World of Prime: Campaign Journal #65

The Necropolis: Bard on Ice

The aboleth waits for the party in the center of its lair, holding a torch in one tentacle and a scroll in the other. The threat is clear: negotiate or see the treasure burned.

There is little room to move, though. The aboleth halves its price, and halves it again, but the party is unwilling to part with anything. At least the talking phase has given the monster the opening shot.

It launches a lighting bolt to middling effect while its rangers focus fire on the Bard. Unfortunately he had the sense to put up Protection From Arrows before the fight and his defenses hold.

The Ranger kills a skum with arrows; the Druid and Wizard both cast Wall of Fire, trapping the skum rangers in-between, Unable to see targets, they retreat, taking significant damage. However, the party is also unable to see, and consequently must move to flank their own battlefield control.

They are met at the end of the wall by the aboleth (wearing the scroll as a paper hat) and another lightining bolt. The Ranger appears to fire with deadly effect while the Barbarian and Druid-Bear dish out massive damage, but the Wizard reveals the truth with a well-aimed Dispel Magic the evaporates the aboleth's Projection, leaving nothing but air.

Now the remaining skum rangers close to archery range. They are met by a Fireball from the Wizard and a Cone of Cold from the Bard, and that's that for them. The Wizard has permanent See Invisibility, so he moves forward, searching for the aboleth. It tries to dominate the Barbarian but fails; the bear and swordsman close to melee and demolish the creature despite its multiple layers of miss chances from Invisibility and Displacement.

Searching the lair, they find the real scroll, marked out by a figure with horns on the back. Now they have everything they need; after resting for a few days, they venture into the lich's dungeon.

A surprising amount of caution is used opening the door, but eventually the Cleric and Wizard read their scrolls on the statues. The door grinds open to the tolling of twelve bells. It reveals an empty hallway with three doors leading out, each labeled in the Common tongue: The Hall of the Many, The Hall of the Few, and The Hall of the One. 

After much debate they smash down the door to the hall of the Many. Stepping inside the huge 200x200 hall, they are met by a shower of arrows out of the darkness (as the room is lit only near their door). They go to the hall of the One; this is an underground maze. Before exploring it, they decide to try the hall of the Few, finding it the same as the hall of the Many.

This time they charge in despite the arrows and encounter a wall of skeletal halberdiers. The creatures are not particularly dangerous, but they are numerous, and with the help of the skeletal archers shooting over their heads, they are inflicting small but steady damage. The Bard, in an excess of courage, teleports behind the archers, only to discover several squads of skeletal knights.

Our heroes still fear lances; the Wizard cuts the room in half with a Wall of Fire, saving the Bard's life. This despite all the kvetching about the wall's interference in the previous battle. The Barbarian is in his element, his Great Cleave feat allowing him to dish out uncapped damage against the hordes of skeletons, putting even the bear to shame. One troop of halberdiers flanks the party; the Wizard eliminates it with a fireball. The Cleric vaporizes dozens of skeletons before deciding this is not really a good use of divine power.

When the wall of fire comes down, things get real. The Barbarian is reduced to single hit-points by lance charges, and the Ranger and Druid-bear take significant damage as well. Now the Cleric deploys his magic to good effect, destroying half the creatures in one go, while the others are chopped up in more traditional methods.

After a careful and thorough search, cut short only by the tolling of eleven bells, they determine that the sole treasure in the room is a chest containing 1,000 lbs of obsidian; the party has no use for this. They go through the door at the back of the room, only to find a repeat of what they just fought.

Unable to bear the thought of mindlessly grinding on hundreds of skeletons again, they choose the dangers of the maze.

Following the Ranger's unerring sense of direction, they wander in the maze for an hour. When the bell tolls ten, they find a chest with a half-ton of silver (again: not worth carrying) and a pouch of pearls worth 300 gp. Another hour finds a pouch of jacinth, worth 3,000 gp. Yet another hour discovers onyx, worth 7,500 gp; but at this point the toiling of the bells is beginning to unnerve them. The Druid casts Find the Path, giving up on the remaining chests of treasure, and they arrive at the end of the maze as the bell strikes seven.

Here they find the reverse of the entrance. Listening at the door of the Many reveals a scholarly debate occurring inside; when the Bard knocks on the door, a bearded demon opens it and shushes him, but otherwise the party is ignored by the attractive winged ladies and their demonic audience. The room is well-lit, revealing a large iron key hanging on the side wall. The party decides to investigate elsewhere before lunging for the obvious McGuffin.

The door of the Few radiates cold; the Barbarian smashes it down with his sledgehammer. The Bard illuminates the room with magic; while they can't see everything, they do see an empty room with a large iron key hanging on a side wall. After much banter the Bard and Barbarian race through the empty room to grab the key.

This of course is a trap; once they reach the far wall, the entrance is sealed off by a Wall of Ice. The Druid punches through a few inches of the wall while the Ranger finishes carving a hole with his sword. After hearing a dozen mysterious popping sounds, the Bard decides that running across the room is a bad idea and teleports himself and the Barbarian onto the other side of the door.

Just in time; a dozen chain demons race up to the door. The party has one round to prepare and chooses to retreat down the corridor towards the other demons, on the theory that a long empty corridor is better than being trapped against the wall. The demons teleport through the ice wall, taking up positions on the other side, and a huge ice demon simply smashes the wall down and casts an Ice Storm at the party.

The spell doesn't do much damage, so the chain demons rush into battle, hindered somewhat by the narrowness of the hall. This proves to be a deciding factor, as they are bunched up and perfect bait for fireballs and flame strikes and tentacles. None of these spells affect the ice demon, which answers with multiple cones of cold - the last of which sees the Bard fail a saving thrown and turn into a Popsicle, saved from certain death only by the instant action of the Cleric's healing magic.

Now the Barbarian and Bear charge through the tentacles and close to melee with the ice demon. It should have been a tight fight, but the tentacles have grappled the demon, costing him a significant chunk of his armor class; consequently, the melee attacks prove effective and the terrifying monster goes down in one round.

This battle was less effort than the skeleton battle, but somewhat more dangerous as the Bard and Wizard came very close to freezing to death. Once again, however, the action economy has seen a group of heroes take down a single large foe. But now there is the hall of the Many to deal with; will the winged ladies and bearded demons prove more of a threat? For it is clear the party needs their key, and obvious that the bound demons will not surrender it without a fight, despite their refined politeness. 

 

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #64

The Necropolis, part V: Solving the Gordian knot like Alexander

Faced with a logical puzzle, the party decides to implement their oldest and bestest strategy: brute force.

The fact that these puzzle pieces are iconic monsters from eldritch lore does not inhibit them. Displaying at least a minor adaptation to the nature of this world, they lay in wait until a pair of chuul go out hunting. The ambush is over almost instantly, and the party rushes to implement the rest of their plan before the eye tyrant is aware that war has broken out.

As soon as they are in sight of the tower the Bard Dimension Doors them the top, backed up by the Druid flying in as a bat. However, their reconnaissance was imperfect; the roof of the tower is missing, and the party immediately falls into a pool with several started and hungry chuuls. The eye tyrant aims his anti-magic cone down into the water, rendering the party totally blind as their night-vision goggles shut down.

The Bard escaped this fate with his Cloak of the Bat, but now he and the Druid are dealing with eye rays. The Cleric and Ranger are swimming for the edge of the water while the Barbarian decides that, even blind and swimming, he can still take any number of over-stuffed lobsters.

This might have been mildly dangerous, until the Druid turns into a bear and drops down on the eye tyrant. This legendary creature is a potent foe in magical combat, but not melee; it disintegrates in a burst of gore, shredded by claws and fangs. The Druid-Bear falls into the pool with the Barbarian and the chuul; without antimagic protection, the lobsters are dispatched before the Ranger even gets out of the water. The Wizard arrives in the doorway, having run in on foot, only to contribute nothing but sarcastic applause.

That removes one party from consideration. Now they approach the ghasts and make a deal, trading the Wizard's giant zombie for their half of the secret. They are aware that the now unstable dynamic almost certainly sees the ghasts and the aboleth teaming up against them, so the very next day they attack. The ghasts are still in their camp, having spent the time finishing another bone construct from the bits of the zombie rather than seeking out alliances. However, they are not fooled, and not found unprepared.

Or rather, they thought they were prepared, until the Bard teleports the Barbarian to the back of the line where he instantly executes one of the spell-casting ghasts. (This prompts a bit of discussion about how teleport works, and a general agreement that in the future, being teleported leaves one unable to act until the next round, as the party rather fears the instant assassination technique they've just discovered.)

Meanwhile the rest of the fight is hardly any more challenging. The Druid-Bear melee machine is the perfect antidote to the bone constructs; the Barbarian and Bard in the back lines are cleaning up spell-casters despite several Flame Strikes. The Bard smoothly switches between melee and magic, interrupting the spell-casters and shaping the battlefield with Black Tentacles - even though they are dispelled, they cost the enemy precious time, and time is one thing they don't have as the magic resistant Barbarian is a spell-caster's worst nightmare. Having successfully countered both prongs of the ghast's defenses, the party makes such short work of them that the Wizard and Ranger are reduced to spectators.

They choose to press on to the aboleth before resting, hoping to catch it by surprise. This fails, of course, because the aboleth is literally an evil genius; but at the same time, the creature suspects it is outclassed. Can it negotiate the party into some more profitable outcome - or will it test its magic against them while they are at least partially depleted?

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #63

The Necropolis, part IV: Enter the heroes

The plane of water proves to be more difficult than anticipated, mostly due to the fact that fighting underwater is debilitating.

A horde of giant shark skeletons, crewed by water mephitis in their bellies, swoops in with swim-by bite attacks and acid rays. Worse, the mephitis use an area-effect spell in the wake of the shark's charge which can only be described as a fart attack.

The Wizard's Halt Undead spell turns out to be quite handy, stopping three monsters in their tracks; the Druid-Bear and Barbarian make relatively short work of them, despite doing half damage due to the effects of being submerged. However, the acid rays inflict damage over time, which starts to add up. The Cleric uses Control Water to slow the other three sharks, thus negating their best tactic - a free swim-by with no opportunity attack.

The Bard breaks out the old Pipes of Haunting and dispenses with half the mephitis, though later he regrets letting tael escape. The Ranger discovers his bow is less impressive underwater and arrayed against non-evil creatures; the Cleric actually winds up going to negative hit-points and has to be healed by the Bard and Wizard with spells and potions.

The next attack is even more dire; water elementals in their... element. Half the party has a round to prepare but, uncertain of the nature of the fight, only sees to their tactical repositioning. The elementals rush out of darkness and absolutely pound the Barbarian, Cleric, Bard, and Zombie. The Wizard now rushes to defensive spells, Stoneskinning the two front-line fighters; the Bard retreats and is shocked that his tumbling does not save him from another hit. Still, he survives, and Hastes everyone. The Wizard also casts Displacement on the Cleric, but to no avail, as the elemental lands every blow anyway. Meanwhile the Ranger employs his bow at close range, accepting the resulting pummeling now that he has some defense. The party grinds through the rest of the battle, eventually destroying five while the sixth one flees.

Here the Ranger shines again, leading them through the seabed to the tunnels that bring them out into the Necropolis itself:

Underneath a sheer white dome, the bones of a city lie still and broken. The frigid air carries the scent of damp stone, long rendered stale by untold ages.

Structures of dark obsidian rise in jagged, imposing forms, in sharp angles impossible to tell whether by design or decay. Arches, impossibly narrow and reaching, connect buildings that seem to lean in on themselves, creating claustrophobic grandeur.

Everywhere, the city is in ruins. Crumbling spires pierce the gloom, and vast plazas are choked with debris. Small, stagnant pools of water reflect the distant white of the dome, some completely frozen over, their surfaces like shattered mirrors. There is no sign of natural life – no rustling of wind, no scuttling creatures, not the stain of fungus or the carpeting of moss. Only the silent, eerie presence of the ruins remains, a testament to a power both ancient and mysterious; and in the distance, perhaps, the echo of an odd monstrous being grumbling about some minor complaint.

Their first encounter is suitably terrifying; suddenly they are cast into darkness, as an anti-magic zone shuts down their Darkvision goggles, while they can hear the rustling of half a dozen giant lobster-insect Chuuls. Uxilraug the Revered Rotunda, an eye-tyrant of paranoid and grandiose disposition (but aren't they all), appraises them and finds them less than appealing. Immediate disaster is avoided when the Bard convinces the monster that the Ranger doesn't have a bow, merely a one-string harp. Reluctantly Uxilraug allows them a chance to prove their worth, by bringing him the head of a scummy ranger. Perhaps then Uxilraug will deign to allow them to assist in entering the tomb and acquiring the Orb of Dragons; in exchange, the party can keep whatever other treasures are within.

The scum comment turns out to be an accurate description, rather than an insult, as the next denizen they meet is Eshgaru the Pale Memory, an aboleth with a crew of Skum Rangers. Their bows are an obvious threat to the floating gasbag, which accounts for his hostility. Eshgaru is polite despite the Ranger's rudely retching upon viewing his grotesque form, and offers to ally with the party in entering the lich's tomb if they either kill all the Chuul and help him enslave the eye-tyrant, or alternatively dispense with the priestesses. He shows no interest in the Orb of Dragons, offering to take merely the mundane treasures of the tomb instead so he can hire a bigger retinue.

So they set off in search of the last group and discover the Synod of the Grave, a coven of three ghast priestess with considerable charm despite their undead forms. They hold the aboleth at bay with their fearsome Bone Constructs, piles of mobile bones that are nigh-immune to archery, but go inert in the eye-tyrant's gaze. Both the Cleric and Bard demonstrate far more manners than the Ranger in the previous encounter, politely declining the ladies' seduction attempts without offending them. The priestesses then share some valuable information.

The tomb located at the center of the city requires a ritual to open the door. Each of the three parties possesses 1/2 the necessary ability; if only they could ever cooperate with even one other party, the two groups would be able to enter the lair of the lich. However, in many decades, every alliance has collapsed in the face of double-dealing and mistrust - not uncommon among villains. They tell the party that the aboleth has a scroll that will allow the Wizard to do half the ritual, and the priestesses can do the other half. They are quite eager to enter the tomb, and uninterested in any of the treasure therein; instead, they seem mostly to be concerned with meeting the lich and getting his autograph.

Finally the party investigates the tomb itself. A ramp down into the earth leads to a large stone door, flanked by two humanoid statues: one with horns and one with wings.

They talk to the aboleth, who asks them to either kill all the chuul and enslave the beholder, or kill all the ghasts. The Ranger fails to disguise his disgust with the aboleth's form but they still have a neutral reaction.

The Cleric and Bard let the ghasts flirtations down easy, and score a positive reaction. The ghasts tell them the aboleth has a scroll that will let the Wizard do 1/2 the tomb ritual, and they can do the other half. The Barbarian (of all people!) quickly realizes that opening the door requires both Divine and Arcane magic. A brief investigation reveals that this door is protected by Primordial magic, which is to say: epic powers that defy all laws of magic and reason. A blow with a pick-axe does no damage to the door, but does elicit a menacing red flash; a second attempt charges the air with portent. Wisdom dictates not making a third attempt.

The party sets up camp in an abandoned building, trying to decide how to deal with the inherently unstable inhabitants.

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #62

The Necropolis, part III - Death on the Ice!

Traveling further through the tunnels, the Ranger detects the months-old track of some giant crustacean that has passed the tunnels before them. They deduce that the shell fragments belong to a chuul, which is mystifying as this is not the appropriate terrain for such creatures. The mystery has no immediate answer, though, so they continue on. 

Soon the party is ambushed by earth elementals flowing out of the walls. Remarkably no one spots the attack in advance, giving the monsters a free round of attacks which almost ends several party members on the spot. The Bard slips out the back, trusting to his mobility, and creates a space for the Wizard to escape as well. The Cleric heals the Ranger, getting clobbered in the process, but the two martials manage to stand and deliver their own attacks until the Druid-bear can clean up from behind.

This traumatizes the party, who proceed to treat every step of the rest of the tunnels as a potential death-trap, including spending an hour examining a lone stalagtite trap with no mephit around to trigger it. Eventually they decide to risk dashing underneath the rock that could do minor damage, and continue into the next room where they face the final boss of the Earth level: a pair of stone golems!

These creatures are immune to magic, which almost seems irrelevant given that the silence effect is suppressing most of their magic. They are high-rank, dangerous monsters with incredible damage resistance which the party proceeds to smash into pebbles with barely an inconvenience. Even the Bard lands a melee blow, while the Wizard relies on his pet zombie (apparently they shrank his Giant Zombie down to normal size, and it's been following them all along) and the Cleric mostly contributes a prayer spell.

This room is now rendered safe, and the party retreats to the inter-dimensional rope trick to rest and recuperate. After waiting for their spells to refresh, they roll away a large rock to reveal the exit from this layer. Once again they stand on the edge of a vast canyon, though this one is shrouded in darkness, smells of damp, and is freezing cold.

The Wizard and Bard start to shiver in the cold, which is quickly remedied by magic; the rest of the party just toughs it out. Two paths lead down the cliff face into darkness, left and right, one bearing the tracks of the mysterious chuul.

he Druid makes use of a powerful spell to find the correct path, only to discover that either one will work equally well (as the DM had already written this down, expecting them to do the obvious and follow the chuul). They trudge down the narrow ledge and almost immediately the Cleric falls to hard even for the Barbarian to save him. The damage is minor, but the Barbarian fears to leave the vulnerable spell caster isolated, and simply leaps down to accompany him, soaking the bruising fall like a champion. The rest of the party follows in their own way: feather-falling, bat-wing-flying, or just becoming a dire bat that carries the Ranger down.

The first attack is a group of large gargoyles that swoop in to pummel the party, then attempt to snatch them up, fly them out over the abyss, and drop them. This works as well as you would expect as the party simply beats them back, with even the Wizard clubbing one with his staff and evading its grapple. The Druid-dire-bat engages in melee while the Ranger and Barbarian break out bows, and the Giant Zombie throws rocks.

The next attempt sees gargoyles dropping rocks from above. The first one scores a critical hit against the Barbarian, doing actual damage! The rest miss and the gargoyles fly off, the party happy to see them go (though the Ranger does warn that the monsters will soon return). And indeed, a few rounds later, the creatures try again. This time the Bard flies up and hits the stone creatures with a shattering Shout spell, which has the same devastating effect as the Quench did on the fire elementals, and the Wizard tosses out a fireball, reducing all of the gargoyles to dust and tael almost instantly.

As they close in on the bottom of the 1,000' cavern, air elementals swoop in. They manage a snatch on the Wizard and Cleric, but to minor effect, as the Wizard simply feather-falls and the Cleric just takes the fall damage. The fight is never really in doubt, perhaps lulling the party into over-confidence.

They reach the bottom and stroll out onto the ice, following the tracks of the chuul and the Druid's guiding spell. For once they detect the oncoming attack, hearing the sounds of approaching trouble growing closer. Casting various preparatory spells, they form a triangle formation with the zombie, Barbarian, and Druid-Bear in front and the Wizard at the back.

The opening assault proves devastating; a terrible trilling sound crashes out of the darkness and the Wizard and Ranger are stunned for several rounds. Bad luck compounds this disaster as two frost worms burst into view. Denied the Ranger's bow, the creatures close to melee and spew forth freezing breath!

Thanks to the proper battle line, the squishy casters are safe, but the Ranger - who should have easily avoided all damage thanks to a high Reflex save and Improved Evasion - takes all the damage, leaving him inches from death. And then... worse.

A spellcraft check reveals crucial knowledge to the Druid and the Wizard: these monsters explode to deadly effect when slain! Unfortunately, the Druid cannot speak because he is a bear, and the Wizard is paralyzed. The party falls upon the frost worm with abandon, utterly unaware of the disaster they are about to cause. Before the creatures can even try to bite, they are beaten to death; and in the ensuing explosion both the Wizard and Cleric are slaughtered outright.

The Druid's huge hit-point pool of the bear-form remains on his feet, thanks to cold protection; the Bard, having presciently cast Fire Shield, is practically unaffected; the Barbarian is just strong enough to make it through with a Reflex save; astonishingly, the Ranger is exactly at negative constitution, and survives thanks to a quick healing spell.

