TOEE Campaign: The Air Temple and The Great Temple

Recap from 6/28/08

Our Bugbear Cohorts led us to a secret door that led to the quarters of the head of the Air Temple.  Gara and Berghoff rushed in and surprised the priest and caught him while he was having his coffee and killed him in a single round (plus the surprise round)!  We looted his stuff which included a Magical suit of armor, a Magic Cloak, a Magic Dagger, a Magical Mace and a mundane Air Temple robe.  When Kieren searched the room he found nothing and moved into another adjacent passage with a flowing fountain which contained a large pile of weapons (armor, weapons, arrows etc.).  We took the arrows and kept searching and Aelf-in-Dur found a very expensive ceremonial robe with a glyph on it (a cassock of silver cloth with gems on it) which appeared to be very valuable in the wardrobe.  At this point the Bugbears were tearing through the rest of the priest's belongings looking for valuables. 

We went into the room with the Gnolls and killed them while their cousins, the Air Temple Bugbears, quickly joined the other Bugbears that were supposedly on the side of the "New Order".  We rewarded the Bugbears with the loot we took from the Gnolls and then asked them where to find the actual Air Temple and they directed us to it.  It turned out to be a central octagonal chamber which was between the other three temples assuming the Water Temple is where we think it is. 

After the group killed the Priest of the Air Temple and the two Gnolls and took their stuff, one of the Bugbears in the newly united group of them asked us:

“Will the new order be taking over the Great Temple?”

We of course replied "yes" even though this was the first we had heard about this "Great Temple".  This created a bit of a stir and the Bugbears began to murmur amongst themselves in Goblinoid.  Most of the group couldn't hear what was said even if they could understand their language but Kieren was invisible and standing right next to them and heard one of them reply quietly:

“We will never see these guys again...”

He also said something about "The Master" but we don't know anything else about this guy yet.  When we asked the Bugbears where the Greater Temple was they said it was "down" on the next level.  It appears that there is more leadership in the complex on the level(s) below than just that of the Elemental Temples that we have been dealing with so far on this level. 

The Air Temple is a large octagonal room with four sets of staircases with short and broad steps below each bronze double door on four sides opposite of each other in the room.  Illumination appeared to be coming from everywhere at once with no apparent source.  The floor is 15' below and is partially obscured by swirling mist.  The ceiling is 40' above the level of the floor and the pierced dome above is a 20' wide circular shaft directly over center of the recessed pit in the floor below.  There is a 2' tall x 4' wide x 8' long alabaster block opposite the door where the burning corridor is which appeared to be a place where sacrifices were made by the Air Priest.  On the block lay a pair of crystal daggers, a bowl of fine crystal and two crystal braziers standing on tripods and filled with incense (all of immense value).  The chained bronze large set of double doors opposite the doors off the fire hallway appeared to have the "Antipathy spell" cast on it as Aelf-in-Dur approached it - he made his save and wasn't totally repulsed by it but felt the affect of the spell.

We explored the room and found 3 secret doors - the first one led up and into the hallway off of the Air priest’s quarters that we had just come from, the second led to a set of steps going down and the third led to a dead-end hallway that contained a Magical Censer of some sort (detected as magical). 

Kieren's miniature dragon familiar then searched the room for loot with his "locate object" ability.  The dragon informed his master that the crystal objects (and especially the two braziers) were of immense value (20,000 g.p. each or something ridiculous like that!).  Kieren started messing with the crystal objects in an attempt to learn the ritual and remove them and managed to summon a very powerful Air Elemental whose winds buffeted the group pretty badly and nearly everyone took damage.  When he stopped messing with the objects, the swirling winds ceased and the elemental went away.  He continued to try to figure out the secret of the ritual and then Berghoff got attacked by what we thought was a wraith and collapsed to the floor at that point.  Aelf-in-Dur fired a magical arrow from his magical bow and killed it with one very well aimed shot.  The fighter turned out to have only lost 20 hit points or so and didn't lose any levels or anything so it was apparently an illusion of a wraith or something that attacked him.

At this point, Kieren (invisible and moving silently) decided to investigate the stairs leading down with the invisible illusionist Faust and Ryn following along a short distance behind.  They walked into a hexagonal chamber with six doors in it (one on each face) and immediately noticed that sounds were amplified in this room.  At this point, a bunch of the doors opened and they were surrounded by four very large trolls!  In the ensuing melee that followed, Faust managed to cast Major Image and summon an Earth Elemental while Ryn was pounded down to the ground and knocked unconscious by the hungry trolls (at -1).  The Earth Elemental did some damage and the rest of the group headed down the steps to aid their beleaguered comrades.  Now that Faust was visible, he was next and knocked unconscious by the trolls (to -9 hits!) and near death.  With Gara and Berghoff barely able to hold back two of the trolls and the other two about to eat Ryn and Faust things were looking grim for the group.  At this point, the invisible Kieren threw all of his magical "Magic Mouth" marbles to scatter on the floor and the room resonated with the sounds of all of the magical voices "hey buddy, watch out behind you", "since we're invisible, we'll just sneak around behind them" etc.  This momentarily distracted the trolls from their snack and allowed Kieren and Aelf-in-Dur to affect a rescue and attempt to bring their two comrades out of the room.

Aelf-in-Dur quaffed a potion of Sanctuary and retrieved the fallen Ryn while Kieren managed to apply some Keoghtom's Ointment to the nearly dead illusionist just in time to save his life and brought him to 0 hits.  After Ryn was saved, Kieren made it through the trolls with the unconscious illusionist and there was much rejoicing.  The Gnome attempted to slay the trolls with his Flamestrike spell on the scroll from the Fire Temple but was overcasting and couldn't manage to get the spell off so the group retreated from that level and returned to the level above.  The group rested up and decided not to revisit the level below in the immediate future.

The next day Kieren returned to the octagonal chamber with the group standing out in the hallway near the Air Priest's quarters.  Kieren tried many things including trying to take some incense from one of the braziers to put into the Censer.  When he did so, smoke started billowing forth and he had to retreat from the room after taking some poison damage from the smoke.  He returned wearing the Necklace of Adaptation and was able to breath the next time he attempted this.  He then heard a spell go off in the center of the room but it took him a little while to figure out it was some sort of teleportation device in the middle of the area of the recessed floor.  We surmised you had to put an appropriate sacrifice into the recessed floor and it would be taken away to wherever but that's about as far as we got.

Kieren then poured a flask of holy water into one of the censers and that action caused a type I demon (a Vrock) to be summoned into existence!  As the two fighters started fighting it, it laid into Berghoff with its many attacks.  Of course, this only pissed off the barbarian who managed to hit it with a savage blow.  It responded by somehow grabbing her by the ankles and flinging her behind it into the room to take 5 dice of falling damage!  As the rest of the group continued fighting the hateful creature, it popped off continual darkness ability and was shrouded in darkness and was very hard to hit since it was practically invisible.  Gara recovered and took advantage of her position behind it in the room and scored another hit with her magical Two Handed Sword.  This only made it madder and it attacked her and flung her into the room behind it again and turned to face her.  Of course, this left the Demon's back exposed and the group finally managed to finish it off and it vanished just as quickly as it had been summoned...

TOEE Campaign: The Fire Temple

Recap from 6/14/08

The group gathered the loot from the Fire Temple guys that we killed last session that we hadn't gathered or recorded yet.  We went through one of the doors and into a room off of the room where the last combat took place.  This room had a fire throne with a cheesy gold painted skull on it and three doors.  We found a secret door behind the throne.  We opened the doors two of which led to the private rooms of the Fire Temple head priest and the curate who we apparently killed last session and took their stuff.  The third door led to a hallway.

We opened the secret door behind the throne and found that it opened into the Fire Temple which had lots of braziers, fire pits and a chime attached to a tube hanging from the ceiling near an elaborate altar decorated with gold (see description in loot totals - and no we didn't mess with the altar).  Before going in, we decided to explore the other passages which appeared to lead to the other bronze double doors in the Fire Temple in case there was an ambush waiting to happen outside the two sets of bronze double doors.  Kieran first did this solo and invisible and explored several large halls one of which was the Hall of Triumphal Evil (see bottom of loot totals thread for contents) which was full of war trophies.  Behind one of the doorways off of a large hall he got a warm fuzzy feeling of peaceful goodness and quickly shut that door being suspicious of anything in this place with that kind of feeling.

Once we found the hallway that led into the Fire Temple, Kieran hid behind the secret door, waiting for escaping enemies from the Temple and the group went through the other passage that led into the Fire Temple.  Faust was up front and saw a fire priest sneaking around behind the double doors looking into the fire temple with his back to us.  He closed the door but when we opened it again the fire priest was gone.

We went down the passage where he was with Aelf-in-dur in the lead who peaked through the double doors into the Fire Temple.  He saw someone peaking through the second set of bronze double doors in the Temple back towards us and melee was joined.  The chief fire priest beat the elf in initiative and got his spell off first - Aelf-in-dur was held and couldn't get his spell off.  Gara and Berghoff went into action and attacked the priest who fell back into the hallway beyond the second set of double doors which happened to be on fire (the hallway).  They took some damage but killed the priest in short order and then the fire in the hallway went out.

After killing the Chief Fire Priest and taking his stuff, we made a lame attempt at trying to figure out the fire temple ritual which involved putting charcoal and oil (which turned out to be anointing oil) into ladles which Kieran and Aelf-in-Dur dropped into the two fire pits near the alter.  This was obviously not the correct ritual because four Fire Salamanders with Mirror Image cast on them emerged from the two fire pits and attacked the group.  During the melee, Aelf-in-Dur wasn't able to get off his defensive spell before melee was joined and ended up getting knocked unconscious while Gara and Berghoff managed to chip away at two of the creatures with Kieran's help, first getting rid of the images then killing those two on the right.  Faust saved the day by casting Major Image and "summoning" a giant earth elemental (like the ones from the earth temple) which helped to kill the two in front of the fallen elf on the left side while the cleric came to his aid.  Between the summoned elemental, the two fighters and Kieran they finished off the last two Salamanders and the battle was over.

Red, the mini dragon (Kieran's familiar), found the Temple's chest hidden in the larger fire pit when Kieran asked it to look for gems in the temple using its locate object ability.  The one gem in there was on the pommel of the magical sword which gave away the chest's location.  The group fell back to Verbobonc with all the loot and Kieran opened the chest with Mage Hand and used Unseen Servant to bypass the trap on the chest (assumed fire trap?) while on the way back.  See loot totals thread for the contents of the Fire Temple chest.  The group returned to Verbobonc to sell stuff and ID magic items and there was much rejoicing...

TOEE Campaign: Into the Temple

Recap from 2/2/08

The group started off where we left it the session before – exploring the upper level of the sinister and gothic looking Temple of Elemental Evil!  We had partially explored the upper floor of the temple proper last session and so picked up where we had left off…

Remnants of the previous battle lay scattered about – glass jars, bone pottery fragments, burned robes.  There were even signs of the attackers attempting to destroy certain alters which had received strong blows and still bore the marks of them.    A huge bronze vessel 8’ in diameter was in the center of the building in front of the main alter and appeared to contain blackened lumps and bones.  A pit in front of the altar revealed a 12” wide ledge beginning 15’ down leading to winding steps leading down into darkness.  Another central stairway led down to a padlocked and apparently warded entry door which had been sealed off some time ago by the invaders.

Within one of the ruined side temples we saw bones and torn brown robes littered on the floor with burned out candle stubs and evidence of the past carnage.  After exploring the upper floor of the original Temple we decided to explore a side staircase near one or the ruined temples in the right hand wing of the building.  As we entered the tunnel complex below with the aid of torch light there was an eerie silence.  We made a few turns and ended up passing a gilded set of double doors that appeared to be bolted from the other side.  After Iggy and Golgoroth examined it and determined this we kept on going.

At this point Golgoroth noticed that the tunnel was slowly sloping downwards.  It got to a point were there was a branch to the left down a wider tunnel and straight ahead the elevation started going back up again.  At this point we turned left down the tunnel apparently deeper into the earth.  We eventually ended up another level down on the second level and turned left.  In the hallway past that point we encountered an Owl Bear that had apparently been chained up in the hallway as a guard.  The group killed the creature in a fierce battle having the advantage of being able to attack it with bows as well as melee weapons.  We searched the area and found some loose coinage stashed inside some trash in the area.

We went into an irregularly shaped room and were attacked by a solitary troll who was hiding amongst the rubbish.  The group quickly dispatched the troll and searched the room finding a barrel of wine and a leather sack containing more loose coinage including a hefty quantity of platinum pieces.  The group checked the next door in this room and eventually opened it up to be confronted by a huge troll which was practically as tall as the ceiling.  The troll said in a guttural voice “Go away and great ugly Troll Chief not eat you”.  The group continued to menace the beast and he said “Go away and I give you this ruby necklace” and he threw a ruby necklace in the direction of the group which Iggy quickly snatched up.  At this point Iggy cast an illusion of another troll using silent image and the great chief began to have a conversation in Trollish with the illusory beast.  He was a bit mystified as to why it wouldn’t do what it was told.

At this point Ryn decided to try to web the great beast.  He succeeded in immobilizing the creature and one of the group quickly threw a torch onto the webs.  The troll shrugged off the fire and the great ugly troll chief just laughed at the group and appeared to be completely unharmed.  Apparently, this troll had some kind of protection from fire or something.  The Knight engaged the troll in hand to hand with his sword and missed.  The next round the troll hit back and scored a crit with one of his three attacks and threw the knight back into Ashe knocking them both on the floor of the room.  Sir Darion was hit so hard that a hole was torn in his magical plate armor.

The Knight slowly got up and tried to resume the parley with the beast.  It noticed Iggy at that point and said something about not being hungry now and for the “sweet meats” (the Gnome Iggy) to come back later.  It went on to say “I help you destroy one of the temples for one fourth of the loot”.  Sir Darion replied “I would guess you would prefer to destroy the fire temple right”?  It said, “It doesn’t matter we just pick one.  I not hungry now so will help you.”  At this point the knight said “We will consider your offer and come back later”.  It replied “I might be hungry later but I have owl bear to eat now” since we had told him that we killed his pet out in the hallway.  At this point the group returned back up into the previous hallway and back to the first level.  Sir Darion realized that we were very deep in the complex and near some of the very temples where active worshippers were doubtless lurking about waiting to ambush intruders.

After returning to explore one of the passageways near the staircase where we had descended earlier we came into a hallway with a padlocked door on the left and another door straight ahead.  Golgoroth tried to pick the lock with no luck so the knight pulled out his mace and started pounding on the lock.  He hit it four times and then all hell broke loose – the door straight ahead opened up and the group was confronted by a group of ghouls!  Sir Darion backhanded one with his mace and Ashe joined into the fray.  We killed a couple and then one of the clerics managed to turn the remaining ones.  After the last of that group fled, anther larger group came in the door.  We fought them for a round or so and then one of the clerics managed to turn the larger group too.  We followed the retreating monsters in pursuit through several rooms that led to other rooms all with doors.

