11/23 Holiday

Next week is Thanksgiving, so there will be no game next Wednesday night. This brings up the topic of holiday scheduling. Not only will people have lots of holiday things to do in the upcoming six weeks, but Matt's wife will also be giving birth in about three. So we may be short a few players on several occasions. But I can probably come up with encounters with gith, dragons, vampires, and various other creatures between now and the new year. And if people don't feel like D&Ding, there are beaucoup other games to be played. We'll chat more about it later, I'm sure.

11/16 session recap

The party rested for an evening in a magical house conjured by Rockaneeshoo. Ooglock was still feeling poorly, as were most of the party, so they rested for most of the day as well. During the day, a small group of humans approached the party's house. They wore simple clothes and linen cloaks. Siala, disquised as a halfling, went out to speak with them. They asked if she needed assistance, and she said that no, she was a ranger who was merely reveling in the vast wilderness. They said that they were followers of Taphallam, and were heading back to their monastery in the nearby town. They said that perhaps they would see her when she stopped in for supplies, and that she was welcome to visit their temple.

Urgmob spent the day hunting for food and ignoring Ooglock, and finally came back with a large fox-like creature for dinner. Hrir finally felt well enough, and spoke a holy word of recall to transport the party back to Oriv. Upon arrival, the party asked Enli what he knew of Rhin's condition. Enli said to put him in the temple until he got better in a week or two. When asked about the possibility of Rhin posessing another body, living or dead, Enli said that wouldn't happen unless someone actually wore the phylactery for a significant amount of time. He also speculated that anyone who did such a thing would end up insane. Insane and with the powers of a liche.

The party then geared up again, and headed back to Mugron. The city had an eerie quiet about it, and only an occasional humanoid peeked from doorway or window. Siala noticed that one of the humanoids was gith. The party stopped and sent Ooglock forward to "negotiate" with the gith. Speaking in orc while drawing his axe, Ooglock approached and said that he wanted to speak. The gith in turn drew his sword and spit acid at Ooglock. Ooglock attacked, and the gith telekinetically threw Ooglock all the way back to the party. When they looked again, the gith had disappeared back into the dwelling.

Contacting Skoluk, the party found that he was still alive and holed up in an inn in the common section of town. Rockaneeshoo cast a spell to locate Skoluk more accurately, and Siala snuck in to the place to get them to remove the barricade in front of the door. The orcs let the party in, and Skoluk asked what kind of horror they had unleashed on the city. Apparently several hours after the party had gone into the third noble house, gith had poured out and slaughtered many orcs. A house to house battle had taken shape, and now pockets of orcs were holed up in various places, as were the gith.

Curious as ever, the party went back to the last noble house they had visited. Siala and Urgmob tiptoed in, invisibly, and encountered a gith guard in the corridor. He heard them, and then was able to see them. He spoke briefly with Siala, and when offered an alliance, he said that wasn't possible, and that they must fight. A combat developed and was quickly ended, with the gith dead, and Siala and Urgmob nearly untouched. The party decided to regroup before heading in...

11/9 session recap

The party was faced with a dozen Gith from the astral plane. Rockaneeshoo sized up the situation, found that he had exhausted his high-level magical spells, and fainted dead away. Ooglock didn't wait for instructions and charged into a group of four Gith. Thus the battle began.

Urgmob unleashed his usual barrage of arrows, Hrir buffed himself and readied his axe, and Rhin stepped forward and attempted to magically command the Gith. They appeared unaffected, and Siala cast an entagle spell at their feet.

Four Gith stepped gracefully from the entanglement and tried to beat down Rhin with their swords. The remaining Gith stepped easily aside as well, drew a deep breath, and spat acid upon Hrir and Urgmob. Siala dodged the acid and magically confused an attacker, causing him to babble incoherently for a few seconds. Rhin unleashed unholy energy upon his attackers, wounding most of them horribly, while Hrir hacked at the nearest one, and Urgmob fired more arrows. None of Urgmob's spells seemed to affect their targets, including a grease spell fired at their feet.

Rhin retreated just a bit towards Urgmob, and Hrir stepped in to take his place. A humming sound filled the vicinity as four Gith surrounded Hrir and raised their swords. The blades slashed downward, and Hrir was hit through his armor. More attacked Siala in the same way, and the others breathed acid upon Rhin. The party felled two Gith, but the rest were still attacking. Siala also found that her attackers could see her even when invisible.

Siala finished off one with a flanking attack and a vampiric touch, and Hrir hacked down another one. One of Urgmob's target's collapsed with an arrow through his side, and Siala killed another one. The ones attacking Siala and Rhin in melee realized that they were not doing any damage, and fell back to spit more acid. Siala deftly evaded the spittle, but Rhin was melted on the spot. He crumpled to the ground, a mere pile of goo and equipment.

One of the Gith seized the opportunity and leapt upon Rhin's gear, disappearing as he did so. Most of the bulky items disappeared with him, but smaller items remained behind, including the adamantine bracer. The remaining Gith fought and breathed more acid, nearly melting Hrir into a dwarven puddle. Siala and Urgmob felled their opponents, and Hrir stepped back to heal himself. The lone remaining Gith took a step back and said something in a strange language that only Siala could understand. He then stepped into a a silvery grey portal and disappeared. But instead of winking out of existence, the portal remained hanging in the air.

