I guess I had to complain about attendance in order to get a full house last Friday as everyone showed up! Yay!
Franky and Stef showed up first and I got to clean the floor with them in a few Magic game with my rebel and Elf decks. Then Yan showed up and we teamed up against Franky and Stef to beat them. So the evening was off to a good start.
Eric showed up at around 5 PM and started to level up his Crusader character to level 10 (although he had promised, at least twice, to do it beforehand… Not that we ever believed him).
Since Math missed the last game, we decided to start before he arrived. Last time, we had decided that his character, Aravard the Arcane Archer, didn’t tag along and stayed behind to fight the horde of Driders and the few Huge Dread Harpoon Spiders (MM III, p80-81) that were attacking Iridithil’s House back in Ptolus.
The Beastlands
So the PCs started around the tomb of the Fallen Hero of the Beastlands. Ignoring the wards, Cixi entered after Cruguer and studied the galleries of images, searching for any clues that might relate to her long lost people. None were found.
When they both left the crumbling tomb, the party observed the Wolf lord sitting on it’s hunches not far away from the forested island.
I envision this layer of the Beastlands like a darker version of World of Warcraft’s Ashenvale (see image).
Anyhoo… as the players were discussing ways to get to the Beastland’s first layer, to pay Elhonna and Lillee a visit, the Wolf lord informed them that the Demons on this layer were dispersing. It also mentioned that it appeared likely that they would be repulsed successfully. That implied that once the common was enemy gone, the normal order of things would resume and the PCs would become prey again.
As a token of honor, the Wolf lord offered the PCs with a safe conduit to anywhere on the plane under its protection, which included, after the PCs asked, ‘walking’ to the 1st layer and meeting with an Aspect of the Goddess of Forests.
The heroes debated the offer as they wanted to go and check on Aravard as well as go talk to Elhona and Lillee.
At that time, Math (and the Chinese food) had arrived, so they asked the wolf, quite shrewdly, if they could take the Safe Conduit a bit later, after having gone and retrieved their friend somewhere between here and Midtown, Ptolus. The wolf agreed, more because of the rule of fun than any timing consideration.
So they returned to where they entered the plane and lo and behold, there was Aravard! I’m telling you, those in-game coincidences sure are convenient!
Picking him up, they learned that Iridithil’s house was probably destroyed and that Aravar was basically pushed into the portal by the Elven leader, telling him to go after the source of this evil, not it’s manifestations.
So onwards they walked. They climbed a tree so high that it pieced through the Rocky canopy of the layer above and crossed into a forest of eternal dusk. They then walked forever and climbed a mountain that led to the clouds, on which sat another forest basked in the purest of sunlight. (I really love describing these things)
The whole layer was in a bloody uproar. A huge bruise-purple rift from which tiny dots were seen falling endlessly was visible very far away. Hosts of Celestials, animals, magical beasts and petitioners were fighting everywhere.
After many days of endless walking, following the Wolf lord, the heroes arrived to a war camp. There they met an ecstatic Lillee (I love playing that character, I’m so happy I stole her from Yan let’s me borrow her now) and a stern Eleven female archer pouring over a battle map.
After unsticking Lillee from himself, Cruguer thanked the Aspect of the Goddess for his second chance and conveyed that he had refrained from trying to weasel out of the ‘deal’ by reuniting with his sword’s psyche. (At that point the Sword’s hilt mysteriously whacked Cruger real hard on the back of the head… go figure) .
The Goddess conveyed a bit more history about Cruguer’s former self. She explained that he became a powerful lord of Evil by basically selling all the souls of his original home world to the lords of Hell. He then engineered a last minute demonic invasion and let the world slip in the grasp of the Abyss who absorbed the world. Truly a magnificent Bastard he was!
She then instructed Cruguer that his true salvation lies in saving the homeworld of the other party members from the same fate at the hands of the Yugoloths. At that point Cixi realized that she’d get no details from that aspect on her own homeworld.
The Aspect of Elhonna then set them on their way back to Ptolus but not before bestowing them with a gift that turned out to be very useful:
The Oil of Elhonna
Upon anointing one’s body, this magical oil bestows it’s user with the Barkskin spell (CL 12, +5 bonus to natural armour) for a period of two hours. Furthemore, once during that duration, a user can benefit from a Cure Serious wounds (CL 12, 3d8+12) upon spending a swift action.
I’ll let you work out the creation costs and spells. 🙂
Ptolus
Back in Ptolus, only 2 days had passed since the attack of the Driders. Doredian Mythlord, leader of all Ptolus surface elves, was dead and Iridithil’s House lay in ruins.
Aside: For a setting that cost us 120$, I’m sure being harsh on it… well at least it’s signed by Monte!
Once returned, the PCs were ‘recuperated’ by a group of tabard-wearing people all hailing to be from the newly formed ‘Brotherhood of the Prophecy’. All were allies of the PC’s taken from the last 2 Ptolus campaigns. The tabard bore a reproduction of the prophecy and all those that could read it were invited to join.
After 11 sessions, the players still hadn’t settled on a name for their group… now it was settled. 😀
Part of Ptolus had fallen to anarchy, with the southern walls being battered down by the coutryside refugees and those parts of the city being overrun by demons, mobs and petty gang lords.
The PCs were ushered in the northern parts of the city around the Pale Tower (HQ to the city’s celestials) where the newly-formed brotherhood had allied with the Keepers of the Veil and the Knights of the Pale to maintain order and peace in the northern parts of the lower-city. The town militia and the noble houses were concentrating in maintaining the Upper parts of the city (Oldtown and the Noble’s quarters).
Railroading aside: At that point of the game, I took firm control of the story and info dumping as I had no wish of making the next part an investigation. With only 3-4 hours of game time, I wanted to fast forward to the actual search for the second Demon-slaying sword. So this basically turned into a slightly interactive cut scene. It ended up being a good decision.
So the brotherhood of the prophecy showed the party all they had found about the Sword. That it was forged by the Ysgard Frost Giants to go and slay Kostchtchie, the demon lord who had stolen Nilfheim from Ysgard and brought it back into the Abyss (do you see a theme here?).
The stories then went out to tell that the Frost Giants of Ysgard rallied around a Jarl called Gulgar and stormed the Iron Wastes (what Nilfheim became called in the Abyss). Almost all Ysgardian Giants were ruthlessly slain and only Gulgar’s son, Gulgir, escaped alive with the sword. The most recent book placed him and the Jarl’s ruined keep in the Frozen reaches of Ysgard.
As the players were getting ready to hunt for a gate to the Heroic domain of Ysgard, Nogard the 1/2 dragon barbarian was accosted by a Bronze Clad human (My pet NPC Plantagonox, the Bronze Dragon) and he was asked if he knew about Xorvintaal….
The rest tomorrow. 🙂
(Hint… check in the Monster Manual V under Dragons of the Great Game)
Seth says
I love where this is going
ChattyDM says
I’m trying to build this to the biggest campaign finish I have ever attempted while at the same time not stealing away anything from the players (like hope, or the chance to make a difference)…
Thing is, making the difference might not appear as that much different from doing nothing from certain points of view.
I’m truly going for the ‘save the World while it crumbles’ trope instead of the ‘Save the world before the button is pressed’.
I hope I can pull it off and I’ll probably ask my player’s buy-in in advance by dropping hints like this one here.