May 22

On the 3rd of Eleint (the 9th month) the party headed into the underground city of Gray Haven, where the halflings had somehow enslaved the stone giants. They spoke to various halflings, who were surprised to see them, but happy to listen to potential merchants. The guards to whom they spoke had to check their guard handbooks to find the proper questions to ask when meeting a stranger. These included "Are you attacking us?" and "Are you a malcontent?" The halflings were filthy rich, with gold almost everywhere. They spoke to both King Lagster Frilg and High Priest Bersno Maygap, who both spoke of the religion of the cavern. Urogalan, a god of the halflings on the surface (lawful neutral), created the giants to serve him at the center of the world. One stone giant named Grender led a rebellion against him, and in punishment Grender was cast to the surface where the world meets the void. Then Urogalan created the halflings to reform the remaining stone giants to teach them to be better servants. In the next life, good stone giants will serve Urogalan in the center. The halflings must be rich and flaunt their wealth so the stone giants can see what they may have in the next life. The halflings were convinced of this, but the high priest may have had some nervousness about the whole thing. The party were the first to suggest selling slaves, and the king considered being able to send the baby stone giants out to other cities. They were an odd people, friendly but evil. It was as though they had never figured out a sense of morality. The halflings were also not entirely convinced the surface existed.

The party decided that a revolution was in order. Disguised as Grender returning, the wizard spoke of the injustice done to the stone giants. He told them of other gods and other stone giants living on the surface. The giants were unsure, but then the high priest, king, other priests, and soldiers came to shut them up. It was a glorious battle in front of dozens of stone giants. Sadly, the high priest caused Sunny to die a little bit. It was very sad. Sunny was just flying about punching priests when suddenly he wasn't. Many people cried.

Nonetheless, the party eventually vanquished the slavers. Seeing their masters fall, the giants realized that the rest of the halflings could not hold them. In less than three hours there wasn't a halfling left alive. One has to wonder whether that was truly just, but either way it was done. The party nabbed some bit of a gold tower, told the stone giants to head up the tunnel, arranged for some people to meet the giants and send them out to the frontier where they could do some good and live in peace, and then started training to make themselves better.

Shortly thereafter, they headed out to Thay. This required teleporting to Rashemen. This was not because all of Thay was blocked from teleporting, but because of Thay was blocked from scrying. The wizard could not locate a place for teleporting. So they teleported nearby and then traveled through the shadows with magic. They then teleported to the docks of Avinsk that they could see from nearby and pretended they came in by ship.

Avinsk is the capital of the Corvit Province, which is in the Priador Tharch. The Corvit province is known for its fine red wine, simply called Corvit Red. Vineyards cover the hills in the area, and even in fall the weather is pleasant. The city itself was beautiful and ancient. Red tile roofs covered white buildings including the palace that sat above the city. Simply called the "Red Palace," it was the center of government for the province and the home of governor Tomas Valence, the brother of our friend wizard Eron. The family connection continued on, as uncle Vannin Helg ruled was the Tharchion of the Priador. Vannin ruled with an iron fist, and the people feared him. Tomas was not friendly, but almost reasonable and fair. The people of Corvit province were glad that Tomas was between them and Vannin. However, they were not happy. They seemed like wealthy people living in a beautiful city, and they were unhappy about it.

The party found a nice inn called The Minister and Fox run by a wiry fellow named Simon. Sunny talked to a fat old man named Thorald who told them all about the region and Tomas.

The party, knowing that they were ultimately looking for the tomb of the goddess Hyadria, went to see Tomas. They politely requested an audience, and a messenger found them at the Minister and Fox telling them that in two days they should come to the palace.

They were brought onto a veranda with a beautiful view of the city and the sea. They were also guarded by six wizards and six soldiers. Then Tomas came out. His head was cleanly shorn and covered with tattoos, like all red wizards. He wore simple red robes made of linen. Brown sandals poked out when we walked. He was not overly friendly. He informed them that they were surrounded by all of these wizards and soldiers so they understood that any attempt at coming into the palace or hurting Tomas would utterly fail. Assuming this was truly his brother, he did not wish to kill him, so he gave this warning.

The conversation was lengthy, but the party was honest with their intentions. Tomas was distrustful, but not entirely. Signy wanted a nail file because women don't understand politics, and Tomas informed her that he did not have one because he disintegrates his nails. Eventually, Tomas told them that if they wanted something from him, he would need something from them.

There is another force in Thay, the church of Kossuth, the burning god. The people love the church, so as a Red Wizard he should not oppose them directly. Monks of the Society of the Illuminating Flame confiscated an item from one of his apprentices. It was called the Eye of Winking, and the party would get it back for him. These particular monks are in the Monastery of Silent Conflagration. He gave them directions and travel and weapon permits at a family discount.

They set out the next day, and they encountered one patrol of wizards and gnolls. The permits saw them through. They came to the monastery, sitting on a low hill. There was a sanctuary, and to the side the buildings for the monks with an open courtyard. With some invisibility and fly spells, the party determined that inside the courtyard there was a silent bonfire burning without consuming the logs underneath. They learned that the priests thought yellow, orange, and red were wonderful colors for decorating. They discovered these monks brewed beer. They discovered that approaching the burning flame on the altar in the sanctuary was not a good idea. They discovered that the abbot wore an amulet that matched the description of the Eye of Winking.

They made a plan. The plan might have been better if they had ever asked what the Eye of Winking did. They teleported around the abbot in the middle of the night. They were invisible and ready to kick some ass with buffs from all sorts of spells. The abbot was truly surprised, but it turned out that the Eye dispelled all magic within sight, and then suppressed further effects. He punched the rogue and killed him instantly with a quivering palm, but the priest of lightning was there to keep his last breath at bay. The abbot put up a good fight, but there was only one possible outcome. Like thieves in the night, the party fled with the Eye of Winking.

Pleased with the result, Tomas told them to meet him the next morning at the tomb the next morning. He gave them directions to the white marble tomb. It looked like it was a capped well covered in runes and the name Hyadria. It was among the ruins of an old temple. The rest of the ruins were covered in dirt and buried among the undergrowth, but the tomb itself was kept clean. Eight wizards and two soldiers appeared in a flash of green on the cool fall morning. They walked quietly to tomb, pulled some sort of amulets from the robes, and placed them on the runes. The lid slid aside, and stairs spiraled down.

The party headed down. Tomas closed the lid behind them. Asked how they would get out, he said they were resourceful and would assuredly find a way.

Going down the Prince Albert stairs, the party felt a sudden bit of pain in the chests. It passed in a moment with no lingering effects. Then they came to the bottom. They found Dionysus, satyrs, and the Fates. All of them were drunk and thoroughly enjoying it. Dionysus was wearing fox skins that didn't cover much. The Fates were twirling six string about and trying to juggle shears. The strings matched the colors of the party, and they suspected that at any time disaster could strike despite the music and the jovial attitude. There was one solid stone door that was locked. Another door was wood, and it had a duck carved on it. Dionysus named the duck George. He told them that they could open the door if they collected eight shiny rocks.

They went past the duck. The next room contained about 4 feet of water and little ships. The ships fired ballistas very quickly. There was Rosy Hind, Floating Chocolate, Queen Anne's Libido, Davy Jone's Gym Sock, Sea Whores, and Scurvy Wenches. The party said something about "cute little boats" before they got rocked. Out of Rosy Hind they found a ruby, which was convenient it fell to pieces when it did because otherwise it would have been teleported to another plane and the party would have assuredly died. Lucky break.

On the 28th of Eleint, they entered into the next room where they face... The Punner.

I will require a magic nailfile in the future.

Kthnx.

Man, that would've been awesome if Legion had sent the Ruby Hind to the Abyss or something.

And by "awesome" you mean "I can hardly wait to roll new characters, enter this dungeon again, and find the bodies of our previous party"...?

I think Marchosias would have been very pleased with himself up until the point of his death.

Maybe you could have waited for someone to cast prismatic spray on a little wooden boat in the elemental plane of magma. I'm sure there was at least a .00002% chance of having that happen in 20 days or so.

The Gnomes could make a "perfect nails disintegrator" thingie!

This would be relevant to Signy's interests.

Excellent! The gnomes!

The side quest of "Find Signy's Fingers" will be fantastic!

So you are saying she can't have this OR a pegasus now?

You a mean mean DM!

If you want something, you need to seek it out. You cannot merely ask for it.

Also, what the hell would you have done differently with a pegasus? You can't exactly smuggle it into Thay, and it wouldn't be of much use in the Underdark.

He could have found a way to have it morph into a small figurine like Drizzt had with Guenhwyvar. Upon command word - BAM! Instant pegasus.

I think that we should all make up druid characters and call ourselves Fox Force Five.

Because we all have legendary foxes as companions, we're a force to be reconned with, and there are 5 of us (with the MPC) of course.

Slightly fixed.

I wonder which one of you will make the awful jokes.

MEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee


Also a team of 5 druids would be hilarious. We'd be the best team ever. By level 12, we'd always have 3 of any spell that might be useful, and every fight could involve up to TEN animals eating face. Or twenty if we spend two rounds summoning first.

Also all this talk about Pegasi bores Eron. Once we make money we can commence the breeding of etheric sky snakes. Now, those are interesting.

We are level 13 now. Eron is closer to a hoverhorse than ever. One more level!

Eron would breed a "one eye" variant.

Gross.

.

What good would it do us only being 2 inches long, though?

Small dick jokes don't really work against wizards past 7th level. Polymorph and all.

In second edition, there was a psionic power called Elongate or something. You could take a specific part of your body, and make it larger. There was even a picture of some dude pulling a Dhalsim to grab some fucking thing or other.

Now, I don't even remotely understand who thought this was a good power. In real life, you could I guess make yourself a little bit taller, for social reasons. Maybe it could help you climb if you were into that. But if you got in a fight with someone, ten foot arms don't actually seem like they would be helpful. Neither would raising your testicles to punching-bag levels.

Yet, in my games, it was a very popular power. I can think of three seperate psionisists who took that power (it was a minor one). I can't think of three times they didn't use it for Extra Johnson, however.

Who was making a joke?

You realize that he could Baleful Polymorph you in your sleep, each time slowly making your penis smaller?

The amount of talk about genitals that seems to go on in these campaigns in disturbing.

Besides, when I finally notice, I'll gladly take a smaller penis in exchange for sending him off in his sleep to Gehenna.

If they were really afraid they would have chilled in the bubble. Yay bubble!




I like that the campaign comes down to the fact that constructs are destroyed immediately on reaching 0 hit points. That's just super.

This is why we need a bard. Modify Memory. "Well, I mean, it's always been that small. I don't explicitly remember having to pee with chopsticks, but I'm pretty sure it was that way..."