Long Live the... Who?

Lance's high level campaign was very interesting Saturday. B, me (Dave), Mat & Ava, Rob, Rod, and Jesse B. enjoyed some political intrigue with good roleplay and then a good combat. Whitewall's king has been missing for 4 days. Esmarelda is uneasy as are the other inner circle advisors. Queen Verisa pays the heroes of Whitewall their wages, 50,000 gp each. She is 8 months pregnant with the crown prince. She happens to be an elf. A tiefling appears almost out of nowhere. "Hey friend," he says. He's wearing fine clothes that are hanging off of him with about 3,000 years of dusty aging and seems not to care. He has been spying on our conversation in a routine and reckless way. His name is Carsh Tarkassis and the more he tries to gain trust the less he is trusted. He seems eager to help but Ruin is highly skeptical, this new guy seems slippery. Regarding the king, whenever questions are asked, members of the inner circle make uncomfortable faces, look away and change the subject. The curious among the heroes begin to quietly dig to learn what they can. Conspiracy theories abound: was King Leonid grabbed by a tentacle and dragged to the Far Realm? Did the orcs of Gorkni kidnap him? Or... dare we think the unthinkable and speculate the king could be dead? No one is saying anything. In the meantime, we are mercenaries with a new boss: Queen Verisa. As far as we are concerned that's good enough for us. Our marching orders are to go to Gorkni and fight the orcs there. As we near the city we make some basic preparations to not be too obvious about or plans. Kontor encamps his 400 giants some distance away and prepares teleportation circles to bring them close when the time comes. Giants are not easy to hide otherwise. Carsh Tarkassis "befriends" a couple of orc scouts who are then slain anyway by Zuzu and Kontor. Carsh is not pleased, and neither is Esmarelda or Ruin because not only can we not question the scouts, Gorkni will know something is up when they don't report in. So we will have to attack immediately this night and not in the morning as originally planned. So be it. Just before Ruin blows up Gorkni's wall with his alchemical charges, B's ranger makes a ladder out of arrows and Zuzu charges up them. The ranger and the fighter leap from the wall to the tower behind it right before it collapses inward on the enemy behind it. Atop the tower appear to be enemy commanders or dignitaries of some kind and Zuzu is making a beeline for them, right up the tower. On the other side of the wall it is not orcs who await the heroes, but mind flayers. The orcs are effectively their cattle, being bred and herded to fight for them but cattle nonetheless. The mind flayers are gigantic too, not typical and seem to be under the command of the dignitaries on the tower. 100' or so atop the tower, Zuzu is fighting Dorsain, Dr. Wiley and Crotus. They should be much more than he can handle but he doesn't care. Kontor summons a huge monster made of chains to join the fight up there but otherwise the party are focused on the mind flayers. The chain monster knocks Dorsain off of the tower and after he lands he is dominated by Carsh Tarkassis. Dr. Wiley and Dorsain are defeated, mind flayers are slain and tentacles from the Far Realm whisk Crotus and the remains of Dorsain and Dr. Wiley away. Zuzu is challenged by a bold orc survivor and defeats him in a single attack. Zuzu's first act as new Warchief of Gorkni is to replace Gruumsh worship with Kord/Marishten. Yes, Gruumsh is not going to be happy about this! Ruin takes the heroes aside in a confidential meeting and reveals that King Leonid had lost his mind and was decapitated by his own personal guard, to save him from himself and preserve the kingdom of Whitewall. The king's head has been preserved in a jar. The populous is not to know however. Currently the pregnant Queen Verisa and her advisors rule. Oh, and we're learning more about Ruin and his strange re-occurances. He was slain by the mind flayers, but a new version of him appears before us bearing his memories and scars, including six black horns on his pale head to represent the mental damage inflicted by the mind flayers, now repaired. Replaced, more like it. But back to matters of the Crown. Succession might not be quite so simple. Esmeralda's bastard son could contend for the throne in theory and other developments are possible. For now, Whitewall is holding together but it is spread thin across both geography and many alliances, races and powerful armies with huge differences: orcs, elves, giants, wildlings, dragons, dragonborn, humans, heroes, golems. And in Lance's campaign resurrection is not a routine matter. Enemies without and rumors of intrigue within. Hmm. We are now 19th level and encouraged to make our characters pretty epic, within reason. We each get two +4 magic items.

White Wall (Lance's high level)

The Battle at W H I T E W A L L (Lance’s campaign) The Faction of Brecken Ridge and White Wall are entangled in an arms race of epic proportion, involving dragons and worse. Of the five dragons, each the size of a city, White Wall now owns two: the green and the blue. Armies of incredible size and power are mustering, supported by magical arsenals the like of which has never been seen, and heroes such as have not walked the world in an age. The King of White Wall knows war is inevitable and much is at stake. Once again his kingdom is under attack. Another contingent of would-be defenders has come to him seeking employment. He has rejected so many meek, unworthy and unprepared warriors. How many have died already? He doesn't have time to worry about it. Hopefully this group will be adequate. Tens of thousands of orcs and ogres and their allies advance on White Wall, screaming for blood. They are met by 400 giants, constructs, a hodgepodge of other forces, and a few amazing heroes who are insanely outnumbered. The armies fight upon a gigantic field 200 miles across. Occasionally the shadow of a dragon as large as a city darkens the battlefield. Often, gigantic black tentacles and eyestalks pop out of nothing into the air, slashing and grabbing at anything in sight. At the center of it all, the cause of this battle is the slippery figure, the Military Supplier (Shawn's character, not here for this session) of King Leofrig Middleton, (Lance's human warlord, level 16, or at least that’s the level we're at). Among his advisers is The Old B-tch (Carson's character, not here for this session) who knows it all, it would seem. She teaches and guides in a creepy way and is said to consort with the Far Realm. The King and his advisors watch the battle with interest from within the walls. Among the King's protectors (and arguably the only one he needs) is Hector Custodes (Rob's Revanent Paladin) who as payment for a past failure must defend his King unto death. Oh but that's right, he cannot die. Hector just finished helping the King assess and hire these new heroes and he is about to see how they measure up. The King's Hero is Esmarelda, the Paladin-Ranger (who is also Sar'in the Dragon Lady Sorceress; Rod's shapeshifter has 5 personalities) who can single-handedly defeat entire armies when near groups of dragonborn. It is said she has never been seen at the same time as her friend, the psion Ethos. Though incredibly powerful, the rumor is that she has an equally powerful Far Realm nemesis. Sar’in defeated another entire army defending one of White Wall's outlying cities just prior to the main battle. Now Esmarelda is slaying all around her, including one of the enemy heroes who had been flying on a griffin earlier. Among the heroes on the field is Zuzu (Mat’s 1/2 orc fighter) who passed the mustering trials by swearing allegiance to the King after having proven his ability by wounding Esmarelda in a practice fight. Now Zuzu is deep in the field, going after enemy commanders with gusto. It was Madame Eeyahh (P.’s human cleric) who healed Esmarelda after that mustering trial, by smacking her upside the face for being so stupid! This is a woman not to be trifled with, dark in complexion, standing 6'2" tall and made 100% out of attitude. The cleric will patch together anyone else stupid enough to get hurt. Being healed by getting smacked and yelled at might just help in itself. Burning everything in sight from a safe distance is Rune (Ava’s warforged warlock). V'Ronica (Kayla's drow ranger) is having a good time fighting this battle. Moving with grace, she avoids injury while her attackers drop all around her. Ruin (Jesse's white elf rogue) is closely associated with the throne room and was an advisor during the mustering trials. He arrived mysteriously by boat, having been sent by the men in black organization. Now, Ruin is out there in the battlefield somewhere, mostly unseen as the enemy drop with equal mystery. The giant wrangler arrived somewhat unexpectedly from the hinterlands, claiming to be Emperor Kontor Smidge Lokag, G-d Emperor of the Giants (Dave’s goliath wizard). Accompanying him are 200 fire giants and 200 earth titan giants. After initially requesting an alliance of empires, Kontor kneels before King Leofrig because the truth is they are down to half rations. “We were hungry,” he says simply upon being asked why he joined. Giants do eat a lot, as the carcasses of a herd of sheep consumed the night before battle attest. The giants obey Kontor’s commands without question, as he is their tactician and wizard and also because he possesses the crown of their ancient king, the Eye of the Old G-ds. Kontor found the Eye accidentally while seeking other magical knowledge and spells. He stands nearly 8’ tall (okay, 7’7”) as is normal for a goliath, but his friends among the giants call him Smidge because to them he’s a pretty small giant. In battle Kontor wields a storm spells and a tome that summons nasty creatures such as the Stormstone Fury, which in turn damages foes at a distance with thunder attacks. Because he specializes in ranged magical attacks, in this battle Kontor fights from atop the crenellated white wall of White Wall itself. His giants operate fearsomely on their own, having been given simple guidelines, tactics and instructions earlier (mostly involving who would stand in close combat and who would stay back and throw rocks). The golem wrangler, Shar-I-Zaard (Jon’s shardmind artificer) brings forth clouds of mechanical spiders that give the orcs and ogres fits, then commands a few very tough looking magical, mechanical soldiers to stand and fight in a straight line in front of him. By the end of the battle, the the strange crystalline artificer is completely untouched. The battle is fierce but the invisible siege devices of the orc army are not found in time to save one of White Wall’s towers. It falls atop the final enemy commander who is flung beneath it by Esmarelda. But the fall of his tower dismays the king who is happy the battle is won by his army but gives the tower and its former inhabitants a heartfelt eulogy. Kontor, who climbed that very grand tower on his way to the top of the wall, puts his giants to work replacing the original materials where they go, guided by a prolonged illusion from a scroll provided by the king’s wizards, of the tower as it appeared when it was standing. Though many have died, the orcs might be a bit crestfallen because by appearances from a distance, the tower is somehow still standing after all.

