21st Day of Goodmonth, CY 580 - The Falcon Attacks, Part 2

Trigger warning: The following blog entry describes a TPK (Total Party Kill)

When we left off, the Falcon had just landed in the rear (northeast) corner of the temple. Jarrus, Janziduur and their crew were at the northwest corner. As the fight began, Jarrus led his team east toward the Falcon in order to close the distance. Unfortunately, the Falcon was holding her action, waiting for that exact move. In response, she cast an Enlarge spell on the balcony over the group's head. The sudden change in size caused the balcony to collapse, bringing the massive stone structure

The Falcon - and her many forms

down on the party, causing extensive damage and trapping Jarrus and Janziduur underneath tons of rubble. The mage who was standing on the balcony was even less lucky, as the damage caused by falling into and among the rubble was too much for his frail body to handle.

Luckily, a couple of the lower-level clerics were able to make a save to jump clear of the collapse. On the next round, despite Jarrus and Janziduur both having 18 strength, they could not make the rolls necessary to free themselves. Miraculously, however, one of the lower-level clerics with them was able to make a Bend Bars roll and free Jarrus, who immediately drank one of his two potions of healing (the other was smashed in the fall). But the Falcon wasn't done. As the group struggled to free itself from the rubble, the Falcon followed up with a Cloudkill spell, hoping to finish off anyone who was left. Everyone, including the lower level clerics, all made their saves as they finished freeing themselves.

At this point, the Falcon was forced to turn her attention south, as a Talasek, Luapan, and their clerical crew was charging north to intercept her. The Falcon saw Talasek's face and was horrified, believing him to be be Talasek's grandfather who had taken part in imprisoning her so long ago. In response, she unleashed her most devastating spell - Death Spell, which killed the clerics, including Luapan. But Talasek continued forward to intercept her.

In the meantime, Sarril was out front dealing a mage, two priests, and several cultists by himself while everyone else focused on the Falcon. But the most fearsome of the enemies appeared moments later. After having killed the mage on east balcony, a flying magic user soon showed up to give Sarril some trouble. The mage on the south balcony came back out to assist, as did the mage on the west balcony. The front of the temple soon became an epic magic battle, with lightning bolts, magic missiles, cones of cold and ice storms flying from every direction. The two clerics were soon dispatched, but the two mages were protected by Minor Globes of Invulnerability, limiting what the defending magic users could use against them.

Whoever this new threat was, however, he seemed to be able to take a lot of punishment. After trying, and failing, to kill the mage on the south balcony with magic, he flew over in a rage, raked the mage once with a clawed hand, the grabbed him around the throat as he drained the life away from the hapless wizard. That's when Sarril realized that this man was no mere magic user, but a vampire as well. In response, Sarril pulled out a scroll of Chain Lightning and read it, shooting a 16-die lightning bolt at the mage on the ground, killing him instantly. The chain lightning the arced to vampire now on the balcony, doing substantial damage and putting him near death, but not quite killing him. Since the original target was now dead, the spell ended as it had no more targets to arc to. This severely limited the affect the devastating spell, but it did allow Sarril to reduce the fight down to one enemy, buying him a few more rounds.

Back at the rear of the temple, Nestor Morden and his City Watch guards moved in on the Falcon, and protected her with a phalanx, proving what the party already suspected about his intentions. Talasek started a fight directly with Nestor Morden, knowing he would have to cut through him to get to the enemy. This bought the Falcon a few more rounds to cast spells. Her first spell was Evard's Black Tentacles, to the west, to try to stop the approach of Jarrus and Janziduur. The spell was effective in that it killed the remaining clerics, and slowed down Jarrus, who had to cut at tentacles to free Janziduur. Jarrus had Janziduur cast Silence 15' Radius on him so that when he moved close to the Falcon, it This bought the Falcon enough time to transform back into a bird and fly to the south, giving her space to unleash more spells. As Talasek turned to rush at her from the south, the Falcon unleashed a lightning bolt at him, though he was able to save for half damage end keep coming. In the meantime, Jarrus and Janziduur finished off the guards as Jarrus rushed at the Falcon and Janzduur took cover behind a stone wall in order to use Spiritual Hammer.

Soon, Jarrus and Talasek were both on the Falcon and, due to the silence, she was unable to cast most spells on her own. Her only move left was to use a Lightning Bolt she had stored in a Ring of Spell Storing, which she was able to hit both Jarrus and Talasek with. Both saved, and since Jarrus had just recently been healed by Janziduur, he was able to survive. The Falcon took some brutal hits and was barely hanging on to life when she turned into a bird once again and flew up to the east balcony to escape the Silence spell. From this vantage point, she was confident she would be able to finish off the troublesome melee fighters below.

Meanwhile, at the front of the temple, Sarril, with only a few hitpoints left, was having a showdown with the vampire, who seemed equally wounded and barely holding on to (un)life. Realizing that the vampire could attack him and potentially drain as many as four levels per round, Sarril put up a Mirror Image spell to protect himself. In response, the vampire used a Wand of Frost to hit him with a Cone of Cold. Sarril saved for half damage, which put him a -6 hit points, dropping him to the ground.

The vampire then lowered himself to the ground and started toward Sarril's body (which, thanks to his otherworldly familiar, was actually regenerating). Talasek, seeing this, began to rush at the vampire, forcing him to unleash his most devastating spell yet, which he had been holding in reserve. The spell was his own Chain Lightning, which he cast at Talasek. The bolt arced through Talasek, Jarrus, Janziduur and the Falcon, killing all of them utterly and completely.

The most tragic part about this TPK is that the vampire wasn't even interested in doing it - but self-preservation when facing down a paladin was more important. Once everyone else was dead, he approached Sarril on the ground, who was laying there drifting in and out of consciousness. Expecting to have his life forces drained, Sarril was surprised when the vampire reached down and grabbed Sarril's Bag of Holding, reached inside, and pulled out a bundled up cloak. As he unwrapped the cloak to reveal the black Ebony Skull of Iuz (which has the power to summon the fiend), he said "I'm not here to kill you. The time will come soon when you will need to call upon my master for help. When that day comes, I want you to be prepared." He then placed the skull down on Sarril's chest before grabbing the Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location and ripped it off of Sarrils neck, saying "You won't need this anymore."

As he did this, Sarril could see what looked like a purple and gray dragon flying toward the temple. As a final act, the vampire cast Banish at Sarril's familiar and scoring the extremely unlikely number needed to penetrate its magic resistance. With that, Krek blinked away, sent back to Concordant Opposition - not dead, but far enough away to be useless to Sarril. The vampire looked surprised and proud of himself before teleporting away.

Along with the dragon came Derider Fanshen, Constable of Greyhawk and cleric of St. Cuthbert, along with a large contingent of the City Watch. Soon Eritai emerged from the temple and began using her Rod of Resurrection to successfully bring everyone back to life (with the exception of the lower level clergy). The dragon was soon revealed to be Mizaab, the mage who originally imprisoned

Mizaab Zalen - Greyhawk Dragon

the Falcon, who is also a Greyhawk Dragon - the very same one that intercepted Jarrus and Sarril when they first entered the city. He thanked the party for permanently defeating the Falcon, acknowledging his mistake in believing that her previous entrapment could be permanent. Derider also thanked the party for their service to the city. She had long suspected corruption within the city watches ranks but was unable to get support from the Mayor or the Captain of the Watch to do anything about it. Nestor Morden, who used a Ring of Mind Shielding to hide his alignment from Derider, now provided proof of the traitors. Sarril gave her the Ring of Truth that the party had previously recovered, which would empower Derider to do an even better job in her role as Constable.

Over the next few days, the party assisted in clean-up efforts and divided the magic items they found between themselves and the Temple of St. Cuthbert. They discovered that the Falcon's shapechanging abilities were due to a Collar of Change (a Ring of Change enlarged into a collar) and that the Falcon's true form was that of a Naga. As a Naga has no hands, this severely limited her spellpower, so she used the collar to take human form, thus advancing to become a 12th level mage.

Two of the church's paladins returned, Bartholomew and Torval Mishka, both of whom had been fighting in the war up north. They told the story of how a black tower suddenly appeared outside of Admunfort and started blasting the enemy with spellpower, devastating their ranks enough that they were able to mount a charging offensive and break the siege. They could not say for certain that the war is over, but the Shield Lands have the upper hand at the moment, and are able to pull their armies back together, though the countryside has been lain to waste, with crops burned, so it will be a long and slow recovery. They expressed frustration that Furyondy never sent its forces to help its ally, to which Jarrus responded that they will be visiting there soon and plan to do something about that.

Finally, Janziduur informed Jarrus that her superiors in Verbobonc will not grant her the authority to bestow any knighthoods, but that the high priest of Tithereon has requested Jarrus to visit personally for evaluation. It seems that there was some skepticism over the story involving the Tarrasque that the church wants to verify before they deem him worthy of a knighthood. She warned that a title granted by the church may be more than just an honorific - that it may come with expectations. Jarrus agreed to go to the temple in Verbobonc and discuss the matter there.

And so it soon came to be the first day of Harvester, CY 580, on the Feast of Ralishaz, that a merchant ship came into the city carrying Pontus, Cadwin and Cassius. They arrived in time for the "ceremony" - whatever that was supposed to be. What adventures await the now reunited party? We shall soon find out. . .

21st Day of Goodmonth, CY 580 - The Falcon Attacks, Part 1

Going into today, I knew things would be a challenge. The Falconmaster module provides details (though not complete details) on 20 to 30 of the cultists forces, and about half that for St. Cuthbert's forces. The instructions in the module say to give the PCs a handful of enemies to fight that is appropriate for their level in one isolated part of the of the temple, and just narrate the end result of what happens in the rest of the battle, with some choices to pick from based on how well the PCs do, whether or not we plan to play the third module, etc. Well, I didn't like that idea. I wanted to play out the entire battle. After all, this series of modules came with 3-D buildings so you can arrange a massive battle. I pulled together every miniature, including Lego mini-figures, I could to properly put troops on the field. I spent a full week building character sheets, with selected spells, etc., for every single character depicted in the book so that I could distribute them to the players. I wanted to do something new. Something different. Something that would be difficult, but fun.

And boy was it ever challenging. We started at noon, as we always do, but for the first two hours we were just getting things organized. It really didn't help that two players were missing, and one player was dialing-in remotely over video conference (something that works mildly well, but it is limited in a situation like this). With only two players present, it was very slow to sort through all of the characters and select the best miniatures - some of which needed to be assembled from Lego parts. If I had more time, I would have had all of this prepared, but I just had to shrug and say that I can't do it all. I need the players to help. Once the fighting got underway, I knew it would be slow, because I wanted to do everything in initiative order, thinking that failure to do so might speed things up, but wouldn't allow people to effectively use spells. In the end, we had a long, exhausting battle, and we didn't finish by 5 pm. So once again, we end on a cliffhanger. . .

The party took control of St. Cuthbert's defenses, dividing themselves into two squads, with Jarrus leading one and Talasek leading the other. Four mages were placed on balconies in the north, south, east and west points of the temple, while Sarril planned to fly around invisibly, but waited until the attack started to actually cast the spells. They did some extra steps, such as covering all of the sewer grates with horse carts, making it so anyone trying to come up through the sewers would have a hard time. That turned out to be a pretty good tactic.

The attack came just before 2 am. First, a large cloud of over 50 ravens swooped in from the south (Claw Cloud - a specialty spell for priests of Iuz from the "Iuz the Evil" supplement). The ravens were instructed to harass and disrupt all spellcasters, and they immediately began dive bombing the mages on the balconies, who were forced to run inside. Next, about 20 rats started pouring out of each of the sewer holes - they were small enough not to be bothered by the carts over top of them. While both the rats and the ravens could do very little damage, if at all, they managed to keep everyone distracted and busy while the real attackers rushed in under the protection of a Wall of Fog.

This is where Sarril proved how versatile he really is. He was able to dispel the Wall of Fog, completely foiling that part of the plan and forcing the first wave of attackers to rush up the road toward the temple completely in the open. Because it was very dark outside, I still allowed the attackers to be up on the temple before anyone could act, but Sarril's familiar, Krek, was able to provide regular reports about numbers coming in, which was helpful. Sarril was also able to summon some flying creatures of his own to engage the ravens, and while he couldn't get them all, he made a serious dent in the numbers. Once down to a manageable number, the four mages were able to step back outside and use Magic Missiles to bring down the rest of the ravens. And while it took a few rounds, the people on the ground were able to get rid of the rats (with only a couple of first level clerics getting killed). This allowed everyone to fully focus on what was coming in.

At the same time, Eritai sent invisible messengers out. One to the citadel to alert the constable, and another to chapel in the the Old City to get clerical reinforcements. It was estimated it would take a turn for this help to arrive, though it didn't seem like they were needed, as the party quickly dispatched the first wave, which consisted of 1st level cultists, 2nd level fighters, and 4th and 5th level clerics leading. None of clerics were able to get any spells to land. Sarril must have had 6 to 8 "Silence 15' Radius" spells thrown at him and he saved against every one (DMs Note: I have a house rule for Silence 15' Radius. If it is cast on an object that is not on a person, then there is no save, but the caster can just move out of the radius. However, if it is cast at a person, then I give that person a save. If they make their save, they are able to dodge the spell. If they fail it, then the silence is stuck on them and it doesn't matter where they move to. In this case, because Sarril was flying, they had no choice but to cast it on him because casting in on the ground at his feet would not do any good). In return, Luapan managed to silence the only two clerics who had Dispel Magic spells ready, and they were planning to use them against Sarril. This is a common occurrence, where PCs rarely fail their saves, yet NPCs almost always do. It must be all of those rings of protection being passed around with the party. As a result, this first round really fell apart for the attackers.

The next wave was some much tougher guys. These consisted of 7th and 8th level fighters and clerics, backed up by 1st through 3rd level cultists of various types. There was even a magic user in this group. Also appearing was Nestor Morden, Deputy Constable, along with a handful of City Watch guards. They didn't engage the cultists immediately, which everyone found suspicious, claiming that it looked like Talasek had things under control and moved around to the back, where Jarrus confronted them. Janziduur detected evil on the regular guards, but not on the Deputy Constable, and Jarrus called him out on it. Nestor replied that they are obedient to him and that's all that matters. The two argued for some time, with Nestor reminding Jarrus that he represents the law.

The party did pretty well against the next wave of attackers as well. Very little injuries had been sustained by any of the good guys so far, but one of the new clerics was finally able to dispel Sarril's spells (which at this point included Flight, Fire Shield and Detect Invisibility). Sarril was now slightly more vulnerable than before, but still doing okay. The mages up on the balconies were able to blast with lightning bolts and fireballs. No one spell was able to kill anyone, but they quickly added up, and the next wave began to drop. In the front of the temple we were left with just two clerics and a magic user, while at the back of the temple Jarrus continued to verbally argue with the deputy constable, whom he assumed was actually a Falcon agent waiting to strike. Jarrus told Nestor to get his men back to the front of the temple where the fight was. That's with the deputy constable pointed into the sky at a Falcon flying in toward the rear of the temple and said "no, this is where we are needed."

And that's where we were forced to end. The Falcon landed at the rear corner of the temple, facing Jarrus and Janziduur, while Sarril, Luapan and Talasek continued to deal with attackers in the front. All four mages were still alive, and Eritai is inside the temple, so things are still looking good for our heroes. We will attempt to finish this battle when we reconvene in two weeks.

17th Day of Goodmonth, CY 580 - Seeking the Falcon

Not wanting to wait two weeks to pick up the dungeon crawl, we decided to play online to see how far we could get. Since some of the missing players would be coming back, everyone agreed it was important to try to finish this "side adventure" and get the group back together in Greyhawk. Unfortunately, online play is very slow because we are adults and we have lives. We did get further than I expected, however.

The party decided to turn left into tunnel where the otyughs came from. Avoiding the trap of a net on the ceiling, they were able to get there safely and explore that large, empty cavern. Two exits to the north were only 3 ft. high, and the party thought it best not to go crawling on their hands and knees just yet (little did they know they would be doing a lot of that soon). Backing up, they headed out to explore the first tunnel on the right that they were originally headed for.

This led into a series of caverns inhabited by a tribe of trolls. There were 10 "regular" trolls, and one big, mean, two-headed troll wielding a great sword. The party did not encounter them all at once. These trolls were hiding, waiting to ambush the party when then got further into the cavern so they could surround them and cut off their escape. It worked. The trolls attacked, starting with four, and with a new one coming in to the fill the ranks each time another fell. This kept the party locked in
place and, although Jarrus was dealing immense damage due to a previously case Strength spell, the sheer numbers of the trolls made the battle last a long time, and giving dead trolls an opportunity to regenerate before Sarril would have a chance to burn them. And although all three PCs were difficult to hit, each troll attacked three times per round, meaning a few critical hits were landing every couple of rounds, quickly wearing everyone down.

The one thing that really saved the party from a quick death was an Earth Elemental that Sarril had summoned earlier. The elemental needed magic weapons to hit, and the regular trolls didn't have enough hit dice to be able to affect it. The elemental itself wasn't very effective in attacking the trolls, but it managed to keep a few of them busy, and that was important. But soon, the two-headed chieftain came out, and immediately started hacking the elemental to pieces. Jarrus hatched a plan to clear a path so the party can move south and form a triangle, with Sarril and Luapan as the base, with the base of the triangle against a wall. This maneuver limited the number of trolls that could attack the party at one time, and gave Sarril and opportunity to cast some fireballs and flaming hands spells, with a Boccob's Rolling Thunder in there for good measure. A few rounds later, and the exhausted, wounded party enjoyed a hard-earned victory. After spending some time searching the caverns and burning any remaining troll bits, they headed back to the 3 ft. tunnels to see where they would lead.

Concerned about traps, they decided to tie a rope around Luapan and let him crawl into the first tunnel. It was a natural trap, as the tunnel quickly turned into a water slide that wound into a small pond below. The others were able to pull Luapan back up, thus avoiding an uncertain fate. The next tunnel appeared safer. The only danger being the small goblin creatures (Jermlaine) which had holes all along the tunnel where the party would be crawling. But since these holes were part of a tunnel network that Sarril had previously filled with cloudkill, all they could see were little dead Jermlaine bodies everywhere, in various states of horror, clutching their tiny necks, or frozen clawing their way out of the tunnels as they tried in vain to escape the deadly gas.

After a series of dead-ends, the group reached some vines hanging from the ceiling - Strangleweed. Jarrus got too close, and realized quickly that he could not cut down the vines faster than they could wrap around his body. Sarril was able to cast Flaming Hands to set the vines on fire, causing them to release Jarrus, but the party had to backtrack to escape the toxic smoke. After waiting for an hour for the smoke to clear, and losing the Strength spell and other buffs that were in place, the group was able to move again. The tunnel, while still narrow, rose between 4 ft. and 15 ft., making most of it

Strangleweed

walkable. They eventually came to a set of double doors, which opened without trouble, leading to another set of similar doors a little further down the tunnel. The went through 5 such doors before coming to a 6th, which was trapped with a fire trap. Jarrus took the first one, but there was another behind that. It turns out there were many such doors through these tunnels, and the party realized that their best option was to have Sarril open the doors, as he could regenerate his wounds. So, at each door, Sarril would remove his clothing and all of this gear, open the door, then put all of his stuff back on - thus not having to worry about having his equipment destroyed. But this method took time, and the party soon decided they have to rest, and setup a Leomund's Hut in one of the many dead-end tunnels.

The next morning, Sarril and Luapan took spells they thought would help their situation best. Find Traps, Spell Immunity (for Fire Trap), and Dispel Magic. It was a good plan, but there were so many of these doors, and so many long tunnels with dead-ends, that, like the night before, they were burning through the buffs by running the durations out. During this time, however, they did come across what appeared to be a laboratory (complete with its own fire traps), but the lab provided little information about where the Falcon is or what she was up to.

