Green Pass Campaign IIIb, Session 6: Party Crashers

This is a placeholder for the Emru-Marol session report.

Emru-Marol Experience Calculations

So suppose a group of adventurers use a mirror of opposition to summon a army of evil duplicates, right in the middle of a drow spider festival. The 1st edition version of this item doesn't seem to have any limit to the number of duplicates it can summon, and it doesn't even require anyone to see the reflection in order to function. If you're reflected, you're duplicated! So presumably displaying it to a crowd would duplicate the entire crowd -- with murderous counterparts of themselves. How much experiences would the ensuing slaughter be worth?

First, note that the clones aren't particularly strategic. Each one wants only to mindlessly kill its counterpart. So the clones are certainly going to lose this fight, once the opposition gets organized. Let's assume that they can, at most, eliminate about 50% of those present, and that they'll always manage to kill at least 10%. Then we'll dice with d100 to see the exact fraction, keeping the first result between 10 and 50. And the drow get.... 11%! It's almost as if someone tipped them off to trouble. That's what comes of warning the heads of three major drow houses.

Now we need demographics of festival attendance. The city of Emru-Marol has 7000 families, but is part of a much larger realm (Emru-Marolvi) of more like 250,000 families. However, most of those "families" are slaves of the drow. The drow themselves are probably only about 5% of the total population of the realm. So we'll assume a base attendance of around 10,000, and assume that the other 2500 are staying home to keep the slaves in line. That seems like a sensible attendance figure for a major festival, given the physical dimensions of their temple.

All of these attenders are presumably leveled characters, since there are no "0th-level" adult elves. (We'll ignore children, since that's always an ethically uncomfortable subject, and just say they've stayed home. We'll also ignore the victims of their human sacrifices, since those are being brought out a few at a time.) The standard demographic level ratio for ACKS gives a distribution of something like

1 12th
1 10th
2 9th
5 8th
9 7th
20 6th
50 5th
120 4th
240 3rd
700 2nd
2000 1st

plus another 700 black widow spiders watching from above in hopes of snacking on a sacrifice victim. Here I've divided the ACKS numbers by 2 for all levels below 6th, since those soldiers are the ones staying home to suppress the slave revolts.

OK, now we need to check to see who lives. For all levels above 5th, I'm just going to roll randomly against the target of 11%, to see if they can beat it... and they all do, one after another! So no major drow leaders have been slain.

For lower-level characters, I'll just assume a flat ratio or 89% survivors. The 11% that die come out to...

2 6th x820 = 1640
5 5th x500 = 2500
13 4th x190 = 2470
25 3rd x80 = 2000
77 2nd x38 = 2926
220 1st x16 = 3520
77 spiders x80 = 6160

Total 21,216 xp

Divided over 8.5 shares (assuming 1.5 shares for each henchman) gives 2496 xp per party member, with the lizard henchmen getting a half-share of 1248 xp.

There were a few extra drow killed during the impromtu dance recital by Grimdark, but that's basically a rounding error compared to the list above. But since I'm a nice GM, I'll call it an extra 100 xp for anyone at the dance recital. That would be... Grimdark, Zigg, and someone else I forget. Will's one-eyed barbarian. I always forget him!

Oh, yes -- and to acquire the mirror in the first place, that took a win in the gladiatorial arena. So our two gladiators (Zigg and D) each get an extra

2 werewolves x135 = 270 xp

or an extra 135 xp each.

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.

Dark Elves: Legends And Lore

The last session ended with some dissatisfaction that I hadn't revealed that dark elves can detect magic at will. Although this is a common enough spell that you just need to expect it almost anywhere you go, I figure it's worth putting up some common information about Drow (in this case, modeled after the original Gygaxian presentation) as localized to the Green Pass setting.

**************************************************
The underground citadel of Emru-Marol, Gateway of the Shackled Passage, is the primary trade hub connecting caravans from the pirate states of the Larcenous Coast that pass into the Undying Lands beyond the mountains. The city is cosmopolitan in its population (beastmen, underworld fiends, and even more otherworldly types), but local political and civil functions are dominated by the noble houses of the dark
elves, the Drow.

All Drow classes have the following racial abilities:

• Drow add +2 to their own surprise rolls when underground (they are wary and normally be surprised).
• Drow are highly resistant to magic. They have a +2 bonus to all saves vs spells, and have additional magical resistance of 50% + 2% per level.
• Drow are sensitive to bright light. In sunlight, a light spell, or any similarly bright illumination, they suffer a -2 to attacks and saving throws (replacing the usual bonus). Their realm is enchanted to ward against bright lights.
• All Drow can cast the following spells once per day: faerie fire, darkness.
• At 5th level and above, they gain detect good/evil, detect magic, and levitate, once per day.
• Female Drow can also cast dispel magic and clairvoyance once per day.
• They have superior visual acuity extending into both the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum. Their realms are dim and shadowy in visible light, but glow continually in these extended spectral ranges. Creatures with only infravision perceive their cities in a hellish red-oranges. Ultravision reveals brilliant iridescent shades of green and purple.
• They have all the stonecraft and dungeon detection traits of both dwarves and elves.

Drow gear is also potent:

• They wear spider silk cloaks and boots that make them virtually invisible and silent, allowing them to surprise opponents on a 1-5 out of 6.
• They coat their missiles (crossbow bolts and javelins) with sleeping poison (save at -4, or sleep for ½ to 2 hours). Drow are themselves immune to this poison.
• Drow items are often powerful but are enchanted to function only in their dark realm. If brought to the surface they will decay in the sun. Even if kept in the dark, they will permanently be reduced to mundane items within a month.

Noble Drow classes include the following variants on the elven courtier class:

• Drow House Priestess (as elven courtier, but cast as full clerics, not ½-level mages)
• Drow Arcanist (as elven courtier, but cast as full level mages)

House Priestesses are always female, and Arcanists are always male. Commoner female Drow are often fighters. Commoner male Drow may be either fighters or (more rarely) spellswords.

Travelers from the east will need to clear a security checkpoint before boarding the Block Lift. The Lift is a solid hollow cube of granite which rises and descends through its shaft by magical means. The checkpoint is garrisoned by dark elven patrols. They enforce a strict limit on the use of the elevator, allowing only six passengers at once. Additional passengers can be transported only after being chained by the wrists to shackles set into the wall which immobilize hands behind the back. (The Drow are very paranoid about slave insurrections, and so insist that transported captives be restrained whenever being transported.) If more than six caravan members wish to enter unchained, they must make multiple trips. This occupancy limit is enforced by rune wards, so even the current garrison commandant cannot negate it.

The Drow are very hostile toward surface elves, and look suspiciously on followers of any Lawful faith, especially clerics of the monotheistic faith of Durnovar and any of the dwarven/barbarian gods (Thor, Odin, Freya, etc). Drow have “detect good” as a racial at-will ability, making it difficult to conceal such allegiances. Such persons will not be allowed to enter the city except as restrained and disarmed captives in shackles. If surface elves or Lawful heroes (paladins, bladedancers, etc) are freely part of a caravan group, that group will suffer a negative reaction penalty that will make it likely that they will be arrested or attacked.

Rather than kill intruders, Drow will almost invariably attempt to capture them using their spells and poisons. High-level captives are valued as potential sacrifices to their goddess, the Spider Queen, and hardworking dwarves and gnomes are coveted as slaves. Even ordinary captives are often used for recreational torture, or fed to prized pet spiders (who like their meat fresh!)

Green Pass Campaign III, Session 2: Why Are We Killing These Trolls?

August 30-31, Caudex Annales, 70 AUP
Things picked up in the hill country with the party driven off the road by a patrol of three trolls. Figuring that they have taken out over a dozen ogres last week, the party saw no particular reason to flee from trolls. The trolls were little match for an entire warband of heroes, although they did manage to draw some blood before going down.

Instead of continuing along the road toward the mountains, the party set up a base camp and dispatched all but the reserves to hunt down the lair of the trolls. After a few miles of relatively simple tracking through the hills, they began to notice signs of other organized patrols of a similar composition, all converging on a troll sizable troll village.

