Session 34 - Scene 1 (of 6)

With the new day, everyone wakens to the first snowfall of winter.  As they meet over their usual breakfast, Tiberius suggests heading into the sewers to look for the wight Krolec mentioned now that winter has come.

Sa'lid likes the idea, particularly as underground will be warmer this time of year.  Coming from a desert climate, he is not too familiar with the cold winters of the northern lands.  Challa sees merit in the suggestion as well, since they will no longer be able to travel until spring.

Just then, an apparent servant enters the restaurant and heads over to the group.  He identifies himself as an envoy of Baron Stockmer, and wishes to send them the baron's thanks for safely escorting him to the city for the conference.  Apparently, the baron is still recovering.

The envoy then mentions the baron is giving them a very special reward.  Everyone's ears perk up at the announcement, as visions of riches flow through their heads.  Their hearts sink as the envoy announces the reward is that they will all be given burial plots in the royal mausoleum.  However, Tiberius tries his best to show enthusiasm and everyone uses good manners and thanks the envoy for the reward.

After the envoy leaves, Tiberius muses about thanking the baron in person for his gift.  But Challa argues against it, saying the baron would likely find seeing them when they are dead to be soon enough.  Durmindin agrees, noting that the baron hasn't had much luck around them.

Before heading into the sewers, the group decides they should first execute their royal warrant to look into Lord Reiner's castle for clues on his disappearance and to see if they can find evidence linking him to Rufus the Red.  Sa'lid is also interested to see if they can find any more information on how Salazar factored into everything.

Session 34 - Scene 2 (of 6)

As the group heads over to Castle Reiner, Leigh explains the brief history of the castle and the noble family.  She notes that it was originally owned by the noble family of Karnes, and known as Castle Karnes.

A few years back, it was controlled by the last remaining descendant of the Karnes family, the Baroness Kimberly Karnes.  She was married young to Baron David Ellington, but her husband died early on in a hunting accident.

In the widow Karnes' later years, she met Victor Reiner, an ambitious younger member of the gentry.  The two were soon married.  But during their first year together, the baroness died in a mysterious fall down a flight of stairs.

As they arrive at the castle doors, Tiberius knocks loudly and an elderly servant answers the door.  Although he greets them with disdain, he becomes very humble once Tiberius shows him the royal warrant and allows the group inside.

To search quickly, the group decides to split up.  Durmindin and Challa head down to the dungeon level while Leigh and Tiberius check out the castle's tower.  Sa'lid and Snarg decide to look over the main level of the keep.

The keep, like most keeps in the area, is split up into two sections with a large hall in the middle.  One section contains the kitchen and servant areas while the other contains the personal living quarters of the noble family.  Sa'lid elects to search the living quarters first.

In the living area behind the main hall, Sa'lid finds three different rooms, all with closed doors.  He heads to the first one and knocks.  Getting no answer, he has Snarg check the door then head inside.

The first room appears to have once been the room of a young female.  It has clearly not been used in some time, with everything covered in dust.  Sa'lid begins examining under the bed while Snarg looks at the bureau.  The sorcerer catches a sight out of the corner of his eye of Snarg pocketing a small hand mirror from the top of the dresser, but decides to deal with the situation later.

The two continue looking through the room, but find nothing relevant to their investigation.  As they leave, Sa'lid notices Snarg's pockets seem significantly fuller than when they went inside.  He makes an off-hand comment to Snarg about it, but the goblin expresses ignorance at what his master is talking about.

Up in the tower, Leigh and Tiberius find it to be a simple watchtower with a bird perch for sending messages.  It does not appear the aviary has been used in at least several weeks.

Leigh spots a loose stone in the tower wall near the bird perch.  After making sure it is not trapped, she pries out the stone, discovering a small bit of rolled-up paper inside.

The wizard is immediately disappointed to find the paper is not a magical scroll, but rather a message sent by bird.  It simply gives a date and time along with the location of the Lucky Gnome Taphouse.  Leigh recognizes it as the date Salazar was said to have met with Karl Porter to arrange the hiring of Rufus the Red.

Leigh examines the paper carefully for any hidden messages on it.  She does notice a faint imprint of the top of a seal, but not enough to tell whose seal it is.

Down in the dungeon, Challa and Durmindin find a variety of chains, cells, and torture devices.  Challa carefully disables the torture devices as a matter of morality.

They find little else of interest in the dungeons, except for a long, dark strand of hair that Challa discovers over by some chains along the wall.  She guesses it has been there for many weeks.  The paladin carefully wraps the hair up in a small bit of cloth and takes it with her, should it prove useful later.

Back upstairs, Sa'lid and Snarg have moved on to the next room.  It appears to have been the room of a younger boy.  Like the previous room, it appears to have not been in use for some time.  The two find little of interest in it; though Sa'lid notices Snarg finds a couple more mementos to take with him.

Session 34 - Scene 3 (of 6)

When they reach the third door, Snarg discovers it to be trapped with a poison dart.  He quickly disables it then picks the lock of the door.

The sorcerer and his servant walk into the room, which they find to be the master bedchamber.  Unlike the others, this room appears to still be in regular use.

Finding nothing of obvious importance in the main part of the room, Sa'lid heads over to an open doorway connecting this room to a smaller side room.  It appears to be some kind of study, with a desk and a couple of shelves of books and other notes.

Sa'lid focuses on the bookshelves first.  He detects nothing magical about them.

Around this time, the rest of the group have finished their searches and meet back up.  They head over to the living areas and find Sa'lid in the study.  Leigh looks around to double-check there is nothing magical in the room.

Tiberius wonders if the bookshelf could contain a secret passage.  He pulls out one of the books from the shelf.  Nothing happens, and he discovers the book to be a cook book – "How to Cook Fish and Fowl – volume 5".

Everyone then takes out the rest of the books from the shelves.  They also flip through them all to ensure there are no hollowed-out books with anything hidden inside.

While not finding anything of that nature, Durmindin does find one volume that may be of interest to them – the Reiner chart of accounts.  He notes a recent large payment to someone named "Scarlet Lupo".  Challa immediately figures out the encoded entry, and tells Durmindin to keep the book as evidence.

Around this time, Tiberius notices Snarg's bulging pockets.  He starts to ask the goblin about it, but Sa'lid interrupts, telling his ward to ignore the warlord.  He makes an aside comment to Tiberius that he plans to deal with the situation later.

Challa notices something is up.  She telepathically contacts Tiberius, who explains his suspicions.  The paladin then confronts the goblin directly, commanding him to empty his pockets.  He looks to Sa'lid, who begrudgingly tells him to comply.

Out of Snarg's pockets come a host of small trinkets, personal items, and even a couple of jewels.  The goblin expresses surprise to his master at all the strange things which appear to have accidentally fallen into his pockets.

Challa and Tiberius are not amused.  Sa'lid tries to diffuse the situation by referring to the items as "harmless souvenirs".  But Challa isn't buying it.

The paladin explains to Sa'lid that as they have a royal warrant that charges them to look for evidence of conspiracy to murder, not rob the lord of his petty jewels.  As representatives of the kingdom, they must hold themselves to a high standard.

Sa'lid starts to express his lack of care for local politics or how he is seen by others.  Challa stops him cold, explaining she used to feel the same way as he did, but found that there was no way around the political realities.

In the end, Challa commands Sa'lid to keep a better watch over his charge, and he agrees.  Tiberius wonders about confiscating the goblin's breeches and replacing them with a loin cloth, but Challa is adamantly against the idea, though mostly because she would find it disgusting.

Leigh doesn't care so much about the goblin and is instead focused on the desk in the study.  Looking it over, she can tell it has a hidden drawer.

Opening the hidden drawer, she activates a trap she failed to notice and it pricked with a dangerous poison dart.  While such a trap would kill lesser men, Leigh is able to survive it.  Challa uses a healing word to allow her to recover.

Inside the drawer is a note.  Challa takes it out and reads it to the others:

"Master,

I believe these men will provide the special skills you require in your new endeavor.

* Sir Wilfred Death
* Three-Fingered Pete
* Guy de Gastonbury
* Sean the Irish Bastard
* Friar Bellows
* Jack Large

Your faithful servant,

A"

As the note is only signed "A", speculation forms on who "A" could be.  Tiberius wonders if it could be the doppelganger he knew who worked for the necromancer he once served under; that creature went by the name of "Arlo".

