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Nothing more boring than "perfect" characters. It's the flaws that adds character and makes characters interesting. :)
After another four days on the road, the caravan finally reached the destination, Waterdeep. Celthor, not being entirely sure about the intentions of Jamna Gleamsilver, casts a hunter mark spell on her so he would be able to track her moves. The caravan split up, and the Dragon Cultists moves north without any delay, and Jamna seems to follow them.
Ater finds Ashbara Jos and says : -”Now we’re heading south again, farewell till we meet again.”
Celthor shadows the the Dragon Cultists to some kind of lumberyard or construction material dump. There are several wagons loaded with lumber, stones, barrels and crates. Suddenly Jamna shows up beside the startled Celthor, she starts to speak: - “Far north of here lies Neverwinter, and it was destroyed a hundred years ago when the volcano Mount Hotenow erupted in a violent explosion. The old road is now being rebuilt, and this is the storage for the road builders. Rumor has it that Mount Hotenow was a huge red dragon that was locked in the mountain. Neverwinter is still ruined, and there is a rift in the ground that goes all the way down to the underworld.”
Jamna and Celthor are using their stealth to move around, when suddenly Jamna stands up and walks straight towards a tall strong man in armor. Celthor stumbles after her. The man introduced himself to Jamna as Lord Neverender, head of the Highroad Charter Company, responsible for rebuilding the road across the Merry of the dead men, a swamp.
It is located about 200 miles north and it takes about ten days for the caravan with materials and supplies to get there. It is a dangerous journey in the wild Lord Neverender says, when Jamna interrupts him and says: “I know a group of very experienced caravan guards that just happen to have arrived to Waterdeep with the caravan from Baldur’s gate just today, they are very interested in the work.”
Jamna nods to Celthor, who shake hands with Lord Neverender and tells him he will now fetch the rest of the team and will be back shortly.
Ameiko was happy when Celthor returned with the news and the group quickly set off to the road builders caravan for the new job. When they arrived and was introduced as guards, everyone looked happy, except the dragon cultists. The caravan was twelve wagons, which of the cultist wagons were five, and the cultists spread out among all twelve wagons. The cultists now changed clothes and they spread their cargo onto all twelve wagons.
On the evening of the seventh day, they caravan, lead by a man named Adred, arrived to a small fort like building with a wall around it, the road builders camp. Adred’s twin brother Bardred, two was at the camp, took over the unloading. The wagons was driven in through the large gate two by two, and unloaded. Some boxes, barrels and crates were taken to a special strongroom, where only those having cargo going there was allowed. The rest was carried into the large storage. A big Half-Orc named Bog-Luc was the foreman, and he directed everyone shouting and pointing.
The fort consisted of a large two story building with a long staircase on the outside leading up to the tavern and the rooms where the bosses lived. On one side was a long two story building section where the workers had quarters.
Ulfnaar decided to pick up a barrel belonging to the dragon cultists and began to carry it to the strongroom, but he was stopped by Bog-Luc, who yelled at Ulfnaar: -”You carry what’s yours and leave that where you took it!”
Later in the evening the caravan is unloaded, and the group is assigned a room in the worker quarters. The group decided it’s time to eat so they go the the upper floor in the large building where Grisly Pete has his tavern. Celthor, who doesn’t really feel comfortable indoors decides to talk with the stableboys, and they are quite chatty and nice.
The cultists are already there, and Ulfnaar orders a strong mead, but is informed that there is nothing stronger than ale here. Grisly Pete mutters something about “... no sleep, working all hours …”.
The dragon cultist woman who falsely accused Ulfnaar for being a murdered glares at Ulfnaar. Ameiko puts a bottle of her brought wine on the cultists table as a token of friendship, but the woman picks up the bottle and tosses it directly at Ulfnaar. The people in the commons room all stands up shouting Duel! Duel! Fight! Fight! Fight! and Bog-luc shouts “Out you go! You settle this outside! No brawling indoors!”
The women goes out and down the stairs first after the loud crowd of dragon cultists. Celthor who were just coming back from the stables and had heard it all stands in her way. She screams to him “Move! Or I Kill you first!”. Celthor, who was given a magic ring from the loot of the demon under Brinewall Castle, a Ring of the Ram, calmly accepted her challenge. He decided to use all the available power in the ring as he is an archer, not a close combat fighter. He struck first, one single punch. The woman flew about 15 feet, landed dead on the ground. The cultists cheering suddenly ended and they all quickly went to their rooms, and so did the group.
The room was cold, so Ulfnaar slept with his helmet that kept him warm. The group had watch all night, they didn’t feel really safe. Ater’s cat is sent out to watch the strong room and late night, a few hours before sunrise, strange sounds were heard from the strong room.
Bog-luc is knocked on the door. Bog-luc, in a very bad mood opens the door and Celthor tells him “Someone is breaking in into the Strongroom” Bog-luc swears and brings his sword and set of keys and slowly walks down the staircase. When Bog-luc is finally there after a much noisy walk down the stairs, and opens the door to the Strongroom, nothing is there. Ater very discreetly places his cat there and loudly finds him. “Ooh poor kitty, have you been locked in here all alone, poor kitty”.
Bog-luc calls in the other guards, and the group is suddenly accused of being thieves, and are locked into their room, with order to leave in the morning as they are no longer wanted here. Ater’s cat is still around spying, and as soon as everything is quiet again, the noises starts in the Strongroom. In the morning, Adred is taking the caravan back south, and the group is let out from their room, and they ride south with the caravan, but only two miles, then they say farewell to Arded as they are going to find some job by themselves, and rides into the woods.
They start to scout the surroundings, looking for cave openings or something similar that could be used by the dragon cultists, but no luck. In the evening they set up a camp about half a mile from the bailey, and they take turns watching the place. Ater comes up with an idea, he uses powerful magic to disguise Merisiel as Bog-luc, and she is to sneak inside and pick the lock of the Strongroom. The rest of the plan is… yeah, the rest of the plan. What can go wrong with such a brilliant plan anyway?
This looks so good. Wow. I have read first page, but from then on mostly watched pictures only. I think I will need to try reading it again :)
Thanks!
We're finally on track with the game again, last session two weeks ago was cancelled due to the DM failing his Disease DC 5 roll. Next session this Sunday, so I will have more to report.
Caught up and looking forward to the next installment
Ulfnaar! Wakeup! It was Ameiko shaking Ulfnaar out of his dreams. He looked at Merisiel and said: - “But didn’t Ater just use magic to transform you into Bog-Luc?” Merisiel and Ameiko both laughed. Ameiko knocked on Ulfnaar’s almost empty keg, - “Drank too much? No, I let Merisiel try my hairpin of disguise, but she disliked the smell of Bog-Luc. Anyway we’re moving out soon. Spivvy will watch the horses. We’re going to take a look inside that strongroom tonight.”. Ulfnaar turned to the side and started to snore again.
In the middle of the dark night, the group moved down to the small wall surrounded hamlet. While they were discussion the best way to enter, suddenly they saw Merisiel on the stable roof. They followed and waited on the roof, while Merisiel silently slipped down and into the open storeroom outside the strongroom. She saw lights and heard sounds.
Ameiko and Ater crossed the roof of Gristly Pete’s tavern and slipped down while Ulfnaar took the safe way down, and almost tipped a pile of wood. Celthor was on the roof of the barrack building, and when Merisiel signalled him to move in, his jump down to the balcony on the first level wasn’t as silent as he had hoped for. A door opened, and it was Ardred, Celthor lifted his knockout hand, and signalled to Ardred to go back in again, and he did.
The group was gathered outside the door, and Merisiel picked the lock, and slowly opened the door. They were all ready, and Celthor had the rear guard, expecting Bog-Luc showing up any second.
Finally Merisiel opens the door. They were all ready, prepared, hearts pumping from the adrenaline. The room was dark and empty. Quickly they all snuck in and Merisiel carefully locked the door again from the inside, just in case.
The heroes searched the strongroom, there must be a way out from here, and soon they discovered a trapdoor hidden under an old crate. Ulfnaar opened it and they looked down. A ladder went down, deep down, at least 15 feet, and they smelled the damp air.
They went down, and into the small and narrow underground passage for about a hundred feet. The tunnel ended in the open, behind some bushes, in the swamp. They were silent as they heard noises. Ater pressed his palm to his forehead whispering: - “The swamp, the tunnel exited into the swamp, and we searched high and low everywhere around except the swamp, because who is stupid enough to build a tunnel into the swamp.”
