Clockwork's D&D Campaign: Shards of Cormyr

[clockworkcanary]

Dark Alex's D&D campaign post inspired me to keep a journal of my player activities (briefly summarized) for my D&D campaign. I'm currently running a 3.5 Forgotten Realms campaign in the kingdom of Cormyr. I started the party in the coastal city of Marsember, not far from the capital of Suzail. I'm basically starting them with the cliche artifact mcgullin hunt, but other, more interesting side quests are starting to form based on the background info the players have provided on their character histories, problems, and motivations. They've recently accepted a quest line to recover lost monument (dungeons) across the kingdom (a Museum, a Great Library, an Observatory, a Dam Comlex, a Pyramid, a Monolith, etc.).


The Party: Note that not everyone shows up all the time so sessions usually don't have all these players at once:

* Galter: Human Paladin
* Giggles: Gnome Rogue
* Rollin: Halfling Ranger
* Harlephan: Half Elf Barbarian
* Kage: Human Priest
* Aeson: Elf Wizard
* Iron Wolf: Dwarf Fighter (NPC used only if low on party members for a session)


Session 1: Welcome to Zombie Island
The heroes are recruited and summoned by the War Wizard Magistrate, Kanash, of Marsember. He orders the Paladin, Fighter, Wizard, and Cleric to gather companions and set out on the quest to collect rune notes from an island temple. He indicates this is the first part of a grand quest.

The party boards Willum’s ship and sets off. The boat gets slammed by a zombie shark. Party survives, lands, and accepts mayor’s quest to take the island temple back from the dark priests and destroy the arch. They fight zombies at the gate just to get out of the city. They fight a dire ape along the way and an enervated dinosaur at the bridge.


Session 2: The Barbarian and the Courtyard
They stumble upon a lone barbarian, Harlephan, a survivor of war and shipwreck, who immediately joins the party. They approach the ruins and are fired on by skeleton archers. The wizard uses his new spell, Fireball to incinerate the lot of them.

They fight their way to a courtyard and duel it out with a dark priest, his lackies, and tons of skeletons and zombies. The cleric and paladin turn-blast them while the barbarian and dwarf mow down the rest of the undead. They defeat the dark priest, Brucci and his clerics, but they decide not to kill them. They reveal information about Father Thed, the artifact, the vault, and a Green Dragon in exchange for their freedom and they depart.


Session 3: The Necromancer Arch
The party works their way further into the ruins and finds the giant arch room, full of undead. There is also a Necromancer and his giant Skeleton Warrior. The necro turns invisible and takes calculated strikes. Barbarian rushes the big guy while the cleric turns a few. The necro and wizard trade attacks and the wizard takes a blast from the arch. Seeing the necro phase in and out by the arch, the wizard zaps him (and the arch) with lightning, taking him down.

They finish the undead and debate on what to do about the arch. The wizard dispels the magic of the arch and the barbarian physically destroys it. They collect the rune notes on the floor and head to the vault. After unlocking the vault with the gold and silver keys discovered prior, they are attacked by a guardian wraith. Iron Wolf is nailed once, losing 1 point of Constitution, to which he has never recovered. Realizing they need magic weapons to hit it, they finally take it down. It was guarding gold bars and The Amulet of Evacuation. They take it, return to the boat, and Willum takes them back to Marsember.


Session 4: Marsember Slum Romp
Rolin the Halfling and Giggles the Gnome join the special missions Red Dragon adventure team. Giggles noticed poisoned water and flooding in the Wyvernwater Sea on the way to Marsember from her home village to the far northeast. Kanash gives the party a quest while the council is having meetings on all of this new intel. He asks the party to take a run through the sewers to the abandoned temple and apprehend Father Thed; bring him to the council for trial. He instructs the party to not kill Father Thed; bring him to justice.

They explore areas of the slum and are attacked by an otyugh, then a group of bandits trying to take advantage. While taking down the bandits, a giant crocodile pounced the bandits and attacked the party. After tail-slapping Giggles into a wall the party blasted and slashed it to pieces. Giggles does some recon at a window of the abandoned temple and spies over 50 orcs, a couple of green dragon wyrmlings, and Father Thed. She returns to the party with this information and together they decide to regroup, restock, rest, re-memorize, and otherwise prep for this massive battle. Also, they want to grab the Barbarian for the attack.


