[Final confrontation and near death experience.]
[This session took place either December 2004 or January 2005. We were playing Champions 5th Edition with the Second Edition Fantasy Hero supplement.]
Player Characters
Tim, a Wizard - male human from the Free City of Freegate, graduate of Outlands University
Dangar Stonekleaver – male dwarf from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom
Mord Worldfist – male dwarf bodyguard [and handler] for Dangar
Wendell Dorshield III – male gnome, Captain and Architect of the Yardbird
Malwyn – male High elf fighter and military expert
Darkfox – female human thief from Freegate, secret ID of socialite Karlyn Gryphshaw
NPCs
Rebecca – female gnome, part of the Gnome security detail for Wendell
Herschal “the Hunter” – also known as “Bearkiller”, male gnome, part of the Gnome security detail for Wendell
Yacov – male gnome, part of the Gnome security detail for Wendell
Horace the Mad – male human, a fur trapper and mountain man operating in the Southern Reaches
[Session 7 and Session 8 are missing from my records. I have no data on what happened in either. Further, Session 9 does not state when the game actually happened, so I’m guessing either December 2004 (based on our schedule) or January 2005 as December is a tough month to schedule a game with the holidays happening.]
Session Begins
May 9, 20 IC
The Outlanders arrived at the Temple of Watching Twilight and spent the day exploring the ruins. They located three sealed entrances to the lower catacombs and took the time to perform the ritual to unseal the entrances. Unexpectedly, all three entrances opened, not just the one they were standing by. They pushed the sealing slabs back over two of the entrances and made camp in front of third.
That Night
During the night, Apostol in wolf form leapt over the camp and charged into the catacombs. Dangar and Mord were on watch and they woke the others to inform them. The group decided this was probably a werewolf and they would deal with it in the morning.
Meanwhile, Apostol started waking up the undead inhabitants of the catacombs and holed up with some wights in their crypts to discuss strategy.
May 10, 20 IC
The Outlanders entered the catacombs at dawn and started tracking the “werewolf”. Horace chose to stay at the surface, refusing to enter the catacombs.
The Outlanders found where the “werewolf” awoke some skeletons, who went deeper into the catacombs, and then doubled back. The Outlanders continued to follow the “werewolf” deeper into the catacombs and tracked him to the crypt he was in with the wights.
After the Outlander defeated several wights, Apostol closed the crypt door to keep the adventurers out. Dangar broke a hole in door with a pick and Tim started lobbing explosions into the room through that hole. Several confined explosions later, the Outlanders pushed open the crypt door and entered. Apostol had hidden behind a stone sarcophagus and was still active! Dangar attacked Apostol and cut off the top of his head (at the teeth) in one blow. [As the GM, I had plans for this later in the campaign.] Dangar then mounted the skull on the top of the Outlanders’ banner and proceeded to loot the body.
After a bit, the Outlanders discovered that Yacov had disappeared again. They tracked him back up to the surface and to a nearby field. Yacov was walking away with some sort of mist surrounding and following him. An altercation happened and the Outlanders drove away the mist. [My notes do not say how.] Yacov recovered his senses and asked how he got there. At this point the Outlanders realized that there was more than one vampire operating in the area. They strongly suspected Yacov will become one soon (or may already be one). After some testing [again, no indication of how], they decided this was not the case (yet) and returned to the catacombs.
Back in the catacombs, they followed the skeleton footprints. They discovered a multitude of fresh prints and trails. Upon further investigation, they determined that a group of goblin-sized creatures and some human- or elf-sized creatures left through one of the other catacomb entrances. They tracked one set of prints, belonging to either an elf or a human female deeper into the catacombs.
After descending winding stairs deeper into the earth, they encountered a series of hallway ambushes by skeletons with moveable barricades. Heavily damaged, the Outlanders eventually defeated the skeletons and found a barracks. They fought the rest of the skeleton guard by lobbing explosions into the room and then sorted through the debris.
Elsewhere they found a dissection room with an undead landshark chained to a table. They found a training room with animated dummies, an anti-magic trap that caught Dangar, a library of engineering books and drawings, a writing room protected by ant men, and finally the way down to an even deeper level of catacombs.
In the deeper level, they found a robe room with ancient ceremonial robes. The Outlanders put on robes as a form of disguise. This caused a problem later.
A little later, they found a room that summons earth elementals as a defense mechanism. Tim and Dangar recognize this kind of room from The Vault in the Worldspine Mountains [connecting this death cult to the ancient Enemy]. After some discussion, half the party decided to try and run past the elementals as they formed and half fell back to a safer location to see what happened.
Malwyn went first and made it across the room easily. He opened the doors on the far side of the room, which lead to a large temple area. Mord went second and made it across the summoning room and then waited at the door to verify Dangar made it. Dangar and Tim ran side by side, but realized they would still be in the room when the elementals finished forming. Trying to save his friend, Dangar grabbed at Tim in order to throw Tim clear of the room. Unfortunately, he only grabbed the ceremonial robes and ripped them off Tim instead. [His player rolled an 18 on the attack roll, which in HERO System is the worst roll.]
The earth elementals finished forming and started to pummel Tim and Dangar. Tim decided to try and disrupt the energy pattern on the ceiling that powered the elemental summoning magic by firing a magic bolt at one of the power nodes. Malwyn had just enough time to jump [abort to dive for cover and made the DEX roll] behind the altar at the far end of the room before Tim fired his bolt. Mord was not so lucky.
Everything suddenly went white and then faded to black.
When the Outlanders recovered, they found the explosion had severely damaged the summoning room and the temple beyond, destroyed all of the earth elementals, nearly killed both Tim and Dangar (Tim was protected by his force field spell, Dangar by the earth elementals surrounding him), and did kill Mord, who had no cover or protection from the explosion.
The gnome security detail rushed forward to use The Rock and the last of the group’s healing potions to patch up the surviving members of the Outlanders. Wendell used the Rod of Excellent Engineering to stabilize the walls and ceiling to keep the weakened ceiling from collapsing and killing them all. The damage was extensive and he was only able to gain the Outlanders an hour’s leeway before the room, and possibly the entire catacombs, would collapse.
Session Ends.
NPCs Met
Apostol the Burning, although they were never introduced or even exchanged names before Dangar chopped his head off. Rude.
Happening Off-Stage
Locally
[Ossip tried to escape with Yacov (he was the mist), but was driven away by the player characters. He decided to leave before they actually found a way to kill him permanently. Yacov is still deeply in his thrall but does not know it.]
In Freegate
[No additional notes on the negotiations.]
DM Discussion
[This was the third time Tim nearly killed the entire party blowing something up. In his defense, releasing untold energies IS the goal of the High Energy Thaumaturgy college. The other players still objected to their characters being caught in the blast radius.]
[I’m going to sum up Sessions 10 and 11 here rather than do a separate blog post. In Session 10 the Outlanders finished looting the catacombs as best they could before the entire thing collapsed. In Session 11 they traveled back with their loot. They returned to Waterfall Island early and camped there until the equinox. Wendell spent time establishing diplomatic relations with the Nozumi in Bleak Tower.]
[When Janko and his crew arrived they shared stories and had a feast. The next day they made their way down the river to Phaisbourg and then overland to Haus Senke, where they caught passage on an airship heading back to Freegate. The next (and final) adventure started with the Outlanders arriving at Freegate.]
Cultists, Cultists, Cultists
Previous session: Session 6
Next Session: Campaign Status Update [not yet edited]
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