The Fallen Star

The Fallen Star is a curiosities shop in the northern market district of Emru-Marol. It consists of three split-level floors, connected by a hemispherical spiral staircase that allows full visibility of the upper levels from the front desk. The shop is dimly lit and perpetually smoky from the widely separated torches.

(Art: Tobias White)

The proprietor is an exotic humanoid of unknown origin, thin and elongated, with blue-tinted skin and yellowed eyes. Despite the heavy wrappings on his arms and legs, it seems obvious that the joints beneath don't bend in precisely the same place that normal limbs would be expected to bend. He seems to be unable to communicate verbally in any of the languages of the surface or underdark, but has little difficulty understanding requests made by guests in any language, often seeming to anticipate the requests before they have even been made by producing the requested merchandise even before a customer has begun describing it. He never seems to eat or sleep, and leaves the shop for not more than two or three hours at a time. He gives out cards at the registry that list his name as “Mister Leng”.

The store is constantly patrolled by two muscular infernal fiends, both over 10 feet tall, with oversized heads and thick necks that give them the look of hooded executioners. They communicate only in some unfamiliar tongue of the lower planes, and will growl menacingly at anyone who attempts any unauthorized handling of display items. They seem to respond to requests from Mister Leng by some kind of natural telepathy.

Curiosities in the shop are left uncovered on small tables, with small cards beside them giving their supposed provenance and suspected function. The cards are handwritten in calligraphic script that duplicates the text in multiple languages and runes: Drowic, barbarous Common (of the Larcenous Coast dialect), and something alien that uses wedge-like cuneiform symbols.

All of the prices are exorbitant. In addition to a huge collection of scrolls, wands, and potions, some of the most interesting exhibits in the shop include:

1. A hideous fountain of living heads joined around the perimeter of a stone basin. The heads perpetually vomit forth a foul black liquid from their mouths and noses, rendering them unable to speak, although they are clearly in a state of conscious misery. There are several empty mount points around the basin that are apparently missing their heads. The fountain has a placard with the unsettling caption “Thieves Beware”.

2. A jeweled nightingale in a cage of golden wires, currently inactive but with a clockwork winding mechanism that allows it to spring to life and begin singing on its perch. Strange lights glitter in its eyes, and its song is lilting and faintly magical.

3. A half-dozen enchanted swords, including one labeled “Life Drinker, 6 charges” and two with “Dragon Slaying”,

4. A floor mirror with a drape over it labeled “Mirror of Opposition, leave covered at ALL times, especially when nycaloths are present”

5. A “Brooch of Shielding”. The word “brooch” is crossed out and replaced with “broach” in Common, which is itself crossed out and replaced with “brooch”. Spelling is hard.

6. A collection of vials of oil, with labels like “Oil of Sharpness”, “Oil of Plant Control”, “Oil of Dragon Control”, “Oil of Flying”, and “Oil of Human Control”.

7. Several rings, including a “Ring of Spell Storing (6 spells)” and “Ring of Djinni Calling”. The latter has an asterisk beside it, with the footnote “Note: does not grant wishes”

8. A sign that reads “Commissions with the Shadow Sorcerer available upon request, 100000 gp minimum down-payment”

Green Pass Campaign III, Sessions 3-5: A Series Of Unfortunate Events

After the party-split outside the dark elf city of Emru-Marol, both groups remained cut off from one another, as well as from their original base of operations in the Green Pass region. Here's a recap of the region's various disasters during the last month:

Strike 1 (Team Underdark): Emru-Marol (September 1, Caudex Annales, 70 AUP)

The portion of the caravan that had no objection to descending into the drow-infested Underdark consisted (not coincidentally) of the more monstrous and cave-loving members:

• Zig and his lizardmen posse
• Conan and Grimdark, the two infravision-capable gnomes
• Bob the explorer
• D the dwarf
• Boudicca and her spider familiar (anticipating local-celebrity status)

The party endured an initial briefing from a drow matron claiming to be "Matron Lestreece of House Kilsek". She exhorted the party to assist her in "protecting" Matron Hestabith, the poorly-regarded matron of House Despana, by assassinating Hestabith's overly ambitious daughter, the (far more competent) Lady Ristabelle. After witnessing the matron's ruthless willingness to carve a helpful map directly into the skin of a doomed prisoner, they agreed to serve her in the infiltration mission, traveling to the Despana compound under pretext of being Kilsek slaves (including visible glowing Kilsek brands). Due to the allegiance between Kilsek and Despana, this was a sufficiently convincing cover story to gain them admittance.

Once inside, they went to the rendezvous point where an agent was supposed to provide them with their weapons and gear... and discovered that he had already been killed by another adventurer, a dual-wielding swordswoman, Sruna of the Atlantean Isles. After bashing down the door and tackling Sruna and confiscating her weapons, they were willing to listen to her sad story of being ambushed and defeated. She also described her own mission of trying to locate her captured party members before the sacrifices began at the autumn festival in four days. The party showed no initial interest in helping. She also surmised that they were being double-crossed, since their employer was probably the matron of Despana's rival, Cindnathys of House Tormtor. Sruna departed theatrically by growing an impressive pair of wings to fly over the walls of the compound and indicated she could be contacted at a tavern in the Goblin's Square, part of the Market District. The party also did not return her two confiscated +3 drowic longswords.

