Charles Plemons' Blog

Game summary for June 25, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), Notch Bowman (Human Fighter played by Andrew Renfrow), and Snagyndar Blackthorn (Huldran War Master played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

Twenty-four hours after leaving the derelict Ombre Émeraude behind, the group heard the sounds of teeth gnashing against bone from all over the ship. Most of the crew and party were paralyzed, and ghostly teeth materialized and began eating everyone!  The three gnomish crew, Rick, Nick, and Vick, were slain in moments!  Helg channeled positive energy, blasting the haunt, while Hekera consumed a mushroom drop to heal those around him with its aura.  Snagy snatched up the swarmbane clasp they had brought over from the ship assuming it to be haunted, hung it around a ballista bolt, and fired it deep into the Phlogiston!  The moment it passed beyond the air envelope, the haunts disappeared and paralyzed crew recovered.

The group nursed their wounds and decided to try to use raise dead on the gnomes while still in the Phlogiston instead of waiting until they reach Greyspace for fear that it would not work.  Their gamble paid off, and they were able to use their scrolls and raise the fallen comrades.

They passed into Greyspace, just a day behind schedule, and Sailmaster Tuk plotted their location.  They are 85 days from Ginsel, 82 days from The Spectre, 54 days from Greela, and they estimate they possess 45 to 55 days of breathable air remaining!  They are starting to strategize on how to conserve oxygen.  Also, they are pretty certain Wizzlecrank has reconnected with the illithid hive mind!

Game summary for June 18, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), and Komorebi (Kitsune Bard played by Josh Jenkins). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

Beyond the galley, the team found the captain’s quarters, which had been ransacked.  They found pages from her journal strewn all about, and Komorebi was able to piece enough together to learn of the terrible cannibalistic fate of the crew some forty years ago.  They learned about a missing cabin boy named Roland, Captain Shadowblade, a helmsman named Matthias, ten other crew members, and some mysterious female named Iskra who seemed to be perhaps something not human from the clues in the journal. 

Inside the captain’s storage area, they uncovered a human skull inscribed with blue draconic runes spelling out “Iskra.”  After touching the skull, a shadowy figure appeared behind them and a female voice asked them to take her with them.  They turned and found a beautiful platinum blonde woman with deep black empty eye sockets.  Her long black robes covered her body, but her skeletal hands were visible.  They spoke with her for a bit and learned this is Iskra, a nearly-three-hundred-year-old watchghost originally from Waterdeep.  She warned them they should leave before the captain, now a ghost, confronted them.  She also warned that the crew seemed to also still haunt the ship.  They asked her about treasure aboard, and she indicated there is an amulet of some sort fallen down into a crack in the floorboards down below.  They also asked her about Roland, and she told them he had hidden behind a loose board in the pantry, got stuck, and died.  They looked and indeed found the cabin boy’s long dead corpse. 

They went to investigate the stern castle and were attacked by the captain!  She unleashed a frightful moan which sent Khesen into a panic!  Unfortunately, he was carrying Iskra’s skull at the time and dropped it.  It shattered on the floor, and the watchghost screamed and dissipated.  The ghost captain tried to possess Helg first and failing that, attempted to possess Hekera.  Helg channeled positive energy to blast the ghost while Hekera hacked away with his magical blade.  They temporarily discorporated her and rushed into the hold to search for this amulet. 

The group moved down into the dark hold and illuminated it with a light spell cast on a coin.  Komorebi used his magical gloves to try and look through walls, finding the rooms pitch black.  The slid illuminated coins under the doors so he could see.  Inside a crew quarters, Hekera heard whispers, shivered, and became extraordinarily hungry.  They found another room that from the cleaver and bloodstains seemed to be the room in which they dismembered the bodies of the crew as they consumed them.  In a crack in the floor, they found a swarmbane clasp.  Suddenly, the hold was filled with voices, and the faint outlines of the crew appeared in the dim light.  Their teeth seemed to physically manifest, and Claude and Komorebi were mysteriously paralyzed!  The teeth began rushing in and bite huge hunks of flesh from their bodies, and it seemed to disappear as if eaten, bite by bite! 

The team tried to fight the teeth but could not affect them.  The group began shoving healing mushrooms and potions down the throats of the paralyzed allies.  Komorebi, paralyzed, was able to mentally contact Wizzlecrank who realized these were haunts but that Komorebi was unable to communicate.  Wizzlecrank was able to contact Helg who began blasting channeled positive energy.  Eventually, he blasted the haunt out of manifestation.  The team grabbed their paralyzed allies, the amulet, and the fragments of Iskra’s skull and fled to The Perry.  As the ship flew off further into the Phlogiston, Helg cast mending and restored the skull hoping it would perhaps allow Iskra to reform. 

