14th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Behold the glory of the Great Wyrm, Brazzemal the Bright!

It was an epic day. The party fought a powerful red dragon and won, though at great cost. Rest in Peace, High Priest Luapan, and Pontus Olafson of the Cold Crow.

Before I get started, here is some background information. Anyone who has played, read, or heard about the Against the Giants modules (G1-G3) knows about the red dragon named Brazzemal who shows up near the end of G3. He is located in a cave off to the side (sometimes covered with a boulder), so the party can easily ignore him and continue on their journey. But its a dragon, and dragons have treasure. Everyone wants to take on the dragon, and the Bad Ass Motherfuckers were no different.

As I stated before, I've been slowly switching over to using mostly 2nd edition rules. Starting with the Scourge of the Slavelords, I was blending 1st and 2nd edition monsters. When we started the Against the Giants modules, I had all of the books necessary to fully switch over to 2nd edition monsters and spells. The only thing I preserve from first edition at this point are the classes, because I really don't like the way the classes were redefined in 2nd edition. 2nd edition monsters are tougher. Giants, dragons and demons all have increased base hit dice and abilities. In first edition, a strong fighter with an 18 strength, specialization and a minor magic weapon, even at low levels, could kill any of these in a single round. Since switching to 2nd edition, the challenges for the Bad Ass Motherfuckers are much more appropriate to their power level, and for some encounters, simply powering through is not an option. Sometimes stealth, trickery, negotiation, or very clever tactics must be employed to get through. I think that's where we are now with the game. Choosing to engage Brazzemal should be an epic challenge, and after converting him to 2nd edition, it was.

So about the dragon. . . The G3 module gives some basic stats on Brazzemal. He is a red dragon with 11 HD and 88 hit points. He has two of each spell 1st through 4th level (2/2/2/2) and they are listed as Detect Magic, Erase, ESP, Mirror Image, Invisibility 10' Radius, Protection from Normal Missiles, Confusion and Polymorph Other (though I changed out Protection from Normal Missiles with Dispel Magic and I meant to replace Erase with Shield, which would have made a big difference in the battle, but I forgot to do so). 2nd edition red dragons start at 15 HD minimum, and then go up from there based on age category. To convert the dragon, I took the wizard spells he could cast and looked at the age table to see at what age category such spells could be cast. This put Brazzemal into age category 11, which is 21 hit dice and gives him a breath weapon that does 22d10+11 (I forgot to add the +11 part when I rolled, so it should have been a TPK, but that's okay, I think the result was sufficient). This age category also gave Brazzemal 2 priest spells (which he never had a chance to use) and some innate spell abilities like "Suggestion" that I forgot to use (but probably would have been ineffective anyway), and 60% magic resistance. This dragon is a beast that is over 800 years old and has legends told of his tyranny - legends that will be retold by Sebastian the Bard when his horribly burnt body wakes from being unconscious.

After the fight with King Snurr, the party really needed to rest and recover before dealing with whatever else lie in this cavern, which they know includes drow and a red dragon. The party was a bit excited to fight a red dragon and take it's treasure, so they enacted a plan. For the first night, they camped out in the secret escape tunnel that led between the mausoleum on the 2nd floor to the fire beetle nest on the third level. They were safe here as no monsters could find the secret doors that closed the passage on either end. Unfortunately, in the middle of the night, a large explosion on the second floor caused structural damage that made the tunnel unsafe to stay in. Though healed up, the party wanted another day of rest so they could prepare for the fight with the dragon, so they moved into the cave where they had previously found two red dragon hatch-lings (which were actually adult fire lizards which the party mistook for red dragon hatch-lings). To be safe and somewhat hidden, they nestled themselves into a corner and Sarril cast Wall of Stone to seal them off from the rest of the room. That was effective and the party rested another night.

It was now the 14th Day of Patchwall and to prepare themselves for a fight with the dragon, Sebastian the bard was able to use some druid spells to cast Fire Resistance on everyone (bonus to saves vs. fire and half damage from magical fire) and Protection from Fire on Pontus (which makes him immune to 85 hit points worth of fire damage). Sarril cast "See Invisibility" on the melee fighters, in case the dragon was invisible, as well as Fly on himself and Pontus. All-in-all, a great strategy. If they see a dragon, a full-on assault would be devastating.

Sebastian was able to lead the party directly to the large cavern where he had passed the dragon on his way through when he was captured. As soon as they reached the cavern opening, he used his Ring of Invisibility to go invisible and silent and stepped into the room. The rest of the party emerged into an immense cavern. The party's light would not be able to reach its edges, but that was not necessary, as the cavern seemed to shine with a light of its own. In the middle of this gargantuan space was a small mountain of coins, atop of which was a large, sleeping red dragon. As the party was taking in the sight, Pontus felt like something wasn't quite right. There was something in front of them, but it wasn't a dragon. Pontus barely had time to say "That's no dragon!" before the gorgon stepped out from illusion and coughed up a cloud of greenish gas. Pontus was already up on the thing, bashing it with his Hammer of Kord, but he couldn't kill it before the breath attack. Luapan and Dalron were now turned to stone, leaving Sebastian, Sarril and Pontus to deal with the gorgon alone. The gorgon was ready to charge, but with Pontus now in front of it, it had no choice but to use its breath weapon a second time. This time, everyone made their saving throws, and the remaining party was able to finish the beast off.

So this dragon was an illusion, along with its treasure. Does this mean there is no dragon at all? Was the dragon just an illusion and rumor to keep the king's subjects in check? The party wanted to find out, but first, Sarril needed to do something about Luapan and Dalron. And so he spent the last wish remaining in his Ring of Three Wishes, restoring them both to living flesh and blood and releasing the djinn from the ring. The party was now that much more vulnerable, but they decided to explore the cavern anyway.

On the north end, they found a large passage that had a huge boulder moved aside. They could see gold and silver coins strewn about the passage and there was an immense heat radiating from inside. They decided to head in, using their standard marching order, ready for anything. And so they met Brazzemal - the real one.

Brazzemal the Bright

The great wyrm, Brazzemal the Bright, the Scourge of the Sheldomar Valley, had already cast ESP and was watching the party's every move, anticipating their actions. At the time, he was resting invisibly (as he likes to do to keep his enemies and allies alike on their toes so they never know if he is in his cave or not - it keeps people from trying to steal his treasure if they don't know if he is watching or not). While several members of the party were able to see him, he still managed to act first on a surprise round because of the ESP. His first act, as planned, was to cast Dispel Magic on the party, removing most (but not all) of their buffs.

Pontus acted first, attempting to use Fly to fly into the dragon's face and attack. He didn't get off the ground, as the spell had been dispelled. So Pontus instead ran forward, using his phenomenal dexterity to leap over lava and land squarely on some solid rocks. The surprise round then ended and we went to initiative. Dalron went first and threw some daggers, realizing that the -10 AC the dragon had meant that he could actually miss sometimes. This wasn't going to be easy. Then it was the dragon's turn, and he did what dragon's do. He unleased his breath weapon, doing 22d10 damage to the entire party. The damage ended up coming out to somewhere around 122 or so, and luckily the party still had fire protection so they only took half. Alas, that was not good enough for Sebastian, who failed his save and was taken down to -4 HP (dying, but not dead).

Sarril unleashed a Cone of Cold at the dragon's head (which does extra damage to fire-based creatures - not sure that should apply to red dragon but I allowed it). The spell didn't get through the magic resistance, and that's when the party realized they were in for a really tough fight. Luapan cast Prayer and Dalron threw some more daggers, mostly missing, but getting a few good hits in. The dragon then took to the air, which meant Pontus could no longer hit him, so Pontus ran from the room hoping to draw the dragon out. Sarril tried to cast spells, but even when the magic resistance failed, the dragon was able to save. Realizing the spellcaster could be a problem at some point, Brazzemal cast Polymorph Other on Sarril, but Sarril made his save. Brazzemal had a plan to go invisible again, but first he needed to reduce the party's numbers, so he cast Confusion, which took Luapan and Dalron out of the fight for the next 9 rounds. Brazzemal then went invisible. Pontus, who was now outside the lair, tried to bait the dragon by tossing the heads of one of the fire lizards into the lair entrance and yelling "take a look at what I did to your kids." The dragon laughed a deep laugh and said, "You stupid human. You can't tell a fire lizard from a dragon" and then flew out of the room so he can attack from the air.

In response, Sarril cast See Invisibility and Fly on Pontus, who took back to the air to face the dragon head to head. During this time, Dalron had a round or two of lucidity and tried throwing one of the Javelins of Lightning that Sebastian was carrying at Brazzemal, but missed. Brazzemal was prepared and cast Mirror image on himself, causing the party to face five of him. Sarril tried to destroy the images with Magic Missile, but failed to penetrate the dragon's magic resistance. So with Sebastian unconscious, Luapan and Dalron confused and Sarril's spells failing to get through, it was up to Pontus. The next couple of rounds was a hard-core back and forth between Pontus and the dragon as they engaged in a heated one-on-one battle. Sarril was finally able to get his magic missiles through the dragon's magic resistance and destroy the extra images, giving Pontus the advantage he needed. Unfortunately for Pontus, Brazzemal got three good attacks in, sending Pontus unconscious to the ground before he could finish the dragon off. The fall damage was enough to kill him, but Pontus made his death save (custom house rule), and so was left unconscious and near-death. In that same round, a confused Luapan rushed at Sarril to attack him and missed, then stood dumbfounded.

Sarril was now staring up at the dragon above him, with none of his companions left to help. Brazzemal laughed in triumph and spoke to Sarril. "It is just you and I, wizard. You have fought bravely, and for that, I will let you leave here with your life. Go and tell the tale of the great and fearsome Brazzemal. Let the world know what happened here today." Sarril looked around the cavern at his friends, either unconscious or confused, and knew if he walked away, the dragon would have them. He also knew the chaotic evil nature of red dragons means the dragon might just kill him as he tried to leave anyway. No, this was it. He would either find victory in this moment, or it would be a total party kill. The dragon had the initiative, and Sarril knew his chances were slim, but he made his move. "I don't think so" he said, as he moved to unleash a Cone of Cold.

Brazzemal reacted first, ready for this moment. He unleashed the fury of his breath on everyone in the area. That included Sarril, an unconscious Pontus, and a stunned Luapan (Sebastian and Dalron were out of range). The fiery breath seared the three for 137 points of damage (it should have been 148, but I forgot to add +11, but that's okay because this all made for an epic story and I'm okay with it). Pontus and Luapan did not get a save, and took half damage (due to fire protection) but it was still more than enough to completely incinerate their bodies and most of their equipment (save for a couple of magic items). Sarril made his save and took one quarter damage. After some quick math, that came out to 2 hit points remaining. Then Sarril's spell went off. With only a 40% chance of success, and after a series of failures in previous rounds, this spell finally broke through Brazzemal's magic resistance. Even after a successful save, the dragon did not have enough hit points left to sustain himself, and he fell to the ground, dead. Thus ended the Great Brazzemal, Terror of the Melkot, Scourge of the Sea Princes, Bane of the Dreadwood, Lord of the Sheldomar Sky (and so on. . .).

A not exactly accurate image, but it definitely captures the spirit of what happened

I know what some people reading this might be saying. Dragons are fearsome and arrogant, but they are also selfish and will preserve their own life at any cost. If the dragon was that low on hit points, it should have ran away to preserve itself. I thought about it. Brazzemal would have made for a great recurring enemy. But the problem was that Sarril, being a wizard, could have gotten a ranged spell off no matter what if the dragon had tried to fly away. It was effectively cornered and had already burned through most of its useful spells. Brazzemal also wanted one person to survive the encounter to spread the word of his return. He was an ancient dragon that was emerging from a long sleep and ready to reclaim his dominion and terror over the Sheldomar Valley. Having a herald to tell of his coming would be in his twisted interest. If that failed, the odds of winning the fight were still in his favor, and he knew that. Unfortunately for the dragon, the dice favored Sarril this day.

A severely wounded Sarril used another Fly spell to get away from a still confused Dalron who was now trying to kill him. A few more rounds for the Confusion to run its course, and a few more rounds to be safe, and Sarril returned to Dalron. The two of them decided to begin searching the dragon hoard as quickly as possible before the drow returned. This was no easy task for just the two of them, so Sarril cast what little healing he had left on Sebastian to make sure he was stable (though far from functional) and they spent the rest of the day sifting through treasure. Among the find was a silver egg with a spider web design and a spider etched into it. Inside the egg were platinum pieces. They found a lot of other magic items and treasure, but the egg turns out to be the most important thing.

Needing to find a place to rest, Dalron picked up Sebastian to carry him and the three began to exit the cave. On their way out, they encountered the drow priestess, Eclavdra, and an entourage with her.

Eclavdra of House Eilserv

They were in no condition to fight her, so it was good that she just wanted to talk. Eclavdra congratulated the party on successfully slaying Brazzemal and asked if they found the silver egg. Realizing that cooperating at this point was the best way to stay alive, Sarril answered "yes" and showed it to her.

"That egg is the key to opening a portal to the 66th layer of the Abyss, where you will need to go if you want to kill the Demon Queen, Lolth." Lolth, she explained, is responsible for the black bubble over Istivin and only her destruction can remove it. Even now, demons are leaving the bubble and terrorizing the surface, but that is not the worst of it. In two months time, the bubble will have grown to cover most of Sterich. Those within the bubble are trapped within the abyss itself, and suffer an even worse fate. If not stopped, the bubble will eventually cover all of the Flanaess.

"But our interests are aligned. My house would like to see the destruction of Lolth as well, and we cannot do this task ourselves. I became aware of you after the destruction of the Temple of Elemental Evil, and I watched your exploits against Stalman Klim with great interest. Today you have proven yourselves to be the champions I seek."

"What is it you are offering us?" asked Dalron.

"Simple," replied Eclavdra. "The portal only works inside the Fane of Lolth deep within Erelhei Cinlu. You will never be able to reach it on your own. But I will provide safe passage through the city and into the Fane. You will do the rest." With that, she provided the party a map and some additional information about what to do when they reach the city. She also promised that the party will be able to rest in this area without fear from the drow, though she makes no such promises when they leave here as anyone without the broach of House Eilserv will consider them an enemy. Even House Eilserv with treat them with hostility in the presence of other houses. The party agreed and then went off to rest for the next two days while they heal and sort through dragon treasure.

It is now the morning of the 16th Day of Patchwall, CY 580. Luapan and Pontus are dead, and the party is about to undertake the most dangerous mission of their lives.

12th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Chasing Down King Snurr Ironbelly - Part 4

Having said farewell to Cadwin, the party decided the best thing to do next would be to go down to the third level of the Hall of the Fire Giant King, where they heard there is a red dragon somewhere. It would be best to take care of this problem while they have the benefit of Cadwin's Protection from Fire spell.

The third level of the dungeon was a natural cavern, which everyone knows is where the real danger, and treasure, lies. The passage sloped down steeply, taking the party deep below ground, into the cool darkness. Down here, passages twist an branch in many directions. The party decided to stick to right turns until they found something.

The first thing they found were grey oozes. The thing about oozes, jellies and puddings is that it is easy to get them confused. Is this the one that requires fire, or does that make it multiply? Can I hit this one with my weapons? It turns out that these particular flavor of oozes could be struck with normal weapons, as Sarril remembered from dealing with them in the Caves of Chaos. But it also turns out that they corrode metal. Regular metal corrodes and breaks in the same round in which it comes in contact, and magical items corrode and break one round later for each "+" of enchantment. This was a small detail the party was unaware of, as Luapan decided to throw a +3 hammer at the ooze and Pontus ran in, swinging his own +3 hammer (maul) in melee. The ooze responded by covering Pontus with part of itself. After killing the oozes, which didn't take long, Pontus immediately began washing off the ooze, consuming the available water supply of the party, but saving his equipment from destruction. Luapan was one round too late, however, in picking up his hammer, as it shattered upon retrieval (no big deal as he still has a +5 spear that he his happy he didn't use for this fight).

Continuing through the tunnels, the party next came to an area where a very familiar stench was wafting down the hall. Trolls. As Sarril had a few fire-based spells prepared, the party decided that killing some trolls would make for some quick and easy experience, and they followed the stench into the troll's nest. They encountered not just a few trolls, but dozens, maybe more. The good news is that the trolls were in a large cavern and the party was in a tunnel leading to the cavern. They merely had to wait for the trolls to come to them, where they could create a bottleneck. Sarril cast Boccob's Rolling Thunder and, much to the DMs surprise, all but two of the trolls failed their saves (the DM would be rolling terribly for the rest of the day). This means the trolls in the tunnel were stunned for a round, and the rest of the trolls couldn't advance, making them sitting ducks. The melee fighters up front began making short work of them and started burning the bodies of the incapacitated trolls.

Sebastian, having used his Ring of Invisibility to go stealthy, hung back at the last intersection to keep an eye on anything that might come at the party from behind. He failed to notice the dozen or so trolls that came down a side corridor. The party now had trolls in front and behind them. If that wasn't bad enough, smoke from the fire was beginning to fill the corridor, cutting off visibility and making it hard to breathe. At this rate, the party had only a few rounds before they would start inhaling smoke.

