Below the Ice in Forgotten Lands (part II)

Holed up and healing their wounds, the party discovered that the health of at least a couple of members (Fil and Panope) had suffered permanent damage to their constitutions. While discussing what to do next, they suddenly noticed a faint light trailing through the ruins and making its way toward their hidey-hole. In a few short moments, they were face to face with a young human woman dressed in wizard robes and leaning on a rather potent-looking magic staff.

Elazti the Magic-User, as envisioned
by Aisha and drawn by Amanda.

A master of levitation, lightning, scrying, and fire, Elazti (new player Aisha!) had come to the Frozen City alone to investigate stories that the ruins contained long-lost artifacts, lore, and magical knowledge. A gentle soul, the sorceress agreed to travel with the party (safety in numbers!) for as long as it suited her.

Over the next day, the party covered a large swath of the abandoned city, encountering and/or (thanks to Elazti's crystal ball) spying out:

• A pen of albino apes who had been enslaved by the Morlocks. The beasts were soon set free by Fil and Elazti, while Indis created another illusion of the Morlocks' six-legged dragon god to befuddle and frighten the ape-handlers.
• A trio of ice trolls in a rough-built tower, ready to pounce on or icicle-skewer any who traveled beneath it. (The party wisely gave the trolls a wide berth.)
• Charred skeletons who rose up from thick, ancient ash that covered one whole block of the city. Beneath the dust of aeons and bones, the heroes eventually found a few magical trinkets.



The spire inside the dome (or something not unlike it).

• The cracked remains of a great stone dome which seemed to be filled with tall, metallic boxes covered in jewels and levers. At the center of the dome was a round, cavernous chamber with a tall spire in the middle. The spire had been cracked and some kind of fire had apparently blasted out of it in the distant past. Smoke and an orange glow still emanated from deep within.  Wrapped around the spire, apparently asleep, was the Morlocks' dragon god itself.

Leery of engaging a possible deity (or even just a typical dragon), the party decided that they had had enough of the Frozen City.  Besides, they had already found more silver than they could easily carry (~600 pounds of coins).  They quietly made their way back toward the entrance Elazti had first used, where three small streams cut through the ice and ran to the outside of the glacier.

Afraid to disturb the water too much, Fil ingested Indis's polymorph potion and transformed into a giant eagle. In his new form, he was able to carry (with a few trips), the party members and their treasure to the exit.  After a treacherous trip down what was essentially an icy waterslide, the party emerged at the base of the glacier, which was, itself, perched on the edge of a tall mountain-cliff.  After countless days underground, even the gray late-winter sun of the frozen north woods seemed blinding.

In the Service of the White Queen

I woke up this morning with an apparently severe case of polyhedritis, possibly brought on by a flailsnail bite in the night.  And so, bereft of my usual gaming crew (they all have lives, apparently;  how dumb), I decided to run my first-ever online game via Google+.  While I need to process what worked and what didn't a little bit more, I can easily say that it was a fun evening and a very good substitute for the "real thing" of running a tabletop game.  Definitely looking forward to doing it again.

Synopsis
Four adventurers walk into a bar.  Trite, right?  Here's the thing--I was adapting to the format and technology, so I kept everything about the adventure as comfortable as possible so that my brain had some extra processing power.

Anyway...

We started everyone at 3rd level.

• +Charles W played Orias the Toad, a Curmudgeon.  
• +Chris Hales played Nack the Monk (brought in via FLAILSNAILS convention).
• +Gabriel Perez Gallardi played Brom the Ranger (another FLAILSNAILer).
• +Nathan Black played Henry the Fighter.
• And Tania (wife of Nathan) would have been Wanda the Thief but she wasn't able to play after all.  (Maybe next time?)

Scene:  The Wilderland Inn, a cold night just after New Year's Day.

The door of the inn flies open and a man wrapped in a weather-beaten cloak and carrying a sheathed sword in one hand stumbles inside.  A massive gash on his forehead gushes blood.  He slumps into the nearest booth and proceeds to pass out and bleed all over the floor and furniture.  While Nack the Monk is tending to the man's wounds, Orias keeps an eye out for suspicious characters and Brom and Henry run outside to see if the man's assailants can be found.  They see a couple of cloaked figures run off into the woods at the edge of the courtyard and give chase.