Game summary for June 4, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), Komorebi (Kitsune Bard played by Josh Jenkins), Notch Bowman (Human Fighter played by Andrew Renfrow), and Snagyndar Blackthorn (Huldran War Master played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team was awakened in the night to screaming from the hamster wheel room.  Flick (or was it Rick) was waiving a wrench in the direction of a wide-eyed, and quite nude, halfling woman who was in the hamster cage with one of the giant space hamsters.  The other hamster was missing!  After providing a robe, the team learned the woman, Tilly Tumblefur, was a werehamster!  She actually was the missing hamster!  She had been transformed into a werehamster by a wizard named Morlax in Realmspace.  She had escaped and fled to Bral where she hid among the giant space hamsters and happened to be the one purchased by the party’s tinker gnomes.  After talking for a while, they offered to allow her to join the crew if she would continue to serve as their motive power on the hamster wheel and take on the role of cook.  She readily agreed and was given a hammock in the wheel room instead of having to sleep in the hamster cage.

Several days later, The Perry came out of spelljamming speed beside an old green squidship named the Ombre Émeraude.  Atop the forecastle tools had been laid out in piles to spell out the word “Help.”  The group immediately noticed, much to their chagrin, that the air was stagnant and old.  It intermingled with their air, drastically cutting the amount of “safe” travel time available to the ship and crew.  They saw a beautiful pale-skinned woman by the stairwell, and she turned and fled down into the bowels of the ship.  The group crept out onto the ship and began to investigate.  It was eerily quiet.  They found the cargo bay doors open and the bay seemingly empty. 

The group opened a door and found the ship’s galley filled with the bones of 11 humans.  The bone piles were mostly stacked neatly, although a couple had toppled or been scattered.  Hekera examined them and determined they had been piled orderly and respectfully.  The bones had been separated though with neat cuts at the joints as if chopped apart by a large metal blade.  Disturbingly, he also noticed human teeth marks on the bones.  While within the galley, Snaggy and Khesen overheard a scratching sound followed by faint cries or screams.  They opened a door and found what appeared to be the pantry, and it was completely empty.  With dread, the party began to suspect perhaps a doomed crew had long ago resorted to cannibalism in an effort to survive!

Game summary for May 28, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), Komorebi (Kitsune Bard played by Josh Jenkins), Notch Bowman (Human Fighter played by Andrew Renfrow), and Snagyndar Blackthorn (Huldran War Master played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The ship swept up a terrifying sight, a shiver of scavvers (one-eyed space sharks)!  Several of the beasts had broad flat heads and enormous gaping maws.  The rare hammerhead scavver!  They “swam” along through the bright rainbow Phlogiston toward The Perry seeking tasty meat!  Along with them swam a trio of brown scavvers and a much larger midnight black scavver of prodigious size and ferocity! 

Notch was manning the magical ballista, and so he immediately used its magical lance ability to injury several of the incoming scavvers!  Helg cast spiritual weapon to create blade of force that began ripping into the scavvers (and continued to harass them the rest of the encounter).  Komorebi enhanced the team with inspire greatness and cast mirror image.  One of the hammerhead scavvers then swept in and gobbled up Claude!  Meanwhile, Snaggy invoked his battle tactics and greatly improved the party’s overall cooperative abilities.  A brown scavver came up and used its acid breath weapon on some of the team!

Hekera pulled forth a potion of enlarge person and grew to an impressive size!  The enormous black void scavver bit and grabbed Khesen, pulling him into its maw!  The other scavvers circled in and began biting! 

Notch began utilizing his bow to sink arrow after arrow into the beasts.  Helg cast divine power to greatly enhance his combat prowess.  Komorebi began an improved dirge of doom to shake the foes and then made great use of ear-piercing scream.  Khesen had been swallowed, but suddenly his knife-hand attack suddenly burst out its side, and he cut himself out!  Hekera was able to cut apart the hammerhead scavver that had swallowed Claude, freeing him! 

Arrows continued to sail, spells flew, and scavvers bit and thrashed.  Snaggy pulled forth a unique figurine that transformed into giant wasp!  Snaggy climbed astride the wasp and began fighting the scavvers from among them, his axe-hammer swinging right and left! 

The fight was bloody and visceral with several of the team badly bitten by shark-like scavvers, but ultimately the team was able to defeat them without casualties! 

