the Kyri Chronicles - last updated 22 Oct

[Plane Sailing]

Good stuff. It's nice to see this adventure, which looked like one of the weakest of the Adventure Path series actually working, and working quite well but you embellish wonderfully.

Thanks for the compliments. The module got great reviews on d20 reviews, but panned by people in messageboard threads. It has quite a lot of pretty severe plot holes/railroading, but I really liked the basic idea - the good ghostly horseman, the evil villagers and a vaguely celtic feel to it all.

It is going to be a while before the characters are of the right level to attempt the next adventure module (heart of nightfangs spire) but I think they will have plenty to do before then.

Dyson sounds like he'll make your players a good on-going villain, just what every RBDM needs!

I've got more on-going villains than I know what to do with! Most of the bad guys have strong self-preservation streaks and bail-out plans...

I just sent the following list around to all my players as a reminder of "loose ends" that they need to follow up...


Dangling plot threads:

Daros the evil priest that was subverting the temple at
Knightsbridge is still on the loose, presumably subverting
other churches. Someone oughtta stop him! This would
involve tracking down subverted churches in different towns,
and following leads to the big guy before finally putting him
down. Lots of travel, some wilderness and quite a bit of town
stuff.

The Blessed is still working on setting up her Cabals, and is
working with a grand scheme, probably in league with the
mind flayers somehow. Someone oughtta stop her! This
would involve mostly a big, complex dungeon crawl, to put a
stop to her mad schemes before it is too late.

Dyson, the evil wizard escaped with his henchwoman, Tully.
They were working with fiends, and will probably start
attempting to bring fiends into this world once again.
Someone oughtta stop them! A shorter term quest, this
would involve chasing them down somehow and finishing
them off. They have not had nearly enough time to get
sorted out in a new stronghold yet; the only issue is how to
find them.

New diplomatic relationships could be forged with the
Dwarfs, cementing new friendships and bringing a powerful
ally into the future struggle with the mind flayers. Diplomatic
adventures, investigating the underdark, making friends with
the suspicious dwarves and learning about them.

That horrible shaman from the very first adventure turned up
again, causing trouble... she could be tracked down and
finished off before she does other horrible things with undead
plants and that nasty tree which she used to serve.
Someone oughtta stop her! This would lead to the next
adventure path module, basically a nasty dungeon delve
designed for 10th level characters, and you're not ready for
that yet!

The refugee problem in Singh is getting worse, it seems that
something has gone very badly wrong there. Who is going
to find out what is happening? Who is going to stand up to a
theocracy gone bad and rescue AN ENTIRE NATION?
Someone oughtta do something! This would involve getting
into a nation, sneaking infiltration, military battles, political
struggles, gradually moving onto a grander stage.

Because we only play my campaign once every 2-4 weeks, it was getting so that they needed a programme to sort out the potential bad guys!

I decided to additionally let them know what *kind* of adventures they are likely to be getting themselves into by following up each of these leads, to make sure they choose something that they are keen to do at the moment. Of course, everyone *elses* plans will advance a notch or two in the meantime, heh, heh, heh!

Cheers

 

[paulewaug]

Wow that was an interesting end to that adventure
They ran each other out of town!

Sorry to see Lysander leave the team..
so now I am excited to see what new character will be joing the team then!?

The update on unfinished business is a good idea, they have some bad guys they need to hunt down and kill!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Wow that was an interesting end to that adventure
They ran each other out of town!

Sorry to see Lysander leave the team..
so now I am excited to see what new character will be joing the team then!?

The update on unfinished business is a good idea, they have some bad guys they need to hunt down and kill!

It was a close run think at the end - much closer than I thought it was going to be! I did my best to play Dyson without any metagaming knowledge, and he didn't really have any idea how badly they were hurt - while he DID know that he didn't have his friendly shaman to heal him any more!

Lysanders player hasn't actually got a replacement character yet - he is still trying to decide what kind of character he would like to have, and (unfortunately) hasn't got any ideas that really grip him yet. hopefully soon though

 

[Plane Sailing]

The door into the wizard Dyson’s tower is magically locked. Unable to force it open by main strength they decide to batter the door down. Trajan stands before the door, composes himself, and then with a sudden cry kicks out, knocking the door off its hinges (quickdraw focus skill applied to an unarmed kick attack). Unfortunately he is engulfed by a gout of flame from the trapped door, which badly singes his clothes, but is far from dangerous to him.

Entering carefully, they find a comfortable circular room, with a ladder leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling at one end. After searching around carefully, they take it in turns to climb the ladder up into a bedchamber. Trajan goes across to open the shuttered windows when giant spiders rush out from hiding places under the bed and attack, two going for Trajan, and two going for Sean.

