Began the new Brindenford/Dungeon A Day campaign today. This will be a brief account of events, made mostly so I can track events, passage of time, and NPC names/follow up data. The Campaign opens in the late spring of the year 2632.
Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7 (includes interlude), page 8, page 9, page 10, page 11
Characters so far:
Elrohir Elensar - elf wizard who wants to explore Dragon's Delve for unspecified reasons relating to becoming a powerful, rich wizard.
Valkrist Austvald - very young, very tall human fighter from Vanhark. She wants to get funds to take care of her mentor, Torsten Volker, who is ill and living at the temple of Elanora in Brindenford. Val has been in Brindenford about a month when she meets Elrohir.
"Rastor" Cordistain - human cleric who claims to worship Elanora but seems to be up to something. In session 9 Cordistain died at the pincers of a giant scorpion. He was buried at the Temple of Mikol in Brindenford.
Griptoes - late arrival - a rogue grippli. Looks very tasty. Retired from adventuring after one too many close shaves, at the same time Rastor died.
New players:
Jasper - human rogue from Brindenford. Died on Level 3 to a vicious tiger assault while isolated from the other PCs.
Maximus - human paladin of St. Justin. (Player has left the group, character may still have a role to play...)
Typhon - a fighter rogue; he is a wanderer from Greenvale, who claims to have been a member of the Guard at one time.
Current Party:
Elrohir - elf mage, is now 5th level
Valkrist - human fighter, is now 5th level
Gunter - a companion of Val's from Vanhark, recently healed of his wounds from the battle in which Torsten was also badly injured. He is a rogue.
Coelwine - a human priest of Mikol. He's mostly a healer, but sometimes wields his sword in combat.
So far, Valkrist and Cordistain (who introduces himself as Raston the Pure and appeared light-haired and wearing shiny riches and gleaming robes) met Elrohir at the Lost Shepherd and he agreed to take at least Val on as an adventuring partner. He seemed less certain of Cord, but that may work out. Cord came across as a very religious prosletyzer who would be very annoying to adventure with, but this seems to be a persona he was playing with as some sort of joke. Nobody is sure what he's up to. He made himself needed at the local temple by pretending to bring word of a "new holiday" celebrating the fertility aspect of Elanora, and recruited several ladies of the town to aid him in planning a parade and "other" celebrations. He became very chummy with one, a wealthy merchant-type's young and pretty wife (Her name is Evanya Craddock, and her husband is Sirus Craddock). When her husband realized what was up, he threatened that if Cord didn't make himself scarce, there'd be real trouble. Cord agreed to do so, and is now eager to leave town, with a pocket full of silver pennies he didn't have before, and an upset church full of young women...
Valkrist (who is from the far off kingdom of Vanhark in Mistland), made friends with Aesa, the local blacksmith, who is also from Vanhark, amazingly enough. Aesa doesn't talk about how she ended up in Brindenford, but she's happy to talk about her homeland with another traveler. Val and a group of her fellow Vanharkers were coming to Brindenford to do some exploration into the history of Saral and St. Azaserah, who was from Mistland. However, the group was attacked by bandits and most were killed shortly before reaching Tallowsland. Val and her mentor (Torsten Volker) were rescued by the Woodsfolk, and brought to Brindenford. Her mentor was badly wounded, and continues to have mental problems from a severe head wound. He's living under the care of the Temple of Elanora now, and Val is eager to both earn enough money to pay the Temple for his care and to find information to complete their task here.
Elrohir is the quietest of the three, despite being the one who sought out the others. He posted a message that brought the others to him, on a messageboard outside the Bridgeman Inn, in Market Square. He's interested in the Delve because he has heard of Serrestique and wants to discover her lost knowledge. He's barely heard of the Mages 4 and is also interested in them. He interviewed Erlan Furg and quickly deduced that the so-called guide is a worthless drunk. He also chatted with Erro Mansen, the sherriff, about bandit troubles to the east and south, but after hearing from Val that the bandits are quite scary, decided to hold off on any possible investigation of them.
