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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mattcolville" data-source="post: 42012" data-attributes="member: 1300">Update...In those days, the Black Company were in service to Lord Nestor of Tariene…The Players...............Their CharactersHyrum Savage...........Armando de la Rua (ranger/fighter)George Vasilakos.......Artemis (Psion 4)Owen Seyler..............Firdun Thunderthol (Cleric 1, Fighter 3)John Wick..................Moergin Tariene (Rogue 1, Sorcerer 1, Bard 3)Christian Moore.........Etherion (4th level 1/2 Elven Wizard)Doug Sun..................Eskal Kailthane (dwarven paladin 4)[This is, by the way, their seating arrangement around the table.]We were missing Ross Isaacs and, per the standing house rule, if you’re not there your character disappears, is retconned from the game as though he never existed, but may reappear next week if you’re around again and get retconned back into the game as though you’d always been there.This marks the first week of an experiment with Group Initiative. The game was bogging down with seven players, and I thought we should go back to the Old Way I used when I was younger. One player rolls, the GM rolls. If the players win, they all go then all the bad guys go, and so on. If the bad guys win…you get the idea.We picked up where we left off. Three clerics, apparently of Azrai, had emerged from the moathouse, happy to see the dragon that had trapped them down there was dead. The players killed two of them and Moergin charmed the other one. The other one, a 2nd level female human cleric named Gren, now believes Moergin is the Lord of Dream, one of the four leaders of the Curtain of Night.The group rests, regains spells, and heals up. The next morning, Moergin casts Charm on Gren again, the GM ruling that the countdown clock for the end of the spell’s duration is on hold while Gren sleeps (just to make life easier so the PCs don’t have to wake up every four hours and cast it on her again. As they discuss what to do, they hear the sounds of clashing steel from the lower level of the moathouse.They go to the stairs and listen, they hear a chittering sound interspersed with dwarven war cries. They descend.Below they find a dwarven paladin, dirty, unkempt, fighting off two Xill. The group lends aid and dispatches the Xill [who, for the record, aren’t using their implant ability.] The paladin introduces himself, he is Eskal Kailthane, paladin of Moradin. One of the players asks if this means he’s lawful good. Another player answers “Of course he’s lawful good, all paladins are lawful good.” The GM responds “Well, really he’s Pro-Dwarf, but yes, he’s lawful good.”  Eskal encountered, then followed the clerics he met on the road back to the moathouse. Discovering them for what they were, he launched into an attack only to be prevented by the arrival of the blue dragon, who trapped them all in the moathouse. Eskal had been holed up down there, behind a barred door, for two days until he heard the dragon die, the clerics leave, and he attempted to kill the Xill and escape. That’s when the party came down and found him.Eskal recognizes Owen’s character as Firdun Thunderthol, prince of Kundrakhar. “My lord!” he exclaims, “I’ve been searching throughout Anuire, looking for your brother, Glowron! Moradin came to me in a vision and told me I would aid Glowron in the retaking of Kundrakhar. What news of your brother, the Thane?’Firdun explains that, last he heard, his brother had taken a contingent of dwarves and gone to attempt Kundrakhar a few weeks ago. Eskal is excited about this and hopes they can join him quickly. Firdun, being perhaps more circumspect than his brother, seeks greater strength and power before they attempt to retake their homeland. So now there’s a dwarven paladin in the group. John remembers that Gren had said something last week about the clerics gathering artifacts from the moathouse. “Let’s go see the artifacts” Moergin says. Gren leads on.The artifacts are being guarded by two Xill. Gren tries to tell them that this guy here in the Lord of Dream, their ultimate master. The Xill, not being charmed and not being stupid, see what’s happened and attack Gren. The PCs dispatch the Xill and check out the artifacts. One is a small black orb. Another a black torch with three black cinder cones for fuel. Another is a black scepter, another is a black scrollcase. Moergin comprehends languages and tells the group the scroll bears instructions on how to access an extraplanar space called the Black Cyst. “Urg” comes the response. Gren is concerned that the Xill are no longer following her orders. Moergin gives an explanation that the GM can no longer remember, but she buys it. She offers to lead the group through the moathouse to the area they had just discovered in the warrens dug by the ghasts. Her delightful description of a maze of tunnels dug by ghasts that