Party Roster:

brief synopsis:

Wizard Mountain is a campaign alternative to Telvar noted for its

incredibly high fatality rates and general lawlessness.  A mountaintop

city once ruled by an iron-fisted wizard has been cut off from the main

civilization at the base of the mountain by invading gnolls.  The wizard

himself has disappeared since encountering a large adventuring party and

killing or "disappearing" all of them as well.

We are adventures from civilization, out to comb the ruins or kill gnolls

or generally cause havoc until we get killed.

And now for the summary:

Wizard Mountain.  The final frontier.  These are very short treks of the

new pickup party, as yet unnamed.  To boldly go where probably only a few

others have gone before, make the same mistakes they did, get wasted, and

run away.

The party formed in the towns below.  Choosing not ally ourselves with a

guild, we simply opted for the charge a random cave opening.

First, a brief introduction to the party:

Kelric, half-orc fighter.  Wields the footman's flail.  Carries a ring+1

and a potion of climbing given to him prior to the start of his

adventuring career.  He is quite strong and durable.

Standish, half-orc fighter.  Wields a bastard sword +1/+4 vs. reptiles

and fights with a shield.  The strongest party member, but is obnoxiously

arrogant, with over-greasy hair and an attitude that tends to drive

fellow party members insane.  He has a pair of dogs, a war dog named

Cromwell and a guard dog named Winston.

Hhune, halfling fighter.  Not very strong, he nonetheless uses a falchion

of quality.  He deftly uses it on defense as well.  Despite his stature,

Hhune is bold and decisive, with a wit to match.  Picture a 2 foot 6 inch

Brad Pitt.

Brigling, halfling thief.  A nondescript halfling who uses a bow and

short sword.  He is quite sneaky and incredibly dexterous.

Browork, dwarven cleric.  A crusty but charismatic dwarf who fights with

a quality hammer and shield.  Durable for a cleric.  Carries a Continual

Light stone.

Lissar, half-elf mage.  Wields a staff.  Dexterous and a competent

spellcaster.

Halacar, halfling fighter.  Nearly the twin of Hhune, he is slightly less

dashing but much stronger and agile.  He did not join the party initially.

The party set out and almost immediately found a cave near the base of

the mountain.  There was odd sort of droning sound in the area, but we

weren't sure what it was.  We went into cave.  Taking a left, we found

ourselves entering a large room with a large number of boulders at the

back of it, with an even larger number of eyes there.  When we put out

our single Continual Light, the goblinlike creatures fired slings at us,

injuring the front of the party.  We retreated and returned to town

ignominiously.

Foray #2: This time, we took a different passage.  This time we

encountered a group of a dozen giant bats.  Lusting for battle, we went

for it, and nearly got our brains kicked in but emerged victorious, with

the mage Lissar scoring more kills than Hhune and Kelric combined. 

Kelric took the most damage of anyone when he was smashed full force by

Standish.  We sifted through some bat guano, then returned helplessly to

town.

Hhune came down with a horrid disease, but avoided Constitution loss and

recovered two weeks later.

Foray #3: The next passage on our list was taken.  We reached a stream

and discovered a trail of gold pieces leading into a cave of some sort. 

The guard dog was frightened of something.  We sent an invisible thief,

Brigling, up ahead to scout it out.  She returned with a non-report,

finding a dead end.

We wandered in, hoping to cut down whatever lurked there.  We were

totally surprised by the mold monster that detached itself from the wall,

totally crushed Hhune who was barely able to yell before being completely

enveloped.

Browork swung his hammer, which had no effect.  Acid was thrown Brigling,

but to no effect.  The flail had no effect.  At last, Standish was able

to injure it.  Realizing that we had only one weapon that could effect

it, we turned to run.  It swiped at Browork, but was unable to kill him. 

Figuring some profit might as well come from this, and with a quick

farewell to Hhune, the party scooped up a few of the gold pieces from the

trail and bolted for the entrance.

Foray #4:  Hhune's brother Halacar joined the party.  The new party set

out on another attempt.  First we encountered a pair of gnolls.  When

Browork hailed them, they turned and ran.  Brigling and Halacar shot one,

but it still got away.  This time we passed through a corridor which set

off a weird yelping alarm, but ignored it and pressed on.  A gelatinous

cube tried to envelop Brigling, but it missed and was handily cut down by

Halacar and Kelric.

There were some nice gems and gold pieces in the creature's body.  The

weird noises continued, but we paid them little heed.  Then the war dog

tripped some kind of wire, dropping rocks in a pile in front of us.  The

screams intensified, and we backed into a corner.  Then a group of seven

weird flightless birdlike creatures came streaking toward the party.  The

fighters met them in close combat.  It was a solid rout for our side, and

we slew the creatures, thanks to a Sleep spell from Lissar and flaming

oil from Brigling.

The party healed up and hopes to continue on, next time!

Joel/Hhune/Halacar/Browork

joined-- the hobgoblin spear specialist woodsman Frag, and the human mage

Kessel.  We set

off on another exciting adventure.

Before even making it to Wizard Mountain, we trashed some giant ants,

though Brigling the

thief managed to shoot Browork before the combat was over.  Standish

yelled for Browork to

get out of the way.

The party proceeded into the dungeon.  We had last battled a group of

weird birdlike being

with sharp beaks and skeletal wings.  We decided to head back in that

general direction and

look around.  We heard the sounds of squawking and accidentally backed

ourselves into a

corner.  The birds came flying around the corner at the back of the party.

The fighter Halacar and the cleric Browork went to meet them.  Browork

was soon fleeing

toward the back of the party with a wound, but Halacar killed one. 

Standish and Kelric

charged through the party, along with Frag, to attack the vicious

creatures.  Several were

Slept by Lissar and Kessel, who took cover behind the fighters.  Kelric,

Standish, Halacar,

and a very proficient Brigling took the creatures down without much

trouble.  Most of the

damage had been taken by Browork, who also had to duck another missile

from Brigling during

the combat.

We headed back down the tunnel, only to find ourselves attacked from both

sides by birds. 

Kessel launched a Web at back of the party, which was holding its own

initially.  The front

of the party, Kelric and Standish, along with help from Brigling and

Frag, began slashing

through the creatures without too much trouble.

The back of the party was faring much worse.  Halacar killed a creature,

but Browork nearly

went down with three separate hits.  He retreated, and the only person

who could cover him

was... Lissar, the mage.

Lissar stepped forward, and was promptly smacked around.  Halacar

finished his off, moved to

cover and swung his falchion just as the bird-thing attacked him...

The result was spectacular.

Halacar's falchion (quality, +1/+1, no less) exploded in his hands, and

the shards flew

directly into the hapless Lissar, nearly dropping the mage.  The bird's

free attack then

pummeled Halacar, who was merely sitting dazed for a moment.

Lissar scrambled back, but most of the other bird people were trapped in

the Web, so Halacar

moved to cover him again, and succeeded.  Two other creatures were slowly

breaking out of

the Web, but through the combined efforts of Standish, Kelric, Frag, and

Brigling, the

creatures were dropped before or as they came out of the Web.

Mass healing was done.  We decided to look for the birds' lair, hoping to

get actual

treasure out of this mess.  Unfortunately, despite a lot of searching we

couldn't find it,

though we did find a burrowed hole leading to a bricked off end.

We limped home and healed.

We set off on another expedition, but thanks to some wonderful rolling by

yours truly, the

expedition was quite short.

As the party traveled to Wizard Mountain, a huge silhouette appeared in

the sky, and the

black dragon descended on the party.

The whole party hit the dirt.  Most of the party was disoriented with

fear, and the dogs

cowered.  Several of the party had hidden successfully, leaving Frag,

Browork, Halacar, and

Kelric in the open (woodsman, cleric, fighter, fighter, all in metal armor).

The dragon swooped down first on the hapless guard dog, who yelped

uselessly.  The dog was

killed instantly as the talons grabbed it and rended it to shreds.  The

dog was popped into

the creature's mouth and it circled for more food.

The visible party members scattered, running for their lives.  The dragon

swooped down at

its first target, the new party member Frag.

Realizing his end had arrived, the woodsman turned and set his spear for

charge.  The dragon

shrugged and breathed acid all over him, melting him into a pile of goo. 

The dragon rose

and circled, still looking for food.

Kelric was next.  He saw his doom approaching and tried to evade the

creature,

unsuccessfully.  He was snatched up but survived and stabbed the creature

in the mouth.  He

fumbled and his sword dropped to the ground.  The teeth gnashed tighter,

but Kelric still

lived.  He was wedged in, and frantically began a last ditch attempt to

injure the creature.

