe and Aislenn insisted that the group stay in the corridor and let the goblins come to them into the bottleneck, thus preventing possible flank attacks. Some of the goblins were not listening to the orders of the cleric and in a battle fervor went charging at the group rather than peppering them with missile fire. They were promptly carved to pieces.

Seeing that amazonian fighter was slaughtering his minions wholesale, the goblin cleric let loose with a hold person that took Aislenn out of the fight for a few rounds. The group despaired for a moment but Micca, Adson, and Keldin held the line until Aislenn was able to shake off the effects. Ravenspur and Curley provided magical support taking out goblins with sleep spells or buffing with bardic song.

The goblin leader decided it was time to wade into battle and managed to get in one or two solid hits against Aislenn before she took his head clean off its shoulders. I gotta remember not to send the leader right at her. She is murder!

More goblins from the side rooms to the northwest joined the battle in the room but it was not enough to turn the tide. Three tried to escape but were cut down before the reached the southern exit to the room. The battle was over and the group had killed over 43 goblins.

They took their time searching the rooms, not bothering to even look at the guardroom to the south. (The goblins there decided to take their chances with the orcs and minotaurs.) They grabbed whatever treasure they could find and decided to beat feet out of there back to the surface and return to Endhome.

When they returned to where they kept their horse they had the unpleasant discovery that the black dragon had gotten to the poor beast and had left parts of it strewn across the area. This was just my way of reminding them that they could not take it for granted that they could spend days inside Barakus and not expect things would be safe outside.

On their return journey to Endhome they had a discussion with Curley about keeping Barakus a secret for a little while longer. Curley agreed but also stated that he wanted a full share of the treasure and be treated as an equal member of the group. The party readily agreed since they felt that Curley’s inspiring songs were what kept them alive for the last few battles.

The journey back to Endhome was uneventful and we decided to call it a night. Treasure selling and distribution was done offline through email.

Overall the group told me they had a blast with their “Balin’s Tomb Moment” where they got to unleash on a horde of goblins. I felt pretty satisfied with how it turned out as well.

Next Up: A new member to the group.

 

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Adventure 12 Summary

This game session had the addition of a new player to the group. We knew him as a member of ENWorld who commented on the story hour for our other campaign. Micca’s player found out that he lived in the area and met up with him. We had him over to play as an NPC in the Epic level campaign run by WizarDru. We had such a cool time with him that we invited him to participate in Barakus when he had the time.

So without further ado:

Ivo: Half-Elf Wizard, third level. His character was studying at the Wizard’s Academy as an exchange student from abroad when he was approached by Stylus Kant, the head of the academy. Kant was curious about the sudden influx of old minted coins and artifacts that were circulating around the city over the past month and he easily tracked them down to the adventures. He said he was willing to pay Ivo to join the party under the pretense of finding Phenton Barmey but was curious in the whisperings that the Lost City had been found. Ivo agreed after payment was worked out.

The party was resting at the King’s Road Inn when I had them make a series of spot checks. The first was for a wizard that Dagon Ziss had hired to check out the players, particularly Aislenn. They did not see him at all. The second set was for them to spot Ivo checking them out. Adson saw him and alerted the others. Ivo decided that he should just approach them. He did so and introduced himself. After some initial suspicions on the their part they accepted his story of him looking for Phenton for a third party and that this party meant no harm to the lost sorcerer. He sweetened the deal by offering to buy horses and pack mounts for the group. That pretty much cinched it since Absinthe always bemoaned the fact of having to leave behind armor and weapons. A lot of this was role played out at the table for about ten minutes. There was no doubt that they would let Ivo join since an extra spell caster was an extra spell caster.

The group spent the rest of the day purchasing goods and mounts. They then set off from the west gate, hoping to fool whoever was spying on them again. Their fears were well founded since I had planned that the Dagon and company had also taken an interest in the group’s sudden big spending. After a few miles of travel, Keldin led them cross country, skirting the forest to get back on the north road. Dagon Ziss and the other evil adventurers had been misled the last time they did this trick but this time the necromancer was ready. He had hired a wizard to scout out Aislenn and then got an agreement to scrye her three times over the next week to find out what she and the others were doing. I had her make a will roll which she failed. The hired wizard saw her and the others traveling on what he identified as the north road but got no more information than that.

That night the group was attacked by an ogre. This was a get your feet wet encounter for Ivo so the player could get used to how we ran combat. He had not played third edition until he grouped with us. Despite catching more than half the party asleep, the ogre was taken down in about three rounds of combat with hardly any damage on the party’s side.

After one and a half more days of uneventful travel (they were really digging the horses) the group reached the entrance to Barakus. Never having seen it before I took my time laying on the flavor text for Ivo. The group had been somewhat secretive of where they were going but by the time the reached the hills they open up to the wizard and let him know what to expect. Keldin found a suitable place to hide the horses where he thought the dragon would not get to them this time and stayed behind to watch them (since his player was out sick for this session).

The group then entered up through the old orc lair entrance and made their way towards the orc tomb entrance down to the second level. Along the way they attacked some ghouls and Micca turned them. The three undead ran off into the caves and Adson pursued, striking one and drawing it back to the party where they destroyed it. The other two ghouls were not seen from again.

Eventually they returned to the room of the large goblin fight and were greeted by the stinking corpses of over forty goblins. Not having the ranger with them they did not notice that someone had been through the area after they had left. While the group was back in Endhome, the goblin wizard had returned with her bodyguards and was captured by the orcs who were in the process of interrogating them about what had happened.

After investigating the strange posts some more a decision was made to explore into the next room and the group moved past the last goblin outpost into the large history room. After setting off some of the traps they began reading the main inscription above the secret door out loud which opened it. They discovered the first key inside and promptly pocketed it for testing later with the posts back in the old goblin lair (used for empowering the sword).

The party moved on to the next room and were promptly attacked by the six orc guards there. The guards had heard them messing around in the next room and setting off the traps. They knew the party was coming based on what they had gotten from the goblins they had captured. The fight was short and brutal and the orcs went down fairly quickly but not before they had revealed that they had some knowledge of the party based on them crying out to get the sorcerer (Ivo understood Orcish).

We called it a night at that point and divided up the XP. Ivo’s player said he had a blast and we made plans to game next time. The choices of what the players were going to do next were pretty limited so I knew what to read up on for the next game.

Next Session: Orc Dog Pile!

 

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Adventure 13 Summary

We were on a roll for running Barakus. Ravenspur’s player was on hiatus from our other campaign while he worked on a module he wanted to get published. Our schedule was almost one game a week which is pretty darn good for us. I was eager to run the game and the players were eager to play it. I kept getting good feedback from them so I guess the pace of the game was to their liking.

This session, Keldin’s character had family obligations once again (him and his wife being new parents and all) so his character was still out watching the horses. The rest of the group, including the new player playing Ivo, was present. We stocked up the fridge in the game room with a wide variety of beverages and got started.

The group was currently in the orc guard room outside of the location of the first key room on the second level. While Absinthe examined the door opposite where they entered, Ravenspur and Ivo decided to wander down the tunnel to the east just to see where it led. It curved around and led to a cave encrusted in crystals. The orcs guarding it had been alerted to the sounds of combat coming down the tunnel began chucking javelins at the two arcanists. Ravenspur started screaming “ORCS!!” as the others realized that the two spellcasters were missing. The gnome and the half-elf dashed back to the others and told what they found. Absinthe and Aislenn were piqued that they had wandered off on their own but there was nothing to do about it now but to go clear out the bad guys.

Absinthe snuck forward but could hear nothing from the cavern. Ravenspur used his racial ability to cast some dancing lights down into the cave and the light reflected beautifully off of the crystals but no reaction from the orcs that were within. The group moved forward and heard frenzied activity from down another tunnel. I had the orc guards dash back to the main colony and alert their leader who prepared the tribe for combat.

The party decided that both sides knew what was coming so they charged into combat. I asked Aislenn’s player to break out their plastic minis. They had the perfect dire wolf mini and more than enough orcs. There were 19 orcs in total plus their ranger leader and the dire wolf. I broke them into five groups of four orcs each, each group being the same kind of mini so I could tell what groups I was moving on what initiative. The orc tribe had had time to set up a barricade of benches and tables at the entrance and had readied javelins to start throwing as soon as the players entered the main cave.

I played it so that the orc leader kept one group back in reserve plus his dire wolf in case he thought things would get hairy. The party fighters rushed the barricade and started attacking over it. The orcs behind it had cover but then so did the players. Ravenspur started tossing down sleep spells but the few orcs he did get were woken up by their comrades. The leader barked out to watch out for the sleep spells from the gnome since their prisoners had told of it. Ivo, who spoke orcish, heard this and told the party that the orcs were expecting them. He tried to yell at them to surrender but the orcs were having none of that (I played them as the book said: they will fight to the death).

The party eventually pushed pass the barricade and were mixing it up in melee when the dire wolf moved in. I made the mistake of thinking that it had a 10’ reach since it was a large creature but the group corrected me on that when AoOs started becoming an issue. The wolf still did major damage to Aislenn and the others were in danger of being swamped by the horde of orcs in front of them.

Ivo then mentioned that he had web on a scroll and he was hoping to save it to scribe into his spell book later. Ravenspur looked at him desperately and yelled “I’ll buy you another scroll! CAST IT!!!”

The web went down and caught half the orcs in it who missed their saves miserably. Only a handful were free but now had to make strength checks to move through it. The combat became very one sided after that. The dire wolf went down and the orc leader burst out of the web to lead his remaining orcs at the group. He went a few rounds with Aislenn but eventually went down. The last few orcs were picked off and the two left alive in the web yelled out that they surrendered.

The group questioned the orcs for a few minutes, getting from them that they had captured the fleeing goblin wizard and her guards and had tortured information out of them as to what happened to the rest of the goblin tribe. The party let the two orcs flee and they beat feet to the last remaining orc guard outpost and departed for parts unknown. The group looted and explored the rest of the orc colony and discovered the goblin prisoners who had died of their wounds from torture.

Since their resources were tapped the group camped out for the night back in the history room. During the night Ravenspur and Ivo, with help from Curley, started recording the history of Barakus and found out about the great evil buried below. The group looked at me and then looked at the cover of the book and snarled “Lich!” So much for the surprise…

I had Aislenn make another will save as she was being scryed by the wizard hired by Dagon. Her player was getting very paranoid about the will saves I was asking her to make. This time Dagon and the wizard got an eyeful of the room the party were camped out in. The evil necromancer then knew that the group had discovered an ancient ruin of interest. He was even able to decipher some of the history written on the walls.

The next day they explored past the door in the first orc guard room they were looking at until they were so rudely interrupted by orcs. It led into the minotaur maze. The two minotaurs were alerted the moment the door was open and they moved to flank the party. Absinthe scouted forward and came across the room with the dead orcs and the dead minotaur. She was so well hidden that the minotaur coming up to ambush the party did not see here. She tried to alert the group but it was too late. The other minotaur bellowed and charged at the group from a side passageway.

Inits were rolled and the charging minotaur got to move first. Poor Curley was in direct line of attack and he got smacked by the minotaur charge attack of 4d6+6. I rolled 22 and he got knocked right down to –6. His body went flying over the group and slide 20 feet down the corridor. Aislenn engaged the second minotaur with Absinthe providing sneak attack support. The others desperately engaged the first minotaur in their midst. The group’s dice decided to abandon them.

Almost all the group got knocked into single digit hit points and Absinthe was knocked down to –2. Earlier someone had mentioned that today was “Official DM’s Day” and the following day would be my birthday. I had joked that a good present would be a TPK but was not serious. Oh, how I wished I could take that comment back. I was seriously considering a deus ex machina to come along and save the group but they finally rallied and finished off the two monsters.

Unfortunately during that time, Curley had slipped down to –10 hit points and had died. I had thought that he needed to make a DC 10 Fortitude save each round to stabilize but I was told that it was a straight 10% percentile roll. By then it was round 4 of the combat so I rolled four times and did not make it.

“Sorry, guys. Curley gives off his death rattle and shuffles off this mortal coil.”

“Curley!!! NOOOOOO!!!!!!”, wailed someone.

I felt so bad about it that I had them roll on the treasure tables for the two minotaurs since the treasure given by the module was pretty weak in my opinion. The group decided that they needed to head back to Endhome and see what their options were for Curley. The cost of raising him would be 5000 GP, way out of their resources. Plus, there were no clerics in Endhome who could raise him.

After an uneventful and somber journey back to the city, Micca had the gnome bard’s body laid out in his church and held services. The groups was surprised by the variety of women who came out to pay their last respects to the charismatic Curley.

With that we called it a night. The group was a little bummed that they had lost the bard since he was an important component to their combat strategy with his singing (and they kind of liked him as a person). They still enjoyed the session. The death of the bard brought home how fragile they were and they made a decision to do some major shopping next session.

I made a decision that they would take a break from the Barakus dungeon next session and that I would run another of the city adventures that they were the perfect level for. I would also have Dagon Ziss act upon the new information he had to make their lives a little more scary.

