Sean's Campaign - Session #6
This was both a great and disappointing session.
The disappointing:
- Allen had to cancel on us the morning of the game. So there was no monk at this session.
- Brian missed as well, but he had given us a couple of months warning. The problem is that he is the first of our group to run a duskblade, and probably the only player in the group who has read the class closely enough. The meant that anyone who ran Zelast was not going to so well. So I took him out of the game for speed and sanity’s sake.
It has been my experience that when you run your PC and someone else’s PC for the evening, especially one you’re unfamiliar with, then both PCs suffer. And the more complicated and involved the characters are, the worse this problem becomes.
On the plus side, Dale was able to make it to the game, but a little late. Aaron played Artemis until Dale showed.
I believe that everyone will be at the next game and on time even.
The great:
I had the players on their toes and genuinely creeped out.
All I did was paint a disturbing picture of some odd things in the city, added some freaky creatures, and mixed in some just plain gory fun.
I did have to do some additional DM railroading. I didn’t like that. But apparently I did too good of a job of creeping out the players that they wanted to run away from the prepared adventure. Damage control was required.
Game Synopsis:
We last left the group in the empty city of Krendalar after they had just fought some gargoyles in a cathedral.
Unsure of where to go next, the party set about on the main road to the center of town. But that ended when the wind direction changed for a brief moment and that wind brought the smell of trash and death.
Half the group failed the DC10 fortitude save and were sickened for the next hour.
So they changed their minds about traveling down the main streets and moved to the side streets instead while and looking for some kind of landmark to head to. Towards the northern section of the city they saw what they believed to be a wizard’s tower, so they made their way to it.
It was in most respects your standard wizard’s tower; five stories tall, made of dark stone, a magical aura surrounded the place, with a fence and a short, locked, iron gate.
The halfling scout/rogue Trebor had to climb over the short fence & gate because he had put 0 points into the Open Lock skill. (Justin has complained quite loudly about how poorly he assigned his character’s skill points.)
Once he made it over the fence he set about checking out the door to the tower.
The door set about pounding the daylights out of Trebor.
It was a mimic that had assumed the shape of the door and had been patiently waiting for a meal to show.
And although it pounded Trebor nicely enough, there was enough acid spells flung at it to melt it into a steaming pile of chemicals.
But during the fight, a circle of powdered silver was disturbed and the mild abjuration magic that the party had detected before was gone.
Being curious about what treasure that might be found in a wizard’s tower, the party entered.
They found room after room of nothing valuable, but on the third floor they were attacked by 3 shadows. A sun domain empowered turn from Moore killed two of them and sent the third packing. But not before they had a chance to drain a couple of points of strength from Trebor and Moore.
Aarasilia used her last Lesser Restoration spell of the day to help Moore get some strength back.
But it didn’t matter.
On the fifth level of the tower was a study holding 2 more shadows (one of them from before) and a greater shadow.
By the time the party dropped the first normal shadow, Moore had only 8 points of strength remaining. And since the armor he was wearing was too heavy, he could only stand where he was. Which made it easy for the greater shadow to do his 1d8 strength damage to Moore – and of course I rolled an eight.
One round later and Moore the cleric became Moore the shadow.
Eventually all of the shadows were finished off, but they had lost yet another PC.
There was no nearby city, so raising him from the dead was not an option.
At this point we took a pause to allow Aaron time to make a new PC and to give Justin a chance to rearrange his skill points; because no one should have to play a character they think sucks.
When that was done we returned to the game.
They searched the tower thoroughly, hoping that there would be some nice treasure, and not so subtly hinting to the DM that a Raise Dead scroll could be part of the treasure.
But the DM was not so benevolent. There was some nice treasure, but they did not find any level 5 clerical scrolls in a wizard’s tower. However he did allow Aaron to roll up a new PC and let Justin rearrange his poorly placed skill points.
As they were searching the tower Trebor saw two things of interest while scouting from the balcony on the fourth floor.
The first was an arrow landed near him with a note on it:
“Be ready to run when I give the signal – Recin” (...or something to that extent.)
The second was a figure on horseback heading towards the northern city entrance.
Trebor relayed both bits of information to the rest of the party and they set about meeting this new person.
Of course it was Aaron’s new PC, the lady knight Sorra, but the DM had a little fun with the encounter by throwing in some high-pitched monstrous screams coming from the west and south.
And although the new knight joined in just fine, the note from Recin, the total lack of corpses, and screams had everyone on edge.
