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We now have a full group

cplmac — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 15:00:21 GMT

And the good news is that at this time there is now 8 players signed up for the campaign. This will allow for all the characters to be involved from the beginning. One player will have to leave earlier than the rest to go to work, but that will be able to be "written" into the game.

Stay tunned for the campaign log to follow......

Game On! Starting with however many players are there.

cplmac — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:28:40 GMT

This campaign will be started on October 21. At this time there are 5 players signed on. If nobody else signs on, I will be running one of the clerics as an NPC. Both of the clerics and 1 fighter are the characters that are still available. I am preparing everything to allow for all 8 characters but will be able to easily adjust for as low as only having 5 plus the NPC cleric. This game will be looking at having one session per month, so that means there will be one log entry per month. If for some reason an extra session would be done, I will title that session as an extra one.

Also, not sure why but the font and size selections were not working at the time of this post and is why the text is different from the usual.

Tsojcanth II update

cplmac — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:15:19 GMT

At this time there are 5 people signed up to play in the new (second) running of the "Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth" campaign. Hopefully between now and Aug. 25th, we will get the other 3 seats filled and be able to start this on that day. Anyone interested can send me a PM or post on the campaign thread in the Find or Advertise a Game section of the Forums. Again, this will take a very long time to complete, so be prepared for a game that won't be done in just a handfull of gaming sessions. Also, for any that are interested, this is a module that was written by Gygax and is the expanded version as opposed to the tournament version.

Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.....Introductio n

cplmac — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:58:22 GMT

(as taken from the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth game module by Gary Gygax. I have added the chest with items donated by the March of Bissel as well as the wagon and two horses and the barrels with two weeks feed for the horses.)

Your party has been gathered by agents of the Margrave of the March of Bissel. He tells you that there are "political considerations," which he does not explain, that prevent him from searching for Iggwilv's trove himself. However, it is vital that the treasure not fall into the hands of his enemies. Your party's goal is to get the treasure before Bissel's enemies do. The Margrave has provided you with horses and a map showing the most probable location of the Lost Caverns. The Margrave will also give you an escort from Thornwood to a narrow trail leading from the easternmost arm of the Bramblewood Forest northward into the Yatil Mountains, the very heart of Iggwilv's old domain. The Margrave intructs you to return with three specific artifacts. They are Daoud's Wondrous Lanthorn, the prison of Zagig, and the Demonomicon of Iggwilv. You have pledged to repay the Margrave for your horses, as well as any other equipment he provided, out of the monetary treasure obtained. You will also be required to pay a treasure tax of 15% on all money taken. He tells you that the remainder of the money, as well as any other magical items taken, are your reward for undertaking this perilous quest. However, you are warned under threat of dire punishment not to allow any magical items to fall into evil hands.

An examination of your map reveals that the track through the mountains has numerous branches. At the end of each track is a number, evidently standing for something unknown. The agents of the Margrave cannot tell you anything about their significance, except that it is likely that at one of the sites are the caverns you seek. Obviously, the map is incomplete, for from what you know of this part of the world, there are mountains where nothing but blank space is shown on the chart. With this map you must somehow find where the treasure is hidden. The more direct your route to the caverns, the less the likelihood of injury or death from the many perils of the journey. A scrap of parchment with a bit of doggerel on it might be a clue, or it might be of now use whatsoever, save to mislead you.

After a journey of a sen'night, your band haas reached the foothills of the Yatils without incident. It is morning and the sun is emerging over the peaks to the east. Before you is the narrow winding path, that looks to be almost wide enough for two wagons to passby each other. Behind you is the escort of horsemen riding south for home. Fortunately, you have sure-footed, mountain bred horses given to you to assure a swift passage to your destination. Due to their smaller statures, Flemin and Dunil have been riding the wagon, however the two horses pulling it are just as sure footed as the others being rode by the rest of the party. Before the escort left, you were told that his Grace, the March of Bissel himself has donated the wagon and a chest of items to the party to help aid them during this quest. An examination of the chest reveals the following items contained within, along with a piece of parchment that lists what each item is specifically.

1. Potion of Extra-healing
2. Wand of Magic Missiles (18 charges)
3. Ring of Protection +1
4. Large Tent
5. 4 torches
6. Mace +4
7. Quiver with 6 arrows +2
8. Battle Axe +2

Vellum map secured safely, there is naught else to do but proceed with the quest to find the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth again

cplmac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:15:54 GMT

Ok, eventhough I haven't seen any posts, the previous blog entry has had over 1400 views. I will take this as there are some folks that would like to follow the new groups progress through this adventure. When they do begin, I will post a campaign log for their group.

At this time, there are 4 seats available for this game. Even with the campaign log being here on my P&PG blog, prospective players need to inquire about joining the group by going to the Steel City Gamers group over on Meetup.com site. Two players from the last time I ran it are in this time and will be using the same characters as before. There are two other people that need to choose the character that they want to use and then the four remaining characters will be up for choosing. Players get to choose a character in the order in which they commit to the game.

In addition to the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth campaign, our group does other RPG games and board games too. It would be nice to find some folks that would be able to participate in some of those as well. Just need for folks to realize that some games may have less characters than my Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth campaign. Along with the other 2 DM/GMs in our group, I have set the maximum limit of players to 8. We want to make sure that everyone gets to enjoy the game. The last time, the group got to the point where it exploded to have a total of 14 people. This made things rather hetic for the DM/GM in needing to alter things to allow for all the extra characters. It also meant that the players had a lot smaller amount of face time for their character's actions.

Stay tuned for the next post, which is planned to be the introduction to the campaign............

Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth II

cplmac — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:26:22 GMT

I have been asked to run the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth campaign module for another group that has formed in the area. Now, this won't actually happen until next about late Spring or Summer of next year. I am debating as to if I should post a campaign log for it here? Just not sure how many people are actually reading the campaign logs? Figure that I would see if I get any feedback here about the matter.

Actually, with the infrequency of the group that I ran the campaign for first getting together to game, it should be rather easy for me to do this. This group is also a lot smaller than the other one. They have been told that all the extra characters that are in the first group will not be available to them. This means that they will only have the orignal 6 characters to choose from. If they get a couple of more people, then they would have the other two added to the original tournament 6. Basically everyone from when I first ran it with the exception of the mage Veda and the fighting monk.

I will also be reigning in what is done on various electronic devices and other non gaming stuff while we are playing. This has seemed to gotten to be the norm at the original group and has lead some of the people there to not really enjoy the sessions. As has been said, the first group has become "broken" due to it being more for just socializing as opposed for gaming. For more specifics, I can PM back to those that have questions.

Itching to get a game session in.

cplmac — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:06:24 GMT

It has been so frustrating in that it seems that with our large group, there seems to always be something that keeps us from being able to meet and game. I will admit that with my duties at the fire department, my availability has been restricted the past couple of months, but as the DM, when I was able to run a session, either many folks weren't able to attend or the folks that host our game sessions weren't available. This is why that when we have been able to have a game session this year, I would run a couple of the party characters as NPCs just so that we could get some gaming in. Luckily, one of the members has a daughter that is able to sit in and run a character of a missing player when we need as well.

With such a large group, this problem is sort of to be expected. Just didn't think that it would be as bad as it has this year. We are hopefull that come November, we will be able to get back to a more regular gaming schedule. I like to try and have 2 sessions a month (approximately every other Saturday). At one point, we had 14 people in the group. We are now down to 11, and then have the one player's daughter as a backup for a missing player. Myself and the other 2 members that have run games for the group have discussed it and are in agreement that we will not add any more members/characters to our games. We would be willing to have the other 3 people back, but of them, only one really seems as a posibility now.

When we finally get to have our next game session, the party is in for some "fun". There will be a major confrontation that has a huge impact on one of the characters and could possibly be fairly large for another. When the session takes place, I will post the campaign log for it.

Unforseen life happenings

cplmac — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:17:37 GMT

Just wanted to put a quick post to appologize for it being a while since that last Search for the Drow post. We have run into the problem of life getting in the way of gaming. A couple of folks have had some medical issues as well as the one couple that are expecting a new baby to arrive within the next couple of weeks. Also, our game site hosts have a 3 week event that they attend each year and from the start of our group, we have allowed for them to keep attending this. Since these events include some of the orignial/core players of our group, we have decided to allow for everything to get finish and then pick up where we left off.

As we are able to, those of us that are available have gotten together to play board games. We also have another member that has started a Vietnam mini game. I am looking to be playing a character(s) in it.

In the meantime, I look forward to reading the adventures of your groups on here while my game is temporarily on hold.

Now what do we do?

cplmac — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:12:35 GMT

As Dunil makes sure everything useful, in her mind, is collected up, Weslocke finds out what information he can from the new lady. Kylee was with a small group of monks that were heading to Bissel to get information there. As they traveled, they came across three ladys needing help. Stopping to assist, they were surprised when the ladies became the ghoul hags and immediately paralyed 3 of the 4 male monks. This allowed them to easily deal with the remaining male and the lone lady. Paralyzing both of them, they then called out and 8 ogres appeared to collect the 5 of them. As they left the road and traveled through the forest, one of the hags makes some sounds again and an ogre comes over with one of the males. Next thing Kylee knows, the 3 ghoul hags devour the paralyed monk right there. Resuming travel through the woods, they eventually come to a large clearing that is surrounded by trees that sort of resemble a wall. Kylee finds herself placed on the ground and then the hags start to speak together. When she is able to move once again, Kylee finds that she has been trapped inside some type of invisible cage. The ogres take the other 3 male monks inside a huge cave entrance. One by one, the ghoul hags go in and after a short time come back out. Afterwards, the one that seems to give the orders comes over to where Kylee is confined and in a rough common says, "The ones your walked with were very tasty. Oh, don't worry, we only eat males. You my dear will fetch us a nice purchase from the Dark Elves at the market." She trys to use her martial arts fighting to escape, but nothing is able to penetrate her unseen cage. Eventually, as night falls, Kylee sleeps when she can no longer keep herself awake. She startles awake and finds that it is again day. The ghoul hags are arranging the ogres with 4 along each side of the clearing. She then sees an Fire Giant turn from one of the hags and go inside the cave entrance. Now she knows why the entrance is so huge. Next the hag that had been with the fire giant comes over to Kylee's prison and takes out a scroll. After speaking, the scroll disappears and suddenly now Kylee can't even hear her own voice. A little while later, a party of adventurers enters the clearing.

