Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

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Hedgehobbit
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by Hedgehobbit »

Keep 'em coming!
billolmesdahl
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

Next session is 5/5/13. We had to take a couple of weeks off.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

I've been slow in updating because we got so little done last session. The troll battle lasted FOREVER.

But the day was eventually won.

After resting for a few days in the woods off the trail, the group ran into a small group of Satyrs who chatted with them and warned about the horrible witch that loved to eat children in the center of the wood.

The group continued onward, eventually spotting a sign pointing to the Mirrors of Many Worlds. Following the sign, the came to a gazebo with a dozen mirrors circling the inside. The monk decided to leap into the center and see what would happen.

The mirrors flashed and a dozens Caelifers stepped from the mirrors and moved to attack, which surprised no one really. They were just worried that 12 duplicates would overwhelm the group.

The false monks swarmed the original Caelifer, but only a couple seemed to be attacking. It turned out the majority were just mirror images and two were actual MIrror of Opposition duplicates.

Luckily for the monk, he can barely hit his own armor class, so his twins had a very hard time damaging him.

Most of the party started picking random monks and picking them off with missile weapons. (Everyone was VERY careful to stay away from the center of the gazebo.)

Kethren started pushing over mirrors and breaking them, hoping to cause the duplicates to disappear (or at least prevent more from coming out). It didn't, but he felt useful.

Celeb lost track of who was who and managed to put an arrow or two into the real Caelifer before anyone could stop her.

In the end, the mirror clones could not overcome the original and his friends and they perished.

The group broke the remaining mirrors to protect other people from the trap and continued down the path.

After walking into the forest for another several hours, it began to get dark and the group decided to stop for the night. On first shift, Taz detected a small animal moving through the brush. He immediately began to wake people up, not wanting to take a chance. Kristle picked up a rock and tossed it into the brush and a tiny black and white ball of fur charged out and into the camp site.

It was a kitten wearing a collar bearing a tag that read Cuddly Wuddly in Common. The kitten purred and rubbed up against the centaur.

Not trusting the tiny, defenseless kitten, they asked Quav'Ria the cleric to cast a Detect Evil. The kitten didn't like the sound of that, so used its demonic powers to cast a Suggestion spell on Kethren the Werewolf to kill the Cleric. Kethren thought that sounded completely reasonable, and tore into Quav. No one was particularly surprised when the kitten turned out to be an Imp.

What followed was an exciting battle between Kethren and everyone else.

Silver weapons were deployed when it became apparent that traditional weapons were not going to cut it.

Quav'Ria pulled out the big guns and used her Rod of Python against the werewolf. It quickly wrapped him up and squeezed him into submission while the Imp flew off into the darkness laughing evilly.

We ended the session with Kethren at -5 and the party trying to decide how best to keep him under control until his madness ends.
billolmesdahl
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

When we last left our merry band of misfits, the party had just survived an attack on their cleric by one of their own. After putting down the werewolf, the group tied him and had Quav'Ria move out of sight while they questioned him to see if he was still under a compulsion to murder her. Kethren seemed completely normal and claimed he didn't remember the incident at all, but Taz believed he was lying. While spinning his tale, Kethren was carefully working a claw on his bonds. Without warning, the werewolf snapped his bonds and bounded into the night.

While momentarily taken aback, Caelifer collected himself and acted quickly, charging after the wolfman, trying to keep him in the light of his torch. Before Kethren could get into the brush, Ashianna charged forward and cast Magic Missile, which dropped the fleeing warrior in his tracks.

Take two. After building a cocoon of rope around Kethren and a midsized tree, and placing guards around camp, the party rested, recovered, and waited for the spell on Kethren to wear off. And after nearly twelve hours, Kethren finally seemed to come back to his senses. And they were off.

After traveling down the forest path for several more hours, the group noticed a beautiful field of flowers on the side of the road. In the midst of the flowers they could see a brilliantly shining sword sticking out of the ground amongst a collection of rags and other unidentifiable objects. Celeb approached and cast a Detect Magic from her ring and found that several of the items radiated magic.

The group tied a rope around Celeb's waste and she carefully waded into the flowers to grab the goodies. After a moment or two, Celeb sat down in the grass, pulled off one boot, and promptly fell asleep.

Caelifer and Taz started pulling Celeb out of the flowers via the rope tied around her waist. At the same time, the group heard gutteral cries and shouts coming from the NW. The turned to confront the apparent threat, never suspecting it was a distraction by a group of Willas attacking from the SE.

Willas are an evil form of fey, that move so incredibly fast, they are naturally invisible. The tiny monsters charged in at astonishing speed and used hit and run tactics against the party. Quav'Ria was the first to be attacked, stabbed in the lower leg with a Willa dagger. The dagger was enchanted to cause sleep in any wounded with it, but the cleric managed to fight off the compulsion and stay awake.

Kristle could hear one of the creatures moving, and rushed to the spot he thought it was and managed to wound one of the monsters. He was flanked by a pair of the tiny creatures and wounded. He was not able to resist the enchantment and fell into a deep slumber.

Ashianna tried to use her Flaming Sphere spell on the beasts, but they proved far too quick to catch with the spell, and they easily dodged the attack. When Kristle collapsed, she decided to center a Sleep spell on him and see if she could catch the Willas in the area of effect. Luck was with her and one of the Willas fell to the ground. The other charged the Sorceress and put her into a deep sleep.

Quav'Ria was able to detect one of the creatures and caught it with her halberd. It was wounded, and angry. Kethren, Caelifer, and Quav took down one of the Willas, leaving two. Taz summoned an Owl and instructed it to search for and attack any invisible creatures it could detect. The owl found one of the Willas and swooped. It missed, but gave everyone a clue as to where another of the monsters was lurking.

Taz and Caelifer were the next taken down, but not before taking down a third of the Fey horrors. Taz fell on Celeb and crushed her leg beneath him, which woke her from her slumber.

Quav'Ria was hit again and this time unable to resist the enchantment. She was down, leaving only Celeb and Kethren against the final of the Willas.

Celeb got a hit in on the final monster, reducing him to a single hit point (from the beefy 3 HP he started with). He decided that discretion was the better part of valor and sped off into the wilderness.

After waking the rest of the party, the group retrieved the treasure from the glade which was identified as a =1 adamantine greatsword, a hat of disguise, a belt of giant strength, a pouch of dust of sneezing and choking, an arcane scroll of enlarge person, and a divine scroll of neutralize poison, cure serious wounds, and remove disease.

The players were giddy with delight at their huge payday, so we quit for the night so I could plot methods of taking it all away from them and making them suffer.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

This session started with everyone's favorite activity: splitting the loot!

After treasure was split (no love for the Hat of Disguise, but loads of interest in the Belt of Giant Strength), the group continued along the path until almost sunset. They chose to leave the trail and camp near the stream in the woods. Around 5AM, they were awoken when a gigantic Water Elemental rose out of the creek and moved towards them, complaining loudly in Aquan about the "fleshy bags of water" dumping filth in his creek.

