Tonight we played D&D, I of course played Claudia. The city we are in is under siege by a massive army of orcs and the last few sessions have been spent trying to keep the city safe. I was tired of this and decided that, if I was going to have to go down, I'd go out with a bang. I went to speak with my party member, who is a wizard and good friend of mine. She would not help me with my crack-pot plan so I went to undergo it on my own.
There was a group of about 500 orcs hiding out behind a wooden barricade, so I pull out my wand of invisibility and decide I'm going to go out, set their barricade on fire and run like hell back to the city. Just as I'm about to go, however, I receive a message to meet my party for a mission.
Great.
I went to meet with the party, who inform me that our fighter had found a tunnel out of the city to take us to an escape boat. We were going to take this boat out into the ocean and to an island where we'll need to disable a large cannon that's been attacking our city, controlled by the orcs. I'm not too thrilled but I go with anyhow. We make it into the tunnel and through a simple riddle. Then we solve another riddle, and head into this room. Why is this room special? No door. We look around and realize that there are about 6 warjacks (we're in a world of simple machinery and magic, so it is possible) in this room. None of us thinks much of it until BOOM, they're alive and kicking our asses.
I end up in one corner, flanked by two warjacks and flanking a warjack with our cleric. Just south of me in the entrance our barbarian is head to head with two more, and our wizard is helping. Our fighter is in another corner with two more warjacks. I'm doing pretty well, damage in the 20's, the cleric is doing well... until he gets a critical rolled on him. Our DM calls out damage and the cleric looks up and just says "That kills me."
We keep fighting, I end up down to 11 hp, and the rest of the part (sans the wizard) is hurtin' pretty bad with no cleric to be seen. The battle is finally over, the door appears and we move on.
Just beyond the door, is our boat. If only the cleric had held on a little longer... We board our little boat, not very big, but suits our needs, and we head out.
We end up in a small cove, head up a river and in a day or two time we breach the other side of the peninsula and enter the ocean. What lies before us is our worst fears. As far as the eye can see, there are ships upon ships full to the brim with orcs, our enemy...
Well shit.
That's where we left off, we'll pick up next week, if we can take the island we might have a chance in this war but we'll have to see. Gods be with us, and with our departed cleric.
At the start of our next session:
We were traveling over the ocean, still on our way to the orc island when we struck the edge of one of their ships. This resulted in combat. Orcs started jumping off the boat onto our small craft and we started boarding their ship. Out fighter hopped aboard and just started slaughtering everything he touched. The wizard, barbarian and myself were on our ship fighting the orcs that tried to board it.
This wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that another ship saw this and pulled up to assist. This resulted in another 7 orcs boarding the next ship and going at it with the fighter (who is a bit overpowered, but nobody seems to complain).
Our barbarian decides he's going to throw the enemy orc by him overboard; he attempts this and while they're grappling Claudia (me) moves up to stab the orc. Well, being me I managed to mess up their little grapple fight and the orc sends our barbarian overboard. The orc turns to fight me and I turn to try and get a rope to the barbarian, who is sinking into the ocean in this breastplate. I try throwing the rope the first time, combat raging around me as the fighter throws a few orcs off their ship and the wizard tries not to get killed. I miss the first time, and end up having the wind take the rope back, it hits the wizard behind me. I sacrifice another round to pull out my grappling hook, tie it to the rope and throw it out, that works and I hit the barbarian's head. He grabs it and I tie the rope to the boat. I move away to fight and behind me comes one of the orc captains and cuts the rope. The captain then attacks me, crits and takes me down to 6 health.
I'm pissed now.
I keep fighting and even throw an alchemist fire on one orc, but pretty soon our boat is filled by me, the wizard and a bunch of orcs. We're fighting to survive and losing. The barbarian is trying not to drown, is fighting an orc that fell overboard and is using him as a life-preserver. I ask the wizard: "You got this?" She responds: "Yeah, why?" I throw a flashpowder and swing of the boat, hanging there quietly and hiding. The wizard levitates and starts shooting various spells. My next turn I swim down under the boat and to the other side. I crawl up onto the boat, perch on the railing behind the captain. I'm dripping with blood and saltwater, my white hair is red and plastered to my skin... A fearsome sight for sure. I roll to attack and do very well, taking that moment to plunge my dagger into the side of the captain's neck.
Our wizard sends her familiar (who is a baby dragon but enlarged due to a feat)after the captain then and it plunges into the water, dragging the captain with it. I jump down, and rush over to help the barbarian. He had been pulled on deck earlier by the fighter, but left so our fighter could assist a prisoner escaping the other boat. The barbarian was raging and down to -4 (but still standing, thank God for the diehard feat. I went invisible with my wand, about to sneak attack the other when the rest of the party came to his aid, and killed the last orc. A waste of a charge on my wand, but at least combat was over.
The prisoner that escaped the other ship turned out to be our newest party member, a paladin of the Kraken. He is (due to the religion he worships) essentially a lawful good pirate. I'm interested to see how it comes out, but I bet it'll be awesome.
Where will we go next? I'm eager to see. We have 2 orcish warships, our own little vessel and party of 5, all half-dead and without a real healer... This is about to get interesting.
The next session was a good one, it started early and we played for roughly six hours and each was filled with utter delight and excitement, I assure you. It all began with us on our boat still, we had just arrived at our destination. The island (not so much as an island as an abandoned oil derrick with a small city inside) was looming above as as we pulled out boat up beside a ladder heading up a fifty-foot chute to a trapdoor above. We rested out boat there and it only took a minute before the general consensus was reached and I headed up to scout it out. I was up about twenty-five feet when a trap was spotted. I went through (rolling a fairly well on my dice) and managed to identify, and disarm the trap by wedging a large fishhook into it's mechanics. The trap was a large razor blade that circled around the ladder, coming out of a slit in the wall of the chute. The blade wavered, mere inches from my face... but the fishhook held. I proceeded even further up the ladder. I was nearly to the top when I spotted two holes in the walls opposite each other. I rolled my checks again (not too bad of rolls) and determine that they are two rays of frost that would shoot out and get the unfortunate soul between... I went to disarm it and realized they were set to trigger if anybody grabbed a certain rung. I noticed then that the metal rung had a slight slice in it and beneath that was a slice in the wall containing a massive razor. I had nothing to block all the traps with so I simply took out my chalk and marked off the holes and the rung that tripped them all before finishing my climb. The trapdoor at the top seemed fairly unremarkable to me so I unlocked it with ease, listened for enemies (and heard none) before I went back down the ladder.
The fighter (who was celebrating his real life birthday, Happy Birthday to you if you're reading this) was waiting at the bottom in the boat with the rest. I entered the boat, explained what I had found and what I had done about it and said that either the fighter or the barbarian needed to go up and open the trapdoor because they'd be able to take a hit if there was enemies on the other side. The fighter agreed and headed up; he listened at the door and then threw it open.
KRRAAACK!
I made the mistake of not checking the door for traps, it was a good thing it wasn't something worse as a bolt of lightening shot down the chute and dealt a fair amount of damage to the party. We were all fairly stunned as we watched the next happenings. A human greeted out fighter with a speartip at his throat, fortunately it seemed they mistook us for orcs and upon realizing their mistake allowed us entry into the room above....
