Category Archives: Forge

Session 53 – A New Age

Porodo fires a catapult at Necros, but he is not bothered. Necros begins to pay attention to Eilenos, however, as he smites all of the evil creatures around him in a blaze of holy glory, destroying scores of them.

Porodo shoots an arrow into Grom’s head, doing 98 damage. Grom is not happy.

Imra casts “embiggening” on Eilenos and he grows large, getting stronger and tougher. He strikes at Necros but Necros isn’t fazed.

A beam of light comes from the heavens and lands next to Grom. The biggest Dwarf we’ve ever seen emerges — it’s Krodmich! He strikes a mighty blow on Grom and screams “Get off of my field!”

Nadia, Charon and Berethenu also strike good hits on Grom. Grom strikes back, sweeping Nadia and Berethenu and causing massive damage on both of them.

Necros is taunting Eilenos, which frustrates him, and his attacks have been ineffectual. He says “I don’t need Berethenu’s help to defeat you.” He drops his sword and reaches out with his mind, attempting to control the nearby zombies to his will. Necros looks afraid as Eilenos begins to win in the battle of wills — he sees in his mind all of the threads of control Necros has over the zombies, and is able to tap into and control them. They begin to attack the evil forces. He doesn’t notice, however, that Berethenu’s armor falls off of him as he does this. The other characters notice that there is a purple haze of evil magic that is coalescing between the two, and finally cocooning around Eilenos.

Sarthisis creates a portal underneath Grom, and he falls through. It empties him from the sky and he falls hundreds of feet directly on top of the cloud where Necros and Eilenos were. Imra uses her elemental powers to blow the fog away, and they see that Necros has been utterly destroyed by Grom. However, Grom gets to his feet after the fall. Stranger still is that where Eilenos was standing is now a knight of chaos, wearing corrupted armor and holding a tainted sword.

Charon gets an idea and jumps through the portal, drawing his swords and doing an acrobatic flip on top of Grom and stabbing him deep through the chest.  However, the force of the fall hurts him greatly — but Sarthisis magically takes the damage to himself and falls unconscious. Imra rushes to heal him.

Eilenos taps into his new abilities and enhances several nearby zombies.

The battle continues for more than an hour, and it is a rout — the evil forces have been defeated. Eilenos shuts down all of the zombies, and they fall. Josephus, or Enigwa, as he is properly known, goes to Necros and Grom. He calls all of us to them, and says that we have fulfilled our duty.

Porodo has his rangers, he says…Sarthisis has taken control of the realm of flame. Krodmich has been brought back to reclaim his throne of Iron Hallow Hall. Grom has made too much war over Juravia, and overstepped his bounds. Charon, who has shown his valor, will become the new god of war. He says that he doesn’t know what to do with Eilenos…he assumes that if he misueses his power, he will take it away. As part of this, he must right the wrongs that Necros perpetrated on the Elves. Eilenos agrees. He says that Nadia will be brought back to life and will be the new god of justice. Imra will become the queen of the elves.

He says that he could have fixed the wrongs of his own famly by himself, but he wanted us to have free will to fix things since it is our world. He hopes that we will continue to do the right thing with the power we have gained, for the betterment of all.

Enigwa then fades away.

THE END

Session 52 – The Siege of Skraag

Eilenos visits the local temple of Berethenu looking for some guidance. He causes quite a stir as he has come in with his full armor on. The parishioners point and whisper. The priest approaches and asks if he is indeed the champion of Berethenu. 

The rest of the group are just hanging around the city.

Suddenly the whole team is simultaneously transported to a mountaintop in a large mountain range. We seem to be in the mountain range just outside of Skraag. We are north of there, and are not sure how far. All of our compatriots are with us, including Nadia and the king of Dunmeshi, all of the mustered forces, and Josephus who looks more “with it” than he usually does. He looks like he has a plan.

Josephus addresses us the whole group and says, “We are about to embard on a monumental task. The Dwarven kingdom has been infested with creatures born of Grom, and I have underestimated my son’s desire to populate Juravia with his people. He, along with his brother Necros, have caused this chaos and now I need your help to set things right.”

We agree, somewhat shocked of the revelation that we have been in the presence of the All-Father himself, and that Josephus was him all along.

Josephus tells us that we are about a day’s march from Skraag, and since he is not a tactician he needs our help to do that. He casts a haste spell on Porodo’s best rangers, and they take off ahead of us to scout out the route. They have speaking stones with them, so they can report back immediately.

We have 8 pieces of siege equipment including towers, catapults and rams.

The scouts return and give us the exact layout of the city. It is in between mountains and there is only one pass coming north to the city, and it is on a narrow ridge. Our siege machines will not easily fit here. We decide to sneak in and break their defenses therefore allowing our forces to ride and teleport in unopposed to finish the job.

