DF Whiterock Session 70: Destroying the Gates

Date:

2019-10-25

Weather:

Warm, sunny

Player Characters:

Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 436 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 433 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 424 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 440 points

Significant NPCs:

Soras, Centaur Leader

Grisby, Faerie Dragon

Stagheart Tearny, Human Druid

Centaur Warriors

Crazy Half-Elven Druid

Shambling Mound

8 Goblin Warriors

2 Goblin Wizards

Huge Beetle

Vulgaris, Minyad Druid

Hugin, Human Mercenary

The PCs woke up early, the day after defeating Trag.  The plan was for them to clear the Crazy Druid off his bridge to clear the way for the centaur forces, then find and destroy the Gate to the Scourgelands, while the centaurs attacked the main part of the goblin army.  A goblin prisoner had told Soras that the gate was in a fissure in the rock, which was covered on top to hide it.

Elias stayed behind to heal the centaurs.  Grisby came out of the pavillion with his dog Arrel carrying Garreth's katana, which had had its Penetrating Weapon enchantment renewed.  Polly asked Stagheart to say a prayer.

Seépravir cast Flight and Invisibility on the whole group.  They flew east.  At one point they spotted a squat of goblins below, but decided to bypass them and continue to the bridge.  As they approached the bridge, they saw the crazy druid standing on it.  Garreth suggested letting Polly handle him.  Polly decided to fly within 5 yards and then start loosing arrows.  The first arrow hit him in the skull and knocked him unconscious.  Polly fired a few more arrows at his head to make sure he was dead.  While doing so, she noticed a large clump of plant life crawling toward her, not very quickly.  She grabbed the druid's corpse and flew back to the vicinity of her allies.  The pile of vegetation followed her across the bridge, apparently angry.

Zaber stripped the body, and threw the druid's underwear at the plant creature as it approached.  He missed.  Polly fired three arrows at the plant; it dodged one but the others hit, and slowed it down.  Seépravir Great Hasted Polly, who put another arrow in the pile of vegetation, which stopped moving.  Garreth carefully sliced up the plant creature, finishing it off, while looking for treasure inside.  Polly recovered some of her arrows, while Zaber looked for tracks.  Polly looked under the bridge, and didn't see anything, but she did notice that the bridge was a bit slimy and slippery.  So she wrote a note "Bridge is Slippy" on the ground in Elven, to warn the approaching centaurs.

As they rested after fighting, the group heard the sound of approaching hooves from the west.  A small group of centaurs had arrived.  They asked if the bridge was clear and safe, and Polly told them that there were no trolls, but it was slippery.  The centaur scouts said that the rest of the centaurs were a bit behind them, and continued across the bridge.

Seépravir made Polly and Garreth Invisible again, and the group flew east across the river.  They reached the burned-out palace formerly used by Trag, and continued east.  Seépravir cast Seek Magic and found a strong source of magic about 2 miles to the southeast.  As they continued toward the magic, they saw fewer trees, and a lot of burn damage.  Eventually they found a box canyon, but not the gate.  Seépravir cast See Secrets on Zaber, who then noticed a small hole in the ground.  He looked for a second hole, but didn't find another one.  He suggested starting a fire and killing whoever was under there with smoke inhalation, but that plan did not prevail.  It looked dark down there, so Seépravir cast Dark Vision on the others (she had the Staff of the Beetle that gave her Dark Vision when held).

Polly stuck her head in the hole, and thought she saw something huge moving around in the distance.  She got a little closer, and it appeared to be a huge beetle, standing guard in front of a gate.  There were also a bunch of goblins arrayed roughly in a semicircle around the beetle.  As they watched, they saw one of the guards go away to the south, come back with a waterskin, then bring some water to each of the other goblins.  After nothing more exciting happened, Polly and Zaber each flew into position to ambush some goblins.  Garreth activated the pearly spear's Great Haste ability.  

Zaber snuck up behind a goblin that he suspected was a wizard, but somehow the goblin detected him and spun around.  (The goblin rolled a 4 on his hearing roll, a critical success.)  Zaber tried backstabbing the goblin anyway, but it retreated and dodged and yelled a warning to the others.  Polly shot a goblin in the skull, stunning it.  Then shot it again, knocking it out.  Then shot another goblin in the vitals, who rolled a 17 on his Dodge, falling down, then missed his stun check by enough to be knocked out.  

Garreth fast-drew his katana and flew up to a goblin who didn't hear him coming, and did an All-Out Attack (Double).  The first attack knocked the goblin out, so he didn't need the second one.  For his second maneuver, he flew up to another goblin.  Seépravir yelled tactical advice to Polly: "shoot them in the back."  The giant beetle saw Polly, ran up to her, tried to bite her, missed, and tried to trample her.  She acrobatically dodged.  A goblin tried stabbing Garreth in the side with a scimitar, but he parried.  A stunned goblin recovered, as the rest of the goblins advanced toward the intruders.

Zaber flew up and put on his Ring of Invisibility.  Polly tried shooting past the huge beetle at a goblin (softer target), but rolled a critical miss, which she averted with Luck.  After the reroll, the goblin took an arrow to the back and was stunned.  She shot him twice more, but somehow didn't kill him or knock him out, despite a lot of damage.  Garreth flew down at a goblin and deceptively attacked it, but it rolled a 5 and managed to parry.  He went for two more attacks on it with a rapid strike.  It dodged the first, but failed to dodge the second, and was slowed.  Seépravir yelled tactical advice to Zaber.

The giant beetle attacked Polly again, rolling a critical hit on a trample, but poor damage, only 15 points of crushing.  It then tried to bite her, but she retreated and dodged.  A previously injured goblin passed out.  The three goblin warriors near Zaber, who just saw him disappear, attacked the air a lot with spears, but failed to find him, while Zaber flew away from them to above the beetle, and landed on its back.  (There wasn't much room between the beetle and the ceiling but he fit, in prone flying position.)

Polly shot a badly wounded goblin, doing enough damage to take it to -5 * HP and just kill it with no more dice rolls needed.  She then tried shooting the huge beetle, which somehow dodged.  The arrow  missed a goblin behind the beetle.  She shot the beetle again, which dodged again, but this time the arrow "accidentally" hit a goblin, and crippled his leg.  Garreth flew up to the beetle and chopped it deceptively twice, hitting once and being dodged once.  Seépravir gave more tactical advice to Zaber.

