Gygax & Greyhawk Session #27 - Blowing in the Wind

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Ranzel of the Wood (Human Ranger 5)
Solcha (Elf Fighter 4 / Magic User 4)
Skeef Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 4/ Thief 4) 
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 4 / Fighter 4)

Date/Time

Goodmonth 22 late afternoon to Goodmonth 23 late afternoon

The party swiftly retreats from the burial mound and heads back towards the entrance of the valley. Before leaving the misty vale completely to camp on the plains, they explore the dark entrance between the two marble slabs. Inside is a shrine and burial chamber dedicated to Allitur and Pelor, with battered statues of the gods looking over the smashed remains of an alter and several sarcophagi. Goro says a prayer and the party tries to tidy up,  reinterring the bones to their resting place as much as possible. And are rewarded with  faint and temporary yellow glow from the figure of Pelor. This they take as a good sign, and decide to rest here for the night. And in the morning, Goro, Solcha and Ranzel find their wounds from the battle with the phantom warriors have all healed. 

Waiting awhile, they find the overnight mist lifts very slowly. Rather than wait all day, they plunge into the fog and continue along the path past the burial mounds. This leads them to to banks of a shallow stream. By now the mist has lifted enough for them to see, on the other side, a village of crude stone and sod huts surrounded by poor fields of oat and barley. On a rise above the village lies the remains of some long collapsed wooden building.  They see signs of life, so Skeef if chosen to scout, cloaked in invisibility. He sees no more than a few dozen inhabitants, all dour and moving as if in an unenthusiastic funk. And they are dirt poor. The ruined building he finds was a longhouse, long burned and collapsed. And following the trail a little further, he comes to a small stone chapel with a smashed stone head of Allitur lying in the grass outside. 

The druid/thief returns to the party, and Goro and Socha decide to cross the stream to the edge of the fields and politely grab a farmer to talk to. They find the villagers believe the barbarian 'masters' and King Thorlandor are still alive, simply away at war. Even evidence to the contrary i.e the ruined longhouse, does not sway the man. They also learn of the four spirit guardian of the valley; the worm, the eagle, the wolf and the bear and the peasant points out the holy sites of each in the four cardinal directions.

Goro figures the village in under a curse of some sort, so the party avoids it and pushes to the chapel on the mountainside above. Skeef repairs the stone head as best he can and places it on the statue inside. And is rewarded with a barely perceptible gesture of thanks from the statues clasped hands. Keeping this place in mind as another possible safe resting place, they push on. They encounter a body sticking out of the ground, only the head buried. When disturbed, it attacks and tries to suck out their brains with blood red routes that have taken the place of its head. It is killed, and the hole from which it was plucked is looted of a magical mace, chain mail and healing potions. 

Pushing further, they follow the trail up a narrow valley and then up onto the spur of the mountain overlooking the village. There they see a strange round boulder and a tall form of a man built out of rotting, mossy logs. Climbing the log man allows them clear view of the whole valley now that the mist has lifted, and they make note of all the features. Skeef approaches the stone, and notes the stylized form of a bird carved on it. And then  a distant booming voice echo's out, demanding what the party wants. Saying they seek knowledge, the voice demands either blood sacrifice or successfully passing a trial. Skeef takes the trial, and is told he must climb the boulder and stay there for 4 minutes. Thinking this is easy, the druid is suddenly buffeted by gale force winds.  He holds on at first, but is blown off the boulder and down over the side of the mountain, where he lands on his head with a sickening 'crunch'. The party plays out rope and lowers Solcha down to bind his wounds, which are severe ... 

GAINS

footmans mace +2

chainmail +2

2 potions of healing

golden holy symbol of Allitur [25gp]

KILLS/VICTORIES

Cursed Plant Priest

LOSSES

Part of Skeef's skull 

Gygax & Greyhawk Session #26 - Misty Mountains Cold

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Ranzel of the Wood (Human Ranger 5)
Solcha (Elf Fighter 4 / Magic User 4)
Skeef Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 4/ Thief 4) 
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 4 / Fighter 4)

Date/Time

Reaping 27 morning to Goodmonth 22 late afternoon

The party spends a night in Orlane to rest and recover, and then seek rumors of the assassin Derek or Abbott Grosso (to no avail). They then decide to return to Oxton for training and to sell some of their finds. And to seek further information and rumors to plan adventures going forward. Along the way, a midnight attack by a trio of ankhegs left them battered and short a pair of horses. But they otherwise made it to the crossroads town without trouble. 

After a number of weeks training and fencing goods individually, the party reconvenes at the Ox and Lyre to decide what to do next. Plans of revenge against Derek are shelved for now, as was any plan to follow up on the cult of Wastri (largely due to a lack of information for both). They did have the Salander prime rod and it's directions to another site, but visions of undead hoards made them wary of that right now. Conversation turned to their need for weapons  of magical power, a conversation overheard by an old codger by the name of Geth of Kodof. He began to ramble on about legends and hints of magical weapons. From his yarn, the party plucked two likely threads:

• A berserker hoard had burst forth from the Griff Mountains and ravaged the lands of northern Tenh a hundred years ago.  They were eventually run to ground by the Duke and the Tenha Host, and the mighty barbarian king and his champions were slain. The remnants retreated back into their mountain valley and buried their fallen, and it is rumored the king's mighty bronze great-sword was buried with him. 
• Geth reminded the party that to find weapons of renown, turn to the halls of the dwarves. For the dwur are known to  hoard weapons and armor. He tells a tale of a long abandoned mine of the dwur, dating from before the great migration of the Suel and the Oeridians into the Flanaess. There, undoubtably, could be found weapons of mithril from the metals mined in the dark of Oerth.

