Session 3: Save the Abbot from Batman!

This session we had Lukana, Digna (formerly known as Dignar), Gignus, Beornweynne, Elrothien, and Hildagarde. Our party of six took a pair of captured reavers and the jar of magical ointment back to Aeron's Rest where brother Annocs, assisted by brother Gregor, was still attempting to slow the progression of the magical poison killing the mayor. Gignus brought the ointment to the herbalist monk, and he thanked them before breaking the seal on the jar and applying it to the ailing mayor. The magical cure-all set in almost immediately and soon the mayor was well enough to sit up and talk. The heroes explained everything that happened and the mayor thanked them for their part in rescuing him and repelling the most recent attack on their village.

Everyone wanted to interrogate and then lock up their captives. Annocs gave Gignus a special elixir of truthliness to help with the process and hopefully to avoid any violence. Regardless Gignus and Digna intimidated and roughed up the prisoners before administering the elixir. What they learned was that Sir Mortimer Grim, believed that the current crown prince was a fake and that the true lost heir to Aeron's throne, the young Price Hadron, was hidden somewhere in Leventhorpe Barony. Therefore he gathered his best soldiers and hired a band of mercenaries, which included the duergar cleric Derros and his followers, the half-orc barbarian Thrak and his trained hell-hounds, a sadistic gnomish bard Tuddlebock, a human fighter named Randyll, and a shadowy assassin named Sidor. Their orders were to attack the towns under the guise of roving bandits, possibly in the pay of countess Vandra to further foment chaos in Luptonia.

They were also ordered to take hostages to torture and question as to the whereabouts of Hadron. Until recently they hadn't had any luck, but now they had captured Brother Benedict, the care-taker of the poly-temple. The mercenaries had camped at an old abandoned hunting lodge the previous night where Sidor began to torture the villagers. Many had died proclaiming ignorance, but brother Benedict cracked and revealed his secret knowledge. They learned that Hadron was actually spirited away to the monastery of Pelor in Halfwayton many years ago as a boy. Along with the boy was a signet ring, one of a set of three crafted specially for the young princes. Benedict was given the ring and a some supplies, sent to take over the custodianship of the poly-temple, and told to hide the ring well and guard the secret. Benedict had once been a master thief before turning to the cloth, and enjoyed solving riddles and defeating traps so he crafted a puzzle and constructed a hiding place and left a clue with his friend brother Annocs. He hid the ring along with some treasure and supplies as a decoy in the poly-temple. Brother Benedict still believed that the true prince Hadron was still at the monastery, disguised as a young monk.

Upon learning this, Sidor the assassin and chief torturer, instructed Thrak to take a group of soldiers back to Portyngton and search the poly-temple for the signet ring. Sidor then flew off towards the monastery in search of the boy. When questioned about what he meant by "flew" the prisoner said something about Sidor having the ability to turn into a bat. This caused much speculation as to Sidor's true nature. Was he a vampire?

Gignus and Digna brought this new information to the rest of the group. They were surprised that they hadn't found the ring along with the other treasure. They questioned Annocs about the ring who admitted to knowing about it, but was sworn by the Abbot to keep it a secret. However, now that Sir Grim knew of it's existence he said he would help the adventures recover it if they would keep it safe. The heroes agreed and together they, including brother Gregor, all went back to the poly-temple and Annocs showed them the hidden niche inside the compartment the treasure chest was in. Hidden in the niche was a bundle wrapped in embroidered silk. The design, golden griffins on a blue field, was recognizable as the family crest of the Gryffons of queen Merinda's line. Inside the bundle was a signet ring with engravings proving it belonged to Hadron.

Upon seeing the scrap of silk brother Gregor was shocked, as long forgotten memories came rushing back. He recognized it from his earliest childhood as being his baby blanket, but was confused as to it's meaning. Annocs, in an attempt to comfort him, explained that he was the true prince Hadron, that he had been given to the monastery to keep safe and hidden. Gregor was speechless and profoundly dumbstruck as he considered what this meant, he a simple monk apprentice to the herbalist was really the heir to the throne of Luptonia, and that the current crown prince really was an impostor. Annocs continued, not many of the Pelor monks knew the truth, but abbot Oswald did and it was likely that he was now in grave peril. If the reavers had been correct, Sidor was on his way to the monastery in search of the boy and would torture and possible kill anyone to find out where he was.

The reveal of Gregor's true identity caused some internal debate amongst the party. Would they turn Gregor/Hadron over to the loyalists and potentially spark additional conflict and strife? Would they try to contact countess Vandra and turn him over to the rebels in an attempt to end the civil war in one move? Or would they respect the wishes of the monks of Pelor and keep him hidden for now? In any case they knew they would have to deal with Sir Grim's minions and the evil knight himself. He would be sure to be after them as long as they had the ring and the boy. For now they elected to keep the monks with them, but hurry back to Halfwayton in order to stop the assassin, Sidor.

