Kijaand Restoration (Part I)
Party
- Game Master
- Ross Alexander
- Ty Trident Party Leader
- Tulip Party Scribe
- Blitzkrieg Military Scientist
- Turf
Diary
Two months after returning from aiding Baccarat and Delerium find a new home.
Date: 07/10/806
Summoned by Turf to Drow plane (Kanlaoise).
Go into the forest to investigate and make contact with Elves on this plane.
We find a hill with fairy lights that seems to be moving about, we track and eventually reach it. Turf was so busy frolicking and dancing and prancing about the forest he got lost!
The hill is open grass with a fountain of the garden "water feature" variety at the top.
We rest for the rest of the day.
At night "stars" appear around Tye and Tulip, which turn out to be "starlight" elves who have abandoned their bodies to become beings of magic and energy. They give us more information about Valenthia who was the queen of the elves and advocated destruction of the other races. She is very pro magic and extremely capable. She "disappeared" a long time ago. She is ice and cold mage and so may have gone into the mountains and may end up bothering the Dwarves.
It appears the elves have split on this plane, starlight elves (few and magic/energy beings), forest elves (most numerous but insular and remain in their forests), sun elves (become drow and embraced mortality as price for higher rate of procreation). and the high elves (who are few but remain immortal).
The star elves agree to pass on message to high elves.
Date: 08/10/806-12/10/06
We attempt to find some of the forest elves. but after four days of wandering Tulip summons and binds a wolf to take us to the wood elves, who eventually turn up, but don't want to talk. They do say that to leave them a message we should "talk to the trees".
Date: 13/10/06
We "find" a path with magically leads us out of the forest. It takes only a day to return to the manor. We spend some time helping with the rebuilding.
Date: 14/10/06
We meet with two old high elves in a large gold and silver pavilion, they are wearing distinctive blue and white mantles respectively, and are using wood elves as guards. Varenthia was indeed imprisoned by the combined power of the high elves, and the drow were meant to be looking after her but over time those that still know have dwindled. The empire is aware of the bargain, but the church drow have forgotten. The chair we kept is the ancient elven throne, which we give back to them. We offer to broker between Valenthia and the high elves. High elves agree, and say they will contact us when required, and that the star elves will keep an eye on us. We should stay out of the forest, as their defences will be active. Wait here and the star elves will come and talk to us.
Date: 14/10/806-20/10/06
We wait 6 days before a star elf turns up. He says the Cessoria are looking for us and have put a rather large price on our heads. He also presents a suit of silver armour, a rod and a ball and chain, as well as a vial of starlight. If we tap the vial of starlight they will hear it and come.
Date: 21/10/06
Take a maze to Saesora but at the city gates some guards "meet" us and escort us to the temple. Tye has to ear cold iron cuffs so he doesn't set off the wards. At the temple we are ushered into a room a bit like a court with five priestesses behind a bench. One is "white", one is very old. They tell us that the church functions to ensure death (since the drow have traded against their immortality), only a very few of the immortal sun elves remain. At a certain point the oldest priestess tells the other priestess that they must leave, and she tells us more of what has happened. The sun elves have agreed to deal with the humans on this plane. Valenthia returning poses a significant problem as she is a force for disruption, and is not party to the old agreements. The empire is weak and unstable after a series of poor emperors and a lot of tensions which have lead to rebellion and a fractioning of the empire. Significant losses (ie millions) could be lost if civil war were to break out. So they too are interested in peace or some arrangement being made with Valentha. She provides "avoid a death" amulets and a small bag of finger bones, if we break one "deaths messenger" will appear an take a message.
Date: 22/10/06-28/10/06
We organise supplies for a mountain trip. Maze back to Bakerak and then Maze to the mountains, it take 6 days. We arrive on the edge of a river in the foothills of the mountains, we can see a fortified city on the river, it is raining. We make our way to the city, talk to the priests and get info about the surrounding area. We find some dwarves in the market place and get them to outfit us for the trip into the mountains (includes ponies and all gear food etc)
Date: 29/10/06-05/11/06
We leave and follow the standard trails, it takes us 6 days to get to the dwarven hold. We climb out of a gorge into a valley with a cliff and waterfall falling down it at the other end, we have to climb up the cliff, on the way chatting to some dwarves who are repairing the track. At the top is a flatter area which has the Dwaven hold and a large lake. We talk to some bandits who are camping at the top but they warn us off. The dwarves are quite reclusive but we speak to a captain of the guard who passes on our message about Valentha, and before we are ready to leave the next day, he is back saying one of the ancient dwarves wants to see us, unfortunately he lives in a glacier about 3 days away up a very nasty route.
Date: 06/11/06-09/11/06
Climb up the mountains, we come to a flat glacier with 60mph winds and are led to an ice tunnel which would be difficult to spot normally. There are many steps carved into the glacier and eventually we hit rock, there are tons of ice all around us! A short tunnel opens out into a cathedral carved out in the ice, this is known as the Halls of Irongrim. Irongrim Nordenvijk is an ancient icy dwarf, and he remembers Varenthia as a young eleven woman. He thinks she might be in some old dwarf/elf ruins that he used to rule over and that are a place of power. He will not reveal its location, we have to find it for ourselves. There is apparently a Great Wyrm underneath the ruins (who chased the dwarves out eons ago) and he would like us to kill its brood, we will be reward well! However, they are small icy wyrms and may already be controlled by Varenthia. After speaking to Irongrim we go back up to the glacier and Ty casts Windspeak to get hints of where the ruins might be, they say it might be SSE, and we fly off.
Date: 09/11/06-10/11/06
A bit of to and fro-ing, and we find a mountain with a high-mana zone for Air Magic. There's s small platform with sheer drops on three sides and a cliff with steps to a door on the last. There is some opening and preservation magic on the doors, but nothing hostile. Inside is a large central shaft with two spiral staircases going up and down hundreds of feet. We dither, and then cast some powerup magic which sets off a alarms. Turf skips and sings like he's in a wood up the stairs to see whats what, with Scab double moving after. The rest of us follow more normally.
About 100 foot up is a room with two Ice-Spire Wyrms (GTN); they're very tough with 25 armour, 50+EN, icy breath attacks (2D10 save for half), and two claw attacks (4D10+10?), but aren't so good at resisting Whirlwind Vortexs :-P Turf gets a bit brutalised and squeaks for help, Scab comes in next and goes down in one pulse. Ty flies up the shaft and WWVs one which explodes, the rest of the party rush up in time to see Ty WWV the other. We get everyone back up and loot the exploded bodies, but there's not much else.
The shaft seems to finish a couple hundred feet further up, but there are sheets of ice floating down in a semi-menacing manner. We go into a side room and try flying up outside the tower as its magically calm. We enter a room just below the top of the tower, it is full of nice furniture and stuff that is magically protected against aging. The door has some nasty traps on it which we don't want to trigger, we decide to fly back down, and go up the shaft manually. At the top is Varenthia and 8 Ice-Spire Wyrms on an ice reproduction of the chair/throne we acquired earlier. Blitzkreg turns on the charm, and we get an agreement that it might be best for everyone to have a meeting and try some diplomatic solutions. We leave.
Details
Playing time
- Day 1
- 10.30 – late pm 08/07/2006 (no Dan) [three sessions]
- Day 2
- 11.00 – ??? pm 10/09/2006 (everyone) [two sessions]
Game time
- Start
- 27/08/806 WK
- Finish
- 30/09/806 WK
- Time
- 33 days
Costs
dwarven mountain equipment 1500sp
Loot and Payments etc
Suit of silver armour =golum like
Vial of Starlight
Rod =stores spell preperations
Ball and chain =drowsing ball
Avoid a death amulets
Finger bones for deaths messanger