The beetle decided it didn't like Zaber on its back, and jumped up, trying to slam him against the ceiling.  It rolled a 3 for a critical hit, so Zaber used Luck to make it reroll, then managed to dodge and retreat out of the way, as the 3 goblins to the south continued running around looking for him.  Zaber flew away from the beetle a bit and All-Out Defended.  Polly decided to switch to her rapier, fast-drew it, and stabbed the beetle 3 times, causing some purple stuff to ooze out.  Garreth also slashed the beetle 3 times, causing enough damage to slow it, though it was still fighting.

The big bug went after Garreth, first trampling him (acrobatically dodged), then biting him (dodged), then stabbing him with its horn (dodged critically).  The critical defense caused the beetle to stub its horn into the ground, taking some damage.  Meanwhile, the goblins that had been hunting for Zaber decided to go after visible enemies.  One threw a javelin at Garreth, who failed to Parry Missile Weapons and took a direct hit to his armor, which bounced right off.  The goblin with a crippled leg also threw a javelin at Garreth, also hit, and also failed to penetrate his armor.

Polly went around the beetle's side and landed 3 more hits and a death check, which the beetle passed.  Garreth also landed 3 hits, causing some orange goo to come out, and more importantly causing a second death check, which the beetle also passed.  Seépravir moved closer.  The beetle did not pass out, and decided to trample/bite/stab Polly.  It rolled another critical hit on the trample, causing her to drop her weapon, and also inflicting 23 crushing damage.  After her armor absorbed a lot of it, this was not enough to trigger her Bless, but it was enough to slow her.  The bite also hit, but rolled terrible damage, only 10 points crushing.  Polly rolled a 17 on her stun check, resulting in a knockout, which caused her Bless to retroactively decide that this attack was worth averting, and the beetle missed.  The beetle's last attack, a horn impale, also rolled a critical hit, for double shock penalty due to extreme pain.  But damage was lousy again, only 12 points impaling, and Polly survived and wasn't even stunned.  

Zaber grappled a goblin from behind, using him as a goblin shield.  Polly stayed conscious, then tried shooting an arrow at a goblin but failed due to the shock penalty.  Garreth landed 3 more cuts on the beetle as Seépravir shouted tactical advice.  The beetle stayed up after the attacks, while leaking purple and orange ichor profusely, but then when its turn came, it failed its consciousness check and fell down, not landing on anyone.  The few surviving goblins were not thrilled with the beetle's defeat.  Two of them ran through the gate and escaped to wherever was on the other side.  Another one tried for the gate, but Polly shot it before it got there.  The one that Zaber was grappling tried to surrender, but Garreth refused to accept its surrender and killed it, then threw the wineskin of healing potions to the severely wounded Polly.  She drank a few doses.

Meanwhile, Garreth sized up the gate.  He used autohypnosis, then power blow, then kicked the keystone rock.  This caused the other rocks to fall; Garreth managed to get out of the way.  He kept the keystone, wanting to hide it somewhere so the gate could not be reassembled.  Zaber starting stripping goblins of their slightly valuable mail, while Garreth removed a huge mandible from the beetle.  Garreth flew out of the hole, looking for more goblins, and found that the centaurs had won the battle.

Soras asked that each of his squad leaders be given one stone from the gate, to bury in a separate secret place, so that it could not be reassembled.  He then asked the PCs to go back through the other gate, and then destroy it similarly from the other side, to prevent future invasions of the Far Garden.  He handed Zaber a bracelet, and said to use it if they needed to see him again.

After a bit of rest, the group flew back to the other gate and flew through it.  When they came out the other side, in Vulgaris's mushroom farm under Castle Whiterock, they saw a stone giant, carrying a barrel, who yelled "Intruders!" in Common, and called Vulgaris.  She said that she was surprised they were still alive, after being gone so long.  Apparently their trip into the Far Garden had taken about a year in Cillamar time.  She said that Hugin was back in town, but came back periodically to check.  

Garreth announced that he was done with faerie gates, and that they needed to destroy this one now.  Vulgaris agreed that she wanted it gone.  Vulgaris asked them to carry a barrel of mushroom beer back to Chauntessa for her.  Both Garreth and Zaber said they'd be happy to do so, though Garreth was highly suspicious that Zaber would do none of the carrying after they were out of the beautiful minyad's sight.  On the way out, they grabbed a few gate stones to destroy and scatter outside.

GM's Comments:

The battle against the crazy druid on the bridge was totally anticlimactic, basically a one-shot assassination.  That's what happens when you get total surprise on someone without a lot of DR or HP and with a vulnerable brain hit location.  His pet shambling mound lasted a little longer, but wasn't fast enough to chase anyone down and couldn't fly, so really had no chance to hurt anyone.

The giant beetle, on the other hand, stayed up a while and potentially did massive damage.  It rolled quite well to hit Polly, but not so great on the damage side, and was too dumb to go for her less-armored body parts.  Even so, it managed to knock her Bless off and get her to -10 HP.  Sadly for the bad guys, the beetle's goblin allies were pretty useless.  Trag should have had some tougher bugbears help guard the gate.

Next time, we'll find out what's happened in the past year while the PCs were off in forest-land.

DF Whiterock Session 69: Trag and His Mom

Date:

2019-10-18

Weather:

Warm, sunny

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 366 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 433 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 430 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 421 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 437 points

Significant NPCs:

Soras, Centaur Leader

Grisby, Faerie Dragon

Mortra, Fire Giantess

5 Bugbear Officers

Trag, Bugbear/Giant Martial Artist

We started again right after the PCs defeated a goblin burning crew.  They looted the bodies of the goblins and bugbears that weren't completely obliterated by the fire wagon's explosion.  One of the bugbears was unconscious but still breathing.  There was some discussion as to whether to fix that, but the consensus seemed to be that they wanted to interrogate a prisoner, and once they let him live to answer questions, they couldn't just kill him.  After the digression into the Laws of War, Seépravir decided to short-circuit the whole interrogation process by casting Possession on the bugbear, knocking him out and giving her access to all his memories.  She then said "just ask me questions."

