ADVENTURE 1: FINALS WEEK
PC Roster:
Amris Goodwitch, celestial elf witch (wizard) 1
Avoroth Bleakborn, fiendish human cleric 1
Gonkle Bu'Onk, fiendish orc fighter 1
Wilbur Von Schattenwalde, shadow human druid 1
Game Session Date: 23 July 2025
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Shift Day was fast approaching; the town of Elsewhere had spent close to a year parked on a layer of Mount Celestia, a realm of permanent midnight, with clear, bright stars overhead. Today was the start of Finals Week, when the new recruits who had spent the year training to be planar scouts would demonstrate their mastery of the training they'd received over the course of the last year, or would spent the next cycle still in training, honing their skills until they had proved their worthiness to be one of the "first contact" teams to be sent out to explore whatever new plane the town had shifted to that year. They'd be the ones seeking out new allies, gathering intelligence on potential new adversaries, determining the availability of local food animals and edible plants, and everything else that went along with keeping a disparate populace hale and healthy for the next year in their new, strange environment.
Lined up in the training yard of Scout Headquarters, the newest band of four trainees stood at attention, ready to begin their testing. An open-topped wooden barrel stood before them. Wilbur Von Schattenwalde, a human druid born on the Plane of Shadows, wore his weathered leather armor and held a scimitar in his hand; before him was
Goldie, a viper he'd acquired shortly after his graduation from the first druidic circle. Goldie was named for his bright, glinting scales; as a celestial being, Goldie was as bright and colorful as his master was dark and shadowy.
Beside them stood Gonkle Bu'Onk, a rather dim-witted orc born on one of the fiendish planes; despite his fiendish heritage, he had rather enjoyed the past year on Mount Celestia, since he greatly preferred the constant midnight to days with a bright, burning sun that hurt his eyes. He wielded a warhammer and was eager for the testing to begin, to show off his combat skills. That's where he was most likely to shine; he left the more intellectual aspects of the scout training to those better suited to them. That was why they were always sent out as teams of four, or so they'd been told.
The human standing next to Gonkle wore an expression of irritation on his pinched face; this was Avoroth Bleakborn, a human born when Elsewhere spent a year parked in Hell, and more than anything else he just wanted to get on with it. He knew fully well he was prepared in his role as a planar scout, and just hoped the morons he'd been saddled with wouldn't bring him down and force him to waste another year in training with them. He wore a chain shirt and wielded a quarterstaff, but as a cleric of
Boccob he preferred not to have to rely upon either; Avoroth felt his place was on the back line, directing the expendable members of the team with his superior intellect and vast knowledge of...well, just about everything, really. Everything worth learning about, in any case.
The final member of the team stood beside Avoroth, and her attitude was the exact opposite of his: while he was brooding and prickly, Amris Goodwitch was bright and perky. Mount Celestia was practically home to the elven witch, who had been born on a celestial plane herself. Perched upon her shoulder was her familiar
Pivot, a celestial barred owl who observed the events around him with unblinking eyes. Right now, he was staring at three of the town's four leaders, here to observe and/or judge the scout trainees' performances at their assigned tasks.
The first of these observers was
Father Solaire, a grizzled but well-respected solar. At his side was
Obsidian Omega Shi, a kolyrut inevitable, a mechanical construct roughly the size and shape of a man. But it was the third of the three leaders who would be overseeing this first test:
Lady Kalistra slithered to the center of the testing yard and explained the exercise. "This first test will appraise your combat training, to see if your fighting instructors have wasted their time over the past year, or if you've actually picked up a modicum of martial prowess." The marilith demon twisted her serpentine body, turning her back upon the trainees. "As you can see, I have four of my wrists bound together behind my back, leaving just my primary sword hand for fighting and a free hand for documentation." She turned back around to face her foes, her gleaming longsword in one hand and a marking stick in the other. "At the command, we will fight each other: you must strike me ten times before I am able to take you out. Each of you will dip your weapon of choice into the barrel of green paint, so any hits upon me will leave a mark." As a marilith, her scaly body was able to ignore most blows; the paint-marks would be an easy way to document attacks that at least managed to hit her, even if they dealt her no damage.
One by one, the four scout trainees dipped their weapons into the green paint. Lady Kalistra held up a green-tipped rod she bore in her off hand. "I will mark myself when I am struck by attacks other than your weapons," she said. "That's the test:
ATTACK AT WILL!"
