In that general theme of Very Tired of School, I’m going to pretty much ramble about the D&D world I’m working on, which is so far unnamed. This is going to be pretty disjointed, but I need to scribble, it might be interesting to the gamers, and parts of it I think are way cool. If you see a bit you especially like, let me know.

- Unsure on cosmology. Leaning towards very living gods/immortal god-kings type of deal. This might change depending on my whims, but I kind of like the idea that if you were very very powerful, you could become a god, or kill one. Change of pace. Then again, I might change.

- Four of these thought out so far:

Sanagos: Very much in the mold of Thingal/Maldoth. Successful general in ancient lands, leads people off to found new city when entire civilization is destroyed by demons. Has multiple aspects (Watcher/Ruler/Traveller/Healer). Most developed thus far.

Ssithilos: Snake/Yuan-ti/Reptile god. Probable god-king in Empire of Great Ssithilos.

Unnamed Aasimar God: Wandering healer Ilmater/Christ type figure. Aasimar as a race will wander around the world kind of like paladins. Country-less, but may have knight orders or something. They don’t much appear in Sanagos or Great Ssithilos, so not worrying about it.

Unnamed Lizardfolk God: Some sort of warrior hero for the lizardfolk fighting the yuan-ti to rally around. Seriously need a way to come up with good lizardfolk/yuan-ti names if I’m going to build an empire around this.

- A few race ideas:

Humans: Probable dominant race of world, major race in Sanagos and by implication, the ancient Kitilumian civilization, too.

Peretoi: Custom race, designed to be very Zulu/plains hunter type. Shamanistic religion, based on either druids or OA-style shamans.

Aischroi: I wonder how bad raiding Perseus Project for Greek terms made these two sound. Afraid to ask Sarah. Custom race, actually two, feral and mental (need better name there). Mentals run tribes of ferals. Corrupted by the evil magic in Kitilumia. Roam the ruined cities, minions of the demon lords, etc, etc.

Yuan-ti: Major race in Empire of Great Ssithilos. Will probably want to make a heavily modified custom race, keeping the flavor, but not the +7 ECL of purebloods, because let’s be serious, here.

Lizardfolk: Other major race in Great Ssithilos. Like the yuan-ti, will want to tone them down a touch, because they’re +3 ECL as it is, and a pretty beefy +3 at that.

Saurials: Could be cool to have in the marshlands at the mouth of the river that runs through Kitilumia. Again, ECL issues. Notice a trend?

Firenewts: I may be overstressing reptilian races here. Maybe. They’re badass. These could be cool to have living in the volcanic mountain range in the middle of Great Ssithilos. Mine slaves of the yuan-ti or something.

Who the hell knows about races in the north, but definitely want to stay away from the usual dwarves and elves and halflings and shit. Also orcs. Orcs are so done. Maybe gnolls. Gnolls are cool. Dunno.

- Countries:

Kitilumia: Ancient human civ. Based on Sumerians, many city-states (12) along river. Got in a huge war, summoned demons, killed themselves. Sanagos and survivors got away. Now a source of buff enemies and shiny treasure. We all love shiny treasure.

Sanagos: Isolated city-state in the mountains. Theocracy ruled by church of Sanagos, headed by The Chosen of Sanagos (sort of Dalai Lama type figure, chosen at birth, etc), with the idea that Sanagos himself died and went up to the heavens to protect us from the demons. Old (Sanagos’ captains) + Merchant nobility, Warrior class, large peasant class. Gets lots of its wealth from major gem and ore mines near the city.

Due to the whole “wizards summon demons” thing, arcane magic is outlawed. Sorcs gain their power from demons, not dragons, and wizards are driven underground, though there are a few… Clerical magic is the main source of power.

The Empire of Great Ssithilos: Vast jungle/swamp empire taking up the whole southern part of the continent. Either have Ssithilos himself running the show as god-king, or a bunch of satraps running things. Call these satraps the Twelve Hooded Lords, because that’s a cool name, and they can have cobra hoods and be super cool. If we go that way, we can have the Twelve do a lot of backstabbing and political infighting. A big palace with a slumbering Ssithilos as token god-emperor would be neat too.

Entire economy is set up around big Old South-style riverine plantations growing spices and such. Maybe some boar farms or something, since all these reptiles are carnivores. Super evil would be human farms, but that’s too super evil, since the economy runs on trading super expensive spices to everyone else and raking in tons of cash. These plantations run on lizardfolk slaves, who are none too happy about the whole thing.

Whole thing is sort of a cross between the Aztecs and Imperial China (good chance to introduce OA stuff?), with a dash of Egypt (god-king) and Persia (satraps). Big, unwieldy, insular sort of place, which keeps to itself but fights enclaves of escaped lizardfolk because the lizardfolk belong to THEM, dammit. Maybe some kind of Confucian type social system to help keep everyone in line.

All these jungles and swamps would be a fantastic time to introduce some dinosaurs of the smaller variety. Dragon 318 has many of these. Compys and such roaming the jungles, pteranadons in the mountains, big parasaurs being hunted by the lizardfolk in the swamps. Various raptor types roaming the Peretoi plains. Could be cool.

The yuan-ti will probably be heavy-duty enchanters and transmuters, wizard favored class sort of deal. They have created a ton of races, after all, and the enchantment helps to keep the lizardfolk in line, and we want one of the dynamics of Ssithilos to be a huge escaped lizardfolk population, which lives in little bands in the swamps.

Said lizardfolk could be pretty stock, running around in little warchief-led tribes, pack hunting parasaurs and the like, dodging the occasional yuan-ti army that marches into the swamp and gets owned. They’d make good druids, too, which would help them against the otherwise overwhelming Great Ssithilos troops. May be a good idea to give them a will save negative, but no negative wisdom. They’ll also have an organized swamp country, or at least semi-organized, which will hold wars with Great Ssithilos every so often.

There are some islands in the northeast that would be a good spot for some kind of sea-faring magocracy that’s a bit more good-aligned. Something like Halruua. Will need to think more on this. Could make them artificers, too. Clockwork stuff everywhere. Cliche, but cool.

West of Kitilumia in the Middle Sea is a Greece-like penninsula we’re calling the Seven Free Cities. Probably human, Italian mercantile/mercenary city-state sort of a deal. They trade (perilously) with Sanagos, and are the middlemen selling stuff from Great Sanagos to the world. Bands of mercenaries probably get hired out to go fight in Great Ssithilos. They’re all bloody rich. They’ll probably be in opposition to whatever the kingdom is north of them.

Lots of room for kingdoms in the North, but no good ideas on what to put up there. Vast armies of kobolds or something. Kenku would be an awesome race that nobody uses, and add some avian flavor to the thing, without being all generic and using aaracockra.

As if Sanagos and Great Ssithilos aren’t enough.

- Unsure as to technology level. But let’s take a stab (heh):

We want to keep horses, etc out of Sanagos and Great Ssithilos. Do they ride? Probably not. Will need to work out what this means for paladins, exactly. PHB II-style class ability substitution probably.

Sanagos: Ancient Greek, but probably modeled more on the heroic age than the hoplites, since you’re fighting DEMONS, after all. Can see lots of longswords and longbows, that sort of thing. OTOH, fighting the Peretoi, you’d want pikes. Kitilumia was probably great pike and sling country, being so flat. One Dragon or another has good pike rules. Breastplates are probably the best armor they’ve got.

Aischroi: Scrounging ancient Kitil weapons for the win. Ferals have claws, mentals have spells. Ancient Kitil probably rocked the breastplate.

Peretoi: Spear users. What would be awesome here is some kind of exotic weapon, let’s call it a broadspear, which has a big sword-blade style head, is throwable, and does like a d8 damage instead of a d6, and which you can one-hand and throw with the exotic WP. OTOH, they’d have crap archers and such. Armor selection sucks. Big shields, leather and hide armor, very little metal.

Great Ssithilos: Good question. If we’re modeling them on the Aztecs or China, armor is probably super light, for the simple reason that it’s enormously hot and wet. You’d have your conscripts in padded or leather, and you probably only get as heavy as chain shirts or chainmail. Some of the bamboo-type OA armors would also be cool. Your lizardfolk of course wear dino hide armor, because if you’re a lizardfolk barbarian war chief and you’ve got a raptor head as a helmet, you’ll win all day. Favored weaponry is iffy. The katana/wakizashi combo could be cool, but doesn’t really fit. Falchions WOULD fit, however, and would be cool. There are a few non-ridiculous OA weapons that could be good, too. Archers are probably going to suck, but blowguns and other short-ranged weapons are always fun.

Some sort of dinos-with-howdahs thing would be frigging awesome as hell if workable. Elite units of stegosaur archers or something.

Lizardfolk: As mentioned, dino hide all day long. Falchions, axes and the like. You don’t go hunting dinos with blowguns, so the lizardfolk might use bows and suchlike.

Crossbows are probably Sir Not Appearing In This Setting.

Seven Free Cities: I can see these guys being a lot more traditional. Not good horse country, so not so much on the plate-armored heavy cavalry, but banded mail is a possibility. There are a couple ways to run weaponry. These guys would be a good candidate for Roman style cohorts, and the gladius/pilum combo would work pretty well both in the hilly home country, and in Great Ssithilos where all the mercs go. On the other hand, pikes and crossbows could be neat. But maybe that’s best left for the Unnamed Northern Kingdom.

- Classes:

Probably stick fairly close to the PHB norm, here, with relatively tight control on what’s allowed or not.

Bards are somewhat problematic, as they don’t really fit into Sanagos. OTOH, you could have a tradition of magic-wielding court bards in Great Ssithilos.

Druids and rangers are probably restricted to lizardfolk, at least in a cultural sense. Some kind of non-spellcasting ranger class would then be useful for everyone else.

Clerics could be made back into semi-2e specialty priests fairly easily, by replacing turn undead with different granted powers. Probably also mess with weapon and armor restrictions. OTOH, armor is less of a problem.

Paladins will of course need modifying to get rid of the mount. This is probably ok. Nobody uses the things anyway.

Sorcerers rely on demons for power, instead of draconic blood, as it’s probable there won’t be any dragons in the world. This leads to several interesting PrC ideas, but makes them pretty rare outside of Sanagos and Kitilumia, which isn’t a bad thing.

Wizards are probably the dominant form of magic user everywhere else in the world. It might be interesting if Great Ssithilos had no clerics (goes well with the “Ssithilos is sleeping and can’t grant spells” idea) and only wizards, but you would then need to create some sort of alchemical healing salve in an Iron Kingdoms-like manner. All those spices and such, you understand. Probably very expensive outside of Great Ssithilos, and expensive enough even inside. Larloch’s Minor Drain and Vampiric Touch are probably quite popular.

Would be a very strange dichotomy here between Ssithilos and Sanagos. Life is pretty expensive in Sanagos, but there’s lots of clerics, so medical care (and life expectancy) is really good. In Great Ssithilos, healing is hard to come by, so life expectancy is lower. On the other hand, you’ve got all kinds of slaves and conscripts and things. And hey, who cares if you lose a lizard or five? They’re JUST lizards.

The Seven Free Cities are probably beneficiaries of the Aasimar Medical Service, though they might get some sort of mythic hero god in any case. Or maybe not. Maybe they’re a total polyglot of this and that. Few aasimar guys, some folks what went to Sanagos and brought back that faith, some mercenaries who brought back the faith of Great Ssithilos. Add in some northern stuff as we like it.

I guess you could have monks in Great Ssithilos, but I’ll probably outlaw them for the usual reasons. Also because having a monk in Sanagos would be retarded. I can just see it…

Sanagosi Monk: A demon! Hi-ya! *hand bounces off demon*
Demon: HA. HA. HA. FOOLISH MORTAL. I CATCH YOU ON FIRE. BURN.
Sanagosi Monk: *becomes tasty demon snack*

Yeah.

…if you have a god who’s set up as a god-king, but is sleeping and grants no spells, what do the priests of the god, and there must be priests because there’s a huge state religion, class as? Clerics would be dumb. Druids are nonsensical. OTOH, if you pitch wizards and their spellbooks as reading the divine writings of the god…

Not that this needs to be true, but you know.

I think I’m done now. Did anybody read all this?

Post one in this series is here.

Let us return, then, to those D&D yore and the Forgotten Realms, and the continuation of that epic struggle against the forces of STD ogre mages and perhaps also evil.

The year is 2000. It is the dawn of 3rd edition D&D, and the people were, well, excited. I wonder, sometimes how I didn’t wreck the car getting home from taking everyone to pick up the PHB, considering that we all wanted to see it at the same time. Including the driver.

Following the disappearance of our previous heroes into the Calimport Muzad, our roster has changed just a bit:

Magnus, Half-Orc Barbarian/Cleric (Cole). An exile from an orcish tribe, and continuing Cole’s tradition of playing the party’s tank.
Garrick, Human Paladin (Kyle). Starting Kyle’s tradition of playing paladins, except for the time he played an assassin and killed Jason’s essential plot NPC. But that’s another story.
Xygonn, Human Sorcerer (Brian). Because I think all of us took a look at 3e sorcs and said “OMFG! OMFG!” a lot.
Lamen, Elven Fighter/Bard (Jason). Flunky of the Calishite noble Lady Umayyid (or Ummayid or Umashid – consistancy was not a strong point). Continuing Jason’s tradition of roguish types. Even the non-rogues are roguish.
Tanaurial Moonbow, Elven Fighter/Rogue (NPC). “Hey, who’s gonna play the rogue? Oh, let’s just make an NPC.”

