Red Hand of Doom is Still Cool, Right?

[Dravda]

Session 9

Spoiler: Road Blockade

Show

After finally remembering what they actually came to the swamp for in the first place, the group set off for the east blockade on Day 12. With them was the ranger's new animal companion: a giant owl, Kialara, who was Liokio's mate. I honestly considered skipping the second blockade, but I figured I'd rather waste their (in-game) time to keep the time crunch real.

The ranger crept up invisibly to get the lay of the land, and the group began rubbing their hands together in evil glee as I described the sleeping (and helpless) ogres. In all, the blockade presented a scintillating tactical challenge, which would have been more relevant if the bad guys could hold a candle to a group of level 8 PCs.

In the end, the arcanist cast hold portal on the north door, then cast grease near the south wall and set it ablaze with a dropped torch. The fighter and ranger sneaked in and delivered a coup de grace each to the sleeping ogre, which was hilarious overkill.

The battle began with the owl companion swooping down and dragging off screaming hobgoblins, an occasion for which I lined up the Wilhelm scream on the soundtrack. The arcanist had finally learned to disregard the "optimization" forums and cast a long-time favorite: fireball. The one spell alone wiped out most of the remaining Red Hand forces, and a holy smite chaser finished them off.

As the arcanist demonstrated her new Consume Life ability on the fallen, to shivers all around, the group merrily watched the fort burn. After a moment, the cleric suggested frisking some of the hobgoblin officers for intelligence, which turned up a map to the other road block. The party groaned: they were hoping to be well on their way, not going days out of their way to clear up another road block. After some deliberation, they decided to make a forced march to Starsong Hill that night, then set out in the morning.

Spoiler: The Next Verse, Same As the First

Show

The second roadblock went basically the same, albeit smoother because the party had a good idea what to expect. They actually ended the fight with a live hobgoblin sergeant, and so decided to take the time to interrogate him.

The arcanist used Consume Life on another hobgoblin next to him to get his attention, which terrified their prisoner. Not being the fanatic that other Red Hand troops are, he began blabbing and they could barely get a word in edgewise to ask questions.

The masterwork weapons they'd been finding came from a temple in the mountains; he didn't know where, since he hadn't been allowed close. He knew the names of the Wyrmlords but not the dragons. He didn't know where any of the Wyrmlords were, and they only got information by runner ever week or two. He didn't even know where the horde was. Through all this, he pleaded to be allowed to go home, and I actually got a very confused dilemma from the party.

The consensus seemed to be that this particular hobgoblin was no threat to them and was unlikely to rejoin the horde. He wasn't a zealot, he'd been conscripted. The conversation was cut short, however, when the ranger ran their prisoner through the heart.

Still conflicted but acknowledging that he may have made the right call, the party moved on.

Spoiler: Now What?

Show

The party stood at an impasse, looking at the map and wondering where to go. It was at this point that the ranger brought up the phylactery. He argued passionately that the phylactery should be turned over to the Ghostlord, since the Red Hand was evidently using it to secure his cooperation.

This time, the cleric and fighter somewhat agreed, in light of the fact that he didn't seem liable to become Sauron if he got it. He just wanted to be left alone, not conquer the Vale for himself. The biggest concern at this point was being able to make the transfer safely, since they hold a healthy fear of the Ghostlord and have no way of preventing him from killing them.

The idea was briefly floated out to remove the phylactery from its anti-scrying box, leaving it lying out in the open with a note to be detected when it is inevitably scryed (something along the lines of "For the Ghostlord, please don't smite us kthxbye"), but was dropped without too much deliberation.

The issue is that they're too afraid to destroy the damn thing, but also too afraid to give it back to the Ghostlord. I'm not sure everyone's making the connection that doing nothing with it is equally bad.

Finally, the ranger hit upon a winning idea: take the phylactery to his patron, Lady Kaal. Glancing over the bios provided, the group reasoned that she would have either a good idea of what to do with it, or at least the resources to secure it much better than they could. Lord Jarmaath they immediately ruled out as being too trustworthy to be trustworthy: since he was literally in bed with Pelor, they assumed he'd do something stupid with the phylactery like destroy it.

[Dravda]

Hell of a long session yesterday. I'll try to cover everything as best I can.

Session 10

Spoiler: Return to Brindol

Show

The party made steady progress back through the swamp and down the Rhest Trail to Brindol, pushing hard on summoned mounts to arrive in the evening of day 15. They wasted no time contacting Lady Kaal and showing her the phylactery. She immediately turned them around and sent them packing to the Ghostlord's lair: they were dangerous combatants, competent negotiators, and (most importantly) in her pocket. The group went off to get some rest, then spent Day 16 searching for clues as to the Ghostlord's location.

