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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6082006" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 53 - THE GAUNTLET OF KORDPC Roster:  Cal Trop, human cleric of KordIf you'll recall, Cal went through "Moradin's Forge" but opted to forego the reward at the end, not wanting to wear the holy symbol of another god on his forehead (even if it was only visible to lawful good dwarves).  At the time, I decided I needed to give Cal a suitable substitute reward; this is the adventure where I made good on that vow.Also, despite the fact that I usually allow the players to decide which PC they'll be running each adventure, I informed everyone at the start of this session that this was going to feature Cal in the spotlight, so naturally Dan would be running Cal, but that for reasons that would make sense later it would be best if Vicki ran Delphyne, Jacob ran Galrich, and Logan ran Aerik.  Since Aerik was an NPC and Logan wouldn't be gaining any XP for either of his PCs in this adventure, I said that any XP he gained as Aerik in this session would be given to either Akari or Telgrane (his choice), who would be off having a solo adventure "off screen" while we ran through this adventure.  Everyone agreed, and we were off! - - - Arriving at the Church of Kord, Cal was ushered through the chapel and into the Head Cleric's inner offices.  There, the grizzled old priest, Father Maldavius, greeted him and asked him to have a seat.  At his side, a scowling cleric gazed at Cal through a multifaceted gem.  "He's clean," he grunted, and left the room, closing the door behind him."You must forgive Cankerleigh," sighed the elderly priest, "but he’s been leading up the taskforce to cleanse the Church of the taints of lycanthropy.  We've had a rash of young adepts purposefully contracting lycanthropy as a quick-and-easy method of increasing their strength.  Pure foolishness on their part; they never seem to think through the consequences, and it does the Church no good to have its adherents suddenly turning into wereboars by moonlight."  Father Maldavius shook his head sadly, then said, "But that's not why I called you here this morning."  Cal sat patiently and waited for the Head Cleric to explain."I have had a vision, I believe from Kord Himself.  Tell me, Cal, have you heard of the Gauntlet of Kord?  It's an ancient artifact of great power, a shining metal gauntlet that grants its wearer three wishes – if he can keep the Gauntlet for himself for a full 24 hours.  Furthermore, if the Gauntlet ever falls into the hands of one who does not worship Kord, it sends out a message in the form of a vision – a sort of distress signal, if you will – to a random cleric of Kord.  This message is called the Challenge of Kord, and it's a personal challenge to those who follow Kord's path to send a champion to wrest the Gauntlet away from those unworthy of its boon."Tradition calls for the Church of Kord to send but a single champion to the location identified in the vision.  I have received such a vision this morning, Cal, and in it, I saw you – and three others, unknown to me – fighting a shadowy enemy on a dark and dismal plane.  I have no doubt that you have been chosen by the Lord of Strength to answer this challenge, to go forth and fetch the Gauntlet of Kord back from this enemy and return it here, to the Church.  So tell me, Cal, what do you know of the Windswept Depths of Pandemonium?"Cal admitted he didn't know much about the place, other than it was one of the outer planes of the cosmos.  Father Maldavius explained it was a plane of raw chaos, composed of four different infinite layers, each with shifting gravity effects.  Powerful winds blew constantly through its pitch-black caverns, drowning out words spoken at less than a shout, wreaking havoc with ranged weaponry, and eventually causing deafness and even insanity.  Undead wights were common throughout the plane, and both demons and slaadi were likewise known there.  There were also rumors of small communities of outcast humanoids and giants living in scattered villages, although the majority of these beings were undoubtedly insane."As I mentioned, we must send only one champion to answer the Challenge of Kord, yet I saw you with three companions in my vision," said Father Maldavius.  "I can only imagine that Kord, who values not only physical strength but also strength of will and the strength of friendship, will provide companions for you as you strive to meet this task.  Do not fail us, Cal – the Gauntlet of Kord must be returned here, to its rightful place; this is your primary goal above all else.  To aid you in your quest, I can provide these."  And with that, the Head Cleric handed Cal a small handful of items.The first was a parchment scroll.  "Cast this when you arrive in Pandemonium; it's an extended find the path spell that will lead you to the area I saw in my vision," Father Maldavius explained.The other item was a small cloth bag containing a large crystal and three others just like it, only smaller.  "These will help you in returning home," the Head Cleric explained.  "Place the smaller crystals in a triangle around you, and they will aid you in concentration.  Focus your mind on the Church of Kord as you gaze into the larger crystal, and you – and everything within the triangle of smaller crystals – will be gated back here into the main chapel.  This is much safer than a plane shift spell – who knows where you'd end up?"You may use my private rooms to prepare your daily spells, if you wish.  When you are ready, just step into the side room, where a gate circle has been prepared.  It will whisk you away to Pandemonium when you say, 'I stand ready to do Kord's will.'"  And with that, Father Maldavius stood up, gave Cal a slap on the side of the arm for good measure, and excused himself from his own office.Cal wasted no time.  He knelt down and began his morning prayers, rifling through the various spells he knew and choosing those he thought would best aid him in his holy quest.  When he was ready, he walked into the room beyond, surprised to see no magic circle on the floor as Father Maldavius had described.  Scratching his head in puzzlement, Cal happened to look up and spotted it inscribed on the ceiling above him.  "What in the world?" he said aloud, then shrugged, and said in a loud, booming voice, "I stand ready to do Kord's will."Upon uttering the words, a great whirling circle of winds descended from the ceiling.  The winds sunk down to encompass Cal, and he found himself being turned around and around, buffeted by savage winds the likes of which he’d never experienced.  Suddenly, there was a wrench of mystical origin that he felt in his very bones, and the light of the Head Cleric’s side room was replaced with an inky darkness.  Cal was deposited roughly in a heap upon what felt to be cold, hard stone as a powerful wind whipped past him, its roar occasionally sounding like screams, or laments, or the whimpering of cowering cowards."Looks like I'm here," Cal muttered to himself, glad that he'd had the forethought to roll up the scroll he'd been given and place it in a scroll tube; otherwise, it would likely have been snatched from his grasp by the powerful winds.  Of course, that brought on another thought: How the hell am I going to read the scroll without any light, and without it blowing away from me?  The first problem was easily solved; Cal spoke the words to a light spell and his Guild ring blazed with a bright illumination, exposing the area around him as a natural-looking cavern.  The winds roared down the cavern's length, powerful enough that a smaller man might well have been pushed off his feet.  Cal saw there was a section of cavern tunnel to his right that jutted out into a wider area; thinking that the winds might be less strong there, he headed in that direction.And that's when he saw three figures in the periphery of the illumination from his light spell.  They saw him and pointed, but anything they might have said was taken away by the screaming winds.  As they staggered toward him - they were traveling into the winds, while Cal had the winds at his back - they entered the radius of illumination, and with a small relief Cal saw that they were none other than Delphyne, Slayer, and Aerik.  Their faces brightened when they recognized Cal, and he rushed over to meet them - which, given the powerful winds at his back, wasn't difficult.Talking was only possible by putting one's lips against another's ear and shouting.  "What are you doing here?" yelled Cal to Delphyne."No idea!" she yelled back.  "I was at the vegetable market, then I got whisked here!""Same here!" screamed Slayer.  "Aerik and I were back at that weaponsmith's, and we got caught up in a whirlwind that dropped us here!  Any idea where we are?""We're on Pandemonium!" Cal screamed back.  "I'm on a quest!  Hang on, let's get some shelter!"  It took some doing, but eventually Cal got Aerik and Slayer to hold onto his cloak with their hands while stepping on the bottom of it with their feet, thus making a windbreak of sorts that Cal and Delphyne could hunker down behind.  It was enough to allow them to talk without screaming quite as loudly, and Cal felt confident enough to unroll the scroll containing the find the path spell.  He cast it without problems, and a series of arrows suddenly appeared on the ground, showing the way he was supposed to go."Cool!" yelled Cal.  "Do you see that?""See what?" Delphyne yelled back.  Apparently Cal was the only one who could see the magical arrows, which made sense once he thought about it.  Oh well, he would be leading this little expedition anyway.The first matter of concern was that while Cal had packed for an adventure, the others had not.  Slayer carried his greatsword and Aerik carried his greataxe, and the dwarf wore his customary armor (nobody could ever remember having seen him not wearing it), but neither had any of their potions, backup weapons, or other gear.  