5-22-2015
Game Setting
Rumors of war has been abuzz in your great city of Blackmoor. The armies from the
City State of the Invincible Overlord are on the march and hammering down all who
oppose them. As recent graduates from your prospective guilds, you knew that each
of you would be soon called into service to defend the city and as old friends you
decided to go on one last hunting trip together into the woods before beginning
your new careers.
On the trip you successfully hunted down boar, deer and scared off a small band
of goblins. You were gone for just one week, yet as you step out of the forest you
can see smoke from the now destroyed great city of Blackmoor. The armies from
the City State of the Invincible Overlord demolished everything, the great castle
Blackmoor, wizard towers, guild halls, barony keeps, and even the walls of the city.
When you arrive home you see your city in rubble, you see large caravans of goods
and wealth being hauled off by the conquering army. The surviving city leaders,
nobility and aristocrats are being lead away in chains heading back to the City
State of the Invincible Overlord to serve as slaves. A new puppet king has been
installed for the city of Blackmoor, Prince Humperdinck, a brown-noser if there
ever was one, he will be the vassal to the Invincible Overlord.
The good people from the once fair city of Blackmoor are now left to sift through
the rubble looking for food and supplies, under the constant watch from the guards
of City State of the Invincible Overlord. Blackmoor is now occupied territory.
There will be many challenges up ahead for the survivors of Blackmoor. Food and
supplies need to be secured, homes and defenses need to be re-build, and entrances
to dungeons and caves that have been hidden for many years are now exposed. Some
of these newly opened entrances were sealed many years ago for good reasons.
Character Generation
Drew – Halfling Rogue
James – Human Ranger
Jeff – Human Barbarian
Lisa – Elf Druid
Rya – Wood-elf Sorcerer
Tim – Mountain Dwarf Cleric
The Guards
The adventurers arrives at Blackmoor during the night and slip past the guards in
the dark of night to enter the ruins of their once great city. They decide to spend
the rest of the night resting in the ruins around a campfire with fellow refugees.
A patrol of guards from the City State of the Invincible Overlord spot them and
approach to ask questions. James behaves hostile and the fight begins! Rya shoots
a frost ray and hits the patrol leader in the throat delaying his call for more
guards. When the fight is over thirteen guards have been killed and the adventurers
decide to take the guard's cloaks to be used as disguises if needed.
Families
The next day the adventurers spend the day looking for family members. The mighty
tree of the wood elf dwelling is burnt to the ground. Tim's family cannot be
found, only Drew's parents and sibling are found.
6-5-2015
Dusty Spiral Stairs
The adventurers find the rubble of the old wizard’s tower. A dusty spiral staircase
leading down into the ground, full of dusty foot prints. The adventurers follow
the steps down 40 feet into the ground to 40’ long hallway. The hallway floor is
dusty like the steps but not disturbed by any feet prints. The hallway walls
are made out of skulls, mostly human but some from other creatures. The many feet
prints in the stairway dust go up and down the stairs do not continue into the hall.
Hall of Chattering Bones
Drew sneaks down the hallway to examine the door at the far end. The door is a solid
piece of carved wood with no handles or key holes and is shaped as an 8 foot demon
face. James and Tim follow Drew in. The door has no way to open so Tim tries to
pry it open using a crowbar. The skulls start to shake and clatter, the demon faced
door changes to a evil smiling face demon. Skull heads fly from the wall and bite
the adventurers. Drew notices that the smiling demon face has a space between it’s
front teeth. The right size for a key hole ands starts to pick the lock. The rest
of the adventurers fight off the flying biting skulls. Lisa goes down with several
biting skulls attached to her butt, Drew opens the door, James picks up Lisa and
starts moving towards the doorway, Tim runs and pushes James still carrying Lisa
though the door and Jeff closes the door.
Room with 4 Doors
The room behind the demon face door has 3 more doors leading out, one a set of double
doors. A few skulls are still attached to people and need to be destroyed so the
adventurers can rest. It is clear poor Lisa is going to carry those bite marks as
scars for life.
Spider Room
After resting the adventurers decide to explore what is behind one of a doors. They
find a room full of cobwebs, the ceiling is covered with cobwebs as thick as blankets.
A flaming crossbow bolt is shot into the thick cobwebs but the webbing is so thick
and full of debris the flame goes out. The adventurers spreads out to explore the
room, the legs of a quivering kobold are seen hanging out of a hole in the webbing
attached to the ceiling. The kobold is pulled down and from another area on the
ceiling a giant spider pokes out from its hidey hole and snags Tim, dragging Tim
up into the webbing. Arrows are shot, daggers thrown but it is Rya shooting magic
missiles at the giant spider is what kills the monster, saving Tim.
Kobold Fight with a Caster
The hallway leading out of the spider room ends in a small room with several barrels
filled with the heavy spider web and a set of double doors at the far end. Drew
approaches the doors to listen what is behind them when someone on the other side
of the door tries to push the door only to bang against Drew’s head. Jeff tugs the
door open and a kobold is standing on the other side. The kobold is quickly killed
and dragged out without any of his fellow kobolds noticing. The adventurers breifly
saw a large room with many kobolds and many tables and barrels filled with the thick
webbing. The kobolds are manufacturing bandages with the webbing, The adventurers
charge in attacking the kobolds. Where there are kobolds there is always a caster,
the kobold caster throws a faerie fire spell on the adventurers to help even out
the battle but that is not enough. The kobolds are slaughtered. Tim spikes the door
shut and the adventurers loot the room and find time to rest.
6-19-2015
The Washing Room
The adventurers peek through the double doors and discover five large tubs, 3 feet
tall and 6 feet in diameter. Each tub has several large tentacles protruding from
the water and several kobolds surrounding each tub. The kobolds are taking the wraps
and giving them to the tentacles. The tentacles take the wraps deep down the well-like
tubs and wash them in the mysterious waters below. When the tentacles are done washing
they give back the wraps to the kobolds.
