zaterdag 24 november 2012

Strange Occurances at Rabbit Hat Farm

1621, Storm Season 48, Illusion Week, Wildday

torm Season is near its end.  So is the year 1621.  The Sacred Time approaches.  Our adventurers return to the village of Rabbit Hat Farm.  This village is built around an old Sun Dome temple, and counts 60 souls.  An attack seems to have taken place, as their latest adventure testifies. The youths rescues on the Zola Fel bank near Rabbit farm having been escorted to the Chalana Arroy temple, our friends once more prepare to leave for Corflu.  Daerius and Giomanach have returned, and are ready to join the party, so on the morning of the 48th day of the Storm Season, in particularly vile weather, the party find a boatsman crazy enough to bring them to Corflu for 4 Lunars a head.  After some bargaining they manage to lower the price to 3 Lunars each, still a considerable sum.  Our heroes are sitting on the deck of the Riverboat, covered in furs, in generally good spirits.  They take turns keeping watch, all through the night.  Apart from some Sun Dome patrols they spot, the trip is uneventful, and they arrive near the spot of the fight at noon the next day.

fter a one hour hike, they arrive at the damaged village walls.  In front of the village are several overgrown fields.  A weird state to be in, the fight only took place a few days ago, but every single field is the same.  When they decide to go through the fields rather than along the road, they discover another plant is being grown inside the outer border.  It turns out the Rabbit Hat Farm farmers were growing Hazia.  As they approach town, they spread out, and start investigating the old temple and a granary.  Jaya notices a Broo Totem and approaches, not minding the scarecrow with a huge pumpkin for a head standing in the middle of one of the fallow fields to the left of the village.  She is attacked, but a quick intervention by Raiko and Herculon takes care of the threat.  As the investigation continues, Jaya stumbles upon a bag of jewels, that turn out to be Yelmalio temple jewellery.  In the granary, Raiko discovers a young boy, Jocelyn, who runs away frighted when he sees the party.  In the pursuit, our adventurers discover a funnel shaped hole in the ground, and decide to investigate it more.  They drop down a hole that looks like it was made by a Krarschtkid, and end up in a natural tunnel, following it back towards the village.  They hear water in the distance.

The tunnel leads to a huge natural cave with an underground river running through it.  The cave is dark, hot and moist, and Jaya enters first.  She lights up the cave, and looking up, sees a huge two headed dragon snail on the ceiling heading in her direction.  By the time Daerius and Raiko have advanced, the chaos beast has blocked the entry to the cave, and Herculon, eager for combat, has to wait to advance.  The dragon snail is emitting heat, and burns Jaya and Raiko seriously.  Daerius advances, but one of the heads takes a bite out of his leg.  From behind, Giomanach palsies one of the snail's heads, but this does not stop the heat radiation, and the damage begins to add up.  Then Herculon makes it to the front and cuts of the other head.  This stops the monster, and the party finish it off quickly, thus stopping the heat emission and restoring control.  They survey the damage: three party members seriously wounded.  Herculon has to use all his devoted mana to heal everyone.  The party advance, Jaya spreads more light, and the party notice a cave entrance on the other side of the stream.

They walk though the water, hip deep at most, until Jaya disturbs a gorp lying in hiding underwater.  Raiko is attacked, but manages to use his acrobatics to back-flip out of the way.  Arrows are disintegrated by the gorps acid, and the party changes tactics.  They spread and start luring the monster, meanwhile peppering it with disruptions.  This has some effect, but is still slow, so they spread out even further and start setting up a fire trap.  Meanwhile Raiko has made it to the cave entrance, but upon entering he is attacked by a guardian spirit.  He enters spirit combat, and prevails, and binds the spirit in his dagger.  Jaya used lamp oil to set up a trap, and once the monster is lured into the puddle, they light it, ,burning the monster to death.  A foul smell fills the cave, the party advance into the next tunnel, leading to a five way crossroad.

They decide to recon from the crossroads, and manage to alert two krarschtkids at once.  The choatic maws approach with disturbing speed, but this time the fighters are well positioned and the kids are dispatched without too much trouble.  Meanwhile, Raiko has been looking through the third passage, and finds a dead krarschtkid at the end of it.  The three passages being a dead end, their only option is the fourth tunnel, leading into a large, man-made hall.  In the middle of the hall is a well, next to it a number of crates are stacked, and from their vantage point they notice two other exits.  They carefully enter the empty hall, not noticing any movement, and spread out to check the other exits, the well and the crates.  Jaya tries to pry open the most valuable looking case, and is struggling with the lock, when Polybius appears in a hidden balcony high up against the wall, aims his crossbow, and manages to hit Jaya on the head, but her plate helmet protects her.  He takes another prepared crossbow, fires it at Jaya again, and misses.  Giomanach casts palsy, and Polybius fails to resist, losing control of his leg.  He disappears from sight, and the party decide what to do next.  Herculon takes his grappling hook and tries a few throws before he is lucky enough to have a hold.  He starts climbing up, intending to present the sniper a lesson in decapitation.  However, Polybius commands his familiar Krarschtkid to jump down the hole, and it does, maw wide open to take a good bite out of Herculon.  The berserker has little choice but to let go.  He drops down, unharmed, and the party tries to kill the krarschtkid, but it escapes through a vertical upwards air vent..  Meanwhile, they hear Polybius casting upstairs.  Daerius decides to try and climb up, but fails miserably, holding up everybody, much to the dismay of the others, who protest loudly.  Polybius re-appears, and tries to mark Raiko several times, but Giomanach averts. Raiko then makes it up first and when Polybius sees the Ingilli is going to make it up, he decides to retreat, under cover of his familiar.


With some (a lot of) help from Raiko, Daerius also makes it up the balcony, and the two decide to keep the pressure on Polybius while Herculon climbs up.  Polybius has started casting wrack of chaos on Daerius, and it hurts.  the Krarschtkid then bites Daerius in the head, but his helmet protects him.  By this time, Giomanach also made it up the rope, with some effort, while Jaya is still busy trying to build a stairway out of crates - without much result.  As Polybius casts another wrack at Daerius, the latter evades, only to be covered in krarschtkid pratzim seconds later.  Jaya now has made it up, and the party advance into the sorcerers filthy lair.  Polybius tries to fire off more spells, but keeps getting interrupted, and he decides to shape-change to bat and escape.  However, by this time the party is completely filling up the exit, and Polybius flutters left and right, but does not escape.  A shield bash finishes him off.  The party then loot his lair, and load everything into the crates: grimoires, more temple stuff, poison vials, and a large personal stash of Hazia.






zaterdag 17 november 2012

An interrupted trip to Corflu

1621, Storm Season 43, Illusion Week, Freezeday
After rumours from the south that the Lunar council in Corflu is putting pressure on the Ingilli family to lend them the warship in Corflu harbour, Raiko decides to round up his fellows, and book passage on a ship south.  Giomanach is in the Rubble, and Daerius is off on a romantic weekend with Crazy Meg, so Raiko finds two new friends to accompany him: Mycolith and another one.  The riverfolk are very hesitant to make the trip in Dark Season, and they have a lot of trouble finding a shipper who will take them.  In the end they have to accept the steep rates from Antar, a Pavisite with a lot of ambition but no ideas.  They ship south on what seems to be a rather clear day for the season,  but it soon darkens and starts raining, as they head along the Zola Fel.  After a quiet day they make camp on the  shore.  The next day they continue their journey, but at noon, under a steady drizzle, they notice a gang of Broo taking advantage of a group of farmers on the river bank.  Antar the shipper is hesitant to interfere, but Herculon simply throws the Pavisite overboard, and with some trouble, manages to ram the vessel into the muddy river bank.
Our heroes disembark, some with more elegance than others, and charge forward to face the fearsome Broo head on.  The Broo are taken somewhat by surprise, and the ferocity of the attack leaves them very little time to group up, shifting the favor to the party almost immediately.  Some of the Broo are still busy doing unspeakable things to their captives, and their bestial instincts prevail, giving our heroes the opportunity to press the advantage home.  One of the Broo emits an icy cold, no doubt a feature due to his chaotic nature, and some of the adventurers suffer serious wounds from this, but not Herculon, who carries on, in his berserk frenzy, hacking and slaying and almosttaking the head of the first Broo.  Mycolith collapses wounded, but Jaya manages to slay her opponent, a Broo with a piglike demeanor.  Herculon then chops the head of another Broo, a clean cut this time.  The leader of the Broo, still standing, now faces several opponents.  He cannot hope to win this, but the party find out this Broo has a very annoying chaotic ability: his flesh is extremely sticky, and when the Broo is finally slain, he has several weapons glued to it.  The party have to burn the beast to release their weapons.
Within minutes, the Broo are killed, and the few survivors are healed.  Around that time, Antar made it to the shore swimming.  Understandably, the pilot was not pleased at all about having been thrown overboard, but he felt reluctant to take it up with Herculon, who was still recovering from his berserk fury, covered in blood and grasping his great axe with a maniacal grin on his face.
The party decides to return to Pavis to take the survivors back, and Antar is too afraid to object.