Blackmoor campaign, recap pt.5

Forced to abandon our favoured Saturday night game time, we gathered on Friday night, tired, distracted and a bit giddy, to begin the onslaught on the Temple of the Frog. Clearly, nothing good was going to come from this.

Earlier we had the opportunity to witness the might of the Frog as a foolish froghemoth decided to assault the town. Although several unfortunates met their demise in the gaping maw of the beast, the temple guards and the monks were able to muster quickly and drive off the monstrosity. The monks were armed with strange rod-like weapons that shot beams of light which caused great damage to the froghemoth. They were truly impressive.

The next day we prepared our infiltration. Now GWAR isn't the most stealthy band of warmongers to ever grace the lands of Blackmoor, so we used all the stealth magicks we had at our disposal to at least get them into the temple undetected. From that point on, the gnome alchemist scouted ahead using his sneaky juice and a little bit of trickery to get around. At one point, he happened into a room full of swarms of dire tadpoles which bored into his flesh. They had to be carved out with a dagger. Worst of all, the gnome was rendered visible as a result and had a lot of perceptive bad guys to slip past to get back to his comrades. Naturally, the gnome was spotted and it was on.

The party did have some element of surprise, so the resistance was a bit disorganized at first. We killed a few temple guards and one of the weird monks with the deadly beam rod. We fought our way to the room with the man-eating tadpoles and this time we were ready. The alchemist lobbed an acid bomb into the room and the tadpoles were destroyed. Then GWAR charged in...and were promptly trapped as giant stone blocks descended on both sides of the room, sealing both exits. Then water started filling the room...and then sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads (ok, I made that last part up). Fortunately, the members of GWAR ate their Wheaties that morning and some heavy lifting was able to extricate them from the room. The gnome fiddled with the mechanism and locked the trap, preventing further problems (snicker). We knew there were guards beyond, so our warlock decided to try to bluff them into opening the door. Dressing as a guard, he convinced them that the intruders were defeated and that he needed to enter to make a report. The bluff check was made and the door was opened. Two-thirds of GWAR then busted in, but fatigue and questionable judgement struck Dark, the cleric. He decided to cast obscuring mist while remaining inside the tadpole room. The spell worked fine, but it did nothing to prevent one of the guards from tripping the trap again from his side. The stone blocks fell, the water flowed and Dark was all alone in the room. It was now a race against time. The guards had to be dispatched so the trap could be disarmed and Dark spared. To add to the difficulty, another of the beam weapon monks appeared with an ogre zombie. The fighter, the barbarian and the warlock battled inside the guard room, the cleric practiced breath-holding techniques and the gnome used his wall-climbing juice and his fast-running juice to go around the other way and flank the bad guys. It was close, but the battle was won and the cleric was saved. We did a bit more exploring, briefly held a female rogue prisoner (before killing her because she wouldn't spill the beans) and very nearly caused one of the captured beam rods to explode, but we finally succumbed to fatigue. The Frog would live for another day.

-Rognar-

Blackmoor campaign, recap pt.4

After resting up, following our little dust-up with the slavers in the ziggurat, we decided to explore the rest of the dungeon. We found a large statue of some sort of frog-like humanoid and more of those mysterious runes. After setting off a "trap" that cures wounds, we found a room with a large, rune-covered structure that emitted sparks and gouts of flame. After some examination, we determined it to be some sort of seal, imprisoning a powerful evil. Naturally, we set about trying to break it. The warlock hit it with an eldritch blast and got hosed with acid for his trouble. Touching runes and throwing rocks proved equally futile. So we did what any self-respecting party of adventurers would do, we gave up.

We headed back to South Pym. Since we had no further opportunity to cause mayhem at the ziggurat, we figured it was time to settle the score with Toxinu, the cartographer that sold us the magic map. We arrived to find his shop burned down and him gone. It was proving difficult to find someone or something to kill today. That's when a representative of Master Bilch, the self-appointed mayor of Boggybottom approached us. He said Bilch wanted to meet with us in Boggybottom and that we had some mutual interests to discuss. Given that this was a trip of several weeks, there was some reluctance to drop everything and head off to meet Bilch. After much discussion, it was decided to go to Boggybottom, but not before going back to Lake Gloomy. We had heard from Senora, the wizardess who first directed us to Toxinu, that a more powerful member of the Cabal was in Lake Gloomy, appointed by the King to administer the Barony of the Lakes until the fate of the baroness was determined. We figured he might be able to translate our mysterious writings for us.

We went to visit to new ruler of the barony and after a convincing performance from our silver-tongued warlock, he agreed to look at the writings. After a couple of days, he told us that the writings were over 10,000 years old, of a language associated with an ancient empire that ruled these lands long before men. He also told us that there were two different dialects present. Most of the writings were of the same style, but one set which we had found on one tablet in the ziggurat were of a different and possibly newer version of the language. He also informed us that he had sent for a scholar who was an expert in such matters.

The next day, when the expert arrived to study the writings, we were offered a hundred gold pieces and sent on our way. It was all we could do to avoid slaughtering half the town in retaliation. Instead, the gnome maxed out his stealth capabilities and headed in to the baroness' keep to spy on the proceedings. It took all the patience the gnome could muster, but he was able to view the scholar's notes. he determined that the writings fortold of the release of an evil frog god when a set of indeterminate conditions were met. This suggests the current activities of the Frog are aimed at bringing this prophecy to completion.

At this point, we figured it was time to pay a visit to Master Bilch. A long voyage and some pointless reconnaissance later, we finally managed a meeting. Bilch revealed that he had a slaving operation of his own and that he assumed we originally showed up in Boggybottom to cause him trouble. Once he concluded that we were after the Frog, a rival of his, he decided to seek an alliance so that we could work toward bringing down a common foe. He suggested we attempt to sign on with the Frog. He told us of a Frog recruiter he had uncovered in Kenville and a password to use to establish contact. The stage was set for the final climax.

Following some parting macho posturing, we left Boggybottom and headed for Kenville. We found the recruiter, an incautious drunkard, and made contact. In no time at all, we were on a boat headed for, you guessed it, Frog Island. We were blindfolded for the last couple hours of our trip and when the blindfolds were removed, we disembarked and entered a scummy, foggy little hamlet named Frog Town. We had a look around and quickly noted the slave pens and a large temple surrounded by a stout wall. It was clear, we had found what we were looking for. That night we asked a few questions and did a bit of spying at the temple. Although it's doubtful what we discovered would be of much help in the upcoming battle, we did uncover a fair bit of simmering animosity between long-time residents of the town and the relatively new Froggies. Would the locals be of any use? That remains to be seen. Next session, the confrontation.

-Rognar-

Blackmoor campaign, recap pt.3

When we last left our intrepid adventurers, we had just wiped out an Afridhi hit squad. We continued on toward the settlement our warlock had spotted the night before. The stealthy gnome took out a sentry, allowing us complete surprise. A group of about 30 armed Afidhi and a sizable number of slaves were gathering up supplies and heading for the river. Apparently, some sort of base was being built, but our arrival compelled the Afridhi to pack up and leave. We split up into two groups. The gnome and the warlock moved quickly and stealthily to the river to cut off retreat, while GWAR set themselves up on the ridge overlooking the camp to rain death down upon them.

What followed was carnage. It turned out the hit squad we wiped out earlier included most of the high-level members of their group. Even though their sheer numbers proved somewhat dangerous, and at one point, the gnome found himself in a bit of a tight spot, in the end, no Afridhi lived to see another sunrise. We had captured two barges loaded with supplies and a group of slaves willing to help us transport the barges to the nearest town in exchange for their freedom. Although we learned little, except that the Afridhi were searching for some sort of artifact, we did come away from the expedition with a sizable haul.

Of course, we still had a reason for going to Tiger Island, to learn what we could about the silver ore we had taken from an earlier group of slavers, and we hadn't accomplished anything as far as that was concerned. So we decided to return. We hired a smuggler to take us back (and didn't kill him). We completely searched the island. We still didn't find any silver mines, but we did uncover a partially buried statue that the Afridhi had been excavating. The statue itself was missing, but the base was intact and bore some writings in a strange language none of us could decipher. With no magical means of translating the writings, we transcribed them for later analysis. We then recovered the boat we originally came to the island on and went back to the little fishing village we first headed out from. Since we had killed the fisherman whose boat we were using, we decided it was best to slaughter the village as well, lest we be accused of going soft. With the deed done, we decided to head back to Lake Gloomy in hopes there would be someone there who could translate the writings we had found.

Lake Gloomy was as bizarre as ever. We couldn't find anyone in town with the necessary skills to translate the writings, although in truth, we didn't spend much time looking because we got sidetracked. Clearly something was amiss. There were significantly fewer children in town than when we had last been here. When asked about it, the locals simply claimed the children had left to join the circus. No one seemed the slightest bit bothered by this, suggesting some sort of magical compulsion was at work. We decided to seek an audience with the Baroness, whose keep was just outside of town. Upon arrival, we learned that the Baroness and her personal retinue (that sizable force of cavalry we had encountered a few days earlier) had also disappeared. Holy hell, this dung pit was getting deeper by the day.

We were told that the Baroness was last headed south to another craptastic little resort town called South Pym. The main claim to fame of this lovely vacation spot was the acid rain. Yes, apparently the rain in South Pym dissolves metal armour and weapons in short order...and it rains a lot. We also got word that a member of the Wizard's Cabal lived in South Pym and she might be able to translate our writings. So, despite the grave misgivings of our metal-clad contingent, we headed for South Pym.

Upon arrival in South Pym, we learned from the local authorities that the Baroness and her road crew had disappeared utterly and completely while investigating something in the swamp. Not a single scrap of evidence as to their whereabouts was uncovered. The guard offered to have one of his men lead us to their last known location, an offer we graciously accepted. But first things first. We needed some way to deal with the rain. No way was GWAR going to walk around in leather gherkins wielding pointy sticks. We headed off to see the town's alchemist, a gnome (apparently gnomes control the alchemy racket in these parts). He had a supply of an alchemical agent that could protect metal for awhile. We bought the entire stock. Then we headed off to see the wizardess we had heard about. She turned out to be less than we had hoped and was of little use, although she did direct us to a mapmaker in town who had a map with similar writings on it. The cartographer did indeed, have such a map, a treasure map, in fact, which he was willing to sell to us. Since no one in our party can Sense Motive worth a damn, we had little reason to doubt it was all legit, so we bought the map.

After noting that South Pym also seemed to have a relative scarcity of young'uns, we asked around and indeed, the "circus" had come to town here too. If we had any discernable conscience at all, we would probably have been outraged by now. As it was, we mostly noted it as curious and went about our business. So, at this point, we had intended to go have a look after the Baroness, but suddenly the gnome and the barbarian had a powerful hankering to follow our newly acquired map instead. It seemed a tad unusual, but every one went along since, you know, that gnome is a smart little fella.

The "X" on the map was a ziggurat mostly buried in the swamp. We entered through the top and explored around a bit. We found some tracks that led to a lower level where we eventually ran into a small group of sightseers, a child, an armsman and a spellcaster. Needless to say, the child was actually a halfling rogue and hostilities quickly ensued. The wizard in the back hit us with a slow spell that was effective against most of us. That cramped our style a bit, but all it meant was that it took us a little longer to beat them down. We actually managed to take the fighter alive and question him. He revealed that he was a Frog's man and he was able to point out on a map where he was intending to take us if he had successfully subdued us. As he spoke, he was finding it hard to breathe. Some sort of magic effect was finishing what we started. Before we could learn any more, he was dead.

We decided to call it a night.

-Rognar-

Blackmoor campaign, recap pt.2

The time had arrived to leave Boggybottom. We had accumulated a fair bit of treasure, much of it in the form of magic weapons and armour, which had to be sold off. So, we headed back to Vestfold. We hoped to learn more about the Frog, but our contact Walter was not familiar with the name. After spending some of our blood money on wine, women and song, we were on the road again. We headed to Lake Gloomy to seek out Yanos Hunter. Since Lake Gloomy could be accessed by land from Vestfold, we decided to buy horses, or in the case of the gnome, a mangy, ill-tempered riding dog. Lake Gloomy was weird, to say the least. The town was immaculately clean, from its polished bronze gates to its litter-free streets. There was a definite Potemkin village vibe in this place. We had no luck finding Yanos Hunter in Lake Gloomy, but we did hear that servants were being hired in large numbers to work on the new fortifications in Ram's Hold, a fort on the far western edge of Blackmoor territory. This sounded suspicious, so we headed west to see what was going on on the Afridhi frontier.

We encountered a group of "merchants" heading east along the road, who we promptly killed. Not surprisingly, they too were slavers, either that, or they were planning to sell shackles and rope in Lake Gloomy. We also found some unusual silver ore in a hidden compartment in their wagon. Another enlightened discussion with the recently departed indicated that this latest group of slavers was recruited in Southport. Yikes! That be Afridhi territory. This was turning out to be big.

We continued on the road toward Ram's Hold when we encountered a large company of mounted knights. We briefly considered our options and decided to keep a civil tongue. Good thing too, for it turned out to be the personal entourage of the Baroness of the Lakes. She had been inspecting the repairs of the fortifications in Ram's Hold. We learned that no new fortifications were being built. As we suspected, the Lake Gloomy recruitment drive was a sham. Stupidity can be a harsh mistress.

We continued to Ram's Hold and our worst fears were realized. The place was crawling with halflings. Ugh! By this point, we knew there would be no point looking for information on the slavers since they bypassed this town, but we were able to gain some information about the silver ore we had recovered. A local jeweler suggested it probably came from a place called Tiger Island. We had a decision to make. Follow the clue about Southport or Tiger Island. In the end, it was decided to go to Tiger Island. It was closer and it wasn't in Afridhi lands.

We hired a local fisherman to ferry us to the island, then promptly killed him and seized his boat. Hey, that's just how we roll. Our warlock did some airborne reconnaissance and found evidence of a large settlement in the high ground at the west end of the island. The next day, we headed west, then noticed some sentries, who also noticed us. We knew they would come for us, so we prepared an ambush. Once the enemy appeared, we demonstrated our usual tactical brilliance by breaking cover and charging blindly. It was a tough fight. They had spellcasters among their ranks and many hit points were expended. Khaeliss, our fighter, even hovered briefly at death's door, but ultimately we prevailed. As we gathered the dead and looted their remains, one unmistakeable conclusion was drawn. These were Afridhi warriors.

-Rognar-

Blackmoor campaign, recap pt.1

Dark, Brogesterfel, Shiz, Khaeliss and Crushack are hired by some guy named Walter to find out more about an uptick in slaver activity in the Great Dismal Swamp. In the finest rpg tradition, Walter's patron is unknown to us, but we happily take the job anyway. It pays well (1000gp per man) and we collectively lack any real moral compass anyway. Heading out of Vestfold, the gateway between the more respectable parts of Blackmoor and the swampy, dismal bits, we charter a boat to Kenville, the first port-of-call on the way into the swamp.

Managing to successfully avoid killing anyone in Kenville, a feat we would not achieve again, we soon learned that some slaver activity has been rumoured in Boggybottom, a scummy little hole to the south. We travelled there overland, acquiring a cow along the way. Upon arrival, we proceeded to the seedier of the two local taverns, the Soggy Bottom Bar and Grill (off Route 9). We didn't learn much there, but we did manage to needlessly kill a bunch of people, steal the cash box and take the corpses away for later animation. So, all-in-all, it was a fairly successful outing.

The next day, we headed to the only other watering hole in town, the Wet Whistle, and got down to the business of actually gathering information. We soon learned about a couple of working girls who have been picking up strangers, who have not been seen again. We went on stakeout and soon found out that the local lovelies were setting the guys up to be shanghaied. We crashed the parties, there were some deaths, but we managed to accidentally take a couple of guys alive. That led us to our fateful encounter with the elven slavemaster, Zedd, and his gang.

The ensuing dustup left Shiz, Zedd and three of the slavers dead. Moments later, Korianton, a friend of Shiz, arrived bearing an important message for our dearly departed evoker. Naturally, upon learning of the demise of Shiz, he promptly offered to join our group and we accepted, no questions asked. I said NO QUESTIONS ASKED!

The next day, Dark had a brief, but informative discussion with the dead elf and we learned about the Frog. At first, we assumed the Frog was a person, although later information would indicate that it was actually an organization. Anyway, Zedd was a Frogger,....or Froggie or something. Finally, we had a clue.

