Welcome to the [complete] guide to the campaign. It details the rise of minor adventurers to full scale political dabblers...
Session One:
During these series of adventures [each session is approximately one day...], the party accomplished relatively little.
But then, it was a first level adventure.
One of the players was a Taltos Rider, for those of you who read Dragon, and a rogue for those of you who don't.
Another player was a Sembian Swashbuckler, who spent the majority of his money on fine clothes.
The final player was an Elven thief, who only appears in todays session, as the player went on holiday...
In the first adventure, the party was introduced to the rundown city of HighDale, which has been the target of many armies during mine, and some friends, campaigns.
Because of the several wars, and the need to rebuild HighDale, the economy was quite crap, and so equipment was quite expensive.
In any case, the party heard rumours of an underground, supposedly deserted, city containing treasure.
So the party ran straight off to the dungeon, when they realised that maybe they should have bought some torches, as only one member of the party could see in the dark - the elf.
So they wasted a few more days travelling for supplies, and then returned to the dungeon.
What followed was a series of combats with Kobolds and lizard like Troglodytes. And, for some reason, Voles.
If Neil ever returns to the campaign, the WereVoles will scare the shit out of him.
However, at one point the party encountered too many Troglodytes to fight, and were therefore forced to talk their way out of the situation. Fortunately for them, the Troglodyte chief had a translation book...
The party managed to trade with the Troglodyte chief for magic items, which the chief did not care for, for food, which the Troglodyte chief was in dire need of...
The party then decided to follow the Taltos rogue [or bard], since he wanted to quest for his Griffon mount.
This was decided after they had visited WaterDeep where they had found some buyers for their treasure.
However, the thief lagged behind the party and had to catch up later.
This was because he was hired to steal something from Khelben Arunsun. [his choice!]. Over the course of 8 days, he was variously spotted, caught, and blasted off the side of Khelben's tower.
At one point, he was fatally injured, and was healed by some priests dwelling at the tower.
Who took the majority of his possessions as payment. He was then geased to never return to the tower, because he was annoying them.
As a result, the party traveled up a large mountain, where they were attacked by a combination of Red Wizards, and Gnolls.
at the top of the mountain the party discovered a mansion, containing a Merchant who had payed [more than adequately] in gold that was not accepted in the Dalelands.
Therefore, the thief held a grudge against the Merchant, whom he proceeded to kill, after a nerve-wracking flight from Water Elementals.
The Taltos Bard, meanwhile, proceeded to begin a ceremony which converted a griffon into a faithful mount.
A Werewolf was also involved during the adventure, and it was only due to good luck that the party survived.
The party licked their wounds and returned home, still level ones.
But what happened when they went up the mountain? Well, for a start, they were 'attacked' by a Faerie Dragon.
First it used magic to make large foot prints, which scared the players, and then started throwing custard pies.
Then it created Jelly and ice cream, and custard pits for the swashbuckler to fall down.
And then it threw a large Christmas Pudding Boulder at them.
I enjoyed it so much that I put a Faerie Dragon in the next adventure.
Session Two:
For about a week in between adventures, one of the party had been asking me to put an undead mansion in the campaign.
One of the others was an Undead hunter type, and he really wanted a mansion.
And what goes with undead mansions quite like a Draco-lich Faerie Dragon?
The party first examined the mansion. They were considerably surprised to find nothing in it.
Until they got to the kitchen. Where there lurked a large hole, leading to catacombs.
They then crawled through 30 minutes of pure undead killing, and we realised how pants skeletons were.
It was a good thing that I'd thrown in a Heacuva.
That died too. So did its friend. The undead weren't doing too well.
The pair [the thief's player was on holiday at the time] eventually arrived at the undead Faerie Dragon's lair.
It then cast mount, summoning an elephant, to block its lair so they couldnt get in. And then it prepared a grease spell.
They waited out the elephant, and then charged in. And slipped over.
They then spent a few rounds swatting the dragon. And it turned invisible and started hacking them to bits.
When they fell unconcious, due to a sleep spell, they were fortunate that the dragon temporrily let them be while it prepared spells.
They charged back in when they were awake, and finally slaughtered the little bugger.
Seeing that the cavernb led towards Zhentil Keep, the group decided to block the passage with a large steel door. And payed a wizard to start casting Symbol of Death on the door so the troops would be kept out...
The party then counted their gold, and gazed in awe at their magic items that they gained.
The rogue became 4th level, while the swashbuckler rose to 3rd.
The magic items turned out to be a bunch of potions, which nonetheless became important.
Specifically the potion of giant strength.
the party then set about getting all their coins and gems exchanged for gold.
When they ran into exchange rates, commision from jewellers etc. The Rogue became friends with a Jeweller, and paid him excessive commission in order to see the man's family got fed.
The rogue [taltos] also paid large donations to the local shrine of Mystra, which, thanks to his donations in the last session, was being built into a temple.
The swashbuckler and the rogue set about finding trainers so they could go up levels, and they spent money on doing up the mansion, and the rogue decided to build a temple to his tribe's spirit thingy.
Griffon.
You see, those of you who know about Taltos, the Taltos here was a RIDER.
He became more.
Both party members fortified their land, and bought troops.
Lots.
After much travelling, and selling, the party returned to Highdale, hearing stories about strange magical occurences.
It turned out that a Floating Tower from Thay was soaring towards Highdale with conquest in mind.
So the Rider got on his recently aquired Griffon [see last session], and flew up to the offending tower.
He also picked up the swashbuckler and threw him in through a window, where he then began to storm the bottom of the tower.
The Griffon Rider then flew up to the tower top. The head wizard, who was flying the tower, then began to hurl lightning bolts.
However, he wasn't much of a shot, and the Rider got in with a warhammer swing, killing the mage.
The tower then began to drop rapidly, and the Griffon Rider flew to the nearby Staithemann's tower.
Staithemann, in cas eI have not told you, is the most powerful mage in Highdale, their version of Elminster.
The Rider [named Lazaar] brought the tower to his attention, pointing out that it would harm Highdale.
So Staithemann launched a world class Fireball at it to blast the debris clear.
The Swashbuckler somehow sensed the coming of the fireball, and leapt out of the Tower's window.
Never mind the fact that the mages had had him cornered anyway, and were about to kill himmm... : )
The party then searched the rubble for items, had Staithemann identify them for money, and then sold the useless ones.
The cursed ones they kept for the annoying thief.
They've accumalated about two cursed items at this point, which they are saving for him.
Ahhh... how sweet.
Session Three:
The party, having accumalated a bit of gold, are now getting broke.
Because they have so many soldiers, they have to pay a hell of a lot of upkeep...
The party was joined by an Elven Mage, and by a Paladin of Griffon. Incidently, there are now two temples to him.
The Taltos is working on turning Griffon into a major power.
The party then gets hired by an elven merchant mage to clear out the monsters from his tower.
Considering the mundane dungeon crawl sense of it, you don't really want to hear about it...
The Party did quite well out of that adventure, in that they had gained about 1 level each.
I believe that the Swashbuckler and the Rogue are both about level 5/6 by this point.
The party had gone to the land of Thar, where the Taltos wanted to build another Temple to Griffon.
However, they learned of an unnatural tyrant priestess, who was turning herself into a mummy. she would then turn herself into a greater mummy.
So they stormed the pyramid, attacking a Black pudding at one point, which led to them screaming at the members of the party with slashing and piercing weapons...
Then they crawled through a large maze, which they DID NOT thank me for.
Can't really blame them considering...
The pyramid from then on was mainly traps, with the occasional Troll thrown in.
Oh, and a nice lickle Rust Monster.
One of my favourite traps was the spike pit with an illusionary floor placed above it...
The party eventualy killed the mummy, and cured themselves of mummy rot.
The paladin found a nice little prize of a holy sword of griffon.
+1/+5 versus Horses.
He spent the rest of the campaign waiting to meet an evil horse.
Sensing that the needed another adventure, they then went to attack the fortress belonging to a Werewolf Lord.
It was a bit tedious to be honest. The high point was when the Taltos [by now the Pope of Griffon] contracted Lycanthropsy.
Session Four:
The mage left the party too soon to be in this adventure.
Pity, he would have been very helpful.
First of all, each of they party was challenged to a duel by a character of the same class.
I could go into depth, but I wont bother. For the most part this was just an XP machine, and also had the nice effect of the characters almost losing.
The party spent a few days basking in this small success.
Until they heard of a series of riots occurring in Highdale.
This struck them as hghly serious, and they began to investigate.
They learned that a Kobold provocateur was in the city, and was trying to depose the lord of Highdale
so that the Kobold army living in the forest could move in easily.
The party managed to track him down to an area of rubble.
Sniping from afar, the kobold used his psionic powers to set the swashbuckler on fire.
Meanwhile, he levitated about trying not be hit.
Unfortunately the party smashed him repeatedly round the head with warhammers...
Then the party heard about further disturbances.
Hearing of instability in Highdale, a faction of Sembian Wizards attacked Highdale by creating a tower in the southern forests, and by creating an advancing wall of bones...
The party managed to get over the wall, using the griffons [the paladin, as a sky mount kit, already had one].
They then dressed up as a cross between Kobolds and Jawas in order to get past the tower guards.
The conversation between them and the tower guards involved the phrase 'WOO-TEEENEEEE!!!!' a lot.
They could do worryingly good Jawa impressions.
They then strode into the tower, and started killing lots of giant scorpions. They made a pet of one.
That scared me.
The party also spent a lot of time being sniped at by mages. They were hiding in secret passages, and would jump out and launch magic missiles.
After much annoyance, the party then found a mage, with a ring of regeneration.
He cast wall of Fire, and then began hurling lightning bolts through the wall.
He he he.
The party got annoyed with his tactics, and beat him into a pulp.
He started to regenerate, but then they noticed a really expensive looking ring on his finger.
And the Taltos cut off the finger, thus ending the threat.
This was a high yield magic item adventure...
The numbers of cursed items which are being kept safe for Neil the thief player are really mounting up.
Then the party split up.
Having found a scroll of electricity protection, the Swashbuckler and Paladin went off to stomp on a Blue Dragon.
The force of the lightning almost blasted the paladin off the cliff that the lair was on...
The Taltos, however, decided to perform a little favour for Staithemann, since he had been pestering him with so many identification jobs.
And Rob the Taltos was sent to The Abbyss to attack some Canaloths [hard demon things] and cut off their tongues.
The XP he got took him to 7th level.
The Paladin became level 4, and the Swashbuckler went up to 6th.
The party ended the adventure by going on a boat trip, which Ross's Swashbuckler had paid for.
They got attacked by sharks and Sahuagin, and only just escaped from the ship with their lives.
Needless to say, they got no XP for that one.
Session Five:
This lasted half a day, because I also ran Conspiracy X
The Swashbuckler was the only one present at this time, and so decided to go off and kill a dragon.
A Red one. called Rauglothgor.
As he learned later, it was only a simalacrum, but he still got loadsa gold.
Session Six:
The Taltos Rider was the only one present for this.
First of all he went searching for a rogue Sembian mage in Waterdeep, who was killing people using an insane Fire Elemental.
The taltos was in Waterdeep to build his fourth or so Temple. Earlier he had built one in BattleDale.
Traveling through the sewers to find someone to help him, he came across an underground temple to the goddess of disease.
Nice.
He found out the wizard must be above ground, and got lost in the sewers trying to get back up.
When he eventually got back up he had to have a bath, and eat a lot...
He took to patrolling the streets in search of the fire elemental.
Just as he was losing hope, he got jumped from above by the 16 HD elemental.
He got mullered down to lots, and fell unconcious.
The Fire Elemental was almost dead though.
Sadly for the Taltos, it eat all his magic items except for his two minor magic warhammers.
This annoyed him, and he went off to go kill the bastard fire elemtal.
And did just that.
The Taltos eventually got to 9th level.
This was because he immediately afterwards go on an adventure to cure himself of Lycanthropsy.
He did this adventure on the home plane of his deity, Griffon, where he killed many Werewolves in order to find the necessary herbs.
And thus he ended his curse, and returned to Faerun.
Session Seven:
The thief returned after a long time.
The paladin left.
The beginnign of the Sembian Civil War Trilogy.
This is the climax the campaign has been building up to.
This was set three years after the last adventure.
It started off with the Party returning to the homeland of the Swashbuckler- Sembia.
He he.
This was in order to witness the investment of the King's son as a priest of Tyr.
Before leaving Highdale, they heard from the Jeweller that the money they had been paying him had gone to his daughter's education as
a wizard.
Smirk...
At the ceremony, the party had to prevent an assassination.
However, before the party did this, the thief insisted on insulting the Head Mage of Sembia.
Who happened to be a polymorphed Beholder.
Sigh.
The Jeweller's daughter, Nahal De Tessier, was there as well. She was by now the Head Mage's second in command.
The assassin bungled the attempt to kill the king, and the wizards didn't want the assassin to live.
Because they had hired him.
SO he exploded somewhat messily after Nahal cast the spell.
Now for backgorund info: Sembia is a merchant nation, and the wizards dpon't like this.
They believe that the common man is suffering under the king, and so they sought to replace the king.
