Sean's Campaign - Session #16

The DM had lots of free time for this session. He played around while everyone else did some good old paperwork gaming. (The podcast I believe is under 2 hours long once I cut out the paperwork gaming.)

As for who was around for the session, Brian and Justin both had to cancel at the last minute. Allen played Trebor and Aaron played Zelast.

The party hasn’t had a chance to do any shopping or crafting for several sessions, so they’ve built up quite a store of loot. After splitting up items and selling what was unwanted, they had approximately 18,000gp each for all 7 PC’s.

If you’re thinking that’s a lot of money, you’re right. But if you combine the amount that each PC has, they are probably right around, or below, the suggested amount of gold for PC’s of their level.

Third edition’s easy item creation is an excellent improvement to the game, but it comes with the idea that since item creation is so easy, there should be stores for it. Screw that. Buying potions and scrolls is one thing, but having access to shop at the “DMG store” when you have some spare gold is something else entirely, and totally removes any concept of rarity from magic items. Each city may have an available item or two but not much more. In Endrin they can buy Vests of Resistance +1 and Amulets of Mighty Fists +1. In Maratheelia they can buy only bows with a +1 enchantment. If they talk to the right people they can find someone that will brew a potion or two, sell some scrolls, or buy a wand here or there.

This requires the party to craft their items, but wait, there’s more. Crafting most items requires specific gems as a component (but no special components from creatures’ bodies and the like). This reduces the crafting price accordingly (often making the creation price much cheaper), but prevents open access to the DMG and sometimes forces the party to make some tough decisions on what to use the gems on.

As an example, the party had about 10 rubies worth 1000gp each. After crafting some wands, bracers of armor, and other things they had only a couple left. If they only had one such gem they would have only been able to make a Wand of Magic Missiles.

If an item requires diamonds, you can forget the party making the item. They need them for an emergency Raise Dead in the field. Raising a dead PC in town is easy, and only 5000gp; but doing the same thing in the middle of the wilderness, with cities several weeks’ travel away, is not easy. Ysilia can cast Raise Dead now, but she still needs the diamonds. For reference, the party should expect to see about one 5000gp diamond per 200 gems they find overall.

During their three month stay, most of the party found something to craft or spend their money on. And they all probably owe Ari a debt who has Craft Wondrous Items and Craft Wand.

Sorra and Zelast each had crafted for them a Belt of Giant Strength +6. They had to borrow money for that.

Ari bought some scrolls from the elves, made a Wand of Magic Missiles, and made a desperately needed Amulet of Health +4. The amulet increased her hit points by 50%.

Trebor bought a +1 bow from the elves with a strength bonus, and then had Ari craft a Belt of Strength +4. He loaned 2000gp to Sorra for her belt.

Artemis got himself an Amulet of Health +4 because Dale’s deathly afraid that 70hp is not enough for a warmage. I can’t say I disagree –insert evil laugh here–. I believe he had Ari craft some Boots of Flying for him as well. Nothing says “target” to an opponent quicker than someone up in the air.

Lindo was actually quite thrifty. He is saving up for a Monk’s Belt, so he only got some Dust of Disappearance.

Finally Ysilia had Ari craft some Bracers of Armor +5 and then gave her remaining gold to Zelast for his needs.

Crafting alone cost them a large chunk of XP, around 6000 total.

All of this crafting and such was going on during the party’s three month stay with the elves.

The elves treated them like royalty and the party was considered to be “elf friends”, which Aaron described none-too-poetically as “won’t kill you on sight”.

Sorra, Zelast, Lindo, and Trebor aided the elves with their clearing of forests of any remaining nearby critters that shouldn’t belong.

Ysilia spent her time meditating at the temple and “reconnecting” with her people after being away for over a year. She was probably the only one of the group who actually tithed some of her money.

Artemis spent his time training what few warmages he could find. He did better than most would have, but not enough for his hopes.

He was also trying to get information from the unnamed elf that put them on the mission to clear the glade and save the Tree of Life. For whatever reason, Dale just had to know this guy’s name. The elf made it clear that he had no intention of doing so. So Artemis asked around, again and again, with no information turned up. Eventually he stopped but only after the trees appeared to be menacing him.

But none-the-less Artemis did end up helping Maratheelia out in several ways; training warmages and reestablishing the school, partially getting a trade agreement with an arms company, and that whole saving the Tree of Life thing. I need to get him a personal reward for that.

Ari spent huge chunks of her time crafting items, scribing scrolls into her book, and attuning herself to Maratheelia’s and Endrin’s fountains.

In case you are wondering about that, I’ve changed Teleport (all versions) into more of a Town Portal spell from Might and Magic. In each town of value to wizards there is a fountain, known as a node, that can be teleported to if you have previously been to that fountain and cast Teleport on it. You can bring others with you, and they can do the same. The Apocalypse disjoined this network of nodes, forcing everyone to have to start over with connecting themselves to the network nodes.

This prevents anyone from continent hopping to places they’ve never been before. So Teleport is now a spell for emergency evacuation and as a means to travel to and from cities they’ve been too without having to spend months traveling there. To offset the loss of the spell’s power a bit, I’ve relaxed the rules on how many people can be teleported with a single spell to 1 person per level instead of its current 1 per 3 levels.

Eventually the Protector of Maratheelia Tree of Life summoned the party once again to speak with Maratheelia.

She spoke to them that the Prophecy of the Six Flames more ancient than she, and she has lived for thousands of years. And the oldest and greatest of Trees of Life is not responding to any questions sent to it. (Wouldn’t you like to know how ancient trees talk to one another? Yeah, good luck with that.)

