After our heroes reached the Moon and Stars Inn, in Waymoot, they decided half their number would visit the meeting site where Croach and his orcs were supposed to have gone. Egbert, Carp, Carric, and Five-Eyes elected to travel to the meeting site under cover of darkness and set up an ambush. Bort, Huzzah!, Willers, and Kilmer stayed in the inn and tried to suss out any knowledge the locals had.
Huzzah! was the most successful at this. He learned from a serving wench that a) mysterious hooded figures had been seen in the woods, b) someone had broken into the inn's storage room a week ago but nothing had been taken, and c) some of the workers in the inn had come down sick recently. Huzzah! asked to see the storeroom and the server eagerly took him out back. She was a little surprised when all of Huzzah!'s friends joined them, as she had obviously been hoping for some alone time with the gnome, but Huzzah! put her off gently (as much as he could while being pretty drunk).
The party investigated the storeroom and found signs of tampering with some of the casks. Bort deceived the server by telling her the tampered-with casks were the safe ones, and Huzzah! was too tipsy to realize the deception. The party kept watch over the storeroom that night, just in case the tamper-er returned, but no one did.
Meanwhile, the other four party members went out to the meeting place and found a hidden trail leading up to the mountains. Marks of many footsteps and wagon tracks had been covered over, and Egbert (with a natural 20) found signs of orc activity. He also discovered a human woman hiding in a tree.
The four called the young woman down and she cautiously approached them. She introduced herself as Vionna, a researcher who was investigating a plague that seemed to be striking the towns and villages of Cormyr. She had tracked the source of the plague to this area and believed orcs were behind it. She also offered to join forces with the heroes if they were heading into the mountains to track orcs.
The party was naturally suspicious of the offer and the woman, and Five-Eyes interrogated her closely. When Vionna turned to gesture to the mountains as she spun her tale, an amulet fell out of her collar. Five-Eyes recognized it as a holy symbol of Talona. Carp pickpocketed the amulet (after Vionna hastily hid it back in her tunic) and then confronted her with it. Vionna admitted she was a priestess of the Mother of All Plagues and the church had sent her to investigate the plague. The clergy of Talona saw the orcs' activities as a challenge to their goddess's domain and wanted to stop the orcs at all costs...and maybe bring some plague samples back to the temple for Talonite use. Despite their suspicions, the party agreed to ally with Vionna, as her goals seemed to align more or less with theirs.
In the morning, the rest of the party approached the meeting place, while from the mountain trail a band of orcs and a domesticated giant boar approached. The orc leader stepped out of hiding while three other orcs, hooded and oddly silent, hung back. Upon realizing that the party was NOT the band of orcs he was expecting (despite both Bort and Five-Eyes claiming to be Croach... and Egbert lamenting that they hadn't brought Croach's body along to use "Weekend at Bernie's" style), he attacked.
A brief but fierce battle followed. Kilmer was badly wounded by the boar, but Five-Eyes' turn undead affected the hooded orcs, which proved to be rotting animated orc-corpses (ghouls, though the PCs thought they were zombies). The boar was the most dangerous opponent but the party managed to kill it in the end. They spared the living orc's life and began interrogating him
The orc quickly spilled his guts, in more ways than one. He told the party everything: that once he had been part of a typical orc band, led by a strong warrior. They hunted and killed travelers for amusements and did everything orcs were meant to do. Their cleric was a rather pathetic, sniveling individual named Urmgech, who worshiped Yurtrus, orc god of disease. His main function was to tend to the food and water supplies and keep the orcs healthy.
Then the band ate tainted meat and fell ill. At first they blamed Urmgech for failing them, but they soon realized the disease gave them incredible strength and a supernatural claw attack (if they survived). Other races only died from the disease, but it could make orcs into better fighters. Urmgech claimed it was a sign from Yurtrus, that the plague was a gift and he was meant to lead the tribe. He killed the old chief and took over. He sent the strongest orcs away to gather treasure by any means necessary and send it back to the tribe. He had a plan--though he didn't share it with the other orcs--and it required lots of gold.
The orc seemed depressed as he relayed the tale. Most of the other orcs were dead or sent away, he explained, and Urmgech had left with all the treasure. Urmgech said he had enough without waiting for Croach's bounty. He left his mate, Chonnal, in charge of the mines, which holds three plagued but strong orcs, 10 diseased and dying orcs, a few ghouls, and two "monster pets" Chonnal has. The orc felt his tribe had been brought low and wondered if Urmgech had somehow orchestrated the disease from the start.
The party offered the orc a chance for revenge: help them take the mines and they'd track down Urmgech and make him pay. After a short deliberation, the orc agreed and the party began their trek up the mountain path to the Mines of Minroe.
Alright, so, we've been quite busy here at the office and I didn't have time to write up a proper recap until now. Last week's session was, how shall I put this, unusual.
We were down three players: Phil had to work through the session, Andrew was at the Calgary Expo, and Dee had family obligations. Phil and Andrew are the most roleplayey roleplayers at the table, so I wasn't sure how the session would go. I was happy, though, that some of the quieter players would get more screen time, as it were. They could maybe get into their characters, take a more sensible tack with the homicidal Bort out of the way. This could be a really deep, immersive session!
How naive I was.
Session Eight 4/17/15 - The Mines of Minroe
Bort, Five-Eyes, and Huzzah! elected to stay outside the mine and make sure no sneaky orcs showed up to bury our heroes alive. The other five adventurers--warrior Willers, dwarven monk Egbert, Carp the thief, Kilmer the dragonborn ranger, and roguish elf Carric--ventured into the mine. Their orc guide/ally/sort of prisoner, Magran, accompanied them, as did Vionna, cleric of Talona.
The opening in the side of the mountain led into a large chamber where the dwarves had entertained surface guests. There was a pitted map of the mines carved in bas-relief on one wall, and some broken furniture scattered about. To the west and north, tunnels led on.
In the center of the room shone a golden shaft of light, as if liquid gold streamed down from the ceiling. Hovering and slowly spinning in the light shaft was a shard of crystal about four inches long. Carp fished a crowbar out of his pack and tried to knock the crystal out of the light, but found the light as hard and impenetrable as stone. Disappointed, the party moved down the northern tunnel, where Magran indicated the rest of the orcs were.
The tunnel smelled terrible as a room to the west held the corpses of orcs who had succumbed to the plague. Egbert used his elemental monk powers to make the especially stinky drafts of air blow right into Vionna's face (at least until someone pointed out that, as a cleric of disease and pestilence, she might enjoy that).
The party passed a pillar on which was carved a dwarven miner. Egbert realized something was wrong with the pillar, in that the dwarf was depicted with a candle-helmet. Dwarves wouldn't need such a thing because of their darkvision. He accused the pillar of being a forgery and proceeded to punch it repeatedly "in the beard." Sharp-eyed Carp noticed a secret panel jiggle with each punch and opened the latch to reveal two hidden potion bottles.
The party decided to...well...drink the potions immediately without identifying them. I can't explain that. Carp got a potion of climbing and spent most of the rest of the session near the ceiling. Willers got a potion of water breathing that might have really come in handy later. Oh, well.
Around a corner up ahead, the party encountered the few remaining orcs of the tribe. Most were weak and sick, huddled in feverish groups on the floor. Two were strong/plagued orcs, though, and patrolled the caverns where the orcs lived. Egbert convinced Magran to pretend they were his prisoners, even though everyone was heavily armed and armored and not even tied up. The deception lasted about thirty seconds, after which Kilmer got bored and put an arrow in one of the orcs' chests.
Trying to keep the sick orcs from joining the fight, Egbert shouted "THIS IS A PERSONAL MATTER!" as he attacked the orc. Magran faithfully translated. As Egbert continued to punch and hack at the orc he said something about, "This never would have happened if you hadn't had the affair!" Magran translated this as, "The dwarf seeks vengeance on his false lover." The sick orcs looked doubtful but nodded.
After the orcs were dispatched, the party let Vionna take some plague samples from the orcs and heal a few before they let the orcs go. The sick orcs hurried out of the mines. Kilmer had asked them if there were any weak points in the caverns and they indicated one area where they could hear a scratching noise. The party found a secret door, a sort of old mine supervisor's office, that contained an animated dwarf skeleton. The skeleton wasn't hostile but merely repeated a series of movements on an infinite loop, walking from a section of wall to a desk and back again.
This is what the party did next: -took the skeleton's head off to see if it still functioned (it did) -took the table out of the room to see if the skeleton went to it or to the space where it had been (it went to the space) -broke off one of the skeleton's hands to get at its rings -put the skull back on -carried the skeleton out of the room and put it down to see what it would do (went back in the room) -bundled up the skeleton and tied it up, then slid it in a backpack so if they ever got lost in the mines they could untie it and follow it back here like a homing beacon
The party then went down a fungus-filled hallway (noticing and destroying a shrieker before it could shriek) and found the boss's room. The mine was run by Urmgech's mate, a female orc named Chonnal. She had some sort of pets, giant centipedes perhaps, that the party knew of. Somehow they came up with the following plan and I don't want to talk about it:
-they took out the dwarf skeleton -stuffed it with straw and hung a cloak on it so it looked bulkier -took one of the dead orcs from the caverns and chopped his head off -jammed the orc head atop the dwarf skull and fixed it in place. -opened the door and shoved the skeleton through, where it stumbled vaguely around -had Magran disguise his voice and call "I AM YOUR DEAD HUSBAND" through the doorway
(Egbert, the ringleader, claims it was to fulfil the same purpose as Star Lord's dance-off challenge at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy)
Long story short, Chonnal was confused but not taken in, one of her carrion crawler pets wasted a round eating the head off the skeleton, Carp almost died, but in the end they killed Chonnal and were victorious.
We had to stop right after Chonnal's death but we'll pick up tomorrow. We'll be on Twitch (Beamdog channel) at 2 pm mountain time.
Stream just ended. That was so much fun watching you guys play, I had a great time. Especially witnessing Five-Eyes's clever banter, while everyone else is busy fighting.
Outside the cave entrance to the Mines of Minroe, Bort suddenly announced he had something important and mysterious to take care of and disappeared into the woods. Bored, and not seeing any orcs about, Huzzah! and Five-Eyes entered the mine to track down the rest of the party.
They found the others in the chieftain's room with her headless body and two dead carrion crawlers. Huzzah! spent some time asking questions.
Q: Where did her head go? A: The carrion crawler ate it.
Q: Why did it only eat her head? A: We killed it before it ate anything else.
Q: Why did it attack her at all? A: That was the fatal flaw in her plan. Trusting a carrion crawler.
Q: Why is the head of our dwarf skeleton so gory? A: That's jam.
Q: No it's not. A: Uh, well, there was a lot of spatter. It was a bloody fight.
Q: Are those footprints on the ceiling? A: No.
With that all cleared up, the party finished searching the room. They found some odds and ends but not the mine master's medallion. They also found a hand-drawn map showing a path to a cave overlooking the Dragonmere. Orcish script in Urmgech's handwriting read:
Here my plan succeeds or fails. If I do not return by end of Flamerule, seek out my corpse and return it to life however you can. If I do return, it means the Dragonmere has become as Yurtrus's blood and a plague unlike any before shall wipe out the land. Praise the Lord of Maggots. We will rule in his name in the new world.
