Charles Plemons' Blog

Game summary for February 12, 2008; present characters included Chuck Ahammer (shield dwarf master thrower/rogue/thunderthrower), Grim Firestorm (shield dwarf barbarian/battlerager/frenzied berserker/warmain), Iapetus Hasur (hu-charad giant rogue/scout/vigilante), Lady Aridarye Phylund Brokengulf (human aristocrat/harbinger/ranger cohort), Lyrin Sinbal (simian incantatrix/ring sage/warmage), Morak Beardfist (shield dwarf fighter/rage cleric), and Taravin Truesilver (human gray guard/paladin of honor/pious templar).

The Mercenaries, inside the front gates of the Citadel of Weeping Dragons, discover secret doors in the entrance hall thanks to Iapetus’ helm. Sneaky Chuck and Iapetus slip through and begin exploring quietly. Two routes outside are discovered along with two ways up higher into the Citadel. Chuck ascends a ladder into a ruined barracks and finds himself outside on one of the walls on the third floor. While investigating the garbage shoot, a blue dragon lands on the barracks and begins rummaging through for missed treasure. As quietly as possible, Chuck makes a break for the ladder and uses feather fall to plummet down to safety. The dragon, noticing him at the last moment, crashes into the building and blasts lightning down the ladder shaft, just missing Chuck as he nimbly rolls to safety at the bottom. He casually remarks to his allies that a dragon is up top.

The team tries the other route up and finds a hallway with several doors. Listening against one, they hear a rustling chain. Chuck and Grim fling open the doors to find a fire giant and a twelve-headed pyrohydra waiting within. Grim wastes no time laying into the hydra, but its remarkable regenerative powers heal the worst of the injuries in moments. All twelve heads unleash a blast of scorching flame that badly wounds several in the party. Iapetus slips in trying to flank the hydra, while the remaining Mercenaries slide into the room and jockey for position. The fire giant clips Iapetus with a spear and draws forth flaming axes, ready to do battle. The spellcasters unleash cold upon the monsters, and Grim manages to slay the hydra. The fire giant tears into Iapetus but is nearly cut in twain when Taravin charges and smites with the authority of Kelemvor. Following the battle, Grim’s bloodlust overwhelmed him, and he killed Lyrin before calming down.

With no means to recover Lyrin, the party begins discussing plans. The dead giant’s corpse was quickly looted and the room secured. After a time, a knock comes at the locked door and a giant shouts for “Bram”. Iapetus (a giant himself) yells back that everything is fine, while Taravin rattles the hydra’s chain. The giant bought the lie and left. The Mercenaries set up watch and allow Morak to recover his spells and pray for raise dead and discern location. With Lyrin restored, the party presses on.

Morak leads the team up another level in search of the chamber of the Heartkeeper, where the other vault key lies. In a trophy room, a ceiling door is found way above the group’s heads. Before going through, the team moves about to secure all the other exits. The northern door opens, and a group of mail-clad giants comes pouring through. Will the Citadel’s defenders get to even the score with the murderous home-invaders? What have the dragons done in all the time the Mercenaries have spent inside?

Game summary for February 7, 2008; present characters included Chuck Ahammer (shield dwarf master thrower/rogue/thunderthrower), Eolas Windmaster (moon elf duskblade), Iapetus Hasur (hu-charad giant rogue/scout/vigilante), Lady Aridarye Phylund Brokengulf (human aristocrat/harbinger/ranger cohort), Lyrin Sinbal (simian incantatrix/ring sage/warmage), Morak Beardfist (shield dwarf fighter/rage cleric), Syvarius Strongbow (moon elf archer-ranger/peerless archer), and Taravin Truesilver (human gray guard/paladin of honor/pious templar).

After a refreshing camp, the Mercenaries prepare to search the carrion pit for the key in earnest. Lyrin has the idea of casting elemental swarm and summoning a small army of air elementals to scour the caves for the key and wipe out the carrion crawlers. He summons over a dozen elementals who make short work of the vermin and discover a massive Mother Worm deeper in the caves. Morak shields the team with mass neutralize poison, and the elementals carry the party down into the darkness.

The Mother Worm horribly burned Syvarius with a blast of acidic spittle. Meanwhile, the air elementals surround the beast and try to batter away at it; however, its tough hide proves too resilient. It discorporates numerous elementals with its bashing tentacles. Arrows and spells bombard the Mother Worm, but she shrugs off many of the effects. Iapetus and Taravin rush forward and slash away at the beast with their blades. The Mother Worm fights back and severely injures Iapetus and beats Taravin into unconsciousness.

Syvarius pulls out the stops and takes power shots with his bow, while Morak continues battering away at the creature’s spell resistance. Eolas finds the monster at least partially vulnerable to cold and unleashes a barrage of polar rays. Aridarye casts a number of spells to aid allies and attempts several offensive effects against the crawler. With the assistance of Gazzilfek, Chuck makes an effective series of well-placed hammer throws. Finally, Lyrin’s magic breaks the last bit of strength held by the writhing worm, and she dies a horrendous, gore-soaked death.

After the battle, Iapetus uses locate object to find the vault key in the stomach of the Mother Worm. It takes a while, but the Mercenaries cut their way into the center of the worm and extract the key. They quickly exit the carrion pit and head toward the Citadel of Weeping Dragons. Once there, they send a magically cloaked Chuck over to scout. After hearing his report, the party moves up to the battered gates and slips inside. The only signs of giants so far have been the cooling pools of blood outside the Citadel. Is anyone home? Is Dragotha’s phylactery locked away safely in the vault, or have the dragons already retrieved it?

