Vengeance is Theirs!

Last week, our heroes, comprised of:

Aeldrick, 6th level Human Warlord
Minos, 6th level Minotaur Fighter
Rendrill, 6th level Halfling Rogue

having discovered the connection between the dragons Dre and Oran returned by boat to the port of Shinar in Prolia where they went to report their findings to King Yutsen and met up with

Lindark, 6th level Elf Cleric

Lindark is being played by Voden's player, and is a Dex/Wis based Cleric with some Ranger powers and archery.

While Aeldrick and the rest of the party went to confer with the King about their plans for dealing with the "Dragons" Minos, his usual boisterous self went to recruit some help at the bar, where he met up with a loudmouth warrior/knight named Gaston. (Think of Disney's Beauty and the Beast's (no one fights like Gaston!) combined with a little bit of "The Tick") Anyway, Gaston has heard of Minos and his great exploits with the party, and insisted on joining up. Gaston was modeled as a level 1 Soldier - decent AC and attack for a level 1 NPC and 25 hit points (20 AC, longsword attack +6 vs AC; d8+3 ).

After spending a day and night in Shinar, the party headed out on the road toward Derros and the tower where they met the Dragons before.

There was much discussion of just how to deal with the Dragons, who up till now were summoned to the tower with a silver bell. A few minutes after the bell at their door was rung, one of the dragons always answered, and the party was welcomed into a cold-but-warming room withe a freshly lit fire, which looked un-lived in. They argued about whether they should scout out the tower before approaching. They argued about whether they should ring the bell at all or try to break in the front door, and they also argued about what tactics they should use. All this went pretty much nowhere except for one thing. Because they expected that their opposition must have some illusion or shape-changing ability, so they created a challenge response code of two numbers which should add up to 5. So if they suspected that Minos was not himself they'd say "three" and Minos would have to say "two" to prove that he was himself. Minos barely was able to comprehend this, and it was *way* over Gaston's head.

Ultimately the party and Gaston decided to trundle up to the front door and ring the bell, which began the first combat encounter of the evening.

From the ground, rose a group of undead. 2 Ghouls, 2 Corruption Corpses (zombies that use ranged necrotic attacks), and 1 Zombie Brute (a powerful Ogre-sized zombie). Gaston, arrogant and overconfident way beyond his experience immediately charged the Zombie Brute, the biggest and meanest looking target in the battle, and proceeded to get walloped by it while the party both attempted to keep Gaston alive, and to deal with the undead.

Everyone survived although Gaston got a Healing Word, a Cure Light Wounds and several temporary hit points from Sacred Flame from Lindark and still came near death almost every round.

After resting from the initial combat (all the while wondering if they'd be attacked by ambushing Dragon-pretenders) the party decided to try to get into the tower. Rendrill attempted to pick the lock - and failed despite a spectacular Thievery skill check. Minos got out his axe and began chopping down the very solid looking front door, which surprisingly was bust-in after only a couple of hits.

Cautiously the party entered, to search the empty-seeming premises.

• The party admonished Gaston, out of healing surges and wounded from the last battle, to stay outside and rest. Being near-death he complied.
• The party found the main room as they'd seen it before. There was small kitchen area, with a fireplace for a hearth fire (unlit), a door leading to a stairway to the cellar, a comfortable sitting area with several chairs surrounding a lit fire, and a wide stone stairway leading higher into the tower.
• Minos guarded the main floor, while Rendrill decided to scout the second floor and the rest of the party checked the cellar. Stepping off the last step onto the second floor, Rendrill fell through the floor - which was apparently illusionary.
• Un-phased, Rendrill joined Aeldrick and Lindark in the basement.
• Unbeknown to the party exploring the tower, Oran the "Elite Succubus" snuck up on the wounded Gaston resting outside, slayed him and mimicked his appearance.
• Oran, appearing as Gaston, wandered into the Tower claiming to feel ready for combat. Minos, unsuspecting, tried to convince him to take it easy and keep himself safe and was open to a surprise attack by Oran who used "Charming Kiss" on him.
• The party discovered nothing downstairs except for a few sacks of root vegetables. Returning to the main level the party began searching the main floor more closely.
• Upon returning upstairs, Oran (still appearing as Gaston) dominated Minos into attacking Aeldrick when was heading out the front door - and would have seen Gaston's body.
  

Oranthidirian Level 9 Elite Controller (Based on Succubus)
Medium immortal humanoid (devil, shape-changer) XP 800
Initiative +8 Senses Perception +8; dark vision; HP 180; Bloodied 90
AC 25; Fortitude 17, Reflex 23, Will 25 Resist 20 fire, Saving Throws +2
Action Points: 1 Speed 6, fly 6
(Basic Melee) Corrupting Touch (standard; at-will); +14 vs. AC; 1d6 + 6 damage.
(Melee) Charming Kiss (standard; at-will) ; Charm; +14 vs. AC; on a hit, the succubus makes a secondary attack against the same target. Secondary Attack: +12 vs. Will; the target cannot attack the succubus, and if the target is adjacent to the succubus when the succubus is targeted by a melee or a ranged attack, the target interposes itself and becomes the target of the attack instead. The effects last until the succubus or one of its allies attacks the target or until the succubus dies. If the target is still under the effect of this power at the end of the encounter, the succubus can sustain the effect indefinitely by kissing the target once per day. The succubus can affect only one target at a time with its charming kiss.
Dominate (minor; at-will) ; Charm; Ranged 5; +12 vs. Will; the target is dominated until the end of the succubus’s next turn.
Major Illusion (minor; at-will) ; Illusion; The succubus can take on the appearance of any creature of size tiny to huge, including a unique individual, and can also make convincing insubstantial illusionary areas that fool all five regular senses. (Insight DC 25, to detect)
Alignment Evil Languages Common, Supernal
Skills Bluff +15, Diplomacy +15, Insight +13
Str 11 (+4) Dex 18 (+8) Wis 19 (+8)
Con 10 (+4) Int 15 (+6) Cha 22 (+10)

The combat with Oran was a fairly long affair, fought around the "sitting area" of the main floor. Oran maintained "Charming Kiss" on Minos through the entire fight (nobody attacked him and he stayed away from Oran through most of the fight) and each turn Oran used a minor action to dominate Rendrill into attacking Aeldrick (and usually succeeded due to his low willpower). The dual leaders (Aeldrick and Lindark) were enough to weather the onslaught, and as Oran was deciding that it was time to flee by flying away the heroes managed to slay her.

After Oran's death, the illusion of the tower dissolved in to the ruins of a stone cottage, the party found a magical longbow which Lindark will use, and some crumpled vellum papers with Infernal writing which the party will attempt to extract more clues about the location of Dre and what he's been up to .

At the end of the session, Rendrill's player mentioned that he was wondering why I had everybody make Insight rolls the first time the entered into the Dragon's tower. And now he knows why. Nodding sagely, I smiled and said nothing. In fact, I don't remember making the players check their Insight. It's the type of thing I do every once in a while just to keep them guessing. I hadn't really decided what was going to happen with the Dragons at that point, but it seems my trixy DM ways have everybody convinced that this betrayal had been planned since we started playing this campaign six months ago. I see no need to reveal that they're over-estimating my planning which is rarely more that two session ahead of them. :)

Speaking of planning, I need to do some soon. I imagine the party will have to deal with Gaston's body. I'm curious about how they will do so, because Gaston was an errant son of a powerful Empire noble. There may be consequences for being involved in his death (maybe assasins?) - or he may be back from the dead (not everybody get Raised from the dead, but being a rich noble helps). Gaston was a fun NPC. I'll be wanting to expand on how they deal with Gaston's death at the beginning of next session, which will be this weekend.

The real story begins to surface (Chapter 6)

The holidays are close and also final exams are still a concern for two of our players, so there were just three PC's for this session. Aeldrick the Warlord, Minos the Warrior and Rendrill Halfmoon (from Thunderspire labyrinth) the halfling Rogue were present. Absent characters were off doing their own things for a time.

This session was almost completely devoid of dangerous combat and as such, it was filled to the brim with story development.

Summary

• PC's return to Shinar, hear rumors of a courier from Prauld arriving yesterday. There's some speculation about the courier's message, but no details.
• PC's meet with King Yutsen, to inquire about what's up. Yutsen says that there have been reports of Hobgoblin movement in the northern forest. He also mentions that the heroes that scouted the giants armies have returned and are currently in Drunduin (Drunduin s the fort the dwarves captured from the giants in Estvald last year.) Yarl Hastel and his brother Hagel have been sent to Drunduin to gather information, coordinate with the Dwarves and to form the basis of a lasting trade agreement with Drunduin and the new Krondheim.
• PC's stop by to visit with Dre and Oran the dragons that settled north of Derros. They ask the PC's if they could carry a valuable package to Nolton in the Republic of the Isles. The PC's agree to stop by on their way back from Drunduin.
  
• On the road they see that the Dwarves are working on a highway through the hills between Drunduin and Derros. A wide path has already been cleared, and bridges are being built across ravines and gullys. Once the highway is complete, it will allow easy trade through the hills.
• In Drunduin, the PC's see recent development of the area; the silver and mithril mines are in full operation. Drunduin's forges and factories are busy building war machines, weapons and armor for the anticipated confrontation with the giants.
• The PC's meet with the "old heroes" (The "old heroes" are from a previous campaign, that took place in OY 603, whcih ended with the old heroes following the giants off to the war in the west.) According to the "old heroes":

  1. The Giants fought in a civil war backed by Kryve. and then against an invading Kryve army. The giants were victorious driving the Kryvans back out of the mountains, and using a powerful ritual the Stone Giants of southern Estvald, cracked the earth and raised a giant gap across the western edge of the mountains, effectively defending Westvald from Kryvan invasion.
     
  2. The "old heroes" made contact with the Stone Giants and explored parts of Kryve and old Kryvan ruins. They discovered a change in the religious leadership oin Kryve seems to be the cause of recent warlike activity out of the Kryvans.
  3. They do not think that the Giants will attack the hills. The Giants have already born the brunt of a major invasion and feel that there are world-shaking events on the horizon.
     

• During their stay in Drunduin, the PC's were contacted by Hagel and his assistent (Jenkins in disguise). They tell the PC's about Jaryl Hastel's recent strange behaviour, and wish the PC's to stealthily break into his guest chambers while he's meeting with the Thanes. He's been particularly secretive about the room's contents and they want to know why. A key is provided, a dwarven guard in the area is bribed to take a short walk, but the key needs to be returned before the council is sceduled to finish in one hour.
  
• The PC's break into Hastel's room and discover several arcance traps and glyphs protecting the room and it's contents, setting off one trap and making the break-in quite obvious due to singed carpet and damaged room contents. Nevertheless they do find notes that include a summary of Jaryl Hastel's life and mannerisms, including things that he should know and a check list of things that should be said to the Thanes that include many inflammatory statements. There are also ritual materials, and a lock of what appears to be Hastel's hair.
• The PC's head for the council chamber and confront Hastel on the spot in front of the thanes of being an imposter. There is hot debate, followed by an attempt to escape by Hagel, who is eventually revealed to be a shape changer of some sort. The fake hastel is captured by the dwarves but manages to suicide while he's in custody.
• Questioning Hagel, they determine that the switch likely took place at an inn just outside of shinar. The PC's head back towards Shinar, stopping at Dre's and Oran's tower to pick up their package. They investigate at the inn, find a muddy bootprint outside of Hastel's room that hasn't washed away in weather yet, a description of a inn resident that matches the description of the imposter (who dissapeared while Hastel was at the inn) and evidence of some dark ritual magic that was performed a few hundred yards outside of the inn, and a small wooded clearing. In addition, they found the impression of the front cover of a book on the waxy surface of a woden desk in the imposters room. Further investigation in shanar led to the discovery that the book in question was a book of dark magic rituals - written in Abyssal (the language of demons).
• The package from Dre and Oran, is a small, seciure chest with arcane runes of protection and a solid lock, which is to be delivered to one Chancellor Warwick who is staying at the Stag and Castle Inn off of the Garden square in Nolton. After a brief sea voyage, the PC's arrive in Nolton, visit the inn and make contact with the Chancellor, who pays them a rather significant sum of money (900gp) for delivering the chest to him. Aeldirck feels a groqwing sense of unease when dealing with the man however. Who appears to be pretending to be a noble, but shows some mannerisms of speech and ettiquette that seem very much out of place. and sends Rendrill to follow the man after the deal is done.
• Rendrill follows the Chancellor to a fishing shack near the docks where the chest is passed off once again. The receiver is a grizzled man, who assures the "Chancellor" that the package will be leaving for the Empire.
• Rendrill reports his findings to Aeldrick and Minos and together they decide that this bears looking in to. They try to get some information about Dre and Oran, but are told that the best place to get information about dragons is from a dragon. There just so happens to be a Dragon who sometimes resides in Nolton. Gasparion - who's a longtime friend of the Royal family.
• The party goes off to find Gasparian, in the north side of town in a massive tower, 80 feet to a side and over 180 feet high. At the main entrance to the tower the are met by a mechanical construct/golem who attempts to dismiss them, but eventually takes a message in to Gaspar, who allows the PC's entrance.
• The PC's are overcome by fear as they see that the massive tower is a single giant room with ledges and aprches, and see Gaspar decend in his natural form as a huge red dragon. The ask about Dre and Oran the dragons that have recently arrived in Prolia, and are answered with a single phrase. "There are no Dragons in Prolia."
  
• Stunned, the PC's realise that they may be being duped by the "Dragons" and race back to the docks where they break into the fishing shack, subdue the grizzed man, and recover the box.
  
• They open the chest, suffering the magic protections and discover that inside the chest is a leather bound book, written in infernal (the language of devils). Heading off to their local arcane sage, they get the translation of the book, which is a detailed reconstruction of their adventures in Yuri's doom, including diagrams of the ritual circle where the druids are trapped in time and research about the origins of Yuri's ritual and possible means of disrupting the magic. The book is addressed to somebody called "My Prince".
• The PC's decided to head back to Derros and confront the "Dragons" about their treachery.

That was the end of the session. The characters advanced to level 6. The next game to pick up this story line will be in January.

Rorni's Creek Play (Part 1)

So we finished up characters and started the adventure.

From memory, the party consistes of the following:

• Dragonborn Paladin, cha/wis/con, sword and board
  
• Dragonborn Fighter, str/dex/wis focus, sword and board, with a focus on OA and knockbacks
• Elf Ranger, bow using, dex/wis, rogue multiclass feat
  
• Elf Cleric, wis/dex, ranger multiclass feat
• Half Elf Warlock, fey pact

I don't remember their names.

We borrowed from Spirit of the Centrury/Fate's character creation process and Pathfinder Society's raison d'etre (transplanted into Alia) to fill in the back-story of these freshly created level 10 characters. 'Twas fun. I'm not sure how much real depth that it's added, but if they want they have a framework that should work as a decent skeleton to develop their characters and their back-stories.

We started play off with a bit of narration, explaining how their contacts all referred them to the Thanes of Drunduin and jumped right into the action.

Encounter 1: Orc/Ogre/Dire Boar combat

I allowed for a skill challenge of Perception or Nature(DC 25) for the PC's to be aware of the Orc band following them. The party succeeded and decided to set up an ambush. They successfully surprised the Orc's as they traveled up the path toward the entrance of Rorni's Creek and the gate.

The combat was fairly straight-forward with the usual delays as the players tried out their new powers and got used to the way things worked. The Orc Chieftain proved to be very tough, if not very dangerous after all his companions were killed. It took nearly ten rounds for the players to defeat the initial encounter.

The double defender/double striker/single leader party is actually fairly well balanced. The fighter and paladin can fairly effectively control critical targets in combat and are proving to be very tough, and they each have a per-encounter use of their breath weapon, which should be a great help in killing and dealing with minions. The ranger/ cleric ranger and warlock are all quite comfortable in a second rank behind the defenders and the fey warlock is really enjoying his mobility. The fey pact is turning out to have a quite different play style from the infernal pact play style of Voden, even though the fundamentals are very similar.

Anyway the characters move on to opening the door after the combat was concluded, The ritual of opening succeeded and the vision of the closing was sprung on the players, who reacted with a sense of satisfaction and a hope that the sealed door will lead to many well preserved and long lost treasures and secrets.

Encounter 2: Trapped Room and Kloin

I brought out the ghost of Kloin after the party had set off one trap and were taking their time clearing the dust away, trying to see if there were more.

The Ranger and the Cleric/Ranger who both have excellent perception checks, noticed the faint amorphous blob of the ghost. Further perception checks also allowed them to hear a faint whispering in a foreign tongue (old dwarvish). The warlock actually knows dwarvish, so a bit of laborious sounding out of words, allowed them to translate one important word that Kloin is saying, "posses". When the warlock tries to converse in dwarvish with the spirit, he felt a "chilling" presence". The +2 versus willpower wasn't nearly enough to actually possess the warlock. A successful religion check by the Paladin revealed to the group that old spirits like this often cling to the earth because of a need to accomplish a task in the world of the living, but this particular spirit is too weak to much effect on the material world. The party decides that the spirit is in fact trying to posses one of them. After a few clumsy attempts at communication, the warlock agrees to allow himself to be possessed.

The possessed Warlock/Kloin briefly recounted his companions' ambush during their rest and the desperation that overcame the outpost after months of being sealed in. He reiterated his wish to discover what became of the outpost and to discover why this betrayal happened. And with that Klon faded to the back of the warlocks mind.

The party continued deeper into the outpost exploring the living and crafting quarters of the old outpost. Everything through those areas was covered with a thick layer of undisturbed dust. Several of the Thanes of Drunduin's valued objects were found, a few traps were avoided, leading the party eventually to the doors into the fungus farm.

The session ended with the adventurers opening the doors, seeing the foulspawn and the grell and the unfortunate the elven slave being "dealt with". The PC's are about to attack the aberrations. The encounter 3 combat will continue next session (in two weeks) .

Level 10 characters have a good deal more complexity than level 1 characters do. After one combat encounter, I feel that the players have a good grasp of their at-will powers and just a basic appreciation for their encounter powers. Hopefully the upcoming battle will allow the players to explore their characters a bit more fully.

All Hail the King (Chapter 5)

This session's play was, as expected, transitional.

The chapter starts with our heroes, Capricia, Minos, Aeldric, Voden and Ragnar entering the town of Prauld. Capricia happens to have a "bag of holding" and the brave adventurer's deicde not to bring the body of Arnesson into town obviously. They wrap the body in their bedrolls and blankets and put it along with the crown into the bag of holding, which is now just about full.

On the way into town, headed for the "nice" inn off of the market square, Ragnar succeeds his perception check and notices a merchant, who's in the middle of a conversation with a furniture vendor, has "noticed" them. Ragnar brushes it of as his Dwarvish good looks, and the heroes continue into town, where they arrange for some rooms. During the day they meet with a jeweler and exchange their massive diamonds that they found on the Devils in Krolak-Nol for some coinage.

For supper they meet with Jarl Jorgen, who's a fairly down to earth and traditional Jarl. Over the course of several rounds of decent local ale, the party learns a few things from Jorgen.

1. Jorgen asks about the quest for the crown, but is brushed off by the party.
   
2. Jorgen reveals that at least one of the Jarls are uneasy about Yutsen's ability to lead Prolia in a time of war. The king of Prolia has always been a warrior, and Yutsen is a merchant and a diplomat at heart. He's undoubtedly the best peace time leader of the country, but is probably the least versed in war of all the Jarls.
3. Jorgen mentions that Jenkins, the aide of the Republic ambassador is in town. Jorgen offers the party 5000gp to assasinate him. He explains that while he is certain of Jenkins guilt in the death of his son Giordi, last summer, and that he has the right to mete out justice on his own lands, he is restrained from executing him in his official capacity, to avoid an international incident. If the PC's kill Jenkins, justice will have been done, and an incident will have been avoided.
4. Jorgen also mentions that Jenkins has been hanging out around Beryl and seems to have some influence with Jarl Hastel.

