A Failed Diplomacy

We began after the party had rested in the secure room at the top of the dungeon. When they wake up however they hear a bubbling noise, like some enormous beast is hungry. The Shugenja has now decided that he has had enough of pondering and charges out ahead to see what is going on. It turn out that the sand pit at the bottom has now become a rolling plane of fire. This illuminates the entire cavern and is obviously something that should not be touched nor messed with. He throws a rock down into it. Then the barbarian decides that pissing in it is a brilliant plan. Adventurers everyone, bastions of brilliant intelligence.

So with that done the hole erupts, and a giant lava plume comes out of it. Despite requests to the contrary this does not singe the barbarian's dick off, but merely creates a humanoid figure that is on fire, and in fact burns the very air around him, leaving air for some reason but burning any within the radius. Not understanding what is going on the party results to plan A, kill shit and ask questions later. Of course they are fairly inept at actually killing things, especially things that are immune to fire, their main source of damage. So what results is a comical chase around the circular cavern with Benny Hill music in the background.

With that craziness going on the Shugenja decides to simply step out, retreating into the sleeping rooms from before. From there he realizes he has a spell called silent image and wonders what it does. Given his skill in the illusory arts he decides that he will create images, a lot of them. He creates dozens of the barbarian, a few of the rogue, and a few fiery humanoids just to add to the confusion. Of course this doesn't help the party too much because they do not actually know that he is casting this. With that the rogue continues shooting arrows and doing no damage to the fiery being, the sorcerer starts freaking the fuck out, and the barbarian continues doing what he is doing, losing in a fight to the elemental.

The figures that were conjured eventually start exploding randomly, changing form, and in general screwing with anyone watching. Finally they form into one enormous fiery being and then explode into a bunch of humanoid figures that begin killing themselves and each other until there is nothing left. It was an incredibly entertaining display, but ultimately didn't accomplish too much, though it was a decent distraction. Then the Shugenja goes and heals the barbarian who collapsed at his feet with zero. With the barbarian up and under constant healer supervision they manage to kill it, and then get the fuck out because the ceiling is shaking.

Turns out the purple worm that opened up this place is back and he is pissed. Aside from that though as they retreat they steal a few more mender corpses. After running away they travel through the dessert awhile. Eventually they arrive back at the kobold town with little incident. There they go back to the Golrog wizard and he tells them a little bit about the stone they found. It turns out it is a variant of a weirdstone, a powerful artifact that prevents divination and teleportation. This one however is portable, something that was unknown previously. It could have huge impacts on warfare because of the threat that teleportation poses. Now this artifact is wanted by many, many people, primarily the goblin people who want to live in isolation but are having a bitch of a job.

This however is a less pertinent issue as it turns out a dwarven army has taken up residence outside of the city and is planning to take it back for the dwarven people, who have a slight dislike for kobolds. Not quite as much as gnomes, but still. The sorcerer wishes to parley and to avert violence, the rest of the party disagrees, though not quite violently. Despite this they both head to the camp and talk to the leader. First the sorcerer convinces the dwarves to stop in exchange for the mender's corpses, and the promise of more if he never attacks the kobolds. Of course then the Shugenja decides to go and ruin it all by telling him where to get more mender corpses, and declaring open war on the kobold.

Hearing this, and with a little whisper in his ear by a certain changeling assassin the sorcerer decides to go and warn the kobolds. He convinces them all to evacuate and then goes back to the dwarven camp to tell the leader about this. Unfortunately the leader is not happy, and decides that torturing him for the location of the kobolds is a decent plan. One of his bodyguards finds this plan delightful and begins it with glee. Luckily the Shugenja is there to keep him alive for more torture, and he is left in manacles as the army decides to check the nearby area after the sorcerer starts spouting out random locations.

Diplomacy and Arson: A Likely Couple

The three brave party members are off to see the kobolds after a few days of rest. The first plan of action is find out how many there are, then murder exactly that number. They know that the little bastards have been troubling the local mushroom farmers, so head over to the farms and see whats going on. It turns out that the kobolds have been stealing food, and that can't go on, otherwise the town would grow less fat and more healthy. So they look around for the location of the kobold hole, and eventually find it, though it is somewhat less opulent than a hobbit hole. The send their talking man out first of course, and the little kobold bard descends down the deep dark hole.

After walking for not too long he trips a wire and gets covered by a bunch of oil, though is luckily not set on fire. This doesn't perturb him too much though, and he continues until he hears a small squeaky voice, telling him that only one may continue. He walks for another couple minutes, and finds a single kobold leaning out of the wall. They have a fairly amiable discussion, and the bard decides that it's time to help the kobolds to attack the town, as they have been oppressed for far too long.He comes out and finds his party has left, to go and train the mage's dog. 

Wandering around town blindly surprisingly does not help with this, though asking around they do find someone who helps them to a dog trainer. This man is a new player, a rogue named Ean. Also while wandering around they bump into a sorcerer elf who recognizes the barbarian from the boat. While he is not actually an elf, but a changeling, he also decides to join up with this party, not knowing anything else to do. The group then wanders back to the whole and find the bard, who tells them what they have to do. Here they have a large discussion about the morality of both sides, and in the end the party is largely divided, but grudgingly agrees to help the kobolds.

Before they try to burn the town however they go to the leader of the town, a gruff dwarf, and try to convince him to let the kobolds live like regular people. This doesn't go over so well, as he unequivocally decides that it won't work, and goes out hunting because he doesn't really like governing the town too much. They also manage to let out that the kobolds will attack in two days, but decide that the the current night will actually be the perfect time to attack, as it will before they are actually expecting the attack.

In the preparations for the attack they gather oil, flint and steel, and the changeling tries to infiltrate the guards. This does not go well however, as he is arrested by the member of the guards he is impersonating, and taken to the captain of the guards. The captain reveals he knows that the wizard is a changeling, and casts a small enchantment to identify him as one from then on. This puts a little bit a damper on his plans, because in addition to this he almost told the captain that they were attacking that night. Woops.

Despite all this they meet up outside the town at dusk and decide to assault the town, deciding they have enough numbers that it should go smoothly. However they forgot one thing, the elf arms dealer. He comes upon their group with his two guards, and tells them how he knows all about their plans, and that he will refuse to allow the destruction of the town to happen. This is when one of the guards decides he has had enough, and slowly shifts to the form of the elf. In one smooth motion he stabs a dagger straight through the elf's heart, and brings his other fist into the second guards throat, utterly destroying it. He then says, "Burn it all down, I love a little anarchy." 

He then disappears, and the party is stunned. Not literally of course, as they subsequently run over to the body and begin looting. After the most important thing is done they all set out to the sides of the town, and prepare to start the fires. The rogue however has a different role, he sneaks through the town and infiltrates the leader of the town's tent as quietly as he can. Unfortunately the leader is not there, and it turns out he wasn't as quiet as he thought he was. A guard comes in, and without the element of surprise the rogue drops very quickly.

The sorcerer saw all this through his familiar, and since previous going through a very similar experience he decided he needed to journey into town to save him. This goes better than expected due to some well made bluff checks. And enough magic missiles to bring down a horse, or a large jailer. Letting his comrade out of jail and healing him they both flee the scene. Unfortunately before they can get back to the farm they are confronted by several armed guards. By this point the fires have already begun, and they are the obvious culprits. The rogue however slipped away into the darkness, and the wizard was left alone to deal with 4 guards.

He ran, as fast as he could, calling for any help he could. Luckily he did actually get it in the form of the kobolds arriving with fires all around. The rest of the party charging in to help with the combat didn't hurt either, though by the end the barbarian and rogue had gone down, and the shugenja was on his last legs. In the end the true savior of the party was the dog, with some fiery support from the bard. And thus the party stood, looting the captain's body, staring at their handiwork. Since they had arrived they had disturbed they had disturbed an eel's habitat and killed said eel, dealt with some merfolk who were tormenting the town, helped to end one man's semi-dominance of the town, and then burned it all down. An adventurous couple of days all things told.

A Summary

It ha been too long since I've made a blog post, and a lot of stuff has happened. We have had a session for both groups, because real life so rarely allows for everything to go as planned.


The first group has now not only destroyed the keep, but have managed to get themselves arrested, and brought to the local ruler. This ruler will absolve them of all their sins as long as they do a task for him. This task is very simple, just go to another city, steal all their clerics, and come back. Do it within a limited time, or your heads go off.

Unfortunately when they were arrested they had several guard corpses in their guild, something the guards were not too happy about. This means that if they put one toe out of line they will promptly be arrested and sent to jail, or an early death. They decided to camp out at the lady they murdered before's house, because it was the most innocent place they could think of.

So this goes fine, they all have a nice rest, and then decide to see if the kobolds from before had anything of interest for them. And by thing of interest, I mean straight up murdering all of them, for the inevitable slight that results from a gnome diplomancing a kobold. So everyone attacks, the gnome, he's brought down, but the party come to the rescue. And with a new member now, as a prisoner of the kobolds breaks out and assists by punching his way through a large amount of kobolds.

The monk and the party combine to take down the group, though the knight is brought to unconsciousness and the bard is flung from his back, almost dying himself. Overall though, the fight is won, and they win a healthy reward from the looting of the kobolds. The session then ends and will continue next week.

The other party made some slow progress down the beach, as they defeated the crabs and ascended towards a new goal, one of prosperity. First however they had to defeat the crab in front of them, with aid from their theoretical opponent, the magistrate. His army of horse bombadeers assists quite a bit, and the crab is taken down, albeit with quite a bit of damage done to the party. The magistrate then rides off, but the party has a brilliant plan.

The druid summons a hippogriff, and sends it off to pick up the magistrate and drop him, hopefully for a KO. One failed grapple check later and the hippogriff is thrown off and slaughtered, and the magistrate comes back and delivers a talking to the party. They decide the obvious solution is to beat the druid to unconsciousness and to let the magistrate have his way. This doesn't quite work though, as the druid springs into the water on the edge of consciousness and lives to fight another day.

