I ended up with only three players, but quite honestly that was sort of my fault as I didn’t think I’d be up to playing due to having had surgery on Thursday and being released from the hospital earlier that day.  But, up for playing I was so we ended up with…

• Brother Iruel (Tiefling Cleric of Peleor)
• Que’Lara (Paladin of the Raven Queen)
• Erroll (Human rogue)

Improvisation time!

Que’Lara’s superiors asked her to gather a team to investigate the ironically named Peaceful Glade, a small village where the combat between the Clockwork forces and Stathas’ own took place; apparently one of the paladins there of the Raven Queen went insane and started slaughtering survivors.

Upon arrival, things looked even more bleank..not only was everyone in the village dead, but zombies began busting out of the houses.  After a fight with a corruption corpse and a few normal zombies, the temple itself was reached.

(Fun times:  Erroll popped a zombie in the head for a crit, destroying it instantly)

The temple was completely desecrated, the words “Why have you Forsaken me?” splattered in blood on the walls in various languages.  Oh, and a zombie formed of the three lay clergy left in there (zombie hulk stats).  After being batterled, bruised and bloodied, the party became victirous and a piece of the puzzle was uncovered.

Next week, quite probably no gaming session due to Thanksgiving, and in December, we kick the tires on epic-tier play, picking up a and tying off a very old Forgotten Realms plotline from way back in the day.

Meanwhile, two mini-reviews:  Martial Power and Draconomicon both rock my socks.

Two new players and a returning player!  The characters…

• Sindiin, human wizard
• Erroll, human rogue
• Akarnon, tiefling warlock
• Sora, dragonborn fighter
• (Later) Iruel, tiefling cleric of Pelor
• Aieliantros, eladrin wizard
• Drag’orm, dragonborn warlord

Very RP-heavy session.  After convincing the new peeps to submit to the doppleganger-discovering ritual, the party went to talk to Fanglord Remmerlie, showing him the body of “Ambassador Villem,” and subjecting him to the no-dopplegangers-here ritual.  Then conversation turned to convincing the king and queen to get them to test everyone in the palace.  But of course, what if the king or queen are dopplegangers?

Remmerlie came up with a test that didn’t involve the ritual, though he was quiet about exactly what said test was.  He sent the party off on a quest to the nearby town of Two Lakes, to bring back a girl from the orphanage.

And..that was pretty much it.  Low-XP session (just a quest reward).  I have nastiness in mind for next session though.  Oh yes.  I do.

I’m afraid, due to some secret stuff that needs to be kept secret from one of the players, I can’t really post much about this week’s session.  We got in a little gaming time after all the tricking and treating was done, and it was mostly a planning session as far as how the group was going to handle this doppleganger thing.

Akarnon, however, did reveal that he has gotten the permanent, Cult of the Hourglass version of the ritual performed on him by the Cult (effectively meaning he’s joined the Cult…)

Next session should be..ah..interesting.

Finally, we were able to get a session going.  This wrapped up the current plotline.  The players…

• Sindiin, human wizard
• Brother Iruel, tiefling cleric of Pelor
• Erroll, human rogue
• This One, warforged swordmage
• Akarnon, tiefling warlock

Arriving in Mangate, they group was escorted by Dorran, a liason for the Council of Wyrms, to a park on the way to the ambassadorial cottages to rest and relax a bit before Ambassador Villem was to meet with the Council the next day.

Unfortunately, there was an ambush by the Cult of the Hourglass, their main target seemed to be Ambassador Villem.  The Cult got the drop on the PCs, but (aside from missing Villem) did little.  In the first round of actual combat, Dorran showed his true allegiance and slew Villem.  The rest of the Cultists held back after Villem died, and near the end of that round, the truth was revealed..Villem was a doppleganger.

After some discussion, and the aggreance of most of the party (save Erroll) to undergo a ritual to make sure they weren’t dopplegangers, heads cooled and Dorran explained.

