Grand Conjunction Problems

[Quinntonia]

So afterwards they headed the rest of the way to the canyon, which led them to the border with Bluetspur. I played up a lightning show at night across the border with Bluetspur and the strange looking mountain ranges as they wandered into the canyons looking for the Crown. They entered the canyon and started to look around, finding the warning tree, and deciding not to deal with it, though they very nearly decided to cut it down at that stage, which would have triggered the hordes of skeletons defense.

What they did do was find the prisoners under the rib-cage and in their attempts to free them ended up coming under attack from the carnivorous plants, the goblyns atop the ribs with the catapult, and finally the zombies within. During the various attempt to deal with this, they also came under attack by the giant ravens in the air, one for each of them, as they are fairly high level and I wanted this stuff to challenge them. It did. They did notice that he goblyns they were fighting were wearing mustard yellow tunics, and put it together that they were likely the missing people. But as the fight got spicier and they started to get a little scared and frustrated, a few timely fireballs ended up taking out the goblyns that they knew to be transformed humans. Also, this was done by a mage that had found a spell earlier that could transform humans into goblyns, further, he basically killed the prisoners during the assault as well, though that was mostly accidental. As you can imagine, this led to a powers check, and he failed it.

They then were so beat up that after only entering the canyon, looking around quickly, and getting into a single fight, they retreated to beyond the mouth of the canyon to rest and recover.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

No, they had a lengthy conversation about the difference between medieval children and modern children and decided that they would likely be able to care for themselves for a few days until they cam back and decided what they were going to do.

LOL, yes modern children in the same situation would start to crack as soon as their ipads ran out of power.

[Quinntonia]

Exactly! Haha.

Yeah, luckily they are all (except one) Western Canadians with family histories that included pioneering and farming, the idea of leaving children alone for a few days didn't seem that bad when taken in that context.

[Quinntonia]

So the fight that beat them up involved zombies, goblyns firing catapults at them, carnivorous and entangling plants, and fly by dive bomb attacks by horse-sized giant ravens. It was a knock down drag out fight with the highlights being the mage deciding to torch the prisoners and the transformed goblyns even knowing that they were likely the villagers they had met earlier and the druid summoning some hippogriffs that engaged the giant ravens in a spectacular aerial duel. They were beat up enough that they limped their asses back out of the canyon.

Of course, at this point a new player was joining the group, but only for a weekend. We do these D&D weekends a couple of times a year, where we get together and sleep at the same place so we can play for every waking hour of the weekend. We had a friend that wanted to come in and play, so we wrote him in.

He played a character based on Ben Gunn from Treasure Island, and we came up with a backstory that described how he was a cleric from Forgtotten Realms that was travelling with an adventuring party and their families as they were all about to retire when the Mists took them into Bluetspur. This led to months or years (he's not sure) of torture, running away from things in the tunnels and darkness, illusions, madness, slavery, his family members and party members being killed or enslaved, multiple escape attempts and rescue attempts, until he came into the canon region near Radaga' and began living in a cave, hiding there half mad sustaining himself with his clerical powers and watching for his family to return.

He saw the characters go into the canyon, and knowing that no one ever returns from the canyon, he wrote them off, so when they did return, he started sneaking closer to them.

During that night a couple of the party members, the rogue and the barbarian, snuck into the canyon to scout it out again. They found the ziggurat, the tunnel entrances, and the skeleton staked to the ground, as well as the skeletal guardians on the wall. They were also aware of the giant ravens, mostly ones that survived the previous encounter, circling the canyon, and it was strongly implied that no matter the combat, the ravens would swoop in to take advantage.

They snuck out again and after everyone rested and studied and prayed and whatnot, they moved back into the canyon.

They chose to go around the zuggurat, hugging the canyon walls, and decided not to climb the walls for fear of the skeletal guardians up there as well. Then they examined, but decided to bypass, the skeleton staked to the ground. At this stage I was starting to wonder if they were so scared of everything that they would be crippled by fear.

Then the cleric introduced himself, madness and all, and after offering his services, decided to stick with the party as they entered one of the caverns.

[Quinntonia]

So they entered the canyon, and in the process went through both of them. Now, since it is not terribly interesting to read about me detailing a room by room dungeon crawl, I'm going to go ahead and give the highlights.

So, they wandered in and the first mist takes away a magic item lowest to the ground, this stymied them for quite a bit and one of them even lost some Boots of Elvenkind.

Of course, they did some interesting things as they moved from room to room, including becoming embroiled in a multi-tiered combat with the giant spiders, doing some very fun spelunking, tripping a sand-trap that closes them group inside the dungeon with no way out, and multiple run ins with the various undead left the newly found cleric dead.

