Only Linny’s player and Holden’s player arrived. I was worried about splitting the subbed characters between the two of them, but eventually we got so bored that we figured we might as well go ahead. Holden’s player handled Nox, while Linny’s player boldly handled Kikkeni, Linny and Lyka.

We ran into some difficulty with reading Kikkeni’s power sheets (which had been printed on a dot matrix printer), but we somehow managed. Anyway, without further ado:

Day 51: The Onrushing Storm

The PCs get up at 6 AM and begin the treacherous 2 hour journey down the pass that descends the cliff face. They notice that the weather over the canyon hasn’t changed; it has been cloudy since yesterday, and thunder periodically rumbles through the cloud cover. Although there is no wind and rain, the dark sky is foreboding.
Linny notices that the bridge below is a chain suspension bridge held up by crackling electric rings at intervals; these look very similar to the air elemental rings used in airships. Their close proximity to each other causes a sort of resonance that is likely responsible for the bad weather.

At about 8 AM they arrive at the foot of the bridge. They do the smart thing and tie themselves by the waist onto the handrail chains, and slowly begin the quarter-mile walk across the swaying bridge.

About 200 feet from the other end, the five-headed statue of Tiamat that looms over the bridge begins to speak.

“Who dares approach the Fane of Tiamat?”
“Priest Captain Holden Magroen of the Silver Flame.”

Lyka states her rank and complete name as well.

While the voice echoes throughout the canyon and clearly sounds like five different voices, the PCs make their will saves versus the ventriloquism. Lyka is able to pinpoint the source of the voice in the Tiamat statue’s blue dragon head.

Linny asks if it’s possible to shatter the dragon head. It certainly is, but given the scale of the statue, they’re going to have to deal a lot of damage to it.

(For some reason, Holden’s player was under the impression that the statue was only human-sized until here; only now does he realize that it’s more like Mount Rushmore.)

The statue continues: “I do not know what your business here is. Leave an offering for Tiamat and depart from here, and I might spare you.”

Holden replies: “Well, moving toward the statue counts as ‘departing from here’, doesn’t it?” He slings the maul over his shoulder and continues walking down the path. The others follow. Nox drinks a potion of invisiibility.

Almost immediately, the blue dragon Tyrgarun, the guardian of the Fane and father of Azarr Kul, jumps out of the maw of the blue dragon head and dives, landing with a thunderous tremor on the ledge.

Cue BGM.

“I am Tyrgarun, the Onrushing Storm and father of Azarr Kul! I shall not allow you to obstruct his plans! Dare you come against me?”

Kikkeni raises her Inertial Armor, while Linny casts Mass Shield of Faith. Lyka activates her Siberys Armor, spreading her dragonmark wings, and takes to the air. Holden drinks a potion of Fly and likewise moves closer to the dragon.

Immediately the dragon flies off the path and takes a position 65 feet away from the bridge, to the left of the PCs. Only Linny and Lyka succeed on their Frightful Presence saves—everyone else gets nailed. Tyrgarun lights up Holden and Lyka with his breath weapon. Both fail their saves and get blasted with 43 damage.

Kikkeni once more attempts to blast Tyrgarun, but she begins a long string of failures to breach SR. It would have been much better if she used electricity, since it gets a bonus to breaching resistance, but unfortunately the dragon is completely immune to it.

Lyka and Holden each drink potions of Enlarge Person and try to catch up with the dragon. Linny attempts in vain to blast Tyrgarun with Sound Lance, but she likewise fails miserably to breach his spell resistance.

Holden closes in, but before he even manages to get close enough to swing, Tyrgarun does a sharp turn and buzzes Holden, who misses on his AOO. The dragon instead sets upon Kikkeni, goring her with his horn. He attempts to throw her off the bridge, but she makes her reflex save and escapes with a graze. Nox misses yet again, but due to his hide check and the dragon still can’t spot him. (Okay I messed up; there was nowhere to hide. It really wouldn’t have mattered much in the end because…well, read till the end.)

Kikkeni fires yet another energy ball which simply dissipates against the dragon’s body. Linny likewise fails to get any more damage out of her second Sound Lance.

Lyka and Holden struggle to catch up with Tyrgarun, but he’s just too fast and his AC’s just too high. The dragon makes a wingover and comes straight back at Holden, goring him with his horn. Holden is able to make the reflex save to avoid the Awesome Blow, but he’s completely unable to dent Tyrgarun for now. Nox whiffs his shot yet again.

Kikkeni keeps up her bombardment, but to no effect. Out of Sound Lances, Linny instead takes up her Wand of Ice Knife—the only spell she has that can actually hit the dragon—and fails to breach SR.

Now within range, Holden smites Tyrgarun with Divine Surge, scoring a hefty 56 damage. The dragon makes his massive damage save, but Lyka circles and flanks him, dropping a Soaring Raptor Strike on him from behind. For the first time, the dragon roars in pain.

The angered dragon roars: “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.”

“What, slept with your wife?” snarls Holden.

The dragon extends his wings and beats down hard, checking Lyka and Holden with the wind, and opens up a savage attack. The bite and first claw hits Holden, while the second claw hits Lyka. Lucky for her, the tail misses. Freaked out by the dragon’s savagery, Nox messes up his shot.

At this point Kikkeni stops trying to shoot and instead uses the Horn of Abithriax to use Psionic Fly on herself, and concentrates into Psionic Focus. Linny tries her Wand of Ice Knife once more, but the projectile fizzles ineffectually on the dragon’s hide.

Holden smites Tyrgarun once more, smashing him in the face with Bonecrusher. The dragon’s horn cracks down the middle. Lyka follows up with a Death From Above, stabbing deep into the dragon’s back.

This time Tyrgarun lets out an agonized wail.

“That’s what your wife said,” says Holden.

The furious dragon punches it, flying straight up to 90 feet above Lyka and Holden (who both whiff their AOOs), then soaring across the bridge once more to a position about 95 feet away from the bridge.

Nox calibrates his crossbow and uses the Pythagorean theorem to calculate the dragon’s position! He takes a single step to close the distance a bit!

And misses. Ho hum.

Kikkeni takes off, breaking away from Linny and Nox, while Linny tries her Ice Knife one more time. This time she rolls a natural 20 and breaches Tyrgarun’s SR, but fails to confirm her critical. The mighty shard of ice plunges into the dragon for an impressive 8 damage.

Lyka and Holden try their best to pursue the dragon, but don’t even make it halfway.

The dragon uses his Wand of Fireball and sears Linny (she makes her save) and then flies back to a position straight above the bridge, hovering above one of the lightning rings. The PCs don’t realize his plan—he intends to dive onto the bridge (sending the chain bridge quivering like a rubber band) and fire off his maximized breath weapon.

The two frontliners close in, but Nox composes himself and takes his shot. The confirmed critical hit plunges straight into Tyrgarun’s eye. He deals over 53 damage with his sneak, but the critical hit would have been enough to kill him at this point. (Which is why it didn’t matter if he was hidden or not.)

“You…cannot…stop…my son.”

Dying in mid-flight, Tyrgarun’s massive corpse crashes onto the air elemental ring. Draconic blood reacts with powerful magic, and a brilliant blue-white flash lights up the entire canyon. The impact sends the bridge swaying wildly, but Nox and Linny are able to hold on.

Realizing the dragon had just died, the PCs begin rejoicing.

Lyka then ruins the mood by asking Holden: “So, sir…did you really sleep with the dragon’s wife?”

“…”

The Dragon’s Hoard

Linny’s player complains that he’s tired and would rather call it off, while Holden’s player says that he’d like to see what the dragon’s hoard was. Just then, Nox’s player arrives (apparently held captive by a series of six Statistics tests). We inform him of his character’s accomplishment, to which he glumly shakes his head. He lights up at the mention of treasure, however, so he and Holden’s player vote to push on. Linny’s player gives in, and hands over control of Kikkeni and Nox to Nox’s player.

They investigate the blue dragon head’s maw and find the alcoves in which the four other dragons had dwelt. They realize that the scents and furniture of the areas are obvious clues to what types of dragons had lived there, and come to the conclusion that these were indeed the nests of the slain dragons. They spot Ozzyrandion’s obsessive stacks of bones, Regiarix’s messy apartment where a small, chair and bed still stand, Varanthian’s intricately carved shrine to Tiamat, and Abithriax’s sulfurous alcove, decorated with skulls mounted into the rock face, which had been glassed by fiery breath.
Finally, they come to the end of the chamber, where they see an enormous treasure trove. The pile of gold is inviting, but three weapons call their attention: a giant hammer the size of a small tree, an enormous crossbow, and a bone white, dragonshard-mounted staff covered in glyphs.

The adamantine hammer shrinks to fit Holden’s size as he touches it, and Linny identifies it as “Kumbhakarna’s Penance,” the personal weapon of one of Xen’Drik’s titan lords who had repented of his deeds as the giant empire fell. A dragon who witnessed the dying Titan’s repentance purified the weapon, and it now bears the inscription “By my hand my own people fell; by my fist shall your people stand.” Penance is a blessed weapon and as such breaches DR/good, and also has the power to send a shockwave rippling through the ground.

The crossbow is nowhere near as ancient, but is no less impressive: It’s a Tzanthus Gastrophetes, a state-of-the-art crossbow designed by the gnomes of Zilargo as a special assassination weapon for members of the Trust. The weapon is actually Large, but its compensation systems allow Medium and Small characters to use it without much problems, albeit the weapon needs to be calibrated every morning. It can also produce its own special ammunition and collapse into a compact, highly concealable but unusable form for storage.

Linny’s staff is a Quill of Aureon, a staff that gives some skill bonuses and has a couple of per-day utility spells, as well as Blast of Force and Thunderlance, twice and once per day, respectively. As a relic of Aureon, the staff can also be transformed into a Minor Schema of a divine spell or arcane spell (though activating it for arcane spells can fail).

The PCs debate on what to do with the gold, but decide to leave it for now. They fly back down to the entrance.

Dynamic Entry

The players mess around a bit, not realizing the peril of the door. Nox fails to notice any traps and calls it clear, so they start saying “WE BREAK THE DOOR FOR DYNAMIC ENTRY!”

They then start talking about the value of large stone doors, and in the end decide to just push it open.

The whine of arcane energy building up fills the air around them, and the dragon heads in the doorframe let loose a massive blast of energy. Everyone fails their saves, and get whacked with a solid 45 damage.
Needless to say, they spend more time healing after the trap than they do after the dragon.

Nox finally disables the trap, and the party, now trap-scared, enters.

They mess around in the hallway for about 20 minutes as Nox pores over every nook and cranny trying to find a trap. They don’t find any, and enter the foyer.

Two blue abishai and their pet zombie wyverns greet them.

Kikkeni throws Lyka at one of the Abishai in its alcove, but misses. The shifter thuds against the wall, but gets up and faces the fiend. Nox readies a shot (He makes use of Deadeye Shot when there are no sniping spots), while the second Abishai flies up and towards the ceiling above the doorway.

