The party took a day and a half to travel to the gates of Kilndelve, the long-abandoned and goblin-infested dwarven fortress in the mountains. The road was narrow and poorly maintained after decades of neglect, and wagons needed to travel single file as trees encroached along the path.
As the convoy passed through a narrow choke in the forest, the trees themselves seemed to come alive as two strange constructs made of rotting vegetation came alive and moved to destroy the wagons. These necrotic shamblers were not exactly undead, but clearly their presence reflected the effect of some kind of unnatural energy in the region, either from the undead or from the occupiers of Kilndelve. The party struggled against the nightmarishly powerful shamblers before the dwarven leadership realized the threat and moved from the front the caravan to reinforce the party. While camping overnight to recover from injury, the party heard a sizable patrolling team of ogres, which Wendy lured away using aural misdirection tricks in raven form.
The party sent an aerial scouting force to the massive main gate, a 90-foot tall stonewrought monument. The bridge was pulled back by some sophisticated mechanism and inaccessible by foot, but several knotted ropes crossed the gap and would allow a brave climber to scramble across above the ravine and exposed rapids over 200 feet blow. Flying close to the eyes of the monument revealed arrow slits capable of passing a ballista bolt, as well as faint voices in the Saurian language (a patois of draconic and lizardman), but no obvious entrance that could be opened from the outside
The party advanced up the alternative path toward the "back door", a tunnel entrance buried under rubble that led to an upstream portion of the same underground river running under Kilndelve and out through the ravine. After a hard day of digging by dozens of workers, the doorway was cleared. (Fortunately, the elaborate riddle-lock intended to seal the door had never been completed due to the dragon attack that had produced the rubble in the first place.)
After a final "last chance to turn back" speech from Nick Grimrigg, the party descended down the long dark passage to the twisting river-caverns below.
Roster:
Iulius Dubthach, 4th-level Nobiran monk (Andrew)
Holly Steel, 5th-level bright cleric (Kyle)
Robin Renaldee, son of Lucien, 5th-level sword master (Kim)
You were a searching
for adventure… until
adventure came to you. After several weeks in the hills adventuring
outside Kargau, you returned
to the small dwarven
town
only to find it ruined and smothered under a sheet of frozen ice. The
once bright tavern was empty, the door hanging by a single hinge. The
shops were vacant and neglected. Everywhere there were signs of a
terrible battle, bloodstains and broken weapons, but no bodies –
and surely none could be buried beneath such frozen earth.
Two
types of footprints led away. One great set turned to the east higher
into the mountains, moving as a company. The other type was
disorganized and led in
every direction, with
stumbling and dragging gaits that hardly even looked human. Even more
alarming, every grave in the town had been exhumed, by all
appearances by being dug
out from the inside.
After
two days
of following the more
organized tracks the cold
weather seemed to lessen despite
the rising altitude, and in
the distance you could see a thin trail of smoke rising from the
pinewood trees. You climbed to the top of a hill to get a better look
and to take a short rest. Between the trees were the small silhouettes
of tents and human figures moving about. With great excitement you
pointed at the distant figures, no more than a quarter mile away. But
a shuffling noise from the base of the hill let you know you had been
followed and were no longer alone...
Returning to the dwarven town of Kargau (after unspecified prior adventures that raised them all to 5th level or so), the adventuring party discovered the city buried by an unseasonably late blizzard and deserted of all life. The party followed a dense trail of human-looking tracks east and up into the mountains, through forested terrain. The weather mysteriously grew warmer rather than colder at altitude.
Within visual range of a camp with lit fires, the party was attacked by a pursuing host: a mummy, a mounted dwarven wight, and ten zombies with frozen (and highly durable) flesh. They were just barely dispatched after a fierce battle, and all seemed lost as a second throng of zombies wandered over the crest of a nearby hill. But they were themselves being pursued by riders from the camp, and were quickly dispatched by a volley of arrows.
The party was invited to take shelter and counsel at the Kargau refugee camp, a sprawling collection of tents and stakes where hundreds of survivors were huddled together, protected by a mixed force of dwarven crossbows and human spearman. Their leader was Darby Stoutcrank, a human arbalester who invited them to visit him in his tent. He requested their help to maintain and manage the camp under periodic assault from the undead, but also to find a way to escape into the mountains. He spoke of a long-abandoned dwarven fortress high in the mountains that guarded a pass into a secret valley, the site of an ancient dwarven center of industry and commerce, Kilndelve. He also mentioned several other inhabitants of the campsite, including a gnomish alchemist with his own interests in the fortress and an expedition of dwarves who had traveled from a distant land to reclaim their homeland (and the artifacts and wealth within).
The party met with the alchemist, Skafi, who requested (in a roundabout way) that they help him "research his book" by returning with samples from the fortress. The book was about slimes and oozes, and he said that recovering even small amounts of slime and ooze for analysis would be useful to him. Apparently the fortress slimes were subject to an unusually high rate of mutation due to the nearby dwarven mining facility, which at the time of original habitation was uniquely a source of strange glowing 'poisonrock'.
Roster:
Iulius Dubthach, 4th-level Nobiran monk (Andrew)
Holly Steel, 5th-level bright cleric (Kyle)
Robin Renaldee, son of Lucien, 5th-level sword master (Kim)
This was the final session before Covid, and it involved the party joining a dwarven expedition to liberate the lost city of Kilndelve and traveling overland through undead-infested lands. I'm mentioning it here for posterity, since the planned Kilndelve campaign went on hiatus for the next couple year until restarting with a fresh roster of heroes.
The party once again discovered that the dungeon tunnels were flooded. This time, though, the control station was just beyond. Releasing the auxiliary control lock-out back to Wainskirtle allowed the dungeon to be drained. Jeeves stayed back at the control station to keep in contact, while the rest of the party advanced into the final chamber. Sensors in the primary control station indicated "unusual levels of extraplanar activity" in the area.
Aside from a small entry ledge, the room had no floor. Instead, the entire floor was effectively a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water. The infinite ocean beyond was murky with depth and dimly illuminated, but something far below with too many tentacles to be a standard fish was staring back out of the abyss. In both corners of the ledge, chuul guards waited for the signal to scuttle forward to the attack. A host of slimy-skinned humanoids, transformed thralls of the aberration, floated just below the waves. The aboleth used its innate telepathy to initiate conversation with the party, informing them that they were merely pawns of more powerful forces manipulating the Tower. Only by allying with the aboleth could the Tower be preserved against the dreadful threats gathering against the region.