The Cult of the Hourglass has known about a conspiracy with a group of dopplegangers called the Faceless for some time.  The Faceless worship the demon lord, Julibex, and seek to destabalize the world’s governments, causing widespread destruction and dragging the world into the Abyss.  The prince of Stethia is one such doppleganger (thus why the Cult tried to assassinate him before the campaign’s first adventure), but the Cult is unsure of how far the conspiracy goes or who, exactly, is a member of the Faceless.

And here’s why I love this game.  :-)  I had one thing in mind for what the PCs were likely to do, but they went in a totally different direction.

Sindiin learned the doppleganger-finding rituals, and is going to modify them so that they create a tattoo in the shape of the Goldenscale family crest.  Then, if I’m understanding correctly (and if I’m not, maybe one of the players can correct me), the group is planning a public assassination of the prince to show the royal family what’s going on.  Provided they survive that endeavor and can reveal the prince for what he is, they’re going to try to get several people (such as the king and queen) to submit to the permanent doppleganger-sniffing ritual as a precaution.  From there, y’know, try to stop this whole war thing from happening.

Beyond that, the crew met with the Council of Wyrms and managed to convince the two eldest known dragons on Aerith (a red named Fireeye and a gold named Maddigan) to lend Dragonbend’s support to Stethia.

Oh, and, yeah, there is some inter-party conflict now, since the PCs aren’t sure if Erroll (who, remember, didn’t submit to the ritual) is a doppleganger or not.  And any of my players that have been playing with me long enough know I’m just rat-bastard DM enough to make such a backroom deal.  :-)

Also, I think I have one of the PCs on the verge of joining the Cult of the Hourglass.

After some tech issues (again, seeing the pattern?) we got started.  The characters..

• Brother Iruel, tiefling cleric of Pelor
• Que’Lara, eladrin paladin of the Raven Queen
• Sindiin, human wizard
• This One, warforged swordmage
• Akarnon, tiefling star pact warlock
• Erroll, human rogue (who came in about halfway through the session)

After leaving Arbortop, the party came across a bridge over a small chasm on their way to the City of Spires.  It was an obvious trap (one end of the bridge was blocked by logs), but not a very *good* one as all they would have to do is leap over the chasm with their horses.  But, of course, things were not as they seemed; oh no! Orc ambush.  2 orc berserkers, 2 orc raiders and an Eye of Gruumsh.

4e orcs are nasty, with some nasty surprises.  Most everyone ganged up on the Eye of Gruumsh first (especially after his opening maneuver, which involved a nasty chaos hammer effect).  One of the berserkers got a crit in on One (and did massive amounts of damage) and, in the end of course, our heroes were victorious.

After a short stay in the City of Spires, the party headed out for Gantor Hill, which held a shrine to the Raven Queen that would confer a blessing upon Her followers that prayed at the shrine…provided they could defeat the Great Raven guardian that watched over the hill and served to test the worthy (the area around the hill was covered in the not-quite-decomposing bodies of those that had tried and failed, kept fleshy by the Shadowfell energies that permeated the area).

The Great Raven itself was, essentially, a reskinned young black dragon geared towards necrotic energies rather than acidic ones and with the tail strike replaced with a power that let the dead on the hill around it “give it some of its power” (when a PC was bloodied).  i.e. heal.  Oh, and I threw in a couple of patches of doomspore, just for the fun of it (hidden inside corpses, natch).

It was a pretty nasty fight, and Que’Lara came extremely close to getting killed.  There was one point where, if the PCs hadn’t saved her, the next round ongoing necrotic damage would have taken her out on hit point damage alone.  Sindiin made good use of flaming sphere, and Akarnon got off a nice “combo” using action points.

After defeating the Great Raven (don’t worry, it’s immortal, it’ll come back!) and praying at the shrine, Que’Lara’s holy symbol was blessed by the Raven Queen and got an upgrade to a +2 Black Feather of the Raven Queen.  Akarnon (the other Raven follower in the party) prayed but nothing happened…or did it?  BWAHAHAAH!

