Eberron Session Summary 02/19/2006

Attendance

Bruce (Grenville d'Tharashk) says, "I am going to write an introduction that doesn't verge at all from reality!" Chris (Varth Lokkur) mocks him, "Yeah, right. You've never dipped two toes into the wellspring of reality at a time!" Paul leaps to his defense, but is unsuccessful. Ernest (Kurgash d'Tharashk) sits by silently, thinking, "Summoning creatures... hmmm... I bet I could find a feat that would boost that." Matt (Munaak) just tells everyone he can find about how wonderful hexblades are. Tim (Lungpuncture) disagrees, pointing out, "But all they get are the hexes. Oh, and the blades." Peco (Solmar) suggests, "But those hexes are pretty nice. And did I forget to mention the hexes?

Chuck (Graf) shows up later on, offering apologies for the way the terrible freezing weather delayed him.

Patrick (Elyandre) fails to attend, as he's much more interested in dealing with his car accident issues. Everyone else thinks good thoughts in his direction; he suffers a mild headache.

Disturbing Warforged Social Practices

Lungpuncture offers, "I've just bought some platinum rings! If the spellcasters wear some, and I wear one, then I can share damage with them! It'll make them a lot tougher, as long as I'm not taking damage!"

Grenville offers, "It's a pair bonding! I know some songs about that!"

Lungpuncture growls, "Just put on the ring, bard-boy!"

Kurgash comments, "I know some songs about that too, but you have to play them with a banjo!"

The Castle of Orcbone

Much to their surprise, the characters find themselves standing outside the fortress of Orcbone at the border with Droaam. The fortress is surrounded by a small settlement, just barely large enough to support its own mill. The fortress is mostly intended to prevent cross-border raiding from the wilds of Droaam. The characters' nominal interest is to see if it would be a good place for a mining operation.

Varth Lokkur tells Kurgash, "It's called Orcbone because a lot of orcs got killed here, and left behind their bones! Want some soup? It's made of orc-bones!"

Kurgash grumbles, "Any more jokes like that, and we're gonna have a hundred rounds of killing in the village. Then they can rename the place Orc and Human Bone."

The characters roll into town in full regalia. Varth Lokkur is very noticeable, as he's floating a few inches above the ground, surrounded by his ominous black warlock cloak. He sees a few priests of the Silver Flame staring at him from a respectful distance. One of them yells, "It's a warlock! Beware for your lives!"

Varth yells back, "It's priests of the Silver Flame! Beware for your lives, if you're a werewolf. Or if you're a hardworking woman just trying to raise up your kids! Bastards!"

Grenville steps in, glowing with Eagle's Splendor. He tells the priests, "How have we offended you, good priests?"

A priest steps up and rather haughtily asks, "Do you not know what evil you travel with?"

Grenville answers, "Perhaps you speak of my friend Kurgash? He is a monster for justice!" Kurgash flexes his muscles. Then Grenville proceeds to try and bury the priests under rhetoric, in part arguing that kittens need to be killed to prevent them from befalling even worse fates later on. Most of the priests are too deeply lost in close-mindedness to be swayed, but one priest is so touched he thinks, "I still hate warlocks, but suddenly I want to sleep with the bard..." Grenville shudders.

Varth goes into a general store to buy some nails. The shopkeeper gestures towards the Silver Flame priests and comments, "Those guys are just fucking nuts. It's always kittens with them." Varth learns that Droaam's only real exports are mercenary services and byeshk (a metal that is good against the daelkyr). The richest merchant in the area is Luro Moxan. He invests in a lot of local businesses, including the mill and roadside businesses from here to Ardev. Also, getting General Gallor's permission is really necessary for any local business to start up.

Getting the Lay of the Land

Grenville walks around the town, finding out who is involved in local mining operations and what kind of permissions are actually needed to open up a mine. As usual, Grenville gets a completely ridiculous Gather Information check. He learns that a license is needed to open up a business, but the General can issue them. Title to some ore-bearing land is also necessary. Technically, the government of Breland owns all the land on its side of the border, but the government has generally been very willing to sign mining leases in the last few months. Orcbone is about 100 miles from the mountains, so there actually are no local mining operations. The town is really mostly a regimental town: the entire community is really just there to serve the garrison of the fortress.