The ranger spent the day perusing Lady Kaal's library, finding nothing. The cleric took a penalty to spend part of the day searching, then spent the rest of the day tending to Brindol's flood of refugees. The fighter spent the day getting the lay of the land, making gather information checks to find out local rumors and get his finger on the pulse of the city, and spread hope wherever he was able.

The arcanist, for her part, contacted her teacher: Immerstal the Red. I played Immerstal as Tony Stark: a self-obsessed, genius millionaire with a snappy wit. He knew of an old map that showed where the Ghostlord might be: the location of the lion monument from the stories. The arcanist thanked him and spent the day perusing his library, verifying the information while helping him with his experiments.

The party reconvened that evening to discuss their next move. They would leave to find the Ghostlord the next day.

Spoiler: Jumping the Gun

Show

I'd begun dropping hints that the PCs were being recognized by this point as the "heroes of the Vale" since both the Drellin's Ferry refugees and the Tiri Kitor had arrived by this point. I'd planned for their notoriety to spread by the time they returned from dealing with the Ghostlord, enough to be invited to Brindol's defense council meeting.

My players, on the other hand, had their own ideas.

The ranger rolled a natural 20 on a gather information check to find Captain Ulverth, then waylaid him as he was inspecting defense construction. He then pulled out a map and began laying out his plans to defend the city, right then and there.

I considered having Ulverth tell him to shove off, but instead elected to have the captain recognize him, tell him that Lord Jarmaath would really like to meet them in person, and invite them to a defense council meeting that evening.

Hey, whatever slows the party down a little bit. There's no chance of them coming CLOSE to missing the battle of Brindol, so I'm just nickle-and-diming them for days now.

Regardless, the party agreed and I ran the defense council meeting then and there. The recap of the game so far was pretty cool, and helped remind the players of the plot when the details may have been getting foggy.

Two out of four PCs made their checks to impress the council, giving them a handy bonus on their further diplomacy but denying them the free VP for everyone making it. The meeting flowed organically, and everyone had a lot to say about the defense of the city. Their major decisions were as follows:

Lord Jarmaath's initial plan was to commit Brindol's cavalry to a pre-emptive, early strike to knock the Horde back on their heels and deny them the ability to dictate the pace of the battle. Captain Ulverth wanted to hold the cavalry in reserve, with Lady Kaal and Tredora unsure. The party opted to keep their cavalry in reserve and meet the main force of the Horde at the wall (smart).

Since they had Trellara there, she brought up the defense of the city in case the walls fell. Several decisions were made, which I'll detail further in a minute. When the issue of clerics came up, the party overwhelmingly supported dispersing them to the front lines, rather than centralizing them. Because of this, I'll let them draw on their 5000 gp worth of magic items at any time between encounters, rather than having to report back to the cathedral for support. However, the clerics will be described as suffering heavy losses, Tredora Goldenbrow will not survive the battle unless they make some special effort to keep her alive, and there will be no NPC cleric support available in Brindol after the battle.

Finally, the party was initially paralyzed with the magnitude of the political choice they had to make in assigning the telepathic link, but went with the smartest (and safest politically) choice of giving it to Trellara Nightshadow (I have her commanding the Tiri Kitor while Sellyria Starsinger stayed behind at Starsong Hill. War is a young person's game, and Trellara was the one pushing for war in the first place).

The party brought up a number of additional concerns:

• The soldiers should be spaced all along the walls, not just at the gates, in case the walls are breached or the horde makes an attempt to scale the walls.
• Additional effort would need to be made in training archers to counter the Red Hand's air superiority (books were cracked open as they attempted to design cheap flak cannons, but all their methods proved too expensive to be feasible).
• Torches and light spells should be used liberally, to counter the Red Hand's darkvision advantage.
• The northern bridges of the city should be demolished.
• Soldiers should be stationed all along the riverfront, to guard against amphibious assault.
• The orchards outside of town should be harvested for lumber or burned, to prevent the Red Hand from building assault rafts, siege engines, or ladders.
• Water and sand should be stockpiled in case of the likely event of fire. The ranger favored demolishing buildings to create firebreaks ahead of time, but was voted down. The council decided to keep tools to do so handy, since the possibility of the Red Hand using fire-breathing dragons was deemed likely.
• Booby traps should be deployed outside the town, along the Dawn Way and in the orchards surrounding the city, to slow down and terrorize the Red Hand.
• In the event of the walls failing, cavalry should be deployed to flank the flankers.
• Barricades and road blocks should be built all across the city. Soldiers should know their fall-back positions in advance, and groups should be prepared to use guerilla warfare.
• The Tiri Kitor should be used primarily as scouts and messengers, as well as a quick-response force.

Thoughts: All in all, I was very impressed with my group here. They've all put a LOT of thought and effort into this, and we marked up a copy of Antariuk's Brindol map nearly beyond recognition throughout the course of the meeting.

