NO SPOILERS! The doomest and red-handest of all RHoD Campaign Journals!

[Jon_Dahl]

Spoiler

Show

IMPORTANT! Please read!

The next session will be the LAST session! What would you like to happen in that session? I'd like to see your suggestions, but put them behind spoiler tags, please. Any ideas are welcomed and appreciated, and I'm willing consider them all!

[ComaVision]

Spoiler

Show

You could make a little epilogue about how the world changed after the hobgoblins firmly established their tyrannical dominion. Something about the slavery of the few remaining humans and all that.

[Myou]

Wow, you really have no mercy for the players, huh? All but one dead in their first session back after a TPK.

I think a few people have said this already, but you can't expect players at 5th level to stand a chance against a dungeon for 9th level players - and you're running out of ways to justify new characters joining.

Spoiler: What do to now

Show

At this point I suggest that you have a new party composed of elite responders at level 9-10 teleport into the Fane from a powerful nearby kingdom who do not wish to see a new hobgoblin empire rise up on their borders. If that does not appeal then ComaVison has the right idea - a final session to detail the rise of the new Empire of the Dragon.

[Jon_Dahl]

Spoiler: What to do now

Show

At this point I suggest that you have a new party composed of elite responders at level 9-10 teleport into the Fane from a powerful nearby kingdom who do not wish to see a new hobgoblin empire rise up on their borders.

Spoiler

Show

Done! I've informed the players to create 9th-level characters. But they will not be from a nearby kingdom... Any background story will do.

[Fizban]

Wow, you really have no mercy for the players, huh? All but one dead in their first session back after a TPK.

Did you read the same log I did? I was jumping all over the DM at first (see the Handbook thread), but they kept bringing monks to bow/manticore/dragon fights and this time they all walked into a lightless cave without a light source. They deserved it.

What I'd like to see requires no spoiler: get the players to make a competent party and work together! Send them here for advice if you want, we love telling people what to do! Alternatively, a precise blow by blow of every nonsensical movement they made! But in all seriousness if the players are reading: your DM has an extremely rare completely hands-off style. This means you get to roleplay with few distractions and explore the system without bias, you're never gonna succeed against the baseline difficulty if you don't work together and improve on your own.

Spoiler

Show

I also agree with ComaVision, get your boxed text for the end of the world ready. Taking a 9th level party through the original fane or a lower level one through the de-powered version is fine, just remember that the fane is not meant to be blitzed in a single day. It's a good 2-3 day slog if you try to clear the place out, which you'll have to do if they respond appropriately to intruders. With that in mind a scry-n-die teleport group might be more appropriate after all, since you've only got one session.

[Myou]

Did you read the same log I did?

Yes.

I was jumping all over the DM at first (see the Handbook thread), but they kept bringing monks to bow/manticore/dragon fights and this time they all walked into a lightless cave without a light source. They deserved it.

I made no comment as to whether they deserved mercy - only that none was given. That is not a criticism or a judgement - if the DM wishes to run the game that way then that is his prerogative.

[Jon_Dahl]

I made no comment as to whether they deserved mercy - only that none was given. That is not a criticism or a judgement - if the DM wishes to run the game that way then that is his prerogative.

It did sound like criticism, in a way that I'm very cruel, but I don't mind really. I just want to hear your ideas and criticizing my DMing style is ok, but really.... ideas, please :)

[Myou]

It did sound like criticism, in a way that I'm very cruel, but I don't mind really. I just want to hear your ideas and criticizing my DMing style is ok, but really.... ideas, please :)

I'm sorry if it seemed that way. If it's the kind of game you and your players enjoy then there's nothing wrong with that.

[Jon_Dahl]

Spoiler: Not for my players! The list of characters from last session.

Show

Sorrow-Eyes, Human Male, Neutral Evil Cleric 7 of Nerull (KIA).
Valthyria, Aasimar Female, Neutral Good Sorceress 6 with Leadership (cleric, paladin, bard etc.) (KIA).
Dianthe, Human Female Transsexual(-ish?), Neutral Good Fighter 7 (KIA).
Rema, Halfling Male, Neutral Rogue 7.

Edit: Rema's race corrected!

[Jon_Dahl]

Spoiler

Show

Rema/Berry is a halfling, not a human!

The final session #11, 1st of September

Rema had been hiding in the ruins of Drellin for days. His home was the cellar of an inn that didn't exist anymore.

Suddenly the hatch was opened and the halfling saw three people: A middle-aged woman with a golden headband, a nine-foot tall half-naked man of stony texture and a heavily armed and armored warrior. As a form of defense, Rema used his hat of disguise to appear demonic. He shouted at the intruders, trying to make them leave him alone.

