Key Our Cars

We join our heroes in mid conversation at the Temple of Eris, it’s the same day they were dropped off in from the airship and left to hike into town, the crew not wishing the airship to be known yet.  Biminey, Dash and assorted persons, primarily Visra’s old retinue, now Biminey’s crew are sailing above the clouds eating dates and figs and the like.

Elisssa has decided to retire for awhile from the adventuring life [Laura wanted to try something else]. The reason that I made up for this was a fairly obvious one, the group (characters) keeps getting on Elisssa’s case about killing the hill giant, not being able to pitch a tent or sail a boat.  For a dragonborn such insults and snide comments are hard to take.  Them not letting her kill the captured slavers was the final straw and furious with the group she stalks off to see her friends and family as soon as they enter Larkson.  She takes with her a couple thousand in gold and Krag’s Axe and Bracers and some assorted trinkets and souvenirs.

Later discourse over the course of the session might reveal that Elisssa may come back as the floating crew of available NPC’s for use by players (Torn, Dash, Sushanna, Kane)

The action starts immediately with the first of three encounters for the night.  Screams are heard echoing through the temple and grabbing their arms the group rushes to see what’s going on.  T’Balktu, Torel, Visra and Stak are joined along the way by a visiting Cleric of Kord from Anvil here to do research at the temple by the name of Spar.  [Played by Biminey's owner Temple]

THe five of them find the room that contains the temple’s main ritual circle filled with a vortex of energies.  People located in the room are being sucked into the vortex and being… reformed as something else.  As the energies die away the group catches a glimpse of Liloth and Phy’el Fleshwalker through a rent in space causing the effects.

An abomination of flesh, humanoid, composed of merged persons in the room roars out a challenge.  It’s back bursts and hunks of flesh drop free to create little humanoid creatures dripping flaming slime. The monkeys immediately start flinging their slime around the room and where the gobs hit, invisible before now runes flare and burn out, a few seconds later the bricks blow outwards in blasts of energies and shrapnel.

The group attacks of course, taking down the big creature and then mopping up the smaller ones but not before they cut a wide swatch through the walls, floor and celing of the room destroying  large sections of the bricks and subsequently the wardings inlaid upon them.

As they stop and catch their breath they hear more screams, deducing (correctly) that this was a diversion while another attack was going on.  They rush through the temple to find the forbidden archives under attack by rats.  A section of the floor has fallen away down into the sewers that run under the town and rats are streaming in, each grabbing a scroll or parchement or tome to flee down the hole with it.

They follow, smashing rats as they go.  In the dank large sewers they run into Krag’s animus which has formed a temporary body out of rats along with other rat swarms.  Due to their positioning Krag has to reveal early on that he can absorb the rat swarms to recover his mass (i.e. recover health) and the group destroys the swarms before working on Krag.  (this made the encounter easier on the group by a considerable amount thanks to their smart thinking).

As the mass of rats that is Krag collapses to stream away a red mist shoots off down the sewers. (Krag’s animus).

They follow the animus (and trail of parchment fragments) to Krag’s lair where he’s been feeding the blood of those he’s slain through one of Liloth’s warps.  A large chamber has been damned up at the doorway forming a pool of blood like liquid several inches deep.   The room is filled with rats each holding a parchment.  Right now the rats are being lifted through the portal bearing the parchments. They turn on the group as Torel and Spar both try to bless the portal to destroy it.  (A whole hella lot of very low rolls).

Eventually the group gets the warp closed and triggers a trap laid into the room turning the blood into a blood elemental.  It’s not designed to be able to stand up against a full group but is aimed to destroy single intruders and the group makes short work of it.

Spar had the idea during the fight to break the dam holding in the blood and if they’d of done that before the fight they could have destroyed the warp and prevented the elemental from spawning but hind sight and all that.

They recovered a bracer and axe that Krag’s been slowly enchanting to replace his lost axe and bracer.  He’s a very good enchanter, at odds with his brutal nature but has a knack for things that deal with blood.  It’s just hard to enchant things when you’re a ghost.   The bracers are similar to Iron Armbands of Power but require a healing surge to activate, after activated they boost edged weapons damage by 2 for the rest of the encounter.   The axe gives its wielder a Immediate Reaction ability that grants them a basic melee attack with the axe when an adjacent target is bloodied for the first time and it deals an extra +2 damage when the wielder is bloodied.

The group retreats from the chamber and heads back to the temple.  They rest and recover and then work on plans.  They talk to the captain of the watch and Garon of the council.  Garon is floundering.  He’s out of his league with the things that are going on and doesn’t know which way to stumble much less lead.  People have been leaving the city out of fear, this is obviously a bad thing for the city’s protection and the party points it out and want him to lock the city down.  He’s reluctant to do that, he doesn’t want to be the ‘bad guy’ or institute the martial law that this requires.  Larkson has always been a free city and preventing the poeple from leaving strikes him too much like slavery, an act that really runs against his core values especially after having lost his children to slavers.  He’s also loath to go against the agreement with the Watch in terms of disbursement of the mercenaries.

He asks Torel and Stak to hire on advisors, a task they reluctantly agree to consider.   The group considers their actions and decide to send a fetch out to Biminey asking him to meet them early.

They purchase a longboat and row out to sea, successfully navigating to their general meeting area.  They discuss things with Biminey and the others.

Biminey asks them to ask Sushanna to come visit him for multiple reasons, the primary one he wants to teach her the ways of the artificer so that she can at times take control of the airship allowing him freedom to leave the ship.

After discussion they’re going to try and lead a band of mercenaries out of the town to gather information on the hobgoblins who are taking small villages and farmsteads captive as a threat for the town to give them some book, a book they believe holds power over the creatures loosed from Darkmith.

We end our session there.

Image Credits

Thought I’d share, this is going to be the opening battle scene tonight which will happen as an opener for the evening.  Some fairly nasty little critters I have planned for this one which should make for a pretty mobile battle.

The party will be dining in the Temple of Eris when they’ll hear the ubiquitous screams in the distance.  Assuming they don’t ignore it and let’s face it they’re heroes and screams are what they dream of, they’ll come down the passage way to the left to behold a swirling vortex of energies pulling priests of Eris into it where they’re swiftly ‘disassembled’ and reshaped into a hulking monstrosity of an abomination comprised of multiple priests and priestesses.  Uh, ew.

It’s body will ripple and bulge and moments after it shapes it’s hunchback will burst forth and small mounds of flesh will fall out to the floor shaping into small monkey like creatures with arms like an octopus although instead of suckers it has small teeth lined ovals that open and close constantly while a thick slime oozes from them dropping away to the floor where it flares up into flame.

All in all that should be enough to bring the drool to any adventurer and a scream of terror from any bystander.

Episode 10, part 3 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

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Episode 10, part 2 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode 10, part 1 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Interlude – An unknown island in an unknown sea…

“I strongly protest your decision Lord Kotar!” the slaver mage said, indignation and fury apparent in his voice.

“Do you really Bokka?  You think we should continue to lose resources to these people?  We have the ship, I’ve sent teams inland after suitable… resources to let us recover its functionality and hopefully build more of them.  I don’t see any purpose in paying any more attention to them.  Lady Sethra has warned against our involvement in their activities any longer as it could prove… costly.”

“So we let them get away with what they’ve done?  I’ve given you the report that they killed most of our people in Larkson and caused our contact with the bandits and the tribes to disappear.  We don’t know what’s become of him, only that he wasn’t in the warehouse.  And what about my brother?  You’ve read the report, these people killed him and destroyed his ship.”

“Your scheme to take over that city doesn’t sit well with most of the Nine Bokka.  We don’t belong inland, we belong on the seas. And I really don’t care about your brother, he ruined more cargo than any other captain I’ve known. If you have an razor to hone for them, you do it on your time but I am not spending more men or gold to go after them.”

Bokka, a thin ascetic man of average height, swore softly and his hand slid toward the blade sheathed at his side, the green glowing gem in the pommel pulsing in time with his heartbeat.  The stocky figure in robes on the ornate large chair arched an eyebrow at the motion. 

“Really Bokka?” Lord Kotar’s voice held traces of amusement.  The shadowy figures swirling around the room fluttered close in anticipation, hunger apparent in their motions.

The room was a frozen tabluea for a long moment then Bokka’s shoulders slumped “I obey your wishes in all things Lord.” he said through gritted teeth, hands disappearing into the sleeves of his robes, away from his soulblade.

“Then please return to Safe Harbor and guard the airship for me.  I would be very… perturbed were anything to happen to it.  Send a fetch when the teams arrive with the artificers and keep me updated on their research.”

“Aye m’lord.”

“And Bokka, if anything happens to that ship, you’ll be a long time dying.”

“Aye m’lord.”

Bokka fled the room, one of the shadows silently closing the door behind him.  From behind an ornate tapestry a beautiful woman stepped, hair the color of night and skin so pale veins formed a pale blue web under it.

“Love, you should deal with that one now.  I’ve read the strands of the weave and in very few of them does he not covet your position.”

Kotar reached out and gently grasped the woman’s hand and pulled her close.  “And in all those possible strands does he ever succeed dear?”

Sethra’s mouth twitched in a slight smile, “Only in a very very few of them does he manage to take your place love.  I believe the phrase, ‘pigs are flying’ is appropriate for him.”

“As I thought, he is weak, tied to petty feuds, born of a weak strain.  I think before long the line of Jothan should be erased.  Only which of the minor captains to replace him?  Such a quandary…”

“What of the ‘heroes’ love?  In many strands, they oppose you and their fates are entwined in your downfall in many more.” she asked, running her head over his face, using her fingers to ’see’ him as the dark sockets where her eyes had once been looked into the distance.

“We shall wait and see. They’ve lost one already to mischance.  I think we shall simply wait and see what else chance brings to them.  Send a fetch to Robear in Larkson, have him work on our contact there, I need a schism opened so we can operate more freely.”

“As you ask so shall it be love.”

Image Credits

Episode 9, part 3 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.  The slaver tower is taken after good planning.

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Episode 9, part 2 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session. The group wanders around the city, gathering clues and information and departs to the slavers island.

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Episode 9, part 1 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session. The group fights giant worms.

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[DM: I want to point out that I rolled like utter [bleep] this session.  My miss ratio was pretty far on the wrong side of the standard deviation on a d20. I only had one natural 20, on T’Balktu of course, and a bunch of 1’s, 2’s, 3’s. ]

The tower taken from the forces defending it our band of heroes takes stock of the situation.  And the phat lewt.  They recover a magic staff, set of robes, some fire arrows and bolts, a couple of healing potions, a stack of what they’ll eventually discover are alchemical bombs and a set of signal flares.

Based on Keri’s notes they know the cave trolls are sent around the island around dawn to help with the construction efforts.  This gives them about 6 hours before then so leaving Biminey to begun work on repairing and re-tuning the airship.  A couple of hours into it he realizes he’s going to have to replace the broken boards of the ship before it’ll be flyable again.

He wakes the others and gives them the bad news.  They decide to go back to sleep and deal with it later.  Biminey joins them in sleeping leaving Torn, Kane and Dash on watch.  Hirelings work well for that.

As the sun peeks up Torel and Stak go look at the avenues of approach to the tower.  On the far side of the chasm separating the tower side from the rest of the island is a extending bridge.  They crank it over and investigate the far side. A couple of smaller buildings are under construction on that side.  Torel preps the area by liberally splashing gallons of oil in the places where attackers might take cover.   
A couple of hours after dawn, the compound forces start wondering where the cave trolls are and send a couple of sailors up to find out what’s going on.  They holler and hullabaloo for awhile but the good guys don’t respond.  One of the sailors twists a rod like the ones that are in the tower and a flare of light flies way up in the air, sparking and sputtering, visible for miles in all directions and then head back to the compound at a jog.

[DM's Comments: I'd planned out a number of scenarios, even had maps ready but the group's actions as happens quite frequently took a turn that I hadn't planned.  Their scheme for the lumber was sneaky and scheming and my possible scenario's didn't quite get that sneaky on their behalf.  I'd envisioned them possibly ambushing the first people up to see what was going on by either setting up in the partially built houses on the far side of the bridge or leaving the bridge down and luring them over to the tower.  But it just really proves yet again one person will never be able to accurately predict what other people will do, 100% of the time no matter how long they've known them.]

Now that the bad guys know something is up, although not what, the group decides to hunker down and prepare to repel an attack trying to come across the chasm and wait in vain for rest of the day with nothing happening although they do spot a sneaky person scouting them out.

[Torel rolled a natural 20 on a perception check or they'd of not spotted him.  After the slavers knew something was up they sent up an assassin who wisely decided not to try anything during the day.  The slavers are expecting another ship of reinforcements which would include at least an overmage if not another ubermage. They also have some high level captives that they've been lead to believe will be highly ransomable. The captives lied by the way to gain time, there's no one left to ransom them.  Hence they're not going to try to frontal attack a tower that they have to try to cross a 25' gap with a 50' fall into jagged rocks.  They're going to wait for nightfall and sneak across under the cover of darkness.]

As the day continues to wind down the group decides to send Stak and Dash, both fairly sneaky bastards over to scout the compound.  They know from Keri’s notes that there is a building under construction over there which should mean there’s lumber.  The two are supposed to try and steal the lumber.  And rather than going around the island they cut across the harbor, using a small cask to carry their gear and to rest with on the mile or so swim.  They’re given two signal flares to use if they need help.

Stak and Dash get over and find no way to get to the lumber, the slavers over there are scattered, hiding in nooks and crannies while several are guarding a building that Keri marked as holding slaves.  Discretion prevails and they return the way they came.  Stak unfortunately failed in his attempt to climb the cliff so they shout for help and then are pulled up the cliff.

They report their findings to the rest.

Our five leave Kane, Dash and Torn to watch the tower as they’ve come up with a plan to not go after the lumber at the compound but instead take the ship and de-construct part of it for the lumber they need.  They get ready and slither down the rope and into the warm salt water and start dog paddling.

[It's about this time that the assassin makes it across and starts scouting the tower section of the island.  He's not sure what to make of the three men that he can find, assuming they must be tougher than they are if they were able to take the tower and goes back retrieves most of the quality forces from the compound and they assualt the tower while our group is slowly swimming across the harbor.  The attack on the harbor kicks off about the time that the group gets to the ship.  The three hirelings immediately know they're heavily screwed and set off two flares.  They three are all level 6 though and they do cut a swath through the attackers but are eventually taken.]

The group reach the ship, Stak going further to steal the longboats from the shore.   Elisssa hits the deck of the ship first due to bad timing on their part but has no trouble killing both slavers on board.  One swing of her axe at the end of a charge cuts the slaver’s arm off which is holding a signal flare.  She spins and takes the head off the other one in the same motion.

The rest climb on board to find the ship is theirs and Stak comes up with the longboats.

The signal flares go up from the tower but there’s just not much they can do for them except continue with the plan.  They wait till down though which isn’t far off and use the ballistae on the ship to let the forces on the shore know they’re there.  Keeping the slavers on the shore occupied, they strip lumber off the non-visible side of the boat.

Lumber in head they set the ship afire and start rowing back to the tower.  The tower forces are waiting for them but aren’t too concerned as the cliffs are almost impossible to climb and it would be very easy to just drop rocks on anyone trying to climb them and knock them off.

Unfortunately for the slavers they don’t know about Biminey’s Ladder ritual. As the ladder springs up and Torel starts climbing his butt off the two at the top realize that things may not be going as planned and start yelling.  They drop rocks but they miss and Torel is able to reach the top of the cliff, Biminey right behind him.

A fight breaks out and both sides are reinforced as forces rush in from the tower and up the ladder but when Torel uses the Deamon Heart to walk the assassin off the cliff and Biminey drops the ladder as he’s trying to climb back up.  Battered, bruised, ribs cracked and leg broken the assassin limps off vowing to come back and kill them all in nasty ways.  Right as Biminey’s firebolt, charged with lightning enters his skull from above.

The fights just clean up this point between the guys the hirelings killed, the loss of the ‘boss’ of the island forces and the fact that the slavers can’t seem to hit a damn thing it’s quickly over.

They capture one of the slaver alchemists and get information from him.  They go back and strike a bargain, one sided, with the remaining neophytes in the tower (all minions) and make them leave.  They recover their battered and beaten hirelings.

Hauling up their construction supplies Biminey and a couple of others get to work repairing the airship while the rest traipse across the island and intimidate or kill the remaining slavers.

In the captive hut they rescue a dwarf noble woman and her retinue.  She has a tale of her city being overrun by hobgoblins and her father putting her and the rest on a boat with a few guards while they stayed to defend the city.  They were picked up by slavers not long after setting sail and brought to the island.  To buy time and preferential treatment they let on to the slavers that a huge ransom would be possible.  The other slaver ship on the island went off to collect said ransom.

Air ship repaired and drivable they take a minor detour to burn the slaver compound to the ground from the air and head back.  They try to investigate one of the small farming villages on their way back, one of the ones that has lost contact with the city and Biminey has a test of wills as something tries to take over control of him through the airship control amulet, forcing him to land the ship.  He breaks free and they flee back to the coast.

Leaving biminey and most of the noble woman’s following on the ship the rest are dropped off outside of town walk in.  They get inside and learn news of the hobgoblin threat and get information from Sushanna of good news.  The Eris researchers are constructing a battle standard that will duplicate the weakening effect of the Larkson wardings for a small area.  They also find out from Sushanna that the wardings of the city are powered  by the life force of people born in the city.  This was uncovered in the research into the standard which after use requires a ritual and life force to recharge to enable it to work again.

We leave our group getting cleaned up in the temple’s sauna’s and breaking the fast.  They have plans for to meet up with  Biminey in two days time, who’s currently flying the ship out of sight of land and above the clouds and making offers of employment to Visra’s, the noble dwarf’s retinue since she obviously won’t be able to pay them.  On the flip side, Visra is going to try and find them employment in the town.

Elisssa, getting a little tired of the group’s actions preventing her from killing who she wants to when she wants is going to depart the group for at least awhile, taking the gold and valuables she’s garnered from their adventures.  She has thoughts of packing up her relatives adn friends on a ship and sailing away from this danger zone now that she knows there are cities to the south, albeit under the threat of hobgoblin attack but at least she won’t have to worry about her mind being consumed and her body used to kill innocents.

Image Credits

Interlude – On The Horizon

“Kord’s balls, what the hell?” the guard exclaimed looking out at the east road. A naked figure was stumbling down the road, covered in blood.  As it dropped in the packed dirt in front of the gate she could see it was not only naked but most of the skin of it’s arms and upper chest had been removed.  In the distance at the top of the first rise of the road she spied what could only be a warband of hobgoblins.Â

A shout, the gruff voice of her sergeant barked up from below, “What is it trooper!?”

“There’s a man, I think it’s a man, he’s hurt, hurt bad in the road below and I shit you not sarge there’s a full hob warband no more than 200 yards up the road.”

“Awww shit.  Coleson, Donal, Tig spread the alarm, I want every square foot of this gods damn wall manned and I want it done NOW!”

Pounding feet sped off behind her and the brazen clanging of the alarm bell started to sound.  The halberd in her hand didn’t seem nearly as impressive as the dim light glinted off the naked steel arrayed among the hobgoblins.  The ladder behind her creaked under the massive form of the dragonborn sergeant.

“Well fuck me sideways…” Sergeant Drakotta said softly.

“What do you want to do about him Sarge?” she said pointing out the bleeding figure below.

“Shit, can’t leave him there.  And they’re held up far enough way for someone fast to get out and get him.  I remember you’re speedy Bawndi.  Get down that ladder, grab Hork and get out there and get him.”

“Crap Sarge, why…”

“Cut it trooper, get your ass down there now or you’ll be safer out there than here!”

Bawndi grimaced and nodded.  She slid down the ladder dropping lightly to the ground below. “Hork!  Get your skinny ass front and center, Sarge has a job for us.  Tally, you and Peete open the gate, we’re going to run out there and grab that guy.  If the hobgoblins charge you slam the gate you make gods damn sure that there’s no way I can make it back before they get to the gate or I swear to all hells I’ll have your ass no matter what it takes.”

As two of the guard turned the winches that pulled the massive bars back from the gate, Bawndi and Hork, a thin almost scrawny human but with surprising strength, stood poised as the thick iron bound wooden gates parted sideways.  As soon as the gap was big enough to squeeze through they did so, sprinting down the road toward the bloodied figure.Â

Bawndi slid to a halt next the man, eyes taking in the ruin, the skin was gone from his shoulders in long strips that ran halfway down his back.  She knelt, not sure where to grab the man as Hork retched next to her.  “Suck it up!  You toss on me and I’ll make you pay for a long time.” she hissed glancing up at the other watchman, tossing a glance toward the hobgoblins that remained motionless in the distance. “Grab the hands, I’ll get the feet.  Hurry up gods damnit!”

Together they picked the man up, carefully but quickly rolling him over and then moved back to the gate at an awkward shuffle, Hork moving backwards to keep an eye on the hobgoblins.   With release of held breath they passed through the gate again, multiple watch including the Anvil mercenaries were gathered around, weapons ready.  A stretcher appeared and they laid the man on it.  A watch healer stepped up and laid a hand on the man’s forehead and a glow appeared around her fingers and sank into the man’s flesh, the flesh knitting and healing. Â

The man screamed sitting bolt upright then trying to lunge away, troopers grabbing him and pressing him back down.  His struggles died as his terror filled eyes took in his surroundings.  Sargeant Drakotta pushed through the crowd, squatted by the man, “What’s going on?  Who are you?”

The man shook his head, stammered, “Stanal, my names Stanal.  They destroyed the village, killed everyone!  They kept me alive to deliver a message.”

“What’s the message?  What village?”

“My home, Greenoak village.”

One of the watch spoke up, “I know the place Sarge, maybe ten buildings, about thirty or forty people.”

Without looking back, Drakotta rasped out, “Next man that speaks is going to regret being birthed.  Now, you, Stanal, what do they want?”

“They want some book they say is here, some book with a name in it.  They’ll give you a week to come up with it.  Every week they don’t get it, another village dies. When they run out of villages then they’ll march on the city.”

“What the fuck? A book?”

“Yes, that’s what they said. Said someone would know what they’re talking about.”

A voice called down, “Sarge, they’re moving out, heading south.”

Drakotta rocked back on his heels, shook his head.  “Well someone sure as shit ain’t me.”  He rose, yanking the man up with him, hand locked like a bear trap on his wrist.  Bawndi, you’re with me.  We’re taking this one to the captain.  Frost, take over here.  Keep them on their toes and keep everyone’s eyes open.  This could be a feint of some kind.  Send runners, make sure the east gate is covered and send someone to Joncel and make sure he’s got the river side sewn up.”

“Aye sarge.” replied a hardbitten trooper, “I’ll get’em moving.”

“Come on you, let’s go.  And someone get these people moving, show’s over!”

Drakotta lead the way down the road at a swift pace, the farmer behind him and Bawndi trailing, naked steel in her hand and mistrust on her face.

Quote of the day – “How much does a weretiger weigh?”

Our group starts off in the warehouse littered with dead bodies, the bodies they’ve slain.  Deciding that the’d be better off if they got the hell out they do so and retreat back to their tavern.  The next day Biminey vists the temple of Eris where he talks with Sushanna and the new high priest and finds out information on their possible foes.   King Hesh’tar, his queen Liloth, his adviser Phy’el Fleshwalker and their enforce Krag the Butcher.  Tales of their powers are legendary only surpassed by the tales of their evil.

After telling the high priest they’d already killed Krag, Biminey was a bit taken aback at the priests quesiton, “did you burn the body and scatter the ashes?”  Which they didn’t do.

Other information learned is that the town is a mystical anchor point that keeps Larkson’s curse alive and well on the city of Darkmith.  That the prince’s True Name is located in the city of Larkson and that the very stones of the city are warded against the powers of Darkmith and for one of the creatures of Darkmith to enter the town would render it significantly weaker than it wold be outside the town.

Torel meets with the Captain of the Watch and discusses events.

Shuk meets up with Stak in their tavern and gives him a device that she’d had created in Anvil by an high level artificer there to help with Soozin.  She seems distant to the Stak and doesn’t wish to talk much. It’s obvious that the loss of Dra’kin has hit her fairly hard.

They meet up and compare notes and Biminey leads them to the temple of Eris where they stashed Soozin while they went out to the temple of healing to cure Torn.

Biminey activates the device and it enters Soozin’s throat to go after the parasite.  It warps out and something goes wrong and the parasite splits up the way it’s created to do but lightning flares and the several small parasites swell to the size of large dogs.

The group defeats the giant slugs and Soozin is now healed. [Note: Wasn't planned to be a hard fight unless for some reason not everone in the group happened to be there but as it turned out they were.]

After everything that’s happened to them they pressure the high priest of Eris to allow them to stay on the grounds and he doesn’t take much persuading.  The group has proved formidable to hostile creatures and having them around he can’t see as a bad thing.

Elissa finds Keri waiting for her in her new room in the temple.  Keri has a tale of having been on a boat for three weeks scouting the charts that she lifted from the slaver ship while it was in the harbor.  She reports finding the stronghold listed on the charts and reports that there is an airship attached to a keep on the island.  She also tells Elisssa that the free ride is over now with Dra’kin dead and any future services will be cash in hand.

They discuss further the murders taking place and finally [after DM prodding] determine that the murders are taking place in houses/buildings that are newly constructed, not part of the original town’s construction, wooden.  With the new knowledge of the warded stones and construction it’s not a big leap of deduction to figure out that the wardings are keeping the murderer out.   Which they have determined is possibly Krag in spirit form trying to recover his lost corpse.

They take their findings to the Captain of the watch and lead him to make the deductions on his own.  He takes them to the Council who decrees that it would be prudent for citizen’s that are in new construction to find a place to stay that’s part of the original stone construction.  As the group determines that people aren’t yet for the most part taking the warnings seriously they decide to head out after their air ship after making plans for their assault.

They arrange for passage, their money is rapidly depleting.

Arriving at the island, to everyone’s astonishment their plan works, they get on the island and defeat the forces at the keep which is where we leave them.  They have several hours most likely before someone might question why no one has come down from the keep with the cave trolls but they still have the air ship to repair, the master override amulet to tune and unfortunately Biminey is only one man.

[Note: I had a timeline of the coming's and goings of the forces on the island and by chance or luck they hit the island when it had minimal forces.  Also their plan bypassed the forces on the keep and made what might have been a fight that could have seen the loss of some of the group into a fight that while knuckle biting wasn't white knuckle.  At least yet.  But rather than a fairly large fight they managed to defeat the forces in waves due to their actions and negated some of their firepower by a pretty plan and good reaction to the situation at hand.]

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Episode 8, part 3 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session. A fight breaks out in a warehouse against the leader of the bandits who captured them and a slaver overmage.

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Episode 8, part 2 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session. They deal with the aftermath of the hobgoblin fight, we invite T’Balktu to join the group and hear of a clandestine meeting with an Eladrin.

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Episode 8, part 1 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session. The group heads off to a temple of healing to cure Torn and finds some hobgoblins who object.

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The new and upcoming podcasts are only two parters.  Generally I’ve cut the session recordings up at natural breakpoints by either RP time or combats and they’ve come to about an hour to an hour and a half per.  The last two sessions 8 and 9 (podcast 7 and 8 ) though have ended up being in two parts each about two and a half hours each.

I don’t really have a reason to cut them up at all, my initial thought was release them over time to give people something to look forward to but really the post work necessary means I end up getting each of the sessions cleaned up and have my wife (Elisssa) record the intro that delaying publishing any of them would be pointless.

Honestly who wouldn’t prefer to download the entire Penny Arcade podcasts at one time rather than 30 minutes  a week?

Another reason to keep them chopped in blocks is to make it easier for people to skip ahead without missing a lot.  If they want to jump to the end of the current battle, it’s not a hard thing to do.  If the recrding was 5 hours long with 4 battles in it, then it might be a little more difficult to skip the parts you in particular didn’t want to listen to.

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Episode 7, part 2 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session. Something wicked is found in the temple of Eris.

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Episode 7, part 1 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session. A long non-combat session erupts with the party trying to uncover a murder.

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Thanks to the gods of whimsy the groups warlock, a ‘conlock’ by the name of Dra’kin died last session.  Unfortunately there just wasn’t much that could be done although much like the death of Aoefel it might have been preventable.  But we’ll never know.

At any rate the net result is T’Balktu has joined the group.  He’s a younger goliath barbarian.  Think of the goliath in my world more as a Hill People than some half elemental race.  Lots of muscles, outdoor types with a hunger for living as large as their view of the world from atop their mountain fortresses.

He was made in a hurry Saturday and I’ve since cleaned it up a little, swapping a couple of things out that didn’t work for a 2handed great axe wielder.

The end result is a veritable damage machine.  If he crits his Ragestrike power he’ll be doing 60 damage.  Not half bad at all.  And with multiple ways to get temporary hit points he should make up a little for his lower defenses.   With low reflex and willpower he’s going to get whacked a lot by critters that attack those defenses.  And unfortunately as I happen to know, more than one of the bosses of this campaign have powers against those.

Against masses of mobs his total damage output should go through the roof and he should be a minion killer from hell.  An at-will that has a blast 3 component if he hits with it?  I’ll have to seriously ramp up the minion count just to break even.

I’ve started him out with Bleeder, his father’s greataxe, that spurs him onward to greater displays of glory as well as an Ironskin belt made by his grandfather out of materials no one in the family likes to talk about.  And I think he may be a good candidate for the Cape of the Red Path they recently found as mobility for him would be a good thing so he can get to the best position on the field to unleash his burst/blast attacks against swarms of bad guys.

Too bad though about Dra’kin.  But failing 3 out of 4 death saves and the healer failing 2 out of 2 stabilization checks?  His death was meant to be.

But T’Balktu should be able to pick up the slack and then some.  And as a front line striker it should help keep the others alive and in better shape a little more.

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This was mainly a combat session with two boss battles and was marred by the fatality of one of the group.  I’m not ‘doing’ resurrection in this campaign, so a death is the final curtain, not a revolving door.

We pick up with our heroes after the end of the fight in the Temple with the demonic goddess.  They decided to go try and save Torn by taking a simulcrum to the temple of H’Estar, a goddess of healing, sun and all that.  The temple has been abandoned over time as the area controlled by the hobgoblin hordes to the south have encroached and overrun the area.

Acquiring horses the group heads to the temple where they perform the ritual of healing for Torn, channeling their own life force into the simulacrum they’ve had crafted, the ritual lead by Sushanna, acolyte of the temple of Eris and Biminey’s snuggle bunny.

As the ritual ends the release of magic breaks the illusion that’s been crafted on hobgoblins that are sneaking up on them from four directions. The fight was rough, Stak performing exceptional work thinning the hobgoblin grunts two at a time per round until there were no more, dropping them with a single arrow to a vital location each time.  The remainder dealt with the wardogs, soldiers and the hobgoblin fleshcarver.  The fleshcarver and two other hobgoblins escaped with their lives.

[It was a tough fight - 16 grunts, 5 soldiers, 3 archers, 4 war dogs, 1 fleshcarver, divided up in groups of 4 sets coming in from four different directions. I'm become not a fan of bad guys fighting to the point of stupidity and needlessly sacrificing their lives, at least the bosses of the fight and once the boss breaks and runs there's going to be one or two underlings who are going to see it as their duty to follow after him to keep him safe...]

Unfortunately their healing shortage cost them this time dearly.  Dra’kin, normally safe in the rear, but now up in front due to the four sided attack.  This provided to be ultimately costly to the warlock and left him with his life’s blood draining away on the battlefield at the end of the fight.

[In Dra'kin's defense (and mine), he failed 3 out of 4 death saves while Biminey the best healer in the group, failed two out of two healing checks to try to stabalize him. Apparently the gods of luck, whimsey and statistics wanted him dead.]

At the end of the fight they recovered and performed a second ritual for the simulacrum of Soozin, hoping that it would deal with the parasite lodged in her belly.

They fled home making the trip safely.  There they found Torn recovered, no longer a vegetable although still missing his hand.  Apparently regeneration wasn’t part of the package.  He’s a pit fighter though and while it sucks he can deal.

They find out that there were three days without murders but the last three days there have been a murder a might.

They also found [not sure if anyone actually heard it] that another farming village hasn’t had anyone come into town in awhile which while not unheard of is viewed with suspicion these days.  Maybe it’s nothing, or maybe it’s some evil influence spreading it’s power base.  Who knows?

They contacted Meri and informed her of Dra’kin’s death and told her they had something to give Shuk (the good luck amulet she gave Dra’kin on a braid of Tanner’s hair).  Meri passed on information that an eladrin was in town meeting with strangers in a warehouse in the dock area.

A mercenary showed up at the groups doorstep looking for work, T’Baktu the goliath barbarian.  T’Baktu came into town with the other mercenaries hired by the city but doesn’t really like the mercenary life.  He tried to join the City Watch but the Captain of the watch is suspicous of everything these days and turned him down.  The captain did though point him at our heroic group and offered to pay him gold if he’d spy on the group and inform the captain of their dealings and work.

The group showed up at the warehouse and found it guarded on the outside.  Stak with a bow shot from the gods killed the sentry on the south gate with a single shot through the head.

They crept up to the door and Biminey undid the barring and peeked inside spotting a large group of sailors, bearing tatoos like those they saw on the slaver sailors.

He stepped inside rolling one of his constructs of lightning into the center of the group, killing all six in one shot. [New record by the way].

The rest of the group rushed in and joined the fray.  A group of tougher thugs, two slaver and two bandits were spotted by a set of stairs.  As the screams started a slaver Overmage, and Warrick the leader of the bandits and his shaman stepped out of an office on the second floor.

T’Baktu took several hits in the opening round almost dropping him but he persevered and came back into the fight.  The thugs kept the group occupied while the  overmage, shaman and warrick’s bow decimated their health from above on the walkway connecting two upper level office structures.

Eventually the thugs were dropped as was the shaman.  The overmage descended to lower level to try and get a good usage out of his blast powers but was unable to without hitting his own troops.

Warrick seeing the way the wind was blowing tipped his hat in salute o the other bowman, Stak and fled through the office and up to the roof.  Torel was hot in pursuit but discretion proved the watchword of the day and didn’t follow the leader up to the roof where at least one other thug was on guard duty.

[As it was late and obvious the overmage was going to die I didn't play out the last round or two and just fast forwarded to his demise.]

The group recovered a Trishan Spine Bow from one of the hobgoblin archers and a Cape of the Red Path from the slaver overmage along with some gold  and healing potions.

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