Throgg took too long doing the update, so I did it. He then wanted me to submit it to him to look at. He then proceeded not to look at it... He's getting one last chance to write a recap for the session we had on Nov 3rd.
Rebellion Session #5/Total Session #11
The session was attended by Throgg, Salzar, Ozymandias, thewamp, and Middle_Snu. The session was done using Google Hangouts for all the attendees. Ozymandias and Middle_Snu left about halfway through the session. At the beginning of the session the party leveled up to Level 2.
We left off last time at the surrender of the Xorian supply caravan. After talking over what they would do with the captives and Elerie the group woke up the guard under the effect of the sleep spell. Stanton charmed the guard, gave him a knife, and told him to go kill Elerie. The guard did so. Then the brave adventurers turned nasty. They executed the guard as well as the two drivers who'd surrendered. The bodies of the Xorians were dumped into the river while Elerie's body was buried. They then pulled the two wagons out of the wagon ruts and headed back to the rebel base.
At the base they talked with Major Dactirian. Stanton did most of the talking. He explained that everything had gone fine, but Elerie had died in the attack on the supply caravan. He gave Dactirian the necklace to the shock collars that all four party members wear. Dactirian asked, "Is there anything else you have to tell me?"
Stanton said, "No."
Dacitiran pressed down on the green gem in the center of the necklace. The characters all started screaming in pain. Dacitiran stood up and walked around his meeting table towards the players saying, "You thought I didn't know?!? You thought you could lie to me?!! You may not have killed her, but you put the knife in their hands!" The entire party passed out due to the pain coming from their shock collars. (I had each of them roll a Fort save against DC 15. However much they beat it by was how many seconds they stayed awake. They all got about 5 seconds, long enough to hear Dactirian, except for Salzar/Wu who flubbed his roll).
The party was woken up by water being splashed on their faces from a bucket that a rebel guard carried. Dactirian dismissed the guard. The meeting table had four people on the other side now. Dacitiran, as before, an old woman wearing armor made from leaves, an even older woman with purple eyes, jet black hair, and armor made from skulls, and a strong half-orc (The half-orc is Middle_Snu's character, Korjak).
Dactirian told the party to sit down before beginning a long monologue of exposition. He told the characters that he had turn them back into their mortal forms to be a shining example of the Rebellion's power to redeem Dragovinians. They'd been evil before they were Dragovinians. That's why they were rewarded with that immortal status. To change them back to their mortal forms was just a reversion to their original mortal, but still evil, state. He'd known this from the beginning, but hoped it wouldn't be true. Dactirian hadn't brought them back to show the Rebellion's power, but because he needed them for a different purpose.
(From here the exposition goes into a bit of background stuff, some of which is not covered in the first post)
The old woman in leaves then spoke up, "My name is Alkmene Halkias (Alk-Mee-Nee Hal-Kee-As is the pronunciation, but my players never pronounce a name correctly when it can be made fun of. A lot of alternative spellings were tossed around between them). I am the sister of Amalgami the Betrayer, the one who doomed the First Alliance to failure. I am nothing like my brother and I will redeem my family."
(This is part of the Throgg's extensive background for Amalgami in the last campaign. Amalgami was born Anatolios Halkias with his twin sister Alkmene. Anatolios became a powerful cleric of Apollo while Alkmene became a priestess of Artemis. Anatolios's talent with magic was superb, but his knowledge of Apollo's doctrines was poor. His father threatened to pull him out of the clergy and have him train to take over the family business of buying and selling textiles. Anatolios panicked and stole a bunch of money from his dad. He fled town and took a new name, Amalgami, the name of a previous great hero [The original hero's story is never described].
(A while later in the first campaign, Amalgami was looking for allies to help him fight against the Xorians. He thought of his sister, Alkmene. He sought her out on Devil's Holt near the entrance to Hell with divination and asked her to join the First Alliance. She rudely declined. That's about all that the players know about her. Throgg left the specifics of her background up to me and I have kept them secret from the players)
Back to the present! Alkmene said, "Dactirian brought you four back from the undead at my request. You see, I am the last of the Elder Druids of the druid council of Semanarie. The rest of the druids were kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the Xorians during the First Alliance War. Long ago the druids were given a prophecy and I am the last carrier of it. Or at least a part of it. The prophecy was split into five parts to keep it safe. The Druids gave a piece to each of their loyal animal clans. You've already encountered one of them, the wolves north of this forest." (At this point the players started guessing what the other tribes were. They guessed bears correctly very fast. Other guesses were deer, eagles, African swallows, and European swallows. They then guessed sharks correctly. I told them the last of the four was a bird. They had a hard time with that one, so eventually I just told them it was condors).
"The other three animal clans are the Bears of the Terror Mountains, the Condors of the Dominarie Mountain Range, and the Sharks of Jovy's Isle. Each of these four carries a piece of the prophecy that was given to the Druids. I carry the fifth and final piece. The prophecy says:
Should one of the gods forever close his eyes
Find the weapon that caused him to die
Add it last with great caution
Then pour the mix on the great god's coffin."
Alkmene continued, "The prophecy is clearly about curing a god of a severe illness. Zeus is currently ill or dead and the strife on Mount Olympus because of this prevents the gods from purging the Dragovinian affliction. In order to win this war we must find the lost pieces of the prophecy and heal Zeus.
"Unfortunately, the secret of the prophecy was tortured out of the Druid Council when they were in Xorian captivity. The Xorians knew of the prophecy and the locations of the four animal clans. When Jevaninada II took the throne he found the four clans and turned a member of each of them into a Dragovinian. Additionally, he put wards around the clans, so that if any intelligent non-Dragovinian approached them he would instantly know. That is why I cannot recover the prophecy on my own. He would know and he would come to kill me.
"However, you four are exempt from the wards. You were once Dragovinians and the alarms on the clans will recognize you as such still."
(I took a break from the monologuing so the players could ask questions. I don't remember the specifics, but I think I included all the information they got.)
Dactirian spoke up after the group's questions were answered, "Your new commander will now be Corporal Korjak. He can journey with you past the alarms on the animal clans due to his unique... condition." (Korjak is the a member of the Champion class designed by the Giant. I've used the class in my DMing in the past for General Antapike, a significant NPC in the last campaign. Antapike's hero form was Thor. I decided that all Champions would have a nordic themed hero form. Middle_Snu's choice was Balder, wellknown for being a wuss god. Spoiler
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When Balder was born he was a sickly baby. His mother took him around to all the creatures and plants of the world and got them to promise not to hurt Balder. She got promises from everything except mistletoe because it looked so non-threatening. The gods would often play a game called Throw-Dangerous-Things-At-Balder. They could throw anything they wanted and Balder would be fine because of the promises all creation had made not to harm him. Mischievous Loki gave a spear to Balder's brother. His brother threw the spear and it killed Balder. Loki had made the spear from mistletoe! The death of Balder heralded the beginning of Ragnarok, the apocalypse of the Norse myths.
Middle_Snu finally got to play. We had another round of questions. The only relevant one was Gregor asking if the other old woman in the room was actually the Princess of Xoria, Tarigananata (Her description, jet black hair and purple eyes, matched). She told him that she was.
Gregor asked, "But I thought you died in the First Alliance War."
"No. I escaped and wandered the land for a while. However, that B----, Queen Anjakaze found me and sent the most powerful of the Seven Rages, Grave, to kill me. I killed Grave and took his armor. That's why I wear skulls. After that I came to Bigby's Forest to start the Rebellion."
Gregor said, "Forgive me my lady, but wasn't Grave killed by a shadowy demon?" (Gregor is a very refined orc).
Tarigananata let a creepy smile cross her face and her pupils became cat-like slits, "That was me."
We moved on from there. Dactirian thanked the group for the food supplies they'd captured. He would've sent the party back to the wolves, but he felt they weren't ready to fight and kill a Dragovinian yet. Instead they were sent after more food. The party went south to the river town that Stanton had purchased medical supplies from earlier. There, the party was to collect "taxes for the Rebellion" from the farmers in the form of grain. The party would canvas the northern third of the town. Korjak would be the new unit leader and he would carry the necklace that controlled the shock collars of the other four.
