Sister, Sister

Pressing the battle on, the brave party members eliminate the vampire ninjas.  Focusing all of their effort Crimson, they fight on until she is destroyed.  The party finds a locket on her from Aroten, imprisoned in the scar of Zionyn peak.  Bringing the body of Crimson back, the party finds that Malcanthet is not happy about her death.  Malcanthet brings back Crimson, only to allow her sisters to tear her body apart.  Malcanthet gets another kiss from Nesta and sends the party along.

The next ally is a bit trickier.  The group must sneak into a depot and awaken the imprisoned aspect of Obox-ob.  The party travels to Zionyn and makes its way to Feedgut, a small but noticeable hill in the Blood Shallows.  The party sneaks in and gets the drop on Gorgan the Two-Faced, commander of the demons garrisoned here.  Powered up, the party strikes quickly and makes quick work of the Demogorgon's minion.  They move quickly into the warehouse and cast the freedom spell, and capture the Obox-ob aspect.

In the confusion and mayhem, the party starts to leave when they are confronted by Major Enderan and his bodak-tyrannosaur riding lemorian lancers.  The party shows unusually sound tactics and quickly resolve the encounter to their favor.

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Session Characters: Daria, Mittens, Hjalmgerdr, Rudolpho, Nesta, Vin, Gwendelyn, Ortho, Maybold
Session Loot: +4 glamered leather armor, +2 vorpal whip dagger, ring of evasion, +4 ring of protection, two gloves of storing, gold heart jewelry (2500gp),  +4 thundering dwarven waraxe, +3 full plate armor, +3 improved silent move leather armor, +5 sunshield (minor artifact), staff of transmutation (27 chargers), five large +5 full plate armor, five large +5 unholy lance, large +2 keen lawful outsider bane bastard sword,  four large +3 lances, four large +2 greatswords, 2 free season tickets for the Dodgers.

"When The Lights, Go Out, In the Dungeon" or "Sister Crimson"

The party leaves the docks of Miomanta, and makes their way to Malcanthet's palace.  They are stopped by a group of glabrezu, informing them that they are not properly 'attired' to get an audience.  The glabrezu discover the parties short fuse and are corpses in the streets in mere moments.

Arriving at the palace, the building is remarkably open to visitors.  The adventurers try to find Malcanthet's throne room, but no one seems interested in helping them.  Scenes of decadent, hedonistic, carnal frivolity fill the building.  The air is thick with perfume and sweat.  Eventually the party finds the throne room.  Malcanthet seems irritated and amused by the groups bad form.  Her off beat humor draws out the discussion, but eventually gets to the point.  She is willing to help, but wants the party to retrieve her lost sister Crimson.  To seal the deal, she wants a kiss, and directs the inquiry at Nesta.  Nesta, not-as-reluctantly-as-you-might-expect agrees, and Malcanthet plants a long, wet, deep, level-draining kiss.

The party travels to an old, run-down, building.  It's a mockery of a temple of Pelor.  Searching the grounds for some time, Daria finally uncovers a trap door leading to the lower levels.  Slabs of tables for the killing and dismemberment of humanoids fill the first room, a large dining hall fills the next.  The third room is a crypt.  Exploring the crypt, elite vampires attack the party.  Ortho breaks out the Light of Pelor, but quickly has it disarmed from his grip.  Then in the darkness, the item is stolen.

The fight continues on and Nesta discovers the room where Crimson is resting.  After telling the party to leave several times, and the party killing off the last of her vampire-ninjas, Crimson strikes.  Nesta gets her head ripped off by Crimson's razor-barbed whip.  The fight goes on...

[to be continued]

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Session Characters:  Mittens, Nesta, Maybold, Ortho, Gwendelyn, Vin, Rudolpho, Hjalmgerdr, Daria
Session Loot: no loot, just lost the Light of Pelor

Character Levels

It is with much happiness that I make the following announcements:

Advancing to 19th level- Rudolpho, Hjalmgerdr, Daria

Within extra credit range of 19th-  Vin, Nesta

Within double extra credit range of 19th-  Ortho, Gwendelyn

Advancing to 18th level-  Mittens, Maybold


Updated character sheets are worth character level * 50xp when submitted as PDFs.

Trick or Treat! Smell Defeat? You Know We Can, The Demogorgon Beat! (*revised*)

After a couple of days of recovery, the party wanders up the trail to the tower.  After some bizzarre antics, the party is ambushed by a trio of arcanaloths.  Invisible, polymorphed, the arcanaloths optimize their strikes for the closed quarters.  Using walls of force to cut off some party members, but the party still manages to hold their own.  The fight is disrupted by an arcanaloth disguised as Iggwilv, who scares off his brethren.

Landerbold, the fourth arcanaloth, apologizes for the behavior of the other apprentices and informs the group to be dressed (formally) and ready for their audience with his mistress.  Iggwilv receives the party coolly and gives them a rundown of potential allies they could petition for help.  Charon, Orcus, Gwynharwyf, Malcanthet, Obox-ob, Bagromar, and finally the Demogorgon himself.  Graz'zt is going to be a no-show.

Iggwilv gives the party a letter of introduction to Orcus.  And the party departs for Thanatos.  Before leaving the ship, the party takes special precautions again the planar effects.  The party tries to recruit a bit of help from the Dustmen, but their price was too high and Rudy's patience too thin.  Rudy quick draws his falchion and lops the dustman's head off.  The party finishes off the rest of the dustmen, and goes it on their own.  After a bit of travel, the party gets an audience with the dread demon lord Orcus.  Orcus challenges the party to a battle of champions, one of his death giants against the party's chosen:  Rudolpho.  The party powers up Rudolpho with everything they have, and with a modest effort Rudy takes her down.  Orcus is amused and agrees, and the party departs for the next leg of their journey.