Porodo and some of his rangers climb up the east wall and go to the tower; Sarthisis flies up here as well. Imra flies up to the mountain and asks the Eagles there for help, and they agree. The Shadow Hunters climb up the west wall, preparing to rain arrows down on the city. Eilenos waits with Nadia and the king of Dunmeshi at the bottom of the mountain with the cavalry, awaiting the battle to start and ride in to attack. The other forces are further down the mountain, and will be teleported into the city by Sarthisis and Josephus.

Porodo communicates with his rangers and tells them to start firing flaming arrows into the city. Once Eilenos sees this, he rides in with the cavalry and breaks through the gate, attacking the enemy. Nadia is particularly effective, slaying enemy after enemy while gaining barely a scratch, inspiring our fighters to a frenzy. Sarthisis opens portals to the elemental plane of fire and they swallow the biggest enemies, the trolls, and their siege equipment, then he begins shooting fire into the crowd. Eagles swoop down from the mountain and pick off random orcs. The orcs are taking huge losses and the battle seems to be going in our favor.

Suddenly the ground begins to rumble and a group of orcs comes pouring out of the gates of Iron Hallow Hall. The orcs are screaming that “there are stuntees in the deep!” We see the dwarves are attacking from inside the mountain.

The shaking worsens and the ground in the Hearth Plain inside of the city cracks open. Berethenu breaks through the earth and flies a hundred feet or more in the air. Following him is the huge, gnarled form of Grom himself who climbs out with his legions of demons. Behind them comes Ennar and a group of his demon hunters. There is a purple necrotic mist that descends over the area, rotting everything. Just then, the huge form of Necros descends from the clouds.

The battle is joined!

Session 51 – Mustering Forces

We decide to head back to Dunmeshi Castle. Sarthisis simply thinks it, and a portal opens to the castle.

About a month has passed since we left. The king says that the ruling council of Darnya was possessed by a cabal of demons. This is why they were acting hostile recently. Aliga went and figured this out (likely meaning that he slew all of the affected council members), and is staying there to help out as the loss of the council has caused a power vacuum.

We meet with the king and Josephus, and they let us know that the forces are mustering to take on Skraag, but it will take a while. The Jungle Protector, Black Mountain Brewing Brigade, the Wood-Elves, the Corsair Queen, and the Kingdom of Hamsburg will likely come to our aid.

Session 50 – Into the Fire

We continue across the bridge, and go left down a path. Nearby we see a circle with a fire in the middle, and several cultists in a circle doing a chant. We immediately move to attack and take them out.

We take out several, and the elementals that they conjure. Finally htere is only one left, but he is wounded. Imra uses her mental powers to read his mind, trying to determine where the flame lord is. Among his thoughts of his injuries she is able to determine that the flame lord is nearby.

Porodo fires off an arrow at the guy, striking with 104 damage, which blasts him into another dimension consisting only of pain and suffering for the rest of all eternity.

The plunder includes 3 magical daggers and cloaks.

We continue on up the path, and soon come to the end where the giant statue stands. Below it is the flame lord, standing over a dozen feet tall and holding a huge sword, in front of a giant basalt throne.

Imra uses her magic to shrink him down to size, but he immediately grows back to his former size again. Nadia runs forward and strikes him with her sword, which actually damages him. Eilenos strikes him as well and wounds him, but it only seems to make him angry. Porodo shoots an arrow dead into him, but it just buries itself in his armor.

We continue fighting him, and finally Porodo strikes him again and Sarthisis hits him with a blast that knocks him down. He is unconscious.

We hear from Sarthisis’ bag a cheering sound. The fire staff is telling him to take the Flame Lord’s power. Sarthisis goes to him and stabs him, and fire comes out of the Flame Lord and into him. There is a nova of flame that erupts from him.

Sarthisis is now the flame lord of the second realm, and is completely immune to fire and fire attacks. Once he sits on the basalt throne, he can sense everything that is happening in the realm of fire, and what the other flame lords are doing. He can also sense the flame lords that are on other planes. He can create portals from the plane of fire to anywhere on Juravia that he has previously visited, and can create a portal back. Others can also travel with him. He can sense when people are tapping into elemental fire, and can grant them power or take it away.

Sarthisis takes the fire staff out of his pack and tries to break it. The former elemental tries to ask for mercy but he breaks it, and she screams in terror.

The group briefly discusses whether to let the former flame lord live, but Sarthisis levitates him into the fire. He regaions consciousness as he burns to death. He takes with him several magical items, as we didn’t search him before putting him into the fire.

We take his great sword, and in addition there are several magic items in a box nearby; a pair of spider boots, the Tome of the Unseen (invisibility spell), a magical fire saber, and two potions of healing, $300k of coins and $7k of gems.

