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CoS Session 18: The Battle of Stockton Keep

General Summary

7/2/874
  • The party makes it back to Gameria after a mixed experience in Kanara
  • Aldo finds a way to sneak back into the city because the guards are distracted
  • Turns out an ogre attacked several city blocks on the city's 2nd level, left a lot of damage
  • Roland investigates and discovers bluish-yellowish markings on the monster
  • Aldo hides in The Thousand Faces, rest of party visits with Fallworth
  • Fallworth pays them for Avicenna mission, looks gaunt and tired
  • Arthur and Argus summoned ogre in town, killed 30 men before dying
  • Fallworth’s desperate to fight Court, but he’s got Avicenna to focus on
  • He’ll be sure to pay them all handsomely upon return
  • Final preparations
  • Catriona buys some healing potions and improves her flame blade’s accuracy
  • She also burns a sketching of Alma as a way to move on
  • As the picture burns, bluish-yellow smoke rises
  • Aldo buys some potions and does a little bar-hopping
  • He doesn’t get super wasted, but he continues Fishman tradition
  • Nikolaj buys some healing poisons and picks up lunar dagger from Assaj
  • It does pretty good damage, and he upgrades the other dagger
  • Aldo was also promised a lunar necklace from heist, so he picks that up
  • He checks on progress of Rexfur’s temple (there’s a phallus easter egg)
  • Roland just buys a lot of healing potions, spends most of his time researching the Court
  • He finds a scroll of 'Chain Lightning' at a rare books store
  • He goes to Archives, Elgort gives him access to dark magic section
  • New archivist Tarpin Melchor also helps out with research
  • Roland tries to find location of Court headquarters, but he can’t find it
  • He finds hints at entry symbols and potential locations, but nothing sticks
  • Catriona stops by to help, but not much progress is made
  • Party decides to blow off steam at the fighting pits (now legitimate thanks to Roland's lobbying)
  • Roland has a rematch with an old Hakonian fighter, he wins!
  • Aldo eats popcorn shrimp, Catriona goes to first fighting pit
  • Afterwards Roland, Nikolaj, and Aldo go partying at a Hakonian tavern
  • Catriona calls it a night, hears a Court of the Undying monster shrieking above the city
  • It starts raining the next day
  • That afternoon Roland goes to Archives hungover
  • Catriona and Tarpin are already there studying, with little luck
  • Suddenly, Roland has a breakthrough!
  • There’s a place called Stockton Keep, close to where him and Catriona first began their wild adventure
  • Tarpin mentions there’d lots of ancient tunnels connecting villages in Liat
  • Party decides to go there, better than letting the Court get stronger
  • Final farewells
  • Roland meets with Magnus to thank him for running the fighting pits
  • Magnus gives him a letter from Shank before he was killed
  • Aldo goes find Willard, his ‘skin guy’
  • Aldo has to sneak into jail to meet with him, but he promises to break Willard out
7/4/874
  • They arrive at Rockport, the old abandoned mining town from the adventure's firs session
  • The town hall’s still burned down, no undead bear to be seen
  • Party does some sleuthing, they find a tunnel under a ruined house
  • Catriona lights the way, the party heads into an ancient tunnel
  • After a long and winding path, they make it to Stockton Keep
  • The ground floor’s empty, but there’s chanting coming from the top floor
  • Party makes its slow ascent to the top
  • Nikolaj finds Valdemar’s room, steals some bags of gold
  • Roland looks around, finds a ‘soul ledger’ of everybody the Court’s killed
  • The last person on Valdemar’s list: Ildred?!?
  • At the top floor of keep the chanting is deafening
  • Catriona transforms into itsy bitsy spider to spy on the Court
  • Behind the door she sees the seven members opening a portal
  • They’re drawing magic together, lots of chants and gestures
  • She sees Alma, tries to persuade her to leave Court
  • Back with the rest of the party, they plan out strategy
  • Nikolaj will fight Argus and Arthur
  • Aldo will fight Markova, Fairouz and Morrigan
  • Catriona will deal with Alma
  • Roland will charge at Valdemar
  • So, Aldo and Nikolaj sneak into place, but Catriona and Roland are spotted
  • Valdemar monologues for a moment, and before long Ildred’s summoned
  • Ildred tries to do some monologuing of his own at Roland
  • Mid-monologue, Valdemar sucks up Ildred’s soul into his phylactery!!
  • Wow.
  • Valdemar starts morphing into some tentacled abomination as he's imbued with Ildred's mindflayer powers
  • Aldo fires off a flaming arrow at Valdemar, casts 'Fog Cloud' on Fairouz
  • Final Boss Fight: Valdemar the Undying
  • Nikolaj stabs his daggers into Argus’ shoulder blades, catches him off-guard
  • Roland uses scroll of 'Chain Lightning', hits 4 Court members in 1 turn
  • Arthur takes too much damage, him and Argus flee
  • Aldo focuses attacks on the women of the Court, fighting Fairouz in particular
  • He does some damage with his Frozen Blade, freezes Fairouz's spiders
  • The 'Fog Cloud' gives Markova, Fairouz and Morrigan disadvantage on all their attack rolls
  • Catriona pleads with Alma some more to abandon the Court, eventually she’s won over
  • Alma casts a few powerful spells at Valdemar et al
  • Catriona’s flame blade is pretty useful too
  • Fairouz focuses on Aldo, Markova does some damage on Nikolaj
  • Valdemar/Ildred abomination has some tricks up his sleeves
  • Some of them miss though, including a disintegration beam at Catriona
  • He releases noxious blight that KO’s Catriona, hurts Nikolaj and Roland
  • Roland directs all of his attacks at Valdemar
  • With all his divine smites and vows of enmity, he slays Valdemar
  • One well-placed great axe attack with Redemption knocks Valdemar off the keep's edge and into the ravine below
  • Roland takes extra care to destroy Valdemar's phylactery
  • The fallout
  • Markova rushes to edge of keep, starts sobbing for loss of her husband
  • She keeps mourning until she literally crystallizes with grief
  • Party tries to stop Fairouz and Morrigan from leaving, but they escape
  • Fairouz is nonplussed by Valdemar’s defeat, will try to summon monstrous aberrations of her own one day
  • The party discusses Alma’s fate
  • Aldo wants to exile her, Catriona wants to make sure she reforms
  • Catriona agrees to keep eye on her if Alma joins convent
  • Catriona’s mission has been to find and protect Alma
  • Nikolaj scours rest of keep, steals 1,200GP worth of jewels and coins
  • He also finds a ring of Fairouz’s
  • Roland searches through Arthur’s old room
  • He finds notes and books, but of special interest are his journals
  • There’s one entry from the day Arthur murdered Roland’s family entitled ‘My First Lesson with Argus’
8/2/874
  • The party returns to Gameria for the last time
  • Catriona stays in town to take care of Alma
  • Aldo leaves for Avicenna
Report Date
06 Jan 2020
Primary Location
Secondary Location

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