Chrisy (Felisin) Session Notes 10/8/2014 - of gnomes, being ripped in half by trolls and the mysterious pink monolith.

1372c Year of Wild Magic, Days 20-24, Month of Marpenoth (October)

While in town, the party meets up with Parlfray and alerts him to their findings. Parlfray offers the party a contract to assist in protecting his lands and investigating the kidnappings under the mine. After a bit of negotiating, party agrees and signs. (ed. 10k retainer and 500gp a week payments)

We decide to head back to the mines.

There we meet Carma… Carmen… Carmeneren...en... A gnome priestess. A band of armed gnomes come out of the wall, like they do. Apparently. We are informed that they are from a gnome city in the Underdark, which doesn’t sound scary at all. There are Illithid in the mines (ed. Underdark). Of course. (ed. Carmen implies that she will only share further information that could imperil her people if the party demonstrates themselves capable of surviving in the Underdark.)

Gnome priestess says that eventually the tunnel will fork into three, and the two tunnels on the right are foreboding as fuck. We decide NOPE.

In order to prove our worth, we are commissioned by the gnome priestess to take on two tribes of trolls, one of about 10-15, and then a similarly numbered tribe of slightly larger trolls that live down the left path.

As the party progresses down the path, they meet and defeat an ooze using very complex tactics: throwing rocks. Felisin insists there is a way to trap trolls in dead ooze, party collectively rolls eyes and opts for no plan at all.

Party begins sneaking up on a pair of trolls, fails. Larry blasts the crap out of a troll and flees, Alton shoots one, Felisin begins swearing loudly at how talented these goddamn trolls are at not being on fire. Hawkeye dashes into combat and is straight up slaughtered.

Shaken over the loss of their comrade, the party collects Hawkeye’s body as the trolls run off and get the fuck out of dodge. (ed. after dropping a web to shield their retreat)

At the crossroads, they run into two more trolls (ed. Ogres). Felisin ‘splodes the brain out of one, and the party defeats the other.

Back at Milford, the party tries resurrecting Hawkeye, but that stupid healer swindled us. (ed. Nick declines resurrection to the surprise of the party.)

Jahn ditches. Pansy.

(ed. Distraught at the brutal deaths of Hawkeye and Tamer, Jahn quits the adventuring life and returns to live in his parent's house.)

Felisin gets all the ladies. Seven, to be exact. Not that anyone’s counting

Per Parlfray’s instructions (ed. Parlfray didn't send you), we decide to head to Rockdale (ed. Great Rock Dale), a wooded valley to the east of the mines. Larry flies around and finds a way down for the rest of the party. Goddamn but those wings look awesome.

Eventually the party finds evidence of a large armed party that had come through the valley.

    “How large?” - Felisin

    “How armed?” - Alton

    “How… party?” - Mautilaus

We find tracks with claw marks and follow them back to a big pink monolith. At the base of the monolith the party manages to sneak up on a group of dogmen, then stomps in and kills them all.

Apparently the monolith is lousy with conjuration magic, and after randomly worshiping it Mautilus starts raving about how awesome he feels. Each party member decides what the hell, we might as well pretend to be religious. Nothing bad can come of this. And everybody feels better after grovelling in front of big pink phallic thing nobody knows anything about. (ed. Offering prayer to the monolith grants each player a bit of healing and various, seemingly random, augments including +1 dex for Felisin, -1 armor checks for Mautilus, and spontaneous language acquisition for Snagger.)

(ed. Wilbur also offers to source and supply magic items for the party at market value+25%.)

Session Loot Recap

800gp in misc coinage from the dogmen

7 suits of dog smelling studded leather armor, 6 maces, 1 weird nunchaku looking thing, 2 longbows 

EXP- Party Rewards

 2 trolls dying a slow burning death: EL7 457xp

 7 dogmen downed: EL6 420xp

 Ongoing Points of Interest Log

 

• Clear out the two troll tribes in the Underdark to earn the gnome's trust (Carmeneren)
• Discover and stop whoever is behind the kidnappings in and around Haranshire (Parlfray)
• Discover the fate of the dwarven party captured in Howler's Moor (Parlfray/Snagger)
• Shar's evil priest slaying Parlfray's men in Hardlow woods long ago (TOG)
• Further investigations in the Great Rock Dale (TOG)
• Shiraz in the Eelhold (from Garyld)
• Determining the cause of the New Mire spread (Carman)
• Issues with remains of goblin tribe
• Shrieken Mire? (TOG)
• What happened to Houra?

Chris (Larien) Session Notes 10/1/2014 - of bronze doors, orcs, and a grateful dwarf

1372c Year of Wild Magic, Day 19, Month of Marpenoth (October)

Plans happened and no one died!

After Mautilus nearly died about nine times, we scampered back to town to sort through the pile of things that we took off the corpses of the people that spent their last moments trying to murder us. There but for the grace of Gruumsh, and these sweet wings, goes I. But seriously, they had some sweet stuff. I’m now a walking town full of resources, but still don’t have a decent thing to stab someone in the face with if I need to. My trusty spear and I have been through a lot, but it’s not cutting it recently.

After everyone gets the feel for their new equipment we decide to head further into the mines. When we reach the back of the caverns that we previously explored, a second key materialized in my pocket. (ed. It was one of the ones you had, unless it was on Houra's old character sheet, in which case a wizard is responsible)  I pulled the new matched pair out, and the giant doors inset in the wall swung open at the sight of them.  Lazy door design if you ask me, but hey. They were orcs and bandits.

Almost immediately Hawkeye nerds out on the various ambulatory fungi that make their home in caves such as these. It quickly becomes useful as we come across huge patches of the stuff. We let Felisin go to town scorching the creatures off the walls, being careful to steer clear of the potential poison gas as they die screaming. I didn’t know fungus could scream. Something to tell the kids I guess. Unfortunately, this means that whoever else is in this cave PROBABLY knows that we are here. Unless these things normally scream like this, which seems unlikely. Maybe Hawkeye knows?

There’s no time to worry about that though, because we suddenly are confronted with a rock. It’s a suspicious looking rock, and we spend about a half hour discussing the various ways that it could kill us, or hide something that might kill us, or trick us into falling into something that may kill us. We come up with a plan that only puts Alton in danger and quickly scout the edges of the rock. It turns out to just be a rock. Unfortunately, while the rock distracted us, a troupe of orcs descends on us from further down the cavern. Felisin retreats to the ceiling muttering something about a complicated relationship with her “dice.” That chick gets crazier every day.

Several plans are quickly presented and a tactical retreat is agreed upon. To our immense surprise, Mautilus engages in combat as we restructure our defensive formation and two of the orcs instantly disappear in a sputter of entrails. The tactical retreat plan succeeds with flying colors and we have the orcs just where we want them. Suddenly though, Hawkeyes nerd senses tingle once more as reinforcements arrive in the form of two cave lizards, which I assume are just regular lizards that live in caves, and their handlers arrive on the field. Jahn gets uppity and we let him have a moment until Alton decides to charge into the fray and….well I’m sure he had a good plan going into it.

We realize as the few remaining un-gutted orcs begin to scatter that none of us understand what they are saying. I can only assume that they are calling for reinforcements. We clean up the stragglers and follow the few fleeing orcs deeper into the caves, then quickly rethink our boldness as a truly terrifying and gargantuan lizard comes out of a side passage being ridden by an orc of giant proportions leading a fully armed cadre of new foes. That doesn’t sound like something I want to deal with all at once, so I pull out one of the scrolls that I acquired from the last bandit fight and expertly cast a solid wall of entangling webs throughout the hallway.  I took a moment to assess the situation and decided that the orc was riding a little bit high on his saddle. With a word, I shattered the buckles and straps that held his saddle onto the gargantuan creature and chuckled as he tumbled backwards into the webs. Mautilus proved his value again by running forward through the webs and assisting me in dispatching the creature and its master.

From still further in the caves came another turn of bad luck. The few orcs that escaped disemboweling in the first encounter had succeeded in alerting the more powerful and magical of their compatriots. They moved forward, slowly chanting their spells, and as they approached a pair of floating ethereal weapons materialized in the air and began assaulting Felisin. Coupled with the enraged charge of one of the orcs, she quickly fled to gather herself. The new orcs, magical or not, stood no chance against us. One of them actually tried to hurt Mautilus by touching him. It looked like it tickled. We quickly dispatched the rest of them and took a moment to determine what to do with the rest of the orcs trapped behind the webbing.