This led to a heated debate. Huzzah! suggested that if it was a plague "unlike any other" maybe it was a good plague. Vionna, the cleric of Talona, was greatly angered at this challenge to her mistress's portfolio. She declared her intention of tracking down Urmgech and stopping him. Most of the party agreed. But first they wanted to search the pit they'd bypassed.
The party went down the western tunnel. A few exploratory mine shafts led nowhere. Then they found a wide room with a great pit stretching down. Collapsed machinery and some fallen beams were wedged in the pit, allowing a way to climb down. Carp just jumped down right away and found himself in a larger cavern inhabited by a hungry otyugh.
The rest of party jumped, climbed, or feather falled down. A dramatic fight with the otyugh commenced. Carp spent a round splashing brandy over the monsters and then Carric set it on fire with a firebolt and I did hilarious flailing otyugh noises. Kilmer froze the monster in place with his icy breath and Five-Eyes swung down like Tarzan on a rope to (try to) bash the creature in the face. Carp almost died but after one failed death check, Five-Eyes brought him back.
With the otyugh dead, the party explored the cavern. They found some collapsed tunnels leading into the Underdark but they were too collapsed to be passable. They also found one part of the cavern was under deep water (the rest of the cavern had about 8" of water on the floor). Huzzah! talked to a passing fish (and I made hilarious fish noises and wiggled my hand to represent the fish) and learned there was an underwater tunnel to another cavern that contained "smelly legs" about Egbert's size.
Carefully the party swam through to the other cavern and found a dwarf wight awaiting them. They killed the wight (though it drained Willers of some of his energy), and during the fight fought over the wight's gear. Like while he was still animated. Kilmer tried to pull a medallion off the dwarf's head but got it caught in his beard. Huzzah! tried to steal the wight's belt. Finally Egbert killed the wight and ripped his belt off as he fell. It turned out to be a belt of dwarvenkind and Kilmer took the medallion, which was the mine master's symbol.
The party returned to the first level of the mine and unloosed their dwarf skeleton homing beacon in the secret chamber where they'd found him. They gave the skeleton the medallion and he used it to unlock a secret compartment that contained a battleaxe, a handaxe (+1), and a pouch. The skeleton took the pouch and mechanically shuffled to the entrance chamber.
The party followed and saw the skeleton dust its hand (since the other was torn off by Carp) with gold powder from the pouch. It then reached into the beam of golden light that served as a force field, but his hand passed easily through. He withdrew the crystal rod within and turned to face the party as the light faded. With a surprisingly ringing voice, the voice he probably had in life, the skeleton held the crystal piece forward and intoned a single word.
"Coelum."
Then the skeleton crumbled into dust, gone to its final reward, with only the crystal glinting on the pile. At that same time, Huzzah! felt his backpack humming. After resisting the urge to look for some time, he searched the backpack and found that round disc the party took from the aaracokra lair. Of the seven crystals embedded in the disc, one had started glowing and making a faint humming sound.
After some discussion as to their plan, the PCs headed out of the mine with all their treasure safely packed away. Bort had not yet returned, and the party elected to travel back to the main road, there to hitchhike on a caravan headed farther south through the Stormhorns.
The party waited at the road a short time when they saw a figure approaching them. It was Brother Case, the priest of Ilmater they'd met earlier on the road. Case ran up to the group in some excitement. He claimed that he was also in the area investigating the plague and wanted to stop it. Ilmater had sent him a vision, and that combined with research done by his church had led him to determine the proper course of action.
There was a secret Ilmaterian temple, he said, where the plague could be cured in every infected individual in Cormyr. If the PCs helped him reach the temple, they could heal everyone at once.
The party interrogated Case for some time, but it was clear they weren't swayed by his arguments. When Case realized they were traveling with a priestess of Talona, things got uglier. In the end, the PCs decided to continue south to the mysterious cave but to send Bort (and Chancey the donkey), Willers, and Five-Eyes along with Case. Just in case. Haha.
Anyway, the party then moved down the road while continuing to look for a suitable caravan with which to hitch a ride. Soon a carriage came jostling down the road, and the heroes recognized the drivers. They were the brothers that had driven the PCs from Arabel to the Stars and Moon. The brothers were happy to give the heroes a lift at half price; they were headed to Suzail to sell some trade goods.
The heroes rode gladly along in the wagon, spending their time regaling the brothers with stories. On the second evening as the brothers made camp, the group realized they were close enough to the location on the map to ascend into the Stormhorns. They bid the brothers goodbye, but not until Huzzah! had purchased two steel mirrors designed to hang from a backpack and a blowgun with 50 darts, and Carp had tried to sell an old bone necklace and rusty rings as "tomb jewelry" which he claimed was "so hot in Suzail right now." (A series of low Persuade and Deception rolls nixed that particular con.)
The party trudged up the mountainside, through scrubby grassland and dusty rock slopes. They were almost at the cave when everyone but Huzzah! failed his Perception check. A small red wyrmling swooped out of the air and breathed fire, incinerating Egbert, Carp, and Carric. The two rogues dodged out of the way, leaving Egbert to take the full brunt of the blast.
The party circled the wyrmling when it landed, but the creature had a lot of fight in it. Its diseased form and maddened gaze suggested it was almost dead from disease and was unable to communicate or reason. All it knew was hate and fear. It breathed again, sending Egbert and Magran both to the ground, dying. Vionna managed to awaken Egbert with a healing spell but another blast of fire dropped Egbert again, injured Vionna, and killed Magran.