Liegh, meanwhile, wonders if it isn't one of the other lords.  She notes that Lord Ruddiger's first name is "Anton".

Putting the matter to the side for the moment, everyone searches the rest of the room for more clues, but finds nothing.  Nor is anything found in the rest of the castle back in the servant areas.

Session 34 - Scene 4 (of 6)

Not content to just search the castle itself, Challa suggests searching the grounds and outbuildings as well.  Although the outbuildings have little of interest, Challa does spot some strange tracks on the grounds.

The tracks appear to be large and wolflike, but bipedal in spots.  She suspects they were made by a werewolf.  Leigh reminds the others that Reiner's cousin, who her previous group killed, was a werewolf and they always suspected Reiner himself was as well.

Looking them over, Challa determines the tracks are a couple weeks old; they are too recent to belong to the cousin.  Following the tracks long enough, Challa can spot where they turn back into human tracks.

Tiberius goes and grabs the butler from the castle.  They ask him about the tracks, but he claims to know nothing.  Challa can tell he's lying.

She decides to play it soft, asking the butler if he served under the baroness.  He proudly explains he did.  Challa then skillfully turns the conversation to the baroness' death and gets the servant to admit that Baron Reiner is not a good man.

He explains Lord Reiner left in the middle of the night for an unknown destination a couple of weeks ago, just after the deaths of Salazar and Lord Groddic.  Challa does manage to convince the man to send them word if Reiner returns.

She then asks him again about the tracks.  He admits that Lord Reiner is afflicted with lycanthropy, as a curse on all his bloodline.  Every cycle of the moon, Reiner would transform and go crazy.  The butler explains his lord used to sequester himself out in a cabin in the woods until it mysteriously burnt down a few months back, when the lord's cousin Thomas was killed.

Since then, Reiner locked himself up in his own dungeon, but last time managed to escaped and ran wild on the grounds.  In addition to killing various small animals, the gardener's son was killed and his body buried in an unmarked grave on the grounds.  Challa can tell the tracks around the grounds correspond with that time period.

Challa then asks about the other rooms in the back of the castle.  The butler confirms that lady Karnes and Reiner had no children – mentioning she died too young.  The rooms were actually the childhood room of the baroness and the room of her younger brother William, who died of diphtheria when he was young.  Challa is saddened at all the tragedy the family suffered over the years.

Tiberius is more concerned with the present.  He gets confirmation from the butler to make sure Reiner has no other living relatives (and thus, no more werewolves around).  He also inquires about any mention of a "red wolf", but the butler knows nothing.

Challa asks the butler if Reiner had any other guests.  He tells her that Reiner rarely admitted anyone into the castle and instead went out into the city at night for strange meetings, though the old man has no idea where or who he met with.  

With all their questions answered, the group gets the old man to sign a formal statement for evidence purposes then head back to Moonstone Keep to see Lord Markelhay.

Session 34 - Scene 5 (of 6)

The group is able to get in to see Lord Markelhay right away, who thanks them again for their recent service.  He is further pleased they have found evidence against Reiner.

Challa presents the lord with the note linking Reiner to the Salazar meeting and the signed testimony of the butler presenting Reiner as a murderous werewolf.

Lord Markelhay then examines the ledger, but doesn't get how Scarlett Lupo is connected.  Challa explains that "Scartlett Lupo" is an encoded entry for "Red Wolf", referring to Rufus the Red.  Markelhay finds the deception most interesting.

Finally, he looks over the mysterious note found in the desk.  He becomes most distressed, stating that the men listed in the note are the six most evil men in the kingdom.

Sir Wilfred Death is known as a skilled duelist, who goes out of his way to get people to challenge him to a duel so he can murder them.

Three-Fingered Pete is an archer and sniper.  He is also fond of entering archery contests, but will kill anyone who bests him in competition.

Guy de Gastonbury (who Markelhay corrects Challa's pronunciation on) is a notorious highwayman, who first robs his victims then murders them.

Sean the Irish Bastard is a vicious daggerman who preys on blind beggars.  Markelhay further explains to Tiberius that "Irish" refers to a far-off island that Sean is from.

Frair Bellows is a disgraced former monk of Correllon, who betrayed his oaths by deflowering many peasant girls.  Challa notes to herself that this is a nice way of saying the friar is a rapist.

Finally, Markelhay explains that Jack Large is the most vicious dwarf in the kingdom.  He is a murderous nomad who enjoys killing and raping priests (in that order) as well as anyone who notes his small stature.

Lord Markelhay concludes the note can mean only one thing – having lost his political game for power, Reiner plans to take the next step.  He will recruit these men and murder Markelhay and his family as part of a coup d'etat to take over the kingdom.

As Reiner is now out trying to recruit these men, the group wants to stop him before he can put his plan into motion.  However, because they are all wanted men, none of them will be difficult to find.  Markelhay also reminds Tiberius that they needn't fear an immediate attack; Reiner will have to wait until spring to strike.

They then let Markelhay know of their plans to venture into the sewers.  He approves, as the sewers under the city have been dangerous for quite some time.

Session 34 - Scene 6 (of 6)

The next day, the group meets back up and discusses their plans to head into the sewers.  Leigh explains to the others that there are many layers of underground areas under the city.

The upper part of the city contains a sewer system below it, as does the lower part of the city.  Underneath the upper sewers, built into the side of the cliffs separating hightown from lowtown, are a series of catacombs.

The lower sewers also contain catacombs below them.  The level directly below the lower sewers, called the middle catacombs, is actually an underground temple once built to honor Pelor and the Raven Queen.  Below that are the lower catacombs, where the older common dead were buried.

Of course, there are levels even lower than that, as one heads into the underdark and finally reaches the Devil's Attic area described by Krolec.  But based on Krolec's description, the wight was most likely found in either the middle or lower catacombs.

The logical place to start would be the service entrance to the sewers in the basement of Eli Leng's old shop, but Gerdrand had that sealed.  The closest entrance would then be the sewer grate near the plaza, where Leigh began her adventures several months ago.

Everyone heads down into the sewers.  Challa leads Leigh and Sa'lid on one side ledge while Tiberius and Durmindin cross over to the other side.

Just then, swarms of bloodweb spiders emerge around the corner.  Challa takes out her crossbow and fires into them, causing some damage.

Tiberius takes out his axe and charges into battle, but finds it difficult to fight off the swarm.  The spiders rush Tiberius and Challa, and they feel the poison rush into them as they feel many sharp bites.

Sa'lid positions himself behind Challa.  Using an energy strobe spell, he blasts the swarm with a bolt of lightning.  It appears somewhat effective.  Leigh has much better luck, taking out a large section of spiders with her scorching burst.

Durmindin moves up and uses his sudden restoration spell to try and heal Challa and Tiberius from their poison.  Challa is able to recover.

Challa then uses her channel divinity prayer to heal Tiberius and launches a bolstering attack into the swarm with her axe.  She hits, though the melee attacks are not overly effective.  

It is still more effective, however, than Tiberius' viper strike maneuver, which fails to hit.

The spiders continue to swarm Challa and Tiberius, scoring a dangerous bite on Challa.

Sa'lid and Leigh respond with a storm of fire using Sa'lid's explosive pyre spell and Leigh's scorching burst.  Durmindin goes the opposite direction, blasting out at the spiders with his wrath of winter.

Challa continues to lash out at the spiders, using her virtuous strike.  Tiberius helps her ignore her wounds with his inspiring word.  His own attack, however, fails.

The spiders continue to bite into Challa and Tiberius as Sa'lid turns his attention to the spiders on Tiberius.  He blasts them with a firebolt.  Durmindin follows it up with a thunder bear's warning attack from his spirit companion.

Leigh, meanwhile, continues to try and assist Challa.  She misses, however, with her scorching burst.  Challa herself scores another hit with her virtuous strike.

Tiberius decides it is time to use a more powerful attack.  He lashes out at the spiders around him with his stand the fallen maneuver.  For his troubles, he is bitten again, as is Challa.

Sa'lid misses with another fire bolt, but Leigh manages to take out the rest of the spiders on Challa with her scorching burst.

Durmindin uses a spirit renewal strike with his spirit companion on the remaining spiders.  Challa tries to follow it up with an attack from her crossbow, but misses.

Tiberius cuts into the spiders again with his viper's strike.  The spiders manage to bite him once more before Sa'lid's fiery energy strobe blast finishes them off.

After taking a few minutes to recover, everyone heads deeper into the sewers.

