Sessions 37-38

THE SLAUGHTER AT THE TOWERS

Thistleburn 6-11, 4433

5 real days passed during the sessions, including 10 subjective days in the Forest of Dreams

Characters:

Gorr, ranger 5
Daqqa-Jin, barbarian 4
Robert the Unconscious, fighter 5
Salzige Brauen, necromancer 2
Xénos, spy 2
Uriah Sunstrife, paladin 1
Cassia Tannin, fighter 1
Black Phalaros, necromancer 2
Finrod, elf 1
Clif, elementalist 3
Lord Fesgate, fighter 4 (NPC)

Battle For the Towers

The party was trapped in a moonlit zone prison tower, surrounded by a small army of gnolls and their leader the moon-giant Kucmalog. 

Investigating the ground floor brought the attention of two animated statues. Their stone surfaces were hard to crack, and Robert shattered his magical Executioner's Axe during the fight! The group opened up another prison cell and fought two werewolves. They rescued five knights of the Behringer family in the process, swelling their army's numbers further. 

The party negotiated with the moon-giant and convinced him to open the doors of the prison. At that point, battle was joined! Kucmalog laid down terrible strikes with his enchanted sword and called curses on the group, blinding Daqqa-Jin and Hamon and turning them invisible. His gnoll squads swarmed around the tower and a pitched two-rank battle was joined at the doorway.

The slaughter was terrible! Almost 30 gnolls driven mad with hunger, fear and rage, pressing forward with halberds. Occasionally one would stop to chew on a downed foe, or even one of their own number. The party led them into a trap with flaming oil, blinded them with the fireworks of the Four Winds Bar and then battled them nose-to-nose with the help of the Behringer family knights. 

One by one the party members were knocked out, blinded or otherwise incapacitated until only Uriah was still fighting. Just when it seemed like the gnolls might push through, the rest of the shades arrived from deep inside the tower, alerted by a flying Xénos. Picking up the fallen gnolls' weapons, the 100-strong rebel army pushed forward, slaying the ravenous beasts to the last.

The group was in possession of the field, but still in a tricky position - most of them were knocked out or crippled, the clerics were out of spells and several Behringer knights and shade soldiers had been killed in the battle. 

Even so, fate was with them. Other than a small pack of snarling gnolls who did not attack, the party was not molested on their way out of the Moonlit Zone and back to the rebel camp by the lake. 

Rauffe welcomed the group with all the hospitality he could manage. A great meeting took place with the rebel leaders and the party, with everyone sharing their stories and trying to piece together events. Reymund the Pale agreed to make an extraordinary bow for Gorr, as soon as a workshop can be assembled for him (costing about 8000 silver). Rauffe happily presented Daqqa-Jin with a glass lantern filled with ethereal fireflies as a gift for rescuing so many of his men. 

The party was asked to assist the rebellion further: 

-- The surviving Behringer knights want to recapture their ancestral home from the gnolls, but they need help.

-- The two priestesses are convinced something is wrong with the Sage of Lune - she has gone mad, or been possessed, or something! They want to cure this ailment and turn her back to the path of good, rather than destroying her for allying with the Mad King.

After being outside the moonlit zone for a day or so, the moonlight curse faded from Daqqa-Jin and Hamon. The party rested up, dealt with some logistical issues, brought some equipment in for the rebels and then headed out.

Back in the Night Wolf Inn tavern there were some interesting people. Uriah signed up to the guild for cheap, because he was broke. A ventriloquist was doing a spicy act about the Emperor. Some guild members were mourning a fallen comrade, others were preparing for a mission. A blue-haired elf in black chain named Karakaël was friendly and voluble. He was interested in the party after hearing they had found their Four Winds Bar behind the clock in the library. News of the group's success seems to have spread amongst other guild members.

The group returned to Viridistan to sell their loot, train, identify items and carouse.

New Arrivals

Meanwhile, the party who had recently raided the Vault of the Warlord in the distant north [see the special play report a while back] finally made it to Viridistan with their revived friend St. Nolan, patriarch of Seker. After Black Phalaris gave him back his Staff of Healing, he was so happy that he removed the curses afflicting the group from Warlord's gold.

After then paying to have the cursed gold itself un-cursed, the Vault crew still had 50,000 sp of trade bars left (!!!) which they split up into equal shares. 

Other details were figured out: Gorr had his madness healed with a Cure Disease spell and a cursed item removed by the church of MAN-PAC. Spellcasters dealt with their mentors and got new spells. Party members identified items, traded equipment and sorted out who could use which intelligent weapons.

With new alliances formed, the group agreed they would call themselves THE WRETCHED COMPANY.

To carouse as much as they wanted the group headed up to the Cliffside district, to the Sign of Olive & Lotus. Finrod charmed the gate guard, who was happy to let them pass with an invitation to join them for a drink later. At one of the most expensive joints in town, the group got ready to take some richly deserved R&R...

[More details on rumours, mentors etc. coming in DOWNTIME POST.]

Monsters Defeated:

28 gnolls (1316 xp)
1 needlebeak (190 xp)
2 werewolves (380 xp)
2 caryatid columns (560 xp)

Treasure Gained:

firefly lantern
friendship

Treasure Sold:

topaz eye gems (2*1400 sp)
sapphire eye gems (4*900 sp)
robes with gold thread (1800 sp)
cursed mace -1 (0)
vacuous grimoires (2*1000 sp)

Money Gained:

most players noted already

Xénos - 585 sp gained after carousing costs [see next post]

Session 35

LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE

Thistleburn 5, 4433
A few hours passed during the session.

Characters:

Gorr, ranger 5
Robert the Swift, fighter 5
Daqqa-Jin, barbarian 4
Salzige Brauen, necromancer 2
Xénos, spy 2
Lord Fesgate, fighter 4 (NPC)

The party continued their talk with the Carrion King. It explained a few more details about the moon-headed giant Kucmalog & discoursed on his magical items. A flaming sword and a magical mirror, apparently one of many that exist in the kingdom. Then it gave a dire warning about a dangerous location in the moonlit zone. The creature also offered to trade any one of his magic items in exchange for Salzige's hideous, nightmare-inducing idol.

The group moved on, following the Carrion King's directions. They came upon a guardpost with moon-gnolls who were willing to negotiate and were interested in the group's plan to open up the prisons. The leader of the gnolls agreed to take the party to the prison towers in exchange for eating anybody they found inside!

Gnarg the gnoll and five of his troops accompanied the group, with one needlebeak. They ran into another gnoll patrol at a circle of standing stones, and there was a standoff. A few of these gnolls joined the group looking for easy food, but the others wouldn't come along - they declined to attack their comrades, letting the group leave after a tense moment.

The Prison Towers

After Gnarg helpfully relieved the gnoll patrol that was circling the towers,  the group had the run of the place. The front doors could be easily opened, but the group used the Four Winds Bar to fly up to the floating mini-tower. 

They saw a symbol & altar of Uthummaos and an investigated an old stone coffin, decapitating a corpse in there and taking some treasure. Then they were accosted by a terrible wraith, demanding they swear fealty to King Wakelinus and Lord Uthummaos! Gorr was having none of that, and struck the altar with a mace.

Gorr: "Fuck Uthummaos and fuck You!"

For his defiance, the ranger was blasted by yellow laser-beams from the sinister wall carvings!

As the guardian spirit attacked, Daqqa-Jin spoke the command word "Azerix" to activate another power of the Four Winds Bar, unleashing a blast of deadly lightning in every direction! It did terrible damage to the insubstantial creature but harmed the group as well: Xénos, Salzige and Lord Fesgate were all knocked flat! Gorr managed to grit his teeth through the pain (and pass his WIS check, keeping a tight hold on sanity for the moment) enough to splash the monster with holy water.

The creature was defeated, but at serious cost: Lord Fesgate got knocked unconscious but was alright with a bit of healing. Xénos barely survived a lightining-induced heart failure, and would be near-useless in a fight from now on. And Salzige lay in a coma, totally unresponsive...

The party unlocked the nearby cells, rescuing many shades from the time-prisons. They met a nobleman Lord Almery IV and his entourage: Hamon, Ranulph and their quarry, Reymund the Pale! They had to battle some giant snake-creatures called Jaculi to rescue some of the rebels, who suffered a handful of casualties. They threw down the Jaculi's corpses for Gnarg and his friends to eat.

Lord Almery was overjoyed at the rescue. He suggested they clear the tower in case more rebels were imprisoned further below.

Inside the smaller tower, Daqqa-Jin destroyed mounds of crystal with his horn of blasting, which shivered and broke apart from the stress. From the remnants of the crystal formations crystal golems emerged, blasting at the barbarian with scintillating energy beams. The whole group retreated back up the stairs, pouring lamp oil to cover the retreat. 

The situation as it stands:

7 crystalline men inside the tower are chasing after Daqqa-Jin
8 gnolls and 1 needlebeak led by Gnarg wait on the ground for more food
a handful of rebel troops have weapons, the rest are unarmed

Rebels Rescued:

40 rebel soldiers (5 died)
Hamon, the Unbreakable
Ranulph, the Silent
Lord Almery IV
Reymund, the Pale

Monsters Defeated:

13 Jaculi (247 xp)
1 Uthummaos' guardian (300 xp)
9 giant moths (342 xp)

Treasure Obtained:

2 topaz "eye" gems
robes embroidered with gold thread
ornate mace of strange aspect

Session 34

I SURVIVED A MOONLIT ZONE...

Thistleburn 5, 4433

7 subjective days passed inside the Forest of Dreams

Characters:

Gorr, ranger 5

Daqqa-Jin, barbarian 4

Robert the Hard Pressed, fighter 5

Salzige Brauen, necromancer 2

Xénos, spy 2

The party fled from the disastrous attack on Fort Behringer [last session], pursued through the moonlit zone by a pack of gnolls led by a half headed moon-giant! After several gambits and tricks including some airborne hijinks with the Four Winds Bar, the group escaped the gnolls' pursuit and reunited with the lake men and the bandit Rauffe, who was sad to hear of Eric's demise.

They returned to the Forgotten Village, where things seem to have declined. Arlen the magistrate was slowly degenerating, Baran the guard-captain was nowhere around and Lauriel the paladin had fallen in combat. Shandril the priestess of Solaris was the de facto leader of the village now. 

They held a sad funeral ceremony for Eric Withakay. The last original member of the party, the silver-tongued orator (or maybe he just got lucky) who had rallied the citizens of Drydale against the witches [yep, all the way back in session 1, three years ago] was dead. A crusader for good who had sworn his oath to a deity from this strange realm and championed its people. After being poisoned in Issachar Dimorites' mansion months ago, death held no mystery for him anymore. At the end of the ceremony, a blinding light flared from the Crucible of Solaris, and Eric's body was gone - transported to the arms of Solaris for his final repose.

After reuniting with their shifty pistol-wielding ally Xénos, the group rested, re-supplied and turned right around towards the moonlit zone, not even stopping to chat in the Night Wolf Inn.

They entered the forest through a different route, passing over a swift-flowing river of fog. They fought some giant carnivorous flies, and progressed towards a ruined tower nearby.

Outside the ruined tower, they spoke to a strange sickly-looking bird with a glowing white aura, like the ones the moon-gnolls kept caged. It called itself Ip-Ip, asking for food. It explained that the tower was the domain of the Carrion King, who lived there with a swarm of giant flies. The party fed it more and told it where to find some giant fly carcasses to feed on further, and it hopped along.

Daqqa-Jin entered the tower, and met the Carrion King himself.

This bizarre and unsightly creature was friendly & civil, eager to talk and bargain. He offered to trade with the party for gems, magic items, living captives, or secrets. The group traded him two secrets:

1 - The story of the magical book Pheldrazash, carried by their old friend Lothos who is being unduly influenced. Lothos is now a member of the Gloaming Tower.

2 - The story of Magrometh the Piper, and how the group released the horde of undead on top of the sacred mountain above the dwarven village Mishell.

For these secrets, the Carrion King told the party where to find Reymund the Pale in a nearby prison, and began a discourse on the kingdom's moonlit zones...

Monsters Defeated:

3 giant flies (87 xp)

Treasure Obtained:

none

Session 6 Downtime - The Forgotten Village

Occasionally, adventurers have spare time to work on things between expeditions. These activities are called downtime actions. Anything that might be significant for the game, but doesn't involve immediate danger: buying equipment, constructing a special item, researching new spells, making friends with the locals, running a business, looking up ancient lore at the archives, asking around town for information, etc.

Normally downtime actions are abstracted - we don't care how long they take exactly, just that you get to do something before you go back to adventuring. In this case we do care, because the party is in a strange place and time is a factor.

Players in the last session told me how they're spending their downtime. If anyone else wants to do something, get back to me BEFORE next session or you missed the boat!!!

Trading

In the Forest of Dreams there isn't much of an economy. Some things are available:

Water: At least you won't get dehydrated. There is a small spring not too far from the village with the same metallic, bubbly water as before.

Holy Water (50 sp): Created in the Crucible of Solaris and preserved in a dusty clay jar.

Herbal Tea (200 sp): A collection of forest herbs and dried flower-stems in a packet. Brewing it restores some vitality: 1d4 hit points over 2 hours.