The battle against the spiders appears to be short and sweet - although suddenly one of the spiders fighting Trajan disappears, becoming invisible. “Phase spider!” shouts Anne-Marie in alarm. Sean feels a strange suggestion tickling his mind. He can’t shake the feeling that the wizardess, Arilyn, must be in league with Dyson… he’d better cut her down quickly… He swings at her and just misses; Arilyn ducks away behind Anne-Marie who helps Sean to shake off the spell.

The window is opened, and a quick search of the room reveals no sign of the spider. Trajan and Sean proceed up another ladder to the top portion of the tower. This turns out to be a laboratory, with many items scattered about as if someone grabbed a whole series of things hurriedly before leaving. Amongst the few remaining materials are books, several scrolls in a rack and a small selection of potions.

Suddenly the spider appears between the two warriors and attacks again, but it is quickly slain with two crushing blows from the doughty fighters. The others come up to investigate the room and check out the contents. A further ladder leads up to another wizard-locked trapdoor to the top of the tower.

Everyone is caught be surprise as the dead spider suddenly leaps back to life and scurries down the trapdoor to the bedroom - it must have been regenerating! Anne-Marie leaps straight down the trapdoor, lands lightly and seeing no sign of any creature leaps straight down the next trapdoor and out into the yard. There is a small group of frightened villagers, pointing and worrying - apparently one of them saw a huge black spider crawl out of the window and then change shape into a crow and fly off. Anne-Marie makes several futile attempts to reassure them (diplomacy isn’t her strong point) before explaining that Trajan will come down and explain everything, which seems to settle them.

Meanwhile, up in the lab, Arilyn is carefully examining the remaining prizes. Three of the potions are oily and thin with a metallic smell to them. The books left on the shelves are not books of spells, but books on local politics, geography, history and one book with writing in an unrecognisable, crabbed script.
Then we turn to the scrolls.

The explosive runes knock Arilyn right off her stool, bleeding and shaken as are the others in the room. “Aha” says Arilyn, “That old trick, eh? Something will have to be done to check and disarm these others”

Most of the rubbish and other material is then taken out of the tower and burnt for safety, and the tower is declared safe for use by the villagers.

“Now” declares Anne-Marie, “I have some unfinished business to attend to”


to be continued.

 

[Plane Sailing]

“I’ve got to return this frost rapier to Saithnar” she explains. “He said I could keep it until my task was accomplished, and I figure it must be done now”

Arilyn looks at her quizzically.

Anne-Marie continues “The first time I used it was against the witch, Henwen, and it struck truly, dispatching her quickly. Then we fought cuckoo and I couldn’t hurt him. It hasn’t really done much for me since at any point since then. So I guess the lucky enchantments must be used up or something.”

So it is agreed, and Anne-Marie, Trajan, Arilyn and Sean set off through the woods towards the barrow. It is comforting to know that the elves have disarmed all the traps which they had littered these woods with. Perhaps too comforting, since nobody noticed a couple of songbirds which started trailing them. Not until the entangle spell went off, anyway.

The trees and bushes around them spring into unnatural life, grabbing and restraining all except Trajan, who wriggles free and quickly makes his way to the edge of the area. Storm clouds grumble overhead, and their sound is mirrored in the angry voice of an old crone, shouting at them from about 60ft away

“Where is Graculous? Where is Miranda? Where is Ynnsfeardh and the thrice-damned Auriel? They will pay for ruining my plans!”

The entangled group glance round at each other, puzzled, as they continue to try and struggle free. Trajan attempts to placate the old woman

“We know nothing of these people. Can we help you?”

“HA” she shouts, “You might try to hide them from my wrath, but my divinations have led me to their friends, to YOU. Perhaps you need some help to loosen your memories? Jog something free?”
She gestures skywards, and an answering bolt of lightning sears downwards onto the three entangled figures...

 

[Darklone]

Phew, caught up again!

Thanks for the SH, Plane!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Ah Darklone, welcome back!

I thought you had abandoned me for sexier storyhours

I need to try to get a few more segments up before I go off on hols in a weeks time... watch this space!

 

[Darklone]

Sexier storyhours?

Who told you about my secret passions ?

Damn, having to kill someone else in the morning really makes my day.

Standing Stone: never played it, just bought it.

Do you think your players shouldn't be able by now to kill a Vrock? I mean, I did just leave a group where most of the guys still got stuck with +1 weapons (shall I say daggers?) while the cleric cast GMW +4 on his stuff...

One of my players took on a Vrock at lvl 7 singlehandedly, but he "took care" of a minor artefact (rapier +3 with +1 AC and some other nifties). And he never rolled so lucky.

