Abyss Modified session 22: Chaos

Our over sized battlefield for the night

Chaos, sweet, sweet chaos. The party had split into two groups last session. Thelrum, Orion, Xanaphia and their ward Telegar had a good vantage point of the caravan’s camp site from their hot air balloon. They saw the carts with the unicorn, the manticore, the owl harpy, and the serpent. A few of the hunters and trappers were eating at the central table with a laughing Daddy Fate. Gordric, Tamin, Syre, Dinak, and Thelrum’s familiar were stealthy watching Daddy Fate brewing potions and tinkering around his monster filled workshop inside his strange extra dimensional tent. On one side of the room they saw a cage with a gryphon, a displacer beast, a metal bull gorgon, a kirin, a wyrmling white dragon in a muzzle, and a chimera with clipped wings. On the other side there were two cockatrice, one much larger and more feral than the other. On the far side of the room there was a door. Godric snuck closer to Daddy Fate and cast detect magic to see if there was any illusion magic on him, and found no illusions, just numerous intense magical auras. As he tried to back out of the chamber Daddy Fate asked him how many of his friends survived, or if it was just the two of them, both Syre and Tamin were invisible at the moment. Godric demanded that Daddy Fate let the halflings go and was informed there was a dangerous buyer in line for them and Daddy Fate feared the buyer more than the party.

Daddy Fate Oni (Rising Sun Oni of Plagues)

Godric started things off by launching two eldritch blasts into Daddy Fate, watching as the bolts hit him in the shoulder and his body started to grow into a large four-armed gray skinned oni creature. This definitely was not what they anticipated. Dinak launched his volley of arrows into oni, getting in an extra attack with the speed of a highly trained ranger. Thelrum told the hot air balloon team that the fight had started, having seen it through his familiar, so Orion climbed down the rope and ran out to kidney punch one of the wandering guards. He was dense and did not go down from the attack and dark course fur sprouted from his body as he turned into a werewolf. Xanaphia hit the table of guards with a fireball spell, ruining the meal and burning them. Tamin did not want to scuffle with these creatures in the room so he shot at the oni and hid behind the barrel of food for the beasts. Godric charged in and hit the oni with a booming blade and a hexblades curse, hoping to maximize his damage potential.

Godric squaring up to Daddy Fate

The Oni Fate hit Godric with all his blades and approached the cages, using magic to open a random cage, releasing the gorgon that was next to Tamin. Syre and took this chance to leave the tent and try to talk with the big snake, which was a naga and did not succumb to the animal friendship. Dinak launched a few mare arrows at the oni, also fleeing the tent. Godric took a few more swings at the Oni and followed his allies out of the tent. The Oni pursued. Tamin did not like the bull creature so he ran to the back door on the room, looking for another exit without an oni standing near it. He found a deeper room with garish tapestries of Daddy Fate flying on a dragon and another of him in front of a castle. There were two other doors deeper in, so Tamin stole the dragon tapestry and put it in his bag of holding. 

The balloon team decimated the werewolves at the table, Telegar dropping a cloudkill on the group as well, liquefying the remains of two of them. Orion watched as the Daddy Fate outside the tent turned into an oni as well and rushed up to attack, flanking with the remaining werewolves. Xanaphia aided with magic missiles and chromatic orb. Thelrum made use of the dragon breath spell and engulfed his foes with fire and lighting.

The two teams met up outside the magic tent as the four-armed Oni Fate came out after them. They could also hear what could only be the troll they scared earlier running to the camp. When it arrived, it had a large tree fashioned into a club and saw the carnage of the battle field, it had large blistery wounds from the elemental swarm Thelrum attacked it with earlier. The nearby party members told him everything was okay and he should fight the Daddy Fates with them. The troll sat down confused. Godric ran back up to the main oni and was blasted with lighting from the sky above, Thelrum quickly cast absorb elements through his familiar, which was on Godric’s shoulder and reduced the damage and exploding the spider familiar in the process.

Orion worked on the outdoor oni, hitting it with a stunning fist and pummeling the life from it, eventually killing it. Dinak hid in the shadows between the two carts, launching barrages of arrows at Oni Fate, he also notied the owl harpy was watching him closely. Syre worked on damaging the Oni Fate with heat metal, scorching him with his own armor. Orion made it to the unicorn cage and broke the lock off the cage, which burst into flames when it hit the ground. The unicorn let Orion remove the bracers from its legs and the fake horn from its face and leapt out of the cart. It charged the sitting troll and with a fell swoop stabbed it through the head with its horn, blowing the head right off. The other werewolves in the area were taken aback by this but quickly fell to the party’s blades. Another group of werewolves charged up, having heard the commotion and started launching arrows at the party. Telegar separated one group of archers with a wall of fire, burning them up really well.

Meanwhile in the tent Tamin heard a loud crash and a banging against the door behind him, the gorgon was trying to break it down. He opened the door on his right and found a study with a large circular staircase leading to another floor in the far corner. He closed that door and tried the left one, finding not the exit but a large stone staircase with a painted portrait of a group of halflings standing in a pastoral field. He entered that room and broke the door’s lock behind him as a loud crash filled the hallway. He looked at the familiar halfling faces from the village and planned on cutting the painting out of the frame… he brought his blade down carefully in the corner with the least figures in it and was pushed back as a sea of halflings poured out of the frame, filling the room. At this point he and the halfings were rudely interrupted as the gorgon blasted the door to their room open. Light flickered across its metal body as it released a cloud of green mist into the chamber. Tamin felt his legs and arms stiffening as he started turning to stone, many of the halflings sharing his impending fate. The metal bull looked pleased with itself until the elder of the halflings cast a spell breaking the petrification effect. Tamin ran up and placed one of his blades in the bull’s eye. The pile of halflings grabbed broken bits of stone that had fallen off of them and helped Tamin bludgeon the gorgon to death.

Outside again Dinak let the Owl harpy out of her cage. She nodded thanks and started screeching into the sky and suddenly the sound of thousands of wings filled the air as the owls that had been following the party started removing the dead from the battle field. The Oni that was Daddy Fate took this chance to reenter the tent. The party took care of the remaining werewolves that were still a threat and made their way back towards the tent. A few peering in to see almost all the caged animals running amok in the tent and the Oni Fate chain drinking potions like shots. They swarmed back into the tent, murdered the two cockatrice and cornered Oni Fate. He lashed out with his blades and suddenly stopped mid threat, an arrow sticking out the side of his head. Tamin with his halfling army entered the room, Tamin’s bow still at the ready with another arrow ready to go. The party freed the intelligent animals and is set to investigate the rest of the mansion for the next session.

Abyss Modified Session 21: Chasing Daddy Fate

Dinak, Xanaphia, Orion, and Tamin came up from the depths of the mine to find Godric, Syre, and Thelrum waiting for them by the strange goblin’s front gate at the entrance of the mine camp. The goblin (barghest) was confused to see the other group alive and well and turned into a large wolf like fiend and howled. Three other such creatures burst out of the small shacks and joined the other in attacking the party. Dinak hunter’s marked and shot the closest one three times, Godric hexed the one nearest to himself and attempted to stab it, missing. Orion ran in and punched another, each hit bypassing the monster’s resistances. Tamin attacked from the mine tunnel and attempted to hide again, his usual tactic. Thelrum moved and waited for Syre to act. Xanaphia tempted fate and launched a chromatic orb at one of the barghest, seeing the electrical damage deal less of an injury than expected. Syre attempted to cast bane on all of the barghest but only two of them succumbed to the spell, and Thelrum banished the one Godric had hexed.

Combat went swift and they killed two more quickly and the last one attempted to escape with dimension door, which Thelrum countered. It instead tried to climb over the palisade wall but Godric misty stepped in front of it and blasted it back off the wall. The party was amazed as Orion ninja ran and attempted to leap off the nearest building to hit the now levitating barghest, but misjudged the jump, and broke through the ceiling of the tiny hut. Orion saw a few goblin sized bedrolls and animal hides strewn about. Thelrum took his chance and dismissed the levitate with dispel magic, causing the barghest to fall ten foot, breaking its leg, and dying.

The party took the chance to rest, having disposed of all the fiends and split their watches. During one of the watches they heard strange owls and went out to look, finding an owl pellet that had a few fairy bodies in it, as well as a few normal pellets. During the next watch they heard someone stumbling in the woods and found Telegar, their ally broken and wandering. It turned out Daddy Fate and his crew waited till the party was gone and abducted the halflings of Thistlebottom. Telegar tried to fight them and was wounded, escaped and found his way to the mine. The party finished their rest and returned to Thistlebottom.

They found the town empty, except for the town hall which had what appeared to be the village elder milling about. Half of the party turned invisible and snuck in. Syre, with greater invisibility got up right next to him and touched his shoulder. The “elder” grunted and looked at a whole bunch of nothing there, and reached into the drawer he had been rummaging through and grabbed a handful of charcoal and chalk dust and threw it out in front of himself, revealing that something was there, but not what. They counter spelled his cone of cold, watched him become a large sized ogre monster in a smaller building, and bludgeoned him almost to death, forcing him through the wall and killing him outside. Tamin also wandered the house during the battle, finding a locked chest which he opened and found a strange large skull wrapped in a comforter. It was identified and they found it could cast two spells for a charge each… finger of death and Animate dead. It has a few other abilities, more on that later.

The party realized the caravan was a quite a few hours ahead of them, and they had no horses or any other means of transportation. They searched and found one lonely pony in the woods and Syre remembered there was an odd town further north called Low Harbor, that was only a few hours walk but might have horses they could borrow or buy. They set off after naming the pony, Little Marshmallow Dipstick. They found the town of Low Harbor with another wooden palisade across the mountain pass. The town was built at the base of a mountain on the shores of a lake. The guard shouted out a greeting, the party was excited to see a dwarf on the surface for some reason and once inside the town saw it was mostly gnomes and humans with a few elves making a living on their small lake and whatever they could scrounge from the mountains. They were told there were places to get transportation near the town center and found a group of gnomes working on a strange contraption. It seemed a group of adventurers from Acquisitions Incorporated had crashed their battle balloon in the center of town and wracked up a six hundred gold bar tab and repair bill but disappeared before paying. The party traded silver they took from the Thistlebottom mine as well as one of Dinak’s drow dresses from the underdark for the airship. They got a basic flying lesson, Syre got a drink from the bar. They took off after Daddy Fate’s caravan at a very fast speed, tearing across the sky following the main road they knew would lead them to Baldur’s Gate.

They remembered the gnomes said something about the adventurers being knocked out of the sky by a gryphon as they saw such a creature off on in the distance. Thelrum summoned a few elementals and the rest of the group readied a few options as well if the creature got any closer. The gryphon kept its distance, eventually disappearing from their concerns. They saw a cluster of trees moving below and saw the troll from Daddy Fate’s caravan carelessly breaking things. They yelled down to him to see what was up, and it seemed his cart lost a wheel and the rest of the caravan went off without him, hoping to send help later on. Godric snuck down and tried to see if any of the halflings were in the cart but just found two dead hunters in ruined gear. They scared the troll, he thought there were ghosts and ran off into the woods. The party went back into the sky and followed after, finding a few of the caravan’s hunter and trackers readying bows and trying to calm the troll. They decided to not get shot out of the air and flew off before getting filled with arrows. Thelrum sent his elementals to vex the hunters and troll, hoping to delay them. It might have worked.

They continued flying until they found Daddy Fate’s caravan stopped in a clearing and setting up for the night. They flew over the guards and saw many familiar faces milling about and preparing food and feeding the monsters. They also saw Daddy Fate leave his giant tent and mill around with a few of the guards. Godric, Dinak, Syre, and Tamin went into the camp, hiding out of sight and trying to make it to the tent while Orion, Thelrum, and Xanaphia stayed behind in the balloon. The stealth team also took Thelrum’s familiar with them so he could spy. Godric used mask of many faces to become one of the guards and asked about the halflings, finding out a few had tried to escape and a few had died on the journey so far. He also found out they were being kept in Daddy Fate’s tent.

Stealth team made their way into Daddy Fate’s tent. They first noticed the tent was way larger on the inside. They found animal cages stacked on top of each other with all kinds of creatures, from displacer beasts, to a small white dragon, and some normal run of the mill animals all caged and ready for training. They also found another daddy fate was sitting at a bench tinkering with something. That caused them to pause, they had also seen Daddy Fate outside at a table with the guards eating and drinking. We stopped there for the night, we will see what chaos will come of this.

Abyss Modified Session 20: The Night of No Insight Checks

For tonight’s adventure the group consisted Xanaphia, Orion, Dinak, and two new members, Lezrik the wood elf champion fighter, and Tamin the human thief rogue. The group was checking in on the mine that the Thistlebottom halflings had lost contact with and assumed the miners had gone missing. The party approached and saw a wooden palisade around the cave the mine was in. wanting to be prepared Xanaphia cast both dark vision and mage armor… and wild magic kicked in. For ten rounds the party fell victim to multiple magical mishaps. Magic swelled within Xanaphia returning all the unused sorcery points, the party became weak to piercing weapons, the next a foe of the party would have disadvantage on saves against spells, Orion fell victim to a swarm of magic missiles, Xanaphia started levitating and turned invisible, Dinak started flying, someone else had disadvantage on a save, and Xanaphia became the center of a fireball spell. It was chaos, but at least the guard “goblin” on the palisade enjoyed the show. 

After their display the guard shouted down greetings to them. It appeared to be a blue skinned goblin with a long-hooked spear. It opened the iron gate one handed, which the party did not find to odd and allowed them within the palisade. They rested a bit and asked about the halflings, it claimed it had not seen any halflings, they found this mine empty and moved in. The party believed him but wanted to see the mine. They traveled down a few tunnels, passing more of the strangely colored goblins as they were now mining for any ore or gems. The goblins gave the party odd looks as they marched down to the deepest chamber of the mine, the room was shaped like a large figure eight, with many odd paths jutting into other areas. A goblin they talked to told them halfling items had been found in a side tunnel, as the party investigated, they realized the tunnel was a dead end and they could hear multiple strange sounds behind them. 

They turned in time to see each of the goblins turning into large sized wolf monsters. The battle started, the monsters getting pelted with attacks from the party and the beasts charging the heroes. Tamin, not being especially skilled in combat chose to shoot, run, and hide. Dinak struggled to find the shadows he normally would hide in but still shot everything that was wolf like with arrow after arrow. Xanaphia, having had mixed luck with spells that day lashed out with spells praying that they would not surge again and noticed a few of the elemental spells were less effective against these creatures. Lezrik made huge dents in the beasts with a greatsword, giving them a run for their money. The party was also sustaining many bites from the monsters, unable to truly keep their distance from the gnashing jaws. Orion had great stunning strikes and kept gaining the killing blow on the monsters, but as they finished with the first group they were joined by more of the monsters. in his quest to remain alive and unseen Tamin hid in the back of the chamber where he found a shimmer, a budding portal to wherever these creatures were from. Tamin let Dinak know about the portal and fled away from it, seeing two sets of claws starting to poke through. Dinak took the time to break the crude symbols on the wall around the portal, causing it to close and sever the fingers of whatever was trying to reach into this world. The group killed the last of the pack that had followed them into the depths, but know there are more most likely waiting for them up top. 

We stopped there for the night and the group is now level 8.