Shard Saga – Fast-growth tropical jungle and were-y inhabitants

This is the third session of the Eberron campaign in Eldeen Reaches. (read the first and second sessions). A couple of days before the game, my DM sent all of us this:

About a month after the recovery of the blue shard, rumors reach the party of a tropical jungle that arose over the recent summer near a village in the western end of the Eldeen Reaches, in which strange animals and humanoids lurk.

I noted that the last session occurred a game month after the previous game too. Hmm… a pattern? Maybe my DM is planning something specific to happen in game time.

I was expecting to meet parasitic plants, terrifying treants and man-eating moss. We didn’t. We met something far worse… and we had no silver to deal with them…

So my DM started the game by letting us know we were at the village near that tropical jungle in Eldeen Reaches (I think we’ll never leave Eldeen Reaches in this campaign…). And the village was named Tanglevine. I think my DM was starting to sweat over the naming of villages… *smile* It turns out that there were 2 storytellers in the group. I’m one. The other was playing JaK Bau’er the avenger.

We roleplayed that scene in about 2 minutes and found the tropical jungle. Cutting away large leaves and branches, we arrived here:

That fluted columned prop and the wall on the side? Hand-crafted and painted by a fellow group player. The DM told us to set up positions outside the open doorway.

We were all clustered around the doorway. Except for the invoker. He had other plans. Such as saving his skin letting other players attain glory.

The DM took out the enemy figurines to place them…

And they were snakes. The green one was a man’s head on top of a snake body.

I can’t remember what was the other snake’s description. Well, you should know that I can’t tell the difference between a Yeti and Bigfoot (wait, are they the same?)… Then my DM repositioned the fluted columned wall.

He said that was a better position because the wall there should be impassable. I say he had something sinister planned.

Lo and behold, he had a rat swarm scuttling towards us from the side. It’s a swarm enemy, and I think melee and ranged attacks do half damage. Luckily, I had Flame Spiral which was a close burst attack.

Then out of the upper wall (where the fluted columned wall used to be), some… thing ran towards us. As you can see, I’m not very good at remembering monster types and names. One look at the figurine, and another player could tell what it was (or what it could possibly be), and probably recite all its strengths and weaknesses. I believe that’s called metagaming. The DM could have used any figurine for all intents and purposes. Unless he used a giant’s figurine and told us that was a rat. That might trigger my gong of disbelief.

Oh yeah, the other snake? I believe it was a rattlesnake. The DM described its rattling and that it made our attacks less likely to hit when we’re within 2 squares of it. Oh, and it had green glowing runes on its body (or was it the weresnake?). Yup, it was the most important enemy in that encounter and I couldn’t remember stuff about it…

Anyway, Kepler (my halfling sorcerer) went up against the rat swarm, and my friends told me I should stay further away. I explained to them that the attack also had a lingering effect of flaming an adjacent enemy, so Kepler had to stay close. I remembered the rat swarm died on its turn due to the lingering effect. Muahahaha…

The barbarian misjudged the distance for charging. The fighter kept the weresnake at bay. The bard didn’t get to do anything dramatic. The avenger got pinned by the rattlesnake and the dog/rat/thingy that came out of nowhere. The invoker… I had no idea what he did. I think he did something so totally unexpectedly funny that I blanked it out of my memory…

When the rattlesnake died, its runes lingered on its body and started to flicker. This was important. None of us went to investigate. On the next round, the runes fled into the ruins (where the dog/rat/thingy came from). We finished the weresnake and the dog/rat/thingy and entered the ruins.

Not before JaK Bau’er the avenger cried, “Where is my wife and children?!?” though. You might need to read up on 24 to get the reference.

My DM is fond of long tunnel battlegrounds. There were runes on one of the monsters. I think it’s the were-something. Like I said, I’m not very good at monster lore…

I think my friend ran out of ideas, because he just described the last monster as “dead bird thingy”. I guess it didn’t matter that much, only that it was in the encounter. *smile*

Oh, in the top left corner, that’s a piece of paper my friend used to remind himself when to escalate. This is house rule #3 for combat escalation (see session one). What happened was he had these pieces of paper with our initiative and hit points on them, as well as similar information about the monsters he placed. Then he arranged them in initiative order, and placed one piece of paper with the word “ESCALATE!”. This was to remind him the moment the last ally/monster took its turn to escalate combat conditions.

Yes, my DM tracked the hit points and initiative order of both the monsters and our characters. That’s a lot of work when you’re trying to run an encounter.

So I rolled an awesomely high initiative, and Kepler got to move first. Kepler was a fearless warrior, even if he’s physically weaker as a sorcerer. So I made him move up front.

Unfortunately, none of Kepler’s allies were next, and the monsters came rushing down, howling for halfling blood. Kepler was bloodied in just one magnificent monster onslaught round. I think that worried the others. Particularly the bard since he’s the healing character. *smile*

Immediately, I felt that the dead bird thingy was like the sworn enemy of Kepler in that encounter. It screeched and did lots of damage to make Kepler miserable. The others charged forward to help, and the bard used his “Moment of Escape” to pull Kepler out of harm’s way and healed him.

Unfazed by the injuries he just survived, Kepler wanted that dead bird thingy dead, like dead dead. So he’s going to move up close.

“You can’t move there. You’ll attract an opportunity attack!”

I thought for a while, and moved Kepler up close in a swaying manner. A note to you: If the square you want to reach will attract opportunity attacks from monsters when you go in a straight line, just move in from another angle. A diagonal move costs the same as a straight move.

And Kepler used the Flame Spiral to hit the werewolf, weredog and dead bird thingy. And I did critical attacks. Twice in a row (werewolf and weredog).

The dead bird thingy must have blanched at the ferocity of Kepler’s attack. Because it decided to attack another player. Or maybe my DM decided not to bloody the halfling again…

We killed off the dead bird thingy, and entered the next long tunnel. Oh wait, JaK Bau’er grabbed the corpse of the dead bird thingy (now really dead), shook it, and cried, “Where is my wife and children?!?”.

Now the 2 runes from before were fully explained. They were part of a ritual which, if we didn’t disrupt in the previous encounters, granted the final boss the same powers as when inhabited by their previous owners. For the life of me, I can only remember that one of the runes had regenerative properties.

We partially disrupted the rune from the second encounter, so its power was not as strong. And as expected, the runes manifested themselves on the baddest ass of a monster, the dragon. Oh criminy.

Wary of the previous encounter, Kepler kept a safe distance. And because the others were probably going to be hurt more, so the bard would be taxed out.

The moment the dragon was placed on the battlemap, the barbarian, the fighter and Kepler decided they were going to daily the reptile. Yes, “daily” is now a verb, same as “friend”, as in “I’m going to friend him on Facebook” (speaking of which…). So what it meant was, we were going to use our daily powers on the dragon.

The barbarian and fighter swiftly moved up to engage the dragon in mortal combat. The dragon reared its head, opened its maw and breathed on them. And a lightly obscured area was created.

Luckily, Kepler was able to still see the dragon, and used his Dazzling Ray to laughable effect, doing half as much as the maximum damage possible. I failed miserably on the damage dice rolls.

The bard, avenger and invoker weren’t as hot-headed, and went after the sidekicks. The avenger, upon finishing the sidekick on the top right, moved towards the dragon. Doing the swaying dancing move Kepler did, the avenger was able to dodge the difficult terrain enough to charge the dragon. Like I said, a diagonal move costs the same as a straight square move. Use it to your advantage.

Somehow, the dragon was knocked prone and dazed. So it was less deadly. The fighter and barbarian finished the dragon off, and the last of the sidekicks entered the fray with the rest of the party. The last monster was a piece of cake by then, and the avenger held up its body and cried “Where is my wife and children?!?”

Well, at least we know what (or who to be exact) the avenger was looking for…

At the end of the session, we were awarded a green shard. This was a +1 to poison damage if attached to a weapon. Or resist 2 poison damage if attached to an armour piece.

My DM also said since we had collected 3 shards already, something wonderful happened. Each shard gained a power in addition to the effects mentioned above. And we were allowed to come up with any power, as long as it’s in line with the shard’s nature and approved by him.

The barbarian kept his brown shard. I took the green shard and gave the blue shard (that I got from the previous session) to the bard.

And the power I thought up was this:

Plant tendrils shoot forth from your body and wind their way around foes, with thorny stalks causing poisonous nicks on their bodies. Your body briefly merges with the plant tendrils and reform at another location.

It’s modelled after the sorcerer encounter power “Spark Form” (level 7).

Effect: Before the attack, you shift 5 squares. You can move through occupied squares during the shift, as long as you end in an unoccupied square.

Target: Each creature whose space you moved through.

Attack: Charisma vs Reflex

Hit: 1d6 + Charisma modifier poison damage.

My friend said I could upgrade the number of squares shifted to my movement speed + 2 (same as Spark Form) when my character reach level 7 (we’re at level 3 at this stage). Cool. So basically I got a level 7 power at level 3 (well, 4 for the next gameplay).