Sarril cast a Wall of Fire in the shape on an "L" to cut-off the trolls in front of them and those coming from the side tunnel. The melee fighters had to spend another couple of rounds finishing off those directly on them, and tossing the bodies into the Wall of Fire, which caused the tunnel to be completely engulfed in smoke. Sarril then cast Gust of Wind to clear the tunnel of smoke and give the party an escape, which they were happy to take. Unfortunately, their escape path led them to a drow patrol that were waiting for them. The leader of the patrol was hoping the trolls would kill or severely hurt the party and he could easily pick off whoever was left. Unfortunately for this drow, he faced a strong and fully ready party. Being clearly outmatched, he was, nonetheless, arrogant, and stated to the party that he was glad the trolls didn't kill them because he was going to enjoy doing it himself. Things didn't work out so well for this drow patrol leader. This must be how the drow cull the weak. As a fighter/mage of not insignificant level, he did get off a lightning bolt, and had the protection of a Shield Spell and Protection from Normal Missiles. But it wasn't enough, as his 1 HD guards can't hit any party members with their crazy low ACs and couldn't buy the leader the time he needed to do anything significant. The party searched the bodies, donned the drow cloaks and broaches, and got the brilliant idea that these broaches might be the answer to penetrating the tentacle wall upstairs, and so up they went.

When they got upstairs, they noticed a couple of things that have happened. First, all of the wall sconces that were lit from natural gas jets were out. It was pitch black upstairs. Second, they heard a loud rumbling coming from upstairs, and cracks began forming in the ceiling as small bits of debris fell. The ground shook as a series of loud booms were heard all around. The party surmised that gas must be leaking and this floor would be next if an open flame or spark were to set it off. Still, they bravely pushed forward to the tentacle room, and the tentacles moved aside to let them through.

Using Detect Magic, they quickly scoured the room to try and get anything magical they could find as fast as possible, before the floor exploded and took them with it. There were some magical candles lit, which they quickly put out, and a brazier that was still hot. They quickly put that out, too. They found some wardrobe items and gems and clerical scroll of Word of Recall, as well as a trapped coffer. Sebastian tried to disarm the trapped coffer, accidentally setting off a poison gas trap. Pontus failed his save, but Sebastian quickly cast Neutralize Poison to prevent death as the party ran from the room and back downstairs. It was not a severe loss, as most of the highly valuable items had already been taken.

Once back downstairs, the party started to explore areas previously unexplored, far away from the trolls and the smoke. They found a fire beetle nest and a secret door leading upstairs to level 2, which looks like it might have been an escape path for someone. In a large cavern to the north they encountered two young red dragons whose fire breath barely made a dent in the massive Fire Protection they all still had left over from Cadwin. They were fairly easily defeated. In another smaller cavern they encountered four hell hounds, who were also no match, but their primary purpose was to bark an alarm, and that worked because in the next large cavern was waiting King Snurr, four fire giants and a contingent of drow led by female cleric. When the party entered the cavern, the female cleric, Viconia, spoke to them:

Viconia

"You must be the terrible anuses who have sex with their mothers. Congratulations on defeating the giants. But you are too late. They have already served their purpose. As we stand here now, Lolth's

demonic armies are flooding into your world and enslaving your people. We are done here."

And with that, she and her contingent turned and left the cavern, leaving an enraged King Snurr and his giants to slaughter, or be slaughtered by, the party. As usual, the fire giants were very little match for Sarril's multiple Cone of Cold attacks. Still, it was a difficult fight. The party retreated into the mouth of the tunnel they just emerged from in order to limit the number of giants that could melee with them at one time. But the giants in the back ranks began throwing boulders, and with the high ceilings in the cavern, were able to lob boulders to hit the party members in the rear. Although the damage wasn't significant, it forced the party forward into the cavern and cut off their retreat.

King Snurr Ironbelly

After a Boccob's Rolling Thunder and another Cone of Cold from Sarril, some Javelin of Lightning throws from Sebastian, healing and prayers from Luapan and a ridiculous amount of damage from the melee fighters, the 8 giants were dead, leaving only the king. The enraged king charged at Dalron and hit him twice, knocking him unconscious and very near death (only saved due to the "Death Save" house rule we have in place). Although the king had been previously damaged by spellpower, he still had a lot of hit points remaining, and the party realized they were close to a TPK. Some very fast adjustments would be necessary. Sebastian suddenly remembered the Iron Horn of Valhalla he had tucked away, and pulled it out and blew hard. Eight berserk warriors were summoned into being and rushed at the giant king. They were no match for him, of course, but it bought the party another much needed round in which to try to kill him. It worked. As the king started slaying two berserkers per round, the rest of the party threw everything they had at him. After 150 hit points of hard fought damage, the king dropped to the ground, dead. Interestingly, he didn't seem to have any healing potions on him like previous giant chiefs had.

And this is where we left off. It is the afternoon of the 12th Day of Patchwall, CY 580. King Snurr and (hopefully) the last of his giants are dead. The party is likely trapped underground and the drow who seem to be manipulating everything have casually walked away from it all.

11th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Chasing Down King Snurr Ironbelly - Part 3

Realizing they were having no luck against the tentacle wall, the party decided to move on. Little did they know that their shenanigans had attracted the attention of some drow, who were sneaking up on them from both sides of the hallway. More on that in a bit. . .

Having an old-school 1st edition barbarian in the party has its merits. In this case, Pontus was able to detect an illusion on the north wall, and convince the party to walk through it "Platform 9 and 3/4" style. They found themselves walking down a wide flight of stairs, through a room illuminated with a purple, swirling haze. Distances were distorted and shifting, making it hard to judge where the steps were. Even the blind druid's senses were affected. Luapan ended up tumbling down the stairs, right into Dalron. When everyone got up, they decided to look around.

They were in an area that appeared to be segregated from a much larger room by a series of pillars that were a few feet apart. Along the wall to the east was a large mural depicting humans, elves and other species worshiping a large creature with tentacles for a mouth which appeared to be feasting on the very creatures worshiping it. Pontus tried to walk between two of the pillars and purple tendrils of energy reached out and gave him a shock and so he backed off. The Dalron tried to do the same thing and received a shock, then ran screaming out of the room. The party chased after him, stumbling on the stairs a few times.

Remember those drow I talked about? Dalron ran right into them. Four drow with small crossbows and a drow male cleric behind them. The drow cleric cast Hold Person, fixing Dalron in place.

I may have mentioned this before, but in this game, we treat "Hold Person" as a root in place spell. The victim can make no forward, backward, sideways, up or down movements using any physical or magical means that they control. But they are not defenseless and can still move their arms. For Dalron, were he not focused on trying to run out of complete fear, that would mean he can still throw daggers at enemies to the front and side of him. But alas, he could do nothing but scream and try to run, and now was unable to. What a nightmare.

Sarril and Luapan were on the scene first, and immediately started casting spells at the drow (whose magic resistances were limiting the effects, but at least they were no longer focused on Dalron). Next up the stairs were Pontus, Sebastian and Cadwin. Cadwin's superior hearing noticed that more drow were coming up the hallway to east, which effectively trapped the party. Pontus decided to confront these new drow directly, and rushed down the hall. It was the same situation. Four shooters, one cleric.

For the first couple of rounds, the drow shot at the party and missed horribly. Even with the drow using Faerie Fire and having bonuses to hit, they just could compete with everyone having such low ACs. A few bolts would have hit Sarril, had he not cast Protection from Normal Missiles on himself. He remembered from his time with Bukro that the drow liked to use sleeping poison on their bolts. A few bolts hit Cadwin, who saved against the sleeping poison. Pontus, unfortunately, was not so lucky, and down he went. The party now had both of their melee fighters taken out of the fight, and the spell casters were not very effective against such magic resistance. They thought for certain it would be a TPK.

But then Cadwin started bouncing lightning bolts around. Some bad resistance rolls on the part of the drow took out a large number of them, and suddenly the fight turned around just like that. At this point, both of the clerics had done all they could do, and it was down to the fighters, who dropped their crossbows and engaged in melee with great effectiveness. These dual-wielding drow were quite deadly opponents. Cadwin cast Neutralize Poison on Pontus to wake him up and soon he was back in the fight, ready to finish off the last of the drow along the eastern hall.

Along the southern hall, Luapan engaged in melee and started to show what his +5 spear can do. But unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse when two trolls emerged from an opening to the west. One of the trolls hit Luapan with enough damage to knock him unconscious, but luckily not kill him. Sarril cast Wall of Fire hoping to kill the trolls. They made their saves and were able to jump away, but one was on one side of the wall and the other on the other side. It made a difference, especially since Dalron had finally shaken the fear that took hold of him. He was still held in place, but he could throw his daggers and soon finished off all of the drow near him as well as the troll he could see. Sarril, suddenly remembering that everyone was protected from fire, gave instructions to toss the troll into the fire, which Dalron did as soon as the Hold Person wore off.

And it wore off just in time, as the Fire Giant blacksmith emerged from the same place the trolls just came from. This would have been the end of the party if Dalron was not mobile, but he was not only mobile, he was angry. After rolling two natural 20s, Dalron dropped the fire giant in a single round, leaving only one troll for Pontus and crew to deal with. They dealt with it quickly and then threw it into the wall of fire as well. Everyone took an inventory of their status and checked up on Luapan. It seems everyone survived, and now they had drow armor and weapons. How nice. But of course they needed to recuperate, and so they headed upstairs.