These are not, to be sure, your 5th level juggernaughts of destruction from the days of 2nd Edition Skills & Powers, but they’re respectable.

A disclaimer: I don’t think any of us remembers this session at all clearly. Details may be lost in translation.

Marpenoth, 1370 DR (October)

A hidden vale in Calimshan. The party is teleported into the middle of it, observed by Lamen, who’s hiding in the trees. Everyone’s mission? Retrieve a certain book desired by both the Harpers and Lady Umayyid, held by the evil mage who lives in this place. After some strained introductions between the watching Lamen and the Harper party, various yuan-ti are dispatched, and the mage’s tower is raided. The mage himself is slain, though the book escapes.

Following clues left in the tower of Alarion the mage, the party begins tracking Tirsil Blackcloak, a blackguard in the service of Cyric. This leads them to the city of Esmeltaran in Amn, which has been occupied by the monstrous army of the Sythillisian Empire and by Cyricists led by the archpriest Koth. Infiltrating the city, Magnus meets with Gacan, an old childhood friend from his tribe of orcs, who informs him that Magnus’ archrival Glorthal now leads the tribe, and is an important figure in the Sythillisian Army who may have information on the book they seek.

The party decides that they will sneak into Glorthal’s lair in the Dahaundar Palace by disguising themselves as evil mercenaries, assassinate Glorthal, and hopefully retrieve the book. While Lamen and Tanaurial successfully make it inside, the bulk of the party, after being challenged[1], fights a running fight through the palace until they reach Glorthal’s chambers. Glorthal is killed in the ensuing battle, but the party is forced to retreat on Xygonn’s carpet of flying when the orcish general’s bodyguards show up.

Following a period of resting and refitting, the party travels to the ruined city of Shoonach, ancient seat of the Shoon Imperium, where it is expected they will find Tirsil Blackcloak and the book they’ve sought all this time. The battle is fierce, and many foes are fought, including fire giants[2], until, on the Palace Mount, Our Heroes encounter Tirsil Blackcloak, as well as Koth, Sythillis, and Cyrvisnea, the combined leadership of the Sythillisian Empire, as well as a huge black dragon. In the inevitable showdown, both parties are presumed dead after the party rams Xygonn’s flying carpet at high speeds into the dragon[3].

[1] – Or what really happened, which was something like this:

Party (disguised): We want to see Glorthal.
Orc Guard: Why you want to see chief?
Party: Uh…well…you see…that is…
Orc Guard: Me suspicious.
Party: …oh, hell. Die! *combat ensues*

This turns into a battle wherein the palace is frontally assaulted by Our Heroes, and they are ultimately saved in the ensuing battle with Glorthal and his minions by the timely intervention of Lamen and Tanaurial, who were masquerading as evil henchmen. They then barely escaped the palace by flying carpet.

This session gave rise to a number of jokes about brute force, ignorance, and the frontal assaults of castles.

[2] – This sequence went something like:

DM: You see a number of giants coming towards you up the street.
Party: Attack! Kill! Maim! Hack! Slaughter! Charge!
DM: The giants are throwing boulders. Magnus, you get hit. Take some damage. Also take some fire damage.
Cole: Whoa, whoa, whoa. The giants are on fire!? You never said they were on fire!
DM: Uh, my bad. Slipped my mind. Anyway…
Party: HOW COULD YOU NOT REMEMBER THAT THE GIANTS WERE ON FIRE!?
This survives in various permutations of the phrase “also, the giants are on fire.”

[3] – The carpet vs. dragon matchup went about like this:

DM: All four villains are flying at you on board an enormous black dragon. What do you do?
Party: We’re so screwed. We’re wounded, running out of spells, and these guys are enormous. This will end badly.
Xygonn: Wait. Let’s work this out. Our carpet goes, what, 80 feet in 6 seconds or something? So that ends up as… *various bogus mathematical calculations are performed here, rendered accurate by the lateness of the hour and the lack of desire to actually fight this combat* …something like 90 miles per hour. Let’s crash this thing into the dragon and wipe them all out.
DM: …
Party: Sounds like a plan.
DM: Uh…roll to hit?
Xygonn: Sure thing.
DM: Well, uh. You hit. Everyone dies. Now let’s all go to bed while I attempt to comprehend that.

This game was, as I said, our first foray into 3rd Edition D&D. As a whole, I regard it as an unmemorable failure, although certain parts of it were really great moments in our history as a group. In particular, the assault on the Dahuandar Palace and the fire giant encounter will live in either fame or infamy. The carpet vs dragon matchup will have to settle for infamy. As a whole, however, it says something that, in the six years from November of 2000 to November of 2006 when I did the research for this, between three of us, there were three wildly different accounts of what went on, with large stretches of “I have no idea what happened there.” What I’ve presented here is likely at least 50% longer in reality, save that nobody now remembers any of it.

So what went wrong? I have a few ideas:

- We attempted to reprise an epic and well-loved campaign (detailed in part one) with a new set of rules, new characters, and a new plot.

- The rules created a situation where characters of similar levels in the new game were vastly inferior in power to the characters in the old game, and people missed this.

- The characters in this new game, while not shabby (Magnus and Lamen in particular), couldn’t compete with the legends built up by Shador, Clyos the Minotaur, Kink, and company. There was much envy of the old game, which I probably should have found a way to reprise.

- The game as a whole suffered from my, as the DM, having an epic backstory to the whole campaign in my head that was pretty good, but ultimately flawed because I transmitted very little or none of it to the players, who then I imagine felt railroaded. The book, in particular, had some greater significance beyond being a plot device (though I forget what, now), but all the characters knew was that other, greater forces than themselves wanted it. Too, there was a lot going on in both Esmeltaran and Shoonach that just never came out in play, and we all suffered for it. I’m quite guilty of breaking that cardinal law of DMing, which says that if your story is that cool, the players should know about it too.

- In addition, my DM logic failed me severely in this game. A secret jungle grove filled with snakelike yuan-ti is cool, but is wildly out of place in desert Calimshan. The fire giants needed to be on fire. And seriously, why the hell were four powerful lords of evil ALL riding a huge black dragon, and why was there a huge black dragon there in the first place? And what was I thinking letting them ram it with a flying carpet?

I like to think I’ve learned from these sorts of mistakes.

Join us next time for Part 3 in our story, wherein yet another group of heroes solves the troubles of Amn, one hobgoblin at a time.

Part one is here, and part two is here.

In previous episodes, we learned how, in two months in 1370 DR, the merchant kingdom of Amn was saved largely through the efforts of two groups of adventurers, one of whom saved the city of Murann from almost certain plunder, then went on to slay the feared pirate, the Black Alaric; the second of whom raided the city of Esmeltaran, disrupting its monstrous occupants, then fighting a climactic battle in the ruins of ancient Shoonach which killed the leaders of the Sythillisian Empire.

The year is 2006. The edition is D&D 3.5. The time is Mirtul, 1371 DR. Spring has come to Amn. Its fortunes are on the rise, though its coffers are low and its armies and people, exhausted from years of war against the humanoids of the Sythillisian Empire and their Cyricist allies. In the previous month, Tarsakh, the armies of Amn recaptured Esmeltaran from the monsters, though much of the city now lies in ruins. Even now, they move to retake the city of Imnescar, hoping to break through the Small Teeth passes and relieve Murann.

Our Heroes:
Stillgar, Gnoll Knight (Cole): A squire of Sir Ambrose of Helm.
Ishandrie, Wild Elf Ranger (Kat): One of Sir Ambrose’s trackers.
Jae, Human Cleric (Jason): An acolyte of Helm.
Davoren, Human Cleric/Wizard (Jason): An acolyte of Helm.
Mirtul 5-Mirtul 12, 1371 DR (May):

While encamped before Imnescar, the party is tasked by Sir Ambrose of Helm to return to his manor near the city of Perskul and investigate news Sir Ambrose has recieved of hobgoblin trouble in the area.

Travelling north, the party is attacked by a band of hobgoblins near Sir Ambrose’s Manor, and these are summarily dispatched (several flee), though the party is too late to save a number of peasants, whose farm has been burnt to the ground by these same hobgoblins.

In the village, the party talks with Gron Thatcher, the militia leader, who informs them of hobgoblin raids that have been occuring both north and south on the roads. The party helps to train and organize the militia, and begins investigating and patrolling farms. After failing to intercept another raid, the party manages to track the hobgoblin raiders back to Ithal’s Tor, an ancient Shoon ruin in the Westwood.

