Session 9: Siege of Bordrin's Watch

2nd weekend of August 2010

The tale continues...

The Jonas Brothers are once again a trio, since Adam's Son failed to make an appearance in the next sessions. They journeyed to Overlook, a thriving dwarven city to the west, near the Stonehome mountains that serve as a border between the civilized Elsir Vale and the barbaric orc lands.

A call of arms was sent by the ruling council in Overlook to ask aid from adventurers in the defense of Bordrin's Watch, a fortress guarding the pass in the mountains where massive orc tribes have been seen gathering.

Homecoming of Sorts

While Justin was his usual buoyant self on the journey, he turned a bit melancholy and subdued once the group reached the large city of Overlook. He deftly guided the others through the streets of the city, offhandedly confirming the queries of Urza and Shark regarding his pre-adventuring life. He explains that though he was engaged in questionable activities and shady dealings during his younger years here in Overlook, he is adamant about having turned a new leaf and following a path as straight as the lines in a music sheet.

Overlook

All around the city are other mercenaries, adventuring groups and would-be adventurers all answering the call of arms. While passing some time in the Pickled Imp tavern, whose bar is elegantly decorated by a preserved imp in a jar and whose ale is simply the best in all of the city, they hear lots of talk about the best group of adventurers who answered the summons, the Hor- I mean, the Farstriders. This group seems to have battled kobold armies and even dragons and uncovered relics and stuff. Really awesome dudes and dudettes, they all say.

They congregate later inside the High Hall where the Council of Elders addresses them. The Farstriders were indeed present, but the bigger surprise was the ex-Jonas Brother paladin Erdan standing in their group.

Elder Cadrick briefly explains the situation to them, that indeed, the feuding orc tribes have been united by a strong chieftain and are now preparing to assault Bordrin's Watch (Aaron: "Huh? Borderwatch?"). Most of the groups will be led by guard captain Durkik Forgeheart to bolster the defenses of Borderwatch (for Aaron's sake) while they need a volunteer group to evacuate a monastery deep in the mountains who might not yet be warned about the orc horde.

Of course, all heads and eyes turn towards the suddenly glowing showoff, Urza.

Not to be outdone, the leader of the Farstriders raise objections, asking for the most glorious and most dangerous mission there is. Elder Cadrick assures him that they have already been assigned to that.

The Elder next tells the Jonas Brothers theirs, which is to go to the Monastery of the Sundered Chain and warn the monks there and help them evacuate. With little preparation, they head for the mountains.

The Monastery of Sundered Dwarves

A grueling hike up the rugged slopes lead them to the tall gates of the Monastery of the Sundered Chain, where they smell burning meat and stinky sweat. Entering the open gate, they witness orcs huddled in bonfires eating roasted flesh that alarmingly looks like dwarf legs. Seems they're too late..

Monastery entrance

After rudely dispatching the orcs who was rather enjoying their outdoor lunch, they venture inside to find gore and blood aplenty, splattered along the floor where several bodies of both dwarf monks and orcs lie. The half-orc Shark, who has abandoned that brutal way of life, flies in a rage at his blood-cousins and dispatches, too, the witch and her guards in the main atria of the monastery.

They descend into a worse nightmarish scene, where orcs and orogs (a stronger and more intelligent half-orc half-giant) were feasting upon the bodies of monks killed in their chambers. Seems the Jonas Brothers are really too late...

Moradin's holy symbol

They follow the trail deeper into the monastery which ends on the other side of the plateau. Down narrow and steep steps are more orcs on their way up. Felling (literally) these, they discover a cave by the foot of the slope that seems to be the forge hearth of the dwarves, where they could practice smithing in worship of their deity Moradin. However, the cave is occupied by a bunch of orcs and a large orog who seems to be their leader. This one is torturing the lone surviving dwarf and demanding he reopen a tunnel.

Using the rainbow magic he put to such good use in the last encounter, Urza once again demolishes the minions with ease. Shark uses his brilliant tactical expertise and superior strategic cunning to charge straight at the nearest enemy-looking enemy. Seconds later, all that's left is the plate-armored orog leader who unmercilessly punishes the stupid adventurers who deigned to surround him. With its bastard sword sweeping in wide arcs to slash at the three, he puts up a good fight yet still goes down at the incessant musical debacle of the Jonas Brothers.

Orog

They then see if the fallen dwarf is still alive...

Session 7: Dark Dwarves, Horrible Halflings, Terrible Trolls

2nd Weekend of August 2010

The story so far:

The Horsemen surprisingly spare duergar smith Urwol's life. Urwol repaid their mercy by sparing no threats of vengeance and destruction from his brothers Rundarr and Murkelmor awaiting them in the other chambers of Horned Hold. After a brief and ineffective interrogation, the Horsemen tire of his threats and re-repaid him by not sparing his life after all with a quick shove into the yawning 300 feet deep chasm.