Both parties part then, with the slower PCs travelling along the shore on foot. This turns out to be a bad decision as they fight yet another crab after about a day, and narrowly defeating the baby crab they retreat to the forest to regroup. The druid has not returned, and will in all likelihood abandon them.

Continuing along the path because they have nothing better to do they run into some bandits, again narrowly winning the fight they slaughter the bandits, burn their tree hideout, and take all their loot. They then proceed to a city which they found after several days search. After climbing up the city they go for a night's rest and the session ends. Fin.

Epitaph for the Fallen

The party began the day in a forest with 5 members, and ended with 4. The loss was not a major one emotionally, but physically the tole was felt. Even still it was not a bad day, even if no loot was to be had. It began with everyone strolling through the forest not a care in the world, who eventually ran into the scouts for a contingent of armed men. With these men, the king who they had been searching for. Excellent cried the party, this is wonderful.

It was not so wonderful though, as they realized when they had found him, in that there was no real reward to be had, and they had no real plan. What they did offer though, was to attack a town taken over by druids for him, as part of there ever lasting quest for rupees. They also managed to convince him to spare some of his men for their surprise attack. A cunning ploy really, unfortunately they forgot that druids were fairly well attuned with the trees.

So they managed to successfully get to the other side of the town, and sneak, sneak, sneak there way in. Only problem was, a large wood figure stood in the way. This wood figure would eventually lead to their downfall, him and his splinters. This wood figure was immune to the warlock's petty magics, and did not take kindly to being shot by one. He proceeded to charge in, smash some people, and explode with splinters, doing massive damage to everyone, and leaving him unharmed. This is when everyone got a little bit worried.

Still, they outnumbered him 15 to 1, they had a good chance so they said, we can beat him so they said, that won't kill me so they said. Everyone has their turns, volleyed are shot, and golems are thrusted at, but all in a vain attempt. The golem then smashes down the hexblade, leaving him on the wrong side of consciousness. He also dealt significant damage to the samurai, and prepared for an explosive finale the next turn. Now the attempts were even more desperate, with even the warlock resorting to his crossbow to damage it, and again, it all was for naught. One more explosion sent a good portion of the line sprawling, leaving few alive to tell the tale.

Those who were alive and conscious included the totemist and the samurai, as well as the warlock. Not alive including the PC, the hexblade. A rather unfortunate turn of events. This is when the golem decided this was a great time to smack them both, just putting them at -1 health. Now it was up to the final line of NPCs to deal with him, him having only one HP left. And that was the exact number of damage they dealt to him, one damage, just enough to bring him down.

Health potions shared all around, and everyone got up. They then planned a variety of shenanigans, ultimately resulting in them selling out the king to the druids. This worked wonderfully, resulting in only the king and a few personal guards alive, and a huge battlefield full of death. Hip, Hip, Horrah.

                                                   Like this, but times 100, and in a forest.

Machinations of the Mysterious Kind

After a long break we begin again with some troublesome combat. See the party, plus a rogue and a dwarf warrior begin by facing two huge monstrous centipedes, both dead. The dead can still fight on occasion, so we everyone rolls for initiative, and the game begins.

So the fight starts off with everyone charging, then realizing what a bad idea it is, given the relative strengths of these monsters. They do some minor damage, but take major hits as well, especially the party knight, who is knocked out twice and single hits manage to bring just about everyone below half health.

Luckily the tide turns for the better when they take down one, and zerg rush the other to a satisfactory conclusion, while healing everyone to full health before they journey on. Given the choice of two doors they choose the larger doors, which are locked, providing further evidence for their direction. Of course their handy rogue is able to pick the lock, and they can then charge in recklessly.

To the surprise of many they did not do just that, they actually planned a box formation, allowing only one in and the ability to gang up and destroy him. This would have went well if they had not underestimated the enemies they were facing. Upon opening the door the party druid, somehow taking the leader role, spots several caged mutants, a few just kind of standing around, and one mad scientist type dude.

So he quickly shuts the door, and sends an entangle that way too, because why not. Unfortunately the caged mutants had wings, and were released before he could really do anything. They begin flying, at quite a fast speed towards him, and unfortunately his hasty retreat does nothing to save him. The thing flying at him was essentially the thing at the side there, but with a grabbing tentacle and only 2 hands. This grabbing tentacle grasped him and tossed him over to the workbench by the scientist, at less than -10, but not yet dead. This will play a part later, in the machinations of the world. So they fight this thing, manage to actually kill it, only to be overwhelmed by a second one.

This was the final straw for the rogue who took his opportunity, and back stabbed the party ranger to an untimely unconsciousness. This was followed by the dwarf stabbing the dragon shaman draining his last bits of health, and the knight being smashed deep into the negatives. The party reaper was then grappled, and we ended it there, a fate uncertain.