Strangely enough, nothing came looking for them upstairs. They were able to rest for the evening and recover hit points and spells. It was at this point that Cadwin told the group he needed to leave. His original mission that brought him in touch with the party was to find the source of the Red Death, in the hopes that might lead to a cure. Information Sebastian had provided needed to be followed up on. He asked Sebastian to stay with the party and help them on their quest while he goes to see the druid circle in the Dim Forest and follow-up on the clues Sebastian had found. He said his goodbyes and left.

The remaining party headed back downstairs. Using a Knock spell, Sarril opened the remaining cell doors that Sebastian was unable to pick earlier. They ended up rescuing a group of elves, one of whom claimed to be a sylvan princess of the Hornwood. They claimed that several of their number had been taken as sacrifice into the temple down the hall. They assume sacrifice because they could hear the screams, and no one taken ever came back. The party fed the elves and gave them water and equipped them as best they could so they could return home, then they went on their way to explore the rest of the level.

From the room where the trolls and fire giant emerged, they found the blackmith's area where a large pool of lava acts as a forge for weapons and armor. The giant was in the middle of repairing a large mace, but nothing of value was found here. Heading further up northeast the party came to a hallway where a filthy stench overwhelmed them. A troll's den. Pontus stepped forward to investigate and was immediately overrun by trolls. There were 18 trolls total, which could have quickly overwhelmed the party, but they were smart and the trolls were not. Pontus, Luapan and Dalron stood side-by-side to form a wall, preventing the trolls from getting past them. Then, after doing some quick math in his head, Sarril dropped a fireball a ways behind the line, engulfing all of the trolls. Many were consumed, but some were still standing, so he tossed another one. And thus ended the lives of 18 trolls.

The trolls were keeping about 60 gnoll slaves captive in some nearby rooms. The party decided to free the gnolls as they were clearly no threat and then search the rest of the area. Some empty guest chambers, one of which was clearly setup for Frost Giants, but nothing else interesting. Anything valuable had already been taken when the rest of the inhabitants of this level fled.

So that leaves the party with three unexplored options.

1. Whatever is behind the Tentacle Wall
2. The temple that sent Dalron screaming and
3. The double-doors that they know lead down into the underdark (and past a large red dragon)

But none of that will be explored today. The drow fight consumed most of the entire session and so we had to call it quits for the day. It is the morning of the 12th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 and the party is still alive. That's something.

9th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Chasing Down King Snurr Ironbelly - Part 2

Upon the advice of the wise Cadwin, the party decided the best place to rest would be underneath King Snurr's bed. There was room enough, even if it was a bit tight, and the giants would likely never suspect it. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned.

Within the first hour, two fire giants came into the room - possibly on patrol. They did not notice the party members under the bed, and were just about to turn around and leave, when Dalron rolled out from under the bed, stood up and started throwing daggers at the nearest one. Before Dalron could even get to his feet, the second giant was already shouting back down the hall in giant-tongue "They're here! They are in the king's chambers!" This forced the rest of the party to take decisive action.

Luapan only had 3 hit points and was almost completely out of spells, so he stayed under the bed. Sarril and Cadwin used invisibility rings to turn invisible. Pontus rolled out from under the bed to help take down the giants more quickly. The fight was typical of one against giants in which Dalron, the Giant-Slayer is involved. In two rounds, he can do close about 100 hit points of damage to a giant due to his ranger skills, so long as he can keep enough distance to throw daggers. The fight looked like it would be short, until an invisible dwarf appeared behind Dalron performing a vicious backstab (well, not as vicious as it should have been as he rolled low damage, but the multipliers still hurt a lot). Dalron suddenly found himself having to deal with this extra threat, and was not able to keep his attention on the giants. To make matters worse, two more giants responded to the alert, creating a dire situation for the team.

The dwarf proved to be a serious problem. He was a multi-class 9th level fighter and 11th level thief, with specialization and 18/00 strength. He attacked twice per round with a +3 hammer for a lot of damage. The only thing that saved Dalron from death was that fact that the DM rolled several 1s to hit, saving Dalron from one of the two attacks each round. Sarril then cast a Slow spell in the area, which affected the dwarf and one of the giants. This reduced the dwarf to one attack per round and effectively took one of the giants out of the fight. Sarril managed to position himself into the corner used his Wand of Frost to cast Cone of Cold, doing a lot of damage to the fire giants, bringing them near death. Dalron turned his attention back to the giants, trying to finish them off, while Pontus focused on the dwarf.

Only a few rounds into combat, the party realized they needed to retreat through the secret door in the king's bedroom. That meant Luapan needed to get out from under the bed and make his way to them. He almost made it, too, but as he passed by one of the giants, he took a hard blow - one which should have killed him outright were it not for the house-rule mechanic we have allowing a single "death save" (an idea inspired by 5th edition). Luapan was now unconscious at zero hit points, about to be finished off by the giant. That's when an invisible Cadwin grabbed Luapan's unconscious body and dragged him back to safety. Unfortunately, that "safety" placed them away from the escape route, with giants between them and freedom. If they were to live through this, the party would need to kill the remaining giants.

Dalron continued to focus on the giants, but he was pressed against the wall in melee combat, reduced the number of attacks per round and slowing down the combat. As Pontus continued to wear down the dwarf, Sarril added to the damage by casting Magic Missile, and then releasing another Magic Missile spell from his ring. The dwarf had a lot of hit points, but Pontus and Sarril were finally able to bring him down. Then Sarril turned his attention back to the giants and released another Cone of Cold, killing all but the one slowed giant, which turned to run (albeit slowly).

Pontus started dragging the dwarf into the hallway behind the secret door and Dalron followed, putting a dagger into the dwarf's eye, just to make sure he was dead. That's when Sarril called for Dalron to finish off the retreating giant, but unfortunately it was too far away, so Sarril cast one more Magic Missile, which dropped the giant in its tracks. Sarril then cast Detect Magic to see what the dwarf had on him and the party spent some time removing his full plate, shield, axe, ring, hammer and gauntlets. After taking the dwarf's things, the party left the Fire Giant Hall and retreated back to their cave a couple of miles down the mountain to finish resting for the night. Unfortunately, with Luapan unconscious and near-death, they would have to restore him to full hit points before he could be fully functional again (another house-rule we use). It was likely going to be a couple of days.

The next day, many healing spells were expended by Sarril and Cadwin, making Luapan functional again. Sarril also started identifying items, and found that the cloak that hellhound keeper had allows the wearer to assume the form of a hellhound. This came in handy that evening, when, during Dalron's watch, he noticed a couple of hellhounds sniffing around outside. It was unclear if they were onto the party's scent, but out of concern, he woke the party. Pontus decided this would be a great time to test the new cloak and he proceeded to put it on, get on all fours, and try to mimic the behavior of the hellhounds. He engaged them and, while they didn't take to him at first, and tried to assert their dominance, Pontus quickly adapted, and asserted his own alpha-male dominance the way that he knows canines to do - by mounting one of the hellhounds (both were female). Though this act did not result in full mating, it served it purpose to show to other two that he was the alpha and he was in charge of the pack. He then made it clear that this was his territory, and the other two needed to go away, and they did. Pontus then slept, in hellhound form, outside the cave for the rest of the evening.

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The next day, on the 11th Day of Patchwall, the party set back out into the Fire Giant Hall, using the usual method of Invisibility 10' Radius and multiple Fly spells to be both stealthy and safe. They explored the rest of the first level - everything except the one door that was barred from the outside. The place seemed abandoned, so down to level 2 they went.

The second level of the Fire Giant Hall looked much like the first. Carved stone handiwork that was most likely of dwarven craftsmanship. These halls were not lit by natural gas flames, however. Burned out torches lined these walls. The party used Continual Light coins to see where they were going. The first branch of hallways and room they explored were empty. It looked like these areas housed fire giants and their guests, but were abandoned, with any items of value taken. The party lost the element of surprise days ago.

They decided to explore another corridor to the north, which looked like a series of humanoid sized cell doors. Sarril had a single knock spell, and opened the first cell door with it. Inside was a beautiful naked half-elf, who seemed to instantly recognize Cadwin. The man introduced himself as Sebastian

Sebastian Silvertongue

the bard, and said he has known Cadwin for quite some time. Cadwin was able to confirm this and tell the party they could trust him. Sebastian explained that he was captured by the giants and brought here with other captives to be questioned by some dark elves (aka "drow"). The drow were sacrificing some of the prisoners to their evil demon-god in a nearby temple, but Sebastian managed to stay alive by convincing one of the leaders that he was useful to them. They had planned to take him to their city of Erelhei-Cinlu to be sold into slavery, and would be departing any day now, so it seems he was rescued just in time.

Sebastian was able to provide some limited information to the party regarding the plans of the giants. He was able to confirm that they were working for the drow, who were offering payment and other rewards in exchange for waging war on the human lands. One female drow of importance reassured King Snurr that House Despana will compensate him for recent losses at the hands of some adventurers (the Bad-ass Motherfuckers). Sebastian was not sure if that was legitimate information, or something said knowing that he was listening in. Many references were made to the black bubble over Istivin and the mysterious drow spider goddess they call Lolth, as the drow stated that Lolth's armies would soon be marching across the surface world. Whether or not the drow are actually responsible for the bubble, it is clear that they are taking advantage of its existence.