Misfortunately for the party, they are ambushed by dozens of hobgoblins led by a large, bat-winged, fiendish priest of Cyric named Gralok, and are captured. When they awake, they are in a cell with Matthias Darkblade, a tiefling rogue. By tricking their guards, the party escapes from their cells and descends down a hole in the building’s floor into a warren of tunnels below the earth. Entering a room with a hole in the floor, the party encounters a small, winged creature, a lightning mephit, which flies out of the hole and shoots lightning at them. Stillgar, bravely taking the initiative, leaps out over the pit and tackles the lightning mephit, sending them both tumbling down the hole and killing them both[1].

The party continues exploring the tunnels, encountering many giant ants, rats, and spiders, which prove nearly too much for several party members. Eventually, they come upon an underground river, the source of a creek aboveground. Using giant ant carapaces as boats, the party floats out and over a waterfall, though Matthias almost perishes by drowning. They return, without incident, to the village, where they meet

Oscar the Magnificent, Halfling Evoker (Cole): A flashy wizard who is a legend (in his own mind)

and

Gar Rotte, Human Rogue (Devin): A quiet, scythe-wielding rogue

who are the only survivors of a hobgoblin-raided caravan.

Mirtul 9, 1371 DR (May):

At dusk on the 9th, Sir Ambrose’s Manor is attacked by Gralok and well over fifty hobgoblins. After peppering the hobgoblins as they approached with arrows, flaming barrels of lamp oil, and a flaming sofa (thrown by Gar), the hobgoblins force entry after an invisible Gralok blasts the door open with a shatter spell and confounds the militia with globes of darkness. While Ishandrie and Matthias hold the stairs to the tower top against dozens of hobgoblins, the rest of the party, aided by Gron Thatcher, fight Gralok, who flies in through the window, paralyzes and knocks out Gron, then proceeds to defeat Oscar and grievously wound several other party members before being overcome. Meanwhile, Matthias and Ishandrie are forced up the stairs. A single hobgoblin sergeant, the last survivor of the invaders, drops every member of the party except Davoren, who flees. The hobgoblin gives chase, and Davoren leads him straight into the villagers, who pitchfork the hobgoblin to death[2].

Mirtul 16-Mirtul 22, 1371 DR (May):

Rested and healed from the near-apocalyptic battle of Sir Ambrose’s Manor, the party returns to Ithal’s Tor to clean up the survivors and finish exploring. They are joined by

Argh One-Ear, Half-Orc Cleric of Ilmater (Matt): A tough, very unorthodox cleric of the God of Suffering[3].

Descending into the hole from which came the lightning mephit, the party discovers a long-buried temple of Talos the Stormlord. Here they dispatch another three lightning mephits, who continually fly into and out of a large ball of lightning that still crackles over the altar. While exploring a prayer chamber, the party is surprised by a wight and three skeletons, which drain Jae and Gar before dying the final death. Descending into the undercroft, the party encounters a fearsome lightning quasi-elemental, which kills Jae, knocks Oscar unconcious, and traps Davoren in the temple while the remaining party members flee aboveground.

Once in town, Matthias leaves, citing ill-treatment by the party. Argh One-Ear also departs, claiming the need to do his deity’s will elsewhere in the Realms[4]. The partty is joined by

Barowyn, Dwarf Barbarian (Kasey): A boar-riding dwarven barbarian;

and

Seth, Halfling Barbarian/Fighter (Jason): Who styles himself “The Doglord” (from his riding dog), and claims to be a friend of Sir Ambrose (which is disputed in some circles).

They return to Ithal’s Tor, where they dispath the quasielemental with Oscar’s spells and charges by the barbarians. In a vault, they find a great deal of treasure, including a magical gauntlet, which attaches itself to Oscar. returning to the tunnels, they explore the northern ones, and encounter several ankhegs, who threaten to kill the entire party before Oscar somehow uses the gauntlet to call lightning bolts. The party retreats back to the temple level, persued by an ankheg, who burrows through the ceiling, crashing to the floor and dying.

The party proceeds to spend three days healing at the bottom of Ithal’s Tor. Ishandrie is found to have stolen and hidden part of the party’s treasure, and she is tortured and killed by members of the party, which causes much interparty conflict[5]. Recovering the treasure, they emerge from Ithal’s Tor[6] and begin travelling south to join Sir Ambrose and to tell him the news.

Mirtul 22-26, 1371 DR (May):

Passing the ruins of Imnescar, the party meets with Sir Ambrose and the field army of Amn, which is preparing to fight the last great army of humanoids and Cyricists at the Twin Towers of the Eternal Eclipse, a major Cyricist temple blocking the pass south through the Small Teeth. They are joined by

Seriere, Sun Elf Duskblade (Kat): who is the loyal retainer of another noble Sir Ambrose knows.

Sir Ambrose and his retainers, as well as the party, act as outriders and scouts for the main body of the army as it marches south. While performing this duty, the party is ambushed by kobolds, who retreat to a ruined watchtower on a nearby hill. Much of the party rides in hot persuit up the trail, while Argh circles one way and Gar and Seth circle the other. While Seth and Gar are fighting kobolds in the courtyard of the tower, Baraoyn charges through the gate on his boar and begins laying about him while hard-pressed by dozens of kobolds. Much of the party, meanwhile, is ambushed by further kobolds up the trail and hit hard by fireballs from a kobold sorcerer in the tower. As Sir Ambrose and the rest of his men begin to arrive, the situation appears grim. Many of Ambrose’s men are decimated by a fireball, and most of the party is surrounded by kobolds, including an enlarged Argh, who is demolishing kobolds by the score with fist and spell. The climax of the battle comes when Oscar uses the Hand of Talos (his gauntlet) to call forth a mighty blast of lightning which obliterates the tower, kobolds and all. All remaining kobolds are summarily dispatched, and the party rests for a time while exploring their surroundings.

In the exploration, several enterances to an underground cavern network are discovered, and the party descends, accompanied by Sir Ambrose and his remaining men. Davoren falls into a pit and slides partway down a chute before being rescued. The party finds itself on a ramp at the top of a hundreds of feet tall cavern, with a pool of water at the bottom[7]. Descending the ramp, the party is ambushed by a darktentacles (think Fellowship of the Ring here), which grabs several people, and is on the verge of slaying them before it is overcome, which leaves several people in danger of drowning while unconcious. They are saved, and underwater exploration reveals the lair of the darktentacles, from which loot is recovered.

Passing a blood-stained altar[8], the party enters a long, straight, obviously worked stone corridor. Several minutes of marching later, they abrubtly trigger a magic alarm, and come under fire from a ballista firing bundles of alchemist’s fire. The party charges, and realizes there are actually two ballista bunkers at the intersection of three passageways. Seth charges on his dog, skewering one goblin defender with his lance, but slamming himself and the dog full force into the bunker, knocking them both out. While Davoren drags Seth back for healing, Oscar and Baraoyn blow up both bunkers with casks of ale (which Baraoyn carried everywhere) and lightning from the Hand of Talos.

Low on spells and healing, the party retreats back down the passage they came through and returns to the army[9]. They are just in time for the bulk of the battle, which is titanic. Clerics and wizards on both sides cause massive explosions and death, giants and ogres lay waste to humans, and various humans, hobgoblins, goblins, and kobolds do their best to simply survive. At the very climax of the battle, Oscar’s mind is overcome by the Hand of Talos, and he goes insane and attempts to destroy everyone in range with the power of the Hand. He is narrowly overpowered and stopped by the party, and the Hand of Talos is taken from him and put in the keeping of priests of Helm[10].

Kythorn 3, 1371 DR (June):

Sir Ambrose summons the party to talk to Lord Pehllus Tanislove, who wants them to look for his kidnapped sister Gilda in the humanoid-occupied city of Trademeet. The party is joined by

Orog, Human Fighter/Swashbuckler (Brian): A man who has four arms;

and

Kyle, Human Paladin of Helm (Kyle): A useful vehicle for Kyle getting to play with us while on leave from Iraq.

The party travels south, encountering little opposition save for a disorganized goblin band. They find a ruined farm near the city and wait. Orog enters Trademeet and is hired by an orc chieftain after nearly besting him in a duel. That night, Orog bribes a guard to leave the city, and reports on probable locations of Gilda Tanislove – under the Kapparthall (citadel) or in the former Temple of Helm, now redidicated to the orcish god Gruumsh and a slaver lair[11]. Re-entering the city, he begins starting fires while the rest of the party enters the city. Various half-baked plans are launched by the party[12], which result in Orog charging the temple courtyard and dispatching the slavers therein. Taking their flamethrower cart, he sets off down the main corridor, unfortunately triggering a glyph of warding, which explodes the entire hallway and leaves Orog near to death. Meanwhile, Oscar and Seriere arrive, and enter battle with the slavers, fighting their way into the main chamber and dispatching all their opponents, including several leaders. Shortly thereafter, Kyle arrives, providing healing, and the party frees and arms several slaves before descending into tunnels beneath the temple. Here they find a number of ant creatures, who prove hostile and are killed. They explore a short distance before deciding to return to the temple.