With the battle taking place, they find that it is now growing dark. Eventhough they want to go after the hag that fled into the cave, it is decided that they should wait until morning to do so. Arocken finds a suitable spot for them to make camp that will allow for them to not be right next to the cave that the hag could come out of. The first and second watches go by with out a hitch. About halfway through the third watch, Veda hears a noise. He lets Benedict know and begins to wake the fighters first. Readying his shield and magical mace, Benedict goes to investigate in the direction that Veda indicated.

As he comes to the edge of the light from their camp fire, Benedict catches a glimsp of something move to hide behind a large shrub. He goes back and seeing that Kylee is awake and being able to see in the dark, since she is a half-elf, tells her. Kylee goes over and is able to make out the shape of what looks to be the same as the ghoul hag. She comes back and imparts this knowledge to Weslocke and the rest of them. Weslocke then goes over and with his elven vision is able to see that the creature is preparing something. He goes back and lets the rest know that it definately knows that they are there. He also agrees that it is the remaining ghoul hag that has tracked them down and most likely is deciding on how to attack them.

Figuring the he can cast from the air and be out of the hag's reach, Hockerbrecht uses the flying ability of his sword and floats up 10 feet in the air. Dunil moves around, but keeps her distance since she doesn't want a repeat of their last encounter. Benedict stands waiting to help slow it if it charges the party. Weslocke realizes that the hag is casting and tries to counter with a magic missile attack. The missiles hit the hag just seconds after several small dancing lights appear on the opposite side of the party's camp. It almost looks like the light from about 5 or so torches.

The ghoul hag steps out from behind it's cover and takes a few steps toward the camp. It casts another spell and Cathartic suddenly feels weaker than she had. Kylee turns toward the dancing lights and casts dispell magic and instantly the lights are gone. Knowing that it would get there after the hag cast, Weslocke waits before casting his spell. Flemin rushes forward and attacks the hag with a good swing of his axe and does a good amount of damage. Though weakened from the hag's spell, Cathartic takes out her glowing holy symbol and with a prayer to Pelor, the hag's eyes grow wide and it shrieks in terror before turning and fleeing away. Surprised, Flemin takes another quick swing and does some more damage as the hags leaves. As it comes running past, Dunil tries to lunge out and catch the hag in the back, but it was just barely out of her reach. Now the rest of the party sees 5 missiles work their way around Dunil and slam into the back of the fleeing hag. With it last shriek, it falls to the ground dead from another magic missile attack of Weslockes. Dunil checks but is not surprised to find that the hag was not carrying anything useful. Of course, now the sun is starting to just peek over the horizon.

With morning coming, everyone takes care of their daily preparations. It is decided that even though they killed the remaining ghoul hag, they still wanted to check out the cave. They make their way back and enter. About 150 yards in there is a large room on the left side that is empty and the passage keeps going. They continue along until they come to a "Y" (yes I couldn't resist, since it kept driving them crazy in the actual Lost Caverns module). Now, when they were in the Lost Caverns they had always went right first, Flemin starts down that passage, not paying attention to the discussion that decided to go to the left first since the air coming from that direction was warmer. Luckily, Flemin didn't travel that far by the time he realizes that noone is behind him. He doubles back and goes down the left passage catching up with the rest of them.

As they travel the left passage, it is noticed by all that the floor slopes downward. It also grows warmer the further they go. Eventually, they get to the point where everyone is extremely hot and knowing that if they continue, they would start going through water fast and don't have that large of a supply with them. Turning around they ascend back up the passage until the come to the "Y" again. Flemin is sure to point out that if the rest of them had followed him, they wouldn't have just wasted a lot of walking to nowhere. They travel along and come to a set of stairs that lead down. Not being able to see the end of the steps, even with the infravision of some of the party, they decide to pause at each 100 steps. Finally reaching the bottom at 500, they are wondering where they are. Concentrating for a moment, Flemin tells them that they are about a far deep as the level of the upper section of the Lost Cavern, but is not sure if they are nearby or in which direction they may be..

A new member

cplmac — Mon, 02 May 2011 03:24:46 GMT

We begin with the party being at the Abbey of Pelor at Bissel. The head Abbot had asked Cathartic and Benedict to bring the entire party there. The party was given the evening meal before being warned. It has become known that the Margrave was actually planning on using Daouds Wondrous Lanthorn, Prison of Zagig, and the Demonicon of Iggwilv to help over throw his Grace, the March of Bissel. It appears to have been rather fortunate that the Drow managed to get ahold of the items. At least they didn't get into the hands of the Margrave. Now the race is on. The Margrave has sent out other groups to try and locate the Drow and reclaim the items. The Abbot didn't let the Margrave's troups know that party still has the Demonicon.

Originally the party was thinking of leaving the Demonicon at the Abbey for safe keeping. However, the Abbot told them that it was definately not staying there, so they would need to take it with them. They were given some more rations so that each of them has a total of 20 days of trail rations when they leave. For whatever reason, the Drow have not been seen anywhere near the city of Bissel. Much to the magic usuer's dismay, they didn't have any magic resources to tap from at the Abbey. Everything there is oriented toward the needs of the priests, clerics, and monks.

Having the opportunity to enjoy a nights sleep that doesn't require them to have watches set, they used the evening to prepare for their departure in the morning. Their plan was to go to the village of Gnomevale and see what other information they could gain from thier gnome friends. They knew that it would be a 3 day trip to reach Gnomevale. The first and second day and nights went by with no problems at all. On the third day, they had only been traveling for a couple of hours when Arocken notices that there had been a rather intense fight take place. Of the four types of footprints there, she only was able to identify both the ogre prints as well as those of human types. By the blood drops, there were at least a couple of combatants that got inured. Her best guess as to when it took place was probably sometime the previous evening. Weslocke asked her if she knew what direction they went afterwards. Arocken said that they only tracks that left from the battle went into the forest to the right side of the road. They decided that they should check this out, since they had encountered Ogres previously.

Arocken cautiously leads them into the forest. At first it was relatively easy to follow the trail. Then suddenly, it was almost as if whatever they were following had just vanished. However, since she is an accomplished tracker, Arocken was able to find the most miniscule trace of passage. As she topped the crest of a small hill, she stopped the group. They had found a lot of bones scattered about. The bones were not that old and had signs that they had be picked clean of everything by whatever had devoured this pour soul. Once the bones were gathered, Cathartic and Benedict prayed and blessed the remains. Weslocke took 4 of the teeth from the scull and then the bones were buried. They also noticed that it was getting denser and made it harder to get the wagon through, so they slowed their pace.

As they traveled along, they came to where the "path" that they were following emptied into a clearing that was surrounded by dense trees and had a cave entrance at the back right of the rectangular clearing. Inside the clearing were 8 Ogres, four down the left and four down the right sides. Halfway down the right side was a lone female in some sort of confinement. In the center of the clearing were 3 young ladies. Upon seeing the party entering the clearing, they asked that they be saved from the Ogres. The party jumps into action as if they had planned this all ahead of time.

Being right next to one of the Ogres, Ethelred starts attacking. Meanwhile, Benedict gives the group some immediate help with a Prayer spell and Cathartic starts to weave a Chant. Seeing the lady inside some type of magic confinement and that eventhough her mouth was moving, they couldn't hear anything she was saying, Weslocke tried to use a Dispel Magic on the spell effects around her, but it didn't work. As a couple of the Ogres moved towards the 3 ladies, Veda used a Sleep spell to stop them and figured that if the ladies were sleeping, that would take the attention away from them. However, when the spell only affected the Ogres, this was noted by both the clerics as well as the mages. After sending Magic Missile at an Ogre, Hockerbrecht then moves up the left side trees just like Dunil had done so on the right side. Their plan was to get behind the Ogres and gain the backstab advantage. Mean while, Flemin closes in with his axe and Arocken hangs back and uses her bow.

They concentrate their efforts on the 4 Ogres that are not sleeping. Weslocke switches and pulls out his sword so that he will eventually be able to let dance. Just as they are thinking that things are going well, they can hear that something large is going to be coming out of the cave. The last Ogre on the left side moves over by one of the ladies and Hockerbrecht is there to intervene. He is able to finish of the Ogre, but then the party get another surprise. The ladie turns into a creature that mostly resembles a Green Hag, but something isn't quite right. She then attacks Hockerbrecht, dishing out some damage and paralyzing him where he stands. At this point, a Fire Giant emerges from the cave.

Upon seeing this, Dunil employs her skills as a 10th level thief and moves at another one of the "Hags" to backstab. Her attack is a success and does a substantial amount of damage, but the Hag turns and attacks successfully as well. Now Dunil is paralyzed in place too.

The Fire Giant heads straight up to the front of the clearing where there are several members of the party going after a lone Ogre. Seeing the thieves get paralyzed, Benedict pulls out his holy symbol and with a powerful prayer to Pelor, he actually turns the "Hags". One of them turns and runs into the cave, while the other two pickup the 2 paralyzed thieves as they turn to leave. This allowed Weslocke to place a Web spell on the entrance to the cave. Veda then ads a Grease spell to the ground in front of the entrance. Meanwhile the rest of the party is working on the Fire Giant, as they have dispatched the last Ogre.

As the others fight the Fire Giant, Weslocke and Veda see one of the Hags pick up a piece of wood from a camp fire and reach out and set the web at the cave entrance on fire. It then drops the wood onto the grease to burn it off as well, so that the other 2 Hags can escape into the tunnel. Veda uses his Web spell and as luck would have it, the Hags are able to avoid the webs effect, however, Dunil and Hockerbrecht are caught in the web and now the Hags don't have controll over them and are trying to pull them from the webs. Weslocke then sends his Ice Storm spell at the Hags and with the major damage that it causes, kills those 2 creatures.

Meanwhile, as the fight with the Fire Giant continues, Flemin decides that enough is enough. He steps froward and with a mighty swing, he brings the Fire Giant down. Of course, with the death of those Hags, both Dunil and Hockerbrecht are now able to move. They also notice that the lady that was confined is now free and they can hear what she is saying.

Her name is Kylee. She is a fighting monk. Her small group of monks that were headed for Bissel to collect some information was attacked by the Ghoul Hags. The other members of her group were devoured by the Ghoul Hags and the Ogres. She was being kept to use for trading with the Drow.

The Party Members

cplmac — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:58:29 GMT

As promised previously, here are the characters for Tsojcanth: Search for the Drow.

Weslocke: Elf mage 9 / fighter 6. He is the party's leader.

Flemin: Dwarf fighter 7. Although next to the shortest member, he is the physically strongest.

Arocken: Human ranger 7. She is the party's guide through the wilderness.

Benedict: Human cleric 7. He has been the all around cleric; healing and fighting/support.

Hockerbrecht: Half Elf fighter 5 / mage 5 / thief 6. He is the party "Jack of all trades."

Dunil: Halfling thief 10. She is the party's "financial advisor."

Cathartic: Human cleric 8. He/She was able to keep the Drow from getting 2 of the artifacts.

Ethelrede: Human fighter 8. She is the party's most seasoned fighter.

Veda: Human mage 8. He/She is the classical party mage.

Name TBD: Half Elf fighting monk 5. She will be joining the party when we start.

Yes folks, that is a total of 10 players. Unfortunately, one of our members will be tied up for awhile with their spouse going in for surgery, so we will start with the characters taking care of preparations before setting out to find the Drow and retrieve the stolen artifact. As I get to talk with the players, I will post what they have their characters doing before the party sets out from Bissel to search for the Drow.

Of course, with the characters being higher in levels now, we will have to have a lot stronger encounters for them to deal with. Not just creature wise, but also having to figure things out and utillizing their proficencies as well. Let's see if all the characters survive the adventure again this time. Not that I am specifically trying to kill them off, but adventuring off of the beaten path shouldn't be a walk in the park either.

Tsojcanth: Search for the Drow

cplmac — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 19:33:32 GMT

Ok folks, the other members of our tabletop game group are chomping at the bit to get back to my 2E D&D game. Since I have gotten the opportunity to play a character in both another DM's 2E as well as another GM's Conspiracy X game, I have told them to give me a couple of months to finish getting things together to kick of the next game. I hope to have concluded my online "Destiny of Kings" game that I have been running in the Chat by the time this starts. All of the original 9 characters will be returning as well as a new 10th character.

The party now has to find the Drow's stronghold to retrieve artifact that was taken from them. The biggest problem they face is that nobody knows where the Drow have made their home. The one thing that they do know is that they are going to have to travel areas of their map that have no roads shown on it. As before, when we start up, I will make a blog entry to allow those of you that were following the party's progress to be able to continue to do so. Watch for another entry in which I will list all the characters that will be in the game.

A new game

cplmac — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:46:24 GMT

As we have come to the conclusion of our second 2E D&D game, we will be looking to start a new game sometime during the second half of October. This time we will be playing Conspiracy X. It will be GMed by Etarnon and will be interesting to see what unfolds in a non D&D world. At the present time, I am not sure if I will make a campaign log for my character or not. Also, speaking of character, I have no idea what type of a character I will be playing. I am excited to be able to get the chance to participate in another game that I am not running.

Work continues on the continuation to the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth game. Since we have had a couple of people decide that there was too much of a crowd, they have steped out of the gaming group. The down side to this is that I had to go back and redo all of my intended encounters that were based on the larger number of characters. Don't want to end up with a TPK on the first encounter.

A short cut from some new friends

cplmac — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:53:12 GMT

As we gathered for this game session, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Belsar has gained enough XP that he has now become a level 6 fighter. This will come in handy since it is the party's intent to push down the the illithid's underground city stronghold in an attempt to free all those that have been taken.

We set out with the intent on making our way to the illithid's city. From what we have seen and been told of the illithids, the people that they have taken captive probably don't have much time left. We can only hope that we reach them in time.

As we descend, we do come across a couple of illithids and some other creatures. It is obvious that the illithids are trying to capture the other creatures, so we immediately come to their aid. Using what has been learned from previous encounters with the illithids, Belsar tells the party that there needs to be multiple attackers on each of the 2 illithids. This way they didn't have an easy time of only having to fight/defend against a single opponent. This proves to be a good strategy, as these 2 illithids are disposed of rather quickly.

After the fight is over, the other creatures express their gratitude. Next thing we know is that there are many of these new creatures coming out of the rock. Unlike the gnomish type creatures, these new ones are more than happy to assist us. They even know where the people that we seek are being held. They are willing to get us as close as possible. We rest, heal and prepare, for we know that where they are taking us will put us right at a very large battle.

Once everyone is ready, our new friends do their thing and amazingly we are able to travel through the rock just like them. This allows for them to take us straight to where we need to be and will help give us somewhat of a surprise advantage. We come out into a cavern room and they give us directions on where to find the others. Wasting no time and not wanting to be discovered and lose our surprise advantage, we immediately move on.

The directions were really good and before we know it, we are at this large cavern where the captives are being held down in a lower cavern only accessable from this one. Of course we get attacked by several illithids. This is going to be a battle that decides if the party or the illithids prevail. eventhough there are many illithids, we don't split up and fight them singularly. We wanted to make sure that nobody was off by themselves and could possibly become lunch.

Having a score to settle with the illithids, Belsar attacks with a vengance. He skill as a higher level fighter than the rest is quickly realized, due to the hits and damage that he is dealing out. The best part is that none of the party are on the recieving end of one of Belsar's battleaxe strikes. Eventually, the illithids are disposed of and nobody has lost their brains, at least from the party.

Thinking that the fight was over, some of the party made their way down to where the captives are below. Just as they go below, that is when the magical attacks start. Now it gets harder. Even Belsar is having a rough time of it. Lots of tendrils come up from the cavern floor. Although each swing of his axe would take out 4 or 5 of the tendrils, there were always others to take their place. Next thing everyone knows, there is this large magical blast at what had come from a circle on the cavern floor. This gets rid of the tendrils, but there is another illithid that comes up from the circle. It attacks and many of those that didn't go down to help the captives gather to fight it. Next thing he knows, Belsar sees something that he has seen before. Coming up from the circle is that great white worm. Belsar can't do anything about it though, since he is fighting the illithid that had come from the circle. Luckily the magic users of the party are available and with the help of another, they are able to defeat this creature. Realizing that they need to destroy the circle to stop the illithids from being able to use it, they try several different attacks, but nothing seemed to be able to hit.it. Belsar steps up and makes a mighty swing with his war hammer. As the hammer strikes the circle, the head shatters into tiny pieces and Belsar is left standing there just holding the handle. The party's newest friends show up and help clean things up. They also say that they will take care of the circle, this way the party can get the captives back above ground.

Since finding the underground short cuts, we are able to lead everyone back to Milborne. They are welcomed as heros, with much partying taking place at the Inn. After the last battle, the party has decided that they need to take a well deserved break. The spellcasters have research that they want to do. The fighters are looking to have some time to train and learn more weapons. Belsar needs to make himself a good warhammer that won't break easily. (He doesn't know that the hammer shattered due to the circle device being a powerful magical device of the illithid's diety.) He also wants to look into being able to procure some better armor than what he currently has.

Postponed the next game session

cplmac — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:41:32 GMT

Sorry folks, but the DM of the Underdark Adventure has some stuff to take care of this Saturday, so we had to postpone our next game session. The party is preparing to push futher down into the underdark. Hopefully everyone's schedule will mesh and we can do this on the 19th.

Not really sure what happened, but Belsar is watching for that giant worm that appeared when they were fighting the illithids. Had a close one with the Ferret almost getting his brain ate like the Giant. At least now we know what and how those marks were made on the back of the giant's head. Belsar will be sure to mention that we will want to make sure that there are more than 1 person attacking any illithid, and wonders why the one he attacked alone didn't try to eat his brain as well. (remember, Belsar only has an Intelligence of 10. basically he knows weapon smithing and fighting.)

More info on the illithid encounter

cplmac — Fri, 21 May 2010 01:00:16 GMT

At the time where Belsar thinks that he was fighting some giant white wormlike creature, he was actually under mind controll from the one illithid. Yes, even I don't make a saving throw every now and then. When I failed that save, our DM hands me a note that reads, "You are obviously the best Dwarf fighter here. Attack the others and show that this is true." As luck would have it, the character of Rennek then came over to help fight the illithid. Now I didn't have to figure out which of the other 3 dwarves to attack, I just had to swing at Rennek.

Luckily, the first turn was a single attack turn for Belsar. It still did 7 points of damage. The next turn was 2 attacks and did a total of 14 more points of damage. The third turn was again a single attack and this time it did 9 points of damage. Fortunately, after that last attack, the illithid was far enough away that its controll over Belsar's mind ended. It did take awhile for his head to "clear" up, but the only thing he can remember is the image of that giant white wormlike creature.

The down side is that because of the various times that party members have managed to get hit by Belsar's battleaxe. The party members that saw a hit by Belsar on Rennek didn't think much other than it was a time that Belsar missed his mark and happened to hit the party member that was unlucky enough to be standing beside him.

I am curious to see what happens in the future. So far none of the characters have said anything to Belsar about the damage he inflicted on Rennek. Then, some of them may be thinking that Rennek kept getting into Belsar's swing. Rennek is the character that has the lowest intelligence in the whole group and they may have assumed that he wasn't watching where he was stepping.

Meeting the illithids

cplmac — Tue, 18 May 2010 22:38:59 GMT

Since it was getting close to sunset and the fact that it seems like usually our foes like to be more active at night, we figure that it would be best to wait until morning before checking out the giants cave. A watch is set and we make camp away from the cave entrance. I made a large camp fire that would burn all night. We also made a blockade at the cave entrance. We even soaked it with oil from a couple of oil flasks. This way, if something attacked from the cave, we can set the oil and blockade on fire and stop the attack.

I was woke up for the second watch along with Dengar and Blintz. The first watch was uneventful. About an hour into our watch, I notice movement out in the woods. Since there were about 10 of them, Dengar and I decide to wake the rest of the party. As they all get up, the other group comes into view. There are 7 Hobgoblins with 2 prisoners. The hobgoblins have a blank look on their face. As our party attacks, they seem to pay no attention to the damage being done to them.

Since they are headed for the cave entrance, I take out my light crossbow and send a flaming quarrel at the oil and blockade. The oil burst into flame and caught several of the hobgoblins. Unfortunately, it also hit one of the captives too. Surprisingly, they just continued to go through the flames. Now the fire is going to be in the way of us chasing them down. Luckily, one of the hobgoblins threw a poor quality battle axe, so I rush up and grab it. I am then able to use it to move part of the burning blockade out of the road allowing the rest of the party to be able to enter the cave without taking any damage from the fire.

When I am able to get inside the cave, all but one of the hobgoblins have been killed. The big surprise was to find creatures from stories told by my parents when my brothers and sisters were small harns & frawls sitting around the hearth before being chased off to bed. I guess we were lucky that there was only 2 of them. Dengar and Ferret were attacking the one that had taken the shackles holding the 2 prisoners. Blintz, Corabell, Elixia, and Rennek had been dealing with the hobgoblins. To keep the other one busy, I attack the other illithid. The odd part is after I start my attack, I somehow ended up fighting a large white wormlike creature that appeared. Unfortunately, the worm was able to escape as quickly as it had appeared.

