Episode 8

I really like designing encounters.  I also really like role playing and puzzle solving.  I spend a lot of time each week trying to find a balance of these for my players, I want everyone to have the opportunity to succeed and enjoy.  This evening was fun because I got to a little bit of everything.  Oh, I also like to put my characters in difficult moral quandaries.

Episode 8:

The party tracks the down the meteorite to an ancient Elven Hall built into a hillside and has a tangle of wild trees grown up as a wall around it.  As near as they can tell it is currently deserted, or at least no one is there right now.  In front of the main door are 2 halfling sized elven statues with their hands stretched above their heads holding small wooden bowls.  One with red liquid one with blue.  On the door in elven it says "2 of courage and one of fear, you will be most welcome here."  There is a cup with a '3' on it and a cup with a '5' on it, and another small wooden bowl is next to it.

The party has to mix 2 red and 1 blue into the bowl and drink it.  Its a pretty simple puzzle, really.  I mean they used it in Diehard 4.  Whatever the case it took the party a little bit of time to put it together and once they had the mixture they just stood there.


Urz got thirsty and took a drink.  The door opens wide.  Inside is a large open hall with a second floor balcony looking down on a main room with large dining tables.  no one is inside but its well used.  The party very carefully (I've gotten them scared by this point in the campaign) moves through the building.  As they round a corner they can hear soft crying.  As they get closer they can see that there is a tiny, 8 year old, elven girl curled up in a ball weeping.

Here is Il'yonia, the daughter of the Leader of the Green Dragons.  I've mentioned before all my NPC's like to have motivations.  She is mad that her dad left her here alone with no one but the single 'caretaker' in the building.  She wants to run away but can't.  Enter the PC's... and her ticket out.


Il'yonia tells the party she has been kidnapped and that she knows where the starstone they are looking for is.  They start walking down the hall, she whispers the magic words, the floor turns incorporeal and the party drops down to face...

A Green Dragon.

Green Dragons are mean, his treasure's in the top right corner, mostly silver because I love to make my players suffer.

So this is nearly a CR 10 fight... technically.  Il'yonia is 3rd level sorceress with fey bloodline.  Her focus is to charm as many people as possible so they will help her.  Really she wants the players to kill the dragon, because that dragon is keeping her there.  The dragon is a young green dragon, charged with making sure the girl stays put.  There are vines and roots growing out of the ground he can use to cast entangle.  There is also a cavern exit 10' off the floor he can fly to and get advantage on them while using his breath weapon.

As the fight went down the party was convinced Il'yonia was out to get them.  Kong got charmed, Urz got charmed, then Durn moved next to her, Sam threw up a silent image of a wall so no one could see what happened and then Durn hit her in the head with his mace.  Il'yonia fell down, bleeding but not dead.

Part of what I wanted here was to distract the party from the real threat.  All Il'yonia was doing was casting charm, but the party was convinced she dropped them into a death trap and was a villain.  While she was not a threat it certainly added to the fight.

Kong dropped unconscious, bleeding, Urz got enlarged to fight the dragon on the ledge and the dragon was eventually blinded by Glitterdust. After a little work the party finally killed the dragon in what, I think, was a pretty fun fight.

Now they have to deal with the little girl.  She cast charm on them and half the party wanted to dump her off anywhere, and most everyone else was mixed.  Sam- on the other hand- LG Sam from Earth, decided to take her back to the appropriate authorities so that she could be taken care of.  And that, ultimately is what happened.  It did cause a little turmoil in the group and I gave them a hard time for hitting an 8 year in the face with a mace, but it all worked out.

They gathered up their goods headed back to Osht.  It was a slightly comical thing.  They didn't have enough bags.  So they skinned the dragons tail  and converted it into a giant dragon skin sack.

Once they got back they found out that Ismana had almost forgotten about them, but was really happy to see them.  They also found out that she accidentally scry's on people and had happened to run across Belfast near Wisthaven, to the east.  After that they spoke with the High Priest Ferdinand and he explained where the other Seals that Belfast is looking for were, and since the party had been so helpful in the past explained the Calamity.  The Calamity was an Arch-Liche named Nagaste-Tor who had laid waste to their country centuries before.  His philactary was never found and they could not defeat him.  However, by priests of the different faiths sacrificing their lives they could use the seals to hold him in place.  If the seals are broken Nagaste-Tor will be unleashed again.

At that moment a messenger shows up with a message from Durns father, asking for help up in Garrets Reach.

Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz