All posts by jon

Border Princes

Session 2 – Healing Arrow: It Makes All Your Pain Go Away

Brokk looks after Tobruk and heals his wounds. We continue our journey down the Khyprian Road. After a while we come upon a small hamlet called Freistadt. It is basically a couple of small buildings and one large building. The large building is a coaching inn, which is a mini fortification where you can stable your horse, a tavern, an inn and a fence around it to keep some form of protection. They are common throughout the Empire. The inn is called the Crossed Lances.

There is a small gathering of peasants that are watching something happen. They have someone lashed to a stick and someone is addressing the crowd. The man is wearing armor and weapons, and has a wide-brimmed hat. He has four henchmen along with him.

The dwarves head into the crowd and try to see what is going on. The man is going on about how “We have tracked this foul creature of darkness through forest and mountain, across our great lord Sigmar’s empire to this savage wilderness. He thought he could escape Sigmar’s wrath, he thought wrong!” People in the crowd are chanting “Burn him!”

Brokk asks one of the townspeople who the heretic is, and they say they don’t know. They just arrived in town with him.

The heretic speaks up, saying “Oswald, you fool, you know…” and doesn’t finish as one of the henchmen clocks him with a club. He has longer hair and looks sturdy, but is really beaten up. He seems like a Norska, with a Scandinavian look.

Tobruk asks one of the other townspeople what he did, and she says that he was communing with the devil. He and He then approaches the witch hunter, which and the man greets him warmly. He says that Sigmar favors dwarves. Tobruk asks if the man could be put into service instead of burning him, and the man laughs.

We start thinking that the witch hunter does not have any charges because he is being very vague. Brokk tries to turn the crowd from being rabid into questioning the witch hunter but it doesn’t take. He continues chanting “Where’s the proof?”

Tobruk asks the man if he’s done anything, and he responds that he was just helping in the fields and they arrested him. The thug goes to hit him with the club again and Tobruk goes to stop him. The witch hunter whirls and draws his rapier, his eyes ablaze. The man who was going to strike the prisoner tries to hit Tobruk and misses.

Jean, the cartographer, moves away toward the tavern.

Brokk steps in between Tobruk and the witch hunter and says that he is Brokk’s prisoner, so the man can’t touch him. He sneers at Brokk.

Tobruk is hit in the chest by the guard he is near, and hits him in the chest. Tobruk grapples him. One of the thugs takes two arrows, one in each arm, and then a third in his chest, breaking his ribs.

Maruviel looses an arrow and hits the witch hunter in the chest, but it doesn’t wound him much. He retreats and fires his pistol at Brokk, hitting him in the arm. Brokk turns and hurls his bola at the man, trapping him.

Tobruk slashes the guard in the leg and he falls. A second blow hits him in the gut and destroys his internal organs, killing him instantly. “We’ll make kidney pie later!!” Tobruk says.

Vedasi shoots one of the guards right between the eyes with an arrow. The prisoner, Geeves, breaks out of his bonds. The witch hunter drops his pistol and gets out of the bola. Vedasi fires an arrow at a fleeing thug and kills him. Jean shoots Oswald in the right arm and he drops his rapier. He goes further insane (he was already doubly so) and now thinks that he is worthless. Tobruk chops that same arm right off and he falls to the ground, dead. The last guard is shot dead and the group checks all of the bodies. We take a bunch of their equipment. We notice that they have scars on their backs but don’t realize that they are probably flagellants. Brokk heals himself.

Jean reads the witch hunter’s book and they are insane ramblings, about how he is going to conquer the world with his mental powers. He also has a thigh bone with him with a stylized hammer on it, the mark of the Cult of Sigmar. We pile the bodies into the burn pile and set it ablaze.

Geeves, the man who was about to be burned, goes to the stables and finds all of his stuff. He comes back and asks help to be healed. Brokk says that we should go to the inn and he will help him. Geeves introduces himself and says that he is a traveler who was working as a farmhand nearby and was arrested for no reason. Brokk heals him quite well.

We head into the taproom. There are men playing cards in the corner. Tobruk buys a round for everyone in the bar and explains that they were madmen, and apologize for the mess. They seem to accept us.