Game summary for May 21, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), Notch Bowman (Human Fighter played by Andrew Renfrow), and Snagyndar Blackthorn (Huldran War Master played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The crew called out the alert. “Body off the port! Possible survivor!” The team remembered that people lost in the Flow who ran out of oxygen did not perish but instead petrified. These drifting individuals sometimes floated into the gravity plane of passing ships weeks, years, or even centuries later. They remained petrified for an hour or so before their flesh returned to normal; most survived the process, but some died in the transition back.

Not long ago, the team had rescued Faylen Windstrider, an elven veteran of the Unhuman Wars some four centuries earlier, from a similar fate as well as the new team member, Snagyndar. Who might this person be? From where had they originated? How long had they been out here?

As the body drifted closer, they could see it was tiny, only about three and a half feet tall. It was solid gray in color currently, of course. It was about the size of a goblin, halfling, or gnome. Its head resembled that of an octopus with four short tentacles around the mouth. They immediately thought “mind flayer” but had never heard of one so short. Normally they were slightly taller than an adult human male. What was this thing? The group tied up the body and threw a sack over its head.  When it revived, they began talking to it.  It introduced itself as Wizzlecrank.  After talking a while, they learned this creature is a gnome ceremorph, a lesser version of a mind flayer.  They learned out here it seems disconnected from the hive mind but still possessed a wealth of knowledge.  It had much in common with the tinker gnomes; in fact, it had served as a similar role on a nautiloid 230 years earlier.  After much discussion, they struck an agreement with the creature.  They would take it back to Greyspace and it would work on The Perry to help with repairs.  It started with the door frame of the shrine on the cargo barge.  Although nervous, the tinker gnomes were intrigued by this strange guest. 

Game summary for May 14, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), and Snagyndar Blackthorn (Huldran War Master played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team sailed the last few days through Realmspace uneventfully and passed through the Crystal Sphere into the Phlogiston.  Two days into the Flow, they came across a Flow Survivor who had been petrified by the bizarre properties of the Phlogiston’s atmosphere.  When revived, he introduced himself as Snagyndar “Snaggy” Blackthorn, a huldran (half-orc / half-elf) war master.  Approximately a month ago, he had escaped from a group of orcish raiders unlike any he had ever encountered aboard some kind of scorpion-shaped ship.  They were disciplined, organized, and coordinated in their tactics.  He had never seen orcs like this.  He only escaped by catapulting himself into the Phlogiston. 

The team welcomed Snaggy aboard, and he began settling in.  The next day, the group discovered a large ship drifting out of the Phlogiston, some kind of groundling vessel designed for ocean voyages.  It was riddled with siege weapons and crew packed the gunwales.  They were thin, gaunt, pale-skinned humanoids wearing a variety of clothing styles and carrying sharp sweeping scimitars.  Canine fangs protruded slightly, and their sunken eyes gazed at the team hungrily.  One of the crew cheerfully hoisted a black jolly roger high upon the mast!

As they approached, the party was awash with dread: vampirates!  These horrific undead hordes plunder ships and consume the crew.  Dozens were visible, and who knew how many hid below?  With their very touch draining life, the party could not expect to get through a fight unscathed.  They opted to try and out-maneuver the creatures! 

The team rallied and tried to do everything they could to help the crew of The Perry outpace the vampirates.  Helg used his knowledge of undead to understand their foes and educate the team.  Claude helped fool them with zigzag flight patterns.  Khesen used his spacehand expertise to directly assist the crew.  Snagy displayed an astounding connection with animals and motivated the giant space hamsters to new levels of performance.  Hekera’s engineering acumen cemented their ability to keep putting distance on their foes. 

The party encountered several complications in their retreat, however.  First, they crashed through a dense cluster of Phlogiston crystals that threatened to damage the ship.  Fortunately, they were able to avoid any serious damage.  Next, they came across an unstable rift creating a dangerous gravitational field.  This was quite the problem and whipped the ship around and hurled it closer to the vampirates!  Eventually, they navigated past it, but it was quite the effort.  Finally, the vampirates unleashed swarms of bats to accost the group and try and slow them down!  The biting pests hurt the group quite a bit, but they eventually were able to break free of the swarms and disappear into the Phlogiston, losing their pursuers! 

Game summary for May 7, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Edonna Match Wushu Lu Klighke (Dragonborn Oracle played by Casey Scruggs), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), Komorebi (Kitsune Bard played by Josh Jenkins), and Notch Bowman (Human Fighter played by Andrew Renfrow). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

For a week, The Perry continued at spelljamming speed across the Realmspace sphere heading toward the Crystal Shell so they could enter the Phlogiston.  The ship lurched out of spelljamming speed as it entered the gravity plane of a seemingly drifting dragonfly vessel, the Sky Seeker.  The ship appeared abandoned, and what appeared to be blood splatter and gouging from something heavy being dragged adorned the upper deck.  The team approached and then boarded.  Komorebi used his amazing gloves to see through the floor down into the cargo hold; however, with no light source, it was pitch black.  He then moved up to the upper deck and used the gloves to peer down into the bridge.  It was dim and contained several items of furniture, such as a metal chair (perhaps the spelljamming helm), a shelf, a crate, and a chest.  Edonna cast a detect thoughts spell and sensed some jumbled thoughts in a language she did not understand. 

