Charles Plemons' Blog

Game summary for January 26, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf swordmaster-conjurer), Meriwen Arnatule (elf swordmaster-conjurer), Nicholae Dragos (cleric vicar), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf hero).

After a night of raucous partying, the group dismissed Symeon Xenakis and Wuldric Mineshield from employment and went to visit Castellan Horvath.  The Castellan thanked them for their services and officially bequeathed them a charter for their adventuring party in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos.  The party chose the title of Conquerors of Chaos and were so dubbed.  Next, he gave them a letter and journal entry sent to him by his cousin from Thyatis, Rollo Bargmann.  In the letter, he asked Castellan Horvath to send the adventurers he had written about (the party) to him in Thyatis to help fight off pirates and the ship-bane in the Sea of Dread.  The Conquerors decided to make the two week journey and boarded a river barge.  They floated down to Kelvin where they paid for passage on a river boat to Specularum.  Once in the city, they sought a ship captain at the Drunken Mermaid tavern.  After paying some gold, they learned of a Captain Krill and his ship, the Windsong.

The party booked passage to Thyatis aboard the Windsong in exchange for 90 gold coins and a daily feeding from Legend’s magical wallet of food.  As they discovered, the sailors were delighted to have the mildly bland but nutritious meal as opposed to the slop served daily by the ship cook, Sloppy Joe.  Legend spent part of every day in the galley alongside Sloppy giving out his crunchings and munchings to the crew.  After a week, the group arrived in the city.

After a bit of harassment by a merchant guild bean-counter, the party was escorted to the home of guildsman Rollo Bargmann.  Rollo welcomed them upon seeing their charter and his letter and spelled out the situation.  He had learned more from the kara-kara captive.  He told of a ceremony about to begin on the kara-kara home island and asked the group to go in and kill the new leader, whom the kara-kara had named their god.  Rollo believes this leader has allied with the ship-bane and caused the upswing in raids at sea.  The party agreed on a sizable sum of coin for their services and set out at dawn after their second raucous party in two weeks.

Following nine days at sea, the Conquerors of Chaos debarked onto the shore of Teki-Nura-Ria island on the far side from the kara-kara village.  The crew then cloaked the ship magically to appear as a great rock.  The party set off into the jungle following a crude map and seeking the Trail of the Dead and a secret tunnel that would lead to the pirate leader.  Their progress through the sweltering jungle was slow due to the undergrowth and their wearing of plate armor.  After about an hour of hacking through the dense jungle, they came upon a circular clearing occupied by a massive tree stump.  Around it the ground was flattened, and Legend could make out numerous bare footprints.

The party moved up close and peered into the stump to see an enormous spider within!  The fast moving monstrosity surged forward and sank its fangs into Legend’s chest!  Filled with poison, Legend began to spasm and twitch, appearing to dance violently.  All those looking upon him felt a compulsion to do the same, and many of the party did likewise.  Fortunately, not all succumbed to the spell and were able to viciously attack the spider.  All three elves in the group cast magic missile, and Theobald and his bug-hating spear stepped forward to finish off the monster.

After finding a string of pearls in the stump, the Conquerors moved on with half their number still dancing and thrashing.  After close to an hour, many collapsed in an exhausted heap.  Will they muster the strength to move on?

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.