Caranus: Radiation

Radioactivity in Caranus

Fantasy realms are generally many types, the sword and magic type, the post-apocalyptic type, the time before, and the time after but no apocalypse.  Caranus, in my eyes, is a mixture of a few of those.  There is the sword and sorcery, but there is the time before too, and it is also post-apocalyptic.   The most significant feature of this last example is the great Orcish Apocalypse.  

The Orcish dominance had three stages in Caranus.  When the ship transporting the Orcs crash landed in the center of Caranus marks the beginning of the Orc epoch.  The ship was a starship, a generation ship of Orcish colonists a million strong on the ship, but the landing was rough and there were quite a number of escape pods that were launched as the ship crashed and only a couple of hundred thousand landed with the main ship.  The rest were scattered across the planet, most of them in the vast oceans that covered nearly eighty percent of the surface.  Some early escape pods fell to three of the moons that can support life where they mostly died as the lifeforms there are very hostile to most life.  The Orcish settlers that scattered  quickly had to adapt as there technology failed over a few centuries and their knowledge was inadequate for this type of habitat.  Those at landed on Caranus, however, had the advantage of the main ship, which held a vast library of information and some limited advanced technology facilities.  They failed too after a millennia, but by then it did not matter.  

The Orcs of Caranus rapidly began to dominate the portion of the world they landed in.  They quickly encountered some of the native creatures, elves, dwarves, hobbits, gnomes etc; there relations were at first good, superior technology allowed them a position of superiority, but the natives use of magic equalized the relationship somewhat.  The other encounters they had with native life went less well, particularly with Dragons.  Younger dragons were a curiosity, often a lethal one for orcs unless prepared, and for the dragons if they were.  The larger dragons were significantly more dangerous and very quickly they learned that larger hunting parties were necessary or the colony might fail entirely.  The very largest Dragons were nightmares capable of destroying even those hunting parties, but the dragons were thankfully very rare.  Almost from the beginning a few of the Orcish settlers tried to learn the arcane mysteries that the natives used, the ones that the Dragons seemed to be masters of.  

Architecture of this period would be very familiar to city dwelling people of Earth, tall skyscrapers thirty to fifty stories high, and a few much taller, made of aluminum reinforced concrete, these structures can be still seen many millennia after this age.  Their roadways stretched a thousand kilometers out from the landing site and are straighter than most arrows.  

It took a thousand years for the technology to fail, but fail it did.  It failed not suddenly but system by system until in the end the Orcs were completely dependent on native technology and arcane powers.  The Middle Empire.  The middle empire spread out further, out as far as the first ones did ten thousand years before them.  The government was more fractured and they fought among themselves more frequently than they fought to expand and fought against nature.  And the Dragons.  In this time, the dragons were more of a threat.  The architecture of the time started with ten story structures that collapsed after a couple hundred years, before the adopted stone and magically reinforced structures.  Road technology was strong still if less straight and less robust, the old empire was still the heart of their holdings, but every other corner of the continent was occupied to one extent or another.  Other continents entered a middle empire equivalent much sooner and many entered a lower empire equivalent earlier too.

About five hundred years after the technology failed the Middle Empire failed across the planet abruptly.  Catastrophically.  Technology that failed did not mean that it was not working.  The ship was powered and had engines that wile broken were still working at some small level and they were working quite well when they were being correctly maintained.  The Cult of the Machine, as it was known, had rituals that they performed regularly that kept the reactors of the ship in good order for years, but a religious schism within the cult about the importance of one ritual over another ended the Middle Empire.  The ships reactor and the, long dormant, drive systems imploded and set off a chain reaction, which ended a carrier wave that was sent to all the escape pods dotted around the star system that caused all of them to explode as well.  