They took Moore’s body to the cathedral, and returned to the tower for a night of rest. But it wasn’t a very peaceful night of sleep. They heard the screaming sporadically throughout the night and could hear the sound of swords being drawn on occasion. This didn’t help the party’s spirits one bit.
They decided they were going to leave the city as they had determined that this city was still standing, but not occupied by anything friendly. So the DM did a quick augment to Sorra’s background story stating that she came to this particular city because of a very real dream she was having about some woman on death’s door begging for help. So now the party is searching for the woman.
Next the party headed south on the city’s main north-south street, and they received another good blast of garbage & death wind.
But this time they followed the smell to its source; a 10’ tall wall of trash, broken furniture, and bones all packed together to form a very large ring around the center of the city. They discussed setting the ring on fire but decided against it when they figured that the fire would be a giant beacon.
They decided to search the western side and abandon the giant ring of trash for now and headed west, but not along the main east-west road. They instead moved south and west.
The first thing they found was disturbing; a long glistening tube of something living. Inside the tube they could see a fluid moving slowly through it and it pulsed with a kind of rhythm akin to a heartbeat. It traveled from the inside of the western city wall and out of sight to the north. At no point did it touch the ground. It was either draped across something or was held up by a pole of some sort.
The party had no idea what to make of the whole picture, so they decided to scout a little more. Ari cast Fly and Invisibility on herself and scouted from above. She saw that the tubes spread very far to the north and branched off at irregular intervals. And at one point she caught a glimpse of some large black creature running fast on four legs.
When Fly wore off, the party took a defensive position within eyesight of the tube and Ari yanked one of the tube’s pole supports out from under it, letting it hit the ground.
At first it was nothing, but then they heard more of monstrous screaming, from multiple locations that began converging on the area where Ari and the tube was.
They thought the creatures would converge on the tube, but instead they converged near Ari.
The moment Ari heard an unworldly growl come from around the side of a house; she darted to join the rest of the group. She wasn’t taking any chances, whether she was invisible or not. But she did get a glimpse of the critters.
From the rest of the group’s vantage point (from the second floor of an abandoned house), they did not see the creatures as Ari.
But eventually they did see one of them fix the broken pole. And although it was far away (at least 600’), they could make out a man-sized creature with a shiny black carapace, a pointed and less than friendly mouth, and it walked on all fours or legs as it chose.
Next week I believe everyone is around.
And hopefully we’ll close out this adventure and head on to the next one.
The disappointing:
- Allen had to cancel on us the morning of the game. So there was no monk at this session.
- Brian missed as well, but he had given us a couple of months warning. The problem is that he is the first of our group to run a duskblade, and probably the only player in the group who has read the class closely enough. The meant that anyone who ran Zelast was not going to so well. So I took him out of the game for speed and sanity’s sake.
It has been my experience that when you run your PC and someone else’s PC for the evening, especially one you’re unfamiliar with, then both PCs suffer. And the more complicated and involved the characters are, the worse this problem becomes.
On the plus side, Dale was able to make it to the game, but a little late. Aaron played Artemis until Dale showed.
I believe that everyone will be at the next game and on time even.
The great:
I had the players on their toes and genuinely creeped out.
All I did was paint a disturbing picture of some odd things in the city, added some freaky creatures, and mixed in some just plain gory fun.
I did have to do some additional DM railroading. I didn’t like that. But apparently I did too good of a job of creeping out the players that they wanted to run away from the prepared adventure. Damage control was required.
Game Synopsis:
We last left the group in the empty city of Krendalar after they had just fought some gargoyles in a cathedral.
Unsure of where to go next, the party set about on the main road to the center of town. But that ended when the wind direction changed for a brief moment and that wind brought the smell of trash and death.
Half the group failed the DC10 fortitude save and were sickened for the next hour.
So they changed their minds about traveling down the main streets and moved to the side streets instead while and looking for some kind of landmark to head to. Towards the northern section of the city they saw what they believed to be a wizard’s tower, so they made their way to it.
It was in most respects your standard wizard’s tower; five stories tall, made of dark stone, a magical aura surrounded the place, with a fence and a short, locked, iron gate.
The halfling scout/rogue Trebor had to climb over the short fence & gate because he had put 0 points into the Open Lock skill. (Justin has complained quite loudly about how poorly he assigned his character’s skill points.)
Once he made it over the fence he set about checking out the door to the tower.
The door set about pounding the daylights out of Trebor.
It was a mimic that had assumed the shape of the door and had been patiently waiting for a meal to show.
And although it pounded Trebor nicely enough, there was enough acid spells flung at it to melt it into a steaming pile of chemicals.
But during the fight, a circle of powdered silver was disturbed and the mild abjuration magic that the party had detected before was gone.
