Bringing Light to the Darkness

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Bringing Light to the Darkness
GM: Paul Schmidt
Season: Winter 800 WK

Party

• Father Rowan Wiccan Male Human (Mil Sci, Scribe)
• Turf Namer Elf Male (Leader)
• Glynn Air Elf Male
• Ithilmor Celestial Elf Female
• Bleyze Fire Elf Male
• Killramadrum (Drum) Non-mage Giant Male
• Basalic Earth Human Male

Time on adventure

1st Frost 800 WK to 26th Ice 800 WK

Employer

Father Heizuus O’Connor

Mission

Find the Light of Reason and re-establish the Church of Chantris in Gunlion Hill.

Planes

Greyhawk/Astral/Alusia

Places visited

Greyhawk City

Delrenbrass

Paraelemental Plane of Ice

Istven

Gnome city in the UnderDark

Githyanki City in Astral

Gunlion Hill on Brastor

Major NPCs encountered

Lawfakir

Ignatious Knobnose

Kessel - a priest of Pelor

Trusty Jack

Original Scribe Notes

Media:Snwi0004.zip

Scribe Notes

(These scribe notes supplied by Basalic)

Met my fellow adventurers: Glynn. A 6'4" elf who professed to be an air mage Ithilmor. A female elf 5'8" with long black hair wearing dark plate mail. She's a Star Celestial and a priestess of Elbereth. Turf. 6' tall, stocky elf with long white hair and furrowed brow. He’s a Namer. His cape was dark purple with shimmering runes. Kil...(something) 'Drum'. 9'6" hill giant warrior in plate mail. Father Rowan. Short human. Priest of Chantris and wiccan. Bleyse - Elven male firemage And I'm Basalic. Earth mage and warrior. Turf became the party leader while Father Rowan was the military scientist and scribe. Our mission was to aid Father Heizuus O'Conner from the Reformed Church of Chantris. He had a vision, after being blown off his roof by a lightning strike, of setting up a church in the Dark Circle, specifically at Gunlion Hill and spoke about finding the Light of Reason in a place called the Silvery Vault. He had also caught a certain gnome, Ignatious Knobnose, trying to steal from his church. After visiting penance upon him, Heizuus brought him to Seagate to get assistance. After some persuasion, Ignatious agreed to lead us to the edge of the Circle, but no further, claiming he was cursed to commit treason against friends. He also claimed he was cursed with good luck. Could do with a bit of that myself sometimes. However we would have to wait a week for him to return as he had urgent business to conduct. While we waited, I put Lessers on everyone and paid Scratch for a 12 point Greater at cost. Some of us also learnt Grenado as it would be useful in throwing Holy Water. I ended up keeping three vials of what Father Rowan had made up. 8th Frost. However, at the end of the week, there was no sign of Ignatious. Turf went to the plane of Greyhawk to investigate. There, he discovered that Ignatious had been incarcerated by the Greyhawk Tax Department for failure to pay taxes. Turf soon discovered that trying to get information out of them was like trying to get blood out of a stone - and they wanted payment for everything, with interest. Even talking to someone cost money, payable in advance. After being cleaned out by them, and getting nowhere, Turf then visited Lawfakir. Lawfakir was willing to pay to get Ignatious out but, in return, he had a problem with his library. So Turf went back to fetch the rest of us. So we went through Dead Man's Alley and into the plane of Greyhawk, making sure we had copper coin to distract the tenticled entity lurking in the mists. I later discovered it was a Lurker from the Beyond. When we got to Lawfakir's place, we discovered he wanted the library shelves dusted. Seemed simple enough but nothing about Lawfakir's library is simple. People going in there have to be very careful about what they do and even what they think, otherwise strange things happen to them. Even trying to think about nothing doesn't help. After several misadventures we finally emerged from there, but not before most of us were scathed in body or soul. We then retreated back to Seagate for further preparations. However we did discover that the Silvery Vault was something to do with the Astral Plane and that we may need to retrieve something from a very cold place, presumably the Paraelemental Plane of Ice. 9th Frost Visited the Temple of Celestron on Greyhawk. There, after spending most of the day going through their library, we found out that the Silvery Vault was another term for the Astral Plane and that the Light of Reason referred to an angelic being that had been destroyed by the forces of Darkness. They suggested that the Temple of Pelor may have more information. There, they told us that they required assistance because an evil force was spiriting children away to some dark fate. Of course, none of us were going to stand for such nonsense so we agreed to do something about it. The person to contact was Father Kessel, the priest in charge of a subchurch down at the docks. .2. So we headed down there. We didn't want to attract attention so the elves in the party were wearing robes and hoods. Unfortunately the guards were curious about what was under the hoods. Father Rowan tried to hint that they should be isolated because of possible infection. This caused Drum to declare in a loud voice "Unclean! Unclean!" This caused the local populace and guards to be extremely nervous and we got an armed escort - straight to the unclean area just outside the city. So much for being discrete. Father Rowan and Bleyse did what they could for the poor unfortunates there. Then the elven, Nyronesse ambassador, Ewayne, arrived and she, and her escort, conducted us to the dockside temple of Pellor, without further incident. Kessel was a large man, 6' 10" wearing a two handed sword on his back. He has had to use it to defend the temple and his charges. He told us that the children were being stolen by some river gypsies who take them by barge upriver to Nyr Dyv, an inland sea, presumably to be sold into slavery. These gypsies keep to themselves and dislike cats. After some planning we hired a barge so we could keep an eye on them and follow them when they left. According to DAs, the gypsies were human. Father Rowan obtained a rat familiar and sent it aboard the barge. Not much suspicious yet although we did find a room containing silvered restraints and chains downbelow. The manacles were hobbit sized. We watched as bales of goods were loaded on the barge. Just then Turf DAed one of the gypsys and discovered he was a wererat. At the same time the rat detected children inside the bales. Then their barge captain shoed up. I DAed him and determined that he was a Greater Lycanthrope wererat and had a mixture of charm and wiccan spells. So Father Rowan put a Protection from Weres on the bow and centre of our barge. 