Session 42 - Session Notes

So this session worked out pretty good after the lackluster session last time.  A fun mix of exploration with traps and a decent, but not overwhelming, combat encounter at the end.

Not too much else to note for this session, really.  I will say that my original idea was to use an actual map for the sewers.  But it turned into a grid and seemed really dull to me so instead I just sort of simplified the layout and dealt with the exploration more narratively.  Saves time from the players wanting to map every little thing too (an activity that, in practice, ends up being about as fast-moving and fun as a meeting at work).

The acid fungus (was that my idea or a books?  I can't recall now) was another interesting case.  At first, it was just supposed to destroy their armor.  But since it was magical armor, the krolec player argued for a saving throw.  It seemed fair to me, so when they made it, I just had it destroy their adventurer's kits again.

Finally a note on treasure - I am at least 2 levels behind according to the original treasure parcel guidelines when it comes to treasure.  I just have a really hard time getting that much treasure into the game without it seeming bizarre.

Session 43 - Cast of Characters

Scrag Graveborn - Half-Orc Earth Warden
Sage - Longtooth Shifter Cleric of Mellora
Dame Leigh - Eladrin Wizard
Sir Durmindin - Wilden Shaman

Session 43 - Scene 1 (of

After taking a couple of days to recover, the group decides it is time to head out again.  With Krolec off visiting family, Sa'lid spending some quality time with Lady Abigail, and Tiberius having sent a note saying he is taking a leave of absence in order to sort out some things, the group is down to only four members.  Still, they are undeterred.

While Scrag is ready to rush right out, Leigh wants to deal with a few open issues first; primarily concerning the staff they found.  Scrag sees the issue as one of making a simple sale, but Sage explains the right thing to do is tell the Temple of Erathis about it first.

The group arrives at the temple shortly after and meets with the high priestess, Dirina Moonbrow.  She recognizes the staff right away when Leigh presents it to her.  They come to an agreement to teach the ritual of raising the dead to Sage in exchange for the staff.

Moonbrow is also interested in recovering the body.  Leigh explains to her where her people will be able to recover the remains, though cautions to be careful because the sewers are not yet fully cleaned out.

The group then heads over to the Moonsong Temple to talk with the high priestess of Sehanine.  Sage explains to the priestess about the door they discovered in the sewers and discovers the temple is already aware of it, though the door has not been used in many years.  

A quick deal is struck with the temple for the group to be able to use the door in case of an emergency in exchange for a minor favor to be named later.  To keep the door safe, the priestess insists on the use of a password.  As they leave, the group comes to a decision to use "cleansed woods" as the password and leaves the information with the temple attendant.

Session 43 - Scene 2 (of

Scrag, anxious to get back to sewer-cleaning, asks Leigh what the plan is to do next.  She responds they need to go to the keep.  When he asks why, Sage interjects to explain to him the importance of keeping in good standing with local authorities and they want to make sure Lord Markelhay and his men are aware of the security implications of the secured entrance to the keep basement inside the sewers.

When they arrive at the keep, they are greeted by Lt. Gerdrand.  Gerdrand notices the group composition has changed yet again, and asks Leigh if the group has experienced more turnover.  Leigh responds that the group is temporarily reduced in ranks.

Leigh goes on to explain to Gerdrand that they have come to tell the keep about the secret entrance in the sewers.  Gerdrand explains that Lord Markelhay is still in conference but he will have the royal engineer look into it, as he was unaware of the gate's existence.  He assures Leigh that the engineer will be escorted with troops.

The wizard then goes on to tell Gerdrand about the other maintenance items they discovered.  She uses her map to point them out.  The lieutenant is surprised she has a map of the sewers, and she explains she got them from Nimozarran.

Gerdrand explains that he will have the other sewer repairs looked into once the group has finished clearing out the sewers; the budget permitting, of course.  He then wishes them a good day.

Session 43 - Scene 3 (of

Before heading back down into the sewers, Sage picks up a new adventuring kit from Krolec's parent's store.  The group then makes their way down, with Scrag in the lead.  This time, Leigh directs the group down the alternate passage that leads towards the river.