Graf asks, "Why are we thinking about opening a mine? We were originally going to set up a roadside business to provide services to travelers. Why don't we do that, and then improve business by spreading false rumors of large byeshk deposits?"

Grenville compliments him, "You look like a warforged, but you think like a bard!"

Graf confesses, "I spend too much time around you."

Lungpuncture suggests, "Why don't we open a business as a service provider? We could be like a Brelish version of Halliburton, but only half as evil."

Grenville asks, "Why only half as evil?"

Lungpuncture points out, "We don't have Cheney."

Kurgash offers, "Yeah, and because House Tharashk's major business in Droaam is finding gnollish mercenaries and such we can keep our eyes out for good recruits."

Everyone eventually comes up with all sorts of services a House Tharashk chapter house in Orcbone could provide. The road into Droaam is nominally controlled by House Deneith, but they only cover the road proper and might not want to deal with some customers (hobgoblins and gnolls, for example).

Talking to the General

The characters get an appointment to speak with General Gallor. After a round of introductions, the characters describe their plans. The General suggests that they should establish their chapter house in an outlying community. He mentions that a group of businessmen from Sharn came out to the frontier and built a fortress near the lake and the crossroads. Then they all disappeared mysteriously several months ago. The characters could re-occupy the place cheap. The place has been put back into government possession because no heirs to the original owners could be found. If the characters were willing to supply employment for locals and boost the local economy, then the General would be willing to provide the building for a nominal price.

Grenville negotiates a price of 2000 gold, plus 1000 additional gold in bonuses to be paid to the first fifty workers the characters hire. Each character agrees to pay in a share of 500 gold; Grenville is (oddly enough) a bit short at the moment, so he gets the others to agree that he can pay in his share later on when the bonuses need to be paid.

Out to the Fortress

The crossroads is two days' travel back from Orcbone. The characters ignore the warlock as he freaks out and tries to get them to sleep at three in the afternoon, then set out the next morning.

The characters find that there is actually still a sign for the Blackened Goose Inn near the building. It has been knocked from its pole and lies on the ground. The inn building is set back from the road on a rocky outcrop. Stairs have been carved into the outcrop. A stream brings water down from the mountainside. The building proper has thick stone walls, with small armatures on the corners of the roof for crossbowmen. Kurgash admires them, "We could put our automated crossbow up there, to keep the giants away!"

Varth Lokkur flies up around the building to take a look-see. The building exterior is in good shape: there are no holes in the walls, and no visible signs of damage. There are some bits of ice visible in the stream: it is still late winter, and the stream is definitely quite cold.

The characters decide to head into the front door. Lungpuncture casts True Seeing upon himself and upon Cutter Gerald.

The Front Room

The front room looks like a common room, albeit one abandoned for three months or so. The furniture has all been severely damaged, mostly from weather. Lungpuncture and Varth debate with each other about what kind of design flaws could be responsible for destroying all the furniture so quickly. Kurgash looks around for anything to drink. He finds an older-looking bottle that starts out very sweet and ends up very fiery. He shows it to Solmar, who recognizes it as a rare dwarven brew called roschambrew. Kurgash just recognizes it as a great liquor for getting women drunk.

Cutter investigates the upstairs, finding mostly bedrooms. He learns that the local sewer system consists of pots that can be emptied out the windows. He tells Grenville all about it. Grenville shudders.

The ground floor includes a common room, meeting rooms, kitchen, and storeroom. Even the rooms that aren't directly exposed to the front door look like they have suffered a lot of weather damage.

Down in the Basement

The basement is very cold, mostly built out of an existing cavern. The characters with True Seeing can tell that there is a magical aura there. The back of the basement contains a large pool of water, completely frozen over. The characters note that it seems pretty deep, and speculate that it is linked to the stream. There are barrels and bales stored along the walls, including a lot of frozen food that still looks good to eat. The original owners were obviously using the area as cold storage.

Munaak takes a look at the cavern and indicates that the cold is not natural. Lungpuncture responds by casting Mass Resist Energy on the group, giving everyone energy resistance of 10 against cold. Varth reports that there are three magical effects: a spell on the entrance (possibly some sort of alarm), an effect to maintain the cold (possibly from an item), and a pair of magical invisible eyes that suddenly appeared in front of the group. Varth responds to this by casting a Voracious Dispelling against the eyes. The eyes go away.

Kurgash decides that he's had enough of standing around in a meat locker. He marches up to the frozen pool. Everyone else gasps in horror as a white dragon launches itself through the ice, seizes Kurgash in its jaws, and drags him sixty feet towards the back of the chamber. Kurgash does the only reasonable thing: he goes into a rage and grows to large size. Lungpuncture is disappointed to see that this doesn't have the effect of breaking, or even unhinging, the dragon's jaw. On the plus side, his armor spikes do have an effect on the dragon's gums.

The rest of the group scurries around in circles, casting spells and exclaiming in horror, while the dragon pulls Kurgash into the next chamber. Grenville comments, "Thank goodness! I just couldn't stand that horrible crunching sound!"

Graf points out, "But that just means that Kurgash is going to die alone, in the dark!" He storms forward into the chill water.

Grenville corrects the warforged, "You're just assuming that Kurgash isn't going to win his single combat with the dragon. I have more confidence in the abilities of my comrades!"

The White Dragon's Basement

Solmar casts Water Breathing on everyone nearby, then flies towards the icy pool. Lungpuncture casts Fly and follows him. Varth likewise takes the air, grabs Munaak and flies down into the dragon's completely flooded bedchamber. He arrives just in time to join Kurgash and Graf in getting dusted by the dragon's freezing breath weapon. Munaak screams, "Thanks for dragging me down here just in time to die!" Varth ignores him, because Lungpuncture's earlier resistance spell ensures that nobody takes any actual damage. Munaak casts a Wall of Fire across the dragon, deftly transforming it into a Wall of Steam.

Then the water elementals attack, generating vortexes around Munaak, Graf, Varth and Bronag's summoned shark. Munaak is ripped from Varth's grasp. He makes an obscene gesture at Varth. Varth shouts out, "Merry Christmas!"

Kurgash picks up a Grease potion and uses it to slide his way out of the dragon's grasp. Then he flops about and smashes the dragon straight in the mouth with a strike so powerful it leaves broken dragon's teeth drifting through the water. The dragon curses, "Fuchhh..." in draconic.

Varth picks up on the theme of hurting enemies by sending a Maximized Chained Eldritch Blast at the creature. Sadly, the dragon's Spell Resistance puts paid to that plan. Kurgash reassures the warlock, "At least that looked very colorful."

The dragon muses, "Hmm... Sharks with lasers? What's up with that?"

Varth shoots again. This time, he hurts the dragon. He also hurts a pair of nearby water elementals with the chaining effect. The dragon responds by raising up a forearm, activating a magical armband, and teleporting away. Varth curses, "Bitch! Come back so we can hurt you some more!"

Lungpuncture jokes, "Won't it be funny if we get schooled by those elementals now that the dragon's gone?" The elementals demonstrate that they don't understand the concept of a "soft target" by both attacking him, to no measurable effect.

The characters notice that the water is very, very cold. There is actually ice formed on the cave walls, ice thick enough that frozen bodies are embedded inside it.

Kurgash commences the grim task of chopping the elementals apart. Varth joins in with a barrage of Quickened and Maximized Eldritch Blasts. Munaak, still trapped inside an elemental's vortex, reports, "I know a lot about extraplanar creatures! These things aren't really vulnerable to anything! That's why I'm using Magic Missiles!" Magic Missiles come flinging out of the elemental vortex.

The elementals converge upon Lungpuncture and start pounding him into spare parts. Lungpuncture howls out, "I'm still conscious! Yaay! Hey, is anyone else getting their ass kicked in this fight?" He casts Teleport to take himself back to the mouth of the cave, then starts healing away all the damage he just took.

Grenville finally makes his way into the combat, announcing himself with a spread of Magic Missiles against an elemental. Solmar mentions to him, "Check for where the dragon went!"

Munaak decides that he has taken quite enough damage, so he casts Dimension Door to take himself back to hook up with Lungpuncture. He offers, "Hello, mister cleric! I'd like some of that sweet, sweet healing when you've got a moment." Back in the combat, his pet druid's bear and his summoned shark continue chewing away at elementals.

