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  1. - Top - End - #31
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
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    Male

    Default Re: Yet Another (5e) Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal

    Zehra is a paladin of conquest. Fiends should serve her, but they only listen to the (wo)man with the biggest stick. It's not a grudge issue, it's training to keep rebellious minions cowed.
    Used to be DMofDarkness
    Old avatar by Elagune.
    Spoiler: Collection of Signature Quotes
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  2. - Top - End - #32
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    May 2008

    Default Re: Yet Another (5e) Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal

    In which the party confronts the Ghostlord, and several clues are missed.

    We had full attendance for this session.

    Recap will be pretty abbreviated.

    Recap:
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    * The party camped on the roof of the lion, and I didn't remember to tell them that there were ghostly lions flitting around until after the night passed without incident. Oops.

    * They went back into the lion through the secret tunnel and emerged back into the fog clouded room. Salen dispelled the fog, and I described a smallish room with a spiral staircase climbing up, carvings of lions, a bench, and doors in front of them and to their right. This was not what anybody had expected! They expected a large throne room, with the Ghostlord in it!

    * The party went forward, which I was disappointed by because it meant bypassing Ulwai! It is actually *very* *easy* to bypass Ulwai! As a result, I decided that Ulwai & co would sneak up behind the party and attack at an opportune moment.

    * Exploring, the party found a dissection chamber with a hole into a deep bit with a green ooze at the bottom. The party did some interesting experimenting to see what was up with the hole---dropping things down it, eventually casting light on a stone and dropping that.

    * Continuing on, the party found a room with a collection of treasures and several dusty bookshelves. On one of the bookshelves was a book containing a hint to the location of the Wizard of Peχavn---which Salen failed his perception roll to notice! The party backed away, closed the door, and didn't disturb any of the contents.

    --

    The next room they entered was a long and relatively narrow room containing a large statue, a sickly green pool with a dire lion suspended in it, a large obsidian magical orb with six *somethings* flitting around it, and a number of a secret doors.

    Upon entering the room, the party was attacked by six bonedrinkers, foul looking creatures with wicked claws and long tentacles and a very frustrating grapple attack.

    There was a natural bottleneck in the room, and so it was a perfect opportunity to use Zehra to plug a bottleneck while the four ranged combatants did damage, but it took a long time before they managed to get into that configuration, during which the bonedrinkers drank a lot of bone. When the bone drinkers had been reduced to 2 or 3 left, though, the situation got worse!

    Several Doom Fist monks entered through the door the party came from, accompianed by two clerics and by Wyrmlord Ulwai Stormcaller. Unfortunately the geometry prevented them from getting in effectively. And, of course, the the bonedrinkers attacked the monks! They aren't really on the same side!

    Around this point Aideen dropped a wall of flame which was very annoying.

    Some monks managed to get behind the bottleneck with their shadow jaunt ability, but weren't very effective.

    Ulwai ran into the center of the room and decided to drop her best spell, lightning bolt, hitting 3 party members. And, as one of the players suggested, also hitting the obviously magical floating obsidian orb. One of the spirits flitting around it disappeared, and the party rightly got nervous.

    After eating another round of attacks, Ulwai decided it was time to make good her escape, and skidaddled, casting invisiblity as soon as she was out of sight.

    --

    The party still had to contend with the rest of the Red Hand force, though, so fighting looked like it would continue.

    Until a secret door slid up and a skeletal figure glided out, demanding "Who dare disturb my Lion's Heart."

    Cora quickly piped up: "Uh, that would be us. I mean, it was mostly the Red Hand. We're not on their side. Hi. We're the Blue Hand Group."

    "And you dare intrude upon my home?"

    "We have your phylactery. We'll give it back."

    As they prepared to give the phylactery, a surviving Doom Fist Monk charged in to grab it, only for the Ghostlord to casually Disintegrate him.

    The party gives the phlactery back, and then Zehra says "The people who took your phylactery, the Red Hand, they are in a horde north of here and will be attacking Brindol in 15 days. If you want to get revenge."

    "My plans are my own. Leave this place."

    And they did.
    The party decided it was time to go, hustled out of the lair, got on their lions, flew out of the thornwaste, and camped, on the night of July 26.