Appearently, Dengar was able to finally bring one of the illithids down, but the other one escaped with the prisoners. Rennek took the worst of the fight as he was really beat up, but Corabell was able to heal him easily. We decide to give chase and try to rescue those prisoners. We continue down some steps and eventually we are going along a corridor that only allows for two people to walk side by side. Eventually we came to this old wooden bridge. The problem is that it will not hold any of us, so we aren't sure how the illithid and the two prisoners got across it. Merrick starts moving around and he casts one of his spells. Next he is tossing stones and amazingly enough, the stones actually don't fall down into the crevice that the bridge goes across but instead are suspended in the air. Merrick calls for everyone to follow him and he leads us out onto the open air. As we are going across, suddenly the crevice and bridge disappear and there is nothing but solid rock again.

Unfortunately, we never do catchup to that illithid and the prisoners. We do however come across a set of wooden doors and two other corridors leading away from them. After Ferret check to make sure the doors weren't trapped, we entered and found that we had been here before. It is the room that we fought the Orc hag in. Ferret now knows where we are at and we then proceed towards the gnomelike creatures place. As we travel, Ferret tells of how this is all connected. Now there are 3 ways in to get to where we need to go to make our way down to the underground city.

Of course, once we got to the gnomelikes place, there was a lot of talking going on. I let the rest of them deal with that. We end up getting to rest here with the gnomelikes standing watch for us. At least their leader seem impressed that we were able to kill an illithid. I am told that they are going to provide us with some more of their healing mushrooms. This will help since it seems that we will have many battles to fight before we even get down to the underground city.

Ok, for those of you who are following this story, I will make another post that will tell of the whole battle with the illithids. Keep in mind that I couldn't do that above since it is supposed to only be what Belsar Hammerfell actually knows. Hopefully it will be a separate post, but if nobody makes a blog post in between this one and my next one, the system will just combine them together.

Giant Killers

cplmac — Tue, 04 May 2010 22:31:54 GMT

On day two of working on the repairs to my war hammer and the arrow heads for Merrick, I noticed an odd clanging sound after I stopped working. The local smithy said that is the bell to gather towns folk to help defend Thurmaster. With the work needing to cool, I went straight to the meeting at the front gate. Of course, we have to go and try to save some fishermen that are being attacked by some giants.

We arrive just in time to see two giants preparing to leave with a human body each. After we get their attention, the battle is joined. Although, Corabell had to go check on the person that one giant sent flying across the clearing and into a tree. When the first one was killed, the second one tried to escape, but luckily, he had taken some decent damage and wasn't moving at his normal speed. Good thing because that allowed both Dengar and me to chase it down. After Dengar delt the killing blow, I used my battle axe to sever the head off of the rest of the body. We figure this way we can show that we killed them. We drag the head back and find the party cleaning up after the battle. By some stroke of luck, that human that the one giant has thrown is still alive. Lorien was in bad shape as well, so Elixia helped him back, while Ferret and Corabell brought the fisherman back. Dengar and me brought the heads back from both giants. I severed the other's head at the clearing.

Upon arriving at the gates, Dengar had the person in charge brought to show our prize. Wow, you would have thought that we were kings. There were plenty of kids looking at the giants heads up on posts. Dengar then got the Captain of the guard to go to the crooked store keepers place. After some talking, somehow Dengar ended up owning the store. Ultimately, it was donated to the church. They have agreed to take any metal that will not be used over to the smithy. Probably be to much to hope that I can manage to get enough metal over to the smithy and be able to get some better armor. Needing to finish the repairs to my war hammer and making the arrow heads, I head over to forge while the others go to the Inn.

The next morning, with war hammer fixed and the arrow heads made, I head over to the inn to meet up with the rest of the group. After eating, I give the 12 arrow heads to Merrick. By chance of luck, Lorien is a fletcher and is able to make 12 full arrows for him. This is good to know that we can help supply ourselves with weapons if need be. It is decided that we should go back to where the fishermen were attacked and see about tracking down their lair.

Having Dengar along, we are able to find the lair. As we were finishing up burying the bones of some of the giants victims, two giants appear at the entrance. One comes charging up. Luckily we are able to get a lot of people on it and kill it. Strangely enough, the other one just stood there. We get up and it takes hardly nothing to drop the second one. After the second one went down, I hear a weird slurpping sound. We find a circular hole in the back of the head of the second giant. I am not so sure that we want to be going to far into the giants cave. We will need to keep many eyes a watching to make sure that there is nothing able to get a surprise attack on any of the group.

We get to surprise the Undead for once

cplmac — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:56:37 GMT

After resting, we go back to Milborne, We get there late and arrange for rooms for the night. The next day, I looked for some better armor to purchase, but there is none to be found. We then set out for Thurmaster, but have to leave Corabell at the inn. She seemed to be in some type of trance. The Barkeep was paid to take care of her until we returned. As we set out, Blintz, Rennek, Tristiana, Dengar, and Godric are nowhere to be found. Hopefully the 5 of them have set out for Thurmaster earlier in the morning. Ferret, Lorien, Neravin, Merrick, Elixia, Juniata and myself decide to take the "hidden" passage from Milborne to the Broken Spire Keep, since it shortens travel time. As we come out a different way, we find some undead at the grounds in front of the entrance to the Keep. For once, we get to surprise the zombies. We attack, but the surprise is on us when we discover that these undead are not zombies. I moved up to attack one, but it got to land the first strike and the next thing I know it is dead and there stands Ferret and Neravin. Appearently, I was paralyzed by the creatures attack and Neravin was able to mobilize me again.

Turning arround, I see a black mass and a ghostly knight fighting some of the others. As Neravin and Elixia try to make their way over, they fall in one of the many holes that we had uncovered. Guess we didn't think about the folks that couldn't see in the dark. Although Neravin fell into one while trying to help Elixia out. Not wanting to leave them in the holes, I stop and get them out. Good thing that I carry those ropes with us. By the time I have collected the ropes, I find that I am on the Keep side of a massive wall of ice. After a while, I can see a small spot where a hole has started to melt it's way through the wall. Figuring to help break through, I take my war hammer and strike the ice wall.

Well, that was a big mistake. As the war hammer hit the ice wall, the head of it broke completely off of the handle. Hmm, now I need to find a working forge to repair it. Maybe the one in the keep will work. As I waited, the other folks were able to eventually get over to the keep side of the ice wall. We decide to spend the night in the keep, after making a thorough check. We did find the the crypts of the former family had been opened and many bones scattered about. I stood watch at the entrance of the crypt room while Juniata set about putting the bones back. Afterword, I was not happy to find that the forge had be changed into a kitchen. There will be alot of work needed to get it back into working order. Maybe the local smithy at Thurmaster will let me use his forge to repair my war hammer.

The next morning we set out for Thurmaster and are surprised to find that Drizzler, his nephew and Toster have set out with others to track down a giant. We saw the giant's footprints while on the way here. Most likely, we will probably need to go and take care of this giant. Would be a nice change from fighting undead. We first go the local store to obtain supplies and find the the guy is nothing more than a crook. Everything that he has there is not even as good as the stuff that all those orcs had. He tried to pass off a candle on a stick with a knife tied to the end as a torch. Good thing Dengar wasn't there, or quite a problem could of arose, though I told him that he is lucky we don't have him tossed in jail for his actions.

After leaving the "store", we went to the local smithy. He was a litlle hesitant at letting me use the forge, but when I told him I was just looking to cut down on the amount of time it would take to get the hammer fixed and still pay, he was good with it then. With me helping, it will also take less time to make the arrowheads for Merrick. Hopefully the rest of the party can get things gathered while I stay here and work at the forge. If any of them stop in to check on the progress here, I will mention that we should check in with the local lord and see what can be found out about the giant. Also, if there is another place to obtain actual usable supplies other than that crooks place.

More Trolls

cplmac — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:35:51 GMT

Well, as luck would have it, we managed to not get hit very often in the last battle with the trolls. We seem to be getting better at fighting as a group and are getting better at fighting in general. With the minimal damage taken, Corabell and Neravin were able to heal up the party and still had some healing spells left for later.

Being healed and not having used that many supplies, we decide to go check out the room that Lorien put the webs at the entrance. We were surprise to see a troll come charging at us from the other side of the web, but as soon as it hit the web, that is where is stayed. Since it couldn't do much, the troll was dispatched relatively quickly. The web and troll were doused with oil and it was then set ablaze. Some extra oil was used to allow for some to flow down into the cave to take care of any other trolls that were waiting.

Now thinking that we only had one other cave to clear, imagine our surprise to find that what we thought was another way out of this area is actually a fourth cave. This worried us for a bit, but luckily it was empty. That leave's the third cave as the only one we haven't cleared. We move up to where what is inside can be seen, and although there are only 3 trolls, they are not going to be easy to defeat.

What caught our attention first was the huge two-headed troll. This one was like the size of four regular trolls. There was one regular troll that I wasn't that worried about. The third and final troll, while being a regular troll was not to be taken lightly. It was obvious by it's "attire" that this one was a shaman. I will never be glad to have to fight spell casters. Good thing that Lorien, Merrick, Corabell, and Neravin are with us. We come up with a quick fighting plan. Elixia and Neravin go over to keep the regular troll busy and hopefully can defeat and burn it. Basically the rest of the party is going after the shaman. Ferret, Dengar, Blintz and Corabell go close in on the shaman. While the other three do as Ferret sneaks around the sides of the room, hiding in the shadows and gets behind the shaman to attack from the back. Merrick and Lorien are making ranged attacks from the entrance at the shaman. It was decided that I would go after the two-headed troll alone. We wanted to get rid of the shaman as fast as possible so as to limit the amount of magic that is thrown at us.

I move forward, but stop short of where the "twins" are so as to not give it an advantage. We size each other up, or I guess it sized me down. Then it made it's move. Being much smaller, I was able to dodge every attack it made. I then introduced him to the Axe of Hammerfell. It was rather surprised when it recieved a huge slash from the axe. That tended to just enrage it. Might need to rethink the idea of single handedly going after creatures that get four attacks. It's second go, one of the mangy heads manages to get a small bite in for some minor damage. The best part was the look on both faces when I made two more major hits with my axe. It was at this time that I noticed that each head was wearing some sort of crown. the one on the left had dwarven teeth incorporated into it and the one on the right looked like it had elven teeth in it. From checking out the crowns, I almost didn't get dodged out of the way of the troll's next set of attacks, but i just managed to escape them. Of course this put me out of position and my next attack misssed. At this time, I notice that Lorien has come up to this fight and as he passes by, flames shoot from his hands and hit the troll. Lorien then continued on back to where the bulk of the party was still fighting the shaman. The troll attacks again, but is hurting from the fire that Lorien hit it with, which allows me to easily dodge out of the way. Two more swings of my axe and the two-headed beast goes down. Luckily, Neravin and Elixia had taken care of the troll they were fighting and had fire ready. They were able to set the two-headed one ablaze since Dengar had thrown a couple of flasks of oil at old two heads while I was fighting. They then went over and helped finish off the shaman by setting it on fire as well.

