(Note- Callum is away at college and Michael, Chmiel, MC and Matt couldn't make it. So the other three players took on Talak, Erza, Valfir and Astrid to run)
Summary
Mountain Journey
After further discussion with the giant Harshnag, the party returns to Everlund to use the Harpers' teleportation circle network to go to Mirabar and then go into the mountans to search for the temple of the Eye of the All Father. In order to get the giant out of Mirabar quietly, Astrid casts Invisibility on him. They leave their horses behind and load supplies into Valfir's Bag of Holding.
The first few days of travel are cold but quiet. While travelling through a canyon, they hear rocks trickle down from a ledge above. Valfir Shadow Steps and finds three goblins. He lays into them with sword and fist. As the party sounds the alarm, more goblins appear on a ledge on the opposite with two winged figures, gargoyles! The party attacks with missile weapons, Astrid Fireballs the second group. Gargoyles swoop down to attack and Skamos, Alaric, Talak, Sir Conlan and Erza go hand to hand, slaying the gargoyles. As the last one crumbles, its eyes glow blue and it threatens the party. Sir Conlan is unmoved and crushes the remains.
The party travels deeper into the mountains and comes to the Eye of the All Father. A bridge crosses a deep crevasse to the temples opening, the entrance is protected by a curved portico, the columns are carved to appear as giants holding up the roof. Two barbarians of the Grey Wyrm tribe guard the entrance. With Harshnag at his side, Sir Conlan parleys with them for safe passage and they appear to agree as long as the party is peaceful. They hear a screeching noise from inside and see a fire at a distance. The party enters the temple, passing down a massive hall, more than 60 feet wide and high. But once the party has entered, massive stone slabs begin to descend from the ceiling in front and behind them. Erza ducks backwards, out of the trap, but everyone else dashes forward. Erza is alone outside with the two barbarians, who attack her. She nimbly dodges away and plays a lethal game of keep away, ducking and dashing among the columns, appearing to strike one of the guards before dashing away. She poisons one to slow him down and eventually they retreat to rest while she watches them from the shadows.
Inside, The party faces a barbarian chief, a female shaman, more tribesmen and a small white dragonet, leashed by the chieftain. Threats are exchanged and the party attacks. Harshnag tries lifting the stone gates. Skamos casts Sleet Storm on the chieftain and his group and most of the party pummels the shaman with arrows and spells. The chieftain and his guards keep slipping in the ice, but finally manage to move forward. Two barbarians come out on balconies above the party and jump down to attack. Valfir stuns one barbarian and Talak rages in battle with another. Alaric hits the dragonet several times, then Astrid finishes it and the shamaness with Fireball. Alaric kills the chieftain and he and Sir Conlan cross blades with the lasts of the barbarians. Once the enemy is slain, Skamos rushes to heal Valfir who is barely conscious. Looking around the area, there are massive doors at the end of the hallway which the chieftain was examining. The balconies above give into corridors which lead to guard rooms with massive levers that control the mechanisms to raise the stone slabs. Harshnag pulls the levers and raises the stone blocks.