The day after Cord's fiasco "holiday", the three adventurers, as well as a fourth chance-met acquaintance (half-elf fighter npc named Lora) left town to venture to the Dragon's Delve. "Raston" had warned the party he would look different when he adventured with them and arrived dark-haired in a different set robes. They were able to travel the four miles there safely, following Sherrif Erro's instructions and the map Elrohir had drawn from his previous research. Upon reaching the dungeon, Cordistain tells Lora to jump into the hole, having determined she was rather gullible. He and the party followed 20 feet behind. They descended the first flight of stairs. At the landing, being leery of the light to the north, and finding the paw-print of a wild animal on the western stairs, they turned in that direction. They reached a long narrow chamber (room 2), and immediately were intrigued by the skeleton they found there. After searching it, they decided the room was not very interesting; they were able to hear growling down the angled western passage, and quickly went that way. A flash of animal eyes alerted them to danger, and Cord fired his crossbow. A natural 20 landed a serious blow to the mountain lioness; she bounded forward and leaped at Lora, biting her viciously. Then, the cat slashed Valkrist across the chest. The PCs made short work of her, but were forced to use Elrohir's Color Spray before Val was able to kill it. She badly skins the animal, with Elrohir's help. Cord used only a minor heal cantrip on Lora, who was unimpressed by his generosity, because he found he unnatractive. He then "thoroughly" bound up Val's wound (across her breasts) while murmuring admiring words to her. She was also unimpressed!
Moving west, they soon found the lioness' cubs. They were able to rescue two of them, but the third escaped. They also quickly found the glass shaft in room 9, and were quite chilled to see the beholder floating there. Elrohir was quick to doubt it was real, and even after the glass barrier was discovered, begged leave to doubt it was "a true beholder."
Deciding that the beholder's chamber was a little risky, they decided to go north first. They entered room 10a (after hearing humanoid voices) quickly, weapons at the ready. The bestial horde was caught off guard here, in the middle of their own fight. This battle was a little tense at first, but Cord cast confusion on several of the kobolds, and Elrohir took out one orc and one kobold with burning hands. The hobgoblin fled, was nearly put down by Elrohir's bow, but escaped through the door into 10. This may well cause them some trouble next time they return to the dungeon...
At this point, however, the PCs were feeling rather weary and beaten upon. Cord healed up Lora again, this time actually using a cure spell. They searched the room, and found the trap door under the rug, but decided, after peering down in, that they were not ready for "level 2" yet. Instead, they retreated back to town, nearly out of spells and ready to sell the weapons and armor they had recovered from the bestial host.
When they did reach town, Sherrif Erro gave them a bounty of one silver penny per dead host member. They sold the armor and weapons to Aesa, and, along with the smattering of coins they'd retrieved from the host, were 19 sp each to the richer. Val went straight to the Temple and paid her debt for her mentor's care up to that point. Elrohir bought himself a good meal and ate it with Lora, who seems to be developing a case of hero-worship for him. Cord used his disguise self spell to go visit his girlfriend Evanya. He convinced her that they could continue to meet; he took a second room at the Inn under a false identity (the gypsy girl Melisena - a supposed old childhood gypsy friend of Evanya's). Evanya promised to come visit him often. Cord also wrote a letter to Mother Iris at the Temple, appologizing for the festival fiasco and begging her to forgive him for his meddling with Evanya, but saying that he had been afraid her husband was abusing her and fell for her feminine wiles. Cord's final action was to hire an attractive looking prostitute to attempt to seduce Sirus, and then maybe blacken his reputation. One of the two mountain lion cubs was turned over to the local temple of Safreth, for their rangers to raise (as the PCs have no animal handling). Elrohir hopes to eventually make the cub his familiar... They sold the second cub. The training fees for the first cub are 10 sp a month for ten months.
Next day the PCs returned to the dungeon, again with no encounters on the way there, nor any apparent response from the Bestial Host after their first intrusion. However, instead of continuing north into room 10, they elected to go south. They opened the door into room 22, took one look at the suspiciously magical blue glow, the wooden statues, and the cracked floor, and declined to enter. They went down to 21, peered in, but did not enter any of the rooms. Instead, they returned to room 9, searched the walls, and found the secret door. Going west, they investigated the study, and began playing with the pegs. Because they had missed the clue in room 2 (they never examined the frescoes in any detail) they didn't solve the peg puzzle, though they did realize it meant arranging them in some order, probably based on color. Finally, they found the secret door in the south wall, and entered the relic room. They tried to pull the banner down, and Lora was badly zapped. She collapsed to the floor with only 1 hp. Cord (not too reluctantly) healed her with 2 of his three spells. After this, they meddled with both pedestals. Cord convinces Val to hold onto him while he knocks stuff off the first pedastal and kiss him before takling the second, saying it was for keeping him safe, or some such nonsense. It's not as if she understood what he was talking about, since she doesn't speak Greenvaler fluently. (And rolled a 1 for a will save). Cord managed to be zapped by the intellect-draining curse and is now baffled by his own intricate plans for causing trouble in town, and uncertain who he can go to to seek a remove curse! How ironic. His god laughs at him.