Looking around, we are happy to find that we didn't loose anyone to fighting the battle. As we start to check out this cave, we do manage to find the dead, decomposing body of one of those gnome type creatures that sent us to deal with the trolls. As they had put it, "As a test to see if the party is strong enough to go further into the Underdark." We agree to take the body back to his people, even though they are rather rude. But I don't want to be fighting something that can pass into the cave walls. As we are about to leave, I notice a spot that has perfectly formed crystals. Ferret finds another. Unfortuanately, we don't have the right tools with us to acctually take the crystals back with us. At least we know where they're at, and can hire a gem cutter to come and harvest them for us. Merrick managed to find some treasure that we agreed we would split up once we were back out of the Garlstone Mine. We then head off to find the gnome types.

As we approach the area where we had met the gnomish creatures, they come out of the walls and of course their leader is there and says that they saw what we had done and a glad to be rid of the trolls. I step forward and said, "Now what was this about our party not being strong enough to go after the trolls?" At this point, Dengar took over the talking and I just let the rest of them take care of that. As we are getting ready to leave, I find that we have been given a map by the gnomish ones as how to get through to where there is appearently a rather large underground city. There are lots of obsticles listed that include many creatures that will need to be defeated. It is going to take some time to get down there. We can only hope that we will find the ones that we seek still alive when we are finally able to get into that underground city.

We then decide that it would be best for us to go back to town and get supplies and rest up before decending further into the Underdark. If I can manage to have enough funds, I hope to be able to obtain some better armor than what I am currently wearing. Anything that will make it harder for creatures to hit me is always a good thing.

The Retreat (Escape)

cplmac — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:45:19 GMT

Being barely conscious enough to think straight, I have managed to get the party to flee from this area. With myself and a couple of the other heavy fighters being badly beat up, there would have been no way that we would have survived another fight with Trolls. It did take a little convincing to get them going, but eventually even Corabell agreed to leave. When I turned to lead the party out, I realize that Blintz, Tristiana, Rennek, Juniata, and Godric have already gone. Hopefully, Blintz and Rennek will be able to lead them back out of the Mines. They are dwarves after all.

Using my dwarven senses and abilities, I am able to lead the rest of the party back up to the entrance of the Mines. Still, it would have been alot easier if Ferret was with us. It's like he knows every cave and mine as if he has lived there all his life. Since the Trolls decided to not give chase, once outside the mines, we set up camp and got some much needed rest. Lorien took this time to check out some little carved house thing he found. He spoke some weird word and damned if that thing didn't turn into an actual little cottage. Don't think I will be going inside it though. The Gods must have took pity on us, for the night passed with no attacks. The next morning, we are sitting around the fire eating and we start hearing a weird noise again. Next thing ya know, here comes Corabell, Merrick, and Lorien running out of that cottage. Lorien just made it before the thing turned back into a little carving again.

We decide to head back to Milborne and get some supplies and see what type of news we can find. Well of course by the time we get there, it is about dinner time, so we head over to the Inn. As expected, we find Grizzler sitting at his usual table with several empty mugs. Eventhough he looks at all races other than dwarves as being inferior, Grizzler does give Dengar the same respect as dwarves. Good thing Dengar beat him in that drinking challenge when we first met. His nephew, Snagger, did make it back after we rescued him from the Orcs. Snagger is over at another town trying to get some fighters to come help clean out the Underdark of the Mines. It seems like it was a good thing that we defeated the Orcs, since they were causing problems at the oil fields. At least we have done something, since we still can't seem to find this Jolenth girl. As we are sitting with Grizzler, in walks Ferret.

The next morning while Lorien and Merrick are identifying some of the items that we know are magical, the rest of us do some supply shopping. We were able to obtain 30 flasks of oil that will come in handy while fighting the Trolls. I am also able to unload a couple of really poor battle axes that I took from the Orcs to the town blacksmith. He gave me a gold coin for each. I told him that he could melt them down and make some farm tools out of the metal. Unfortunately, Corabell wasn't able to find some more healing potions. Good thing that the spell casters are getting to relearn their spells.

We spend 2 days a Milborne and then head back up to the mine, since it is the only lead that we really have. This time we make our way back to the Troll's caves having all the spellcasters ready with spells and the fighters are healed up and ready to go. The cave on the right has the most "talking" coming from it. Ferret goes down to check things out. Next thing you know, there is a loud roar and here comes Ferret running back towards us.

Yep, 6 Trolls, and one of them is huge. Dengar starts putting oil on the floor while I take up a postion on the far side of the passage. This way when the oil is lit, the only way without getting burnt is for the Trolls to come by me. Being smart, Dengar waits until the Trolls were standing on the oil before he set it on fire. The middle cave had some "talking" coming from it also, so Lorien goes and puts a big spider web looking thing at it's entrance. This way nothing should come from behind and attack us.

Not that it was easy, and one almost got away, but we were able to fight better by having the fire wall. After the one that I was fighting finally went down, I had to climb around between it and the cave wall to get to where I could swing my battleaxe again. I slipped on some Troll blood and caught my boot on the dead troll on the floor and went right into the wall. The next thing I knew, all but one of the Trolls are dead. The one that wasn't dead was trying to get away, but was chased down and killed, while the rest of the party seemed to be keeping some distance from me.

Attacked from 2 sides

cplmac — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:47:11 GMT

Ok, We got 7 orcs and their dwarf captive, and there are 7 of us. We should have no problem, as Corabell attacks after paralyzing 3 of them with a spell. Then we hear the Ancient Orc Hag. She steps out along with 4 other orcs. Hmm, 12 against 7, and they have us from 2 different sides. This isn't going to be good, but we have no choice as the orcs are on top of us in no time. At least only 9 of them can move, thanks to Corabells spell. Yep, just as suspected, that orc Hag has spells. I am sure that everyone had that tingling in the back of their mind. Luckily, everyone except Elixia was able to shrug it off. She dropped her flail and seemed pretty out of it. Well, there's no withdrawing now, so we begin to defend ourselves.

It is evident that these orcs are more experienced at fighting. They are able to dodge our blows, unlike alot of the previous orcs we have fought. Fortunately, I have 2 healing potions left, just in case. As the battle continued, there was another surprise. Finally, this time it is to our advantage.

As luck would have it, Tristiana, Rennek, and Blintz come into the cavern from the passage that leads out to the surface. They have 2 other humans with them. They join in the battle. Tristiana starts doing her bard stuff, and interesting enough, the one lady human start to do the same. Now with 3 more fighters and the help of 2 bards, the tide begins to turn. Slowly, we begin to drop orcs. The Hag is not happy to see her subjects being slaughtered and start chanting. It starts to get harder to hit the orcs again, but at least they aren't hitting us any more than usual. Still, Ferret the wayfinder has not shown back up again. I hope that nothing has happened to him. I have taken enough damage that I have to down one of my healing potions, since I am not near any of the healers in our party.

We get their numbers down and finally are able to finish off the last few of the orcs. The Hag is furious with us. That is the least of her worries as she is being attacked. Neravin steps up to the Hag and with a savage swing of her scimitar, she finishes off the Hag. The others start to check the bodies for treasure and what not. I look at their weapons. As I suspected, there is mostly just junk. I do manage to find a rather interesting spear though. It has markings on it that resemble the markings that were on that water elemental ring that we got off of the goblins about a month ago. Upon checking with Corabell, Neravin, Lorien, and Merrick, they confirm that the markings are the same as the ones on that ring. Merrick uses a detect magic spell on several things, and as I suspected, the spear is a magically enhanced weapon. Until I know what it actually does and is, I don't want to use it. Don't want to be using some cursed weapon. Besides, I am not trained in using a spear. With such congested battle areas, it has been bad enough that some party members have gotten hit by others. This is to include my own Battle axe on a few occaisions.

Although the party is pretty well beat up, we went down the passage that Elixia had come from when she joined our battle. Eventually we come to a place with a large chest. After checking it, Merrick pronounced it to be trap free. He then gets it unlocked. As he opened it, the trap went off. I was standing just out of the range of the blast. Luckily, no one got seriously injured. Inside the chest, we found Elixia's and the other Dwarf's gear, along with a large amount of treasure. We made camp, split the treasure, and rested here. A new watch roster was made since we now had a paladin, another bard, and another ranger. Fortunately, the time passed without surprises. We were then able to pretty much heal up the party before moving on.

We continued on until we came upon some creatures that seem to resemble gnomes, but these creatures are able to pass right into the rock walls of the passage way. Their leader says they can not let us pass further into the Underdark, because we are not strong enough. Now the negotiations begin. Next thing that I notice is Lorien is making his way to the front. When he goes to proceed on, the passage gets blocks by several of the gnome types. The leader says that there is some trolls in a cave that are a nuisance to them. If we can defeat the trolls, they will then know that we are strong enough to continue further down.

As I was thinking that we were going to be going to town and resupply after being showed where to find the Trolls, the next thing I know, we are being told that the trolls cave is down the passage that we have been following with some of those gnomes. We continued along and came to another cavern room. From it there is entrances to what looks to be 3 large rooms as well as another passage leading out. There was 4 trolls standing outside the rooms. One goes in each room on the sides and the other two into the one staright forward. Appearently, they went to warn the others, and came back out to fight us.

We used that time to prepare. There were a couple of torches lit and Lorien took the top off of his lantern so that he and Merrick could use it to set arrows ablaze before they shot them. This way we could be sure to keep them from getting back up and attacking, since only fire can totally kill a troll. Good thing that I cleaned and sharpened up the battle axe when we rested. Oh, what a battle.

Eventhough there are only four of them, trolls are not the easiest things to fight. Especially since they are able to regenrate as they continue to fight. I ended up paired against one with Godric, our new ranger. Not being used to fighting them, it took us a bit to get used to their fighting style. This however allowed for the trolls to get some decent hits on us. At one point, I had to use my last healing potion. As the troll that Godric and I were fighting went down, Juniata (the new bard) was able to step up and hit it with the torch and set it ablaze, thereby killing it. We were able to then go help get the other trolls down so that they could be burned. We now have those 4 trolls dead, and can hear noise coming from all 3 of those rooms. As most of the others are, I too am in pretty bad shape after fighting the 4 trolls. We need to get out of here before any more come out. Maybe we will be lucky and can get away. We are needing to go heal and resupply. It appears that those gnome types knew what they were talking about.