To test the strength of the trolls (and over the objections of Vandar), the party arranged a small ambush with a pit trap a few hundred yards outside the village. The trolls remained awake through the night, and grew increasingly agitated about the missing patrol, until eventually they sent out a number of search and rescue squads in all directions. One of the squads almost immediately blundered into the trap, one troll stumbling in and the others tottering off balance at the edge of the pit while the squad leader roared behind them. The party, watching their silhouettes against the stars from just outside of infravision range, rushed forward to assault the others.

The battle progressively saw an increasing number of trolls pushed into the pit on top of the first one, who by now had been set on fire with some judiciously applied incendiary oil. When the squad leader went down, the party hauled his body to the edge and tossed him over too, creating the worlds least-appetizing BBQ grill. (Well aside from the lizard goons, who sawed off some troll limbs to save for later.)

Troll patrol

All the commotion of battle attracted the attention of the rest of the villages squads, which had not gone farther than a few minutes away. A few stealthy members of the party (including both gnomes, Conan and Grimdark) hid again and counted no less than 20 trolls running past, in three groups. The final group obviously featured the leaders of the village, include a skull-adorned shaman and a chieftain at least a dozen feet tall. Having no interest in tussling with that many trolls, the rest of the team decided to make a run for it, breaking into multiple groups.

Meanwhile, the stealthy observers slipped past them to investigate the village. The village was still watched by a few dozen troll wives and whelps, who occupied several buildings set up against a main hall dug into the hills. The village was discretely set to the flame, torching out the guards and catching a few to perish in the conflagration. Conan put his talents as a multilingual librarian to use by inscribing the orchish message that the carnage had been wrought by a "Drago the Destroyer" and his band of marauding orcs, and then everyone headed back to base camp. (The trolls abandoned the chase in the morning.) The party moved on, puzzling over the mystery of why the trolls were so well-organized.

The expedition advanced into the mountains, and camped for a night on the edge of the tree line before the final leg of the overland journey. Advance scouting revealed that the path lead directly into the side of mountain through a crevasse guarded by dark elves, the notorious spider-worshiping slavers of the underdark. Ceremonial spider motifs decorated the entrance gate, and the doorway itself was covered by a great lattice of adamantine bars.

The gnomish Sup Foo Master, Grimdark Thunderstain, decided that the most logical course of action would be to parley with the dark elves and trick them into opening the gate, and then attack them (hahaha no that would actually make sense and we're talking about gnomes here) to mesmerize the dark elves by performing an interpretive dance. Alas, the elves were totally unimpressed by this display of lithesome gnomish artistry. So as a backup strategy, the party elected to present themselves as "monster part traders", showing off their impressive collection of slightly singed troll kneecaps. The elven sentries and their commandante waved them through (perhaps a bit too quickly, in hindsight) and gave them clearance to descend down the block-lift shaft with their caravan wagons -- but only in groups of a half-dozen or so, and only after securing their elven "captive" to shackles set into the walls.

As each group arrived at the customs inspection station at the bottom, the occupants were dismayed to discover that the lift compartment was filling with knock-out gas. After several trips, the entire party had been incapacitated, and awoke to find themselves immobilized in a rather unpleasant torture chamber with a large number of other recently acquired captives, bound hand and foot on iron racks.

The torturer-on-duty methodically branded everyone in the room on the left shoulderblade with a hot iron, to a tumult of agonized screams -- accompanied by Conan the Librarian's incessant questions about how exactly the branding irons were heated and what application of metallurgy was responsible for the sturdy construction of the shackles.

Whereupon an elderly matron with an air of authority entered the room, dressed in black velvet and lace...

Casualties
None, although pretty much everyone is in a bad spot at the moment

Treasure and Experience
Coins: None
Gems/Jewelry: None
Trade goods: None
Items of special interest: None

Total nonmagical treasure value: 0
Gold per share: 0

Killed: 2 troll champions (2x 900 xp), 5 trolls (5x 680 xp), 5 trollwives (5x 140 xp)

Total experience from treasure: 0
Total experience from kills/captures/deceptions: 6100 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0
Total experience: 6100 xp
Total experience per member: 469 xp

(Note: Mort the Wardog and Zigg's henchlizards are taking an experience half-share (and also a treasure half-share, for the lizards). 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.)

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.)