Following on from our last previous episode, our heroes escaped with the 800 odd freed slaves of Pax Tharkas in the middle of the night as a snow storm brewed up. Chased by Draconians, which they periodically had to chop in half with Wyrmslayer, they trudged on through the night up through the high mountain pass in nearly zero visability. By dawn the refugees were dead tired (and a dozen of them were genuinely dead from exposure) and so they rested until noon.
Just before noon the heroes were summoned to a council that had been formed to direct the refugees. For all their efforts they were offered a non-voting advisory role on the council… nice…
Through the afternoon the group pushed on, ever southward through the snow and wind. They camped in the evening and tried to sleep through the night. Exposed as they were they lost another dozen or so through the night.
The morning broke clear but cold. They marched further south coming out of the mountain pass into a plain. Around noon they came a tower with some strange instruments and a big stone slab. Finding nothing much of interest they pressed on into the hills where they spent another chilly night.
In the morning they tightened their belts – finding they had pretty much ran out of food – and marched on further to the south – hoping to get to the wooded vales of the mountains beyond the plains, or perhaps find Skullcap, the fabled tomb of the great wizard Fistandantilus….
By the afternoon they left the hills and were on a plain again. Occasionally they came across evidence of a great battle long ago. After another hours march they came to a marsh. Skirting around the march to the right they wandered ever southward…
Late in the afternoon they a great skull-shaped mound of stone loomed out of the fog of the marshes – Skullcap!
By that point it was getting late and we decided to call it a night rather than delve into the ruins. Not a lot of action this evening… but they made it to skull cap with ~760 (starving) refugees…. And no immediate sight of a Dragon Army in hot pursuit…
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Pax Tharkas (Part Two)
This is what the "adult" group has been up to..
We’ve only had TWO sessions since I last updated in the intervening eight weeks… A number of weeks were cancelled due to not having Campaign Quorum (players off doing other things…) or because I was busy preparing for (or on the 25th, actually RUNNING) the Dark Age DBA Campaign.
In the last two games the group stormed up the stairs fought their way through the chaos on the landing (caused, indirectly, by the Kender’s shenanigans – it was, afterall, the dragon melting the chain – while trying to roast the kinder - that tripped the big rockfall trap…).
Beating down some Goblins and Draconians at the top of the stairs.
Here come some more…
They snuck into the kids place and had most of them herded out when Flamestrike – their ancient, senile red dragon nanny – woke up and was a little irate about them trying to steal off with “her children”. Gilthanas, who was taking up the rear, was bitten in two.
Norfindel charged in with Wyrmslayer and… well.. slayed the wyrm…
Now those of you who are familiar with the Dragonlance series of adventures or novels are probably laughing your asses off – it is NOT supposed to go down like that… Flamestrike is actually supposed to SAVE the characters later from being roasted by Ember – the other younger red dragon – as it is about to roast said player characters along with all of “her” children!
They mopped up a few more Draconians and hobgoblins that charged in when they heard the ruckus… and that’s where we left it….
That was February 4th…
The next game we played was last night (24 March)… seven weeks later…
I still wasn’t sure how I was going to resolve the module so I had a band of hobgoblins rush in (the same band that the Kender had been following when he last did something)
They battled said baddies and Magnus Blackburn died (seven wounds… his head was cut off… Goldmoon tried to reattach it, but Mishakel just wouldn’t hear her prayers – probably because Magnus worshipped the false gods…)
Ultimately I decided that Verminaard (or was it Verminarrd… I can never remember if it’s two “a”s or twr “r”s…) was off on patrol with Ember – of flying out to retrieve his dragon army to come back and “deal with” these rebelling slaves and the heroes led the slaves off in the middle of the night through the pass and away to the south… with no real idea of where they were going…
Dragonlance Kids Campaign Update
The other group I am running it for is my kids and a couple of other homeschoolers….
