Monthly session: Salamanders, salamanders everywhere

The party found themselves in the room where they defeated the fire elementals last session. By now, all protection spells had worn off, and the pary started to feel the burn of the extremely hot environment. In order to dig deeper, the party decided to rest, heal and up the protection again the next day.

The next day

A large semi-natural corridor connected in the back of the elemental room. The adventurers followed the corridor looking for traps as they went along. After a few minutes, Martijn found a rune that looked suspicious. Some investigation learned that the rune was a rune of stunning, and quite some time was spent debating what to do with the rune. When Zull remembered the stunning lasts a minute or so at max, Budrik and Bronco decided to just trigger the rune and see wat happens. It turned out it was an old defensive rune with no active defense mechanisms left. After some waiting the team continued further down the corridor.

That smells like BATTLE!

After decending for another few minutes, the corridor connected to a new room. Martijn cautiously investigated this room, but had difficulty seeing here because of the turmoil in the air from the extreme heat. One thing was clear here, though. There was a sizeable battle being fought here. When we came closer, it became apparent that a group of salamanders was battling a fire giant. Although the fire giant was not in any real immediate danger, we decided to step in and help him, to come on his good side. Just to be sure, Martijn hid and kept a firm lock on the giant with his bow.

The battle that followed was short but fierce, mainly because of the superior grappling skills of the salamanders. The battle was harder in terms of combat mechanics than in challenge rating. When the Salamanders were extinguished, we tried to reason with the fire giant. We learned that he was part of a scouting party although he would not say what they were scouting for. He was uninterested in temporarily joining our ranks to het a mutual benefit. The discussion lasted until Martijn, who remained inactive during the preceding battle, lost his temper and shot the giant. Budrik and Zull tried to persuade the DM that cast pit and wall of stone is an excellent deadly combo, but he was not convinced. So, as an alternative, Budrik casted airwalk on Martijn, who walked over the pit and finished up the giant.

Salamander city, population: 1000

Continuing through the back of the rook, the adventurers soon learned why the fire giant was stuck at this side of the dungeon. behind a small blockade of stones lay an entire village of salamanders. Bad news. Agains better judgement the party decided to try and bargain with the salamanders. They cut off the giants head and Magnum took the honors. This was.... bad. He tried his very best, but the salamanders were not convinced and started to get more aggressive with each succeding argument. Things went horribly bad then Magnum tried to intimidate the captain of the guard, who ended that night's session with the words: "Boys, get him!".

Outstanding questions and actions

• What is this holy symbol of Beorn and why is it so important
• Why does Magnum always have to get caught
• How are we going to free him in a city of salamanders
• How can we get past the salamander village without murdering each and every one of them
• Or could we get away with that?

Monthly session report: Down the dwarven forgery

So, during my sabbatical I missed a lot. The party had put up base in the city Sundabar. In the Silver Marches region of Faerun. The city has been under siege by shadows in the last few months. The quest has been a continuing struggle against these shadows as well as some side quests cleaning out dungeons.

The session began by Magnum waking up in an alley without any of his gear. He missed the last session, so as is customary he was held captive in some stupid place. This time local street kids had stolen his gear. Unfortunately for one of the kids, Magnums patience was not endless as he threw his hammer through the punks head trying to retrieve his geiser. Yikes! Fortunately, some local priests were willing to raise the boy for free, otherwise he would have been in a more nasty situation.

Meanwhile, Budrik, my dwarven priest of Tyr, was summoned to the town hall by Helm Dwarf-Friend for a quest. He was offered 50000 goldpieces to retrieve the holy symbol of Beorn, that is presumed to be lost in the dwarven forgeries beneath the city. Budrik seeks out a party willing to help him on this quest. By great coincidence he finds a party hanging round in a local pub who are willing to take on this quest for 40000.

The forgeries are normally closed off and guarded, but the adventurers are let in by the city guard. The temerature of the complex begin to rise the deeper they come. After some time, the group is ambushed by three fire mephits. Zull sees this as the perfect opportunity to try out his new cloud kill spell. And with much effect. All three mephits were killed on the spot.

Several levels down we found a sort of anvil or table that had a faint trace of magic still lingering. Connected to the table were two empty sockets where orbs of about 10 cm could be placed. Guessing this would be the best lead to go deeper into the forgery we went looking for the orbs. The first we found in the possession of a bunch of steam mephits. It took some battle, but this one was quickly in our posession. The second was located in a water bassin we found behind a hidden staircase. A careful perception check revealed that the bassin was not empty, so we suspected that there would be water mephits living in the bassin.

Nobody particularly cared for some fresh under water combat, zo Zull summoned a large shark who had the mephits for lunch. The water mephits had the second orb, so we went back to the magic anvil. When the orbs were inserted into the sockets, the anvil table began to drop revealing a round staircase. The staircase led to a big hall, in which the temperature was even higher than in the level above. As soon as we set foot in the chamber we were attacked by 10 medium sized fire elementals. The battle that followed was long, but thanks to the protection spells cast, not too damaging.

The session ended when we defeated the last fire elemental.

Back from sabbatical

Last year and some more I did not sit at the game table. After almost 25 years of playing RPGs I guess I was tired of the same old grinding. But that will end next friday. I will join the old party for a good old game of Pathfinder.

And, in addition, this is also the 100th post on the blog, go figure :p