Campaign Journal

[Scott]

Just a quick account of Friday night’s game. I’m writing from memory, at work. I’ll fill in more details later.
The Party:
Sparkolfin Fabulien (Sparkles): Gray Elf 1/1 fighter/magic/user
Gary’s wood elf ranger (1st level)
Eric’s wood elf fighter (1st level)
Cindy’s human druid (1st level)
Ray’s half-elf druid (1st level)

The party starts in Oak Haven, the freehold of Lord Sondos Alammar, located in the southern Welkwood Forest between the territory claimed by the Kingdom of Celene and the rulers of the Wild Coast. Several adventuring opportunities present themselves to the party. Foremost would be the news that Lord Alammar’s son, Sondo II has gone missing. He left Oak Haven about a month ago with an adventuring party and hasn’t been heard from since.
Additionally, the wizard Ariminius is looking for someone to deliver a package to a colleague of his in Badwall on the Wild Coast.
Lastly, there are several ruins located close to Oak Haven.
The party looks more into the loss of Sondo II and discover that he was heading to the settlement of Fair Hill three days march to the south and west of Oak Haven. By this time, we had wasted a lot of time finishing up character generation, pizza, and chit chat, so the party rushed out of town without much more prodding.

Starday, Coldeven 1st, 575 CY
This climate in this part of the Welkwood is affected by Faerie, thus it is temperate year-round and precipitation is minimal. The day passes without encounter, and the party stops to make camp. Due to the climate conditions, and the fact that 4/5 of the party have infravision, they decide not to keep a fire lit. They decides to split the watch into three shifts. Cindy’s druid will take first watch, followed by Sparkles and Gary’s ranger, and lastly Ray’s druid and Eric’s fighter. Midway through her shift, CD hears what sounds like a child crying in the woods outside of the camp, so she does what ay smart adventurer would do. She doesn’t wake anybody up and walks into the woods alone, but she did bring a lantern and lights it up. She can now hear the voice calling for it’s mother, and she starts looking for the source of the voice, and she finds it. Stepping from behind a tree trunk she sees a creature that appears to have the body of a small emaciated stag with the head of a possessed badger. It immediately lunges at her. She starts casting a spell, but the creature bites her first, ruining the spell. She immediately starts yelling for help, waking the rest of the party. Before the party arrives, CD is bitten again and near death, and she has yet to hurt her attacker. The party arrives, and within a round CD and the creature are caught in RD’s entangle spell. The sigh of relief is cut short by the appearance of a much larger version of the creature. It hisses at the party, “Release them or you will all die”. The party responds with arrows and a faerie fire spell. Within a few rounds, the creature is killed without inflicting any damage on the party, thanks mostly to GR’s specialization with the long bow. They then pick off the smaller one and release CD. Somebody in the party correctly guesses leucrotta for the creatures. The rest of the night passes peacefully. CD has 1 HP left.
More to come…

[Scott]

Sunday, Coldeven 2, 575 CY
The day passed uneventfully. For the watch, the party decided to never have just one character on duty at a time, so one character would have to pull a double. While Gary’s ranger and Cindy’s druid were on watch, GR spotted a humanoid shape moving through the trees towards the party’s camp. They started waking the rest of the party up and preparing for a fight, which was apparently enough to scare whatever it was away. They decided to move camp a short distance. No problems for the rest of the night.