Amris wasted no time, firing off a
ray of frost spell that sent a chilling beam of cold energy flashing at the marilith demon. But Lady Kalistra didn't even need to dodge for the ray to go sailing past her head. Avoroth, not wishing to be chided by the leaders for a "poor attitude" (again), choked back the withering comment he wished to make. But Pivot leaped forward and took wing, flying in a wide arc around the courtyard, setting himself up for a strike from the rear against the trainee's demonic foe.
Avoroth held up his symbol of Boccob and bestowed a
bless spell upon the rest of the group, remaining in place at the back while giving them a combat benefit that would hopefully encourage them to leap into battle against an obviously superior foe. (The cleric had no doubts: if this battle were for real, the marilith could easily take out all four of them without breaking a sweat, even with four arms tied behind her back.) Wilbur likewise opted to remain where he stood, casting a summoning spell that brought a shadow owl into the impromptu arena; it manifested behind Lady Kalistra's head and swooped in for a strike with its talons, making the first successful attack upon the demon. Lady Kalistra smirked and made a green line upon her right arm with the paint-covered rod she held in her left. "That's one," she marked off.
Goldie slithered forward, seeking to bite his fellow serpentine creature. Before he could get close enough to bite her, though, she struck out with her flashing blade and cut him along the side of his neck. The viper took the blow and then struck forward, getting in a hit with its venomous fangs, although the demon's only reaction was to make a second mark upon her arm. "Two," she intoned, "both from animals the druid sent out to do his fighting for him." Then she almost absently brought her sword down upon the serpent, dropping it unmoving to the ground with a single, second blow. Wilbur looked worriedly at his bleeding viper companion and darted a glance in Father Solaire's direction; he assumed the solar would step in with healing spells if it became necessary, although he very much doubted that would have been a consideration had Lady Kalistra had her own way. But Father Solaire looked stoically on, giving no indication he was going to step in; either he was planning on seeing how the team would react to this situation, already knew the serpent would be fine for now - or, at worst, Goldie was already dead and there was nothing to be done about it.
Gonkle screamed an attack roar and charged forward, brandishing his warhammer. But his attack likewise missed, and the marilith's smirk grew wider. Amris fired off another spell from where she stood, this time a
magic missile that unerringly hit its target. "Three," announced Lady Kalistra, making a third mark upon her arm. Then Pivot dived in from behind, and she upgraded her tally to "Four."
"Bloody Hell," grumbled Avoroth, racing forward to attack the marilith with his quarterstaff, seeing as only Gronkle was apparently willing to go face their foe in hand-to-hand combat. (Plus, he didn't have any attack spells at the ready and didn't wish to appear fearful of getting his hands dirty in a fight.) But his charge fared no better than had the orc's, and he took a hit from the marilith's sword across his shoulder blade, staining his tabard with blood and doing nothing to lighten his bleak mood. Then Wilbur finally decided to join the fray, getting in a hit with his scimitar while Lady Kalistra was focusing upon Avoroth. "Five," intoned the marilith, sending Avoroth's mood to even blacker depths: was he no more than bait, to be sent forth as a distraction while his lessers racked up points? He stepped back and cast a
cure light wounds spell upon himself, closing up the seeping wound across his upper chest.
Gonkle swung again at his foe, flailing wildly and coming nowhere near to making a mark upon the demon's scaly hide. (The flecks of green paint he sent flying wildly in all directions didn't count.) But Lady Kalistra swung her blade at the orc and made a solid connection against his armor, showing him how it was done.
Amris cast a second
ray of frost spell, sending it flying over the marilith's head and eliciting a snort of derision Avoroth couldn't hold back. But then the combatants finally started working more like a team, ganging up on the marilith from opposite directions; Gonkle finally scored his first hit, and Wilbur got his second - even Avoroth managed to strike the marilith a glancing blow with his quarterstaff. But it was Pivot the owl who got in the tenth hit, and with a final call of "Ten!" Lady Kalistra reached her sword blade behind her back and severed the rope binding her other wrists.
"Congratulations on your first victory," replied Father Solaire, stepping forward and applying a healing spell to Goldie, bringing him back up to full consciousness and perfect health. "Your final test will take place in an abandoned shrine, two and a half days directly northwest. Your test will be administered there. Leave now, if you please."
"Immediately," echoed Obsidian Omega Shi. Surprised at the brusqueness of the order, they were mollified somewhat when they saw backpacks of supplies had been set aside for them; each strapped on a pack and they began their trek at once.
"I would suggest," observed Avoroth dryly to Amris as they left the village, "you rely more heavily upon
magic missile spells. You seem to fare better with spells that do all the targeting for you."
"Thank you for the concern," replied Amris, doing her best to ignore him. Some people insisted on dwelling upon the negative!
The rest of the first day was uneventful, and they made camp under the same stars they'd been trekking under all day. It was the next morning, probably close to noon or so (although it was difficult to determine for sure when the sky remained at midnight all day and all night), when they faced their next bit of excitement. Passing through a field of scrub brush and the occasional felled tree, they were attacked by a trio of canines. "Blink dogs!" surmised Avoroth, judging from their having just appeared out of thin air like that; he'd read of the beasts but had never seen one for real. Amris frowned; she thought she'd heard some mumbling behind her before the dogs showed up, but she couldn't be sure. But she cast a
magic missile spell at the closest of the dogs, and Pivot swooped in from behind to finish it off with a slash of his talons. It popped away, strengthening the cleric's belief they were facing a small pack of blink dogs.
"Hey," called out Amris, a sudden thought crossing her mind. Since this was a celestial plane they were on, perhaps these were simply local celestial dogs. "Try playing with them," she suggested. "Maybe if you throw them a stick, they'll stop and chase it!"
"Sound advice, save for two points," argued Avoroth. "One, you're a flighty elf; two, you're a woman. I tend to distrust suggestions from either." He stepped forward and swung his quarterstaff at the nearest dog, clobbering it in the side of the head and causing it to howl in pain. A wicked smile spread across the cleric's face, which lasted up to the point both remaining dogs focused their attacks upon him,
smiting evil for good measure.
"Hang on," called out Wilbur, rushing forward to attack the nearest dog with his scimitar. He swung at the dog but it missed as the dog dodged to the side - not
blinking away, as would have likely happened had these been blink dogs as Avoroth had erroneously surmised. Goldie fared a little better, biting one of the dogs with his venomous fangs, although the canine was able to resist the worst effects of the poison. But Gonkle was there beside the golden-scaled serpent, and he finished the second dog off with a blow from his warhammer that crushed its skull. It, too, vanished upon death.
There was the sudden sound of whispered words behind the group, and then suddenly another trio of celestial dogs appeared nearby. Amris slew the last of the original three with a
magic missile spell, while Avoroth stumbled away and cast a
cure light wounds spell upon himself.
Blasted dogs! he cursed to himself.
The three new arrivals all raced to Wilbur, growling and snapping. But the midnight realm was practically made for the shadow druid, and he easily evaded their snapping jaws by sliding into the shadows, making it difficult for them to tell where exactly he was. One by one, the group slew the celestial dogs, teaming up and focusing their attacks upon one at a time. Before too long, they were all dead, leaving no traces of their existence but trampled grass where they'd fought.
"We're not done here," snarled Avoroth. "There's an invisible spellcaster around here somewhere - spread out and find him!"
"Whoa, whoa - hold off!" called out a squeaky voice. "It's me!" Dropping his invisibility, the spellcaster was revealed as
Proctor Dorjin Fizzlegold, a one-legged, axiomatic gnome with an intricate mechanical leg at the end of the stump where his original left leg ended. "I'm just here to follow your progress on your travels to the shrine, and to assess your capabilities against a thematically appropriate summons to test your combat ability in a real-world situation. Hence, celestial dogs on a celestial plane."
"I believe the four of us are 'thematically appropriate' foes against invisible, busybody gnomes," threatened Avoroth, but he knew he couldn't do anything to back up his threats, for the gnomish Proctor was part of their evaluation. "Come on," he snarled, "let's be off!" And he strode forward in the way they'd been headed, straight northeast from Elsewhere. If the gimpy gnome wished to follow along, he'd better be able to keep up.
On their third day of travel, the group arrived at the shrine. It was carved into the face of a low cliff, with wide, stone stairs leading up to a central chamber flanked by statues of angelic beings. "Wait, that's not right!" declared Dorjin, who had in fact kept pace with the scout trainees and arrived at the shrine beside them. "There's a body lying there in the entry chamber!"
Sure enough, there was indeed a body lying on the floor in the chamber ahead. Amris immediately sent Pivot out to reconnoiter the area, while she cast a
detect magic spell. "The whole area ahead is magical," she told the others. Avoroth cautiously approached, expecting trouble. Behind him, Wilbur cast a
shillelagh spell and followed suit, stepping up the stairs and entering the shrine beside the cleric of Boccob.
