Which Quest is Best

Session 1 - Sept 25th, 2010

Started after Troubled Fey

The group needs to figure out how to get back into The Principalities by way of The Keep, as well as figuring out what to do about the two major paths in front of them.

(Contributed by Alex, tweaked by TJ)

The group headed back towards The Keep, passing near Muka'l, and decided to check for information....

The party went to the town of Muka'l (well Conner and Blue Wood and Gol stayed outside near the Awakened Forest) and checked the mail. The town was crowded, chaotic, with a siege mentality (and lots of opportunistic pickpockets - Gweara lost a dagger). The party members going in gave their names and were "flagged" as potential recruits and given identifying bracelets to wear to keep them from being troubled while waiting for an interview with the town leader (or so they thought!). Mail for Nasar/Conner was nothing special from his distant silver dragon kin, but Lady Naomi hoped he could come home soon.
Then the leader of the town (old man) came and with a custom mass charm got Laran and Cugdish to agree to help the war effort vs. Orcs. Laran, already juiced up with diplomacy, convinced the others (except Willow). Willow "agreed" to get the rest of us outside and then explained what had happened and that the amulets did not come off. We talked about ways of removing the amulet and Willow disappeared!

So Gol created a lot of copies of a diplomatic agreement (worded by Blue Wood) along the tunes of "we don't have much time for this - we have other very pressing issues, but if you release our friends we won't waste your resources releasing them ourselves, and we will kill the orc leader and/or 5000 orcs". Nasar/Conner airbombed Muka'l with the leaflets...

Meanwhile, Laran and Cugdish were calming the crowd, and Bash'yrr and Gweara were making war-related preparations (glyphs of warding, covered oil trenches, etc.). Willow was imprisoned and PISSED!

The old man talked to Laran and was convinced that we were honourable and let them all go, meeting all the conditions (no amulets, no charms, etc.). Willow removed the charm anyhow on Laran and Cugdish (but Bash'yrr was so convinced by Laran's silver tongue that he is still a true believer).
So we made more war preparations.
Conner flew SW to see what was to be found and flew back and later realized there was a light to the south that wasn't dawn.
Probably orcs will be here in a few days.

Blue Wood helped make a moat, I believe that they've split a creek/river to go around both sides of the city?
Willow helped with wells, a secret tunnel to the Awakened Forest, and a deal with the Awakened Forest.
Dawn Brother agreed to take in the townsfolk if necessary, but at the price that 1 in 10 would not leave.

Currently we have the old man's coin which we can use to talk with him (and he apologized to the group, BTW, but he was desperate - other adventurers either wouldn't help without an exorbitant fee lied about helping and then took off). We may or may not take up the amulets again (we would have a way to remove them if necessary, and they could be used to pull us back to the town's relative safety as we would be monitored by the townsfolk). Not sure if the device would work on 4500 lb Blue Wood. Blue Wood thought that Willow should decide whether to use the amulets or not, to make up for the loss of freedom she suffered earlier.

We think that the orcs number about 10 000 and have a common brand (perhaps Laran could try a bardic knowledge check?) and likely a strong leader that may or may not be an orc. They are organized, raiding areas for food/supplies first with scouting parties, razing settlements to the ground, etc. Conner voluntarily relinquished control to his silver dragon ancestor to use his expertise in town defending and orc army killing.

Session 2 - Dec 12th, 2010

We decided to make a fake fort with illusions and earth spells and stuff about a day out of town. Blue Wood borrows Conner's hat of disguise to look like a statue of Corellon Larethian the elven god. The ground is hallowed.

Conner does a scouting mission. Orcs are in armies and have scouts riding wolves bigger than worgs. Conner tries to kidnap a scout, no luck (and we find out amulets don't take passengers anyhow).

Conner and Willow do a night mission and cause a little havoc with fire spells and ravenous jaws or something like that. Seems to cause a commotion. We find out the leader wears adamantine armour, is larger than the average orc, and possibly has a portable anti-magic zone. Wields a great sword?

The central orc army keeps the other ones in line and from fighting each other.

The plan is to cause trouble at the fake fort when they arrive, harass the orcs, kill a lot of them, maybe take out the leader. If that doesn't work, teleport back and then town evacuates to awakened forest while we take off back on track for the larger mission. We will give it the old college try, as they say.

Blue Wood can meelee with the anti-magic guy, but probably shouldn't while spell-slingers are in his carrying basket (unless they are so high off the ground they are out of the zone). I guess I could trample over and past him though. Likely the teleport amulets don't work in the anti-magic zone, so be careful! Conner could also do a flying charge with a long large pointed lance/spear/etc.

Session 3 - Feb 6th, 2011

Sorry if I missed anything. I blame the bad mayonnaise from the night before.

Ok, Conner and Willow did some recon, realized 2000 orcs were missing(!), Willow ported to town to warn them, they have a few orcs skulking around, trying to be seen without being obvious about it, but only a handful. Then Willow got close but got sniffed out by giant intelligent fire breathing wolves. One of which ran back to the main army at the FF (we think). Meanwhile Conner tried to find the tracks of the 2000 but only found the wolf tracks at least 100 and then they split up and since Conner is Silver now that is as good as the tracking got.

Back at the Fake Fort (FF) we did more fortifying and trap building and Laran sang to build up fake stone singing.

Finally everyone got back, we prepped, etc. The battle starts with trebuchet building by enlarged orcs. Conner and Willow tried some recon and trebuchet damaging. Killed some orcs but didn't kill any trebuchets. They came back. Willow fire-warded Blue Wood which came in handy as the trebuchets started with flaming barrels of smelly burny oil. No one was seriously hurt but then there were tons and tons of boulders that we had to wait out until the infantry got close. Finally they did and Gol nuked a few orcs with fireballs and the traps did a number on, well, a number of them. Then Conner and Willow flew up again to see if they could find the BBEG and think they might have a direction, at least, so Cugdish cast a Fly spell on Blue Wood and with Gweara and Bashir in her fists Laran, Cugdish and Gol in the basket, she is flying towards that point, buffed with Freedom of Movement (and others are buffed too with other stuff).

Session 4 - Aug 28th, 2011

We were flying around, Conner and Willow up ahead (faster) and noted that there were 3 BBEGs in armour, not just one, but then they got caught by a forceweb spell which almost sent Conner plummetting to the earth. Conner got a feather fall (and Willow air elementalled out of the way) and then Blue Wood caught up and held up Conner (and there was a fog cloud, then a windwall, to protect from arrows). But Conner couldn't get out and died(!) and Kiray pecked his amulet to take him back to the village. Willow went too to start a reincarnation and tell the village to evacuate. Some orcs were inside the windwall and Gweara and Blue Wood took them out.

Arrows were common, as were a few trebuchets. So after getting of some spells (like Cloudkill via Ash) Gol and Gweara blinked back to the village. Gweara went to the walls to assess the situation at the village. Laran was nearly dead but got healed and eventually Laran left. So we were down to Bashir, Cugdish and Blue Wood. Blue Wood stepped out of the wind wall but stumbled (oops). Bashir buffed up and killed an orc. Cugdish dealt a blow to an orc. Blue Wood then flew up, and Bashir and Cugdish eventually left, that left Blue Wood flying at a (not the BBEG), and between him and the trebuchets, and a dispel magic on most of the buff spells on her (including the fly spell, so Blue Wood fell to earth!), Blue Wood nearly died too, but was able to kill the BBEG and blink out, taking the corpse of the BBEG with her (but alas forgot to take the axe which fell from the BBEG's hand).

Back at the village, the evacuation went apace and Willow asked for more help from the Dawn Brother, and for another 2% (on top of the 10%) of the population not leaving, there will be aid in getting the villagers safely to the forest and retaining their identity as the people of that village (Mukal). Some fish-tailed elfish fey folk took the children and small non-humans to safety first. The mayor asked the party for a distraction while the rest of them escaped.

The bard identified the BBEG as half-hobgoblin, half-XXX (where IC the bard knows but OOC Joe didn't have his notes with him, so we will get to that later). The armour was identified as +2 adamantine armour of invulnerability.

Nasar/Conner reincarnated, but because the Silver dragon was in control, it reincarnated in a separate body (half-dragon dwarf) that flew away but said it would find us later (had things to do, went invisible, etc.). Nasar came back as a Satyr. While dead and coming back, Nasar was given a choice of trading Echo of the Ancestor levels away to the Silver (who would need them to gain an advantage over the Red dragon), and gain Sorcerer levels in return. Could be a good deal. IC this choice was made before Nasar came to life out of the earth, but OOC TJ has until next session to decide.

Also, OOC Laran the bard should be one level higher.

For now, Blue Wood is loaning Nasar the +1 mithril chainmail of invulnerability (sizing) but would like it back when Nassar can find some other armour, as it is hard for Blue Wood to find "sizing" armour. That said, if Blue Wood is allowed to "pray" the adamantine armour that no one can wear (but the party could sell) into the sword Sentinel, then Sentinel (and thus Blue Wood) would agree to just give Nasar the +1 mithril chainmail of invulnerability. Since the party will likely be on the move soon, no decision has to be made on this yet.

Nasar has also not yet decided on what he wants to be called.

So we fought to defend the village, and although we failed vs. the orcs, we did some damage and paid a heavy price (come to think of it, losing Nassar was kinda like our paying 12%). On the up side, we took out one of the three BBEGs, and about 1 000 of the 10 000 orcs, and likely will save 88% of the 4 000 - 5 000 villagers. But we soon have to get back to the main quest of repairing the broken seals.

As it stands, we are ready to provide some distraction by engaging the "scouting" orcs and fire-breathing wolves, while the villagers get the heck out of dodge. Then we have to figure out how we are moving. No one is high enough level to teleport Blue Wood, for instance, so I guess we are walking.

Experience Points were not determined.