Another Life is Not Spared

The Platinum Dragon's symbol

Rather than crossing the narrow bridge into the larger part of the Hold, the Horsemen proceed to a connecting corridor leading to the kitchens and mess hall. They stealthily skulk around for a while but manage to raise alarms as they crossed the room with the ovens. A jumpy Crono hurls a shuriken at the startled figure who opened a door to peek at the noise the group was making. The halfling rogue realized too late that the figure was a helpless and innocent slave, struck dead when the shuriken hit it in the back of the head, creating a pool of spilled innocent blood. Crono, a devout worshipper of lawful good Platinum Dragon, just shrugs it off and skulks off to flank the approaching enemies.

Duergar scouts materialize from the gray walls and divide the group, paving the way for their champion Rundarr, who manages to whack several characters unconscious with his +2 flaming warhammer. The 4 feet tall angry duergar swelled to large proportions when he got bloodied, but it only signaled his impending end. Troll delightfully picks up the burning weapon while Crono tries to say sorry to two other slaves scared of the belligerent little dude.

Duergar flavors

Since the Horsemen doesn't really care about the details of their quest, they neglect to ask these two if they are the captives taken from Winterhaven that they're looking for. They send the absent Aaron's Juno and Josh's Lone Wolf to escort them back to the Seven Pillared Hall along with a keg of ale to ease their way.


Priest of Asmodeus

The remaining Horsemen debate for a while which bridge to take across the windy chasm: the wider one ending in reinforced doors slitted for arrow fire, or the rail-less narrow one. Briefly haunted by the image of a falling Jace, they nevertheless choose the latter, ending in an unoccupied room filled with debris. They slowly but not silently slide open a door leading to what seems to be an infirmary, with the healer shouting in anger at the disturbance of his work.

Asmodeus' symbol

He turns out to be a cleric of Asmodeus, deity of power and tyranny, and manages to lengthen his allies's lives. Two crossbow shaped homunculus fire a rain of arrows at the characters to defend their guarded area. Though they suffer many wounds, Elros, Crono, Jim Castillo, Troll and Jace inflict much more.

After Jim happily frees his evil counterpart of its +2 holy healer's mace and healer's brooch, another brief debate ensued about whether to keep the sick unconscious duergar alive. It seems the Horsemen are subtly developing a conscience as they spared this one's life.

We'll see if this will develop into true heroic valor, or if it's just a fluke.


PS.

Troll's malingering acts of lasciviousness and debauchery led to him contracting a disease. Specifically, he got afflicted with a fever and his dingdong turned green.

Session 5: Tank Powah

5th Weekend of July

The story so far:

The Horsemen follow the fleeing goblin's path cautiously, expecting readied defenses from the Chamber of Eye's next rooms. They were not disappointed when the courageous frontman Juno opened a side door in a narrow corridor, and deftly dodged the descending warhammer aimed at his scaled head.


Reaping Bloodreavers

Duergar

What followed is an awesome display of durability, tenacity and plain stoneheadedness as the Dragonborn fighter dammed the corridor and singlehandedly took the assault of gray-skinned, spike-bearded and generally angry duergar (or gray dwarf). Another hobgoblin warcaster dishes out some knockdown pulses until the Bloodreavers leader himself, Chief Krand, charges into the fray, only to be foiled by the fighter who stops Krand's every attempt to run for its life when the battle went sour.

They find a key on Krand's mangled body which opened a chest full of the slavers' profits. You'd think that some of them would hesitate to keep such ill-gotten gains, but no, the Horsemen really likey goldie pieces. They also find a purchase contract detailing the sale of Winterhaven slaves to a Murkelmor Grimmerzhul, which is like a neon arrow sign for what to do next to accomplish their mission (find and rescue missing people from Winterhaven).

Warning! Explicit content! Skip to next paragraph if you are under 18 years of age.

They proceed to the unexplored rooms and find other slavers unaware that their leader is dead. Troll orders the rest to leave one goblin alive for questioning, then proceeds to inflict a most terrible, horrible, unspeakably vile, morally depraved, lewdly nefarious sodomy upon the poor defenseless green creature. Having satisfied his urges, Troll pushes the abused goblin off a balcony, which lets the latter hold its breath til it died, escaping the future molestations of the troublin (troll♥goblin) tiefling.


To The Horned Hold

The group returns to the Seven Pillared Hall in order to find out about Murkelmor Grimmerzhul and along the way they rescue Rendil again, this time from a pack of rabid and hungry hyenas. The halfling tells them the Grimmerzhul Clan owns a trading post in the Hall but has a base somewhere in the labyrinth, which is the more likely location for any slave trading activities.

They ask the mage Orontor but while he commends the group's annihilation of the Bloodreavers, he doesn't know the Grimmerzhul's base, and is generally miffed that the Horsemen have gotten no news of Paldemar's activities.

Gendar

After patching up his wounds and bathing, Juno avidly suggests checking out a magic items shop, so they visit the Deepgem Company (which Arbeen thoroughly disliked) but find only gems for sale. They could sell their gems but Arbeen's rogue Crono inexplicably keeps tightfisted control over the party's jewels. He just can't let go.

Rendil suggests checking out Gendar's Curios next, where Elros meets a fellow outcast drow, the proprietor Gendar himself. Though Gendar has an extensive collection of enchanted weapons and armor, it's his information the group bought. For the very cheap price of 200 gp, Gendar gave them a map to the Grimmerzhul's base, Horned Hold.


Breaking the Hold

Horned Hold

The Horned Hold was once a Minotaur stronghold in a massive cavern separated by a 300 feet deep chasm. The Horsemen waste no time in forcing their way in, with Juno wading through the longspears of orc defenders as soon as Crono unlocks the portcullis. Through some confusion on my part about reach weapons and opportunity attacks and marked enemies, the players manage to combo off the Combat Challenge skill of the fighter, triggering free attacks that I knew was too good to be legit.

They head inside the Hold's smithy and were warmly greeted by the fire-flinging duergar clansmith, Urwol. The players take advantage of my unfamiliarity with the monsters skills so Urwol's area affecting spells are only minimally effective, as highlighted when the drow Elros used his Cloud of Darkness right before the angry smith used his best hot-iron manipulation. They knock him out for later questioning.

Which is a mild surprise since they just usually kill unscrupulously.

Session 4: To Thunderspire

4th Weekend of July

The story so far:

Lord Pedro of Winterhaven quickly asks for the Horsmen's aid in tracking these Bloodreavers and rescuing any of his people taken captive.

After a day of preparations in town, the Horsemen journeys to Thunderspire, an underground labyrinth connected to the rest of the Underdark. Located beneath the mountain of the same name, it was once a grand minotaur city, but is now just a fairly large outpost for delvers and miners and traders of Underdark goods.


To the Seven Pillared Hall

Thunderspire entrance

They reach the entrance without any trouble but, being adventurers, they quickly and happily find some. Along the passageway to the main cavern of the underground complex, they hear conversations about some people selling some people. They quickly form a plan: they tie up the Dragonborn Fighter and try to sell him to these guys so they can gather clues on this obvious slave trading activity.

Problem is, Juno knows how to brawl and bash and cleave and pose menacingly, but not act. His huge greatsword still on his person didn't help either. So the horsemen default to what they do best and just brawl and bash and cleave. They rescue a halfling named Rendil Halfmoon from the hobgoblins, who were indeed members of the Bloodreavers. Rendil, who had no love for slavers, was snooping about when the hobgobs caught him, so he offered free board and lodging for his rescuers at his family's inn at the Seven Pillared Hall.


To the Chamber of Eyes

Rendil was quite happy to introduce his saviors to his family in the Halfmoon Inn. He asked the Horsemen if they needed directions in town and what their business in town is. He does like snooping around.

The Horsemen tells him of their mission and he directs them to Orontor, one of the Mages of Saruun who keep a semblance of order in the Hall. Orontor approves of their actions and asks them to further investigate the Bloodreavers, since he has suspicions that a colleague of his, Paldemar, is somehow connected with the rampant slave trading that the Mages are supposed to prevent. Rendil guides them partway to the supposed lair, the Chamber of Eyes.

Chamber of Eyes

They were hindered into further exploring the Chamber beyond the first hall by a locked door. Crono tries to pick it but fails. A balcony to the north promises entry, but even with Juno hoisting the halfling up there, they fail. Finally, Juno forces the door open, upon which the guards inside signal an alarm and file out into the balcony armed with crossbows.

Elros plays shooting gallery with the goblin sharpshooters, him doing his best to knock em down fast enough, and them doing their best to scrape the nimble drow while jumping to and fro to avoid the giant frost missiles. Meanwhile, Crono finally manages to unlock the front door and is rewarded by a hulking bugbear pouncing on him. Juno helps him out and when they tag team it to death, Elros and Jim have shot down all but one of the goblins, who then manages to escape to warn the rest of the Bloodreavers..