Spoiler: The Spy

Show

The party set off on day 18, using communal mount and riding their horses hard to cut down on time. So paranoid were they about the timeline that they tried to borrow 10,000 gold from Lady Kaal to get their hands on a carpet of flying. She turned them down, but offered a scroll of teleport to hasten their journey back. This means I've only got one shot to run all the Elsir War encounters I want to.

The party stopped to help a group of clerics in Talar. The woman with a broken arm who kept looking at them set off alarms immediately, as did the charismatic explorer, Rollan Malone, who was making inquisitive conversation. The ranger decided he didn't trust the two clerics, and the cleric narrowed his eyes at a few farmers who pinged on detect evil (I sprinkled a few run-of-the-mill jerks into the group to keep things interesting). Needless to say, tensions were high, and the ranger had instructed everyone not to say a word about their mission.

Regardless, they couldn't find anything suspicious and didn't divulge enough information for the hidden spy to work on, so they wormed their way out of the Marked For Death encounter later. As they were bidding the clerics and their patients farewell, the arcanist found a suspicious rock with detect magic.

After rolling an impressive Spellcraft to determine the spell being used, she found it to be misdirection.

"What's misdirection?"
"It switches the target of divination spells. It makes the rock ping as they would, and them ping as the rock."
"I cast detect evil on the rock."
"It's evil."
"Mother f...stop that caravan!"

After dispelling the misdirection, they went haring after the caravan and swept for evil and magic again, finding both on the adventurer, Rollan. They opened fire without so much as getting him out of the wagon with the injured.

He snarled in anger and broke his disguise to attack, revealing himself to be an aranea. The group, suitably freaked out, focused their firepower. He managed to slow them down with a black tentacles spell, but was overwhelmed in short order.

After apologizing to the clerics for the ruckus, the party interrogated the aranea. Rollan knew much, giving them the estimated numbers of the Red Hand, foreshadowing the kinds of monsters they would fight (without revealing the blackspawn), confirming that the Red Hand had only five dragons and naming them, and admitting that he had been sent to find the party and set up an ambush to reclaim the phylactery.

The party executed him, and they were on their way.

Spoiler: Looters

Show

I've never understood why the book assumes that a party will always end up fighting the Crimson Tigers. My group didn't: the ranger even tried to recruit them to Lady Kaal's service. The others left, deciding they had better things to take care of than petty looters, and the ranger eventually ended up stabbing one for disrespecting him. The others cleared out after that, and the group was on their way.

Spoiler: Mercenary Gold

Show

The goblins and ettins were cleared out without too much trouble, and the group didn't so much as consider keeping the gold for themselves. Since the Hammerfist Holds were on their way, they kept on pressing to deliver the payment.

They'd been pressing their summoned mounts hard and even decided to push for 16 hours per day, so they arrived at the Hammerfist Holds late that night. They promptly delivered the gold, were put up overnight, and headed out to finish their journey the next day.

Spoiler: The Monument

Show

Crossing the Thornwaste was a non-issue: they used enlarge person on the ranger's owl, making her huge (any spell that affects the ranger can affect his companion), and she easily carried the group overland.

After brief deliberation on how to approach, the group decided to head straight into the lion's mouth. Flying directly in, they bypassed a surprised Varanthian, who was snoozing downstairs. I recast her as an adult white dragon and the most clearly fanatical of the bunch so far: she had a tattoo of a red hand across her face, from snout to horns.

As the ranger used his gloves of reconnaissance to spy on the Doom Fist Monks in the next room, Varanthian crept up silently behind them. A nice Stealth check on her part and mediocre Perception checks on everyone else' meant that they were unaware of her existence until she let loose a bone-jarring roar and fired her breath weapon, altered into a burst with Shape Breath, into the lion's mouth.

Everyone took a hard hit, and the fight was on. Panicking, the group bolted for the doors, deciding they'd rather fight the hobgoblins than the dragon. The ranger's owl companion bolted and flew away, buying the rest of the group one round (which is how long it took for Varanthian to run the owl down and finish her off).

Stunned that the owl was dead already, the group drank potions of resist energy and kicked open the doors. The Doom Fist monks fared poorly: a holy smite damaged and disoriented all of them, and they were dispatched quickly while the fighter held the doors shut. A miraculous opposed strength check on his part barely kept them closed as Varanthian threw herself against the far side.

They got one more round to prepare before Varanthian kicked the doors open, scoring a nasty hit on the fighter. Varanthian had both mage armor and shield active already, bringing her AC to an unassailable 35. The ranger and fighter rolled forward while the cleric worked on dispelling and the arcanist frantically spent points from her arcane pool to reconfigure her spells prepared into something useful.

A full attack from Varanthian left the ranger at 6 hp, and they'd still barely made a dent in her. Finally, the group got their act together, with the ranger retreating to pull out his bow while the fighter scored a few good hits with his glaive. The arcanist pulled out a fireball and started doing decent damage, though she rolled poorly to overcome SR and lost a spell or two.

Varanthian nearly killed the ranger when she let loose a second breath weapon, but a combination of a successful save and resist energy saw him through with a single hit point remaining. With Varanthian below a quarter of her hit points at the start of her turn, she took one last bite at the fighter before turning to exercise the better part of valor. The fighter missed his attack of opportunity as she went, and so Varanthian lives to fight another day.

In the aftermath, the group reeled. It was only due to several VERY lucky rolls that Varanthian didn't wipe them all out: half the players had begun literally praying to St. Cuthbert during the battle. They had burned a large number of spells, their healing resources took a beating in recovering from the damage sustained, and they hadn't even won a decisive victory. The dragon was gone, sure, but it wasn't dead, so they knew they'd be seeing it again. Whether that would be at the Battle of Brindol or in ten minutes after Varanthian licked her wounds, they weren't sure, but no one wanted to stick around to find out.

Turning, they went to head deeper into the lair. Ahead of them, they know that a garrison of fanatical hobgoblins are waiting for them, led by Wyrmlord Ulwai Stormcaller.

[Dravda]

Session 11

Spoiler: Into the Breach

Show

Nervous that Varanthian could still be behind them, the party elected to press onward into the Ghostlord's lair. The arcanist and cleric warned that they had expended a lot of their top-tier spells in the last battle, but they were eager to secure the Ghostlord's aid rather than chance a rematch with Varanthian.

Since the Red Hand forces were alerted to their arrival and had heard the commotion outside, I repositioned the hobgoblin defenders to area 4, the welcoming chamber. Since I was unimpressed with Ulwai's retinue, I restatted her as a Spell Warrior skald and replaced one of her clerics with a Doom Hand Warpriest. In the end, this made for an interesting and challenging fight.

Things got off to a grim start as the party descended down the pitch-black stairs, carrying a light source with them. They triggered the warpriest's readied unholy blight and the battle was on. Ulwai opened with her Enhance Weapons song (with Superstition, Witch Hunter, and Disruption as her rage powers: hobgoblins hate and fear arcane casters, remember), giving all her allies +2 shock weapons, +4 on saves against spells and supernatural abilities, +3 damage against spellcasters (3/4 of the party), and increasing the DC to cast defensively near them by +4. The first Doom Fist monk rolled handily to grapple the ranger and began constricting him.

The party rallied quickly. Things looked grim when fighter failed a save against the warpriest's confusion, but the cleric removed the condition before it could cause any damage. The party unloaded their AoEs into the room: holy smite with a fireball chaser sent the hobgoblins reeling. Once the ranger extricated himself, they dropped the monks quickly, followed by the cleric, then the warpriest. Ulwai had dropped her invisibility near the end of the fight to attempt a counterspell and to land some enchantment spells, but her contribution to the battle was minimal beyond her song.

Alone but only lightly injured in a room full of enemies, Ulwai opted to surrender rather than dimension dooring her way out. After all, she couldn't feed them misinformation if she escaped, and she'd thought to cast glibness ahead of time.

Her glibness spell was discovered, but she still passed every Bluff check she made handily. She painted a sob story to the party: how her people were oppressed by the Kulkor Zhul, how she hadn't wanted to serve but she had no choice, how she wasn't a fanatic like these others (whom the party had just finished executing). Appealing to their sense of honor, she offered information if they promised her honorable treatment as a prisoner of war. She knew the location of Azarr Kul, and that he was mustering a second horde. But she would tell no more until she was safely in Brindol and had parleyed with Lord Jarmaath: that information was her only safeguard from getting her throat cut like so many other hobgoblins.

The party raged. They threatened. They begged, pleaded, reasoned, and gnashed their teeth. They tried EVERYTHING to get her to talk so they wouldn't have to bring her all the way back to Brindol, but Ulwai was no fool. The ranger even tried making a coup de grace prematurely, and was stopped by an AoO from the fighter as the arcanist dive-tackled their prisoner to get her out of the way.

The debate over what to do with their high-value prisoner ended up being just as fierce as deciding what to do with the Ghostlord's phylactery. In the end, they agreed to her terms and decided to take her back to Brindol, though the ranger's player warned everyone both in and out of character that if he was left alone with Ulwai, he would kill her.

With their bound and gagged captive in tow, the party quickly found the secret passage leading straight to the pool of rebirth. Entering into the room, they were alarmed to see a ghostly dire lion blocking the way to the Lion's Heart...then another lion, then another, as more and more of them crept forth from the alcoves, fangs bared.

