On the Nature of Reality...

26 July 2010-

After recovering from our successful defeat (well, assist, anyway) of the orc slavers, we managed to get back to the caravan, and the rest of the trip passed uneventfully. Our characteres spent the next two weeks getting to know each other better, and still decided to work together, as we had been so successful thus far (so it's a bit contrived- sue us).

Once back at the larger town, however, rumor reached us that there was another job opportunity, this time involving a well-known gnome and his Wall Drug-like business in the middle of nowhere. We traveled to his establishment, only to discover that it was nearly abandoned, with only the owner initially there to greet us. He explained that a local legend had come to life- a demon that haunted the region, and which reappeared every 100 years or so. Now it seems it had returned, and had driven off his customers and taken his pet pig. While we were in the process of accepting the job of solving this problem, a group of four halflings swaggered in and berated the owner for hiring us, while disparaging us as well. That simply wouldn't stand, and several of us stood to explain this to them, but they stalked out, mounted large dogs, and took off before we could get close enough to them to make them even smaller.

This, of course, convinced most of us that the halflings were behind the whole thing, and had somehow created a mechanical device which allowed them to simulate the demon of legend. We decided to stake out the building, then unmask and kill them when they proved to be the real villains. Sadly, that's not exactly how it went down.

Although the critter did come to call, it didn't approach the building, but rather roared and squealed a lot from a ridge about 100 yards away. We shot a couple of arrows at it, and it seemed ready to leave, so some of us went after it. Kevin's giant-kin wizard (long story) teleported right to it while Bruce's samurai cast Haste on himself and ran towards it, and Craig's lizard man and the two dwarf fighters (Jeff and eMichael) pursued as well. Kevin, prepared for a fake or an illusion of some sort, instantly changed his mind when he saw it up close, and he teleported right back to the building while the fighters were about halfway in between the building and the ridge, shouting "It's real!"

Of course, by that time it seemed best to keep after the creature, at least until we could get some clue as to its lair, so our fighters pursued it. This paid off in two contrasting ways: first, we saw the halflings pacing it from the woods, so our suspicions of their involvement were confirmed; second, it heard our metal-clad dwarves, and it turned on us. The samurai and the lizard man braced their naginatas to receive the charge, but it broke the polearms and kept coming, crushing Bruce's samurai and then moving on. The dwarves blasted the thing with musket fire, but it gutted eMichael as well before we could bring it down. Up close, it appears to be a giant boar the size of a VW bus, and covered with spiked and armored plates- but at least it's dead. Next week, our surviving members kill halflings.

A Blinding Wight Light

19 July 2010-

The horse buying mission met with little initial success, as we returned to the town in the rain only to discover that the townspeople were gone. The buildings looked like they had been broken into, with the occupants dragged out by force into the increasingly cold, wet night. Luckily, tracking the townies proved easy in the mud, and we followed the trail in hopes of accomplishing some sort of rescue.

Along the way, the night got increasingly cold, and there were eerie howls in the air, but nothing threatened us, so we kept going until we topped a small hill and saw the group before us. The townspeople had been seized by a group of orc slavers, and were getting ready to make camp for the coming day. We quickly laid out some plans to attempt a rescue, and were starting to sneak in towards the camp, when we observed three ragged figures charging the orcs. In no time, there was a serious battle under way, with the large number of orcs trying to defend themselves from three angry barrow wights!

In the midst of the battle, Schmitty's monk and my half-elven samurai (yes, there was a last-minute change of plans on my part) attacked from the other side. Our spell casters opened up, and Craig's lizard man proved that atlatls had been the range weapons of choice for centuries for a reason. Things were really going our way when Kevin's half-ogre mage decided to Flash (we're talking the spell, here, by the way) the orcs. Some of them (and some of us, too) were blinded, but the wights evidently found that much sunlight objectionable, and immediately decided to come after Kevin. Noticing that the villagers were all prostrate on the ground, Kevin quickly knelt, but Craig's lizard man, who didn't kneel, was promptly cut down. Most of the rest of us quickly decided to take a knee, and the wights finished off the remaining few orcs. They then awarded several of us with gold armbands for our bravery, said some benevolent-sounding things in an ancient language to the terrified villagers, and returned to their barrows.

Needless to say, the villagers were very happy to see us, and gave us what they could in reward- the orc gear was sold to our caravan masters, who sold it off over the rest of our journey. At the end of the day, then, our party was both established and off to a good start (except that Craig's lizard man really doesn't like Kevin's half-ogre- go figure).

Time to Start Anew

12 July 2010-

It's been a long time since we ran a "first adventure" that pulled all the characters together, but tonight we started our new fantasy campaign- and almost everyone is playing something they don't usually play: Craig has a lizard man barbarian, Kevin has a half-ogre mage (no, really!), eBill has a human illusionist, eMichael has a dwarf fighter, Jeff has a dwarf gunslinger/engineer (dwarves in our campaign have discovered gunpowder), e/Brian (he's been "phoning it in" a lot lately, so has almost earned himself the "e" prefix) has a human swordsman, and I am planning on running a Drow monk. We're still waiting on final word from Schmitty on his character, but the party will certainly be unusual.

The action started readily enough, with most of our group (sans my Drow and Schmitty's mystery character) hired on to guard a caravan traveling a trade circuit between four remote villages. The first stop-over was a small village called Cavel Fort, known for their dyed blue wool (known locally as "Cavel blue") and their ancient ring-fort in the center of town. There, we got a couple of days to trade with the locals and get to know them a bit before we moved on toward the next town.

About half a day's travel from Cavel Fort, four gryphons dived out of the sky onto our pack horses- killing two of them outright and wounding the other two. While we drove them off or killed them pretty quickly, we're still in a bad position, and the merchants who run the caravan have decided to send us back to town for fresh draft animals. Hopefully, with the local flock (?) of gryphons taken care of, they ought to last longer this time.