| The World Campaign 1994 |
Player Characters
04/08/94
Before being summoned to the office of the Sheriff of T'Vesta, only Roy and Duney had known each before.
The Sheriff asked the group of them to scout a rumor of troubles ("raiding monsters") to the south. The garrison would not send patrols that far south, and he could spare none of his Deputies. The Sheriff was sure that the only problems are brigands. The party was to go down there, look around, and come back and tell what they saw. That was it.
The party left the next day, heading down the Guerrmon Road. They spent their first night at The Emperor's Last Inn in the South. Roy won a bout of armwrestling, winning a bet. Jordan made money on a side wager.
The second day of travel put the party in Guerrman at nightfall. They stayed at the Two Blocks Inn. Everyone but Berk made money betting on Roy's arm-wrestling prowess.
The party headed west from Guerrman, leaving the foothills behind by late afternoon and heading south again. They spent the night at a nomad village, partying until midnight.
On the fourth day, towards evening, a buffalo herd was spotted. A patrol of nomads detained the party and "requested" the party follow them. These nomads had recently been in the south, where "giants, raving wolves, and fire from the sky" had attempted to cut their herd. The herd had been stampeded, with great loss of life to both nomads and attackers. It had taken two weeks to gather the herd back together.
Wolves attacked the herd after midnight. The party faced down a small pack of wolves, sending them away severely hurt. The nomads declare that these wolves are not of the grasslands. Roy recognizes "rock wolves" from the mountains.
04/15/94
The party leaves the nomads heading south. Before lunch they see a large pack of wolves which also sees them. The party almost kills their horses riding back to the nomad encampment. Nomad outriders see the party and their pursuers and quick preparations are made.
In the ensuing battle, Jordan led multiple charges against the wolves. Roy was a key figure in attempting to cut through to the nomad warriors who had been surrounded following the first charge. Berk rallies several of the dismounted warriors and fights effectively before falling. Duney (whose player was absent) was surprisingly ineffective in the battle.
After the battle, the party assists in the mop up and with the nomad casualties. All told, 8 nomads lost their lives.
The nomads decide that they are headed into the heart of the Grass Desert immediately.
04/29/94
The party leaves the nomads as they are beginning to move their herd east.
Towards evening, the party arrives at a bedraggled nomad village with 10-20 nomads staked out in various places around the village. A procession of 4 elders and 4 older warriors greets the party and invites them to eat with them.
Jordan asks about the village and the corpses around it. The chief explains that dark times have visited his village, and their new masters will not permit the burial of the executed. Those who attempted to go against this edict were themselves executed. The chief tells them that all will be explained at the meal.
Jordan tells the chief of the party's scouting mission.
The party's drinks at the meal are drugged, and they wake up bound in a sod hut with a guard. The chief comes eventually to tell them that their lives will ease the burden of the village for quite some time. They will be given over to the new masters.
Kenesta, daughter of the chief, frees the party after nightfall and leads them to where she has hidden their horses and equipment. A group of six nomad warriors attempt to stop them. After a surprisingly long battle, Berk is the only party member left standing. He does what bandaging he can and waits. The rest of the party (including Kenesta) eventually become conscious (if barely alive), and they ride into the night. Four days later they are back in T'Vesta.
Back in T'Vesta, the Sheriff hears their report and thanks them, awarding the four of them with 5 gold coins each.
Kenesta is housed with a family in one of the nomad villages near T'Vesta. She is determined to raise a nomad army to free her village and the other villages of the southeast Grass Desert.
The party realizes that it has a cash problem...
05/06/94
The party is called back to Jordan's village by a highly agitated young man who is almost jittery with fear. There they are told that Kenesta was taken away, seemingly by the Lizard-God of the Night. Also, a young nomad was found brutally murdered, as though by a wild animal, but his clothes, which were still on him, were completely unharmed. The tracks of three horses were found close to the body, heading south.
The party rides south following the tracks, continuing, though slower, even after dark. They approach a large fire burning in a bowl-shaped depression. Standing by the fire is a 2.5 meter lizard-man, holding a huge nomad lance in one hand. At his feet is Kenesta, bound and gagged. The party enters the bowl, and the lizard-man stabs Kenesta through the heart and then attacks them.
The battle is short before the lizard-man (who claimed to be a god) is felled. In dying, a thick black smoke erupts from his mouth and fills the bowl. Seeing becomes almost impossible. The party wanders in and out of the smoke, searching for the fallen "god" and the body of Kenesta. When the smoke clears a half hour later, both are gone, only the fire remains.
The party realizes that the lizard-man and the slaying of Kenesta were illusions, and find a place on the rim of the bowl where a man had been seated until very recently. A short walk from there they discovered the trail of a single horse leading south. The party follows the trail until it converges with that of two other horses. Not long after, the party halts for the night.