The adventurers storm the room, the fight is fierce, Jeff rages, James charges all
about the room killing kobolds, Drew is grabbed by a pair of tentacles and briefly
drowned in one of the tubs, he is almost pulled deep down into a nether world of
water and tentacles, the tubs have no bottoms. In the end it was Rya using her cold
ray to freeze the water in the tubs that killed off the tentacles.
The Drying Room
The next room is a long 15 foot wide hallway filled with smoke and braziers dimly
lighting the hallway. Grey faceless men hang wet wraps on clothes lines drying the
wraps. James and Drew decide to try and sneak past the faceless men. The faceless
men ignore the two, James and Drew were more than halfway down the hallway when
they were attacked by shadows hiding in the flickering light of the braziers. Right
away James went down to the shadows terrible cold touch. Jeff charges in to help James and Drew. Rya stays
near the entrance shooting spells at the shadows. Several of the shadows stay and
linger with James unconscious body, feeding off of his strength. Drew defies
rational and stays to protect James, eventually the rest of the adventurers finished
killing the shadows and the faceless grey men. James after being revived is left
traumatized by the attack of the undead shadows.
Shadows Under the Door
James needs to rest to regain his strength. As the adventures rest in the hallway
more shadows slipped under the spiked door. They sneaked up and stretched out from
the walls attacking the adventures. James panics and runs away and hides around
the corner. The shadows know the taste of James soul and hunt him down exclusively,
ignoring the other adventures. Jeff, Dew and Rya rush to James rescue. The shadows
have James pinned into a corner of the room sapping his strength again. He was nearly
dead by the time the fight was over.
7-3-2015
The Baking Room
The next room has three 5 foot wide rows of ground level lava trenches with the
bandages bouncing around back and forth in the bubbling lava. Drew suspects that
he sees a face in the lava. The adventurers decide it is best not to use the winding
path through the room between the rows of lava and start jumping over the lava pits
to get to the door on the other side of the room. Lava creatures reach up out of
the lava pits and attack the jumpers and other lava creatures splash out lava from
the pits and spray the adventurers with the burning lava. The door is soon opened
and everybody goes through.
The Manufacturing Room
The room behind the door is a large room full of self automated manufacturing machines.
The machines are completing the task of creating the magical bandages. At the end
of the assembly line is a large stone carving of a skeletal face, the bandages are
being fed into the mouth of the carving and disappearing. The mouth of the carving
is strangely dark. The automated machines look dangerous and unsafe, so Drew takes
his time and plots the best way through the maze of machines and moving parts. Lisa
blindly walks the other way and is grabbed by the machines and pounded into unconsciousness.
The machines are ready to pull her in and mutilate her. Tim and James run over to
help Lisa. The adventurers fight off a few other smaller machines and make it to
the stone face carving on the far wall. Drew looses his crowbar by discovering that
things that go into the mouth do not come back. Perplexed by where the bandaged
go and now at a dead end of this wing, the group decides to go back to the first
room, the room with 4 doors, and try another door.
Minotaur and Carrion Crawlers
Behind the new door the room looks unused and unfinished. Cave tunnels intertwine
and honey comb out of the room. The adventurers begin to inspect the tunnels and
a large minotaur charges out knocking Jeff across the room, nearly killing him.
After killing the minotaur Drew leads the way to the minotaur's layer and finds
a locked chest. James is with him as Tim, Lisa and Jeff stand guard. A carrion crawler
attacks Tim. Lisa uses her thunder wave to blast the carrion crawler, summing the
second carrion crawler with the thunderous noise. Jeff and James join the fight
and eventually Drew too, but only after he has cleared out the treasure chest of
valuables.
Drew and James Go Missing
Drew decides to scout ahead through the maze of tunnels, he hears metal on metal
clinking noises echoing nearby and returns to the group. A battle plan is formed;
Jeff, James, Tim and Lisa get into position and Drew goes ahead to try and flush
out the enemy. Drew doesn't return. After an uncomfortable few minutes of silence
the group panics and is afraid of what may have happened to Drew. James rushes into
the caves, Tim moves forward cautiously. James doesn't return either. Lisa shape
changes into a dog to to track down the lost boys. Tim follows dog Lisa, Lisa catches
the scent right away and tracks them down to a spot in the cave where she can smell
them below in the ground. Lisa also smells goblins.
7-31-2015
The Goblin Battle
Jeff runs past Tim and Lisa partially opening and clearly revealing the trap door
where Drew and James have fallen through and are stuck on the bottom in a area surrounded
by magical silence. Rya moves into the tunnel and the goblins make the first move
against Jeff. Jeff rages and holds back the goblin horde, other goblins circle back
through the tunnels and attack Tim, Lisa and Rya. Lisa holds the trap door open
and drops a rope for Drew and James to climb out. As they are climbing up Jeff is
tossing live goblins down the pit. Lisa kicks a goblin that is climbing out of the
pit and the goblin grabs her, they both fall into the pit. A Goblin leader uses
a magic wand to silence the battle area confusing the battle orders and stopping
the adventurers from casting spells. At the bottom of the pit Lisa changes form
into a poisonous snake and starts biting goblins. When Lisa runs out of goblins
to bite she climbs up the rope still in her snake form, Rya seeing a deadly poisonous
pit viper climbing out of the hole she hits it. Lisa changes back into her human
form with a new lumpy bruise on her head and a frown on her face. With James and
Drew rescued the rest of the goblins are taken care of and the tunnels are cleared
out.
8-28-2015
The Game Room
The adventurers finally went through the ominous double doors. To their surprise
they entered a large room full of board games. Jeff’s barbarian is most impressed!
Only the elders in his clan know how to play tic-tac-toe, which is the only game
he recognizes. On the far wall is a large mural with writing on it. The writing
is lengthy and in a small print. It describes a complex set of rules that none of
the adventurers truly recognize or understand. Drew discovers an unusual set of
dice and decides to roll them to see what happens. The magical dice trigger the
real game. Jeff, James, Tim, Lisa, Rya and Drew are all transported to a series
of 24 rooms. The floors of these rooms alternate between red and black and all the
walls are yellow. The group must move themselves through the rooms by using backgammon
style movement rules while fighting off orcs that also move backgammon style and
start on the far side of the backgammon board.
The adventurers fought well but unfortunately James was wounded several times by
orcs and eventually is caught alone by yet another orc. His ranger dies. James starts
rolling up a new character, this time a fighter.
The Lich
After moving off the backgammon board the adventurers find themselves in their final
destination room, a room full of the manufactured bandages and more of the faceless
grey men. At the far end of the room appears to be a body on an evil looking alter
all wrapped up in the bandages. The faceless grey men attack by shooting death rays
from their fingertips at the adventurers. After several rounds of combat the wrapped
body stands up on its own and chuckles at the adventurers. The Lich’s laughter fills
the room and terrifies Tim. Next the lich drains the life out of his own servants
and powers himself up using their life force. When the Lich was all powered up he
began to float towards the exit and towards the adventurers. Tim’s cleric cannot
approach the lich and is trapped inside the room. Jeff, Lisa, Rya and Drew run away
through the exit away from the Lich. After a while Tim regains his curage and takes
a bottle of holy water and pours it out onto the evil alter filling the whole area
with a nasty smelling necrotic steam.
9-11-2015
Leaving the Dungeon
Tim continues to spread the holy water over the evil alter not noticing the nasty
necrotic steam rising from the alter. The shrine starts to shake as if an earth
quake hit. Walls tumble down and the exit is blocked, but just then a magical portal
appears above the alter and Tim jumps through not knowing where he will arrive.
Tim appears at the entrance of the dungeon were his friends are waiting. It’s an
awkward moment, Tim feels fine and acts a little giddy about escaping the dungeon
but he does not notice that half his face is missing. The rest of the group politely
remains quiet about his deformation. After an hour of uncomfortable conversation
he finally shown a mirror. Tim wraps his head in the Lich’s own bandages and hides
the bandages with a helmet.
Tim has some bad dreams that night. He sees the Lich in Blackmoor swamp, it is calling
to it’s servants to come and support him in its new found life. Orcs from the wood,
ogres from the mountains and a nasty looking black dragon from the swamp.
It’s Time to Leave the Neighborhood
The adventurers believe the city of Blackmoor is far too dangerous with a lich on
the loose and decide to find merchants who plan on traveling to a dwarven city far
to the west who need protection.
After a week of travel with the merchants a band of orcs raid the camp at night
and put up a good fight killing many merchants, as the fight went late into the
night the outcome is still undetermined.
9-25-2015
Battle with the Orc Raiders
The long battle with the orcs finally ends with the adventurers exhausted and
half of the caravans wagons stolen by orcs. One of the wagons stolen had Doyle's
preserved corpse in it. Tim had been preserving James first character's corpse,
Doyle, through magic.
Everyone is exhausted, the remaining wagons encircled, horses unhitched in hopes
of a quite night.
NO SUCH LUCK!
A band of even more evil creatures now have the scent of fresh blood and plan to
finish off the other half of the merchant caravan and the adventurers.
10-9-2015
Ogres
Later that same night a line of ogres charged the camp like a row of over sized
linebackers. The adventurers had setup the camp by surrounding themselves with the
wagons as barriers. The ogres just rolled the wagons over and came into the camp
clubbing away. Rya blasted ogres with a couple of fireballs, that weakened them.
Unfortunately overturned wagons fell into the camp fire and caught on fire themselves.
Rya used her ray of frost to put out the fires on one of the wagons but still 4
more wagons with all the goods are destroyed. The adventures feel so bad for the
merchants that they hand over the gems that they took from the ogres to help out
with merchant's financial misfortune
From Bad to Worse
Tim tried to sneak off, he wanted to check out how is face was doing alone, but
Drew snuck behind him to see for himself. Tim's face has gone from bad to worse.
Tim had been hiding his face under a helmet wrapped up in the bandages made for
the Lich. Tim's skin on the damaged half of his face was gone and down to bone.
His eye is now replaced by a red burning ember. Drew gasps at the ugly sight and
is discovered by Tim. Tim confides to Drew that he has been having bad dreams where
he can see the Lich and the Lich can see him. The Lich is beckoning for Tim to come
to him and join his forces. Perhaps even worse Tim feels that he may be able to
draw necromantic power from the dark side to strengthen his own, but at what cost?
It is decided that the rest of the Lich's bandages must be destroyed. The group
placed them well away from the camp and set them on fire. As they burned a large
skull shaped cloud form from the smoke and floats high into the sky.
10-23-2015
Trouble with Trolls
The adventurers finally arrive to the Iron Hills, just one day away from the village
of Iron Foot, when Rya hears a crying child in the night. Rya and Drew sneak away
from the camp to investigate what is happening. They discover ruins with large flickering
shadows on the other side of a half crumbled wall and loud boisterous voices abusing
a child. Rya heads back to the camp to tell the group. Drew hears a bellowing voice
say to the child "Get in me belly" and moves ahead to the camp, he is
ambushed by a troll. Drew badly wounded runs back to the camp and drinks a potion
of healing.
When the trolls attack the camp Drew hops on a rock and throws daggers. A troll
runs up to Drew and whacks him like a t-ball, Drew flies though the air and crashes
to the ground unconscious. Trolls are hard to take down and even harder to keep
down. Finally oil and fire are used to burn the trolls. Tim cuts off the trolls
heads and kick them into the dark. One troll escapes.
Young Master Gimli
The adventures chase the retreating troll back to the ruins where goblins jump in
to assist the last troll. After the fight they discover a 9 year old dwarven child,
Gimli.
Tim's bad dreams continue, this time the Lich thanks Tim for sending him such
a nice gift so wonderfully packaged and preserved.
11-6-2015
The Village of Iron Foot
The adventurers finally arrive to the village of Iron Foot, populated mostly by
humans. Dwarvish merchants serve as middle men for trading all goods back and forth
from the dwarvish city on top of the Iron Hills to the village below. The community
is happy to see Gimili returned to his mother. Gimili’s father Gloin has been travelling
a lot lately. This gives the adventurers time to rest and replenish their supplies.
Tim being the only true dwarf is allowed to enter the city up on the hill. Rya uses
a spell to disguise herself as a dwarf and goes along with Tim, the beard was really
itchy to Rya. Jeff plays beast master and charms a squirrel to follow the two and
report back to him what he discovers. Tim is seeking help from the head cleric.
The best that the head cleric can offer Tim is a magical eye patch to cover Tim’s
lost eye that is now a burning ember. This patch is made out of medal and is encrusted
with jewels. When Tim wears the eye patch he can see through it as if it was not
there. Rya believes that the eye patch was once owned by a now forgotten god.
Enough with Rest, Let’s Adventure
The adventurers find city life boring and hear about a band of troublesome lizardmen
who inhabit a nearby lake. The adventures arrive and find a set of ruins near the
lake and make quick battle with the lizardmen. The battle was going great until
a lizardman caster standing on a high pile of rubble hit the group with bolts of
lightening. The caster when pressed into melee disappeared. As Jeff was searching
for the missing lizardman he smashed the side of a ruin wall and revealed a strange
metal door that had been covered by clay and dirt.
11-20-2015
What's Behind Door #1
After the doorway is cleared away the door is seen to be a normal door size but
with rounded corners, it is made out of metal and has a large metal doorknob in
the middle of the door. James searches the door for anything unusual, to everybody's
surprise James vanishes. Tim is the first to investigate and can't figure out
what happened, after a few minutes James teleports back. James had been teleported
into a odd looking room. This room's walls, floor and ceiling are covered with
green and white marble tile of a very good quality. This room has a pair of long
writing desks with metal chairs that are attached to the ground, these chairs could
be spun around but not lifted. The writing tables were covered with writing that
nobody could read, the alphabet used is a bizarre spider web looking font. On the
far wall of this room is another odd looking door just like the other door. James
does not wait and moves through the next door.
Red, Green & Blue Vines
Soon Tim, Jeff, Lisa and Rya follow James through the door. They are at the top
of a spiral staircase. The stairs are made out of an odd blue material in a spider
web design. The material feels like flesh but is hard underneath as if the blue
flesh has iron bones holding it in place. Hesitantly they descend. Near the bottom
of the stairs a pulsating light can be seen shining from a room. The light is not
flickering at regular intervals. Inside the room they find more writing desks and
the only exit from this room is "guarded?" by a 3 foot ball of lightning
that bounces back on forth across the exit at irregular intervals. This room is
not in as good condition as the other room and has red, green and blue vines growing
in and out of the walls. James decides to try and cut a red vine and is zapped by
a strange red energy. James does not hurt the vine. Jeff chooses a blue vine and
is zapped by a similar discharge but blue, again not hurting the vine. A few items
are thrown at the green vine but nothing happens.
James jumps past the ball of lightning and is followed by Jeff. They are attacked
by an ogre zombie and three lizardmen. Rya tries to jump past the ball of lightning
and is zapped, she nearly dies. Lisa casts an entanglement spell to slow down the
approaching zombie then she turns into a rodent and crawls under the lightning ball
to help kill the zombie ogre and the lizardmen. Tim casts a dispel magic and makes
the lightning ball disappear. Tim safely walks through and for a brief moment before
the zombie is killed Tim feels an energetic tingling coming from his magical eye
patch.
11-20-2015
"It looks like bubble gum"
After a long rest the adventurers move down a long hallway, near the end of the
hall is a room with lots of babbling voices, obviously not trying to keep hidden.
The voices are not really talking to one another and seam to be many voices in many
languages. As the adventurers get closer a huge gibbering mouther moves around the
corner. It looks like a 15' pile of bubble gum with mouths and eyes stretching
out of the pink fleshy gum only to be enveloped again by the constantly bubbling
pink flesh. Rya and James stop moving forward as the many voices cause them to be
confused. Tim approaches Rya and Rya looks at him as if she might toss a fireball
at him, Tim moves away from Rya not wanting to provoke her. Drew steps away from
the gibbering mouther and steps into a puddle of pee. James in his confusions has
decided that this is a good time to relieve himself, too bad hobbits don't wear
shoes. Drew feels the effect of the gibbering and decides to add to James's
puddle.
Jeff tosses a flask of flaming oil on the amorphous beast to great effect and soon
everyone else is joining in and tossing oil and fire spells. The gibbering mouther
soon burns up into a sticky black goo of burnt sugar.
Mechanical Spiders
The adventurers move on and find themselves at the entrance of a room with a bizarre
looking fog. The fog cover is only 18 inches off the ground and seems to be confined
to that height. Rya creates a unseen servant to cross the room and touch the door
handle. On the far side of the room is another one of those hatch styled doors with
a large round door handle. When the unseen servant touches the handle Rya looses
contact with the servant. Rya creates another unseen servant and puts a cloak on
it. The cloak is seen to float across the room and when it touches the handle the
cloak disappears. Drew has seen enough and decides to enter to room himself. After
he is halfway across the room he notices that the 18 inches of his legs that he
cannot see is standing on the ceiling, but just the 18 inches of his legs. He sticks
his hand into the fog and his hand is pokes out the ceiling. He bends over and places
his head into the fog. Why has no one ever told him his ass was so big! Next he
squats down all the way into the fog and finds himself on the ceiling and falling
30 feet onto the ground.