Before the situation escalated, the woman stepped in and said that Rema’s voice hardly matched his appearance and so she called Rema’s bluff. Rema gave in and showed his real self, a plump halfling male. He climbed up to talk with the trio.

Minus, a cleric of Pelor, and Villi, a goliath monk, were the greatest heroes Dennovar had to offer. They had been sent to kill the High Wyrmlord in order to stop the horde. Accompanying them was Dimona, a priestess of the Horizon Walker, who wasn’t that powerful or young, but she had a golden headband that could blast the “bad guys” – a gift from her friend Jarmaath.

Rema introduced himself as Berry, which might’ve been his real name, and explained that he already had been inside the mountain and attempted to remove the High Wyrmlord, but the rest of his team had been killed. Now they decided to try it together.

After a few days of walking in the woods, they were hiking up a mountain path. Berry knew his way around so he led the group. On that hot day, late in the afternoon, they arrived to a huge ledge that had a five-headed dragon statue and double doors leading inside the mountain.

Berry didn't want to face dragon again, so he ran to the door and went in. Minus went closer to the statue, and suddenly the statue demanded a tribute to the evil dragon god Tiamat. Minus replied in contempt and in a heartbeat, a blue dragon appeared from above the ledge. It spread its leathery wings and breathed acid on Minus who didn’t have a chance to step out of the way. Right after that, the whole group ran inside the mountain and the dragon was left with no one to fight with.

They investigated the mountain complex, which was relatively extensive. Berry already knew some parts of it, like the kitchen and the hallways. He knew about the four draconic warriors, but as they tried to avoid them, they still managed to stumble across them. They were in the same barracks as they had been before. The heroes had entered the barracks from a different door then last time.

The fighting wasn’t that difficult this time around. Villi took on the warriors and each flurry of strikes he did, with his bare hands, usually killed a warrior outright or left him hanging on to its life. The warriors tried to breathe acid on Villi and Berry, but they evaded them corrosive vomit with an amazing agility. The warriors managed to wound Villi a couple of times before they were killed by his fists, but Minus took care of that with the healing powers Pelor had granted him.

The search through the dungeon continued. They came to a large chapel, obviously dedicated to an evil god, most likely to Tiamat, and although Berry looted the altar, they didn’t stop to look around.

They didn’t find anything or anyone, and looking through the places seemed simple enough, until they came to a hall which had a large stone tube on the ceiling, which gave access to some area above the hall. The problem was that they didn’t have any way to get up. After some pondering, Minus discovered that he had rope and Dimona had a grappling hook. Dimona didn’t want to climb, she was too old and frail for that, but Villi went up gleefully as did Berry. Minus found climbing problematic with his heavy armor, but he tried to follow others, although he made slow progress.

Berry and arrived to a chamber where a horrible ritual was being taken place. A blue-scaled hobgoblin in a magnificent dragon-motif full plate was chanting in front of a pedestal that had some sort of whirlpool of evil on top of it. Some devilish creatures, whether real or just illusions, were trying to enter from the whirlpool. The hobgoblin was so concentrated on the ritual that he had no idea that the heroes were close to him.

Berry stabbed it wounding the hobgoblin very slightly, and it started to come around from its trance. When it was finally able to defend itself, Berry and Villi already had wounded it quite badly. It didn’t care about its wounds, but disturbing the ritual made it absolutely furious. It healed its wounds but then Villi stepped in and defeated the draconic hobgoblin with an intricate combination of punches that took only a couple of seconds to perform. Ritual’s effect faded slowly away and Minus could only see a glimpse of it by the time he got up.

The hobgoblin whispered something, like it was like calling for some higher power. Then it died. Suddenly the roof shook. It was as if something truly massive was slowly approaching the place. Before the roof came in, the heroes were already gone; they had escaped from the unholy sanctum. It seemed as if several creatures screamed in anger, and then it was gone. The heroes went back to check the place, but they found nothing but a collapsed roof. They could see clear sky above of Elsir Vale.

They decided to check some of the unsearched parts of the dungeon before leaving. One of them was a torture chamber that housed a very tall woman. She said that she worked there, but now she wanted to leave. That was all right with the heroes. They checked the conference room too but it held nothing of value. The torturer wanted everyone to spread out to search the dungeon more efficiently but that was out of the question. She knew about the blue dragon and she had an idea how to deal with it: they would leave one by one and sneak down the mountain path. This sounded good enough and they decided to go through with the torturer’s plan.