Being curious about what treasure that might be found in a wizard’s tower, the party entered.
They found room after room of nothing valuable, but on the third floor they were attacked by 3 shadows. A sun domain empowered turn from Moore killed two of them and sent the third packing. But not before they had a chance to drain a couple of points of strength from Trebor and Moore.
Aarasilia used her last Lesser Restoration spell of the day to help Moore get some strength back.
But it didn’t matter.
On the fifth level of the tower was a study holding 2 more shadows (one of them from before) and a greater shadow.
By the time the party dropped the first normal shadow, Moore had only 8 points of strength remaining. And since the armor he was wearing was too heavy, he could only stand where he was. Which made it easy for the greater shadow to do his 1d8 strength damage to Moore – and of course I rolled an eight.
One round later and Moore the cleric became Moore the shadow.
Eventually all of the shadows were finished off, but they had lost yet another PC.
There was no nearby city, so raising him from the dead was not an option.
At this point we took a pause to allow Aaron time to make a new PC and to give Justin a chance to rearrange his skill points; because no one should have to play a character they think sucks.
When that was done we returned to the game.
They searched the tower thoroughly, hoping that there would be some nice treasure, and not so subtly hinting to the DM that a Raise Dead scroll could be part of the treasure.
But the DM was not so benevolent. There was some nice treasure, but they did not find any level 5 clerical scrolls in a wizard’s tower. However he did allow Aaron to roll up a new PC and let Justin rearrange his poorly placed skill points.
As they were searching the tower Trebor saw two things of interest while scouting from the balcony on the fourth floor.
The first was an arrow landed near him with a note on it:
“Be ready to run when I give the signal – Recin” (...or something to that extent.)
The second was a figure on horseback heading towards the northern city entrance.
Trebor relayed both bits of information to the rest of the party and they set about meeting this new person.
Of course it was Aaron’s new PC, the lady knight Sorra, but the DM had a little fun with the encounter by throwing in some high-pitched monstrous screams coming from the west and south.
And although the new knight joined in just fine, the note from Recin, the total lack of corpses, and screams had everyone on edge.
They took Moore’s body to the cathedral, and returned to the tower for a night of rest. But it wasn’t a very peaceful night of sleep. They heard the screaming sporadically throughout the night and could hear the sound of swords being drawn on occasion. This didn’t help the party’s spirits one bit.
They decided they were going to leave the city as they had determined that this city was still standing, but not occupied by anything friendly. So the DM did a quick augment to Sorra’s background story stating that she came to this particular city because of a very real dream she was having about some woman on death’s door begging for help. So now the party is searching for the woman.
Next the party headed south on the city’s main north-south street, and they received another good blast of garbage & death wind.
But this time they followed the smell to its source; a 10’ tall wall of trash, broken furniture, and bones all packed together to form a very large ring around the center of the city. They discussed setting the ring on fire but decided against it when they figured that the fire would be a giant beacon.
They decided to search the western side and abandon the giant ring of trash for now and headed west, but not along the main east-west road. They instead moved south and west.
The first thing they found was disturbing; a long glistening tube of something living. Inside the tube they could see a fluid moving slowly through it and it pulsed with a kind of rhythm akin to a heartbeat. It traveled from the inside of the western city wall and out of sight to the north. At no point did it touch the ground. It was either draped across something or was held up by a pole of some sort.
The party had no idea what to make of the whole picture, so they decided to scout a little more. Ari cast Fly and Invisibility on herself and scouted from above. She saw that the tubes spread very far to the north and branched off at irregular intervals. And at one point she caught a glimpse of some large black creature running fast on four legs.
When Fly wore off, the party took a defensive position within eyesight of the tube and Ari yanked one of the tube’s pole supports out from under it, letting it hit the ground.
At first it was nothing, but then they heard more of monstrous screaming, from multiple locations that began converging on the area where Ari and the tube was.
They thought the creatures would converge on the tube, but instead they converged near Ari.
The moment Ari heard an unworldly growl come from around the side of a house; she darted to join the rest of the group. She wasn’t taking any chances, whether she was invisible or not. But she did get a glimpse of the critters.
From the rest of the group’s vantage point (from the second floor of an abandoned house), they did not see the creatures as Ari.
But eventually they did see one of them fix the broken pole. And although it was far away (at least 600’), they could make out a man-sized creature with a shiny black carapace, a pointed and less than friendly mouth, and it walked on all fours or legs as it chose.
Next week I believe everyone is around.
And hopefully we’ll close out this adventure and head on to the next one.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 6:55 PM
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