She informed them not to worry about questing to help the tree; it is too far away for that. But she did discover a place under the glaciers to the north. She did not know what the place was, only that it was not natural and too deep to have been made any time soon.

The protector (the unnamed druid) gave them a map with directions on how to get to the lands far to the north. Traveling there would be difficult because a mountain range blocked an easy path, but there was a pass of sorts that traveled through and between some mountains if the idea of going over the mountains did not suit their skills. He then told them that Maratheelia would be resting soon, to recuperate from her recent efforts.

So the party gathered up and began traveling north. Amazingly, they had no real encounters during the three weeks of travel along the road. They eventually found the trail that led to the pass, and within a couple of days they were passing through an area between two mountains.

At a spot in the pass, the party had to travel through a natural cave opening, and the smell of it indicated that it was inhabited.

This fight sucked for the DM. It was my intention to have this place as an encounter where a bunch of low powered creatures worked together to give the party a good challenge. But alas, good spot rolls good search rolls, and a cautious party revealed enough information to make the traps less effective.

Falling rocks above the entrance were to split up the party (the party spotted it). A spiked pit trap was supposed to take front line fighter out of the fight for a while (that worked). And some spears were supposed to funnel the party in a direction to face a gauntlet of monsters (that ended up not mattering). There were a lot of creatures too; half a dozen bladelings, a dozen darkmantles appearing as stalactites, a dozen piercers doing the same thing, a couple of grells meant to paralyze, and some earth mephits hiding in the pit waiting to pound on someone.

Overall it worked well but it wasn’t enough to really worry the group. Had I thrown some slightly stronger creatures into the mix with some stronger traps, I have really challenged the party. That will happen next time –insert another evil laugh here-.

The party searched for treasure and continued through the pass, eventually getting back above ground near the end of the day.

That is where we stopped for our day.

Chapter 1

This is a brief review of the first fifteen sessions of this campaign.

It started with a usual night at the Roaring Bull Inn with the usual crowd of people from all walks of life enjoying themselves with the entertainment and relaxation the place offered.

Among the crowd were a few people of note:
Zelast & Ysilia – Elves fleeing persecution by the corrupted nobility of their homeland.
Ian – A man so ugly that his heritage could be mistaken for orc. He escaped capture from a guaranteed death sentence for a crime he did not commit and came to Endrin to start over.
Artemis – A well-liked half-elven warmage on an impossible mission to aid his homeland by arranging a trade agreement with a company that has no interest helping non-humans.
Arianna – A princess, fleeing the overprotection of her father, but her time of freedom is coming to an end as the magical trinket she used to hide her whereabouts is now hiding from her.
Caspar – A knight seeking to prove his virtue so he can return home to Lataan.

That night the entire world erupted into violence. Normal objects animated and attacked their users. Mythical creatures appeared and wreaked havoc. The dead rose to feed and spawn more of their own.

A few individuals in the crowd, who would eventually call themselves Caspar’s Brightblades, joined together to face these challenges.

During the chaos a terrified woman in the crowd seemed to know everything that was going to happen. While the fear in her heart was killing her, with her dying breath she claimed to have seen everything that happened this night in a dream and exclaimed “Darkness is coming! The six flames must find the lost candle or all shall burn!”

By the next morning all but the strongest or luckiest of cities were now a memory, leaving only rubble to note they even existed. The great cities that still stood were given a wake up call that the world had changed.

Over the next several weeks the remaining people of the land fled to these still-standing cities, looking for nothing more than safety.

The group that would become known as Caspar’s Brightblades took this as an opportunity to both save lives, make money, go on great adventures, and possibly solve the Prophecy of the Six Flames (which they found out was spoken by more than one person). First they escorted as many refugees as possible to still-standing city of Endrin while bringing back the heads of the mythical creatures for study. Then they searched for the daughter and ex-wife of their mutual friend Bull McAllister.

On that particular trek they found that even the less “civilized” creatures of the land faced the same problems, causing gold to be worth a little less and usable equipment to be worth more.

Eventually, after plenty of fights with creatures they had never heard of before, they found Bull’s family, and returned them to him.

By this time the city of Endrin had adapted to its new situation, was dealing with the large changes in the world, and had done much to regain and control of a fraction of their original land, though their control of the sea was not even close to returning and the prices of some goods were at an all time high.

The party found this to be true with pearls. Pearls, a crucial component required for the creation of healing wands, had stopped being plentiful when the Bay of Endrin’s water became a deathtrap. So the party went on a trek along the coast to search for treasure and find pearls.

A halfling joined the Brightblades at this time.
Trebor – A simple halfling looking to earn some good coin and enjoy life.

The Brightblades first encounter was with a group of bounty hunters who intended upon taking Ari back to her father, willing or otherwise. After the bounty hunters were taken care (and pearls found on their bodies), Ari’s identity as a princess was exposed. And this attack would not be the last of its kind.

The Brightblades chose to look for more pearls, this time crossing a bridge that they had heard more than one story about how dangerous the lands beyond it were.

This danger proved itself to be true after a few days when the party was decimated by some oversized insectoids known as ankhegs. The party lost this combat, and it cost them two comrades – Ian and Caspar.

After fleeing back to Endrin, the Brightblades have not come near that bridge since.

Shortly thereafter Caspar’s Brightblades officially took on that name and became recognized by, and were now working for, the king of Endrin.

This arrangement paired them up with two new members of their group:
Lindo – A monk from Lataan, who had been sent to find Caspar by Caspar’s mother and friends.
Moore – A cleric who had been spending much of his time healing and helping refugees coming to the city and was now looking to do something more.

