Players

Cantripilla Female Eladrin Wizard 1 (D.D.) Controller of the battlefield through the mysteries of her Orbs

Krael Male Human Rogue 1 (A.G.) Cloak and Dagger, opponents unaware of his presence may never notice

Bale Male Human Fighter 1 (C.G.) Hit him, go ahead, you’ll only make him mad

Targara Female Dwarven Ranger 1 (C.P.) One Dwarf, Two Hammers, and you’re in her way

Alerian Yssa’anan Male (Mostly) Dragonborn Paladin 1 (A.L) Bringing the will of Kord to those who don’t want it

Five Party Members of First Level: Target Encounter 500 EXP

Starting Goal – Search for the Goblin’s Base and End Their Attacks

After the battle with the goblin search party in the forest our party took a short rest then took up the trail again, searching for the origin of these invaders. Their trek was short lived as they stumbled upon a clearing with ancient ruins. Four buildings surrounded a statue of a hideous abomination in apparent torment; this monument was being closely scrutinized by a white haired gnome. Quite a dismissive fellow he ignored all attempts at verbal communication, muttering phrases such as ‘beneath me’ or ‘not worth my time’. After further attempts at communication the Gnome began to cast a spell, that was only recognized as ‘powerful’ but the apparent result was disappearance, to the party’s surprise as well as the Gnome’s. However none of our hero’s were able to escape.

What lay in wait for our heroes was best described as a divine experience, a personal audience with a god, granted a lesser god, but hey Deity is Deity. Each member of the party found themselves seeing and hearing without the information passing through their eyes or ears. They were greeted with the image of a beautiful woman, and depending which one you ask you would get vastly differing accounts of her appearance; race, hair color, height, all different to each beholder. However, any account of her eyes would be the same: Emerald Green, pure gem like green, and not just the iris, but the pupil too, a uniform color throughout. She introduced herself as Beruth, Goddess of Thunderheads, lesser Deity to Kord, of which at least two of our heroes are devoted to. She explained that she had called our hero’s from the holy grounds they stood on, saving them from certain death at the hands of the Gnome. The statue that he studied was that of Lom’zhul, a once powerful demon that was imprisoned by the builders of the ruins and the temple below, and that the Gnome wished to free Lom’zhul, most likely for promise of power. The demon if freed, even in a weakened state would easily conquer the island society, enslaving all. She implored our heroes to stop the Gnome and put an end to this madness, and after some questioning our party agreed. Entrusting a Sacred Emerald to the Paladin through which she would be able to contact the party anywhere, she sent everyone back to the ruins at a time after the Gnome had left, however a goblin patrol happened to be moving through at the time.

DM Aside: I added some fluff to the Goddess and cleaned up story, I do apologize that I do this after the fact, learning to be a story teller and what I need prepared for the group of inquisitive minds.

Fight at the Ruins

Goblin Hexxer	1
Goblin Warrior	2
Goblin Cutter	6
Encounter Rating	500xp

Not a good encounter for the goblins. Controller was able to slow down one or two of the PC’s, but the warriors and cutters couldn’t hold up their end of fight. No real damage was done to the heroes and the hexxer was forced to retreat down the ruins to no avail.
Outcome: Dead Goblins, Annoyed Paladin (class needs work catching enemies, I have some ideas), 100gp worth of Gems found in Ruins, 10gp found on goblins.

Facing the blocked doorway at the base of the stairs our party attempted some psychological warfare against the goblins directly inside. Using ghost sounds to recreate the suffering of a dying goblin, I failed the party here in not giving them a good enough bonus for this action, hope they trying something along those lines again so I can redeem myself. But upon entering the doorway we have our second fight of the night in rapid succession.

Battle in the Throne Room

Goblin Skullcleaver	1
Goblin Blackblade	1
Goblin Cutter	3
Close Burst 2 Traps	2
Encounter Rating	575xp

Goblin Skull Cleaver, small goblin, big axe. Thought it’d be fun for a huge hit on someone as they do 2d10 when bloodied instead of 1d10. Interesting rolling with this one, first round party took him to 2-4hp before he stood up out of the Throne, but then they failed to take him down for a couple rounds as he went around dealing unfair amounts of damage for a first level party. Granted this occurred from poor rolling on players side to hit him and lucky rolls for him to hit (16-18 range quite often). Seems a powerful little piece at low level, but I think a bit too strong for first. The traps also proved to be less than successful. Placed 2 modified Rockslides on opposite corners of the room, failing support beams, triggered when you stand next to them. Scared Cutter set off one killing himself and damaging the Blackblade, and annoying the Paladin more than anything else. I need some more practice placing and using traps. I do however like Blackblade, painful buggers when flanking.
Outcome some damaged PC’s, a ruined throne room, and a lesson learned in encounter building for me.

Upon victory the party was presented with three choices North, West, and South, and after some gerry-rigging of locks and alert systems the party headed South into the living quarters and Library. After some cautious spelunking the happened upon the library and set to work to find clues in the books. They came across a partly intact history of the Sanctuary they were in. Once it housed the proud enemies of Lom’zhul, his captors. Brave men and Women who devoted their lives to stopping the demon, finally achieving victory over him and imprisoning him. They also discovered that ruins were connected to a Temple which held the key to his imprisonment and assumed that the Gnome would be searching for this. Also when searching the living quarters they came across the valiant Captain of the Gaurd’s room and in which found a Cloak of Resistance +1 which made its way to the Wizard. The heroes now armed with new knowledge set out towards the rest of the underground keep to deal with the goblin’s and seek out the key of Lom’zhul’s imprisonment.

DM Aside: A reminder to the party and myself of how magic items are chosen. Items in 4e have no value to sell and are horribly expensive to buy, so saving up your funds might get you a nice toy later on, what you find on the adventure better be worth it, so instead of random generation I had each player create a wish list for a different player, and would roll between the players for which item to award.

Next time The Goblins: Danger or Annoyance

Player of Game: Aleriann for finding the Magical Item HID IN PLAIN SIGHT FROM THE REST OF THE PARTY!

Goal of Party: Find and Deal with Goblin Menace.

Experience Gained: 1075 Total: 2150 (5000 needed for Party to Level)

Players

Cantripilla female Eladrin Wizard (D.D.) still undecided for emphasis

Krael male Human Rogue (A.G.) stealth and surprise damage

Bale male Human Fighter (C.G.) wall of a man

Targara female Dwarven Ranger (C.P.) going for dual hammers

Alerian Yssa’anan unknown Dragonborn Paladin (A.L) more aggressive self buff/damage paladin

Starting Goal – Live life on the new island helping where needed

Civilizations have a strange way of popping up wherever there are resources, so when we travel to the middle of a realm on a massive ocean and find a small Island chain barely cresting out of the waves it should come as no surprise that we also find Humans, Dwarves, Elves and the like toiling away attempting to survive. These are the Isles of Golden Sand, more of a descriptive term I know but people simply surviving aren’t known for their creativity in names, a series of ten known islands that are slowly being colonized by our intrepid humanoids. Ah, colonization which brings us neatly to our island of interest, Burray, a small island near the western edge of the known chain, recently scouted and deemed both a viable island for farming and ‘safe’ and as such families braving the dangers, and receiving decent incentive plans from the government, took up their possesions and headed west to start a new life. Well lets be honest here, its not that new of a life, its still farming just with new scenery, and how different can crops look anyway? However, back to my point, with these families came adventures seeking fame, fortune, beer… well some just like hitting things hard, others just didn’t want to be fishermen, so they’re really just ordinary people with weaponry and allowed to use it.

These blades for hire are the lucky members of society, always having a new job to do, assuming there is any kind of job to do, manual labor of tree clearing and very difficult lifting, diplomatic talks between feuding neighbors, and the occasional, and quite enjoyable, pest extermination. Any job you don’t know what to do with you take down to the bar and to the adventurers.

Now that the stage is set we find ourselves at the bar, at the adventurers, with absolutely nothing to do. The first few months of living on Burray have been dull, uneventful, in a word boring, so boring that some of adventurers have stopped going to the bar most nights, or taken up fishing themselves. And the five we do find at the bar are getting ready to call it another fruitless day when something actually happens, a young woman bursts into the bar screaming followed by a few dozen small green humanoid attackers wearing colorful bramble looking armor. Striking down the poor woman with a thrown weapon, what appears to be a collection of long spikes clustered around a single ball, they storm into the bar looking for trouble.

Goblin Cutter	20
Encounter Rating	500xp

And we have our first fight, 4-5 goblin minions per player, 2/3rds through the front door, the rest through the windows on the second floor for protected range attack, a fight simply to allow the players some familiarity with their characters and the new rules (first 4e game for my group after all). Tables were placed generously around the room to test out difficult terrain, which seems that it can provide a near unfair advantage to ranged attackers fortunately minions can’t hurt for that much, even in large groups. A simple fight little damage done to the players and only the one civilian causality. No spectacular feats performed to go in detail for.

After the fight our newly formed party discussed with the mayor courses of action and eventually set off to track the goblins and discover why they attacked, and why now. They also took it upon themselves to annoy the already taxed Agathon Bedwyr by placing the dead woman in his office believing he was not interested or caring about that particular aspect of the night while he was attempting to figure out who she was and contact her family.

Traveling from the north eastern corner of the island, where the only real town has been formed, our hopefully soon to be heroes headed through the farmland west towards to forest. After some time trekking through the brush they came across a convenient clearing, not taking any chances they allowed the rogue to inspect first and rightly so, however both the rogue and potential ambushers failed to spot each other until a goblin sharpshooter got very lucky on his spot check.

Goblin Blackblade	2
Goblin Warrior	2
Goblin Sharpshooter	1
Goblin Cutter	2
Encounter Rating	575xp

The ensuing battle was my was of testing cover and line of sight rules. In doing so I rendered the Eladrin fey step power immensely powerful and in turn her line of sight magic missiles very difficult to use. The rogue also suffered greatly as he attempted to take cover early on in the battle directly next to a Goblin Blackblade’s hiding spot resulting in some nasty damage. The Sharpshooter could be quite lethal, but was lead for a loop by the Wizard. Warriors seem to be slightly stronger minions, just a couple more hits to take, as their damage is rather pathetic. However in the end all goblins were dealt with and the party was able to limp away to rest and heal with knowledge that they are closing in on the Goblin camp.

Next time Ancient Ruins and The Goddess.

Player of Game: Krael for surviving 2 surprise attacks in one battle.

Goal of Party: Find and Deal with Goblin Menace.

Experience Total: 1075