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Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
    
Montreal
 | | 01/02/2007 12:08 PM |
| I've been DMing a homebrew campaign for a couple of years now. We're playing at a relatively slow pace, perhaps once or twice a month. I'll post some stuff regarding my campaign for those who might be interested in reading about it. I'll start by a general overview of the campaign, and then reply to my thread to post some of the highlights of the campaign.
GENERAL OVERVIEW
The adventures take place in a world
called Perin. About 2500 years ago, a terrible battle shook the world that ended with The Lord of Darkness (a creature beyond the gods'
control incarnating all that is vile and evil) and the Surpeme Being (a creature also beyond the gods, that was formed when the 5 holders of
the Swords of Destiny were merged into this Supreme Creature,
essentially incarnating all that is life, including hope itself) met in
a final combat that ended by the destruction of both creatures.
(That was my previous campaign, and that was also 10 years of role playing summarized into a single sentence there  ).
Anyway, my new campaign takes place 2500 years later after that. However, the battle between the Lord of Darkness and the Supreme Being had repercutions on the world. Indeed, during that fateful confrontation between the Lord of Darkness and the
Supreme Being, all creatures throughout the worlds, the multiverses
and all planes, had their eyes and attention on that supernatural
confrontation (they saw it through their hearts). In seeing the essence
of Life and Evil in their purest form, all these beings for a moment -
short as a breath but might have been as long as eternity - forgot about everything, their
entire minds were absorbed by the two beings and the battle of the essence of reality itself. They even forgot about
the gods' existence. And consequently, like a living being suddenly
deprived of oxygen, the gods deprived of faith and prayers, of belief, ceased to
exist.
The Supreme Creature did not think it could defeat the Lord of
Darkness, so it killed itself at a chosen moment, freeing a tremendous
amount of positive energy that he channelled towards the Lord of
Darkness. The latter, understanding it was doomed, managed to also
commit suicide, but he died on his own terms. Indeed, in doing so he
exploded, sending 66 shards of darkness on the world, the dead remnants
of his former self. Thus were created the 66 Axis Stones, that
constituted his vengeance in the form of portals from the mortal realm
to many realms that are evil or chaotic: the Abyss, Hell, etc... The
Supreme Creature, however, seeing the creation of these Axis Stones,
countered the move by creating 8 Axis Keys, that could lock and control
the Axis Stones, thus closing the portals and preventing the millions
and millions of immortal creatures from the evil and chaotic outer
planes from flooding the prime material plane. Of course, all of this
took place in a fraction of a second, in what would be a fraction of a
thought for a mortal being - since these Supreme Creature and Lord of
Darkness dudes are not your regular creatures. Zap! All was done. I'll
skip the devastation that occurred when those two creatures killed each
other, but i'll say that there remained a region in the world that came
to be called the Zone, in which all 66 Axis Stones landed.
The Zone is an elongated valley about 200 miles long by 75 miles wide, a warm sandy area with small trees and tough underbrush that can live under the hot sun.
Fast forwardig a number of years: there followed a period of chaos
in the world for the next millenium, as the absence of the old gods
left a spiritual emptiness. Some para-religious groups appeared,
including one that survived through it all to remain rather powerful,
although a bit freaky: the Zealots. None of these groups had
clerics able to channel divine magic.
Also, the Zone where the 66 Axis Stones remained, showed weird and evil
transformations over the years. Indeed, although the portals were
closed, they weren't exactly evil-tight, pardon my language. Some of
the essence of the evil and chaotic outer planes seeped through the
portals. No creature could pass, but the essence of evil and chaos
transformed the area near the portals, and thus many plants and animals
living in the area were transformed into evil versions of themselves
(dire and/or fiendish animals for the purpose of the game - as for
plants, well there are the acid fungus, poisonous vines, and so on).
2500 years later, the Axis Stones' origin is unknown by most.
About 1000 years after the old gods disappeared, there appeared new
gods (about half the pantheon provided in the PHB), formed by the
essence of thoughts itself, i.e. the people's despair combined with the
magical capacity of the world, formed gods, beings that are made of a
combination of the thoughts and faiths, that are incarnations of ideals
and morales, that are truly the sum of their believers, past and
present. These gods were created at an event now referred to as Zaccharia's sacrifice, a powerful Zealot that managed to open a channel to the outer planes to allow divine energy to cross over.
However, unbeknownst to most, these new gods are becoming
corrupted by the corrupted nature of mortal beings... but i won't get
into that now. Also unbeknownst to most, some of the old gods have survived
in a greatly enfeebled stated, in the plane of the Gruths. Some of old
groups such as the Zealots refuse to recognize the new gods, and their
fanatical approach towards the situation is quite extremist - but
they're not entirely wrong either.
The campaign begins as the PCs are thrown into a battle between two
opposing groups that both try to put their hands on the Axis Keys - the
very existence of which being otherwise mostly unknown throughout the
world.
The first of these groups are dark elves (leading other meanies). Now
this strikes everyone confronted to them has truly out of the ordinary, because the dark
elves are but myths, a legendary race that is believed to never have
existed by half, and to be extinct and long dead by the other half. The
truth of the matter is that they were working for the Lord of Darkness
2500 years ago, and they were expelled from the prime material plane to
a prison in Hell when the Axis Stones were created. They believe
(falsely) that the other "good" mortal races and/or the Supreme
Creature (their creation) are responsible for this, when in fact their intricate tie to the Lord of Darkness is what banned them from the Prime.
The second of these groups is a cult called the Lost Souls. The
background of this cult relies on the fact that, when the gods
disappeared and the outer planes were locked up, mortals souls from
dead mortals were no longer allowed to reach the outer planes, and were
in fact stranded on the Astral plane. At first, the souls simply
wandered aimlessly, until eventually these lifeless beings began to
have some form of consciouness. Long story short: in their irrational minds
incapable of understanding what happened, they're pissed off at mortals
who they deem responsible for their condition, and they want something else than
eternal wandering in an empty plane for themselves. They believe that they can take
control of the Prime and possess bodies, that every Lost Soul can find and conquer a host for itself, essentially taking control of it and killing the recipient soul. When the host body dies, the Lost Soul can finally find eternal rest in its proper plane. This belief
stems from a happenstance: at one point, through a momentaneous magical
planar rift that occurred between the Astral and Prime planes, one lost soul
managed to travel back to the prime and possess a mortal. Then, through
its bond with other lost souls, this possessed mortal found a way to
get some other souls to possess other mortals. However, the possession
process is very long and tedious, and after a while, some mortals
became aware of this. The cult of the Lost
Souls is consequently led by mortals possessed by the Lost Souls,
although it includes also (and mainly) non-possessed mortals that
believe these lost souls to be linked to the ancient gods.
One of the first and few organizations that became aware of the possession were the dark elves,
in their hellish prison, where a few of their own were successfully possessed. Being
where they are, they are very alert to anything supernatural and the
term "unbelievable" has disappeared from their vocabulary generations
ago. By studying the possessed individuals through magical means, they
also became aware that travelling back to the Prime was possible if
control of the Axis Keys was gained. So they decided to send a party
there, to take control of the Axis Keys to (1) let all the dark elves
out of their hellish prison, and (2) prevent the Lost Souls from
possessing all mortals (including the dark elves). Moving their entire
society would lead to them attracting the attention of powerful devils,
so they instead sent out 12 groups each comprising 20 of their
strongest warriors, clerics, mages, rogues, monks, to find a way
through the planes, and back to the material plane, to take control of
the Axis Keys, control the Axis Stones to open a portal to their
hellish prison, and get them out of there. (Note: the dark elves are
not a large society anymore, but they have been strengthened through millenia surviving in a
hostile plane where evil immortals rule - so we're talking about tough
SOBs here. Additional abilities are added to the basic dark elf
template as far as game mechanics are concerned, in the form of arcane tatoos on the elves' bodies that provide increased attributes, toughness feat, SR (i like the SR to be explained) and a few other things on top). Also, through obligation of survival, they've become a race capable of relying on itself a lot, a lot less inclined towards back-stabbing, albeit much more ruthless.
Of the 12 dark elf groups, a single one made it back all the way
through, travelling through different planes over years of
displacement, with all its members surviving. All other groups perished
in their attempts. Once on Perin, initially accompanied by a large pack of hell hounds, several subdued dragons and devils (who have, unsurprisingly, their own agenda...) , worked to
find some local allies on this soft world, and managed to rekindle some of
the old alliances, especially from races that had fallen to a very low
status pursuant to the Lord of Darkness' defeat - orcs and lizard folk
on top of that list.
That's the gist of my campaign's situation as it stood when the campaign started. The PCs happened to all be at the wrong place at the right time : Hamlyn, one of the towns that is part of the Crown of the Zone, the region that is located around the valley of the Zone and protects the world from it, got attacked burnt down in part by a highly organized raid led by the dark elves, and comprising lizard folk and minotaurs. The PCs were all captured and were given to the lizard folk as payment for their services (i.e. they were intended to become slaves). They managed to escape their captors and started investigating what had happened at the village, to find out that one large mehnir-like stone (an axis key) had been recuperated in the village. Following some initially far-from-obvious leads, they went on the trail of the dark elves and found out about the Lost Souls. And some other groups that have learned about the Axis Stones and Keys too.
Sky
| |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
|
Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
Montreal
| | 01/02/2007 12:44 PM |
| CAMPAIGN HIGHLIGHT #1 - Finding the first Axis Stone
The PCs were in an area of the world that is called the Zone, which is
essentially a cursed valley where animals and plants are distorted into
maligned versions of themselves and where survival is difficult in itself.
The Zone is a semi-desert, with some smallish trees (15-20 feet) and the occasional underbrush.
So the PCs
are (level 4):
Thorak: male dwarf fighter
Yorrick: male human rogue
Iaroslav:
male human cleric
Krapounia: female human barbarian/sorceress
Levainthel:
female elven fighter/ranger/rogue
Two NPC allies are with them:
Olaf:
male human fighter
Volchenkov: male human fighter/wizard
They had had
all sorts of warnings from numerous NPCs that crossing the Zone was not
recommendable, but at one point they decided to cross it nonetheless . It
was not their first trip in the Zone, so they figured that if they had been
able to handle it a first time, a second time should not be too
problematic. However, they never stayed for more than a day or two, whereas
their actual trip was going to take at least a a week and half, and take
them beyond the fringe of the Zone, deep into its heart.
So they
journey through the Zone, starting on the fringe and gradually going deeper
into the valley, fighting strange warped animals having bone horns
protruding through their fur at odd places, going around a large (200+)
troop of zombies walking towards an unknown destination, surviving the
difficulties of the terrain such as quicksand, acidic moss, poisonous
flowers, animated vines, scorpions, burrowing monsters, and so
on.
After a few days of this, they're starting to realize that they might
have a bit more than they signed up for, but they still want to plow on. At
one point, after having left the fringe of the Zone, they find a large stony
field without any vegetation, but having numerous large stones everywhere
that allow you to walk between each. There, they get ambushed by two ettins
that give them a
hard time and they need rest after that battle.
The PCs decide to put up camp right there and then. The sorceress sends her silver raven
familiar to scout around, and obtains information from him that the stony
field forms a circle at the center of which there is a region where the sand
is black, which is devoid of any stones but a tall one standing a the center
of the blackened area. Their curiosity gets the better of them, and they
decide to investigate. Well, actually, the curiosity of two of the five of
them only. (They had specifically told themselves that they would not split
up, but as in any good horror movie... they split up! Oh well...) Anyway,
the sorceress and the elven ranger decide to follow the raven back to the
blackened area, and they indeed find a circle of blackened sand devoid of
any stones, save for a central perfectly rectangular upright black stone
jutting out from the sand. The stone is about 6 inches thick, with runes on
its periphery, but with its two large surfaces being flat and completely
bare. Looking at them, they're so smooth that they're almost like mirrors
and you would expect to see your reflection even from afar, but they give
away no image. But the most unsettling fact about the stones is that they
shed their shadow *towards* the sun, instead of on the opposite side of
it.
The sorceress and the ranger realize that this is probably a
so-called axis stone (and they're right), which is a portal to other planes
that was closed off thousands of years ago. Many think that the corruption
in the Zone originates from these axes stones (which is also
true).
The sorceress and the ranger thus decide that, since they're here,
they'll check out the axis stone closer up, and take out a parchment and
some ink to copy the runes. They walk up to the stone, write down the
simple runes, and as they put their paper back into their pockets, gruesome
tentacles made of decaying flesh suddenly sprout from the ground to try to
grab them and their horses. The tentacles are not long, but as they fight
them off and try to move towards the periphery of the circle and out of it,
more tentacles sprout from the ground to attack them. (To this day, the
players believe that the tentacles belonged to an underground creature, when
in fact they were inanimate plant-like hellish things that existed close to
the axis stone due to the corruption that seeps from one layer of hell onto
the material plane through the not-quite perfectly closed portal. ) Anyway, they're rapidly in over their
heads, since the tentacles are very hard to fight considering that once they
wrap around your legs, they become real hard to hack at. They deal small amounts of damage only however.
Realizing that their
situation might be complex early on, the sorceress sends her raven to call for help from their
friends who stayed at the camp, and by the time they arrive, all of them
except Olaf the NPC who stayed at the camp to guard their stuff, the ranger
is close to getting out of the circle with her horse, but the sorceress'
horse has been constricted to death by the tentacles and drawn underground and the barbarian-sorceress is pinned to the ground as she tries to
fight off the damn things. Her only weapon, a greatsword, is obviously
unwieldy in such a sitution, which doesn't help. The rogue goes in to help
the sorceress with his horse, but his horse gets grabbed by tentacles
too.
So everyone starts to try to help those that are stuck inside,
shooting arrows, but no one else wants to step on the dark sand (with
reason). This is where one of the PCs' ennemies, a bearded devil named
Archibald, dashes into combat against the heros located outside the dark
circle. He had been defeated by the PCs in an underground lair just before
they entered deeply into the Zone, teleporting away before they could kill him, and he had followed them since, waiting
for the right moment to attack. They had even spotted him from afar, not
realizing that it was him, but never managing to actually draw him into a trap and eventually just letting him be. So in comes Archibald, with his
long Guisarme that he wields with the proficiency of one who has done so for
thousands of years. The weapon's shaft looks almost to be an extension of
his arms, and he rotates it around him and back and forth and slashes up and
down in a spectacular flurry of blows that each deal significant damage. Of
course, everyone outside the circle, namely the cleric, the dwarf fighther
and the NPC fighter/wizard, all stop helping those inside the circle to
concentrate on Archibald, as they are perfectly aware that he is mighty
indeed.
The thing about the devil Archibald is that his cursed weapon
deals wounding damage, which means that anyone hit by it starts bleeding
profusely until the wound is taken care of. So he rapidly hits all three
heros standing outside the circle to have his wounding damage do its job,
and then goes on to work on the two fighters and more specicically on the
dwarf who he knows to be the stronger of the three. The fight is going his
way, partly due to his surprise attack, partly due to his wounding damage,
partly due to his few other special abilities (such as damage reduction
which kept him in relatively good shape), and partly due to good rolls
including a critical hit on the dwarf that expended the cleric's last cure
spell above level 1. The PCs in the circle are having a lot of trouble dealing with the
tentacles, and the sorceress is losing her battle as she is now severely wounded by the grappling tentacles. The rogue's horse gets killed, and the rogue now has to contend with the tentacles himself.
They're all starting to
feel like they're not going to get out of this situation alive. And i'm
thinking the same thing. My first TPK as a DM! I'm not happy about this at all.
This is where the dwarf fighter calls for and
rolls a critical hit with his might dwarven waraxe! It was really intense
as all players and myself were really into the fight, and as anyone rolled
each round to see what happened, all the others were super attentive to the
results as everyone fate depended on them. So when the dwarf's player took
his die and (for the first time) said "i need a crit" and got it, the room
erupted under the five players' cheers! Not only that, but the dwarf rolled
near maximum damage, which is very signficant since his waraxe deals tripple
damage on crits. So the tide turned as the devil was suddenly reduced to
about 40% of his hit points (they did't know that of course, but they saw
that the last wound was important).
The devil, being an immortal not
totally devoid of intelligence, decides that the time is ripe to get out of
there and seek vengeance later. Indeed, he might be able to take out one of
the remaining three opponents, maybe two, but he would probably go down
before all three were dead. So he decides that the risk is useless and decides to
flee. Like he did once before, when he had almost killed the sorceress
before teleporting his butt out of there. But the thing is, to teleport
without chancing attacks of opportunity against him that might disrupt the
magic, he needs to move out from between the two fighters that he is engaged
against. So he does that, he moves away, and that provokes attacks of
opportunity, but he figures that he's largely strong enough to resist these
attacks, the important thing is that his teleport not be disrupted because two round of combat might prove fatal. The
fighter/wizard NPC swings and misses.
Now all the players know, for
having seen him flee once before, that the devil's plan is to teleport away. And
they know that it means he'll be back, attacking them when they're
vulnerable, like he did just now. So they don't like him going away one bit.
And the dwarf 's
player does it again. He calls for a second critical hit in a row, rolls,
and sure enough, gets a 20 on his 20-sided die! He confirms his crit, rolls damage, and again deals close to the maximum amount he could get
(over 40 points of damage, which is a very important amount at their
level). And it's just enough to kill Archibald. Again, the players roar
their pleasure as the hellish beast crumbles to the ground, mortally
wounded.
The cleric then thinks to use one of his granted clerical
powers (from the "travel" domain) to walk through the tentacles unhindered, and it
works! So with help from him who cures her, the sorceress manages to reach
the outer periphery of the circle, and the rogue manages to get out also.
Close call, and everyone lets out a long breath of relief as they
were pretty sure that their end had arrived.
The ranger takes the
skin of the devil (all his interiors have disolved into a brownish goo that
flowed out of his skin), and puts it in his packsack in hope of using it to
scare off lizard men later on. (I had decided that the devil would die in this way.) At this point, no one knows that he has the devil skin but
him.
They then discuss the matter, and realize that they won't be able to
cross the Zone completely, they're not powerful enough. They continue their
journey by backtracking (more or less) to leave the Zone. But the creatures
of this cursed place smell the blood and the fear, and the attacks against
them increase in frequency! That following night, they are being attacked
so much that they can't get a good night's sleep. With no spells left, they
drink the few healing potions that they have, but they prove insufficient as
one, then another of the heros fall unconscious, but not dead, to the
repeated attacks. A fiendish bat swarm, then dire rats, then other stronger
beasts attack them, relentlessly. Finally, when morning comes, they've not
rested enough to gain their spells, and they're pretty much fed up with the
entire situation. Three out of seven (the two NPCs and the rogue) are out
cold, but stable and living... for the moment.
At first light, the ranger announces that she's taken the
devil's skin in her packsack as they discuss this and that. Hearing this news,
the other PCs come to think that the skin might be the reason for the
increased frequency of attacks. The barbarian-sorceress in particular gets it into
her head to rid the party of the skin. She's a strong one, the sorceress,
the strongest of the group. So she forces her way to the ranger's packsack
and takes out the skin. As everyone's on edge due to the recent events, the
ranger takes offense at this, and starts threatening the sorceress and tells
her to let go of her packsack, but she won't. So the ranger takes out her
rapier and starts moving towards the sorceress, but the dwarf interposes
himself between the two, as he also thinks that getting rid of the useless
skin can't do any wrong. But now the ranger is seeing red, and she hits the
dwarf with the flat of her blade. The dwarf doesn't like this at all, draws
his axe and hits the ranger back, but he doesn't use the flat of his blade.
A short combat ensues, but the dwarf has so few hit points left that a
single hit knocks him unconscious, close to death. Seeing that, the
sorceress draws her greatsword and attacks the ranger, finally killing her
right there and then!
Woa! Now that was an unexpected turn of
events! They survive the creatures of the Zone, Archibald the devil, but
kill each other off!
In the end, the dwarf was stabilized on death's
doorstep (-9), and by resting for the entire day the cleric got his spells back
(they were attacked a single time during daytime) and cured everyone back to
relative health, except the dead ranger of course (there are no resurrection
spells in my campaign, but the cleric would have been too low-level to cast
one even if there had been some). They then managed to get out of the Zone,
after being attacked some more over the next couple of days.
That was
one intense event in our playing time. The craziness of the entire thing
was so unreal, but so incredible! The players appeared to be in almost as
much stress as their tired and wounded PCs (well, maybe not as much, but
*some* stress), and the actions that resulted therefrom and the fight
between the PCs was something else! When everyone's going crazy, things
like that occur, and it was incredible that the mood around the table
somehow reflected in part how the PCs must have been feeling. It was one
hell of an outcome.
For those who wonder, the devil's skin had
nothing to do with the attacks. But it doesn't matter, really. All players were amazed at the intensity of the game session, including the dead ranger's player (who was the most stubborn IMO in not letting go of the devil's skin).