Before leaving, the mayor was told to keep a close eye on the captive reavers. Sir Andros and Alessandra chose to stay behind at the tavern for the rest of the adventure. Meanwhile Digna, Gignus, Beornweynne, Lukana, and Elrothien, with brothers Annocs and Gregor in tow, jumped on their horses, riding dogs, and their wagon "Wheels McGillicutty" and rushed back the way they came, back towards Halfwayton. After their encounter with bandits on the road the previous night the adventurers were on the lookout for an ambush. By the time they left town it was late afternoon and it soon turned into a foggy evening. The moon was full and bright, casting spooky shadows in the woods on either side of the road. Off in the distance the howling of wolves could be heard, but the party was not molested on the journey. Maybe the bandits had thought better of attacking the well armed travelers again.

They arrived at Halfwayton around mid-night. Elrothien and Gignus were exhausted and had used up most of their spells during the previous day so they opted to stay at the Broken Wheel Inn with Annocs and Gregor that night in relative safety. The remaining four brave women Beornweynne, Hildagarde, Lukana, and Digna proceeded quickly to the monastery looking over the town. When no one immediately answered their summons at the gate, Hildagarde scaled the wall and let her companions inside the complex.

Inside, the party moved stealthily across the grounds and towards the cloister and chapel. A mid-night service was just wrapping up and the monks were filling out of the chapel and heading to the cloister. Beornweynne spotted a small dark object fly overhead and over the cloister roof. She warned the others and speculated that it could be the mysterious Sidor. They spotted abbot Oswald leaving the chapel and heading toward the infirmary alone instead of the cloister with the rest of the monks. The party determined that if Sidor would strike at all it would be when Oswald was alone at the infirmary, so speed was in order.

As the party hurried around the corner of the cloister they saw the abbot entering the infirmary and closing the door behind him. Immediately thereafter the dark shape, now recognizable as a small bat, fluttered through an open window of the infirmary. Beornweynne raced ahead of her companions, aided by the striding ability of her new boots, and burst through the door behind the abbot. She beheld a candle-lit room lined on either side by simple cots where a few ill and dying locals lay, the abbot spinning around to see who was intruding on him, and a shadowy figure with a billowing black cloak approaching the unsuspecting abbot from the other side of the room.

As the abbot queried, "What are you doing here?" the shadowy figure, who could be none other than the assassin Sidor, summoned forth a thick magical darkness that engulfed himself, the abbot and most of the room before Beornweynne's eyes. The brave barbarian rushed forth to the edge of the darkness, reached into it, and grasped about for the abbot. Her hands caught hold of cloth and she pulled someone out. Luckily it was the abbot, still unharmed. She rushed him to the door and pushed him, against his protestations, outside and into the arms of her companions who had just now arrived. They surrounded him and quickly began ushering him away from the area.

Hildagarde had taken it upon herself to find a safe hiding place behind a small fountain in the courtyard, from which to watch and provide support. As her friends moved the confused abbot toward the cloister she witnessed the assassin appear on the roof, pull forth a hand crossbow, dab a bolt tip with poison and take aim at the abbot. She fired her own crossbow up at him and hit. It was enough to distract him from his own shot which went wide and gave away his position. The magically gender-changed dwarf, Digna, hurled an axe up at the figure, but it was caught in mid-air and promptly thrown back by Sidor's quick hands. Digna's armor protected her for the time being. Beornweynne, once again aided by the springing ability of her boots, leaped to the roof to confront Sidor in melee.

Lukana, seeing that the assassin was well and properly engaged, took the abbot by the arm and led him away, all the while answering his frantic questions and explaining that he was in great danger and most find a safe place. The abbot directed the monk to his private office where they locked and barred themselves in to wait out the fight.

Meanwhile, Hildagarde reloaded and continued to fire up at the assassin, but with Beornweynne in the way now she was not able to get a clean shot. Digna, lacking the height and jumping ability of the barbarian, franticly searched for a way to climb above. Sidor struck out at Beornweynne with his fists, the air rippling with force around them, but a fortunate misstep on a loose roof tile saved her and she staggered out of the way. She retaliated with vicious sword blow that exposed bloody gash across the assassins chest. He cursed and summoned forth an obscuring mist to temporarily blind Beornweynne. Digna gave up on finding a way up and moved around the building to get a better look at things.

Beornweynne heard the assassin move away across the tiles so gave chase. She blindly tumbled off the other side of the roof to the ground, but was able to see the assassin turn and dart around the corner of the building. Digna was right there waiting for him. Sidor drew a long curved dagger, muttered a spell over it, and struck out towards the dwarf. Digna was ready and spun her new flail of sundering into the assassin's head, crushing his skull and knocking him dead to the ground before he could deliver a killing blow.