Into the Eye
(Session 2, everyone but Matt and Callum were there, Emily came and ran Talak)
With the blocks raising, the party returns to the entrances. The two guard barbarians flee when they see the party coming after them. Erza rejoins them and is healed, the party decides to rest before exploring the rest of the temple. They are still on their night travel schedule and set watches as they rest through the day.returns to explore further. At the end of the main hallway are large double doors covered in ice, the barbarians had been chipping away at them. The side hallways end in massive metal grates, beyond them is a huge room, with possibly giant statues. Valfir Shadow Steps through the grate to explore while the party returns to the main doors. Astrid clears the doors with a Fireball and Harshnag opens them. Betond is a massive room, almost a 100 yards square. There are seven massive statues, six in a ring around the central figure. The six are obviously the six giant races, each statue is offering its weapon to the statue in the center as if swearing loyalty. The frost giant statue is missing its axe. Sir Conlan casts Detect Magic, the statues weapons are magic, but not like an enchanted weapon. The archway and runes are magic as well. The central figure is cloaked and faceless and is the giant god, Anam the All Father. There are two pair of massive doors in the north and south walls, the east wall opposite the entrance has an archway shrouded in mist. The archway is more like an alcove, only a short distance deep. Around the archway are six runes, Harshnag points at one and says it is Ise, the rune for frost giants. The southern doors are ice covered, so the party heads north. Harshnag opens the doors and they find a lobby between the two sets of doors. Massive stairs go up on both sides and a long hall way heads north. In the center of the lobby is a statue of a giant facing the hallway. Exploring the hallway, there are openings on each side, leading to giant sized bedchambers. The floor and ceiling are concave and slightly inclined. The end of the hallway has a spherical bulge in the wall. (Note: Michael was the first to say its the stone ball trap from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I think the rest of us denied it because we felt it was too cliche to be true. It HAD to be something else. But he was right…) The party explores the rooms, but they are empty. Three quarters of the way down, the sphere in the wall bulges out and begins to roll down the concave slope at the party. Stone walls seal the side rooms. A quick glance shows the ball will catch them before they can reach the lobby, only Erza might be able to outrun it. Skamos asks Harshnag to try to stop the ball, he catches it, but it begins pushing him back the icy slope. Erza, Talak and Sir Conlan add their strength to help while the rest of the party runs. Valfir Shadow Steps past the ball to continue to explore. Their combined efforts slow the ball enough that when they reach the end of the hall, everyone can dash aside to safety. The ball clips Astrid, throwing her aside, but fortunately she lands out of its path. When the ball reaches the lobby, the statue animates and catches the ball, then begins rolling it back up the hall. The statue pushes it back into place, resetting the trap, then returns to assume its position. Valfir returns with a bag he found in one of the rooms, inside are three severed dwarven heads and what appears to be a piece of magic ice that does not melt. At its heart is a glowing Ise rune.
They return to the statues room and Astrid melts the ice off a south door with Fireball again. Beyond is an even larger room, with giant sized tables and benches and a massive fire in the center. Across the room, the missing axe from the frost giant statue leans on a table. But as they enter to explore, a monstrosity uncoils from the shadows and rushes them. It is a gargantuan centipede called a remorhaz and is dozens of feet long. As it charges, the spines on its back glow red hot. The party spreads out to attack, many taking shelter under the stone tables. Valfir attacks and strikes the creature, but takes damage from the heat of the beast. Sir Conlan hits it in the left eye with a crossbow bolt. Alaric shoots arrows with Hail of Thorns, Talak and Erza also fire missiles, Astrid casts Shatter and Skamos uses Guiding Bolt and Spiritual Weapon. Harshnag strikes with his axe and the remorhaz bites him, sinking its jaws into his shoulder. The party continues to batter it, Talik goes into rage and attacks, Valfir stuns it. The beast releases Harshnag but bites and swallows Talak whole! Astrid hits it with Shatter again, the spell bursting just above the monster's skull and it falls to the ground, dead. Talak crawls out of the beast's mouth. Alaric and Skamos heal the wounded.
Consult the Oracle
(Note - Session 3 - Callum is away at college and Matt couldn't make it. Kevin ran Callum's barbarian)
Harshnag retrieves the axe from the statue and they return it to the statue's hands, but nothing happens. After much debate, they decide the weapons are keys that need to be touched to their respective glyphs. Below the gateway engraved in the floor, is a message, it says "Children mine, enter in order if ye seek to cross this border. Start with low, end with high, from the hills, to stormy sky." They ponder the glyphs for a while and decide which is which. Harshnag touches weapon after weapon to its respective rune and the gateway activates, allowing them to pass through. Astrid feels the gateway will stay open for a limited time, so they need to be prompt. Beyond is a hexagonal chamber, each wall has a different giant statue holding a lantern with a cold, pale light. There is a dead giant on the floor, the corpse has a magic breast plate and a large fire opal with a glowing rune for fire. They take the breastplate and it magically shrinks to fit the wearer. They decide to give it to Alaric.
But the giant's ghost is still here and it appears to explain how the oracle works. His name was Eigoron and he was murdered by his father Blagothkus when they came to the oracle. He asks that they kill his evil father. They are allowed six questions to ask the oracle. After each answer, the light in one of the lanterns goes out. They learn the giant god himself has broken the Ordnung or giant hierarchy in order to stir the giant races out of complacency. To solve matters, the party must locate a giant's teleportation device, which look like conch sea shells and travel to the court of the Storm Giant King Hecaton and solve his disappearance. The party must prove themselves, when human barbarians first came to the mountains, they stole relics of the giants and buried them under their god's altars and in burial mounds. The party will need to recover some of these relics and bring them back to the oracle. Some of the party retreat through the gateway as the number of lanterns run down. A couple of them stick it out to ask the last question and then return through the gateway. After the gateway is closed, Harshnag draws the party a map showing possible locations of some lost giant relics. The party rests and experiments with the magic items. The ice rune gives cerain powers and Valfir takes it, the fire rune stone is given to Astrid. They discuss the different locations on the map, Harshnag knows names but nothing about what relics might be there. After much debate, they decide to visit the Great Wyrm Cavern first, since it is nearby, then return to the oracle with any relic. Then they will return to Mirabar and use the Harper's teleport circle to return to Everlund to resupply. From Everlund, they can reclaim their horses and travel to relic sites in the area.
The party finds a crevice in the statue room where the wall collapsed that they missed before and decide to explore it. It leads to a series of caves. They encounter a group of four ice spiders, Valfir uses the ice rune to cast Sleet Storm to slow them while he rejoins the party. They fight the spiders, but Astrid is poisoned and webbed and Valfir is poisoned as well. The spiders are slain and Sir Conlan heals them of their poison. Moving on, they find a chamber filled with webbing, Astrid shoots Fire Bolt into the webbing hoping to burn it. The web is ice coated and barely burns, but a giant ice spider emerges and inside the web is an egg sack; the other spiders must have been merely young! Talak rages and attacks and the party comes to his aid, but the egg sack opens and a swarm of small spiders cover the area and start to climb over Talak. The mother is slain and the party fights the swarm. Alaric tries Hail of Thorns and Astrid hits the swarm with Burning Hands intentionally hitting Talak so the spiders are swept off him, even though he is wounded by the fire. Inside the web the find a frozen potion and a warhammer with an embedded sapphire. Exploring further, they find a passage that leads into the gorge, high on the cliff face, but they spot something flying above the entrance to the temple and head back.
Fly the Frenemy Skies
They return to the temple and warn Harshnag and head outside. The flying thing is a boat with sleigh like runners, suspended by a giant "bladder". A chimney from the boat has a magical flame that heats the bladder. It lands nearby and a human woman emerges and greets them. She is Delsephine, she and her crew have been sent by their master Klauth, the Great Dragon of the North to aid them in their quest to stop the giant threat. Skamos is unhappy so many forces know what they are up to. Sir Conlan casts Detect Evil and the ship crew is evil which mean they are Dragon Cultists. He asks Harshnag about Klauth, Klauth is a red dragon. Sir Conlan does not want to go with the cultists, they are evil and serve an evil master. Erza is confident she can wipe out the crew of the craft if they betray them, so they agree to accept their help, but they will not show them Harshnag's map or give them any information. They board the vessel and give them directions to the Great Worm Cavern and sleep while the ship travels. Sir Conlan and Skamos confer, Skamos prepares Detect Poison and Sir Conlan has Purify Food and Drink in case the cultists try to poison them. The skyboat has a crew of eight and a harpoon gun at the bow and a ballista at the stern. The fire is provided by bound fire elemental and and air elemental at the stern drives the ship.
The cultists transport them to the area of Great Worm Cavern, and the party finds the cave. Alaric and Valfir scout the cave and report on what they see. The cavern is apparently a single large chamber, but with a shelf like upper level at the back. There is an altar and a large shield like object on the shelf, four barbarians are on watch. There are some caves and alcoves in the walls. The party makes a plan, Valfir and Erza will sneak in and start on the guards, the rest of the party will charge in when the alarm is sounded and lay down missile fire. As the party gets into position, Astrid decides to ignore the plan. She cast Suggestion on one of the guards that he heard something and should call the other guards over. The four guards group up and confer and she Fireballs them. With the four guards dead, the party storms the cavern looking for more enemies. They find the woman and children of the tribe and tell them they can go free. Valfir approaches the altar and a voice tells him the barbarians are under control of an evil ruler named Wormblood. Valfir replies they have already slain him and pulls out Wormblood's amulet. The voice directs him to a crypt on the wall and to take the treasure there, a Potion of Superior Healing and a Charm of Restoration. The object behind the altar is a giant's shield, made of overlapping scales from a red dragon. They take that and search the area. Sir Conlan finds a weak magic source under the nice and Astrid digs down to it with repeated Fire Bolt spells. She breaks into a bubble under the ice with three remorhaz larva, they swarm out and attack the party. The party surrounds them and beats them down with all their powers. Inside the chamber is a Potion of Frost Giant Strength.
