DestinyBlog

Quick post about my new LARP.  M3 (Mystics, Monsters, and Magic) is a new LARP (Live Action Role Play) starting in Sydney Australia.  Yes, that is correct, Sydney.  I’ll be moving there very soon and hope to get M3 active there.  Take a look, if you have the notion…

http://www.m3larp.com

– Session Recap –

**Tink…Tink..Tink…**
Exiting through the only door available in the room, we found ourselves in a 10ft wide hallway going left and right. We all heard a tink…tink…tink like metal hitting metal (obviously a smithy) and we decided to follow the direction it was coming from, so we chose to go left. We found ahead a 45degree bend in the hallway. As each of the party passed, we had to make a fortitude save. Obvious to our players, this was a trap, but since everyone was making the save, there was no physical effect to make the characters pause until Isthmia passed by. She failed her fortitude save and dropped to 1 hit point as her skin almost appeared to be boiling. A quick heal by Thogar and some of her own brought her back to near full health. This sudden pain caused Isthmia to scream and the party no longer heard the tink…tink…tink…

**Unfinished Amulet**
As we expected, we were not able to continue unchallenged. A little further down the hall, 2 small creatures (what appeared to be gnomes but were more shadow than physical…later known as 2 shadow gnome zombies) appeared out of a side wall. Sometimes battles go quickly and appear rather uneventful. This battle was one of them. The 2 gnome zombies were quickly dispatched. The wall they had appeared from was just an illusion, and there were 2 fiends inside the room. Since these fiends were not immune to critical hits, Avriyael made them into big pin cushions **Note: This was the start of some tremendous d20 rolls for the day**. More specifically, there was a fish-like fiend (The DM may post exactly what these fiends were) that had Acid covering its body. It caused a little damage to the weapons of Thogar and Shawnee, but was quickly dispatched afterwards. Inside the room was a workshop with anvils. Shawnee quickly went to work fixing her sword. The rest of the party searched the room and found a round amulet of some kind in one of the fires. Being fairly resistant to fire, Isthmia reached in and grabbed the amulet. It was obviously unfinished as there was a hole in the middle just begging for something to be put in. We figured this was important so we cooled it down in water and let Thogar hold onto it.

**Energy Shield**
We continued down the hallway only to find it blocked by some type of energy shield. Every once in a while, a white glow would appear in a circular shape towards the center, expand, then disappear. Not sure as to its effects, we ran a few tests with various items. Rocks, pebbles, etc. went right through, but we couldn’t see through and didn’t know what the effect was. We tried a live summoned creature by Vystal, but it was simply sucked through without another word. Thogar decided to try and touch the amulet to the white glow when it appeared. It reflected off with a lightning type effect, bounced up nailed Thogar in the forehead for some minor damage. Obviously, this wasn’t the way to get through, so we decided to backtrack towards our starting point for the day and head down the right side of the hallway. Passing by the same bend in the hallway caused fortitude saves again, but this time Isthmia was ready. She had a protective ward on her giving her a heavy bonus to her next save.