Minus left first and made a hellish racket with his armor, so he ended up fighting the dragon right away. When Villi rushed to his help, there was some altercation between the torturer and Dimona, but it wasn’t clear what since the women were in the dungeon and the men were outdoors on the ledge with the dragon.

Villi pulled a few punch combinations and managed to kill the dragon, although he was very lucky to survive in the claw. Minus’s assistance had been golden. They rushed to see the women who were grappling and Dimona was sorely losing. They stopped fighting and accused each other of starting the fight. The torturer was tied up and forced to walk down the mountain path. After a debate about the woman’s fate Berry and Minus killed her. They all headed to Dennovar and it was going to be a very, very long walk.

In Drellin they met Aragathos, the wizard who had teleported them from Dennovar to Drellin about ten days ago. He told that the high priest of Pelor, Derth Trinn, had foreseen their return and he had been hired to wait for them in Drellin’s ruins and teleport them back to Dennovar. And that he did.

In Dennovar, the news of the High Wyrmlord’s death were taken with mixed feelings. The leader was dead, but now what? Nindel Thorn had kept the mission a secret that only a selected few knew about and the outcome was kept an even more closely guarded secret.

Days passed and the city waited. There was nowhere to run and no place to hide. Then scouts brought news: something had changed.

The hobgoblin horde didn’t seem that cohesive anymore. There were elements within the horde that weren’t cooperating with the rest of the horde as they had before. Some of the non-hobgoblin units were now acting independently. In short, the army seemed less than an army.

Weeks passed and the food storages were running out. Scouting intensified. It was now confirmed that the horde was no more. The Elsir Vale now consisted of numerous bands and tribes that were mostly monoracial. The Elsir Vale was now a tribal territory of evil creatures. Without having any other choice, the men and women of Dennovar and many of the refugees took up arms and attacked the tribes. One by one, the human forces destroyed the opposition. Most of the battles, if one can even call them that, were a force of five hundred human and dwarf soldiers destroying an enclave of a few dozen hobgoblins, goblins or ogres. In a couple weeks there were hundreds of enemy casualties while only a few of Dennovar’s soldiers had been killed in action. The tribes were simply unable or unwilling to unite their forces despite being slaughtered in masses. In fact, they fought each other whenever they could and made the job easier for Dennovar.

When most of the vale was cleared, which had taken several weeks of systematic military campaigning, the leaders of Elsir Vale, almost all of them were in exile, called Villi, Berry, Minus and Dimona to appear before their makeshift council.

For saving Dennovar, the heroes were given a chance to claim any reward they wanted. Gold was scarce, however, since the entire vale had been thoroughly destroyed and Dennovar was virtually the only foothold of civilization.

Berry requested to be the new Speaker of Drellin, and Dimona wanted to be Drellin’s new high priestess. Villi wanted to have a statue of him, and one was erected in Dennovar and it was made from melted goblin weapons. Minus didn’t want anything, he was just happy to have served Pelor, but the “council” nevertheless made him an important religious figure in the vale.

After the Reconquista, it took over two years to rebuild and resettle the vale. The War of the Red Hand Horde, as it was called because of their banners, left a permanent mark in the known world.

Spoiler: Some of the major changes in the Fane

Show

- The torturer was an annis hag.
- It took one round for the High Wyrmlord to regain his senses after being interrupted from the ritual (a deep trance).
- The aspect of Tiamat was only temporary. Tiamat couldn't sustain it very long in the Prime Material.
- Aragathos was unchanged, but he didn't want to die in the horde's hands and he got well paid... He played nice.

Spoiler: The final characters

Show

Minus, Human Male, Cleric of Pelor 9, Neutral Good
Villi, Goliath Male, Monk 8, maybe Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral
Berry (Rema), Halfling Male, Rogue 7, Neutral, had a Hat of Disguise
DMPC: Dimona Pico, Human Female, Cleric of Fharlanghn 4, Neutral, equipped with a Major Circlet of Blasting

[Jon_Dahl]

All comments are welcomed.

[ComaVision]

It seems kind of strange that you played things pretty straight the whole campaign then pulled a lot of punches at the end.

[Jon_Dahl]

It seems kind of strange that you played things pretty straight the whole campaign then pulled a lot of punches at the end.

I wanted to take it easy with them since I was 99% certain that Tyrgarun would kill the PCs. I was very surprised when they not only survived but killed him! I was sure that there was no way for the PCs to escape from the blue dragon or kill it, so I wanted to take it easy with the rest of the opponents. What a surprise that was!

[Myou]

It sounds like a great resolution to what the players probably saw as a near hopeless situation - I'm sure they were delighted!