Osric: The fall of army group North (21)

The party leaves the hidden vale, having been revealed secrets of the weakness of the ice witch by the druid of the North. They head towards the location said by the elves to hold the horn of Daydri, a valley sized horn from the elemental plane of ice, that threatens to convert all of the world to an icy wasteland.

After 3 days of travel upon their last sled through  heavy snowstorms and blizzards within the ice finger mountains, the group hears war cries and the steady tattoo of drums. The party is able to avoid the goblin outrider piquets of the massive army of the north (with their white clothing and sharp senses). They find themselves on a precipice overlooking the vast valley, howling with the energy of the horn of Daydri, as well as the legion of the ice witch.

Hordes of the goblinoid races can be seen, as well as evil humans, and ice drakes. There are pillars of smoke and the clash of metal indicating the manufacturing of the weapons of war. While the party considers how to get through the army, a troll guard stumbles upon them. The Troll manages to blow upon his horn just before Dan the fighter decapitates him. An answering horn raises it's note to the left, then the right, then and chain. The alarm has been raised.

The party pulls back from the edge, but is quickly accosted by 2 ice drakes, one ridden by a magic user. Jenks the druid casts a large hallucinatory forest to help the group try to escape. Briefly confused the enemies round the forest until the magic user above dispels the illusion. The Drakes are able to swoop down upon the group. Dan is nearly killed by a blast and fakes his death for a number of rounds until goblin skirmishers rush to his body to chop him into Carpaccio.

The battle goes poorly as the drakes swoop in to attack and then retreat into the sky. Some magic spells of magic missle and a paralysis type spell put the hurt on the party as well. The gnomes hide in the thick snow and, as the drakes come down to pick on the survivors, manage to sneak attack with their dragon bane swords. The ice drakes go down hard to catastrophic damage and quickly the party is able to defeat their enemies, although they are heavily depleted in magic and health. An amusing moment for the battle is the original troll that raised the alarm has been staggering around the battle headless, slowly regenerating.

The party quickly dresses up in the garb of the slain goblins and begins blowing on the captured horns and pointing and charging to the South. They hope to confuse their enemy and remain free from attack for a bit. A general pursuit seems to be developing as enemies close in on the area and head in the direction our disguised team is leading.

Meanwhile Jenks, the druid, transforms into a huge snow raptor and carries the gnome Scabs with the everburning ember towards the mouth of the horn of Daydri. In a similarity to LoTR a group of two will bring the magic item to the destination under the nose of an army while the remaining group acts as a distraction.

The pair are able to drop in amongst a small collection of huts upon a vast scaffold to the mouthpeice of the massive icy horn of Daydri. While Jenks remains as a raptor, the small gnome sneaks forward and breathes upon the everburning ember, sending a gout of flame down the mouthpiece of the valley sized horn. A more explosion result could not be imagined. The howling ice winds that have since been emitting from the horn turn to flame which washes across the army of evil camped in the valley. As the Horn collapses and pandemonium breaks out, there is much collapsing of the ice cliffs and structures in the valley. The situation already overloaded with danger a group of mature red dragons is seen to rise into the sky preparing to unleash devastation.

The devastation wrought is upon the ice army however. The Red Dragons are revealed (by the GM) to be captives powering the weapon manufactoriums. The chaos is enhanced as various factions in the army turn upon one another, and large fragments can be seen regaining cohesiveness and moving off in disparate directions out of the valley.

Jenks transforms into a winterwolf while scabs dresses himself in the garb of a dead goblin warrior. The pair begin to prowl through the chaotic army camp. Ice walls continue their collapse and looting is prevalent. Some groups are regaining organization. Eventually the pair spy a large group of humans all wearing gold collars labouring to remove a massive collapsed ice sheet from a portion of a cliff face. It would appear that the ice witch has been entombed in a collapse. The opportunity for an assasination of head of this Northern evil now presents itself to the characters. 

Osric: Hunt for the druid of the North (20)

Our group leaves the camp and attempts to use the goat of travel. It appears to be gnome sized, and barely sits Scabs and Chester upon it. While far too slow to pull the sled, the two gnomes race off to scout around while the humans cluster on the remaining sled with the 6 surviving dogs (Jenks transformed into a small rat to spare weight and space).

After traveling for most of a day, the group espies a flying lizard swooping over a jagged range of mountains, and they alter their course in the direction. The fierce snowstorms of the last few weeks recede as they get closer, and the group approaches a high escarpment with sheets of steam pouring off the rocky walls. Past the steam is seen a verdant valley hidden in the ice finger mountains. Giant lizards are spotted moving through the jungle. The hidden Vale that the Treant spoke of is before the group.


Scouting about they find a stoney cave mouth than forms a natural tunnel (although unnaturally smooth) sloping downward towards the base of the Vale. The party encounters corpses of various evil creatures in the tunnel, many have been crushed and some even are still wrapped in the vines and creepers that populate the tunnel. A barrier blocks further progress with an ironwood door inset upon a rocky wall. The moss covered surface is rich with vines and creepers. Knocking upon the door causes a flurry of movement as the vines seize Jenks and begin squeezing. Jenks cries out in druidic about their request and hunt for the druid of the North. The vines pause, and Jenks, is held in the air uncomfortably. The other group members have wisely retreated up the tunnel a ways.

