The Cleansing of the Shire

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Summary

Adventure: The Cleansing of the Shire
GM: Jacqui Smith
Session: Winter 814
Night: Friday (Starting the 20th June)
Location The house of Smith
Level: Medium
Rules: ?

The Party

• Phaeton - Seeker of knowledge, solar celestial, and master healer - Keith.
• Sooty- Elven, Mild mannered Ash mage - Bernard.
• Serra Angelus - Elven, Hard Drinking Earth mage - Big Mike.
• Sau Rus - Human, Philosopher of things dead - Ian Anderson
• Rowan - Elven, Mechanician and Tinker mage - Helen .

Scribe Notes

It was either go into the depths of the warzone to give healing to those who needed it, or find an adventure to go on. It had been a while since I had done so, and, well it would be nice to do so again. It was even better when Rowan said she was planning to go out as well so it seemed appropriate that we would end up in the same meeting room – going into the warzone – or at least somewhere nearby.

In the meeting room with us were:

• Sau Rus – the human necromancer
• Serra Angelus – the elven earthmage with an alcohol dependency
• Sooty – the elven 'ash' mage with some rather interesting extra abilities

I'm Phaeton, a human solar celestial healer, and Rowan is an elven female binder and mechanician well known for her companion, Eylor, the sentient 'eyeball', on her staff. Since we all had adventured together before, most of the introductions were glossed over, apart from updating each other.

We could hear cackling from next door, which seemed a bit unnerving but it was soon put to the back of our minds as we were introduced to our party employer. He introduced himself as a Knight, naming himself as Sir Roland from Silverstream, located in the south part of Ranke. His Lord needed help dealing with all the refugees that were coming in, as well as wandering monsters. He also wanted us to plumb lakes for gold so he could pay his debts to a Fae Court. As well as that, the Baroness is looking for her sister who has mysteriously disappeared and, if that wasn't enough he had three wiccans pacted to a deity, known only as 'the Goddess', who want to go into the 'badlands' and start cleaning them up.

The pay they were offering was any extra gold, over and above what was required, and blessings from the fae. I was rather cautious about that as fae are rather capricious creatures and one cannot be exactly sure that what you get is exactly what you asked for. Still, some interesting possibilities came to mind. The Solar Flare spell for instance or maybe the ability to rank my accumulated collection of counterspells - or better yet, get the branch Counterspell option and rank that - be a darn sight easier.

We then discussed what buffs we could do. Since Rowan can add more protection to armour (+3 to FT protection) and Sooty could add other protections (+5 EN and 125 ablative), instead of the drow robes I was thinking of, I should wear my chimera armour (8pt). In addition, we would go for Armours of Earth during the day and Wraithcloaks at night. Spectral weapon spells would be put on weapons (which included my wand) unless we were fighting elementals where Sooty's weapon enhancement spell would be utilised.

Sierra became the party leader, I was 'nominated' as scribe while Rowan became the primary military scientist with Sooty as backup.

After the meeting, Sau Rus and I went to the library to research up on the 'Mother Goddess'. Could it be Gaia? Isis? Or even Chantris? We doubted the latter.

After that, I obtained a Guild Greater (using normal myrrh, as I didn't trust the cheap stuff) and permanent Lesser's from Sierra.

The ship we were leaving on was the 'Cry of the Serpent' – which wasn't leaving until the early morning of the 3rd so we spent the intervening time getting ready.

3rd Frost

We were introduced to Theo Docherty, the First Mate, and the captain, Samuel Ramsey. During the trip Sooty set us up to do flying patrols. The rest of the trip I spent below still trying to design clockwork orrarys. It would take us a couple of days to get there.

4th Frost

At Lunchtime, a waterspout and it started raining .. a lot. Speculation was rife about whether this was a magical effect and whether or not a kraken was involved. We finally had to pull in to shore for shelter, not leaving there until the next morning.

  “Yes I know Lath is mad ….but that doesn't mean her island is” - Phaeton.

5th Frost

By lunchtime we reached a small port called Dar, which was a fishing/trading port. The place was too busy and there wasn't room for the ship to dock. The inns were full as well so we continued up the river, finally reaching a large lake, Darwent, at dinner time and set anchor.

It was fish pie for dinner. Afterwards we noticed a group setting up an encampment on shore about a thousand feet away. Sometime near midnight, we heard a feminine scream and sounds of roaring. So we armoured up, added Phoenix Wings, and Wraithcloaks and took off to investigate. During that time there was more screaming and commotion.

Sooty and Saurus fired spells at the attacking ogres while I put down a Wall of Darkness to protect the encampment on one flank and Sierra put up a Wall of Stone on the other flank. Rowan identified the ogre commander and blasted it with Eylor. I then followed up with a pink bolt of starfire as an experiment, the result leading me to the conclusion that pink does not appear to have extra effect against a target affected with necrosis. I then followed up with a meteorite shower which squished the ogre leader and a few others. The rest were routed back into the darkness.

