The Valley #31-33
Yes, that is three sessions in one blog post.
I’ve spread myself thinner than usual recently. Busier home and work life will do that to you.
For this month’s entertainment (a.k.a. me bitching about something) it’s all about our lack of players.
It’s a simple thing you’d think, but getting new players is not an easy task. At least not how I do it.
I have a “sense” about people. When I say “sense”, I’m basically saying that my subconscious is smarter than me when it comes to reading people. Thus when I don’t trust someone, I may not know exactly why, but I don’t question that feeling. That feeling has been right time and time again.
Here’s a quick story, no full names.
Long ago I met Ken at the game store. Something about him set off my “do not trust” alarm.
So I didn’t.
He said he had cancer and used the sympathy that people gave him to his advantage (free food, social agreeableness, loaning a few dollars, etc).
He later went away for a month for cancer treatments out of state, but he returned with no improvement.
About 6 months later he had all but disappeared (having worn out his welcome to many) and then the police showed up at the game store looking for him.
The police wanted him for writing tens of thousands of dollars in bad checks.
He didn’t have cancer.
His month-long treatment he had for that cancer was actually a month long stint in jail.
And that’s just one instance of where my subconscious has proved itself smarter than me.
There’s also the overly-sensitive part of me.
I will not game with someone week after week if they can’t maintain some simple manners.
This includes eating relatively quietly. (It requires a lot of self control to not snap at someone who is crunch-slop-slurping away.)
There was actually an asshat who thought it was ok to eat Cheetos, and then loudly suck the cheese powder off of each finger, while talking, and then had the gall to ask to borrow dice with his slime covered fingers.
Here’s how it went when he ran that one game I was at his table:
“So…um…(sucking sound from his thumb)…you open the door and…(sucking sound from his index finger)…you see a…(sucking sound from his middle finger)...Oh yeah…(sucking sound from his ring finger)…I need to borrow someone’s twenty-sider for a minute.”
He’s lucky he didn’t reach for my dice.
And for Flying-Spaghetti-Monster’s sake, can’t you eat the whole bag and then run the game…preferably after you’re done chewing, instead of eat a little, then talk a little while chewing with your mouth open, then clean fingers…also while talking, and then repeating.
That was my second World Wide D&D Game Day. There has not been a third, but not because of this guy. (My first such game day was actually pretty awesome.)
So we’ve removed from our pool of candidates the criminals, the loons (I’ve covered the “don’t bring crazy into my house” before), those who don’t have common table manners, and those who simply can’t make the games on a regular basis.
Then there’s this guy that Dale told me about.
He was interested in joining the group until he learned how limiting I made the game.
My response to Dale about it was “Good”.
If you absolutely have to play the most recently discovered broken class and/or combo and cry like a baby or whine like a little bitch (refer “little bitch” to the movie Basketball), then you’re not welcome to a game I run.
It’s a matter of being able to work with other players and not trying to show off to them with the hopes of some kind of comment comparing you to a gaming god with a giant e-peen.
We like having the big numbers of damage and like it when each player contributes to the group, but we don’t go looking to make some horribly broken PC whose goal is for everyone to say to him “Wow, you’re a much better player than me. I want to be just like you.”
And that is why we’re quite often low on players.
We have standards.
No thank you Cat-piss-man. Our olfactory senses work too well for you to stick around.
Bye-bye anger-control-problem boy. I don’t want to have to make a rules call against you and then dodge your fist or stare of enmity.
Move along Miss Wants-to-be-the-center-of-attention. Take your queen-bee attitude and move to a table where the guys are willing to fawn all over you to the detriment of their game.
Try the next table Mister Refuses-to-take-bipolar-meds. I don’t feel like starting a pool to figure out which personality you’re bringing to the game tonight.
See you later broken-combo-epeen-man. Thanks for killing the monster. Now maybe the rest of us can play.
Burn in hell Mister I-am-going-to-show-them-how-to-play-this-game. Take your self-empowered attitude and take it to a table who actually wants to be “improved”.
Go back home Mister Angry-at-everything. Only one of us is allowed at the table.
On that note, Joy has rejoined us.
Yep, somehow she made it through the screening process.
Human?
Check.
Does she take her meds?
Does Jim Beam count?
Is she mentally stable?
She’s Dale’s daughter…so 50/50.
Session 31
Admon (Scott); level 12 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 12 human paladin of Brekaneth
Adrie (Joy); level 12 elf cleric
Erdrick (“PC light”); level 12 human cleric of Brekaneth
No Dale. He hurt his knee.
He’s a perpetual walking-talking injury machine.
Well, not walking.
I’ve decided to keep the difficulty options around for the players to decide how much they want to try for.
It’s more work for me, and still needs tweaking, but I think it’s worth it.
One big tweak is needed for solo monsters. They require a bit more finesse than just dumping 2 of them in a fight.
I’m mostly referring to dragons.
Something I may do for dragons, at least at this level, halve their hit points but allow them more attacks or double their damage.
Dragon fights take too long.
High defenses + high hit points + low damage = long boring fight.
For this session they chose all difficulty 3 fights (which translates to 150% of suggested encounter xp for their level).
We’ve also started to keep just one XP listing for everyone. Since no one is really dragging the party down with their random attendances and poor-excuse for a PC, there’s no reason to not keep everyone at the same level.
The party had just helped saved Theven’s Wharf from a red dragon plot to bury the place in lava, and now it was time for them to escort General Songrider to the Grand Temple of Brekaneth in the Valley.
(They refer to him as General “Awesome” in a slightly derisive tone.)
At the doors to the temple, waiting to greet them is Father Adrek and Girvan Torl.
Greetings are exchanged and a tour is given.
Adrek talks up a storm about the place.
Songrider listens intently, paying attention to all details spoken and seen.
Torl remains grimly quiet.
Songrider asks about the defenses of the city and the temple. Torl, almost defiantly, boasts that the temple is the most defensible location in the city and the city does as best it can with what is available and the church sees to it that it helps in every way possible.
Songrider states that he believes the city’s biggest weakness is Theven’s Wharf as it is the city’s only supply-line to the outside world.
Torl then erupts into a tirade about the city’s weakest link being it’s bureaucracy and the council’s constant bickering and refusal to do what must be done (crush the goblins, mages who ignore the world but gladly accept the protection that soldiers supply them, and the continued existence of a trio of powerful liches living in the Valley…somewhere).
He believes that Songrider’s army should be used to clean the Valley of all its filth, starting with the retaking of Heroes’ Rest.
Songrider admitted that Heroes’ Rest would be a good place to start with, but his army is in no shape for such a campaign at the moment. But he does have a plan.
Step one is to scout the place, as he’s heard that the beasts that now reside in the keep are a fair bit more dangerous than goblins.
There is an abandoned guard tower not far from Heroes’ Rest. That would be a good position for scouting and to supply an attack on the keep if needed.
Torl stands at attention and volunteers to lead the mission.
Songrider declines and states that Edward and his friends are more suited for such a mission.
Torl, clenches his fist, and then storms off.
Father Adrek apologizes to the general and mentions the rough period the elder paladin has been through recently.
Songrider questions the stability of Torl, but Adrek responds that so long as he’s done nothing to anger Brekaneth then Torl will remain the elder paladin.
The party is then grouped up with an elf named Adrie. While not a scout, she’s been to this area before and the elves insisted she come along.
Using a non-combat challenge I was able to have the party find the tower.
There were 4 rolls to be made:
Step 1 - Finding the path: DC20 Nature group roll. Failure meant each PC had to make a DC20 Endurance check or lose a healing surge. Repeat this step until the Nature check is successful.
Step 2 – Crossing the Clichéd Bridge Over the Chasm: DC20 Athletics group roll. Same results as step 1 for failure.
Step 3 – Searching for the Tower: DC25 Nature group roll. Same results as step 1 for failure.
Step 4 – Sneaking to the Tower: DC25 Stealth group roll. This time each failure would make the next encounter 1 step more difficult.
Poor Kag was a bored hill giant, sent out here to guard this semi-ruined tower with some ogres, goblins, and a couple behemoths. Then some ugly humans showed up and killed him.
Life a monster sucks.
Of the treasure below the party chose Kag’s Bribe.
Kag’s Bribe: Amulet of Bodily Sanctity +3
Kag’s Spiked Ring: Iron Ring of the Dwarf Lords
Kag’s Digging Stick: Golden Spade
After the party finished looting they noticed a dark cloud floating too low to be an actual cloud.
It descended to the ground where it split into two shapes; one humanoid and one draconic.
The humanoid one took a slightly more solid but still shadowy form and began talking and asking questions like “why are you here?” and so on.
It mentioned something about “the keep over there” being a nice one and how he might take it over.
Its last question was “Are you the son of the Silverblade family? Why are you not with your family? They are in desperate need of protection at this time.”
The shadowy film over the creatures reveal Pehr’All Herollus and a wyvern…and a fight commences while Pehr’All taunts Admon and his family and throws in a comment about the end of the Wootenmorgan family as well.
This fight took a little longer than expected, but not horribly. The zone the lich kept dropping and the spectral tendrils he used kept the party at bay for a while.
The party chose the Lodestone rather than the ring I expected.
Pehr’All’s Lodestone: Orb of Weakness Intensified +3
Pehr’All’s Staff of Striking: Striking Staff +3
Lich’s Band of Shadow: Ring of Shadow Travel
When the party returned to the city they heard news of a horrible attack at the Grand Temple of Brekaneth.
About the same time that the part was fighting the shadowy Perh’All, he also appeared in front of the temple challenging its champions inside to face him.
As expected Girvan Torl, Father Adrek, and others went out to the courtyard of the temple.
At that point Herollus blasted Torl with a black and green beam that held him in place for a moment and changed him.
Within moments Pehr’All Herollus had disappeared and left a changed Girvan Torl on a blackened circle of grass on the lawn of temple.
Girvan was now much larger and bulkier than before. His armor and sword, holy relics of Brekaneth, changed and grew with him.
His mind became warped as well.
He began walking towards the family house where Edward grew up, and where his parents and grandfather still live.
Anyone that got in his way was killed without thought or remorse.
Father Adrek was not killed, but his wounds would leave him bedridden for a week.
By the time the party had returned to the city, all they found were trails of dead bodies.
The Wootenmorgan house was broken into. Edwards’s parents and grandfather were all dead. His grandfather had been more viciously attacked and was tortured before he was finally allowed to die.
After the attack Torl strode out of the city, still being sure to kill anyone who tried to stop him or otherwise get in his way.
Session 32
Admon (Scott); level 13 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 13 human paladin of Brekaneth
Adrie (Joy); level 13 elf cleric
Erdrick (“PC light”); level 13 human cleric of Brekaneth
A week had passed since Girvan Torl’s attack.
Edward has been under protection in the temple (Erdrick is his main guard).
Adrie has been looking for Ander who has disappeared.
Admon has not left the Silverblade house for fear of attacks on his family or himself.
Otherwise the Valley has been mostly quiet.
To kill 2 birds with one stone the council decided to send the party to the Fey Realm for the funeral of Ivellios Galanodil as Thlyria Isara’s guard.
The burial is somber, simple, and uneventful and the PC’s are given ample opportunity for some role-playing.
But since Dale and Mike weren’t around, not much role-playing was done.
So we jumped right into the action.
After they had finished with escorting Thlyria Isara, but were still in the woods, a cold chaos spark appeared.
Surprisingly the party chose the hardest difficulty (5 for 7800XP).
This fight pretty much told me that using dragons as is, is not the way to go. The fight took forever and just became a slugfest after the first dragon was down (no more dailies).
The Ice Chaos Spark froze the ground around it unless a sufficiently intricate arcana check caused it to not grow larger (or possibly even shrink).
To keep the rest of the party busy a pair of adult green dragons played cat and mouse with them.
Of the below items they chose Krant’s Bravado:
Jaycee’s Stocky Hide: Hide Armor of Durability +3
Shelob’s Tricky Crossbow: Transposing Crossbow +3
Petra’s Temporary Escape: Symbol of Censure +3
Kaeroth’s Bloodied Arms: Bloodthirst Bracers
Krant’s Bravado: Cincture of Vivacity
Due to their poor information gathering skills the party totally missed that there had been other sparks appearing randomly around town the past few days and many people were starting to flee to Theven’s Wharf (because this stuff doesn’t happen there). This desperation was causing an increase in theft as not everyone can afford 100gp to pay for the teleport.
A few of the party are also a few gold coins shy because they were being pick pocketed by some kids. But some of the party noticed and ran after the children, following them to a pair of conjoined, abandoned houses in the Crags.
Just as the party got there a purple chaos spark appeared. The party had just enough time to get the children out of the house before this purple spark fully appeared and spit out an Enormous Carrion Crawler and a Balhannoth.
The spark itself was supposed to do more, but after reading the monsters again at the game table, I decided that the fight might be a bit too tough. I’m still not sure if it was or wasn’t.
The party won, but they had to pull some major crowd control on the carrion crawler since it could freeze them all in place every round.
So they used a variety of sliding and pushing powers to keep it away from them while they dealt with the balhannoth first.
Of the items below they took the helm:
Zodac’s Whomping Stick: Lifedrinker Warhammer +3
Dizzen’s Focus: Symbol of Dire Fate +3
Krant’s Encompassing Helm: Carcanet of Psychic Schism
Sillah’s Trick: Cloak of Displacement +3
Norm’s Surprise: Ring of Aquatic Ability
If you’re thinking “He sure is handing out a lot of magic items.” you’re right.
Long story short, I had been shorting the party just a little bit for a while, so now I’m catching them up until my spreadsheet says it’s all even.
Session 33
Admon (Scott); level 13 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 13 human paladin of Brekaneth
Adrie (Joy); level 13 elf cleric
Ander (Dale); level 13 halfling sorcerer
Admon, Edward, and Adrie were heading to the temple of Brekaneth when, once again, all hell broke loose as a brown chaos spark appeared.
This one spat out several earthen creatures (and then large rocks) and the largest of them (an earth titan) grumbled something like “kill the wizard”.
It also spat out a hairless, almost naked, Ander. He later found out he had the same tattoos as Girvan Torl, but wasn’t dazed like Torl was when he was spit out of a chaos spark.
The party was surrounded on the street and would have taken a nice beating but they were able to buy themselves plenty of time with various pushing attacks.
Magic items to choose from: (I believe they took the bracers)
Hin’s Second Skin: Dwarven Chainmail +4
Hin’s Rock Tosser: Resounding Sling +4
Hin’s Scar: Skull Bracers
This last attack caused a large amount of damage in a public place, and became the final straw for many people. There were many small riots, which were really brazen attacks to get money to pay the teleporter fee.
The city council acted quickly and “asked” the party, who are viewed as heroes, to guard the main gate of the city as a symbol of the city doing something.
But this had no chance to affect anything because the party had only been at their new post for an hour when an obviously unnatural fog rolled into town.
The fog was quite thick (50’ max viewing distance) and the party prepared for an attack of some sort.
They were not disappointed.
A contingent of ogres and other creatures attacked the main gate. Their intent was to get past the gate and move into town under the cover of fog and create chaos.
If an ogre made it past the gate, and out of sight of the party, then they lost 25xp for each round the ogre had a chance to wreak havoc.
But if no ogres had that chance, then the party would get 1000 bonus xp.
They came within 1 initiative of losing that 1000xp.
Treasure options: (I think they took the bracers this time too)
Flail of Nightmares: Battlemaster’s Heavy Flail +3
Hin’s Bloody Bane: Bloodthirst Bracers
Green Glowing Rock: Amulet of False Life +3
And that is all for now.
There was going to be more…but I forgot to add it during the session. And since this write up is already quite large, then I will wait until next time.
I’ve spread myself thinner than usual recently. Busier home and work life will do that to you.
For this month’s entertainment (a.k.a. me bitching about something) it’s all about our lack of players.
It’s a simple thing you’d think, but getting new players is not an easy task. At least not how I do it.
I have a “sense” about people. When I say “sense”, I’m basically saying that my subconscious is smarter than me when it comes to reading people. Thus when I don’t trust someone, I may not know exactly why, but I don’t question that feeling. That feeling has been right time and time again.
Here’s a quick story, no full names.
Long ago I met Ken at the game store. Something about him set off my “do not trust” alarm.
So I didn’t.
He said he had cancer and used the sympathy that people gave him to his advantage (free food, social agreeableness, loaning a few dollars, etc).
He later went away for a month for cancer treatments out of state, but he returned with no improvement.
About 6 months later he had all but disappeared (having worn out his welcome to many) and then the police showed up at the game store looking for him.
The police wanted him for writing tens of thousands of dollars in bad checks.
He didn’t have cancer.
His month-long treatment he had for that cancer was actually a month long stint in jail.
And that’s just one instance of where my subconscious has proved itself smarter than me.
There’s also the overly-sensitive part of me.
I will not game with someone week after week if they can’t maintain some simple manners.
This includes eating relatively quietly. (It requires a lot of self control to not snap at someone who is crunch-slop-slurping away.)
There was actually an asshat who thought it was ok to eat Cheetos, and then loudly suck the cheese powder off of each finger, while talking, and then had the gall to ask to borrow dice with his slime covered fingers.
Here’s how it went when he ran that one game I was at his table:
“So…um…(sucking sound from his thumb)…you open the door and…(sucking sound from his index finger)…you see a…(sucking sound from his middle finger)...Oh yeah…(sucking sound from his ring finger)…I need to borrow someone’s twenty-sider for a minute.”
He’s lucky he didn’t reach for my dice.
And for Flying-Spaghetti-Monster’s sake, can’t you eat the whole bag and then run the game…preferably after you’re done chewing, instead of eat a little, then talk a little while chewing with your mouth open, then clean fingers…also while talking, and then repeating.
That was my second World Wide D&D Game Day. There has not been a third, but not because of this guy. (My first such game day was actually pretty awesome.)
So we’ve removed from our pool of candidates the criminals, the loons (I’ve covered the “don’t bring crazy into my house” before), those who don’t have common table manners, and those who simply can’t make the games on a regular basis.
Then there’s this guy that Dale told me about.
He was interested in joining the group until he learned how limiting I made the game.
My response to Dale about it was “Good”.
If you absolutely have to play the most recently discovered broken class and/or combo and cry like a baby or whine like a little bitch (refer “little bitch” to the movie Basketball), then you’re not welcome to a game I run.
It’s a matter of being able to work with other players and not trying to show off to them with the hopes of some kind of comment comparing you to a gaming god with a giant e-peen.
We like having the big numbers of damage and like it when each player contributes to the group, but we don’t go looking to make some horribly broken PC whose goal is for everyone to say to him “Wow, you’re a much better player than me. I want to be just like you.”
And that is why we’re quite often low on players.
We have standards.
No thank you Cat-piss-man. Our olfactory senses work too well for you to stick around.
Bye-bye anger-control-problem boy. I don’t want to have to make a rules call against you and then dodge your fist or stare of enmity.
Move along Miss Wants-to-be-the-center-of-attention. Take your queen-bee attitude and move to a table where the guys are willing to fawn all over you to the detriment of their game.
Try the next table Mister Refuses-to-take-bipolar-meds. I don’t feel like starting a pool to figure out which personality you’re bringing to the game tonight.
See you later broken-combo-epeen-man. Thanks for killing the monster. Now maybe the rest of us can play.
Burn in hell Mister I-am-going-to-show-them-how-to-play-this-game. Take your self-empowered attitude and take it to a table who actually wants to be “improved”.
Go back home Mister Angry-at-everything. Only one of us is allowed at the table.
On that note, Joy has rejoined us.
Yep, somehow she made it through the screening process.
Human?
Check.
Does she take her meds?
Does Jim Beam count?
Is she mentally stable?
She’s Dale’s daughter…so 50/50.
Session 31
Admon (Scott); level 12 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 12 human paladin of Brekaneth
Adrie (Joy); level 12 elf cleric
Erdrick (“PC light”); level 12 human cleric of Brekaneth
No Dale. He hurt his knee.
He’s a perpetual walking-talking injury machine.
Well, not walking.
I’ve decided to keep the difficulty options around for the players to decide how much they want to try for.
It’s more work for me, and still needs tweaking, but I think it’s worth it.
One big tweak is needed for solo monsters. They require a bit more finesse than just dumping 2 of them in a fight.
I’m mostly referring to dragons.
Something I may do for dragons, at least at this level, halve their hit points but allow them more attacks or double their damage.
Dragon fights take too long.
High defenses + high hit points + low damage = long boring fight.
For this session they chose all difficulty 3 fights (which translates to 150% of suggested encounter xp for their level).
We’ve also started to keep just one XP listing for everyone. Since no one is really dragging the party down with their random attendances and poor-excuse for a PC, there’s no reason to not keep everyone at the same level.
The party had just helped saved Theven’s Wharf from a red dragon plot to bury the place in lava, and now it was time for them to escort General Songrider to the Grand Temple of Brekaneth in the Valley.
(They refer to him as General “Awesome” in a slightly derisive tone.)
At the doors to the temple, waiting to greet them is Father Adrek and Girvan Torl.
Greetings are exchanged and a tour is given.
Adrek talks up a storm about the place.
Songrider listens intently, paying attention to all details spoken and seen.
Torl remains grimly quiet.
Songrider asks about the defenses of the city and the temple. Torl, almost defiantly, boasts that the temple is the most defensible location in the city and the city does as best it can with what is available and the church sees to it that it helps in every way possible.
Songrider states that he believes the city’s biggest weakness is Theven’s Wharf as it is the city’s only supply-line to the outside world.
Torl then erupts into a tirade about the city’s weakest link being it’s bureaucracy and the council’s constant bickering and refusal to do what must be done (crush the goblins, mages who ignore the world but gladly accept the protection that soldiers supply them, and the continued existence of a trio of powerful liches living in the Valley…somewhere).
He believes that Songrider’s army should be used to clean the Valley of all its filth, starting with the retaking of Heroes’ Rest.
Songrider admitted that Heroes’ Rest would be a good place to start with, but his army is in no shape for such a campaign at the moment. But he does have a plan.
Step one is to scout the place, as he’s heard that the beasts that now reside in the keep are a fair bit more dangerous than goblins.
There is an abandoned guard tower not far from Heroes’ Rest. That would be a good position for scouting and to supply an attack on the keep if needed.
Torl stands at attention and volunteers to lead the mission.
Songrider declines and states that Edward and his friends are more suited for such a mission.
Torl, clenches his fist, and then storms off.
Father Adrek apologizes to the general and mentions the rough period the elder paladin has been through recently.
Songrider questions the stability of Torl, but Adrek responds that so long as he’s done nothing to anger Brekaneth then Torl will remain the elder paladin.
The party is then grouped up with an elf named Adrie. While not a scout, she’s been to this area before and the elves insisted she come along.
Using a non-combat challenge I was able to have the party find the tower.
There were 4 rolls to be made:
Step 1 - Finding the path: DC20 Nature group roll. Failure meant each PC had to make a DC20 Endurance check or lose a healing surge. Repeat this step until the Nature check is successful.
Step 2 – Crossing the Clichéd Bridge Over the Chasm: DC20 Athletics group roll. Same results as step 1 for failure.
Step 3 – Searching for the Tower: DC25 Nature group roll. Same results as step 1 for failure.
Step 4 – Sneaking to the Tower: DC25 Stealth group roll. This time each failure would make the next encounter 1 step more difficult.
Poor Kag was a bored hill giant, sent out here to guard this semi-ruined tower with some ogres, goblins, and a couple behemoths. Then some ugly humans showed up and killed him.
Life a monster sucks.
Of the treasure below the party chose Kag’s Bribe.
Kag’s Bribe: Amulet of Bodily Sanctity +3
Kag’s Spiked Ring: Iron Ring of the Dwarf Lords
Kag’s Digging Stick: Golden Spade
After the party finished looting they noticed a dark cloud floating too low to be an actual cloud.
It descended to the ground where it split into two shapes; one humanoid and one draconic.
The humanoid one took a slightly more solid but still shadowy form and began talking and asking questions like “why are you here?” and so on.
It mentioned something about “the keep over there” being a nice one and how he might take it over.
Its last question was “Are you the son of the Silverblade family? Why are you not with your family? They are in desperate need of protection at this time.”
The shadowy film over the creatures reveal Pehr’All Herollus and a wyvern…and a fight commences while Pehr’All taunts Admon and his family and throws in a comment about the end of the Wootenmorgan family as well.
This fight took a little longer than expected, but not horribly. The zone the lich kept dropping and the spectral tendrils he used kept the party at bay for a while.
The party chose the Lodestone rather than the ring I expected.
Pehr’All’s Lodestone: Orb of Weakness Intensified +3
Pehr’All’s Staff of Striking: Striking Staff +3
Lich’s Band of Shadow: Ring of Shadow Travel
When the party returned to the city they heard news of a horrible attack at the Grand Temple of Brekaneth.
About the same time that the part was fighting the shadowy Perh’All, he also appeared in front of the temple challenging its champions inside to face him.
As expected Girvan Torl, Father Adrek, and others went out to the courtyard of the temple.
At that point Herollus blasted Torl with a black and green beam that held him in place for a moment and changed him.
Within moments Pehr’All Herollus had disappeared and left a changed Girvan Torl on a blackened circle of grass on the lawn of temple.
Girvan was now much larger and bulkier than before. His armor and sword, holy relics of Brekaneth, changed and grew with him.
His mind became warped as well.
He began walking towards the family house where Edward grew up, and where his parents and grandfather still live.
Anyone that got in his way was killed without thought or remorse.
Father Adrek was not killed, but his wounds would leave him bedridden for a week.
By the time the party had returned to the city, all they found were trails of dead bodies.
The Wootenmorgan house was broken into. Edwards’s parents and grandfather were all dead. His grandfather had been more viciously attacked and was tortured before he was finally allowed to die.
After the attack Torl strode out of the city, still being sure to kill anyone who tried to stop him or otherwise get in his way.
Session 32
Admon (Scott); level 13 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 13 human paladin of Brekaneth
Adrie (Joy); level 13 elf cleric
Erdrick (“PC light”); level 13 human cleric of Brekaneth
A week had passed since Girvan Torl’s attack.
Edward has been under protection in the temple (Erdrick is his main guard).
Adrie has been looking for Ander who has disappeared.
Admon has not left the Silverblade house for fear of attacks on his family or himself.
Otherwise the Valley has been mostly quiet.
To kill 2 birds with one stone the council decided to send the party to the Fey Realm for the funeral of Ivellios Galanodil as Thlyria Isara’s guard.
The burial is somber, simple, and uneventful and the PC’s are given ample opportunity for some role-playing.
But since Dale and Mike weren’t around, not much role-playing was done.
So we jumped right into the action.
After they had finished with escorting Thlyria Isara, but were still in the woods, a cold chaos spark appeared.
Surprisingly the party chose the hardest difficulty (5 for 7800XP).
This fight pretty much told me that using dragons as is, is not the way to go. The fight took forever and just became a slugfest after the first dragon was down (no more dailies).
The Ice Chaos Spark froze the ground around it unless a sufficiently intricate arcana check caused it to not grow larger (or possibly even shrink).
To keep the rest of the party busy a pair of adult green dragons played cat and mouse with them.
Of the below items they chose Krant’s Bravado:
Jaycee’s Stocky Hide: Hide Armor of Durability +3
Shelob’s Tricky Crossbow: Transposing Crossbow +3
Petra’s Temporary Escape: Symbol of Censure +3
Kaeroth’s Bloodied Arms: Bloodthirst Bracers
Krant’s Bravado: Cincture of Vivacity
Due to their poor information gathering skills the party totally missed that there had been other sparks appearing randomly around town the past few days and many people were starting to flee to Theven’s Wharf (because this stuff doesn’t happen there). This desperation was causing an increase in theft as not everyone can afford 100gp to pay for the teleport.
A few of the party are also a few gold coins shy because they were being pick pocketed by some kids. But some of the party noticed and ran after the children, following them to a pair of conjoined, abandoned houses in the Crags.
Just as the party got there a purple chaos spark appeared. The party had just enough time to get the children out of the house before this purple spark fully appeared and spit out an Enormous Carrion Crawler and a Balhannoth.
The spark itself was supposed to do more, but after reading the monsters again at the game table, I decided that the fight might be a bit too tough. I’m still not sure if it was or wasn’t.
The party won, but they had to pull some major crowd control on the carrion crawler since it could freeze them all in place every round.
So they used a variety of sliding and pushing powers to keep it away from them while they dealt with the balhannoth first.
Of the items below they took the helm:
Zodac’s Whomping Stick: Lifedrinker Warhammer +3
Dizzen’s Focus: Symbol of Dire Fate +3
Krant’s Encompassing Helm: Carcanet of Psychic Schism
Sillah’s Trick: Cloak of Displacement +3
Norm’s Surprise: Ring of Aquatic Ability
If you’re thinking “He sure is handing out a lot of magic items.” you’re right.
Long story short, I had been shorting the party just a little bit for a while, so now I’m catching them up until my spreadsheet says it’s all even.
Session 33
Admon (Scott); level 13 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 13 human paladin of Brekaneth
Adrie (Joy); level 13 elf cleric
Ander (Dale); level 13 halfling sorcerer
Admon, Edward, and Adrie were heading to the temple of Brekaneth when, once again, all hell broke loose as a brown chaos spark appeared.
This one spat out several earthen creatures (and then large rocks) and the largest of them (an earth titan) grumbled something like “kill the wizard”.
It also spat out a hairless, almost naked, Ander. He later found out he had the same tattoos as Girvan Torl, but wasn’t dazed like Torl was when he was spit out of a chaos spark.
The party was surrounded on the street and would have taken a nice beating but they were able to buy themselves plenty of time with various pushing attacks.
Magic items to choose from: (I believe they took the bracers)
Hin’s Second Skin: Dwarven Chainmail +4
Hin’s Rock Tosser: Resounding Sling +4
Hin’s Scar: Skull Bracers
This last attack caused a large amount of damage in a public place, and became the final straw for many people. There were many small riots, which were really brazen attacks to get money to pay the teleporter fee.
The city council acted quickly and “asked” the party, who are viewed as heroes, to guard the main gate of the city as a symbol of the city doing something.
But this had no chance to affect anything because the party had only been at their new post for an hour when an obviously unnatural fog rolled into town.
The fog was quite thick (50’ max viewing distance) and the party prepared for an attack of some sort.
They were not disappointed.
A contingent of ogres and other creatures attacked the main gate. Their intent was to get past the gate and move into town under the cover of fog and create chaos.
If an ogre made it past the gate, and out of sight of the party, then they lost 25xp for each round the ogre had a chance to wreak havoc.
But if no ogres had that chance, then the party would get 1000 bonus xp.
They came within 1 initiative of losing that 1000xp.
Treasure options: (I think they took the bracers this time too)
Flail of Nightmares: Battlemaster’s Heavy Flail +3
Hin’s Bloody Bane: Bloodthirst Bracers
Green Glowing Rock: Amulet of False Life +3
And that is all for now.
There was going to be more…but I forgot to add it during the session. And since this write up is already quite large, then I will wait until next time.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 12:18 PM
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