What I Did On Vacation In Elfland...

Our story picks up on the first day of the New Year, 1/1/1309. As the party is eating breakfast, another story unfolds in the Forgotten Realms. Validor Silkein, an Elven thief, in the mold of Robin Hood, responds to an advertisement posted in town: "Adventurers Wanted: No Experience Preferred." He makes his through the tavern to a backroom in which our familiar friend, Ranger Orkill, asks him if he is ready. Validor ponders the question for a moment, and then says that he is. Orkill pulls out a cube, presses a side, and a hole opens up and Validor falls through.

After he falls from the "little black spot on the sun, today," he falls directly in the courtyard. Very quickly, the party questions him, and prepares him for the next part of the quest the party is currently on. Rabbo gives him an opportunity to refuse, and the party decides to "cut him in" on the magical booty they are about to divvy up.

As the party gets ready, they ask the school if they can create some scrolls for them. They can. The scrolls include a variety of M-U spells, including: Protection From Evil, 10ft. radius x1, Locate Object, x3, Protection From Evil x5. they also made clerical scrolls including: Locate Object x2, Silence 15ft. x1, Dispel Magic x1, Charm Person x1, Chant x1, Protection From Evil x3, Command x3, and Cure Light Wounds X2.

Here is a list of all the players and the magical treasures they carry:

Ivy: Vampiric Paladin Ring, Potion of Invisibility, +3 shield, Scroll, Word of Recall, Scroll, Raise Dead x3, Chalice of Holy Water, Vial of Continual Light, Helm of Good Seeing, Rod of Smiting, Staff of Curing, Plate, +2, Boots of Speed, Ring of Regeneration (4/turn), Blue Crystal Rod of Resurrection, Rod of Sanctuary, Gauntlets of Ogre Power (18/00), +5 Mace of Disruption, Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications), and a Pearl of Wisdom.

Ethan: Bracers of Defence (AC 17), Pearl of Power, Passwall Chalk (3 uses), Potion of Levitation, Vial of Continual Light, ring of Regeneration (1/round--affects non-magical items), Blue Dragon Staff, Gloves of Knocking, Special Patchwork Robe, Helm of Comprehending Languages and Reading Magic, Scarab of Protection (+1) Ring of Magic Resistance (10%), Staff of the Magi, Broom of Flying, Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, Slippers of Spider Climbing, 3 ioun Stones (1: 20, up to 4th level, 2: 70, up to 8th, 3: 30, up to 8th), Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications), and a Wand of Fire.

Rabbo: 2 +4 Stars of Hurling, Two-Handed Sword (+3 +6 "Undead Slayer"), 1 M-22 automatic rifle, 50 rounds, Ring of Regeneration (4/turn), Ring of Protection (+6), Bracers (AC 20), Boots of Striding and Springing, 4 burnt Ioun Stones, 1 Luckstone, Helm of Telepathy, Gauntlets of Dexterity, Portable Hole #1, Amulet Vs. Undead, 3 grenades, Arrow of Direction, Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications).

Eyar: Figurine of Wondrous Power (Lion), Girdle of Frost Giant Strength, Wings of Flying, the intelligent sword Jerik, Ring of Regeneration (4/turn), Ring of Protection +6 (with 3 Ethereal charges), Plate Armor of Etherealness +4, +5 shield, +3 Defender, Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications), and Zardon's Pouch of Wonder.

Validor: Ring of Regeneration (2/turn), Scarab of Protection (+1), Robe of Protection (+2), 1 Ioun Stone (sustain without air), Lens of Detection, Dust of Illusion (1 pinch), Bracers (AC 16), Vial of Continuous Light, +2 Longsword, Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications).

The party divided up the treasures and stored several items in the portable hole #1, but kept the rest of the items at the keep. The items in portable hole #1 include:

Portable Hole: 111 healing Draughts, 1 jar of Keoghtum's Ointment (5 applications), Pitcher of Nourishment, Platter of Nourishment, Silver Mug of Noursihment, Decanter of Endless Water, Elixer of Health, Elixer of Life, Fork of Wonder, Staff of the Void, (previously whapped the Anything Ring and the Anything Wand), Mace of Disruption, Bracers (AC 14), Necklace of Adaption, Rod of Absorption (32 potential, 25 stored), 20 clips for the M-22, blowgun (+1), Colt .45 x2, holster, x2, 196 rounds, .22 pistol x2, 50 rounds, and Quall's Feather Token.

