One of the things I'll be doing with this blog (besides posting mind-'splodingly adorbs videos of cats hugging ninjas) is recapping my players' weekly gaming sessions as a form of geek history appreciation. Last night was our first game. For those of you who care about such things, the campaign is a houseruled 4e game set in Eberron 30 years after the end of the Last War. Let's meet the party.
| You cannot resist me, masked stealthy hyoo-mahn. Give to me all of your loves. |
- Myrrh, a vengeful kenku (avian/raven humanoid) assassin and alchemist with a penchant for poison and no love lost for humanity
- Svok, a wily kobold summoning wizard, the first of his kind to attend a proper university to study the arcane arts
- Kunulundi, a snarky bullywug (frog humanoid) warlock with a 'tude like Eeyore and an appetite for multi-purposing attack hexes that involve swarms of insects
- Miglesh, a noble orc warpriestess of Balinor with the long-suffering patience of a saint and a mace that just won't quit
- Shep, a loyal corgi sentinel druid whose "beast shape" is a gnome and whose devastating "puppy eyes" attack is so far way scarier than his wolf companion
- Dalin, a sneaky kobold rogue-sorceror who grew up literally under a rock, is like to steal you blind before you know he's there, and who may or may not have social anxiety disorder
- Tairox, a six-day-old golem psion made of moon rock and ether from one of Eberron's moons whose telekinetic and telepathic powers and newborn naivete are by turns charming and maddening (appropriate, given that he is from the aberrant Plane of Madness)
As each of them gains the rocky shore of the lake, the adventurers, still strangers to one another, encounter a redonkulously old little goblin who shows more interest in poking his campfire with a stick than answering the adventurers' many questions about why they've been called here. They chat amongst themselves, growing irritated with him, but just as the sun slips over the western horizon, KAZAAM! The entire group is enveloped in a nimbus of silvery radiance. The light collects on each of the seven adventurers' bodies, revealing the identical claw-inside-an-oval shaped birthmarks on each of them--even skittish Dalin, who freaks and hides under a rock.
Another column of silvered light appears out over the water, and inside of it forms the image of a hideous old woman with elongated, gnarled claws for hands and sagging grey and jet black skin. Worst of all are her eyes: milky white and shining, they are without pupils of any kind. And yet she cackles benevolently at young Tairox when he politely emulates the behavior of Shep the dog, assuming in his ignorance that lifting your leg and peeing on someone you just met is a socially appropriate way of greeting someone. (Nice work, Shep.)
The woman reveals herself to be Sora Teraza, the eldest of the Daughters of Sora Kell who jointly rule Droaam. She refers to the party as "the children of the dark claw" and bids them to listen to a prophecy she believes to be tied both to their destinies and the fate of all monstrous races across the continent of Khorvaire. After revealing that she has foreseen the path of the prophecy leading each of the seven to attaining the one thing they each desire more than anything else, she asks them if they are willing to undertake this quest. To a dog, each of them agree.
Sora Teraza tells the group that they must seek to learn more of the prophecy north of here in the Heart of the Woods in the nation of the Eldeen Reaches. But she also councils that (being a party of monsters an' all), it might be best if they seek the help of Teraza's allies in House Tharashk, the dragonmarked house that holds power in the Shadow Marches to the west, before they travel north to the Eldeen Reaches, which is mostly peopled by monster-unfriendly humans, elves and eladrin. She also warns them to steer clear of Droaam's capital city of Great Crag. There are powerful enemies there; better to grow in strength and knowledge before facing them.
Just before she leaves them, the party asks the Sora if she will give them something to aid them in their quest. She says she has given them the only thing they'll need to see it done: the indomitable monk known as the Greymouse as their guide, i.e. the tiny, wizened goblin dude. They look askance at him. "Yeah. Lucky me too," he grouses.
And on that valorous note, the adventure begins!
The next morning after breaking camp, the party started down the south shore of the lake. In order to safely reach House Tharashk's stronghold in Zarash'ak, they've elected to heed Greymouse's advice and take the longer but safer route, skirting just south of the perilous swamp known as the Vile Marsh. If they can find a boat, traveling on the Blackwater River will make up for a good portion of the time they'll lose not taking the direct route through the swamp.
To that end, the party headed to a small fishing village at the place where the lake meets the river in the hopes of procuring a boat from the goblins who live there. After a hastily thwarted attempt by Svok to steal one of the goblins' fishing vessels, the party managed to smooth things over with the goblins. As it turns out, today is a high festival day in the village, and its residents have gathered in celebration to do what they do best: drink ale and gamble.
As Tairox (the proud new possessor of a recently manifested and as of yet untested mouth and digestive tract) whetted his maiden whistle by downing 6 steins of tasty ale in rapid succession alongside a few of his new friends, the party's kobolds got down to some gambling. The goblin running the "house" account of the gambling establishment was so drunk by then that our shifty little kobolds quickly robbed him blind (with the aid of a few thievery checks and a hastily thrown-together dicing game by a noob DM), winning a few hundred gold, some decrepit low level wondrous items of ill repute and, glory be, A BOAT.
Just as the drunken goblin the kobolds have swindled began to sour on their company, an inebriated Tairox amused himself by using his telekinetic force powers to move stuff around inside the hut that passes for these goblins' great hall. But when he accidentally upended one of the long tables, sending an open cask of ale flying into the air and then crashing down onto Svok's head (neverfear, dear reader, for he was more concerned about whether he could lick all of the spilled ale off of himself than the measly 3 points of damage he took from the hit), what remained of the friendly mood of the goblins quickly eroded into open hostility. So when the village shaman appeared out of the shadows, horrified and accusing Greymouse of bringing "an aberrant creature!! (!!!)" (Tairox) into their midst to cause trouble, the party found it expedient to beat a hasty retreat. One step ahead of the angry mob of goblin fishwives, the party managed to make off with their sorta-kinda-won-fair-and-square new watercraft.
Thankfully, they were not pursued. But this may have been because the villagers knew something that the party did not: the recent heavy spring rains had swollen the narrower riverbank just south of the village, creating a perilously swift current, and just further south, a tricky series of rapids which the party must now navigate. But luck was on their side: the boat at least had six (tiny, goblin-sized) oars in it, with which the party might attempt to not die half-drowned and smashed on the sharp rocks of the river. As they approached the rapids, Kunulundi, who had initially elected to swim alongside the boat, thought better of this and tried to swing up into it. Slipping on the wet edge of the boat, he nearly dashed his bulbous froggy head against a jutting rock nearby, but Tairox emitted a wave of telekinetic force that flipped the frog end over end, safely landing him inside the boat.
Despite the fact that not a single one of them are trained in athletics, an unholy series of natural-20 die rolls insured that the party made it through the first few sets of obstacles in the rapids miraculously unscathed. Tairox did fall out of the boat at one point, but Kunulundi, grateful for the golem's earlier assistance, rushed to his aid, hauling him back aboard. (Go team.)
The party breathed a collective sigh of relief, but alas, a moment too soon. Though the rapids were now behind them, Dalin, in the prow of the boat, called back to the rest that they were running out of river. Yep. They were approaching the drop-off of a 20 foot waterfall. With no way to stop their forward momentum, the group braced themselves for the drop. Tairox fell out. Again. Joining him in the water this time were Shep, Dalin and Kunulundi (although the latter had the foresight to jump clear of the boat rather than simply fall out of it). The only problem? The boat was still coming down right on top of the swimmers, like to crush the life from them or drown them or both. Calling upon his telekinetic force powers, Tairox managed to bounce the boat like a stone skipping on the water. Landing behind them with a splash, the boat glided back towards the waterfall and disappeared.
Those left on the boat found themselves inside of a cozy hidden cavern. After the party had regrouped and dragged the boat up onto a rocky ledge inside of the cavern, they found that the boat had been damaged either by the fall or Tairox's quick-thinking response to his imminent doom: in either case, there was now a 1-foot square hole in the hull of the boat, effectively delaying the party until they could made repairs to the boat. A quick tour of the cavern revealed it to be the former layer of some sort of large feline, whose grisly leavings offered up a sweet reward: among the pile of bones and rotted clothing, the group found a magical dagger, a bag of residuum, a couple of magical items, and a bag of holding. (Suh-weeet.)
During the loot-finding, Greymouse quietly took his leave of the party, wandering off into the nearby swamp for who knows what reason. While the others stayed in the cavern to set about fixing the boat, Miglesh, Myrrh and Svok volunteered to go out scavenging to see if there might be any resources nearby the cavern that could be utilized in the repairs. With the tools from Myrrh's climbing kit, they managed to fell a small tree. But the noise they made in doing so attracted unwanted attention, and while tramping through some nondescript shrubberies, Myrrh was suddenly attacked and grabbed by an tangle of swamp roots.
Out of the swamp came skulking two little mudmen and a pair of over-sized will-o-the-wisp-looking swamp gas spores, all spoiling for a fight. With their ungodly sensitive perception (did I mention that in addition to a psion, there's a freaking DOG in the party?), the party members still back inside the cave managed to hear Myrrh's cry of alarm over the noise of the waterfall. Although they swarmed out of the cave bravely to aid their companions, they swarmed slowly, stymied by the difficult terrain of the river water.