Session 49 – Into the Fire

Porodo sees that the nearby tracks go to a wall. There is a small hole on the wall and Sarthisis presses into it. A doorway opens and a cavern ascends.

At the top we go across a wooden bridge over the falls. In the center there is a platform with a huge pile of gold on it.

As we walk onto the platform, Eilenos sees a fire drake descending upon us and tries to attack it, but his sword bounces off its scales.

The others move to attck but the drake buffets its wings and tries to blow us off the platform. Eilenos is taken off guard and falls backward 20 feet down into the lava, and is seriously hurt.

The others continue attacking and Charon jumps on his back. Sarthisis sets several elementals on him as well.

Due to his fire invulnerability ring, Eilenos is able to recover and climbs up the platform. He strikes the drake in the belly, and the drake strikes with his tail. Eilenos strikes again and takes him down.

We loot the area but don’t care too much about the gold. Sarthisis takes some jewels, but there are also several magical items: a wand of mini fireballs, which Charon takes. Also a pendant of awareness, a dagger, and a blunderbus.

The blunderbus also comes with an “instruction manual” which Josephus looks at. He says that the book is about the lost art of gunsmithing, which the Dwarves haven’t done for generations. We give the gun to Josephus for him to use.

Session 48 – Into the Fire

We all gear up with rings of fire protection given to us by the Dunmeshi. With them we take no damage from background heat (the temperature in the Realms of Fire), 4 points of armor against direct heat attacks, we can walk through lava unharmed, and we have a +2 trait roll bonus against fire spells.

We open up the portal to the Realms of Fire and jump through. We immediately feel the heat and see fire all around us. We proceed across a bridge that goes over a river of flame. Ahead of us we see a huge statue that is “crying” lava and looks like it is screaming.

Suddenly there is a booming voice, which we assume to be the local Flame Lord, that tells us if we want to fight, we can, but it is ultimately fruitless. We may win, but in the end the spirit trapped in the staff will betray and kill us all. He suggests that we ditch her and team up with him to defeat one of the other flame lords.

We consider it briefly, but decline (since he is surely lying to us as well) and rush to attack. We go across a lava floe to an island of ash, where a dozen or so normal looking desert-garbed dervish warriors are around a camp fire.

Two hydras ascend out of the lava pool and we strike them down.

Eilenos, struggling to get across the lava, is suddenly blinked to the middle of the battle and strikes down one of the soldiers. This was probably Josephus helping out with a quick teleportation spell.

Session 46 – The Wood Elves

The elves give us supplies including some magical items. We are also given a guide who will help take us through the forest. Before we can depart, sentries come in from the forest and sound the alarm — six dragons are inbound and ready to attack!

Sarthisis relates that there are several types of dragons. It appears that the ones coming are Swamp Dragons, and they spray noxious fumes. As they come closer, we see that the dragons have riders upon them. There is one huge dragon and five smaller ones. They fan out to attack.

Sarthisis sends air elementals and fireballs toward them. The big dragon descends and the rider lances Eilenos, and the dragon shoots its noxious breath at us. Eilenos barely gets out of the way in time, but is wounded. Imra uses a spell on the big dragon and it shrinks to the size of a large dog. It climbs out from beneath the saddle and rider. Sarthisis roasts it (and nearly Eilenos as well) with a fireball. Charon jumps out of a tree and stabs one dragon, killing it instantly. He jumps off the dragon to safety before it hits the ground. The other dragons and riders are dealt with.

Eilenos believes that Marta, the goddess of beasts, has taken sides against us. She must have sent the dragons and the riders.

Imra thanks Sarthisis for using her during the battle.

We go to Anthal and let him know that we are heading out. Our guide comes with us. It takes 3 days of walking to exit the forest, and we head into a small town called Sundale. The guide says that we should go to Fort Stone. The road will take us to Dunmeshi. It will take us four days to get there from here.

The doorman at Dunmeshi doesn’t let us in, though we describe our mission and ask to speak to the master of the keep. We tell him that we are adventuring on behalf of the king of Iron Hallow Hall, Krodmich, but he doesn’t believe us because Krodmich is not with us. We mention Josephus, and suddenly he appears through a portal. He gives Eilenos a huge battle-axe and asks him to “Hold Krodmich for a moment.” Eilenos is startled, but assents. The guards recognize Josephus and let us all in to the city.

Session 45 – The Wood Elves

We head into town and buy a horse and cart. While there, we hear from the locals that there are Wood Elves in the forest that are wild and potentially dangerous. Josephus advises us to stay close to the river as we travel.

Setting off, we travel for a while and soon Porodo finds human tracks going to and from the river. However, we don’t see anyone and feel it is safe to bed down here for the night. During first watch, Aliga hears something and sees four humanoids to the north. He quietly wakes the rest of the group.

