The day opens in the evening of Proem 4th, after the events of the last session. The crew celebrates, and some mingle about the fair. At the temporary alehouse that night, Morgrim strikes up a conversion with the coal-black Them Fomemm, a Voriphan psion seeking to unravel the mysteries surrounding the disappearing boats. During this time, the elves go and make out in the woods, undisturbed by evil children or nosy pixies this time. While questioning Them about his choice to shave his head (partially in protest of the excesses of his native culture) and his tattoos (psionic) at the alehouse, Keichi notices a man in the corner, who previously had been at the bar, and before that against the opposite wall- who seems to be trying to observe Them. He moseys over (maybe he sashays, I'm not sure how you Zeugeirans do it) and subtlety conveys this to Morgrim and Them. Conversation continues, the actions of the odd stalker undisturbed. Rigby and Alenka arrive and immediately greet their friends: the observing man leaves. Keichi, not choosing to mention anything to anyone, and a master of stealth with Int 10 and levels of "Fighter 1", sets out after him alone, assuming that he will go unnoticed. He is incorrect, and is led to an abandoned shed. Keichi sees him enter, observes for a few moments, and heads back into the shanty-town that is teeming with night life. Meanwhile, the tailed becomes the tail, or something, and follows Keichi with more than 0 ranks in Hide, and with, in fact, more success. He snipes at him with a paralytic arrow but misses, causing Keichi to suddenly remember something awesome going on just about Move*4 spaces ahead of him. With the chance of abduction (and, as the PCs would learn, conversion to Zombkeichi) out of the picture, he slinks away.

Arriving back at the alehouse, he finds that the pixie has been enjoying cheese and chatting with Them, while the rest of his crew has been equally social. Boring! They didn't even get to flirt with death tonight. Bunch of pussies. They pretty much exchange business cards with the Psion, who will be staying in an expensive (and secure) hotel in light of this new knowledge, but otherwise plans to continue his hypercognitive search, being apparently the only clairsentient in town working the job.

Upon arrival back at the tent, Sean and Caleb are arguing, as Sean Fralish has reported the enchanted pillows to the Deniers, who confiscated them. Thentrassan is still a bit quiet around the elves, but is friendly to the others. Axetober explains that his name comes from taking "Axe", and adding "Tober". He is rather proud of this.

Proem 5:
In the morning, Chalendra arrives, a knight of equivalent (novice) rank as Caleb, asking him to help guard a merchant whom the knights of the copper deem largely unworthy (due either to lack of manpower or the general security of the fair). He is concerned after a threat to his life, and she asks him to leave his prearranged vacation to basically stand guard. She would like help starting the next day. Caleb declines. The group decides to track down stalker-boy, a rather tall task. Alenka, however, lucks into a smoke-room that actually knows him based on her physical description: a bit of smiling, flirting, and pointed questions discovers that he goes by "Trench", and his actual name (Trellianem Finch) is the inspiration for that. He worked as a bodyguard, and was friendly with his mates, but eventually wanted more- and started, it was rumored, taking some dirty jobs. She takes the address, and, all smiles, bows out. Do you even smoke Alenka? Even socially? The group immediately stalks the stalker, with Ash disguise-selfing as human, and the remainder moseying about his largely middle class SFR near the center of town. They witness him inside, and some cloaked figure, and after some hours, it looks abandoned. Rigby, drawn like a moth to a flame, enters the house from the second floor. He discovers a house that has some clutter, but is mostly empty, save for the necessities of life, some weapons, and some art that all involves conquest or destruction. He steals a small painting of the previous war, Umbrans fighting coalition. Pixie-flittering downstairs, he sees where shit gets weird: there is a divider running down the middle of the house, not visible from any windows. Half is native with the house, a wall, but the other half is a slideable curtain of cloth and metal, capable of being shut tight. He wiggles it open easily, it is not locked. He sees an evil-bad altar, but no Trench, and no hooded figure. Rigby quickly signals the rest of the crew, who enter casually through the front door. "It's so nice to see Trench has friends!" The neighbors think. "Why, there's something invisible that opens doors, and an elf of the famous and aloof Ilyan, a warrior from another continent, a smiling girl from Kelestris, and a dwarf who just got out of the bath. And look, they have such nice taste in weapons! They must be the good guys.".

Them continues in his attempts to divine the fate of the missing boats.

Once inside, Lithonian quickly identifies the altar as to Buranon. The group finds a hidden door, but their party-picnic is heard from below. Trench and the they-still-don't-know-his-name cleric begin running along the tunnel, but so do their undead minions, the skeletons arriving first. Ash casts Obscuring Mist, and the crew gets the FUCK out of there. On their retreat on the roads, they look back and turn to salt. Rather, they look back and see the faces of their two enemies in the window. A skeleton wants to peek at them too, but is shoved away. Being far more rational than I anticipated, they go straight to the Knights of the Copper, who arrive to a house burning down. After some brief amount of extinguishing, Keichi finds the door, but the tunnel is blocked. The group heads quickly to the graveyard, in which a knight finds a hidden entry beneath a grave. There they find some abandoned mindless undead, but nothing more of note: the villains have fled, at least for now. The group abandons E-5 to stay in the barracks of the knights, fearing for retribution.

Proem 6:
The group trains. Chalendra and a couple off-duty knights she has guilted into it guard the merchant. The pixie doesn't train, but feels more in control of himself, more like his own self, and more free of the chemical agents his slavers used on him. Feeling his oats, he experiments in the arena again, getting not quite as far as before. The rest of the group uses the unused arena spots to spar, making use of the ensorcelled weapons and area to do so without risk of injury. They think on the things they have learned by beating up ruffians, sneaking around, breaking and entering, and beating up skeletons while accompanied by a ludicrous amount of angry knights, and feel themselves much more capable. Chalendra asks the group (Caleb included) to help, and the group says yes, though Caleb still declines.

Proem 7:
Guarding Marzo Hunter with his one lone half-orc body guard Tobma and Chalendra, the group keeps a sharp eye out. While the interesting lady Sarah Ann stops by, a minor noble (lady in waiting) from Emerald and attempts friendly banter with the stone-faced PCs, a much earlier visit by the would-be-asssassin goes entirely unnoticed by the low level PCs and their shitty dirty lowly useless spot checks. Marzo heads out to meet a travelling merchant, a meeting he had arranged much earlier, and obviously a great time for an assassination. The PCs don't think to question why the merchant would be willing to trade with someone who is entirely unwilling to even enter Mellior, and Marzo had some bullshit cooked up if poor Chalendra could pass a relatively easy wisdow check to make that inquiry herself. But, alas. Along the way, the group is waylaid by an assassin, who springs from the forest to attack Marzo, and an invisible hill giant. The faint shimmering of invisibility is luckily spotted, and the group is aware that *something* is going on. Combat is engaged. The 2nd level wizard, disturbed from his thoughts, casually glances up and points at the 8th level assassin, reducing his strength to 3. The assassin calls for retreat, his mission largely failed- or at least, the PCs learn that his mission was not as important to him as his life. The hill giant is already engaged though, and is subject to a variety of ludicrous fucking crowd control effects from the PCs from 110 -> 0. I think he got to swing twice. You guy should work on that. Maybe find a way to make him blind too, or maybe strike at himself. Marzo is very grateful, upon waking, for the efforts of the crew, and he rewards them. They continue and he purchases some Totally Legitimate Goods For Great Prices from someone who is too scared to even set FOOT in Mellior, right in front of a paladin and a pixie who already knows he is evil (pixies have align-dar), which makes him I think the ballsiest NPC I've come up with in the game thus far. The pixie is surprisingly successful at hunting down the assassin, with an illusionary guardpost, causing him to break into a run and disgard his old-man disguise. Eventually, fearing for his life, he drinks his potion of invisibility, and hides amongst the crowd.

Upon arrival, the group feasts, their last happy night in some time. Chalendra implores all of them to join the Knights, or at least, pledge themselves to aiding others- it can be rewarding (even monetarily), and you never have to wake thinking that the world is as bad as it is because you failed to act. The pixie, in order to best fuck with people, appears rather interested. Upon arrival back at the barracks, he is summoned and listens, with earnest intensity, to the recruitment speech of the elderly knight in charge of such things. When he is expected to sign a document stating his intent to enlist (he is even promised tiny pixie-armor), he instead produces an illusion of himself and the document bursting into flame, while he himself sneaks away invisible. The elderly gentlemen signals Imminent Infiltration By Evil Spellcasters, causing copper dust to be loosed across all local Knights of the Copper areas and, of course, putting them all on high alert. At least he didn't have a stroke, meany!

The wizard loses a couple spells.

Proem 8: Morning is normal, but there are fewer Deniers than before by noon. The group receives a missive from Them, who they go and meet: he has discovered that there is an invasion fleet of Voriphans approaching Balthras (the capital of Dulal, to the north). The ships intercepted likely made visual contact or otherwise could have compromised the plans, but one thing that is certain is that they will make "shore" in Balthras soon. The Deniers have already begun heading back to shore up defenses. There is also news of orcs in the south: presumably the news of the orcs was meant to draw attention to the southern borders, days ahead of the Voriphan strike. As this news becomes more and more known, the area is somber. The PCs seen the same old man as they did on the first day, sitting on a roof, looking out over the fair, and looking sad. He is not there when they head up to inquire. Rigby has a rather explosive conflict with Orchid, calling her a whore, and eventually deriding Caleb for even "associating" with her (Chalendra also predictably hates her). Orchid, for her part, is wearing fine new Voriphan clothes (these become steeply discounted over the course of the day).

Caleb plans to head south, on orders, with the Knights of the Copper.
Chalendra is heading north, with another contigent, to defend against the Voriphans.
Orchid is heading east, but does not invite the group with her.
Marzo needs an escort east as his ability to profiteer safely is needed elsewhere.
Thentrassan does not know the group enough to ask to go along, but is also heading east.
Axetober is heading south. Hopefully he can convince the orcs to go home, because it is nice in the Teryeal expanse and this place already has a lot of humans.
Sean is already in Balthras, with most of the other Balthran Deniers.
Srelindel is heading back to the forest! Lithonian expects to join her shortly.

The fair is essentially over even though it has two more days. Tomorrow is the Day of Song, but there won't be much singing in Mellior. Many awesome announcements won't be announced. What a pity!

Proem 9:
The group heads east, with Marzo and Tobma.


...to be continued

Proem 9-11:

The first two days out of Mellior are unremarkable. Spring is in the air, and it's possible to forget the forboding invasions with the soft breeze and scents of flowering plants. The green trees are green, the blue trees are blue, and all is well. Especially when you are going in the exact opposite directions of looming danger. The group maintains a watch, but I'm not really sure what kind of watch. Being on a wagon with packhorses, they are moving about the same speed as most of the traffic heading eastward on this read, and a high traffic road with local enforcement scarce means... bandits! These were Hawkmen bandits, a barbarian tribe from the expanse, who had discovered mostly easy pickings and the ability to escape easily if they found something a bit tougher than that. The Hawkmen attacked from the air, with longbows, shortbows, or even throwing axes. After the first few volleys were exchanged, with the injured being healed or taking cover behind the wagon, and a couple of the hawkmen downed, it was obvious to their leader that it was time to go, but he was killed. The next leader then called retreat, and was killed. At this point they scattered.

And so, above the blooming flowers and light green plains, and beneath the warm yellow sun and the endless blue sky, many of the Hawkmen learned to know terror. Terror had no name to them, but it was clear what it was: an arrow would fly out of the sky. It might hit them. It might not. But it would keep flying, from a different point each time. There was no escape. The pursuit was relentless. While most of them got away, the ones that did not, what did they think? What went through their barbaric, noble minds, as their intended targets somehow had an stealth fighter as an ally?


The butchery complete, Rigby flittered back to the group, his bloodthirst sated.

For now.

Proem 12-24th:

A few days later, Lady Sarah Ann came through in a carriage, pulled by the large brown horses bred in eastern Miara, and used across the empire. She had a small guard with her, and was happy to see some familiar faces. She invited them for tea and a small meal. Some refused, others did not. The pixie detected evil, and was therefore on alert, because the minor noble being lawful evil is verboten, but aiding and abetting an evil merchant on schemes of who-knows-what is just what pixies do. The group continued on their way. They later found some Hawkmen brutally savaged by something that enjoyed puncturing things, and left them lined up with all their goods still intact. They took a few things, but overall considered that a bad omen. Several days out from that they met another caravan, moving slower because of some injured to a raid of hawkmen. They chose to travel with them. A week later, they noticed something amiss, an aura, something, some strange noise, some wind. The pixie, on a whim, quaffed a potion of detect invisibilty, and saw, flying above, a blue dragon. Presumably they had not been worthy of interference. The journey continues, with a spot of rain not dampening anyone's spirits on leaving the besieged Dulal.

Proem 25th:
The group arrives in Mitram, on the other side of the border in Kelestris, where Marzo asks for a few days to trade. The crew trades in their looted weapons, which are selling for more than normal due to worries about the impending war. War with Voriph is rare, but the defense against aerial attacks is normally magical- wizards, sorcerers, dragons, clerics, and more, all things that the average person does not see a great deal of. Is their goal just Dulal? All of Arcata? And how many orcs? Dulal has already requested aid, of course. Who will help?

A bit of gathering information discovers a rumor that some undead were sighted in an abandoned monestary north of town. The reports are recent, and from three different people, so the odds are high that it, unlike many of the other rumors going around, are valid.

I missed that he was a darkie. He seems less trustworthy now.


At least he wore armor that was nicely inconspicuous.


In the future, I think I will attempt staying in the more expensive inns without paying.


They're like the mean teachers no one likes.


I can hardly wait for The Hunt for Red Axetober.


It's good that women have even less accountability than a pixie.


I was pixie-gliding.


I guess you think about as much of those Neighborhood Watch signs as I do.


Having powerful friends does sometimes make for an easy solution to a difficult problem. It's also why it's hard to justify a campaign in Forgotten Realms for good people. "Hey, doesn't this pretty much align with the goals of Elminster? And couldn't he take care of the problem in 2 minutes? Let's go get him to help."


I actually got a little bit farther. I've now made about 900gp.


So do humans consider smuggling unethical? I get that it's illegal, or otherwise it wouldn't smuggling, but I just assumed we all knew he was smuggling and that's how they did business.


I am a bit confusled by the shimmering. What did I really see? Moving plants as he stepped through them?


Zing!


I understand we had a total of 8 combatants, but still... a hill giant? Your mother would be so ashamed.


Weak sauce.


It's good to have clear, simple motivation for a character.

Also, I'm curious whether they think I was attacked or I was the attacker.

Also, I'd still like to get my hands on that pixie armor.


It sure is a good thing we didn't have to fight that day!


Plot Schmlot.


I hope he gets to keep some of that vacation time.


How odd. I wonder if she's upset with one of us. So how many STDs does your world have? Do you have an CDC I should contact to warn them the outbreak is moving east?


That's probably for the best since I have no recollection of who that is.


I like that optimism.


Seiko.


We should have cut off their wings and taken them with us. At best they are worth something, and in the very least they could make for awesome disguises.


I can hardly wait until I can make them forget all about that terror.


The merchant's goals are, most likely, pretty obvious. The lady has me worried a bit more. There's something off there. But anyway, wouldn't it be awesome if the merchant were really a super bad guy and the assassin was some honorable fellow who is out to kill him to thwart some evil? Oh, Ganondorf, you got me again! I collected these stones thinking I could use them to defeat you, and now you stole them and the problem is even worse! I'm such a fool!


We did nothing of the sort.


I'm sending a bill to the Evil Dragon's Guild for the price of that potion. I'm a fairy on a budget.


Evidently NOT a merry band of adventurers.... probably because we assume you will say "So there's you, 8 allies, and 1500 orcs charging your way. Roll inits!"


I'm glad that rekilling some undead will help me remember how to make some frickin arrows.

Hey, at least he wasn't that terrorist shade. I like how modern racists now have a sliding scale- your likelihood to rob them presumably goes up with melanin, but there's a "terrorist valley" as you move to the right as well, but get dark enough and you are ok.


Chain shirt at least is only -2. Not that anyone will ever wear heavy armor even after I buffed the living shit out of it.


When the fat man lays down on you, the night will get great.


Hatred rising



The concerpt is supposed to be that he's too busy hurting the REALLY bad guys. I dunno, that's a gripe I have with the setting too. That plus, no matter how much you like the setting, WotC will never give it up, and one day you'll read what they did to it in nth edition. In my opinion, that hurts it as a setting. Retrospectively, it was not a coincidence that I kept going back to Violet- that entire enchanted kingdom is not on the normal map.

Ok, here's an example: in world of warcraft, they had what's called the Cataclysm. This is the big plot event that happened in the span of two hours when the servers were offline upgrading to the new expansion. When you logged back on, everything was different- the plot had suddenly advanced about five in-game years. In an MMO, plot-time is fleeting, of course, but you finally found out the epilogue for all the "purge the demons from the tree" quests (the demons, for the most part, were purged. Anyway, some of the areas changed which faction was winning- for instance, a lot more of Ashenvale, an elven forest, got cut down by the advancing horde. The forums were FULL OF HATRED for this, mostly by alliance who had spent some time there and were angry that their actions had done nothing. Of course, Blizzard was just telling their story, but... as a night elf exclusive player, it kinda pissed me off too. Even if the story for *my* character was supposedly different, the fact that the shared world changed in a way that I had no control over (which, of course, is inevitable) feels frustrating. Hence, the portions of your game world that were not straight out of FR were more appealing to me. Ultimately, I know that Eron continues in that world, along with the rest of his companions. In a standard FR game, I don't even know if I would buy that, especially if we started running a 4ed game after some stupid fucking plague that changed all of everything again for no reason.

Short version: Any setting done by someone else will change officially, and any epilogue you tell about it will sound like fanfic. Your own fucking game world, no one can fuck with.


Fire pixie thieves will find you shortly. They'll leave you with nothing but your wings and a prayer.


I don't think that "champion the forces of law" is a very compelling argument to your party, lets just say that.




An active spot check against DC20 detects the presence of an active invisible creature, though not its precise location. Because he was actually moving (slowly) and was very large and not at all subtle, I gave you a more precise hint for his location. Essentially, you spot a shimmering, but can't pinpoint a square.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/spot.htm



Perhaps it is also invisible and flying.



He's the half elf sorcerer who is sort of scared of elves. There were, however, two elves, so he mostly kept to himself.



So, years ago, I was auditing Eddie's character sheet, and I said:

Wait, what the fuck is this?

And I passed it around. Everyone agreed it said:
Bettermint Head

We were like, what the FUCK is that.

At some point, Eddie remembered, like a year previous, beheading a particularly loathsome mage. He mentioned he took the head.


I didn't realize he meant like, under his arm, for the next five years of in-game time.



My only sadness about the arrows is that it will be my campaign that they destroy, not yours.



You were on the road for weeks, and she had fresh expensive food, including cheese! What, is she the Poisoner of the West Teryeal Road? "Have my poisoned crackers and soup, I've left a swath of dead behind me! All will eat well, and die!"



That's more a lesson that two six year olds shouldn't hatch a plan. Impa should have sort of figured something out, being that she's ostensibly wise, and that is her only job in life, of course.



Typo.



Pff, you got to memorize spells for the night, you should be good to handle it. It's just orcs.


Well, more like help break you of your addiction, you frail little butterfly. Lets see how long the new cleric takes to look up the turning rules, because those are super intuitive.

Nice.

Let's just hope the IRA doesn't surge and find a way to get pissed with us.


Well, we don't have anyone planning on being a tank. That's a problem in itself, but it makes sense that no one will be wearing medium or heavy armor. Similarly, if you buff some druid spells no one will be using those either.


I was still planning on bringing my hammock and sleeping from the rafters.


Any adventure appropriate for 19th level characters will involve something seriously awful that should capture his attention, I would think. And there's always a known hero at a level that should care and be able to fix the problem.

As for altering the world... screw that. They can't very well come into my house and change my books.


I'm not very religious.


Excellent. Law sucks balls.


So mage heads don't keep, huh? I should jot that down.


I figure between the arrows, the illusions, and my charisma I can get one hell of a party together. The only real question is whether I use them on the rest of the party while they're sleeping.


I assume any female will always be more evil than her evil male counterpart in one of your campaigns.

Also, should I ever be tricked into playing a cleric, I will search all the books for "Trade your ability to turn/rebuke undead for..." and take it. I don't care if ends with "...a tuna melt." I just don't want to be bothered with it.

Won't Keichi eventually be wearing some heavier stuff? Maybe not full plate or anything, but he could definitely benefit from something heavier than just a chain shirt.


I can't wait to cast Enlarge and Invis Purge on you. Or maybe Baleful Polymorph and turn you into Orchid.

So long as you invariably understand that you won't remember to do that.

I am pretty sure Keichi has his eye on Ninja types...

Try it, fairy.

Don't tempt me, talking rock. I am exceedingly unstable.

Anything that doesn't have its feet (or maybe pincers, in your case) firmly planted on the ground is the very definition of unstable.

Ed Zachary.