Session 06 Summary

[David Roomes]

The party currently consists of the following people:

The Player Characters
Winlock – orc/dwarf barbarian, wearing new heavy chainmail armor taken from a dead orc captain
William – the party's wizard, wielding his spells and also holding the Normidian stun staff
Belkor – the human swordsmen now wielding twin scimitars taken from the dead orc captain
Listig – the elven thief/archer wielding the "tracking arrow"

The Non Player Characters
Dathelar – militant priest of Imarus, a good healer, a fair fighter
Ryllis – elven archer
Halimir – elven archer


Session 6 began with our heroes on the subterranean level of the East War Camp. Having defeated the enemy and taken over the East War Camp, the party had done a thorough two hour chamber by chamber search of the entire subterranean level.

Reinforcements were coming to retake the East War Camp, but those reinforcements were still hours away.

Most of the prisoners who were found in the prison rooms were captured villagers. Most of them were old, weak or overweight... seemingly not worth the trouble to charm or convert to the witch's cause. They were questioned and all of them were from villages that bordered the swamp... villages that had been attacked.

Down a set of stone stairs was another, deeper, chamber filled with several prison cells. In this room, were four more prisoners, but these were not captured villagers. There was a saurian, a goblin and two humans.

The saurian looked like a rabid animal. He was foaming at the mouth, twitchy and aggressive. He attacked the bars of the cell whenever anyone approached. Listig recognized the symptoms of a severe battle spice overdose. This one could not be reasoned with so they let him be.

In the second cell was a big human whom they all recognized. This was Jannik, the leader of the sixth recon team. He told them what they expected. His team had run into a large group of orcs. Outnumbered, his team was almost wiped out. He and one other were captured, but separated. He'd been in the prison cell for many days. The party released him.

In the third cell was a human who Belkor recognized. It was a mariner named Tular and Belkor had sailed with him some years ago. Tular related a tale to the party. He had been working on a freelance merchant ship named the Amethyst. They had been sailing from the Coalition toward Willow Bay when they were assaulted off the coast of the swamp by several sleek craft of saurian. The saurians swarmed their ship and captured it. Tular doesn't know what became of the rest of the crew, but he's sure that the saurians took the Amethyst. The party released him.


In the last prison cell was a goblin. They questioned him. He told the party his name was Flitch and that he was a scout ranger from the Goblin Kingdom. The Goblin King had sent him, and other scouts, into the swamp to investigate rumors of the saurian clans uniting under a witch. Unfortunately, he had been captured. But before his capture, he had managed to sneak into Doth and had seen the witch himself. He described her to their party. He also told them about an enchanted talisman that she kept with her, a triangular shaped metal thing.

After many questions and debate, they finally decided to let the goblin go. They gave him a blade and some food and sent him on his way.

The party gathered up all of the weapons and armor and treasure they could find and organized it all into piles in the temple chamber. William scanned the piles with a "detect magic" spell. He also maintained the detect magic spell while walking through the entire sub level to make sure they hadn't missed anything.

In total, they found the following magic items:

1 whip – taken from one of the orcs
7 arrows – taken from two of the orcish archers
3 potions
3 mirrors

While scanning the piles for magic, he detected something magical up in the corner of the room... something invisible. William recognized it immediately for what it was... the business end of a scrying spell. This concerned him gravely. No doubt, the witch was watching them through some form of magical divination. He advised the group that they all be on their way as soon as possible.

The party wanted to take everything with them. They began hauling everything upstairs. Weapons, armor, shields, treasures and began loading up everything on to the four sarlangs. The huge reptiles were able to carry quite a bit of cargo, but this would reduce the seating capacity to one rider each.

They did not take large bulky items such as furniture, beds, tapestries and so forth. They smashed all of these items and left them in the rooms. Their plan was to soak all the remaining smashed pieces in oil and light the entire lower level on fire. They would deny the enemy this place.

While the sarlangs were being loaded up, William studied the three magic mirrors. Two of them were black and not reflective. The third showed a strange scene, a vision of the swamp as if seen from the eyes of a bird gliding over the trees.