Moonday, Coldeven 3, 575 CY
As the party walked, Sparkles remembered that sometimes monsters have treasure, and after you kill the monster, it’s yours for the taking, and they forgot to try to track the Leucrotta back to their lair. There was a brief discussion on going back to look, but they decided to continue on, and in the late afternoon, they reached Fair Hill. Most of the party checked in to the Thirsty Stirge Inn, but CD went to visit the Chapel dedicated to Ehlonna. With her winning personality, she talked the priestess, Damarra into casting a cure light wounds spell on her for a 15 gp donation. The party were able to confirm that the missing adventurers were in town about a month ago, and they went to explore some ruins about 7 miles south of town. They returned from a scouting expedition they made to the ruins, but disappeared on their second trip to the ruins. They were also able to discover that herdsmen have been having animals from their flocks stolen.
Ray’s Druid and Gary’s Ranger went to check out the woods right around town, and the rest of the party went to investigate the fields were animals have been disappearing from. Cindy decided to cast speak with animals on a sheep that happened to be close by. The herdsman nervously stated, “Don’t you believe a word that sheep says”. All they were able to get out of the sheep was that short humanoids were stealing the animals.
Meanwhile, Ray and Gary were getting a feel for the woods immediately surrounding town when they were attacked by what looked like two tiny (3’ tall), malevolent treants. They were able to kill them, but Ray was knocked unconscious in the combat. Gary dragged Ray back to town, and Cindy suggested that they take him to Damarra the cleric. The took him, and 45 gold pieces of his money, to the cleric. She accepted the donation and healed Ray. As a house rule, I have the player roll a system shock roll, and if he makes it, no additional rest is needed and spells are not lost. Ray made it. By now they felt like they needed to turn in for the night, so they did.

[Sparkles the Effing Elf]

I plead end-of-the-week brain syndrome. After a Friday workday and a crappy 2-hour commute North you forget things.

And no, I won't play a little online.

[Scott]

I'm not planning on running anything online.

[GRWelsh]

I have to admit, I'm enjoying avoiding the crappy commute South every other week. It's a nice change.

[Scott]

I don't mind the ride, for now.

[Scott]

Godsday, Coldeven 4, 575 CY
The party had decided to check out the ruins that Sondos II and his party were exploring. They woke early and made the trek to the ruins. Because of the distance, and the fact that they didn’t have mounts, meant that they wouldn’t have much time to explore if they wanted to make it back to Fair Hill before dark. They made it to the ruins without incident. It was a blighted place. Unnaturally quiet. The vegetation in the area was withered and twisted. The ruins themselves were located on a low flat hill. The upper works had almost completely collapsed. The bases of two towers were still discernable, but the rest was little more than a heap of rubble. Small humanoid tracks could be seen weaving through the rubble, primarily going to and from the southeast tower, where a wooden door was located. The party poked around the ruins a bit more, but found no other likely entrances. The rubble had been cleared away from the base of the tower, and paving flag stones could be seen underneath. About 15’ of tower was left. Fabio wanted to try climbing to the top of what was left of the tower and look inside. Fleak Pingle (Gary’s ranger) asked Fabiolus, aka Fabio (Eric’s fighter) if he had any rope. Fabio, who has a comeliness of 19 or so, and seemed to be fascinated by himself, explained that he couldn’t afford it after he bought a small silver mirror so he could admire himself. Somebody in the party did have a rope, and Fabio managed to climb the tower without falling or causing a collapse. Looking into the tower Fabio reported that it was empty, but there were stairs going down. He threw the rope down, and Fleak followed him up. About then, somebody in the party asked if anybody had tried the door. Nobody did, so Verde Ivy (Cindy’s druid) decided to give it a try. The door opened right up, and so did the pit trap in front of it. Ivy fell in, and was greeted by a giant rat that was down there already. The rat was quickly killed, but the fall and a bite left Ivy with 1 HP. The used the rope to get her out, and then proceeded down the steps…

[Scott]

The stairs ended in a circular chamber, 80’ diameter. The stairs entered at where the 3 would be on a clock face. Two additional doors could be seen at about the 7 and 11 o’clock spots. Four freshly dead goblin bodies could were sprawled about the floor. A search revealed that they had been looted. There was some rock rubble in the room, an overturned table, some additional litter, but nothing of interest or value, so the party decided to proceed through the 7 o’clock door. It opened into a chamber 30’ easy/west by 70’ north/south. The place showed little sign of recent activity. Patches of wall and ceiling had fallen, and the rubble littered the floor. The walls were covered with carvings of demonic beings engaged n unspeakable activities. There was a stone door in the west wall that the party decided was best to be ignored for now, so the returned to the circular room and tried the 11 o’clock door. A 10’ wide passage headed west. They followed the passage until they came to a door on the north wall; a short distance ahead the passage ended in another door. They listened at the north door, heard nothing, and entered. It was a small empty chamber. They then went to the west door. This time when they listened, they heard voices. Yippy, high-pitched voices in a language they couldn’t understand. Throwing open the door the party saw what appeared to be the scene of a recent battle between goblins and kobolds in a large hall. Bodies littered the floor. Six kobolds were also here, in the process of dragging goblin corpses towards a large pit in the southern portion of the room. The party rushed in to attack. The kobolds morale broke after a single round. The two that survived the first round ran down a passage heading west. One was cut down before getting anywhere; the other was ran down and killed in a round. The kobolds had a few coppers and silvers each, which the party pocketed. The hallway the kobolds ran down went about 50’ west before a side passage branched north. Past the side passage, a door could be seen on the north wall, and two more along the south. The party retreated back to the hall where the melee had started. It was a large, irregular shaped place. Besides the door they had entered, and the passage they had chased the kobolds down, there were four other doors. The pit appeared to be a large firepit. The walls were decorated in the familiar demonic motif. Near the SE corner was a fountain and statue of what appeared to be some sort of demonic being spitting or drooling water into a basin. A door on the west wall of the SW corner opened into a pantry. Various wild animal carcasses were hanging or laying in various stages of ‘processing’. A door on the south wall of the SW corner opened into what appeared to be a large rat cage. A room that was probably once used as another pantry now caged numerous rats, normal, and a few giant specimens as well. The reek was awful. The party slammed the door and checked out the other doors. A door to the NW opened into a small chamber that looked like it was being used as living quarters for kobolds, but it was empty now. A quick search turned up nothing valuable. The last door, in the NE corner, opened to a passage heading east. Following it to the end, the party came to a door on the north wall. Nothing could be heard, so they proceeded through. The room beyond was 50’ x 40’. Ceremonial in appearance. Empty. More of the fiendish decorations on the wall. A single door was present, leading north. The next chamber was of similar dimensions and decoration. A 20’ wide corridor continued north. On the east wall a statue/fountain was present, but the fountain wasn;t working and the basin was empty. A relief-carved stone door to the west displayed a skeletal figure with cowled cloak and carrying a scythe. The skull-like head topped by thick strands of hair. The party decided that this portion of the dungeon was getting a little too menacing, so they hurried back to the corridor where they chased the kobold down. They listened at the first door they came to, on the south wall, heard nothing, and entered. Another empty chamber. The next door was to the north. It was barred from this side. Listening revealed nothing. They opened it and found four captive goblins chained to the walls. The goblins were willing to share some info, hoping to be released. They did admit to capturing the adventurers the party was looking for. Some of them died in the process. Some were turned over to their master, Belak, a spell using human, and they now serve him willingly. They wouldn’t tell the party how to get there, but they’d be happy to show them the way. They also explained that the kobolds were new to the dungeon. They arrived in numbers, taking the goblins off guard. The skirmish today was typical. The party decided to leave the goblins here, and the goblins were screaming curses at the party as the closed the door on them.
End of session.

[GRWelsh]

I enjoyed the write-up. Thanks for DMing.

[Scott]

The Party:
Fabiolus, aka Fabio: 1st Level Wood Elf Fighter
Fleak Pingle: 1st Level Wood Elf Ranger
Sparkolfin Fabulein, aka Sparkles Fabulous, aka Sparkles: 1/1 Gray Elf Fighter/Magic-User
Verde Ivy; 1st Level Human Druid
Nethelreth, aka Neth: 1st Level Half-Elf Druid

Waterday, Coldeven 5, 575 CY
A moment after closing the door on the goblins, a kobold patrol appeared down the corridor to the west, throwing javelins as they approached. One of them ran off yelling in kobold. The party backed up to an intersection and Fleak began sniping the kobolds as they approached until another group of kobolds appeared, coming from the north in the corridor the party had ran to for cover. The party fell back again to the large ceremonial room they had found earlier as more kobolds approached. A sleep spell from Sparkles took out most of them and then the party pounced to mop up the rest. There was a quick debate about continuing in the dungeon, or returning to town. The party decided to return to town, and call it a night.