Ooglock returned badly wounded from his fight, but he had managed to kill all four opponents by himself. As the party gathered equipment, everyone noticed a slight breeze heading into the open portal. Hrir was still winded from his encounter with the vampires, and said that he was unable to return them to Oriv through the power of Tulgus. Urgmob suggested that if the party merely walked due south, they'd come across Oriv in just a few days. No one believed him. So a makeshift camp was set up, and the party settled in for the night.

As a final note : All of Rhin's equipment was put into the rug of holding. The party expects he'll be wanting it all back relatively soon.

11/2 session recap

Rhin protected Ooglock with a spell to ward against further vampiric draining, and the party pressed deeper into the lair. Rockaneeshoo cast a spell to allow him to track vampires, and the party followed them into a chamber filled with mist. After speculating about the nature of the mist, theories were laid to rest when six vampire orcs formed out of the mist, and started attacking. Ooglock and Hrir became weak under the influence of a couple of spells, and Urgmob nearly had his collarbone broken in two places as a vampire pounced upon him.

Urgmob fired arrow after arrow imbued with scorching ray at his target, but wasn't having much effect. Ooglock slammed into one and started hacking on it with his reduced strength. It retaliated by casting a few spells, and it eventually dispelled Ooglock's death ward. Ooglock then took another hit from an enervation ray, dropping him to nearly half of his original vigor. Rockaneeshoo immediately made mirror images of himself, and was quickly hit with magic missiles to reduce that number. One of the vampires responded with his own mirror images and attacked Hrir. Hrir waded back to assist Urgmob, and tripped his foe. The vampire faded into mist upon contact with the ground, however, and merely re-formed on the next round to attack again.

Rockaneeshoo disintegrated one vamp with a green ray, and imprisoned another against the edge of the chamber with a conjured wall of iron. The entire time, Rhin was casting positive energy spells to heal the party and simultaneously hurt the orc vamps. Their skin boiled off, leaving angry, blackish-red meat beneath. But the vampires weren't defeated yet.

Rhin finally went over and cast a Heal spell on a troublesome vamp, turning it instantly into a red mist. Ooglock finished off his opponent, and the one that Hrir kept tripping finally stayed in mist form. The one that Rockaneeshoo had imprisoned freed himself and appeared behind Rockaneeshoo, hissing threats. The threats were hollow, however, as none of the attacks hit, and Rockaneeshoo escaped unharmed. A final beam found it's mark on Rock, however, and he lost a few levels to enervation before the party surrounded and beat down the last vampire.

Standing in a room filled with the mist form of vampires, Rockaneeshoo immediately started casting walls of stone and iron to cover all three entrances. This trapped the vampire mist inside, but also trapped Hrir outside. To remedy this, Rockaneeshoo dimension door'd outside the chamber, grabbed Hrir, and dimension door'd right back into the chamber. As they stepped through the dimensional rip, it grew wider and wider. The room dissolved around the party, immersing them in a silvery grey haze with no gravity and no obvious source of light. The vampire mist slowly started to disperse, and the party noticed a group of Gith skirmishing only about 60 feet away. Fearing the worst, Rockaneeshoo Wished that the party was back on it's home plane. Almost instantly, the party appeared upon a sandy hilltop near sunset. The vampire mists were still there, but almost immediately dissapated in the natural sunlight. The Gith were also still with the party, and they readied their weapons for combat...

10/26 session recap (no xp yet)

Rhin and Urgmob cleaned up the rug of holding, clearing the remains of their late orc follower. The party then teleported to the desert using the teleportation circle. The then flew and rode phantom steeds to the city of Mugron, and contacted Captain Skoluk before they arrived. He met them at the gate and let them into the city. All of the party were disguised as orcs, except for hrir, who just drew angry glares.

Skoluk took the party to an inn and explained that of the nine original orc clans, only eight remained. All of the nobles had retreated from the public eye, except for two families. Skoluk also said that some of the troops he had known before seemed more obedient, more fanatical towards their clans than he'd known them to be before.

The party told Skoluk to gather his troops outside one of the two nobles who had been seen recently. When this happened, the party stormed the roof of the compound using magic flight and dropped down into a courtyard. They slew a few guards on the way to the noble's living quarters, and then decapitated all four of them, including two helpless women. They fought through some more guards until it became clear the nobles had fallen, and then the troops stopped fighting. Ooglock emerged from the compound with two severed heads and said, "All hail Skoluk!"

While the orcs were regrouping, the party assaulted the second noble house. Resistance was tougher, but not enough to keep the nobles safe. All six were slain.

Since things were going so well, the party pushed on to the third compound. They encountered stiff resistance from the guards, and none of them backed down like in the previous compounds. The sleeping quarters of the nobles were unoccupied, and there was nowhere left to search except for a passageway leading deep into the cliff walls. The air turned cool and moist, and mist swirled in the halls. Siala discovered a pit trap and disabled it. Then, as the party split at a T-intersection, they were attacked from both sides. Orcs with large fangs and pale skin attacked without weapons, and Ooglock was battered by their cold, unyielding fists. He cut down a few, and they disintegrated into mist. Hrir was undamaged by his attackers. Tripping them, he then hewed into them with his axe until they too disintegrated into mist. Siala turned into a dragon, blocking the passage somewhat, but Rhin made it foward enough to announce that these were not orcs, but vampires. Ooglock swayed a bit, but said he was alright. The party pushed on deeper into the orc/vampire lair...