Holden enters and is immediately (well, in a manner of speaking) set upon by the two zombie wyverns. Eventually, Holden explodes one of the wyverns while the second is incinerated by Linny with her Wand of Scorching Ray.

It’s the abishai that are extremely annoying due to their DR and regeneration.

The two Abishai deal some notable damage with their stings (IF they connect), but for the most part they don’t really threaten the PCs; eventually, Linny casts Align Weapon on Nox snipes one and busts its chest open. Kikkeni, frustrated by the Abishai’s numerous immunities and resistances, resorts to using sonic energy missiles, but it’s not long before the two fiends regenerate the damage away. Nox finishes off the Abishai that attacks him. Lyka beats one of them into submission, applies an Oil of Bless Weapon, and then decapitates it.

Thoughts

-I honestly didn’t think they’d make it. Two players were able to take down the single most formidable monster they’ve met so far—and that was considering that Lyka’s player hasn’t even leveled up her character. It was also great how their lousy luck took a turn for the better; once they got over the hump, they started beating Tyrgarun senseless.

-I really enjoyed creating the ultimate weapons. Getting something that had a lot of MIC properties wasn’t enough, really. I really wanted the players to walk home with iconic items that are both useful and memorable.

-They’re going to have to pace themselves now. I made the Fane a lot more dangerous than it is in the book, and all of the devils inside have telepathy. It’s also best that they find a good place to rest, but at the same time they shouldn’t linger too long–the clock is ticking.

-The Big Reveal on what exactly is going on and how much time the PCs have left should be next session. I hope they do it right.

Journey Through the Wyrmsmokes, Continued
The PCs get up on the morning of Day 50 after camping on the edge of the Fernia manifest zone. They drink their potions of Endure Elements and set out on their way.

It’s not long before they encounter a group of fiendish enemies.

A Certain Psionic Railgun

The PCs arrive in the center of a Fernia manifest zone in the middle of active volcanic scabland and spot an ominous reddish glow in the distance crossing the road. Nox takes another potion of invisibility and sneaks ahead to investigate.

Nox’s rolls are really high, and the fiends don’t even hear him as he approaches them from the volcanic scab rock. He goes back to the party and describes the appearance of the fiends–about as tall as a man, hunched over and heavily built, with glowing red eyes, shredded, useless wings, long writhing beards, and upward curving horns. The three of them wield massive, saw-toothed glaives. Linny identifies them as barbazu.

Nox, still invisible, climbs up the scab basalt along the other side of the road and takes up a sniping position. Before he does so, he empties his pack of all his scrolls, spreading them out all over the ground. He then takes his shot, severely injuring one of the devils. The other PCs attempt to blitz the barbazu and catch them off guard, but the plan backfires–the devils hear them coming.

Kikkeni takes the high ground on top of the basalt scab along with Linny. Lyka runs along the path instead. Two of the devils teleport to confront Kikkeni while the third teleports into Lyka’s path. Although Linny was able to identify their weaknesses and defenses as devils, she didn’t roll high enough to determine their exact abilities.

The devil taunts Lyka, saying that the strong faith of Purified like her make their souls good eating. Lyka replies “My blades taste good too.”

Holden moves too slowly to help Kikkeni, so Kikkeni once more throws Holden at one of the Barbazu using telekinetic thrust.
Linny fires off a Sound Burst on the two devils, but it barely grazes them. Kikkeni tries to back away, but due to their teleportation and reach weapons, the devils are too hard to shake.
Nox takes another shot at the already bleeding devil, which Holden dispatches with his maul.

The remaining devil pursuing Kikkeni bites into its finger, saying it’s not that easy to kill them, and summons another Barbazu. Much swearing around the table.

Linny keeps up her blasting while Lyka tears into the devil that accosted her. The badly injured devil takes a step back, bites into its arm and scatters blood all over the ground. The black blood crawls around the warblade and begins coalescing into a dozen Lemures—all around Lyka. More swearing.
Linny identifies the Lemures as “entry-level devils,” and Kikkeni’s player says “…so they’re call center agents?”
I reply: “If you think in terms of infernal bureaucracy, I don’t think the truth would be very far from that.”

Kikkeni Energy Pushes the two devils near her into each other, but the recently-summoned one teleports to Linny in the back, slashing Linny with a devastating critical hit.

Nox drops a Black Tentacles centered on Lyka, disabling the Lemures—and Lyka. Ironically, the devil with 1 HP gets away. (More snickering about how Lyka—and her player’s characters–are ALWAYS in compromising situations—grappled by tentacles and surrounded by devils.)

Eventually, Lyka gets out of the tentacles, and Kikkeni pulls her out by throwing her at one of the other devils. Holden finishes off the last Barbazu. The tentacles crush the remaining lemures into gruesome black mush, and the PCs press on.

Wyvern Attack

The road snakes through deeply fissured ground with a lot of rock spires scattered about. The spires make great roosts for wyverns, and a pair are nesting in this area.

]]> http://eberronrhod.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/session-18/feed/ 0 Neurotic Bunny http://eberronrhod.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/session-17/ http://eberronrhod.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/session-17/#comments Sun, 23 May 2010 13:16:33 +0000 Neurotic Bunny http://eberronrhod.wordpress.com/?p=85 ]]> Hey everyone, it’s been a while.

Since it’s been a while since our last session, we had a rather slow start.

We started out at the end of the Battle of Brindol. Kharn’s rage drake had just been taken down.

Famous Last Words
Wyrmlord Kharn himself stands up, clutching his chest. With a grin on his face, he roars.

“It’s not…it’s FAR from over!”

Kikkeni orders the elves to open fire. Kharn gets turned into a pincushion. A beam of brilliant light shoots out of the dead Wyrmlord’s eyes and mouth, straight up into the midnight sky. His body then dissolves into a pile of black goo.

The remaining hobgoblins run for their lives as the Horde breaks apart. The Red Hand has been defeated. Brindol is saved.

Jarmaath tells the PCs to take the rest that they’ve earned. After taking the ruined bodies of Linny and Holden into the Cathedral, they loot the bodies of Kharn and Ulwai.

The Next Morning

Day 49 (3 Rhann 998 YK) 7:00 AM
The PCs wake up at the Stone Wyvern Inn (sans Wyvern) and are greeted by Delora Zann and Captain Soranna, who both survived the battle albeit with heavy injuries. Delora reports that she actually took the wyvern out for a spin during the battle, although she had a bad fall. The wyvern survived without much problems and was waiting outside.

Soranna then tells the PCs that Jarmaath was waiting for them at Brindol Keep, saying he has a message that he wanted them to hear personally.

It’s Far From Over

At Brindol Keep, Jarmaath introduces the PCs to Sheen, a changeling spy who was able to infiltrate Kharn’s camp. She bluntly tells the PCs the problem: The hobgoblin horde was only the advance guard.

Much swearing all around.

She informs them that the High Wyrmlord, Azarr Kul, is summoning an army of devils from the plane of Shavarath, and that if that gets through, there’ll be not enough military power in the Five Nations to stop them. She explains the Planar Orrery that Azarr Kul is using to realign the planes.

The PCs wonder about how this army of devils is related to Tiamat, but Sheen can’t answer that question. All she knows is that the Wyrmsmokes are already crawling with devils and that when she tried to infiltrate the Fane of Tiamat itself, Azarr Kul’s Erinyes chased her away.

Sheen marks the location of the Fane on the PCs’ map. The PCs turn to leave, but a soldier in a battered tabard enters. He says that he has a message for Sheen and approaches her—and subsequently stabs her in the throat with a short sword, saying “High Wyrmlord Azarr Kul and Grand Talon Indravan-Yagna would like to say ‘That’s enough.’” The soldier then jumps into the shadow of Jarmaath’s desk and vanishes.

Gathering the last of her strength, Sheen manages to write a few words in her own blood: “Beware Azarr Kul’s fa———”
The last word is scrawled out into a line, as Sheen goes limp and dies.

Shaken, Jarmaath tells the PCs that they should go and investigate the Wyrmsmokes at once, or else all the sacrifices will be in vain. He could not, however, offer any solutions to the PCs’ predicament—they’re two men down.

An Offer They Couldn’t Refuse

The PCs leave Brindol keep and encounter a carpenter (part of the rebuilding effort) passing by. The carpenter drops a crumpled piece of paper and nods at the PCs, and goes on his way.

The message reads: “I have a gift for you. See me. — Lady Kaal”

The PCs decide that it might not be a good idea to turn down the gift, so they proceed to Kaal Manor.

When they get there, the guards usher the PCs into a large, plush audience room. Lady Kaal soon enters with a long, thin casket. She says that before she shows them what’s in the case, the PCs have to agree that they wouldn’t be telling Jarmaath anything about this. Nox tries to convince her to reveal something more by bluffing, but doesn’t get any results. He then has her put it into writing first. Lady Kaal agrees. She goes on saying that Jarmaath is a small man in the greater scheme of things and as such wouldn’t understand.

She opens her case to reveal the contents: a silk-wrapped rod on a cushion–a Candle of Invocation tied to Lawful Good.

The PCs ask what she wants in return. Lady Kaal furnishes them with a contract that says:

We, ____________, hereby receive the payment of one Candle of Invocation from Lady Verassa ir’Kaal in exchange for any future service that she might require. In the event that we do not perform the duty she requires, we grant her the lawful duty to execute the appropriate punishment in whatever measure she might deem necessary.

Signed,”

Nox tells the others that he’s got a lot of experience with contracts, and as such knows when to be wary. However, in their desperation, the group decides to sign it.

Lady Kaal smiles, saying she knew that the PCs would be sensible. She hands them the case and says that she has another gift. Immerstal enters, muttering to himself.
“Mr. Immerstal here can bring you most of the way.”
“Look, Lady Kaal, I don’t–”
“You don’t have any more words to say, Immerstal.”
The wizard throws his hands up and sighs. “Fine. I have enough preparations of the teleport spell to bring all of you as far as Drellin’s Ferry. I am not going to risk teleporting straight to the Fane. If we encounter a mishap, we might just end up getting torn apart by fiends.”
Lady Kaal nods. The wizard continues: “I suggest you pick up provisions for the Wyrmsmokes—you do know what the Wyrmsmokes are like, don’t you?”

The PCs stare at each other for a while, but Linny tells them: The Wyrmsmokes are a desolate volcanic region to the West of the Elsir Vale region. Immerstal nods, but continues to explain that small Fernia (elemental plane of Fire) manifest zones wink in and out of existence throughout the Wyrmsmokes, usually coinciding with areas of unnaturally high volcanic activity. The manifest zones are even hotter than the rest of the badlands, and sometimes storms that rain fire appear in the skies over these zones. The PCs also have to bring their own food and water.

The PCs discuss their provisions and determine that they wouldn’t need to bring so much due to their spells and magic items. Immerstal tells them to visit him after they get their friends back so they can begin the teleportation relay.

Credits to Eldariel for the idea, btw.

