July 11th

With Zargofoop guarding the airship, the party plus one noble paladin named Varick Sunreep, one singing bard named Tartleton, and one forgetful pseudodragon named Yabon, the party descended into the cave of the green dragon Kaxalattic on the 8th day of Nightal. The cave was located on the cliffs below the white city of the goatfolk. A goatman, Nartal, stood watching quietly from a lookout position on the cliff. He was too far from the party to hear their argument over how to cross the 120 feet of dark water in the cave. Nartal did not hear their attempts at getting someone else to go in the water first. He did not hear the various plans of using the rod of transposition without drowning. All he saw was the party emerge about thirty minutes later and walk into the town. About 45 minutes later, they reappeared on the trail down the cliff face carrying a small rowboat. That would be the last that young Nartal, newest recruit of the Goat Guard, would ever see of the party. It was not that they did not come out of the cave, it was because his shift was nearly over.

Inside the cave, matters were far more exciting. The party came to a 60ft wide deep chasm. Yabon informed them there was a troll at the bottom of the chasm. They took their time developing a plan, but it did involve not killing that troll. There were featherfalls, long jumps, and the occasional banging into a cliff like a huge pendulum running out of room. Eventually, though, the party crossed and found themselves facing many crystalline trolls. The party was victorious, and there was great debate over exactly whether all the trolls could live indefinitely at the bottom of the chasm by eating their own arms, which would then regenerate.

The party took a bit of a break to rest up inside a cavern off to the side, and they found a small tunnel that would leave them out of the cave when they came back this way. While resting the dragon flew past them, but did not notice them. Then they headed boldly forward, only to run into a wall. Though they mocked their bard, it seemed he was the only fellow who knew how to climb. Upwards and upwards he went, and he managed to use the rope of stone to help the rest of the party come up. There they faced a giant deep pit, or a cave going deeper into the mountain. They took the cave, and there was a mildly intoxicated green dragon, guarding a small hoard and two golden eggs.

Kaxalattic had spent centuries in a magic prison for his mind, driving him almost insane. When he awoke, he found his previous treasure had been looted. Just a few weeks ago he found this wonderful place. He did not know whether the trolls would leave for a day or so to go hunting or what. He assumed he was safe here in this cavern, and so he lounged about plotting his revenge on all the wizards in the land. Suddenly he was attacked by very large humans and dwarves. He really didn't stand a chance with that heavy drink in him and these new enemies fully prepared for battle. After his centuries of captivity and short stint of freedom, here was his end. He fought bravely to defend his new home, but eventually he was brought low. Some of his parts were harvested, and his treasure sorted, counted, and removed.

Varick Sunreep, though happy to continue on with the party, felt that seeing the golden eggs of Torm back to the temple were the most important thing, and he could not risk falling battle before that job was done. Tartleton followed him, muttering how the dark one would not be remembered well in songs.

After resting some more and visiting the goat city for a time, the party tried descending into the cave. There they found a secret door. Behind that door they found another door, this one engraved with a lightning bolt. The party mistook this as a sign that lightning was needed to open it. It was instead a warning that might have said "DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE!" In their slightly scarred state, the party opened the door to find a skeletal form called Talac Gregor. He was apparently a former evil, powerful wizard of the island who lived in one of the black towers. He said that those who live their now, while perhaps friendlier, are incredibly weak wizards. It was Telec who helped capture Kaxalattic centuries ago, and he commented that the pirates who broke the spell for the blue gems were fools; the blue gems were glass. Eron offered the black robes from an ancient, powerful, much taller race that he found in a nightmarish dungeon on Gwynneth. Talac agreed to let them go for the robes, though he would have preferred to have them as minions.

Then the party headed to Lantan to return the ship. As soon as they left the magical winter of Nimbral, they found real winter out on the water. They were cold, but they arrived safely in the airship. They were rewarded and asked for more help as the airship was destroyed. A young priest of Gond named Lankyforpot, spending a year attending the shrine to Gond at Candlekeep, had been abducted. The priests here only received word a few days ago. They would help if they could, but they are not fit to battle. Zargofoop is, actually, their strongest fighter.

The party agreed to help after some "What's in it for us?" from the dark one. They set off on the ship The Flaming Sasquatch, captained by a fierce woman with a whip. Her name was Deysi Wileen, but most of her crew call her D-W. They put in at Candlekeep and stayed for a couple of nights at the Parchment and Quill Inn, run by Viola. They found that Candlekeep is, in fact, a keep. One must pass through three gates in three ring walls. The gates are shrines to Gond (The Binder of Oghma), Deneir (The Scribe of Oghma), and Milil (The One True Hand of All-Wise Oghma). One priest attended each shrine, except, of course, for the shrine of Gond. All of the priests were friendly and hopeful the party would locate Lankyforpot and the other abducted priest, Restis of Oghma.

They discovered what had happened. On Nightal 8th, a ship arrived called Sandy Rum. It mostly went ignored. During the night someone attempted entering the Inner Sanctum, a protected part of the library a token is needed to enter. These tokens are handed out to only a very few people, Khelban, Elminster, etc. By the time Ulraunt, the Keeper of the Tomes, arrived at the Inner Sanctum, no one was there. The next day the two young priests were visited by messengers from the port village. The two priests rushed down the port, and were never seen again. The messengers reported they were given the messages by a beautiful woman with green robes and long brown hair, and she fit the description of Kalina Yomaris, the sorceress who had given them a bit of a problem on Gwynneth.

Ulraunt is a wizard and currently runs Candlekeep. He wishes to keep up the appearance of a haughty wizard, but he is truly distraught over the missing young priests. Very few people live here, and they are all close. Ulraunt is assisted by The First Reader, an old elf named Auremunlo. He had attempted locating the ship, the woman, and the priests by magic, but he repeatedly found his efforts blocked. Finally, with the party there, he could locate the ship. It was south of them and heading north.

The party decided to intercept the ship, and they are going to sea on the Flaming Sasquatch on the 13th day of Hammer, which is the dead of winter.

I ass-ume the "Dark One" is Par?

He's not exactly "Mr Sunshine," you know?

I do miss that none of the characters are devoted sluts, as Cab normally plays. It would have been pretty awesome to have someone hitting on a goat girl.

Sadly out of character for all of us.



Voyeur goat.

That water had level draining fish in it, so obviously we had to be very careful about it.



Look, the monk will miss a level less than the rest of us.



I just figured, if I transpose the monk into position, then that would be really funny for us.



Shit, we forgot to sell the rowboat back.




You mean a forty five minute wide chasm.



At least I had haste memorized! I thought about trying to rocket jump us over with the fireballs, thus proving that when all one has is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

(fireball applies no pressure, I know, I know, but I still had to *think* of it)



Aw, it wasn't that many!



Actually, they can get OUT of the chasm.

Well, I mean, there needs to be at least one GIRL troll, but given enough time...



It is a little surprising that the rogue couldn't, but then the rogue has to have a great deal of skills, and he might be pretty focussed on them. I mean, his search, spot, and listen are all damn near maxxed right?

Whatever, rogues suck. Maybe he could sneak attack a troll by standing between three trolls, that's a good class ability right?




I'm more impressed with the Rope Of Sudden Stiffy actually having a use besides bedroom antics betwixt Sunny and Signy. It was dangerously close to being useful to crossing the 60 foot chasm, but thankfully, it's only a 50 foot rope.



Now we got to do the standard D&D tactic: cast everything that is 1 min / level first, followed by everything that 1 round per level, starting with the weaker stuff, then SUP DIGGITY DOG baller on in there.



No sympathy for SR 23 creatures at level 6. Oh look, one out of five spells can affect him!



Was it like moving to Denver? You sleep on a friend's couch for a couple weeks while you fly around looking at all the lairs? Eventually you're like, well, this one is cheap because it's next to the goat ghetto, and the only neighbor is a nice old lich that strikes me as familiar somehow, and it might not be centrally located but the commute to rainbow kingdoms isn't *that* far....



I do often wish I had even more enlarges. Well, now I can make scrolls of it because I'm not poor. Hell, maybe even get a good deal on a wand. Never be normal sized again!



He did do a decent job with the first breath weapon- but he was outnumbered hardcore.



I'd like to point out that I checked his entire digestive track for gems!

And didn't find any. Ick!



I didn't say anything, but I did wonder why a door would be labelled with a mechanism to open it. I mean, why even put a door then? I figured it might mean that there was something inside it related to lightning.



I dunno whether he was formerly or presently evil- with a Lich it's fight or flight, especially when his first offer is to take all your shit, and his second offer is to make you his slaves.


This was not news.

This was.



...And now that my role in your milleu is accomplished, Eron will be eaten by a Grue, with historical footnote: handed over the powerful robes to the lich that eats our souls (see page 534, rainbow cloaked fool).



If I can grow a second dick for the monk, he can probably bang two gnomesses at once.



I was thinking instead of ethereal sky snakes, we could probably work with a special team of low-pressure, high altitude flumphs.



I was a little sad to hear that they were all less than 7th level AFTER we handed them the airship...



It was a legit question- the only reason I didn't ask it is that they had proven their generosity with 50 pp per each (5000 gold per).



I definitely wanted her to fight like, some sharks. They could jump on deck and she could whip them or something. I didn't really have it worked out, but it was going to rule.



They call her when there's trouble-you.



My first thought was to ask to see their security footage, but then I thought better.

Obviously there's no cameras in a classified area.





I think the fact that I woke up at 4:30 that day was starting to affect me. Though I did come up with the excellent line:

"Liberty is a 17 year old stripper with the stage name 'Amber Alert'"



No mercy for evil casters! On the bright side, mass sonic resist should probably prove helpful against her. On the downside, she's high enough level to outright *kill* somebody, and she still has the ranger lover boy.



I wondered about that- how long do elves live in your game, and when do they start looking old?



Look, I know that we should be like Stop: Hammertime. But we clearly don't have TIME for that.



Ok, out of puns.


For now.

Excellent recap. I especially enjoyed the fireball rocket idea, and the "infinite number of monkeys" theory to get the trolls out of the chasm. The "45 minute wide" chasm, lol.

I'd take exception to being called "the dark one", but I think it suits me. Maybe I need more dark clothes.

Sadly, my listen and spot checks are not maxed. Most other thiefly abilities are, but I figured the monk is really good at listen and spot, so I beefed up a few other attributes instead. Now that my tumble check is at 15, I can probably pump a few more into listen and spot.

Divvying up the ability scores is actually a really good idea. You want a couple people with good spot and listen checks since that comes up relatively frequently, but you still want a climber, a lock opener, etc. Talk to each other when you level so that you don't double up too much and you don't miss a skill. That way when the wizard casts "fly" only one of you will feel worthless.

Good point. I need to remember to add a bunch to Climb next level. I somehow overlooked that one. I mean, I have SOME points in it, but definitely not enough.

Skill points are tricky. Before I go on, I'd like to point out that Pathfinder actually has shrunk down the skill list considerably, and 4ed took on a similar task after that point. For instance, instead of hide and move silent, you would put points into "stealth".


Another way they could have approached this would have been to assign some skills to be "you pay half a skill point for this skill", but that would have made book keeping harder.

Note that the skill list right now makes some interesting statements- for instance, "Hide" is clearly meant to account for a wide range of skills all related to one thing, while profession: archictecture is an even wider range of skills related to several things, and forgery is a narrow list of skills. What qualifies as a skill in its own right and what is part of another skill is interesting, and given that it was the first time D&D attempted it, it's not too surprising that we have some wacky results.


Basically, the points that you want to "max out" are the ones that will be used competitively versus other skills. For instance, hide and move silently. Alternatively, if the game pretty much assumes you'll be maxxing it (a bard's perform), then you need to keep doing it.

Skills that are "versus nature" you just kind of want to put some points in, if you can. Balance, Jump, Tumble, Climb, Swim- the DCs for these *can* be high, but usually once you have the ability to do the jump that you want, then getting better at jumping doesn't necessarily help you.

Your call with the spot and listen is correct- you probably don't need them maxxed given that the monk has a really high wisdom, but he can roll low when you roll high, and those are class skills that most classes can't get.

For my part, I get a zillion skill points so I try to keep a few of them maxxed out (knowledge arcana, weaponsmithing, spellcraft), then I have a bunch that I put a point to every three levels or so, and a couple I just splash into. For instance, I have at least one point in every knowledge skill. But note that I don't suffer for this kind of nonsense because a wizard's skills aren't generally as awesome, etc.