Shattered Star: GIANT SIZE ISSUE!

Game Date: 7/18/2015
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 30
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Carlie Nackle (Cliff, subbing for Chere) - Gnome Wizard
Fellany Mertien (Cliff) - Human Fighter
Maruca (Daniel) - Elf Ranger/Cleric/Rogue
Slancio Brioso (Matt, subbing for Thomas) - Human Bard
Tai Lindro (Angela) - Human Monk/Warlock

The Session:
We started with a little downtime, during which each of us did some carousing.  Tai and Maruca became legendary carousers, but Fellany and Bjertha didn't fare so well.  Once we'd have enough fun, we got ready to start our search for the next shard.

We were to travel to Windsong Abbey, which is known for its lighthouse, and for hosting Clerics from all over.  One the way we were to stop at a small town called Sandpoint, to meet with a fortune teller named Pilla Linuveshi.  It took a couple of days to reach Sandpoint, where we met Pilla at the tavern.  She told us she'd recently seen a giant, and had found a blood-soaked cap.  The cap was the style that is often worn by Redcaps, a violent breed of fey.

We continued our trip.  A couple more days on the road and we reached a scene of devastation.  Houses had been destroyed and fields had been burned.  The abbey's lighthouse still stood behind a high wall.  The wall itself was partially crumbled and its gate stood wide open.  In one of the nearby houses we found a pair of sleeping Hill Giants.  While we readied a plan, an Ettin approached.

Tai shoved her Immovable Rod into a sleeping giant's nose.  This could have been a difficult fight except the DM kept rolling ones.  Tai killed one Hill Giant, Fellany killed another, and Meruca finished off the Ettin... right around the time reinforcements arrived.  Two more Hill Giants and another Ettin joined the battle.  After a few more rounds we finished them off too.

After the fight, Tai climbed the battered wall to assess the situation.  Around the abbey, more buildings had been ruined, and she saw a few more giants waiting for us.  She came back and told us what we'd face, and we discussed our options.  We had Carlie turn invisible, intending to fireball the giants, but by the time she reached them they were hiding in the ruined buildings.  So Carlie retreated, Tai ran in and got the giants' attention. 

It was yet another Ettin and pair of Hill Giants.  A few turns into the battle, Carlie managed to get off her fireball, killing a Hill Giant.  We made short work of the rest, and headed into the abbey.  Tai ran ahead to scout each room.  As we followed her, the ceiling collapsed on the rest of us.  We could hear snickering from up above us, so we searched for stairs to the upper level.

Tai and Meruca were first up the stairs, where they met four Redcaps.  These guys were pretty tough. They each had two attacks per turn, and could only be damaged by cold iron weapons.  The Redcaps started the battle by hitting us with a fear effect, which Slancio and Fellany failed.  Slancio saved after one round, but by then he was so far away he spent a couple of rounds getting back to the party.  Meanwhile, Fellany barricaded herself in a room, and missed all but the tail end of the battle.

Bjertha went down several times in the fight, her party members healing her mostly so they'd have an extra meatshield.  Slancio used a Heat Metal spell on a Redcap's iron boots, which was super effective.  As usual, Meruca and Tai did the most damage.  It took some doing, but we wore them down and finished them off.  We ended the session there.  We haven't rested or done any post-battle healing yet.

Reminders: We each received 5,333 xp, bringing most of us up to 44,686.  Also, we each received 4 renown points.  There is no game next week. 

Shattered Star: ...Aaaand We're Back.

Game Date: 7/11/2015
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 29
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Carlie Nackle (Cliff, subbing for Chere) - Gnome Wizard
Fellany Mertien (Cliff) - Human Fighter
Maruca (Daniel) - Elf Ranger /Cleric/Rogue
Slancio Brioso (Thomas) - Human Bard
Tai Lindro (Angela) - Human Monk/Warlock

The Session:
To recap, we got our asses kicked last session.  Bjertha, Meruca, and Carlie were dead.  Fellany, Slancio, and Tai were at zero hit points in a hostile environment.  Today, Slancio opened his eyes to find an undead woman squatting over him.  She seemed friendly, though she had gone through our backpacks and collected all our gold.  Slancio got up, rummaged through his backpack for his last few healing potions, and used them to revive Fellany and Tai.  Then they gathered up all their belongings (including their fallen comrades) and went back through the portal.

