New party formed

Sir Ivan, an Exorcist of the Silver Flame from Breland or Thrane, received orders from his superiors that took him to Graywall. The retired cleric Ellemar had received a vision of a giant mind flayer setting himself up as a god of Graywall. Sir Ivan's superior, the Archbishop of Wroat, decided that this would be a Bad Thing, and sent Sir Ivan to deal with the problem. Travelling with him was Horgar Horgar, a bugbear fighter employed by the church.

Ellemar had said that she believed a wizard was living in Graywall who had encountered this particular mind flayer. Sir Ivan and Horgar found the house of Tharrad Katarn and after a tense stand-off decided not to kill him for being part devil when he introduced them to Verschoyle. Horgar enjoyed Tharrad Katarn's wine and appeared to be warming to him, but Sir Ivan did not let his guard down.

Verschoyle agreed to help defeat the mind flayer, and suggested that they go to Castle Granis and recruit the help of Grim as well. Verschoyle, Horgar, Sir Ivan, Zurga and Primrose the Flesh Golem all travelled on horseback to Castle Granis.

Sir Ivan has received a very cool reception throughout Droaam due to his insistence of wearing the symbols of the hated Church of the Silver Flame. However, his charisma has managed to convince some of the goblins of Castle Granis that the Church may not be all that bad. Zurga, in particular, now has a much more open mind regarding religion.

Rather than travelling to the Temple of Zilkloog straight away, the party decided to go to the Val'druusk observatory in order to scry on their enemy first. There they found Zumm next to the scrying orb, apparently in some kind of suspended animation. The party defeated a random spirit naga that had made its lair in the observatory, and scried on Zilkloog's temple. They found it to be inhabited by a band of gnolls: ten in total, including the captain. There was also a young goblin who seemed to be training and Zilkloog's new priest. Verschoyle scried on every temple room that he had seen previously, but did not see Zilkloog himself.

At the end of the session, Verschoyle teleported the party to a safe area near the Temple of Zilkloog where they can rest. Because of the limits to his teleportation, he has brought only himself, Grim, Horgar and Sir Ivan. Hurgadar, Zurga and Primrose are all still at Castle Granis.

The party breaks up in the Temple of Zilkloog

Irreconcilable alignment differences finally caused the party to break up while they were exploring the Temple of Zilkloog. Grim opened the door to Zilkloog's chamber to reveal a huge nine-foot-tall mind flayer, Zilkloog. Zilkloog thanked Mavik for bringing him a tasty adventuring party to eat. This prompted Verschoyle to attack Mavik, and when Mavik protected himself, Verschoyle teleported away. Mavik, meanwhile, found his familiar and left. Paik explored the temple (apart from Zilkloog's lair) but didn't find any loot and decided not to rescue the prisoner he found. (She will presumably have been eaten by the time of the next adventure, so I hope Paik has that on his conscience.)

The campaign in its current form has basically come to a halt. The plan is to continue in the same setting but with partially new characters who will get on with each other better. Verschoyle and Paik (the non-evil characters) will stay, and will be joined by new characters being created by Henrique and Imre. I will arrange for the adventure to take place within Grim's territory, so that he can join the party or govern his kingdom depending on whether Greg can make it.

Unless Henrique and Imre would like to say otherwise, I will rule that Mavik has gone to live with Vurdak Deathlord to study necromantic magic, and Zumm has taken to wandering the wilderness meditating on his religion.

So now we have:

Matt: Verschoyle, human wizard 9/human paragon 1, Neutral Good
Tom: Paik, changeling bard 9, Chaotic Neutral (I think)
Henrique: Horgar Horgar, bugbear fighter 6, Chaotic Good
Imre: (name and species to be decided), paladin 5/Exorcist of the Silver Flame 5, Lawful Good
Greg: Grim, warforged fighter 6/Warforged Juggernaut 4, Chaotic Neutral

It looks like the party's alignment averages out at chaotic good and there's nothing that will tear the party apart. My initial idea for a plot is for each character to receive a vision from Jubarex of the Trumpet, the good outsider that Verschoyle, Grim and Paik have already encountered, and sent on a mission in the caves beneath the Tomb of Dragith Nurn.

Also, Zilkloog still wants to eat your brains. He hadn't wanted to be a recurring villain, but it looks like you've forced that upon him.

Last two sessions

After you assassinated the high priest of the Mockery, the battle quickly turned to your side's favour, and Thurizan's army retreated. Horde Commander Koll said that you had proved your loyalty to the Daughters of Sora Kell and released you from the army's service.

A winged succubus appeared and delivered a letter to Verschoyle from Tharrad Katarn. It contained an invitation to the next gathering of the Society of the Shadow Art, the wizards' circle to which Katarn belonged. It also had a request: Tharrad Katarn had heard that the Trumpet of Jubarex, an artefact belonging to a powerful outsider, was somewhere beneath the temple, and he asked if Verschoyle could retrieve it.

Verschoyle, Grim, Zurga, Hurgadar and Primrose the flesh golem explored the forgotten dungeon beneath the Temple of the Cleansing Blade. They defeated an undead high priest and several undead zombie torturors, and then (barely) defeated the stone golem that was guarding the trumpet. However they also found Jubarex herself, the owner of the trumpet, so they did the decent thing and returned it.

Meanwhile, Zumm helped the priests to re-dedicate the Temple of the Cleansing Blade. Later, while meditating in the hills, he had a vision of a powerful outsider called a Trumpet Archon who told him to turn from his evil ways.

The party travelled back to Graywall, sold their loot, and met up with Tharrad Katarn, who teleported them to the gathering of the Society of the Shadow Art.

The Society of the Shadow Art consists of:

Tharrad Katarn, a tiefling conjurer who likes to summon extraplanar creatures. He introduced Verschoyle to the Society.

Vurdak 'Deathlord', a goblin fleshwarper who performs obscene experiments such as grafting undead limbs onto his living ogre slave. He introduced Mavik to the society.

'Archmage' Vardis Kelor, a human wizard who founded the Society and is its most powerful member.

Eradon Thrisk, a human mystic theurge who is fanatical in his devotion to the Shadow, god of dark magic.

Valanthe Galadonel, an elf wizard who seems interested in history.

Borruk, an elderly bugbear loremaster who collects knowledge for its own sake.

The party met Mavik Hilford, another wizard who was applying for membership in the Society. Verschoyle and Mavik both narrowly passed the test and were accepted into the Society.

Verschoyle left Primrose the flesh golem with Vurdak Deathlord, and commissioned him to graft a +1 longsword in place of the golem's hand, making it more effective against some foes. Vurdak will bring the modified flesh golem to the next meeting in about three months' time.

Mavik told the party that his familiar was lost, and enlisted their help to get it back. He led them to a goblin village within the territory of the warlord adjacent to Grim's territory. This village worshipped a strange god called Zilkloog, actually a mind flayer posing as a god, and offered sacrifices to him every month.

The party convinced the high priest of Zilkloog to let them into the main hall of the temple, then killed the high priest and won the ensuing battle against the temple guards and their trained umber hulks. The story will pick up with them exploring the rest of the temple and meeting Zilkloog in person!

The party now consists of:

Grim (Greg's character), warforged fighter 6/warforged juggernaut 4

Mavik Hilford (Henrique's character), human wizard (necromancer) 9

Verschoyle (Matt's character), human wizard 9/human paragon 1

Zumm (Imre's character), goblin monk 9

Zurga (NPC), Verschoyle's apprentice, goblin wizard 3

Hurgadar (NPC), Grim's cohort gained through the leadership feat, mongrelfolk barbarin 8

Umber hulk zombie (NPC), Mavik's newly raised undead minion.

The Temple of the Cleansing Blade

The morning after the battle with the quth-marens, Horde Commander Koll presented Grim, Zumm, Verschoyle and Hurgadar with military decorations in the form of carved humanoid jawbones inscribed with the word 'courage' in several languages. These grant a +2 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy if you wear them openly while dealing with current or former members of the Droaam army and anyone else friendly to the Droaam army who knows enough about history to recognize them. Horde Commander Koll also gave you a special mission: to infiltrate the Temple of the Cleansing Blade and assassinate the high priest before he could unleash more undead on the besieging army.

