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OK. Just for completion sake i am going to go ahead and post the stuff from the Older group who also ran in this campaign world of mine.. but the group broke up earlier this year.. Which is why i had to seak out those new folks out at the Guard tower..

For players we had John and Sam (a married couple, but i can't for the life of me remember their last name). John played a Dwarven Fighter-cleric (Moradin, didn't worry about taking a kit), while his wife went with a Half elf Druid.

Then came Robert who played a Half elf Thief

Then was Jeff who started off with a High elf Ranger

For the PCs we had "Firth, Ironstone, the dwarven fighter-priest, but who commonly got called Stinkybeard. Str 16, Dex 14, Con 19 (with racial bonus), Int 14, Wis 18 and Cha 10. He started out as around 18hp iirc. BUT got up there due to some awesome rolls for his HP. His initial magical items were a +1 warhammer and an Amulet of Lighting protection.

Next up was his wife (the druid), Ronell. Str 13, Dex/Con and Int 14, Wis 17 and Cha 15. I forget what she started out with for HP and magic, other than her +1 scimitar..

Next was The Half elf thief, Clint "wentworth" stirling junior.
Str 16, Dex 18, Con 15, Int/wis and Cha 14 (he had some awesome rolls!). +1 longsword +3 vs regen critters was his ROLLED for item, A broach of shielding was his picked item. Started out 21hp.

And for the Elven ranger,we had West Sai Dao (deceased now but you will see that in the writings). Cause he used the point buy stat gen option, he did NOT bother purchasing any % str, just stuck with a straight 18.. His dex 19, Con 16, 9 for both int and cha and a 14 wis (barely made it into being a ranger). 28hp, Had an amulet vs undead (L6, rolled for) and a bunch of sheaf arrows of burning.

We also had an DMNPC of Athgore Valesonn, a human bard (who got taken over by a guy named iirc Jack).. Str 10, Dex and Int 17, Cha 18, Wis 7 and Con 12. 21hp. Had +1 leather and a ring of fire resistance..

After the initial intro with the local lord, and the 'lay of the land', two of the pcs kept commenting "why the blazes would anyone wanna live here with darn near everything around wanting to kill you..?!?!" To which the lord replied "That is why we bring in adventurers, to help us TAME the lands!"...

They started off on a 'leasurly' caravan guard duty (10sp per pc, plus all room/board), and when they got to one of the villages heard a report of another caravan from a western village had been waylayed by a Dagon (a local creature i have posted in the workshop many moons back)..
One of the guards had died on that attack, and had made note of they almost also got waylayed by a bandit group, who they saw moving north east..
The party initially thought that there might be someone in town giving away intel TO the bandits so they knew which ones to take out, and so got chatting with some guards and the village caravan master.. He was in process of writing out a 'Sorry for your loss" message for the dead guards wife, and after chatting with the party thief (he was the only one who went), he got no bad vibes from him, and even negotiated a 15gp price on the bandit leader's head (+15 more for the mage, and 1gp per bandit they brought in, dead or alive).. Got a contract signed (and after having the cleric read it and verify it was legit) they set to work plotting...

So off they went to go tackle the group of 20 bandits (18 zero level, a 3rd level warrior leader and his 3rd level mage assistant, i had done some back story on). Due to good planning in trying to set up a trap, they hit one side of the bandits while they were 'laying in wait' for a caravan to come, so had 10 to deal with.. 5 archers, 4 swordmen and the leader (who is a longbow specialist, though i kept on darn well forgetting to add in his spec bonus to damage when he hit)..
The players were laughing like mad at how slaptastic a few rounds of combat went, but eventually killed the leader, 3 of the 5 archers and all 4 sword men.. Then they went to the other side of the road where the mage and 3 archers/4 swordmen were still fighting the few guards (and one NPC bard) on the caravan. 2 good well placed shots (Both crits) took out the mage in 1 round, so a morale roll was made for the remaining bandits, which just made it.. They held up for 2 more rounds, with all 3 of the remaining archers and 1 of the 4 swordmen dying, the last 2 surrendered (the 3rd was koed right on the money, so i counted him dead anyway)..
After raking in the cudos from the locals for doing the good deed, they went off to the town of Escormian where one of the 2 mage guilds were located, to try and turn in the dead mage's body../

During that trek there (4 days) they got waylayed by a group of 8 wargs.. I had only 6 attack the group, the last 2 went sneaking around to take on a horse to get dinner... The fight went real bad for the party, with only 2 dead wargs, two of the pcs down into the negs one hiding up a tree and the last just took a nasty crit hit (he had been using his action for 2 rounds prior to keep healing himself).. So when he took that crit he asked if he could 'drop and play dead'.. I asked for a Wis check (to see how well he could pull it off), and rolled a Nat 1 (outstanding roll).. So after one of the wargs took a leak on the dead dwarf, the others went back to where the one horse had been killed..
During this time, the thief snuck back down the tree and bandaged the wounded.. They waited till the wargs ate the horse and left, before rustling everyone up with the last of their healing.. They had to sleep in the same spot to get more healing, before proceeding to the city.

That is where we left it, and the players are STOKED to see what happens next Saturday!!

Well we had our 2nd game session yesterday (Sat the 5th Nov).. Our Thief player was absent as i was already advised of, but the player of the Ranger was also missing (Wifey issues iirc). BUT we picked up another player (keeping at least 3 pcs), so he made a 4th level human bard (5kxp, kinda just took over the NPC i had accompanying the party from last session)..

The party made it into the city of Escormian, and got into the wizards guild with only a few cursory eerie looks from the locals (dead body slung over horse).. At this time the 'ranger and thief' decided to check into their respective guilds to get the ball rolling on membership, though they lack the funds at this point in time to actually become members, but this way they are taken care of while the players are absent).. The group got their reward, and some more funds (as well as some story/goal XP) along with the use of 2 henchmen like fighters (a pair of human brothers) to use for a 3 month period, with the orders "use them as you see fit, but try to bring them back" (OOC the younger brother was a Spear specialist, just starting his fighter career, while the elder brother had just turned 2nd level as a longbow spec, but someone who also was good at two handed fighting with short sword/dagger). While there, the Dwarf F/C an the bard tag teamed going through some taverns and chatting up the city watch for local rumors and news..

RATS deleted the info on the older brother, but as he died soon after getting him, that's not that important..
BUT his brother, Celo Prexide lasted quite a long time.
Human-fighter. Started out as L1 with 14hp, Str 18/60, Con 18, Dex and Cha 11, Wis and Int 10 (made him via my point buy method), Spear specialist and specialist in weapon/shield style..

OOC due to a news story one of my comrades emailed me about a bus and a sink hole, i decided to make a nearby's village have a loss of some people and a wagon of food cause of said sink hole, and planned for one encounter in-route, as they came across the dead bodies of the 3 city guard (and one member of the crown scouting corp (what the thief guild became)..

So after spending the night, the party set out on a 4 day overland trek to said village.. During the early part of day 3, they came across the dead bodies of the 2 city guard and one scout which had been sent out a day before the had left, with orders to check in on the village and research the sink hole..
The party found them due to the buzzards circling overhead (though the vultures would NOT land, that should have given someone in the party an idea something might still be in the area that was threatening...
They came across the dead men and horses, and one dead 'trap-door scorpions (which is what i am officially naming my revised giant scorpions to, and i have dropped the GS damage for claws down to d8 vice d10). While the party were investigating, we rolled surprise as the other 2 TDS's came out of their pit, and went straight for the horses. Only the party Druid and bard was surprised, the dwarf F/C and both the npc brother were not. So those 3 went to intercept the scorpions before they got to the horses..

The fight was very slapstick, with several natural ones in a row all over the place. People tripped up into scorpions, scorpions clawed themselves (taking a hit into a miss).. The players were laughing it up like crazy... Then the archer who closed in for TWF melee, got stung with the stinger, and rolled a nat 2.. Died (one round later). The dwarf F/C during the battle came real close to being into the negatives, but the party won out.. And a lucky placement of Slow poison and use of the healing/herbalism NWPs allowed the druid to concoct some antidotes for the 2 poisoned individuals (the younger brother and the dwarf).. The bard was laying into the dwarf IN character with songs about 'stinky beard ram riding scorpion plaything...// (Friendly banter that he used several times later for coin and to do some taunting of enemies)..

Eventually the party came to the village down one NPC, but back to full health. After conversing with the local village leader, they found out that the trail the caravan followed from the coastline to the village (a 3 day trek) had just opened up beneath the wagon, killing one of the 3 people instantly, the other two had died after the horse being drug on top of them crushing them.. The party left the following morning with 10 other villagers to try and salvage what they could and bring back the dead for a proper burial. THe dwarf F/C used his carpentry and rope use to help get the wagon out of the sink hole in one piece, while their investigations led to a natural cause for the sink hole.. So the druid and the spear-man brother spent half a day clearing some brush to make the trail go around the pit (giving it a 100m clearance on all sides).. During this time, the party had seen some fires way off in the distance and the bard could have sworn he heard some 'battle drums' as well... but it might have just been the wind...

After helping the village people get the wagon and dead back (and the dwarf joining the village priest' in doing last rights) they left in a east by north east direction hoping to find out wht those fires were. The party druid had used one of her animal friendship spells to get an owl so they had some distance scouting capacity...
On day 3 of their trek it had told them that it had seen a dozen tall two leggers riding hairy as heck four leggers (Barbarians on war horses).. The party switched their path to an intercept course to hopefully get to the barbarian group before that group hit another village near the base of the mountain range (it was a way point for miners going to and from the mining city to one of the 2 iron mines)..

A few days later they had come across a trio f barbarians dead, 2 horses dead (the third ran off) and 2 flying beasties dead (those hell flies of mine!!) having to chase off a mountain lion to do a quick searching of the bodies to see if they had any loot or were on their way TO do some looting (the latter, so all they had were some small coins).. During one of the night camps while chasing the barbarians the bard tried his hear noise again to see what he could discern about the drum playing (rolled a 97) so i told him "you think its peace drums maybe inviting you to come in and smoke a peace pipe!" (lol.. the bard was actually thinking of it till the dwarf smacked him one)...
The next day (mid afternoon) they caught up to the barbarians (down to 9 due to that loss of 3 to the hell flies, as such i put some down to only 2 hp!! to show how bad that battle went for the barbarians)..
As both sides were on horse back and we making lots of noise i determined neither side would be surprised.. The druid let off with her sling, the dwarf (and the spear man npc) charged in, while the bard started his inspirational singing (round 1 of 3 he needs).. (I set the distance at 200 yards after doing a random roll for how far they were apart).. The barbarians (eight 0-level mooks and their leader) were split into 4 archers (short bows) shooting the dwarf/human and then later on the bard and druid (one the former were in melee), 4 spear-men who engaged the human and dwarf, And their group leader (a 4th level broad sword spec human)..
After a few rounds back and fourth, the bard had got his inspiration up, the druid had entangled the spear-men (inc the groups human npc) and 3 of the archers were out of it from use of a warp wood spell). The dwarf had challenged the barbarian leader to a duel, and was going Mano-e-mano..

That battle lasted 8 rounds, and during that time, the barbarian leader MISSED EVERY ONE Of his to hit rolls (couldn't roll higher than a frikken 12, when he needed only a 14).. While the dwarf hit roughly 60% of the time.. eventually taking the leader out.. The last archer fled while the last spear-man barbarian surrendered and was actually recruited BY the dwarf as a henchman cause of sparing him (and healing him on top of it).. Dwarf pc got the leaders XP on his own (Plus 500xp bonus for the one on one challenge), and the group got some magic out of it (the leaders +1 hide and 2 potions)..

Eventually they made it to the mining way stop village, parlayed in the dead barbarians for some coin, but GAVE IN the horses they salvaged (that was real strange to me, but i will give them some benefit for it later on if they come back to said village).. After a night's rest (where the bard added the story of the barbarian duel to his musical repertoire) they sent out due east skirting the mountain range hoping to get to the coast to see if they could find more barbarians to rumble with..

On the 2nd evening of their trek, they hit a random encounter of 3 ogres.. Due to the dwarf in the party, i put HIM higher on their 'go to' roster, and for the first 2 rounds of combat, 2 ogres were on him while the last went to the druid (who had the spear-man and bard helping her out).. CAUSE of the ogre-dwarf to hit penalty AND the dwarf's AC the ogres could only hit on a nat 20..
OOC As per group agreement (when we initially set up the group last week) a nat 20 was double damage (Double dice), while we left open the fumble side for 'comedy value' but the bard PC made a cool suggestion of "Why not have it instead of making the fumbler fall over, toss his weapon etc, give the enemy a free attack.. So we went with it.. Dwarf fumbled, ogre fumbled, back and fourth.. Though eventually two ogres were down (one outright dead one at -3), druid down to 2 hp (bard was down to 8 and had ran off), dwarf was left toe to toe with the last, and got critted bring him to 1hp (Lucky buggers 19 con!!!) he won the next rounds init and popped the ogre, killing it before the ogre could get another strike off on the dwarf..

The players were wiping sweat and giggling almost like school kids at how the battles today had been going.. So they went back to the village to rest up (and replace one dead horse who got ogre swatted).. and we called it a day (almost 5 solid hrs of gaming)..

The player of both the ranger and thief should return next week, and another player might finally show up (the one i mentioned about who totaled his car). That will bring up the party #s to 6 players (out of a poss 7, still unsure if the one with the panic issues will ever show up)..

OK.. Game session 3.
Players in attendance were;
John with his dwarven fighter(2)/cleric(2) PC, Ferlith iron stone "Stinky beard"
His wife Sam with her 1/2 elf druid(3) PC, Ronell
Jeff, the high elf ranger (3) PC, West Sai Dao
John's neighbor (didn't get his name) playing a human bard (4) PC, Athgore Valesonn
Celo the fighter (1) NPC (party henchman, they have 1 week left of his service unless the party negotiates with the mage guild for more time)
and the bard hired the services of a 3rd level human psionicist to act as his own personal healer (since he's a psychometabolic specialist).. Brother Mathias..

Brother Mathias, Human Psychometabolist psionicist. L3. Wis 18, Con and int 16, Str iirc 13, Dex 15, Cha 8. Had one of my new magical items, a Ring of Health as his only magic item..


The party started off in the camp recuperating from the ogre attack. Stinky and Ronell combine their healing to get everyone up to near full after the tough battle. They started off and half a day into their trek had located their comrade, West, who they had left back in Escormian a while back (due to his pc being absent) who was tracking their path after finishing off his business in town..
They continued on their path to the coastline and fought a 5 pack of ghouls.. Between Stinky and West's turning (he's got an amulet vs undead at 6th level), beat them back.. They followed the ghoul's path to their hovel (a cave) and found the remaining ones, and declined to attack, they just both turned and kept them at bay while the others looted the place... This netted them a large haul of gems and 4 magical vials and one spear. Unfortunately neither Stinky or Ronell managed to id which 'school of magic' the items were (Det magic in 2e gives a 10% chance per level of iding what school/sphere the magic is, which MIGHT have led them to potentially identifying the items)...

They finally found the coastline in sight after another day's travel, but before they set up camp for the night, got attacked by a pack of 7 hell hounds... The fight was long, with lots of misses on both sides, but Celo and Athgore both went down, while stinky beard was singed badly.. The last hound to fall, got his head split into by Ronell and her scimitar (Nat 20).. With the fight done, they used their healing spells to get everyone on their feet. At the coast the turned south to the coastal town of Porca, but during the travels got rousted by a group of 7 bugbear., 4 days into the trek southward along the coast..

The battle took the spear-man, Celo, down to 1hp in the first round, while West and Ronell both got some nasty cuts.. 2 rounds later, Ronell is out cold and Athgore was ready to turn tail (after getting hit to within 2hp of going down), but his turning to flee prompted an Aoo from the bugbear on him so he went down.. This scared both West and Stinky, who after doing an in game time out to search up some spells/items they could use, decided to risk drinking one of the unknown potions they had located in the ghoul's hovel.. (they OOC knew what it was, but IC had yet to identify it, as it was printed out on a treasure list i handed them when they defeated the ghouls).. It wound up being a potion of super heroism, which boosted Celo up 5 levels (giving him 32 bonus HP)..
Due to that and some lucky crits in the subsequent 4 rounds, the remaining bugbears were dispatched... After the battle, the dwarf thanked Moradin for the luck he gave his spear-man comrade...

After a few more days travel they had encountered some 'red gnolls, the coloration marking them as the somewhat good ones in the south-lands (i have gnolls being LE, CN and potentially LN depending on where at, and the players had been briefed on how you generally can tell the three apart, and which were aligned via a peace treaty with the local humans in the south-lands).. They aided the gnolls with Stinky at first providing some healing, eventually Ronell joined in, providing some healing not just to the two wounded (and almost out cold) gnolls, but their heavily damaged mule. While this was going on, both Stinky and Athgore (who speak gnoll) listened to their tales of being accosted by some pointy headed hoomans who loved singing spam.. (and inquired what the heck spam is, with me mocking monty python's barbarians with that!! :bigthumbsup: ). After a good Cha check (and yes the dwarf was doing the chatting not the bard or druid who have a much better cha), and a favorable NPC reaction roll, the gnolls followed the party for the remaining day's travel till they got to Porca, and the dwarf even ponied up 5sp to help them reacquire some provisions they had stolen by the barbarians.. I gave both the dwarf and druid some bonus XP for doing that good deed (and if they ever get near that or one of the other gnoll camps and are in need, they will be paid back once.. Good karma you know :wink2: )

After a days full resting up in the town, Athgore and Stinky meandered through the few inns and taverns, looking for gossip, and it was during this time that Athgore started inquiring about any potential mercs (henchmen) he might be able to hire to help healing. Since the Town does have a temple to Peoni, i initially thought of making the henchman being hired a low level cleric but thought since i had already made up the psionicist from that prior group, why not use him...
Athgore paid him for a 2 month stint, which the party had no problem with (all acquired treasure of a monetary basis for now is being considered party funds)..

Since Stinky and Celo were both nearing the time they could level up, they figured they might get a random encounter (or two) on the road back to Escormian, which is where the fighters guild (and one of the 2 locations Moradin has a temple at).. During this 5 day trek, West being the point man got surprised by one of the trapper scorpions, but was missed by all 3 attacks. After the initial shock, the party were quick to swarm the scorpion, and dropped it swiftly before anyone really suffered any damage. They then went down the tunnel the scorpion had dug, and tracked it back to the lair, finding 3 more to face.. Stinky, before the others could plan what to do, charged in screaming obscenities at the scorpions, for their kin almost making lunch of him a few weeks back. The party had to follow as 9 attacks coming the dwarf's way would overwhelm him even with his shield proficiency and armor giving him an AC of 0... Of the 9 attacks, 3 claws struck, but dealt little damage (rolled two 1s and a 4).. During the battle, West and Celo were both skewered by stingers, but only Celo failed his save, but since Ronell had yet to act, used her slow poison on him, to ensure he didn't die..
The battle actually didn't generate much in the way of hysterics, but the party still made fun of the dwarf...
After looting the scorpion lair and getting some more vials and gems (as well as some coins), they headed back up, rested up a little down the road.. 2 days out from Escormian they encountered 2 Worgs.. After some banter from both the bard and dwarf PC about 'two, man that' aint anything. GIVE US MORE!!" i rolled 2d6 (the standard size of a random Worg encounter) to add to the 2 already rolled up (yea i rolled snake-eyes for the initial RE), and improved that # to 7.
The Dwarf almost died (got to -6 before being tended to for his foolishness), but at least the party won out with some well placed crit hits from West and Ronell (Brother Mathias had been trying to kick in his Cell adjustment to heal up some of the party for 5 straight rounds of the battle, but kept rolling an 17 or 19 for his power check, CURSES).. Eventually though he activated it, healing 4hp to Stinky, stabilizing him, and after another round with a successful power check, had brought stinky back up...

That battle had given both Celo and Stinky enough XP to level up (the dwarf on his cleric side), so it was fortuitous they had decided to head to the city with a warrior guild and temple!! :wink2:


This is where we ended the night.. The player of the thief (Robert) hopefully will return from his family stuff for next week, and as for the other 2 potential players (Jack and James) there's not much of an update for either of those 2.. BUT robert's return will hopefully give us a 5 pack of PCs (with the spearman and the Psi henchmen making a 7 man group)...

IIRC they handed it back into the guild.. BUT i can ask next time i see them (sunday afternoon)..
OK so we played this Sat, from 3.20pmish to just after 8pm..

Game session #4.

Pcs present; stinky beard the dwarf,
John with his dwarven fighter(2)/cleric(2) PC, Ferlith iron stone "Stinky beard"
His wife Sam with her 1/2 elf druid(3) PC, Ronell
Jeff, the high elf ranger (3) PC, West Sai Dao
John's neighbor (didn't get his name) playing a human bard (4) PC, Athgore Valesonn
Celo the fighter (1) NPC (party henchman, they have 1 week left of his service unless the party negotiates with the mage guild for more time)
and Brother Mathiis, the 3rd level psion henchman of the bard.

The group got done with level training for Celo (now Ftr 2) and Stinky-beard, the now 2/3 ftr/cl.. (yay he has 2nd level spell access now! woohoo)..

They made little haste in being done, but did stop back in the mage guild to request an extension on having Celo for longer, and got another 2 months added (Celo likes the group for now).. Then they were on the road back to Porka, the coastal fishing town, to rent the services of a ship that could take them to the island, they had been wanting to go to.. After several hours of negotiation (and some good RP) they settled on renting the services of the ship + crew for 50gp to take them to the isl, wait for 3 days then take them back.. Figuring for a 17 day excursion (well hoping for one!)..
The dwarf wishing to give some of his new fandango spells a try, cast augury to see if the sea trip would be fruitful or not.. Due to me knowing the time of year, squalls would be coming up, so his response was a cryptic "it might be advisable to hold off" followed by me rolling a funky large D20 one of the players had in his box o dice that had all sorts of funny sayings on (he said it was specific for another game systems, divination results, so i said WTF, and went with rolling IT to give him his answer...)

They then did some negotiation with the one church in town, to Halea, the local goddess of pleasure, love, and luck.. She was also reverred by merchants and bargainers.. They left their entire 'party funds' worth of gems and coins there, just taking their own stuff, and also left a further 100gp deposit on the boat with message that if the crew of the ship had to wait LONGER than 3 days for the party, once returned, that extra cash would be theirs...
They also stabled all their horses (and the dwarf's riding ram)...
Then came the sea trip. Cause i knew the squalls were around, i rolled a d6 (6 day trek following the coastline, then a day due east from there) to see which day the squalls would hit the ship.. Everyone had to do a dex check once the squalls hit, and Ronnel and Athgore both fell overboard, and so did one of the crewmen (bad dex check for him, but i was giving the ship's crew a bonus cause they were sailors)..
The dwarf and ranger players asked "since they made their checks by well under half, could THEY get a 2nd 'emergency check' to try and arrest the going overboard of some of the other crew..
After thinking on it, i gave them a yes but with a -4 penalty.. Both made it and the 2 other pcs got saved.. Which is when the druid (who up to now had been clamoring to use a spell on her sheet Fist of water) used the spell Watery Fist to grab the last crewman..
Cause of the squalls were getting heavy, the boat captain, pulled into shore, and beached it near some caves... The party went in and rested the night.. The next day the waves were still high and choppy, so they waited one more day.. During this day, due to being near the coastline (the favored spots for those large/giant scorpions) they rumbled into a pair of the critters... Stinky and Celo made an immediate shield wall, while the rest stood back for the time being..
The battle was brief, but one went down in rapid order. Due to that, the rest said 'screw the shield wall, lets all surround it. The luck-o-the dice had the scorpion face off against the West, who along with Ronnel joined in melee (the bard held back while doing his bardic 'singing/tune playing)..
Two rounds into the 4 of them vs the last scorpion, West got stung twice (and clawed once) and failed his save vs poison.. The next round, Ronnel dispensed with her slow poison, while stinky and Celo smashed into it.. Due to some fumbles all around, we actually had it where BOTH sides got an extra round of free strikes, luckily the party hit for theirs, while the scorpion missed wildly (2 and 4 for claw, 3 for stinger...) :facepalm2:

The party bade the ship crew to hold out near the cave, but not stay in it, while they looked around for some herbs so Ronnel should use her healing+herbalism to try and make a purgative to give West a 2nd chance to resist the scorpion venom, but alas, even that proved unable to stop the insipid venom from taking west's life.. Knowing they might, if they have enough coin, stand a chance on a reincarnation once they get back from the island, they let him die off in peace, and wrapped his body up (i allowed purify food and drink to stave off a body's decomp for 1 day per casting IF the body's properly wrapped up FOR NOW. I will be asking that as a question later).. They then went back to the cave, and waited the rest of the day..
Next morning came and though the winds were still up and the sea was rocking nicely, it was still sail-able the captain said..
They made haste to the island (taking the last of their scheduled travel time)...

Once at the island, Ronnel had her pet owl (the one she used animal friendship from a while back) do some scouting, and as I Knew the church ruins were too well covered by vegetation, but was near a leaning stone tower, had the owl see that and a group of 9 'broken-ones'.. The party left the broken ones be, though stinky was all for 'prevenge' (a term they were coining from an online cartoon they had read similar to OOTS), to ensure the broken ones didn't come up behind them..
While resting the night (since they got to the island at around 6pmish), they started seeing several pieces of a ruined ship float by (indicating someone was not so lucky against the squalls).. Enter Kavor (Jeff's back up PC), a half elf Cleric-mage who worshiped Save'K'Nor, the god of wisdom and knowledge... His only possession he had at the time other than clothing was his book which i funnily described to the party as a 'wrapped up item he was holding aloft for all he was worth, while using his legs to hold onto a piece of the ship's mast..
Another good use of Watery fist and the half elf was rescued... He promised to use his spells to aid the party for saving his life.

Next day they entered the tower (which due to subsiding foundation and a # of tunnels and caverns/catacombs underneath it) was leaning. After several long natural corridors/caverns, they had come into one room which had only 2 other exits.. A very sloped down ram leading 30ft to a room partially flooded (only a foot of standing water) and one going upward at a 30 degree angle.. Before they could banter about which way to go, the dwarf was sitting on his shield and SLIDING down into the water with a massive laugh and cheer of excitement (which spoiled any chance HE had of surprising a group of 5 hook horrors i had set up as one of the 3 encounters i had schedule for them to meet down there.. 2nd down was Celo.. So for the first round of actual combat, it was just those 2 going 2 abreast against 2 hook horrors.. Then came down Ronnel, who stood behind them, ready to hit with a healing spell as needed..
Then came Althgor the bard, who took to tossing one of his throwing knives.. An unlucky fumble (with them KNOWING what throwing/shooting into melee means) led to him getting a CRIT on the back of the druid :facepalm:. Lucky she had already gone before and so her cure spell on Celo didn't get ruined..
Next up came Brother Mathias who used his cell adjustment to lend some healing Ronnel's way, while She healed herself up a little (damn Cure moderate wounds only healed her up 3 points _
Lastly came down the new character, who for that battle just stood and watched (he's playing him somewhat of a pacifist mage/cleric)...

Several times both Stinky and Celo were brought to 0hp (or once into the negatives, but were quickly brought back up into fighting condition.. Which is when Celo said bugger this and drunk his last potion of heroism.. Though only gained 11 whapping HP (yea, 7, 2 and 1 for his 3d10+1 roll)..

Even with that boost, he got ko'ed a 2nd time, but not before taking 2 of the hook horrors out himself!.. At this time, Kavor stepped in and tossed a Cause fear which failed on the last hook horror in an attempt to get it to flee. Also the bard player asked me for a morale roll for it, which it passed BARELY (needed 11 or lower for it to stay and rolled a 9).. But eventually between Ronnel using her Scimitar and Stinky's warhammer, the last hook horror was dispatched.. The party quickly fled upstairs, and went back to the beach to rest and heal up...

Next morning they went back right to where they left off and after passing the dead corpses of the 5 hook horrors and going around 200 yards further in the tunnels, came to a larger room where the other 4 of the horrors laird...
The battle was fast and furious, and Ronnel and the bard actually went into battle, hoping to spread the damage the party might sustain out)... but that almost proved to be Ronnel's downfall.. Am unlucky crit from one of the horror's claws took her down to -4 in one shot, but a Cure light followed by Brother Mathias's use of "Lend Health" gave her back some much needed health..
The battle was done for 5 rounds later... Those standing slapped everyone else, then tended to the wounded before going through the swag they had acquired.. A few potions, some coin, gems and art items.. and a suit of magical chain mail and a magical rapier (OOC both +1).. After checking the DMG for the chain's size (human), the set was given to Celo for his loyalty, while Athgore got the rapier... A scroll was also located and handed off to Kavor.

Now finished with that passage, and leg of this underground maze (or so they were feeling), they went back to one of the first larger caverns they came to, and decided to take a different route..
Going down, around and back again, they eventually stumbled on a large cavern, lair to a group of Ghouls and ghasts.. (13 and 3 respectively).. I had hoped by now, they might have had thought to bring the amulet that West had, but left it and all his other belongings on his body out of respect), so they had only Stinky's turning attempt to smack back some before melee ensued, which took out 6 of the ghouls..
During the battle, it got to the ghasts and only stinky and Kavor left standing and unparalized, bt some good uses of spells (faerie fire and aid/bless) let the rest of the group smite the ghouls quickly, before they got TOO low in party members.. Eventually a well placed flask of oil (from Kavor) followed by a crit from stinky took down the last ghast....

They waited to get everyone un-paralyzed before asking Bother Mathias to share one of his rings around (a ring of health that gives max value on any cure wound spell) so everyone could be brought up to full health.. I actually gave him a Loyalty roll to see if he would comply (had the bard player make it since it was HIS henchman) and they lucked out VERY MUCH with a very low roll of 4... So the ring got passed around till everyone was brought up to full... BUT brother Mathias is regretting mentioning what the ring DOES (well me) to Stinky now...

They then looted the cave and fled back to camp...

We broke at that point (the couple's 7 yr old was getting cranky and hungry, and called it a night)..
Before we all left, we spoke about next weekend (thanks giving) and cause 3 of the won't make it, asked if i would be ok running tomorrow (sunday) from say opening (1pm) till around 6pm instead...

I have 2 new encounters charted up for tomorrow for 'scheduled' and 3 randoms left to go...

Game session #5..
Pc's present; Stinky beard the dwarf played by John
Ronnel the druid, played by Sam
the new half elf cleric-mage Kovar, played by Jeff (the one who's got the dead ranger!)
the half elf thief, Clinton Wentworth "Junior" played by Robert (the guy who was absent for the past 3 weekends), John's neighbor the bard was missing, so it was almost a straight swap..
Celo the human spear-man fighter (party henchman), and Brother Mathias (human psionicist), the missing bard's henchman rounded the group out...

Kovar, Half elf Cleric ranger, 18 Int and wis, 16 Con, 13 Cha and 11 Str. Started out with only a pair of bracers defense AC 7...

After resting the night, the group decided to go back in and finish off the ghouls they had turned the prior day, and finish out that line of the 'caverns'. After making it ok back to where the encountered the ghouls, they sure as heck found them.. RUSHING at the party.. But again they left the dead ranger's amulet ON him (more out of respect for the dead, and not wanting to steal from him right now).. So stinky was left to turn which he succeeded at easily (rolled a 19 on his turn)... They followed the ghouls as they ran out of the cavern, through a curved corridor, leading through yet another cavern, corridor into one last cavern.. In that they saw 13 skeletons and 8 zombies.. but one of these skeletons wore tatty robes, and had a sickly green glow around his hands and in his eye sockets (One of my returned mages, i had him 5hd, and the troops what he had animated).
He tried right from the get go to turn the skeletons/zombies, feeling they should be easy peachy.. BUT when they didn't flinch to his turn roll of 14, he smacked his head and remembered "man you can't turn these buggers if they are under the sway of something stronger"..> GHHAA who is it!?!?

That's when the party (well minus Ronnel and Kovar were discussing what the heck to do) saw the glowy handed skeleton chatter his teeth, which in its own way sounded eerie.. Then he saw 3 small skulls shrouded in the same sickly green energy fly towards stinky (Magic missile), which just passed through his armor as if it was paper, then 'ate part of his soul'.. prompting the player to say "So what's a save vs avoid crapping yourself check? Death save, willpower roll??"! (He took only 7 points of damage from the 3 missiles)..

The skeletons led the way to battle with the party, who smartly stood in the cavern entrance, so they could go two pcs abreast and only 6 skeletons could face them at one time.. Celo took the right side, stinky the left The first round of combat, saw Celo deal out minimal damage to the skeletons (damn that half weapon damage for piercing and slashing weapons!) , though avoided any return damage.. The zombies were lumbering to fill in the rear of them, ready to take the spot once any became available. Junior held back and let loose a pair of flight arrows from his short bow, one barely nicking the skeletal caster (not noticing that they didn't actually damage him right now)...
The Returned mage skeletal figure tossed a shield spell up, while Ronnel hit everyone with a bless, Kovar cursed the skeletons and stinky popped an aid on himself.. Luckily the bless went up before everyone acted (except for Celo) so they all got its benefit..

The next round saw the skeletal figure hurl a larger green arrow shrieking through the air to land in stinky (melf's acid arrow), and its acid ate into his armor.. His return damage to a skeleton obliterated it (maxed out his damage at 9 to a 5hp skeleton).. Celo finally dropped HIS skeleton, but took a crit from the other one on his side, and saw a new one join in. Junior whiffed his two arrows, so had no "Observation" check to make to tell his arrows were not having an affect (they were not magical so they wouldn't have).. Kovar contemplated cursing the zombies, at this time but felt that maybe taking the glowy handed skeleton out was more important. SO he unrolled a scroll containing a melf's acid arrow, and read from it, rolling ok to set it in flight, but the gods were not shining on him, and it went wildly into a wall instead of the skeleton...

The players all felt betrayed by the gods when they felt their buffs leave them (the curse was the only thing that stuck) after the skeletal caster dispelled magic on the group, almost taking Celo's only remaining healing potion with it.. BUT their attacks, fueled by desparation all smited skeleons, dropping 2 more.. Ronnel even tossed a sling bullet through the melee to strike one of the zombies still out of melee, and Junior managed to finally hit with another arrow on the skeletal caster, and finally saw - his arrows were not doing anything. Then it hit like a book smacking him in the face, Magic was needed to dispatch the foe.
Stinky called for him to go into dual wield mode and replace him in the fighting line, and make room for Ronnel, so he could back off and bring up a Spiritual hammer to smite the caster with, while she and the thief would combine their blades (her using a flame blade), to keep off the zombie and skeletal horde...

A number of rounds later, they were down to 7 zombies and 3 skeletons, but the dwarf's spiritual hammer finally took out the damnable skeletal caster, though the mindless undead didn't seem to notice (they rolled 05 for their morale, which held).. But even with the morale holding, the party eventually wiped them out, and not a moment too soon, as the ghouls turn had finally wore off, so stinky re-applied it, holding them at bay once again.. He kept it up, while the party looted what treasure they saw in the rear of the cavern, then they all fled back upstairs to the camp site on the shoreline.. After a good dinner, and healing, they set to start identifying some of the magical items they had ammassed..
Kovar, thanks to his god Save'K'Nor, had a much better chance to do so, than many would have given him credit for (granted power of SKR was that divination spells cast are as if cast at 5 levels higher for all aspects)... So he had a 60% chance.. First day he succeeded on identifying a suit of chain +1 (which was already given to celo from the prior day's loot they had gathered up), one of two potions of Heroism (which Celo got to replace the one he used. 2 more vials were checked and they were identified as elixers of health (great since they kept running into scorpions, now they had a way to neuter the poison of them beasties).. he failed though to identify 2 other potions, so they got put to the side... Then they rested for the night.. Next day they went at identifying items again, and first up came a cursed scroll (random roll i had made it grow ALL hair on the scroll reader by 10 inches.. ALL HAIR, which almost made him blind as his eye lashes were all now super long) , but he succeeded in identifying a wand, another potion (speed) a necklace of missiles (three 3hd, two 5hd and a 7hd remaining on it), a pair of boots and a rapier (+1) which went to the bard Athgore... They contemplated going for a 3rd day of identifying but said no, lets go..

So back into the catacombs/caverns they went.. Rumbling into a ghoul (5) + ghast (2) random encounter, which after Stinky turned 4 of the ghouls, actually went swiftly (4 rounds of combat, and only 2 bite hits total were achieved by the undead, while nearly EVERY attack the party launched hit)...
They finally made it back to the large 5 exit central chamber they came to call midway junction.. As they had cleared out passage way 2 and 4, they started on 1, and after a brief excursion into a cavern that looked all caved in, came back then went down #3.. They came to a 50ft downward drop, so Stinky wearing his new boots (levitation) went down, using his infravision to scout ahead (and saw nothing due to undead NOT registering on it, as they are room temperature).. Several of the others managed to get down before a quartet of Z-throk were onto stinky (my new undead that 'disease their opponents' rather than level drain or paralyze).. his attempt to turn them almost critical failed (he rolled a 2) So they had to all go into melee in an open chamber, but cause they were able to effectively swarm them, they took the z-throk out, with only 4 of the party really taking damage.. Even Brother Mathias got involved with using his Molecular Agitation to burn one of them!!.. But Celo took sufficient damage, that if it wasn't for gulping half of one of the elixirs of health, he would have become one of the undead beasties... Stinky finished that bottle out, so he was at least down to single digits for his % chance of turning... They made some prayers to the gods that they won't run into many more of them beasties soon, then proceeded on...

Cue the second random encounter i had rolled, and i had a good spot for it.. A pair of umber hulks coming out while they were walking through a corridor.. Stinky was engaged by the one on the left, while Celo got it on the right.. Ronnel joined in with Celo with her scimitar, and Junior stood with Stinky..
A pair of crit claws on stinky almost dropped him in one blow (took 23 of his 39 hp, he had healed up to 26 after the Z-throk battle), and he got scared (so did Kovar), who cursed the umberhulk (succeeded), hoping his cursing of it would make it harder to hit the party..
Brother Mathias tried to soften its hardened caripice to make it easier to be hit back, but I forgot that it doesn't work on living foes (bugger me)... So he went to his backdrop of M.A to burn it some.... After the 2nd round, the one on Stinky and Junior tried to use his Confusion eye power on stinky but he made his safe, and critted the umber hulk for his efforts (junior missed for his attacks).. Both Celo and Ronnel though struck into their umber hulk, wounding it greatly (Celo maxed his damage out and Ronnel was 2 points shy of max).. Next round HE was hit by the Confusion, but rolled a lucky 20 for his safe.. After another round where Celo critted with his spear, that umber hulk fell, and the morale of the other one failed, so he started plodding off, but all the members of the party (even Kovar tossing a magic missile) gang banged on him, eventually dropping him..

They felt weak and weary, so went back up, to the top of that 50ft drop off, and healed up/rested.. Next morning they came back down, (stinky peed on one of the dead Z-throk carcases), then proceeded further in.. The sound of skittering limbs on rock surfaces alerted them all to a quartet of large scorpions approaching. Stinky went into his 'prevenge' mode (he's itching to convert his pc into a berserker it seems, but his wisdom is too high to be a vindicator unfortunately).. After Junior and Ronnel both got skewered by the stingers, the 2nd Elixier of health went bye bye... BUT that's the only damage they took (all the claw attacks missed :blueangry: )..

Finding nothing more down this area, they finally decided to go clear out 'the fifth' tunnel system, and rumbled into a bunch of Orogs (11).. The battle was brutal, dropping both Celo and Junior and seriously wounding both Ronnel and Stinky.. Kovar and brother Mathias had already started to retreat, with Kovar thinking of using one of the beads from a necklace of missiles that was amongst the items they had identified.. it was then that the player of stinky had an epiphany.. He cast Withdraw, and since at his level, he effectively got 5 rounds of actions cause of it in the time of 1 action, he grabbed Junior, ran him back to the others, then did the same to Celo, by the time Kovar was ready to actually TOSS that bead missile, stinky and everyone else was out of the blast radius.. All but 3 of the Orogs died from the blast and those 3 became easy pickings for the group..
Looting their treasure, they all made their way back up, content that they had hopefully solved the riddle of what might have happened to the last adventuring band that came here (4 of them were amongst the skeletons, 2 were z'throks and one had been eaten by scorpions), they decided, after resting up the night to start the long trek back to porca, and eventually onto Escormian, where since there was a mage guild they hoped to retain the services of a mage to get Reincarnation cast on West the Elf ranger.. Also, Celo, Ronnel, Kovar AND stinky all need to get level training done...

THAT will be tackled the week after thanksgiving...

Game session #6..
Pc's present; Stinky beard the dwarf played by John
Ronnel the druid, played by Sam
the new half elf cleric-mage Kovar, played by Jeff (the one who's got the dead ranger!)
the half elf thief, Clinton Wentworth "Junior" played by Robert (the guy who was absent for the past 3 weekends),
John's neighbor the bard Athgore showed up, so we had all 5 players..
Celo the human spear-man fighter (party henchman), and Brother Mathias (human psionicist), the bard's henchman rounded the group out...

So the group gets back onto the boat and heads back to Porca. Once there, Athgore tries to find a 2nd henchmen, but has no luck in the coastal city. Knowing they are still needing to get to Escormian and quick, they make haste, even bypassing the opportunity to go travel with a caravan that would leave 2 days later..
On their journey to Escormian, they end up rumbling into one of the 2 planned encounters i had.. A test run of my new monster (the undead, Kephrinn).. 4 of them showed up.
It was during the night watch, where the druid, Ronnel was on shift (along with Brother Mathias), and had her befriended owl out on scouting duty, so he was able to warn the group before the 4 undead 'shambling bags of bones' rumbled into the party's camp. This gave Celo and Stinky the chance to don armor and for the group to get into a defensive formation.
As soon as the Kephrinn entered the light of the camp fire (and one lantern that Celo had lit), Stinky tried turning them, but failed, though he was 2 away from succeeding (he cursed his die).. Then Ronnel popped off an aid on Stinky while Kovar brought up bless on everyone. Athgore started his singing to boost everyone's morale..

First round, no one really got hit nor did any of them get hit back.. In round 2, stinky fumbled his attack, and the Kephrinn fighting him fumbled HIS 'free attack back'.. BUT in his regular attack he would get, scored a mighty blow on stinky, hurting him for 9hp.. Ronnel got up the wind to join in with Junior who was popping off arrows into the final Kephrinn skirting the party's sides (so was not technically in melee). But his two arrow shots missed, while Ronnel tumbled over after a real poor sling shot (she fumbled then rolled a nat 19 on her dex check).. Stinky landed HIS normal blow dealing 6 damage to his target, while Celo scored a nasty crit, but since he has no magical spear as of yet, the crit was for naught.. Immediately, stinky to his side, screamed "GHHHAAA, normal weapons don't do jack to these foes.. The following round, Ronell kicked in her flame blade, and so did stinky, thinking its damage would be greater than his warhammer (barely though).. Kovar managed to tie up 2 of the beasties in an entangle, so Celo stepped away from melee, and rummaged in his backpack for flasks of oil, but he didn't douse them after both Ronnel and Junior felt that the burning oil would 'cook off' the weeds entangling those 2. Ronnel and Junior, now wielding his +1 sword, tag teamed one of the other Kephrinn left, while stinky (with the help of Kovar using a magic missile), smacked into the other..
It took 3 rounds of this before the first one went down, brought to -4 in one smite of Ronnel's flame blade.. Then they got the surprise of their life, when it exploded and showed Ronnel in flaming bone fragments, nastily cutting her up..
Stinky took his down, but didn't get as much damage when it went boom. Then the oil got lit, cooking the other 2, and as feared freeing both of them.. BUT the combo of the 2 flame blades and long sword took them down in short order... They spent the rest of the night healing up, and wondering "what were those pesky bags of bones..."

On the 4th day of 5 traveling to Escormian they ran into a patrol of city guards on route to do a rotation relief for Porca.. Celo and Stinky gave them the low down on those beasties along with several others they had encountered in their travels, and even told the city guard commander, of the boat captain in Porca they had.. He even wrote out a note of recommendation for his bravery and loyalty (cause he stayed with them on the island)..

After they hit Escormian, Stinky, Celo, Kovar and Ronnel were capable of training (Kovar could have leveled up twice in cleric, but due to the 1 at a time thing had to wait).. Additionally, due to Ronnel being a druid, they would need to head either to the capital, Pra'kova, or to the city of Vestway to find a druid.. Word had gotten to them though that at the mo, the druid of Vestway (the arch druid of the area) was out of town and IN Pra'kova, on a visit to the lord protector, while the lord's advisor druid was out west near some groves, just to the west of one of the 2 Lizard-man camps along the river 3 days out from the city..

So down they went, this time they were smart and got onto a caravan...
Day 13 in the 18 day trek down, they rumbled into a mated pair of Owlbears with one of their young, out from the nearby forest, Tiefideal. The druid tried in vane to talk to them (they are monsters to me so the druidic animal charm wouldn't work).. The battle was fierce, and Ronnel along with Brother Mathias were both brought into the negatives, before Celo and Stinky vanquished the trio.. Kovar and stinky roused up their two allies, and rested up a mile down wind.. Then once everyone had recovered, they tracked back (even though none had the tracking NWP, i had everyone roll their Wisdom with a -10 penalty, TWO rolled natural ones, so were able to at least track this time) the Owlbear's lair..
They found little of value magically, but at least garnered some much needed coin (after all the paying out for level training!!).

Once they had passed through Vestway, they tumbled into a 2nd random monster encounter.. 3 slightly emaciated large trapper-scorpions. The battle went swiftly due to 4 crit hits in 3 rounds on the scorpions, however, poor Ronnel got not only criticalled by a claw, BUT by a stinger, bringing her to almost out cold there, but she failed her saving throw.. Luckily she was able to disengage and cast slow poison in the following round.. Her attempts to locate suitable foliage to make a purgative, failed, but Kovar did manage, and gave the ingredients to her to pop off a potion (her healing check was successful). Drinking it though, didn't provide as much relief as she hoped (she rolled a nat 2 on her 2nd saving throw).. Both stinky and Ronnel combined their 2nd level spells, to keep her up and at them, while both she and stinky (along with Kovar) drunk some vitality potions so they could ride through the night back to town and get help..
After Kovar chatted with Brother Beduii (the local high priest of Peoni, one of only 2 temples in Vestway), they garnered the neutralize poison to save her life, and ponied up some serious coin (1k more) to get 5 more neutralize poison potions, so next time they run into those damnable scorpions they are prepared!

After finding out that one of the lesser druids of the arch was still in town, they had Ronnel level up, and luckily her saves got a boost now (since she went from 3rd level to 4th).. Stinky was itching to go on a quest to vanquish ALL Giant scorpions from the lands, but alas for him the OTHER's were not so eager...

Now with everyone up and at their best, they headed back up northward to Escormian and pulled in just as the first day of snow started falling. While everyone else rested, Athgore, checked in with the warrior guild to see if any newly trained fighters would be willing to sign on with the group as a henchman of his.. I rolled a good enough reaction, i had one, a Gnoll fighter, who was a hunter/tracker by trade in the gnoll village 3 days to the north west of Escormian, respond in the positive.. After coin was exchanged, and the dwarf stinky handed over a nice shiney bauble to pay for a months service (FOR NOW) they were as a party, now 8 man strong, off to Porca.
They figured they could make it to Porca before things got too bad, and headed eastward. 1 and a half days out, as they were breaking camp, they rumbled into the last of the 2 planned encounters, as the sounds of barbarian war drums were heard off to the north..
Sending the owl that way, Ronnel figured out the barbarians were heading towards Porca too, but they would reach there before the party.. (OOC speech, after the party had asked what do we see when we get up on this hill, they forgot my answer was 200 yards away you notice the 24 strong man group, who see YOU and start turning in your direction), they initially planned to ride up behind the barbarians.. Eventually after that clarification was made that BOTH groups saw one another, i had the barbarian group leader (a Wiley 5th level fighter), roll a morale of sorts (to decide if he would send any of his band to 'deal with these interlopers' or would they ALL go.. I got a result of cautious on the NPC reaction chart, so i had him split off the 12 archers..
Stinky and Celo charged in along with Junior. Cause of this, Athgore felt that he had to accompany them if he ever wanted his bardic musical talents to boost their morale (and to hit rolls). Brother Mathias, and the newly minted fighter, Vasux Slabfang (the Gnoll fighter), stood back and launched arrows..
Within the first round of charge from Stinky, Celo and Junior, 3 of the 12 archers were taken out. 2 arrows from the Gnoll and Brother M, took a 4th out, and not a ONE of the return arrows from the archers hit.. Things were not going good for these barbarians..
OOC NOTE: Even with me mentioning about the 2e optional rule of fighters getting 1 attack a round against 0 level opponents, the party agreed NOT TO use it, since they had not been doing so up till now).. A 2nd round into things, and another 2 archers fell to the party's tenacity. It was cause of seeing this, that the barbarian leader, said "Shank this, all you spear-men, RUN IN THERE AND Kill me something!!.. That went on while He stood back and consumed his only magical item he used.. A potion of speed (this would shift him from 3/2 to 6/2, 2 attacks in the first round, 4 in the 2nd is how i run it) with his broad sword which he was specialized in, AND allow him to run into the battle easier!..
2 rounds into the battle with the newly engaged spear-men and the leader the 5 surviving archers pulled back so they could target the party's two archers and slinger (Ronnel)..

After the spear-men engaged, Ronnel closed in so she could entangle many of them, even after realizing that her OWN people would also be caught up in the ropey tendrils of the spell.. Unfortunately for Junior (Still on his horse), he was the ONLY one who failed (so did the horse!) but 5 of the 7 surviving spear-men were also caught. Celo felled the 2 on him in quick succession, while stinky ignored the one on him and concentrated on the leader, hurling curses in a veiled attempt to get HIM to challenge the dwarf in a duel.. Pity by that time, the barbarian leader had been tagged with both a sling stone, an arrow from Brother M, and a magic missile from Kovar... Brother Mathias and Slabfang the Gnoll, realized everyone was too muddled up to keep firing arrows, so both charged in on their horses.

Several more rounds passed, and the party were down a man (Brother Mathias had been hit by a quartet of arrows from the archers while he closed in), but the enemy was emaciated with only 2 spear-men and the leader left in melee, and the 5 archers slowly making a withdraw. Then the leader got felled by both Celo and Stinky critting him in simultaneous smacks..

Victorious, the group looted what treasure the barbarians had (a number of gems and a few pieces of art work, along with a pair of Javelins of lightning that the barbarians just thought were regular javelins as they lacked a shaman to ID magic)..

The game got called when the party entered Porca, and told the tale of obliterating the Barbarian foes..

Game session #6..
Pc's present; Stinky beard the dwarf played by John
Ronnel the druid, played by Sam
the new half elf cleric-mage Kovar, played by Jeff (the one who's got the dead ranger!)
the half elf thief, Clinton Went-worth "Junior" played by Robert (the guy who was absent for the past 3 weekends),
John the player of the bard was missing so we were down to 4 actual PCs..
Celo the human spear-man fighter (party henchman), along with Vazus Slabfang (the new Gnoll fighter) and Brother Mathias (human psionicist), the bard's 2 henchmen rounded the group out...

I unfortunately deleted out Slabfang's cha sheet, cause he died a # of sessions later, so don't have any stat info for anyone...

After finishing off with the feast ending. Stinky starting ranting about wanting to make the skull and forearm bones of the dead barbarian leader into a cup and some utensils, and other stuff (like preserving the flesh to be food, finding the family of those barbarians and making them EAT their dead comrades and laugh while they realized what they had just done), but thought the better of it after i said something like that would certainly be chaotic if not outright evil..
SO he settled for heading over to one of the 6 scrimshaws in the town to get the skull at least made into a mug (for ale)... this would be a week long process, and waves nearby were high. They spent the night then went out to chat to their friend the boat owner, and (after rolling the night prior to see how his ship was handling) got to chatting about the damage some of the high winds were causing his main mast and sail (tore up).. Several mending spells later, the ship was in far better condition and once again sea worthy. The party felt that with the snows starting to come, they would be best served by heading back to the island before the winds and waves (and show) made it a necessity to camp out till spring before returning..
They had no encounters going to the island, but decided to park off shore and anchor, then sail all around the island before landing to investigate the tower they had missed earlier (i had done some restocking with some monsters during the intervening 2 weeks)..
As they camped on the boat the 2nd night, Ronnel sent her owl friend out to go a scouting, but after one Random encounter with 2 Hippogriffs (i boo-booed and called them griffons), he got ate.. Even though the Spell Animal friendship does NOT MENTION anything what so ever about it, i figured she would wake up in a startle, with a feeling of dread and loss at the sudden death of the owl, and she actually RPed that well.
The party continued on the boat northward, and the 3rd night's set up mentioned they saw the tails of some lizard flying things off in the distance on land.. So in morning they went to explore..

Initially they thought since the bard was just a 'stay behind person on the boat with the crew, that the henchmen of his would also stay there (OOC but one of the players reminded me that's not how i handled Mathias the last time the bard was missing).. So he went along with the group and so did the gnoll, who became their new tracker..
After an hour march through the forest they came to a clearing where they saw those lizard things (my hell flies).. I rolled a surprise along with an NPC reaction and 5 kept munching on the 2 dead Hippogriffs (who had ate Ronnel's Owl the night earlier) and the other 4 attacked the party.
Of the 4 attacking the group, 2 opted to do their spit, while 2 went for ramming charges.. (OOC of the players only John has not seen pitch black but the others recognized my description, and Jeff kinda flinched at the visual of these 4 lizard things flying at them!!)
Of the 2 rammers, only one hit, going right into Junior's chest, NOT knocking him down but stunning him for 3 rounds!! ( I miss wrote down what their stunning duration was, it should have only been 2, but he got no more damage during that additional 3rd round, so no real foul).. The two spitters breathed on Celo and Stinky.. Stinky failed and took 10 points of damage, while Celo saved and their acid spit sailed harmlessly by...
The fighting was fierce, and Celo and the gnoll Slabfang tag teamed the two on their side, while Ronnel and brother Mathias went to the aid of the downed Clint went-worth, while stinky stood toe to toe with his... After 4 rounds, stinky finally downed his hell-fly, and Celo fished off his.. (OOC at this time, i made another reaction roll to see if any of the 5 left eating the Hippogriffs left to join in the fight none did, so made a mental note to do it again in round 7).. 2 more rounds later, neither of the 2 hell flies left had been dropped, but Went-worth was close to doing so just from repeated bites... Finally in round 7, after another reaction roll making 2 more come into the fray), the group of Clint, Ronnel, Mathias and stinky dropped the third of the initial bunch, while Celo and Slabfang made mince meat of theirs.. (one last RR had it where the last three would join in the very next round). After a quick series of crits from both Jr and Ronnel, the new one that joined in on Their side, got dropped quick, but Ronnel took some serious damage from his acid spit. The one on Celo and Slabfang, was missing and so were they!!.
The last three were just as nasty to our heroes as the initial group of 4 were, one ramming into Went-worth and dropping him (but not stunning him), one ramming and stunning Slabfang, and one spitting at Stinky (but missing).. Eventually the party felled these 3 final pests.. And retired back to the ship to heal up as several were bad off... Before heading off, Clint and Mathias joined in, in gutting all them and finding 6 gems, a decent haul for their troubles if nothing else..

Issue #1.
It was when they went back to the boat, John, playing Stinky did something that made me wonder if Me allowing Brother Mathias (the henchman of the bard to keep with them was fair or not), when he almost DEMANDED that brother M hand his ring of health over so all would share in its benefits (max healing from any cure wound spell cast) if HE Wanted to get healed... At this point i left it alone but i WILL Talk this over with the bard player to see how HE wants to handle it next time he shows up...

The next morning, they went back to the clearing and Slabfang tracked the Hippogriffs to the cliff end where just 20ft down, was their lair. Stinky used his boots of levitation to go down, and tie off a rope for the others to come down. Ronnel was #2, then Clint, then Brother Mathias, then Kovar, then Slabfang then finally Celo. It was just after brother M came down the 3 younger HGs in the cave came out to attack their interlopers.. Clint got mauled on the very first attack, but a poor trio of dice rolls meant the 3 hits dealt a whapping 4 damage to him... However, Stinky started into a 'failure to even hit AC 8 spree.. Missing 8 straight attacks!. Slabfang and Ronnel managed to kill the smallest, while Brother M used Share health to keep Clint in the game, (along with Kovar popping off a magic missile into one).. It was just as the last of these young-uns was dying off, that Celo (the rear most, keeping a watch outside) mentioned that 3 more were en-route.. The parents and the oldest of the 4 offspring... This is when Stinky was looking up the spell card for Wyvern watch and got itching to use it..

Issue #2
After a back and fourth on we read it (by the write up it seems it MIGHT be in his favor that it attacks ALL that come into the 10ft radius, and KEEPS attacking them till it hits something then dissipates, and ME seeing that its a one and done thing, we settled on (FOR NOW) that it would get one shot each round..
However it was moot as the first Hippo that entered the area rolled a Nat 1 on his save, and plummeted down into the frothing sea 30ft below the cave's entrance... Slabfang had stood out beyond the rest and tried pelting one other others with his bow (and almost tossed it OVER the side with a nat 1 on his 2nd shot), then got mauled with a crit bite from the one that landed near him... However the rest rumbled the remaining 2 HG's with ease.. Seems Stinky's bad die rolls had reversed..
Figuring that they had a decent defensible position they decided to rest IN the cave..

After the night's rest and everyone being up to near max, (and looting what the Hippogriffs had) they went back out, and Slabfang once again took lead, scouting to where they hoped they would, eventually find the tower.
In route, they saw a pair of adult owl bears (with 3 cubs) and after Ronnel and Stinky had a quick discussion on whether they could kill or try to capture them for selling off, they realized that it was more trouble than it would be worth at the mo), they went on further, and camped in the open in a small clearing.
Stinky once again put up his Wyvern watch, while the rest spread out.. ON Stinky's watch, he noticed 2 of the 3 cubs enter far enough away from him that his WW would not kick in, but did not bother at THIS point in attacking them, till he saw that they were going for the food in the backpacks of Slabfang and Clint (random roll to see who's packs they went towards).. At this point, he used a Produce flame to toss near them to scare them off (bad morale roll on my part and they DID run off, but straight to the 2 parents).. This is when dad came in straight for stinky.. After an alert to the rest, he was engaged.. He tossed another ball from his PF hitting the Owl-bear setting it on fire, but fretted it would stay to attack when i mentioned they are WELL KNOWN for their ferocity and would rarely leave an enemy if at all (paraphrased the MM write up).. So it went to maul him (but missed, while he levitated up and tossed down a flask of oil in the OB's path.. After it went through i gave even odds of it getting covered and setting the oil alight and he got lucky it did.. BUT it kept coming on..
Mom though, went in to attack some of the others.. After a crit on the bite AND both claws hitting, Celo was caught in a death lock bear hug! And lost almost 3/4 of his health right there (OUCH!!)...
Ronnel ran over to assist Clint and Brother M taking on Mommy dearest, while Slabfang fired arrows at the one on Stinky wounding it greatly (John now understands the value of percentile strength, a strength bow AND being a specialist in the bow)... Dad went down (-3) and was still burning...
Mom didn't last much longer after Ronnel kicked in a flame blade and burned her good... Clint circled around to get a flank attack, and scored a nasty near MAX damage long sword blow to the bear's rear, but it still held on to Celo, biting him into incapacitation.. At this point, it dropped Celo and went to try and smack Clint..
After Slabfang and Clint hit it once more in the following round, it was dead...
The party feared resting here to get Celo up and active (dropping into the negatives sucks!!), they helped move him towards where Slabfang said the tower should be.. A few hours later, they finally made it to the Old, decrepit (over 2000+ years!) and so over grown it was easy now to understand WHY they missed it the first time... Finding an old placard with an ancient version of halfling wrote on it (basically a "This tower dedicated to the watchmen of the blah blah blah"), they discussed what to do. As they were near night time, and Celo was still needing a good night's rest (6 days of his week long bed rest was removed due to a # of cure moderates being used), they decided to camp out atop the tower..
It was up here, and thinking about how this place would have looked like a long time back some got the idea it might have been either a primitive signal tower OR possibly even an archaic light house (the latter was closer to the truth).. During the night, Slabfang and Clint spied the camp of the broken ones that the party had saw the last time they were up here, and after rousing awake Ronnel, she sent her new best freind, a crow she had come across before they battled the Owl-bears, it told her of the camp and that they were seeming to be strange two leggers....
Clint stripped off his armor and went scouting on foot, since none of the rest heard what the bird told Ronnel... and she seemed tight lipped about it for the moment..
He saw the old one of the group (a 5th level shaman, old crone female figure) kind of story telling to the other 7 in camp (2 were out on watch).. He was spotted though (his Move silently had failed by 23%)... He went back (being followed by the crone's cat friend (similar to a familiar) and 2 of the broken ones.. Ronnel came down to stand by Clint, while the rest stayed up in the tower..
After some chatter back and fourth they found out these caveman-esque things had been stranded here on the island for a long time (exiled from the main island when the humans came to take the lands back from the monster kind).. They have since been dwindling due to monster attacks, and were just trying to ekk out a survivalist living.. Ronnel asked if the group would be allowed to talk to the old one, and after a good reaction roll (she barely got a favorable cause of her cha), she was allowed (her being a half elf, along with Clint were ok due to many of the broken ones being friends with the elves in the woods on Kaloom), but were initially reluctant to allow the Gnoll, or the humans and dwarf, but after some more RP and another couple of reaction rolls, the dwarf was okayed to come in. Celo stayed out with Brother M and Slabfang, to guard the entrance area to the camp of the broken ones, while the rest went to chat with the crone..
It was during this chat, they had learned of a great evil/haunting on this island, many skeletons and flaming skeletal figures, and other 'nasties' (most were in that cave system the group had already cleared out, but some are UNDER the tower, something for a later date, and linked to that question i asked earlier this week on the turning battles)... They also learned the BO's feared the tower so stayed clear of it, and up to NOW had no issue with the HGs or Owl-bears... And mourned the loss of both (but ate well, when Stinky offered to allow them to cook up one of the dead Owl-bears)..

It was during this meeting i had noticed time was running low for our night of fun, and so ran the last of the encounters i had scheduled.. A trio of Dagons (Two lightning breath and one cold).. With once again some random allocation, two went into the pack of the broken ones and most of the party, while the 3 henchmen outside (Celo, Slabfang and Brother M), got the last (the cold breather).. Again after random determination (for that group at least) it landed to do melee, while the other 2 went for a breath weapon strafe before engaging in melee..
Stinky, Clint and two of the Broken ones were hit by the right most Dagon, while Ronnel, and 3 others were hit by the left most one.. Ronnel saved, along with one of the 3 on her side, taking 10 damage, while Stinky and both of the ones on his side failed, Clint making his though.. He took 11, while Stinky took the full 22 from the breath weapon...
The battle was fierce, and they soon learned not every monster is easy to hit (AC -1!!, when so far most of what they have fought were AC 3 to 7)... Stinky's player john made a comment "wow, something that's not easy to take out, egads, if this is not a proper time for my super-heroism potion i got, i don't know what is!!, Celo thought the same and glugged his heroism down.. Once again Clint was taken down to nearly 0hp (had 2 left before managing to run away) after a series of claws from the 2nd Dagon gutted him. It was after drinking his potion, that Stinky activated his new favorite spell, Wyvern watch, and cheered in glee as it paralyzed the Dagon fighting on his side of the field... Ronnel though was not fortunate with her round, getting her head almost bit off by their Dagon.
Celo and Slabfang scored a pair of crits on theirs, almost killing it in one round (man their dice were hot there!).. Brother M ran back to the main group to see he could help with Cell adjustment, but rolled a Nat 20, wounding himself badly.. Kovar had retreated, but came back into the fray to heal up Clint.. After 2 rounds of bashing on the downed Dagon, Stinky and his group of 3 remaining broken ones killed that side, when the other one decided enough was enough and lined up to breath a 2nd time (it had been 4 rounds and it was down to 4 HP).. Ronnel was the only one able to hit it in time, but almost fumbled (rolled a nat 2), but cheers went up when all in the line saved vs the lightning breath taking only 9 damage (Ronnel got dropped even with only taking 9 damage).....

After finishing off the last Dagon, the group decided to negotiate with the surviving broken ones, including the crone, that they will be willing to transport the broken ones back to the main island, OR they can stay here if the party help clears the baddies out...

This is where we ended the night... Now to plan out (and map out) the dungeon underneath that tower, and make up a few lists of what else is there..!!

On the Wyvern watch, I did some discussing over on DF about it, and made a call that i informed the group of next session..

OK, game 7 in the bag.. All 5 players were present, so with the 3 henchmen, that made a full 8 person table.
Stinky the dwarf fighter/cleric
Ronnel, the half elf druid
Clinton Wentworth "Jr" the elf thief
Athgore the human bard
Kovar the half elf cleric-mage for the pcs, and Slabfang the gnoll fighter, Celo the human fighter and Brother Mathias the human psionicist.

We had a little OOC moment where i went over the ruling i would be using from here on with Wyvern watch.. it attacks 1/round anyone who comes within the range of it, friend OR foe, but once inside the 10ft zone, you were good to go...

We started with the group spending more time negotiating with Zil-zcha, the female broken-one shaman (according to the MM there are none but i felt it would make a good reason for how this band had survived on this island for as long as they have been here). She was concerned about going to the main island of Kaloom, since that is where they were exiled FROM when the humans settled the lands, and the north-lands beyond the mountains where the monsters rule supreme is no better. BUT if these bunch of adventurers could secure them a small spot on the coast, somewhere away from the human held villages that would work, OR they could clear the island, both of the bugbear lair to the south of the island, and what ever lurks in the cavern system under that cursed tower.
She even went on to mention about the pair of humans she had occasionally seen commanding the nasties from those caverns, and mentioned to Ronnel and stinky that even her powers over nasties (undead) were not sufficient to override the control the humans she had seen exacted on them (she's 4th level, the humans are 6 and 7th).. This gave both Stinky and Ronnel pause, cause at their current level they felt that the tower would have to wait.
However some piddly bugbears.. No problem they all thought.

They felt that with winds and rain coming (weather prediction, nice spell! from the shaman Zil-zcha), that they had time to clear up some of the bugbears if not all, before it was clear enough to sail back to Porca.. So after spending the night at the boat, and picking up Athgore, and leaving the broken ones with the ship commander (who they had formed a good bond so far), they went a bugbear hunting.. Zil-zcha as a parting gift, gave a pair of heroism potions (i described them similar to the smelly stuff given over to Oblex and Axtrex in that old 80s comic)..
Thinking it would take at least a day and a half there, a day of battle, and 1.5 days back they told the ship captain to wait a week before heading back.. Any longer would be crazy cause of the weather coming in a week...

After a long day (no encounters scheduled or random) they started bedding down for the night, but had an encounter with some of those new undead of mine, the Kephrinn.. Stinky and Slabfang were the two awake, everyone else was asleep. Slabfang rolled poorly on his surprise roll, so had 1 round of being surprised, stinky though, was not so unlucky. Facing off against the 4 Kephrinn, he tried first to turn them, but the gods were not with him this day.
(OOC he rolled a 2 for his turn, needing a 19 for these foes!)
He screamed a warning to the others, and several did stir from their slumber (Kovar, Wentworth and Brother Mathias were the ones who failed their int check to wake up)..
Ronnel needing a 13 on her turn against them rolled a nat 1.. man they were sucking in turning today!
After 5 rounds though, 3 were dead and a 4th was paralyzed (Stinky's Wyvern watch on the camp near him).. However, Wentworth and Brother M had taken sufficient damage to render them out cold (brother M and Wentworth both dropped exactly at 0).. Athgore used one of his two Javelins of lightning to drop one!!
Healing the two up, they proceeded to continue, but at a slower pace, and luckily since neither dropped into the negatives, neither needed actual bed rest. Well for now! Muahahahahahahhah

It was here they came upon the Scheduled encounter with a bugbear patrol (6 warriors and a L4 shaman female).. Both Slabfang and Wentworth got surprised, the rest did not. Stinky went first amongst the group, and cause of the layout of the 6 warriors was able to rush through to the shaman, with a charge, but failed to strike her.. This allowed Her to get off a 'curse (opposite of bless) on the party, smiting Celo, Ronnel and Slabfang, but Athgore saved.. Battle was then joined. Two went to Celo, one to Brother M, one to Ronnel and one to Athgore, while Slabfang, Kovar and West stayed in the rear for now, the last of the 6 warriors hung back to defend the shaman.
Wentworth tossed a pair of flight arrows from his short bow, while Kovar hurled a magic missile at the shaman, but since he went after her didn't stop her curse going off.. Jr's two arrows though missed wildly the un-engaged bugbear.. However, one of Slabfang's struck true on one of the two on Celo, mightily wounding him (almost max!!).
Most of the others missed, but their enemies were a lot more fortunate. One of the two on Celo struck him dealing 9 points of damage.
(At this point in time i had a error on MY part, cause i had their damage wrote as 2d8 +2 vice what it should be, 2d4+2. I will correct this next time we meet, but i also had one mess up for the party's favor, which i will mention later).. Ronnel and Athgore were also hit, but brother M was missed due to his activating of Displacement for his action.

Next round, Stinky went after the bugbear shaman, and failed his saving throw vs her Command (granted power of the bugbear god), and went out (DIE!!!).. This allowed the bugbear coming up ON his flank to score a nasty wound on him. West and Slabfang shot more arrows, feeling that with Stinky down, their arrows would not hit him (well hopefully), and all missed. Heck Slabfang's 2nd shot was a nat 1, followed by a nat 20 for holding onto his bow which went flying! However, his FIRST did strike true on the shaman, wounding her. The rest of the round was rather uneventful with lots of misses all around.
Next round was almost a mirror of the prior one for many shots, However the shaman cast Darkness on Wentworth (which also put Slabfang in its AOE). Jr failed his save, and thus was rendered blind, so was Slab till he moved out.

The following round, Kovar cancelled out the darkness with a light spell, and Slab charged in to use his trusty bastard sword in two handed mode (no one had bothered even thinking of giving him a shield.. YET). Stinky and Athgore had called it "Basher" when they first met up, so he took to naming it that himself. Celo finally dropped one of his, while the one left, scored a mighty blow in return (nat 20).. Some more misses all around and the group was down 1 of their own (due to the darkness) and had only dropped one of the bugbears (even with them being only 3hd!)...
Kovar became her next target with a silence spell, which he failed.. Effectively taking him out of the fight for now. Stinky got wounded again, but drank one of his potions of heroism, Celo doing likewise. The HP boost is what they needed..

After 2 more bugbears dropped, the party finally had their first actual casualty of sorts.. A nasty crit wounded Athgore badly, and true to his cowardice (as in the past) he fled, even using a mount spell to run away on horseback!! And he KEPT RUNNING!!!. Ronnel had successfully popped up a heat metal on the shaman's chest plate armor..
A few more rounds later, and Wentworth and Brother M were also out of action. Stinky had his attention firmly on the bugbear warrior, ignoring the shaman who seemed content to cast spells at the party's casters.. The shaman for her action instead of casting on the others though, choose self rather than other for her action, and hit herself up with a Sanctuary spell... Most all of those involved missed their saves to attack her..
2 more rounds and she discarded her plate armor, but still had her body shield and nasty mace (Stinky had felt that bugger, and it hurt! )
It was here she kicked in her Enlarge granted power, and grew 40% in size.. Making her almost appear now like an ogre... Cause of her sanctuary up though, the others couldn't do much to her, but KNEW she was still there... GRR..
They all closed in on one another, so stinky used his last 2nd level spell to pop up another Wyvern watch, so if she closed in to melee, she would be victim.. However he had NOT counted on her having an AOE spell.. Well to be more precise, a Javelin of Cold (that new Javelin i posted about in my magic item thread on Wednesday).. Stinky took the full brunt as he was the target, but Ronnel, West and Slabfang were ALL in the cone's path!. Ronnel though was the only one of the 3 who failed HER save, and dropped into the negatives (-6 to be precise, things were NOT looking well for the group, since Stinky had also dropped into the negatives, and Slabfang and west were both in the single digits!...

Kovar freshly out of his silence spell victimization, started tending to wounds, while Slab and Went joined in trying to take her down. Brother M for his part tried his Lend health psionic power.. WITH Disastrous results.. He rolled a Nat 20, which by the power's write up, caused him to not only fail to heal up Stinky any, but took on ALL HIS damage (or as the power calls it, takes on all the wounds the target has!).. That's 40hp in one pop!.. causing Brother M, to die in a bloody explosion (NO actual effect, just colorful descriptive creative license).
After a crit from Wentworth and a hit from Slab, the bugbear shaman was defeated.. FINALLY..

This is where i made a mistake IN THE party's favor, as i did NOT have Ronnel make item saves for all of her gear she was wearing.. Which could have been disastrous if they lost that amulet vs undead!!! (Well for later on when they take on that cave complex!)
After the battle, i got BACK to Athgore in his flight away from the battle.. On his now expired Mount spell!.. He had traveled just over 2 miles in the time he was chickening out, and was all alone when he faced off against a Random encounter with a trio of Worgs. However, he won initiative, and climbed a tree so the worgs could NOT get to him.

Fearing he would be mincemeat if he went down, he stayed up there hurling a few sling bullets, scaring them off after just one round.. So they went off (Following his path back to the group, but they would get there for a night time battle)..

