Pathfinder Red Hand of Doom in Greyhawk (Sterich)

[Elder_Basilisk]

We're back. After a long hiatus with Christmas and vacation, my daughters being sick, and going a while between some sessions while the other DM finished up part one of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, I've finally caught up with the write-ups for the game. Hopefully this doesn't run afoul of the thread necromancy rules. If it does, I can start a new thread and link to this one.

Grimmath’s Journal. Richfest 2.

After the attack yesterday, it was clear to everyone that evacuating was the best idea. Marquess and Penn have got it into their head that we must be on day 5 of the Red Hand schedule since they attacked Drellin’s Ferry. So that’s less than a month till we all die. On the positive side, and I do always try to be an optimist—Shut up Journal!—it was quite clear to everyone that they wouldn’t be able to take all their ale and liquor with them. So, after the felled trees were rafted up and floated down the river with as much as the townspeople could fit on them and they’d spent the rest of the day gathering all the crops they could, they had a big party to eat and drink everything they couldn’t take with them. Since I won’t be there for the repeat tonight, I had to drink three days’ worth. Anything less and there might be something left over for the hobgoblins.

So, there I was this morning, at an ungodly hour, bundled onto the sadistic torture beast these sunlanders call a horse. We rode all day, and barely stopped to piss. Around nightfall, we barged into the chapel of Saint Cuthbert and ended up interrupting their Richfest fest to tell Cannoness Leille what we had discovered. She saw the danger immediately and sent a runner to call the regency council to meet in the morning. We agreed to come with her and provide an eyewitness report to the council, but Leille warned that they were timorous and corrupt and might need common sense cudgeled into them. In the meantime, Penn picked up some hell-hound barding that Pierre of Rel Mord had made for her. At least the Cuthbertites had some good ale at their feast.

Richfest 3.

Well, the cannoness was right about the regency council being pigheaded. They kept us waiting as they had apparently all overeaten—and probably overdrunk too (I am told such a thing is possible for humans; it must be a sorry life)—last night. They seemed skeptical and inclined to disbelieve our warnings and wanted to discuss the possibility of buying the raiders off. I used my most polite words and told them that if they didn’t get out now, hobgoblins would spend the next month roasting their ample limbs over dragonfire before eating them. I wasn’t thrown out of the council chambers though. I had said what needed to be said and left so that we could get on the road sooner. Leille sent the others to join me after half an hour. Marquess said something about her (and maybe Baron Wiston) taking care of it and that we had to ride and warn the baron of Nimon Gap. So, I crawled back up on the hellbeast and we pushed on through the dark until we reached the baron’s manor.

The moon rising over the baron’s vineyards on the south slope of the hills was an impressive sight. The baron’s manor was once well fortified and the breaches in the wall from the previous war are mostly repaired, and might hold out for some time unless the Red Hand brings their dragons and giants against it. Marquess pointed out that it probably doesn’t matter though. Its very defensibility makes it easily invested and its distance from the road and the bridge means that should the horde not wish to delay its dragons and giants, they could man a circumvallation with a company or so and march on. The mangonel on the gatehouse and ballista on the donjon could not reach the road or impede the horde’s progress.

When we reached the gate, a man at arms escorted us to the Baron Alaric Nimon’s table. He was enjoying a desert of goat cheese and a wine that, while a little fruity for my taste still packed a better kick than anything short of our whiskey. The baron and the rest discussed the strategic situation—I think he said something about hiding and sealing his winecaves again. Before I became engrossed with the bottom of the wine bottle, I heard something about fewer travelers coming from Bova and bandits or ogres or something on the road to Witchcross and Talar.

Grimmath’s Journal: Richfest 4

We set out to go to Witchcross—I don’t recall exactly why. I think because it is on the way to the Rhest swamp on the map where “Lizardmen” and “Saarvith” were written and Penn had got it into her head that those must indicate additional forces beyond the horde we had seen at Cinder Hill, so we wanted to investigate. Around mid-morning, we spotted a group of mounted figures in the distance. Hellek thought it to be about a dozen wolf-riding goblins and a pair of ogres. Naturally, Penn wanted to kill them all then and there and I’d been riding the horse long enough that I would enjoy killing something—especially if it let me stand on my own two feet for five minutes. But Marquess and Jozan persuaded us to evade them by going off the road and following a streambed between the hills until we were well away from the goblins.

When we arrived at Witchcross, we worried it had perhaps been taken. The earth rampart was several feet higher than it was last month. Stakes studded the lower reaches of the rampart and heads moldered on spears at the gate. Several buildings were mere shells of blackened fieldstone and charred timbers. As we came closer, Penn made out the Corromat colors still flying on a soot-stained banner above the bailey and we could all see the flayed goblin skin staked to the rampart next to the gate. The gates were blackened hunks of charcoal but a wagon studded with shields and soaked oxhides had been rolled into the gap. As we approached, a motley squad of men at arms and militia stepped out and challenged us. Several wore bandages and two wore repaired chainmail in the style of the Red Hand soldiers. When they recognized us, they sighed with relief and escorted us to see the young baron.

When we reached Corromat house, we saw Eldon bears the scars of a veteran rather than the callow youth we had seen. His nose was broken in several places and his cheekbone crushed. But his eyes were bright as he sat at the end of the smoke-filled hall, his men at arms surrounding him like a dwarven thane in our stone chambers under the mountain. We warned him of the incoming horde and heard what had happened to his fief.

Three days ago, they had heard rumors of goblins and giants in the hills to the south and the lizardmen in the north and west were becoming more aggressive, hurling javalins at hunters who strayed near their territory in the Rhest swamp. There was no warning however when a force of two-score goblin warg-riders and hobgoblins with a pair of ogres stormed the gates of Witchcross with sword and flame and pressed their attack to the gates of the bailey. The baron’s men at arms closed and barred the gates with seconds to spare and drove the raiders from the town, leaving their priest, both ogres, and all but a few warg-riders dead beneath the walls of the bailey and none of the defenders escaped without injury. They also said that nearly one hundred goblins and wargs had erected a fortified camp in the hills near the Nimon Gap bridge and were waylaying all travelers.
Rather than rest, Penn, Hellek, and I rode to the hill and scouted the fortified camp. The goblins had dug a shallow ditch and raised a low earthen rampart around the top of the hill and erected a low wooden tower and with two bailies enclosed by wooden palisades to each side. A sloping cliff defended the east side of the hill.

I rendered Penn and Hellek invisible and they ran to the rampart. Staying well away from the wolves, they walked along the top of the rampart to the palisades and climbed to the top. Inside the southern palisade, they saw several ogres and wolf the size of a horse. As Penn climbed, the dire wolf twitched and rolled toward her, then its eyes opened and it howled. I heard Penn and Hellek’s feet as they ran to where I was hidden at the base of the hill. Penn cast a spell to hide our tracks and we rode back to Witchcross as soon as we could.

------------------------------------------------------------DM Notes---------------------------------------------------
A very rare non-combat session. Lots of fun role-playing and one of the parts where my Greyhawk adjustments to the adventure as well as using Witching Season in the lead-up to are starting to effect the adventure.

There's no council scene at Terrelton in the original adventure but there really should be. Since Terrelton is largely non-functional (which is why banditry is rife around there), that council meeting (a regency council in my adaptation since the "Baron" is only eight years old due to the untimely death of the previous baron--another move to make the weak and ineffective government make sense) it provides an opportunity for me to show the PCs that Sterich is not politically united and organized in order to respond to the attack in an ideal way--Bova county isn't even all able to make the proper coordinated response.

At the end, the PCs are scouting the Roadblock encounter which is heavily scaled up in order to make sense in Sterich. (Heck, I don't think it really makes sense in the base game. If it's just a roadblock with a small squad of Red Hand soldiers, people would just go around. It only really makes sense as an operating base for a company sized group of raiders who are there to prevent communication and coordination as the Red Hand approaches. A couple patrols went off-reservation and attacked Witchcross itself and paid the price for their impetuosity. As the next session makes clear, this means that at least this party has to coordinate with the local baron in order to take out the roadblock.

[Eldariel]

Ah, I thought this had died already. Glad to see I was wrong! A fine read, extra points for the consistent writing of Grimmath. The council at Terrelton makes perfect sense and indeed, I agree there should be one to start with. It's one of those locations that got neglected in the original adventure, much like the Hammerfast Holds and such and it's definitely worth expanding upon. Leille is certainly an important character and a rather powerful addition to the Vale's side - and yet, the adventure mentions her exactly once. Your expansions certainly make the world feel more vivid; just because there's doom coming upon the Vale doesn't mean people don't have the time to be greedy and barter for their own ends - particularly those who don't believe in the whole "Dragons and Giants"-fable. There's much and more to do besides just the things detailed in the adventure, particularly far as unifying the Vale and strengthening their ranks goes.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Thanks for commenting Eldariel. My players want to make sure to speak with every baron or council they come across which is good because it means they're invested in the story, but tempts me to break with some of the characters I'd planned on since they don't always have the complete picture. Eldon Corromat had to shed a lot of his youthful naiveté and a month of battles and studying his responsibilities probably doesn't really account for it. (If I had a do over, I would add a wise old counselor to provide plans and analysis. Still, its a good thing I developed the rulers of the various towns before I started the campaign. Even so, it was fun to see the looks on my players' faces when they were discussing if anyone to the north could help them and Eldon says, "well I think the Ebon Hawks could be ready to march from Strake Terrace in a couple days if Count Tondhere wanted to help us..." and one of the players says, "hey, didn't we run into the Ebon Hawks at Valandil's Mill. Oh, I see."

------------------------------------------------Grimmath's Journal-----------------------------------------
Richfest 5
We discussed many plans—Gods above and below, we discussed many plans and there wasn’t even a full keg of ale to drown out the buzzing sound of bad suggestions. Eventually, settled on a plan suggested by Baron Corromat’s reading of the Naelax’s War in the Aerdy. That young man has been hitting the books hard since the attack. I haven’t read that one, so if we have time after all this is over, perhaps he’ll let me borrow a copy. The good news is that the plan didn’t sound like quite certain death. We would wait until night, then march with all of the baron’s fyrd to the base of the hill. Since Penn and Hellek did not see any spring or water storage in the goblin lager, we presumed that they went down to the stream regularly in order to drink and water their wargs. The baron and his fyrd would arrive before dawn and dig a small ditch and earthen palisade, forcing the goblins to brave their arrows to reach the stream. While they provided a distraction, we would scale the eastward cliff invisibly and take the wooden tower. Caught between the tower and the circumvallation at the base of the hill, the goblins would be cut to pieces or route. That was the plan. And, as it turned out, it didn’t quite kill us all though it came remarkably close.

As dawn broke, I rendered Hellek invisible and he climbed the east face and lowered ropes to the rest of us. I rendered most of us invisible and we climbed to the rear side of the palisade. That is where things started to go wrong. The plan had been for Hellek to climb the palisade still invisible and for us to climb to the top of the tower before we sprang our ambush. Though we could not see what happened, after the battle I spoke with my companions and I pieced together what happened.

Things started to go wrong when Hellek started climbing the wall. He made slow progress at first and Khan decided to get a head start on climbing by climbing in the corner between the tower and the palisade. Then Hellek fell, and the noise must have alerted the hobgoblins at the top of the tower because the one wearing a breastplate and a five colored sash of office yelled for the ogres to help his wolf to the top of the tower. A pair of ogres lifted the huge dire wolf onto the roof of the tower where it sniffed the air and moved towards Khan’s hiding place. Khan started things off by slicing it with his greatsword and we made our way to the top of the tower as Hellek finally made it to the top and lowered a rope. The dire wolf and hobgoblin soldiers tore us apart and I gritted my teeth to complete a haste spell through the dazzling display of hobgoblin swordplay.

Two ogres joined the fray and the wooden tower creaked dangerously under all of our combined weight and the leading hobgoblin commanded the other ogres to stay in the baileys lest they collapse the tower. Hellek appeared last of all, his shortsword and dagger glanced off the leaders’ armor and the leader turned and nearly spitted Hellek’s head on his warpick. Things were looking down for us but as the hobgoblin leader rushed forward, Marquess took his head off with a single slice of his glaive. Penn summoned fire elementals that scorched the already dangerously overladen floor and as Jozan slew the last ogre, it fell hard to the floor, splintering a cracked beam and sending us all to the ground floor in a pile of bodies, fur, weapons, blood, and shattered wood. A hobgoblin lieutenant scrambled to his feet and beat back Vengeance—Penn’s new wolf, but Jozan finally finished him off. Hellek peered through an arrow slit and saw the courtyard empty. The warg-riders had routed and their bodies littered the slope of the hill between their fort and the Witchcross fyrd’s encampment.

We healed our wounds before marching down the hill—we desired to look the part of the conquering heroes rather than the injured survivors of a desperate battle. When we reached the fyrd, we conferred with the baron while his men at arms pursued the scattered warg-riders hoping to whittle down their numbers and keep them from regrouping. The baron and his men would return to Witchcross and gather as many supplies as they could before marching south to Bova in the hope that its strong walls would enable the Count and all his vassals to withstand the coming storm. We would travel north to the swamp to try to find if the lizardmen were allied to the Red Hand, what Saarvith is, and if there is any truth to the tales that a dragon had been seen over the swamp.

We interrogated the baron at length to see if we could find a woodsman or guide who knew the swamp. Ordinarily he would have advised us to seek the Circle of Eth—the leaders of the Old Faith who tend to the swamp and have given guidance to the lords of Witchcross since time immemorial. However, he had been unable to find any of the Circle for over a month—shortly before our encounters with the witches last month, they vanished and no amount of searching has found them. Finally, we got a name out of him. There is an old poacher who lives by the river on the southern edge of the swamp. The baron didn’t advise us to seek him out but he is the only one who lives close unless we wanted to seek out the witch Lonni Longshanks--the witch that children sing about and young maids placate with sacrificed lambs.

It was early afternoon by the time we found Guffrey’s shack. It was a ramshackle affair filled with stuffed boars, eagles, and other hunting trophies. A wicker doll lay on the porch and we saw numerous fetishes and ritual items scattered between them along with more dust than a decades abandoned clanhold. We spoke to the old man and might have been able to get him to guide us if we had any alcohol left—not that I would have countenanced giving any perfectly good alcohol away if we had any which we didn’t. Speaking with the unfriendly old man gave us the definite impression that something was wrong—though I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing when he suggested stuffing the peck's wolf. He seemed to speak in two voices, one of which hated “her sisters” and the pretty young girl they had brought to replace her. But that didn’t work out for Groa, did it now? And how he had once bound Old Pete to his will. Definitely insane or something worse. Jozan sensed two evil auras around him—one weak and one moderate. That left me with the impression he might be possessed by some fiend or ghost. Or both. No matter how bad you think it is, it can always be worse. Still, we coaxed the location of Old Pete’s lair out of him and set out north into the swamp.

----------------------------------DM Notes-----------------------------------
Grimmath's journal ends here for now. We still have a saving throw to roll next session (due to events in the played but not yet posted session) to determine if Grimmath survives to pick up the role of my mouthpiece again.

Old Pete, Guffrey, Lonni Longshanks etc aren't in the Red Hand of Doom adventure. They all come from the Witching Hour adventure that I ran for my players in the run-up to Red Hand of Doom. Because the PCs were pretty straightforwardly task oriented and accepted the townsfolk's "burn the witch" interpretation of events at face value right away and then made the relatively easy survival check to track the ogres and skip straight to the sinking tower, there were still several unused encounters. With the players really pushing the baron hard for someone they could ask about deeper into the swamp, Guffrey came up.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Jozan’s journal. Richfest 5.

We reached Old Pete’s lair that evening. The charred top of a houseboat stuck out the water and a rotting dock extended from the shore into a slow and wide bend in the river. The shadows were lengthening and I could sense an evil presence just upstream of the houseboat. Khan decided to see if he could lure out Old Pete by borrowing a fish-hook and walking toward the shore with a rod and twine. If only we had listened to Grimmath’s premonitions of doom. I think we had come here with a vague plan to talk to ancient devil crocodile and ask him about the lizardmen. Instead, he burst from the water like the wrath of a greater devil, seized Khan in his teeth, dragged him below the water, and tore him in half. At the same time, the ghostly presence of a young woman whose once beautiful features were twisted into a horrific wreck floated across the water towards us. Grimmath sent his last magic missiles towards the ghost and while Penn was ready to flee and I ready to tactically retreat, Marquess strode forward to battle Old Pete for Khan’s body.

The ghost fixed Grimmath with her gaze and he fell into a cursed sleep from which he may not awaken. I fear it may be the same curse which slew the old lord Corromat just over a month ago. Old Pete seized Marquess and they thrashed about in the water, Marquess stabbing Old Pete with the enchanted hobgoblin shortsword we seized from the scouting party and old Pete grinding his teeth into Marquess’ enchanted armor. I came forward to help Marquess and Penn fled, terrified by the ghost. Hellek stood firm but his arrows glanced off Old Pete’s hide and even his enchanted blades barely scratched the ghost. Heironeous help me, I though all was lost when the water before me stopped roiling, but Marquess stood up, his shortsword buried to its hilt in Old Pete’s throat. My axe sent the hungry ghost back to the ethereal plane for now, though probably not for good. We mourned Khan’s passing and thought of what we could do for Grimmath. With no priests in Witchcross, and no time to go to Bova—or even Talar though we knew not if any priests there could help him—and Khan who could have helped him slain, we decided to press on and hope for the best.

Jozan’s journal. Richfest 6 and 7.

Most of the day saw us pick our way through stinking fens and trying to keep our horses from breaking their legs or dropping Grimmath to drown in the dark waters. At the end of the day, we had come to a particularly swampy patch where occasional hillocks of dry ground broke out from the weed-choked waters. Ahead, between two trees, we saw a giant owl, freshly killed by some fell beast with acid melted feathers and torn body. We approached cautiously but some of us still didn’t spot the creature until it leaped at us from under the fetid water. I recognized it as a magical beast related to dragons and surmised that it would be resistant to acid and unenchanted weapons but did not know its name until I later heard the Tiri Kitor refer to it as a harrowblade. It is certainly not listed in Frederick of the Pale’s Compleat Monstrous Compendium which I studied a seeming eternity ago back at Hillwatch Keep. Those Pholtans think they know everything but there is much that is beyond their ken.

Perhaps it was Heironeous judgement for my hesitation against Old Pete. Or perhaps we were all shaken by the loss of Khan and Grimmath’s curse. The creature repeatedly sprang from the water, struck at us or breathed acid on us, and then returned to the water before we could react. We waited for it, but our shots went wild. It struck down Marquess, nearly severed Vengeance’s head with a single blow from its wing and gave Hellek a devilish cut that left him bleeding on the ground.

Verily, I fear we all would have perished to the beast were it not for the elves who approached silently on their great owls as we fought and unleashed a fusillade of arrows, magic missiles, and fiery rays against it. Finally, I struck it down in the end and by the grace of the gods we all lived. By the precepts, it was close though. The elves were suspicious and we spoke with the leader—a Killiar Arrowswift—and the high arcanist of his tribe who assisted the hunt leader with the common tongue. They had been looking for one Lanikar Nightshadow, one of their scouts who had disappeared. A jade bracelet identified the dead owl as Lanikar’s mount. Penn kept her head about her during the conversation and spotted a finger poking out from where my axe had split open the harrowblade’s gizzard. Heironeous grant that Lanikar met his fate with courage and has joined Correllon’s host.

Penn also saw the disturbed earth on a nearby hillock where the harrowblade had hidden its horde including an enchanted battle axe but the accumulation of wealth is not the point of this tale.

Upon hearing word of our mission and the Red Hand, Killiar declared that these weighty matters must be brought before the elders of the Tiri Kitor. Leaving two elves to guide our horses back to human lands—the elves blindfolded us and we mounted their owls to fly to Starsong Hill where their tribe gathers.

----------------------------------------------DM Notes--------------------------------------------------------------
Day 15. Main Red Hand force is still five days from Drellin’s Ferry (thanks to the party destroying the bridge and successfully recruiting the forest giants). Baron Wiston and the evacuees of Drellin’s Ferry reached Terrelton.

When I wrote this, it wasn't clear if Grimmath would survive the Sea Hag's evil omen and obviously since he had spent the majority of the session unconscious, I couldn't write in his voice. Fortunately, Jozan's player didn't mind me appropriating Jozan's voice for a little bit in the writeup.

Jozan's player did provide this re-enactment of Khan's last stand to show off the new Heroforge mini that he bought for Jozan.

https://scontent-lax3-2.xx.fbcdn.net...51&oe=599593A1

Now on to my commentary on how it's going: Khan is the first character who died and stayed dead and his player was planning an elf arcanist as his backup. That worked very well storywise since the players were about to meet the Tiri Kitor and their intervention ended up saving the party's bacon since the Harrowblade/Greenspawn razorfiend was rolling pretty well and the players rolled very poorly (I think Jozan rolled 1s on his first three attack rolls and no one else did much better). In general, the players' tendency to get their tails handed to them is continuing even though I've actually toned down the difficulty in my pathfinder conversion. One factor is that the party is slightly behind in terms of level. I've been running medium progression Pathfinder using the fixed XP for monsters variant and giving roughly 50% extra xp as roleplaying/story award, but I think the party as a whole is about 1/3 to 1/2 a level behind where they should be at this point. I guess maybe I should have found a way to run a couple more of the section two encounters before where they are. Right now, I'm posting one session behind where we actually are and Marquess and Jozan just made 7th level. Penn and Hellek are one or two encounters from 7th level and Pyr is nearly 6th level. Grimmath is a cohort now so he'll be staying at 5th level till Marquess makes level 8. I started Pyr (the replacement for Khan) at the midpoint of 5th-6th level but thinking about it, I probably should have started him at the beginning of level 6 or even half-way to 7. So, the party being slightly underlevel is contributing to the difficulty but I think making increasingly foolish decisions is contributing more. In the next post, you'll see a rather reckless assault on the Rhest Bell Tower and there's a fairly good chance they'll all end up being eaten by lizardmen. The party that wisely waited for the green dragon to leave Skull Gorge bridge to confirm what happened at Vraath Keep (and then ruined the plan by trying to stealth up on horseback) didn't think to observe Rhest or wait for the Regiatrix and Saarvith to go hunting. And there's more downside if the party ends up getting mauled here and does not get the phylactery. That will mean they need to kill the Ghostlord if they want to keep him out of the battle of Bova (Brindol in the original) and even then, without their destroying his phylactery, he will reform to menace them later.

