Green Pass Campaign III, Session 1: The Road South

As usual, no one would bite on my encounters. At least it did get everyone nearly to the entrance to the underdark in a single session!

June 28-August 30, Caudex Annales, 70 AUP
Green Pass region having become no longer as hospitable as it once was, the party (now expanded to an even larger warband of 15 members) elected to embark on a long journey to find an alternate route under the mountains. The mountains Great Barrier Range, true to its plot-functional name, stretch for thousands of miles with not prospect of being scaled with anything but elite climbing equipment and cold-weather gear -- and even then, there are always dragons to worry about. Instead, the goal was to find a passage under the mountains. Somewhat encouragingly, the amount of trade traffic under the mountain suggested that the passage must be navigable by even large caravans. Somewhat more discouragingly, most rumors described it as a thoroughfare for pirates and slavers, transporting ill-gotten loot and captives for the human sacrifices and weird magical experiments practiced by the dark necromancers of the Undying Lands.

The party now consisted of the following new members:

Into the wilderness

• Aramis Gabreath, an apparently simple-minded rustic warrior with a curious starburst symbol on his armor
• Saraina Idran, a martial woman in exotic clothing and bearing a similar symbol
• Bob, an explorer
• D, a dwarf (presumably "D" is short for "Dwarf")
• Boudica, sister to the departed Helga Omega, a spellcaster of some skill
• Vandar Darkslayer, a grim elf of the winter court
• Conan, a gnomish (wait for it, wait for it...) librarian

Returning adventurers from the summer's tour of disasters included:

• Reed Stormcliff, the one-eyed lion-druid
• Bar Helm, the similarly one-eyed barbarian (buy stock in eye patch manufacturers, kids)
• Zegzinu Yeggtatt, scaly gladiator, and his three lizard henchmen
• Grimdark Thunderstain, gnomish martial artist
• Mort the wardog

Helga Omega flew back home on her baby giant roc, and the treacherous nightblade Meros was hardly expected to return after his defection to the cultists, but the rest of the summer's additional survivors (Malcolm Hawk, Terra Daystar, Orym the courtier, and Dunflow the barbarian) followed along as reservists and "rearguard defenders" to watch the baggage while everyone else fought.

The party thus consisted of 16 members. Some additional food stocks (just enough for the overland trip as it turned out, by sheer luck) were purchased, along with miscellaneous supplies and some donkeys and wagons for transportation.

While some of the (non-exiled) members of the expedition had returned to the Keep for supplies, Zeg's lizardman companions went back for food more to their own liking, various decomposing meats of a source left best to the imagination. They also returned with a simple map of the southlands, including a forest path. They gave advice to stay on the path, particularly in the haunted woods just beyond the domain of their own master, Raszu.

A lizardman map, in charcoal and pigment, on an old hide

The journey began in open grassland, with no hint of a path. Just to the south of Raszu's territory, before the edge of the forest, the party found traces of the passage of a large army, with entire companies of beastmen on maneuvers. Aramis detected the aura of something wicked emanating from a nearby mountain, but no one felt sufficiently courageous to investigate whatever was responsible.

A few days to the south, they found the edge of the forest spread between two ridges of mountainous terrain, with a trail marker indicating the beginning of the road south. The marker was notched with the line-runes used by lizardmen, as well as orcish markings and even stranger languages. The party's linguistic expert Conan translated the orcish markings as denoting the passage of thousands of orcs from the arid steppes to the south, and was able to identify the other language as an underworld street-cant from the subterranean realm -- although as this was not a written language and its vocabulary and syntax showed signs of frequent flux, it was more difficult to decipher.

The lizardmen looked ill at ease as they entered the forest, hissing at the very air, which felt heavy with mystical dweomers. The gnomes Conan and Grimdark communed briefly with the local wildlife and found a squirrel willing to drop nut-related topics long enough to confirm that there were no "two-legs", but plenty of hoofed forest guardians -- the party immediately suspected centaurs, consistent with the paranoia of the lizardmen about "arrows from the shadows". But after several days of travel, the only danger they encountered were a pair of giant poisonous snakes that passed the party by, disinterested in a confrontation. The rest of the wood felt wholesome; the signs of small centaur patrols suggested that it was, at the very least, not haunted by anything of a truly malign origin.