10th Frost. Kessel had supplied 14 crew along with the barge and we made plans to take them out. Finally, at midnight, we struck. Turf did Wiccan Counterspells all around and Father Rowan did a Summon Lycanthrope with the idea of getting an unwary captain into our trap. But, believe it or not, someone else appeared, a person by the name of Brannis who was also a Greater Werecat. After making apologies and explaining what we were up to, Father Rowan tried again. This time we got the captain but he realised what was going on and was ordering his men to hold him back. So we went on the offensive. Turf and I charged over while Ithemore swept the deck with blackfire. A mass of rats were also swarming onto our barge and up the gangplank after me. However, a blast of fire from Bleyse took care of them. Turf had leapt from barge to barge and was engaging the gypsies on the deck. Meanwhile I had charged up with my glaive in an attempt to get the captain. I hit but I got the strong impression from his reaction that he wanted to be scratched on the back a little lower to relieve an itch. The captain then leapt on Turf in an attempt to infect him with lycanthrope. That didn't work but, while I was drawing my sword, the captain leapt into the water with Turf. A lightning bolt went in after the captain and a swarm of rats emerged. I threw Turf a rope and hauled him out. While the others dealt with the remaining rats, I went and rescued the children. I found eighteen of them, ranging in ages from 5 to 9. By the time I had seen them safely to the town guard, the others were mopping up. Cats were also plowing into the rats. Turf had a rat in a cage, a rat with a white streak in it's fur, the last surviving part of the greater wererat. During the cleanup, a coffer containing 1000sp had been found. This had been turned over to the town guard. A search was then made of the barge and a couple of rings and other stuff was found in a rat sized hole, presumably the greater wererat's private stash. With some difficulty we were able to get it out. The wererat, after changing into a rather small person, wanted to negotiate and also wanted to be released 20 miles downstream from the city. So we took him there. He told us that he was working for himself and had blackmail material on quite a few important people in the city. Evidence, and a treasure cache, was in a room underneath a local inn. He also had knowledge on the Scarlet Brotherhood, a group of evil wizards. One of the ambassadors to Greyhawk City was a priest of Nerull. The wererat was released but Bleyse, Ithemor, and Turf attacked and killed it. For a short time I thought that this was a dishonourable act but, upon reflection, it was probably the best thing to do as it was likely to perform more evil acts elsewhere. The rings were checked out and were shown to be size alteration and water walking. Upon investigation we discovered that the secret room had been cleaned out and several other wererats and other flunkies had fled. We passed the information gained to Kessel then went to check out the ambassador. However we discovered from his servant that he had been called away unexpectedly. Another villain had scarpered. .3. One of the carpets was magical so Turf divinated it. It was a Carpet of Arriving. There was also a small metal cylinder linked to it which would point at anyone standing on the carpet. Inside the cylinder was something that seemed to be very similar to a Dark Sphere. We suspected that it was shot at any unauthorised arrivals. So Turf dissipated it, taking eight hours to do so. When he finally banished it, the cylinder folded into a sphere and vanished. The next thing to do was to remove the death curses that Ithilmor, Bleyse and Turf had picked up so we headed off to the Temple of Istar. They wanted poetry from Bleyse, summing up his life, a song from Ithilmor describing her aspirations and a dance from Turf describing his soul. They would then have to swallow a gem. While they were composing their epics, Father Rowan explained our mission so him and I were invited to view a special tapestry that the priests had on their loom. It was a Tapestry of Fate and, by closely examining the threads we were able to view varius events. What we saw was a battle between the Suel and the Precluni that had occurred several hundred years ago. It was a terrible battle and the priests were calling down devastating magic. A grey mist rolled across the battlefield and, after it passed, all that was left was grey dust. Another scene showed the opposition calling down multicoloured fire which pulverized everything it touched. A third scene showed refugees fleeing a city that was being destroyed by these fireballs. We learnt that two great empires went to war. Suel had called down the devastation on the Precluni who had retaliated with their holy fire. However the gods had tried to prevent this from happening and, when that failed, they turned away from their people in disgust. One of them was Phauklton, the deity of Light and Reason. As I put it, the first casualties in any war is reason and truth. The symbols of Phauklton was a book and a candle. A related deity was still active in the area but it was believed the two were not connected. Also Phauklton and Chantris had made several holy items that were fated not to be used in Greyhawk. Once the curses were removed, and the performances were interesting to say the least, we headed back to the Temple of Celestron to see what aid they could give us to a journey into the Astral. They had some ungelents that would protect us against wandering minds at a cost of 1000sp each. So Father Rowan paid them by creating Amulets of Luck. This took several days.