The humanoids are a group of elves, and they don’t seem particularly friendly. They ask us what we are doing there. We tell them of our quest and they actually know of Josephus. They invite us to their village. They are a tribe from Trevenfal, and have separated from their brethren in Elleday due to a fundamental schism.

The elves escort us to their home. As we travel, the plants bend to get out of our way and let us through. We see the tree city up ahead, but the trees do not look natural. Above us we see many walkways. They bring us to rooms that are meant for visitors. We drop our things and they take us up to the city center on a lift. We go through the market and up another lift to a building with large spires and a blue energy field around it.

We are taken up inside and there are many guards with natural looking armor. There is an elder sitting on a wooden throne, wearing a cloak of leaves. His name is Anthal. We tell him about our plans, and he offers to help us get to the castle. He will also help us retake Skraag when the time comes!

Session 44 – Hamsburg

We see humanoid figures in the dark, probably less than twenty of them. Several fighters seem to be out in the front area of the house.

We see a figure behind the house glowing with fire. Sarthisis hits him with three fireballs, but they do not seem to affect him. The figure responds with a huge blast of fire that injures Sarthisis. He blacks out and begins attacking the party. He manages to miss Porodo by pure force of will.

We defeat the fighters and then team up to kill the wizard. He goes down after a brief battle. We check him and he has a magical scourge (a cat o’ nine tails) called the Scourge of Unhealing Flesh, staff, Cloak of Greater Protection, and non-magical manacles. His followers were carrying a non-magical symbol that looks like a scourge with manacles attached to them. Charon takes the magical flail.

The staff seems to have some fire powers that it gives to Sarthisis as he wields it. Suddenly it speaks to him — the staff is sentient! She says her name is Ilira the Igniter, and is the spirit of a Flame Lord. She is trapped within the staff and wants our help to be released. Porodo asks her how she can help us in return. She says that there can be only six Flame Lords at a time, and that they are not necessarily evil. If we take out Cinder, the flame lord who destroyed her body, she will take his power and then help us clear Iron Hallow Hall of orks. To get to Cinder, we must travel to the elemental plane of fire. She can take us there.

Josephus suggests that we leave for Hampton, northwest of here, through Jagen’s Wood. Hampton is the most powerful of the Five Kingdoms — rich and with military might. Josephus says that we should meet him at Dunmeshi Castle, which is closer to Scragg. He needs to leave to attend other business. He enters a small portal and disappears.

Session 43 – Hamsburg

Walking through the razed town, we don’t see anyone else alive after the orc attack. The group tries to check for a trail where the orcs may have come from, but we can’t find anything.

On the other side of town, we see a farmstead off in the distance. Above us, there are clouds massing for an oncoming storm. We think that perhaps it may be magical in origin, but the senses of the people in the group say otherwise.

We head toward the farmhouse and on the way we see orc tracks going through the fields. As we get closer to the house, we don’t see any more orc tracks but there are human boot prints everywhere here.

Aliga checks the house and finds nothing. Porodo goes in the basement and there are barrels of rotten food, but he finds a trapdoor underneath one of the barrels. He calls the rest of the group down.

We open the trapdoor and it is a shaft that descends for quite a ways. Eilenos descends first and sees that there is a long stone hall. The others come down and we start searching around.

We hear a scratching nearby, but we’re not sure what it is. We go through a door and there is another stone room with a basin in the center. Next to that is a forge. Another couple of rooms on this floor do not have anyone in them. In the south room there is a spiral staircase that descends.

On the lower floor there is what appears to be a chapel or worship area with pews and an altar. Sarthisis has his lizard knock over the altar to see if anything is underneath, but there is nothing.

A room off to the right appears like a bedroom. There is a loose brick in the wall and behind it seems to be some magical items. We open it up and there are several items here:

Small book – green leather with a tree on it
Brown leather (larger) – beasts on the cover
Brown leather – screaming face. This is a torture journal.
Scroll — non-magical, a list of 15 names. Off to the side there are names of seven places.
Slaver’s shackles — magical shackles that slow the person down
Sack full of gold

The text references “Malignus” who Eilenos remembers as a follower of Galignan and Necros. He amassed power and wealth and an army of followers. This group must be a cult of his followers. The book has dates of all of the torture victims. One of the names, Carter, is listed in the book and rings a bell. Porodo remembers Carter was one of his rangers. Unfortunately he was likely killed here about three months ago.

In the next room there are a bunch of torture victims. We free two of them, an elf and a Merikii and two seem to be okay. They say that they were kidnapped by cultists, but they seem to have left recently. We find their stuff in a nearby chest and they gear back up.

The new people, Charon and Imra, meet Nadia and Josephus. Josephus says that they have the touch of destiny about them, and that they should come with us.

The weather hasn’t changed, and it is still raining hard, so we decide to stay here for the night. Aliga is nominated to watch, and in the middle of the night he sees something outside and wakes the rest of the group.