Back to Bandits
Feb. 27th, 2004 12:55 amTonight we started Jeff's Dragonlance campaign, with second level characters, and two new people -- Kate and... er... her brother, whose name I don't remember.
We spent a couple hours making characters -- the new people were new to 3rd edition, and needed to be walked through character creation -- then played a bit of an intro adventure. Until almost 1 am. Gah.
A party of adventurers -- or at least, of people who were now working as adventurers, as their previous quests had become stalled -- were stranded in a stupid little town infested by the knights of Neraka, on the border of a giant evil desert, a giant evil swamp, and the giant minotaur-infested woods formerly known as Silvanost.
They were:
Abiel Gailanadril (aka Abbey), an elven rogue, who planned to eventually learn some magic.
Morgan, a human rogue, who planned to eventually learn some magic.
Rosco, the weasel familiar of a human paragon/wizard whose name I can't remember.
Sonnet, a gnomish bard. Sonnet is what we call her. Her actual name is VERY LONG.
Mike, a human sorcerer (showing Ed's continued flair for naming his characters).
Kijj, a minotaur battle-sorcerer. Focusing mainly on the 'battle'.
One night, Morgan saw a mercenary and a bunch of his friends chase an afflicted kender and his very young daughter into an alleyway, accusing them of stealing his money purse. Morgan tried to reason with the man, who quickly lost his temper and drew his sword. Morgan quickly drew his sap, and laid him out in a single blow.
The rest of the party, attracted by the commotion, saw Morgan attack, and jumped to his defense. Mike cast sleep on the cluster guarding one end of the alley, allowing Kijj to run to Morgan's aid, then Rosco's master color-sprayed those still awake. Morgan laid out another thug in a single blow of his sap, Kijj took down the last with a single blow of his spear (up the side of the head, as there were people around watching), Mike put a nosy bystander screaming for the guards to sleep, and it was over.
The kender had nothing to pay the party with, but Rosco's master and Morgan gave him some money. He promised to help them in the future, if they needed any aid or information, as he knew a lot about the town and the area. He didn't know anything in particular about their quests, though.
Then the guards blew their whistles to let people know they were about to show up, and everyone ran off.
The next day, the Herald -- who Sonnet had been questing for -- showed up in town. The whole party got a table for his performance, as did most of the town -- he was a very famous bard said to be an orphaned avatar of one of the vanished (and recently returned) gods, or possibly touched by Paladine himself. The room at the inn where he'd agreed to perform was very crowded.
Sonnet tried to talk to his groupies, who were all also bards, and spent thirty minutes trying to teach a kender to speak her name correctly -- that is, she said it once and he tried to repeat it back. For the actual performance, she perched on Kijj's head, between his horns, to get a better view.
The Herald's story was about recent history -- Mina's rise, and the defeat of the Knights of Neraka. Mostly the defeat of the Knights of Neraka. The stupid, worthless, COWARDLY Knights of Neraka, who'd run away from the minotaur invasion of Silvanost and fled to THIS VERY TOWN. Oh, and who made up most of the audience.
The knights, cowardly though they might be, didn't take this sitting down. Most of them attacked the Herald, although a few (well, nine) noticed that a minotaur was sitting among them, and attacked the party.
Mike fled the building immediately, at the first sign of trouble, while Sonnet made her way through the room to try to help out the Herald. That left the other four to face the nine Knights (or, rather, thugs employed in the army of the Knights). Kijj, the main target, took down four as he flailed about with his spear, before he was knocked out by a pair wielding chairs. Morgan and Abbey laid about with their saps, and took down most of the rest, although Rosco's master might have stunned one with a color spray.
Kijj's familiar, a raven, who'd been left outside the building because he didn't like being indoors, saw Mike fleeing just as he felt his master knocked out, and harassed the sorceror until he came back to help. Mike's magic glove revived the minotaur, in time for all of them to hear the Herald, who (with Sonnet's help) had fought off the rest of his attackers, speak his prophecy.
"You must find the Sylvan Key! You, Sonnet, and your companions -- all of you are tied to it! It is meant to be in your possession, although it now lies in the hands of the evil Pelarin, a petty theif and former squire of the knights. You have to go get it!"