This the worst victory the party has ever suffered, with the second and third outright fatalities (the Wizard had died once before). Worse, the Cleric is among the corpses, and the Bard's Use Magic Device roll on their only scroll of Raise Dead is a terrifying 2. However, the stack of bonuses from all the preparatory spells barely squeaks by; and once the Cleric is on his feet, he brings back the Wizard.

Restoring their lost ranks empties the party's pockets, which is an excellent result (as it means nobody has to redo their character sheet). So far this epic dungeon has cost the party a shield, a scroll, and the change in their pockets; but all of this is merely prelude. Next comes the plane of water, which the party will treat as a chance to refill their purses, and then, finally the heart of the lair: the tomb of the lich, and whatever terrifying dangers it has concealed behind all these epic and yet ultimately futile defenses.

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #61

The Necropolis, part II

After an extended retroactive shopping trip at Kek's Used Magic Items Emporium with hours of exciting dramatic heroic haggling over prices, the party returns to the matter at hand.

The first danger in crossing the caldera floor is that it is merely a skin of cooled rock over molten lava. At one point the ground cracks under their feet, like too-thin ice on a lake of fiery death; most of the party nimbly leaps to safety but the Cleric and Wizard would have been flambéed if not for the Ranger and Druid risking themselves to lend a little aid (they took a -2 to their roll to assist their companions with a +2). The encounter is not over, though, as half a dozen mephits bubble up from the lava and instantly get vaporized by a Cone of Cold. Now it's over.

Then fearsome Hellhounds, led by Nessian monsters, charge out of the smoke and ash, only to die horribly on the Druid's Stone Spikes and a few arrows from the Ranger.

It is beginning to look too easy, until they reach the center of the caldera and the black pit that leads below. Here they face a real threat: more and bigger fire elementals. This time, at least, the entire party has had the foresight to shield themselves against energy attacks; but this relative safety seems to have addled their thinking, as they engage in a brutal melee match without so much as a semblance of a battle-line. The elementals rage back and forth through the party, smashing the Wizard to a single hit-point, surrounding the Barbarian and pummeling him to 2 hps, and forcing the Ranger to stage a desperate retreat that sees him evade not one but two fatal blows. The Bard runs out of images and is suddenly smashed into paste, saved only by the heroic and instant action of the Cleric. All of this from mere blunt damage; had they been unprotected from fire, there would be nothing left of the party but ash.

Nonetheless, they prevail, by the skin of the Druid-Bear's claws; and soon descend from the caustic caldera floor to the central shaft at the center, to peer down at a pool of lava a hundred feet below and a tiny ledge only fifty feet down. A few spells and magic items to make the climb safe, and they perch on the ledge. Here, at the entrance to the next layer, between a mysterious tunnel and a pit of boiling lava, they finally feel safe to retreat to the Wizard's Rope Trick pocket dimension.

Now rested, recuperated, and respelled, they enter the tunnel, where the air is cool, completely dark, and, oddly, silenced. The darkness is no issue, as the party still has their goggles from the vampire city; but the enforced silence means every time they want to cast a spell, some else has to cast Dispel Magic to give them one round of verbal components.

How do they overcome such a handicap? Super easy, barely an inconvenience. The party proceeds to simply negate the next encounters through absurd powers.

The pit trap with a Black Ooze at the bottom? The Druid plugs the pit with a stone cover, and everyone simply walks across. A gauntlet of mephits casting area-attack spells while protected by stone mantlets? The Ranger strolls through, immune to their damage due to improved evasion and a ridiculous Reflex save, and casually murders them all with arrows. A huge weapon-destroying ooze drops from the ceiling? The Druid-Bear tears it into confetti with barely a scratch.

Will this lull the party into another false sense of security? Or will the feared Earth layer of the Necropolis Defense System prove to be merely a walk in the dirt?

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #60

Against the Giants, part Running Away

The party debates long into the night while the Ranger keeps his assignment. The metaphysics of a calm and orderly realm seem to outweigh the evil of a Yellow sorceress and dragon. Should the party even intervene here? While freedom is a distant memory, and anyone who steps out of line is crushed, their are no wars or raids. Violent death can be avoided by submission, which is not an option in much of the world.

However, they eventually decide to follow up on Alys's tip, on the theory that if there is a way to defeat the dragon, best that they have it and not some worse power. After all, a kingdom ruled by hejerne-spica would not employ cruelty as a tool to maintain order, but merely as entertainment.

Thus, they slip out in the wee hours. The city never sleeps, since half its population is goblin; the harbormaster wants to see their tax stamp before they go, but their captain shows that the barrels of cinnamon have been replaced by barrels of winter wine, a reciprocal gift from the Queen. They set out to sea, seemingly free and clear of the Golden Queen and her plots.

But the second night out, the Barbarian suddenly smells smoke. He rips the hatch open and dodges a gout of flame. The alcohol is on fire! The Druid instantly quenches the flames, but the damage is done: the boat is sinking. The Druid makes lifeboats out of the deck of the ship while the Cleric questions the burnt corpse found in the hull. One of their crewmen had been turned by the Queen and her formidable charms. He set the fire, thinking it would trigger his rescue. Instead he died in pain.

The crew piles into one boat, the party in another, and both head for shore twenty miles away. They get a hundred feet before water elementals attack and sink both boats.

Two elementals are no real threat to our heroes, even in the depths of the ocean; spells and swords soon do for them. Then two more attack, having already dispatched the ship's crew. These also die without much effort, but it leaves the party slowly sinking in the dark sea.

First the Cleric casts water-walking on the Druid Bear. The Wizard rides the bear, while the rest of the party cling to the floating discs behind the Wizard. When the water-walking spell runs out, the Bard summons a magical steed for the Wizard, and they race over the tops of the waves to shore.

Finally, as day breaks, they spot the air elemental that has been tracking them, but conclude their only maneuver is to evade it. Their destination lays twenty miles over water under the very nose of the dragon, or a hundred miles over land skirting the beast's lair. They choose speed. Mounting magical steeds, they race across the water, seeming to escape the notice of the monster by sheer speed.

 

The Necropolis, part I

A volcano lies before them, with sheer walls two thousand feet high. Thanks to a variety of magic, they climb and float to the top without incident - though the Barbarian would have fallen once or twice without the Bard's helping hand.

Here they view the caldera of the volcano, two thousand feet below. The smoke and fumes are fatal to the weak; the Bard must protect himself and the Wizard with magic, while the rest of the party can get by with just wet cloths across their face. The Ranger spots a narrow trail, thus obviating the need for climbing checks, and the party proceeds down.

Their first encounter is a simple stream of lava. Leaping over it is a trivial exercise, aside from the fact that failing would be almost certain death. Again magic comes to the rescue, in the form of the rarely used Jump spell.

The next stream of lava moves underneath the Ranger as he leaps it, because it's not actually lava. A group of odd creatures in the form of small pools of lava spring their ambush, but it is instantly obliterated by the Druid casting Quench, this powerful spell proving invaluable once again.

A cave entrance turns out to be merely a trap, with a dozen fire and magma creatures getting off a single Scorching Ray spell before the Barbarian and Ranger exterminate them all with cleaving swordery and machine gun bowery. The spell-casters are starting to consider the value of conserving their magic for greater threats.

Which immediately comes in the form of a dozen huge fire elementals. Rushing upon the party out of the thick ash and smoke, they gain initiative, which proves terrifying. The Wizard, Cleric, and Bard are pummeled to within an inch of their lives before they can put up energy shields. The Ranger valiantly fires arrows, but soon needs healing as well.

The entire encounter would have gone badly, save for the Druid spam-casting the Quench spell and reducing the elementals to single-digit hit points. Once weakened, the Barbarian and Ranger can dispatch the monsters, with a little help from the Bard, who casts a freezing shield and then recklessly triggers attacks against himself while the feedback effect destroys the elementals.

Now the party has reached the caldera floor, and is preparing to face the real dangers of the first layer of the Necropolis.

 

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #59

Against the Giants, part IV

The Cleric casts Obscuring Mist, cloaking the entire stairwell in fog. The warrior giants charge blindly ahead, swinging in wide sweeping blows; but the peasantry decline to throw rocks as the chance of friendly fire is too great.

The Cleric, forewarned, slips up the stairs to safety. The Ranger and Barbarian suffer hits to provide cover for the Druid and Wizard to escape, but the Bard just plain gets lucky, slipping past several blows by sheer dint of the foggy effect. Then the party is up the staircase and out of immediate danger. The Druid covers the floor with thorns and spikes and bear manure (the latter perhaps not entirely voluntarily, as the experience of watching a giant club swing at his fragile human form was traumatic).

Nonetheless, the giants begin trying to force the staircase, so the Bard casts Haste and the party flees to the top, where the Barbarian fails to lift the trapdoor. While he is trying to convince the Ranger to give him a hand, the Druid melts a passage through the stone.

Now safe and secure in the fresh air, the party immediately dashes to the lip of the mountain and leaps down to the courtyard to resume the fight, each descending in their own unique way - air-walking, spider-climbing, and feather-falling. They then barge into the great hall, and the entire previous battle is repeated - including the annoying ice storm, which is once again judged to be less than helpful.

However, this battle is an anti-climax. There are slightly fewer giants and only one weak spell-caster. The remainder of the Stone Hills clan is soon dead on the floor, and then loaded onto aurochs for the journey back to Kek.

If Kek is dismayed to see his alleged vassal state utterly destroyed, he does not show it; nor does he remark on the self-evident puissance of this party of adventurers. Instead he pays them for the addition to his corpse army in magic items. It remains to be seen which party benefits most from this exchange.

However, that looming confrontation is once again delayed when Kek asserts knowledge of a powerful item that could actually command the dragon. It is buried in a lich's crypt hundreds of miles away and far too close to the dragon for Kek to pursue it, but now that the party has demonstrated their power, perhaps it's not an automatic death sentence for them to try.

Since the party was already interested in returning to the Gold Coast, they take the hint. First they return home, to a quiet kingdom, as every nearby threat has been summarily dispatched by their recent actions. Then they load up their boat with a royal gift of cinnamon and set sail.

Entering the harbor at Flefliequelp provides an immediate surprise. There is a giant at the docks, unloading a ship. He is surrounded by warriors both human and goblin, intermixed without apparent discord. The harbormaster's boat is crewed by goblins but commanded by an older woman who reeks of authority.

