|
|
Post by David on Jun 1, 2006 16:11:54 GMT -5
Sage assembled the Oerdian champions of Oerth and left from Wintershiven in the Theocracy of the Pale on 616 / 7 / 7. Joining Sage were Artec, Jessica, Kalavor, Samandra, Caeleia, Beulla, Ulaanbaatar, Quendi, Ira Stern (cleric of Lendor), and Brother Rankin the Red Dragon of the Scarlet Brotherhood.
The heroes dimensionally folded to the glacial home of the giants. After spending some time looking for an entrance, Sage used a scroll of find the path to seek the entrance. The heroes entered the lair and soon were battling frost giants. The giants were no match for the fighting prowess of the Oerdians, although there were a few comic moments, including Caeleia slipping on the slick ice with a nice face plant (thanks to all the fog generated by Quendi's wall of fire) and then Ulaanbaatar nearly being blown off the ledge by the backblast of Quendi's gust of wind (originally aimed at blowing AWAY the fog, but it was a confined space!).
The heroes followed one fleeing frost giant deeper into the lair, battling a room with nine jotuns at one point. Farther along, the heroes found the giants' "homestead" battling ogres, ogre magi, more frost giants, a cloud giant, and even sensed (but never caught sight of) an invisible fire giantess. The heroes did quite well, slaughtering 30 giants, but in the end were forced to flee. Jessica was badly wounded and facing two frost giants and three polar bears by herself with nine more frost giants running in!
Caeleia and Beulla each took two foes while Kalavor took the last bear. Meanwhile, Quendi and Ulaanbaatar laid down "cover fire" in the form of twin fireballs aimed at the incoming giants. Finally, under cover of another wall of fire, the heroes fled to safety.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jun 1, 2006 16:50:24 GMT -5
Ummm...you CANNOT blame Calaiea's FIRST face plant on fog...can we say "two left feet?"
As for Ulaanbaatar nearly being blown off the ledge...In the background you hear Calaiea & Beulla give a sigh, and utter a gentle "Good times...good times..."
|
|
|
|
Post by Stephanous on Jun 1, 2006 19:19:19 GMT -5
Mr. DM,
You forgot the 3rd Fireball that was 10 dice that went off after the first two fireballs. It was the three firballs in succession that really fucked them up.
Paul
aka Sage
|
|
|
|
Post by charbidge on Jun 1, 2006 19:34:38 GMT -5
We were NOT "forced to flee." We withdrew in excellent order after completing our mission without loss (aside from a few cuts and scratches).
Hmm. I knew that Buela didn't like Ulaanbatur (SHE didn't know that, but that's because she wasn't paying attention) but I'm suprised that Caeleia felt that way, too.
|
|
|
|
Post by David on Jun 5, 2006 12:58:25 GMT -5
Hey, Caeleia didn't SAY anything, tried to slaughter on her best behavior, helped save Jessica, and DID get disadvantaged by slippery snow caused by Quendi's fog. *pout* Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get out of bed when you're an 11th lvl cavalier! Especially when your FAVORITE foe is frost giants!
|
|
|
|
Post by David on Jun 19, 2006 12:03:23 GMT -5
Several hours after leaving, the Oerdian Panthiad team (Sage, Artec, Jessica, Kalavor, Samandra, Caeleia, Beulla, Ulaanbaatar, Quendi, Ira Stern, and Brother Rankin) returned to the frost giant glacier via a dimensional fold. Caelia, Brother Rankin, Jessica, and Beulla were the first ones through, but couldn't see the giants' boulders until too late. Luckily, only the Red Dragon was hit and the three women made fairly short work of the six frost giants. These giants did, however, shout an alarm and after Sage tossed out more light stones, the heroes could hear a gong being rung in another portion of the cavern complex.
That's when things really started to get interesting. Five hill giants spilled into the chamber from one way with the same number of stone giants from another. Quendi managed to talk the stone giants into avoiding the fight, despite Kaiketsu's best attempts to goad them (what DO you expect from a sword of giant slaying?). Meanwhile, four more frost giants, followed by four ogres, and yet more frost giants came from another direction. Quendi began to use walls of fire to restrict the combat fronts, but also created thick fog which foiled nearly everyone not under the effects of a sense amplification.
The heroes formed one front after another, holding the giants off. At another point, six frost giants charged Kalavor and Jessica, but the swordswoman and bear, with help from Ulaanbaatar's slow spell and Sage and Quendi's lightning bolts dealt with them. An invisible fire giantess nearly killed Ulaanbaatar, but the Sueloise wizardess' stoneskin spell saved her. Artec and Ira Stern were able to drop the skulking creature. Finally, the heroes slaughtered everyone on their side of the walls of fire, but not before Artec was nearly killed and Brother Rankin was squashed. It was only sheer luck (and Ira taking a hit for her) that Ulaanbaatar managed to live! Trying to draw off the giants' blind boulder fire, Caeleia charge through the wall of fire to THEIR side, Samandra following right behind. Quendi did a passwall for Beulla and Jessica flew over. The wall of amazons did the trick and became the focus of the giants' attention...that is until three fire giantesses blithely wandered through the wall of fire armed with giant-sized cooking utensils!
