Campaign logs written by Steve, Deepingdale's player.
Company Members Present
Slippy, 3rd Lvl
Ratman - Founding Member
Venser, 3rd Lvl Human
Thief Rear Guard*
Cagliosro, 2nd Lvl Human
Necromancer
Hjalhir, 3rd Lvl Human
Wizard
Blade, 2nd Lvl Human
Cleric of Hegg, God of Blades
Deepingdale (Tal), 2nd Lvl
Dwarrow
Scarr, 1st Lvl Female Ratman
Thief
Stignarr, 1st Lvl Human Fighter
Rear Guard*
(*Absent)
Starting and ending locations: City of Bolaar (Yellow
Men area of Chasm of Nayellem), proceedings down the river west to the
village of Lembde and then on foot via the old road to the Chasm Deeps.
Session 8 (19/10/2011)
After considerable carousing in the yellow mens city of Bolar, in the
Chasm, Deepingdale eventually managed to train up to gain warrior hood
(2nd lvl Dwarrow). Henry and Venser had an eventful few days, meeting a
strange Frog Cult in Bolar and after getting considerably drunk they
managed to glean some information about the whereabouts of three of the
Breets Relics, the Aquamarine Raven, the Blooded Shield and the Eye
Stone. All three of which are said to be found in the Chasm deeps.
However, what did Henry and Venser offer the Frog Cult in return for the
information, we all wondered the next morning in the sober light of
day, only time will tell?! Our mage Hjalhir is still not well and
although the herbs from the Rim help with his concentration, it is clear
that sometimes he is unable to cast his spells correctly. Before our
departure we were unsuccessful in finding a suitable temple in Bolar to
heal him. Our inquiries about a temple of Hegg were met with
disbelief. These are a godless folk or are they? We have decided to
travel under the guise of a group of Imperial Cartographers (Clever idea
of Henry’s), Venser and Hjalhir forged some suitably important looking
papers with fake wax seals and the spell casters will act as our scribes
and the fighters in the company as security. After finishing our
preparations, we regrouped and managed to get passage on a river barge
for 8gp each, travelling west for 5+6 hours through the forest of
Lensirrik (apparently it’s old name, now called Lensk). Before catching
the barge we were warned by the yellow men to disguise or spell casters
as the Red Men are very warlike and hate all spell casters and see them
all as witches.
After an uneventful river journey, the barge dropped us off on the
river bank near the last human habitation in the Red Mens area, a
village called Lembde on the far western edge of the chasm forest. The
earlier advice from the Yellow men was well served and on our arrival at
the gates to Lembde, a small fortified village, a large yellow painted
eye (the witch eye as it is known by the locals) looked down on the
company. On introducing ourselves as the Cartographers Company from the
Imperial Cartographers Guild, we struck up a conversation with one of
the gate men, a trusting fellow called Olob. The village had never been
visited by outlanders before. After some charm from Henry (aka
Slippy), he told us that this was the domain of King Mab, beyond
imperial control and the deity Mox, watched over the Red People checking
for any witches and that the Yellow men were their most despised enemy
who they had warred against for years, although now an uneasy peace has
lasted between the two peoples for the last 100 years, but they were
still very weary of magic users or witches as he called them. Olob also
warned us of the numerous ferocious Owlbears in the forest of Lensk. A
pleasant enough chap, despite his bright red skin and blue hair, he was
welcoming and granted our group entry into the village and directed us
to the inn, he also suggested speaking to one of the local hunters, a
man called Boleg, known to have defeated an owlbear and familiar with
the monsters ways, he could perhaps offer some advice with our mapping.
Caglistro, Venser and Stig remained outside the village, the
Necromancer, not convinced by the warm welcome, refused to enter and
instead set up a small camp beyond the stockade. On entering the
village we spotted a 20 foot tower, at the bottom of which was a large
cage with 3 ferocious looking Owl Bears inside it and some men stood
around, clearly their keepers. On enquiring we were told that the
Owlbears were the villages “Protectors”. When Hjalhir passed the cage,
the Owlbears became very aggravated!!!
On entering the inn (and several beers purchased for the locals and
10gp later), we quickly made many new friends and many friendly locals
contributed to correcting our apparently, very out of date maps that the
Dax women and the one that Mol had provided us with. The Cartography
Company proved to be a great cover. We also had a very useful talk with
the Hunter Boleg, who reassured us that we were unlikely to encounter
any Owlbears, as they mainly stayed in the forest and our journey by
foot, west of Lembed towards the Chasm Deeps was on the old road that
lay beyond the woods. But he said our main concern should be for the
large group of gnolls who inhabit the area west of the village, near the
cairn and chasm deeps. A few beers later, Boleg also told us about the
chasm rifts, a poisonous volcanic area and finally, he then shared with
us the tale of the legendary chasm Dragon, Meerka, who he described as a
large black shadow who in the past had attacked the village and is
still seen flying overhead at least once a month. Meerka has been
present in the Chasm area for many years and is thought to live in the
chasm cliffs above the chasm deep. Finally, Slippy enquired about
Boleg’s facial scar and his own run in the Owlbears, we bid Boleg fair
well, with the challenge of returning with an Owlbear beak, in return
for a free night on the ale!
Buoyed up by such expectations and with our adventuring juices
flowing, after a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, we set off
early in the morning, down the old road into the west. The first thing
we came across was a huge run down 20 foot stone cairn with an
inscription at its base, in imperial common (which Slippy couldn’t read,
much to our hilarity)
“Sacred Eye of the Overseer Breets the Great”. The
Sacred Eye was marked on the Dax map as relic number one, however,
despite our meticulous searching; someone had already removed it from
the Cairn.
We continued on, encountering nothing, seeing steam rising, probably
from the chasm rifts that Boleg described, off to the North about 1 mile
from the old road and eventually we arrived at the farthest west end of
the chasm, where a entrance fronted by two large stone pillars,
decorated in memory of past overseers, greeted us, along with a pile of
old bones and a strong smell of dogs and fresh blood coming from the
cave entrance (Gnolls?).
Stig and Venser kindly offered to wait outside with the horses and
mules. The humans lit their torches and bows were drawn and we
cautiously walked forward. Ahead of us lay a 40’ wide entrance which
eventually narrowed to 30’ and a 60’ long entrance hall with 5 stone
columns on each side, also carved depicting the overseers. This hallway
lead into a large 80’ large cavern with natural corridors leading off
to the north, northwest, west, southwest and south. Again, a pile of
bones greeted us along with the sound of frogs from the Northwest
passage. Scarr scouted ahead and noticed the smell of dung coming from
the northern passage. After considering our options, we decided to try
to avoid being attacked from the rear by laying marbles and caltrops at
both the northern and western passage way entrances. From the western
passage a strong smell of blood and dogs emanated. The company,
especially our Necromancer, was interested in the frogs, so we headed up
the northwest passage where another passage lead off to the east.
Scarr, Deepingdale and Slippy went off to explore, the little rat women
thief crawled up the wall of the natural passage way which lead into
another small cavern, suddenly from the darkness we head a scream and
Scarr suddenly disappeared into the cavern ahead of us. Nightwing the
owl reported that a large creature was devouring the rat women and so we
cautiously entered the cavern to find a giant toad had swallowed
Scarr. Hjalhir failed to cast his magic missle and battle ensued, the
toad spat Scarr out, who was fortunately saved at the last moment by a
healing spell from Blade. The giant toad was dispatched by arrows,
slings, pole arms and swords. Scarr removed the giant toads tongue, she
thought it might come in handy one day!?
We returned to the passage after finding nothing of note in the giant
toads beautiful stalagmite adorned cave and headed into the frog room, a
circular 30’ room with an ornate pool in the centre. Surrounding the
pool were 8 statues with carved frogs on top, from inside each stone
frog came the sound of real frogs. The statues were hollow and we
thought they were connected to a passage way below, where the sound was
coming from. In the pool lay crystal clear water, with no apparent
source. Scarr decided to take a quick bath in the pool and was very
refreshed and whilst we waited for Scarr, Slippy had a quiet religious
moment. We managed to convince Caglisro not to piss into the pool as it
may be the only source of clean drinking water available to us.
A passage way lead off to the west, which 20’ later opened up into a
large oblong man made hall 20’ wide by 80’ long with a 20’ high vaulted
ceiling. Directly opposite the entrance to the hall on the west wall
was a wooden door with an iron ring door opener. As we entered the
room, Deepingdale and Scarr moved forward to listen at the door
opposite and the keen eyed Scarr spotted a shadow shifting in the
vaulted ceiling above us. On careful further examination we could make
out a large spider’s web and behind it sat a giant spider. A single
bulls eye shot from Deepingdales heavy crossbow downed the beast and
before it could stop twitching in its death throws; Scarr had removed
its poison sacks, fangs and any other useful type ingredients that
rogues find useful in their strange trade.
On examining the hall, we could see that at the southern end on the
southern wall another door and a final door at the southern end on the
eastern hall. In the middle of the east wall lay a large pile of rubble,
old broken furniture etc. Using our company, non-extendable (Patent
pending) 10’ poles we found a yellow man skeleton with a small leather
pouch with 90sp in it. At this point we decided to rest and collected
our comrades from outside.