Sky | |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
|
Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
Montreal
| | 01/02/2007 1:05 PM |
| CAMPAIGN HIGHLIGHT #2 - Freeing allies
The PCs wanted
to free some prisoners emprisoned in a small castle in the middle of nowhere. So they set out to go there, the same group as before plus one and
minus one, namely:
The PCs (level 6):
Thorak: male dwarf fighter (with one level of barbarian)
Yorrick:
male human rogue (with one level of fighter)
Iaroslav: male human cleric
Krapounia: female human
barbarian 3/sorceress 3
Three NPC allies:
Olaf: male human
fighter 5
Volchenkov: male human fighter 3/wizard 3
Eben: female human
druid 4
They leave their horses in the forest nearby, together with the
druid's trained wolf animal companion (not too close to the horses), and
decide to infiltrate the castle at night. It is presumably very lightly
guarded for reasons i won't go into, so they figure that they can handle
whoever will be in there. Their group is now a bit stronger than before, and
they feel confident
So they leave heavy armor with the horses and
cross the sandy field that surrounds the castle, spotting a guard on the
walkway of the surrounding wall as they approach under a starry sky, making their way when
when the sentry has disappeared on the other side. They arrive at the moat, cross it
swimming, and then the cleric casts the spell "stone shape" to make a hole
in the wall through which they can crawl into the castle's courtyard.
There, they walk all the way around the castle, and climb up on a balcony
overlooking the courtyard, but are spotted in the process by an elf guard
that has low-light vision and can see at night. So as they are scramling
onto the balcony, one then two bells start ringing as the alarm is
raised.
Since they're already there, they figure they'll just head inside
and see what happens.
So they hack at the door of the balcony until
it's destroyed in short order, and they run inside the room. One of the PCs casts a light spell, and they find themselves into a richly
decorated living room from which stairs go up (they thought there wasn't
anything higher), and a pair of doors are also present in the room. One
leads into a closet and they find a trap door in the floor, and block the
other door with a very heavy wooden table. They then go down into the
closet trap door.
They move around the castle through secondary passages,
which allows them to go down a couple of storeys without hindrance. They
figure the prisons must be either underground (which is where they are) or
in the large dungeon tower. They decide to try to find underground prisons first since this is
where the passages lead them.
The castle includes at its center a
great hall that spans three storeys with a massive wooden staircase that
leads from one floor to the other in a central hole made in the second and
third floors. So there is essentially a ground floor and two rectancular
balconies that overlook the ground floor, with the staircase in the middle. Anyway, i'll come back to this later, but they cross this important area of
the castle as they make their way and eventually find a temple. There, they
decide to take the time to loot (tempting,
isn't it? ), which gives time to their opponents to gather in the castle
and organize their search of the PCs.
While they're in the temple, a
couple of guards find them. They're easily killed, but not before they
shout that they've found the intruders!
So the PCs leave the temple and
find the prisons that were not so far off on the same floor. The lone night
prison guard surrenders and the PCs make their way to the prison cells, but
find their occupants drugged and unable to walk. Bummer. So they decide to
take the castle by force. Hehe
Out of the prisons section, they're back on the
ground floor in the central hall with the staircase and balconies, but they
have to retreat from there because they're under fire from crossbowmen and
an expert archer from above, that they can barely see in the dark. Plus, there are apparently
a couple of spell casters there too.
They retreat back towards the temple portion of the castle,
thinking they can go back up through the secondary helical staircase they
arrived from, but find a group of opponents guarding it too. They manage to
kill this small group, and go up those stairs.
This is where the main group
of opponents, the heads of the castle, are waiting, since this portion connects to the central staircase portion. There are three
ways out of the temple part of the castle where the PCs are: through the main castle door
where a first group of ennemies is located; through the central hall where
the archers are; and through the helical
staircase, then back towards the luxurious living room they arrived in. So
they opt for the latter option, figuring they know the way and won't suffer
the archers (they already have a bit).
Up they go, and start to fight
in close quarters in a narrow corridor where one of the ennemy groups awaited
them in ambush. The PCs saw them, and decided to take the fight to them.
It rapidly becomes very complex, as the narrow corridor makes it very
difficult to manoeuvre for everyone. The biggest problem being that their
cleric has a hard time moving to heal the frontline dwarf fighter who's fighting a number of
opponents, including a tough old warrior with long grey-white hair that fights
with a big warhammer and large shield.
To make things worse, they get
caught from behind as the expert archer from the central staircase and a powerful cleric (also from the same spot) with a couple of soldiers
hit their rear line, while a female wizard joins the old warrior up front
with soldiers there too. They know the archer well as he's been a recurring
vilain to some extent, likewise with the cleric. The wizard is the
baronness and head of the ennemies, and also the daughter of a now-dead
baron killed by the PCs. Almost a family reunion.
The fight does not
turn out well for them at all, caught in a trap between the ennemies that
had time to organize themselves. Olaf the human fighter dies at the rear
guard, and the druid and fighter-wizard retreat to find the others putting
down their weapons as they yield before a stronger opponent. The dwarf is
unconsious but not dead.
The human rogue and the druid both manage to
escape, while the others are put into the prison cells.
However, the
battle took its toll on the castle troops, that now number only slightly
more than a dozen, counting every fighting body. That's about half their initial number. They figure they might
have some visit from the escapees, so they increase the guard a bit, but a
castle is a big construction for 15 people to guard day and night.
Sure
enough, the next night the rogue and the druid come back to rescue their
comrades. They find the sorceress and the dwarf in the prison cells, but
the others are drugged (the two former resisted the drug up to now). When
they try to get out, however, they're spotted by the ennemy archer that is
walking around, guarding the place (he's an elvish ranger/rogue with a wolf
companion). The archer attacks them in the central hall, from an
overlooking balcony, and his first full attack brings down and kills the cleric
(who's drugs have been neutralized by a spell from the druid). He then
continues to rain arrows down on his ennemies, that try to find cover as
best they can. The archer's wolf also engages them in melee.
The
dwarf and sorceress take care of the wolf and one guard to escape through
the door, while the druid (now played as a PC by an invited friend) throws a number of oil flasks that she had
arranged before entering the castle into a sort of cocktail molotov. Her
throw strikes next ot the archer, but he's splashed by some burning oil and
the baclony is set afire. Most importantly, his retreat option through a nearby door is cut off. He still manages to continue sniping from where he is ,
gradually moving away from the fire and eventually killing the druid PC/NPC too.
However, the fire did its damage, and the archer eventually decides that
it's time to flee as he is now weak and he sees his ennemies fleeing on
their own side and doesn't want to run after them. However, the rogue sees
him fleeing and decides to let his comrades run. With his spider climb potion active, he moves up the main staircase super silently along a support column, hiding in the
dimly litted corners, and manages to kill the fleeing archer with a
devastating, sneaky point blank shot from his short composite
bow as the archer was going to leave through another door.
The dwarf, the sorceress and the rogue then ran out of the castle
while the fire inside was dealt with by its occupants. They also managed to
carry out one of the ten other prisoners found in the castle prisons, a
female rogue NPC. However, the price to pay was heavy indeed: two of the
NPCs that have been allies of the PCs from the start are dead, and one PC
too.
That entire game sequence (three game sessions overall) was quite something.
Sky
| |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
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Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
Montreal
| | 01/02/2007 1:20 PM |
| CAMPAIGN HIGHLIGHT #3 - Revenge is sweet
For those of you who read my previous posts, the PCs fled a castle from which they managed to free a few friends,
although leaving behind some other (non-player character) friends there
too.
Bolstered by their success (?) against their enemies and by their recent
kill of the expert ranger-rogue archer that they've been hearing about and
even crossing for a while, they figure that entering the castle again and
freeing the last prisoners will be easy. Man, those players
:-)
Before they set out in yet another trek through the castle grounds,
they wisely decide that they need rest to cure their wounds and prepare some
spells and re-arm themselves. Indeed, most of their weapons have been
confiscated by their enemies and are presumably still inside the castle.
They do have a few spare weapons on their horses however, so the newly freed
prisoners take up arms again, and they let the remainder of the night pass,
and during the day they continue to rest, setting up some sentries to check
what's going on around the castle from afar. The sentries saw a few persons
leaving (i was surprised that they didn't try to catch up on them), and then
a few hours later several wagons and mounted soldiers too. The enemy was
leaving the castle! (Insufficient manpower to efficiently guard the
place.)
The PCs decide to follow the group from afar, and wait until the
evening, at which point they realize that a storm is brewing. Not any type
of storm, but a sand storm! (They're near a desert, and i've pre-rolled on
which days sand storms occur.) They decide to take "advantage" of the sand
storm to attack the enemy encampment.
I was almost forgetting to
summarize the group composition. The PC group consist of (level 6):
Thorak: male dwarf fighter (with one level of barbarian)
Krapounia:
female human sorceress 3-barbarian 3
Yorrick: male human rogue (with one level of fighter)
Milfin: male
halfling cleric (new character for the player who lost the previous
cleric)
And one NPC:
Veonia: female halfling rogue 6 (freed from the
castle prisons)
Their enemies, seeing the storm coming, halted their
procession and tied up their horses, protecting their heads with
air-permeable bags, and then put up their tents. The PCs start out as the
storm is beating down on them.
At this point, it's already dark outside
since the sun has just set. Add in the sand storm, the PCs cannot see the
tip of their nose, apart from the dwarf who has darkvision and who can see 5
feet away and somewhat guess what's ahead 10 feet away sometimes. They cast magic
light spells that allow some indistinct vision up to 10 feet away, although everything is under partial concealment for everyone. Every PC
tries to cover his face to minimize the effects of the sandstorm, but it has little real effect. It is not easy to move, see, fight, talk,
cast, or do anything in those conditions!
So they set out
against the encampment, and almost miss it as they accidentally walk by it. However,
they finally manage to move back at 120° at the last minute, and come up
against the other side of the camp, not knowing what it looks like. The camp
is in fact composed of five carts (two larger covered ones with prisoners
inside and two guards in each, and three with equipment) and four tents (two
for soldiers, one for the heads, and one for the cooks and maids and servants).
The horses are tethered in the middle of it all.
The PCs randomly fall upon the
serving staff first, and even blindly kill two of them before they realize
what's going on. They then leave the other serving staff alone and continue
searching for more important foes. As they slowly make their way to the
wagons, one of the cooks sets out to warn the wizard baronness and her bodyguards
of what's happening.
Meanwhile, the PCs find the wagons with the
prisoners, and throw smoke sticks inside, getting the guards to jump out, to
their quick deaths at the hands of the ambushing PCs. They then move towards
the other wagons until they find another tent. (Their movement is really
random as they do not see far enough.)
Eventually, it's among the
horses and the tents that two combats occur - the PCs having separated along
the way. The dwarf and the barbarian-sorceress engage a few captains of the guards and
some soldiers, while the halfling cleric, the halfling rogue and the human
rogue engage the enemy cleric with some soldiers (he's a second one of their
recurring enemies). The baronness, her strong old fighter bodyguard and a
couple of other soldiers are searching elsewhere for the PCs but they don't
see anything either so they're out of it for a while, until they join up
against the dwarf and the sorceress.
The combat that then ensues is
really chaotic due to the sandstorm. Anyone moving 10 feet away from an
opponent essentially disappears from his vision. Those that don't have a
light source simply can't see anything. There are two casters on each side
(the sorceress and the halfling cleric for the PCs, and the enemy cleric and
wizard baronness on the other side) that have cast light spells on
themselves, and the dwarf can see in the dark, but otherwise... complete
darkness. Then, anyone trying to cast a spell has to successfully roll a
concentration check, or else the spell fails. Most casters have invested in
the concentration skill, apart from the sorceress who relies mostly on her
barbarian combat skills during melee anyway. And everyone, with sand
blowing in their eyes and strong winds making even movement difficult, his
hindered in whatever physical action they try to undertake. Movement is
made at half speed, no running is possible, charging is out of the question,
penalties are present on all attack and skill rolls... the combat becomes a
missing theater! The PCs also decide to partly unhook the tents before
attacking their occupants, so two tents are flapping wildly around them as
they are trying to combat their opponents, further increasing the chaos.
The enemy cleric ends up being
the tougher foe in this case. His high concentration skill modifier added
to lucky rolls allow him to successfully cast most of his spells (i think he
had time to cast about 12-15 spells in the combat, and all but one or two
were successful). One of the most dangerous spells cast was Summon Monster
IV, which allowed him to conjure a Dire Wolf, quite a challenge in itself when combined with allies for three six level PCs! (It almost
killed the NPC halfling rogue who tumbled away.)
Meanwhile, the wizard baronness was not so
lucky, having her stronger lightning bolt and empowered magic missile spells
disrupted as she didn't manage to keep her concentration in the storm. That
was fatal and the dwarf fighter killed her rather easily. Her strong old
fighter bodyguard eventually found himself against the wounded dwarf and
sorceress, and decided to flee when the latter cast a darkness spell around
them, preventing him from seeing anything.
Everyone finally ganged up
on the evil cleric, and they killed him.
They then freed the prisoners,
waited for the storm to die down and took all the wagons and horses (minus
those that managed to break their tethers during the storm) back to the now abandonned
castle, that they decided to make their own (ownership issues to be addressed later). The old fighter finally joined
them - he was a weak link among the enemies, the wizard baronness had been
possessed into a Lost Sould and he did not like at all what she had become.
Sky | |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
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