Finally the heroes slew the wyrmling and Egbert was restored to the land of the living. Magran was a goner, though. They left his axe on his chest and covered him with some of the sere bushes before moving on.
Finally the PCs got to the cave. It was a large cave marked with scorch marks and claw marks over 6 feet long. They found two more dead wyrmlings, a pile of bones that Vionna said had come from diseased animals, and a scattering of gold within. Outside the cave they found the marks of many orc feet and the signs of something huge, perhaps 30 feet long, being dragged down the mountain. As the party pondered what this could mean and what Urmgech's plan could be, the session drew to a close.
That would be cool. We're a little busy this month but perhaps someday... I know Andrew does sketches of Huzzah! from time to time.
What do you think about folks here in the forum posting their renditions of some of the characters? Not speaking for myself (unless you want stick figures), but asking in general.
My feet hurt, but I really prefer DMing standing up. Today was a great session on the newly renamed Streamdog. I'll type up a recap for Monday.
Next session, which is June 5, will be our last. Then we'll take a short break and start a brand new campaign with all new characters and some new players, too! This way people will be able to follow the stream from the first session and get to know the story.
Any ideas for setting/theme? Currently I'm thinking of setting the game in Chult.
As I'm the forum's resident (and most ancient) Luddite, could you please explain (as if to very young and retarded child) how this 'stream' wotsit works and, if it's 'live' what godawful time will it be in the UK when you're playing?
The party decided to hurry at top speed toward the Dragonmere. The orcs had left a clear trail where they were towing the diseased dragon carcass along and the heroes hoped they could reach the orcs before they could carry out their plan. Small tremors in the ground marked their way, like small earthquakes that dislodged the occasional stone or threw people off balance, but didn't seriously impact the heroes' pace. Egbert, being a dwarf, knew a little about earth tremors and believed these ones were tied to the proximity to the dragon's lair--a sort of magical phenomenon.
All night the heroes pushed on, and just after dawn broke they entered an area dotted with crumbling foundations and stone blocks that marked a ruined townsite. A huge tremor, much stronger than any that had occurred before, ripped through the ground and a sinkhole opened up. Huzzah! and Egbert tumbled in, but between Huzzah!'s feather fall spell and Egbert's slow fall ability, neither were injured. They found themselves in what was once a tower basement. It was a round room with a table covered in old, dusty alchemical equipment and some colored vials. Carp jumped down to join the duo.
While Kilmer, Vionna, and Carric kept watch above, the rest of the party explored the room. Carp mixed three colored vials together to make a super-potion, which Huzzah! identified. "If we ever get into real trouble," Huzzah! said solemnly, "somebody drink this."
There was another tremor in the ground and Huzzah! began to climb back up to the surface. Just then one wall--partially collapsed already--gave way to a ferocious underground predator forcing its way into the room. It was a bulette, but one that seemed strangely mutated. Perhaps it had been drinking alchemical products lying in the area, because its hide was covered in mottled, shifting patches of color. Its eyes glowed luminous pink and it dribbled fluorescent green saliva. Huzzah! finished climbing up to the surface and Carric jumped down to aid Carp and Egbert in their fight against the beast.
With ranged support from above (including a critical crossbow hit from Huzzah!), the party soon defeated the bulette. Its bite had...unusual effects, however. Carp was the first one injured and after taking substantial damage, he saw the fluorescent saliva seep into his wounds. A moment later he got sick to his stomach and after a searing pain in his throat, he vomited up a 4' tall cactus in a clay pot. Next Egbert was bitten and from his wound sprang a flock of brightly colored tropical birds. Huzzah! caught one and named it Bort.
The party finished off the bulette after Carp managed to "sleight of hand" its eye from its eye socket, and yes that was as gross as it sounds. He kept the eye "in case it was valuable" and carried off his cactus, to which he'd grown quite attached. In fact he seemed to think he'd been "chosen" by the cactus god and kept leaning in and whispering things like, "What's that, oh spiny one? Yes, I shall do your work here."
After a short time of travel, the party finally came upon a grassy plateau overlooking the Dragonmere. There they saw the rotting corpse of a red dragon laid out near the edge of the cliff where it overlooked the lake's clear, sparkling waters. A horde of orcs surrounded the dragon, chanting and throwing incense, and at their head two warriors of Yurtrus (like the big creepy ones they'd fought in the sawmill) led the ritual. Assuming one of these orcs was Urmgech, Egbert rushed forward and flung the severed, preserved head of Chonnal at them. His aim was poor and the head bounced off the dragon and clocked an unremarkable orc in the head, but it was enough. The battle was on.
Egbert took a lot of damage from many javelins as the battle raged. Carp climbed a tree and stuck the glowing bulette eye on the end of a crossbow bolt. When he shot an orc with it, the orc turned blue and iced over before collapsing. Carp said this was the will of the cactus god.
Earlier, Huzzah! had bundled some alchemist's fire, a potion of explosions, some ball bearings, and brandy into the pirate dragon flag and tied it all up. At the height of the battle he snuck forward and threw the "bomb" at the dragon's side, hoping to burnsplode it up into harmless pieces. Rolling his second natural 20 of the session, Huzzah! succeeded. A big chunk of the dragon blew out, the corpse lit on fire, and five orcs died in the blast.
The party cheered and quickly finished off the remaining orcs. They gathered to argue about who deserved credit for what while Carp loudly praised the cactus god. Someone toed one of the fallen brawny orcs and said, "Your plan has failed, Urmgech!"
With his dying breath, the orc grunted, "Not...Urmgech..."
"Where is he, then?" the party demanded.