As it turns out, they were not too happy about being trapped in their little alcove. Mautilus was able to wade through the webs and see that they had taken prisoners and were prepared to kill them at a moment’s notice. Felisin, in a remarkably coherent moment, remembered that she possessed a flask of gaseous form. Realizing that my unique talents would not be hampered by the effects of being ethereal I had to make a call on which slave to start freeing and decided on the Dwarf as we had been tasked with locating a troupe of Dwarves by Parlfray. Never let it be said that I don’t finish a job. With a quiet word, the knife held to the dwarfs’ throat shattered, and he immediately bolted towards the entrance and was grasped by Mautilus and taken to freedom. Unfortunately, the other prisoner was immediately killed. An ill-conceived attempt to save his life was enacted by myself and Hawkeye, but it was ultimately for nothing. Taking great pleasure in their confusion, I commenced to shatter the remainder of the orcs armor and weapons, completely disarming them. After they were sufficiently neutered, I dropped the web and allowed my compatriots to finish them off while I took flight behind the now confused and beleaguered orcs and mocked their impotence. Unfortunately, Alton was not so sturdy. He took quite the pummeling from the naked band of miscreants. I’m sure he’ll be fine though.

We’ll have to decide what to do with this dwarf that we’ve rescued. I hope that he is part of the band that we were sent to search for, as I initially believed. It would make the promise of reward that much more sure.

 Session Loot Recap

Magical greataxe from orc warrior mixed with casters (+1)

Magical chainmail from same (+1)

This here magical longspear from one of the casters
Tauser reports that while the spear is clearly magical in nature he is unable to figure out precisely how. He suggests having a scholar in one of the larger cities attempt to research the runes carved into it might shed some light on its origins and purpose. He estimates 500gp would be sufficient and offers to handle the transportation and locating a scholar.

Magical longspear from the large mounted orc (+1)

Magical half plate armor from the same (+1)

Three silver flasks identical to ones found in the forest keep and the mine above (enchantment ones)

Small ivory handled golden dagger (nonmagical, 150gp)

1100gp

365pp

Silver sapphire earrings (600gp)

Studded silver belt (60gp)

Potion of red liquid (Cure Serious Wounds 3d8+15) 2 doses

Potion of clear liquid (Invisibility) 4 doses

Up to 20 suits of scale mail armor, heavy and light wood shields with the skull+crossbow bolts motif

Up to 15 each long swords, battle axes, throwing axes, long spears, short spears

EXP- Party Rewards

Initial combat against the 10 orcs: EL5 250xp

The big rider and caster party+2 of the original fighters: 

EL6 400xp to Chris, 450 for everyone else

Mopping up the 10 webbed guys: EL5 250xp

EXP- RP and Individual Goals

200xp to everyone for various RP and negotiation during session and on hangout - good job

 Ongoing Points of Interest Log

• Discover the purpose of the bandit/Cyricist/Orc presences in Haranshire (Parlfray)
• What happened to Houra? 
• (From Day 19 Marp) What is this magical orc spear? Being researched by scholar

The Seattle Prime Time Players

 Chris (The DM formerly known as Jesus) and Dustin (green)

 Jeff and Chrisy, with cider

 Mr. Nick

How we roll

 

The team (Bonk, Aron, Nuckin, Robin, Ann)

 The team and a hand

 

Nuckin, unconscious in a hole

 

Incredibly detailed fight v. a dog and a rat in a hole in the ground

 

Aftermath of said combat

Ann's Story for Chris Campaign

New  PC for time off DM'ing campaign!

                Annalette, Ann for short, was raised in a loving, traditional dwarven home under the White Cap mountain range. Guided by her successful trading clan, she showed the metalworking capabilities held in such great esteem by her people at an early age. A prodigy with the hammer, her first century was spent learning and practicing her craft. While extremely strong and hardy due to long days working the forge, Ann never demonstrated the temperament of a warrior and excluded herself from all combat training. A fact she came to regret sorely when her mountain home was ravaged by a band of orcish irregulars under the command of the famed fire giant warleader, Bloodhands. Ann was horribly burned during her escape from the hold and only made it out at all due to a brilliant holding action on the part of her more martially inclined family members. Ann eventually collapsed a few hours outside of the town of Avgard and would surely have died of her injuries were it not for the fortunate intervention of a traveling merchant that happened upon her wasted form. Ann recovered swiftly after awakening in the village days later and was able to demonstrate her worth as a smith in time.

