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Author
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Comment
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Offgall Fizziwigg
Faen
(7/1/03 5:46 am)
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Re: The Jar
Such a nasty plan. I wish I had read it before my group's battle with Lareth.
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JRedGiant
Faen
(7/7/03 6:41 am)
Reply
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On to the Ruined Temple...
Between sessions, the rogue Zane Stormtree looked around for sidejobs in Neverwinter. He met a woman, Bethe, who hired him to steal a painting from a nobleman and leave incriminating evidence implicating a wizard from Luskan. The nobleman was a moderate who was opposed to war with Luskan following their siege of Neverwinter. Zane was successful and the nobleman now argues in favor of war.
(Bethe is the assassin from the temple. Right now temple forces are trying to stir up trouble in the surrounding area to further disguise their activities. At this time they know that the Champion of Elemental Evil should be found soon. The party told some locals about their exploits against the temple forces, so Bethe decided to hire Zane and implicate the party if he got caught - a win-win situation.)
Meanwhile, Aldar Magere caught a ship to Waterdeep, where he completed his lifetime goal of joining the Guild Wizards of Waterdeep (and becoming the first PC with a PrC.) He heard the big news there...monsters have for the first time in recent history streamed out of Undermountain into the Yawning Portal. The many adventurers drinking there beat the monsters back, but the bar itself was sacked. The Lords of Waterdeep are actively commissioning adventurers to head into Undermountain. (Once again, the work of the Temple to distract.)
At the start of the session, the Chaos Dragonslayers rendezvoused in Homlett and took the abandoned road to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Near the end of the second day, when they were to make camp about an hour outside the Temple, they saw three hobgoblins on the road.
Zane approached cautiously and they parlayed. The hobs had no desire to die fighting the party, but also had no desire to return to the Temple without fighting them. So the party bribed them and they left...but first they told the party that the "new hobgoblin" had talked to Rarkus and ordered them to stay here and watch for adventurers.
The party was paranoid already, so Zane started climbing trees to look for goblins, but instead he found a metal figurine of a bird. He took it down to Aldar who discovered it was magic. Aldar had a late night identifying the item as the Stalwart Eye. (Aldar's Ring of Sustenance allows him to get by on two hours of sleep.)
The next morning the party went on to the temple and was promptly attacked by four loud, barking dogs. Aldar hit them with a sleep spell and the party dispatched them.
They scouted the wine cellar and the tower and found both abandoned, save for some rats. They discovered the shaft and the passage down, but the cave in dissuaded even the dwarves from trying to tunnel through.
So they returned to the main temple and buffed themselves...including Blindsight cast on Zane, Aldar and Lomar and Darkvision on Kellet, eliminating their need for light sources. Zane opened the door invisibly. He was greeted by a hail of javelins and alchemists fire from the goblins in the front ranks and ten hobgoblins behind them. They knew someone was in the doorway, but Zane avoided the lion's share of damage. The alchemists fire ignited a pool of oil right in front of the doors as well.
Aldar stepped up and launched in a fireball, wiping out almost the entire front two ranks, except one goblin who cowered in the corner, hoping to flee past the party as soon as it was clear. Krebbich hurled a couple Cause Fear spells at the party from range, but Kromlech and Ygdal shook off the spells.
Meanwhile, Alubya, invisible and holding Krebbich's wand, cast Bless, then snuck around and tagged both the dire ape and Rarkus with Protection from Chaos.
After the lamp oil burned out the party advanced cautiously, with Ygdal downing a potion of flying. He floated up just past the first set of pillars towards Krebbich, and three hobgoblins took readied actions to take a 5'step and attack. He also got to see the two sets of hobgoblins behind the barrels, the two groups of greatsword wielding hobgoblins, Rarkus and his three goblin minions and the dire ape. Ygdal soiled himself and set to work.
Really, the battle was a challenge but not a deathtrap for the PC's. Bad guy highlights included the dire ape dropping the wolf and terrifying the players, Aldar hitting the tripline that Ygdal had floated right over, knocking him prone and elite hobgoblins knocking Lomar down to -9.
Good guy highlights included Aldar hitting the middle of the pack with a Scare that sent several hobs, including Krebbich, heading for the hills. Rarkus took beatdown from several directions and never actually got to hit anyone. Kellet summoned a thoqqua and I forgot until just now to check if it was evil...I'll bet the chance is pretty high at the Ruined Temple. Kromlech discovered the glory that is Great Cleave against hordes of humanoids.
After the battle, while looting the place, the PC's found a group of hobgoblin youths, guarded by what looked like a 12-year old hobgoblin girl. They released the youths. They also discovered one human commoner, who they put in hobgoblin studded leather, gave a javelin and a morningstar and sent him to wait by the wagon.
When they left the temple, they found the dead bodies of the eight hobgoblins and the commoners, with a message written in blood. "Be seeing you..."
The party now HATES faux-Jaroo.
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Offgall Fizziwigg
Faen
(7/7/03 8:19 am)
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Re: The Jolly Red Campaign Log
Looks like the Jaroo plan worked like a charm. Sounded like a fun battle. The dopppleganger will make a good recurring baddie. He could cause lots of trouble in the future. I would consider making him show up in Rastor, but not when they first arrive. Maybe when they go back to regroup or something, plan something with Jaroo, Tal and thet group Tal can get from the CRM.
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JRedGiant
Faen
(7/7/03 8:50 am)
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The Continuing Adventures of Faux-Jaroo
Some thoughts that have crossed my mind for Jaroo include having him go into Rastor looking like Ygdal Trueforger (PC), seduce Rerrid's (that's the dwarf elder's name, right?) daughter and get himself kicked out of town for life. Should be amusing when the real Ygdal shows up and brings a group of heavily armed friends.
Another thought is to have him hire another doppleganger who is not very bright to try to join the party, pose as a prisoner, etc...when the PC's catch him and kill him, they'll assume they got faux-Jaroo.
I also think it's time to consider advancing Jaroo, since he's escaped the PC's twice. Not sure what road to go down.
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Offgall Fizziwigg
Faen
(7/7/03 9:17 am)
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Re: The Continuing Adventures of Faux-Jaroo
If I think of anything clever, I'll post it. How far are you going to take this thing? Are you going to take it to the CRM?
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JRedGiant
Faen
(7/7/03 10:39 am)
Reply
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Re: The Continuing Adventures of Faux-Jaroo
Hard to say exactly. Faux-Jaroo intends to live a long and fruitful life, but wants to spend some time harassing the PC's just for spite. If they come up with a way of catching him that outsmarts him, obviously that will end the game real quick.
After the PC's destroy a second temple...if Faux-Jaroo is still around, Hedrack will capture him and torture him for info on the PC's. (Faux-Jaroo will give the info willingly, but Hedrack finds torture to be so...stimulating. I see him similar to Count Rugan from The Princess Bride.) So he definitely has a maximum shelf life. They'll probably encounter him as a prisoner in the Outer Fane, but that's waaaay down the road.
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JRedGiant
Faen
(8/14/03 8:43 am)
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The Jolly Red Campaign Log
Some belated session reports...I've been busy with a number of things lately. This session was played on July 20.
Okay, the Rastor session. Aldar and Lomar's players had car trouble, and Kellet's players been flaking since the beginning of the campaign, which left us two adult players and the adolecent player of Kromlech to run the party. I avoided combat and let the party investigate Rastor.
As they arrived, they noticed both the large dwarf and orc populations. They also noticed Ygdal getting dirty looks from the dwarves. They weren't in town long before Rerrid came marching toward them, weapon drawn.
"YOU! I TOLD YOU NEVER TO SET FOOT IN THIS TOWN AGAIN! THIS TIME IT'LL BE YER HEAD!!!"
Ygdal looked befuddled for a moment, then muttered "Jaroo" under his breath. He promptly surrendered and asked if there was a priest, preferably of Hala Brightaxe or the dwarven pantheon, who might interrogate him and alleviate misunderstandings. Rerrid calmed himself and agreed to throw Ygdal in jail overnight.
Kromlech is outraged by this and seperates from the party. He attempts to, in no particular order, talk the guards into releasing Ygdal, steal their keys and bribe them. Eventually he gets tossed in the slam himself.
Meanwhile, Zane pokes about town and decides to check out this Tal Chammish guy he'd read about in the note to Master Dunrat. He watches his shop surreptitiously and watches people go in and out with no wagons. Zane tails one of them (Commoner 1) and picks his pocket, nabbing the pouch of Tanbrosh. He continues to follow him and watches him suddenly panic, acting as you or I might act if we'd lost our keys. Checks his pockets, retraces his steps, and eventually just bites the bullet and buys another dose.
Zane then hires the guy to come out to the inn and check over the parties wagons, keeping an eye on him and feeling him up for information. He asks about the extra customers. Tal Chammish says that the wagon business isn't all that good and that he has an extra sideline just for the locals.
(My read on this was that at this point, Tal DOES NOT want to hook PC's on Tanbrosh. He doesn't know why they are here for sure, but does know that a dead PC will likely result in a bunch of very angry adventuring companions who think that Tal would look pretty on the end of their axes and wands.)
Aldar, Lomar and Kellet (run by the other players) are approached approaced in the inn by Tymerian. She sees the PC's and decides they're going to head for the CRM. She lets them know about the lightning towers and the location of the main entrance. IMC, she's been out of the CRM for quite a while and has traumatically blocked a lot of the memories, so her info about what's in the CRM is pretty dated and useless. I described her as looking in her early forties, and she mentioned she was only 24. Little freak out factor there. She mentioned that several of her companions were lost and likely dead in the ToAC complex.
Oh, yeah, and Zane returns to the inn to find he's racked up 150gp bar tab...courtesy of Jaroo. They really HATE this doppleganger now.
Aldar looks over the stash of Tanbrosh, studying it with his alchemical skills late into the night. He discovers what it is and its effects, but not how to replicate it. He also knows that he could probably produce an antitoxin with some time-consuming and expensive effort.
Next morning, Rerrid comes into the jail with his Zone of Truth spell in hand. Kromlech blows his save and Ygdal intentionally fails. Ygdal reveals that none of them have ever been in Rastor before yesterday, and that a murderous doppleganger has been harassing the party.
By the way, Ygdal is properly pious through all of this. He's aiming for that CG faux-paladin PrC whos name escapes me at the moment, worshiping Hala Brightaxe. I'll need to incorporate Hala into the dwarven ruins somehow. :-)
So Rerrid lets the Ygdal free and fines Kromlech 100 gp for obstruction of justice. The rest of the party shows up and asks for a word with Rerrid. They let him know about the Tanbrosh situation. This is delicate, because they've already spotted Thandain as one of the addicts.
In the end, the lawful Rerrid has his hands tied, because in the chaotic structure of Rastor he has no legal authority over the humans. The chaotic party doesn't want to start a mass epidemic of withdrawl deaths by killing Tal Chamish, there's no real evidence that he's part of the cult (Dunrat's note only proves that he's the local wagon dealer) and he's only hurting those that ask him to. But we did have the neat little Drugs=Bad reinforcement for the adolecent player. :-)
The party left and scouted the CRM. They found several tracks leading to the south entrance and tracks of a huge, doglike beast being used as a mount for someones hunt around the main entrance. This is where we broke it off for the night.
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JRedGiant
Faen
(8/14/03 11:21 am)
Reply
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Re: The Jolly Red Campaign Log
Another make up post - this session was played on August 3.
The party camped overnight in a secluded spot near the base of Mt. Stalagos. No random encounters. While they were memorizing spells, Zane stealthed his way up to the south entrance and peeked around. He spotted the arrow slits and closed door and headed back down. Not much chance for lax guards to catch the stealthy halfling, who now has an Elven Cloak to boot.
Now they moved to the south entrance. As part of the buffing process, Zane and Aldar got long term Blindsight spells.
Aldar, Kellet and Lomar donned the party's collection of priests robes and moved to the door. Zane followed behind invisibly, while Ygdal, Kromlech and Lomar's wolf waited outside listening for the fit to hit the shan.
Sigh...why are they splitting up???!!! Did I not make clear the REALLY HUGE tracks outside? Oh well...they've been warned.
Aldar's group knocks on the door. The gnolls open the door and see the priests. Strange that they bother knocking, but they don't question them. They open the door and offer assistance. Aldar is abrasive and demanding of them, which fits in beautifully.
Meanwhile, Zane sneaks past before the doors are closed and scouts the area. Uh oh...there's a lot of guards in the area. He opens the door to the guardpost on the left and sneaks into the room invisibly.
The guard pokes his head out and looks around, then has a dialogue with the gnolls on the other end who he assumes are playing a prank on him. He closes the door and goes back to the dice game at the table. Now Zane is stuck in the room with several humans on one end and several more gnolls on the other.
By this time, Aldar, Lomar and Kellet have been escorted into the barracks chamber with the howler and the gnolls at the door have left them there. Mereclar eventually steps out to see why his big puppy is growling so much.
Suspicious, he says in a loud voice, "Your graces, how may I assist you?" This rouses Wormspike and the readied guards in the barracks.
Aldar tries to give Mereclar some orders. I ask him to make a bluff check and he rolls..."7?" his player asks. It's a mute point, because by this time, Zane's tossing a bead of force at the humans at the table. Wackiness ensues.
The fight was long and drawn out, so I'll just give the highlights. Aldar's group threw a deeper darkness on the door and retreated into the hallway, plunging most of the gate complex in darkness. Aldar himself chucked fireballs down the hall to take out most of the guards from the barracks and weaken the bigger threats. They made a stand just inside the main gates, still in darkness.