Pelarin, eh? Most of the party remembered that there was a very large price on his head -- 5000 steel for him and his lieutenants, delivered as a set. This sounded like a job for...
Well, for the kender they'd rescued. Where was this guy hiding? After a little scouting, the kender brought back a map to and of Pelarin's camp -- about 13 people, a half day's travel from the town.
So they planned their assault. Morgan, Sonnet, and Abbey would sneak around back and take out the sentries in back, while Kijj's raven spotted the sentries in front from the tree line, relaying the targeting coordinates back through Kijj so that Mike and Rosco's master could put them to sleep. If they could take out all the enemies simultaneously...
It didn't quite go off as planned. The sentries in front were indeed spotted and slept, but one of the sentries in back lived long enough to shout a warning, alerting the rest of the camp. Kijj ran up to try to get into battle before the thieves were overwhelmed, but hit a tripwire, setting off an alarm and flipping him flat on his face.
Morgan was taken down by the rogues of the camp -- two sitting around a fire, two who'd been sleeping in tents -- but Mike dropped a sleep on the cluster as they stood around the downed thief, taking out two, one of whom fell in the firepit and burned to death. That left three for Abbey and Sonnet to handle, along with a mage, one of the lietenants, who got off a magic missile before Sonnet poked him in the belly and he fell over.
Kijj faced off against Pelarin while a half-elven archer peppered the mages with arrow fire... but Rosco's master bravely ran up into color-spray range and knocked Pelarin out, at which point Kijj charged across the camp and took out the archer.
And it was all over except for the traps. Mostly pits, although the chest in Pelarin's tent had a poison needle. Rosco's master and Abbey were badly hurt falling in pits, but the party found a bunch of treasure, including a music box which had to be the Sylvan Key, as nothing else in the camp could possibly fit the description. All it seemed to do was play music.
There were a few enemies alive, which the party tried to interrogate, but none of them were any good at it and they got nothing. They decided to take the heads of the slain and the few bandits still living back to town to claim the reward, and ask the Herald what he knew about the music box.
last session, different game next week
We spent a couple hours making characters -- the new people were new to 3rd edition, and needed to be walked through character creation -- then played a bit of an intro adventure. Until almost 1 am. Gah.
A party of adventurers -- or at least, of people who were now working as adventurers, as their previous quests had become stalled -- were stranded in a stupid little town infested by the knights of Neraka, on the border of a giant evil desert, a giant evil swamp, and the giant minotaur-infested woods formerly known as Silvanost.
They were:
Abiel Gailanadril (aka Abbey), an elven rogue, who planned to eventually learn some magic.
Morgan, a human rogue, who planned to eventually learn some magic.
Rosco, the weasel familiar of a human paragon/wizard whose name I can't remember.
Sonnet, a gnomish bard. Sonnet is what we call her. Her actual name is VERY LONG.
Mike, a human sorcerer (showing Ed's continued flair for naming his characters).
Kijj, a minotaur battle-sorcerer. Focusing mainly on the 'battle'.
One night, Morgan saw a mercenary and a bunch of his friends chase an afflicted kender and his very young daughter into an alleyway, accusing them of stealing his money purse. Morgan tried to reason with the man, who quickly lost his temper and drew his sword. Morgan quickly drew his sap, and laid him out in a single blow.
The rest of the party, attracted by the commotion, saw Morgan attack, and jumped to his defense. Mike cast sleep on the cluster guarding one end of the alley, allowing Kijj to run to Morgan's aid, then Rosco's master color-sprayed those still awake. Morgan laid out another thug in a single blow of his sap, Kijj took down the last with a single blow of his spear (up the side of the head, as there were people around watching), Mike put a nosy bystander screaming for the guards to sleep, and it was over.
The kender had nothing to pay the party with, but Rosco's master and Morgan gave him some money. He promised to help them in the future, if they needed any aid or information, as he knew a lot about the town and the area. He didn't know anything in particular about their quests, though.
Then the guards blew their whistles to let people know they were about to show up, and everyone ran off.