On the journey to the town the party ran into two random encounters: a pair of poisonous snakes and a dangerous swarm of bats. The snakes were sunning themselves in the path. The party threw rocks at them until they got off the path. The bats attacked at night and started draining blood from the party members. Arrows were shot at them and blankets were set afire to wave at them. After many bats were killed the swarm dispersed (I have never followed the "one random encounter no matter how long the journey is" rule. I roll three times a day to see if the party has a random encounter for that eight hour period and how difficult that encounter will be. Sometimes journeys are uneventful and sometimes they are more dangerous than the destination. The group likes it well enough.).
The party party collected food from the villagers for three days. Each time they came to a farm they would roll a diplomacy check. Sometimes the farmers gave them grain, sometimes the farmers were Xorian supporters who grabbed pitchforks to "geet the rebel scum off their land," sometimes the farmers had a bad harvest and couldn't donate. Korjak was largely responsible for calming the other members of the party down and preventing violence. Whenever the someone could not or would not donate, Korjak apologized and got the party off the farmer's land as quickly as possible. Eventually, the party ended up with a wagon and a half of grain. They turned back to the Rebel base and camped on the edge of the forest for a night.
On the next morning as the party was packing up for the night, they saw a dust cloud on the southern horizon. Fearing that one of the Xorian supporting farmers had informed on them the party hightailed it into the woods with the wagons. Later on they saw smoke rising from the south. Their pursuers had set the woods on fire. Luckily, the fire didn't spread.
The adventurers' passage through the woods was interrupted by the same group of bullies they'd tussled with in the practice yard before. The big human guy was at the lead. He said, "Get out of the way Korjak. You don't want to get involved."
The party immediately responded with violence. Sivirdm shot his crossbow at the big guy. Wu shot his bow at the big guy as well. Three arrows thumped into him and he feel down. Gregor drew his sword and prepared to defend himself. The other thugs pulled the big guy behind themselves and took up defensive positions. Stanton used a hypnotism spell to entrance the front three of the six other bullies. Korjak activated the shock collar on Sivirdm because he fired the first shot. Sivirdm fell down in convulsions. Korjak shouted, "Everyone sheath your weapons and calm down!" The fight ended there. The thugs backed off to allow Korjak to heal the big guy with a wand of cure light wounds he carries. Korjak then ordered the thugs to return to the base. After a few minutes the party journeyed into the base as well. (This session was filled with relatively non-violent solutions to the encounters I threw at the party. It was impressive)
The food was delivered and a "party" was thrown. Military parties consist of one and a half rations of food and double rations of alcohol. The characters got pretty drunk on their success.
(We took a break for dinner at this point. Middle_Snu and Ozymandias left as well.)
Hungover the next day, the party was called into Dactirian's meeting room once again. A usual donator to the Rebellion in the river town was strangely absent when one of the other "tax collector teams" went out. The donator's name is Diveereus. The tax collector team described Diveereus's farm as "ripped up and his wagon was broken." The team shouted to the house, but got no response. They decided to report back to their superiors instead of entering a possibly lethal situation. Dactirian ordered the characters to go in and find out what happened to Diveereus, his wife, his children, and his grandchildren who live with him.
The party journeyed back to the river town once more. They saw the broken wagon on the path to his house and two coyotes eating the dead oxen next to the wagon. The party chose to wait until sundown to see if there was any activity in the house or on the farm. Nothing happened as they waited. Still determined to investigate, Stanton and Wu snuck up to the house through the field. Wu almost fell into a pit trip in the field. Wu searched the rest of the field on their way up to the house and spotted a bear trap and another pit trap. At the house they saw a dog chained to the front porch. Stanton sleeped the dog and Wu snuck up and slit its throat. Convinced that the danger in the house was not immediate, the sneaky folk went back to regroup with the rest of the party.
It was decided that Sivirdm would watch the horses and provide backup while the other four party members went in (This decision was more about reducing the amount of characters closer to the amount of players than anything else). Korjak, Gregor, Sivirdm, and Wu walked the same path back to the house. Korjak and Gregor used their darkvision to peek through the windows of the house. They saw three rooms, a dining room, a kitchen, and a parlor (Rich farmers). There was also a door to the stairs to the second floor and a door to a closet under the stairs. The dining room was wrecked. The table and all the chairs were overturned except for one on which a dead woman's corpse sat. In the kitchen, two dead children were slumped against the cold stove. Cooking ware was tossed around the room. The parlor was likewise messed up.