                Ann took up a partnership with the savvy, but less capable, owner of the “Drunken Flame” smithy, a human named Stordina. For the next 20 years, she maintained a brisk trade with the human merchant, a man named Topper, that saved her life all those years ago. Thanks to his trading acumen her armor, weapons, and tools have become an integral part in the life of many in the area. So reliable are her wares that Ann has become a well known figure in the community, a position she detests.

                While never outgoing, Ann's personality has changed significantly since her early years due to her disfiguring scars. While maintaining her feverish devotion to the forge, Ann has become distant and taciturn, shunning most contact and taking comfort only in her fires.

                Ann blames herself for not being capable of defending her family during  the war, a belief that occasionally manifests itself as unreasoning fear at the worst of times. To combat this, she has begun training  to be ready should she need to defend herself in the future. While oddly lacking in the ability to adequately wield a sword or axe, Ann has developed a combat style that suits her extraordinary strength and personal preference for putting large, often pointy, pieces of metal between herself and danger. This combat style, modeled on vaguely remembered clan histories of the dwarven berserkers, focuses on smashing (or smashing into) the vulnerable ankles and knees of  taller adversaries. Ann is no fool and knows her lack of maneuverability on the battlefield is a handicap that must be quickly remedied with suitably dwarvish practicality.

                Ann's relatively stable life was turned upside-down recently by a brief tryst with an itinerant dwarven priest of Hoar, god of vengeance. Drawn to his intensity and clear purpose, Ann has taken up worship of the harsh god herself with the intention of righting the perceived wrongs of her past. She has slowly been building up her resources and finding allies capable of supporting her long term mission of reclaiming her ancestral halls from Bloodhands with promises of the wealth hidden within.

Return to the Garlstone Mine Session 7/29 and New bonus Campaign Info!

The Next Generation:

After some summer vacation in Ohio and Houston business we're back on schedule for our next session on 9/3. We're taking a break on the Haranshire campaign and Chris will be taking over as DM so I can get some play time in. (Thanks Chris!) 

Our last campaign was created and DM'd by Chris and it was a blast. I ran an erudite up to 11th level before it started to get blatantly game warping with combat circumventing stuff like Teleport, Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions, Dominate, and the other divinations. Chrisy was a slight brew of a Were-Cat Monk/Warshaper with 8 attacks a round and some ridiculous AC that made meat of stuff we had crowd controlled. Nick was a bug spellthief slumlord. A shame we weren't able to continue, but things were getting out of control after the departure of our 4th party member and the obvious overpoweredness of an orb of white dragon control combined with a ridiculous toolbox of psionic powers. 

The campaign was a good example of the imbalances between pure casters (Tier 1 classes) and everyone else inherent in the 3.5 system. It is just something that needs to be taken into account when deciding on the level/type of campaign and worked out with the rest of the players beforehand. 

The new campaign is shaping up well and the record can be found at:

 Wherein we try to not slaughter a village

I decided to roll a random non caster character from our available splatbook material and come up with a plausible story/build for it. Ended up rolling female dwarf fighter with no weapon proficiencies and a fetish for shields. Oh boy.

We'll pick up the Haranshire campaign just as it moves into the next phase sometime soon.

Also gonna be shifting to a new play area and I might post some pictures of our setup and players.

Going to continue taking notes/recaps as well and I'll be making some extra stuff on this side while we're in the other campaign. Maybe some game commentary or board game/video game/Magic reviews, who knows.

And now, our last session notes from the end of July,

Chrisy (Felisin) 1372c Year of Wild Magic, Day 13-15, Session notes 7/29/2014

(ed. Dustin was out this session and Mautilis was played by Chris during combat.)

Day eleventy-billion and I am tired of all this Outside.

After the deliciously lucrative sacking of the keep, the party decides to go back to Thurmaster (ed. Milford). I’m not getting nearly enough credit for slaying that damned ship. (ed. Priest of Cyric, see last session)

At some point Alton gets un-blinded. (ed. town cleric got yo back)

I’m not entirely convinced about this Larry thing. He seems so…organized. And friendly. Although I hear he can break stuff, so I tentatively approve. Sparky has his reservations.