Next Session: Trouble with slavers…

 

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Adventure 14 Summary

We had planned a game for Friday night but the threat of inclement weather was keeping away three of the seven players in the game. Not even my promise of full experience for the night could lure them all in. Only Keldin, Aislenn, Ravenspur, and Adson could make it to the game that night. I was fine with that since they were back in the city and I could have characters conveniently go missing for the adventure.

The first thing the party wanted to get accomplished was purchasing new items. Of interest to Keldin was a mithril chain shirt he wanted to get enchanted. We role played him getting Albin (of Albin’s Armory) to find a third party who could sell it to him and he made a Gather Info and Diplomacy check to get it. I ruled that it would take three days for him to acquire the shirt and have it enchanted. To discourage a run on the mithril market I decided that each subsequent request from players to get another item would up the DC of finding it by 5. Aislenn was considering get it as well but finally just decided to get a regular chain shirt enchanted.

During all this, Ravenspur got a request for a meeting to take place in the bad part of town. He had a good idea who was requesting it so he asked for Keldin and Adson to scope the place out and hide nearby in case of trouble. The ranger and the monk hid themselves outside the entrance to the bar the meeting was to take place. Ravenspur showed up later and wandered into the establishment, a dive called “The Prancing Unicorn”. The place had only one way into it. There were a few patrons and an uninterested half-orc bartender. Ravenspur sat himself at a corner table and a few minutes later Dagon Ziss and Zero Stranglevine entered the bar.

I had decided that Dagon knew what the party had found but had no idea where it was except that it was north somewhere. His efforts to find Barakus was becoming expensive and he decided to try and appeal to Ravenspur, since they had done business before, to share in the effort to clean out the dungeon and pillage its riches. The gnome sorcerer was no longer the naïve 1st level character he once was and told Dagon to go pound sand. Dagon took offense and left in a huff with a bemused Zero following. Keldin and Adson decided to follow them in case they were going to cause trouble. The two villains made their way back to a house of ill repute where they were staying and did not emerge from it while Keldin and Adson waited outside.

Ravenspur, in the meantime, wandered out of the bar thinking that Keldin and Adson were watching his back hidden in the shadows. As he headed back to the inn he heard the sounds of a fight coming from a side alley and recognized the voice of Father Beamus. He entered the alley and saw the cleric being confronted by three thugs. The gnome threw down a sleep spell and he and Beamus were able to take down his would be assailants. Father Beamus tended to the muggers wounds before the two headed back to the Temple of Pelor.

Along the way Father Beamus related to Ravenspur why he was in such a bad part of the city. Since he came to Endhome the priest had been helping out the local homeless and beggar population of the city, providing healing, a dry place to sleep, the occasional warm meal, etc. Recently some of the regulars had been turning up missing. Father Beamus noticed that this coincided with the opening of the Temple of Da-Jin six months ago. The new priestess there, Elan Kanto, had also been tending to the homeless but in a different manner. She had her acolytes gather them up, clean them up, and then find jobs for them as servants outside the city. The funny thing was that those who she helped never were heard from again, not even contacting or visiting relatives in the city. Beamus became suspicious and began to investigate. Father Beamus believed that he had bitten off more than he could chew and wanted to ask for help from the party. Ravenspur readily agreed.

The next morning Keldin, Adson, Aislenn, and Ravenspur headed over to the barracks to try and talk to Captain Bondhome. The captain of the city guard was not in, he was still out investigating the reports of a new bandit gang led by a giant out in the hills. The bored bureaucrat they talked to listened with disinterest to their tale and told them that he would get word to the captain when he got back. The group left the barracks but not before they were approached by a guardsman who had overheard their conversation. He told the party of how he saw a ship come into the docks at midnight during the night of the new moon. He saw people hustled on board and the ship departed just as quickly as it had arrived. When he reported it to his superior on the watch he was told to mind his own business.

With that in mind the party decided to actually check out the Temple of Da-Jin (I liked the name better than Jamboor which the module used as the front name). When asked I told them that it was a southern religion that resembled the worshippers of Wee-Jas. The four of them approached the temple and hung around outside while Adson snuck in through the front door.

The ranger was able to easily sneak in unnoticed by the guard and the one servant who was scrubbing the floors. (With Absinthe’s player absent, Keldin had to be the sneak monkey for the game). From the shadows of the large foyer he observed one of the beggars taken in by the temple trying to sneak back out. The poor fellow was intercepted by a guard who bullied him into staying. Keldin snuck in as far as the main temple itself and observed Elan Kanto bullying her minions around. Not wanting to get in too deep he snuck back out with some help from Adson who was hanging out in the foyer pretending to be a blind mendicant. The monk was able to distract the guard so the halfling could get out unseen.

I don’t know if I ever mentioned it but Adson wears a blindfold and does not use his eyes to see. It is just a cosmetic affectation of his that does not give him any bonuses. Just flavor text for his character.

The four adventurers met back at the Temple of Pelor and tell Father Beamus what they discovered so far. The plan was for them to attend the evening services at the Temple of Da-Jin and then decide if they will act then or not. Father Beamus promised to alert the others as to where the four were. This was my way of allowing the other players to join the adventure if they showed up next game.

While the group attended the service, Keldin snuck out once again and explored the temple. Since the slaves were locked up for the night, the guards were either guarding the entrance and main hallway or hanging out in their barracks. The ranger had free reign of most of the temple. He managed to find the slaves and tells them he will be by later to free them though they were skeptical about his sincerity thinking it may be a trick (he was whispering to them through a locked door). He checked out Elan’s room as well as the acolytes’ quarters (stealing some potions along the way). Keldin then headed to the kitchen and snuck past the cook. He finds the “correction room” and decides it is time to leave. He drew the attention of the cook who he intimidated into silence.

Keldin timed his exit into the foyer with the letting out of the rest of the congregation. The party met up and decided that they wanted to take the temple guards and free the slaves as soon as the last congregant leaves through the main entrance.

I called it a night since I know if they were going to start a fight in the temple it will be a long one. I handed out some role-playing XP since not much combat took place and we packed it in. I had some planning to do for the next session.

Next Session: The Big Brawl!

 

[Scorch]

Adventure 15 Summary

Had a pretty full group this session. Everyone was present except for Adson’s player. I had made provisions last game session so the others could join in easily if the group decided to take action against Elan Kanto and her minions.

The days leading up to this session I broke out all my Hirst Arts pieces and built the temple foyer, center hallway, and the alter room for the first floor. I also built the basement section as well. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I only needed to create two small interface pieces to complete the look. I packed it all up and hauled it over to Ravenspur’s and Aislenn’s players’ house the night of the game.