We stopped here for the night to identify and split up the treasure. On his body they discovered the following treasure: a pair of gloves of dexterity +2, an amulet of might fists +1, an assassin's dagger +1, a cloak of the bat (which imbued him with the power of temporary flight and to assume the shape of a bat during the night), a ring of protection +1, a ring of feather fall, a hand crossbow and darts, a vial of small centipede poison, and a pair of ornate silver bracelets with white pearls.

Hildagarde claimed the gloves, poison, crossbow, and cloak. Lukana took the amulet. Beornweynne took the ring of protection. The gave the ring of feather fall to Elrothien along with the pearls from the bracelets and the dagger. The de-pearled bracelets were thrown in the general treasure pool.

Session 2: Poly-Temple of Doom

We had a really good session this time around. I think everyone who came had a good time and got excited about it. Only six of our original nine heroes partook in the second session. The bard left the party for good, the sorceress took an extended break, and the monk missed only this session.

The previous evening the town's folk had told the party that Grim and his reavers had just left after raiding the town. They spoke of evil looking men and Duergar, commonly known as grey Dwarves, led by a fearsome cleric, a vicious half-Orc sergeant, a crazed gnome dressed in faded motley, and of Grim himself armored in rune-covered plate and wielding his deadly executioner's axe. The reavers had come earlier in the day and terrorized the town, killing some and kidnapping others. In particular they seemed bent on ransacking and defiling the poly-temple at which the locals prayed to a diverse pantheon of gods. One of the captured citizens was a former brother of the Halfwayton monestary, Brother Benedict, who came to the village 13 years ago to act as the temple's caretaker.

The villagers feared for the well-fare of those who had been taken, and suggested that the adventurers attempt to catch up with the reavers on the road before it was too late. Against the urging of the beleaguered populace to make haste, the party chose to stay the night in Portyngton. Our heroes awoke well rested and refreshed from the road the next morning while Brothers Annocs and Gregor had spent most of the night awake with the frightened villagers, tending the injured.

One of the most grievously wounded was the mayor of Portyngton, who's wounds seemed to have been complicated by a magical poison. Brother Annocs recognized the symptoms and remembered something about a cache of magical curatives hidden in the poly-temple. Brother Benedict had once told Annocs a cryptic hint as to its whereabouts, something about "Boccob knows...". Could this have been what Sir Grim and his minions were looking for?

Beornweynne, Hildagarde, Dignar, Elrothian, Sir Andros, and Gignus headed off to the ruins of the poly-temple to search for any hidden items that could prove useful. Outside the oddly shaped building, the paladin cautioned his companions of the evil he could feel emanating from within. As if on cue the skeletal remains of long buried dead burst up through the ground in the small lichyard out in front of the temple. Blades and axes proved ineffective against the animated skeletons, but they were soon destroyed by the divine power of the party's cleric.

Inside the darkened temple they discovered the bodies of slain villagers left in a bloody pile. The shrines and altars on the first floor had been desecrated. Beornweynne was particularly disturbed by the scene, due to her fear of corpses, but took courage at the sight of her god, Kord's, symbol displayed on the wall . They heard shuffling and moaning coming from above and went to investigate the second floor.

A group of walking dead lurked on the second floor. As before, the cleric easily destroyed them by channeling divine power. After the undead were dealt with they investigated the temple further in search of the hidden cure-alls. The second floor had statues depicting four of the worlds Good gods. Boccob's statue held a book, and when removed and opened was blank except for one page that contained a rough sketch. The sketch seemed to resemble one of the other statues in the gallery, but with a slight difference. Hieroneous, the god of Paladins and patron deity to Sir Andros, held a sword and a shield, and a wide leather belt with a scabbard was strapped around his waist. In the sketch the scabbard and belt were missing. The party removed the scabbard and when overturned it disgorged a small metal key. The key's decorative end resembled a mask with its right eye drilled through.

Hildagarde recognized the mask as the symbol of Olidamara, the goddess of debauchery, and that there was a shrine in her honor on the first floor. They returned below to investigate. As promised the altar was there and a large mask was hung on the wall behind it. A careful search revealed that the right eye hole hid a lock, which the key fit into. Turning the key released a lock and the section of wall behind the mask swung outward like a door and opened to show the hidden nook behind it. Inside was a small wooden cask.

At that moment, Elrothien the elven wizard heard the rapid approach of hoof-beats. Running out onto the second-floor balcony he was able to spot the source, a band of reavers on horse-back lead by a swift half-orc barbarian on foot and a pair of hell-hounds. Elrothien watched as Thrak, the half-orc, took an amazing leap up and over the 15' high barred gates. Single-handedly the brute lifted and tossed the wooden bar too the ground and threw open the gates for his hounds, Rorge & Biter, and the company of mounted human reavers. Their destination appeared to be the poly-temple as they strove directly towards it, ignoring the frightened villagers who ran in all directions.

Elrothien warned his companions before taking his lookout position up. The rest of the party (Hildagarde, Sir Andros, Gignus, Dignar, and Beornweynne) set up a gauntlet just inside the temple doors. As Thrak approached the temple with his minions in tow he was assaulted with throwing axes and arrows, but his barbarian reflexes allowed him to dodge and deflect the projectiles. Thrak was enraged by being ambushed so predictably flew into a barbarian rage and charged into the temple while his minions scrambled to set up a proper assault.

Thrak's charge into the temple was ill-fated. Since the party was prepared they were all able to get opportunity attacks and pummeled him mercilessly. Seeing he was outnumbered, Thrak drew a weapon in each hand, a flail and a light pick, and retaliated, but the heroes withstood his ferocious attacks and then combined their attacks to cut him down.

Elrothien could see from above that the reavers were not deterred by their commanders death and that they must have feared reporting failure to Sir Grim more than mere death. He cast Sleep upon four reavers he could see, and they tumbled from their mounts. The rest of the reavers dismounted and took cover behind tombstones while firing arrows into the temple blindly. The hell-hounds Rorge & Biter rushed to the temple entrance and belched flame at the closely packed adventurers, scorching them slightly.

Elrothien shot arrows down at the fiendish hounds from the balcony above while Beornweynne and Sir Andros took turns smiting them through the doorway. A few well placed blows slew the horrid canines. Dignar decided to meet the aggressors head-on by diving out through one of the stain-glassed windows. He landed in a heap on the front lawn and while he was prone a brave reaver tried to stab him, but was foiled by the tough armor protecting the dwarf's back. Dignar stood and cut the unfortunate human down. Hildagarde smashed out some of the window panes in order to get a better shot at the opposing archers, bringing another one down. A pair of the reavers decided to find a safer way into the temple and circled around to the North and South sides in search of a window entrance. Gignus followed one while Sir Andros lay in wait for the other.

Beornweynne and Dignar rushed forward into the graveyard to meet the remaining reavers and began a new tradition of attempting to intimidate their foes repeatedly before mightily striking them down. Sir Andros surprised the reaver attempting to sneak in a back window. They parried and riposte each other through the window until Sir Andros reached a gauntleted fist out and pulled his opponent bodily through the aperture. Gignus caught up with her target and Held him in place with divine power. The remaining reavers were either slain in their asleep, paralyzed or grappled into submission.

Once the party had dealt with their captives they turned their attention back to the chest in the hidden nook. They pulled it free, set it in the center of the room and examined it thoroughly. No one was able to detected the presence of anything untoward, but they still nominated Dignar to open it while the rest of the group stood outside well clear of any potential trap. As expected the chest was trapped with heat sucking mold that burst into Dignar's face, chilling and painful but otherwise not permanently damaging. Inside the main compartment he saw 100 gold coins, five small white pearls, a leather scroll case containing a divine scroll, and a single jar of ointment sealed with wax. Dignar took out a sack and filled it with the coins and turned the rest over to the party.

Lukana joined the party at this point, coming down from the tavern to see what all the commotion was about. She took one look at the chest and suspected that there may be a hidden compartment. Tipping it provoked the clicking of additional coins hidden somewhere inside. Hildagarde and Elrothien scoured the chest and eventually discovered a false bottom to the chest. Lifting the panel revealed additional treasures including: 300 gold coins, one large black pearl, an arcane scroll on ivory rollers, a set of masterwork thieves tools, and a lens of detection.

Additional treasures found on the bodies of the slain reavers included a total of 1600 gold coins and 8 sets of reaver gear. Thrak had an adamantine flail of improved sundering +1, an adamantine light pick of improved disarming +1, bracers of armor +4, boots of striding and springing, a potion of cure light wounds, a potion of rage, a pair of masterwork throwing axes, and a mysterious belt of bronze medallions depicting both female and male orcish faces.

Dignar, not satisfied with the compensation of 100 gold coins, laid claim to the flail and the belt. On donning the belt he felt his muscles flush with power (+1 strength), but suddenly a curse struck switching his gender from male to female. From that point forward she was known as Digna. This caused some disturbing speculation as to the original gender of Thrak. Beornweynne reluctantly took the pick of disarming, but excitedly took the magical boots, potion of rage and axes. Elrothien took the bracers, lens, white pearls as components for identifying items, and arcane scroll. Gignus took the ointment and divine scroll. Hildagarde took the tools, and Sir Andros got the remaining potion. The rest of the monetary treasure was divided up evenly amongst the group.

Characters that took part in solving the puzzle and defeating the reavers gained about 1500 experience points.