Session 34 - Session Notes

First off, I'll just acknowledge that the six most evil men in the kingdom are taken directly from the last episode of the first season of Blackadder.  When I first saw it, I knew they'd make perfect D&D villains.  Naturally, no one in my group got the reference so I had to explain it (somehow I manage to never read or watch anything they do and vice versa).

As to the session itself, it was pretty fun (much enjoyment was had at the Tiberius player's expense because of his extremely bad luck that session), though some of the usual frustrations cropped up again.

Right off the bat, I had to remind them about their "royal warrant" to search Reiner's castle because no one can ever be bothered to remember much (nor does anyone ever catch my joke of calling it a royal warrant).

They also seem to completely gloss over following up with Honoria Mellnor, despite the fact they had her looking into that painting weeks ago in game time.

The problem isn't that they aren't interested in the storylines.  The problem is that they can only ever follow one damn plot-thread at a time because, apparently, its just too damn difficult to do anything else.  For people that, for the most part, have professional jobs they sure don't seem to be able to follow anything very complex.

I wouldn't mind so much but it can be awfully limiting as a DM at times.  You can't do anything subtle.  If you try to introduce foreshadowing (like I do here with the list) or even add background color (like the wolf tracks), they get fucking confused and think its something that needs to be worried about RIGHT NOW instead of grasping simple concepts like "no, that's just set-up for the future" or "no, that's just adding some background color".  I have to literally, explicitly explain to them OOC that the wolf prints don't lead anywhere or that the list won't come into play until later.  No amount of hinting in-game seems to accomplish this.

Same thing with the fucking wight.  They are obsessed about this one wight that Krolec saw.  I have explained twenty fucking times that the sewers and catacombs are filled with creatures and going after one wight is like trying to find a jaywalker in the ghetto, but they are still focused 100% on finding this one wight (who, again, was just there to add background color for Krolec's quest).  Naturally, they didn't even get the fucking analogy either ("yeah, there's a lot of jaywalkers in the ghetto").

I just don't understand this mentality.  Do they just leave their brains at home some nights?  Is it that they cannot think outside the box of their previous RPG experiences and have all sensory input filtered by some kind of set of expectations?  Are their entertainment choices so lowbrow that they don't understand simple concepts like foreshadowing, simultaneous plots, or subplots?  Perhaps its a combination of all three.

Session 35 - Cast of Characters

Krolec Jar'bin - Elven Ranger
Leigh - Eladrin Wizard
Challa Kri - Kalashtar Paladin
Sa'lid Dra'lah - Human Sorcerer
Durmindin - Wilden Shaman
Tiberius Enchilada - Human Warlord

Session 35 - Scene 1 (of 5)

Finished with his personal business of the last few days, Krolec heads out in search of his friends.  It occurs to him that no one left word with him where they would be, so he decides to head over to Moonstone Keep to see if Lord Markelhay has tasked the group with any new activities.

Krolec is met at the gates by one of the gaurds who informs him that Lord Markelhay is sequestered in the important conference (which has finally begun now that Baron Stockmer's nerves have recovered).  Instead, Lt. Gerdrand meets up with Krolec.

The ranger explains he is looking for his friends, but Gerdrand has little knowledge of their whereabouts.  He does, however, remember that the group was at their usual breakfast at Luck Larry's Hash House that morning, as the baron's messenger met them there to tell them of the baron's generous reward.  Krolec, having not heard about the reward before, puts on his best diplomatic smile when he finds out about his burial chamber.

With this new information, Krolec decides to head over to the restaurant and see if anyone knows where the group was going next.  The waitress there recognizes Krolec and is able to recall overhearing something about the sewers and a wight.  Krolec immediately realizes where they went.

He first heads to Eli Leng's old store, hoping to access the sewers from the entrance in the basement.  However, he quickly finds the store has been boarded up and marked as sealed by Lord Markelhay.  Not wanting to cause an incident, he heads for the next nearest entrance he knows – the sewer grate near the plaza.

As he gets to the grate, he can tell it has been recently moves.  He guesses the group must have gone this way.  Heading down, he finds the fresh remains of many spiders as well as some blood and other signs of battle.

Convinced he's on the right track, Krolec heads further in.  Up ahead, he spots a source of light around the corner.  Sneaking around, he spots a group of people.  He tosses a copper coin at the person in the rear.