Thanks to Aquil'iya, the ring of water elemental command, Celeb could understand and speak to the brute. She tried to calm the monster down, but it refused to be mollified and began smashing the camp and the adventurers.

The battle was furious, with Quav'Ria summoning her giant python to bolster the player's ranks. The elemental concentrated on Kethren and did grievous damage to the were. It was a difficult battle, but in the end, the party triumphed. The battle had an unintended side effect as well, it gave Aquil'iya its second activation.

Pushing on the next day, the group came to a gigantic hollow tree which had been converted into a house for a tiny creature. As they approached, a tiny figure dressed as a stereotypical leprechaun, appeared at the tiny window in the door. He began to jabber insanely screaming "Dah! Dah dah dah dah DAH!" and waving a rod.

The party was confused by the creature and his language. They shouted at it in Sylvan and Druidic to no effect. Finally, as they began to approach closer, the creature (with a final shout of "DAH!") triggered his wand and vanished.

This confused and amused the group and they continued to close on the hollow tree. There was another should of "DAH!" and the creature reappeared and all the grass in the area instantly shot up to 10x the normal height.

At this point the party had about enough of these shenanigans. Ashianna blasted the tiny creature with Magic Missiles. DAH!

Quav'Ria took a kinder approach and zapped the strange foe with her Wand of Hold Person and (one failed saving throw later) he was frozen stiff.

Examining the monster more closely, Quav'Ria was able to determine Fizzledrit (the creature's name) was suffering from an advanced case of mindfire, a horrific disease which drained his intelligence to the point of perpetual madness. Luckily, she had a scroll with Remove Disease, restoring Fizzledrit's mind and allowing them to get his story.

Fizzledrit ended up here when he pilfered the wrong book from a wizard back home. He wandered the forest for several days before finding this tree home which belonged to an evil leprechaun. Fizz fought and slew the creature and used the hollowed tree as his base. He eventually found the cottage of the Warty Witch. He tried to sneak into the cottage, but was repelled by the miniature trolls. As he was running off, the Witch appeared and cast a spell on him, which eventually left him in the state the party found him.

Fizzledrit pledged the help the party find a way home as thanks for saving his life. He helped them fill in sections of their map and they began to plan an assault on the cottage of the Witch.

After resting, the decided to head to the cottage and timed their travel to arrive at night. Fizz told them there were beehives on the grounds and their hope was they would be less active at night. They made it to the cottage and Taz the centaur used a Potion of Spider Climb to ferry people over the Chocolate Brick wall on the West side of the grounds. Once everyone was on the ground and ready for action, Taz walked right into an Assassin Vine they had mistaken for grape vines growing on the North side of the cottage.

That's where we quit for the night.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

It was another exciting, battle-heavy evening. What is this "roleplay" I hear so much about? (Well, I suppose they might roleplay if they ever ran into something other than plants and trolls).

Anyway, it turned out there were a total of 3 Assassin Vines covering the wall of the Candy Cottage of the Warty Witch. The vines took quite a toll on the party, and only the skillful healing of the Cleric Quav'Ria kept them alive.

Kristle, with his axes, proved particularly adept at pruning the vines. Though Caelifer the monk showed he could break boards as well as any black belt, scoring a pair of critical hits in a single round. During the battle, Taz, Kristle, and Kethren all suffered fairly serious wounds, but none were fatal.

After the vines were taken care of, Fizz (their new gnomish rogue friend) checked the door and managed to disable the lock. Behind the door was a round room with a staircase made of wafer cookies winding around the outer wall, climbing the heights of the tower. There was also a door to the South.

Fizz listened at the southern door, but didn't hear anything. He checked the bottom of the stairs and found a very well concealed trap door. Working quickly, Fizz was able to disable the trap (the stairs flattened and the trap door opened to a 100' pit). When all was deemed safe, the party made their way up the stairs.

The stairs wound their way around the tower, ending in a small (3' high) door. After doing the usual checks and deeming it untrapped and safe to open, the group proceeded, where they were jumped by a miniature troll!

Well, one troll against the entire party was hardly a fair fight. But the troll still stood up FAR longer than I expected he would.

After scraping the last bit of troll off their weapons, the group continued higher up the tower. They finally reached a door with a surrounding bat motif. Listening, Fizz was able to detect the sounds of trolls behind the door. The decision was made to charge into the room, hoping to take the trolls by surprise and Fizz and Kethren were first through the door. They burst in on four miniature trolls engaged in the sorts of horrible things you might imagine off-duty trolls would do to blow off steam.

Fizz chose to use his Rod of Wonder while Kethren charged one. A thin green beam shot from the end of the rod and turned one of the trolls to stone. The next round, more party members poured into the room and engaged trolls. Fizz figured he'd try the Rod again; after all, luck was with him. ZAP! Another troll turned to stone.

Fizz figured he was on a roll. What could go wrong? So he clicked off another charge from his Rod of Wonder. This time, he got a Lightning Bolt, which fried a troll, Taz, and bounced back nailing Fizz as well. All three made their saves and an important lesson was learning. Well, probably not, since Fizz has an abysmal Wisdom score. Lightning Bolt was fun, though I had been hoping for a Fireball or him summoning a rhino.

Before very long, the last of the trolls was dispatched and the group was left in a room with an iron ladder in the center, leading to a trap door in the ceiling. Presumably, the top of the tower was on the other side of that door.

This is where we ended for the evening.

Experience was awarded and Quav'Ria, Kristle, and Caelifer all gained levels.

At the rate we're going, I expect the Warty Witch to either be defeated or kill the party next week. Assuming she loses, the party may be back in Castle Whiterock by our first July session where I have some interesting surprises waiting for them.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

Reaching the top of the tower, it was time for the group to assault the lair of the witch. Fizz missed the alarm and summoning traps on the trapdoor in the ceiling, but Celeb used a detect magic and noticed it. That let Fizz take another run at it and he found the trap on his second try. He managed to remove the activating runes, negating the trap.

Kethren and Celeb hit the breach hard and entered the room. The witch's lair was larger than it should have been, like the space existed partially in a different dimensional space, or space had been folded somehow. In the room were four miniature trolls dressed in white finery, acting as Izelda's personal staff, as well as the witch herself.

I have to stop for a moment to give the set up. I cheated a bit. I changed a few of the witch's spells from the module spell list and gave her Polymorph instead of Mass Reduce Person. This let me play a little trick on the party. Izelda cast Alter Self to appear as a miniature troll and used Polymorph on one of the trolls to look like the witch. I also gave her a scroll of Flesh to Stone, to give Aquil'iya another chance to further activate.

The trolls quickly moved to defend their mistress (all save for one, and you can guess which). Round after round, the player characters swarmed up the iron ladder and into Izelda's lair while the trolls engaged and harassed the heroes. Kethren found that Cuddly Wuddly was also in the room, when the evil imp targeted him for another suggestion spell. The imp tried to convince Kethren the witch was just a "kindly old woman" who needed to be "protected from these attackers". This time, Kethren fought off the compulsion and continued his attacks on the trolls.

After several rounds, the entire party was finally in the room and pressing forward. Their initial attacks were successful against the witch, leaving her with several wounds. The witch rushed forward and attacked with a claw/claw/bite and began to regenerate, her wounds knitting closed as the stunned party watched. They knew something funky was going on.

They quickly guessed (correctly) that the "witch" was just another troll, and the "troll" that had moved away from the combat (trying to line up a Lightning Bolt for maximum effect) was actually the witch!

Caelifer charged the false troll and launched a series of blows. They landed, but did no damage. Izelda was protected by Stoneskin. The witch responded with a Horrible Laughter spell, which he resisted.

The monk tried to grapple the witch to prevent her from casting spells, but could not get past the witch's defenses to establish a hold. He was rewarded with a Magic Missile in the face that almost knocked him out of the fight. This caused Caelifer to rethink his solo adventure against the witch and he jumped out of combat and chose to concentrate on the trolls.

The next to try his luck against the witch was Quav'Ria's giant constrictor snake (Rod of the Python). Quav sicced the snake on the defenseless old woman and it managed to wrap her up in his coils. That lasted about 2 rounds. Between the witch's troll-like claws and spells, the snake didn't stand a chance. It was soon turned back into a rod once again and powerless.

More in a bit.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

The Witch's imp servitor was concentrating on taking down Quav'Ria the cleric, and was able to hit her with his poisonous sting almost at will, but she was made of sterner stuff and kept resisting the toxic venom.

Izelda, now free of the snake, managed to line several of the heroes up for a Lightning Bolt. Kristle took the brunt of the blast, but continued to stand.

The party managed to overcome all the remaining trolls save one, and surrounded the horrid witch. She still had a trick or two up her sleeve, and read a spell from a scroll and gestured at Kristle. Kristle turned to stone.

Still the heroes pressed their attack. The witch's Stoneskin spell was finally overcome, and their blows began to take a toll on the evil hag. The witch knew she would not survive if she didn't run, so began to change shape into the form of a Willa, to escape. Alas, she did not make it. Taz got past her defenses with his longsword and a hoof, dealing exactly enough damage to Izelda to render her unconscious.

The final troll was dispatched and Cuddly Wuddly ran for it.

The party had triumphed over the evil Warty Witch. Next week would come the treasure.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

Re: Castle Whiterock

Postby admin » Mon Jul 01, 2013 6:17 am
It looks like I'm a bit behind in the updates, so here's what happened:

After beating up the harmless old lady, the brutal thugs (aka Heroes) rifled through her belongings and split them up. Not satisfied with their ill-gotten gains, they decided to search the remaining unexplored area which was remarkable for its vault-like door. Fizz, the NPC rogue (who had thought he was a leprechaun for a while, but that's another story) examined the door for traps. At that point, he discovered it wasn't a door. It was a gigantic mimic disguised as a door. Fizz was stuck fast and pummeled to death in short order. Jumping on the defenseless mimic like a group of bikers on a snitch, it too was killed and the witch's true spoils were revealed.

The total haul of loot was impressive. Obviously the poor old lady had been saving her pension money by clipping coupons or something, because she was loaded with loot!
The witch had: +1 Ring of Protection; masterwork dagger; cloak of charisma +2; gloves of dexterity +2; periapt of wisdom +4; ring of feather falling; wand of fox's cunning; crystal ball; +2 short sword; full plate armor of command; gauntlets of ogre power; figurine of the serpentine owl; +3 cloak of resistance; and a pouch of gate powder (the substance that would get them home). The powder had instructions in the pouch instructing the user to "toss the dust into the air, count to 17 by twos, then picture your destination" which confused them a bit.

An inordinate amount of time was spent splitting up loot. Several task forces and committees were empowered to study the problem. Finally choices were made and everyone got shiny new gear.

Feeling good about their home invasion and subsequent murder of a poor old lady, the heroes chose to search the rest of her home to see if they could scare up a few more shekels. They headed back downstairs and started their search.

After the first few rooms proved to be storage and an empty dining area, the characters finally hit pay dirt when they found a small bedroom on the first floor. Unfortunately, this small room contained a very large and very ugly inhabitant. The half-giant, half-fiend known as Ugly Boy soon found himself swarmed by adventurers. The combat was swift and Ugly Boy gave a very good accounting of himself, but he was no match for the adventurers. He surrendered and promised to be good and help them. They questioned him and he revealed he worked for the witch and was in charge of the dungeon beneath the cottage. He was very proud to have such an important job and loved his work, and if not for the constant torments of the trolls and abuse from the witch, he'd be very happy. He promised to help the party retrieve the sole prisoner he had in the dungeon (sing-song boy) and help them with the remaining trolls if they would let him live. (Ugly boy, while ugly, was not dumb. He figured with the witch and her trolls gone, he'd be able to take over the demiplane and soon, all the fat children would be HIS to eat.)

Ugly Boy led the party into the dungeon and helped them release a bard named Sonorous who was squatting on the floor of his cell scooping and devouring handfuls of pudding from a large bucket and weeping. (Sonorous was about 2 days from being witch food). He was only too happy to join the party and work with them to escape the Forest of Lanterns.

Ugly Boy told the group the area on this floor they hadn't yet explored was the kitchen and the floor above was primarily troll barracks and living spaces. Caelifer crept towards the kitchen, moving silently and sticking to the shadows. He worked his was up the hall, trying to get a count on the number of trolls in the room. He saw five trolls and one horrific monster made from stitched together body parts. Caelifer was just about clear when one of the trolls looked up and directly into his eyes (troll rolled a 20 on his spot). The jig was up!

Caelifer ran back towards the party, and was able to use the doorway to the dining room as a bottleneck. Ashianna got a chance to try her new Fireball spell, which deeply depressed the poor trolls.

Both Caelifer and Quav'Ria were taken below 0 hit points during the fight and Taz and Kethren reduced below 5. The Flesh Golem was particularly difficult for the party to deal with. Their reduced stature made it hard to get past his damage reduction, but they were able to keep him Slowed with judicial use of magical fire attacks.

After the combat, they discovered a cache of Suggestion scrolls in the kitchen, as well as a nice set of dishes. They quickly searched the rest of the cottage without further combat or encounters, packed up their loot, bid Ugly Boy goodbye and wished him well as undisputed evil overlord of this pocket dimension, and got out of Dodge. They threw the Gate Dust into the air, counted to 17 by 2's (starting at -1) and pictured the outside of the Inn of the Slumbering Drake. Poof! They had arrived.

The first thing they noticed was the temperature. It was far too warm for winter. Kristle checked the stars and could tell they were in summer now. Odd.