And the party has grown

cplmac — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:44:02 GMT

Belsar will be updating his campaign journal on Wednesday. We had some new folks join the group and here is the party breakdown:

Me = Belsar Hammerfell, Dwarf fighter

Etarnon = Dengar, Human ranger

Ade = Blintz, Dwarf fighter

Fezi = Fjalar "Ferret", Dwarf wayfinder

Ben = Lorien, Elf mage

Colleen = Neravin, Half-elf Druid

Aeval = Corabell, Elf cleric

Harley = Merrick, Half-elf mage/thief

Chrissy = Tristiana, Half-elf bard

Anthony = Rennek, Dwarf fighter

Jen = Elixia, Human paladin

Arron = Godric, Human ranger

Katie = Juniata, Human bard

Starwolf013 = DM for this game

For my Tsojcanth game, Starwolf plays a character while I am the DM. The two of us have stated that we will not take any more characters into the group going forward. In the case of my game, Jen will be going to school this fall and has said to not make a character for her, since she will most likely not be able to attend very much. We will, of course, make arrangements for any time that she would be able to be present at a game session. Also, with 4 more characters being added to my game, this will allow for the throwing of some really nasty creatures and demons at the party. Got to make it interesting for them and not a cake walk.

Way to many Orcs

cplmac — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:50:12 GMT

We get hit with another wave of Orcs. This group has a very large Orc riding on a large lizard. As we spread out and fight these ones, a couple more orcs show up to fill in where others had fallen. Another one shows up and it is evident that he is some type of a spell caster. Luckily, Lorien was free and able to get up to him and got a spell off first. Flames flew from Lorien's finger tips and struck the orc. It is always nice to hear an orc in pain.

The orcs were relatively easy to hit with my battle axe. What took some work was that blasted lizard. The bugger even managed to stomp on me once. The surprising part of this whole battle was that out of nowhere, we managed to gain another person. She at least wasn't shy in joining in on the battle.

It was a rather bloody battle. It got to the point that at one time when I went to bring my axe around, It slid from my grasp and went to the other side of the room. Luckily, when we had fought some orcs along a road, I had taken their battle axes. I was able to get one in good working condition and have been carrying it along as a backup weapon. That turned out to be a rather good decission on my part.

Once we finished off this group of orcs and the lizard, we got to talk with our new found friend. It seems that she is the last remaining member of the elven pilgrimage that go attacked. She says that all the others had been taken away and that she was the only one left in the room. Using my smithing skills, I was able to get the manicles off of her wrists. She is human, and was one of the guards of that pilgrimage. Appearently their group was overrun rather quickly.

Neravin tells us that she can hear more orcs talking down the corridor that the ones we were fighting kept coming from. It is at this time that we realize that Ferret, Blintz, Tristiana, and Rennek are missing. If Ferret tried to sneak around and come in from behind the orcs with the others, I hope that they are careful.

Since the other four aren't back yet, we cautiously move down towards the sound of the orc voices. We come to this large cavern that has a pool of water that covers about the back third of the cavern. We find there to be about 100 orc children in groups of 10 attended by an adult orc. The most noticable Orc is the ancient old one that come walking up from the edge of the water to stand in the middle of the room. She simply tells us to "Get Out".

Now Corabell gets into a debate with her. Now I don't know magic, but I am pretty sure that she would be able to throw some nasty spells at us. If I understood one of her answers, the elven pilgrims that we have been searching for have been eaten. It was shortly after that, she started getting agitated. Fearing a possible rush at Corabell, I stepped up to her right side, while Dengar stood to Corabell's left. I purposefully lifted my battleaxe up so that the ancient Orc could see that it had plenty of orc blood on the blade. The Ancient one was not pleased to see this and insisted that we leave.

Not liking the odds in this place, we manage to get Corabell to go back the way we came. Dengar and I withdrew backwards, so that we could keep an eye on everything in the room. Once we were down the passage way, we turned and followed back to the other room. We got back to the room and were debating on going down the passage that our new friend had come from. Wouldn't you know it, another group of orcs come out of it. There are 5 regular orcs, 1 large orc, and 1 orc that is like the other spell user that Lorien had went up against. The large orc had a captive. The dwarf was trying but not succeeding in escaping. We try to get them to give up the dwarf and tell them we will leave then. The large orc says no and start to move his dagger to slash the dwarf's throat. Just then, Corabell lets loose with a spell that paralyzes the large orc in place. Just like when patchy did the same thing to Dengar, Rennek, and myself. The problem is that she then yells, "Attack!" and runs forward. Now this wouldn't be so bad, except for the ancient orc is heard from the other passage behind us.

There is no way that we will be able to sustain a long battle. Whether she likes it or not, Corabell is going to have to do a fighting withdrawal with the rest of us. We either need a lot more help, or be higher in ability in order to continue through the Underdark. If we don't withdraw, most likely none of us will survive.

An Interesting Discovery

cplmac — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:50:03 GMT

We drag our captive along and make our way back to the first cabin we had come to. Since there is only one way into this area, it would be easier to defend. Also, since everyone was pretty well beat up, we decide to have the whole party go inside the cabin, but still set a watch roster. As the "night" passed, there were some visitors pass by the cabin searching for what they called "puny humans", but nobody gave the cabin a second look. We believe that it was Orcs that had been searching, due to people on watch at the times they passed by had heard the language of Orc being spoken.

After resting, the big debate starts. The question is if we should take the prisoner back to town first, or check out the other way out of the room that we defeated Patchy in. I let the more brainy ones of the party figure this out. As they debated, I found a note left by Ferret in Dwarven writing. He has slipped away and has gone to scout out that other passage. I let the others know of this. Some of them aren't really thrilled that he went off by himself and are worried that he may get hurt or killed. I tell them that he is marking his trail and the he should be fine. He is a Dwarven Wayfinder after all.

Since Ferret has went scouting, the decission is finally made to take the prisoner back to town. I like this idea, since we can be rid of her as well as get some supplies. Fortunately, the trip back to town is uneventful.

Again, things are more of politcal nature, so I leave things up to the more educated of the party. They were able to get some information out of the prisoner, with the help of the high cleric that had healed Corabell previously. An added bonus was that we were able to purchase 12 healing potions from him to take with us. As we were leaving the town church to head over to the Inn, Ferret comes walking up to the party.

At the Inn, we check out the map that he has made of the passage. Appearently it goes in different directions at times. Most of the passages would lead to a dead end. The one that didn't end, he stopped and came back to get the rest of us to continue down. We get healed up and the the spell casters replenish their spells and come the next morning, we're ready to check out that passage.

We continue down it and eventually come to a stone door. Getting ready for what may be waiting on the other side, we open it. It leads to another room. When nothing attacks, we cautiously enter it, only to realize that we have been in it previously. It is the bedroom that I had chased Patchy into when we were at Broken Spire Keep. Now we know how Patchy was able to get around so easily. The nice thing is now we have a way to get from the Keep to Milborne alot faster.

There was one passage that went off from the one leading to the Keep. We go back and head down it. Eventually we get to another room. This time it is occupied. Orcs again. My batlleaxe does well against them. Of course as luck would have it, when we get down to the end of the battle, a good block by an orc knocks my axe into Blintz. It does some damage, but with Blintz be a fighter, He doesn't go down like when Neravin got hit in the frenzy after taking the flying lady out of the air.

Strangely enough, a couple of the Orcs were riding on some lizard type creatures. We were able to take them out before they could go get help. We will have to proceed with caution. Hopefully we will find Jolenth and the pilgrims soon. That is provided that they are still alive.

Damn Groundhog Didn't Have to be Right

cplmac — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:48:23 GMT

Hmm, might have to make a trip up to Punxitawny (spelling?) and make stew out of Phil so that he stops seeing his shadow. Our tabletop group was supposed to get together last Saturday for a game session, but Mother Nature decided to drop the big snow storm out here. Many of the members had power outages, not to mention the problem with all that snow on the roads. If the weather cooperates, we are going to try for this Saturday, Feb. 13th. If we do get to game, I will get Belsar's journal entry updated as soon as possible for those of you who have been following this party's campaign.

Underdark Adventure: Standing against Patchy

cplmac — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:03:00 GMT

A check of the cabin again only gives up some bandaging supplies and several flasks of oil. We take it with us, figuring that it will come in handy later. Since we were at the end of this passage, we head back to where another passage went when we decided to check this way first.

As we go down the other direction, we again come across another cabin in here. As we are approaching it, a person comes out and is surprised to see us. He immediately starts calling for help, so naturally, we have to attack him. He does get some help from another person that comes out of the cabin. As this is going on, Ferret is able to move up along the wall and eventually sees someone with some zombies. In Dwarven language he imparts this information and I let the rest of the party know that we will eventually have more company to deal with. Since the others were doing well with the other two from the cabin, myself, Dengar, and Corabell go up to the passage that the Zombies will be coming from. The other two move forward to deal with the zombies and as I go to proceed, another person with flame red hair comes from another passage and over to where the rest of them are fighting. Good thing that I waited to see what happened, since the party was having a hard time dealing with Big Red (as we have dubbed him), I went to help with the large fighter. By the time we defeat Big Red, we find that Corabell and Dengar have delt with the other cleric and the zombies. We have come to find that Corabell has a tremendous effect upon the undead zombies. It is as if they are afraid of her. Since where the zombies and that other cleric were is another dead end, we proceed in the direction that Big Red came from. We follow the passage until it ends at a large room with a 30 foot high ceiling. As luck would have it, we find Patchy and 6 more zombies in here, as well as another person. The trick is that this other lady is floating 25 feet up in the air. Patchy tells us to leave and if we leave Lorien, Corabell, and Merrick behind, he will allow the rest of us to leave without harm. This not being an option, we spread out across the large cavern. This way we can keep Patchy from catching all of us with a spell at the same time.

The fighters advance against the 6 zombies and as we get ready to fight, Corabell makes her presence known. Amazingly, 2 of the zombies just disintegrate right where they are and 2 more start to retreat. One of the 2 remaining is in front of me and I make quick enough work of him and proceed forward to help Dengar who went straight after Patchy. Next thing we know, the floating lady starts slinging spells and Corabell goes down. Now the 2 zombies that had been fleeing turn back to attack again. Eventually we get to where Dengar, Rennek and I are fighting Patchy and Merrick, Neravin and Lorien are trying to take down the flying lady. Tristiana had been taken out of it from the begining by a spell from the lady which left Tristiana unable to sing and do her bard assistance. Blintz was dealing with the last remaining zombie. Suddenly fate turned against us.

