The Valley #5 & #6
Ok, these past few weeks have left me with very little free time, hence the lack of blog entries.
My options are to either spend my time making a half-way decent module for game night, or to make a blog entry.
With that said, let’s jump right into sessions #5 & #6, with a bit less information than what I usually give.
Mike and Justin couldn’t make it for session #5, and Dale had to skip session #6 (after the next session he’s going to miss a lot more too).
Our cast:
Admon (Scott); level 3-4 human war wizard
Duncan (Justin); level 3 Silverhome dwarven cleric of Moradin
Edward (Aaron); level 3 human paladin of Brekaneth
Kergan (Mike); level 3 Silverhome dwarven rogue
Ander (Dale); level 3 halfling sorcerer
We last stopped where only Edward and Admon had been told of the Voice of Brekaneth being a fake, the original had been taken by a misguided fanatic of Brekaneth, while the town went on alert and Silverhome shut its doors due to warnings of a goblin attack.
Edward, given the way the facts appeared to him, did not believe that the Broken Bone goblin clan had the Voice. He considered it more likely that something else snatched it from the thief on his way into Broken Bone territory.
So he and Admon began researching for information about the Voice of Brekaneth and the person who took it.
During this time Ander is on a personal quest for a new home in the Valley and the DM successfully drains his coffers of nearly 100gp. He is also instructed by Sibylline Tarn to spy on the church, but he pretty much ignores that and mostly just hangs out at the church with Edward during his search for information.
When he sleeps his first night in his new place he has weird dreams that he is either really small or the trees are really tall and he is terrified and running during a storm. He has these dreams more than once throughout the night.
Their research and interviewing gives them plenty of information, but nothing that concretely tells them where to go, but a rough idea.
- The thief’s name was Valendorn Desh, an unassuming sergeant in the military wing of the church with some friends that had dreams of adventuring.
- The Voice of Brekaneth is an onyx-headed mace that was either gifted-to or created by the high priest Kretack during the purging of the other human religions early in the Valley’s history. In the hands of a believer of Brekaneth it is stronger and can be imbued with divine power.
While all of this is going on there are occasional hit and run attacks by goblins throughout the area outside the city walls, but nothing large; attacking guard towers for just a couple of javelin throws before running off, killing farmers and/or stealing livestock, or just simply making itself known and running away.
All of these actions have no obvious pattern, but they succeed in keeping the city’s defense off-guard.
One particular night the goblins finally attack. The main focus of their attack is the Grand Temple of Brekaneth, but a few attacks occur throughout the rest of the city.
While walking home from the Roaring Bull Inn, and very drunk (-3 to all attack/skill rolls, but +1 to damage and 3 temporary hit points) Ander is the target of one of those random goblin attacks.
He survives the small attack (4 goblin minions & 1 stormclaw scorpion), but is nearly killed. When that’s done with, he resumes his walk home and passes out on his new bed.
Admon had to deal with a similar situation where he needed to get up to a guard tower near the church to aid in controlling the waves of goblins. He simply had to run 100’ through a gauntlet of variable goblin minions and a fire beetle to get to a door, open it, get inside, and then close it. He succeeds while nearly dying in the process.
Edward is put in charge of guarding the main church, where the fake Voice is located. He surmised correctly that they were going to try to come get the Voice with this attack. Each round more friendly guards or not-so-friendly goblins would appear. To simplify the combat if one of those were to move into the square of the other they would both disappear. Edward’s biggest target of issue was a stronger goblin with the intent of taking the Voice and leaving.
Dale: “He can die defending a fake?”
Yes he can (but he didn’t).
The next morning, after resting and some “hair of the dog” they interviewed the last person to have seen Valendorn Desh alive, a man named John Grey who works for the Silverblade family as a guard.
But he gave very little information. Desh and his friend headed out of the main gate of the city and headed in the direction of the Broken Bone clan.
Given that Crater Lake lies along that path, they figure they have a long shot chance that the Voice will be somewhere in the lake or its vicinity.
- End of Session #5 / Beginning of Session #6 -
During the lockdown of Silverhome Kergan begins learning more about the church of Moradin, setting up a role-playing reason for him to multi-class into cleric.
Once the lockdown was lifted Duncan immediately went to see Mayor Ryan. After the usual small talk, Duncan was told that the party he was invited to was cancelled for the time being, so no chance to schmooze with the other council members and influential people in the Valley.