After about the third room we caught up with them.  There were also a couple of different looking ghouls in there as well.  Immediately, the group members up front had to save to resist the foul stench permeating from the newest group of creatures.  We didn’t know it at the time, but these weren’t ordinary ghouls – they were ghasts!  The clerics tried and failed to turn this group of creatures.  The knight managed to kill one of them but it turned out to be one of the last ordinary ghouls in the pack.  The remaining ghasts pounced on the knight and Ashe who bore the brunt of the attack.  They managed to hold off the creatures for a round or so and then three of them turned on Ashe and they managed to paralyze him with their claws.  He was further out in the room than the knight and was surrounded on three sides.  The knight and squire behind them tried in vain to hack at the remaining ghasts to no avail – they tore the helpless Ashe to shreds and started feasting on his extremities.

At this point, the knight didn’t want to retreat and lose all hope of recovering Ashe’s body so he stood his ground and tried to fend off the creatures.  By this time the group had turned its attention to the knight and managed to paralyze him too.  Viggo, the knight’s squire, pulled the unmoving knight from the front line and out of further danger.  At this point there were two ghasts left in the room while the other two had departed to try to outflank us in the hallway.  Seeing the desperation of the situation, the group fell back to the doorway and contemplated what to do.  Both fighters were out of action and Ashe’s body was being torn to shreds by the creatures – but it looked like they were protecting and nurturing the body two.  That’s when the true horror of the situation dawned on Aeth El Bar – he said “they intend to make him on of their number”.

As the remaining group fought off the last two ghasts and contemplated closing the door to retreat, Aeth El Bar began casting a spell.  He cast Sanctuary and walked into the room in the midst of the ghasts and pulled the mauled corpse of Ashe out of the room.  At this point, the group fought off the ghouls with Geth Rel Dane’s war dogs and managed to close the door and beat a hasty retreat.  As they hastened down the hallway, they saw the other two ghasts that had departed earlier.  The group had only narrowly managed to escape without being trapped between the two groups of creatures.

The group retreated to Nulb and immediately went to go see Mother Scring the town’s healer.  They explained that Ashe had been killed by ghouls and we needed her help.  She asked where this happened and the Knight said “in yon evil temple”.  We offered to pay her to help us keep Ashe from being transformed into one of the undead.  We paid her 300 g.p. for the spell and then returned to Verbobonc post haste.  We went to see the Druid by the river in the city and he cast reincarnation for the second time on Ashe’s ruined body.  This time, the new body that Obad Hai offered up was not humanoid but was in fact a wild boar!  The Battling Boar of Bissel!

TO BE CONTINUED…

TOEE Campaign: The Temple Grounds

Recap from 1/5/2008

The group returned to Homlett from Verbobonc and dropped off the loaned wagon to the people we borrowed it from and the horses at the stable at the Inn of the Welcome Wench.  We had a new addition to the group, a mercenary hireling fighter by the name of Morley Sorenson who had been hired in Verbobonc.  Sir Darion and the rest of the group ran into Rufus at the Inn and the Lord Protector implied that Byrn was not convinced that our group was really looking out for the interests of Homlett but in fact were just mercenary adventurers looking for loot like so many groups before.  Sir Darion tried to convince him that this was not the case and that his group was in fact here to scout out rumored evil activity at the TOEE but he said that it would take more than that to change the wizard's mind.  We stocked up on provisions and left on foot for Nulb to investigate any signs of a return of cult activity at the Temple of Elemental Evil.

We learned that the Velverdyva River, which the river in Nulb dumps into, was notorious for river pirates of all sorts.  The small river is navigable and one can go north down its course and enter into the much larger Velverdyva River where large amounts of river born commerce and piratical activity take place.  We also learned that the Boatsman’s Tavern and the Nulb Market sit right next to the port’s dock area in Nulb where most of the boat transport activity was taking place on the smaller local river.  Upon entering the godforsaken town we observed that it contained filthy and ramshackle buildings and was mostly populated with boatmen and fishermen. 