We then returned back to the encampment and discovered that there were fifty of them, most of whom were suffering from internal injuries and bruising from blunt force trauma. They were refugees on their way to Brastor, so we did what healing we could to keep them alive and Sooty sent them to the Guild for further treatment.

The loot consisted of large crossbows, crossbow bolts, cudgels, and rusty chain armour off the ogres (although I suspect it won't be rusty for long though). While the others dealt to the ogre bodies, I headed back to the boat as I considered that my work was done here.

6th Frost

The next morning, we continued travelling up the lake and reached Silverstream, around mid morningish. We could see the castle on the promontory where the two rivers met. Once ashore, we followed Sir Roland into the hexagonal castle where we discovered that the Great Hall was rather busy. Sooty brought up the suggestion of the landless stipend as our reward and Baron Helmut said he'd think about it. We then went to find the three wiccans who lived in a cottage outside the castle, which looked like it had just been … put there. From inside, we could smell a distinct odour of what we thought may be baking gingerbread, which was confirmed when we discovered someone inside was baking. A young in leathers under witches' robe and the obligatory(?) pointy hat answered the door. She introduced herself as Margaret Allsop. The cheery faced plump and rotund older woman at the stove was Fanny Oggam while the third one, who was an elderly, stern faced, grey haired, woman sitting in the corner, of indeterminable age but could definitely be someone's grandmother, was introduced as Granny Beeswax. Three rather suspicious looking broomsticks were leaned up against one wall, and three cats also occupied the cottage. A large ginger cat and a black cat with a white bib were asleep by the hearth while the third, a young kinlease seal point, had decided to rub against my legs while purring. Said cat ended up in my lap being stroked.

Fanny served up tea and freshly baked gingerbread, which was delicious by the way, while Sooty determined the three witches capabilities and Margaret, who was doing most of the talking, explained that they wanted to try and refresh the land that has been ruined by strange magical effects by some sort of ritual dedicated to the Mother Goddess. Apparently all sorts of magical effects had interacted during the drow invasion causing the land to be cursed and the ritual required a three wiccan team. I started theorising that several three wiccan teams reinforcing each other's rituals would do the trick which ended in me getting into a magical theory philosophical argument with Sooty – and not for the first time either. Margaret also mentioned that they don't do Hellfire but have something similar to Sinking Doom. Also, they were rather experienced in something called 'headology' which seemed to me to be messing with other people's minds - rather like certain mind mages.

We returned to the castle to determine the other things that needed doing. Celeste Astara, the baroness' sister was still missing. She had just disappeared one morning. The Baron also wanted the local villages repatriated. Some of their occupants had been sent through to 'the other place' to help supply produce. As well as that he wanted us to check on Windermere as there had been no news from there but they believed that Dottery was okay. Woody Hollow, where the three witches had came from, had an attack that was repulsed, but the witches wanted to do their rituals in peace, not in pieces, which is why they came here.

There were reports of a very large giant upriver and we got the name of the refugee who reported that. Talking to him led us to the conclusion that there could be a cloud giant up there.

7th Frost

Next morning, we headed off on horseback to Avonhithe. Initially we travelled alongside the Blue water river before turning eastwards. The bridge at Avonhithe was still intact and it's construction suggested that it either had bound earth in it or was shaped. According to the guards, no undead or fantastical creatures were here. There was a tent city of refugees from Bowcourt here though.

Next place was Dottery. There was nothing unusual here either and Dottery was looking rather prosperous. We spoke to Flamis's brothers who told us most of her wards were still intact. They did say that someone was saying there's a giant in the lake.

At Castle Carlow, a square keep structure, they told us that they have got problems with a flock of over twenty harpies who were using magics and annoying refugees as well as stealing sheep.

  “Choir of Harpies? Don't you mean Cacophony?” - Phaeton to Sooty

We decided to bait the harpies using illusionary sheep, much to the guard's relief. I guess they thought we were going to use real ones. The weather that night was largely overcast, and the moon was close to first quarter which made it rather dark. Sooty made five illusionary sheep out of ash while Rowan constructed three more from stuff lying around.

  “Should we put a shepherd's crook on Eylor?” - Sierra
  “You want to tell him that?” - Phaeton.

8th of Frost

Dawn arrived without incident. That was when Sooty spotted the harpies coming out of the sun. I just missed them since I was scanning the horizon with the spyglass. Two dozen of them in total. Their attack started with an agony spell from the harpy leader. Half a dozen of the harpies swung off from the main bunch and went for the flock of sheep. Most of them vanished into ash while Rowan's three 'sheep golems' start grappling the harpies that caught them. Meanwhile the main flock passed overhead throwing harpy feather darts – fortunately they all plinked off the armour spells. In retaliation, Sooty, gleefully, set us all on fire – with a sickly-green scourging flame that counteracted the agony.