Finding the Court of Stars seemed easy enough, but the party was greeted by a snobby eladrin.  Negotiation strained by argument with Sir Andros almost leads to blows, until Celeste breaks in and calms things down.  The party is taken to the court where the Queen asks the party to retrieve a star from the belly of a monster of a beast, Redfang.  Redfang is an ancient linnorm, powerful and deadly.

Arriving at the lair of the linnorm, the party cautiously approaches and feels its way along the roots of the great tree.  Perched above the party, on one of the roots, the invisible linnorm strikes.  Pelted by repeated prismatic sprays, the party takes a heavy toll.  Nesta dies from poison, Mittens and Gwendelyn are sent to other planes.  The rest of party toils with Redfang, and things are looking grim until Rodolpho's vorpal weapon strike brings down the great dragon.

The party takes a few days to recover and then resumes their quest.  Malcanthet's realm, Shendilavri, is the next stop and is conveniently located on the river Styx.  Arriving at the dock a pair of mariliths stop the disembarking party.  In an effort to win the "who-gets-bored-with-negotiations-first-contest", Maybold attacks one of the mariliths.  The party triumphs and no one seems to bat an eye at the scuffle on the docks of Malcanthets city, Miomanta.

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Session Character:  Ortho, Daria, Rudolpho, Hjalmgerdr, Maybold, Nesta, Gwendelyn, Vin, Mittens
Session Loot:  +4 huge banded mail, +3 huge unholy great axe, cloak of protection +3, headband of intellect +4, boots of levitation, ring of improved jumping, ring of three wishes, and The Bearded Anvil. "The Bearded Anvil of the Midgard Dwarves". It is a 300lb steel anvil, inlaid with mithral to show a thick silvery beard on one side. It is a minor artifiact that grants a +4 divine bonus on any Craft or Profession involving metalwork. Any slashing weapon that is worked on this anvil for 1 minute (plus a DC 25 Craft[weaponsmithing] check gains the keen magical property (and a +1 enchantment bonus if not already magical).  This effect lasts for 24 hours.
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(Revised) additional loot:  170400 sp, 32350 gp, 6061 pp.

delayed posting

The posting for this date will be included on the following D&D Sundae's post.

In The River

As the waters of the river Styx keep pouring in, Shami-Amourae plane shifts away.  Off in the distance, a dark shrouded creature paddles his skiff closer to the party.  The bony hands and the glowing eyes give away Charon identity.  Charon asks the party, "What have you done to my river?"  The party denies any intent to cause the event, apologizes, and tells the long tale of their adventures.  Upon hearing this, Charon the sound advise to seek out Iggwilv.  He offers to show the party the way.

Charon's skiff travels a wide variety of landscapes before emerging from the fog, next to the party's ship.  Already docked at a pier, the ship is fit and ready.  Charon informs the party that while they are on their current quest, they are under his protection while traveling on the river Styx.  With that, he leaves.

After a few moments, a wolf-headed creature emerges and yells out that the adventurers should leave immediately.  They are unexpected and unwelcome.  With that, two powerful linnorms emerge from the water and attack the party.  The combat is particularly lethal with Ortho and Nesta being destroyed.  Hjalmgerder beaten into unconsciousness, dropping into the river Styx and starting to drown.

The party struggles be defeats the linnorms.  Vin dives in to save Hjalmgerdr, as he does, the Styx wipes his memory clean.  The party will have to do a bit of planar traveling to recover from this fight.

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Session Characters:  Nesta, Daria, Rudolpho, Hjalmgerdr, Gwendelyn, Vin, Ortho, Maybold, Mittens
Session Loot:  27676gp, two star rubies (1000gp each), two huge moonbars (4000gp each), two pcs of jade (100gp each), two flawed yellow diamonds (800gp each), carved masterwork chestnut & ivory inlay & black sapphire harp (5500gp), amulet of natural armor +4 depicting twisted trident impaling a dolphin, darkwood helm of telepathy carved to resemble a nest of snakes with softly glowing emerald eyes.

You're The Best Part Of Me, Molypente

After freeing Shami-Amourae, her parasitic captor, a chokesnake named Molypente, takes control and initiates combat with the party.  After directing more attacks against the fiendish snake, the party eventually overcomes the creature and Shami-Amourae recovers.

A great rift opens in the sky, and the river Styx pours into the Well, and begins flooding the surrounding landscape.  The party scrambles to escape the well and the effects of the Stygian waters.

Shami-Amourae tells the party that the Demogorgon is his own worst enemy, that his divided nature works against itself.    Each head seeks to achieve dominance.  Aameul (cold and calculating) seeks to murder Hethradiah and use the life energy of the Bastion of Unborn Souls to cauterize the wound.  She doesn't think it will work.  Hethradiah's plan is to seed dozens of Material Plane cities with madness (called the Savage Tide) and siphon it to the Gaping Maw so that he can aborb Aameul.

In order to stop the Demogorgon's plans the party will need to distract the Demogorgon, and recruit help.  She suggests talking to Iggwilv.

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Session Characters:  Orho, Nesta, Daria, Mittens, Hjalmgerdr, Rudolpho.
Session Loot:  The complete works of Caruthers Willoughby on vinyl.