**Graz’zt**
Down the hallway we found a door, and as all good adventurers, decided to open it. Inside we saw a large 7 foot humanoid statue of a man with 6 fingers on each hand. An easy knowledge religion check later, we knew this was a statue of Graz’zt. The religious members of the group felt very uneasy in this room. It was obviously some sort of religious chamber for the 6-fingered cult and it had been recently used (within the last 20 minutes) due to the incense still burning. A quick check over the room revealed a gem semi-hidden between the legs of Graz’zt. This was such an unbelievable trap…Hmmm…gem between the legs of an evil statue??? Well, what else were we going to do. We were fairly positive this was the gem needed to complete the amulet, so Thogar climbed back in to get the gem. As soon as he touched it, the statue came to life and stomped on Thogar. Unlike the last battle, this one was VERY memorable. Everyone joined the battle, but since it was a construct, we weren’t doing too much damage to it. Avriyael was fairing OK with her adamantite arrows, but it was going to take a lot of damage to take this construct down. It was fond of 2 types of attacks. The first was sundering items, which at one point in the battle it did a large amount of damage to Shawnee’s shield. The second attack was spitting blood. This caused whoever was hit by the blood to save vs. some effect (not sure what all possible effects were). Eventually it was Avriyael’s turn to make a Will save, and she failed big time. The DM took me aside and basically explained that I must attack the nearest ally with everything I possibly can and with good tactics while screaming that I hate them/etc. This was a potential death to a character member. If a lower hit point party member were close, I could easily kill them in one round. Luckily, it was Thogar. While screaming at him, Avriyael put 4 arrows into his back causing massive damage. It was close to killing him, but Thogar is a Tank. The next round, the rest of the part was unable to concentrate on the construct and Vystal was forced to move his summoned earth elementals against Avriyael to pin her knowing that she could kill any party member in her next round if left un-checked. They weren’t able to pin her, but at least they were able to force her to use 2 of her 3 attacks to get out of the grapple leaving only one shot left for Thogar. The party was then able to kill the construct on the next round leaving all of the resources available to stop Avriyael. They were finally able to pin her when she went unconscious.

**Isthmia’s Revenge**
There are certain things players will remember for years to come and this session was full of them. Only 10 seconds after Avriyael went unconscious, the party heard a low moaning and shuffling coming from down the hallway. Peaking around the corner, Shar saw a mummy coming down the hallway. He backed off and called out “Mummy!” Vystal moved the 2 elementals away from Avriyael, since she wasn’t moving anyway, an moved down the hall towards the mummy. This wasn’t an ordinary mummy. Later we found out it was a Mummy Lord. It moved past the 2 elementals, both getting an attack of opportunity, but missing. Still in the first 6 seconds of combat, Isthmia moved towards the door, saw the Mummy Lord, and did a greater turning. Not only was it a success, she rolled a natural 20 giving a 37 turn check for her. This was exactly 5 greater than what was needed and automatically destroyed the mummy. That was a shining moment for Isthmia.

