T O P I C R E V I E W |
Thureen Buroch |
Posted - 20 Nov 2005 : 22:23:20 City of the Spider Queen Introduction I
Randal Morn of Dagger Falls sent an urgent message to Cid and Thureen Buroch (Cid’s traveling companion, an NPC) where they were busily establishing a small town on the Whalebones. Randal Morn asked Cid and Thureen to come quickly to his house in Dagger Falls, but he gave no explanation why, merely stating, in the message, that it was an emergency. Cid and Thureen sailed to Waterdeep, then purchased access to a portal to the gates of Dagger Falls.
When the adventurers got to Randal Morn’s house, they were beckoned in. Randal explained to them that drow had raided the town twice in the tenday before he had sent his message, and they had raided the town twice more in the time it had taken Cid and Thureen to get to Dagger Falls. Randal said that the drow had come from the Dordrien Crypts about ten miles away, but the cause of their sudden raiding was a mystery to him. He asked Cid and Thureen to put a stop to the raids, if they could.
The two adventurers obliged, and went into the crypts. There, they fought many battles, and gained the allegiance of Tierak Morcane. She told the two that suddenly Lolth had gone silent; that she no longer heard the priestess’s prayers for spells and guidance. At the same time, followers of Kieransalee had come into Sith Morcane and had killed almost all of the Lolth followers. Only a lucky few escaped, herself being one of them. The drow raids, she said, were raids undertaken by the followers of Kieransalee, who sought vengeance upon all surface dwellers. Tierak told the two that a strange drow, part spider, lived in a cave in the chasm wall outside of Sith Morcane. She told them to find this Larala Dumian, and to tell her that they had been sent by Tierak Morcane. She said that this would gain them Larala’s allegiance.
The two heroes went into Sith Morcane, a small Underdark trading town. Sith Morcane is a strange town: it consists of many large caverns dug into the face of a deep chasm. The caverns are connected by the web of a gargantuan, fiendish monstrous spider. The two heroes killed the spider, killed the guards of Sith Morcane, then found Larala, a Fang of Lolth, and gained her allegiance. In the barracks of Sith Morcane, they triggered a trap and a Noble Salamander was summoned. They were already injured, and so, the Salamander managed to kill Thureen Buroch before it was incapacitated and went back to the plane from which it had been summoned. The heroes mournfully retreated back to Dagger Falls. There, Cid bought a scroll of Teleport, put Thureen in a Bag of Holding, and whisked himself and Thureen to Waterdeep. Once there, Cid paid to have a powerful cleric cast True Resurrection on Thureen’s corpse. Thureen came back to life, and Cid bought another scroll of Teleport and whisked himself and Thureen back to Dagger Falls.
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4 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
Thureen Buroch |
Posted - 21 Nov 2005 : 23:01:03 The three drow vampires are the first to react. They gaze intently at Larala, Thureen, and Cid, attempting to Dominate them through their gaze, but they fail.
Larala now moves five feet to engage one of the drider vampires with her scimitar. She slashes at it: first at its neck, drawing thick, dark, black blood. She slashes at it again, but it manages to leap to the side. |
Thureen Buroch |
Posted - 21 Nov 2005 : 22:56:08 Into House Morcane
Thureen and Larala climb across the spider web to the entrance into the House Morcane Level. Solom and Cid ride on the back of the nycaloth, who flies them there.
They go into the first room: a rectangular room with archways leading to the right and left. The nycaloth makes them all invisible, and then they go through the left archway into a smaller rectangular room, more of a hallway, really. At the end of this hallway is another archway, and a third archway leads to a rectangular room where the same two vampires that the heroes had encountered before are standing guard. The heroes try to sneak past the vampires, but the vampires hear them and.
They emerge into an octagonal room with a ladder leading up into the ceiling. An archway on the opposite end of the chamber leads into a rectangular hallway like the one they just left. They run in.
This hallway is much like the previous one, except that instead of a third archway, there are large, stone double doors. The heroes open the door and go in. They emerge into a large chamber with an alter of marble covered with a large black cloth upon which lies a skull and two candles. Two drider vampires are nesting in webs on the ceiling. When they notice the doors opening, they cast Invisibility Purge and jump down to where the heroes are standing, rendering them visible. A vampire runs in another door in this large chamber, and draws his sword.
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Thureen Buroch |
Posted - 20 Nov 2005 : 23:47:57 City of the Spider Queen Introduction III
Cid was now very reluctant about going back in to Sith Morcane. That night Bahamut, his patron deity, came to him in a dream. Bahamut told him that he must save Dagger Falls from the drow. Bahamut could not be of much help, for he could not risk an out-and-out battle with Kieransalee. However, he said that he would help Cid and Thureen become more powerful and experienced in the ways of combat in their dreams. He told them that he would give them two challenges in their dreams. If they won those challenges, they would grow more powerful, but if they failed, they would grow weaker and lose some of their previous training. They accepted.
The first challenge was to fight a boulder-dropping red dragon with only longbows and unlimited supplies of arrows. Neither hero was “killed” in their dream, and so, they won the first challenge.
The second challenge was more difficult. They had to kill a goblin in a cave. However, the cave was being guarded by a very powerful creature, and they would have to get past this creature before they could kill the goblin. Cid finally realized that all they had to do was walk between the creature’s legs and into the cave.
The following day, Cid and Thureen went back into Sith Morcane. They decided against going back into the cavern with the vampires, and instead went with Larala back into Sith Morcane’s bazaar, breaking their promise to the sentries there. The sentries, of course, attacked, but were quickly defeated. Cid and Thureen explored the warehouses in the bazaar, finding a temple to Ghaunadaur, guarded by five oozes and a roper. The heroes managed to avoid the two black puddings and defeat the other three oozes and the roper. They then left the bazaar, going down a tunnel out of the bazaar. This tunnel led into the main cavern of Sith Morcane, where the majority of its populace lived. They made friends with one of the drow living there, who told them that the Archmage of Sith Morcane could be an asset to them, if they gained his allegiance. So they went to the Inverted Tower, a tower carved out of the underground rock within Sith Morcane. This Inverted Tower was the arcane school of Sith Morcane.
Cid was able to come on friendly terms with the tower guards. The guards called down Salom Nedrazak, who agreed to help them stop the drow raids by destroying the current leadership in the city. He said that he had always dreamed of establishing a magocracy in Sith Morcane. He told them that he had bound a nycaloth, a creature from another plane, to help him, but he could not come up with a fair promise to the creature in exchange for its help. He said that they creature wanted spellbooks, but he could not spare any. Cid had three spellbooks that he had taken from drow wizards he had killed in Sith Morcane. He gave these spellbooks to the nycaloth, who then agreed to help them.
Cid learned that the cavern with the vampires was where the ruling house of Sith Morcane had lived, and he felt that they had enough force for them to go back in there and take over the town.
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Thureen Buroch |
Posted - 20 Nov 2005 : 23:17:22 City of the Spider Queen Introduction II
Cid and Thureen returned to Sith Morcane, where Larala Dumian was waiting for them. They went into Sith Morcane’s bazaar. Three duergar merchants were selling their wares to an illithid. A fight broke out, and after the battle, the merchants, the illithid, and two sentries lay dead. Two more sentries came running, but Cid was able to talk his way out of another fight, promising to never come back.
The heroes then climbed down the spine of the large spider web connecting the different areas of Sith Morcane and found themselves in a large, rectangular room with two vampires, dead drow fighters, standing guard. The vampires possessed Thureen and commanded him to kill Cid, which he did. A day later, Thureen came out of the domination and slew the vampires, with help from Larala, who had been waiting, hidden from the vampires, for her chance to kill them. Thureen then dragged Cid’s corpse out of the dungeon and back to Dagger Falls. Once there, Thureen was able to convince a wizard to teleport the three of them to Waterdeep. Once there, Thureen paid to have the same powerful cleric cast True Resurrection on Cid’s body. Then Cid bought a scroll of Teleport and the three went back to Dagger Falls.
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