When I last updated the Kids Camapign They had just escaped the slave caravan and had made their way to Qualinost the capital of the Qualinesti – the woodland realm of the Elves. There they were charged with freeing the slaves of the Dragonlord who held them captive in the fortress of Pax Tharkas. They had followed Gilthanas – son of the Speaker of the Suns to a secret entrance to the fortress known as the Sla-Mori. They had entered there and found an ancient sword and killed a giant slug…. That was at the end of January.
We’ve had, I think, FOUR sessions since then in the intervening eight weeks… A number of weeks were cancelled due to vacations and book clubs and me preparing for the Dark Age DBA Campaign. Next weeks game will also be cancelled due to the other kids book club meeting…. Ah well, it will give me a chance to figure out what we’re supposed to be doing next.
In session #13 I made Christopher give up Wyrmslayer. He’s a Knight of Solamnia, not a tomb robber. He’s got his own (not-so-powerful) ancestral sword… Tanis now has it… Tanis… who never gets into close combat if he can help it, but rather stands just out and shoots his wimpy and ineffectual 2d6 arrows INTO close combat… I hate the shooting into close combat rules… it hardly EVER hits your own guys – especially when characters get shooting of d8 or d10 or better… Ah well…
The adventurers realized the way they had gone was blocked and went back the other way. Earlier, in the previous session, Christopher had INSISTED that Gilthanas would want to go that other way and insisted that he would split off from the group and go that way on his own…. I had him hand over Gilthanas’ card and told him they could have it back when they saw him again. They haven’t – they think they might have found his remains among the ZOMBIES!
They fought some zombies
So many zombies…
It’s been a while, but what I think we’re looking at here is someone who got a Joker… got a raise… and then rolled three ones for damage…
After that they fell into the trap beyond the hall of pillars… found the room with the cahin – while trying to divine what the purpose of said chain was Tanis went bust on his smarts roll and decided it must be the chain the secures the mountain to the ground and keeps it from floating into the sky… I think he successfully convinced a few others of this as well… Pushing on they made their way to the cellar where Sturm decided to yell “helloooo…” to see if it echoed… alerting the draconians in the guardroom beyond of their approach…
In the next session (#14) they fought those draconians…
Looks like the type that melt into pools of acid when they die…
SPLOOSH!
Also in this session they explored the lower realms of the dungeon and discovered the women prisoners and decided to go up and try to rescue the children…
They went up and things were going smoothly enough until Flint decided he’d had enough of this sneaking around business and charged out from his hiding spot and attacked some hobgoblins… around this time Tika, Riverwind, Goldmoon and Raistlin – who had been trying to herd the kids out pas the sleeping dragon, were discovered and trapped in the far back room behind the dragon – Tika and Riverwind were critically injured by the dragon.
Out at the top of the landing Sturm, Tanis and Flint were battling Draconians and Hobgoblins. Tanis and Sturm were also critically injured here and I decided to pull the old “send in overwhelming reinforcements to the bad guys so the PCs are compelled to surrender” trick.
Tanis didn’t want to surrender. I basically had to tell him that if he didn’t Tanis was GOING TO DIE (AND probably everyone else… AND the campaign would be OVER) if he didn’t… so he did…
The Next Session (#15) began with them, having been dragged out into the “courtyard” south of the Thardakan Wall. The women and children were collected up there along with all the men.
Laurana and Tasslehoff – who had been hiding in the cellar in the dungeon had to be convinced to follow the women up as they were herded out by the guards…
Dragonlord Verminarrd gave his “I’ve had it with you” speech and Flamestrike attacked Ember and the two dragons went tumbling off down the mountainside. The shattered PCs attempted to overcome the few guards hanging around them and got their stuff back. (I said the men and women and children overcame the rest of them). The slaves all gathered up all the stuff they could and off they went over the pass and off to the south.
Session #16 (this past Friday) consisted of a few skirmishes with scouts of the pursuing draconians…
We won’t be playing again until 6 April (book club, again…) and by that time hopefully I’ll have sorted out where they’re actually supposed to be going…
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