World of Prime: Campaign Journal #51

The Kingdom of Night, redux 

Immediately upon entering the shroud of darkness around the city, the party encounters a shrieking mushroom plant. The Barbarian beats it like an accordion until it finally stops wheezing. Only moments later, six vampires materialize out of the mist.

The Herald and the Poet are back, very eager for more blood, and they have brought four friends with them. It appears discretion is not a vampiric skill, and the secret of the existence of humans is slowly widening. The confrontation does not go well, and within a few words has devolved into violence.

Now that there are six vaporous forms crawling across the mushroom moor, the party splits up, the better to track the lesser vampires to their lairs and end them before they respawn. The two Court members will appear at the swamp, giving the party a little more time.

The Ranger easily slips through the town, avoiding trouble; the Bard encounters curious vampires but soothes them with a clever lie; the Druid and Cleric manage to talk their way past a group out for a stroll; and the Barbarian rises to the diplomatic challenge and passes through town with no more than a friendly nod. Just kidding, the Barbarian starts a fight.

He manages to make it one-on-one until, of course, he gets hit; then the group he has encountered goes berserk. As they are the lowest ranks of the vampires, he destroys them all and makes his way to the swamp, where the rest of the party is waiting. After he explains that the party now has four more vampires that need to be staked before respawning, the ministers come out of the swamp. The Bard convinces them to help reduce the pool of blood-sharing monsters, and the party once again splits up, but this time with vampiric guides for the Barbarian, to break into mansions and dust noble monsters.

But rumor spreads faster than blood, and a crowd of vampires is now waiting for them. The Bard sparks the crowd to a class-based rebellion, leading them en-mass to the Minister of Architecture, where the party has agreed to meet back up with the Ministers of Poetry and Heraldry.

The party's complex plan: convince the proletariat to battle the bourgeoisie, and leap in at the last second to finish them all off before royalty arrives, giving themselves enough time to unveil the Disc of the Sun.

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #50

 The City of Eternal Twilight

Traveling east, the party unexpectedly encounters desert. The Ranger and Druid recognize this as somehow unnatural, though there is no magic involved. After a few more miles, the source becomes evident: a deep trench is cut into the ground, draining the local water table. The trench stretches east for as far as the eye can see; at its mouth is a construction crew busily extending it further west.

The crew consists of men wrapped in white against the desert sun, two large self-propelled animated cranes, and a massive stone golem. When the party cautiously approaches, one of the men rushes out to block them, holding a staff ending in a flat hexagonal plate, and shoos them a safe distance away from the ongoing construction. At this range they realize the man is dead and mummified.

Uncharacteristically, the party decides not to start a fight. Instead, they follow the trench east. The water gradually gets deeper and faster as the land slopes down; the artifical drought around them becomes older and older, revealing that the crew has been working for several hundred years. Eventually the canal flows into a gigantic bronze portcullis, set into a high wall surrounding a massive city several miles wide. From the height of the slope they can see at least two interior rings of walls, implying the city has been built up for centuries.

But as they approach the city, it becomes clear it is virtually uninhabited. They evade a patrol of mummys and scale the wall at a deserted spot. On the other side are huge stone buildings, some six stories tall, that should be apartments or shops or theaters but are instead simply empty stone structures. Nothing travels the streets, save for the rare patrol of mummified minotaurs in blue hats, or even rarer, a construction crew building even more unused buildings. Inside some of the apartments are stacks of corpses of indefinite age, both human and minotaur.

At the center of the city lies a pyramid, clearly the source of answers to this mystery. Even more appealing: on top of the pyramid is a glowing light so bright that even when the sun goes down the city is bathed in twilight. This must be the recently fabled Disk of the New Sun.

Upon approaching the pyramid, the party is intercepted by a patrol that seems to be looking for them. They allow the patrol to shepherd them into the pyramid, through its winding corridors, and into the presence of the ruler of the city: the mad, mummified priest of Kek.

This high-ranking priest has been dead so long that he appears to think he is Kek, God of Twilight. The party accepts his self-identity, since they are after all models of polite behavior. Kek is not at all unfriendly, despite being somewhat unhinged, and appears to enjoy talking to people who are not silent robotic construction machines. Kek very quickly gives away all his secrets: the giant pool underneath his pyramid that all four trenches (east, west, north, and south) drain into, the portal that transports the water directly to the surface of the sun, and his epic quest to dump enough water on the fire of the sun that it is modulated to permanent twilight instead of harsh daylight and deep nighttime.

The party does not actually know how the sun works, so they are not prepared to dispute his calculations. Instead, they ask if they could borrow his night-light for a bit so as to deal with some vampires.

Kek has a low opinion of vampires in general and the Kingdom of Night in particular, so he is amenable. However, according the Law of Balance, the party must do something for him in exchange. He suggests that the annual tribute of tael from one of his minor client states to the south has been subject to depredation by a nest of Nagas. If the party could exterminate his problem, then he could lend them the means to exterminate their problem. This seems like a good deal, apart from the part where Kek seems largely unable to distinguish between lengths of time like hours, days, and years.

The party joins the procession south, which is essentially just another construction gang. Along the way they are indeed attacked by Naga bandits who remarkably have the ability to neutralize the stone golem by enclosing it in a force cage. This works equally well against the Barbarian, much to his dismay, but the party defeats the bandits and easily catches back up to the caravan.

Eventually they arrive at a small primitive human kingdom and witness the tribute. The village's dead for the year are reverently loaded onto the wagons, to be transported to the Eternal City where they will be reanimated and live in luxury according to their good deeds in this village. The party, remembering the stacks of dusty corpses, chooses to keep quiet, as little good can come from destroying the villager's hopes, and after all, Kek is not particularly oppressing them, taking only the usual overlord's tax of tael.

The villagers are well aware of the Nagas, and even trade with them, so it is easy to obtain a guide to the nest. Once there, the party has little difficulty extirpating the nest, despite their force cages, unusual cold spells, and charmed minotaur guards.

Returning to Kek, they hold him to his bargain, and obtain the Disk of the New Sun for the next one hundred days. Now they march west again, determined to destroy the immediate threat of Morpheus and his plans to return to the world. Foiling the mad Kek's quest to drain the sea and turn all the land into desert and the sun into twilight will have to wait; fortunately, that threat will require another thousand years to be really dangerous.

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #49

The Kingdom of Night (formerly known as the Kingdom of Blood)

There is some downside to old maps; they are not always up to date on the current political situation. In this case it turns out that the old Kingdom of Blood has redefined itself as the Kingdom of Night, a name more fitting to a epic empire.

The party travels west, in search of this mysterious realm, and finds an epic mystery: a lake of darkness in the middle of the day. While the darkness is only 30' high, it stretches across two full miles.

As usual, the party approaches this terrifying encounter with all due caution, conducting tests and examinations while creeping around the border. As usual, the Barbarian eventually runs out of patience and simply steps into the darkness.

When nothing instantly bad happens, the Cleric wraps a rope around himself, steps inside, and immediately trips and falls to the ground, lightly bruising his nose. Meanwhile the Bard begins a remote dredging operation to find whatever magic item is producing the darkness, but turns up only dirt and rocks and mushrooms.

Once the party is convinced they will not be instantly consumed, they enter the darkness, relying on a high-level light spell as their lightstones are suppressed by the darkness. Their first encounter is with a predator mushroom that poisons the Cleric but offers no real resistance to heroes of this rank.

Surrounded in a bubble of dim light that extends only 30' from their caster, they walk through a forest of mushrooms and into a city of shabby mansions. These once grand buildings have slowly decayed over the years, though several of them seem to have undergone some magical repair. Approaching one such house, they sensibly knock, only to be invited in by the house's only occupant: the lady Kairos, an attractive and talkative noblewoman.

She seems to have assumed they are new residents, and excitedly seeks to flatter them into joining her particular side in some obscure gossip competition against several other members of the city. She offers them food and drink, which turn out to be tael-infused mushrooms and a bottle of blood. After considering the total lack of mirrors in the house, and the fact that the lady seems utterly unconcerned with the total darkness of the city, they provisionally classify her as a vampire.

Eventually the Ranger induces the woman to discuss something substantive about local politics. She reveals that there will be a speech by the local ruler tomorrow, and invites them to stay at her house until then. The party accepts, and beds down in a dusty guestroom. The Bard, however, sneaks out to engage in further surveillance, and after several strenuous hours of effort returns just before dawn with confirmation the lady is indeed cold to the touch despite the warmth of her affections, just as one would suspect of a creature of undeath.

The speech occurs in the middle of a swamp of scrubby mushroom bushes, attended by approximately thirty old-fashioned but well-dressed lords and ladies. The ruler, Morpheus, gives an impassioned speech about the need to change current policy and begin looking outside the city's borders. Surprisingly for a nest of hungry vampires, the suggestion is not well-received.

Afterwards, Lady Kairos introduces them to the Minister of Heraldry. This kingdom has rather a larger court than most, with more than just the five traditional roles; it appears that Morpheus has been slowing adding to his court over the years, and the city's only real politics is over who gets to join the court next. They also learn the chief benefit of being in the court is being buried in the vast swamp, rendering the vampire's greatest weakness (its inert corpse) moot.

The Minister is also interested in recruiting them to her faction, as the support of the majority is the best method for getting elevated to the court. She takes them back to her mansion and enters their names into the book of residents, capturing them as a party under the noble leadership of the Barbarian (who spends an inordinate amount of time inventing his heraldic device.

The Bard does some information gathering and finds out that the reason the city is cut off from the rest of the world is that Morpheus is hiding from his nemesis, using the typical undead tactic of simply waiting for the foe to die of old age. This leads the party to the Minister of Poetry, who reveals enough details that the party realizes Morpheus' ancient foe is... Rialto. (See: The City of Tomorrow) The Bard also uncovers a clue to a weapon that the kingdom fears, hidden in a piece of bad poetry about the City of Eternal Twilight.

The party does not disclose that Rialto is now a chunk of broken stone. Instead, they accompany the three ladies on a brief tour of the city, still under the impression that they are new residents. There aren't many sights to see, but one of the more outrageous is the Commissary, where a half-dozen trolls are trapped inside iron maidens and being continuously bled to feed the vampiric population. The trolls, after centuries of captivity and torment, are completely insane, and their howls of distress are heartbreaking even coming from monsters. When the commissary attendant, Lord Oberon, proudly offers the party a fresh glass, the Barbarian cannot conceal his disgust. This leads, with remarkable speed, to a duel, despite the Bard's attempt to smooth the waters.

The ladies are eager to make a public event of it, but the party decides less attention is better. Lord Oberon freely agrees to an immediate duel and draws his sword, acting with such cavalier disregard for his life that one suspects he does not value it. But of course, he won't stay dead for very long.

The Barbarian strikes with deadly speed, attempting to end the farce quickly. However, Oberon manages to survive the initial onslaught, and manages to deliver a minor cut before being dissipated into smoke by the Barbarian's greatsword.

The outcome, however, is not expected: as a drop of blood splashes onto the ground, the three vampire ladies completely vamp out. In an insane frenzy they pounce on the Barbarian, driven to madness by the scent of fresh human blood. He is drained of four levels before the party manages to destroy the fiends.

The party follows the mist-form of Oberon to his house and stake him upon revival. Then they return to Lady Kairo's mans, only to find her returned to sanity and able to refrain from immediately attacking again. Nonetheless, they smoke her again, and stake her corpse, putting a permanent end to her. Naturally they search the house for treasure, but nothing of consequence is found. So they set off for Oberon's mansion, on the theory that an even lower rank vampire might have better treasure.

They are intercepted there, however, buy the Minister of Poetry. She tells them to stop wasting time and hurry with her to the Minister of Heraldry, before he blabs about them to anyone else. When she finds out they've already permanently murdered Kairo and Oberon, she congratulates them on their smart strategy.

The Herald is equally unconcerned with the fate of her fellow vampires, instead focused on a strategy that will see her, and the Poet, and perhaps one or two select others, receiving regular donations of blood. After all, while one can survive on troll blood, it's hardly... living. The Herald thinks they can even include Morpheus in on their private dining club, promising the party ridiculous wealth and power if they go along.

The party trades on their generosity for more information, stalling for time. They are wise enough to know that this arrangement cannot last; in a city this small, with creatures this violent and powerful, the secret will eventually leak out and soon the party will find themselves taking the troll's place. They convince the Ministers to show them how the darkness is created.

The two ladies lead them to the edge of the darkness, where they observe the oldest minister, so ancient that even he has forgotten his own name and is known only as the Office of Night, casting an ancient and permanent version of a darkness spell. The Office is almost catatonic; after casting his spell he wanders off, oblivious to the audience. He has been doing this once a day for hundreds of years, gradually extending the borders of the kingdom.

Standing here, on the border, mere feet from ordinary night, the party loses its nerve. They send the Barbarian out of scent range to fill a wine bottle with blood, and use it to bribe the Ministers into keeping quiet for 24 hours, asserting that they're going to leave and come back with more victims. A transparent lie, but the vampires are so overcome by the mere sight of the bottle that they readily agree to anything.

The party retreats into the darkness, unwilling to stop moving until the sun comes creeping into the sky and protecting them from any pursuit. They decide that their best path is to seek out the City of Eternal Twilight, and investigate the mysterious artifact known (at least to poetic vampires) as the Disk of the New Sun.

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #48

 Rise of the Domain Lords, part III: Snakes!

The map is ancient, but the location of the Naga nest is newly inked. The party decides to start there first, and now heads south.

Walking through the brush, the Barb spots a dire boar. It ignores him. Offended, he intimidates it into fleeing. A few rounds later it returns with few friends, and a herd of boars charge into the party, doing tremendous damage. As is typical in these situations the Druid turns into a bear, but this time the reaction is unique: the boards go berserk, ignoring every other threat, to attack the Druid-bear. He is almost instantly driven to the ground. Luckily he de-transitions once unconscious, and the boars go back to attacking everyone else instead of savagely goring his unconscious and helpless body.

This battle is still in doubt when a wolf whistle calls the herd off. Carefully hiding behind a tree, the winter wolf Scar attempts to interest the party in his problems - namely, killing his brother Mustafa and his pack of Dire Bears so Scar can regain control of the wolf pack.

He finds no takers; instead, the Cleric tries to silence him and the Ranger tries to entangle him. He slips away into the forest, and while the Druid can scan and locate the boards, they decide that these small beans are no longer worth their time. They push on to the mountains and the lair of the Nagas.

First Lizard Battle

Entering the rocky hills they are challenged by a trio of harpies. The Bard countersings and the Wizard launches a fireball. Immediately the birds turn and run. But the party knows that the enemy knows they are coming.

Halfway up the mountain they encounter squads of lizardmen and harpies. Again the a firewall shapes the battlefield to their advantage, while the Barbarian does his usual destruction of squads, though the Druid and Ranger are somewhat more challenged by a handful of lizardmen with advanced ranks. The Cleric deals with the harpies with his arsenal of spiritual hammers.

Suddenly a naga appears from nowhere and blasts half the party with a lighting bolt. The Wizard immediately blinds her; on the next round she turns invisible and slithers away. The party finishes off the lizards on this side of the wall of fire, and when the fire goes out, the battlefield is silent again. The party decides to hole up in a Rope trick and wait for morning, ceding the initiative for a chance to restore spells.

Second Lizard Battle

The next day they advance unchallenged. Finding a mysterious tunnel entrance, they debate closing it up or exploring it, but settle for the Ranger putting an alarm on it so they will know if they are flanked.

Soon they are ambushed by a huge troop of lizards, along with a dozen harpies. Worse, two of the harpies are archers. Again the Wizard uses Wall of Fire to stop the lizard heroes firing at them from atop a cliff face, but the heroes just leap down and join the battle with axes.

And then the invisible nagas appear, casting lightning bolts and enfeebling rays.

The Bard sends several squads and a hero fleeing with Fear. He then dances through melee, freely inviting attacks of opportunity because his new Mobility feat makes him nigh-invincible from such attacks. Once he puts up mirror images, the harpies start dive-bombing him, since stripping his images away is the only useful thing they can do (at one point they dive-bomb the Druid-bear, but his reach allows him to catch one as they fly by and bite it in half; after this they avoid the beast). They even manage to nick the  Bard once or twice with their glaives.

The Barbarian destroys several squads, but then a half-dozen heroes surround him and administer a severe beating while a naga repeatedly fails to weaken him with a ray (missing four times in a row!).

The Ranger finds himself targeted by one of the harpy archers and almost killed - again. He shoots back, crippling her to the point where she spends the next few rounds drinking potions.

The other harpy archer is deploying her arrows against the biggest threat each turn. Everyone feels the sting of her arrows over the battle.

The Druid-bear holds the rear, where a group of lizard squads and heroes and a naga have tried to flank them, thanks to the aforementioned tunnel. He slowly chews through the squads and then destroys the naga in a single round, despite her magical defenses.

The Cleric sends out some hammers, but soon finds himself healing the wounded or restoring their strength. He also spends several rounds healing himself, having been caught in the path of one too many lightning bolts.

The Wizard attempts to blind one of the harpy archers. She responds by knocking him out. Once he is healed, he uses Soften Stone to destroy the arch that two nagas are perched atop, forcing them to retreat instead of attacking for a few rounds. When they do reappear, he blasts one with missiles, only to find it protected. It cripples him with a ray anyway.

Healed from that, the Wizard puts up mirror images, causing the harpies to swoop and dive on him, destroying his images but failing to do any damage to him. He stretches across a rock to rescue the beleaguered Ranger with a Displacement spell, but this exposes him to one of the lizardmen heroes, who abruptly cuts him in half! The first party member death has occurred.

The Ranger, wounded from his archery duel and surrounded by lizardman heroes, has been on the defensive. But with the Displacement providing him some protection, he returns to the battle, shooting the lizardman heroes in the face at point-blank range despite their best attacks.

One of the nagas that retreated now appears and catches several party members in a lightning bolt. The Druid-bear kills it, causing the harpy archer to shoot him into unconsciousness.

The Barbarian has, improbably, beaten down all of the heroes ganging up him. The naga hits him with a lightning bolt but his rage shrugs it off. He leaps on the rock she is perched on and attacks, but her Displacement nullifies his whirling blade. She finally lands a ray on him, making him weaker, but it is too little too late: he eventually gets through her defenses and destroys her.

Restored to consciousness by the Cleric, the Druid-bear kills another naga. The Wizard, Ranger, and Cleric combine their firepower and finally destroy the two harpy archers. The last enemy standing on the battlefield is the lizardman hero who has just slain the wizard; he is obliterated by a storm of arrows and blades while the remaining harpies flee, recognizing that the battle is lost.

A voice from a hidden naga calls out. Truce is offered; while the party has slaughtered many foes, the nagas warn they still have more to throw into battle. However, their losses have been heavy, and despite the damage inflicted on the party, victory is not guaranteed. They are willing to call a draw, splitting the treasure from the battlefield and offering the party information on a greater threat to humankind.

The party is divided, some wanting to push on and end the threat; but the loss of the wizard has sobered the rest. They accept the truce. The nagas then provide the party with a map that mirrors the one they have, warning them that an ancient and terrible kingdom of vampires that has been dormant for centuries has now awoken. While the vampires are enemies of all living things, humans are their food source: human realms will be prime targets of this new threat.

The party, having just recently destroyed a vampire invasion and already in possession of a map to the Kingdom of Blood, are not impressed, but a deal’s a deal. They collect their share of the tael and the two halves of their wizard and retreat. The Cleric will soon restore the Wizard to life and as he was the lowest level, restoring his lost rank will not be unduly onerous.

The party has negotiated its way out of the last three major encounters, and yet still seems determined to throw itself against the unknown might of the mysterious Kingdom of Blood. Of what stuff are heroes made!

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #47

Rise of the Domain Lords, part II: Spiders!

Continuing on, the party follows the harpies into a deep forest. The Druid spots something shiny, and with a quick search turns up a fistful of gold coins. Now the whole party has eyes on the ground, hunting for coins left behind by previous adventurers (every hour a Spot check would turn up 1-3d6 of coins). This incredibly cheap distraction serves its purpose, and soon the party is attacked by two dozen large spiders, four huge ones, and another flight of harpies.

Once again the Ranger is losing a fight with the airborne archer, until the Druid simply closes the canopy of trees, blocking the harpies out of the fight. The Wizard blocks off half the spiders with a wall of fire, bombards the back half with fireballs, and the party destroys the spiders in detail. Battlefield control for the win!

Which is made even clearer in the next fight, as the spiders manage to stage a complete ambush in the heart of their nest. This time, even tho there are less spiders, they are on top of the party at close range. They are in control of the shape of the fight, too close for the Druid to simply hide everyone from the monsters, and the results are dramatic. The Bard sees death but a blow away, the Ranger goes negative, and the Druid-bear is reduced to single digit hit points.

After this the harpies are done. The party eventually works it way out of the forest and to the lonely mountain peak, only to find the harpy's lair abandoned. All that is left behind is an old map... on human skin.

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #46

Rise of the Domain Lords, part I: Worms!

One way realms survive in the hostile world of Prime is foreknowledge: any decent kingdom has a cleric casting Divination once a week to see if there are any realm-threatening dangers on the horizon (predictions further out than that tend to not be useful, as other people might counter-predict and thus change their intentions, invalidating the original prediction). The Cleric has taken up this duty for the party's combined kingdoms, and soon gets a hit. The shake-up of power has not gone unnoticed, and now powers are moving to take advantage of the disorder.

The party only knows that the danger comes from the west in nine days. The party sets out, still walking, as no horse can match the 20 hours a day that they can jog. Once on the western border of Edersarr they plunge into the wilderness, only to meet a flight of harpies coming their way.

The harpies are traveling slowly, which is suspicious since their flight is normally much faster than walking, and low to the ground as well. The Ranger unlimbers his bow and proceeds to initiate a long-range archery duel that he almost loses to the harpy archer.

As the rest of the harpies ineffectually dive-bomb the party, the true threat emerges from under the ground. A purple worm, being lured by harpy song, presumably to be turned loose in the capital to smash the state and eat the high ranks, leaving a helpless population for the harpies to pick off.

This is a stupidly powerful monster, yet the Barbarian stands toe to toe with it for two whole rounds until finally lands a bite and swallows him whole. The monster then turns to dive deep under the earth, where it can digest the Barbarian in peace. This is an existential threat - even if the Barbarian kills the worm from the inside out, he'll still be hundreds of feet underground with no escape. The party won't even be able to find his body to raise him again!

But the party rises to the challenge. In the six seconds it takes for the worm to submerge, they reach deep into their bags of damage dice and slay the beast.

The remaining harpies flee, but leave a tracking detail on the party in the distance. The party in turn uses those harpies as a locator, assuming that as long as the birds retreat, they must be getting closer to their lair.

The harpies use this to lure the party into a pair of gorgons, which almost ends the story. For unclear reasons the party is dilatory about responding to the threat (perhaps because the Wizard is absent and they miss his wise counsel), allowing each gorgon to make a charge. Suddenly saves are failing all over the place and in moments the Bard, Druid, Ranger, and Cleric are all turned to stone. The  Barbarian manages to finish off the last gorgon, and just as he is trying to figure out what to do, another threat appears.

A Naga had been invisibly watching the battle, prepared to clean up after the mess. While the Barbarian was fighting, it used a magic item to re-flesh the Cleric and promptly charmed him to her side. Now there is a tense stand-off, but the Cleric, acting in his capacity as the Naga's new best friend, convinces her that the Barbarian is not to be underestimated. When the chips are down, he tends to come through with the slicing and dicing. She decides to negotiate: in exchange for each person's best magic item, she will restore the rest of the party and let them all go. 

The DM is very happy with this clever path to a reduction in power, until the Bard bluffs his way into surrendering a trivial item and the Druid simply ransoms all the rest back for tael.

The next trap is less of a danger than a public service: another random portal to the elemental plane of air. The three huge elementals guarding it are hardly a challenge now, and soon they are dead and the portal safely closed off.

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #45

The Celebration of the Red Moon, part II

As the party rouses from its power-nap they are greeted by an unexpected companion. The Wizard has arrived! His trip was uneventful, as he spent all of invisible. When asked what drew him away from the safety of his study room in their Keep back in Edersarr, he says, “I felt a great disturbance in the ether, as if thousands of books had suddenly been erased.”

The Druid hides behind a table while the Ranger fills the Wizard in. Next is the inevitable kidnapping of a Redshirt for questioning. Much effort is spent in determining who, exactly, is in charge of the whole situation. The sad truth turns out that it is apparently the demons running the show. How low Varsoulou has fallen; it is not even a nation now, just a ranch for extra-planar monsters.

Happier news is that the ceremony has been scaled back, implying it will be summoning a smaller demon than previously anticipated, presumably to replace the Vrock the party slew. Some discussion is had over whether or not to let the ceremony complete, so as to bag another demon and its tael; but as that path requires that hundreds of commoners be sacrificed it is eventually discarded.

They have to choose between three approaches to get into the ceremony, the better to disrupt it:

• Dress as peasants
• Impersonate officers of the Red Shirts
• Arrive early and hide

As the first requires surrendering their armor, and the third requires some modicum of discretion, they opt for the second. One Prestidigitation spell later their chain-mail and plate are bright red.

They swagger up to the gate two hours before midnight and simply assert authority. Given the dysfunctional state of the Redshirt’s organization, this works splendidly. When the Bard loudly announces that the celebration has been moved to another night, the Redshirts simply walk off the job and head for a tavern. The Druid begins ushering peasants out while the rest of the party heads for the main Keep.

As they approach the building, a Redshirt comes out and demands to know what’s going on.

“Moved to another day,” repeats the Bard.

“Who told you that?” the Redshirt says. “I literally just talked to a Boss and he didn’t say anything about it.”

“Well, it’s what we were told. And our armor is better than yours, so clearly, we outrank you.”

This argument is hard to refute. “Come inside and let’s sort this out,” the Redshirt says, and goes back into the building. Most of the party follows, with only the Wizard balking at the doorway and staying outside (and the Druid, who is busy setting fire to the wooden altar in the middle of the courtyard).

Once again the Wizard’s intelligence is rewarded, when he is the only one not viciously clawed by hidden demons popping out of the shadows. The Bard is immediately rendered unconscious, though the other party members are a bit luckier. General combat ensues and it is discovered that the Ranger’s bow has been awakened to its true nature, mysteriously transforming into a +2 Holy bow overnight (probably as a consequence of fighting so many demons in such a selfless manner with no thought to profit or personal gain). The change is dramatic, as the Ranger rapidly decimates the Babau with a flurry of arrows, actually exceeding the Barbarian for damage output for the first time ever.

A group of Redshirts appears at the bottom of the stairwell and unleash a volley of debilitating rays of weakness, to no effect whatsoever. They are immediately obliterated by the Wizard’s fireball, as he steps into the room to protect the party’s marital prowess. The Cleric manages to heal the Bard just in time for the ceiling above the Bard to collapse and drop a Vrock on his head.

The Vriock screeches, stunningly loud, but the Druid-bear has now joined the battle and easily shrugs off the effect. The Barbarian slips out of the monster’s telekinetic grasp, the Ranger eliminates its image protections, and so its next action is to simply fly back up through the ceiling. The party chases it up the tottering stairs, sans Druid-bear, who knows the flaming wood can’t support his weight. He is rewarded when the demon swoops down again, evading the party, and flies out the front door.

The Druid-bear gives chase, but stops at the doorway when he realizes it is flanked by more Babau. They engage in combat and two more Babau run up from the field to help. The rest of the party looks out over the field of battle from balconies on the second floor.

The Ranger, Cleric, and Wizard have effective ranged attacks to reach the demon in the courtyard, especially when the Wizard blinds the creature and robs it of its own ranged attack. In response, the Babau leave off fighting long enough to magically aid their master, while the Ranger suddenly flies high up into the air above the building in the telekinetic grasp of a second demon! But the Wizard counters this new threat by casting Feather Fall on the Ranger, who continues to use his bow to good effect.

Despite multiple magical defenses, the demons are no match for the party. The Babau on the ground are quickly dispatched by the Druid-bear and the Barbarian, while the flying Vrocks are smashed by Spiritual Hammers, Magic Missiles, and holy arrows.

The aftermath is profitable; the amount of tael the creatures had saved in anticipation of luring over a bigger demon is staggering. In addition, the party has gained the broken remnants of an entire country, which turns out to be a prize they didn’t actually want. They have no desire to live in the desert and rule over a (technically) evil society; the number of Varsouloueans who could successfully emigrate and assimilate to Edersarr is low; and the party cannot in good conscience simply murder the common folk for the tael in their heads.

But neither can they walk away and abandon those commoners – and their tael – to whatever wandering monster happens by next. In addition to the moral lapse of duty, this would result in just another super-powered foe they would have to defeat when it inevitably turned its hungry gaze on their own kingdom.

Reluctantly they agree to a remarkable plan: the party will, from its own purse, promote a pair of clerics from the Varsoulouen population to the fifth rank, on the proviso that men or women of good (i.e. Blue) character can be found. This gives the community a chance to survive, as this rank of cleric can both cure plagues and provide the blessings that are necessary to make the desert bloom. Actually, one cleric could do this; the second is to revive the cinnamon fields. The party will draw a share of the profits only from the spice trade; in addition, they undertake to protect the fledgling nation until it can protect itself (i.e., until it can promote one of those clerics to the 9^th rank). Now they cast their gaze eastward, wondering what threats slumber out there, waiting only for the news of the collapse of organized defense before swooping in to feed on a helpless populace.