The party decided to equip Sebastian and let him join the group for the time being as they could use the help. Though they had no keys to open the remaining cell doors, Sebastian was confident that if he could get hold of some lockpicks, even crude lockpicks, he could open the doors. So off they went.

The prison area was not abandoned, the party soon discovered, as they came across the fire giant torturer and headsman in a nearby torture room, playing knuckle bones. The party tried to get a surprise attack, but it didn't work, and they were forced to engage in a regular fight. With Dalron the Giant Slayer, backed up by the spellcasters and Pontus, who was back in possession of Gauntlets of Ogre Power and finally able to wield the Hammer of Kord, this fight would be easy, they thought. But they were wrong. These two giants were tougher than the others, having about 50% more hit points. Dalron started out by doing 50 hit points of damage to the torturer, who, in turn, grabbed Dalron and threw him into an iron maiden and slammed it shut, doing a massive amount of damage and making it impossible to open without killing him. The rest of the party would have to deal with these giants without the help of their giant-slayer. The other giant, the headsman, picked up his massive headsman's axe, designed for severing heads and limbs. Even without severing limbs, the amount of damage he was capable of doing with it was ridiculous. He nearly killed Pontus with only a couple of blows. It took the concentrated effort of all five remaining party members, including Sebastian, to finish off these two. If it weren't for the fact that the DM kept rolling 1s on the dice, some PCs would have surely died.

Luapan decided the best course of action to help Dalron was to reach through the eye slots on the iron maiden and touch him to deliver some healing. He then spent some time studying the machine to figure out the best way to open it while dealing the least amount of damage. He was able to then free Dalron while keeping him alive, and had to expend a lot more of his healing to bring him back up to full hit points. The party was ready to rest again, but felt that time may be a factor now that the giants have been clearing out. They decided to push forward. Sebastian was able to find some wire in the torture chamber that he fashioned into crude lockpicks. There would be a penalty to his attempts, but they could function. With these in hand, they began opening the remaining cells.

A couple of cells contained gnolls, who immediately fled. One cell contained an enraged troll that the party promptly killed. One cell was empty, the inhabitant having just recently been removed to face whatever horrific fate was in store. Another, giant-sized cell contained a chained fire-giant named Boldo. Boldo claimed to have once been King Snurr's advisor. He said the about two-years ago, a drow woman by the name of Eclavdra came to the king and started making offers of gold and filling the king's ears with promises of glory and dominance over humans, if he could rally the other giant tribes under his banner and attack the humans in the Sheldomar Valley. Boldo said that he tried to advise the king against taking these actions and warn him against allying with these dark elves, and he was imprisoned as a result. He also explained that the drow had pretty much taken over this level of the dungeon, going so far as to build a temple to their dark god in the northwest. The party pressed Boldo for as much information as he could give, which wasn't much, but he was able to let them know that there was a large red dragon in the caverns below - something they would likely have to deal with if they were to try to follow the drow into the underdark. The party decided to let Boldo go free, and he ran off down the hall.

The next cell was another giant-sized cell which contained a Titan, who appeared to be chained and drugged. Cadwin cast Neutralize Poison, which removed the affects of the drug, and the titan was able to stand up and easily rip free of his massive chains. The titan introduced himself as Kendar, from Mount Olympus in the outer plains. He was sent to give a warning to King Snurr to turn away from this dark path, but with the help of the drow, the king was able to subdue him. Kendar told the party that he needed to return home immediately and report on what is going on, but that this would not be the last they see of him. Perhaps a powerful ally in the future?

Sebastian could not open all of the locks, and those that were not locked were empty, so the party decided if they were going to open the remaining cells, they would need to find a key. And so off they went in search of the drow. The first thing they came across was a wall of 20 tentacles blocking a passageway south. The tentacles had the appearance of stone, but seemed flexible as they swayed ever so slightly. Detect Magic revealed a magical dweomer of some sort, so Sarril decided to cast Dispel Magic on the wall. Immediately the Continual Light went out and the party was surrounded by magical darkness, and a loud hissing sound began emanating from the tentacle wall. Four of the tentacles lashed out in the dark at Sarril like whips, causing severe damage. Sebastian and Pontus tried to attack the tentacles, and they, in turn, were whipped by four tentacles each and severely hurt. After cancelling the darkness with another Continual Light, Luapan cast Dispel Magic on the tentacle wall and immediately everything went dark again. The tentacles then attacked Luapan. Cadwin tried to get in on the action, casting a Lightning Bolt at the wall, again triggering the darkness and an attack response. Finally, Sarril cast Dispel Magic one more time and Pontus and Dalron made some physical attacks. Two of the twenty tentacles crumbled to the floor, but the party was attacked again, and it seemed that the tentacles were capable of a lot of damage. The party decided to back away from the wall and reconsider their approach.

And this is where we were forced to end the session. It is the afternoon of the 11th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 and the party is currently being frustrated by a very strange wall of tentacles.

9th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Chasing Down King Snurr Ironbelly

When we left off, King Snurr was casually walking away through a secret door behind the throne while the party was facing off against 14 giant spiders. It turns out that giant spiders are pretty ineffective against a party whose average armor class is well into the negatives. But it was obvious the intent wasn't to kill the party, as it took several rounds to deal with the spiders, leaving plenty of time for the fire giant king and the drow woman to disappear.

Before the fight was over, eight fire giants appeared in the hallway behind, cutting off any escape to the outside. But the party didn't intend to escape. They were about to chase down King Snurr. Sarril started by casting Evard's Black Tentacles to slow down the giants and try to keep them in place. It was mildly effective, holding one of them in place and damaging the others. As the rest of the party ran down the hallway behind the secret door, Sarril cast Boccob's Rolling Thunder on the advancing giants, significantly damaging all but two who seemed to be staying behind. This resulted in five of the eight giants fanning out in front of Sarril at the door. Sarril still had mirror images active, so he had a couple of rounds of actions before he was truly in trouble. He decided to use his wand to cast Cone of Cold on the giants, who were especially susceptible to the cold damage. This move finished them off and he was able to rejoin the party who had found that the tunnel came to a dead end, where Cadwin was certain there was another secret door, but no one could find a way to open it.

It took a full turn before someone finally found a hidden lever, which opened the door into a lavish bedroom, which looked likely to be the private quarters of the king. Searching the room revealed nothing of value, so the group moved westward, encountering six hellhouds lounging in their beds. The king was clearly fond of these dogs. The hellhounds attacked, but the fire protection cast on the party rendered their breath attacks useless, and the party made short work of them.

After searching the rest of the room, they moved to a heavy iron door that opened inward. The door was far too large and heavy to be opened by a non-giant, so Sarril used a Passwall spell to create a tunnel in the stone to the right of the door. Two fire giant elite guards with throwing hammers were outside, waiting for the party to emerge. Pontus was first into the fray and began taking the brunt of the damage, engaging in melee with the first giant. Sarril stepped out next and used his Wand of Frost to make a devastating attack on the second. Dalron came in behind and finished them off easily, clearing the hallway ahead of them. This hallway connected back to the throne room, where there were still three fire giants waiting. That party, feeling pretty good about taking down giants in small numbers, went after them and finished them off pretty quickly. They were now left with an empty throne room and king's quarters - but no sign of King Snurr.

The party decided at this point to spend some time searching, looting bodies, and removing gems from the throne. This all took a few hours, during which time nothing bothered them. They were pretty certain this floor was clear, but it left a mystery as to where the king had gone. That's when someone cleverly remembered that Dalron is a ranger and can track. Dalron, who had been too distracted actually killing giants to remember that he could track them, decided that's a good idea and agreed to give that a try. It took a while, but Dalron was eventually able to determine that the tracks led through a secret passage behind the throne, but stopped halfway and didn't continue to the king's quarters. After searching and being unable to find a secret door, Sarril decided to cast Meld Into Stone to look into the wall where the tracks stopped and see if there was anything on the other side. There was. A passage, with stairs going up. Clearly this is where the king and drow woman went, but how to get there still wasn't clear. If there was a secret door here, it is very well hidden and the way to open it couldn't be found. The party decided they should finish searching this level and come back later.

Further searching of the dungeon revealed some rooms with fire giant women and children, whom they decided to leave alone (for now). They then found a kennel with hellhound puppies. The puppies got scared and ran away, but Pontus chased one down and picked it up, hoping to raise it as a pet. The puppy bit his finger and Pontus snapped its neck in response. The rest of the puppies ran north, into a room with six adult hellhounds, which attacked when the party entered the area. Again, with the magical fire protection everyone had on them, the hellhound attacks were useless. While they were fighting, however, a hellhound, larger than the others, came up from behind and attacked Sarril. After unleashing its (useless) breath weapon, it transformed into a fire giant and began an attack. Dalron responded and took the giant down quickly and the party was able to search him, finding a magic cloak and a few other magic items in a nearby room.