[Eldariel]

Mhm, the party does seem to be repeatedly getting their backs handed to them due to a combination of poor luck, poor strategic decisions and a rather weak party setup. These are the levels where magic really begins to eclipse other options and while Grimmath provides his part of support, lacking 4th level spells entirely does hurt. Lacking a full advancement Wizard/Witch and Druid/Cleric (or equivalents) are putting quite the hurt on them. The Arcanist might help with good spell selection, but the divine side will still be lacking.

That said, this does certainly make the story feel all the more dire and of course, the Vale does feature a good number of NPCs of sufficient levels to potentially replace fallen party members. Thus, as long as the party survives, the campaign can go on. However, yeah, taking the whole Rhest all at once will probably be the end of them. Who knows - maybe you can give them some hail Mary rescue or perhaps they'll manage a retreat or even a victory through tactical acumen and breaking the enemy's morale. If they manage to slay Regiarix, Saarvith will probably stop fighting and that would throw the Hand forces into disarray.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Grimmath's Journal

------------------Reaping 1----------------------------

Journal, I am writing this to you so as to dispel the numerous false and scandalous rumors that sprung up today. Lannikar’s funeral was an elf thing. There was singing, then they burned the little of him that the harrowblade had not digested along with some mementos and things. I did not shed a single tear. That must be said. Now, after they put the ashes in an urn, there was feasting, dancing, and storytelling to celebrate his life and the end of Richfest—I guess the elves had put off the last day of the feast to search for him.

Now, for all the other things you can say about these elves, they did roll out the good stuff for the funeral party. I did sample a lot of their mead. The differentiate between clover and wildflower and a bunch of other kinds of mead. I had to sample them all of course and after a tastes, I was able to distinguish some of the differences. There is no truth to the rumor that I passed out. It was warm and I might have taken a short rest but it was entirely voluntary. Now Hellek, that boy passed out before noon. There is also absolutely no truth to the rumors that I spend the morning dancing with the peck when I wasn’t drinking. First, journal you must consider the source: Penn is hardly what we would call a reliable witness. Second, I do not know the foxtrot, the waltz, or any elven line dancing. Of course I have seen the descriptions of such dances in books, but I’ve never done any such thing in my life and it’s impossible that I should have done it while drunk. Now, I did hear Jozan and Marquess grumbling about losing a whole day to drinking. They can’t have been that serious though because I remember Jozan shrugging and going to get himself a horn of mead.

Reaping 2
The elves definitely brought the good stuff out for the festival yesterday and their traveling mead is decidedly second rate. Barely better than water. (1) But as you know Journal, I am unfailingly polite, so I am drinking the mead they packed with our provisions. It would be rude not to.

At first when I was told that we had left the horses behind when the elves flew us to Starsong Hill upon their owls, I breathed a prayer of thanks to the soul-forger. Free of those hell-beasts at last. Little did I anticipate the horror that awaited me. Boats. The Blackfens as the elves call this miserable swamp gets more and more watery the further west you go until at last you find yourself in the lake and amidst the ruins of Rhest. So the elves gave us two light skiffs or punts or something and we were poling along with nothing but some thin—and probably leaky—planks of wood between us and a watery doom. There is no way that such a thing ends well. If the gods wanted us to swim, they’d have given us gills and if I wanted to swim anyway, I’d learn magic to give myself gills. I didn’t research those spells because I don’t want to swim, damn it!

Marquess was still bothered and impatient about losing a whole day to the funeral, so he insisted on moving quickly without even making a pretense of stealth—moving between bits of cover. So it was no surprise that we ran straight into a lizardman ambush. On land, it would have been over in seconds, but with the water for them to hide in, they turned out to be formiddable. One lizardman was muscled like an ox and roared in rage as he laid into us with his rock-studded greatclub and beat Vengeance—that’s Penn’s new wolf, by the way—into a bloody sack of wolf-steaks. Though Penn’s timely intervention kept the wolf from actually dying, that many open wounds in this filthy water will no doubt lead to infection. I took a scratch from one of their flint-tipped javalins, but that was all they did to us. We quickly mopped them up though one did get away underwater. Or at least we assume so. Penn had summoned a small water elemental and it chased after some underwater lizardman and didn’t come back and we never saw a body. Still, the prospect of the lizardman warning the Red Hand or even his tribe unnerved Jozan.

It was dusk when we reached the edge of Lake Rhest—not that it’s really an edge, it’s just the point where you no longer see little hillocks in the water and see a great expanse dotted with the ruins of ziggurats and buildings. There were two mostly intact bits sticking up from the water: a tall tower and a wide, squat building. As we discussed what to do, we saw movement and the glint of steel from the tower and gradually realized that the entire lake was dotted with little clusters of mud and reed huts and reed rafts. Lizardman huts, we assumed. Now, Marquess had initially been for simply poling out to the tower in our elvish skiffs and fighting all comers. In the end, we settled on stealing a lizardman raft and all of us hiding under cloaks and reeds in the raft except for the elf who would wear one of the hobgoblin cloaks we had recovered and disguise himself as a hobgoblin. Pyr wanted to wait until morning so he could prepare his magic to make a really effective disguise, but Marquess wouldn’t brook any further delays and Jozan was convinced that the lizardman who got away must have warned the Red Hand, so trying to rest would just let the dragon and the hobgoblins kill us in our sleep. So, it all went down tonight.

Hellek said the raft stealing went perfectly according to plan. If that’s true then the lizardmen must have been using the raft for target practice before he stole it. But he wasn’t bleeding so I guess any theft you can paddle away from is a success. Our plan went about as well as that. After an eternity hiding under a pile of dirty reeds with Vengeance’s tail hairs sticking up my nose, I heard a hogboglin challenge Pyr. He said something about his patrol having been wiped out and having come here with a message for Saarvith. They talked for a few more seconds before another hobgoblin yelled, “that’s not one of us; he’s an elf!” and the arrows started flying. Marquess, Jozan, Hellek, and even Penn started paddling as fast as they could while the hobgoblins poured volleys of arrows into our boat wounding Hellek and me. Pyr unleashed magic missiles at them from a wand and I threw two fireballs at the upper level eventually incinerating all four hobgoblins there. By that time, we had reached the rickety wooden walkway at the base of the tower and the hobgoblins had struck their giant gong sending a warning echoing from one side of the lake to the other. I was bleeding from a bunch of arrows and made the mistake of listening to Penn who suggested I jump into the water to avoid the hobgoblin archery. By Moradin, there must have been more kick to that mead than I thought if I actually listened to the peck. I spluttered and thrashed about for nearly thirty seconds trying to make it the ten feet to the walkway.

Meanwhile, I could hear what was going on inside. Some hobgoblin must have seen Hellek draw his shortsword and challenged him (2), saying he was not worthy to bear that blade. By the time I made it to the window, the hobgoblin had proven his point and left Hellek bleeding to death in the midst of their card game on the floor, then opened up gushing wounds above Jozan’s eye and along his arm. Marquess’ entry to the battle forced the hobgoblin—I think the others called him Decurion Korkulan—to retreat where he fought Vengeance for quite a while. Meanwhile, the last hobgoblin from upstairs came down and attempted to sunder Pyr’s wand. If he’d landed a solid blow, I think he would have got it too but it was a glancing blow and the hobgoblin sword only carved a small divot out of the polished hardwood. Marquess and Jozan finished off the last of the soldiers and my haste and mage armor spells proved their worth as Vengeance tore out the Decurion’s throat.

There was a brief silence but we could see countless lizardmen embarking for the center of the lakes in rafts and, more immediately, a goblin riding a black dragon winging his way towards us.

------------------------------------------DM notes--------------------------------
Day 17. The Red Hand forces are three days out from Drellin’s Ferry. The refugees from Drellin’s Ferry are just leaving Terrelton (three days from the bridge at Nimon Gap). The Cuthbertites of Nimon gap have joined them but the majority of the regency council and guildsmen were just convinced by Baron Wiston and will not be ready to leave for another couple days.

It was a great session but boy have my players painted themselves into a corner. Jozan's player was convinced that the lizardman who got away would have warned the Red Hand and that the dragon would be looking for them and that they have no hope of evading him, so they might as well go now. (Actually, the lizardman was at 0hp when the water elemental vanished and crawled away while staggered. He won't make it back to his tribe until well into the night and they might not inform the Red Hand at all--possibilities that the arcanists' player pointed out in discussion to no avail). Marquess' player seemed tired and impatient and just wanted to go. The new arcanist's player wanted to hide and wait until morning and with Penn's player was coming up with some schemes to get them to the tower without raising the alarm. It was lucky that they at least managed to get Marquess to go with the disguise plan or things would be even worse off.

(1) After seeing Grimmath lay into the mead and fail two fortitude saves in a row, Jozan, Marquess, and Penn approached the elves and asked them to hide the mead on the next day. The elves did one better and severely watered down the mead that they gave to Grimmath for traveling and that they had near Grimmath. Also, you can see why Grimmath keeps forgetting to scribe spells into his spellbook and has sometimes failed when he tried: scribing spells competes with getting drunk and getting drunk usually wins. Plus, when you’re drunk, it’s hard to scribe spells properly.

(2) This was another hobgoblin bladebearer. In statting up the encounter, I had decided to go easy on the party and run with another hobgoblin dual wielding weapon master fighter rather than a bard or cavalier lieutenant who would boost them all. I made the bladebearer's swords from the initial encounter distinctive with the idea that they are special blades wielded only by the true elite of Red Hand and that the kind of blade they bear indicates their rank and skill. Since Hellek had one of the +1 shortswords and Marquess (who was not visible at the time) had the other, this seemed like a good opportunity to have the hobgoblins' taunts and combat behavior give some clues as to their society and practices. This hobgoblin bladebearer has a +2 shortsword and a +1 shortsword (I wanted to give Hellek an upgrade--Hellek certainly ended up paying for the upgrade). Well, he went and kicked the party's tails. Round 1, he critted Hellek and dropped him from "nicked" to "bleeding out on the ground." The next round, he critted Jozan twice and left him in single digit hit points and only retreated a little bit to get out of Marquess' reach. (Marquess had just jumped through the window and moved up, but the lone remaining regular from upstairs tagged Marquess with a tanglefoot bag so evading his reach meant rendering him useless). He then found himself fighting Vengeance for a few rounds and landed one or two good hits but the wolf's AC of 26 or 27 (barkskin, mage armor, and eventually haste--the party is doing something right) meant that even my souped up bladebearer needed to roll well to hit and he stopped rolling well. (He missed by one two or three times).

[Elder_Basilisk]

Boards are back! Let's celebrate with another post:

Reaping 2 Continued.

I’ll say Journal, I didn’t expect us all to make it. The dragon flew towards us and my companions quickly downed their last healing potions and ran for the second floor. We had almost made it into position when the dragon spat a gout of acid across four of us and the goblin on its back sent three quarrels into Jozan that punched through his enchanted breastplate as though it weren’t even there. He circled around the tower as the goblin pelted us with crossbow bolts, Jozan desperately healed himself, and Pyr and I employed our wands of magic missile to the dragon. The beast and goblin filth made it three quarters of the way around the tower and scraped the side of the tower as the dragon took a bite out of Pyr and the goblin sent a crossbow bolt into him that left him bleeding to death on the ground. That was when I saw my opportunity. I used my last spell to render Hellek invisible and he charged at the dragon and finally struck true, leaving a gushing wound that continued to weep blood.

About this time, Penn had stopped dithering about whether she wanted to be on the top floor or the floor we were on and dashed past the great bell to the edge of the tower and hurled a tanglefoot bag at the goblin, spoiling his aim. The dragon sped away from the tower and Jozan and Marquess finally found their marks with their bows.

We snatched a few arrows and fled back to our stolen lizard boat while Penn burned the last charges off the wand of curing until it finally crumpled into dust. Fortunately, most of the lizardmen were not near enough to see us, but about halfway to what passes for shore around here, a group of their warriors came from nowhere and rammed our boat, knocking Jozan into the neck-deep water. They leaped at us and one of the larger ones, a great brute with a two-handed, stone-spiked club struck Pyr hard enough to knock him unconscious and nearly stave in his skull. Which is to say he hit him like an arthritic mouse with a bad attitude. I always did hear that daisy-eaters can’t take a punch and for once our lore is right. Hah! Well, even beat up as we were, the lizards were no match for Marquess. Even my wand was enough to bring them near the brink of death. They fled into the murky waters and we paddled on, leaving Penn’s summoned elemental to hunt them down.

When we got to the shore, we hid the boat and thanking the gods for Penn’s pass without trace spell, we poled our elf-boat a couple hours east to a small island in the muck where a single tree, a tall rock, and a sea of reeds made a sheltered spot that would be hard to see without looking like a good hiding spot.

Reaping 3.

The hiding spot served us well. At some point in the night, the dragon must have passed by without seeing us because nothing ate us while we slept. The day was already going better than I’d expected. I had a word with Pyr about the quality of his peoples’ traveling mead, and he seemed perplexed at how weak it was. I guess they must have drank all the good stuff after Richfest.

There was a lot of talking about what we should do. Marquess wanted to attack because they’d never expect another attack so soon. As the discussion wore on—and believe me, Journal, it did wear on with only the elves' weak mead to take the edge off the pain of so many stupid ideas flying by at once, Penn and Hellek saw the dragon flying out and circling the lake to the south. We made our way slowly and carefully back to the shore and saw smoke rising from the shore to our north and lizardman boats going back and forth from the big building.

And then the discussion started up again. And here I thought we had made a decision. Humans and their committees, councils, diets, and parliaments! The day we sealed our clanhold against the first invasion, I remember the Thane saying, "at least I won't have to go to the council of barons for a few years. Maybe it's worth it." Now I know what he was talking about.

We couldn’t quite decide whether to wait until nightfall or attack during the day. I’m not sure why “attack when the dragon and the damn goblin are gone” didn’t sound like a good idea to Marquess but sometimes he can have a pretty thick skull. Anyhow, we sent Penn and Hellek to find another reed boat. They came back with one so badly rotted that it barely floated. Apparently there was a small lagoon to the north filled with lizard boats from end to end but Hellek didn’t want to go near that many lizardmen so they took the boat that was too badly damaged to be worth taking. Pyr thought he could use the reeds to disguise our elf-boat as a lizardboat though and that it would also create a false deck for us to hide beneath while Pyrr and Jozan used their magic to disguise themselves as lizardmen. Somehow, the rest convinced Marquess that their disguise would get us to the building without arousing suspicion and we might as well go during the day when we know the dragon is away searching the swamp to the west.

Clever as it was, I’d never have agreed to the plan if I’d known what it would be like. My head was jammed into Hellek’s armpit and even magically shrunk to the size of a dire rat, Penn’s wolf smells worse than an expedition returning from the deep mines after a week with only the water they took with them. I was nearly ready to give up on the idea and try to swim for shore when I heard a dull, rumbling voice call out in giant and Pyrr try to answer in Draconic. The dull voice came again, more slowly and a bit louder. I could almost understand what it was saying. As we closed, I was able to make out a few words. “Get Nurglenak…. Me no speak Lizard….” A few seconds later, Pyrr stomped three times—our signal to know that things were going down.

I pushed aside the reeds that were covering me in time to see a half-dozen ogres atop the ruined stone building hurling javalins at us. They were in perfect fireball formation but as I saw, Pyrr begin the incantation, he suddenly froze paralyzed—the robed hobgoblin on the roof had been quicker. Well, what can you expect from an elf. As weak in mind as in body. I took a couple scratches from the ogre javalins before I remembered my giant-fighting training and then I unleashed a fireball that dropped an ogre and badly burned the hobgoblin and the rest of them. For some reason I couldn’t determine, Marquess and Jozan ran along the rickety boardwalk to the back of the building and Hellek shot the hobgoblin as he hauled out a scroll to begin casting. It was a good thing he did that too—I recognized the first few syllables as a spell of domination that might have turned one of us to his side had it succeeded.

The hobgoblin cursed and retreated back down the stairs as Pyrr shook off his spell—took him long enough—and finished off most of the ogres with another fireball. Then, just as Marquess and Jozan went out of sight, and Hellek climbed the side of the building, another of those gods-damned harrowblades leaped out of the small building to our right and cornered Penn, Pyrr, and me in the boat. Penn and his dog distracted it—and I dodged out of the boat and hit it with a magic missile spell. Pyrr vanished—I found out later, he teleported next to Jozan—who did heal him, not that it really helped him too much. An ogre found him anyway and nearly brained him. I dropped a lightning bolt across the harrowblade but it hardly fazed it and instead sliced into Penn and her wolf, leaving both nearly dead. Penn ran again and the creature leaped up onto the roof where Hellek charged it. It nearly decapitated him with its wing, but he did get one hit in before he collapsed into a puddle of blood. I wasn’t doing much better so I rendered myself invisible. Meanwhile, I found out later, Marquess and Jozan had followed the hobgoblin down the stairs and found themselves face to face with an ettin and two ogres. In the end, though we managed to defeat them all.

There was not any clear reaction from the shore—maybe the lizardmen were already marching into the swamp to hunt us or to attack the elves or something, so we took a moment to loot the building. Lots of good stuff and one necklace that we couldn’t quite identify. It was necromantic but it looked like druid work from the symbols scrimshawed onto the teeth. When Hellek found a note in the goblins room that referred to the Ghostlord’s phylactery, some things fell into place. It was the only thing here that could conceivably be a phylactery and didn’t have any other discernable magical function.

----------------------DM notes-----------------------
Day 18. The Red Hand forces reach Drellin’s Ferry (I miscounted in my previous post). The refugees from Drellin’s Ferry and Cuthbertites of Terrelton are two days from Nimon gap, but the majority of the regency council and guildsmen will not be ready to leave until the next day. Baron Corromat and his men are ready to leave Witchcross.

(2) Losing the dominate scroll to Hellek’s readied action (and a terrible concentration roll—it wasn’t as though Hellek really did a lot of damage) was a key moment in the battle, but it was an even exchange for knocking Pyrr’s perfect fireball out with a readied hold person. Saving throws were pretty bizarre in this battle. Marquess made saves against three hold person spells but Pyrr and Jozan both failed theirs and both took multiple rounds to finally break out. Marquess missed something like nine attacks in a row and only three of them were missed due to Nurklenak’s displacement spell. On the other hand, after dropping Hellek to 0 hp with a wing crit on its first attack, the harrowblade proceeded to roll ones on his other wing and his bite so Hellek lived and was able to get a hit in before Nurklenak called for it to help him against Jozan and Marquess downstairs.

My players are also convinced that they are a lot further behind than they really are in terms of time. I think I’m going to have some flavor text to explain that Count Bova’s forces are harrassing the Red Hand scouts and otherwise fighting delaying actions which will account for why the horde takes so long to reach Bova. It will also make the NPCs seem more competent. I think the explanation will be that Count Bova will position a force at Nimon Gap to slow the enemy advance. At least half of his archers, and all of the Lions who are not gathering forces along with the baron Trask of Elsircross and his sons, Cannoness Leille, and some of the better militia members from Drellin’s Ferry (Father Derny, Morlin Coalhewer, Jorr Natharson, Soren Amroth, et al, and Baron Wiston to command—need someone to keep the baron Trask in line). Some teleport scrolls from the Bova wizard (what, you don’t expect him to take the field himself do you?) and a low-level wizard to get them out if things go bad and they could slow down the Red Hand advance pretty successfully. Since Marquess’ player now wants to switch out Grimmath for a cleric, (for party balance and to avoid stepping on the new Arcanist’s toes, I think I may have Grimmath elect to join his cousin in the group that is going to slow down the advance. Alternately, I might have him work with Immerstal the Red to coordinate some dwarven raids on the Red Hand supply line.

Plans for the future: I think that my players will probably cross paths with the Drellin's Ferry refugees on the road. That would be a good opportunity to stage the encounter with Miha Serani. There's also a good chance that they'll cross paths with the Lions and Lion guard contingent who are on their way to slow down the Red Hand advance from Nimon Gap. The idea is that they have enough men to make the Red Hand take the fortifications and the bridge seriously, but they withdraw before being forced into battle. Maybe they also manage to lure the Red Hand manticores and/or wyverns into an ambush and kill them, but at the cost of some NPCs the players have met. I think maybe I'll kill off Kellin Shadowbanks, one or two Lions the party has met, and several of baron Trask's sons. Maybe Sertieren the wise and/or Canoness Leille as well.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Another game tomorrow, but let's get the last session up first:

Reaping 3 continued
Well Journal, after looting enough gold and silver and new magic fullplate from the dragon’s horde to make even Mr Holy, “Possessions are a gift from Heironeous”’s eyes light up with greed and excitement, we bundled ourselves back into the skiff and made our way across the lake. It was hotter than the forgechambers back in the clanhold. The air was thick with gnats and the tiny stirge swarms humans call mosquitoes. As we made the shore, we saw that the lagoon filled with lizardman boats was empty. A sign of something to be sure, but what? Had they all packed up and walked home or were they on the warpath? Ah well, we’d fight them or we wouldn’t. I had some more mead. Paddling this skiff is thirsty work.

Penn was in the bow, directing us through the marsh like she was communing with the land or something—well don’t ask me what she was doing other than telling us where to go and sounding very confident we should make it back to Starsong Hill by dusk. So, we were poling along through the reeds and rushes when someone yelled something about lizardmen and I saw a javalin or two fly and Jozan fire his bow. Some lizardman sounded a shell horn and being nearly out of spells, I was reaching for my wand when a big, brawny lizardman pointed his stick in our general direction and shouted, “you, me, [something unintelligble], fight.” Language don’t get in the way of arrangin’ a fight it turns out. The scalies drew out a square on one of the larger patches of mud and Marquess stepped into it with their champion. Marquess furrowed his brow and stared at the lizardman but somehow it’s not nearly as scary when he does it as when Jozan does. The lizardman roared and thumped his chest, but I think it lost something in the translation. Then it was over. The lizardman stepped into Marquess reach and bounced his stick of Marquess’ armor. Marquess choked up on his glaive, whipped the lizard’s feet from under him and sliced him pretty good. In desperation, the lizard grabbed at Marquess who coolly drew the blue dragon hilted shortsword we had taken from the bladebearer and ran it through his chest. And that was that. The lizards left their sticks behind and went on their way.

It was late that day and I could swear that we’d poled by the same patch of reeds twice already but everyone is convinced that Penn knows what she’s doing, so I wasn’t going to say anything. What do I know about the surface? It all looks the same to me anyway. The damned hellspawned insects were swarming and I was seriously thinking about expending my last spell to burn them all to tiny crisps, when someone again yelled, “Ware! Lizardmen!” I saw a half dozen of the biggest lizardmen I’ve seen with their stone-spiked greatclubs leaping towards us when a spindly one in the back covered with fetishes gestured and our skiff was surrounded in a thick fog. I made my way to the back of the skiff so that Jozan could step forward and I saw him staggered by the impact of the lizard’s thick clubs. Pyrr cast a spell of enlargement—must have been on Marquess because I couldn’t see the target and then, right when things were looking very grim indeed with Jozan barely conscious, he conjured a cloud of glittering dust that must have caught nearly all of the lizards. I moved up and invoked a cone of flame over the only two I could get without burning Jozan and that was it. We never did see what happened to the spindly lizardman but with them blinded by Pyr’s dust and with my flames burning away the fog that had concealed the last one, we made short work of the rest.

We were a pretty sorry lot—blood bandages and naught but watery mead to drown our sorrows when we bedded down in the muck without a fire. Penn had argued for building a fire despite the risk of the dragon spotting us. We didn’t understand why until she hauled a harrowblade egg out of her pack—apparently she wanted to make an omelet out of it. Marquess promptly shattered the egg with his glaive and Penn sulked the rest of the night. Well, at least she was quiet, but I noticed that it was dusk and we weren’t yet enjoying a horn of mead at Starsong Hill.

Reaping 4
In the morning, Marquess and Pyrr were sweaty and feverish. Pyrr’s hands were shaking worse than mine do after a week with naught to drink but water. To make matters worse, the sun blazed down on us like a forge-fire and water nearly sizzled when it splashed onto Marquess or Jozans’ armor.

It was around noon when we saw the dragon in the sky. We readied our bows and spells but it dived down into the swamp. We beached our boat, cast spells, and waited. And waited. I know that some of our spells expired before we saw a sinuous neck and horned head poke out of the water then disappear before anyone could target it. Then a cloud of darkness appeared. A minute later, another one. The creature was toying with us. We decided to leave and pushed the skiff back into the water. Then they struck. A crossbow bolt thudded into Pyrr’s neck with a blue flash I recognized as an enchantment of bane and Pyrr fell bleeding to the ground. The dragon burst out of the water and spat a gout of acid over Penn, Jozan, and me. Now that the goblin had revealed his position, even I could see him. The goblin unleashed his deadly bolts at us and I cast a spell to make us all faster. Jozan gritted his teeth through the pain of his acid burns and sent arrows toward the dragon with deadly accuracy and Penn spurred her wolf into a mad dash toward the goblin and splattered a tanglefoot bag on him.

Well, journal, I know what you’re thinking. The goblin and the dragon will make Penn into halfling jerky in about six seconds and that will be it—the best the rest of us could do would be to try to take advantage of her brave sacrifice to escape. Believe me, journal, I considered it. But the peck’s reckless impetuousness worked out for once. The dragon did fly back and nearly bite her head off. The goblin did fill her wolf full of crossbow bolts with one missing its jugular by only the narrowest of margins. But Marquess was following her—a little more slowly for not being mounted and having to pick up his glaive, but he was following. And my fireballs and Jozan’s arrows were having a little effect. Seeing their injuries mounting, the goblin leaped on the dragon’s back and they flew off toward the lake at a speed we could not match.

So we survived another day. Even so, I can’t help but notice that we’re still not at Starsong Hill. Maybe it’s not that all this damnable swamp looks alike. Maybe we really are going in circles.

Reaping 5.
Last night, Hellek complained of fever and this morning, he couldn’t see. Still, he and the others had enough sense to realize that we’d somehow gotten off track. It was hellishly hot again but we finally found some of the Tiri Kitor scouts around noon.

They brought us back to Starsong Hill where we met their council—well I guess I met their council; everyone else had met them before. We discussed what we had found. Their elder—Silliera Starsinger or something elven like that—knew some tales of the “Ghostlord” but her lore was not entirely consistent. Apparently he was some nature priest gone bad in the days of the Ur-Flan when this miserable swamp was still an actually inhabitable city. Maybe he destroyed Rhest, maybe he didn’t. He was supposedly sealed in his fortress—a giant stone lion or griffon or hippogriff or something lionish in the mountains to the south where Jozan says the cursed vale is today. Penn and Jozan made some eloquent requests for assistance against the Red Hand. I hadn’t had enough mead yet to be willing to speak at one of these things, but it turns out Pyrr is one of this tribe’s elders. Who’d have thought? So, Pyrr decided to stick with us and see the fight against the Red Hand through and the elves agreed to send some of their hunters to aid Bova. Would’ve been nice to have some owl-riders but I guess the elves need to keep the Red Hand and their pet lizards out of their mead-fields. I guess I can understand that. My people are looking out for themselves too.

Starmantle, their priest restored Hellek’s sight and cured Marquess, but we decided to spend the rest of the day at Starsong Hill anyway in hopes that he might cure the rest of our illnesses in the morning. Well, that, and the fact that they had the non-watery travel mead here. That evening I tried copying another spell into my spellbook but somehow I didn’t quite get it right. Maybe I should have another drink to steady my hands.

Reaping 6.
In the morning, Hellek was still feverish and he complained his vision was dimming again. Soulforger’s beard, humans are frail! Starmantle restored his sight and cast spells to cure Pyr and Hellek’s diseases but somehow the spell seemed to fail against Hellek’s affliction and he remained feverish and sweaty. Unwilling to waste any more time, we took the elves’ up on the offer and flew to Witchcross on owl-back.

The day was hot when we arrived and the town was entirely abandoned except for a small group of elves who had taken over the baron’s bailey with our horses. I never expected to look forward to riding those hellbeasts but after the better part of a week on skiffs and fetid water, traveling by horseback will be a welcome relief.

---------------------DM Notes----------------------------------

Day 21. Red Hand 4 days from Terrelton. Drellin’s Ferry Refugees at Nimon Gap bridge with Cuthbertines from Terrelton and Nimon Gap evacuees. Terrelton guildsmen at Nimon gap.

DM Notes: There were a lot of bad rolls on survival checks here. Penn rolled a 2 on both her survival checks to find her way back to Starsong Hill. Then she rolled a 3 on her check to evade pursuit.

I made any characters who went into the water while swimming roll fort saves vs infection and then had everyone do one fort save vs infection due to insects, etc. Previously, everyone had passed since the saves were relatively easy; this time everyone except Penn, her wolf, and Jozan failed. I rolled randomly to determine the exact disease. Pyrr ended up with the Shakes, Grimmath and Hellek ended up with blinding sickness though it looks like Grimmath is going to ace all his saves and never notice anything wrong. Hellek didn’t have any stealth rolls to make so it appears that his bad luck has transferred over to Fort saves.

One thing that I'm noticing seems to be different between my Red Hand journal and most of the ones I've read (as well as my play-through) is that I've got a lot of wilderness and on-the-road encounters that aren't necessarily in the book. Things like sicknesses, random encounters, etc I think add a lot to the game--they make the swamp feel like swamp and help to differentiate the different adventure settings from each other. And especially in this next session, the scenery the players ride through on the way back and forth from their destinations is going to have some significant changes as the campaign progresses. The timing works out that the players will come across a lot of the groups of evacuees on the road as they travel south from Witchcross and that will add some nice flavor to the spy encounter and some of the others. They'll probably also come across the Lion Guard who are moving West to attempt to delay the oncoming horde with manuevers which will also give them some perspective on the situation and make the setting seem more real and less static.

This next session may be Grimmath's last session with the group. There's a good exit ramp for him and the players want to bring on a cleric cohort to round out the party and to keep the cohort from stepping on the wizard player's toes. I'll miss writing from Grimmath's perspective, but the new Heironean should be an interesting challenge. One of the things I've learned from adopting Grimmath's perspective is how a strong and distinctive point of view can add to the storytelling. It's not necessarily easy to do but I think I'll try a mix of Arthurian knight and Geoffrey de Villehardouin (memoirs of the fourth crusade) and see how it turns out.

[Elder_Basilisk]

A somewhat belated writeup for our new(er) arcanist:

Pyrr, High Arcanist of the Tiri Kitor. Elf (Tiri Kitor) Arcanist 6 (currently)
Pyrr was a good friend of Lanikar Nightshadow and the high arcanist of the Tiri Kitor since his mentor’s demise some time ago. He joined the party for vengeance against the harrowblades who killed his friend and those who brought them to the swamp but came to see the necessity of joining forces against the Red Hand and joined the group of heroes trying to stop them.

A new cohort joined the party this last week:

The Glorious Engelhart ap Eddard, Knight Courageous of the Valorous Host, Warden of the North Gate. Cleric 5 (Heironeous)
Engelhart had just completed his novitiate at the Chapel of the Chalice in Istivin before the giant invasion ten years ago. He retreated with the rest of Sterich but returned and fought in several battles in the war of liberation. In the eight years since then, he has been questing or traveling constantly, once going as far as Niole Dra on a pilgrimage. His 6 month stay in Bova as Warden of the North Gate is the longest he had stayed in one place since his novitiate. He almost welcomed the hobgoblin invasion as an opportunity to find adventure and win renoun.

-------------------------------Journals---------------------------------
Reaping 6 continued. Grimmath's journal

So we hop on the horses and the elves hop on their owls. A good trade to my mind. Then we light out south along the road to Talar. Right about when we’re passing the Red Hand encampment we destroyed with the Baron, a group of ragged goblins on mangy wargs and an ogre jump out of the bushes and attack us. I’d been thinking about which spells I wanted to copy into by book tonight and it was nearly over before I realized what was going on. Jozan played arrowcatcher for a few seconds then Pyrr dropped a fireball on the whole lot of them. The ogre was just stepping out of the thicket to fight us, swinging a monstrous flail about his head and I finished off a warg with a magic missile. Then as Marquess stumbled and nearly tripped trying to hit the ogre, Jozan struck its head off with his axe and the whole lot of them broke and ran. Penn charged off after one of them, screaming unintelligibly and none of us could match her wolf’s speed. She came back several minutes later looking dejected and sporting a couple new bloodstains where the fleeing goblin had hit her with arrows. So I guess the goblin got away. The heat and dusk were getting to me and Marquess asked me if I’d like some water since we were by a stream. Seriously? Water? I was thirsty, not dirty. I had another drink of Tiri Kitor mead. They hadn’t skimped this time.

The sun was low when we were able to see the crossroads where the Strake Terrace road meets the Dawn Way. Down in the distance, it looked like the entire road as well as the bridge and the western shore of the Elsir river were covered in ants. Ants moving slowly to the south and east. One big group of ants going against the stream and moving up the dawn way towards us. Steel glinted off those ants.

When we finally reached the crossroads, we saw a group of horsemen and a dozen crossbowmen wearing Drellin’s Ferry colors lined up in a skirmish line facing towards us. One of them called out a challenge and by the time Marquess responded, we could see Redgar, one of Baron Wiston’s men at arms wearing the magic banded armor Marquess had given the baron a couple weeks ago. Greetings were exchanged and we could see herds of sheep and cattle passing in front of us with the people of Drellin’s Ferry. I recognized the leatherworker from the Terrelton temple of Saint Cuthbert among them too. Redgar said the Baron and the Count along with Baron Trask, Immerstal, the Lions, and High Priestess Goldenbrow were with Baron Alaric Nimon at Frostedge Keep.

A ways into the conversation, we saw the sea of evacuees parting as a column of the Lion Guard marched north towards the bridge. Seeing our opportunity, we fell in behind them and made for Frostedge Keep. At the bridge, they branched off and began digging earthworks and setting up tents, but since Frostedge Keep is not on the Dawn Way, we were able to escape the press of people and beasts and make our way there.

By the time we reached the keep, twilight was darkening into night. The guard challenged us at the gate and it turned out to be my cousin Morlin. Soulforger, it was good to see another dwarven face after all the humans and elves. I subtly hid the horn of elven mead as I stumbled off the horse and fell into conversation with him while Marquess and the rest went into the great hall to the war council. Morlin was just telling me about his march from Drellin’s Ferry and how the guildmasters at Terrelton probably still weren’t ready to leave and how he was going to be riding back west with the Baron, Father Derny, Soren Amroth, and a bunch of lions when a man at arms in Baron Nimon’s colors came to summon me to the council.

As soon as I get in, I see the Count Bova and his lords and this stunning woman in Pelorite robes—leastwise I assume they’re Pelorite robes. They were the same robes Khan used to wear only fancier. Now, human women don’t normally do anything for me but this one was different. Her hair wasn’t just yellow; I could swear it was actual gold. In fact, it even smelled like gold from across the room.

So, there I was, staring at the priestess and the Count was saying something about his men needing a wizard who was not Immerstal to help kill the Red Hand’s scouts and slow them down. Well, my cousin Morlin was going to be there and well, he was the Count and all, so I said I’d go. If Marquess can keep him from bleeding all over everything, Pyrr should be able to roast Marquess and Jozan’s enemies just fine. Anyway, you don’t say “no” to Counts anymore than to Thanes.

And the wisdom of my decision was immediately confirmed because next the Count says, “And now that we have resolved that matter, let us speak of this ghostlord on the map and the relic you found.” Immerstal looks at it and tells everyone what I already told them: It’s probably a lich’s phylactery made by some tree-buggerer who has rejected the paths of nature. The letter tells us that the Red Hand was using it to blackmail this creature—we’ll call him the Ghostlord since that’s what they seem to be calling him—into joining their war on us. Now that we have it, we should either seek to destroy the creature or to perhaps use the phylactery to persuade it to break that alliance. I could tell the golden-haired priestess lady found the idea of negotiation repugnant and the Count didn’t seem to happy with the idea either but what with Immerstal telling us that the necromantic rituals to extend life with such a device require mastery of the sixth circle of spells, and figuring that this creature has been around a long time since then, destroying it didn’t seem like it was in the ore. So, the count says, “then we will need someone to go to this lich and persuade it to break off the alliance.” Everyone looks around uncomfortably and shifts their chair back a little except for Marquess who’s off in his own little world at that moment, and the Baron looks at him and says, “since your valor acquired this object, this task shall fall to you and your companions.” Heh! Not me anymore, thank the Soulforger! I’m only going to mostly certain doom. After that, I found Morlin and his watch was over so we helped Baron Nimon make sure that none of his new wine fell into hobgoblin hands.

Reaping 7. The Count, the High Priestess, Baron Nimon, and a couple lions rode out in the morning and Marquess and my friends went a little later. We said our goodbyes, and a little dust got in my eyes so it almost looked like I shed a tear. Later, Morlin and I were helping ourselves to a few slightly sour yellow grapes along with some hot porridge when light flashed in the courtyard and Immerstal appeared. He handed me an armful of scrolls and told me to familiarize myself with them. So I sat down and figured them out—They’re a little beyond my skill at the moment, but I should be able to manage the scrolls. Most of them were in his script but he shows me one he says he got from the Marquis himself before he disappeared. The Marquis disappeared years ago? It seems Sterich has not been doing well in our absence. As I’m putting them away, he sees the copy of Notes on the Pyronomicon that I got off that hobgoblin sorcerer and asked to borrower it. He even stopped being supercillious for a while. So we negotiated a deal. After this is over, I get to look over his spellbooks.

In the afternoon, I was still going over Immerstal’s scrolls when a messenger rode in from the bridge. It seems Jozan and Penn (that’s right, Journal, Penn—apparently I leave and she decides to start being useful) chased away some kind of shapeshifting Red Hand spy from the hospital brother Edmund had set up on the east side of the bridge. We’re supposed to check everyone for magic as they come in and out of the castle just in case there are more or in case she makes her way here. Sounds like my friends were busy.

Reaping 8 Journal of the Glorious Engelhardt ap Eddard, Knight Courageous of the Valorous Host

Bova is bustling with activity. Everywhere, forges are ringing as smiths pound steel into arrowheads and quarrels and repair armor. The count’s fyrd and the musters of Red Rock and Elsircross drill in the Cathedral Square while the women gather stores from the fields. The very stones of the walls ring from the blows of carpenters and masons as they reinforce the weak spots, build hoardings for the walls, and carve the wood from Drellin’s Ferry into trebuchets and ballistae and Not since the War of Reclamation have I seen such a host as this. I heard that a traveler near the Moneychanger’s gate saw the muster of the Hammerfist dwarves coming to fill their duty to their liege as well.

Now, I’ll grant, there are exceptions. The Lady Kaal has sent her treasury to Kalibac or perhaps beyond and if rumors are to believed intends to leave with her entire guard. And if the rumors are to be believed, the half dozen men from Marthon are all that the dragon left alive in that town. Less disgraceful than the behavior of House Kaal, but the dead are of no assistance to us, however valorously they died. No more help shall come from that direction unless the Marquessa or her generals stir themselves from their complacency and slay the beast.

Perhaps Marshall Verthundle, Commander Terpin, or Frush O’Suggil will manage to bring it to bay and slay it so that the army of the March can come to our aid. Assuming that we can send a message to the Marquessa and that she sees fit to aid us. No aid will come from Count Tondhere in the north but perhaps Count Osric will send aid from Kalibac. Nevertheless, I have it from no lesser source than the very Paragon of Bova himself that the army coming outnumbers the full muster of Bova county by at least three to one and numbers dragons, giants and other fell beasts among their ranks. No matter what aid we receive from Count Osric, only the walls of Bova give us a chance to prevail against such numbers. What an opportunity to reach toward immortal glory! If this is my test of the fourth circle, I welcome it!

Nevertheless, it galls me to have to simply wait. The Paragon has put all of the Glorious Host at the service of the Count, yet he did not deign to take us with him when he marched north. A mere delaying action to be sure—sixteen lances cannot hope to meet the coming horde in open battle—yet even a delaying action offers the chance of glory and the Glorious Host ought to be involved. So here I am, standing watch at the North gate with the Blessed and the Lion Guard. Perhaps if one of the Lions comes through on some mission, they will see fit to let me join them. The Paragon did put us at the service of the Count and the Lions are the Count's representatives, so I would not be abandoning my duty.

And praise be to the Valorous Knight, I did indeed have such an opportunity today! At evening, I stood at the gate and a lion carrying a sinister green glaive and wearing a dusty tabard rode in along with one of the Hillwatch Knights, and three other companions. I begged a moment of his time and compelled him to admit that he had received a great quest from the Count. Despite the Hillwatch Knight, he clearly had need of the aid of one of the Valorous Host though he insisted on dueling me first to test my mettle. I must admit, it was not my finest moment, but I did not yield at the first opportunity and struck him such a blow that, had I not turned my axe, it might have split his head. Still, he demonstrated the skills I would expect from a Lion and bested me. I look forward to hearing of the quest that I may know how we shall win renoun for certainly no foe shall be able to stand against such a group as we shall be.

--------------------------------DM Notes--------------------------------------
Timeline Day 23. Red Hand 2 days from Terrelton. Drellin’s Ferry Refugees halfway from Nimon gap bridge to Talar with cuthbertines and Nimon Gap. Terrelton guildsmen at Nimon gap bridge. Lion guard fortifying bridge. Baron Wiston’s force moving west to engage Red Hand’s aerial scouts.

It was an interesting session: the only combat was an "Easy Skirmish." I replaced the hobgoblins with goblins and wargs--survivors of the force that the PCs and the Witchcross militia destroyed. The PCs destroyed them quickly but of course they didn't know it was an easy skirmish so they were surprised when it was over in round 2. Lots of roleplaying and planning and almost some combat with Miha. Jozan got suspicious that she was asking too many questions. Her bluff was still better than his sense motive but the misdirection spell she had up was worse than useless since Penn and Jozan both made their saves and detected magic and evil. The only good news was that they sneaked around the corner of the tent to do it and she heard the spell and the party talking and cast invisibility and high tailed it. Penn's wolf tracked her by sense but she was able to stay ahead and lose them. Fortunately for her, Penn tried to snare her with a plant growth but I'd made her a fey bloodline sorcerer and her woodland stride meant that the plant growth slowed the party and let her get away. She then doubled back, cast disguise self and walked past the Drellin's Ferry militia and joined the host of evacuees heading to Bova. She may show up again in the future.

[Eldariel]

I have to admit I quite enjoy your style of writing in-character. It certainly adds to the verisimilitude of the story and colours the whole narrative in a rather pleasant way. This should be interesting, going from one grumpy drunken dwarf to a rather polar opposite.

Easy skirmish is just that, easy. PCs need to know they are strong after all. Miha Serani is one of the more interesting figures in the whole path and I'm delighted to see what mischief she manages to cause.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Reaping 8 continued
Upon being welcomed to join Marquess’ group, I inquired the nature of our glorious quest as we walked to Red Magic and Sundries. Marquess was a little cagey—no doubt it is wise if there are spies about—but Stalwart Vigil Jozan (I am told that is his title as one of the Hillwatch Knights) explained to me that we would be traveling to the haunted vale. No doubt we shall smite the undead there and destroy them before they can join the Red Hand’s assault on our fair county. It shall be a glorious battle.

Until we can reach that battle, apparently there is shopping. Marquess traded me a suit of magical fullplate armor for my agile half-plate, a deal that I most gladly made. I bought some sealing wax, copper inks, and fine scraped vellum to inscribe the analects of Heironeous and affix the proper purity seals to my armor. It would not do to face the forces of evil unprepared. Marquess and Jozan inquired if Immerstal was in and the attendant, a businesslike woman replied that he would be back tomorrow morning. Marquess however was able to find an enchanted lance for Penn. Apparently it had been the lance of some halfling knight before King Galmoor’s invasion for it had been found shortly after the invasion in a battlefield near the village of Prosser. It is well that such a weapon should taste goblin blood once more.

After the brief expedition we repaired to Bova castle and Captain Lars Ulverth found us rooms. The Hillwatch Knight then explained the true nature of our mission. I was surprised to say the least. Our "glorious quest" appears to be to return a lich’s phylactery. Of course, I understand the Count’s reasoning and the scriptures admit that fighting enemies one at time is the path of wisdom, but it is hard to wax enthusiastic about diplomatic overtures to such wicked creatures. Nevertheless, I do not doubt that glory shall attend this quest. To boldly travel to such evil’s lair shall be a great undertaking and ought to afford us opportunities to win fame.


Reaping 9
Immerstal is prompt, knowledgable, and almost insufferably arrogant. What’s worse is that he is right.

Immerstal met us in his laboratory shortly after dawn. His laboratory is above the storefront in his tower. It’s an immaculately organized room that looked like a library with several tables for alchemy or writing and a large thaumaturgic triangle carved into the floor and inlaid with silver and iron. A large high-backed chair was on one side and he had placed six canvas chairs on the other side. He began our meeting by laying out the choices before us. We intend to negotiate with this Ghostlord rather than attempting to destroy it. Therefore, we must decide what we intend to obtain from that negotiation. Do we simply want the ghostlord to break his alliance with the Red Hand or do we want him to pledge to remain outside Bova and Crystalmist counties and not trouble them either directly or through his minions for one hundred years and a day? Once we have decided what we want to negotiate for, we must decide how to proceed. If we bring the phylactery, we have to look strong enough that he does not simply decide to take it from us and we will need some means to guarantee that he upholds his end of the bargain. Relying upon the good graces of a lich—or even that his hatred of the hobgoblins who compelled him will outweigh his hatred of life and virtue—is a slender reed upon which to hang our survival. On the other hand, if we do not bring the phylactery with us, we will need to be able to demonstrate that it is in our possession and then the ghostlord will undoubtedly desire some means to guarantee that we will uphold our part of the bargain, whatever that may be.

Immerstal seems to have some experience negotiating with powerful and hostile beings. He thinks this makes him better than the jumped up bravos and guttersnipes who seek adventure, but not all who adventure are thus. And calling Powers to our existence always carries a price. I wonder what prices they have exacted from Immerstal.

“Oh, and by the way,” he said, “High Priestess Goldenbrow undertook to obtain a divination from Pelor. First, if you care about such things, it will not be a sin to negotiate with this ghostlord. Secondly, if we bring the phylactery, he will not allow it to leave his domain and if we do not, he will demand hostages if no better means can guarantee our end of the compact.” I gritted my teeth and held my tongue. He ought not to speak of sins so lightly, but he serves the Count for now and we shall endure his mockery to secure his aid.

Almost as an afterthought, he described what he had learned of the ghostlord in his library. One of his many tomes contained the tale of a traveler in the lands that are now the Haunted Vale. This traveler, some indeterminate time before King Galmoor’s war, had become lost in the many winding valleys and had come to the northern edge of the Vale—somewhere south and on the other side of the mountains from Drellin’s Ferry. There he saw a great stone lion in a field surrounded by monoliths. The monoliths bore the symbol of the sun and were inscribed with a great many magical runes that glowed with a golden light. Within the monoliths, nothing stirred and neither creature nor plant drew breath. That account, he said, matched up well with what our High Arcanist of the Tiri Kitor related from the lore of his people: that the Ghostlord had occupied and had possibly been bound in a great statue of a lion-like beast. Since the Red Hand has allied with him, it appears that he is bound no longer but the symbols the traveler described could have been bindings wrought by the followers of the Sun Father who was the chief god of the Ur-flan before their descent into decadence and corruption.

What else had he learned of the Ghostlord? He was definitely a druid. (Immerstal uses a rather profane circumlocution for this and never refers to druids by name or even to the Old Faith directly. I wonder why he hates them so.) Since the War of Reclamation, the Ghostlord has presumably been corrupting the land of the haunted vale and creating undead but has not personally been seen by anyone, from which Immerstal concludes that he has kept close to the area of his old confinement and does not have a particular enmity for Bova, Crystalmist County, or Sterich in general. On this, I think Immerstal may be too optimistic. He has not been personally seen by anyone who survived to tell the tale. In my travels through the counties, I have heard tales of dark deeds that could easily have been his work and who can tell whether wolves, griffins, ogres, or something more sinister is behind the periodic disappearances in these lands.

But I digress. Immerstal’s information was useful and his counsel sound. We had to choose our course, so we fell to talking. Immerstal suggested that one way we could demonstrate that we have the phylactery would be to submerge it in a font of holy water and call an Azer or other extraplanar being to guard it. We then take a drop of its blood to the ghostlord so that he can scry the guardian and see the phylactery—and also that he cannot hope to reform near it. Immerstal did not seem worried that the ghostlord might use magic to seize the phylactery from afar.* As to an enforcer of our compact with the ghostlord, that is much more tricky. It would need to be a being that we would both fear—and a being the ghostlord would fear is harder to come by than one that we would fear—and that has temperment to uphold the letter of the agreement. No doubt an Inevitable like a marut would be ideal, but since the gods have not gifted any of us with the power to call one, such talk is idle.

Then Immerstal had an idea. Though none of us can call a creature the ghost lord would fear, but there is a possibility that we might be able to obtain an enforcer by traveling to the fabled City of Brass in the elemental plane of fire and paying one of the emirs of the Efreeti to enforce our compact. Such would only require a scroll of plane shift to get there. Well, that and payment, but Immerstal suggested that the copy of Notes on the Pyronomicon that Grimmath had in his possession might well be valuable enough.** That book, and the copy he had just made are the only even secondhand and partial copy of Keraptis’ legendary Pyronomicon. Pyrr pointed out a flaw in his plan: the plane shift spell is not accurate enough to reach the City of Brass reliably but Immerstal claimed that he had learned enough from the notes on Keraptis’ tome to make a superior planar fork that would overcome that challenge and take us directly to the fabled city. An interesting plan. The city and its inhabitants have a sinister reputation but we could hardly expect the Ghostlord to agree to travel to the Seven Heavens, cross the sea of holy water and apply to the courts of the Archons to enforce our agreement.

Marquess initially wanted to just give the phylactery to the ghostlord and hope for the best, but Jozan and Pyrr were convinced that doing so would forfeit any leverage we had over him and like Immerstal, they were not inclined to trust any lich’s good graces. So, it was decided. I will not say Immerstal’s plan seemed good to us, but it did seem to be the best of a plethora of bad options. We would leave the phylactery in Bova. Since none of us were willing to serve as hostage, we would travel to the fabled City of Brass and attempt to obtain an Efreeti Emir to enforce our bargain. Though I know of its reputation, the thought that I shall visit such a storied place still fills my heart with wonder. I look forward to gazing on its beauty even as I shrink from the wickedness that dwells there. So, that was it. Immerstal called an Azer and caught some its burning sweat in a vial. He promised to meet us tomorrow morning in the tavern at Dauth with his superior planar fork.

We left his tower and traveled to the Chapterhouse of Heironeous to seek counsel and indulgence from the Paragon for our plans. We apparently planned to negotiate with a being of pure evil and contract with prince of evil spirits to enforce our bargain. It seems to make sense given our situation, but I have to admit when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound very good. We found only a pair of the blessed there but they kindly directed us to where the Paragon was drilling with Bova’s fyrd in Cathedral square. After hearing our plan, he frowned and thought a little bit. “It is most disturbing to traffic with darkness as you plan to, but your goals appear to be noble. If you are honest and honorable in your dealings and do not agree to pay any wicked price, I think there is no peril to your standing with the Archpaladin. I cannot say that I approve of this plan, but neither will I condemn it.” It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, but not all of the work in a great and noble quest is glorious. No doubt, many men struggle with pigs in the mud in order to feed the soldiers who fight King Belvor’s great Crusade against Old Wicked. This week, it appears that I have joined the pig wrestling contest. But at least we will wrestle with pigs in a place of otherworldly splendor.

Fortuitously, we were already in Cathedral square and were able to proceed directly to the cathedral of Pelor. It is truly a beautiful sight—easily the most beautiful edifice of Pelor outside of Istivin and it does not appear to be afflicted by the curse of Istivin that, if rumor is to be believed, causes the statuary to weep tears of blood fall away to injure worshippers. That Pelor and the gods of Good appear to be watching over us was evidenced by the providence we found there. They did indeed have a scroll of plane shift in their archives and, now the evidence of providence, they had just received a replacement for the scroll of banishment that the high priestess used to banish a demon in a ruined town to the north of the Elsir. I believe my companions were involved in that incident. The group of acolytes and templars carrying the scroll had left the very morning that the great dragon burned Marthon and without it, we would most likely have been stuck on the plane of fire for some time unless the Valorous Knight deems me worthy of the fourth circle by then. Truly, the gods provide for us.

It was late morning, by the time we departed throught he moneychanger’s gate and passed over the mighty bridges that span the Elsir amid a steady stream of women, children, and the aged traveling towards what they hope is safety in Kalibac. A few able-bodied cowards went with them of course. I invoked Heironeous’ traveling chant to grant our horses endurance as we rode hard for Dauth.

It was not long before we reached the crossroads. Prosser and, beyond that Kalibac lay to the south while the westerly route led to Dauth and Hillwatch Keep, and beyond that, the haunted, thorn-choked wilds of the Cursed Vale. However, just to the south, of the crossroads by a patch of aspen, we spotted an overturned cart and a small group of goblins and a pair of ettins making sport of several dead men. We rushed forward to meet them. Pyrr cursed the quick reactions of the Ettins that enabled them to charge forward and evoked a fireball that burned the goblins though without killing any of them. Penn rode forward and chanted a spell that turned the grass to caltrops beneath the goblins feet and was cut down by an ettin wielding two swords for her trouble. The goblins peppered Marquess’ destrier with arrows and the Ettin he fought bounced its flail off the horse’s head and into his breastplate, leaving a large dent in the enchanted steel and (I don’t doubt) cracked ribs beneath. In return, the lion sweeping the ettin’s legs from beneath it and striking off both its heads with a single masterful stroke. I rode forward to channel the Valorous Knight’s healing to Penn, Marquess, and their mounts, then spurred my mount toward the sword-wielding ogre which was struggling to regain its feet as Penn’s dire wolf savaged it and Hellek came from behind it with his dragon-hilted shortswords. I buried my axe in its chest, shattering bones and spraying blood across my tabard and the battle was over.

It is always sad to see people you know die or to come across their bodies. I had met Amanthar, the count’s Reeve several times as Warden of the North Gate. He seemed a good man—a Cuthbertine if I remember our conversation when he rode out with the Lions to pay hippogriff bounties correctly—and Bova will miss his plain and honest dealing. There he was with a goblin arrow in his throat and a crushed leg where he had fallen under the cart. There were four Lion Guards with him—all dead. I did not recognize them but Marquess recognized one of them—Wulf, a quiet man who had served with him in the glaives. He had a young wife and two children back in the city—or maybe already gone to Kalibac now. However, aside from the small tragedies of war, they had also been carrying letters and three chests of treasure. The letter of introduction requested an audience with Count Osric of Crystalmist county and permission to hire mercenaries in Kalibac as well as to beg the Count for any aid he could send. The instructions said to seek out Ebbelard of the War Dogs company who were known to be honorable and were reputed to be in Kalibac as a training cadre.

What to do? Penn and Hellek thought of delaying our quest for four days to deliver the gold and the message to Kalibac, but that plan died quickly when I asked who would meet Immerstal tomorrow morning in Dauth. There was some talk of sending Penn with the gold and messages—no doubt she could make good time but even having known this group as short a time as I have, sending her to speak to Count Osric did not seem likely to end well. And there were clearly dangers on the road such that one woman—even one as redoubtable as she no doubt is—ought not to travel alone laden with gold and important messages. But since we were to meet Immerstal tomorrow, Jozan suggested we dump the task on his shoulders and his suggestion met with instant and universal acclaim. Knowing what we must now do, we buried the Wulf, Amanthar and the three unknown soldiers. Jozan and I performed the last rites and then we left them in their roadside graves. The ettins and goblins, we left as food for the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. They will have many more such feasts in the days to come.

We set out along the winding westward road and though we made it to Dauth without further incident—indeed we hardly even saw anyone on the road—it was a very eventful day. As we rested at the Starcloak Inn in Dauth, I transcribed the passages from the Book of the Code to my sanctified vellum scrolls and affixed them to my breastplate, belt, shield, greaves, axe, and helmet with consecrated wax melted over a holy candle. My temple instructors would no doubt be disappointed in my calligraphy, but it is slowly improving.

Reaping 10

In the morning, I rose before dawn to say my prayers and practice my forms and I met the others for breakfast in the common room. I was just finishing my porridge and sausages when there was a flash and Immerstal the Red appeared in center of the common room. Glancing around he saw us and presented me with a long tuning fork made of red steel and carved all around and about with arcane runes that were filled with a dark, clotted ink that seemed to radiate heat. “As promised,” he said, “a superior planar focus bound to the gates of the City of Brass. It will take you nowhere else on that elemental plane, but it should ensure that you arrive near your destination.”

Before he could leave, we addressed him with the Reeve’s mission. He sighed and acquiesced. (“Gods, negotiating with mercenaries will be tedious! But I suppose I must.”) Our contention only made sense and he had been to Kalibac before. Hopefully the Count and Grimmath can wait another day or two for their scrolls. He struggled to pick up one of the chests and then asked us if we had any strengthening magic. Pyrr enlarged him and joked, “now you truly are the greatest wizard in all Sterich!” I also prayed for him to gain the strength of a bull. And with that, he was able to lift the iron coffers and mumble out his spell. He vanished. I pray that he arrived in Kalibac.

Not long after that, we set out. The road was barely a one-horse track now and wound up and down the hillside as we climbed into the foothills of the Crystalmists. Again, I sang the marching chant as long as I could and we were able to make Hillwatch Keep well before nightfall. It is a small fortress built mostly of wood and earth with stone gradually being laid to complete the towers and chapels. The banner of the chapter (Halved: Sinister argent owl on sable field and dexter, a frowning sable keep on argent field) hung from the gatehouse. The guards recognized Jozan and greeted him as a Stalwart Vigil. He was to recite the tale of his deeds and his journey to the brother knights at supper.

The supper was quite good. We sang a hymn to the Invincible and Valourous Knight before dinner and then there was roast beef and a moderate serving of red Keoish wine—a good vintage. Jozan’s tale was not so well told. Perhaps speaking in front of his brothers made him nervous, but the telling did not live up to the heroic deeds it described. Never-the-less, the Master Caedmon—All Seeing Victorious Griffin to use his proper title—called him forward and pronounced his deeds to have been worthy. No longer would Jozan be Stalwart Vigil, but his name would be entered into the rolls as Implaccable Rampant Basilisk of the Knights of Hillwatch Keep. Having kept the twelve and been worthy of the first precept, he would be taught the second and the third precepts after his initiation tonight. And, as a token of his rank, Master Caedmon presented him with an amulet that shone and shimmered like liquid copper. I recognized the meersalm amulet*** for I bear one myself. It is a gift most worthy of a knight.

After this, we had opportunity to speak with Master Caedmon while the brother knights prepared for Jozan’s vigil and initiation. He was familiar with the passage that Immerstal had found but had not seen the Stone lion himself. None of the patrols travels more than a couple days beyond the keep—most of the time, the patrols do not even go a full day’s travel before returning and the stone lion would be at least three or four days to the northwest. We made arrangements, then repaired to the guest chambers to slumber. Tomorrow, our valiant company shall pass into untamed haunted lands where the powers of darkness hold sway. I pray that our courage and skill at arms and the blessings of the gods we bear enable us to conquer and ride victorious to the end of our quest.

----------------------------------------DM notes-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 25 Red Hand loots Terrelton. Baron Wiston, Trask, Jorr, Grimmath, Morlin, the lions et al ambush and destroy the Heiracosphynx scouts.

*Immerstal said, “First, simply scrying a person will not generally give sufficient information to teleport unless you recognize a landmark within ten feet of them. To teleport, you need to know where they are, not merely what the room looks like. Secondly, treebuggerers cannot teleport. And thirdly, of course the chamber is warded against teleportation. Do I look like an idiot?

** “Typical adventuring wizard. He learns one spell and thinks that’s all the book has to offer. He had no idea the treasure he had in his backpack. No, he won’t miss it. I could make him an everful mug of ale to offer in its place and he would think he had cheated me. But I have had a copy made as well. I would not give up the only copy of this knowledge.”

***This Meersalm amulet is an amulet of natural armor +2 that functions as a holy symbol of Heironeous. Twice ever it will enable its wearer to turn a confirmed critical hit into a normal hit. Once those charges are expended, it retains its other functions.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Journal of the Glorious Engelhardt ap Eddard, Knight Courageous of the Valorous Host

Reaping 11
We had intended to begin our quest at daybreak but we actually spent a couple hours provisioning before we set out on our quest. Knowing that our animals would not be able to graze in the cursed vale, we loaded them down with sacks of oats and bought two more horses to help shoulder the load. I acquired four bottles of the keep’s Keoish Red to for our meals and rituals on the way. We set out with high hopes as the sun rose in the sky.

By early afternoon, our hopes were dashed. Sir Jozan had warned us that the lands of the haunted vale were choked with thorny vines but we had not truly realized how much they would hamper us. Every mile, one or more horses would lame themselves on one of the myriad of vicious thornbushes that grow here. By noon, we had spent over an hour tending to our horses.* Then, disaster struck. As we halted to clean and poultice yet another bleeding hoof, Jozan and Hellek shouted warning. Large lions with the wings and heads of hawks dived towards us—I had initially thought them to be griffins but examining the bodies later and comparing them to the Compleate Monstrous Compendium at Hillwatch Keep, we confirmed them to be Heiracosphynxes instead.

We did not cover ourselves with glory on that day for Pyrr whose knowledge had proved key to our planning and choosing our course of action immediately fell to the claws and beaks of the creatures.** We avenged our friend but the sudden and bloody loss of our boon companion deadened our spirits. We debated moving on without him but since bodies in these lands seem to rise as undead sooner or later, we laboriously returned to the keep to lay our friend to rest on hallowed ground.

Reaping 12
It was with heavy hearts that we resumed our quest. This time, our entourage was much smaller. We left the pack animals behind us and rode with only one horse each, thus hoping to better guide them and spend less time tending to injured beasts. Our faces were grim and we spoke but little as we marched to the northwest, heading once more towards the last village mentioned by the ancient traveler in the account we had read: Dourstone Keep, seat of the lord of Stonefields. Riding, we hoped to reach there by nightfall if we pushed ourselves hard—a task I might facilitate with the blessings of the Valorous Knight.

Again we did not make as good time as I hoped and by the seventh hour, I realized that we had now thrice passed by the spot where Pyrr met his untimely end. I pray that this is not an omen. Nevertheless, I struck up the cheerful pilgrim’s chant that I learned in the archives of Rel Astra and we made good time in the nineth hour of our journey before our horses fell exhausted and we stopped to camp.


Reaping 13
It is fortunate that we prepared well and bought many herbs and poultices with us, else I think we would run out of means to treat our beasts. As we traveled, we had to continue to treat our horses as the thorns tore at their legs and hooves. Only Penn and the great wolf that she rides seemed to escape their pricks. It was noon when we arrived at the ruins of a village with a small stone tower. Honestly I cannot tell one ruined village from another but Penn, Marquess and Jozan seemed certain that this must be Stonefields where our traveler’s tale began. Our tale nearly ended there.

What was once a road was now as overgrown with thistles and briars as everything else but it was at least a path through the dozen buildings whose skeletons made the ghost town. So, we rode by it, hoping to find some remnants of the trail our traveler followed. What we found instead was a herd of shambling monstrousities that were once aurochs or bison or some such beasts. Their bellies swelled in death and their skin hung from them in strips like beggars’ rags. I drew a small circle in holy water and powdered silver to consecrate*** the ground upon which we stood and I felt the holy energies thrum through the fingerbone of Saint Ferrante in my buckler. The beasts shook the ground as they moved forward and from beside the buildings, a great skeletal bear joined the fray as well. We fought bravely and they exploded in hunks of gore as Jozan struck them down with his enchanted axe.**** Marquess dropped his glaive and drew a mace to strike at the bear. Several times it grappled him, but he slipped from its grasp.

Things were going our way when Penn charged her wolf into one of the zombies and knocked it back into the dire bear. There was a cloud of dust and the earth gave way a little, opening up a cellar under what remained of an inn. From that cellar crawled a hideous lizard with eight legs and glowing eyes. Jozan shouted to beware the basilisk’s gaze, so I averted my eyes from it and desperately channeled the power of our god to heal my allies as I struck desperately at the zombie near me and Marquess. Hellek was not so quick on the uptake and must have met the beast’s eyes for his skin turned to grey stone before my eyes. In retrospect, desperation led me to neglect my form and I was unable to land solid blows with my axe. Jozan struck down the skeletal bear and moved up to the greater of the two basilisks. The one that I suppose to have been its mate circled around behind Penn and her wolf.

Then Marquess attempted to lean down in his saddle and snatch his glaive from where he had dropped it. Perhaps it was the gore from the zombies, but he slipped and fell from his saddle and the last bison dealt him a savage blow, ramming its horns into the space between his pauldrons and cuirass. He fell. I leaped forward, thinking of my most powerful curative spell but just at that moment the basilisk raised its head and I froze, unable to move or complete my thought.

Thanks be to the Invincible and Valorous Knight, Jozan and Penn—or to be more precise, her wolf—managed to finish off both basilisks and the last zombie. I regained consciousness as Penn stood on the back of her wolf to reach my head and wrung a blanket soaked in basilisk blood over me. No doubt I shall stay up late in the night praying for water and washing everything I own, but it would be churlish for me to complain at being delivered from a living death. Searching the cellar, we found some ruined armor as well as an enchanted sword, helm, and prayer cord. There was also a statue of a gnome buried in the cave in. Since there was basilisk blood to spare, we coated the gnome in it. Evidently fresh basilisk blood can make petrified flesh into skin once more.

The gnome screamed. However, we were soon able to calm him down and hear his story. His name is Rastix and he is a champion of Garl Glittergold who had been traveling with a human of our faith. They had heard rumors of giants and such creatures attacking the frontiers but they had barely begun preparations when the storm broke upon them. Thank the Valorous Knight that I had more warning in Istivin. A giant and his pet basilisks forced them back into the cellar and the last thing Rastix remembered was his friend striking the giant and being stuck down in turn as the giant’s dying stroke cleaved through his friend and shattered a support pillar in the cellar. Rastix caught the basilisk’s eye and was petrified as stone and earth rained down upon him. I suppose that saved him from being eaten.

Well, it is a most fortunate rescue for our new friend. We cannot delay our quest even further to take him to Hillwatch Keep so I guess he is stuck with us for the moment. But he seems to be a good company and I am glad to have him as a companion. That night, I shared one of my bottles of Keoish red with my brothers in arms and we raised a cup to the mercies of the good gods and to absent friends.

----------DM Note---------------
Day 28: In a skirmish with the remaining manticore scouts, Grimmath loses an eye, Svindhelm Fitztrask and two Lions—Bors and Kay are slain, but they do finish off the last manticore scouts and one of the Kulkor Zhul War Adepts for good measure.