Gregor went first. He was upset to find a paralysis poison on the doorknob. He fell rigid to the floor as the door opened. The dead woman's corpse animated and attacked! Korjak stepped up to fight the undead beast. Wu shot an arrow in, but accidentally hit Korjak in the back. Wu decided that perhaps shooting arrows inside was a bad idea. Stanton broke a window, but found himself too small to climb up through it. Gregor recovered from the paralysis contact poison. He got up and joined Korjak in the fight. With two fighters acting together the undead was brought down quickly. (It was a wight of Diveereus's wife. I rolled so awfully that she never hit even after 5 rounds of combat.).
The downstairs was explored. Bloodstains indicated that the woman's body had been dragged from the kitchen to be propped in the chair. The children's bodies were drained of all blood. Nothing was in the closet under the stairs.
The party headed upstairs. A hallway upstairs had four doors, two on the right and two on the left. Stanton did a detect magic and sensed and aura of necromancy and transmutation behind the second door on the left. The group decided to save that door for last.
The first door they opened was the first door on the left. Inside was a boy's room with boy's toys and a wooden horse. The toys were all burned and broken. The room had obviously had a small fire set in it. Against the opposite wall was the burned skeleton of a teenage boy. A quick search revealed no treasure in the room.
The second door opened was the first door on the right. Inside was a girl's room. Spinning tools and dolls along with girls toys were strewn about the room. Two beds were in the room. The bigger one had its blanket ripped off towards the door. Again, no treasure found.
The third door opened was the second door on the right. Inside was another bedroom. A large bed, a desk, a dresser, and a closet were in the room. A man had been thrown into the desk. The impact had destroyed the man and the desk. A young dead woman lay on the bed, drained of all her blood. Blood covered the bed and the floor. A search revealed some jewelry which was pocketed.
While Korjak, Wu, and Gregor searched the third room, impulsive Stanton opened the door to the fourth room where the magic auras originated from. Inside was a large bedroom. A bed, two dressers, a closet, and a desk were in the room, largely untouched by the violence in the rest of the house. At the center of the room on the bed was a black egg with red spots the size of a chair. The egg was hatching.
Spoiler: Large Image
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Stanton got the attention of the rest of the party. A scaled arm burst out of the egg as the party watched. Another arm came out and Gregor reacted. He grabbed the egg and threw it out the closest window. The egg shattered on the ground below and out came a fully formed Dragovinian. A scaled humanoid with a dragon’s face and fangs.
The Dragovinian spider climbed up the walls of the house to fight its way back in. It tried kicking Gregor through the window, but Gregor shoved it back down to the ground. Gregor then leaped down after it to fight with his greatsword. Korjak soon jumped out a window to join in as well. Stanton used daze successfully on the Dragovinian from the upstairs. Wu tried a few shots against the Dragovinian, but found his arrows were not strong enough to pierce the Dragovinian’s skin.
Gregor’s strong sword attacks wore down the Dragovinian. The cuts seemed like they should have incapacitated the monster, but it wouldn’t die. It begin scuttling away from Korjak and Gregor on all fours like a demon spider. They raced after it continually stabbing it and cutting it. It still wouldn’t die! Finally, Gregor called a shot to the Dragovnian’s head. His sword passed through the monster’s neck. Decapitation served to kill the beast.
A little freaked out, the party checked the barn of the farm. They saw two horses drained of blood and a full grain silo. They decided to come back for the grain later. Stanton remembered the transmutation aura in the room. Thinking it might have been something besides the egg they returned. The party’s diligence was rewarded when Wu found a magic composite longbow underneath the bed. With their loot secure, the party gathered up the egg shell pieces, the Dragovinian body, and the head before setting off back to the rebel base.
The group force marched through the night and suffered no random encounters. In the morning they gave their report to Dactirian. He congratulated them on killing the Dragovinian as well as recovering the egg shells. The rebels had known the Dragovinians hatched from eggs, but they’d never had the actual shells to study before. He gave the soldiers some leave time before dismissing them.
Throgg was getting pretty tired on the East Coast so we ended the session there.
Re: Xorian Wars: Alliance and Rebellion
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