"He's alive," announced Avoroth. "But look at the bite marks on his neck. Two here, like those of a vampire, but far too many others - a ghoul, perhaps? In any case, I'm surprised he isn't dead."
"That's the proctor who was supposed to set up the challenges here in the shrine for you to overcome," Dorjin said.
"So this isn't part of the test?" asked Gonkle, who had followed behind.
"It most certainly is not!" declared Dorjin, who started tending to the fallen man's wounds. But Avoroth had his doubts; this could very well be part of the test, to see how they reacted to unexpected situations. He wouldn't put it past them to try something like that - he'd probably have done something similar, had he been in charge of testing new recruits.
There was a pile of colored stones all around the victim, where what had likely been a mosaic had collapsed, revealing passageways to the right and left just behind the entryway. There were sounds of scraping coming from both branches of corridors ahead. Somewhere off to her left, she knew from her
detect magic spell, was an almost overpowering source of magic, but it was closer to the outer steps than to the corridors just ahead.
"We'll check it out," promised Amris as she stepped through the hole in the back wall and stood in the intersection of passageways. There was no light in either corridor, but that wasn't a problem for the celestial elf, who had been born with natural darkvision (as, indeed, had all four of the trainees). There was a lone skeleton off to the right and several approaching through a dog-legged corridor to the left. Opting to clear out one direction first, the witch cast a
magic missile spell at the lone skeleton, destroying it with a blast of force energy. Avoroth, glad to see the elf could handle a single skeleton all by herself, faced the other direction and raised his symbol of Boccob, ready to send a blast of negative energy their way that he hoped would allow him to successfully rebuke them.
The skeletons attacked the cleric in a sudden rush, clawing at him without any weapons in hand. Both of the nearest missed him, and when he invoked Boccob's name he managed to successfully rebuke the three that followed in the first two's wake, causing them to cower before him. (Avoroth decided he liked having mindless undead cower before him - they, at least, knew their place in the presence of their betters!) But then Wilbur stepped up behind the fiendish cleric and toppled the first skeleton with an overhand blow from his
shillelagh. Gonkle, excited at the prospect of combat, crushed the second skeleton with a powerful blow from his warhammer. The three scout trainees noted the fangs each skeleton sported, otherwise appearing to be the animated skeletal remains of a human.
Amris stepped behind her male companions and sent a
magic missile spell blasting into one of the cowering skeletons in the rear. Avoroth, sensing now was the time for hand-to-hand combat (and fearing if he attacked those cowering before him, it would remove the effect), backed off behind the others to let them get to it. But then another skeleton and a different undead creature stepped within view, in the chamber behind the remaining cowering skeletons: a ghoul, its rotting flesh hanging off its festering body, and sporting an impressive set of fangs more suited to a vampire than a mere ghoul.
Wilbur cut down a fanged skeleton with another blow from his magically-enhanced
shillelagh, while Gonkle did likewise, smashing another skeleton with an upthrust hammer-strike that knocked its skull from its vertebrae. With the cowering skeletons out of the way, Avoroth stepped forward again past his fellow recruits and slew a skeleton with his quarterstaff, while the fiendish orc took out the last of the skeletons with another crushing blow from his warhammer. Now they faced only the oddly-fanged ghoul, who approached as if not the least bit concerned about the uneven odds against him.
Amris held an
acid splash spell at the ready and unleashed it when the ghoul suddenly surged forward, piercing its fangs into Gonkle's unprotected neck - the half-witted orc hadn't expected him to be able to move that fast, and he easily slipped past the fighter's feeble defenses. Gonkle froze up in sudden rigidity as the ghoul's paralysis took hold; fortunately, his tough, orcish constitution was able to ward off the effects of the undead thing's ghoul fever disease.
Wilbur was stuck behind the paralyzed Gonkle and Avoroth, who held his staff at the ready, so - unable to advance and engage the ghoul in melee combat - he cast a
produce flame spell and tossed a gout of flame past his two companions at the ghoul. The tiny ball of fire hit the undead flesh with a sizzling sound that made the druid a bit queasy.
Gonkle's muscles were all clamped tight, leaving him standing up and unable to move. The ghoul pulled him forward towards himself and then tossed him casually aside; the orc fell face-first to the stone floor and broke his nose. The ghoul then went after Wilbur - who had wriggled forward beside Avoroth - with claws and fangs, but the druid's shadowy nature protected him from all three attacks. Amris, all out of attack spells, resorted to throwing her dagger at the ghoul, but it failed to hit its target.
