Welcome to another game-night scribbling...
Who's ready to rumble?
- Jax, Barbarian
- Fulvus, Halfling
- Frederick, Thief
- Slick, Also a Thief
- The Henches and Hangers-on
Like I noted on my
last play report, if there is no cleric in the party, there will be a barrow... More on that, later.
First order of business. Fulvus had commissioned construction of a brewery in Neuforde. So it is desired, so will it be done...
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| My architectural drawing skills are rusty |
A small brewery, designed off some fantasy floorplan I found, thought I'd downloaded, and could never find again. It's situated outside the new town wall, near the river and not far from the so-called "Bonk's Tower" gate on the north side of town. It has its first two employees, Adelheid Goold, a halfling new in town and with a brewing background, and Nordbert Underlake, the halfing bard picked up a few towns back. If his musical career doesn't pick up, he can push a broom. Fulvus is already making plans to expand...
The town continues to grow, especially with a number of new halfling "cousins" manning the walls for flying threats and other dangers. The rebuilt trading post will not burn down again if they have anything to say about it...
The party, reduced a bit without its two spellcasters and hench-cleric, decided to head out into the boonies anyhow, because there really isn't anything to worry about these days. Their intent was to seek out the next of the southern Barrier nodes, known to be along an overgrown trade road to the south.
They loaded up and headed out, with the intent to stop at Kabrel's Tower, where they knew that Thefri and a couple of other druids had holed up after being dislodged from Ashryn Tower by Chaos mutants. As they neared the tower, they noticed that the trees looked distinctly ... less friendly.
Particularly evidenced by a few Chaos mutant corpses skewered among the branches...
Team Lorax was definitely not messing around.
The party was confronted soon after by a pair of dire wolves. Thefri appeared and let the two good boys (Gagnin and Anzel) know that the party was okay, and Goober and the two wolves did dog things. His compatriots Divos and Albus were present, as well as two new companions, Eryn and Othulf, who seemed to be responsible for the tree magic. The druids reported that they had been watching the area for the abominations that were the Chaos mutants, and that the trees were sensitive to the Chaos forces. The manipulations of natural forces for malicious ends was an affront, and they weren't having any of it. The party camped for the night at the tower, and let the druids know that they were continuing south to find the next node location.
The party made their way along the overgrown trade road the next day. Noises ahead made them pause, and Slick tried out his new
ring of invisibility to scout ahead. It appeared to be another adventuring party, and no overt mutations were noted. The two groups cautiously approached one another. The opposite party was led by a cleric, with a mage, a few halflings, and a couple of mooks. Nikhita Mahesh and her companions were from one of the city-states on the southeast side of the inland sea, recent to the area in pursuit of the rumors of the Chaos forces. The party was happy to describe their encounters and the general situation. They recommended continuing north to seek out the druids and directions to Ashryn Tower, where Nikhita and her crew would undoubtably get to meet
plenty of the mutants... The NPC party headed north, the halflings threw gang signs at one another, and the two mooks looked concerned about their prospects.
The remainder of the day was uneventful. That night, though they were attacked by a pair of chitin drakes. Fortunately, the party was able to slay one and chase off the other, with only hench Roderick ending up slightly smoldering. Fulvus took the drake's head for the brewery.
Did I mention no clerics results in barrows?
Of course any party of self-respecting adventurers will poke around inside, cleric or no cleric. The barrow had a stone arch entrance, but one side also appeared to have partially collapsed, resulting in a second access. The party crept in to find a large hall sporting several shallow alcoves. On alcove had its back broken in, with an empty sarcophagus. The thieves checked the other alcoves, but didn't notice any hidden chambers. Jax checked one and, sure enough, hidden chamber. While Slick was saying, "Wait, I''ll check for traps," the barbarian cracked open the hidden panel with her faithful crowbar.
Another sarcophagus. This one occupied. Sure enough, the lid moved. Jax pushed it closed. Occupant pushed open. This happened a couple of times until the lid finally flipped off the sarcophagus.
But instead of attacking, the revenant paused, looked at Faith Perpetual (Jax's sword) and asked if the party were members of the Keepers of the Light. Frederick and others confirmed that the Keepers were mostly long gone. The undead knight considered this, "But we are called to fight again?" True. Chaos is on the move. The party briefly explained the situation. "I see." The knight introduced himself as Gladwin of Achwick. He looked at his former companion's empty crypt, swore about graverobbers and went to crack open the backs of a couple more alcoves (ones "without" secret doors). A couple more similar revenant knights arose, dragging their swords and poleaxes, and grumbling about just getting some good dreaming. They were apprised of the situation, and one of the others disappeared into the depths of the crypt, returning with a couple of shambling undead soldiers. Other crypts were empty, so this is what remained. Gladwin grumbled more about graverobbers, as Slick got invisible again and swiped a couple of candlesticks from the crypt's chapel alter.
The undead soldiers agreed to lead the party to the next stronghold to the south, Hardbrand Tower.
The tower was found to be in poor condition, with whatever walls or structures around it mostly collapsed. Gladwin commented that it had, indeed been a while. About then, the party was fired on from the tower. Fair enough. They took cover behind a collapsed wall as crossbow bolts and invectives were fired from the tower. Slick invisibled, again, and climbed the tower. Inside were four mutants - two loading and two firing heavy crossbows. Slick tossed oil and set the place alight. Others crashed a door, and the four were neutralized after a couple of rounds.
The four looked like guards left to watch the place, as none looked particularly fit or capable. Good news, though. A seemingly intact ruby lens was mounted in the tower. The party suggested that the undead and a couple of henches watch the tower while they and Gladwin explored its lower levels.
Down they went. Upon reaching the lower levels, they party heard receding voices and footsteps. The rooms encountered were empty, other than some scattered loot. The second level revealed a chapel with images of "Old Khador." Gladwin knelt in prayer to honor his patron. An unharmed reliquary was also found, one with powers TBD. About then, cries of warning and battle were heard from above.
Everyone beat feet up the stairs to find the tower forces under attack by two chitin drakes, about a dozen mutants, a couple of leaders, and a pair of mutated ogres. Fun fun.
Upon the party's arrival, two of the undead knights sallied out of the tower to leeroy jenkins the mutant forces. The party focused fire on the drakes and the apparent spellcaster among the enemy. Slick and Flick shot at the
Damned Horses. Some back and forth, with the drakes setting fire and biting the tower defenders. Sometime around now the ogres bashed in the tower gate, requiring Jax to go toe-to-toe. There was a bit of beating and stabbing and backstabbing and general commotion until the two ogres lay dead. With this, the surviving Chaos forces retreated. One surviving undead knight limped back to the tower, exultant in a good fight.
The party cleared the remaining under-levels of the tower, discovering that the 'voices' were illusory, meant to draw them into the confined spaced to be trapped. Fortunately, they had left a robust tower guard that wasn't readily overwhelmed. A couple more crypts were uncovered, and two more knights revived.
Everyone caught their breaths and bound their wounds. A couple of the party's men-at-arms returned with about half the horses.
With that, Gladwin looked around the perimeter of the old tower. He paused next to a pond that had inundated an area among the ruins and then went for a walk into the water. Some splashing, mud churning, and bubbling, and he arose with... another ruby lens. This one unmounted, and unenchanted, but intact nonetheless. A valuable resource.
The old knights agreed to re-assume their positions guarding the tower, as the party made next plans...
DM Notes:
What's up with the title? Well, I had my floorplan, NPC list, and barrow map. But I left this:
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| oops... |
...in the other notebook. Thankfully, I had written everything rather conceptually, had an old list of Chaos troops floating around, and a copy of the map on the tablet. Anyway, once we got into battle, I basically threw initiative out the window. I rolled monster hits, the party rolled their mostly missile hits, I armwaved what the two undead zealot-knights were doing, and we just embraced the chaos. We did get back into turn order when the ogres broke in, but that was just a handful of turns near the end of the battle. I made a call on how many of the undead survived, and called it good.
The undead have been in the wings for a while. Having a few grumpy yet enthusiastic undead knights should 'enliven' things. ;) There are also only a couple of unexplored nodes left. We know one is occupied by Acroria city troops, one is the target of another NPC party, and the final southern node is a couple of days south of the current party location. I'd better get to stocking that one. Once all of the locations are explored or accounted for, I plan to post up all of the stocking. It probably won't be too polished, mostly notes, but might provide some material for someone else's table.
Other than that, we covered a lot of ground. We were a couple of players down, so that speeds things along, and like I said, once the big fight started, I let procedures slide a bit, particularly since there were no spellcasters available.
Other than that, I hope people are enjoying the read of a middling GM and his ongoing bog-standard campaign progress and procedures.
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