2025/01/03: Downtime and Intermission Report

General Summary

Ba'alzamon, Lillith, Knight, Eldrin, Malakai   Loot testing!   On Lillith, the blackened plate looks like fire sorceress armor. On Kelsey, it's the Armor of the Black Queen. Floating fireballs above the shoulders and so forth. On Knight: Imagine a pool of liquid oil was set on fire. Instead of being coated, follows sorcerous patterns. On Malakai, looks like he belongs in a death metal band, lots of spikes.   The Scale Mail of the Seas looks like pirate queen armor on Kelsey, a black puddle on Knight, and a "storm angel" set on Malakai.   Knight tried the Beastly Blades of Bone after taking appropriate precautions. Apparently the result is bone armor bursting out from the wielder (in what would be a very painful way for anybody who isn't a nightmare shapeshifter), a toothy helm forming, and then the whole creation becoming a named and very impressive bone golem that tries to kill everyone around it. This apparently only happens when the blades are quad-wielded; dual-wielding has no visible effect. (Eldrin used a wish to make it so Knight never picked up all four swords, and only Malakai and Eldrin remember what happened.)   Apparently there's a dead god's tomb, "warded by the gods", has been found in Malakai's compound.   The party took three days to rest and rememorize, then came back together to go on their next adventure: a materials run. Malakai needed lots of raw materials and Knight needed artifact-tier components to fix or upgrade his armor.   Knight and Kal'vus dueled in front of Kal'vus's students, as a demonstration for the students of what heights there are to reach. (There are higher, of course, but this was a valuable demonstration nonetheless.) Both combatants learned from it.   A few days pass. The party regroups again to decide on their target location   Ba'alzamon tried to summon Tahitha, Saheeb's "hot sister".   A giant armored Blackmoor walked up to Kelsey. They recognized each other. Carroc has apparently been made king of Blackmoore, and is at the Rook as part of a diplomatic relations mission. (Also he likes cooking.) Apparently he's also keeping an eye on the Blackmoorian kids; Blackmoore has become more dangerous in recent years, to the point that they're fostering the kids out to less dangerous places so they can train up with higher survival chances.   Carroc doesn't know why Blackmoore has gotten more dangerous. It's been a steady escalation.   Tahitha pointed the party to a "weird blip" in the Underdark near Kaelund. Apparently there are good resources there.   The party stopped by Dane's in Radagast to buy Malakai a shield and look for other items of interest. Ba'alzamon got ahold of a traveling spellbook named Seben's Mysteries. The book was nigh-invulnerable.   Lillith is busy dealing with matters in the capital, so she sent a replacement. Zess. 5'7". Wearing angelic-looking chainmail. Elf with wings. Mostly white feathers with tops being red. Black bow with black wing theme. Red quiver. Dark, imposing crownlet. Wearing Jeans.   (Knight took off the burny armor before they gave each other a hug.)   Introductions were made and battle strategies created. The group figured out who needed light sources and what sources they had.   The coordinates the party was aimed to were somewhere underneath the Great Rift in Kaelund. There was something off about the divination attempts to look at it; there was static, and it was unclear to Ba'alzamon whether the location in question was visible even to normal vision. Ba'alzamon transported the party to a spot about a half mile out, where the weirdness wasn't showing up.   Flat sandstone at the bottom of an enormous canyon. It's something like a mile deep. There's not a lot of light all the way down there. The teleport spot was to the northwest of the target coordinates.   There were a couple of wraithlike things that vanished into the ground as soon as Knight detected them.   The party headed toward their target. It seemed to get slightly darker as they continued, a sort of shadowy fog settling in.   Kelsey yelled for Tobas to bring her a map of the Underdark entrances. Gentleman in chainmail with a spear, a shield, a tan tunic. Tobas appeared after about 30 seconds, handed her a map, then disappeared again.   Ba'alzamon's divination attempt was cast successfully, but did nothing. As a backup option, he invited any nearby spirits to speak to him. The tattered spirit of a young prospector came. Only Knight could see him, but everyone could hear his footsteps. Knight relayed what he saw as Ba'alzamon asked questions. The party was pointed to a small boulder, which was apparently where the prospector died.   Ba'alzamon asked Renedge what was wrong with this place. There were no signs of life here. Renedge didn't know what was wrong, but he heard another voice that said "Ward yourself, now." Ba'alzamon immediately put up a protection from evil. He was just in time; something big and spiritually strong bounced off the outside of the barrier a moment later. Whatever it was, it was invisible; apparently it was ethereal, or was otherwise in another phase of reality. Ba'azamon's magical HUD only showed clawed rainbow footprints as the thing circled the barrier at about 50 mph.   Monster was about 9 feet tall and absolutely horrifying. Top half of a bulette, humanoid arms, really muscley chicken legs, a visible ribcage with human skulls bouncing around inside.   Party managed to go to the ethereal and have Knight, Kelsey, and Kal'vus beat the thing to death. (It was mostly Kal'vus.) Then it exploded into a mess of unexpected and half-unidentifiable bodyparts and pushed everybody back to the material plane.

Rewards Granted

2 xp

Character(s) interacted with

Vanilla, Kal'vus's students, Tobas, Carroc

Notes

New Hallownest downtime notes:

Downtime plans for Knight:

Send an envoy to the formians. See if we can actually talk to them now. (Knight would most likely go himself.)

Maybe send Rodger to talk to the orcs? He volunteered. Not trying to convince them of anything in particular, just wanting to make sure everything's fine and we're all still friends.

Rodger willing to train his followers by fighting giant slugs or searching for their origin. Knight will also send other investigators as available. Need to make sure these aren't the same sort of clue/symptom as the pipe golems.

Double-check that the Aegyptian undead were just related to the spirit cleaner who visited the chasm. Also, Rodger wanted/wants to meet that person. A fellow spirit-resting professional!

Maybe get Kal'vus to help teach people in the city! Especially the young heroes (i.e. the candidates for the Champion's Short Sword). He loves teaching people, and we could use experienced teachers.

Knight wants to spend some time teaching the young heroes personally and maybe oversee them for a fun low-level adventure.

Spend a lot of time just walking around the city and meeting people. Making personal connections, helping them, learning from them.

Spend more time meditating and helping souls in the Void. Maybe visit directly, if possible?

Results:

The formians are on the defense pretty hard, having closed down/collapsed or sealed most of the tunnels leading to them and left a psionic confusion over the areas around them making navigation difficult. Even finding them while possible, is pretty difficult at the moment.

The Orcs are conversely easy to find, and somewhat hostile. Consolidating their gains and being fairly unfriendly about it, though Derkusk's name will still get their attention and stop outright attack, Any attempt at diplomacy is being delayed and pushed back, though not outright denied.

Checking on the Aegyptian Undead would be a lot easier if you could find them regularly. They seem to show up as things get busy then just leave to parts unknown as sooon as whatever they are up to is finished.

Hanging out with the low level guards and adventurers does yield some fun times. The mystery of the Giant slugs continues to be a low level threat, The damage to argriculture is minor though persistent. Hunting them is providing constant work for lower level adventurers, providing practice in somewhat fast response and target practice.

The darklings are integrating with the creepy vibe of New Hollownest pretty well. Useful members of society, but a little mischievious about it. In the quiet moments you can see them exchanging worried looks, but they are preparing by making friends and helping the city with a new messenger/item (transdimensional) delivery service.

January investments:

New Hallownest set aside 200,000 gp to fund adventurer quests to hunt down the source of the giant slug problem and investigate the secret passage above New Hallownest.

The city began the creation of an adventurer HQ and a major expansion to the educational facilities of the Library of Monomon. The latter is built of fortified stone.

The city also invested in major infrastructure upgrades, including better roads, lighting, and communal areas.

Additional notes:

Kelsey isn't a queen, she's a dictator. Title is "lady protectress" or something like that, but really she's a dictator.   Kelsey NOTES: Age: Started 18-19 years old. About 45 years old now.   Jerritor is currently run by a triumvirate, the members of which are sort of secret. Apparently the country was founded by or named after a titan named Gerridan. He came back after seeing that the country was in terrible shape and challenged everybody to combat for leadership. He was "defeated" by the triumvirate, who were some of the only people brave enough to stand up to him. He's currently retired and shacking up with a goddess of Civilization in Sith's pantheon.