At this point a Despana patrol, tipped off to the fact that someone was smashing down doors in the servant's quarters near the kitchen, began to systematically move through the courtyard looking for the perpetrators. The party briefly engaged in poisoning some food for the feast, and then moved to ambush the patrol as it entered the building. After setting off a stink bomb trap (gnomes!) in in the barracks, the drow patrol struggled back out to encounter the party waiting to jump them from another hallway. The drow were eliminated right down to the last member, as their commander struggled (and failed due to a plucky charge) to dump a fireball in the middle of the party.

Art: Niji707

With the element of surprise lost, the party elected to abandon their mission and retreat over the wall instead, using a rope and tackle (and spider assistance). Meanwhile, Boudicca turned invisible and gaseous and slipped off to look for the chambers of Lady Ristabelle, encountering another and more powerful patrol of female drow soldiers arming on the second floor of the central tower. At the top of the tower she found the door and bodyguards of Ristabelle, who was "indisposed" in her chamber. After causing enough to disturbance to lure the annoyed Ristabelle out, wearing only in her negligee, the gaseous Boudicca made one abortive attempt at a choking grasp (which Ristabelle shrugged off easily) and then floating out the nearest window. (I mean Ristablle was the one in her negligee, not Boudicca. You know what I mean!) The party did leave behind a note implicating Tormtor (rather than Kilsek) in the assassination attempt, and ascribing it to the work of the elusive "Drago the Destroyer".

After slipping over the wall with a force of spider-riders in pursuit, the party fled into the city below and began wandering rather aimlessly in search of somewhere hospitable. They eventually arrived at a weird item shop run by a blue-skinned alien humanoid, similar to the ones discovered (and killed) from the ogre sacks. The party elected not to attempt to sell him the strange cloth they had recovered from those sacks. Conan petitioned for a position as a stockboy and clerk, based on his extensive loremastery, and ended up joining the shop's staff (which already consisted of a couple of horrible-looking underworld fiends).

Treasure and Experience
Coins: None
Gems/Jewelry: None
Trade goods: None
Items of special interest: three drowic longswords (two +3, and one +2, but like all drow weapons they lose their potency if taken away from the Underdark)

Total nonmagical treasure value: 0
Gold per share: 0

Killed or put to flight: a drow male patrol: a spellsword commander (500 xp), his lieutenant (190 xp), and ~10 soldiers (10x 38 xp)
Disarmed: Sruna of the Atlantean Isles (1550 xp)

City locations discovered by exploration: poisoner's shop (200 xp), arena (200 xp), magic item shop (200 xp)

Total experience from treasure: 0
Total experience from kills/captures/deceptions: 2620 xp
Total experience from exploration: 600
Total experience: 3220 xp
Total experience per member: 429 xp

(Note: The henchlizards are getting a half-share of 215 xp.)


Strike 2 (Team Wilderness): The Trail North (September 1-24, Caudex Annales, 70 AUP)

Meanwhile, the rest of the party (consisting of Underdark-averse elves and humans) headed north back in the direction they had come, hoping that the departure of the lizardmen would make the enchanted woods (and its centaur patrols) more willing to entertain proposals for an alliance. In the mountains above the troll-lands they bumped into a party of four would-be dragon hunters, a dwarf and his human companions. The dwarf related the tale of his clan's destruction by the intrusion of a poisonous dragon, and begged for aid in the pursuit of his revenge. The party, unimpressed by his lack of familiarity with the region, ignored the petition, but managed to convince him to come north to seek aid with them instead.

Upon arrival at the wooded vale where they had heard the thunderstorm-battle-rockslide-whatever during the night, they elected to veer off and investigate the wizard's mountain instead. At the base of the mountain, they encountered a warband of two dozen goblins, some of them mounted on wargs. A well-placed sleep spell and some mopping up cost them little but some time and sweat, and they continued up the path to the summit. There they found a pair of grim stone-giant guards outside the mount of a cavern. After parley with the giants, they earned an audience with the wizard inside -- whom a goblin prisoner had already described as pretty thoroughly insance.

Decrepit and bat-crap crazy, like this guy

The audience revealed that the ancient-looking wizard Keliszennan had access to powerful divination magic, both from his occupancy of an ancient throne of power (carved directly out of the mountain) and his use of a crystal ball. He offered, in exchange for the artifact fragment of crypt-stone given to them by the Castellan of Balewood, to provide advice about their next course of action. He spied on the activities of Lord Varghoulis, now in council with his masters in the ruined city of Nerigos to the east, and then expressed grave doubts that anyone in the region would be powerful enough to stop the army of the dead. He did recommend trying to prove worthy of the attention of a powerful domain-ruler far to the south, from the fire lands -- ideally by murdering one of his rivals, the swamp witch Guendenwidha... Guendeswitha... Guen. (OK, just Gwen, that works!)

Treasure and Experience
Just call it 250 per party member, which is being generous for nuking a bunch of hapless goblins!

Strike 3 (Battle Scenario): The Balewood (September 15, Caudex Annales, 70 AUP)

And back north in Balewood, the Durnovaric Expedition Force was being ambushed by a powerful undead force, while being pursued by an even more powerful ogre-and-orc force under the command of a balrog. (It never rains, but it pours.) The intervention of a centaur outrider patrol was insufficient to prevent the shattering of the human position by ogres, and the unlucky Duke Conylt (and his elvish associate Lady Tesslith) fled into the forest -- Conylt heading west to the keep with little but his own skin for protection and Tesslith retreating south with the fleeing centaurs.