Adventure 09 - Under the Surface

Under the Surface

Played November 29, 2004
Dateline River Cyre: 20 Therendor 999 (early spring – equivalent to mid-March)
Featuring Baqar, Jory, Kirin, Metal Guy, and Quarion


Capsule Summary

Salvaging is boring work. Every day Jory used her Dragonmark of Finding to help Drekel and his crew find the chest he had been commissioned to find – a Cyran expatriate noble had hired Drekel – it would prove his title and claim to what remained of his fortune beyond the borders of Cyre. Drekel had found it late last autumn but had lost it in the river in a skirmish with another riverboat salvager.

Finally, after several days Jory’s Mark of Finding located the chest under the surface. Drekel gave her a potion of water breathing so she and Metal Guy could leap underwater with a rope to mark its location. They found it nearly completely buried under the riverbed – in the center of several round objects. Soon Jory and Metal Guy realized it was a nest – and the mommy fintail, a dinosaur-like beast, paid them a visit. She went for Metal Guy first, though she was disappointed to discover he did not taste very good. While she was distracted, Jory swam to the surface to get help. Kirin, Quarion, and Baqar leapt into the river. The five of them surrounded the fintail and finished her off, albeit with great difficulty, most of their weapons not optimal for use underwater. Quarion had some luck using his dagger – it was more effective than bulky slashing swords. However, they did manage to defeat her without any permanent injuries and retrieve the chest. Metal Guy and Baqar took trophies – both took some fintail teeth and Baqar feasted on her raw heart. (yum?)


Drekel lived up to his end of the bargain, taking our heroes to a riverside town some forty miles awar from to Kerrine Grenhol’s inland village – a nice sleepy town named Dirania. Their riverboat pierced the cloaking fog of the Mournland, taking them to some already-forgotten town which had once been the site of many battles between the forces of Cyre, Karrnath, and the Talenta Plains. Drekel told them he would give them a week – if they weren’t back by then they would almost assuredly be dead.

The town shoed the carnage of the Last War like a open wound. A primitive warforged piled bodies which refused to decompose, piling them in neat stacks and then after finishing moving them to a new pile. Drekel told them, as they departed, that warforged had been doing that for at least a year. Probably best to leave it be... While the corpses refused to decompose, Drekel gave them the unnecessary reminder that no natural healing took place in the Mournland – nor did clerical healing magic, though Kirin had hopes her druidic goodberry magic would still function – she had brought several freshly picked berries.

After several hours of travel, with Baqar, mounted on Fluffy, scouting ahead, they heard a horrible scream from a house atop a hill. As they closed in to investigate, they found odd bone sculptures – dog heads atop human bodies and countless other strange combinations. Peeking in the house they saw a human strapped to a table. Bones were littered all over the dirt floor. A cage was in one corner. And smashing the prisoner’s ankles with a hammer was a horrific gaunt man – not undead, but certainly not human. Bones nearly poked through his flesh – indeed they did in some places.

The more stealthy heroes – Jory, Metal Guy, and Baqar, opened the attack with an ambush through the windows. As they did several bones animated, forming a pair of bizarre skeletons which attacked them. They had a lot of trouble dispatching the skeletons, bladed weapons being far less effective than blunt ones against the skeletons. Kirin, Quarion, and Fluffy joined in in a second wave. Our heroes were badly hurt – Metal Guy suffered from several hammer blows from the gaunt one while Baqar was cut several times by blade-wielding skeletons. They were forced to resort to some bizarre tactics Quarion sought higher ground atop the table the prisoner was strapped to and Jory used her rope and grappling hook to trip the gaunt one. They triumphed in the end and freed the prisoner.- a merchant named Hobb Darksteel. He was the last survivor of a band from deep within the Mournland trying to escape. Kirin set his wounds and our heroes had him wait in an adjoining house for them to return, Hobb promised them a sack of silver is they returned.



Treasure
Not much as yet, though they have been promised 1600 silver pieces. Plus some fantail parts…

Experience

• Fintail dinosaur (technically a Cryptoclidus which is not really a dinosaur) from Monster Manual II. See http://dsc.discovery.com/stories/dinos/bbc/fact_files/sea/cryptoclidus.html for some information. Challenge Rating 3 for 900 experience points.
• The gaunt man was a Bone Cobbler from Necromancer Games’ Tome of Horrors. It was Challenge Rating 4 for 1,350 XP.
• The two skeletons were both Challenge Rating 1/3. This is worth 200 XP.
• Total Experience in this adventure – 2450 - 490 each. That gives 4191 total experience gained per character (with some at less due to scroll creation). All characters are at third level.

Adventure 08 - Raiders of the Warforged Temple

Raiders of the Warforged Temple

Played November 15, 2004
Dateline Karrnath: 6 Therendor 999 (early spring – equivalent to early March)
Featuring Baqar, Jory, Kirin, Metal Guy, and Quarion


Capsule Summary

Nifras had supposedly gone to the docks in search of some spare parts from some derelict riverboats – a century of war and a decimated neighbor had the unfortunate side-effect of reducing the need for river commerce. They arrived early in the evening, just in time for one of those bitter cold drizzles. There was no sign of Nifras, but there was a feral-looking Halfling fleeing down one of the piers, being chased by a group of Warforged. The Warforged seemed intent on capturing him – after much discussion (and upon overhearing that the Warforged thought it would be good to capture them as well), our noble heroes came to the Halfling’s assistance. Metal Guy charged to the end of the pier, just in time to watch the Halfling take a nap (with help from a Warforged sorcerer). Metal Guy woke him up and the two engaged in melee with the Warforged (while the rest of the group chose the virtue of long-distance attacks – though Kirin did get caught in another sleep spell). Eventually our heroes triumphed and healed their wounded (and awoke their sleeping). They learned that the Halfling was Baqar, a Dinosaur-Rider from the Talenta Plains. He had been captured by a Wafroged raiding party. He was intent on going back across the river to rescue his Clawfoot dinosaur, Fluffy, from a group of Warforged in the Mournland, just across the river. He explained that the Warforged had occupied a small church and were using it as a base where they took humanoid prisoners to – and used them for fights in their basement arena – to learn how humanoids fight. And after deaths in the arena the bodies were reanimated as zombies – apparently a Warforged cleric considered himself a “Forger of the Dead”. This wouldn’t be of much interest aside from the fact that Baqar indicated that Nifras was one of the prisoners, taken in an earlier raid.


The five crossed the river in a rowboat and used a narrow tunnel that went from the riverbank to just outside the occupied church. They entered in through a side entrance and dispatched a pair of Warforged guards. However, during the scuffle their leader, the Forger of the Dead, accompanied by a pair of zombies, showed up on the scene. In a long battle, they managed to finish them off (and take the gemstone eyes off of a statue of the Lord of Blades). After a brief search of the church, they descended into the basement and proceeded to the arena – there they rescued Fluffy and Nifras from their Warforged and zombie guards. They then freed the rest of the prisoners and escaped back across the river.

Treasure

• Pearl of Power (from the Forger of the Dead) - Allows spell-user to recall a cast 1st-level spell (1000 gp/500 gp if sold). Might be useful for Kirin since she winds up casting a lot of healing spells despite being a druid.
• Wand of Magic Missiles (from Warforeged Sorcerer - 19 charges, usable as if a 3rd level caster (810 gp - claimed by Quarion).
• Gemstone Eyes - Looted from a statue of the Lord of Blades (that'll make you popular with the Warforged) - each is a Blue Star Sapphire worth 1000 gp each (2000 gp total)
  
  

Experience

• Warforged Forger of the Dead - Evil Warforged cleric animating zombies - CR 5, 1800 XP
• Warforged Warriors - 1st level warriors - you fought seven of these, CR 1/2 each - 1050 total
• Warforged Sorcerer - 3rd level sorcerer. CR 3, 900 XP
• Zombies - you fought four of these, CR 1/2 each - 600 XP total
  
• Total Experience - 1088 each. That gives 3701 total experience gained per character (with Quarion at 3698 due to scrolls created). All characters are at third level.