The merchants also dislike the king, and they want to get in power for various profit reasons.
A merchant then started hiring assassins. He was called lord Roeke.
The party then started investigating when assassinations continued.
The mages were also puzzled, as they knew that they weren't hiring anymore...
They managed to capture an assassin, who refused to talk. But he revealed that Merchants wer einvolved.
He was then placed in prison to await execution.
In the mean time, the thief had tried to pick the pocket of the Head Mage.
This caused him to be branded on the fore head with THIEF.
He snatched a cursed item that the swashbuckler owned, a hat of Stupidity, as he wanted to cover the mark.
He then became stupid. More stupid anyway.
He also tried to get arrested in order to talk to the assassin.
However, the assassin refused to talk, and insulted him, so the thief vowed to kill him.
He attempted this during the execution, but he was caught by the rider, who turned him over to the king.
The thief's weapon hand was cut off to prevent his use of a bow in future, as well as daggers...
The thief then tried to join the local Thieve's guild to find out more.
THey demanded that he prove his loyalty by killing the king.
He said that he'd 'think about it', and went home.
They followed him.
And saw him talk with the Swashbuckler, who was a Sembian noble...
The Rider, meanwhile, met The Swashbuckler's parents, when he and the Swashbuckler went to ask them about
who might want to kill the king.
ANd the swashbuckler got embarressed.
For ages he had called himself Ricardo Storm.
And the parents revealed that his name was actually Richard Whelk.
BWUHAHAHAHAHA...
The Rider then went to collect the remains of the executed assassin.
And cast Speak with dead.
After several attempts, the rider finally got the bastard to talk.
And took the spirit along to court in Poirot manner, and got him to point out Lord Roeke as the man who had hired him.
Roeke was executed, and the party gained his possessions.
The party then began hearing about banditd who were harassing the King's trade routes.
Wanting to do soe killing by now, they went along to investigate, using the swashbuckler's trusty carriage as a decoy.
They were held up by a Steel Dragon.
The Swashbuckler tried time delaying tactics on the dragon so that they could prepare weapons, but the dragon wasn't feeling patient.
And breathed on them.
The thief and the Rider both died.
The Swashbuckler had to hurriedly get their bodies back to Sembia's capital whilst the dragon examined the carriage.
Incidently, the dragon also killed 10 of the Swash's finest troops. Leading Him to say 'YOu bastard! I payed them in advance!'
The Thief was reincarnated by Cahaunteans as a racoon, to proliferate the ecology.
The Rider was reincarnated by Nahal, who owed her education to him.
The party then decided to wait around for a while, planning their move..
Session Eight:
Part two of the civil war continued.
The group stocked up on lots of stealth spells, and then the Rider killed the Steel Dragon by himself.
They then searched their mansion, after several nights in a row saw their mansion being ransacked by Shadow Creatures.
They trapped the mansion, and several accidents involving the Rider's Firetrap spells led to parts of the mansion exploding.
After much wandering around, and searching the King's palace, they realised that he had stolen a throne from Roeke's treasury before he gave it to them
It was at this point that the Swashbuckler met a witch, who had previously tried to sell an explosive to him against the dragon.
He kept bribing her not to curse him...
The Raccoon used her as a time as a Translator.
Anyway, the witch offered to return the raccoon to his thievish form.
This would be a bonus to him, since it would return his hand to him.
All he had to do was sign a contract.
Sadly he couldn't read, and accidetly sold off his soul to this woman.
HE then went off to see the others, and had an argument about the division of treasure.
The rider got annoyed with him, and paralysed the thief, and sold him to the Head Mage he had been annoying so consistently.
The thief was then placed in a large room, with deadly gas pouring down from the ceiling.
The Swashbuckler was shown this scene by the witch, and he asked her to save the thief from the mage [Xathar].
She did, in return for a service from the thief.
He had to steal a throne from the king.
He went for supplies from the Thieve's Guild.
They remembered how he had seemed a traitor, so they offered him potions which would actually knock him unconcious.
During the raid, he did fall asleep.
The thieves guild took the throne and sold it to the witch, and sold the thief's unconcious form to Lazaar.
He then contacted Xathar, whilst the thieves waited. He then cast Hold on the thieves and the Thief character.
One of the Thieves managed to avoid the paralysation, but Xathar disintergrated him.
This display of power then scared the players...
The thief was placed in an arena, where he was forced to cut out the heart of the other thief, and to eat it.
For his life.