Shadow-Wine (25 sp per cup / 800 sp per cask): The same murky black liquid that Robert & Veigar tried out a few sessions ago. Aged for centuries. Has strange & variable effects.

Incense (250 sp per brick): Made from glowing forest flowers. Comes in four different colours. 

Heliotrope - smells of melon and summer rain & evokes a feeling of serene, dreamlike calm. 

Indigo - burnt leaves & smug sense of superiority. 

Buff - horseradish & warm, fond nostalgia.

Pearl - honey and dry wood & Sunday-morning sadness.

It's worth mentioning that the folk here do not have any food for sale.

Money

The townsfolk do not care about coins! They will trade for any of your metal gear (at 2x book price). Some of the treasure you've picked up on the last few adventures is interesting to them:

Any magic items, the etched metal plate (500 sp), the brick of incense (250 sp), both amulets (200 sp each), the china tea set (200 sp), those old copper helmets (10 sp each). They might also take other strange items you have picked up.

Downtime Activities

Lothos: The Starless Stars is indeed a spellbook with these spells inside: 

1st - charm person, allure, shocking grasp, jump. 2nd - mirror image, scare, arcane lock.

You can spend your whole downtime to study this spellbook, and in that time you can roll to learn as many spells as you like based on your INT.

The second book, Obliteration Without Glory will take work to decipher. Each attempt to unlock its mysteries takes 3 days of intense reading. It may require multiple sessions of study to fully comprehend. There is no telling what might happen in any case, magical traps and safeguards are not unknown in some ancient tomes. Roll a d20 at the end of 3 days and we'll see what happens. Any elf or M-U can attempt this by the way, Aladar can help if he is interested.

Liliya is willing to help. For a favour, she will assist you with one session of reading (+5 to the roll). 

Pheldrazash can help you as well. It thinks you probably have about a 50/50 chance of deciphering the book by yourself. If you consult it to help translate, I will roll for its attempts. Both of your successes are added together, so the book can be deciphered faster. Transcribing things for Pheldrazash does slow you down a bit so one period of study will take 4 days.

It wants you to fetch something for it in return, saying you should consult it when you are back in Viridistan.

The staff taken from the tower basement is a dark blue wood carved with swirling designs. It is likely magical, but a sage or wizard or some other expert is needed to learn more.

Suba-Jin: The seal of Uthummaos (black pit with purple rays emanating) strikes fear into anybody you show it to. It seems to represent some kind of evil god or demon, whose worship appeared around the time the King went mad 1000 years ago. The details are vague, but it appears to rule over shadows and darkness. 

Some of the village folk recall the two-crescent pendant as Eralion the wizard's personal seal. Several folk think it's strange that Eralion had his own fortress. In the ancient days before King Wakelinus' time, royal wizards used to retire to an island in a great lake, not too far from here.

You hear that the Sage of Lune might know more - although she asks a high price for her knowledge, so don't bother going unless your need is great.

Gorr: The amulet you retrieved from the corpse is made of tarnished silver, 2" high and cylindrical, carved all over with exotic runes, images of bones and skulls. It feels light, maybe it's hollow. One symbol stands out, but nobody around here recognizes it:

You are able to chop down a smaller tree. It does not dissolve like the monsters did, and seems to be normal wood, although strangely coloured and exotic.

The shades will let you stay in the village as long as you want. You can keep your gear here, and Shandril assures you that it will be safe while her and Baran are around.

Anybody else who wants to do stuff during downtime, or if anyone has more questions, you know how to find me. Before next game session!

*****

ADDENDUM

Gorr asked about master craftsmen in the hopes of having a bow made.

We are using these rules for commissioning splendid items and creating new magic items through mighty deeds. The leader of the guards Baran had this to say:

"Reymund the Pale was the best bowyer I ever knew. We called him that for he never ventured out to war or hunting. He loved peace most of all, and the feeling of a well-made piece of wood in his hands. A sensitive soul, not suited to the world as it is now, but a good man in his own way. I remember the last time I saw him, when he went off to join the lake-men. Not more than low brigands who call themselves 'rebels' really. We had words over it. Those of us who remain are still loyal to King Wakelinus, mad nor not, and Reymund was never one to take up causes like that. 

Might be he's still with them up by the great lake, but I heard there weren't many left after the King rounded up most and imprisoned them so's we could have some peace around here. If he's among those unfortunates, you'd best forget about him: the King's oubliettes are time-locked within the Moonlit Zones. Nobody ever gets out, and the Zones themselves are dangerous enough."