Session 5: Scoping The Abandoned Temple (Marsember Slums)
Aeson locates the barbarian and introduces him to the new recruits. They explain what they discovered so they all decide to go raid the abandoned temple. Once they get close by, the paladin and the wizard flicker and then fade out of existence just as they were discussing a battle plan. They change course, holding off on the raid until later, and decide to snatch an orc patrol pair and interrogate them. They jump the orcs, killing one (Fud) and knocking the other out (On-lok). They drag him to a secluded alley and tie him up. As they discuss what to ask him, two Dragonspawn Wizards approach undetected. One summons a seven headed hydra while the other opens a gate, which they use to escape.

The party engage the nasty monster: the ranger takes on a head while the rogue does the same with another. The barbarian steps up, critically hitting it so hard that he knocks two heads off at once. The ranger and rogue finish theirs and the hydra critically misses. They finish it off, collect its loot, and save a head to be stuffed later. They take the orc to a secluded building. The barbarian intimidates and taunts him by punching the wall next to his face while the gnome, Giggles, trash talks him and questions him in a threatening, but cutesy voice. The orc spills the beans that the place is a green dragon hatchery dedicated to “her” and they are trying to make hybrid spawns for her army when she arrives. They decide to knock him out again, untie him, and lay him under the dead hydra so it looks like he killed it. They head back to the inn.


Session 6: The Arrest
The party wakes up at the inn and Galter and Aeson fade back into existence. They sit in the tavern part of the inn before resting and some party members have a drink. The paladin insists he can only drink one, but the Barbarian double-fists large pints with no ill effect. They each talk to folks around the tavern and they hear rumors of a Holy Avenger sword in some castle in the Stone Lands and they learn of a hippo-folk village hidden somewhere in the northeast of the kingdom that sells one-of-a-kind weapons, aka “boom machines.”

The next morning, they gear up for an assault on the abandoned temple. They stop in at the shop and pick up some healing supplies and head back to the slums. Giggles, the Rogue she is, scouts a bit ahead of the noisy party. She sneaks up on two more orc guards, but this time, there will be no interrogation. She jumps out of the shadows and slices one across the neck just before he started beating a drum, and the Barbarian mows the other. They find their way back to the “back” entrance teleporting chamber they discovered previously. The Ranger Halfing stacks some boxes and climbs back up to the window to have a look and he sees more than 50 orcs and a couple of very young green dragons. Then he promptly falls down, creating quite a racket; the party on the other side of the building hears this along with the sound of beating drums inside.

They regroup in the discovered teleporting chamber and gate inside where they are surrounded by a horde of orcs and a couple of fire archers and two young green dragons standing on the half archways. The battle begins as one of the green dragons swoops in and blasts half the party with a line of chlorine. Kage blesses the party as the halfling lunges spears at the dragon while the barbarian stabs it. Aeson decimates most of the orcs at long range with nasty fireballs. The paladin cleaves a few close-range orcs and even the dragon in one turn! Giggles shoots down a fire archer, who then falls down on some orcs and the halfing does the same thing with a well-placed spear to another archer. They finish the first dragon and get attacked by yet a second! This one breathes on the party again, but the Paladin stops most of it with his massive magical shield, but unfortunately, it melted.

The dark priest, Father Thed jumps into battle, casting Hold on the party cleric, Kage, disabling him for many rounds! He tries to hold other members afterward to no avail. Aeson borrows a dagger for his idea. Aeson casts Fly on himself, followed by Invisibility, then swoops over the entire battle, landing behind Father Thed. He becomes visible by grappling him and threatening him with a dagger. At first, Father Thed is grappled and is intimidated at first, but the nearby orcs turn around to see a scrawny wizard trying to hold a priest and are not impressed, so they advance! The wizard and Thed grapple more but Thed breaks free. Aeson quickly webs him and the nearby orcs to the wall as the party finishes off the last of the enemy. Kage casts Hold on him after the webs expire so they can tie him up for transport to the magistrate.

The party splits duties: the tanks keep watch while everyone searches the lair. They take Father Thed’s belongings and other lair treasure. Giggles discovers, disarms, and unlocks a huge chest with more loot. They head back to City Hall and turn in the prisoner and head to their inn rooms to rest.