The task the party had been given would be to reconnect with the overland trading city Krendalar. It was the nearest of the large cities and did much to aid in the strained relations between the kingdoms of Endrin and Ponalim. The city was strong enough to defend against an attack, but had remained silent in the three months since the Apocalypse happened.

After some troubled travels, the Brightblades made it to Krendalar. The city was in utter ruins and showed signs of monstrous life.

During a particularly nasty combat with a group of shadows, Moore was drained of life. The Brightblades were too far from any city to take him to be raised, so they buried him at a temple.

Shortly thereafter the party met up with a lady knight that entered the town for her own reasons.
Sorra – A Knight from Ponalim who left that kingdom as it become needlessly warlike since the Apocalypse. Now she was guided by her dream of a woman begging for help. Those dreams led her to Ponalim.

They eventually found a disturbing network of living, fleshy, and pulsing tubes that spread throughout the western side of the city. After investigating the party found that the tubes were being attended to by alien-looking, man-sized creatures that they found out later were kythons.

But the kythons were as smart and clever as they were evil; they brought the fight to the Brightblades by ambushing them at their temporary house of rest. The party won the day, barely, and found the central lair of the kythons.

If you’ve seen the movie Aliens, you’ve seen the kythons lair. The evil creatures had been using captured humans and elves to create a feeding machine that nourished gestating kythons (the network of tubes); with nearly 40 elves being held in a poisoned stasis (strength 0) to be used later as food for the machine.

The Brightblades put saved those they could, ended the misery for those that they could not, and destroyed every kython in the machine.

While the elves were recovering, Trebor, Lindo, Sorra, Artemis, and Ysilia were sent out to some nearby gem mines to find some young elven noble who had escaped the kythons’ capture. They did find the boy, strangled to death in chains of a devil. But they returned the boy’s body to his care taker, who would have the boy returned back to life later.

What the Brightblades did not know is that this child was the last of his family, and would one day be the heir to the throne of the elven kingdom of Maratheelia.

With forty elves in tow, Caspar’s Brightblades returned to Maratheelia, and on the journey they were told why the elves fled from Maratheelia; the royal family of Maratheelia was destroyed and the corrupted and power hungry noble houses banded together to dominate the remaining kingdom.

Over one hundred elves fled their forest in search of a new home. Ponalim only offered them slavery, forcing them continue their journey on to Krendalar or Endrin.

When the party was only a short distance away, they were once again attacked by a force of bounty hunters looking to get a large reward for Ari’s return to her father. The party easily won, but the Brightblades realized that these attacks would continue unless something was done to get Ari’s father to stop them.

With the elves now in a new home, the party had a decision to make; do they help Maratheelia and allow Zelast, Artemis, and Ysilia get some revenge, or do they return to the kingdom of Siglund to reason with Ari’s father? They chose the former.

Nearly a year had passed since the coming of the Apocalypse, and now Caspar’s Brightblades were on the road north to save lives and be heroes.

When the party came to Krendalar they found it to no longer be in ruins, but to be in perfect shape, as if nothing had ever happened to it. After much interaction they found out that the entire city was an amazing illusion and was really a necropolis of sorts.

They found the source of the illusion to be a very talented but naïve young man named Mornal, who had been led astray by someone he thought to be his friend, Ventraine. Ventraine used Mornal’s talents to aid in the destruction of Krendalar during the night of the Apocalypse, and then led him down the path of lichdom.

The party exposed the Ventraine’s lies to Mornal which led to a fight between the two groups, with Caspar’s Brightblades being the victors and the bodies of both liches being destroyed.

As per Mornal’s wishes, the party searched for the phylacteries of the two liches, but could not find the cave that held the phylacteries in time. Neither phylactery was found, meaning either lich could be anywhere. Given Mornal’s tenuous grasp of his own sanity by the time his body was destroyed means that two liches could be out there plotting against them.

With that side adventure done with, the party continued on to their quest to save Maratheelia.

On the road they met with a patrol from Ponalim. It was an uneventful affair, but they did determine that Ponalim had allied itself with some rather bestial orcs. This was a concern, but they more pressing issues to deal with and moved on.

After several more weeks of traveling along the road, the Brightblades encountered a group of unofficial guards of Maratheelia who eventually led the group to their leader in exile, an unnamed druid who simply claimed to be a caretaker.

This caretaker told the Brightblades that if they truly wanted to help the elves of Maratheelia, they would enter a particular glade and find out what happened to Maratheelia’s Tree of Life. This tree had a kind of symbiotic link with the elves of the land, and now the hearts of the elves had become apathetic at best and almost cruel at worst and access to the tree had been cut off.

The party entered the glade, found the tree to be infested with evil, and defeated a fiend that had been corrupting it. But the defeat of the fiend did not remove the corruption of the tree; it only removed the source of continuing corruption of the elves.

The current leaders of Maratheelia found the party and put them on trial, only to have the Brightblades determine the cure for the Tree of Life leading to the defeat of the heart of darkness in Maratheelia.

In time the remaining elves returned to their usual selves and the unredeemable elves fled the city. The rightful heir to the kingdom returned and the party were treated as heroes.

For the next three months the party worked with both the elves of Maratheelia to help them regain the strength they had lost during their corrupted times.

It has been eighteen months since the Apocalypse shattered the lives of everyone on the planet, and once again it is time for Caspar’s Brightblades to begin a new journey…

Sean's Campaign - Session #15

Ok, I’ve taken a break from playing my games to get this out ;)

This session was a good one that concluded what I consider to be the first chapter of the campaign.

Allen couldn’t make it because he was in Detroit. I believe it was for some big annual auto-show.
Joy couldn’t make it because she was in Chicago. I believe it was for some kind large drunken catholic thing.
Aaron was late thanks to work and family. I can’t think of anything smartass that would apply here.
Justin was on time. I believe it was because he was broke.