As the congregants of the temple filed out Aislenn, Adson, Keldin, and Ravenspur moved off to the side and held a quick whispered conference. Keldin related what he found deeper within the temple and the party was convinced that the priestess, Elan Kanto, was holding the beggars against their will and was up to no good. A decision was made to attack as soon as the last worshipper had exited the foyer.

Meanwhile Ivo and Absinthe had met up with Micca at his temple and asked him where the others were. Micca remembered that Ravenspur was helping Father Beamus with something and maybe he knew where they were. They headed over to the Temple of Pelor and found a worried Beamus. The priest told them what Ravenspur and the others were doing and he had a bad feeling that things could turn ugly. The three adventurers decided to dash over to the Temple of Da-Jin to make sure their friends were all right.

Back at the Temple of Da-Jin, the last worshipper had left the foyer and the guards were getting ready to close up. Aislenn had held onto Keldin’s bow while he went sneaking and she tried to hand it back to him unseen. One of the guards noticed this and began to walk over. Ravenspur hit him and one other with a sleep spell and the others attacked. I ruled that Absinthe, Ivo, and Micca would hear the sounds of fighting and be at the temple in three round. Inits were rolled and combat began.

The three guards in the foyer were taken down fairly quickly but the others in the main hallway heard the noise and one opened the door. He started yelling for help. Elan’s right hand man, Durgan Procuro, was in the hall and he ordered the guards up to block the foyer doorway. Elan and her acolytes came out of the main temple area to see what was happening. The party had chosen a good time to attack since Elan and her two clerics were not in armor.

The group moved up to engage the warriors and the fighter in the doorway leading into the hall. Elan threw down a hold person and it took Aislenn who was paralyzed right in the doorway. The others moved up to make sure she would not be killed immediately by the enemy. Absinthe, Ivo, and Micca came bursting into the foyer and saw the mayhem surrounding them. Absinthe was particularly confused as to why her friends were attacking this temple. Ivo had no problem with the situation and he moved up as close as he could get and threw a web into the hallway entrapping Elan, one of her acolytes, and a guard. Elan and the acolyte were hidden from view due to the thickness of the web.

The one acolyte who was free moved up and healed Durgan who was taking heavy damage. Aislenn was able to shrug off the effects, engage Durgan, and take him down. Ravenspur burned a charge from one of his wands and color sprayed another guard who keeled over unconscious. The free acolyte was taken down quickly as well.

Ivo mentioned that he could dispel the web at will (after a discussion and quick check in the PHB confirmed this). The group got ready to charge at Elan and the remaining acolyte. The web was dispelled and the priestess and her remaining minion were gone. During the combat I had them do nothing but free themselves and they were dashing back to her quarters as quickly as they could move.

The group decided to split up at this point. Ivo and Adson checked out the main temple to see if anyone was hiding in there while the others charged down the two corridors leading towards Elan’s quarters. Absinthe, Micca, and Keldin burst into her quarters first to find the acolyte staring at them surprised. Absinthe moved into the room, hearing the clinking of chainmail but noticing that the acolyte was still only wearing robes. Her movement triggered off an AoO from Elan who is invisible and just finishing shrugging into her armor. She popped into view as she attacked and missed.

Micca and Keldin moved in ready to attack when the priestess began speaking in a soothing manner. She started arguing that this was all a misunderstanding and that maybe they could work things out. All three adventurers in the room are enthralled by her voice (though we found out later I misused the spell, she should have taken 1 full round of talking before they had to make their saves). As she spoke, Aislenn barged into the room from the other door and was also enthralled. Micca listened but no longer feels compelled to attack her. As she spoke Elan and her acolyte leave the room and the spell is broken. Micca charged after her but Absinthe, Aislenn, and Keldin stand around for 3 rounds and argue about what the priestess had just said. Absinthe is not even convinced there are slaves.

Micca tried to catch up with the two departing clerics but his stubby legs can’t catch up. Elan ordered her last minion to turn and block the corridor. She was going to get some help from the basement.

Ivo, meanwhile, had dashed into the room where the others were arguing and wanted to know what all the fuss is. Adson had been freeing slaves using a key he got from one of the dead guards. The slaves don’t need to hear twice that they are free and run out of the temple. He only got two locked rooms open when he saw Elan dashing past down the stairs leading into the basement. Adson decided to stop what he is doing and follow.

I don’t think this description does justice to how hectic the combat was. We had players all over the map running to and fro. We broke at this point for dinner since we had been going three hours non-stop and people were having so much fun we almost forgetten to eat. After an order of take out from our favorite Chinese place we dove back into combat.

The others finally realized they were arguing over nothing (the spell effect wore off) and head back into the corridor to help Micca take down the last acolyte. Elan, meanwhile, had managed to get into the secret basement temple and order the silver golem there to attack whoever was following her. Adson arrived just in time to see it leap down from the wall and start stomping his way. Ivo arrived behind him, turned around and started running back to the kitchen. Everyone else except Aislenn, who was freeing the rest of the slaves, piled downstairs into the kitchen and lined up nicely for the silver golem to let go with its gout of flame attack. Ravenspur went down unconscious and everyone else was hurt pretty badly.

Micca managed to lean over and cure Ravenspur. Adson and Absinthe sneak past the golem and chase down Elan in the secret temple. While the golem pounded on Micca, Keldin tried to snipe it from across the room but his arrows bounce off of its armored body (good old DR). Ravenspur crawled under a table and starts shooting it with magic missiles from his wand. Ivo missed it entirely with a poorly aimed Melf’s Acid Arrow. Soon the group was screaming for Aislenn since she is the only one who could possibly power attack through its defenses.

The fighter heard them just as she freed the last of the slaves. She charged down the stairs into combat. Absinthe and Adson were having a tough time with Elan as she keeps healing herself. She decided she was in a losing position and flees her attackers, hoping the silver golem can help. The evil priestess made it to the kitchen and was promptly glued to the floor by a tanglefoot bag tossed her way. She is pummeled to death by the monk. The silver golem and Aislenn trade mightly blows before it finally went down. The next round it would have been able to fire off another gout of flame.

Thus the combat ended with almost all the party’s resources expended. We had gone another three hours of real time with this portion of the combat.

The group quickly searched the rest of the basement (Micca set off the trap in the treasure room using the Wulf Ratbane method of disarming) in hopes that they can loot enough before the town watch shows up. Others checked out Elan’s and the acolytes’ quarters and find her ledgers and treasure.

The town watch does show up and the entire party is brought before the night court (the honorable Harold Stone presiding) along with the prisoners and loyal servants they had captured. After presenting their evidence in the form of ledgers and testimony from the free slaves the judge rules that the temple and the assets there in would be seized by the city. This includes the treasure found in the basement but the judge overlooks items looted elsewhere with a wink.