    Miscellany:
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    * Only one Wyrmlord has been killed so far! Koth and Ulwai have made it out with no trouble.


    Observations:
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    * The party has already cleared Act 3 and they still have 20 days before the Battle of Brindol. I should maybe give them some more hooks, given how badly their last attempt at unstructured planning went, but I kind of want to see what they do on their own.

    * I *should* have just asked Salen what his passive perception was and then said that he spotted a book with a Chi prominently on the spine. Oops. This is kind of funnier, at least.


  3. - Top - End - #33
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    May 2008

    Default Re: Yet Another (5e) Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal

    In which the party looks for things to do, and succeeds a little bit.

    We had full attendance for this session.

    Recap will be pretty abbreviated since I am solidly behind.

    Recap:
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    The party spent a while trying to figure out what they could do to contribute before the battle, and first settled on doing some recon/scouting work.

    Step one was heading back to Drellin's Ferry to see if the Red Hand was making use of it. The town was very lightly garrisoned town with, but the old smithy was operating at full capacity. On top of that, the Red Hand had accomplished what Norro Winston had not been able to: build a new bridge on the pilings of the old dwarf bridge.

    The Blue Hand Group landed, and the bulk of the party engaged with the garrison while Aideen ran across the bridge, setting it on fire as she went.

    The party mopped up pretty quickly, and decided to go shut down the smithy. This was kind of unexpectedly brutal: they kicked in the door and started ****ing people up. When it became clear that the people inside were smiths, and not soldiers, Hoss and Cora got pretty uncomfortable about the proceedings, but Zehra happily kept slicing people apart.

    While this was happening, though, Aideen had torched the bridge and, fire drunk, decided to go light some trees on fire. I had rolled heavy winds on the weather table, so the forest on the edge of town started catching flame very quickly.

    With the smithy pacified, the rest of the party made it across the river on owlback and discovered a forest fire starting to catch and Aideen watching it wide-eyed. Angry, Salen used control water and made the Elsir river overflow its banks and quench the fire, sending enormous plumes of steam high into the evening.

    Hoss was *extremely* angry with Aideen.

    --

    The party wanted to scout out the horde and maybe try to damage the road at Nimon's Gap, where it is a relatively narrow road through the hills. A storm grounded their owls, though (honest roll on the weather table!) and they lost a day, keeping them from Nimon Gap in time (though the vanguard would have already been there).

    As they approach the Hand, they run into trouble, as the Red Hand is good at their job! Goblins on wargs screen the perimeter on the ground, while manticores and some wyverns patrol the air. A large red dragon circles over the center.

    --

    The party decides to head towards Dauth, to see what they are up to there.
    Camping in an abandoned farmhouse, they are rudely awoken as they prepare for bed by an ambush party of three bhargests and a half dozen or so hobgoblins.

    This was a fun fight, and the party was solidly afraid, but I have forgotten most of the play by play. It was very cramped inside the farmhouse, Salen was out of his armor, and Hoss had no way to get out of melee, which was a fun combination. The bhargests have a suggestion ability, which I used to suggest the following things:
    * To Cora: "Go clear out those archers surrounding the house!" This is reasonable sounding, but takes her out of the main fight.
    * To Aideen: "Finish this! Just light up the house!" This is reasonable sounding because Aideen is completely crazy and loves setting stuff on fire. She dropped a fireball that hit Zehra and Salen and knocked Salen out, but did mostly finish the fight.

    With the fight done, they hopped on their owls, moved a mile or two down the road, and made camp for the rest of the night, July 30.

    --



    Miscellany:
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    * At one point Aideen moved outside the house and dropped a fireball at a square carefully chosen to avoid hitting Hoss. I asked her to make a dex save, since she was in the area, but then let her back out of casting the spell instead. I kind of regret that :P



    Observations:
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    * The forest fire thing was pretty messed up. I love the visual of the river rising up to quench it, though.

    * Hoss's relationship with both Aideen and Zehra is in very bad shape. I've suggested to Hoss's player that it might be a good time for Hoss to have a heart-to-heart with Aideen and Zehra!