The group learned that Trag lived in a mostly-burned-down house to the east, that he lived with his mom (who was a really old fire giantess), and that he also had a bunch of bugbears around.  Also that he knows kung fu.  They asked if he kept any wizards at his house, and possessed prisoner said that he didn't like wizards in his house and mostly sent them out to kill people and burn stuff.  Garreth asked what would happen if they killed Trag, but the prisoner could not answer that question as the premise was impossible.  Then the spell expired.

Garreth left a scimitar on the ground, hoping the bugbear would try to kill him with it, but the prisoner passed out instead.  After some more discussion of what to do with the bugbear and the annoying druid on the bridge, they decided to just collect the loot (putting much of it into the magic backpack that they'd received as a reward) and continue toward Trag, leaving the unconscious bugbear behind.

After some rest and some healing, the group continued following the trail south and east.  Eventually, Zaber spotted a large building in the distance, with the top floor missing, and a red glow coming from the back side.  Seépravir cast Invisibility on Polly and Zaber, and they scouted ahead.  They found the red glow was coming from the back side of the house, which was as hot as an oven.  It was hard to see anything inside through the small cracks in the walls.  Flying back around the side of the house, Zaber found a window, and on the other side of the window was a bugbear standing guard.  The other side of the house had a similar window, with another bugbear standing guard.

Zaber and Polly snuck back to the others, and they decided to also make Garreth Invisible, and cast Mage-Stealth as well, and have the three ambush the bugbears through the windows.  Garreth went to the north window, and Polly and Zaber to the south one.  Eventually Polly got tired of waiting, and shot an arrow through the window into the bugbear's skull.  (The shot was hard enough to break through the window, so I had Polly make a second attack roll to see how much the window deflected the arrow, and she rolled a 3.  So, not at all.)  Polly followed up with a second shot into the bugbear's brain, and it fell down unconscious.

Garreth responded to the noise of the screaming bugbear by smashing through his window (silently due to Mage-Stealth), then making an Escape roll to slide through the broken window quickly, then All-Out Attacking the nearby bugbear from behind, with two katana slices to the back of the neck.  This did massive damage, but somehow the bugbear survived, and yelled a warning.

Zaber flew in through the window that Polly had broken, and easily made his Escape roll to avoid getting caught on any broken glass.  Inside, he saw a huge red-haired black-skinned fire giantess, and a few more bugbears.  Seépravir and Elias had stayed well back from the house, but both heard the commotion and started flying toward the fight.

The bugbear that Garreth had backstabbed made his consciousness check, yelled a warning to his comrades, then spun around and hit Garreth in the face with his axe.  A second bugbear sentry with a flail ran up to Garreth and took a swing, but missed.  The giantess was also near Garreth, and took a swing at him with a huge warhammer.  About this time, Garreth regretted All-Out Attacking.  She hit, Garreth used Luck, she hit anyway after rerolling, and the damage would have been 23 points impaling.  At that point, Garreth's Bless decided to save him, and she missed, but the Bless was gone.

Polly flew in the window, avoided getting stuck, and looked for targets to shoot.  She loosed 3 arrows at a bugbear with a flail and bucker.  He blocked the first, dodged the second, and ate the third in the vitals, dying.  Garreth All-Out Defended and stepped back.  Zaber, still Invisible, watched the doorway to the east for the expected arrival of Trag.  Two bugbears charged at Garreth.  He dodged a flail, but took an axe to the face.  The giantess followed that up with her huge warhammer, which Garreth parried, at the cost of a broken katana.  (Signature Gear meant he could get it fixed later, but he'd be without it for the rest of the session.)

Polly kept flying around the room, shooting at enemies who were focused on Garreth.  First she plugged a bugbear in the skull, then tried shooting around the giantess at another bugbear, but missed, and accidentally hit the giantess instead.  Then she shot the other bugbear in the skull and knocked him out.  Garreth flew out the window to get away from the warhammer, and met up with the approaching Seépravir and Elias.  The giantess yelled some orders at the last surviving bugbear, who dutifully charged Polly, but missed.  Polly flew away while loosing bodkin arrows, first fatally plugging the bugbear in the skull, then failing to hit the giantess, who dodged.

Elias flew in through the window that Garreth had just retreated through, but failed his Escape roll and was slowed a bit.  The giantess started running east, right near Zaber, who chose to stay Invisible rather than going for the backstab.  Polly shot her in the eye, and she fell down, dead.  Fortunately for Zaber, she didn't land on him.

With no visible opponents remaining, the PCs regrouped.  Garreth took two swigs from the wineskin of healing potions.  Zaber looked for pieces of katana that Garreth had missed and brought them to Seépravir, who used a Repair spell to fix it.  (Though this didn't fix the Penetrating Weapon spell that it used to have.)  Polly scouted east, and found a very hot room full of rubble, with two windows on the east wall.  Garreth opened the house's front door and invited Seépravir in.  Elias, with Resist Fire active, went running through a doorway to the east, and found a courtyard with a pool of lava, and a huge bugbear / small fire giant sitting in it, wearing a black cloth belt that was somehow not on fire..  It was Trag, and he announced "You killed my mother prepare to die!" and then threw a bead at Elias.  He blocked it with his shield, but the Bead of Force's area attack took effect anyway.  Fortunately for Elias, the bead rolled horrible damage, not enough to penetrate his heavy armor.  But it trapped him within a sphere of force!  

Polly flew into Trag's lair through a different doorway, and took damage from the heat.  She shot three arrows at Trag.  The first was deflected by the waves of heat, and he dodged the others.  Garreth used the pearly spear to Great Haste himself.  Elias was unable to push forward through the force sphere, but was able to make a ST roll to squeeze out of it backwards.  Trag fast-drew another Bead of Force and threw it at Polly, who critically succeeded on her dodge and avoided being trapped.  Zaber, still Invisible, was also in the area of effect, but also dodged.  But the force sphere blocked that doorway.  Polly shot 3 more arrows at Trag, who dodged one and parried the other two with his bare hands.

With both doorways blocked, Garreth looked for another way in.  There were a couple of windows, but the wall itself looked kind of rickety, so Garreth decided to just bull his way through.  He made his ST check by 4, enough to shake the wall, but not quite knock it over.  Zaber flew around behind Trag, and took some fire damage.  Trag threw his last Bead of Force at Polly, who dodged it.  Polly responded by shooting Trag in the skull.  He failed to parry, but used Luck to reroll, then parried her second arrow with his other hand and dodged her third arrow.

Garreth made a second attempt to knock down the wall, and this time it came tumbling down, and made a bridge partway over the lava.  He then threw the pearly spear at Trag, but missed.  Zaber realized that he'd probably die of fire damage before he could land a backstab in Trag's eye, and flew away from the lava.  Elias, with Resist Fire protecting him, charged forward over the lava.  Trag went for a triple karate kick on Garreth, who managed to dodge all three.

Polly ate some more fire damage, then launched another salvo of arrows at Trag.  He failed to parry one, then failed to dodge another one, and took enough damage to be slowed by his wounds.  Garreth charged in and went for multiple blows on Trag, who parried them all, but left himself open to Elias.  Elias charged in from behind, and went for an All-Out Attack (Strong) to Trag's skull.  He missed, used his Luck to reroll, hit, and inflicted two death checks and a nasty stun roll.  Trag made the death checks, but failed the stun roll by enough to be knocked unconscious.

Elias dragged Trag out of the lava, and then gathered other visible loot, as the others retreated from the fire damage.  Garreth decapitated Trag.  Seépravir cast Seek Magic, and found a couple of potions on the fire giantess, in addition to Trag's magic belt and magic bag that Elias had already grabbed.  Elias cast some Stop Bleeding and Major Healing on the burn victims, while Seépravir cast Seek Earth looking for gold and platinum, and found none.

The group headed back to Dawn-on-Stream, and presented Trag's head to Loras.  Soras announced that with Trag gone, it was time to defeat the leaderless goblins and bugbears, and their gate guardian, and then destroy their gate so no more could come through into the Far Garden.  Garreth asked about the gate guardian, and Soras said that he'd heard it was a giant bug.  Garreth asked if anyone could fix the broken enchantment on his katana, and Grisby said he could do it, though it would take all night.

Polly asked about the druid on the bridge, but Soras and Grisby had never heard of it.  They indicated that if he was blocking the bridge, he'd need to be removed before the centaurs could cross, unless Seépravir could cast Flight on all of them.  Soras asked that the PCs be ready to attack at dawn.

GM's Comments:

The double ambush through windows on opposite sides of the house worked well, except only 3/5 of the PCs participated (because of the limits of how many spells Seépravir could keep up), and Garreth made a mistake by All-Out Attacking into not-fully-explored territory and almost died.  However, once he survived, attacking from both sides meant that Polly had back shots on the enemies who were focused on Garreth, which ruined their day.

Beads of Force are quite powerful in D&D 3.5.  I depowered them a bit when converting them to GURPS, to prevent a PC hit by one from being completely out of the fight.  (I allowed a penalized ST roll to force one's way through the weakest side of the sphere instead.)  This let Elias back into the fight against Trag, which he eventually finished, by back-attacking Trag while he was busy with Polly and Garreth.

Outnumbering and surrounding most boss monsters is still quite effective.  Trag was smart enough to control the environment by hanging out in a lava pool, but too dumb to have allies actually in the same room with him, so he died.

Next time, we'll probably see the conclusion of the Far Garden arc.

DF Whiterock Session 68: Unicorn Heaven and the Goblin Burning Crew

Date:

2019-10-11

Weather:

Warm, sunny

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 362 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 430 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 427 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 418 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 434 points

Significant NPCs:

Soras, Centaur Leader

Haele, Centaur Ranger

Grisby, Faerie Dragon

The Great Unicorn

4 Spectral Madhorns

Half-Elf Druid

6 Goblin Warriors

4 Bugbear Archers

2 Goblin Wizards

Goblin Sacrifice / Goblin Zombie

The PCs spent a week in Dawn-on-Stream, but nothing very exciting happened.  Garreth sang for the centaurs, and was gifted a goblin-skin tambourine by Haele.  Seépravir tried figuring out the nature of the forest plane, but didn't learn much, except that she was probably out of Seeker range of home.

On the morning of the new moon, Grisby asked the group to meet him outside the pavilion.  There was a pile of neatly wrapped unicorn horns next to him, which he asked someone to carry.  He said to look for a silver bridge to appear, and that it would only last about 15 minutes.  Seépravir cast a bunch of spells (Flight, Invisibility, Lighten, Alertness, Haste), and then everyone crossed the bridge.

On the other side of the bridge, there were many tall trees, but no sounds of birds or insects.  Also, no moon or stars were visible, but there was a dim light from somewhere.  A huge and beautiful unicorn met the group.  She sensed they were carrying unicorn horns, and was confused and annoyed by this, but Grisby explained that these were the horns of unicorns that were murdered by an evil fae, and that they were being brought to their peaceful rest.  That was enough to calm the unicorn, and she asked that they put the horns by the pool.

As the group started across the glade toward the pool, Polly saw a black spectral unicorn rearing up.  She instructed Elias to be ready with Affect Spirits.  Zaber jumped up into a tree, though he had Flight so this was pretty trivial.  Elias tried casting Affect Spirits, but failed.  Seépravir cast Great Haste on Elias to speed up further attempts.

The spectral unicorn charged, and as it got close, caused everyone within a few yards to feel a prickly sensation on the back of their necks, and roll vs. Will-4.  Zaber and Seépravir made their rolls and took 2 points of injury from the evil force; the others missed and took 4 points.  The unicorn tried stabbing Garreth with its horn, but he dodged.

Zaber started working toward the unicorn at treetop height, while Garreth used Kiai to stun it.  Elias cast Affect Spirits on Polly's rapier, successfully this time.  Seépravir flew straight up to get away from the evil unicorn's malevolent force.  Polly tried slicing up the unicorn.  It dodged one slice, but was wounded by two more, though attacks to the skull seemed to do nothing special.  Garreth Kiaied it again, and stunned it again.

