WayneLigon
Adventurer
When Last We Left Our Heroes....
BOOK ONE – THE MARK OF CHAOS
5 – The Song of Madness
Vult 8 – Vult 10– 998 YK – The Eldeen Reaches, RUINS OF TAAN HATHAAK
Dramatis Persona
Bai-el – Human Ranger from the Eldeen Reaches
Kelt Render – Shifter Druid/Ranger from the Icehorn Mountains
Shearna – Warforged Artificer/Fighter from the Mhor Holds
Fel – Aerenal Elven Bard Scion of House Thuranni from the Lhazaar Principalities
Jak Tartheon – Human Warmage/Wizard from Aundair
Garrick Barseg – Gnome archeologist from Morgrave University in Breland
Keshtan – Human Cleric of the Sovereign Host from Breland
Arriving in the area, the party skirts the lake shore (since the lake is not frozen completely by this time of the year) until they can clearly see the ruins about a half-mile off. Camping for the night in a protected box canyon, they settle in for a long stay and spend time fortifying the camp and making sure it is defensible. They set the sturdy orc cavalry horses out to find fodder as best they can and make the hike into the ruins of Taan Hathaak.
Referring to the journal, Jak finds a sheet hidden between the plates of the binding; it’s a series of sketches, quick maps and notations made before Carmon ir’Rhain went completely insane. They pick their way through the outer rim of ruins and delve into one of the towers built into the side of the mountain; they’ve been seeing dolgrim tracks and almost at once they are attacked by a patrol of the creatures. Pushing in further, they descend the tower steps to the depths of the first tower, finding a web of rooms, corridors and living quarters. They spend most of the day searching the outerwork areas, seeing what is to be seen before ascending to find the way into the central well. All the time they are in the depths, they hear a faint singing and remember what ir’Rhain’s journal said about the singing that drove him mad.
They do so, and encounter a strange woman carrying a spear; she is elven, dressed much like a traveling scholar might be, and she seems completely oblivious to their presence. Only after they call attention to themselves does she appear to notice them, and she seems completely mad. She hums the song as well. Trying to talk with her, they find out her name is Sorhava – a name that Fel remembers is mentioned in the map. It says she committed suicide, so the group does not approach her too closely, especially after finding that the central area appears to be deathly cold. In fact, Jak and Shearna determine it is a tightly defined manifest zone for Risia, the Plain of Ice. She seem content to walk along and around a central bridge and platform over the central shaft, so they circumvent her and head down the area the map names ‘The Aqueduct’.
Kelt draws the attention of a massive bat swarm that boils up out of the depths, drawing it past the others and out into the central shaft. He swings up and out on a rope as they following, dying by their thousands as they freeze and fall; the rest swarm up and out into the open air. Kelt spends only a few seconds in the wintery zone but is still chilled to the bone when he touches down on the landing once more. He rejoins the others and they plunge deeper into the earth.
Following the corridor and its side passages down and down, over cracks and breaks from where an earthquake has split the mountain in millennia past, they finally come to a spillway that leads to the Lower Halls; a series of natural caverns widened and worked by the hobgoblins in ages past to serve as living and training areas. Two chokers grab up Garrick and make off with him, almost succeeding in killing him before Kelt, aided by a spell from Jak’s scroll collection, manages to save him from the twisted aberrations. As they go lower, the singing gets more and more pronounced – Keshten and Garrick begin to suffer the effects of the debilitative song, their thoughts confused and a stabbing headache shattering their concentration.
Shaky and cautious, the group descends into the Lower Halls and begins to explore. Finally they make their way almost to the opposite side before they encounter one of the Singers; a dolgaunt sorcerer and a patrol of the dolgrims. The Singer stands on a high balcony, intending to rain spells down on the intruders while the dolgrims keep them at a distance, but Garrick – unable to stand the Song any longer – breaks free and makes his way stealthily up the stairs to a position behind the creature. He attacks as the rest engage the dolgrims, and manages to tackle the monstrosity off the balcony and onto the stone floor below! The dolgaunt’s tentacles wrap around him and begin to drain his very life’s blood as Garrick struggles helplessly. Finally, he succumbs just as Kelt arrives to save him. Kelt beheads the creature with one stroke!