After their celebratory dinner, they ask around about Jenkins. It turns out he's staying at the inn where they are. They tip the innkeeper and ask him to point Jenkins out when he arrives. They have a few more drinks. and discuss what they'll do with jenkins. There's talk of beating him up and tieing him to the mast of an outbound ship. There's also talk of killing him for the reward, and to see justice done, although not everyone thinks that Jorgen is seeing straigh abou t Giordi's murderer. Later in the evening, the merchant that noticed the heroes on their way into town walks into the inn. The innkeeper indicates it's Jenkins.

They invite Jenkins over for a drink at their table. By this time I'm having Ragnar make constitution checks cause's he's been drinking heavily. Jenkins orders white wine. They have a vaguely disturbing but fairly civil discussion with Jenkins. I'm not sure if the players were aware of it, but there was a very menacing undertone to the conversation, that *I* certainly picked up on, and Jenkins did too (no Insight roll required on that!).

After some time Jenkins excused himself and went off to bed. A few minutes later the heroes followed him up to his room, I don't think they really had a plan, but grabbing him out of his room seemed to be part of it. A rather drunk Ragnar, bashed the door in while the party was trying to discuss what the next step would be, revealing an empty room with an open window. Jenkins was long gone.

The next morning, caring for hangovers the heroes departed south (after buying new bedrolls).

Just north of Beryl they were ambushed by a group of

• 8 Prolian Archers (souped up Human Rabble, Minions, with bows and axes instead of clubs)
• 2 Human Berserkers
• 1 Human Mage
• 1 Human Bandit

A tough encounter made worse by the ambush... but this was the only encounter of the day, so daily powers could be used without much reservation. The archer minions were set up spaced out along a slope that was difficult movement to go up.

The first round saw Aeldrick, the leader get taken down by 2 arrows, a whack by one berserker and a hit from the multitarget lightning spell of the mage and from falling off his horse. Not a good beginning. Minos took even more damage, geting a crit from the other berserker's encounter power (for 25!) The bandit moved in from behind the party towards the softer targets.

Ragnar ended up saving Aeldric with a healing potion on the second round. That potions plus a second-wind, action point, and self inspiring word got Aeldric back into the action on round two.

After the initial schock of the ambush the heroes recovered, using action points and daily powers to deal out a brutal reprisal, taking down the two berserkers, mage and bandit, and having the prolian archers turn tail and run.

The heroes bypassed Beryl completely, skirting southwest around town to the road leading inland to Derros and through the Dragons domain. Dreasinoleanus and Oranthidirian (Dre and Oran for short) notice the travelers along the road. Dre is a male adult silver dragon, and his mate Oran is a female black dragon. They are both adult, and of "huge" size in their dragon forms but can shape-shift into human form. (I don't know or care if 4e dragons are supposed to do that, in Alia they do.) Oran carefully lands off to the side of the road of the heroes, shape-shifts into a beautiful, black-haired woman and comes up to greet them. The heroes are pretty nervous. She welcomes them to her lands and invites them meet with her and her husband in a tower off to the side of the road. They take a small path up to a newly constructed town with a handy empty stables and a clean looking well.

Inside are Oran and Dre preparing for their visitors. Warming up the main room of the tower and stoking up a nice wood fire, and preparing tea. Dre is actually the minstrel Iellos that they met on their way north through Derros. The heroes are a little nervous about being near such dangerous creatures, but the dragons seem to take a rather keen interest in the heroes activities and the activities of humans in Prolia. Soon the party is at their ease and the party tells the dragons everything they know including their journey's through Yuri's doom and into Krolak-Nol, admitting to finding the crown. The dragons thank them for their story and invite them back if the next time they pass through the area.

The journey south of the Dragon's tower, through Derros to Shinar is otherwise uneventful. The party sends ahead to Shinar the day before they arrive in town and are met the next day by an honour guard that brings the body into ton in a majestorial procession.

The heroes then settle down to a week of being feasts, rewards and partying, from the soon-to-be crowned Jarl Yutsen.

The heroes confronted Hagel, Jarl Hastel's brother. About the ambush. Nobody died. Hagel seemed genuinely sorry about his involvement in Jenkins plot. Claimed that he was manipulated by Jenkins while in his cups to sending out his men, and claims to have reformed. The party was doubtful, but accepted his explanation and apology. The heroes are doubly on the lookout for Jenkins, but he did not show up.

The session concluded with the pomp and ceremony of the crowning of the new king of Prolia, who's now severely in debt to the heroes for their service they've performed for Prolia and the heroes are thinking about what to do next. Thunderspire Labyrinth is probably it.

The Tower of Krolak Nol (Chapter 5)

The last session left the party at the base of the tower of Krolak-Nol, having beaten the skeleton and magma-men encounters.

This session, added a little bit of a twist. We have a new player and a new PC.

How does one introduce a PC midway through an adventure? In D&D it's pretty easy, magic being what it is, nothing really needs to make sense.

What I ended up doing is after having a conversation with the new player, we had the idea of introducing them as an anachronism; an original knight from Jarl Arnesson's party that came to the tower, and who had been petrified. Add in a ritual scroll in the library, and fini! The party now has a full time, female, human, wizard named Capricia .

After the meeting of their new member and some discussion of the mission of the Jarl they proceeded up the tower's floors. Primarily the encounters were resolved by combat.

I played the Red Dragon as a psychopathically delusional treasure hoarder, sitting on a pile of rusty armor.

The floor was dark, and filled with rack and rack of hanging, rusty armor, obscuring the PC's vision, but it was obvious to them that *something* big was there, muttering to itself in an unknown language (draconic).

After lighting up the room and blundering through the armor, they came face to face with the dragon who screamed about intruders come to steal his precious, precious, rusty armor bits.

The fight started out with the dragon winning initiative and spending an action point, and using both its dragon breath and its terrifying presence to open the fight. From there it degenerated into a tooth and nail fight. Other than bloodied breath, the dragon breath never recharged, but the party was quite tired after the fight, using a couple of daily powers and a handful of healing surges.

The pair of Spinagons in the summoning circle was a brief bit of dialog before continuing up the tower. They were not released form their circle, despite coaxing and pleading on the Devil's part.

The top floor of the tower with the bodies of Fendraeus and the Jarl, led to a rather hasty Ragnar immediately grabbing the book, releasing Caramnon and leading up to the climactic fight, if not the last of the adventure.

Caramnon was indeed tentacle-y and poisonous, and his ability to grab and slide people around in combat combined with the party bringing out their own shifty powers led to a battle of constant repositioning. It was quite tactically interesting. Caramnon's breath ability recharged several times during the fight, and his threatening-reach/grab abilities combined well with his close burst poison gas cloud attack. In the end the party defeated him, using the rest of their dailies, some of their magic item daily abilities and some action points. Ragnar was left with 0 healing surges after healing to the point of being unbloodied.

Afterwards, they collected the body of the fallen Jarl Arnesson and the iron crown he was wearing, and returned to deal with the Spinagons.

The party decided that they didn't want to deal with the Devils except to kill them if possible. They tried to trick the Spinagons into a binding agreement that would allow the PC's to attack the Spinagons without reprisal, but they didn't fall for the ploy. After a fair bit of back and forth, the party decided jut to kill the Spinagons and be done with them, breaking the circle and attacking them.

The Spinagons attempted to escape, but were marked, slowed, knocked prone, shifted around and otherwise prevented from leaving before they could be cut down.

And that was the end of Krolak-Nol and this section of the adventure. The PC's set off back south through the Hobgoblin lands towards Prolia and ended the session upon returning to Prauld.

I dropped a few hints of slaver activity in the mountains near Greenhill, and will possibly run the D&D 4e module, H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth in that area, with some rather heavy modifications to make it fit the game world.

Complications around the crown will still come up, but I believe the next session will be a transition from the first story arc to a second story arc which will focus on the gnomes and giants south of the area the Dwarves now claim.

Jarlsburg to Krolak-Nol (Chapter 4)

The first half of this session was all role-play.

First, the party cleaned up in Jarlsberg and set out heading north from Jarlsberg, through the rest of the swamp. I sprung a few swamp encounters on them but in each case the party detected the threat before they were themselves detected and decided to avoid the encounters.

The party's first stop out of the swamp was an edge-of-civilization farmhouse where they got cleaned up, replenished their supplies had a hot meal and went on their way. They camped out in the countryside the first night and found an inn on the second night. On the third night they arrived in Belrane.

In Belrane the met with Jarl Wellus, who's a non-nonsense leader of a port town which is the bread basket of Prolia. Wellus is a traditional Jarl, with a stone keep, patterned after a Prolian longhouse, which they had a small feast telling about their trip through the swamp. The party did not mention the book of lost kings that they found but did describe the sunken, undead infested city of Jarlsberg and the dangerous creatures of the swamp. They stayed the night, and had their first chance to get a good read of the book.

Then the party traveled to Shinar, staying at inns along the way. The road between Belrane and Shinar is well-traveled and fairly safe this time of year. No encounters.

By the time they reached Shinar the party had gotten all the relevant information from the book, made their history checks, which fell slightly short. They sought the knowledge of a Skald in Shinar, Drinl Scot, who was able to augment their history knowledge to pull the last few scraps of information about Fendreaus and Krolak-Nol.

Also, in searching around for information of a Skald, they ran across the information about the Dragons between Beryl and Derros, and the current situation with the Dwarves. They finally decided to back Jarl Jorgen in their quest and think they have an edge in being the first to find the crown.

