Session 86 – “I did not expect the hobgoblin Red Cross”

 Map of the orc cave

Alternative titles

• “The whitespace saved us”

• “To be rootly disturbed”

• “The oversnack problem”

Location(s)

• Cult cave (upstairs)

• Orc cave

The party

• Dan (human ranger)

• Dernard (human magic user)

• Gaorin (human fighter)

• Kaya (dwarven fighter/cleric)

• Nigel (dwarven fighter)

• Ryan (half-elven thief)

• Valis (elven fighter)

XP

• 111

Treasures

• 1 copper bowl

• 2 black gems

Summary

• We camped in the owlbear cave

  • During the night the roots started to encroach

  • Saw the orcs and gnolls gets wiped out

• Met up with surviving hobgoblins in ravine

  • Formed an alliance to defeat the source of this evil

• Returned to the cult cave

  • Started to shoot down the roots protecting the source

  • Eventually started to attack the source directly

  • The source exploded at some point

  • Several of us were unconscious

  • Moved back to the outside

  • The corrupted trees seemed to have withered

  • Hobgoblins left us and returned to their cave

• Camped again in the owlbear cave

  • Saw the hobgoblins loot the gnoll cave

• Went to the orc cave to loot it

  • Besides of a trap and some centipedes, the cave was abandoned

Session 85 – “Which turns Siegfried into Digfried”

 

Alternative titles

• “The triangle of warning”

Location(s)

• Cult cave (upstairs)

The party

• Bob (human cleric)

• Dernard (human magic user)

• Kaya (dwarven fighter/cleric)

• Oriana (dwarven fighter)

• Ryan (half-elven thief)

• Valis (elven fighter)

XP

• 16

Treasures

• None

Summary

• Bob and Ryan reached the ravine

  • Brought Oriana with her

  • She is sister of Kaya

  • Had travelled with the other dwarves we met at the keep

• Inspected markings in ravine

  • Wanted to destroy them

  • Mostly gone because of weather though

• Went into cult cave to destroy altar

  • Initially resisted our dwarves

  • After casting Bless onto it, we could destroy it

  • Moved the rubble out of the cave

  • Seemed to have done nothing

• Encountered another faery which fled

  • Later found a dead faery in the cave near the place we found the first one

• Camped in the cave near the place we found the first faery

  • Saw some glowing red dust

  • Got attacked by vampire-chicken-thingies at nightmare

  • Relocated camp to abandoned scribes chamber

• Next day tracked the dust towards the collapsed corridors

  • Somehow couldn’t touch the dust with our hands

  • Excavated the corridor (took some days)

• Went into the dark tunnel behind

  • Full of tree sap

  • Fought some rats

  • Sap tried to eat Dernard and managed to eat Kaya

  • Is it really sap, or slime?

  • Fired magic missiles at sap which retreated

  • Valis and Ryan scouted ahead

  • Found a room full of roots and sap

    • Seem to cover something (a cocoon?)

• Left the cave to return to the hobgoblins

  • Planned to get reinforcements to fight the thing in the cocoon

• The trees near the ravine started attacked

  • The hobgoblin cave was cut off, couldn’t reach it any more

  • Saw an orc getting dragged away

  • Session ended with a cliffhanger here

 

Session 84 – “The ground that eats you”

 

Alternative titles

• “The triangle of peace”

• “There is also a triangle of war”

• “Kayas denial: The dogs are fat”

• “The trauma is real”

• “You poked the bear”

• “My rod stiffens up in the morning”

• “They die twice”

• “I’m trying to trick the stone”

• “Memory lane”

• “Who let the dogs out?”

• “4 players, 2 dogs, 9 hobgoblins and 7 gnolls walk into a bar”

• “Chefsache”

Location(s)

• The keep

• Bloated forest (near ravine)

• Dangerous cave

• Hobgoblin cave

• Cult cave (up and downstairs)

The party

• Dan (human ranger)

• Dernard (human magic user)

• Kaya (dwarven fighter/cleric)

• Valis (elven fighter)

XP

• 162

• XP for sessions 65, 66, 67, 68, 78 and 79 was handed out

Treasures

• Bronze goblets (2), shallow bowl and ewer from cult altar room

• Silver chain from gnoll

• Silver armbands from gnoll

• Bag of gems from skeleton in secret passage

Summary

• Kaya tried to hire dwarves at the keep to rebuild ours

  • We left before we could get an answer

• Traversed the bloated forest to the ravine

  • Discovered animals (most of them dead) captured by the trees

  • The ground tried to capture one of our dogs

  • Saw a tree burst and lots of sap come out

  • Sap dripped on Dernard, started to itch, washed it off with cooking oil

  • Got attacked by a shadow

• Went to the dangerous cave to camp there

  • Fought off an undead owlbear

  • Stayed a few nights to recover from the fight

• Met the hobgoblins

  • They can’t go hunt because of the changed forest

  • Reformed our alliance

  • Planned an expedition with the hobgoblins into the cult cave

  • Got attacked by shadows on the way there that dragged people away

• Revisited the whole upper cult cave

  • Found a dead faery (Kaya burned it)

  • Kaya tried to trick the evil altar, but wasn’t able to

• Revisited the lower cult cave

  • Encountered a gelatinous cube

  • Found a secret passage leading to a room full of gnolls

  • Lured the gnolls into an ambush with our hobgoblin allies

  • Still got almost killed

• Returned to the hobgoblin cave

Session 83 – “Rotten bear underwear”

 

Alternative titles

• “I show you mine, you show me yours”

• “Dan and the dogs”

• “Don’t eat the undead soup”

• “I don’t want them slurping undead bone marrow”

Location(s)

• Bloated forest (near ravine)

• The keep

The party

• Dan (human ranger)

• Dernard (human magic user)

• Gaorin (human fighter)

• Kaya (dwarven fighter/cleric)

• Nigel (dwarven fighter)

XP

• 24

Treasures

• None

Summary

• Met Gaorin who had followed us from the desert

• Returned to Shackle keep for a while

• Went towards the ravine to talk to the hobgoblins

• Encountered a bunch of bloated trees

  • Trees were twisted and oozed red sap

  • Like the ones we had seen at the ravine

  • But there were much, much more

• Encountered a group of undead knights of the empire

  • Assumed this somehow related to the spread of the trees

• During night encountered an undead bear

  • Camped away from the trees, so the undead seem to wander

• Returned to the keep

  • Wanted to warn them about the trees and things happening at the ravine

  • Still were not allowed to return to the keep, our exile persists

• Learned what had happened at the keep

  • Keep is still being repaired and extended

  • The old castellan was replaced by Lord Tarquin

  • Captain Valizar is in charge of the safety of the keep

  • The old guard captain is still around

• Started to make plans what to do next

Session 82 – “He is going to loot himself”

Map of Amon-ra's tomb (level 2)

 

Map of Amon-ra's tomb (level 3)

 

Map of Amon-ra's tomb (level 4)

 

Map of Amon-ra's tomb (level 5)

Alternative titles

• “Lets go over the edge”

• “It’s an awesome death! You were killed by a pineapple”

Location(s)

• Tomb of Amun-ra (levels 2-5)

The party

• Bob (human cleric)

• Dernard (human magic user)

• Kaya (dwarven fighter/cleric)

• Nigel (dwarven fighter)

• Ryan (half-elven thief)

• Valis (elven fighter)

XP

• 189

Treasures

• 1 staff (magic, transforms into snake)

• 1 gem

Summary

• Level 2

  • Continued to explore the second level of the tomb

  • Eventually found two minotaurs, one got killed, the other one fled

  • Through a hole in the ceiling we managed to climb up to level 3

• Level 3

  • Found a giant statue with a (fake) gem stone

  • Ryan took the stone and the statue started to scream

  • Fought some undead

  • Discovered a waterfall that healed us (1d10)

  • Explored a bit before returning to the waterfall

  • Found an octagonal room behind the waterfall

    • It had palm trees with strange looking “pineapples”

    • The pineapples exploded

    • Activated four altars (speaking the magic words of the altars “Tur”, “Log”, “Reg” and “Neg”)

    • Reversed gravity and flew up to level 4

• Level 4

  • Found a huge hall with stairs

  • Walked up the stairs and faced various challenges

    • Two figures we had to fight

    • A wall of fire (we drenched blankets in water and jumped through)

    • Mirror copies or ourselves (Valis was very happy to kill “Nigel”)

    • A giant fist. Ryan jammed it’s mechanism so it couldn’t move

  • Found a room with a waterfall

    • A voice asked us some questions

    • We answered correctly and the waterfall reversed

    • We swam up the waterfall to level 5

• Level 5

  • Found a room with a reed boat and a painting on a wall

  • In the next room we found a sarcophagus

    • We burned the mummy inside, because we didn’t want to fight it

  • Found a magic staff (turns into a snake)

