Blood-Feud?

Summary

Adventure: Blood-Feud?
GM: Dean Ellis
Season: Winter 817 wk
Night: Tuesday
Location: Chez Ellis
Level: High

Party

Erzabet - Name - Julia
Tari - Earth - Michelle
Father Broc - Rune - Chris
Mordrin - Fighter (Mil Sci) - Clare
Lady Cher - Binder - Sean
Shiana - Shaman of the Pheonix - Jacinta
Caprice - Thaumaturgist - Kelsie

Employer: Albrecht of Grymeron
Mission: On Grymeron, too many enemies are no longer fighting amongst themselves and are instead cooperating for some reason. This represents a great danger to the civilised Goblins and their way of life.

Primary - Investigate what's changed and why.
Secondary - Assess how to fix the situation to return it to status quo of normal inter-racial warfare and non-cooperation.
Tertiary - Fix the situation and return it to status quo

Also identify which Allies would help the goblins should the situation deteriorate and how. List of Allies include;

Vindikar
other goblin tribes
Camdindel
Sarska?
Mossiegong?
others as yet unknown

Enemies would include;

Trolls
Dragons
anything bigger than the goblins (hopefully excluding the list of Allies above)
Whoever or whatever is stirring up the cooperation amongst the goblin enemies
undead and evil types
unknown entities et al

Scribe Notes

Session 1 - Guild meeting and initial travel

Meet, greet and introductions. It's a party of fearsome women and me their male companion - oh the hardship. Stock up on supplies (inc a quick visit to the coven at Slippery Rock), a review of previous Grymeron scribe notes (The Rainbow Gates in Winter (Thaw) 810WK & Shopping on Grymeron in Autumn 814WK) and then a nice night at the guild with naked dancing by Caprice.

The next day we travel South down to Newhaven to reset the banishment locations and then travel East towards Camdindel's Home in the Superstition Mountains, specifically on the River Rumble.

There we are met by Lorto, we then meet Camdindel and Legion. We hold discussions and have a light repast. Camdindel's father (aka Dear old Dad) floats by as well. We are later joined by Maelstrom who has recently (just now) returned from Grymeron with some information which we listen to.

Session 2 - Camdindell's and more

The party plays some more with Maestrom's various forms and making pans to protect ourselves against possible adversaries, especially a Sarth Dragon. We leave after 2 days here during which time we make items and supplies we consider essential. See CD's time below.

We depart via the Gate of Tears where we visit with the Vindikar and gain a small measure of knowledge around a possible intrusion of another hive mind type onto Grymeron. We attempt to localise where it may be originating from but fail. We stay the rest of the day and night there until we can use the Gate of Tears to return. I created Intra Planar Portal near the Gate of Tears portal and created an Interplanar Portal point near the Gate of Tears portal.

Once back in the Vale of Tears we flew up to the Gryphon Pass area and landed just outside Darkwell village which we entered and prepared to enter another portal. Here I created an Interplanar portal point linked to Grymeron. Albrecht activated the fountain portal (aka Noble Gate) and we ported to Newhome on Grymeron. Once there we exited the complex and I created another Intraplanar portal point. We took flight across the lake to the E and headed from Gribbit – the Imboo Goblin capital. Once we got closer to the City we were intercepted by the Goblin Air Corps who were flying on small dragon like creatures some 6 foot in length and escorted to the landing zone.

Session 3 - Gribbit and into the Haunted Forest

We didn't stay long in the city as after 1 night we'd managed to cause a social conniption with all the locals wanting to feast us. We plead the need for getting the mission done and left the city so that a single huge social occasion could occur in 2 days time. I create another Intraplanar portal point and test this back to Newhome. We leave the city taking the haunted gate through to the Haunted forest.

We portal into the Haunted wood and establish that the point has moved somewhat (as is the nature of the wood) and so I sit down to create another Intraplanar portal point. Tari vanishes into a tree and has a very slow conversation with the wood which when she comes out, she tells us is one big tree, not individual trees. We move on looking for nothing in particular and travel between levels, assisted by Tari teasing out breaks in the levels. We establish that there are 5 levels to the woods and the haunted portal opens onto level 2. Under the portal point may be solid ground but no-one we know has ever seen it. The levels of darkness change as you ascend upwards from level 1 - which must be truly dark (if any light was there to contrast to) and increases to merely gloomy at the top level 5 before you break out above the woods.

Anyway we travel along and find streams of water in the air passing through the trees with fish. We follow one of these, encounter electric eel type creatures, kill them and them see a much larger shark/killer whale come along and consume the dead eels in front of us - all of which is to the bemusement of a goblin who had been fishing when we came up out of the river. The goblin is xxx and he is a bit of a loner who has yet to gain recognition (and from there a wife perhaps) as yet. We get him to fearfully guide is to find a group of Dracoslurze which we entice in close and then kill with some excitement.

We take a petrified Dracoslurze statue back to his camp so he can make up stories and us it to build his reputation and lure a woman in the future.

Session 4 - Ignorance abounds

We moved through the woods for the next day with no luck and the next day looked similar until at last we chanced upon a large lake we took to be that of ignorance. We started moving around the lake and a feeling of unease came upon us but without a specific source, so we warily moved on. We finally got to the home beside the lake which was just up from a beach on the lake-shore. We said hello to Keifer the keeper of the lake (Keifer is a pygmy forest troll) and started negotiations for potions. Me begged off to go do something in the back room while most of us split up to look at the lake, beach or gardens.

I stayed behind inside as I was suspicious of something, and this suspicion was proved true when chanting started, a water elemental summoned and water started to fall. A fight ensued where we poured heinous damage into Keifer until he transformed into water and we offered him to surrender, which he did.

We now spoke with him and he didn't remember why he attacked us but did complain of a hazy period of time over the last 3 weeks. He remembers that some goblins visited him 3 weeks ago and that he felt different after they left. We find the cause of this to be a small creature that invaded his ear and obviously had some control over him (which we suspect is part of the insidious hive mind) and caused him to act strangely. He can't remember which tribe of goblins they were and thinks the forest goblins they were, however I suspect the dark goblins.

We do however find other useful information in that the lake of ignorance has two portals in it, one for the plane of water and another from the plane of death. The PoD one is possibly a leak of the River Lethe which explains the forgetfulness. The portal points move with the lake when it travels through the haunted woods.

We now have suspicions and seek proof!

Session 5 - a party and then travel

We make ready to leave and once I've completed a portal point here in Keifers home we portal back to my portal in our rooms in Gribbit. The portal works just fine except the exit point in Gribbit has moved to a nearby Fountain which we all appear in. I do notice in the fountain that there are runes carved in there - I will investigate once I have time.

We exit the fountain and go to our rooms as the party is only hours away. The ladies start primping and fluffing while I cogitate on what just happened. I decide to test the portal here and transit over to Newhome to the west and I find myself where i expected and so we portal back to the rooms. The rest of the day is spent dressing, cleansing and other ladylike pursuits while I merely comb, wash and change into my samite robes in order to be ready.

The party is interesting and we meet a number of new goblins from far tribes as well as the goblin queen, Cecelia III. The party lasts and much dancing is done. In the morning we awake early and depart quickly as we've decided to head towards the Tower of Knowledge to further our knowledge. We portal as far south and east as we can and then travel up through the top level of the woods and start flying. We travel 600m before stopping for the night where we camp atop the canopy.

The next day we fly all day and cover 600m to the Narrabi mountains where we camp in a cave.

We travel another 2 hours and arrive around 9am at the Tower of Knowledge after 500m of travel

Session 6 - at the Tower of Knowledge

We are all struck by the 'peace' field around the area and we all accept the peace bonding geas laid upon us which allows us to enter the area. We meet some officials who greet us and assign Byll, a goblin as our runner while we are here 'investigating'. We make an appointment to see the Dean of Entomology who receives us forthwith. We meet with 'Pharyn' and show him our little pet. He admits he won't be able to help us too much as while he can do the cross breeding he doesn't have access to the magic to meld the other aspects of the creature such as applying the tree nerves and the insect hive mind aspect. He does point us at the Dean of Ghosts who might know of melding or constructs. We leave and make an appointment to see Zandar the Dean of Ghosts in the evening. We depart and have an afternoon nap.

Close to midnight we are led into the depths of the tower and enter the catacombs there until Byll is too scared to show us any further, at which point we move through the darkened caverns and make our way to the residence of the Dean of Ghosts. There we are greeted by Igor and led to his master Zandar who is a sentient greater undead Vampire. He appears to be a troll cross-breed with genetic defects including bulging eyes and a hunchback. He offers to helps us but it will take some time and suggests in the meantime that we utilise the library to investigate further.

Some 8 days later we meet him again and he tells us the the creature was approximately 20-50th generation which puts its age at around 5-10 years which speaks of a long existing conspiracy to make them. Also the tree bits were cross bred in over generations rather than a single lucky one off fluke. The insect filaments are interesting and part wasp/bee like. The creature has a life span of 10's of months and has a regular reproductive cycle and are not asexual.

Session 7 - Things may not be as they seem!

We continue using our wide and varied skills to identify likely suspects who may have created the creatures and undertaken the magical transformation - and we get a list of 10 possibles. We also being smart adventurers not only look at what the information tells us using the data we have but also look to identify the data missing to see what's been tampered with, withheld or 'mislabelled' to get another set of data. Divinations and the like are so useful when cross-checking magical information you know! We identify that the tomes have been modified by a skilled user of High Magic as well as other skills.

several days of curse removals are needed and another name comes up when do look at what's missing and its 'Skral the Mad'. We cross check this with other more esoteric sources of information and discover that he's known to be a hunchback, with strange eyes and a dark personality. We think who this could be and discover that the Master of Ghost Magic fits the bill exactly. Now we'd like to burst in an confront him but the peace bond geas prevents us from many things and would cause 'issues' for now and the future. So we plot.

We decide to pretend to be following up another on the list who has departed the ToK as a red herring, so that we may travel away and get to the LoI and make potion to ignore the peace bond or such. We announce our intentions and leave, suspicious of occasional bats following us. Once far enough away we head north and take portals to the LoI. Once there some of us decide to pay a visit to Death while so close to a planar gate to death. Death was quite receptive to Caprice, Erzabet and I visiting and when we ask questions about Skral he informs us that he's one of three (according to his book of death) and we take this under advisement. We chat some more and then depart back to LoI.

We illuminate the party upon our return and decide to take action if we can locate a Skral. A locate is cast and an arrow appears which points to the NE deeper into the woods and away from the ToK. We decide that this is an opportunity for us and we plan an assault on Skral's 'lair'?

Session 8 - We find the Cancer growing in the woods

We go down to the lowest level and test out light effects. We encounter light devouring sharks and can deal with these. We return and portal through to another location to identify a distance to target. We fly to the location (well 2 miles away) and Tari merges to gain information about our intended target. The woods consider itself healthy although there is a 'çancerous' location which is a mile across and completely occupies a complete level some 300ft in depth. We examine the borders and there's a 100ft air gap between the healthy area and the cancerous zone. There is more devouring sharks swimming in the 100ft area while at the bottom is a huge wall of thorns made of three layers of blood thorns, and more entwined with zombies. It looks a mite nasty with a number of heavy duty undead inside as well as being a place of power for an entity that's been here quite some time so we decide to gather allies and reinforcements before we attempt entry.

Cancerous Area

This is ovoid but sits on the ground level so the lowest area must be compressed or closer to the centre than the top would be.

We never used overt observation devices such as COV, wizard eyes etc

There appear to be 3 definable layers here; Devouring sharks swimming in the area between healthy haunted wood and this growth. The sharks are attracted to light and 'consume' it when it sporadically appears on the vines as part of some magical feeding effect which keeps them there and in a constant state.

Zombies holding traps entwined in thick vines (infused with?) are the outer layer
The is then a gap area which has a maelstrom effect on it which has fast moving Greater Ghasts, Wraiths and possibly more – around Â½ a dozen or so? A portal is open enabling the maelstrom effect? Unknown if the area is liquid or gaseous.
Another 30/40 Wraiths and Ghasts in?
In the middle is an area which has a structure there and a portal point there. There is a Vampire Lord (most likely Skral), 2 greater undead werewolves, greater spectre, greater ghost, 2 spectres.

Any incursion to this area has to

deal with the sharks
get through the vines and whatever poisons they have on their sharp spines
get through the trapped zombies layer in the vines
enter and cope with the Maelstrom
Deal with the unenhanced undead
access the central area and the super undead there

Session 9 - A trip to Lake Rhinius

We take our knowledge and decide to find the third Skral if we can. We discuss things with Albrecht regarding getting help to deal with the cancer in the woods and make some plans. We then take a portal path (once I've created another portal point near a guardian) from the HW to Newhome and there portal to Alusia's Suarime village near Novadom and then fly west 150miles to Neptune's gate. There we meet with Neptune and give him a gift in the form of a unique aquatic parrot named Jet who can live underwater with him (with the aid of a perm effect water-breathing etc net) and he's pleased with this level of homage and allows us to pass through his gate.

We portal through and arrive at the Lake Rhinius gate and its attendant complex behind the waterfall (carved here last by Tari during 'Shopping on Grymeron') and we note signs of having been used in recent days by Sarska. A look back in time reveals there were 4 sarksa here and they (well she does) notices the review in the past by Cher and tells him she's coming to see him soon. We also do a locate in an attempt to find another Skral and we note one is only 25 miles north of us on the shores of the Lake - which means he's around the centre of the lake. We go for a quick fly outside while it's dark and overfly an island hidden by obfuscation and illusionary terrain type magic. We don't get too close and return to the cavern to rest. Night passes.

We sleep till 2pm and the 4 sarska arrive to talk, 1 female named Pryscilla and 3 make fighter/guard types. We relate our task and seek help. COV observations of the island reveal crystal spiders weaving huge columns including encased undead holding traps, a types of trolls (Blood and Ice) and others too, evidence of web-like defences deployed on and in the island area as well as the ruins of an old giant structure. The rest of the daylight passes and then we alight on of her enhanced bubble of forces and travel underground to the island. There we get close but can't get close enough to lower rooms to dock due to crystal in the earth and spider warrens. So we wall walk across to a lower room and have the sarska waiting there for us in case of need. I've detected 3 greater undead in the tower area and we're seeking to take over or deny access to the portal here to stop comms/reinforcements etc. We wait in the basement for the party to get together and then!

Session 10

Some scrying is done, quaking and fear dispelled once we learn more about the denizens on the island and through the use of magic a plan is decided upon. A nearby Goblin is rigorously 'questioned' by the scary women in the party who reveals a nugget of information or two, which helps even more. We learn that the Sarth dragon is returning in 5 days and that the controlling creature who 'runs' the communication network is a hideously deformed entity.

I create another portal and we travel back to the LoI and get more tailored potions made, one of which is ignore connections. 4 days later and armed with our potions and a plan we return to the lake to await the dragons return. We portal to the island and lurk in the depths of the basement until we note the dragon land above. The plan goes into effect and the potion laden maggot is added to the communication entity's food chain (which is a constant feeding tray - as it must be using up a lot of energy to 'communicate' across the plane) and the results happen quickly. The communication nets drops and the Sarth Dragon is very very very angry - even more so as a female dragon. Also the controls over the Giants drop and they start hurting each other along with many other creatures all over the place. Mayhem ensues with the Dragon Sonically bombing the island time after time and the undead start for the portal point down below which we already know of. We get there first and deploy in readiness for the Vampire lord, 2 Greater werewolves and two huge, orc-like hairy types.

The enemy come to the doors and open them and we unleash holy attacks on them. The undead die in 2 pulses but we allow the hairy ones to live - for now.

Session 11

We know time is of the essence and decide to quickly deal with the cancerous growth in the Haunted Woods. We load up the fire mage, give her a guzzle of ignore death and send her through the portal with an incendiary bomb to blow the place up. The plan works and we portal through minutes later into a charred landscape with everyone dead, dust or bare bones. We recover her bones and the master rank healer while away 4 days regrowing her body, giving her form and another heart for redundancy. We then go to hunt for the Skral at the ToK and he's nowhere to be seen - having had 4 days of notice that something bad has happened to 2/3rd of him. We search but to no avail but we find a note saying - I won't forget you!

So job done and some more talking results from this, rewards handed out, items collected and some decide to stay and learn from the Sarska or the Tower of Knowledge (ToK).

THE END

Creatures / Races that we encountered

Goblin tribes - encountered at the ball

Graggi Goblin Tribe - Farmers from the south of Gribbit - @ 500 miles south.
Elata Goblin Tribe - these live 3000m NW of Gribbit in dangerous lands. They like a dwarf-like existence, hiding from predators.
Sutec Goblin Tribe - seafaring tribe
Dragon Goblin tribe - noted beastmasters, magically adept more than normal
Savage Goblin tribe - uncivilised with sharp teeth
Valdagorian Goblin tribe - live nearest the Blood Trolls and Sarth dragons. They have undead/construct level helpers. KNown for magic use and they have creatures that live in/on them such as spiders or death beetles.
Etolan Goblin tribe - battlers, akin to scottish highlanders
Zorba Goblin tribe - armed and armoured knight types, usually mounted.
Merithol Goblin tribe - 2-4ft, often misshapen and full of tales
Norn Goblin tribe - Noble type goblins - more pretentious than usual.

Major and Minor NPC's

Camdindel, Lorto, Legion, Maelstom and DoD.
Boran the Mirobothal Goblin in the Haunted wood. He now has a petrified Dracoslurze statue in his garden.
Keifer the Lake of Ignorance 'keeper'. He's a water mage of quite some talent. He also has magic from many other colleges due to people dropping off the odd bit of magic here and there.
Cecelia II, the Queen of the Inboo.
Ser Doran, a Graggi farmer of skill with mushrooms and worms.

Locations we survived going to

Camdindel's tower

Goods and services sourced

From Camdindell

5 potions of Bind Elements (rk6)
2 potions of remove curse
2 potions of true-form
1 potion of stone to flesh

Created while at Camdindell's

3 stat potions of +6AG for 6hrs

From the vindikar

a dozen Naptha grenadoes

From the Dracosluze ambush

30 teeth
x sizes of Dracoslurze leather from 6 Dracoslurze

Rainbow or Mull Gates that we traversed

Buffs & Mil Sci

Please re-enter your buffs with rank 15 enhance duration added.*

Long Term (assumed always on)

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Dur	Er	Ta	Fb	Mo	Ch	Sh	Ca
Strength of Stone (Ta)	20	+20EN or PS				Y		Y?	Y	EN
Primordial Armour (Sh)	15	100 Ablative Against Spell and Magical Damage	31hrs* 8 targets			Y		Y	Y	Y
Rune Shield (Fb)	20	+25 def, 5 prot, 1 spec grev				Y
Grace of Fire (Sh)	20	+32 Def, +10 IV Half Poison Damage	18hrs* 10 targets					Y	Y	Y
Disguise	17	High rank locate required	33hr*	-	-		-	-	-	Y
TBA4

Short Term

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Dur	Fb	Ch
Weapon of Flames (Sh)	20	+21 SC +7 Dam / +10 Dam Undead Cold or Water	25 minutes 10 targets
Smite (Fb)	20	D+21 (if not resisted then thrown prone & stunned)		Y	Y
Truth	15	PC + 30 chance of noticing deceptions	5 hours (enhanced)
Pheonix Wing (Sh)	20	Flight 50MPH	10.5 hrs 10 targets		N
Wildfires (Sh)	12	Running 44MPH	4.5 hrs 7 targets
Rune Healing (Sh)	16	Heal 51, Cure Alicifications up to Healer Rank 6			Y

Tea's

Lady Cher:

+45% stealth for a duration of (combined Cook, Herbalist, and Alchemist skill) Hours.
-5 off percentile die for a duration of (combined Cook, Herbalist, and Alchemist skill) x 10mins.
+5 Ft (over personal & racial max) for a duration of (combined Cook, Herbalist, and Alchemist skill) Hours.

Watch Order

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
???		???				???				???
???				???				???

Marching Order

Skirmish Formations (Front)
Default ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???	Double File ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???	Single File ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???

Plans

Nominations

In game nominations (to make Guild meeting recollections easier)

Treasure

Write details here for GM to note and complete;

3 potion of ignore blah each
lightning ball each - chain/ball
reusable trap each - ritually cast magic - fm goblins at gribbit
6 slivers of spell mana
2 charges of movement via bubble of force
a deep pocket/scabbard thing each

--Shiana--

Ignore Death
Ignore Limitation
Ignore Consiquence

Deep Pocket of the Kitchen

Funky Item Idea
 
Bracer that allows the wearer to expend addition Magic Fatigue (Mana) to increase an effect.  Effect to be decided before rolling.  Side Effect of the wearer flaring and heating like (Fire/Sun)
Note:  I cant double or triple damage anyway as part of my college, so this should over power.  May need a clause limiting it to my use...

Calendar

Winter: Frost 817 (7)
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
		Samhain No tribute day	1	Guild Meeting Seagate day organising (Inc Slippery Rock) and dancing that night	2	Travel to Newhaven and Camdindel's. Spend the day and night potioning	3	Travel through the Lake of Tears portal and spend day with Vindikar	4	Return to Alusia and travel to Noble Gate and back to Newhome on Grymeron. Tvl to Gribbit.	5	Depart Gribbit into the Haunted Wood. Ambush the Dracoslurze. Don't search for Lake of I.	6	Don't search for Lake of I
	7	Don't search for Lake of I and stumble across it.	8		9		10		11		12		13
	14		15		16		17		18		19		20
	21		22		23		24		25		26		27
	28		29		30		1		2		3		4
Winter: Snow 817 (8)
	5		6		7		8		9		10		11
	12		13		14		15	Solstice	16		17		18	Yuletide
	19	Days of Chaos	20		21		22		23		24		25
	26		27		28		29		30	Twelfth Night	1		2
Winter: Ice 817 (9)
	3		4		5		6	First Plough	7		8		9
	10		11		12		13		14		15		16
	17		18		19		20		21		22		23
	24		25		26		27		28		29		30