Then, the Ghostlord himself entered the room: wispy and insubstantial, garbed in flowing robes and tortured spirits, with eyes glazed over with milky cataracts.

"Why...why did they come here?" he gasped in a voice like ash.

Everything the players said was in character from this point, so they kept it short and sweet. Everyone was terrified of this guy, and so handed the phylactery over as swiftly as they dared. For the Ghostlord, I went with an overwrought rasping voice, referring to everyone except himself in the third person ("What do they want with me?")

With his phylactery returned, the Ghostlord demanded that they leave, which they did post-haste. The entire encounter was tense and left everyone shaking with exhilaration, though they did delay their retreat long enough to grab Ulwai's manuscript from her quarters (on her insistence).

Thoughts: the encounter went just about perfectly, though in hindsight I shouldn't have moved the Ghostlord's location. The group expressed some regret that they didn't get to explore the entire structure. While moving him to the Pool of Rebirth room was more dramatic, with the lions emerging from all sides to reinforce their master, the group wasn't going to fight him either way, so I might as well have kept him where he was.

Also in hindsight, I should have asked for a save against his paralysis when they handed over the phylactery, but they were terrified enough as it was, so I suppose it wasn't a big deal in the end.

Spoiler: The Road Back

Show

The group took stock as they left, glad to see no Varanthian. With no owl to transport them back, the group was forced to slog overland back out of the Thornwaste...making an average of 1 mile per hour. The ranger was under no such restriction, and abandoned the party to go at his own pace (starting to see a pattern with him), making the edge of the Thornwaste before nightfall.

The others weren't so lucky. They elected to trudge through the badlands rather than camp, so I rolled on the random encounter table and threw a bulette at them. Even low on spells and down a man, the fighter took the bulette down easily enough (which is good: they would have been angry with the ranger if his negligence had led to a PC death).

They rejoined with the ranger at the edge of the Thornwaste, where he'd used the extra time to begin the 24 hour process to gain a new animal companion. They camped there for the day, setting off for Brindol on day 21.

Spoiler: Barghest Reavers

Show

I threw this encounter at them (the ranger was metagaming HEAVILY as soon as I drew the map. When he began asking "Why do we have to stay in the farmhouse? I camp a mile down the road instead!" I had to pointedly ask him if he'd rather begin this ambush without cover instead.)

The encounter went smoothly enough: the hobgoblin troopers were no match for the PCs at this point, and the barghests got one good attack routine off, injuring the fighter, before retreating. Unfortunately, one of them had seen that they had Ulwai prisoner, and the party guessed (correctly) that they were off to set an ambush.

Deciding that their current campsite wasn't safe, they pushed through the night, casting communal mount several more times to see them the rest of the way to Brindol. There they collapsed, exhausted.

Thoughts: My intent was to run Marked for Death on the way back as an attempt by the Red Hand to rescue Ulwai, but honestly, it would strain disbelief that they could move a large group of crack troops and set up such an elaborate bait so quickly if they'd attacked that same night. If the party had waited until morning I would have had no qualms throwing the ambush at them, but as it stands, they made good decisions and deserve to be rewarded for them.

Spoiler: The Buildup

Show

Reaching Brindol in the morning of Day 22, the party collapsed with exhaustion and elected to take a day to rest before beginning their preparations. Training of the militia, then, began on Day 23.

I used kjones' idea for training the militia, presented in Saintheart's Red Handbook of Doom here. Though they started off slowly, fumbling a lot of rolls (they came up with 24 at least a dozen times), they built up a respectable number of points to use during the battle.

The ranger came up with an idea for a sixth area of training: trapmaking. After some discussion, we agreed upon the following rules. The DC 25 check he would have to make would be his craft (trapmaking) skill plus his charisma modifier. During the battle, for 1 point he could place a single CR 1 trap, 2 points for a CR 2 trap, and 3 points for a CR 3 trap. I think the presence of booby traps throughout the battle will be a nice way to represent his contribution to the city's defense, rather than just talking about them.

In the end, they came up with 6 points in melee combat, 5 in ranged combat, 2 in defense and tactics, 9 in first aid, 7 in magical defense, and 8 in trapmaking.

During all this, Wyrmlord Ulwai was escorted to Brindol Keep's dungeon, where she negotiated for her life with Lord Jarmaath, feeding him misinformation about the horde's strength and telling him about the mythical second horde in the Giantshield Mountains. None of it was corroborated, however, and the ranger took the opportunity for another "I told you so" (he hasn't missed a chance to insist to anyone who will listen -- Lady Kaal, Lord Jarmaath, or the rest of the party -- that she should be executed).

