Ok, I'm kinda back on track with the numbers. I think this is our 58th adventure for this campaign.

The players had just gotten through their ambush of the Relic Procession on the mountain road leading up to Goldpeak. (See Spirit-and-Flesh).

The flood is not receeding.

For the most part the cities and towns of Karelon are in disarray. Roan is actually underwater (completely destroyed). Evander is in ruins (I've decided that in the future, it will live on as a fantastical Venice-like city, half-submerged.) Refugees streamed inland and swell the populations of smaller villages and towns. The Karelon government is in disarray, so the Kurghites (who have planned all along on eventually seizing the kingdom) have asserted themselves from their base in the town of Ember. They have recovered the Conqueror Hound, their walking fortress, and massed two regiments around Ember. A brigade sized cavalry group is camped outside of the only other major town in the lowlands, Copper Glen.

The players, specifically Bernard, have been rabble-rousing in the refugee city that surrounds Goldpeak (the only large city on Karelon to have escaped the flood, due to it's position in the mountains.)

Bernard is cruel and mischievous, and he's been promoting the worship of his deity, a minor fire-trickster called Zunail. And a certain element of the refugees have responded with enthusiasm. He's giving them something to believe them, and at the same time, the rest of the group is spreading around money.

Meanwhile, the agents of the Scion of Zumaloken have begun preaching about a mysterious "Dark Day". The end is nigh.  Dark Day is coming. 7 days. They demand people join the Cult of the Scion or suffer some horrific curse in 7 days.

At first, the refugees responded to the bad guys, and the cult gained a few followers... but because of Bernard's firey(sometimes literally) evangelical sermons and wild festival-style parties, the agents of the Scion soon find themselves without followers.

Nobody throws a party like Bernard the fire-goblin! An unforeseen side effect is that he's gaining followers. A certain hardcore of freshly converted worshippers have started following Bernard around. He's destined for sainthood.

Ok, so cut to last week- the players ambush and destroy the relic procession. They are digging through the splintered remains of the casket and they discover a communications crystal that would have belonged to the Atropal.

Thinking quickly, Ganex set up 'Detect Remote Viewing' to ensure that it wouldn't be used to eavesdrop on the group. Then they lead-boxed it.

They head back to Goldpeak. (more later)

Alright, so upon return to Goldpeak, the players take care to avoid their "fans" and instead of their usual residence amongst the refugees, they actually move into town, bribing their way into an expensive hostel that isn't open to refugees.

The main idea is they need to rest, and Owyn wants to study the communication crystal.

So they do so.

Vork (who is at this point has already healed himself, isn't as affected by fatigue, and doesn't rely much on spells) stays awake, and decides to pay a visit to the dwarven guardsmen who had contacted him earlier.  

He makes his way through the crowded upper city (Goldpeak is a layered city with the cosmopolitan upper levels, and an underground layer mostly used by dwarves and other races that have adapted to underground life.)

Vork notes graffiti pertaining to Zunail, even beyond the gates where the refugees aren't normally allowed, so Bernard's evangelism is catching on, spreading even further than originally planned for.

Finally he meets with the Dwarven guardsmen who explain that they had tried to contact him earlier when they captured a spy trying to infiltrate the city via scaling the walls. The spy had been killed, but his effects, including an encoded message were seized, and the dwarves were looking to turn it over to the group, since they had recently proven themselves in the battle against the relic procession.

So Vork brings the encrypted message back to the group, but not before taking a stab at decrypting it.

(more later)

The captured message: Vork wasn't able to decrypt it himself, but with Owyn's help, they got the full message.

The captured message refers to a plan by the Zumaloken-followers to reveal the new cult (Scion of Zumaloken) simultaneously with a massive attack on the Kurghites.

This was all actually drawn into a prop, so I actually drew out captured maps and scrawled handwriting and let the players interpret as they wanted to.

The Kurghites were also enemies of the players, so I wasn't sure what they'd do. I was surprised when they opted to warn the Kurghites.

