Feb 21, 2015
PCs Present:
Osirian
Zaya
Fluffy
"Boy"
and introducing Waterlilly
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| Nope. His store doesn't look like this anymore. Not even close. |
The Morning After The Heist
No XP but a crapload of unexpected turns and fun
The morning after finds the Halfmoon Inn in their rooms, except for Fluffy who is of course in Rothars Taproom unable to apparently make it back to the Inn after imbibing too much (again). Osirian while having a soak in a nice large bronze bathtub is not surprised to hear Gendar, the Drow elf and owner of the now much vandalized and gem-less store, yelling from downstairs for justice.
After finding which rooms the adventurers are in he bursts into Osirian's room accompanied by the local enforcer Brugg, the ogre. Gendar throws the much deserved accusations at Osirian and demands that he go with him to be tried by the local policing authority, The Ordinator Arcanis. Stepping from the bath, unabashedly naked Osirian casually dresses and follows the orgre and drow out of the room. Gendar orders Brugg to collect the accomplice, "Boy" and they leave the Inn towards the Minotaur statue.
As Gendar yells for justice, Orontor, the mage representing the Ordinator Arcanis appears in the teleportation circle in front of the statue. Gendar explains the thievery and vandalism and asks that the mage take action and meet out justice. By now many of the locals as well as the rest of the adventuring party have gathered around.
The mage casts a ritual spell and then asks Osirian whether or not the claims are true. Osirian of course denies emphatically that he had anything to do with the occurrence. But the mage is not so easily fooled, The ritual of 'Discern Lies' is hard to overcome.
Seeing his usual charismatic ways are not working, Osirian demands a trial by combat. Reluctantly, Orontor agrees. He chooses Brugg to fight for Gendar's cause.
The locals create a large circular area and the hafling and orge square off. The others in the party move to strategic positions and ready themselves but Osirian waves them off. Osirian subtly casts 'Scathing Rebuke' which then makes it impossible for anyone near with a low enough will to land any blows at all on himself.
For the next short while the orge fails to land damage on the hafling while Osirian bit by bit bloodies the orgre with his bare hands. Finally, Osirian asks whether this farce of a battle has gone on long enough and the mage allows Brugg to submit to defeat.
The locals carry off Brugg to have his wounds tended to, while Gendar swears he will have vengeance.
The party returning to the Inn see Brugg laid out on a makeshift bed of multiple bar tables while Erra (not Gloria) tends to his many wounds. Brugg sees Orisian and, with more damage to his pride than his body, turns to look away.
Fluffy is approached by a fellow kobold who is small and wretched looking who hands him a letter and quickly leaves after receiving a gold piece.
The letter asks to meet the party at a location disclosed on the included map.
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| THIS is what a bronze warder looks like (not what I used) |
Interlude 2 - The Ambush
1100 XP
Following the map the party arrives at a darkened cave and is met by two tieflings and a bronze warder. The party quickly moves into position but is hampered by the tieflings raining down fire on them. Orisian continually has to put himself out after receiving fire damage turn after turn.
Zaya quickly runs up to one of the tieflings who is up on a ridge. With a series of moves she is able to jump and pull herself up on the ledge, grab the tiefling, pull him off the ledge while stabbing him on the way down.
Fluffly is near the bronze warder when the warder decides to push a large bolder towards Fluffy. Fluffy is pushed back and damaged and the result is that he is now pushed out of the cave with a large boulder blocking the entrance. The kobold yells to his companions that he truly is trying to get over the boulder and back into the fray but simply is too small. So while he sits and relaxes he sends his spirit companion, Princess, to fight on his behalf. (The rest of the group seem to doubt his efforts and wonder if he is not simply sitting down and drinking from his keg).
After finally killing the tieflings the party converges on the bronze warder only to realize that he is much to overpowered for any sort of quick kill. With everyone focused on the warder, and Osirian clinging to the warder's leg and tring to either climb up or stab him, the bronze warder is finally finished off by Zaya who cleaves off a leg.
Searching the bodies reveals letters linking this ambush attack to a mage Paldemar who is trying to curry favor with Maldrick Scarmaker who is the chieftain of a group called the Blackfangs. They also find a map with directions to 'The Well Of Demons' which is marked with the words "Blackfangs".
It's actually Fluffy who finds the letters and map but Zaya quickly runs up and snatches the letters from Fluffy claws because "cool! One of them has a seal!" which she excitedly breaks. Followed with a "smell it!" in which each hero dutifully smells the seal which turns out was created with a scented candle.
Supplemental - The Cisterns
1250 XP
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| THIS is what a grick looks like. (not what I used) |
Barely tending to their wounds they travel back to the Seven Pillared Hall and stop at the taproom and come across a friend of Zayas, a pixie named Waterlilly.
There an old scholar, Vadriar "Vag" The Sage, hurriedly tries to convince the party to come to his aid in order to prevent calamity. Unable to give any more details he finally convinces the party who follow him into the labyrinth. Some of the party rightly guess that he is unable to give more information because he may be under some sort of curse.
After hours of travel, a lot of whining and some heated debate as to whether or not to follow this old man and perhaps just go back to the Hall and sleep, they come across an old cave close to the water system of the mountain. There they encounter troglodytes and a grick. The party spreads out to take on separate foes.
Zaya is accompanied by Waterlilly who rides on her shoulder into battle. Waterlilly proves herself capable in battle as she deals extreme damage while being almost unseen by the enemy. Near the end of the battle the troglodytes learn from their damage and start to play dungeon baseball with the pixie but again she shows that she has surprising stamina for one so small.
Fluffy has been left with the grick who attacks with tentacles and leaves on going damage after every hit. Had it not been for the kobolds ability to resist most of the ongoing damage he would have been dead multiple times over.
"Boy" seems to be getting his arcana legs as he is dealing multiple hits using more than one spell at a time now. Sustain damage from the previous hit and dealing out more damage with mutiple magic missiles he proves himself, if not equal to the rest of the party, then at least worthy to follow and learn from them.
Finally defeating the creatures, the old man "Vag" runs in to implore them to destroy the altar found there. After reluctantly doing so the curse is lifted off the old scholar and he finally can tell them that he had found out the troglodytes plan to collapse the upper level of the Labyrinth and killing all in the Seven Pillared Hall.
Even after seeing the heroes save potentially hundreds of people above, the old man runs from the cisterns in fear of the, quite obviously powerful and yet not so lawful, party of adventurers.
Found:
Gold sacrificial bowl
Small plate armor which the party deduces to have some sort of magical properties.
DM's Notes:
It's always a little tough to try and figure out the results and consequences of what these PCs do in this world. It's never what you expected OR PREPARED FOR. But it's always a blast. Everyone seems to be finding their characters personalities. Mannerisms. Strengths. Flaws. It makes everything seem more real.
For quite sometime now it's been hinted at, then whined for, and ultimately begged for.
I've been told a city adventure would be cool. So that's what I'll be working on this week. Whether you finish off this particular campaign or cut your losses ("screw the last two missing slaves" I'm almost sure I heard at some point in the evening). Whatever. It's all good.
Another aside I feel the battles are finally opening up a little. At first it seemed that every battle devolved into a toe to toe slug-fest. But lately I've seen more cool moves and strategies emerge. I've tried to change how the monsters fight and I've seen the PCs come up with innovative ways to take down creatures. I hope this has improved that battles.
Give me feedback on what you want or what you think could be improved. (or even what you liked).
Hope this blog is helpful for keeping track of what has happened.
(Clues, Plot points, XP and just generally remembering cool stuff)
<insert soon-to-be-trademarked catchphrase sign off here>