The group took heart when, just days before the battle, the Twistusks showed up in force to help defend Brindol. Old Warklegnaw was a favorite of my group, so I played to the crowd a little bit and brought him back. =p

Finally, the cleric cast commune to ask St. Cuthbert several questions. Most of it was just corroborating what they already knew: there was no second horde in the Giantshield Mountains, Azarr Kul was in the Wyrmsmoke Mountains, the Red Hand was NOT sending every dragon they had at Brindol, Wyrmlord Ulwai could not be trusted.

We ended the session there (with everyone chanting "Praise Cuthbert," I may have an actual cult on my hands >>), and will begin next session with the Battle of Brindol.

[Fizban]

Good show with the prisoner gambit, shame absolute divination magic had to ruin it. My own group never would have bought it of course (and didn't in a similar encounter), but they were obliging enough to not immediately execute someone just for being incredibly suspicious. It didn't go well for them, sadly more due to overexertion than the sudden and inevitable betrayal.

[Dravda]

I live!

After several months of delays, we finally got a few good chances to sit down as a group and do some gaming. We finished the campaign on Sunday evening. Below is the recap of the Battle of Brindol, and I shall be posting the raid on the Fane of Tiamat tomorrow, most likely.

Sessions 12-14

Spoiler: A Game of Chess

Show

Glyphstone came up with a very interesting idea for streamlining the Battle of Brindol, which Saintheart presented in his Red Handbook of Doom. The basic idea was that the PCs themselves are part of Brindol's reserve forces, not the entire reserve in and of themselves. As threats arise, they can choose to deploy themselves or some of their allies to turn the battle their way.

First came the Red Hand's hill giant batteries, attempting to batter down the walls. There was a brief debate as to whether the Tiri Kitor or the Northern Cavalry could close the gap faster, but in the end, they decided to gamble on the cavalry rather than compromise their eyes in the sky. The cavalry galloped forward, decimating the giants with a fearsome charge and then harrying them to death with their javelins. The cavaliers were back inside the safety of the city gates before the Red Hand could effectively counterattack. Victory!

With that, the Red Hand sent swarms of manticores to harry the city walls as their infantry marched in. The PCs deployed the Tiri Kitor without much deliberation. The elves suffered heavy casualties but cleared the skies. Victory!

Frustrated at their lack of results, the Red Hand deployed their chimeras to wreak havoc on the walls as their infantry scaled them. The PCs very nearly entered the battle themselves here, and I had drawn up the battle map before they decided that Immerstal the Red might as well get a chance to earn his keep. With fly active and a host of summoned air elementals as his vanguard, Immerstal did his best Iron Man impression by blasting the chimeras from the sky. Depleted but victorious, he set down. Victory!

With that, the Red Hand assault was upon the walls. The fighting was fierce, but the defenders were much better composed than the Red Hand had anticipated. With the dwarven mercenaries deployed to staunch the bleeding, the attack on the walls was easily repulsed. Victory!

Thoughts: the players really loved this mechanic, and were well and truly engaged by it. It does a great job of engaging the players' tactical thinking skills, as well as highlighting their accomplishments throughout the campaign so far. Bravo, Glyphstone!

Spoiler: Abithriax' Rampage

Show

The heroes chased Abithriax to the northeastern quadrant of the city (near where they would make their stand in Streets of Blood). Abithriax was something of a poseur: he flew overhead looking big and scary, but his breath weapon flopped thanks to protection from energy. The fighter charged and scored a critical hit, and he was peppered to death with ranged attacks and spells within a round. Not nearly as impressive as Varanthian had been, after all.

While the arcanist went through her spell list after the battle, looking for AoE spells with the cold descriptor, the ranger easily threw five Survival checks to put out all the fires on his own. So much for Abithriax's contribution to the battle. =p

Spoiler: The Streets of Blood

Show

The players dug in, calling Captain Anitah for their reinforcements and deploying bear traps along the street to slow the attackers.

The first wave did little more than waste the PCs time and a few of their precious spells: even though I was strictly enforcing low-light vision penalties, it was essentially a shooting gallery, and even the manticores were taken out easily. The blood ghost berserkers fared similarly, falling prey to a black tentacles spell, and only one of them even made it over the barricade.

For the third wave, I had Varanthian make her return with several more squads of hobgoblins. Despite quaking with fear when they saw her again, Varanthian was wolfpacked and taken down relatively quickly, even with her hobgoblin support. The players let out a cheer, and the arcanist made good on her promise to eat Varanthian's soul and wear her hide as a coat.

Spoiler: Sniper Attack

Show

Lord Jarmaath was just ordering a regroup when he was abruptly cut off. Immerstal the Red came in a moment later, panicked, and shouting that Lord Jarmaath had been killed by a sniper. In a hilarious case of the players having a theory way more interesting than the actual game, the group immediately theorized that Lady Kaal had sent her OWN assassin to kill him and make it look like enemy action.