Jeeves reported that the Chancellor and his trolls were advancing through the dungeon, creating a sense of urgency in the conversation. The party pondered the possibility of turning against the chancellor by flooding the tunnels again, much to the delight of the aboleth. It offered immortality in exchange for the alliance, assuring the party that even slavery (to the winning side, of course) was a far better fate than a cursed existence among the undead. A slightly better sales pitch might have carried the day (weighed against the obviously dubious character of the Chancellor!), but apparently the idea of an eternity of aquatic servitude wasn't quite sufficient tempting. Instead, the party steeled itself for battle.
At first the situation seemed promising, as a wave of enthralled skum were cut down by powerful arcane magics. But then from behind the party, a powerful ambush force of drow dropped in the astral plane behind the party's spellcasters, along with a beholder sorcerous sphere, a marilith, and a vaguely familiar mind flayer. The aboleth chuckled (or some psionic equivalent thereof) and demanded surrender. Instead, the party moved to intercept the new attackers. Viserion, reasoning that this was a sufficiently dire situation to be worth trading the last vestiges of virtue in his soul for the power of an artifact, donned the Iron Crown to claim its power.
Viserion charged the mind flayer (fortunately responding fast enough to prevent any psychic mindslave nonsense), but took a polymorph eyebeam form the sorcerous sphere in exchange and promptly found himself transformed into an unhappy lemming dropped into a bottomless ocean. (Note: Rolled this saving throw three times. Came up a "1" every time!) The party had little time to intercept the ridiculously large number of drow blades from behind, but fortunately the chancellor and his dire trolls burst into the hallway just in time to pin them down from behind, chopping through the back ranks of surprised drow on the way to the marilith. After a few rounds of brutal hand-to-hand fighting, the party was down one dragon but otherwise victorious.
The aboleth seized the unhappy lemming (who was wearing a miniaturized version of the Iron Crown of the Sorcerer Kings, which apparently couldn't be completely abosorbed by the polymorph), with obvious intent of converting it into some kind of abominable immortal-dragon-lemming-slimeskin-mindslave, and beat a hasty retreat into the depths. Thinking quickly, Zelmar used a short-range teleport to catch it from behind and grapple away the mind-controlled rodent. The aboleth briefly gave chase, but quickly realized it was overmatched by the party and turned around for another retreat... but too late.
The party elected to eliminate the whole "evil lemming dragon god" problem by tossing both the crown and the lemming into a bag of devouring, but kept a single dragon scale in case they changed their minds.
Need to check about henchmen here also (two, I think)...
Viserion, 5th-level young white dragon (Zac)
Adonirim, 3rd-level mage
Shayna, 6th-level shaman (Kim)
a powerful new arcane caster (Kyle)
Saltbeard, dwarven pirate (Trefor)
Will's character
Mercenaries and followers:
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, but potentially available now that everyone is back in the area:
Ur khla lu khbea, 4th-level gladiator (Jonathan)
The very young white dragon, Namazu, reporting back on the frost giants
Sir Rock Boulder Fist, dwarven 5th-level summoner
Sir Robin (sounds retired, according to Kim)
Casualties
Viserion, transformed by an eyebeam into a lemming and drowned on the elemental plane of water, then completely destroyed along with the Iron Crown of the Sorcerer Kings using a bag of devouring.
Saltbeard, who wasn't injured but decided that he was outta there and promptly exited the dungeon by the quickest route.
Will's character was cut down by a chuul as well.
Treasure
8 jars of lamp oil, worth 20 gp each and weighing 6 stone per jar.
3 jars of dyes and pigments, worth 50 gp each and weighing 5 stone each.
60 animal horns worth 2 gp each, weighing 2 stone per 5 horns.
2 jars of dyes and pigments, worth 50 gp each and weighing 5 stone each.
2 thousand silver pieces.
3 barrels of fine spirits or liquor, worth 200 gp each and weighing 16 stone each.
4 barrels of fine spirits or liquor, worth 200 gp each and weighing 16 stone each.
1 crates of glassware, worth 200 gp each and weighing 5 stone each.
2 thousand electrum pieces.
3 carcass scavenger carcasses, totaling 21 hit dice and weighing 1 stone per HD. Their values are: 900, 280, 350
5 bee, killer giant carcasses, totaling 32 hit dice and weighing 1 stone per HD. Their values are: 640, 800, 420, 350, 120
3 thousand gold pieces.
50 GP crystal.
75 GP sardonyx.
50 GP citrine.
50 GP crystal.
25 GP lapis lazuli.
25 GP agate.
25 GP lapis lazuli.
50 GP moonstone.
25 GP tiger eye.
50 GP citrine.
50 GP onyx.
50 GP crystal.
10 GP malachite.
25 GP turquoise.
25 GP tiger eye.
25 GP agate.
25 GP tiger eye.
50 GP onyx.
50 GP crystal.
75 GP chalcedony.
25 GP turquoise.
25 GP turquoise.
25 GP tiger eye.
25 GP agate.
25 GP tiger eye.
50 GP bloodstone.
25 GP tiger eye.
A piece of jewelry constructed from ivory worth 600 GP.
A piece of jewelry constructed from wrought copper worth 110 GP.
A piece of jewelry constructed from carved jade worth 1200 GP.
A piece of jewelry constructed from chryselephantine worth 900 GP.
A piece of jewelry constructed from ivory worth 900 GP.
A piece of jewelry constructed from fine wood worth 600 GP.
A piece of jewelry constructed from porcelain worth 600 GP.
The total value of this hoard (excluding any magic) is 16110 gp and its total weight is 274 stone.
18 pieces of fine ivory, weighing 1 stone per 100 GP value.
The total value is: 997 and the average value is 55.
3 crates of fine porcelain, worth 500 gp each and weighing 2 stone each.
2 thousand gold pieces.
6 opal cameo portraits and intaglio erotic tableux, each worth 800 gp.
8000 GP flawless facet cut diamond.
4000 GP flawless diamond.
6000 GP facet cut star sapphire.
A piece of jewelry constructed from chryselephantine worth 800 GP.
A piece of jewelry constructed from wrought orichalcum worth 3000 GP.
A piece of jewelry constructed from wrought platinum worth 1000 GP.
A piece of jewelry constructed from silver studded with turquoise worth 1000 GP.
The total value of this hoard (excluding any magic) is 33097 gp and its total weight is 17 stone.
3 thousand platinum pieces.
A piece of jewelry constructed from gold studded with ruby worth 5000 GP.
The total value of this hoard (excluding any magic) is 20000 gp and its total weight is 3 stone.
2 ornamental jars of rare spices, worth 2500 gp each and weighing 4 stone each.
48 typical fur capes, worth 100 gp each and weighing 1 stone each.
2 thousand platinum pieces.
The total value of this hoard (excluding any magic) is 19800 gp and its total weight is 58 stone.
6000 GP facet cut star ruby.
8000 GP flawless facet cut diamond.
The total value of this hoard (excluding any magic) is 14000 gp and its total weight is 0 stone.
Total treasure value: 103,007 gp Total treasure value per member (7 shares): 14715.3 gp
Note: I think only four players (Reba, Sion, Andrew, and maybe Kyle) have continuing characters, but I'm still giving the retiring characters from previous sessions (including Jonathan, who missed the final night) a share of the treasure. I guess technically you could cut the missing/quitting characters out... but even if so, you'd only split their shares, not get any more experience from them.
Magical Items (easily ID'd by the Tower)
The totally unreadable private journal of... probably Eldred, judging from the creepy cover
Potion of Dragon Control
A scroll with the following spells: Speak with Dead, Permanent Illusion, Curse of Swine, Silent Step, Dismember, Haste
A scroll of the following type: Ward against Magic
A scroll with the following spells: Charm Monster
... and a treasure map
Experience
Killed: skittering maw [1600], marid [3900], 2 intellect devourers [2x980=1960], 6 chuul [6x3400=20,400], 10 skum [350], 5 drow 3rd-level fighters [400], 1 drow 5th-level lieutenant [500], 1 drow 7th-level priestess [1490], Lady Vysh, a marilith [2500], Brzzt-Kosh, a sorcerous sphere [4800], Molyg the Polyp, a mind flayer [1600], Brasyphylactis, an aboleth [2600]
Total: 42,100 xp
Total experience from treasure: 103,007 xp
Total experience from kills: 42,100 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0 xp
Total experience: 145,107 xp Total experience per member: 20,730 xp
March 2, Caudex Annales, 71 AUP
The party regrouped in the idol chamber, descending one at a time through the trap door above. The choices were forward into the chamber with the recently-expired leeches, or backward into the room with the intellect devourer. Everyone felt curious enough about the latter direction to backtrack, but moved carefully through the room with the half-dozen odd nozzle fixtures in the walls, sensing a trap. Walking through the room one at a time didn't seem to set anything off, however.
The room beyond was full of dead rats, the aftermath of the swarm used to drive off the intellect devourer. (The massively powerful fire elemental warrior had dispatched it with a single blow upon entering.) The room didn't "detect" as a trap in any formal sense (i.e., a trigger), but the presence of multiple pipes, valves, and faucet apertures around the perimeter left little doubt that it was intended to be flooded and drained in a controlled way.
Sure enough, the moment everyone was inside the room, the heavy entry door sung shut. Shayna made a dash for the entrance in bird form, but was caught inside even as the door slammed over one wing, pinning her in place. The room rapidly began to fill as water poured from the pipes.
Drainage issues are a common dungeon design problem.
The dwarves attempted to bash through the bulkhead of stone, while Brand the elemental warrior pushed into the room beyond. The dungeon-bashing attempt made some moderate progress (a small exit hole that allowed a single person to crawl through at once), but the unoccupied far-corner room turned out to present a bigger problem -- the enormous vaulted ceiling was a starfield of unfamiliar constellations enchanted with some kind of ritual magic, and disembodied chanting in an ancient language echoed from the walls. Brand entered and promptly went insane, charging back to attack his own party (with all his ridiculous damage output).
The entire party took down the enraged newcomer, fortunately with no casualties, but unfortunately only after lots of fire-generated steam had turned the room into a sauna above, and the culintary equivalent of hot rat-carcass soup below. At that point, however, the increasingly flooded room filled with strange fog, and the party realized they were not alone. A detection spell reveled the presence of a towering water elemental (in actual fact, a marid in wave-form). Effectively blinded by the obscuring fog, the party staggered around through waist-deep water in an attempt to defeat the creature and/or shut off the water valves. The elemental was quickly cut down to size by dragon-breath, and the closing valves gradually reduced the flood to a trickle.
At the conclusion of the battle, the party backtracked toward the other direction (but only after the dwarves had set off the acid gas trap in the room beyond!) The leech room was drained using a bag of devouring (wait, why didn't they just use that in the first place?!?), and the party detected some kind of illusion-magic altering the apparently smooth appearance of the bare walls. Closer inspection revealed hidden alcoves containing more lurking chuul ambusers! The creatures put up fierce resistance, leaving the party worn and exhausted -- and wondering who would go through so much trouble to transform the lower levels into an overengineered deathpit, and why!
Roster
Edward Sir Dame Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
This is a short placeholder for the session right before my vacation which I never wrote up. The short version is that Viserion got into the White Tower with the Chancellor, the tower went into a security lockdown, and a state of open battle broke out between forces loyal to the Chancellor (including his personal dire troll detail) and forces contolled by the Unspecified Evil Entity.
Or maybe all of them were just in such a deep state of paranoia that they started fighting one another spontaneously for no reason at all. It was hard to tell. Regardless, after a protracted wand battle with a bunch of apprentices, everyone eventually took shelter in Master Wainskirtle's office and opted to return to the dungeon on his advisement, rather than participate further in the fear-driven guerrilla warfare in the hallways.
March 2, Caudex Annales, 71 AUP
After regrouping, the party pushed farther into the depths of the White Tower Academy dungeons. The upper level control stations had been locked out, making it inevitable that the only solution to the infestation of water-planar creatures in the depths would only be eradicated by a frontal assault. The party elected to split into two groups, with the amphibious lizardmen exploring ahead to find and unlock the local control station, returning permissions to Master Wainskirtle in the control room above, while everyone else waited.
Of course the waiting members soon become bored, and wandered upstairs (and directly into a
purple-worm ambush!) to investigate the trolls who had been described as living on the fifth level. They were conspicuously absent from their chambers, with evidence of a battle between them and some other force of many-legged creatures. Deeper into the southwestern areas of the level, the party found an elaborate laboratory: great glass vessels full of mundane and magical beasts being altered by some kind of blue fluid, cast-off bodies with skulls oozing the same blue ichor, and a ritual circle with the unfortunate victims of magical sacrifices -- including a slowly regenerating troll, pained by mutilations to the point of burning anger. He could tell them little, beyond the savage nature of the attack, and the existence of a trap-door passage leading to the lower level somewhere beyond the flooded hallways.
