Palanthas or Bust!
Mar. 19th, 2004 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was Jeff's Dragonlance game. There was a lot of uneventful travel and missed opportunities, and Kijj demonstrated how all the defensive spells in the world can fail to save you when the GM's dice are hot. Twice.
There was also a lot of arguing about treasure. The people who'd gotten lots of treasure insisted that there was really no need to keep count of who got what, after all everyone had gotten something except for them!
"I got a masterwork sword and a potion of cure light wounds. You got a +1 mithral shirt and eyes of the eagle."
"Well, the eyes and the shirt are basically party treasure. They make us a more effective team."
"The eyes maybe, but your ARMOR? And not my weapon, which you made me pay the party for?"
But the votes were cast, and we decided to stick with ad-hoc treasure distribution, with items going to those most in need. But I got my revenge, and a very expensive item, so it's all good.
Terrified that the shapechanging Sivak would be after them, the party asked the merchant if there were any villages nearby that they could maybe run and hide in. Sure enough, there was one only a couple hours travel, so the party forced themselves to their feet and made the trek.
The guards didn't want to open the door to let them in ("How do we know you aren't shapechanging assassins?") but relented when offered a 10 steel bribe. This was not a good sign. The doors on the inn had locks, though, so it had to be better than sleeping in the woods.
In the morning, they got a better look at the town, and saw that it was about half draconians -- they'd found the thief's hometown, and spent the night. Oops! They managed to skulk out of town without incident, though, neglecting to get involved in the assorted murderous street brawls between draconians and humans.
So they headed on towards Thorbardin. They came across a ruined caravan, and healed the one survivor, who didn't know much except that his group had been attacked by ogres ("30 of them! But we killed most of them, although it looks like they dragged off their dead. To eat them no doubt, lousy cannibals.") and was carrying only normal trading goods. The party voted not to track the monsters down to their lair, since they were on a schedule.
Thorbardin was sort of boring. Sonnet tried to get Kijj drunk enough to cause trouble, but the minotaur thought dwarven spirits tasted like goat piss, so it didn't come to much. Mike tried to pick up dwarven women, as part of his quest to sleep with one of everything, but couldn't tell which were the women and which were the men.
"So? You said you wanted to sleep with one of *everything*."
They did sell the bracelet they'd taken from the Sivak for a tide sum, which let them upgrade their kit somewhat. Kijj got a magic cold iron spear and a silvered heavy mace to round out his DR-penetrating tool kit (next up: something made of admantium), while Mike and Murphy got spell-stat-enhancing items, and Sonnet continued to save up for the bag of tricks she'd had her eye on since day one.
The next leg of the trip, to Solace, led past the Lake of Death (formerly known as Qualinesti).
The first day out, they stopped in a hill-dwarf village and bought a bunch of dogs. Without the archers to help with the watch schedule, they were hard up for people to stand guard -- desperate enough that *Kijj* was taking a watch. Kijj, who'd been known to stand there 'deep in thought' and fail to notice that the rest of the party had left him behind.
So, lots of dogs. Kijj bought a guard dog that he thought looked particularly quick and alert (he rolled stats for it and got super-high DEX and WIS, but utterly crap STR). Murphy bought a riding dog to use for tracking and fighting, the twin of Sonnet's which she'd had for a while. Mike bought *two* guard dogs.
The first night, the guard dogs were put to the test. The party, not having a single rank of Handle Animal between them, hadn't thought to give the dogs any sort of instructions or to tie them up, so when the spectre wandered near the camp, Mike's pair ran off to face it, yapping loudly. This *did* wake up the party, but it also attracted the attention of the spectre, which drained the life out of one before Mike could call them back.
"Oh my god," Murphy said, spotting the creature, "That's a Spectre! We have to run away!" So they did! Sonnet and Mike ran off into the woods, while the others tried to gather up their things first, and so were still present when the merchant opened up a rope trick. Kijj still barely managed to get inside in time, since he kept trying to climb the rope while holding his dog, until Morgan reached down and pulled the dog up, letting Kijj climb with *both* hands.
The spectre hovered around for a while, then seemed to wander off. The party still waiting until morning to emerge from the safety of their hiding place.
During the day, they heard a horrible wailing coming from over a hill. Kijj sent his raven straight up to look down and see what was there, and it reported a bunch of humanoid figures rushing to attack! The party had enough warning to put up some defensive spells before the pack of 'ghouls' ran over the hill and charged at them.
Thor, of course, rushed straight into combat, hacking away with his sword. He seemed to choke as he got close, and Murphy, the expert on undead, blanched. They weren't ghouls after all -- they were ghasts, and the party was in trouble, since there were six of them.
Morgan and Sonnet advanced to point blank range to let loose with arrows and crossbow bolts, and Kijj cast a mirror image, drew his spear, and moved to interpose himself between the enemy and them, figuring his spells and armor would let him best survive their assault. This proved to be a rash move, as of the four ghasts that moved to attack him (drawing AoOs, of course, but that wasn't enough to kill them), three managed to hit, paralyzing him.
This left Sonnet and Morgan in a bad situation. Sonnet hung back for a round and let the creatures claw at the paralyzed minotaur, but Morgan drew his sword and dagger and moved up to attack, drawing some fire but managing to avoid the paralysis. Mike drew one of the ghasts off with a scorching ray (and torched it with a second), Murphy plopped three of them to the ground with a grease spell, and between them they managed to take out those four, although Sonnet was also paralyzed, and Morgan was nearly killed.
Meanwhile, Thor fought off the two on him with no trouble, making every save with ease.
Once everyone was unparalyzed, they had Murphy's dog track the ghasts back to their 'lair', which was nothing more than a battleground. There was plenty of treasure scattered around, and the party started looting it, as well as immediately arguing over the loot. While they were arguing, a skeletal warrior with a magic scythe rose up to defend its home, and they were forced into combat again!
Thor, Sonnet, and Morgan slashed and poked at the creature, doing little damage, while Mike and Murphy ineffectually slung spells at it that failed to have even the slightest effect. Kijj pulled out his silvered heavy mace, and sped around to flank the creature and give it some bludgeoning whup-ass, drawing its fire.
Not liking the prospect of losing the *other* half of his hitpoints to each of the creature's attacks, Kijj cast a mirror image before returning to the fray, which failed to help him at all, as the creature downed him on the very next attack. Luckily, the rest of the party (especially Thor) was getting enough damage through to kill the stupid skeleton before Kijj bled to death.
There were no further opportunities for the minotaur to embarass himself before Solace. In Solace, Sonnet hired a man to train her dog to tolerate Ion Stones... then went and bought a socketed collar anyway, blowing much of the money she'd been saving up for a bag of tricks. She also followed the merchant around trying to learn his trade, and picked up at least one valuable tip -- kender had NO IDEA what gems were worth.
Mike and Kijj tried to brag to the master sorcerors of the ex-academy about their sorcerous prowess, but were basically laughed at, although Kijj was complemented for doing VERY WELL for a minotaur, in loud slow tones.
Alhanna Starbreeze was nowhere to be found, of course.
So, a week in Solace, and it was on to Palanthas, in a boat. The boat was a little late, and the captain charged them extra for all the dogs, but for all their worried the three week trip passed mostly uneventfully.
The only exception was when a gnomish submarine followed them around until it exploded! Kijj and Sonnet convinced the captain to let them go out in a longboat and look for survivors, but of course the party had not a single rank of profession (sailor) between them, and almost managed to tip themselves into the drink while failing to rescue even a single gnome -- in part, because it looked like none of them had survived the explosion. When the dragon showed up to start eating the sharks that were eating the gnomes, they decided to hurry back to the ship before it left without them.
In Palanthas, the merchant paid off their contracts and told them to go on their way. Sonnet tried to follow him around more, but he shooed her away.
Murphy found the tower-in-exile, and arranged to take his test to qualify as a legally tolerated wizard. The whole party offered to help him take the test, since anyone who survived would get a *magic item*, and they'd been routinely risking their life for less for weeks.
"The test is supposed to make you cast all your spells, right? So memorize identify and comprehend languages and tenser's floating disk, that way it'll be puzzles instead of monster monster monster."
However, since the test was advertised as have a very real risk of DEATH, Sonnet was convinced to go talk to Alhana Starbreeze -- who was in town, and making no secret of it -- about the Sylvan Key. It turned out Alhana had no idea what the key did, but she did know what it was, and was willing to pay the party for retriving it and carrying it all the way across the world, to the tune of 30,000 steel. No, not each.
Since Sonnet had long since memorized the song the music box played, which was the true key, according to the Herald, they were more than happy to accept, except for Mike, who thought they might be able to get more for it if they played hard to get. Mike accepted grudgingly.
last session next session
Jeff did some pretty heavy-handed 'suggesting' when it came to treasure, arguing hard for a rigorous accounting of treasure handed out (even though it was at least a semi-IC discussion and he was the DM and not involved) and pressuring and berating Sonnet (who'd been sent off alone to talk to Alhana, as she was able to make herself look respectable) into letting the rest of the party know about the monetary offer for the key, to the point of having Alhana's goons show up and ask the whole party if they'd accept the offer.
Overall, the session went okay, though. At least I had fun. Well, when I wasn't paralyzed or unconscious.
There was also a lot of arguing about treasure. The people who'd gotten lots of treasure insisted that there was really no need to keep count of who got what, after all everyone had gotten something except for them!
"I got a masterwork sword and a potion of cure light wounds. You got a +1 mithral shirt and eyes of the eagle."
"Well, the eyes and the shirt are basically party treasure. They make us a more effective team."
"The eyes maybe, but your ARMOR? And not my weapon, which you made me pay the party for?"
But the votes were cast, and we decided to stick with ad-hoc treasure distribution, with items going to those most in need. But I got my revenge, and a very expensive item, so it's all good.
Terrified that the shapechanging Sivak would be after them, the party asked the merchant if there were any villages nearby that they could maybe run and hide in. Sure enough, there was one only a couple hours travel, so the party forced themselves to their feet and made the trek.
The guards didn't want to open the door to let them in ("How do we know you aren't shapechanging assassins?") but relented when offered a 10 steel bribe. This was not a good sign. The doors on the inn had locks, though, so it had to be better than sleeping in the woods.
In the morning, they got a better look at the town, and saw that it was about half draconians -- they'd found the thief's hometown, and spent the night. Oops! They managed to skulk out of town without incident, though, neglecting to get involved in the assorted murderous street brawls between draconians and humans.
So they headed on towards Thorbardin. They came across a ruined caravan, and healed the one survivor, who didn't know much except that his group had been attacked by ogres ("30 of them! But we killed most of them, although it looks like they dragged off their dead. To eat them no doubt, lousy cannibals.") and was carrying only normal trading goods. The party voted not to track the monsters down to their lair, since they were on a schedule.
Thorbardin was sort of boring. Sonnet tried to get Kijj drunk enough to cause trouble, but the minotaur thought dwarven spirits tasted like goat piss, so it didn't come to much. Mike tried to pick up dwarven women, as part of his quest to sleep with one of everything, but couldn't tell which were the women and which were the men.
"So? You said you wanted to sleep with one of *everything*."
They did sell the bracelet they'd taken from the Sivak for a tide sum, which let them upgrade their kit somewhat. Kijj got a magic cold iron spear and a silvered heavy mace to round out his DR-penetrating tool kit (next up: something made of admantium), while Mike and Murphy got spell-stat-enhancing items, and Sonnet continued to save up for the bag of tricks she'd had her eye on since day one.
The next leg of the trip, to Solace, led past the Lake of Death (formerly known as Qualinesti).
The first day out, they stopped in a hill-dwarf village and bought a bunch of dogs. Without the archers to help with the watch schedule, they were hard up for people to stand guard -- desperate enough that *Kijj* was taking a watch. Kijj, who'd been known to stand there 'deep in thought' and fail to notice that the rest of the party had left him behind.
So, lots of dogs. Kijj bought a guard dog that he thought looked particularly quick and alert (he rolled stats for it and got super-high DEX and WIS, but utterly crap STR). Murphy bought a riding dog to use for tracking and fighting, the twin of Sonnet's which she'd had for a while. Mike bought *two* guard dogs.
The first night, the guard dogs were put to the test. The party, not having a single rank of Handle Animal between them, hadn't thought to give the dogs any sort of instructions or to tie them up, so when the spectre wandered near the camp, Mike's pair ran off to face it, yapping loudly. This *did* wake up the party, but it also attracted the attention of the spectre, which drained the life out of one before Mike could call them back.
"Oh my god," Murphy said, spotting the creature, "That's a Spectre! We have to run away!" So they did! Sonnet and Mike ran off into the woods, while the others tried to gather up their things first, and so were still present when the merchant opened up a rope trick. Kijj still barely managed to get inside in time, since he kept trying to climb the rope while holding his dog, until Morgan reached down and pulled the dog up, letting Kijj climb with *both* hands.
The spectre hovered around for a while, then seemed to wander off. The party still waiting until morning to emerge from the safety of their hiding place.
During the day, they heard a horrible wailing coming from over a hill. Kijj sent his raven straight up to look down and see what was there, and it reported a bunch of humanoid figures rushing to attack! The party had enough warning to put up some defensive spells before the pack of 'ghouls' ran over the hill and charged at them.
Thor, of course, rushed straight into combat, hacking away with his sword. He seemed to choke as he got close, and Murphy, the expert on undead, blanched. They weren't ghouls after all -- they were ghasts, and the party was in trouble, since there were six of them.