The explosions were a twice deadly threat to the world.  The ship's explosion ripped the surface off the planet and pushed it into a mountain range in the center of the continent, the blast zone is still uninhabitable to this day.   The second component to the catastrophe was more devastating.  The radiation that was expelled by the less complete detonations in the escape pods affected everything.  Plants were more resistant to the effects as were the non human, and non orcish races, but both were affected.  Orcs were affected most, the races of ogres through goblins arose from radiation affected orcs.  Humans were affected too, giants and anything like that arose from this event.  Hybrid animals like manticore and unicorns arose.  Bullywogs and other things like that were also mutations from this event.  Disturbingly dragons were also affected.  Hydras and others Draconic like beasts arose from this time, juvenile dragons became more like animals and less like dragons and things like Wyverns arose and grew beyond their normal diminutive size.  Today the effects of the radiation are minimal, except in the central desert and in the jungles over the shining mountains.  

I quit. I am done

Role playing is the act of assuming a role that is not you and exploring it's possibilities.  Role playing games, those in computers, are about entering a role that you get to explore on a very limited way; you get to solve encounters and you get to advance a linear or multi linear plot line to its end.  Usually computer games are driven this way, enjoyment beyond the story takes over as acquiring goods and better equipment becomes paramount, the roleplaying becomes secondary.  This is the limitedness of computers. 

Roleplaying games, the kind that started before personal computers, are more open ended; they are as limitless as the imagination of the player and the referee.  As such, they are better from a role-playing stand point, but new players often don't get that, especially if they have been raised on a steady diet of computer game style role-playing.  This is my group.  I think they are ready for a change.  The Bard has been greedy and self serving, the Paladin has been venial, the Fighter has been letting things go down the road and not questioning their actions.  The Druid's player has been distracted, the Cleric has been absent, the Ranger… the Ranger's player has been a pleasant surprise.  The Fighter's player is a Watcher type player, they like to watch the story unfold, but they are not part of the story; I need to pull the characters in. They have been adventuring for almost a year, every other week, maybe 20 sessions.  Enough of the world has become aware of them that it will start interacting with them.  This is what I love.  

The characters have done a few things and they have started to impact the nation that they are in, primarily by paying their taxes and thus heaping fuel into a war machine advancing a timeline the characters have not been previously been aware of.  They have gotten an audience with the Duke, but it was a hasty affair, they have had an audience with the Dukes represenative, but it was a small thing, longer than e audience with the Duke, but still.  They are far from the movers of the world, but they are getting there.  Perhaps they will be awarded deeds of land for their service, a house in the town, an income, tenants.  A title.  Perhaps later as they level they will get a following.  But first roleplaying.

I plan to start an arguement with the first follower and her leader, about the paladin and how he is treating her.  The players are adults, it will be an adult conversation.  The bard had a wild time in the Inn the first time he was there, he seduced the barkeeps youngest daughter and deflowered her.  Time for her to mention that she is late, and thinks she is pregnant.  The fighter has a magical intelligent speaking sword and it has a righteous personality and expects a righteous weilder, hilarity shall ensue.  The ranger saved a member of a mortal enemy because it was unarmed.  It is coming back to repay the kindness, the Orc is now a Ranger who hunts Humans as its primary enemy, but worships the same deity as the player, long discussions shall start.  The Paladin knows that the Duke's Man in town is a Paladin of the same god as he is, and the Duke himself also worships that god, the difference is that the duke and his man at both lawful evil and it will become clear that this is so and the Player will have to make a decision as whether they will continue his slide from good.  

In general the characters are now the source of information for the people in the world and they need to figure out how they  want to be seen in the world, and more importantly, which side they are on and who are their friends.  For good roleplaying there must be a little growth and expansion of the player as well as the character, sometimes this will involve pain.  Sometimes it is important to understand the player more than the character.  My role and referee includes playing the players as well as the world.

We will see how the game went.  

It was a disaster.

First of all two of the players unexpectently did not show up, one of whom was a co-host!  They were there, but they were asleep and did not join the game the other person had a splitting migraine.  And since I was counting on those two being in the game, it basically all fell apart.  It did get the sleeping characters for about an hour but that was all.  Then I got the surprise character back in the game, the person who had left for school.  I got to have prep game with that player a few days before the game so he was up to speed, but when he showed up, he was an agent of chaos, disruptive and goading the other players into bad behavior.  Which since the game was about showcasing an example of Evil, so that they could see who the bad guys were and understand which side of the line they were supposed to stand on, they decided that they were going to straddle that line and possibly stand more firmly on the side of the evil lords.  The session devolved into a discussion of what alignment really means.  