Graf sees Munaak vanish and screams, "The elementals are disintegrating the spellcasters!"

Grenville concentrates for a moment and reports, "The dragon is further beneath us, in a deeper submerged cavern!"

Kurgash suggests, "Anyone who has a spare Wall of Fire available might want to toss it across that entrance! Now, someone send Cutter over so I can breathe air out of his lungs!" Almost as an afterthought, he sends two of the wounded elementals back to the outer planes. Bronag the druid takes out a third with a skillful scimitar swing.

The single surviving elemental continues to beat on the summoned shark. The shark has the last laugh: the summoning spell expires before the elemental can finish crushing it.

Graf, Kurgash and Varth get rid of the last elemental by the numbers. And then Kurgash swims to the surface to take a breath.

Draconic Wetwork

The characters spend a few moments on the surface, healing and buffing, then head down underwater to find the dragon. Lungpuncture helps the transportation problems by summoning a celestial orca whale that everyone simply clings to.

The group swims down into a twenty-foot wide underwater passageway blocked by a magical Wall of Force. Varth sends out a couple of Voracious Dispellings and ends it. The characters continue past.

The tunnel branches up and down. The upper branch is mostly blocked by something about eight feet tall frozen in ice. Grenville reports that the nearest big-ass dragon-sized metal bracer is downwards. The characters move past, just in time to see the stone golem break free of the ice. The stone golem unleashes its Slow power against everyone, but only Cutter Gerald is affected. But even this rather small offense is enough to draw up a tremendously violent response from the other characters.

Lungpuncture and Grenville unleash various situational bonuses as Solmar flings a Spectral Hand-enabled Inflict Serious Damage at the thing.

Varth follows up with a pair of Eldritch Blasts. He is just a bit ticked to discover that the golem is functionally immune to almost all magic. He curses, "Crap! I'm useless! Good luck, guys!"

Grenville reassures him, "Welcome to my world!"

It is at this point that Munaak mentions, "Oop! I gotta go to Barton Creek Mall! I'm outta here!" He and all his compatriots Teleport away.

The golem starts smashing its way through the orca whale. Even after dishing out over forty points of damage, the orca whale still mocks the thing, "Keep it coming, Flintstone! Keep it coming!"

Kurgash marvels, "The orca whale. Nature's deadliest water-borne killer."

Lungpuncture adds, "And it has a +30 weasel bonus to AC!"

Graf and Kurgash charge the golem, chipping away at it with great abandon.

And then the dragon swims up from the depths to take a snap at Kurgash. Varth responds by spraying it down with Eldritch Blasts, none of which make it through the Spell Resistance. Graf reaches out and stabs the dragon with the Rapier of Puncturing, drawing away 15 CON. Graf exclaims, "I just did 147 points of damage! Hahaha!"

The dragon shrivels like an aged skekses, then gasps out, "Huuhhhh... I'm... still... alive..."

Kurgash growls, "Not for long, lizard-boy." He flies into a rage and screams, "Kurgash no pussy! Rraaugh!" The dragon is not impressed, but it should be. Kurgash hits the dragon twice with an axe enchanted with Dragon Bane. His first hit kills the creature. His second separates its body into two snaky pieces. And then he cleaves the golem. Into two pieces.

Kurgash raises his axe to the heavens and howls, "Hooh! Hooh! Hooh!" Varth swims past him to take the bracer off the dragon's arm and puts it onto his own arm. It proves that it is magical by resizing itself automatically.

Everyone looks for loot. Grenville offers, "We'll set Cutter to looking for loot. He can have an ice axe so he can chip out the corpses." The dragon had:

• Arcane scrolls of Clairvoyance (x2), Dispel Magic and True Strike on waterproof parchment; and
• Bracers of Dimension Door (3/day)

Varth verifies the scrolls after he puts on the bracer.

The dragon seems to have frozen weapons into the sides of the tunnel as trophies. None are magical, but some are masterwork weapons. The characters leave them for later.