The group passed through Nulb and searched for a suitable campsite to stay at outside of Nulb and the TOEE.  After one was located we went on to the Temple itself and decided to reconnoiter the perimeter of the ruined walls and work our way outward to explore the area around the temple.  As we approached one of the corner towers which somehow appeared intact, the group was ambushed by 13 brigand archers with longbows concealed in cover near the walls!  A pitched battle was fought after we closed with them and Ryn managed to put most of them to sleep and all of the others were defeated in combat and went down except for one, their leader.  Seeing most of his men out of action he decided to flee.  The knight looked at Emran and said “go after him”.  He didn't want word of our intentions to reach the ears of our enemies in Nulb.  Those would be the last words the knight would ever say to his comrade.  Ashe and a few others followed along as best they could but couldn’t keep up with the speed of the half orc.  When he found their location he heard the sounds of a pitched battle.  By the time he found him he was dead and some of his prize possessions had been looted from his body.  The area around Nulb and the Temple is indeed a dangerous place.

The group mourned the loss and deliberated about what to do.  We didn’t want to go through the streets of Nulb with our tails between our legs carrying a dead party member so we decided to have the Ranger swim the small river with Emran’s body in tow.  He was still invisible from when Ryn had cast it on him previously.  He got across the river and stumbled into a camp of six bugbears on the other side!  Seeing the futility of trying to fight his hated enemy at such long odds he swam back across the river with the body in tow.  The bugbears saw the body being towed through the water by something they couldn't see and came closer to investigate.  They started swimming the river to get to it and at this point, Ashe let it go near the bank hoping to retrieve it later and fled.  After he got away, the Bugbears swam over to the area and searched but couldn’t retrieve it either.

Meanwhile, the group was heading back up the other bank to meet up with Ashe and Emran’s body and walked straight into the same group of Bugbears!  They caught most of the group by surprise and we were assailed from three sides with the two fighters mostly surrounded and two other bugbears threatening the two wizards in the middle of the group.  A ferocious hand to hand combat ensued and Ryn managed to fall back near Iggy while Golgroth moved up to stand beside Aeth El Bar against the monsters on the flanks of the group.  Seeing the desperation of the situation, Iggy cast Darkness on top of the Bugbears and everything went black for everyone inside the radius of the spell.  Upon seeing this (or not seeing it) Sir Darion ordered the group to fall back.  As we withdrew from the blackness we made our getaway.  Iggy even managed to cast Dancing Lights in the form of a silhouetted humanoid heading through the forest away from us to draw the Bugbears away from our trail.  We met up with Ashe at this point and he told us what happened.  We sadly made our way back to Homlett.

When we returned to the town we ran into Elmo at the Inn.  He told us he had been busy defending the town from the creatures that still inhabited the Moathouse and had even managed to recruit others of his order to help him in the fight.  The Knight asked him if he would return with us to the Temple but he said that his place was in Homlett so we departed without him.  Before leaving we stopped off to see Jaroo and asked him if he could help out with healing for those that were still wounded from the previous day’s battles.  He agreed and also introduced us to Geth-Rel-Daen, a half elven Druid who agreed to accompany us to the Temple.

We set out in a driving rain and made our way through Nulb without any problems.  While traveling through a wooded area on the way to the temple we ran into a large group of Gnolls (ten or so).  Nobody was surprised and Geth-Rel-Daen acted swiftly and cast entangle on the surrounding undergrowth which grew and managed to immobilize about half of them.  The other half got entangled while trying to get out of the living undergrowth.  Ryn also managed to put some of them to sleep as well.  The Druid issued the warning “Leave these woods and never return or the spirits of the forest will be much less forgiving.”  Rather than risk fighting them and becoming entangled ourselves, we decided to move on in the hopes that they would heed the warning.  We couldn’t fire missiles at them because the rain rendered the archer’s bowstrings useless so we continued on towards the Temple again.

