2nd Day of Goodmonth, CY 580 - One Slavelord down (?) then. . . holy crap, they did it again!

DMs Note: I've been playing a 5th edition game over e-mail recently (Play By Email - or PBE). PBE has its limitations, not the least of which is that some players respond more quickly to e-mails than others, and those players end up making most of the decisions. But from a narrative point of view, it is superior. The DM has all the time in the world to write up descriptions, research things as needed, and generally make sure the story has all of the necessary elements. And the story has its own log that everyone can search through, which is a lot of what I am trying to do here (as I don't expect that most of what I write is interesting to others, but thank you for reading if you are not one of my players). But most importantly, the players really take their time and think things through. Interactions between player characters and NPCs are richer and full of intrigue. Player characters can have private conversations, or otherwise split up and do their own things in town and come back together whenever they want and nothing gets interrupted or slowed down for everyone else. Its a lot of fun for players who enjoy ROLEplaying (as opposed to ROLLplaying).

The point of this musing is to say that when we only get together for a couple of hours in-person every other week (if that), there isn't a lot of time for that stuff. Thus the players do what they do - which is barge the front gates and fight their way to the boss. As a DM, I knew this type of play would eventually get boring, just as people get tired of video games, and its a challenge to insert an interesting narrative into the middle of the chaos. But I think I am figuring it out. . . 

After laying low for a few days in the ScumSlum, the party decided to disguise themselves as best they can and re-enter the city using the sewer passage that Oric showed them. Oric was able to tell them where some of the more important or interesting buildings in the city are, and an inn called the Sign of the White Knight, where, if the party was extremely careful and spoke to the right person, they may find some folks who are not allied with the slavelords that could be willing to provide additional information. He also shared what he knows about the slavelords, which is

The slavelords are never seen, and act on reputation alone. Its just one of those things where everyone knows they are in charge, but only officials of the highest rank have actually seen them. Some people say they walk among the citizens from time to time, and like to keep their anonymity for this reason. Some say the anonymity is because each slavelord is a title rather than a specific person, and if one gets killed, another takes his place. If no one knows their faces, this works very well.

The following names are known. By reputation, their class can be inferred:

1. Eanwulf (fighter or barbarian - a real brute, larger than life)
2. Nerelas (rumored to be the head of the assassin's guild)
3. Stalman Klim (associated with the Temple of the Earth Dragon)
4. Ajakstu (a mage, possibly - not much known)
5. Edralve (rumored to be a dark elf)
6. Brother Kerin (mysterious - said to be associated with the strange men in red robes and shaved heads that occasionally are seen in the city. There are ships with these same men that frequently arrive at the docks and purchase slaves)
7. Theg Narlot (a fighter or assassin - ugly and short tempered. Said to be most brutal of all the slavelords)
8. Lamonsten the Lazy (another magic user of some kind - also little known)
9. Slippery Ketta (a thief, and said to have eyes and ears all over the city)

Oric also stated that there was no way the party would be able to take the slavelords on directly. Any one of them would be a challenge, but the nine together are unstoppable. He said they employ an elite guard force in three factions, known as the Brown Scales, the Black Scales and the Gold Scales. There aren't a lot of these guards, but they are an elite fighting force that are deployed for special missions, and they never fail. They also have strange men in red robes who fight with their hands and feet, and are extremely deadly. These men operate some of the ships that come to harbor to trade slaves and they will generally enforce the will of the slavelords when they are around. It would be best for the party to gather as much information as they can and come up with a plan.

And so the DM was done helping, and let the players pick up and decide what to do.

They emerged in the Thieves Quarter, where most of the inns, taverns, and houses of ill repute are located. They headed up toward the building that Oric indicated was the Sign of the White Knight. For good measure, Sarril cast Invisibility on Cassius, the thief acrobat, so he can scout from the rooftops as they walked. From his scouting position, Cassius was able to see two other buildings behind the inn with marking that he recognized identified them as an Assassin's Guild and a Thieve's Guild right next to each other - which was odd for guilds that tend to be rivals in most cities. He can also see there was a large slave auction going on in the middle of town, and this had a lot of people distracted.

While Cassius maintained watch on the roof, the rest of the party went inside the Sign of the White Knight and pulled up to the bar. After ordering drinks, Sarril began slipping money to the bartender for information. After upping the bribe a few times, the bartender made a point that "the nine have eyes and ears everywhere" but did casually point out that the party may want to talk to a man who was sitting back in the corner of the tavern, alone. Pontus went up and spoke to the man. Although his barbarian ways were a little gruff, Pontus' really high charisma made up for it. He was able to drive the conversation to a point where both men understood that they had it out for the slavelords. The man called himself "Erik the Red" (a nice northern barbarian name, though the man clearly was not from the north) and claimed to be a sailor from the Hold of the Sea Princes who once had a very profitable business before being forced into retirement by the slavelords. He has spent the last several years spying on them, looking for a way to disrupt their business. While he has gained a lot of intelligence about their operations, he is but one man and can't do much against them. But now that the party was here, they may be able to accomplish what he could not.

After further conversation and a few bribes, Pontus learned that the Sign of the Rose (a house of ill repute next door) is used as a way for the slavelords to come in and out of the city from their hidden base. This is based on the fact that certain people have been seen going in and not coming out over the years. He also said that the while the slavelords operate as a council, there is internal strife among them, and they are known to effectively be three separate factions within the council, each vying for power. The political fighting between them is reflected throughout the city. Erik says that he believes it wouldn't be hard to exploit these political divisions by unbalancing the council. Taking out a few of the slavelords one at a time, and dismantling their networks from within. He suggested starting with the assassin's guild, which is known, unofficially, to be run by the slavelord Narelas. Targeting him first will be important because the Assassin's Guild has eyes and ears everywhere, and they could easily kill the party while they sleep. Removing that threat would give the party some freedom to plan out and execute the remainder of their operations against the slavelords.

The party had originally planned to stake out the Sign of the Rose to gather their own intelligence, but agreed that this information was too good to pass up and decided to go visit the Assassin's Guild. They would present a cover story that they wanted to pay to have a thief assassinated who had stole something from them. Once again, Pontus did the talking at the door. Flashing some gold got the attention of the assassin's inside, which were speaking through a slot in the barred front door. Using "detect invisibility" Sarril noticed two invisible assassins on either corner of the building, acting as guards, and moving around to the party's rear as Pontus engaged in conversation. The assassin's told Pontus to give them his name and where he is staying. Pontus refused, insisting now on speaking to their leader. Once again they asked for his name and where he was staying (this is protocol for the assassin's - they will send an agent to you, not the other way around). Pontus was insistent that they speak with the leader right away.

Sarril, sensing that things were going to go badly and wanting to have the upper hand, cast Knock on the door, then Pontus kicked it in. Two of the assassin's inside ran down a hallway to the back of the building. Two more inside sprang into dark corners in order to backstab the first person to walk through. The two assassins at the rear of the party sprang into action, the first one getting a lucky roll and succeeding on his assassination attempt against Jarrus, who was now dead. 

Note: I have never liked the idea that an assassin can just roll a percentile die and kill someone without the other person having any check against it. So I borrowed something from 5th edition and decided that, in cases of assassination, the character will get a Saving Throw vs. Death Magic. Success means they are reduced to 0 hit points and are bleeding out, but have the opportunity to be saved. Failure means death. Jarrus failed his save. He wasn't just dead, but dead-dead.

The rest of the party continued on, finishing off the two assassin's outside while Cadwin lit-up the assassins inside with Faerie Fire. Pontus chased down the two at the end of the hall, finishing them off before bounding back to help the others. On his way back, Pontus was back-stabbed by an invisible assassin who failed his assassination attempt, but still did 5X damage. But 5x6 is only 30, and that's a small fraction of Pontus' incredible barbarian hit point total. Pontus also saved vs. poison, staying in the fight, much to the surprise and frustration of the assassin who just stabbed him. As the party was finishing off the two assassins in the front room, six more came out from side rooms and filled the hallway. Knowing Pontus had the hit points to handle it, Sarril unleashed Boccob's Rolling Thunder down the hallway, killing all but two assassins and wounding Pontus, though not considerably. While Pontus engaged the last two assassins, the party shut the front door and barred it while Sarril used a Resurrection Scroll to bring Jarrus back to life with full hit points. One round later, Jarrus entered the battle and Jarrus and Pontus finished off the last two assassins, one of whom was clearly a leader - maybe even Narelas himself.