Earthday, Coldeven 6th, 575 CY
Neth and Ivy went to visit Damarra at the chapel, and Ivy convinced her to aid them in their scouting of the ruins. Damarra cured Ivy’s wounds and gave her four potions of healing to assist the party in their exploration.
Back at the inn, the party spotted a fighter-looking man arriving. His name was Grayvin, and he was travelling from Ulek to the Wild Coast. The party asked him if he wanted to join them, but he declined, and instead suggested that the party come to the Wild Coast with him, which they declined. Nothing else happened that day.

Freeday. Coldeven 7th, 575 CY
The party decided they were going to scout out the wilderness around the ruins and try to set up an ambush for humanoids entering and exiting the place. About a mile to the northeast of the place the party found what appeared to be an old woodmen’s cabin, which they decided to use as a base. Much closer to the ruins, Fleak found what looked like a track goblins were using to get to and from the ruins. This is where they set up their ambush. That night they spotted three grumbling goblins heading from the ruins to the track back to Fair Hill. The goblins were quickly killed, and then somebody commented that they should have kept one alive to question. Anyways, the goblins had a few coins on them, and one carried a scroll case. Sparkles pulled a scroll from the case, and there was writing on it he couldn’t read. He passed it around and when Neth looked at it he could see that it was a corrupted version of the druidic language used by a sect known as the Dark Druids.
To be continued when I have my notes handy…

[GRWelsh]

Any more journal entries coming?

[Scott]

I'd like to, but it's tough finding the time.

[Scott]

Just a few words to catch up, and then I'll try to stay current going forward.
The party continued investigating the ruins. Clues indicate that there is a Dark Druid in the ruins. The party seems to have defeated all of the humanoids minions. The upper level of the ruins seems to be abondoned. Entering the lower level, the party encountered zombies and an evil priest. The elf Fabiolus was killed fighting the zombies. The cleric escaped. The party is currently in town.

[Scott]

Sunday, Coldeven 23rd, 575 CY
The party spent the day resting in town. At the inn they made the acquaintance of a young wizard named Harvey Plotter who was travelling with his mentor. After hearing of the party’s exploration of the nearby ruins, Harvey decided to stay.

Moonday, Coldeven 24rd, 575 CY
The party made their way back to the cave entrance to the dungeon level of the ruins. At the bottom of the sloping passage three zombies had been stationed as guards. Fugar, the dwarf cleric, turned them, and the party trailed them back to a chapel dedicated to the evil god Nerull and other beings associated with the planes of Hades. Upon entering the chapel area, the zombies turned to face the party again, but did not advance. Instead, three other zombie guards already in the chapel moves towards the party. As they approached, the party debated ‘turn or fight’. ‘Fight” won and the party proceeded to get its ass kicked by the three zombies. After many rounds, the three zombies were completely dead, and two party members were unconscious. Nethelreth the druid, and FuGar the dwarf cleric. The party stood debating whether they should attack the remainingthree zombies, or go back to town. They launched a few arrows and sling bullets at the zombies, but they wouldn’t leave the chapel. After a few minues of this, Harvey spotted four of the malign little treant-like beings approaching from the party’s rear. The party managed to defeat them without losing anybody else, and then hurried back to town.

[Scott]

Godsday, Coldeven 25th, 575 CY
More resting and healing. Damara, the priestess in town, assisted with the party’s recovery by casting a few cure light wounds.

Waterday, Coldeven 26th, 575 CY
More resting and healing. The party also did some shopping, picking up lots of oil and some holy water.

Earthday, Coldeven 27th, 575 CY
Back to the ruins. The party decided to forget about the chapel area for the time being. The followed a corridor they had explored earlier to a door. The door opened into a 50’ x 40’ chamber. Four of the animated tree creatures were within, carrying wood, sorting roots, etc. but they immediately rushed the party. They were cut down pretty quickly by the party. The middle of the southern wall was an archway that lead to a large natural cavern. A large field of sickly pale briars, thorns, nettles, etc. filled the near portion of the cavern. Beyond the floor sloped up. At the top of the slope was a low stone wall. Behind that was a large leafless tree. Three human-sized silhouettes were close to the tree. Neth, used his cloak of the bat to transform himself into a normal bat and flew in to investigate. The three figures were humans. A fourth human was shackled to the tree. He was either unconscious or dead. The bat-druid headed back to the party. Back in the room, FuGar decided to torch everything. The fire attracted more of the evil animated trees. Over the next several rounds ten more attacked the party. The party took only a few minor wounds in the battle. Neth had arrived several rounds into the melee and helped finish them off. He then flew into the cavern again to look for other entrances/exits. One small cave lead to a crudely furnished chamber, bed, desk, chair, shelves, chest, etc. A sheet of parchment on the desk appeared to be a freshly written message addressed to ‘Lord Darius’. The body of the message stated that because of conflicts with the Black Hats in the Gnarley, they would be unable to assist with plans in the Suss. Signed by ‘Belak of the Umber Eye’.
Neth waited for his cloak to recharge than drenched the room in oil and lit it. He turned back into a bat and flew into the air.
The flames drew two of the men near the tree. Seeing this, the rest of the party began advancing on the tree and the flaming cave.
To be continued.

[GRWelsh]

Thanks for the updated journal.

I notice you changed the year of the campaign from 579 CY to 575 CY. Any particular reason for that?

[Scott]

I meant for it to be in 575. I guess I was on auto-pilot or something. There's some date specific stuff in the future that will need to be pre-579.

[Scott]

Fleek advanced on the human (a monk) that remained at the wall, once spotted, the human on the wall tried hitting him with his crossbow. The rest moved towards the two humans (a monk and a dark druid) that moved to investigate the fire. Neth landed behind the two humans and attacked. The monk standing with the dark druid went down, a victim of Sparkles’ sleep spell. A giant tree frog that had been out of sight sprung to assist its master, the dark druid. The dark druid began casting a spell, but was suddenly hit by a magic missile fired by the advancing Harvey. Enraged, he drew hi scimitar and attacked Neth. Fleek made it to the wall without taking any hits, and quickly dropped the monk there, but was quickly attacked by three more of the little animated trees. The rest of the party was having problems with the dark druid and the frog. He wasn’t able to cast any offensive spells, but he was magically fast and was doing good damage. The party was rolling poorly, and that didn’t help things. Fleek managed to kill all of the evil trees. Neth and Fugar were knocked out, and Ivy was killed before the druid went down. The frog had been charmed, and with its master dead it fled. A healing potion brought Neth back to action. The human shackled to the tree was barely alive, and seemed to be glued to the tree by some sort of sticky sap, but they were able to get him down. The dark druid was wearing bracers and a torc that turned out being magic, as was his scimitar. In the burned out chamber, there was treasure that survived the flames thanks to making the saves. In a charred pouch under the bed contained a number of gems, worth 10,000 GP in all. A small chest also contained 1,000 SP. All of the rest of the books, parchments, etc. were burned up. The party packed up and headed back to town.

[GRWelsh]

I see how you work... wait until I fall asleep and then railroad me right out of the Wild Coast!

LOL. Just kidding. Sorry I fell asleep. I had a mentally exhausting week.

[GRWelsh]

No game tonight. I'm sick.

Next game: Friday, Nov. 4th.