More dead ends and rigorous searching eventually led to a series of secret doors (and more fire trapped doors), that revealed what was most likely the Falcon's living quarters. There were three main areas, connected by tunnels. The first area the party explored was a circular room with a nest on a pedestal. There was a hole in the ceiling that they determined led to a small tunnel going somewhere. The second room was full of tapestries and chairs, with a large round pillow on one side of the room.

The Falcon's bedroom - She collects skulls as trophies

Under the pillow they found an escape tunnel. Jarrus would later try to climb into the tunnel and get stuck, as it was too small for a human being. The last area appeared to be a bedroom. All of the rooms, including the laboratory, were empty of any living beings, and everything was covered in dust and deteriorated. The exception was a magically sealed bookcase with some well preserved books inside. Some of the books appeared to be missing. The party decided they should rest another night, and in the morning, do a thorough search of the entire place, checking for secret doors in dead-ends that were previously un-searched. And so they setup the Leomund's hut as they did previously.

They next morning, the party did a thorough search of everything, and unfortunately came up with nothing more than they had before (this was when Jarrus got stuck in the hole, but Sarril and Luapan were able to get him out). Having spent almost another whole day, and getting nowhere, the party decided to go back to the entrance to the cavern and look around there. When they got there, Sarril's familiar, who had been keeping watch outside, sensed Sarril's presence and flew in to tell him what he saw. A falcon flew out of hollow stump nearby on the previous day. He tried to follow but it was too fast. He then explored the hollow stump and described coming into the nest room, though before the party had entered, as the door was still closed and trapped. Not knowing where Sarril was (Sarril wears an Amulet of Non-Detection which makes it hard for his familiar to find him if they get out of telepathic range), he waited at the entrance for Sarril to return so he could deliver the message. Based on the description, it sounded like the Falcon was headed back to Greyhawk with some of her belongings. The party decided they needed to rest one more night so that they can get the proper spells for a quick return to the city.

The quick return took the form of Sarril polymorphing into a pegasus and carrying Jarrus and Luapan. Flying in a straight line, even slowly, reduced the 3-day walking trip to one day. They reached Greyhawk on the evening of the 20th. The scene in Greyhawk was chaotic. People were fleeing the city en-mass. Refugees from the war who had come to Greyhawk for safety, were now leaving, along with other long-time residents. After questioning some of the fleeing citizens, the party learned that a cult of Iuz was threatening citizens into joining, and those who went to the authorities were subsequently killed, along with their families. Apparitions and other supernatural things were seen around the city, scaring folks into leaving.

Citizens and refugees fleeing Greyhawk

The party went first to the Temple of St. Cuthbert, where the High Priestess, Eritai, met with them right away. She explained that the Cult of Iuz, led by the Falcon, was busy within the city. Spies working for the temple tipped them off that she was plotting an attack against the temple to get revenge for its part in imprisoning her so many years ago. Eritai explained that she sent a message to the temple paladins up north, as the siege of Admunfort had just been broken and they will be able to return. But the party knew they would not get back in time, and they would need to help Eritai. Jarrus also realized that if the Falcon wanted revenge on St. Cuthbert, she very well may want revenge against Tritherion's temple as well, for their part in disrupting the cult's activities a few week's ago. They then rushed to the Temple of Tritherion and found the High Priestess, Janziduur, decked out in her armor, carrying a spear, ready to defend the temple. Jarrus' former squire, Tonya, who normally serves as temple security, had her team out combing the sewers looking for the cultists. Jarrus took Janziduur and the refugees from the temple and, after Jaziduur placed a Glyph of Warding on the door, the group headed to the Bath House in the Foreign Quarter, where the remaining refugees under Tritherion's care were held. After gathering those refugees, everyone headed back to the Temple of St. Cuthbert, where they prepared for the coming attack.

It is midnight on the 21st Day of Goodmonth, CY 580, and something wicked this way comes. . .