Making their way through the door, they found Cookie in his usual seat, but this was not the Cookie they knew. When they had left, Cookie was just out of his prime for a half-ogre. This figure was at least a decade older and well into his decline. A look of fear gripped his face when he saw the adventurers and he refused to allow Taz the Centaur access, telling him that his kind had to go around to the stables.

Inside the taproom, a aura of gloom hung heavy in the room. Only a few locals huddled together drinking, while the bulk of the patrons were soldiers of some sort, dressed in black uniforms that were unfamiliar to the party members. Definitely not local guardsmen.

They saw Lady Chauntessa at her usual table. Her eyebrow shot up at the sight of them, but that was her only reaction. She whispered a few words in the ear of her pseudodragon Ixnay, who then flew off to the fireplace in the tap room, and she stood and disappeared into her private area in the Inn. The party ordered drinks and moved to the fireplace. They noticed the black suited soldiers were speaking in a foreign language, one none of them recognized.

Ixnay flew onto Celeb's shoulder and licked wine from her glass. She leaned in close and whispered for them to "leave the Inn after their drinks and make their way to the back entrance. Knock softly and the Lady will see them." Ixnay flew back to her usual perch.

Moving to the back door, the group was received by Chauntessa and led into her private chambers. She greeted them and told them it had been "far too long" and that a lot had happened since they were last seen in Cillamar. When asked exactly how long it had been, Chauntessa revealed the group has been away for just over 17 years. During that time, the Kingdom has been at war with forces from the Warlands to the south and Cillamar was currently occupied. Cillamar is controlled by a military governor known only as the Executioner because he has worn a black hood during all his public appearances. His troops, the black coats, are a fairly disciplined bunch, and number about 200. All resistance has been mercilessly stamped down, with public executions an almost daily occurrence. The standing rule is for every one black coat killed, ten citizens of Cillamar are rounded up and hung. The Executioner has a necromancer on his staff, or is a magician himself, because the corpses of the locals are often animated and used as manual labor for public work projects.

Chauntessa suspects the Executioner has contact with one of the powers under Castle Whiterock, as people labelled "non-essential" are being rounded up and shipped off to Castle Whiterock where they disappear into the Underdark.

And that's where we left it. No game next week, but one the Sunday after that.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

Much of last night's session was spent getting everyone onto the new Mumble server and trying to figure out how to play in Roll20 vs Klooge.Werks which we had been using. Mumble seemed like a success. I have serious doubts about Roll20, but we're going to give it another go next week.

Lady Chauntessa recapped for everyone who missed the last session: They were back in Cillamar, but 17 years had passed back in the "real" world. During that time, an enigmatic leader had emerged from the Warlands to the south with a vast army of undead. This masked figure, only known as the Silver Queen, took over the various warring baronies and set her sights on Morrain. Within five years her forces have pushed past Cillamar, controlling almost the entire Eastern half of the Kingdom. Only the extremely harsh winters have slowed the invading army of the dead.

Still, there are a few left in Cillamar working against the occupying forces. Chauntessa led the party through a series of tunnels and secret passages under the Inn, to a section of the old sewers which were serving as the home of Cillamar's rebels. The group was led by Ilrien of the Order of Justica, who the party knew from their earlier adventures. The years had not been kind to Ilrien, but she still had a fire within her.

She told them her auguries pointed to them as being key to the overthrow of the Silver Queen and her armies, and all signs also pointed to Castle Whiterock as being tied to this. As it was no longer safe for them to be seen in Cillamar (adventurers were routinely rounded up and disappeared), it was vital for them to find the fane of Justica. Ilrien found notes in a journal of her father's that suggested the fane was near a swift underground river.

The rebels resupplied the party and, after an uneventful journey, they were back at the ruins.

Kethren noted recent tracks (2-3 weeks old) of a large (20+) group of armored men and mounts with a group of almost a dozen prisoners. The tracks led down to the second level of the dungeon and to the room with the shaft leading to the area they had encountered Derro. The old elevator was gone, leaving nothing but a dark pit in the room. From the tracks, it appeared there was something the armored men and their prisoners stepped onto, but nothing there now. After a bit of discussion, the party decided to leave that for later and look around the rest of the explored portions of the dungeon.

They went down to the 3rd level where they had fought the White Roc orcs. This area seemed completely unused and deserted. They thought to head to the area where they had met Nemoura Shimmerscale, the Nixie who had been trapped by the giant crayfish in hopes that she might know something of the underground river and the fane. The grotto where she had been trapped was uninhabited. Not wanting to risk the dangers of the underwater shaft leading from that area, they chose to continue down to the area where they had battled Benthoc, the half-dragon troglodyte.

The cavern where they had suspected piercers before had changed. The stalgamites that had lined the floor were broken. The group slowly made their way across the cavern, watching above, when suddenly the floor shook and a monstrous umber hulk burst from below, followed by a second.

What should have been a 15 minute fight in Klooge turned into the entire evening as we struggled against all odds, trying to figure out how to work with Roll20.

Still, the good guys won in the end without any fatalities and that's where we called it for the night. We're going to try Roll20 one more time and see if we can live with it. If not, we're going back to Klooge.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by Hedgehobbit »

billolmesdahl wrote:What should have been a 15 minute fight in Klooge turned into the entire evening as we struggled against all odds, trying to figure out how to work with Roll20.
I've played on Roll20 before. I was slow and we had a couple drops but it wasn't unusable. I think the drops were the player's internet problems as I think it only happened to me once in about 5 sessions.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

We struggled because we were all used to Klooge and once you get it set up for your game, it ends up doing everything but polishing your dice for you. So far the main thing I like about Roll20 is the dynamic lighting, but for everything else I prefer Klooge. I just wish it didn't have the stink of Abandoned Ware. It's been way too long since there's been an update and the community seems to be dying quickly.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

Game cancelled at the last minute. Hopefully we'll play next week.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

After a quick recap, it was back to the action. Or at least discussion of possible actions and cheap jokes (this is D&D after all). The party headed to the blocked passage where they could still hear the mournful sounds of a pipe organ (even after 17 years!). Kristle figured it would take several hours of intense work to clear the passage, but it looked like a safe undertaking. The W word being used made the adventurers rethink the plan. I mean, working to clear a tunnel or wandering around in the dark hoping to stumble into something to kill with a fat bank account, which would you pick? So they headed back into the troglodyte tunnels.

For some reason, they chose to go down the main tunnel this time and found there were several still functioning pit traps to fall into. Still, it was Kethren doing the falling and it didn't seem to bother him all that much.

In the main family cavern, there was evidence of a slaughter. Dozens of skeletons covered the floors. Examining the bones, they were able to establish two things. 1: there were not enough bones to make up for all the trogs they had known to be living there and 2: the wounds visible on the bones were from crude, heavy blades, like stone axes or the like. Celeb thought this pointed to a rival troglodyte tribe raiding the tunnels and stealing the females while murdering in the males. Since this is exactly what happened, I may have to give her an XP bonus.