Surprise! No one expects the cthulhu-lobster inquisition!
Returning throuth the lab, the vanguard encountered a chuul, a huge sentient crustacean patrolling on behalf of some greater master. The creature put up a dreadful fight before being subdued. Beyond that, the party found a pack of hellhounds guarding the private chambers of a disagreeable stone giant. After a short struggle, the party secured the area and sent Shayna down the verticle shaft to investigate.
Meanwhile, the two lizardmen met numerous guardians along the way forward: a wyvern, another intellect devourer, and a partially flooded chamber populated by nasty little leeches. After nearly perishing, the two retreated to the sealed shrine of an idol depicting some kind of betentacled fish-monster flailing a throng of miserable humans. There they waited... until the serendipitous arrival of Shayna from above!
Roster
Edward (run with it) Sir Dame Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
By this time it was late at night. The party gathered back up at the Dream Arena chamber. Mahlon Dreadwhit continued to rant about the secret dice-roller controlling everyone's actions until he was given a good hard nap, and the party decided to investigate the machine to see what might be lurking inside of it. Nathalia Bonare (now acting headmistress of Starchapel) reassured everyone that it was totally safe. The party was cautious, requesting that the destination be set to a version of the conference room upstairs, and that Dreadwhit be placed inside of the dream to test the flow of magic across the boundary between the Dreamlands and reality. When Dreadwhit initially remained unconscious, Shayna volunteered to entered the dream as well.
She arrived in the Dreamlands to witness a lecture by the ill-favored scholar in front of a bunch of disinterested students. At the end of the dream, as the room faded back into mist, she could hear a distant murmuring voice. The voice grew louder as she ventured beyond the boundaries (to the great alarm of Nathalia, who quickly lost the ability to track locations), but seemed to be speaking no recognizable words. In order to bypass the loss of tracking, the party decided to send in another member with a crystal ball. This seemed to work -- the magic of the crystal ball functioned just as successfully as a manifested object in the Dreamlands, and the paired set could work as a two-way communication system. Nathalia joined the dream with a tongues spell in order to interpret the language, which seemed to consist of overlapping instructions intended for a large number of different persons, a sort of psychic switchboard.
Unfortunately, the presence of multiple eavesdroppers was detected, and the source mounted an attack directly against the minds of the dream visitors. Nathalia failed to defend her mind, and quickly fell under the influence of some dark power. Even after being awakened (and then subjected to both the "normal" and "lizardman" versions of dispel magic) she continued to emit a string of apocalyptic rantings of the most disturbing sort. (Lizard version: Smash mage against another solid object!) In an act of desperation, the party decided to throw a protective helmet on her head (of the sort used to block out ESP attempts, thinly coated with lead/gold). Somehow it worked! The distant source was unable to penetrate the lining.
The party notified Alaric Wainskirtle, the Seadom Hall master, and recommended that he put on a tinfoil hat of his own. (He's ex-military in a fantasy world, so being awakened in the middle of the night and having someone recommend cranial protection against mind-control rays is perfectly plausible.) They attempted to do the same for the other two masters... and found that Enoch Teacandle, the gnome from Dunston Eyot, had gone off to explore the dungeon on his own.
At this point, a portion of the party finally decided to investigate the dungeons. (Ed.: Took you long enough!) Zelmar stayed behind to monitor Teacandle's activities with his crystal ball. The late-night crew in the bulwarked control room waved them through security, carefully opening and shutting the doors to allow access. Just beyond they found some very suspicious orcs on the upper level, who waved them past. In other portions of the first level, they found usual sorts of creatures acting unusually -- goblins cowering in a corner, pit vipers dropping from the ceiling, the rest of the orcs huddling together on high alert. After surviving a rolling-ball trap, they met a strange (but apparently honorable) entity, born of fire and ascending from some extraplanar rift on the lower levels.
Meanwhile, the other members of the party (Zelmar, Shayna, and Anatolia) decided to catch up. Zelmar, in a moment of bad judgment, decided to come alone ahead of the others. Having the advantage of being able to speak orc allowed him to discover that the orcs were suspicious that their own leader was under some evil influence. Zelmar agreed to help them confront the subchief. This resulted in a tense staredown, followed by the alarming revelation that the chief's skull had been compromised by the presence of an intellect devourer.
The intellect devourer ripped apart several orcs, and showed surprising resistance to physical damage. Fortunately, Zelmar was able to drop a damage-over-time spell that slowly wounded the skittering brain. Unfortunately, he was paralyzed almost immediately afterward by the psionic assaults of the nasty little brain parasite. The devourer shrank down, crawled into his mouth, and began burrowing through the soft palate in order to access the tastiest bits of the cerebral cortex. Tragically, the creature expired at roughly the same time as Zelmar, leaving him dead with a nasty-looking brain monster corpse clogging his half-eaten face. (Adventuring, it's such a glamorous life.)
Shayna and Anatolia arrived a while later to witness the carnage. They dragged Zelmar back into the control room, whereupon they discovered another unpleasant secret: the night crew in the control room consisted of three doppelgangers, who were looking to eliminate witnesses. Anatolia and Shayna powered up with spells and dispatched the faceless horrors. Zelmar was beyond recovery, so the others pushed forward to find the rest of the party.
The survivors regrouped by the stairs to the lower levels and did a bit of scouting. The path followed by Teacandle seemed to lead to the sixth and lowest level, which was damp and filled with the sound of flowing water. The party sent lizard swimmers ahead down the flooded tunnels, only to fall victim to an ambush from a puddle behind them that ended up being deeper than anticipated -- deep enough to contain a skittering maw. Only the timely intervention of the mysterious fire-lord saved the exhausted party from an untimely demise. At that point, everyone decided it might be best to retreat from the dungeons and regroup.
Roster
Edw...ina(?) Sir Dame Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
Jeeves, 1st-level butler-paladin
Zelmar
Anatolia
Frigodria Dawnbringer, 5th-level paladin (Reba)
Mysterious fiery stranger that one-shots everything (Kyle)
Lost Dwarven Kingdom of Kilndelve (see Grimrigg for details)
Location: Great Barrier Range, far east of Kargau
Story: Dwaves excavated into liminal zone with the underworld,
balrog’s legion poured out, tried to lure in venerable dragon to
fight them, turned out that the dragon was old friends with the
balrog, dwarves ran off
Dragon - Venerable? Must be enormous by now...