At this stage something very cool happened: we were playing for a weekend, and that player didn't want to make a new character, and so this meant that his participation was over. The guy playing the druid pointed out that he had a Reincarnation spell, but didn't have the material components and they weren't likely to be able to get them any time soon. So, they got together and begged me to be able to do this spell in some other way. Because I thought it was cool I said, "If he is going to be raised at 6th level, I need the group to permanently sacrifice 6 levels as a group to raise him." They debated that for like an hour. It was hard on them, and finally decided that they would each give up a level and bring him back from the pale. I know that it was bullshit from a rules point of view, but I wanted it to hurt, as I wanted death to continue to be a problem and for them not to want to try this again all willy-nilly later on. So, that happened, and itw as kind of a really cool moment as well. The cleric was raised as a female half-elf.

They also found Radaga and after nearly getting tricked into escorting her out of the valley under their protection, they uncovered her and ended up fighting her, which led to them seeing her spirit leave her body and leave through the roof of solid rock above.

Finally, they dealt with the final room with the crown and in the end, it ended up playing as more a puzzle than a combat, which was fine, and they figured it out and captured the crown, and left the valley.

Once they get to the village of the children again, they began to have a long conversation both amongst themselves and with the children, the oldest of whom is about 14. They stayed for a couple of days, with the cleric being seen as a fearsome "demon-spirit" once they saw her pointy ears.

In the end, they were loathe to leave the children on their own, but the children refused to leave so they were faced with the choice of: stay, move them by force, or leave them be. In the end, the cleric decided that in return for the second chance at life that she was given, she decided to stay with the village and care for them from the shadows, attempting to earn their trust and protecting them from the forest and the wolves that prowl there.

So, with teary goodbyes, they left their newfound friend to her new life and got back into the boast and headed back to Harmonia.

[Quinntonia]

So once they got back to Harmonia, the first thing that they did was that they went back to the dock area and returned their boats, stayed in an apartment that they had rented over a shop there for the mages to work in during their previous stay. They cleaned up, rested up, and got their animals ready. The next day they hit the road to Skald. I thought this was going to be some boring travel, but the group was in a mood on the way back, they revisited the village, then their old digs in Harmonia, and so they followed this up with a trip to Maria and Ontash's farm where they fought the wolfweres. They visited them just to check in on them, and so I gave them an update, with their new found wealth (the group had given the family a 1000gp gemstone after destroying their home in the fight) and the family explained that they had taken possession of Jacques' farm down the road, and were rebuilding their home, bigger and better, and had sent out messages to their extended family to come and expand the farming operation. They were extremely grateful and I had Maria let them stay with the family in the barn for the night and she wouldn't let them go without taking some of her wildberry pies.

Finally, they got to Skald and went back to their inn, where Abu, the street urchin from Har'Akir had been lying sick, and found him bussing tables for the retired adventurer couple in their inn. This led the rogue, who had adopted the child, to seriously consider leaving the child with the couple and had a couple of conversations, first with the couple, and then with the boy. Finally, he became convinced that the boy wanted to stay with him and decided to continue to recklessly endanger his life by taking him along in their adventures, Robin to his Batman.

They then decided that they were going to meet with Akriel.

[Quinntonia]

So after they rested up they went to the inn to meet with Akriel. Of course, that led to a lot of suspicions and recriminations as they are more and more wondering why the hell Akriel needs this (what I have presented as a) super powerful magical artifact that also reeks of evil.

This led to a lot of aspersions in this conversation, leading to me playing Akriel as increasingly innocent and desperate, even falling into tears. She then "disclosed" that her love Dr. Dorminiani not only needs the Crown of Soldiers to secure her hand in marriage from her fiance's clutches, but also is the world's leading expert on the Crown, and has a secret ritual that will cause the Crown to become magically inert before he hands it over.

Hearing this, they are convinced and head out towards Gundarak.

They head into Gundarak, where they do meet a troupe of soldiers of the Duke, bearing their axes and very interested in whether they had paid many taxes, some of which they made up on the spot and then forced everyone to take an eternal oath to be loyal to Duke Gundar and of course, hand over your firstborn daughter when she reaches marrying age. They did that, and paid out some money, just to get through the meeting without having the entire Gundarakite Army on their backside the entire time. Eventually, they do get close to Dorminiani's Keep and meet the fleeing boar and finally the wolved, which I made into worgs, but they quickly dispatched.

They then knocked on the door and had it opened by some monks whose faces were hidden by their cowls, and there we left it.