At last a large face forms out of vines and creepers moving together. Speaking in druidic it demands to know more of Jenks quest and his official title. There is some confusion (increasingly painful) for Jenks as his copy of Osric doesn't have titles for each of the levels achieved.... appararently this is a trade marked item for TSR. Eventually some intelligence and wisdom rolls reveal the correct answer. The druid of the north insists that Jenks promises proper behaviour from all his guests (the other PCs)...which is a bit concerning, and tells them to come into the vale. Proper behaviour includes being able to hunt, but not waste food, nor pollute water sources, etc. Jenks spends lots of time briefing the group on nature etiquette.

Moving into the jungle the group finds a verdant wilderness. After a bit of exploring they are accosted by a giant tyrannosaurus rex bearing down upon them (as prey animals flee past the group). Jenks wisely casts animal invisibility on the group and they hold position. The TRex stops and starts chuckling, and transforms into an aged but hale and healthy human. Such is the power of the druid of the North. He summons forth a bounty of food and drink and speaks to the group of the past months and the happenings of the outside world and the ice witch.

The druid is able to shed light on the ice witches vulnerabilities and how to banish the horn of daydri from their world. Fortuitously
the group carries with it the everburning ember, a fragment of the elemental plane of fire, much as the horn is from the elemental plane of ice. Taking the everburning ember to the mouth piece of the horn and blowing flames forth should destroy/banish the horn. The druid cautions the party that the horn is in a valley full of the armies of the ice witch. Ice giants and elementals can also be counted amongst her allies.

The ice queen is both a vampire and a necromancer, and has concluded a dark pact with an ice demon patron who adds to her power. She is susceptible to silver weapons and magic, and lairs within the crystal caves. She also possesses some of the weaknesses of regular vampires in that she needs to sleep in the day as a normal vampire and can be destroyed by cutting her head off and burning both head and body separately. In addition to her evil army she also has a host of magically enslaved minions. A gold collar encircles their necks and makes them as will-less slave to the ice queen.

A tough adversary to be sure. Thank goodness are only intend to destroy the horn rather than attempting to assassinate the master villain.

Osric: Expedition to the Ice Fangs..... (19)

The adventuring group gather their equipment and supplies to brave the Ice Fang mountains where the forces of the Ice Witch gather their strength. The league of Justice has already been swallowed by these mountains and waves of undead servants and ice drakes have been unleashed upon the Southlands, it is a foreboding destination.

Loading up two, 6 dog, sleds Jenks (druid), Dan (fighter), Renauld (fighter), and the pair of gnomes (Scabs and Chester) head off from the Snow covered village of compliments. They have loaded themselves with rations, fine wolf pelts, and some firewood. A week of travel ensues through steady snow storms. Visibility is terrible, often in the dozens of feet range. The dogs are unruly and upset by the strange whispers and howling heard above. Jenks can see strange, dark eldritch lines of power narrowing towards the North when viewed with the blindfold of many eyes.

The first disquieting event occurs when camping and a dog brings in the frozen headless corpse of a small child. Scouting out in the direction the dog came, the party finds an ice tower stretching storey's above us. Closer inspection shows that it is built of corpses embedded within ice.....a village was destroyed to make this dark edifice. The magic lines of dark power appear to touch down from the sky as well....perhaps this is amplifying the magics of the ice queen. Chester brings forth the magic ember and blows forth gouts of flame to cleanse this dark tower. A sharp crack of ice gives us scant warning as the tower collapses rapidly and manages to kill two of our sled dogs.

A day later we encounter a primitive village of limestone and black shale rock. Jenks transforms into an ice martin to scout the village and finds evidence of an attack and looting is everywhere.....yet there are no corpses or survivors. The party chooses the most defensible house and camps overnight. In the morning the gnomish thieves give a thorough search of the village and find an etched rock face with gold and valuables cleverly hidden in it by freezing them within ice. Application of the embers warmth (through touch) yields up some treasure, but the more intriguing items are 3 delicately carved goats in ivory. Small druidic wording on the bottom gives a first hint of what they are, and we eventually discover these statues transform into 3 goats of power (a battle goat, a messenger goat, and some scary fear goat we haven't tried yet). It becomes obvious very quickly that the goats only have 3 uses each, a resource we must conserve.

The battle goat, with a huge rack of spikey horns and tall as a horse is secured to one of the sleds, and is able to propel our group for most of the day at nearly 3 times the normal rate. We can see the mountain range through a break in the clouds and judge ourselves to be about a week and a half away at a normal speed. Unfortunately the battle goat begins to lose size, and speed, towards the end of the day, and we almost lose the figurine in the blustering snow fall as it finally returns to it's original size.

The group camps overnight until the guard hears horns and a snarling pack of animals in the distance.....getting closer. A wounded stranger comes staggering towards the camp, from the distance of direction of the horns. The fur clad, balding (with long hair on the sides) human carries no sword. We wave him into camp, and Jenks applies some healing magic. The human thanks him, and then causes him to fall unconscious. Laughing the human gains in stature and skin turns blue and a ivory spike grows form his had. He disappears into a burst of mist as the snarling and horns arrive at camp.

Two dozen winter wolves with goblin riders appear. After a brief (unsuccessful) parley, the wolves charge in. Dan searches Jenks looking for the goats (hoping to deploy the fearful one). Scabs manages to flame breath the charging enemies with the ember, largely destroying them and scattering the survivors. The blue skinned ogre magi stages a return to stab Renault in the back, upon taking damage he again disappears in another puff of smoke. Renault manages to locate the blindfold of many eyes on the unconscious Jenks and dons it to spy the magi creeping about to attempt another back stab. Renault grapples with the ogre and, despite it casting forth inky blackness around the party, he is able to force it's surrender and agreement to leave without either group inflicting more pain on another.