This room also has the red, blue and green vines growing out of the open cracks in the walls and ceiling. Mechanical spiders soon crawl out of the cracks on the
ceiling and attack the adventurer's feet that are on the ceiling with the spiders.
It was hard to stab into the fog to hit the spiders on the ceiling. Lisa has
the great idea of using her thorn whip spell to pull the spiders off the ceiling and down onto the ground.
1-1-2016
Conic Menaces
The next room has 6 identical 6 foot wide holes in the floor, evenly distributed
throughout the room. Rya casts a continual light spell on a rock and Drew tosses
it down a hole. From another hole an 8 foot tall metal cone shaped creature pops
up. The creature has a mouth that looks like a combination of a drill bit and a
blender blade furiously spinning. The creature has a pair of rope-like arms also
made out of metal. The creature extends it arms over 30 feet to grab Drew and drag
him into its spinning mouth. Blood sprays everywhere as Drew is getting gutted.
More metal creatures start to pop out of the other holes and attacking the rest
of the group. The best defense against these things is to cut off their rope-like
arms. The battle starts to go poorly for the group because when the creatures lose
their arms they descend back into their hole and reappear with new arms.
Jeff springs into action and grabs a long length of one of the creatures severed
arms and hooks it over one of the powerful blue vines growing out of the ceiling. He
then throws the other end into the mouth of a conic monster. Instantly sparks start
to fly, fuses burn, all six of the creatures randomly and uncontrollably pop up
and down out of their holes, blue smoke steams out of the holes and soon all of
the creatures slowly descend back into their holes never to rise again.
Zombie Beholder
The next room has several 8 foot tall zombie ogres and zombie beholder floating
over an unusual looking 40 foot wide pit. The pit is the mouth of a large and dead
worm. Also in the corner of the room is a large and magically shining yellow treasure
chest.
Drew and Jeff engage the zombie ogres, the zombie beholder shoots Rya with a fear
ray, Tim feels an odd twitching feeling coming from his magical eye patch. He discovers
he can shoot a necrotic destroying ray at the undead. The zombie beholder uses his
disintegration ray several times nearly turning several, names not mentioned, people
to piles of ash. The beholder takes damage from Rya’s fireballs and from missile
weapons used by other group members. The beholder is finally killed outright by
Tim who throws a rock right into the beholder’s central eye. The beholder rolls
down the throat of the giant worm.
1-15-2016
It Rises Again
The mysterious treasure chest is clearly magical because it emits gold colored sparklies.
Everyone backs away as Drew attempts to open it. As soon as Drew touches the chest,
the chest animates and eight mechanical legs unfold out from the bottom of the chest.
A Pair of manacled hands extract out of the side and grabs Drew’s arms. Drew is
caught and the chest walks over to the edge of the hole in preparation to drop him
down the hole. As the rest of the group runs over to help Drew the undead beholder
rises again from the dead worm hole. The undead beholder still has Tim’s rock stuck
in its main eye, and of course it is shooting it’s ray of disintegration again.
Rya takes a full hit from the beholder’s disintegration ray and is nearly turned
into a pile of ash. James unable to reach the beholder provokes it and looses his
shield to the disintegration ray
At the last second as the chest drops Drew down the hole, Drew manages to grab the
chest’s arm and swing himself up on top of the chest. Jeff attacks the chest. The
chest grabs Jeff and dangles him over the edge. Rya shoots a ray of frost at the
chest’s arm causing the chest to drop Jeff down the hole. Jeff can be heard tumbling
and cursing as he rolls down into the interior of the giant worm for the rest of
the battle.
The chest’s next victim is Tim. Tim is grabbed and held over the pit by one of his
ankles. Drew, still riding on the back of the chest crawls forward and ties Tim’s
shoe lace to the arm of the chest. When the chest tries to drop Tim it was soon
discovered that in some small village far away, a tiny old shoe maker succeeded
at his craft roll when creating Tim’s shoe lace. It held him.
Finally James has had enough of standing around and being shot at by the beholder.
He takes a running leap over the pit with both swords drawn. Success! One of his
blades pierces the beholder to the hilt allowing James to strike with his other
blade. The force of the impact moves the beholder spinning backward towards the
edge of the pit. At the last second James pushes off from the beholder, stepping
back onto the ground having killed the beholder with his final blow.
Down the Worm Hole
Rya, Lisa and Drew climb down the hole to find Jeff. The near dead worm’s body starts
to convulse and tries to swallow causing necromantic damage to everyone inside its
body. After climbing out of the worm the group dumps all of its oil, holy water
and fireballs down the worm’s throat destroying the creature.
The group decides to climb back down the worm hole to try and locate the dead beholder
and perhaps more treasure. After 500 feet of climbing the worm’s body ends and the
opening leads to a large underground swamp.
1-29-2016
Yuck it’s Muck
The swamp that the group is standing in is really a large underground room spanning
500 feet across. The back wall has a large 40 foot wide round hole full of swamp
muck that has oozed its way in and covered the floor of the room as far as the eye
can see. The damage to the wall must have happened a long time ago because now the
hole is sealed tight with dried mud and swamp debris. The forward wall is so far
away the group cannot see it through the swamp mist. The walls of this giant room
are made out of the same marvelous marble tile that the rest of the rooms have been
made out of.
The group decides to explore the room by walking in the direction of the unseen
wall. The swamp water is ankle deep and the group slowly trudges through. Jeff steps
on what he thought was just another pile of swamp muck and two very bad smelling
shambling mounds arose from the swamp and attacked him. As the battle raged on Rya’s
finds her spells are almost useless, they resist her fire and cold spells, and even
worse her shocking grasps heals one of the creatures. To make things worse, one
of the creatures absorbs Lisa into its own body. The body of a shambling moundis
made up of pure squishy, stinky swamp muck.
