Bear Necessities

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Summary

Adventure:Bear Necessities
GM:Miles
Session: Autumn 815
Night: Tuesday
Location: Town
Level: Low

Party:

1. Skafloc - Elven Earth Mage
2. Brac - Human E&E Barbarian Shapeshifter
3. Fonkbin - Elven Illusionist - Party Leader
4. Art Wallace - Human Air Mage
5. Dodgy - Halfling Namer
6. Jexler - Human Fire Mage

Employer:
Bors (Dwarf). The owner of Bors House of Ribs, the best boar restaurant in all of Seagate.

Mission:
Bors mother (Betsy but you better call her Ma'am or suffer the consequences) has demanded Bors and his fellow brothers come home and fix the problem of boars being stolen from her farm estate.

Pay:
18 months of free food and beer from Bors establishment and an amulet with a special ability.

Diary

Day One

Bors describes his problem. He and his brothers have finally escaped their mothers clutches and can't bare to return. He hires us to investigate the issue of the boars being stolen. All he can tell us is there are bear tracks left at the site of each theft. The problem started about 6 weeks ago. He recognises that we are new to the guild and gives us 14 resurrection stones, some healing potions (10) and 4 grenados filled with the scent of boar glands.

Day Two

Bors opens a portal to Kerrena and we step through to a small village used as a staging area for the boars being sent to Seagate. Everyone has an opinion about the thefts, most blame hill giants, goblins and bear shapechangers although none have any proof. We ask about the area and hear stories of a ruined castle of Cryth (in the swamp?) where legend has it there is a great dragons treasure hidden, but you need to watch out for the vampires. We are warned not to step off the path to the front door of the manor house. Ma'am will be very upset. We head out on the 5 hour journey but only an hour out of the village we are accosted by some ruffians demanding a toll. It is a rudimentary trap with a body on the road ahead of us, 2 hidden archers in the forest and 2 ruffians behind us. Other than Bracs initial attack failing miserably (and needing to be rescued by Dodgy and Jexler) we overpower the group easily. Brac changes to tiger form and chases down the archers who fled into the forest. He tortures them for information. We are all surprised when changes back to human form and bites off one the victim's testicles but it has the desired effect of making them talk. It is a shame they had nothing useful to tell us.

It isn't long before we come to a bridge with a magic aura of “gather information" but we suspect this is part of Ma'ams defenses so we cross it. We stop and talk to a few hunters guiding some wagons of boars and beer, headed to the small village we started in and the portal to Seagate. Nothing new is learned.

About an hour before reaching Ma'ams homestead we are attacked by a band of orcs. Some magic spells stop them in their tracks and the leader starts talking to us, saying they are hunters who don't work for Ma'am. Before we can get much else from him arrows start raining on the small band from the forest. It seems their cohorts don't take kindly to ‘squealers'. Art throws up some mist over the whole area and the other orcs retreat. Brac searches the forest for a few minutes and spies a human female leading the remaining orc band. He comes back before anyone can spot him. In the meantime we have managed to save one orc so we take him and the dead leader with us to Ma'ams. We have also found some nice recurve bows and 6 silver pieces - finally some treasure.

Ma'ams estate looks very well fortified but it turns out to be quite ornamental. We quickly learn no one would be dumb enough to attack Ma'am in her own house. She is rumoured to be able to turn into a dragon but no one will go into details. As we enter her house our spells drop and we find we can't cast anything or use our talents. Harold, her man servant, leads us into her main room where we discuss the happenings so far. Ma'am instructs us to find out what is happening to her boars and to kill any vermin we come across. All orcs and goblins are of course vermin by definition. With our orc prisoners we are sent to Blade, Ma'ams human ‘information specialist'. He has a half goblin/human working for him (necromancer). We are instructed to keep this bit of information to ourselves. After some skillful interrogation by Blade and his accomplice, we are informed of the following:

1. Clarise is the human necromancer leading the orc band
2. She arrived 3 months ago searching for something.
3. She has the orcs searching for the scent from a cloth she holds
4. The scent is possibly from a male human
5. They were narrowing in to the swamp for the scent
6. The orc band comprises 20 warriors, 10 trackers and 20 regulars
7. Clarise leads the band fairly. She pays the orcs, but beats any one who gets out of line. She is tougher than she looks and calls on a wraith from an item. She lso sleeps surrounded by a wall of bones.
8. Of the orcs the leader is Gorn, the 2ic is Eric and there is a fire mage called ‘Black Ebony'

Blade informs us of how dangerous the swamp can be with will o wisps, witches, dark elf spirit shaman, liches etc There is a tribe of werebears to the north and he gives us directions (go north 4 miles, follow the stream for 15 miles till you reach a gully. follow it till you reach the head. There is the werebears stedding). Thorn is the leader and there is a truce between Ma'am and Thorn at the moment.

A hunter called Jack is sent to help guide us on our mission. Our plan is to talk to Jack tonight, check out the pens, stake one out and see what happens, then go see the werebears.

We meet Jack in the tavern and before he and Brac get drunk Jack tell su there is a pattern to the boar thefts, which he has only just figured out. The boars are rounded up from the forest and placed in pens for up to 4 weeks to feed them grains that increase their flavour for the final destination of Bors House of Ribs. In the first week some pens are raided but only a few boars are taken. There are 3 pens jack suspects might be hit in the next 3 to 7 days.

Day Three

We decide to check out the last known raided pen for any clues. It takes all day to get there. We can't find anyting from tracking th area so Art summons an owl from the local area. The owl has seen bears tied to carts being led by dwarves and elves at dusk.

Day Four

We take all day to visit the 3 suspected sites of the next boar abduction and leave each boar with a slightly different coin in its belly. Thnakfully these boars will eat anything. We leave some cantrips in place to alert us of any happenings. The first pen has 9 boars, the second 2 boars and the third 6 boars. We stake out the 3rd pen but by 10pm, well after dusk, we decide to check on the other pens. We head off but are quickly paralysed by other cantrips (very similar to what we laid). Skafloc fixes us all.

How did the raiders know we were here???

We quickly DA our items and realise the 6 silver coins have a locate spell on them. These coins came from the captured Orcs being led by the human necromancer. We now know there is a link between them and the boar thefts. Brac does a locate on the coins he planted in each boar and finds some from the first pen are on the move. We are all pretty knacked so we rest up before heading out in pursuit of the raiders.

Day Five

It is 3am by the time we are ready to go. By 4am were are wellingot tracking the boars when it appears they stop. Jack says that location is about were another pen is. By 9am we reach the boars. They are indeed in a pen with several dwarves and humans guarding them. These are just simple hunters and they tell a tale of finding the boars wandering loose. We backtrack to were the cart tracks were last seen. They disappear unexpectedly. There is a disturbance in the canopy above us, almost as if the cart flew stright up. We investigate and find it landed abotu 300 meters in the other direction. By 11am we are following the tracks in the direction of the manor house. We use the mechanical bird to communicate with Blade and ask him to look for any carts arriving back in town. We arrive about 3pm and spot a cart with 'animate object' as its last magic to impact. We rest up in the pub waiting for Blade, who arrives at dinner time. There is nothing unusual about the team who came in with the cart. But there are 2 binders in the area. Torak and Ashwin. If anyone holds a grudge it would be Ashwin. He is a gnome and is often seen riding a bear golem. His wife was a druid but she (and their children) died 5 years ago. The year before she had been on a quest with Ma'am and had returned very sick. Ashwin blames Ma'am for this but has never said why.

In terms of the boars being stolen, but not stolen after all, Blade suspects ma'am is doing it to lure her sons back. We can check with the accountant to see if any boars are truely missing.

We rest up for the evening.

Day Six

Around 4am we are awoken by loud crashing on the ground floor of the pub. We have scant moments to get out through a hastily made exit (thanks Brac for finding the only cross beam in the wall with your head) before the pub explodes. There were 2 suicide golems downstairs filled with methane gas grenados. We barely survive and need Blades little goblin accomplise to heal us with our resurrection eggs. We need the healing because ma'am has been attacked by a necromancer and binder and taken away by a flying golem. As we prepare to leave Torak arrives and tells us the town is surrounded by hundreds of undead. He saw a cloaked human (who we think is Clarise) raising them all. This is no mean feat so we decide to speak to some of the zombies and also Ashwins wife in the graveyard.

Blades little goblin is certainly coming in handy. His name is Pennywise.

The pertenant points are:

1. Clarise is trying to stop people getting in and out of the town.
2. Clarise is pacted to some spirit plane lord

Lilly (Ashwins wife)

1. Appears as an elf not a gnome?
2. She was sold to Ashwin 60 years ago, after being a slave with others for a male necromancer.
3. The necromancer was in a place called the "mist of spirits". This is a namer place of power which appears to move around.
4. Ashwin fell in love with her and they had several children.
5. She went with Ma'am to help her find the "mist of spirits", since Lilly knew how to get in. This was 6 years ago.
6. Ma'am sacrificed Lillies true name to gain the form of a dragon.
7. Ma'am went back in time to kill the necromancer. This was the event that destroyed the mountain castle about 60 years ago.
8. 1 year later Lilly and her children died from a disease whcih Ma'am couldn't heal.
9. Clarise, who is a swamp witch, bought her spirit back into the mountain top castle, although it appears fully restored and beautiful to Lilly.
10. Lilly is not aware of the undead binding on her
11. Lilly is being asked by her 'friends' in the castle abotu the mist of spirits, although she can't remember much and keeps repeating phrases.

Pennywise fills in a few gaps and we learn that the necromancer was inciting a war with the townsfolk, but was blaming the werebears. It is reputed that ma'am killed the necromancer, while in her dragon form.

Brac puts a locate on Betsy (Ma'am) and it pints towards the swamp. Meanwhile we talk to the bons of lillys children. They think Lilly was a human which really surprises us. But she was definitely a druidic earth mage. We talk to Pennywise abou the swamp and he admits going there about 7 years ago and 'acquiring' (stealing) some bones from the swamp witch (who it turns out is Clarise). These bones are special. They come from some humans, and elf and 3 goblins. Each had their true names ripped from them before being sacrificed and having their auras recreated. This process makes them safer for Pennywise to use in his magics as the risk of their spirits returning is negated. It appears though that the aura recreation has an element of Death magic about it, not necromancy. Pennywise is also aware that Ashwin entered the swamps after Lillys death, presumably to see the swamp witch too.

We talk to Blade for a bit and figure out his memory is being effected by some sort of 'time distortion'. Asides from the mass charm effect on anyone who stays in the manor area they all exhibit some sort of memory loss.

intriguing

We decide to investigate Betsys bedroom (and the family vault behind it) before seeking any rest. We are hoping to find a diary and more information about what has happened here. We disable some traps and wards while Pennywise helps open the door and some chests and dressers. We find Betsys diary (it talks to us) and learn a lot more about the timeline of events and how people are connected. We also find a hide bound book and a small silver jewelery box which we leave to later.

1. 145 years ago - Betsy and Clarise have been childhood friends at school and still are friends as adults.
2. 135 years ago - Clarise chases after Betsys husband (Arty) so Betsy drives her off. Arty has special magics to 'protect her family' It seems to be some sort of time magic.
3. 80 years ago - Clarise returns but she has changed. She is now a necromancer and has embraced Death (is this the pacting we now about?)
4. 66 years ago - A great evil enters the land and incites the werebears to cause trouble. People start going missing and are found dead. Betsy and Arty blame Clarises new husband as he works with the werebears. He is very distant and not very talkative.
5. 65 years ago - Betsy and Arty confront the great evil but kill Clarises husband in the process. There is a note about this being a big mistake and that they shouldn't have judged things on appearances alone.
6. 60 years ago - Betsy twists Clarises arm to take her to the mists of spirits. Betsy offers to use Clarises husbands true name to bring him back from the dead. In exchange Betsy uses her powers to strip the true name from Yorick (a skilled fire mage) and gain his fire spells. She and Arty then confront the necromancer in the castle in the mountains and destroy him with dragon flames. (was the necromancer the great evil????) They tell the tale of Betsy turning into a dragon to keep people away from the area. Betsy and Arty feel a great shame at killing Yorick.
7. 60 years ago - Ashwin buys Lilly from the orc slavers and marries her. Lilly was an Elf. Lilly has some potential to be a good namer so Betsy takes her under her wing for training.
8. 59 years ago - Arty performs a ritual and sacrifices himself in the manorhouse to 'protect the family'.
9. 30 years ago - Lilly comes to Betsy and says she has found the way into the mists of spirits.
10. 25 years ago - Lilly warns Betsy that the memories of people in the town are being affected. There seems to be some 'time' effect that is upsetting their true names. We need to get rid of the necromancer.

