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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9885462" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 17: WELCOME TO YSGARDPC Roster:  Amris Goodwitch, celestial elf witch (wizard) 6                     Avoroth Bleakborn, fiendish human cleric 6                     Gonkle Bu'Onk, fiendish orc fighter 6                     Wilbur Von Schattenwalde, shadow human druid 6Game Session Date: 18 March 2026 - - -The North Team - the four planar scouts whose position on the outskirts of Elsewhere was true north every Shift Day - stood at the ready, just inside the boundary of the town proper, where the unknown magics cast upon the town millennia ago protected it from the effects of whatever plane it shifted to.  A few steps forward and the crop ring, a mile-thick torus that circled the town of Elsewhere, began - the zone in which the town's local foodstuffs were grown when Elsewhere landed upon a plane hospitable to their growth; if the next random plane it hit was, say, the Elemental Plane of Fire, the farmlands surrounding the town would be instantly incinerated, and for the next year the inhabitants would subsist upon the grains stored in the silos, waiting for a full year and hoping the next plane they hit would be more forgiving.That was the current mood of the planar scouts as the clock ticked inexorably toward midnight on Shift Day.  "What plane do you think we'll land on next?" asked Amris, astride her fiendish horse Flick."No point in speculation," grumbled Avoroth.  "There are, in theory, an infinite number of planes.  We'll find out soon enough."  He sat upon the animated bones of Wilbur's slain horse, Blackie, which he had brought to an undead existence by the casting of an animate dead spell.  The cleric had then swapped mounts with the fussy druid, allowing Wilbur to ride his fiendish horse Victor while Avoroth rode the skeletal steed, which he had renamed Alabaster.  Druids might be uncomfortable with the very idea of undeath, calling it a perversion of the natural order of things, but to Avoroth that was just small thinking: an undead horse needed no food, would never tire, and obeyed commands without hesitation.  Would that his companions were so easily controlled!  Sure, it required a special saddle to ride Alabaster in comfort - a normal saddle's straps would easily slide between the horse's exposed ribs and topple the rider off to one side, so the undead mount required a saddle that could be attached to individual ribs at four points - but all in all, the cleric well knew he had gotten the better deal out of the trade."The Elemental Plane of Earth would be pretty cool," offered up Gonkle."Why?" asked Wilbur, intrigued.  "There would be no food there.""Yeah, but there's be no sunlight, either," argued the fiendish orc.  "We've gone for a year without plants from the surrounding plane before - it would be nice to go a year without sunlight.  And there would still be creatures we could hunt down and eat."  As an orc, he disliked bright sunlight, which caused him to have to squint to be able to see anything, hampering his battle prowess.  As a rule, he didn't like anything that hampered his battle prowess.A sudden flash of indigo light cut off any further conversation.  Just like that, the town of Elsewhere had undergone its annual plane shift to a random location on a random plane; all of the group had been blessed at birth with darkvision, which allowed them to see a thick forest now ringing the outer edge of the farmlands which circled the city."Well, the crops are safe, at least," mentioned Amris.  "That's a plus.""Where are we?" asked Gonkle.  The midnight sky above was filled with stars, but the orc wasn't convinced some nasty old sun wouldn't make itself known in a half-dozen hours or so.  Heck, Mechanus - the plane they'd just left, after having lived there for the past year - didn't even have a sun, but that didn't stop the entire plane from being drenched in sunshine for half of each day.  Gonkle hoped that wouldn't be the case on this plane, whichever one it happened to be."Come on," said Avoroth, leading Alabaster forward.  "Let's go check out the local environment."  The others fell into line behind him.  Amris sent her celestial owl familiar Pivot ahead to scout out the forest, and he rose high above the tree line to get as good a view as he could.  After a while, he returned to his mistress's shoulder and reported back that Elsewhere seemed to have plunked down in the middle of a vast forest, but he estimated if they kept to their northerly course, they'd exit the forest in about six hours, at which time they'd be in an equally vast meadow.  