We rejoined our heroes standing among the overgrown ruins of Darkshire after surviving the failed ambush against the goblins. Cai’atal alrum Aziel having come close to death decides that he is not yet ready for the life of the adventurer and wishing the party well leaves (Sadly Andrew is no longer able to keep playing with the group). With the goblins retreated back towards the only fully standing building, a ruined temple a few hundred feet away, the party take a short rest and searching the slain goblins for any worthwhile loot and Alken Drum managing to open the small chest that the goblins had been fighting over. The chest contained a number of parchments with scribbled writing that none but the blood hunter Corwin could read and even as he did he felt a dark presence trying to interfere with his mind though being trained to resist such things he easily shrugged it off and kept the papers for further study later. Now with their wounds bound the party watched as Alken crept up to the ruined temple, to some unknown god the symbol looked kind of like a duck to him, and spied upon the few goblins remaining. Signaling to the rest that there was only a handful left the decision was quickly made and Grimbol Goblin Woundmaker (As he had yet to get a killing blow) charged forward ignoring the goblin’s cries of “Parlay” with the rest of the group keeping pace with the enraged dwarf. The rematch with the remaining goblins was swift and brutal with our heroes slaughtering them easily with the only damage taken was by Grimbol as the goblin shaman Viciously Mocked his mother, and yet again Grimbol only managed to wound the shaman before the rest of his skilled companions despatched all foes. Among the ruins of this church our heroes found a captive Halforc named Denny; this rotund, jovial and dopy sounding prisoner dressed in tattered white robes and wearing a crown of twigs and leafs claimed to be a follower of the great god Groot and while sad that the poor goblins came to a violent end was happy that he was no longer on the menu. Denny tells our heroes that they are standing in an old temple to Alune, goddess of punishment and torture, and yes he has seen another Dwarf in the last few days. It looked like a Bad Dwarf because he was walking along with Undead creatures and went down into the crypts below. Judging Denny to be a simpleton, but a well meaning one, our heroes found the entrance to the crypt where they decide to send Denny first in case of ambush and cheerfully he obliges though not as stealthily as they would have liked calling out “helloooooooooo any Bad Dwarves down here!?” the entrance chamber of the crypt had a statue of Alune (The Swan Goddess, not duck) with a chopping block and two old and rusty executioner weapons mounted on the walls. Two paths led from this room the “Way of the Repentant Sinner” and “Way of the Unrepentant Sinner” the party chose to go the way or the repentant sinner, and Torvad Hax effortlessly lifts the portcullis blocking the way. All this time Grimbol still remains outside of the crypt “To watch for goblin ambushes”. It turns out that the repentant sinner had to suffer through various types of torture as the party passed through rooms with all manner of implements used for causing pain, most with skeletal remains still chained to the devices, also one room with a number of large beds made of now rotted silk and a few old whips laying around… in one of the many statues of Alune they find a silver statue of Alune hidden within. Finally they find a room with someone speaking dwarvish from within and with no time to waste they kick down the door to see Son'Ka Goldtouch clutching a foul looking tome, flanked by two rotten corpses clad in ruined ceremonial armour and clutching broken weapons. The figures were standing at the end of a long room with large deep trench filled with “a dark liquid” battle ensues. And Grimbol still remains outside the crypt. Son’Ka fled immediately shouting “Save me please” while Torvad Hax and Corwin each engaged an undead guard on either side of the “Dark liquid filled trench” (Because I didn’t call it water the players kept saying “Liquid” in a deep and menacing voice) while Alken Drum and Feanaro shot arrows and flaming bolts from the doorway. These undead creatures were extremely resilient to normal attacks and the mighty blows from Torvad’s great sword only lightly wounded them, Corwin brought forth fire upon his blade due to his Right of Blood and the fire seemed to be more effective. But these creatures fought back with great skill and vicious intent clawing at Corwin’s eyes and draining his very life force. Denny charged forward calling down a blessing of Groot upon the group and using his divine arts to heal some of Corwin’s wounds and exclaiming “Hey guys… that’s a LOT of oil!” the shouts of battle echoing through the crypt up to the surface and Grimbol still remains outside the crypt. The battle reaches its peak as one of the undead guards grapple Corwin and both plummet into the 6 ft deep 20ft long trench of oil, he barely manages to break free and climb out before Feanaro seizes the opportunity to end the battle and ignites the oil finishing off both creatures and scorching some of his companions, Torvad only remains standing due his