Game summary for January 22, 2008; present characters included Grim Firestorm (shield dwarf barbarian/battlerager/frenzied berserker/warmain), Iapetus Hasur (hu-charad giant rogue/scout/vigilante), Lady Aridarye Phylund Brokengulf (human aristocrat/harbinger/ranger cohort), Lyrin Sinbal (simian incantatrix/ring sage/warmage), Morak Beardfist (shield dwarf fighter/rage cleric), and Taravin Truesilver (human gray guard/paladin of honor/pious templar).

After a few minutes of consideration, the Mercenaries return the items taken from the dead giants, and Morak goes about using raise dead upon them. They are then able to convince the giants to let them speak to someone in charge. Within a few minutes, the party finds itself addressing Kagro Thundersmiter, the Heartkeeper. They relay to him the tale of Dragotha and his phylactery, but Kagro dismisses it all as a ploy to get to the heartstone. He warns of the dangers of the siege and takes his leave of them.

Using magic and gold, Aridarye bribes the outer guards for information and learns the Citadel of Weeping Dragons contains a vault, and that is where the heartstone lies. She also finds that it takes two keys to open the vault, and one was stolen by Charlgar of the Rift Crawlers. Meanwhile, Morak communes with Moradin to narrow their search for the phylactery. Armed with this new information, the Mercenaries set off with Broogle the bugbear back to the Undercity to find Charlgar. After speaking with some other bugbear slaves, they discover Charlgar was last seen fleeing into the carrion pits. Wasting no time, the party pursues.

The pits are sealed off with a massive door, which Grim busts open with his prodigious strength. Within, several Mercenaries are trapped when adamantine bars fly down from the ceiling to form a cage. Then, crude nozzles spray poison over the group. Iapetus is nearly paralyzed, but fate and divine intervention prevent it. Grim begins breaking the bars (and his crowbar) until Iapetus can slip through and find the release lever.

The team investigates one room and finds it full of terrified troglodytes who don’t seem to want trouble. The party agrees to leave them alone. They head down another corridor and find a door. Moving through, Grim is snatched up in a cleverly concealed snare trap and finds himself dangling by his ankle fifteen feet above the ground. Within the room, a fully armed and armored Charlgar roars to attack. Grim quickly takes his massive axe and tries to sever the cord about his ankle, but his luck is poor, and he instead severs his foot! With a crunch, Grim slams back into the ground. The Mercenaries swarm through the doorway and begin an assault on the giant. To his credit, Charlgar fights with furious skill, battering the downed Grim to the verge of death. Several return blows from the dwarf, a vicious stab from Iapetus, and the magic of Lyrin proves too much for the chieftain. A search of the body and the room reveals no key.

The next room discovered is actually a massive cave filled with hundreds of carrion crawlers. A large cage suspended over the cavern provides a means for the giants to get to the crawlers and harvest their poisons. Unsure how to proceed, Iapetus uses speak with dead to discover Charlgar hurled the key into the bottom of the crawler pit. The Mercenaries decide to hole up and rest so that they can be at full strength and allow the dwarven priest to prepare spells to protect them from the paralyzing touch of the crawlers.

Game summary for January 8, 2008; present characters included Chuck Ahammer (shield dwarf master thrower/rogue/thunderthrower), Eolas Windmaster (moon elf duskblade), Grim Firestorm (shield dwarf barbarian/battlerager/frenzied berserker/warmain), Iapetus Hasur (hu-charad giant rogue/scout/vigilante), Lady Aridarye Phylund Brokengulf (human aristocrat/harbinger/ranger cohort), Lyrin Sinbal (simian incantatrix/ring sage/warmage), Morak Beardfist (shield dwarf fighter/rage cleric), Syvarius Strongbow (moon elf archer-ranger/peerless archer), and Taravin Truesilver (human gray guard/paladin of honor/pious templar).

After nursing their wounds and raising their dead, the Mercenaries again set out into Kongen-Thulnir, at approximately 8:30 in the evening, 11 hours into the siege. They pass through some shattered gates and find the palace of the giants in ruins; however, the large citadel on the outcropping still stands.

The party moves unto the bridge and begins their journey to the citadel. After about fifty feet or so, a massive arrow or spear slams into Aridarye, hurling her over the edge and two hundred feet down to the rocks below. Grim immediately used his flying armor to plunge into the darkness to rescue her, or retrieve her carcass. The rest of the team advanced and found themselves under a hail of arrows. The group tried to remain non-hostile and use diplomacy to reason with the giants. The giants halted their fire but warned the team to fall back. Then, Lyrin blocked the view of one giant with a wall of fire, and other party members advanced up the stairs of the citadel. Right as the giants resumed their attack, a massive blue dragon surprised everyone by breathing electricity across the Mercenaries on the bridge.

A new battle was joined, with giants on one side and a dragon on the other. Chuck, Syvarius, Lyrin, and Morak worked over the fire giants. Taravin quaffed a potion of fly and went after the dragon, while Eolas dropped dispel magic repeatedly to get rid of the greater invisibility the dragon had warded itself with. Iapetus bravely attacked the invisible dragon but with little effect. Grim returned with Aridarye and flew out near the dragon. Eolas succeeded in making the dragon visible, which causes Aridarye and Iapetus to panic and run away. The dragon breathed again, and Grim died from the trauma of the electricity shooting through his system.

Two giants fell to half the party, while the rest threw everything they had at the dragon. Taravin pressed his advantage with some tactical aerial maneuvers that prevented the dragon from executing its desired attacks. Instead, it had to improvise and try to shred the flying paladin. Things seemed to be going well for the party. Then, Eolas landed a devastating polar ray, which froze the heart of the dragon, and its dead corpse plunged into the ground. The party quickly stripped the corpses of valuables and stand ready to enter the citadel. Will a handful of defenders await within, or the bulk of the giant forces?