Sean's Campaign - Session #10

Sorry for the lateness. I’ve been pretty busy recently.

In fact, a lot of us are busy in some manner. That’s why we didn’t play this last Friday and we won’t be playing this coming Friday. But given that it’s the holiday season, I doubt any of you are surprised.

This was an excellent game session, in my opinion. Well half of it was. The first half involved paperwork gaming - meaning that the group sold their unwanted loot and bought new loot.

I cut that out of the podcast because who wants to download 2 hours of gamers doing math?

There was a smidgeon that I cut out that was directly game involved and that was the party helping the escaped elves of Maratheelia get a new start in Endrin. This came in the form of the party giving them some masterwork tools they had found in their travels but had never put to use and similar sorts of aid. Ysilia, being an elf that actually misses her homeland and is sad to hear of it current state, helped the elves as much as she could by donating over half of her share of the party’s loot (around 2000gp) to them.

Beyond that, those two hours of game of session went something like:
Aaron: “Ok, we have 4 rubies. How much can we sell those for?”
Sean: “Let’s see the store have a few of those, so probably 75% of their 1000gp value.”
Aaron: “Wait, I have it written down that they’re worth 5000gp.”
Sean: “Nope, only 1000gp.”
Aaron: “Ok, does anybody want to keep any rubies in the group? They’re used in creating fire items mostly.”
Joy: “Yeah, I’m going to create a Wand of Scorching Ray.”
Aaron: “Do you want just one?”
Joy: “Yeah.”
Aaron: “Alright, just mark 1000gp off the amount I give everyone later.”

And so on.
Two hours of that sound like fun?
No, I didn’t think so.

Allen missed this session, and I bet he’s glad he missed it now.

But after the paperwork, the 3 hours of game we had afterwards went really well.

I think I was on my game for this session. Perhaps I’ve finally gotten back the good old DM’ing style I used to have prior to the WLD. I don’t know, but I’m hoping things stay this way. It’s the way things used to be in my Valley campaign.

Once we were done with the paperwork we played a little practical joke on Brian.

His wife called him on his cell, so he went upstairs to talk with her and not interrupt the not-yet-started game. Then one of us, I think it was Justin (getting back for a wet Willy), suggested that we should make him think that Zelast was about to die in a combat.

At first it was just joking, but then we started planning and laying out the battle grid with Zelast surrounded by 4 large figures and everyone else just rushing up to help him.

Then Brian came back and we acted like it was just another combat.

When it got to Brian’s turn, I informed him that he was at -9 hit points and needed to make his stabilization roll or die. A roll he failed.

But we kept going for another minute or so, while Brian thought “Well coming here was a waste. I might as well go home.”

Then we let him in on the joke. He took it pretty good and we all had a laugh.

Now on our last session the group had to decide where they wanted to head to next. I turned it into a poll on our Yahoogroup and here’s how it ended:
Option 1: “Head north to aid the elves.” 4 of 7 voted for this one.
Option 2: “Head west to Siglund to talk to Ari’s father and stop the bounty hunters.” 2 of 7 voted for this one.
Option 3: “Head east, over the bridge, to the land that the party had that nasty fight with 4 huge ankhegs.” 0 of 7 voted this one.
Option 4: “I like pie”. I voted for that one.

Though had Brian known the whole story about the elves, he probably would not have voted for option 1, and gone with 2. Then Aaron probably would have done the same. But it was too late for me change the planned module, so they were stuck with option 1.

So the party began traveling north to the lands of Maratheelia.

After only one random combat with a group of oversized worgs, the party was at a point where they had to choose how to get over the river that separated the lands of Endrin from the lands of Ponalim. They could cross the river at its shallowest point through Krendalar, find a boat or ferry that could take them across, or think up something else that the DM hadn’t planned for.

They chose to head through Krendalar, so they stayed on what was left of the road.

(It’s been a year so the roads aren’t exactly kept up very well, nor are they traveled often.)

When they were a mere mile away from Krendalar they were confronted by a group of 5 minotaurs. Oddly enough the minotaurs had no interest in combat with the party. They instead wanted to offer the party a chance to join them on a raid against a village of “happy, fat people”.