Of course, the mists of Ravenloft saw this cowardly act of evil, as the thief [neil's character] had persuaded Xathar to paralyse the Thief first. They made a deal with him, and he was forced to eat heart's each day.
He was eventually caught by the watch, and sentenced to execution.
He managed to kill three people at the execution, and was running away in ropes wh Xathar finally decided to end the thief using Power Word kill.
His soul was then claimed by the witch, who turned out to be a Yugoloth.
And then his demonic soldier form was then claimed by the mists as a lord.
The party then uneasily discovered the adventure had ended, with many goals left unaccomplished, although they had restored the Trade Routes.
FInal adventure in the Trilogy:
The thief [ex], was forced to create a new character.
The King contracted small pox, and was dying in bed, and his son, the priest, came to power.
He passed an unpopular series of laws, including one which required the Permitting of magic items and spells.
The party were therefore in a receptive mood when they were approached by the head mage to join a coalition of factions who wanted to depose the king.
They went to a series of meetings, and it was decided that the Rider would hire an Assassin.
The Rider warned the coalition that the Swashbuckler would likely turn on them.
In any case, the new thief character was hired.
He bungled the attempt, even though the Rider hired the militia to provide a distraction by sieging the gates.
He actually killed the old king, not the new one.
Sigh.
The Swashbuckler decided to support the King.
He warned the king of what was happening, and sent his parents to safety.
He also sent money to Staithemann to come with an army.
Meanwhile, a Red Dragon had arrived in the area, and was a part of the coalition.
His name was Rauglothgor, and he was much more powerful than his simulacrum.
The Rider saught an audience with the King, and succeeded, since the Swashbuckler had not revealed the names of the conspirers.
He then proceeded to attack the king, but was beaten off by guards, and thrown out the window.
He was severely injured, as was the thief.
And then Staithemann's towere hovered into view above the city, using the same techniques as the FLoating Tharrans so long ago.
Staithemann then began teleporting 500 troops into the city, who began to march on the palace.
The conspirators had assembled at Xathar's tower, which also began to float, in order to enngage in battle.
Staithemann first launched a fireball at the thief and the Rider.
They were severely hurt, and the thief died.
They ran to the conspirators tower, and the thief was raised as a gnome.
Staithemann then had his Angelic [AAsimon] allies begin hurling Lightning at the Conspirer's tower.
The devastating power hurled between the two towers, which was deflected, resembled a cross between Sourcery by Terry Prattchett, and Star Wars...
Xathar then dropped his polymorph spell, and Nahal was horrified to learn that she had been working with a Beholder, and she Lightninged him to death.
Nahal, Lazaar, and the Gnome, jumped out the window, and onto the Rider's Griffon.
The tower of Xathar began to crumble and fall, killing the conspirators within.
Except for Rauglothgaur, who took to the air.
He erected a wall of flame around Sembia's capital, and forced the rider not to flee, but to come back and face judgement.
Rauglothgaur claimed dominion over Sembia.
He was prepared to kill all 500 troops, which became 499 when Lazaar tried to hurl lightning at the Swashbuckler and faield.
However, the Swashbuckler managed to persuade the Dragon to leave by offering him A) lots of gold, B) lots of Elven Architecture, and C) lots of other treasure...
The surviving members of the Wizard's guild was exiled for their treason, and the unpopular laws were revoked.
So was the Rider, high priest of griffon.
Sembia is now a broken nation, but has narrowly survived her first crisis under a new ruler.
It is uncertain whether the old comrades 'Ricardo' the Swashbuckler, and Lazaar will ever forgive each other for what happened during the Civil War.
The state of the campaign is uncertain, for as of the moment it is at an end.
Will the Kobolds return to plague Highdale?
Will Griffon Finally become a Lesser Power?
Will the Demon thief of the mists capture the party?
And will Faerun survive the backlash of the power vacuum?
These questions may be answered in time.
For now, we leave as Sembia enters a new era of law under a priest of Tyr.
If the party has learned anything from their time in Highdale, it is that new things can rise from the old, like a phoenix.
This is Andy Clements, last surviving DM of Forgotten Realms in Enfield, signing off.
The Cast:
==========
The Rider, The Taltos/ Rogue, High Priest of Griffon: Rob.
The Mage [name unknown at present]: Dave.
The Swashbuckler, Ricardo Storm, Richard Whelk: Ross.
The Paladin of Griffon, [Something] Stormweaver: Leonnard.
Links to other sites on the Web
Back to the Forgotten Realms Page!
© 1997 andyc2@netcomuk.co.uk
Get your own Free Home Page