Eberron Campaign Session #6
Today was the sixth session of my (still
relatively new) Eberron campaign.
Today was the sixth session of my (still
relatively new) Eberron campaign. We started in January and have been playing
monthly, the third Saturday of every month. The players are David Noonan, Andy
Collins, Gwendolyn Kestrel, Jesse Decker, Stephen Schubert, and Cameron Curtis.
It's been a change for me, from playing every week and with a different group,
but it's been quite fun so far. Playing monthly means longer sessions when we do
play, and it means that in most weeks I have more time to be with my family.
(It's just the week leading up to our monthly session, when I'm doing too much
last-minute prep work, that maybe I have less time with my
family...)
So the campaign began in
January with the adventure that will see print in DUNGEON next month, "The Queen
with Burning Eyes." It's a classic sort of dungeon delve, with the weird twist
that all the rooms are constructed from miniatures terrain tiles. For that
matter, in the published version of the adventure, I suggested miniatures to use
for every encounter.
After playing
through that adventure, the characters traveled to the city of Sharn, where they
hooked up with a professor at Morgrave University for an expedition to Xen'drik.
(One of the items they recovered in the first adventure turned out to be a key
to a vault somewhere in Xen'drik, and in a later confrontation with the Emerald
Claw necromancer Demise they recovered a second key to the same vault.) They
fought some sahuagin in the strait of Shargon's Teeth, encountered some
incompetent Emerald Claw agents in Stormreach, and sailed near the location of
the Lost Vault they sought.
Journeying into the jungle of
Xen'drik, they encountered a harpy who informed them that Tzaryan Rrac of
Darguun sought the same treasure as they did, and claimed it for his own. They
dispatched both the harpy and a batch of gnolls working for the Darguun warlord
with ease, and made their way to the enormous steps of the Lost Vault. The drow
guards there proved ill-equipped to withstand the PCs' assault, and the
remaining denizens of the Vault—an owlbear, a pair of ogres, a drow wizard
with some Abyssal eviscerator allies, a water elemental, and even an
erinyes—all fell before their might. They emerged from the Vault with a
horde of lost treasure, including a glowing iron rod that Professor Karrna
seemed particularly interested in bringing back to
Sharn.
Upon emerging from the Vault, a
black dragon intercepted the characters, spouting off cryptic remarks like, "The
world is not ready for that which you bear," and, "If I perish, so do many, but
you will be stopped." They defeated the dragon, then faced still more minions of
Tzaryan Rrac: orcs, another ogre, and a displacer beast. It seems they have
found the treasure that both the Emerald Claw and Tzaryan Rrac are desperate to
claim. But what do the mysterious dragons of Eberron have to do with it?
So today they made their return trip
as far as Stormreach. We started the day off with a bang, since I got my first
Giants of Legend miniatures this week: a bulette. The fight went pretty well,
considering that the characters were only 4th level—they would all have
survived had it not been for the critical hit it got on Gwen's wizard, killing
him outright. Gwen went off to make another character, while the others
proceeded, fighting a trio of werewolves (who seemed to really hate Andy's
shifter, even going so far as to call him a "mudblood," though I can't believe I
used that word in a D&D game, and one of them taking two attacks of
opportunity from other characters in order to go attack Andy). Then they
returned to where they had left the launch from the ship they came in
on.
Near the launch, they were
attacked by a group of lizardfolk—5 ordinary lizardfolk and one rogue (the
GoL mini). That was a pretty easy fight, but the pair of sea cats out on the
water was tougher—especially since one of them was just attacking the
boat. It turned out to be pretty exciting to see Andy's shifter hanging on to
the edge of the larger ship while Professor Karrna tried to climb up him from
the launch before the sea cats pulled it down under the water. All while the
pirates up on the deck, who had captured their ship, were shooting scorching
rays and crossbows all over the place. The pirate warmage died pretty quickly,
his quasit ally fled the scene (after his
cause
fear made Cam's warforged run like heck), and
the pirates fell in short order... especially once the fear wore off. Gwen's new
character had been working (rather unwillingly) with the pirates, but aided the
PCs from the start of that
encounter.
Back in Stormreach, lots of
shopping took place, and the artificer made a lot of stuff, and we closed off
the day with one more fight against the Emerald Claw. This time it was a party
of four enemy agents: a cleric of the Blood of Vol, a barbarian/fighter (Axe
Sister mini), a Daring Rogue, and a kalashtar wizard (with a striking
resemblance to an elf of Evermeet). They went down pretty quickly, too, to my
chagrin.
So that was the session.
Here's a rundown of the players and
characters:
Dave: Madivh, an Aerenal elf
monk
Andy: Kalar, a shifter ranger/psychic
warrior
Gwen: (originally) Te, a changeling
wizard
(now) Phenn, a changeling
cleric/transmuter (heading toward mystic
theurge)
Jesse: Crael, a halfling (House
Jorasco) druid, and Fergus, his dog
Steve:
Jeb, a human artificer
Cam: Stratos, a
warforged barbarian/fighter
Posted: Sat
- June 19, 2004 at 11:32 PM