He also filled in Duncan on a little information – the city council asked Silverhome for help, but Silverhome refused, citing the council’s refusal to help them when they asked. There was also an unofficial report that Silverhome has no representation in the City Council and was unlikely to get it handed to them without playing hardball.
The mayor understood and agreed with that sentiment, and he intended to remedy it, but was unsure how.
Duncan tried to think of a multitude of ways to do this, but nothing that was workable. The only ways are to totally change the city council or get them to see that having a Silverhome representative would be best for all.
As per what’s becoming the group’s standard, they meet up at the Roaring Bull Inn.
While there Kergan receives some signals from someone in the Thieves’ Guild to come have a chat. He is told in calm and clear tones that he owes the guild 2000gp and it must be paid within 3 days or he’ll become pudding-bait.
He asked about Sam, the purported trap-smith Kergan’s been looking for. He was told “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop asking.”
He knows that this is his only way to get back good with the guild.
He also begins looking for ways to scrounge every last bit of money he can get. Too bad he gave Rushgar Hammersmith his dwarven plate +1 just a few days prior.
Wouldn’t you know it, the city is still on alert and has all of its guards protecting the city and its main interested. So they have offered money for independent scout to search through various areas; including an area for Crater Lake.
So the party set out to scout for the city with an extra task just for them.
Their first encounter consisted of an attacked goblin supply post. They found several goblin skeletons stripped clean by rats. What they didn’t find until afterwards was one goblin body was still intact and had dozens of small knife wounds all over him, all done by a quickling.
While attempting to scout, Mike botched Kergan’s stealth roll. Then they heard rats and some evil giggling.
Word of warning, quicklings can be one giant pain to a party that can’t pen them in. Add in a rat swarm and a vine horror and you have a party irritated at you (I’m used to it).
In 4E, the fastest way to piss the party off is to stun, immobilize, or daze them.
The vine horror and rat swarm didn’t last long, but the quickling just kept slicing at the party round after round. No until they got him to 25% of his hit points did it run away.
Next they began searching around the circumference of Crater Lake (which indeed looks like a weather worn crater with several fast-flowing rivulets converging on it).
They stumbled across, literally, a hole in the ground made out of fresh webbing and camouflaged to appear like the ground. Peering down below they saw a 30’ drop with a webbing net at the bottom to catch them (how thoughtful).
A couple minutes later and all of the webbing they saw was burned away, and after the smoke cleared they lowered themselves down the pit, expecting a fight.
The trio of ettercaps and deathjump spider didn’t disappoint them.
The fight took a good chunk of time and no side had a clear advantage for the longest time.
And to make it more entertaining, Admon used a Flaming Sphere. The webbing smoldered and fire and smoke spread, giving ground hazard and the potential for obscured vision and suffocation (but it didn’t happen).
Eventually the party won, but it was definitely not a simple and easy win (poison + webbing + poor player rolls = fun but long fight).
After putting out the remaining smoldering fires and collecting their loot (lots and lots of copper pieces) they found another concealed pit, this time blocked off rather than a trap. When they listened they could hear the faintest electrical hum.
The room only contained five bodies that had been dragged here and not much more. The bodies had only a little webbing on them, and the party did not notice that the bodies had not been drained of fluids as you would usually expect from spider attacks.
They started searching the bodies one at a time, Kergan began with searching the body that looked kind of roguish (dressed in leather armor and daggers).
When Duncan touched the front and center body of what they thought might be the priest of the group (chain armor, no shield) he was blasted with radiant damage and then the spirits of all 5 rose.
The spirit of priest spoke “Keep your hands off of me you damned, dirty dwarf!”
The priest had in his hands a ghostly version of the Voice of Brekaneth, so Edward attempted to rationalize with him.
But the spiritual version of Valendorn Desh had no interest in handing over the holiest gift of Brekaneth over to someone who is friends of a believer of Moradin.
“If you want the Voice, come claim it!” (He was a warrior-priest after all.)
Instead of 5 ghostly apparitions to face, they faced 5 flesh and blood opponents, each with a little magic item (if just to say to the players “How do you like it?”).
But the party kicked ass. They burned action points and dailies early in the first round, targeting Desh almost exclusively.
In short term they had possession of the Voice of Brekaneth.
And that’s where we stopped.
Quests completed:
Ander – On Your Own [Level: 1. Reward: 100XP. Obtain new living quarters and spend 25gp on furnishing it.]
Edward & Admon – The Holiest Gift [Level: 3. Reward: 150XP. Find information leading to the whereabouts of the Voice of Brekaneth.]