Up ahead, Challa feels someone hit her with a coin.  Not sure what it means, she puts her hand on her weapon and slowly turns.  Krolec steps out of the shadows to reveal himself, stating he didn't want to startle her.

After a very brief discussion, the group decides to head further in, with Tiberius in the lead and Krolec right behind him.

Session 35 - Scene 2 (of 5)

The group heads towards the south area of the sewers, where Krolec believed he found the entrance to the area he found the tunnel down and encountered the wight.

As they move in, Tiberius faintly hears a strange noise.  Krolec can tell it is something mechanical; assuming it is a trap, he yells for everyone to take cover.

Krolec dives to the floor as four crossbow bolts fire out from the darkness.  One hits the wall while the other three strike Tiberius.  On the ground, Krolec notices Tiberius had walked across some strange runes carved into the flow.  Krolec recognizes them to be drow symbols.

Firing blindly into the darkness, Leigh lets off a scorching burst.  The fires briefly illuminate the corridor ahead, revealing four crossbow turrets attached to the ceiling of a T-intersection some distance up ahead.

Sa'lid casts a spell allowing him to fly across the sewer waters and over to the other ledge.  The spell also affects Tiberius, who follows him over.  Sa'lid is slightly confused, as he assumed Tiberius would fly away from danger in order to recover.  

Once on the other side, Sa'lid advances ahead, hoping to get close enough to spot the turrets.  Behind him, the poison from the crossbow bolts overcomes Tiberius, and he falls to the ground unconscious.

Back on the other side, Krolec stands back up and holds out an arrow for Leigh to illuminate.

Near the back of the group, Durmindin uses a spell to allow Tiberius to recover from the poison.  Challa then advances up and uses a healing word to heal his wounds.

In the darkness, the crossbow turrets turn and fire on Sa'lid.  As he is pierced by four bolts, he falls to the ground in a pool of blood.

Just then, a giant blade spider emerges from the rear, attracted by all the noise.  With Challa no longer guarding the rear, the spider moves in and bites Durmindin.

Leigh fires off a magic missile into the darkness at turrets, but misses.  She then uses her light spell to illuminate Krolec's arrow.  He fires it into the far wall, revealing the trap.

Session 35 - Scene 3 (of 5)

As Sa'lid slips towards death a short distance away, Tiberius picks himself off the ground and decides to retreat back until he can recover.

Krolec, being behind the line of runes, decides to hold back a moment.  Challa does the same.  Unfortunately, Krolec's assumption is wrong.  The crossbow turrets turn on him and fire, downing him instantly.

In the back of the group, Durmindin uses his wrath of winter to blast the spider, but misses.  The spider responds by biting the shaman twice.

Leigh remains focused on the turrets.  She fires off a flame blast, hitting all four.  She is dismayed, however, to find that they remain functioning afterwards.

Tiberius decides to risk heading into the water so he can help Durmindin.  Slogging through the chest-high muck, he yells out a war cry as he buries his axe into the spider.  

Durmindin follows up the attack with a protecting strike from his spirit companion.  He then casts a healing spell on the nearby Krolec, who was beginning to bleed out.

Challa focuses her attention on Sa'lid, who is also bleeding to death.  She slogs across the murky waters and over to the other side, planning to grab him and drag him back to safety.  The crossbow turrets turn and fire on her, but luckily her superior armor absorbs most of the attack.

Leigh fires off another magic missile, hitting the front turret.  Up ahead, Krolec pulls himself up to a kneeling position and fires off two shots, finishing the turret off.

In the back of the corridor, the spider bites Durmindin again.  Tiberius strikes back with a guarding attack then uses an inspiring word to aid the shaman.  Durmindin himself assists with a thunder bear's warning spell on the arachnid.

Challa begins dragging Sa'lid back as the remaining three crossbows fire on Krolec.  Aided by his lower profile, he manages to avoid two of the shots.

As the spider bites into Durmindin twice more, Leigh fires off a fireball spell, blasting all three of the turrets.  None, however, are destroyed by the attack.

Tiberius uses his surround the foe maneuver, hitting the spider.  Amazed the creature is still standing, he follows it up with a bastion of defense.  Durmindin also attacks the spider with another spell, this time using his spirit of the hawk's wind to blind it.

