Raiding Mt Rushmore

Due to unfortunate circumstances, Lyka’s player was still absent and Kikkeni’s player, who has been the most consistent in terms of attendance, suddenly couldn’t make it either. I couldn’t contact Nox’s player, but he had informed me beforehand that he’d be late.

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?”

“…”

Session 18

Hack and slash session this time. The Wyrmsmokes were rightly billed as a dangerous place, and one does not simply walk into Mordor.

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.

Session 17

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.

Streets of Blood

Much ownage, but much pain.

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:

-2 Hobgoblin dragoons mounted on advanced manticores
-1 Doom Hand Confessor (Cleric 5/Ordained Champion 3)
-10 Hobgoblin regular archers (mwk composite longbows instead of longswords)

The manticores come in hard and fast, carrying hobgoblin dragoons on their backs and 50 lb rocks. The Doom Hand Confessor appears, already buffed with Divine Power and Divine Vigor, and heads straight for the barricade.

Holden, Rampant and Lyka damage the confessor significantly in the first round, but the two manticores drop their rocks on Holden. Holden takes a wallop from the first rock, but the second misses.

Kikkeni stays prone on the roof of the cottage above the wagon, doing her best to lie low. However, with the manticores overhead, she desides to leap down and join the fray below instead of being plastered on the roof .

Nox sneaks the closest Manticore (his Hide check is 50), dealing significant damage to it.

Before the confessor can get any damage off, he’s dropped to critical HP by the mobbing PCs. Jonz takes a few ineffectual potshots while the other three Lions stay behind the barricade.

At this point, one of the dragoons barks out an order in Goblin: “Alright, drop the hammer on ’em!”—and an arrow volley strikes the militiamen. Four are severely injured, and Wrogann takes a hit as well.

Holden leads the militiamen in a concentrated arrow volley on the Confessor, and they actually get in a hit. The Confessor attempts to smite Holden by channeling Contagion into his heavy flail, but fumbles. Lyka cuts him down.

The Manticores retaliate by spraying the defenders with their tail spikes. The four injured militiamen die instantly, plus two more. Improved Natural Attack FTW. The other manticore fires at Kikkeni, Teyani, Wrogann and Narcy, but only lands a hit on Narcy.

A second volley of arrows comes down on Holden, Lyka and Rampant, but only Holden gets hit. Nox takes a second shot at the manticore he shot, and it comes crashing down. Its dragoon jumps off and lands very close to Lyka.

Linny comes out of hiding and blasts the second manticore with blast of force and it fails its Fort save, falling out of the sky. However, it doesn’t take enough damage to die and instead lands uncomfortably close to Kikkeni. It ineffectually tries to attack, but Linny knocks it into the negatives with scorching ray.

Although the two dragoons wound Lyka significantly with their halberds, the party’s frontliners and Rampant easily take them down.

The hobgoblin archers close in on the street, but Nox drops a glitterdust on them from a scroll. Seven of them are blinded, and the remaining ones, seeing the party tear up their frontliners, beat a hasty retreat, dragging the blinded guys with them.

The Battle of Brindol

Awesome, awesome session today.

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!”

In Which We Cheer the Death of Warforged

I had hoped to cover more ground today, but unfortunately Linny’s and the Magroens’ players were sick and couldn’t make it. Kikkeni’s and Lyka’s players arrived late. Since Kikkeni was dead, her player took over Linny for now, while Lyka’s player took over Holden in addition to her character. Since Loven was charmed and had no way of ever passing the opposed charisma check versus the Greater Barghest, he just aimed and reloaded at Lyka every turn.

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.

Don’t Stop Running

Yesterday’s session was rather slow. We were supposed to hold the session last Saturday, but a storm hit the country and power got knocked out, so playing would be pretty frustrating in the dark. Yesterday was a holiday, so we tried to take advantage of our collective free schedules and play.

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.

The Turning Point

The Chamber of Rebirth

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)

To The Thornwaste

Day 19: Noon

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.

An Alliance and An Assassination

Day 13: Twilight Telepathy

After raiding the dragon’s hoard and finding the important plot-relevant items in the Rhest town hall, the PCs figure out what to do with Nurkulnaak.

They plan to tie him to the side of the boat partially immersed in the water, among other grave threats and such. They even laughed at the irony of finding his torture implements inside his Haversack.

However, at this point things don’t go as they’ve planned and go surprisingly well according to my plan.

Using his telepathy, Nurkulnaak sends messages to the PCs heads in Daelkyr. None of them know the language, but the term “Daelkyr” is used. Nurkulnaak himself acts shocked and horrified, and begins looking around him in horror. Loven quickly rips off the gag while holding his rapier sharply against the beguiler’s throat (they still don’t know that he is one) and demanding what was going on.

“You fools, it’s the Daelkyr! Don’t you know the history of this place? It’s tainted!”

All this while, the same line keeps repeating in the heads of the PCs:
Fathk nrathkyl quyrafl uytrlk Daelkyr
Fathk nrathkyl quyrafl uytrlk Daelkyr
Fathk nrathkyl quyrafl uytrlk Daelkyr

Using Silent Spell, Nurkulnaak casts blur on himself—the only spell he can cast—and feigns a seizure.

Everyone does their best to try to figure out what’s going on, but without any spell components to identify the spell with, Linnea couldn’t really tell whether he had cast a spell or not.

Thoroughly spooked, they decide to quickly get the hell out of there and drag Nurkulnaak behind them. When they get onto the roof, they realize they’re surrounded.

Where Things DO NOT Go According to Plan

Four blackscale lizardfolk stand on the roof. These guys are enormous. Three of them are carrying tree-sized greatclubs, while the fourth has the telltale horns and wings of a half dragon.

Nurkulnaak secretly sends telepathic messages to the blackscales, telling them to run quickly and inform the Red Hand, and they will be rewarded. Despite their dim wits, they respect Nurkulnaak as a herald of Regiarix and fight a little longer only to escape. The half-dragon is the most intelligent and fastest, and as such is an ideal messenger, but Nurkulnaak broadcasts it to them just in case.

Once on the roof, Kikkeni begins to use her backup dorje of energy ray as she is out of PP.

Holden, however, quickly takes out the winged half-dragon via a lucky Divine Surge. The beast falls to the ground and almost pins him, but he successfully gets out of the way.

One of the remaining blackscales grabs Nurkulnaak from Holden, tucks him under his shoulder, and leaps into the water. The others do likewise, scattering in different directions.

Lyka manages an amazing leap onto the back of the blackscale holding Nurkulnaak and proceeds to hack at him, while the flying Holden pursues. Linnea plants an Ice Knife in the blackscale’s back, but it keeps on paddling. The two other blackscales escape unmolested.

Eventually Linnea uses her Rod of Viscid Globs on the blackscale, and Lyka shanks it dead. With the blackscales gone, their escape from the accursed ruins is going to be easier. More importantly, Nurkulnaak is alive. Still frothing and blurred, but alive.

They decide to paddle back to where they left the boat, using the dead lizard as a raft.

Don’t look at me, I just DM here. o_o;

Return to Starsong

Much to the shock of the elves, the PCs paddle in triumphantly, towing the corpse of an ogre-sized lizard behind them. The community gathers to welcome them, only to gape at their grisly trophy.

Killiar arrives and congratulates the PCs. He asks if they need to see the elders, to which they reply “Yes, we need items identified.” (SIGH.)

Trellara comes in and identifies Nurkulnaak’s gear, while Illian easily deduces that the PCs have been had. He dispels Nurkulnaak’s blur. Much wincing around the table.

Sellyria arrives and asks them what they plan on doing. “We wish to interrogate our ‘guest’.”
The old druid says she understands their needs, but says they may not shed any blood within Starsong. Holden assents, and they bring Nurkulnaak into a tent for interrogation.