The room was simple, not much in it, the men were ragged from trying to defend the island from seemingly endless orcs. We were told the current situation of the island and that they'd do what they could to help but also had their own things to attend. That was fine with us. We rested for the night and woke the next morning refreshed and ready to go. Our wizard cast invisibility sphere and we headed out. It seemed there were orcs swarming the area. The city was more a crudely constructed bunch of hovels that once were inhabited by goblin. The rooftops were connected with bolted walkways of metal, strong enough to hold a few people but barely wide enough for one person. The man who had led us here left us now to assist in some combat that had just begun to rage nearby. We were alone. It took awhile to figure out what our plan of action was but the party decided to head across the rooftops and to try and take the massive cannon from the orcs. We all tried to sneak, but with people in full plate and running on weak metal rooftops... it didn't go well. We were doing okay until one orc heard the paladin and set them all on us. It was 5 against 20. I like those odds. we fought on 15 roofs give or take, most of them connected by walkways about 5 feet across and 15 feet long. It started with chaos, I don't recall how it got the way it did but out fighter was off with the barbarian about 4 rooftops away and the paladin was on the far end of mine roof, the wizard between him and I. The paladin took on a few people on his end while I tried to fight off a few people as well.It became fairly intense fairly quickly as a wizard appeared at the other end of the area and started throwing fireballs and such at us. Our wizard cast Edvard's Black Tentacles. If you don't know what the spell does (as I didn't when the game began) here is a little description, lovingly borrowed from www.d20srd.org.
"This spell conjures a field of rubbery black tentacles, each 10 feet long. These waving members seem to spring forth from the earth, floor, or whatever surface is underfoot—including water. They grasp and entwine around creatures that enter the area, holding them fast and crushing them with great strength.
Every creature within the area of the spell must make a grapple check, opposed by the grapple check of the tentacles. Treat the tentacles attacking a particular target as a Large creature with a base attack bonus equal to your caster level and a Strength score of 19. Thus, its grapple check modifier is equal to your caster level +8. The tentacles are immune to all types of damage.
Once the tentacles grapple an opponent, they may make a grapple check each round on your turn to deal 1d6+4 points of bludgeoning damage. The tentacles continue to crush the opponent until the spell ends or the opponent escapes."
A truly nasty little spell. It took good care of most of the enemy, slowly but surely killing them one by one. A fireball also took care of 3 more of them. I went to work, fighting a female orc until I used a flashpowder, dropped off the building and then hung there, swinging up behind her next round. I seem to like doing that... I stabbed her then, dealing a nice 20some damage.
The barbarian, a great asset to the party, strong, brave... but not notorious for being the smarted class out there. The enemy wizard realized this much to our dismay and cast dominate mind. This was no good, at least he was by the fighter who could take care of himself... I kept the fight up, killing who I could and trying not to die as they dropped me to 20 hp. The wizard summoned some pumas but those were both slain by the dumb orcs who didn't realize it was THEIR wizard summoning monsters.
The rest of the party took some hard hits but we ended up finally killing all the orcs. The fighter rushed across the rooftops to fight the wizard and our wizard used fly and scorching ray to attack him as well. Suddenly there was a popping noise and the wizard disappeared. He escaped, slipped through our fingers...
We kept pressing on, the loss of the wizard we didn't think much of as we fought another batch of orcs due to another failed sneak check by somebody in the party. This group was smaller, only 6 or so orcs and we dispatched them with ease. Our travels ended at a massive wall, humming with heat and magic... We took shelter in a nearby hovel, keeping watch on the surrounding area for orc patrols.
The morning brought us back to the wall in an invisibility sphere, still vibrating with the magic coursing through it. It was flawless and huge and intimidating... and silent. I realized there was something wrong and only moment later our fighter and barbarian went still... just as I called to flee the wall I too was paralyzed, then our paladin and wizard. Into our line of view appeared a swarm of orcs and their leader, an orc shaman. We were seized, stripped of everything we had and left in cells, helpless, confused and seemingly hopeless. It doesn't look good for our heroes, we're tottering on the brink of defeat without weapons, armour or tools... I only have one thing to say to this:
Bring it.
We began the next and final session trapped in our cells, 3 of us on one side, and two of us across the hall. Our fighter's player was not there and he became somewhat idle, unfortunately. There was much quarreling as we tried to figure out a way to escape from our cells with nothing but our skivvies. Kendra tried in vain to do magic and get them out of the cells they were in but to no avail as her cell has a magic barrier to prevent such a thing. Claudia tried to unlock the cell using hay as a pick but it yielded no results aside from a jammed lock.
A few hours passed and the party had somehow managed to insult and antagonize the guard into fighting, after stabbing their captives a few times they left us to our misery. Time continued to pass, until Kendra had an idea. She cast disguise self so she looked like an orc. The guards came down and saw this, she complained to them in orcish how she had somehow been tricked and locked in the cage. They let her out, however leaving the cell removed the magic due to the barrier. Kendra kept her cool though and send a mage hand to get the keys from the table down the hall while she distracted the two orcs. It wasn't long at all until we were all free. I ran down the hall and barred the door, breaking off a chair leg to use as a weapon while the rest of the party fought with fists or in the case of our paladin, a torch. We had just taken one of the orcs down when the other seemed to give up and then speak to us, possessed by his Master. We were warned of the trouble that would befall us if we did not return to our cells. We told him that we were in trouble anyhow and that nothing he did scared us. The orc shaman laughed at us and left his orc's mind to continue to fight. The battle eventually was finished, the orcs subdued and put into a cell together in a compromising position thanks to our barbarian.
We fled the dungeons, heading deeper into the keep. We used invisibility sphere so as not to be detected. I checked every door to find our next destination until we reached a fork in the hallway, stairs up and stairs down. The keep (being of Goblin make and inhabited by them up until recently)had a sign, but in Goblin. Kendra fortunately spoke the Goblin tongue and directed us appropriately. Upwards was the main offices and higher-ups, below was the common quarters.
Of course, we went up. Upstairs I listened at all the doors, there were 7 doors, all silent aside from 2, and one that was magically quieted. The one room had orcs, which spoke of their Master. We managed to find out that their master was in the room at the end of the hall, using his abilities to possess others to search for us. We kept moving on, there wasn't much left in the other rooms. Most of them were ransacked by the orcs. The other room with noise in it contained a massive iron door with several moving locks. It lead to the gun room which is where we wanted to go, but were unable to reach.
The last destination was the final room at the end of the hall. We of course went over, I opened the door slowly but it was pointless as we walked in, the invisibility dispelled immediately. We prepared for battle, but found the orc shaman on the bed, just sitting. I grabbed my things off the table in the room (if figures he'd have our nice things) and headed over to slit his throat. I was about to climb onto the bed when I was thrown back against the wall. There was a barrier that disallowed me to attack. While I collected myself the party grabbed their things and explored the room. The orc shaman was not there mentally, he was off in another's body so we were safe for now. Kendra found some rare books with spells in orcish. Our paladin found a tank with a small squid in it, this squid turned out to be the Kraken, trapped in the body of another. He slayed the body and released the spirit of his God back to his body. The windows blew out from the force of the energy released.
We rolled will saves under the DM's orders. Me, the monk and the fighter all were paralyzed. The orc came back and combat began. Kendra tried to drag me out the window with her and cast feather fall. That didn't go so well as she was paralyzed, too. It was left with only the paladin running around to defend us and himself. It was bleak looking...
Suddenly though the window bursts Squirrel, the dragon baby that belongs to Kendra. He may be young but he has grown, is something to be feared and with Enlarge Familiar he has grown even bigger. The orc looked horrified as the dragon stared him down, the telepathic link between Kendra and Squirrel was of great use at times like this. It didn't take much to send the Shaman running but Squirrel was on him in a second, snapping him up and heading out the window to mess with his new prey. The dragon dropped him and kept snapping him up. Their aerial battle was intense and soon Squirrel had to come back, too wounded for anymore of the battle he was engaged in. We had by then made our will saves or been dragged out of the room to release the paralysis and begun to stack up and block the door since there would be at least some orcs to come and try and stop us. The rest seemed to be fleeing. We held out for awhile, resting and building strength. The humans we met in the beginning met up with us, coming into the room with out permission. They had cleared out a lot of orcs but their losses were heavy. Dwarven ships were on the horizon and it was looking like they'd be okay afterall... though there was a long way still to go.
The game was stopped here, leaving it a cliffhanger. The DM will be starting it up where we left off at KublaCon, with or without us to play out characters. The best of luck to whoever plays and I hope to be able to go and check it out sometime... That's the end of it though. It was a good run, thanks to everybody who was in the party and thank you immensely for the great games, DM.