We call it a night at that point. The group tells me they had an absolute blast with this session. I had a lot of fun as well. It was worrying there for a minute since they were fighting two CR5 opponents but they managed to get through it with some good tactics.

Plans are made for the next session to return to Barakus.

Next Session: Cleaning up a lot of loose ends

 

[Scorch]

Adventure 16 Summary

The group had finished up all their shopping and after running through the city adventure were ready to head back to Barakus to kick some butt. We had a full house for this game session which was seven players plus myself. We had to find some extra chairs to seat us all around the table. The mini-fridge was packed full of caffeinated products and dice were warmed up with practice rolls.

Keldin’s player approached me about some possibility of laying an ambush for the evil adventuring party. He was convinced that they would try to follow. I told him that he believed an attempt was made to follow them two trips back but the last trip no one attempted to tail them. Dagon Ziss and company were no longer attempting to follow the party. They had leveled up to 4th level doing some of the city adventures the party ignored or never got a chance to find out about. They were waiting for Curley’s body to be put into the grave and the main group to leave the city so they could grab the corpse and perform “Speak With Dead” upon it. More on that later…

In order to speed things up for the trip to and fro I started playing fast and loose with the wilderness encounter charts. I was now skipping over small encounters that would be an annoyance to them. When they hit a major one that was their only encounter for the rest of the trip to wherever they were heading.

This time I rolled up a troll. They encountered it at night and those keeping watch woke everyone before it closed the distance with them. The group was a finely honed team at this point. Ivo seemed to click right into place as another magical support member. They whittled it down while Adson provided fire to burn the remains the moments they cut it down to zero. I no longer felt bad about throwing CR5 encounters at them. Which was good because there are some doozies they walk into later.

Their entry into Barakus was uneventful and they made their way back down to the second level outside the entrance to the old goblin lair. This time they decided to head down the stairs to the east into the room filled with statues of kings and queens. After a few minutes of examining them, they decided to head to the north.

The room they were approaching was inhabited by a wight. Even though Absinthe was silent as death, Micca and Aislenn were like a walking scrap heap. The wight easily heard them through the door and hid in some rubble nearby. Absinthe checked the door over and opened it and started creeping forward. The wight waited until she passed and then leapt out and attacked the main body of the group as they entered. It landed a solid blow on Aislenn and she failed her save. She was stuck with a negative level. A good rule of thumb when dealing with level drain is to say: “Anything that involves you rolling a D20, subtract the negative levels from.” The group managed to kill it before it did any more damage. Micca had was able to restore Aislenn’s lost level from a scroll he had handy. The group looted the room and seeing that it was a dead end, headed back into the statue room to go east.

They stumbled upon the vast hall whose northern end was a collapsed heap of rubble. Recent signs of excavation attempts intrigued them but without time and equipment they were not going to be able see what was being excavated. The goblin wizard and her body guards were already dead at the hands of their orc interrogators a few adventures back so the group would have no way of knowing what they were doing digging here for.

The large iron doors to the south piqued everyone’s interest so Absinthe check it out. She discovered the trap there but guessed that she would have little chance of disarming it without setting it off. The group decided to leave it for later.

The passageways that split southeast and southwest was their next destination. Absinthe was guessing that there was another ways past the iron doors this way. They headed southeast and were attacked by the two half-orcs hiding in the secret passageway. These two hapless foes were taken down quickly. They then bashed through the arcane locked door and ran right into the orcs in the old library. I decided that all the orcs they had missed when they cleared out the orc lair earlier were now holed up here. There were 9 orcs plus their new leader. Ivo was wondering if he should try to cast fireball off of a scroll but the others noticed they were in a library and quickly convinced him otherwise. The orcs were defeated and the room looted of items of interest.

Allow me to pause a second and talk about mapping. With Curley gone, the group decided to expand his maps of the area as they explored. To make this easier for them, I downloaded the map booklet and converted the first and second floor maps into TIFF files. I then used Paint Shop Pro to open the files and white out the sections they had not explored yet and printed it out for them. They then penciled in areas as I drew them on the larger one-inch grid map that we used for tactical miniature combat. It really helped move things along.

Consulting the map, the group decided that they were not getting any closer to getting to the area behind the trapped iron doors. The group headed back and decided to have Aislenn set off the trap. Aislenn did so and was hit by the 3d8 lightening attack. (“That’s all?!?” yelled Absinthe. She was expecting something more.) While the trap reset, Absinthe quickly picked the lock and got the door open. I described the duplicate set of iron doors behind and the group groaned expecting to have to deal with another trap but a quick search show these doors were neither locked nor trapped.

Absinthe opened the door and peeked into the large, pillared hall beyond. I took my time with the flavor text, describing the mace set atop the platform and the two large, deformed creatures that started lumbering forward the moment the doors were opened.

“Golems!” yelled Ravenspur and Ivo. The group quickly closed the doors, ran out into the other room and closed those doors as well. Absinthe locked the doors and trap reset itself. They waited for the flesh golems to come bursting through the doors but after five minutes decided they were safe. Since they had not taken the mace, the golems had returned to their guard positions.

The party began arguing about if they wanted to take on two flesh golems or not. The stakes were high since the mace beyond was of obvious high value. Ivo, Ravenspur, and Micca were able to translate the glyphs on the outer doors which spoke of the great Gromm. This led them to believe the items within was some sort of artifact of power.

Since it was getting late, we called it a night but the group had a lot of food for thought weighing whether the mace was worth the risk.

Next adventure: BURN IN HELL, MUMMY!

 

[Scorch]

Adventure 17 Summary

At the end of the last session Adson, Aislenn, and Ravenspur had leveled to 4th level. I have a rule that you need to rest a night before gaining the benefit of the new level. I know some people say you have to train for X number of days but we were here to roll some dice and kick some monster butt, not role play out finding a sensei in a far away temple to train you in the inner secrets of your craft.

As it stood, the group decided to leave the room full of flesh golem pain behind for now and camp outside for the night. Since Adson’s player was not present for this session he got to watch the horses. We had a slight scare before the game got started. It was pouring cats and dogs outside and we were beginning to get some flooding in the basement where the game room was located. A mad dash to fix the drain pipe outside causing the flooding, grabbing towels, and using a wet vac got the problem under control. Nothing like some bad weather to cancel a game.

After resting and leveling up the group headed back in to Barakus. This time they decided to explore the other branch of a passageway near the flesh golem room. I was a little relieved since I did not want to have to kill them all for foolishly taking on those creatures. As it stood they only had five adamantine arrows between them.