The party is ambushed on the following morning. Two men, seemingly from nowhere, are suddenly there, attacking with long, curved daggers. Jordan is hit immediately. In less than a minute, his body is entirely rigid from the effects of the poison on the curved blades. The other three party members battle on and eventually whittle the two men into unconsciousness.
Kenesta is recovered. When Jordan shakes off the effects of the poison, he identifies the two men as Ilch, nomads who live near the Wound in the Earth and worship the Lizard-God of the Night.
After resting a bit, the party and Kenesta return to T'Vesta. None of the nomads who live near T'Vesta desire to have Kenesta stay with them, so she is forced to take a room in town.
The armor of the two Ilch turns out to be minorly magical and, therefore, minorly expensive. The party sells both and is able to afford a little more training. The daggers of the Ilch have a hollow in the hilt that stores 3 doses of poison. These could not be sold, so Berk and Duney each took one.
05/13/94
A dwarf smith of Roy's acquaintance wishes the four of them to serve as courriers for a special commission he has just completed: a valuable rapier for a customer in Southbend. He will pay them each 200sc now, and 200sc when they return with a signed receipt. The party, still needing money, accepts.
The barge they are travelling on is also carrying a large shipment of weapons (swords, crossbows, etc.) that were manufactured for the Imperial Army. A corporal and four privates are accompanying the shipment.
Because of the value of what they are transporting, the party establishes a guard rotation in their cabin. One member of the party is always in the cabin (and awake) at all times.
Late the second day of the journey, three buffalo hunters catch the attention of the barge captain from the shore. They pay for travel to the next trade-stop with silver and buffalo skins. All of the buffalo hunters are big men. One of them has perhaps the worst body odor of any creature living. This one blunders into the party's cabin on the morning of the third day, when Berk is on watch. Looking around and claiming to have made a mistake, the buffalo hunter retreats back to the passage.
Towards evening on the third day, the barge docks at a trade-stop, to do some minor business and be minorly entertained. The trade-stop has an inn with a large common room where women sing and dance.
Leaving Jordan and Duney to watch the room, Roy and Berk go to the inn to catch a meal. The food and the entertainment are both mediocre, but not bad. After a couple of hours, the two return to the barge to allow the others the same "privilege." They board the barge behind the buffalo hunters, who are gathering their things to disembark.
Half an hour after Jordan and Duney leave for supper, the door to the cabin swings wide and two of the buffalo hunters come in shooting crossbows. A scuffle ensues, in which Berk puts one of the hunters to sleep, but both he and Roy are headbutted into submission by the other one.
When Jordan and Duney return to the barge, they are passed going the other way by the three buffalo hunters. The hunters are leading several packhorses laden with large bundles of buffalo hides. Back in their cabin, the two party members find the unconscious bodies of their comrades. The package they are delivering has been stolen. Rowsing Berk and Roy, they discover what happened.
Going out on deck to get their horses, they discover that the two Imperial soldiers who were on duty were also bludgeoned into unconsciousness and that several of the boxes of weapons have been taken. While the rest get their mounts ready, Jordan barebacks to the inn and informs the corporal and the barge captain of what has transpired.
The party rides into the night. After a couple hours ride, they see a campfire burning in the trees to the west of the road. Sneaking up, they witness a transaction between the three buffalo hunters and five Ilch. The buffalo hunters are selling five boxes of weapons for 1 gold bar per box.
The party debates for several minutes, and then waits for the Ilch to be loaded and mounted. With official sounding yells of "Stop in the name of the Imperial Army!" they attack. The Ilch kick their horses into immediate motion. The buffalo hunters had not yet mounted. Both Jordan and Roy rode down a buffalo hunter each. Both of the hunters were staggering back to their feet in less than a minute, however. After several minutes of combat, the party, though taking something of a beating themselves, managed to pound the hunters into a stupor. They confiscated the gold payment, retrieved their stolen merchandise, and were binding the hunters when the Imperial corporal and several others came riding up.
The party informed the corporal that the buffalo hunters had GIVEN the boxes of weapons to another group of men, who had ridden away south when the party attacked. Accompanying the corporal south, they found two packhorses carrying three boxes had been left behind. Assuming the Ilch had decided to cut their losses and run, the two packhorses were collected and the group of them returned to the clearing where the hunters had been bound. There, they found the guard they had left was bound and the three hunters were gone.
The remainder of the barge trip to Southbend (the next 9 days), was uneventful. The party was required to present their package in person to the individual who was to receive it, explaining the condition of its carrying case. They received the needed receipt.
Deciding to stay in Southbend for a while, the party spent a bit of their gold "booty" on additional training.
06/17/94
Jordan acquires a quality saber (+1 Critical) and Berk commissions the forging of a quality rapier (+1 Damage) with an inscription on the blade.
