Session #1

[Nathan Sherman]

Session #1
4/13/07
This is my first go at journaling a gaming session, so give me plenty of slack...

While riding his horse out of his homeland in search of new spells and adventure beyond what his family could ever know, the Corvinian mage known as Aruzmathel met the aberrant ogre cook (Magrakian) going by the name of Oliff. Since they are both traveling south on the road towards Drakkel through the land of the Grum, they decide to travel together for the day and share a conversation. Apparently, Oliff has grown up with the Grum and has learned some cooking skills as well as some magic from these little people, and Aruzmathel values having a cook around as well as someone that might have new spells that he can learn.

After traveling south together for about a day they came upon blood and tracks crossing the road leading to the hill off to the west. Obviously creatures have been killed on this site and dragged off. Aruzmathel and Oliff decide to backtrack a little and circle around up the hill to investigate.

At the top of the hill they find a weary man in fine but dented and blood splattered armor who has dug a ditch and is now sharpening stakes. There is a battered half elf that is wearing dirty orc armor standing nearby as well as an older human hiding in the ditch. The threes names are Hugh, Soris and Finnegan.

The three tell about a terrible pounding that they took from a couple orcs and a troll. Aruzmathel goes to check the bodies and make sure they are dead orcs instead of a slaughtered Grum family and verifies their story.

Oliff makes a good meal for dinner and we set watch for the night. On the fourth watch of the night Soris hears sounds of many feet and wagon wheels on the road, but he doesn't think it's a threat and doesn't wake the rest of the party.

In the morning, the party breaks camp and heads south. After a short while, they see a small village in the distance. 

Hugh is ridding 100 yards ahead of the party as they approaching the tiny village when a girl breaks out of the underbrush on the edge of the road near him. An orc follows her out and grabs her and drags her back into the forest. Hugh rushes in after her (despite still being badly wounded from his battles the day before) and discovers two skrell guarding the retreat of the orc who is dragging the girl. Hugh goes totally defensive against the skrell and they stand off against him for a round, apparently surprised that a large and heavily armored fighter didn't attack them when he got the chance. After waiting for a round, the surprise wears off and one of the skrell attacks him and misses. At this point Aruzmathel comes through the brush and using his crossbow he shots the other skrell in the throat, killing him instantly. Oliff comes through the brush at the start of the next round and puts the last skrell asleep with a spell. The three all take off through the forest after the orc and little girl (apparently leaving the sleeping skrell alive).

They rush into the town to find it being ransacked by skrell, orcs, half orcs and humans. Oliff fires his crossbow at a one of two skrell holding a townswoman and hits the woman instead. Blood gushes from her mutilated arm and a little girl screams "mommy" from the second story window of the nearby building. Hugh charges forward and kills one of the two skrell that was holding the woman that Oliff took out.

A man in a very elaborate cloak with symbols all over it emerges from a building just past where the young mother and two skrell are being attacked by the three. The crazy cloaked one runs up to the orc that dragged the girl from the forest half way down the block and attacks the orc. Aruzmathel moves up to that point in the block to get a better positioning for his attack next round.

After his display of skill with the crossbow, Oliff casts a magic missile and hits the orc that was dragging the little girl. He then runs up to the woman he shot and tries to explain to her that he is sorry. All she can respond with is "save my daughter" before she passes out from the pain and massive loss of blood. The crazy cloaked one attacks the orc again but this time he misses. Hugh attacks and kills the second skrell that he was up against. Aruzmathel moves further into the battle and casts Color Spray, knocking unconscious two skrell and a villager.

Crazy cloak casts fear and gets rid of the orc that everyone was trying to kill. Aruzmathel fires his crossbow at a half ogre and misses.

Soris arrives in town with the wagon.

Oliff runs into the burning building to save the daughter of the woman that is bleeding out in the street from his crossbow bolt. He gets into the second story room with the little girl and realizes that she is about to be attacked by two skrell, so he pauses and does a lot of thinking before running at the girl to grab her and jump out the window with her. She ducks and he plummets out the window after taking an attack of opportunity from each skrell. (action point is used and the results are changed) Instead - He barely succeeds at grabbing the little girl and they both go out the window, with a minor bump to her head on the window sill as they go out. On his fall from the second story window, he realizes that he has taken one hit from one of the skrell while rushing past them. The landing is far from graceful and he takes lots of damage when he hits the hard packed road, leaving him on the brink of death!

Crazy cloak tries to use his fear to make one of his attackers run, but it fails. He then leaves that part of battle because he has seen the leader of these bandits and wants to be the one to take him down. Two of the enemies facing him take swings at him as he disengages, but both miss. When he gets face to face with the leader of the bandits, he says it is time for the leader to go.

Aruzmathel casts another color spray and both the human and half ogre save.

Soris casts ray of frost on a huge guy that came in the back area and he responds with a bolt from within his arm (nasty pulling apart of the hand and arm and something shooting out of his skeleton) and it knocks him back onto his ass and it starts to burn in his chest. The burning pain courses through his body and he slips into unconsciousness.

Oliff takes the little girl that he jumped out the window with and runs across the street into a dark building with her. He finds out that the building he dragged the little girl into is a dark bar. He checks around the room and finds a grain bin to stuff her into. After stuffing the girl away into a grain bin (why are you breading me for cooking?), Oliff slips out the back door and sees that there are zombies in the back area. He decides to run away from combat and bolts for his life. He gets hit in the back from something nasty and is unconscious before he even hits the ground while feeling the burning sensation creeping up his spine.

Hugh takes three shots from the big guys (xorians) with the arms pulling apart, but none get through his breast plate. He kills one of the two skrell that he was up against with a mighty swing.

Aruzmathel gets clobbered by the half ogre twice sending him unconscious. The human that was attacking Aruzmathel jabs something into his leg and Aruzmathel stabilizes from bleeding out.

The leader draws his sword but didn't attack yet. Crazy cloak gets hit by one of the arm shooting big guys and is still up, but barely. He casts sanctuary and runs into a nearby building. A burning pain wracks his body and falls unconscious.

Hugh gets rushed by lots of the attackers and while the half ogre is trying to move around and flank him, Hugh gets an attack of opportunity and critical hits and drops the ogre.

Hugh takes a hit from one of the many that is surrounding him and he joins the rest in sweet, sweet unconsciousness.

We wake up in a cell stripped, bound, gagged. Finnegan is there too. Oliff looks for the woman that he shot and finds her in another cell. He see her and tries to get her attention without alerting the guards. She doesn't notice but one of the guards notices and ends up poking her to get her to look at Oliff. Oliff tells her that "I hid your little kitty for you". She says "I don't have a cat". After a little bit of back and forth trying to tell her in code that he hid her daughter, the little girl pokes her head out of another cell and tells her mom that that's the one that grabbed her.

The cells are in poor repair. Aruzmathel works at his bonds and after an hour finally works through the knots. None of the other members of the cell get out of their bonds.


Well, hope you like my first try at journaling a game session. I tried to keep it from the characters point of view, so that may have colored the facts just a bit, but the other players can respond with how they remember it happening (and how brave they were)

Nathan

[Golanthius]

Man, the first session and you face xorians...Thats rough...I guess David doesn't mess around when attacking a village...At least everyone survived.

[avisarr]

Normally, I wouldn't throw xorians at a party full of first level runts... however, I had my reasons.

1. It was absolutely essential that they get captured right away. The whole plot starts out that way.

2. The appearance of the xorians was tied to something later in the plot. Unfortunately, we never did get to finish this campaign, and so many of the elements and things they encountered in the first 10 sessions never came to fruition. That's the way of it though. Sometimes you plan stuff out and you just run out of time and don't get to play out all of the scenes you wanted.

3. I just wanted to scare the piss out of them.