While the party is at the keep and the school, they plan on what to do. In general, they outline these objectives. First, get the cube, green box, and crystals. Second, save the Fairie Queen if possible. Third, help out the Elves, if possible. Fourth, get out alive, if possible. They use the map at the school to focus in on several trouble spots on the map. The elves who they first met are fighting in the southwest. Other elves are fighting in the northwest. The party debated going to Centaur Isle, going to the Mires of the Sinking Kind directly, or trying to create some kind of diversion. As the party talked, folks at the school told them about the existence of Halfing Isle. They party uses the map to focus in on Halfling Isle. It is close to the Mires of the Sinking Kind, and it is possible that some halflings still live there. The party can see smoke coming from some halfling houses there.

At this point, the party is given a variety of points of view from the school about what is the best way to serve the Fairie Queen, and what would be the best way to get into the Mires and get their stuff. In fact, the teachers at the school ask them to consider that getting their stuff in the Mires might be much less important than other things they could do to turn the tide of battle for Elfland. Finally, Rabbo asked for party suggestions, and decided to go to Halfling Isle.

The party steps through the school's magic mirror, and appears on a path. All along the path, the countryside is overgrown with thorns. It is approximately 7 am. The party uses the Arrow of Direction to check for the nearest Hobbit hole. The party goes that way. As the party walks, a large rock is in the path in front of them. both Ivy and Ethan check: it is magical, within the sphere of protection. There is another type of magic which they could not identify as well. Ethan uses Dispel Magic and removes the magic from the rock. The party approaches the first hobbit house. It has been burning for awhile. Validor searched it and found a nice hobbit cheese press.

Moving on, Ivy trips a wire, and a siren goes off. The party is ambushed by sling stones. Almost everyone is hit by stones. Ivy and Moonface are critically injured. Ethan flies up on his broom. Topaz is in the air. Rabbo gets our the ointment and heals the dog and Ivy. Eyar and Validor start to hack a path through the thorns to reach any of the stone throwers. Ethan sees a green flying shape approaching, and calls for Topaz. As it approaches, it is a greenish, lizardlike gnome-sized winged creature. Ethan fires a fireball from the Wand of Fire. He hits it but nearly catches himself in the area of affect. Topaz also kills one. The party regroups, and moves forward.

The party checks the next hobbit houses. Validor finds a silver mirror. From the air, Ethan sees a small encampment ahead. The party moves towards it. Rabbo cuts a path through the thorns and sees a small camp. It is empty. He kicks over a lean to, and in the straw of the floor, he sees a small scroll tube. Ivy opens the scroll tube, and it has a map in it, which is obviously magic. It appears to show them what is asked for. They test it by asking the map a location question for the closest crystal, and the map shows them the location of the Mires. The party knows that the crystals are in the Neo-Otyugh muckpile.

As the party continues, they are hit with stones again. This time, Ethan's skull is crushed and he dies. Rabbo gathers him up and the party runs. They use magic to heal up as they run. The path they follow gets thinner, but they follow the map, given the question of the location of the nearest live hobbit besides Ivy. As the party moves forward, they encounter a pit trap. Rabbo jumps over it, and trips another pit trap. Rabbo falls and is down six hp. Ivy fall and is down 10. Each member of the party makes his or her way across, and slowly approach a clearing in which the map shows that some hobbits are at. In the clearing, the party hears the chant, "Kurtulmak," and sees over 100 kobolds chanting and dancing. Ethan gets healed up from his critical injury, and is back up on his broom. He sees the group of kobolds, and shoots a fireball at them. He is then hit by a barrage of slingstones. One cirtically injures him again, and he falls to the ground. Ethan kills 73 kobolds with the fireball. Validor fires his arrows and kills several. Rabbo kills several. Then, the party runs again. The party gathers up Ethan and Ivy gets ready to cast dispel magic. The hobbits appear to be in a pit at the far side of the clearing. As they approach, they see a small stone or shiny object thrown up out of the pit. The party looks down, but can't see in, and can't hear anything from the pit either. They decide that there must be a continual darkness and silence cast in the pit, and assume that the hobbits trapped in the pit threw up the stone to get the party's attention.