As they head along, they come up to a side passage on the right.  Wishing to continue towards the river to clear out the outer perimeter first, Leigh directs the team to move straight ahead rather than heading down the side passage.

Unfortunately, Scrag fails to sense the dangers up ahead.  Before they realize it, the group has wandered right up to a cavern in the side of the sewer wall filled with a kruthik nest.

Seeing the vast numbers of the strange, metallic-looking insects, Scrag moves in to try and take a tactical position to protect the others.  Many kruthik adults and the hive lord quickly surround him.  Slashing and biting into him, the creatures cause a great deal of damage and the warden immediately collapses.

With Scrag prone and out of the way, Leigh fires off a firescythe spell to blast a large mass of the monsters, injuring several adults and the hive lord, and killing one of the hatchlings.  She then puts up her fire shield for defense.

Durmindin steps up in front of Leigh to further protect her and get within range of Scrag.  He uses his healing spirit to allow the half-orc to recover.

Sage moves up as well, putting herself in front of Durmindin.  She attempts to attack one of the kruthik adults, but fails to penetrate its thick armor.  She says a quick prayer of strengthen the faithful and healing word for Scrag, healing the warden further.

The hatchlings begin to move up as well, biting at Scrag.  Scrag shrugs them off as he stands.  He drinks a healing potion then attempts to attack the hive lord with a thornburst attack, but the monsterous queen fights him off.

The kruthik strike back at Scrag, clawing and biting him more.  One of the creatures unable to reach Scrag fires off poisoned spikes at Leigh, which her fire shield is no protection against.

Although Scrag doesn't go down again from the attacks, they wound him seriously.  Leigh uses a jump spell to get him out of harm's way.  She then fey steps to a position perpendicular to the rest of the group and launches a fireball at the kruthik nest, hitting almost all of them and killing two more hatchlings.

Durmindin goes on the offense as well.  He summons his spirit companion and blasts a nearby kruthik with his wrath of winter.  Sage assists by summoning up a beacon of hope.

Session 43 - Scene 4 (of

Sensing the situation is very dangerous, Scrag changes into his panther form and charges in at the hive lord, striking a deep cut with his axe.  Nearby, Leigh and Sage wonder if it wouldn't have been a better plan to kill off the weaker creatures first.

The kruthik fill Scrag's body with cuts and toxic spikes, but he manages to stay up.  As does the nearby Leigh, who takes a few hits from the spikes as well.  Leigh responds to the assault by attacking back with a fireburst hitting several of the creatures.

Durmindin uses a spirit of the healing flood to attack several of them and heal Scrag at the same time.  Sage attempts to follow it up with a healing strike, but the insect avoids her blow.

Sage then uses a hallowed advance prayer that teleports Scrag out of the middle of the insects.  He strikes at one of the kruthik now in front of him, killing it.  Scrag then drinks a potion of healing to recover.

Launching a second set of assaults, Scrag lashes out at the kruthik with a thunderstep and an earthgrasp strike, but both miss their targets.  The creatures attack back, cutting into him more.

Leigh blasts back three of the creatures with a shock sphere then drinks a potion herself.  Durmindin finishes one of them off with a spirit renewal strike from his companion.

Sage uses her ability to cure serious wounds to heal Scrag back to normal.  Scrag steps back and uses his manticore shield to blast the nest, killing the remaining hatchlings and injuring several of the adults.

With Scrag out of the way, the kruthik turn to Sage, clawing into her.  The hive lord lets out a blast of acid, hitting Durmindin, Sage, and Scrag.  The remaining kruthik fire toxic spikes at Leigh, causing her to collapse.

Durmindin quickly uses a healing spirit to allow Leigh to recover as Sage gives a prayer for a hymn of resurgence.

Scrag moves over in front of the prone Leigh to protect her.  Using a thunder ram assault, he kills another of the monsters.

The hive lord turns and fires a blast of acid, hitting Scrag and Leigh.  Scrag is also hit by some toxic spikes, while Sage is clawed at by the other remaining kruthik.

On the ground, Leigh takes a moment to recover while Durmindin assists by attacking a nearby creature with his spirit of the hawk's wind spell.

With Sage badly injured, Scrag uses the uplifting winds to float over in front of her and strikes at the kruthik with his strength of stone.  The kruthik attack back, hitting Sage, Durmindin, and Scrag with another blast of acid.  Scrag falls unconscious into the water.

Across the sewer, Leigh stands herself up and uses burning hands to fry the hive lord and the other kruthik, killing one of them.  Durmindin follows up the attack with a call of the howling storm.

Sage uses her healer's mercy to allow Scrag to recover.  He stands up and moves back onto a ledge.  He then strikes down one of the kruthik with his earthshield strike.

Another acid spray hits the group and the remaining adult kruthik claws into Sage.  Leigh fights acid with acid, blasting the hive lord with an acid arrow, killing it.

Durmindin uses his spirit companion to strike their remaining opponent with a thunder bear's warning as Sage strikes from the other side with a recovery strike.  Scrag joins the assault as well, hitting with a strength of stone attack.

The kruthik tries to strike Scrag back, but fails.  Leigh blasts the creature with a magic missile and Durmindin finishes it off with a wrath of winter.

Session 43 - Scene 5 (of

Everyone stops to take a quick rest not that the battle is over.  With most of their resources for the day exhausted, the group plans for a quick retreat.

Liegh convinces the group to wait and search the kruthik nest first.  The group is dismayed to only find a few coins worth barely 40 gold.

The group then starts heading back the way they came, with Scrag once again in the lead.  As they pass by the side passage, however, they hear someone calling for help.  Sage and Leigh know this means they'll have to face something else before they can leave...

Session 43 - Scene 6 (of

Two days ago...

On the streets of a far-off city, Lord Victor Reiner accompanies his recent acquaintance, Sir Phillip of Burgundy, to a meeting in a dark alley.  Sir Phillip introduces the lord to a third man there, a portly man in the robes of a monk of Corellon, who he names as Friar Bellows.

The three men whisper conspiratorially, finally coming to an agreement.  Reiner gives the friar an address of a local safehouse, and tells the man there are two other allies waiting to meet him there.

After the man leaves, Reiner congratulates Sir Phillip for once again assisting him in finding the man he was looking for.  He takes out a list, marking off the name of Friar Bellows.  Two other names on the list are already marked off - Sir Wilfred Death and Three-Fingered Pete.

Sir Phillip then tells Reiner he has to leave to meet with a contact that may know the location of Jack Large.  The two split up, and Sir Phillip makes his way to his secret underground sanctuary.

Once safely inside, the man known as Sir Phillip shapechanges back into his natural form.

Session 43 - Scene 7 (of

One day ago...

A dishelved criminal wanders through the streets and back alleys until he locates the safehouse of his employer.  At the door, he gives the password and the petty thug Dancor Rossi lets him in.  Inside, Gerald sees Schlomo surrounded by his recent recruits as well as Slippery Pete.

Schlomo, identifying the man as "Mad Gerald", demands to know where he has been.  The gang lord is mollified as Gerald launches into one of his insane rambling accounts of his past several days.

Gerald then tells Schlomo he has a gift for him – a list of names.  Gerald gives a poorly-thought out plan for what to do with these names.  

Schlomo thinks on it a moment, and modifies the idea a bit; turning it into something much more heinous.  Gerald allows himself a wry smile that is not noticed.

Pete is horrified by what Schlomo is proposing and wants no part of it.  Schlomo uses his men to intimidate Pete until he agrees to help by getting him in contact with Rufus.

Schlomo looks at the list again.  He crosses one of the names off, noting "even Rufus isn't crazy enough to take on the old man."  He then gives all but one of the remaining names to his minions, wanting to handle that one personally along with Rufus.

Session 43 - Scene 8 (of

Later that night...

A woman enters her room after a long day.  She sets down her axe on a side table and begins taking off her armor when she senses something is wrong.  Someone is there.  

A large man wearing a black mask and carrying a large mace steps out of the shadows.  

The woman is startled, but keeps her cool.  She remarks to herself, "It was just a matter of time I suppose..." as she reaches for her axe.

But the assassin is too fast, smashing into her arm with the heavy mace.  Despite the pain of her shattered arm, the woman blasts the assassin back with the force of astral thunder.

The assassin recovers quickly, flinging a dagger into her side.  Badly wounded, she turns to try and get out, but he reaches her before she can escape.  

Smashing into the back of her leg with his mace, he sends her to the ground.  He follows up with a brutal kick to her head, leaving her stunned.

As her vision begins to fade, she sees another man step into the room.  She recognizes him as the crimelord Schlomo.  He smiles down at her as he says, "Hello Challa..."

Session 43 - Session Notes

This session had a low turnout, and basically amounted to a little bit of interaction in town followed by one big battle.

Scene 1 of the writeup actually contains a bit of a retcon - it didn't actually play out that way.  During the actual game session, both I and the players misremembered the staff as coming from the Moongsong Temple, so during the game there was only one temple visit and the deal was for an amount of spell components (as raise dead is not part of that temple's repetoire).  

I only discovered my error later when writing up the notes, and gave the players three options (over email) on how to proceed: retcon that the staff was always from Moonsong, retcon that they struck a deal with Erathis and Moonsong, or keep things as-is and chalk it up to the PCs making a mistake and the Moonsong temple going along with it to get their hands on the staff.

Once they got back in the sewers, the battle started almost immediately.  In laying out the battle, I did the same thing I did with the rats - creating a bottleneck for the kruthik because of the way I drew the nest.  It's just as well, as I nearly had a TPK anyhow (some of these encounters were designed back when the party was larger and I'm trying to re-size them on the fly during the session).

When the battle was over, I suppose I had the perfect opportunity to dump a bunch of treasure on the PCs, but I decided to wait and have that come up later.  Instead, they did a major battle for a pittance of gold.

Since they tried to do the "let's blow everything in one fight and head back up" strategy again, I decided to add in the complication of the call for help.  Needless to say, the players thought it evil of me.

Scenes 6 to 8 did not actually occur during the session.  As always with my "cut scenes", they were sent out as an epilogue to the session over email.  I figure that way whoever doesn't care can ignore it while anyone who does gets some extra background info.

Note that "Mad Gerald" and "Phillip of Burgundy" are both further uses of characters from the last episode of the first season of Blackadder.

In these scenes, Schlomo is being modeled after Erastes Fullman from the tv series Rome.  I had warned previously that a crimelord is not to be trifled with; next session, the PCs will find out how bloodthirsty his revenge is/was.

The scene with Challa is obviously an homage to the opening scene from Watchmen.

Session 43 - Deleted Scenes

My original draft of the epilogue scenes revealed far, far more about what was going on.  For you interested readers, here's what was cut:

* It was made clearer "Phillip of Burgundy" was another disguise of the doppleganger, and that he previously manipulated Lord Reiner using a disguise of "a foreign sorceror".

* The doppleganger was actually revealed to have travelled back to Fallcrest via a teleportation circle.

* In Fallcrest, the doppleganger sent off messages via birds to both "Drylak the Impaler" (discussing moving his army to the valley in the spring) and to "Bragosani" (asking about his progress along with "Karalel").

* It was revealed Mad Gerald was another of the doppleganger's disguises and that he was not crazy, but it was just an act.  It also made clearer that Gerald was manipulating Schlomo into doing what he wanted the whole time.

* The final scene revealed the doppleganger worshipped a dark god of the spiral symbol.

So why did I cut them out?  For one thing, I thought it revealed too much too quick - restricting the info a bit keeps things more mysterious.

I also don't want to confuse them.  And it would have been very easy to start misunderstanding the plot - the whole point, after all, is that the unrevealed dark figure is engaged in a very complex gambit against an equally manipulative opponent (the as-of-yet unrevealed entity behind the curtain).

There's a lot of villains in play at the moment; some working together, some not, and it's easy to start confusing who is involved with which conspiracy.  For example, I think they already might not fully grasp that Rufus, the doppleganger, and the man in the purple cloak are three different people.

But mainly, I don't trust the players not to use out of character knowledge.  I don't want them to drop everything currently going on and start tearing down the city looking for the doppleganger, trying to identify everyone they talk to as being a doppleganger or not, etc.

Instead, what I'm hoping will happen is that the Schlomo thing will be a brief sidetrack and nothing more for the moment.  Incidentally, that is more or less what the doppleganger wants too.  

Session 44 - Cast of Characters

Sir Krolec Jar'bin - Elven Ranger
Scrag Graveborn - Half-Orc Earth Warden
Sage - Longtooth Shifter Cleric of Mellora
Dame Leigh - Eladrin Wizard
Sir Durmindin - Wilden Shaman

Session 44 - Scene 1 (of 11)

Krolec sits in the parlor of his family home as his mother, Lunor, prepares some tea in the kitchen.  His father, Honlor, and sister, Jantor, sit in separate chairs to either side of him.

Just then, Krolec hears a crashing noise, followed by a bloody scream from the kitchen.  He quickly grabs his nearby bow, ready for trouble.  As he stands from his chair, the front door of the home bursts open and two thugs pour in.  From the kitchen door, several more can be seen making their way towards the parlor.

Krolec immediately fires two shots off at the man in the kitchen doorway, killing him.  Honlor takes a moment to grab his ancestral sword from over the hearth and moves towards the kitchen.  Jantor, not an experienced combatant, holds back.

As the thugs from the kitchen advance, Honlor cuts into one with his sword.  The thug attacks back, striking Honlor in the face with a fierce strike.  The older elf falls to the floor in a bloody mess.

Jantor has better luck.  As a thug approaches her, she grabs a nearby ottoman and holds him at bay.  She lashes out at the villain, but is unable to hit him with the improvised weapon.

Krolec is concerned about his family being killed, as they are not nearly as experienced at combat as he is.  He fires off two shots at one target in each direction, missing the man attacking his sister but firing an arrow through the throat of one of the men near his father, killing him.

As the thugs advance on him, Krolec uses his agility to maneuver out of the way of the first attack.  The second, however, cuts his arm.  Jantor herself is also hit by a glancing strike.

The ranger steps back then repeats his attack, still splitting his shots.  This time, he misses the man nearest him but sends an arrow into the femoral artery of the man attacking Jantor.  The attacker falls over dead as blood sprays into the drapes.

The remaining two thugs move to attack Krolec, but he fends them off.  Stepping back, he fires off a shot at each, striking each man in the heart.

Session 44 - Scene 2 (of 11)

With all of the threats eliminated, Krolec rushes over to take care of his father.  He can see Honlor has lost a lot of blood.  The elf manages to stop the blood flow and can tell his father will survive, but notices that his father's left eye has been completely destroyed by the attack.

Krolec then steadies himself and heads over to the kitchen, prepared for the worst.  Looking inside, he sees blood everywhere.  As his heart skips, he notices his mother is still breathing.  Using a healing potion, he stabilizes her.  She's critically injured, but will survive.

Moving quietly, Krolec carefully checks out the area around the house to make sure there are no more attackers lying in wait.  He also looks around for any nearby members of the town guard that may be of assistance, but sees none.

After rousing his father and explaining the condition of Lunor, the father and son agree that getting her somewhere safe to heal is the best plan.  Honlor suggests the sanitarium.

Honlor then asks his son who would want to make such a brutal attack on them; as Honlor himself cannot think of any enemies he has.  Krolec suggests it was the result of his adventuring group upsetting someone; a situation that was bound to happen sooner or later.  Krolec is not happy about it.

Krolec then begins checking over the bodies for any clues.  He recognizes one of the dead men – it's Dancor Rossi, the petty thug Rufus the Red once hired to help in the kidnapping of the bailiff, Stevenson.  The ranger reflects that perhaps he should have killed the man before when they had the chance.

But more importantly, the elf realizes this does not bode well.  It means the group has likely been targeted by an organized criminal element in the area, and perhaps even Rufus himself.

Deciding the sanitarium is too risky, Krolec decides to take his family directly to Moonstone Keep for safety.