The group made their perception checks to tell what block the sniper shots were coming from, eating only one or two arrows in the process (and making their saves against Skather's poison). When they reached the building in question, the ranger breached the second story alone while the rest of the party breached the first story.

With Skather rebuilt as a slayer, he was able to fire his crossbow in melee and even make AoOs, but rolled relativey poorly against the ranger's excellent rolls, and lost the one-on-one duel handily. On the ground floor, things looked grim when both war adepts fired their readied lightning bolts at once, reducing the fighter to single-digit hit points. The party on the bottom floor fell back, but once reinforced by the ranger's animal companion, successfully stormed the building without another enemy spell landing on them.

Spoiler: The Cathedral Battle

Show

Were I less lazy, I would have perhaps taken the time to read Pathfinder's Path of War rules. I did not, and thus ran Kharn as a cleric/crusader/ruby knight vindicator. The group was flummoxed at first by his combination of spells and martial abilities, but the ranger's player soon picked up on his build (but didn't say anything).

For the fight itself, the group gathered on the steps, ringing the rest of their traps around them. The ranger and the arcanist took up position on the cathedral's belltower, overlooking the battle. Kharn made his appearance alongside Regiarix with Saarvith mounted, as well as the ogres and giants described in the book.

The ogres and giants were hobbled by the traps as they entered the fray, buying the party critical time. The ranger scored a lucky crit at the beginning of the battle, taking Saarvith out of the fight immediately (and denying Regiarix the ability to have hits negated via Mounted Combat).

The cleric and arcanist were dangerously close to empty by this point, and Kharn waded in under the effects of child of shadow, granting him a surprisingly-useful miss chance. He opened with doom charge while under the effects of divine power, giving him a shockingly good opening round. His rolls promptly went to ****, and was unable to land enough hits to really be impressive thereafter.

As they fought on the ground, Regiarix swooped up to the second story to harass the party's snipers. With the arcanist's help, the ranger was able to put his favored enemy bonuses to good use to punk Regiarix, though it tied them up for a few critical rounds.

Still, Kharn was defeated without too much difficulty, triggering a general rout of the Red Hand forces.

Spoiler: Victory Points

Show

Though I amped up the suspense in my announcement of what happened next, my players absolutely crushed this campaign. They ended with a grand total of 62/40 victory points, shattering the Red Hand horde.

Exultant in their victory, the PCs gratefully accepted their rewards from Lord Jarmaath. I opted to give them their end-of-adventure spoils now, before the Fane of Tiamat, rather than afterward (since the game will be ending then anyways).

Martin the fighter was given a pair of gloves of dueling, Lendon the cleric an amulet of wisdom +4, Eliora the arcanist a ring of wizardry 1, and Caliden the ranger a Maw of the Wyrm (blue).

Spoiler: Session Thoughts

Show

The battle really served well as the highlight of the adventure. I think everyone really had a chance to shine, the challenges were varied and enticing, and the thrill of such an anticipated victory left the entire room giddy (myself included). Moments like these are why I play.

[Dravda]

A few days late, but here's our finale...

Session 15

Spoiler: Travel

Show

With a warning from Lord Jarmaath of the impending doom on the horizon, the heroes left Brindol for Vraath Keep, with the arcanist using her spells to teleport them there. From there, they hiked to the river, built a raft, and began poling down the river. Their intent was to follow the river to the south of the Fane, then dismount and walk the remaining distance cross-country.

As they approached the Fane, they beheld a curious sight: a Red Hand encampment, empty, but with evidence of a battle. Broken and rent equipment was strewn across the ground, but there were no bodies. The ranger attempted to use tracking to figure out what had happened, but couldn't identify the attackers: their prints seemed an odd mix of feet, claws, hooves, and stranger things.

I was foreshadowing that Azarr Kul was rushing the portal creation process, and as a result weakening the barrier between the planes, letting all kinds of awful things slip through. In this case, it was a horde of demons that destroyed this hobgoblin encampment. Guessing correctly on the extraplanar nature of the attackers, the party theorized that there was actually a civil war between Azarr Kul's religious wing and Hravek Kharn's military wing of the Red Hand...which is way cooler. Oh well.

Spoiler: The Approach

Show

The party came across the bridge hesitantly, seeing the crackling beam of light in the sky that evinced Azarr Kul's work. When the statue of Tiamat began to "speak", they hardened up, showing no fear and challenging the wyrm goddess. With that, Tyrgarun flew down to attack.

The party had proofed themselves against electricity, but not against fire. By staying out of reach, Tyrgarun bombarded the party, reducing several people down to single digits. The ranger pulled out a save by revealing his new Pinpoint Targeting feat. That, along with a stack of dragonbane arrows, Vital Strike, and several other goodies, allowed him to make a single shot against Tyrgarun's touch AC (hilariously low) that dealt 30+ damage per round.