Balrog - opened gate to underworld, probably still open
Artifacts: Axe of the Dwarvish Lords - conveys leadership of dwarven clans; Bow of the Great Eagles - incredible range, friendship with all eagles?; Seal of Chaos - maybe worn by Balrog, gates in fiends, sounds redundant to be honest
The Ransomed Maiden, sunken
prize ship off Birkenstrand
Location:
50 miles south of Birkenstrand, initially along coast
Story:
Flagship of anti-piracy fleet was captured by pirates, cursed with
undeath by captain’s
wish as he walked plank so
they could never touch his spear,
attacked by dragon turtle on the way back to port
Dragon Turtle still guarding wreck? Those things live for centuries...
Shining Spear - destroys undead that view its brilliance or something like that, sounds useful right about now
Flooded Mass Grave
Location: North of Hainburg
Story: Proud queen murdered by her own doppelganger after gift sent
by invading army, commander of army betrayed by underlings, rebels
defeated, died alone in dismal swamp
Barrow Wights (lots)
Diadem of the Imperial Warmistress - can also be used by bladedancers
Treasure map to Great Axe of the North - would have been useful against those frost giants
Cursed Hero’s Cairn
Location: Between Halheim and Kargau
Story: Eternally regenerating hero enchanted with sleep, buried alive
while resting at sinkhole of evil during a single night, body eaten
alive slowly by gradually expanding rot-grub colony, became wraith, really bad-tempered about having spent several decades being constantly eaten alive ("I mean, I would be!")
Deathbound Wraith
Shield of the Empyrean Heavens - protects against evocations when invoked while stationary, only way to face down a death knight's fireballs!
Wandering mummy-worm “The Mendicant”
Location: Anyone’s guess
Story: Giant purple worm fed and charmed into protecting town,
devoured all attackers, eventually army sent to capture town, worm
devoured thousands of them before killed, then embalmed and raised
Purple Worm Mummy
Corselet of the Imperial Warmistress (might require refitting with new laces/boning)
The Mountain’s Root, stone troll colony
Location: Mountains east of Hochgrube
Story: Long tunnel to heart of mountain, center of mountain in
permanent darkness, full of edible but unpalatable mushrooms, trolls
keep pit full of thousands of captive humans to convert the mushrooms into edible meat (the brutes!)
Stone Trolls (lots)
Bracers of the Imperial Warmistress - deflect missiles with your wrists, bet that looks awesome
....at the end, Teacandle appends a personal note indicating that he'd be very interested in any reports about the location of the Boots of the Imperial Warmistress, which are red and strappy and unexpectedly great for jumping despite three-inch heels.
He also indicates that if the party doesn't have any use for this kind of gear, he can locate what he describes as "an interested and motivated buyer".
[DM note: As God is my witness, I rolled all these items randomly off the Heroic Fantasy table.]
The conference schedule in disarray after the unexpected (and unexplained) gargoyle attack, the party decided to investigate the rumors of a spy in the Academy. Since every headmaster had made some version of the same report, there were all kinds of promising leads to explore. Sister Anatolia went into a trance to determine a plausible culprit... and got a strange vision of shifting colors in response to what should have been a yes-or-no series of questions about the traitor's identity. The colors settled out to "black" in the case of all the headmasters, save for the gnomish artificer Enoch Teacandle. [Note: This isn't a custom class, just setting flavor for a mage focused on magical engineering. He's not a tinker gnome; his body armor was built for him by dwarven machinists.] Shayna decided NOT to enter the Dream Arena, despite some coaxing from Eldred's assistant Nathalia.
First, the party visited Chlodwig Vance and his monkeys. His office contained the logbooks of all spells cast in the tower, and he was able to confirm that only spells cast during a limited block of time (second watch on Thursday) featured tainted spell signatures suggestive of malign influence. The next occurrence was expected early Friday morning, on March 3rd -- though he warned them that staking out the halls in a visible way had thus far prevented the incidents.
The second candidate for interview was Alaric Wainskirtle. He expressed general exasperation with the badly run administration of the tower, but also communicated suspicion that something strange was going on -- fatigue among the researchers was widespread, and suggested that the problem was more than a single rogue agent. Meanwhile, Jeeves scanned the entire building (slowly) for "evil", finding nothing in particular, but a sort of general sense of malaise hovering around the upper floors where Alaric and Eldred had their offices.
The dwarven contact introduced in Alaric's letter arranged a meeting at the local tavern, purchasing an enormous quantity of food and drink (presumably on a travel expense account). He promised the party wealth, artifact, and fame if they could clear the occupiers of the dwarven fortress at Kilndelve. Afterward, a random interview of a tavern patron indicated that the tower staff had been working unusually long hours... somehow without being aware of any shift in their schedules.
Then they went to chat with Enoch Teacandle, who seemed a little too gung-ho to demonstrate the auto-wand feature in his juggernaut armor. Teacandle indicated that he had been wearing the armor nearly full-time, and that he rarely went into the tower dungeons himself, preferring to order monster parts off the open market. Plenty of other researchers, particularly the Dream Arena project, had been spending substantial time down there, "in search of squid tentacles, that sort of thing". The Dream Arena required a steady supply of fuel, apparently.
On the way down the stairs, Zelmar was accosted by a strange scholar in the metaphysics department, who indicated that he was working on something top secret and could reveal "the truth" about some kind of conspiracy. The party was in too much of a hurry to stop, but agreed to come back later. (The name given, Malon Dreadwhit, was identical to someone they had been warned to avoid in one of the letters.)
Believing that the time had come to confront Eldred about the nature of his suspicious project, the party ascended to the 9th floor -- only to find that Eldred had already been murdered by an assassin. The knife had a strange substance on the blade, and there were drops of water on the floor. Testing of the water indicated that it contained some kind of biological agent inimacable to life and health.
Later that evening the party confronted Nathalia, who seemed deeply surprised. By that time, the body had already vanished.
Finally, Zelmar, Merda Strega, Herrobrin, and ??? made a late-night visit to Malon Dreadwhit. Cackling with glee, he bustled them into his office to reveal his secrets. But first, he demanded they open a box for him. The box turned out to contain a phase tiger. A weird phase tiger that kept blinking in and out of the ethereal plane, and wanted revenge! The cat warped around the room, and split into several smaller and equally deadly kittens which mauled the two spellcasters badly. Malon Dreadwhit, indifferent to the carnage, triumphantly opened a second box to reveal a DEAD phase tiger. Zelmar, having survived the ordeal, grabbed Dreadwhit under one arm and bustled him out of the room.
Roster
Edw...ina(?) Sir Dame Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
Jeeves, 1st-level butler-paladin
Zelmar (...is he a henchman now? I'm a bit confused...)