We speak with Greeves and he says that he came from the north and was captured by a neighboring clan. He was a captive for a long time until they got raided and then he fled south. He has some skills with healing and alchemy. Brokk gets to know him a bit and they sit and eat.

The others get up and check to see if one of the other bar patrons is Wolfgang Kellerman, as he might be the one who could give us a “quest for hidden treasure” as the note we found had said.

Star Wars EOE

Session 2 – Sigmentus

Quentin quickly takes out his medkit and heals Kuma and Zach of their wounds from the gundark fight. While this is going on, Ten goes inside one of the ships and finds the matching grade 6 power coupling that we need to fix our hyperdrive.

We all take another look around for parts and Zach gets a shock from a panel he is looking at. Kuma finds a repulsor sled that could be used to haul some things back. We fix it and it hums to life.

Ten puts together a pen for the gundark pups. Zach cuts up some of the nerf meat for them to eat, using a vibroknife that he conveniently had.

It is getting late, so we are faced with the choice of returning to our ship for several hours and traveling in the dark, or staying here. We decide to stay with the other ships and look for more equipment while we’re here. Kuma finds some old MREs, enough for the whole group, but they are pretty disgusting.

We get one of the ships setup for staying overnight, and Zach puts the gundark pups in an adjacent room. He then takes first watch while the rest of us bed down. Ten takes the second watch, and realizes that the gundarks haven’t eaten any of the food that was cut for them.

Quentin wakes up next and devises a plan to cut up the meat to a smaller size and funnel it into the gundarks’ mouths, just like their mother would have. They stop their mewling finally.

The next morning, Zach grills up some of the nerf meat and he and Kuma eat it. We also feed the pups again.

We see fresh tracks around where the gundark would have been. They are catlike, which may mean that the Nexu has been around. We quickly pack everything up and set off toward our ship. We need to feed the gundarks again and it uses up all of the meat from the nerf.

We make it back to the ship in quick order and Ten starts fixing the hyperdrive. Zach and Kuma decide to go hunting for some nerf meat to feed the gundarks. We find tracks pretty quickly and come upon a herd. Zach climbs a tree to get a better shot and Kuma tries to hide. Kuma remembers that nerfs will tend to stampede if they are distrurbed and realizes that they are looking at him. He takes off through the forest.

Zach shoots one of them but it is still alive and runs further away, outside of his blaster range. He takes another shot and misses but scares the her toward him.

Kuma, running through the forest, feels something in his back and falls down unconscious. He wakes up a while later and realizes that he has fallen into a hole between some rocks. He notices noise above him and sees the great paw of a nexu trying to hit him. It does look smaller than the pawprint we saw before, however. He takes out his holdout blaster and tries to shoot its paw but misses and gets a faceful of dirt on top of him. That being the case, he grabs his comlink and calls the others. He explains about the nexu and says that he is about 100 meters away from Zach.

Zach continues shooting and brings down two of the nerfs. He then runs over to Kuma and takes a shot at the nexu. It turns and attacks him, biting him savagely. Zach shoots it again and Kuma climbs up from the crevice and shoots it from behind. It decides to run away like a shot through the forest. Kuma helps Zach get away from the area and after a moment they meet up with the rest of the crew coming to get us with the repulsor sled. We head over to the fallen nerfs and grab them up. We then return to the ship.

We get ready to leave but Kuma spies a Z-95 circling ahead. The sensors can’t see the bigger ship but it could be out there waiting for us. We take off and leave atmo but we’re still close to the Z-95. It may not be able to see us at the current range, though.

Ten makes the calculations for the jump to hyperspace. As we are moving away we see the corvette off in the distance. During our flight we hit a small asteroid that we didn’t see and it takes out our front shields. Ten finishes the calculations and we jump to lightspeed. He is also able to shorten our trip to the Wheel so we get there sooner.

Border Princes

Session 1 – Getting Off on the Wrong Foot

The year is I.C. (Imperial Calendar) 2521. The Empire of Man teeters on the brink of Armageddon, as a great Chaos Horde led by the dreaded Chaos Champion Archaon: The Three-Eyed King, Everchosen of Chaos, and Lord of the End Times sweeps southward into the Empire from the northern Chaos Wastes. The vast horde made up of forces loyal to all four of the Ruinous Powers has ravaged the northern kingdom of Kislev, sacking their two greatest cities Praag and Erengrad, pressing further south into the northern lands of the Empire. The eastern and western borders of the Empire have been assaulted as well by lesser Chaos Champions.