Resurrection

The PCs discreetly return to the Cathedral, where Tredora has preserved the scorched corpse of Holden and what’s left of Linny with gentle repose. Kikkeni presents the Candle to her. Tredora, bemused, asks where they got it, but the PCs say nothing. The cleric decides it doesn’t matter, sends out the other acolytes, and sets up the summoning.

A stark white light washes out the windows of the Cathedral, and a brief but violent quake follows. The gate opens above the altar, and a terrifying vision of celestial glory descends—six wings covered in eyes, metallic skin, opalescent eyes, and snow-white hair upon which verses of holy writ flow in elegant script—a Solar. An enormous fiery greatsword whirls about around it. (No, I’m not a fan of the bald angels in the MM, nor the faceless angels in 4E)

“Ye shall name thyselves, mortals,” it calls out in a voice that sounds like both the crashing of waves and the booming of thunder. ” And the reason thou calleth me from my Battle Eternal.”

The PCs made a big mistake—they forgot to figure out what to say. Tredora fills in for them. “These champions of righteousness have fallen in service of their gods, but their quest is not yet complete.”

The Solar gestures with its hands, and the bodies of Holden and Linny begin to reform and heal.

“Arise, ye champions. Ye shall yet struggle, and struggle mightily, for thy great enemy yet stands.”

The bodies of Holden and Linny rise up into the air, and the Solar exhales upon them. Bluish-white energy glows softly on their wounds, and their flesh begins to knit. Broken bones snap back into place. Their eyes open, glowing fiercely with the same blue-white light, and their mouths open in an incessant stream of words in multiple languages. The tongues cease, and then the two of them speak once more, along with the Solar, in the Solar’s voice.

“Ye shall yet struggle, and struggle mightily, for thy great enemy yet stands.”

” I take my leave of thee.”

The fabric of the planes distorts once more, and the Solar vanishes with a thunderous bang.

“…that was AWESOME,” says Lyka.

The Ruins of Drellin’s Ferry

<The PCs do some retroactive shopping and get the donations from Jarmaath.>

Immerstal tells the PCs that Drellin’s Ferry is the furthest he can take them, as he grew up there. He teleports the PCs to the burnt-out husk of a town that is Drellin’s Ferry. Immerstal laments the fate of his hometown, then excuses himself , teleporting back to Brindol.

The scene is apocalyptic. The town had been put to the torch as the PCs had seen much earlier, and now the wind howls through the ruins. However, the eerie calm is shattered by the sound of arguing—deep voices speaking in Giant, and two human-like voices. The argument escalates into a shouting match, followed by two screams that seem to be approaching them. The PCs hide in the trees along the path.

A Kalashtar and a Warforged covered with crystals run toward the PCs, with four skullcrusher ogres, a hobgoblin dirgedancer and two whitespawn berserkers hot on their trial.

The PCs leap out of the trees. Kikkeni drops an energy ballon the monsters, and Lyka makes a beeline for the ogres. Unfortunately, nobody else is able to match her speed because of the trees—she’s stuck in the middle of the bad guys, alone. Every single monster attacks her, thrashing her down to -2 HP in the course of one round from full HP (That’s exactly 100 damage; I rolled really lucky on the attack rolls.) Lyka stabilizes herself with an action point.

The PCs immediately try to rush to Lyka’s rescue, with Holden and Kikkeni leading the charge. Nox attempts to sneak attack one of the berserkers with a scroll of ice lance and crits, but unfortunately it makes its save and doesn’t get stunned and thanks to Uncanny Dodge is unaffected by Sneak Attack.

The Kalashtar and the psiforged thank the PCs and try to fight back; the psiforged charges up his deep crystal bastard sword while the Kalashtar reveals something interesting—concealed under his sleeve is a mechanical arm much like a warforged. He tells the PCs to hold the monsters off as he begins to infuse his arm. The NPCs’ efforts aren’t necessary—the remaining PCs finish them off in short order, except for the dirgedancer, who is left at 0 HP.

The kalashtar introduces himself as Tharkhad, a wandering psionic artificer looking for a way back to Sharn. He doesn’t know what’s been happening in Elsir Vale, and says that he and his companion Synapse came from Darguun. The PCs break the news, and Tharkhad simply tells his friend flatly—”Told you we were going the wrong way.”

Tharkhad and Synapse thank the PCs profusely, but then Tharkhad notices the red dragon horn that Kikkeni is carrying, saying that if she had killed a dragon, part of its spirit might have fractured off and trapped in the horn; Tharkhad’s hypothesis is further strengthened by Kikkeni’s explanation of how they took down the dragon. Her ego whip, which damaged the dragon’s Charisma enough to shut down his spellcasting, could have forced more than a small bit of the dragon’s personality into dormancy. Its death would have then released the “sealed” part, which would escape into any little remainder of the dragons’ body—in this case, its horn.

Tharkhad says that he could craft the horn of Abithriax into a weapon if the PCs have a Siberys Dragonshard to act as a focus for Kikkeni’s Quori spirit. Kikkeni gladly lets him do so, as she’d been looking for a way to use the horn. She also tells him about the Quori embedded components she salvaged from Ulwai’s backpack. While she has her surgery, Holden attempts to do a Jack Bauer on the Dirgedancer. Nox, being a man of the appropriate profession, aids him. Unfortunately, she knows nothing about the current state of the Red Hand and if there are any remaining camps along the Dawn Way. Nox coup de graces her.

The party finishes early and lets Kikkeni know they’re going to go ahead to Vraath Keep to scout. Kikkeni waves them on, and surprisingly enough gets there before they do thanks to psionic teleport.

The PCs then strike out for the Wyrmsmokes.

The Fiery Death Mountains

Immerstal was not kidding. An hour into the foothills of the Wyrmsmokes, the PCs are attacked by a spellwarped dragonne in a canyon.

Linny pulls out her lore, as usual, figuring that this monster is of the spellwarped variety and as such gets stronger when spells bounce off its SR. A brief discussion over the monster’s lame name comes up. Is it a “drag-own”? A “dragonnay?” The party decides to think of a new name for it.

Lyka advances again, making a jump check high enough to clear 40 feet of rubble along the canyon floor. Much snickering about the effeminate nature of the name comes to a sudden halt when the dragonne pounces on Lyka. Holden drops his maul, moves a bit forward and tries out his bow. Once the beast drops down beside Lyka, however, he decides to just go in for the kill.

Kikkeni offers to toss Holden. The dwarf grumbles, saying that he’d rather walk, but the opportunity is too good to pass up, as he’d have to double back to pick up his maul. Kikkeni throws Holden AT the Dragonne, busting it up pretty badly, and then throws his weapon after him (barely missing him). Holden falls prone in the monster’s space, and then dispatches it with a solid critical Elder Mountain Hammer punch with his gauntlet.

<Kikkeni> …so, what do we call the dragonne?
<Nox> “Dead.”

The PCs then journey forth, but stop at the edge of a particularly large Fernia Manifest zone. No way they’re camping in that hellish area overnight.

The players spend the rest of the session retroactively buying gear since we discovered how much money they actually had (about 13k GP)

Thoughts

1. It was a pretty slow day, honestly, but I’m not surprised. It’s been a long time since we last played.
2. Even though I made the Wyrmsmokes significantly more dangerous thanks to the environmental hazards, the PCs seem to be taking it pretty well.
3. It’s a shame they won’t be seeing more of Tharkhad anytime soon. I thought the opportunity to add a Renegade Mastermaker who can actually make stuff for them was too good to pass up, considering that Kikkeni just had no way of getting her Quori components to work .
4. Any suggestions on what gear to buy? I think everyone’s mostly going to buy a few potions of endure elements, but they want other things to do with their gear. Nothing worth more than 16k, as that’s the Brindol GP limit.

The party hurries toward Cathedral square only to find Jaarmath being dragged into the safety of the cathedral. Captain Ulverth hurries toward the PCs, telling then that Jaarmath was taken down by a sniper. Seeing that Brindol is in grave danger, Rampant tells the others that Cannith designed him with a one-time use program that greatly increases his abilities, but only lasts for an hour. He activates this program and begins speaking in Autobot lines.

“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.”

They enter the Cathedral to check on him and run into Tredora, who is tending her fallen lover. As much as she loves Jaarmath, she isn’t willing to use up her spells when she knows that they might be needed later. Linny volunteers her one prepared lesser restoration and brings Jaarmath back to 4 Strength.

Jarmaath orders Cpt. Ulverth to take command since he doesn’t want Lady Kaal giving orders. He then orders the PCs to look for the sniper.

The Sniper Attack

The PCs begin by sending Rampant into the area where soldiers had fallen to the sniper. Almost immediately Skather takes a shot and scores a critical hit against Rampant. His fortification doesn’t protect him and he instead takes a full 20+ critical sneak attack. Nox is able to spot Skather as he takes his snipe hide check and quickly tries to enter the coffin maker’s shop.

Nox enters the back door and begins sneaking in extremely well, while the rest of the party gathers around the door outside. As Nox explores the interior, he opens a door that creaks noisily, alerting the invisble Kulkor Zhul War Adept hiding in the stairwell. However, Nox’s hide checks are so high that no matter how high the War Adept rolls, he is unable to spot Nox.

Nox spots into the stairwell and is able to discern the vague outline of an invisible creature. Taking his survival pouch, he rips out a campfire (AGAIN) and throws it at the War Adept. He hits, dealing a full 6 fire damage to the War Adept, who promptly swears and runs up to the second floor. The party rushes into the door while Nox follows the still invisible War Adept up the stairs.

When Nox gets up to the second floor, he opens the door to the supply storage room only to find a fiendish dire wolf snarling at him. He quickly backs away and enters the room on the other side of the stairwell to avoid getting pinned down by the wolf. The other party members pound their way up the staircase. Lyka immediately steps in front of the wolf, closely followed by Rampant. Linny tries to run past the wolf, but in the process gets AOO’d—the beast grabs her leg and shakes it, dealing a massive 30 damage, but Linny is actually able to succeed on the opposed trip attempt. Kikkeni remains on the ground floor, keeping watch in case someone comes in the front door.

Nox takes a shot with his crossbow at the Dire Wolf through the space between Lyka’s legs, taking off almost 3/4 of the wolf’s HP. Rampant steps in and then decapitates it, spraying Lyka with black blood.

“You’re going to have to polish my armor,” Lyka tells Rampant.
“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings,” replies the warforged.

Lyka spots someone hiding behind some boxes in the storeroom–a hobgoblin. Rampant stomps all the way up to the hobgoblin, taking a double move, and stopping short of attacking him.

“Would you like to butt heads with me?”
The hobgoblin emerges from his hiding place and attempts to bash Rampant with Death Mark, but misses spectacularly.
Linny follows into the room while Lyka attempts to close in with the hobgoblin swordsage. With the stairs clear, Kikkeni decides to head up to the stairwell and try to help the others on the second floor.

Nox, in the meantime, investigates the back rooms to see if there is anything else. He notices that the doors in the bedroom are curiously He spots the windows in the bedroom and decides to try investigating it. Rampant then roars—”This hobgoblin is not our sniper!”