  4. - Top - End - #34
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    May 2008

    Default Re: Yet Another (5e) Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal

    In which the party looks for things to do, and succeeds a little bit.

    Salen's player was missing.

    Recap will be pretty abbreviated since I am solidly behind.

    Recap:
    Spoiler
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    * Flew to Dauth, find it being ransaked by a terrible gang, the Crimson Tigers. Demand they go to Brindol and help

    * Found the evacuating people of Dauth on the road to Prosser.

    * Then to Prosser, which had an orderly evacuation started, led by a retired adventuring party

    * In general, they are working to make sure everybody shows up for the Battle of Brindol

    * Then to Brindol where they had a bit of a meeting with the leaders, reporting to them, etc

    * Cora snuck out to break into Kaal Manor. Broke a window, explored a bit, left to come back without her bag of holding (containing all of their money!) and with a nonlethal weapon?

    * Hoss helping train soldiers to use bows. Including Aideen!

    * Zehra, Aideen, and Delora went to Dennovar to try to recruit them. Zehra burst into the head of the army's tent and demanded they go. Captain Yelsharra pointed out that there is civilian leadership that is unwilling. Zehra suggested staging a coup. Yelsharra looked nervously around at her aides, who Zehra then demanded leave the room. With just Yelsharra present, Zehra asked if she would take the army to Brindol if Zehra removed the sorcerer Aragathos, who works for the Merchant's Council. (Also is the worst, also is *definitely* Aideen's father.)

    * Lady Kaal hired Zehra to deliver a note to and then try to bring back her ex-lover, Rillin Paln, the head of the Brindol Black Knives (the local thieves guild).



    Miscellany:
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    * Hoss and Aideen had something of a heart-to-heart character moment... when I was on the toilet! On one hand, I kind of love when the play can just continue without me, but I also hate missing things.



    Observations:
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    * Aideen's player I think is kind of upset about being dragged into mortal peril by Zehra making dumb unilateral decisions


  5. - Top - End - #35
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    May 2008

    Default Re: Yet Another (5e) Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal

    Also I've got the final version of the party artwork I commisioned from the fantastic Apple Cakes!



    Full scale version

    This is the "canonical" version, representing what Zehra actually wrote in the note. There are also two other versions, with sightly different text:


    I love this so much. I got a print of it that I've hung up in my apartment.

  6. - Top - End - #36
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    May 2008

    Default Re: Yet Another (5e) Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal

    In which the party remains split and messes around.

    Salen's player was missing and because of the party split issue, I had Hoss's character play Delora Zahn for a bunch of the session.

    Recap will be pretty abbreviated since I am solidly behind. Battle of Brindol starts in half an hour.

    This will cover sessions 16 and 17.

    Cora's player also recently announced that she is moving across the country, so I'm going to be racing to finish the Battle of Brindol before she leaves in early June, which unfortunately means Aideen's player is going to miss a bunch of it :(.

    Recap:
    Spoiler
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    Zehra, Aideen, and Delora Zahn began the session in Dennovar, where they were attempting to recruit the Dennovar Blades, under the command of Captain Yelsharra, to the defense of Brindol. Zehra had agreed to kill Aragathos, the sorcerer hired by the Merchants' Council, in order to give Yelsharra the space to pull this off.

    Aideen and Delora didn't love this plan, so they spent a lot of time trying to avoid having to do it.

    First they had tea with Lady Yisel Bristeir, the nominal monarch of Dennovar. She deeply frustrated them by being just completely unwilling to override or seriously question her advisors insistence that the right play is to do nothing. But she is just not in charge! She's a constitutional monarch! She just did not have the power to do something about this short of staging a royal coup, which she was uninterested in.

    Then they went and talked to High Councilor Nindel Thorn, the leader of the Merchants' Council, and the actual most powerful person in town. I think they needed to force their way into his mansion, and had a tense meeting surrounded by soldiers. He was totally unwilling to send anything to help Brindol, because frankly he thinks that Brindol will win without Dennovar's help, and he doesn't want to waste his city's blood and treasure helping Brindol. This was *deeply* infuriating to Aideen and Delora, but the thing is: Thorn is probably right! The party probably *is* going to win the Battle of Brindol!