To the east, the forces of Crom the Conquerer have eradicated the war band of the Black Orc warlord Grimgor Ironhide in High Pass, laid siege to the Dwarven hold of Karak Kadrin, the Slayers Keep in the Worlds Edge Mountains, and have even entered the lands of Sylvania, home to the Vampire Counts.

To the West, the Witch King Malekith has broken through a nigh impenetrable High Elven naval blockade and has landed on the shores of Ulthuan.

The Storm of Chaos is upon us…

Which means extremely little to the inhabitants of the largely lawless, frontier known as the Border Princes, or the Borderlands. It is more or less business as usual south of the Empire. Surely the Emperor, and his alliance of Elves and Dwarves will be able to stop some filthy savages and Chaos-warped freaks from making it this far south. As a matter of fact, the influx of Imperial residents fleeing southwards into the Borderlands to escape the ravages of Chaos offers more opportunities for fleecing, robbing, and general exploitation than usual. This may prove to be an extremely profitable time for the residents of the Princes…

———

Tobruk Tobrukson of Clan Iron Cleaver (Bill), a dwarf from Karak Norn, was to make a high powered alliance for his family through betrothal, but the family was double crossed and the bride was given away to someone else. Tobruk still crashed the wedding, and although this is not unusual in the dwarf world, the Stone Biter clan used it as a reason to throw him in prison. With his honor lost, he knew the only way to atone was to seek a glorious death.

Brokk Udo of Clan Ashen Forge (Jon), one of the jailers of the prison, fully believed that Tobruk was being framed for political reasons, and disenchanted with his own lot in life, sprung the dwarf from his cell on the condition that they leave the dwarf holds in seek of adventure (and glorious death) elsewhere in the Old World.

Jean Christophe Moitessier (John), a Lyonesse cartographer from Bretonnia, has been commissioned to draw maps of the region known as the Border Princes for the purpose of setting up new trade routes. His patron, Duke Adelhard, reached out to a local KithLord from Athel Loren and asked for a guide to take John through the mountains to the Border Princes territory and assist him in his mission. An elf named Vedasi Avalmon (Paul) was assigned for this duty.

The two set off from Athel Loren, and later they met an elf mercenary named Maruviel (Matt) who also agreed to come along. As they moved south into Karak Norn, they happened upon the two dwarves who were traveling in the same direction. The elves and dwarves came to an agreement to assist Jean Christophe on his way through the mountains, and an unlikely alliance was formed.

———

Vedasi Avalmon has light blondish brown hair with icy/crystal blue eyes. 5’10” with a medium build. Woodland colored clothes (greens and browns) Leather Jerkin. Finely carved Elf Bow and a long sword that looks rarely used.

———

We come through Winter’s Teeth Pass and arrive in the Border Princes region on the 15th of Borgeheim, during summer.

On the northern side of the trail, we see something huddled in the brush. Tobruk goes to investigate, but Maruviel immediately shoots an arrow into it. Tobruk sees that the man now has two arrows in him. The other one is a black arrow with a note attached to it. The note reads “REWARD! Three hundred crowns to whoever can bring the head of the dastardly brigand known as The Black Arrow to his Grace, the Count Amadeus Von Drakensberg. His Grace has means of detecting substitutes.”

After checking the man, he has been robbed almost completely but a secret pocket is found with a rolled-up notice that says “Heroes wanted to go on a quest for hidden treasure. Some danger. Great reward. Contact Wolfgang Kellermann at the Sign of the Crossed Lances.”

Maruviel finds a trail that goes to the direction we were heading. The Cartographer reads out the note and says that it may be of interest. We continue west along the Khyprian road until it begins getting dark, and then we make camp for the evening. The place we find has probably been used as a stopover before.

During the night, while Vedasi is on watch, he hears something moving nearby. He kicks Maruviel to wake him and they hide. They see some orks and goblins coming by, and Maruviel is pretty sure that they saw him as well. Vedasi takes a couple of shots with his bow and the others wake up soon after. The greenskins start charging us but they come to a stop after they see that we have two elves with us. Apparently goblins are afraid of elves.

Vedasi moves up into the woods and sees that there is an ogre crashing through the trees toward us. He comes back to the campsite and sees that a goblin is coming toward Jean. He fires an arrow into a goblin, killing it instantly.

Tobruk slashes at the ork with his greataxe, severing its arm. Maruviel fires arrows at one of the goblins. The goblins and the ogre try to attack us but all miss. The ork dies from blood loss. The goblins are taken out in succession.

Tobruk moves up to attack the ogre and swipes at him with his axe. Vedasi shoots him with an arrow directly in the hand, which is made useless. Maruviel hits him in the leg and it turns into a bloody mass. He falls to the ground. Maruviel says “It looks like we got off on the wrong foot.”

Jean shoots an arrow into the goblin attacking Brokk and he stands there stunned for a moment, then dies. Brokk thanks him, and he replies “In my country, we all this a coup de grâce.”

The ogre doesn’t die immediately but Tobruk swings his axe again and smashes his face, killing him instantly.

We search the bodies and find that the goblins are of the Yellow Eye Tribe. The ork is a black ork, which is strange because they generally are not in this area. They have basic armor and weapons on them. We find a crumpled up piece of paper on the ogre that has a recipe for sheep’s bladder soup. The ork has a tortoise shell box that seems well made on him. Tobruk says that we could ask between 150-200 gold crowns for it. We also come up with 35 gold crowns from the other corpses. The coins are mixed denominations and types of currency.

Jean keeps the shield that the ork was using even though it is huge. It almost covers him and his pony as well.

Tobruk says to Vedasi that he didn’t need help killing the ogre, but that was good shooting. Vedasi nods, and Tobruk grunts and walks away. It may not seem so, but a great deal of respect was shown here.

The greenskins all killed, we bed down for the rest of the evening.

Star Wars EOE

Session 1 – Sigmentus

We are a group of misfits and malcontents aboard the Corona, a medium freighter vessel that is headed toward the space station The Wheel to deliver a package to a company called IsoTech, are contacts are brother and sister Twi’leks named Riom and Shari. Suddenly we are knocked out of hyperspace.

Ten Je (Paul) is a Cerean pilot who has spoken of having an obligation to an organization which gives him jobs and also multiple families back home. He doesn’t seem to have any love of the Empire.

Vidakko (John) is a female Twi’lek who came from an upper-class family, educated and has some medical and martial arts training. She doesn’t like to be pigeonholed and escaped from her planet to go her own way.

Kuma Vanroh (Jon) is a Bothan former diplomat who has been exiled from the Core Worlds, and has been helping mid- and outer-rim people and worlds against the Empire.

Zach (Bill) is a Corellian gambler who is trying to restore his family’s company from the Empire.

Quentin (Steve) is an unkempt human who tends to keep to himself. He has tech and medical skills and likes to help those in need.

As we come out of hyperspace, Ten Je, Vidakko, Zach and Kuma come to the cockpit and see that we are in an asteroid field. The asteroids are fairly far apart but we are nearing some. Ten Je makes a piloting maneuver to go around them. He runs a sensor scan and sees that there are several small starfighters in medium range to us. He also sees a star and a nearby planet.

Zach runs to man the cannons. Kuma turns on the ship shields, tells Zach to not shoot them yet, and goes over the radios to the ships and tells them to identify themselves. A Zabrak who calls himself Capt. Malice of the Marauder and is wearing pirate clothing comes over the coms and tells us to power down and prepare to be boarded. Kuma tells them that he is a diplomat on a diplomatic mission. They tell him to send his diplomatic credentials.

Ten sees that we are in the Sigmentus system, which has dangerous wildlife. He tries to plot a hyperdrive jump out of here but the drive is not working. Quentin checks the hyperdrive and tells us that the motivator is shot, but he may have some parts. He looks and finds something but it won’t work.

We are now seeing six small ships, Z-95 Headhunters, and a corvette that could be holding up to 200 people. We decide to go toward the planet since they aren’t shooting us, but it may be their goal all along. They continue to follow us as we go toward the planet.

