Learning DnD 3.5

[Ricky S]

Learning DnD

A halfling wearing bright courtly clothes opens the door and looks at each of you in turn as if sizing you up,"Right this way. The mayor has been expecting you." After that rather ominous invitation you all follow him inside.

You are greeted by the sight of white marble collums, an expensive red carpet lines the floor and superbly carved statues lie in alcoves along the walls. Rather impressed and somewhat overwhelmed you follow the halfling up the stairs and leads to the mayors office. The halfling motions towards the mayor office,"Go in." After waiting for you to go in he scurries away to perform other menial duties.

You all enter the office. The mayor, a tall man with grey beard and stern face, sits in front of you dressed in red robes,"Greetings, I do not have much time with you so I will tell you why you have been summoned. We have been finding the remains of families living in outlying houses. Messages have been left in the blood of those who have been killed. Crude I know but we cannot afford to bypass the citizens safety. You have all been chosen to investigate these occurances. Usually I would summon the city guard but I dont want the citizens to get worried. The last thing we need is people panicking." With that last statement he gets back to signing documents.

The halfling came back,"The city guard captain will show you one of the crime scenes, hopefully you will be able to stop these random killings." You all follow him back outside the Mayor's office," This is Lorrack the city guard captain." With a small bow he walks away leaving you with the captain.

Lorrack stands before you resplendent in full plate armour and a blue city guard sash across his chest. Lorrack smiles,"Hi I am Lorrack. Who are all of you?"

[Trodon]

Revorest (cleric)

A six foot human in scale mail wielding a scythe steps up.
"Hello i an Revorest faithful cleric of Nerull, but do not worry just because i follow the god of death dose not mean that I will go on a killing spree."
Then he steps aside letting the others introducing themselves.

[Gourtox]

A large Greataxe weilding Half-orc in scale mail steps forward saying, "I am Gresh of the Grorack tribe and follower of Gruumsh. Unlike the cleric I might go on a killing spree." He smiles slightly showing more of his 'teeth' before stepping aside.

[Marillion]

Miri, a brown-eyed, brown-haired, rather plain halfling in leather armor with a short sword at her waist, glances sideways at the orcs, realizes she's less than half their height, and takes a couple steps away from them. "I'm Miri, and considering what we're investigating, that...well, that's not really funny. I'm a halfling. I know funny."

[SensFan]

As the others introduced themselves to the Captain, a rather tall and slender human male hung back, but paying a ton of attention, perhaps sizing up the others.

He was a tall man, but slightly less fit than most. His wiry frame allowed him to walk in quite the rapid and agile manner, but certainly on the weak side, when it came to physical strength. Even with his minimal load, he was obviously burdened, and it was no easy chore for him to lug his bag around town.

Looks like we got a bunch of over-eager youth here, with varying amounts of apparent experience in a civilized society. In particular, I'll need to keep an eye on the brute; at best he's an uncivilized brute whose mouth will get us in loads of unneccessary trouble if allowed to talk to anyone with power, at worst he's a savage and ruthless murderer, and will need to be restrained until he can be turned in to the authorities.

"Good day to you, Sir Lorrack, and to the rest of you. I am Redner Opstand, a scholar," he says, nodding to each of his companions in turn. "The Mayor tells us that you will show us to one of the crime scenes. Have you done any investigation into these killings at all? You certainly seem very skilled and astute, surely you can catch these people with relative ease, I would think."

Being quite a bit better than most when it came to talking to people, Redner had quite a bit of practise in buttering people up, getting on their good side. His experience had taught him that authoritative figures, especially those that weren't particularily skilled, similar to this one, were quite suseptible to it, they liked hearing they were good at what they did.

Small formatting edit.

[Gourtox]

as the others introduce themselves Gresh leans over slightly and quietly asks Revorest, "Nerull, huh? How did he become your Deity?

[Trodon]

"He saved me from a band of orcs, that doesn't seem like something that a god of death would do. He told me that he needed me to become a Reaper of Nerull." (hey i forgot to ask if we get to level 8 or higher can i be a Reaper of Nerull? if not i'll try to get close to it thanks) *sigh* "I've been criticized all my life for having Nerull as my god. I want it to end."

