After a seven-month break caused by birth of several children, we're back. Even with these session summaries, no one really remember what the hell we were doing back in November. So, we collectively decided to cut our losses and do something of a "campaign reset". It's been assumed that the party survived and succeeded in the Vault of the Azure Emperor. About nine months of game time has passed, in which the party continued to adventure, lost some old companions and gained a few new ones. The characters also refined and improved their capabilities, and have become a planar mercenary company.
Translation: we bumped all the characters up to 12th level and rebuilt them using the 3.5E ruleset. This has resulted in a drastic shift in power and capability. The new make-up of the party at full strength is as follows:
The party was in Tradegate, gatetown to Bytopia, resting after some previous work. They were approached by an aasimar who request their services in locating, and destroying, a new demonic siege engine which had just come through a portal from the Abyss. The engine, and its accompanying fiends, were heading overland through the Outlands to an unknown destination. The aasimar requested that the party stop it, regardless of its destination or intent.
The party accepted, despite there being two large snags. First, the engine was actually a castle set atop the back of a colassal planar beast. Second, even though the creature came from the Abyss, it was apparently being guarded by an army of yugoloths. Undeterred - well, everyone except Rusteen was undeterred - the party traveled to Plague-mort, the gatetown to the Abyss, to begin trying to track down the location of the beast.
Here, Zin lived up to his heritage as a Seer, and divined that the beast would be passing near to the burg of Ironridge on the Outlands in a day's time. With their target located, the party quickly proved how their mobility had increased by stepping through the portal into the Abyss, and then plane shifting to the Outlands, near the town of Ironridge. Once on the Outlands, they were near enough a major landmark to then teleport to the town and wait for the Abyssal war machine to come near.
Once sighted, the party again teleported - this time directly onto the creature's back. Although the intent was to scout out the castle, things didn't go exactly as planned as the alarm was quickly raised, forcing the party into combat. There was an intial bout of panic as it was revealed that the "yugoloths" guarding the beast had wings and could fly. However, the prospect of being swarmed by flying opponents with bows was quickly quashed as Donovan proved that he was indeed a faithful servant of Zeus - he summoned a hurricane to sweep all the foes from the skies and decks of the seige engine.
This left only the two commanders of the beast to be contended with. The first, a wizard, was quickly dispatched with some timely lightning bolts from Jack and a well-placed flame strike from Donovan. The second, was a celestial - a hound archon that had somehow been turned to evil. Although a skilled combatant, it was unable to withstand the concentrated attack from all of the party's warriors. Once all the fiends had been defeated, it was a simple enough matter for the party to sever all the straps and cables lashing the castle to the back of the beast, sending it tumbling to the ground. Freed of the castle and the magical control placed upon it, the beast soon faded from sight, disappearing back to whatever plane it originally came from. Their mission a success, the party returned to Tradegate and claimed their payment.
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Authored by: Ken Lipka E-mail me: krlipka@yahoo.com |
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