Elias tried attacking the spectral unicorn with his holy flail, but the weapon passed right through it.  It appeared holiness was no help.  Seépravir Great Hasted herself.  Grisby flew over the stunned unicorn and breathed at it, but his breath weapon went right through the insubstantial undead as well.  But the badly wounded unicorn failed its consciousness check and fell over, just as another one charged at Elias.  Again, the nearby PCs took damage from its evil aura.

Zaber flew northwest, looking for more spectral unicorns, and spotted two more of them, and a pool in the distance.  The one near Elias tried kicking him, but he dodged.  Polly waited for one to come into rapier reach.  Garreth tried Kiai again, but this time it was resisted.  Elias tried Affect Spirits on his flail, but failed.  Seépravir Great Hasted Garreth.

Two more spectral unicorns charged in.  One tried a gaze attack on Seépravir, but she resisted.  Another charged at Garreth, triggering Polly's wait.  Polly hit it a couple of times with her rapier and stunned it, ending its attack.  Zaber continued flying toward the pool, and spotted a pretty lilac bush.  Polly's turn came around again, and she chopped up the stunned spectral unicorn, dispelling it.

Garreth used Kiai again, and stunned another spectre, then held his katana toward Elias, gesturing for a spell.  A spectre gazed at Polly, and she failed her resistance roll, but her Bless intervened and saved her, going away in the process.  Zaber reached the pool, and noticed that its surface did not reflect anything.  

Polly stabbed another spectre, but failed to hurt it much.  Garreth successfully used Kiai again.  Elias successfully cast Affect Spirits on Garreth's katana.  One of the unicorns tried its gaze attack on Garreth again, but he critically succeeded on his resistance roll, and I ruled that he was immune to their negative energy attacks from now on.  He yelled to the others to stay clear while he finished off the spectral unicorns.

Meanwhile, Zaber gazed into the pool.  He felt it trying to draw him in, but made his resistance roll.  Polly retreated straight up.  Garreth tried chopping up a spectre, but fumbled and lost his balance.  One of the unicorns tried skewering him, but he made a critical success on his acrobatics roll then a critical success on his dodge roll, pulling off a tricky backflip that made the spectre crash into a tree and fall down.  Another one tried kicking Garreth, and rolled a critical hit, but he used his Luck to make it reroll, then sidestepped the attack.

Zaber looked into the pool again.  Again it tried to suck him in, and again he resisted.  Garreth attacked the hapless prone spectral unicorn from behind, and destroyed it.  He then spun around and attacked the remaining one, and destroyed it too.  The unconscious one also vanished.

Grisby asked if anyone was critically wounded, and then cast Minor Healing on Elias, Garreth, and Polly.  He said they needed to hurry up and bring the unicorn horns to the pool, so they could go back home before the bridge went away.  Zaber flew back over and announced that the pool was evil and nobody should look in it.  Garreth followed instructions, dropping the horns by the pool without looking.  The horns started dissipating, and the golden unicorn paragon horn started glowing.

The huge unicorn wandered back over, and thanked them for their help.  She said that she could feel that the murdered unicorns had achieved peace.  At that point, Grisby recommended that everyone run back to the bridge.  They all made it, and were back in Dawn-on-Stream.  But it was afternoon, not early morning.  When they found Soras, he said they'd been gone about a month, and that they had missed a battle against the goblins, where many centaurs and fae died.  He suggested they hurry up and kill Trag before he launched another large attack.

Elias re-cast Bless on Polly.  Garreth asked where to find Trag, and Soras said somewhere on the east side of the river.  He recommended capturing a goblin and asking.  The group decided to spend a couple of days in town to fully heal, then set out to find Trag.

Seépravir cast another big group of travel spells, and the group flew east.  Eventually they saw a river running north-south, with a bridge crossing it, and somebody standing on the bridge, pointing at them and yelling.  Then jumping up and down.  Then screaming that flying was against the rules and that they had to land and pay the bridge toll.  Polly asked how much the toll was, and the man said "one life."  After a bit of screaming back and forth, the PCs decided that this was some kind of crazy evil druid, and that dealing with him would be a waste of time, so they'd just keep flying.

A few more miles to the east, flying above an east-west trail through a clearing,, Zaber spotted a wagon ahead, over 50 yards away.  The wagon was pulled by six goblins, and three more goblins were riding on top: two sitting on the front seat, and one lying down on top of a pile of barrels.  There were four bugbears walking alongside the wagon.  Polly did a bit of range math and then tried to see if she could shoot all of the goblins and bugbears before they could reach her.

Polly shot three goblin wagon-pullers, and each went down with one arrow.  Seépravir Great Hasted herself.  Elias moved to a position where he could help protect Polly.  Zaber, Invisible, flew forward to backstab someone.  Garreth hung back and readied his sling.

Polly shot one of the goblins on the front seat of the wagon, but her arrow curved around him -- Missile Shield.  It hit and killed the goblin lying on the barrels instead.  Polly then started shooting bugbears.  One blocked an arrow with his shield.  Seépravir tried Great Hasting Polly, but failed.  The bugbears and surviving goblin warriors charged, but were still quite far away.

Seépravir Great Hasted Garreth, who decided that since everyone else was foolishly charging forward, he should too.  The bugbears stopped running forward and readied their bows.  The two goblins in the wagon cast some spells: one created a glowing ball of fire in his hands, and the other touched the dead goblin behind him and caused it to rise up!

Polly was thrilled to see that the bugbears had their shields down, and tried shooting one in the vitals.  It dodged the first arrow with a critical success, then tried dodging the second arrow and took it right to the heart, failed his consciousness check and hit the dirt.  She shot another one, and slowed him.

Garreth double moved.  Seépravir Great Hasted Polly.   The zombie goblin moved into position to protect its master, as both goblin wizards enlarged Fireballs.  The injured bugbear tried shooting Polly, but missed.  A goblin warrior that was somehow not dead yet continued charging, getting almost close to the PCs.

Polly shot another bugbear, killing her.  She then shot the slowed one in the skull, knocking him out.  And shot another bugbear, killing him.  Garreth gave up on the sling and pulled out his katana, and charged toward the surviving bugbear archer.