William quickly deduced that these mirrors were displaying what each of the eye harnesses saw. Two were black because each was wrapped in cloth and inside a sack. The third was transmitting the images from an eye harness which was still on a creature out in the swamp somewhere.

In addition to all of the weapons and armor, they told one of the prisoners, who was a mason, to disassemble the stone brick arch in the temple. William was certain it was a teleportation gate of some kind. The orc shaman had only partially assembled it. The mason was able to break apart the mortar and reduce it down to just bricks. There were a total of 62 bricks, each adorned with glyphs. These bricks, along with all of the books, scrolls and parchments found with the arch, were crated up in wooden boxes and loaded onto the sarlangs.

Luckily, they had found a number of nets among the weapons of the orcs and these nets helped with securing the cargo on the backs of the sarlangs. Even so, the four sarlangs were heavily burdened.

As soon as the cargo was secure, they set out. The group consisted of about 30 people in total and four sarlangs. Each sarlang had a rider. The rest of the people were on foot. It was a very slow journey. The swamp was extremely difficult terrain and most of the recently freed villagers were weak, old and half-starved. The sarlangs were overloaded. The group managed less than one mile each hour.

After about six hours of difficult travel, they reached the Watch Tower. Daylight was fading, but the party was concerned about pursuit. According to their calculations, the reinforcements would be getting to the war camp about now, which was a mere five miles behind them.

Thade, the captured orc, offered up a suggestion. He told William that the mirrors linked to the eye harness could control the animal wearing the harness. Thade had seen the orc shaman and the orc commander do it. William tried it. He grasped the third mirror and said "come to me". Instantly, the view in the mirror changed direction and the creature began flying in a new direction. It seemed to work. The party thanked Thade for the suggestion and assured him that he would be freed once they reached civilization.

The party decided to use this to see what was going on back at the war camp they had just left. If reinforcements had arrived, they wanted to know how many had come and what they were up to.

Through trial and error, they eventually got the creature to land on a branch of a tree near the war camp, close enough to get a good view.

Through the magic mirror, the party saw several harothi saurians wandering around the ruins of the camp. They were taking orders from an ogre that seemed to be in charge. There was also a big giant standing nearby. The ogre and the saurian seemed to be conducting a thorough search of the camp. They disappeared into the lower level several times. The sauriand were slowly pulling out wreckage and charred furniture from the lower level.  They did not seem interested in pursuit. Rather, it seemed they were focused on assessing damage and rebuilding the war camp.

The party decided it was safe to stay at the watch tower. The watch tower was warm and dry (compared with the swamp). With all of them, almost 30 people, it was crowded, but still better than camping out on the cold, wet ground.

That night, William cast identify on all the magic items [DM Note: we're playing 5th edition and in 5th, it's shockingly easy to identify magic items]. So here are the magic items they obtained from the war camp.

The Whip – This was the whip they had seen one of the orcs wielding in combat. This whip just radiated evil. It was a sinister thing, fashioned for blackened bone and the spine of some serpentine creature. The handle is a skeletal hand and the hand grasps the hand of the wielder in a haunting handshake. It was a "whip of pain" and its strike was so painful that it could stun an opponent. William also detected something else... some vague feeling of ill will and terror emanating from the thing. He began to suspect the thing might be cursed in some way.

The seven arrows were as follows: A single black arrow with white fletching, two blue steel arrows which felt ice cold to the touch and four identical wooden arrows with copper tips and green fletching.

The black and white arrow was a "web arrow". It detonates a web spell on impact.

The two cold blue steel arrows are "ice arrows". As their name implies, they deliver a blast of cold and can, potentially, encase the target in a sheet of ice.

The copper and wood arrows are "phase arrows". When fired, they "phase" into the ethereal plane such that they pass through all normal matter on the Prime Material plane. They only phase back into the Prime when they touch living flesh. So, they ignore armor. They can also be fired through doors and walls. Such arrows are useless against non-living targets (undead, golems, etc.) but would be very useful against an armored knight or someone hiding behind cover.

Listig took all of the arrows.


The three potions were:

A viscous black liquid which can turn water into acid. It was, presumably, this potion that fashioned the moat of acid around the war camp.

A bottle of Shagrak's Gruel, a potent ogrish healing potion. This is the potion that delivers healing, but it's painful.

A ceramic jar of Dragon Spittle, a thick gelatin syrup that burns fiercely upon exposure to air. Designed to be thrown like an incendiary grenade.

The next day, before dawn, the group resumed their journey. The entire caravan of 30 people and 4 sarlang beasts continued slowly trundling through the swamp. The day was long, but uneventful. That evening, they found a good place to make camp.

Listig set multiple snares that night. The next morning, he checked his snares and had managed to catch two animals, a small red deer and a large grey furry creature, a bit like a possum. They took the two eye harnesses that they had been keeping in sacks and strapped them onto these two creatures. They now had three creatures wearing eye harnesses. These three would provide them with mobile "eyes" on the forest around them.

As they travelled on this third day, they had the three "harnessed" animals patrolling the forests around them. Around midday, in one of the mirrors, they spotted a lone saurian, hiding behind a tree, intent upon something. It took them a few minutes, but they quickly realized that this saurian was watching them... he was spying on the entire caravan. 

Listig broke away from the group and tried to sneak toward the saurian, but he was not stealthy enough and the saurian got away. For the rest of the day, they played a cat and mouse game through the swamp as they travelled. They knew the saurian was following them, tracking them. They caught sight of him once or twice, but he always melted into the forest.

That night, they positioned all 3 harness creatures at strategic locations, equally spaced about 150 meters from their camp. Those on guard duty kept a close eye on all three mirrors.

In the middle of the night, they saw a shadow move over the possum creature. Before they could command it through the mirror, the "view" in the mirror violently shook and then suddenly rolled over, such that the eyes in the harness were aiming up straight up at the stars. The saurian came into view briefly, there was the flash of a blade and then suddenly the image went black and the mirror cracked. They had lost one of their mobile scouts.

This game of cat and mouse continued into the fourth day. They continued their trek back toward civilization. The party was on guard every moment. When they spotted the saurian again, they did not want to miss the opportunity to take him out.

William cast invisibility on Listig and one of the elven archers. Those two stealthily went in a wide circle so that they could sneak up on the saurian from behind. Meanwhile, the caravan continued plodding along slowly.

List and the other elf managed to sneak up on the saurian from behind and get within bowshot range. Listig drew one of his ice arrows and fired. He hoped that cold would be particularly effective against a saurian. It worked well. The saurian was caught by surprise. The arrow hit and the saurian was completely encased in ice. The two elven archers advanced. They could see that he was struggling against the ice from within, trying to break it. Winlock, William and Belkor were coming over to them, but they were still always off. The ice cracked a little. Listig saw that the saurian might break free. Rather than risk a fight, he took his sword and swung and lopped off the saurian's head in a single stroke.

A quick search of the dead saurian showed that he was wearing a harness of his own, except that instead of multiple human eyes, this harness had one giant eye. He was also wearing two rings. William did a detect magic and both rings, and the harness, glowed. They took all three items.

That night, William used an identification spell to learn what these three magic items were. One ring was fashioned of solid gold. It allowed the wearer to mentally converse directly with Sakutha. The witch was also able to scry this ring. She was probably scrying it right now. The other ring was silver with an aquamarine gemstone set in it. This ring is a "stealth" ring. It grants both invisibility and silence, but only for very short periods of time.

The eye harness was like the others they had seen, but this one seemed more advanced. It was able to see in the dark, see heat, see magical auras and see through solid objects. Furthermore, this harness was also a target for the witch's scrying.

William did not like the idea of the witch watching them again, so the party destroyed both the harness and the golden ring. The stealth ring was given to Listig.

This was the morning of the fifth day and they were very close to making it back to civilization. The party decided to honor their promise to Thade. In exchange for information and his help, they had promised to let him go. And they did. They gave the orc a sword, a sack of food and 10 silver coins and sent him on his way.

Around mid-day, they reached Endroad Keep which sat a mere day's ride from Riverfort. Last time they had passed through, Endroad Keep had been a burned out wreck of a village. But now they found dozens of people here. Carpenters, thatchers, stone masons and laborers were working hard to repair the keep and rebuild the homes. A number of militia men were helping with the repairs. It seems that Riverfort had retaken Endroad Keep.