Reaping 14
A new day greeted us with thorns, gullies, ravines, briars and a few patches of assassin vines—or so Jozan said they were. For my part, they looked much like any other vine and I would have been tempted to try gathering their berries had Jozan and Penn not steered us away from them. We are fortunate to have such wise guides with us. Truly we are a bold and valiant company and I cannot think but that our might shall cow this ghostlord into accepting terms. Even the ritual of binding and poulticing our horses wounds no longer bears the sense of menace it did when we set out the second time.

As shadows began to creep over the landscape, we passed a small ruined farmhouse—only parts of the walls and doorposts remained and through its walls a ghostly lion glided, stalking us as though we were prey. Ghost or not, it and its partner soon learned that the followers of the Invincible and Valorous Knight are not easy prey. Our enchanted weapons tore their incorporeal forms to tattered threads which vanished towards the northeast as though blown by a strong wind. This lends credence to our goal for something must have drawn them that way. The wind was blowing southeast and in any event such ethereal shards would not be effected by wind.

Our spirits bouyed by the swift and glorious victory, we pressed on until dark. Once, I thought I caught a glimpse of the stone lion’s head against the mountains to the north but it could be wishful thinking. Still, Penn and Jozan say that we should reach it tomorrow, so I might have seen it. Soon the hour will come wherein our courage shall be tested. It shall prove to be as purest gold.

---------DM Note--------
Day 29 Red Hand nears Nimon Gap. High Priestess Goldenbrow invokes the most powerful scroll in the temple archives and summons an archon to strike down the Red Hand’s wyverns.

---------------------------DM Notes----------------------------
* This is an interesting artifact of the conversion to Pathfinder. In 3.5, heavy warhorses have +4 natural armor and are immune to the Thornwaste's damaging and slowing effects. Since almost all parties will either be riding horses or flying on owls that means that almost no-one will wind up rolling reflex saves against the thorns. In Pathfinder, however, heavy horses only have +2 natural armor and are still vulnerable. I actually quite like the way it works out even though having everyone roll reflex saves for all their mounts can be tedious. It forces the characters to interact with the environment (and the adventure has now had three very different hostile environments--the Witchwood, the Blackfens, and now the Haunted Vale/Thornwaste), reinforces that the haunted vale is a very unfriendly and cursed place, and I'm sure will make the players as well as the characters breathe a sigh of relief when they reach Hillwatch Keep on the way back and get to travel on roads that don't make their mounts roll reflex saves.

** The Heiracosphynx saw Pyrr was chargeable and didn't have on armor like everyone else and pounced. With power attack active, it hit three times and dropped Pyrr past negative con. Pro tip: Con is not a dump stat, even, no especially, if you're an elf. It's really a shame that Pyrr kicked the bucket here since he's a great character and ties into the story really well. Talking with the player afterward, we may end up bringing him back. They have some scrolls of Raise Dead in the Cathedral of Pelor. Maybe I'll have them do it behind the scenes while the party is away in order to explain him gaining enough xp to still be a viable party member when they get back.

***The combination of consecrate and prayer saved the party something like 150 damage over the course of the battle. I needed to roll somewhere between an 11 and a 13 to land most of my attacks and my dice went cold after the first round of the battle. A few late hits and some key petrifications made the battle close though.

****Jozan nearly singlehandedly destroyed the entire encounter. No-one else was having much luck (though Penn's animal companion finally came through in the end and did some work on the basilisks) and Jozan rolled three or four battleaxe crits, all of which were entirely superfluous since undead with 5 remaining hit points don't really need 45 damage crits to take them out. Still it was impressive.

The party doesn't know it yet, but both Penn and Vengeance ended up getting zombie fever from the plague zombies.

[Eldariel]

It is really the scenery and the attention to detail that brings a story to life. Also the functional, living campaign world and the fact that characters are not expendable.

All of that makes this journal a pleasure to read, and indeed, the setup of RHoD caters to this superbly. It isn't even that much work to flesh out the details. Also, it is much more interesting when the PCs are not trouncing every encounter. Indeed, the game and the story both feel much more engaging when PCs and NPCs alike can die and that matters for the whole of the story. This kind of a campaign of two forces colliding is thus a rather perfect backdrop.

How did you handle Pyrr's early, sudden demise? That gnome serves as a temporary PC, but did you initially grant her the control of e.g. Penn's companion or the storyteller cohort? Or did he participate otherwise?

[Elder_Basilisk]

Journal of the Glorious Engelhardt ap Eddard, Knight Courageous of the Valorous Host

Reaping 15.
Last night, Lady Underfoot cast several spells to surround our camp with a ring of sharp thorns and we bedded down in the middle of the ring secure in Rastix’s spell to alert us if anyone approached our camp. Faith in nature and faith in arcane power proved equally ill-founded.

I was standing first watch with Hellek and examining the holy blade that my companions have for the moment entrusted to my keeping. It has a long blade of dark steel covered in wave patterns from its forging and with a lightning bolt etched on the inside of the blood grooves, running up over the curved guard, and ending on the pommel. It is a fine blade but there is otherwise no outward sign of its power.

Hellek’s shout ended my reverie. “It’s under the ground!” Soon, I could see it for myself as a giant creature larger than the biggest horse and covered bony plates burst from the ground, scattering the embers of our low fire and nearly bit Lady Underfoot’s leg off. Jozan struggled to his feet and grasped his axe and Hellek fired arrows at its armor as I ran over to Marquess and struck him to wake him and at the same time armor him with a shield of faith. He rolled over as I leaned down to slap him and I think I nearly broke his nose, but he woke, shook the cobwebs out of his ears, and grabbed his baatorian glaive. (Some time I must ask him why a devout follower of the archpaladin bears a blade from the realm of his faithless brother).

The beast was surprisingly quick for something so large and nearly killed the Lady Underfoot, her wolf vengeance, and Jozan before we were finally able to bring it down. Covered in its blood and ours, it attempted to pick up the halfling’s bleeding body and flee which afforded Jozan the opportunity to leap onto its back and sink his axe into the soft tissue under its neck plates. While Rastix, Jozan, and I struggled to remember anything about these creatures, Hellek, who must have been up all night studying the Compleat Monstrous Compendium at Hillwatch Keep mentioned that these beasts have a taste for halfling flesh and that in times past, dwarves used to craft shields from the armor plates behind their heads, should they be unlucky enough to encounter such a beast and fortunate enough to slay it. Hearing that, Jozan hewed and yanked until he finally got both neck-plates free of the corpse.

Then it was time to walk after our horses and tend to their bloodied fetlocks and injured hooves once more for Penelope’s spell had shredded them as they fled the bulette.

In the morning, we made haste to abandon camp before the beast’s body began to stink even more in the heat of the day. The Lady Underfoot had a sinister rash and her neck is covered in seeping boils—she seems to have contracted zombie fever—perhaps from the bloated plague zombies we fought the other day—but there was little that we could do about it in the morning. Had I time to treat her, I could probably find herbs but we cannot afford to spend days or weeks while she rests and I tend her. The armies of the Red Hand will not afford us such luxury. On the morrow, should the gods allow our mission to succeed, I shall pray to the Invincible and Valorous Knight to cure her disease.

Still, having bested such a fierce predator and sensing that we must be close to our destination, there was a lightness in most of our steps as we marched forward. It turned out we were still not wary enough for a pair of great insects dripping green ichor from their mandibles burst from the ground around us and spewed a vicious acid across our entire group. I invoked a prayer to the Archpaladin but before I could do anything more, Jozan’s arrows, Marquess’ glaive, and Hellek’s sword put an end to them. I think we decided that they had been ankhegs.

A few hours and several injured hooves later, we arrived at the site described by the traveler. A great stone lion on a rocky mesa, silhouetted against the mountains behind it and ringed by a forest of rune-carved monoliths and surrounded by a desolation so great that not even fleas crawled on the dusty earth between the monoliths and the lion. Unlike the traveler’s account, the runes were mere dead carvings and several of the pillars were shattered or thrown down. Rastix and Jozan said that, when they invoked their divinations to see the unseen, they could see the spirits of tortured lions flying about it in the ether, sometimes passing through the dread monolith. There were also signs of movement in the bare earth before the stone lion. Claw marks and booted feet.

Lady Underfoot gave her eyepatch to Marquess—she explained that it was enchanted to allow the wearer to see invisible creatures like the ghosts that circled the tower if worn over the left eye or to fight without vision if worn over the right eye. A valuable tool indeed. I have a scroll stored to purge foes of dishonorable invisibility but I must save it for a time of dire need. It proved its worth today.

As we approached the monument, the footprints faded in our consciousness as we saw a hollow like a cave in its chest, between its paws. A steep stair led up to it and basalt carvings of skeletal lions stood on pedestals on either side like guardians. Jozan and Rastix both cast a spell to disrupt the undead and test the skeletons to be sure if they were carvings or not. The spell did nothing, but shortly thereafter, a creature from our darkest nightmares emerged from the cave.

It scuttled on eight legs to the entrance and launched itself in the air on white, batlike wings. Frost trailed from between its teeth and its eyes blazed with a mesmerizing blue fire. Upon its underbelly, we saw a brand like a five headed dragon. Rastix stood transfixed and, as we realized that danger was upon us, his skin turned grey and hard as granite. Then a blast of cold washed over us, chilling us to the bone. We averted our gaze from its eyes and as we wondered what to do, Lady Underfoot took it on herself to lure it away from us. Hellek was barely able to gasp out; “It’s a dracolisk—if you value your lives do not meet its gaze!” before he too was petrified by its unholy power.

Realizing that we could not hope to prevail standing in the open as it flew above us and bit us or turned us to stone at will, I called out that we should make for the cave and ran there as quickly as I could in my armor. Marquess and Jozan followed with the Lady Underfoot and her dire wolf just a little behind them. We made it to the cavern and prepared to make our stand. Its hide was like adamantine and its claws cut through our armor as though it were not there, but Marquess and Jozan’s blades and Vengeance’s teeth still took their toll on it. I called upon Heironeous to heal us many times and slashed at it with my sword but even the holy blade could not penetrate its scales. Marquess and Jozan were more skilled than I and though it stuck several of us down so that only the power of the Archpaladin kept us from dying, we eventually slew the beast and took a strand of black pearls that it held laced around its right foreclaws.

Gathering its blood, we were able to restore Rastix and Hellek to flesh. Something has gotten here before us, but we must see our quest through to the end. Woe to any villains who stand in our path!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 30 on the Red Hand of Doom timeline. Tredora Goldenbrow's shield archon will have killed most of the wyverns and returned to the seven heavens. The Lion Guard has drawn up their battle lines as though they were going to hold the bridge at Nimon Gap against the Red Hand but they will retreat over the bridge and destroy it behind them rather than actually offer battle. Doing it this way makes the Red Hand waste their time deploying from marching to battle formation and if they get lucky, the count figures that Abiathrax might fly over the river and try to harass the retreating army (it would be a bad idea since Abiathrax alone would not be able to stand up to the heroes of the Elsir Vale, most of whom will be there). Kharn can do the math though and is not about to allow Abiathrax to charge into that trap so that won't happen.

DM notes: no one other than Hellek could roll above a 3 or so on knowledge checks this session. Hellek got nothing but 19s and 20s. The only explanation we could think of was that he'd spent his time at Hillwatch Keep studying the Monstrous Compendium. Jozan's player joked that he had apparently just looked at the pictures. (Most likely the succubus, dryad, nymph, and erinyes entries).
XP For Hellek: 3200. Marquess, Rastix and Jozan include RP XP. Penn include RP XP and 300 bonus XP

Treasure: 2 bulette back plates, strand of black pearls worth 3,500 gp (Rastix’ estimate)

Now, about Pyrr. It turns out that his death was a math penalty. The player had forgotten to add several levels of hit favored class hit points and should have been at -7 or -8 rather than dead at -11. We didn't realize that until the next week though. As far as his player having something to do, Hellek's player has actually missed the last 3 sessions or so due to a variety of reasons. Pyrr's player was already running Hellek that evening, so things worked out alright.

The player likes Pyrr and he was really an ideal character for the story with his connection to the Tiri Kitor, so he wants to get him raised when it's a possibility. In order to keep him with the party (who should be 8th-9th level by the time they finish with the Ghostlord), it's probably best to do it offscreen so that he can I could have Tredora Goldenbrow use a scroll, but I think it will be much more interesting to promote Immerstal a level (Pathfinderizing him could legitimately bump him to level 10 and he's been doing quite a bit behind the scenes during the adventure so having him make level 11 is not entirely unreasonable) and have him use planar binding to get an efreet or something to do it. So Pyrr may end up coming back owing favors to both Immerstal and an efreet. Any ideas on that? What kind of favors would Immerstal and his conjured outsider want? Ideally, I'd like something somewhat questionable where Pyrr will have to think about whether he wants to do it or not--not necessarily a side quest, but maybe something more along the lines of a year 1 or year 2 Living Arcanis faction mission (before they sanitized them).

[Eldariel]

I take the Dracolisk was Varranthian? An interesting substitution and reinforces the theme - also quite brutal though petrification being so easily undone does cut a bit into the risk. Still, I suppose it's necessary to not essentially lose the whole party in a won encounter, especially since petrification occurs so quickly in the game.

Yeah, you could certainly level-up Immerstal though level 6 spells can wreak all sorts of havoc on the Horde. Owing two favours though, well, Immerstal would most likely only be interested in something to further his power or perhaps to use the PCs as a tool in the intercity power struggle; perhaps vs. Lady Kaal or so, though I suppose that might fall out a bit differently in your campaign than in the grand scheme of things. The Efreet would probably want some item or something - perhaps a promise to acquire something that's currently held in the Fane of Tiamat for instance. Though for immediate payment, the old-but-reliable gold would work.

Yeah, it's probably good to revive Pyrr - and convenient that the players worked out this way so it can all work out in the long term.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Reaping 15 countinued.

Beyond the hidden door lay a wide stone passage that wound slowly to my right and up into the belly of the stone behemoth. We evoked magical lights and strode forward boldly, ready for anything that might happen. And it turned out that we were ready, but only by the narrowest of margins.

Ahead of us, the tattered spirit fragments of lions flew through the corridors from time to time interrupting the light of the gods with their unwholesome witchlight. Hiding their ethereal forms in the midst of this glow, several ghostly lions lay in wait for us and sprung out catching us—well, at least Marquess and me—unaware. The far lion was horribly disfigured as though it had spent hours under Old Wicked’s interrogators. Even catching its ghastly eyes for a brief moment, I felt its torments strike me to my soul. Hellek’s skin melted like wax at the sight of its horrific visage. As another ghost lion howled out its damned torments, the supernatural chill that passed through us struck Marquess to the quick and he turned and ran towards the wholesome sunlight. Hellek hurled his dagger as he shouted an imprecation and it exploded in a burst of fire, nearly consuming one of the lions. Jozan called upon the Valorous Knight to smite undead and struck the creatures to wispy tatters of witchlight that flowed into the stone up and away from us like fingers of mist on a windy day.

Jozan then called out, “A hobgoblin sneak!” and ran forward to strike at a hobgoblin hidden around the curve of the passage. The rest of us surged forward—all except Hellek who ran back and started dragging the cowering Marquess back towards us.

The hobgoblin was dressed in hooded red robes and carried a long chain with heavy iron dragon heads on each end. He spun around and kicked Jozan in the back of the head before he ran down the passage. At the end, we saw a heavy door that would have been cunningly hidden had it not been open and beyond it stairs going down and several passageways beyond. The red-robed hobgoblin and took refuge behind a larger one who dressed in green robes and girded with a magnificent belt of adamant links studded with precious stones. The red robed hobgoblin called out in their twisted language. The green robed hobgoblin snarled at Jozan, lady Underfoot and her wolf and saluted them with his fists which immediately burst into flame before he struck them in a blur of sudden motion.

Later, as we bound our wounds, I learned that several of my valiant companions are well versed in the speech of these verminous creatures. The first hobgoblin had called out—“the humans from Skull Gorge are here!” The green-robed hobgoblin was apparently named Master Doomfist and he very nearly proved worthy of that name. Rastix suggested that the red robed hobgoblins must have been his disciples and it makes sense. Properly, that knowledge would be for later when it came to me, but I recount it here that my tale may be easier to follow.

So, Master Doomfist and his disciple fought with Jozan and Vengeance while I ran to catch up and say a prayer to the Archpaladin for our victory. The dire wolf and our Impaccable Rampant Basilisk had the upper hand for a short moment but two hobgoblins dressed in banded armor and carrying the picks and pendants of the queen of dragons descended the stairs to our right while a strikingly beautiful hobgoblin—and writing those words, I realize how impossible such a thing may seem, yet upon my honor she was so—stepped up behind them singing an aria that they must have found inspiring. Then she stuck a high note and the hobgoblins discarded potion bottles on the floor shattered and an answering thunder exploded around us. Lady Underfoot called lightning upon the wicked priests and as they healed themselves, we saw three more red robed disciples descending a long stair at the opposite side of the room.

Injured and with one of Bova county’s best fighters cowering in the dracolisk’s lair, Jozan and the Lady Underfoot judged themselves to be outmatched and retreated, closing the door behind them. I prayed fervently for healing and even the small Rastix cured some of our injuries by the power of his gnomish god. But it was too little. Before we were able to establish a proper defensive cordon, the door opened and the hobgboblins spilled out. Marquess had just barely returned but in truth his glaive made little difference this fight. He and Jozan had just begun to fight the red robed hobgoblins when Master Doomfist appeared in a flash of green fire, wrapped his dragon-weighted chain around Jozan’s neck and dragged him into a waiting crowd of hobgoblins. The Knight of the Vale did not shake free, but struck the green robed hobgoblin with his enchanted axe and sent his head rolling away in a shower of gore.

Our encouragement was short-lived. One of the disciples avenged his fallen master. He struck Jozan with his fists and feet, denting his breastplate, shattering his nose, and finally sending our friend and ally sprawling on the ground, with his neck bent at an unnatural angle. Another red-robed disciple ducked under Marquess’ glaive and struck the Lion of Bova a blow that rung his helmet like a bell and sent him reeling back towards me as his greensteel glaive clattered on the floor. Vengeance and Hellek fought valiantly and Rastix poured magic missiles into them, but then Hellek fell beneath their fists while Marquess drew his shortsword and wrestled with another monk on the ground, stabbing at him.

It was a bloody fight. Marquess fell in a pool of his blood, was revived by my prayers, and fell down again, bleeding from many wounds. The red-robed disciples of the doomfist fell one by one beneath vengeance’s fangs and Rastix magic missiles—and I think Marquess accounted for one before he fell as well. The lady hobgobling moved up, calling thunder and lightning down upon our ranks and even her priests drew their picks and charged towards us. I called upon Heironeous to strike down the hobgoblin woman and met the priest’s pick with my holy blade. Even as I struck down one priest, the Lady Underfoot fell to despair and, calling her wolf to her, ran towards the sunlight. Then the last of Doomfist’s disciples afforded me an opening as he ran past me to catch the fleeing halfling and I struck him a mighty blow. He wrapped his chain around Penelope’s neck and held her fast, but Vengeance came back and between Rastix, the wolf and I, we struck him down.

That was it. Of our stalward companions, only Lady Underfoot, her wolf, Rastix and I yet stood and all of us bled from many wounds. The Lady Underfoot’s resolve was shattered and she sought escape. Rastix was ready to oppose our wicked foes to the death but his magics paled before the hobgoblin’s. And yet, only the hobgoblin woman endured of all our foes, dodging the spiritual axe I had conjured and bleeding from a few wounds but uncowed and confident.

I saw the spiritual axe of the Invincible and Valorous Knight strike a mighty blow against the hobgoblin witch that sent her reeling. No more, any thought of retreat! Not for me. (And in truth, I had no hope of escape anyway. Though Lady Underfoot might outdistance the hobgoblin, there was no way that I would outdistance her deadly lightnings.) This was the moment! I shouted, “Death or Glory!” and charged her with the holy sword of Rastix unfortunate friend. With all my weight and faith behind it, the blade struck true, rending her armor and biting deep into her neck and shoulder. She collapsed and for a moment, I exulted in the victory Heironeous had granted us. Then I used the last of my miracles to restore Marquess consciousness and we began the slow process of healing and deciding how to proceed.

We found a few meager stores in the rooms that the hobgoblins had occupied—a near-empty water cask, some largely empty sacks of grain and a few strips of jerky. There was a finely appointed room with some half-burned documents in infernal lettering and some manner of code, and a thick sheaf of musical notation—the hobgoblin woman’s I believe. Marquess wonders who they are, but it seems clear to me that we have found more of the Red Hand’s soldiers. The dracolisk had the symbol of Tiamat branded into its chest and here we found more hobgoblins carrying draconic iconography and accompanied by two priests of the dragon queen. In their possession are documents in infernal lettering and a cypher which, if Hellek is right was used by the bugbear leader at their ruined keep in the Witchwood. Who else could it be? After much discussion, we decided to make our camp in the hobgoblins’ lair. Nowhere seems safe but the ghostly lions roam outside the walls as well as within and at least inside this stone monument, we should not have to worry about landsharks.

----------------------------DM Notes--------------------------------
The dracolisk was indeed Varanthian. I wanted to reinforce the chromatic theme without going all the way to a white dragon. That I could use the Varanthian artwork from the book was a nice bonus.

Treasure: 2 potions of cure moderate wounds, 2 potions of cure light wounds, scroll of cure moderate wounds, 2 scrolls of invisibility purge, +4 belt of dexterity, +2 mithral chain shirt, 20 +1 shock arrows, staff of , +3 cloak of resistance, +2 cloak of resistance, +2 belt of physical perfection, mithral jewelry worth 1000gp (Rastix’ estimate)

DM notes: Master Doomfist was an addition of mine to add interest to the encounter (six identical monks is boring; a master and four disciples is more interesting), and to give me an excuse to drop some valuable and interesting loot on the part (who is a little behind the curve). By the book, the monks all had bracers of armor +1 which is quite possibly the biggest waste of gold ever from any perspective. (They don’t make the NPCs much tougher, no player in his right mind will want one, and even though the rules imply NPCs would be willing to pay the PCs 500gp for them, it doesn’t seem like anyone should really want it at that price. It’s like a suit of +1 splint mail: a white elephant of the item creation formulas). So I gave the monks potions of mage armor and then, I added Master Doomfist and gave him a belt of physical perfection +2.