As we get closer we see that this is a mostly temperate world with polar caps. It should support life, and gravity is just a bit more than standard. On the night side, there is a storm system near the equator. Ten Je flies straight toward it, and Kuma asks him if he’s actually going to do that. He says yes, and takes us in. Amazingly there are only a few bumps as we go directly into the storm and we come out below and find somewhere to hide.

As we descend and see forest below us, Zach notices an area that might fit the ship. Ten Je lands it perfectly so there is cover. As we were flying, Zach noticed on the sensors that he saw weak power readings coming from the planet.

We think about venturing out in the storm toward one of the power readings, and find that we do have some protective gear but it is dark and we don’t have a way to navigate.

Ten goes down to the engine room to look at the hyperdrive damage and speaks with Quentin. Kuma stays in the cockpit and researches the planet. There appear to be Gundark (vicious four-armed apes) and Nexu (catlike things) as well as some Nerfs here. He also tries to research the pirate captain, but can’t find anything.

Ten attempts to hide the cargo, as it’s quite large. He uses a grav sled to hide it in the smuggling hold.

The next morning the storm has mostly passed and it is daylight. We decide to head out. Quentin and Kuma work together to navigate us to the nearest power source. We think that we are on track but it is taking a long time to get there and the terrain is difficult. The other three keep a lookout for threats. Ten Je hears gundark calls in the distance which are to the right and also behind and to the left.

We keep moving forward but don’t seem to be getting any closer to our goal. However we are moving to potentially evade the gundarks. They don’t seem to see us right now. Zach shimmies up a tree to look around the area but falls and hurts his ankle a bit.

We continue on and see our objective in the distance. Checking through binoculars, we see several crashed ships that look like freighters. Kuma trips and also hurts himself a bit.

The group stealths toward the ships. We see five of them: a Hawk-290, a Zavatar-Class Heavy Transport, a Barlaz Freighter and various Corellian YT models.

Zach notices some mewling sounds coming from one of the Corellian transports, and we decide to stay away from them. Ten, Vidakko and Quentin go inside the Hawk to search out parts. He sees a lot of carbon scoring inside and outside the ship. The doors have all been forced open so it’s easy to get in. In the engineering section Ten sees several deceased Duros. He takes the transponder off the ship.

Outside, Zach hears a rumbling noise of something large approaching. Kuma radios back to the rest of the group and lets them know. Zach and Kuma see a huge gundark approaching. Kuma runs and hides, and Zach moves to engage it. The gundark closes with Zach and slams him with a huge fist, he drops him to the ground and disorients him.

Vidakko tries to shoot but her gun goes dead, and she notices that the gundark is female. We continue to try to fight the gundark but it is undaunted. Ten moves toward the ship that had the sounds coming through it, understanding that it might be her young there. Kuma tries to get toward Ten but the gundark closes and knocks him down, causing a lot of damage.

Quentin and Zach fire on the gundark and kill it. We decide what to do, with a couple of us needing medical attention, the two gundark babies perhaps being something we could take with us to sell, and the nerf meat that the mother gundark had may be useful for food.

We get 20xp.

Temple Crusaders

Session 11 – The Goddess Appears

We spend some more time around town but don’t find out too much more about the elves. Filarion plays at one of the local bars and gets quite the crowd. The name of the place is Akamagosh and caters to more of the working class crowd. The people there say that the elves left and then came back — most likely they were casing the city and then came back to steal the lute.

At the Golden Lute Filarion’s set is not met with as much enthusiasm, but he hears from the locals that they were waiting for something before they attacked.

We move on to the Slippery Fish where there is a big party going on. Filarion plays really well and everyone is having a great time. We don’t get so much information from them, however. We decide to turn in.

Later, Filarion visits the druidic grove where Mord is convening with the druid circle. The two ask several questions that the druid circle, firstly “Why did the elves take the lute?” which they respond “To draw the orks in.” They ask “What is their motivation?” and they respond “They think they are following Alona but are not.” They ask “Who are they actually following?” and the answer is “Erevan Elesir.” Erevan is a pretty severe elven god who is a trickster and hates orks.

We wake up to the smells of really good food and we eat and then visit the mayor. He says that he’s torn sending more of his men out. He can send six orks with us. We decide that we’ll use them as a rear guard and not go directly in with us. They will build some cover for us if we want to fall back.

Greedex, the local druid, comes with us. As we get closer, he says that there is a “shielded space” ahead of us. The elves must be using magic to protect themselves. Mord, Filarion and Dardenne go ahead and tell Greedak and Hadrian to wait for us.

We approach along with the unicorn and are told to stop by two elves who are ahead of us. We identify ourselves and say that we’re aware of the conflict between the elves and orks. They say that they are eladrin from the fae realms, and were told by Alona to root out the “corruption” in the forest. We say that they have been commanded by Erevan Elesir who is tricking them. They don’t believe us but Mord says that he can ask the god directly. They agree but we notice that there are warriors behind them ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

Mord’s divining works and the goddess speaks through him. She says that the elves are being commanded by Erevan Elesir. This causes a crisis of faith with all of the other elves and they seem to be questioning things. The cleric tries a spell as well, and says that we are telling the truth.

We suddenly hear a rumbling above us, it appears to be rolling thunder. An elf appears beside Hadrian and tells him to come with her. He detects evil and senses none, so he goes with her. They both approach us.

She goes to the other elves and says that Erevan was trying to use them, and he will pay. We can tell that this is Alona from her energy. She touches the leader and he breaks down crying. She summons Greedak out of thin air and introduces him to the elves as a faithful follower of hers for many years. She says that they could learn from him.

Greedak says “Our town welcomes those who come in peace, you could return and make amends.”

Filarion suggests that they return the lute that they stole.

The elves invite us to their town and say that they’ll disarm their traps so we can visit with them. They give us the lute and Filarion starts playing it. It is just a regular lute and is pretty out of tune.

Back at the ork town, the leader puts both of his swords down in front of the mayor — one is fire, one is ice so they sizzle when they touch. He asks for forgiveness.

Filarion plays the sacred lute in the town square but doesn’t do the best performance. The town is entranced anyway.

The mayor says that they are deeply in our debt and we can stay here any time we like.

Temple Crusaders

Session 10 – Filariontown

We continue traveling west toward our mission that the druids sent us on. After a time we are attacked by three “howlers” — unnatural demon creatures. We fend them off but several of us are scared stiff by their cry. It’s determined that they are from another plane.

In the distance we hear the clash of swords. We go to investigate and see a group of elves fighting some orks in a skirmish. This is familiar territory for Hadrian and Dardenne, being warriors, and they both rush in to help the elves fight.

 

However, the others notice something and call for the combat to stop. With a spell, Mord creates a thick foliage for one hundred feet to stop people from being able to move. Filarion causes a huge stinking cloud to form as well.

The elves continue attacking and seem to be teleporting around. Mord tells Hadrian and Dardenne that the orks are dressed in finery and not acting like regular orks. Dardenne looks and finally sees it. He casts magic missiles on one of the elves and they start to move away.

Mord casts a spell on Hadrian that allows him to move through the foliage without being slowed down. Mord, Filarion and Hadrian help to heal the orks and they are very thankful.

The orks are appreciative and ask us to come back to their town with them, which is nearby. They speak common well. They explain that their town was founded by a bard that helped them understand civility and how to create a community, and these elves stole their founder’s magical lute.

They bring us into the town which is quite large and bustling. Their founder was named Aalavor Valren, who was a bard and a half-elf. They show us the statue in the center of town and it is a spitting image of Filarion. He is surprised and others start to notice. He is getting attention from a lot of the people in the town.

 

We meet the town leader named Silverleaf, and he orders that we should have hot food and clean linens to sleep on. They tell us the song and story of their founder and how he was captured by orks about 200 years ago and convinced them not to eat him.

They explain that they’ve had their troubles but have gotten along with elves. This attack was unexpected. The elves are also worshipers of Alona so it is very strange. They were here for 2 days and attacked a bunch of people and tried to take Silverleaf’s wife. Then they took the lute and fled.

We speak to his wife some more and she says that several guards died trying to help. The lute was being kept by the statue.

We offer to help track these elves down starting in the morning. Dardenne and Filarion feel personally responsible being elf-kin. They will be organizing a party and they have some trackers.

Hadrian goes to the inns that the elves went to, and doesn’t find out much. They stayed one night and paid, then left.

Mord speaks to one of the local druids and is also an ork. They enlist an owl to help them scout.

Filarion goes to the bard school and sees what he can find out there and Dardenne checks at the taverns, but they haven’t come up with anything yet.

Temple Crusaders

Session 9 – Recipe for Sous Vide Cursed Meat

We are at the crossroads inn, and Elauthin shows up and joins us.

During our free breakfast, two people come into the inn looking for us. They hand us an order from the church. There is an area near here that was a priory carved into a valley by Dwarves, including an ossuary (where bones were kept). The people there including two brothers that were a political power, became less godly and one brother started into the dark arts. The other one started doing mystical things. They rebelled and eventually the area was collapsed on top of them. Recently there have been “bad things” showing up there. Expeditions were sent to clear things out and nothing came back. The church sealed off the whole canyon and sealed the whole thing off and put up wards. They ask us to check it out and the cleric of the two says that he’s seen very nasty things there.

Filarion tells us what he knows of the area, and it appears that it’s less than a day’s ride. We pack up and leave right away. On the way, Filarion tells Elauthin all about our adventures and almost getting killed.

During our ride, we hear a huge noise coming from the left side of the King’s Road. We quickly hide in the thick brush across the road and we see two giant ogres crashing through the brush. We hear from behind them something coming, Elauthin says that it’s a “boulet” which is a very large carnivore. From several attacks we take down both the ogres and the boulet itself. We take off.

 

A few miles down the road, we smell something horrible. Elauthin looks nearby and finds a pile of flesh that has all of the bones taken out of it. We’ve never heard of anything like this before. Elauthin wants to take some of the meat to eat but Hadrian says that it is cursed and not to eat it.

We continue on and see the entrance to what used to be the valley. It looks like the wards have been broken. We rest for a while and then continue through. It is very narrow here but soon it opens up to be wider. We see a graveyard nearby that looks disturbed. Hardian tells us to be careful because this area looks evil.

Suddenly a ton of skeletons pop out of the ground around us and a “grave golem” made up of gravestones, grass and mud rises up. Dardenne uses lightning to damage several of the skeletons. Elauthin takes out tons of them with arrows. Filarion stands in the middle of the fray and creates a cloud of daggers in front of the golem. Dardenne, Elauthin and Darius yell at him to move out of the way and he finally does. Dardenne casts Ray of Frost on the golem a couple of times. Hadrian finally shield bashes and destroys it. When all of the skeletons are destroyed, they fade into the earth.

 

 

We move on and see a gigantic church. Darius sneaks inside and informs us that there is something big inside, along with what seems to be the two brothers.

We head in and we see the two “wight brothers,” one of whom is a cleric in big armor and the other is a wizard. They have a giant bone golem. Hadrian and Filarion move in to attack and Elauthin and Dardenne stay back for ranged attacks. We take both of them out, while they grumble about having to fight us. With his dying breath, the wizard sunders the altar and the bone golem re-forms. We kill it again before it fully forms.

 

The party checks the area for loot and we find tons of gold, jewels and magic loot.

Temple Crusaders

Session 8 – Sad Bears

We recuperate for a while after being almost killed, and we decide to head back out. Dardenne is adjusting to being a woman.

After a day of travel, we notice that alongside the path, there are two bears that seem to be following us. We try and determine if they are going to attack, but it doesn’t seem so.

We move off but they keep following us. Mord speaks a spell on his staff and it turns into a unicorn. The beast communicates telepathically with the bears and learns that they’ve had their home, a cave near here, attacked by “tall creatures” that we guess are werewolves or gnolls. They came after us because Mord reminds them of their friend, who we assume to be a druid. They say that their friend may be dead; they saw blood but are not sure what happened to him.

Dardenne and Hadrian confer and agree that this is something that we should help with. Mord also wants to help the druid if he can. We head off the road and follow the bears through the woods.

After a while the bears stop and tell the unicorn that any further, we may get attacked by the things. We say that we’ll continue on from here. The bears, unicorn and Mord’s raccoon stay behind.

The party decided that we will plan this time instead of just rushing into things, since last time that didn’t work out so well. We decide that Mord and Darius will sneak up behind them, and the rest of us will draw them out.

Mord turns into a squirrel and crawls on the top of the cave. Darius hides toward the entrance. Filarion taunts the gnoll standing toward the entrance, viciously. Dardenne then creates a bonfire underneath him and he leaps to the side.

We start to attack and all the gnolls come out of the cave to see what is going on. Hadrian comes up and starts fighting. Dardenne uses his staff to create a lightning bolt that kills both of the hyenas and one of the gnolls. The other gnolls are taken out pretty quickly.

We head inside and clear out the small cave. All of the bodies are dragged out and burned. We look through the cave and find several items of interest. Dardenne checks and a few of them are magical.

Mord asks the bears if we might stay the night, and they agree. They also say that they’d like us to help them hang up their friend’s wooden figure on the wall, and we oblige.

Dardenne finds leather armor, a cylindrical metal flask that seems full of lamp oil. One of the

The next morning we head out and while on the road are attacked by a shambling mound of weeds. While fighting it, it spits out two zombies that attack us as well. After defeating it, we see that there are half-decayed dead bodies in it. One of the bodies has a patchwork cloak with some of the patches gone. There is some other equipment as well. An ornate bow with divots in it, a cap, and a jewel.

The next day we come up to a crossroads with an inn. We stay there for the night.

Temple Crusaders

Session 7 – TPK

We are told by Mord and Filarion that there is a nearby “grove” (it’s assumed they are druids, but we’re not sure) in the southern part of Welkwood that need our help. The ranger has gone on without us and we’ll meet up with him when we get to the woods. Dardenne and Hardian hesitate before agreeing because they are enjoying the company of young women. The others manage to convince them and all of us pack things up to go. It will be at least a week’s journey.

We set off and the first several days are fine, but on the fourth day the weather degrades and becomes dark and eventually very stormy. We decide to take cover at a nearby cave, but some in the party see that this is not just a cave but rather a ruin with stone blocks.

We come through and arched entrance and Mord sends “Tubby”, his raccoon familiar through to check things out. It reports back that there is a slick downward grade here that is pretty dangerous. We brave it anyway and some of us (Dardenne and Hadrian) slide downward and get injured. The rest are able to come carefully down. Mord casts “dancing lights” so we have some illumination.

As Dardenne and Hadrian are getting up and dusting themselves off, a group of lizard-men come through the darkness and attack us with swords and pointed shields.

Filarion creates a stinking cloud in their midst, one is caught by the cloud and the remaining lizard creatures move around it and continue attacking. Mord summons two dire wolves to attack the lizardfolk and keep them occupied.  Darius sneak attacks one of them and kills him. Dardenne unleashes a lightning bolt from his staff that kills three of them.

Unfortunately we are quickly overwhelmed. Dardenne is stabbed several times and goes down. Things get worse as three trolls step around the corner. One attacks a wolf and kills it. Another troll throws a rock at Mord barely missing taking Mords head off.  Behind them we see a shimmering black-skinned dragon. It uses its acid breath weapon on us and Hadrian and Filarion go down. Just as the breath weapon is released the area around the party is plunged into darkness.

Darius runs away up the ramp and escapes. Thanks to Ehlonna Mord was shielded from a portion of the dragon’s acid and is able to trigger a teleport spell and gets us a mile away. Once revived Filarion uses a spell to create a small hut for all of us to take refuge in. About an hour later Darius comes running into camp suprised to see most everyone there and alive.

In the morning the group decides to return to Homlett to see if they can get Dardenne back from the dead. Mord takes Dardennes body to the Druid’s grove. The Druid agrees to perform the ritual of rebirth on Dardenne. His naked body is rubbed down with oils and unguents. Then his body is put upon a large stone and covered in dirt, leaves and other natural items. After a a few moments there is shifting on the stone and Dardenne has transformed. The body that has been chosen by Ehlonna is that of a female wood elf. Dardenne is once again amongst the living.

Temple Crusaders

Session 6 – Wagon Train

The temple faithful rouse us and let us know that a wagon train has been hijacked. They ask us to rescue it. They think a larger group of insurgents are heading toward the temple.

We rush to the wagon train, and there is a group of orks that are holding it. We take care of them, and move toward the second group that was encroaching with a bunch of combatants. We take them all out.

After checking through everything, we discover that they were transporting holy items for the temple, and they are extremely grateful. At this point, our debt to the temple has been fully paid.

Each of us receive a “legendary” item.