But yes, I do know how DR 20/+2 sucks.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Do you think your players shouldn't be able by now to kill a Vrock? I mean, I did just leave a group where most of the guys still got stuck with +1 weapons (shall I say daggers?) while the cleric cast GMW +4 on his stuff...

One of my players took on a Vrock at lvl 7 singlehandedly, but he "took care" of a minor artefact (rapier +3 with +1 AC and some other nifties). And he never rolled so lucky.

But yes, I do know how DR 20/+2 sucks.

Well, since Vrocks are (in theory) CR13 even without the bard levels, and it was fighting three characters with an average level of 7...

I guess the module expects four characters to be starting the module at level 7 and reaching about level 8 or 9 before the end... but even so, it is a bit heavy.

Standing Stone has the potential for a great adventure, but I think that you will probably need to do quite a bit of work to make it all hang together nicely. Especially if you have any elven priests or druids in the party! It goes out of its way to railroad the characters into situations, with no negotiations allowed, which was a bit of a cop-out to my mind. I guess they made Dyson a sorcerer for the "bang" value and to keep valuable spell books out of PCs hands, but I changed him to a wizard since that fit my conception of the person better. Let me know if you'd like the variant stats and spell list I put together for him.

Cheers

The setting is great though.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hampered by the entangling plant growth, all of them are badly burnt by the lightning blast. They redouble their efforts to get free. Zeph flies down to try and help Arilyn, but has to spend most of his effort avoiding the leaves which grasp at him.

Trajan takes a few steps towards the woman, sheathing his weapon. “Can’t we just talk..” He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. Balak the shaman points and shouts out “kill him” - and an enormous bear as big as a carriage charges out and attacks him.

Trajan draws his scimitar smoothly and slices across the bears shoulders - but it hardly fazes the dire creature, which lunges forward with one paw and pins Trajan to the ground. His struggles are futile against the tremendous strength of the bear.

Balak looks over the scene. “Finish them all off. Kill them all” she commands her bear. Then she walks off, into the woods.

Anne-Marie and the others continue to struggle to get themselves free, Sean being the first to break away from the branches - although in the meantime the dire bear has used Trajan as a chew-toy, wounding him nigh unto death. Anne-Marie gets out one of the metallic scented potions and starts smearing it over her body, in case it is oil of slipperiness. Sean whips out his longbow and launches an arrow in the bear, distracting it before it finally tears Trajan in two. The bear lumbers towards the ranger, who bravely draws his longsword in an attempt to hold it off.

Sean lasts two rounds before falling before the might of the dire bear (he had suffered badly from the called lightning), without causing it much more serious injury. Fortunately Anne-Marie frees herself (at last!) and springs over to the clear ground behind the bear. Making noise, she distracts it from the body of Sean, and starts leading the bear on a frantic chase through the woods - carefully travelling just fast enough that it still chose to follow her. After about 10 minutes she breaks and hides in cover - only to see the bear stop and start sniffing around towards her hiding place!

Quickly she makes a break for it again, with the bear in hot pursuit. Next time she gets out of its line of vision she quickly upends another one of the metallic oils over some thick shrubbery, then leaps vertically up to a tree and hides amongst the branches (mentally thanking Keldass for the boots he crafted for her all those long years ago).

The dire bear stops near her, sniffs its way up to the bush and then tears it apart - but doesn’t find its quarry. After looking around angrily, the bear starts walking off to the south, presumably to meet up again with its master.

After waiting a short while, Anne-Marie runs quickly back to the rest of the party, where Arilyn has been busy stabilising Trajan and Sean. They are all a little non-plussed about what this was all about.

Dmnote: This is, of course, Balak whose plans were foiled by the original adventurers way, way back in the Sunless Citadel at the start of my storyhour… The party is like the proverbial murphys shovel - all the components have changed (or in most cases died) but it is still the same shovel. Balak wants revenge for what happened to the Gulthias tree, and is going to cause big trouble in the future unless stopped

After the use of some healing potions and a few hours rest, they feel ready to travel again. As it nears nightfall they arrive at the barrow, and Anne-Marie ducks inside, leaving Saithnar’s frost rapier on the small altar, then ducking out again. They build a small campfire outside the entrance, and spend the night.

In the morning, a quick check shows that the rapier has gone - but in its place is a long strip of leather… a hilt wrapping for a sword. Intrigued, Anne-Marie takes it and uses it to replace the binding on her old and ageing rapier. To her surprise there is a quick flash of light which spreads out from the hilt and along the blade of the weapon. She examines it carefully, and Trajan casts his craftsmans eye over the blade. Magically it is now much sharper and harder than it used to be.

A faint smile of satisfaction plays over Anne-Maries lips. “Let’s get back to the village”.