Delphyne had the dagger at her belt, but no other weapons, and she was without the broom of flying she always brought with her on adventures.  She didn't have any of her wands or potions, either.  "I didn't know I was going on a quest for anything other than tomatoes!" she complained.Cal prepared his group the best he could.  As had become his habit when adventuring, he cast a stoneskin spell upon himself; fortunately, he realized that sprinkling diamond dust upon himself would be nearly impossible in this wind, and cast it from a backup scroll instead.  When Delphyne went to check her mental spell inventory, though, she said she felt her prepared spells shifting and sliding around in her head; she chocked it up as an effect of the chaotic plane she was on, and pressed on.  She was pleased to note that she could cast a stoneskin upon herself without the material components, and yelled to the others that she was ready to go.Cal led them carefully down the tunnel, following the arrows that only he could see.  He knew his light spell wouldn't last for long, so he found a sunrod in his pack and held it at the ready.  Traveling downwind was slow going, as you had to constantly fight the wind from knocking you over.  It was about this time that Cal suddenly realized he could no longer hear the winds.It wasn't just the winds, either; Cal was deaf.  He called out as loud as he could - nothing.  He banged his mace onto his shield - nothing.  Gesturing to the others, he indicated that he couldn't hear, and got similar responses from his companions.  Great, they were all deaf.  This was going to complicate matters somewhat.After several minutes of traveling down the same tunnel, the group encountered their first denizens of Pandemonium.  There were about a dozen of them, staggering into the wind, long hair whipping about in all directions, approaching the adventurers from the long, winding tunnel just ahead.  The first thing they noticed was that they weren't just walking on what the group normally considered to be the ground, but also on the walls and the ceiling - admittedly, somewhat abstract concepts in a tunnel mostly circular in cross-section, but it still seemed odd to see gravity conforming to whatever solid surface was nearest.  As an experiment, Aerik and Delphyne veered over to what they considered to be "opposite walls" and found that they served just as well as the floor.  Weird.As the two groups converged, the adventurers saw that the newcomers were all dressed in tattered rags.  This wasn't a surprise; Cal noticed the edges of his own cloak were getting ripped under the constant battering of the wind as well, and could only imagine what would happen to clothes over time in this environment.  As the groups got even closer yet, Cal could finally make out the faces of the nearest of the visitors, and saw looks of hatred, envy - and hunger.  He'd seen creatures such as these before, and suddenly recalled what Father Maldavius had said about bands of wights roaming among Pandemonium.Cal grabbed up the holy symbol of Kord he wore around his neck, held it before him, and channeled a blast of positive energy through it.  Those wights in the front ranks jerked upright as if hit by a solid force, several of them being lifted up off their feet and whisked away by the powerful winds roaring down the tunnel.  Slayer and Aerik raced up to the next ranks and attacked with their weapons, while Delphyne stayed behind and tossed a magic missile barrage at another.  Cal stepped forward and turned another clump of the wights, sending a bunch more of them screaming through the tunnels, battered as they hit the stone sides and bounced off, and falling away into the distance.  Before long, the wights had all been dealt with, with very little injuries on the parts of the adventurers.  They moved on.Following the arrows superimposed onto the ground, Cal led the group to the end of the tunnel, which exited into an enormous cavern stretching out above and around the group.  A narrow stone bridge, apparently part of a natural formation, spanned the cavern from one end to another, and the arrows continued along its length.  As Cal first stepped onto the bridge, several things became apparent: first, the winds were now blowing crossways from his original direction of travel, threatening to blow Cal off the span.  The strength of the winds was if anything even more powerful in this vast cavern.  Finally, although Cal couldn't see either the ceiling or the floor of the immense cavern, it appeared as if the bridge spanned an enormous star field, with individual points of light winking along a vast plane below him.Carefully, Cal maneuvered along the circumference of the stone bridge so that the winds were now blowing down on his head.  From his original orientation in the first tunnel, it now appeared as if he were standing sideways, but the cleric found it was easier to walk along the bridge that way, and he beckoned the others to follow.  As Slayer followed Cal, he looked down at the star field, and his inherent darkvision allowed him to see what the cleric couldn't: the "star field" was really the shining eyes of an immense gibbering mouther, several miles long at least.  It looked like the creature's immense bulk had taken from it any means of mobility, but it was still able to form little tendrils of matter and wave them around feebly.  Slayer decided he did not want to end up down there with the beast, so he kept close watch on his footing.As Cal got what he estimated to be about a third of the way along the bridge, several dark shapes came whizzing by the bridge; from Cal's orientation, it looked like they were raining down on him.  They were five-foot bubbles of swirling dark matter, carried aloft by the roaring winds.  A final bubble crashed into the bridge and splattered, then coalesced into an amorphous shape and started oozing in Cal's direction.  The cleric recognized it as a gray ooze, adapted to this surreal environment.  As it headed his way, Cal looked past it and saw another group of wights headed his way from the far side of the bridge; they looked to be several score in number.  There wasn't room on the bridge for more than one person to stand safely; they were all single file.  Cal didn't relish the notion of having to fight off a gray ooze and then several dozen wights all one at a time, but then he paid attention to the arrows and saw that that needn't be the way of things.  He blasted the ooze with one of his more powerful spells, watching at it was blown to smaller pieces that were each carried away by the powerful crosswinds, then motioned for the others to hurry after him and raced as best he could towards the advancing wights.  When he was at the stone bridge's midway point, he ran to the "top" of the bridge once more - having traveled mostly on what his mind still considered to be the "side" thus far - and jumped off, allowing the winds to take him aloft.  The others, looking at themselves in concern, gave a mental shrug and followed suit.  After all, Cal seemed to know what he was doing, and he was their only way home.The four adventurers flew helplessly sideways down the shaft of this larger cavern.  Only Cal had the sense of knowing that all was right, for as he sped by he could see that he was still following the path of the glowing arrows, the product of his find the path spell.  The others followed behind him, their screams being torn away by the constant winds.The ride came to an abrupt end as Cal crashed into what he first thought was a net of some type, strewn across the wide cavern to catch falling debris like himself, and, in the seconds that followed, his companions, who each crashed alongside him.  Then they noticed they couldn't move, and that there was an enormous shape scuttling toward them.Cal tried to recall if he'd ever seen a spider that size, and came up short.Fortunately, he had readied a freedom of movement spell that morning in Father Maldavius's office, and while he couldn't actually hear himself say the words to the spell, he could feel that it had taken effect.  The colossal spider's web went from a entangling trap to a bouncy floor, and Cal raced over to Delphyne to help pull her out of the web's embrace.  He could see Slayer extricating himself and helping Aerik to get free, the little dwarf not nearly as strong as his half-orc liege.  Delphyne cast a magic missile spell at the oncoming spider - fortunately, the web was as large as the wide cavern, and the monstrous spider still had a way to go to get to them - but Cal, paying attention once again to the arrows, noted that they were pointing to the far side of the web, away from the spider, and onto a ledge outcropping.  He motioned for the others to follow him, and made his way to the edge.  Slayer took the rear, so he could help extricate Delphyne and Aerik when they got stuck in the web.  They made it to the web's edge and onto the stone outcropping in one piece before the spider could get to them, and by that time several wights had fallen into the web, attracting the spider's attention away from the adventurers.  They had to fight their way against the wind up the ledge, but then it turned a corner, where Cal found to his surprise that the arrows from the find the path spell led directly to a tower shield pressed up against the wall by the force of the wind.  With Slayer's assistance, Cal managed to move the shield sideways, revealing a narrow passage into the stone.  Once everyone was in, he and Slayer wrestled it back into place behind them, and for the first time since their arrival on Pandemonium, the winds were suddenly cut off.Being inside this cavern was no different from being inside a cavern back on their home plane, and it was amazing how much that little fact made such a world of difference.  Finally able to catch his breath, Cal took stock of everyone and was pleased to find his hearing returning; without the constant buffering of the winds, his body was restoring its normal senses.  The same thing was happening to the others, and as Cal cast healing spells on those who needed them, he filled them in a bit more on the specifics of his quest now that he could actually talk to them without having to shout.  He finished up with a holy aura spell, just in case the group would be fighting evil creatures ahead."So where are your arrows pointing to now?" asked Delphyne."This way," replied Cal, and led the group down the narrow tunnel.  The others followed as the tunnel twisted back on itself twice, forming a sort of "Z" shape before finally opening into a small cavern, from which emanated a flickering light.  Cal entered the cavern, the others stepping into place behind him.They weren't alone.  Across the cavern they saw a blue slaad lying in a heap on the floor, and standing beside it was a powerfully built woman wearing a monk's tight-fitting combat garment, with the holy symbol of Kord embroidered on the front.  She held a metal-tipped quarterstaff with flames burning brightly from either end, and her right hand sported a brightly-shining gauntlet with three rubies embedded on the back.  She smiled crookedly at Cal.  "My name is Virilia Flamestaff," she said by way of introduction.  "I imagine you were sent here for the same reason I was.""It would appear so," replied Cal cordially, while slipping his hand into a pouch and extracting his gem of seeing.  Holding it up to his eye, he added, "But then, appearances are often deceiving, aren't they?"  With that, he flung a harm spell at the young monk, whom he had seen clearly through his magical gem as a green slaad."Crap!" called out the monk, reverting to her true form.  "Get up, Blunk, you idiot, they're on to us!"  The blue slaad sat up and roused itself to its feet, apparently nowhere near as dead as it had first appeared.  Then the battle was on.In the cramped quarters of the small cavern, space was at a premium.  "Virilia" - in truth, a green slaad named Venkreth - blasted a fireball at the group with her flaming quarterstaff, enveloping all four of them easily.  Blunk took the occasion to repeatedly drop down below the surface of the cavern floor, only to pop back up behind (or occasionally under) the adventurers, but his partner, Venkreth, had been severely damaged by Cal's harm spell, and when Blunk popped up one time to see that Venkreth had been slain, he immediately popped back under the stone floor and never reappeared."We did it!" called out Delphyne.  "We got the Gauntlet of Kord!""That remains to be seen," replied Cal, ever the cautious one.  He gingerly pulled the metal gauntlet from the green slaad's hand, then examined it with his gem of seeing to make sure it wasn't a fake.  Sure enough, it looked to be the real thing, so he reverently placed it upon his own right hand.Immediately upon having done so, the Gauntlet sent a series of images cascading into everyone's mind. - - - ...And, with that, I'm going to have to stop the story right here and provide some behind-the-scenes stuff.  When Cal activated the gate spell in Father Maldavius's side room, I handed each of the players a handout that described what their PC had been doing when they were suddenly swept up by a whirlwind and deposited in a dark, windy cave.  Each PC's handout was more or less the same, but the only reason I did so was so that it wouldn't appear odd when I gave everybody their own handout again later in the session.At this point of the game session, I explained that the Gauntlet of Kord was sending images into everyone's brain, but that they weren't all necessarily receiving the same images.  And then I passed around player handouts to each of my four players.  Here's what I gave Dan, who was playing Cal:In the meantime, the other three players each got a different handout.  Theirs were virtually identical, with only their names and genders changed as appropriate.  Here's the one I gave Vicki:So, that's about all you need to know before we get back to the story portion of this post.  Ready?  Then let's go! - - - Vix the doppelganger, still wearing Delphyne's form, cast a lightning bolt spell that blasted into the unsuspecting cleric's back.  Unfortunately, it was blocked by the spell resistance conferred by Cal's holy aura spell.  She scowled at her luck.  Still, her brothers might succeed where her spell had failed.  Lex leaped at the cleric, brandishing an extension of his hand that looked like a dwarven waraxe, and his blade bit deep.  Cal turned at the sudden attack, astonished at this betrayal, and in doing so opened himself up to a sneak attack from Jax, who still wore the form of Galrich Slayer.  His "greatsword" - again, an extension of his own fluid body - slid between Cal's protective armor and deep into his side, dealing more damage than normal due to the doppelganger rogue's advanced training in such sneak attacks.However, these surprise attacks came at a cost.  Lex staggered back, crying out "I can't see!"  The holy aura spell had blinded him.  Jax felt a similar effect starting to cover his vision, but he shrugged it off.Cal was unsure of what to make of his friends suddenly attacking him like that.  At first he assumed someone was controlling them somehow, but then he realized that his holy aura spell would only trigger blindness when evil creatures attacked - if "Aerik" had been blinded, then that wasn't Aerik after all.  How long had these imposters been with him?  Had they been fakes from the start?These were all questions for later.  For the moment, Cal cast a mislead spell, which simultaneously turned himself invisible and created an illusory duplicate of himself writhing in pain on the cavern floor.  Vix was tricked long enough to fire off another spell at the illusion, by which time Cal had quietly made his way to the back of the cavern and into the narrow tunnel.  By the time the doppelgangers had realized this illusion had no mind to read, Cal had sealed off the dead-end cavern with a wall of stone spell, leaving the three murderous doppelgangers trapped on the other side.  Still, they had the light from Venkreth's flaming quarterstaff to see by, and her cooling corpse to eat, in a cavern entirely devoid of wind - by Pandemonium standards, it was practically a paradise in which to spend one's last few hours before suffocating to death.Cal spread out the three small crystals in a triangle around him in the narrow tunnel.  By the light of his sun rod, he focused his attention on the larger crystal, thinking about the Temple of Kord.  Within a couple of seconds, the cavern disappeared around him......to be replaced by the temple arena in the Temple of Kord in Greyhawk City.  Cal appeared in its center, directly in front of the statue of Kord Victorious in the alcove behind the arena.  He quickly got to his feet, faced the packed pews (stationed like bleachers along four sides of the octagonal arena), and raised his right hand, bearing the Gauntlet of Kord, in a victorious fist above his head.The Church members, who had sat in these pews awaiting Cal's return, leaped to their feet and roared in victory.  Cal basked in his moment of victory, turning to face each of the four rows of pews in turn.Suddenly, if anything, the crowd's roars became even louder, and looks of astonishment passed over their faces.  They seemed to be focused behind Cal.  He turned, wondering what other surprises this day might bring...and found himself staring up at an Avatar of Kord, Lord of Strength.The bearded giant was grinning down at Cal as he pulled his massive greatsword from his back with his right hand.  Then, in a lightning quick motion, he cut across the palm of his left hand and held it out to Cal.  Cal extended his own, and made no sign of weakness as Kord's blade sliced across his own left palm.  Then the two gripped left hands, allowing their blood to intermingle.  The Avatar of Kord crushed Cal in a massive bear hug, then stepped away, gave a quick salute to the assembled crowd - who cheered and roared even louder, if such a thing was possible - and then disappeared from view.Father Maldavius stepped down from the front row of one of the pews, where he had witnessed the miracle of Kord's appearance himself, and raised Cal's right hand with his own.  Together they faced the crowd of worshipers, and the ongoing roars of victory brought many passersby into the church to see what was all the fuss was about.Cal wore the Gauntlet of Kord for the rest of the full 24-hour span, as dictated by Kordian tradition.  Then the Gauntlet was given to the custodianship of Father Maldavius, who displayed it in the Church of Kord where it was revered as a holy relic.  In the days that followed, Cal found that he had earned a significant amount of respect among those of his Church - after all, not everyone could boast of having the divine blood of Kord flowing through his own veins. - - - And not only that, but Cal gained the "Kord-blooded" template as found in Monster Manual V.This was one of my favorite adventures from this campaign.  I had long wanted to use the old "a doppelganger infiltrates your party" ruse, but had never found a way to successfully employ the gambit.  This was the best way I could figure out to do it.  And the players loved it!  I was having a great time watching Vicki, Jacob, and Logan reading over their handouts informing them that they had all been playing doppelgangers this whole session, and to their credit, nobody gave anything away.  (Although I could tell by the eagerness on Jacob's face that he couldn't wait to surprise attack his dad's PC.)  Dan, for his part, was completely surprised by the sudden betrayal of his entire party, and if it hadn't been for the blindness effect kicking in (which immediately told him they weren't just his companions being dominated, they were evil creatures), I think he might have been tempted to try to fight them all off without killing them.  I'm glad it ended like it did, though.</blockquote>

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