Of course, by now, we had attracted some attention. We had killed some slavers and caused some local disruption to their operation. An attempted assassination was inevitable. Stealthy Brogesterfel took out the assassins with a couple of well-placed acid bombs. We found a note on one of the dead rogues with our descriptions. Another round of speaking with dead people gained us a name, Yanos Hunter, and a place, Lake Gloomy.

...break, time to go home, more later...

-Rognar-

Adventure Path vs Sandbox

We played another session of my campaign Saturday night. I think everyone had a good time and this time there were no character deaths, although Tayloritos character dropped to zero hp, staggering him but not killing him.

The PCs are an interesting bunch although they are designed to do an adventure path and are not as effective in a sandbox. Part of it is play style. The adventure paths move you along the story with very little effort on PCs parts. Information gathering is limited to a dice roll or two and its usually pretty obvious where to go next if you have any choice at. Roll-playing (combat skills) is more important then Role-Playing (non-combat). I think part of the reason this has been so entertaining is that everyone has been willing to take part in the non combat parts of the game - brawling with drunks, flirting with floosies, robbing sleeping guards and containing their hatred of halflings!

With this campaign I am trying to make the world as real as I can so there is lots of stuff going on, much of it not related to the main plot at all. Throw in a few red herrings and it can be pretty difficult to figure out how to advance the quest. The PCs are starting to be more tactical in combat laying ambushes and shutting down enemy casters but they still have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. A classic moment was when Dero-bane said, "Maybe we should interrogate these guys" only to realize the last one had just been killed. Ooops. Speak with Dead is nice but when the dead are compelled to speak they will be cryptic and vague.

But all is not lost. There are still several clues left to follow up and the plot is still advancing even if they don't see it yet. The PCs now have a name to attach to the enemy but its nature is still unclear.

And they got their first taste of Afhridi and caught a glimpse of the Baroness of the Lakes. Cool!

Blackmoor campaign - the party

First, there is our offensive line, looking like members of GWAR:

Dark (played by Thungkhtt) - Half-orc cleric of Calelrin (god of murder and deceit), hilariously forced to be the "face" of the party
Khaeliss (played by Tayloritos) - Human fighter, likes to play with fire, favourite combat maneuver is disarm
Crushack (played by K) - Human barbarian, man of mystery

Then there is the back-up:

Brogesterfel (played by me) - Gnome alchemist, master of the Molotov, smart, stealthy and weird
Shiz (played by D-bane) - Human wizard (evoker), imprisoned for fifty years, old and frail, now dead
Korianton (played by D-bane) - Human warlock, the new guy, friend of the late Shiz, tends to fly or hover a lot (arthritic knees, I suppose)

Finally, there is God....(played by Obiri)

-Rognar-

New Campaign

Last night the new campaign began. Because most of us are fairly familiar with our normal setting I decided to set this one in Blackmoor. A second change, all of the characters are evil. Playing Evils is always fun for the players but a bit tougher for the DM since evil characters are much more unpredictable.

I think everyone had a good time doing silly voices, beating bar patrons senseless, ripping random people off, and setting their houses on fire. The final encounter of the evening was a bit tougher then I expected. The CR was quite high but when its the first (and only) encounter of the day, everyone has lots toys available to use.

I almost felt sorry when Derrobane's character met his end to a double rogue ambush. They were actually in place to keep the wizard from casting spells but one scored a critical hit and the 70 year old wizard was rather frail. Shiz, rest in peace.

The PCs killed the leader of the slavers quickly and after that the slavers fought less effectively. One of the rogues managed to escape so we'll have to see how that effects what's to come.

The final battle from the last campaign inspired me to make the environment more important in battles. The trees and bushes allowed the rogues to slip to vanish, but I'd like to introduce more hazards like quicksand, deep water, cliffs, traps. They make the fights more strategic allowing both sides to take advantage of them.

I'm looking forward to our next play night to see what happens next!

(Ed. note: We have been tasked with the job of investigating an increase in slave trading in the Great Dismal Swamp. Whole villages are being wiped out. Why such a vile group as ours has been hired to do this is not clear.)