Meanwhile, Nack and Orias determine that the man (whose name we later learn is Aden) has actually been poisoned and is delirious as well as being almost out of blood.  A doctor is called for and Nack manages to secret away Aden's sword when his poison-fueled ramblings reveal that it is valuable and sought-after by the "Frost Witch".  More wrestling and shenanigans ensue when a dwarf from the tavern feeds Aden some Ouskae that sends him almost literally through the roof.  Eventually, Nack punches the poor guy in the back of the head as he's trying to run back outside, knocking him out on the Inn's front step.  With Aden unconscious, the Monk and Curmudgeon head outside and hear chaos in the woods.  At this point, Nack straps on the sword-belt and instantly becomes impervious to the winter cold.  Curious.

The woods lead to a ravine with a shallow creek running through it.  In the moonlight, we find Brom and Henry going head-to-head with a pair of goblin assassins and their warg steeds.  Nack and Orias join the fray, and eventually one of the goblins and both wargs are dispatched.  The second goblin-- whose name is really Skweek but who quickly earns the moniker "Gollum" for his whining and fightiness--is taken prisoner, tied up, and secreted back to Nack's room at the Inn.  (The party wanted to collect the warg hides but beat a fast retreat when additional howls make them suspect that reinforcements are on the way.)

Back at the Inn, the doctor heals up everybody (including Aden), and sleep, breakfast, and rumor-mongering is had.  Local gossip says a witch has taken up residence in an abandoned keep a few days southeast of the Inn.  Aden tries to find out what happened to his sword but Nack refuses to give any clues and then buys up all of the extra horses so no one (especially Aden) can follow the party on the next phase of their plan, which becomes... give the sword back to the goblin-employing witch and see if they can get a reward?  (Ah, sandbox games... you just never know what's gonna happen, do you?)

The party and their six extra horses take to the road and then, after a day or so, take to the woods when it looks like brigands are causing trouble on the road.  There's some mucking about in the forest--including a flyby by a youngish white dragon--before they finally make it to the ruined keep.  Just like the word on the street said, the keep is now occupied, staffed mostly by armed and cruel goblins.

Givre, the White Queen

After some wrangling with guards, Orias and Henry wait outside with the horses and weapons while Nack and Brom go in to meet the mistress of the castle.  They are led into a large-but-bare banquet hall and are soon joined by Givre, a 7' tall sorceress with pale, frost-tinged skin and a stunningly regal bearing.  She holds out her hand and... they give her the sword!  In exchange, she offers them employment (that thief Aden must die, she says) and a pair of magical silver daggers with sapphire-encrusted scabbards*.

And that's where we left off.  What happens next?  I don't think anyone knows!

---

*Winter Knives:  +2 cold resistance when the scabbard is worn. +1 to hit and damage.  Add 1d4 cold damage to a successful attack.

Ichor of Thrael

And wenn this philtre hath brewed,

Steeped it should be beneathe the new Moon,

Infused with the Darke Lyght,

So the will of thy slave 

Be totally consumed.

The Ichor of Thrael is an age-old tool of witches and slavers.  A closely-guarded secret, its ingredients are rumored to include the blood of a vampire's enslaved minions, the fruit of the moonflower, and water from the deepest and coldest wells.  The brew is then left under the light of the new moon and enchanted with various incantations.

When fed to a victim, the Ichor strips him of all free will and ambition and places him in the power and service of the brewer (save vs. spells to avoid).  Those under the enchantment of the philter essentially become mindless automatons, pawns in the service of another.  They may fight, speak (albeit slowly and sometime with difficulty), and complete relatively basic tasks but they lack any desire or ability to act on behalf of themselves.  When under the influence of the Ichor, victims are obviously "not themselves."  Their eyes have a vacant, glassy stare, their voices are monotone, and their actions--while functional--are without grace or style.

The effects of the Ichor last 24 hours per dose (about half a cup of liquid).  As the dose wears off, the victim first becomes ravenously hungry and may act like a panicked animal as their instincts return.  After an hour or so of panic and hunger, they fall into a deep, coma-like sleep for at least eight hours.  Once awakened, victims remember nothing of their actions or encounters while under the potion's hold.