Thursday, February 9, 2012

Our session began with the team looking out over the field between the Hub and Fishermen’s Wharf. They saw the zombified former adults of Fishermen’s Wharf shambling towards them, commanded by three well-equipped skeleton archers who had marched across the ocean floor from the continent of Umbria. The fight was on!

After defeating the undead, the party realized that while they were all adults, some of them had items on them that indicated the potential for kids. Heading into the village, they saw further evidence of the existence of children in the town, though none were present. They found tracks of small booted humanoids and one cane-wielding heavier hoofed individual heading off to the woods. However, the realization that the necromancer who turned the village adults undead was probably looking for new recruits… in the village cemetery.

Though the a few party members were stealthy on the approach to the cemetery, they were countered by the RIDICULOUS NOISE created by the other members, which removed any potential for surprise. The necromancer, an undead elf, was clearly frustrated that many of the graves had no bodies in them, but were only marker stones with the symbol of Umberlee, the Bitch Queen of the Ocean, upon them (their people having been lost to the sea). More combat ensued.

The battle was fierce, with all sorts of weird necromantic-type powers getting thrown around, but the party dispatched the necromancer and his two skeletal soldiers. Then they returned to the village, where they met Grannie Bess, an elderly type of minotaur (also a witch) who had sensed “bad things” coming, and had gotten the 10 village children out on a “nature walk” to get them away from whatever was coming. She had saved the children, but mourned the fact that they were all now orphans, and that she would not be able to care for them all on her own.

As they spoke to Grannie Bess, horns sounded, signalling the arrival of a squad of Purple Dragon Knights and clerics of Bahamut, lead by Marcus Obarskyr, a human who is both the younger brother of the current king of Cormyr AND the likely next choice for Platinum Cardinal (the highest humanoid position) in the Church of Bahamut. After sending his paladins to bless the coastal tides (making a holy water barrier that would prevent further attacks from the ocean). However, he was in a rush to reinforce a huge battle going on up at The Line, and could not stay for more than a brief conversation.

Grannie Bess, though, had other ideas. She asked Obarskyr for 10 soldiers to help her defend the children and raise them. He could not give her that. She asked for 5 soldiers, yet he said they were needed at the front. She asked for just one soldier, and he said that even taking one of his soldiers from the fight could mean the deaths of many others. She pleaded, “You cannot give me even ONE soldier?”

And Nulath stepped up to answer the call.

The paladins raced off to battle while the party went about some heart-felt goodbyes. One of the children came running out of her home with the remnants of an old set of armor and a particularly nice longsword. She said that her grandmother had been a great warrior, and that just before her death (of illness), her grandmother had said that another warrior would come to take up her gear. Since the paladins were long gone, Praxis took the sword (and a journal of the grandmother’s adventures) to appease the girl.

The game ended with the party returning to the Hub (minus Nulath), hearing that some of the supply guys at the Hub would try to shift extra food to the kids when they could, and then heading off with the Caravan of Fallen Valor to return the bodies of soldiers to their homelands.

Experience: 200 XP each

Treasure
+1 Wintersnap Cloth Armor (Kerath)
+1 Longsword of Defense (Praxis)
Journal of the Lady Knight “Six” Arpaggia [Praxis]
Umbrian Book of Vecnal Secrets? [Kerath]

The next session will be Monday, February 20, as the party stops for lunch at a roadside tavern. Stay tuned for episode 9… “Which Bar Fight Were You In?”