The object thrown up was glass. Rabbo throws a rope down into the pit. Another glass glove is thrown up, and this one explodes in steam and hurts everyone. Validor is injured badly, and is healed by Keoghtum's Ointment. Ivy casts dispel magic down in the pit. Ivy then casts 2 cure light wounds, and Rabbo uses Koeoghtums' to heal Ethan. four kobold spellcasters hit Ethan with acid and missles. Rabbo jumps in the pit and kills one kobold spellcaster, Eyar jumps in and kills one also. They find a kobold book.

Rabbo tells Topaz to get in the air and find the two kobold spellcasters but he can't see them. Also, the map shows that the hobbits that were in the pit were now miles away and off of Halfing Isle. The party is getting fed up with the map. It is clear from the map that the kobolds are moving towards another clearing at the other end of the road the party first landed on. But, the party has little faith now in the map, or at least in their reading of the map. They heal and regroup. They make their way back to their starting point. Then they move down the path towards the possible location of the other kobolds. As they move forward, they trip another trap!! This one is a piano wire trap. Ivy and Moonface are caught in the trap, and before they can be helped, the wire cuts one of each of their feet off!


Rabbo and Eyar give Ivy the cube Moonface is next to her. They take several types of healing. Ivy hits timestop, and heals her own foot through regeneration, and did her best to reattach the dog's foot, but it would not take. However, over the time they are in time stop, the dog heals completely with a stump. Ivy and the dog walk out of timestop. Ivy has the cube in her hand.

Healing is immediately applied to the rest of the party, but the party is attacked by dozens of koblds. Rabbo is hit, Shardenzar is hit, and Ivy casts Chant, which counteracts the effects of the kobold's chant invoking Kurtulmak. Ethan casts fireball again and kills many more kobolds. In front and behind the group, small fire, water, and earth elementals rise up out of the ground. Ethan fires another fireball. Rabbo kills two fire elementals, Eyar kills one. Ethan kills a total of 14 of the lizard flyers with a fireball, and an inventive use of a wall of fire in the air. Rabbo kills two water elementals, and then the kobolds attack! Three grapple with Rabbo, while Rabbo kills two earth elementals. Shardenzar kills 3 kobolds. Rabbo kills three kobolds, Ethan kills o0ne more flyer, Eyar kills several kobolds, as well as Ivy. Validor kills one and hits one of the fire elementals. Rabbo kills another fire elemental.

Any other kobolds are killed or run off. The map shows that two kobolds are still in the space up ahead. After swearing to bitch slap several members of the school for their "advice," Rabbo decides that enough is enough. They will raise this place to the ground, kill everything they find, and then spread some destruction in as many places as they can, as quickly as they can. Rabbo formulates a plan, but discretion was the better part of valor, and we decided to quit playing for now.

Susan's Character...

After getting props for Mike's figure in our yet to be played alternate now apocalypse game, I decided that I should put a picture up of Susan's character. Hopefully, this will entice her to play!

Let the Games Conclude....

This summer, Mike, Molly, Carl, and I got together again to play D&D. We hoped Susan could make it, but a prior engagement kept her from attending. We decided to continue with the festival games instead of beginning the drow ass-kicking that a trip to Elfland would facilitate.

During the festival games, we played a triathalon style game, which Rabbo won. We played chess. We played some drinking games, in which Ethan tried to swallow a jug of white lightning, promptly threw up and passed out. We ended the night by playing a game of Noxie's Sphere, in which each character controlled an illusionary monster. In the arena, Molly played a beholder, Mike played an ancient red dragon, I played an iron golem, and Carl played a tarrasque. Molly was disappointed that she got such a small monster. In about five turns, after she turned me to stone, she disintegrated the tarrasque and death rayed the dragon. She won!

