The big fight

The game was posted late, but we had good turn out.  While the group did not wipe the first level of the temple out, they did break its back.  The priesthood and the temple were killed and desecrated.  

One of the players said that they found the infighting and the bickering in the party about the Orc prisoners to be the most interesting part of the game so far.  Interesting.

They started out from the torture chamber and headed out to explore.  They immediately found stairs going down, but they decided that they would instead explore the rest of the level before heading down.  They passed through the area next to the torture chamber and surprise, it was filled with prison cells filled with prisoners.  The decision was made to get them later and not to intrude at all, and since they could all see in the dark, they passed the prisoners without issue.  They then passed into an area of importance, they could tell because the hallway was wider and had a richer appearance.  The torches were replaced with oil lamps embedded in the wall.  The hallway was made of sandstone, light beige in the north and deep chocolate in the south and in the north there was yellow stone triangles on the floor.  The party looked ate the symbols and went the opposite direction.  At the extreme south end they found stairs leading to the next level down.  They went past these and headed up the other side of the grand hallway, it was shaped like a sharp 'U' or a 'V'.  

They discerned a secret door and decided to investigate.  The theory was that if there was a secret door, it must be hiding something valuable.  They found a lavishly appointed bedroom behind the secret door and a wall covering made of wood that served as a door.  They were not trying to be very quiet so when they entered the adjoining chamber it was deserted.  They did see a peep whole in the door and they were able to see human guards setting up an ambush.  The characters then set up their own ambush and endeavored to try to get the guards to follow them.  Using magic, the made an illusion of them leaving after looting the place.  The enemy was cautious and sent three guards to investigate.  When the temple guards saw the player characters they attempted to do battle, but the characters were too strong so they fled to a more defensible position and the guards fired crossbows at the PCs as they entered the room.  The bard was having nothing of that and cast a potent spell, hypnotic pattern and this time, all the human guards were memorized by the pattern.   Dazed and looking at the pattern they each woke up to the PC threat as they were attacked one at a time.  There was over twelve warriors and two priests and they were all affected and they were all cut down quickly.  Anti-climatic to be sure, but that is what happened.  They looted the series of room, the bodies and left.  They found a great deal of treasure including a potion of speed and a robe incrusted with gems.  The paladin took the potion and the bard took the robe.  He took the robe and wore it, because it was more Valuble than the clothing he w wearing before.  There was also a book about how to sacrifice people to the Elemental Evil Earth.  The paladin said he took that and began to read it and they rested for an hour.  

Rest over they headed back to the important corridor and followed it to its end, right into the temple of Elemental Earth.  It was 70' by 70' and there was a raised pyramid in the center 6' high with a stone plinth and manacles on four sides and a small box at the base.  The Gnomish Paladin with questionable morals ran to get the box.  The rest of the PCs separated and spread through the room.  They said they felt exposed and wanted to lessen the chances that something bad would happen, except they had an impulsive Gnome with them.  When the gnome looked back, not only had four earth elementals had risen in the four corners, but they had started moving towards him, at the center.  He looked in the box and found some bloody knives and an ewer.  He stated, wait I just read part of the book on conducting Human sacrifices, and he grabbed the knife and slit his own throat… no the party was not so lucky.  He slit his hand and filled the decanter with his blood.  He then tried to remember what he was to do next and recalled, that the rest was in chapter three of the book and he had not gotten there yet, so he sprinkled the blood over the elementals before realizing that he was participating in an evil ritual, so he decided that he should command the elementals, as if that made it less evil, but he used a command spell, that failed utterly, but it counted as an attack, but luckily only affected two of the Elementals and not all four.  

Just before he attacked the Elementals, the party voted and decided to runaway, but when the paladin was being attacked they decided to help out anyway.  The battle was fierce and the toughest fight so far for the group, but it could have been worse as there was only two Elementals attacking the paladin had a mace of striking and the Dwarf had a magic battle-axe and both of them had the best armour classes of the party.  The Druid became a Dire Wolf and ran to attack, the ranger stayed apart and fired arrows, the bard cast spells from the safety of the edge of the room.  The Paladin came into his own, he attacked with a fury, twice a round he used his spells with effect, Hunter's Mark and blasted his foes with holy Smites.  In one round he caused the first elemental to half hit points. And the defeat of the first elemental gave them hope.  Only one of the characters had been hit and reduced to half hit points, but it should be mentioned he was hit only twice.  The characters ganged up on the second elemental and brought it down.  At this point the bard suggested that they leave, so the paladin started a fight with the third elemental.  He then thought to drink the Speed Potion.  The gnome ran across the field of battle and attacked three times in a round, often doing damage.  The bard discovered that wearing the high priest's robes, the Elementals would not attack him, so he entered the fray too.  Midway through the third Elemental, the paladin's player exclaimed, "I better stop playing now, I'll never be able to top this battle!"

The battle ended and the foes were defeated.  They decided not to dig for buried treasure and decided instead to seek out a quiet place to sleep.  They gained a level.  I wonder if they will remember to go back and search for the treasure, or free the prisoners?

On a sad note, Jimmy the cat, the host's cat, died.  He was a great cat.  Little black and white cat with a cute overbite that made him look like a vampire.  Also, my friend, for whom I wrote and ran the other game was busy dying in the hospital, but now may be going home now.  I have been asked to run another session… a last session.

I recall an essay that I read once a long time ago by a famous world builder, Ed Greenwood, about a summer of D&D that he ran with his friends on the banks of the Don River in Toronto.  I recall that shortly after that one of the players died.  It is funny how that is what people remember.  It is funny that our friendship should rotate around a game, something that we chose to do together for thousands of hours.  Literally thousands of hours.  I lived with him in an apartment and every Sunday we and a couple others gamed for four or five hours.  That is 1250 hours right there.  And we gamed without the rest with solo campaigns easily another 1000 hours.  We gamed the Temple of Elemental Evil, first as a solo then over time more people, for years even before we lived together.  There was his games that we played, vampire, battle lords of the 23 century and Mage.  We split the duties of Exalted pretty cleanly, he ran then I ran.  And now he is dying and we get to play one more game with his kids, one more time to share his favourite game with his children.  

Do you understand?

Next game with the six layer bean dip party party in two weeks.  Lots can change in that time.  Cats died and maybe others. Maybe not.  My friend is out of the woods but for how long.

Dilemmas Abound Roleplaying Session

The party ran into a dilemma.  The first thing they encountered in the new temple dungeon was a prison cell filled with, well prisoners.  First thing.  No fights.  And then the debate began.  Free the prisoners and escort them to the surface and then home, or leave them and come back later.  They came up with a third option, wait in ambush for the next person to open the cell and question them or kill them, but to do that, someone would have to lock the door and wait outside.  They decided to leave the prisoners and explore the dungeon.  

The Good thing to do would be to free the prisoners and escort them home.  The second good thing would be to wait in ambush.  They went to the next door to see what was there instead.  There was a fight.  The problem was that they saw the padlock and they had to unlock it.  They could have decided to just move to the next door, but they didn't.  The thing is, this is roleplaying gold; the heart of the game is moral quandries and exploring new things.  Most people never get to raid a temple and discover prisoners and get to free them.  What would you do?

The fight was a long protracted fight stretching through four conected rooms and involving 8 ghouls and 4 ghasts.  They also got their first real taste of solid treasure.  The first room had copper, the second had silver, the third had gold and a scroll, but not much, and the fourth had two pieces of jewelry, worth 4000 and 2000 gold pieces respectively.  Those two pieces of jewelry represented about a quarter of everything they found before this day, and it was not a hard fight, although they almost lost their leader when he was tag teamed by a pair of ghasts.  After he rushed in, after making enough noise to wake the dead, oh, wait, ghasts ARE undead.

Then they went back to the prisoners.  It had been an hour tops, but things had changed.  Someone had entered the prison and butchered a prisoner there and had taken another elsewhere.  There were eleven prisoners, but now there are nine.  After the prisoners had told the player characters that they did no have a sense of time, but they felt that the last time someone came was a long while ago.  The wife of the butchered prisoner was inconsolable and the others wanted out quickly; they did not trust the PCs.  The PCs wanted to rest and recuperate.  But when they had rested, we're they just going to leave again and leave them in the cell?  The PCs elected just to rest and not escort the NPCs up and five to ten minutes out of their way.  They were told take a right at the intersection, then a right at the next and up the stairs.  After their rest, the PCs found one of the remains of one of the prisoners at the first intersection. They were escorting the imprisoned townsfolk back to the village.  The consequences of selfishness were made clear, but the lesson was not learned; there was a third argument about prisoners before the end of the session.  

The players covered ground as they explored through abandoned sections of the temple.  They discovered a secret door and decided that that was reason for a course change.  They padded through the secret door and wandered a gain aimlessly.  They found a corridor with many doors and they approached the first door.  The door was blocking the noise of a man being torn apart on a rack.  The paladin entered the room and discovered a torture chamber with five prisoners and two people torturing one of them.  The Ranger entered the room and drew his arrows and attacked the bad guys.  He rolled a critical hit backstabbing the Turnkey with an arrow and he hit with his second arrow too.  Soon the guard and his flunkey, the bugbear, were dead and there was only the prisoners.  And another dilemma.

The problem was two of the prisoners were Orcs, defenseless and manacled in a cage.  I, the GM has known about this from way back.  The question is an old dilemma, to kill the evil prisoners, or to set them free.  Essentially, this is a big plot development and a milestone for all the characters in their character development.  Good vs Evil, Law vs Chaos.

The Ranger, favoured enemy Orcs and family reported to have been killed by Orcs, first wants to kill them on sight, maybe give them a weapon then hunt them down and kill them, but takes a deep breath and looks deep and tells them they are free to go.  The lawful good fighter wants to release the human female prisoners first but wants to release the Orcs too.  The Druid, in bear form, wants to release them too.  The lawful neutral paladin, sees his fear about prisoners manifest.  He believes that they are there to hinder the party and that there is usually a spy in amongst them and sees two orcs as a clear example.  He will let them go, but thinks that they will double back and attack them.  Most bizarrely, the half elf bard is completely willing to let them go free, after he cuts their ears off, because Orc ears are worth money, and he is a greedy fucker, he is Chaotic Good.  The half Orc priest's player has decided to leave the game for an indefinite hiatus, so I play him as neutral, but he will escort the orcs to safety, if they decide that.  That is the starting position.  The bard steps back, to the entrance of the room and casts hypnotic pattern on the party and the prisoners, a clearly evil act; it is not a lethal spell, but it is a spell meant to affect his friends, so he can get his way.  The Ranger seeing the bard begin to act suspiciously steps into the shadows and as it turns out, out of the area of effect.  The player characters fail their saving throws and the prisoners, save one.  The bard's attempt to secure two bounties fails.

Oh I failed to mention something.  They interrogated the prisoners.  The Ranger could speak Orc and the Bard cast comprehend languages as a ritual.  And I called for insight checks to see if they thought the orc prisoners were lying.  They claimed to be farmers and craftsmen from the orc village to the north and were captured by raiders and the ranger and the bard believed them. 

As an aside…

The first time I ventured forth with my training wheels off with out a module to back me up I placed the characters in a similar situation in my virgin world, it was a few years ago, and I was about 20… the characters traveled down a road and they came to a bridge and there were five orcs at the bridge.  The players readied their weapons and I told them the bridge has a gate over it and a small building attached to the bridge and the gate, one of those gates on a counter balance that swings up.  The orcs were wearing crisp uniforms and there was signs of rank, one of the orcs was wearing a different uniform, white with gold buttons and a red sash, the others were green with red sashes. 

What would the characters do?  Attack or investigate.  A Greenpsychopomp dilemma.  I mean really. Turn your perceptions on their tails!!  See with your intuition and the evidence before you , not your preconceptions!

This adventure is going to be about that. It is like growing up in the Empire joining the battle to fight the Rebels and then seeing the injustice first hand and joining the Rebellion and fighting the evil Empire and it's Sith Lord

Back to the game.

The bard's attempt fails, and the Cleric of Stromida leads the orcs away.  I think I will introduce another PC follower, one of the orcs.  A follower of the Ranger.  I think the event was significant enough to warrant a permanent boon to the Ranger.  And I wont reveal his alignment.  

Plot reveal, if you are playing you might not want to read further.

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This is a perfect relief point.  The questionable leader fighting a war against the Orcs, with a henchman that is clearly evil, whose policies are evil, compared to a vile threat that has been beaten into them from forever.  They will discover plot points in this module that will lead them to the discover that the Duke, is not the rightful leader of the nation but the usurper, moreover that Jarda attacked the Temple of Elemental Evil with the help of the nation to the South, a nation of Orcs! Only the village of Hommlet remembers this and is thus vilified by the Duke.  The temple of elemental evil are in fact the duke's allies.  

