Timberlands Campaign, Session 5: Make Like a Banana

January 1-12, Caudex Annales, 71 AUP

After regrouping in the aftermath of the tavern brawl, the party rested out the night and tended to the wounds of the injured. The following day was bitterly cold with driving winds. When the party reached the keep to report back to Duke Johann, they found a sizable mob of desperate townsfolk outside, with more arriving by wagon and on foot. All of them reported a terrible and well-coordinated uprising of undead sweeping (but slowly, being zombies after all) through the outlying villages.

The bladedancer Anatolia decided to commune with the celestial realm, asking the throne of heaven what to do next. The typical terse and relatively useless answers came back: There was no way to control the invasion, the source was a collection of crypts to the northeast, and the party did not have a "better than average" chance of defeating the enemies there -- presumably larger numbers of the high-level undead already encountered, like the vampiric ruinguard.

So the majority of the party simply dragon-airlifted everything out of the city, and ditched the doomed city of Hemmelmark entirely.

Those leaving gathered supplies and provisions for the road, and assembled their remaining forces (including the dwarves at the advance base near the frost-giant lair) to march south together. Along the way they encountered terrible weather, as well as a patrol of powerful undead who seemed to draw strength from the storm -- fortunately, they were quickly swarmed by a host of Herrobin's skeleton night-watchmen.

Far to the south, after over a week of travel, they reached the ill-regarded city of Hochgrube, a smaller settlement under the control of the rebellious baron Rictovarius. The city pulled its gates closed at the sight of the undead camped on its doorstep, but invited three representatives of the party (led by Edward Sir Winsley) inside to parlay. The city itself was of wrought-iron construction, grimly spiked and decorated with sharp edges and jagged spires in such a way to inspire fear rather than awe. The townsfolk looked ill-treated and fearful.

In the upper ward of the city they found a great set of double-doors leading into a great earthen berm, less a keep than an underground bunker. The doors locked and unlocked in sequence as the party waited to be disarmed in an antechamber, as a security measure. In the hall beyond, the fabled Rictovarius (introducing himself as the "burgrave") sat on a great chair before a roaring fire, attended by a collection of attractive young male and female slaves who watched him with apparent terror. He also had a large collection of well-armored guards, and some sort of hooded advisor with a half-tattooed face.

The party introduced themselves as representatives of Hemmelmark seeking to establish some kind of economic agreement for trade and such. Burgrave Rictovarius laughed cheerfully and bade them welcome to stay in the city for a few days to conduct their business... provided that they were willing to wear distinctive bracelets to mark them as "honored guests" -- bracelets suspiciously similar to those worn by many of the fearful townsfolk. The delegation had little option but to accept the request, being surrounded by foes. The bracelets locked securely in place.

Outside, they explored the city, which turned out to be a very good place to purchase human and beastmen slaves abducted by pirates to the south, but not nearly as good a place to purchase magical weapons or anything of much interest to adventures. From a dark alley, one of the townspeople cautiously called them over to warn them that the bracelets were cursed to bring pain to those who would defy the city's overlords, in the event of an uprising.

The party bypassed the raucous-looking tavern-inns in the north ward, and pushed onward to the far side of down, a dismal slum of ramshackle buildings. There they found the cheapest possible lodgings in a decaying old tenement house. A little experimentation found that two of the three bracelets could be nullified and taken off with a remove curse spell; the third would need to wait until after the next morning's spell-recovery.

The party had arranged to send out a group of five porters from the city to collect some of their goods. In fact, they were detained at the camp, and replaced by five of Herrobin's armored skeleton minions. The skeletons arrived at the flop-house, and were positioned to stand watch over the rest of the party.

Predictably enough, in the second watch of the night a brick flew in through the window, shattering glass onto the floor. The delegation readied itself for battle.

Roster

• Edward Sir Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
• Jeeves, 1st-level butler-paladin
• Frigodria Dawnbringer, 5th-level paladin (Reba)
• Herrobin, 6th-level summoner, and his scads of spooky scary skeletons (Kyle)
• John-Paul Satre, 5th-level priest of... nihilist existentialism? (Lucas)
• Aureon Thallanir, 4th-level nightblade (Sion)
• Merda Strega, 6th-level witch (Will)
• Mysterious Lizard-y Stranger (Austin)
• Viserion, 5th-level young white dragon (Zac)
• Adonirim, 3rd-level mage
• Shayna, 6th-level shaman (Kim)

Mercenaries and followers:

• Army o' skeletons (200+ at this point), with a few abominations as champions

• Aksel Steelheart, 9th-level vaultlord
• 10 dwarven lieutenants:
• 4 5th-level vaultguards
• 3 4th-level vaultguards
• 2 3rd-level vaultgaurds
• 2nd-level vaultguard
• 18 fire dwarf infantry
• ~ 90 light-infantry pirate survivors from the defeat of the Charybdis crew in the Saberstrath campaign

Not appearing in this adventure:

• The very young white dragon, Namazu, reporting back on the frost giants
• Jarrus Velt, 5th-level thief
• Zelmar (injured, retiring maybe?)
• Anatolia (at chapel with Zelmar)
• Sir Robin (badly injured)
• Zalgesh
• Sir Rock Boulder Fist, dwarven 5th-level summoner
• Thorvald, 6th-level spy (Zac's Mom's PC, not a henchman)
• Togast, 6th-level skinscribe (Juston... was he here? I don't remember him there.)
• Tu'a'than, 5th level spriggan

Casualties

None

Magical Items

None

Valuables

None

Total treasure value: 0 gp

Total gold share per member: 0 gp

Experience

Killed: 5 ghasts [5x190=950], 5 wights [5x80=400]
Total: 1350 xp

Total experience from treasure: 0 xp
Total experience from kills: 1350 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0 xp
Total experience: 1350 xp
Total experience per member: 135 xp