Right at that moment, the War Adept reveals himself and casts shatterfloor on the rickety floorboards, dropping Rampant and Lyka (Lyka fails her save to grasp onto the vertical wall below her) onto the first floor. Rampant’s player attempts something so awesome that I let slide at the cost of one action point—initiate a grapple with the swordsage and pull him to the ground with him. He makes the touch attack and succeeds in his grapple attempt, pulling the hobgoblin down. They crash into the coffin display on the first floor.

Lyka falls prone onto the ground, only to see none other than Skather suddenly materialize over her with his poisoned blade at the ready! He performs a Strength-Draining Strike on Lyka, his blade pulsing with black energy in the gloom.

Lyka rolls natural 1s versus both the Strength-Draining Strike and the poison. Her strength instantly drops from 18 to 8. Rampant then attempts to bash the grappled hobgoblin’s face in with his slam (headbutt), even using Emerald Razor and a full power attack, but misses. Lyka, still ever sarcastic, quips: “My hope! It is draining away faster than my strength!”

Linny takes a shot at the War Adept who now has a spectacular bird’s eye view of the desperate fight below, blasting him with scorching ray. Nox attempts to jump across the gap using a rope, but hearing the mess going on, he decides to crash through one of the ground floor windows into the display room. Kikkeni rushes to Lyka’s assistance, while Lyka weakly tumbles away from Skather to take her position beside the psion.

The War Adept drops a glitterdust on Kikkeni and Lyka, but both make their saves.

Skather uses Cloak of Deception and materializes behind Kikkeni, his blade firmly planted in her back. Half of her HP is gone instantly. All this time, Rampant and the hobgoblin are wrestling in a stalemate. Although Rampant’s grip is overpowering, he keeps failing to injure the hobgoblin except for one landed punch.

Linny decides to try to help Kikkeni by using her Rod of Viscid Globs at Skather. She hits and Skather fails his save. Nox attempts a crazy stunt with the grappling hook and tries to throw it at the war adept to pull it down, but it is quickly found lacking as an improvised weapon and simply fails to hit.

Kikkeni pulls back from the now stuck Skather. OOC the player agonizes over which of her powers to use—she’s down to her last use no matter what she does, and decides she wants to end the battle quickly and increase her chances of taking Skather out by using her highest-save viable power–Death Urge.

Skather rolls a 3; even with his impressive +14 modifier, he fails to make the save. Lyka tries to help Skather along, but her awful attack rolls and modifiers fail to do anything—and to add even more injury to injury, the War Adept drops a power word: weaken on Lyka. 2 points of Strength drain.

Skather stabs himself, leaving him with very little HP. Rampant, in the meantime, caves in the hobgoblin swordsage’s head with Emerald Razor + full power attack while Linny and Nox finish off the war adept.

Skather is unable to break free of the goo, and is finally finished off by Linny’s scorching ray.

The party collects their loot and moves back to Cathedral Square, with Rampant toting the corpses of Skather and the War Adept. The party reports to Captain Ulverth, who commends them on a job well done.

Not long afterward, Killiar and the hunters land their owls close by. Killiar reports that the Red Hand is making a final push on Cathedral Square, and that he expects them to arrive in about 10 minutes.

Hearing this, Jaarmath gets up and staggers to the Cathedral square to show that he’s still up and about, and delivers an inspiring, albeit recycled speech. Rampant continues this by saying, “Our chance of success is very slim, but we can make it happen because we are heroes—and everyone that has fought here is a hero!”

Tredora takes Kikkeni aside, saying that she senses Kikkeni is extremely fatigued. Kikkeni says she just wants some tea, but Tredora forces her on her knees and lays her hands on the psion’s head. She casts dweomer of transference and sacrifices enough of her spells to bring Kikkeni up to 26 PP (+1 from the cognizance crystal she has). Tredora uses up the two lesser restorations to bring Lyka back up to 16 Strength (she can’t get the 2 Strength drain from the power word weaken back yet).

While we have lunch, the party then goes about the very tedious and hassled process of procuring potions and scrolls from the 5000-GP item pool given to them by the merchants.

Lyka: bear’s endurance, bull’s strength, girallon’s blessing and dragonskin, shield of faith. She had a bunch of spare +1 short swords so she put those to good use with her extra arms.
Rampant: shield of faith
Nox: cat’s grace

Finally, they had Immerstal cast haste on the PCs.
Killiar, Trellara and the elves took up their positions on a grandstand in the corner of the Cathedral Square. Tredora stood by the Cathedral’s stairs with Narcy, Wrogann, Teyani and Captain Ulverth. Rampant, Lyka, and Linny stood in front of them, while Nox, Kikkeni and Jonz took up sniper positions on the Cathedral spires.

Nox’s and Kikkeni’s player help each other run Killiar, Trellara and the elves, while Linny’s player runs Rampant and the Lions. Kikkeni’s player also runs Tredora and Cpt. Ulverth. Lyka’s player has a handfull enough with her oodles of attacks.

Everyone nervously awaits the coming of the horde. As they wait, the rhythmic beating of swords on shields accompanied by goblin chants fills the air. The blaring of dragonbone horns rises above the din.

The Symphony of Crimson Carnage

The horde charges the barricades surrounding the Cathedral Square, and the assembled soldiers do their best to fight off the oncoming tide. However, the sound of soldiers screaming as they are flung through the air fills the Cathedral Square. Immediately afterward, a fireball shoots out of the melee and strikes the Holy Symbol of Dol Arrah on top of the Cathedral, setting it on fire. The wicked red-orange light casts dancing shadows all across the Square.

Two skullcrusher ogres lead the charge, one of them carrying an enormous halberd while the other wields a longsword and an axe. Between them are two muscular, white-scaled dragonspawn wielding spiked chains—Whitespawn Berserkers—mounted on Redspawn Firebelchers.

Finally, mounted on an enormous Rage Drake, Wyrmlord Kharn makes his entrance. He is clad in red full plate, has his long hair in long, tight dreadlocks woven into a very long braid, and an enormous jagged greatsword. The sword’s steel is a deep purple, and the blood that sticks to it seems to be rising instead of dripping off.

Livid with rage, Kharn orders the charge.

Before they are even able to move, Lyka charges. She savagely slashes at the halberd-toting ogre, taking off almost a third of its HP before it’s able to do anything. Killiar, Nox and Immerstal shoot him as well, while Captain Ulverth charges on his horse. The halberd ogre is brought down to extremely low HP before it is able to even do anything, while Kharn, on his turn, vanishes with invisibility.

Tredora and the Lions charge the second ogre, while Kikkeni drops an electric energy ball on the berserkers. Linny casts healing circle, giving the party and their allies a multiple-use healing source.

Kharn reappears in his mega-buffed form (12 feet tall with a chromatic pentagram halo, long, black horns, pitch-black eyes, and dragonmark glyphs floating all over him) behind Ulverth and stabs him with his greatsword. The blood slick on the sword seems to get sucked into the hilt, after which the spikes on the sword flare out. Ulverth cries in agony. Kharn, one of the berserkers and the rage drake close in on Ulverth, Rampant and Lyka, while the other berserker uses his mount to spew artillery fire at Linny and the Lions.

The Lions close around the second skullcrusher, while the elves open fire on the halberd-wielding skullcrusher.

Linny tries to dispel Kharn, but he is able to counterspell it with his Divine Defiance feat.

The invisible Ulwai casts haste on her party, while Kharn slashes Ulverth, tearing him down from his horse. The captain was left at -1, so Kharn began to concentrate on Tredora and Rampant. The rage drake tries to maul Lyka, but is unable to hit her with its bite due to her high AC.

Rampant tries to use Charging Minotaur on one of the firebelchers to push it into the rage drake’s space, but he’s unable to overpower the massive beast.

The melee continues for a round before Kikkeni is no longer able to fire an energy ball due to the muddled-up battle lines, but the elves and Immerstal are able to continue supporting fire. Amazingly, despite the -4 penalty for shooting into melee, the elves roll incredibly high and are able to score successive hits on the ogres and on Kharn.

Lyka breaks invisibility and starts using Thunderstrike on Tredora, then Lyka.

Rampant slashes Kharn and then activates his fleshgrinding greatsword, painfully wounding him. Kharn angrily raises his own weapon and executes Divine Surge on Rampant, practically melting him in half at the waist. With Rampant dead, Linny angrily attempts a second Dispel Magic on Kharn—and Kharn rolls a natural 1 on his Counterspell. His buffs shatter one after another. The rage drake makes a beeline for Linny and tears her apart like it would a rag doll.

The Firebelchers eventually fall to Lyka’s blades and the Lions’ attacks, while the archers take down both ogres. One of the ogres is able to trip Teyani, but he doesn’t do enough damage to kill her. With only the berserkers, the Rage drake and Kharn left, the Lions and the snipers concentrate their fire on one of the berserkers while Kharn attacks Tredora. Kharn continues taking damage from Rampant’s still-grinding greatsword, but he keeps fighting on.

Arrows bring down the last of the berserkers after the Lions kill the other one. Lyka shreds Ulwai to pieces, dealing over 40 damage with her second full attack.

Immerstal gets the killing shot on Kharn, blasting clean through him with his magic missiles. The Lions and Tredora get in some hits on the rage drake, until a solid headshot from Nox kills it. Immerstal fireballs the rage drake’s corpse for good measure.

We end the session there.

Casualties:
-Rampant
-Linny

Severely Injured:
-Cpt. Ulverth

Postmortem

-This gets better and better. This was truly the most epic series of encounters so far, despite both of them lasting for a relatively short time.
-I had an epic chase scene across the tops of the burnt houses for the Skather battle, but Nox’s snooping around in the back rooms prevented Skather from escaping in the midst of the fight.
-To any DMs planning to run RHOD—I highly recommend the use of shatterfloor in the Coffin Maker’s Shop.
-It was nice of Linny to sacrifice her lesser restoration for Jarmaath, but I did have to make some excuses as to why Tredora didn’t use her own spells on Jarmaath. In the end I boiled it down to her wanting to keep him from fighting and getting killed.
-The archers and mooks were actually useful here. The players running them were extremely lucky with their d20 rolls.
-One of the best things about the Kharn finale was that I got the players to make their rolls in advance so that we didn’t have to move so slowly. When it was Lyka’s turn, Killiar and Nox were already making their rolls. It was a pretty efficient way of running things and made the battle move really smoothly and swiftly.
-Lyka has become so badass I can’t even describe it. She’s been dropped to negatives so many times and yet she’s always managed to bounce back and tear her enemies apart. She took 10 Strength damage + 2 Strength drain and still managed to come back and shred one of the Wyrmlords.
-Raising Holden has now become a huge problem. With the only cleric in the Elsir Vale with Lv 5 spells dead, they have no way of getting either Holden or Linny back. Although I might be able to have them procure a black market scroll of raise dead from Lady Kaal, I still think they will probably not have enough money for both of them. Any suggestions?
-I’m looking forward to tweaking Act V. I’m going to make it so that they can’t just wander about the interior with impunity.

Preparations:
Holden’s player was absent again due to parental reasons. Lyka’s player was also unable to attend due to the severe traffic between her place and mine; she lives outside of town south of Metro Manila while I live in the North. As such, it’s a pretty damn long trip for her. She only gets to come here regularly during school weekends since her university is nearby.

In any case, my new permanent player introduces his rogue sniper character, Nox, by taking potshots at the Red Hand as they enter. The character is pretty well built, and the player knows how to set up sniping, so he pretty did well today. More on this later.

The PCs call on the four Lions of Brindol, who support them and the militiamen in this encounter. The Militiamen are led by Rampant, the warforged subcommander of the Brindol Lion guard.

PCs:
-Holden
-Lyka
-Linny
-Kikkeni
-Nox, incognito, and unseen on a barn’s roof (it’s one of the buildings in the center of the map). Basically, nobody knows he’s there until he actually starts shooting.

The Lion Guard:
-Rampant, Warforged Fighter 2/Warblade 4
-Teyani, Fighter 2/Warblade 2, disarm build with Two-Bladed Sword
-Jonz, Fighter 2/Rogue 2, sniper build
-Narcy and Wrogann, vanilla two-hand bastard sword builds.
-10 militiamen

I put up a barrier made of small Mauly clips and folded index card scraps across the part of the map where the wagon is.

Wave 1: Air Strike

First wave:

Wave 2:

Wave 3:

-5 Bluespawn thunderlizards

We begin by introducing Loven’s replacement, a changeling rogue/swordsage named 20 (though he prefers to be called “Free.”) His actual player wasn’t around, but a substitute player handles both Holden and Free.

Due to some miscommunication with the original player, Free made many choices that were not only suboptimal, but downright dangerous to the party (Charging Minotaur for a Swordsage who had 10 Strength, for one, 4 ranks only in UMD, and dumped Cha and Wis.) Lyka’s player had tried to help this guy make his new character, but unfortunately it seems this didn’t work.

In any case, everyone spent about an hour and a half fixing Free (with his original player’s permission). After gear was chosen, skill points reassigned, and martial maneuvers re-selected, we were finally able to begin.

Training the Lions

The party decides to go ahead and train the Lions of Brindol for their new and improved careers. Lyka successfully trains Teyani in her new career as a Fighter/Warblade.
Holden, with his short temper, is unable to keep his cool in transmitting his ideals to Wrogann, and fails to give him his Crusader levels.
Kikkeni, crippled by her level loss, is unable to make the DC and rolls low as well, so Narcy remains an ordinary fighter.
Finally, Free passes all his skill checks and successfully trains Jonz as a sniper (somehow).

After seven days’ training, the sentries on the wall call everyone’s attention to the horizon. The Red Hand has come into view.

The Red Hand troops set up just outside of bow range. Kikkeni, still a bit addled by her recent Raising, champs at the bit and tries to convince the others to ride out on their pet dire lion.

They convince her to hold back, and so they wait.

The Hammer Falls

The alarm goes up—two artillery teams have begun their bombardment. From the wall, the outlines of three hulking ogres and two enormous warforged titans are visible—the titans are heavily modified, and from the gates Linny can make out that each has one massive arm-mounted cannon powered by human-sized Eberron dragonshards. Each of the titans lets loose a shrieking, wailing projectile that pulverizes the walls extremely quickly.

From their HQ at Brindol Keep, the PCs decide to go after the southern strike team, since they can get there closer.

Before they go, Jaarmath, Ulverth, Immerstal, and Lady Kaal gather the PCs for one last word.

“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. If we survive here, then good work, everyone. If we fall, gods help us.”

After setting up the Mindlink and Telepathic Bonds, the PCs march out and make a run for it.

The PCs start out 450 feet away from the ogre/titan battery. Lyka makes a run for it on foot, while Holden and Free, mounted on the dire lion (whom Lyka says reminds her of her grandfather), ride out as fast as they could.

Kikkeni and Linny remain behind. Immediately Kikkeni opens fire with her Energy balls, but since she could only hit one of them at a time she focuses on one of the three ogres. The first ogre saves well against the energy balls and is able to survive the first few blasts well, but soon is unable to weather the fire and starts chucking boulders at Kikkeni. The other two ogres and the titans keep up their fire.

By now they realize (and Linny also mentions) that the titans can only fire after three rounds of recharging their dragonshard resonators. It takes a bit of juice to get the dragonshards to reach critical, so they can only fire more or less every 20 seconds (or every fourth round). Linny tries taking potshots at the ogres with Ice Knife, but she’s unable to even make their AC.

Before long, the melee characters close the distance. The three ogres go down quickly once the frontliners get to them. The party then focuses its attention on the Titans. At this point, though, Kikkeni wants to conserve her PP and decides to refrain from launching any more projectiles.

Lyka attacks one of them all on her own and wails on it with everything she’s got, eventually accumulating enough damage for the titan to un-entrench itself and start trying to stomp her. With its cannon no longer trained on the wall, they party at this point has bought at least a one minute extension on the wall’s life span.

Holden, the lion, and Free don’t fare against the second titan so well. Their weapons deal miserable damage despite Holden full attacking and using Fight with mount to give his lion full attacks. Even when he did get Elder Mountain Hammer, Holden rolled a natural one and lost his first opportunity to deal significant damage to it. Unfazed, the titan continues recharging and firing. Seeing her companions in distress, Linny decides to use Divine Vigor and make a run for it to get close enough to drop an Earth Reaver on the Titan that continues to fire.

It takes her a couple more rounds to get close enough even with her enhanced run speed, but once Linny fires off the Earth Reaver, the titan fails its reflex save and topples. With their target disabled, Holden, the lion and Free continue their assault.

As the titan gets up, the three take their AOOs against the mechanical monster while Linny follows up reluctantly with a Sound Lance. Though the titan is resistant to sonic damage, the blast rips off a huge chunk of its armor.

Lyka, in the meantime, continues beating on the other titan while sustaining severe injuries from the titan’s stomps. With a final Soaring Raptor Strike, she sunders the titan’s dragonshard resonator and it goes down.

Holden’s lion manages the impossible—winning a grapple check against the titan. This ties up its cannon and prevents it from firing. Free attempts to use Devastating Throw on the titan twice (he wanted to be able to brag about it here), but fails completely—at one point he fails by 1.

Finally, Holden gets Mountain Hammer and bashes the titan’s chest cavity in. The titan goes down.

After picking up their loot (a whole bunch of dragonshards from the exploding resonators, some GP, a Minor Schema of Resist Energy and a Robe of Useful Items), they try to contact Jaarmath.

Jaarmath only replies “Oh gods, it’s coming! COME QUICKLY!”

Fire in the Night

Rag Doll

The round begins with Loven shooting at Lyka. The Greater Barghest (in dire wolf form) bites Holden and pulls him to the ground, while Lyka assails the tiger knights. Linny casts Sanctuary on herself to protect her from the Enlarged hobgoblin duskblade and tries to skirt around to get to the meat shields.

The three remaining hobgoblin tiger knights continue to pound on Lyka, but she executes a flawless Mithral Tornado and his every single one of them AND their mounts. This takes a huge chunk out of their HP. The warcaster, still hidden in the abandoned watchtower down the road, casts Manyjaws at Holden, chewing him up for a lot of damage for three rounds.

Lyka weathers the beating from the three tiger knights and eventually kills the second tiger. The two knights, now on the ground, issue fighting challenges against Lyka and renew their assault while the remaining mounted knight continues to fight with his mount. Lyka’s AC proves to be too high, however, and most of them roll badly.

Holden is dropped really close to death several times by the Manyjaws, while Linny, who was able to move up to him, continuously heals him. The Barghest gets tired of Loven missing and just tells him to sit down and “contemplate what passes for a life” and blasts the PCs (and the tiger knights) with Crushing Despair. Holden, Lyka and Loven each fail, while strangely enough, I roll high on the saves of all the knights and tigers.

Lyka uses Iron Heart Surge to shake off the Despair and soon drops the third tiger knight (the one still mounted), but his tiger keeps fighting. It manages to back up and gets enough clearance to pounce her. Most of its attacks miss, but it manages to grapple her as part of its pounce. Holden, however, turns to the tiger and cracks its spine in half.

Holden, despite drawing his best maneuvers, keeps missing the Barghest but eventually manages to lower its HP down to 31.

The remaining Hobgoblin Duskblade keeps trying to hit Lyka and Holden, but keeps missing. At one point it succeeded in Enfeebling Lyka one turn from the end of her Whirling Frenzy, but she was able to shake it off with Iron Heart Surge. As the duskblade began to run out of spells, Lyka ran up to it and split it clean down the middle with Soaring Raptor Strike.

Linny buffs Lyka with Bull’s Strength even as Linny’s Whirling Frenzy wears off.
The Greater Barghest changes shape, and on its next turn, turns to Loven and mauls him, taking off about 28 HP. The Rogue snaps out of the charm and moves to flank the Barghest, but fails to deal any damage on his first attack. The next time he tries, though, he crits and drops the Barghest to 1 HP. The Barghest tears Loven apart like a rag doll. Thankfully, before the Barghest has a chance to devour Loven’s soul, Lyka shanks him dead. The last knight goes down easily on Lyka’s blade. (That means Lyka killed all three tiger knights, two of the tigers, the Barghest, AND one of the duskblades. Do. Not. Piss. Her. Off.)

The party takes a breather to use the Staff of Life on Kikkeni (it was pretty unanimous that she was far more useful than Loven ever was), and makes a break for Brindol.

The War Council

After spending some time to heal up (they bought another Wand of Lesser Vigor), the PCs are summoned to Brindol Keep.

Lady Kaal, whom the PCs have never met before, is snappy and sarcastic, thinking the PCs inept and useless, using every opportunity to make herself a thorn in Jarmaath’s side. The PCs each introduce themselves, but only Holden and Kikkeni are able to make any favorable impressions of themselves.

We contact Linny’s player through Yahoo Messenger and set up voice chat to facilitate things. The planning begins.

Choosing the Battleground
Jarmaath makes his case for fighting outside, while Ulverth makes his for fighting along the wall. Tredora wants to escape to Vathirond, while Lady Kaal is pretty sure she doesn’t want to deploy her private army.

The PCs discuss for a bit, and they immediately agree that putting the army outside the wall (the only advantage they have left), is a bad idea. Even if the enemy were to come from the air, at least the city has favorable terrain. Fighting in the farms would make things very difficult for them. Diplomacy checks are made, and they successfully convince the council to hold the walls. Escaping to Vathirond is a Very Bad Idea, since it’s the last city on the frontier before the Mournland, and they had sent all their sick people there. Fighting in the open would just get them outmaneuvered: the superior speed of the worg riders and tiger knights would completely screw them, not to mention the flyers. The most favorable option is chosen: Fight from Brindol’s walls.