were trapped down here freaks a couple of people out, and we’re reminded that Monte was working on d20 Cthulu at one point. She also offers to take Moergin to the entrance to the lower level that they couldn’t access. The group agrees to check out the ghast warrens.So the PCs are carefully led past the bad guys down here to some kind of evil shrine at the end of the ghast warrens. Inside they discover an altar of white stone and a column of rock with four figures carved into it. The Curtain of Night. The four images are the Lord of Thorns, the Lord of Dream, the Lord of Fall, and the Lord of Sky. Happily, the Lord of Dream is wearing a mask, so Gren can’t tell Moergin isn’t him.The PCs have Gren touch the altar. She makes her save and is enraptured as the altar becomes translucent and a thick, pulsing, purple mass can be seen deep within. She goes to the column and starts poking and proding at it. She finds a secret compartment, containing a set of chimes. The group checks out the rest of the column. Artemis puts his hands on the altar, and makes his save. “Hmmm,” he says. The group meanwhile finds the other secret compartments in the column. A skin covered drum, the chimes, a brazier, and another small black orb.They have Gren touch the altar again. They’re bound and determined to get this altar to do something and, by god, it does. Gren fails her save and is paralyzed. “Great,” the group responds. “Without her we have to fight our way out of here!” Armando points out that something will probably happen if they beat the drum, rings the chimes, and light the brazier. Gren already rang the chimes. Armando says, “I beat on the drum.” The GM makes small drum being tapped on with fingers noises.“What are you DOING!?” Moergin responds. “Hey, we’re here to see what’s going on. This is something that’s going on.” “I don’t want to be anywhere near this,” Owen says. “Ah, yeah, I’m backing out of the room” Christian responds. “Why shouldn’t we light the brazier?” Armando says. “Yeah!” Artemis responds. “Because it’s EVIL,” John replies. “This is a temple to a DARK GOD, nothing good is going to happen.”The group agrees to have one of Artemis’ astral constructs do the deed. Half of the group wants to be far away, the other half want to watch from outside. So that half of the group can see the eye that swivels into view within the altar and fixes them with it’s gaze. Moergin makes his save. Armando and Artemis don’t. One loses permanent STR, the other loses temporary CON. They take care of this with a scroll and one of Artemis’ body adjustment spider tattoos. Etherion analyzes what’s gone on and declares that he doesn’t believe they’ve yet seen what this thing does yet. They’ve attracted its attention, but not yet seen its function.The groups waits for Gren to be deparalyzed and goes to the room leading to the lower level.When Gren was last here, the clerics hadn’t found a way to drain the water that filled a small pool in the middle of this room. But while she was guarding the artifacts, one of the clerics must have found a way. Now, instead of a small pool of water in the middle of the room, there’s a hole that extends into darkness. Water can be heard pouring onto rock. A large stone circle leans against one wall, the stone that was used to plug the hole and served as the bottom of the pool. There’s also a circular wooden platform lying against the wall, with rope attaching it to a pulley in the ceiling directly above the hole.The group experiments with dropping torches into the hole, but they learn nothing. They get on the platform and start lowering themselves into the hole. They find the source of the water—a pipe pumping water into the hole—another pipe they determine to be the runoff pipe, and a slight indentation running round the hole where the stone would have rested, sealing the entire thing. They continue descending.The hole opens out into a huge cavern. They cannot see the walls. Below, the floor looks black. They land on the floor. The water from the pipe above is pouring down onto the black stone which, upon closer inspection, has purple veins running through it like black through marble.They spot another platform about 30 feet away. Looking at it, they realize the floor drops away right about there. They’re standing on. . .an island? Armando ties a rope to Firdun, and Firdun steps off the platform. As soon as his booted heel touches the rock, the purple veins begin to move and swirl towards him. He fails his save and loses some strength. The group pull him back.Etherion casts Spider Climb, climbs up the rope back into the room and down the wall of the hole onto the ceiling of the massive cavern, finds the pulley in the ceiling and climbs down that rope to the other platform. Using rope, the rest of the group follows suit. The group now prepares for their descent into the depths of the earth….</blockquote>

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