So Ari was played by Dale, Lindo was played by Justin, and Sorra was temporarily played by Brian.

We last stopped with the party being put under arrest by an elf noble that Artemis, Zelast, and Ysilia knew as Jothillian Vornoth.

Artemis knew Jothillian as the one that had him exiled to the human lands, being put to an impossible task simply by being too liked by everyone not loyal to Jothillian’s family.

Zelast and Ysilia knew him as the spoiled son of a noble that saw every non-noble elf as beneath him and felt he could take anything he wanted from them, including Ysilia. Zelast put a stop to Jothillian’s attempted assault on Ysilia, but at the cost of them both having to flee Maratheelia – presumably forever.

And now Jothillian was standing before them all with a retinue of well-armed guards, ready to escort the party to jail for a speedy trial and a nice morning execution.

Of course the party had to weasel some information out of him first. He informed him that their crime was trespassing on the Glade of Kings, a burial ground recently set aside for the nobility only. He denied knowing anything of a talking tree in the glade (note: the tree called out for Jothillian by name last session), and certainly knew nothing of any fiend in there either. Also, his father, Anthillian Vornoth, was now the king of Maratheelia.

Eventually Jothillian grew tired of the party’s delaying tactics, and had his guards ready their bows, so the party surrendered without bloodshed.

They were taken to a very nice jail cell of marble, stone, and wood. During their several hour stay, they struck up a conversation with their guard Dellious.

He was a nice, young guard who thought well of Anthillian and his son. He saw Anthillian as a good and wise man who worked hard to maintain the existence of Maratheelia. The party tried to get through to Dellious, by bringing up things like what happened to the great military of Maratheelia, why had the king done nothing about Ponalim and it’s alliance with the orcs, and so on. But when Trebor brought up the subject of a giant talking tree in the Glade of Kings, Dellious said that it was time for his break and he never returned to chat with the party.

The party thoroughly searched their cell, and found nothing. Though they did hear the sound of children’s laughter outside.

Finally the party was called before King Anthillian, an ancient elf of at least 700 years.

To make a long story short – the king didn’t like the party and only barely listened to Zelast because non-elves can’t be trusted and half-elves only speak in half-truths (though I did keep forgetting to not listen to Sorra).

Anthillian informed Zelast that it was his son, Jothillian, who came up with the idea of setting aside an area for the Glade of Kings and everyone would be allowed to enter the glade for just one day a year – but that would be happening anytime soon.

Zelast told him of the existence of the Tree of Life, but Anthillian denied even knowing of it. He did give Jothillian (and his brothers) permission to enter the glade to search for this special tree, as a sign that he was a just king.

Later, Jothillian returned with news that there was indeed a large tree in the glade that fit the party’s descriptions, but it was just as immobile and quiet as any other tree in the forest.

So Anthillian granted this one last chance to prove their innocence, by taking the court to the Glade of Kings where they would try to get the tree to talk.

Once the court was relocated, the trial continued.

The tree was just as still as any other tree.

Sorra went right up to the tree to taunt it and dared the tree to attack. She was unarmed and unarmored after all. The tree did nothing but sway with the wind.

Artemis walked up and threatened to burn it with a spell, but the tree did nothing.

(These were all the results of failed taunt checks and such.)

Zelast wanted to hack at the tree a couple of times with his sword, but Anthillian denied that request as needless damage done to such a long-lived tree simply to prove his innocence.

Anthillian’s patience was almost gone, so he gave the party one last try before he would be forced to find the party guilty.

So the group did a quick run down of options, including looking through their loot from the previous week. The only item that stood out was the silver horn that was once a tarnished silver horn when worn around the neck of the glabrezu.

Artemis took the horn from the evidence pile, got right next to the tree, took a deep breath, and blew the horn.

Then all hell broke loose.

The tree erupted with a “How dare you?!” and brought its two large branches down on top of Artemis, bringing him to half his hit points. But as the tree did that, it and the glade changed - the leaves brightened and beams of sunlight pushed their way through, bringing light to the area.

The guards moved to protect their king.

Jothillian and his brothers began moving around the party, getting to good positions for attacks.

The party was unsure of what to do to start with. Their magical equipment and all weapons were in a pile that the royal guards and Jothillian’s brothers were blocking. They couldn’t be the first ones to attack because they had been told that elves do not attack elves in Maratheelia. So they waited for someone else to attack them first.

The Tree of Life told the guards to take the current king away from the glade for his own protection, pretty much because it appeared that the party and Jothillian and his brothers were about to collide.

The first few rounds were almost entirely tactical movement by all, none willing to strike first.

The king and all of the royal guards fled the scene as fast as possible.

Lindo grabbed the blanket holding the party’s equipment and placed it near the party. Everyone who needed them grabbed their weapons from the pile.

Ysilia always stayed away from Jothillian, but never far from someone in the party. During the same time as that she cast Bless, Prayer, and healed Artemis.

Ari cast Greater Invisibility on herself.

Before the first swing was taken the party had buffed up and formed up into a tight circle. While usually I would think this a bad tactic in a place with several potential casters with area spells, it actually worked very much to the party’s advantage.

Zelast and Jothillian were trading insults while both were ready to strike one another.

Jothillian’s brothers had surrounded the party as well, looking to single out someone in the party to focus on first and take down.

Seeing that this was going nowhere, as no one was willing to strike first, Zelast walked away.

This infuriated Jothillian, so he took a free swing on Zelast, and combat officially began.