[Ricky S]

After the introductions Lorrack begins to explain the situation in more detail," Well, we dont know why these attacks are occuring, who is behind it or if there is indeed any reason for them in the first place."

Lorrack leads them out into the street. It is night already, sundown comes quickly during winter. The city guard are vigilant not wanting a repeat of the attacks. They salute Lorrack as he passes them.

"It started 3 months ago on the full moon and has been occuring frequently ever since. The place I am taking you to know is the first house that was attacked maybe you can make some meaning of it all. I know what you are thinking, full moon? 'Gotta be a werewolf,' well we did think that it was for while but according to a werewolf expert we hired from Roganville, the attack patterns did not match at all."

You pass through the wealthy district in the inner city. As you walk the houses become gradually more dilapidated and run down. You continue your way through the city getting deeper into the poor areas. The city guards in this area are more heavily armed and are only seen patrolling in large groups.

"It will be full moon in three days time and we are expecting another large attack. Ah, here is the place."

Lorrack leads you to a building, its windows are boarded up, tiles missing from the roof and the door has been broken in. Lorrack holds his torch out in front of himself. "Well," he said bracingly," Come on in."

Everyone walks into the room. The walls are splattered with dried blood. The tiles are dark brown in the torchlight and the walls are covered in symbols made from blood. Lorrack's mood becomes more grim as he looks again at the scene. "This is where I take my leave. But before I go take this." He hands Redner a pendant. "This was left here. Its symbol matches one of those on the wall." As he turns to leave he pulls out another torch lights it and hands it to Gresh. "A little light might be in order," he smiles briefly then walks back out into the night leaving the party in the house.

[SensFan]

"We have 3 days," Redner remarked, "we ought to be able to successfully prevent the culprits from getting away with another attack.

Redner walks around the room, looking around carefully. He then commences chanting and waving his arms, obviously casting some sort of spell.

Anyone who makes a DC15 Spellcraft check (and the DM), only!

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Redner is casting Detect Magic.
Once active, he quickly walks around the inside of the building, making sure not to leave any part of it outside of his range, to check the entire house for any magical auras.

[Gourtox]

Gresh looks at Redner and wonders what speel he is using, but then he looks at the torch. He wonders why he would be given the torch before saying, "Does anyone need a torch? I can see in the dark without it."
((If anyone wants to take the torch they can, but whether or not someone does he will do the following))
Gresh searches the house for anything out of the ordinary such as tracks or secret doors.

[Trodon]

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can i make a Knowledge (Religon), Knowledge (Arcana), and or an INT check about the pendant? if so here are the rolls: (Religon) (1d20+6)[8], (Arcana) (1d20+6)[21], INT (1d20+2)[17]

[Ricky S]

The group all spreads out while searching the house. Redner stands examing the writing on the wall while muttering spells to himself. Revorest examines the pendant with some interest. Gresh begins walking around the house before following a blood trail outside. Miri just stands quietly watching the other members at work and examines the while scene.

Redner

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You notice a very strong magical aura emanating from the writing in blood along the walls. It is extremely evil. You also notice that there were more than one magic users in the area.

Revorest

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You find that the symbol matches a cult that was present in the area some 400 years ago. The symbol is of a chaotic nature and simply means "revive" in common tongue.

Gresh

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After following the blood trails out the back entrance of the house you find yourself inside a dark alleyway the blood trail ends just outside the door. There is not much in the alleyway but you notice a covered manhole and upon closer inspection find a tiny rune of the same type that is inscribed in the building.

[Marillion]

Miri accepts Gresh's torch and looks at the blood spatters, trying to figure out what sort of instrument caused them, whether man-made or otherwise. "If only I could have gotten a look at the bodies." she muses to herself. When she's done with that, she'll go on to search the house for anything that might have precipitated such a brutal assault, such as letters or trinkets.