Some of the team cloaked Komorebi, Edonna, and Khesen in an invisibility sphere.  Notch, Claude, and Hekera would remain up top while those three did a quick recon run down the stairs into the bridge.  They opened the door and filed down the stairs noting something heavy had been dragged up them.  Edonna, with darkvision, led the way.  She noticed the bookshelf lick its lips.  It licked its lips!  Suddenly the floor flowed up like a pseudopod and slammed Edonna and then began wrapping around her!  Of course, she (and everyone in the hallway) was invisible!  Notch, at the top of the stairs, could see the pseudopod but not any of the team!  Suddenly, something warm and wet splashed across Komorebi and Khesen.  The floor had crushed the life right out of Edonna! 

Khesen fled up the stairs and turned visible as he left the spell effect around Komorebi.  Komorebi then fled as well and began a bardic performance to encourage the team.  Claude came around the corner and blasted a Bogg’s cinderball spell down the hallway.  The horrific blast ripped through the ship with concussive force and fire!  Screams came from the bridge as shapeshifters burned!  Unfortunately, the glass windows in the bridge blew outwards in a shower of glass, and the explosion burst forth and rocked the party’s adjacent cargo barge!  Fortunately, it did not burst into flame but was scorched and battered. 

The trapper, dragging Edonna’s corpse, slithered out of the now open front of the ship and came over the top while the furniture, revealed to be mimics, came charging down the hallway.  Khesen met the trapper on the upper deck while Hekera engaged the mimics.  Notch consumed a potion of haste and Komorebi cast blur on Hekera.  Claude cast a shrillfire spell down the hallway, catching all of the mimics (and Hekera) in the blast!  Hekera chopped away with his sword, Khesen slashed away with his knife hand chops, and Notch unleashed a deadly volley.  Soon, all the shapeshifters were killed. 

The group searched the ship and found a trapped chest.  Hekera accidentally triggered the magical glyph and was hit with an enemy hammer.  Fortunately, he was able to hold on and prevent himself from being used as a pummeling tool while Komorebi dispelled the effect.  In the chest they found a magical wand.  In another room, they found six polished skeletons, the digested remains of the trapper and mimics’ previous meals.  In the cargo hold, they found 5 tons of valuable dyes and inks!  To load the heavy crates, Hekera hacked the entire side out of the ship, and they pushed them onto The Perry!  They mourned the loss of Edonna and headed off to continue their journey.

Game summary for April 30, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), and Notch Bowman (Human Fighter played by Andrew Renfrow). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The Perry lurched out of spelljamming speed to find an asteroid passing beneath the ship.  Off in the distance, they could see the water planet H’catha with its single massive mountain in the center.  As the asteroid drifted closer, several orbs rose up into the air.  Two were mottled and about five feet in diameter with a central eye surrounded by a ridge of flesh dotted with a dozen or so smaller human-like eyes!  These creatures, gauth beholderkin, possessed six tentacle-like eyestalks ending in eyes and a large fanged mouth.  Another larger orb drifted up, a zombified beholder!  A final beholderkin, a death kiss, rose up from the asteroid as well.  It was an off-white orb with long hanging tentacles that gradually fades to a crimson color at the tips.  Each tentacle ended in wicked mouths! 

The death kiss beholderkin drifted closer and began slapping tentacles into Khesen.  The biting appendages grappled him and latched hold to drain blood!  Helg peeked out and cast flame strike which destroyed one of the gauth!  The other gauth blasted away with eye rays hitting several of the team.  Claude was burned, Hekera suffered open wounds, and Notch was exhausted.  Claude cast a maximized shocking spark on the death kiss damaging it terribly. 

Notch was too tired to draw his bow, so he spun the magical ballista around and used its lance power to kill the death kiss which exploded in an electrical blast to which Helg was immune.  Hekera chopped away at the zombie beholder but was unable to cut it down.  Helg cast cure serious wounds on Khesen. 

The gauth continued to blast eye rays at the party with limited effect.  Claude stepped back and cast manyjaws which ripped the gauth to pieces!  Khesen realized he knew how to use a ballista, and he fired the other one at the beholder zombie!  Finally, Notch spun the magical ballista around and used the volley effect to blast the zombie to pieces.  The team nursed their wounds and then explored the asteroid.  They found part of a wrecked groundling vessel.  They surmised the asteroid had crashed through the ship at some point long, long ago.  Casting detect magic, the discovered the crow’s nest was actually a magic item that enhances perception!  They decided to take it and install it on The Perry.  Beneath the ship they found a handful of onyx gems.  The group discovered several signs of beholder excrement, but they were unsure how long the beholders had been here or what they had been eating. 

Game summary for April 23, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Edonna Match Wushu Lu Klighke (Dragonborn Oracle played by Casey Scruggs), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), Komorebi (Kitsune Bard played by Josh Jenkins), and Notch Bowman (Human Fighter played by Andrew Renfrow). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team took the three severed heads they discovered frozen on The Green Guppy out of the storage barrel now that they had thawed.  To their horror, they found them infested with rot grubs!  Fortunately, their crocodile-man, Hekera, was able to stomp them before they could burrow into anyone.  The team cleaned out the barrel and killed all the grubs they could find.  They discovered a few cracks in the barrel but were uncertain if any grubs would have fit through them. 

Helg then cast speak with dead on the first head and posed five questions.  They moved on through the two, questioning them as well.  They found several interesting tidbits.  After discussing, the team decided they wanted to ask more questions but would have to wait a week.  In the meantime, they began trying to open the religious text they discovered on The Green Guppy.

They took turns trying to decipher the bizarre markings, mechanical locks, and magical wards.  It took several days, but they eventually unlocked the tome and found it to be a copy of the Apostolic Scrolls, an unholy text of the worm god, Kyuss.  Notch noticed some key pages dogeared and passages underlined.  Focusing on these, he learned a tremendous amount about Kyuss.  He shared his information, and the entire team spent time studying the text.  By the end, the entire team had learned a great deal about Kyuss and even some tips on how to resist the effects of burrowing Kyuss worms! 

At the end of a week, they once again used speak with dead on the three heads.  After gathering all they felt they could, they launched the barrel of heads off the ship and destroyed it with a barrage of fire magic!

Game summary for April 16, 2024, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Claude Dill Budshire (Sokari Sorcerer played by Peyton Harmon), Edonna Match Wushu Lu Klighke (Dragonborn Oracle played by Casey Scruggs), Hekera Nephera Mawhesk Vyk’sebekenka (Sebek-ka Fighter played by Preston Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Khesen Pavel (Human Brawler played by Parker Harmon), Komorebi (Kitsune Bard played by Josh Jenkins), and Notch Bowman (Human Fighter played by Andrew Renfrow). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team spent a week traveling peacefully through Realmspace.  Edonna used the time to craft a magical wand, and Komorebi started working on some traps.  Bright blue lights flashed and portals opened throughout The Perry from which emerged an arachnoid manticore, several drow, a few Zhentarim mercenaries, and a terrifying banelar (a type of fearsome purple-scaled naga with venomous fangs and stinger). 

Immediately, Notch and the manticore began exchanging volleys.  One of the Zhentarim, a man in full plate armor wielding a bastard sword, engaged Helg in the cabin on the cargo barge.  The two tried to exchange blows, but both kept hitting the door frame and walls with their chops.  Helg stepped back and hurled a flame strike out the window and blasted the manticore into pieces.  Meanwhile, Claude cast a maximized shocking spark at another Zhentarim and melted him into oblivion. 

Down below, the drow priestess held one of the gnomes who was then murdered by a Zhentarim.  The banelar stung Edonna and envenomated her with horrifically toxic poison. She was wracked with agony and fled down the ladder where she collapsed unconscious from the toxin.  The banelar then slithered up the ladder to the top deck while the priestess killed Sailmaster Tuk.  The drow scouts unleashed volleys of poisoned arrows inflicting minor wounds, but they were no match for the focused might of the party, especially Khesen’s onslaught. 

Komorebi sang out and enhanced the abilities of the entire party.  Hekera then cut down the banelar and plunged down into lower decks where he cut the Zhentarim in half with his massive greatsword.  Claude followed him down and blasted the priestess into whatever afterlife awaited her.  Helg and the Zhentarim continued to brawl while Komorebi slipped around and hit him with a blistering invective.  The mercenary then surrendered. 

The team regrouped and the slain bodies began decaying into reeking sludge!  As the placed manacles upon the Zhentarim, he screamed in agony and melted into goo as well!  Komorebi recognized this as a common tactic of the Black Network and especially a particular foe from his past, the archmage Manshoon!