The brothers knew how dangerous Artemis was so they went after him first, but their attack was halted after Sorra issued her fighting challenge that forced them all to make a DC13 Will save or focus their attacks on her. All but Jothillian failed that save, which kind of scared Aaron a bit because it rarely works at all much less against three combatants at once. Luckily for Sorra, my rolls were pathetic at the start of combat.

After that, Artemis did his usual ranged pot-shots at anyone he could get a clear shot at with an orb spell or cast Magic Missile if he couldn’t.

Jothillian and Zelast traded attacks, but Jothillian had the upper hand with better equipment and a higher level. Then when he hit Zelast with a Vampiric Touch through his sword (he’s a duskblade too), it made things a little tougher.

But Zelast had numbers and teamwork on his side. His attacks on Jothillian were misses or minor scratches at this point, but since Jothillian’s brothers were concentrating and Sorra it gave Lindo a chance to help.

Lindo moved into flanking and tripped Jothillian, and then Ari followed that up with a Ray of Enfeeblement that reduced him to a mere strength of 4.

Jothillian used his actions then to leave the scene by turning invisible, cast Swift Fly (a level 2 quickened spell that allows you to fly for only 1 round), and flying straight up.

The party thought that he might have teleported away, but wanted to make sure so he cast See Invisible and looked around. But since he didn’t bother looking up and rolled poorly on his spot check, Zelast did not see Jothillian almost directly above him.

A mere strength of 4 ruined Jothillian. He was wearing a breastplate, holding a shield, and wielding a longsword. He had to continuously cast Swift Fly to be able to move at all. As he did that he prepared his and his brothers’ escapes.

The Vornoth brothers were in a worse condition than Jothillian. They could not bring down any of the party, and Sorra forced them to attack her away from the party. With only Sorra in danger, Artemis cast Evard’s Black Tentacles. Between that spell, the nuking spells, and the front-line fighters getting their swings in on those at the edge of the tentacle spell two of them were in bad shape and one was dead.

Jothillian cast a Regroup spell that brought his two living brothers near him, while he tried to escape.

The Tree of Life would not allow that.

“Jothillian Vornoth, you have been found guilty of crimes against the elves of Maratheelia; including cavorting with fiends.”

With that the shape of the glade changed, preventing escape and now giving the brothers nothing to lose. Their dead brother was slowly pulled underground by roots from below.

So the fight began anew. Jothillian charged the now flying Zelast (thanks to Ari). His two brother charged Trebor and Lindo and both targets were successfully frozen in place with Ghoul Touch spells.

(Both Trebor and Lindo were played by Justin, who whined because now he had nothing to do. I say “Go cry it to your mommy.” Jothillian had been royally screwed over by a simple level 1 spell.)

The remaining brothers were dead soon after as Sorra snared them both again with a fighting challenge allowing the party to take shots at them. Sorra led them near the Tree of Life, hoping that she would pound the brothers to goo. The tree did not comply, but it did not matter. Soon they were dead by attacks from the party and being pulled under by roots as well.

Zelast and Jothillian were trading hit points back and forth with a string of Vampiric Touch spells cast through their swords. Jothillian was close to finishing off Zelast, but Ysilia barely hit him with her super healing ray (Cure Serious Wound augmented with the Ranged Touch Spell feat, then further augmented with a Sudden Maximize and Sudden Empower – for 57 points of healing).

That signaled the end of Jothillian’s days.

“I will not die to the likes of you!” he growled.

But he did. I do not remember if he was finally brought down with a Magic Missile spell from Zelast, a Magic Missile from a wand by Ari, or through a sword strike by Zelast, but he was definitely killed by one of them.

He then fell to the ground to be pulled into the soil as well.

The tree introduced herself as Maratheelia and she owed them a debt of many lifetimes and told them that she would gladly repay them in any way she could.

First they asked for the Vornoth equipment, and she told them that they could have it back once the bodies became soil (a few weeks time).

Then they asked if she knew anything about the prophecy of the six flames. She recalled no such thing, but would meditate upon it when she had the time.

She then informed the group that the king and his entourage was returning, and opened up the glade for them while many of the bushes began sprouting flowers and similar things of beauty.

Anthillian strode in as best he could and looked around. Seeing no sign of his sons he asked, “Where is Jothillian.”

The party and Maratheelia informed him of what happened.

Shaking in “old man anger” he threatened to destroy the tree and so on. At which point Artemis declared him to be under arrest.

Anthillian fled through teleportation. By the next dawn all of the inhabitants of house Vornoth, and all of its treasures, had disappeared.

Over the next few months, the spirit of the elves returned and the party remained with them for three months time.

The true heir to the elven kingdom returned; the young elf boy the party had helped return to the refugee elves months ago. In fact, all of the elves returned from Endrin during that time.

The party was rewarded with thanks of the elves and gifts from them.

Zelast’s family, who had been nearly ruined by Jothillian, was returned to their original status.

Artemis trained any able elf that was interested in the ways of the warmage. His nearly impossible task of forging a relationship with Talinaar’s Arms Trading Company was somewhat successful after all, though the shipments were only through wizardly teleportation between Maratheelia and Endrin.

I suspect the beginning of next week’s game with be a big paperwork week.

Thus ends the first chapter of the campaign.

Sean's Campaign - Session #14

Now if you’re wondering why I’m lagging a bit with updating the sessions, it’s because I’ve been busy with personal (non-gaming) life, busy with a new season of TV, and busy with electronic gaming.

I’ve been playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and I love it. It’s much better than the first one.

And recently my wife and I got a Nintendo Wii, and it too has been stealing much of my free time away from me.

We had a chance to play my brother-in-law’s over the holiday and we were both immediately hooked on it.