**Vystal’s Death**
As we continued down the hallway, we saw a pair of doors (one on each side of the hallway). Opening the first door, we found nothing. Shar then began to open the second when he was paralyzed. 2 pairs of creatures, all of which “appeared” to be undead, got the jump on the party. In their surprise round they were able to cause severe strength damage to Thogar and surround the party. Shar, once free from being paralyzed, found himself quickly ineffective with physical attacks due to the creatures incorporeal forms and lack of magical claws. Before the second half of the party was able to find out how effective they would be, a stone wall appeared in front of them, blocking them from entering the combat. This, and the fact that he heard someone mumbling a spell from down the hallway, led Shar to seek out the spellcaster (drow cleric) and destroy her first. This wasn’t too difficult of a feat for Shar since the cleric had no plans to fight a shadow dragon and therefore was very ineffective in damaging him. Before being completely annihilated by Shar, the cleric plane-shifted out of the plane of shadow. Thogar & Vystal were being slowly sucked to death as 1 of the pairs had latched onto them in a grapple type fashion. Unfortunately, since they were undead, there was no way to get out of the grapple. We would find the means to detach them a little too late. Meanwhile, Avriyael and Shawnee were working frantically at making a whole through the stone wall. After a few more rounds, Shawnee was able to bring down 1/2 the wall which gave an opportunity for Isthmia to turn the creatures. I previously mentioned these creatures appeared to be undead, but as Isthmia found, only 2 of them were. She destroyed one immediately and stunned another. Unfotunately, the creatures that were not undead were the ones sucking on Thogar and Vystal. As players, we knew that missing the creatures attached to Thogar and Vystal would cause a hit against the characters they were attached to. Since we didn’t know how to remove them, we chose to attack. Avriyael decided to attack the creature on Vystal first, since he had the least number of hit points. The hit normally would have hit the creature, but the incorporeal miss-chance missed. This caused a hit on Vystal, but he was still alive. Unsure as to the effect of another arrow towards Vystal, Avriyael decided to make her second attack on the creature sucking on Thogar. This was almost fatal. She rolled a natural 20 and confirmed a critical hit on Thogar (since the incorporeal miss-chance missed). This dropped Thogar to the ground with negative hit points. He was unconscious, but he was atleast alive. Knowing that another arrow would kill Thogar, Avriyael decided to take another shot at Vystal’s creature. Vystal’s player kept saying not to, and I agreed as a player, but Avriyael couldn’t just let these creatures continue to suck the life out of other party members, so she decided to take another shot…This was a mistake. She critted again…but as had happened on the last 2 attacks, she missed the incorporeal miss-chance. We knew this to be a character killing shot. 57 points of damage to Vystal with a single arrow when he only had 32 points remaining…He did not have a 25 constitution, so it was an automatic death. The next round, we found out that a simple healing of the party member the creature was attached to forced the creature to unattach…Unfortunately, this was one round too late. A few rounds later, all of the creatures had been dispatched, but the party mourned the loss of its druid. Deciding that Vystal could be resurrected later, we put his body into one of our bags of holding. A few moments later, we heard the sound of footfalls coming down the hall. Almost ready to attack, we realized soon enough that this creature was living and that Shar was calling to it like a pet. It was a shadow gnome Shar called Kith. We assumed it was some kind of servant. Continuing down the hall, we entered a larger room that contained another part of the energy shield. This time, there was a couple patterns on a raised platform opposite of the shield. In the center of the circular pattern, it appeared to match size and shape of the amulet, so Thogar put the amulet up to it and it fit like a key. This seemed to activate a mechanism for the other pattern which was 3 squares around each other from small to large. A darker light appeared in a position on the outside square in the lower middle position. This was obviously a game we needed to play to continue. We found it to be some sort of inverse 24 position tic-tac-toe. The DM had recently visited a game store in Europe, which he promptly pulled out the actual game board for us to play with. After a few rounds of play, we were able to beat the mechanism which caused the energy shield to slowly fade away.

**Mok-Lorn (sp)**
Once the shield was down, we saw an extremely bright light in the center of a room. Across the room was obviously the other point the party had contacted the shield. Looking around the room revealed 3 things. First, there was a door leading out that was blocked by some black energy shield. Second, we had found the Mok-Lorn. Third, the light in the center was the Star of Elishar. We didn’t know it yet, but I believe everyone knew deep down this was the demon we had been told out in the previous session. This demon was different. It didn’t attack us straight out, but instead chose to back away and attack from afar. It was able to do a dispel on a few of our spells we had in place, such as Death Ward. All of the fighters quickly approached and engaged in the battle. Since Shar’s claws were still not magical, he called for someone to throw him a weapon to use. This was answered by Shawnee throwing a +1 wavy longsword we had found earlier. At least now Shar could do some damage. (we would find out later, Shawnee also had a potion of magic fang that would have helped tremendously) Isthmia quickly ran to the star and picked it up. When she did, she gained some insight into what the demon was and how to defeat it. Though it didn’t help too much, she yelled to the party to use silver weapons…Unfortunately, only Avriyael had silver. And, as many players will attest to, rolling the dice tends to correspond to the mood your character is in. For Avriyael, this applied rather directly. Out of the next 16 arrows she attacked with (which she happened to have 20 available silver arrows), only 2 found their mark, and even then, didn’t do too much damage (This was primarily due to the incorporeal nature of the demon, but there were a couple natural 1 rolls as well). Obviously, killing one party member and seriously maiming another twice caused some internal strive for the character. While Avriyael was horribly missing, and Isthmia attempting to turn the demon multiple times (it required a higher roll than she was capable of), the party was fairing badly as well, but eventually were able to defeat the demon.