Avoroth prepared a
cure light wounds spell, ready to use it offensively against the ghoul - if he could only get that glory-hound druid out of the way first! Wilbur gave the ghoul a good whack on the side of its festering head before slinking back behind the cleric of Boccob. Avoroth reached forward to try to channel healing energy from his spell into the ghoul's undead body, but the damned thing dodged his groping hand and slashed at him with a set of ragged claws. He swore in anger at the attack, but the claws dealt him little damage and he managed to overcome the paralysis that so often followed a ghoul's rancid touch.
Amris, seeing an unused dagger hanging on Avoroth's belt, grabbed it up and threw it at the ghoul, once again failing to hit it. But then Wilbur surged forward, getting in the final blow with his
shillelagh. The ghoul exploded into a black, ashy mist that floated for a moment in midair before heading deeper into the shrine - straight for the general area of overwhelmingly powerful magic Amris had detected shortly after their arrival at the shrine.
Not wanting to follow the drifting mist of the slain vampire/ghoul thing into an area of unknown relic-level magic, the group returned back to the shrine entrance (Gonkle's paralysis had, by then, run its course), stepping through the hole in the collapsed mosaic. There they saw Dorjin had awakened the human proctor they'd found unconscious at the entrance to the shrine, the horrid wounds on his neck all healed up.
"This wasn't the challenge you were supposed to face," admitted
Jalmod, "but I would hazard saving a proctor's life merits full marks and a successful completion of your final task. You have my gratitude."
"Good," replied Avoroth, as brusque as ever. He, for one, was glad the silly testing was now over, and he could get on with exploring the new realms as a planar scout. "Shall we go, then?" It was still two and a half days back to Elsewhere, and the cleric was eager to get back well before Shift Day - it wouldn't do to be left behind on Mount Celestia when the
plane shifting town went off to its next destination.
On the way back, Jalmod explained the lore of the shrine and the mosaic that had been intact until the ghoul attacked him through the wall.
The Blood Emperor had been a feared vampire who led an extraplanar army of undead on an assault of Mount Celestia. Apparently, he had become something more powerful than a standard vampire, causing the celestial armies, upon his defeat and death, to seal his ashes within a pillar of divine
daylight. A previous party, Jalmod informed them, had uncovered a dagger hidden within the mosaic, the removal of which had likely, unknowingly weakened the seal. And that allowed the vampire to possess members of his undead army - sealed in the shrine with him - so he could try to find a way out of his tomb. "Stone masons will be sent to more permanently seal away the
daylight tomb," he promised.
"Whatever," dismissed Avoroth. The disposition of a vampire on Mount Celestia had no bearing on his life; it could rot forever in its burning tomb or succeed in escaping to terrorize the local celestials once more - neither outcome made the slightest bit of difference to the cleric. For soon enough, he and all of Elsewhere would be off this miserable plane of midnight goodness, hopefully to somewhere more to his liking.
For Shift Day was fast approaching, and when it came, these four would be one of the scout teams ready to go meet the challenges of their next year-long home.
- - -
Joe ended up having to work the late shift on the day we went through Logan's first adventure in this new campaign, so his dad ran Gonkle as well as Wilbur. (That'll be the fallback plan whenever Joe can't make it to a game session.)
So, this went slightly differently than I had expected! I had envisioned us starting out being assigned together as a team, so I had a little speech prepared for Avoroth to give to his "underlings" (basically explaining how he was so much better than they were and they'd all find life so much easier if they just obeyed him without question - that sort of thing), but we started off having already gone through almost a full year of training, so that speech fell by the wayside. I resorted to making snide remarks whenever anyone else failed at a given task (while ignoring my own PCs' failures, naturally!), but I had alerted the other players ahead of time that my PC was going to basically start out as a big jerk and then mellow (well, a little, in any case) as the campaign progressed. Dan didn't mind at all, in part because he likes when we get into character between combat sessions and in part because he was reveling in the abilities Wilbur has as a 1st-level PC (namely, DR 5/magic, cold resistance 6 - which will increase as he levels up - and nine-tenths concealment via his
shadow blend in conditions other than full daylight). Despite having a fiendish orc fighter on the team, I think Wilbur's going to be a front-line "meat shield" for us!