In a moment of hilarity, Jenks awakens from his magical slumber (dispelled by the magi) into inky blackness, and begins crying out in panic, believing his eyesight stricken from him. The error is quickly corrected and our party has survived for the time being, now within striking distance of the ice fang mountains.

Osric: A return to compliments, secrets of the North revealed (19)

The party leaves the inn after having a near deadly encounter with a renegade (aka 'typical') adventuring party. After a few more days of travel they arrive in compliments....or more specifically, encounter an outlying group or armed men near compliments.

After some scouting by the gnomes, it is quickly realized this is some of the town guard, and the fighter henchman Renault (village marshal). All are looking a bit worse for wear, and it turns out that a might ice drake has taken over the village and been demanding regular tithes of animals. Renault was forced from town after attempting to drive the beast off, and the group has been forced to hide from the aerial monster. Compliments is heavily buried in snow drifts, and the guards say that the dwarven smith Gideon, and his workshop have been embedded in an ice block, although lighting can still be seen emanating from within.

Jenks tries to summon forest creatures to aid in the battle, and a single centaur, bane-dur, shows up. He informs the group that the centaurs have fled the area and he is left as a scout. He agrees to assist the battle against the ice witches' minions the next day. The group moves moves into town and hears the panicking lowing of a cow coming from the centre of town, a typical sacrifice for the ice drake. They attempt to keep to the underboughs of trees and move towards the centre of town. Dragon fear grips the party indicating the massive beast above, and the cows sounds are cut short. Suddenly a sizeable bloody chunk of cow bounces and lands in front of Jenks, the druid, and a massive ice dragon charges in after it. Battle is joined!

The might drake is hurt by the fighters before it manages to release a blast of ice affecting most of the group. Archon, the dwarven priest is shattered into bloody ice cubes, as is bane-dur. Other group members are luckier, but heavily wounded none the less. Dan is pummeled into the snow by the beasts claw and bite attacks, appearing dead, and Jenks himself is tossed into the air, landing heavily upon his head and ceasing to move. At last the beast is put down by the remaining gnomish thieves and the mighty Renault. The massive ancient beasts proceeds to turn into a glittering icy dust that blows away on the blizzard winds.

The possibly alive (Jenks and Dan) are rushed into a warm building and healers sought. The local Butcher renders the most aid, as he is highly knowledgeable about 'meat and such'. An agonizing die roll follows. The two pull through, but will ever be beset by laboured breathing and wheezing (Dan), and an inability to look upwards (Jenks). Truly they have been fortunate this day.

While the two recover, Scabs (gnomish mayor of compliments) uses his magic coal to melt his way into the forge of Gideon, who happily greets the gnome and asks what took the group so long.Utilizing bits of dragon recovered from the attack on shadowdeep, Gideon begins to forge items of power to help the group. A pair of runed shortswords are annointed with dragon blood and forged. These items are +2 dragonslayer's and arm the gnomes (+4 vs dragon, triple damage against ice dragons). The ice brands that were recovered from the white walkers are identified as dark magic, and therefore broken up the forge of gideon.

Still lacking information about the Horn of Daydris and the white witch (Gideon has little new knowledge) the group decides to attempt to tap the wisdom of the Ents. A yule cake like pastry is baked, and left out on the edge of the town to entice an Ent to a parley. At last a dark massive try with dried blood encrusted teeth approaches. Convinced of the danger of the imbalance of winter and seasons the Ent tells us to seek out the druid of the North who resides in the ice finger mountains. The valley he presides over is full of natural springs, and is ever lush and full of bloom.


The Ent also reveals to us that the ever burning ember is a fragment of the plane of fire in physical form. If one blows upon it, it will cast forth a blaze of fiery breath. For this very reason the Ent keeps his distance and is edgy around us.

The group withdraws to compliments and begins to gather items for an expedition north. We will see where the league of Justice has failed to return from....

Osric: Flight from shadowdeep & An encounter with some 'knights' (18)

The group decides to head from shadowdeep to compliments to seek more allies against the snowwitch.

Archon and Scabs loaded on a door as a sledge with a rope to pull. Jenks and Dan as packhorses.

At the city gates, the doors are ajar, and no guards in sight, Jenks spots some snow piles with weapons protruding. We move some ways away and walk up a snow drift to the top of the walls. Eventually we get the sledge over the edge and slide down the incline, just as our activities and noises attract more white walker attention.

The heavy blizzards continue and we hide for a bit under our white wraps before moving on. We make it to a fast moving waist high river and think how to cross. There are blocks of ice, and dead fish in the water.....probably unsafe. The bridge to the north may also be guarded....we decide to chop a tree down. Unfortunately just as we finish we are being surrounded by 6 white walkers. Archon turns and we hurry on, only to have 2 continue to track us. We manage to down them.

Fortified inn. Guards with crossbows on the parapet. Spitted white walker dispatched. At the Inn, we talk to trappers headed to shadowdeep. Jenks buys out their furs for 100gp and they agree to take a ice sword to Fang (where they are from) and word of the ice witch problems (call for allies).


Elves poke their head in and tell us of the horn of daydris. It summons chaos creatures from other worlds and sends elemental winter blowing. It has been manifested in the ice finger mountains, and takes up most of a valley by the crystal cave. We recieve specific directions to this valley (waypoint activated!), and the elves tell us they are seeking their kin to rally them to the cause as well.

At another table we meet adventurer's who are seeking riches they have heard exist in the old city of greenich (eek!).
We share some info with them (yes treasure, bypass to the 2nd level (hopefully they won't find the liche door), and directions to the duergar area (which 'probably' has the stairs downward)). The group refuses a team up, as there won't be enough treasure to go around. They even dodge our suggestion to check out the university campus for loot (oh that college cow campus? we'll hit that after greenich)

 The wizard Brain shares some info about the curse of the duergar (the root is the king, and has spread to the others......could remove it likely if we just take out the king). He has also heard of the horn of daydri, and notes that it will turn the world to ice. He makes a passing comment that adventurers have sought it before, being unaware of it's size and therefore general uselessness. It is forunate they seek an item that will solve that problem.

Took us a bit to realize we were dealing with these idiots...

Bob, the thief, after pocketing some money from BA the fighter, then having to pay for a round of drinks to cover the theft leaves to head to the washroom. Scabs follow him into a room marked 'interdict' and finds him picking a lock on a chest.....unsuccessfully.

Scabs wacks him with a pan, and starts a fight. They parlet with a deal to split the treasure. After picking the lock, and triggering a poison trap,  Bob attacks again. Eventually Jenks notices the sound and enters.

He loudly declares bob a thief and scabs the mayor of compliments. BA the fighter immediately powers up for a fight while Dave the cleric unsuccessfully tries to calm him down. The wizard Brian disappears.

After a close fought battle, with Dave attempting to help the group, BA is immobilzed in stone by Jenks, and Bob is blinded by Dave. Brian runs off after unsucessfully trying to fireball everyone (ncluding his allies). Dave reveals they seek the deck of many things from the crypt beneath greenich.

Osric: The ice storm of death (17)

Dan (fighter), Jenks (druid), Jane (illusionist), and Scabs (gnome) are recovering from their aborted attempt to reach the village of compliments. A vicious battle with the renegade wizard magnus manson finds them again staying in a rented town house recovering from the battle. After a few days of recovery a vicious blizzard crashes into the city......very curious as it is spring. We head down to the inn beneath our place and try to exit.....but there is already a huge drift and we aren't clothed properly. About a dozen folks are crowded into the inn and make various nasty remarks as we let howling wind and cold enter we when open the door to look.

Attempting to relax in our rooms we hear shrieks and wails in the screaming winds......perhaps it's just the wind. Reassuringly it eventually gets softer.....then we hear the creaking above us. We try to open the shutters to look......but there is a thick ice shell. Scabbs melts an arm thickness (gnomish) with the magical glowing coal from the Xmas cave (LINK) but there's still ice. Sweet god, we're going to suffocate in an icy tomb. Something is obviously very amiss.

Jenks and Scabs head downstairs and find the fires have gone out. Scabs announces the imminent suffocation of everyone and suddenly pandemonium rages. While Jenks investigates the drops (toilets) and ponders crawling out through the poop drain, Scabs finds a trapdoor in the kitchen; the site of warfare of the strongest to control the food supplies.

Jenks heads upstairs, after being unable to locate Scabs in the mayhem, and finds the roof has been ripped off. The screaming storm faces hi, lashing him with howling winds and freezing snow.....Dan and Jane are missing....only a heavily damaged room is there. Suddenly Dan's body drops apparantly lifeless on the floor. Scabbs catches up at the top of the staircase just as Jenks dodges out to pull Dan's body in. A white dragon drops down and partially pins dan under his foot, while hissing murderously at Jenks.

Jenks attempts to parley with the beast, who reports his job is to destroy all casters of shadowdeep, and Jenks is the last. Jenks tries to brazen it out that he is not OF shadowdeep, but just visiting. He fails his Charisma check and the dragon savages him with his claws. Dan manages to use his vorpral sword to cut through the weakened flooring and drop through to the lower level. The dragon lifts off rather than risk the flooring and the other pair flees downstairs.

Dan is found trapped head first down in a toilet, ready to fall into the poop. Pulling him from a horrible fate (out of the pan...),  the trio busts through the bouncers into the kitchen just as the front door is ripped off and a blast of freezing hits the inn common room. The surviving villagers follow the group down into the cellar where scabbs found the smuggler cave. Scabbs leads off, but Jenks and Dan are forced to shuck their armour and all large items barring one weapon.

At the other end of a smugglers tunnel a guard dog is seriously injured by the gnome.  The group finds itself in a store room of black lotus root, a highly addictive hallucinogenic opioid....illegal and valuable. The tail end of the refuges in the smugglers tunnel are frozen into blocks of ice by more dragon breath, but we are now safe....ish.

Checking a trapdoor in the ceiling we find the warehouse above belongs to the 'seamstress' guild (the thieves guild no doubt). We attempt to trick the lurking flying dragons above by dressing up a dress doll as jenks, load it with black root (a narcotic/hallucinogen mix) and attach the dog to the frame underneath the doll. Everyone covers up in thick white clothing and agrees to try and be runners to the high temple of light and the sorcerers tower (Jenks doesn't bother sharing that they are likely destroyed at this point).

After being forced out the door, the dog is promptly swept off the ground .....but shortly thereafter is head being thrown away into the wind. The group sets fire to the warehouse and stokes it with blackroot hoping to gain some cover from the dragons via the thick smoke with the added hallucinogenic and narcotic effects. The groups split to opposite sides of the warehouse and head out in different directions in the snowstorm camouflaged in white.

Dan shortly thereafter notices himself being shadowed from above and stops and spins to face the dragon. As it coasts in to tail grab him he tries to pitch a bag of blackroot down it's throat (like a fantasy quarterback) and misses. Scabs deadly backstab shot to it's neck hits though. As the beast turns on the gnome, Dan is able to slay the monster.

The group hides under the wings of the beast as they hear more dragon cries above. The next dragon is poking around the battle site and Scabs makes a few terrible shots that fail to connect...which the dragon doesn't even notice. Finally the third connects and again Dan rushes forward to finish the beast off. This time the group hides in the mouths of the dead dragons and repeats the tactic against the third (and final) dragon, which forunately already looks heavily wounded along it's flank from magic attacks.

We quickly harvest some blood, scales, fangs and a heart before the city militia cautiously appears. The word of the temple and sorcerous tower ....destroyed.



We decide to check out the temple....we can hope to get some loot, find some refugee priests, or at least have the satisfaction of seeing the great priest dead. The temple, much like the town house, is encased in an ice block. Scabs melts through the front gates with the glowing coal and we do not find signs of dragons. Instead the slain priests have been cut down with blades. Scabs scouts ahead and encounters a frosty mummy.....a white walker. Armed with a smoking cold blade. Cautious due to their heavy injuries, the group manages to ambush the walker and cut him down.

As we search further we find mostly slain walkers and many dead priests. The body of the high priest can't be found. We suspect he must have a bolt hole somewhere and continue to search intensely. Jenks heads to the front of the temple to stall the militia from interrupting our own 'investigations' and Dan watches them closely and stops them from casually looting goods (as they did at the merchant Dabas' house in the past).

Eventually Scabs locates the high priests hidey hole. The group gets in an extended 'discussion' with the priest to attempt to get a raise dead spell or send a new cleric henchmen with them. The high priest attempts his typical evasive higher powers mumbo jumbo. Dan surprises the group by firmly insisting that they either send a cleric with the group or raise their old comrade (archon), he even goes as far as phyically blocking the way for the priest to leave before 'settling this matter'. The priest finally agrees to raise archon.

The group finally heads over to the univesity campus to check on the tower of sorcery. Before they as much as enter the campus grounds a billowing spirit appears, denying them entry. It seems more malevolent than the previous campus sercurity. It boasts that Magnus Manson is now the lord of the tower. We are so screwed.

We quickly beat a retreat and head to the Sage, Anadamus, to exchange info. We are forced to enter the second floor due to the snow drifts. The following information is gained over some delicious tea.
-Scorch the dragon does have an enmity to the ice dragons. The elder scorch pushed them north. The younger (current) one crawled into the dungeon and found the hoard....and didn't leave until he couldn't fit anymore (trapped it sounds like).
-The snow witch is obviously going to attack shadowdeep. The dragons and white walkers are the advance forces meant to destroy the magic of the city......which has been largely succesful.
- The silver mine was very profitable....until suddenly it wasn't worked anymore
-Dwarves are present in the ice finger mountains but deep, very deep
-Fang or Zhengus might be convinced to send help to the city if they thought the snow witch would attack them next.

We wind up the adventure trying to decide what to do. The city has been hit hard, with the temple largely depleted, and the mad wizard in charge of the riches of the university of magic. Blizzards are covering the nearby lands with snow. Our party is up one dwarven cleric, but Jane the illusionist is MIA and presumed dead. It would appear the league of Justice has been unsuccessful in trying to halt the snow witch.

Osric: Magus Mansons extracurricular course (16)

Having finished our business in shadowdeep we leave town to get back to the village of compliments. After a day of travel the sun is going down and we are starting to think about camping. Around a turn in the road we suddenly stumble upon a camp with burning corpses and tents,

As we consider what to do we hear forces from the nearby forest/shrubbery yell out: "Give us your money or your life!"

Ah, just a simply ambush.....No, unfortunately not. The call is quickly followed by malevolent laughter, some reference to a mad god and, the worst, a fireball. Jane the illusionist, and Archon our dwarven cleric go down immediately.

A group of filthy, blood encrusted warriors charges from the underbrush towards the battered survivors. Jenks is able to spot an invisible mage that sent the fireball (thanks to the fragment of the robe of many eyes he has as a 'blindfold'). He quickly fires off an entangle spell to distract the mage.
The warriors end up being maddened fanatics who start chopping at everyone, including the bleeding to death archon and Jane. Jenks is forced to insect swarm the mage as he struggles loose of the entangling vines, and the fight is getting down to the wire as everyone is very close to death. Finally some lucky rolls by scabs and Dan manage to finish off the warriors. Dan is brought to within a few hps of death by a barrage of magic missiles before the group is able to capture the (also blood encrusted) mad mage.

Jane is barely alive, and Archon has succumbed to his wounds. Dan is near death, while Scabs and Jenks are both pretty beat up. Deciding not to risk another night and day in the open, the party races back to shadowdeep, right back to the townhouse that still has a few weeks of a lease on it. Jenks and Scabs leave the rest of the group to recover at the town house while they take the mage to the university. As they make their way through the town in the day light, people begin to pelt the mage with rotten produce and fists. On campus they are met with slack jaws and stares by students and faculty.