They debated this for a while, with some hinted mention of "playing both sides off against each other, and then making an attack on the survivors" but never really resolved it.

Around that time, word came in (via some of Bernards new loyal religious followers) that a heretic was preaching to the refugees about Zumaloken and a coming "Dark Day", and a riotous crowd was gathering.

Bernard at that point said "Well, you can continue this debate if you like, but I think I'll be showing down one of the Zumalokenites. This will be a real blow them, when I publicly humiliate their priest..."

And everyone agreed that might be fun. So they went out to check this out.

Ok, so they leave the city walls to see the cultist preaching about the coming Dark Day. ("The day when all non-believers will be killed!, and believers will rise again, to breathe with the new life of the god of secrets, Zumaloken!")

This is foreshadowing and clue-dropping. There really is a Dark Day coming, - a planned campaign event that hapens when the true Child of Zumaloken is born. On that day (unless the players stop this from happening), a curse will affect the entire nation of Karelon. Although the claim that "all" non-believers will be killed is a lie, every humanoid within a certain-mile radius of the birthplace (Evander, 100s of miles to the east) will spontaneously be transformed into Necropolitans. (this is a +0 LA Undead template).  

And also, it introduces 'undead' as a playable character race for the next campaign. Hah!

Ok, so the PCs head down to go deal with the heretic. And I played up the heretic for a while dropping clues and just generally spouting off.

Then Bernard cuts in, parting the crowd, interupting one of the priests more grandiose ravings. "Who then will save you when Dark Day comes? I ask you!"

And Bernard came in with "I will!"

The rest of the group had scattered through the crowd, and this was meant to be a chance to humilate the evil priest. They start arguiing, and meanwhile, Owyn used prestidigtate to put a fake nose on the guy, and Ganex used his telekinetics to try and make the priests pants fall down. That sort of thing. Then Ganex tried to use detect thoughts on him, and found it didn't beat.. spell penetration?

Something bad was about to happen.

The "priest" started to get angrier and angrier, and finally reveals himself.. as .. The Nycaloth Commander! In response to a direct challenge from Bernard, the Nycaloth sheds his human skin, and grows to huge size.

The Nycaloth Commander (they fought several nycaloths back in the fake Kurghite temple a few sessions ago, and they knew there were more unrevealed yugoloths in town).  

This was the boss.

This turned out to be one of the most horrific battles of the campaign. (more later)

The big battle!

As soon as the hulkingly huge Nycaloth Commander had revealed himself to the gathered crowd of refugees, shedding it's "human" skin, the crowd started to scatter.. and then the players attacked. The nycaloth was slow, but dangerous. It ended up last in the initiative order. As it dropped the polymorphed form, it appeared in a massive armored breastplate and carrying a huge magical greataxe.

The guys had taken on some tough creatures before, but this one outweighed their average CR by 3.  

They started out by pounding it with spells, and Vork was firing arrows... a strategy that had served them over the course of 14 levels.

However, many of the spells were failing (except for Owyn's orb spells, which were consistently reliable). To make matters worse, many of Vork's arrows bounced off. It was fast healing some of the damage that did get through...

It stepped up, closed, and attacked Bernard, who was nearest. A single chop brought him down below half his hit points.

They poured on the firepower. Ganex switched up his tactics from disintegrates and other effects that seemed to fizzle against the yugoloth's spell resistance.. to energy missiles. Vork switched over to his last few outsider-bane arrows. Owyn blasted through his best orb spells. Bernard managed to stab it with his magical falchion.. but things were looking grim.

This is a feature of D&D combat: if you have to move and then attack, you only get one attack. That's all it had done so far.  At high levels, if you don't have to move... you can full attack- which involves several iterative attacks. With reach (huge size) and a massive to-hit, it gets harder and harder for someone to truly escape the carnage.

So at the end of the second round, the crowd is scattering, and 3 of the 4 heroes are now circling it. The 4th, Bernard, is right up in it's threatened area. He's below half his hit points, after suffering a single attack. And he chose not to make a run for it during his round.