The howler found them with his high listen checks. This was the fully advanced howler, but with the miss chances from the concealment wasn't hitting very often.
Actually, a continuing theme was my really hot 20 sider, which I affectionately call the PK20 (Player Killing 20 sider :-). It rolled about 8 crits this fight.
Zane used his beads of force (I think that's the last of them) to take out most of the groups in the room with him. Unfortunately, by the time he finished them off, Terryginit had passed by his room and sent a few zombies in to kill that moved. This delayed him even more in meeting the party, as he couldn't sneak attack them.
Lomar dropped a Blindsight on himself and on Ygdal as he came in, leaving only Kromlech and Kellet blind. Ygdal was calling out where to swing to Kromlech. Ygdal's player, BTW, had just hit 6th level, and made very good use of the extra attack and Great Cleave. :-)
The howler and Terryginit were the big challenges. The howler was an offensive powerhouse, hitting about half the time and doing BIG damage. Terryginit was a defensive powerhouse, as his armor, natural armor, Cats Grace and Shield of Faith combined for a very high AC that was nearly unhittable. Ygdal wasted a few rounds trying to swing at him before giving up and taking out the howler. Kromlech got hit with a gut-shot Tharizdun's Touch and was incapped for 5 rounds.
The zombie with Unliving Weapon on him got Fireballed. Bummer...they never knew the difference.
No PC deaths and the entire gate complex, save the two trogs who ran back to the Earth Temple and a few zombies who Terryginit left behind, got mopped up.
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JRedGiant
Faen
(8/17/03 9:28 pm)
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Earth Temple Complex assault
This session brings us back to the present...
While our heroes looted the bodies and moved loot into their wagon, which was then returned to its hiding spot, Earth Temple forces moved in and Stone-Shaped off both passages. Greshta also snuck into Terrygnit's chamber and attempted to leave a false clue, a letter advising that the "prisoners" have been moved to the other side fo the mines to the Fire Temple to be sacrificed. Not knowing whether the party was looters, random do-gooders or mercenaries, they did whatever they could to bring the heat off of them.
Turned out not to work. The party rested up (there was a HEATED debate over where to rest to avoid a counterattack that never came) and Stone Shaped the western passage to enter the Earth Temple complex.
As they did this, a troglodyte sentry spotted them from 60' away, out of the range of their darkvision, and ran off to warn the southern Earth forces that the PC's were coming.
The Swordmaster foolishly waited as bait to challenge the party. Zane snuck in and peppered him with sneak attack arrows (surprised and beat his initiative) to nearly kill him. Kellet whipped out his Deeper Darkness stone and the party moved in under the cover of darkness, using Blindsight as much as possible.
The Swordmaster fled back to a waiting Miikolak, who attempted to Dispel the Deeper Darkness and failed. He popped off the cool rock blast, but Aldar popped off a fireball and the party quickly mopped up the mooks and earth elemental. Miikolak, Swordmaster and Greshta did something totally unexpected - they fled!
A merry chase ensued with the party not being able to deal with the trogs head start. They used potions of fly, boots of haste and wildshaping into wolves to speed themselves up, but by the time they caught up the NPC's had managed to flee past the manticore. As Aldar, the first in range, flew in with his Shield spell behind him, he got tagged with 4 spikes and came within 2 hp of dying.
The PC's managed to close with and kill the manticore, but by this time Miikolak had made good their escape with another Stone Shape. The party scouted out the rest of the temple complex and then decided to rest up.
I feel that at this point the temple will be on alert status at least for two days. All surviving forces will prep for an assault on the Earth Temple itself, leaving only the mephits as guards. The bedraggled Earth Temple will prepare to defend itself to the death.
On a gaming note, Kellet's player has now missed almost every session. He and Ygdal are being retired from the campaign, with Ygdal's player starting a new dwarven cleric, probably of Moradin, who will meet the party next session. With all the suspicion of Faux-Jaroo and a third of the party mysteriously disappearing in the night, his introduction should make for interesting role-play.
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srmilich
Faen
(8/17/03 11:24 pm)
Reply
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Re: Earth Temple Complex assault
JRedGiant,
I love what you are doing with Jaroo. In fact, I love it so much, I am stealing your idea as he is currently alive and well in my campaign, having escaped the mill devastation along with Dunrat. I have been trying to work out how to re-insert him, and a Tal/Dunrat/Jaroo team up seems like a cool way to frustrate the crap out of my party.
Thanks heaps, and keep up the good work.
Cheers, Simon.
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JRedGiant
Memunite
(9/28/03 1:59 pm)
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Earth Temple Complex assault, part two
Once again I'm very late in logging this. In fact, it was two weeks ago and we're running again tonight. First off, we cleared things up with Kellet's player, so the roster remained intact.
The party slept overnight, then removed the stoneshaped walls from the manticore room. The mephits spotted them coming in, then bolted right away back to the Earth Temple where everyone was holed up. The party killed the centipedes then moved on to the earth temple. This got brutal.
Zane tried slinking along the side of the temple invisibly. Unfortunately, as the party aproached, Snearak started using his wand of monster summoning to pull out some thoqqua's...blindsight. They headed right for him and surrounded him. The fighters and Aldar did a good job taking out the mooks, but got too seperated. Miilowak nailed Ygdal with a Heartache spell and the Swordmaster popped him with a coup de gras. Dead dwarf. Heartache from the BoVD is a VERY nasty first level spell.
Just as the party was feeling like it had a chance, Uskatoth and the Xorn came out from behind them. The xorn was burrowed and Uskatoth had Melded Into Stone to buff himself with Rage, Divine Favor, etc... It was looking like a TPK, so I had Uskatoth call for the party's surrender. They released the party, including the remaining prisoners and Ygdal's corpse, and told them that the price for their generosity was to turn and make their way for the Fire Temple. The party headed back to Rastor where I allowed Rerrid to have a Raise Dead scroll to bring back Ygdal.
However, this generosity will not go without a price. The party found the Amulet of Inescapable Location and sold it. There's a travelling merchant NPC I named Creeper in honor of Morrowind, who will purchase items for them in Waterdeep and sell them to the party when he comes back into town. Creeper told them that he was going to use the Amulet himself...too many bandits have been using divinations to raid his caravan. I gave them a clue as to the items curse when they used a divination spell around Creeper and it worked just fine on him too, but they didn't say anything. So he's going to get killed by bandits. Even worse, next time "Creeper" is in town, it'll actually be Jaroo, who will be more than happy to bilk the party of their hard earned cash for non-functioning magic items.
Still, there's a really good chance they'll catch Jaroo in this latest attempt and end this sub-plot once and for all. Tonight I'm expecting them to head down the mineshafts, where I expect the ettin and others to roll over. Vranthis should be a challenge though.
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JRedGiant
Memunite
(9/28/03 9:16 pm)
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Vranthis
The party returned from Rastor and hung a right. They stayed on the upper mineshaft, so first they bumped into the thoqquas. These are rapidly becoming my favorite CR2 monster. They were largely ineffective but did tag Ygdal with an AoO before dying. Sadly, he forgot to request a heal before they ran into Vranthis.
Vranthis heard them coming and cast Mage Armor and Shield (replacement from Spider Climb...silly spell for a creature with wings.) Zane, Aldar and Kromlech got blasted with the first round of breath. Aldar tried Phantasmal Killer on him twice before giving up and going to the Dispel Magic to dust the Shield spell, missing the Mage Armor. The dragons reach helped with some cheese attacks of opportunity and he managed to back up near the pyramid while busting off a second cloud.
At this point, Aldar blasted him with a Fireball and specifically tagged the pyramid too. Out comes the Girallion. However, he only lived long enough to get one attack off, as everyone who felt that the AC27 Mage Armored dragon was too hard to hit changed targets. Meanwhile, Vranthis rolled horribly in his attempt to finish Zane and got finished by some Magic Missiles. Zane and Kromlech got in some good hits as well during the fight, with a 5th level Ygdal and 3rd level Tenaris (NPC) mainly hanging back and Lomar and Kellet mainly just healing.
The party healed up and did some further exploration, where they parlayed with Mooliwik. (sp?) From the safety of the water, he agreed with the party to coordinate their attacks on the Fire Temple. The party is to leave a set of rocks set up as a pyramid as a symbol when they are ready to strike. He also told the party that the haunted Dwarven area was just past the bridge complex, that there was a nasty two-heads behind them and that the bridge complex was run by an evil sadist.
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Derrylrandallin
Mortal
(10/6/03 9:09 am)
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Vranthis
Hey, JRed, Daithi here.
Question: Did the shield spell expire, or did the party take it down with dispel magic? With shield up, they shouldn't have been able to finish the dragon off with magic missiles. It's been my favorite defense against the sorceror's inevitable attack in my campaign.
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JRedGiant
Memunite
(10/7/03 9:42 am)
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Good question
Good question. Aldar sent a targeted Dispel Magic at Vranthis. He took down the Shield but blew his roll on the Mage Armor.