The passageway they explored ended in a room guarded by two drow. They heard the group coming but did not see Absinthe who successfully snuck into the room with a hide and move silent check. The two drow warriors started firing their crossbows the moment they saw the next player in the marching order come within sight. They then threw down darkness. Now darkness combined with their vision abilities in v3.0 of the game was a pretty good tactic but in v3.5 darkness just gave everyone a 20% miss chance and that was about it. Long story short: it did not save the two drow warriors from getting themselves killed.

They did manage to alert the drow in the other area who came charging in after two round to engage the party. The wizard, rogue, and remaining drow warriors gave the party a run for their money but eventually were taken down. The group looted the outpost and speculated a bit on why there were drow there. Some thought was given to salvaging the poison on the crossbow bolts but I made it clear it would evaporate as soon as they took it above surface.

From there it was on to the area guarded by the aranea, Risstor. I had already read the errata posted on these boards and corrected her to a more survivable encounter. As it stood she heard them coming and webbed the doorway as Absinthe entered, then crawled out of site from those in the corridor. There was some confusion on my part since I assumed that Risstor’s web ability was the same as the web spell but this was not true. The aranea’s ability is easier to deal with and Absinthe was able to free herself while Ravenspur attempted to negotiate with the chatty spider being. Once she named her price for free passage, 1500 gp, the party decided to kill her for her presumption. Someone threw a flask of alchemist fire on the web and it slowly started to burn away while Risstor began to cast spells on herself such as mirror image. The party then dashed into her lair and found her clinging to the ceiling high above. Micca and Ivo began pelting her with spells and managed, through extremely lucky rolls, to hit her every time rather than the mirror images about her. That and bow shots from Keldin took her down.

The party searched the area and investigated the long stone stairway leading down to the fourth level. I made it sound as ominous as I could but did not need to since the group had no desire to travel downwards since there was still much of the second level and first level to explore.

Ravenspur and Keldin consulted the map to see where they wanted to explore next. This had more to do with the two players sitting next to one another at the gaming table than with their characters being the leaders of the group. Absinthe would lean over every once in a while and make suggestions.

Unfortunately before they could explorer further, Keldin’s player had to head home since his wife called letting him know that they were getting some flooding as well. He left his character in the care of another player and headed off. Since he was there for a good chunk of the session, I had no problem awarding him XP for the night.

They explored one dead end crypt and were attacked by eight skeletons. Micca managed to totally annihilate them with a turning. The cleric was very happy. They then meandered past the library into an abandoned bedroom and closet. From there they stumbled onto the electrical pillar. What followed was almost something right out of an episode of the Simpsons with Ivo and Aislenn repeatedly electrocuting themselves on the thing while trying to discover its secrets. Absinthe found two of the three secret compartments on it before they decided to move on to the east.

There they found the secret panels with the buttons to disable the pillar. They only were able to play with them for about a minute before someone opened the door to the east and alerted the hobgoblin guard who promptly charged off to warn the tribe. The group entered the guard room and spent a few minutes arguing what to do which gave the hobgoblins enough time to warn their two warring leaders, the bugbear brothers, to call a truce to defend their lair. The two brothers and their hobgoblin lieutenant each took 6 hobgoblins and attacked from three different sides at once.

Since they coordinated their attacks they all got to move on the same initiative. I called surprise round in the middle of a debate between the players and the doors burst open and the group was flanked on three sides by 21 opponents.

Now this could have gotten very dangerous for the group and I expected them to retreat back down from where they came but Ivo pulled something out of his hat. The crafty wizard had purchased a scroll of fireball and had managed to puzzle out is secrets enough to cast it. I had ruled that the two parts of casting a spell off of a scroll that was a higher level than you could cast could be split into two different tasks. The deciphering of the scroll could take place at any time and the player could take 20 on it to do so. The spell caster check needed to take place at the time of actual casting. Ivo easily cast the spell off of the scroll and the fireball went roaring down the corridor to detonate just far back enough so as not to backwash into the room with the party. Seven hobgoblins were instantly burned to death and I had Ivo make a fortitude check not to be deafened by the explosion. That was a flavor text touch on my part since he was casting an unknown spell for the first time in an enclosed area.

This changed the tone of the battle completely as the party now only had to deal with attacks on two fronts. The two bugbear brothers put up a valiant fight and managed to get their troops into the room with the players but after another few minutes of combat they were taken down.

The lair was looted (“How nice that they left us the keys to their locked chests!” piped in Absinthe) and the group moved south. They came to a sealed door which I added some flavor text involving warnings in goblin written across it. That gave them all pause and they decided since they had blown almost all their resources against the hobgoblins that it would be a good idea to camp in one of the rooms. They chose the abandoned bedroom because it had a bed.

During their rest I rolled two encounters with gnolls so I decided to combine it into one big encounter of six gnolls sneaking up and charging them at once. Those on watch were able to warn the others but not before the small room was suddenly hip deep in gnolls. The combat was over quickly but was notable in that it started a trend for the rest of the night where I could not hit Ravenspur to save my life. I must have had him targeted three times during the combat but could not roll over a five.

The random encounters for the group were becoming more of an annoyance for me to run. The group was third and fourth level at this point and most of the stuff on the chart was pretty low end for them. I might have to start rolling from the encounter charts for the levels below soon.

There were no more encounters for the rest of the night (or at least what they thought was night, since it was hard to keep track underground). A quick discussion decided that they would check behind the locked door in the hobgoblin lair. They get past the door and explored the corridor beyond. Absinthe discovered the pit trap and triggered it so the group could edge around it to the door on its other side. They get past that door into the crypt beyond. Ravenspur took an interest in the stone sarcophagus in the center of the room and cast detect magic. The gnome sorcerer detected the illusionary magic within. After Absinthe gave it the all clear for traps, Micca popped the lid open and the secret area opened up and a mummy shambled out making a line right for the cleric.

Thinking that it may be an illusion the group started chanting “Disbelieve! Disbelieve!” but unfortunately for them it is all too real. Half the party was paralyzed with fear at the very sight of the undead horror. Micca took a hit from the mummy and was able to withstand the curse of its touch. He skipped back and cast “Calm Emotions” which had the immediate effect of removing the fear keeping half the party from joining in the combat. Fire spells and alchemist fire was readied and all do significant damage to the creature. It still managed to do massive amounts of damage to the group but luckily every hit did not land the dreaded mummy rot.

One last fire spell knocked it down to zero hit points and I could have just said it collapsed but the group had been really struggling to fight it so I gave them some rewarding flavor text. The mummy burst into flame and stumbled past the group, moaning all the way, and fell into the pit beyond the door where it was impaled upon the spikes below. I actually got a round of applause for that.

