Saturday, August 11, 2012

Online Session 37 (8/11/12)

This session was played in person, so there will be a regular campaign diary instead of the usual .html link to an AIM chat. It follows up both Session #37 and Online Session #36. Tabletop players were allowed to attend for bonus credit towards their leveling.

Varony, Malarous 30th 838 ID 

Langston fires a warning arrow towards the two humanoids entering Tun Staab, and hits one. The two quickly disappear behind one of the towers. When Gruulsh moves up to investigate, both have disappeared. Langston calls out a warning, and the response comes from a familiar voice...Doorjamb Grizzlebear. He and the halfling Hnarsh visualize, one from hiding and the other from invisibility. It's a brief reunion, Doorjamb explaining his purpose in coming to retrieve Private Glass, not at all surprised by her fate. Hnarsh offers some 'hoodoo' to the expedition, most of whom deny him, and the pair decides to help the expedition finish out the exploration of Tun Staab. Meanwhile, Baro, Mudgol and Ginkwrench decide to rest up and watch the children (Polk and Buck), Pvt. Longjohns guards them.


Doorjamb, Hnarsh, Langston, Luz, Gruulsh and Flood Watchman Barr approach the caverns, making the shady halfling take the lead. He signals to stop once the movement in the webs above becomes too rampant, and Gruulsh decides to take a 'peak'. He is noticed after sticking his head up through the webs, and five large white spiders lower themselves to the cavern floor. Despite their abilities to leap back and forth into combat, and a slowing poison, they are easily dispatched by our heroes. Doorjamb and Gruulsh explore what of the web they can in a limited time, recovering some masterwork weapons from Wolf Tongue berserker corpses, and a bag of silver and some antitoxins. The expedition presses on into another cave littered with bones and skulls, and a few open stone coffins, some of which still contain mummified remains.


They decide to skip past the area, since there is little of interest, when the mummified remains turn out...not to be so still. Three awful undead assault the group, with nasty slam attacks that can apply negative levels. It's a brutal fight, and Flood Watchman Barr is slain, only to return later on as an undead himself! The PCs persevere, taking out the original assailants and then a weaker Barr. They decide then to further search the cavern, to no avail. Hnarsh and Gruulsh scout down a neighboring tunnel, and the halfling tells the bugbear to return and gather up the group. When they return, he has moved north, beckoning the PCs forward to where they find a pair of extremely heavy iron doors, slightly ajar to another cavern. Also, a young, dead girl who Gruulsh ID's from Tretcher is before the doors, clutching the remains of a stuffed animal. Despite several strong attempts, they are unable to force the doors, and thus they check another cavern to the south...


...which turns out to contain a dense, heavy statue of the death titan Ulan Vhor, whom the PCs learned about in Floivin Keep due to the research of Conniff and Baro. The statue radiates necromancy, and seems to have diamond eyes. The expedition turns back, deciding after their failed attempts at forcing the doors, to allow Hnarsh to go in and scout about. He returns with some baubles and treasures, passing a magical large steel shield and breastplate through the doors, as well as a metric ton of silver coins, and some scrolls and gems. The party decides they've cleared out the ruins at last, then turns back to join their rested companions, and hole up for the night to regain spells and attempt to wait out some of their negative levels. They spend a 24 hour period resting, while they alternate watches.

Verne, Martenin 1st 838 ID 

Apart from a sole ogre who sees the group in the valley and then flees, the 24 hours go by uneventfully. Luz and Doorjamb heal what they can of their active companions, and then Grizzlebeard tells them there are further tracks traveling East towards Toul Tabor. The group decides instead to travel back West to check out the other ruins at Tun Vuul. En route, they encounter a trio of frost giants at a distance, but the two groups avoid one another and there is no dreadful confrontation. When they finally arrive outside the alley at Tun Vuul, they decide to rest up once more, to regain spells and prepare themselves.

Essel, Martenin 2nd 838 ID 

The five active members of the expedition approach Tun Vuul, to find a ruined fortress surrounded by low, crumbled towers. As Gruulsh and Hnarsh creep forward to scout out the area, they are spotted by some large, hostile white wolves. Combat ensues yet again, and the wolves breath cones of frost and perform deadly tripping maneuvers against the PCs. They also seem to have bluish runes painted on their fur, not unlike the red marks that were on the berserkers' bonded war bears they fought in Tretcher. Nonetheless, they are pretty easily dispatched, and then our heroes can finally examine the ruins, to find the fort almost completely destroyed. They also find Magra Ossted hiding out in one of the towers, but she is blinded and only screams in panic at their approach, seemingly unable to communicate.


There is a wall further East in the valley that was basically a cairn of rocks used to block off a cavernous entrance to the mountains, but it has eroded, stones removed, and now access is granted beneath the Weaponscrest. The PCs move forward and find an abandoned storage supply, where aside from a few ancient pairs of armor, most has been completely looted. They decide here to stop, rest again, since Doorjamb has to dig up the remains of Private Glass and return them to Floivin Keep.

Ivric, Martenin 3rd 838 ID 

Mudgol and Doorjamb trek six hours to Tretcher with Buck and Magra, returning them to the village, and then Mudgol teleports himself, Doorjamb and Glass' remains back to Floivin Keep. Hnarsh is left with the rest of the PCs...who have mixed feelings about this new acquisition. Mudgol plans to return the next day.