It was a nailbiter of a fight and it was a mess mechanically. Towards the end, I thought that I had overtuned the fight and started leaving off some of the bonus damage. Later, as I thought about the encounter, I realized that I had double dipped on several bonuses and had been incorrectly allowing lingering performance to extend Ulwai’s inspire courage bonuses while she moved and used her thundercall and call lightning abilities. Thundercaller is a great match to what Ulwai was in the original adventure and is a very powerful archetype but it calls up a lot of complicated rules. As far as I can tell, what she should have been able to do is something like this:

Round 1: Inspire Courage (move), Haste (std); 2: Maintain inspire courage (free), move, slow (standard); 3. Thundercall (move), inspire courage (std). 4+ repeat round 3 or, when she has to move, maintain inspire courage, move, and cast a spell.

Or, for maximum damage effect: Round A. Thundercall (move), call lightning performance (std); Round B. Maintain call lightning performance (free for one bolt upon maintenance), Thundercall (move—end call lightning), call lightning (std) *Note that this depends upon the more powerful interpretations of the thundercaller’s call lightning performance where the bardic performance start time replaces the 1 round casting time and the text is read to give the thundercaller a bolt of lightning every time the call lightning performance is maintained.

Or, for maximum stunning: Thundercall as a move plus thundercall as a standard. *It’s not exactly clear this is RAI but it seems RAW that you can use thundercall twice when you hit bard 7.

On the whole, I think the bad guys had more bonuses than they should have through the fight and I think it made a difference on a few important moments in the fight like Master Doomfist’s crit on Jozan that later enabled the Doom Fist monks to take him down. So despite my leaving some bonuses off on the end, I don’t think that I made the encounter easier than it should have been—more bonuses at the beginning and less at the end probably worked in the Red Hand’s favor.

There was a lot going on tactically as well. It was bad luck that Marquess failed his save against the ghost brute’s roar and had to flee and worse luck that he was out for the maximum 8 rounds. Then the party managed to put themselves in what was very nearly the worst of all tactical worlds. They pursued the doomfist monk who had tried to sneak up and see what was going on, but didn’t manage to inflict any casualties on the Red Hand before the three monks heard and came down from the lion’s mouth. Then, it turned out that the Red Hand could heal up faster than the players and the retreating players bunched themselves up for Ulwai to destroy them with her thundercaller abilities while the 10 foot corridor made it impossible for Hellek to move around into a flank and get sneak attack. If it had worked as the players intended, Penn, Vengeance, and Hellek would have been useless. They only got to mix it up when Master Doomfist dragged Jozan out of the line and then when he and Marquess went down. The 10 foot corridor did keep a couple of the Doomfist monks from engaging for a while but on the whole I think it favored the Red Hand. And then, to top it all off it was something of a bad matchup for the group. Penn’s big offensive spell was Call Lighting and Rastix was Scorching Ray and those are not the spells you want to try to use on monks of any variety.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I'm a little behind here. Two sessions at once this time.

Reaping 16.
In the morning, I prayed and thanked Heironeous that we had passed the night undisturbed by ghosts, ghouls, goblins, or aught else wicked save our dreams. The invincible and valorous knight saw fit to answer my prayer and remove the plague of zombie fever from Lady Penelope, but it seems that her wolf had also contracted the plague as patches of his fur were falling out exposing pustulent boils beneath. Perhaps I should have expected this after seeing him bite the plague zombies, but I was too busy worrying about the basilisks and too distracted by the discovery of our new noble gnome companion to consider it. Then after praying and breaking our fast, we began to explore the interior of the Ghostlord’s stone lion.

First, we found a secret passage and explored through it, finding two chambers: one containing an onyx orb glowing with energy and surrounded by the misty forms of lions and necromantic energy. The other contained a pool of viscous black liquid with a submerged lion inside it. When we ventured in to explore it, we discovered that it was inhabited by a type of undead that Sir Jozan referred to as “Bone drinkers.” For future reference, bone drinkers look something like ghouls with long tentacles coming from their torsos and sharp elongated fingers. As the Implaccable Rampant Basilisk discovered, they will wrap their prey with their tentacles and suck the bones from their bodies through those fingers. It was a short but brutal conflict. They caught us somewhat out of position and mobbed Jozan and the lady Underfoot. Penelope and Vengeance largely escaped harm in the initial wave but Jozan was mobbed and wrapped in many tentacles. I had been examining the orb in the other chamber and it cost me precious seconds to reach the conflict but I struck one down with the holy sword of Rastix’s erstwhile companion when I did finally reach the fray. It made a satisfying splortch sound as the two halves fell away engulfed in holy fire.

Slowly, we forced the bonedrinkers away from Jozan and back into the pool, when Hellek bravely—and foolishly as it turned out—leaped into the pool to stab one in the back. As he touched the black water, his aura seemed to shrivel and he cried out. The bonedrinkers grabbed him with their tentacles but with a heroic effort, he squirmed out of their grasp and escaped to the stone floor above.

Thereafter, we found several rooms, each more vile than the last. One contained a deep pit and eager to see if there was any treasure we lowered the lady Underfoot into it on a rope. When she reported that there was a source of magic at its base, we added another rope to enable her to reach the bottom. It was nearly the last thing she ever did as the clear liquid at the bottom turned out to be some manner of ooze or elemental. It engulfed her and its caustic body dissolved the rope, leaving her stranded at the bottom of a pit, slowly being crushed and disolved as its body oozed over her. Fortunately for her, it did not resist arrows and it lost its form and sloshed apart before it could quite slay our companion. I suspect she will not be so eager to explore a pit again though as they say, the burnt fools finger goes warbling back to the fire so no doubt she shall find some other way to court death.

Exploring further we found a mockery of a nature shrine with a twisted and tree sustained by blasphemous energies and inhabited by the tortured ghost of a lion. We swiftly destroyed it and moved on. We came to a cobweb filled chamber filled with coins and a few scattered items, some moth-eaten and ruined but some still splendid and clearly valuable and filled our sacks.

Finally, we reached a chamber covered with carvings of living lions. I’m sure there was some signifcance to the carvings for throughout the rest of the tomb, the reliefs had shown lions dead and disfigured but there was no time to consider their meaning for amid them stood a gaunt skeletal form arrayed in rotting hides and moth-eaten robes and with a staff of worm-eaten ebony in his hands. In a voice like the rasping of the wind over bare tree branches and dried leaves, he demanded to know why we defiled his lair with our presence. Jozan and Marquess endeavored to explain. We had taken his phylactery from the Red Hand and wanted to negotiate a deal. He soon realized that we did not have it on us but did not seem to doubt our word that we had it. As soon as we handed over the vial of Azer sweat that would enable him to scry its guardian, we began discussing terms.

The Lady Underfoot is full of surprises. When he resorted to threatening us and called his ghost lions to aid the intimidation, she spoke as the voice of reason. Killing us would not get us the phylactery back—it would simply ensure that he did not get it. Perhaps that swayed him. Perhaps it was Marquess’s acquiesence to a mere year and a day of non-aggression that swayed him just as his offer to extend the truce to all of Sterich rather than Bova and Crystalmist counties as initially requested. Regardless, he agreed and we joined hands as I intoned the scroll that shifted us to the fabled City of Brass.

We arrived in the middle of the gate as a large caravan passed through with giant flaming scorpion centaurs marching alongside chained dwarf-like beings with beards of fire—many carrying baskets of stones and precious metals. We slipped in among them and were not challenged by the haughty horned and red-skinned giant with a flaming scimitar who seemed to command the portal’s defenses.

Once inside, we wasted no time gawking though the sight would have been worth gawking at. Rivers of fire flowed through channels like canals and buildings of brass and black stone rose high above our heads and ended in spires and minarets silohetted against a sky of smoke and ash occasionally marred by a streak of fire. Asking, we were directed to the palace of the nearest Pasha—I suspect that even the inhabitants of this dreadful city were eager to leave the ghostlord’s presence. We made arrangements to obtain an audience with the Pasha’s representatives and sat down in the magnificent courtyard of his mansion to wait.

Most were content to wait in silence, but the Lady Underfoot seemed determined to stir something up. She asked the ghostlord if he knew of a way to bind or destroy a soul. Transformation into a ghost has that effect, he answered. Would she like to try it? No. Apparently there was someone else that she hated but he was not interested in her prattle or her questions. Thrice she tried to approach him and thrice she fled in terror as his aura overwhelmed her. Finally, he invoked a wall of fire between them. She shouted questions across it as the rest of us edged away from her or found an excuse to examine the gatehouse. He threw a bag of stinking rotten holly berries at her and bade her hold her tongue or he would still it forever.

I don’t think that would have shut her up for long, but at that moment, the Pasha’s guards returned and informed us that his Vizier would see us now. So we went into the opulent reception chamber of the palace. Scented smokes rose from braziers of living fire and the lights reflected dimly off polished brass or gold on nearly every surface. A great genie sat upon a crimson cushion in front of an empty dais. He was Callatus Bin Hassan, Vizier of the great Pasha, Nasser Ali the Munificent.

We presented him with our agreement and showed him the tome we offered in return for its enforcement. His eyes lit up with smokeless fire. But what penalty clause did we wish? We had not discussed it and ended up accepting his penalty: we wished that whoever violated the agreement before him, him and his party would be consumed in a cataclysm of fiery destruction. Yes, we wished that if the ghostlord broke faith with us, he and his phylactery would be consumed. And if we break faith with him, let all of Bova be consumed with fire. Again, he asked if we wished for the Pasha to visit fiery doom upon those who broke the contract. And again, we acceeded. A third time, he asked if we wished for the party that offended the agreement to be consumed in a rain of fire. And a third time we and the ghostlord replied that we did. “Let it be so!” he answered. “The pact is sealed and woe to the one who breaks it. Woe to their friends and the inhabitants of their city. Woe to those near them for it will be to them as to the cities of the Bakluni! Our business is concluded, now be gone!”

Reaping 17
I don’t remember where we slept. We must have found an inn somewhere, but the heat and haze of smoke made my head ache and we wondered what we had done. At least we had negotiated two weeks of time to deliver the phylactery to the Ghostlord a mile outside of Hillwatch Keep. If we could not deliver, then we would have done more harm to the city of Bova—or perhaps the entire county—than even the Red Hand hoped to do.

Still, we must have slept. Somehow. We asked around and I gritted my teeth as Hellek made an offering at the temple of Imix in order to secure restoration of the swiftness drained out of him by the Ghostlord’s pool. In the cinderspires, beneath dark clouds of smoke and ash, we bargained with Azer slaves and secured enchanted rings and armor. We heard rumor of a salamander who was looking to sell and enchanted headband that interested us and walked among the alleys to reach him.

It was almost the death of us. Rastix was the only one of us who saw the dull glow of a giant fiery snake-centaur slithering across the rooftops towards us as we inched down an alley that bordered a canal of fire. Suddenly it dropped to the ground beside us and hissed angry words in the sibilant language of fire creatures. Then a ball of fire erupted in the middle of us. We fought desperately and the thing conjured a wall of fire between us as Marquess approached it. The lady Underfoot enchanted him to resist fire and he leaped through it as two smaller salamanders appeared from around the corner and attacked Rastix and me. From the other side of the wall, I heard Marquess cry out in agony and a fiery cry of exaltation. Drawing his axe, Jozan leaped through the wall of fire. Howling in pain and rage, he brought the axe down upon the creature and slew it as it drew back its spear for one last fatal thrust at Marquess. Recalling my chaining at the chapel of the chalice, I repeated the chant of the chalice in my mind as I struck out at the salamanders nearby. They quickly perished.

We never found the salamander that was supposed to be selling the headband. Perhaps he was simply a story to lure us into an ambush. But we did find another merchant who had something similar though at a slightly higher price. Fortunately, with the enchanted spear of the salamander, we were able to pay that price. Its splendor notwithstanding, we had no desire to spend another minute in the city. I pulled out the scroll of banishment that we had received from the temple of Pelor and sent us home.

Reaping 18-20. We arrived back at the stone lion and found our horses in the dracolisk’s lair, unmolested if somewhat hungry and thirsty. After three days of riding, our healers kits gave out and we began to rely upon the magic of the gods to heal our horses injuries from the thorns that cover this accursed vale, but we were able to reach Hillwatch Keep without incident. The gods of good smile upon our quest.

Reaping 20
At the keep, we were surprised to find Pyrr waiting for us, alive, but it took us several minutes to realize that we should ask what had happened. We were too busy telling the Castellan about the bargain and ensuring that messengers be sent to Master Caedmon’s patrol in the haunted vale letting him know to avoid the ghostlord until we should return with his phylactery. No one wanted Bova to be consumed in elemental fire simply because the Knights of the Vale ran into the ghostlord on patrol.

The urgent news being said, we began explaining what had happened to Pyrr who suddenly became interested in the exact words that the Vizier had spoken to us. “Did he ask if you wished for the agreement to be enforced like that?” I don’t think any of us were expecting that. There are legends and fables of many men who were laid low by getting what they wished for from malevolent forces. I suddenly wished that we had taken more time to write out the agreement carefully and that we had made an exact copy of the actual agreement. All we had to go on was Hellek’s rough draft. Was there a loophole somewhere? We had better make certain to uphold our end of the bargain.

Reaping 21
Pyrr joined us as we began our journey to Bova. The mystery of his life was answered: Immerstal had taken him to the Paragon of Heironeous in Kalibac. (It appears that his last illness was not fatal then. He was in very poor health when I traveled through Kalibac around midwinter and even the magic of the gods only does so much against the ravages of time). Then they had returned to Nimon gap and he had helped the Count and the Lion Guard delay the approaching army. My companions asked for news of Grimmath—I gather he is a dwarf who had accompanied them before—but Pyrr was not able to say if he yet lived. He could only say that the dwarf was among a group of nearly a dozen picked heroes holding Frostedge Keep until the Red Hand should bring an unstoppable force against it. A valiant effort and I pray that he is able to draw off that force and then escape.

We made our way to the inn at Dauth and stopped for the night—a decision that I was glad we made. After a week of sleeping in the haunted vale and on the elemental plane of fire, and then on the hard pallets at Hillwatch Keep, I was eager to sleep in a soft bed once again. We were just getting ready to retire from the common room when five men came into the inn—four Lions and a priest of Pelor that the others recognized as Father Derny of Drellin’s Ferry. Immerstal had sent them with the phylactery—Marquess thought that perhaps he scried on us but I judge it more likely that Master Caedmon sent him word by the power of the Heironeous. Regardless, I dispelled the ward on the box and we examined the necklace carefully to ensure that we really had the phylactery. It was not that we though Immerstal might try to trick us—only that we needed to be certain since all of Bova could perish if we handed the Ghostlord an empty box or a fake. Marquess wants all of us to escort the phylactery back to Hillwatch Keep in the morning. Rastix volunteered to go himself with Father Derny and the Lions so that we could be back in the fray more quickly. I’m not sure how we’ll feel about it in the morning, but for now Marquess is loathe to let the box out of his sight. I think our dealings in the City of Brass have unnerved us all a little bit.

-------------------------DM Notes-----------------------
On Reaping 17, there was the phony battle at Nimon Gap Bridge. Bridge destroyed. It was a strategic success for Bova. They forced the Red Hand to spend the better part of a day arraying their army for battle, then denied the Red Hand battle and retreated across the river. Casualties on both sides were light but Sertieren the Wise and maybe a score of others were killed on the Bova side along with a few dozen hobgoblins including three of the Red Hand war sorcerers and two ogres.

Day 36 (delayed 6 days by chp 1 events). Red Hand has bridged the Elsir at Nimon Gap and crossed. 2 days to sack of Talar.

The actual agreement was rather simple. “The Ghost Lord will agree to break off alliance with the Red Hand and remove all Red Hand personnel from his lands. He will not attack the March of Sterich (which includes all of Bova and Crystalmist counties, but for the purpose of this agreement does not include the haunted vale) for a period of a year and a day.

Once this is agreed and approved by all parties, the phylactery will be returned to the Ghostlord by the representatives of Bova at a location approximately 1 mile northwest of Hillwatch Keep. The phylactery will be returned no later than two weeks from the consummation of this agreement.”

The agreement has a few significant loopholes on both sides. No part of the agreement specifies that the representatives of Bova may not attack the Ghostlord. On the other hand, “attacking the March of Sterich” is somewhat vague and could be interpreted to mean an attack upon the land or a significant incursion that would cause damage to the political unit, allowing the Ghostlord to attack individuals within Bova without necessarily violating the agreement. (It almost certainly would allow him to attack the Red Hand forces even within the March of Sterich because such an action could hardly be construed as an attack on Bova. Attacks on subjects of the Marquis are iffier. Even on the ghostlord's land, an attack on a subject of Sterich could be construed as an attack on Sterich. The phylactery is understood to be the lich’s phylactery but the text of the agreement does not actually specify which phylactery is going to be given. The ghostlord definitely got the worse end of the agreement but it doesn't seem like it's really in his nature to have carefully lawyered the deal. Evidently my players weren't really inclined to carefully lawyer it either. Otherwise the wording would have been much tighter.

On the other hand, understanding the agreement to be enforced by an efreeti wish with no preliminary discussion or court of appeal, I don’t think any party is inclined to test the limits of the agreement. In fact, the party is quite concerned to adhere to the spirit of the agreement (a truce for 1 year and a day minimum) just in case the efreeti wish is biased towards adopting the interpretation that most allows them to destroy something on the prime material plane. (Which I think is in fact their bias. Efreeti are known for being legalistic word-twisters when dealing with wishes, but the question is how they would twist the words. To Bova’s favor? To the Ghostlord’s favor? They don't care about either party. I figure their bias is in fact going to be towards whatever lets the wish destroy something. So, trying to hedge around the letter of the agreement and adhere to the spirit is probably the right move. The Efreeti wish is just looking for an excuse to destroy them).

[Eldariel]

I definitely like this take on the Ghostlord more than the others. Though City of Brass is a bit of a thing to throw in and a whole other campaign waiting to happen, certainly having an actual treaty with actual enforcement is very, very key. I agree that the efreeti are mostly just interested in either side breaking the treaty in any way, shape or form. There are loopholes but I doubt either side could even think about risking it. But yeah, having the horrors of Ghostlord's abode actually affect the party and having the party scouting the place and nearly getting themselves killed in the process is kinda awesome. The only part that's weird is how they managed to rest at that location with none of the ghost lions bothering them.

But yeah, this'll definitely make things tense for some sessions - perhaps the efreeti themselves would somehow try and stop the phylactery from being taken in order to have an excuse to rain destruction on Bova so I could see the party having to fight some Planeshifted underlings under their control. Definitely a major step up from the vanilla adventure, and this also burns time so the schedule isn't too loose for the party.

[Elder_Basilisk]

The party rested in the rooms abandoned by the hobgoblins. I figured that since the ghostlord was tolerating the red hand presence and does not really exert direct control over the ghost lions most of the time, he had simply directed them to leave those areas alone. If they had rested somewhere else they might have had some trouble.

I was tempted to buy necromancer games city of brass and run a mini Adventure at this point but ultimately decided I didn't want to buy a multi-book box set for a one to two session adventure.

I'm not sure about plane-shifted efreeti minions. I figure the party is up for the official marked for death encounter plus another one with the best devil's azarr kul can call. High priestess golden brown started the planar ally calling to kill the red hand wyverns (in my take on things). The red hand is going to retaliate against Bova's most strategically troublesome forces: namely the PCs.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I fell a little behind in these posts. This is the first of three sessions. No deaths here, just close calls. Things get a lot bloodier in the future installments though. It turns out the party's balance was very short lived.

Journal of the Glorious Engelhardt ap Eddard, Knight Courageous of the Valorous Host

Reaping 22 Thank Heironeous for the opportunity to sleep in a soft bed again. Of course, my soul still thrills to the call of adventure and the thrill of the campaign—to always being ready to test my mettle against the worst villainy that any world has to offer and to send it screaming to the pits of hell. But once a week or so, it is good to rest my head on soft goose down rather than a rock.

After we said our prayers and ate breakfast we all set our backs to the rising sun and once again rode the long and winding path to Hillwatch Keep. We thought that, given the stakes if we failed to deliver it to the Ghostlord, we could not have too many of us guarding the phylactery. It was probably fortunate that we did. As our long caravan snaked around the hills with a particularly nasty precipice to our left, Pyrr cried out a warning. “Devils!”

With an explosion of brimstone, a group of devils—bearded devils if I recall my lessons correctly—appeared among us, hacking with their glaives. One in front had the same snaky, tangled beard as the others but carried a black scythe and had scaly crimson wings that Pyrr later explained marked it as one of the special servants of the queen of wicked dragons. It exhaled a gout of fire that scorched our front ranks and nearly slew several horses, sending Marquess toppling to the ground. It was skilled and though the Lady Underfoot, her wolf and Marquess gave a good account of themselves up front the wounds of their blades continued to bleed and resisted magical healing. Over time, this caused them to grow increasingly desperate. Behind us, Father Derny, Agrivar, and the other three lions struggled to hold their own against another group of the barbazu. Only Father Derny’s skill at channeling and the Sun Father’s blessing kept them from being overwhelmed.

Jozan, Hellek, and I squared off against a couple of the foul beasts that had teleported into our midst but soon found that a much larger threat overhead as the gaunt form of a bone devil appeared overhead and speared Jozan’s shoulder with its poisoned stinger. A wave of terror washed over us and several horses and Hellek fled in uncontrolled panic, only to fall beneath the blades of the waiting bearded devils. Brother Derny invoked Pelor to remove Hellek’s fear and I struck down the barbed devil we had been fighting. As he came to his senses—or at least as he stopped blindly panicking, Hellek called, “Rastix, guard the phylactery!”

At that, the shape of the battle shifted. The large devil floated higher in the air and called a wall of ice separating Jozan, Marquess, Penn, Pyrr, and me from Rastix and Hellek. I dispelled the evocation only to see a bearded devil drop its glaive and, absorbing what would have been a nasty cut from Hellek if Hellek’s weapon had been properly blessed, shove Rastix off the edge of the cliff. Pyrr took a moment to concentrate his mind on the proper spells, then promptly leaped off the cliff after the champion of Garl Glittergold.

On the cliff, we faced a tough battle, but even with the poison sapping Jozan’s strength, we began to prevail. Marquess and Vengeance felled a bearded devil in front of us, and Agrivar slew the devil who was menacing Father Derny as I struck down the one that had shoved Rastix off the cliff. I don’t recall who slew the bone devil—perhaps it was Jozan. In any event, we proved worthy followers of the Invincible and Valorous Knight and soon the decaying ichor of slain devils stained the path to Hillwatch Keep. A few seconds later, Pyrr and Rastix appeared on the slope above us. The High Arcanist’s quick thinking and daring action may well have saved all of Bova.