Need to check about henchmen here also (two, I think)...
Merda Strega, 6th-level witch (Will)
Viserion, 5th-level young white dragon (Zac)
Adonirim, 3rd-level mage
Shayna, 6th-level shaman (Kim)
Ur khla lu khbea, 4th-level gladiator (Jonathan)
Saltbeard (Trefor)
Mercenaries and followers:
Army o' skeletons (400+ 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, but potentially available now that everyone is back in the area:
Slarus (Austin)
The very young white dragon, Namazu, reporting back on the frost giants
Sir Rock Boulder Fist, dwarven 5th-level summoner
Sir Robin
Retiring, unless they somehow resurface:
Zalgesh
Jarrus Velt, 5th-level thief
Thorvald, 6th-level spy (Zac's Mom's PC, not a henchman)
Togast, 6th-level skinscribe (Juston is happily married)
Tu'a'than, 5th level spriggan
Casualties
Herrobrin, slain by quantum phase kitties (and calling upon his crowning moment of awesome to drag the souls of all his skeletons into the abyss along with him)
Merda Strega, both legs destroyed by phase kitties (at least there's a floating disc around here somewhere that's suddenly available)
Magical Items
None
Valuables
None
Experience
For Zelmar and... the other survivor of the phase tiger fight...
Total experience from treasure: 0 xp
Total experience from kills: 1230 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0 xp
Total experience: 0 xp Total experience per member (Zelmar and ???): 615 xp
The party parleyed for a bit with BaronBurgrave Duke Rictovarius, the new master of Hemmelmark (or what was left of it). Rictovarius was immensely disappointed over the loss of the weapons and armor in the personal possession of the various undead commanders, speculating that they must have been of exceedingly great power. (He was specifically interested in the presence of plate mail or swords, but seemed totally unfamiliar with the iron crown.) Additionally, he expressed concern about the failure to locate and destroy any essential binding items such as lich phalacteries or mummy-lord canopic jars. The leadership of Hochgrube immediately began preparations for a massive excavation operation, including sending for slave labor and taskmasters from the south as well as sufficient guards and necromantic overseers to cope with any reconstituted undead not permanently killed by the cave-in.
Meanwhile, the party received a summons to the White Tower for an academic conference, the apparent result of Shayna's diplomatic aerial tour of the coast. After several days of uneventful travel the party arrived at the village surrounding the tower, and worked their way around to the covered loading bay area below the cliffside entrance. After a cursory scan for cursed artifacts, the supervisor waved them through, remarking on the fine quality of their collection of gems for magical research purposes.
The tower was already bustling with new arrivals, as arcane authorities from the entire coast had been filtering in over several days. The receptionist at the desk (a blue-skinned fey with a diaphanous gown) assigned them to rooms and passed along the conference agenda, which started the next morning on the open-air skydeck level of the tower, 14 floors above. She also passed along a set of private letters, one from each of the headmasters. Upon opening them in private, they revealed a curiously coordinated message: Each headmaster suspected another of the high-ranking wizards of being untrustworthy, passing along classified information to some outside organization.
The conference featured presentations by each of the college headmasters to a colorful assortment of several dozen thaumaturges, magicians, and theurgists, with some introductory remarks from the chancellor. The presentations featured the following speakers.
Chancellor Typho Lock (miniatured in some research mishap, carried in a purse by a dire troll): A general overview of the rival factions active in the Green Pass region where the party began, including the acolytes of Orcus (currently still at war with Durnovar), the necrolytes of Nergal (including Lord Varghoulis and the Black Legion) and their masters in Nerigos (the probable culprits in cursing the region with undeath and winter), and the necromancers of Sutekh (the allies of Rictovarius currently occupying Hemmelmark).
Eldred, Starchapel master (old and withered, rides a floating disk of force, whispers remarks to his assistant Nathalia): A brief history of the Timberlands region (the current map) in pre-human times, when it was ruled by a doomed empire of humanoid amphibians who went into deep stasis by drying out and becoming dormant. They are long dead due to the change in climate, but prone to returning as mummies. Starchapel seemed less concerned about the necrolytes and their agenda, and more concerned that the old empire would renew its attempts to summon an avatar of its own froglike god from a forgotten temple. Starchapel believes in knowledge as the key to victory, and requests the aid of the party in helping to test their "dream arena", a device to extract information from the residual traces of ancient dreams that endure in the extraplanar Dreamlands.
Enoch Teacandle, Dunston Eyot master (gnome, met the party earlier, pastel-orange suit of full-sized mechanical armor): A quick mention of his own-going literature search for any artifacts related to previous wars against the undead. He invited the party (or anyone else) to visit him later for a more detailed overview of the uncovered lore. Dunston Eyot believes in artifacts at the key to victory.
Chlodwig Vance, Quaffmere headmaster (childlike, bald and roundfaced, easily distracted, three monkey familiars): A short overview of powerful ritual casters who might be persuaded to counterspell the rituals of the High Council of Nerigos, the presumed architects of the undead invasion. Possibilities included The Outcast, an anonymous dark elf wizard powerful enough to defy the matrons and retain residence in the underground city of Emru-Marol, and a couple of the Undying Lords from the east side of the Barrier Range who specialize in necromancy and/or frost magic. Quaffmere believes in high-level ritual magic as the key to victory, although Vance was upfront about the fact that any permanent solution would necessitate destroying the high council itself.
Alaric Wainskirtle, Seadom Hall master (physically imposing, military demeanor): A plea for allies to compensate for the currently overstretched condition of Durnovar. Wainskirtle suggested making contact with the leaders of Woldwatch (elves and other nature-oriented neutrals on the far side of the Barrier Range), as well as recovering the celebrated Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, which would rally the scattered dwarves who used to dwell in the rift valleys of Hojenhold Vale -- since conquered and occupied by both a balrog (released from the deeps, dug too greedily, yadda-yadda) and a dragon (initially hired to fight the balrog, but they turned out to be an old friends and divied up the treasure). Seadom Hall believes in diplomacy as the key to victory.
The conference was cut short by the arrival of a flotilla of gargoyles, who went straight for the top of the tower. The assembled mages launched a barrage of fireballs and other evocations at them, but an elite core of the gargoyles landed on the towers to attack the tower masters. The party, as the only real melee fighters available, stepped forward as a last line of defense, just barely rescuing the chancellor from being carried off in his purse. (He seemed very grateful afterwards.)