New quests:
None
My options are to either spend my time making a half-way decent module for game night, or to make a blog entry.
With that said, let’s jump right into sessions #5 & #6, with a bit less information than what I usually give.
Mike and Justin couldn’t make it for session #5, and Dale had to skip session #6 (after the next session he’s going to miss a lot more too).
Our cast:
Admon (Scott); level 3-4 human war wizard
Duncan (Justin); level 3 Silverhome dwarven cleric of Moradin
Edward (Aaron); level 3 human paladin of Brekaneth
Kergan (Mike); level 3 Silverhome dwarven rogue
Ander (Dale); level 3 halfling sorcerer
We last stopped where only Edward and Admon had been told of the Voice of Brekaneth being a fake, the original had been taken by a misguided fanatic of Brekaneth, while the town went on alert and Silverhome shut its doors due to warnings of a goblin attack.
Edward, given the way the facts appeared to him, did not believe that the Broken Bone goblin clan had the Voice. He considered it more likely that something else snatched it from the thief on his way into Broken Bone territory.
So he and Admon began researching for information about the Voice of Brekaneth and the person who took it.
During this time Ander is on a personal quest for a new home in the Valley and the DM successfully drains his coffers of nearly 100gp. He is also instructed by Sibylline Tarn to spy on the church, but he pretty much ignores that and mostly just hangs out at the church with Edward during his search for information.
When he sleeps his first night in his new place he has weird dreams that he is either really small or the trees are really tall and he is terrified and running during a storm. He has these dreams more than once throughout the night.
Their research and interviewing gives them plenty of information, but nothing that concretely tells them where to go, but a rough idea.
- The thief’s name was Valendorn Desh, an unassuming sergeant in the military wing of the church with some friends that had dreams of adventuring.
- The Voice of Brekaneth is an onyx-headed mace that was either gifted-to or created by the high priest Kretack during the purging of the other human religions early in the Valley’s history. In the hands of a believer of Brekaneth it is stronger and can be imbued with divine power.
While all of this is going on there are occasional hit and run attacks by goblins throughout the area outside the city walls, but nothing large; attacking guard towers for just a couple of javelin throws before running off, killing farmers and/or stealing livestock, or just simply making itself known and running away.
All of these actions have no obvious pattern, but they succeed in keeping the city’s defense off-guard.
One particular night the goblins finally attack. The main focus of their attack is the Grand Temple of Brekaneth, but a few attacks occur throughout the rest of the city.
While walking home from the Roaring Bull Inn, and very drunk (-3 to all attack/skill rolls, but +1 to damage and 3 temporary hit points) Ander is the target of one of those random goblin attacks.
He survives the small attack (4 goblin minions & 1 stormclaw scorpion), but is nearly killed. When that’s done with, he resumes his walk home and passes out on his new bed.
Admon had to deal with a similar situation where he needed to get up to a guard tower near the church to aid in controlling the waves of goblins. He simply had to run 100’ through a gauntlet of variable goblin minions and a fire beetle to get to a door, open it, get inside, and then close it. He succeeds while nearly dying in the process.
Edward is put in charge of guarding the main church, where the fake Voice is located. He surmised correctly that they were going to try to come get the Voice with this attack. Each round more friendly guards or not-so-friendly goblins would appear. To simplify the combat if one of those were to move into the square of the other they would both disappear. Edward’s biggest target of issue was a stronger goblin with the intent of taking the Voice and leaving.
Dale: “He can die defending a fake?”
Yes he can (but he didn’t).
The next morning, after resting and some “hair of the dog” they interviewed the last person to have seen Valendorn Desh alive, a man named John Grey who works for the Silverblade family as a guard.
But he gave very little information. Desh and his friend headed out of the main gate of the city and headed in the direction of the Broken Bone clan.
Given that Crater Lake lies along that path, they figure they have a long shot chance that the Voice will be somewhere in the lake or its vicinity.
- End of Session #5 / Beginning of Session #6 -
During the lockdown of Silverhome Kergan begins learning more about the church of Moradin, setting up a role-playing reason for him to multi-class into cleric.
Once the lockdown was lifted Duncan immediately went to see Mayor Ryan. After the usual small talk, Duncan was told that the party he was invited to was cancelled for the time being, so no chance to schmooze with the other council members and influential people in the Valley.
He also filled in Duncan on a little information – the city council asked Silverhome for help, but Silverhome refused, citing the council’s refusal to help them when they asked. There was also an unofficial report that Silverhome has no representation in the City Council and was unlikely to get it handed to them without playing hardball.