It took him several rounds to bring the beast down, but it did spell certain death for Tyrgarun. Charging to end the archer threat, he came into range of the fighter and was taken down.

Spoiler: Into the Fane

Show

The trap on the door proved little more than a minor nuisance, and the party was soon inside the den of their enemies.

With the Battle of Brindol done, I wanted to keep the Fane short and sweet. The adventure already climaxed: no sense making the mop-up drag on any further. With that in mind, I cast the Fane as the site of a battle. Azarr Kul's ritual has been weakening the barriers between planes (as mentioned before), causing a Black Mesa-style meltdown. Now, the Fane was empty except for the outer sanctum, where his last clerics were holed up and still chanting to amplify his ritual.

The result was a very interesting and suspenseful session, with the players exploring room after room of slaughtered defenders and slain attackers, guessing as to the rooms' original purposes. The players had thought to research the Fane ahead of time (and had rolled spectacularly in doing so), so I gave them an extremely rough layout of the Fane from the point of view of one of the adventurers who had defeated the cult years before.

Thus, they knew to search for a hidden door when they reached the great temple, and made their way through the cavern of the guardian spawn to where the Red Hand survivors had holed up.

Inside were four doom hand clerics, two doom hand warpriests, and a forgefiend.

Spoiler: Side Note

Show

Do you know what the synonyms for "forge" and "fiend" are? "Smelter demon."
.

The fight was made easier by a surprise round on the PCs' part, which devastated the clustered Red Hand troops, but complicated by third-party activity: a pair of kalavakus (horned demons) burst through the side door during the first round to join the fight.

The battle was more complex than it should have been, with the forgefiend using wall of stone to split the party, leaving the fighter alone with all the enemies. He killed the forgefiend but promptly failed a save against dominate person, then flubbed his reroll against killing his friends.

When the wall came down, the demons were both back at full hit points and the fighter was with them. The cleric finally managed to dispel the mind control (having failed to roll anything above a 4 all evening. With so many enemies featuring spell resistance, he'd been having a tough time contributing), and the demons were killed without too much further difficulty.

Spoiler: Showdown

Show

I changed the battlemap of the inner sanctum to the one pictured in the book: a glassy, pentagonal surface surrounded by the downward shaft leading to the rest of the fane.

Spoiler: Azarr Kul

Show

Azarr Kul, having heard the sounds of battle below, prepared with several buff spells: bull's strength, bear's endurance, freedom of movement, death ward, and finally mislead. With his erinyes flanking him, he strode forward with slow, implacable confidence.

The ranger and his animal companion mopped up the erinyes fairly quickly, leaving Azarr Kul alone. While he lurked invisibly towards the back of the map, his illusion strode forward and acted invulnerable. They hit it with spells. Nothing. The fighter launched a full attack routine, scoring hits into the low 40s. Nothing.

Everyone gaped as Azarr Kul laughed. He cast antilife shell, holy blight, and flame strike, scattering the casters like bowling pins.

Finally, the ranger attacked the half-dragon and made his Will save to recognize the illusion for what it was. His clever idea of using scent was temporarily thwarted by the fact that mislead includes odor, but when the illusion collapsed, they successfully located the half-dragon. He fought viciously, but was eventually overwhelmed.

Spoiler: But Wait, There's More!

Show

As Azarr Kul died and the PCs began their victory celebrations, the portal swung open and Tiamat herself howled down at them. As she threw herself through, the portal began to collapse, with the goddess getting further and further away while she got closer and closer...

The PCs took their surprise round to brace themselves, with the ranger's animal companion attempting (but failing) a heroic bull rush to keep the aspect out of the Material Plane. And then the goddess was among them.

The ranger's animal companion nearly died on the first round, but the party focused their fire intensely, and brought the aspect down. Though she was big and intimidating, they held nothing in reserve and pummeled her with everything they had.

VICTORY!

Spoiler: Aftermath

Show

In the years to come, Lendon the cleric and Martin the fighter built Vraath Keep into a massive church, Vraath Abbey, devoted to St. Cuthbert. There, they trained the next generation of the Elsir Vale's faithful while watching the Wyrmsmoke Mountains for future threats.

Eliora the arcanist returned to Brindol, punked her smug teacher in a duel, and opened her own school of magic.

And Caliden the ranger left civilization entirely, spending the rest of his days finding peace.

Thank you all very much for reading! It's been one hell of a journey, and I hope you enjoyed following our adventures!

Happy gaming!

[The Glyphstone]

Glad to see the tactical-reserves variant of the Battle worked out well for another group.

[Fizban]

Hey, you came back! Nice to see the end, was good. Mislead strong.

[Zhentarim]

I'd like to try this.