He hastily pulled out his flasks of oil and tried to light them....

Gulp.  Burp.

The dragon flew away, content.  The party ran for home.

Replacing the dead characters were Alain the half-orc fighter and Crack,

Frag's older

brother hobgoblin woodsman. The party set out again.  The guard dog was

replaced.

We reached Wizard Mountain without incident, and did a whole lot of

exploring.  Most of this

was mapping.  There were a number of rock traps we believe were set up by

the bird people

that injured Standish's war dog.  Brigling also dodged one such trap.  We

finally found some

sort of lair for the birds, since it was vaguely nestlike.  There were

six red gems in the

center that we evaluated at 50 gp each.  We took them.

We eventually found a room with a weird pile of metal in the middle of

it.  The metal moved,

and we initially thought it might be a gelatinous cube and shot OVER it. 

When the arrow

passed through and the thing faded into the shadows, we got nervous.  We

spotted the thing

coming along the wall at us.  Brigling shot it but the arrow bounced

off.  Then Standish

cleaved it in half with one swing of his sword (+1/+4 vs. reptiles).

It was some kind of weak golem shaped like a snake.  Strange.

Eventually we found a spiral staircase, which we left for the moment, and

a mortared section

against the cave wall.  There was a weird droning sound emanating from

the spiral staircase,

so we went with bashing down the mortar.

Alain crashed through easily, and we found ourselves face to face with,

oh, maybe forty 8'

tall lizardmen.

"We run," declared Crack.  And so we did.

We ran through windy corridors, and eventually stopped to test a Sleep

spell (we moved

faster than the lizards).  The Sleep went off and affected only ONE of

them.  We nodded and

ran all the way out of the cave.  The lizards stopped following us when

we reached the

sunlight.

We ate lunch outside, and then went back in.

The lizards were gone.  We decided to head up the spiral staircase into

the droning noise. 

Up the stairs we saw a room with sunlight streaming in.  There were weird

wind currents in

the room.  There was a table with a goblet, and a weird coral-skinned

gorilla-like thing.

We decided to check out the alcoves.

"But don't touch anything," said a voice into our minds.

Uh.

It turned out there was a bored trapped air elemental in the room.  We

chatted with the

thing, and it turned out it had been around for about 500 years, since it

had been summoned

by a wizard "for a week or so."  It was bored with the prime material

plane, and its only

friend was the gorilla, which would kill us if we touched it or the

elemental got annoyed. 

It had a smug and superior attitude, but let us look around the room

anyway.  We saw some

skeletons in the alcove and quite a bit of treasure, but we didnt touch

it.  We left and

told it we would return to chat.  We're not sure, but we think the

creature didn't really

mind despite its snide comments about immortality and and such.

We founded a small beach area with a small waterfall in it.  We started

along the corridor

when a blinding light hit the party from up front.  All but Brigling,

Lissar, and Kessel

were blinded by the light.  Something was approaching rapidly.  The party

staggered slowly

backwards, leaving the war dog behind to battle the creature.  The dog

injured the thing

before getting killed.  Brigling shot at it, but missed.  The creature

continued to

approach, and the blind Standish turned to fight it, directed by

Brigling.  Standish cleaved

through it, and discovered that it was a reptile (his sword was +4)! 

Standish had been

latched onto, though, and took significant damage.

The party settled down to rest until our eyesight returned.

20 minutes later, the party was still blind.  Suddenly something clear

and oozing grabbed

Lissar's legs and began to dissolve them!  Oil was hurled at it, but the

flames had no

effect.  The creature was badly injured by a sword hit (I forget who did

it) and tried to

escape.  Crack refused to let it get away and stabbed at it with his

spear despite being

off-balance.  The thing died and sank into the water.

We healed Lissar and settled down to wait some more.

About ten minutes later, the still blind Halacar found his arms feeling

like jelly.  He was

barely conscious and mumbled for help from the party.  There was nothing

there, but Halacar

was pale and drawn.  Alain swept the area above and behind Halacar with

his magical

quarterstaff, and hit something!  Whatever it was stepped out of the way

and was gone before

anyone could swing again.

Shuddering, we ran back to town.  Halacar recovered in a few days, but he

had lost a lot of

blood plasma and had two marks on the back of his neck.

Seems like a vampire was sucking on Halacar's blood.  Great.

Until next time!