    Then they went and talked to Aragathos, who just did not care at all about the Vale. Or really anything except making an obscene amount of money and spending it on intoxicating substances and prostitutes.

    Which gave the party an idea: they arranged with a locale madam to send two of her girls over to Aragathos's tower for "customer appreciation night" to distract him and get him away from his magic items and, if possible, get him to use his 6th level spell slot to show off.

    So they waited outside until they saw chain lightning blast out the tower windows, then they flew in through the window and they murdered him. He got a couple blasts off but it wasn't honestly that hard. He probably should have teleported away.

    Then they looted the bedroom and set the tower on fire before meeting back up with Yelsharra, who chided them for not telling her their timing *before* they did it, and then pretty quickly marshalled everybody to stage a coup.

    Zehra announced that she was planning to stay with the Dennovarian army so that can make a triumphant entrance to Brindol with them. Well OK.

    --

    While this was happening, Cora was breaking into Kaal manor, and explored it pretty well and barely set off any alarms. But there were enough guards that she never pushed on into the actually good places (Kaal's study -- though maybe for the best, since it is easy to get killed there), and didn't steal anything. So all right :P.

    --

    The party then had a big war council with the leaders of Brindol and honestly I have forgotten a bunch of the decisions they made. (On who would get the telepathic links and where the town's clerics would be stationed.)

    Verassa Kaal had a nice dinner with Cora where she told her that if Cora break into her house again, she is a dead woman, and then tried to convince her that they were on the same side.

    --

    There's some subplot where Hoss is working with some engineers to build ballistae for killing wyverns.



    Miscellany:
    Spoiler
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    * Aideen and Trellara finally hooked up. "You've got +9 charisma between you, I'm sure you can manage this."

    * My relatively new girlfriend sat in on this session, since she wanted to watch D&D game, and she wrote down a bunch of questions to ask me after. The best were: "What are the rules?" (Uh...) and "Why was the party split up? Is that a good idea?" (No! Usually not!)



    Observations:

    Spoiler
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    * I've been having a ton of fun with all this unstructured nonsense but now it is time for the Battle of Brindol to get rolling!

    * I've decided I *am* going to run Act V, but with some tweaks:
    * Azarr Kull is summoning the demon army as a *backup* plan, since you can't just fail Tiamat. The reason he didn't do it in the first place is because it is also a terrible idea that is likely to backfire and he understands this well. (As oppoesd to in the module as written, where he launched the invasion before the demonic army was summoned for totally unclear reasons.)
    * I'm going to cut out maybe half of the Fane of Tiamta encounters and make it a much more streamlined dungeon.


  7. - Top - End - #37
    Halfling in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

    Join Date
    May 2008

    Default Re: Yet Another (5e) Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal

    This is all super late.

    I got busy right after the Battle of Brindol and never wrote up posts for it, which I feel bad about. I'll try to summarize here.

    Spoiler
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    There was a bunch of prep work. I don't remember exactly all what was involved.
    Zehra arrived triumphantly back in Brindol with a small army from Dennovar to much rejoicing.

    There was a last minute war council maybe?

    The party's job was to fight fires wherever they happened, and Hoss was given a telepathic link to help coordinate.

    The opening salvos of the battle of brindol were two squads of hill giants bombarding walls with boulders, and the party was dispatched to deal with one of them. The party flew straight at them on owls, and unfortunately drew the fire of the giants. Aideen's owl was killed, causing her to crash down to the earth, but otherwise the party managed to clear the giants just in the nick of time before charging hobgoblins overwhelmed their positions.

    While they succeeded, Hoss got informed over the telepathic link that the cavalry unit that Lord Jarmaath had sent had been driven off and a breach was in danger of being opened. The party started racing over to deal with this, but before they could get there, a bigger problem materialized: the red dragon Abithriax had flown into the city and was laying waste. The Blue Hand Group immediately raced to stop him.

    This fight was mostly anticlimactic. I should have had more support for Abby, but had him alone, and so he went down pretty quick. Some bad attack rolls on his part and lucky saves on the party made him honestly pretty forgettable---which was a big difference from kjones's game where he nearly wiped the party!

    The one memorable bit of this fight came at the end. Abithraix was clearly badly wounded, and Aideen was up but wanted to conserve spells and had only Fire Bolt as an attack cantrip. But Aideen had spent much of the downtime in Brindol having Hoss train her to shoot a bow, which I had ruled gave her proficiency. So Aideen the sorcerer drew her bow, rolled exactly enough to hit, and killed a dragon.


    That was unfortunately the last session with the whole crew available. Cora's player was moving away, and Aideen's player was on vacation, so I ran the last parts of the battle without Aideen so that we could keep Cora's player in it.

    Spoiler
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    The next part of the battle was a series of street defense fights, where the party set up on some barricades and helped soldiers repel waves of enemies.The first wave was a bunch of hobgoblins supported by two manticores. The second wave was a bunch of bugbear barbarians and Wyrmlord Koth (a sorcerer), and the third wave was goblin warg riders on Bluespawn Thunderlizards, which could do crazy things with lightning attacks. (As a bonus action, they could shoot an arc of lightning to another thunderlizard, damaging anything in between.)

    I don't remember too much of the blow-by-blow details here, but this was one of the best fights of the campaign. It was tough and exciting and the party was relieved to get a breather at the end of it---and extra relieved when I remarked out of character that there would be extra waves if they hadn't destroyed the greenspawn razorfiend hatchery and gotten the Ghostlord out of the fight!

    After a quick short rest---I decided to say that for the battle, short rests took 5-10 minutes, since it felt important to let them take short rests but an hour wouldn't make sense---the party was asked to regroup with Lord Jarmaath, only for Jarmaath's message to be cut off as he was hit by a sniper's arrow! The party went to investigate, and found the shots coming from the second story of a coffinmaker's shop.

    Coming in the ground floor, they were ambushed by some invisible wizards who blasted them with fireballs or lightning bolts and then died quick. On the top floor waited Skathar, a dragonborn (or something?) ninja assassin. I don't remember the exact blow-by-blow of this fight, but it was hilarious. When the came upstairs (up caltrops covered stairs), he shot someone with a poisoned arrow, then ran around a corner and jumped out a window. When everyone followed back downstairs, he shot someone again, then ran upstairs ignoring the caltrops. Variations of this repeated several times, with me using Skathar's superior mobility and as much cleverness as I could muster to hurt the party while avoiding damage himself. I think PCs dropped twice during this, but he never managed to get a killing blow.

    Eventually Skathar decided that it was time to escape, but wanted to get one last attack in. Unfortunately, I miscalculated his positioning, and Zehra was able to---using all of her movement---catch Skathar and deal a killing blow.

    Then there was a final battle in the Cathedral Square, as Wyrmlord Kharn and his entourage (including Wyrmlord Ulwai Stormcaller) attempted to crush the center of resistance. Ulwai caused a lot of grief by casting greater invisibility and messing with people, which the party had difficulty countering. She actually even escaped at the end! I don't remember many details of this fight, except that I forgot to have Immerstahl the Red act for like 4 or 5 turns in a row and eventually gave the somewhat lame excuse that he had been busy helping hold the left flank against an offscreen band of attackers :P.

    It looked a little dicey for a moment, but in the end they killed Wyrmlord Kharn and the horde shattered and retreated. I added up the victory points the party had gained---including many for things not in the module, like bringing an army from Dennovar---and the party had solidly routed the horde. Mop-up operations would be simple and quick. The Vale was safe.

    For now.




    Observations:
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    The Skathar fight was my favorite fight in the campaign to play, and I remember kjones saying the same thing. It's a lot of fun to get to use all my cleverness with a character who can take advantage of it and no need to hold anything back.

    The final battle was fun, but honestly not as cool as the fights that preceded it.


    I decided to push on to an (abbreviated) Act V of the campaign, partially because I wanted Aideen's player, who missed the second half of the Battle of Brindol, to be able to participate in a finale. I'll post about that shortly, and then hopefully some conclusions.
    Last edited by msully4321; 2019-10-29 at 01:10 AM.

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