The next day, the Herald -- who Sonnet had been questing for -- showed up in town. The whole party got a table for his performance, as did most of the town -- he was a very famous bard said to be an orphaned avatar of one of the vanished (and recently returned) gods, or possibly touched by Paladine himself. The room at the inn where he'd agreed to perform was very crowded.
Sonnet tried to talk to his groupies, who were all also bards, and spent thirty minutes trying to teach a kender to speak her name correctly -- that is, she said it once and he tried to repeat it back. For the actual performance, she perched on Kijj's head, between his horns, to get a better view.
The Herald's story was about recent history -- Mina's rise, and the defeat of the Knights of Neraka. Mostly the defeat of the Knights of Neraka. The stupid, worthless, COWARDLY Knights of Neraka, who'd run away from the minotaur invasion of Silvanost and fled to THIS VERY TOWN. Oh, and who made up most of the audience.
The knights, cowardly though they might be, didn't take this sitting down. Most of them attacked the Herald, although a few (well, nine) noticed that a minotaur was sitting among them, and attacked the party.
Mike fled the building immediately, at the first sign of trouble, while Sonnet made her way through the room to try to help out the Herald. That left the other four to face the nine Knights (or, rather, thugs employed in the army of the Knights). Kijj, the main target, took down four as he flailed about with his spear, before he was knocked out by a pair wielding chairs. Morgan and Abbey laid about with their saps, and took down most of the rest, although Rosco's master might have stunned one with a color spray.
Kijj's familiar, a raven, who'd been left outside the building because he didn't like being indoors, saw Mike fleeing just as he felt his master knocked out, and harassed the sorceror until he came back to help. Mike's magic glove revived the minotaur, in time for all of them to hear the Herald, who (with Sonnet's help) had fought off the rest of his attackers, speak his prophecy.
"You must find the Sylvan Key! You, Sonnet, and your companions -- all of you are tied to it! It is meant to be in your possession, although it now lies in the hands of the evil Pelarin, a petty theif and former squire of the knights. You have to go get it!"
Pelarin, eh? Most of the party remembered that there was a very large price on his head -- 5000 steel for him and his lieutenants, delivered as a set. This sounded like a job for...
Well, for the kender they'd rescued. Where was this guy hiding? After a little scouting, the kender brought back a map to and of Pelarin's camp -- about 13 people, a half day's travel from the town.
So they planned their assault. Morgan, Sonnet, and Abbey would sneak around back and take out the sentries in back, while Kijj's raven spotted the sentries in front from the tree line, relaying the targeting coordinates back through Kijj so that Mike and Rosco's master could put them to sleep. If they could take out all the enemies simultaneously...
It didn't quite go off as planned. The sentries in front were indeed spotted and slept, but one of the sentries in back lived long enough to shout a warning, alerting the rest of the camp. Kijj ran up to try to get into battle before the thieves were overwhelmed, but hit a tripwire, setting off an alarm and flipping him flat on his face.
Morgan was taken down by the rogues of the camp -- two sitting around a fire, two who'd been sleeping in tents -- but Mike dropped a sleep on the cluster as they stood around the downed thief, taking out two, one of whom fell in the firepit and burned to death. That left three for Abbey and Sonnet to handle, along with a mage, one of the lietenants, who got off a magic missile before Sonnet poked him in the belly and he fell over.
Kijj faced off against Pelarin while a half-elven archer peppered the mages with arrow fire... but Rosco's master bravely ran up into color-spray range and knocked Pelarin out, at which point Kijj charged across the camp and took out the archer.
And it was all over except for the traps. Mostly pits, although the chest in Pelarin's tent had a poison needle. Rosco's master and Abbey were badly hurt falling in pits, but the party found a bunch of treasure, including a music box which had to be the Sylvan Key, as nothing else in the camp could possibly fit the description. All it seemed to do was play music.
There were a few enemies alive, which the party tried to interrogate, but none of them were any good at it and they got nothing. They decided to take the heads of the slain and the few bandits still living back to town to claim the reward, and ask the Herald what he knew about the music box.
last session, different game next week