Back in front, Krolec fires off another couple of arrows.  One of them hits one of the remaining turrets, destroying it.

Off on the other side of the passage, Challa uses first aid to recover Sa'lid.

The crossbows fire at Krolec again, missing him.  Leigh responds with a magic missile, destroying another of them.

In the back, the spider blindly lashes out, managing to hit Durmindin once.  Nearby, Sa'lid stands himself up and uses a moon and stars spell to blast the spider then takes a moment to recover.

Tiberius helps out the sorcerer with an inspiring word.  He then cuts into the spider with a viper's strike, crushing its skull with the blade of his axe.

Back in front, Krolec destroys the last of the turrets with another set of carefully placed arrow shots.

Session 35 - Scene 4 (of 5)

While the others decide to take a moment to rest, Leigh decides to head up and check out the T-intersection and the area with the turrets. She can tell the turrets were some kind of magical drow trap.

Krolec decides to follow her up rather than rest. He convinces her that he should sneak down each passage of the intersection a little ways to do some reconnaissance.

The small amounts of light coming from the various grates is just enough for Krolec to barely see his way along. He quietly advances a little ways in and spots a hole in the wall up ahead. However, he decides it is much larger than the hole he found back when he was chasing Jantor.

Krolec carefully moves in close to the hole. Smelling the area carefully, he gets a strong odor of rats coming from the area. He slowly sneaks away and heads back to the intersection, informing Leigh what he found.

He then decides to head down the right passageway. This time, however, he has trouble keeping quiet. He also fails to notice the large creature in the water alongside him.

Suddenly, a large visejaw crocodile emerges from the water, biting down hard into Krolec's leg. He yells out in pain. Back at the intersection, Leigh hears the echo and informs the others. With little choice, they abandon their rest and head off to assist the ranger.

Krolec draws his swords and cuts into the crocodile with an adaptive assault, but its jaws hold firm. It continues to gnaw at his leg, cutting into his calf.

The ranger tries to escape, but the reptile's jaws are too powerful. He strikes the creature in the head with a boar assault, but the tough, scaly hide makes it difficult to injure.

As the crocodile continues to tear flesh from his limb, Krolec tries another escape, but has no better luck. He gets in one more attack with a hawk's talon strike before the massive blood loss causes him to fall unconscious.

Session 35 - Scene 5 (of 5)

By the time the others arrive to the location they heard the yell, all they find is claw marks, a lot of blood, and one of Krolec's swords.

Leigh examines the water carefully.  She is able to discern there is a small path of blood in the water, coming from upstream.

Challa tries to contact Krolec telepathically, but gets no response.  She leads the group upstream, hoping to recover Krolec.

Wondering if he is underwater, Tiberius and Challa use their ropes to dredge along the water.  Challa can tell they've hit an object.  Plucking it out of the water, she can see that it is a recently dismembered foot, wearing one of Krolec's boots.

Knowing that Krolec was most likely attacked by a crocodile and likely dead at this point unless he managed to get away when his leg was severed, Challa gets everyone back on the ledge and they attempt to follow the blood trail while running alongside.

Up ahead, Leigh hears some splashing and running water.  Heading around the corner, they see a sloped passage with the water going out of the grate and out into the river below.  Across the rushing water, on a ledge on the other side, is the crocodile, feasting on a deceased Krolec.

Leigh blasts the reptile with a shocking sphere, getting its attention.  She then fires off an acid arrow, ironically melting one of the creature's legs.

Tiberius, unwilling to risk crossing the water to engage the beast, salutes his fallen comrade.  Challa decides to use her crossbow, but fails to hit.

Sa'lid uses an energy strobe to blast the crocodile.  Unseen to the others, the electrical current also arcs through the wet ground to Krolec, restarting his heart.  His unconscious body spits up water.

Durmindin picks up a rock and hurls it at the croc, but it just bounces off.  The creature begins heading towards the group, but Leigh fries it with her burning hands spell.  The charred corpse floats down towards the grate, clogging the flow of water a bit.

Leigh then uses her magic hand spell to take the rope across the water and tie it around Krolec.  They then drag him across to their side.

