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.
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.
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