19th Frost

Finally we were ready to go. At sunrise we were at a stone circle outside the city, with various spells on us. Just as the sun rose above the horizon we were projected into the Astral. I immediately put Trollskins on everyone as time passes very slowly on the Astral and the spells would last a long time. It did indeed appear that we were in a silvery vault for that was the predominant colour around us. Mental attributes were the order of the day here and we discovered that it was sheer willpower, not physical strength that determined how fast we moved. Father Rowan summoned a familiar to act as a guide. When it arrived, we initially thought it was a dove but then it transformed into a small slightly feathered humanoid with a tinge of green. It was a ghaele. His most powerful magic was 'ray of light'. Turf (referring to FR) - "He follows me" FR - "Only because you're the slowest bugger on the block". As we progressed, small wisps of light were escaping from our heads. These were stray thoughts so we fought to keep tight rein on them. However, a short while later, Bleyse complained about being tired. We rested for a while, giving some of us the chance to purify, but after that, Bleyse was still tired. Turf tried using his healer skills but then he complained of being tired too. Finally Father Rowan did some sort of exorcism and the stray thought causing the problem left both of them and went back to Drum. FR - "I'm a priest. I know what I'm doing" We were heading towards the Living Sea, a place which contained the ocean of a world that had spilled into the Astral. We had been told that, near there, was what we were looking for. Suddenly we detected other minds approaching. We could see something that looked like a cross between a squid and a fish and it was accompanied by a pack of very black dogs with flaming grey eyes. The creature was an abolith and the dogs were most likely Hell Hounds. This pack was rapidly gaining on us and combat looked certain until we noticed that there was a silver cord trailing from the abolith and disappearing into the void. Turf shot at it with a flaming arrow and severed the cord. The entire pack dissipated. A while later, the silvery vault darkened and we felt ourselves being buffeted about by a psychic wind. Flashes of lightning flickered around. A ray of light was created and we followed it. Soon we were out of the storm. The next encounter was with small floating islands of earth and we headed towards the largest one, half a mile across, which we discovered was inhabited. But, as we approached, we bounced off a barrier surrounding it. One of the inhabitants rose from the surface. He was carrying a halberd and had a nasty gash down one side which looked fresh. We asked for directions and were told we were two weeks away from the Living Sea and that there were a large number of githyanki in the way. They were a race we had to be wary of. This island had a small group of people on it that were suffering from various disorders. Also there was a permanent silvery/blue colour pool that led to the plane of Anthor, specifically to the Church of their deity, Dalt, a god of artisans and traps and locks. These people had been sent through in the belief that their deity would cure them of their afflictions. Because time flowed very slowly here, they weren't suffering so much, but if they returned through the portal, their afflictions would rapidly turn fatal. So Father Rowan and Bleyse cooked up a plan to help these people. Bleyse would cast Cleansing Flame on each one of them and we'd throw them back through the portal. Once they were back in real time, the spell would kick in and they would hopefully be cured. The interesting aspect of this spell was that the targets would be surrounded in fire that appeared to be causing them pain. It was going to look rather dramatic at the other end. So, as not to alarm the people still to be cast on, we erected a tent around the portal and led the people in, one at a time. There was a service in progress in the temple at the time so the priests and congregation were rather surprised when people wreathed in flame came hurtling through the portal and rolling down the steps from the altar. then announcing they were cured. One of the priests cautiously came up to see what was going on. When Father Rowan offered him a cleansing, he decided he had urgent business elsewhere. Once they had finished, Bleyse caused pyrotechnics to fly through the portal while Rowan created an image of Dalt, three times the size. Somehow I suspect there is going to be a religious upsurge on this world. We continued on our way. After a while we could see a mass of water ahead of us. Between that and us was some sort of fortification, which looked like two pyramids joined base to base. Turf concentrated on the Light of Reason and he got the impression that the fortification was where we had to go. So we headed in that direction. As we approached, a boat