The coolest part of the game was when we played chess. We didn't actually play chess; we calculated the percentage of success with each roll against intelligence and wisdom, and scored points based on the degrees of success, which is exactly how you should role play a chess game. It was inventive and fun.

On another note, we discussed playing my current-time apocalypse game in which each of us play characters that are based on us. I have completed the figure Mike's character. Here are a couple of pictures:

Unintentional Motion....

A few posts ago, our DM suggested that Rabbo set some big things in motion, unintentionally. We found out what it was last game. The big thing he set in motion was requiring Ethan to pay a penance to Yondalla for Ivy. It took the form of the New Year's end party, essentially a week's worth of holidays. The big festival day was in honor of Yondalla, and Yondalla noticed. Yondalla then appeared to Ivy in a vision and gave her some godly gifts. Pretty cool for a little halfling.

It's a Festival!

This game started, technically, before the last one ended. We backtracked, set the calendar to the “right” day, and decided to have fun playing through the carnival games at the keep. Ethan takes time to spend his time and money to put on a terrific festival as his penance to Yondalla. He spends all of his party treasure. Rabbo donates his share of party treasure to help finance the event, and consecrates his sacrifice (almost 2000 gold!) to Bes.

The morning after the big “haul,” Ethan is roused by the sound of a huge roar. He woke Rabbo. They take a few moments to dress and then bound outside. Once outside, they see an odd-looking dragon-like creature, swooping around inside the dome. It is grey to red in color, wingless, and has six legs. They notice that three cooks are preparing food this morning, and don’t seem to be bothered by the dragon at all. Of course, it is a construct, and is part of the opening ceremony to the festival. Frooveezy, one of the keep’s personnel, takes us around the grounds of the fair. We go by the raffle booth. Rabbo buys 10 gold in tickets to be given among the poor kids in the dome. The party participated in a variety of games. Rabbo participated in a number of games to help relate to the common folks at the keep, and “challenged a group of children to a game of Troll’s Bridge. Everybody enjoyed that. Rabbo fought the trained cave bear and beat it, to the delight of the crowd. In every event, he attempted to show his strength, speed, and agility, but also was humble when he lost or didn’t hit a target. Ethan won Tower of Castilo, and fought three bears, but got owned by two of them. Ivy got drunk by 6 a.m., got beat by the trained bears like she was Goldilocks, climbed the temperature ladder, and got prizes from the tree with her sling.

In fact, it was around the tree that a curious event, as described below by our DM, happened:

“As Ivy moved about the base of the tree trying to find the best shot, a smile spread across her face. This was fun. This was special. This was something from her people, and the big folk were enjoying it just as countless generations of manikin had in the past. There was laughter in the air and excitement everywhere, but something was just not right.

At first Ivy thought that maybe dirt has landed in her eyes, but as she blinked it away it only got worse. The rays of the sun were beaming through the dome, and here in the woods the light was scattered by small branches and augmented by limitless motes of dust. As she looked and blinked, the ribbons, tokens, bags and colored sticks hanging from the tree stopped seeming to be the prizes that they were and began to resemble much more ominous things. The sticks seemed more like limp, slender, frail bodies hanging lifeless in the tree. The small bags appeared to move as if something were trapped and dieing inside. As the tokens spun they bounced about very much like tiny beings in the death throes of being strangled. And although she knew they were ribbons, Ivy could only see small weightless wings fluttering lifeless in the breeze.

The projectile flies into the tree and hits its mark. With a series of thuds the prize falls to earth and lands just at the base of the tree. It is a small silver shield with a golden, diamond crusted “Y” on the front.

As Ivy reached out to take the shield, another hand pulled it away just before it was in the cleric’s grasp. Ivy looked up and saw a strong, young woman, proud and determined of bearing, dressed in green, yellow and brown and armed with only a short sword and small shield. Despite the fact that her large hairy feet clearly made her out to be a half-ling, she stood at least twelve inches taller than the little cleric herself. The stranger slung her own shield around her back and began examining the prize she had just picked up. In her hands the silver and gold shield was nothing more than painted wood with glitter sprinkled on it. Somehow, it seemed much smaller now.