Both stories appealed to the party, and in the end they choose to strike north and seek the lost valley of the barbarian king in the remote vales east of Nevond Nevnend. After six days on horseback, they reached the largely uninhabited downs below the north facing ranges. Following the old mans' instructions, they follow a small river into a narrow canyon. Dark mountains of pine and mist loom around them. They found signs of the ancient battle here and there, included a tumbled barbarian watchtower. Also discovered is a pair of marble slabs set into the side of the mountain, covered in names that Ranzel recognizes as mostly Flann/Tenh. Between then a dark passage is cut into the stone. 

The party opts to not enter the dark hole just yet, but instead strike deeper into the mountains where they see the canyon open up into a valley. There they spy barrow mounds, and head straight that way. As they do, the mist starts to drift into the valley, and soon the party is encased in thick, chill fog. They climb the closest mound, and are attacked by a band of ghostly barbarian warriors. They fight these off, but are badly hurt in the process, and start thinking to pull back and rest elsewhere for the fast approaching night ...  

GAINS

nil

KILLS/VICTORIES

3 Ankhug

8 Phantom Warriors 

LOSSES

none

Gygax & Greyhawk Session #25 - Poison and Fried Eggs

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Ranzel of the Wood (Human Ranger 4)
Solcha (Elf Fighter 4 / Magic User 3)
Skeef Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 4/ Thief 3) 
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 4 / Fighter 3)

Date/Time

Reaping 17 late afternoon to Reaping 27 morning

The party makes it's way through the maze of tunnels interspersed with patches of deep mud, heading north-west. Several uninteresting caves are explored before they come to a spot where Skeef (the only without wax stuffed in his nose) smells troglodyte. The party enters a wide cavern that extends well beyond their lantern light, shaking out into a skirmish line as they go. Solcha spies a hidden figure against the right wall and fires a shot with her bow. Before running off into the darkness, the camouflaged troglodyte hurls a wicker cage at her, which bursts to free a hissing viper. Before the party can dispatch the serpent, it bites the elf and she goes down, poisoned. Skeef and Goro jump in to save her with a combination of slow poison and neutralize poison, and party begins to advance carefully. A side chamber is found, with a nest full of troglodyte eggs about to hatch. Oil and flame are applied, but the screams and smells attract an onrush of troglodyte defenders. More pit vipers come flying at the party, and this time Ranzel goes down. Once more, Goro drags his fallen comrade out of the way and starts casting spells to bring him back to the fight. Meanwhile the rest of the party  engages the hordes with swords and hold person spells until all are dead. Skeef also manages to capture a pit viper (and several pit viper hatchling in the next room). They pile the bodies to burn, and then push to the end of the cavern. There they find the drying pelt of their fallen giant weasel friend, as well as a pile of treasure hidden under one of the mud-pile sleeping nests. 

Leaving the long cavern, the party fights past a screaming and savage bonesnapper. Who is an easy kill since it's chained to the wall. They now find themselves in the naga's chamber again, having approached it from the opposite direction as they did last time. A quick search of the green glowing, water filled cavern reveals no unrecovered treasure, so they backtrack a bit to a side passage. Where they encounter a pair of huge spiders, and this time Skeef falls dead to their poison. With no spells left, Ranzel calls on his wilderness wiles to suck the poison from the wound, thankfully not poisoning himself in the process. This stabilizes the druid/thief enough for the party to retreat back to Orlane for a week of rest and recovery. 

Returning to the dungeon, they continue this exploration of the lower level. They encounter a curious room where zombies operate a system of pullies and buckets, raising water from the pool in the chamber to the darkness above. After much conundruming, they realize this is a sump to keep the lower level from flooding. As they discover when they destroy the zombies and the water level starts to rise.

Rushing ahead of the rising waters they check out one last place; a water filled chamber they bypassed in their original explorations. Here the party is surprises to see one wall of the passage has been opened up, revealing a hidden  storage area. A boat now also lay at the waters edge, so they party piles in to cross the long cavern. At the end they find a raised mud bank and wooden platform, similar to the treasure room they found on the upper level. Here though the treasure is looted. Two chests lay smashed on the platform, and a body lay amid the ruins. They examine the body and find it had died of poison, likely from a trap on a chest.   And he looks like one of the Derek the Cultist's men. Based on the body and the tracks Ranzel examines, it looks like the treasure was looted when the party was recovering in Orlane. Cursing their luck and promising revenge against the wily Derek, the party returns to Orlane once more to consider their options going forward. 

GAINS

47pp

273gp

490sp

gems [350gp, 200gp, 110gp, 80gp] 

Giant Weasel Pelt [3000gp]

KILLS/VICTORIES

10 Troglodytes 

2 Mud Vipers (1 captured)

1 Bonesnapper (helplessly murdered) 

2 Huge Spiders 

5 Zombies 

LOSSES

Solcha, Skeef, Ranzel (poisoned) ... but they're feeling better now.