What a tangled web I weave.

First Ones

First Ones

There is a lot of mystic about the first people to do anything.  In Tolkien, the first ones were elves.   In Babylon 5, the first ones walked the stars a billion years ago and had technology far in advance of anything ever.  In Star Trek, the first ones walked the stars and saw nothing but their works, because they were the first.  In many fantasy settings the first ones left technology, magical effects, or vast ruins or sometimes all three.  Many settings they have been gone for millennia, some for millions or billions of years. Sometimes they are not gone at all.  Here in this land, there were Old Ones, the first people, but not the first people ever, but the first big empire.  They conquered and subdued the entire world—well a big part of it.  Why they left, why they disappeared would be a matter of considerable speculation if anyone remembered that they were ever there.  They left ruins, but so did several thousand years worth of civilizations after them.  There are places where you can see their footprints, but would an ant know that it was in a footprint even if it were looking for them?  The rest of their places are in regions where people can't go easily.  And where they live, is in a place where the hardiest folk would find it difficult to live.  

They stand seven feet tall and broad, nearly hairless, and all muscle and sinew.  They rarely eat and they do not shit; they sleep when they want to sleep.  They are skilled in magic and the blade, unparalleled to any mortal.  They have no young, they seem never to age.  They are mortal and had childhoods or so they say, but they claim at that is behind them while they are here watching the world  providing a safeguard to the world, so they say.  They stand by a watch the most heinous crimes come to pass, but move into action over some innocuous thing, lashing out and obliterating it in a blur of motion or a spell so powerful at mages weep at its sight knowing that it is far beyond their skill in their best dreams.  They are magical, but they claim that it is not innate.  They are a walking paradox; their claims are suspect they can't have mundane origins.

The facts are: they are long lived, their skin is blacker than the night sky, they rarely seem to eat and never excrete, all seem magical.  The truth is that they were human.  They came rose first on the continent of humans and grew to dominate its shores.  There are ruins that date from their time there and the languages of that continent all root from them.  Then a little myth; but about three hundred centuries ago they decided that that continent could not hold them and they left and came to the other two continents and conquered these too.  Then their roving nature they fled to other planes of existence and conquered distant realms.    The truth was that they were spread very thinly on the human continent and they fled a major and successful uprising.  The sway of the uprising took centuries to burn across the continent and the people had time to look for other places away from the wars.  Magic was still new to these people and they used that magic to help them make the journey across the seas to the destination that was found.  The journey took over a short year to accomplish.  When it was done they found a continent that had different life forms and great serpents that were difficult to defeat and poisonous to eat, but they found no people.  The people continued the migration to the new land for many years bringing the bulk of their people and none of the others, lest they bring the problem they were fleeing with them.  It all stopped about 200 short years after the first ship left, the hoards of enemies found their last city and the people fleeing fired their last boats, technology, and magic in a great conflagration that took in that last city and the attackers.  None survived, the nation destroyed, except for the thousands that had fled across the waves.  

In their new home they found themselves to be the invader, the great serpents were sentient and they named themselves Dragon.  Many pitched battles were fought against the greatest of their kind and they lost more than they won, but since the defeat of just one of these mighty beasts weakened their attack, the tide of the war began to change.  When the war against the dragons finally seemed to abate, they discovered that their skill in magic had grown greatly, as the dragon's greatest technology was magic, they had to adopt it to win.  Their cities populated the equatorial zone of the continent mostly and advanced slowly into the more temperate zones.  The war with the dragons was not in fact over, but paused, as the dragons began to organize.   The progression of magic for the humans reached a peak at this time, supreme casters though extremely rare, were able to push the boundaries of what was possible for human casters a few were able to cast tenth power level spells, a few even greater, and one who could cast spells of the twelfth power level.  

