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Message: <blockquote data-quote="OnlineDM" data-source="post: 5281650" data-attributes="member: 90804">Our group ran its third War of the Burning Sky session yesterday evening (more details <a href="http://onlinedm.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/online-campaign-session-4-through-the-caverns/" target="_blank">on the blog</a>).  This session was entirely home-brewed, but still might be of interest to those who want to run a different take on escaping from Gate Pass.The party ended the last session having walked through the sewers of Gate Pass and fought through a crypt of undead dwarves (the Dead Rising encounter), beyond which were some stairs leading to the natural cave system in the mountains south of the city.  I placed a sizable treasure cache in the crypt, including the Dianoem.  Last night's session began with a fair amount of inspection of this mysterious blue box.Navigating the caves is an extended skill challenge, which I wrote in advance but modified on the fly as I saw fit.  It involved some navigation challenges (figuring out which way they're going, choosing among several different paths) interspersed with other obstacles (dealing with a steep downslope, crossing a pit over a narrow natural bridge).Failures in the skill challenge led to combats.  When the party's swordmage fell into the pit, she was attacked by crauds (the pit was filled with waist-deep water with an underground channel leading out of it).  The crauds also rolled first in the initiative order and dropped the swordmage unconscious, which made her let go of the end of the rope she was holding - so the rest of the party had to get down there and rescue her. This ended up being a surprisingly intense encounter for something that was below the party's level.A wrong turn in navigation led to an encounter with cave fishers, which began with Torrent being ensnared in their filaments and dragged up to the ceiling.  Cave Fisher Anglers are way fun, I must say.I included an interlude in an underground natural grove (a hole in the ceiling far overhead let in sunlight and rain).  This was linked to the back story of the minotaur druid in the party, who doesn't know where he came from.  Because of some good role-playing here, I ended up introducing an artifact to the adventure (details are still being developed).We ended the session with the party having discovered a well drilled through the rock in one chamber, with a rope making for an easy climb up to the surface.  The dwarf fighter in the party climbed the rope and found himself in a ruined, snow-blanketed village, which he slowly came to recognize as the village where he grew up as a young boy.  In his back story, that village had been pillaged and destroyed by orcs, and he was the only survivor.  He hadn't been back in over 10 years, and now the party finds itself in the village ruins.So far so good!  I'm expecting that we will soon be getting back on the published path (to some degree - I know that I can't just leave it all alone), most likely with the end of Chapter 4 and beginning of Chapter 5 of the first published adventure.  We'll most likely continue into the second adventure from there.</blockquote>

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