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General INT check to try to figure out what they were attacked with[roll]d20+3[/roll]
Search check to find anything that may have been personal to either the attacker or the victim (d20+5)[23]

[Marillion]

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Whoops, booped up that roll. Let's try again.
General INT check to figure out what they were attacked with(d20+3)[16]

[Trodon]

"Everyone listen up that the symbol matches a cult that was present in the area some 400 years ago. The symbol is of a chaotic nature and simply means "revive" in common tongue."

[SensFan]

You notice a very strong magical aura emanating from the writing in blood along the walls. It is extremely evil. You also notice that there were more than one magic users in the area.

Stiffening up immediately, Redner takes a moment to collect his thoughts. "Magic. Magic did this. Very strong and evil magical auras are coming from the writing, and there were several magic users."

This situation seems well out of our league, judging by the relative experience of my companions. I will have to tell the mayor in the morning that he's to put every ounce of police force he has into this. If he stills gives his pitiful excuse of not wanting panic, I'll have to threaten to let everyone know myself.

Having come to that unfortunate conclusion, Redger heads outside the house, his spell still active, to look for the nearest guard.

[Gourtox]

Gresh

After finding the rune he returns in time to hear Revorest talking. After seeing the human walk out of the building he says, "There is a manhole with the same symbol as those in the building. They probably went in there. I think we should get the cleric and halfing and then check it out,""

[Trodon]

(so i'm known as "The Cleric" now? lol)

"Alright I'll go." He says as he starts walking to the manhole.

[Ricky S]

Revorest pulls back the manhole. A stale stench wafts out of the uncovered manhole. You look down, it is pitch black in the night. The steel ladder rungs show signs of recent use.

[Gourtox]

Gresh

"Since it seems like this is the way they went, I'm going in there. Its kinda smelly though." He climbs down the ladder and into the darkness, but that is nothing to him.

[Ricky S]

Gresh enters a large pipe system. He can clearly see up and down the length of the pipe. He has to crouch slightly to be able to move through the sewers. A constant dripping noise can be heard and rats scurry in the darkness are aware of this intruder in their domain. A thin layer of muck covers the walls and moss grows everywhere. There is no sign as to which direction they should travel due to the ankle deep water running along the pipe. It is pitch black and were it not for Gresh's darkvision he would be blind as a bat.

[Trodon]

Revorest will follow Gresh down into the manhole once he is down there and sees how dark it is he will case light on his scythe

[Gourtox]

Gresh

He searches for any sign of blood or any other indication of where they might have went.

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Search- [rollv]1d20+[/rollv]

[Ricky S]

After searching for blood marks Gresh finds nothing. But a moment later notices that some of the moss on the wall has been scraped away on the tunnel to the right. He can see further down that the tunnel splits into three ways.

[Ricky S]

As the party all climbs down into the sewers and waits around deciding what action to take next. A large squeek and then crunch can be heard echoing through the tunnel. Then the scamper of feet can be heard. It echoes down the pipes and passage ways and it cannot be pinpointed from where it is coming from.

[SensFan]

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What the hell?

Why was my action ignored, then assumed that I go down the hole?

[Ricky S]

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oops completely missed that it was so many posts ago

Redner manages to find a guard two streets away smoking on a pipe with his right hand and carrying a halberd in his left. He is accompanied by two recruits who are looking rather more aware of their surroundings than he is.

Meanwhile...

The sounds that they heard before stop. Nothing now but silence in the gloom.

[SensFan]

"Hello," Redner introduces himself to the guards, do you know anything about the reason the Mayor isn't letting the Guards handle the attacks on the full moon?"

[Ricky S]

"Who are you to be asking?" The guard peers at you then lightens up once he sees your of a more upstanding nature. "Bah, that mayor has always been one to delegate tasks. He wants to seem like he has such a great city, us guards are involved in almost as much parading as guarding. I would be careful. Dangerous dealings are going on at the moment. Mark my words, no good will come of this new threat." He taps out the tabbacco and gives Redner a nod. "Be careful of the mayor, he has been known to be more sinister than he looks." With that he stands up and motions towards the two recruits. They walk off into the night leaving Redner alone under the lamplight.