The giantesses proved to be a problem and nearly skewered Sage while she was trying to spirit bind Brother Rankin. Kalavor took on another giantess, trying to give Ira and Ulaanbaatar a chance to flee. Several giants bravely stepped through the wall of fire at this point and things got quite tight for the heroes. Jessica, moving to help Kalavor, was so badly wounded that she blindly deserted her husband in combat. Sage and Ulaanbaatar took up some of the slack and Artec rained down arrows of death once he got close enough to a giant to shoot in the fog...!
Finally, Beulla, Caeleia, and Samandra were beginning to run out of frost giants. That's when their Jarl and his bride arrived with a pair of huge winter wolves. Armed with magical weapons, the two jotuns caused some serious damage. Beulla slaughtered the Jarl and working with Caeleia, Samandra finished his mate. Another group of frost giants stumbled into the caverns from the upper levels (the stone giants had tried to convince them to flee...), but were narrowly defeated.
With barely anyone strong enough to another protracted melee (the group had already been fighting nearly non-stop for five minutes), Ira cast another dimensional fold and the heroes retreated back to Wintershiven.
Total body count for day one = 71 frost giants (plus some partial credits...!)
|
|
|
|
Post by charbidge on Jun 19, 2006 19:10:10 GMT -5
Nice little fight! Can we drop back in a few minutes later and steal the royal corpses (AND the invisible one, too. A magic ring would be nice to find)? Ulaanbatur DOES have expenses, y'know.
|
|
|
|
Post by Andy on Jun 19, 2006 20:21:46 GMT -5
Do we have any idea that we're way ahead of the other groups? Quendi could try to do a Sending to Andar....if anyone has a copy. Does Buella have any way to get in touch with him? He seems remarkably well-versed in what's going on in the world.
Quite honestly, another couple run or to in the next day, and we'll be mostly playing mop-up I'd guess. I don't know offhand what the 'No. Appearing' reads for Frost Giants, but I'd guess it's somewhere under 200. Once all the Frost Giants are dead, it seems like a great idea to gather as much magic and treasure as possible to cover...uh...expenses.
In the meantime, Quendi regales the group telling tales of Andar not quite being able to control an Ettin, and having to resort to getting it to fight with itself, the same party fleeing in fear from a single mind-flayer (but he did save my life - it was about to suck my brains out!) and finally, she asks Caleia about her big ship that she parked in Angels Rock before the Apocolypose, hoping it's still okay...
|
|
|
|
Post by Stephanous on Jun 20, 2006 1:46:29 GMT -5
Hi Andy,
Beulla has been in contact with Andar, using my spiffy new ability, and she has information on the Egyptians and the Greeks. Beulla says that we're kicking their asses and should win assuming something doesn't go drastically wrong. Even then the other teams probably won't be able to match our day one body count with two of their day's body counts.
Paul
|
|
|
|
Post by Andy on Jun 20, 2006 13:20:10 GMT -5
Quendi would push then to pillage the dungeon for all it's worth. (Yes, she's the kind of student that does all the extra credit questions for fun).
She'd also bring up making some tactical adjustments too - fog has been and will continue to be an issue, because you just know magical fire's going to go off at some point. If we plan to stick together better and tactically use walls of fire rather than as last-resort stop-gaps then we should be even more effective. I suspect that won't be a big issue though if we can get past this room. Quendi can DI + QMA, and not much will get past us for a few hours.
Does Ulaanbatur know / have a copy of Feather fall? If we all march in rank (better in the fog) she could hold actions to make boulders miss as well. If not, Quendi offers a copy in our downtime the evening of our 1st day.
|
|
|
|
Post by charbidge on Jun 20, 2006 19:14:09 GMT -5
Ulaanbatur knows Featherfall. She's now looking for M4 spells (now that she can use them), and would LOVE to help clean out the place for extra credit (or for the loot). Besides, they are prolly some evil magic users lurking in limly lit, out-of-the-way passages, hording magical items they will no longer have any use for (grin).
|
|
|
|
Post by David on Jun 28, 2006 10:44:03 GMT -5
Baroness Caeleia Drake of Angel's Rock (*think hauty*) presses strongly that we should annihilate the last remnants of these misbegotten giants, in the name of honor and vengeance! Not only shall we win this Trial, but our names will go down in history as having utterly destroyed this lair of evil creatures.
Kalavor shrugs and says, "whaddever"
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jun 28, 2006 12:36:05 GMT -5
Not that Jessica would EVER actually say anything like this.....but it would be funny...hehehe "Well, Caeleia, some of us are ALREADY world famous heroes! Neener, Neener..."  |
|
|
|
Post by Andy on Jun 29, 2006 16:37:36 GMT -5
One way or the other G2 will never be the same.  Quendi would straighten up, smile, stand taller and seem even nobler and Gladrielesque in the face of Caeleia's mighty words. |
|
|
|
Post by Stephanous on Jun 29, 2006 16:37:51 GMT -5
Sage says, "This is not about treasure. This is about doing our god's bidding and showing that we are better than the other pantheons. We will not go back and just scoop-up treasure and run like some Greek or Egyptian. We will go in and fight in the name of our gods, as they have asked us to. Now, along the way we can make a point to pick-up treasure, but that is not the goal of our mission. We will win and honor the Seloise and Oerdian Gods as they should be honored. Any problems with that?"
Paul
|
|
