the Shattered Empire: Session 2

Last Sunday night I had quite a surprise as some of my players showed up expecting to play. So I quickly set up and after a few minutes we started playing. The session started off when the party was attacked by a giant spider while camping out in the dungeon. They're sentry, Theron, was the first to encounter the beast and shouted for the others. After a few rounds of throwing javelins, and dodging spider webs he was joined by the rest of the party, including a new member. This cleric had come from the far north, more or less, "Russia". Well they quickly finished off the spider and in the morning started they exploration of the dungeon level.

From the stairs they entered into a room with three corridors leading off in all directions, except the one that the stair came from. The rest of the relatively short session was devoted to exploring a series of rooms that used to be storerooms for the old palace, before the cellar was expanded into a dungeon. They encountered dire rats, found some treasure, including a chest in a secret room. A particularly notable encounter was with some hobgoblins (recall that in my campaign, hobgoblins are the smaller version). They did not attack the PCs immediately and the PCs decided to parlay. For 1 gp each they got permission to travel through the goblins' territory and were offered a place to stay the night. The group opted to hide in the secret room however. They also learned of a second, chaotic group of goblins that worked for a minotaur that laired in the dungeon. They then began to explore other parts of the dungeon, and found a "T" intersection just before we decided to call it quits.

the Shattered Empire: Session 1

At long last, me and my friends have finally gotten together again to play D&D! The first hour or so was devoted to making characters, definitely a disadvantage of using something derived from 3rd Edition (we're using Pathfinder). Then we got the adventure underway.

The game began with the PCs meeting on the road to Delphens, a corrupt town filled with bandits and thieves. Soon after that they were attacked by some of the bandits. However they were no threat to the players. After the PCs killed one, and knocked out the leader, the others surrendered. The PCs decided (at my suggestion) to recruit them.

Then the PCs finished heading to Delphens where they looked for an adventure to undergo. Theron, the warrior revealed that he had heard of a ruined palace on just the other side of the river. The underground sections of this palace had been expanded into a maze, which where filled with both treasure and traps. They also heard a (false) rumor of an invading army of goblins. Theron was unsympathetic and said the people in the tavern should be out getting ready for the war.

They decided to explore the ruined palace. They hired a fisherman to ferry them to the other side of the river and to return when they finished they're expedition. Theron taught the northern barbarian (currently nameless) about haggling.

When they arrived at the palace they began exploring the place. Some players wanted to barge right through, but Theron's player advised caution, and so they began methodically mapping out the palace. Most of it was empty, however they did encounter some stirges, a couple of dire bats and some dire rats. They didn't find any treasure, except for a masterwork longsword, because they didn't look in the right places (i.e. under a pile of rubble). When the session ended they were getting ready to head down to the under ground level.

All in all, it was fun. It could have gone better in some parts, but I enjoyed myself immensely. I'm looking forward to playing again in a couple weeks. I find it interesting that Theron, a neutral evil character is becoming so prominent.

the Shattered Empire

Well it's been slow going, but it seems some time in the next week my game with my old group, minus a few people, and with a few new people will begin.

I have decided to start a new campaign instead of continuing my old one. I have set up a sandbox, though I'm still making a few adjustments to the map. They will be starting in the town of Delphens, which has a corrupt government and is dominated by rogues and thieves. Nearby, there are a couple of ruins from the old empire, that had been conquered by a human slave of the elves. There is also a mound that is inhabited by evil fey and a cult of elves to the north. Farther to the east is a ruin of a truly ancient culture that possessed great arcane and technological knowledge.

I tried to run the first session last Friday, but I had problems with MapTool.