City Defense
The PCs immediately bring up the topic of what to do in the event that the Horde breaks through the walls. They’re pretty pragmatic about it and suggest barricades, rally points, the works. The idea of the clerics is mentioned.
The PCs huddle (Linny’s player was around thanks to Yahoo Messenger’s voice calls). They try to adopt a compromise by deploying them throughout the city but have them fall back when things get hairy, OR have some of them deployed while keeping the majority inside the Cathedral.

They eventually agree and convince the council that keeping the clerics in the Cathedral will get the soldiers killed, they decide that deploying the clerics in field hospitals about 100 feet behind the front lines will allow the clerics to escape if the front line collapses. Ulverth thinks a compromise is not going to be an efficient tactic, but the PCs are sure of this and make their diplomacy checks. The council agrees to deploy the clerics.

The Telepathic Bond
Immerstal enters with his scrolls, and Kikkeni immediately suggests that she could instead use her racial Mindlink to connect to Jarmaath instead, allowing them to keep two slots open. They then suggest that the telepathic bond be used to connect to the commanders instead. However, they roll low and fail to convince the council; Lady Kaal prevails, claiming that it would do well to have a backup town leader in the event that Jarmaath would go down.

At this point the deliberations took more than an hour and a half, and we call it a day.

Thoughts
-Do NOT mess with Lyka. Seriously.
-The players’ frustration with Loven has come to the surface. They found him annoying in general and they were confused as to what his player wanted to do with him exactly. He was unfortunately no good at the things Rogues are usually supposed to be good at and his sniping was rarely successful.
-I contacted Loven’s player and he said he had a changeling Rogue idea for backup, so he just needs to roll him.
-I wish we had enough time to being the siege, but I guess it wouldn’t be a good idea with them a man down and with Linny almost out of spells. They haven’t trained the Lions of Brindol yet, and Ulverth predicts the horde to make a move within a week.
-It seems that characters typically die when other players sub for absentees.
-We definitely need to start the Battle of Brindol next meeting. Hopefully we can meet again soon.

Unfortunately, Lyka’s player couldn’t make it, while Kikkeni’s player was visiting the cemetery and would only be around after lunch.

Linny’s player is unfortunately out; her parents were no longer allowing her for some unclear reason. It couldn’t be helped, so I decided to ask a regular attendee (who doesn’t play but watches) to take over her character. At first I told him he could use his own character, but he said the party needed a buffer/healer and graciously offered to play as Linny.

We started yesterday with Holden and Loven’s player handling Lyka as well, while Linny’s new player also handled Kikkeni until her actual player arrived.

The party started standing over the rapidly-dissolving body of the Rakshasa they’d killed last session; I had forgotten to roll treasure for it, so I gave them the following: 3500 GP, a large Khyber dragonshard, some gems, a Vest of Defense, an Oil of Bless Weapon, a Scroll of Invisibility, and a Handy Haversack.

They went to report their success to the authorities and booked themselves at the Stone Wyvern for the night.

The Stone Wyvern

When they got to the Stone Wyvern, the gnome owner squeaked “AAAH! ADVENTURERS!” when he saw his new guests, and slammed the door.

When the party actually went in to see what the problem was, he apologized and explained that he’s always been paranoid of adventurers because he was afraid of them unpetrifying the wyvern.

“Ah, yes, we’ll have to talk to you about that…”

The PCs offered a great deal of money–an initial downpayment of 750 GP—to take out the wyvern and unpetrify it for use as a mount in the coming battle. Holden said that the Church of the Silver Flame would compensate for whatever damage and/or profit loss that taking the wyvern might cause–after all, the wyvern WAS a Thrane air cavalry unit and as such was property of the Church. After a Diplomacy check, the gnome, Mr. Yule, reluctantly agreed.

The next morning (Day 35) , they awoke to find Yule sitting nervously under the wyvern, so much so that when he saw them coming down the stairs, he stood up and almost knocked himself out on the stone monster.

Then came the hilarious problem of getting the wyvern out of the building—if you read the writeup of Brindol, it says the inn was built around the petrified wyvern. Holden asked Yule what kind of an idiot built his inn around a petrified monster, to which Yule replied that it made a lot of entrepreneurial sense when his father did it—mostly founded on how only an idiot would unpetrify the wyvern while it was inside the building.

There were several issues here: wyverns weighed one ton unpetrified, so the obviously denser statue would be far too heavy to drag out without smashing the floorboards. Even if they did manage to drag it, it was too big to fit out the door. Finally, if they unpetrified it while inside the building, it would likely trash the place.

Holden offered more gold and set about unhinging the door, while Loven took everyone’s rope and tied the petrified wyvern up as tightly as he could.

They then called Delora Zann in case they needed someone to handle the animal (though they were reluctant since they knew Delora was trying to keep her dragonmark a secret), in addition to some soldiers.

Just before Linny cast Break Enchantment on the wyvern, the soldiers all backed off and began to express their fear. Most of them knew that the wyvern was part of one of Thrane’s infamous air cavalry units, and some of them knew what it was like to see friends getting snatched up by wyverns and smeared on the ground.

Holden says that’s exactly WHY they wanted to unpetrify the wyvern, and tells Linny to go ahead.

As the wyvern turned back into flesh and blood, it made a series of strength checks against all the ropes, but failed to break any single one. Delora was about to use her dragonmark as the creature struggled, but it instantly calmed down when it smelled Holden.

Delora explained that it might have been accustomed to the scent of the standard-issue armor polish that Thrane soldiers used, and as such was calmed down despite having been stoned for quite a while. Holden and Lyka lead it out of the door without much trouble, and then realize that they don’t have a stable to put it in.

They ask the gnome if they could let the animal roost on the roof of the inn, but Yule refuses outright. They decide to chain the wyvern to a large stake they hammer down into the middle of the Cathedral square—after Lyka takes it for a spin.

Meet the Lions

The PCs then head off to Brindol Keep to ask if there is anything that needs to be done.
Jarmaath and Cpt. Ulverth introduce the PCs to the Lions of Brindol squad they’ll be fighting with during the battle: Teyani Sura, whom they’d met in Drellin’s Ferry, and three others: Wrogann, Jonz and Narcy.

I also introduced them to Rampant, Cpt. Ulverth’s 7’5′ tall warforged lieutenant. Rampant is a bit unusual in appearance as warforged go; his head plates are shaped into a lion’s head, complete with mane, and his left arm is conspicuously larger and has an armor-plated hose running along its length.

Teyani was rather upset that Loven was checking her out and smacked him upside the head; Wrogann brought up the unfortunate topic of female dwarf facial hair; Jonz explained he didn’t talk much because his parents were from Karrnath and were often accused of being spies; Narcy enjoyed teasing Loven regarding his height.

At this point, Cpt. Ulverth asks the PCs what special training they’d like him to give the Lions—Holden’s player doesn’t really get this at first since he thinks they’re asking for a battlefield deployment order and not a training specialization; Ulverth hints at this—would they rather have a sniper, or a close combat sword specialist, etc. As such, Holden wants the Lions to help them charge the incoming warforged titans. Ulverth is flabbergasted at this supposed veteran’s war experience and shoots down the idea.

Eventually I break down and tell them OOC that this is a chance for them to “customize” the Lions so that they aren’t just sword/boarders. Furthermore, if the players are willing to do some one-on-one training with the Lions for a week, they can swap out that last fighter level for a single level in crusader (for Holden), warblade (for Lyka), rogue (for Loven), duskblade (for Linny) and finally psychic warrior (for Kikkeni) if they pass a series of skill checks appropriate to the class.

They agree that Jonz, who is more dexterous than the others, can be a sniper, while Wrogann (who is the strongest of the four) would be trained as a crusader and Teyani could be a warblade (she’s the smartest and that extra Int would at least help with warblade’s first-level abilities). Finally Narcy (apparently, sarcasm = Wis) is going to swap her fourth Fighter level for Psychic Warrior, assuming their PC-trainers make the appropriate skill checks.

Finally, Jarmaath informs the PCs that the hobgoblins are closing around the town of Talar, and that the town council delayed evacuating, so the villagers were in danger of being overtaken by the outriders.

The PCs take their horses and ride hard to Talar, covering the distance in three hours.

Talar

The PCs open the door to the Chamber of Rebirth and are immediately greeted by the sickly green glow of the pool. I replaced the Lesser Bonedrinkers with true Bonedrinkers bolstered by the Ghostlord’s Corpsecrafter tree feats, and also add an advanced Boneclaw, also boosted with Corpsecrafter feats. The PCs only manage to spot one of the Bonedrinkers in the gloom; the Boneclaw and the second Bonedrinker remain hidden.

Holden immediately charges toward the Bonedrinker he spotted, but his movement prevents him from getting close enough to attack. The Bonedrinker beats him handily in its full attack and grapple check. Seeing the tentacles, Lyka warns her superior to guard his backside.

Yelling for help, Holden calls out. “Damnit, this things going to drink my bones!”

“I’d be more worried about the tentacles,” Lyka quips.

Kikkeni entrenches herself in the narrow corridor leading to the Lion’s Heart, while Linnea and Lyka take up positions near the pool.

At this point the Boneclaw emerges, using its speed to squeeze easily past the lion statue and shanking Kikkeni from 20 feet away. The second Bonedrinker also emerges and begins to grapple Linny before she gets a chance to do anything offensive.

Things don’t go too well at first. With Holden grappled and unable to beat the Bonedrinker definitively, he quickly accrues a lot of CON damage. He takes a total of 9 CON damage across the encounter while Linny takes 3.

Linny’s Religion checks reveal the Bonedrinkers’ resistances and the Boneclaw’s immunity, so Kikkeni resorts to using electricity to attack them. Given their huge amounts of HP, however, they’re able to shrug off the fire for a while.

Linny (played by a substitute) attempts to blow the Bonedrinker grappling her away, but she fails to make the Concentration check. Kikkeni, however, lays down a curtain of withering fire. Eventually, the Bonedrinkers stop moving. Eager to get back in the fight, Holden leaps up.

Lyka gets attacked repeatedly by the Boneclaw, taking lots of damage in the process despite her high AC. Braving the Boneclaw’s massive reach and AOOs, she tumbles toward it and executes a Soaring Raptor Strike. It’s not fatal, but it opens up an opportunity for Holden to finish it off with a Bonecrusher.

Now if you were wondering where Loven was, he was off to the side, missing with his Bag of Boulders and his Wand of Scorching Ray. It was rather sad.

The party stops a moment to rest and begins to look around the chamber. They discuss the value of the Lion’s Heart and then look into the pool and try to figure out what to do with the dire lion within. Loven uses a rat from his Gray Bag of Tricks to test the effect of the liquid, and sees that the rat gets pretty much paralyzed.

Thinking it would be a great morale boost to the people of Brindol (knowing how the lion was their symbol), they rescue the dire lion by pulling it out of the pool via a rope.

They search around the room for a while and find the path to the Ghostlord’s Chamber.

The Ghostlord

The Ghostlord stands up from his meditation to regard the PCs, his hand on the byeshk great scimitar at his waist. A twisted bugbear, tainted so thoroughly by the touch of the Daelkyr that his body had to be bolted together with splints and metal bars, moves out of the shadows and walks up beside his master.