After the tomb was looted the party then checked out the door to the west and, after opening it, found another crypt much like the one they had just left behind.

“NOT AGAIN!” they all howled, knowing that they were most likely going to have to fight another mummy. Their greed for XP was what decided it for them. They had a plan!

Micca would edge forward and flip open the stone sarcophagus with a rope tied around him. If he was paralyzed by a mummy fear effect then the group would pull him back in. Meanwhile, Ravenspur had his necklace of fireballs ready to chuck one in as soon as the mummy showed itself.

The plan pretty much went off as they had hoped. Micca flipped open the lid and the second mummy shambled out of its secret hiding area. Micca was hit by the fear effect and was paralyzed. The others began dragging him back as Ravenspur threw a bead from the necklace of fireballs into the crypt. The mummy was horribly burned but it was a much tougher specimen than the one they fought before. It shambled after the limp Micca as he was dragged into the first crypt. Aislenn went up to engage it as the others pelted it with missile weapons and magic missile spells.

It smacked Aislenn a good one and she succumbed to the curse. I rolled two six sided dice and she lost 5 constitution and 6 charisma. OUCH! During another attack it wound up and attempted to slug Ravenspur who got a little too close but the bad luck I was having hitting him that night protected the little gnome.

After some hectic combat the last mummy went down. There was some confusion on my part on how mummy rot worked. After reading the rules on it I decided that it would hit once. If she got hit a second time and failed another save then she would suck down even more CON/CHA damage. Fortunately that did not happen. The next day I did some research online and found that I had made the correct decision according to some on the EN World forums. I also found out that I had totally forgotten about the mummy’s DR but that did not matter as much since 90% of the damage done to it was magical fire.

Since Aislenn looked like death warmed over, the group decided it would be best to return to Endhome. They wrapped her in a cloak so the city watch would not take her for a leper (4 Charisma, YIKES!). The journey back was uneventful (they had cleared out most of the threats to and from Barakus). Their first stop was Micca’s temple to see if they could ask Father Beamus to recommend a cleric to be able to cast remove curse then cure disease.

The cleric of Pelor was distraught and he had some disturbing news.

“Yeah, what?” joked Absinthe “Curley’s body gone missing?”

“Actually, yes.”

“NO WAY!”

Ah, my plan to move them into direct conflict with the evil adventuring party was coming to fruition.

This was probably the most experience for a session they had ever received. Everyone would level to fourth level. The second level of Barakus was almost completely cleared out but there was still the matter of the black dragon on the first level and the evil adventuring party to contend with.

Next Session: Picking a fight!

 

[Scorch]

Adventure 18

Knowing that the group was angry and ready to pick a fight with the evil adventuring party, I spent some time leveling up the Dagon and company to fifth level. I then plotted out where they were staying, their defenses, precautions, and the disposition of their hirelings.

The game started with our heroes working out what had happened to Curley’s body. Ravenspur and Micca investigated the desecrated grave but found no clues other than someone dug up the body and hauled it off. They guessed (correctly so) that Dagon and company wanted it to perform “Speak With Dead” to find out about Barakus. Their guesses were not something they could go to the authorities with so the more hotheaded members of the group (Ravenspur and Keldin) decided to do something about it while the enablers of the group (Adson and Aislenn) encouraged them on.

First, though, they needed some intelligence on where the evil adventurers were headed. Some inquiries by Ravenspur and Absinthe found out that Dagon and company had hired a bunch of thugs and had disappeared from the city, last seen heading north a week back. The timing looked like it was possible that both parties had missed each other in the hills if the evil adventurers were indeed head towards Barakus, which is what had happened.

That afternoon Absinthe and Keldin asked some teamsters just arrived from the north road if they had seen a group resembling Dagon’s and indeed they had. The teamsters were just leaving the roadside inn as Dagon and crew pulled in with a cart and some wounded henchmen. They were very protective of the wagon the teamsters recalled, letting no one get near it.

The rogue and the ranger decided that the others were puttering around too much and they headed out to the north to watch the road and see for themselves. They camped out a few miles north from a hidden vantage point and the following morning they spotted the other adventuring party at the end of a wagon caravan heading back into the city. From where they watched the Elf and the Halfling could not tell what was in the wagon since it was covered by a canvas tarp.

Absinth and Keldin followed the caravan into the city gate and watched as Dagon paid the hired thugs and sent them on their way. Keldin then followed Dagon and the others along with their wagon while Absinthe tailed the hired thugs. Keldin followed the wagon back to the apartment building he had seen a few weeks back after Dagon’s meeting with Ravenspur. The ranger then entered a neighboring building so he could spy the layout of the stable where the wagon was kept. He saw the Da-Leek and Zero leave the stable but not Dagon and Gilgar. Keldin then headed back to the King’s Inn to tell the others.

Absinthe, in the meantime, tailed the thugs to a local dive where she walked in as any other patron and listened in on them commiserating their bad luck. It turned out that Dagon used them as cannon fodder in the caves of Barakus. They attempted to enter two caves, one they were repelled by ghouls and another by the black dragon. Eventually the thugs split up and headed their own ways. Absinthe followed the one most likely the leader and cornered him at his rented room where she interrogated him on the details of his unfortunate adventure. A Rogue 4 scaring the snot out a Warrior 1 is not a pretty sight and she soon got confirmation that they had indeed found Barakus but had not penetrated that far into it. Absinthe warned off the thug from ever doing business with Dagon again (something he and the others were already considering) and then headed back to the inn as well.

Keldin arrived at the inn first but found only Ravenspur, Aislenn, and Adson present. Ravenspur became so excited over Keldin’s report that he fired the others up to go attack the stable behind the apartment before they can find the others He was convinced that Curley’s body was in the wagon. This led to some wonderful role-playing as the four most gung-ho characters charged off while the three most cautious players were elsewhere. I recalled Absinthe’s player bemoaning the fact that he could not get back fast enough to prevent what he saw as a disaster in the making.

Ravenspur put a hired guard to sleep at the mouth of the alley leading to the back of the apartment where the stables were. He slept yet another guard and they attempted to sneak into the stable. They found the cart but also Gilgar who shrugged off Ravenspur’s sleep spell without even making a save. Some meta-gaming on Ravenspur’s part alerted the players that this guy is above 4 hit dice and that they no longer have the element of surprise. The evil cleric started bellowing for Dagon. At this point common sense seemed to seep into Ravenspur and the others and they decided to run for it. While the others escaped, Adson climbed a nearby building so he could watch what happened next. He saw Dagon and the other evil adventurers boil out of the apartment building and discuss what happened. After a bit, Adson left to join the others.