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JRedGiant
Memunite
(10/11/03 10:15 pm)
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Re: Good question
This was a pretty hacky-slashy session, but fun was definetely had.
The party went back down the lower tracks to find this two heads. Along the way the party managed to find the rusty tracks and cart in the large chamber and realized there was a rust monster. Meanwhile, the ettin and rusty where upstairs in the crossover point waiting to ambush them.
The ambush was less then sucessful. Rusty smelled the invisible, flying, scouting Zane, but couldn't really do anything but warn Two-heads. Zane flew behind him and chucked his sneak attack dagger, bouncing off the hide. Two heads threw the thunderstone at the advancing party on the ground floor...all saves made, then swung at Zane to no avail. A few well placed spells later and the party took them both out without having to even try the ladders.
They moved back to map out the rest of the passage and found the basilisk. No one got stoned and the party had a few idle moments of fun destroying the intact statue and talking about how great it would be to Break Enchantment on the other statue to watch the amputee bleed out. (Note for the alignment nazi's...this discussion was OOC).
On they moved to the digesters room. He successfully hid from the halfling and the rest of the party, then concentrated a blast of acid on the rear party member on the way out. Tenaris Glimmerdawn fell over, acid burned to death. We'd been role playing her crush on Aldar, and someone asked if she had any dying romantic last words. I looked up and said "BLEAH!" and knocked over her fig. Then on the digesters attack, it managed to jump and grab the hawk that Lomar had shifted into. I said melee attacks would have a 1 in 3 chance of nailing the druid and Ygdals player just grabbed the dice and said "Druid's tough". Hilarity ensued.
Then the party continued into the collapsing room chamber. Zane decided to search for a few extra rounds before bailing, since he had the evasion to take no damage from falling rocks. He did so with a potion of fly so no vibrations, but for fun the party kept yelling into the room to trigger more of the rockslide. He left about 6 seconds before the whole room collapsed, prompting someone to kvetch about the missed opportunity to bury Tenaris with ease.
Down they went to the fungus room, where I asked Zane to make a Fort Save DC15. He flunked it. I told him that Zane was fine but the player goes into anapoleptic shock. (The player is highly allergic to mushrooms.) What can I say, it was one of those nights.
Anyways, Umber Jr came out into the room and Zane confidently flew over (still under the earlier potion of flying) to tag it. Of course, as soon as he got within 30, he got confused. Ygdal also got confused but the rest of the party killed it. Unfortunately, during the fight Zane wandered off right into Umber Sr, who picked up the halfling and bit him.
A battle ensued between Zane and Umber Sr. when Aldar charged in and, from a safe distance, used a MoF spell to banish Umber Sr. to the Plane of Shadow for 7 rounds. Eventually, Zane hit "attack nearest" on his roll and managed to sneak attack Aldar (Quicker Than The Eye feat - our rule on Confused attacks require the most damaging attack...my mage in the other campaign had to fireball his feet once from this) so Aldar promptly used the same spell on Zane. When Umber Sr. returned, he burrowed away.
By the way, does anyone think that the umber hulks can burrow with a grappled creature in tow and then leave that creature to suffocate to death? Nasty but effective...kinda like a real life crocodile attack I think.
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 Infiniti2000
Cherub
(10/12/03 7:24 am)
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ezSupporter
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Re: Good question
If the burrowing leaves a tunnel, then the victim wouldn't suffer. There's nothing about the umber hulk that says it can 'breathe earth', so no the PC wouldn't be affected by being in the tunnel with him. A xorn, however, maybe, if you rule that the xorn can take someone with him.
"Note for the alignment nazi's...this discussion was OOC"
No XP for you! Come back one year! 
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JRedGiant
Memunite
(10/13/03 6:40 pm)
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Burrowing
However, nowhere does it say that it leaves a structurally sound tunnel. I viewed burrowing creatures as having their tunnles collapse in on themselves afterwords.
BTW, I'm really thinking that the Earth Temple would use an underground xorn as a sentry now that most of their mooks are dead. While I couldn't see an umber hulk surviving like this, a xorn should be just fine I'd think.
Now accepting flames...
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JRedGiant
Memunite
(10/27/03 11:11 am)
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Last nights session, part 1
Due to some problems with attendence on the part of Kellet's player, Zane's player decided to shift to a cleric....as you'll see below.
__________________________
Almost immediately after the battle with the umber hulks, Aldar recieved a sending from Khelban Arunsun, the famed Blackstaff who IMC is also the guildmaster of the Guild Wizards of Waterdeep, of whom Aldar is a member. The sending was "Waterdeep is being invaded. Return to Rastor for instructions immediately. Blackstaff."