While the party members troop around Southbend pursuing personal aims, they begin experiencing vivid dreams of the Ilch Lizard-god. Each of them then experiences a personal nightmare, with the recurring theme being, "You will die on Addler Street."
Berk checked in with the local Mental Magic College to ask about the possibility of these being "sent" dreams. Emerson, a dimunitive Degree III Mental Collegian, agreed with Berk's assessment and warned him of the dangers of the Dream World. When asked, Emerson also provided the directions to Addler Street, a long, winding boulevard that extends through most of western Southbend.
Deciding that action concerning Addler Street was now called for, the party set out to scout the situation there.
When still several streets away, the party is accosted by a running man with a desperate look: "Help me! You've got to help me!" When the party made no immediate move, he continued his run. Within seconds, a group of men came from the same direction, presumably the first man's pursuers. Jordan spotted a white-tatooed eye (indicative of Ilch) among this group, but the hunted and the hunting had been lost in the crowd before action could be taken.
In a narrow alleyway, a lone figure accosted the party. The figure warned them that the new religious order that had established itself on Addler Street was explicity looking for a party of "one man, one dwarf, one halfling, and one gnome." He then went on his way.
Addler Street is the only constant on the seedier side of Southbend. Bars and brothels and gambling establishments abound. Jordan's nightmare had included Addler Street, though not named, and he recognized it, and knew the party would find what it was looking for to the south. The usual liveliness of Addler Street faded as they headed south until it was completely dark and deserted.
A disturbance approached their position from back the way they had come. Seemingly, the hunted had become the captured and was being taken back. The party elected to ambush the group and rescue their prisoner.
The ambush was successful. Even though three of the six escaped, the two "white-eyes" in charge were overcome and "died on Addler Street." Seeing that help was coming for the wrong side (i.e., not theirs), the party collected the unconscious prisoner and ran, yelling, "Make way for the mayor!"
The party stopped at a different inn and had something to eat. The rescued man refused to talk in public. Back at their inn, the man told them he had become involved in the cult searching for "power, money, and women." When he saw the first human sacrifice, however, he changed his mind and tried to run. He told the party that he knew their faces because he had been shown them in a dream. He did not know exactly why the cult wanted them, only that it had something to with some knowledge they had.
He left them shortly after, hoping to get as far away as possible before daylight. "They know me and can find my dreams," he told the party before leaving.
Jordan went down to the common room to have a drink, and heard from the bartender that a minor riot had occured on the west side of town.
That night, the party members set up a watch in order to prevent dream casualties. Those that slept in the third watch saw the man they had rescued tied to a sandpit being eaten alive by small shapes that attacked from the sand.
06/24/94
At breakfast, the party is accosted by a man who introduces himself as Dark Allon, and wishes them to accompany him. They have no better plans for the morning, so they go with him to a small bar. The sign identifying the bar has a rose symbol identical to one on a ring on Dark Allon's left hand.
Seated at a small table, Dark Allon tells them that the man they rescue was "close to" him. His name was Kyle Allon. He was found dead this morning, badly mauled, as though almost eaten alive. Despite this, Dark Allon is grateful. He presents Berk with the rapier he had commissioned. "When I explained how important it was to me, he discovered resources within himself he had not known he possessed."
Dark Allon pledges his assistance. Should the party have need of him, they need only ask for him "here, in the Rose's Thorns."
Before leaving, Dark Allon informs them that the cult they disrupted has commissioned one of their own, a known assassin, to see to their deaths--cost no object. The assassin is called Uhldor.
Back in their rooms, the party is ambushed by four swes, who had waited for them invisibly. Berk and Duney succomb to the paralytic poison of the swes' weapons, but the swes are eventually all killed. One of the swes had survived the conflict, but when they realized that he would not talk he was dispatched.
Evidently, Uhldor was present but invisible, because a small note appeared from nowhere, informing the party that none of the dead was Uhldor.
Jordan went to the Rose's Thorn, but Dark Allon was not there, and was "unavailable."
The party waited until they were all walking before telling the proprietor of the inn about the attack. When the innkeeper saw the dead bodies, he asked the party to leave NOW, and told them not to worry about their tab. He and one of the larger stablehands cleared out the bodies while the party packed and left. They took up residence in another inn about a half hour away.
One of the dead swes had a magical shortsword +1, which Duney kept once it had been identified.
11/25/94
NOTE: This was the last session of this campaign due primarily to the Gamemaster (yours truly) moving to Nashville, TN. The game lasted from 1 pm to 1 am and consisted of three major parts: (1) Ransacking the Ilch headquarters in Southbend; (2) the trip across the Great Plains to K'Nesta's village; (3) ending the threat from across the western mountains. Notable events include Berk's accidental-but-effective use of an illusion of the Ilch lizard-god to get them out of the Ilch headquarters in Southbend. [an error occurred while processing this directive]