As he had no tracking skills AND Had been in full panic mode he knew not where he was and started worrying greatly..

Back to the group we went. Neither of the 2 magic items Brother M were lost when he went boom, but Ronnel (the one gifted his +1 suit of Studded leather), would have to wait till morning to enjoy use of it.. A pair of healing potions were used to at least GET her and Stinky up to 1hp, so they could heal up in the morning after everyone camped for the night right where they were.. Hoping and praying to the gods that they had no nightly encounters.. BUT luck was not shining on them as the trio of Worgs had found their scent and attacked.. All 3 casters were down, so it was up to Celo, Slab and Wentworth (both still in the single digit HP) to fight them off... And luckily they did with only 2 minor wounds taken. (Celo hit 4 of 5 attacks, Jr 3 of 4 and Slab all 3 of his blows, with his mighty bastard sword "Basher!"

Night time for Athgore saw him depart the world as a pair of those pesky hell flies had found him in that tree.. And after getting charged by one, falling down AND getting stunned, he got eaten into death...

During the day, every one got healed up after some passing around of the newly acquired ring of health they looted from the blown to bits body of Brother M... Stinky and Ronnel were still not in good fighting mood (both still needed 4 days more of proper bed rest to be in fighting form), but THEY too encountered some hell flies just a little ways away from where the chomped to bits body of Athgore was found.. They met up with those same 2 hell flies, and the 2 others in the group. Miss Ronnel was the first victim of them today falling to their charge, Celo narrowly missed getting hit by some acid. Stinky and Slabfang were the other 2 that the flies went for, but a fumble on the one going for Stinky (Cursed brown die!!) let to that one getting taken out rather quickly with his free counter scoring a nat 20, and both of Wentworth's strikes with his long/dagger combo striking the flaying fly. The other 3 didn't fare much better, with one (the weakest) being splatted in ONE mighty blow from Slab (another nat 20.. Guess their bad dice in the prior battle with the bugbears had worn off)...

The party finished the last one off, with only a pair of bites on ronnel to show for it (along with the damage she took from being charged)... Luck smiled on them finally.

They made it back to the boat, and cast off back to Porca immediately..... Stinky, Kovar, Celo and Slab all needing to train up.. And they felt they would ALL need it along with some better armor if they wished to fully clear out this island!.

End game session 7.

Session 8 down.. 3 players showed up, 1 was absent, and one said he was en-route, but had a breakdown, so didn't show..

SO our list of characters were
Ronnel, the half-elf druid
Clint Wentworth jr, the Elf thief
Stinky the Dwarf F/C
and the 2 henchmen, Slabfang and Celo..

We started with them pulling into Porca, just in time as that night, they noticed the waves were heavy with some squalls and high winds. They decided to head immediately out for Escormian, but didn't bother waiting 3 days to join a Caravan. For the week trek, i had rolled 3 Random encounters.
First up was a group of 7 Worgs. It hit the party into third watch on night 2. Clint and Stinky were the 2 awake (well Stinky was using Iron vigil to meditate/stay up), so neither were surprised, each slapped the others awake.
The fight was somewhat slapstick, with several fumbles on both sides, but after 5 rounds the first 5 of the group (the two stragglers were the weak ones of the group), were dead, and though several party were bad off, none were close to dropping.. They declined to track the Worgs back to their lair (a good day off southward, which might have netted them just over 500gp worth of stuff)..
Day 4 they got sprang on by a quartet of those trapper scorpions, and during the ensuing melee, both Slabfang and Clint got poisoned.. Stinky got stung 4 times (inc one being a crit), but made his save all 4 times (he twice even wanted to fail, just for the Spits and grins!).. (OOC the player is kind of getting irked with the character, since as a cleric of Moradin, he uses the warhammer first before other weapons. BUT after i explained that as per the write up their ONLY requirement is that warhammer is one of the FIRST weapons they become prof in, NOTHING about it must be their only weapon they use). So over the next 30 min of real time, he spent looking over the phb's weapon list, and just for fun decided his next WP (since he didn't spend the one he earned at L3 fighter) was gonna go for the Trident.. So now he does more than a paltry d4+1/d4hp damage..
Of the party, Slabfang was the only one brought into the negatives, after getting critted by both a claw AND stinger in the same round and getting dropped to -3 from it, PLUS failing his poison save. Luckily Ronnel used a slow poison (as she was free) to halt him dying that way, then bandaged his wounds to stop him bleeding out the next round.
After the battle the player of stinky was ranting that since the reason dwarves have that 'to hit penalty applied to ogres, giants etc' is cause of "Special training" shouldn't he be able to do something similar, to add these frikken scorpions?? He also ranted that he disliked that 2e doesn't have some sort of skill similar to how 3.0 had certain feats allowing someone of S or M size to wield a 2 handed weapon with just one hand at a penalty (he was thinking of going with maul and shield)...
The last RE was that day's night time camp, with a group of 13 skittering crawling claws (squishy little buggers!). Several hit Ronnel and Slab, but not one came close to striking Clint. Stinky got one hitting him with a nat 20 but since that's their thac0 it was NOT a crit hit.. 6 rounds into the combat, and every hit Clint mad he hit and killed one.. Stinky on the other hand only struck twice, and Celo had fumbled twice!...

The party eventually hit Escormian, and after stopping in the mage guild to drop Kovar off to train, stinky tried badgering me to let him buy a trident magic weapon (but since its such a rare weapon, why would one exist), and after me explaining to the player that the COSTS for making weapons via an NPC doing the enchanting are high as heck, its rarely done via 'made to order' methods. He needs to quest to find one, OR get one made himself, however to do so he needs to hit 11th level as a priest, which due to Level limits he can't do as a multi-class.. HAD he been just a single class, with his Wis being 17, he could have hit that 11th level mark.
After inquiring about other weapons for sale, i gauged what i KNEW of the area, and told him straight, most magical weapons around are either found treasures, or in the hands of people around town/cities, such as the warriors of the guild.. He actually contemplated finding a master of the bastard sword to challenge him to GET a magical bastard sword, but decided against it.. For how i hope (the only 2 masters of the bastard sword are at least 9th level warriors, so in a one on one melee challenge would more than likely wipe the floor with him currently)...
They then sold off some of the magical gear they had located, including the two +1 throwing knives, +1 rapier and +1 dagger that the dead bard had, along with some potions, and a trio of magical bolts. They declined to sell off the Javelins of lighting though.. for now.

Stinky then went to the warrior guild to ask about getting better armor, as he currently is in dwarf size banded mail that he started game play with.. I informed him, that he can POSSIBLY get field plate made for him, since he's had NO luck in finding any dwarf sized magical armor (Sucks being a stumpy!! though the player did have a bitch fest that 2e sucks for not having ALL magical items re-size to fit whomever unlike some of the latter editions do). However there's only 2 master armorers up there, only 1 of which (a fellow dwarf) might be able to make him some, but its gonna be costly and time consuming...

They then went into the scout guild branch office (what the theif guild is), to see what rumors and possible quests there are... They learned that to the north west in the mountains, several groups of giant kin were seen, scouts have been dispatched to learn more. Another group went out east towards the coastal link of the mountain range, but have not been heard back from in over a month (they died due to an Ogre and Cyclop's kin camp i have wrote up).

After finishing off the day doing some more info gathering (and getting a dwarf hooker for stinky), they all proceeded to train up: Clint from L4 to 5 thief, Celo iirc to L4 fighter, Slabfang to l2 fighter (and the player of Clint who was running him for now till we actually figure out who's his new 'master since the Party paid him technically, rolled his HD gain and got MAX, rolled a 10!!!).. Stinky is now 4f/4c, and once Kovar's player gets back, he will be 3c/3m once he trains up).
They realize they also need to head southward to the town of Vestway to get Ronnel trained up by the druid there. They also wanted to stock up on some more neut poison potions..

After joining with a caravan going down, they hit 3 random encounters for the 15 day trek..
5 days in, they first one cropped up, a pair of owl-bears. Stinky was first damaged, after getting mauled by a paw for near max damage, but at least he didn't get smacked as badly as Celo did, getting critted by 2 bites, AND having 3 paws swat him, two in one round, so he got an additional bear hug damage!. He almost dropped from that, but with a 03 on his bend bars roll to get out (after me clearing up WHAT percentile strength is, and its difference between that and bend bars for one of the players, who had a brain fart it seemed), scored a nasty retaliatory spear thrust (in the following round) while Ronnel and Slabfang ALL also struck before it went, and dropped that owl-bear. The one on Clint/stinky was missing just as much as they were, till another crit paw hit stinky, (described as a tooth got punched out). Slabfang joined in with stinky and Clint, while Ronnel started healing up Celo...
After a few more rounds with the Caravan people just watching at these brutes fighting the party, a cheer went up from them, celebrating the party's victory..

4 days later they had their 2nd encounter. A 4 pack of hell hounds.. Most bit pcs, some breathed.. Only once did a pc who got breathed on (Ronnel) save, all the others took full damage, and Celo and Clint almost dropped into the negatives from those buggers. Through the entire battle, stinky tried 'acting like he was sleeping, while everyone else handled the claws.. However he did join in, with a spiritual hammer, killing one before it breathed a 2nd time on Ronnel (and had it done so, even if she saved, she would have dropped to -2, -7 if she failed)...

The last encounter was with another group of 11 clawing claws. But once again, our heroes prevailed.. though Stinky's starting talking of quitting adventuring, going BACK to the mainland and opening up a Turnip farm. Might be safer...

Finally they hit Vestway and Ronnel trained up (she's now a L5 druid!! woohoo, edited, made a booboo on what level she trained up to)..

After doing a little shopping and restocking, they headed BACK up to Escormian, with the intent of heading to Awagorr the mining city, to acquire some better armor for stinky... They declined to get a caravan, but due to rolling most 3s and 4s, hit NO random encounters on the return trip up to Escormian. They opted THEN to go by some of the river boats hauling trees from Redlass and Porka up to Awagorr.
The boat trek would take 20 days vice 15 via the land route, but they felt it would be safer (which was right as once again i rolled NO random encounters for them)..

They pulled in to Awagorr, and made a b-line for the armorer's area, and proceeded to locate the renowned dwarf armorer in hopes to convince him to make Stinky a suit of dwarf size field plate. I started with him RPing some of it out, but he was sucking on that (saying, things like "you're a dwarf, i'm a dwarf, you should do it just cause...", and "we both hate giants so its a f/ing no brainer" and the like. EVEN saying "hey, i am a famous adventurer, why don't you let me marry your daughter, and then make me that suit") ALL of this i figured would put the Armorer on a "Cautious" level, and then had Stinky roll his Cha to see if he could get any 'rp bonus out of it to modify the chart', but he rolled a 17 (with a 11 Cha), so blew his chance... (OOC the player got irked, thinking it should have just happened, no RP needed)..

Clint, Went to the Scout guild annex up here, and inquired whom the supposed other armorer of skill sufficient to make the dwarf his damn armor was, and found out its an elf from the elf woods, who HATES dwarves, but at least is in town getting some ore and other supplies.. After both HE and Ronnel ganged up and did some good Rping in his negotiations he still failed his Cha check to get any bonus modifiers on the NPC reaction chart, and just got an "indifferent (i figure a friendly would be needed to get the armor done)... So at this point, Stinky's stuck in his banded mail.. HE COULD buy some off the shelf plate, but as that's only 1 point better, says its 'just not worth it'..

Checking in with both the warrior guild and scout annex, they learned a little more about the group which went out east to check on the possible ogre/giant infestation, AND thought, maybe if we can get back the ore that the elf armorer is waiting on, it MIGHT endear him some to us so the armor may get made...

BUT due to time running short, we called it a night...

Session 9 in the bag..
Returning was John with "stinky beard, the dwarf fighter 4/cleric 4"
his wife Sam "Ronnel the half elf druid (now 5th level)
Jeff "Kovar, the cleric-mage", now at 4cl/3mage
Robert "Clint wentworth Jr, the elf thief, l5"
And we were finally joined by John, after he finished getting his car issues taken care of from the totalling of it. He made a L3 elf ranger (species enemy arachnids, cause of those scorpions that plague the lands)..
Also the 2 henchmen, Celo and Slabfang were there.

New elf ranger PC. Telgorath. Str 14, Dex 17, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 15 Cha 13. +1 studded leather and a +1 short sword were his two initial magic items. Started out at 26hp

We started off in the city of Awagorr, where we left them off. We did mostly 30 min or so of RP stuff (and lots of jokes back and forth), while Stinky tried to locate himself a dwarf female, to make as a mate, but for NOW has located Makia Gemsmith, a dwarf fighter female henchmen. After some banter (and NPC reaction rolls), she's joining the team for now...
Then during a brief Q/A with John about what the team has been up to, he inquired about the 'skull drinking mug' and how Stinky came to have it.. Then for the 'heck of it' Ronnel said, "maybe you should offer that up as a gift of apology to that dwarf armorer, then ask NICER to see if you can get that suit of field plate armor (NOT dwarven field plate, just regular field plate, dwarf size).. He did so, rolled a real good Cha check, talked it up real good, and rolled 03 for his NPC reaction roll, getting a very favorable result..

So the party would have to spend 12 weeks sitting idly by while Stinky had to stay there to get it done. THEN we hit them whining about the "level cost for living/monthly expenses, and even at the medium level, 50gp/level/month they were like "Fut the whuk.. We got a druid who can create food and water, and some decent hunters. We will just travel a day and a half south west to the edge of the elf forest, camp outside for free.. Fark that living cost crap.."
Though i WILL be hitting their gear and material components cause of that since part of that monthly upkeep IS maintenance of gear...

I rolled out 1 check a WEEK while they were there (since it is a lot more settled), and got 3 whole encounters for the almost 3 month period.

First encounter came during the night, first watch. A group of 7 Gargoyles. They swooped in, in a group of 4 up front, with 3 (the higher HP ones) coming in 3 rounds later.. Ronnel and Celo were the one's on watch, and she took to just a defensive posture, while trying to wake up the two Dwarves. Celo shouted a general warning to the rest and engaged 2 of them in melee, but after 1 smack with his spear against one realized, "FARK, these buggers need magic to hit, I need some help so i can switch to my magical flail..".. From the alert, both dwarves, Kovar and Clint woke up, but slabfang rolled a Nat 20 to wake up, so stayed snoring away...
The battle was fierce and long, and Makia helped out her 'master' Stinky don his armor, while he concentrated on keeping up a spiritual hammer active against one of the 2 gargoyles attacking Celo (and it worked, as i kept rolling an int check for him to NOT realize it wasn't someone invisible holding the weapon smacking him and get getting 17+..., lucky buggers!).
After his armor had been donned, he did the same for Makia, while still keeping up his concentration (though i am not really sure i did it right on that, letting him do armor donning etc, while maintaining concentration or not, but i let it slide for now). She then was 'gifted for the duration of the battle his +1 warhammer so she could be effective.
During that time, Kovar had kicked awake Slabfang, who started off trying to use his specialized bow to smack some arrows into the 3 trailing gargoyles, but after 2 solid hits that did no damage (and rolling a 2 on HIS int check) realized that his arrows were useless, so tossed the bow to the side and went in with his +1 morning star instead. Clint was salivating hoping these buggers regenerated, cause that means his longsword, which is +3 vs regen critters, would be more effective, but gargoyles do not regenerate... And cursed the gods for that.. Eventually Ronnel had to flee combat after getting critted twice with the horns (and going down to 2hp).. Celo and Slabfang brought one down together, while the S/H and Makia did in a 2nd.
Clint took out 2 on his lonesome (lucky crits for almost max damage twice in a row).. and besides Ronnel, Slabfang was the only PC who was brought down (after getting all 4 hits from another gargoyle hitting him two of them as crits!) took him down to exactly 0hp....

After the battle was done for, they rested up, healed and moved camp site..
A few days later, they were checked on by another elf patrol, 3 man this time, 2 first lev elves (piddy npcs) and the Other John's newly made up ranger. There was some friendly banter about 'killing these elves, as damn near everything else has wanted to kill the group, maybe they do as well!.."
Eventually the trio of elves stayed with the group for a 3 night stretch, to 'make sure they were safe'.. when the 2nd encounter happened. Off in the distance they saw a pair of Ettins (Evil ones not the 2 drunkards they knew about that are neutral-good Though chaotic like hell) being chased by 12 of those hell flies and 'beating the crap out of the Ettins.. John's ranger Telograth, even knowing the Ettins are evil, still felt that the group should at least help, as he couldn't stand 12 to 2 odds. So the group got on their mounts and chased off after the smorgasbord of flying lizard things..

As they approached, 6 of the flies broke off to charge the party.. They formed a battle line with only Kovar not in it, so were 9 facing 6 (inc the 2 npc elfs that had stuck around). I randomly rolled who were getting hit, and whether they were being charged or 'spat at', and Ronnel, Slab and Clint were the trio who were getting acid flung their way.. Slab was the only one of that trio who dodged the ball of acid spit, and cursed these lizard things the other 3 charged to ram Celo, Stinky and one of the 2 npc elves.. Celo and Stinky set to receive charges (him with his trident, Celo with his spear) but both missed the marks, but both were ALSO missed by the charging hell-flies.. Only the NPC elf was hit, and though he stood his ground (made his dex check to stay standing) he did get stunned for 3 rounds.. Then melee was engaged, and after a # of rounds, the group had dwindled the beasties down to 2, with the rest of the party encircling them.. Clint even asked if he made his MS/HIS roll, could he go for a backstab, which i allowed.. He made both rolls (well i did with a 24 HiS/18MS) and succeeded with his backstab killing one instantly.. 1 round later the last was dead. BUT by this time the other 6 had brought the 2 Ettins down and were munching away, and the group initially thought 'leave them', but both Clint and Telograth wanted to kill them, so they wouldn't come after the party... They tried sneaking up on them (well as sneaky as many armored folk shouting can be), and so did not get any surprise.. Of that group, only 2 spat, one at Celo and one at Makia, who Stinky jumpped in the path to take the blast full on (rolled 9hp of 12 for the first round's damage, but as he has over 50 now, he could take it)..

This battle though, took longer than the first, with some comical flub-counter flub-misses going on.. But only one of the 2 npc elves went down...

Eventually the 12 weeks time was up, and Stinky got his suit of precious Field plate armor, so is now sporting a -2 armor class.. Now they are ready to go smacking some giant kind and such... Well they hope.
Due to the weather in this area talking about ice rain etc, we called it a night just before 7.30pm.. Eric (The dead bard's player) was off sick this weekend (had a business dinner Friday night and got food poisoning it sounded like, cause of having a bad case of the runs today. So hopefully will return next week, which will give us a full 6 PC +3 hench table!

Session 10 in the bag..
Returning was John with "stinky beard, the dwarf fighter 4/cleric 4"
his wife Sam "Ronnel the half elf druid (now 5th level)
Robert "Clint Wentworth Jr, the elf thief, l5"
John, with his L3 ranger, Telgorath.
Also, Eric the one who took over playing the NPC bard who died the week before last, showed up about half an hour in, and took about 20 min to make up a new pc (human fighter with the swashbuckler kit), Marque De Preveteur (privateer!)..
Also the 3 henchmen, Celo, Makia the dwarf female and Slabfang were there.

Makia, the new dwarf female fighter, potential IN game wife for stinky beard. Axe for hire kit with battle axe specialization. Str 18/10, Dex and Con 17 (inc dwarf racial bonus), Int and Cha 12 (with racial penalty) and 8 Wis. No magic starting out, but eventually got a +1 morning star. 13 HP.

Eric's new PC, a Human fighter, Swasbuckler kit, Marque De Prevetur (based on a priate wannabe). Specialist in Saber, and also uses a man catcher.. Wears spiked studded leather +2, and had a satchel of containinment (another new item of mine) for his starting magic items. Hp 26.

The player of Kovar was off visiting kin out of town for the weekend iirc...

The party, after finally getting the suit of armor made for Stinky was ready to go out adventuring once again.. They talked about going back down to Escormian, then over to Porca to head back by boat, to the island and finish clearing out the bugbears, but instead settled on tracking down the ore shipment for that elf armorer. After learning of which way the ore shipment was supposed to be coming from and how far out it was into the mountains (3 days there supposedly), they set about gathering their supplies then left.. After rolling for Random encounters for the 3 days (and nights) i had a total of 2 of them. The first came in the 2nd night watch of evening 2, with the third set for the late morning of day three..

First up, the party got their camp sight rumbled by a quartet of Z-throk (those ghoulish figures that disease their opponents somewhat similar to were critters two @ 4hd, 1 @ 5hd and 1 @7hd the "groups leader for this roaming pack). 3 of the party were awake (Slabfang, Telgorath and Stinky). Ronnel, Makia, Celo and Clint were the one's asleep. Telgorath had set some snares and trip 'can' like wires to alert the party if something came in, and luckily the side the Z-throk came in on was one of the ones he had the can-wires.. The watches were alert and heard the tinkling of the can-wires, and so did Ronnel and Makia, however Clint rolled a nat 19 and stayed sound asleep for now.. Celo was worse, rolling a Nat 20 on his Wis check to wake up!!.
Stinky first tried his Turning undead but rolled a lowly 2 (1 'spot away from hitting a nat 20!!), so failed in his turn. He warned the others "these buggers need magic, so if you have it, use it!.
One of the 4hd ones, went towards Telgorath, 1 to Slabfang, with the 5hd going into the group, to meet the awakening Ronnel, while the 7hd one picked Stinky as his target!..
The First round was brutal.. Even with the watch being in armor, ALL 3 "on watch" characters got clawed at least once, Stinky took just a bite, but Slab got the worst of it, getting both a bite (CRIT) and a claw.. Wounding him greatly. Stinky countered with a warhammer blow that graised the leader, Slab whiffed his counter swipe with his +1 morning star, Telgorath cut somewhat into his foe, but Ronnel just waking up and getting out of the tent was caught weaponless, and after being hit with a claw, her spell (iirc an Aid which would have gone to Slab) was spoiled.. Makia not having a magical weapon at the time, just hung back and started slapping Clint awake..
Next round Celo rolled a Nat 1 and awoke in a jostle from all the screams and cries of pain.. Slab took another nasty claw blow (down to 5hp), Stinky was missed, so did Ronnel, however Telgorath got a glancing blow from 2 claws (2 and 3 points each). Celo, not even thinking of putting on armor, saw foes, grabbed his spear (non magical) and charged into the one on Telgorath dealing a nasty thrust, but watching the wound close as he pulled the spear out, he soon realized his mistake and cried out for a magic weapon!! pronto... Stinky's counter was a fumble, but the free attack back from the Z-throk missed (not one die above a 7). Slabfang swung and scored a deep bash with his morning star, (took 10hp in that one blow) eliciting a shriek from the beast. Ronnel for her part, thought "great undead, i will kick in my favored undead counter, Flame blade!!" And after casting it swung and miss (was 1 facet away from fumbling!!)

DM NOTE: Z-throk have a weakness of taking extra damage from Cold attacks, however FIRE attacks heal them.. This was a fact the party never figured out last time they fought them!!!
The third round, Ronnel was in for a major shock, when she finally scored with her flame blade.. And watch as a prior facial wound her foe had, closed up.. And he actually said "THANKS that feels much better!" in a ghostly grizzly voice... Her shrieks of horror caused stinky to take a pause in his fight as he went full defensive (taking his already low ac of -2 down to -5!!) Even with the leader's low thac0 (13 vice 15 of the lower ones) he needed a 18 to smack stinky, but unluckily for him, he actually got a crit on the bite! Slab was thankfully missed, so was Telgorath. Makia, managed to get by Celo and handed him his +1 flail, which he went to work with on the beastie.. Scoring his own crit.. Clint got his trusty long sword out and charged into the one on Ronnel. Scoring a nasty wound (almost maxed out).. Telgorath missed his foe, and was missed in return. However Celo was not so lucky, getting all 3 blows from his foe gouging into his armor-less torso..

Next round, Makia took the +1 warhammer Stinky had (while he stayed defensive) and joined in with Telgorath (as they were close to one another), both her and Tel struck almost simultaneously, dealing a great wound to the Z-throk.. The one facing Clint stuck with chomping his way, ignoring Ronnel as her flame blade was ineffective, however his swipes and bite missed, but Clint's counter stuck true, however it turned out to only be a glancing blow (rolled poor on his damage, getting 1 above min ). Slab and his foe exchanged blows, but neither struck true (all misses!) and Ronnel managed to cancel out her flame blade and touched Slab with a cure wounds spell, however the gods must not have been shining on her as she rolled bare minimum for a cure moderate (1+1)... Celo and his foe exchanged fumbles, and Celo's free attack due to the Z-throk's fumble also missed, however the Foe's counters didn't scoring 2 claw Smacks.. (iirc he's down to under 15 out of 50!, while Slab is down to 6 out of 19, and Telgorath was down to 10 out of 27)..

The next round saw the first foe drop, due to a pair of crits, one coming from Makia and Celo. Stinky stuck with his defensiveness and was rewarded with the foe missing all 3 blows. Slab however, was not so lucky. A pair of hits, one being a crit dropped him to -11.. The party just saw Slab get dropped.. All eyes were low for their friend. However their tenacity got renewed. Clint scored a nasty blow, nearly finishing off his foe, while Telgorath did the same to his (but took a nasty bite in return)..

The following round, both Celo and Makia got in the face of the one on Stinky, allowing him to back off, and cast a spiritual hammer, which started bashing the one in Clint's face... Between that and Clint's blow, they finally dropped a 2nd. However, the counters from the 2 remaining ones, dropped Telgorath and greatly wounded Makia (randomly rolled to see who he fought).. Ronnel thought to hasten over to Telgorath, but instead popped off a heal into Clint, bringing him back up into the double digits for hp.
The next round saw the one Telgorath was facing how turned to engage Celo. Ronnel lacking magical weapons, couldn't engage, so had to stand back and try to heal those up. Stinky continued his smacking with his spiritual hammer, while Clint joined in on tag teaming the leader.. Eventually dropping him, but not before his blows saw Makia drop.. One foe remained.. It scored a blow on Celo.

It survived 2 more rounds. However, this was sufficient to see Slabfang expire (hit -15, his con!).. Stinky and Ronnel took turns curing and bringing everyone back up.. And after the battle, everyone started sweating balls due to the % rolls to avoid turning.. Stinky was up first, needing a 37 or less to turn, but rolled an 80.. Celo was next, at 45% but rolled a 63.. Then came Makia, needing a 16 and barely making it with a 20. Next up was Telgorath, who rolled a 92 so he was very safe. So was Ronnel, who only actually took 12 damage.. Finally, they saw me roll in secret for Slab.. (he rolled a 12 so would have turned in 1 hr, if they had not stuck him in the fire pit they had..
With most spells gone and many needing booku healing, they set to get both spell casters back to bed rest, while the rest of the group stayed up awake and vigilant.. Makia was only at 10hp, Celo 22, Clint 13 and iirc Telograth single digits, but due to him dropping into the negatives, was not combat effective..

By now IRL, Eric had finished off making his character (a privateer swashbuckler fighter), and i explained to him, He was part of a 5 man team sent out to find the ore as well (as the city had not heard from it in days). His team got attacked by 10 of those hell flies and he fled, with 5 in pursuit the other 5 remained to battle the 4 nameless npcs. BUT it was just after the other team had awoke that the next scheduled Random encounter hit.. another batch of 5 of them..
Stinky was already up, armored and was prepping to dole out his healing with the ring of health being passed around, while Ronnel was holding off TILL Stinky's healing was all spent.. When the 5 flies burst into their clearing...
1 charged at Celo who set his spear to receive the charge, 1 flew by Makia, spitting acid on her (and almost dropping her there!). Another went to Stinky who got spat at but made his BW save, the 4th went to Clint who was also spat at but like Makia failed.. Lastly the 5th one went towards Telgorath with a charge, but he was missed. The one which charged in on Stinky took a nasty blow from charging in and spitting from the dwarf's Set Trident... * i realized after the battle tridents DON'T do double damage from being set, but i will correct this next time *.
Several rounds went by and 2 of the 5 dropped. Ronnel had used Insect swarm to make one very irritated, and after it died, directed it to 'swarm into' another (and luckily had gotten the fliers, since these hell flies DO fly!)..
At the end of the 4th round, the group saw the newcomer on his horseback, riding in, with 5 more of those buggers in toe. BUT that round they dropped a 3rd of their initial five.. Telgorath and Clint were the only 2 down from the acid, the rest were engaged but most of the damage was already done (the bites of those critters were just missing, left front and center!).. Then in came the new 5. 3 split off chasing after Marque, and went into the mass melee of the others, while 2 stuck to his tail (but were losing ground due to his going double speed on his horse)... Stinky had tore himself away from the one on him and Celo and ran to intercept one that would have rammed into Ronnel, not only hitting her but also disrupting her swarm.. He took the blow like a champ and succeeded in not being stunned or knocked down.. By this time, Makia had downed her potion of Heroism (the one taken from Slabfang after his demise).. It served her well. Telgorath also had guzzled a 2nd given to him by Stinky...

Marque For his part, saw this new batch of humans (and elves) fighting others, so stopped fleeing and wheeled his horse around to face off against the 2 coming his way. One spat, one went for a charge.. BOTH missed the nimble swashbuckler.. And his counter scored a nasty blow on one of the 2 hell-flies..
Several rounds went by and Celo was almost dropped after being spat at twice by two of the new comers. However, he scored a nasty crit on one of them as they charged in, and with the 4 damage from the swarm Ronnel kept up, it finally dropped.

Several more rounds went by and the heroes were finally victorious. Makia and Clint were the only ones downed.. But healing from both Ronnel and Stinky brought most up to mid health.. They decided discretion was the better part of valor and went BACK to Awagorr.. Especially since 3 of the party were in need of more days of bed rest before being back to combat effectiveness...


While in town, they visited the Temple of Peoni to garner some healing potions, and while there inquired about acquiring some potions of heroism. The ranking priestess of Peoni, a lady by the name of Meka, that since Peoni is a loving and healing goddess, such items were beyond her purvue of making. However, the temple of Laranni might make such elixirs..
So off they went. Needing to prove the party was worth acquiring the only 2 potions the temple currently had, after a lucky 1 on a religion check, Stinky told the others "hey these blokes and lasses love tests of combat, strength and challenges... So lets Wrestle!! Both Telgorath and Stinky got involved in some 'muddy' wrestling, to show the Larannians the 'honor' of the party (since some DID have bows which is a no-no to Laranni, they needed to earn her favor some other way, and that was one of the best ways to do so..). Stinky faced off in the first match with Telgorath, and with the first blow, knocked out Tel.. Rolling an unlucky 98 to resist being KOed with a 5% chance (and selecting High that he didn't want!) :facepalm: :facepalm:
So one of the 2 female priestesses went into the 'ring' with stinky. The fight lasted quite a long time, but eventually Stinky got knocked out after a lucky head lock..
When they both came to, a mug of ale was awaiting Stinky, while Tel had just a cup of water (since he only lasted 1 round and was koed so easily they felt alcohol might not be good). After some barter, with stinky offering up some of his skull-mugs he had made from some prior slain hell flies (well had commissioned at least), and some coin, they managed to part ways with some high fives, good wishes and 2 new Heroism potions..

With only half an hour left of the night (IRL) left, they set back off, to see if the swashbuckler, Marque's comrades were still alive after being assaulted by the other 5 flies he had left facing them.. BUT en-route, the group got ambushed by 4 Giant kin, some ugly Verbeeg (NOT one of the patrols from a lair, just a random bunch that had set up their own lair nearby).. Due to the low AC of Stinky AND the -4 penalty Giants and co (which from all i have seen includes giant kin), they needed a 19 to hit! And that's if he DIDN'T go full defensive..
The battle was fast, brutal (to both Celo who took almost 30 damage) and Marque (who took 20!), but the 4 giant kin were felled.. And the party looted the nearby lair gaining some much needed coin, 2 new potions (as yet unidentified) and a magical ring (also unidentified)..

This is where we closed the night up...

Session 11 in the bag..
Returning was John with "stinky beard, the dwarf fighter 4/cleric 4"
his wife Sam "Ronnel the half elf druid (now 5th level)
Robert "Clint Wentworth Jr, the elf thief, l5"
John, with his L3 ranger, Telgorath.
Eric, with his L3 Fighter (swashbuckler kit) Marque De Preveteur (privateer!)..
Also the 2 henchmen, Celo and Makia the dwarf female were there.
Kovar was still absent.
Giving us a solid 7 PC/NPCs..

After returning to the city from the fight with the Verbeeg, set back out to find more trace of Marque's former party. After 2 days of travel with no incident, they rumbled into a group of 4 of those trapper scorpions. Of the group, ONLY the ranger, Telgorath was surprised (sucks rolling a 1 :facepalm: ). The spiders were set up to hit the part from all 4 directions. After just the initial round of combat, Telgorath was critted by a stinger and failed his poison save. Ronnel was GOING to pop off an entangle on two of the scorpions but after getting clawed by the one near her, her spell got foiled. The one on the side with the 2 dwarves, focused on Stinky (Makia was inside of him, so it couldn't get around to strike at her), while the last went after Clint, and scored on him with both claws..
In the 2nd round, Makia got to the side of the one on Stinky, while Ronnel's one got taken on by both Celo and Marque combined on the one there, so she could run up to Telgorath and hit him with a slow poison, and managed to do it just in time as he got stung and clawed again..

Two more rounds into the battle, they still had not dropped a single scorpion, but now West was poisoned.. Stinky had to break off his battle to slow poison him. The battle looked brutal for the party, as Makia was almost brought into the Negatives by a crit claw strike, but she luckily had 1 remaining, so was still in the fight. Several rounds later Ronnel was feeling the effects of being poisoned, so was Marque. Eventually the first scorpion was felled..
Two others got taken out in the 5th round, but the Ranger Telgorath was brought into the negatives finally after getting hit by all 3 blows from the scorpion he was on. However, Celo charging in, critted the beast killing it finally. Makia and Stinky combined on their one taking it down..
Lastly, the one facing Clint, and now Celo, Stinky AND Makia, got overwhelmed... But Makia got one last blow on her, dropping her to exactly 0, though her dwarf toughness resisted the poison.

After the battle was won, Ronnel went out with Celo, hunting down for some herbs to create a purgative so the party didn't have to use their Precious neutralize poison potions they had paid dearly for last week.. She was in luck, and successfully created one for each of the 4 individuals, West, Marque, Telgorath and herself, who were feeling the effects. However Marque re-failed his check, and had to get his neut poison potion used by the party on him.
During that time, Stinky went about milking all 4 of the dead (and managed to roll all 4 successes on his Half Wisdom rolls) to get 4 flasks filled with poison. BUT after me showing that "clerics don't get to use poison", he handed them over to the privateer Marque..

Realizing they were in no state to continue the hunt, they started back to Awagorr, with the night being slept through by both casters and Telgorath. Makia, Celo, Clint and Marque were the ones splitting the entire night watch between them, since the casters had both depleted completely their spells getting everyone at least near full.. However the 2nd encounter i had rolled for, a 6 pack of Kephrinn swooped into the party's camp during the Swashbuckler and Thief's turn being awake. With Clint being surprised, it was up to Marque having to go around and kick n scream to wake people up. First was the two dwarves which he was nearest. Ronnel made her Int check to get up, and immediately tried to turn them, but the gods were not with her (once again) as she rolled only a 2.
The 6 Kephrinn split up, two coming to Clint, two going towards the druid who tried turning them, and two towards Marque..
The battle went for a number of rounds, enabling both Makia and Telgorath to work together to get Stinky armored up, however Celo slept in his magical chain, so needed not to worry about it. He tore into the beasts, striking with a fury the rest have never seen (he hit 8 straight attack rolls before he finally missed one, and 2 of those blows were criticals!!!)... Marque, with his tumbling skills, managed to avoid the blasts of these beasts when they died, however several others were not so fortunate.
Though the battle was relatively swift (cause of how well Celo and Marque) were doing, it still brought several of the party were brought almost to 0 hp. Since the party was now up, and they knew they couldn't go right back to rest, they decided to make a panic run back to town, and lady luck smiled on them as they made it to the gates once more with no issues.

Two of the gate guards (though for what ever reason, John playing Stinky kept feeling i had said GAY guards??) were giving the party a weird look (they had been only out barely 5 days and were looking beaten to hell up), and stinky made a mental note to get payback on them for sneering their way.
After everyone got some good bed rest (the last 2 days needed for Telgorath due to having some CMW used to reduce his needed days), Marque had reported into his superiors that "For sure my lost group is dead.. With what we encountered, ain't no way they be left alive.."'
But was promptly ordered to go out and 'bring back their bodies for proper burial. Here take this cart to assist in this mission..'/
Cause they were sick of being smacked, the party also rented a wagon for a week (5 gold is what i charged, as i saw NO cost listing in the pHB for wagons other than their wheels at 5gp ea).. Tethering the goat of Stinky's to the cart, he and Makia took the rear cart, while Ronnel, Clint and Celo took the wagon. This left Marque on his horse, and Telgorath on foot out in the point position.

Before they left Awagorr though, Stinky got to chatting with one of the city watch leaders, and rolled a decent reaction roll, in pushing to get those 2 gate guards who had sneered at the party, assigned TO the party for the mission of bringing back the dead.. After ponying up 5 gold each, the leader had consented since he did feel they needed some 'toughening up' (for now they are just merely 0 level light footmen, carrying spear and short sword with just leather armor and shield for protection..)

They made it three days, before rumbling into the first (and only random encounter scheduled for THIS outing), a group of 12 Orogs, split into two groups of 6, with the fore group being 200m in front of the rest (the highest HP one i had designated as this random group of Orogs as their leader was in the rear group)..
Telgorath immediately saw them, and so did most everyone else, however both Celo and Clint were surprised. Makia started bringing the cart up slowly, so she could assist Stinky in getting his armor on (He had decided he would SLEEP during the day, so he could stay awake the entire night strangely even WITH his use of Iron Vigil).
Two of the 6 forerunners came towards Telgorath who had ran a ways to the side of the party to take up a high spot (hillock), while the other 4 ran towards the party, screaming obscenities as they went. However a well timed Entangle from Ronnel, took out 3 in one go. The last was set upon by Marque who had ridden up and using his tumbling skill, did a back flip to arrive right in his face with a downward slash from his scimitar.. It looked real pretty (he rolled a nat 1 for both his riding skill AND His tumbling), but alas it was style over substance, as he nearly fumbled his attack roll... Celo, after getting out of his surprise funk, joined in on that lone Orog, while Stinky, after finishing getting his armor on, had taken off riding his goat and rode it to meet up with the 2 facing Telgorath.. Who was surprising holding his own.. Ronnel took to joining in with Clint in pelting the 3 entangled ones..
After both Marque and Celo had dropped the one they were on, relatively easily, Marque made a fatal error. As he charged AT one of the 3 Orogs who were entangled. AND GOT promptly entangled himself.. RIGHT in melee range with it!
Celo took to charging into the 2 on Telgorath, while Stinky had decided "Right these guys have these peons, i will go off into the sunset to lay in wait to meet the other 6 as they came in.. At this time the 2 'light footmen' the party had, were stuck driving the wagon and cart, and just watching in awe at how easily the party was tearing through these Orogs.. AND wondering.. WHY if they were "This good" did they return not once, but TWICE after just barely 5 days out, looking battered and bruised...

Stinky off on his own out in front, spent 2 rounds before the rear group of Orogs had pulled into range hunting for a good spot to test out a new spell he wanted to play with. Soften Earth and Stone. He had located a decent spot to use it, and timed it just right to catch the left most trio of Orogs, in a land slide taking them down the edge of the cliff wall they were on, plummeting down over 200 feet (Effectively out of combat). This prompted the other 3 to slow their 'roll'.. And started moving away from the edge cautiously approaching this lone dwarf..
After exchanging a trio of javelins from these 3, they changed over to their Halberds, and as the first came towards stinky, he used a 2nd S.E.A.S and sent a 4th plummeting to his doom... The other 2 managed to BARELY hold morale (rolled exactly the @ needed so they wouldn't break and run).. As they stalked into the dwarf, he tried doing a body slam style overbear into the right most of the 2 remaining, to see if he could knock HIM into the mudslide down.. HE successfully struck, but lost the battle of the bulge (rolled a 10, beating his str by 6, while the Orog rolled a 2, winning by a far margin).. Battle between these 2 and stinky didn't go that much, before the rest of the party came into view.. Marque let loose with his light crossbow, while slowly riding in on his horse, while Clint and Telgorath launched arrows into the one furthest from Stinky. Celo, Ronnel and Makia didn't bother with engaging.. Just slowly brought the wagons and horses into view.

After the 2nd to last Orog was killed, Marque got the bright idea of using his Man catcher to "Tie up" the last one (the "leader" and capturing him), after 2 tries, and a failed morale roll, they had succeeded in capturing him.

Stinky by now was wanting to torture info from him, and after me laying down the law in "NO, even though you maybe LN, Moradin still doesn't allow torture, even of evil foes, such as Orogs", he relented. BUT still wanted to keep him prisoner...

After bedding down, healing up and getting a good night's meal, they continued. And eventually ran into the 'SCHEDULED" ambush from a 'patrol of orogs from one of the lairs i had wrote up a lot of info for'. Of the 6, four were wielding Long bows (primary) and had two handed axes for back up. The other 2 sported Spears (to toss or receive chargers) and Bastard swords.. They were set up in their ambush spots 3 on each side of a ravine (so no sliding down to their doom if they were knocked off)..
The party was successfully ambushed, with their scout Telgorath (who was now joined in the lead by the 2 men at arms), while Marque was off to the left of the group, and Celo off to the right. Stinky and Makia were in one wagon, with Clint and Ronnel on the cart.
Of the party, Clint, Celo, one of the MAA and Telgorath got surprised (due to the ambush penalty), and so were set upon by the arrows of the Orogs.. After the 1 arrow from each archer (ambush round) we went into the actual "Surprise round" for the party.. So each of the fore trio got hit by more arrows, with one of the MAA dropping.
In the first round of actual battle where the party could act, Celo took off charging into the one group, while Stinky got onto his war goat, and charged towards the 2nd (forgetting that if he's charging into battle he ain't casting!
Several rounds later, Ronnel was sufficiently close to warp wood on the bows of the left most group, causing them to have to spend a round switching to their two handed axes.. Celo was embroiled in a spear vs spear contest with his foe, while Stinky, the 2nd MAA and Makia had engaged the right most group.. Marque was content to hang back with Clint, plunking arrows and crossbow bolts into the mix.. after a few more rounds of battle, the Orogs now numbered 3 (still their morale held), and the party was down Makia and the 2nd MAA, while Telgorath was taking a knee, so he could remove all the arrows sticking out of him and glugging his potion of healing..
During the encounter, a little humor was brought into play due to the fact the 'leader Orog' from the prior encounter that was captured, was tethered via 15ft of rope TO the war goat Stinky rode into combat with, so was being drug around on the floor like in many westerns.. taking d3 damage every 2 rounds of being drug.
Eventually the party got the enemy down to just 1 foe, who got set upon by 4 of the party hitting him into the land of unconsciousness before he even had a chance to flee (he rolled a 10 for his init die, they all acted before a 9!)

Due to two of the party needing to get up early tomorrow for work (Robert and John=Telgorath) we called it a night as the party was starting to tend to their wounds..

Now to plan out how the other patrols, from this Orog lair will react to an entire patrol being felled..

OK so session 12 done.. And what a thumper for the party it was..

Returning was John with "stinky beard, the dwarf fighter 4/cleric 4" (Who now has enough XP to level up his cleric side to 5th)
his wife Sam "Ronnel the half elf druid (now 5th level, and has enough XP to level up to L6th)
Robert "Clint Wentworth Jr, the elf thief, l5"
John, with his L3 ranger, Telgorath.
Kovar, the Half elf Cleric/mage (L4/l3
Eric, with his L3 Fighter (swashbuckler kit) Marque De Preveteur (privateer!)..
Also the 2 henchmen, Celo and Makia the dwarf female were there. Makia is now at enough XP to level to 2nd, but she's losing any she gets as they are not going back to town right now.
And the party still had the 2 city guards (Gay guards as they are being called, both 0 level light infantry).
Absent was Eric and his swashbuckler..

We started off where they left off, licking their wounds. After talking it over for a bit, and healing everyone up, both Ronnel and Stinky decided to try and interrogate (not torture) the two Orog captives they had.. Kovar, being the only one who spoke Orc (which Orogs do know), had the unenviable position of translator, and so on occasion MIS-translated what was being said either to OR by the 2 captives. They started with the first one they caught, from the Random patrol. (ooc i had rolled a morale check to see if he would spill his guts and rolled a nat 2, so his morale was strong as hell!!!).

after a while, the group got tired of the insults this one had, and Clint 'sapped' him out cold. Then they proceeded to chat to the 2nd one (the one captured from the patrol ambush). Ronnel first off, piped out a CLW to tend his wounds, THEN proceeded to do the talking, with Stinky and Makia lingering in the background.. She got a decent RP and Cha check, but only took him from threatening to cautious on the NPC reaction chart, but i bumped that a little cause she did heal him..
They started discussing why the party got attacked, "Cause you have stinky pointy ears and stinky stubbies"
Ar there any more of you - Silence
Is there a lair nearby - Silence and a scowl
Will you attack us if you get let free - "You's stinky elffessses and dwarffs, of course"..

By now Stinky beard was thinking If i can't torture him, cause i an LN, what if i instead of that, romance him..!!'
So he proceeded, to smile, stroke the Orog's face, made weird cooing words in his ear (getting everyone in the room laughing their butts off), even placing a flower behind the ear.. Then told the Orog, "lets hug.. everyone needs a good hug!"
At this point i am cracking up, having the Orog act with revulsion and some fear (he was still tied up after all).. And even begged Kovar to make it stop...
The Orog did then say "there's a lair of us nearby, but i am not saying where, or how many. Get this stubby to stop.."
So Stinky backed off... Ronnel had Kovar translate "if we let you go, let you have your gear, you will give us your parole to not attack us again on your life", to which the Orog agreed to (he is after all LE), so he said yes.. After being cut loose, the group backed up, to let him get his armor and gear back on, but he was hesitant to grab his weapon..
With both Ronnel and Kovar indicating he COULD pick it up, he reluctantly shook his head and started to leave. BUT got stopped by Kovar, who popped one last CLW on the Orog. Who nodded in appreciation.. And as he started off, towards the northwest , looked over his shoulder.. "If you head to building that looks old and churchey, beware the stone wings...." (a warning about the gargoyles and margoyles there)..
Both Ronnel and Kovar nodded their thanks, and the group packed up to travel a little more before setting up the night camp.

Stinky and Makia settled into the cart to sleep while the rest of the group traveled. Ronnel and Kovar in the Cart, with Clint being in the same one as Stinky and co (Celo was driving the cart). Telgorath led the lead tracking...

Since they were going THIS route (straight north towards a possible mine and the church), rather than towards the lair, i set aside THAT list of encounters, and instead pulled out the sheet with the Gargoyles area, and looked on its back to where i had 2 RE's listed.. I rolled the lower of the two for the night attack (had only one encounter for that day prior to hitting the church).. A six pack of Z-throk.. Five of them being the lowly 4hd folk, while it had a 6hd group leader..

Since Stinky and Makia were staying up all night, the rest of the group were bedded down. Telgorath had used his Set snares to make some rope traps and bell warnings however since these critters need magic to affect, were useless. However Ronnel had both of her wolf companions outside the camp on patrol, and it was THEY who noticed the incoming undead, which made BOTH wolves go a little white with fear.
One ran away in terror, the other at least was brave enough to run into camp, to lick his friend's face and warn her of what was coming in..
Ronnel upon getting her face wet by the slobber, screeched a warning to Stinky and Makia. This at least alerted the two watchmen, who immediately started shouting alert for the others. Telgorath and one of the 2 city guards were the only two NOT awoken by the alert. The rest started reading up, though since Celo sleeps in his magical Chain, he was already armored..

The Z-throk ran in, two engaging both of the dwarves (the leader and another on Stinky, the other 2 going to Makia), and one each going to the awakening Clint and City guardsman..
The battle was slow going, at first, with only some of the party having magical weapons needed to impact these foes, but at least they were smart enough to remember to NOT use fire on them. Kovar had backed off, so was not in the melee, but the others were full on engaged.
Makia and the city guard man were the first two victims, both being dropped into the negatives.. Then Clint came low, but stuck it in with Celo on his foe.. Scoring the final blow needed to lay it out. Both then went tag teaming on the one who dropped Makia drawing one of her two off her, Telgorath drew away the other..
After a number more of rounds of battle, only 2 Z-throk remained, but the 2nd city guard were down. Celo and Clint were working in Tandem to lay them out, while Stinky was just going full defensive (Full parry, so his AC dropped 3 to -5!!!).. Even with that massive low AC, he still took some damage, but was no where in jeopardy of turning.

As the last one fell, the group let out a massive sigh of relief, as Clint had finally dropped, into the negatives, and Ronnel had been brought to exactly 0hp.. Then remembered as soon as combat's over, everyone needs to check to see if they turned...
First up was clint, who was very safe with a 74 on his roll (needing to avoid a 28 or lower). Then came Celo.. And everyone's eyes went all over as he rolled an 04! TURN!!! Ronnel was next and again lucked out with a 49 (out of 26). Stinky and Makia went after her and both were safe. Then Telgorath picked to go last, and rolled 97 so was VERY safe...
We then got into a discussion abot Celo, and since the Z-throk mention "If you die from them, you WILL turn in 1 hr, if you life and roll, under the Damage taken (much like with fighting lycanthropes), you turn. JUST TURN. No duration. Both Eric and John (Stinky) argued that turning shouldn't be instantaneous, even though i DID base these monsters after most modern Zombie films such as from 28 days later and the like. While Jeff (Kovar) and Robert (Clint) actually argued for my side, saying "if its a disease that causes you to turn, then a fully functioning cardio vascular system which you have if still alive, will actually HURRY the disease around to where it needs to go to turn you into one of these things... Unlike the slow way it takes if you die...

Then they started seeing Celo froth at the mouth (his turning) and proceeded to relegate themselves to having to slay their former comrade in arms...

DM Note: I need to go back and do a check on them to see what the rules i have for how long it takes to turn is..
EDIT found it, 24 hrs minus how low their Con is under 20, so a 14 con thief turns in 18 hrs)...

I also did an edit on these z-throk to say what happens TO someone who turns, in regards to whether they keep their faculties in regards to proficiencies/specialties etc, like vampire's victims do, or do they become more akin to just monsters, since they ARE Highly intelligent (13-14).. I decided for NOW, to go with they DO.. So had Celo-undead pick to drop his magical flail and go for using his spec spear instead.. EVEN if that might be doing less damage than the claw/claw/bite routine he would have had as a fresh 4hd Z-throk (d4+1/d4+1/d6+1 3/1 attack rate), he instead went with the spear as being speced and having str bonuses/spec bonuses, would do more damage on average as he could hit easier...

However, even with that, it took only 3 rounds for the combined forces of Telgorath and Stinky to lay him out.. So besides the loss of both city guard (they both expired from bleeding out, so got beheaded to ensure THEY wouldn't turn), the party was down 3 folk..

After the battle, the group took stock. Both Makia AND Clint would need bed rest (though due to a pair of Cure moderates on Clint), and Ronnel being ko'ed so was needing to get healed up, they decided to move a little away as Stinky and Kovar got everyone up to at least full health, even if Clint being at that level, would still be 'combat ineffective', same with Makia..

They talked it over, and after both Stinky and Kovar argued for continuing TO the church, they kept on, with Ronnel and stinky sleeping (along with Clint and Makia) so they could he fully rested and full of spells by the time they hit the church (or what was supposed to be a church)..
Kovar took up the reigns of the cart with Clint in its back, Telgorath took the Wagon's reigns Till stinky had awoken and restocked his spell capacity. Then he took point tracking the way to the church (and the lucky bugger rolled a Nat 1 for doing so)..
Eventually they made it TO the church, the remains of an old building (3000+ years) overgrown like hell, except for where some monsters in the past few months and tried to clear it up, but got chased off by the Gargoyles.. 8 of them.
Thinking tactically, Stinky had set up a Wyvern watch on his wagon, and as was close enough to Telgorath, also used a 2nd WW to protect him.
Kovar did the same after 2 rounds into the battle for the cart.
Of the 8 outside watch Gargoyles (the 3 margs were inside and so the party never knew they were there), three went to bumb rush Telgorath, three to the wagon, and 1 to each of the trailing wolves, who had set themselves behind the wagon but in front of the cart.
One of the three Gars, got paralyzed by the WW that Stinky had set up (three of the players let out a cheer at that), but none of the 3 who rushed into Telgorath did. AND he was surprised by the bumb rush of them.. THE ONLY one who was!!!! :facepalm2:

After the initial round, Ronnel had dismounted the Wagon and had kicked in Flame blade to assist Telgorath. So this left Stinky facing off against 2 foes. The left most wolf was brought down after all 4 attacks hit it before it even had a chance to do anything (awe!! poor wuff)...
The 2nd didn't fare much better, being knocked to 2hp in the first round. Telgorath was getting slowly nickle and dimed to death, and WOULD have had he not decided to spend a round drinking his potion of heroism (the one he scavenged from the deceased Celo..

2 rounds later, he was desperate and glugged down his potion of extra healing.. Initially he griped and moaned when BOTH Johns reminded him that in 2e there is such a thing as potion miscibility, but calmed down when he rolled a 55 on the miscibility chart - both potions work as normal...

While this was going on, the 2nd wolf was killed outright (took 14 damage in one round ) and so both of those gar's got in Kovar's face however one of the 2 fell victim to his Wyvern watch and got paralyzed.. Clint being in the back of the wagon was 'crapping bricks by now'.. Stinky's activities at least kept the one's on the wagon from getting into the back where the helpless Makia lay, slowly rummaging through Stinky's backpack to find HIS potion of heroism...

Gm note - I allow even someone who is 'combat in-effective cause of needing bed rest from being brought into the negatives, to get up and fight after drinking either of those 2 potions, but ONLY so far as they are in combat, will that last, as soon as combat is over, even if the potion's still lingering, they drop back into exhaustion. Think of it like Popeye glugging some spinach..

The battle was taxing, and Kover joined the realm of those who are now needing bed rest after being dropped to -4, though his burning hands did scorch the Gar he was facing. After HE dropped, Clint had managed to roll out of the back, and cowered UNDER the cart. I made a morale roll for the gar there to see if he would maul the defenseless Clint or go after the 4 fighting foes.. He chose the latter..

As the last of the gargoyles were slain, due to simo initiative, the one she fought and killed with her last blow retaliated in kind and knocked her once again EXACTLY to 0hp, knocking her out.
Stinky quickly applied a healing on Telgorath cause the ONLY think keeping him up at this point in time was his 9hp boost he got from his potion...

The party BACK to being battered and bruised, decided fleeing now is the best course of action, hoping they can rush back to Awagorr before being beset by any more monsters...
Hey at least they (all the pcs that is) survived! And so they called that a win!

Session 13 in the bag..
Returning was John with "stinky beard, the dwarf fighter 4/cleric 4" (Who now has enough XP to level up his cleric side to 5th)
his wife Sam "Ronnel the half elf druid (now 5th level, and has enough XP to level up to L6th)
Robert "Clint Wentworth Jr, the elf thief, l5"
John, with his L3 ranger, Telgorath.
Kovar, the Half elf Cleric/mage (L4/l3
And Makia, the dwarf henchwoman of Stinky)..

Absent was Eric and his Swashbuckler fighter.

Before we GOT to gaming, we had a decision to make, since the store we were in was PACKED for a pair of miniatures tournaments.. So after 40 mins standing around and chatting about it (while waiting for John and his wife to show up), we eventually relocated to The other John's (the ranger) house, about 8 min drive south of the gaming store...

During the period where we were standing around waiting, the group DID mention that some are getting bummed out with the game, cause of the differences between 1/2e and 3.5/pathfinder etc, with the whole Random encounters NOT being gauged to level, The whole dropping into the negatives requiring a week of bed rest which makes the person combat useless for that period of time, and that they felt there was too MUCH free-formness, and would like a BIT more structure to things (not to the module level, but at least something more story-lined for certain aspects.

We chatted about it, and though they agree that having the bed-rest IS one of the core differences between the editions, we at least came to a compromise that they are ok with (and so am i).
From now on, when someone drops into the negatives, each negative HP they go down to equals one day of bed rest needed (Max of a week as normal), so if someone only went to -2, they don't need a full week out.
When they get returned to positive HP, they get to make a system shock roll at -5% per negative HP they were sent down to (so if say Telgorath bleed out to -5 before being healed, he would have a System shock roll at -25). If this check was successful, they would HALVE the # of days (round up) they would need bed rest for, and my normal HR where each Cure moderate kills off a day of bed rest need, was reduced to where a cure LIGHT also does that now..

This modification suited everyone. And we started WITH using it when we kicked back into gaming (it was just after 4.20pm now, so it gave us only really 2 hrs 45 to game with for having our normal 7pm end time)..

Random encounters will continue as is, but i will make mention to them WHEN an encounter is Random vice scheduled. They are ok for NOW with keeping it that way.

As for the story-line stuff (inc puzzles and traps, if they go to areas where those exist they can get into using those skills...)

As it is they spent quite a bit of time USING their brains to discuss whether to flee, leaving what treasure those Gargoyles might be guarding, or wait it out till Kovar and Makia were back up to fighting strength, then re-hit the church like building..
While waiting, both Makia and Kovar made their system shock rolls even WITH the -45% that Makia had, and the -30% that Kovar had, and adding to that the cure wounds they had received, it brought both to only needing 2 days of bed rest..

During the time waiting, Ronnel and Telgorath tag teamed and befriended a young black bear (stats as the MM, so its 3+3 hp gave it 19hp!). They also noticed that 3 figures flew back INTO the church the first night they were resting in a nearby cave (small, the bears home).. They managed to somewhat camoflague the cart and wagon, but most of their horses were all outside, tied off, so COULD easily have been eaten had i rolled any random encounters (and i rolled it openly and so they saw they had none for the 2 days worth of rest they needed.

Clint and Telgorath, during the 2nd day, made a sneak up to the building, scouting the outsides of it (i rolled real good for their sneaks as NONE were in metallic armor and BOTH are elves, that gave them their racial 90% sneakiness). Though they suspected something was in side, they did NOT see any figures, (neither passe the 20% notice chance to spot the trio of Margoyles that resided inside the church.) BUT they did notice a large pile of bones (former kills eaten), a large pile of shinnies (their treasure), two holes in the roof, marginal collapses of roofs and stairwells.

Taking this info back to the others, they started formulating a plan. During that night, they saw 3 Margoyles leave westward, and come back 4 hours later with 2 carrying a killed owl-bear for 'food'..
They gave it 2 more days (even though they only needed one more night), to see if the monsters inside would leave.. On the evening of the 2nd day, they saw ONE leave. They concluded (and rightly so) that those trio were the only remaining monsters. And so concluded their strategizing. The 4 elves/half elves, (none having metal armor) would sneak up, peer inside and see if they could lure any of the Margoyles outside, where they would try to run and lead them into Stinky and Makia...

I rolled real good for 3 of the 4 sneaking up, but when i rolled Ronnel's sneakiness i got a 99% for her (bad juju). Then when they made their observation checks to see if they could notice any of them inside, Telgorath came face to face damn near (peering through the remnants of a window) one of the Margoyles giving him a stare down! That freaked him out and they ran in damn near panic. BUT since what i have on the Margoyles is they don't leave other than for direct threats to the building...

So they tried again a few hours later, with Kovar, Telgorath and Clint sneaking off on one side, while Ronnel and the two dwarves, went full bore to the building.. As they closed in, Stinky cast Soften earth and stone, and had sufficient AoE to collapse one entire corner (inc the remaining roof line on that corner), into the cathedral. This actually damaged one of the Margoyles (building falling on you will damage you imo even if you need a +1 item to hit). He had before this though, handed over his +1 hammer to Makia so she could strike the beasts, and was planning on using Spiritual hammer when they came out. Ronnel for her part, as soon as the wall was down and the dust of it's collapse had shown where these foes were, hit two of them with Faerie fire, illuminating them and PEEVING them off royally (well it was more the wall falling in than the faerie fire)..

This brought out all 3.. Initiative was rolled, and Ronnel started casting flame blade on 6 but wouldn't finish till 11. Stinky was doing his Spiritual hammer starting on 7 and finishing on 12 (Hopefully!!), while Makia waited for the on-rush of the Margoyles (she rolled a 10!! booo)..
For the monsters one went on a 7 (rolled a 4+3), the 2nd on a 9, and the last on a 12!..
The one at 7 bum rushed Makia, and hit with ALL 4 attacks (two claws, horns and tail) and dropped her to -7 in one go!.. OUCH
The one at 9, bum rushed Stinky, but hit him foiling his spiritual hammer, and dealing a nasty gash with both claws (the other 2 attacks missed).
He asked if he could take the blow, and stumble closer TO where Makia fell, so he could pick up the falling warhammer she had at the end of the round. Thinking on it (and having allowed something similar in the past), i gave him a HALF Dex check, and they lucky bugger rolled a Nat 1...

Then it came for the others who were hiding (all had held off, but after a brief chat, they all continued to hold, except Kovar who unleashed a pair of Magic Missiles, causing near max damage to the beast. However, it's sights were firmly on Stinky (how dare he drop a bit of roof on me!).. And skewered with his tail causing near max damage to stinky.. man was he feeling the heat!...
At the end of the round, Clint had slinked into position so next round could try to back stab the one who was outer most of the trio, while Telgorath had come in to smack it on it's flank.

In the next round, the one who had dropped Makia engaged Ronnel, while the one who just came and the third kept engaging Stinky. Clint succeeded with his backstab but Telgorath missed his flank strike.. Two more magic missiles from Kovar struck true to home, wounding the beast even more.. Its turn came, and another claw and his horns gored into Stinky, who FUMBLED his counter strike prompting another 4 blows.. But none of those hit.
The OTHER one (the one that Clint had back-stabbed) though turned to face these 2 new foes, and critted with his tail, hit with his claws (both) and severly wounded Clint..
Ronnel missed again, but for her troubles, got gored and tailed by the Margoyle she fought.

Then we were into the 3rd round, Kovar decided against spell casting, so he could run in, and stabilize Makia before dragging her to safety. Stinky went to full parry mode (making the Margoyles need a 19 to strike him), while Clint and Telgorath stuck to the badly wounded beast.. Their combined efforts dropped him finally, but not before he gored and clawed Clint one more time.
Ronnel finally scored damage against the beast she faced, and was rewarded as the return blows all whiffed..

After dragging Makia to safety, Kovar rejoined the group, and managed to pop off a healing spell on Clint who had backed up, thus leaving Telgorath to face the one wounded by the roof cave in, who still tried smacking Stinky, but even if i added all 4 dice together i STILL wouldn't have struck home..

Ronnel though was nearly down and out after a pair of more hits, dropped her to exactly 1hp, but Stinky failed to dodge in the path of the blows hoping if he did so HE could take the blow for her...

Luckily, the following round, Kovar managed to move around the outside of the melee, and healed her up, though her Flame blade had expired (Cause of being ko'ed).. Stinky had firmly entrenched himself between the Margoyle and Ronnel, so she could at least back off to receive said healing.
Clint had guzzled a potion of extra healing before rejoining the fray (well putting himself in the mix at least)..

Several more rounds had gone by and still the 2 foes remained, and stinky was sweating as he had been finally brought to under half hp.. the first time in a long while...

After one more round of that pesky flame blade striking into the Margoyle's side, It rolled a successful int roll (rolled a 3 needing an 7 or less) to ignore the pesky 'dodging/parrying' stinky and take Ronnel out of action. And it did so, dropping her to -4.. Another one for Kovar to drag away, but he used a cure moderate wound to stabilize her before doing so..

It took 5 more rounds of battle, with a few close calls for both Clint and Telgorath, before the final 2 Margoyles had been killed.. Stinky relished in smashing their heads in one last time before the party, entered the now monster-clear building. They gathered up all the loot, but not before Kovar decided to give reading the one found scroll a go, and bam!!! he fell victim to the cursed scroll making him blind (for 8 hrs)..

WE ended with the group piling on the skeletal remains of the people they were sent to get (luckily signet rings identified three of the 4 lost people), all the swag, and both the down and needing rest Ronnel and Makia.. And started heading back to town...
We will start back UP with them hitting the trail for the 4 day trek back...

Ok. Back from a 2 weekend hiatus (Valentines weekend and last weekend there was a Magic Toruney going on in the store)..
Session 14 down..
Returning was John with Stinky beard a 4/4 cleric (level trained to 4/5 during the game)
his wife, Sam "Ronnel the druid" with her 5th level druid.. BUT i made a mistake in comutations, she's STILL 6k away from leveling up to 6th (Bugger it!)
And Jeff playing Kovar the 3/4 half elf mage/cleric...
Also present was Makia the dwarf henchwoman of Stinky..
Absent were Erik and his swashbuckling fighter (studdying for some certification if i heard rightly), John with his ranger (out of town), and Robert (just failed to answer calls about whether he was gonna make it or not)...

During their 4 day trek back, the gods were smiling on them, as they only had One random encounter on day 3; a split quartet of trapper scorpions (2 out, 2 in the lair). The group got ambushed and ALL but Kovar were surprised by it... Stinky took some nasty blows, and so did Makia.
The battle lasted quite a long time, with lots of fumbles on both sides (man it always seems to happen with these guys!).. Eventually Makia was dropped to -4, so Kovar grabbed her and drug her off. Ronnel was dropped to exactly 0hp, and went out, but won't need bed rest. Stinky got the killing blow (with a magic missile tossed in to help) on one of the 2 scorpions, then asked about "what would it take to use my trident to PIN the Scorpion's stinger into the ground.
After thinking on it, i just told him, make me a called shot, -4.. He rolled a nat 18, which would have hit even had i given him a -7 to hit!
Once the stinger was pinned, the scorpion flailed around and got off some lucky claws in on stinky.. Before having his skull caved in (nat 20 from his warhammer dealing 1 point shy of double max damage)...

After healing up some, stinky went down into the hole all aloen to locate the lair... Somewhat foolish as he ran into the other 2 scorpions. BUT got a great idea in his head and let them come at him.. Just as he cast a soften earth and stone on the ceiling bringing some of it down on one of the 2 scorpions (only did 2 damage).. Then battle was engaged..
He lasted 4 rounds on his own, before having to pop off a withdrawl spell and waste almost ALL his remaining cure wounds spells to bring himself back up from 14hp to near max, and ended it with his last L2 spell, as an Aid on himself..
now bolstered with the aid, he went back to town, and by this time Kovar and Ronnel had both made their way down, but declined to get involved.. Except a single MM from Kovar to the rear most scorpion.. Ronnel tossed a pair of CLWs on Stinky, keeping him hale and hearty.

The battle one, they looted the lair for some much needed wealth.
Then they hit the city of Awagorr, finally.. After checking it out, they figured they had enough to level up Kovar (to L4/4), Stinky (to 4/5) and Makia to L2 fighter, and IF ronnel was where she would also level up, she would have had the cash to do so.. BUT unfortunately a calculation error last week (added one to many 0s on one of her XP add ins, meant she was still 6k shy of hitting L6 as a druid.. DAMN the math!.)

They figured out that hey, the solstice is near by but by the time they all got done training (after trecking down to Escormian where both the mage and warrior's guild is at), they would miss out on hitting the "Pit"..
So talking it over, they decided, they would sell their skills in town (get mundane jobs, him being an weapon smith and stone smith, Ronnel as a healer, same as kovar), they would live with Makia and her pop in her house.. ROLLED a NAT 1 on his Cha check, followed by a 4 on the NPC reaction chart, so POP's was all for it.. BUT his Cha check of 18 meant POPS was NOT impressed enough to allow Makia to Marry Ferlith "Stinky beard" Iron Stone/ He was too Chaotic in actions for his liking (he was getting a rep as being rather whimsical in his acts)..

So we fast forward nearly a year, so they would have time to go to the sink hole known as the pit.. During this time i had Kovar make some checks to learn a few new spells as part of his 'guild membership with the mage guild', and he got 3 new spells. I also had Ronnel make some checks to acquire a few new animal companions.. She got a pair of mountain lion young (2d vice the full 3d+2, when they reach maturity) and a pair of wild dogs.. this brings her up now to having those 4, a bear, an owl and a raven.

OOC, it is a fluff piece in game, where on the summer solstice the ettins of the realm BY PASS all towns/cities, to bring cats (all big, all dead, including displacer beasts) to toss in the hole, stand around chanting, and getting a little drunk, then they all depart..

The trip to the pit would take 6 days across brushland.. Day 4's night time (Stinky was using Iron Vigil to stay awake), they hit the 2nd of their random encounters.. A quartet of Kephrinn (those large exploding skeleton beasties!)..
The party was all asleep except Stinky who Failed his boots of levitation activation roll (damn sucks being a dwarf :facepalm: )
Two went to him, the other 2 went to the sleeping party.. I randomly assigned whcih of the 3 sleepers would be wailed on, and unfortunately for Ronnel, she got smacked on. And she got pummeled for 9 damage from both of them..
Stinky got LUCKY and rolled a 17, which is now sufficient to turn these foes, but rolled snake eyes so only turned the two on him.. He then went to aid the others... Eventually, Ronnel was dropped to exactly 0hp a 2nd time in the night.. Makia though, had backed off as she was unarmored completely, and lacked the magical weapon needed to strike them.. Stinky went to town, killing one, and causing ITs explosion to wound the other standing Kephrinn... Eventually they killed the 2nd, but decided against doing any tracking to find a lair, as their ranger was absent..

Eventually they made it to the edge of the pit, a massive sink hole like opening in the ground, clearly 3 football fields at LEAST in size, wide all around (though not perfectly circular), around 1 football field length DOWN to its bottom, but the bottom was, as it always seems to be, shrouded in a thick pea soup mist/fog, for at least 20ft of that depth..
While waiting, a lone Manticore did a fly by Crapping on Makia (more of a comical random encounter.. No damage or XP, but keeping in with what the party had heard about the maticores in the realm..

Eventually the day of the solstice came, and dozens upon dozens of Ettins showed up.. Most dragging a dead cat, 5 lugging a dead displacer beast (which i DO count as a cat!)... And the 'ritual' was begun....
I described it to the group, after 2 made their religion checks at half, that it seemed like they were doing an ancient placation ritual, to a thought to be extinct "elder god" (think Chuthulu, but more of a large a&& Octopi/squid thing, that is land born)..
They stood around watching, even looking down while the chanting was going on.. I clearly described to them several times, how the ettins looked on, and paid them no heed, TILL one tried to either interfer in their chanting/tossing of the cats, OR asked why they were doing it (sort of an offensive question in a way.. Kind of like badgering someone about fight club.. RULE ONE you don't speak about fight club!"" :bigthumbsup: :bigthumbsup:

After the ettins departed, without even a gruff "see ya" to the dwarves or half elves, the party set about discussing what to do next..
Stinky had a HARD ON for wanting to go down.. Kovar was just "what ever, you say fearless leader"..
Eventually Stinky let himself down on a rope, being assisted by his boots of levitation (they worked this time).. He got to 10ft above the mist to scout around, and noticed some thick slimy tentacles akin to what might be on a squid, BUT without any obvious suckers. He Smelt the acrid stench of a body being dissolved slowly by acid (probably the mist he said), when 3 of the tentacles reached out to try and swat him. One hit (the other 2 were no where close).. Doing only a small amount of damage, but knocking him back 3 meters... It was also about this time, his boots NEARLY gave away (in one of my sticky notes from a prior group i had it wrote down that there is a possibility of magic being neutered, say 10% per round, FLAT, when within 20ft of the mist, as a foil for divination magics, but thought what the hell, have it scare him by his boots flickering in and out, dropping him 5ft closer to the mist...

He smartly went BACK UP, and rejoined the others. And they all slept. Soundly (even stinky as his iron vigil was over)... The next evening came, and as they were all discussing where to go down and how (there are 2 rings of feather falling in the group, and both Kovar and Ronnel can use their own magics, via Wind Column to do the same effect), stinky said "i am gonna just run up to the edge and leap off, kicking in my boots to lower me down...
AND promptly rolled 03 for his "Dwarf Malfunction chance"..

This is where i had to spend a little time, looking for IF there's a mention of how far someone falls IN one round, as well as trying to figure out of he would get a new chance to activate his boots in a 2nd round before going SPLAT, or whether he was hosed.. Eventually he said "just roll the damage you can ask it online later".. So i did.. ALL 20d6 of it!
Even being at 60hp, he was taken to -9 from the impact! OUCH!
Though luckily he made his SS roll to survive the massive damage..
Of the 3 others dropping on feather falls, Kovar was the closest.. When he noticed.. HMMM my skin is blistering a little from this mist; d2-1hp on the first 3 rounds you are in the mist, rising to d2 for a few rounds, d3 for 3 rounds, and so on (PS the tentacles are immune to it! )
He quickly pulled off Stinky's boots, put them on himself, then headed UP dragging the unconscious and bleeding out dwarf.
As soon as they got to the top, ronnel cast a cure moderate on him to stablize him, then we ended it for the night....


Unfortunately This is where the group ended things, as two players moved out of state, another said "I am going back to pathfinder" and MR i am doing my certs had to canx cause most of his classes ARE on the weekends.. So that left just John and his wife. And they were unwilling to continue with just the 2 players....