The orc pointed at the remains of the burning dragon corpse and muttered, "...trans...forming..." before he died.
Within the depths of the ruined carcass, something stirred...
Comments
After our heroes reached the Moon and Stars Inn, in Waymoot, they decided half their number would visit the meeting site where Croach and his orcs were supposed to have gone. Egbert, Carp, Carric, and Five-Eyes elected to travel to the meeting site under cover of darkness and set up an ambush. Bort, Huzzah!, Willers, and Kilmer stayed in the inn and tried to suss out any knowledge the locals had.
Huzzah! was the most successful at this. He learned from a serving wench that a) mysterious hooded figures had been seen in the woods, b) someone had broken into the inn's storage room a week ago but nothing had been taken, and c) some of the workers in the inn had come down sick recently. Huzzah! asked to see the storeroom and the server eagerly took him out back. She was a little surprised when all of Huzzah!'s friends joined them, as she had obviously been hoping for some alone time with the gnome, but Huzzah! put her off gently (as much as he could while being pretty drunk).
The party investigated the storeroom and found signs of tampering with some of the casks. Bort deceived the server by telling her the tampered-with casks were the safe ones, and Huzzah! was too tipsy to realize the deception. The party kept watch over the storeroom that night, just in case the tamper-er returned, but no one did.
Meanwhile, the other four party members went out to the meeting place and found a hidden trail leading up to the mountains. Marks of many footsteps and wagon tracks had been covered over, and Egbert (with a natural 20) found signs of orc activity. He also discovered a human woman hiding in a tree.
The four called the young woman down and she cautiously approached them. She introduced herself as Vionna, a researcher who was investigating a plague that seemed to be striking the towns and villages of Cormyr. She had tracked the source of the plague to this area and believed orcs were behind it. She also offered to join forces with the heroes if they were heading into the mountains to track orcs.
The party was naturally suspicious of the offer and the woman, and Five-Eyes interrogated her closely. When Vionna turned to gesture to the mountains as she spun her tale, an amulet fell out of her collar. Five-Eyes recognized it as a holy symbol of Talona. Carp pickpocketed the amulet (after Vionna hastily hid it back in her tunic) and then confronted her with it. Vionna admitted she was a priestess of the Mother of All Plagues and the church had sent her to investigate the plague. The clergy of Talona saw the orcs' activities as a challenge to their goddess's domain and wanted to stop the orcs at all costs...and maybe bring some plague samples back to the temple for Talonite use. Despite their suspicions, the party agreed to ally with Vionna, as her goals seemed to align more or less with theirs.
In the morning, the rest of the party approached the meeting place, while from the mountain trail a band of orcs and a domesticated giant boar approached. The orc leader stepped out of hiding while three other orcs, hooded and oddly silent, hung back. Upon realizing that the party was NOT the band of orcs he was expecting (despite both Bort and Five-Eyes claiming to be Croach... and Egbert lamenting that they hadn't brought Croach's body along to use "Weekend at Bernie's" style), he attacked.
A brief but fierce battle followed. Kilmer was badly wounded by the boar, but Five-Eyes' turn undead affected the hooded orcs, which proved to be rotting animated orc-corpses (ghouls, though the PCs thought they were zombies). The boar was the most dangerous opponent but the party managed to kill it in the end. They spared the living orc's life and began interrogating him
The orc quickly spilled his guts, in more ways than one. He told the party everything: that once he had been part of a typical orc band, led by a strong warrior. They hunted and killed travelers for amusements and did everything orcs were meant to do. Their cleric was a rather pathetic, sniveling individual named Urmgech, who worshiped Yurtrus, orc god of disease. His main function was to tend to the food and water supplies and keep the orcs healthy.
Then the band ate tainted meat and fell ill. At first they blamed Urmgech for failing them, but they soon realized the disease gave them incredible strength and a supernatural claw attack (if they survived). Other races only died from the disease, but it could make orcs into better fighters. Urmgech claimed it was a sign from Yurtrus, that the plague was a gift and he was meant to lead the tribe. He killed the old chief and took over. He sent the strongest orcs away to gather treasure by any means necessary and send it back to the tribe. He had a plan--though he didn't share it with the other orcs--and it required lots of gold.
The orc seemed depressed as he relayed the tale. Most of the other orcs were dead or sent away, he explained, and Urmgech had left with all the treasure. Urmgech said he had enough without waiting for Croach's bounty. He left his mate, Chonnal, in charge of the mines, which holds three plagued but strong orcs, 10 diseased and dying orcs, a few ghouls, and two "monster pets" Chonnal has. The orc felt his tribe had been brought low and wondered if Urmgech had somehow orchestrated the disease from the start.
The party offered the orc a chance for revenge: help them take the mines and they'd track down Urmgech and make him pay. After a short deliberation, the orc agreed and the party began their trek up the mountain path to the Mines of Minroe.
Updated whiteboard:
Also, the serving wench wasn't that obvious. If that isn't the case...
Oh, ****. I could've had *so* much more fun in college.
We were down three players: Phil had to work through the session, Andrew was at the Calgary Expo, and Dee had family obligations. Phil and Andrew are the most roleplayey roleplayers at the table, so I wasn't sure how the session would go. I was happy, though, that some of the quieter players would get more screen time, as it were. They could maybe get into their characters, take a more sensible tack with the homicidal Bort out of the way. This could be a really deep, immersive session!
How naive I was.