Aldar insisted that the party make tracks for Rastor immediately. No one put up too much of an arguement so off the party went. They discovered that all of the corpses in the gate complex have now been removed (the Earth Temple's gonna make some zombies.)
So on they go to Rastor. Now, when they get there, most of the party meets with Rerrid. They're hoping to make arrangement to store some loot until they can transport themselves to a place where they can sell it. Rerrid tells them some interesting news. A priest of Akadi (Faerunian god of air) was murdered in his room in Rastor two days ago. His lungs were punctured. (I'm going somewhere with this - I mean it.)
Meanwhile, Aldar meets privately with the Blackstaff. Khelben tells him that someone has altered some of the teleporting rooms in Undermountain to teleport into random points in the city proper. This is causing major problems...displacer beasts, bugbear strike teams and the occasional minotaur appearing in bakeries, guild houses and taverns several times a day is not a good thing, even for such a cosmopolitan city as Waterdeep. The cities resources are being stretched to the limit. However, a party of adventurers trying to shut down or block off the portal found a half-eaten corpse wearing an obex symbal. Rather than summon Aldar back to Waterdeep, he wants the "young elf" to continue his investigations. Khelban suspects the hand of the cult in some of the other problems nearby...Neverwinter is invading Luskan, Amn and Calimshan are building up armies and the Zhents are back at war with the Dales...again. All hell is starting to break loose on Faerun - must be Tuesday.
The party meets up over dinner and starts to compare notes. Zane hears about Neverwinter invading Luskan and flashes back. He knows that the job he did in Neverwinter contributed to the war and is putting the blame square on his own shoulders. He left the party in the middle of the night...leaving behind the party items he was carrying and a fairwell note with Ygdal. He'll be off to track down the woman who hired him in Neverwinter (Bethe the assassin).
Next morning as the party wakes up to Zanes disappearance, they huddle together to discuss the loss. Eventually Kromlech goes down to breakfast where he's greeted by a Torg, a priest of Ishitara (spelling?)(Faerunian god of water). Torg has traveled the globe to this spot near the Temple of All Consumption. Early on in his adventuring career he was killed but later raised. During his time on the other side, Ishitara came to him and told him he had a purpose - to prevent the release of Olhydra, Prince of Elemental Evil Water. He was to seek the servents of Silvanus, Hala, Moradin and Azuth in this quest and to be aware that the enemy of his enemy is sometimes his enemy. (His enemy is Kossuth, Faerunian deity of fire, and Kossuth's enemy that was referred to is Imix.)
So we have a new cast roll call.
Ygdal Trueforger - Dwarf Fighter 6
Kromlech - Dwarf Fighter 6
Torg - Human Cleric 7
Aldar - Elven Wizard 5/Guild Wizard of Waterdeep 2
Lomar - Druid 7
The session continued but this is a good stopping point for this post...
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JRedGiant
Memunite
(10/28/03 11:16 am)
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Western Bridge Complex
Okay...moving on to part II. Sorry about the delay, spent some time yesterday going to the last second Monday Night Football game.
So the party returned to the CRM. I'd decided that new guards won't have arrived in the entrance until the next day, giving ten full days. So they moved unopposed through the mines and returned to the umber hulk lairs. They explored a bit and found some of the umber hulk treasures, then moved on to the trolls. The trolls saw they were outnumbered 5 to 2, by adventurers who must have gotten past the hated umber hulks, so they turned and ran. The party was sick of getting baited into tough fights (see the Earth Temple entry) so they just let the trolls go. A few rounds later they came back with Krall, who had tossed down his potions of heroism, protection from fire and bulls strength. The party dispatched them without too much effort...subduing them and then dragging them onto the flammable fungal beds in the room.
On to Krall's room which was rather empty, the party moved forward. And this is where things went to pot for them, in what I call "The Shatter Detente".
See, Ygdal's player is the other DM in our group. He and I have a standing agreement on the Shatter spell. If PC's start using it, NPC's in both campaigns will start using it, and nobody wants their equipment to be continually blowing up. So we both agree not to use it and highly discourgage our players from breaking "the Shatter Detente".
Anyways, when I saw that Heunar had a Wand of Shatter, I changed it to a Wand of Alarm, cast by a 6th level wizard for a 12 hour duration. (Cost is the same). He had set up an Alarm zone just south of Krall's doors, as a precaution after word had gone around that the main gate forces were decimated.
Ping. "Oh, great. Krall forgot to say the password again. C'mon Tippesh..." and they go to their preperations, even though they figure it's just the stupid troll. As a joke to myself, the password he's constantly forgetting is "Krall". His own name.
