Game Date: 10/27/07
The next morning, Rowan, Grumble, Quirky and Badger are eating their breakfast at Morwen’s when in walks Nialia on the arm of a strange woman. The woman bids Nialia a fond farewell and departs, mentioning that she must see some farmers who’ve been leaving poisoned meat out for the wolves in the area.
Rowan reveals to the party that she’s asked Father Tilok to cast True Seeing on her so she can try and find Ysadryl before time runs out. Quirky suggested that if the priest could cast it multiple times, two could cover more ground than one.
Nialia related her encounter with the bounty hunters tracking Rascal, and Araven’s subsequent butt-whooping of the same. The party discussed what to do about Rascal, who was still locked in a trunk in Badger’s room after last night’s bout of drinking and his ill-advised remarks about Badger’s looks vis-à-vis his own. Quirky, happy to see Rascal’s stock on the Badger market falling like an adamantine brick, wonder’s why the party simply doesn’t sell the gnome out. Badger points out that these bounty hunters have been hired by the von Hawkmoor family, and fears that Rascal would sell her and Grumble out to try and save himself. So letting Rascal fall into the bounty hunter’s clutches was out of the question.
The party interrogated Rascal again, getting the full story out of him: his theft of the von Hawkmoor diamond, his inability to sell it for it’s total value, his flight after finding the Twinblades on his trail, his subsequent sale of the diamond to a wizard in an adventuring party headed for an old ruin a few days south of Miel. It is unclear whether the bounty hunters are more interested in recovering the gem, Rascal or both.
Locking Rascal back in the trunk, the group set out for the temple. Meeting Father Tilok, Quirky volunteered to be the other searcher. Father Tilok cast True Seeing on Quirky and he sped off to check the North and West parts of the city. Tilok cast it again on Rowan, who sped off to the East and South.
Rowan spied Ysadryl eating in a shadowy corner of a pub, but not before she ran by Potter Holm’s smithy, verifying once and for all that Potter is indeed a half-elf, and not the shape-changing monster her dream warned her of. Rowan, feigning eating at a nearby table, cast Stalker’s Brand on Ysadryl, then followed her back to the goblin sorceress’ house in the slums of Miel.
Once everyone was back at Morwen’s, tactics and plans are discussed. Quirky and Badger set out to do recon on the house itself, while the rest of the team set out on other errands. Nialia warned the towns watch of their plans to assault the house. The watch was fine with it, but couldn’t lend them any support due to a manhunt that had just begun south of the city.
Rowan went to notify the temple that they might need healers in a hurry later, only to find that the temple had been turned into a triage. Rowan was told a strange woman had offered some of the local farm children poisoned food, and of those that ate it, many were not expected to live.
Grumble paid one last visit to the half-orc smith, who promptly kicked Grumble out and told him never to come back. Grumble visited Potter’s next to pick up his new armor. Potter asked a few discreet questions to Grumble about Rowan, and Grumble eventually told Potter that Rowan “wanted his bone,” in true dwarf subtlety.
Meanwhile, Quirky and Badger did their recon, and found traps on the door, but soon discovered they made pretty poor undercover agents.
Back (again) at Morwen’s, the party made their final plans for taking the sorceress in her house. The party decided to take Rascal along to try and disarm the trap on the front door. Rowan also found out what Grumble had told Potter, and informed the dwarf he would get no help from her with the half-orc as a consequence.
At the house, Grumble covered Rascal while he worked, while the rest of the party waited for Badger to unlock the back door. Sniffing the air, Nialia realized that not only could she smell Ysadryl nearby, she knew that the goblin was on the second floor. Rascal failed to disarm the trap, and nearly died when a cone of cold went off. Grumble took a bit of damage as well, and decided “the hell with it” and just broke down the front door. The party assembled downstairs, knowing that their quarry was alerted to their presence. Charging up the stairs and into the upper room, they found no-one there. Once again, Nialia’s nose alerted her to the presence of the goblin hiding behind the door to the upstairs room, and the druidess cast Faerie Fire, illuminating the invisible sorceress.