Session Eight 4/17/15 - The Mines of Minroe
Bort, Five-Eyes, and Huzzah! elected to stay outside the mine and make sure no sneaky orcs showed up to bury our heroes alive. The other five adventurers--warrior Willers, dwarven monk Egbert, Carp the thief, Kilmer the dragonborn ranger, and roguish elf Carric--ventured into the mine. Their orc guide/ally/sort of prisoner, Magran, accompanied them, as did Vionna, cleric of Talona.
The opening in the side of the mountain led into a large chamber where the dwarves had entertained surface guests. There was a pitted map of the mines carved in bas-relief on one wall, and some broken furniture scattered about. To the west and north, tunnels led on.
In the center of the room shone a golden shaft of light, as if liquid gold streamed down from the ceiling. Hovering and slowly spinning in the light shaft was a shard of crystal about four inches long. Carp fished a crowbar out of his pack and tried to knock the crystal out of the light, but found the light as hard and impenetrable as stone. Disappointed, the party moved down the northern tunnel, where Magran indicated the rest of the orcs were.
The tunnel smelled terrible as a room to the west held the corpses of orcs who had succumbed to the plague. Egbert used his elemental monk powers to make the especially stinky drafts of air blow right into Vionna's face (at least until someone pointed out that, as a cleric of disease and pestilence, she might enjoy that).
The party passed a pillar on which was carved a dwarven miner. Egbert realized something was wrong with the pillar, in that the dwarf was depicted with a candle-helmet. Dwarves wouldn't need such a thing because of their darkvision. He accused the pillar of being a forgery and proceeded to punch it repeatedly "in the beard." Sharp-eyed Carp noticed a secret panel jiggle with each punch and opened the latch to reveal two hidden potion bottles.
The party decided to...well...drink the potions immediately without identifying them. I can't explain that. Carp got a potion of climbing and spent most of the rest of the session near the ceiling. Willers got a potion of water breathing that might have really come in handy later. Oh, well.
Around a corner up ahead, the party encountered the few remaining orcs of the tribe. Most were weak and sick, huddled in feverish groups on the floor. Two were strong/plagued orcs, though, and patrolled the caverns where the orcs lived. Egbert convinced Magran to pretend they were his prisoners, even though everyone was heavily armed and armored and not even tied up. The deception lasted about thirty seconds, after which Kilmer got bored and put an arrow in one of the orcs' chests.
Trying to keep the sick orcs from joining the fight, Egbert shouted "THIS IS A PERSONAL MATTER!" as he attacked the orc. Magran faithfully translated. As Egbert continued to punch and hack at the orc he said something about, "This never would have happened if you hadn't had the affair!" Magran translated this as, "The dwarf seeks vengeance on his false lover." The sick orcs looked doubtful but nodded.
After the orcs were dispatched, the party let Vionna take some plague samples from the orcs and heal a few before they let the orcs go. The sick orcs hurried out of the mines. Kilmer had asked them if there were any weak points in the caverns and they indicated one area where they could hear a scratching noise. The party found a secret door, a sort of old mine supervisor's office, that contained an animated dwarf skeleton. The skeleton wasn't hostile but merely repeated a series of movements on an infinite loop, walking from a section of wall to a desk and back again.
This is what the party did next:
-took the skeleton's head off to see if it still functioned (it did)
-took the table out of the room to see if the skeleton went to it or to the space where it had been (it went to the space)
-broke off one of the skeleton's hands to get at its rings
-put the skull back on
-carried the skeleton out of the room and put it down to see what it would do (went back in the room)
-bundled up the skeleton and tied it up, then slid it in a backpack so if they ever got lost in the mines they could untie it and follow it back here like a homing beacon
The party then went down a fungus-filled hallway (noticing and destroying a shrieker before it could shriek) and found the boss's room. The mine was run by Urmgech's mate, a female orc named Chonnal. She had some sort of pets, giant centipedes perhaps, that the party knew of. Somehow they came up with the following plan and I don't want to talk about it:
-they took out the dwarf skeleton
-stuffed it with straw and hung a cloak on it so it looked bulkier
-took one of the dead orcs from the caverns and chopped his head off
-jammed the orc head atop the dwarf skull and fixed it in place.
-opened the door and shoved the skeleton through, where it stumbled vaguely around
-had Magran disguise his voice and call "I AM YOUR DEAD HUSBAND" through the doorway
(Egbert, the ringleader, claims it was to fulfil the same purpose as Star Lord's dance-off challenge at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy)
Long story short, Chonnal was confused but not taken in, one of her carrion crawler pets wasted a round eating the head off the skeleton, Carp almost died, but in the end they killed Chonnal and were victorious.
We had to stop right after Chonnal's death but we'll pick up tomorrow. We'll be on Twitch (Beamdog channel) at 2 pm mountain time.
The skeleton beacon thing was actually pretty clever.
I liked Five-Eyes' banter too...I always like to engage in roleplaying when possible. It makes the game so much fun.
Outside the cave entrance to the Mines of Minroe, Bort suddenly announced he had something important and mysterious to take care of and disappeared into the woods. Bored, and not seeing any orcs about, Huzzah! and Five-Eyes entered the mine to track down the rest of the party.
They found the others in the chieftain's room with her headless body and two dead carrion crawlers. Huzzah! spent some time asking questions.
Q: Where did her head go?
A: The carrion crawler ate it.
Q: Why did it only eat her head?
A: We killed it before it ate anything else.
Q: Why did it attack her at all?
A: That was the fatal flaw in her plan. Trusting a carrion crawler.
Q: Why is the head of our dwarf skeleton so gory?
A: That's jam.
Q: No it's not.
A: Uh, well, there was a lot of spatter. It was a bloody fight.
Q: Are those footprints on the ceiling?
A: No.
