Tell us about your RL game!

[CE2JRH]

I just realized there is no place for a journalled account of RL games here on DNDOG. So I want to hear about everyones RL games. Who are the players, who are the characters, what does the setting look like, how the sessions go, what's the plot, whatever you feel like telling!

I am going to start to post fairly detailed journals of the sessions we have (as I'm able to recall them), and I want to encourage others to do the same!



For now, I'll introduce the party:

 

The DM: Handsome, good looking, flamboyant, and surprisingly straight. He's played DND a long time (and has numerous other hobbies, including Beer Brewing, Sailing, Ballroom Dance, Cooking, Gaming (including MMORPGS), Climbing, Fencing (Eppe)) and is very devoted to world building (no one understands how he has time for everything). He's a 3rd year Geology Major (I think). His campaigns tend to be exceedingly well done, and I've played with him in first year and second year, but I'll be mostly documenting this most recent campaign (third year). He generally sticks to the rules exceedingly well, and won't fudge rolls in the slightest, killing players if the dice land that way, though he does make exceptions on occasion, in both directions (once, deliberately using a gnoll to kill an unconscious character despite other threats being nearby, once, allowing a player to be saved by a web spell in trees instead of a feather fall when falling from a hot air balloon at 2000 feet).

 

Co DM: Originally a player, but as the group has fluctuated, we decided adding a Co-DM was a good idea. Actually, I guess they decided. I can't remember. Not a big deal. Nice guy, great sense of humour, studying something Sciency. He is loose with the rules, often going with what works best in the situation, happy to defer to someone who knows what is going on, happy to make something reasonable up with our input if he doesn't know exactly what is allowed. He's got a good grasp of the rules, but will bend them a little when it suits the story, when it allows something funny to happen. The two styles contrast very smoothly. He started playing with us this year.

 

Sarah: Not real name, I'll be using the name interchangably for both character and person. She started playing with us in first year, and just learned DND then. By now, she's gotten quite a solid grasp on the basics, knows some prestige classes. Plays female characters, some melee, some casters. She's a 3rd year linguistic major, she also fences (foil), enjoys anime and reads fantasy. Her characters tend to be nicer then the rest of ours, which is sometimes funny. In this campaign, Sarah is a Noble, daughter of a minor lord and then promoted as the campaign progresses. Her character is a rougish party face, extremely beautiful, and extremely prone to enticing men into her bed for the purpose of gaining information, wealth, or power.

 

Elizabeth: Not real name, I'll be using the name interchangably for both character and person. She's just recently joined our group, about 5 or 6 sessions in, and is a 2nd year second year microbiology major. She is new to DND and just learning the rules, and I don't know her as well as I do some of the other people. Our characters are constantly at conflict, but I like her quite a bit outside the game, so I'm none to worried. She started a goodish character in a world of grey morality and neutralish-evilish companions. Her character, it turns out, was trapped in stone in the halls of knowledge for 2000 years, her arms hacked off, and later we found out that she may or may not have been responsible for a global war and catatstrophe, including Kythons (BoVD Aberrations and this world's Demons) wreaking havoc and a massive flood (enveloping as much as 80% of the landmass, though that is an estimate). She is a Fighter type character.

 

Jim: Dating Elizabeth, and he's been in the group a few months. He's friendly, in Business and working at the moment (also being flown in and out of Toronto, which causes him to miss some sessions). He's played a while and is good friends with the DM and Co-DM, and it's great having him along to flesh out the group. Jim is a rogueish type character as well, who, in his abscence, has been instrumental in the DM's world building, setting up activities and events that our character is only vaugly aware of (including a Merchants Guild, possibly co-opting the Thieves guild, possibly co-opting the pirates, and the discovery of a new continent!) The characters avarice for coin is played well.

 

Zander: He started playing with the DM, Sarah and I in first year, and he's in Engineering/Physics 3rd year. He's got a great knowledge of the rules, is a bit of an optimizer like me. He's exceedingly clever and witty, and is far better at I am when it comes to thinking of creative options. For example, we had a wish at one point, and I'm immediately thinking (Deck of Many things, power, attribute bonuses, artifacts, candles of invocation, etc). He came up with a map, demonstrating the nearby terrain, showing various things when asked for, including arrows for things outside its range if the thing is significant enough. (It can not point to a single person 3 days away, but it can point to a city 3 days away). He initially was playing a bard-grappler build, but the character was not motivated to stay with the party, and he has come back as a Warmage.

 

Myself, Mike (Mike's my actual name. Me and 89000 others.): I'm a 3rd year polisci/philosophy double major. I was initially playing a good healer, but that didn't last long, and I ended up reborn as an evil wizard, that since has been turned into a Yakfolk (No LA, no Racial Hit Dice...so, +7 NA, Darkvision 60, +8 str, +4 con). The character is devoted to being a master of magic, but at the moment is little more than a mage of moderate power. A running tension is that both I and Zander are willing to aim Burning Hands spells to hit lots of enemies, even if it hits Elizabeth as well (who, at the point, is none to impressed with such tactics).

 

Some more information about the world:
It is low magic. Masterwork and alchemical items cost 2* as much, as do special materials. Magical items are rare, and cost 5* as much.
It is standard fuedal, but it is a discworld, with rimward and centarward rather than north and south, and some other things we can't ever remember.
It is a modified E6 campaign. The first 4 levels are of a NPC class. The next 6 levels of are any class. At 10, we'll generate bonus feats 1/adventure, or a person can train in 10 feats for 11, 20 for 12, 40 for 13, 80 for 14, etc., with 10-20 being "Epic" levels. I am under the impression that the vast majority of the world (95%) is under level 3-4.

I am generally not entirely certain when the levelling occurred, but I have some guesses.

General: We meet every saturday night.

We use the armor as damage conversion variant (so everyone gets knocked unconsious, rather than killed)

Anyways, feel free to comment on this project, add your own adventure logs, tell me what you think, tell me what your groups been up to, etcetera, etcetera, how you'd deal with whatever situation arises.

Stay tuned for updates.

If anyone else writes about their games, I'll link into their campaign's session by session as well.
Or feel free to start your own thread for journalling your adventures if you prefer, and I'll link here to all the journals.


CE2JRH's RL game (DND 3.5E, Homebrew, player)
Members of the Party and Campaign Info
Session 1
Session 2 and 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 7
Session 8
Session 9
Session 10
Session 11
Session 12-16: End of the Campaign.

Tetron's RL game (d20 Modern, Player)
Session 1

Aary's RL game (D&D 3.5E, Player)
Introduction and Session 1

Duke of Dellot's Game (GURPS, styled in D&D 4E)
Introduction and Session 1

[Efekjek]

I don't really have time right now, but I play two RL games and DM one other, so I may post some info about them at some point. Just popped in to let you know if you post 'em, I'll read 'em!

[CE2JRH]

Oh yeah, just so it's clear, I don't really expect people to make detailed accounts like this. Just a few lines or two. I'm just going into detail for the fun of it.

[Hywel]

I once played the same campaign for 2 years, once a week. eventually, the only thing that could kill us...was ourself. we ran into exact copies of ourself. only difference was, THEY didnt have to hold back, and save the big exploding and time-stopping spells for later.

[CE2JRH]

Likely, you caught the attention of someone with a mirror of opposition and some power to get it to activate at a distance.

First couple session posts should show up here shortly.

[CE2JRH]

Session 1: Introduction:

This was 8 months back, so I’m getting assistance from some of the other players in memories and editing and things.

We start in the town of Gorinway, and the party is Sarah, the daughter of the Baron of Gorinway, The CO-DM, Sarah’s grumpy and drunk body guard and a couple NPC’s (including a maid) myself, as the Baron and towns healer and priest.


This is the first sort of “introduction to the world” adventure. There is a summit of the Nobles, and the Baron of Gorinway doesn’t really want to go, so he sends his daughter, Sarah, and us.
We go through the Hightower Inn, a central point at the campaign world, where the DM has printed a menu, as well as has details on pretty much everyone working there. After a nights rest, we continue on.

When we get to the capital city of Dorchester, we find that there are more elves around than usual. We head to the summit of the nobles, where we are pressed into the Kings service, and told to go with the elves north, as numerous groups of elves are headed north.

On our travels, we pass a 100 foot tall black spire, which is known as the Spine (but happens to also be the ancient and partially destroyed Tower of the High Mages). We climb on top, finding it to be protected with an invisible barrier of force. At the door, we try to get in. I have the “brilliant” (and I mean that as sarcastically as possible) idea of burning the door down with a burning hands, but the force of the spell is reflected back at me.

We head back, stopping at the Hightower Inn again, and Sarah has some escapades with one of the stable boys, who is one of a set of twins. We get back to Gorinway, and the baron refuses to let his daughter go on with us in our business of stalking the elves on their passage north (their lands are at the south, the dwarves lands are at the north). Sarah escapes in the night, is accosted by robbers, manages to fight them off, and then rejoins us.

In the north, we come across dead elven warbands. We make it to the base of the mountains where we are supposed to meet the elves, but they don’t show. We find evidence of dwarves and elves fighting, then an elf shows up and tells us we should leave. We head south, back to the King, to inform him. On our way back, we are accosted by a few goblins, quickly dispatched with a burning hands spell.

Just outside of town, we encounter a dire badger, which knocks everyone unconscious, causes me to use every scroll I have, and is literally a handful of hit points from a TPK.

Sarah: Female Human Aristocrat 2
CODM: Male Human Warrior 2
Me: Male Human Adept 2

[CE2JRH]

 

Session 2: Various things happen. Some of what happens in the next or previous session might have happened here.

At the high tower inn, there is a festival, and we party. An elf joins us, who is later killed by Tred. The pre-tournament timeline is a bit messy.

The King wants to know if Glyeric, one of the more powerful nobles, is planning anything. We head up to Glyeric, and get to meet him.

In the city of Glyeric, we meet Glyeric, who is suspicious of the King and wants to know what is up with the elves.

Session 3: The Tournament Part 1

We head to Glyeric, to tell him about the fighting between the elves and the dwarves, our getting in the King’s good books. Basically all we’ve learned. He sends us to Dorchester and the King to try to find evidence of the King’s alliance with the elves. Glyeric, to cement our loyalty, starts building us a keep in the northern section of world, near the dwarves. It’s actually useless foothills sort of area, but we were pleased, and broke out the Stronghold Builders Guidebook.

We head to Dorchester, finding both the Hightower Inn and the are surrounding the High Tower of the Mages both crawling with elves.

We get to Dorchester, playing on Glyerics side, ask the King what he would like us to do, and trying to gain information about the elves. The King glibly tells us he wants a tournament in 3 weeks; but we know it’s just a brush off, sort of “go do something that involves not bothering me command”. Regardless, we decide we’re going to do it, and organize the tournament over a couple days.

That leaves us with some free time, so we go check out our lands, finding the Old North Watchtower. I transcribe the text on the inside of the watchtower, finding the following text;

 

2000 year old writing:
The 5th Age of this world. The history has much been forgotten, it is important to pass on what we can. Aeron and Crius created the world as a neutral zone in the war 4 ages ago. Now we celebrate the foundation of the Pytherian Empire. Never has the entirety of the power of the World been consolidated in one place, in one person, Emperor Pythas himself. There have been almost 400 years of peace, a military remians for ceremonial purposes.

Thandir 8th, 670 of the 5th Age:
For three days now we have not seen the sun. The darkness is worst here, it stems from the tower to the south. The Grand Council of the Mages has met and the dark mages have taken power.

Thrandir 25th, 670 of the 5th Age:

Hosts of strange and barbaric creatures are now roaming the areas around the Tower of the Mages. Those of us in the watch towers remain alert. The seven watch towers charged with defending the Tower of the Mages are impervious to most everything, but with the increasing number of evil creatures (Kythons) we fear even we will be overrun. We still have not seen the sun.

Kosdir 4th, 671 of the 5th Age: The everburning flames on 3 of the watch towers have gone out. The creatures congregate at the base of the remaining 4. Still no sun.

Kosdir 5th, 671 of the 5th Age: All the other watch towers are dim. We are next.

.

We do various other things lost to the winds of history before the tournament, including killing an elf, if I recall correctly. We meet up with Jim, who is playing a halfling thief/merchant.


Sarah: Female Human Aristocrat 2--->3
CODM: Male Human Warrior 2--->3
Me: Male Human Adept 2 --->3
Jim: Halfling Human Expert 3

[CE2JRH]

Session 4: The Tournament Part 2.

Jim sells insurance to both tournament goers and combatants, an insurance that is basically worthless. The jousting competition has a prize of a cloak of resistance +1, and the other tournaments have random coin prizes. Archery, Caber Toss, Relay race with trees (not sure how that came up) more or less go off without a hitch. In the Mixed melee, Sarah and I both participate, and Zander shows up as well, as a grappler. (This where he is introduced). Zander wins the mixed melee, Sarah is knocked our reasonably early on, and my good healer adept gets killed.