Upon reaching the frowning walls of Hillwatch Keep, I discussed the attack briefly with Pyrr and the All Seeing Griffon (Master Caedmon). Since the bodies of the devils remained, they were truly slain and not merely driven back to their home planes. Someone must have spent considerable magic to have called them all to our plane. Well I suppose if High Priestess Goldenbrow called the Archons of the Sun Father to her aid against their Wyverns, the Red Hand was going to bring the minions of Tiamat to bear in turn. Did they come for the phylactery or was that simply a coincidence? I wonder. And either way, how did they know where to seek for us? That night, we slept in the great hall under the watchful eye of Heironeous’ statues. The hallowed ground should offer some protection should the forces of darkness attempt any further deviltry.

Reaping 23. In the morning, we traveled to the meeting spot and found the Ghostlord. We fulfilled our part of the bargain and delivered the phylactery to him, trusting his fear of the efreeti Pasha’s power to keep the foul creature true to his word. He transformed into a rotting undead bird and flew away towards his accursed lair with his disfigured ghost lions trailing behind him. If he intends to betray us, it does not seem he will do so today.

We mounted our trusty horses and returned to Dauth without incident, passing by the decaying bodies of the devils upon the way. Though the few remaining inhabitants were clearly packing their belongings for a trip to the supposed safety of Kalibac, we were once more able to find warm and clean beds at the inn.

[Eldariel]

Heh, all of this seems quite logical and I'm looking forward to learning more about the additions you make, as well as the future bloodiness. Yeah, your view that the Red Hand quarters would be safe is probably validated; certainly Ghostlord would never risk attacking them himself. Great going!

[Elder_Basilisk]

Reaping 24
We pressed our horses hard and crossed the bridges over the Elsir, though the Moneychanger’s gate, and into Bova mid afternoon. The streets rang with the sound of hammers and axes as men hammered hoardings into place above the walls, repaired armor, and assembled barricades in the street. The barons’ militias drilled in Cathedral square, but we went straight to the Castle. On our way in, we nearly ran into Grimmath Coalhewer. He was sprawled in the corridor, drinking with two archers I didn’t recognize and Odrik Whitebow of the Lions. A long scar, still pink from healing stretched down his face behind an eyepatch over one eye.

Marquess spoke with him at length and he related the tale of how he, Baron Wiston, Baron Trask, and some others had held Frostedge keep until the red dragon came against it and then they had retreated through the plane of shadows where the Red Hand could not follow. Rastix and the others joined their table, but Marquess, Hellek, Pyrr, Lady Underfoot, Sir Jozan and I made our way to the council chamber.

I immediately recognized the Count, Captain Ulverth, Baron Trask, Baron Wiston, High Priestess Goldenbrow, Immerstal the Red, and Osric the Younger of Crystalmist county. But there were others who needed introduction. Two rangy elves who looked remarkably similar to Pyrr were introduced as Trellara Nightshadow and Killiar Arrowswift, High Singer and Chief Hunter of the Tiri Kitor respectively. A tall dark haired man clad in a breastplate was Erik MacKenzie of the Schwartzenbrun Crimson Company. They must be the mercenaries hired away from Crystalmist County. The Lady Verassa Kaal, an older but still remarkably beautiful red haired woman in a green and white gown rounded out the group. I suspect I am glad not to know what price she obtained for her support. Several maps lay on the great table in the center of the chamber with small blocks of wood painted with the heraldry of the various baronial, mercenary, and monstrous forces. The hobgoblin forces were marked with the crude red hand in front of a golden sun that we had seen on their dread banners and outnumbered the human and demihuman forces by nearly two to one. The bulk of those red and gold blocks were haphazardly piled around Talar with several more spread out along the plains below. Several servants brought ale and wine and bread to us and the other assembled worthies as we discussed. Baron Trask called for more wine several times. I don’t think he likes our situation. It could be sorrow at the loss of his son last week but I suspect it is more that he finds his courage most readily when the odd s are in his favor.

There was much to discuss. There was little word of Marquessa Emondrav’s forces and still no messengers through the pass at Marthon. Magical communication was strained—it seemed that Marshal Verthundle and her cavalry are trying to chase down or ambush a blue dragon in the plains to the west of Istivin so that the General Commander Terpin can marshal his forces but the earliest they could aid us is two weeks if they were already mustered and marching from Istivin. Since they are not, we will probably have to hold out for at least a month. Everyone seemed convinced that the Red Hand will besiege Bova. Even against their monsters and fell beasts, we should be able to defend ourselves well behind the walls and typically attackers would need at least a three to one advantage to take such a fortress by storm. They do not quite have such an advantage and even if they did, they should expect to take such losses that it would be impossible for them to hold out against the army of the March when it gets here—especially if supported by Count Osric from the south and Count Tondhere from the north. Yes, even assuming that the Lizard tribes of lake Rhest maintain their alliance with the Red Hand. It seems the hobgoblins have overplayed their strategic hand. I am not so certain . Something deeper may be at play here.

Nevertheless, everyone is aware that we must acquit ourselves well if we are to survive. Otherwise the victory of man will come too late to do us any good. We discussed the progress of the harvest, how the Red Hand has responded to the ambush of their airborne scouts (they have concentrated their wolfriders into groups numbering 60-100 which are too numerous to ambush without exposing all of our forces to pitched battle and are now moving more slowly as they rely on their infantry to forage for supplies). We made plans to barricade the streets with wagons and chains should the Red Hand beach the walls and to set up a central hospital at the Cathedral of the Sun where all the priests will tend to the wounded from every quarter. The Glorious of the Valorous Host will be there too as guard in case our foes should strike at them. Except for me apparently. Marquess, I and our companions shall be one of several reserve forces whom the Count or Captain—Captain General now, I suppose—Ulverth dispatches to reinforce wherever the fighting is most fierce.

However, all of these plans take time—and the more time the better. If nothing is done, the Captain General guesses the Red Hand will be at the gates in three days. We might be able to delay them another three days—long enough to prepare more wards for the gates, more hoardings for the walls, and more barricades for the streets as well as to gather in more food. Every bushel of harvest that we gather in is a bushel of harvest that the Red Hand cannot eat as they sit entrenched outside our walls. And every day of supplies they consume while marching towards us is one day sooner they will need to lift the siege. We explored many possibilities. We simply don’t have enough troops skilled in stealth to be confident in sneaking by the goblin scouts. Count Bova will have some small teams in the field to keep them honest—he mentioned that two left tonight, but they won’t slow them down. Someone—I don’t remember who—suggested that Immerstal might teleport a small group behind the Red Hand’s lines and force them to stop and commit some substantial forces to tracking them down which should slow their advance. Enough wizards working together might also be able to make a convincing illusion that would seem like we are offering battle along the Dawn Way and make them line up for battle. That would be a challenge to pull off but even so they may attempt it. Our part will be to teleport behind the enemy lines and force the Red Hand to pay attention to us—the crossroads where the road to Witchcross and Strake Terrace splits from the Dawn Way should do the trick. Then when they make the area too hot for us, Pyrr reads one of Immerstal’s scrolls and I read a scroll from the Cathedral Archives and we all arrive back at the Cathedral. It is a bold plan and I pray that it meets with success.

Oh, in between all of that, Immerstal is going to work on a special project. If it works as planned, he should have just enough time to enchant Marquess’ glaive to be the bane of dragons. That should be a nasty surprise for them when the dragons show up above our roofs!

Reaping 25

In the morning, we met with Immerstal and trouble started immediately. Somehow, we had forgotten about Vengeance and there was not going to be enough capacity in Immerstal’s teleports to get us all where we wanted to go. That was solved when Immerstal realized that, if she could hold her breath for a little bit, the Lady Underfoot is small enough to stuff into his extradimensional haversack. So, we did that and scant seconds after the red wizard intoned the spell’s syllables, Vengeance, Marquess and I arrived at the crossroads. Immerstal opened his haversack and hauled the halfling out, then cast another spell and vanished from our sight. Then nothing. After three minutes, we began to wonder if something had gone wrong and discuss what to do. If we left the crossroads, Immerstal and our companions wouldn’t know where to find us. But if we just stayed here, sooner or later we would face the hobgoblins without assistance. Lady Underfoot bristled with impatience, swung herself into her wolf’s saddle and began to ride about, looking to see any hobgoblins.

She did not have to look long. We heard the sound of a group approaching and as she rode forward to see what it was, everything happened at once. A large hobgoblin on riding a huge, shaggy creature that seemed like a cross between a bull and a mountain ram charged at her with his lance lowered, trampling her and her wolf under his mount’s hooves. She gritted her teeth and cast a spell. Nothing visible happened, but I recognized the magic and its effect soon became apparent as a cart drawn by two more of the strange cattle charged out from behind a stand of trees, bellowing with each step as though they trod caltrops. The cart held a barred cage with several terrified young girls, and, as I later realized, a chained dwarf. Another cart containing more humans pulled off the road a good hundred and thirty or so feet from us and the hobgoblin footsoldiers escorting them took cover behind boulders, bushes, and the cart and began shooting arrows at us to some good effect. I prayed Heironeous’ blessing over us and Marquess fired arrows at the hobgoblin rider who wheeled his steed around, clipped Penn with his lance and trampled her wolf underfoot once more. She called on her magic to heal herself and rode behind Marquess and me, but it was to no avail. The hobgoblin charged once more and his mount caught her on its horns like a rag doll and tossed her broken form ten feet where she landed with a sickening crunch, clearly beyond any holy power I can wield. Four more red skinned hobgoblins came around the corner of a bush and charged Marquess and me while one blew a charge on his trumpet. The hobgoblin prison wagon that had charged towards us took a sharp turn and headed on down the Dawn Way toward Nimon Gap and the ruined bridge.

Things were desperate. I briefly fell beneath the hobgoblins’ blades and arrows but Marquess commanded Vengeance to avenge his mistress and bravely revived me with a potion. I slew the hobgoblin soldiers while Marquess fought with their leader who we now saw had claimed the ring of a Lion as booty. Suddenly arrows started hitting the hobgoblins from behind the cart and the hobgoblin archers found their attention drawn away from us. Vengeance was battered and his fur was matted in his own blood. I heard his ribs crack as their champion’s beast kicked him and our wolf tucked its tail between its legs and ran into the thickets. At the time I was angry but really, you can ask no more of a dumb beast whose master has been slain. If I ever see that wolf again, I shall try to find something to give it. He gave nearly all he had for us.

Their champion, who had turned invisible briefly while his ally healed him, challenged Marquess and struck him a dolorous blow such that blood streamed from both of them and they both teetered on the edge of consciousness. It was then that an arrow sped from out of my line of sight and piercing through his head, came out of his mouth. He collapsed dead and the hobgoblin bannerman sprinted away.

I thanked the Invincible and Valorous Knight for our victory and looked up to see whose timely assistance had turned the tide. It was Odrik Whitebow who had apparently been shackled in the rearmost cart. Though I did not see it, I shall relate his part here for it is quite worthy. When he saw the guards charge to attack us, he braced himself against the cart and splintered the bars to which his shackles were chained. He then ripped the broken wooden bar from the cart and used it to crush the skull of his armed and armored hobgoblin guard—the one who had been firing at us from behind the cart. Then he grabbed the key from the guard’s belt and undid his shackles, then took the guard’s bow in his hand and slew the three hobgoblins who had been shooting at us from cover and then made an amazing shot to slay the hobgoblin champion who had been giving us so much trouble.

Such a stalwart companion is an unexpected gift from the gods but his tale of woe gave us pause. He, a dwarf champion and the gnome Rastix had ridden out yesterday afternoon to keep tabs on the Red Hand’s wolfrider vanguard and to occasionally toss an arrow or a spell their way and force them to be wary of ambushes. Rastix had a scroll of teleport to enable them to escape if they ended up fighting all of the wolfriders. But no one had foreseen that we were not the only people capable of scheming. One second they had been watching the woflriders retreat from them in fear of an ambush (or so they thought) and the next second, the world was consumed in a gout of flame. The red dragon suddenly appeared from invisibility behind them along with a group of supremely skilled hobgoblins and other creatures including one with the shape of a man but scales and horns like a black dragon. Rastix had perished in the initial burst of flame and even men as stout as Odrik and the dwarf fell to the Red Hand. Then, surprisingly he awoke. He was in the cart, stripped and shackled but with his wounds bandaged. He could see his dwarf companion in another cart. The sun was rising and he overheard a massive hobgoblin wearing armor made of red dragon scales telling the mounted champion he had just slain to take the prisoners to the fane for sacrifice but to take care that they did not escape for the man and dwarf were doughty champions.

Some minutes later, a hobgoblin cart came back towards us from the west. The dwarf was driving it and carrying a hobgoblin longsword and the girls walked free beside it. I did not recognize him, but Odrik introduced him as Ankalan, a champion of Moradin who had come to lead the Hammerfist clanholds levies to battle on behalf of their liege-count.

Joy and sorrow must no doubt mingle in time of war but the day’s dour news was not yet complete. We tended to our wounds as best we could and I must admit it stretched my powers to the utmost. We stripped the hobgoblin dead and gave armor to the girls, though it was too heavy for them and most clearly did not know how to wear it. We did not wish for them to fight, but the armor might protect them from a stray arrow. Then Immerstal, Sir Jozan, and Hellek appeared. They were on foot and covered in blood and Pyrr was not with them. Now I shall relate what happened to them as it was told to me.

Scant seconds after we departed, Immerstal reappeared in Bova in a flash of light and cast his spell again to take them to join us. However, it was not our fate to have such success. They appeared in a dusty street surrounded by a few abandoned buildings. They could see the steep gorge of the Elsir rapids to the west and Hellek recognized it as a thorp in the domain of Talar. However, they did not take time to discuss it because they had found themselves in the middle of a group of Red Hand foragers. The hobgoblins shouted defiance and charged but they were not merely a group of hobgoblin soldiers. There were three wolves with the faces of goblins with them—foul fiends (not technically devils though they hail from the Lawful and Evil planes of existence) known to scholars as barghests. Immerstal transformed into a giant terror bird and attempted to slay them with his beak and claws before eventually unleashing his evocations. Pyrr cast a spell and burned the hobgoblin sergeant badly before being caught up by the barghests’ magic which caused him to foam at the mouth in rage. He had become separated from the group and was confronted by one of the barghests. He shoved his wand in its eye and shouted the command words. Even when it was only his anger keeping him on his feet, he kept beating the creature with his wand and shooting arrows of magic force at it. The torn and bloodied creature knocked him to the ground just as Immerstal obliterated the last several hobgoblins with a fireball and as Jozan watched, unable to reach him, it opened its mouth impossibly wide and swallowed Pyrr’s entire body. As it did so, its skin rippled and its fur turned white and it seemed to grow larger and more sinister. Like all of the barghests, it had been blinking in and out of reality and it stepped through the wall into one of the buildings. When Hellek opened the door to slay it, it was not inside and neither Immerstal nor Jozan who could see into the ethereal plane could see it.

Thus it was that Pyrr perished, not just in body but in soul, consumed by the foul creatures that we fight. The High Arcanist of the Tiri Kitor perished fighting his foes but will be denied his proper reward by the side of Correllon. What happens to souls consumed by barghests? Immerstal does not know. Perhaps they are sent to the lower planes to be tormented. Or perhaps they are simply gone forever like the fools who follow the teachings of the Divine Man in Urnst believe happens to all men when they die. I know not but if it ever enters my power, I shall endeavor to rescue him with all my might. So valiant an elf deserves his eternal reward.

But I get ahead of myself. We had found a small magical bag in the cart with the dwarf and two of the girls could fit inside of it if they held their breaths. That enabled Immerstal to take all but one of the girls back to Bova with him. At least I hope his magic carried him safely there and did not miscarry again. The five girls carried chain mail, swords, bows, arrows—as much of the hobgoblins equipment as they could lift. They will need every last bit in Bova when the Red Hand arrives. We found ourselves in a sticky situation since we had been counting on Pyrr to take us back to Bova when the Red Hand’s pursuit got too close but now both Pyrr and his scroll had been consumed and the scroll I had from the cathedral archives would only carry me and four companions to safety yet with Whitebow, the Ankalan and the girl—Miss Eleanor Tanner as it turns out, the daughter of the master of Terrelton’s Tanner’s guild—there were now seven of us.

After some discussion, we arranged to meet Immerstal at the crossroads before Frostedge Keep at nightfall in two days. He described a vineyard there on the track from the Dawn Way to the keep where it crosses the old track leading to the inn and the new town of Nimon Gap from the castle. Her remembers the place and we should be able to reach it without being immediately spotted if the hobgoblins have garrisoned Frostedge Keep. (They may not have—it is out of the way so Nimon Gap itself would surely be a better supply depot for them and they have no need of a strong point in their rear). If the hobgoblins have repaired but not garrisoned the bridge, we shall take that. If it is still destroyed or if the garrison is too strong, we shall wait until the morrow and I shall pray to Heironeous to let us walk across the water.

It turned out the hobgoblins have repaired the Nimon gap bridge and they have stationed a strong garrison there. Hellek and Odrik counted enough tents for around two score hobgoblins or wolfriders situated strongly in the earthworks the Lion Guard built when they feigned the offer of battle to the Red Hand army. Not wishing to tempt fate—certainly not while we are as injured as we are, we sent the carts and the hobgoblins’ mounts and draft beasts on their way—perhaps the tracks will confuse the hobgoblins and made our way down the hills toward the Elsir rapids south of the bridge. We hid our tracks as best we could—Jozan, Odrik and Marquess are skilled woodsmen, but would have given a lot to have Lady Underfoot’s magic to conceal our trail. Late afternoon, Odrick said he saw a large force of mounted hobgoblins following one riding a massive dire wolf traveling north up the Dawn Way toward the crossroads. Perhaps they are trying to follow us. If they don’t find us by tomorrow morning, we shall lose them when we cross the river. Or so I hope and pray.

---------------------------DM Notes------------------------
Day 40, so by the book's timeline, modified for their actions they have six days before the Red Hand reaches Bova and eight before the Red Hand attacks. Given the geography, it really shouldn't take the Red Hand that long, so in my opinion, it assumes the success of this mission and some low level, low-risk harassment of the Red Hand vanguard by the Count's forces. If the PCs didn't take the "go behind enemy lines to slow things down a bit" mission, I would have just moved the timeline up three days.

This combines two sessions. In the first session, Immerstal's teleport misfired (by 2%) and he would up six miles to the southwest. I had been planning to run Barghest Marauders and follow it up with Marked for Death as the Red Hand tried to lure out the raiders behind their lines. Since I had it prepped and it made sense given the geography, I just ran Barghest marauders for the group that teleported. I had several missing players anyway, so we put a character sheet together for Immerstal really quickly and had Marquess's player run him. The encounter worked out well, but it went bad for the players when Pyrr managed to be intimidated by the hobgoblin sergeant with dazzling display then failed his save against crushing despair and then because of the penalties failed his save against rage. Hellek managed to go something like 1/8 against the barghests' blink too. So bad luck and a character I really liked kicked the bucket. But I think that works out for the story. A few deaths make the stakes more clear and the party's current reverses make the campaign feel more like the ebb and flow of a close contest/desperate battle. When I played it (as written since we were using Living Greyhawk rules back in the day), the string of unbroken PC successes made it feel a lot more like a foregone conclusion.

So after Pyrr kicked the bucket I was left with the challenge of bringing in his new character. The player was tired of playing a spellcaster and had just had spellcasters die in two other campaigns so he wanted to bring in a martial. Going for another Lion is a call that I really like since it ties the party more strongly to the setting. And an archer can fill the artillery role that a wizard would have though the battlefield control/support/utility aspects of the wizard will be missing.

In order to bring the new character in, I decided to give the players a chance to free some prisoners. This should also serve as foreshadowing for the portal since I let fall a few hints that about blood sacrifices and the fane. By the time I wrote the session up, I realized I had a chance to give Wyrmlord Kharn a cameo and I think that will work out well when the players face him in a few sessions. I was pretty happy about that and was even more pleased with how the escape worked. Breaking the bars on the cart, beating the guard to death with a broken bar, then taking the guard's bow and killing the rest of the hobgoblin escort is the kind of awesome stuff that high level martials ought to do. Odrik is bad ass.

The split party session also worked out well because Hellek and Jozan's players had to miss the game.

Of course, it was a surprise when Penn kicked the bucket and the 5th level hobgoblin samurai lieutenant with a war Yzubo mount nearly soloed the entire group (or all of them who were present). Trample can be really nasty though it wouldn't have worked if Penn had dismissed the reduce animal on Vengeance. She didn't want to spend the standard action though so down she went. When that happened, the second wagon which I had planned to just hold a group of commoner sacrifices for the fane suddenly got a high level PC class occupant. Storywise it worked well though since the two person team with just Rastix and Odrik was a little undermanned and there should have been another hero with them.

Speaking of Rastix, Khal/Pyrr/Rastix/Ordrik's player was not happy with how Rastix worked in his brief sojourn with the group and since he didn't want to pick him back up, I figured he was fair game to kill off. NPCs need to die in this (IMO, that's another thing that a DM should amend in this scenario--by the time the battle of Bova/Brindol is over, there should be a number of named NPCs the players have interacted with who are dead. The way the module is written, they're all likely to survive which really reduces the impact of the battle. So far I've killed off Sertieren the Wise, a couple lions I didn't name, one or two of Baron Trask's sons, and now Rastix. I need to find a few more casualties of war by the time I'm done. Baron Wiston, Baron Corromat, Cannoness Leille, Father Derny, Killear Arrowswift, Trellara Nightshadow, Gareth (leader of the Lions), Immerstal, Morlin Coalhewer, and Marquess's brother Jonas are all possibilities. Baron Trask is to but the players aren't supposed to like him so his death won't contribute to to the impact. Maybe I'll make a list of named NPCs and have the players roll for each of them. That could be fun but I'm not sure if it should be a straight percentage or if I should break out the Mordheim injury tables. They would be more fun and evocative but maybe not as lethal as things should be.

[Eldariel]

Yeah, I find the adventure doesn't feel nearly as engaging nor dire if the PCs go from victory to victory. I might've said as much in this thread already but eh, given the session it seems salient. I find that's one of the big causes higher level players tend to have for complacency. It feels like it causes disconnect with the gameworld, and boredom as well. In this case, the enemy is quite powerful and I find the whole campaign should come down to smart PC & NPC play and planning, and overall victory should be slightly over 50/50 at best.