The party agreed, but most likely had no intention of keeping their word.

After a night of mistrusting rest, the two groups awoke to a beautiful morning and headed to the village they were to raid.

The minotaurs led them to the white and pristine walls of Krendalar.

This totally messed with everyone’s heads because they had been in the tornado ruined city of Krendalar a little over two months prior. They were fairly sure that two months isn’t enough time to rebuild a city.

This caused the party to baulk at the thought of a raid, where before they had thought about aiding the minotaurs if the place they were raiding was an evil place, and turning on the minotaurs if they were raiding a good city. This didn’t quite fit their plans.

But all it did was anger the minotaurs, who then called off their partnership and raided the city on their own.

And that was the last the party ever saw of them.

No alarms were raised. No arrows or bolts came raining down. The bull men just ran through the wide open gates of the eastern city wall and disappeared out of sight.

The curiosity got the best of the party, so they cautiously entered the city.

They saw a busy and very normal city, full of people going to and fro.

A very enthusiastic young man greeted the party and offered to help the party find whatever it was they needed in the city.

He directed them to a variety of taverns and inns, temples and churches, and even a magic shop.

That last one got their attention, but they had some tests they wanted to perform. They interacted with things, thinking that it could be an illusion. They even went through the fun of turning Sorra’s horse invisible. All that got them was a freaked out horse. Ari tried a Detect Magic spell, but nothing happened (the spell didn’t go off).

So now instead of an illusion, they thought maybe that this might be a city displaced in time, but first there was magic to be bought.

There they conversed with the magic shop owner, Maleel (I think). She was overjoyed that she had new customers, because she had not seen anyone new in a long time. One by one the party asked if she had a particular item or two. She didn’t, but was confident that she could make it within a few days or so and offered it to the party cheap, 3000gp or less in most cases, even for a carpet of flying. But the party did not trust Maleel, and left her store empty handed.

Next they visited a tavern and had a nice meal.

Then they were off to the library to do some research about prophecies and the past of this city. But when they opened the books, all they found was blank pages but those who lived in the city could see the writing just fine.

Now they wanted to see the mayor, whom they thought lived in the oddly shaped towers in the center of the city (where the ring of trash used to be). There was only one gate to enter the courtyard of the towers, and it was protected by a couple of very large men who had no intention of letting the party in, under any circumstances.

When it about to come to blows, the mayor showed up to ask if the party would like to join him in his house for a chat and they could solve their problems.

The party agreed and they had a wonderful afternoon chat and tea with the mayor. When the party asked who lived in the towers he responded politely that it was not their business. Things went really well until the party, back to thinking that this place was a complex illusion, asked the mayor to come outside the city with them.

The mayor immediately said that he was sorry and he had business to attend to, and quickly went to his study. The mayor’s wife apologized, but repeated that he was very busy and could not waste any further time with the party.

Now the party obviously struck a nerve and decided to just take an object, rather than a person out of the city.

But first they heard a loud commotion by the stables where the party had left their horses.

Oh yeah, the party has horses again. All but Sorra’s are from the spell Regal Procession, which is a basically Mass Mount spell.

Sorra’s horse had escaped from the stable and had gone crazy, kicking and screaming at anything that got near her. Sorra calmed her horse down, but it was still very disturbed, obviously wanting to leave town as soon as smurfing possible.

So the party spent 1gp on a single horseshoe and left town.

Although nothing happened to the horseshoe immediately when they left the town, it did disappear when they were over 2000 feet away from the city.

A successfully cast Detect Magic then showed that a large area, centered on Krendalar, had a very strong illusion aura.

Next the party rested to begin the next morning fresh.

But they weren’t too fresh as the meal that they had at the bar in Krendalar was a bit rancid (mmmm, otyugh jerky), so everyone had to make a save. Those that failed were healed by Ysilia, so it didn’t do much more than irritate the party.

They were willing to leave the city in peace, thinking it was a relatively harmless illusion. But being diseased by a meal proved to the party that something more sinister might be at work here.

Their next stop would once again be Krendalar.

Well in a couple of weeks anyway.