The last game system I owned and played a lot was the Super Nintendo back in the early 90’s. After that the other consoles that came out just weren’t interesting to me because I had some PC gaming to do and the console games just didn’t strike me as all that much fun.

I figured my age that made the games less fun because I saw the controllers with the multiple knobs and a dozen buttons as something over complicated I had no intention of bothering with. The Street Fighter and first person shooter games held no interest for me and in order to play them well you had to master that “thing” they called a controller.

So until this past holiday season, I never thought I’d want another console system.

Once the wife and I had the bug for a Wii, the epic hunt was on. It took us 10 days, a network of people looking for one for us, a lot of driving around, and who know what else, but we finally got one.

My favorite game is Excite Truck. It’s a simple racing game that doesn’t require much race-driving skill to enjoy. You basically get awarded points for insane driving. Plus you only have to worry about 4 buttons, 2 of which you hardly use – steering is done by turning the controller itself like a steering wheel.

Then there’s bowling on the Wii. My wife kicks my ass at bowling. You use three total buttons while bowling – the act of throwing the ball involves you acting like you’re bowling.

Forget the PS3. It’s more of the same you’ve seen before and it’s overpriced.

Screw the Xbox 360. Like Microsoft needs more money, plus it’s more of the same.

Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be writing about D&D gaming.

This session was a bit better than the previous one, but it was almost all adventuring and combat.

And before I forget, I added a couple of new things for the players.

First, I’ve brought back the d20 re-roll every level, starting at level 8, with a few less restrictions than I had for the WLD. Basically the player can use his re-rolls for nearly anything he’d like, saving throws, skill checks, attack rolls, and so on – so long as they are for a life or death situation for him or a party member. And this time they accumulate.

I’ve done this because I’m running a rough game that always seems to stretch the group thin of resources. I’m allowing them to accumulate because in the WLD it seemed that the front line PCs use them a lot, but the rear of the group uses them rarely but when they use them it likely for a save or die situation.

Second, I’ve brought back the d6 add-on roll. But the players only accumulate them for showing up to the game early.

Basically they get to add 1d6 to add to another die they’ve rolled. It doesn’t fix a natural 1, nor can it make a natural 20, it’s just a little bonus to help.

Now if you’re thinking it’s just a kind of baby-sitting technique, you’re wrong. Think of it more as an ounce of prevention. I’ve seen it a couple of times before. One or two players start showing up a little late, so the game starts a little late. Then another player or realizes that showing up on time is a waste so he plays a computer game an extra 15 minutes or something like that. Then a circular effect begins and soon enough your game is starting an hour later than it used to.

The “1d6 add-on” acts as anchor to prevent the time-creep and it doesn’t penalize anyone for being late.

And in spite of what Allen calls them they are not “Eberron Action Points.” If you need a source for their origin, it goes back to the “force points” from the first Star Wars RPG.

We last stopped with the party being snuck into the glade where the elven Tree of Life was supposed to be.

When Brian asked if Zelast had ever known the glade was here, or even anything about the tree I informed him that Zelast remembered a large tree that was relatively alone this general area, but nothing special beyond that.

So the party entered the over grown and tangled area.

Vines, shrubs, and trees twisted together to create a joined canopy far above casting the whole area into a slight shadow.

They followed the clearest ground until a batch of vines burst up from the ground, starting the first combat of the night.

The party faced a pair of greenvises. Think of Little Shop of Horrors and you have a greenvise.

They could only see one, and barely at that as it had a reach of 15’ so it kept its main body within the cover of the surrounding foliage.

The party quickly finished it off, but the second emitted a cloud of acid fog prior to getting near the party. This fog did 3d8 points of acid damage a round, slowed movement to 5’ a round, limited sight to 5’ around, and covered enough area to not even worry about the party getting out of it.

Ari lasted two rounds before her low hit points dropped her to negatives. Lindo turned into a coward when he was reduced to 5 hit points. The rest of the party was pretty seriously hurt by the acid.

Artemis used his Gust of Wind spell to clear the area, thus ending the acid damage after 2 rounds.

Shortly thereafter the second greenvise pounded Sorra pretty good, dropping her to negatives as well. But Artemis was going to town with his warmage spells, Zelast was whomping on the plant creature in melee, and Ysilia was healing as fast as she could, allowing Ari get back up and join Artemis in the nuking fun.

When that was over, charges of curing wands were drained heavily (nearly a full wand by the end of the night), and the party searched the area for treasure.

(Remember as Gary Gygax has said: “All good adventurers are Neutral Greedy.”)

They found a few minor trinkets and an elf skeleton who they believed to be of the friend of the druid elf that sent them here.

Aaron wanted Sorra to take the hand of the skeleton until I informed him that the magic item he was thinking of required a mummified elf hand, not a skeletal one.

Healed up and ready to go, the party moved on.

They got about 20 feet before a sonic glyph was triggered. Its high pitched blast was both a warning that intruders were coming and required some more healing for the party.

Another 50’ of slow walking and the party made it to a large open area where the canopy raised to over 60’ high with the majority of it resting upon the upper branches of a huge, dark tree.

Creating a defensive line in front of the tree were five unicorns; four of them with black coats and one whose horn was a jagged spike. None of them looked nice or happy.

The tree, calling herself the queen of the elves, demanded to know why the party entered her glade. Sorra responded that they were here to cure the queen of whatever was making her sick. The queen informed that she was happy the way she was, then she ordered the party to leave or die. Guess what they chose?

After the glory I had with the critical hits last week, I was back to sucking on dice fume this session.

With that said, the party cleared out the evil unicorn infestation relatively easily.

But they never did anything to attack the tree.

While still in initiative order, Sorra took a look at the tree, searching for evidence of anything that could be causing the Tree of Life to turn bad. All that got Sorra was several poundings from some very large branches (3d6+12).

Then Ysilia fell into a well-concealed pit on the ground. She survived the fall thanks to D&D physics. She stood up, cast Light, let the party know she was alright and in a dug out cave, and that she just heard something else down here.

So then the party split between investigating the pit, and checking out the Tree of Life.

Eventually Trebor noticed, from 20’ away, that the base of the tree was slightly darker than higher up the tree and it did not look one bit natural.

When Ysilia, Ari, Zelast, and Lindo were down the pit a small horde of 20 dretch demons rushed the party from the darkness.

Dretches have very few hit points, but they have a lot of resistances that the party had some trouble dealing with. And since the roots of the Tree of Life were still around, no fire spells could be used.

Eventually Sorra dropped from climbing a rope down, squishing one dretch, Ari cleaned out a large swath of them will a couple of non-energy area spells (Hail of Stone), and dark voice came from the darkness asking the party to come see him because was bored and hungry.

By the time the combat was over, healing was being spread around heavily, and everyone was down in the cave. The voice taunted while they were healing up.

When the party was ready, they were hoping it wasn’t going to be a combat because they were tapped out of resources. Ysilia had only 3 low level spells left, Ari had only wands and unusable fire spells, Artemis had only one high level spell left (which he was saving in the event of an evac), and so on.

But they had another combat, like it or not.

The party traveled a short distance through the dug cave until it opened into a natural cavern with a small stream running through it. Protruding through the ceiling of the cave, and dangling into the stream was the taproot of the Tree of Life. And standing next to the taproot was a huge demon.

The glabrezu was holding onto the taproot with his normal hand, spreading some kind of foul magic into the tree. Throughout the combat, the glabrezu could not move, but it was free to use its spells and abilities, it could reach 15’ with its pincer hands, and bit anyone dumb enough to get within 5’ of it.

(This was an intended nerfing of a creature that could have easily crushed the party even had it been fully rested. I adjusted the CR of the thing from 14 to 11 for XP purposes later. No free XP from this DM.)

Sorra: moved to the far side of the demon, and put an oil of bless on her weapon while doing so. She got into melee with it and hurt it slightly with her now good-aligned weapon. That ceased when the glabrezu used his Power Word Stun on Sorra.

Zelast: Moved into flanking position with Sorra when possible, but was otherwise a target for the abuses of the glabrezu. Eventually the glabrezu picked Zelast up and prepared to pound him fiercely until it had to deal with the casters.

Ysilia: Cast Shield Other on Zelast and kept herself healed up with wands.

Lindo & Trebor: Had no way to hurt the demon other than with a critical hit with high damage rolls.

Ari and Artemis: Ari used a Wand of Magic Missile (level 9 caster) and Artemis used his remaining first level spells as Magic Missiles. Eventually the damage added up and made the glabrezu pay attention. Over a couple of rounds it used its unlimited uses of Reverse Gravity to send every one but Sorra and Zelast into the ceiling and back down.

It was down to one hit point when another Magic Missile penetrated it magic resistance and finished it off.

Once again healing was thrown around and the party searched for treasure, finding plenty of nice trinkets, including a tarnished silver horn the glabrezu wore around its neck.

The party could not identify the horn, but when they touched it, the black tarnish faded, leaving a silver horn.

They went ahead and rested where they were and discussed what they should do next; deciding upon climbing up out of the pit, casting Invisibility on everyone and sneaking back to see their elven druid friend.

They expected the taint of evil to be gone from the Tree of Life by morning, but it was not. It was still just as angry at the party and still clearly wished to harm them. They determined that it just might take a while for the tree to recover.

When the party left the glade, the tree screamed out a warning to Jothillian.

Artemis then cast Invisibility on everyone and headed to the exit of the glade.

They found a group of 4 elven guards wearing armor of house Vornoth, standing close enough together to prevent slipping through. The guards’ keen elven ears could clearly hear the group tromping through the area (platemail and all), so of course they alerted their boss.

A handsome elf strode into the party’s view. His pale gold hair barely covered an acid burn scar on his right cheek.

Upon seeing him, Ysilia gasped and took a step back.

He spoke to someone the party couldn’t see and moments later the party appeared.

The handsome elf looked at them and spoke, “You are all under arrest for crimes committed against the elves of Maratheelia. Your sentences will be carried out in the morning.”

“What is the sentence?” Artemis asked.

“Death.”

And we stopped there.

Sean's Campaign - Session #13

This session was a good example of a module-to-module session. It had the forgettable task of finishing up one module and getting the group to the next one.

I had actually had another, more interesting module in mind that would have done a much better job of connecting, but I tossed it in favor of moving the larger story along rather than spending a week or two on filler.

The plus of doing it though was getting the group as far along as I had hoped they would get, which rarely happens.

The lesson learned for this week – don’t let Justin sit on the comfortable couch. My apologies to those who listen to his snores on the podcast and my irritated snarl of “That’s enough, wake him up!”

I might actually have to get rid of that couch because over half the people who play while sitting on it consistently fall asleep while sitting on it. It is a very comfy couch.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I will be cutting out less of the podcast if I can. There are many things I usually cut out, but it’s a lot of work going through 4 to 6 hours of recording and cutting it down to 3 to 4 hours. Most of what I cut out is usually things you normally wouldn’t want to hear; like Justin explaining what a Spiderman and a Candy Cane is, or stories you wouldn’t even want to hear in a locker room. But I will be leaving in some more mundane things; like Dale going on about guns and such.

Now onto the game.

We last stopped with the party paying to get themselves out of the mountains and back on to flat land.

With that done, they were now past the river and on the road leading north once again.

After a few days ride (horses summoned by Ari with the Regal Procession spell), they came upon a patrol from Ponalim.

The patrol, numbering 12 individuals, were humorless and were charging a toll to pass along their road; 10gp per person, 20gp per elf or half-elf. They mentioned something about elves having to repay for stealing from their king after he opened his doors to them.

The party chose not to argue (much) and paid the toll.

They reasoned that since Ponalim was over a week’s ride away, they had to be strong to be out this far.

The patrolman that they talked to was human, but 8 of the patrol were some very bestial looking orcs wearing the emblems of Ponalim. Not a good sign in anyone’s eyes.

Next the party was attacked from the rear by a couple of fiendish dire lions, who tore apart one of the summoned horses. All that did was teach the lions not to target the horses, so they tore up anyone in the party they could get to. Ysilia was the first to drop to negatives after a single pounce attack.

Once the party was fully focused on the rear lions, and had nearly finished them, the other lions that had been in waiting charged out from the overgrown weeds and grass. Lindo and Ari had thought they were safe, being away from the front line and all. Now they were being pounced on by the two new lions. Both were into negative hit points after the initial attack.

When the party finally won the fight, they had to run around the battlefield to keep Ysilia, Ari, and Lindo from bleeding to death.

Much healing was then tossed around, and the party continued on their journey north.

Amazingly they made it to the forests of Maratheelia with no further encounters, though the weather was a bit too nasty for them (early spring showers).

While in the forests they remained on what was left of the roads, or they would lose both the horse bonus and the road bonus to prevent random encounters.

They were quite lucky, for a time. No random encounters for quite a while.

After a week of traveling in abnormally quiet forests, the group’s scout, Trebor, triggered a simple trap that threw some wooden needles across the road. Then a couple days later he was hit with another simple trap, this time it hit him with a poison arrow.

Each time he stopped and investigated the trap, then destroyed it with a vengeance. There’s something odd about watching a halfling get viciously mad at a trap made from plants.

After another couple of days he, Zelast, and their horse fell into a pit trap. Then elves armed with swords and bows surrounded the party and warned them not to move.

The party did as they were told and did a lot of talking.

Initially the elves were quick to judge and disbelieve anything the party said. But after a time, the elves heard the truth in the stories of, sigh, Caspar’s Brightblades.

The elves informed the party that they indeed were from Maratheelia, but they did not actively work with the leaders of the elf-city. They instead were protecting the city by laying traps and ambushes for any evil creatures that roamed the forest. (Trebor sarcastically thanked them for that.)

They also explained to Artemis that he was possibly the last warmage of Maratheelia. The noble families, led by the ambitious House Vernoth, had ordered the whole of the Maratheelia’s military to cleanse the forest of the evil surrounding the city. The campaign was relatively successful, but at a steep price. All of the city’s great heroes and non-noble leaders were lost, but they made the city safer from the greatest threats they had ever faced (multiple great wyrm green dragons for example).

Eventually the elves trusted the party enough to ask them a favor (and yes, this part was done very clumsily by me – blame it on a month long break from D&D) when the party revealed that they intended to remove Jothillian and his house (Vernoth) from power. But the elves did not know what the favor was; they had to lead the party to a druid who led their efforts.

So once again they began traveling, but not on the road. They gave up their illusory horses (but not Sorra’s real horse) and were led by four of the eight elves. The other four disappeared into the trees, but they were still around.

A couple of days into the trek they were given a warning shout about dragons on their trail, as four large green dragons charged them.

The dragons attacked whatever moved, enjoying the carnage more than the hunt (they were at the impetuous juvenile stage of dragon life), caring little for working together.

Sorra split her time between pinning down two dragons, but her horse didn’t do so well and was nearly lost.

Artemis did his usual nuking as much as possible, but his hands were somewhat tied when the elves told him not to use fire or lightning spells for fear of causing a fire. He did put the Orb of Ice spell to good use, temporarily blinding a couple of dragons.

Ari had to think outside of the box as the majority of her offensive spells and magic items are fire based. She was able to drop a dragon’s strength by 7 points, but that only made it mad. Once it dropped the elf in front of it, it came for her. Luckily for her, it was blinded by Artemis and killed by Trebor who killed it with a ranged sneak attack.

Trebor did his usual running around the battle and taking potshots while being relatively ignored.

Lindo hung out in the back and fires his crossbow until the group picked on Allen for being a coward. So he joined into melee, and was quickly reduced to a dozen or so hit points. When it came to the DM’s option of who to attack, Allen begged me (with wringing hands) not to attack Lindo. It wouldn’t have worked, but the dragon had to deal with the pesky knight Sorra first.

Zelast worked with a couple of the elves to gang up on a dragon.

Ysilia did her usual buffing and hiding.

By the end they had 4 dead juvenile green dragons, 1 dead elven ranger, and an unconscious elven ranger. The party spent a share of their spoils to have the elf raised when they returned to town.

After a couple more days traveling the party finally got to meet the druid they were told of.

Wasting no time he informed them of the task that would help elves more than the removal of Jothillian from power. He told them that every great elven city has a secret that it does not tell even the whole of the elves living in the city; it is surrounded by a living relic known as the Tree of Life. Its fate is attached to the fate of every elf living near it. But Maratheelia’s Tree of Life had something wrong with it, and the druid did know what it was. Nor could he investigate because House Vernoth guards were denying access to the tree’s glade.

The party’s task would be simple enough; the elves would distract the guards so the party could sneak into the glade. But there was one condition; the party could not harm the Tree of Life in any way, shape, or form.