Speaking of, on which level are you bringing the replacements in? It feels like it might begin to stray the suspension of disbelief if the replacement characters keep arriving at the average party level - though admittedly the whole Vale is at war so the survivors gaining some levels only makes sense.

Though I have to say, Odrik is pretty awesome at least based on his showing here. That said, the party seems to be running lower and lower on magic as the levels grow and the power and importance of magic increases, which I have to say might cause them some problems against the Hobgoblin casters and particularly some of the Wyrmlords and Dragons later on. The best counter to magic is magic, while martial characters really benefit of force multipliers. Perhaps more changes occur in time or perhaps the party gets some NPC caster support or such - but as it stands, things look rather challenging for them.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I brought on Odrik and Anakalan at lvl 8 which is average party level at the moment though the highest lvl characters just hit 9 after last session. My future plan is that replacement characters at high level are named NPCs of the vale so we'd be looking at Immerstal, captain ulverth, Baron Trask, Master Caedmon, Tredora Goldenbrow, Grimmath or potentially the forgepriest of the coalhewer clan.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Journal of the Glorious Engelhard ap Eddard, Knight Courageous of the Valorous Host

Reaping 26

Praise the Valorous Knight! Our beds were uncomfortable and the spray from the rapids at the bottom of the gorge dampened my blanket in the night but neither hobgoblins nor dragons found us. Now, with one day left, we had to decide what to do.

Marquess was still tempted to try to attack the bridge across the Elsir gorge, but the rest of us were nervous about the two-score, six lances, or fifty—the number we had seen changed every time we mentioned it—hobgoblins at the bridge. I did not think of it at the time, but it is possible that the numbers actually were changing. The mounted troop of hobgoblins could easily have reinforced the bridge in the night. In the end, it was logistics that settled it. Without our horses, our mobility is more limited than we are used to. Even with my marching chant, we would have been hard pressed to cross the river, find our way to the bridge without being detected, assault it, and still make it to the crossroads by Frostedge keep by nightfall. We wanted to be there before dawn so that there was no chance that we would miss Immerstal. And without our horses, we did not have any real way of breaking contact with the hobgoblin garrison if we either wanted to feign an attack or if a genuine assault did not go our way. There was also the issue of the keep. Was it garrisoned or not? We wanted to know before we committed to an attack.

So, in the morning, I prayed for Heironeous to guide our step across the water and we walked above the raging rapids to the other side of the Elsir and climbed the gorge on the other side. Even Eleanor made it wearing the hobgoblin chainmail that was much too big for her slight build. We made our way through the hills towards Frostedge Keep. Sir Jozan readily found the old trails that led there and soon we found the trail we were looking for. By the time we reached the crossroads, it had widened to a respectable and reasonably well maintained road—not up to the standards of the Dawn Way of course, but Baron Alaric Nimon is not slack in his duties.

As we reached the crossroads, we saw row after row of vines, the leaves on just a few staring to turn brilliant shades of yellow or red. To the west, the road to Frostedge Keep was lined with pear trees, but the bucolic scene was pierced by the harsh goblin tongue and we saw several peasants tied to the trunks of the trees with a group of hobgoblins and an ogre tormenting them. Well, that settled the question of whether the Red Hand had forces here. We sprang into action: I ran forward and called for the Invincible and Valorous Knight to bless us in our struggle and grant us victory in battle. Hellek gestured for Elaine to hide among the vines on the opposite side of the road.

It was well that Hellek sounded his note of caution for things were not as they appeared. Our first warning was when the hobgoblins suddenly grew to giant size and the ogre became a towering colossus. Then black-scaled men with the horned heads of dragons appeared and breathed gouts of acid across us and seconds later, two huge barghests the size of dire wolves appeared next to Jozan and Odrik. We fought for our lives. Ankalakan invoked a spell to shield Odrik’s life with his own and Marquess who had moved ahead of us struck down the ogre and most of the hobgoblins. The barghests tore into Odrik and opened great bleeding wounds in beneath Anakalakan’s armor but they fought with cunning. First, one bit nearly through Odrik’s great bow, splintering the wood and exposing the ebon wood beneath its rune-inlaid white paint. The other snatched Jozan’s axe away from him in its jaws and flung it behind it. (Ankalakan later picked up Jozan’s axe when the barghests snatched his holy axe from his grasp). Soon, all of us but myself were disarmed and trying to distract our foes while we grasped at weapons on the ground or attempted to fight with sidearms. Then, just after the last hobgoblin fell to Marquess’ glaive, third barghest—a great white furred monstrosity the size of the two that the rest of us fought appeared behind Marquess and the largest and evidently most skilled of the strange dragonmen stepped up to our valiant leader and struck two mighty blows that cut through his enchanted armor and left him bleeding on the ground.

I was struck with fear as the barghest near Marquess sniffed briefly at his fallen form. For such a valiant man to perish in battle is one thing but for two of my friends to have their souls consumed would be unbearable. I did not know it then, but since consulting with Immerstal this evening, I learned that scholars believe that once those foul fiends molt into their greater form they can no longer consume souls for they have already reached the limits of their growth. I do not know if that is true but from Hellek and Jozan’s reactions, this creature looked like the very one that had consumed the High Arcanist of the Tiri Kitor on the previous morn and even in their lesser form, such creatures can only feed rarely. The Bestiary of Fantastik Beasts states once per month but it is an unreliable tome. For whatever reason, it did not consume Marquess but hastened towards us and joined the assault on Odrik and Ankalakan—Sir Jozan, one of the dragonmen and the third barghest had been drawn away towards the other side of the trail.

Ankalakan was white from loss of blood and Odrik was bleeding from wounds that should have killed him several times over had Ankalakan’s magic not sustained him. Things were looking grim for us, but Hellek had made his way over and cut his way through both dragonkin and barghests with the red-dragon hilted sword I am told he took from a hobgoblin champion in the swamps of Lake Rhest. Alone and arrayed against all of us, the white-furred barghest invoked its powers and vanished from our sight. I called on Heironeous to purge the invisibility and Jozan prayed to see things unseen which enabled him to see it concentrate briefly and vanish as though stepping through a doorway into ether. The battle was over.

It was fortunate that we had two wands of curing but another such battle could exhaust them. It was noon and we had 16 hours before we expected Immerstal. The Red Hand had been waiting for us. Ankalakan is convinced that they must have a spy or a traitor in our councils and after our attempts to harass their scouts and supply lines have been so well anticipated and even our retreat turned into an ambush, I am inclined to agree. But there was precious little we could do about that from the vineyards of Baron Nimon. Hellek and Odrik stealthily observed Frostedge Keep and saw the scars of Baron Wiston, Baron Trask, Grimmath and their company’s battle with the dragons and the hobgoblins but nothing living. We found a number of potions on the dragonmen some well made swords but little else. Now we had to decide what to do.

To many peoples’ amazement, Marquess still thought of assaulting the bridge but when we realized that even making a token effort at harassment there and retreating here would have us marching through half the night, he gave up. My own analysis of the situation which matches with Odrik’s and convinced Marquess is this: we would appear to have caught enough of the Red Hand’s attention that they dispatched one elite force to ambush us and sent another elite force along the road yesterday to head us off. They are probably not worried that we will garrison Frostedge Keep—even if we held it against them, its only value would be as a base of operations to harass their supply line along the Dawn Way. So if I were in their position, I would worry that we might move to attack the bridge or any supply depots that they may have established in the town of Nimon Gap to the north. Since the white barghest escaped, they know that we are here and will probably try to send a strong force to eliminate us since together we represent some of the strongest defenders Bova has to offer. As fast as we’ve seen those barghests move, the one that escaped can probably reach the bridge or the town in three hours or so. Depending upon what forces they have available, they might then send for reinforcements, but they will probably not abandon the bridge and they will probably be sure to send an even stronger force than this ambush team. If they left immediately and on foot, they could be here by midnight. If mounted, they might be here by dusk.

We thought our options were try to use the dragonmens’ potions of pass without trace and hide ourselves in the hills near here then sneak back to the crossroads before dawn tomorrow to meet Immerstal or to fortify Frostedge Keep as best we could and see if we could hold until Immerstal arrived. Then someone—Odrik or Ankalakan suggested that we could use the scroll to send six of us home right now and we arrived at a plan. Six of us would travel north for a few hours, make a camp and then walk another half hour or so before using the scroll to recall us to the Cathedral of Pelor in Bova. Meanwhile, two of us—it ended up being Odrik and Sir Jozan—will take the potions to conceal their tracks and hide in the hills for the night then use the potions of invisibility to sneak down to the crossroads before dawn and hope to meet with Immerstal. There was much argument as to who might have the honor of joining Odrik in this endeavor but we ended up deciding on the Implaccable Rampant Basilisk. For my part, there was never any question of me joining Odrik since I am the only one who could read the scroll. And much as I would have liked the honor, I am not much good at stealth and woodcraft either. So, we followed the plan and walked north until dusk without encountering any Red Hand soldiers. The word of recall is a complex spell and even with the scroll holding the words of power, it took me two tries before I got it right but we appeared in the Cathedral of Pelor that night. I pray that Immerstal finds our friends well tomorrow.

-------------------------DM Notes------------------
Day 41

It was a fun session. Lots of planning and strategizing and one big battle: marked for death. There's only a few more days until the battle of Bova. I'm going to give them a chance to try to find Miha (who is actually in Bova and is now feeding the Red Hand info on the plans) and then we'll have the battle.

My current theory is that Miha has worked her way into the councils by replacing a servant. She is using her magic to impersonate one of the count's servants and is listening at keyholes, picking up anything that is left around, and hearing planning and looking at maps whenever she brings drinks into the councils. The players are already suspecting that there is a spy but if they don't start looking or don't come up with good ideas, I may have someone--probably one of Baron Trask's sons come to them. He comes to them because they were ambushed so he's pretty sure that they're not in on it. The defenders of Bova have been having a lot less success since the fall of Talar so he's been suspecting a spy too. Then a serving girl had caught his eye, so he'd gone to her home to wait for her (with dishonorable intentions--this is one of Baron Trask's sons we're talking about) and he'd noticed a dead and dessicated body hanging from webbing in the bedroom. So now he has an idea who one spy is but nothing more.

Thinking about it, that might be handing everything to the players on a platter. Any other ideas of clues that I could use? How is Miha doing her spying and what will she do when she thinks she might be caught?

[Eldariel]

...so why did the Barghest not devour Marquess in the end? Was it the same one and sated?

Miha Serani clues, eh? Well, first, let's see what she does:
- Changes shape; spider form is inconvenient in a town, as is hybrid. I'd assume she mostly uses humanoid forms and takes disguises. Webs at her home are too much of a dead giveaway and she isn't that dumb - some spiderous shapeshifter having lured and killed someone of consequence in a back alley might be more interesting. Preparing back alley traps for her prey with her spider powers is more than logical and of course, the usual "tempting femme" card gets you great many male victims of some significance.
- Invisibility; most notably this means she'll be sneaking around places she shouldn't be. Detect Magic might catch a glimpse of an illusion aura occasionally. In places where this is actually not okay, that might tip someone off.
- Charm Person and Suggestion; someone new of little account getting accepted quickly in certain circles causes word to go around. She's probably used any number of personas she's Grand Theft Persona'd and charmed and suggestioned people into giving extra information occasionally - particularly the ones she's killed. But people she's kinda stolen into will cause others to perhaps feel jealous and perhaps notice people acting weird at places.
- She has a Fiendish Viper familiar that can do all sorts of eavesdropping a humanoid cannot. However, someone spotting a viper in e.g. royal halls slipping between rocks or whatever is quite the tip. Of course, others may or may not laugh it off, particularly with some choice words from a Miha persona.
- Disguise Self grants a massive but not insurmountable bonus. Someone may have seen through it

[Elder_Basilisk]

The game isn't dead. I've just fallen a bit behind on the writeup. We're one session into the Battle of Bova now. I hope to find some time to catch the narrative up to where we really are in game in the next couple of weeks.

As to why the barghest didn't devour Marquess: I decided it was the same one that previously ate Pyrr so it was sated and cannot use the ability again for another month. Also, since I advanced it to a greater barghest, in Pathfinder barghests lose the devour ability when they become greater barghests--which is rather disappointing really.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Reaping 27
Journal of the Glorious Engelhardt ap Eddard, Knight Courageous of the Valorous Host

Marquess awoke before dawn while I was still at my prayers. Immerstal had come to our apartments in the castle and they spoke in hushed tones while eating a short breakfast. Immerstal must have wanted to seem generous, so he asked Marquess how long he wanted to wait for Jozan and Odrick if they weren’t at the appointed meeting spot. Marquess said, “two hours” which shocked the wizard. They ended up compromising on 30 minutes unless something dangerous came along. Then, as the sun touched the spire of the Cathedral of the Sun Father, he cast the spell and vanished.

A few minutes later, they reappeared.

Later I was able to tease some details out of them. Immerstal and Marquess arrived invisibly to find that dawn had not yet touched the hills to the west of the Elsir river. Jozan and Odrick had drunk potions and were still sneaking through the rows of grapevines toward the crossroads. A dragon also showed up with a huge hobgoblin on its back. They stopped near the site of the battle and searched around the mass of shattered shields and broken arrows before flying towards the keep. The dragon and rider must have arrived before Marquess and Immerstal or else they would have spotted the pair and would not have left for the castle. As it happened, however, they spotted Jozan and Odrick despite the invisibility potions that they drank—one of them must have been able to see invisible creatures—and sped back, unloading a barrage of arrows as they came. Between the arrows and a blast of dragonfire just as our allies reached Immerstal, everyone arrived scorched and Odrick was covered in such burns and arrow wounds that he might have perished had I not been there to provide Heironeous’ aid.

Afterwards, we discussed among ourselves. It appeared that someone had been telling our plans to the Red Hand—either that or scrying on us. Immerstal opined that scrying creates a magical sensor that can be seen if you know what to look for, and he both knows what to look for and regularly wards himself against scrying. If he had been scried upon, he would have noticed. Satisfied for the moment, with the august wizard’s opinion, we concentrated on the theory that there was a spy among us and went to Gareth with a plan. He was to call another council so that we could observe everyone with magical detection and explain our theory to them. Marquess thought the idea made sense at the time, but I don’t think we had actually discussed how we planned to unmask the spy. That oversight came back to bite us that evening.

In the great hall of the old keep, the servants provided wine and ale as the eminences—the Count Bova, General Ulverth, Immerstal the Red, Baron Wiston, Baron Trask, Priestess Goldenbrow, Lady Kaal, Eric MacKenzie of the Schwartzenbrun Crimson Company, Osric the Younger of Crystalmist County, et al arrived. Some of my companions found it curious that of all of them, Immerstal was the only one who radiated no magic. Baron Trask apparently radiated faint evil which is not terribly surprising given what we have heard of him. Somehow one of the servants drew Jozan and Hellek’s attention while Marquess explained his theory to the assembly. She looked similar to the Red Hand spy we had encountered at the hospital by the Nimon Gap bridge though at least five to ten years older. I later heard that they followed her into the kitchen and questioned her at length and then, seeing neither magic nor evil on her, Jozan ventured to dispel any magical wards she might have. He still sensed nothing but she excused herself to use the privy. Following shortly thereafter, Hellek swore he heard spellcasting from behind the closed door and fetched Immerstal who, upon arriving a minute or so later could not detect any trace of magic behind the door.

That settled it in Immerstal’s mind. If there were magic, he would have sensed it. Certainly there are warding magics that can misdirect divinations but those only fool the weak willed. And there are other magics that can render one non-detectable, however those require expensive magical reagents and will only fool mages of lesser skill. Since Immerstal detected nothing, and he is neither weak willed nor of lesser skill, there was clearly nothing there to detect. By this time, in the hall, the Lady Kaal had had enough. She castigated the Count and Marquess for wasting her time and left. The others left shortly thereafter and Gareth informed Marquess that one more screw up like this would have him and his companions under the command of Odrick or some other Lion more suited to situations that cannot simply be solved by chopping something up with a glaive.

--------------------------DM Notes--------------------------
Yeah, it was Kharn and Abithriax there. I wanted to introduce them to the party so that there is more of an expectation when they show up at the battle of Bova. Also, the Red Hand had enough resources to realize that they had been taken in by the trick where most of the party went north, left a false trail and then word of recalled back to Bova. However since figuring out there was no-one at the end of that trail, Abithriax was really the only Red Hand asset with the speed to make it to Frostedge keep in time and the strongest thing the could do was send Kharn and Abithriax. So that's what happened.

It worked out pretty darn well. Kharn demonstrated that he is a deadly effective archer and the party figures he's toting an unholy bow around with him (really it was human bane--being an Inquisitor is nice sometimes) and Abithriax's fire breath did some serious damage, dropping Odrick into negatives right before the teleport went off.

Once they got back, I was able to go back to the saga of Miha Serani. The party was considerably less adept at finding her than I anticipated. It did not help that everyone--even Jozan and Immerstal--failed their saves against her misdirection spell. So, Marquess got his Captain's office moment direct from Lethal Weapon. And next session, the players got to roll up some characters old school. 4d6 drop lowest, in order (minimum 14 strength).

[Eldariel]

Heh, I love it when PCs implement half-thought plans and they have to think on their feet. Here they did an awful job of it to be honest though. Particularly since they managed to isolate Miha but still had to let her go. Working within the confines of the law is tricky at times and it might've served them better to lie or bribe a bit.

Still, the players' misfortune is the readers' fortune. This saga should prove entertaining particularly with the coming invasion and everything. It's great to read a journal that so seamlessly ties the events in the adventure booklet itself to everything else in the world - it feels like everything flows smoothly and the player contributions and original ideas are a natural part of the continuum. I have to applaud you for world building in general: this is an example of it done right.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Goodmonth 1
Journal of the Glorious Engelhardt ap Eddard, Knight Courageous of the Valorous Host

We still felt like we didn’t have any proof but we decided to go to the general with out suspicions. When he heard that she had been in his office, he decided to toss her in the dungeon—even if she’s not a witch or a spellcaster, she’s got no business in here! He dispatched four guards to bring her in.
Hellek was still stealthily following her on her routine around the castle, and it was fortunate for those guards that he was. When they called on her to stop, she turned and spoke words of power. Hailstones fell from the ceiling dropping a couple of the guards. Hellek attacked with his swords and though one of the guards was slain, he inflicted a nasty bleeding wound and forced her to flee invisibly. The rest of us heard eventually heard the thunder of her spells, but by the time we heard and were able to arrive, she was already gone.

Taking the surviving guards, we searched through the city for her. At the cathedral of Pelor, we met a young acolyte who had seen a badly injured woman earlier today but something about her story had seemed off and when he questioned her further rather than healing her immediately, she had made hasty excuses and fled. There was a similar story at the Gate of Valor, except that the priest there had seen her pass though the gate on her way out the city.

Goodmonth 2

I hear that the hobgoblin horde is moving closer but they have not yet come within sight of the city. Marquess and I prayed and trained with the muster in Cathedral square. We were meeting with the Count when he received a sending. Marshall Verthundle has brought the blue dragon to battle and has driven it away. General Terpin’s soldiers are now marching to our aid. Welcome news! They won’t arrive before the Red Hand of course, but we have more than enough food to hold out until they arrive and walls strong enough that the Red Hand will pay dearly should they attempt to storm them. Checkmate!

Goodmonth 3

The horde of the Red Hand arrived today and arrayed themselves in an arc investing the city from the north, but they have remained just out of range of our bows. The discipline of their marching and the splendor of their banners would be glorious were they not devoted to wickedness and the extermination of men from these lands. As they arrayed themselves around our wall, they brought up obelisks of a strange black rock streaked with red like arteries and erected them around our city. As they did so, runes on the obelisks began to glow. I was standing on west tower of the Gate of Valor along with the Count, Immerstal, and the captain general. Discovering the sorceress in our midst had put us back in the Count’s good graces for the moment. Marquess asked Immerstal what the obelisks were for. Immerstal handed him a sketchbook and asked him if he could map out their location and sketch them. The Red Hand was using a ritual of a kind that had not been seen since the days before the Twin Cataclysms and however crude their reproduction was, this was historic. What exactly was this ritual? Well, that was a little hard to say. It looked like they were erecting some kind of soul net—it had something to do with harvesting the power of souls slain here and transmitting it elsewhere. I don’t think anyone asked what they were going to do with that power. I don’t see how we would be able to tell and it’s pretty clear that whatever it is, it cannot be good for the county, or for all of Sterich for that matter. Disrupting it seems a bit beyond our power too—Immerstal said that we would have to find a way to damage the majority of the foci. Damaging or destroying one of the obelisks would put a hole in the soul net but they would still capture more than a few souls. But again, being outnumbered two to one, it doesn’t look like that’s a realistic possibility anyway. I guess we’ll just have to avoid dying.

At dusk, two giants and several hobgoblins, including the massive red-armored hobgoblin Odrick, Jozan, and Marquess had seen outside Frostedge keep strode forward under a banner of truce. The large hobgoblin—Wyrmlord Khaarn as his herald introduced him—made a boastful and blasphemous offer. We were doomed, he boasted that our gods would not help us anymore than the gods of the goblin tribes had helped them. But if we cast our Count from the walls, opened our gates, and came out, he would cast lots for our fate and allow half of us to live as slaves of the giants to the north. The others, he would sacrifice to his dark goddess. To that, Count Bova replied, “he who puts on his armor should not boast like he who takes it off.” Marquess and Jozan were mystified by what they called a cryptic utterance, but I thought it a bold and concise defiance. The Count may be devoted to the Sun Father, but he has clearly heard some of the scriptures of the Invincible and Valorous Knight. The hobgoblins returned to their lines and, as the sun sets I hear the horns of battle. I pray that the Invincible and Valorous Knight grant us favor and victory.

-----------------------------DM Notes------------------------
So the players finally came up with the idea that they could probably convince the Count or captain general to lock up Miha on suspicion which was good. Then the general sent a squad to bring her in and they thought "good idea." So I had them all roll up a 1st level martial character and they got to play the squad that went to bring her in. I was pleasantly surprised that most of the squad survived--largely due to Hellek landing a sneak attack with bleed damage rider.

Then I figured she would try to get healed at the temple and the spy who had been slaughtering all the party's sense motive checks promptly rolled a 1 to a 1st level acolyte's natural 20 sense motive and triggered his suspicions. She ended up getting away but we'll still chalk it as a win for the PCs since she won't be feeding the Red Hand any further info.

Funny thing about my really short cut scene: last week, nearly a month after the session, when I posted this to my group, I have a player say, "oh, now I get that "puts on his armor thing, that's pretty cool."