The next interesting room contained a table and chairs that were humanoid sized, with 8 gnolls. The party quickly dispatched the gnolls and searched the room, finding several chests full of gold (one for each gnoll). They also found an attached bedroom with a small bed (smaller than humanoid) and treasure chest, and a locked door they couldn't open. Another door from here led to what looked like a war room, with large table, maps and some alcoves. A trapped chest was collected and placed in the portable hole, along with a *lot* of paperwork (to be reviewed later).

The final fight of the session came as the party investigated another room down the hall, which contained two fire giants and chimera. The chimera's breath weapon was useless, but the six attacks per round it got with its three heads were enough to quickly destroy Sarril's mirror images. Sarril fought the chimera while the rest of the party took out the two giants. Fortunately, the chimera's

attacks don't do a lot of damage, so the party was able to prevail relatively easily. Nonetheless, they were exhausted, wounded, and again, out of spells. It was time to find a place to rest. And so we ended the session here, on the evening of the 9th Day of Patchwall, CY 580. The first level of the Hall of the Fire Giant King was clear (or mostly clear), and the party has to decide where to go to rest for the evening.

7th Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Into the Hall of the Fire Giant King

I feel like this chapter of the module needs to be played with some background theme music. Something like Hall of the Mountain King, but a heavier and darker (a little less Grieg and the little more Wagner). 

There was no way the party was going to enter this place without resting and recovering spell-power. Unfortunately, they were smack in the middle of the Hell Furnaces - a harsh environment that doesn't support life for anything should of magical creatures connected to the elemental plane of fire. Lava flows were surrounding them on nearly all sides, and volcanic vents were spewing massive clouds of sulfuric gases and ash that made flying overhead impossible. But there was a path that lead up to the doors and the party followed it back down the mountains. Through sheer perseverance, they were able to find a small fissure in the rocks some two miles down the road, where the lava was much less active. Inside this fissure was a small cave just large enough for the party to squeeze inside and hide. The Storm Giantess, Olgani, wished the party well through the blessings of Kord, the God of Storms, and departed.

It was three days later, on the 7th Day of Patchwall, that the party ventured back out. This is how long it took Sarril to identify magic items and refill his Ring of Spell Storing. He also took this opportunity to use his Ring of Three Wishes to use his second wish, this one to bring back his lost familiar, Krek, from the Plane of Concordant Opposition where he had previously been banished. With everyone powered up and ready to go, they headed back to great doors.

There was only one problem with the doors. . . they were huge, heavy, metal doors that required fire giant strength to open. Even the combined effort of multiple strong PCs couldn't get them open. The first plan was to wait outside for someone to come and open the doors. The party waited most of the day without any luck, and while waiting, were attacked by four salamanders. After that, they decided they needed another way in.

With Olgani gone, this required a magical solution. Sarril cast Passwall, creating a party-sized tunnel through the door. That worked well, and, after casting the obligatory Invisibility 10' Radius, into the hall they went. The hall beyond was lined with tapestries on either side. Luapan made a point to look behind all of the tapestries as they passed. All except the first one on the left, which happened to be the one that was covering a secret guard room - more on that later.

Passing what appeared to be a large hall to the right, where four ettin guards were posted by some columns, the party focused on keeping to the left path whenever possible. This led them into a kitchen, where several fire giants were busy cooking. They continued past a door that was barred from the outside, which they decided was best to ignore for the time being, and eventually came to a curtain behind which they could hear the sounds of giants talking. They decided to move the curtain to get a peek, but the curtain was very large and required a bit of effort - effort that was noticed by the alert guards waiting behind. The invisible party sprung into action and began to fight the six fire giants in the room. Though victorious, the party was now visible, wounded, and low on spells. It turns out that fighting fire giants just isn't easy. The party realized they needed to retreat back to their cave to heal up.

Remember that tapestry that Luapan missed earlier? The guard behind it had a large ballista that shoots six spears at a time (it reminds me of something from the Slingshot Channel on YouTube - check it out sometime). He set the ballista up in the hallway in front of entrance, ready to fire on the exiting party. Behind him were two of the ettin guards. On the other end of the hallway were the other two ettins, ready to finish off the party after they took the ballista damage. Six spears flew down the hallway at five party members. Several took damage, though not a lot. Then the ettins moved in. Again, the superior armor class of the party members made it difficult for the ettins to do any serious damage, and the party quickly finished them off before the fire giant at the end of the hallway could reload the ballista. Sarril then cast Boccob's Rolling Thunder down the hallway, stunning the fire giant and one of the ettins and destroying the ballista. After that, the party was able to quickly move down the hall, kill the enemies and escape.

Another two days of rest and restoring spells and back they went. This time, Sarril cast Passwall to the left of the doors, opening up a tunnel into the guard room. Inside was a guard who spent the first round engaging the party, before realizing he needed to sound the alarm. Reaching for the alarm in round two, he was killed before he could do it. Sarril cast Invisibility 10' Radius again to make the visible party members invisible again, and they decided to head straight to the large hallway with the columns.

This hallway turned out to be the throne room, and as they approached the throne, they heard a loud laughing coming from King Snurr, who was very much aware of their approach. King Snurr Ironbelly was sitting on his throne, flanked by two large hellhounds. To his side was a drow elf female and behind him were two fire giant guards. In front of him stood Jarl Grugnir and his four elite frost giant guards, who clearly had escaped to here after their previous fight.

King Snurr told the party he would show them mercy if they dropped their weapons and groveled at his feet. But these are the Bad Ass Motherfuckers, and they grovel to no one. Sarril answered by reading a scroll of Chain Lightning, which ripped through all of the giants and the drow (whose magic resistance protected her from the effects - in hindsight, I think the spell should have ended when it hit the magic resistance, but I let it keep going). The fight was now on.

The frost giants were definitely struggling to be at their full potential in the stifling heat. That helped the party quite a bit, as did the prayer that Luapan put up. The drow responded with Faerie Fire, effectively negating the invisibility and allowing the giants to target the party with throwing hammers. Cadwin, realizing from his previous encounter with the fire giant guards that he can bounce lightning bolts off of these stone walls, cast Protection from Lightning on himself, then fired an 11 die lightning bolt through the jarl and two other giants, bouncing it off the wall and back at him through the same giants again. It was a devastating move that reduced the enemy's numbers greatly. Dalron and Pontus were able to make short work of the remaining giants. At one point, the hellhounds attacked, but the fire protection spells the party had on them negated their breath weapons and effectively neutralized that threat.

Neither King Snurr nor his drow advisor took any aggressive actions. Realizing the fight was not going their way, they began to make a retreat through a secret door behind the throne. The drow cast a spell causing 14 giant spiders to appear and surround the party, allowing her and the king to make their escape.

And here is where we had to end the session, mid-battle. The frost giant and fire giant guards were all dispatched, and the party now has to fight their way through a hoard of giant spiders. It is late morning on the 9th Day of Patchwall, CY 580.

1st Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Finishing the Glacial Rift

We had a nice extended session today to finish the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. It was an exciting day filled with joy and more tragedy. It is unclear if there were any true "winners" today.

We left off with Jarl Grugnir and his consort, Lady Amgroth, flanked by four elite Frost Giant guards and two huge winter wolves, confronting the party. Jarl Grugnir addressed the party, demanding information about what they were doing. Dalron answered, stating that they were here to stop the raids on the human lands and if the Jarl agreed to do that, they won't have to kill him (I'm paraphrasing a bit). The Jarl, feeling he had the upper-hand in this situation, laughed, then told the party that they were only alive because he is allowing them to live to explain themselves. The fact is that both the Jarl and the party were stalling for time. While Dalron was speaking, Bukro, the drow assassin, was hiding behind Dalron, Luapan and Cadwin, drinking a potion of invisibility. While the Jarl did not see the potion drinking, one of the elite guards to his right noticed it, and reached for a throwing hammer he had at his hip. This triggered an initiative for everyone and the fight began.

Bukro won the initiative and managed to go invisible before the hammer throw. Lady Amgroth pulled out a scroll, but had a late initiative and didn't start to read it yet. The party recognized that magic scrolls are bad and immediately focused all of their attention on her. Dalron threw four daggers at her, nearly, but not quite killing her. Sarril followed up with a Boccob's Rolling Thunder that stunned two of the guards (though not before they threw hammers with devastating effect at Dalron) and knocked the lady unconscious - just one segment before she read her scroll. An invisible Bukro tried to move into position to backstab one of the giants, but was set upon by both winter wolves who sniffed him out and gave away his position. The Jarl immediately attacked Dalron and the other two guards threw hammers at Luapan. They mostly missed, but at least one connected for a lot of damage (they threw two hammers per round, for 5d4+8 damage per hit). Cadwin, who had held his action up until this point, realized the party wasn't likely to survive to the end of the second round, and cast an Obscurement spell over the entire area, which reduced visibility for the party and giants alike to just 3 feet. His goal, which succeeded, was to eliminate ranged weapons from the fight.

At this point, things turned chaotic. A bit more fighting took place, with severe penalties as everyone had to guess where their opponents were. Then Sarril got hit with a devastating Cone of Cold spell from somewhere just below him (he was flying in the air at the time). Cadwin transformed into a giant eagle and made a dive attack at a retreating Jarl while Luapan decided to cast True Seeing on Dalron, to allow him to see through the obscurement and continue his devastating throwing dagger attacks. What he saw were 5 Ogre Magi closing in on the party. One was visible, having just cast Cone of Cold on Sarril, and the other five were still invisible, spreading out trying to find opponents. Dalron immediately began shouting "Ogre Magi! Bug out! Bug out!"

Cadwin grabbed Luapan and Sarril grabbed Dalron and they both flew straight up and away. Unfortunately, that left Bukro still on the ground, where the giants finished him off before the one remaining winter wolf (he managed to kill the first one) began ripping him to pieces. And just like that, in only three rounds, the fight was over. A single winter wolf was the only true casualty, as Lady Amgrath was seen being hauled away by two of the giants and they, presumably, had the means to heal her.

The remaining party retreated back to the secret cave hideout they previously waited in. They spent a entire three days healing and replenishing spells. Sarril fiddled around with a ring he had found earlier, and to everyone's surprise, a naked, but very much alive, Pontus appeared in the cave. The ring was a Ring of Three Wishes, and there were now two left. Pontus, very happy to be alive again, gave everyone a great big hug.

On the 4th Day of Patchwall, the party readied for a return to the glacial rift. The plan was similar to before. Using invisibility, flight, protection from cold and detect traps spells, they headed back to the rift. This time, they floated high above the rift and slowly spiraled down to the bottom to check things out. By all accounts, it was now deserted. The party checked all previously unexplored areas and, other than getting attacked by some ice toads, which the party was able to fly away from without breaking their invisibility, there was nothing interesting. They decided to explore one of the two large tunnels going south, which recombined and sloped downward, opening up into a very large cavern. The cavern was covered in carvings and tapestries depicting symbols and images of the frost giant clan and of Jarl Grugnir. A large boulder acted as a door covering a passageway to the west, while another boulder that was previously covering a passage to the east was moved aside. The party explored the passage to the east and found the lair of the two white dragons they had previously slain, along with an enormous pile of treasure.

A Detect Magic spell revealed there were magic items spread throughout the pile, but it would take hours to sort through it all. The party decided this was a good place to camp out and do just that, so Sarril cast Wall of Ice to cover the entrance, and the sorting began.

From a magic-item perspective, there turned out to be less than what everyone was hoping for. Some armor and potions, primarily. They grabbed as many valuable looking gems as they could, and left the coins where they were (there were well over 100,000 coins of all types - but no chests to put them in). They decided to spend the rest of the day and overnight here. In the morning, they replenished spells and continued their journey, using a Shrink spell to remove the boulder covering the west passage.

After exploring a number of empty passages - most of which appeared to be living chambers for frost giants and their guests, and finding most items of value having been taken, the party came to another boulder that Sarril used Shrink to remove. This room appeared to be a prison, and chained to the wall with massive manacles and chains, was a storm giantess. Once the party convinced her that they were not hostile and, in fact, were trying to hunt the Jarl and his remaining clan, the giantess offered to help. She introduced herself as Olgani, an ambassador from her own clan who was summoned by the jarl in order to solicit their aid in the attacks on human lands. When she refused, the jarl imprisoned her and has been using various means of torture ever since to persuade her to change her mind (ineffectively). Sarril was able to free her by casting Enlarge on her manacles, allowing her to slip out of them. Olgani offered to assist the party with the remainder of their search of the rift and defeat any remaining enemies they may find. Pontus decided he was in love with the 24 foot tall exotic woman, and spent the rest of the day trying to woo her (and, as unlikely as it may seem, actually made some progress on this front).

Continued searching revealed a room full of ogres that the party chose to ignore and a holding pen for four hungry polar bears that the party carefully released before running away (thinking the polar bears would likely find the ogres and the strongest would survive). The Jarl's great hall was completely abandoned, and the party left the jeweled throne alone. Searching north, they found a trophy room full of treasures from various conquests. Sarril determined that several of the items were magic and, upon collection of said items, and alarm was sounded. There was no one to respond to the alarm, and it was quickly silenced. Olgani was able to recover her personal armor and weapons here as well.

Further searching to the north of the Trophy Room revealed a concealed escape tunnel. Sarril had Detect Invisibility, Detect Magic and Detect Traps spells all operating together. Detect Traps was indicating a trapped object along a high shelf, completely invisible. Despite being obviously invisible, neither Sarril's Detect Magic nor his Detect Invisibility spells revealed the object. Whatever was hiding it was powerful magic indeed, and, possibly, the Jarl wasn't even aware of its existence. They decided to have Pontus open the trapped box, since he can generally just take anything a trap throws at him. The trap was a poison gas cloud that enveloped everyone within 30 ft. Save or die. Everyone but Cadwin made their save. Luckily for Cadwin, Luapan had a Slow Poison spell readied, which held the poison off long enough for Cadwin to cast his own Remove Poison spell, and avoid death. There's one more wish that Sarril doesn't have to spend.


Next, they found a hidden lever high off the ground. The party asked Olgani if she would pull it, and she did, which caused everyone in the immediate area to teleport away. They now found themselves in a hot, volcanic area. The smell of burning sulfur all around. Before them were a pair of massive iron doors. This must be the entrance the Hall of the Fire Giant King, and possibly where Jarl and the remaining frost giants escaped to.

It is the afternoon of the 4th Day of Patchwall, CY 580, and the party is wondering where they can find shelter to rest before they venture into the hall (hint: they don't call these the Hellfurnaces for no reason).

1st Day of Patchwall, CY 580 - Into the Glacial Rift and. . . tragedy

This week we return to the "main" party continuing to explore the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.

After resting for two days to heal and recover spells, the party decided to trek back into the glacial rift. They knew if any frost giants were left, they would likely be better prepared - maybe even setting a trap, so the party took extra precautions. Sarril cast Fly on the three strong fighters, each of whom then were able to carry Sarril, Cadwin and Luapan on their backs. He also cast Invisibility 10 ft. Radius, rendering the entire party invisible, as well as Detect Invisibility on the fighters so they could communicate with each other with hand gestures. It consumed a fair amount of Sarril's daily spellpower, but it was worth it. They used the invisibility to float just above the surface of the ice, ignoring any slick areas or traps while making no noise at all.

At the entrance were posted two very cold hill giants - some of those who had escaped from the burning hill giant fortress. The party slipped right past them and began exploring the caves. Most of the caves in the northern rift were empty except for two area where the hill giant champion and few others were camping out. The hill giant champion would have been extremely tough as he was of higher hit dice than the other hill giants, wore plate mail, carried a shield and had a huge sword. But the party has a specialized double-wielding drow fighter/thief named Bukro with them now, and Bukro does what Bukro does, which in this case meant flying invisibly behind the hill giant champion and completely eviscerating him in one attack. As if three backstab attacks for x3 damage wasn't enough, he also rolled 2 natural 20s on the die. The resulting bonuses and multipliers resulted in over 160 points of damage to the hill giant before he even had a chance to scream. The other hill giant in the room, who just watched who he thought was the toughest fighter in the world get cut to ribbons by a flying, now visible drow, failed his morale check and panicked. But before he could act (it was still the surprise round), Pontus struck at him and Dalron tossed four daggers into him and, with Dalron's giant-killing bonuses added, they were able to drop him before a sound came out of his mouth. The party then went into another nearby cave where three more hill giants were located, and quickly took them out as well.

After Sarril re-cast invisibility on the visible fighters, they party headed further south, into unexplored territory. They came into a room with five stone giants, whom they decided to ignore. In another room they found three fire giants, and decided they needed to take them out. Following a similar plan to before, they started with Bukro doing an invisible backstab, with Dalron and Pontus following-up on a surprise round. This time Bukro came close to a kill, but not quite, so this fight actually went into round 2, where the giants got to hit back. Still, the fight was over quickly and those wounded were able to get healed, but the three fighters were now permanently visible. The party found three large sacks of gold - payments received or payments to be delivered, though it was unclear which.

The party decided it was time to fly down into the bottom of the the rift. From the map they had recovered from the hill giants, they could see semi-circle wall at the southern end of the rift that would be worth exploring (7D on the map below).

The icy mist was heavy down here, so even in daylight they only had obscured vision for 30 ft., and could see nothing further than that. The party carefully stepped into the enclosure, which was about 60 ft. across its diameter. They could see human and demi-human skeletons piled along the interior wall. Suddenly, are large shadowy figure moved across their peripheral vision before disappearing back into the fog. As everyone tried to ready their weapons and get their bearings, anticipating where an attack might come from, in the confusion there was quick flash of something blue and scaly that struck out like blur before disappearing back into the fog. Where Pontus was standing, there was now an empty space. As soon as he could determine where the thing was, Cadwin cast faerie fire and lit up an outline of what Sarril determined was a remoraz. The party launched an all-out massive attack, hoping to kill it quickly and rescue their friend from its belly. Sarril thought he had read somewhere that these beasts regurgitate their victims when killed. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and two rounds later, when they had felled the beast, Luapan and Bukro started immediately cutting open its abdomen. A burning hot magma-like substance poured out, melting a hole into the ice. A magic shield and sword were found inside, white hot, but resisting the magic of the items were resisting the heat. There was no sign of Pontus. May the great Fruztii warrior be remembered.