She queries the party sharply, clearly backed by magic, but only the Ranger fails to resist. Fortunately they had already decided to tell the truth: yes, they have been here before, in Rian's court, and they've returned to visit her again. The woman informs them that significant changes have been wrought since last they came. For instance, any man caught using magic - or merely suspected of it! - will be castrated and then killed. The woman, a Questioner by rank, orders them to be prepared to answer a summons from the Queen, if one should be forthcoming; and also instructs the Ranger to be prepared to answer a somewhat more personal summons later that night. Otherwise they dock without incident, and longshoremen come to ferry their barrels to the castle.

Wandering through town, they observe goblins and humans living in a strict hierarchy. Women with magic are clearly at the top, followed by men with bows; ordinary tradesmen wear aprons to show their inferior status. The Bard directs them to an inn where he can gather more information, and in one of those unlikely coincidences, immediately recognizes their serving wench as the bard Alys.

She communicates to the Bard in their secret sign language that revealing her identity, or even that their prior association, would be fatal. Eventually the two spies manage to find a secluded spot to talk freely, and Alys fills the party in on Rian's total victory. The dragon backed the Queen in war, destroying the remaining goblin kingdoms and handing control over the entire region to her. In exchange the Queen has incorporated not just goblins and giants but goblinoid culture; farming, always a less than noble profession in Rian's kingdom, is now done by hordes of hobgoblins. To be a peasant in this realm is to oversee a hobgoblin plantation, a job dangerous, dirty, and disrespected.

All six kingdoms, goblin and human alike, have been reshaped and melted into one. There are no cities save the capital; the castles and towns of her previous rivals have been pulled down stone by stone. The land is now a vast swath of rural villages and hobgoblin sties, overseen by a horde of mind-reading sorceresses. The army is smaller than the combined forces of the previous six realms, but more potent, as it mixes human magic with giant strength. And the Queen now has two artifacts of immeasurable power: the Helm, wielded by a newly reinvigorated pyromantic line, and the favor of a dragon.

It is a police state, its rigidity enforced by telepathy and truth-spells, and its wealth dedicated to producing tael and flowing all of it through Rian's hands into the dragon. The party is less discomfited by this than expected, judging the lack of constant warfare between states to be an improvement despite the cost.

Alys the bard is not so sanguine. In hiding, fearing for her life if the Inquisitors should look into her head, she nevertheless holds out hope. Despite the magic and giants and fireballs, Rian's true claim on power is the dragon. That is the threat that quells all resistance and freedom. Dispatching or driving away the dragon is her new goal in life, and finding an ancient artifact is the key. As it turns out, she has a map...

 

 

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #58

Against the Giants, part III

The Druid turns into a bear and herds the aurochs together. With extreme diplomacy he convinces each of them to bear a corpse of their former owners. They trudge back to Kek to collect their reward; the mummy guards open the gates and get out of the way, as the aurochs are becoming unmanageable due to lack of water. They charge over to the canal, and while they are drinking, the cranes and golems begin unloading the cargo.

The party follows a mummy guard inside to engage in sharp negotiations with a creature not entirely sane. The Ranger's goal is to borrow the undead giants to help attack the giant's castle, but Kek explains they can't control that many. However, the Wizard can cast Command Undead, so Kek offers him one free giant zombie as an experiment, if the Wizard will give a report of how the creature performed.

When they come to negotiate the value of the aurochs, Kek confesses his troops have already slaughtered the beasts. The Ranger is compelled to accept the purchase of some magic items at list price as compensation. (The DM will later come to regret approving the Druid's purchase.)

Again they return to giant territory, searching for the hidden stone giant castle in the mountains. Because they have a high-level Ranger, they skip over all the tedious searching and straight to the action.

The castle is built into the side of a hill, with a 40' tall curtain wall out in front. The Ranger sneaks up to the gate, but it is barred, and his attempt to climb the wall fails. The Bard uses his new spider-boots to walk up the wall, attracting the attention of the entire herd of aurochs as he does so. While they stare dumbly up at him, the party spends half an hour discussing the best way to start a stampede. Eventually they settle on the Bard casting an image of dragon, causing the aurochs to swirl around the courtyard in a rumbling thunder.

After fifteen minutes or so, the beasts calm down, exhausted. The party has conclusively proven that there are no stone giants hiding in the courtyard, which was apparently a concern for them. The Druid melts a hole in the stone gate, the Barbarian goes through an unbars the door, and then pushes open the heavy sliding gate while the Druid-Bear holds the aurochs at bay. As soon as the Druid returns to human form, the aurochs trundle out of the gate, looking for food and water.

The party advances to the gate built into the side of the hill. Again the Druid melts a hole, and again the Barbarian steps through and lifts the bar. But this time he is rewarded with a hail of boulders from the line of giants conveniently 150' away and thus out of sight until they move.

Three of the boulders hit, doing a staggering amount of damage, but not enough to bring down such a stalwart hero (that comes later). He darts back outside, and the party spends half an hour debating the best way to enter the castle without getting pasted by boulders. Eventually they settle on the Bard turning the Druid invisible and the Druid casting Sleet Storm in the middle of the hall. Now the party has 11 rounds to enter and prepare for the battle, under cover of snow.