Soon our adventurers gathered back at the inn where Micca and Absinthe take Ravenspur to task for attacking the evil adventurers but the sorcerer is angered beyond reason that a fellow gnome’s body is being desecrated by Dagon and company. I was having the time of my life as they argued in character over the situation they found themselves in. They knew that the evil adventurers were pretty powerful and were not going to take this lying down. They were right on that count, I already had a response planned out involving a certain were-rat named Tousice. Consensus was reached that they needed to leave the city and head back to Barakus until things cooled down.

They left as soon as they could and made tracks for Barakus. Other than one random encounter with hobgoblins they made it back to the caves above the city. Some scouting by Keldin revealed the camp site were the evil adventures had stayed. They waited three days in hiding to make sure they were not followed (they were not, Dagon was back in the city striking a deal with Tousice) and a decision was made to finally take on the black dragon.

They were pretty paranoid about Zemfer. They slowly crept into the east cave entrance and made their way south. Absinthe scouted forward and the group tried to spread out so that they would not get hit all at once by a breath weapon attack. Zemfer was aware of their presence a few seconds after they entered his lair and slowly moved around to attempt to flank them from the rear. He chose his moment when Keldin and Absinthe were around a corner and Adson and Ravenspur where in line for a breath weapon. The dragon took his five foot step around a corner and let loose with an acid stream that nearly killed the gnome sorcerer but only mildly scarred the monk.

Aislenn and Adson charged the dragon and I was afraid they were going to get killed but my dice failed me. None of my attacks landed on Adson while a full attack on Aislenn only landed one blow. Adson then wound up and stunned the dragon with his attack and kept him stunned as I rolled nothing but suck for saving throws. The party then just annihilated the poor thing.

We called it a night after quickly searching the lair and finding both stashes of treasure. After being frustrated by Dagon the evil adventurers they felt better after pounding the snot out of what I thought was going to be a tough encounter with a dragon. It was the first dragon they had taken down so they were pretty proud of themselves.

Next Adventure: Waiting for Dagon

 

[Scorch]

Adventure 19

I am sure all of you DMs out there have come across a situation where your players take a course of action that totally bogs down the flow of the adventure. We all face it at some point and we can attempt to railroad or coax them along to get things going again. That is the problem I faced during this session.

The group had explored the rest of the dragon’s cave, encountering the poor goblin adept who attempted to scare them off with a poorly created illusion of Zemfer. They strolled right through the illusion, slapped him around some, took his pocket change and items, and sent him on his way. I decided not to have them encounter the two lost drow since they would have been a speed bump that would just slow things down at their current level of power.

I was all ready for them to finish out the first and second level and what they did instead was camp out in the dragon’s cave hoping to ambush Dagon and company. I had already planned out what Dagon and his cohorts were doing and it would take them nowhere near Barakus. Unfortunately I could not tell the players this so I decided to use higher level encounter tables to see if I could encourage them to move on.

The first night an Ettin wandered into the cave from outside. They were able to defeat but were so exhausted from the battle that they camped another night in the same place. The next night I rolled up a wyvern which they had a tougher time killing but managed to do so without getting themselves killed. I think they got the hint from the grudge monsters I was throwing at them and decided to move on. On the plus side I got to test some higher CR creatures against them.

The next area they explored was the vast cave and the lake contained within. Those who had dark vision capabilities were able to see the three islands out on the surface of the cave. Micca decided to strip down to his skivvies and swim the short distance to the closest island. He soon discovered the empty box that once held a key and the trap door leading down.

A few of the others crossed over and it was at that point, with the group divided between those on shore and those on the island, that the water mephit attacked them. It splattered Keldin with a Melf’s Acid Arrow and incapacitated those on shore with a stinking cloud. The arcanists in the group were able to defeat it with a barrage of magic missiles and some help from Keldin’s accurate bow shots. The hardier of the group dived under the waters surface and discovered the mephit’s lair and his treasures within.

The nimble Adson climbed down the shaft leading below to make sure nothing nasty was waiting. A rope was lowered and the rest descended easily. They found the other two shafts leading up to the other two islands and Adson explored those as well confirming they were much like the first island including the empty key boxes. Absinthe, in the meantime, examined the triple locked door and after consulting with Ravenspur and Ivo came to the conclusion that they needed three keys, probably the missing ones from the boxes, to open the door before them safely unless they wanted to trigger three deadly magical traps. A decision was made to come back to this area later after discovering one or more of the keys.

Some more exploration of the cavern containing the lake turned up a pile of bones and a ledge above them. While the rest poked at the bones, Adson scrambled up the stone face to the ledge (a quick lookup of grappling hook rules was needed) and discovered a small shrine with a silver medallion sitting in it. The monk picked it up and the bones promptly assembled themselves in the skeleton of a large cave bear and began attacking. No one had any crushing damage weapons readied so the skeleton was able to shrug off their initial attacks. It then opened up with its full attack on Aislenn and nearly knocked her down to zero after I rolled a critical. Adson leapt down from above the cliff and started pummeling the undead bear with his fists. Soon they had it destroyed.

They continued to explore and eventually end up heading through some caverns to the east when they came across a door set in the cavern wall. Upon examining it they are confronted by a voice floating at them from the passageway to the north.

“Who are you? What do you want?!?” it challenged.

After Ravenspur convinced the disembodied voice that they meant no harm, the door opened revealing a gnome illusionist.

He had been living the life of a hermit here in the caves and had all sorts of information about the first level that was now useless since the first level was all but cleaned out. The group spent lunch with him and got the feeling that he wanted them to leave after it is apparent that they had nothing that he wanted. The decision was made to continue down to the second level.

The party worked their way through the area where they fought the mummies and found the stairs leading down, which they avoided, and a room filled with pots and urns. They tossed the room and eventually find a key that they believed would fit one of the three locks on the door underneath the lake.

They continued west and began to cross a slippery stone bridge leading over a vast cavern. The sound of running water came up from below. When they were about halfway across, a large monstrous spider clambered up onto the bridge from underneath and attacked Micca. It did not provide much challenge and Micca made the finishing blow against it but unfortunately he lost a balance check and over the side he went.

4d6 damage later and he was at the bottom of the cavern. While the others lowered a rope he thought he heard voice coming from the northwest, somewhere in the darkness of the cavern but he was not sure because of the sound of the running river nearby. Micca was able to climb back up to the bridge with assistance from the rest of the party and they continued to the west.

So close yet so far from finding Fenton. Ah well, this will give me fodder for when they get back to Endhome.

Next Adventure: Ambush at the Roadside Inn