We returned immediately to the tower.  There was no visible door on the outside so Iggy scaled the ruins of the perimeter wall and threw over a rope for the others to get across and into the perimeter of the Temple.  When we got to the other side we found a stout door below and two ravens watching us from above on top of the tower.  Iggy’s curiosity was piqued so he threw a stone up towards them.  To his and the group’s amazement the ravens began growing in size and then swooped down to attack the party.  After a few rounds of melee combat, the giant ravens were dispatched.  Ryn was very interested in having a giant raven feather cloak and began pulling feathers out of them.  Iggy went to peer into one of the arrow slits with the use of his darkvision and told us he saw men moving around inside.

Ashe spoke up and began to lecture Ryn on the proper way to make a giant raven cloak (by skinning the creature) and suddenly we were attacked from within the tower by arrow fire!  The group withdrew over towards the wall some distance away to decide on a plan of attack.  Ryn and Iggy went back towards the tower and took up positions on either side of the arrow slits.  Sir Darion and Morley ran to the door and started trying to knock it in but soon discovered it was a very sturdy oak reinforced door and wouldn’t budge.  The rest of the group withdrew to the cover of some stones further inside the perimeter towards the temple to avoid the arrow fire.

Ryn cast web inside the arrow slit on the left and soon we heard men shouting in frustration as they became entangled.  Then we heard them screaming in pain as their companions tried to burn them out of the webs.  Iggy quaffed his potion of Protection from Arrows and Geth-Rel-Daen cast warp wood on the door which finally allowed the two fighters to get it open.  The archers fired at Iggy who taunted them from beyond the warped door in full site knowing he was protected from arrows by the potion.  This served to be an effective diversion since they all fired at him and missed and the knight and fighter went in through the portal.  When they got inside, they faced a line of three men two deep (six total) with spearmen in the back row and many others behind them at the opening beyond the foyer (around twenty men total).

The knight moved in and was able to use his armor to his advantage in this situation to hold off six attackers at one time in the narrow opening while Morley backed him up with a spear as a reach weapon behind him.  It had occurred to Darion that ceilings of entry halls like this one often hold some kind of murder holes where defenders could pour boiling water or burning oil down on the heads of attackers.  While he was contemplating that thought, the ceiling caved in and knocked everyone in there down wounding them in the process and filling it with an impenetrable layer of dust.  As the dust cleared and the victims groggily got to their feet, the fight was resumed.

Darion and Morley managed to take a few of them down without being hurt too bad and then the Druid cast Charm Person on one of the defenders in the middle of the line.  He failed his savings throw and now believed that we were good friends and couldn’t understand for the life of him why his companions were attacking us.  So he decided to turn on them and managed to kill the guy next to him and one or two further back before being dragged down by the men in the back of the tower.  As the number of defenders gradually dwindled we were left facing two hardened leader types wearing plate armor.  They proved to be hard to hit but were eventually brought down.  As the survivors were given the “dagger of mercy”, Ryn found the one who had helped us and tied him up for questioning so that he wouldn't be dispatched with the others.  He told us that there was plenty of food in the rafters and that their leader probably had plenty of loot hidden somewhere in his chambers.  He also told us that their leader “Bob” was rumored to have had a secret escape somewhere in his room or in the tower and had left the fight before his men had been overwhelmed.  He also told us that he had some way of making the ravens on top of the tower appear smaller than they actually were.  We surmised that perhaps this was the same brigand that had killed Emran the day before and made a mental note to remember his face…

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Temple of Elemental Evil Recaps

The next round of recaps is from our Temple of Elemental Evil campaign in 2008.  We started out in the Moat House and after much tough fighting, we finally managed to clear out the Bandits and Lareth and his other henchmen and monsters from the majority of the dungeon below it.  If I did write any recaps from this period they were deleted when the Battle Buddies forum was pruned.  I didn't get a chance to save them so these recaps start up as we first started exploring the actual Temple of Elemental Evil itself.  There are gaps from the first two to the last two (probably never written) and after the final recap the group fell apart and stopped playing but it was still a fun game nonetheless.  This is the campaign where I had several déjà vu moments from playing in the Village of Hommlet and the ToEE module below when I was a kid.  See the re-discovering Old School D&D post below for more info on that...