  • Discovered the painting in the room before was magical and we could walk through

  • There was a flying boat with a gem

  • Using ropes we managed to get to the boat and get the gem

  • Kaya took the staff and the gem; and abandoned us for a while

• Taking the staff and the gem broke the curse of Amun-ra

  • We were allowed to use the flying boat to return to the pyramid tomb and return to Lake Flake

Session 81 – “Shacklekeep Stories II: This is the most average squirrel there is”

Alternative titles

• “A little pissing on the smouldering remains of your enemies”

• “But it is cleric piss”

• “How big is the squirrel? Squirrel sized!”

Location(s)

• Squirrel Square

The party

• Bob (human cleric)

• Dernard (human magic user)

• Kaya (dwarven fighter/cleric)

• Valis (elven fighter)

XP

• 183

Treasures

• 3 tiger eye gems

• 1 sceptre

Summary

• Valis saw a lady ghost

  • When he told us about her, she was already gone

• One month later the lady ghost was back

  • We followed her, but got interrupted by a troll

  • So we lost sight again

• Another month later we saw her again and followed her

  • She lead us to a place with a stone block (an altar?) and four “angel” statues on top of some pedestals

• Found a sleeping squirrel

  • Kaya placed it on a tree so it wouldn’t get hurt

• Pedestal 1: Acid pool trap

  • Magic wall you can walk through

  • Shaft going downwards

  • Slimy handholds

  • Pool of water at the bottom with a metal plate at the bottom

  • “Water” is acid

  • Maybe there is a slime monster inside (it might be dead already)

  • Nothing of value could be found

• Pedestal 2: Locked room trap

  • Small locked room in the pedestals

  • Found a skeleton and some tiger eye gems

  • Kaya got locked in for a moment, but from the outside the door could be opened

  • Took the skeleton with us to give it a proper burial

• Pedestal 3: Slide trap

  • Four keyholes that didn’t do anything

  • Were just able to open a door

  • At the bottom was another door

  • Touching the floor created a slide

  • Managed to enter the door

  • Found three rooms

    • One was empty

    • One had a sceptre (taken by Valis)

    • One had an almost completely empty vial (taken by Dernard)

  • After taking the things this rooms collapsed

• Pedestal 4: Another trap?

  • One keyhole

  • Couldn’t pick it, so tried to break it open

  • Weren’t able though and just attacked some displacer beasts

  • Killed one of them before the others fled

  • In the mouth of the statue above was something (a half-sphere with a hole)

  • Maybe there is a trap that would have been triggered by picking the lock?

• Under the altar: Blade trap with illusions

  • Pushed the altar away

  • Lots of blades, some visible others triggered by unseen wires

  • Saw gold and firelight down

  • Threw a log down to break the blades and wires

  • Dasid went down, but the gold and light was gone, the room was empty

  • It was just an illusion

Session 80 – “We’re jumping into the fire, come with us”

Map of Amon-ra's tomb

Map of Amon-ra's tomb (level 2)

Alternative titles

• “The dice deserve a break”

Location(s)

• Tomb of Amun-ra (levels 1-2)

The party

• Dan (human ranger)

• Dernard (human magic user)

• Kaya (dwarven fighter/cleric)

• Nigel (dwarven fighter)

• Ryan (half-elven thief)

• The Hainfelder (dwarven fighter)

XP

• 190

Treasures

• 5 pale blue gems

• 1 silver amulet

Summary

• Learned that some of the Thun Dervishes had vanished

• Found a magic portal in magic fire

  • Entered fire and reached next level of the tomb

• Octagonal room

  • 4 misty passages, 4 levers, 1 skeleton pointing at “Western” passage

    • Levers are magnet trap: Pulls people up wearing metal armour

  • Encountered a Minotaur

• Started exploring the tomb

  • Marked various intersections/corridors (see map)

  • Some aren’t marked because we fled from undead

  • Encountered another Minotaur and some “Egyptian” undead

• Fled into “Spear Trap” room

  • Repelled the undead

  • Found some treasure from a dead dwarf

• Explored a secret passage

  • Found two rooms similar to the “Spear Trap” room

  • Third room had a monster in the ceiling that almost ate Ryan