Examining the body, Tiberius is amazed to find Krolec still alive.  He stabilizes the ranger's bloody stump – the right leg now gone to just above the knee.  

Leigh uses the shroud of revival to make sure Krolec doesn't fall to the effects of shock or infection.  The group then hauls Krolec out of the nearest sewer exit, finding themselves near Pembridge Manor.

As they take Krolec back to the temple, Leigh recalls the stories about Eric Pembridge having a love of exotic animals as a child but his father always ended up throwing them down the privy.  Up until now, she always though they were just urban legends...

Session 35 - Session Notes

It's been a while since I posted a session report, as an emergency project for work caused me to cancel the last regularly-scheduled session.  I also had to turn down an opportunity for another session with the alternate group on father's day weekend as I already had other plans with my gf.

So, this last week I finally got back to gaming.  Honestly, I wasn't all that looking forward to the game.  

Sometimes, as DM, I find running a game to be a great creative outlet.  Other times, it can feel like more of a chore than a hobby.  As I hadn't been in the best of moods lately, I went in expecting it to feel more like the latter.

It ended up a bit better than I expected, as things usually are when you are in a bad mood and being unnecessarily pessimistic.  That said, it wasn't exactly memorable gaming either.

This was largely a combat-heavy session since we are back to dungeon exploring.  Or sort-of dungeon exploring, since the group is still bizarrely fixated on finding one monster of many down in the sewers for no reason whatsoever.

I'm going to admit straight-up here that I "cheated".  I had originally created a map of the sewers in the strange belief that adventurers would naturally want to explore the whole area.  Because they are obsessed with finding one stupid wight I decided to say "screw it" and just have the encounters I planned happen to them along the way whenever I felt like.

This session perfectly illustrates a couple of problems I'm having lately keeping my interest going:
A) My group seems to prefer combat encounters.
B) My group can be quite terrible at actually using combat tactics.

Really, the problem with combat is essentially the same problem as I have with using mysteries - the group professes to like it, but are bad at it.

During these kind of battles, I always get the "there he goes, being a killer DM again" looks/comments from a couple of players (particularly the Krolec player, who is always whiny because he, as DM, is completely opposed to the idea of character death).

But the truth is, sometimes I nearly get a TPK with even easy encounters.

Take the first encounter - here's a brief list of the "less-than-optimal" tactics I saw:
* Tiberius, who has a poor perception bonus, is put in the lead.
* Tiberius uses the spell to move away from the healers despite knowing he will fall unconscious at the start of his next turn.
* Sa'lid decides to head towards the trap, for no reason whatsoever.
* Krolec and Challa spend at least one round, or was it two, doing absolutely nothing while the others are attacked.
* Durmindin is stuck at the back of the group, where he is out of range to heal half the party.
* They leave the rear unprotected.  Worse, it takes a while before anyone even bothers to assist the healer who is being attacked.
* The wizard makes blind attacks against the trap rather than attack the spider she can see.
* Krolec exclusively uses his at-will attacks (actually, most of the others do as well, but Krolec most egregiously, since his encounter powers are generally just better versions of his normal attacks).
* No one bothers to look at the runes (which could have been used to deactivate the trap).
* No one bothers to try to disable the trap (not utilizing Scrag, who is explicitly known to have thievery skills).
* Everyone constantly forgets how the rules work and/or forgets about half their powers/

So, basically, they turn a pretty light encounter into a near-TPK bloodbath that takes up all their resources.  All because they still can't get out of the "I run up and attack" mindset.

The funny part is, the dumb decisions get worse from there.  Next, Krolec decides to go off on his own without even taking his short rest first.  The player got a little whiny about his croc encounter, but to me, that's what happens when you go off by yourself into dangerous areas.  Everyone did get a bit of a laugh out of it, though.

I did let him live, eventually, though I'm not sure where that will go now.  I'm not sure there is a ritual, per se, to restore a missing limb (I couldn't find one in the compendium, anyhow).  If he can't restore it, he'll retire the character (though he's hinted that the next one would be something of a half-assed drizzt clone, so that's an incentive to me to make it possible, if difficult, to get him a new leg).

Session 36 - Cast of Characters

Sa'lid Drallah - Human Sorcerer
Challa Kri - Kalashtar Paladin
Leigh - Eladrin Wizard
Durmindin - Wilden Shaman