Virtual Greyhawk Con 4

 

Greyhawk campaign update

After running Robert J. Kuntz's "Dark Druids", module "I1 - Dwellers of the Forbidden City" and Carlos A. Lising's "A5 - Kill Marquessa!", the first two set in the Suss forest and the last one on the northern coast of the Pomarj, in which the party discovered clues, but not explored, of a lost Temple of the Eye, recovered the Urn, killed one of Markesa's clones and raided one of her strongholds (where they killed Sturm Bucholtz but Markesa managed to escape), they returned through Celene to their lands in Verbobonc. Oh, by the way, I made Markesa a drow, as if all her wickedness and evil were not enough. 

During their stay in Celene they became acquainted, through Countess Tillahi, whom they've rescued from the Temple of Elemental Evil in the past, with Melf Brightflame. They left with them the Urn and a map they've captured from Markesa's stronghold for further study. Not long before they received a letter to travel back to Celene. Melf had devised the possible location of two other Temples of the Eye, one in the Jotens Mts. near SW Sterich and the other in the Hellfurnaces Mts. to the SW of the Yeomanry. The party agreed to investigate them and they traveled to the neighborhood of the first site through a magical mirror at Countess Tillahi's estate.

The idea behind the different Temples of the Eye (under the Temple of Elemental Evil, in the caverns of the Dark Druids, in the dungeons of the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and bellow the Halls of the Fire Giant King) come, except the one in Dark Druids, from Greyhawk Grognard's series of posts about the Elder Elemental God.

Now I'm running a kind of "Return to..." of module "G1 - Steading of the Hill Giant Chief", in which the place above has been raided by a previous party and killed most of the giants (some escaped), and below the ogres and orcs revolted against the remaining giants and bugbears. The orcs chopped the heads of the hill giants and put them on pikes around the steading. This has been loosely inspired by a short fiction story called "Return to the Steading" by Bart Carroll that appeared on Dragon+ issue 11. 

So far the party has killed the ogres, charmed one of the three orc leaders and bribed the other two with part of the ogre's treasure (mostly copper coins, copper ingots, cheap jewelry and false gems). That way the orcs, that are able miners, agreed to clear the path to the sealed temple. Meanwhile a frost giant envoy mounted on a mammoth and escorted with two winter wolves showed up with a message to Chief Nosra. 

An epic battle ensued with the party victorious, although some gravely wounded, with one of the cavalier' retainer unconscious and his warhorse dead. The thief managed to decipher the message: a conclave of giant chieftains will take place next full moon in the Halls of King Snurre, and Chief Nosra should attend "using the gift and following the instructions". The party will now have to find out what that gift is and how to use it.

Greyhawk campaign update

Campaign continues with the addition of a new player character, Meriven Davers. She is a Patriarch of St. Cuthbert and also a veteran from the Temple of Elemental Evil in another campaign. Meriven is from Verbobonc and was assessing the situation on the Wild Coast when the party arrived to Narwell, travelling from Safeton on their way to their possessions in Hommlet, Nulb, Twilight Falls and Sobanwych.

I am running "Lord of the Scarlet Tide" from Dungeon Magazine #85 by James Jacobs. Even though it's an adventure for 3e, I'm using it anyway with a few alterations for 1e. I wanted to introduce the Underdark and its inhabitants (kuo-toa, drow, mind flayers and deep gnomes to name a few) to the players as a foreshadow of what's coming next. 

The party have managed to reach an abandoned kuo-toa city and must now retrieve a powerful item from a temple dedicated to Bilbdoolpoolp to put an end to the deadly red tide that's affecting the town of Narwell. 

Rionna

This character was created for another of Aron Clark's D&D Holmes games. This time he ran the adventure "The Black Tower" (1981) by Midkemia Press. Rionna is a thief and the rest of the party members are:

Ademor the Minotaur (Justin)

Bel-Shaar, cleric of Set (Nick)

Chet the Wizard (Brian)

Balthos (Peter)

Melisar (Aaron)

S 10, I 15, W 9, D 17, C 17, Ch 8

Ekhard the Faceless

This character was created for one of Aron Clark's D&D Holmes games. He has been exploring the mega dungeon of  "Morthimion" by Gabor Lux. Ekhart is a  human cleric of Phieran the Broken (god of suffering) and henchmen of Shawn. The rest of the party members are:

Shawn, male human magic-user 

Rakol, male human fighter

Crystal, female human magic-user (Rakol's henchmen)

Kolbrand, male human thief (Rakol's henchmen)

Tark, dwarf fighter

Chunn, male fighter/thief (Tark's henchmen)

Modicum, male elf

Boraks, male human fighter (Modicum's henchmen)

He has been disfigured by fire and was saved by Shawn.

S 10, I 7, W 15, D 9, C 15, Ch 3