Five Tower Keep Session 8: 09/20/2018 To Five Tower Keep and Back Again

We begin this week’s session with the player consensus to head back to Five Tower Keep so that our characters can report back and refresh their resources. We direct our characters to follow the same course back- retracing our steps; along the way our characters do identify manticores flying defensively in bordering territories. The trek takes our characters 4 days to Five Tower Keep which sets our characters arrival on day 11 during the mid-morning.

Our characters arrive to Swamplands Thorpe first where we find farmers as well as Keep guards. Workers only who seem supried to see us, (no women) they warn our characters of sporadic night raids that continue in our absence. It seems each Thorpe around Five Tower Keep experience similar skirmish attacks from orogs and their ilk.

When we finally arrive to FTK it is to much fanfare as we quickly surmise that no one expected our characters to return. Our characters set about finding quarters and after couple of hours Inskip catches up with us and engages with an arranged dinner after we clean up from our swamp travels. He seems eager and hints to having recently found something that could help us. As we prepare for dinner our characters get cleaned up and eventually arrange a meeting with a merchant from Lowport for trade. In the meantime folk will find themselves warmed up to Ginger..

Later that night we assemble for a feast of great proportions… to a standing room only audience not only in the feat hall but also who have gathered outside to hear our tale. Inskip talks himself up before giving us an opportunity to tell our tale. Mesha first produces our map and with hexagonal territory Stoutwood gives a typographical description of the area while the rest of the group describes the monsters and strange encounters.  When swamp trolls are mentioned there is an audible gasp at the hereto unknown creature. We mention manticores and their mating practices; the first-world hydra; and the drake of which skin we have brought back with us. Immediately folk jump to conclusions about the great king dragon, but before long our characters tell everyone about the giants and the hags we encountered as well as the name Gyronna.

The name Gyronna has been mentioned from a couple of sources- known as the angry hag- and is known to have a sisterhood- it is currently calling Horcton her kingdom. One of the hags we encountered seemed to know we hailed from Five Tower Keep. Both hags we encountered traveled with a giant thrall. A druid speaks up and says that the southern hags keep giants husbands. Intriguing. We end our long night of stories with the story of encountering the menagerie of animal statues and what we fear to be a medusa ahead. Our characters then bring out the relics we recovered with the hopes of trade. 

Not long after we trade an adamantite throwing axe and the magical boarspear for a wand of CMW and a wand of CLW. A dwarf priest of Torag approaches Mesha when the Battlement shield is brought forth and offers her 15k in gold bars for the item and is forced to tell the tales of how she used the item. Inskipp brings forth the high Priest of Abadar to give us 1000 gold each; Inskipp reveals the Swamp Boots he recently found for our company. 

Our characters take a total of ten days of downtime so that Maderon Wilder can scribe scrolls and the rest of the characters trade for magical items.

At the 21 day mark we return to the swampy jungle taking a parallel route just west of our original path while also giving us a territory buffer from the Swam Trolls we know about and enter the 2(second trek)H5 territory where more swampy lands begin, we spend an additional two days getting there. Day 23. West from here we notice more manticores, nevertheless after a time we fully explore 2H5 and rest for the night.

The next day we advance into 2K6 where we believe there to be a manticore lair. Our characters happen across 4 manticores and engage- killing one while driving off the other three, however one will surely die before night fall.

We are awarded our 4^th character level. :) 

Five Tower Keep Session 6 & 7: 09/12/2018 Our New Hag Friend

The giant encounter went differently than our characters expected, a high pitched female voice commanded the giant. This spooked Ginger causing Stoutwood to give chase into the deep swamp taking the Hunter and his companion the evening to catch up to the rest of the characters. When the two catch up to the rest of the characters, they find them fresh off an encounter with a first-world creature, a forest drake- the second creature our characters have encountered that shouldn’t be on this plane.

We begin at 8 am in M1- each hexagonal territory our characters have visited till now including M1 are fully explored. Stoutwood learns the characters have realized Gyronna is claiming Horcton as her own- learned after talking with the swamp witch who would not give her name. The swamp witch was not a ‘sister’ of Gyronna who also spoke of a priestess.

Our characters continue SW into M2 8 am on the 6^th day after resting most of the fifth day. Two hours in with swamp water becomes up to our waist and is slow travel. We are then surprised by a two headed ettin and the swamp witch hag. We defeat the Ettin and find a well preserved handy haversack and a total 1000 gp in gold, silver or black pearls.

After a brief coarse correction our characters are on our way to finishing exploring as the swamp hag harries us further in the day. She sets 3 giant scorpions against us but we dispatch them. Our characters fully explore M2 and an hour before sundown find the scorpoion's lair and a site to set up camp. Our night it filled with sounds of swamp dolphins, insects and worse; we are however not disturbed.

The next day (Day 7) our characters continue SW into M3 where we come across several small stone statues. About two hours into our exploration we find the ground becoming more solid and about 200 feet away a clearing presents itself- here we see figures standing. Stoutwood approaches and the general assumption given the clues is there be medusa here.

We are awarded a combat feat and pick up here as our characters faced with the possibility of a medusa. 

Five Tower Keep Session 5: 08/30/2018 Hail Hydra!

The Map of Days

We begin around noon on the third day since leaving Five Hour Keep continuing our search through K3 (reminding reader that the adjacent K4 has a swamp troll lair somewhere inside.). Eventually to the south we see three, we assume them to be manticores, flying in concentric circles in the next territory to the south- soon to be area K5 along our path. We enter said territory having fully explored K3 and also finding no major lairs in that area.

Moving SW into K5 our characters begin to map and explore. As we travel swamp trolls continue to harry us from the east. It takes us 5 hours to explore this area with most of the area very wet and in places past our ankles as we travel.

*Succeeding on a exploration check means we do not get lost now or in the future visits to an hexagonal area; survival checks indicates an awareness of dangers and surprises.

Thirty minutes into K5 we notice that we are getting closer to the flying manticores that seem to be dead center of this territory. Unexpectedly Stoutwood finds a single barefooted giant track about this time; the track seems to be heading in a NE direction. The track is no more than two days old. About an hour into our exploration the land begins to rise out of the feted water; while ahead our characters think we see a flickering or shimmering light. We take pains to safeguard our ears as we approach the soft flickering glow. We venture closer we happen across a large boulder sunken in about two feet of water with the mysterious glow is situated about ten feet above it.

Melderon attempts to touch the local ley line but falls short due to the unfamiliarity of the area- the area had an old-world connection. We get closer and we see the glow is actually a light mace hanging in the tree, swaying foliage from our approach gave the glowing mace a shimmering effect. Mesha detects magic both from the mace as well from a box in the water below and items of value in the water and scattered about. Alaric approaches closer still and discovers the rock is in fact large stone statue of a giant frog; nearby, a haphazard pile of broken life-sized statuary of various animals. Poking around Alaric also finds a magic boarspear in the water.

From the jungle emerges a hydra to give us grief. Battle! In the end Melderon uses acid splash to kill the quickly regenerating old-world monster while Alaric, Stoutwood and Drake keep the creature unconscious with strikes. There is no longer a hydra lair in K5!

In the immediate area our characters find 15 javelins of lighting, 2 beads of force (Melderon, Mesha), amulet of natural armor +2 (Drake), an adamantine throwing axe (a Horcton relic)(Stoutwood), ring of swimming (Alaric), empty type I bag of holding (Melderon), a gold necklace worth 100 gp, a silver necklace worth 30 and +1 hurtful boarspear (Alaric), +1 light mace that sheds light (has symbols of Palor the Orc god of the Sun) (Mesha). Melderon is able to discern the properties of the iron crown recovered from an orog back in Swamplands Thorpe (Stoutwood).

Crown of Forceful Strikes

Aura: faint evocation; CL: 5th

Slot: head; Price: 2,400 gp; Weight: —

Description

This sturdy iron crown is decorated with small points that take the form of miniature swords, pointing up. Three times per day as a swift action, the wearer can cause one weapon attack he makes to count as a force effect (like magic missile or spiritual weapon), except the damage done still counts as weapon damage (rather than spell damage). The crown’s power may be used three times per day.

Construction Requirements: Craft Wondrous Items, spiritual weapon; Cost: 1,200 gp.

We decide to huddle and rest in a nearby hunting shack without incident. Overnight the water level rises and at midnight the water reaches its highest point (high tide for this area is noon and midnight). We begin planning an attack with the manticores. We range out to 900 feet from the manticores and see a 300 foot risen area where we believe their lair to be. We believe there are only three, although there could be more inside the lair. We advance closer to the edge of the grassy gnoll where we find numerous discarded carcasses lying about including many humanoids. Stoutwood finds venomous spittle up in some areas as we take our places. Battle! Our characters open up with using every javelin of lightning we recovered from the hydra and our deadly dice rolling skills to defeat the venomous manticores.

We each find a masterwork and or cold iron weapon of Horcton among the carcuses and fully explore the K5 territory. Our characters continue southwest into M1 and around noon on the 4^th day since leaving Five Tower Keep we happen across a giant with bundles of javelins…