The little roleplaying that the characters had involved the repucussions of abandoning prisoners in the temple.  Recap, they found a large locked cell with 20 civilians and relocked the door and came back a couple hours later finding a blood splatter and eighteen prisoners.  They then freed the prisoners and told them that they were tired and they were going to go to sleep next to the remains of eaten prisoner.  The remaining prisoners wanted to go, so they let them and some of them got lost and died.  Some made it out and died and a few made it out and lived to tell the tale.  Then they encountered more prison cells and tried to pass by them without freeing them, three times.  The next set of prisoners they freed, but one party member wanted to mutilate two of the prisoners was overrulled and he tried to incapacitate his party members with a spell to get his own way.  So I tried to show them that the local Duke was Evil, and his right hand man was definitely evil.

Two towns, intermarriages happen, because cousins don't make the best option for breeding with.  While Nulb is where the dead villagers were from, it is reasonable that merchants from the town could have spread in the intervening three days out to the next town, where there are relatives of the deceased and because it is a small town new news is more exciting than the story about how uncle Fespar accidentally neutered his cousin when his axe head came loose while splitting wood— admittedly, there was a reason why THAT story had staying power!  

Once the characters started to be recognized as the villains of the current gossip, their money became worthless, the townsfolk being honest would not take their money after asking them to leave, because they did not want any trouble and these characters looked rough and anyone who is capible of abandoning defenseless people in a dangerous situation are capible of doing anything.  Kicking them out was a prelude to getting independent conversations with people.  But the conversation people were away.   

When the people were present, the conversation went as follows:  14 year old girl rescued from the hands of magically deranged cleric who had abused her and was small, asked her mentor if she should fuck the Paladin, who was also small, so that he would like her and treat like he treats the rest of them group.  Predictably, her mentor swore at the fucked up situation that this person was telling her, but beyond that, she did nothing.  Which is not fair, I will have to wait to see what she does when the party continues later.  

The party got a treasure count and split.  Three of the party members paid up their taxes in full, one character thought that the Duke deserved more than what he was due in taxes and paid more, one decided that he did not want to pay taxes in full, but it worked out to be almost a full accounting of what was owing.    The Fighter's new sword spoke up at this point and asked if the druid had a slave.  The Druid was taken aback at that and said, "NO!"  The sword retorted by saying that it looked that way, the party split the treasure five ways and her follower got nothing.  The Druid not caring about magical items meant that her follower had none either and to the Sword, that appeared to be slavery.  So her follower got half of her money and the party gave her some magic items.  To her, the abused cleric, who is an object of desire and contempt by the Paladin, she is getting some serious cash and magic because the sword spoke out on her behalf and for no other reason.  

The paladin eventually went to stay with the Duke's main man.  The Paladins of Scoria stayed up all night drinking and talking about the poor treatment that the characters had recieved at the hand of the bumpkins of Nulb, ungrateful sots!  The magistrate told the Gnomish paladin about his troubles, townsfolk that have been using barter to avoid the taxes.  He said that he would love to help the paladin more, but he had his his hands full with this investigation and he was getting nowhere.  He told the Paladin that he could clear some of the bureaucracy in his inquiries if he would help him.  Tax avoidance.  This went too far.  I mean the character went too far, obviously the magistrate went too far, but the party went along with it.  He found one person that was looking to barter, after the paladin had pressed him too, but then to acquire the goods to bar term he tried to barter the next guy and then barter the next.  He was trying to implicate the entire town in the attempt.  He encountered a road block when one of the people refused to barter.  But otherwise the implicated two townsfolk and they were arrested.  The next day the party was brought together and the magistrate proclaimed the Party as Elders of the land, because they had collectively paid 25000 gold in taxes and as such they were welcome to land in the form of a few farms, the income of those farms or a house in the town of Greysteel.  The Paladin asked then if his parcel of land could include the farm of the man that had been arrested.  The Lord assented.  Then the Lord Paladin and Magistrate of the land said that the celebration was marred by insidents of treachery.  The two prisoners are bought out, the blacksmith who accepted payment for armour repair for the price of a cow and the farmer that accepted a years supply of firewood for a cow.  The magistrate, using a spell that compelled truth, got confessions for the tax evasion, and then pronounced that the usual sentence of a fine was too leiniant and chose an older punishment of ten lashes.  Both criminals passed unconscious during the lashes, and the Magistrate lay on hands and healed them.  