Jorgen also invited the adventurers to a feast and put them up for the night. He's much more mercantile and less traditional than Wellus, by contrast. his demense is a Palace.

One particular conversation they had with Jorgen in trying to sound him out convinced the PC's to back him was his talk about uniting the Towns and how he'd mediate disputes and make the country prosperous. I'm not sure if anyone noticed that he specifically never boasted about his ability to lead the country in times of war. Jorgen is a great merchant-king, a good diplomat and has good relations with all the Jarls... but he does not have any experience in battle.

The next day the party started north again. This time in search of Krolak-Nol.

In Derros,they met the Minstrel who regaled them with tales and information about the two Dragons.

They traveled the rest of the way to Prauld without incident, where they decided to ask the watch if they'd heard of Krolak-Nol. The tower guards had not, since they only ever scout half a day's travel into the forest.

The PC's then entered the forest to see if they could find the tower themselves. One day's travel into the forest they met the Hobgoblins and managed to avoid hostilities, although it was a near thing. After some discussion and a hefty tax paid to the squad captain, who knew the location of Krolak-Nol, they arranged an escort through hobgoblin lands and got some directions to take them the rest of the way.

After finding the tower, the party decided to descend into the crevasse and fought the skeleton encounter and the magma-men/imp encounter, having some difficulty with the fumes in the area, but pulling through.

And that was the end of session 4.

Jarlsberg (Chapter 3)

The entirety of the this game session was spent in Jarlsberg. The session went mostly according to plan.

One thing that surprised me was how well the party did in the multiple-encounters-without-a-short rest. I expected that after two full fledged encounters with the zombie hordes that they'd be pretty desperate to find a place where they could hole up and take a breather, but they just demolished those zombies without a thought using almost entirely at-will attack powers.

Of the three zombie types that I used, I'd say the most bothersome for the party was the Corruption Corpse ... however Aeldric the Warlord had picked up a suit of Black Iron Scale Armor +1 from the armory in Tidemarch. The 5 necrotic resistance really made him quite tough, and Vipers Strike against a ranged attacker is a pretty effective way of managing them.

The Warlord is shaping up to be able to fill in as a back up defender in this group, which is handy. Also, Ragnar the melee ranger has been doing a fair share of minion control. Dire Wolverine Strike is an awesome response to being mobbed by zombies. I expected that without Lindrin to help manage the minions that they might have issues. I don't see them yet.

After a third encounter without rest, they were starting to feel the pain. I added a nice scary horde of zombies coming up the road to encourage them to head for the defensible Temple of Umos and they obliged.

What followed was their encounter with the three Phantom Warriors. I decided at the last minute to pull a bit of The Sixth Sense and have the Phantom Warriors not realize that they were dead. What followed was a rather starnge encounter wher the ghosts asked about how the battle over Jarlsberg was going. The phantoms pointed the party at the inn, and helped clearing that scary mob of Zombies that had gathered out front of the temple. After seeing the zombies and being confused about not being able to leave the Temple grounds the Phantoms came to the realization that they were dead, showed the PC's their armor and arms and bade them use it to carry on the battle against the Empire.

There was some interest in the ritual site at the center of town, but nobody had time to really stop and take a closer look due to the constant trickle of zombies shuffling after the party.

The inn battle went fairly quickly. The leveled down Ghoul was a decent challenge to the PC's getting off his immobilize power twice and took a nice chunk out of Ragnar, who despite being reduced to 0 hp, managed to survive. We were pressed for time at that point, so I narrated the conclusion of their exploration of Jarlsberg. They find the book, Last King of Prolia and manage to escape from the rest of the Zombies in the city without being overwhelmed.

Journey to Yuri's Doom (Chapter 2)

The next session saw our heroes fleeing the pursuing forces of the empire to the swamp, Yuri's doom.

The first order of business was switching out Ghesh for Ragnar. After a bit of discussion, everybody decided that the Party could do without a controller, and would rather just control one PC each, so Lindrin would be left out too.

Story wise, we narrated the travel from Tidemarch to Yuri's doom and some parallel events in Prolia. Ragnar had some disturbing dreams and was convinced by a crazy old beggar that his brother was in peril south of Yuri's doom. Ragnar paid for a small fast ship to take him south, but couldn't convince the crew to wait around for him to bring back his brother.

At the same time, Lindrin came down with a rather serious disease and bacame unable to travel. When Ragnar found the party, it was decided that Ghesh would remain behind to care for Lindrin and the group would travel through Yuri's Doom and send back a ship to pick up Lindrin and Ghesh at the spot that Ragnar was dropped off.

So Ragnar, Voden, Minos and Aeldric traveled into the swamp. The had an encounter with Deathjump spiders, who's "death from above" ability proved to be quite annoying. The warrior's combat challenge was not being applied when it could have. I'll mark it up as inexperience on our part. I need to make sure that my players are aware of and are going to keep track of their abilities, I caught at least one instance of an attack that Minos wasn't aware that he could have taken, I possibly missed a few as well. Next time I'll be more thorough in checking that players are using the abilities that they have.

They also meet a Fey trickster Frog-man encounter from a monster supplement that I found on the web and can't find the link to. [I think on ENWorld; I shall go looking again.] After defeating the challenge, the Fey offered a reward in the form of information. Gool ol' party played along and asked where they might find the Iron Crown of the Prolian kings. The Fey didn't know where the crown was but did offer directions to the ruins of Jarlsberg where they might be able to find something.

The party headed off towards the ruins and ended the session with a rest in a nearby half-sunken stone tower.

We decided that the party was now level 2. [Decided? What? More to come!]

The Raid (Chapter 1)

Here's the two word summary of play of Chapter 1. It rocked!

We were all keen on 4th edition. It was everybody's first real game. I was comfortable with the rules, conversed with the players by e-mail leading up to our first game. Everybody was finished with character creation and basic background before we started. I'll go into more detail in my next post about the party members.

I think I outdid myself on Krodar's speech in the tavern. Everyone was cheering at my stirring words. Half the players had been played in a Prolia campaign before and were very happy to be involved with the rising new Prolia.

Some politics happened in town, with a fairly spirited discussion of which Jarl they'd like to support. Voden in particular, wouldn't support any Jarl but Yutsen, Jarl of Shinar. Eventually the whole party followed his lead and decided to back him. Yutsen is a pretty logical choice. From an objective point of view he's the most trade-oriented of the Jarls and is on very good terms with everyone.

The party was more than happy to sign up for Krodar's raid on Tidemarch. Which made things easy. I don't like railroading the story too much. I present the party with interesting hooks and try to prepare for where I believe they will go. If they weren't interested in the raid, they might have decided to head straight for Jarlsberg and I would have had to wing it a bit, but it would have worked out okay anyway.

The boat trip to Tidemarch, was a good closed environment for party and NPC interaction. Krodar asked everybody to organize themselves into groups. The four PC's (Radgar, Aeldric, Vodan and Ghesh) decided to bring the Eladrin, Lindrin along with them after they discovered he was an accomplished Wizard. I also described some of the other heroes along on the raid.

My idea was that since this is the first game there may be some dissatisfaction with the characters they've built. I've basically given everybody carte-blanche to change their characters as they see it. The beginning of the story is the best time to make these big changes either by leaving someone behind and swapping to a whole new character (one of the other raiders), or by ret-conning (I'm actually a cleric, you just mis-remember me sneak attacking everything in sight.) Small changes, of course, like swapping powers or adjusting ability score are easy. They have almost zero affect on anything and I want to make sure that the players are comfortable and happy with their character's in the game.

Encounter 1

The initial fight on the docks with the large numbers of minions went really fast. Lindrin (being played by Radgar's/Minos's player) made short work of the minions.

Encounter 2

Minos joined the party afterward and we skipped the second fight. I thought it was little too much like the first, so instead of another fight, a small crowd of Human Rabble ran away after seeing the party mow down their friends on the dock. Radgar said goodbye and went back to support Krodar on the docks to make sure no trouble arose there.

Encounter 3

The fight in front of the armory went rather poorly for the party. The Human Guards' Powerful Strike power took both Minos and Ghesh off their feet the first round. It's a pretty nasty attack, which recharged at least twice during the fight. The PC's a had a fair amount of bad luck, missing a lot and taking a pounding in what should have been an easy fight. but they all lived and broke into the Armory/Church. They stole the loot and took a short rest.

Encounter 4

I switched up the Sir Rodney fight after seeing what two Human Guards could do to the party. I was afraid they'd be completely hosed in a fight with three guards plus an elite, so a swapped the three guards for some Human Rabble, a Human Bandit and a Human Mage.

Lindrin started the combat out with an Icy Terrain which landed Sir Rodney, his Warhorse and the Bandit on the ground. The fight went quickly in the PC's favor, and Rodney's plan of leaving his men to fight the PC's was thwarted. By the time he was on his feet, he was marked by Minos and didn't have much of a retreat path. Potential recurring villain... dead. Oh well, there may be others.

Cut off from Docks Event

The party almost decided to try to fight their way through the dozen guardsman that had appeared between them and the docks. A quick discussion of the situation amongst themselves and they changed their mind. I didn't even have to point out how much trouble they had with two Human Guards.

Encounter 5

I used 2 minions instead of Guards at the gates, they were taken out in passing as they exited the city. This was mostly due to real time constraints.

The PC's escaped from Tidemarch into the wilderness around the outpost. They found a secluded glen to rest in and took an extended rest, thus ending Chapter 1.

The total elapsed time for the session was about 3.5 hours.

We had a little discussion about what they liked and didn't like and what they planned on doing next, so that I could focus my preparation. The consensus was that they liked fighting the minions, thought that Human Guards were too powerful (statistical anomaly that), and wanted to go back to Prolia through Yuri's Doom, since they wanted to investigate Jarlsburg anyway and it was on they way home.

Isn't it funny how these things seem to work out? (There might be a bit of a railroad here, but it's invisible!)