Jeff moves to attack the shambling mound that has Lisa and a third shambling mound
rises out of the swamp stopping Jeff. Just as when things were looking bad they
got worse, the lizardwoman mage reappears and casts a lighting storm spell on all
of the adventures and on the shambling mounds. The lightning heals the shambling
mounds and hurts everyone else in the group. Rya was quick with her wand of silence
by zapping the mage forcing the mage to run around trying to find a non-silenced
area so she could try and cast another lightning storm spell. The lizardwoman mage
never got the chance to cast another spell, Rya was too quick with the wand.
The last shambling mound,with Lisa still enveloped inside, and the lizardwoman mage
failing to beat the group run away. Drew takes chase. Both the lizardwoman and the
shambling mound are in their native environment and move swiftly through the swamp,
Drew is not, he keeps falling further behind but refuses to stop chasing them determined
to retrieve Lisa. After 10 minutes of chasing the terrain changes and the swamp
ends at a rise of solid ground with Lisa’s dead body lying there still covered in
pond scum and dead leaves.
Drew returns with Lisa’s body and Tim is overwhelmed with grieve and calls upon
the dark lord that has been plaguing his dreams, pleading for help.
Tim is answered.
2-12-2016
The Eyes Have It
Lisa is “rezzed?” but now is sporting a new white streak through her hair. Rya notices
that Lisa, a druid, has always been a vegetarian, but now seems to have quite a
fond appetite for meat. Most of it quite under cooked for Rya’s taste.
Tired and badly in need of rest the group napped as James feeling quite refreshed,
stood watch. James spent most of his time looking into the swamp mist towards the
direction of the unseen wall far ahead. 3 young beholders approached from behind.
Another 3 approached from the front as James ran around the camp waking everyone
up. Tim was in a deep sleep, or was it something more sinister? He could not be
awakened until the battle was well along the way. Before the battle was done a mixture
of 18 gas spores and young beholder were slain. The gas spores popped as soon as
they were hit and created large gaseous bursts that filled the area with white and
yellow powdery gas. Lisa inhaled several gasping breaths of the white and yellow
powder before the battle ended.
After the battle the group moved on from their camp site that was covered in the
white and yellow powder. Further ahead a sick lizardman is found lying on his back
with his belly swollen to an unnaturally large size. When poked the lizardman’s
stomach pops open and a cloud of marble sized beholders float out and were quickly
burnt, mid-air by Rya.
A little further away Jeff, James, Tim, Lisa and Rya discover the remains of a ruined
wall. From the other side of the wall a large crowd of hissing and screeching is
heard.
2-26-2016
The Dominatrix
Tim quickly climbed up and stood on top of the wall. He saw a large host of lizardmen
standing around in small groups arguing with one another. Somehow, magically, they
did not see him standing on top of the wall. Tim managed to slip down and circle
back behind the wall and joined the rest of the adventurers. The lizardmen seemed
disorganized and agitated towards each other. On the opposite side of the lizardmen
is a marble wall with one of the special metal doors that has a large doorknob in
the middle of the door. It was decided that a battle plan had to be made, hopefully
one that would encourage the lizardmen to start fighting amongst themselves
Rya used a Dominate spell from a scroll and took full control of a stray lizardman.
While Rya was reading through the lizardman’s brain, Rya discovered that the lizardman’s
brain is not his own. His brain is in another lizardman’s body and the poor confused
lizardman was standing there and watching his own body being controlled by another
lizardman’s brain. This was too much for the adventurers. They decided to pull back
and wait for the lizardmen sort things out on their own.
A Who’s Who’s puzzle
After a long while the group decided to check on the lizardmen. They were all gone.
The group fanned out checking for any signs of the lizardmen. Rya decided to go
through the door. She found herself at the top of a large cliff with a half hazard
looking scaffolding descending into a dense jungle fog below. A few minutes later
Drew came through and also looked over the cliff’s edge with Rya. Then Tim, Lisa,
Jeff, and James all used the door in rapid succession. Tim’s mind was moved into
Jeff’s body, Jeff’s mind was moved into Lisa’s body, Lisa’s mind was moved into
James’ body and James’ mind was moved into Tim’s body. A real scrambled mess. It
took several tries and some imaginative choices of who should go through the door
at the same time but eventually they all arrived on the cliff side of the door in
their right minds.
3-25-2016
Donkey Kong Country
The scaffolding was clearly in disrepair. Too many people on one section of the
platform would obviously send it teetering. It was decided that the group should
split up and clime down different sections as to not put too much weight in one
area. On the way down Drew was the first to be attacked by the monkeys with really
big craniums. The monkeys where sue-me monkeys and they attacked with psionic blasts.
Soon monkeys were everywhere attacking all the members of the group. Lisa turned
into a squirrel, jumping and climbing safely down the scaffolding, the monkeys did
not recognize her as being a threat. Drew scrambled down easily enough but was faced
with way too many monkeys to continue on ahead and alone. James jumped down two
platforms at a time to successfully ambush a monkey. James’ tactic worked so good
he did it a second time. On his third jumping attempt he missed the platform by
a mile and fell the rest of the way into the jungle mist far far below, never to
be heard from again. At least not until the battle was over.
Jeff and Tim, two of the heaviest characters ended up on the same section of a platform
sending it teetering and nearly buckling. Both Jeff and Tim managed to hold on and
not tumble down like James but this section of the platform was now at an unusable
angle. A giant gorilla stepped out of its cave about 60 feet away from the scaffolding
and started throwing exploding barrels at the group, mostly Rya. Rya and the giant
gorilla exchanged barrels for fireballs, Tim was continuously healing Rya but not
fast enough. Rya was beaten down and stayed down pretended to be dead for a few
rounds. Rya threw every spell she had and then at last her sorcerer’s wild magic
kicked in for a round of magic missiles that finished off the giant gorilla.
Drew quickly climbed further down and slipped past the sue-me monkeys and jumped
the last 10 feet to the ground. His plan was to help James who never returned. Drew
“fell” through the mist for a long time and then found himself in a strange room
with James.
The battle raged on and eventually Lisa, Tim, Jeff and Rya killed the rest of the
sue-me monkeys. They then climbed the rest of the way down and found themselves
in the strange room with James and Drew.
The Strange Room
The strange room is a large domed room made out of grey stone blocks with no windows
and only one exit, an arched doorway. Nothing can be seeing through the doorway
because of a continuous flow of mist blocking the exit.
Also in the room is a magical fountain spraying water that was ever changing color.
The fountain sprayed like a drinking fountain and made drinking the water very tempting.
Two of the escaped lizardmen are also in the room, dead by bizarre means. One is
bloated like a balloon and the other is now covered with feathers. Rya recognizes
the water to be pure wild magic in its liquid state. This scares everyone so much
they decide to go through the doorway without testing the water. Rya is the only
one who is bold enough to drink. She feels good, very good, +4000 EXP, and merrily
follows the cowards through the exit..
4-22-2016
Tall Dark and Silent Type
Rya joined the rest of the group by stepping through the magical exit and appeared
outside with the rest of the group. Everyone was standing next to the first odd
looking metal door with rounded corners and a large metal door knob in the middle.
Outside waiting for the group is a tall dark hooded stranger sitting on a terribly
worn out horse. The black horse looked bloodied and badly cared for. Tim thinks
is may already be dead. The stranger tells the group that their master has called
them to join him on a rescue mission. A fellow minion needs to be released. The
fellow minion has been behind bars for ages and now it is time for him to be released.
Tim agrees right away, nobody else is so certain.
The stranger leads the group west keeping a large distance between them and the
village of Iron Foot. After a few days of travelling west they come to the edge
of a forest and follow the forest north. After a few more days of travelling north
they come to a road leading out of the forest and ending at a large lake. Next the
stranger leads the group into the forest along the road. Drew thinks it is odd how
quiet their travels have been since they started following the stranger but then
realized it must just be a ridiculous feeling of paranoia.
Elven Ambush
Several days into the forest Wood Elves ambush the group along the road. Two elves
spring down on bungee cords from the trees above. Four spearmen elves block the
road ahead and another 4 block the road back. Additionally 4 more elven archers
stand behind the spearmen both in front of the group and behind the group.
Lisa casts a wall of wind spell blocking the archer’s arrows from the front. Two
more elves swing down, Tarzan style, not knowing about the wall of wind blocking
their path. They both swing into the wall twice, once going in and a second time
exiting. They don’t survive the wall. Jeff charges a group of archers. James tries
to engage a different group of archers but this group keeps backing up shooting
him with arrows. As the battle raged on James finally went down looking like a sad
and beaten porcupine. Rya fire balls several groups of elves, some turned out to
be only illusionary. Tim heals until he has no healing left and Lisa has to take
over being she is the secondary healer.
During the battle the tall dark stranger rode off into the woods and came back with
a handful of elven heads all swinging by their long blond hair.
5-4-2016
Travels through the Woods
After the battle against the wood elves, jeers could be heard from the surviving
wood elves for miles as the group walked away. “Elf Murders!”, “We will seek revenge!”
the two most common taunts yelled.
After a few more days of travel a giant spider is seen dangling from its web, hanging
directly over the road. The dark stranger rode up and had some type of conversation
with it. Perhaps with a smile, his face always covered by his hooded cloak, the
dark stranger informs the group that there is a cave nearby with magical treasure
and an important magical crowbar that will be needed to rescue the master’s minion
from his cell. The spider climbs back up into the trees its task completed.
After following a small animal trail the path becomes more defined and a cave entrance
is sighted. The entrance has a dressed stone archway over it and a large red gem
embedded in the cap stone. A red force field prohibits the dark stranger from entering.
As he curses he tells Drew that it will be his quest to go in and gather the magical
crowbar.
Into the Cave
Inside the cave, the cave has been cut and dressed with proper stone slabs. The
entrance leads to a 4 way intersection. One direction has a large pile of rocks
that nearly reaches the ceiling. There is just enough room between the rock pile
and the ceiling for a person to climb over the pile. Drew climbs over and sees a
hallway of black and white checked tile with a large pit at the foot of the pile
of rocks. He ties a rope to a large rock and climbs down the rock pile and then
jumps over the pit and lands on a trap door that springs opens to a second pit.
Fortunately Drew is holding onto his rope and does not fall in the second pit. Jeff,
James, Tim, Lisa and Rya climb over the rocks, uses Drew’s rope to climb over the
pit. then they hug the wall to side step slowly around the trap door.
Around the corner is a large room full of pillars and picttures.
At the far end of the room
is an alter with two burning candles. Jeff and James try to approach the alter and
invisible giants whack them, tossing them back to the entrance of the room.
Drew
manages to get all the way to the alter and tries to snuff out the candles. They
are hard to douse but when he does succeed he is in an alternate plane of existence.
Light is dark and dark is light, Drew also finds some magical loot on the extra-dimensional
alter. Lisa catches the invisible giants with farie fire spells and can now everyone
can see where the giants are and start to really fight them. Rya is afraid to use
any fire ball spells because she does not know where Drew is. The last time she saw him
was up at the alter.
The group finishes off the fight with the invisible giants. Drew relights the candles
by using darkness and returns to his real plane of existence.
6-3-2016
The Donut Machine
The group climbed back over the pile of rocks and continued down the hallway and
found a bizarre workshop room with a large metal machine with lots of dials and
knobs. Drew and Jeff both inspected the machine and were certain that the machine
would make donuts for them. Drew the hobbit couldn’t be happier, he started adjusting
the dials and knobs right away. First the room dimmed, then the machine lit up and
the dials begin to spin on their own. A paper receipt came out, then a second paper
receipt, after that a shredded receipt came out and everyone decided that the machine
was broken and left it alone.