The celestial owl reported seeing no signs of local inhabitants.Once they got to the end of Elsewhere's farmlands, they could see the forest butted up directly against the outer edge of the town's fields.  "I wonder: what happens to the trees that were originally here before Elsewhere showed up?" mused Amris.  "Are they displaced?  Placed in stasis until Elsewhere leaves after a year?  Destroyed?""More pointless speculation," griped Avoroth.  "And it doesn't really matter - once Elsewhere arrives on a plane, its former configuration has no bearing upon our lives.""Yeah, but it would be bad if it plopped down on a pre-existing town," the celestial elf argued."Bad for them, perhaps, but it makes no difference to us," reiterated the cleric.  "Come on - let's check out the forest."The forest appeared to be quite ordinary, with lush trees growing close enough together it was sometimes difficult finding passageway for the horses.  The only local denizens they saw were some squirrels, which chattered at them in anger but still managed to give them a hint about their present location among the planes: many of the tree rodents had mismatched features, like one eye bigger than the other or placed higher on the head, indicating a plane where chaos was more prevalent than order.  That cut off about half of the possibilities, although as Avoroth liked to say, "half of infinite is still infinite."Six hours of travel in a northerly direction later, the scouts found themselves at the edge of the woods, with a misty rain starting up that limited their vision ahead.  But they could see Pivot had been correct; straight ahead was an open plain, of wild grasses that had seemingly been trampled by many creatures having passed by this way recently."What do you think?" asked Wilbur.  The sky was lightening, indicating the rising of a distant sun, although the mist and the rain kept Gonkle's orcish vision at a comfortable level.  "You okay if we press on?"  Gonkle grunted his assent, and the scouts moved on, figuring they could get in a few more hours of travel before they camped out in mid-morning and allowed the better part of the daylight hours to pass them by.  They pressed on through the mists for another couple of hours, finally setting up camp a couple hours before noon.  Amris had a tent of her own and of course so did Avoroth, but Gonkle and Wilbur shared a double-sized tent with Tamaskan.  The living mounts had their reins tethered to the tent poles, while Alabaster was instructed to remain vigilant and awaken the scouts if anyone approached within visual distance.  Pivot sat perched upon his mistress's tent, keeping another set of eyes on the surroundings, confident he could always nap upon Amris's shoulder later on while they traveled if he felt the need to catch up on his sleep.  And thus the four heroes turned in to catch a good day's sleep, so they'd be refreshed when the sun set and were ready to head out again.It didn't quite turn out that way.  Four hours past noon - still several hours before they'd planned on awakening - the sounds of blowing war horns nearby sent everyone bolting upright out of their bedrolls.  Crawling out of their tent flaps, the group looked blearily around them and saw the mists had burned away in the sunlight - and there were now two small armies lined up on opposite sides of the field, with the three tents smack dab in the middle of what was now apparently about to become a battlefield.Wilbur took stock of the situation and quickly cast a spike growth spell in a wide path immediately before the eastern army, which seemed to be comprised of humans in mismatched armor, led by one mounted soldier upon a war horse in barding.  The shadow druid couldn't see the results of his spellcasting, but he knew the eastern army would learn soon enough as they entered the spell's area of effect and found themselves trampling upon hidden spikes among the natural growth.Grumbling about the situation, Avoroth cast a bless spell on his assembled team and leaped up into Alabaster's saddle, riding to the north and out of the way of the upcoming skirmish.  Once out the opposing armies' way, he swung his undead horse around and observed the clashing parties: the eastern team, comprised of 14 members, seemed to be anarchic humans in all sorts of various types of mismatched armor; the cleric assumed the majority of them were warriors, although there seemed to be a clump of three or four sneakier types at the far end.  Facing them was a group of 14 combatants, most of them human but a few bearing elven features, and all of them reeking of the celestial planes, judging by their winged helmets and elegantly sculpted plate mail armor.Amris rushed over to the larger tent and cast an invisibility spell upon Gonkle, warning him of the celestial elves to the west; most elves, she well knew, weren't as cosmopolitan as the Elsewhere denizens and hated orcs with a passion.  "We need to get away, to safety!" she warned Gonkle, fearing he'd see two opposing armies of over a dozen members each as a brisk workout before breakfast.  But surprisingly, Gonkle ran out of the tent and, judging by the way Runtlemeat's reins suddenly rose up over the tent pole and hung in position floating behind the fiendish horse's head, directed his mount to race over by Avoroth.By then, the first group on the eastern army - swift barbarians, by the looks of their hide armor, lengthy manes of hair, and savage weapons - had hit the area of Wilbur's spike growth spell, causing about half of their number to slow down in pain, while the others raced forward, leaving bloody footprints behind them.  A group of elven barbarians from the western team advanced and took up defensive stances, wondering who would be stupid enough to make camp in the middle of their battlefield.  A group of celestial elven fighters followed behind their swifter brethren, readying for their enemies' advance and wondering why some of them in the front were hopping about.  And behind them came the petitioners, holding their longspears at the ready.The celestial forces also had a mounted leader, and this one charged forward with his lance deployed before him.  The campsite was an oddity, but the jet-black horse standing by the larger of the tents was obviously fiendish in nature, judging by the glowing, red eyes and the small horns jutting up from its head, so he aimed his deadly lance in Victor's direction.  The horse didn't even know what had hit him, falling to the ground in a spray of blood as the lance pierced him through his side.  He died almost instantly, and Avoroth was surprised to find himself angered at the beast's death; he'd tried not to make any emotional attachments to mere animals, but so be it: he mentally prescribed death for the celestial villain on horseback who'd so viciously slain his former mount.  Casting a spiritual weapon spell, he sent the quarterstaff-shaped weapon of solid force energy flying at the head of Victor's assassin.The other mounted leader drove his horse forward towards his enemy counterpart, and although the anarchic steed slowed a bit while traversing the area of spike growth, he regained his speed after exiting the dangerous ground.  At the far end of the battlefield, his anarchic rogues were encountering the hidden spikes themselves, and about half of them were slowed from their initial charge.  So too was it with the chaotic petitioners on the eastern team, many of them leaving bloody footprints in the grasses of the battlefield.  But eventually the two armies met, striking at each other or the occasional stranger - Wilbur in particular was targeted by a few of the elven barbarians, and he and Tamaskan fought them off as best they could.Still seeking to impede the armies' advance, Wilbur stepped away from his attackers and cast an entangle spell at a clump of the western forces, catching the mounted leader and a group of petitioners in the twisting grasses entwining around their ankles.  Amris cast a fly spell and called for Flick to flee to the north by Gonkle and Avoroth.  The fiendish steed needed no further prompting.  As Amris flew above her mount, ensuring his safety, she noticed none of the combatants on either team seemed to wield any ranged weaponry: no bows or crossbows, merely a few longspears that looked too unwieldy to do more than stab at an enemy.  She vowed to remain high enough to stay out of range for as long as her fly spell remained in effect.Gonkle, however, couldn't stand staying on the sidelines in safety for very long, and urged Runtlemeat back into the fray.  He swung his falchion at one of the armored celestial humans, slaying him with one blow but returning to full visibility in doing so.  The elves nearby saw him and focused their attention on the brutish orc who had suddenly appeared in their midst, and several of the celestial humans raced up to attack him as well.  The celestial leader, dodging the spiritual weapon continuing to slam at him from above, urged his mount forward and it escaped from the entangle effect, moving forward to meet the enemy leader on the anarchic team.By this time, several of the anarchic team had actually been slain trying to flee the area of spike growth, unable to see which patches of grasses were safe to walk upon and which contained hidden spikes.  More than one fell down face-first into clumps of spikes, all but guaranteeing their deaths.  But those who managed to safely exit the spike-filled areas immediately went after the western army, until the melee turned into a three-sided battle, with Gonkle and Wilbur in the middle of it and fighting members of both sides.Wilbur cast a flame blade spell upon his shadowflame quarterstaff and used the flaming blade to stab at the nearest enemy, a member of the anarchic forces.  Avoroth, seeing full well the druid and the idiot orc were in quite a dangerous situation but feeling no real need to personally wade into battle to extract them from it, cast a summoning spell instead.  "Skitterfiend," he called through the planes, "I summon thee!"  In an instant, the fiendish centipede towered above the opponents on either side of its segmented body.  "Kill the one being targeted by the flying staff first," he ordered, and the centipede moved to obey, biting at the mounted celestial leader with mandibles dripping with venom.  He would have his vengeance upon Victor's slayer!From her aerial viewpoint, Amris cast a fireball spell down upon a closely-packed clump of the anarchic army; it seemed wrong to target the army that held celestial elves like herself among their number.  The blast of magical flames exploded, engulfing half a dozen combatants and slaying most of them outright.The battle continued on, though, with neither army seeming to want to retreat from their hated enemies despite the third party in the mix acting as spoilers.  Skitterfiend slew the celestial leader, biting down at him from above and severing his head from his neck, causing his headless body to slump sideways off the horse's saddle.  The fiendish centipede, left to his own discretion - for Avoroth didn't particularly care who it went after once Victor's slayer had been dealt with - went after the celestial horse, killing it next.  Deprived of the opportunity to take out the mounted leader of the enemy forces, the anarchic leader steered his own mount at Avoroth, looking to take out these interlopers who were disrupting an otherwise evenly-matched battle.  Of course, Avoroth didn't want to take on a mounted foe eager for his death, so he had Alabaster back up while he summoned another monster to fight on his behalf.  "Hellsting," he called out, "I summon thee!"  The fiendish scorpion, as big as a man, suddenly appeared directly in front of Avoroth and Alabaster and needed no prompting to lash out at the approaching anarchic fighter on his charging steed.  Amris aided in the leader's destruction with several blasts from her wand of magic missiles, and the panicked horse, no longer carrying a rider to give it direction, fled from the fiendish scorpion - directly back into a patch of spike growth, where it died.At this point, the 28 members of the evenly-matched opposing armies had been whittled down to less than half a dozen.  Gonkle gleefully took care of the ones still fully mobile, while Amris used her wand to take out those still stuck in Wilbur's entangle spell.  Once all of the two armies had been slain, the elf witch landed back on the ground beside Flick and asked Avoroth, "What in the world was that all about?""There's your answer," replied the cleric, pointing up at the skies above the battlefield, where armored women with feathered wings riding white pegasi were landing down among the slain."Angels?" asked Amris."Valkyries," corrected Avoroth, with a rare smile.  "We're on Ysgard."  And if the things he'd read about Ysgard were true, in the morning Victor would be back among the living, for those slain upon the battlefields of Ysgard were automatically resurrected the following day.It looked like it was going to be an interesting year. - - - The battle took us all by surprise, for we usually game on Wednesday nights at 6:30 PM and we try to wrap it up by 8:45 or so, because Vicki generally likes to be home by 9 PM.  But, not unexpectedly, a three-way battle between 4 PCs against 28 foes took us past 9:30 PM.  (Fortunately, Vicki had taken a nap that afternoon and was thus still wide awake that late at night; she tends to get sleepy around 9 PM.)  But we apparently took Logan by surprise in turn, because he honestly thought he was going to be able to kill a few of us, bum us out, and then announce the Ysgardian "automatic true resurrection" rule.  He'd warned us he'd have to calculate XP after the adventure was over (and Dan and Vicki had gone home), because there was a lot of variability in the adventure and there were a lot of different foes for us to potentially encounter.  Little did he know we'd be getting XP for everyone - and that it would send our PCs well into 7th level!</blockquote>

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