The next thing you know, Dengar, Rennek, and myself are struck immobile by Patchy. Blintz was just finishing off the zombie while the other folks were keeping the floating lady busy. The look of satisfaction upon Patchy face as he got ready to finish off the three of us was rather unsettling. Good thing the 3 of us were immobile or it would have gave away the surprise. In the apparent turn of events in thier favor, Patchy and the lady had forgotten about Ferret who made his way around the wall in the shadows. He came up behind Patchy and with a massive surprise backstab attack. The look in Patchy's eyes went from satisfaction, to surprise, to absolute horror. A large pool of red started to form on the front of his robes and he fell forward, deader than a doornail. As the effect of his spells faded, there stood Ferret with a satisfied grin on his face.

We set our eyes upon the lady and are greeted with yet another surprise. She simply yells, "No! Rise! All of you and fight!" We then see the 4 zombies and Patchy's body get up and start to move to attack. It is evident that Patchy is now a zombie since he moves like the zombies. Dengar and Rennek go after zombie Patchy and I turn to help with the zombie that I had defeated earlier. After taking the zombie out again I change from my battle axe to the crossbow. We are now trying to get that lady out of the air.

Dengar tried to get her with a lasso, but missed on the first attempt. Once I am finally ready, I take good aim and am able to hit her with a quarrel that knocked her down quite a bit lower. This allowed Dengar a better chance with the rope and he was able to lasso her and pull her out of the air and hold her down. The rest of us were on her like a pack of wovles. Needless to say, we went after her with many weapons. As we got her down almost to nothing, she was told that she would not be killed if she would tell us where the pilgrims had been taken. She refused and started swinging her small weapon again.

I should have known that we had too many of us around her, trying to hit with weapons. As my battle axe come down with all my might, Neravin got bumped and her calf suddenly appears under the blade of my axe. There was no stopping it. It sliced into her severely, and with the damage she had already taken, that was enough to do her in. Luckily, Corabell was right on it, and stopped her bleeding quickly. Tristiana had a healing potion that was poured down Neravin's throat, and she was again with us. That was a close one.

We fanned out and after a thorough search of the large cavern, a secret door was found. It went to stairs that lead downward. We are agreed that we need to rest and heal before going down them. It is just a matter of wether we should do it here in the mines or go back to town and then come back. It will take us about half a day to get back to town and of course, then another half a day to get back. The one thing that all of us are happy about is the fact that Patchy has been taken out of the picture, along with his flying lady friend being captured.

Underdark Adventure: The Garlstone Mine

cplmac — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:27:29 GMT

We decide that it would be best to check the last couple of rooms that we had bypassed while chasing Patchy, as well as the tower that Merrick and Dengar had assaulted when we attacked the Keep. As several of them went up the tower, they saw that there was someone hanging from a distant tree. I said that I would go check it out. As I closed in on the tree, I could hear the person whimpering. Next, thing I know, the blasted ground gives way from out beneath me again. We are going to have to search this whole area for snares and pit traps. Yes, once again, I find myself in one of the 10 foot deep pits.

After voicing my displeasure to noone in general, since the rest of the party was back in the Keep, I notice a shadow fall over me and a voice says, "You look to be in a predicament." I answer with, "Well, what are you looking at?" A lady's voice says, "I seem to be doing better than you are at this time," and a femine hand is offered to me. Since the voice sounded rather familar, I took the offered assistance and was helped up out of the pit trap. Once up on ground level again, I was right in that the voice belonged to the lady druid that the party had met before.

She asked what happened that I got separated from them. I told her that I hadn't and had just come out of the Keep. She seemed surprised that I had survived entering it. She was even more surprised when I told her that the rest of the party was inside and still alive as well. Once we got everyone rounded up, she led us on a dizzying journey to where she stays in the woods. It was nice to not have to set a watch for the night. We also found out that she has some serious healing skills as well, though it came by way of eating the stew that was provided for the evening meal. It was nice to awake the next morning and find that our wounds had all been healed. Before leaving the next morning, some of the more brainy members talked with the Druid. She confirmed that the Keep is the ancestral home of Lord Palfrey, who had sent us to find what had happened to a group of Elf pilgrims that had failed to arrive the small western town.

We left the Druids home and made our way back to town. We had to tell Lord Palfrey that we had tracked the pilgrims to his family's ancestral home but lost their trail there. We were able to oust Patchy and his brigand friends from the Keep though. Lord Palfrey seemed awfully nervous about us being there, and said that he would rather that we not disturb the family crypts there. We told him that we didn't and do not intend to do so. With some negotiating, we were able to get Lord Palfrey to agree to us using the old Keep as a base to operate out of while "clearing" the Thornwood of evil, creature or otherwise.

We were surprised to find that the town's cleric was kidnapped. The only lead was that some local drunk supposedly saw something. We went over to the Inn and upon trying to get info from him, found he wouldn't talk unless someone got into a drinking match with him. Dengar stepped up and was matching him drink for drink. Before he got to drunk, Rennek and Ferret were able to get out of him that it was Patchy and more of his cronies. He also said that they headed north towards the Garlstone mine. After spending the night and preparing, we headed for the mine the next morning.

We arrived at the Garlstone Mine and instead of finding a falling down entrance, we see that it has been shored up and is in use. We make entrance, with Ferret leading up ahead. His Wayfinder abilities are akin to that of a Ranger in a wood. As we proceeded, we came under attack by archers. I took an arrow in the left shoulder, but it did minimal damage. We then had 2 swordsmen coming up at us. Dengar and myself advanced and were able to take them out while Merrick, Lorien, and Neravin took care of the archers. Ferret surprised thier counterpart of his and he and Corabell were trading misses. While Dengar went to help with the archers, I went to help with the Halfling thief. The look on his face was priceless as my battleaxe slice through his armor and skin, leaving a massive injury down across his chest. Not long afterwards, the battle was over, and we had taken hardly any damage. We searched the rest of the upper level of the mine, but found nothing. When we got to the ladder to the lower level, we encountered 2 people coming up. After dispatching them quickly, one of which was made fall the distance to the stone floor of the lower level, we made our way down the ladder.

Going the direction that would allow us to check a direction to be sure nothing would come up behind us later, we were a little surprised to find a wood cabin in the cave. Luckily Merrick saw movement in the window, so that we knew to not bypass it. With me standing to the left of the door, Dengar knocked on it to get them to open it. Three knocks later, it still hadn't been opened, so he just kicked it in and entered. As he went through the door, I caught the flash of steel coming down. Moving my battleaxe as quickly as possible, I was only able to block one of the swords. The other was able to make contact with Dengar. Continuing my swing, I hit home and delt one of the swordsmen a major injury. I entered and we continued the fight. At one point, Degar throws a lantern at one of them only to have it smash against the wall and catch it on fire. We no more than finish these two off and the doorknob to the other room starts turning. Again I get on the side of the door and another fighter steps through while in the process of putting on his armor. Big mistake. The battleaxe finds it mark again and down he goes. By this time, Lorien comes in with a bucket of water and puts the fire out. I search the body of the third guy and find a signet ring with the letter "J" on it. I will need to check with Corabell to see if it is from any of the people that we seek. As Dengar and I come out of the cabin, we find out that apparently, Ferret was having quite the fight for his life with a huge water snake of some sort. His exceptional strength came in handy and we are told that he was able to break its jaw and get free. Lorien, Neravin, and Corabell were then able to rescue him from the water, while Blintz and Merrick finished off the water snake.

Underdark Adventure

cplmac — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:55:03 GMT

As we press on, we find a room that has some fine furniture inside. It is apparent that nobody has been in the room for a very long time. Everything is covered with dust and there are no footprints to be seen. It was at this time that we realized that Tristiana was nowhere to be found. Somehow we had lost track of her in the fighting upstairs and outside of the Keep.

Suddenly, we all realize that there are footsteps coming down the stairs from above. Now this is surprising since we thought that we had killed everyone that was upstairs. As we watched to see what come charging at us from the the stairs, we were all relieved to see that it was just Ferret. He told us of how Tristiana had ran back to town and found him and told him about the Keep and what she knew of the battle. In her fight with one of the dogs, she had got bitten and not wanting to have the same thing happen to her as Corabell, she went to seek healing at town. We quickly filled in the rest of what took place after Tristiana left. I was glad to see our other dwarf fighter, especially if we were going to be taking on a magic user.

While Ferret was being brought up to date, Corabell had went down the hall and found a room with a statue of Pelor in it that had been greatly defiled. Though not a follower of Pelor, she knew that this was totally wrong and called us over. Arriving first, Dengar and Corabell enter the room to see what was in there. On each side of the room were huge piles of dead bodies. Some were just bones while the others were in varying states of decay. As they were looking, there was movement on both sides and some Zombies were seen to be climbing out from under the bodies.

As we were talking with Ferret, we hear Dengar call out that they were going to need some help in there. As Rennek, Blintz, Merrick, and I get up there, we are surprised to see that there are 3 Zombies on each side of the room. Dengar is pulling out his long sword and Corabell is holding out her holy symbol. We were all amazed to see the Zombies back away from Corabell. I wonder what other amazing feats our cleric will be able to do. With the Zombies being held back by Corabell, Dengar backed out of the room and helped Corabell back out also. The only trick was that as Corabell took a step toward the doorway, so did the Zombies. Seeing this, Dengar alerted us so that we were ready to deal with two of them at a time at the wide doorway to the room.

With Corabell out of the room and safely behind the rest of us, we battled the first two Zombies. It was a long enough battle with the close quarter fighting, but at least we managed to not hit ourselves during the close combat. It also helped that Merrick was firing arrows at the Zombies in the room while the fighters went hand to hand with the ones at the doorway. Eventually we were able to get the last Zombie to fall. As myself, Rennek, and Blintz were fighting the last Zombie, Dengar went and checked the next door down. Inside was another room that had two other rooms on each end of it. Not seeing anything worth while, he went to the next room. He was surprised to find a room that has all kinds of graves inside. After dealing with 6 Zombies, he shut the door not wanting to have anymore undead creatures coming at us from another direction.

Dengar then proceeds to the end of the hall to where the footprints in the dusty floor end. Looking in the door to the left, there are no footprints to be seen on the stairs. It is at this point that we finished off the last Zombie and find our ranger standing at the end of the hallway. He tells us that the tracks end there and that our friend with the eye patch did not go up the steps. This is where having 4 dwarves come in handy. The 4 of us immediately set about to checking the stone walls for a hidden doorway. Fortunately, Ferret found the hidden door and we opened it.