Serra and Saurus, identified the two spell casters in the flock which they targetted with missile fire. At the same time, Eylor let loose a lighting bolt at the main flock while Rowan's golems appeared to be doing mid-air wrestling with the harpies that had them. We all got hit with necrosis – great – my tummy hurts again and we haven't had breakfast yet – and one of the soldiers is discovered to have a really strange taste in females.

More darts came in, not enough to hurt, but just enough to be annoying and my meteor spell failed. The harpies must have figured out something was up with the sheep as one of the golems was dropped – fortunately not on us, and a second one followed a second later. The third one still hung in there but fell a few seconds later.

Eylor blasted lightning at another one which got knocked out of formation which became an easy target for the archers among the guards. Another burst of necrosis and it it looks like I'm going to have to tap the powerstone – and my spell fails for the second time. Sooty fired off a guided pyroclastic fireball, centred on the one that he had identified as the military scientist. Something about that must have spooked them as they peeled off in a retreat. I suspected that the blast also took out, or damaged, at least one caster.

  “Let's get the flock out of here” - Harpies

As they flew off, Sooty, Eylor, and Sau-Rus was able to fire off a couple more spells which dropped a few more – some vapourising into clouds of green mist, but my Meteorite strike just refused to go off for the third time. So I ended up taking a restorative in case I had to cast Wings on everyone – which we didn't in the end. Instead, after looting the fallen, we headed back to Castle Carlow.

The loot turned out to be a collection of nipple rings which soaked up agonies, and enough ingredients to make harpy musk grenados – very useful versus goblins.

Buffs & Mil Sci

Long Term (assumed always on)

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Dur (Enhanced)	Ph	So	Se	Sr	Ro	Wi
Enhance Enchant	10	+10 Ranks duration.
Enchanted Area	9	Shares Spells	Recipient pays Ft.
Ash Armour (So, 1)	20	125 Elemental Ablative	31 Hours	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Charcoal Shield (So, 1)	20	+42% Defence, Can take extra counterspells, Requires prepared shield.	20.5 Hours
Thermal Control (So, 1)	11	3 Gauge towards 7, Immune Smoke/Fires	22 Hours	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Ash Shroud (So, 2)	8	5 Endurance Armour (Non stacking)	8.5 Hours	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Greater Heart Rune (Ph, 0)	6	Heals 6 EN	7 days	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Rune of Willow Healing (Ph, 2)	6	Heals 3 EN for 8 pulses	12 Hours	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Witchsight (Ph, 2)	12	See in Dark, Invisible.	11.5 Hours	Y			Y
Strength of Stone (Se, 1)	14	+14 PS or +14 EN	25 Hours	Y(En)	Y(En)	Y(En)	Y(En)	Y(En)	Y(En)
Armour of Earth (Se, 1)	14	30 Def absorbs 1 Dam per strike	12.5 Hours	Day	Day	Day	Day	Day	Day
Necrogency (Sr, 1)	20	-6 Drain,-25 Infection,+65 Fear resist	25 Hours	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Wraith Cloak(Sr, 2)	14	+23def,+15 Stealth,-4dmg*	12 1/2 Hours	Night	Night	Night	Night	Night	Night

Short Term

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Dur	Ph	So	Se	Sr	Ro	Wi
Weapon of Cinders	11	+12% SC, +6 DM, +11 Vs Elementals	16/26 Min.
Spectral Weapon	14	+15% SC, +5 DM	19 Min
Branch Counterspells	6	+26 MR vs a branch	11/17 min
Resistance to Light	6	+14 MR vs light magics	70/130 mins

Watch Order

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Sau Rus				Serra				Phaeton
Sooty						Rowan

Marching Order

Skirmish Formations (Front)
Double File Sooty Serra Phaeton Rowan Sau Rus	Single File Sooty Serra Phaeton Rowan Sau Rus

Travel Magic Options

Star Wings (Rk 12 260/460 Miles)
Wild Fires (Rk 11, 240/440 Miles)
Fire Portals (Rk 6, 175 Miles)

Other Milsci stuff

Primary Roles

• Sooty: Buff/Blast mage. Healer.
• Sau Rus: Blast/Buff mage. Academic.
• Rowan: Milsci. Creator of expendable minions
• Phaeton: Ranged magics/Healing
• Serra: Buff mage, Healer, Front rank

Calendar

Winter: Frost 814 (7)
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
		Samhain	1	Guild Meeting	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
Winter: Snow 814 (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	Twelth Night	1		2
Winter: Ice 814 (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