Dispatching the rest of the monsters, the party heals its wounds and returns to the surface to rest the night. They hold a funeral service for Garrick and burn his body. They also discover a speaking stone among his personal effects, but do not know who it is keyed to.
The next day, they return to the Lower Halls and press on into an area only visited once by the previous expedition: the central temple of Taan Hathaak. They encounter the temple guardian creature, now insane and twisted from its repeated exposures to chaos and madness magics. After a long hard fight, they manage to defeat the creature and win through to the catacombs of the ruins: tens of thousands of hobgoblins are interred here, remnants of a civilization that died back when sticks were state of the art weapons for humans.
And deep in the tunnels of the crypts, they find the secret of Taan Hathaak: the central well is some kind of observatory. Bas-reliefs show the moons Barrakas, Aryth and Rhaan all full at once, in a conjunction known as the Eye of the Dragon*. A carving shows that the platform in the middle of the shaft is supposed to contain some kind of focusing element: one of the largest dragonshards ever discovered. And it is missing; Armoth must have taken it.
Discovering all this, the group retires for the night back into camp.
This was the temple guardian creature; I used a Gibbering Mouther as the base monster and added a couple things, such as giving it a climb speed instead of a swim speed.
PS, this is the thing every player gets the day after the session, so everyone can keep up on where we are and who they have met.
* We're going to be doing Eyes of the Lich Queen soon, so I've been laying hints and clues, since they will enter the adventure a bit differently. I was very interested in that so many of the plor elements of EotLC were so similar or useful to the current campaign, one reason I decided to run it.
One of the guys asked 'when does that conjunction occur again'. 'Oh about the time you hit fifth level'.
BOOK ONE – THE MARK OF CHAOS
5 – The Song of Madness
Vult 8 – Vult 10– 998 YK – The Eldeen Reaches, RUINS OF TAAN HATHAAK
Dramatis Persona
Bai-el – Human Ranger from the Eldeen Reaches
Kelt Render – Shifter Druid/Ranger from the Icehorn Mountains
Shearna – Warforged Artificer/Fighter from the Mhor Holds
Fel – Aerenal Elven Bard Scion of House Thuranni from the Lhazaar Principalities
Jak Tartheon – Human Warmage/Wizard from Aundair
Garrick Barseg – Gnome archeologist from Morgrave University in Breland
Keshtan – Human Cleric of the Sovereign Host from Breland
Arriving in the area, the party skirts the lake shore (since the lake is not frozen completely by this time of the year) until they can clearly see the ruins about a half-mile off. Camping for the night in a protected box canyon, they settle in for a long stay and spend time fortifying the camp and making sure it is defensible. They set the sturdy orc cavalry horses out to find fodder as best they can and make the hike into the ruins of Taan Hathaak.
Referring to the journal, Jak finds a sheet hidden between the plates of the binding; it’s a series of sketches, quick maps and notations made before Carmon ir’Rhain went completely insane. They pick their way through the outer rim of ruins and delve into one of the towers built into the side of the mountain; they’ve been seeing dolgrim tracks and almost at once they are attacked by a patrol of the creatures. Pushing in further, they descend the tower steps to the depths of the first tower, finding a web of rooms, corridors and living quarters. They spend most of the day searching the outerwork areas, seeing what is to be seen before ascending to find the way into the central well. All the time they are in the depths, they hear a faint singing and remember what ir’Rhain’s journal said about the singing that drove him mad.
They do so, and encounter a strange woman carrying a spear; she is elven, dressed much like a traveling scholar might be, and she seems completely oblivious to their presence. Only after they call attention to themselves does she appear to notice them, and she seems completely mad. She hums the song as well. Trying to talk with her, they find out her name is Sorhava – a name that Fel remembers is mentioned in the map. It says she committed suicide, so the group does not approach her too closely, especially after finding that the central area appears to be deathly cold. In fact, Jak and Shearna determine it is a tightly defined manifest zone for Risia, the Plain of Ice. She seem content to walk along and around a central bridge and platform over the central shaft, so they circumvent her and head down the area the map names ‘The Aqueduct’.
Kelt draws the attention of a massive bat swarm that boils up out of the depths, drawing it past the others and out into the central shaft. He swings up and out on a rope as they following, dying by their thousands as they freeze and fall; the rest swarm up and out into the open air. Kelt spends only a few seconds in the wintery zone but is still chilled to the bone when he touches down on the landing once more. He rejoins the others and they plunge deeper into the earth.
Following the corridor and its side passages down and down, over cracks and breaks from where an earthquake has split the mountain in millennia past, they finally come to a spillway that leads to the Lower Halls; a series of natural caverns widened and worked by the hobgoblins in ages past to serve as living and training areas. Two chokers grab up Garrick and make off with him, almost succeeding in killing him before Kelt, aided by a spell from Jak’s scroll collection, manages to save him from the twisted aberrations. As they go lower, the singing gets more and more pronounced – Keshten and Garrick begin to suffer the effects of the debilitative song, their thoughts confused and a stabbing headache shattering their concentration.
Shaky and cautious, the group descends into the Lower Halls and begins to explore. Finally they make their way almost to the opposite side before they encounter one of the Singers; a dolgaunt sorcerer and a patrol of the dolgrims. The Singer stands on a high balcony, intending to rain spells down on the intruders while the dolgrims keep them at a distance, but Garrick – unable to stand the Song any longer – breaks free and makes his way stealthily up the stairs to a position behind the creature. He attacks as the rest engage the dolgrims, and manages to tackle the monstrosity off the balcony and onto the stone floor below! The dolgaunt’s tentacles wrap around him and begin to drain his very life’s blood as Garrick struggles helplessly. Finally, he succumbs just as Kelt arrives to save him. Kelt beheads the creature with one stroke!
Dispatching the rest of the monsters, the party heals its wounds and returns to the surface to rest the night. They hold a funeral service for Garrick and burn his body. They also discover a speaking stone among his personal effects, but do not know who it is keyed to.
The next day, they return to the Lower Halls and press on into an area only visited once by the previous expedition: the central temple of Taan Hathaak. They encounter the temple guardian creature, now insane and twisted from its repeated exposures to chaos and madness magics. After a long hard fight, they manage to defeat the creature and win through to the catacombs of the ruins: tens of thousands of hobgoblins are interred here, remnants of a civilization that died back when sticks were state of the art weapons for humans.
And deep in the tunnels of the crypts, they find the secret of Taan Hathaak: the central well is some kind of observatory. Bas-reliefs show the moons Barrakas, Aryth and Rhaan all full at once, in a conjunction known as the Eye of the Dragon*. A carving shows that the platform in the middle of the shaft is supposed to contain some kind of focusing element: one of the largest dragonshards ever discovered. And it is missing; Armoth must have taken it.
Discovering all this, the group retires for the night back into camp.
This was the temple guardian creature; I used a Gibbering Mouther as the base monster and added a couple things, such as giving it a climb speed instead of a swim speed.
PS, this is the thing every player gets the day after the session, so everyone can keep up on where we are and who they have met.
* We're going to be doing Eyes of the Lich Queen soon, so I've been laying hints and clues, since they will enter the adventure a bit differently. I was very interested in that so many of the plor elements of EotLC were so similar or useful to the current campaign, one reason I decided to run it.
One of the guys asked 'when does that conjunction occur again'. 'Oh about the time you hit fifth level'.
Last edited:
