May 1

Arriving in Myth Drannor on the 13th of Eleasis, the eighth month, the party immediately made plans to travel to Hillsfar. They knew that Hillsfar did not permit non-humans into the city, but that was all they knew. After teleporting a couple miles outside the city, Marchosias went ahead to scout out. Shortly he returned and said he did not believe it was possible to get the Signy and Sunny into the city. However, he did pick some pockets while there and offered up 50gp of the takings.

Eron, Tyrone, and Yenrab headed into the city. Marchosias would have stayed with them, but he volunteered to stay with Sunny and Signy in case they needed to send a message.

The walls of Hillsfar are huge, dark, and ominous. They encountered Red Plumes at a guard shack outside who told them about Demitown, the small town a few miles west of there for demi-humans. The three were allowed right in, and they found the city to be large and crowded. The Red Plumes are both the army and guard of Hillsfar, so cleverly named because of the red plumes on their helmets.

Hillsfar is ruled by the Council of Seven, with the leader or delegate of each of the Seven Great Families sitting on the council. The head of the Council is the Prime of Seven. There is a lot more detail about this but no one ever asked. The ruling families are Colten, Marlone, Lews, Orlens, Gorrast, Pingston, and Reygis. Gregor Colten, the man who died in Myth Drannor, was the younger brother of Edwick Colten. The walls and hills divide the city into seven wards, each ruled by one family.

With a half-assed effort at gather information, the three learned that something prowls the city at night, causing innocents to disappear. The attacks have happened throughout the city, but primarily in the Orlens ward. There is also something else in the night. It calls itself "A Dark Shadow" or "Shadow Dark" or something like that. It has helped people, but no one has determined who or what it is. With regard to Edwick Colten, he has not been seen in some time. He is the head of the Colten family, but his nephew Harold has been acting as his delegate for several years. The rumor is that he has been traveling Faerun. Or perhaps he is a leper. Or perhaps he has been kidnapped and Harold refuses to pay. Whatever the reason, the largest tower of the Colten home was bricked up except for very narrow slits and stairs were added outside the tower.

With this information, the party got together in the Lazy Bear Inn in Demitown. Demitown consists of permanent, well-built structures, but most of the people are transients. When caravans come in, any non-human members must stay here. No one wants to live in a town that only exists because some people can't enter the real city. The party also learned that the owner of an other inn, the Demi-Duck, may have a tunnel into the city. Instead of taking that option, the party turned into birds and attempting flying in because no one ever saw that clever ploy in a world with powerful wizard bent on destroying their enemies. As they came within about 20 feet of the wall, the party discovered the protection of the city against impure races. Three blasts of black lighting struck out at three birds. The damage taken was not awful, but it alerted the Red Plumes on the wall. The party decided that three was not the number of blasts they might have expected and that perhaps they should try again the next day. Based on what birds had been hit, Eron determined that Marchosias was probably not entirely human, which he had really suspected for a while.

After a brief conversation, the party opted to wait a day, rememorize some spells, and try out the tunnel. The Demi-Duck was run by a half-elf named Dresnalin, and the tunnel wasn't cheap. It was 10gp per person into each ward. They splurged, got zapped in the tunnel (though out of the view of the Red Plumes), and came up into an inn in the Colten ward called Moonsea Moonshine. They they turned into birds and flew into the tower of Edwick Colten, thinking to save him from the evil grasp of his nephew Harold.

Instead, they found undead Red Plumes, a wolf, and a vampire by the name of Edwick Colten. They were close to negotiating to the sword, and hopefully they learned some lesson about putting ranks into various skills. Instead, there was a nasty battle that would have been way more fun for me if someone hadn't banished the wolf to the elemental plane of fucking magma.

Finally, the vampire was forced to take a gaseous form and return to his coffin, which was inconveniently located in the adjacent room. The priest used searing light to finish him off. A quick search revealed the sword Pinebough. Having removed a villain from an unkind city and acquired what they needed, they bashed a hole in the brick wall and flew out above the walls as a gay wyvern and some other fliers. The crowds below were startled, and someone managed to shoot a fireball at them, but with that and three bolts from the walls, they were free.

They returned to Myth Drannor, and found things in bad shape. Nonetheless, a party of elves was ready to escort them down into the gigantic hole in the ground. There were ten priests and twenty rangers, prepared to get them to the bottom in a state where they could fight on. Six elves lost their lives, but the party arrived, opened the door, and dropped down below.

There they found the four heroes who has supposedly given their lives. They didn't look dead. They look like they were painted in gold light, but otherwise perfectly normal. They were forming some sort of shield with gold light, and they had been waiting for reinforcements. They expressed some concern over how long it had been. It seemed like they'd been waiting for weeks.

The shield was to keep back the horror on the other side of the cavern. It was a large, pulsing sphere of absolute horrid, vile darkness. It had thick tentacles reaching out and holding it in the center of the portal opened behind it, a doorway into the gray void of the Astral plane. This is emitting the the black motes of disease and corruption, and there is a crack in the golden shield where it is leaking through. At the suggestion of the four, the party hit it with everything they had. It tried to destroy their bodies through disease and blasts of power as the party tried to destroy it. The party won, and the little piece of darkness cooled and died as it fell back into the Astral plane. As the portal closed, the gold light dissipated, and the four heroes picked up their weapons. They were quite surprised to learn 40 years had passed, and they had a lot of catching up to do. They had not aged while they waited for reinforcements to arrive.

Returning to the surface, things were clearing up nicely. There were still many wounded and far too many dead, but the cloud was gone and life was returning to Cormanthyr.

Ilsevele, the Coronal of Myth Drannor, at first spends some days with her sleeves rolled up. When things are under control, the meets with the party to honor them. They were made citizens of Myth Drannor, making them unique among non-elves. Six of the Great Oaks will be planted in the region that was most damaged, and they will be named for the party. She says, "I noticed that five of you bear the emerald hearts of the Moonshaes, something that only the noblest of men would be given. I also sense the little harp of Those Who Harp, again a mark of noble men. There is also a hint of silver fire about you, a power which I cannot fathom. You have the backings of great forces, and now you shall have one more. As you have healed our land, so our land shall heal you. You can feel the pulse of the Moonshaes through your emerald hearts, and Cormanthyr is not all that different, but ours is an older, more subdued sense. It exists down in the deepest roots of the oldest oaks, oaks that were old when the elves first came here. Please, kneel and accept my blessing. Olinsara and Satorin, please."

A spell is cast on them from the priest Olinsara and the wizard Satorin, a spell combining both arcane and divine magic. It is ancient and powerful, spoken in High Elven. Even Eron does not understand most of it. When it is done, Ilsevele appears somewhat older and exhausted. It was obvious she sacrificed some of her life force to power the spell. She spoke again, "You have my deepest thanks, and that of my people also. Well met, and let the wind be always at your back in your continuing journey."

After training for a ridiculously long time, the party was ready to proceed. Lankyforpot contacted them and mentioned he had some ideas on where to go. He later contacted them and mentioned tht he had to find out through back channels that they had saved Myth Drannor. "Thanks for keeping me in the loop, assholes." Eron and Sunny visited Lankyforpot where he told them what he had learned. He has been developing a network among the places of research in the world, and he has seen some small activity asking about Thay.

This is the history lesson he provided.


He was very excited because they have an "in," or so he thought. The governor of Corvit is currently Tomas Valence, Eron's brother. Eron mentioned he has never met his brother, and that his parents fled Thay because they were turning his brother into an evil SOB. Eron isn't excited about this even though I think it'll be fun.

With that knowledge, the party debated whether they would free the the stone giants from the halflings they encountered before. The party is just about to enter the huge cavern in the Underdark on the third day of Eleint, the ninth month.



Note: I changed my mind about the healing thing. I had been swinging back and forth on stuff, and I swung very far forth around 11pm on Saturday. It is not a free action , 1/day. It is a swift action, 1 / 3 days. In most times the difference between a swift action and free action will be negligible. However, you only get one swift action in a round. It is otherwise the same as free. Sorry to change things after the fact, but you'll get over it.

Have I mentioned that Marchosias loves his new sword? That was a wildly convenient series of die rolls, on both our parts. If we ever travel to that quasi plane, I'll make sure to thank the wolf for failing his save.

I'll also mention that the sword, by itself, caused about 400 points of damage over the course of the night. The other sword (short sword) did about 100. Marchosias is pleased with his prowess, and has reminded himself to use Greater Invis more often.

It simply reminded me that I need to stop making treasure decisions between midnight and 2am.


Quite honestly, it's a bad weapon. I know it sometimes does awesome things, but because it is so highly random that it makes the party's performance in far more variable. A small change in die rolls can make you unbelievably powerful or not. Your average power goes up, but your "having a bad day" power stays unchanged. I base fight strengths off of the average, so your potential for disaster is higher.

In other words, high variability is bad for players, and this is very variable. The party has to win every fight. A bad group of NPCs just has to win one to ruin it for you. You are the top ranked school going into March Madness. If everyone plays as expected, you win. As things become more chaotic, the odds of a Cinderella team wiping you out becomes higher.

Or just say this... The winner is the one with the highest roll. Roll 10d8 (you) versus 10d6 (bad guy) or 10 x 1d8 versus 10 x 1d6. The average roll is the same, but the variability is way higher in the second one. You want to be the 10d8, not 10 times 1d8. You're depending on just a couple of rolls for maximum power.


Anyway, that's just my ramblings.

As a creature that's deeply engrained into Chaos (like how deeply traditionally conservative Palin is, say), Marchosias adores it. Sure, it's not the best weapon when deciding (in a min/max capacity) what's going to benefit a character or party the most, but until it severely screws over Marchosias badly enough (like forcing him to stand in front of the doors of the doors to a temple of Tyr while it's being assaulted by followers of Cyric) and/or consistently enough (three straight days of rolling Lawful Good while in Waterdeep when there's a convention of blind, gimpy rare coin collectors in town), he's going to want to keep it and use it as much as possible. It's the absolute perfect weapon for him. He's gotten lucky with some die rolls (the two 7s), but it might just be beginners' luck.

At least your mom isn't stalking you...

Very fun evening.

I'd be much more worried about my dad stalking me....

Good point, Hellboy.

Oh, I'd use it too, I'm just pointing out that with any luck, you'll all die because of it in one way or another.

FWIW, of course, you can always choose not to critical. In this case, that happens BEFORE you roll damage or the d8. You just say "Oh, I threaten critical, but I don't want to."

I don't know exactly why, but I have to say that was one of the best gaming nights yet. So much fun, and good job Zemmy.

I have to keep wondering what would have happened if PAR banished the sword of the hell of being cut to pieces...

I do wonder what it would be like to be a vampire though... Maybe next campaigne.

Right, and you crave cupcakes WITHOUT the icing. *blue shakey head*

Every so often, if the icing is holding a major quest item, then I might do without.

And I will need to have some sword-swallowing wolves in the future.

Along with some bearded ladies and juggling monkeys?

I thought something funny was up with that, but I didn't suspect the magnitude of the luls.



I pretty much hated them on sight, for what it's worth. A more chaotic neutral wizard would have toyed with them.



Well, if the wizard with 4 cross class ranks is your best gatherer of information, you have to admit that we have all the social skills of a drunk 17 year old.



In fairness, you can't polymorph an army unless you have an army of wizards. Defending against an army of dudes with fourth level spells cast on them isn't normally something to be concerned with.



This bit made it ALL worthwhile.

Eron has another experiment to try with Marchosias too. This one the rogue might even like.



QUASI elemental plane. And don't look at us, we didn't stick a 7th level spell as a proc on a sword. Maybe next time we can just have it proc Otto's Irresistible Dance 45% of the time instead!



Seriously that sword is the coolest item in the group, and I'm saying that as the wielder of the second coolest one- and the staff is baller.




I didn't specify the sexual orientation of the wyvern!

However, now that I know I can, fuck making them into female birds. I'll make them into GAY birds. That's way fucking better.



This was one of the more pleasant surprises, by the way.



This was a boring, but still interesting, fight. How fast can the party burn down 1000 hit points? I'm interested in who was the most valuable in that. My belief is that it was the cleric, because he kept so many going after they would have dropped, followed maybe by me because haste was fully effective in that situation- though my damage as a hydra was a very low compared to the rogue, fighter, and monk. It's interesting to wonder what could have been done differently. Heroism, perhaps.




Heal self once a day as a free action is fully amazing. Her sacrifice is pretty damned epic.



If nothing else, this should be really interesting.

You also forgot to mention the side trip to Violet. But, what happens in Violet, stays in Violet, right?



We should take this time to discuss if we are going to just walk in as ourselves, or mock up as something else. We could be gnomes from above, for instance, or drow who happened up on it.




Aha! Yes, this is substantially weaker now. Free and swift are VERY different, unless you meant immediate. I think it is much better as a swift.

Swift- Only on your turn. Only one swift or immediate in a round.
Immediate- At any time, even in response to other things. Only one swift or immediate in a round.
Free- At any time, even in response to other things. No hard limit, though enough free actions can be ruled to no longer be free (talking is a free action: reciting the pledge of allegiance is not).

If I still had the magic-nullifying weapon, I'd have some experiments to try on you too, Rainbow Boy.


You earned a couple of points back with that quote, but you're still in the hole. And it's not the hole the rest of us usually play in.

Ok, basically here's my question:

Is your type Outsider (Native)? In other words, are you an outsider, as you would be if you are a tiefling? There's like four different ways to be part demon/devil or something. This is important because it means I can't cast say, Enlarge Person on you (not that I normally want to). It also means you are immune to Charm Person, and Dominate Person. It also means I can Polymorph you into slightly cooler shit. For instance, I can turn you into a Hezrou, which has a nice stink attack! Or a Monadic Deva, if there's some electric field that we need someone to be fully immune to. You could grapple as a Barbed Devil, or gain Pounce as something else I forget. The point is, Polymorph becomes a better utility buff (and power) buff for you than for the rest of the party, because it can't make a non-Outsider into an Outsider.

Oh, and I figured out the best way to get into the city:

1- Invisibility on the entire crew. We won't be attacking.
2- Get as near the wall as comfortable. We need to be within about a mile. We pick a spot that is preferably near trees and can't be seen from the wall.
3- Polymorph someone into an Umber Hulk. Umber Hulk burrows, we all follow.
4- Silent Image on the mouth of the hole. Maintain Concentration until Poly runs out, then do it again. The umber hulk can get over 2000 feet on one casting, so pack at least 3 Polymorphs.
5- The rest of us chill in the tunnel. Invis runs out, but that's ok.

Still use a bunch of spells. Have to tunnel underneath the walls completely. But, uses less spells, and doesn't put the folks with the tunnels at risk.

Though, being a wizard walking out of an inn with "muh pidgeon croo" was pretty great.

Why is that? I mean, a half-elf is only part human, but as far as I know, entirely susceptible to those spells you listed.

Jeebus, can you imagine me enlarged, with Greater Invis, sneak-attacking constantly?

Ok, creatures have a type. Elves are "humanoid". So are humans, dwarves, gnomes, drow, etc. So you can Charm Person (which requires a humanoid target) any of them. If you have a spell that deals extra damage versus undead, that looks to see if the target has the "undead" type, which all of the undead do.

Things native to other planes are called "Outsiders". There's a list of things that are true about them, like that you can't resurrect them because their bodies and souls are the same thing (monism), and you can banish them. Things like Aasimar, Tieflings and Jann that have separate bodies and souls (dualism, like animals and humanoids and giants and most stuff) are Outsider (Native), meaning you can resurrect them, and can't banish them. But you still can't charm person them, because they aren't humanoid. And if something explicitly deals damage to Outsiders, it works on them. Generally, being Outsider (Native) is a good thing, and that's why it's one of the things you get to represent transcendence at the tail end of some prestige classes, and the monk gets that too.

One of the things Polymorph looks at is your starting type. You can't become an outsider unless you already ARE one, via clever parentage, or the Planetouched feat (which lets you get that without losing a level, but doesn't have the other cool things). Some spells turn you into a demon or angel temporarily and you can then chain polymorph on top of those, but it's not like the outsider forms are THAT good.

And Enlarged Greater Invis is like 6 extra points of damage per round. Hasted Greater Invis is like 20 extra. If I enlarge Signy or Sunny, their damage, which is more based on their weapons, scales better than your +sneak attack. What we all want you to have is the most possible attacks, because your sneak attack is the big hitter. If we could reduce your weapon damage from 1d8 to 1, in exchange for another attack, we'd totally do that.