The beginning of the session found the party awakening from their rest in the middle of a hostile dungeon, somewhat surprised that they were undisturbed. They concluded that the rest of the guards must have fled at the mere thought of having to face them, after the carnage they had left in their wake (or the DM wanted to move the adventure along so he could get to his own stuff/he was trying to avoid a TPK, but whatever same diff). As the party exited their makeshift B&B, they were met with several large piles of body parts from their slain enemies assembled into arrows pointing them down a hallway they had not yet explored and ending in front of a set of double doors. Upon bursting in they were beset on all sides by undead, with a ghoul large and in charge and looking for some fresh meat. Rhogar, fearless, stepped into the room and allowed the vile creatures to surround him, shielding his comrades from the initial onslaught. Rhogar and Grimlock set to clearing some space to allow the party to get down to work. Kaz let loose the righteous brand of Torm, illustrating why you have a cleric in the party when you’re going after a death cult. Khaine once again created doubt about his intentions and lineage by blasting Rhogar with eldritch magic while under the influence of a
Kaz/Chris displaying classic gamer physique & obligatory food stain
homunculus.
The party entered the next room and was greeted by Kalarel’s under-priest who was awash in the blood of the innocents that was helping to fuel the dark ritual. The priest welcomed them and invited them to partake of the ritual by kindly allowing him to spill their blood into the collecting pool below. The party, after contemplating the offer, gave him the big middle finger and proceeded to bitch slap him silly. Both Rhogar and Grimlock went down in the ensuing donnybrook, as the fanatics of Shar fell upon them in a blood raged frenzy. Kaz said “not on my watch douche bags”, and let healing words turn the tide of the fight. After the battle the party was gathered around the 50ft pit in the room that provided access to the ritual room through blood drenched chains. A great debate ensued as the chanting from below grew and the keep began to shake about how to best make it down. Several members were unsure of their ability to descend quickly without hurting themselves and were concerned about descending slowly and allowing any potential enemies to pot shot them. The solution: douse a corpse in oil, light the corpse on fire then dump him down the pit to clear out the space and take out any enemies in the way. The result: a flaming corpse that fell into a pool of blood that was then extinguished with a accompanying voice asking “what the hell was that?”.
So the party then decided to slide down the chains and maybe get to foiling Kalarel’s plans. The final battle ensued as Kalarel called out to Khaine offering him an opportunity to join him. At that moment Khaine felt the overwhelming presence of his patron pushing him to raise his hand against his comrades. The struggle of wills went on until Khaine was able to push the influence back (apparently sides have been drawn in this war). Khaine also slighty confused/worried his commrades by calling Kalarel “brother” and saying that he was misguided in his way of worshiping Shar. Khaine then deduced the nature of the ritual and when the party engaged the forces of evil in battle they also set to unworking the ritual. It was a classic slugfest with Khaine finally cutting Kalarel down. As the big man fell he was sucked into the portal by a clawed hand, and as the portal began to dissolve a beam of dark energy shot out and enveloped the party, but surprisingly did not inflict any pain, a voice echoed in their minds telling them that this was far from over. The party then beat a hasty exit as the Keep began to implode on itself.
Once back in town a great feast and celebration was held for the heroes. The party was unable to determine what if anything the necrotic beam had down to them, but they were feeling no pain at the time and enjoyed the festivities and gratitude of the town. Valthurn the sage provided Khaine with a journal of a Tiefling wizard named Qualeck containing his “interesting research”. The Party plans to rest up and head back to Cormyr, I hope their journey is uneventful…..
That’s a humourous photo of Chris. You guys weren’t gaming at work, were you?
The obligatory food stains remind me the classic “your character sheet isn’t a character sheet without Coke, chips, and other condiment stains”
(Oh, and the session sounded like it was lots of fun. Way to go!)
yah it was a fun time, I think a good ending to that adventure. I cut out several rooms of the dungeon as I felt it was becoming a bit of a grind, lacking a little role-playing as the combat in 4th edition tends towords the longish side. the picture of Chris was taken at work, when he came in to get eh tid epen and sat down to work it I couldn’t resist and grabbed my iphone.
have you gamed lately?
Ha! It would probably be a good idea for anyone who’s a parent to carry a Tide pen with them. I can see why you’d cut out rooms of a dungeon to get to the role playing… I hear 4th ed plays like a video game.
I’ve gamed for the past two weekends, and I’m exhausted! It’s not just gaming for me, but multi-tasking (keeping my little girl occupied, cooking for 7 people, etc.)
My little girl likes to throw dice! She’s got her own set
what are you playing?
A home-brew gestalt campaign in 3.5 blended with some PF.
what are you playing?
As in what character class? A fighter rogue.
yah, i was just curious what you were playing. but I should have figured there would be some kind of rogue/assassin in there so you can always subtly shiv someone in the back or maybe palm some of the parties treasure, i can already see the note passing to the DM
*lol* I remember many years ago when I used to pass lots of notes to the DM (I was playing a NE character in a good party… yey ‘Undetectable Alignment’!). One of my friends started getting really annoyed with me. From that point on, another friend would also pass the DM notes that said “This is a note.” just to piss off the other person
Oh man NE is the worst kind of evil. At least LE there’s rules, structure, and hierarchy and CE is just a disorganized psychopath, but NE geez. I don’t know Joyce what do you make of your character choices, what are they telling us about you lol, think of the projective hypothesis
.
I have been listening to this 1st editon DnD podcast http://rfipodcast.com/show/, it is pretty cool almost makes me want to run a campaign, not sure whn you started with the game given that I am 100 years older than you it was prabably 2nd edtion
NE is the best kind of evil to play. It takes much more thought and intellect than CE or LE. And trust me, I’m fully aware of why I play the characters I play, and heck, why I play DnD at all
I know how first ed. works, though I’ve never played it. I still play Hero Quest, which is akin to first ed., yes? Yeah, I started with 2nd ed., and LOVED Skills and Powers later on.
I’ll listen to the podcast since you’ve recommended it… afterall, with all your extensive gaming experience I trust your judgment, gramps