With that all cleared up, the party finished searching the room. They found some odds and ends but not the mine master's medallion. They also found a hand-drawn map showing a path to a cave overlooking the Dragonmere. Orcish script in Urmgech's handwriting read:
Here my plan succeeds or fails. If I do not return by end of Flamerule, seek out my corpse and return it to life however you can. If I do return, it means the Dragonmere has become as Yurtrus's blood and a plague unlike any before shall wipe out the land. Praise the Lord of Maggots. We will rule in his name in the new world.
This led to a heated debate. Huzzah! suggested that if it was a plague "unlike any other" maybe it was a good plague. Vionna, the cleric of Talona, was greatly angered at this challenge to her mistress's portfolio. She declared her intention of tracking down Urmgech and stopping him. Most of the party agreed. But first they wanted to search the pit they'd bypassed.
The party went down the western tunnel. A few exploratory mine shafts led nowhere. Then they found a wide room with a great pit stretching down. Collapsed machinery and some fallen beams were wedged in the pit, allowing a way to climb down. Carp just jumped down right away and found himself in a larger cavern inhabited by a hungry otyugh.
The rest of party jumped, climbed, or feather falled down. A dramatic fight with the otyugh commenced. Carp spent a round splashing brandy over the monsters and then Carric set it on fire with a firebolt and I did hilarious flailing otyugh noises. Kilmer froze the monster in place with his icy breath and Five-Eyes swung down like Tarzan on a rope to (try to) bash the creature in the face. Carp almost died but after one failed death check, Five-Eyes brought him back.
With the otyugh dead, the party explored the cavern. They found some collapsed tunnels leading into the Underdark but they were too collapsed to be passable. They also found one part of the cavern was under deep water (the rest of the cavern had about 8" of water on the floor). Huzzah! talked to a passing fish (and I made hilarious fish noises and wiggled my hand to represent the fish) and learned there was an underwater tunnel to another cavern that contained "smelly legs" about Egbert's size.
Carefully the party swam through to the other cavern and found a dwarf wight awaiting them. They killed the wight (though it drained Willers of some of his energy), and during the fight fought over the wight's gear. Like while he was still animated. Kilmer tried to pull a medallion off the dwarf's head but got it caught in his beard. Huzzah! tried to steal the wight's belt. Finally Egbert killed the wight and ripped his belt off as he fell. It turned out to be a belt of dwarvenkind and Kilmer took the medallion, which was the mine master's symbol.
The party returned to the first level of the mine and unloosed their dwarf skeleton homing beacon in the secret chamber where they'd found him. They gave the skeleton the medallion and he used it to unlock a secret compartment that contained a battleaxe, a handaxe (+1), and a pouch. The skeleton took the pouch and mechanically shuffled to the entrance chamber.
The party followed and saw the skeleton dust its hand (since the other was torn off by Carp) with gold powder from the pouch. It then reached into the beam of golden light that served as a force field, but his hand passed easily through. He withdrew the crystal rod within and turned to face the party as the light faded. With a surprisingly ringing voice, the voice he probably had in life, the skeleton held the crystal piece forward and intoned a single word.
"Coelum."
Then the skeleton crumbled into dust, gone to its final reward, with only the crystal glinting on the pile. At that same time, Huzzah! felt his backpack humming. After resisting the urge to look for some time, he searched the backpack and found that round disc the party took from the aaracokra lair. Of the seven crystals embedded in the disc, one had started glowing and making a faint humming sound.
How mysterious.
My interpretation of the Mines of Minroe:
I will try to get Twitch working on my stupid phone so I can reply to comments/questions during the session.
After some discussion as to their plan, the PCs headed out of the mine with all their treasure safely packed away. Bort had not yet returned, and the party elected to travel back to the main road, there to hitchhike on a caravan headed farther south through the Stormhorns.
The party waited at the road a short time when they saw a figure approaching them. It was Brother Case, the priest of Ilmater they'd met earlier on the road. Case ran up to the group in some excitement. He claimed that he was also in the area investigating the plague and wanted to stop it. Ilmater had sent him a vision, and that combined with research done by his church had led him to determine the proper course of action.
There was a secret Ilmaterian temple, he said, where the plague could be cured in every infected individual in Cormyr. If the PCs helped him reach the temple, they could heal everyone at once.
The party interrogated Case for some time, but it was clear they weren't swayed by his arguments. When Case realized they were traveling with a priestess of Talona, things got uglier. In the end, the PCs decided to continue south to the mysterious cave but to send Bort (and Chancey the donkey), Willers, and Five-Eyes along with Case. Just in case. Haha.
Anyway, the party then moved down the road while continuing to look for a suitable caravan with which to hitch a ride. Soon a carriage came jostling down the road, and the heroes recognized the drivers. They were the brothers that had driven the PCs from Arabel to the Stars and Moon. The brothers were happy to give the heroes a lift at half price; they were headed to Suzail to sell some trade goods.
The heroes rode gladly along in the wagon, spending their time regaling the brothers with stories. On the second evening as the brothers made camp, the group realized they were close enough to the location on the map to ascend into the Stormhorns. They bid the brothers goodbye, but not until Huzzah! had purchased two steel mirrors designed to hang from a backpack and a blowgun with 50 darts, and Carp had tried to sell an old bone necklace and rusty rings as "tomb jewelry" which he claimed was "so hot in Suzail right now." (A series of low Persuade and Deception rolls nixed that particular con.)
The party trudged up the mountainside, through scrubby grassland and dusty rock slopes. They were almost at the cave when everyone but Huzzah! failed his Perception check. A small red wyrmling swooped out of the air and breathed fire, incinerating Egbert, Carp, and Carric. The two rogues dodged out of the way, leaving Egbert to take the full brunt of the blast.