You entered the temple via the sewers, where you were attacked by a hideous water-based undead that had escaped from the pages of Dragon magazine. It nearly drowned Hurgadar but you got it in the end. Paik charmed one of the guards sent to intercept you, and he directed you to the temple proper where the priest was. On the way you were attacked by a evil incorporeal spirit who permanently drained Paik's Constitution down to 4. Hee hee hee.

Thanks to your charmed ally, you managed to take the enemy cleric unawares and Verschoyle affected him with a confusion spell. He was coherent enough to unleash dark energy on you, almost killing Zurga. After much confused running around and switching targets, the guards lay dead and Zumm ripped off the evil priest's face.

You're in the army now

As promised by the letter you received when you took over the kingdom, you have been recruited into the Droaam army. It will be a short stint of only a few months, really a token service in order to prove your loyalty, although the exact amount of time depends on how the war goes.

Marching off to war are Grim, Verschoyle, Zumm, Hurgadar, Zurga, Primrose the flesh golem, and fifty goblin troopers. This left Castle Granis only lightly defended, but Verschoyle's regular scrying of the castle shows soldiers from across your territory arriving at the castle for the training Grim promised. So far roughly twenty goblins and twenty orcs have arrived, as near as Verschoyle can estimate. Skardash is doing his best to train them but his lack of experience means that they are not showing any improvements; but the castle is at least defended, and is as peaceful as a castle full of orcs from different villages could be expected to be (i.e. not very).

Meanwhile, a changeling bard named Paik has been assigned to your unit to keep an eye on you and report on your loyalty, and also to help inspire your troops with his bardic music.

After a short stay in Graywall (during which Verschoyle spent lots of money in an attempt to impress everyone and in particular his wizard friend Tharrad Katarn), the army marched south for several weeks towards the Temple of the Cleansing Blade. The political situation, as explained by Warchief Tygor, is:

One of the warlords is attempting to break away from the rule of the hags and carve out his own nation. You will join one of a number of hordes that the Daughters are sending to crush the rebellion.

The rebel warlord is Thurizan the Strong, a mighty orc warrior. His territory is in the south-eastern corner of Droaam, adjoining the coastline and the Graywall Mountains that form the border with Breland. His capital is the inaccessible fortress of Shaarat Kol. The majority of the population in his territory is made up of orcs, with some humans, hill giants, goblins and other races.

Thurizan is very popular with the people in and surrounding his territory, and part of the reason for this is to do with religion. The Daughters of Sora Kell have a secular government, not invoking the gods in their rule and not making any laws concerning religion. In contrast, Thurizan claims to rule with the endorsement of the Dark Six. This is helped by the fact that his army has gained control of the Temple of the Cleansing blade, the largest temple to the Mockery in Droaam. The high priest of the temple has publically supported Thurizan as ruler.

You will be part of an army that is being assembled to re-take the Temple of the Cleansing Blade. The temple is of some strategic importance, but its main value will be as a propaganda victory: if Thurizan loses control of the temple, then his subjects may think again about his claim to be chosen by the gods.

Your immediate commander is Warchief Tygor, a hardened gnoll career soldier whose fur bears many bare patches where scars have healed. Your ultimate commander is Horde Commander Koll, a bulky, heavily armoured orc warlord whose territoy is on the other side of Graywall from yours.

The first combat you saw was on the approach to the temple when you had to remove catapults from hills to let the army pass. You dispatched the defender quickly, with Grim bravely rushing past the two hill giants in order to attack a battle sorceror before he had a chance to cast his spells, and then returning to slice off the hill giant's arm with a mighty blow.

Your next mission was to neutralize an enemy spy who was hiding in a nearby hamlet. Warchief Tygor ordered you to do this by massacring everyone in the village, but Zumm (in a surprising non-evil outburst; I was expecting Verschoyle to say this) argued that they should try to find the spy and spare the rest of the village if possible. Zumm and Piak got to show off their infiltration skills and saw through the spy's disguise, and after a brief fight chased him into the open. He was invisible, but Verschoyle zapped him with magic missiles and your goblin archers all fired on the spot where the magic missiles hit, kind of like at the end of Star Trek VI.


You re-joined the army at nightfall as it was setting up camp around the temple and its small town (called simply Blade-town). In the middle of the night the army was attacked by skeletons, which were driven off easily but succeeded in demoralizing the troops. The only serious attack was on the command tent itself, which was attacked by three hideous undead creatures, the animated corpses of people who had had all the skin flayed from their bodies. Zumm, Grim and Hurgadar found Horde Commander Koll defending himself against the three creatures, while his entourage cowered or fled. With the help of Verschoyle's flesh golem you managed to defeat them. Paik slept through the whole thing.

Battle report: the death of E.K.

Turns out I made a couple of mistakes about spell rules that gave the party an advantage. I reckon you'd have won anyway though.

Grim and Zumm toured the region, telling the people of the new ruler and his new policies: taxes would be reduced but must be delivered rather than collected, and anyone who wanted to could go to Castle Granis to be trained in the region's new army. Grim also recruited a cohort, Hurgadar. Hurgadar is a mongrelfolk (the product of generations of inter-breeding between many different humanoid races), and is an adventurous wanderer who agreed to travel with Grim in order to seek adventure. Grim and Zumm collected Verschoyle (plus Zurga and their new flesh golem) from Stoneskull, and the party returned to Castle Granis.

Some goblins attempted to assassinate Grim using warforged bane arrows, but Grim survived the attempt and the castle guard took care of the assassins. The party traced the plot back to the cleric Merred Nastor and his new disciples, who turned out to be hosts to parasitic tentacle creatures. Verschoyle took care of these with a spell, but the most powerful one (inhabiting Merred Nastor) escaped.
Using scrying, the party traced the tsochar to the tomb of Dragith Nurn, where they saw that he was in league with their arch-enemy E.K. The party travelled overland to the tomb, fought their way in through the dolgrim and dolgaunt guards, and finally killed E.K. and the tsochar in a magical fire-fight across the chasm.

EK had set up a lift, powered by an ogre slave, to the bottom of the chasm. The party descended to find that the guards at the bottom had fled. They found some treasure in boxes that EK's minions had helpfully retrieved from the caves.

Zumm went in to the cave of the bearded devils, touched a large crystal embedded in the wall, and was handed a secret note from the DM.

The party set off back to Castle Granis to wait there for the next plot hook to arrive.

Timeline update

Sypheros 14	Grim and Verschoyle arrive at Graywall with Ug's body, and take it to a gnoll druid that the mercenaries had recommended. However, Ug's soul refused to return. Verschoyle befriends Graywall's most powerful wizard (or at least its most powerful commonly-known wizard), Tharrad Katarn. Grim and Verschoyle also managed to locate the cleric Merred Nastor who had gone missing on his shopping trip to Graywall. A goblin bowmaker had noticed his poorly-concealed Silver Flame symbol and tipped off the arena guards. He was due to be executed in the arena the next day. Verschoyle enters the arena in order to fight on his behalf and spends the night hin the cells. Meanwhile, Grim kidnaps the goblin bowmaker.
Sypheros 15	In the arena, Verschoyle defeats the manticore that was due to kill Merred Nastor. A bugbear scout from Darguun introduces himself to Grim and Verschoyle. Verschoyle and Tharrad Katarn continue to swap spells.
Sypheros 16	Grim leaves for where his army is camped. Verschoyle begins crafting a headband of intellect. Burr, the bugbear scout, introduces himself to Verschoyle again.
Sypheros 19	Tharrad Katarn teleports Verschoyle and Burr to the army camp, where Grim is just arriving.
Sypheros 20	The Battle of Stoneskull. Grim's army defeats Jalahand and Grim becomes warlord of the region. Burr is killed by a trap.
Sypheros 21	The party receives a letter saying that the Daughters of Sora Kell endorse Grim's rulership of the region. Grim and Zumm embark on a tour of the region. Verschoyle and Zurga begin creating a flesh golem.
Aryth [November] 20	Grim finishes his tour and arrives back at Stoneskull to pick up Verschoyle, who has finished his flesh golem.
Aryth 21	Grim, Zumm, Verschoyle and Zurga arrive back at Castle Granis...