At Endroad Keep, the weary caravan finally found hot food and soft beds. They spent the night there while a boy was sent ahead to bring word to Riverfort. The next morning, they loaded everyone up into five wagons and finished their journey.

They arrived at Riverfort late in the afternoon. A large crowd met the caravan at the market square. Many of those who had lost loved ones in the recent attacks had come to see if their loved ones were among the rescued. There are many happy reunions, though not enough. Possibly the best moment was when farmer Ulrich pushed his way through the crowd and asked about his two missing daughters once again. This time, however, the party was able to present to him Myra, his younger daughter. He was thrilled and swore that the party would be welcome at his farm for the rest of his days. The party has still not found Jesara, the elder daughter. But they know where she is... most likely taken to Doth with other captives.

The party was inundated with questions from everyone. People wanted news. Many wanted to know if the party had seen their missing loved ones. Town elders wanted news of what the heroes had seen in the swamp. Soldiers and militia men wanted to hear tales of the battles. Several priests came down to bless the heroes.

Captain Kroetha appeared before too long and asked the party to come up to the Baron's keep. The baron wanted to a full account of their adventures. The meeting was scheduled for after dinner.

After disentangled themselves from the crowd, the party found some privacy so they could deal with their three prisoners. These three were a goblin male, a human male and a human female. All three had the symbol of Sakutha branded on their hand, a sign of their devotion. William was convinced that these people were under the influence of some powerful charm spell. He thought perhaps the charm could be undone by a dispel magic spell. However, he didn't have that spell. He sent someone to fetch Dagginmor. Within the hour the elder mage arrived and they discussed the possibility of undoing the charm. Dagginmor tried the goblin first. The dispel was successful and the charm was removed. The goblin indicated that he was a scout from the Goblin Kingdom (much like Flitch had been). He remembered everything. The party questioned him extensively.

The goblin was able to confirm much of what they had already learned and added a few details. The witch had a powerful talisman in her possession. It is small, triangular and metallic. She found this talisman in a tomb to the north (the very tomb that was marked on the map they had recovered from the war camp). She was already a talented sorceress before, but this talisman gave her great power, particularly in the fields of divination and enchantment. Although she had another war camp and several watch towers, most of her minions were concentrated at the ruined city of Doth. There, she had hundreds of soldiers and servants. There, her power was greatest.

Dagginmor successfully dispelled the charm on the other two as well. One was an elder elf from an elven enclave in the Mercian Forest. The other was simply a tall and strong farm woman who happened to be good with a blade. All three of them were relieved to be free of the charm and simply wanted to return to their homes. The elf and the human woman corroborated much of what the goblin had told the party, but were not able to add anything to it.

Satisfied that they had the information they needed, those three were freed to return to their homes. The party then went up to the meeting with the baron.

At the meeting was the following:

the Baron,
the magistrate
Daggimor, the baron's court wizard
Captain Kroetha
Captain Drael (captain of the HMS Gladiator, that had transported the party way back in Session 1)
Winlock
William
Belkor
Listig

There was also an older man in robes with a neatly trimmed grey beard.

The Baron said "I'd like to introduce Sir Traevin Skelth. I sent word to Freeport some time ago that we needed someone more familiar with these Traxxian ruins scattered out in the swamp. Sir Traevin is a knighted member of royal court at Freeport, an advisor to King Alfred himself and an expert on the Traxx Legion and historical matters in general. The King has most graciously lent us Sir Traevin in our time of need".

The party recounted their adventure to the Baron. They told him of how they had assaulted the war camp and freed the prisoners. They showed him the map that they had taken from the conference room.  They told him about the teleportation gate.

At this point, their newest advisor, Sir Traevin, added to the conversation. Sir Traevin told the group that there existed various obscure historical documents that alluded to a teleportation "network" that one of the factions within the Traxx Legion had been rumored to be building long ago. Internal conflicts led to a civil war and the eventually fall of the Traxx Legion. That was many centuries ago. Still, legends about this supposed teleportation network had made their way into various documents and there did seem to be some evidence for it. One document mentioned "hexagonal towers of stone with a gates in each wall". Since much of the Traxx Legion was now within the Barakose Swamp, there were likely multiple towers of this teleport network in the swamp. The group discussed this. If the witch had discovered one of these towers, she could conceivably have as many as six teleport gates (assuming the tower and all of its gates were intact). Based on what the group had found in the temple at the war camp, it did seem that the witch and her minions were trying to get the gates functioning again.

