Game Synopsis 4/16/04

[Starshadow]

It seems your work in Devonshire is done. You have left hardly a stone unturned, have made contact with all possible allies, helped as many of the commoners as possible, and more importantly, have driven out all the evident evil.

The counterfeit count has been chased away, leaving the castle as a base of operations for "the good guys"

The hard working and loyal Captain of the guard died honorably at your hands while doing what he thought was right, while you did what you knew was right. Being deposed, a better man was put in his place, and Captain Wayne continues to call on you for aid.

The Thieves Guild still operates, though its current leaning are more patriotic than one would think. They are eager to save the town and return things to normal (even if only to get business going again) and have aided you on a number of occasions.

The major crime Lord of the city, Justin and his murdering, kidnapping, slave trading, red-cloaked thugs, have all been killed or captured.

And finally, you have freed the decimated Mage Guild Hall from the evil within. A great battle was fought in this hall as the cabal sought to gain further allies and take the magic therein to use for themselves. The result was almost total destruction, and the wayward magic created a curse that worked on many levels.

The dead became undead, and the doors were sealed. Even the more powerful undead could not escape their imprisonment, because of the magically bound doors, but for a more important reason. The Mage Guild Hall is located on the Street of the Gods and is surrounded by Temples... Hallowed Ground.

Magic did not work well within these burnt up walls, and any attempt to cast Magic resulted in a blinding white light due to the preponderance of residual magic within this shell of a Guild Hall. Having already slain the weaker undead last time, you managed to take out 3 wights and a spectre on this occasion. But not without difficulty.

Not only did the non-corporeal state of the spectre make him hard to vanquish, but his chilling grasp managed to give Stranng two negative levels (later restored by Jaskyn's spells). While no one was sticken by the wights, who would have also drained levels, that battle had its own difficulty.

Merilin and Lynliss paid little heed to the pulsating, strobing light and vibrating hum that emanated from the wight's lair, and charged in to do battle, while the rest made use of spells and missiles. Jaskyn's attempt to turn them was futile, because the undead were engaged.

Almost all of the magical items possessed by the two rangers were nullified by the magic within this room, making the risk even greater to them.

But the wights were slain with no casualties and within moments, the strobing ceased, as did the eerie light that permeated the entire complex. Natural light began to filter in through the faults in the building. The curse was lifted with the final destruction of all of the undead wizards!

While having previously failed at searching the spectre's room for booty, Einkil and others searched once more for ten minutes and the barbarian uncovered two more magical items, a staff adorned with the Holy Symbols of the good deities and a pair of gloves.

Detect Magic, actually working now, revealed that all items found in this complex were indeed magical.

Upon leaving the hall, you found the streets very active. Through conversation with Luckbreaker by Einkil and Garrick, on site recon by Merilin and questioning of the townsfolk and clerics by everyone else, you determined that a farm was attacked by a dragon. Property was damaged, people slain and livestock were devoured. No one has determined why the attack occured. The heroes did what they could to ease the suffering of the townsfolk and retired to the castle to recover and plan.

800 xp each was granted to Einkil, Garrick, Gwylln, Jaskyn, Lynliss, Merilin and Stranng.

My suggestion is to work out your next plan of action and review your resources. Captain Wayne informs you that he has soldiers at his disposal who were once trained magically, and that he can have your items identified for the cost of materials alone. This means that, if you wish, you can discover more or less what each item does for the cost of 1,000 gp total. Identify spells are not 100% conclusive and will not always reveal all, but it might be a good start to help you decide whom best to give the items to.

Discussion with Wayne and his officers also reveals to you the following about the layout of the ruins:

The trail leads up into the mountains, and it is a full day's trek by foot along the old trail. Halfway between here and there, there is a level area with some minor ruins and a building which still stands. This may be some sort of camp, resting place or guard post for the enemy. The trail, once reaching the mountain top, begins to pass smaller ruins, perhaps of old dwellings, and there is also an old cave, which was the base of a clan of orcs when Wayne was a child, before the militia destroyed them. Perhaps a half mile or less further, lies the ruins of the school. These are intelligences known from recennt history, but all attempts at gaing further information have failed. The searchers never returned.

While I understand the need to role play all aspects of a characyter's life, I would prefer that most decisions of what to do take place here through downtime discussion, rather than spend the first three hours of game time coming to a conclusion. It is entirely possible that you will get into some very complex encounters, and I would hate to have to stop midway through one.

Your party may also choose to spend some time at the castle resting, healing, preparing spells and gathering supplies, or simply head out in the morning. Players with characters that need leveling up or want
private aspects taken care of should contact me ASAP. I won't have time on Friday, because here is where the real challenges begin.

The meek may now wish to retire, because from this point forward, we seperate the men and women from the boys and girls. You ain't seen nothin yet! [img]graemlins/devil.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 19, 2004 12:27 AM: Message edited by: Starshadow ]</font>

[Starshadow]

Einkil removes 200 gp from his inventory to have the following discovered:

Bracers of Armor (+4)... +4 Armor bonus to AC

Gloves of Dexterity (+6) (no wonder it was a 30 DC to find them, AND in the spectre's lair!): Skin tight, black leather gloves (which fit any hand). Both gloves must be worn to grant a +6 enhancement bonus to Dexterity.

[Starshadow]

Einkil's post on spells recovery brings me to this reminder.

Jaskyn gets his spells at Moonrise, and has already used 2 powerful spells on Stranng.

Jaskyn and Garrick were drained strength by the shadows. By morning, Jaskyn will still be down 5 points and Garrick 1, unless somone intervenes prior to that time.

[otherlleft]

Einkil will be happy to keep wearing the bracers, but cannot use the gloves of dexterity. He will offer them to our druid, since it might make him less of a target than he has been of late.
The godly wand he will pass on to Jaskyn to investigate.
He also has a +1 shield and mnithral shirt kicking around from our first red cloak encounter. If anyone has use of either let me know, and we'll make sure you have it for the coming storm.

[Lyssandra]

The gloves of Dexterity would best be served by either someone with a low dex (high dex improves AC naturally) or an Archer (Higher dex means ranged weapons have a better chance of hitting.) (My opinion anyway for what it's worth, Einkil. [img]smile.gif[/img] )

Gwylln will offer the Scarab to one of the Heavy Hitters in the group since it'll be of most use to a high STR character who might clobber a Golem in one or two hits with its natural DR ignored.

She'll also offer the ring of Mind Shielding to another who might like it. Styl might find it useful if he sneak attacks the wizards.

Gwylln's currently wearing a Ring of Sustenance, so is fully recharged with spells after only two hours of sleep, nor does she need to eat, so she can be ready for combat fairly quickly during a rest break between battles.

[otherlleft]

I had considered Einkil offering the gloves to Merilin, Lyssandra. As a player, I considered that they were the only two whose armor is light enough to benefit from the full +3 bonus to AC given by the enhanced Dexterity.
My decision also weighed whether giving the arcane archer, whose arrows are currently +2 over and above her base attack of +10 (and whatever other bonuses she might have), and supplying our only druid with an enhanced AC, since he's got very little to protect him to my knowledge.
My reasoning for Einkil choosing Stranng is that the gloves were among the spectre loot, and Stranng was the victim of the spectre. Having the gloves may improve his ability to avoid such occurences in the future. And even though the druid is a little off, he seems to mean well and makes Merilin happy.

[Stranng]

Stranng will gladly pay for the identification of the items that he found. As far as strategy, everything i have read seems valid...but how accessable are the aforementioned soldiers?...How many are there at our disposal?

[Stranng]

As far as stategy is concerned...I think we should wait until we are fully rested and all of our spell casters have regained all spells...Stranng would not think rushing out to deal with a dragon before it attacks again would be a good idea, in fact he believes leaving with an expressed interest in finding and fighting a dragon is ridiculous and anyone would be hard pressed to sway him. Additionally, Stranng would argue that taking a gaggle of horses up a single trail to a point that may serve as a look out for the enemy would be as foolish as racing out to stop the rampage of a dragon. He would argue that with two rangers and a druid that stealth through the wild would be the best option to perhaps go around the dragon and enemy occupied ruins. Then seek out the dragon's masters and deal with them. Stranng would believe that to announce our presence or our impending arrival before-hand could be a deadly mistake.

[Lyssandra]

Gwylln will pay to have the ring and scarab she found Identified and, depending on what they are, offer them or other items to other party members. (She has 3 rings and 2 amulets thus far, and can only wear 2 rings and 1 amulet at a time.)

As for what to do, she'll want to move on in the morning and do what needs to be done before the dragon attacks yet again. Taking the horses part way to the shelter will cut the travel time, and also make it easier to haul booty from the dragon lair and School once the threats are neutralized.

[otherlleft]

The time is nigh. We have had some discussion about strategy. Here's how I see it:
We have casters, missile-launchers, meat shields, and perhaps a sneak attacker. Each of those has a use. My thoughts in this post focus on the wizards:
Missile launchers (Merilin, maybe Lynliss and Garrick)should focus on hitting as many mages as possible - every hit forces a concentration check, and every hit point lost is to our gain. And Merilin can imbue arrows for added effect. I place Lynliss here as well, although she may be more useful as a meat shield.
The meat shields (Einkil, maybe Gwylln (if her spells are no longer useful), Lynliss and Garrick) should attempt to engage the enemy as quickly as possible. The sooner a mage is felled the sooner his spells stop.
Our backstabber (Stythel) can assist the meat shields by flanking those distracted by the meat shields.
The casters (Stranng, Jaskyn, Gwylln) should focus on 1) impeding spellcasting (summon swarm, dispel magic, whatever you can come up with), and 2) keep the meat shields alive (death ward, any sort of protective spells that may be useful) so they can finish the work.
I think we should keep our clerics and druid out of combat if at all possible - their uses lie elsewhere. I'm looking forward to all suggestions that improve upon or replace my ideas with better ones.