Kingmaker

Well, this Friday we had 5 players and a DM, so good to go. Bevis is leaving us and this was his last week playing, so it was nice to finish on a high note – we have completed module 1.

I have finally made some progress remembering the character names. Morgan’s witch is Morgana, Brett’s ranger is Rainor, my Rogue/Wizard is “Switch”. Andrew’s cavalier is some german-sounding thing, and Bevis’ paladin … a complete blank. I’ll get there.

Michael,

Exciting news! We have found this “Stag Lord” villain and defeated him!

Last I wrote, we had dispatched that enormous boar that was being a problem for the locals. We were killing time, really, waiting for our purchases to arrive at Oleg’s. Since there was a bounty on the board head and we had been exploring for a week or so, we decided to head back, collect the bounty and our purchases.

Our gear had arrived – mine was a second-hand wand of Mage Armour (I use it all the time, and I can only memorise a few spells at a time) and a couple of scrolls which I transcribed into my book. The reward for the boar head was some magical arrows enchanted to kill animals [bane animal]. These would turn out to be pivotal, so thank Desna we decided to deal with that boar.

We idled a couple of days – I wrote a few more scrolls – and then we decided that there was really nothing for it but to deal with this “Stag Lord” head on. Our ex-bandit sergeant gave us excellent directions to his fort. We decided to pose as commoners with a wagon on the way in hopes of being attacked so we could get today’s password. It worked nicely. We were attacked and killed all but one of them, who Morgana blinded (permanently I think). A nasty spell – frankly, I think there is a little moral ambiguity there [Morgan’s characters always turn out to be a little, well, CE]. Anyway, we promised him that the blindness was temporary and we’d cure it in exchange for information, which think we are not able to do. Anyway, he told us a password (which we never used, in the end) and that was that.

We saw the fort from a way off. It is, well, a fort. Log palisade, stone walls, on a hill overlooking a lake whose name escapes me. The sort of thing you’d expect. We noticed that the guards at the back were quite lax, so we thought we’d head in the back way. Rainor and I would sneak in, “gakk” the guards, then hoist the rest of the party over the wall.

It went – well really about as badly as it could possibly go. Heading over the ground to the back wall, the only warning we got was an uncanny feeling, and then these zombies came up out of the ground and attacked us – nicely explaining the laxity of the guards. I stabbed one of them but got mobbed and was knocked unconscious for a moment [-3. Had to use a hero point to stabilize.]. The rest of the party were watching from a ways off and they abandoned stealth and ran in to help. There was a fight – the zombies actually started pulling us underground. I was barely able to do anything – fumbling around for one of my potions of healing, while the guards at the fort jeered us and shot some arrows. Eventually I managed to quaff a potion and get up. I used my trusty Colour Spray spell, but these things were mindless and it had no effect whatsoever. We got out, eventually, away from the dead things, but we had been discovered and so we decided to just go the frontal assault in the morning.

We prepped. We decided that the simplest way to deal with things was to enlarge our two fighters and have them lift us over the palisade. I opted to use a potion of invisibility – those zombies gave me a scare and I think I’ve learned my lesson about not fighting hand-to-hand. Anyway. There was some arrow fire and the fighters decided simply to shoulder-charge the gate. It worked: after a couple of moments the thing burst open and we were in.

I slipped inside. Really, I felt pretty useless – I’m dividing my attention between magic and other things, and it’s not working out very well. If I attacked anyone then my invisibility would cease, but there was nothing for it: I cast a shield spell on top of the mage armour and then used my wand of grease on a couple of archers up on the wall. And it did nothing. There was this fighter inside who it seems was a paladin of Erastil who had not kept his tithes up, or something. He and our paladin had a little exchange, and he joined our side – his medallion thingy changed from being a dull lead colour to all shiny. Divine magic is like that.

Anyway. The Stag Lord himself was watching the combat from the upper floor of the fort and firing some sort of arrows that made this enormous screaming noise – rather unsettling (a magical fear effect, I believe). Then he dashed off out of sight. I moved around to see what he was up to and he was headed to some lever in the wall. I decided this was probably a bad thing, so I greased the lever. But it was no use: he got it open after a few moments.

The lever opened a wall in the lower floor, and a huge (and hungry and angry) bear came out. Our new paladin friend ran at it sort of to protect me, which was sweet of him I suppose, and this bear opened him up a treat. However, Rainor and I both had these arrows of animal slaying, and we both scored hits. The bear went down and it’s just as well.

Meanwhile, all sorts of things had been going on. Our regular paladin had fallen (just around the corner), and I told the new paladin so – kind of as a test. He rushed in to help, and I decided to head upstairs. My spells weren’t doing anything, but I have my bow. The fort is a semi-ruin, most of the upstairs floor is missing, which was good – it meant I could keep my distance and shoot. I’d get shot at, of course, but I was swaddled in protective spells. Well: I shot terribly [rolled a 5, a 3, and a 5] and accomplished nothing. The rest of the party had dealt with everyone on the ground (I think at least one of them was permanently blinded) and began to come upstairs. As they did, this other person broke cover and attacked – I think he might have been one of the other bounties on those wanted posters. I forget what happened, he got away for the moment and disappeared or something.

Anyway, most of the minions got killed and finally we were dealing with just the Stag Lord and his offsider. They retreated down into a ruined room and we all piled on. The two of them had one of our party flanked at one point, which would have been bad news, but I stunned one of them with a colour spray and he dropped his rapier and I got it (a nice weapon – I might use it). After a moment or two, these final two were dead, and suddenly everything was quiet, save for a lone “Gakk!” sound from the archery tower as Morgana dealt with the final bandit.

Anyway. What to do now? We can’t just leave this fort vacant – some other bandits will grab it. It’s ruined, but fixable, so perhaps we should base ourselves here for a while. More immediately, the ground outside is infested with undead and needs to be cleansed. Our paladin and his new friend might be able to help there, and there’s that temple that we fixed up – maybe some priests might care to take up residence now that we have dealt with the worst of the banditry, and they can deal with the dead things.

Arguably I’ve fulfilled my obligations here, but I don’t know that they’d be happy to see me back home just yet, so I will continue on with these for a while. I’d like to be more useful, though. Speaking of which, could you possibly be a dear and have Arithel do me one of those hunter’s cloaks? You know his are the best, and I can afford one now. I can arrange to send trader’s credits, I think. I’ll have to check.

Your sister in exile
Selrynn.

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Well, not finished yet – we have the undead, and possibly a basement in this fort. Dave has asked us to keep our character sheets as they are for the moment so there’s a hint. I’m not happy with Selrynn, but it’s possible she’ll come good once I start prestiging her as an Arcane Trickster at 7th level. I just don’t know how to play a Rogue, I suspect, so I should stick with it. What shall I level up for 4th level? Rogue or Wizard? Probably Wizard – keep things in sync.

And farewell Bevis, may your eyrie receive you at journey’s end and all that. Safe travels.

Kingmaker

Michael,
It’s been a busy week or so. We have been exploring the area, as doing this is part of our mission here and also because we don’t feel quite up to dealing with this “Stag Lord” person. There’s also the fact that there are other bounties to collect, now that the Kobolds are pacified.

We recovered some sort of idol thingy in the mite lair and intended to trade it with the kobolds for Hilda’s (?) wedding ring. We arranged a meeting. we had a couple of days and did some exploring, uncovering a cache of loot and a very nice spellbook.

At the meeting the chief, who we had met before, was there and also a shaman/priest thingy. Negotiations were off to a tricky start – the shaman spoke common, but the chief did not – so it was all at cross purposes. Our paladin was very sure that the shaman was “a bad egg”, as he put it. And pandemonium broke out when we dragged out the idol – both the chief and the shaman insisting we give it to them, while all the other kobolds cowered.

Well, we went with the paladin’s feelings on the matter and gave the idol to the chief, who immediately smashed it. A fight broke out, of course, and since we had made our decision we decided not to hold back – stacks on the shaman. He went invisible and tried to sneak away, but the paladin could sense roughly where he was. We all attacked – including the chief – and killed him. The chief cut his head off and displayed it to much rejoicing from the other kobolds. “There shall be trade, there shall be peace!”, he declared, which was very gratifying. Wise, too, because we would certainly have had to wipe them out otherwise. Not an idiot, that chief.

Turns out that most of the bad will between the kobolds and the humans was down to the shaman. And: it turns out he was an arcane caster, a wizard! His spellbook holds a few spells beyond my ability to cast – cause fear, illusions, the sort of thing you’d rely on to cow a kobold tribe. I transcribed Major Image and Minor image, and some others – a very nice find. My spellbook is not full yet, but it’s beginning to look respectable. I’m not studying magic as much as I should – spending too much time working out what to do with this dagger. But I’ll get there, even if the greater magics remain beyond me.

The kobolds were very, very grateful and showered loot on us. We took a delgation back to Oleg’s to normalize relations, and they’ll sort out a trade language eventually.

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This week we had a couple of players away, so we decided to explore some hexes on the overland map.

There were a couple of bounties – one for a particularly large boar, and one for the capture of some sort of fabulous beast – which would probably be somewhere near a river in woodland. So we systematically searched the woods to the southwest of Oleg’s , particularly around the rivers, and eventually found what was unmistakably a pig run.

We set some traps and retreated to some distance away. Our witch girl left her familiar in a tree as a sentry. That afternoon, we were alerted – the boar had come home and was not at all happy about the traps, which had done very, very little but upset him. We approached the lair, but the fight was over very quickly. Our halberdieer set his spear and the boar charged, impaling itself, and then the paladin rode by and lanced it. It was quite quick and humane.

Still looking or that worm thing or whatever it is. I’ll post this when we return to Oleg’s.

Your sister-in exile,
Seldrynn

Kingmaker

Michael,

What’s that word for “allies that you’d rather not have, but it’s marginally better to have them as allies than as enemies”? Well, we made some of those. I think.

Oleg had put up some posters for jobs back at his fort thingy. There are a few of them, but one of them was that they wanted to stop the kobold raids. Either way of doing it is fine. Seeing as we had already made sort-of peaceful contact with the kobolds, we opted for “Plan B”, as the humans say.

We went back to the Kobolds at the turnip patch and told them that we wanted to be allies asked them for an introduction to their chief. Unfortunately, the only one that speaks draconic is me, and I’m not much of a talker. We found out that their main issue was they were at war with the “mites”, whose description matched the description on one of the other posters at Oleg’s. Some of these things had stolen his wife’s wedding ring. So we were looking at a two-for-one: pacification of the kobolds, and recovery of a wedding ring.

Despite my awful attepts at diplomacy, they agreed – we’d meet in a few days at a particular location to the southeast.

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We made our way to the nominated area, exploring as we did so. We killed an Owlbear and were roasting it when the Kobold chief arrived. The diplomacy went – well, not all that well really. My fault again (you know, we never even thought to see if anyone of them knew common – if anyone else had been negotiating, it would have gone much better). But they told us that the “mites” were laired in a tree nearby. We said we’d take care of them in return for … well, I’m not sure what, really. People were talking at cross purposes and I’m not the best translator in the world.

Well, the lair was a tight squeeze – ceiling about four foot or so high. There were mites, and there was this chasm (well – long pit) in the ground with a rope bridge. I used an animate rope scroll to sort of repair it, but it was still quite fragile – mite sized in fact – so we sent the little witch across trailing a stronger rope.

Anyway, there was this enormous giant centipede in the pit – they are poisonous, you know – and it bit her, and we fought it but it was very tough. We continued, and there were more mites but we cleared the lair out eventually. We recovered a little loot, and an interesting document that seemed to indicate that the kobolds had the wedding ring. I wonder – did the kobolds raid the mites, or were they co-operating and splitting the loot?

Anyway. [memory hazy – are we back at Oleg’s yet in-game?] we told the Kobolds that the ring was Oleg’s wife’s, and that the Kobold chief could return it to cement the new era of friendship and cooperation. It will be *days* before those of us bitten by the centipede recover, so I might take the time to do up a couple more scrolls. Might do some mail-order shopping, too.

Your Sister-in-exile,
Seldrynn