The Ice Box

Strange carvings decorate the dragon's bedchamber, a cavern about forty feet in diameter. There is a small metal box with an open lid in an alcove. It is clearly magical, and empty. Varth takes a look at it. He thinks it is exuding an evocation effect, probably of refrigeration. He asks Kurgash to close the lid with one of the masterwork weapons from the wall. Kurgash finds that he has to make a Reflex save any time he gets within twenty feet of the box. He gets cold (though the Endure Elements fixes that) and is surrounded by a block of ice two feet thick. Solmar closes the box with Mage Hand; the chamber is immediately warmer.

The Other Tunnels

There are three other tunnels out of the main chamber. The lower tunnel seems to lead out through to the river, making it a rather nice escape route. A second narrows down to nothing. The third leads up to an entrance above the ground. The fourth goes straight up beyond the water level and then ends in a small chamber.

There's Another Dragon!

Grenville turns on Locate Object, looking for gold. He leads the characters out into the river and into another river cavern 150 feet in diameter. This one is also ice-coated, but only ankle-deep in water. In the center of the chamber, six frozen warriors in armor stand surrounding a thirty-foot mound of treasure. And then there is another dragon.

Kurgash doesn't wait. He charges with his rage blazing bright. The dragon absorbs his attack, then lashes back with teeth, claws, wings and tail. Kurgash sucks up massive damage. Amazed, he gasps, "What did we just attack? Kung-Fu Joe?"

Lungpuncture flies in and casts Prayer. Grenville starts singing. And Varth launches a pair of Eldritch Blasts that power their way right through the dragon's spell resistance.

And then Kurgash lauches into his second round of attacks, cutting the dragon down. The dragon falls to the ground, but doesn't die. Kurgash looks to Grenville, who orders (with only a slight tinge of panic), "Kill it! Kill it now!" Kurgash strikes off its head.

Lungpuncture promises to cast Gentle Repose on the two dragon heads so they can be used as the inn's new sign. And then everyone checks out the dragons' horde. Cutter manages to find and disable a poison needle trap on the locked chest in the center. He opens the box, then gets hit by the second trap that he didn't find. The sonic blast goes off, but he leaps to the side in time. Cutter has never been so happy to have Evasion. Kurgash picks him up and tells him, "You just paid for all that magic shit that Grenville keeps on giving you!"

There are actually two distinct hordes, plus a signed prenup in the chest.

• 282 platinum pieces;
• 6874 gold pieces;
• 22,345 silver pieces;
• 45,987 copper pieces;
• a golden basin worth 1100 gold;
• a white gold box ornamented with black pearls worth 1300 gold;
• a black pearl worth 400 gold (inside the box);
• a white opal worth 1200 gold (inside the box);
• an emerald worth 700 gold (inside the box);
• a cloak pin made from moonstones set with sapphires worth 1400 gold;
• a silver-plated longsword worth 600 gold;
• a roll of cloth with gold weave worth 150 gold;
• a silver platter worth 75 gold;
• a carved wooden harp worth 300 gold;
• a large rolled-up tapestry worth 350 gold;
• a pair of bronze chalices with great workmanship worth 350 gold each;
• a Rod of Wonder;
• a Chime of Opening;
• a scroll of Suggestion;
• a scroll of Identify; and
• a scroll of Locate Object

And in the other dragon's horde:

• The Ice Box (lowers temperature to 32-33 degrees within 200' area);
• A magic chain shirt;
• A Heavy Steel Shield +5;
• A potion of Endure Elements;
• An oil of Magic Weapon;
• A scroll of Grease; and
• A scroll of Rage.

Kurgash is all up with the idea of using two white dragon corpses to sell dragon-burgers for months. Lungpuncture buys into this idea just enough to cast Gentle Repose on the two bodies, though he may have been more interested in preventing the river from being fouled by tons of rotting carcasses. Then he Gentle Reposes everything else around, on the thought that some of the dead might be locals.

The characters shell out 400 gold from the horde to buy enough pearls to Identify everything, except for the magical chainmail shirt (which mysteriously gets forgotten).

The Loot!

The following listing of loot includes items from both the werewolf encounter a couple of sessions ago and the dragon encounters this session. Loot from this session includes:

Items from the 01/22/2006 werewolf encounter include:

The End of the Session

The 9^th level characters each gain 5014 experience points. The 10^th level characters gain 3714 experience points, except for Munaak who gains only 2714 (because he missed the last fight today). The 11^th level characters each gain 3064 experience points.