They check to see if the barbarians need any healing or supplies, then return to the cultists' airship to return to the giants' temple to revisit the oracle.
Silly Quotes and Smart Remarks
The light switch in Lee's basement was flakey
Ramona <Lee's wife> "If you wiggle it, it turns on"
Jim "That's what she said"
Discussing the giant Harshnag's history as a mercenary for Waterdeep
Jim "He's the Brute Squad"
Campfire stories with Harshnag
Lee, as giant "You ever have sex with walrus? Tusks to grab on to, very robust"
Talking about the chance to meet orcs
Mike "We have a half orc; he probably knows them"
Trying to read Callum's writing on his character sheet, we thought we saw "Flying Cot" and "Disturbing Poutine"
Kevin "I want to ride into battle on my flying cot and rage"
Lee "And throw disturbing poutine at them"
The barbarian rages, but Kevin rolls a botch and loses the next attack
Jim "Premature axulation"
Kevin rolls again, another botch and a 3
Lee "Now we know why the barbarian never rages; he's a total spaz"
Mike "He's got rage anxiety"
Kevin and Mike had the worst die rolls, it seemed for a while that every 3rd or 4th roll was a botch. For a couple of rounds, half their rolls were botches.
Kevin's cleric crushes a gargoyle with his warhammer
Lee "Hammer time"
Jim "I spent the whole battle trying not to say that."
The dead gargoyle's eyes glow blue as it delivers a warning of vengeance
Jim "I am not impressed; Tyr is with me"
Mike <slow golf clap>
Lee "All you hear are the snow crickets"
The entrance to the temple is across a long stone bridge
Kevin "We better not see a Balrog"
Mike's ranger extends his senses and detects something draconic nearby
Mike "Not myself, right?"
Lee <sings and rubs his nipples> "When I think about it, I sense myself"
The side rooms are lit by fires burning in wall sconces
Jim "I throw my name in the Goblet of Fire"
Lee is digging in his toy and miniature jar, looking for something special
Mike "Please be a tree, please be a tree"
The enemy has a baby white dragon
Kevin, to Mike "So this is your cousin?"
Lee is doing a Russian accent for the giant Harshnag and starts using it for the barbarians too
Jim "The barbarians are Russian too?"
Lee "I don't have another northern accent, I don't want them to sound like the Swedish Chef"
Jim "Canadian?"
Erza strikes the barbarians and dances away
Lee "Ouch! Come back here, you hoser!"
Jim "We're fighting Bob and Doug Mckenzie"
Harshnag is trying to lift the stone block sealing the passage and failing
Jim "We'll just have to get a new giant"
Describing the large room with the statues
Lee "A gigantic area… literally"
Looking at the runes at the archway
Kevin "If we say 'Speak friend, and enter' in elvish we'll be fine"
They ask Harshnag to touch the Frost giant's rune
Jim "We lose more giants that way"
The giant is sent to grab the magic axe from the statue
Lee, as giant "I love grab axe"
Looking at monster stats
Lee "Ooh, that's a lot of hit points"
Trying to figure out how to stop the giants' civil war and their attacks on other races
MC "Isn't there a better way to make things better?"
Discussing the battle with the remorhaz last week
Kevin "I was excited to see Callum swallowed"
Kevin"I cast Sacred Flame"
Lee (French accent) "Sacre Flam!"
MC made a comment about a training video about STDs and all the infected vaginas she saw
Lee "When you work in health care, you watch porn just to see what normal genitals look like"
Finding the ice spiders' nest web of frozen web strands
MC "Its so cold, my nipples could cut through these"
The baby spiders swarm the party
MC "Are they stompable?"
Kevin "This is like making wine"
Discussing not being sure where the spiders are
Lee "Heisenberg's Spider Uncertainty Principle"
A strange flying boat with sleigh runners appears in the sky
Kevin "Is it Christmas?"
MC does Sneak Attack and rolls 5d6; four ones and a two
Lee "Worst. Rogue. Ever"