As the attendees broke up in the aftermath of the excitement, the party was invited down to the 10th floor for a tour of the Dream Arena. Nathalia met them and invited them to test the device, an arrangement of cots connected by organic vine-like tendrils to a central machine. The party was initially suspicious, as Nathalia reassured them that the residual dream fragments left on the Dreamlands were completely unable to affect them in the real world, and that even if a powerful entity from the Dreamlands did notice their presence and attempted to assault them with mental attacks, they could still be extracted relatively quickly.
Nathalia initially requested that they scout the capabilities of the Herald of Tsathoggua, an emissary of the frog god which had ravaged the countryside centuries ago in anticipation of the true avatar's long-delayed arrival. The party mostly declined the offer, but Shayna volunteered to enter the Dreamlands to conduct some aerial surveillance.
Roster
Edw...ina(?) Sir Dame Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
Jeeves, 1st-level butler-paladin
Zelmar (...is he a henchman now? Is Anatolia here? I'm a bit confused...)
Total experience from treasure: 0 xp
Total experience from kills: 9200 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0 xp
Total experience: 0 xp Total experience per member: 1022 xp
The party returned a week later looking to eliminate the crypt bosses once and for all. The area seemed almost completely deserted. The entry chamber contained a trap (disarmed), the main hallway a series of half-destroyed statues (smashed), the rear chamber a set of four stone coffins (smashed), and also a series of glowing pillars (also smashed). In the middle of smashing the pillars, a rearguard in the entry chamber made the uphappy discover that the ice sculptures in the initial chamber (the only non-smashed objects still remaining) were actually ice zombies, and that they were underneath a trio of weird vampire-like slimy things. The party regrouped to eliminate the zombies and drive off the vampires.
From there, everyone broke up. Half the party when into the tunnels to locate and extract the treasure (which still contained a vast quantity of coin, though no magical items). The other half explored beyond a secret door that led to a laboratory and ritual chamber. The laboratory contained a selection of reagents (gems and such), as well as many evil-looking tomes. The gems were pocketed, and everything else was set aflame. All was going well and most of the treasure chamber had been relocated to the entry area, when the other party decided to move beyond into the ritual chamber.
The ritual chamber was clearly the source of the area's reputation as a sinkhole of evil. The altar splintered and shattered under the blows of outraged dwarves, cracking into pieces. Unfortunately, the remainder of the crypt went continued cracking apart along with it, and the structural integrity of the entire complex was rather obviously compromised and rapidly deteriorating.
Meanwhile, the undead leaders, realizing that they were under assault, rushed forward to engage the intruders with an army of skeletons. A frantic chase down the tunnels began, with periodic opportunity strikes as the pursuers came into range of the pursued. Ultimately everyone from both groups made it out alive, just at the crypt collapsed into rubble... collapsing on top of both the undead antagonists and a massive pile of coin.
Roster
Edw...ina(?) Sir Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
Ur khla lu khbea, 4th-level gladiator (Jonathan's character)
Nakab Duli, peasant-with-an-arbalest
Mercenaries and followers:
Army o' skeletons (400+ 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, but potentially available now that everyone is back in the area:
Slarus (Austin)
The very young white dragon, Namazu, reporting back on the frost giants
Sir Rock Boulder Fist, dwarven 5th-level summoner
Zelmar (injured)
Anatolia (at chapel with Zelmar)
Sir Robin (badly injured)
Retiring, unless they somehow resurface:
Zalgesh
Jarrus Velt, 5th-level thief
Thorvald, 6th-level spy (Zac's Mom's PC, not a henchman)
Togast, 6th-level skinscribe (Juston is happily married)
Tu'a'than, 5th level spriggan
Casualties
None, amazingly
Magical Items
None, tragically (all buried while being equipped by their owners)
Valuables
Jewelry (22): 16,118
gp
1 pearl-studded silver (2000)
2 opal-studded silver (3000, 2000)
3 carved jade (800, 800, 1200)
6 wrought gold (500, 600, 700, 700*, 800, 900)
4 wrought silver (200, 500, 500, 500)
3 wrought bronze (110, 160, 90)
3 wrought horn (10, 22, 26)
* engraved headpiece (see right)
Gems (26): 116,250
gp
flawless facet cut blue diamond (10,000)
2x flawless face cut diamond (8000)
flawless facet cut ruby (8000)
flawless facet cut emerald (8000)
3x facet cut star sapphire (6000)
2x facet cut star ruby (6000)
6x flawless diamond (4000)
3x black pearl (2000)
amber with preserved scarab (1500)
amber with preserved mantis (1500)
amber with preserved frog (1500) #
star sapphire (750)
star ruby (750)
opal (750)
topaz (500)
# this object radiates faint magic under a detection spell
Experience
Killed: 8 empowered hoarflesh [640 xp]
Driven off: 3 tsathar vampire [5520 xp]
Buried alive: The Leech King, Deathbound Wraith [4200 xp], Gorric Eyesuck, Thrassian Deathchanter Draugr [2540 xp], Lector Brekexachrrip, Tsathar Mummy Lord [4200 xp], Talus Reckard, Lich [6000 xp], Amoth-Suthekhan, 9th-level sorcerer of necromancy and retired grandmaster of the Necromancers of Sutekh [2500 xp], 3 wraiths [570 xp], 2 hangbui [130 xp], 24 skeletons [312 xp]
Total: 22,832 xp
Total experience from treasure: 132,368 xp
Total experience from kills: 22,832 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0 xp
Total experience: 155,200 xp Total experience per member: 15,520 xp
Having no interest in fighting an entire room of elite enemies with a divided party, the crypt infiltrators (E Sir Winsley, Jeeves, Setanta, Viserion, and Shayna) decided to make a break for the exits. The furious lich attempted a disintegrate spell on Setanta (unsuccessfully) as revenge for the theft of his artifact, and then a hold person spell on everyone in sight. The other undead leaders (a mummy lord, a deathbound wraith, and some kind of Thrassian deathchanter) made a hard rush at the escaping thieves.
Shayna held behind to cover the escape before shifting to crow form, giving her time to witness the arrival of the Grandmaster of the Necromancers of Sutekh, tunneling up from below on a giant mummified purple worm. Rather to his dismay, he found himself fighting (and perishing) alone as his erstwhile hero champions fled on foot, ignoring his demands for the crown. Meanwhile, the rest of the party encountered a solid wall of mummies and vampires opposing their exit, and pushed their way through to the surface, pursued by the angry wraith lord.
For a moment, it seemed like they were doomed. The mummies intercepted the escape of the party at the main entrance, and the wraith managed to seize the iron crown. But the ensuing contest of strength resolved in favor of Viserion, who reclaimed the crown and flew away with it, leaving the mummies to fall and the wraith to retreat back down into the crypt to lick his wounds (note: he survived with 2 hp, so he won't even need to spend 1d10 nights with his binding object to recover).
Meanwhile, Herrobrin's skeleton army liberated Hemmelmark, giving the party time to counsel Duke Johann to organize an evacuation before the wyvern riders from Rictovarius' forces could arrive to take control of the ducal keep. While the primary forces from Hochgrube moved into the looted and ravaged city of Hemmelmark, their necromancer allies slowly converted the now-disorganized undead, swelling the ranks of Hochgrube even further. The crypt entrance was placed under constant surveillance by BaronBurgrave Duke-elect Rictovarius, who strongly encouraged the party to go down into the crypt and finish off his dirty work -- but balked at the invitation to attempt a similar operation himself!
The magical cold snap gradually subsided into normal winter conditions and the skies cleared a bit, though clearly destroying the control sphere was not sufficient to undo the presence of the undead itself. Meanwhile, Shayna flew around to the neighboring cities in raven-form, seeking the aid of scholars at the White Tower Academy (who told her to come back on the following Tuesday) and confirming that the undead infestation was fairly widespread (covering most of the western half of the Timberlands, for a hundred miles or more to the north -- but not yet as far as the coastal cities.
Roster
Edw...ina(?) Sir Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
Army o' skeletons (400+ 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, but potentially available now that everyone is back in the area:
Slarus (Austin)
The very young white dragon, Namazu, reporting back on the frost giants
Sir Rock Boulder Fist, dwarven 5th-level summoner
Zelmar (injured)
Anatolia (at chapel with Zelmar)
Sir Robin (badly injured)
Retiring, unless they somehow resurface:
Zalgesh
Jarrus Velt, 5th-level thief
Thorvald, 6th-level spy (Zac's Mom's PC, not a henchman)
Togast, 6th-level skinscribe (Juston is happily married)
Tu'a'than, 5th level spriggan
Casualties
Setanta, pinned down and mauled while trying to escape
Magical Items
The Iron Crown of the Sorcerer-Kings, snagged by Viserion before he flew off
Valuables
None (it's all still piled up in there in a giant heap)
Experience
Everyone entering the crypt
Killed: Malphus, ruinguard vampire [6600 xp], 4 mummies [1840 xp]
Total: 8440 xp
Total experience from treasure: 0 xp
Total experience from kills: 8440 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0 xp
Total experience: 8440 xp Total experience per member: 1688 xp
Total experience from treasure: 0 xp
Total experience from kills: 11,405 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0 xp
Total experience: 11,405 xp Total experience per member: 5703 xp
The party marched north toward Hemmelmark with their mercenaries, kobolds, and skeletons, followed by the larger army of Rictovarius a few days behind. The weather remained frigid and violent, but the skeletons bearing their large branches sheltered the warparty from the worst of the winds. Fortunately, the rich slave-labor-stocked storehouses of Hochgrube had allowed everyone to provision amply before departing with something like a year's worth of food. (I can only assumed that the downtrodden citizens of Hochgrube were watching mournfully as they saw their imagined deliverers allying with their oppressors into a massive army of necromancers, undead minions, man-eating beastmen, wyvern riders, and whip-wielding slavedrivers.)
At this point, who DOESN'T have one?
As they approached the lands of Duke Johann Zaiser, emissaries from Burgrave (nee Baron) Rictovarius requested a war council, and Jeeves was happy to lead a small delegation in attendance at the great tent of the Hochgrube leadership. The grandmaster of the Necromancers of Sutekh was there, crazy as ever, along with several Hochgrube lieutenants: Rictovarius' second-in-command, the aviator-goggled Obrist Maximillian, a spiky whip-cradling warmistress named Onyx, and a few other armor-clad goons. They all seemed very eager for the fight -- or more precisely, eager to let their beastmen vassals start smashing things up while they watched.
Initially, the plan was to set the beastmen to looting the ruins of Hemmelmark, and take control of the castle from Duke Johann. The eventual consensus (after a bit of persuasive speaking) was that the instead the beastment should help with the assault on the underground crypt seen in Shayna's vision, while Herrobin's undead led the occupation liberation of Hemmelmark. This resulted in the party being split up, with most of the party joining the assault on the crypt, but Frigodria joining Herrobin.
The battle outside the crypt quickly locked into a stalemate of powerful undead and beastment. (Well, aside from the hapless kobolds.) The necromancers at once set to work controlling the undead and setting them against one another, but with a long like of reinforcements to the northeast and west, it seemed impossible to truly kill them all. In the confusion, a few members of the party (including Viserion, Shayna, and Aureon) made a rush for the crypt entrance, finding it apparently unguarded, the walls and floor coated with a thick covering ice.
Several passages led away from the entrance chamber, one through large doors, one through a smaller door, and one past rubble down a rough tunnel into the lower levels. Passage into the deeper portions was blocked by a magical shield of force, which yielded and dissipated to a dispel magic. The chamber below was a hideous preparation room lined with wall-shackles binding frozen naked corpses (former inhabitants of the local villages), along with dirty piles of their discarded clothing.
Even deeper, the strike group of adventurers found a treasure chamber filled to the brim with minor valuables, mostly silver and copper coins looted from the villages. The zombies must have been working like ants for weeks, hauling it all back and forth in long caravan lines! Shayna was mentally assaulted by some kind of voice, cursing her with blindness -- fortunately the curse was of the normal sort, and could be dispelled with prayers.
In the deepest portion of the caves was a huge control center. A great sphere of crystalline ice showed an array of scenes from the surface world across its surface, while a team of five powerful undead overlords monitored and directed their progress: the vampire ruinguard they had met before, a lich, some kind of undead greater lizardman, a mummy lord, and some other unfamiliar creature vaguely like a wight. They recognized the lich's crown -- the Iron Crown of the Sorcerer-Kings, an artifact granting immortality to its wearer. Using the advantage of surprise and a Rod of Cancellation, the ice crystal ball was abruptly shattered into shards, and the intruders found themselves facing an angry cabal of powerful undead.
In the ensuing frenzy, the vampire was blasted by light, the Thrassian found himself very surprised to actually take a punch, and the Iron Crown was knocked skidding across the floor, only to be snagged at the end of a pole by Aureon.
(And then security walked in and kicked us out of the building. To be continued...)
Roster
Edward Sir Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