[The Lesser Evil]

Wow, sounds like they ate it up hook, line, and sinker. What did you say to convince them that an alienist would have expertise on the totally-unrelated ancient artifact?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

[quote="Quinntonia"a secret ritual that will cause the Crown to become magically inert before he hands it over. [/quote]Ah... nice one. good answer to the question of "why hand this artifact over to a bad guy"? But I'd be worried that my players would make a mock, nonmagical crown instead (or use the one from the trap in Radaga's cave).

[Quinntonia]

So in order to tie the Grand Conjunction stories together I have had an artifact for each adventure that they have been collecting. Further, they have been contacted by the Fraternity of Shadows (the more bookish people in the group), the Kargat (the Darkonians in the group), and finally Vistani acting as agents of Strahd (for the single Formorian/Boravian) who each are intensiely interested in these artifacts.

They have a cursed magical sword and dagger set from Jean in "Night of the Walking Dead," the Ankh of Life from "Touch of Death" and finally this Crown. It just seems the "latest thing" atthis point.

My thought is (and I have stolen it in pieces from this site) that the Grand Conjunction requires these items and that the major players, from Azalin to Strahd to others are interested in what is happening with the group at their centre. So, this didn't come across as completely out of the ordinary in that people outside of their group would know much about their going on. Further, they know only that the Dorminiani is a scholar who runs an asylum. Some of the PCs even had to have it explained to them what the heck that was. They were given the impression of a nobleman of great wealth and much learning who cares for people who are lunatics.

They are probably still a little suspicious, and will check and double check everything as we go along, but so far, so good.

Further, I set this up a little earlier when they did some research into the item, with their knight pumping the Meistersinger of Skald for information, and him telling them that it was fascinating that a certain Dr. Dorminiani had been corresponding with him at length for some time about finding out all he knew about the Crown, which he was gleefully cooperating with because he felt that his hated rival, Harkon Lucas would be hurt by it. Then, when they visited the library and did their own research the librarian let it drop that multiple different people had been in the library in the past few months researching the same topic and looking at the same records and books. I made them believe that the Meistersinger had been there, as well as agents of the various factions and Dr. Dorminiani "A Gundarakite nobleman and scholar of some renown, I'm told."

I'm thinking of having Dorminiani have some magical ability in order to do some kind of appropriately theatrical ritual of some kind that will cause the Crown to become invisible to various types of magical sensing. That is, it will no longer appear as magic or what have you.

[Quinntonia]

[quote="Quinntonia"a secret ritual that will cause the Crown to become magically inert before he hands it over.

Ah... nice one. good answer to the question of "why hand this artifact over to a bad guy"? But I'd be worried that my players would make a mock, nonmagical crown instead (or use the one from the trap in Radaga's cave).[/quote]

Dorminiani is going to expert enough to tell the difference, I suppose. But depending on how exact the copy was. I mean, I have this crown reek and seethe with power, so that's going to be hard to fake.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

a secret ritual that will cause the Crown to become magically inert before he hands it over.

Ah... nice one. good answer to the question of "why hand this artifact over to a bad guy"? But I'd be worried that my players would make a mock, nonmagical crown instead (or use the one from the trap in Radaga's cave).

Dorminiani is going to expert enough to tell the difference, I suppose. But depending on how exact the copy was. I mean, I have this crown reek and seethe with power, so that's going to be hard to fake.

Yeah, but I mean what if they tell Dominiani they are keeping the real crown, and here's a fake to pass to Akriel's father or fiance or whatever your cover story was.

[Quinntonia]

Yeah, but I mean what if they tell Dominiani they are keeping the real crown, and here's a fake to pass to Akriel's father or fiance or whatever your cover story was.

Well Damn.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Yeah, but I mean what if they tell Dominiani they are keeping the real crown, and here's a fake to pass to Akriel's father or fiance or whatever your cover story was.

Well Damn.

Don't worry... I won't tell your players.

Did they happen to take the fake from the trap in the cavern?

[Cromstar]

Yeah, but I mean what if they tell Dominiani they are keeping the real crown, and here's a fake to pass to Akriel's father or fiance or whatever your cover story was.

Well Damn.

Don't worry... I won't tell your players.

Did they happen to take the fake from the trap in the cavern?

Perhaps the good Dr. could then convince them to let him perform the ritual to nullify it before returning the Crown to them...and thus give HIM the chance to swap a fake one for the real crown. Heck, if he had a fake ritual to perform, the crowning moment could be a spell that actually swapped the fake with the real one right in front of the PCs without their knowledge.

And if they want to keep the Crown and use its powers...I don't have an answer for that at the moment.