The mayor understood and agreed with that sentiment, and he intended to remedy it, but was unsure how.
Duncan tried to think of a multitude of ways to do this, but nothing that was workable. The only ways are to totally change the city council or get them to see that having a Silverhome representative would be best for all.
As per what’s becoming the group’s standard, they meet up at the Roaring Bull Inn.
While there Kergan receives some signals from someone in the Thieves’ Guild to come have a chat. He is told in calm and clear tones that he owes the guild 2000gp and it must be paid within 3 days or he’ll become pudding-bait.
He asked about Sam, the purported trap-smith Kergan’s been looking for. He was told “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop asking.”
He knows that this is his only way to get back good with the guild.
He also begins looking for ways to scrounge every last bit of money he can get. Too bad he gave Rushgar Hammersmith his dwarven plate +1 just a few days prior.
Wouldn’t you know it, the city is still on alert and has all of its guards protecting the city and its main interested. So they have offered money for independent scout to search through various areas; including an area for Crater Lake.
So the party set out to scout for the city with an extra task just for them.
Their first encounter consisted of an attacked goblin supply post. They found several goblin skeletons stripped clean by rats. What they didn’t find until afterwards was one goblin body was still intact and had dozens of small knife wounds all over him, all done by a quickling.
While attempting to scout, Mike botched Kergan’s stealth roll. Then they heard rats and some evil giggling.
Word of warning, quicklings can be one giant pain to a party that can’t pen them in. Add in a rat swarm and a vine horror and you have a party irritated at you (I’m used to it).
In 4E, the fastest way to piss the party off is to stun, immobilize, or daze them.
The vine horror and rat swarm didn’t last long, but the quickling just kept slicing at the party round after round. No until they got him to 25% of his hit points did it run away.
Next they began searching around the circumference of Crater Lake (which indeed looks like a weather worn crater with several fast-flowing rivulets converging on it).
They stumbled across, literally, a hole in the ground made out of fresh webbing and camouflaged to appear like the ground. Peering down below they saw a 30’ drop with a webbing net at the bottom to catch them (how thoughtful).
A couple minutes later and all of the webbing they saw was burned away, and after the smoke cleared they lowered themselves down the pit, expecting a fight.
The trio of ettercaps and deathjump spider didn’t disappoint them.
The fight took a good chunk of time and no side had a clear advantage for the longest time.
And to make it more entertaining, Admon used a Flaming Sphere. The webbing smoldered and fire and smoke spread, giving ground hazard and the potential for obscured vision and suffocation (but it didn’t happen).
Eventually the party won, but it was definitely not a simple and easy win (poison + webbing + poor player rolls = fun but long fight).
After putting out the remaining smoldering fires and collecting their loot (lots and lots of copper pieces) they found another concealed pit, this time blocked off rather than a trap. When they listened they could hear the faintest electrical hum.
The room only contained five bodies that had been dragged here and not much more. The bodies had only a little webbing on them, and the party did not notice that the bodies had not been drained of fluids as you would usually expect from spider attacks.
They started searching the bodies one at a time, Kergan began with searching the body that looked kind of roguish (dressed in leather armor and daggers).
When Duncan touched the front and center body of what they thought might be the priest of the group (chain armor, no shield) he was blasted with radiant damage and then the spirits of all 5 rose.
The spirit of priest spoke “Keep your hands off of me you damned, dirty dwarf!”
The priest had in his hands a ghostly version of the Voice of Brekaneth, so Edward attempted to rationalize with him.
But the spiritual version of Valendorn Desh had no interest in handing over the holiest gift of Brekaneth over to someone who is friends of a believer of Moradin.
“If you want the Voice, come claim it!” (He was a warrior-priest after all.)
Instead of 5 ghostly apparitions to face, they faced 5 flesh and blood opponents, each with a little magic item (if just to say to the players “How do you like it?”).
But the party kicked ass. They burned action points and dailies early in the first round, targeting Desh almost exclusively.
In short term they had possession of the Voice of Brekaneth.
And that’s where we stopped.
Quests completed:
Ander – On Your Own [Level: 1. Reward: 100XP. Obtain new living quarters and spend 25gp on furnishing it.]
Edward & Admon – The Holiest Gift [Level: 3. Reward: 150XP. Find information leading to the whereabouts of the Voice of Brekaneth.]
New quests:
None
posted by BlueBlackRed at 7:25 AM
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