Many Doors – Many Volts
Far down another hallway the group found a barred door. Drew took a long time examining
the door and decided it was a magical trap. Tim tossed a dispel magic spell and
the door open on its own without electrocuting anyone. In fact a series of 4 identical
dispelled doors were opened from just the one spell Tim cast. Unfortunately there
were still more doors to open, Jeff and James took turns opening other doors and
getting shocked until Lisa stepped up to the plate and summoned and unseen servant
to open the next door. The unseen servant was immediately fried when the door
was opened but Lisa has many duplicate servants to call upon. I hope Lisa has no
plans on visiting the Plane of Air anytime soon.
After the last door was opened
the group entered a room with a large floating red gem surrounded by a blue light.
One by one each person stuck their hand into the gem and was rewarded with a magic
item.
The Painting Room
In the last room the group entered there was a painting of the very same room they
were standing in. The painting only differed from the room in that it had treasure
and the room had none.
Tim noticed that a rosette was missing from the pattern on
the painting’s frame. He touched the missing rosette and entered into the painting
with the treasure. Soon the rest of the group followed. More magic items were found
and at last the magical crowbar was located. The adventurers escaped the extra-dimensional
painting by crawling through a hole in the wall that was a one-way trip back into
the real world.
6-17-2016
Not so Helping Hands
The group followed the dark stranger for another week following the road through
the woods until the road was blocked by the Black River. Jeff thinks he may have
heard about a rumored Black River in a far away land. The water was dark sluggish
and undrinkable. The foraged food tasted bad and all the hunted game tasted as if
it was tainted by the foul waters of the river. After following the river upstream
for a week the waters widened into a swamp. 300 yards through the swamp stood a
rise of rock leading up a side of a cliff.
Walking through the swamp and leading the way, the dark stranger was the first to
be attacked. A giant zombie looking hand reached up through the water and grabbed
the dark stranger. Before being pulled down under the water the dark stranger cried
out. “ALL THAT IS EVIL DOES NOT SERVE MY MASTER!” The quote triggered an old memory
in James of being a little boy and watching a puppet play. One of the puppets used
the same quote.
Drew was ready to run away and abandon the dark stranger to the swamp but then more
undead hands reached up and soon Jeff, Rya and James were pulled underwater. Rya
altered shape and grew gills so she would not drown. Lisa used her Thorn Whip spell
to pull James out from the clutches of the giant swamp hand. Jeff had to hack his
own way out. After a long time the dark stranger came back up with the giant hand
now severed from the giant arm it was attached to. The hand was now stuck on the
tip of a spear and held up over his shoulder like a banner.
Holy Celestial Being
The group made their way to the shore and needed a rest. The dark stranger insisted
they move on. Their destination was only one hour away. Drew knew the dark stranger was trouble waiting to happen and could not believe that he followed the dark stranger for as long as he had. That’s when Drew plotted
a plan. After 10 minutes of climbing a narrow path winding up a cliff and riding
on Jeff’s shoulders, Drew used a scroll and summoned a large celestial being to
block the path. The celestial being was elf-like in appearance and had long blond
flowing hair and equipped with a large magical sword.
The dark stranger seeing the new threat finally threw back his dark hood that has
been hiding his face for months. It was DOYLE, James dead brother. Chaos soon spread
throughout the group and sides were chosen.
Doyle and the celestial started fighting being natural enemies.
James attacked the kind-of-dead Doyle. Doyle would not like being dead anyways.
Tim threw a fear spell at Jeff. Jeff ran in fear with Drew still riding on Jeff’s
shoulders.
Rya and Lisa both stood still, stunned at the chaos, and wishing they were someplace
else.
7-29-2016
The Cinematic Ending
Lisa is the first to react. Lisa places herself between the mountain wall and Tim
with her back to the mountain she casts a Thunderwave spell pushing Tim off of the
cliff to what would be a very long and deadly fall, except Tim as he is falling
uses his magical cape to dimension door back up onto the narrow mountain path and
behind the celestial being.
Drew performs a beautiful back flip off of Jeff’s shoulders and runs back to fight
Tim.
Jeff continues to run down the path and around a bend. Then the strong
magical effects of being pulled into the waters of the Black River take effect and
he drops to the ground in a deep magical sleep.
Doyle after exchanging blows with both the celestial being and James pleads with
his brother James for mercy and extends his arms out in a hug. James just can’t
resist. With the brothers in a strong embrace Doyle leaps off of the cliff taking
James with him.
Rya casts a Reverse Gravity spell and changes their downward fall to an upward fall for both Doyle and James. On the way down
James, like Jeff sucumbs to the strong magical effects of the Black River waters and falls asleep. Seeing James is asleep Doyle releases James. While falling back up
and into the sky Rya uses her magical Tentacle Rod and snatches James out of the
air and pulls him out of the spell’s effect, allowing Doyle to continue to fall
up much further before falling down again and to the bottom of the cliff. Next Rya
also starts to get sleepy. Rya’s transformation and using gills to survive the waters
of the Black River slowed down the magical effect of the poisonous waters but nothing
can resist this sleep.
Lisa continues to attack Tim by using a Call Lightning spell, thus truly betraying
the dark master that reanimated her into life per Tim’s request. As Tim falls in
battle, Lisa’s body quickly shrivels up and mummifies.
The celestial being grabs Tim’s body and returns to its own plane of existence with
Tim.
Epilogue
Jeff, Rya and James sleep for 3 days. Drew watches over them and takes care of them
while they sleep. When the three awake they have amnesia and the last thing that
they can remember is leaving the city of Blackmoor.
Drew decides the best option that the group has is to try and return to the village
of Iron Foot. With out a guide to get them through the woods they soon become lost
only to be found by the wood elves. This time the wood elves came prepared and captured
the four. The king of the wood elves, Thranduil, is furious that the Jeff, Rya and
James refuse to admit their part in the attack against his kinsmen, even if they don’t remember
it happening, the king throws all four into his prison cells even if they be
willing to wait 100 years until they tell the truth.