It had been two weeks since I had last run the Friday night game, Sam had filled in last week, setting up a story arc where the player characters had a mission to go get the heart of a black slaad in order to for the wizard Lan to complete a ritual to retrieve the soul of former team mate, Cobalt Greymind.. from what he said and the feedback from the rest of the group, he did a great job.
Returning to Silverymoon for a few days of R&R and shopping, the players decided to put some long term goals into motion, so Gyrax Starscream the Genasi warrior thought that buying a plot of land in the city and building a place where all the Genasi could live and feel at home would be great.. it so happened that there was lots of cheap land, due to the spell plague demolishing some of the magical libraries and institutions, and the lingering magical contamination left the land drastically reduced in demand (and value).. he has purchased a large chunk of city property for the paltry sum of 80,000 gold, and contracted a local Earth Genasi artisan and elementalist to construct the land and building complex for 250,000 gold.
Of course, it is a golden opportunity for me to make this the seed of a couple of adventures.
The Ranger/Rogue, Arno, has decided that he wants to build an Ophanage for the city rascals, to get them off the streets and teach them some skills.. he has, interestingly, heavily involved the local dominant church and it's impressive militia of Paladins, who are only too happy to have so many young minds and souls to guide to a lifetime of rightious service.
Don is very tempted by the lure of the new Psion class, and I am certainly not discouraging him from giving it a whirl.. as I said to him "Hey man, I am all about trying out the new stuff!".
However, he is quite fond of his Warden and wants to stick with it.
I like Wardens, they are quite a challenge for a DM, and having another player who has a multiclass Shaman/Druid? Yes, very challenging indeed!
Anyway, things could not stay calm and peacefull for long, and pretty soon, evil was afoot.
Looking through the Forgotten Realms guide, I saw that it was time to change the season to Spring, so I invented the Blossum Festival and had the elves of the city (along with many drunken revellers) march in a magical parade out to the White Lotus Academy (which is far more impressive in my campaign than the little compound seen in Dragon magazine), playing flutes and harps and singing elven song enchantments that caused the wilderness around them to burst into bloom.
As they got to the academy, the expected welcoming display of pyrotechnics and symbolic rain of white lotus blossums, failed to eventuate.. in fact, the academy was forboding and silent.
Something was wrong!
And of course, it was up to the players to investigate.
Approaching the walls of the academy, they spotted some Flameskulls floating along the crenelated tops, some 30 feet in the air, and decided to try getting some answers from them.. this did not go so well, with the Skulls basically telling the snivelling mortals that they were not to try and enter or bad things would ensue.
Meanwhile, the Ro- uh.. the Ranger decided to scale the wall, sneak a look into the academy and find out what other ways in there were..
He did see that there was a circit patrol of Rock Elementals, who were marching through a series of magical circles which made odd noises.. rising in pitch until an elemental passed through, which seemed to reset the tone, which started to rise again.
The players immediately realised that delaying the Elementals would set off some sort of effect from the circles, and gave me filty looks of respect for my cunning deviousness.
The Ranger Arno decided on a more direct approach, and cut the heavy rope which supported the drawbridge style main gate, unwittingly dropping it right on top of the Dwarven warden.. Don took it with good humor, of course, but I thought it was hilarious.
Another case of "When good stealth goes wrong".
The players charged in, the Skulls took up good positions from 30 ft up, and battle was done.. unfortunately, the skulls had no idea there was a deadly ranger on a level with them up on top of the wall, but, they gave the players a good fight before they met their doom.
Next, the players raced across the open ground beyond the gateway, and managed to scale a magical rope to an open landing up a wall before more Flameskulls or the patrolling Elementals arrived.. it was a close call with the defender Gyrax however, who just managed to avoid getting into a fight with the elemental.
I managed to build a bit of urgency and tension in the game by telling the players at each stage, how many rounds they had before the next lot of bad guys would arrive, and I kept this up the entire way through the game, so they were going from encounter to encounter, but only slipped out of round by round action a couple of times the entire way through the adventure.
At first, it was Avoid the Elemental Patrol, then it was Get inside before the Flameskulls Arrive, followed by, Something is Crawling up out of The Pit of Shadows... you get the idea.
A lot happened in this game, but for the players, it was like one big skirmish and race to rescue to hostages.. exactly what I had in mind.
Inside the complex, they investigates a few hexagonal rooms.. one had a Pit, the other had a Summoning circle. and there was a hallway that looked like an obvious trap.. each doorway was activated by a password, and the main door into the complex was trapped with a lighting bolt that hit anyone who touched it.. tricky when trying to keep the thing closed from the inside as Flameskulls try to get in.
What followed was an amusing pot shot battle with undead who were crawling up the pit shaft out of a portal to the Shadowfell down below.. which at one point, the Shaman/Druid fell into..
There was also the arrival of a summoner bad guy and his two undead goons, who put up quite a fight, but in the end, the players managed to win the day and rescue a bunch of hostage wizards, escaping magically back to Silverymoon.
But, they still have no idea who or what has taken over the Academy, other than an idea that it started at the abandoned Halls of Necromancy.
We shall see how things evolve next week...
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