I quickly rejoin the campaign as an evilish mage that is polite and pretends to be civil until people get to know him. Instead of trying to help the world (As the last character did), this mage is just out to serve himself. This character has worked for the King in the past, and is a loremaster and crafter as well.

Sarah: Female Human Aristocrat 3
CODM: Male Human Warrior 3
Me: Male Human Adept 3—> 2
Jim: Male Halfling Expert 3
Zander: Male Human Expert 2/Warrior 1--->Expert2/Warrior 2

(The DMs give out combat exp as well as RPXP, which is what caused the shifts. I lost a level by dying, since the standard rule is if you die, you come back a level lower).

The tournament is a success, the king is surprised but pleased, we found the elves are very deliberately occupying the area around the High Tower of the Mages, putting up a semi-permanent encampment.

Question; what other games/tournaments could be held at a tournament? We had mixed melee, jousting, Archery, Caber Toss, and a Relay race with people carrying things like cabers. Any other ideas?

We also decide to put up posters, offering to give peasants small tracts of land and no taxes, trying to populate the northern reaches of the land (where our stronghold is).

[CE2JRH]

Session 5: The Halls of Knowledge (I was absent, so much of this is hearsay)

In the forests south of our Keep (Korad Keep), the group finds rumours of a library. Searching the forests, they encounter a Dire Bear. One of Sarah’s followers runs away. Inside the Library (which we later learn is the Halls of Knowledge) are many bugbears and traps, and secret doors that are exceedingly difficult to find.

Getting deeper into the Ancient halls, the group discovers a statue, which attacks them. They manage to trap the statue, and Zander comes close to chopping it’s arm off with an axe when it abruptly changes into a person — Elizabeth. Elizabeth doesn't speak our language and can't communicate --- yet.

Zander and Elizabeth duel, with Jim taking bets, back in Glyeric when we go to report in (Glyeric is the one that sent us to the halls of knowledge to begin with)

Sarah: Female Human Aristocrat 3—>4
CODM: Male Human Warrior 3—>4 — At this point, he leaves to administrate Korad Keep and becomes the Co-DM rather than a player.
Me: Male Human Adept 2 (Absent)
Jim: Male Halfling Expert 3 —> 4
Zander: Male Human Expert2/Warrior 2/Bard1
Elizabeth: Female Human Warrior 3

[CE2JRH]

Session 6: Assassination

Throughout this adventure, we work on teaching Elizabeth the modern tongue. She improves quickly.

Glyeric wants us to assassinate a competitor, Severin, and have the blame fall on Worsley, one of the King’s close allies and in line to gain power if the King goes down. I craft a ring with Worsley’s signet on it. We procure tickets to a party Worsley is having (and have to kill him before the party? Or feel like we should?) We briefly discuss poisoning everyone, or finding a way to slip poison into his drink. We watch him go into his house, and decide to set the house on fire and just kill him on his way out. We also kill servants that look approximately like Sarah and Elizabeth, so we can disguise them as the dead servants.

We watch Severin go into the house, throw burning oil flasks on roof, and watch people run out. Surprisingly, Severin does not run out, and we run into the house with water, to “help” put out the fire. Searching for Severin, he’s nowhere to be found though I pick up what I think to be a cube of force, and a Cloak of Resistance +2. Jim the halfling also loots all the family jewels and things like that.

The fire is put out and Severin is nowhere to be seen, so we come back the next day, getting contracted as roofers. While we thatch the roof, we also search the house. We find a secret passage, but as we go in, I say “Secret passage.” Immediately there is a fierce ringing, and the cube of force turns out to be a stone of alarm (with the key word secrets, which caused it to attach to something in my bag, at which point I moved, shaking my bag, and setting the stone of alarm off).

We have a long drawn out fight with soldiers in this dark escape tunnel, and eventually make it out. We find that Severin is hiding in an inn named the Wet Halfling. Severin eventually goes back to the house with his remaining guards. Sarah, as the servant, tells Severin that there is a messenger from Worsley outside. Severin comes down, and we kill him, planting the signet ring on his corpse.


Sarah: Female Human Aristocrat 4
Me: Male Human Adept 3—>4
Jim: Male Halfling Expert 4
Zander: Male Human Expert2/Warrior 2/Bard1
Elizabeth: Female Human Warrior 3—>4

[CE2JRH]

Session 7: Pirates!

In Severin (the city, not the guy we killed) we find out that one of Severin’s (the man) guards saw us assassinate him. He tries to blackmail us, sending 2 friends away before the conversation starts. We start a bar fight, killing him and his friend in the chaos. After arguing outside for a bit, we decide not to go after his two friends, which turns out to be a mistake.

Everyone but Sarah skips town; Sarah stays to plant rumours. The two friends of the guard we killed report us, forcing us all to change our appearances. We head to Glyeric, who isn’t impressed, to say the least, hoping we’d do a better job. Glyeric wants us to go to an island to retrieve some information in some ruins, but doesn’t specify what. We have 4 weeks. Sarah seduces Glyeric’s son and is building a long term relationship with him. We ask him to let us borrow one of her ships.

We head to the island, getting attacked by pirates on the way. We fight off the pirates in a fierce battle, stealing their ship and capturing some of their crew while losing much of ours. We move to land slowly. Pirates hold has 20000 copper coins and a single periapt of wisdom +2.

In the night, the party argues about trying and killing Zander for mutiny, a position presented by Jim and backed by Elizabeth. Sarah seems neutral, and I argue for Zander. The reasons:
1) Zander is a grappler, and fights in a “dirty style”
2) Jim had been stealing from Zander. Zander turned around and beat Jim up, dragging him to an inn and demanding an apology
3) Zander wanted to try to keep our cover to the soldiers trying to blackmail us, and tackled me to do so.

After my defence of Zanders actions, the party agrees to wait and judge for a short while longer.

Sarah: Female Human Aristocrat 4
Me: Male Human Adept 4
Jim: Male Halfling Expert 4/Rogue 1
Zander: Male Human Warrior Expert2/Warrior 2/Bard1
Elizabeth: Female Human Warrior 4

[idilippy]

Question; what other games/tournaments could be held at a tournament? We had mixed melee, jousting, Archery, Caber Toss, and a Relay race with people carrying things like cabers. Any other ideas?

Feats of strength maybe, such as lifting heavy stones or trees and maybe an unarmed fighting exhibition such as a wrestling or boxing match. Also knife or axe throwing could be possible, though I dunno if any of those would be a match for a noble's tournament.

Anyways this is all really interesting so far, sounds like quite an interesting game.

[CE2JRH]

Ah, we had games for peasants (the log race, caber toss, archery to an extent) and the mixed melee and calvery would have been more noble.

[CE2JRH]

This update is longer, partially because lots happen. Partially because I am better able to remember what happened.

 

Session 8: The Island and the Watchtower; first introduction of Kythons

The party arrives at Strongdale on one of the major islands. The people of Strongdale are having a ring-throwing ceremony to determine the local lord's bride. The ceremony goes something like this: The lord takes a ring and throws it as hard and far into the water as he can. The would be bridge jumps in, naked, diving for the ring. If they come up without the ring, they are killed, by will of the water gods. If they get the ring, they marry the lord. Many drown. We find this a little odd but do not comment. I note that as soon as I get the waterbreathing spell I am so coming here for rings. Sometime during the journey, I notify Zander that he is in trouble and should step cautiously.

In the forest, we encounter a strange shelled creature, the size of a large dog. It spits poison and has claws. (Juvenile Kython). Elizabeth recognizes it and is not pleased.

We find the archeological ruins, being administrated by a man named Jathryn. This is where the campaign starts to get insanely complex and dark. Jathryn is a mage, and has an incredible dagger with a red gemstone. It drinks blood, and then turns it into magical energy, allowing a person to reduce crafting GP and XP cost by 1 each per 2 hit points of damage. The gemstone goes from clear (empty) to red (full) at 100 hp, allowing a maximum of 50gp/50xp to be removed from crafting. My character has scribe scroll and craft wondrous item and is going to have a crafting focus.

The way into the ruins is through 5 gemstones, put in slots. As soon as one gemstone is removed, door slams shut. Jathryn tells us the name of the creatures (Kythons), but we do not understand it, except for Korath. They say the word, but we hear gibberish (we settled on Dirigibles as our appropriately gibberish after random other things, including Kittens). Jathryn lets us know that numerous Kythons have escaped the dungeon and who knows how many are still in.

We go through a few empty excavated rooms, at which point we come to an invisible bridge running over water below. The invisible bridge has a 10 foot gap in the middle, which we cross. As we’re doing this, I notice that the floor in the room is falling away as the torches burn down, giving this adventure a very frenetic feel. We get to the door on the other side, and narrowly avoid a guillotine trap when opening. Unfortunately, that blocks our progress (it is a huge metal sheet) and the floor is falling away behind us, so we frantically batter down the metal door. We get into another room with 6 hands on the wall. Zander quickly uses a mage hand to fill the last one, (because he had been wanting me to create a hand of the mage, which I insisted would be useless). We continue to find runes like this as we work through the dungeon, including a trap of a shrinking hall, which Jim the halfling squeezed through to release, and a huge wall trap (basically, a massive barricade in the middle of the dungeon, can be lifted with a crank and appropriate strength). Through all this we hear the dungeon crashing into the abyss itself behind us.

Deeper in the dungeon, we find a human corpse, preserved as if it had died recently, surrounded by dozens of Kython corpses. Elizabeth finds an artifact from her time, and reveals to us much of the history. Long ago there was a war between white mages and black mages, with red mages (mercenary warmages) taking the white’s side, if only because the white mages paid better. The war insane and brutal, and in it, Kythons roamed the disc, killing wantonly. This sword was an artifact of power. We also discover the robe of a black mage, left with the questions; how did a black mage get the sword, how did it get here, and why would a black mage kill the Kythons (given that they created them, and were supposed to have a way to control them). The champion that held the sword disappeared, and this is one of the things that turned the tide of the war; though Elizabeth also was turned to stone before the war ended, she knows that the side of good was losing.

Elizabeth grabs the sword, and a massive Kython bashes through the wall. We are fighting it for quite some time, and the torches that light the room start to fade, leaving the floor falling away. We realize the torches can actually rebuild the floor, and we try to push it off one of the edges by removing the torches. We get it to the edge when a bigger Kython comes up and eats the smaller Kython. We start fleeing for our lives, Kython’s chasing us, using the torches to rebuild the dungeon as we go. When we get to the exit, the door is sealed shut; someone removed one of the gems.

We are confused about what to do, but hopeful the Kythons are unable to jump over the gap in the bridge. There are also frightened excavators working inside. The floor continues to fall away, and shortly, we’re standing on a pool of light with a handful of frightened workers. I notice there is a hand mark on the door like we found elsewhere in the dungeon, but as the light gets near, it fades away. We pull the light so that there is one inch of darkness before the door, then I lean over darkness, opening it, and we escape.

We ask Jathryn why he locked us in and didn’t respond to our pleas for help. He said Kythons were escaping and they had to lock it. We believe it possible, but wonder about the incompetence of not leaving anyone to guard the locked door. We suspect he is trying to kill us.

Jathryn reveals that he can provide people with a tattoo, an insignia of the black mages, carved in with his dagger of blood (that he trades to me for the stone of alarm, further information that he doesn’t intend to let us live, otherwise why would he give us this priceless artifact?) Sarah gets the tattoo and can say Kythons, Elizabeth can, and I quickly find myself able as well, because of the dagger of blood.

We decide that we want to go back in, to discover what was beyond the wall that the Kython ripped through. We open the door, this time instructing Jathryn to leave a man by the door if he has to shut it for some reason (as if guarding the door that has Kythons running out of it wasn’t a given for an intelligent mage). When we go in, we find all the workers standing at the front, insane. As soon as they see the light, they run off. The one we tackle and interrogate is insane and dies seconds after we catch hold of him.

However, the entire dungeon is replaced. We get to the bridge room, and it is also replaced, at which point we realize the floor fleeing + the light rebuilding it is all an illusion. To test, I tie a rope around myself and try to “climb” into the dark “destroyed” floor, which of course, ends up being an illusion. We go further into the dungeon, less worried about the dungeon being destroyed (though we still want to avoid insanity). When we get to the final room, we find the wall back in place (also an illusion) but a ring around the edge of the room we can drop down into, and a hidden room under the final room. In there, we discover a painting that shifts through various people we’ve met, a woman that is generally attached to them in some way, and an infant, unchanging. (Later we used an identify spell and found it to be an artifact). It also had notes from a mage and formulas on the wall, magic writings, etc. We copied the writings, and then left, confronting Jathryn, who again locked us in. All the Kythons were gone, escaped through the river presumably.

Jathryn seemed suspicious of us, and knew our location without looking at us, while inside his tent, etcetera. We tried to gauge his power and were very worried. Jim, halfling rogue, puts on the black robe (Because it enhances hiding), and at night, we assassinate some of the 10 soldiers with Jathryn. We find out that Jathryn can detect the rogue, and tells him to stop bothering the soldiers, but he isn’t aware that Jim is actually killing them. We get through 7 of the soldiers and then Jim just makes it to the mage, killing him as he raises alarm. We catch up 2 more of the soldiers in Jathryn’s tent and then light it on fire using burning hands, killing the soldiers.

The last soldier flees, having been fishing, coming on the scene of destruction. We chase him to the river, killing him. I take Jathryn’s spell book, and we end the night there. We wonder how much Jathryn knows, how much Glyeric knows, and if Glyeric is actually evil or not.

Sarah: Female Human Noble 4—> Swashbuckler 1
Me: Male Human Adept 4
Jim: Male Halfling Expert 4/Rogue 1 —> Rogue 2
Zander: Male Human Expert2/Warrior 2/Bard 1---->Bard 2
Elizabeth: Female Human Warrior 4—>Fighter 1

[CE2JRH]

Session 9: Back home, the old north watchtower.

From the ruins of the watchtower we head back to Strongdale, and take the ship down the coast to the small merchant town because Jim wants to see about setting up trade relations. When we get there, the town is being attacked by Kythons, everywhere. Some of us jump into action, attempting to aid the townsfolk. Jim starts looking for places to loot. The townsfolk decide to leave, since we inform them that Kythons will now be rampaging this island (apparently they jumped in the river under the broken bridge and let the current drag them out — smart and nasty). They buy the two pirate ships we captured to help their evacuation, and we guard them as they load everything salvageable onto the ship. Jim gets trapped in a burning jewellery shop, and we rescue him, discovering that a ring he found DM’s know where is actually a ring of nine lives with 3 lives left.

We sail home, and inform Glyeric that Kythons killed everyone at the worksite. We try to ascertain if he is evil, and determine that he wants to use Kythons to wage war with the King. We start to wonder if maybe we’re working for the wrong side. He sends us to the watchtower located on our lands, near Korad Keep.

We head to that watchtower, getting in using our 5 gemstones. Near the entrance, we find two freshly preserved corpses and a collapsed wall of rock. We use the ring of nine lives and some improvisational magic to revive one of the men long enough to talk to him (totally ad-hoc house rule, but the man didn’t tell us much other than “Use the magic black dust you already looted off my corpse.”) The dust shrunk us, allowing us to get through the rocks.

We travel through a dungeon shrunk, allowing us to bypass a trap that shoots gemstones that explode. We encounter Kythons, which miraculously do not notice us, or do not care due to our size. We travel through the dungeon, which has an identical layout to the previous watch-tower. When we get to the secret room under the final circular room, on the table is a wax version of the tower, appropriate for our size. We go through the dungeon again, which is filled with wax kythons that attack us, but are highly vulnerable to fire, so we group them then melt them.

When we get to the final room, there is another tower, but we can’t get in. I discover a map of the tower, and that the shrinking dust magic we took was permanent. The map shows a secret room off the final circular room. When we go in there is a wax kython queen and kython eggs everywhere, which we destroy.

The room has some sort of complex anti-magic/reaving dispel effect, and as soon as we go into in the real world version (not the wax version), we return to full size. All the kythons are dead, looking as if they’d been melted by powerful magic.

In the queen room is a pair of gloves with an aura of evil and hooks on them. They’re clearly meant for Zander, but everyone is reluctant to put them on, so I carry them in my pack until we can get more information.

We head to Glyeric and level with him. We killed the Kythons and do not think they can be controlled. He is angry and tells us to leave, confirming his evil.

At the start of the next session, I put on the gloves, without telling the rest of the party. They hook into my hands, causing excruciating pain. They provide a +4 bonus to strength based checks and skill checks, including grapple, and increase unarmed damage to 1d6. The downside is that anything I grab I have to kill, otherwise the gloves will drain my life from me. To make matters worse, it is impossible to take them off. Knowing this, Zander would not have wanted the gloves, but my frail mage was happy to have something to allow him to make climb and jump checks.

Sarah: Female Human Noble 4/Swashbuckler 1
Me: Male Human Adept 4—>Cleric 1
Jim: Male Halfling Expert 4/Rogue 2
Zander: Male Human Expert2/Warrior 2/Bard 2
Elizabeth: Female Human Warrior 4/Fighter 1