They arrange themselves in a line, casting all their best buffs; and when the storm finally winds down, they win the initiative role and open fire. However, the fading snow reveals more than it concealed: another line of soldier giants and bears are in front of the rock-throwing peasants, including a giant chief.

The Wizard gets great value for money by casting Wall of Fire on the entire line of peasant giants, doing only moderate damage but hitting all of them. The Druid, as usual, casts Stone Spikes, making the battlefield in front of the giants both damaging and crippling.The Ranger shoots a bear, the Cleric starts dispelling buffs off of the giant chief, and the Bard drains the giant chief of four levels, and the Barbarian hides behind his tower shield. A great opening round! Oh, also, the Wizard's giant zombie throws a rock or something.

The front line rushes forward through the spikes, not quite able to reach the party thanks to their crippling affect. But the peasants step forward out of the fire and hurl rocks to good effect, pounding the Barbarian anyway.

The next round, the Druid casts a line of fire in front of the peasants - a particularly strong one, due to his heightened caster level item he bought from the unsuspecting and obviously swindled Kek (the DM now has to revise Kek's character sheet to give him a String of Prayer beads too). Now they are taking light but consistent damage from both behind and in front. The Cleric keeps dispelling (curse him!) and the Wizard tries a Fireball.

The giants decide to ignore the walls of fire on either side, meaning they are taking light but consistent damage every turn. This time their boulders target the Ranger, hitting him hard enough to drive him into retreat. The soldiers still can't quite reach the party, but they will next round. Some of the bears make it close enough to start biting at the Bard and the Wizard's zombie.

On the next round, somebody points out that the walls of flame are opaque, meaning the peasants will have to walk through the front one to continue throwing boulders. Armed with this knowledge, the Cleric puts up a Wall of Blades. The Ranger shoots another bear, while the Bard decides to fight the giant chief, a soldier giant, and three bears on his own. The Barbarian, finally able to melee, takes the other flank to help the zombie with several soldiers and bears.

The peasants now have to walk forward through the line of fire, into the wall of blades and the spiky floor. This is too much, and all of them die. Ten giants with four spells! A record of efficiency to be entered into the annals of history.

However, the peasants were always only fire support. The real weight of the giants has now reached the party, and they lay into them with a will. The Bard finds all of his vaunted defenses stripped, his mirrored images smashed through and his displacement overwhelmed, from a flurry of attacks by multiple opponents. After only two rounds, he takes so much damage that another single hit from one of the soldier's massive hammers will spell certain death.

We can tell things are dire because the Druid turns into a Dire Bear. He starts eliminating the wounded giant soldiers, one per round, but taking huge hits in return. At least his Stoneskin spell is in the way. The Wizard tries a Magic Missile, but Shield is the one defense the Cleric failed to dispel off of the chief. The Barbarian does a whirlwind attacking, dishing out massive damage to bears and giants alike. The soldiers respond by pounding him into negative hit points; only his lingering rage keeps his heart pumping. The Bard feints at the chief with his halberd, allowing him to invoke his Combat Expertise and pump his defense. He then dashes out to spell-casting range, trusting to his Mobility feat to let him avoid the chief's attack of opportunity.

But it fails. The giant tags him, through Displacement and everything. Fortunately the chief does not hit as hard as the soldiers, so the Bard is still alive - but only barely. He joins the Barbarian on the ground.

However, this has opened room for the Wizard and Cleric to hit the chief with Fireball and Flamestrike, and in his enervated state, the chief succumbs to the flames.

The situation is still perilous, though, as one soldier makes it to the Ranger and promptly clubs him into unconsciousness too. Also, at some point, the Wizard's zombie was reduced to rubble.

This is worst state the party has ever been: three members on the ground at once! If not for the Druid-Bear, things would be grim; but the bear engages the last two remaining (and severely burnt) giants while the Cleric utilizes his new rank to heal all of his allies scattered throughout the room. Once they stand up again, the fight is over; the last giant doesn't last long.

The party is so intimidated by this beating that they immediately retreat from the castle, hiding in the mountains in the Wizard's trans-dimensional space (good thing the zombie was already destroyed, as it never would have fit in there).

When they return the next day, the castle is eerily quiet. There are three doors at the back of the hall; one leads to an empty suite of living quarters, where the Druid pries all the lightstones from the walls; one leads to an empty workshop and kitchen; and one leads to an empty armory, with piles of stones and a few old broken weapons.

The armory, however, has a spiral staircase in the center of the room. The party gathers at its feet and gazes up, realizing it leads to a secret back entrance they didn't even bother to look for. Whilst they are pondering, the Cleric alone realizes that half the alcoves in the room actually contain a perfectly motionless stone giant. He attempts to conceal his reaction to this discovery, but has no Perform or Bluff skill, because everyone relies on the Bard for that.

He fails. The giants know he knows; and they charge out, catching the party by surprise. The Cleric has one round to act before the giant soldiers are in melee range and administer a surprise-round beating, most likely killing the Wizard out-right and potentially killing the Bard (who has no magic defenses up!) or even the Druid (who is not a giant bear). What spell will he cast to save himself and his friends? Tune in next month to find out!