Tales of the best laid plans

Hammer admired their bravery but after seeing the exchange between Carpaletti and The Nightstalker’s apprentice he knew they were in over their heads. The “wingotaurs” as one of Nissian’s children referred to them were a real scare for the invisible ogre. If that’s what the apprentice worked with then the rumors about Nightstalker’s power were true, incredible and growing. Hammer’s friend at the Black Crown claimed that the Nightstalker was why Nissian left Stormhaven. Hammer doubted that but none the less, Nissian would have his hands full with the Nightstalker, what were his offspring doing taking his minions on? Hammer had been following “Son Commodities” since their revelation of his brother’s death. He had to be sure their motives were what the dragon creatures claimed. Near as he could tell they were. After the “wingotaurs” left, carrying their slaves, there was some argument between the remaining groups and Hammer was unwilling to get close enough to find out what they were after.


So my brother is dead, wrapped up in some assassination plot, and they are digging around in the Nightstalker’s plans and plots. Hammer wanted to avenge his brother’s death but knew he was unwilling to risk eternal torment in hell or existence as some horrible undead creature to do it. Some time in the Driftdowns seemed to be in order. Hammer knew his meeting with them in the morning would be a risk but they had told him about his brother and showed uncommon bravery. Hammer would risk the meeting and then make himself scarce. Were it not so close to the winter solstice he would consider a job taking him out of Stormhaven, for now he would have to hole up for a few months and test the air in the spring.

Hammer took to the sky, flying back towards his rooftop home, deep in thought, cloaked in invisibility, his last thoughts being a hope that Son Commodities would serve a good breakfast. A thin green ray struck the back of his head, bathing it in green light before the head disintegrated, his corpse falling to the grounds below. A wingotaur soon landed near the dead ogre magi’s body, easily picking up the dead weight and flew off into the night.

Five Tower Keep Session 15: 11/21/2018 A few Days In Five Tower Keep and No Thank You

We arrive to Five Tower Keep; our characters discover many of the folk here are not surprised at our return. Our characters however find a return to normalcy as even the outlying Thorpes have seen a return of families to the farms. It seems the orc and orog activity has ebbed in that the raids have ended. Furthermore the Army of Lowport has reinforced Five Tower Keep with 50 soldiers along with a caravan of supply goods to mark the beginning of trade season.

Inskip receives us and is anxious to get the story of our travels and when the subject is brought up he encourages us to recruit help to potentially hold an area in the swamp. Alaric asks for more funding but Inskip suggests we form a mercenary company and name our price for being in service to Five Tower Keep. In regards to this change in status Inskip refers us to Junior Dockmaster New Port Dock-Side Captain. And will forward a letter of recommendation speaking to our favor.

While in Five Tower Keep we arrange dry place to stay and dry clothes before we set out for Lowport (5 days to the coast road, 5 days up the coast (North) is Kazzurog territory, while 3 days down the coast (South) road is Lowport).

We head over to visit the Tower Keep wizard whose name is Cranium; it seems he is already aware of our party’s recruitment efforts. Melderon takes pains to display a bit of mythic power to instantly create a channel scroll spell to impress the man. Cranium mentions Academi and if Melderon has heard of it; Academi was an ancient elf who categorized and stabilized how magic worked here before on this world. He goes on to tell is there is an elf by the name of Garland Milkwish who is an educator. Seek him out and show him what you (Melderon) can do.

Next our characters look for the blind druid Acgrim of the Keep to inform him of the grove at the ley line nexus. This piques his interest at first but takes the information thoughtfully and says he will be willing to speak with the local druids and rangers about the location.

We leave for Lowport on Day 35. When we eventually reach the paved Dragon Road our characters encounter one of the many Pavilions that frequent the road. It was a large sheltered caravan rest area for rent. Here half-dragon ogres stand guard with milled wooden spiked clubs.

We, say no thank you and decide rest in Melderon’s rope trick. On Meshas watch she spies three huge figures emerge from the south wood to an area directly below our rope trick. At one point she sees dragon-sized wings, then a Minotaur’s head, then an infernal barbed tail. Carrying an impossibly large great axe. Hard to determine how many their were as they toil about speaking in giant tongue which Melderon picks up on. “find them, they must be here, they’re gone.” In one form or another. Our characters decide not to reveal ourselves and wait till morning. 

Later, the next morning it is about an hour into our travel when the three huge HALF DRAGON wingotaurs come up on us- the ones from the night before. After the battle we find their weapons to be of ancient Horcton origin and furthermore their armor was emblazoned with the Blood-shot eye of Gyronna. We see no reason to hide or dispose of these would be hag-assassins so we eventually continue to travel further along the road passing Pavilions along the way. The rest of the day, beyond the beautiful landscape, was uneventful.

That night we stay in a magical rope trick and the next morning we come to the intersection of the road. Here we hear screeching like a tortured owl; then coming closer we see 4 green scaled half-dragon owl bears. We start next game session with two rounds to prepare for them.

The Warnings of Virtue

Larosse listened to the Hag explain away her failure due to the arrival of a virtuous band of adventurers led by a Stone Lord Paladin. If the extra-planar creature wasn’t the minion of the Cloud Sorceress he would have it destroyed, instead the gnome warlord listened to the hag familiar’s protests, curses and proclamations.  Larosse realized listening did have its rewards when the Pit Hag revealed the party to be virtuous.  Larosse might be able to convince Caelum Rex to provide a legion of Wingotaurs now if the Storm Giant knew they were to be used against forces of Virtue.  

Pit Hag...Yeah!

The Warlord decided to precede cautiously, his relationship with The Conqueror being too new to risk offering what he wasn’t certain he could deliver.  Larosse reassured hellish Hag his appreciation of her efforts and bade the creature to return to its master while he waited to hear their advice on the matter.  

Larosse

Once the hag was gone, Larosse sent word to Gillespie to assemble his men, they had several new targets.  Larosse knew how to keep Gillespie and his hellions well fed. 

Gillespie

Review (04/16/2014)

Before continuing with the undead mind flayer eviction in the Driftdowns we began the session with a look into the Council of the Pale Kiss. The Pale Kiss is make up of lawful devils and Rakshasha’s of the Miser House presided over by Belial Lord of the 4^th and Father of Horrors.

Gretchen VanFleet, the last original VanFleet, appearing in front of a Pale Kiss hearing comes to ask for leave and assistance in searching for the five lost Rakshasha’s to discern their fate and to learn of their attackers (Roland VanFleet, Dekkar, Cadence, Omis and Lizel). We were among these hearing members. The hearing was accompanied with much procedure and truename descriptions as the Council members rose to speak, table questions, and delay actions to future councils.

She is 540 years in to a 1,000 year pact that supplies her with immortality, aid of the Misers, and hopefully membership into the Pale Kiss. In return she would sacrifice Stormhaven to Belial where it would expand and empower his level of hell.

The human Gretchen VanFleet has achieved all her goals thus far, save for the final sacrifice; while this is the first infraction from an outside influence it nevertheless outreaches the terms of the pact. Discourse waxed and waned from shortening the contract; delivering Stormhaven sooner; to wholesale renegotiation.

Questions were raised about the red attackers but since they could not be scryed upon it did not prove a promising route of investigating, they were likely pacted to another devil. (Tiamat)

After hours, days or weeks of hell time it was agreed that the Pale Kiss would help her in finding the lost five and renew her pact for another 1,000 years in return for unrestricted access to her portal(s), the sacrifice Stormhaven in 460 years, and deliverance to the Father of Horrors Kaer Maga in 1,000 years.

This generated lots of interest in the Council. Also part of the pact included one of the Ancients (the Aboleth) in the sacrifice. Other Ancients known about Stormhaven: the Architect (Nissian); the Keeper agent of H.E.L.L., saved by Nissian during the dawning of this world; and the Timeless (Tharymor the Time Dragon).

The pact was thereby amended.

Meanwhile the Sons of Nissian kicked Octopin ass, wingotaurs, and saved six navy men delivering them to their top brass. While there we cautioned them on why these men were targeted: for their knowledge of the new battleships.

After this we returned to the upside where we noticed combat near the Red Keep involving some of the exotic flying pachyderms we've seen before. Promptly ignoring that we return to the Cinder Block to get some rest before our raid on the VanFleet estate in the morning.

We begin next game session on Wednesday at 9am. 

11/3/10 Review

Midnight: After the battle we spoke with Raice and explained how things are going to progress from now on. We allowed him his gear and he shared a map that was, at this time, only set to Waymar’s watermark revealing its location. When last Raice knew, Waymar was looking for Kapaletti. It was agreed that after a brief rest we would set out and look for Waymar.

Stair guards show to investigate and after a short time, they leave.

Locking up the Bar and retreating to the lower-levels, we deemed that the fallen SS cultist would turn into some unknown undead thrall and that we did not want that in our lair, we dispensed with him over the world disk. The other individual, however; proved to be much more useful.

After some brotherly hoard building, we began to interrogate with our unconscious captive. His name is Egil and he is an Arcane Mercenary hired out of Seafoam House to interfere with us should we run into the SS cultists on their quest to capture the siblings before the winter solstice. As the conversation progressed we became trusting of Egil, returned certain pieces of his equipment and offered him employment. Hoping to cash in on a Sons Commodities water mark, Egil has agreed to be our spy in the Seafoam house and to track down the assassin Buki; an individual he is in fact very familiar with.

In our palaver he shared some of his job history with the SS cultists and information on a rich dwarf house that was just asking to be hit. He had worked three jobs previous: one where he aided in the slaughter of a house for the cultists as they retrieved a book, as well as a protection assignment. (The third one escapes my notes, unless he was referring to that night’s job) He had limited knowledge on the prophecy, but what he did know is that there was urgency with the cultists with the fast approaching winter solstice.

1 AM. Returning to the bar, Vercer is careful to hide the location of our lair with Egil. There was a brief moment of awkward introductions between Egil and the others when finally there is a calling for clarity. In light of all the changing circumstances with our assemblage, they naturally had some questions for us.

Jaren assured everyone that if they stay loyal to us and sharp in their professions, they will be awarded with not only money but prestige. Going into the fightclub/ sword dandy idea, it became clear that there is a lot of planning left to do. It was also addressed that the threat is not over for the siblings and that the cultists will continue to come and to be wary of the Nightstalker.

We allowed Egil a place to stay before we departed, accompanied by Raice and the brother and sister. Arriving, we found ourselves at the regular location of Stormhaven’s carnival. After a search of the grounds we found, parked close to the funhouse, two wagon cages- one with a pair of tigers and in the other six disoriented human slaves. Following some voices we entered the funhouse to find a business deal in progress with Waymar as one of the products being bartered for. Combat ensues as it usually does with us. We couldn’t save Waymar, as he was retrieved by the Green Cloak axe/staff guy’s wingotaurs. Finally after some aggressive negotiations, Kapaletti; in the spirit of the Flyers Club, covers the monetary difference of Waymar’s items so that we were able to gather the watermark and dark vision goggles. It was discovered that Kapaletti’s main influence lies as an exotic animal trader. We said our goodbyes and returned to the lair for some much needed rest.

We pick up next session on Sunday, two days later. On the docket: appointment with Obidah in his library at the House of Four Winds, collecting 1000g from Alvored at the Van Fleets and Sunday dinner at Twilight House. Looking toward the next day Monday, we have the Black Crown mixer at the Hall of Voices.