So Heunar goes invisible, moves to the lever by the dinos and watches down the hall. Tippish casts See Invisible and goes to tell D'Gran. D'Gran heads down to start berating Slazh for his brother's stupidity, waiting to lay into the both of them, but tells Tippesh to get some of the human warriors and check it out.
Meanwhile the party has discovered the doors leading towards the trolls room. They spend a round or so staring down the corridor, then they move on past it. I'm having them position their figs exactly on the board, so the players are scared. Torg peeks around the corner and Heunar sees him and drops the lever. The dinos charge down the corridor snarling, barking and generally waking up the whole place.
The front line of Torg, Kromlech and Ygdal manage to take the dinos down quickly. Meanwhile, the spellcasters Lomar and Aldar, realizing that all that noise is going to be trouble, spend some time buffing themselves, Lomar making his pet dire wolf tough with Nature's Favored and Aldar with Haste and Shield.
Heunar finishes his Summon Monster II and a pseudonatural wolf pops up and takes a bite out of Torg. It also doesn't last long. Reinforcements come from down the corridor as Rau, Slazh and most of the human warriors comes out. D'Gran goes invisible and floats over while Tippish hides in the hall and starts buffing herself.
Aldar cuts loose with a fireball which kills the 6 warriors who stayed to fight and hurts Slazh and Rau. The fireball fails to overcome D'Gran's spell resistance and I figure there's no way they'll notice him on the opposite end of the explosion. Melee ensues and Kromlech learns about Large and In Charge the hard way from Slazh.
Heunar finally drops his invisibility and tags Torg with a magic missle. Aldar steps up and tosses a Shadow Well on Heunar and he disappears for 7 rounds. I rule that the summoned wolf disappears with its master. During this time, Aldar tries three times to take down Slazh and Rau with Phantasmal Killer. No joy...they botch the will save each time but fort saves from troll fighters and giants are pretty good...last I checked.
D'Gran sees his opportunity, steps in between Slazh and Rau and cuts loose with the Cone of Cold. Ygdal drops and D'Gran begins to taunt the party, sensing victory. His sense is short lived as Rau gets tagged with a Blinding Spittle from Lomar and Torg unloads on Slazh.
Just for the record, Torg is a beatstick of the highest order. He packs Bulls, Endurance, Spikes, regularly casts Divine Favor, Divine Power, Fly (Travel domain) activates Boots of Speed and frequently does about 40-60 damage a round.
So just as the party has healed up Ygdal to a standing position, D'Gran starts yelling out for Tippesh to get out here and help. Now Tippish would much rather finish buffing herself with her numerous scrolls and potions, but D'Gran gets a 29 on his Intimidate check. She pops in the hall and fires a sonic fireball. Boom - down goes Ygdal...again.
Lomar and Torg heal up Ygdal. Aldar takes down Tippesh with a couple volleys of Magic Missiles and in turn the fighters drop Slazh and D'Gran. The blinded Rau takes a little longer but falls just in time for reinforcements to show up...two human warriors, six gnolls, a dire wolverine and the other hill giant.
This fight isn't tremendously interesting, save one key point. At one point Aldar stepped up and smacked a gnoll with his longsword. When the damage was totaled, it came out that he Bull Strengthed himself rather than either of the dwarves. Ygdal's player was pissed, justifiably so in my opinion. He went off about how he saw how it was and that he'd just be an archer. I didn't help matters by saying "might as well...Aldar will tank for you". I ended up letting him vent at me for an extra half hour before I left that night to help him calm down.
They finished the fight just in time to surround Heunar and kill him dead when he reappeared from the Shadow Well.
Anyways, one of the 6 gnolls survived and surrendered. He told the party that D'Gran was unkillable. Ygdal handed him his greataxe, told the gnoll to prove himself right by cutting off his head. (D'Gran was at something like 160 subdual damage at this point with Kromlech beating him down every round.) So the GNOLL killed D'Gran. Awesome.
They released Descritad, she and the remaining (total of 7) gnolls agreed to help the party loot the place and they bailed back into the tunnels. I think she's going to end up being in charge of the main gate...where she'll let the party come and go as they please for a small cut.
Oh, and the XP was phat - everybody leveled.
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arcane12
Memunite
(10/28/03 2:47 pm)
Reply
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Re: Western Bridge Complex
Ah, yes the cry the players fear:
GM: "So, where EXACTLY are you standing?"
Players: "Uh, oh..."
I pull that one a couple of times with perfectly normal untrapped doors to keep 'em on their toes... 
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