The party circled the wyrmling when it landed, but the creature had a lot of fight in it. Its diseased form and maddened gaze suggested it was almost dead from disease and was unable to communicate or reason. All it knew was hate and fear. It breathed again, sending Egbert and Magran both to the ground, dying. Vionna managed to awaken Egbert with a healing spell but another blast of fire dropped Egbert again, injured Vionna, and killed Magran.
Finally the heroes slew the wyrmling and Egbert was restored to the land of the living. Magran was a goner, though. They left his axe on his chest and covered him with some of the sere bushes before moving on.
Finally the PCs got to the cave. It was a large cave marked with scorch marks and claw marks over 6 feet long. They found two more dead wyrmlings, a pile of bones that Vionna said had come from diseased animals, and a scattering of gold within. Outside the cave they found the marks of many orc feet and the signs of something huge, perhaps 30 feet long, being dragged down the mountain. As the party pondered what this could mean and what Urmgech's plan could be, the session drew to a close.
And everyone hit level 4! Yay!
Next session, which is June 5, will be our last. Then we'll take a short break and start a brand new campaign with all new characters and some new players, too! This way people will be able to follow the stream from the first session and get to know the story.
Any ideas for setting/theme? Currently I'm thinking of setting the game in Chult.
The party decided to hurry at top speed toward the Dragonmere. The orcs had left a clear trail where they were towing the diseased dragon carcass along and the heroes hoped they could reach the orcs before they could carry out their plan. Small tremors in the ground marked their way, like small earthquakes that dislodged the occasional stone or threw people off balance, but didn't seriously impact the heroes' pace. Egbert, being a dwarf, knew a little about earth tremors and believed these ones were tied to the proximity to the dragon's lair--a sort of magical phenomenon.
All night the heroes pushed on, and just after dawn broke they entered an area dotted with crumbling foundations and stone blocks that marked a ruined townsite. A huge tremor, much stronger than any that had occurred before, ripped through the ground and a sinkhole opened up. Huzzah! and Egbert tumbled in, but between Huzzah!'s feather fall spell and Egbert's slow fall ability, neither were injured. They found themselves in what was once a tower basement. It was a round room with a table covered in old, dusty alchemical equipment and some colored vials. Carp jumped down to join the duo.
While Kilmer, Vionna, and Carric kept watch above, the rest of the party explored the room. Carp mixed three colored vials together to make a super-potion, which Huzzah! identified. "If we ever get into real trouble," Huzzah! said solemnly, "somebody drink this."
There was another tremor in the ground and Huzzah! began to climb back up to the surface. Just then one wall--partially collapsed already--gave way to a ferocious underground predator forcing its way into the room. It was a bulette, but one that seemed strangely mutated. Perhaps it had been drinking alchemical products lying in the area, because its hide was covered in mottled, shifting patches of color. Its eyes glowed luminous pink and it dribbled fluorescent green saliva. Huzzah! finished climbing up to the surface and Carric jumped down to aid Carp and Egbert in their fight against the beast.
With ranged support from above (including a critical crossbow hit from Huzzah!), the party soon defeated the bulette. Its bite had...unusual effects, however. Carp was the first one injured and after taking substantial damage, he saw the fluorescent saliva seep into his wounds. A moment later he got sick to his stomach and after a searing pain in his throat, he vomited up a 4' tall cactus in a clay pot. Next Egbert was bitten and from his wound sprang a flock of brightly colored tropical birds. Huzzah! caught one and named it Bort.
The party finished off the bulette after Carp managed to "sleight of hand" its eye from its eye socket, and yes that was as gross as it sounds. He kept the eye "in case it was valuable" and carried off his cactus, to which he'd grown quite attached. In fact he seemed to think he'd been "chosen" by the cactus god and kept leaning in and whispering things like, "What's that, oh spiny one? Yes, I shall do your work here."
After a short time of travel, the party finally came upon a grassy plateau overlooking the Dragonmere. There they saw the rotting corpse of a red dragon laid out near the edge of the cliff where it overlooked the lake's clear, sparkling waters. A horde of orcs surrounded the dragon, chanting and throwing incense, and at their head two warriors of Yurtrus (like the big creepy ones they'd fought in the sawmill) led the ritual. Assuming one of these orcs was Urmgech, Egbert rushed forward and flung the severed, preserved head of Chonnal at them. His aim was poor and the head bounced off the dragon and clocked an unremarkable orc in the head, but it was enough. The battle was on.
Egbert took a lot of damage from many javelins as the battle raged. Carp climbed a tree and stuck the glowing bulette eye on the end of a crossbow bolt. When he shot an orc with it, the orc turned blue and iced over before collapsing. Carp said this was the will of the cactus god.
Earlier, Huzzah! had bundled some alchemist's fire, a potion of explosions, some ball bearings, and brandy into the pirate dragon flag and tied it all up. At the height of the battle he snuck forward and threw the "bomb" at the dragon's side, hoping to burnsplode it up into harmless pieces. Rolling his second natural 20 of the session, Huzzah! succeeded. A big chunk of the dragon blew out, the corpse lit on fire, and five orcs died in the blast.
The party cheered and quickly finished off the remaining orcs. They gathered to argue about who deserved credit for what while Carp loudly praised the cactus god. Someone toed one of the fallen brawny orcs and said, "Your plan has failed, Urmgech!"
With his dying breath, the orc grunted, "Not...Urmgech..."
"Where is he, then?" the party demanded.
The orc pointed at the remains of the burning dragon corpse and muttered, "...trans...forming..." before he died.
Within the depths of the ruined carcass, something stirred...
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh