The cattle drive me crazy
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Summary
Adventure: The Cattle Drive Me Crazy
GM: William
Session: Summer 811
Night: Monday
Location Craig's
Level: Low
The Creatures:
Daisy: halfling - Clare
Nicola: part time wolf - Bridget (Mil Sci)
Prudence: human with fangs who breathes fire - Julia (Scribe)
Billy Rubin: dwarf, part time swan - Craig
Tegan: water elemental - Kelsie (Party Leader)
Elgar: very strange elf - Neil
Flash: part time tiger - Raimund
Employer: The village of Heartvale has trouble with goblins, an elemental and cows. Being Dark Circle vets they have a number of skills they can provide training in.
Scribe Notes
Welcome to our wonderfully wet cattle drive with me, Prue, water mage, and my most peculiar friends.
Day 1 - the mission
Our intrepid band of worthy guild members met in a basic guild meeting room, all looking good in our shiny new armour. Guild security ushers in a large woman wearing purple armour. Sister Doubt is for the Dying wishes to employ, a low level guild party to journey to Felder's Sted 15 miles past Slippery Rock. Once there we should root out the trouble, which is something along the lines of Giant Magical Beasts and/or goblins. Also we should deliver a rebuke to Baron Gugnir's Hope letting him know that we are not impressed that he is not recognising veterans' land rights. Felder and his wife live at the steading with Angus the smith. Baron Belrain holds the lands surrounding Felder's Sted, Sister Doubt thinks he is a shiftless and idleman.
She will pay us 800 gold pieces (which we work out is 9600sp)
The guild will pay us to find out why Sister Doubt isn't doing this herself. Odd behaviour for a Urielite. The guild will organize a barge to get us to Slippery Rock and some horses.
We are heading toward our various departments for supplies and information when Elgar (a strange elf who smells a bit humany) spots hobbits escaping the guild with loot sacks. Elgar and I give chase and biffoo, (mostly on his part). He manages to wrestle one to the ground and recover the sack. Our very first treasure of season and we only just stepped out the door. How delightful.
Lady Nikola (a rather nice Earth mage) heads into Seagate and gets 20 litres of holy water from the Rafaelites. She tells us that she volunteers with them all the time and this is why they are so generous to her.
Gossip around and about the guild states that
- Sister Doubt is a Hero of the Dark Circle war, it is indeed odd that she is not handling any problems herself. There are strange rumours suggesting that the church has been ordered to hold back.
- The witches at slippery rock have been recruiting heavily.
Setting out
We travel down river on a barge. At the recommendation of the bargemen it is decided to stop at the village of Blim. Aproaching the inn, Tegan steps over a fallen, damaged angel and sees a falling star. She decalares that we will not be sleeping in the inn, which she also says smells of sulphur. Apparently the food is very good, and Tegan generously offers to pay for dinner. A nice meal is had by all but before leave Billy does a proecog and has visions of the Inn burning down.
As we are walking back to the barge to sleep a low flying drunken witch passes over head and drops an empty gourd. Most of us see alcohol fumes inside it, Tegen sees a fossigrim. We continue on nervously and get to the barge without further incident.
Day 2 - An Early start
In the early hours of the morning an intruder is discovered trying to set us adrift. We apprehend him with gusto and unfortunately he dies during questioning, before we can hand him in to the authorities. (oops) However, it is discovered that he is part of a group called the Servants of the Furnace, the great burning one who stands in the flame forever, and his minions are numberless. He was planning to sacrifice me to a fossigrim (a bad plan if you ask me). He had an amulet with a flame embellished on it. The amulet is associated with Aim.
At this point we decide to leave town early and get as far away as possible. The barge drivers are roused and despite the early hour everyone is pleased to be underway. Tegan spots an imp tailing us and curses it with amnesia, then remembers that we wanted to ask questions. We figure it was probably after the soul of the dead cultist.
At this point I am wide awake and mage current the boat all the way to Dwarf holm, the next Village. Where we hand in the Cultists head to the Village authorities. They recognize the head as belonging to Andy the trouble maker (don't ask what happened to the rest of his body).
The people of this village think that the Baron Huglar is a good man who brings lots of work to the town by running his cattle in the sweetriding.
In the Afternoon we push on to Slippery Rock. There we are met by Jake and Bob, nice young men who are very chatty. I ask about trouble and am told that
- if there is trouble about it will be the church knights.
- while witches do dance nakid on hills, there are some that you don't want to see nakid. Also it is not good to dance nakid on hills in winter as your bits might shrink.
Jake and Bob take us to see Goodie Smithe. The goodwife has a large copper pole attached to the building to divert the attention of the demons. We report the presence of Aim Cultists in Blim to her. She has a large meteorite in the shape of a deformed pitchfork, we trade melting it down for 8 restoratives.
- purchased - Skin Changes 2 rats 2 turtles 120sp
Day 3- Slippery Rock to Felders Stead
It is 15 miles from Slippery Rock to Felder's Stead and we head out on a fine day. Around lunch time 10 humaniods are seen heading toward us over the rolling hills of the plains. They turn out to be Baron Huglar's men headed by one Armsman Garrick. He claims that Felder has not been paying taxes to Huglar (this is odd becuase the Duke has given the land to Belrain and not Huglar).
Garrick warns us away from Felder's Stead so after we ESP them and find that they are relieved and nervous we presume that there will be trouble there tonight.
We head on until a ambush is spotted ahead on the trail. biffoo
Two goblins live and upon questioning we find out
- These goblins are Red hills goblins
- The Red Hills band has been hired by a human
- The Red Hills band is run by Gorrack the Orc
- Gorrack has been hired by a human
- This band was scouting out a farmstead, they were supposed to report back before the guild meeting.
- 4 other bands were sent out to scout as well.
- Gorrack has 5 ogres and 20 warg riders with him
No time is spared to bring this news to Felder and we arrive a couple of hours before nightfall. Felder sends for the people in outlying farms to come in for safety.
During the night no one can sleep as loud war drumming is heard but no attack comes.
Day 4 - Scouting
We find 40 Orc's, some Ogres and warg riders. Our current plan is to stampede Huglar's cattle over them. To that end we capture and tie up the cow pokes. Scare the cattle over the Ogres encampment, and pick off some of the scattered orc's. The rest of the day and some of the next is spent recovering
Day 5
We head to slippery rock and get the soul coins divinated.
Chapter 8 : Monastic Meeting
Chapter 9 (I think) : Take Aim
Discovered a unnaturally "moulded" cave in the hills, with ESP showing 3 key minds almost directly below us concentrating, plus about 15 other minds, one of them worried.
3 Orc guards up top were taken out, unfortunately alerting one of the minds below with a death buzz. We felt a large string of deaths, follows by undead minds taking their place. Oops.
We head down the stairs to a cave with 3 entrances. A hoard of fast-moving undead burst forth from the side entrance, jumping into close on top of Billy and Elgar in piles. Holy water soon was pulled out, and very effectively began to destroy them, while their master cast a noxious vapours. Meanwhile, three people entered from the front corridor ready for combat. About this time, a blackfire ward went off, but mostly negated by the Shape of Fire's fire protection.
The pig charged the newcomers, Daisy supporting with phantasm. Elgar was now clear off his pile, and ran to support, leaving Tegan and Billy to finish off the necromancer. The two remaining fighters retreated to the back corridors, where a fire elemental and 2 others were found.
While quickly explaining we were here to release the fire element, the pig and fire elemental started bonding and wandered off to chat.
Daisy managed to target the key bad-guy with a well-executed phantasm, which took him out in 10 seconds effectively ending the combat.
We discover that: - We have destroyed the leader of the aim cult - The one prisoner remaining is being prepared for some ritual, and the summoner (presumably) comes about mid-day each day to prepare her by bathing her in oils and such forth. It is now mid afternoon, so he is expected again tomorrow.
Loot
- 9600sp Payment from Sister Doubt
- 6 special guild meeting healing potions
- 20 Litres of Holy Water - 3 used in trade for Necromantic items
- 8 restoratives
- purchased 4 skin changes (2 rats 2 turtles) 120 sp
- Amulet of Aim (makes fire magics easier) [Flash]
- Amulet of Luck made from a rabbits foot [Elgar]
- Communication scroll (from cattle herders)
- Soul Coins (demonic currency - very useful as "international" currency we hear)
- Tapestry (when activated, shows your next enemy)
- Scrying bowl (allows someone with scrying ability to talk to the person being scryed)
- Warning Skeletal Hamster (chatters when strangers approach)
- Fear Skull (Mass fear - 8 charges?)
- Wand of Fear (single-target fear - 12 charges?)
- Book of 18 horrors (invested phantasm) - 3 used.
- 3 Never Crystals (absorb life which can be used as spellcasting fatigue)
Quotes
"That Blimmin Village is Dangerous" Billee Rubin talking about the village of Blim
Buffs
Magic | Caster | Rk | Effects | Dur | Bil | Dai | Elg | Fla | Nik | Pru | Teg |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cat Vision | Tegan | 5 | See in the Dark 110 ft | 6 hrs | N | N | Y | Y | |||
Alligator Skin | Tegan | 11 | Def +12, NA 3 | 6 hrs | Y | Y | Y | N | |||
Strength of Stone | Nikola | 11 | +12 EN or PS | 12 hrs | Y | Y | Y | N | |||
Fire Armour | Flash | Protection from fire damage | Y | Y | Y | ||||||
Fireproofing | Flash | Protection from normal fire, smoke & heat | Y | Y | |||||||
Waterbreathing | Prue | Protection from fog, allows water breathing | Y | Y | N |
Places
Slippery Rock
Blim
Felder's Sted
People and Creatures
- Sister Doubt is for the dieing - employer
- Baron Huglar - the "bad" baron running his cattle through the veterans' lands
- Baron Belrain
- Felder
- Party of Necromancer academics from Artzdorf Guild of mages
- The Shape of Fire - Balrog asking for our (yes, our) assistance.
Calendar
Summer 811wk: Meadow | ||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Moonday | Duesday | W'ansday | Th'rsday | Frysday | Reapsday | Sunday | ||||||||
Beltane
Full Moon |
1 | Guild Meeting | 2 | Day 1 | 3 | Day 2 | 4 | Day 3 | 5 | Day 4 | 6 | Day 5 | ||
7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | ||||||||
14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | ||||||||
21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | ||||||||
28 | Full Moon | 29 | 30 | |||||||||||
Summer 811wk: Heat | ||||||||||||||
Moonday | Duesday | W'ansday | Th'rsday | Frysday | Reapsday | Sunday | ||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||||||||||
5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | ||||||||
12 | 13 | 14 | Midsummer Eve (Faerie Day). | 15 | Solstice. | 16 | 17 | 18 | ||||||
19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | ||||||||
26 | Full Moon | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |||||||||
Summer 811wk: Breeze | ||||||||||||||
Moonday | Duesday | W'ansday | Th'rsday | Frysday | Reapsday | Sunday | ||||||||
1 | 2 | |||||||||||||
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | ||||||||
10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | ||||||||
17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | ||||||||
24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |