Due to the Christmas crush, I didn’t have the chance to update the last two sessions. I’ll recap the exploits of our PCs, beginning with taking on The Blight.
There was a lot going on in the final fight, so you’ll get as much commentary as action.
Our group
- Brus Reckoner
- Male half-orc Inquisitor of Yog-Sothoth.
- John “Angel Eyes” Wilmarth
- Male Aasimar Cleric of the mad idiot god Azathoth.
- Fág an Bealach (Faugh)
- Male svirfneblin Brawler of archetype Mutagenic Mauler.
- Bill the Bard
- A lost male human bard with his donkey Bottom.
- Picklick
- Male hobgoblin rogue.
The story thus far…
Last session the PCs had attempted a stealthy raid on ice demons that had taken over a ruined observatory. Picklick the rogue attempted to stealthily take out an uncautious watch, but it erupted into an all-out brawl. Picklick in particular had trouble injuring the demons, hacking at their throats and achieving little… He heard screaming and bones breaking… Out of fear and desperation he hacked and hacked and…
John shook Picklick awake. He was back in the cave and the bard was charming the Winter Hag who had approached them last week. “Wake up, time to start the raid.” Then the previous session played out again exactly as in Picklick’s nightmare. He was left uneasy and afraid.
The PCs explored the outer buildings of the observatory. They moved uphill towards the main buildings, stretching the party out in a long line. They carefully opened the door. The fighters moved in, finding two headless dwarfs splayed out in a room containing boxes of hastily collected astronomical equipment. As they crossed the room (leaving the learned and perceptive cleric, bard and support outside), they spotted the heads of the dwarfs. Impaled on spikes either side of the far door. The brawler Faugh walked too close and the heads open their eyes and mouths in alarm.
The PCs continued to stretch their position - the front advancing quickly and the rear advancing slowly. They then spotted two ice-like brutes lugging large boxes of gear. Proper ice demons, not the goat-headed ones of before. Roll for initiative.
The demons simultaneously dropped their boxes and exited stage left and right, immediately disappearing from sight. Calm as death, a lanky, grey-skinned human-ish person walked from the observatory. Hooks were plunged into the edges of his eyes and drawn back taut into a metal apparatus bolted around and through his skull. More hooks were dragging through his arm flesh, the chains taut. He seemed to live, nay cherish, pain.
He strode forward without a word, snapped a wand like a breadstick and drank in the magic. This was The Blight.
The fighters (a svirfneblin brawler, a rogue and an inquisitor with a prized planar lucerne hammer) advanced while the squishies (cleric, bard and a man they had rescued from a Halloween pocket plane) lagged far behind. The Blight snatched the lucerne hammer from the Inquisitor and threw it away calmly.
The brawler advanced and grappled, then pinned The Blight as the others moved in for the kill. The Blight seemed unperturbed, even as the svirfneblin yanked hard on his chains.
The Blight stared calmly at the svirfneblin, unmoving.
Meanwhile, the ice-demons could somewhat earthglide through anything cold and popped out to surprise the team, blasting them with cold breath weapons. The squishies (cleric, bard and hanger-on Martin Sucre) had been ambushed by them, but dodged around most of it. They advanced to the main fight, leaving Martin with one of the demons.
Unhappy with being stabbed and pummelled, The Blight levitated straight up, taking the small svirfneblin with him. Faugh knew that this might spell trouble for him, so attempted something from the Book of Cool. He let got of The Blight and as he fell off him, punched with all his might. Being unarmoured and at minimal health, this felled The Blight. He flew backwards, cracking against the stone observatory and collapsing in a pile.
The PCs then danced around the ice-demons, dodging through an Obscuring Mist and trying to deal with a demon stepping into and out of a wall of snow. The Bard managed to charm one of them and John the mad cleric discussed his situation as the other demon got chopped to bits.
The Winter Witch Caelanthra then strode through the observatory ruins with a posse of Wikkawaks. She hailed the PCs. As part of a very long six seconds (villains get to monologue as a free action), Caelanthra commended the PCs for killing The Blight so impressively. So impressively that she insisted that they stay and be her new wards, replacing her current idiotic mooks. The PCs were having none of this and retreated into the observatory, dragging in the body (and head) of The Blight and bolstering the door.
“Don’t come in, my lady! It’s far too dangerous in here!” shouted the Inquisitor, in a rare turn of diplomacy and subterfuge.
There was a bunch of argy-bargy as Caelanthra became extremely impatient with their non-cooperation. The wikkawaks surrounded the door, waving large battleaxes. Upstairs the cleric and bard were hurriedly trying to find the astronomical gear they had been sent to obtain.
It then all went to hell again.
The cleric had found an orrery and was attempting to drag it to the bard when he noticed a shadowy little monkey slinking about. Caelanthra’s monkey. The bard (and only carrier of a Bag of Holding) meanwhile had to run over to drop a gift down to Picklick. The monkey hit the bard with a glowing purple hand and the sparkle vanished from the bard’s eyes.
Downstairs, Brus the Inquisitor was holding the door with his planar hammer, a grease spell on the doorway from the bard, and some strong words. Picklick hid behind a door and quietly caught his gift from the bard. Well, the gift was from some secret admirer, but it was no time to split hairs. The gift was a large bottle containing a goblin with a wick sticking out of his head. Picklick lit the wick and rolled the bewildered goblin out onto the feet of Caelanthra.
KA-BOOOOOOM!
The dopey wikkawaks caught the brunt of the explosion as Caelanthra shielded her face with her thick winter coat. One of the wikkawaks was alight! They pushed in, slipping in the Grease and taking heavy blows from the Inquisitor. Caelanthra cast Unnatural Lust on the brawler, managing to direct his lustful attentions to the rogue acrobatically bounding towards her.
Amongst all the frantic pacing, something else was afoot. To launch his goblin bomb, Picklick had accidentally dropped The Blight’s head onto his corpse, which Faugh had conveniently dragged in. In the explosion and ensuing chaos, the murky body of The Blight vanished. The PCs panicked.
As the PCs braced against the wikkawak rush, The Blight drew from the shadows and shouted something at them in an unknown language. He stomped his foot towards the melee, his rage amplifying and warping the ground itself. The ground pulsed and threw a few wikkawaks and PCs to the greasy ground. He then screamed and walked into the shadows themselves, disappearing from the fight.
One of the lucky wikkawaks who kept his footing took a hefty swing of his battleaxe against the Inquisitor, chopping deep.
Caelanthra knew when her bodyguards were beat, so she attempted to escape. She cast a Wall of Ice to block the brawler chasing her and escaped into the snowy sky.
The PCs were free to loot the observatory, even though the snow storm was growing stronger with Caelanthra’s tantrum. Instead of beating a hasty retreat, the PCs used the telescopes to peer into “the forbidden arcs” they had read about. But this is a heavily chaotic campaign with an equally chaotic band of PCs… The bard was touched deep inside by a dark, unfathomable unease. The acolyte of Azathoth, John, saw nothing. Brus the Inquisitor for Yog-Sothoth caught a glimpse of his deity, which is both a blessing and a curse.
Eventually the PCs scooped up the appropriate astrolabes and the like, and shuffled back to Coin for safety.