All across the Scimitar Coast small bands of adventurers face deadly threats for fortune and glory.
House Rules and Clarifications
In a Small Village
In a small village in the Green Heart a travelling circus brings unforeseen troubles…
Characters:
- Eren the Juggler, Entertainer Juggler
- Gunter the Speedy, Sprinter
Campaign Timeline: 40 AU.
The Ruins of Karse
A group are recruited to delve the ruined city of Karse, but others struggle for the secrets at its depths…
Characters:
- Gregor Laurent, Reclusive Pyromancer
- Sadria, Half-Elven Ranger
Lost to the City:
- Vasily the Younger, Alchemist Jeweller
- Jerome Stonebeard, Dwarven Avenger
Campaign Timeline: 48 AU.
Orrel and the Pit Crew
In the city of New Dragonspear the only two commodities are blood and coin. From amongst the fighters a new group emerges…
Gladiators:
Outlander champion and arena fighter. Fighting to the death.
Cleric of Baal.
Human noble from Leor fighting to regain his family's honour one gold piece at a time.
Left the group to repay his family debts.
Crafty lawyer trying to gain advantage in disruption.
Retired to run his new practice in Dragonspear.
Leonin Watcher and Wanderer.
Satir slave with an ancient and forbidden patron.
Killed a resurrected by the Sleeping One as an undead.
Mushroom druid enslaved after discovering a dark secret in the sewers beneath New Dragonspear.
Killed by Kurgen's Dwarven guards.
Aoilis
Elven thief and marksman.
Head blasted off by a pirate captain.
Swann Darude
Bard, entertainer and pathological liar
Campaign Timeline: 94-96 of the Queen.
18/05/2021
New Dragonspear is gladiatorial town
Bustling town, 30,000 people (huge), bustling town, economy revolves around gladiator fights
Lots of brothels, lots of bars, town criers announcing results, taverns where rich people go to observe the fights
If you go to a bar, you can find a fighting ring any time night or day, but the big fighting arenas are on schedules – town criers will announce at the beginning of the day what’s coming up
Lots of gambling that happens
There is a dwarf that runs the town – Dwarven Master Kurgen, he runs the gladiator pits, has mercenary town guard
If you aren’t sanctioned, you get sent to prison and sentenced to gladiator pits
Dwarves are everywhere in the setting, has become wealthy and owns his own town
Current top ranked winner is Dirk Harrison and the Whiskey Biscuits – never lost a fight. They fight in the big arena, packed crowds, don’t fight every day
Most fights are against monsters, not against humans
Most of the gambling doesn’t go through Kurgen, there are bookies who run their own thing
Dirk Harrison are a DnD party (dirk with two dirks, Arrowman (a wizard), longhat (an arrow shooter), Stretch (fights bare handed) all humans)
Monsters – low pits fight against bugbears, frogmen, skaven, kobolds, humanoid and goblinoids
Higher level pits fight against actual monsters from the monster manual
Group fights are worth more money
Trappers go out and catch monsters, are more skilled than the fighters
Protectors of the Innocent – opposed to the pits – they turned up and talked to Kurgen about how bringing monsters to civilised towns was a bad idea, they were executed in the pits. They were mostly humans, half elves, dwarves
Nearest city is Leor – New Dragonspear is good for Leor as all the monsters are getting killed in New Dragonspear
Most of the famous troupes have a bard that introduces them in the arenas, and they barter for their wage before they turn up to fight
Dragonspear is fed from water wells and springs
Galen van Alto the 3rd – won fight against bullywog
Dabulamanzi – won fight against a bugbear, smacked him with a stick, burned his face, whacked his arm off
Kazabel fought against a dwarf, beat them
Orrel – beat mosquitos, then released Kazabel who tried to jump out.
Galen, Castiel Mutz, Demne Dawnbrow came down in to the pits to offer to join up as a party and fight for bigger rewards.
We agree to party up, and agree to a party fight for 7gp tomorrow
We head to the prostitute’s omen, Dabulamanzi and Demne decide to fight for their rooms, Dabulamanzi gets knocked out by Gorman Cleave and loses teeth
Demne fights a blue scaly dude (dragonborn), and wins against the huge guy
Spoke with a trapper – he’d brought in a war band of orcs
Orrel and the Pit Crew have been formed – Castiel Mutz
25/05/2021
After the fights finish, we regroup once Dabulamanzi has woken up, and talk tactics.
Demne and Orrel will make a shield wall and tank, Galen and Dabulamanzi will attack from the sides, Kazabel will attack from range, and Castiel will distract from behind the shield wall.
Demne agreed to be the Castiel protector in case of break through.
We sleep, wake up and breakfast in the inn, the innkeepers daughter serves us and we build some rep, Castiel spreads the word and gets her to put in a good word with her father who is keenly coming to the 7pm fight at sandstorm arena to watch us fight.
Fighters head to the arena to warm up, sharpen weapons, prepare etc
Castiel heads out to do some publicity, went east, saw the Grand Arena (top arena of PvE), three arena in between sandstorm and grand arena
Big tapestry banner on the side of dirk and the whiskey biscuits. Castiel continued on, and right on the other side of town there is a dark grey stone looming arena (pit of hell)
Nat 20s the front desk of the Pit of Hell (PvE) to come see us fight tonight
Wizards dome is southeast of the city
We psych up in the fighters area, find out we’re at 10:1 odds against us, and that the public think we’re fighting too often
Ronald the owner of the Prostitute’s Omen comes in before the match – we offer to fight as the team of the inn, we get rooms and board. He wants everyone except Orrel (who objected) to wear fine pink cloaks, announce that’s where we’re staying.
Castiel does the pre-show announcement – announces each of us individually, Gaylen natural 1s a sword flourish, and Orrel puts down a hunting trap
Helena is the elf secretary of the sandstorm pit. Castiel magically charmed her and she knows about it, now shut the gate behind us as we head in to the fight
The enemy gate opens, we notice that there is no drug smoke keeping the enemies down – we are fighting a wolf, which is killed by an eldritch blast and a hex from Kazabel
Green goblin comes out, dodges out of the trap, but is viciously mocked. Shoots a firebolt which splashes harmlessly against Orrel’s armour
Three more come out, one is brutally killed by the hunting trap, and one hit’s Demne’s armor.
Kazabel kills one with an eldritch blast
Galen natural 1s and hits himself in the face, knocking himself down and causing a painful scar.
Dabulmanzi hits one with a quarterstaff
Orrel kills the shaman with a nat 20 axe swing and takes a hit on the armor
Kazabel kills the final one with an eldritch
Demne heals Galen and acts as if he’s just helping him up
Castiel then announces the Prostitute’s Omen, hypes up
Helena offers triple pay to fight again the next night afte Castiel mentions the Pit of Hell
Gnome approaches us as we’re walking out of the pits, greets us – brown curly hair. Yosten is his name – impressed by two fights in a row. He’s a poet – he’s been told to invite us to watch a fight at the grand arena. Rare for people to be invited – won’t reveal his employer.
Gives us 6 tickets, drinks included. Tickets are worth a lot of money
Employer is a wealthy man who hires able bodied people to work for him, he likes to chat to them, we won’t be the only ones there.
He recommends us to fight more fights in a row. If we need help, he can offer us 6 potions (murky brown). One whole potion makes you feel tired, but can fight as if you’d rested for a week.
You could die from exhaustion if you don’t sleep
Halfling from the pit of hell then wants to talk to us – Hadald is his name.
He wants us to fight Giant Leeches tomorrow – payment is 1 gold each, but pay us an extra 3go each if we win (24 gp total). We agree to fight later in the week
We go back to the inn, some cheering. A woman (Adelaide) buys Galen a drink and offers to soothe his wounds and bathe him.
08/06/2021
We arrive back at the inn to revelry and celebration, head upstairs, and have dinner. We discuss the events of the repeat of the spider fight, and no one has any concrete information
Castiel comes back and lets us know he’s signed us up for a fight against the leeches at the pit of hell tomorrow night for 40gp
We discuss the pros and cons of drinking the potions, and Dabulamanzi wants to drink his. He drinks his potion and levels up.
We’re suddenly in a weird hell-scape, multiple moons moving above us very quickly in odd directions, we can hear constant lightning, the sky is bruised red blue, can hear horrific screams, and we’re on a featureless desert plain.
I think we might on another plane. Smells noticeably void of any smells, screams coming from the lightning.
Dabulamanzi notices a flying shape in the sky – large humanoid with wings which suddenly disappears.
Galen is naked from having just appeared from the bath.
Walking makes Dabulamanzi feel sick as it feels like the horizon is moving and he stays still.
Orrel digs a hole so that we can be out of sight of anyone on the plain, takes about an hour.
Three horrific moulds of flesh with human arms and legs in a mishmash shape walking along in a crablike way, and they seem to be heading past our hole.
They scream something in sylvan but not as words, Kazabel screams back in sylvan and scares them off.
We follow their tracks to where they disappeared – we see mountains that seem to appear in front of us, crumble in to nothingness, then reappear behind us, then they crumble again.
Orrel spots large tentacle creatures in the sky appear and disappear. We get to a point where the footprints disappear – we find a small point thing with a hole at the end, looks like a spearhead that is quite rusted.
We’re back in the tavern, Galen appears in the bath holding Demne’s javelin and wearing Dabulamanzi’s cloak.
Metal of the spearhead is the same as it was in the place, looks like it’s just a rusted iron spearhead.
Galen comes back to the room and drops his wet cloak over Dabulamanzi.
Demne drinks her potion and feels rested.
We take watches and sleep the night.
Jenny knocks at our room door the next morning and lets us know that there are heaps of folks downstairs waiting for us and we choose to have breakfast in our room.
Castiel heads downstairs to see what the fuss is all about.
We pool knowledge of what we know of leeches, they have tiny teeth and their bite hurts a lot, they can bite through armour.
Pit of hell is fire themed and has open fire, we discuss getting some salt.
Castiel comes back upstairs with a crate, drops it on the table and says it’s from Molly. 12 bottles of mead from Molly’s Meadery, a BnB in town.
Dabulamanzi asks the kitchen about salt – Jenny can sell salt at 1s a pound, but says we should buy more from general store.
Gaylen doesn’t want to stay with the part and head out into town, and weirdly wants to stay.
We head to the general store, and we meet BoneShaker the goliath, 7’2” with green eyes, Demne buys 10lbs of salt.
Kazabel tries to flirt with the goliath unsuccessfully.
Galen tries to seduce someone at the prostitute’s omen and realises it’s only old men and young girls, and heads out to Molly’s meadery.
He meets Molly, and introduces himself to her and she recognises him as the one who tripped over and stabbed himself. He drinks the mead, heads back to the Prostitute’s Omen, and plays cards with the old man.
Rest of the party heads to the Pit of Hell and Demne asks one of the child runners how the Pit of Hell is set up.
Flame shoots out of the floor from little pedestals. Fighters are raised in to the middle, walls around the outside. Inside layout changes every so often, they’ve sometimes dug in makeshift ponds or streams.
Demne asks him to report any info to us back at the inn for money – his name is Zane.
Party heads back to the Omen and meets up with Gaylen, who then heads to the brothel. Once he’s back, we head to the Pit of Hell. Adald greats us, offers us seats in the box to watch the fights.
Galen tries to leave to go back to the inn to get Molly’s mead, and party manages to convince him rather than plugging random products that he should try to work out a useful sponsorship deal.
The box is nice, Kazabel makes a toast to the party.
Gong goes off, platform rises up with a juggler, little stone plinths are shooting fire, and four chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
Giant leech rushes out the water, bites the juggler, and drags him into the water, crowd cheers.
Panel gets lowered down into the ground, and two fighters back to back rise up – one short straight red hair with a sword and shield, one with short curled white hair and blue eyes (half elf). Gong sounds, and they fight each other.
The twin short sword half elf wins, and shoves the body into the water.
We make our way down to the arena, get lifted up, and are filled with a surge of energy – we rush over to the wall in formation, Gaylen amps up the crowd with the Hulk Hogan, and we take up positions.
A leech comes out the water, Orrel slashed his palm and smears blood all over himself to make himself appealing to leeches.
Kazabel throws out eldritch blasts, Dabulamanzi uses a chill touch on the leech.
Orrel coats a coil of rope with blood from cut palm, Kazabel keeps blasting the leech.
Dabulamanzi tries to cast and stumbles over the words.
Galen overcomes his instincts to charge and stays in formation, Kazabel blasts the first one to death with a perfect shot as another two come out the water.
Dabulamanzi chills another leech, and spores swarm around him.
The fighters take defensive stances, and Dabulamanzi chills another one.
Two leeches move into combat and try to hit Dabulamanzi and Galen and bounce off the armour.
One gets killed by Gaylen, Dabulamanzi and Kazabel, and the other is taken down with an explosive hit from Dabulamanzi.
Orrel flicks the blood-soaked rope at the other pool, and Galen suggests moving closer to the next pool
The platform drops down, Adald comes up and asks if Orrel and the Pit Crew want some more- crowd cheers, Castiel encourages, and we accept.
Tieflieng warlock Ezelger the Evil comes up, and Kazabel cracks himself in the face with his staff trying to cast a spell.
Galen, Demne, and Orrel rush into combat with Ezelger, Kazabel drops a curse on Ezelgar.
A raven swoops out and tries to bite Orrel but misses, Dabulamanzi throws frozen spores at the warlock and he dies, infusing Kazabel with dark energies.
Gaylen runs over and beheads Ezelgar and displays it to the crowd.
Demne attacks the raven, which weathers a blow, Orrel hits it again and it weathers an eldritch blast.
The raven tries to bite Demne but misses, Galen prances around for the crowd.
Kazabel hits it with another eldritch blast, and it dies as an imp-like creature laying on the floor dead where the bird was.
Orrel retrieves the casting focus and dagger and gives them to Dabulamanzi. Galen roasts the tiefling skull over one of the flames and takes it home with him.
We recover some leech teeth and Castiel heads off to arrange a fight for us tomorrow night at either Death Pit or Wizard’s Dome.
We collect our winnings and make our way back to the Omen
Jenny greets us and ask us how we went – we describe the fight against the leeches and tiefling warlock, and that we’re fighting tomorrow night.
We have dinner up in our room, Kazabel and Gaylen go carousing
We all wake up after setting watches, Kazabel wakes up having lost all his money and gained a small conical horn, and Gaylen wakes up with acne
Castiel comes in and lets us know he’s booked us at the death pit. Team vs team PvP, they will pay us 50gp for the night’s fight at 7pm.
Castiel agrees to head out and promote the fight, and also to let our fans from Sandstorm Arena and the Pit of Hell know where we’re fighting so they can follow us.
There is a knock at the door, and Jenny lets us know there’s a delivery – Nim the armour is here with a delivery. She’s here with a big crate of armour – two sets of scale mail for those that wear medium, and chain mail with Bhaal symbols for those that wear heavy armour.
She says we’ve already paid her for it, Gaylen and Castiel paid in full for it after we paid in full for a rush job for the designs.
After we put on the armour and sell our old gear back to her, we head in to the market while Kazabel stays at the Omen to sleep. Castiel heads off to recruit some bards and town criers to spread word of our record breaking run, as well as recruiting a rogue to the party.
Gaylen buys a set of clothes for Dabulamanzi and Kazabel, and then buys a flensing dagger, a sickle, and cook’s tools.
Gaylen asks if we should buy a dog, party says no as we’re saving for sweet plate mail.
All of a sudden, in front of us 15 people in furs with spears are fighting in front of us and we’re in a diamond arena (death pit). 500 people are cheering in the audience.
It’s night time, on the paved floor, and the arena is open the sky above us.
We see ourselves fighting against the 15 in furs.
Kazabel is there too and is suddenly woken by the screaming fans and sound of battle.
Gaylen says this must be another vision, and that we should try to observe our enemies to understand the weaknesses of our enemies.
Dabulamanzi says he doesn’t want to watch himself die, and runs in to hit one of the barbarians fighting him
Future me yells that we have support, and to get in formation with us
Future Gaylen disengages and steps back, and the barbarians charge back in to combat with future Orrel and future Gaylen
The barbarians move back in to fight, and after seeing the future party taking a bigger formation Orrel agrees with Gaylen and moves to take up a spot in the bigger formation.
Kazabel starts flinging eldritch blasts, killing a barbarian
Dabulamanzi gets hit with a spear and takes a significant wound
Present-day Orrel avoids three significant blows, but future Orrel is hit and goes down, but is then revived by Demne
Demne then roars, scaring three of the spear-wielding barbarians., and future Demne roars too, scaring more of the barbarians
Future Orrel grabs a flask, chugs it, and swings at barbarians
Dabulamanzi continues to swirl spores and infect one of the barbarians
Both Kazabels blast one of the barbarians that was trying to run out of the pit
We continue the fight using the same combined tactics as before, the reverse double envelopment with defensive core
Once we’ve defeated the barbarians, the two Orrel’s decapitate the barbarians, use the blood from the necks to paint Bhaal symbols, and throw heads to the cheering fans
The party has a pow-wow and discusses what has happened – Kazabel gives his potion to his future self, who drinks it and keeps the other one.
Gaylen walks out, and future Gaylen asks him what he’s doing, he explains he thought he’d get back to the orginial timeline.
As both parties walk out of the arena, a very young female human with red hair and amber eyes meets us and gives present Orrel 50 gold. Serafina is her name.
Kazabel tries to get another 50 gold by asking for second Orrel to be paid, but Serafina says we’re not the first party to try to magic extra money.
Gaylen then offers to duel himself to the death as a warm-up for tomorrow night for 5gp, which Serafina accepts.
Gaylen then signs up the party to fight again at the death pit tomorrow night for 50 gold.
We return to the inn, and Jenny says we only get the same rooms so Gaylen plays cards against himself for the room and wins.
We head up to the room, split the money evenly with the new party, and discuss what had happened to them since lunch. Castiel had hired a worker in town, and done more promotion which was going well. They’d discussed plans, Gaylen couldn’t find any women to sleep with, and then they headed off to the death pit, got split up under the arena to enter from two different doors, and Castiel wasn’t there when we finished the fight.
Demne suggests a system – act as if there’s only one of us, and do week on week off fights to keep our streak alive.
Orrel pushes Gaylen to get his fight out the way early against himself in the privacy of the room, so that the two part system can work. Gaylen refuses to fight himself except at the arena, and when pushed on whether he thinks future is is real or not, eventually ignores Orrel and walks out and locks himself in his room and drinks the brown potion.
Kazabels head downstairs to go drinking.
Demne offers to try to use magic to find out what’s going on, but chooses to save it for the fight. They agree that older Demne is Demn-A. Demn-A uses detect magic and finds that there is some kind of transmutation going on.
Castiel comes back to the bar and sees double Kazabel and goes white. Asks if this is some kind of spell, vomits on the floor. Castiel says he killed a man – was downstairs in the arena, a spectre of himself was summoned, and he killed him. Kazabel says ‘it’s true, sometimes you are your own worst enemy’.
Orrel asks future Orrel to take first watch, then Demn-A’ takes watch. The Kazabels burst back in and go to bed together, keeping everyone up with their activities.
We wake up in the morning, and Jenny knocks on the door and brings breakfast up. She says there is a man downstairs waiting for Castiel, but Castiel isn’t here. Kazabel tells us that he saw Castiel yesterday, and what happened between them.
Two Kazabels and two Gaylens head downstairs, the two Gaylens try to order each other around.
A human in travellers close with short brown hair is waiting at the bar. He asks if we are members of Castiel’s party, and why there are two of us. He says Castiel paid him to wander around town and bring us the news. He can’t find Orrel, so he will explain to us.
Gaylen brings him up to the party room, and he introduces himself as Gavin. He says the whole town is abuzz about our fight yesterday, certain gambling rings are unhappy that we fought two fights at once, and was hard to put odds on. WE fought at the Wizards Dome and killed a blue dragon wyrmling, and fought at the death pit at the same time.
He says that if they were unhappy about how things were running they’d go to the big man in town (Kurgen), but for questions about magic they might go to the clergy.
We’re the second most famous in town after Dirk, who hasn’t fought in a few weeks.
We ask him to do a few things like finding more of us, but we can’t come to a deal.
Gaylen tries to get Gaylen to fight over a purse, but future Gaylen chooses to leave and takes Adelaide with him.
Demnes go to find Zane Roundtree the runner and find out where Castiel has gone. Zane says our fight against the dragon was impressive.
We wait until fight time, then make our way to the arena. Gaylen walks out and talks to the crowd about clones and dark magic.
Gaylen rushes future Gaylen, hits him with his sword and downs him. Takes his scroll and potion, and then stands over the unconscious future Gaylen looking at the crowd who are yelling for him to finish the future Gaylen.
Present Gaylen then stabs future Gaylen in the chest and kills him. Gaylen then walks off in silence and the party reminds him he needs to fight again now.
Serafina tells us we’re fighting a single man, and we’re all entering through the same gate.
She walks out the gate and says that Lone Dragon the human soldier is back by popular demand. A knight in dark full plate walks out with a greatsword and a heavy crossbow.
Future Orrel charges into combat and takes a defensive stance, Gaylen runs off to one side, Dabulamanzi summons a cloud of spores and moves towards the Lone Dragon, Kazabel launches a curse and an eldritch blast at the lone dragon.
Present Orrel joins the wall of combat, and Demn-B joins him.
Dabulamanzi 2 also has spores burst forth and joins himself, and future Kazabel launches a curse and an eldritch blast.
The lone dragon swings at orrel and misses twice, Gaylen waits at the side of combat.
Dabulamanzi throws a fire bolt at the dragon but misses, and Kazabel throws another bolt.
Demne fumbles a swipe, and Dabulamanzi shoots a flame that splashes over the Knight.
The lone dragon swings fruitlessly at Orrel as spores swarm in to his eyes and mouth.
We’re on a ship with seashanties, storms, and there are huge sails, lightning seems really close, and there is whirring from two huge metal coils. There is the shadow of a dragon in the sky, and the crew pull on the sails.
Now we’re back, wet from the rain, and continue fighting against the lone dragon.
Dabulamanzi looks round for anyone in the arena that looks wet, or confused. The party in the arena looks wet, not the other versions of ourselves. One guy in the crowd looks like he’s wearing wet robes – a stretched, weird faced guy with a hood on, quite tall.
Dabulamanzi and Kazabels miss with flames and eldritch blasts, and the Lone Dragon misses two more attacks against Orrel.
Gaylen walks in and attacks, but misses his strike.
Dabulamzi produces more wayward flames, Kazabel misses, and Dabulamazni hits him with a bolt of flame and kills him.
Orrel pulls off his helm, and he has a shaved head and has a neck tattoo of a small grey dragon-ish thing.
Orrel takes the plate armour and Demne takes the bow and the sword, and Dabulamanza points out the mage who is now talking to Yosten the gnome. We head off and go see Serafina, who hands over the 50 gold.
Gaylen heads to the bank, shows his signet ring, and deposits 100 gold, 21 of which was from future party slush, then heads off to try and find a prostitute.
We head back to the inn, and see Gaylen talking to Sally. Ronald congratulates us, and offers us the big room upstairs since there are more of us. Gaylen keeps his private room.
A small beefy redheaded gnome walks in and she introduces herself. We’ve been invited to fight again at the wizard’s dome at 5pm. She is GJZS (queeze). She works for the wizard Tox who owns the dome. He uses magic in the dome, and says if we win there will be a reward. There will be another party competing, and the reward isn’t known beforehand but she guarantees the wizard’s reward will be great.
Gaylen then insults her by pretending to speak gnomish, and she leaves offended.
Gaylen goes and apologises, and agrees to the fight tomorrow night.
We go up to our room, discuss what might be happening, and with no ideas other than continuing to fight, we go to sleep. Night passes uneventfully, and we discuss tactics in the morning.
Kazabel asks people in bars around the wizards dome about past fights and tries to find clues about what monsters are in the dungeons. A batch of dragon eggs were brought in a long time ago, people didn’t believe it until Orrel and the pit crew fought one last night and now people believe many will be released on the arenas. A group of giants have been captured out in the hills, but they haven’t been seen yet so might be in transport.
We head over to the wizard’s dome (a giant stone arena with painted walls and a canvas roof) to ask about previous fights. Demne talks to one of the runners asks if they have any info about what might be planned for this evening – no plans.
He tells us about our fight with the dragon, where Gaylen used a boomburst wand to fight it, Demne was throwing potions that exploded, and we dodged the lightning breaths and we slayed it good.
We then head to Nim’s armoury and Gaylen asks where he can find an artificer. Nim says there are tinkers in town, and that the wizard might, in fact, be an artificer.
Gaylen heads to Dean’s restaurant and sits down at a table with a single woman, tries to romance, and gives up and goes to the brothel (late night delight). Orders a prostitute, balks at the 10gp cost, and leaves.
We then head to the Wizard’s Dome, and Yosten welcomes us and says he works for the wizard.
He leads us to a room and brings us wine – there will be another party competing. Aim of the game is to place a jagged bronze thing on the pedestal in the middle of the maze.
Opposition will enter from another location, there will be challenges and creatures in there, first party to place it on the pedestal gets the prize.
This is a single level maze, not allowed to go above the wall height, but allowed to go below the floor.
Don’t leave the maze.
Yosten comes back, opens the door into the corridor with 10ft high stone walk.
Demne leads, holding left hand against left wall, and we run at full pelt following that logic.
We run into a shimmering field that Dabulamanzi notices. We feel the breeze again, and come across a dead end. We can see the stands above the walls, and Gaylen helps us take our bearings.
We continue to run and end up back where we started, and so begin the maze again. We avoid the shimmering field this time, skip a room that has obvious treasure. We avoid another shimmer, and come across a face blowing wind intermittently. We see another wall of vines with open flowers, then continue on, see a second face blowing wind, and then come across a grove with vines and orange flowers and a sweet smell.
Gaylen hacks away the vines from one wall, and notices a possible doorway. He hacks off the vines with 10 flowers, and we head down a corridor and find another exit from the arena. We decide to head back to the vine room and treat it as a dead end.
Narration ceases at this point, as we circle the maze endlessly.
We then find a path to a room with a pedestal and a receptacle that takes the bronze item, and decide to camp there and ambush the party coming in.
Castiel awakes in the forest, having fled town. Suddenly in leather clothes with party, in an office, lights sparkling outside the windows. Man with short moustache mid-sentence. Asking party for ‘the money’, Castiel asks Kazzabel where the money is, he is confused too. Man (Marco) says that ‘you’ have been tasked with collecting money from ‘the dealing enterprise’. Castiel searches his person for money, finds potions and a bag of grey dust. Man slightly annoyed that Castiel offers the bag of ‘Thrash’, that the enterprise itself grows, it’s a grower’s kit. Kazabel is offered as collateral for party to pick up the drug tarrifs. Suited Underling sent with party to make sure they come back in one day with money.
Kazabel disagrees, Castiel fails to persuade Kazabel, Marco gets impatient and picks up a ‘wand’ and shoots Kazabel. Kazabel slumps to the floor in a pile of blood after being shot 3 times.
Castiel decides to look into it.
Castiel back in the woods, wet, dirty, in pink cloak and clothes.
Castiel comes to back in town, and heads back to the inn, and Roland asks why he’s not meeting up with his friends at the Wizard’s dome. Plays it cool, says he’s just dropping some stuff off in the way to the Wizard’s Dome, then heads over there.
He gets to the Wizard’s dome and gets barred from entry, and bamboozles the guard in to letting him in. He heads downstairs to see the gnome lady with golden skin and short wavy red hair. She is Spicuous.
The rest of the party is standing in the centre of the maze surrounded by stone walls, a chest in the room and a plinth with a hole for the object we were told to search for.
Corridor outside the room is ten feet wide, goes 40 ft deep and turns off to the right.
Orrel and Gaylen take up position watching down corridor and over the walls, and the crowd cheers as a rumbling passes through the floor.
Kazabel shoots an eldritch blast at the chest, which hit something 5ft in front of the chest which blocked the blast.
Orrel sets up his hunting trap, and the party hear faintly a voice from 80ft behind us saying ‘Welcome to my shop’
Gaylen recognises the voice of Yosten, who is the gnome employed by the wizard.
We hear a cheer from the crowd, and after some time we search the room finding nothing.
A swarm of pixies carrying an axe rounds the corner, and Kazabel shoots a warning shot eldritch blast.
Kazabel talks to them in Sylvan, and they ask to come closer saying they’re not enemies.
They say they don’t know what their business is in the maze, and they were protecting their forest when three men came and attacked them. The men fled when the pixies attacked them, and they are presenting us their axe to help fight against their enemy.
They hand off their axe to Demne who has it to wield.
After some time, a lion head pokes around the corner and Kazabel blasts at it.
The cat man avoids the blast, and fires at Orrel with a short bow and misses.
Demne rushes up the corridor, and sees a cat with a shortbow, a man with a spear, and a man in shimmery plate armour with a vial.
Castiel is in the VIP box and enjoys a succulent quince.
Dabulamanzi releases a cloud of spores, and the armoured opponent runs in to combat with Demne, while Gaylen moves up through the ranks.
The wizard opponent moves around the corner and shoots a line of light and force down the corridor hitting Demne, Dabulamazi and Gaylen.
Demne slashes at the lion man as he runs past, and he runs on to slash at Gaylen with his claws. Orrel grabs him to hold him in place, then the lion is hit with Dabulamanzi’s staff and goes down.
The enemy in armour then hits Dabulamanzi and tries to also damage Demne.
The wizard then casts a spell and disappears, and Gaylen kills the downed lion.
Gaylen drags the body of lion out the way, and Orrel tries to spot where the wizard has gone.
Castiel asks for paper, quill and ink in the box to draw out the path to the party through the maze.
Kazabel asks Gaylen to form up a second rank, and Gaylen rushes to the front line instead to attack the enemy knight with his sword.
The enemy knight hits Demne with his spear and misses Gaylen, while Kazabel blasts from the back line. Orrel continues to look and listen for where the wizard went.
Demne funnels their want for this person to be dead so that Demne could be protected, and that want funnels into divine energy that smites to the knight and kills them. The life energy from their body is drained into Kazabel.
Gaylen then cuts the downed knight’s throat – a rock is thrown over the walls and heads of the party from the damaged wall.
Demne and Dabulamanzi move forward, Demne hits air but Dabulamanzi bumps into something invisible. Demne surrounds the area something invisible is in, and Dabulamanzi offers to trade the wizards life for the contraption.
He appears, shoots a magic missile at Dabulamanzi and Demne.
Demne drops his shield and two-handed attacks, while eldritch blasts miss and he dodges sword hits from Gaylen.
The wizard then fires off magic missiles, impacting Gaylen, Demne and Dabulamanzi. Kazabel hits him with an eldritch blast, Demne makes contact two handed with his axe, knocking the wizard down, and Gaylen coup-de-grace’ him.
The party searches the bodies of the opponents, finding a magic vial, a coin pouch, the tinker object, and a sword that looks like a short katana with black handle and casing, two shortbows and 37 arrows.
Gaylen takes the black sword, and Demne puts the object in the receptable. The glyphs around the chest glow briefly, and Demne walks over and opens the chest.
Castiel Mutz turns up.
In the chest is a bolt of silk, a small bag of incense, a small talisman, some gloves, a small ceramic box with painted sides, a glass goblet, and a small hammer. There is also a small pouch of gems (~100gp worth).
The chest can be carried between two people. Demne and Gaylen carry the chest, and also take the object out of the receptacle and put it in the chest with us.
Castiel leads us out of the maze, where Spicuous greets us and congratulates us, and we’ll see her tomorrow night at the grand arena. Spicuous leads us out to a cheering crowd outside. Gaylen woos a lady, and invites the whole crowd of people back to the prostitute’s omen.
Castiel tries to cover by saying we’re heading back to the Sandstorm Arena.
We head back to the Omen, and head upstairs to look through the loot.
Gaylen looks over the black sword, slices up a pillow, and thinks there isn’t anything abnormal about it. He heads back downstairs to find the woman and drink wine.
The party then looks over the cloth talisman, and Demne recognises it as a talisman of the god of knowledge, bards etc. Not magical, but finely made and likely worth 50gp (Ogmar).
Gloves are inlaid with fine metal thread and are very finely made and new. They look like very decorative cloth gloves, likely expensive.
The ceramic box is a puzzle box, and Deabulamanzi has a crack at solving it with Demne’s help with no luck.
The glass goblet is finely made (~50gp), and the hammer looks like a well-forged +1 light hammer (d4+1).
The upstairs gang set watches and get ready for bed, while Gaylen is downstairs with Athena (half-elf, brown skin, pipe smoking).
Jenny brings breakfast the next morning, and says Spicuous is here to see us. She comes up and reminds us we’re going to the grand arena on Tox’s invite to see Dirk and the Whiskey Biscuits fight the enemy.
He wants to meet us, and there isn’t a dress code. We talk to her about the fight last night, and Tox was surprised the pixies gave us an axe. Our defensive tactics worked well and waiting for the enemy to bring us the key was a gamble. We dodged the skeletons and the ooze, and we avoided the greed-trap of the diamond pendant.
Gaylen gives Athena 15gp, and sends her off to get some fine clothes. He attunes to the sword, and realises it does d6 +2 +d4 necrotic damage.
Party heads to Dreamslayer’s emporium (the weapon shop) and a half orc with grey hair and green skin is there – Macknock.
Castiel talks with him, and Gaylen interjects asking if he can identify magic items. He says no, and Gaylen walks out and leans against the wall.
Macknock sells weapons, and buys weapons. Demne haggles with Macknock about the casting focus.
We get paid 110gp for the gems and the casting focus.
We go to boneshaker and sell the incense, the goblet, the silk.
We head to the church and sell the amulet for 50gp.
Kazabel buys himself a heavy crossbow and we head back to the inn to wait for 5pm.
Spicuous turns up to take us to the grand arena, and takes us up to the box.
Yosten is up in the box eating some fruit, and a robed figure is facing away from us. Spicuous introduces us to Tox. Castiel asks for quince, Gaylen asks for rose,
Tox explains some of what is going on with Gaylen’s sword and how it pays using life force.
Tox is an artificer, creates things, and sometimes needs people to go out and get him specialised ingredients or components or run messages and he’s found the best way to get the most skilled workers is paying attention to those who move up the ranks in the arenas.
He doesn’t fight in the arena, and might possible want us to get things for him.
Tox possibly has a job for us – we were the only group that survived of the ones that were invited.
He will either give the job to Dirk Harrison and the Whiskey Biscuits or us, and he’s making trials to separate the two groups.
He can’t tell us about the job or payment yet.
Dabulamanzi asks him about the time displacement going on, and he seems surprised. He was surprised it was happening to other people, and it’s been happening to him for ~10 days.
Time shenanigans happened to him multiple times, has been a different scene and different time. Has been a different version of himself, and has never gone backward. He’s also been to the desert plane.
He has been transported to a nothingness for 6 seconds.
He has metal legs under his robes, and has a stretched face backward into his hood.
Tox is a gnome – he lost his legs and built himself new legs and arms.
One of his experiments exploded and took his arms, and the legs went later.
Stadium is filling up with lots of fans in black with red boots.
Five guys walk out with long bows and do an archery contest.
We get given our food and drinks (camel + cow milkshakes, pink wine, water, and a quince).
Five fighters enter the ring and a bard tries to warm everyone up. A knight in full plate and a two handed sword, a man in a tricorn cap, a dwarf in robes, a man in black leathers, and a man in furry underwear with an axe. Yosten wagers with Kazabel – he has an item that allows life energy transfer. He pulls out a flat snowglobe, puts his hand on it, and then asks Orrel to put the ring on. He transfers some life experience to Orrel to prove it works in both directions.
5 XP is worth 1 gold, but depends on whether it is linear, the giver, the receiver etc.
A long conversation ensues descending into many evil permutations. Tox is opposed to taking people’s free will.
Giant badger is tearing people apart in the arena, and Kazabel bets Yosten 3g that thewizard would win.
Man in furs was exploded by tricorn hat man, the dwarf transformed into a badger. Wizard starts shooting at the badger with his staff, wizard is unhurt after being bitten by the badger, and teleports away from the badger leaving behind an explosion leaving a naked dwarf corpse. Kazabel wins his 3gp.
Bard announces Dirk and the Whisky Biscuits,
Bard (Frederick Arden) announces the Whisky biscuits
Stetch - A naked huge tall man walks out with spikes instead of fingers, and a tall wizard hat.
Next, the Archer Longhat – over 6 and a half feet tall wearing a tall bassinet hat (female).
Wizard Arrowman comes out – looks like a boy with a huge long beard wrapped around his neck in normal black travellers clothes, a woollen beanie, a bag of tricks and a wand.
Dirk comes out – he’s a huge douche, Mohawk, gold jewellery, black clothes, red boots, two dirks.
They’re now all stacked up in the arena, and the crowd goes quiet. Five gates open, five giant spiders come out.
Dirk runs in to one, and attacks twice with his right hand dirk, and the spider falls down dead.
Arrowman opens up his bag and pulls out a two handed sword and charges a spider. He trails blood as a wound opens up on his back.
Longhat releases two arrows and kills a spider, while stretch runs in and claws a spider 4 times.
A two-headed ogre (Etin) runs out to attack. Stretch leaves the spider and charges the Etin, longhat takes down spiders with her arrows. Arrowman fights further with his sword, which does different levels of elemental damage to different spiders.
Dirk watches other gates, and out of the third gate comes a Cyclops.
Tox tells Dabulamanzi that large parties go out to catch the monsters. A spider bites arrowman and he collapses to the floor unconciuous. Dirk runs over to defend arrowman, longhat takes out the final spider, and stretch fights the Etin.
The Cyclops lumbers over towards them, and the crowd cheers wildly. The Cyclops hits Dirk with its giant club twice, and longhat starts firing at the Cyclops.
Another 5 giant spiders come out of the five gates, and the etin lands a hit on stretch and hits him with an axe.
Cyclops hits Dirk twice with his club and Dirk collapses, unconscious.
Longhat ran in with her shield to protect him, while Stretch is on the ground trying to defend himself and spiders are closing in.
Cyclops swings at arrowman as he lays on the ground, and longhat can’t get there in time and Arrowman looks dead.
Gaylen asks Tox if they’d ever lost a fight, or whether they’d get a time shenanigans.
Stretch is back up and trying to climb up the Etin, while the spiders circle dead Arrowman, unconscious dirk and longhat.
There is a cry from the crowd as several young teenage boys run in to help, dressed in black with red boots.
Tox doesn’t mind people interfering with the fight, and as he says that, the Cyclops flings the dead arrowman at the five young men.
The five entrants and slammed with the corpse, killing all five entrants.
Longhat picks up one of Dirk’s dirks and tries to fight off the Cyclops.
Stretch finally reaches the Etin’s eyes, and shreds with finger claws. Cyclops continues to swing at longhat, laying heavy blows on her. She collapses under a huge blow.
Stretch is the only one remaining, and the Etin collapses to the ground.
Stretch is bitten in the back by a spider and collapses to the ground. He gets webbed by more spiders, and he lays there struggling.
The Cyclops lays into him, crushing him to death.
Crowd is in stunned silence,
Tox says ‘I guess you guys are it’ – there is now no one left to hire..
He says he needs a party to collect ingredients for his experiments. He needs a specific moss that grows east of town.
He says it shouldn’t take more than a week by foot to get there, and he thinks the danger is high.
He invites us to his residence tomorrow to discuss the details.
Dabulamanzi asks what the moss is called – Tox discovered it in old writings, and it is called White Moss which is meant to have remarkable properties.
We agree to meet at 4pm tomorrow and go over the papers.
Tox thinks a Cyclops alone would have been a tough fight, and maybe they were overconfident.
We head back to the Omen and discuss why Tox wants us to get this moss and why it need such a strong party.
Kazabel asks us to help him kill his slavers if we see them which we agree to.
We discuss what payment we want for this job, and whether we ask for gold, life force, items, etc.
Gaylen leaves the room and heads downstairs to find Athena Cloudfang, who is smoking a pipe. Gaylen organises a table for the two of them, and Jenny kicks a table of drunks out who ask Gaylen to punch them for honour. Gaylen koocks out the one that asked for it. They go have a splashy bath time.
Kazabel goes carousing, the rest of the party has an early night.
In the morning Jenny knocks on the doors and brings up breakfast. Kazabel wakes up in the stable dirty and not feeling great. The stable is attached to Boneshakers shop. He has a wash in the trough and walks back to the Omen,
Castiel, Orrel, Demne head to the Great Arena to see what we’d be offered to fight there.
Castiel asks some workers where the office is, and they’re busy scraping off the tapestry or Dirk and the Whisky Biscuits,
A small kid runs up and talks to Castiel and he tries to find out how to get a fight there. Castiel asks about the archers that competed to see how we can get a fight there.
The archer lives in a cabin south of town, and we walk down to check it out.
Throry greets us, and a strange interaction occurs.
We go in for tea, and he tells us he got 200gp for the grand prize. He says Stretch earned 250gp for the fight at the arena.
He chats to us, and we leave. On the way back in to town, Orrel and Demne disappear on the walk.
Suddenly, all of us except Castiel appear in the woods, surrounded by men in black robes holding guns. 10 that are mooks, one who is a bald woman holding a device that looks like a globe with metal over the top with legs.
She asks us who we are, and she instructs one of her mooks to shoot a tree.
Her name is Vip, and is aiming to find who brought us here. She tells us her friends have guns.
Gaylen drinks his brown potion.
She says her item is created to determine where Rifts will occur.
She’s never heard of the kingdom, or unification, and then the green starts to swirl and she says good-bye. We appear back in our normal world.
Demne grills Castiel as to what happened to both Castiels.
Back at the Omen, we rest until 4 when we head to Tox’s house. It’s a small, nice place next to the Wizard’s Dome with some glyphs around the front door.
Yosten welcomes us in, and we have drinks downstairs. Sconces are lit with gas,
Kazabel asks for blue wine, and Yosten struggles with this.
The books on the table are of poetry, and a harp in the corner.
Tox walks in in his cloak and hood and asks if we experienced a weird time thing earlier this morning. Tox went to the void, and we went to the future.
We tell Tox about our experience and unification and the people from the future.
We ask if there is any relationship between the moss and time travel, but he says it’s not related.
Demne tells Tox about the wild wild snowglobe.
Castiel negotiates with Tox about pay – he offers us 200gp each to go get the moss.
He wants a jar of moss, found it in stories in old elven tales, and is mentioned as a food source for the poor. Grows quickly with moisture, might need to store it in a dry container so we don’t end up with too much.
Gaylen negotiates for a one-handed gunt.
Kazabel asks for boots of jumping, Castiel asks for a law practice,
We agree to the terms, Orrel gets a flowglobe and ring set to be made, and Dabulamanzi and Demne get pendants of protection.
He gives us a map, agrees to provide horses and rations, and says he’s not sure it exists,
We head back to the Omen and spend the week resting up.
On the second day of our long rest, Kazabel starts to feel quite ill, exhausted, fatigued and stomach cramps.
Demne and Dabulamanzi diagnose this as the Sewer Plague – a generic term for a broad category of illnesses. Demne lays on hands and cures the disease.
The party completes their long rest, and Orrel has a vision from a shadowy figure that offers great power if Orrel and continue to kill opponents in the arena and devote these to the skull symbol.
Spicuous arrived at the inn with the pack horses, tent, bedrolls, jars for the moss and supplies, and the party departed Dragonspear heading east.
We encountered frequent city guard patrols and the odd trade wagon, and pass by several fruitful orchards, farms etc.
The party made camp on the side of the road as evening fell, and had dinner and wine from the Tox-supplied provisions. Kazabel does an entertaining dance.
A local militia stops past and Dabulamanzi gets given advice to stick the paths in the forest.
Kazabel casts detect magic and sees necromancy coming from Gaylen’s sword, divine energy coming off Orrel’s shield etc.
After 9 days, we get to a more swampy area, and the path continues in to the forest.
The map provided pointed this out as where the moss may live. Demne heads off the clearly marked path to go chop down a tree as a place for moss to grow, and suddenly disappears.
We tie each other together and Orrel walks through, and disappears. On the other side of an invisible plane, the rope is fixed to a hanging point in the air. Demne is on this side, and after investigation, no way back through.
The rest of the party walks through along with the pack horses, and we’re now in an open, airy, beautiful forest.
Demne has found boot tracks of a large humanoid, and we follow the tracks towards the glow of a camp fire.
Some elven words and some undercommon words are being spoken weirdly, sounds like Orcish with some elvish thrown in.
There are many tents and little orc-lings, and some larger orcs sitting around the campfire. In the large tree around the campfire, there are three humans chained up. There are about 20 tents in total, and there is a white stone tomb entrance.
There are large stone block ruins that suggest this might have been a town at some point that has fallen into disrepair.
The people chained up appear to be trappers or monster hunters, and don’t look to have been tortured.
Gaylen tries to sneak up to the orc camp, and is spotted. He demands the humans are released, and the orcs refuse.
Gaylen keeps trying to walk towards the trappers, and notices some of the orcs wielding ancient elven weapons (likely from the tomb).
Gaylen tries to explain he’s looking for white moss, and the rest of the party walk over to join the conversation.
Dabulamanzi asks where the moss is, and the orcs say there is something like that in the tomb.
Castiel goes to offer legal help to the captives, and Dabulamanzi asks what the orcs plan to do with the captives.
They say they don’t get many people coming this way.
The trappers offer Castiel that we could take the tribe to the arenas and split the loot with us if we let them out..
Castiel asks (via Dabulamanzi) about their justice process, and they say nothing has ever happened before. They’re worried about the trappers getting out.
The orc says he will come with us into the tomb as it is the home of the Sleeping One and getsures for us to head down.
We head into the tomb down stairs past candles and incense, and into a room with a dais with a pale elf lying on it under a fur sheet. There are coins, gems etc lying about the body.
Zane the orc says he has never tried to wake the sleeping one, and gives us a jar with the moss in it.
He says it looks like fine white sand, if you add water and warmth it grows, once it dries it returns back to sand.
We get given a second jar of moss and give some gold in return, and ask how to get home. He says if you leave the forest you never come back, so maybe just leave the forest.
The sleeping one is breathing slightly, and is sweating slightly. Zane says the Sleeping one isn’t sick, but is protecting them from evil.
Kazabel senses abjuration coming from the sleeping one, and strong illusion coming from everywhere else.
In front of us a man appears in beanie and goggles, in a long coat, smoking a cigarette. He has a leather satchel over his shoulder.
He says “Ah, Backwards. Bow down before me, I am your god Eric”, and Orrel hits him with his axe. Gaylen cuts him with the black sword and Orrel shoots a sickening green ray into him.
Kazabel fires off a crossbow bolt from a shadowy heavy crossbow that appears and Dabulamanzi checks if he’s still alive, and asks Zane if he wants this guy taken above ground.
Castiel takes out his gavel and whacks it on the ground, and Gaylen takes off his goggles and stabs him in the throat with his sword.
Orrel summons a ghostly hand which clenches his heart and he dies, and his body evaporates leaving his belongings behind.
Eric had boots, a black coat, an empty satchel, gloves, a long cigarette, a beanie.
Suddenly all his gear as well as the skeleton disappers.
The party has a discussion over what to do next – Kaabel and Orrel push for killing the trappers. Dabulamazi aska to avoid killing potential information sources if avoidable.
The party heads out of the tomb, and over to the captives. Orrel offers that the party can kill off the trappers to remove the problem. Zane asks that it happens away from camp so the children don’t see – a party discussion happens and Gaylen would prefer to kill the orcs and free the trappers as the orcs are vicious marauders.
After a brief discussion, Orrel is also a vicious marauder, and the party agrees to move on killing off the trappers.
Castiel offers to zane to write up a set of rules for them to run their land by and goes over basic laws that they could implement (no trespassing, manslaughter is less bad than murder, persecute by majority vote by adults, rank crimes by seriousness to determine the punishment, seriousness is determined by the what means the most to the tribe [property damage is less serious]). The orcs thank Castiel for his assistance, and Dad thanks Orrel for his translations.
The prisoners are unchained from the tree and handed to Orrel (all hands chained to a centre point that is then chained to a tree). Kazabel leads the way, He starts to walk away but the prisoners voice concerns about where they’re being taken. Gaylen tries to deceive the prisoners into thinking they’re being saved, and they aren’t sure if they believe him
The trappers are freelancers, and say they work for whatever arena pays them.
Zane leads the party and the prisoners towards a shimmering open plane and lets us know that is the way out.
Gaylen walks across the threshold into farmland, and heads off towards the nearest farm.
The rest of the party follow through, and Orrel strikes the lead prisoner in the temple with the butt of his axe.
Gaylen stabs one of the prisoners through the neck and they fall to the ground.
Kazabel shouts ‘Praise Bhaal’ and cracks another in the head with the butt of his whimsical crossbow.
Orrel slams one with the glowing red skull emblem on his shield, and Castiel strikes one with his Gavel of Judging.
Demne maintains a stoic pose between the violence and the farmhouse.
Gaylen walks off towards the farmhouse leading the horses.
Kazabel knocks of the remaining two unconscious with the butt of his crossbow, and Orrel pulls on the chain to drag a prisoner at full speed into his shield coming the other way.
Castiel offers workers compensation claims to the unconscious prisoners.
Demne asks what was going on, and Orrel explains the visions that he saw in the week in town and the voice of Bhaal offering power. Orrel hands over the human skull and instructs Demne to focus on the impulses. Demne hacks into the chest of the prisoner and kills them brutally. Kazabel executes the other by dancing with sharp cloven hooves on their chest.
The forest flickers in the background from dark to light, and then locks on to the forest we came from with the orcs in it.
The party catches up with Gaylen and he ties the horses up and knocks on the door to the farmhouse.
An old man with long straight hair and brown eyes, 6ft tall and extremely muscular, and with piercings.
Gaylen asks if we can spend the night and introduces himself to Oliver the farmer. He agrees we can spend the night, and Gaylen tells him we explored the ruins in the forest after venturing off the path.
He seems surprised, but gives the part bread, cheese, tea and ale. Gaylen asks that Kazabel not kill him, to which Kazabel agrees.
Orrel asks him how he got so huge, and he says from farming.
The party sit down to dinner, and he asks what we’ve been doing in the forest. Gaylen tells him we were collecting moss for a wizard.
Demne then asks him how he got so big.
Kazabel, Castiel and Gaylen carouse with him.
Kazabel stumbles out drunk and off towards the road. Gaylen then follows 10 mins later
Orrel decapitates Oliver and uses the excessive blood to draw the Bhaalsign in the main room. He then drags the body and head to the forest boundary, along with the three prisoners and their hands, and throws them all over the forest boundary which is now showing the orc side.
Demne, Orrel and Castiel wake up and Dabilamanzi is camped outside.
Kazabel wakes up in the forest with all of Gaylen’s possessions as well as a fine dagger, in a small fruit tree grove with the farmhouse off in the distance.
He remembers leaving by himself, talking to a woman, and making some kind of wager.
Kazabel then walks back to the farm house and tells the party what he’s been up to – he detects magic and finds that his new dagger is giving off evocation magic, and the goggles are giving off divination magic.
Gaylen waked up naked, holding his sword, in a dark, dank smelling place.
He is holding a small piece of metal, and tries to crawl out of the cave. In his hand he has a small key. After recalling that the farmhouse was north of the road and west of the forest, and heads west. He spots the farmhouse, and walks over.
Kazabel realises that the key is magical, and has to deal with Kazabel to get his stuff back.
Gaylen asks why Oliver is dead and Orrel explains he thought that Gaylen had asked Kazabel not to kill him, rather than the whole party not to kill him.
Suddenly, the party are back in the orc encampment, and Zane welcomes us back.
We head down to the tomb and see that the Sleeping one is no longer breathing or sweating.
Gaylen goes to coup de gras the old one, Zane tries to stop him, and Kazabel shoots Zane. Gaylen stabs the Sleeping One, and Zane swings punches at Gaylen.
Suddenly the party are back in the farm house. We agree to head back into the forest and finish off the job with the sleeping one and the orcs.
Gaylen tries to make friends with Luna the dog, and Castiel sabotages him. Kazabel arcs up about the dog being tied up, until the pack horses are pointed out, and the issues suddenly subsides and the party head off into the forest.
We see six figures including Zane off in the distance talking to Zane, then they head down into the ruins. We follow and head down into the room with the sleeping one.
We offer to help, and combat is engaged. Gaylen stabs Zane in the back, and Zane dies.
Gaylen then decapitates Zane, and Dabulamanzi looks around outside the tomb to make sure no orcs had noticed.
The party takes up position in the tomb, and Gaylen heads upstairs and throws Zane’s head at some orcs and yells at them in common.
They scatter and Gaylen chases down a child and kills them – the rest of them flee in to the forest.
We see the corpses of orcs with wounds from our party, so we assume that we came back in the future.
As we get the horses, we see the Sleeping One walking along,
Kazabel fires a shot at hom, and Orrel and Demne run over to him,
He turns and looks at us with holes in his limbs held together by magic,
He is walking west towards Dragonspear, and we try to ask him where he’s going.
He says he’s going to Dragonspear (in common), because he feels like it.
He says he’s a spirit inhabiting a body, and he’s just walking through the forest.
He says he was released, the power holding him faded, and he was called.
The Sleeping One seemed like he was just woken up from a very very long sleep, and he seemed like he had lost his memories and was slowly coming back.
The party follows the sleeping one, and at midday a patrol approaches on the road. They stop and look at the sleeping one, and draw their weapons. Gaylen tries to convince them that the sleeping one is not undead evil.
Kazabel gets called a sheep boy, and the guards charge the sleeping one.
One strikes the sleeping one with their spear, and Demne calls on his god to rebuke the violence, causing one of the guards to scream in pain.
Demne warns then that only pain comes from pain, as Kazabel fires a crossbow bolt at them and tells them it was a warning shot.
A guard tries to stab Demne while the other slashes at the sleeping one.
Gaylen says that the fighting needs to stop , and Orrel moves up to one and waits.
Kazabel fires a crossbow bolt into one of the guards, who then tries to slash at the wraith.
Orrel summons ghostly hands to grip the chest of the guards, and Demne taunts them for their decision to attack.
Kazabel fires another bolt into a guard who dies.
Demne provides more disapproving quips, and Orrel provides Kazabel with Guidance from Bhaal for his bolt. Kazabel then fires a bolt straight into the skull of the guard who dies.
We talk with the Sleeping One, who says that the elf was keeping him trapped, but when the elf died, he has taken over the body.
He says people in the city want to meet him – Demne gives him some clothes to wear.
He doesn’t remember anything, just being trapped. He says the body had already perished when we entered the temple, and he says that he won.
He hasn’t heard of Bhaal, but he knows the name of Helm. This guy thinks Helm was a bit of a wuss.
We run through the gods and he recognises a few, and then we ask him what his powers are. We ask him to fly, and he levitates a bit and no Detect Magic is present.
He goes over and punches a tree, and then he casts necrotic magic which encases a tree, and the tree and all surroundings splat into black ooze.
Gaylen then says that he is evil and we should have nothing to do with him, and the party have a discussion about morals and Gaylen says he is opposed to killing innocent people. The discussion about ‘innocent’ ensues, and Gaylen says if this continues that he will have to go his own way when they party get back to dragonspear.
TSO then speedwalks towards dragonspear, and passes two guards. He ignores them and continues on his way.
The two guards then stop to ask if we’ve seen anything strange, and Kazabel tells them he saw two murdered guards on the road. They suddenly get very suspicious, and panic ensues.
They pull out manacles, and Kazabel suffers PTSD and screams ‘NEVER AGAIN’ and fires a crossbow shot at them.
Orrel asks Gaylen how these guards shackling Kazabel fits with his morality, and Gaylen says he agrees that these guards need to be killed but only because we killed the last guards. Gaylen then walks off down the road, leaving the rest of the party under attack from the guards.
The guards then spear Orrel several times, while Kazabel peppers them with crossbow bolts. One bolt tears the arm of the guard, and the other goes down.
Gaylen then stops to wait once the fight is over and Kazabel sets the bodies up with Orrel’s help as a ritual to Bhaal.
Kazabel washes himself clean from the blood, and the next few sets of guards ignore us.
During a night of camping, two guards sneak around our camp dragging the bodies of two other guards. The party decide not to pursue them, and go back to sleep.
Travel continues for a while, with no guards appearing on the road. After 5 days of travel, we see bodies on the road, look to have to been stabbed, and some tents have been set up. There are 14 dead guards, and 4 gross corpses that are in tents.
There are also some dead farmers.
Most were murdered while they were sleeping with knife stabs, the rest got up and fought. The ones that fought had blood on their weapons, and it looks like the farmers fought the guards.
Kazabel and Orrel make the bodies into another Bhaal ritual emblem.