RIP, Pontus of the Cold Crow Clan

The party had no time to grieve their fallen comrade however, as a shadow loomed overhead and two of the living party members were stricken with fear. Sarril, realizing a dragon was upon them, immediately flew straight up into the air in the hopes of avoiding its breath weapon. Dalron did the same, about 30 ft. in front of Sarril, hoping to get a couple of good head-on attacks in. The dragon released its breath weapon on both of them, but, due to the Endure Elements spell Cadwin had cast on them earlier, the already weak white dragon breath damage was halved before saves, and they both took only superficial wounds. But while white dragons may not be the strongest, they are the fastest and most maneuverable of their kind, and the dragon flew past Dalron and swung around to attack Sarril while getting pelted by thrown daggers from Dalron. One more round of fighting and the party thought they had the upper hand when the second dragon came in and released its breath weapon on Luapan, Bukro and Cadwin on the ground. Sarril released a numbers of offensive spells at the dragon, many of which did not get through its magic resistance, but there was some effect.

The first dragon then managed to hit Dalron with both of its claws in mid-air and get him into a hold. That's when Luapan rushed at the dragon with a heroic acrobatic move. Using the Jump spell to leap off the top of the ice wall, right at the dragon with this +5 staff spear, plunging it deep into the dragon's side in mid-air, then held on for dear life as the dragon sped away with its prey. The dragon flew past the rift and far out over the glacier, making bite attacks against Dalron as it flew. But Dalron is incredibly strong, and was able to make a Bend Bars check to get free of the dragon's grip while Luapan managed to pull himself up onto the dragon's back and pull his spear free. The dragon wasn't stupid. It knew that Luapan would us that position on his back to drive that spear in, and it was already severely injured from Dalron's first assault at it. The dragon went into a nose dive, spinning as it flew and sending Luapan into a free-fall. Dalron kicked himself free and since the Fly spell was still active, he stayed airborne while throwing another volley of daggers at the dragon. The dragon continued its nosedive, straight into the glacier below - dead. Luapan, who was slowly descending with the use of a Feather Fall spell, was picked up by Dalron and together they started flying back toward the rift.

In the meantime, Sarril, Cadwin and Bukro were dealing with the second dragon. Cadwin unleashed two lightning bolts at it, doing considerable damage, but he was very limited with what he could do on the ground. Sarril wasn't having as much luck, and was getting quite frustrated that his spells were not penetrating the dragon's weak magic resistance (it was just unlucky rolls of the dice). Sarril had cast Mirror Image on himself to buy a few rounds against the dragon's claw and bite attacks, but he was nearly out of images and things were starting to get desperate. Finally, in a last ditch effort, he cast Polymorph Other on the dragon, which failed its magic resistance and its save, turning into a sea bass and falling to the bottom of the rift below. The fight over, the party gathered back in the Remoraz nest to search more thoroughly. Although they found a few magic items on the skeletons, they found no sign of Pontus' body.

DM's Note: The question is likely to be raised at this point "why are there skeletons if the Remoraz leaves no trace of its meal?" I had to ask that myself. I am using the 2nd edition Remoraz description which says that anyone swallowed dies at the end of the same round in which they were swallowed due to the extreme heat within the Remoraz. The heat is so intense that any non-magical metal weapons striking the creature melt (and I did forget to say that, so technically Dalron should have lost his daggers that he threw at it, which would have resulted in the dragon killing him as he would have been without throwing daggers to deal with it, but I'm not a perfect DM and the party often benefits from that). I decided that since Pontus had a Ring of Fire Resistance on, I would give him one round to be saved, even though there is nothing in the rules about that. It took more than a round to kill the beast, however, and in that time, even minor magic items were destroyed inside (I did roll saves for the items). Pontus is not only dead, his body has been utterly consumed by the volcanic heat inside the remoraz. There is no resurrection from this. So what were all of the skeletons? My best guess is that this was originally a lair for something else and the Remoraz moved in - possibly eating whatever was here before that created those skeletons.

Jarl Grugnir

After Cadwin and Luapan healed everyone up, the party decided it was time to go again. They were out of spells and in no shape to fight. Only Sarril could fly at this point, so they decided to walk north along the bottom of the rift toward a set of stairs along the northwest wall. Little did they know that the bottom of the the rift is a dangerous place, full of all kinds of foul creatures, like that remoraz. The first thing they ran into was a pack of 7 winter wolves. These weren't so bad. At 6 hit dice, they could only land attacks on a natural 20 against most of the heavily armored party, and their ice vreath was nearly useless with Cadwin's protections in place. The party made short work of the wolves. But the wolves weren't the problem. As they were fighting, they heard a horn blast in the distance, and then felt the ground shake. After they killed the winter wolves, the party continued north to find the stairway they were looking for collapsed, trapping them down in the bottom of the rift. That's when the Frost Giant Jarl, Grugnir, stepped forward, flanked by 6 of his his strongest warriors. He addressed the party "You have beaten my warriors and killed my pets. That earns you my attention. Tell me who you are and why you are here."

And with that, we have ended the session. It is mid-day on 1st Day of Patchwall. The party is out of spells and short one melee fighter. How will they deal with the frost giant jarl? (it probably involves Dalron sticking him with daggers, but who knows).

6th Day of Brewfest, CY 580 - Continuing in the Glacial Rift

It seems like most of our sessions lately have been 5 hours of mostly one big fight. This was no different. Giants have a lot of hit points and take time to kill . . .

The party searched around the smelly cave of the yetis and found two sleeping snow leopards up on an ice shelf. The floor in the area was smooth as glass and very slick, so the party knew better than to walk in and get pounced on when they fall on their backs. Cadwin decided to charm one of the leopards, which worked because it woke up and didn't attack him. Unfortunately, Cadwin had no way to communicate with the charmed creature and Pontus, who looked like a delicious meal, was standing right next him. The leopard pounced on Pontus, who was forced to kill the animal, but not before the second leopard woke up and pounced as well. The barbarian only suffered minor injuries before the rest of the party jumped in and helped finish off the other leopard. After using a Spider Climb spell to get to the ice shelf, the group determined there was nothing of value, and decided to move on.

Heading south along the rift ledge, they reached another series of caves. Cadwin's superior hearing determined that there were giants in these. Sarril cast Invisibility 10 ft. Radius so they could sneak inside and get surprise on the giants. The plan was successful, and Bukro was finally able to show the party what he could do with a triple backstab (the answer was over 100 points of damage and enough to kill a giant). Unfortunately, it was a one-time move that then leaves him exposed. With more giants coming up from another corridor, the group quickly found themselves facing 10 giants. It was a difficult fight which consumed most of the party's remaining healing and other spells, but they managed to prevail.

Knowing they were running low on spellpower and hit points, the party needed to rest of the evening. They decided split into two groups. Cadwin, Luapan and Sarril would search within the caves where the giants came from while Dalron, Pontus and Bukro (all three with 18 strength) worked outside to pile giant bodies in front of the cave entrance. As the three fighters worked on giant bodies, 6 more giants came up from the south along the edge of the rift. Knowing they couldn't take them all on without help, Pontus and Dalron turned the corner to try to ambush them as they came by, while Bukro made a run for it into the cave structure to alert the spellcasters. Unfortunately, half of the giants chased Bukro, and with their long strides were able to catch up to him. One giant cut him down, but just as he went down, he used his innate magical ability to summon four Dancing Lights in the shape of an exclamation point, and sent it 120 ft. down the hall. That turned out to be within 10 ft. of the distance needed for Sarril to see them.

While Dalron and Pontus fought brave and hard, Sarril cast Fly, grabbed Luapan and sped down the hall toward Bukro. Seeing the drow lying bleeding on the floor, Luapan immediately cast a healing spell on him while Sarril read a scroll of Repulsion. It turns out that Repulsion was a great spell to use in this situation. All three giants in the hall were pushed out of the cave complex and over the rift, falling to their deaths. That left only three more to deal with, which wasn't too hard. Unfortunately, at the end of the battle, most of the party was severely injured and there were no healing spells left at all. The party realized they needed to get out of the rift if they were going to properly recuperate, so they promptly exited.

With a barbarian, a ranger and druid, finding a safe and secluded place to rest in the mountains wasn't difficult at all. They went into a small cave away from the rift and rested for two whole nights. They are very aware that the hill giants they were trying to beat here will have likely arrived by now, but there was little they could do about it. They had killed 22 frost giants in total, which they figured was a good portion of their forces, so they've struck a blow either way.

It is now the morning of the 1st Day of Patchwall, and the party is ready to make another foray.