When the war resumed, the dragons struck with unprecedented cunning and sucked the human's greatest war casters into a perfect ambush, a battle that was said to number in the millions of soldiers and casters and the magics that were unleashed scoured the area clean of anything but rock, bleaching that white as bone and leaving only the shadows of the combatants behind.  After that battle the humans were in retreat and their demise was written into the stars.  The last great caster, a pacifist, came up with a plan.  Linking with the remaining casters he directed a great spell to be worked.  A great portal opened and all the populations of the invading humans went through, except the ones that wanted to die fighting the Dragons.  When the portal closed, the invasion of the continent was over and the humans gone, the First Ones.  Thirty thousand years ago, that was.  Still the six great towers still stand in testament to them, within the worst of the jungle mess that is the Equatorial tip of the continent.  Between them lies the source of the great river that travels south to the cold ocean far away.  

About a thousand years ago a portal opened again and a single First One stepped through.  It was bald and darker than the night sky when all the moons are new.  That was old, what was new was that they did not need to eat and they did not excrete.  Their skin photosynthesized and what ever they ate was consumed entirely.  They had power.  The door that passed between worlds was guarded they said and only the best of them could endure the year long battle to reach the portal and only one could use it in a year.  Most years no one reached the portal and this individual claimed he was the first one that won his way to the portal in a century.  The next day, the portal opened again, and the First One who emerged claimed the same story as the first, that the one that emerged had gone through the portal a century before.  Some days the portal opened twice, sometimes it remained closed for a month.  But they came in a steady stream with a singular mission to protect the world and the pact of the continents that now stands in ruin from where it was once.

They are effectively trained individuals before taking the path to the Portal of Worlds.  The year long battle includes every member to the graduating class of every school.  Each graduate is 20th level and they must battle each other as well as the dangers in the field that has taken the best five years to pass through, some even longer.  When they pass through the portal many of them have learned enough to equal the teachings of a different school graduate, some many.  Those that leave that Portal of Worlds have 40-60 levels of skill and all can master spells of the tenth power level.  They are incorruptible in their goal, as those that survive the challenges know what failure means: there is some great threat that looms over the multiverse and the battle ground will be here if it happens and if it happens, they will have failed their mission.  If the fail, all the worlds within this one fail too. 

Three Episodes all at once

So I have not updated the first D&D game that I am running in a while.  There was a the encounter with the other crew of devious Humanoid Ear hunters that were killing people and taking their booty as their own.  They defeated them and met the Duke and asked for a favour from the Duke which he granted, although was disinclined, as he stated that he was fighting a War and could not afford to be too generous until e war was won.  The paladin wanted a warhorse.  Which he did not need.  He then went out and purchased boarding for the horse.  On the way back to Hommlet they encountered a Dragon Bear, again, not the same one, but they did not know that.  They finally fought it and felt a little disappointed, because there was so much build up from running from the last two encounters with the Dragon Bear.  They then took the booty, the Dragon Bear corpse to Hommlet and tried to get armour made out of it, and discovered there was not enough.  So they settled for gloves and belts they found out that there was an underground economy, a barter system, and many locals preferred this way as there were no taxes paid.  (That was the set up for the evil dukes laws).

They pushed off to find the moat houses of the temple, the watch towers set up to guard against the evil of the temple, that had been let to fall into ruin forty years ago by the new Duke.  They were also looking for the moving tower.  They did not know that the tower was the tower of the First One that was watching the area.  The tower was mystical as when they looked at it they saw the moons setting behind it from the wrong direction.  They pushed on through the night and discovered the Watchtower instead.  They approached cautiously not sure they wanted to enter.  They heard something rummaging and tearing at the structure from inside the entryway, so the Ranger headed out to take a look.  He discovered a real, full fledged tiny dragon, a black dragon.  It saw him and rushed him spraying him with acid.  

A character that had not taken much damage so far in the adventure was taken down past a quarter of his hit points in one round and he ran from the beast.  The others fired off their spells and made their attacks the best they could and in the course of the battle which included two characters that had never been knocked unconscious, being knocked unconscious, the characters fought for their lives.  The dragon fired sorcerously charged Magic Missles and fought them with tooth and claw and just when they seem like they were going to win, the dragon turned invisible and flew away.  Frustrated the Ranger fired a wild arrow shot into the night that hit the dragon (and would have killed it if I had not added more hit points to the dragon to make the fight more dramatic); the dragon rounded back on the party spewing acid and dying in a brief and desperate flurry of wild attacks by a scared group of characters.  They rested and continued into the dungeon.  There they encountered zombies which they killed in a protracted battle where each round for five rounds two more zombies entered the fight.  After the fight they encountered an ogre who was despoiling a human woman on the Rack.  They fought her and freed the other captives who talked about being picked up by a group of brigands.  They then encountered and fought a group of Bugbears that they surprised and then went on to attempt to surprise another group of gnolls.  The ranger failed in his attempted assassination and the warning was given.  They fought the Gnolls and defeated them, there was little doubt.