The Ghostlord demands the PCs explain themselves.

<Holden> “We bring a gift, my lord.”
<Ghostlord> “What do you have to give me? I have lost everything! I demand to see your tribute!”
<Holden> *flashes phylactery*
<Ghostlord> “…where did you get this?”
<Kikkeni> “We found it in a dragon’s hoard when we raided a Red Hand outpost.”
<Holden> “My lord, the Red Hand has nothing more to coerce you with.”
<Ghostlord> “…and what do you want in exchange for it?”
<Holden> “We wish that you would work with us to fight the Red Hand.”
*party facepalms*
<Holden> “…or at the very least stop aiding the Red Hand.”
<Ghostlord> “Do you think that after all these years I would serve anyone?”
<Holden> “We wish for you to withdraw your support from the Red Hand.”
<Ghostlord> “Rift.”

A tentacle slips out from the bugbear’s side and grabs the phylactery from Holden’s hand.
<Ghostlord> “Are there any remaining hobgoblins in my lair?”
<Kikkeni> “They’re all dead.”
<Lyka> “One got away, though—a gaseous form.”
<Ghostlord> “That would be Wyrmlord Ulwai—I have longed to push that bitch into the pool myself, but you have rid me of her.”
<Holden> “We would be glad to fight alongside with you—”
<Ghostlord> “You speak presumptuously, dwarf.”
<Holden> “Forgive me, my lord.”
<Ghostlord> “Now get out. I will withdraw my support from the Red Hand. Go, before I change my mind. GET OUT!”

The party hastily retreats, dragging out the paralyzed dire lion after them.

They get a massive XP doleout from the Ghostlord—4800 XP—boosting them to Lv 9. (I redid the encounter so that it would be an EL 15 instead of an EL 13)

Back to Brindol

The party camps fitfully outside the Ghostlord’s lion, since they came out in the middle of the night. Deciding it would be better than camping in the middle of the Thornwaste, they sleep fitfully under the light of the Ghostlord’s lion spirit vestiges.

The party travels for three days, arriving at a crossroads. They come upon a group of several ogres messing around with a wagon that has been pulled off the road. Four of the ogres are pretty normal-looking, while one of them is covered in spiked plate armor. A hobgoblin stands nearby, shouting orders and eventually calls the attention of the ogres as it spots the party. It changes shape into an ogre mage.

The party stays on their horses; Kikkeni and Linny share the same horse. Kikkeni lays down an energy ball, taking down two of the ogres, slightly damaging the berserker, and gravely injuring the ogre mage. The melee characters charge in on horses, and before the berserker in spiked armor is able to do anything, Linny drops a resilient sphere on it.

The ogre mage goes invisible, but Kikkeni is able to spot it with her new psionic true seeing. However, the ogre mage moves above the spot where Lyka is dueling one of the two remaining ogres. Instead of attacking them, though, the ogre mage instead dropsdarkness on Kikkeni, Linny and their horse. While Kikkeni can see through it, the horse is paralyzed in fear by the darkness and refuses to budge (I rule that it’s complete darkness instead of the silly shadowy illumination) and Linny can’t see the ogre mage either. Kikkeni responds with an energy bolt, but the ogre mage saves. Loven, sick of being useless, decides to take a shot. He deals enough damage to drop the ogre mage to 0 HP, and he falls out of the sky to his death. Holden finishes off the other two ogres. (They scavenge the bodies of the ogres for meat to force-feed to the still-paralyzed Dire Lion—they figure they don’t want to restore it to working order until they can bring it to someone who can communicate with and train it.)

They investigate the wagon and are thankful they convinced Kikkeni to not shoot her initial attack straight into it—they find the bodies of the Lions of Brindol as well as the letter for the Shining Axes, as well as the payment. Not wanting to have to carry the bodies on their cart, the PCs decide to cremate the Lions and set out for Hammerfirst Holds immediately.

Before the resilient sphere on the berserker wears off, the PCs (apart from Kikkeni, who didn’t want to waste PP) surround the ogre and attack it as the sphere goes down. They get in several solid hits before the ogre itself flies into a rage and drives it spiked shield into Lyka, chopping off more than half her HP. Then Loven downs the ogre with a crossbow shot.

The detour costs them a day, but it’s well worth it—they arrive at Hammerfist Holds and immediately get Captain Helmbreaker and his men onto the road. Helmbreaker is happy to receive the business, blows his horn and summons his brethren to kick some goblin ass, to which they respond enthusiastically. Loven recoils in shock, because he’s never seen so many Holdens (male and female) in his life. The Shining Axes march off with the PCs to Brindol.

The Plague of Brindol

The PCs arrive at Brindol on day 34. Immediately they set out to inform Lord Jarmaath of the arrival of the dwarves, but they can’t help but notice that the entire city seems more sedate than usual, and that several areas of the city have been cordoned off.

They ask Jarmaath about it and discover that the epidemic that was starting when the PCs first arrived has become a full-fledged plague and that the soldiers have been devastated by it. The clerics of Dol Arrah could only do so much. The PCs decide to investigate the city and ask the clerics about it, but before they could leave, Jarmaath pulls Holden aside to give him a sealed letter.

The worst has happened: Holden’s wife was found murdered in their home in Thrane. The initial investigation shows that there were no signs of forced entry and that she was killed with little struggle.

Holden flies into a screaming rage, pounding at the floor until his fists begin to bleed. The rest of the party decide to leave him alone while they attend to their business, but Loven shows a rare moment of humaneness and embraces his grieving brother. Holden vows to not stop fighting until he has bathed in the blood of every Red Hand man, woman and child.

Jarmaath knows that flippant shows of sympathy will be rebuffed, so he instead goes up to Holden and asks if he will still fight for them.

“To my last breath,” Holden replies.

They then leave to look for Soranna, who is said to have some experience in animal care and woodcraft (I gave her a couple of ranger and warblade levels so she wouldn’t be so boring in the later fights), but she then points them to Delora Zann, whose trade was animal husbandry before they left Drellin’s Ferry.

They find Delora Zann training cavalry soldiers, and although she welcomes them, they notice that she is wearing only one bracer over her forearm. The PCs are immediately suspicious, as they had never noticed this before. They ask her about it and she claims it’s nothing serious.

Loven and Lyka (Holden was left at Brindol Keep) convince Kikkeni to use her true seeing to examine Delora; this revealed nothing extraordinary. The PCs then convince her that they were trustworthy, with Loven hinting that they’d killed lots of Red Hand people already (a not-so-subtle threat if she were indeed an operative). She takes them aside and strips off the bracer to reveal a Dragonmark of Handling that she’d been hiding to avoid drawing House Vadalis’s attention; she refuses to work with a Dragonmarked house and so hid the mark to maintain a low profile.

They take her to the dire lion, and Linny un-paralyzes it with restoration. Immediately the lion springs up and roars, terrifying the horses and the cavalrymen, but Delora lays a hand on its forehead and taps her Dragonmark, pacifying the beast.

“Leave this to me,” she says. “Next time you see him, he’ll be a terrifying mount. Pay me when this war is done.”

Loven is exultant at this development, saying that it would be a great thing to lift Holden’s spirits with—then he remembers that Holden’s wife resigned her commission as a cleric of the Silver Flame due to her pregnancy.

The PCs go off to the Cathedral of Dol Arrah to consult the clerics, who are busy rushing about and tending the sick.

Tredora Goldenbrow explains that the plague is a mundane disease (shakes), and that it is spread by contact. However, those afflicted have spoken of noxious brown mists spreading throughout the marketplace; it’s said that these are the initial cause of the plague. Tredora is unable to explain what this might be; she asks the PCs to investigate.

The PCs seek a second opinion and consult Immerstal, mentioning their fascinating encounter with the Ghostlord and his necromantic engine. They also offer him Ulwai’s Tiamat opera, which he accepts and pays them 1000 GP for. He tells them that the clerics didn’t think to consult him regarding the plague and reveals that the brown mist in the marketplace is Contagious Fog—a short-term spell that nonetheless causes people to get sick and carry the disease. The spell would have to be cast repeatedly by a caster hiding out in the marketplace for it to last long.

The PCs immediately go and check it out.

Talons of Pestilence

The PCs arrive at the edge of the marketplace to find Holden staring into space, slowly imbibing his alcoholic gravy blend. They nudge him on, and so they walk off towards the dark of the cordoned-off marketplace.

As they walk down the abandoned lanes, they see a figure of a peasant woman walking out of the buildings. Knowing that the place is cordoned off, they are immediately suspicious and order her to halt. She looks listlessly in their direction and stops.

When asked why she’s there, she simply looks down limply. Kikkeni immediately uses her true seeing and identifies this as an illusion. Linny identifies it as a minor image spell, which meant that the caster was nearby.

Suddenly a cloud of brown mist envelops them—contagious fog. Holden and Linny fail their saves; Linny takes a full wallop of 8 Dex damage from the shakes while Holden takes 3. The cloud moves slowly down the street, and with Linny knowing that the cloud moves away from its caster, she can deduce that the caster was in a rather large house down the street. Linny dispels the cloud while Loven feeds Holden his potion of remove disease.

Lyka charges toward the house at the end of the street and gets zapped by two scorching rays; everyone runs into the house and up the stairs. As they enter, they hear the sounds of spellcasting; Linny identifies mage armor and shield being cast. However, they get to the house’s top room and realize that no one is inside.

Kikkeni enters and looks around, spotting the caster–a Rakshasa–hiding in the corner with her active greater invisibility. Kikkeni uses psionic grease to make the Rakshasa slip and fall facedown, while the rest of the party members enter and attempt to mob the fiend.

However, she casts web, trapping the PCs partially in the room. The PCs then embark on a rather frustrating exercise of attacking something with very tough DR and spell resistance. Cornered and outnumbered, the Rakshasa is barely able to do anything but keep casting spells that annoy the PCs; ultimately, after starting two fires and using up almost all of Kikkeni’s PP, Linny remembers to cast align weapon on Lyka’s short sword.

Leaping from a bed, Lyka plunges the weapon into the Rakshasa’s heart. Silver fire flares out of the Rakshasa’s dying body as it shatters and dissolves.

End of session.

Thoughts

That was another awesome session.
-The Bone squad did quite well; they were frustrating and dangerous without being annoying and tedious. I highly recommend this modified encounter if you have a tough set of PCs.
-The Ghostlord encounter was far quicker than I had expected; they didn’t beat around the bush.
-I had a very large and powerful ambush planned in Dauth, but unfortunately the PCs decided to skip the towns and cut across the plains with the dwarves. No outriders would dare to ambush such a large company. As such they were able to avoid a lot of the difficult encounters I’d planned along the way.
-I loved what they did with the dire lion; the bit about Delora Zann was completely improvised as I hadn’t expected them to take out the dire lion. I also didn’t want them to simply despair at the lack of a decent druid in Brindol. Now they have a mount in battle that will put war horses to shame.
-I finally killed off Holden’s wife. I’m going to add insult to injury soon, but I’ll need pull the PCs out of Brindol for the second attempt on the PCs’ lives.
-I’m not yet sure how to do this. I could have a supply wagon that needs protection, or maybe a mobile trebuchet crew that needs to be taken out.
-Although the Battle of Brindol begins 2 days after the horde arrives, I feel like I want to start it early by having the Red Hand set up a trebuchet to fling live prisoners, dead cattle, and severed heads into the city.
-Finally, I’m going to give the PCs the option to train and/or choose what training method their cadre of Lions of Brindol would use. There’s still a lot of time to burn, but mostly I’ll just have to give them emergency missions.

The PCs arrive in Brindol at noon. They pay the gate tax and enter, and meet a group of clerics of Dol Arrah tending to a whole bunch of sick people by the roadside who are being evacuated into wagons headed for Vathirond in the East. The clerics ask the PCs for help, and they oblige.

They notice Miha, who immediately tells them that she’s something of a fan and would like to join up once her arm gets better. Kikkeni is suspicious as she’s the first to notice the unusual amount of attention she was giving them, but the rest of the PCs don’t really catch on. They think she might either be a spy or a legitimately noble person, but have no reason to absolutely believe either case.

Insert a hilarious exchange between Holden and Lyka. Lyka threatens to write to Holden’s wife back in Thrane about his supposed temptation to have extramarital dalliances with Miha, to which he violently reacts. (“TALL WOMEN DO NOT TURN ME ON!”) He orders her to do pushups and sits on her back. She simply retorts that his wife would not approve of this close contact, to which he orders her to do 50 more pushups.

In any case, the clerics order the wagon to move on ahead and also mention that Cpt. Sorrana was looking for them.

The PCs run into her soon, and she embraces the PCs she’s met before. Lyka and Linny introduce themselves. The cleric does not fail to mention her novels, which she offers to Sorrana. The soldier actually expresses interest, while Lyka warns her that the books deal with forbidden romances between hobgoblins and dwarves. “And the hobgoblins sparkle too,” she adds.
“They sparkle? I thought they just stank.”

She brings the PCs to Brindol Keep, where they meet with Lord Jarmaath and Cpt. Ulverth.

The PCs introduce themselves and tell the two everything they know—the information about Abithriax is news to Jarmaath and Ulverth, but the reports of Koth’s and Saarvith’s deaths help their spirits a lot.

The PCs attempt some discussion regarding siege tactics, but none of this is much help at the moment considering Lady Kaal isn’t around. One interesting idea that Holden floats is un-petrifying the stone wyvern (which I’d described as a Thrane air cavalry unit that had been downed during the Last War and petrified, so they can actually use it as a mount) for them to use as a quick means of transporting them around the battlefield when the attacks reach their climax.

The PCs then mention the phylactery and ask for help regarding information about the Ghostlord and the Thornwaste. Jarmaath directs them to Immerstal THE RED.

They proceed to Immerstal and meet Alandri. She tells the PCs that Immerstal can’t be bothered right now, and then changes into her sphinx form, offering to allow them to bother Immerstal if they can cough up a riddle. Kikkeni makes an Int check and rolls a 26, but the player didn’t have anything on hand so I let her think of one to give it another time.

Immerstal comes down and haggles with them over the price of information that they can get regarding the Thornwaste and the Ghostlord. They refuse to pay the 400 GP it will take for an immediate rush job, so they instead let him hit the books overnight. They also make the very clever move of talking about the phylactery and then ask HIM to pay them 20 GP for the information. He grumpily grants them a 20 GP discount on his research fee.

The PCs then return to the Keep, asking more about Miha along the way. They learn that she was a traveling sorcerer, and Loven believes her story checks out enough to trust her. They also learn that she had blown away a guard who was making inappropriate advances at her (and broke her arm). The PCs can’t agree on whether to recruit her or not, and in the end say it would be a good idea to keep her close in any case.

They talk to Ulverth again about the state of the army. He tells them that while the Lion Guard is capable, the militia is pretty much a collection of maggots. Their equipment is pretty decent, but that’s pretty much it.

Finally, the party convinces Ulverth to loan them mounts.

The PCs go rest (we have lunch).

Day 20-26: To the Thornwaste
Early the next morning, the PCs get their info from Immerstal—apparently Linny’s knowledge was pretty much complete, but it’s Immerstal’s info that points them to the actual location of the Ghostlord’s Lion—12 miles into the Thornwaste.

They also learn that the Thornwaste is home to a the Daelkyr-tainted wildlife that escaped the corruption and subsequent destruction of Rhest. The badlands are home to all sorts of predators—natural, undead, and aberrant.

They then buy provisions for the journey and get a wagon as well. They take their horses and ride off as fast as they can.

The PCs move as quickly as they can, stopping in Prosser, then Dauth. The weather gets pretty nasty, but they continue anyway; their rationale is that the visibility is just as bad for whoever is watching them anyway.

Day 22: The PCs encounter a small band of hobgoblins with a dire wolf marching down the road. (Easy skirmish). The PCs wipe them out easily–Kikkeni opens up with an Energy Ball that incinerates the grunts. They’re surprised the dire wolf and the bladebearer survive, but Holden charges in on his horse anyway. This was a bad move. The wolf overpowers the horse and trips it, sending the dwarf sprawling onto the ground.

Lyka charges the bladebearer with Two-Weapon Pounce, but rolls two natural ones. Pathetic.
Loven and Linny take potshots from the wagon, but it’s Kikkeni’s energy missile that kills the dire wolf. Finally, Lyka finishes off the bladebearer with Death From Above. Easy XP.

Day 26: I swear this is random. I roll a tornado on the random weather table. Instead of blowing them away (almost did, but it didn’t make any sense for a twister to appear out of the blue and blow them away), I have the storm rage on the horizon, with the twister rampaging across the prairie. A sign of things to come.

The Temple of the Rotting Lion

The PCs decide not to stop at the edge of the Thornwaste; I decide to dispense with the random encounters I rolled (it was just a bunch of demonthorn mandrakes anyway; if it had been a Hound of the Gloom or a Pseudonatural Megaraptor I’d have gone with that).

They didn’t want to be caught dead sleeping in the Thornwaste, so they decided to continue pushing towards the Lion. The trip is made much easier by Lyka’s ranks in Survival, so she pulls them through.

They arrive at the Lion at sunset. One by one, the ghostly lion shapes wink into vision around the monolith, and the PCs gape in awe at those for a while. Linny assures them that the vestiges aren’t harmful, and that they might be bound magically to the monolith. Before they enter, a brief debate flares up over what exactly to do with the phylactery. Holden and Lyka want to destroy the Ghostlord; Loven wants to blackmail him; Kikkeni doesn’t want to fight him either way, and finally Linny is neutral. They still don’t know what to do.

The PCs see the mouth and the cavern in the Lion’s chest; they decide that it would be better if all of them enter together as not everyone can make the climb up the monolith’s side.

And they walk straight into Varathian’s lair.

Crushing Coils

The behir had smelled, spotted and heard them way before they even entered the cavern. She is poised to strike, hanging upside-down from the ceiling, 15 feet up.

Everyone forgets to make Spot and Listen checks (which is kind of silly, as Holden and Loven’s player was continuously rolling during the journey). As such, Varanthian gets a surprise round. However, my bad luck and the players’ stellar luck figure heavily in this battle once more—Varanthian rolls a 1 on Initiative.

Immediately she uses her Smite Good with her bite, ripping a huge chunk out of Holden and grabbing him into her coils. The rest of the party decides to run, but Holden curses at Lyka for even thinking of abandoning him.

Using her Whirling Frenzy to boost her strength and squeezing out every last bit of bonus by using an action point, she jumps up and grabs Holden.

And beats Varanthian’s grapple check (she rolls a natural 1).

I did forget to ask for a Jump check (hard to beat that massive Jump DC), but considering how awesome the situation was, I decided to go with Rule of Cool and let her extricate her superior officer.

Kikkeni has nothing that can work well on the behir at the moment, so she decides to go for broke and manifests Death Urge. Varanthian’s SR is breached, and she fails her save (+5 will save on a boss? WTH?!).

The party hightails it out of the cavern while Varanthian attacks herself. She shreds herself real badly, roaring all the time and yelling out threats to the Kalashtar.

Once outside, Kikkeni fires an Energy Ball into the cavern, using Electricity. The behir crashes out of the cavern, unscathed. Lots of PPs gone right there. Loven and Linny’s attempts at hurting the behir with wands simply bounce off her SR; Kikkeni resorts to Energy Missile due to her target being smack dab in the middile of the party, but this bounces off her SR. but the Behir grabs Linny and begins crushing the life out of her (she goes from full HP to 12 in one attack)

Lyka chops down the Behir to 7 HP with Soaring Raptor Strike, and Holden, in a livid rage, uses Divine Surge on the Behir. Varanthian splits apart and explodes in a huge mess out of which Linny emerges, covered in steaming black blood.

The party pushes on into the Lion.

The Lion’s Path

What would’ve been the most flavorful encounters in this chapter get laughed at. The first two ghost brute lions get slaughtered despite their incorporeal miss chance; Holden smashes them into oblivion. The dire lion fares only slightly better by hitting Holden and draining away 1 point of strength; Linny Turns Undead and sends it fleeing. Disappointing.

Guests

Long story short: Fog Cloud is awesome. The line of sight made fighting highly frustrating for everyone. Since Ulwai’s retinue is well-prepared (lots of noise from Varanthian), they’re able to set up a rather effective ambush. The monks (now Monk 2/Swordsage 3) make nuisances out of themselves, although their attempts at grappling with the dragonchains fail repeatedly.
The Kulkor Zhul war adept is able to summon a Fiendish Dire Wolf into the middle of the party, but Kikkeni is able to pull away in time. The wolf is eventually taken down by Loven, but Lyka walks straight into the monks.

Despite their buffs, the Mass Shield of Faith that Linny had cast on the party was working wonders in frustrating their attacks. The Evasion that the Monks had kept them alive longer than the PCs expected, but ultimately they went down thanks to the PCs’ persistence. The War Adept raved about taking down the PCs with him and began casting his final Scintillating Sphere, but he miserably failed his Casting Defensively Concentration check (YES IT CAN FAIL), and tried to run away. Holden cut him down.

However, one critical boo-boo in this fight—Ulwai got away. Casting Haste on her party and drinking a potion of gaseous form, she was able to slip away and get her Phantom Steed going. The monks in the guardroom escaped as well. Things aren’t always in the PCs’ favor, and they’ll have to deal with that.

The episode ends with the PCs going deeper into the Ghostlord’s lair and entering the Chamber of Rebirth.

Thoughts

-I’m surprised at how roleplay-heavy this day was, but the battles that they fought really mattered. Holden/Loven’s player is beginning to say that the encounters really feel like they’re taking a toll; that STR drain really stung him.
-Again, my luck is miserable.
-The ghost brutes were pretty useless. How did you guys run them? They just popped like bubbles here.
-The party still does not know how to deal with the Ghostlord. I hope they choose wisely.