Dale's Campaign - Session #15

A drop of Nelson’s blood won’t do you any harm.
Well that’s what the guys at Dragon’s Landing Inn sing anyway.

As some of you have noticed, I’ve made a few minor changes to the links.

I added some gaming related podcasts that I’ve been listening to; The Dragon’s Landing Inn & Gamer: the Podcasting.

Dragon’s Landing Inn is a couple of guys chatting about various table-top gaming related topics, with a bent towards D&D. They cover some interesting topics and have a section called “The Frugal Gamer”, which are basically some nice ideas that are free or cheap to use/get.

Gamer: the Podcasting is similar, but their main focus is on live-action role-playing, or LARPing. They give plenty of tips and tricks for running or playing in a LARP.

I am actually quite surprised that I listen to them at all, as I have a low opinion of LARPers.
That stems mostly from the Vampire LARPers a decade ago who felt that rules didn’t apply to them at gaming conventions and generally ruined the fun for those not in their games. And the rumors of game books disappearing when they’re around are pretty prevalent too.

Yeah, it’s probably not a fair depiction of most LARPers nowadays, but it’s the one I have until shown that the average LARPer has improved.

And finally I’ve added a link to a new blog my wife and I have started. You’ll have to visit that one yourself to find out more. A little warning though; it’s a bit scary.

Also, a topic that hasn’t come up in a while, and something the above podcasts has gotten me wanting to do; a podcast for our sessions.

Recently someone wanted a copy of one of our gaming sessions, so after an aborted attempt at reducing the 75MB file size to something more manageable, he got an uncut one.

(It’s so uncut he got to listen to me eating pizza, Aaron reading his 20 month old daughter some books, and my rants about security cameras aimed at your employees in an office.)

But I’ve looked into the amount of time and money to get this all started, and unless I can get my group to join in with the editing, the starting costs, and the upkeep costs, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

And that’s a darn shame because I think there a lot of people out there who don’t have a gaming group who would love to listen in on a standard group of geeks playing their favorite game.

RPGMP3 has finished their run through the World’s Largest Dungeon, so there’s probably a vacuum for D&D podcasts.

Moving on to another subject, many of us have bought the Player’s Handbook II. And our opinion of it is that is pretty good and worth the expense. It has many new options, spells, feats, teamwork actions, and so on plus a few new rules that might actually help more than hurt.

The only bad part of the book to me is probably still worth putting into the book, just if to aid the newer players; character concepts. It gives some basic character ideas, backgrounds, motivations and so on. Anyone who has played D&D long enough has no need for that, but if it helps newer gamers, it’s worth it.

Justin has us totally in the dark about when he can and cannot show up to a game anymore. He basically just shows up or doesn’t. This time he didn’t.

Everyone else was around though.

And there will not be a session next week thanks to the holiday. That just gives me a chance to see X-Men III that much sooner.

But anyway, we’re finally on to the game at hand.

We stopped last session with the defeat of a pair of giant zombie-like creatures.

We also noted that although the keep of Radiance Rest was supposed to be ruins, it was instead in pristine condition.

While our early buffs were still working we searched around the perimeter of the courtyard and any buildings that were not part of the central keep.
We didn’t want to be doubly screwed over in case we had to flee from the central keep only to have our only escape exit blocked.

The first building we encountered was an honest-to-goodness sauna. Unfortunately 3 slaughterwights were protecting it. We fought one of these creatures before, and we didn’t care for it then either.

Round 1:
Mark charged one of them and scratched, but since he’s wielding a disrupting mace, damage really isn’t the issue, forcing it to make a DC14 willpower save is.
Jaxil casts Death Ward on Culan.
Kineo casts Arc of Lightning at two of them. Both of them save, but they still take some nice damage.

Brian: “Ah hell; Dale’s rolling good tonight.”

Culan, still large-sized thanks to buffs, moves forward and puts a hurting on an undamaged one. It is still standing afterwards, but only barely.
One slaughterwight swings at Mark, forcing Mark to use the 2nd charge of the day from his ankh (the first was used last week against the elder water elemental).
Another slams at Culan, but Death Ward protects from the 1d8 hit to Constitution.
And the last slaughterwight is able to maneuver past the front line to get to Kineo, draining him of several points of Con.
Kal casts Haste.

Round 2:
Mark isn’t fooling around now. He uses a smite evil on the slaughterwight he is facing. This time it fails the save versus disruption. He then takes a 5’ step over to Culan’s target and finishes that one off.
Jaxil casts Cure Moderate Wounds on Kineo.
Kineo steps away from the slaughterwight and casts Orb of Electricity, bringing it down to about 50%.
Culan takes a 5’ step to get to the slaughterwight and hits with all three of his attacks. Damage isn’t rolled as the minimum damage he’ll do is 111 damage before dice are rolled.

Combat is over and Jaxil moves to Kineo’s to cast Restoration on him.

After searching the magically renewed building, a sauna, we move on.

We searched through the rest of the outer buildings, finding various items, some of minor interest, but mostly not.

All that was left was the main keep. So we cast our remaining buff spells and moved in.

It had a large, but empty antechamber followed by another room with a dais that had a jeweled chalice atop it.

Kineo began searching each of the steps of the dais, twice.

We thought he had triggered a trap, but instead we were being attacked by the keep’s only inhabitant and didn’t realize it.

Holtrus, the Heart of Evil, a dread wraith with some spellcasting ability, cast a general Greater Dispel Magic at us, unraveling some of our best buffs.

But since we thought it was a trap, Kineo went about searching the dais again while we rebuffed with what little buff spells we had left.

At least until Jaxil was attacked from above.

Round 1:
Holtrus hurts Jaxil pretty bad by doing 10 points of damage and draining 5 of his 12 points of Constitution. It then moves through the wall into the antechamber, almost safely out of sight.
Jaxil uses his Staff of Illumination to cast a Daylight spell, mostly because I incorrectly thought that Daylight would hurt or incapacitate the thing.
Culan readied an action in case it returned.
Kal, able to see it barely through a doorway, casts Flame Strike. But I fail the 50/50 roll versus incorporeal target.
Kineo readies an action.

Round 2:
Holtrus flees combat.

We immediately tended to Jaxil, getting his Con back up, before continuing on.

Jaxil also handed Kal the Staff of Illumination because Jaxil can’t use the Sunburst effect, but Kal can.

Every room and door was thoroughly checked by Kineo while the rest of us explicitly stated that our PCs were on full paranoid readied actions in case something moved and it wasn’t one of us.

So when Holtrus showed his incorporeal body to us this time, he was hit with a fistful of...not much.

Round 1:
(Readied actions)
Kal uses the undead blasting Sunburst from the Staff of Illumination, but I once again fail to make the 50/50 roll.
Jaxil casts Sanctuary because he has nowhere to run and will probably be the target for Holtrus.
Culan is able to get into melee, gets a single swing at Holtrus, and is able to connect.
Mark is also able to get into melee but he fails to connect thanks to the incredibly high Dexterity score that a dread wraith has.
(Initiatives)
Holtrus easily breaks through Jaxil’s Sanctuary spell and hit the poor cohort. Jaxil loses 8 points of Constitution in addition the 2d6 slam damage. He goes from nearly 50hp, to a mere 17hp.
Kineo stops with dealing with the door he is searching and casts an Orb of Force at Holtrus, but he barely misses.

Round 2:
Kal wastes another three charges from the Staff of Illumination as I once again fail the 50/50 roll.
Jaxil takes a step away from combat and begins casting Lesser Restoration on the defensive.
Culan is able to solidly connect yet again.
And Mark fails to connect yet again.
Since Holtrus foolishly let us get into melee with him, he takes a swipe Culan and runs away. That gives Culan another free swing on Holtrus, taking another small chunk out of him.
Holtrus is now sticking halfway out of the wall as the walls are too small for him to easily hide in.
This allows Kineo to target him with a Magic Missile.
Kiss Holtrus, the Heart of Evil, goodbye.

And that begins the end-of-module drama.

Storm clouds quickly gather drop a torrent of rain that lasts for days.

To large figures appear in the sky. One is a golden-skinned angelic being known as Zaphkiel (from the Book of Exalted Deeds). The other is a red-skinned arch-devil we know as Asmodeus (from the Book of Vile Darkness). Their fighting in the rain causes much in the way of fireworks and causes some collateral damage to the nearby area.

The swamp changes to forest in a matter of days and the slow swampy river turns into a strong normal river, giving Darken Glen free access to the sea. This is not something Kal cares for because nature had reached equilibrium in the swamps, and a sudden change like that would have many bad side effects. But this is a magical land, so he gets over it.

Surprisingly, the ruins do not fall apart when Holtrus is finished off. So we are free to search the area and find his diary which explains how he survived his failure at becoming a lich. He had some wishes that he used to rebuild the keep and bring himself back as a creature of darkness. And there was a mention of his master not being very forgiving in failure.

The Brotherhood of the Radiant Heart appeared to us in ghostly form before we left. They thanked us and offered us their keep as a reward (plus we had found the deed).

Shortly after we left Radiant’s Rest, a black-cloaked lich appeared before us and chastised us in Yoda-speak, calling us busy bees and accusing us of tipping the balance by defeating Holtrus and redeeming the Brothers Grimm.

Before he teleported away he told us that he might have to get involved to fix things.

Next begins the end-of-adventure phase, where all of our outstanding issues are concluded.

Things like how Radiant’s Rest is ours, but what should we do with it?

Mark wants to take it over as it is a church to hi deity, while the rest of us have no interest in doing so. But we are neutral-greedy, so we want our share of it if he is going to do so.

But the solution presents itself to us in the form of many clerics and paladins of Mark’s faith seeking to speak with us. They offer to buy the keep from us.

After plenty of negotiation, we “give” it to them and as a reward for “finding” it they improve our Vests of Resistance +2 to a +5 version, we each get one free Full Resurrection, and we are always welcome in their temples.

And believe it or not, that is a fraction of the keep’s true value. It is in a prime location as a defense against the working of Baron Kordt, the continent’s only evil baron. Not to mention the actual value of the keep is probably more than double that of the reward we received.

Additionally, we returned to Bauer’s Tower to claim it, only to find that he had already prepared it for us. It was no longer haunted in any way, and it was now a powerful magic item. Similar to a Daern’s Instant Fortress, we now had a tower we could carry around with us and use as we needed, so long as we had some solid ground to place it on.

We had heard through the grapevine that the Brothers Grimm were doing quite well in reforming their ways.

And since the Heart of Evil is no longer around as magnet for fell creatures, Lindepohl has decided to move on. And because Lindepohl has decided to move on, that means Ian de Magi has to follow Lindepohl wherever he goes in order to guarantee a balance of sorts.

And finally we heard a rumor that there is some other poor town somewhere on the continent that just might need our help.

And thus concludes the adventure known as “The Heart of Evil”.
Our next adventure is called “The Devil’s Daughter”.