The heroic goblin warrior actually reached Elias, and tried stabbing him with a spear, but Elias blocked.  The last bugbear tried shooting Garreth in the face at point-blank range, but rolled a 16 and missed.  Zaber landed right behind one of the goblin wizards, and prepared to backstab.  Polly flew up to the goblin zombie and shot him until he fell apart.

Garreth went for multiple katana chops on the bugbear next to him, and killed him.  Elias smashed the heroic goblin warrior with his flaming holy flail, and splattered him.  Zaber backstabbed one of the goblin wizards in the skull, and instantly killed him.

The final surviving goblin wizard looked at Zaber (who was now visible) and Polly next to him, and the other PCs coming forward toward him, and all his allies dead or unconscious, and decided to do as much damage as possible on his way down.  He took a wait maneuver, that as soon as someone attacked him, he would throw his fireball at the wagon.  Unbeknownst to the PCs, the barrels on the wagon were full of Alchemist's Fire, for burning down trees.  When Polly pointed her bow at him, the goblin fireballed the wagon, which exploded.  The goblin failed to dodge, caught fire, and died.  Zaber dove away from the blast, but still took significant burn damage and lost his eyebrows.  Polly critically succeeded on her dodge, and managed to almost completely avoid the blast, somehow.

At that point, we stopped for the night.  The PCs had completely defeated the goblin burning crew, but had not yet looted them (if there was any loot left) or interrogated the survivors.

GM's Comments:

The unicorn heaven side quest fight was tricky because Affect Spirits was needed to hurt the spectral unicorns, and Elias could only cast it so fast.  Once both Garreth and Polly had both Great Haste and Affect Spirits, it got a lot easier.  Garreth's Kiai slowed down the attacks pretty well, and Polly was saved by her Bless.  The other part of the challenge, the evil pool, failed to get past Zaber's resistance, and he warned the rest of the party off.

The crazy druid on the bridge was completely bypassed by Flight.  Polly wanted to go back and kill him since he was clearly evil and annoying, but the rest of the group decided he was a waste of time.  Flight is really good, if you have it at 25 and can maintain it on your whole party all day.

The goblin burning crew was the longest range fight we've ever had in this campaign, and thus an opportunity for Polly to shoot the crap out of things.  The four bugbears were also technically archers, but she outclassed them.  The two wizards had some fun spells, but Zaber fatally backstabbed one of them before he got to do much, and then the other one was down to a kamikaze fireball attack.  Which had a chance to kill Zaber or Polly if they rolled badly enough, but Zaber dodged and Polly super-dodged.  So it mostly just took out the wagon.

We'll see next time if the surviving bugbears know anything, and if the PCs can find Trag.

DF Whiterock Session 67: Wyverns and Devils

Date:

2019-10-04

Weather:

Warm, sunny

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 358 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 427 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 424 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 415 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 431 points

Significant NPCs:

Soras, Centaur Leader

Grisby, Faerie Dragon

2 Wyverns

Aquiliya, Ring of Water Elemental Command

Erinyes

8 Lemures

We started outside, in the Far Garden, with the PCs battling a wyvern that just came out of a pond.  Polly shot the wyvern in the eye, and it crashed into the ground.  (It had a Nictitating Membrane, but not a thick enough one.)  The wyvern screamed in pain, sounding like a moose.  Zaber noticed something else flying off the top of a nearby hill.  Polly tried shooting the wounded wyvern again, but Garreth was in the way, and she accidentally shot him in the foot, crippling it.  Garreth had a Flight spell, so the crippled foot didn't matter very much, and he tried to chop it's neck off.  He slightly missed, hitting the torso instead, and made a lot more green blood come out of the wyvern.

Somehow, the heavily wounded wyvern had enough fight left in it to try stinging and biting Elias, but he blocked the stinger then dodged the teeth.  Polly shot the wyvern again, and it finally stopped moving.  But then the flying object Zaber had spotted came over the crest of the hill and turned out to be a second wyvern, in a steep attack dive torward the PCs.  Polly shot it in both eyes.

Seépravir cast Invisibility on Garreth, but it didn't really matter because the wyvern was blinded.  (Though it did keep people from seeing his crippled foot.)  The wyvern tried to swoop toward where it had last seen Polly, but missed by a bit, as Elias and Garreth waited to smack it if it came within range. The badly wounded second wyvern eventually passed out, and crash-landed near Polly, Garreth, and Elias.  They all managed to jump out of the way, and it crashed into its mate.

Elias healed Garreth's foot with Major Healing.  Garreth wandered over to the wyverns and chopped both heads off to make sure they stayed down.  Zaber announced that he wanted to search the pond, so Seépravir lent him the Ring of Water Breathing and cast Warmth on him.  (It wasn't really cold enough to strictly need Warmth, but it didn't hurt.)  Zaber swam around for a while, and didn't find anything interesting underwater.  He came back up, then worked to extract some poison from a wyvern stinger and bottle it.

Zaber then decided to fly up on top of the hill and look for a wyvern lair.  It was extremely windy up there for some reason, which forced him to make some DX rolls, but he didn't crash.  He found the wyverns' nest, which contained a scroll case, a box, a little dragon statue, a medallion, some coins, and a spyglass.  Zaber gathered all the loot to bring back to the others.  As he did this, the wind appeared to wake up the Ring of Water Breathing.  It telepathically introduced itself to Zaber as Aquiliya, a Ring of Water Elemental Command, and told him that it should be worn by an archmage, not a lowly thief.

The other PCs were worried why Zaber was taking so long, but he eventually flew back.  He returned the ring to Seépravir, and got his own telepathic introduction to Aquiliya.  The ring revealed that it could understand and read any language.  Seépravir wasn't that impressed, since she also has that spell.  Zaber also dumped out all the loot so the wizards could identify the magic stuff, which was two scrolls, a ring, and a wand.  They stored all the treasure for later analysis.