Then the Lord announced that since the land was at war with the foul Orc Nation, that tax evasion was essentially treason, and in two fluid motions struck off their heads using a Divine Smite, causing a flash of radiant damage in addition to the cut that relieved them of their lives.  It was a move designed to ask the players if they were on this guys side, because this guy is evil and if he is agreeing with the way that they were treated was an injustice, maybe it wasn't after all, maybe they were in the wrong.

The paladin saw the evil, wiped his mouth and said, wait, hold my beer.  He strode onto the stage where the farmers was rapidly cooling and his blood had sprayed across the crowd, and called for the crowd's attention.  "There is now an opening at my farm, if anyone feels that they are qualified please come to me at this time, thank you."

I think I left my jaw there.  

We are taking a break.  I think I am quitting.  I don't really want to be their GM anymore.  

To be fair.  The Player is being Lawful.  Completely Lawful without any tie to good or evil, amoral in the extreme that following the letter of the law in an evil nation can bring.  It is my fault.  I have made him a monster.  Time to quit.

Right makes dumb

There has been a few things that have been disturbing me lately.  It is the slide into Rightwing politics again.  I mean still.  There was a couple of reprieves but lately it feels that the those were just temporary and ephemeral.  Yes trump was elected almost two years ago, but the administration has been largely incompetent, but regressive.  Very very regressive.  As the meme in the Internet says, Australia is tomorrow and Europe is tonight, but in North America it is 1940 and minorities, women and LBGT are all discriminated against and have no rights.  It is not just the States, it is hear in Canada too.

 There was a point that it could have been stopped in Canada.  There wasa promise that the Prime Minister made that was hollow.  He gazed upon the electorate and saw that it was a fifty percent chance that his party would get an absolute majority government with every election with 16% of the eligible vote and said fuck you to Proportional Representation.  If he had done that we would not be in this mess.  Across this country Rightwing political parties are winning healthy majorities with small minorities of voters and then they are pushing their detrimental policies on the nation.  According to them, ethics is not important, the environment is not important, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not important if it stands in the way of their agenda.  This lies at the feet of the Prime Minister.

Proportional Representation is about every vote being cast has a say in the government.  If the conservatives get 35% of the vote, they get 35% of e seats, if the Green Party gets 20% of the votes they get 20% of the say of what happens in government.  If the Liberals get 45% of the vote they get 45% of the seats.  It is possible in the current system for the above fictitious election to result in a Conservative majority government, but not possible with Proportional Representation.  

I digress.

In the United States there has been the controversial appointment of a supreme court judge.  The appointment has reignited the MeToo movement.  The judge while a teenager sexually assaulted a fellow student and again in college.  The response from the right was, 'Boys will be Boys' as if the statement makes everything right.  But the news of last month was that catholic priests in Pennsylvania had been covering up and exploiting a massive child abuse ring in that State and perhaps many others.  The idea that priests touching children is wrong, but other children albeit teenagers, is okay.  Furthermore, since it was thirty years ago it has no bearing on anything.  Just like the priests who have been doing what they did for decades.  

Also, he lied under oath, about his drinking and about his extra curricular activities in high-school and college.  Which shows that he thought that they were something he needed to hide.  He basically fit all the eighties memes about jocks in high school.  Drunken parties, besmirching girls reputations about sex, and trying to force himself on women.  All of which was thought to be normal behaviour in the eighties; not by me, not by most people, but by the Hollywood image of high school.  So, in a real area of grey for the law and something to be ashamed of, but nothing that is convict-able as an adult, but something that a very sincere apology is due.  Today, with all the awareness out there, it is totally convict-able, but then sealed at 18.  If that sort of behaviour stopped and did not continue, but it clearly did.  

The real problem is that it was not acknowledged as a problem.  Just like the Catholic Priests.  They treat it as something that needs to be hidden and not discussed.  It is the idea that they feel that it is normal behaviour, and so it will continue forever.  There is a feeling that there is an old-boys club mentality, that the other old boys are protecting the younger boys so protecting themselves.  There was some of this when Roy Moore tried to get elected.  There was some of that when the president was elected, he was so pound that he could just reach out and "grab them by the pussy" and that was okay.  

The entire country is saying it is not okay to fondle little boys, but it is okay to fondle little girls and big girls, all ages of women.  The worst part is that women, are defending them.  Many are sexual assault survivors too.  But the thought that their sons and grandchildren might be convicted of doing what was done to them catalyzes them.  The statistics say that one woman in three have been sexually assaulted, will be sexually assaulted in their life, but as I said in previous posts, I believe this statistic is higher, perhaps one in two.  The number of people have been posting about how they were assaulted and no one believed them.  From private conversations with friends I know that families hide the truth, Grandpa is not invited to family functions, that cousin is not allowed near that niece.  I knew of one women who left home and cut off all contact because of her father.  Some women treat their assault as the price of sleeping on someone's couch for the night.  Women talked about what they would do if they had a night free of men, all men forced to stay home and off the streets.  The chatter about what women do, change their behaviours to avoid being assaulted.  The women who defended the judge are saying this is okay.

I know some women who have done the right thing and have approached police. This is why it is not cool to have a judge in the supreme court that has done this stuff and is unrepentant.  The police typically do nothing, or they suggest that the woman was willing, or that she consented.  Or that not having an abortion is consent, or seeking child support.  

So many times, what happened in that bedroom, at a similar party with similar people is not the victim escaping.  Often she is assaulted, sometimes she is impregnated, usually her reputation is besmirched along the way.  Most often nothing comes of it.  The best result is when the police believes the woman and interviews are done and charges are laid, then comes the ultimate indignity, an adversarial court system where they grill the victim like she is the criminal and even if there is a conviction, often the accused gets a sentence of time served, or community service or suspended sentence, especially if they are affluent.  Judge, you are going to ruin the life of my son because he was drunk and committed one indiscretion with this woman who has a reputation of sleeping with all of the football team?  

The facts are that women are assaulted every day, that women pay attention to the news and choose not to report those assaults, because when they do report them, no one believes them and when a conviction does occur, the woman's reputation is destroyed and the man gets off with a slap on the wrist, unless they are poor then they go to jail, but the woman's reputation is still destroyed.  At best their reputation is based upon the crime, 'there goes that woman whose brother raped her'.  

Back in Canada.

In Ontario a majority government was elected with 16% of the potential votes and the first thing he does is scrap the Carbon Tax, saying that Ontario Tax Payers don't need another tax.  Except, it was not a tax on tax payers.  It was a corporate tax on manufacturers and on fossil fuels.  It was a step that was meant to reduce carbon emissions by providing financial incentives to reduce.  Carbon producers had to buy pollution credits to produce pollution and green industries could sell carbon units to offset their clean expenses.  Companies had already purchased three billion dollars worth of credits and they were non refundable, further the carbon credit exchange policy was with other American States and pulling out of these obligations will result in major penalties.  Pulling out of the agreement means that Ontario has no plan to reduce emissions and meet obligations to international treaties and also save the planet.  Furthermore, the government is organizing a revolt about paying the federal carbon tax, trying to say that the tax is unlawful.  The premier is encouraging other governments in Canada to stand against the Carbon Tax as well.  So far, none of these governments have figured out a way to reduce pollution on their own and will not meet the deadline imposed upon them, because to them no plan is the plan; business as usual.  The argument goes that since some countries have not signed the international accords, they have an unfair business advantage in polluting at they don't have.  

To me, this argument is akin to saying that the other governments are trying to kill everyone, and these governments are not being given the option to kill the world too and they so desperately want that option too.  They would say, the science is not clear about the cause of climate change, or that climate change even exists— because they can find scientists that agree that it does not exist, right now that is about one scientist in a hundred, often that scientist has an undergraduate degree in something not related to climate science like dentistry or animal husbandry.  Really, these politicians are more interested in making a buck and living out their lives in luxury and they believe they can survive the the changes insulated by their wealth.  Or they believe that they are far from the dangers that will affect the world; sea level rise will not affect provinces that have no shoreline.

Strange, because Canada recently accepted 60,000 refugees from a civil war in Syria caused in part by a drought caused by climate change.  Recently, they a third of the country got snowed on in the late summer early fall from a storm caused by climate change.  Farmers are worried that the bulk of their crops will not be able to be harvested because of these very early snow storms, but their political leaders insist that climate change will not affect them.

There are a few more things that have happened but these are the ones that are more recent and stick in my head.

D&D against the water Temple

The fight for the Elemental Water Temple was epic. 

The characters rested an hour after the big fight from last session to regain some hit points and to decide what to do.  They then decided to search for treasure.  That took some time.  They ransacked the temple and they only had one last place to search, the fire pit.  No treasure had been found so it was either that, or nothing.  The pit was filled with coals from the elemental plane of fire and would not be extinguished.  Surprisingly they did not think of the coals as treasure!  The paladin used his lance to prod the coals to search for something, he was lucky on two counts, first that his lance did not ignite and that he found a box.  The pit was deeper than he was tall and just approaching the pit hurt him, so he failed to find his valiant heart.  The Ranger was removing his clothes so they would not burn up and go into the fire, but he was preempted by the Druid who said that she would turn into an animal and brave the fire.  She leapt into the flames and knocked the box out and jumped out of the pit aflame, burning bear filled the air for hours.  The Ranger/Rogue took out his Thieves Tools and checked for traps and disarmed the trap and opened the box, discovering a thin one use blade and spring that would have cut off the appendage that first opened the box.  Inside the box, was a ring of fire resistance, two potions of fire resistance, and a sword, that zapped the first person that handled it with biting cold damage.  The sword then spoke, "I will let you wield me, but you are not the best person for me."  It was a bit of a shock, as most swords they had met with had not talked.  It was quickly determined that the sword liked the Fighter the best he asked the Ranger to trade him to the Fighter,  he did not want to do it because he wanted a magic sword, or something and the Fighter already had a magic sword.  The fighter then stated that she only wanted one sword, as she fought with a shield, and she said she would give up the Firebrand.  This worked nicely and e two exchanged swords, the Frostbrand and the Firebrand.  They reassessed their positions and two of the characters wanted to continue and two wanted to have a long rest.  The Fighter decided that since this fight was so tough and the next fight was supposed to be tougher, a long rest sounded prudent, but understood that this might be giving up an advantage.  Part way through their rest a Hill Giant and two Ettins came up from the lower level to investigate the disturbance to the temples.  The characters asked the Air Priest to intervene and send the giant away.  The giant was very stupid and easy to guide to a different part of the dungeon and it worked.  When e party was fully rested, they headed out.  

Seeking the best advantage, the characters asked the Evil Cleric ally if there was an easy way into the Water temple.  The Cleric obliged.  He knew a route that would take e characters through the minion apartments, the bugbears and the ogre's rooms.  They entered them and they found them deserted.  They went to the temple and found out why, they were all in the temple and there was some sot of service going on.  So, they had to fight them all at once.

The battle took most of the session and the difficulty was extreme, the battle evolved over time, since it was a noisy affair.  The priests joined the battle late as a few of the combatants were still alive.  When the last enemy was was put to rest I brought in Explitica Defilus back from the dead, who had spent weeks tracking them down.  She was able to cast a few potent spells that knocked characters unconscious outright or reduced characters to nearly dead.  I used lightning bolt rules from the first edition, where the bolt bounces until it reaches it's maximum spell distance and hit one NPC on the rebound.  I think if the spell had done enough damage to the impact site it would have dissipated, but stone walls are very resistant and no one was grounded.  

The next thing after a short rest was to enter the elemental room.  The elemental room seemed simple enough.  The was a picture of a Triton chained up at the bottom of the pool and he was urging them to jump in and save him.  Should have switched it to a nymph or a neirid, naked women lying at the bottom of ponds might be the basis of a comedy sketch about democracy vs monarchy, but it would probably gotten more than one of the characters to jump in.  As it was the characters did not trust or believe the image.  The pool was the monster, it was acidic in nature and very deadly.  The paladin was in possession of a cursed magical item, and he attempted to use it against the beast.  The Trident of Yearning, magical trident, but it's wielder feels compelled to leap in the nearest body of water.  The water in this case was highly acidic.  The paladin also took all his magical items with him when he went for a dip, and the creature ate magical items and healed itself with them, so Everytime they attacked the beast in the pool they had to save or lose their weapon.  The character's after the first round stopped using weapons that they wanted to keep and started failing the combat.  The entity started to call people to jump in with magical influences.  Which caused other characters to try to save them too.  So this was marginally successful tactic.  Soon the Druid asked about spells that might affect the creature, they had a spell scroll and cast Purify Water, they cast Create Water.  Spells that affected the creature were any water spells that created water (diluted the creature) or destroyed the water, also Part Water, which is like a sword stroke.  Freezing stunned the creature, so the frost brand was effective.  

In the end, the characters won, but also, the temple ceiling collapsed and they all had to run to escape the room, save vs dexterity.  Some characters needed to be revived.  The allies of e characters survived too, some of them anyways.  Two bugbears and the priest survived.  The one character dubbed the one bugbear the king of bugbears, because he fought the Bugbear Chieftain and the Ogre and got in the killing blow on each, he also successfully saved against the suggestion that he go for a swim in the acidic pool.  If I was being weird I might have the characters shadowed by Bugbear, his alignment shifted from CE to CN.  

The next session I have to come up with some content.  They are out of the temple and they are going to Hommlet.  There is the under plot that needs to take place but the bard is also becoming a warlock and so the others need something to do too.  The Half Orc is coming back for a session so he needs to tell his tale, which means I need to give him a tale to tell.  Also the Druid will have to meet with the druids and the clerics of Xeric, they need to dispose of magical items and they need to figure out what they want to do with all their money.

One option is to tithe, another option is donation, the Druid might decide to pay her NPC.

This is a point I will bring up when I talk about the coinage, that if they want to pay their minion, it does not come out of the party share, but their own, also magical items.  Pay and magical items will make followers more loyal as with alignment conforming actions.  For example, the Druid has a follower, Ceraza. She is NG and a cleric of Xeric.  She was sexually abused and the Paladin attempted to seduce her in that state and she hates him.  The paladin also hates her too.  When she is injured the paladin refuses to heal her, when the paladin is injured she will get past her loathing and heal him, but the Paladin is resentful of this, so she will only heal him when he is unconscious.  She is Good after all and won't let her likes and dislikes stop her from doing what is right, but her loyalty to Io is being tested as the Paladin and leader of the party keeps on making selfish decisions.  She is thinking about heading home, or making her own way in the world.  She has not been paid at all to this point and she is surviving on her basics that she joined up with.  She is now fourth level, and next level she will be fifth.  She is trying to decide if she will restart the temple in Neloar or stay in Hommlet or Nulb or somewhere else.  There is no Temple in Nulb so this is a stretch, given that she has no money or equipment.  She may have a conversation with Io.  

Phil the Cleric.  He took off with two Orcs in tow.  He surprised a group of brigands who were trying to make off with the cart and bourses so he decided to take them as they were safer with him than alone.  Orcs told him they were hopelessly nïeve to do that in the lands of the untrustworthy humans.  At the height of the Orcish empire you could leave stuff alone and you would be able to find it where you left it.  The fastes way was to head to Neloar and then to the the Great Road and then south for three days before heading off to where HS found a village in ruins.  The ruins were complete, huts and farm houses burnt to the ground, animal pens ruined and in the central green, a sleeping Green Dragon.  It was enough to make the Orcs think that this was the cause of the destruction of the town and the countryside.  But Phil saw other signs.  Arrows in corpses, axe marks in doors and military precision.  But he had to look and it was clear that the dragon had come later and only cleared out the surroundings after they had been crushed.  The Orcs suggested that they would come back with him and then decide where they were going now, as they had no other viable options.  One was a worshipper of Stromida and the other Grey Warder.