Lava Tubes continue

So the B team continue to explore the Lava Tubes. The other direction, where we didn't go previously is the way we now find ourselves forced to go due to volcanic activity around the caldera.

Ava ran again, we started early and it was a short session due to time commitments. Players: B, me, Mat & Ava, Jon, Carson, Lance, Robby. Thank you Ava. We fought lava monsters and a fire eye beholder. The party leveled to 7th, our current experience should be 10,020. No treasure this time but please note that the previous session we got 1,500 gp and a 6th level magic item. To be continued. Thank you Mat & Ava, I hope the rest of your weekend goes well.

Later on we were joined by Rod, then by Walter. Due to time being short we played Sentinels of the Multiverse, including the new Rook City expansion. Man I love the quality of this game, I don't get bored of it. I'm working my way through each of the characters, villains and settings because I don't want to miss anything. Today I got to play Mr. Fixer, one of the new heroes. He's pretty cool, kind of reminds me of Casey Jones from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book. He's a hero, but yeah you get the sense he's a bit touched in the head. We went up against The Organization, which includes a couple of villains who would be fairly tough, but since we didn't use the advanced rules for our 6 players we won pretty quickly. Carson played Legacy, Rob - Ra, Jon played the villains The Operative with The Chairman as well as the new Rook City environment, plus a hero. Rod played Visionary, Lance played Haka, I played Mr. Fixer and B played The Wraith. Most likely just our family will play Sentinels again tomorrow.

Terrain Photos Etc.

Photos/Gallery - Pax Pix

B Team at Emberwake

Ava ran an excellent session starting from where B. left off from some of her suggestions. Sam R. and Shane T. made new characters. Jon and Mat meanwhile played some furious duels of Magic while Ava prepped the adventure. B. and I printed updated versions of Min, Tiger Lily and Nightshade. Ava also played Cyn'Dar as kind of a back-seat character (the typical way to do that when running). For this session Jon played Gnoll and Nightshade; Mat played Scourge and Tiger Lily and I just played Min (and Scrabble on my phone between turns admittedly...) and took care of terrain, the dog, pretzels etc.

The B Team, (AKA Aftermath of the Golden Heroes campaign group), left from the undercity (see previous entry) by way of a lava tube that looked ripe for exploration. The network of obsidian-walled caverns went on for miles. Cyn'dar, Gnoll, Min, Scourge, Tiger Lily and Nightshade gradually worked their way toward the surface. On their way up through the lava tubes, they met with two more adventurers who converged from a different tube. They were seeking a dragon's treasure, had some idea where to go and wouldn't mind some reinforcement given the rumors they had heard. Brark, a Duargar assassin armed with poisons and a wicked looking flail, agreed to join the group. The group were just happy he was on their side after having recently fought Duargar. With him was Krunk Eyemind, a Minotaur Psion equipped with what looked to be a little-used morningstar and crossbow over his back and carrying in his hand a well-worn staff. Krunk, something of a quiet guy, was glad to join the group.

The characters were under the mountains of Emberwake, not far from the Coast of Eternal Steam. There were lava beds all around, with lava tubes underneath. Brark said the rumor he had heard was that the Burning Rage Cult were fanatically serving a Red Wyrm, Scorchblood - the kind of impossibly old, gigantic and powerful dragon that destroys entire cities. We knew this would be way too much for us, but the other half of the rumor was that this was where Scorchblood's treasure might be found and our hope was to um, maybe steal some of it without him missing it. Not far from here was the Eternal Eruption of the Cinder Crater.