Merisiel and Ameiko carefully crawled forward to get a better look on what was going on…
Lizardmen are loading crates and boxes onto large crude sledges, and set off into the swamp along a fairly well marked trail, as the trees have been painted with large yellow splashes of paint. The route as it disappears into the swamp seems to be easy to follow.
The group tracks the Lizardmen at a safe distance and after almost a day, they reach drier grounds again. Probably a resting place or a camp, they can smell the scent of grilled fish, and there is a visible column of smoke from the trees. The air has changed too. Even if they now have firm ground under their feet, the air is fresher, and they see open waters on the other side of this little hill.
Ater speaks with Merisiel and Celthor and tells them to take a better look. Ater says: “Merisiel, remember, looki-looki, no stabby-stabby OK?”
Merisiel sees four large canoes setting off on the lake, and two more on the beach, one is heavily loaded with crates. Six Lizardmen are in the process of loading it. Celthor hear one of them talk to his friend: - “The frogmen are always pushing us around. Always do this, do that, work-work-work, no rest, no pay, just yes master, yes master. I’m sick and tired of this!”
Suddenly the Lizardmen hear the group as they all come closer for a look. They start to move towards the bushes where the group hides, and Celthor stands up and begins to talk. One Lizardman says to his friends “Beware of the Dragon cultists, they have magic”, and Aters stands up saying: - “And we do to!” showing off show spectacular visual simple tricks.
To cut a long evening short, the group convinced the Lizardmen that they should take the group with them back to their camp, and the group will help them to rise up against their masters, the frogmen, who works for the dragon cultists. More of the plan will be ironed out during the journey across the lake. Ameiko and the leader for this group of Lizardmen named Snap Jaw, shook hands and we agreed to set off as soon as possible, the chests had to be unloaded first.
They loaded into the canoes and started to paddle across the lake. They agreed that the group should first break into the Castle Nerytar where the Dragon cultists lived, and find the armory and hand over as much steel as possible to the Lizardmen. When they arrived several hours later at the other end of the lake, they were met by some Lizardmen, and Snap Jaw explained that the group of adventurers were friends that were going to help them to be free. The Lizardmen told the Ater and Ameiko that the Frogmen have blowpipes with poisonous arrows and magic.
The group scouted the castle with Snap jaw as guide, and was told that the mound was protected by crocodiles. The group decided to enter through a tower on the back, and Ameiko played in the with a stick to keep the crocs attention away and then when everyone was safely over she dashed and jumped. Merisiel climbed first to a window one story up. The tower smelled, and smelled really bad. It was used as the latrine, and the first 5 feet was just dung, smelly dung. Well inside Merisiel carefully, with her Rapier ready, scouted the staircase. There were only remains of the floor levels except from at the top, where they saw an intact floor.
Suddenly the dung started to move and a huge Otyugh came out of the dung. Ulfnaar rushed down the staircase to attack it but the swift return from the Otyugh was brutal. Ulfnaar had tentacles wrapped around his unconscious body and the Otyugh slowly dragged him down under the dung.
:) Great, I started to miss those adventures. Very nicely done, hoping to see more.
Glad you like it!
We had a little break in playing so I hadn't much to say, but more is coming, next session on Saturday (which mean a saturday game that brings Whiskey and Beer to the gametable, so my notes are rather scribbly at the end, lol.
Merisiel Jumps onto the Otyugh with both her knives drawn, trying to kill it before it sinks down into the dung. Celthor shots his deadly arrows and finally kills it. Together Celthor and Merisiel pulls Ulfnaar out of the dung, he smells really bad. The group rests and Celthor gives healing to Ulfnaar, and Ameiko hands over one of her potions to him, and suddenly he feels better again, ready to continue.
The way across from the staircase to the next staircase, goes via a thin wooden beam, the only remains of the floor. They all gallantly walks the beam, except Ulfnaar, whose armor is getting rather sticky from the dung, and he takes a bad step, and falls down in the dung, again. This time he crawls up himself as he is not injured, the dung was very soft and comfortable to land in. The second time he successfully crosses the beam. Ameiko and Celthor hold fingers over their noses and are making faces to tease Ulfnaar.
From this floor they are finally at their intended goal, a small trapdoor at the end of staircase. Ater opens the trapdoor and peeks in. He sees three old and dusty skeletons in a small round room, and several piles of books and scrolls. Ater, who lives to collect knowledge jumps into the room to look at the books and scrolls. Suddenly the dust in the room starts to move, and form shapes, shapes of humans….
Suddenly, Ater was surrounded by Spectres, six soul-thirsty Spectres, eager to take his soul and turn Ater into one of them. They were three at first, but over the years, nosy visitors were turned into Spectres to join their little pack.
Ater tried as fast as he could to escape this situation, but the Spectres touch him over and over, sucking his life energy away. Cethor uses his Ring of the Ram to kill one and open a way out for Ater. Ater finally came out, and Celthor, Ulfnaar, Ameiko and Merisiel could get in and give the Spectres a real fight. Ater was weak and pale, feeling half dead, as his life force had been almost been sucked out of him. Ater shoots a few Magic Missiles at the Spectres, and Ulfnaar slays one with his weapons, watching the weapons tear the misty apparition apart, seeing the mists not being able to hold together, and the Spectre screaming in agony when its soul was sent back to where it belongs.
Ameiko gracefully dodges an attack from a Spectre then she and Ulfnaar kills it together, they make a high five and continue to fight the remaining foes. Spectres are powerful enemies and the fight is i any way over yet.
The battle raged on, and Ater kept shooting his magic missiles and Celthor kept shooting his bow. Finally Ameiko downed the last Spectre with her Kusigama, the ball and chain ripping through the misty figure and it screamed when the mist settled.
This was a tough fight, and Ater was very shaken. He walked and stood beside Ulfnaar, all pale and shaken, and Ater said quietly to himself: - “It’s a good thing Ulfnaar really smells like manure, or the others would realize how really scared I was in there.”
It looks great :) I tried to illustrate adventures of my group but I doubt I could do it very good at this level of knowledge, but will try to improve and maybe try again...
The biggest challenge is that we always end up in strange places so I have to improvise a lot and I try to not use the same places over and over... and that some stuff just doesn't render well enough or is incompatible (Like Hybrid Grunge on Ulfnaar above), that doesn't work on any Iray surface in weighted mode.
:) Yes, well You are probably right, I am hoping that I might catch up with art like this too. It really looks good.
After the fight with the Spectres, the group, or at least some of them, needs to rest a little to catch breath. Ulfnaar climbs down the tower to the moat with a bucket and gets some water to wash himself, at least the worst of the stench. And he wasn’t attacked by any gigantic crocodiles.
Merisiel, who is a restless soul decides to climb out to scout the area while Ulfnaar washes himself. Ameiko and Ater decided they had to risk taking the Amatatsu Sigil out in the open to to let Ameiko restore Ater’s life energy with it. When she holds it in her hands, her eyes rotates into her skull, and she starts to speak is the voice of an old woman, in Cho, her native language. Everyone is a little startled by that, but after a few minutes, Ater regains his normal skin color. He sits down in a corner to meditate, to memorize some magic spells. After some time, Merisiel returns and shows a crude map she’s drawn on a parchment with a piece of coal. It’s good enough to plan the next move.
Merisiel has identified a building where she has seen Frogmen, and one where she’s seen Lizardmen. The group decides to first move against the Frogmen, so they all climb out in the wall where the once wooden laid walkway now has turned into soil. Carefully they moved, and Amieko snuck down and found a stable with gigantic lizards beasts, probably mounts of some sort. The question is, do they belong to the Lizardmen or the Frogmen?
When she was feeling ready for the rest of the group to carefully sneak down from the roof of what seems to be a stable, she made a sound, “Kah-Kah!”. Ulfnaar thought that was the signal to attack, and was just about to slide down over the shingles when Ater stopped him: - “Not so fast young man!”.
They climbed down and went through the stables, where the Lizard riding beasts were kept, and up to the loft, where they found a door. Merisiel opened it and jumped in. The room was a total mess, dirt and filth everywhere, and piles of sleeping frogmen on the floor. Two guards were walking around, but they never understood what happened. Both Celthor, Ameiko and Ulfnaar was hesitating, we cannot attack sleeping frogmen, they haven’t done us any harm, we don’t know if they are evil, or if Snap jaw just tricked us. Merisiel, who is a lady without any moral compass, attacked and soon the group was attacked by frogmen. It was a quick fight, and they killed the leader who had a mask, and tossed out 13 spears to Snap Jaw and showed him the mask from the frogmen leader.