Seépravir cast Seek Magic, which revealed more magic a few miles to the south.  The group flew that way, until they eventually saw a crude wooden fort, basically a circular palisade with no roof.  There were various small animal corpses nailed to the outside of the palisade, and some nasty smoke coming from something burning inside.  Zaber heard someone talking inside the fort.   Seépravir turned everyone Invisible.  As they snuck closer, everyone could hear the talking, but only Seépravir had the ability to understand Infernal.  It was a leader complaining to her minions that she did all the killing and they just sat around, and if they didn't improve their killing and find the gate, they would all be dismissed and replacements would be summoned.

The group all snuck up to the fort.  As they got closer, they saw that the thing burning was a centaur corpse, and the occupants of the fort were a winged female devil (an erinyes) and 8 smaller lesser devils (lemures).  Seépravir cast Magic Resistance on Garreth and Polly.

Garreth activated Great Haste from the pearly spear, then threw the spear at the erinyes.  She noticed it coming and dodged it.  Polly fired three bodkins at the devil's skull, but she dodged them all.  Zaber flew around the side of the fort, setting up a backstab.  The erinyes yelled a command to the lemures to kill, then flew straight up.  Elias moved forward toward the palisade.  Seépravir dropped everyone's Invisibility except her own.  That cost Zaber a second to put on his Ring of Invisibility.

One of the lemures jumped up and tried to grab Elias, but he parried it easily.  Polly fired another volley of arrows at the leader's head.  She dodged the first, but the second was a critical hit for maximum damage.  That would be a fatal shot against most people, but either the devil was really tough or she wasn't susceptible to brain hits in the usual place.  Polly put the third arrow in her body, and rolled another crit, inflicting a death check, which the erinyes passed.

Garreth fast-drew a sai and threw it at the devil, who failed to dodge it.  She let him know telepathically that she would make him and the archer fight to the death after their friends were dead.  The erinyes tried using her long whip to grab Polly, who acrobatically dodged it.  The erinyes then readied her flaming bow.  Elias smashed one of the lemures with his blessed flail, which destroyed it utterly.  Since Elias came down into melee range, the other lemures swarmed toward him.  Once tried grabbing him, but he blocked critically, causing it to fall down.

Polly tried firing three more arrows at the erinyes, but she dodged all three, while mocking Polly's aim.  Zaber flew up behind the devil.  Garreth tried a kiai, twice, but she resisted it, twice.  She then cast a charm spell on Garreth.  But with Magic Resistance giving him +6, he managed to resist.  She fired a couple of flaming arrows at Garreth.  The first one hit, doing a bit of damage.  He parried the second, though it required using his Luck.

Elias fatally smashed another lemure with his flail.  Seépravir cast Magic Resistance on Elias.  Several surviving lemures tried to gang tackle Elias, but he dodged one, blocked one, and parried one.  Polly flew up to slam the erinyes.  She made contact, but didn't inflict any damage.  She followed up with a couple of kicks, which were dodged.  Zaber, who'd been sneaking up for a while, grabbed a wing from behind.  Unfortunately, this did not appear to affect the devil's flying ability.

Garreth flew down a bit into melee range and wrecked a lemure with his katana.  The erinyes cast a spelll on Polly and critically succeeded, but Polly used her Luck to make her reroll the crit, and then the Flight spell resisted being dispelled.  (The erinyes didn't know that Polly had a Ring of Slow Fall on, so dispelling Flight wouldn't have been that effective anyway.)  She then tried to grapple Polly instead, but Polly dodged.

Elias used Rapid Strike to end two more lemures.  Seépravir yelled tactical advice to Garreth.  A couple of lemures tried grabbing Elias and Garreth, but failed.  Polly pulled our her rapier and cut the erinyes for enough damage to inflict a second death check...and the erinyes rolled a 17.  Screaming "Nooooo!" she died and then crashed into the ground, as Zaber let go.  The surviving lemures dissipated as their summoner died.

Garreth collected his sai, then pulled the centaur corpse out of the fire.  Polly checked out the devil's bow, which was still on fire, and too hot to touch.  She asked Elias for a Resist Fire spell, and with it, was safely able to fire flaming arrows from the bow.  The devil had also dropped a long whip and an axe.  In the corner of the fort was a partial unicorn corpse.  Under it were some coins, some pearls, a gem, and a golden unicorn horn.  Garreth buried both the unicorn and the centaur near a beech tree outside the fort.

At that point, the group decided to return to Dawn-on-Stream.  Seépravir tried telling Soras to apologize to the nymph, but he was having none of it.  However, Soras and Grisby were happy to hear that the erinyes had been destroyed.

GM's Comments:

The wyverns made the mistake of having eyes and being SM +3 so their eyes were even easier for Polly to shoot out.  So that fight wasn't that challenging.

Seépravir had been wearing Aquiliya for over a year, and had grudgingly lent it to Zaber from time to time, so it was interesting that the ring finally revealed its intelligence and some of its other abilities.

The erinyes was a tough opponent, but its lemure lackeys were not, and were stuck at ground level where flying PCs could mostly ignore them.  Magic Resistance was huge against the erinyes, making her Charm ability mostly useless.  The fight should have lasted longer, but a 17 on a death check ended it early.

DF Whiterock Session 66: Bushes and Wyverns

Date:

2019-09-27

Weather:

Warm, sunny

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 354 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 424 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 421 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 412 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 428 points

Significant NPCs:

Soras, Centaur Leader

Grisby, Faerie Dragon
Jae, Human Girl

6 Carnivorous Bushes
Giant Scorpion

6 Grigs
Emainee, Nymph

Wyvern


Garreth, Zaber, and Polly returned to Dawn-on-Stream with Jae in tow, after rescuing her from the evil unicorn-murdering redcap.  As a reward for killing the skeletal chimera, Soras gave them a magic backpack.  There were also some coins inside for rescuing the two girls.

The group immediately started playing with their new backpack, to figure out exactly how much weight and volume it could hold.  Grisby reminded them that they should be out killing goblin raiders instead.  Polly asked about the undead spectral unicorn, and Grisby said that's what happens when a unicorn is murdered and its spirit does not leave the world.  Grisby said he'd alert the guards to the presence of the hostile unicorn spirit, and have a cleric ready.  Soras mentioned there was a flying she-devil out there somewhere, and to be careful.