Making our way upward, we came to a definite left-right fork and thought we heard distant noises in both directions. Taking the cavern to to the right, it opened up into a higher-ceilinged chamber several hundred yards later where we were descended upon by Fire Bats, who had been hanging upside-down from a ledge ahead of us. These things were annoying because of their echo-location and swarming tactics but the group had the right mix of classes to overcome them. Because our group includes a Fire Wizard, many of us have been loading up on magic items with fire resistance, which was very helpful for this encounter.

After a short rest we continued ahead, where after several hundred more yards we encountered the Cult of Scorchblood, the Burning Rage guys we had heard about. They were kobolds and their priest spoke Draconic. Only a couple of us could make out what they were blabbering about but they seemed to be getting pretty worked up. Scourge (Undead Deva Cleric) ran forward wielding his scythe and singing badly in draconic about how stupid they were. Brark (Duargar Assassin) snuck up the right wall of the cavern and quietly garroted one of the kobold slingers perched there. Tiger Lily (female Human Monk, age 9 1/2) bounded deep into a cluster of kobold fighters and spun fists and feet into all of their faces. Nightshade (female Human Rogue, age 11) snuck close enough to launch dagger and crossbow attacks into the throats of more of the kobold slingers before they could attack us. Gnoll (Half-Orc Battlemind) charged forward, gave us cover behind him and telekinetically hurled a 30-lb. boulder at one of the bad guys. Min Vizardio (Gnome Warden) launched a javelin at the kobold priest, then took ram form and charged the left group of fighters, keeping them busy with his shortsword and shield. Cyn'Dar (Dragonborn Wizard) stayed back and launched fire attacks with both her breath and spells. Krunk Eyemind (Minotaur Psion) took cover behind a rock and psychically attacked groups of kobold fighters. Even though the B team are not racially talented in their respective classes and were initially far outnumbered, they fought ferociously with cohesive teamwork and soon the odds were even, then in their favor, and then they were victorious.

The defeat of the cultists opened the way to the caldera of Scorchblood, which allowed only single-file access to within. A narrow stone bridge led through a narrow entrance to what was effectively a stone island about 50' across, surrounded by lava. Awaiting us each in turn from the center of this caldera was Scorchblood. Tiger Lily got there first. "You're smaller than I thought you would be," she declared. The rest of the party followed one at a time, attacking in their various ways. Scorchblood (Jr.) was a Young Red Dragon, the grandson of Scorchblood who was in fact away. But he was still quite a handful. Halfway through the encounter, Brark was hanging from Scorchblood's neck by his garrote like some kind of dwarf necklace. Cyn'dar was having difficulty getting past the dragon's fire resistance. The defenders, Gnoll and Min, were taking turns taunting the dragon into directing his attacks to them to protect the strikers, Tiger Lily, Nightshade and Brark. Meanwhile Krunk and Cyndar stayed back and picked away with spells, as controllers do. Scourge, our one and only leader, supported and healed any of us who needed healing as we fought on. It was a long and tough encounter but in the end Scorchblood's multiple breath weapons, action points, healing surges, nasty claw and tail attacks -- just were not enough to overcome the relentless B Team. As the dragon lay dying and the party started eagerly looking for treasure, a distant sound was heard. SKORCHBLOOD (SENIOR! Jr.'s Grandfather) was flying over. The group grabbed what treasure they could (quickly) and took off.

After D&D we had the opportunity to play a bit of two-headed giant Magic. Mat played a white life deck that was working pretty well; Sam teamed up with Mat, using my b/w Angels deck. Ava's deck was red/black land destruction, and very good at that. As it happened I played a red Sligh-style "Magmavore" deck that teamed up well with Ava's because it includes some land destruction (though it wasn't planned that way). Later I played a Zombie deck that struggled early and then really went off late, pretty fun. Ava had something great that mana-shorted, but included green black and white I think. Mat played a great blue deck that "borrows" creatures from opponents.

Session note: We rolled a lot of nat' 20's !
Current Experience: 9575 (still 6th level)
Treasure: 1,500 GP
Magic: 1 6th Level Magic Item
Next Session: 3pm Saturday March 10.