...And so I decided the yugoloth was going to power attack for 10.

This actually isn't as cruel as it sounds. As a GM, I knew that if I reduced the yug's to hits by 10, Bernard had a chance at avoiding attacks with his high AC. It also seemed to fit in with the yug's tactics... and he could even cleave a couple of townsfolk right next to Bernard. Of course, if even one attack hit, Bernard was at best unconscious.

So I was like.. Do it!

The dice rolled. A hit (which reduced Bernard to around 2 hit points), and a crit.. (and that killed Bernard outright, reducing him to around -58 in a single blow. Whoops! Power attack on a crit!).. and then several cleaves that killed every townsperson within reach. And I had to waive my last two iterative attacks, since there was nothing left within range.

Killed!

As a flourish I had the Nycaloth grab Bernard's broken body and hurl it, around 100' into a wall. Then he points at Vork, the next closest in line and snarls. "Your'e next."

Remember, this is the end of the round.

The round starts back up; Ganex flies over to Bernard's crumpled form and casts Psionic Revivify on Bernard.  

So in the blink of an eye, Bernard is (alive again) and back up to -1 and stable!

Meanwhile, Vork (who is flying) starts backing up, shooting bane arrows. Owyn tries to make sure he isn't the closet thing to the Nycaloth, so he's flying around at a distance, firing more orbs (which are doing good consistent damage).

They are getting some great damage in, but the Nycaloth is powerful. It suddenly takes wing, and proves itself extremely agile in the air. It does an aerial charge on Vork, slamming into him with it's greataxe.

Vork hits the dirt, heavily damaged.. and in the same situation that Bernard was last round, sitting right in the middle of the demons threat range.

Ganex (over by the wall) spends the next round healing Bernard back up. (And Bernard is revived, and manages to get in a heal on himself.) He stands back up shakily and tries to address whats left of the townsfolk. "See? I told you this guy wasn't that tough!"

(haha)

Vork decides to draw his melee weapon and back it up, out of the full attack zone, suffering a painful AoO in the process. He heals himself and his intelligent magical sword also heals him, so he's surviving.

Owyn fires another orb. Theyre chipping the yugoloth down, piece by piece.

Back to the Yugoloth... he advances on Vork and lays into him with the axe, bringing Vork down into the teens as far as hit points goes. Vork can't keep this up. I'm kinda playing it up.

"Next I kill you.. then after you, the flying gnome. Then I'll feast on the refugees here.."

Owyn gets a little scared by that.

By now Bernard is back up. He's 40' over, by the wall (the demon ended up closer when it came after Vork). Ganex is there as well.

Ganex fires his energy missiles, which shred the thing. It's below 100 hit points by now, but I wanted this battle to be relentless. It's fast healing a bit anyhow.

Bernard (inexplicably? Or perhaps bravely! or perhaps he's showing off for his followers...) charges it. "Yaaaahhh!"

He closes on it, after taking a swipe of an AoO that hurt him pretty badly.

He stabs it, doing a decent attack. Vork decides he can't run forever, and the best choice is to try and fight it down this round.  He slips into the flank and hacks at it. Owyn casts another orb, blasting it with sonic energy this time.

The thing is teetering...

But not dead.

And it can now full-attack. It attacked and on Bernard it killed him on it's second attack, then cleaved over and killed Vork on the same blow.

2 Kills in ONE ATTACK.

It then points at Owyn and shouts "Next, you! Flying gnome!"

Owyn panics and pops a teleport, which hides him behind a wall.

Ganex fires another volley of energy missiles.. He's trying to conserve power points for an eventual dimension door if this entire thing goes badly. I wonder if it can get any worse...

and this final attack kills the yugoloth, which collapses over the corpses of Vork and Bernard.

Ganex and Owyn rush over, and begin pulling the corpses out of the carnage.

They revivify Bernard a second time. Vork has to be raised.

Aaand that was the carnage of the big yugoloth battle.