orcish heritage granting him an inhuman endurance but sadly Corwin was still drenched in oil and ignited in a ball of fire but his Tiefling nature kept him alive long enough for the flames to be put out and Grimbol still remains outside the crypt. After some healing from Denny, and an uncomfortable group hug, the party send Denny to go look for Grimbol while they loot the one body they can, the other still under all that burning oil, they find a emerald within its chest. Denny isn’t very good at convincing Grimbol to come inside, and doesn’t try very hard before heading back to the group. Aiken then goes and tries to convince Grimbol to join them by speaking off the mounds of gold they’ve found, sadly he isn’t very convincing so Aiken returns alone. Finding their resolve they push forward after Son’Ka Goldtouch and find him cowering, soiled, crying and talking to himself begging for help, Aiken tries to snatch the book off him but fails and so the heroes hold him down while Aiken pries the book out of his hands, it is like the notes and written in an infernal script, and hands it to Corwin who flicks through a few pages shouts out bending double in pain and throws the book upon the ground. It seems the heroes have found the tome they were sent for, as Aiken picks it up and starts to leave the room Son’ka cries out in pain and starts to change, his hands turning to claws, Feanaro wastes no time and launches a trio of magical bolts at Son’Ka which kills him instantly blowing off the top of his head allowing the Shadow Demon within to rise and reveal itself…. And Grimbol still remains outside the crypt. The battle with the Shadow Demon was quick, with Aiken running all the way outside past Grimbol who still is frozen in inaction, Feanaro backed away then blasted the Shadow Demon with fire which wasn’t massively effective, Corwin and Torvad hacked at the creature causing it enough pain until it retreated back into its own realm but not before he pointed at Corwin and shouted something at him in its demonic language. And that’s where we ended the session. With Grimbol still outside. |
This session went much smoother with the players more confident on their abilities and with a clear goal before them. We got plenty of interaction with my silly voiced Denny NPC, now I fully believe that you don’t require a “Healer” to have fun but since most of my players are relatively new to D&D I felt that giving a helping hand wouldn’t be a bad thing and support clerics are good in that they are less likely to “outshine” the players also I made it quite clear that the NPC’s opinions are not the DM’s opinions and since he doesn’t seem to be the sharpest sword in the armoury they didn’t look to him to solve their problems. I do love chatting in character though when doing silly voices / mannerisms I’m not always able to maintain character without laughing.
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and already the Player paranoia of the wording used by the DM has struck, always fun as long as they don’t get too drawn out of character by it, and I enjoyed how Kai (Grimbol) stuck to his character flaw he chose and was too afraid to go underground (Over seven extremely bad fear saving throws, self inflicted saving throws, made it very comical because it was clear how much he wanted to go and get stuck in with the rest of the party but chose embrace his character’s claustrophobia (Gaining himself a well earned Inspiration) that being said character flaws like that can end up ruining a players fun if they always end up having them effectively sitting out for a large chunk of the session. Everyone seemed to be getting more into character or at least it felt more relaxed and that’s always a good thing in RPG games. Also very funny that while playing a “Troll Slayer” archetype he has yet to kill anything.
Also Richard sat in playing with his Syrinscape program and did some very well timed sound effects to the amusement of all :)
I’m very much looking forward to our next session (We might play twice a month rather than just once, we shall see)
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and already the Player paranoia of the wording used by the DM has struck, always fun as long as they don’t get too drawn out of character by it, and I enjoyed how Kai (Grimbol) stuck to his character flaw he chose and was too afraid to go underground (Over seven extremely bad fear saving throws, self inflicted saving throws, made it very comical because it was clear how much he wanted to go and get stuck in with the rest of the party but chose embrace his character’s claustrophobia (Gaining himself a well earned Inspiration) that being said character flaws like that can end up ruining a players fun if they always end up having them effectively sitting out for a large chunk of the session. Everyone seemed to be getting more into character or at least it felt more relaxed and that’s always a good thing in RPG games. Also very funny that while playing a “Troll Slayer” archetype he has yet to kill anything.
Also Richard sat in playing with his Syrinscape program and did some very well timed sound effects to the amusement of all :)
I’m very much looking forward to our next session (We might play twice a month rather than just once, we shall see)