Forwarded message
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 18:16:41 -0500 (EST)From: Avi J Silterra
To: J Michael German
Cc: Daniel K Blandford,
Brian P Railing,
John McCall, Gridley,
Thallia
Subject: D&D Second Session Summary
Greetings
So all in all I thought things went alright, though I goofed a couple times. Feel free to send commentary to me too.
XP is 440 a person (300 for the various encounters, 140 for story goals and role playing). Various magic items were also created, so be sure to note the required xp cost. For future reference (errata is from tsr, can be found at http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/er/er20010824a)
- Any magic item takes at least one full day to craft (I
mistakenly thought it could be less).
- Boots of springing and striding are 6000 gp
- gp cost of 1st level wiz/sor/clr/druid wands is 375 instead of 350 and cost for 1st lvl brd/pal/rng wands is 750 instead of 1250.
Timeline format continues
D+13
With several hours of light remaining, the party moves away from the bridge, hoping to avoid being attacked. As they move away, the sickly animal life and odd plant life diminishes somewhat, but the party also has the feeling they are being followed. Thallia and Uhura felt something tickle their minds, but fought off it's influence. Towards nightfall, while searching for a suitable location to stay, the party finds peasant hut with smoke coming out of the chimney. The hut seemed uninhabited except for a cornucopia of insects and spiders, and
after gaining entrance, no source of smoke was found (the smoke had actually stopped emitting when the party was knocking on the door, but no had noticed). The party stayed in the hut for the night after
investigating the house. A few animals seemed to be around the area, and Thallia thought she heard soft padded footsteps
at one point. Also, a bird from the marshes made a brief appearance on the thatched and buggy roof.
D+14
Clouds continued to collect, and it was to be another overcast day of hard travel. Thallia found foot prints in the soil near the house, but they headed in a different direction than the party wished to pursue.
About noon, it began raining, slowing the party a bit, but they pressed on, determined to reach Swidale with out delay. The sickness that all had been feeling earlier diminished somewhat, but each kept their fingers (or paws) crossed for the sun to come out in it's full glory at any moment.
Alas, this was not to be. As they traveled, the party felt a magical presence examining them them, and speculated that this time it was most likely the Duke's forces scrying on them. Also, the party came across several abandoned farms, and one human head on a spike. More importantly, they also found the
bodies of what were probably escaped prisoners, dead for only about 8 hours. The party cast gentle repose on them and then continued till nightfall, camping in a large field.
During the second watch of the night several men in fenwick
regimental uniforms approached the party. Unfortunately, it soon proved turned out that their incompetence was merely a cover. Finding a dead body, the soldiers offered to help move it to the mule. With impecible timing, darkness dropped onto the party and arrows came in, dropping one of the party members. The disguised drow soldiers did an excellent job of feigning fear and moved off with mule while the party attempted to
pursue the elusive drow.
When the party realized the situation, they again chased after the drow, hoping they would be encumbered by the bodies and the mule. The chase continued for some time with some ingenious use of spells to enhance speed. The drow were also clever however, and nearly eluded the party by jumping from trees to the river. The trail led to a narrow cave, where the party split up to follow two passages. One group was zapped with a
lightning bolt at nearly the same time as an arrow thudded into Termain's cat who was guarding the entrance. Lu Tze flew into a un monklike rage and charged at the drow responsible, noting another small pair of glowing red eyes which dissapeared. The party reluctantly did not kill the drow, and spent some time searching the caves, looking for the other creature, but finding only a bat, some fungus and moss, and lots of bugs. Roamer had guarded the fork in the caves so it remains unclear to the party how the other creature escaped.
Leaving the caves, the party found horseprints about 90 ft up the stream, trailing away. Finally, the party rested for the night.
The next day brought the party into contact with a (real) scout patrol of
20 men. They led the party back to the city. Waiting for the arrival of Colonel Tully, the party went about their business. Finally upon his return they related the past events and rested for the night. In the morning they obtained instructions to pursue further exploration of the river and methods of attack. [Tara, you may want to add on that the party should go North to the Elven kingdoms after this, feel free to alter our itinerary as desired.]
The party spent a day in training, making items, and then prepared to head off.
"There are only two kinds of math books. Those you cannot read beyond the first sentence, and those you cannot read beyond the first page."
C.N. Yang, Nobel Laureate