Back at the library, Slancio realized he'd need the gold to get us raised.  So he asked the undead woman for our gold back.  It looked like there was going to be a fight, but Slancio rolled a 30 on his persuasion check, and the woman agreed to take a much smaller share of the gold.  Then Slancio pointed her to the undead-friendly parts of town and she went on her way.

The next order of business was to raise the dead party members.  Bjertha and Carlie just got raised normally, but Meruca got reincarnated as an Elf.  They also went ahead and got rid of Bjertha's cursed sword.  We bought a few more supplies, then took a long rest before heading back to the pocket dimension.

In the other dimension, we explored the final few rooms of the keep.  We found the stables and a jet black carriage.  In a room containing a statue of the dark rider, Slancio tripped an arrow trap.  But he survived, and came away with a hideous new harp made from a dead pixie.  Meanwhile, Tai found a skeleton key hidden on the statue.

Next we looked in the room with the pool, where we fought the Mohrgs last session.  Tai tiptoed around the edge of the pool, looking for the source of something magical we had detected.  Behind a loose stone, she found a magic club.  We'd now double checked all the rooms we'd previously cleared, and it was time to open the last few doors we'd yet to explore.

We used the skeleton key on some double doors.  The next room was empty except for a small round well.  We could hear a hum coming from somewhere, and the water detected as magical.  We tried a few things, but could figure out what the pool had to do with anything, so we continued on.  There was another set of double doors on the other side of the room, which also opened with the skeleton key.

In the final room we saw a horrifying pillar, made of both mechanical and organic parts.  Integrated into the pillar were the corpses of three angelic beings.  At the top of the pillar was our prize - the Shard of Gluttony.  Once we took the shard, the entire dimension started to shake.  Maruca and Carlie failed a save and were inflicted with the "Curse of Living Death" (disadvantage on CHA checks, and treated as undead for certain effects).

We headed back to the portal to leave the dimension.  As we approached the portal, we encountered our questgivers.  A Chrestomath (brain) and two Caulborns.  They demanded the shard, and we had to fight them.  We tried to control their movement with Evard's Black Tentacles and Entangle spells.  We concentrated on the brain first, doing our best to keep him from using mind powers on us. 

Meruca was hit with a confusion spell early on, but kept rolling high on her confusion rolls, allowing her to act normally.  Tai finished off the brain after a couple of rounds.  Carlie hit the two Caulborns with a lightning bolt.  Meruca annihilated the final monster with a hit that did 30 damage (even though the monster only had 2 hp left at the time).  The battle over, we tried to use the portal.

Nope.  It was powered by the creatures we just killed.  Now we had no way home, and the dimension continued to shudder like it would dissipate soon.  So now we went back over every room with a fine toothed comb, trying to find what we'd missed.  In one secret door we found a jet black longsword (undead bane), and a helmet with ram horns (hat of disguise).  In another room we found a picture that kept changing landscapes.  We thought it might be an alternate portal, but no, it was basically just a screensaver.

We tried driving the carriage, but that didn't accomplish anything.  In the library, we found a magic book and a magic pair of women's legs (the less said about, the better).  We went back to the well, to see if maybe it was a portal.  No, it was actually regenerating the body of the dark rider.  But we did realize that the room's hum wasn't coming from the well.  The hum led us to a secret door, filled with the machinery that keeps this keep running.  A bit more searching, and we found some scrolls of Plane Shift, which we used to get back home.

Instead of transporting back to Kaer Maga, we skipped the long ride home and transported straight to Magnimar. We found ourselves on the city's giant bridge.  We headed back to Heidmarch Manor to update Sheila, took some downtime, removed Meruca's and Carlie's curse, and prepared for the next leg of the campaign.  Next session we'll begin the quest for the next shard.  Our search will begin at a place called Windsong Abbey.

XP:  We each received 1950 experience points, bringing us up to 39,353.