This room is somewhat like an alchemist laboratory but the equipment looks very unfamiliar even to Alzar. Knives, scissors, surgical tools and such adorn the place, and there are a few metal tables, with one having a human male strapped to it. Near it stabs a large, horrible, grotesque creature on ten legs, with an unearthly had, masses a short tentacles, and an oily membrane with four, yellow, bulging eyes.



Alzar has never heard of, nor seen this monster before. He prepares by ordering Dryhik to Mist Ball it, and the true form of the Gingwatzim to attack it. Everybody else is ordered back.

Mist Ball. Failed. Gingwatzim is nearing it. It Magic Missiles the Gingwatzim for 14 damage. It has arrived.

Next turn, The Brain Collector wins and stabs it with its claws, and they go right through the Gingwatzim (can only be hurt by magic). It tries to hit the Brain Collector. It misses. The next turn, the Collector goes first. It starts to run. A Mist Ball flies in. It fails the save, takes 4 damage and it is blinded for 3 turns. Alzar orders everyone in, in case the Gingwatzim cannot finish the deal . It hits, and the Brain Collector loses 3 strength, and is now at -1 to hit and damage. It makes it saves and is not paralyzed.

Alzar’s dagger enters its head for 5 damage. Dryshik flies in and misses with its claws. The Gingwatzim misses. The Brain Collector swings.

The Brain Collector swings and misses. Alzar slaps it for 4. Estaish adds 4 and Aleigha adds 5. The men at arms hack at it for 4 damage. The Gingwatzim hits for another 3 strength -2 for it now. Made its save.

Alzar hits for 6. Aleigha doles out 8. A man at arms adds 3 and it dies.

XP – 200 each

They search the room and find:

100 gold gem
200 gold
Shield
Sword

They move back and take the last door from that small corridor. In enters into a large large room. There is a door to the right and another to the right-front. It is outfitted as a complete alchemistry laboratory with long wooden tables, a myriad of wood shelves, with glass and metal containers, pipes, flasks and such of numerous make, and purpose.

Suddenly, the doors shut magically, and cannot be opened, and a black mist begins to fill the chamber. Everyone except Alzar and Aleigha fall asleep. They begin to dream

Estaish dreams that he is running away from a tumbling boulder, and he awakens just before he would have been smashed.

The three men at arms dream of the boulder, that all plantlife will take over the world, and that he was captured by lizard folk, but released by a kind magic user. They all awaken. The doors are openab;le again.

The room reveals a ton of money in lab equipment, and if Alzar has a free bag of Holding or two, he could grab a ton of stuff for his own, but he does not. They go up, and it ascends to a trap door in the chapel that they must have missed. They return and open the other door, which opens into a corridor that goes forward or left along the wall to the lab. They go left and hit this door in front of them. Inside is a huge mound of treasure 10’ high by 10’ wide and by 40’ long. It’s huge! It appears to be a large part copper and silver though. Like normal, Alzar orders in Dryshik to investigate and sees nothing but coins. Alzar stabs it with his staff and it recoils like he just hit a slimy spongy monster for 5 damage. Suddenly, the mound of treasure begins to move. It looks like a giant worm of some sort, with armor out of treasure? Odd. Alzar orders everybody out, and they may return, but they are banged up, and the door is way smaller than the worm.

They are out and they go back and try the door the other way. The only thing of note in this room is a 10 foot deep sunken pit with a thin glass sphere floating in the middle of it, and inside is a large silver key. Alzar orders everyone back, and again, plunges his magical staff into it, and it smokes a little. He pulls it out, tears off a bit of cloth, and drops it, and it dissolves. Alzar grabs the chest from before and the empty ceramic flask, fills it, and then melts the lock off the chest, and they get the items, plus the second silver key. He refills the flask. The sphere is small, and Dryshik is easily able to gather it, drop it on the surface, and then bring the key to Alzar. It is identical to the other two they have.

They search, find nothing, and move to the next room. Inside is a pentagram surrounded by a circle in white paint. An amber colored candle burns at each point. There is a hunting horn of amber on the wall, and a movement in the darkness in the center of the pentagram. You can see a 10’ tall humanoid covered with dull grey scaly skin, a hairless gaunt body, and ivory fangs. Alzar studies the horn and takes it. He orders everyone to retreat, despite the pleadings of the creature within to help it, and it will give them its treasure.

The next room in this section has dusty shelves and the appearance of being empty. A search finds nothing.

Next to it is a room with the sound of yelping dogs coming from the door. Alzar skips it for now. They find another room with a 10’ wide pit and 6 ghouls! Alzar orders them to follow his instructions. They agree.

Whew. This pit leads to an underground cavern where the Land of the Ghouls is. Not too shabby. Alzar orders them back and they go to the worm room now. They open the other door on the other side, and see the worm. Alzar orders the ghouls in first. Then everyone else is ordered in.

The worm attacks first and misses a ghoul entirely (rolled a 5). The six ghouls can all attack at once, and do so. It takes ten. A dagger flies and hits for 4. Everyone is in and Alzar orders everybody to attack away from the head and jaws, except the ghouls. They win init. Aleigha hits for 7, the men at arms for 7 as well. The ghouls hit for 9. It eats a ghouls, it just crunches on it and eats it. 5 ghouls left. It wins init and crits a ghoul for 18 damage and it dies. 4 left. The ghouls deal 12 to it. Alzar adds 4 and kills it. They search the room and find:

50000 copper
10000 silver
3000 gold

A bunch of weapons and armor. They take up way too much space, so Alzar magic piles now, them and everything else found, drops the non-magical stuff, and keeps the magical stuff. Nothing in here was magic though.

They go the room with the barking and open it. Inside is a quartet of chained hell hounds. There is nothing else in the room, and Alzar orders the doors closed just as the first fireball is breathed. They just make it without taking any damage.

The go to the last room in the far corner from the entrance. The door opens, and inside, on the south wall, is a 10x10 silver gate on a wall that has a hallway on the other side. The gate has three large keyholes. In front of the gate is a giant lion made of amber.

As they move in, it animates and moves towards them. This is an Amber Golem. Alzar makes an INT roll at half INT. He orders one ghoul in to fight it and distract it, and pulls out +1 long swords for the men at arms. It will be impervious to Dryshik’s balls since it can’t see, doesn’t breathe, and is immune to poison.

The ghoul is killed and Alzar orders everybody in, carefully. Just as it pounces, Alzar fires off a Ray of Ondovir. It hits and the golem fails its save and is forced to sit there, pounced, for one round while everyone swings at it.

Damage dealt: 21 damage. They sheared off a lot of amber. One man at arms missed. Alzar draws the +3 staff of annoying ness during this.

Next round. Init rolled. Alzar swings and misses. Aleigha nails it for 4. The men at arms swing well (12, 11 and 12) but miss. The Lion attacks and kills a man at arms. Next round, They win init again Alzar nails it for 8, both Estaish and Aleigha miss, and both men at arms hit -0 one crit for 11 and the other for 4 and the golem is dead and breaks into a lot of amber, weighing just a few hundred coins, but worth 5000 gold.

XP -1000 each, inc soldiers

Alzar has three keys, and inserts them all. The gate whirs open and a magical portal appears beyond it. They enter. They arrive at a room and find a potion, sword, ring and mirror. Alzar follows the instructions on the scroll. The Ring is put around the hilt of the sword. The blade is coated with the potion. It is swung and hits a mirror. The world grows dim and disappears and reappears in a room with double doors to their rear, and doors to the right and left. The double doors won’t open. They open each door, and there is a path of air and one of fire. They choose the path of air. As they move, a familiar sound is heard and a Wyvern flies overhead, but it is not attacking. They hit another room, with two more doors, one into earth and the other into water. They take the muddy earth and several mud men animate and follow them, but they do not attack.

It opens into an antechamber and a stone giant tells them to prepare themselves. They then step forward, and open the door to Etienne D’Amberville’s tomb.

There is an ornate mahogany casket in the center on a raised dais. There is a candelabra with burning amber candles, and a tapestry that depicts Etienne, founder of the Amber clan, assassinated by his son, who took over the group. Carved into the casket are the words – Burn the tapestry to break my curse. Alzar does so, and the lid opens, and a skeleton body begins to turn into a human one, as muscle, sinew, and skins are added. The man stretches and then gets out and thanks Alzar. They reappear in Castle Amber, and several of the D’Ambervilles here can be heard crying and shouting in the distance. Etienne changes the castle slightly, so that it snaps back toThorasia, while leaving behind those D’Amberville family that are from here. He also restored life to the dead man-at arms. The gold and items from the castle are gathering into chest and sacks carried by the three ghouls, three men at arms, the main crew, the bags of holding, and that vat turned to walking bank.

They emerge into the dawn, at the same time they left, and the Castle is behind them, but darkened. They walk down the hill, and Alzar gives each men at arms 350 gold as thanks, even though he doesn’t have to give them anything at all. He also gets back his magic swords. He has had his sight restored by the trip.

Shortly thereafter, they meet the group waiting for them farther down the hill, but everyone has seen the return of the Castle and thinks everything is alright, but Alzar just waits to speak with Cousette D’Amberville. An hour later, the ghouls have fled, and all of the things they recovered hidden. Cousette thanks them, and Alzar asks why, since her whole family is now in another land. She looks at him shyly and says, “Because you broke the curse on my father.”

With that, Cousette tells Alzar where his wagons and such are, and then she collects several things, and in an half hour, has been seen for the last time ever in Thorasia.

And with that ends Castle Amber.


(I changed many things. I removed the outdoor and towns, and reduced Stephen’s tomb, and reduced the rewards in several places ,like the antique jewelry and magic items the party gets for rescuing Stephen. Since I removed some of the danger, that only made sense to me. I also dropped the XP in a few places, but it still felt like a ton of XP was handed out here.)

XP – 2870 each, except for Alzar, who got 16220 into 17842

Current XP –

Alzar – 50,960 (Level 6)
Estaish – 10035 (Level 4)
Aleigha – 14450

Estaish now has 31 hp

Gold: 56500 after gifts and exchanges.


Gem – 100x3, 500, 10, 50; jewelry worth 1500 and 1400
2000 gold in a small case of gems
800 gold for a tiny human shaped figurine of onyx
5000 gold worth of Amber
12,000 crown jewel – chick was de-magic jarred when leaving the place.

Total Gold: 58000

Alzar gives 2000 each to his fighters.

Alicorn
Gold Dragon Skin and Scales


No more Javelin of Lightning, Wand of Secret Doors, Potion of Undead Control, Used charge on Belt, Alzar and Estaish used healing pots.

Magic Pile – “D’Antoigne” – Long Sword, +2, Int 9, Ego 11, Wil 22 AL N – Detects Magic, Finds Traps and Detects Sloping Passages; Potion of Control Plants, Snake Staff, Broom of Flying, Ear Ring, +1 shield, Scroll of Fireball, Locate Object, Special Effects, Ice Storm, Wall of Fire. +2 Bastard Sword, +1shield, Horn of Demon Dismissal – 2 charges.


Alzar grabs the +2 splint mail armor he paid for.

At level 6, Alzar will be adding a new level 3 spell to his roster. He’s also dropping ESP as a spell since he can use it once a week as an ability. He learns Special Effects - a fourth level artifice spell that will add a permanent sense to a room. You can give it a permanent smell, taste, feel, look or sound, and that can be anything you want it to be. Unlike illusion, this is a permanent effect.

Alzar is gaining Vampiric Touch and Empathic Control for ESP.

At level 7, in 60,000 XP, Alzar will have a serious power bump, the first of three such bumps. Gaining 4th level magic is where the fun begins. At level 8, he can use all of his fighter stuff again, and still gain XP. He’ll be able to use his axe, gain a -2 AC bump, and attack once every other round, get a higher THAC0 and deal a lot more damage with his axe mastery. At level 9, he will gain the ability to cast level 5 magic, and if he can find the Animate Dead spell, he can make and use zombies and skeletons.


He does some research into the powers of an Alicorn. He just is aware of its ability to help prevent he user from getting poisoned. In a week, he has also discovered:

It can be made into a bunch of healing potions.
Upon direct contact with any poison, it changes color for a bit.
If powdered alicorn is consumed – cure poison, disease
It’s actually a +7 save vs poison, not +6, sorry


There are rumors that certain spells cast on or in combination with an alicorn greatly increase their duration and/or power. There are numerous recipes for magic items, scrolls and potions that need an alicorn.


After a week of healing and research, Alzar converts 53000 gold into 50,000 gold worth of ten pieces of jewelry.

5,000 gold left
50,000 gold jewelry

Okay, I’m getting ready to begin my mega-Isle of Dread campaign. All modules are in, and everything looks ready to go. Here are the modules, in order:

U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
X1 Isle of Dread
UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave
X1 continues
I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan
X1 Finishes
XSOLO Lathan’s Gold
M2 (or MSOLO2) Maze of the Riddling Minotaur
The Final Confrontation with the Big Bad

It’s possible I may add another one or two at the end as well. I might also move some modules here or there. Ready?

After a few days, Alzar is approached by a business associate of Cousette’s who had asked her to look into an issue in a town his son is the mayor of down river. They’ve been having a problem with a local haunted house and Alzar’s help would be greatly appreciated with that matter. Since he just took out and brought back Castle Amber, surely a little haunted house wouldn’t be too much of a bother? The man offers to pay Alzar 1000 gold, up front, just to check it out, and consider it.

Alzar takes the gold.

6000 gold left

The man sends them on a ship down river. The town is about four days south of Chonae. Alzar and fellows get on a ship, load the wagons, and begin to set sail for the town of Saltmarsh.

U1 – The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh





This was the first of the UK TSR branch modules, and designed for lower level characters, but I’ma make a change or two to bring it in to where we are playing it. It is designed to work with U2 and U3 in a trilogy, but I don’t own the back two, so I’m just going to roll this. It was rated the 27th best adventure of all time, so you get a chance to see another great adventure in place. The timing of this module, at this time, begins a long super-module-campaign thing I intend to do to link together several modules.

Present and Ready, Sir!

Awesome!

Very much enjoying the ride, especially when Alzar gets to showcase his evil side.

I've read this all in the last two days and it is excellent Abe. Between this and a couple of the more RP-based WW games, I need to find people around here that are into RPGs so I can start to play.

Thanks all!!!

Yes, very good stuff. I enjoy reading and following along on his adventures while I'm at work. :)

Glad you've got something to do during the day :)

The town of Saltmarsh has about 2000 people in it, making it much smaller than Regalsford, the first place Alzar bunked up for a while so long ago. The river here is flat and wide and slower and very deep – it can take ocean bound ships all the way up to Chonae to the north, and all the way south. This town specializes in fishing the river and makes a lot of money from the wealth of the river. There are also a few loggers here, cutting and timbering logs in the nearby forest. There are also some farms on the outskirts. The place is relatively quiet, all things considered.

The ship arrives, and Alzar, party, and things are dumped here. It leaves tomorrow for the rest of the journey down the River Storm. The Mermaid’s Gullet is the only major inn here, but there are a few smaller ones. They rest in the Gullet and get lodging for a few days. There is a town council, led by a mayor. Alzar has a meeting arranged with him the following day. For tonight, they relax and enjoy the small town, although it is a bit big for Aleigha.

The next day, the mayor’s assistant, a short woman of 30ish, brings Alzar to the mayor – Rogart Battenbridge, son of Valza Battenbridge, who hired Alzar. He brings in Alzar and tells him the issue. For decades, about four miles up the coast, there has been this old house. There were strange sightings and rumors of ghosts and the undead lurking about. No one went there. However, recently, the ghosts have gotten worse. People who walk near there claim to have increased sensations of unease, and strange lights have been seen there at night.

The previous occupant was a mage of sinister reputation, and most believe that the dead man may be haunting the joint, or that his creations or evils have gotten the best of the place. The house is unwholesome to the eye and long abandoned. In fact, despite the fact that all of the land inland is great farming land, no one grows anything there.

Alzar agrees to check it out today, and grabs Estaish, Aleigha, and a few horses and heads out.

The house stands on the cliff top 70 feet above river level and 80 feet or so from the edge of said cliff. There is a stone wall just a bit higher than Alzar’s head, and has partially collapses revealing an old well, and probably what was once a garden. An old stone cobbleway leads through a beaten but still working gate to the front door. There is fallen plaster, a chimney on top looking collapsed, and numerous evidences of rodent and insect infestations. There are a few holes in the roof which appear to penetrate into the house. Alzar orders everyone to be careful.

The front door is old, but serviceable, and they open it. There is a musty, dirty entrance beyond, with a corridor to the left and front and right. There are also stairs leading up. There is plenty of natural light here from the ceiling. A chimney is collapsed. There are the chirps of mice and rats, and ants moving into and out of the entry way and back outside through a hole in the wall. A search finds nothing

There is nothing else in here of note, and they choose to go right (random). There is a corridor with two doors on the right. The first one opens into a large living area with a few bits of broken furniture and broken plaster. They search and hidden in the chimney in a small leather pouch holding a 120 gold amethyst.

They take the door to the next room from this one. The is much more fallen plaster in here than elsewhere, and it covers the floor. Another search is enacted and finds nothing.

Alzar decides to head back and try the other wing. There is a door in front, and one on each side. They start with the left door. This opens into a room that was once a library. There are a few bookshelves here and there, but they are mostly broken. There is a pile of 14 books in a corner. Alzar orders a search. Notjhing else is here, but he found these texts:

The Magical Properties of Gemstones
The Magical Properties of Herbs and Flowers
The Metaphysics of Mathematics

150 gold each, and all by major named mages that Alzar can identify.

They try the right door and enter a large study or writing room with a desk, broken windows, and damp rot in several places. There is a pedestal desk and broken chair. A search turns up a central drawer on the desk still locked. Just a bit of acid does the trick, since it is already damaged through disuse . There are documents, very old, that appears to be receipts and accounts. There is a vial in here as well with a rose coloured liquid.

They head back and open the door at the end of the corridor and reveal a very large living space, larger than any other room they’ve yet to see. There are old shredded carpets, a few broken shelves, a fireplace that appears to still be operational, and a door to the north that leads to a small paved patio, long since broken. They search and find a trap door under a rug. As they lift he trap door, they hear a voice from above telling them “Welcome fools, Welcome to your death!” and then some laughing. They shut the door and explore the rest of the first level. They take the last corridor

It has a door on the left, which is an old dining room with nothing much here but a rusted candelabra, and beaten chairs and a table. A search finds nothing, and they hear a few rats in the walls, but nothing else. The right door just after it has a stuffed and faded pair of armchairs, but torn or cut with the stuffing pulled out, and largely intact frames. There is also a shattered table. The dampness is less here – the windows are still intact, but show age. A search finds a large spider in the chimney, easily killed by weapons. In the chimney is a ring. There is a room at the end of the corridor and it leads to a kitchen area. It is dirty and damp, with patches of grey mould and a few cobwebs around. A few rusted iron utensils and a pot are found when the place is searched. Out of the sink come a few giant centipedes, but they are not attacking, just fleeing.

They open a door to the pantry and it has a damp and decay smell and stairs leading down into a basement. As they search the room and approach the stairs, they hear the cries of screaming and pain and torment from below. They find nothing else, and return to the main foyer to go up the stairs. They are worn, dilapidated, and creak loudly, but are serviceable enough, except for one split into two pieces.

They arrive in a corridor with a much damper, mustier odor than below. They can go right down a corridor with three doors or left to one with two and a branching corridor to the right. Right, and the first door. What was once a nice master bedroom now stands dirty, decayed, and mildewy. There are a pair of old, cracked, leather boots in a small bin, and a old, torn and ragged cloak still on a peg by the door. There is a yellow mold to the right, and Alzar kills it with an application of oil and fire, and then the dampness prevents the fire from continuing.

The next room may have been a fine guest bedroom, but is now as decayed as the rest of the house. Large beetles the size of a hand are eating the bedspread, but fly out through an open ceiling when they get close. A search turns up nothing. The final room is a dirty bedroom with worn floorboards that creak significantly. There is some rubbish in the fireplace, and more worn and old and broken and disused furniture. A search turns up a worthless chunk of crystal and a valuable chunk of feldspar – 50 gold. There are also some more rat noises from the walls in this area.

They head back and go into the first of two doors on the left. This is a fourth decaying bedroom with a set of boards on the floor that looks very unsafe. There is already a hole in the floor and roof. Alzar orders Megala and Dryshik to fly around, but they find nothing.

The final room on this side is locked. Now that’s interesting. A flask of acid takes it out, and it looks like a recent lock. Inside is a dirty, unused bedroom with a man bound and gagged and clad only in undergarments and devoid of any other items, clothes or equipment. Alzar reaches down and ungags him, and he thanks Alzar profusely. He says his name is Ned Shakeshaft and that he was a thief from a nearby town who entered this house at night last night, trying to find treasure that may have belonged to the previous owner, and was summarily knocked out and brought up here, tied and gagged.

Like he normally does, Alzar uses ESP t see the truth. Ned makes his save, and Alzar keeps him talking.

Ned fails. Ned is his real name, and he actually is a thief. Verified.

Round three – Ned makes save

Round four – Ned fails. He did come here last night, but he was not attacked, but tied up for some other reason

Round Five – Ned nails his save

Round Six – Ned fails. He was plated here by a local merchant to attack Alzar when the time is right, and kill him.

Well now, that’s rather interesting, n’est pas?

Alzar smiles at him with his new found knowledge. He pulls out his potion of poison, that has already has a bit used on the dagger. He shows it to Ned.

“Do you know what this is? No? It’s a poison potion. Someone may have made it to kill an adventurer that got too curious, or maybe they failed to make a regular potion – that happens sometimes. Perhaps they wanted a deadly poison for some nefarious purpose. Just a drop is all that it takes to kill someone. Just one drop.”

Alzar picks up the gag.

“All I have to do is pour a bit of this onto this rag, shove it back into your mouth, and leave you here.”

He then unstoppers the vial.

“Would you like that Ned? Would you like to be poisoned here, right now? After all, poison is the method of assassins, is it not?”

Ned rolls a die to see if he buys it or not. There is a local in the town who is employed by the Temple of Elemental Evil. When he heard that Alzar was coming here, he hired Ned to kill Alzar after pretending to be a prisoner. Alzar asks how much he was paid – 500 gold. Where is the gold? I get it after I kill you. That was not a smart deal. I assume your equipment is nearby? Ned glances at the fireplace. Megala flies into it and finds a dagger with an application of poison to it. Alzar laughs.

Now that is truly funny. I see fate has a sense of humor Ned. Would you like to be poisoned by your own blade? Alzar investigates the poison. (He makes his roll). I would have expected more than Carrion Crawler venom from you, Ned. That would just paralyze, not kill. Is that so you could make your way with me later, Ned?

Alzar puts the gag back in Ned’s mouth, they search the room and find nothing, shut the door and leave this wing. They head to the right corridor and find two doors. The first is yet another old bedroom. They had a lot of large bedrooms. The mattress is torn and stuffing is coming out, and mould is over the walls and floor. A search finds a pouch with 4 diamonds, 25 gold each, in the mattress that had not been found yet.

They hit the next room and it is a storage room, although very large indeed, Inside are an oak chest under an intact window, and numerous shelves, and old bits of mops, brooms, and supplies. A search turns up nothing but a few old rattered clothes in the chest.

There is an open area at the back and they head out to check it out. Suddenly, a flock of Stirges see food from outside and fly through an open window and a collapsed corner of the building.

22 Stirges fly in, and Alzar orders everyone back and grabs a skull and casts Skulltrap. Unfortunately, he is caught in the blast and takes 23.

28/51

The Stirges all die and Alzar animates 6 corpses and leaves 16 for later, and has 6 animal skeletons now.

A search of this back part finds nothing. They head back down, and then take the secret door down (that’s always the plan)

This is a room unlike anything else seen. Down here is a huge room, with lighted torches, a bunch of bunks and cots for tons of people, chairs, a large table, and comfortable fireplace. There are two doors out in the back. There are even shelves and casks of foodstuff all nice and neat. This room shows none of the wear of the rest of the house. Doors, or search?

They search. As they do, they find a secret door in the wall to the north wing of the house.

Just as Estaish is pointing out the secret door he found, suddenly the groups feels a spell wash over. Alzar and Estaish are slowed and move at half speed, Aleigha is fine. Bursting out of the two doors in the back come 12 soldiers and behind them, a mage with 7 images around him. Arrows fly and Alzar is crit’ed for 4 and takes another 5 for 9 damage total.

19/51

Alzar orders the normal speed animal skeletons to the battle front lines and Dryshik to maneuver and breathe on the tall male mage. The balls hits an illusion and one of the images disappears. Estaish and Alzar will take the last action this round, Aleigha draws her sword. The mage casts a spell that ignites all of the 10 arrows now flying towards them, and Alzar is down to 7/51, Aleigha to 19/28, and Estaish to 22/32. Alzar casts Sleep and 5 fall asleep. Estaish draws his sword and moves, slowly, forward. Their archers have now been based by the animal skeletons and Aleigha.

Aleigha slays an archer for 12 damage off a crit. 6 left. One animal skeleton pecks for 2 damage on one. Their mage casts Paralyzation, a powerful 4th level version of Hold Person. Aleigha is paralyzed, and Alzar is immune and Estaish makes his save. Dryshik kills another image. 5 left. Two animal skeletons are killed. Estaish swings and hits a soldier for 4 damage. Alzar casts Vampiric Touch and drains 11 from a warrior, killing her.

18/51

They win init and focus on Estaish and Alzar for 10 on Estaish and 5 on Alzar.

13/51
12/32

Their mage casts a spell and Alzar is now Blinded as per the Blindness spell. Happens a lot recently. Megala flies in and hits an image. 4 left. Estaish swings his sword right at a warrior and drops his staff. An animal skeleton pecks the wounded soldier for 3 and kills him. 5 soldiers left. Alzar casts Hypnotism, and it works on two soldiers, who are ordered to drop their weapons and sit down. 3 left.

The three soldiers swing and miss everyone. The mage, noticing that Alzar can cast spells while blinded and get up in front and take a lot of hits, is worried about him still, so he casts Phantasmal Killer at him, one of his most powerful spell. Luckily for Alzar, his +1 amulet to those sorts of effects just allows him to make his save. Estaish misses. Dryshik Mist Balls another image – 3 left. The skeletons miss. Alzar casts Charm on a warrior and he makes his save.

The animal skeletons crit a warrior for 2 damage. The soldiers hit Alzar for 7 damage. The mage casts Chromatic Orb, summons a blue orb to his hand, and throws it at Alzar. It misses and disappears. Alzar summons a searing serpent. Megala and Dryshik miss the mage. Estaish kills a wounded soldier.

6/51


The two soldiers left are told to focus on and kill both remaining animal skeletons. The mage tries a Sleep spell, none of Alzar’s team fall, and nods his head like he expected that. Megala hits the mage and not an image, but instead of dealing him any damage, a skin from a Stoneskin peels off. Alzar nails a guard for 7 damage. The Searing Serpent crits an image and kills it. 2 images left.

With just one guard left, and facing two imp-type creatures, a summoned creature, and two combatants still on their feet, and out of real spells, the mage casts a spell and disappears. Alzar orders Megala and Dryshik to the two exits in the back to cover them, but the mage secretly heads up the stairs and leaves.

The final guard is easily captured and tied up.

XP – 300 each

They add the weapons and armor from the guards to their magic pile. A search turns up another secret door in the bottom corner, cattie corner from the base of the stairs. They push into the door on the left in the back section. This is clearly the quarters of a person senior to those outside. The place is clean and tidy, the furnishings are nice, there are candles and so forth . There is a table with a small wooden box and a bullseye lantern on top. They start searching and find:

3 flasks of oil
A tinderbox with flint and steel
8 candles
Some books: a volume of erotic poetry, illustrated, worth 10 gold; a naval almanac listing tide times for the River Storm in this area (10 gold); a volume concerning mesmerism and lists effects. (50 gold)

They find a box under a loose flagstone. It is locked. They pocket it:

(Locked, trapped with needle trap, 11 pp and three potions of healing, another of speed.)

The next door at the back of the big common room is open. The door to the room is barred – from this side, and can easily be raised. Alzar orders everyone back and the bar is raised, and the door opened. It is very dark, but some torchlight bleeds through. Light reveals dingy and dirt- ness in here. Alzar begins to sense something familiar. He moves in with a torch and inside are 6 skeletons, moving to…follow Alzar’s every command now that they’ve been controlled.

These have 4 hp each. They search and both Aleigha and Estaish find a secret door at the back, which is quickly opened. It moves to reveal a clutter of old and broken glass and earthware, and some copper pots in there that appear to be intact. This may have been an old laboratory, nice and secure and hidden in the back. As they enter, they see that a bench runs the entire length of the floor and jars of powders and liquids and pieces of chemical apparatus are here. There is an L shape table in here, and a rich chair, with a skeleton figure. It wears a robe, embroidered with mystical symbols, and starting to fade.

The book sitting open at the table is:

Ye Secret of Ye Philosopher’s Stone – 500 gold – it outlines the process to actually make a Philosopher’s Stone.

There is a golden skull, full size – 750 gold; gold apple 150 gold; rose – 150 gold; a small set of five discs value 50 gold in total. They begin to search. They find 47 gold in a belt pouch. There is a stone in the skeletons hands, and at first, they think it might be a Philisopher’s Stone, but Alzar’s Alchemy check tells them its not. It is added to the magic pile bag by skeletons. , Suspecting there could be many things, they search three times for 30 minutes. They find a secret drawer with a spellbook inside, but it is damage by time and only about 5 or 6 spells are legible, and Alzar will need Read Magic for later

They return to the big room and go to the secret door to the right and enter a wine cellar, with steps back up to the pantry. At the bottom of the stairs are a human corpse clad in plate mail with a long sword and shield by its legs. His belt purse is cut and the things taken. As Alzar investigates the corpse, a group of 11 rot grubs emerge from the corpse and attack him, trying to burrow into his flesh.



Four hit him, and begin to burrow in. Alzar orders everyone back, casts blastbones on a small bones on his belt after pulling it off, and the tosses it on the corpse where the other rot grubs are trying to jump off. And it destroys them. The rot grubs are under his skin and moving towards his heart. He tells Aleigha to Cure Disease him, and she does. They die, and Alzar will live.

A search of the man puts the items and weapons and armor into the magic pile, and they find a 250 gold emerald in his boot.

They head back and take the second secret door out, and immediately take several stairs down. This is roughhewn rock and some natural and some artificial passages. They arrive at a large natural cavern with a green slime that falls down on a leading skeleton and attacks (and deals no damage). The whole thing is lit up after some oil. The skeleton does die from the fire, unfortunately.

5 skeletons left

A search finds nothing. They continue and arrive at another natural cavern with nothing of interest here, even after a search. They continue, and the caverns and caves are obviously descending into another cavern.

This is also a natural cavern with stacked casks and boxes and bolts of cloth. Around a corner from the other end of the cavern, snarling can be heard. They check and see five gnolls chained up and working on expanding the cavern with picks. Alzar orders them to stop, but they cannot speak Typic, but look violently at him. He would normally just fee them and let them go, but they are being unruly, so he skips them. The bolts of cloth are silk, and worth about 100 gold each. Alzar has them added to a bag of holding. A search finds brandy, weapons, unworked leather, and more. There is nothing of significant value though.

They leave and move to the other passage out and it is severely sloping, and Alzar pulls out the Rope of Climbing to secure everyone. The skeletons are fine – they weigh little. They arrive safely at another natural cavern with more cloth and casks here. A search finds two more bolts of silk at 100 gold each. The 10 casks of brandy in each room are taken and worth 50 gold each.

The passage continues and enters a cave which opens directly out into the river. Pulled up onto the sloping cave is a small boat, maybe large enough for 6 or 8 people. It has oars, a mast and a furled sail. They continue to search, and find nothing.

Alzar totals up their findings:



Gold - 102

Amethyst – 120 gold, Emerald – 250 gold, Diamond – 25goldx4
7 bolts of silk – 100 gold each
10 small casks of brandy – 50 gold each

Golden skull, full size – 750 gold; gold apple 150 gold; gold rose – 150 gold; a small set of five gold discs value 50 gold in total.




Books:

Ye Secret of Ye Philosopher’s Stone – 500 gold
Concerning Mesmerism and Lists of Effects – 50 gold
The Magical Properties of Gemstones - 150
The Magical Properties of Herbs and Flowers - 150
The Metaphysics of Mathematics - 150



Spellbook: Affect Normal Fires, Find Familiar, Conjure Spell Component, Fools Gold and Animate Dead


16 stirge corpses left.


He has 5 skeletons.


Magic Pile: Pot of Neutralize Poison, Ring of Pro +1, Plate mail +1, Cursed Luckstone -1, 3x pot of healing, 1x pot of speed

They arrive back at Saltmarsh, and the only local cleric gladly cures Alzar’s blindness as a thank you and reward. It appears that the men and mage were there as smugglers, and they were using the house’s reputation as a place of horror and hauntings to stay there, enchanting it with odd light shows at night and those screams and cries.

They are thanked, and for a few days, rest and heal up, and then the mayor comes back to them for a follow up mission, for 500 gold each.

Although the land-based operation of these smugglers has been squashed, there must be a major vessel on the River Storm or the sea beyond that is conveying the contraband and at large. They might seek vengeance, they might set up another post – who knows.

500 gold per person, and he will have some local guardsmen patrol at night, looking at the River for signs of a ship moving in to the house. A small fishing vessel will be put at Alzar’s disposal and they will wait at night, ready to attack and hit the ship. They will be out on the water, away, “Fishing” each night, and then when the signal comes from the shore that the right ship has arrived, they will take a small boat to that ship and try to board it, and capture or eliminate those on board.

Two weeks pass, before finally, one night, a passing seaworthy vessel slows, and then the shoreman sees it trying to signal the shore. He drops a pebble into the teleport jar he is keeping, and Alzar and his group see it, and move off. The skeletons are quietly in the wagons ashore, as are the16 animal skeletons – guarding the three wagons.

They approach from the river side, not the shore side, figuring that gives them a smaller chance of being noticed. The rowboat gently meets the ship, and Alzar’s Rope of Climbing makes a good, knotted, climbing rope that will keep the ship and boat moored to each other. They begin to rise, when suddenly, a passing patrol notices the boat, looks over the side, sees a group of people, and shouts out an alarm.

Alzar dashes up the rope onto the deck and suddenly, sailors begin to pour out of the hull and onto the deck.

Alzar casts Sleep and 7 fall asleep. An arrow flies down from an archer in the crow’s nest and Alzar orders her to be Mist Balled. She takes 5 damage and is blinded for 2 rounds. Several more powerful men emerge and start swinging swords, and suddenly, Alzar takes 15 damage from magic darts that pour into his back from someone coming out of the other deck. A mage likely. Aleigha and Estaish are on board. Alzar moves to fight the mage, and Aleigha and Estaish are sent to the four people at the end of the deck looking for a fight.


36/51

Aleigha and Estaish use this round to close. The mage casts Web on the area around Alzar, but he slides right through it (Ring of Free Action). Alzar reciprocates with a Charm Person spell, but it does not even affect the mage. Megala claws the blind archer but misses.

The next round, Estaish takes 5 and then adds 4 more from two hits. The female mage sees Alzar still coming, smiles, and casts lightning bolt – Alzar takes 28 damage with a save for half an the save…it failed. Alzar arrives and casts Vampiric Touch. She takes 14. Aleigha kills the last chump looking one for the group. Alzar orders Dryshik back down here to Mist Ball the mage next turn. Megala swings and claws the blinded check for 3 damage and kills her.

23/32
22/51

Alzar wins init and hopes, casting Ray of Ondovir on the mage. She fails her save. She tries to cast Lightning Bolt again this turn, but unforutantely, she actually has another memorized and casts it again. It only half hits Alzar, since she has to cst it at the same angle as before, and Alzar takes 14 after another failed save. Dryshik Mist Balls her, but she makes her save. Megala flies down. Both Estaish and Aleigha miss. One of the captains drops his swor,d and another skewers Aleigha for a crit for 13 damage.

8/51
15/28

Alzar wins init and is dying, and without a Vampiric Touch lifeline, he needs to save himself, so he jumps overboard. Megala flies down and misses the mage. Estaish nails a swordsman for 10 damage. He takes 7 and Aleigha takes 6. The mage leans over, cannot find Alzar, and instead casts a spell to protect her (Stoneskin).

9/28
8/51
16/32


Alzar sees her turn away from the water through Dryshik, and emerges. He uses the Belt of Flying, and while he is flying back up, grabs his Wand. He aims a cone of paralyzation at the fighters, and two fails their save. Aleigha also fails her save. Estaish stabs out and hits the non-frozen one for 4 damage. Dryshik breathes his final Mist Ball at the mage and she fails her save, and a skin is destroyed. She takes no damage, but she is still blinded for 3 rounds. Megala swings at her and misses badly.

The man still swinging nails Estaish for 6 damage.

10/32

Alzar swings a dagger at the mage and hits her, peeling off a second skin (5 skins left). Megala hits for another. (4 left) and Dryshik is ordered to gate in more mephitis. He fails. Estaish nails the one left for 9 damage, and that guy hits back for 6. Estaish yells to Alzar for help and retreats (no healing pot).

4/32

Alzar tosses Estaish a pot of invisibility and flies in front of Estaish while he drinks it and disappears. He casts Hypnotism and the man fails his save. He is asked to drop his weapon and sit down, and does so. Megala and Dryshik both try to claw the blind mage, and neither can hit. She will be unblended next turn. For now, she stabs out and tries to hit one of the flying creatures, but misses.

She comes too, sees that everyone is asleep or dead, Alzar and the impish creatures still around, and casts Polymorph Other, turns into a griffon, and flies away. Alzar lets her go as he focuses on the boat. They kill the sleepers and paralyzed ones, and ask the captain to hold out his hands while he is tied up.

Okay, they have just killed or driven off all of the bad guys at once, so instead of having them go room by room with those descriptions, I’ll just tell you what they found.

On corpses:

200 gp gem, 100 gp gem
Gold necklace – 60 gpx3
Earings – 50 gp setx2
Gold ring – 75 gp, another 50 gp
Gold bracelet – 75 gp

Keys


They find provisions in the galley stores of meat, beans, flour, ale, salt and such. There are sails, sailcloth, ropes, extra wood, nails, tar, and other accoutrements of ship sailing.

They find the corpses of 7 Sis’sharr in a room down here, recently killed. As they enter, a small pseudodragon flies over and away, fleeing from the party.

1000 ep in a chest in this room.

The mage’s quarters had silver bowl, carafe and goblet worth 400 gp as a set. They find a scroll with one spell on it.

They find a document in the captain’s room required more weapons from the smugglers contact. The captain has two pots in his desk, under lock, and labeled. There are sea charts on here, and one points out their destination for either smuggling or acquiring items. An island right by location where, supposedly, is the Isle of Dread! More notes show that the items are contraband because of their connection with several evil areas in the south islands in the sea, and that they are being sold to bandits and orc tribes in the local area, instead of the town and such.

The next level of the Sea Ghost has the crew’s quarters and cargo hold. They find 90 more bolts of silk, and 304 casks: 81contain brandy, 219 fine wine, 3 scented soaps, and one salt. They are worth 50 each for the alcohol, 100 each for the soaps, and 10 for the salt.

15,480 total for silk and other items.

They enter the Bosun’s cabin and find a locked chest with just some grubby clothes and 200 silver. They find a secret door and enter a room with a prisoner, a man captured by the smugglers, and chained. He is still asleep, and Alzar gently wakes him and then casts ESP.

The prisoner was a spy for a large town at the mouth of the River Storm by the sea, and was employed by the town guard there to sneak aboard the ship as a new crewman and find out what was happening. He was caught and jailed, for later interrogation most likely. Alzar confirms his story and undoes the chains. He thanks them, grabs some of the grubby clothes from the Bosun’s room to clothe himself, and heads up to get some air. They will join them when they are done.

The mate’s cabin has a few books of note – Principles of Navigation and Legal Distinction in Letters of Marque, and they are worth 10 gold each.

A locked box holds 500 silver, and is opened by key.

Knowing a secret room is behind the first room of identical size, they search until they find another. In here are a bunch of weapons – morning stars, broad swords, small shields (10 each), and 20 javelins.

None will detect as magical later. They will later gather the non-magical weapons and armor from those dead and add them to this room’s weapon storage. Alzar also adds the silk and casks from his bag of holding to the cargo hold.

Alzar uses Blastbones to clear out a bunch of rats.

XP Total from both adventures: 700 each, 770 for Alzar

Gold from this one: 550 total, and 500 gold each to Alzar, Aleigha and Estaish


Silver bowl, carafe and goblet worth 400 gp as a set
200 gp gem, 100 gp gem
Gold necklace – 60 gpx3
Earings – 50 gp setx2
Gold ring – 75 gp, another 50 gp
Gold bracelet – 75 gp




Used Wand of Paralyzation charge, Pot of Invisibility, charge on Belt of Flying


Magic Pile: +1 broadsword, +1 long sword, Scroll of Gust of Wind, Pot of Cure Disease, Neutralize Poison

They get the ship sailed back to Saltmarsh about 10 miles away, and the spy leaves to go back and report.

Alzar has gained the Sea Ghost.

The man they captured was the captain, and he tells a lot about the shipping, but he does not know everything. They were taking a contingent of Sis’sharr to a secret location as part of another deal, and then the Sis’sharr became unruly when they discovered that they were instead being abducted as slave labor, and revolted and had to be killed by the mage. The spy and the Sis’sharr would have brought a nice price at the destination, in the south isles. The captain knows the seas and operation, but he does not know the players, although he does know that his mage, Ketah, and the one from the house, Lastia, are two of the major players. Another reason why they were smuggling, instead of just trading, was slavery is illegal in this part of the world, and a third reason was they wanted their destination to be kept secret from the mainland.


For the next three weeks, Alzar gets the Sea Ghost remodeled back at Chonae. He takes the old mage room, but it is quite spacey, and converts it into his traveling library and lab. He adds a small cask of purple moss, and spreads the rest in the sea cave at the house. Aleigha and Estaish are given the Bosun and Mate’s quarters on the third level, and the secret room with the prisoner is used for the storage of their most valuable possessions from their wagons. Their personal effects are put in their room. Alzar has locks added to the doors.

Alzar memorizes some ESP spells (and of course Dispel Magic, one a day to hit a spellbook) and uses them to hire a new crew. Captain Regash Whitemound was a respected captain who lost his ship to a storm recently, and Alzar hires him. They also hire a Bosun, Mate and some sailors, all recommended by Regash, and turn out to be fine men and women after a quick ESP. They convert the quarters used by the sis’sharr to the new Mate and Bosun quarters (they will share it). The captain will get the old captain’s quarters. They buy some new foods to make the long journey, stock with more supplies. Alzar spends 1000 gold to get everything in working order and hired. He sold their wagons and horses to make the money. They can always go back.

They grab the boat from the sea cave, giving them two row boats. Originally the ship had two, but one was left there for the use of those in the house.

Alzar sneaks his skeletons and animal skeletons into the back of his room, and covers them with a curtain.

21 animal skeletons, 5 skeletons are there.


He successfully memorizes Animate Dead from the spellbook found.

They still have some space in the cargo hold, so Alzar purchases some basic trade goods. 10 crates of tools, and 5 crates of local foods not normally found elsewhere, plus a crate of seeds to grow them.

Total cost – 1000 gold

Since they have a trade ship anyway, they might as well swing by the places in the south and see what will sell. Plus, there are tariffs of 25% in the local towns and cities on the River Storm, and Alzar doesn’t want to lose that much gold if he doesn’t have too.

During the two weeks down the River Storm, and then out to sea, Alzar has cast Dispel Magic every day once, and is now ready, after 40 Dispels, to look at the 4th level evil tome:

4th Level “Evil” Spells:

Contagion
Enervation
Fear
Phantasmal Killer
Bestow Curse

Delayed Magic Missile
Putrefaction
Ray of Oblivion
Rain of Terror
Greater Malison
Merald’s Murderous Mist
Disfigure


Fear, Phantasm Killer, Delayed Magic Missile and Rain of Terror are not allowed for Alzar because of banned schools. Bestow Curse is the reverse of Remove Curse.

Disfigure turns a targets Charisma to one after scarring, giving them boils and pock marks, etc, if they fail a save. Permanent.
Putrefaction will spoil all food, water, and holy water in a 20 yard cube, no save for any of it.
Ray of Oblivion will cause a spellcaster to forget a random spell they know
Greater Malison is not a save, and enemies get -2 to their saves for a combat
Contagion is a disease, Enervation is a temporary Energy Drain


Alzar learns:

Ray of Oblivion
Greater Malison
Bestow Curse (and can be cast in reverse form)
Contagion
Putrefaction
Disfigure

X1. The Isle of Dread




This is easily one o the single most interesting and influential modules of all time. It is the third and final one of Tom Moldvay’s major hits, and scored a spot at 16 on the Top 30 list, and I’m not sure if that was a miss by a few spots, since this is so good. Because it was packed and included with the Expert Rules box, it had a very wide distribution, and is a great example of wilderness campaigns, a great setting, and more. I am giving it the plot of U1 in order to get Alzar there with a ship, but you could do that in many ways. A few years ago, they made a giant 12 episode of Isle of Dread called Savage Tide, but it only spent about 5 of those chapters in and about the island. It changed the monsters and characters into third edition, and also added a module to the island – The Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan. I will be doing likewise, and also adding several others in and around the island.

Sample journal page from the scrolls, assembled back into a journal.





Here is another raving note:

Very cool roving base of operations. Given your "screening" ability to hire a crew for the ship, this seems like it could very well be the perfect setup for you during Alzar's adventuring days. Maybe not quite the calmest foundation for a labratory, but a heck of a lot more versatile than a wagon.

Yeah, the Sea Ghost is going to be his fora while, so might as well enjoy it.

After a few weeks at sea, with little encounters, they are approaching the archipelago where the Isle of Dread supposedly is. The weather has been nice, it’s the calm time of year, but sailing has been slower as well. Few monsters have been seen, and they have been at a distance or ignored the boat. The rats on the ship have been mostly killed by Dryshik, who likes to spy everywhere and on everyone, and report back to Alzar what he saw.

They near the south isles and many islands are on the map, but many more are simply missing from the area. It is not well explored. As we get closer, there is a decision Alzar needs to make. He can make for the Isle of Dread, find a spot to land, and resupply and move out. Alternatively, Alzar can sail to the place on the charts from the previous captain, pointing out their destination at a long and narrow island, no more than 20 miles wide at its widest point, but more than 100 miles long, and curvy. It is 90 miles east of the Isle of Dread and could be a nice place to explore and see what is going on there.

After some conversations with Capt. Whitemound, they decide to check out the supposed smuggling spot on this long island. It will be three more days to reach, and then sailing along it until they hit the spot.

Nothing stops or slows them, and within 3 days, they are at the island, and two more sees them sighting a small village. Maybe 500 people live there, with a modest docks. It is one day away from the smuggling spot, so Alzar orders the Capt. to land, and they have arrived at Sybar.

UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave





This is the first of the UK series of modules. I have quite a lot of them. It’s not bad, and should be a nice little diversion from the main plotline. It is the series by the TSR UK offices after their well received U1-3 series.

They stop off at Sybar briefly, a fishing village, and then continue on to the spot marked on the map, and sail into the harbor. A quick check shows that it’s been abandoned for a couple of weeks at least. Likely, they got word that someone was coming and/or the gig was up. Without an obvious lead, Alzar and his familiars berth, check the area, but find nothing in the houses. They grab the anchor, and head back to Sybar for now.

Sybar is led by the local cleric of Tangaroa, Goddess of the Sea, Wind and Water. There is a local shrine to her here. Sybar is an unknown village, off the beaten path, but local ships sailing in the area stop here occasionally. The natives look like the natives of The Hook Isles, with their darker skin and open faces. They warmly great the sailors and people. Alzar orders a few days stay here so people can get a bit of arrest after a lot of time abroad the Sea Ghost.

There is no inn here, since there is not a lot of traffic. There are some huts that have no one currently living in them, and they are provided as guest quarters for a price. They have not seen the Sea Ghost before, which is a bit unusual, because they get the same three merchantmen over and over again, and have not seen a new vessel in some time.

This area of the island is relatively quiet and tame, but after about ten miles in each direction, the island turns very nasty, very quickly. They are on the north coast of the island. Other than fishing, the main crop here is olives, grown just inland from the village, plus a handful of flocks of goats. There only other major food in the area is breadfruit, which grows on local trees without aid, and is harvested when it ripens, and the climate is such that they are ripening all year around.

They have some breadfruit, cooked, as part of their meal here, and Alzar thinks it is delicious, and squirrels away a few of its seeds.

There is some modest elevation on the island as the land turns to low rolling hills. At night, over a central dinner than many of the Sybar citizens come too, a local bard tells the story of a local legend, where two people, one a local south islander brown skinned person and another a swarthy olive skinned one from Chance found each other near Sybar, and established an estate a few miles from here, where they loved together in happiness and love. They created a magical garden as a symbol of their love. It was enchanted by their magic into one of the greatest sights you could see. Then the local lady died after a long life, and her wizard husband placed new enchantments on the garden to protect her and it from the outside world, and to preserve what they had. And to this day, the garden lays untouched, just a few miles away from Sybar. Everybody in Sybar holds the garden as sacred and in reverence.

Alzar mentions that he would like to see it. One of them agrees to take him, Estaish and Aleigha tomorrow to the garden so that they can see it for themselves.

In the morning, their guide mentions that a young couple from their village ran away to visit the garden, a few years ago, and were never heard from again, so be careful.

The hike here takes about an hour and a half. The garden is on top of a small hill, and in the shape of a giant ellipse, about half a mile long and about a third of a mile wide. There is a very large wall, about 20 feet tall, around the whole thing (Alzar can see from the sky by his flyers), and there appears to be an invisible wall on top of the wall, because Megala and Dryshik cannot fly into the garden, they hit something that prevents them from doing so.

They check along the whole garden, and find it similarly shielded and walled in from above. They fly around and fail to find any sign of an entrance or exit, or any flaws in the walls. Looks airtight! Alzar orders them to fly up high and get another look, and as they do, Megala sees something odd over to the size, and quick fly down finds an old cave opening at the base of a hill two hills away from the garden. Just a cave? Or something more?

Alzar thanks the guide and tells her she can go back home, but they’d like to spend a bit of time here looking over and thinking about the garden. She agrees and moves off. Alzar tells Estaish and Aleigha what he saw through Megala and they agree to see what’s there. They grab torches and light them (Bag of Holding)

They enter the small natural cave and the tunnel quickly widens to well over 10 feet across, and after a hundred feet or so of a gentle curve to the right, enters a cavern 40 feet across and 25 feet high at its tallest bit. While this does appear to be a natural cave, it is not a limestone cave that has been around for centuries and centuries. It appears to be one carved out by a river or lake underground. There are some animal tracks in this cavern, but nothing is found, even after a search. The cavern has two exits, a low natural smaller tunnel to the right and a much larger one forward and across from the entrance. They take the small one.

The tunnel quickly bends sharply and after 50 feet or so arrives sat a smaller, rounder cavern. It slopes down a bit and the rock is slippery and jagged. The floor is flat and bare, the walls are black and smooth and rise about 40 feet. This cave is not natural, unlike the rest of the place. Any step in here echoes and echoes. Inlaid on the floor in a white alabaster is the rune for “Ask.”

Alzar asks a question, how to enter the garden, just on a whim, but there is no answer. Ah well, worth a try. A search finds nothing and they return and take the large path out. They arrive at a decent sized cavern, with two smaller tunnels to the left and right and a major one going forward-right-ish. As they walk in, sand and rocks from the cavern fly out and start pelting Alzar and his fighters. Alzar looks around, sees nothing, and tries a gamble. He tries to reach out and control whatever is moving things around. It failed, but he could tell there was something there. The rocks and sand stop moving, and the presence moves off, scared a bit by Alzar’s power and command over their kind (it was a few poltergeists).

XP – 100 for Alzar

They go left after a quick search. The tunnel slopes down, does a 180 and ends at a small slightly wider and much taller room. There is a clearly visible patch of something slimy and ochre colored here, and Alzar orders everyone back for a second. He pulls out the Oil Flask, tosses it on the moving slowly creature, and it dies.

XP – 200 for Alzar

They search and find nothing, head back to the cavern and go right. It actually 270’s into a curl and enters in another small, barely larger than the tunnel end room. In there is a dead corpse, looks to be of a fighter. They search and find:

22 gold
150 gold gem
Jeweled Gold Amulet - worth 230 gold
Boots, sword and dagger, helmet, armor – all taken for magic pile later

They move forward and the tunnel wraps one way, then another, and finally, after some time, arrives at a large natural cavern – the largest once they’ve seen by far - maybe 50 or 60 feet long and wide, and 50 tall. There is a large pool of mud in the middle and right wall, but unmuddy tracks all around the left side. The mud appears to be fed by a stream coming from a tunnel beyond it. They search the room outside of the mud, and find a few dried mud mounds and beneath them are the bodies of two adventurers. They find:

26 gp
Gold Ring – 30 gp
Dagger, Short Sword, Chain Mail, Shield
Boots
400 gold gem

How did these adventurers die under mud? Looks like something is up with the mud. Alzar takes his staff and pushes it into the mud, and suddenly 6 mud shapes, vaguely humanoid, start to rise from the mud. Alzar prepares a Blastbones, since they are all packed together at one end. Before he does, a few start hurling mud and Estaish is nailed. He is slowed, as per the spell. Alzar finishes the spell, tosses the bone, and it triggers, doling out 5 damage. One dies. More clumps of mud fly in, and Aleigha and Alzar are both hit. Alzar orders Dryshik to Mist Ball one, but it is immune to poison or blinding.

Alzar throws his dagger at one and misses. Estaish and Aleigha are moving to where the mudmen are. They are pelted again with mud, and slow even more. Eventually, they will be so caked with mud that they will be unable to move. – and that may be what happened with those adventurers!

More mud flies, and Alzar is hit twice more, and now moves very little. Estaish stabs out, slowly, but still manages to kill one. Aleigha would normally have hit, but she is moving too slowly and the mudman manages to dodge. Alzar throws his +1 dagger hoping to nail one. Success, and he deals 3 damage and kills one. One mudman launches itself at Estaish and merges with him. Estaish is completely immobilized by the extra mud.

Aleigha is missed by a launching mudman. She manages to hit and kill another. Alzar is moving towards the battle. The next round, Aleigha is completely immobilized by two more hits. Alzar has arrived. The next round, Alzar is pelted with mud, then staffs a mudman for 7 damage and kills it – one left. It lunches itself, misses, and Alzar kills it as it reforms. They spend a half hour getting off the mud in the creek, and are wet, but un muddied.

XP – 150 each

They cave heads up a bit and along a stream and hits a section with a pool in it, just a few feet wide and deep. The floor has an irregularity here. They find some uncut stones in the pool, currently worth 10x2, 15, 20, 25 and 40, and could have those values increased by ten times if properly cut.

The tunnel bends and arrives at the largest chamber yet. This is a majestic chamber, and the flames of the torches flickering against the wall cause a myriad of multi-colored lights from this crystal cave. There is a waterfall that causes drops of water to shine, and a pool in the center of the room, from which the stream flows into the mud. There is another stream to the west that takes the rest of the water, and it appears to have not carved much, just a small 6 inch high hole in the wall. Megala flies down and sees nothing down it.

The pool is only about 8 inches deep at its deepest. There appears to be something behind the waterfall – a cavern extension, perhaps? There is also the hint of lilting music in the chamber as well, but as Dryshik flies up, it gets softer, but louder as they near the waterfall. They enter the pool, push through the waterfall, and enter a chamber, carved by man, not by nature. It bears a pretty mosaic of birds and trees, and a long stone couch and table. The crystal cave from here is even more beautiful and breathtaking. There is an alcove here, with nothing else. As they search the area, Dryshik enters the alcove and is teleported above. Alzar can see through him the garden. These portals…

Alzar and the group go into the portal and have arrived in the garden.

Dryshik tries to fly up but cannot. Neither can Megala. It appears that flying has been stopped in here.

They find themselves standing inside of a 20 foot diameter ring of large toadstools, and standing in a small grassy clearing in the woodland. Seated on the toadstools are five small diminutive figures with grins on their faces. One of the leprechauns suddenly polymorphs Alzar’s staff into a parasol, and they all laugh. Alzar nods his head in greeting. He suggest that they polymorph Aleigha’s sword, and they try, but fail, and he chuckles at them, and then they join along. His staff is restored, and they welcome him They are glad for more people to play with. They tell Alzar that the garden has many different areas that are the home of various creatures, and this is their woods. To the north and east are the satyrs, and to the south are the dryads. They are near the wall, perhaps a few hundred feet from it. They are in the middle of a stream that runs from the area, and it goes all around. Alzar asks them if there is anyone else in their woods, and they tell him no, but the Green Man will come through and tidy the woods up.

They walk to the stream and it’s really a river, about 8 feet deep and very colorful fish and plants all along the bank. The leprechauns tell them that it winds forever in this area of the garden, in and out of circles, and has no beginning and no end. The leprechauns tells then that this is the border of their woods, so come back if you want! The dryads will charm people and turn some into slaves, so be careful!

There are bridges north and east, and nothing to the south. As they walk along the river they begin to notice a large shape in it. Before long, they can make out the serpentine shape, it may be a dragon-uish creature, but it’s like none they’ve ever seen. It stays in the river and swims away after a moment of eye contact.

They leave behind the river after crossing a bridge each and follow a path into a place where the beautiful trees open up. The whole garden thus far has been a beautiful spectacle of color, beauty, and life. They soon hear the sound of panpipes and lyres being played, and four satyrs can be seen on a small clearing, on stools made from rocks.

They are very upset that Alzar and his group are here, in their wood and disturbing them. He apologizes, and says they are new here, and wondered about the lay of the land. In order to get rid of him, they tell him the truth – To the east are a meadow for the centaurs, southwest are dryads and they should go there and say hello, to the west are the leprechauns, and to the north is a rocky outcrop with some natives there. They look at Aleigha for a bit, but she is not beautiful enough for them to try and entrance, so they are told to move on. They return to the river and follow it north until it turns back west. Soon they hit a trail that skirts the meadow in the center of the garden, and see one path to the rocks, and another into a denser wood.

Alzar chooses the rocks, and then follow the trail north. This is a rocky outcrop and there are some grasses and heather, with ravines and rocks. The path follows up a rocky hill. They see a cave , and as they approach, they hear a roar and out fly a pair of firedrakes, ready to attack.

They both breathe, but Alzar and company only take 2 hp from each attack due to their fire resistance.

28/32
24/28
47/51

A throwing dagger stabs into one for 5 damage. They swoop down. They attack first, and one crits Estaish for 10 damage with its claws.

18/32

They all miss. A Mist Ball flies in and the drake fails its save, takes 3 damage and is blinded for 2 rounds. They win and the non-blinded one tears into Alzar for 7 damage. He hits back for 4 damage, Estaish drops his sword and Aleigha misses

40/51


Alzar smashes again for 4, and Aleigha hits for 4 and this one is down. The blinded one stabs out and manages to hit Alzar for 3.

37/51

It is no longer blinded, and bites but misses. Estaish and Aleigha both hit for 11 damage and it dies as well.

XP – 300 each

After they die, Alzar orders the pyrophoric blood cleaned off. They move into the cave and search. There are three gems worth 120, 50 and 40. There are also two firedrake eggs here, very warm.

They leave. The follow the path back to the woods and into the deeper woods, and move along the path. They see a few bears, but they do not attack the party, and move off. They continue on the path and leave behind the deeper woods.

The path emerges at a stream, that appears to flow into a big pond in the middle of the garden. They can see a giant meadow on the other side of the pond, and the stream has a bridge and roads that continue. There appear to be structures up ahead, and a large fountain a few hundred feet up the stream.

While here, they head up to the fountain. It has several statues, and waters comes out, and makes the stream that flows into the pond. The water is clear and clean. On the base of the statues it says “Fountain All Heal.”Alzar decides to test it (since he is the one least likely to take damage from a poison). He leans down and drinks a bit from the fountain.

All of Alzar’s wounds heal, and his lost XP from that one energy drain attack long ago are restored! (That was 2500 XP now back). However, the water has another effect, and it attempts to charm Alzar. He rolls and makes it easily, and is unaffected by the water’s charms, but he knows it is dangerous and they move on.

Alzar gains 2500 XP – 51/51 again

They continue on the path, and it forks and goes to more woods and the structures. Alzar chooses to head to the woods along the wall. As they do so, there are many fruit and berry trees, and they ignore them. They come across nothing here, and the path leaves the woods behind. It continues along the wall and passes a steep bank on the right, which has a path that goes up to it. At the base of the bank is an opening, and they go to explore it. There are beams supporting a wooden lintel with dog-rose and a nice cozy feel. The open room has tables, chairs, jars, alembics, tomes, and more and it is quite brimming with items. As they enter, they see a tall green skinned man, with a fur shirt and shorts and moccasins. The Green Man is upset that they killed the firedrakes, but he can see that they were attacked first. He is also upset at Alzar’s demeanor, and kicks them out of his place. They continue along the path and re-enter new woods.

Shortly along the path, Alzar and company arrive at a place where the path bisects a grove of gnarled oaks. There is large amounts of mistletoes around these gnarled giants of the wood. As they move forward, they see a large tree overshadowing the path, and in its roots is a sheathed sword with a gem encrusted hilt.

As they get nearer, suddenly, two large branches from the oak jumps off and try to hit Alzar. He is surprised, and they get a chance to hit him. One misses and the other hits, and begins to exude a powerful poison that paralyzes and lignifies. He makes his save vs poison this round, but it pinned by the large branches. Both Estaish and Aleigha manage to kill the other one that misses by dealing15 damage to it off a crit by one of them. The next round, Alzar makes the save, and the branch is missed by both Aleigha and Estaish. The next round, Estaish hits for 3 damage. Alzar makes his save, Aleigha drops her sword, Estaish for 10 damage. Alzar makes the save, Estaish hits for 7 and kills the branch.

XP – 100 each

The oak is denuded, and then chop it down in order to get to eh sword. They find:

Black-Opal Pendant on a gold chain – 1250 gold in a leather pouch
Sword, +1, Neutral Evil, Ego 2, Personality 16, Detect Good


They continue on and enter an area where a Treant, approaches them, and asks them to leave his area, because they damaged a tree. Alzar agrees, and they continue on and out of the woods entirely. They cross a bank and see a cave. Curious, again they investigate. Just inside is a large grotto with a pond inside. There are two giant frogs that leap out and attack. These are not too large, and they are killed in one round.

XP – 50 each

They search and find a shield.

They leave and have finished a circuit of the outer walls of the garden, except for the dryad woods, which they avoid. They head north to the meadow, along a path that leads down from this bank.

They continue into a meadow with beautiful flowers and buzzing insects and birds. The path is nice and wide. They see some Centaurs from a distance, watching, them, but they continue and leave behind their area. They skirt the lake, and decide to check it out.

The gravel bottom of the lake slopes gently away and appears to be crystal clear and beautiful. There are more brightly coloured fish and from this angel, they can make out a small building just under the surface of the water. Alzar is able to move about freely and breathe underwater, so he swims the 150 feet there, and heads underwater to check it out.

As he does, he encounters a family of giant otters who try to play with him, and are surprised by his ability to swim and move freely underwater. He makes a whirl with his staff and sends a few small water jetties at the children and they look like having fun, and move away.

There is a landing platform at the base and it appears to be three levels high. In fact, the giant otters lair here in the open space on the third floor, and they come up and play again as Alzar swings by. The ground level is flooded, and there are stairs up. There are holes from the lake. A quick search finds a concealed door, and behind it, an armory. There is watertight seal on the door. Inside are the following:

Short Composite Bow
6 arrows
Dagger
Hollow Metal Tube with two scrolls and two wands inside.
A small wooden box with holds three vials with a potion in each
Two rings

Alzar tries to identify them.

The bow is +1 and that’s all he can identify right now. He puts it all in his Bag of Holding. He leaves and comes back out into the flooded chamber and goes up the stairs to the next level. This is dry, and has the otters lairs. He nods to them, and plays with them a bit, and them goes up stairs to the top floor, and finds nothing here but furniture, even after a search he goes back down, again plays with an otter or two, and then leaves and heads back out. He rejoins Aleigha and Estaish and they continue to move.

They enter another meadow as they move towards the three structures on the east side of the lake. As they reach the road, they suddenly hear a galloping sound from two of the walled areas and out gallop two unicorns at full speed at the party, with horn lowered to attack. They are surprised, and both get a free charge attack in. One completely misses, and the other nails Alzar for 15 damage.

36/51

The next round has arrived. One hits for 4 on Alzar. All three with weapons miss. The other unicorn misses as well.

32/51

Alzar thumps a unicorn for 5 damage. Estaish adds 4. One nails Alzar for 5.

27/51

They attack and Alzar is critted for 8/

19/51

He casts Vampiric Touch on one and deals 9. Aleigha kills the damaged one after hitting for 9 damage.

28/51

Alzar nails with the staff for 6. The unicorn left misses as well. Alzar adds 5, Estiash 4. The uni hits for 8.

20/51

They kill it off. Alzar cuts off their horns again, tosses them into his bag of holding, and finds two pearl encrusted collars, each worth 3000 gold. Aleigha is not happy with these killings either, but at least this time they attacked first, and clearly out of the blue.

XP – 425 each

They head north into an enclosure, and this appears to be just a wall around a yellow rose arbor. It smells nicely, but nothing is found. They move south to another similar arbor, for red roses. Again, pretty and nothing else.

The final place is a large enclosure with a maze in it. They go in and move left from the passage, then can go left or forward. They go forward to circle around and stay close to the middle, and the path 180s and 180s and they are in the middle.

In is a sun dial in the middle. There are four impressions in the shape of garden plants that can be placed in them. Alzar makes an INT check and realize they need to find the plants, and return here with them and put them in the right place. One is clearly an oak tree leaf, and another is clearly a shamrock and a third is clearly mistletoe. Aleigha identifies the last as the leaf from a dog-rose.

They leave. It’s a quick walk to the area where the Green Man resides and a leaf from a dog rose taken from his door area. They go back to where they fought the tree spirits and find oak and mistletoe here. They haven’t seen shamrocks since they arrived, so they walk back to the leprechauns area, and grab a shamrock.

They get back and place all of the right items in the right places, and everyone is teleported to a new location.

This palace was once where the maze is now, but after his love died, the mage teleported it to a secret location, and placed the maze where it is. The impish people cannot fly in here either. This is a gatehouse and they are inside the gatehouse to a fancy palace. They cannot go out, just forward into a large garden. There is also a pool, and the palace can be seen with many spires and beautiful colors undamaged by age. There is a sundial here, and Alzar looks at it, and presumes it will teleport them back to the other one, if they need it out.

There is a walled garden they move into, with a pool with silver and gold fish, and a circular tower in each corner of it, and stairs leading up to double doors. They head to the towers and each one has nothing in it. They come back and go up the stairs. This is a very opulent porch with silver and marble accentuating the architecture and two columns of tall females on either side.

The words Enter in Peace are across the entranceway, and they open the doors. They will not open until Estaish has sheathed his weapon, but Alzar’s staff is apparently okay. They enter and move into a large entrance hall. There are doors to either side, opulent dressings, and columns flanking a alcove and fountain. At the back is the fountain, and stairs going up. A search finds nothing, so they go right. This room is a large bedchamber with mosaics, and beautiful furniture and more. In here are two men who stand up. They introduce themselves as Hamish and Argus. They came into the garden to rob it, and now are its defenders.

They go back and into the other room, and find another wealthy room , with two more people in it – Julius and Orlandia. They are from the village, and are the couple that went missing, but they said they’ve only been gone a few days. Time must run differently here in the palace. Alzar orders everyone to go and move quickly. The couple is believed by everyone around to be the reincarnation of the old lovers from more than two centuries ago. They are very happy here and never want to leave.

They head up the stairs. They move quickly though the next floor. It has a gallery with some statues, and two gardens, and quick check shows nothing obvious of value or interest in any of it. They head up to the final floor, and this is the tomb of the old lovers.

This is a hemispherical dome with beautiful and timeless decorations. At the top is a tomb with a saying. Alzar orders the outside searched, and Estaish places his hand on the tomb. He suddenly becomes stronger and more muscle-y. His strength becomes a 16.

He tell Alzar that a lady communicated with him, and told him that she would grant the wishes of his heart in exchange for leaving her and her lover in this tomb in peace, and leaving the palace, and the garden, and going back. Aleigha is granted a wish as well, and she can now control her changing to a werebear. She can change any time, and no longer has to change during moonlight.

Alzar ponders for a bit, and then touches the tomb. He is granted one wish as a gift.


Alzar considers –

1). Immediately given the components and knowledge to make an Iron Golem.
2). Immediately given a Ring of Wizardry, the most powerful generic item he can think of right now
3). Immediately and permanently gain one point of Int
4). Immediately and permanently gain more hit points
5). Immediately and permanently become immune to energy drains

These are the five that pop into his mind. After consideration, he decides to go with the one he thinks would be the least likely to ever happen again.

Alzar’s INT is now 19.

Result – Alzar gains a character point, has a 10% better chance of learning spells not in the path, and is immune to 1st level illusions, like Dancing Lights, Audible Glamer and Phantasmal Force.

Alzar leaves the palace and goes to the fire drake cave, has the others gather the right plants, and goes to the palace, drops off the firedrake eggs, and leaves

Now he can come back sometime and get the eggs and raise the drakes if he wants too. Since time goes by much slower there, they should still be unhatched for a few years.


They return to the village after some teleportation from the toadstool ring, and they have been gone 8 days, and people were starting to get worried. They tell the village what happened to the two lovers that left, and how the garden creatures see them as the new lovers, and people are happy to know they are alive, but sad that their friends and family are gone.

They spend a few more days in the village. Alzar starts casting spells to determine what the items are.

WOW, from the little that I do know, that is a very tough call. Very cool and good choice Abe.

Thanks!

Gold Found: 56

150 gold gem, 400 gp, 120, 50 and 40
Gold Ring – 30 gp
Uncut stones currently worth 10x2, 15, 20, 25 and 40, and values increased by ten times if properly cut.
Black-Opal Pendant on a gold chain – 1250 gold in a leather pouch
Pearl encrusted collar 3000 gold x2



2 Alicorns

Sword, +1, Neutral Evil, Ego 2, Personality 16, Detect Good


Magic Pile – Jeweled Gold Amulet can be used to Predict Weather spell once a day. +1 Dagger. Shield -1, missile attractor, Scroll of Pro; Undead x2, =1 short composite bow, +2 arrows x6, +2 dagger, Wand of Magic Missiles – 20 charges, Wand of Wonder – 45 charges, Ring of Protection +2, Ring of Pro +1, Pot of Extra Healing x2, Pot of Fire Resist


Total XP Gain: 1025, plus Estaish now gets +10% so he gets an extra 103. Alzar gets 4207 all total.

From the other adventure, U1, they get 700 or 770 for Alzar.

Current XP:


Alzar – 55,937 (Level 6)
Estaish – 11,863 (Level 4)
Aleigha – 16,175 (Level 5) – Now has 34 HP.


The non-magical weapons and armor are added to that secret store on the ship. You never know when you might need extra weapons and armor, or might want to sell extra, and there’s not a lot here. They have basic stuff like clubs and staffs and spears, and leather armor, but nothing that fancy.



After giving the locals one last thanks, the sailors and company move off to the Sea Ghost, and set sail for the Isle of Dread proper, after seeing the loss of the smuggling camp gone.

Alzar’s Items:

Alzar’s Stuff:

Gold: 6000

Jewelry and Gems

Crowns: 5000x2 and 50x4, bracelets 600x2, necklace 1500, 700, 50x3;Tiara 200, wristbands 100x4,bracelets 10,000,500, 300; pearl necklaces, 400x2; Gold Medallion, 300; Jeweled Dagger 850, 300;Gold Statues – 2000 gold each; Gold Diamond Bracelet – 750 gold, Platinum and Ruby Pin – 2000, String of matched fire opals , 15000; Gold Medallion with Topaz – 1000 gold; Gold necklace – 60 gpx3; Earrings – 50 gp setx2; Gold bracelet – 75 gp; Gold ring – 75 gp, 50 gp, 30 gp; Pearl encrusted collar 3000 gold x2; Black-Opal Pendant on a gold chain – 1250 gold



Gems: 1000x2, 500x6, 300, 250x2, 200x2, 100x72, 50 x31, 10x10; 4x25, 120x2, 150. 400,

60,000 in jewelry
Silver Serving Set worth 4000 gp
Alabaster box worth 800
ivory box worth maybe 50 gold
2 bolts of fine cloth worth 60 each
a crystal flagon and 4 goblets with 80 total
an inlaid wooden box with ivory handle worth 45
China and Silverware – 600
Jewelry worth 1500 and 1400
2000 gold in a small case of gems
800 gold for a tiny human shaped figurine of onyx
5000 gold worth of Amber
12,000 crown jewels
Golden skull,750 gp; gold apple 150 gp; gold rose 150 gp; small set of five gold discs value 50 gp in total.
Silver bowl, carafe and goblet worth 400 gp as a set
Uncut stones currently worth 10x2, 15, 20, 25 and 40, and values increased by ten times if properly cut.




Books:


Manual of Golems, Flesh
1000 gold worth of texts from Tower in Rahasia
2000 gold worth of Castanamir’s own personal journals.
3 books on golems and repair – 500 gold.
5000 gold in books on summoning and conjuring.
10 alchemy texts, 100 coins heavy, 1000 gold value to a library.
15,000 specialized summoning and conjuring texts
2500 gold Gingwatzim information, and the five books and two manuscripts that show it.
1000 gold, 12 books, info on making portals
3000 necromatic tomes for research
Ye Secret of Ye Philosopher’s Stone – 500 gold
Concerning Mesmerism and Lists of Effects – 50 gold
The Magical Properties of Gemstones - 150
The Magical Properties of Herbs and Flowers - 150
The Metaphysics of Mathematics – 150
Principles of Navigation and Legal Distinction in Letters of Marque – 10 gold each


Items:

Potion of Sweet Water, Diminutionx2, Gaseous Formx2, Poisonx2, Telekinesis, Healingx6, Levitationx2, Spider Climbing, ESP, Animal Control – Horses, Clairvoyance, Fire Resistancex2, Philter of Lovex2, Control Plants, Neutralize Poisonx2, Speed, Cure Disease, Extra Healingx2
Gauntlets of Ogre Power
Bag of Holding, 10000 coins, Bag of Holding, 5000 coins
+1 Scimitar, Short Swordx2, Daggerx4, Mace, Battle Axe, Longswordx2, Two-handed sword, +1 arrows x4, Broadsword, Short Composite Bow
-1 Dagger
+2 Longsword, Throwing Dagger, Bastard Sword, Dagger, Arrowsx6
+1 Plate Armorx2, Plate Mail, Chain Mailx3, Shieldx3
+2 Splint Mail
Ring of Protection +1x4
Ring of Free Action *
Ring of Sustenance *
Wand of Paralyzation 3 charges
Wand of Magic Missiles – 20 charges
Wand of Wonder – 45 charges
Rod of Terror – 8 charges
The Sword of the Rock
Longsword +1, +2 vs Undead, Short Sword +1, +2 vs Scaly Things
Crystal Ball
Necklace of Adaptation
Periapt of Proof Against Poison +2
Rod of Cancellation
Rope of Climbing
Scrolls of: Read Languages, Aganazzar’s Scorcher, Odeen’s Magic Cloud, Levitate, Ray of Fatigue, Tongues, Invisibility, 10’ Radius, Push, Stinking Cloudx2, Haste, Fly, Gust of Wind, Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Fireball, Locate Object, Special Effects, Ice Storm, Wall of Fire
Scrolls of Protection from Acid, Demons, Undeadx3, Magic
Bracers of Defense AC7
Amulet of the Planes (with command words)
Gloves of Fire Resistance (As the ring, but a pair of gloves)
Belt of Flying, 50 charges.
Cleric scroll – sanctuary, fire resistance, cure light x4;Heal, Cure Disease, Dispel Magic
Paperweight, Rary’s Mnemonic Enhancer – 2 charges
Left Boot, Elven
Pair of Boots, Elven
Cloak of Displacement
Staff of Striking 18 charges
Phylactery of Action
Horn of Demon Dismissal – 2 charges
Ear Ring
Broom of Flying
Snake Staff




Total Gold: 58000

Alzar gives 2000 each to his fighters.

Alicornx3
Gold Dragon Skin and Scales



Sword, +1, Neutral Evil, Ego 2, Personality 16, Detect Good

“D’Antoigne” – Long Sword, +2, Int 9, Ego 11, Wil 22 AL N – Detects Magic, Finds Traps and Detects Sloping Passages

The Book of Years, Windscribe, 4 teleport jars, Mead Pitcher, Jeweled Gold Amulet can Predict Weather spell once a day


Chest – 2 spellbooks for enchantment, 9 for evil, and 3 others, all trapped


5000 gold on a workshop/laboratory


Temporary Magic Items - Ring of Monster Summoning 1, Wand of Repulsion and Sphere of Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere – just waiting on Permanency to make them a real magic item.

These gingwatzim: Amulet +1 save vs spells, a Tim Gingwatzim. +1 staff technically a Pakim Gingwatzam. Short sword +2, technically a Graegzim Gingwatzim, and a multiform one too, can turn into Fremlin. Staff (+3, one of the Gingwatzim in bound animate form, and it talks a lot to its owner and complains)




Estaish has: +2 Long Sword, +1 shield, +2 chainmail, +1 Ring pf Protection, Ring of Fire Resist, Pot of Healing: AC0

Aleigha has: Sword of Spartusia, +1 shield, +2 Ring of Protection, Ring of Fire Resist, Pot of Healing

They each have 3.5k in gold


The Sea Ghost and 17680in goods like silk, brandy, soap, seeds, wine, and such. Does not include weapons.

Spellbooks:

Damaged Castanamir:

2nd level Darkness, 15’; Magic Mouth; Breath of Bewilderment; Bladeleap; Levitate; Flash
3rd level Icelance; Nystul’s Expeditious Fire Extinguisher; Item


Castanamir’s Evil Books:

1st Level: Charm Person, Hypnotism, Friends, Magic Missile, Nystul’s Magical Aura, Protection from Good, Sleep, Spook, Corpselight, Dance Macabre, Reflected Image, Spoil Holy Water, Wandbane

2nd Level: Darkness, 15’ Radius, Deafness, ESP, Fools’ Gold, Irritation, Ray of Enfeeblement, Stinking Cloud, Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter, Choke, Dark Mirror, Empathic Control, Ghost Pipes,
Castanamir’s Magic Missile Reflection, Undead Mount, Wall of Gloom

3rd Level: Feign Death, Haste, Improved Magic Missile, Protection from Good, 10’ Radius, Suggestion, Vampiric Touch, Curse Tablet, Dire Charm, Minor Malison, Mummy Touch, Skulltrap, Watery Double,
Whip of Pain

4th Level: Contagion, Enervation, Fear, Phantasmal Killer, Bestow Curse, Delayed Magic Missile, Putrefaction, Ray of Oblivion, Rain of Terror, Greater Malison, Merald’s Murderous Mist, Disfigure


Alchemist SpellBook:

Affect Normal Fires, Find Familiar, Conjure Spell Component, Fools Gold and Animate Dead

X1. The Isle of Dread



They arrive at the Isle of Dread:




They have a map of the Isle with just the coast outlined, plus the area where the native villages are located is on the map as well. Alzar orders them to pull into a fishing village named Tangaroa, after the Goddess. This is the place talked about by the captain in his logs and friendly and helpful to him and his crew.

Here is a Big Map of the Isle of Dread. We currently have a version of this map that just has the coast drawn in. We are at #1, where Tangaroa is located, and right next to the Great Wall.

Tangaroa is the largest of the 7 towns that make up this area known as Home to the natives. It is in a clearing at the edge of the jungle, and looming up to the north of it is a 50 foot high wall built of huge stone blocks and it stretches for two miles across the isthmus that connects Home to the main are of the Isle of Dread.

There are 28 large towers along the wall, and a huge 40 foot high gate at the village of Tangaroa. The village guards and controls eh gates and towers, and consider it an honor. There are also skeletons and zombies in guardposts in addition to natives.

The village has been laid out in a basic circle. At each compass point, there are a large number of long houses in a circle, and facing a graveyard. There are roads connecting these, and between each is a section of gardens ,where the farmers farm crops. At the middle is a small mound with a small pyramid on it. There are some tarpits between the wall and Tangaroa. There is a trail that goes south to the other villages on the peninsula. The area here behind the wall is very calm.

The crew and Alzar and company are greeted very warmly by the females here. This is a matriarchal society, and the women are in positions of authority. A group of 10 female and male soldiers, led by a female captain greets them and brings them into the village. They are greeted by the claim elders, Sea Turtle, Elk, Hawk and Tiger clans. They greet Alzar and his company, welcome this, and offer food and drink at the central area, by the 10 foot pyramid. They sit and partake of the local food, while native come in occasionally and introduce themselves and leave.

The clan elders inquire if Alzar has any trade goods. They just recently decided to try trade with the mainland, but their fishing vessels are too small to make the trip. He mentions that they do have some goods in the ship for trade, and they are very happy. He has the captain make the arrangements, and when he asks about the skeletons and zombies working, they tell him they were made by the Zombie Mistress, a local magic user who is held in high esteem because she animates the dead warrior of Tangaroa to continue to fight and work. Alzar smiles and asks to meet her.

Trade Route Established - They have 5000 gold, and will pay double what the price is. They purchase:

10 bolts of silk – 2000 gold
10 casks of brandy – 1000 gold
The foodstuffs, seeds, tools and trade goods Alzar purchased – 2000 gold

5000 made from 2500 value of items. Alzar tells the captain to add a wine cask to the order as well, and he does.

Alzar is led to the Zombie Mistress, where they strike up a lovely conversation, and ultimately trade spells. Alzar gets: Embalm and Protective Amulet. Alzar gave up Animate Dead Animals and Bone Knit. She has a 6th level spell Alzar really wants, so if he levels up while in the area, he can return to trade for Transmute Bone to Steel.

Protective Amulet is a 1st level spell that creates an amulet. If Alzar fails a save against a spell protected by the Amulet, it is crumble and Alzar makes the save instead. It can only protect against a spell Alzar knows, and only one per spell level can be made at a time. It also costs 100 gold per spell level to make. Alzar spends the day and makes one for Charm Person.

The other spell is a 2nd level spell that keeps corpses fresh, and when they are animated as Zombies, they get +2 hp/HD. It costs a 100 gold gem to cast though.

After a day of trading spells, goods, and learning spells, Alzar and company are offered beds by each of the clans. They choose the Sea Turtle clan, the closest one to the docks. Alzar asks about some of the info they have regarding the Isle, and so forth.

They don’t see many ships They’ve only seen two ships other than Alzar’s in the past ten years. However, their fisherman have heard there is an outpost up on an island just above the Isle of Dread. It has a volcano on it. The town furthest away, Dawa on an island in the south east, recently has 20 of its natives captured by slave traders and taken to that island to the north, with a volcano in the center.

After some consideration, Alzar believes the outpost to the north and there smugglers and slave traders might be connected, so he decides tomorrow to take the Sea Ghost around the Isle of Dread, to this small island to the north just off the Isle, and see what they can see.

They leave in the morning, and head up the coast line. After a day of sailing, the following day they reach the head of the island, and move towards the location of this volcano isle. While sailing, they are suddenly called up with the lookout sees something in the water. About 20 seconds later, several large, reptilian heads can be seen bobbing in the water just below the surface, and then they erupt. 6 heads from a sea hydra begin to move to attack the vessel.

Estaish is up first, but of course he is wearing just regular clothes. Wearing chain mail would be suicide if tossed abroad. He tries to snick a Hydra head, and misses. Aleigha is right behind and deals 9 damage and lops off a head. 5 left. Alzar runs up, but he cannot attack this turn.The five Hydra heads lunge down. Two hit and Aleigha takes 10 damage.

24/34

The Hydra wins init and Aleigha is critted for 20 damage and takes 2 more. Alzar orders her back seeing her barely holding on. Estaish misses and drops his sword overboard. Alzar’s staff smashes a head for 43 damage. A couple of arrows snake by from crewmen. Nobody hits.

2/34

The next round, The heads win init against and hit Alzar twice for4 damage. Alzar misses, Estaish kills the wounded head for 5 damage with a dagger. 4 heads left. An arrow hits a head for 1 damage.

47/51

The Hydra wins init again. Alzar is hit three times for 15. He misses, Estais does as well, and an arrow thunks into the same head for 3 damage.

32/51

The Hydra wins init and Alzar is hit three times again for 18. He Vampiric Touches an untouched one for 9 and kills it. 3 left. Estaish hits for 3 damage. An arrow crits the Hydra head for 6 damage and kills it. 2 left.

22/51


The Hydra loses init finally. Alzar misses. Estaish stabs for 2. An arrows kills off that head, one left. The Hydra roars in pain and jumps back into the water. Alzar orders the anchor dropped, and leaps in after.

The Hydra is moving towards its lair. Alzar casts Detect Magic and the long sword, dropped, glows and Alzar sees it and collects it before following the Hydra. He swims into a cave and the Hydra move sto attack him.

The Hydra wins init and hits for 2 damage. Alzar’s staff misses. The next turn, the Hydra misses badly, and Alzar misses as well. The Hydra nails him for 8. Alzar stabs with his staff and connects for 7 damage. Alzar finally wins init, and misses. The hydra misses too. Alzar connects for 4 damage and the final head is destroyed ,and the sea hydra is killed.

12/51


XP – 400 each, including sailors with bows

Alzar searches the lair and finds:

1000 gold
Chainmail unrusted and looking pristine (normally a sign of magic)
A jeweled hilt of a rusted cutlass, worth 500 gold.
A potion, labeled Water Breathing in etched runes.

Alzar brings the goods back up to the vessel.

They decide to return to Tangaroa for a few days to rest and heal. The chain mail is actually +3 chain, and Alzar gives it to Estaish, who now has an AC of -1.

Here is Alzar’s new spell book.



Alzar’s new spell book:

5/3/2

First Level:

Alarm
Alzar’s Undead Porter
Armor
Animate Dead Animals *
Cantrip
Charm Person *
Detect Magic *
Friends
Identify
Hypnotism *
Mount
Protective Amulet
Read Languages
Read Magic
Sleep *
Spoil Holy Water
Unseen Servant
Wizard Mark



Second Level:

Alzar’s Familiar
Attract Ghoul
Blastbones *
Choke
Continual Light
Embalm
Empathic Control *
ESP
Forget
Locate Object
Ray of Enfeeblement
Ray of Ondovir *
Speak with Dead
Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter
Undead Mount
Wall of Gloom



Third Level:

Bone Knit
Curse Tablet
Dire Charm
Dispel Magic
Fly
Proof Against Teleportation
Searing Serpent *
Sepia Snake Sigil
Skulltrap *
Suggestion
Undead Summoning I
Vampiric Touch *
Watery Double


Fourth Level:

Bestow Curse
Contagion
Dimension Door
Disfigure
Greater Malison
Mordenkainen’s Faithful Phantom Shield-Maidens
Putrefaction
Ray of Oblivion
Special Effects
Vorthala’s Undead Turning Immunity



Fifth Level:

Animate Dead
Teleport

A few days later, after being healed and rested, they go back and find volcanic island mentioned by the natives. The ship moors off the east coast, and Alzar, Aleigha, and Estaish take one of the boats to the shore. The island is maybe 10 miles across and roundish, with jagged shores, and a bay to the north west. They rise up on a jagged hill and can see the other side and beyond there, is a compound, with a ship in the bay, and several houses and buildings, all behind a wall. At the back of that wall are the ruins of an old temple, older that the rest – which looks like new construction. It looks like they got lazy, because they ended the wall at the temple, and then started it again on the other side.

There are no lookouts landside. Alzar sends a note to the captain through a teleport jar, telling him o move the ship back and out of the way, and to come back when asked for. He moves behind another island, about ten miles east of this one.

Alzar and company begin to look around, and someone can make out an unusual indentation in the rear of the temple. They work it, and after five minutes, reveals a secret door hidden under years of use and abuse. They open it up, and move into the corridor. (Alzar has memorized two Sleeps rather than Animate Dead Animals for this adventure, since they know their foes to likely be humanoid)

A1. Slave Pits of the Undercity






This is another classic or rather its series is. A1-4 are a series of modules fighting against slavers. The whole series was given the 20 spot in the top 30 countdown. This one was not on my original plan, but as I scripted the modules, I realized that it made more sense here, than it did once we left the Isle of Dread super-storyline alone. So, I’m putting A1 here, with the option to move to the rest of the series, or the option to end it after this one, after we finish the Isle of Dread super plotline.

The secret door leads to the back of another secret door, which they open. When Alzar does, a spiked spring bar snaps across the doorway at chest height with great strength and Alzar takes 7 damage from the trap. The bar is loose, and mobile, so Alzar takes the trap.

44/51


Alzar starts using his staff to check for traps. They find another of the bars a few feet down, and it springs into the open and is done.

Took 2 Spiked Bars, with a spring action, trap, Deals 3d6 damage.

The hallway hits a T. Left or right? Random roll says right. After a bit. The hallway ends at a door. It opens to reveal a room burnt and partially destroyed by whatever destroyed the temple long ago. It is crowded with debris and the floor is sagging. The east wall, however, shows signs of recent construction and it is built up nicely.

They search and find nothing. They head back and go the other direction. The frescoes in the back hallway are about various religious stories. This looks to have been a temple to Malekbel, God of Fire and the Sun. That’s probably why it is here near a volcano.

The corridor ends at a door, and they push it open and continue. A search during the long hallway is ordered. They arrive at a door and open it, into a room with missing charred boards here and there. The handles, hinges and other metal fittings are partly melted. There is a powerful irony in destroying a Temple to the God of Fire by fire, and Alzar has to admit to being amused Part of the ceiling has collapsed. There is an odor of rot in the room. A door is on the other side. As they enter, a party of ghouls jumps down from above and moves to attack.

Alzar tries to control them. He automatically succeeds and brings 5 under his control. There are 3 more, but he has these get in front of those and start attacking each other.

The next turn, a ghoul is killed, and Alzar brings the other three under his control. He now has 7 ghouls: AC 6, HP 8, D 1d3, 1d3, 1d6, paralyzes on each. Megala flies up to check the ledge they jumped down from and sees some gems and a potion. Alzar orders a couple of ghouls to climb up there and get the items.

500 gp gems x6
Potion – Alzar identifies as Fire Resistance

XP -200 for Alzar

The next room is up a small flight of stairs. Here are the remains of a door, and beyond which is a room with a collapsed floor. There is a cellar beneath it, fully debris-ed. The ceiling has collapsed as well, and is on the ground. Someone has put a pair of beams across the floor. Alzar grabs the Rope of Climbing, links everyone together and to the wall. They go across the center beam and make it to the other side.

They move into the next hallway and pass an alcove to the right. They head back down some stairs, and into a room that is almost bare. There is a door on the other side, and flies buzzing about the room with an air of honey, and a mound of rags in the room. As they approach, they see it is not a mound of rags, but a giant Sundew!

The ghouls are orders to tear into it .In a minutes, the Sundew is dead. They are immune to its special attacks like paralyzation and suffocation. Alzar orders the Sundew destroyed and the ghouls hack into it with glee while the rest search the room. In the base of the Sundew, they find:

500 gold
Three gems – 1000, 10 and 500
A Ring

XP – 50 for Alzar


They move into the hallway past the door and it goes left into a door and forward for a while. They choose the door and this is the stables for the temple, still standing and in use. Four people look up at the ghouls, and then are attacked. The four fighters win init and three deal 12 damage to a ghoul, killing it, while the other grabs and blows a ram’s horn on his chest. Then all four are shredded by ghouls. Alzar orders them to feast on one of them, and to leave the other two for later.

6 ghouls left. XP 50 for Alzar

In a minute, 11 orcs come into the area and charge from double doors that lead out of the temple. Alzar puts 5 of them to sleep. The ghouls win init and kill three more. The orcs miss twice and one crits a ghoul for 8 damage and kills it. The ghouls clean them up next round, and Alzar orders the sleeping orcs killed as well. All of their weapons and armor are added to a big magic pile. They wait for more, but no one else comes. A search turns up nothing but 500 gold on the corpses.

500 gold

They go up, and a corridor branches off to the right, but they stay on the main one. It turns and ends with double doors on either side. They try the right ones and enter into a stonecutter shed, with many different tools and stone in there. There is a pair of double doors to the outside in here as well. There are also six orcs, in armor and halbards, watching guard out, and turn to face the party. They are much more professional with a leader barking commands to swipe the ghouls with their longer halberds. Two ghouls bite it before the rest are close enough. 3 ghouls left. They kill two orcs with their biting. The ghouls win init and two orcs are paralyzed. Alzar’s dagger flies and misses, clanging against the wall. The other two orcs swing and miss, one dropping his halbard. The orcs win init and the one tears into a ghoul for 2 damage. The ghoul’s claws scratch his armor, but do not impact him. The other one recovers the halbard and orders a retreat. They begin to open the doors, and Alzar pushes the ghouls at them. The ghouls win init and claw both orcs before they leave and one is paralyzed and the other killed. The ghouls kill the paralyzed ones.

40 gold found
3 ghouls left

XP – 50 for Alzar

They enter a cemetery for the temple compound, but now overgrown with weeds and bushes and dying trees. They move into the space and a tree falls across the path, and hits Alzar for 13 damage

31/51

They continue and find a crypt, barred and easily opened, with steps leading down to another level. They search the crypt, find nothing and head back for now.

While they are moving back down the corridor, a group of 10 orcs arrives, checking up on a now dead group. Alzar ensleeps 3, and the other 7 charge with scimitars and broadswords. The ghouls kill two, paralyze a third, and then two are cut down and Alzar orders the retreat of the other. A dagger flies in the face of an orc and kills it for 6 damage. Aleigha and Estaish each kill an orc and end the threat.

1 ghoul left
25 XP each
75 gold found

They go down the side corridor and hit some stairs down, and into a courtyard. This is mostly dust and grass, with several large trees still standing at one end. There are large blocks that tumbled down into the courtyard from the walls around the place. Out of a large debris pile comes a dangerous undead – a wight. Alzar tries to control it. He needs a 7 or higher on a d20. He makes it, and the wight is now his. HP 27, deal 1d4 + energy drain

XP 250 for Alzar


He asks the wight if it knows of any treasure in here, and it shows him its treasure in the debris. There is:

2000 copper
1000 electrum
Gauntlets

He pulls back the ghoul and will lead with the wight. They enter an area to the south where a room one was, now collapsed.

There is a new wall on one side, and it appears to be the other side of that new construction from that room they saw earlier. Whatever this room was, there are a lot of statues laying on the side broken and such here. As they move into the area, they hear the scratching as reptilian skin scrapes against stone.

Alzar sees the eight legs of a reptile underneath a statue moving towards them and makes an INT check. He orders Aleigha and Estaish to run and don’t look back. Alzar shuts his eyes, and sees out of Megala’s. Dryshik and Megala fly backwards and confirms that there are a pair of mated basilisks moving towards him and his undead.

They are very slow, and Alzar backs up and prepares spells, seeing through Dryshik’s eyes. He casts and prepares a Blastbones, grabs some nails and spends afew rounds putting them around it. Then he adds a Skulltrap. He has his undead stand back, and then orders Megala to fly back.

The basilisks are getting closer and Alzar orders Megala to fly over them and bring their attention to him. It does. They move towards him, and towards the traps he has set for them. They reach the traps at the same time, and both trigger:

Blastbones does 19 damage. Skulltrap does 21. That’s 40 damage before saves. The first one makes the Skulltrap one, and took 30. The second one was in the reverse over, and took 31. Alzar orders Dryshik to Mist Ball the first one and failure. He throws a dagger and hits, dealing 5 damage to the first one. He draws his staff and orders his undead to not look at the basilisk, and to turn around. He’s not sure if they would be petrified or not, but he doesn’t want to find out now.

(He failed a Necrology roll to determine if they would.)

Alzar gets the first attack against the sluggish basilisks. He deals four to the one his dagger hit. One of the two crunches him for 5 damage.

26/51

They win init and miss. Alzar misses too. He swings and hits for 4 more damage and the first basilisk dies. The second one hits for 6.

20/51

Alzar Vampiric Touches the other for 9 damage and it dies.

29/51

XP – 2400 for Alzar only

They search and find nothing else here. Alzar has them check for any statues that are unbroken, but they find none. They found nothing in this area besides the wight and basilisks, so they move back

They decide to take the door in the crypts down to see what’s what. They arrive in a windy darkened earthy tunnel, and enter a large circular chamber with a moat of sewage surrounding a bare platform in the center. Around the outer walls are ledges connected to the center of the chamber by four arch bridges. There are crates in an alcove. There are tables, chairs and more, with a man, and five giant weasels, plus a group of ten orcs. They see Alzar’s group. He gambles and sends in the wight, and the orcs frie a round of crossbow bolts at it for no damage. The 5 giant weasels leap the moat and move towards them. Alzar summons a Searing Serpent on the platform and Estaish and Aleigha move in behind the wight. The man is moving, and Dryshik is ordered to Mist Ball him.

They win, and more bolts fly into and off of the wight. Alzar orders it in more into the room. The man moves across a bridge to some crates over at the side. The weasels are running around the wight, towards Aleigha and Estaish. The Searing Serpent appears in the middle of the platform. A Mist Ball flies and the man fails his save and is blinded for 5 rounds and takes 3 poison damage. Alzar sees him quaff a potion and disappear.

He has Dryshik and Megala fly over to the bridge leaving the area and guard it in case a certain man tries to go out that way. The weasels arrive and Aleigha takes 12 from a crit and 5 more for 17 damage.

17/34

Estaish and her each nail the same weasel for 15 damage. Alzar uses Hypnotism on the orcs, and four of them agree to toss their crossbows to the ground, along with their bolts and swords.

The other six, unable to damage the wight, and seeing four just stop attacking, try to break and run, towards Megala and Dryshik. Dryshik makes a Wall of Fog on the bridge as they run, making a twenty foot cube unseeable. Several orcs stop before they enter, but a few run in. One manages to run out, and two more fall into the moat. Alzar sends Dryshik to Mist Ball the fleeing one.

The next turn, Alzar throws a dagger in and misses. The fighters kill the injured weasel, and there are four left. Dryshik hits the fleeing orc, who takes 4 and dies. The wight and ghoul have arrived back at the weasels and the wight hits for 1 damage and an energy drain. The ghoul hits the same one for 2 damage and a paralyzation. 3 left.

The weasels hit once on Aleigha for 5damage.

12/34

The weasels go first and hit once again for 4. Aleigha backs up, and Estaish deals out 7. The wight misses, and the ghoul claws the one Estaish just hit for 4 damage, but it makes two saves. Alzar arrives. Two orcs have died to a searing serpent, and the rest don’t want to enter the Wall of Fog.


8/34


The next round, the remaining orcs surrender and Megala flies over and takes their weapons. Alzar nails a weasel for 3 damage and Est adds 5. A wight hits for 3 and an energy drain and kills the damaged weasel, leaving just two. They attack Estaish, and fail to penetrate his great armor. The next round ,both are killed.

The invisible man doesn’t look to have ever gone into the wall. Alzar uses ESP and tries to sense another presence. He can, the other person is still here.

The surrendered and hypnotized orcs are tied up, while Alzar has undead and imps guarding the rest of the room. Alzar tells the invisible man that he will slowly have his undead scour the room until they find, and kill him. They start making walls on bridges with corpses and crates to prevent where he can escape too. The thief thinks that he is going to go along the south bridge to the exit they came down, which tells Alzar roughly where he is. He orders everyone to the area, and closes it off. It is impossible to escape from this landing. Alzar orders Dryshik to breathe in a Mist Ball . He rolls and it hits the guy. He fails his save again and takes another 2 damage and is blinded again. Seeing where it hit, they know exactly where he is, and several sword stabs later, the thief has been killed.

They search the room and crates and find:

Bags of coins in several crates – 5000 gp
Rations, chains and supplies in several crates
A sack with jewelry worth 1000 gp
Records of Slaver Activities and where the ship currently anchored is heading to, on a chart, near the mainland, and far away.
A Potion and Ring on thief.

Xp – 700 each

It looks like they came down the back end, and killed the main guy in charge, but they still have a while complex to worry about. Alzar charms an orc, and tells him to tell everyone that there was an orc rebellion against the head guy, and they each killed each other. Then they sneak back out, and meet the ship, and stay on it for a day, healing some and regaining spells and dropping off what they found.

The following day, they land again, and enter the same way. They find no one going back the way, and the corpses have all been taken. Alzar finds the five ghouls here waiting on him, having been made into ghouls by ones he already controlled, so now he has a pack of 6 again.

They see, out of a door in the stoneworkers, that there are main doors to the temple. Due to its collapses, they could not get from one side to the other, but they can sneak over and get to the other side of the ruins. Alzar orders his undead to spring out and sprint over to the main courtyard inside, and then they follow, and everybody enters at once.

Inside are 10 orcs at various places, and they grab weapons and cry for more help. There are tables tossed over and made into barricades, and four doors around the courtyard. There is a cart here that several run behind and start turning. There are a mantlet and torch on the cart, and it cannot be cut down from here. There are large bellows connected to a barrel behind them, right in front of the torch, and right in front of the opening of the mantlet.

He orders the ghouls into the orcs to the left. They tear through the three orcs here. Four more fire crossbows from behind a table to the rear and one hits a ghoul for 1 damage.

Out comes a man in shiny armor and with a shiny weapon and he takes command from the east. Another man emerges from a door to the west with a crossbow up and fires at the wight who takes 5 damage from a silver bolt.

Now that is a new threat. Alzar wins init. Dryshik Mist Balls the new threat. He makes his save. Alzar orders Aleigha to block him, and she moves towards him this round. Estaish is ordered to take out the man giving orders, and he moves there. Alzar’s dagger flies out and buries itself in the mantlet. The ghouls are suddenly scorched as the pumps on the cart fire off a large oil substance, into the ttorch, and two takes 18 damage and die .

4 ghouls left.

Alzar orders the remaining ghouls to flank the mantlet and attack those there. Two crossbow bolts hit a ghoul for 4 damage. Three more orcs burst out of another roor and enter the courtyard. The leader swings at Estaish and hits for 6. Aleigha is missed by the crossbow as she closes.

26/32

The next round, They win. Another pump of the cart kills another ghoul. 3 ghoul left. Both warriors miss, and crossboworc skill a ghoul. 2 left. The Wight is joining the ghouls at the cart. The newly entered orcs draw swords and charge the ghouls. Suddenly, the final door is opens and out comes a woman in cleric robes flanked by two fighters.

Alzar casts Sleep. All of the orcs at the pump cart are asleep, and the ghouls kill them, while the wight moves on to the charging orcs. Aleigha slashes the silver wielding guy for 4. Est misses. Dryshik casts Wall of Fog in front of the cleric, wearing the robes of Mahte, Goddsss of Pain and Pleasure. Megala swings down and tries to scrape a crossbowmen with its claws. Miss.

The next round, Alzar’s group wins. Aleigha nails the guy for 8 damage. He dies. Estaish scratches his for 4 damage (minimum). Dryshik is ordered to try and gate in some help. Failure. Megala tries another scratch. Failure. Alzar casts sleep again. The four crossboworcs fall asleep. The wight misses an orc and the ghouls are ordered to move in and support it.

Est is nailed by the guy for 6 damage.

20/32

The cleric and fighters emerge from the Wall of Fog. She tosses a rock at Alzar. He is now in a silenced area and cannot give orders or cast spells. The orcs hits and kill a ghoul that just arrived. 1 ghoul left.

Alzar wins init, Est misses. Aleigha is moving towards him to support him. Dryshik Mist Balls the cleric and she fails and takes 4 damage and is blinded for 2 rounds. The wight kills an orc after hitting with its energy drain attack. The last ghoul is ordered to retreat. Alzar runs out of the silence area and towards the two fighters flanking the cleric. They run to him. The orcs miss the wight. Est is critted by the fighter for 11 damage

9/32

They win init. Alzar takes 5 from a fighter.

25/51

Estaish is hit for 7 damage.

2/32

Estaish falls back. Aleigha attacks for a dropped sword. Alzar Vampiric Touches a fighter for 12 damage

37/51

The fighter is still up. The wight kills another orc. Megala scratches the last orc for 1 damage and it falls asleep. The fighter misses Aleigha. Alzar takes 5.

32/51

The next round, the cleric can see again. She casts Hold Person at Alzar, and it failed (Ring of Free Action). The fighters stab out and hit Alzar once for 5 more. Aleigha is missed.

27/51

Aleigha deals out 8 and kills the fighter. Estaish quaffs his healing pot. Alzar grabs his staff and swings it at the wounded fighter. It misses.

8/34

The cleric casts Blindness on Alzar. He makes his save. The two fighters miss. Everybody is running to join Alzar. He swings and misses.

The next round, the woman moves to retreat, but a wight blocks her way behind her in the Wall of Fog. Instead, she reaches into her pouch and throws a tiny looking humanoid figurine to the ground. It starts moving around. It suddenly turns into a troll. The fighters miss again

Alzar misses. Aleigha fumbles her sword. Est misses. The wight misses.

Alzar swings and misses. Aleigha misses Est fumbled. The wight hits a fighter and deals 2 damage. That plus the energy drain kills the wounded one. The Troll attacks and hits Aleigha twice for 12 damage. Their clerics moves and controls the wight.

4/32

Alzar wins init. He wrests away control of the wight. Estaish nails the fighter for 9 damage while Aleigha retreats. Dryshik breathes his final Mist Ball on the cleric. She makes the save easily. Megala flies in and tries to hit the well armored fighter, but misses. The cleric grabs back the wight. The fighter misses. The troll crits Alzar for 9 damage.

18/51

The cleric orders the wight to attack Alzar, who dodges the attack (whew!). The fighter misses. The troll hits twice for 14 damage

4/51

Estaish hits the fighter for 9 damage and drops him. The Aleigha quaffs a pot. Alzar retreats and controls the wight. Megala misses the cleric, and Dryshik has nothing left.

7/32


They win init and the wight attacks the cleric. It misses her too. Alzar quaffs an extra healing pot Estaish hits the cleric for 9 damage. Megala misses. Aleigha runs back in. The troll misses Estaish three times. The cleric commands the wight again.

17/51

The wight swings at Estaish and can’t crack his AC. The troll does once for 6 damage. Aleigha attacks the cleric and hits for 8. Alzar grabs the Wand of Magic Missiles and uses two charges to pump her with two missiles. She takes 7 damage and dies. Estaish runs out. Megala flies into the troll for a crit for 6 damage. The troll fails its save and falls asleep.

2/34

The orcs sleeping are killed, the troll is decapitated and burned with an oil flask.

XP – 1220 each

One ghoul left.

Alzar and crew search the area. They find:

A Stone
Lots of armor and weapons
Potion
Gem – 1000 gold

Slavers keys

They check a few nearby rooms that people left from. In one, three native slaves are chained up, and they are released. Alzar has them turn the cart towards the double doors, and stand behind it, ready to use it if anything comes out. The next room is the crack for the portcullis into the temple.

The other two doors are passageways, one to the east and the other south through colonnades to more double doors.

They so south and move the cart to face the east door to keep people from flanking them.

The ghoul steps on a glyph and two statues are flung at it, and it is crushed by the attack. Alzar orders the wight to the front.

Beyond the double doors in a large open room with lit braziers, and an old temple to Malekbel but since rededicated to Mahte. In front is a statue of a large woman scantily clad, with roses in one hand, showing the thorns and a thorned whip in the other. The figure of Mahte. There is a door to the other said, and a group of 10 slaves chained to the altar. Most are savages, but two are darker skinned and one white.

There is an ornamental trap door in the floor. And at top of the alter are some gems and gold, now collected.

900 gold
2000 gp in gems


They free the slaves, and they tell Alzar that there is a giant blade trap in the trap door. He order the wight to open it and go down, and the tarp fails to damage it. The slaves are sent back to the courtyard with the others, and given weapons and armor, just in case a fight ensues.

They move into the room behind the statues, there was once a large high ceiling in here, but it has collapses and ivy runs up and down the walls. After a pause, a group of stirges can be seen. Alzar orders everyone back, and casts Blastbones and tosses it in the air. They all take 6 damage and die except for two, who were outside the range, and fly off.

XP – 100 for Alzar

A search of both the temple and the chapel finds :

Jeweled Dagger worth 1000 gold

They go back to the courtyard and have the slaves lower the portcullises and go into the door guarded, led by the wight. They move the cart ot face the double doors again, where the trap door is. The hallway bends twice and there are two doors on the left and it ends. A search shows nothing else. Alzar has the door to the first place open, and it reveals a pretty cloister hall. There are bright and pretty flowers of many colors. Alzar hears the singing of familiar voices – harpies. He fails his save, and the protective amulet crumbles. Both Aleigha and Estaish make their saves. The harpies stop signing and cannot be found. They enter the room and move to the other door. Nothing. No attacks, no further attempts to sing.

The wight opens the door into a cloister hall, with figures and mosaics in the walls and floors, and several benches and pillows for praying, long since disused. Here is a door to the right. A search turns up nothing.

The door leads into a hallway, long. It is the door they saw at the other end, but that section is followed with water about half way up the wall, before it inclines out. There is a door to the left and the corridor keeps going. The open the door on the left and see a garrison of 20 orcs, who see Alzar and move to attack. The wight is moved in.

Alzar huts the door, and hears a lot of screaming and weapons being drawn. He opens the door and sees a few attacking the wight, and everybody else hiding along the wall. Alzar casts Searing Serpent, and then Dryshik mist balls one that is attacking with a Warhammer. He hits the wight for 8 damage and it howls. The Mist Ball hits, but he makes the save. The searing serpent arrives. The wight attacks the fighter/cleric and misses.

Alzar uses Hypnotism to tell 6 orcs to drop weapons and armor and sit down. The wight misses. The searing serpent hits the fighter/cleric for 5 damage. Several crossbow bolts fly into the serpent and wight, but deal no damage. The fighter/cleric misses.

Alzar casts Empathic Control on a nearby orc, and it works. The orc starts drawing its sword and awkwardly marching towards another orc, who does not know what is going on. Alzar has his orc go RAR, and the other orcs stab it to death. Alzar takes 3 damage.

14/51

7 orcs out. The fighter/cleric orders water to be tossed on the serpent and several orcs are getting waterskins. He punches the wight, but just misses.

They go first. They hit and dissipate the searing serpent. The wight is hit for 8. It is about to die. The wight fails to claw the figheer/cleric. A Mist Ball flies in and the guy makes another save Alzar casts Skulltrap and tosses it in, now that most orcs have moved to the middle, except for two that have moved to him. Undead are immune to the damage from it. It deals 17 damage and kills 9 orcs, and the fighter/cleric makes his save. Two orcs swing at Alzar for 8 damage

6/51

He shuts the door on the room. The wight hits the figher/cleric for 3 damage and an energy drain, and he dies. An orc grabs the weapons. Other orcs flee from the wight and fail to open the door.

The orc nails the wight for 7 damage and it dies. They move to the door and force it open. Three orcs run out and Estaish swings and hits one for 9 damage and kills it, and the Aleigha misses. Megala claws one for 3 damage and it falls asleep. The final one cannot get through so it runs back towards the final room they have not yet explored. Alzar goes in, sees the dead wight and one orc with the Warhammer, and throws a dagger. It hits the orc for 5 damage and kills it. Aleigha and Estaish kill the orc fleeing. The sleeping ones are killed and the hypnotized ones are tied up for now, and handed to the slaves later.

A search finds:

A warhammer
500 gold ring
Many weapons, armor and such added to magic pile.

They search and find a trap door down here too. Knowing the danger of the trap from the other one, Alzar opens it with his staff. There are no issues.

They go to the last room, and this is a destroyed and badly damaged dormitory. They search and find nothing.

They return to the main courtyard where the 10 slaves are. Alzar wants to continue down, but they are severely damaged, and he is out of his major spells. They spend the night here, with the slaves, and no one bothers them. In the morning, Alzar decides to go out on his own, and memorizes Vampiric Touch three times, Sleep three times instead of Detect Magic.

Four ghouls rose in the night, and both are controlled by him. He is taking the trapped path down.

The ghouls lead down, and they arrive in the sewers underneath the complex. It’s been about 12 hour since they killed everybody above and a day and a half since they came down and killed the leader.

The passage goes one way. The air is damp and foul. The tunnel splits and goes left and forward-right-ish. Alzar goes left. The floor are the new room is covered with drying garbage and foul materials. There is a lot of muck. Alzar orders the ghouls in and the imps flying overheard.

The larvae form of this creature, can be found in this room:



Five of them move to the disturbance and attack the ghouls. One ghoul hits twice and deals 5 damage to an aspis larvae. It fails one save and is paralyzed. Another is hit once for 1 damage. It is also paralyzed. One of the three hits a ghoul for 4 damage. The other two miss. Alzar’s dagger flies in and misses.

The ghouls swing. One misses with all three attacks. The other hits once on a new aspis larvae for 3 damage and…a failed save, so a third is paralyzed. Megala flies down and hits one for 1 damage and it fails its save and falls asleep. The last one fails a save from a Mist Ball, and takes 5 damage and is blinded for 3 rounds.

(Alzar is at 10/51 right now from Fast Healing)

Alzar has everybody concentrate on the blind one and it dies in tow turns despite some severe hacking. This are powerful guys. The paralyzeds ones are killed, and Alzar heads into the muck and grabs his battleaxe, puts on the gauntlets, and shears the larvae in half with a major strike.

XP – 100 for Alzar

They search the room. There are branches left, right and a tunnel in front with carved walls. They go left.

This is an egg chamber with a medium sized cavern, and three aspis drones (like the one you saw) are guarding them. Alzar grabs his spells and moves to one. He casts Vampiric Touch and absorbs 15.

25/51

The ghouls attack and Miss five times. The one hit an already wounded drone for 2 damage and it made its save. A Mist Ball flies in on a different one, and it makes its save. Another is hit by the last two ghouls four times for 8 damage, and fails its save and is paralyzed. The two left swing two battle axes each. One axe falls to the ground. Alzar takes 10 from the other three.

15/51

He backs up and lets his ghouls take care of the other tow. One is hit six times for 11 damage and paralyzed. The last one swings and misses twice. It wins init and swings and kills a ghoul. It is hit four times and it is paralyzed. They are all killed by the ghouls, and alzar orders the ghouls to kill all 20or so eggs in here too. A search afterwards finds some gems:

1000, 500, 100 gem

XP – 100 for Alzar

They go back into the trash room and then move right. This is a food storage area for the aspis, with grain and such. They search and find nothing and move away from a large chamber beyond with many insect profiles out there. They go back and check out the strait tunnel, which has a sewer on the side.

They continue and reach a place where the ledge continues along the left, but a bridge crosses a fork and goes to the left side of another passage. They continue and the ledge slopes down into the sewer, and there are three branches, forward, forward-leftish, and forward right-ish. He moves down and into the main channel. They arrive in a room along with the other tunnels.

It looks like the chamber has been expanded with extra work recently. There are several ogres that are guarding this area, waiting on someone to arrive, and they throw spears at Alzar and his group. 8 orcs armed with scimitars and swords are charging. A ghoul takes a critically thrown spear to the chest and dies from the 12 damage.

Alzar casts sleep, and 6 orcs fall asleep. A Mist Ball flies into an ogre and it makes the save. The two ghouls left run into the orcs and carve up one. The other misses. The ogres throw another round of spears. Both of the ghouls are killed.

Alzar casts sleep again. The other orc and an ogre fall asleep. The two ogres throw their final spears and Alzar takes 7.

8/51

They run at each other Alzar runs up and casts Vampiric Touch. One takes 9. Dryshik Mist Balls the other. His final one for a while. It fails it save and takes 4 damage and is blinded for 2 rounds. The ogres attack. Both misss

17/51

Alzar Vampiric Touches, his final one, on the wounded ogre. 11 damage. It swings and hits for 8. The other misses widely. Megala flies in and misses.

20/51

The ogre wins init and misses, dropping its giant axe. Alzar misses as well.

The blinded ogre is back

Alzar nails the wounded one for 6 damage and she dies. The last one roars and swings its axe. Alzar takes 12.

8/51

Alzar casts Empathic Control, and the final ogre fails. Whew. He has the controlled ogre kill the orcs and ogre sleeping.


XP – 850 for juts Alzar

With no more mist balls, and vampiric touches, and two sleeps used, he will take the ogre into the next room.

Alzar searches the room, and then leaves after finding:

360 gold
500 gp gemx3
Dagger , +1, +2 vs Magic Users and Enchanted Creatures

He and his imps head back.

They go down the corridor and find a collapsed tunnel, so they head the other way down a tight corridor, that gets too tight for the ogre. Alzar orders the ogre back. He orders the ogre to lay down in front of him, and grabs his axe. He cancels the spell while the axe is in the air ,and it severs the head.

They go back down the corridor. They find a side chamber with a small dirt section carved out of the soft earth. In here are six orcs that are waiting on the ogres and orcs from the area Alzar entered. He casts sleep and all fall asleep. They are killed and nothing of worth can be found here. With few spells left, he goes back up.

Another night’s rest, and Alzar will go back down the next night. This night, a giant spider tries to enter the courtyard, but is easily taken care of

The next day Alzar, heads back down. Again, he has two more ghouls from the dead orcs that join him. He tries a different entry way and goes back to the crypt and heads down to the room that he was in originally where the head honcho was killed.

The bodies left here have been cleared out, and no one is on guard duty. They go to the bridge leading out and no issue with heading down. They arrive at the slave pits and slave chambers. There are pits and chambers below this walkway.

This room is high ceilings with two pillars holding everything up. A grid of 10’by10’ cells are marked by walkways on top, where Alzar is. There is also a few side rooms to the left and tight and stairs down from there. Over on this side is a platform with a drone aspis and a large number of levers Alzar moves in and casts Vampiric Touch. They were not expecting him to come this way, and from here he can see two drones crouching in ambush over a tunnel in from another direction. The drone takes 12. Two ghouls attack it and hit twice for 4 damage and failed saves, so it is paralyzed, and now killed.

20/51

XP – 50 for Alzar

They search the body and find a pearl.

The two drones have heard a noise and are moving this way. Alzar jumps out and orders his ghouls down the beams to the drones. Ghouls are good at climbing and stuff. He throws in a dagger to distract them. It misses. They grab darts and start throwing them, two a turn. Alzar takes 4.

16/51

They win init and switch to axes and hit just once on a ghoul, for 4 damage. The ghouls attack back. The first one misses three times The second does as well. Alzar casts Ray of Ondovir at the one that swung and misses. He commands the ghouls to push it over next turn, knowing how it will attack.

They do, and it falls, unable to correct its balance, 15 feet into an empty, but closed cell. It takes 1 damage from the fall. The other one kills the wounded ghoul with its axes.

The ghoul goes first and hits once for 3 damage. It makes the save. Alzar orders a Mist Ball which fails. The Aspis Drone swings and hits th eghoul once for 2 damage. Alzar tosses a +1 dagger and misses.

The next round, Alzar’s group goes first. The ghoul hits once for 1 damage and a made save. Alzar throws his last dagger for a miss. Megala flies in. The drone hits the ghoul for 4 damage. The next round, the drone swings and hits one for 3 damage and kills the last ghoul. Alzar goes in front and casts Vampiric Touch. 13 damage

29/51


Alzar wins init and slashes with his staff at it and hits and it takes 8 damage. It crits him once for 4 and then hits for 2 more.

23/51

It wins init and swings and misses twice. Alzar finish with a crit for 10.


The one on the ground is trying to get out. Alzar calmly starts dropping oil on it, and catches it on fire. Then repeats twice more until it dies.

XP – 500 for Alzar

He searches the corpse and finds nothing. He goes down the stairs to the left and find’s a storeroom and a machine room. Eyeing the machinery of the room with pistons and such is an Aspis drone and five slaves. Alzar orders Dryshik to use his final Mist Ball at it. Success. He and the slaves kill It over the next few turns and it dies without doing any more damage.

XP – 50 for Alzar

There is nothing in these two rooms.

Alzar sees another slave chamber , and 5 orcs are readying crossbows and fire when they see him. Two hit Alzar for 5 damage.

18/51

He casts sleep and they all fall asleep, and all fall over into slave pens where they are killed very quickly.

XP – 100 for Alzar


Alzar opens up all of the slave doors. There are 13 more freed. 11 are common natives. One is a native, 4th level fighter, and Alzar gives him the orc armor and weapons from one of the dead ones. The last one is a white slave who claims to be a merchant with high connections.

They take the normal salves back upstairs to the courtyard, and then go back down, Alzar, the freed slave, and his crew, to see what else they can find.

They move down a tunnel from the slave pits, and enter a door. A short flight of steps leads up to this landing, and Alzar orders the ex-slave to stay back. The door is opened and there is a door on the other side, with rusted equipment and rags in here. Alzar enters and gas fills the room. It dissipates after ten minutes, and they continue, opening the next door. Alzar suspects many more orcs down here after using the Ear Ring to hear. He sends the ex-slave up with an idea. Everybody comes down in weapons and armor. They aren’t warriors, but 267 or so people in armor and looking like warriors, plus Alzar, Aleigha, Estaish, and the low morale here because people are getting killed, should help.

The slaves are ordered to stay put for a bit. Alzar scouts ahead. There is a sewer against one wall again, and three entrance to a small chamber on one side of the corridor, an entrance to a hallway on the other side.

Two orcs see Alzar form down in that chamber and throw spears. Both miss. They call for help. Soon 14 orcs are flooding into the sewer corridor from both directions, until sleep puts 6 to sleep. Alzar orders the slaves to march forward, and the 8 orcs are scared and run away. Megala and Dryshik fly into the chambers just vacated. On one side, it continues, on the other, there is a nasty looking orc who sees Megala and throws a dagger at it, but misses. Alzar swings in, and battle begins.

Alzar wins init and Dryshik has a Mist Ball again. She fails the save and takes 4 damage and is blinded for three turns. Alzar rushes in and smashes her with his staff for 3 damage. She actually manages to thwarp him for 2 with her staff. He adds 12 more over the next two turns and kills her.

16/51

The witch doctor’s body and the area is profusely searched. They find:

Gems – 100, 1000
500 gold


They head into the other section and find a stone chest on the floor. They manage to open it, and inside is:

1000 gp
Scroll

Alzar’s ear ring hears a ton of orcs in the next chamber, and they are talking about defenses, The fleeing orcs ran here. They are close to where Alzar found the orcs and ogres before. He grabs his Crystal Ball and checks out the last room they saw from before, where he snuck in, put six to sleep and killed them, then quickly left. The room cannot see anything beyond it, and nothing is here, not even any light.

He puts the Ball away and moves to the corridor beyond this room. He orders the slave/soldiers to hold up. He suspects that they will all flee once the battle is broken. Alzar moves into the doorway by himself, and quickly surveys the room.

There are tables up, and more than a scre of orcs milling about, with at least one ogre back there. They yell when they see him, and a few sling stones whing in. He casts Hynotism very quickly and commands five orcs to leave their place and follow him, and leaves.

The orcs, have been attacked and destroyed for days. They have had outposts killed, and dozens of their people captured and killed. Now, five of their last group have just calmly walked up and away. I believe a morale check is required, but with a goof chance since their chief is here with them.

They make it.

The five orcs arrive and Alzar asks them to drop their weapons and sit down, and they are quickly tied up, with no weapons left. Alzar decides to play tricks on the orcs. Him and his familiars run up and back to the entrance in the temple area, and go down and retrace their steps. He will appear at the other entrance, and cast sleep. Then have the army appear at the first entrance. It takes about 40 minutes to backtrack and move around and come back to the other side, but he thinks they will be nervous such a long wait.

Alzar moves into the pathway and casts sleep. More sling stones fire at him, and one hits for 3 damage. 6 orcs have fallen asleep. Alzar orders the slave “army” in from over here. Suddenly, more than 20 slaves in armor charge into the room With the orc numbers beginning at 27 and now reduced to 16, another morale check is called for. They again make it, bolstered by their chief and the TWO ogres here.

13/51

With most of the attention towards the army, Alzar casts his final sleep spell and 5 more collapse. Just 11 left.

The sling stones rattle off some armor, and Alzar is hit once more. The two ogres are smarter and more battle hardy and they charge Alzar. Weapons fire is exchanged as crossbows and slings exchange missiles. Aleigha and Estaish charge in, with the ex-slave warrior, and cut down two orcs. A Mist Ball hits an ogre running in. It fails its save and stumbles, taking 4 damage and blinded for 3 turns. Alzar casts Vampiric Touch on the other one as soon as it arrives. It takes 10.

23/51

The ogre swings at Alzar and crits him with a big giant axe. Alzar takes 14 damage. Megala flits in and hits the blind ogre for 3 damage. It makes the save.

9/51

Alzar retreats and orders Dryshik to Wall of Fog the area to the orc camp, so they won’t see him damaged and fleeing.

The orcs fail their morale, and with nowhere to flee, they throw down their weapons. They are bound and their items removed.

Megala hits the ogre again for 1 damage and it falls asleep.

Alzar is against this ogre by himself, with just these spells left – Charm Person – won’t work on ogres, Empathic Control, and Blastbones.

Alzar tries Empathic Control on the ogre. It fails the save. Alzar orders the ogre into and through the Wall of Fog and into the room. The controlled ogre in bound the sleeping one is killed When the slaves are sure that ogre is super bound, Alzar releases it. It’s very pissed

XP – 250 for Estaish and Aleigha, 1000 for Alzar.

None of the slaves died, but one was wounded badly, and is currently stable. The room is searched thoroughly.

240 gold from orcs
1200 copper
Gems – 5000 gp, 2000 gp, 5 gp, 50 gp
3 Daggers, coated with dried smears of Orcish poison

Alzar decides to stay away from the Aspis lair, which is the only thing left down here. The orcs agree that there is nothing of value down there and a lot of giant underground ants and aspises.


They leave with orc prisoners, 26 slaves freed, and lots of bounty and head back for Tangaroa.

Their arrive in two days time is met with joy and festivities. The celebrate the return of the slaves from Dawa.

The ex-slave prisoner asks Alzar is he can come with him. Alzar waits a day and uses ESP on him. He is authentic. His culture puts the control and animation of undead as a high honor, and serving a Zombie Master in Alzar is a great privilege. He is Lawful Neutral. (I rolled it).

Alzar agrees.

Gold – 5000 from trade route, 1000 from Sea Hydra, 9607 from Slaves. Alzar gives 1000 to sailors and officer for hazard pay as thanks, gives 1000 to Estaish and Aleigha. Paid 200 for Protective Amulet and replacement.

13407 gold from adventures.



Items Found:

A jeweled hilt of a rusted cutlass, worth 500 gold.
A potion, labeled Water Breathing in etched runes.
Got +2 Chainmail back from Estaish
500 gp gems x11, 1000x4, 10, 100 x2, Gems – 5000 gp, 2000 gp, 5 gp, 50 gp
Potion – Alzar identifies as Fire Resistance
A sack with jewelry worth 1000 gp
2000 gp in gems
Jeweled Dagger worth 1000 gold
500 gp gold ring
Records of Slaver Activities and where the ship currently anchored is heading to, on a chart, near the mainland, and far away
Dagger , +1, +2 vs Magic Users and Enchanted Creatures
3 Daggers, coated with dried smears of Orcish poison
Took 2 Spiked Bars, with a spring action, trap, Deals 3d6 damage



Used two charges of Wand of Magic Missiles. Estaish and Aleigha used Pots of healing, Alzar used extra healing. Alzar gives them each a pot again. Alzar gives Estaish the +2 ring and gets another +1 back.


Magic Pile – Ring of Spell Storing, with Friends, Shatter and Jump in it. Gauntlets of Dexterity. Ring of Pro +2. Potion of Invis – 7 drinks left. Stone of Diminution, when held acts as potion until dropped. +1 mace, potion of speed. +1 warhammer. Pearl of Wisdom. Scroll of Invisibility

XP: 2570 for Aleigha, and an additional 257 for Estaish; 8987 for Alzar inc Sea Hydra

Alzar – 64,924 (Level 7)
Estaish – 14,690 (Level 4)
Aleigha – 18,745 (Level 5) – Now has 34 HP.

Alzar can now cast:

5/4/3/2

He will be memorizing: Sleep, Detect Magic, Hypnotism, Charm Person, Animate Dead Animals, Ray of Ondovir, Empathic Control, Blastbones, Ray of Enfeeblement, Skulltrap, Searing Serpent, Vampiric Touch, Greater Malison, Mordenkainen’s Faithful Phantom Shield-Maidens

A Ring of Spell Storing works thusly. It can store a certain number of spells, in this case, wizard spells, and three. They must be levels 1, 1 and 2. Alzar casts the three spells from it, and stores the following spells: Read Magic, Sleep and Forget. He can cast these from the ring once each, and then they are gone and have to be cast into it again for another go, later. Technically, anyone can use the ring, so he could store Sleep, Charm and ESP and give it to a fighter to cast those spells in combat once each, but he will be keeping it for himself. He will not be wearing it, since he won’t need to, and can get it when he needs it during an adventure.

The Gauntlets of Dex will increase Alzar’s Dexterity by 2 and give him a 37% of opening locks and 44% of picking pockets. It’s not that great. No one really can benefit from it right now. He keeps them with him and will put them on to try and pick a lock, but that’s it.

The trio, now a quartet, spends some time in Tangaroa. Alzar trades for Transmute Bone to Steel. He now has four character points, but doesn’t spend any. Estaish learns to use the crossbow and takes a crossbow and 20 bolts with him on the next adventure. The spare weapons and armor from the slavers are given to the village, which does not have a lot of iron weapons.

Now it’s time for a look at Estaish and our newest recruit. When I first brought in Estaish, as a 1st level guy, I thought he would die any time, but he continues to live, and as such, it worth fleshing out now:



Estaish, 4th level Fighter, Myrmidon

Lawful Neutral
Human

Str 16
Dex 12
Con 13
Int 10
Wis 9
Cha 12

HP – 32
AC -2
THAC0 - 17

+3 chain, +1 shield, +2 sword, +2 Ring of Pro, Ring of Fire Resist, Pot of healing.
4k gold


Fire Building
Tactics
Riding
Swimming
Survival
Armorer
Endurance
Animal Lore
Hunting
Rope Use
Reading/Writing


Blades
Crossbow
Lance


Estaish was a mercenary from the Chance Protectorate who struck it out for a long time, fighting in other people’s battles. He did some good things and some bad things as a professional soldier. He left the mercenary gig and joined the town guard at Athaly for 3 years before acquiring info on the Veiled Society that led to his capture and soon to be death at the hands of the Society, when Alzar freed him. Bored of Athaly and wanting more adventure, Estaish followed Alzar into cities and dungeons, towers and gardens. He is a soldier, and a professional one. He knows how to follow orders. Alzar has given him a prince’s ransom of magic items, and Estaish is grateful. The whole undead thing doesn’t bother him too much. As long as they aren’t running around raping children or whatever, he won’t be bothered.

Carum, 4th level fighter, Native

Lawful Neutral
Human

Str 11
Dex 10
Con 17
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 12

HP – 39
THAC0 - 17
AC – -1

+2 splint mail, +1 shield, +1 Ring of Protection, Pot of Healing, +2 dagger


Prof:

Spear
Specialization Spear - +1 and +2 to fighting with spear
Dagger
Sling

Swimming - 9
Fishing - 7
Seamanship - 9
Hunting - 8
Set Snares - 9
Tracking - 8
Deep Diving - 9


Traits:

Alertness



Born the 3rd son of the Clan Chief for the Elk Clan from Dawa, Carum become a warrior for the tribe, as well as being a food gatherer for his tribe, like everyone else. With fishing, hunting snare setting, and deep diving; Carum can acquire food in many ways from his environment. He can also find game with tracking.

Note that Carum cannot ride or read, unlike many others. He can do some new things, like tracking and snare setting, that are pretty cool. He was never a good fighter at anything other than being very hale and hearty, and rarely was down to sickness.

Carum considers it a high honor to serve a Zombie Master, and views Alzar as such. The animation and control of undead are considered good things in Carum’s society, and he will happily serve Alzar.


He currently has 10k XP. Since Alzar does not have a magic spear, he gave Carum a magic dagger as a backup.

X1. The Isle of Dread


The next mission is simple enough. Using the map of the island with the coast already outlined, and Alzar and company will explore inland, going to each hex. The hexes are three miles across, so they can do a hex every few hours. And about 4-5 a day.

Initially, they walk down the trail to the tarpits. This is a quick trek, they explore the path and find nothing, and make it to the tarpits. They spend a few hours exploring around the tarpits which are 8 miles along. The finally end with the hex right below, broken lands. They end the night. During the night, a group of 8 neanderthals attack, and the group is quickly awakened. Alzar casts Sleep after they smash him for 6 damage from two clubs. Just 2 fall asleep. The fighters wing in and drive the others away after they kill one. The sleepers are taken out.

45/51

The morning arrives and Alzar is at 47/51. They head east for the day, and check out the six hexes closest to the Great Wall. The find four jungle hexes and two swamp ones. They move to the trail and finish the night in Tanaroa.



They awakened and everybody is healed. They go east of the trail. Jungle, hills, hills, , hills, jungle, and then…

They are in some hills and see a giant bird flying overhead. Giant. Alzar has never seen a Roc before, but it is unmistakable. It skips past their group after they hide in some rocks. They rest for the night in the hills.

In the morning, they begin to move out, but hear a crashing sound as something big is moving in the hills.

It rounds a bend and starts charging the group.



Carum gets in front to face the charge, with his spear set to take it. He knows how to fight these guys. Alzar and group draw weapons, ,and get ready. He tells them to attack the side.

The Triceratops charges Carum and will deal double damage if it hits. It does and doles out 18 damage to Carum. Carums spear and proficiency with it hit as well, as since he was set to take the charge, the triceratops takes double damage from the spear – 10 damage.

It now only has 69 hit points. A Mist Ball flies in and it makes the save. Aleigha and Estaish swing. The skin and hide on the sides is much softer, but they both miss (rolled a 2 and a 4). Carum spears it for 8. Alzar casts Ray of Enfeeblement on the Triceratops. It makes the save. The Triceratops flails about with its horns expertly, and tries to hit Carum, and then Estaish twice. It misses Est once, but hits Carum for 7 and Estaish for 10.

Carum is at 14/39
Estaish at 22/32

They win init and Alzar moves in front and pushes Carum back. He swings with his +3 staff prepared just for this, and hears the Gingwatzim complain. He misses. Aleigha and Estaish both miss (7 and a 5).

The Triceratops swings at Alzar twice and Estaish once. The first swing on Alzar misses (Cloak of Displacement). It misses Est and nails Alzar for 11.

40/51

They win init. Alzar Vampiric Touches it for 11 damage. The dinosaur is at 50 hp. The fighters on the side both hit for 11 total. 39 hp. It swings and hits Aleigha once and Alzar once.

45/51 for Alzar
29/34 for Aleigha

It wins init and attacks everybody once.

43/51 Alzar, 24/34 Aleigha

Aleigha drops her sword. Est hits for 10. Alzar hits for 8.

Down to 21. The Triceratops rolls for morale. It begins to flee. A Mist Ball flies in and it fails its save, and takes 2 poison damage and is blinded for 4 rounds. It is flailing about madly, and Alzar orders ranged weapons. He throws the dagger andhits for 5 damage. Carum misses with his sling. Est does as well with his bolt.

The next round, Alzar crits with a =1 dagger and everyone hits. 6+1+6 = 13.

The next round, both drop their weapons. Alzar rushes in and slashes with his staff. Hit on a blind tricera for 10 damage and it dies.

Whew

They split 8000 XP, so 2000 each.

Carum starts hacking it apart into pieces. They are about 12 miles away from Tanaroa, and in a few minutes, he has assembled a pair of sleds with triceratops meat on them and made form its skins. They carry them, and rotate who is responsible for moving them, for half the day. They pass a peaceful plant eating dinosaur and arrive back and bring the meat to the village. They send out natives to strip the rest of it, and have a Triceratops feast. It’s been almost a year since the last triceratops was killed, so they savor it. They stay here tonight, and the local witch doctor agrees to heal Carum for helping. He receives curing today and tomorrow.

The next day, they head back out.

Carum is at 30/39
Alzar 46/51
Aleigha 27/34
Estaish 23/32

They go east and flank a giant lake. They only check out four hexes, all swamp, along this lake. Night is quiet.

The next day, they continue north east. They start in more swaps, head east and run into a cave. They spy it for a bit, and see some troglodytes come in and out. These will attack the natives regularly, so Carum wants to attack. Alzar agrees, and then run down quickly. Alzar casts sleep and 2 fall asleep. A dozen run out of the shallow cave with spears in hand. A crossbow bolt misses

Battle is enjoined. Alzar casts Hypnotism and tells 3 to drop their weapons and sit down. Aleigha deals out 10 damage and kills another. 8 left. Est and Carum miss. Est is critted for 7 damage. Aleigha takes 6.

16/32
21/34

Alzar strikes out with his staff and misses. All of the fighters hit and two more trogs are dead. 6 left. The rest barely make their morale check. Three hit for 12 damage on Alzar.

34/51

They win init and poke with spears. Alzar takes 9 more. A Vampiric Touch deals 14 and kills one. Estaish crits one for 11 damage and kills it. The other four break away and run from their lair.

49/51

They search and find a box.

5000 copper
6000 silver
Opal., 500 gp, x8

They push on and find a swamp and mountainous area, and call it a day. No one bothers them at night.

51/51
17/32
24/34
31/39

Mountain, hills, caves, swamp, swamp. The caves take longer to fully explore. At night, they are encountered by the remaining trogs, who followed them and want vengeance. They are able to deal 10 damage to Aleigha, the guard, before Alzar puts several to sleep and the rest are killed

XP -= 250 each


18/32
17/34
32/39

They finish the west shore of the lake today. It’s all swamp. They finish north of the tar pits in some hills. Day is quiet, but at night, a five headed Hydra decides they look like lunch, and is moving towards them when Alzar sees it. He wakes everybody up and has Dryshik Mist Ball it. It makes it save.

The hydra is close now. Alzar moves toward it to give his fighters a chance to get ready. He casts Ray of Ondovir at it. Success. It just keeps walking all next round, and Alzar casts Ray of Enfeeblement, success. It now has -2 to hit and damage from each head. The fighters arrive at it.

It wins init at the begin of the next round. It would have hit Alzar once, but misses (Cloak of Displacement). Everybody misses it (7, 3, 7 and 8 are rolled on four different dice).

They win init and Carum crits a head for 10 and kills one. Estaish deals 7 to another. The remaining four heads deal out 7 damage total to Alzar

44/51

They win init and Hit alzar once for 3 damage. Ray of Enfeeblement is really working right now. Alzar deals 11 from a Vamp touch and kills a head Estaish kills the wounded one, Aleigha hits for 9 and slices another, and Carum hits the last head for 4 damage.

51/51

It moves to retreat and Alzar orders his people to stop it. Carum hurls his spear and misses. Alzar tosses a dagger and misses. Dryshik Mist Balls the final head and it fails its save, takes 5 damage and dies

XP – 300 each

19/32
20/34
33/39

The next day, they continue around the tarpits. Hills, hills, broken landsx3. End of day. Night is quiet. 20/32, 23/34, 34/39

The heads southwest into more badlands, and hear the cries and hoots and grunts of something in the cliffs. They looks up and see a bunch of rock baboons, threatening the group with rocks. Will they fall asleep? Yes, three do. There are approximately a dozen left. Megala and Dryshik fly up or a better look. A slingshot and bolt each miss. Rocks thrown down miss by miles. Dryshik casts Wall of Fog behind them, so all that is in front is the cliff. Alzar hypnotizes two more to climb down the cliff and sit down in front of him and his people. They do. A sling hits a baboon for 2 damage. Several rocks are close, and they all miss Alzar (Cloak of Displacement) but will not next round.

The baboons win init. Alzar takes 9 from three rocks. Aleigha is tying up the two hypnotized baboons. The injured baboon takes 6 damage from a bolt and stone. They are tough. Alzar needs to end this now. He uses a charge from his Belt, flies up, and Skulltraps them for just 13 damage each. A bad kulltrap. Two dodge out of the way completely. The wounded one dies, and the rest are still kicking. They run away, however, braving the Wall of Fog. Alzar has Megala and Dryshik follow, and does so as well, from farther back. A half mile away they enter a cave, and Alzar swoops in and casts Blastbones and deals 5 more. The wounded ones drop dead.

43/51

Dryshik Mist Balls one of the two unwounded until now. It makes its save. They bound towards Alzar and miss. They win init and swing twice each. Alzar takes 7.

36/51

He Vampic Touches the wounded one and deals. 12, killing it. 48/51. He takes 1.

47/51

It wins init and hits for 5. 42/51. A staff falls out of Alzar’s hand. A Mist Ball flies in and it makes its save. Alzar wins init, but has to pick up his staff. It misses once and hits once for 3. 39/51. Alzar misses. It wins and this once for 5. 34/51. Alzar hits for 8. It dies.

A quick investigation shows no magic, but two pieces of jewelry in the cave

XP – 200 each

700 gp gold bracelet, 1300 gp silver amethyst necklace

They move into a volcanic area, badlands, and then finish with another volcanic area. They see a Cave Bear from a distance, but it does not notice them, or does not care. At night, Aleigha sees a mated pair of giant elk with a baby move by and look for bigger plants to eat, and they are not aggressive.

36/51, 21/32, 26/34, 35/39

They spend the day moving into the southwestern peninsula and see jungle everywhere. The day and night are quiet. 38/51, 22/32, 29/34, 36/39

They spend many hours getting back to new land, and only explore two new hexes today. Badlands and jungle to the east of the volcanoes. Everything is quiet. 40/51, 23/32, 32/34, 37/39

They go northwest one hex, jungle, jungle, badlands directly west of northern volcano then badlands, jungle and jungle. During the day, they run into a Wyvern who wants to eat one of them and swoops down. Alzar tires the Ray of Ondovir trick again to ground it. It fails the save and crashes into the ground for 15 damage. Swords flash out and it takes 8 from two hits from Carum and Estaish. A Mist Ball flies in and it is immune to poison, and makes its save vs the blinding impact. Alzar orders everybody back and moves in. He can survive its poison most likely. It sees him and stabs with its tail and would have hit, but misses . A crossbow bolt hits for 5.

Alzar wins init and drops his staff. The missiles miss. Another Mist Ball flies in and it makes the save. It stabs at Alzar with its tail for 7 damage. Alzar made the poison save with his +9 to the roll.

33/51

It wins init and attacks twice, misses with the tail and bites for 2 damage. 31/51. Alzar Vamp ouches it for 15 damage. It takes 4 damage from a crossbow bolt, teeters and dies.

46/51


XP – 350 each

Alzar can’t take the tail and poison glands, he has no equipment out here to keep it.

The night is quiet: 48/51, 24/32, 34/34. 38/39

The next day, they continue north. Badlands, junglex4The day and night are quiet, except for a killed dinosaur they pass.

They next day, they continue. Jungle x3, hills, hills. Both day and night are quiet again 50/51, 25/32

They head east and find hills about 5 miles north of the tar pits, and in them…

A guzak camp. A tribe of guzaks has turned the area into a camp for themselves. They have several sabretooth tigers as pets. They wield spears and clubs. They are not antagonistic. Alzar cannot communicate with them, however, so they skip their camp. In the hills east of the guzak camp, our group encounters a couple of guzaks with a sabretooth tiger out hunting, and they pass the group by.

Hillsx2, jungle. The night is quiet. 26/32

Junglex3, then three more heading back inland. They encounter a quartet of guzaks and two sabtretooth tigers out hunting here as well. 27/32

Jungle, hills, hills, hills, jungle, jungle. Quiet – 28/32

Jungle x3, mountain, jungle. They spot a megatherium, a peaceful giant ground sloth. It only eats plants, so they leave it alone. 29/32

Their day begins with an interesting encounter. They come across a group of 8 small monkey-raccoon creatures. They have large eyes and gliding skin between their legs and arms.




They do not attack, but they watch Alzar and his group carefully for a mile. They continue through, and the phanatons eventually let Alzar and company pass un harmed, unchallenged, and without any problems.