Battle ensued, the sorceress summoned several hellhounds to aid her while hammering the party with offensive magic. Grumble single-handedly took out one hellhound, and Nialia occupied the other with a summoned enraged wolverine. Rowan engaged the sorceress, who once more cast invisibility on herself, but Nialia countered with yet another Faerie Fire spell. Eventually, the Rowan and Grumble brought the sorceress down, and Quirky stabilized her just in the nick of time. Restoring her enough to interrogate her, the party asked questions, but as an answer, Ysadryl tried to cast one last spell at them. Badger was too quick, and put her new gauntlets to good use, sending a crossbow bolt through the forehead of the goblin.
The party decided to try healing themselves by consuming massive amounts of goodberries that Nialia had been creating over the course of the last several weeks. While effective, the party agreed that the heartburn and bloating kinda sucked; both Nialia and Rowan were barfing goodberries for quite a while. So much for the Lembas bread and goodberry Pop-Tart idea…
The room and the goblin were looted, and then who should appear but Ujaset, the ghostly gynosphinx! While Ujaset didn’t really thank the party for avenging her death, she promised not to haunt the party any more, and told them where the rest of her treasure could be found, which for Grumble amounted to pretty much the same thing.
The party dropped Rascal, now suffering from hypothermia, off at the temple for healing. They found that none of the children had died. From there they reported to Lady Juliet and Mayor Miel of their success. Miel told them they could keep the treasure they found as a reward for services rendered to the city. She also invited them to join the hunt for the elf woman who poisoned the farm children, specifically asking Nialia and Rowan for aid. Lastly, she told them that the Duke of Pythia wanted to hear their account of the Havensford affair in person, and asked them to depart for the capital city, Pythus, within the week, or as soon as their other business in town was resolved.
***NOTE***
The party leveled up to level 5 at the end of this session.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Story Thus Far
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
PCS:
BADGER: young female gnome rogue.
GRUMBLE: outcast dwarven fighter/ barbarian, and a heavy drinker.
HEIDIANA: beautiful but egocentric young human sorceress (currently incapacitated).
NIALIA: young elven druidess traveling to gain experience outside her grove.
ROWAN: half-elven ranger woman bitten by the wanderlust bug.
MAJOR NPCS:
ARAVEN: female Lythari of the Wolf Clan.
BRISTLE: unicorn cleric of Ehlonna.
BURN: male Lythari of the Bear Clan.
FATHER TILOK: head priest of Pelor’s temple in Miel.
GRISTLE/ RASCAL: handsome gnome rogue, one-time friend of BADGER.
JARVIS: male sorcerer from Havensford.
ORDERIK: tavernkeeper in Havensford, now employed in Morwen’s in Havensford.
POTTER HOLM: half-elf blacksmith in Miel. Sweet on ROWAN.
QUIRKY “BAND-AID” TIMBERS: gnome cleric of Pelor traveling with the party.
ROBIN: hyper but brilliant gnome inventor who makes custom weapons in Miel.
VICTOR VON HAWKMOOR: head of the Scarlet Claw, has a contract out on the lives
of Grumble and Badger.
THE STORY THUS FAR:
Badger was a young gnome girl living in the kingdom of Cardinia, in the city of Blackreach, where her father ran a successful locksmith shop. She had contacts in the local Thieves Guild, who offered her some freelance work. She took the job, along with Grumble, a surly dwarf who’d been outcast from his kind whom Badger had befriended.
Their job was a success, but during the heist they were forced to kill a young woman who turned out to be the daughter of one Victor von Hawkmoor, a powerful man who headed an organization known as the Scarlet Claw. The Thieves Guild offered Badger and Grumble safe conduct out of the city as caravan guards. On the caravan they met a young sorceress name Heidiana and her familiar, a tiny viper named Mr. Wiggles. Some of the caravan guards turned out to be agents in the employ of the von Hawkmoors, and one night they dragged off Grumble, Badger, and accidentally Heidiana as well, into the Old Forest. Things looked bad, but a pack of wolves attacked the Scarlet Claw men. While that happened, a young elven Druidess named Nialia and her owl Anealis arrived on the scene. She had been tracking the wolves with the aid of a half-elf ranger woman named Rowan. Freeing the bound dwarf, gnome and human sorceress, the five of them fought off the wolves then tracked the leader, a huge black wolf, into the forest. They found the buried ruins of an ancient underground tunnel system thousands of years old. Within these halls they found a towering hulk of a man who called himself Burn. Burn gave them a message to carry to the nearby town of Havensford (which was where the caravan was going), that the forest had once more been poisoned by evil magics, and thus would no longer tolerate the infestation of the sons of men, dwarf, and even elf.
Arriving in Havensford, the party relayed the warning to the town council. An elven bard sang an abbreviated version of the War of Oruk-Thrun, a demon lord brought into this world through dark sorcery and treachery, and how the Elves and the first Druids finally banished the demon and his armies back to the Abyss. The bard believed these first Druids, like elves, but creatures of the Earth possessing great power, are the ones issuing the warning, and warned the council not to take their warning lightly. But before a decision could be reached, the town hall was attacked by a horde of plant creatures led by a werewolf. The party killed the werewolf and the plant creatures, and discovered that a sunken citadel lay nearby that might be the cause of the “infestation” spoken of. The local druid and her unicorn companion had gone there to investigate, but had not been heard from. The party journeyed to the location while the town was evacuated.
Exploring the sunken fortress, the party was beset by goblins, orcs, and fouler things. They rescued the unicorn, Bristle, and a gnome named Quirky, who claimed to be a traveling cleric of Pelor, imprisoned here for many months, avoiding starvation only by his command of healing magic. The party began to be beset by disturbing, horrible nightmares. Descending further into the earth, they found the source of the plant creatures, a twisted ex-druid named Belak who tended the Gulthias Tree, a tree grown from a still-green stake driven through a vampire’s heart. The tree was infused with a terrible energy, and the druid was using it to graft plants, animals, and even creatures from other planes into twisted, unspeakable creations.
A terrible battle was fought deep beneath the Earth that day. Belak was slain, and the tree destroyed when the unicorn Bristle drove his horn through his corrupted former druid and into the tree. The resulting backlash killed both of them and the tree. However, Burn soon appeared, resurrected the unicorn, and then left with Bristle in tow.
Before the party could leave, however, a terrible visage of a twisted old man of uncertain race appeared before them. While he never named himself, the figure claimed to be a servant of Kovan, and also to be of the House of Bel. He raged at the party for ruining his plans, and when Heidiana sassed off to him, he struck her down with a terrible spell that stripped her mind from her. From the spoils, Grumble found a dwarven waraxe. When he touched it, he found himself in a darkened dwarven hall surrounded by shadowy giant figures. They hinted he had a destiny, and it was tied up in the weapon he held. They bade him uncover the mysteries of the weapon, and he would be rewarded beyond measure. Grumble doesn’t know much about it yet, but the waraxe will transform in to any dwarven weapon on command.
The party regained the surface and traveled south out of the Old Forest into the Kingdom of Fall and the Dukedom of Pythia. They met the ghost of a Gynosphinx named Ujaset. After abysmally failing to solve a few riddles, Ujaset demanded them to avenge her death at the hands of the goblins who killed her. Ujaset promised them all the treasure the goblins missed, and threatened to haunt the party forever otherwise. The party took out the goblin encampment only to find that the sorceress responsible for actually killing the gynosphinx had left with the bulk of the treasure two days previous. She had traveled south to the town of Miel to commission weapons to be made for her goblins.
Still suffering from the occasional nightmare, the party traveled to Miel as well, finding that the refugees from Havensford had come to the city as well. The adventurers informed the mayor and knight of the city about both their findings in the underground citadel and the goblin sorceress. The mayor gave the party leave to track the sorceress.
While the party hunted and explored the city, Badger encountered an old friend in a gnome shop: the very gnome who had gotten her the job for the Thieves Guild in Blackreach! The gnome was traveling under the pseudonym of Rascal, and he was being pursued by some vicious Bounty Hunters called the Twinblades. Rowan had a dream in which Potter Holm, a half-elf blacksmith who fancied the attractive ranger, told her “This is what you have to watch out for,” and proceeded to turn into a faceless naked gray humanoid. Rowan has a hard time being comfortable around the blacksmith after this dream. Nialia’s dreams have been of strange rituals, where she sits under a moonlit sky in the center of a glowing, rune-inscribed circle, where dark figures chant softly around her. These dreams un-nerve her, but they also fascinate her. She has encountered a woman named Araven, who turns out to be not only one of the Lythari, but was one of the wolves the party first encountered in the forest. Araven apparently has a liking for Nialia, but to what purpose is not known.
The party has spotted the Twinblades, and had a few barely civil encounters with them. The bounty hunters are obviously disdainful of the adventurers’ abilities, and make dark threats unless the party gives up the gnome. Specifically they hint that they know there’s a connection between Rascal and Badger, and won’t hesitate to grab Badger and force her to divulge what she knows.
This last was related by Zalania, the apparent leader of the Bounty Hunters. Zalania accosted Nialia as the druidess walked alone outside the walls of Miel. As Zalania and Nialia squared off against each other, Nialia noticed two more of the bounty hunters on the wall, crossbows aimed at her. Araven shows up, effortlessly subdues the two on the wall, then lightly hops down a fifty-foot wall and walks up to the two women. After telling Zalania that Nialia is under HER protection, she takes an unresisting Nialia off into the nearby woods…
PCS:
BADGER: young female gnome rogue.
GRUMBLE: outcast dwarven fighter/ barbarian, and a heavy drinker.
HEIDIANA: beautiful but egocentric young human sorceress (currently incapacitated).
NIALIA: young elven druidess traveling to gain experience outside her grove.
ROWAN: half-elven ranger woman bitten by the wanderlust bug.
MAJOR NPCS:
ARAVEN: female Lythari of the Wolf Clan.
BRISTLE: unicorn cleric of Ehlonna.
BURN: male Lythari of the Bear Clan.
FATHER TILOK: head priest of Pelor’s temple in Miel.
GRISTLE/ RASCAL: handsome gnome rogue, one-time friend of BADGER.
JARVIS: male sorcerer from Havensford.
ORDERIK: tavernkeeper in Havensford, now employed in Morwen’s in Havensford.
POTTER HOLM: half-elf blacksmith in Miel. Sweet on ROWAN.
QUIRKY “BAND-AID” TIMBERS: gnome cleric of Pelor traveling with the party.
ROBIN: hyper but brilliant gnome inventor who makes custom weapons in Miel.
VICTOR VON HAWKMOOR: head of the Scarlet Claw, has a contract out on the lives
of Grumble and Badger.
THE STORY THUS FAR:
Badger was a young gnome girl living in the kingdom of Cardinia, in the city of Blackreach, where her father ran a successful locksmith shop. She had contacts in the local Thieves Guild, who offered her some freelance work. She took the job, along with Grumble, a surly dwarf who’d been outcast from his kind whom Badger had befriended.
Their job was a success, but during the heist they were forced to kill a young woman who turned out to be the daughter of one Victor von Hawkmoor, a powerful man who headed an organization known as the Scarlet Claw. The Thieves Guild offered Badger and Grumble safe conduct out of the city as caravan guards. On the caravan they met a young sorceress name Heidiana and her familiar, a tiny viper named Mr. Wiggles. Some of the caravan guards turned out to be agents in the employ of the von Hawkmoors, and one night they dragged off Grumble, Badger, and accidentally Heidiana as well, into the Old Forest. Things looked bad, but a pack of wolves attacked the Scarlet Claw men. While that happened, a young elven Druidess named Nialia and her owl Anealis arrived on the scene. She had been tracking the wolves with the aid of a half-elf ranger woman named Rowan. Freeing the bound dwarf, gnome and human sorceress, the five of them fought off the wolves then tracked the leader, a huge black wolf, into the forest. They found the buried ruins of an ancient underground tunnel system thousands of years old. Within these halls they found a towering hulk of a man who called himself Burn. Burn gave them a message to carry to the nearby town of Havensford (which was where the caravan was going), that the forest had once more been poisoned by evil magics, and thus would no longer tolerate the infestation of the sons of men, dwarf, and even elf.
Arriving in Havensford, the party relayed the warning to the town council. An elven bard sang an abbreviated version of the War of Oruk-Thrun, a demon lord brought into this world through dark sorcery and treachery, and how the Elves and the first Druids finally banished the demon and his armies back to the Abyss. The bard believed these first Druids, like elves, but creatures of the Earth possessing great power, are the ones issuing the warning, and warned the council not to take their warning lightly. But before a decision could be reached, the town hall was attacked by a horde of plant creatures led by a werewolf. The party killed the werewolf and the plant creatures, and discovered that a sunken citadel lay nearby that might be the cause of the “infestation” spoken of. The local druid and her unicorn companion had gone there to investigate, but had not been heard from. The party journeyed to the location while the town was evacuated.
Exploring the sunken fortress, the party was beset by goblins, orcs, and fouler things. They rescued the unicorn, Bristle, and a gnome named Quirky, who claimed to be a traveling cleric of Pelor, imprisoned here for many months, avoiding starvation only by his command of healing magic. The party began to be beset by disturbing, horrible nightmares. Descending further into the earth, they found the source of the plant creatures, a twisted ex-druid named Belak who tended the Gulthias Tree, a tree grown from a still-green stake driven through a vampire’s heart. The tree was infused with a terrible energy, and the druid was using it to graft plants, animals, and even creatures from other planes into twisted, unspeakable creations.
A terrible battle was fought deep beneath the Earth that day. Belak was slain, and the tree destroyed when the unicorn Bristle drove his horn through his corrupted former druid and into the tree. The resulting backlash killed both of them and the tree. However, Burn soon appeared, resurrected the unicorn, and then left with Bristle in tow.
Before the party could leave, however, a terrible visage of a twisted old man of uncertain race appeared before them. While he never named himself, the figure claimed to be a servant of Kovan, and also to be of the House of Bel. He raged at the party for ruining his plans, and when Heidiana sassed off to him, he struck her down with a terrible spell that stripped her mind from her. From the spoils, Grumble found a dwarven waraxe. When he touched it, he found himself in a darkened dwarven hall surrounded by shadowy giant figures. They hinted he had a destiny, and it was tied up in the weapon he held. They bade him uncover the mysteries of the weapon, and he would be rewarded beyond measure. Grumble doesn’t know much about it yet, but the waraxe will transform in to any dwarven weapon on command.
The party regained the surface and traveled south out of the Old Forest into the Kingdom of Fall and the Dukedom of Pythia. They met the ghost of a Gynosphinx named Ujaset. After abysmally failing to solve a few riddles, Ujaset demanded them to avenge her death at the hands of the goblins who killed her. Ujaset promised them all the treasure the goblins missed, and threatened to haunt the party forever otherwise. The party took out the goblin encampment only to find that the sorceress responsible for actually killing the gynosphinx had left with the bulk of the treasure two days previous. She had traveled south to the town of Miel to commission weapons to be made for her goblins.
Still suffering from the occasional nightmare, the party traveled to Miel as well, finding that the refugees from Havensford had come to the city as well. The adventurers informed the mayor and knight of the city about both their findings in the underground citadel and the goblin sorceress. The mayor gave the party leave to track the sorceress.
While the party hunted and explored the city, Badger encountered an old friend in a gnome shop: the very gnome who had gotten her the job for the Thieves Guild in Blackreach! The gnome was traveling under the pseudonym of Rascal, and he was being pursued by some vicious Bounty Hunters called the Twinblades. Rowan had a dream in which Potter Holm, a half-elf blacksmith who fancied the attractive ranger, told her “This is what you have to watch out for,” and proceeded to turn into a faceless naked gray humanoid. Rowan has a hard time being comfortable around the blacksmith after this dream. Nialia’s dreams have been of strange rituals, where she sits under a moonlit sky in the center of a glowing, rune-inscribed circle, where dark figures chant softly around her. These dreams un-nerve her, but they also fascinate her. She has encountered a woman named Araven, who turns out to be not only one of the Lythari, but was one of the wolves the party first encountered in the forest. Araven apparently has a liking for Nialia, but to what purpose is not known.
The party has spotted the Twinblades, and had a few barely civil encounters with them. The bounty hunters are obviously disdainful of the adventurers’ abilities, and make dark threats unless the party gives up the gnome. Specifically they hint that they know there’s a connection between Rascal and Badger, and won’t hesitate to grab Badger and force her to divulge what she knows.
This last was related by Zalania, the apparent leader of the Bounty Hunters. Zalania accosted Nialia as the druidess walked alone outside the walls of Miel. As Zalania and Nialia squared off against each other, Nialia noticed two more of the bounty hunters on the wall, crossbows aimed at her. Araven shows up, effortlessly subdues the two on the wall, then lightly hops down a fifty-foot wall and walks up to the two women. After telling Zalania that Nialia is under HER protection, she takes an unresisting Nialia off into the nearby woods…
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