**Return to the Prime Material Plane**
After a quick Restoration on Thogar, Shar told us to “leave now” and told his Kith to go with us. Nobody could pass through the black energy shield, so using the Star of Elishar, Isthmia walked through the black energy shield which caused it to be sucked into the Star of Elishar. We hiked a long way up winding stairs and eventually popped out fatigued at the top which happened to be right next to the gate. This was fortunate since we probably wouldn’t last a battle against 100s of shadows. We then saw a huge Shadow dragon diving toward us and make a swooping landing right next to us. It opened a claw near Shawnee, which opened her hand to receive a ring, which had been promised to Vystal and Shawnee upon accepting this task in the first place… We all jumped into the gate and found ourselves falling 50 feet to the desert floor in the Prime Material Plane. A few seconds later, the gate collapsed on itself. At this point, we all realized that Methkarten was standing next to us. What had been a few days for us had only been a few hours for him. He was now dressed in black robes, but a quick detect evil from Thogar confirmed he had not become evil. Remembering the legend lore, Isthmia quickly cast a consecrate on the area. A huge beacon of light came down from the skies and lit the area as the consecrate was completed. It pushed all the shadows away, but only outside of its own light. It soon became a long stretch that moved away from the gate so the party followed. We then noticed that this light was removing the desert and creating a pathway into what was a previously covered temple of some sorts. This was obviously the original temple we had been looking for. Not believing we were quite ready for entering, the majority of the party used a scroll to return back to Avriyael’s keep. Avriyael and Methkarten stayed behind to scout the temple so a future teleport would be easier. Not that this was really necessary because Methkarten is now high enough level to cast greater teleport, he just has to buy it.

**Item Investigation**
With Methkarten back, we decided to analyze a couple of the magic items we had received in the plane of shadows. One of particular interest was an amulet we had found in the remains of the Mok-Lorn. We found out this was a gift to Parisha’s father…Which, we deduced that the Mok-Lorn was probably not wearing just anybody’s amulet and that Parisha must have been this Mok-Lorn’s daughter. So, we are now proudly wearing this amulet to spite Parisha. It may come back to bite us someday, we’ll have to see.

– End of Session –

This week’s recap may feel like something is missing, and there is. Within the past two weeks, the other 1/2 of the party has adventured throughout the weeks with the DM via email. I will leave it up to them, if they feel like it, to post any comments to fill in the gaps.

I am also starting to name sections within the recaps. It will help with reading the posts later.

– Session Recap –

**Shadow War**
While walking to the location of where the shadows converge, suddenly Avriyael and Isthmia are swooped up by some huge invisible claws. With an obvious futility of struggling, we decide to wait and see what happens. With a bend upwards of the claws, we find ourselves on top of a colossal shadow dragon. The immediate thought is, oh shit, but it quickly turns to curiosity when the fact emerges that we aren’t dead. We also find ourselves on the shadow’s back with Vystal and Shawnee. With little more than a brief description, the regrouped members of the party (Avriyael, Isthmia, & Thogar) are told that we must help the shadow dragon’s reclaim an ancestral pyramid from a demon that has taken it over. Apparently the colossal dragons are too big to enter the location needed to reclaim the pyramid so they have requested (this term is used lightly) the help of the party to dispatch the demon. A quick religion check reveals the demon to be one of 12 that were originaly humans from a quiet and peaceful village. For some reason, they cracked and performed evil tortuous rituals on some of the other villagers and were eventually hanged for their crimes. The powers that be in the abyss chose to give them a live back as demons so they could travel from plane to plane wreaking havoc and chaos. At this point, one had chosen the plane of shadow and may be the “power” referenced earlier that is keeping the gate open. So, even though we were forced into helping the shadow dragons, it would lead to the same goal, and apparently the same location. Throughout the next few minutes, we all noticed that we were not with just a single colossal dragon, but rather what appeared to be an army of shadow dragons phasing in and out. A single out of place shadow dragon was flying beside us. It appeared to be a wyrmling. As we would find out, this wyrmling named Shar would accompany us into the pyramid, being the only shadow dragon capable of fitting where we were headed. (Note: Since Methkarten had died, the player would control Shar for the duration of the day). As we neared the pyramid, we noticed an extremely bright light eminating from our destination. This was to be expected since the shadow plane appears as a negative of the prime material plane. Normally, the shadow gate was a void of pitch-black, so therefor in the shadow plane it was a beacon of light. The pyramid there was obviously our destination and was also obviously a beacon to all of the shadows of the plane. This shed light (no pun intended) on why all the shadows were converging here. Suddenly the colossal dragon we were riding, and Shar, took a deep dive straight for the pyramid entrance. At the same time, the shadow dragon army went on the offensive against the enormous lines of shadows. We approached the ground and were stopped by what the DM called a “3g landing” and were quickly shaken off by the dragon. It then turned and started to fend our position off as many shadows (of specific types we were not sure) started to attack. Not wanting to allow ourselves to remain in the middle of a shadow war, we quickly entered the pyramid.

**Within the Pyramid**
As was expected, early down the first corridor within the pyramid we were attacked by 4 greater shadows. They were able to get a single round off before Isthmia and cause some minor attribute damage to a few party members. Then Isthmia pressed forward with a Greater Turning. She was able to stun 2 and destroy another. (non-standard rules are used for turning. Maybe the DM will post some comments on the turning rules we use). Unfortunately, this left her as the obvious target for the 4th. The next round came for the remaining free shadow and Isthmia was its target. Making it through various attacks of opportunity left it still capable to deliver a blow of 6 con damage and cause her to lose concentration on the stunned shadows. It was then quickly dispatched by attacks from the rest of the party, and the 2 no longer stunned shadows were also dispatched quickly after. Knowing they would be fighting this type of creature, Isthmia and Vystal had memorized numerous restorations and lesser restorations. After restoring all of the party’s attribute damage, we continued down the corridor. As we arrived at a 4-way junction, we were led by Shar and Thogar. As the two lead characters entered the junction, a forcecage appeared around them blocking all access into and out of the junction. A smaller demon also appeared within the cage which the combined strength of a shadow dragon and a dwarven paladin dispatched quickly.

**Without the fighters**
Unable to remove Shar and Thogar from the forcecage, the rest of the party decided to find a way around. A huge earth elemental was summoned and was given a quick task of removing rock around the cage so the party could pass by. It was also given the task of using that rock to close up the entrance so no enemies could come in from behind. I didn’t feel like telling them the obvious of “shadows can pass through rock.” So, our party, reduced by 2 decided to procede forward. A bit down the forward corridor we found ourselves in a room with a huge sarcophogous and no exits except the entrance. Avriyael moved close to the door and peaked around to scout for any enemies. Two skeletons were lining the door but they did not appear real. Their bones were calcified in an odd manner. So the party decided to proceed forward. Avriyael and Shawnee moved closer to the sarcophogous and were forced to start making fortitude saves. We thought it was some trap on the sarcophogous. After a few checks, we found ourselves with constitution damage again. We both backed off and then Vystal and Shawnee decided to scout the outside of the room. They started making fortitude checks as well and we soon found out there was a huge 3foot worm hiding behind the sarcophogous. It immediately attacked Vystal and was successful on a bite attack. This caused Vystal to start calcifying, causing 8 points of con drain. Shawnee and Isthmia assumed it was a standard energy drain, and Isthmia decided to cast death ward on Shawnee. Unfortunately that didn’t help since it wasn’t an energy drain. It was a different effect and therefor death ward had no effect. After Avriyael punctured it like a pin-cushion, and a quick fierce battle later, we stood with constitution woulds and an almost dead Vystal. A heal brought Shawnee back up to full and a restoration was required for Vystal. Again, it was a good thing we memorized restoration. With the worm threat gone, the remaining party put all effort into removing the lid from the sarcophogous. In one half, there was a small pile of loot, and in the other half there was a large hole leading down into the darkness. Not wanting to continue down without the fighters, we chose to explore the right and left passage around the force cage first. Both passages, right and left, led down about 150 ft with various alcoves on the side until they each turned 90 degrees. At the bend in each passage, the alcoves continued, but a few feet down, the ceiling turned into a smooth black. A detect magic spell revealed it was transmutation. A few tests with arrows also revealed that anything entering the ceiling didn’t come back. Each passage looked like a trap so the party chose not to go down either remaining passage. After almost giving up and waiting for the forcecage to run its course, the party came upon an idea to remove the forcecage. They summoned another earth elemental and dug out a small trench in the ceiling next to the black ceiling (obviously some ceiling of disintegration). To our luck, and surprise, the ceiling started oozing into the trench. We started to dig a river towards the forcecage, but once the black reached the bend, it dropped and fell 1/2 way to the ground before disappearing. Obviously, the river itself wasn’t going to work, so we had the elemental build a quick bowl out of the surrounding rock (the rock that was containing the black disintegration) and had it catch the ooze in it. Keeping it at a higher level, the elemental moved the bowl full of the black towards the forcecage and dribbled it down the side of the cage. This worked and was able to make a hole big enough for Shar and Thogar to exit.

**Into the Pit**
With the fighters removed from the forcecage, a quick debate rose about resting before continuing. The party chose not to since time seemed critical and decided to go down the hole. Dropping a light stick down the hole for distance, we decided to tie a rope to the lid of the sarcophogous for support and started down the hole. Shar was first, not really needing a rope. When he arrived at the bottom, he saw a small room with one apparent exit and what appeared to be some sort of metal minotaur. The minotaur wasn’t moving, but Shar was still cautious and stood in place. Party members decended. Thogar, Shawnee, & Vystal made it to the bottom, but were still bunched up right at the bottom. Isthmia was on the rope above and needed room to get down so Shawnee moved 5 feet further to the side which caused the Minotaur to spring into action and attack. As we expected, this was a construct of some sorts (Brass golem as we found out later). We knew it had high damage reduction, but our only means of winning was to continue to hit it hard and fast. Avriyael was still on the rope some 150 ft above. Vystal summoned a large earth elemental hoping its strength could help, but it had such trouble hitting in the first place, it was rather ineffective. Getting heavily hit by the construct’s axe of wounding, Shawnee was having troubles continueing in the fight having been hit 4 times, so Isthmia stepped up and cast lesser restoration defensively to heal the con damage. About this same time, Vystal had summoned another earth elemental, but this time it was huge. Unfortunately, the spell requires the amount of space available for the summoning, otherwise the summoned creature gets shunted to the nearest open space. Since this room was too small because of the large elemental already there, this new summoned elemental was shunted into the hole above the room. Realizing that this created a basically useless summons, Vystal ordered the elemental to quickly retrieve Avriyael, still 120+ ft above. 2 rounds later (much quicker than coming down the rope) the elemental dropped Avriyael into the room. After a complete many-shot miss of adamantite arrows, the next round of rapid shot adamantine arrows (and the magic lightning attached to the arrows, which we found slowed the construct) dispatched the construct easily.

**Out of spells**
After the construct, we realized we were in a fairly good location to rest. There was still a quick debate about the urgency needed to continue, but the party realized that a party with casters that have no spells and clerics with no restorations or healings is as good as dead if they continue, so we decided to rest.

– End of Session –

– Session Recap –
After the week of waiting, Lord General Tyronne. Discussions basically lead nowhere, but further researched information lends us a direction the party should follow. Apparently it may not be an evil force that maintains the gate. Normally the gate would have already closed, but some of the Academy’s sages agree that it may be of possible god-like levels. They also agree that in order to close it, whatever is holding it open must come through. After teleporting back to Queenstown, the party notices the beacon (see previous sessions) has been lit. Since Thogar was not with the rest of the party, he had already left for the beacon a day before, but since there was no easy way to get there, a teleport by the rest of the party matched the timing of Thogar to arrive at the beacon. We find that a quetzalcoatl (sp?) has lit the beacon and asks for our help to stop the spread of the shadows from the desert. It also tells us the shadows will overwhelm this world within only a few weeks. Since this was the party’s intention anyway, we agree, but we first decide to find some additional information about the various artifacts we were pursueing. Casting a few legend lores tells us that we need to enter the shadow plane (where the gate is open to) in order to continue our quest. For the first time, the party is actually capable of such a feat and the decision is made to have Isthmia cast Plane Shift to take the party to the shadow plane’s side of the gate. Unfortunately, Plane Shift is not exact and the party ends up over 300 miles away still in the mountains. As is normal in the shadow plane, everything is in greys, but we see something very unusual. There are lines of moving black in the sky, obviously moving towards the gate. Before we can do much, 2 dread wraiths attack, but are dispatched after only a few seconds with minor injuries to the party. Without horses, it is deemed impossible to travel by foot since it would take too much time. It is decided that Methkarten and Avriyael will try teleporting the party to the temple next to the gate. Unfortunately, this ended up in the party being separated. With bad teleport rolls on both sides, and as we will find out later that the temple doesn’t exist in the shadow plane, Methkarten, Vystal, & Shawnee arrive in a “similar” temple and Avriyael, Isthmia, & Thogar arrive about 80 miles away from the gate. Hearing chanting coming form down the hall, Meth scouts around in the temple with a greater invisibility spell on and discovers they are in Parisha’s temple. Parisha, Rhyla, and 2 clerics are performing some ritual. Seeing they are not necessarily prepared for battle, the three of them decide to pro-actively attack Parisha rather than reactive like the party usually is. While the temple battle is commencing, Avriyael and her group simply start to trudge toward the gate. At the battle, Vystal makes great use of huge earth elementals and tries grappling and pinning Rhyla and Parisha. Becuase of a botched dispel magic by one of Parisha’s clerics, Rhyla escapes a pinning but is soon pinned again by another huge earth elemental. The elemental then runs head-long into an acid pit in the center of the temple (common to these evil temples) taking Rhyla with it. Elation is given by the party in thinking that we had finally killed an arch-nemesis, but our celebration was short lived. We found out that creatures in gaseous form are unable to move through or enter liquid. When vampires die, they turn to gaseous form. We thought we had Rhyla, but we forgot vampires can turn into gaseous form at will, so she did and the earth elemental lost track of her in the acid. Thinking not everything was lost, Methkarten caps the acid with ice for 12 rounds in a hope that Rhyla would be dead by that time. It was not long enough. Parisha had left and returned with the relic crossbow they had and in a last effort was able to mind-control Methkarten. She gave him a simple command, teleport, which he did. Where he is, and what his fate is, we do not know, but we assume he will be back to try and kill us as a vampire any session…Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, Rhyla comes popping up out of the acid (damn rings vs. acid) beats up on Vystal and Shawnee a little and then leaves…Adding insult to injury. We were down a wizard and the party was separated. When Vystal and Shawnee exit the temple, they find they are nowhere near the desert, but rather many hundreds of miles north of it. They are far enough away they do not even see the black line of shadows. Fortunately they do know where to go and we hope to meet up as a party again somewhere near the gate.
– End of Session –

Missed a couple of DnD sessions so I’ll just recap them.

- previous/previous session recap -
After spending time in queenstown resting (see previous blog entry), the party decides to follow through with the information the sages gave them. They chose to proceed to the desert where a large gate was being built. The magic from Methkarten’s school gave us quick teleport passage to the desert. We are introduced to a new character Da’ud al’Shidda who has seen the gate and had his tribe slaughtered because of it. He quickly agrees to show us the location. On the trek there, we encounter a nomadic tribe and are greeted fairly and spend a few minutes talking with the head of the tribe in the main tent. Outside screaming is heard. The party heads outside only to find itself face to face with a gargantuan scorpion. After a fairly quick battle, and almost 2 deaths in the party, the scorpion is dispatched. After much thanks for saving the tribe, the head of these nomads tells Avriyael that he has seen a bow with the same symbol as her circlet. Very curious, the party sends a magical message to the bearer of the bow and teleports a few members to talk. During the discussion that ensued, a huge titan (the sultin of the desert) enters into a battle in the distance. The battle is many miles away, but the titan is clearly visible and clearly turns the tide of battle in his favor. Discussions continued with the owner of the bow and it was determined that the party must destroy the source of power for the gate (found to be a “Titan” gate) and return. Then we would barter Avriyaels current bow and some armor made from the scorpion for the new bow. Teleporting back to the party and continuing, with a minor battle with some guards, till we could view the gate, temple, and an encampment of tents in the distance ended the session.
- end session -

- previous session -
Being very impatient, and not waiting for the rest of the party, Methkarten decides to head straight towards the gate/temple. He quickly finds himself stuck in quicksand to his neck. Quick thinking by the party rescues him and Vystal is able to guide the party the rest of the way through the quicksand. Avriyael notices something strange about the the encampment, but isn’t able to pick up exactly what it was (basically the whole thing is a trap, but she rolled too low on her military tactics check to determine that). Approaching the temple entrance revealed a few guards that had to be dealth with. Everything still seemed too easy. We were to find out that was for a reason. Entering the temple cause two dread wraiths to appear. Isthmia figured it would be an easy turning. Unfortunately, a low roll on a turn check caused no problems to the dread wraiths, but seeing her as their biggest threat quickly attacked. Isthmia was no match for two dread wraiths and fell in one round. The rest of the party dispatched the wraiths, but the toll was hard to swallow. Then, without much rest, the party’s arch-nemesis Perisha appears with a few characters by her side. She acts very much like the emperor in Empire Strikes Back “witness this fully operation gate.” We look outside and see what we thought to be a titan gate (more on the thought to be titan in a moment) start to pulsate with dark light and magic. The battle quickly grows sour when a wall of force isolates the fighters inside the temple away from the spell casters outside. With only 1/2 the party in the battle, we thought all was lost. Thogar went down and the battle seemed over when Vystal pulled out a virtual miracle. He summoned a huge earth elemental and grappled Perisha. With only 3hp left, Perisha teleports out of the battle to safety. Just prior to that, the spell casters had all gotten into the temple. We were hoping for a reprieve when the party notices a huge shadowy figure appearing from the gate. This was obviously no titan gate. With little time to spare, and two more dread wraiths appearing, the party teleports back to Avriyaels keep. Licking their wounds, the party discusses their next move. It is determined that research is required to find out what this gate is. We also determine that the “Titan” gate may still exist somewhere else because a previous vision showed the temple to be next to a large lake, but there was no lake to be found near this shadow gate. Time is taken to visit Balance (sp?) to get Isthmia resurrected and to find out more information. Balance would be the first nation to be attacked from the desert if a shadow/undead army appears. Avriyael discusses trade issues with the King, but feels it is not right to tell him about the gate at this moment. She agrees with one of the heads of the training academy that Lord Tyronne (a character from a previous campaign, now Lord General Tyronne of Umbria) is a better person to inform. The head of the academy promises to get a word to Lord Tyronne and hopes he will be at Carth Balance (the capitol) within a week. The head of the academy also urges the party not to discuss the gate with the local clergy (whose head is a man of great power and could disrupt the balance of the government in the region). Avriyael also determines this to be a good course of action and mentions nothing while getting Isthmia resurrected.
- end session -