At this point, the adventurers decided to leave the dungeon, as Cord is too stupid to be helpful, Elrohir is out of most of his spells, and Lora is still injured. While leaving the dungeon, they encountered a small frog-man (Grippli), who stupidly called out "Hi, guys" to an unknown group of adventurers. Val immediately decided he looked quite tasty, although Lora tried to convince her otherwise, and there was nearly a frog-leg-roasting on the spot. This is mostly because the frog, Griptoes, has a seriously unpleasant and antagonistic personality, insulting everyone he interacts with. Val subsequently tried to kill him for his insults, threatening to eat his legs, a delicacy in her homeland. Cord grabbed her to hold her back, taking every opportunity to grope her. Eventually, Val agreed to delay eating him for a few days, to see if he could be useful. Griptoes returned the courtesy by dubbing Val as "stupid". Valkrist refers to the frog, who claimed to be "looking for some fun" and to be an expert at "finding shiny things", as "Legs" as a reminder that she'll eat him if he continues to bother her. He's yet to learn to shut up. Or not call those bigger and more powerful than him "stupid", no one in the party nor in town being exempt.
They safely managed to hike back to town and then began to try to find a scroll of remove curse for Cord, who is not certain which temple it might be safe for him to visit in person. Eventually (after Griptoes stole all the candlesticks from the temple of Kehret), Val made a deal with Mother Iris; if she and her friends deliver a package to Sister Erna at an Outpost on the Greenvale Road, Mother Iris will cast remove curse for them. This offer was mirrored by the high priest of Safreth, since they were sending a joint care package. It is a 25 mile (day and a half hike) trip to the Outpost. On the way, they were attacked by five orcs. Lora bravely charged the orcs, while Griptoes climbed a tree, Elrohir cast mage armor, and Cord and Val advanced with missile weapons or spells. Eventually, the five orcs were slain, but Lora was also killed, brutally chopped down by two falchion-blows to the body. Cord was also knocked unconscious by one orc, and Griptoes nearly had to flee to the top of his tree before Val shot the last orc down. The party found a fairly nice chunk of silver pennies, but mourned the loss of their trusty henchman. They followed the orc tracks back to their cave-lair and managed to slay 3 more fighters; two they lured out, and one that Griptoes sneaked in on and backstabbed in the cave. Cord was taken down during the fight, and Val took him safely out of harm's way. Griptoes heard more voices further into the caves, and decided NOT to explore deeper. Later, as the party camped for the night, he saw 4 (probably female) smaller orcs without armor come out and gather berries. He saw no more male fighter types, and the party hopes they have defeated them for now.
Next day, they reached the Outpost, and meet Erna and Volker, who seem like nice, competent, trustworthy folk. Griptoes sold them his candlesticks. Val chatted with Vella, a Mirani armswoman, and they got along well, practicing their Mistlander and Mirani with each other. Cord convinced Erna to write a letter to Mother Iris lauding him for his fine behavior in killing orcs. Next day, the PCs returned to town, carefully avoiding further orc encounters, although they did meet a hunting party of Woodsfolk on the road at the edge of town. Cord gets his remove curse spell, Mother Iris not too happy that Val's "friend" turned out to be the troublesome cleric, and all seems well with the party. They returned Lora's belongings to her family, and Cord swore that he hung a chime over her grave... (to protect her spirit from rising, since she's not buried in holy ground). (Valkrist made sure she was not cursed with chimes!)
Elrohir writes up a new want-ad for another henchman (taking in Val's request that he or she "be a good fighter", and Cord's suggestion that "she should be prettier than Lora"). While posting the ad, he sees a very attractive leather-armor wearing, whip wielding woman enter the Bridgeman Inn. When he checks up on her, he finds out she's a half-elven entertainer known as Lydia, who has been staying here for the past few days. Elrohir decides he's not interested in a half-breed and goes back to the Shepherd with Val. Once there, they encounter a tall, handsome black-haired man named Ulysses arguing with Juddelo (the Shepherd's halfling bartender) about his change. When El points out that Ulysses is in the wrong, he is puzzled but not upset. El and Val discover that Ulysses is a ranger (not too bright!) looking for work, and promptly hire him to be their new strong arm.
Cord has a bit of business around town; he checks up on his prostitute and discovers that she's been unable to seduce Sirus. She agrees that she'll try to get a girlfriend of hers hired on as a servant in Sirus' house and see what happens then. She seems to have taken quite a liking to working for Cord. Cord also checks out Lydia (in yet another disguise) and determines that she's quite flirtatious and will be in town for at least a few more days. However, she's quite non-commital about any sort of dealings with him (he's in his "drunk" disguise). Lastly, with his newfound wealth, Cord commissions Aesa to make him a well-fitted breastplate. It will take a few days to be ready.
Finally, everyone decides it is time to return to the dungeon. As they've had decent luck in the western half of the dungeon, they go back to the "peg room". They puzzle around a bit, finally thinking to search adjacent rooms for clues, and Elrohir (being the only elvish speaker in the group) finally discovers the clue hidden in the long room. They arrange the pegs correctly and examine the books. A detect magic reveals that none are magical, but that they are quite valuable. They take the three important pegs and put all the others into the bookcase itself, closing it up for later removal. They eventually find the secret door north and hear the darklings behind it. Ulysses forces the door open, and the darklings emerge hungrily. However, they are slower than Val and Cord; Val wounds one, and Cord kills his with a crossbow bolt. The darklings then chitter, causing Val to be dazed. One slashes Val, and another wounds Ulysses. Griptoes backstabs a third Darkling, and Elrohir kills the one Val wounded. Finally, Ulysses smacks the last one with his longsword, and all the darklings are dead.
After searching the darkling chamber, Cord dons the chainmail shirt. Ulysses carries the axe, but prefers his two swords for combat. They continue north and discover an iron door with a demonic face. The trap beyond is easily recognized by them, and they throw the darkling bodies in, triggering it. The door slams shut, and they hear much grinding and crashing of stone. When Ulysses pries the door open again, it is wedged at a sideways angle, and the darkling corpses are speared on the spikes. Griptoes manages to wedge the trapped room in such a way that it will not shift on them again, and they carefully climb across.
Another long hallway opens on the chamber used by someone in the past as an evil altar. Demonic statues shift positions in the shadows, and Griptoes' belt tries to strangle him when he slips into the room. Then, to his great horror, the daggers he barely saw near the altar lurch into the air and fling themselves at him. Four of the six embed themselves in him, and he goes down, unconscious and bleeding. A horrid, deep voice shouts a warning at them never to come back. Ulysses bravely dashes into the room, grabbing up the frogman. He's struck by one of the two remaining daggers and emerges bleeding heavily. At this point, with Cord having used both CLW spells and 2 of his 3 curative cantrips, the party decides to retreat back to town. As a bonus, they get to keep the knives.
Upon returning to town, Valkrist received word that her mentor had taken a turn for the worse, and she went to the temple of Elanora to be at his side for a few days. Everyone else took the opportunity to relax for a day or two. One evening, Ulysses, Elrohir, Cord and Griptoes all found themselves at the Bridgeman to enjoy a performance by the lovely dancer Lydia. The inn was packed with loggers, farmers, and other young men from the town, all there to see her provocative performance. A pair of hobbyt brothers (Tom and Eddy) were also there, helping themselves to the purses of the avid watchers. While Griptoes tried to ingratiate himself with Tom (and failed miserably), Elrohir openly accused them of thievery. Asinius, the Innkeeper, appeared baffled and unbelieving that his "good customers" were robbing his other guests, but Odhanan, one of the village constables, was quick to intervene. After emptying the "boys" pockets of all their ill-gotten gains, he hauled them off to spend a night in the cells under Gather Hall.