After the prayer, a raven flew in and dropped off the badge of one of the higher-up paladins in the Raven Queen church, apparently torn bloody from clothes.  Que’Lara recognized the name of course (meanwhile, I totally forgot it…D’OH!).  As the raven flew away, it uttered one word, “Fallen.”

And that, as they say, was that.

Next week, it’s a special Halloween Shadowrun 4th Edition adventure!  Then the week after, we should be able to finish up this current 4e adventure.

Last night was mainly a “catch up to fourth level” session, so not a lot to type about. There was a bar fight in Arbortop between the party and some tiefling-hating elves, but Iruel did an awesome diplomacy check & defused the situation.

Then I got to feeling bad & we wrapped the session.

Checking to see if this app is posting from my ipod touch.

It’s been one of those weeks.  I’m exhausted, so I’ve opted to cancel this week’s game.  Part of it is the death of my uncle (on my mother’s side), but even before that whole drama session started, I was just exhausted.

So I’m going to take some time to recharge my batteries.

The characters….(we actually had all the active players there at one point!)

• Sindiin, human wizard
• Iruel, tiefling cleric of Pelor
• Erroll, human rogue
• Akarnon, tiefling star pact warlock
• This One, warforged swordmage
• Que’Lara, eladrin paladin of the Raven Queen

We picked up with the party arriving at the homestead of the spy that was spying on the Clockwork Kingdom.  It wasn’t too long before they ended up in a battle with a handful of warforged.  The highlight, NPC-wise, was when one of the warforged managed to tip a burning wagon onto Iruel and Sindiin.  That was fun.

Inside the house, they discovered even more warforged, one of which was a warforged captain, who had two iron defenders with him.  This battle was actually easier on the party than the one with just the normal warforged soldiers…go figure.

After they vanquished the foes, they checked around to see what they could find…some gems, a little gold, a military map the warforged had showing the location of a possible attack within the kingdom’s territory and a power jewel (from Adventurer’s Vault).

After the XP was all handed out, the party was less than 100 from level 4, so I went ahead and let ‘em have it.  Now, they’re all level 4.

It was a fun session, and we didn’t have any technical issues until after the game.  YAY!!  Next adventure’s gonna be fun for ‘em…oh..oh yes it will!

Hey, look at that, the first hour of the session was eaten up by technical issues.  (sigh)  Starting to be a recurring theme….

The PCs…

• Sindiin, human wizard
• Iruel, tiefling cleric of Pelor
• This One, warforged swordmage
• Que’Lara, eladrin paladin of the Raven Queen
• Akarnon, tiefling star pact warlock

Due to my ending up having to take care of some family stuff, and the aforementioned tech issues, we only got in one encounter, but it was fairly fun.  On their way to the valley to check up on the spy, in a wooded area along a river tributary they were following, the party was ambushed by goblins.

Red Talon goblins.

The goblins consisted of four goblin cutters, a skullcleaver, a hexer and an underboss.  This was our first use of the new initiative tracker in MapTools build 41, and it worked awesomely.  I think it was the first session in years that I didn’t skip over people.

Sindiin made short work of three of the cutters.  Que’Lara pulled off some sweet moves by fae-stepping off of her horse and teleporting behind the skullcleaver, critting on her follow On Pain of Death up attack roll.  Her player described it as her teleporting above the skullcleaver, burying her rapier in the little critter and sliding down.  Technically not the way the rules work, but it was a cool scene in my head so it stuck.  Oh, and dropping the skullcleaver down to bloodied in one hit (which the next round, due to various circumstances, resulted in the skullcleaver having to attack This One and taking nasty damage from Que’Lara’s divine challenge and On Pain of Death).

The rest of the battle was pretty fun too.  Of course, the last cutter went down with ease.  At one point, between a good dice roll from the skullcleaver and the hexer’s stinging curse, Que’Lara was in a world of pain.  They managed to corner the goblin underboss in such a way that he couldn’t use his goblin tactics ability, and the hexer’s vexing cloud did some nasty for a round on the party’s attack rolls.  The underboss lasted for a pretty long time (and of course got harder to hit once he became bloodied).

150 XP and 15gp each for the night.