Back to "B"-asics

So we played an entire adventure a level down. That's right, I grabbed our 5th level sheets even though we were 6th level. Oops, bound to happen every now and then. Anyway B ran B team and the party did okay. There was a small town with buildings surrounded by water and kind of a misfit vibe to it. We were given a cryptic note:

B Team,
You must go to the Ocaniaa City. They are struggling to get the Unknown Force. They are plaguing Ocaniaa City, yes they will not trust you at first you have to prove it to them who you are.
Good Luck

So after talking to the distrusting locals and gathering some history, we learned that the buildings were just the tops of much taller towers of what had been a larger city that a wealthy wizard sunk for some reason. Many people died long ago. So naturally we wanted to find a passage below to go meet them. As it turned out, one of the towers had a magical elevator that took us to the under-city, where the locals were even less trusting. Although there was about a 70' tall by 300' round pocket of air down here and some light among the lower parts of the same buildings, the original drowned residents had all become animated skeletons. Also, orc raiders had arrived just before we had, probably to try to loot the area. When diplomacy failed we ended up fighting both.

Nightshade (human rogue 6) struck early and often, her +2 hand crossbow lashing out from the shadows and striking down many a foe who never saw her. Tiger Lily (human monk 6) climbed and dove from towers with her almost unnatural poise and speed, kicking and punching like a storm of stony fists and knocking the tough enemy commanders off of their tower-top post. Min Vizardio (gnome warden 6) found himself surrounded by nearly half a dozen of the foe at one time -- just the way the liked it. Bree (wizard 6) the fighting mage went in hand to hand and seemed to be just fine. Rock (dwarf bard 6) was out on the edge of combat, making a big impact. Cyn'dar (dragonborn wizard 6) was well enough protected she could burn bad guys seemingly to her heart's content. Scourge (revenant deva cleric 6) did not realize his own resemblance to the foes around the party and fought them off while patching up the party's combat injuries. Gnoll (half orc battlemind 6) picked away at targets of opportunity.

As it turned out, the orcs and the skeletons were working together because at no point did they fight each other. Some kind of control was in place, or perhaps some dark dealings. A tower full of prisoners became apparent, only a couple blocks away. The party fought harder and triumphed against the enemies next to us, worked our way over and Nightshade picked some locks. Upon freeing the prisoners, victory was soon achieved for the "Unknown force" were outnumbered by masses of furious people who made short work of the remaining skeletons and orcs.

For treasure, each character found a sapphire straw worth 2,000 gp after searching the area.

Adventure date: Feb. 11, 2012. Age of DM: 10 (DM rotates every session)
Current B Team experience points: 9,000
Character build rules of B Team campaign: No racial bonuses may apply to class
Next session: Sat. Feb. 25, 3pm
Current campaigns: Planet of the Dragons (21st), B Team (6th), Module-O-Rama (2nd)

Module-a-rama

For the past couple of sessions Jon has been running D&D modules.

Our new characters in that campaign are 2nd level now. I have a couple of characters, Oz, a Deva Wizard and Hinges, a bugbear rogue. B. has a cleric based on Bob Kelso from Scrubs. Jon has Shar-I-Zard, a shardmind artificer. Carson had to work yesterday but a couple weeks before that he played an elf warden who really kept the bad guys away from all of us caster types. In fact when the new campaign began, he said "I call Defender!" which was refreshing because so often nobody wants to play that role.

In yesterday's session, the module featured a puzzle which B. & I figured out. Again, it was refreshing to have a puzzle instead of just the usual hack 'n slash (which I don't mind either). One of the criticisms I have heard about 4th edition is the emphasis on combat, but I have been playing since Advanced (1st edition) and each edition since then and nearly every group I have been with has preferred combat-heavy adventures. Anyway though, it's cool to see a puzzle type challenge every now and then. I would like to see a few more skill challenges too.

Hinges was built in a big hurry so I could play two characters and fill a gap since a lot of people couldn't make it. I used Jon's newest version D&D Insider/Character Builder and it just seemed quick and easy. Yes there are more choices than ever but if you're in a hurry you can just let it choose for you. I'm pretty sure the cleric I built for B. in an older version took ten times as long to create. The new character sheets are simple looking but they are complete with information, clear and easy to read.

Being down a character and getting into a tactical disadvantage almost got the entire party killed in the final encounter and of all things it was Hinges, the dumb bugbear rogue, who ended up saving the day. So I'm glad I took that extra minute to add him to the party. I can always flesh out more details on him before next time I play him. You wouldn't think a 7' tall monster would make a good rogue but he has +13 to his Stealth and regularly dishes out 20 damage with at-will attacks. That's probably not unusual for a striker but he was pretty fun to play.