The next session they were presented with a choice of two directions and they chose the one they heard a breeze coming from.  They made a lot of noise taking the door down and thus alerted the guards in the next room.  They alerted them even more breaking that door down.  The guards fought tooth and nail to defeat the brigands and their leader, the leader even surrendered and and used a spell to trigger a random teleport some time in the future so he could escape.  When he did so the players could not find out where he went and when they did he had cast furniture before the door and relocked the door after it was picked.  Anything to give him more time then he cast mirror image on himself to elude pursuit.  It was then that his ally made herself known, the woman who was having a secret liaison with the Ogre, was actually a Yuan-Ti and she attacked the party from behind, leading incidentally to a suspicion of prisoners being enemies.  The Cleric almost made it away but was cornered and defeated.  The yuan-ti, also killed, they went to town, Hommlet to rest and pay their taxes, which surprisingly, they all did in full, partly because the taxes were going to fight the war against the Orcs.  They met the Duke's representative in the town, the Lord Braithe, and he wined and dined them, and gave them a party at the end of a week which featured all the important people in the town.  

The also gained a level and were all level five.  One character the Ranger multi classed into Rogue.  Two players suggested that they wished to become warlocks at a later point.  Which is fine, I just have to introduce them to someone that they can make them a warlock.

This time on e Road to Nulb they encounter the moving tower and they try to investigate it again.  They find the tower covered in vines with the forest cleared out 100m.  They walk around the tower and find no door or window, for that mater they find the entire structure without seams, the rough matte face seems to drink light.  There are vines growing on the outside that appear to be centuries old.  The most nimble of them scales the outside and lowers a rope.  There is a locked door in the roof that proceeds to suck lock picks into its aperture when they fail to pick the lock and then smile and burp.  The Paladin out of frustration uses a holy smite on the door and the loud thunderous smack down produces dust later revealed from the magical weapon used in the attack.  They then ask why the door won't open, to which the door answers, that they had not asked nicely.  Eventually they ask nicely and the door opens to reveal a room with a man with an inky black complexion,  revealed as such only when the cleric casts a light spell.  He waves his hand and the party is on the road with all their items intact and the tower gone, and the word reverberating in their heads, "Don't be so rude!"

They proceed back to the tower, or where the tower used to be, to find the tower had shrunk to a small fraction of the previous size.  The process is relived in a more polite fashion and they find themselves talking to the odd person, covered in gold jewelry.  They ask him a question about the temple of elemental evil that they are supposed to go to an destroy and he answers them cryptically, because he does not really care about it, except that it is important in a rare possibility.  He waves a hand and one of the walls lightens up in a scene of a temple and reveals e local terrain and the area for several hundred kilometers in all directions before it fades.  The projection is brief and sudden but still quite powerful.  He seems to command great magics and thinks of them  not at all, but as common things.  At one point two of the characters say something annoying to him and he touches their heads and then dismisses the whole party.  

They continue to Nulb but they look down on the barely a village and decide that they will give it a pass and camp out with the Bard's new camping spell.  They do a fantastic job scouring the upper temple ruin for useful material and find almost everything that can be found in the upper temple.  They head down into the temple dungeon proper and miraculously enter no combat but encounter instead a prison cell with about twenty prisoners—instantly half of them want to leave them locked up believing that there is an enemy in the group.  They interview the prisoners and all but one of them were taken by ghouls on the roads and in the village.  One says that an individual from the town kidnaped him for flirting with his girl.  So now the characters have to decide if they will free the prisoners or lock them back up, which about half of them want to do.  

That took three sessions.

I realize that I have homework that I have not done.  They looted a book from the Cleric and there is stuff in it that is pertinent.  There is a second gold artifact that was found and what do they do together?  What did the First One do to the character's minds?

Roleplaying is fun, running roleplaying sessions is more fun, but it also means more work, not just writing the session down and creating the campaign setting and all that, but remembering to add the details that you did not have at hand.