Thunder in the darkness

Beyond the forest they passed through a pair of high mountain saddle passes with a small woodland dell between them. The passes themselves were bare of large trees, and showed signs of the passage of enormous mountain giants. To the east they could see a great mountain peak, and a road winding up its sign and around to some concealed location in the back. Again the party declined to investigate. That night they camped in the dell and heard the sounds of a terrible crashing and tumbling of rock from the same direction, as though some kind of storm or landslide were occurring at the peak of the mountain. This disconcerting nocturnal symphony only doubled their resolve to stick to the path and forge ahead.

The dragon's teeth

Another week to the south, the mountains rose high enough to allow a view all the way into the deserts of the east, the fabled seat of power of the ancient imperial cities of Nerigos and Thule. No ruins were themselves visible, but a mountainous array of stone teeth rose up beyond miles of flat desert, like the lower jaw of a sundered dragon skull. At a distance of over a hundred miles, the mountains must have been of truly vast size to dominate so much of the horizon. The desert looked trackless and impassable, with no water and no sign of civilization for a hundred leagues in any direction.

From that point, the path descended away from the mountains into another forest, this one gloomier and wetter. Signs of the passage of slimes and oozes suggested it was the unnatural demesne of an practitioner of dark magics. Two days into the swamp forest, the party encountered a column of club-toting ogres trudging through the mist. Initially they were inclined to let the oblivious brutes pass by without interference, until the observation that their sacks seemed to be twitching and folding, suggestive of recently captured victims destined for the stew pot (or worse).

The party launched a multi-directional ambush, luring the ogre bosses forward with the sounds of an illusory host of ducks, and baffling the remaining ogres with an angelic choir (not one of duck angels, just regular angels). As the air filled with arias and quacking, the party shot out of the mist like a thrust spear, seizing sacks and hacking confused ogres. By the second attempted pass, the ogres had recovered their wits and turned to fight. The bloody melee left the ogres completely defeated.

Every ogre's worst nightmare

The sacks proved to contain the remainder of a recently raided caravan. Five human captives were immediately released, as well as two not-quite-human creatures that radiated an evil aura, the former masters of the caravan. The party slaughtered the bizarre slave traders, and swords revealed that their internal anatomy of unfamiliar blue organs resembled no natural creature of this world. The dismembered bodies immediately began to deteriorate into a foul azure slime. The only valuables of distinction recovered from the caravan spoils were two bolts of peculiar cloth, the silk taken from some unnatural creature of unknown taxonomy.

Farther south, the party finally reached the Shackled Path, the great road between Nerigos and the west, once paved in stone but now mostly in ruin. This led through hill country populated by trolls of various sizes, back up toward the mountains. After another day or two of no encounters, the party happened upon a trio of troll and quickly fled the path before the trolls could notice them....

Casualties
None (even against paladins in leather, ogres have lousy aim)

Treasure and Experience
Coins: None
Gems/Jewelry: None
Trade goods: Four mysterious bolts of otherworldly silken cloth (8000 gp)
Items of special interest: None

Total nonmagical treasure value: 8000 gp, assuming these things can be sold
Gold per share: none yet (but up to 727 gp each if everyone survives to find a buyer)

Killed: 1 ogre subchieftain (380 xp), 2 ogre champions (2x260 xp), 9 ogres (9x140 xp)
Rescued: 5 human captives (500 xp)

Miles traveled: 432 (11.5*432 = 4968 xp)

Total experience from treasure: 8000 xp
Total experience from kills/captures/deceptions: 10760 xp
Total experience from exploration: 432 xp
Total experience: 23728 xp
Total experience per member: 2063 xp

(Note: Mort the Wardog is taking an experience half-share but not a treasure share. Inactive "reservist" PCs are claiming neither experience or treasure -- unless their players want to split treasure between both a current and inactive PC, at their discretion.)