“Pretty,” she said with a smile. “But not much protection.” Her voice was intense, yet somehow warm and inviting. Ivy noticed that the woman’s voice was all she was hearing. The little cleric looked around and realized the two of them were alone next to the tree. Everyone else was gone. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but stopped when she looked back. The light of the sun was shining behind her and the effect lit up an aura around the woman that could not be expressed in mortal terms. When the stranger smiled, buds sprouted on trees and plants. As she shifted her wait, dead leaves under her feet became green with life. And as she traced the Y on the toy shield with her finger, sap began to bleed from the painted wood. That’s when Ivy knew exactly who this was.

“Close your mouth child, you look silly standing there like that. You’re here to listen, do you understand.” As she spoke, her gaze drifted into the great tree. “Then again, having over a thousand big folk praise your name all day long is something to listen to. You definitely acquired my attention.” Ivy closed her mouth and immediately assumed a prayer position.

“Enough of that. Arise my daughter. I am already here and we have precious little time.” Yondalla, principal god of the manikin ran her hands over the bark of the great tree. “This is a very good tree,” she said. “I can see why it was chosen for the game. This is fine woodland you have here. Young, but sturdy and well kept. Naturally I prefer a nice field or meadow, as is our kin, but this is a very nice wood.” As her goddess scanned the area, Ivy was filled with a sense of trepidation she had never known before, but as Yondalla’s eyes fixed with hers, the little cleric felt a sense of infinite warmth and protection.

“Now to work,” said the goddess. “As you know, I am not keen on disturbing the plans of other powers. What they do with their holes and gardens is their business. But if those plans affect my kinder, then it is my business. I’ve looked over this little world of yours and it’s quite strange. I don’t think I’d have anything to do with it if it didn’t have several fields of the kin living here. But it does and one of them has had far too much trouble. Had we known, Arvoreen would have gone himself, but it’s too late. You will soon be going into the area and I want you to represent us and resolve the situation. I have faith in you and to help I am giving you three gifts.” Yondalla raised her hand and from her first three fingers arose three glowing balls of light.

“The first gift is the gift of choice. You may choose one of three special quest spells above and beyond your normal complement.” With a wave all three balls flew into the little half-lings head. Ivy felt a little dizzy and began blinking a lot, but the effect passed quickly. “But choose wisely. They can only be used once and they act as signposts for the direction of your journey.”

“The second gift is the gift of advice. Take with you all of your magic items. Leave nothing behind. Let the big folk do as they may, but you have nothing to fear from the unknown at this time and you never know what help you may need.” Yondalla then held the toy shield in front of Ivy. It was now so small that it fit between two of her fingers.

“The third gift is the gift of faith.” The small shield began to glow with a golden light. Yondalla placed it in the little cleric’s hand and wrapped her fingers around it. As her fist closed, the light was so bright that Ivy could no longer see the tiny shield, but there was no heat or pain whatsoever. “Keep it safe,” Yondalla said. “Keep it close to your heart. Keep it to the very end when all other hope is lost. Then, and only then, will it serve you best.” Ivy wrapped her other hand around her closed fist and brought them both to her chest. Yondalla smiled warmly and once again looked around that area.

“Yes, these are very fine trees. They should serve you well.” The goddess looked at Ivy once more, but with a softer, gentler gaze. She put her hands on the little cleric’s cheeks and turned her head back and forth. “You’ve changed; it suites you. Change is good for you. I approve. But no matter how much you change, little one, remember to stay who you are here.” The goddess placed a hand on the cleric’s chest, just above the heart. “And here,” she whispered as she leaned down and kissed Ivy on the head.”

After the event, Ivy shared this experience with us, and we did our best to figure it out. She had been given three quest spells by her god, and it would be up to Ivy to choose one suited to the party’s next adventure, which will be to go neck deep in drow. After this, we had stayed up late enough, and quit.