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TylerXKJ
Acolyte
27 Posts |
 Posted - 31 Aug 2005 : 05:36:20
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Before our group split up(damn you real life)I ran a campaign set in Damara with my four friends as the PCs. It took place in 1373 and a lot it was inspired from the The Year of Rogue Dragons series of books by Richard Lee Byres. I'm a terribly poor adventure maker but I managed with a little effort to piece together several of the free adventures available for download at wizards.com into a single plot. The adventures I used (in order) were:
Frozen Whispers
Bad Light
Base of Operations
Into the Frozen Wastes
Primrose Path(It's not listed in the dwnload section mysteriously)
The Frostburn Web Enhancement
Tiger's Palace
Here are the characters and a brief description
Garret Peterson: A young paladin from Tantras who follows, you guessed it, Torm. When he heard of King Dragonsbane's request for adventurers to combat the hordes threatening Damara he rightously decided to help out. He favors the Greatsword. Paladin level 1, 18 Str, 9 Int.
Respen Highwind: A quiet and thoughful half-elven ranger and life long friend of Garret. He accompanied him on his quest to Damara to help slay the orcs he hates so much. While normally silent, he chimes in when his skills are needed or to settle disputes. He is a follower of miellki and favors the longbow. Ranger level 1.
Eanid Greybrook: He is a sorcerer from the Great Dale. Disatisfied with a boring life in the Dale he left to Damar searching for something to challenge his magical power.No relation to a certain Half-golem. Sorcerer level 1 with very high stats all around except wisdom.
Kara Shimov: A tiefling rogue native to Damara , she is very secretive and slightly paranoid with good reason. She has a rakshasa/tiger like appearance that she hides under layers of clothing. She favors using her darkness ability to get sneak attacks. Rogue level 1, High dex and Int, 10 Str, 9 Wis.
I'll post what happened in our first game later. I hope you guys enjoy!
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TylerXKJ
Acolyte
27 Posts |
Posted - 31 Aug 2005 : 23:39:44
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Here is how our first game went. Now, Frozen Whispers is designed for third level characters but it gave me an oppurtunity to bring the PCs together without having to resort to the "you meet in a bar..." cliche so I decided to run them through it. NOTE: for the first part of the adventure my buddy David only referred to his character as "Shimov" when it was really Kara Shimov.
The jist of the game is that hunters from a hunting lodge were killed by the ghost of a Mt. Lion and now a Wendigo is haunting the area. Enter the PCs...
Garret And Respen had been traveling from The Vast for a few weeks when out of nowhere a series of bad storms had pushed them into the Forest of Lethyr and eventually the Rawlinswood for safety. Respen felt something unnatural about the weather and the woods but they needed to set down somwehere to ride out the storm.
Eanid had been experiencing better luck, he planned on traveling through the woods to reach Damara anyway and Shimov had been wandering aimlessly through the countryside for some time.
The four character's paths suddenly converged near a clearing in the woods. Shimov quickly hid in some brush, while the others introduced themselves. Eanid introduced himself as a sorcerer for hire on his way to Damara, adn Garret told him of their quest. Respen noticed Kara Shimov hiding after he made a spot check. Garret was immediatly suspicious this heavily cloaked figure was some type of bandit but "Shimov" proclaimed itself a traveler like them. Not far from where they met the group came upon a horror scene: A dead body with a blood trail leading to the front door of a boarded up building.
While everyone was looking at the dead man, Kara/Shimov crept up to the door of the abandoned lodge. Garret informed "Shimov" to stay close but he lacked any evidence to condemn "him". The dead man was slumpt against a tree with a Masterwork dagger in his hand. He had a shoulder wound that had been healed but reopened puposfully. Blood also leaked from his apparently self-punctured eardrums. Respen took the dagger.
Unbeknowst to the party a starving Mt.lion had been attracted to the area from the blood, but hadn't yet touched the tainted corpse. It Chose Kara/Shimov instead while at the door of the Lodge. The creature started a suprise round and knocked down the rogue to only 2 HP. Eanid moved away from the corpse and struck the Lion with a mafic missile. Garret charged the Lion with his greatsword and did a lot of damage to it. Respen fired two arrows from where he was with rapid shot and the last one killed the Lion.
"Shimov" ran into the house to escape any danger and was followed by Garret and Eanid. Respen to the time to notice the Lion was nearly starved before he entered. Garret gave "Shimov" a healing potion(his chosen bonus item for being from the vast) to help him recover. When Respen went to inspect Shimov's wounds the party (and our group) learned that Shimov was really named Kara, and a female with bizarre, tiger-like, features! I'll admit there was some snickering over David's gender choice but we're faorly mature and got over it.
The room showed signs of fire and was littered with abandoned weapons and ammunition like combat had taken place in the room and yet the front door was unlocked. Respen took a MW handaxe. Both him and Garret got a composite(+1) longbow. Kara also searched around the room and found a box full of potions. Eanid used a wand of identify to learn that there were two potions of curelight wounds and three of resist elements:cold. Kara let the others have the potions in payment of earlier help.
When they were done looking through the room they started hearing grunts from the opposite side of a door in the far corner of the lodge. Fearing the worst they positioned themselves for anything. Garret being the fittest would open the door while everyone gave themselves a clear shot. Almost as soon as Garret touched the lock did a wild drooling man swing a dagger at him!
The paladin, sensing no evil in the man, dropped his sword and swung at the crazed man. After a few rounds of grappling and punching he(Keller) was rapped up. Kara had in the chaos of the fight, pocketed a magic +1 ring of protection off of the man. Not knowing what to do with him they left him in the room after getting supplies from it and settled in for the night. What a mistake that would turn out to be!
Respen took first watch but it didn't matter because horrible wails they heard from outside woke the whole party. It was such a distracting sound that only Eanid was attentive to notice that the supply room door was being beaten on. What came through the door was not their mad captive however but some hovering footless beast-man! Eanid quickly realised with a knowledge arcana roll that the creature was vulnerable to fire and used his only other spell known besides magic missile, BURNING HANDS! Keller, who was now a wendigo, made his save and took only two damage but that side of the room caught blaze and the party reacted! Kara missed her shot with her crossbow but Respen was more accurate and his arrow sunk in deep! Garret lunged at the beast realizing its very evil nature and went to work with his great-sword. The beast swung futily against Garret's scalemail the next round and Respen dropped it into the negatives with an arrow. Eanid finished the creaure with a bottle of alchemist's fire.
When the sun rose the next day the storm had cleared and the party was already to move out. Kara filled a lantern with oil to use as a weapon against any other Wendigos they might face and the party had taken their potions of resist elements to protect themselves from the cold. Since there were only three Kara declined citing her winter clothing was sufficient but Eanid silently realised her fiendish heritage would protect her from heat, cold, or electricity.
Respen scouted the area outside before they left now that most of the snow and storm had passed and discovered that dozens of bodies had been buried in a snow bank near the lodge. Respen took a symbol of Miellki from one of the bodies and and whispered a prayer fr their souls. The Holy symbol was also an Amulet of Natural armor +1.
For a few a little while they traveled threw the woods and within an hour they were attacked by a Wendigo even more powerful than the last. Once a ranger in life Aaaron Korigard was a terribly powerful wendigo now. Kara reacted first and chucked her lit oil lamp at the wendigo, engulfing it in flames. Then Garret and Respen closed into melee with it. This forced Eanid to use magic missile on Aaron to avoid harming his friends. Aaron was a savage opponent however and Criticalled Garret with his Ravenous bit ability, which failed to kill him but would if Aaron got another attack in of if he wasn't healed within a few rounds.
Respen used his MW Handaxe on the wendigo and KAra sneak attacked with her crosssbow for a lot of damage. Garret got in a hit aswell and when Eanid chimed in with another magic missilethe wendigo was incapacitated. Garret took bleeding damage and passed out but Respen used his healing potions to revive him. The party thought everything was okay but when Garret awoke his eyes glowed with supernatural hunger. He was infected! The party marched themselves to the town of Tellerth as quickly as they could and for a high fee cured Garret of the disease. The party thought they wouldn't have the money to pay but Kara revealed she was carrying twelve bars of Bloodstone! Garret spent the night recoverying in a temple of Ilmater and the rest of the group found lodging at an Inn.
That was our first adventure! I know we enjoyed it and I recomend the Frozen Whispers free dowloadable adventure to any DM in need.
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TylerXKJ
Acolyte
27 Posts |
Posted - 03 Sep 2005 : 04:41:17
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The whole party accumulated enough experience points that they leveled up! I used the names of some NPCs from Icewind Dale 2 in case you noticed anything familiar.
After Garret was infected by a wendigo the party rushed him to a cleric in the "town" of Tellerth. They were able to purchase emergency healing for Garret by Kara who traded all of her bonus equipment which was twelve bars of Bloodstone(25gp each)!
When Garret was fit to leave, the party was sent a message by the town's ruler, an aging cleric of Ilmater named Milos. According to RoF Damarans are usually suspicious of sorcerers and tiefling and the party had both so I let the msweat a bit. Of course Milos let them offf the hook and the party learned that Milos saw a lot of potential in them so he offered them contracts to work for the village rooting out monster lairs and the like. Milos informed them that sizable forces of organized goblinoids and Orcs had been in the area and he suspected something was up.
The Pcs got acquainted with the local places and characters. Tellether isn't on any map of Damara I can find so I put it along the tradway north of the Rawlinswood and near the Giant Spire Mountains and statted its population as I saw fit. The town had a single tavern called the Rusty ore, an inn with no guests other than the characters and owner, a town hall/church and a stable, in addition to a few tiny homes. A Shield Dwarf by the name of Olaf Tamewater was the guard captain.
At this point I had the town get attacked by several orcs while the Pcs were looking for supplies. Several of the Orcs escaped into the night and Olaf had them tracked to a cave entrance in the Giant Spire Mts. We spent the rest of the seccision killing monsters and exploring the cave. I mostly improvised the encounters and it was basically an excuse to cut loose and kill some stuff as I we weren't use to having such thick atmosphere in our campaigns. We did this the next session too until everyone reached level four. Garret got a +1 greatsword and Kara obtained a +1 shortsword and +1 studded leather armor.
Now that they were high enought level I ran them through the "Bad Light" adventure. The plot is that a green hag named Lykest and a barghest called Skrom have taken over a tower ith a tribe of goblins at their command. The tower is supposed to be near the ocean but the Icelace River worked just fine as it even ran up into the Great Glacier.
After exploring the monster cave cave for an in game week, the Pcs got their first big assignment: A look-out tower some miles away used by the town had not been heard from in a few days and the group was to brave the trip to see if everything was alright. It wasn't.
When the characters first came upon the tower at night they knew something was wrong immediatly. Boats had been smashed all around the tower and the place seem deserted. Garret lead the group with Eanid the sorcerer and Respen the ranger behind him. Kara brought uo the rear. As they approached the entrance to the tower Garret's detect evil ability went off.
Four ghouls lept out of the shadows and attaked. Two went for Eanid and hurt him fiercely but he shook of their parayzing touch. One attacked Garret but couldn't get past his armor. The fourth hit Kara and paralyzed her for four straight rounds. Garret turned around and was able to kill a Ghoul attacking Eanid and Eanid shot the remaining one attacking him with a magic missile spell. Respen Fired two arrows, one that killed Eanid's ghoul, and another into the one still behind Garret. The ghoul that bit Kara lunged and hit Respen. Garret ended him and Eanid finished of the lead ghoul with another magic missile. Kara remained paralyzed throughout the whole fight.
Once Kara had recovered she picked the lock to the door of the tower. While sneaking into the what had used to be the ground quarters of the tower Garret came upon Lykest's pet Grick. Now a Grick is supposed to be a CR 3 monster but other than its damage reduction it is a wimp, and Garret killed it with his +1 greatsword in a single round. I hate to say it but my players got a little cockey and thought I'd underestimated them, but did I prove them wrong.
When they entered the next level of the tower all they found was an empty front room with a door leading to a back room. They all went in....and nothing happened. Until Lykast struck from invisibilty and used her Weakness ability to drain Kara's strength from ten down to five.
Garret lunged at Lykast and tried to attack her but Lykast's bracers of armor +1 stopped him. Eanid tried to blast her with a magic missile spell but failed pitifully against her spell resistance. Kara was encumbered by the weight of her gear and retreated to the end of the room where there was a wardrobe. Respen switched from his bow to MW handaxe. On the next round Lykast turned invisible again and retreated. Garret moved to block the door and tried to find her with a listen check. Eanid moved to the oppisite end of the room. Respen used a listen chack and fired two arrows where he thought she was at, right near Eanid! Thunk, Thunk, both missed. Kara opened the wardrobe, climbed in, and hid.
Lykast made a fullattack and raked her claws across Eanid's chest bringing him down to almost no HP. Garret moved to Lykast's side and made an attack on her an finally hit her. Eanid used his burning hands spell on her and succeeded against her spell resistance! She failed her reflex save and took al ot of damage! Respen used rapidshot and plugged her with an arrow. Kara meanwhile found Lykast's treasure and started pocketing coins. Lykas was on fire and wounded and lashed out against Garret, hurting him a bit. Garret in retribution, shouted out" You die now!" and smote evil while also scoring a critical hit, bursting Lykast heart out of her chest!
Garret Layed on hands everyone who needed some healing and Eanid took Lykast's cloak of resistance +1 and bracers of armor +1. The several healing potions Lykast carried also helped to heal the wounded party. Kara's ability drain wore off and the party and the party continued up the tower wit their hard earned loot.
When the party came across Skrom in his chamber he tried to bargain with the group but Garret would have nothing to do with it. Garret charged right at the demon and attacked him for a big amount of damage. Kara tumbled behind the barghest and sneak attacked him, almost killinghim. Eanid then used another magic missile to finish the Barghest. In place of a Heward's handy haversack, which I hate giving to characters because than they try to put everything the find in it, I put an amulet that absorbs fire damage like a brooch of shielding with 60 points. Eanid claimed this.
Knowing their was only one more level of the tower, Kara snuck up very silently to see who was there while the others remained doen stairs. Seeing a dozen goblins around a fire she retreated before they saw her. Using a ghost sound spell and a high bluff check Eanid faked making it sound like Skrom was shouting for all the goblins to go down stairs. When they did The group sprung their trap. Eanid unleashed his burning hands spell on the goblins who were all crowded within the confines of the hallway. Nearly all of them failed their reflex saves and those that succeeded didn't have the HP to survive. The others finished off the the survivors with ranged attacks.
The group attacked the goblins holding a false beacon. Kara used her racial darkness ability centered on a bolt head to confuse the goblins by vloakking the light of the beacon in shadow. Garret and Respen used their bows and Eanid spells to destroy the others. They returned to Tellereth victorious and a level higher!
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TylerXKJ
Acolyte
27 Posts |
Posted - 04 Sep 2005 : 02:21:56
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Once they returned to town with the news of the tower being overrun and subsequently retaken, Milos congradulated them. When he learned of the alliance between the hag Lykast and Skrom the bhargest he became worried that there might be a larger force at work. When Skrom had tried to bargain with the group he mentioned something about an alliance forming.
Milos told the group that they should investigate an old abandoned manor in the Giantspire Mountains to make sure that it wasn't being used as a fort. A family of gnomes had been living ing the place and mining beneath it for many years but if it would be seized by an enemy force it would be a strategic location to assault Tellether.
The group rested for a day and resupplied their provisions because it was still the beginning of the year in Damara and every time they tekked out of Tellether it was like a tundra. I even started using rules from Frostburn to display the conditions. I ran the "Base of Operations" free adventure this time. An orc cleric named Kurjan has taken over the manor to get access to the mines and now his orcs and troll lientenants run the place. I didn't use the NPCs or city from the adventure and instead substituted them with the ones the group was already familiar with.
The PCs went to where the manor was located and Respen and Kara were quick to see that orcs were manning the towers. Planning quickly Garret and Respen took out one lookout with a hail of arrows while Kara and Eanid impaled another with crossbow bolts. That, done they killed of the other guards the same way. Seeing that the walls of the keep were in poor condition they scaled rhe mwith Kara's grappling hook. They were all on the middle-most tower surrounding the Manor when Eanid saw that there was a winter wolf chained up in the courtyard. He cast a scorching ray spell on it but the wolf started howling even as Eanid killed it.
Sixteen orcs started to pour out of the other tower hatches but Kara managed to jam their tower's hatch with a dagger leaving her with just her +1 short sword and crossbow. Realising that they'd quickly be overrun Respen got on the broken walkway between the tower they were on and the one to their left and started shooting arrows across to the orcs on that tower. Garret ran and jumped the broken walkway onto the tower at their right. Eanid and Kara hunkered down at the center tower as they were the most vulnerable to dozens of Orcs with axes and javilens.
The gap in the wall between Respen and the Orcs was enough that they wouldn't risk jumping it, but that didn't matter as they had superior numbers and plenty of javelins. Respen used his rapid shot ability and damafed two orcs. Garret made excellent use of his cleave feat and +1 greatsword to hack through two orcs. Eanid fired a magic missile to help the over whelmed Respen while Kara fired and missed at an orc fighting Garret. MOst of the Ocs on the far away tower focused on Respen but got a hit or two on Eanid. This went on for another round to much of the same effect until the following round when the eight orcs beneath Kara and Eanid stopped trying to break through the hatch and spilled into the courtyard.
The eight orcs in the courtyard and three remaining on the far tower threw javeilns at Respen making him into a pin cushion. One of the orcs ran into a building and Two Trolls, one Huge with a big ring, and another with a magical looking chainshirt cam out roaring! They both charged across the courtyard and lept onto the overhang connecting to the middle tower right where Eanid and Kara were!
Respen out of sight of the orcs in the courtyard and finished the one in the far tower off. Garret was facing an orc seargant(War3) and was surrounded and blocked from helping the others. Kara summoned a globe of deeper darkness around her shortsword and moved to the smaller troll. It should be noted that Kara had taken the deeper darkness feat from RoF, giving her the spell like ability which has a 60ft radius. Eanid used a burning hands spell because he could barely see anything and Kara evasion'd it while the trolls got burned.
Respen started firing at the orcs on the courtyard with much success while Garret finished off the orcs on his tower. The two trolls both attacked Kara and only the little one she was directly facing hit her. Kara tumbled past the little troll and attacked him getting her sneak attack damage in. Eanid risked shooting while in the darkness but hit the larger troll with a scorching ray. The spell had little effect because of the ring the troll had.
Respen picked off the last orcs in the courtyard and abandoned his bow to move in front of Eanid. Garret lept back onto the middle tower from where he was. The big troll moved and attacked Respen but missed him and the little troll failed to hit Kara aswell. Eanid fired a scorching ray into the big troll a brought him down. Kara bull-rushed the smaller troll over the side rail to mash on the ground below. Garret healed Respen with almost all of his Lay on hands for the day. Eanid passed a vial of alchemist fire to Kara who poured it on the troll in the courtyard floor, setting it on fire.
Respen used his ranger spells to heal the group as did Garret with his paladin spells. Garret took the big troll's ring of fire resistance and Respen took the smaller troll's +1 chainshirt after washing it. Once they were as patched up as best they could be they explored the rest of the manor and found the imprisoned gnomes. After releasing them an old gnome asked Kara what had happened to Kurjan and when she responded that they didn't know who he meant the gnomes started freaking out! Oddly, thept kept looking to her for answers. The sun was going down just as the gnomes and group were leaving the prison cells into the courtyard when he showed up.
Garret was the first to notice in the darkness with his detect evil ability that four zombies and one large brute has appeared through a break in the manor wall from the north side. Kurjan summoned four fiendish rats all around Eanid. They bit into him and he contracted a disease from one of the bites. Respen shot at the rats around to help him. Garret then channeled the power of Torm and turned all the four zombies to dust. Eanid magic missiled the last two rats flanking him. Kurjan tried to hit Garret with his axe but missed. Kara sneak attacked Kurjan with a bolt. Garret then ended the fight by smiting Kurjan, killing him.
Respen took Kurjan's +1 greataxe and Garret his +1 Breastplate. Kurjan was supposed to have half-plate which I found ridiculous, so I changed it. Eanid helped himself to a wand of magic missile (3rd level, 15 charges). Eanid started to get sick from his infected rat bite and I told Garret's player Carter, that he should use his remove disease ability on EAnid. Caretr said paladins don't get that till level six. I had forgotten to tell them that they'd acccumulated enough xp to level up! They did, and Eanid was cured.
My friend David had intentionally left Kara's background mysterious so I could use it and I did. During the rule of Zhengyi a powerful rakshasa had seduced a merchant family and drove them to devil worship and their inevitable doom. Kara is the result of that. The gnomes had always known she wasn't like her grandmother or family and so asked her to reclaim her heritage. She said yes. The gnomes also mentioned that the orcs had been dealing with goblins, furthering the evidence that there was some overall threat.
The group spent the night there and in the morning they returned to Tellereth. Olaf was glad to greet them at the gates and told them that that they deserved a good rest. Milos congratulated them and gave them some time to recouperate. To give the party a more permenant place to stay he had an empty home renovated for them.
Well, the party got to level six and beat a whole bunch of orcs. That's all for now, but I've got more to tell. Post if you want to know anything. |
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Our Adventures in Damara!