The party searched the rest of the level, going through the warrior barracks. In one room, they found what looked to be a wall of trophies containing the skulls of several different species, including some much larger trog skulls. They also found a secret compartment in the wall containing a magical chain shirt, a spell book, and a few other goodies.

They continued exploring the tunnels and eventually ended up in a maze of tunnels that were inhabited by cave morrays. The first of the monsters surprised the group and knocked the monk around a bit, but they soon grew adept at figuring out where the monsters were hiding and quickly dispatched them.

They eventually found their way to a tunnel leading sharply downwards, and decided this must be their way further into the depths of the dungeon. Marking it on their map, they planned to come back after checking the temple area where they had fought Benthoc almost two decades ago.

The temple area was in shambles. The massive dragon statue that dominated the center of the room had been reduced to rubble. The group split up and started searching the cavern. Caelifer thought he saw something moving in the darkness of the pit in the center of the room. They all began to close in on the chasm when 3 Wraiths erupted from the inky blackness, along with a familiar figure. Benthoc! Only not as he once was. Benthoc was now one of the undead!

"You! This is your fault! You caused this!" the monster croaked as he sped towards Celeb.

Unbeknownst to the players, Benthoc had quite a reversal of fortunes after they managed to defeat him (technically he escaped, but whatever). Anyway, when word spread that he had been forced to run from a party of adventurers and those same invaders had come back a second time and dispatched his Dragon "Brother" as well, he and his tribe were marked for destruction. A rival band of troglodytes invaded the tunnels en masse and slaughtered the warriors. They then moved into the family caves and dragged the women and female children back with them. All others were slaughtered. Benthoc was forced to flee again. Unfortunately, he ran into several wraiths and before he could fend them off, they overwhelmed him and he was turned.

Seventeen years later....

A total of four wraiths poured out of the darkness of the pit including Benthoc.

<Insert gratuitous fight scene here>

The normal wraiths weren't much of a match for the party members. Quav'Ria the cleric was able to destroy one each round. This continued until she tried her trick on Benthoc, who just glared at her and hissed, "You have to have faith for that to work on me." (I'm a big fan of Fright Night).

But that was about the only thing that went right for poor undead Benthoc. He was destroyed in under 5 rounds. Time to find a new recurring bad guy.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

We had a really great session this week. The group finally had time to go back to the collapsed section of tunnel and investigate the "Mystery of the Lonely Organist". After clearing the section of tunnel, the group found themselves in a large natural cavern with a formation along one wall that formed a series of tiered platforms. Across from these natural bleachers was a gigantic pipe organ, built from the stone of the cavern itself.

Almost immediately, the party noticed there was something strange about the chamber. They were buffeted by strange winds that came from multiple directions, and each time a gust was felt, the organ would make a cacophonous sound. Caelifer investigated the pipe organ and found that whatever note he played was echoed a moment later, without anyone touching the keyboard. Searching the organ's bench, they discovered a secret compartment and eventually worked out how to open it. Inside they found 3 tablets with a series of notes on each in jade. This reminded Kethren of the jade flute and instrument strings they had found earlier in the ruins. When he brought out the flute, the mysterious wind in the chamber go very fierce.

At this point, the group started to believe there was an unseen creature in the room causing the winds and attempted to communicate. They figured out a "yes or no" code and played 20 questions with the mysterious entity to figure out what was going on (since none of them spoke Auren). Communication problems were going to be a theme for the evening.

Quav'Ria let the party know she could change her spells around and pray for use of Comprehend Languages the next day, so a decision was made to stay overnight and speak directly with the mysterious being bound to the pipe organ. Since they had almost an entire day to kill, they set out to do a very complete search and discovered one wall of the cavern was illusory and contained a 5' high passage leading to a mysterious iron door with writing on it they could not translate. The 5' passageway filled the Centaur druid with all sorts of enthusiasm, and after a quick scan of character sheets, it became obvious that Taz wasn't going to join them if they decided to investigate that area further.

The next day Quav'Ria was able to open better communications with the entity and got the entire back story on the Aeralith the Invisible Stalker and his plight. The party promised to attempt to find the last of the instruments required to break the binding and free the Elemental. To improve the odds of his release should something happen to the party, they wrote out a note in common detailing what the knew and left it along with the flute and the harp strings in the bench compartment.

Next the group headed into the cramped secret passage and examined the iron door. With Comprehend Languages, they were able decipher the writing on the door. It was "Forward progress one gear at a time" and "Advanced Studies Wing". They had found the remains of the Clockwork Academy.

After talking for a few minutes, they decided to move in and take a quick look around. After all, the place had been abandoned for hundreds of years. Surely there couldn't be anything living or dangerous in the ruins. They opened the door with the key they had found upstairs and saw a T shaped intersection with signs on the wall directing visitors to the Dormitory to the Right and the Assembly Hall on the Left. They chose to explore the Dormitory and asked their Centaur friend to guard the passage and wish them luck.

The dormitory was a huge chamber with a balcony dominating one side. The furniture that was left was nothing but moldering ruins. The group slowly began moving further into the area until they began to hear hissing, clanking and other strange noises in the darkness. >Foomp!< a small, grenade-like weapon landed nearby and exploded, covering the floor with a viscous fluid. Robotic gnomes! Why is it always robotic gnomes? (Since we play online and Klooge makes it easy to annoy my players with stupid sound effects, I got to use a bunch of wav files from the old Berzerk video game for the robot gnomes, which went over well).

Battle scene! The robots managed to annoy the heck out of the party without doing a lot of damage. My players did note that they seemed to go after the Cleric quite a bit, but no one has figured out the new armor she's wearing is cursed yet. I wonder if I'm going to snuff her before they put it together.

That's where we left it for the evening. They'll explore the Dorm further next week and we'll see if want to continue (leaving the Centaur on his own). Maybe I can throw a wandering encounter at him. He'd like that.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

I thought people might appreciate this quick update on who is in the party these days since I throw out names without mentioning who the heck they are.

Dramatis Personæ

Caelifer: a monk
Kristle: a ranger/rogue
Quav'Ria: Cleric of Fenwar
Kethren: Werewolf (and biggest mistake I ever made when running this campaign)
Tazerach: Formerly Tasinthe the rogue. Now a centaur druid.
Celebheni: Sexy elf warrior and master of light weapons.
Ashianna: Resident NPC Sorcerer
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

After destroying the gnomish clockworks guarding the large common room, the party headed up to the balcony and the myriad doors that led from it. They were nothing more than student dorm rooms, and contained nothing of interest or value except some mouldering books written in gnomish. The hatch in the north wall of the common room was examined. Behind the hatch was a small (laundry?) shaft leading into the darkness below. The shaft would be a very tight fit for almost of the the adventurers, so the decided to leave it for the time being.

Making their way back to the entrance area, the group detected an illusory wall, behind which was a trapped door. Through use of a Dispel Magic, the group was able to get through the door without setting off the trap and into a hallway with several doors. Taking the doors one at a time, they were quickly able to guess they were in the faculty wing of the facility, as the doors led to a number of small offices, a conference room, and what was obviously the Dean's office.

In the Dean's office, they found an iron lock box which they were unable to unlock. The box was scooped up to look into later.

At the end of the hall was the faculty lounge. It was filled with various bits of debris that must have once been furnishings. Celebheni found a scroll of Reduce Person tucked into a mouldering cushion. Sharp-eyed Kristle detected a door hidden in the elaborate mechanical motif that covered the walls. Once the party was ready, he tried to open the door by manipulating the tiny gears set into its surface while reciting the school's motto. Unfortunately, Kristle didn't speak gnomish and could only speak the words in Common, and that wasn't good enough to open the door without triggering the Phantasmal Killer trap.

For a change, Kristle wasn't killed by a random spell. He survived and only took a few points of damage from the experience.

Behind the door was the school's vault. The walls were covered with crystal scroll displays housing documents which surely detailed the gnome's secrets for creating constructs. The vault also contained several said constructs. Four gnomish lancer Mk IIIs clicked and whirred to life to defend the vault.

Combat began normally with the party getting their licks in and using the entrance to the room as a bottleneck to control the lancers. After a few rounds of combat, the lancers decided they'd had enough and went full Power Rangers on the party. They all broke combat and combine into a single gigantic Lancer Mk. IV. That behemoth roared into combat and scored a critical hit on Kethren during its first attack. Triple damage! In one shot, he was reduced below half his hits.

The Mk. IV kept the pressure on the werewolf until the party cleric moved up to provide healing. At that point it switched to the cleric and very nearly took her down. This went on for several rounds until they were finally able to overcome the mechanical horror.

Searching the final room, the party found another secret door and behind it, a statue of a gnome they didn't recognize (they aren't very scholarly and don't hold truck with no fancy book learnin'). In the statue's hands was a book titled Codex Autonomica.

This is where we broke for the night.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

This week's game called on account of a miserable summer cold. Next game is Sunday.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

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After the Mk IV bot had been destroyed, the party found itself seriously in need of some healing are rest. They moved back into the cavern containing the pipe organ where their centaur friend had been waiting to make camp.

During second shift, Caelifer thought he heard the sounds of creatures moving in the tunnels to the North. He moved to wake Kristle and Kethren. He was just about to waken Celeb when a wounded dwarf in full armor burst into the cavern. He shouted a warning of troglodytes on the way. Introductions would have to wait for a bit, as the reptilian monsters moved to attack!

The dwarf (Pun-Ra) was revealed to be a cleric, which was useful as they were sorely low on curative magic at the moment. Kristle, Kethren, and Caelifer used the tunnel entrance as a choke point and engaged the monsters there. The battle was fierce and these trogs were much larger and more deadly than the ones they had battled before. Their stench attack was particularly noxious, and they had an additional venom spitting attack, which nearly blinded Caelifer.

One trog was an arcane spell caster and harried the party with magic missiles while the warriors attacked with vicious bites and battle axes. Still, the trogs were unable to break through the wall of warriors guarding the cavern and were defeated (except the arcane caster, who ran off).

Once the battle was over and the healing finished, the party got Pun-Ra's story...

Pun-Ra had been with a group of his friends (fellow adventurers) recovering from their latest exploits in Cillamar. They knew the city was under the control of hostile forces from the Warlands to the South, but they had no choice. They were short of options and one of Pun-Ra's companions had been turned to stone. They needed a large town that was close enough Ul-Dominor Mountains they could transport him there. Cillamar was the only one which fit the bill.

They had made contact with a shady character who had promised he could get them unseen into the city. He had lied.

Pun-Ra and his companions were swooped up by soldiers, stripped of their gear, and deposited in a very deep, very dark cell. After more than a week in the dungeon, they were shackled to one another and marched to Castle Whiterock. The group was comprised of Pun-Ra's companions, as well as half a dozen locals deemed troublemakers. Once they arrived at Whiterock, they were taken down to the second level where they were loaded onto a platform composed of some sort of arcane energy and taken deep into the darkness and given over to Derro slavers from the Underdark. The derro took the slaves and their gear and loaded them onto large rafts on a swiftly flowing underground river.

That should have been the end of Pun-Ra, but luckily for him, a monster attacked the raft about 30 minutes into the trip. The raft with the gear was shattered and Pun-Ra and the man he was shackled to were knocked into the cold waters. When he awoke, Pun-Ra found himself on the shore of the underground river, shackled to a dead man. Bits of the gear being transported had washed up in the same area, and Pun-Ra found his own backpack amongst the refuse. Retrieving his dwarven axe, he set about the unpleasant task of getting the dead man out of his handcuffs.

Then he set about finding his way to the surface.

On his second day in the caverns, Pun-Ra found a passage leading up into a warren of caves filled with unusually large troglodytes. He managed to avoid them for several hours, but eventually it proved to be impossible. With half a dozen troglodytes at his heels, Pun-Ra found another likely looking passage leading up and took it. There he continued moving as fast as possible, looking for some way out before he was cornered by the trogs and ended up in a cook pot. That's when he blundered into the party's camp.

The party was happy to let Pun-Ra tag along with them while they continued their exploration of the Gnomish Factory. It was also at this time that I decided that I was going to allow Reduce Person to work on the Centaur, so he could actually come along and not stand outside, smooshing his pudgy face against the glass while all the other kids play within.

Back inside, they discovered a hallway running N to S along the side of the Faculty area. Searching that area, they further discovered the "wall" of that hallway was actually an illusion and the hallway was a balcony overlooking a gigantic factory floor.

Caelifer, with most of the party in tow, headed down to investigate the area. It seemed deserted.

At first.

Caelifer thought he detected some movement in a gigantic pile of metal scrap. He and Kethren slowly moved up the hall towards the pile. When they got close, four odd creatures burst from the floor. They were conical with three arms and three eyes located on all sides. Its mouth was set in the top of its head and its skin seemed to be made of stone. Xorn. (Xorns? What is a group of Xorn called? A flock? How about a gravel of Xorn?)

"Ooooh. Something smell good. We smell Mithril and Adamantine. Yummy metal! You give it and we let you go." said the first Xorn in a really stupidly silly voice. (I'm crap at voices.)

Surprisingly, the party wasn't too keen on handing over their magical armor and weapons for the Xorn to munch on. And so, battle ensues.

I was a bit shocked at how nasty the Xorn were in combat. Not only did they have a lot of attacks (and hit pretty well), but the bite attack was devastating. Add to that a couple of lucky criticals and we ended the combat with Kethren at 0 hit points and Quav'Ria torn almost in half (aka DEAD).

That's where we ended the session. We'll be playing Sunday and since Monday is a holiday, we may go late and try to finish this level up and get back to more wandering in caverns fighting humanoids (TROGS!!!!)

Stay tuned.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

It was another rousing session this week. We picked up after the group had rested for the night to replenish spells. Quav'Ria the party's original cleric was definitely dead, killed by the Xorn. The group decided to "repurpose" a few of her item until she could be raised. So Pun-Ra found himself wearing a +4 Periapt of Wisdom and Taz was able to make use of her Pearl of Power.

The next day, the party explored the room to the North of the factory floor and found it to be a design and drafting area, but had suffered greatly under the weight of hundreds of years and the contents of the room had been reduced to rot and waste. They did find a hatch in the wall which led to a dumbwaiter shaft leading up. They also detected a great number of tracks, like those from a large (dog-sized) lizard leading to and from the shaft.

Caelifer was able to squeeze up the shaft and climb to the next level. He found himself in a very large store room, filled with rows of shelves stacked with rotted boxes and piles of refuse.

He also heard something moving in the dark recesses of the room. Several somethings.

He slipped soundlessly back into the shaft to plot their strategy.

It was decided that Caelifer would move into the area first, followed by Kristle, Kethren, Pun-Ra, Celeb, then Ashianna. Ashi would make the assault easier by casting Reduce Person on each of them as they make their way into the shaft.

Caelifer and Kristle were managed to get in place almost soundlessly. They spotted several large blue lizards crawling along the shelves. Before they launched their attack, Kethren bounded into the room with a growl and a howl (this is the only explanation for his horrible move silently roll). This alerted the lizards, who crawled out to investigate.

Combat began with a bang (almost literally) as the first lizard began to glow an unearthly blue. This was followed by all the other lizards flashing blue and the air filling with the smell of ozone. Lightning arced around the room, striking the first lizard, who launched a massive electrical attack that almost filled the entire room! All three PCs were caught in the blast, but only one took damage (stupid Evasion feat). Kethren took 50+ points of damage on the chin. Ouch.

This is the environment poor Pun-Ra came in to. Everyone knows dwarfs are renowned for their cat-like grace and reflexes, so it was shocking (literally) that he would fail his saving throw and be reduced to unconsciousness almost immediately. (We actually miscalculated what he needed to save by one, and thought he had been killed in this encounter. I was thrilled to learn he survived. I'd get another shot at killing him later.)

While the lizards had a tremendous offensive ability, they proved lacking on the defense. They were quickly dispatched without fatality.

Searching the ruins turned up very little of use. A few scraps of normal equipment and nothing more.

The group discussed options for getting down the laundry chute they had found earlier. They really couldn't come up with any good options to get everyone down the shaft, which was tight for small characters, let alone a centaur. So the laundry room would have to wait for another day.

More later.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

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Heading down into the Trog caverns was next on the agenda. Pun-Ra was sure he could retrace his steps to get the party to their foul warrens. So down they went.

The group thought they heard the sounds troglodytes around the bend ahead, laughing and talking in their odd sibilant language. Kristle moved to sneak up on them... and triggered a Lightning Bolt trap that blasted the party behind him! This was a very effective alarm, and the trogs moved quickly to defend their tunnels. Unfortunately, the cavern they had chosen to defend was more than large enough for Ashianna's fireball spell, and being a sorcerer she had five of them. The trogs and their trained dire rats were easily defeated, though one of the large mountain troglodytes managed to escape.

Quickly moving towards the passage he ran down, the group heard the sounds of combat and the shrieks of a troglodyte in pain. Then silence.

Investigating, the found a large empty tunnel. There was no sign of combat or a mountain trog.

Taz thought he detected something unusual on the floor of the cavern. The stone had a different sheen, like it was damp or oily. One of the party threw a bit of stone from the floor onto the patch where it landed with an almost soundless squish instead of thud. The rock was surrounded by tiny pseudo pods which drew the rock into the creature's body. It was some sort of ooze, pudding, or slime.

Not wanting to tackle the creature at this time, the party went up the other branch and found an immense cavern filled with thousands of larval ants, a few soldiers, and their queen.

Combat time!

The monk and werewolf chose to cut down the number of ant warriors and waded in. Their chitin armor made them difficult to hit and damage, but still they fell to the savage assault. The rest of the party concentrated on the queen, with Pun-Ra moving in to engage the monster in melee combat. The gigantic insect had no difficulty hitting the heavily armored cleric, crushing him with her mandibles and piercing him with her sting (though the dwarf easily resisted the poison). For three rounds Pun-Ra stood toe to toe with the beast, but on the fourth round, a pair of critical hits killed the stout dwarf. Welcome to the party.

There were more wounds, but nothing to compare with the savaging Pun-Ra had taken. Soon the Ant Queen was down and the chamber safe to explore. In a tunnel leading from the main chamber to the Northwest, the party discovered a singularly strange door.

The door was 10' wide and 12 ' high with a smooth surface, save for a detailed mouth (now closed) in the middle of the portal. A rune-studded stone frame surrounded the door. There were no doorknobs or locks.

When the door was approached, a magic mouth spoke 11 words (each in a different language). After comparing the languages they understood, the message was determined to be, "To pass through my portal, insert the key in my maw."

The runes along the door frame were an ancient dialect of the Dwarven language. It said:

The key is on the ledge,
But have you the right to know?
Reverse and connect the last two,
To pass the door through.

This is where we ended for the evening.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

We begin this week as we ended last week, with both clerics dead and standing in front of a mysterious stone door without any visible way to open it.

The door was 10' wide and 12 ' high with a smooth surface, save for a detailed mouth (now closed) in the middle of the portal. A rune-studded stone frame surrounded the door. There were no doorknobs or locks.

When the door was approached, a magic mouth spoke 11 words (each in a different language). After comparing the languages they understood, the message was determined to be, "To pass through my portal, insert the key in my maw."

The runes along the door frame were an ancient dialect of the Dwarven language. It said:

The key is on the ledge,
But have you the right to know?
Reverse and connect the last two,
To pass the door through.

The party spent a big of time discussing what the (horrible) bit of poetry could mean. Finally Kethren worked out the answer and came up with Know + Ledge or Knowledge being the key to the door.
First they offered the door a scroll or Reduce Person, but it didn't seem interested. Then they offered it a tome they had found earlier in the castle ruins. This was accepted and the door gulped the book down and opened for the party.

Behind the wall was an immaculate and beautiful entry hall, complete with elaborately carved columns and marble floors. A railing on one wall overlooked a magnificent cylindrical room several stories high, with the walls covered with hundreds of thousands of books. They had found the lost library of the Dawning Sun Order!

Before the party could do much more than marvel at the magnificent surroundings, they noticed a figure in brown robes slowly climbing the central spiral staircase. The creature slowly moved towards them and pulled back the hood covering his face to reveal a grinning skull beneath. A Lich!

The lich grinned at them (How could he not? No lips!) and rasped, "Welcome to the library my friends. Come and tell me of the outside world, I seem to have lost track of the time."

He introduced himself as Lorus, the last member of the Dawning Sun Order and caretaker of this most magnificent library. He was eager to hear of their adventures and recent history. On the latter front, he was a bit disappointed. There wasn't a single party member you could classify as studious or scholarly. No one was able to satisfy his thirst for recent lore, but the party still made a friend.

They managed to trade the Codex Autonomica they had liberated from the Clockwork Academy for raising their two friends. So Lorus used Limited Wish to restore Quav'Ria and Pun-Ra to life.

(More later)
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

After ditching a few of the PCs at the library so I wouldn't have to deal with them as NPCs, the party headed out again.

They ran into more ants along with several bat swarms, which were easily handled with a well-placed Fireball. I bet I'm going to end up hating that spell before too long.

Two encounters with Mountain Trogs followed. These were almost no challenge to the party whatsoever. I think it's time to have the monsters put together a petition drive to have them delve into the lower levels.

The last encounter led to a single prisoner who revealed to them the location of their leader Sosank.

They decided to finish checking the remaining section of tunnels in the SE portion of the complex before moving towards Sosank's environs.

Marching down the tunnel, the monk managed to trigger a falling block trap (twice) and drop several heavy rocks on his head.

Once people figured out where the trigger was and took steps to avoid it (running broad jumps) they found a cave decked out as a workshop. A gigantic rat pulling a cart full of supplies trundled across the floor near an odd winged dwarf creature, that took to the air, trailing an over-long cloak. The dwarf cast Mirror Image, and the air was surrounded with creatures, temporarily stymieing the adventurers who were trying (as usual) to do lethal things to my poor monsters.

It took about a single round for the images to be dispelled. It quickly became apparent that the creature was a skilled sorcerer, as he peppered the heroes with a variety of spells. He was also seemingly immune to Magic Missiles and resistant to most forms of weapon damage. Still, the lone creature couldn't stand up against the party for long. After 3 or 4 rounds (and Caelifer triggering ANOTHER falling rock trap), the dwarf chose to run for its life, flying away at great speed.

Much of the party gave chase.

He led them on a merry jaunt, through unexplored passages that twisted and turned, and finally coming into the tunnel they believed would lead to Sosank's lair, which is right where he went. Only Kethren continued the hunt.

Kethren entered an enormous cavern with a small stream running through the middle. The dwarf paused over a section where the stream slowed and turned into a large, deep pool to cast Mirror Image once again, while shouting something in Draconic.

Kethren moved to engage the dwarf, throwing stones to take down its images. This proved an utter failure, as he had trouble hitting the ground with the rocks, his marksmanship skills were so bad.

Just then, from the depths of the cavern came the largest, most fierce looking Troglodyte he had ever seen. The horror was a full 15' of heavily muscled reptilian fury. This was Sosank.

And Kethren was to face him and the dwarf sorcerer alone.
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

Issues at work prevented me from writing up the last two sessions. I'll try to get caught up this week.

We pick up already in the action. Kethren was alone in the large cavern with Sosank and Gunrolz. The gigantic demonic troglodyte tore into the lone lycanthrope, rending him with the monster's great claws. Gunrolz the sorcerer who led Kethren in here launched a volley of Magic Missiles into the melee and Kethren was down!

I wish I had written this up last week, because I don't remember the details, other than to say the good guys won, Sosank and Gunrolz were both killed. Taz died trying to stand up to Sosank. The monster was pretty much dropping one hero a round, but still the party prevailed.

The group was confronted by several young troglodytes while recovering from the battle. The monsters were amazed they had defeated Sosank and told the group they were now leaders of the clan and the mountain trogs would follow them.

The party directed the trogs to build a carrier to drag the centaur's body back to the Library to hopefully be raised by Lorus. The trogs inquired whether the sacrifice to Bobugbubilz the Toad Fiend was to take place as usual. The party was led to a cave containing two human prisoners (Jath and Carlia Genth), a metal gong, and a water-filled tunnel leading into darkness.

The group freed the prisoners and brought them back to the Library to have Taz wished back to life, in exchange for the Tome of Tales they still carried.

After resting and healing, the party headed back into the troglodyte caves and the sacrificial chamber. They set up in the room and, when ready, rang the gong in the room. As the sound slowly faded, the flooded tunnel exploded with movement. Gigantic demonic frogs with rows of razor teeth burst from the tunnel and engaged the party. The group quickly found these monsters were no push overs. Their bite caused nasty bleeds that could only be staunched with magic or the care of a trained healer. They also had a draining effect, which left their victims feeling tired and weak. More than half a dozen of the horrors burst from the flooded tunnel and engaged in a feeding frenzy.

After a difficult battle, we ended for the evening, with the party torn up and bleeding and the Children of Bobugbubilz lying dead around them.
billolmesdahl
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Re: Castle Whiterock Campaign writeup

Post by billolmesdahl »

This last week the party continued to explore the flooded passage after a night spent among their tribe of willing minions.

After killing Sosank and gaining the loyalty of the Mountain Troglodytes, the meager resources of the clan were at the party's disposal. They were treated to an evening of trog culture and a traditional trog feast.

We also discussed (a bit) what they were going to do with the clan of evil humanoids. Most of the party is neutral, so they seemed pretty happy to just cull the most offensive behavior (like sacrificing humans to the Toad Fiend) and let them go about their business.

The next day, it was back into the flooded tunnel to continue their exploration.

The group only had 2 water breathing rings and 3 spells, so someone had to stay behind. Taz, the centaur volunteered since it wasn't clear how large the tunnel was, as did Ashianna, since she was a NPC and that made it easier on me.

The submerged tunnel led into a well or pool about half-full of water. Decorative tile-work in the ceiling depicted the destruction of Cillimar by the Toad Fiend. Caelifer climbed the wall of the pool into the octagonal room above. There, he could see an iron door leading to the North and another octagonal room containing another pool to the East. The monk was getting his bearings when he heard a sound from the shadows. Two horrific skeletal demonic frogs shambled from the darkness and moved to attack.

Combat began and the party had quite a bit of trouble actually hitting the skeletal horrors. After a few rounds, the party was hit from the side by another half dozen or so living Children of Bobugbubilz. The battle raged on for most of the evening, with the monstrous frogs giving as well as they received. At one point, Pun-Ra the dwarf cleric was locked in combat with three of the horrors and very nearly taken down.

At the end of the day, they were no match for the PCs. Once the skeletal creatures were taken down, the others quickly fell.

The party searched both rooms for treasure, but found nothing. Moving through the door to the north, they found themselves in a antechamber with another iron door. Beyond that, the found a long hallway. The portion to the East had collapsed at some point in the dim past, but to the West was an enormous statue depicting the Toad Fiend himself. Near the statue were two platforms, with one containing the remains of a body.

And that's where we ended for the evening.
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