who is this necromancer? is it clarise? we havent asked anything about clarisies husband yet

1. 7 years ago - Betsy convinces Lilly to take her into the mists of spirits. We don't know what happened here but Lilly won't forgive Betsy for the loss of her true name.
2. 6 years ago - Betsy (or was it Lilly) tries a ritual to bring the area back in phase with time. It fails.
3. 5 years ago - Lilly dies.
4. 1 year ago - Betsy can no longer leave the manorhouse. The time distortion is too great. She comments on surviving the 'Great Cataclysm' which we believe to be the rebirth of the plane when a previous guild party 'helped' Death to hand the reigns over to his apprentice.

The rebirth altered the timeline slightly but since the townsfolk were already in a 'time distortion field' they have been protected from the rebirth. Once they step out of the fields effect they slip into the new timeline and their memories are slightly different. This is a bad thing apparently...

1. now - Is Clarise still trying to get her husband back?

Brac asks the book a decidely impolite question and it takes umbrage at htis and stops answering our questions.

We decide to investigate the family vault in the hopes of finding some weapons and armour. There are of course some traps and wards on it and we make some headway. Brac sends a wizards eye inside and manages to resist the 'go to the end of time' effect and we see some items. There are 23 crates, 30 bars of gold, a gold tipped spear, a black tipped battle axe, a silver rose, a scarab broach, some dwarven scale armour and of course the big blue pulsating glowing sphere. When he pulls his wizards eye out it triggers another ward and Brac finds himself inside the room. The ward prevents him for escaping. Skafloc tunnels through the stone wall so we can see into the room and talk to Brac. Through some 'skillful' negotiating with Pennywise he agrees to help us open the vault door for the cheap cost of only 1 single bar of gold...We blame this on Brac. We do some quick DAs on the items:

1. Silver Rose - mass charm
2. Scarab - protection from undead
3. Sphere - Time magics
4. Battle Axe - Slay undead
5. Spear - Penetrate Wards, Protection from fire.
6. Armour - Resizing

We take the last 3 items. In fact it is only with the spears effect that Brac can get out.

We check out the hide bound book and it is full of Namer spells. As Dodgy starts looking at the first open page a mind meld is started with Betsy. She is dying due to being away from the time distorting blue sphere in her vault. She is surrounded by orcs and undead. She warns us of the "great evil" that is coming again and describes it as a "blackness". Before she dies she tells us that she killed Clarises husband and that Clarise is looking for his true name.

After this revelation we decide to investigate the 23 boxes. We start with the poorest looking one and find it to be filled with gold pieces. The next silver box has an image of an eye on it so Brac uses his open spell. He gets blinded but we get 3 maps of the area, the werebears are, the swamp and the underground. A little bit more investigation shows the undrgroung map was made by the Black Hand Orc tribe on werebear skin and it has dwarven runes on it. Pennywise tells us this is "dark places, bad places" and we should stay away from it. After a few small catastrophes we figure out the trap on the remain boxes and check them out.

1. A lantern to penetrate darkness and a collapsible tent
2. Shoes - dwarven
3. Ladies dresses - dwarven
4. Fan of darts - 20 darts doing extra damage and exploding on impact.
5. 8 cupcakes - Curative - addes 2 to stats for 2 days
6. Broach - worth 1000 SP
7. Silver Pig - becomes full size and one person can fly on it. It has wings of course. Can also cast TK Rage once a day.
8. Bronse Bowl - Divination once per person
9. Shortsword - Orc slayer
10. Amber Crystals - worth 3000 SP
11. Boat - becomes full size and has mage current at rank 5 on it
12. Skull and Bones - Black shard (matt finish), not magical
13. Skull and Bones - Yellow pulsating crystals - Dodgy DAs it and instantly goes insane.
14. Parachutes - experimental
15. Sparrow - farsensing
16. Scroll Tube - recipe for ribs
17. Books - unknown
18. Scrolls - Strength on Stone * 5
19. Potions - Potion of healing (20 pts) * 7, Gaseous form * 3
20. Blue Gem - Regeneration, 1 use per person
21. Mystery Box - Minor Wish - used by Dodgy to get Rank 4 Divination before he knew it was a wish

We divinate some items before resting up for the night.

Day 8

After a good breakfast we decide to head off to the edge of town and divinate some undead. We notice that the bone creatures are bigger than they were yesterday but we aren't too bothered by it. We battle a bone golem which brac kills with the battle axe of "slay undead", but not before Dodgy gets an eye poked out by a vicious little skeleton. Torak, being a helpful individual, tells us the undead are attracted to lifeforces and that he can change our auras to be undead so we can pass safely out of town. Why he didn't mention this before we don't quite know. At midday we divinate some bones and find out the "raise undead" has them pacted to a named entity. Torak, again being helpful, animates a cart for us and Fonkbin illusions it to look like an undead cart. We then head out of town to the werebear enclave. We fight off a few golems and continue on our journey. About 10pm we reach the werebear village and are invited in. They seem glad that Betsy has died. They believe the great evil is a powerful spirit entity ripping spirits from bodies. It stopped when Betsy and Arty killed Clarises husband (although he wasn't the cause of the problem) but has recently started again. They think Clarise wants to sacrifice a persons name to bring her husband back, but Betsy put his name in an item or book which Clarise hasn't been able to find yet. The great evil is likely at the castle and the werebears are on their way out of the valley in the next day. They think the spirit behind it is the Devouring Wolf of Despair. They notice that Dodgy is tainted by the great evil but allow us to rest there for the evening anyway.

Day 9

As we prepare to leave we plan to ambush some orcs a few times to draw the majority of them out. We do quite well on the first encounter but Dodgy mistakenly kills most of them with his shortsword of "orc slayer". All of the dead orcs have no spirit and are pacted to a spirit plane entity ( the wolf of despair). We get some weapon-smithed, silvered, composite bows and bastard swords. We speak to the remaining orcs and realise they had recently found the thing Clarise was after, but they haven't given it to her yet. Being skilled adventurers we track them back to where they found the thing. There is a marker stone with a celtic cross on it. There are some loose bones showing a disturbed area. Art summons a bird to see what was happening here in the last day. A very large Raven appears and starts speaking to us. It is a long lived sentient and has been trapped into guarding this area by Betsy. In exchange for its freedom it will tell us everything we want to know. It will go off and kill Betsy's spirit though. Apparantly the guild has encountered this entity before and he likes to "judge people".

Dodgy somehow has gotten possesion of the black shard and as the group negotiates with the Raven he hears a voice offering to get rid of the raven. Without thinking Dodgy touches the shard to the marker stone and the raven explodes into pieces. Dodgy's skin instantly goes black and a huge flaming wolf tattoo appears on his chest which is clearly a mark from the Wolf of Despair. Naturally the party is upset but Dodgy claims he didn't trust the raven and he got what was coming to him... After taking the shard off Dodgy again we leave the area but return shortly when we see some flying humans heading there. Before we get there Pennywise kills Dodgy and resurrects him. The major insanity is gone but he still has a mnor insanity. Back at the marker stone we see 3 human females and 3 orcs. We form a quick plan and then attack. Dodgy is still very gungho and races forward and strikes 2 of the 3 ladies. They are instantly disintegrated. It seems he forgot to mention that the sword of orc slaying has been transformed in a human slayer. The orcs run off, leaving Dawn captured by us. She is a sister of Clarise and Mist (the 2 ladies Dodgy killed). Before we can interrogate her we are surrounded by wolves. Dodgy commands them to chase after the orcs, and some of them do, but the rest are hungry for us. We use the experimental hanggliders/parachutes to escape and put some ground between us and the wolves.

Dawn tells us Clarise only wanted her husband back and if we hadn't killed her she would have helped us, as she wasn't workign with the group enslaved to the Wolf of Despair. The plan was to gett eh box with the names of people and take it to the Namer place of power and return the names to their proper places. Dawn also says Clarise is not the current swamp witch. There is someone else working with Ashwin and the Wolf. We find the box and there is a book in it, similar to the one in Betsy's vault. There are also 6 small gems. Dawn and Art fly off to a safe camp at the base of the hill the castle is on, to convince her friends to help us. The rest of us rest up for a bit. About 9pm we see a large spirit wolf in the distance. We break the sword so it can no longer track us but it leaps in to take Dodgy. It wants to take the effects back from Dodgy since Dodgy failed him before. A small struggle ensues and we beat the wolf off, but not before most of the taint is removed from Dodgy and a small tattoo is now on Brac (Brac upset the wolf). Dawn and Art return and we all head off to the safe camp where the taint and tattoo is removed from Brac.

We have a discussion about what to do next but neglect to blend in to the locals. By 10am we are surrounded by Orcs and 3 hooded figures (elvish). This works out to our advantage and we fly up to the castle since the orc guards are now down in the camp. Only a small section of the castle has been rebuilt which makes it easy to find a good tower to enter. In the first room we find a staircase and 2 skeletons come racing down. From the floor above a dwarf throws a methane grenado down which makes Art a bit sick till Dawn dispells the effect. We race up 2 floors before Brac sleeps the dwarf. A huge Orc in heavy plate armour taunts us from a side passage, daring us to come get him. Clearly there are traps in the passage but we out smart him when he is forced to run away. The passage curves around the outside of the room we are in and Skafloc puts a tunnel throught the stone wall so we can see the orc and a glowing portal pad. Skafloc also shoots an amazing shot with his bow and the orc is crippled. He soon dies as a bomb is lobbed through the portal and it destroyes the portion of the tower we are in. We take some damage and Pennywise needs the help of a resurrection egg. We talk to the spirit of the dwarf and figure out the portal leads to about 40 foot below the fountain in the courtyard. being tricky adventurers we tunnel straight down to the cavern where Art flies down on his silver pig and utters a frash (its bacon time) whcih activates a TK Rage. The room has a priest and 2 9 foot flesh golems. There is an altar and a huge black rift in the room. This leads directly to the spirit realm. The priest is unconscious so Art tosses him through the rift, effectively killing him (the unconscious spirit will be ripped apart on the other side since it can't defend itself). Dodgy comes in next and distracts the possessed golem (wolf spirit) giving Art the time he needs. Dodgy gets cursed and turns into a gem instead of a gaseous form when he attempts to retreat from the golem. The rest of the party drops in and Brac uses the itemised boat to block the rift, preventing the golem from pushing us through. Art air blasts the alter and the various bowls and urns are scattered, breaking the wolfs possession the golem. We scarper real quick as we hear voices from above, but not before we pick up the bowls and urns. We don't have time to gets the priest possessions though. We race up the castle path to the mountains before launching ourselves off a cliff with our parachutes.

Day 10

Dawn returns Dodgy to his halfling form and explains that any magic he uses to escape a battle will have the reverse effect. This major curse can be removed but we don't have the time to do this now. We divinate the bowls and urns but find the bowls too linked to the wolf spirit so we destroy them.

Calendar

Autumn 815wk: Fruit (4)
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
	Lugnasad		1	Guild Meeting - Alusia	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		1		2		3		4
Autumn 815wk: Harvest (5)
	5		6		7		8		9		10		11
	12		13		14		15	Equinox	16		17		18
	19	Harvest Moon	20		21		22		23		24		25
	26		27		28		29		30		1		2
Autumn 815wk: Vintage (6)
	3		4		5		6		7		8		9
	10		11		12		13		14		15		16
	17	Blood Moon	18		19		20		21		22		23
	24		25		26		27		28		29		30	Beerfest