We decide to question Heydrus again and, despite a lamentable lack of fire, we managed to find out that:

          

        Most of the bandits that took over the keep came from the area

            

       They only kidnapped one dwarf

The party decides to actually finish something, and heads back to the cave. Shockingly, Mautilus hates this plan. (ed. well RP'd Chris)

There is very little discussion about the disappearance of Houra; maybe he’s back in the cave. Maybe he rejoined his schizo demon overlords. I’m pretty sure he’s just floating around doing his invisible thing.

 

Back at the cave, Alton and Larry go scouting and report back that they hear voices. After much discussion, we start banging on random shit to draw out god knows what. Like most of our plans, it doesn’t work. The group marches confidently in and discovers a zombie storage shed. We open up a can of firey zombie whoopass, incinerating the shed in the process.

Hearing approaching footsteps, we decide to use the cave tunnel as a bottleneck, and the group is descended upon by additional zombies (totaling 6), 6 orcs, and we catch sight of 3 spell casters with bows at the end of the tunnel. (ed. 1 fighter with a bow and 2 clerics)

Fog encompasses the group, and Hawkeye suggests drawing everyone into the fog to get massacred. Pretty much everyone decides this is a bad idea and that he’s probably been drinking.

Mautilus suddenly loses his shit and runs away squealing (possibly because of a spell, but hey, it’s not entirely out of character). I feel this behavior could be corrected with fire. Despite his obvious terror, he books it at the speed of smell because he is apparently carrying three full sets of armor.

He unknowingly comes within inches of the sea serpent (ed. in adjoining cave area previously encountered and skirted), suddenly remembers he’s awesome, turns around, and rejoins the fray. He then begins behaving like a tank and takes everyone completely by surprise.

Nick’s two guards flail at everyone’s ankles amidst flaming zombies. (ed. Tamer pays the iron price when the fighter finally wades in with a charging bastard sword crit to the face)

All the things are murdered in flames, the spellcasters flee and are chased down and blasted.

(ed. For the purposes of game flow I'm fastforwarding the exploration of the back end of the mine system where the priests stashed their stuff. Some cursory exploration uncovered a giant unmoveable bronze door with two keyholes that match the design of two keys found in the Thornwood Ruins and in the loot from the mine. The party brought the corpse of Tamer back to his family and rested/resolved loot sorting in town. We'll pick up there next session.)

 Session Loot Recap

 Still to be sorted:

+2 chainmail

+2 sickle

boots of levitation

Leomund's Desirable Residence (see below)

Silver choker 750gp

+1 chainmail

+1 heavy steel shield

+1 heavy mace

Robe of Useful Items (see below)

gold ring 1200gp

+2 splint mail

+2 bastard sword

+1 dagger

+1 longbow

boots of speed

platinum and gold medallion 125gp

scroll of web

2x scroll of remove paralysis

scroll of Cure Disease

scroll of Cure Serious Wounds

scroll of dispel magic

scroll of mirror image

scroll of minor globe of invulnerability

staff of frost with 5 charges left

2 silver flasks - same as ones from Thornwood

misc coinage totaling 2,200 gp and 1,200 pp

Robe of Useful Items 

The robe has these patches left:

Dagger

Bulls Eye Lantern

2ft by 4 ft mirror

10 ft pole

50 ft. of silk rope

a large sack

10x10x10 deep pit (std action to deploy in adj. space)

rowboat

24 ft ladder

100 gold in a bag

mule w/bags

a potion of Cure Serious Wounds 3d8+5

Leomund's Desireble Residence:

This small ceramic model of a rude cottage grows into a building conjured by a Secure Shelter spell twice per week for up to 16 hours and can hold up to 1,000 lbs. in its shrunken form. Anyone inside when the duration ends is instantly killed.

EXP- Party Rewards

 Battle of Garlstone Mine Finale: EL8 975xp for party+Jahn

EXP- RP and Individual Goals

Nada, all fighting all the time.

 Ongoing Points of Interest Log

• Discover the purpose of the bandit/Cyricist/Orc presences in Haranshire.
• What is behind that big ominous door in the Garlstone Mine?
• Parlfray Keep/Howlers Moor- Dwarf congregation missing. (Count Parlfray)
• Shar's evil priest slaying Parlfray's men in Hardlow woods long ago(TOG)
• Demihumans in The Great Rock Dale (TOG)
• Shiraz in the Eelhold (from Garyld)
• Determining the cause of the New Mire spread (Carman)
• Issues with remains of goblin tribe
• Shrieken Mire? (TOG)
• Exploring Garlstone Mine
• What happened to Houra?