With his webbed feet and fancy water speed, bullywug Kunulundi was the quickest of the companions to respond to his new friends' distress, but alas, his valor proved unlucky: as he rushed out of the cave, a larger mudman emerged from the water, this one armed with a long spear and riding a giant water snake, roughly the size of an anaconda. Yeah. AWESOME. The spearman lunged at Kunulundi, wounding him. Less apt were the attacks of the smaller mudmen on the shore, whose inept attempts to pin Myrrh, Svok and Miglesh down with flung mudballs only resulted in the risk of the three adventurers hurting themselves from laughing so hard as the mudmen slipped and fell in their own muck after rolling twinzie-natural-1s during their attacks.
As the rest of the companions gained the shore to confront the spearman, Kunulundi landed the fiend a fearful blow with his long froggy tongue, giving the spearman a lashing so fierce he's not like to soon forget it and unseating him from the scaled back of his serpent mount in the process. Back admist the angry shrubbery, Svok skittered into the center of the battle to hit multiple targets with a ricochet of arcane lightning and then summoned an elemental fire warrior to defend himself and his friends. Slipping out of the root cluster's grasp and deftly into a better position, Myrrh swung her cruel-edged scythe around in a deadly arc, hitting both the mudman who had just charged her in a rolling wave of sticky river mud and the root pod as well. Her surge of triumphant glory was dimmed slightly, though, when she realized that the mudman, being made of mud, was immune to the poison she had applied to her blade before making the attack. Miglesh smashed into same mudman with her trusty mace and casting invoked Balinor's healing grace for poor wounded Kunulundi.
While Dalin scrabbled up a stony incline and loosed a deathly rain of daggers down at the groups' attackers, Tairox charged into the fray, loosing a mighty wave of telekinetic force which threw the muddy spearman and the snake back away from his friends, pinning both of them down. Stout-hearted Shep attacked the giant snake, provoking and just barely dodging a slap of the creature's massive tail. When the snake retaliated, snapping at Shep with its venom-injecting fangs, the brave little dog stood his ground and looked up at the snake with an astonishing look of such winsome adorableness that the snake stopped in mid-strike, confused at why it had bothered to attack something as cute as this sweet widdle cuddly puppy in the first place.
As Svok's fire warrior singed the second mudman, Kunulundi reared back, inflated the sac under his chin, and released a Funnel of Doomy-Fly-Shaped-DOOM upon the spearman. (The remnants of which he snapped up for a snack rather than let go to waste, that economic soul.) Seeing the root tangle that had grabbed Miglesh begin to flee towards the waterline, dragging a helpless Miglesh along with it, Shep invoked druidi lore to commune with the root cluster, convincing it that if it released the orc priestess, the party would let the creature go in peace without further attack. Convinced by the dog's sincerity, the root tangle released Miglesh.
After being savaged by Shep's unholy maw of cuteness, the spearman fell to his knees, groveling, begging the party to spare his life. "Why should we?" called down Dalin, another throwing knife poised in his hand. He was surprised to find the spear-wielding mudman speaking Draconic, but a closer look revealed the scaly skin beneath all that mud. The mudman promised them useful information and all of his treasures if only they might let him live. Cautiously, the party agreed, throwing in an intimidation check or two for good measure and insisting that the mudmen repair their boat to seal the bargain. On a lark, Tairox also insisted that the spearman give him his giant serpent mount. "But that's my favorite snake!" the spearman protested, before reluctantly ordering the serpent to stay with the golem.
The mudman revealed that the village at the southern outlet of this river, the same one to which the party was headed, was deserted and cursed, its residents slaughtered or simply vanished. He didn't know what was responsible for this, only that those like him avoided the place, speaking of it only in fearful whispers. After relinquishing his spear and a small pouch of gold, as well as the slings belonging to the two other mudmen, the spearman ordered his root tangle minion to sacrifice its life to repair the boat. Obediently, the little creature (half-dead already) climbed up into the boat, spread its fibrous roots across the gaping fissure in the hull, forming a water-tight patch as it died there.
Forearmed with the spearman's warning about the village at the end of the river, the party made camp in the cavern under the waterfall, planning to set out once more the following morning. Amazingly, Tairox succeeded in single-handedly (if just barely) taming the snake, earning himself a most impressive mount. Just before they posted the first watch and went to sleep, Greymouse returned from his sojourn in the swamp to find the boat neatly patched and the party one giant snake stronger than he had left them. "Huh," he muttered sagely, almost impressed.
As sleep began to take them one by one, a sudden cry from Svok's bedroll elicited groans and giggles from the others: "Dammit! I could have just used my Make Whole ritual on the boat. I totally forgot about it!"
And so ended session 1 of the Mark of the Apostate campaign.