The group flew back to the house on top of the hill to the south of the tent village, where Zaber had previous run away from a giant scorpion.  As they approached, Polly and Zaber noticed two suspicious-looking rows of bushes, flanking the entry path to the front door.  Polly shot an arrow into a bush, with no obvious effect.  Zaber descended to ground level to pick up a pebble, and a root came out of the ground to try grabbing him!  He dodged it, though.

At that point a brief combat ensued, with Polly and Zaber and Elias trying to fight the bushes while Garreth and Seépravir suggested flying up out of range and setting them on fire with magic.  Elias got grappled by a root.  Zaber stabbed it, and then Polly destroyed it, and Elias was free, and eventually (after smashing a few roots with his flail) flew up out of grabbing range.  Once all her allies were out of burning range, Seépravir started using Create Fire and Shape Fire from above.  Soon, all the bushes were on fire.

After the fire burned out, Seépravir tried Seek Magic, and found some magic underneath one of the bushes.  Some digging with Shape Earth revealed a skeleton, holding a wand and a charred scroll case, and wearing a charred pouch containing some coins.  Under the skeleton was a scythe, in nearby was a gem.  So apparently the bushes had pulled at least one victim underground.  Polly flew back to get a shovel, and dug around some more, but that was all the treasure in the area.

Polly and Zaber then went back inside the house.  The giant scorpion was still there, and tried to ambush them again, but failed.  Zaber stabbed it in the eye, but the scorpion had armor there.  Polly then shot it in the eye, and rolled a critical hit, which was enough to go right through the armor and into the scorpion's brain and kill it.  It then disappeared into thin air, rather than leaving a corpse.

There was a chest in the room, which Zaber had previously been trying to loot when the scorpion appeared and tried to kill him.  With the scorpion gone, Zaber resumed looting the chest, and found some coins, some bottles, another wand, and a book.  Seépravir checked out the book, which turned out to be a spellbook written in Common.

The group searched the rest of the house, but just found an empty kitchen and a chimney full of ashes.  They also checked the two outbuildings.  One was a greenhouse with smashed windows and no interesting plants inside.  The other was a tanning shack with a few old hides.

With the house explored, Polly suggested flying back to the gate, where they killed the 4 goblins, so they could collect goblin heads for reward money.  The group flew back there without problems, but the goblins had been disturbed by wildlife, and they could only find 3 out of 4 heads.  They stuck those in the magic backpack, and headed back for the redcap's cave, to try to search it more thoroughly for unicorn horns.  They didn't find the horns inside the cave, and could not find any secret doors, even with See Secrets.  They gave up on that, and went back to the unicorn corpse.

The unicorn corpse was still where they saw it before, lying in the middle of the path.  As the group approached, Zaber saw some small blue fae coming down the trail.  One of the fae said something in Sylvan, then approached Polly, and asked (in Elvish) if she was the goblin-killing archer.  They indicated that they wanted an escort back to Dawn-on-Spring, because there were evil goblins around.  Garreth asked what kind of creatures they were, and they said they were grigs.  One of the grigs also said that someone big and strong really should give that unicorn a proper burial.  Garreth took the shovel and did just that, and Elias performed a funeral ritual, and then the party walked back to Dawn-on-Stream with the grigs.  Nothing attacked them on the way.

When they got back to Dawn, Grisby asked if they had the unicorn horns.  When they did not, he asked if they had magic that could find them.  They did not, so he suggested asking Jae if she knew where the horns were.  The dog Arrel went to fetch Jae.  Jae said that she thought the redcap put the unicorn horns outside the cave somewhere, but she was tied up so she didn't see exactly where.  The PCs went back to the cave again, and did some searching from above, then came down to ground level.  Zaber spotted some tracks, leading from the cave to a tree to the southeast.  Zaber found a hole in the tree, and reached inside and found a unicorn horn.  More digging in there found the other eleven horns, and then the group went back to Grisby once again.  He said that a ritual could be performed with the unicorn horns, but only at dawn during a new moon, not today.  However, Soras rewarded the PCs for the goblin skulls and unicorn horns.

Retracing their steps once again, the party next flew to the tower where they'd killed the giant spiders.  Seépravir cast Seek Magic, which found a scroll case, buried under some rubble.  (Zaber had searched there before, but had rolled a critical failure.)  Along with the scroll case were some coins and gems and a silver dagger.

Seépravir cast Seek Magic again, and the nearest unknown magic was northeast a few miles.  The group flew through the woods, looking for loot.  They spotted a stream below them.  Polly landed to wash some ashes off her hands, and noticed a beautiful redheaded woman bathing in the stream to the northeast.  The other woman glared at Polly.  Polly said Hello.  Polly needed to make a HT check, but made it.  Zaber snuck up, and also needed a HT check, which he passed.  He then came up to introduce himself.  The woman said "Go away, I'm taking a bath!" in Elvish.  Garreth next wandered over, and also made his HT check.  The woman screamed for everyone to turn around and let her get dressed.  After they did that, there was some discussion, about goblins.  Her name was Emainee, she was a nymph.  Zaber tried hitting on her, but was totally shot down, as she said she was in a permanent exclusive bond with a yew tree.  She was apparently annoyed with Soras about something, and refused to go back to Dawn-on-Stream until he apologized, but the party couldn't help with that.  Eventually she tired of talking to them, told them that she needed to go somewhere and not to be in her woods when she returned, and disappeared.  Another Seek Magic found that whatever magic had been in the area was gone now.

The group decided to follow the nearest trail south, looking for a demon.  There was a pool off to the side of the trail, and Zaber noticed a lot of animal tracks around it.  Including some with Huge Claws.  As he was looking at the tracks, Elias decided to throw a rock into the pond.  And then a large flying reptilian creature emerged from the pond and flew at the group.  Seépravir identified it as a wyvern.  And we stopped there, as we were out of time.

GM's Comments:

This week featured a lot of re-visiting places that had been visited before.  And finding treasure that had been missed before.  And collecting reward money.

The nymph was semi-hostile but combat was averted, which was probably smart.  The grigs were friendly and the group helped them, which was neighborly.  The bushes and scorpion were not friendly, but were easily defeated.  The wyvern...we'll see next time.