They continued and found a forge, recently operated, and a group of Lizard men. Ater stopped Merisiel from attacking, and told them to take their mounts and meet with their kin. He also asked what lived on the top floor of this tower. The Lizardmen replied “Manylegs lives there.” Ah, spiders Ater said.
They looked around, and Merisiel said to Ater: “Ater, you always say that knowledge is power. Why don’t we all get really powerful and investigate what’s in the forbidden tower in the center with a metal roof?”
The group decided to try to reach it, but they had to cross one of the inner walls, where Merisiel had spotted Drakes before. They opened a gate, and a Drake attacked them before Ater managed to close the door Merisiel had opened. And then two more Drakes arrived from another way. The battle was fierce as the Drakes had come from the rear and attacked Ater, but they won, quickly entered another building, some kind of hallway. They saw pile after pile with chests.
@Valandar: See, I found use for them direct - have you been reading my Ulfnaar notes?
The group started to look at the chest, while Ulfnaar was watching the end of the corridor. Suddenly he saw a short little figure coming. He hushed the others, and then the figure came a little closer he stepped out and said: “You there, sit down, don’t move, and don’t make a sound”. The short fellow was a dwarf, and his name was Tharmod, and he worked as a cook at the castle. Ulfnaar asked him: “How many servings do you cook for each meal?”, and the cook replied about 20. Good, we have about 20 Dragon cultists here then Ulfnaar said.
He tells Ulfnaar that he saw a note that someone wanted to hire a cook and he took the job. He has been here somewhere between two and three moons. Rezmir and Dralmorren Borninggrey, the elf is here. Rezmir lives in the big tower. Dralmorren and a guest lives in the central tower with a guest. The guest is no one else than Ashbara Jos, which made Ater raise a brow. We told the cook to keep quiet and go back to his room. This is none of his business, and as he is an innocent bystander, he should keep out of the way when it starts to heat up, as it will do.
The group decided to attack the central tower, but the discussion was long and rather heated, but Ater’s argument that no one wants a Red Wizard running around without knowing where he is was the winning one. Better to go for the person whose loyalties are uncertain, than to force him to become a sworn enemy by attacking his hosts.
Merisiel and Ameiko went first with Ulfnaar right behind. As a gentleman, he always honored ladies first. Behind the big door lied a grand hallway, and several doors. The was light coming out from under one of the doors, and a shadow was seen moving. Merisiel slowly and carefully opened the door, but it made a soft sound, enough for the character inside to react. Merisiel was even faster, she jumped in with her rapier and said “Move and you die!”. It was Azbara Jos, and he said “I was expecting you, come in, have some hot wine”. He talks and the other moves into the room, but suddenly he picks something up from his sleeve, and the room instantly is filled with a thick fog.
That all just looks great, I think I will have to read it all once more time.
Thanks - I got a knit pick from DM on Azbara Jos (spelling too), now trying to make him look as he should, gonna update the render if and when I get it.
The fog was dense in the room, and a rattling noise came from the back room, where some skeletons were standing along the walls. Merisiel instantly threw two knives where Azbara Jos sat, without seeing anything, just a blind throw.
Ameiko started to spin the ball of her magic Kusigama over her head, and an Air Elemental appeared, and it started to spin like a vortex, slowly sucking away the fog. It moved into the back room and you could hear the sound of bones rattling against the walls.
Ulfnaar rushed into the back room while Celthor and Ater stood ready for action. Ulfnaar just missed the door post with a hair, he didn’t think about such things, he just rushed blindly into the fog, remembering the door post at the last fraction of a second and corrected his bearing, being a former sailor, he still used nautical terms.
Ulfnaar together with Ameiko’s Air Elemental slays the remaining skeletons, and the fog lifts from the room. Ulfnaar now sees the Air Elemental as is a little startled. Two things are obvious to the group, two knives are deeply buried in the chair Azbara Jos recently sat in, but he is missing, and so is Ater. Suddenly the door the the room opens and Ater enters…
I think this is a great idea that you have here, and respect for the amount of work you've put in. I've only just started the story, so I can't offer you any encouragement there yet, but have you considered putting this up on Amazon or wattpad?
The story is really what happens when we play a Dungeon & Dragons campaign which is a mix of four different ready made adventures from two different settings, all perfectly put together by our Dungeonmaster. I'm merely the Bard, telling the tale.