Morgan and Sonnet advanced to point blank range to let loose with arrows and crossbow bolts, and Kijj cast a mirror image, drew his spear, and moved to interpose himself between the enemy and them, figuring his spells and armor would let him best survive their assault. This proved to be a rash move, as of the four ghasts that moved to attack him (drawing AoOs, of course, but that wasn't enough to kill them), three managed to hit, paralyzing him.
This left Sonnet and Morgan in a bad situation. Sonnet hung back for a round and let the creatures claw at the paralyzed minotaur, but Morgan drew his sword and dagger and moved up to attack, drawing some fire but managing to avoid the paralysis. Mike drew one of the ghasts off with a scorching ray (and torched it with a second), Murphy plopped three of them to the ground with a grease spell, and between them they managed to take out those four, although Sonnet was also paralyzed, and Morgan was nearly killed.
Meanwhile, Thor fought off the two on him with no trouble, making every save with ease.
Once everyone was unparalyzed, they had Murphy's dog track the ghasts back to their 'lair', which was nothing more than a battleground. There was plenty of treasure scattered around, and the party started looting it, as well as immediately arguing over the loot. While they were arguing, a skeletal warrior with a magic scythe rose up to defend its home, and they were forced into combat again!
Thor, Sonnet, and Morgan slashed and poked at the creature, doing little damage, while Mike and Murphy ineffectually slung spells at it that failed to have even the slightest effect. Kijj pulled out his silvered heavy mace, and sped around to flank the creature and give it some bludgeoning whup-ass, drawing its fire.
Not liking the prospect of losing the *other* half of his hitpoints to each of the creature's attacks, Kijj cast a mirror image before returning to the fray, which failed to help him at all, as the creature downed him on the very next attack. Luckily, the rest of the party (especially Thor) was getting enough damage through to kill the stupid skeleton before Kijj bled to death.
There were no further opportunities for the minotaur to embarass himself before Solace. In Solace, Sonnet hired a man to train her dog to tolerate Ion Stones... then went and bought a socketed collar anyway, blowing much of the money she'd been saving up for a bag of tricks. She also followed the merchant around trying to learn his trade, and picked up at least one valuable tip -- kender had NO IDEA what gems were worth.
Mike and Kijj tried to brag to the master sorcerors of the ex-academy about their sorcerous prowess, but were basically laughed at, although Kijj was complemented for doing VERY WELL for a minotaur, in loud slow tones.
Alhanna Starbreeze was nowhere to be found, of course.
So, a week in Solace, and it was on to Palanthas, in a boat. The boat was a little late, and the captain charged them extra for all the dogs, but for all their worried the three week trip passed mostly uneventfully.
The only exception was when a gnomish submarine followed them around until it exploded! Kijj and Sonnet convinced the captain to let them go out in a longboat and look for survivors, but of course the party had not a single rank of profession (sailor) between them, and almost managed to tip themselves into the drink while failing to rescue even a single gnome -- in part, because it looked like none of them had survived the explosion. When the dragon showed up to start eating the sharks that were eating the gnomes, they decided to hurry back to the ship before it left without them.
In Palanthas, the merchant paid off their contracts and told them to go on their way. Sonnet tried to follow him around more, but he shooed her away.
Murphy found the tower-in-exile, and arranged to take his test to qualify as a legally tolerated wizard. The whole party offered to help him take the test, since anyone who survived would get a *magic item*, and they'd been routinely risking their life for less for weeks.
"The test is supposed to make you cast all your spells, right? So memorize identify and comprehend languages and tenser's floating disk, that way it'll be puzzles instead of monster monster monster."
However, since the test was advertised as have a very real risk of DEATH, Sonnet was convinced to go talk to Alhana Starbreeze -- who was in town, and making no secret of it -- about the Sylvan Key. It turned out Alhana had no idea what the key did, but she did know what it was, and was willing to pay the party for retriving it and carrying it all the way across the world, to the tune of 30,000 steel. No, not each.
Since Sonnet had long since memorized the song the music box played, which was the true key, according to the Herald, they were more than happy to accept, except for Mike, who thought they might be able to get more for it if they played hard to get. Mike accepted grudgingly.
last session next session
Jeff did some pretty heavy-handed 'suggesting' when it came to treasure, arguing hard for a rigorous accounting of treasure handed out (even though it was at least a semi-IC discussion and he was the DM and not involved) and pressuring and berating Sonnet (who'd been sent off alone to talk to Alhana, as she was able to make herself look respectable) into letting the rest of the party know about the monetary offer for the key, to the point of having Alhana's goons show up and ask the whole party if they'd accept the offer.
Overall, the session went okay, though. At least I had fun. Well, when I wasn't paralyzed or unconscious.