The headmaster reveals to us that this is Magus Manson, a disciple of the mad god Ricad. He used to be an instructor at the university. He had started a cult of some sort and finally left town after a strange atrocity with some performers (details were not forthcoming). After he skipped town he became a plague to the local countryside. We are offered either a cash reward or magic luck stone. We leave to consider the options, and take archon to the temple of light.

We meet with the D&D pope of light and are struck with murderous intent. The bastard wants 6000gp to raise Archon. Despite the obvious opulence of the temple (the offices are even more bejewelled than before), and the popes good health (looking younger from the potion we secured him) he gives us the usual crap about goodliness being proportional to wealth. And the gods would provide wealth should they intend archon to be alive at this time. We get a small credit in that we are offered a volume discount.......raise 4 and the 5th is free. We receive a frequent raise dead card, and are given 2 stamps for the previous work.

We leave and spend some time considering how to inflict some pain on the church but we're a bit stuck. We are also very poor....we can't raise archon. We go back to break the news to Dan and Jane. They take it pretty well, with the noting he wasn't all that useful quite often and was totally grumpy. He hope to hire another cleric in town before we leave, and plan to haul Archon to compliment so we can find out from Gideon what the proper burial rites would be. Damned if we leave him for the temple of light to manage.

Osric: Magic U (15)

While Dan recovers from his Deathly experience the party cools it's heels in Shadowdeep. They decide to head to the tower of sorcery to follow up whether the thin wisp of cloth that survives of the robe of eyes (ignited by a duergar psyker) is at all redeemable for any useful purpose. As they are crossing the grounds of the school they see a group of mages engaging in youthful shenanigans. One is drinking dead from a flagon while casting some sort of spell that seems to involve a golden glowing fire catterpillar creature. He buddies are helping him by chanting......CHUG CHUG CHUG....

<hiccup> Something terrible happens. The caster explodes. The fire caterpillar suddenly grows dramatically in size, while bystanders flee, and promptly destroys the other boys. Jane briefly has a moment to curse the fraternities at the school that always seem to ruin everything. Then the beast is upon them. A blast of glass


particles shreds the party knocking out Jane as she attempts to cast a spell. Jenks manages to stay upright but loses his spell as well. Another few rounds see Renault go down under a flurry of claw and bite attacks, Jenks crashes to more glass shards, and Scabs is nearly dead while still attempting to fire arrows at the beast. A 11th hour rescue occurs as finally the faculty manages to blast the creature with a salvo of magic missiles (and worse).

Invisible servants quickly haul the party to the infirmary where a priest to the god of magic is able to render them some aid. The headmaster meets them in the infirmary and arranges a private meeting by the expedient of demanding everyone not unconscious leave. After thanking the group he offers a quite reasonable bribe for the groups silence......no sense in worrying the town at large and/or creating an environment for more regulation. We take the moment to request the headmaster examine our remant of the robe of eyes and discover it can function as a blindfold of eyes. An impertinent comment by Jane ends up gaining her some demerits and loss of her section of the bribe. It turns out she has another 3 months of work term before she can complete her credit transfers and finally write the sorceress test. After the talk Jane hurries off to the registration building to follow up on some school matters.

In another bout of tying up loose ends, Jenks notes he still has a sheaf of papers recovered from the late merchant Dabas' house. Some appeared to be deeds, but they were written in legalese. Jane recommends a barrister in town who gives student discounts and is known for getting mages free of reckless endangerment charges. The party heads over to the barrister Lionel Hudson......who has a side business of cobbling. The papers are shown to be all owned by the late Dabas.....with the exception of a silver mine. Often mine speculation results in such frequent transfers that it's easier to have a bearer bond type situation. The party now appears to be the owners of a mine that is located to the Northwest of Shadowdeep, about a day north of some nameless village. Lord mayor Scabs snickers.....sounds a lot like Compliments. The remainder of the documents are left with Hudson to return to the Dabas heir.....contingent upon a finders fee. 2 Weeks of opulent adventurer living and the party is ready to leave town with a mostly recovered Dan.

Osric: The life and death of fighter Dan (14)

We find ourselves on the edge of a sandy river bank having just defeated the floating skull and a mess of skeletons. Rather than risk having another group of undead appear in the areas we already frequented, Jenks the druid scouts out the area and finds a safe campsite in a slate hill. The approaches are visible and it's noisy to climb. We rest for a day and a bit, but keeping in mind the meta game that the GM is likely to try and kill us if we try to stay still and rest for too long, we debate our next move.

Scabs, Chester (the gnomish father/son thief pair), Archon (dwarvish priest) and Renault (the fighter) are sent to investigate one of the natural chimneys leaking smoke from the dungeon under the ruined city of greenwood. Chester has a resist fire spell cast on him, and is lowered into a smokey chimney from which regular clanking and puffing emits. Unfortunately we didn't consider the difficulty of breathing in such a noxious environment and rapidly Chester is overcome by the fumes. He is lowered until the rope (soaked in water before hand) goes slack. After a few minutes of no movement the party pulls him back out. He is a long time in waking up, so the group reunites at the slate hill to further consider options.

The next day our group is approaching full health and we decide to risk heading back into the dungeon via the chimney we escaped out of last time. Jane (illusionist) casts see invisible on Jenks who is lowered into the depths. Almost immediately he spots a duergar sentry, as expected, and prepares to cast charm person......but has to wait until he gets to the floor. The sentry on the other hand powers up his enlarge spell, gaining ogre size, and heads over to club poor Jenks. Initiative is in Jenks favour.......but the Duergar saves. The next couple rounds see Jenks get beat down by the sentry and losing a fair number of spells to miscasts. Eventually the party on the surface heads down and Renault saves Jenks just as he's bashed into negative hitpoints. Thankfully the fountain of Jenks blood has identified the (usually) invisible Sentry, whom is quickly dispatched.

After being revived by Archon the group decides to head to the undead area rather than facing more deurgar. As they enter the Cesspit room with the otuygh they are surprised to see some goblins answering natures call (surprising as they had previously done a fairly thorough job cleaning the vermin out). A brief parley has them provide some highly questionable information that the Duergar are good to visit, and that the necromancer is to the Northwest. They take off to the north muttering death threats when Jenks 'accidentally' drops their exorbitant payment into the cesspool.

Chasing after the goblins the group encounters the floating skull guardian, with it's bevy of objects floating beneath it. Jenks begins casting dispel magic and the spirit attacks. As the fighers block it's advance it unleashes a swarm of magic missles before it is rendered inert by Jenks spell. The objects include some finely wrought items including valuable rings, broach, elvish dagger and bracers. A detect magic spell shows none of magical however. As an aside the GM points out this spirit drains the power to nourish itself....a magic battery of sorts. Hence the toll it demands.

Next door Dan uses a hand drill to create a viewing hole and sees a large pit mines that goblins are working with hobgoblin supervisors. The 2 goblins are ratting the group out to the hobgoblins and we see them grabbing weapons and heading over. Dan times it just right and kicks open the door as the hobgoblins arrive send 4 flying over the edge into the depths below. The party quickly finishes off the few survivors who don't flee into the depths. A large number of iron and silver ingots are found, and not a few pocketed.

We investigate the hallways North of the mine for a bit before locating the forge. Once again Dan uses his drill, but this time he sets off a poison gas trap. He keels over foaming at the mouth.....dead. Jane finishes the hole, views the 2 hobgoblin smiths with a half dozen goblin assistants and tiptoes in. She color sprays the smiths, and the battle is joined. The party is fairly hurt by the end. Jenks and Jane barely alive. Dan is dead. Renault is almost killed by another poison trap on the far door. We decide to barricade the forge closed on both doors and escape up the smoke hole. Jenks is able to shape stone to allow sufficient width for all to escape.

A goblin survivor (surrendered) tells the group the poison trap on the far door protected versus the rat swarms in the next area....further on are some scary sounding fire/lava creatures. The silver and large amount of iron equipment is handed over to the duergar for tribute. Once again we have managed to do something to piss the dark dwarves off.

After our escape we pack Dan's body with virtuous herbs and coverings to attempt to preserve it and head with best speed to Shadowdeep. We end up needing to go to the temple of light and law for raise dead services. The temple is amazingly frustrating....it might as well be called the temple of heavy taxation. Due to the length of time Dan has been dead (2 weeks) the high priest himself must cast the spell. 8000gp are needed as "donation". Despite our pointing out Dans devotion to good and fighting evil and offering to take on quests we can't get a price break. The priest is excellent in pointing out the ways of the gods are mysterious, and if Dan were meant to be denied the afterlife then obviously we would be able to lay our hands on such a large sum. Indeed the goodness of the individual is often seen by the large amount of capital they are able to access. All this pious crud is delivered while the man scratches himself with an ivory and gold backscratcher in an opulently appointed private room drinking expensive and rare brandy.

Gold is the sign of goodness my son

We manage to cash in the ruby Dan managed to pillage from one of the Duergar, further denude the compliments treasury, and flog the silver we pillaged. A miracle is performed and Dan returns to life, although he requires 2 weeks recover, and we rent a townhouse for the duration.

Osric: Scouting the surface around Greenwood? (13)

Having been beat to within inches of our collective lives by the fury of the duergar raiding party, we escape under the heavy fog cover create by Jenks pyrotechnic spell cast on the circle of flame. Being the lightest on his feet in the wilderness, Jenks (druid), manages to locate a possible cave entrance mostly hidden by snow, and leads
the party there.

The gnomes head in first to investigate and find 2 skeletons at a fire, with knifes buried in one another. It appears to be a set of bandits who were disagreeing over the sac of gold between them. Recognizing this as a put up job by the GM to activate some vengeful spirits, we ignore the treasure as we are brutally hurt and make camp further back. Archon the priest is encouraged to say some words to thank these bodies for sharing their space.

Overnight we attacked by something....I believe it's more wolves (I've forgotten). They are dealt with fairly handily as Jenks has some good animal spells. The second attack by owlbears, summoned by the fresh meat in the area is a bit more battering. We are stuck in a cave with a pile of corpses at the entrance, short on spells (no one got a good sleep) and totally hurt. Fantastic level of attrition delivered by our GM.

We head out the following day to investigate the bits of smoke and steam seen rising from the hills around Greenwood. Hoping to find some other paths into the dungeon below....or better yet, use them to drop some horrible revenge on our enemies. The 3 of them are: 1/. likely a forge. 2/. probably a dragon.... regular puffs of smoke, smelling of sulphur. Also a sense of terror when standing in the smoke. This smoke hole is covered by a gravelly landslide; we're not likely to get through here. 3/.I forget...I think it ended up being the hole we escaped from and there was some confusion from the DM.

We investigate the possibility of routing a river to flood the complex. Unfortunately the river has cut into the land, definitely below the ground level where the holes are located. It would require some pretty serious engineering project. In the meantime we find some more trouble....

A floating skull is spotted tailing us. It's a bit challenging to see as it's a neutral tone, no heat is emitted, and it's trailing us in the underbrush. Dan the fighter waves at it and is spitted with magic missiles for his trouble. The skull peels off and escapes.

A Dwarven (hill dwarf) mausoleum found, and we try to excavate the doorway (A gravelly slide has covered most of the building except for the roof). Mr Floating skull shows up with a gaggle of skellies and zombies in tow.  We hide on high ground and Archon turns a batch of undead. The tough ascent up the gravel impedes the undead and we mostly beat them up.....but once again the skull spits some of our team with magic missiles. It's all looking a little dicey that we are going to lose some party members soon. We decide to close up the mausoleum, so we don't get trapped in there and to prevent undead access, and move on towards the river.

We can't decide if the skull is a familiar or a demi-liche. As a player if I knew I could venture a guess, but I try not to munchin out and read the monster descriptions.....so I have no idea except it's either bad, or REALLY bad.

Down by the river we are attacked again (by the previously turned undead), this time without benefit of terrain. The remnants rush us as the skull moves in and begins to launch magic missile salvos. Eventually we manage to expode the skull (with arrow fire) and defeat the skellies. Jane went down, barely kept alive, and we are back to being barely alive.

Osric: Vengence of the duergar (12)

Having cleared the major part of the hobgoblin lair, we move south to try and finish the job. Our rescued slaves arm themselves with axes and follow us. In the complex we find a secured door that we bust in, and make war on the remnants of the hobgoblin clan. It's a bit of a massacre as the main warrior force had been dispatched prior. A few of the PC's are a bit disgusted at the blood bath but we try and reassure ourselves that these were murderous slavers.

We find a storeroom of basic goods and food, and figure this is the 'treasure room' that the slaves were speaking of....curses. We park them there while we continue to explore the complex. We find what appears to be some sort of blood bowl pitch, which the gamers all find quick amusing. In one corridor Jenks spots another duergar sentry to hot foots it. As Jenks pursues, we discover that Duergar were obviously created by some malign GM who decided they can do everything. The sentry turns around and fires up some psychic powers and Jenks bursts into a human torch. Much more of a problem is that his cloth magic item, the robe of eyes, worth a stupid amount of money, gets charred....in the sense that it is now mostly a black smudge on the floor and Jenks' armour. The GM helpfully observes that we should make sure that cloth magic items are properly protected. I curse under my breath.

It's time to evacuate the dungeon, again under pursuit. Luckily this time, we have noticed there was a smoke hole in the roof of the goblin lair. We fall back, picking up the slaves and getting them to grab as much food and travel equipment as they can manage.  Back at the goblin lair we barricade 2 of the 3 entrances while Scabs and Chester the gnomes are sent up a 10 foot pole to scale the hole in the roof with a rope, the rest of us guard the entrances. Jane spreads finely ground flour all around the




area to help catch our expected invisible attackers and casts her last see invisible spell on Dan.

Jenks is sent up the rope next to use shape stone to open up the hole so humans can get through. The slaves follow. About this time a group of 6 duergar assault us from the Northern entrance. Dan and Renault the fighters manage to fend them off as Archon, the dwarf priest, and Jane, the illusionist evacuate. There is a wrestling match between the last duergar and Dan as the evil dwarf attempts to blow on his black horn. Dan manages to slay him just in time.

The door to the south splinters open just as Renault escapes up the rope. Dan lashes the rope to his body and fights defensively as the group hauls him up. We run off and hide in some woods. The slaves are sent off immediately to head to Compliments, we decide that we can rest and head back to strike the dungeon again before the Deurgar will expect to see us.

In about 6 hours (it's now night) we hear a large group speaking dwarvish preparing to strike South along the road. Archon translates and it sounds that they know we are from Compliments, and intend to massacre the village. We consider striking the dungeon while this group is gone and trying to catch up when we start to hear the sounds of much MUCH larger footstep. Oh right, Duergar can grow to ogre size. Dan blows to the duergar horn to attract their attention and we start a dodgy fight (as we are at reduced health already).

Invisible, ogre size, and now bursting you into flame

A group of 12 deurgar head in, lead by a larger deurgar with a firey ruby mounted in his gorget. 3 Hold back and start using their psychic powers to create a circle of flame around the melee. Jenks manages to entangle a few and delay their advance, but the bastards just shape change to break the entanglement. Jane has no useful spells and is merely throwing darts at this point. The gnomes are relatively safe as they have huge bonuses against large enemies. The fighters Dan and Renault take it on the chin. Jenks is targeted too, and the 3 psychics cause the circle of flame to tighten and send streams of flame to burn Jenks and Jane (who catches fire briefly). Towards the end Jenks manages to cast pyrotechnics on the circle of flame (now dangerously close) which extinguishes it and makes an enormous smoke cloud. 2 of the duergar escape, but we manage to flee under the cover of smoke as well. Dan only taking a moment to grab the Ruby gorget.

We have no spells and few hit points but we've stopped the destruction of Compliments for the moment.