After this, Cord chatted up Lydia, who recognized him as the "drunk" he'd been playing earlier in the week. She seemed unimpressed by the transformation, but did offer him a "visit" one night later in the week. After this conversation, Cord suggested to Griptoes that he go find out how good Lydia's earnings were. Griptoes sneaked easily up to her room (he came in via the tree from outside) and found a fat pouch of silver coins, a small gem, some fancy clothes (which he did NOT steal, much to Cord's displeasure), a silver candlestick, and a small locked wooden box, which he took to investigate later. (The candlesticks seem to be some sort of fetish or something...)
He then departed via another tree and went back to the Lost Shepherd. While waiting for Cord, he searched all of Cord's belongings and found his multiple holy symbols and robes, clearly marked repeatedly with Mikar's sign. When Cord and Elrohir returned, they tried to investigate the box, but none of them could open it, and they decided to leave it for a future time (hmmmm....). Cord spent the rest of the night having a liaison with Evanya, who mentioned that Sirus gave her a very nice gold (nonmagical) bracelet and seems very satisfied with himself.
Next day, after Cord picks up his new breastplate armor, the PCs go out to the dungeon. Partway there, they slay 2 fire-beetles, handily, investigate their lair, and find no useful treasure beyond the glands of one beetle. At the dungeon, they find that a trapdoor has been hastily built over the stairs. Cord knocks on the door. An orcish voice demands to know whether it is "Hrak". Cord casts alter self and replies "Yes, open up!" The orc believes his disguise and opens the door. Cord rushes past him down the stairs and sees two more orcs on the landing below. Using their surprise to very good effect, the PCs kill the orcs without ever taking a blow! Realizing that more orcs are likely to come by soon, the PCs set up an ambush. To their very good fortune, no Bestial Horde heard their first battle, so nobody comes up from below to check on them. A couple of hours later, three more orcs arrive, and again the party makes short work of them. Even the bigger orc carrying a deer over his shoulder has no chance to attack in return.
After this brutal killing, the PCs seem to be hungry, so they take their deer "prize" back to town and have the butcher dress it out for them. In return for the hide and a few silvers, he provides them 40 lbs of dressed venison steaks, sausage and jerky. The party rests well after a big dinner and plans to return to the dungeon (and more orcs?) in the morning.
While the rest of the party was getting up to the previously mentioned adventures, Valkrist took a job from Sirus Craddock when she was able to catch a break while her mentor was sleeping. Expenses for caring for him are mounting up, and she needs all the ready coin she can get her hands on. She's worked for Sirus in the past as a bodyguard off and on, and he has her do other jobs here and there, in this instance delivering a package to someone in town ("someone" being a fellow merchant and town elder) and later to deliver a letter to "Raston." The letter reads: "Your friend is in my pay. If you don't want her to need her own set of wind chimes soon, I suggest you stop bothering my belongings." Val, of course, does not know the content of either the package or the letter.
One night, she steps outside to get fresh air and to take a break from the temple and her duties there. While passing the Gathering Hall, she sees a shadowy figure seemingly pass something to someone inside the jail. (Note: the jail cells are in the cellar, but are only meant for minor criminals. They all have windows at ground level that are barred but not regularly guarded at night. Everyone knows this.) Not sure what is going on but with nothing better to do, she finds a dark spot near the side door and waits to see if someone decides to make a break for it. About an hour later, someone steps through the door. Is this the escapee? Was there an escape attempt?
She grabs the human man as he's passing by, slamming him into the wall a couple of times, asking who he is and if he's escaping, which probably sounds like the same question to him. He manages to shout something, and she slams him again. As he goes down, she catches the words "payback" and "nasty." Simultaneously, Val is bashed on the back of the head by a sap. Reflexively pulling her sword and spinning, Val sees a pissed-off girl as her blade cuts into her startlingly deep. The girl goes down, bleeding copiously, and Val's attempts to save her fail. So, she ties up the man, searches the girl (finding 30sp and a fine dagger), and drags them back into his cell.
Considering the language barrier, she goes to wake Aesa. When they get back to the cell, the man and the girl's belt are gone. Aesa gets the sheriff, who isn't happy with Val and reads her the riot act about drawing blood. He says he suspects the man is a known rogue. Constable Odhanen had brought him in that afternoon, but the sheriff hadn't gotten to see him yet. He indicates he's not too terribly upset that Val tried to intervene, but Val feels unappreciated and thinks she might let any future escapees run free. She returns to the temple, where the people are more sympatheic -- and might heal her.
Further Notes: Page 2