Meanwhile, slaver reinforcements have arrived, killed all of the slaves, and trapped Orog, Oscar, Seriere, and Kyle belowground. While they fight their way free, Argh One-Ear, who was enslaved and imprisoned, escapes captivity, kills several slavers, then rescues Gar, who had just been captured by yet more slavers. The party then decides to retreat to rest and heal[13].

In the morning, search parties are sent from the city to search out the party, and these are very narrowly avoided. A bit of subterfuge allows the party to sneak back into the city, where they run back into the temple and go below ground. They find a number of giant ant tunnels, and the giant ants therein, resulting in a large and confusing battle with many, many ants, who are finally defeated. As we leave off, the party has just entered a very large cavern…

[1] – Technically, Stillgar managed to survive the fall with 1 hp and was killed by other then-unknown beasties at the bottom of the pit. Before and after this session, Stillgar was affectionately known as “the grassy gnoll” in a bad display of humor.

[2] – This was an epic fight, easily in the top 5 if not the top 2 or 3 I’ve ever been a part of. Gralok was clearly the baddest mofo in town, and he showed it, flying around, using his spells to great effect, and then taking on the entire party plus a fair-leveled NPC with his maul, and coming very very close to winning. He remains one of my favorite villains.

Also, the party being saved by Davoren was possibly the most dramatic moment in any game I’ve played. Davoren, being useless in a fight, was forced to run away from a 3 hp hobgoblin sergeant, lure him into the villagers, and then run back to heal the party, several of whom came within a round or two of dying. This very easily could have resulted in a TPK had things gone slightly different.

In addition, mass combats are notoriously hard to run, but for once in our lives we managed to pull it off pretty well, which was nice.

[3] – Argh will be one of a rather lengthy list of guest appearances from people other than the core group of players.

[4] – Read “I am a one-shot guest character. Bye!”

[5] – Your guess as to the exact cause of this is as good as mine. Suffice it to say this was not our best night.

[6] – It’s no secret that I thought a lot of things went right in this game, and Ithal’s Tor, as a dungeon, was one of them. I don’t really like the dungeon concept, but I think I pulled this one off well. The concept involved a Shoon-era village which had been mostly buried. Later, it was tunneled into by the ankhegs, who carved out the tunnel levels (which became infested with vermin) and gave access to the Temple of Talos (which had been haunted by various guardians and undead priests). Much much later, the hobgoblin raiders showed up and inhabited the aboveground ruins. It’s a lot of work to come up with a good dungeon ecology, but the end result is pretty cool.

[7] – Which is where Davoren would have ended up had he actually slid all the way down the chute, taking a lot of falling damage, and swimming in dark water directly near a very nasty monster.

[8] – Used by the inhabitants to perform human sacrifices to appease the darktentacles. The party found the skeleton of one such victim in the lair.

[9] – Neatly avoiding one of the largest dungeons I’ve ever created.

[10] – The Hand was an intelligent, enchanted gauntlet with the power to, among other things, inflict shocking grasp and call lightning spells. Oscar took pretty enthusiasticly to the thing, and even started worshipping Talos (he also picked up a magic, lightning-headed spear from the temple), with the results that we see here.

[11] – Recognizable as the temple from A1 – Slave Pits of the Undercity for those of you playing along at home. You may trace my love for this series of modules from hearing about it in Thomas Miller’s Adventurers series (16 through 37). I’ve spent about 10 years thinking A4 in particular was the coolest thing ever.

[12] – You really don’t want to know.

[13] – This sequence was several times more complicated than I’ve just described, and essentially involved every single party member performing their own plan without any consultation with anyone else. There was fighting on the city walls, Bumbling into slaver patrols, sneaking past city guards, and several other things. Seth, for example, came into the city over the walls three times. In his first foray, he attempted to pin Orog’s fires on the slavers before narrowly missing discovery. In his second, he came with Gar, then left Gar to, get this, haul his dog over the walls with a rope.

I cannot begin to express to you how frustrating this was to DM. What should have been a brief warm-up foray into the temple took all damn night, and we’re not done yet.