On the leader's body the party found a map of the sewer system, with traps and other things of interest noted. They also found some magic weapons and armor and a token with the symbol of the slavelords on it. After searching the rest of the Assassin's Guild, the party decided to follow a secret door in the back that led down to the sewers, eventually intersecting with the map they now had. Though wounded and having expended most of their healing and other spells, the party decided the course of action would be to follow the map in the sewers to see where it went. One of the tunnels on the map showed a long trek before a dead-end, and the party guess that there would likely be a secret door there leading to something important, as tunnels don't usually get built to nowhere. So off they went. They did manage to set off one trap and take damage, and got into a fight with a mimic, but pushed through to the end of the long tunnel, finding, as expected, a secret door in the north wall.

Opening the secret door revealed a large, 70x70 room. In this room were 9 thrones in a semi-circle facing a hallway coming in from the west. In the room were four people that the party could see and guess were four of the slavelords (from Oric's descriptions), and several guards around the room wearing brown or black scales. Sarril, who still had his Detect Invisibility up and running, could also see an invisible magic-user crouched in one corner, and a thief hiding in shadows in another corner. The six slavelords in this room knew the party was approaching and were waiting for them to open the door, triggering a surprise round in which we know that at least one thrown axe and one thrown dagger were unleashed, in addition to some number of spells at the party.

But we had to stop there, as it was 5 pm. It is still the 2nd Day of Goodmonth, CY 580, now late afternoon.

25th Day or Reaping, CY 580 - The Party Enters the Hidden City of Suderham

Due to illness and scheduling conflicts, it has been a while since we last played. We started earlier than usual today, but the players spent the first 45 minutes trying to catch-up and get their bearings. Once caught-up, discussions were had and decisions were made.

The party basically had three choices to figure out how to cross the mountains and get into Suderham. They could see the switchback road that would be used by wagons that went up to a guarded gate - the main way through. They could also see a network of caves,  one of which could possibly be a lesser-known or secret way through the mountains. But as they were riding on the back of wyverns, it wouldn't be a problem to simply fly up over the mountain peaks to the other side, where they had good reason to believe Suderham lies. The party decided to storm the main gate (because that's what they do).

The entrance to Suderham

This may have just been Cadwin wanting to try his "Call Lightning" spell, which is incredibly powerful, but of very limited use. In this case, from the back of the wyvern, he cast the spell, which takes one full turn to get started. During this time, clouds began to form and the sky grew dark. At the
end of the turn he lowered the wyvern down the guarded gate and, looking like Raiden, the Japanese Storm God (the Mortal Kombat version), he dropped a 12d8 lightning bolt into the middle of the guards, completely incinerating them. Then, every 10 minute turn for the next hour, he continued to drop lightning bolts on the gate until all of the wood was blasted away and all of the metal reduced to molten slag.

Once inside, the party found themselves in a long, torchlit tunnel wide enough for a horse and wagon to move through, and extending out of sight. About 20 ft. high on either side was a shelf that ran the entire distance as far as they could see. The party quickly used levitation and some rope to pull themselves up onto the left-side shelf and noticed that archers were lining themselves up on either side. The shelves were wide enough to allow two people side by side, and about 60 ft. in front of them, two archers were kneeling and two were standing behind them, preparing to shoot, while on the opposite shelf, archers had lined up about every five feet, preparing to shoot from the other side. Jarrus and Pontus charged the archers in front while Sarril used his Wand of Ice Storms to take out the archers on the opposite shelf. This became a pattern that repeated every 40 ft. or so as the party advanced. After a few hundred feet, all of the archers were dead, Pontus and Jarrus had a couple of arrows stuck in them (but nothing serious) and the tunnel came to an end. The party found some steps down to some doors that opened to the outside.

This approach of barging through the front door, causing destruction and fighting whatever the enemy throws at them has been the Bad Ass Motherfucker's modus operandi for a while now. That certainly wasn't changing anytime soon.

Temple of the Earth Dragon

The tunnel emerged on the low side of a volcanic mountain peak that rose up around a crater lake. A road led down to a heavily armed, walled city near a some docks on the lake. In the distance could be seen what appeared to be an abandoned keep. Carved into the side of the volcano, rising above the city was a temple where brown-robed figures seemed to be going in and out. The party discussion could be summarized as "That must be the temple for the Earth Dragon Cult. Whoever is running things most likely is in there, so we need to go inside and kill everyone." Using Invisibility 10 Ft. Radius, the party headed straight up into the temple to check it out.

The party was able to explore the temple while invisible. The ancient hollowed out structure was very alien in appearance, and, although he could not understand them, Cadwin recognized many of the carvings as ancient Flan. From his druidic lore, Cadwin was able to explain that the prehistoric Flan settlers to the region were known to be dragon worshippers who built great civilizations, and ultimately brought destruction onto themselves. The earliest druids were those who wished to prevent such a thing from happening again. They believed that the destruction was vengeance from Oerth itself, and in turn they rejected civilization, choosing to worship and preserve nature and balance. (Note: it is also said that the first druid was Obad-Hai, and that Beory, the physical manifestation of Oerth itself, was so impressed that she raised him up to godhood that he may continue to nurture and grow the druidic faith for generations to come. Hence, the "Old Faith" as it came to be known, became the largest religion in the Flanaess for thousands of years before the great migrations). Cadwin went on to explain that in these early times, black-robed men with horns and devilish masks plagued the world. Some believe they were druids who were corrupted by infernal or demonic influences. They were the original Horned Society, from which the modern Horned Society takes its name. Amongst some druids they were also called Vasharans. The early druids banned together and ultimately drove them away, but their legacy lives on through the Flan oral histories preserved by the druids. Whatever was going on in this temple, Cadwin was certain it was related to these early Flan dragon worshipers, and connected, in some way, to the black robed figures that Sarril said were associated with the black shards the party was previously investigating. Convinced now that this was all tied together in some way, and that the clerics in this temple must be evil, the party decided the best thing to do would be to start killing everyone, which should draw out the slavelords, whom they would then kill, thus finishing the module and gaining lots of experience.

After passing through a library and loading up with a bunch of books, the party wound up in what looked like a main worship hall with four large columns in the corners of the room and a dias in an alcove from which a priest might lead. There were four robed men in the center of the room trying to figure out what happened to the books on the bookshelves. The party decided to move up to the dais and unleash their attack from there, which came in the form of an Ice Storm from Sarril's wand. It was incredibly effective, killing all four clerics instantly, and triggering some kind of trap at the same time. The four columns began sinking as the floor itself split open to expose a pit of lava below. Luckily for the party, the dais remained in place, and they were able to use levitation and some rope to get over the lava pit and escape back out of the temple.

As suspected, their efforts drew attention and there were now 2 priests with dragon skull helmets, 6 clerics and a dozen guards coming up the road to greet them. Sarril was able to get the initiative and released a fireball from one of his wands that immediately killed all of the guards and clerics, leaving the two dragon priests who looked to be mostly unharmed. Jarrus and Pontus started running down the temple steps to engage in melee as Cadwin cast Lightning Strike (the 1st edition "Improved Druid" version of Lightning Bolt, from Dragon Magazine), which did substantial damage. The first high-priest called a devastating Flame Strike down on Sarril, Cadwin and Cassius, but Sarril's minor magic resistance kicked in and prevented damage. The second high-priest, recognizing they would likely get eviscerated in the next round from Jarrus and Pontus, cast Transmute Rock to Mud, destroying much of the temple steps, but trapping everyone and buying some time. Cadwin transformed into a bat to get out, while Jarrus was able to use his Ring of Levitation to get out of the mud. Everyone else was stuck, able to shoot and cast spells.

Jarrus managed to pull Pontus out of the mud and they both closed into melee. The second high-priest, now dealing with Pontus and Jarrus on her, cast Meld Into Stone and disappeared (presumably to get help). The first high-priest managed to cast a Blade Barrier around himself before Sarril cast Silence 15 ft. Radius, for the most part cutting off his escape. The Blade Barrier, however, caught both Jarrus and Pontus, doing significant damage to both of them and taking Jarrus down to just 1 hit point. Having no ability to cast other spells, the high-priest resorted to using items for which spoken commands were not required. That included a devastating Silver Dragon breath attack. Pontus was able to save Jarrus by covering his body with his own and leaping to the ground. Shortly thereafter, Sarril cast Dispel Magic, which dropped the Blade Barrier, allowing Pontus to jump back into melee and deliver a killing blow. To be sure, Jarrus repeatedly skewered the body, then picked it up as the party, under cover of Cadwin's Obscurement spell, ran for the nearby woods to escape the reinforcements that were on the way.

Sarril was able to use Dimension Door to move the party up to a high cave visible at the lip of the volcano. From here, they were able to see hundreds of city guards and clerics scouring the forest looking for them. They were well hidden and safe, however, and able to rest and recuperate.

The next morning, feeling strong from being healed and having spells refreshed, the party decided the best approach would be a full frontal assault on the city, certain that such an action would bring the slavelords out of hiding. Once again using Invisibility 10 ft. Radius, the party was able to move undetected and approached the heavily guarded front gates of the city. From here, Cadwin cast Call Lightning, summoning an ominous thunderstorm over the city and having a lightning bolt strike the front gate. This made the guards seek cover in the towers as the front gate was reduced to slag. Cadwin then cast Insect Swarm, which covered several city blocks, driving everyone outside to seek cover indoors. With the city streets empty, the party stepped through the broken gate to look for the tower entrance so they can begin killing the guards. That's when they saw a lone, small figure walking toward them. It was a small beggar boy - the only person on the streets, and the insects did not appear to be bothering him.

"Alms for the poor?" asked the boy as he approached. The party was convinced he was an apparition of some sort, to be not affected by Cadwin's spell. As the boy got close, he looked at the party and asked "Are you the saviors of Suderham?"

"We are here to kill the Slavelords" replied Jarrus "can you tell us where they are?"

"Yes," replied the boy "but you have to stop all of this." He gestured at the destruction. "Follow me and I will tell you what I know."

The party decided to follow, and the boy led them through a secret passage through the sewers and outside the city walls to a shack in the ScumSlum by the docks. The boy introduced himself as Oric, an orphan who is unsure of his age, but knowledgeable about Suderham and the Slavelords. He explained that Suderham was founded by Olarek, a self-styled King of the Drachensgrab who built the city and prospered for many years until the humanoids invaded the Pomarj after the Hateful Wars. Olarek was deposed and the city survived in chaos for several years until the Slavelords arrived about a decade ago. Although they brought some amount of order to the city, that order comes through an oppressive rule. No one in the city dares to cross any of the slavelords, who seem to see and know everything that happens in the city. A little less than a year after the slavelords arrived, the abandoned Temple of the Earth Dragon started to see activity, and has since grown to be the predominant faith in Suderham. It is rumored that one of the nine slavelords is a priest of the earth dragon, and the reason for the temple activity starting up again. Oric warned the party that any direct attack against the slavelords would be foolish, as they will be well prepared for anything they might do. It would be best to lay low for several days outside of the city walls until things calm down, then carefully sneak back into the city and see if they can find the hidden way into their stronghold, which Oric believes is connected to the House of Ill Repute, given that slavelords have been seen going into, but not out of that building. Subtlety is the key.

And so the party decided to rest, hidden away in the Scumslum for three days. This would give them time to prepare, including identifying newly acquired magic items. And so we move forward to the second day of Goodmonth, CY 580.