This session involved a TPK, and a harsh one, considering we had a level up recently and the PCs had Hippogriff mounts. Nothing lasts forever though. 

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Player Characters: 

Jassan Al` Nadir – Cleric 2 – A Dervish gentleman posing as a trader, known for dark whispers.

Tiaathque – Elf 1 – a mysterious elven warrioress. 

Ithitus – Assassin 1 – A killer in the making. 

Characters after the TPK 

Ari – Fighter 1 

Lelni – Fighter 1 

Maron – retainer – non combatant NH

Phohas – retainer – Thief 1 

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We’d finished the last session with a bit of a cliff hanger. The ghost of Niarchos was looming over Jassan when he awoke. Twenty days had passed since Niarchos had taken the sword of the undead Gunther Wyrmslayer. The curse was coming close. 

Jassan managed to use his turn undead ability fairly rapidly, and the gurning ghost vanished. He was safe for now. There were still a few hours before dawn, so the party tried to get back to sleep with Tiaathque on watch. 

This was where the first in a series of unlucky rolls took place. I rolled a random encounter of twenty mountain gazelles. The elven guard rolled for surprise and was very unlucky indeed. The gazelles had a 3 in 4 change of stampeding as they ran through the camp. I rolled this, and the creatures were stampeding furiously. The gazelles stomped through the camp crushing Ithitus’ skull as he slept. Jassan was also hit but the damage was low. 

The pair of surviving characters stripped Ithitus of his gear and made a plan. Once dawn came Jassan used his newly acquired spell to heal himself. Then they took to the air atop their stolen hippogriff mounts, looking to escape the hills in favour of safer terrain. This they found only four miles West, on the shore of Lake Fie. 

Whilst they had arial advantage, the PCs surveyed the area to see if they could find anything interesting. There saw a ruined village only one hex north. So Jassan and Tiaathque decided to go check it out. 

They spent a few turns observing from a hundred yards up in the air. There were six ruined cottages with dilapidated roofs, surrounding one larger stone house. All the area was covered with thick ropey vines, pink in colour. 

Landing like lords of the sky, they came down into the centre of the ruin. They dismounted and discussed which they’d like to check out first. One of the roofs on a cottage groaned and lifted from the stonework. There was a hill giant within, he peered out and enquired what they were doing in his village. 

There was a tense bit of back and forth between the party and the giant, but the characters soon learned the giant was named Vonas. He had come here because many years ago his father had been a protector of the village in return for food. Vonas had turned up and found the area in ruin, and had been searching the houses to see if he could find out what happened. He’d checked all the cottages by lifting their roofs, but the larger stone house was brick with a flat roof, so he’d been unable to look inside. Vonas offered a reward if they went inside to look for clues. Jassan and Tiaathque agreed immediately. 

The vines were a little troubling. They covered every entranceway to the house. Jassan cut them, and they leaked a yellow fluid that began to immediately grow new vines. 

“How cool would it be if we could cast talk to plants and ask them to move aside.” My player fantasied. I concurred silently, and hoped they’d one day make it to such levels.

Using an open door check they managed to pull the vines from the stonework and lever them aside. The doorway was clear for entry, and no yellow fluid was released. Inside there was a dark foyer with two doors. The place was thoroughly ruined, and quite damaged. The door to the West was stuck, so Jassan tried the door to the East instead. 

This room was large, with a great collapsed fireplace. There were loungers completely ruined. There was evidence of a struggle, and old blood was splashed in an ark on the wall. There was another door to the North. Jassan opened this, but as he did he heard the whirling of a chain. An axe swung from the ceiling inside the room and nearly beheaded him, but his quick feet saved him from damage. 

Inside was a bedroom, dilapidated but not damaged. In the centre of the room was skeleton hanging from a noose. Tiaathque searched around the cupboards and found nothing. Jassan searched the hung skeleton, and found it it wearing a fine sovereign ring, which once pilfered caused the skeleton to crumble. There was also a note that was found reading, “I’m sorry father, I couldn’t face them.” 

The players were intrigued by this, who had killed these people and trapped them here? Jassan crawled onto his belly and looked under the bed. This is where another bit of bad luck was encountered. There was a skeleton of a women in foetal position under there, but she wasn’t alone, over a dozen giant rats scuttled out of the floor and crawled all over Jassan. 

For a few rounds the two explorers tried to battle the rats, but were soon becoming overpowered. Deciding to flee they made for the door, loosing initiative was deadly, Tiaathque dropped to the floor from his wounds. Jassan dragged him through the door and slammed it. Rats started squeezing under the door. Jassan carried his elven friend towards the door, but this impeded his speed, and the rats soon caught up with him. After another couple of rounds, unfortunately the cleric fell to the bites of many rats. 

An unfortunate end to some great characters. 

Onwards! The players rolled up new characters and started at the town of Renton on Fie. They’d received some hooks about the cult that occupied the temple ruin to the East. They set out to visit it, taking only two retainers with them out of a potential six. 

On the way they had a random encounter with three green skinned men with great talons who tried to rob them. They attempted to battle these monsters and this went horribly. Lelni was paralysed by a claw. They agreed to hand over all their gear. 

This was not going well. 

Searching for a few hours the party found some good heavy sticks they could use as clubs. Then they marched back to the hills where the new the cult was growing. They came upon a hippy commune of sorts. Nearly fifty beautiful women dressed in white togas welcomed them to the place, assuming they were going to join the cult. The PCs played along, and had a night of hedonistic pleasures with these women, who were as promiscuous as they were beautiful. It was agreed that the PCs would go up to the temple and receive initiation in the rights of Traz’grozan. Hippies and their dark gods, what can you do? 

The new PCs were led up to the temple, which was huge and columned. There, they met with some masked individuals who took their weapons and led them for their interview with Kindrel, a cleric of Traz’grozan. Led into a great chamber with a huge bottomless pit they saw strange bird headed beastmen counting copper coins. These beastmen guarded them whilst they were taken for interview, one by one.

Lelni went first, and quite quickly agreed to join the cult and give up his life to the order. He was led down into the dungeons by a bird headed beastman.

The next to go in was the normal human retainer Moran, but he bottled it at last minute. He was flung into the bottomless pit. 

Ari was next. He went into the interview room and had an intense conversation with the cleric. It turned out that his memories were to be removed, so that his flesh could be reconstituted. Ari was having none of that, so he attacked. 

That’s where we left the session. One PC manacled in a dungeon, the other engaged in combat with a dark cleric. 

Lets see what happens next time.