PCs: Doorjamb, Gruulsh, Langston, Luz

NPCs

Magra Ossted (human female): One of Hagel Ossted's daughters, a frail blonde teenager. She was ID'd by Gruulsh, and recovered from the ruins at Tun Vuul by the PCs. Blinded somehow, with a cloth wrapped about her eyes, she seems to be suffering from deep trauma at her captivity, and can respond only with pitiful screams when the expedition attempts to comfort her. Mudgol and Doorjamb later return her to the village of Tretcher.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Session 37 (8/9/12)

Tault, Malarous 29th 838 ID 

After days of preparation and healing, and waiting for Mudgol to return from his teleportation back to Floivin Keep (where he paid to have Slab's remains stored and magically preserved in the cellar of the Cathedral of Blades), the PCs don their cold weather outfits and set out across the Frogmarch to find any survivors that might have been abducted by the Wolf Tongues tribe. They decide it would be best to first attempt the further of the two ruins, Tun Staab, where Hagel and the villagers thought they might have been taken. En route, the party spots a large pack of canines rushing through the frosted grasslands, which Baro identifies as blink dogs, that the party decides not to confront. A starving, desperate arctic fox attacks Balard, unable to breach the dwarf's armor before being systematically disposed of by an arrow from Langston. Once the night sets in, the group decides to rest on the plain, and this time passes uneventfully.

Varony, Malarous 30th 838 ID  

The PCs arrive at the small mountain valley which houses the Tun Staab ruins. It is fronted by a trio of crumbled towers, upon which are runes scripted into the ancient Shann tongue. Baro and Mudgol are able to decipher these as reading ‘Here Lies the Brother-Ward of Denhema Staab, Guardian to the Deep-Ways’, and Balard identifies the structures as human (and non-dwarf) architecture. Beyond the towers, there is a ruined coliseum and an old manor, both also decayed, and a large cavern entrance to the Weaponscrest mountains. The valley is full of whorls of snow, huge drifts, and sheets of obscured ice created by runoff from the surrounding highlands. They also make out several broken humanoid bodies through the drifts, and when they approach, they are frightened to discover that a half-dozen giant yetis have taken up residence in the area, some climbing forth from the broken, open towers, others rushing down from the foothills. They don't seem too happy about the PCs' presence, and a massive fight ensues...


The treacherous, icy terrain and the long reach of the ape-like creatures prove devastating against the party's attacks, rendering much of the melee ineffective for a good part of the battle, though Luz, Ginkwrench, Langston and Barr all strike some decisive blows. Fire seems most effective, but before they can finally bring down the monsters, both Vondort and Balard have been reduced to paste and guts by the horrendous slam attacks. After the fight, Ginkwrench decides to remove one of the yeti's claws to hollow out and use as a backpack, and the party discovers a treasure stash of some coins, gems and vials hidden up in one of the entrance towers. Afterwards, they proceed to check out the fallen manor, where they discover a survivor of Tretcher hidden in the outer wall, and then a fancy dwarven waraxe inside the old hearth next to a dwarven corpse.

The next area of interest is the arena structure, which the whole party sets out to explore...unfortunately, the center of the coliseum turns out to be an ancient death trap, a 100' circular pit of packed earth reinforced by blocks of stone. Though Barr and the Professor manage to evade it, Mudgol and Gruulsh are unlucky enough to fall through the pit, the former being knocked out at the bottom and the latter deftly avoiding the same fate, though taking a lot of damage in the process. It seems that this pit proved some sort of grisly afternoon entertainment for the ancient Shann, who lowered captives and creatures by a winch to the depths, and enjoyed the sport of slaves trying to climb out on a series of wooden spears that circled the interior of the pit, while beasts attempted to devour them...Gruulsh gives the unconscious Mudgol a potion to wake him up, and the two teleport back up topside.

The last order of business...the cavern entrance. There is some dissension on whether or not to explore further, but Mudgol decides to use clairaudience/clairvoyance to peek inside. It's a massive, snowy cave with the upper walls and ceiling obscured by thick, frost-tinted webbing. Mudgol summons a giant bee and sends it in, but while its able to piece the veil of cold webs, it soon disappears. As the party decides whether to press on into the depths and risk whatever lies in the webs, Longjohns (the lookout) alerts the rest of the expedition that two humanoids have entered the valley near the front towers...

PCs: Baro, Ginkwrench, Grulsh, Langston, Luz, Mudgol

NPCs

Buck Beltreg (human male): An orphaned, emaciated 10-year old boy from Tretcher who was taken by the Wolf Tongues to serve their twisted pleasures. The PCs discover him (and Gruulsh recognizes him) in an alcove in a crumbled stone manor at the ruins of Tun Staab, in the Frogmarch. He claims the Wolf Tongues in the valley were slain by the great yeti, but several might have gone inside the nearby caverns with other abductees. The Wolf Tongues used his rags and hides on which to urinate and smear feces, so Buck is presently emanating a nasty scent...

Friday, August 3, 2012

Online Session 36 (8/3/12)

Here is the link to the transcript of AIM online session 36.

PCs: Doorjamb

R.I.P. Sgt. Lusker