left the structure and headed towards us. On board were 20 githyanki in baroque armour. Once it approached, three of the occupants wanted to know what we wanted while the rest covered them. Father Rowan explained our mission and requested an audience with the head person. Initially they wanted us to come inside but finally it was agreed they would come to us. So we waited. Soon another group of five arrowed in. With them was a very old githyanki. Again Father Rowan explained that we were searching for the Light of Reason. They wanted proof that he was a Priest of Chantris so he blessed them. They were satisfied with that so we were led inside with an assurance of safe conduct. We were led deep into the edifice and finally encountered a pair of wooden doors. A light was shining through them. Once they were opened we could see that the light was emanating from a candle flame floating in the middle of the room. There was no candle We were told there was a candle here but it had been stolen by some renegade Githyanki and hidden somewhere deep in their city. They had been influenced by one of their race, a female, who had became a lich and proclaimed herself to be their ancient liberator from the Calimar, Gith. All of these Githyanki were mad because of the influence of the unlit candle. Once those within the citadel were sane because of the Light. Only Gith himself could free the race from their insanity and his essence lay somewhere on the ParaElemental Plane of Ice. There may be other things there that would help us as well. So we headed back to the colour portal, a turquoise/blue one, that we had came through, that Turf had initially marked. Once through we returned to see Lawfakir as we needed advice and protections in order to survive on the Plane of Ice. .4. Unfortunately Lawfakir wasn't able to help us at this stage as he had other matters to urgently deal with. We could free him up by defeating a demon that was confined in a summoning room in some underground chambers. Those caverns had been cleansed of loot years ago. A basalisk was roaming the area and a blue dragon was located nearby. There was also a bunch of priests of Nerull that needed to be dealt to as well. It was them we decided to 'visit'. We had to avoid those strange children to get to the priests of Fharlanghn. Their head priest, Tallus, supplied us with a set of six 'distance sticks' that could locate any stick in the set. Also, Saydar had been there and had drawn a map of the area called Delvinbrass, where we were going to but, when we saw it, it was worse than useless. I think I'll learn Artisan Cartographer after this as I was sure I could do a better job. 20th Frost They portalled us to Chandel through the druid circle at dawn the next day and appeared in a summoning circle. There we were blessed by the priests of Heironeous who was a warrior deity into honour and chivalry. Sounds like my sort of person. Their paladins were currently fighting the remnants of the priests of Iuz and their minions. We journeyed to their outpost near the front line, crossing a lake on the way. By evening we were at the outpost where we spent the night. 24th Frost It had taken us three days to get this far but finally we reached the outskirts of the elven area called the Timeless Trees. The elves there conducted us to a clearing with a large oak tree within it, where lived the Proctor. We were treated well but Father Rowan was very paranoid claiming that the last time he was here, they had tried to burn him. I suspect he had offended them in some way. Delrenbrass used to be a castle but was now in ruins. Undead can walk around during the day. We were then escorted to the border where we camped and rested. After a hike, reached the overgrown ruins. I did some DAs and determined that the effect here was very similar to the Dark Circle. Part of the ruins had been a large stone floor and it was here that Turf found a rectangular ward, some sort of Forbiddance which was focused inwards. We suspected it was keeping some sort of Horror in. Engraved in the floor was a portrait of a woman holding a wand in onehand and a scarab in the other. So Father Rowan traced the outline of the wand and there was a clicking sound as a stone slab, at one end, moved away revealing a descending spiral staircase. Bleyse was able to transform into a skeleton so he decided to do so at this point, scaring our elven escorts. We went down the stairwell and reached a landing, 60 feet down, where there was a door. We opened it and went in. The Englegoons had been here before us and this place had been trashed. Hardly anything had been left undisturbed in their search for loot. Engleton had even left his mark on one of the walls. Also there was a blocked stairwell, going up. There was definitely nothing here so we descended further until we reached another landing, another 60ft down. Initially there was no obvious sign of a door but I was able to find it. Inside was another