We found ourselves to be inside a rather large square room that had a carpet on the floor in the middle of the room. Of course we found Patchy, and 6 more of his Zombie creations. Corabell steps forward and holding out her holy symbol again keeps the Zombies at bay. Needless to say that Patchy was not happy to see this. As he started to speak some strange words, Merrick loosed a couple of arrows and managed to hit Patchy, which infuriated him even more. Now it was fighting time.

I went in and took on one of the closest Zombies, figuring that the rest of them would take a target of their own. I presented him with a good amount of damage right off. As luck would have it, he was able to dodge my second attack. Needing to get moving toward Patchy, I brought the battle axe around at the side of its' head. Dealing the Zombie a critical blow, I severed his head off right at the eyes, sending the top of his head flying.

By luck, Ferret had managed to get back to where Patchy was standing and start fighting him face to face. I was able to get back to Patchy also and started to help damage him. Now with to fighters in his face, Patchy decides that he needs to get away, so he turns and flees, not really sure what had taken place, but Ferret was actually about twice his size and wouldn't fit through the door that Patchy went to. I gave chase, for I was determined that he not get away from us again.

I charged through the doorway after him, and was just missed by the halbreds of a skeleton that was on each side of the door. Luckily, they were not expecting me to come charging through and got caught aiming at the wrong spot. Unfortunately, as I got to Patchy, he was able to dodge my attack and managed to hit me with a spell of some sort. Suddenly, I couldn't see anything. I swung the axe again, eventhough I couldn't see anything. I felt the axe hit and the sounds of bones hitting the stone floor comfirmed that I took out one of the skeletons.

Dengar entered the room and was able to figure out that it was a spell that was centered on me, so I moved back against the wall and stood still so that the darkness wasn't moving around on the party members that entered the room. By the time the spell wore off, Patchy was no where to be found and the room was being searched. We did manage to find some rather pricey jewelry items. One we believe is a family heirloom of the family that used to own this Keep. Just the 2 emeralds alone would bring a lot of money. At least we are starting to find some treasure. The only thing is that I am sure that we will probably try to find who it belongs too. Alas, that item would be a nice start to getting a forge going, but then it would depend on whether or not we can find someone to give a good price for it, provided we don't find the family it belongs too.

We need to rest and let the mage and cleric replenish thier spells. It has come apparent that we will need them when dealing with Patchy. Another thing that we are starting to get low on is arrows and bolts for the bows and crossbows. Another thing that is troubling is the fact that we haven't found those pilgrims or the girl, Jezebel or something like that.

Underdark Adventure

cplmac — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:20:22 GMT

This is the campaign journal of Belsar Hammerfell. He is a Dwarf fighter in the Underdark Adventure being DMed by Starwolf013 for our tabletop group while I work on the continuation of my "Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth" game.

He started out at level 1, just like all the other members of the party did. He is a dwarven weaponsmith. His family is looking to expand their area of manufacturing and be able to have more income for the growing size of the family. Belsar was chosen to go out and try to set up a forge and start producing weapons to sell, since he was the best of his brothers at crafting weapons.

He set out with the idea of having a forge up and running within a couple of weeks and being able to have 2 or 3 of his brothers come to help with the work at the family's second forge. What they were not counting on was the fact that it would be rather expensive to aquire a suitable building as well as the cost to send the raw materials aquired from the mountains to produce the weapons. When he sent word back to his family, they said that he would need to raise these funds himself, for they were unable to send any to help. It is this need that has thrown Belsar into the life of being an adventurer. He has no idea as to how long it will take to raise the needed starting funds to build a new forge, but has no choice.

Luckily for him, he was able to find a group of other new adventurers to join up with. He was even lucky enough to find that 2 other Dwarves from his home town were starting out on their own adventuring careers as well. At least he won't be totally alone while seeking ways to aquire funds to eventually settle into a full time job of weapon smithing.

His companions are as follows ( all level 1):

from his home town-

Blintz - Dwarf fighter
Fjalar aka "Ferret" - Dwarf fighter/wayfinder

they have joined up with:

Dengar - Human ranger
Lorien - Elf Mage
Neravin - Half Elf druid
Corabell - Elf cleric
Merrick - Half Elf mage/thief

The 3 dwarves were lucky enough to find the others in the local tavern. They were passing through on their way to seek out their fortune adventuring. At least until they would find enough to allow them to be able to settle down in a town. Needless to say, they were all happy to find 3 dwarf fighters that were willing to accompany them. This would greatly help with defending the party.

They make their way along the road for several days, not really coming upon anything that gains them any funds. Eventually they find an empty farm house which they use to spend the night. As luck would have it, they are actually heading back into the area towards where Dengar is from. He is aware of a town north of where they are at, so the next day they head there to see if they can find some way to raise funds. Luckily they manage to find a job delivering a chest to a mage in a different town. That evening while at the town inn, they meet Tristiana, a Half Elf bard. She joins the party and is also new to the adventuring life. The 3 dwarves figure that if nothing else, at least there will be some entertainment for around the campfire with a bard in the group.

They leave the next morning heading out of town on the road that leads towards the town the mage lives in that is awaiting delivery of the chest. Just as they are about to leave the town, they come across a dwarf fighter, who looks to be as green as the rest of them at adventuring. After talking with Rennek, he agrees to join the party. This now gives them 4 dwarf fighters, which does make the cleric, druid, bard and mages feel a bit safer. It takes them 2 and a half days to reach the other town. They were attacked once but managed to fight off the Orcs. They found the mage and made their delivery. With the exception of Dengar, each one was paid 50 gold. Dengar refused to sing the agreement and so wasn't included on the payment, but still accompanied the party.

They then were given what turned into a long term task at finding a missing girl. Not finding any leads, they were able to get a job as guards for a supply barge that was going back to the other town. Needing to be able to continue to earn money and needing to search for the missing girl, they take the job.

Again they find no real information as to where the missing girl may be and are fortunate enough to get a job guarding a barge going back to the other town again. The only thing that they have found odd is that each time they are attacked, it seems as though the attackers are trying to capture those that are spell users. They guard this barge as well as the next one that goes back to the original town again. This time though they are going back down to the farm house that they spent the night in to find out why the swamp is encroaching and enveloping the farm land.

They get down to the farm and start following the path that leads into the swamp. The path leads them to a goblin cave that they are not able to gain entrance to. They head back to the farm house, not wanting to be caught out in the dark in the swamp. Later that night they get visited by a dog trying to gain access to the farm house. Not thinking anything of it, the dog is finally allowed to enter but by then it was to late. Much to our surprise, the dog is actually not of the living and attacks the Corabell. At the same time, the house gets attacked from the front. Luckily Ferret, Rennek, and myself were up front and able to fight off the attack and defeat the zombie and skeletons while the others took care of fighting off the dog and tending to Corabell.

With the fight won, now there was a more serious problem at hand. It seemed that Corabell had gotten poisoned when she was bitten by the zombie dog. While the fighters checked outside to make sure things were safe, Neravin and Corabell started searching through the upended kitchen for something that could be used to help at least slow the poison. They managed to find some sort of potion that luckily neutralized the poison.

Meanwhile, those that went outside where surprised to see off in the distance stood a humanoid creature that had a patch over one eye. I took a shot at it with my crossbow, but at the far distance, missed. Before I could reload and fire again, the person had disappeared. We presumed that this was who was responsible for the attack upon us and went back inside. At least they had good news about Corabell being better.

The next day, we went back to the goblin cave. Against the dwarves mindset, Corabell, Neravin, Merrick, and Lorien were able to enter the cave and seek audience with the leader of the goblins. Having previously gotten a ring made that would create food 3 times a day, they were able to trade it for the ring that the goblins had. As it was, the ring in the goblins possession was a malfunctioning ring of the Elements and the mage that the party had delivered the chest too had said that they needed to get this ring and bring it to him so that it could be dealt with and stop the swamp from growing. With the ring of Elements in their possession, they returned to give it to the mage. Although we didn't gain any pay for retrieving the malfunctioning ring, we did take this as a major victory for us. It seemed that now we were begining to be real adventurers.

Our next job was to seek a group of pilgrims that were overdue to arrive at the big mage's town. We set out north to see if we could find them still coming to the town. Instead we found the remnants of their party. The only thing to find was the bodies of their guards. Althogh the rest were dead, one of them was still alive, but just barely. He was able to to us that the attackers took all the spell users before he died. Dengar was able to find the tracks and we set out to find and free the pilgrims. Not finding them we did find another fight. As luck would have it, even though we defeated our attackers, Corabell had got bitten again by some type of dog.

We made our way south and came upon another rangers cabin, of whom we had previously used a boat from. He let us leave Corabell there to await a high level cleric to come heal her, while we continued south across the river. We eventually found a broken down keep that was being used by some rather unsavory types. We had stumbled upon their water gathering group at a stream and successfully defeated them before any managed to make it back to the keep and alert about our presence. Unfortunately, Neravin took a severe blow to the head during the battle and now our other healer of the party was out too. As the rest debated whether or not to attack the keep now, I mentioned that we should wait until we get at least one of the healers back. The rest agreed and we withdrew back to that ranger's cabin.

We arrived just as Corabell was being healed. The next day we headed back down to the keep, leaving Neravin and Lorien, since Neravin was still not totally over getting knock loopy. As we got back down to the keep, we realized that we somehow had managed to lose Ferret along the way. Figuring he could take care of himself we continued on.

To cause a diversion, Dengar and Merrick were to attack the lone spire while the rest of us went in through the front and only door. As Rennek and I were leading the other 3, we were surprised to find that the keep was well defensed. Rennek got caught in a snare and taken some 100 yards to our right. As I looked at him flying away and said, "Hey, where the hell are you going?", I managed to step on a pit trap and fall in. Unfortunately, Corabell ended up in there with me. We finally got out and once I was out and back in the fight, the tide seemed to turn. Our attackers were surprised to see us start winning when myself and Rennek were able to get back into it and by the time their reinforcements got there, we had dispatched of the original attackers.

Once I dispatched of the leader of the outside force, we made entrance to the keep. We were met by the second force that was occompanied by some sort of spell user that is quite powerful. He dropped Corabell with just saying one word. He said the rest of us would meet the same fate if we didn't surrender. We pushed on with the battle and soon enough, Rennek fell like Corabell did. Just then, I finished off the leader of the inside force and with that, the spell user turned and escaped through the door they came out of.

We gave chase but have only managed to come across the jailor. She almost killed Merrick with a wicked device, but we managed to get him out to Corabell who figured out how to help him.