Dagginmor reviewed the scrolls and notes that had been found with the gate. It was clear that they had been written for a wizard to follow to rebuild the gate. Dagginmor suggested contacting an associate in Freeport, a powerful and high ranking wizard, by the name of Kaluron. Kaluron was the king's personal arcane advisor and the leader of the Freeport Conclave of Wizardry. Kaluron was well versed in teleportation magic. They all agreed that this arch mage should be sent for.

The group assumed that there must be a gate at Doth. If that was true, and they could get this gate working, they could possibly have a way into the heart of Doth. Instead of marching 500 soldiers through the swamp for a month, they could simply step through the gate and attack. The baron liked this idea much more than a trek through the swamp. Of course, the converse is also true. The teleport gate is most likely a two way device. If they could attack Doth by sending soldiers through the gate, Doth could also attack them.

Captain Drael also told the party that there was a ship missing. Four ships had been patrolling the bay, watching for activity by the minions of the witch, keeping an eye on the swamp coast, etc. They were checking back in with Willow Bay and Riverfort at regular scheduled intervals. One of the ships, the Storm's Lament, had vanished and was now five days overdue. The party told them what they had heard from Tular, Belkor's friend freed from the prison cell at the war camp. Tular said that his ship, the Amethyst, had been captured by saurians. The party assumed that the witch must be behind that and that she likely was responsible for the capture of both ships.

The Duke laid out all of their possible courses of action. March an army through the swamp, wait for the teleport gate to be built and then march an army through the gate to Doth, go searching for the missing ships or send a team to the north to investigate the tomb on the map and perhaps learn more about the nature of the Talisman. The party discussed which course of action to pursue and there was some disagreement.

It would take time for the arch mage Kaluron to travel all the way from Freeport and still more time to reconstruct the gate. [DM Note: You might be wondering why an arch mage who is "well versed in teleportation magic" would not simply teleport to Riverfort. Well, in my world, I have severely curtailed teleport with a range limit. The range limit is one kilometer per level of the wizard. So, even high level wizards can only maybe 15 or 20 kilometers. A teleport gate is a rather notable exception to this rule which is why the teleport gate is so valuable. Kaluron will be coming by ship. To speed things along, the ship will have a sea mage who will ensure the boat has extremely favorable winds all the way].

So, since it would take a few days for Kaluron to arrive and a few more days (at least) for him to figure out the teleport gate, the party had at least a week. Since it was clear that the gods favored these four, the baron was of the mind to give them a great deal of latitude. The party discussed it at length with the assembled men around the table. In the end, the party decided that they would like to take the three remaining ships and a regiment of men to the swamp coast, about half way down the coast. According to the map, there was an orc watch tower there... one of the smaller orc bases. They would sail there and land. The regiment would assault the tower, kill the orcs and take it over. This would give the human army a major foothold on the swamp coast.

After having dropped off the regiment, the party would then continue on the ship further down the coast, traveling almost all the way down to the Goblin Kingdom. There was another watch tower camp there, near the south end of the swamp, near the borders of the Goblin Kingdom. The party would assault that tower and then continue on to the Goblin Kingdom.

The reasoning behind their trip to the Goblin Kingdom was this: it seemed to the players that the Goblin Kingdom had been sending out a lot of scouts with orders to investigate the unification of the saurian clans under this witch. The Goblin Kingdom and the human realm had a common enemy in the witch and her minions. The party wanted to talk to the Goblin King and see if there could not broker some kind of alliance. If not an alliance, then perhaps just a coordinated response to the threat in the swamp. Either way, opening a dialogue with the Goblin King was, in their opinion, a good next step.

Then, afterward, they would return to Riverfort with news from their trip and, hopefully, by the time they returned, the teleport gate would be built and functioning and they could decide what to do next.

And this is where we ended Session 6.