trashed room and another descending staircase. There was a ward on the staircase against something called a vang. Down to the next landing. Down here, there was a large hole and it looked like something had busted out from below. I tried using my night vision eyecusps so I could see better and discovered my Night Vision talent was enhanced to work in colour. Useful. The hole must have been at least 500ft deep so I used a Wall of Stone as a ramp over it so we could get to the stairs beyond. Down further we discovered some bodies. Most were wearing robes of Iuz but there was also a priestess of Nerull. Just then, from above, there was a bang. We went up to investigate and discovered that the Wall of Stone had been smashed from below. Also a Wall of Iron was blocking the landing on the other side of the hole. Ithilmor created a Darksphere and used it to start boring a hole in the Wall of Iron so we could see what lay beyond. Turf took a look and suddenly started attacking the wall in a berserk rage. However, our more immediate concern was, was there something down here on this side of the wall, how many were there, and how much peril were we in. .5. We figured that we were being blocked in so that something could attack us from below. There could also be another one behind the top. We needed to regain a tactical advantage. So I put another Wall of Stone over the gap in my original just as Glynn, Bleyse, and Father Rowen threw spells through the gap at whatever was below. I then reinforced the Wall of Iron with another Wall of Stone. A scraping sound could be heard on the other side of the iron wall then a crash, as if the wall itself had fallen over. So I threw up a second Wall of Stone and Ithilmor bored a hole in it, four feet above the floor. Hands of Earth were put up between the two Walls. Seconds ticked by while we kept watch. Cracks then formed in the first wall and a foul smelling liquid oozed into the gap. The water itself was summoned from the elemental plane so Turf was able to banish much of it. Unfortunately that left the sludge and gunk that the Horror was adding to it including several maggoty creatures. Thank goodness for Glynn’s air magics otherwise we would have been overcome by the stench. Ithilmor used her Sphere of Darkness to clean up as much as the filth as possible. Just then some lamprey like creatures slithered from below. Glynn was bitten by one and his leg did wither. Another spat a noxious liquid that hit me in the mouth and caused my tongue to drop out, stopping me from further spell casting. Bleyse used Cleansing Flames on both of us to stop any further damage and I drank some Holy Water to make sure. The lampreys were Hellfired but not before Father Rowan’s leg was also infected. Glynn spied a small tendril coming at us from below so several Dragonflames and Lightning Bolts were hurled in that direction. The tendril retreated rapidly. Meanwhile the top Wall of Stone had crumbled some more and the filth flow rate was increasing. Bleyse was watching the rear and he put up a Wall of Fire behind us. The Horror was trying to influence us by whispering temptations into our minds but we did not listen to it. Instead we wanted to advance on it and smite it muchly. Since I couldn’t counter my Walls, Father Rowan used an Earth Tremour. As the stone walls came down, we could see the Wall of Iron glowing white and could feel the heat, as if from a forge, pouring from it. Steam was rising from the dirty water. If that went over, there was going to be a rather nasty explosion. So we raced through the Wall of Fire and Father Rowan put up a Wall of Thorns to protect us from flying shrapnel or molten metal. Indeed there was an explosion but the Wall of Thorns was effective in protecting us. However, something started to affect it and it tried to attack us. So Father Rowan threw a Hellfire at it. That wasn’t all though. The bodies down the bottom took on an unnatural life and also attacked us. Ithilmor and Father Rowan destroyed with the power of their deities while Drum and I dealt to them with weapons. As we tried to advance up the stairs, another Wall of Iron appeared before us. Ithilmor tried to drill through it with the Darksphere but lost control and Turf had to banish the sphere before we had that to worry about as well. I spotted a secret door in the wall that might serve as an escape route but Father Rowan didn’t trust it. He was probably right. Instead he used another Earth Tremour to bring down the iron wall. A large amount of fouled water rushed towards us and we clung, as high as we could, to the walls as it passed by beneath us. There were tentacles in the filth which sought us out. I triggered a Self Immolate and defended myself and my comrades as they hurled spells at them. Turf, Drum, and Ithilmor were knocked off their perches. Turf was fortunate he had a Ring of Water Walking although creatures still attacked his feet and ankles causing them to break. Turf collapsed.