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Welcome to the 17th installment of “Homebrewed,” brought to you by exhaustion and Coke.  And not the illegal kind, either, although I suspect it would do something about my exhaustion.  At any rate, probably not a good combination, and certainly not as good as Cthulhu like the last game, but there you have it.  In this game, Iema, Natalia, Raelan, and Corin are still at the mage fair, which is quickly coming to a close.  Which is fine.  I think we’ve seen enough mystical carnies for a lifetime.  If you have no clue what I’m talking about, you can check out the last “Homebrewed” here.

 Briezen the 5^th

Okay, peeps.  Since I have to crunch out two “Homebrewed” in a very short period of time, we’re going to play a little game.  It’ll be called how much Homebrewed can Spring pump out super-duper fast?  Except it won’t be fun and it won’t be resembling a porn title like that name I just came up with.

So!  Without further ado:

It’s the final day of the mage fair.  I announce to Jim that I want to Awaken Beta.  I’d explain it to you, but I’m pumpin’, people!  Hence, the link, click it if you’re interested.  Long story short:   Beta now has human-like sentience.  Couple that with the warbeast template Jim used to “upgrade” Beta, he’s much more beefed up.  Jim says to tell you all that it adds 2 hit dice, +3 strength, +3 con, and trains him to accept a rider. 

However, this spell requires me to stare at my panting doggie in the dirt all day.  So that’s how Natalia spends her last day at the mage fair.  Which means that the last day at the mage fair saw way more action from Iema and Corin than Natalia.  Let us commence:

This is a story about a man and his boy…

Er.  Let’s not do that.  It sounds very, um…”ancient Greek,” yes?

This is a story about a bard and his apprentice…

You see how I “justify their love”?  Hahaha!  KIDDING.  KIDDING.  Okay, seriously.  PUMPING.  While Natalia is getting a faceful of dog-breath, Iema and Corin go to the admin tent to tell Jovos that the druid-killers are gone.    However, Jovos isn’t there.  Lasiter tells Iema and Corin that Jovos left in a hurry, only advising that Jovos thought it best not to stick around.  He then gives a lumpy black metal with some windy pieces sticking out of it to Iema as payment, tells Iema to do whatever he wants with it.  Lasiter isn’t in the mood for pleasantries; he’s also rushed.  Iema does detect magic, and by the third round of it, Jim says it shuts down.  Iema feels like his eyes are getting sucked out, like the object literally absorbed his detect magic spell.  Corin checks it out and announces that it’s fever iron, which is immune to magic.  Fever iron, he says, is adamantite that is hit by lightning.  There’s quite a bit of is in Corin’s homeland, the Jade Islands.

Iema decides he wants to show Raelan and Uliver his new prize.  He and Corin head back to Uliver’s.  Jim says there’s some sort of invisible shield in front of the door, so he can’t get in.  Which, Iema is about to find out, is lucky.  He calls for Raelan’s help, and as soon as Raelan sees him with the metal lump, he shrieks, “ARE YOU CRAZY?  GET THAT OUT OF HERE!”   He takes his staff and pushes Iema further back from the door.

And that’s how Iema and Corin find out that not only is fever iron immune to magic, but the larger the piece, the more unpredictable it is.  This one is large enough to undo Uliver’s PORTABLE MANSION (always in caps, remember?) and kill all of them.  Good thing they have the invisible shield, eh?

Iema explains where he got the fever iron and remarks that Jovos left in a hurry.

“That’s it!  Everyone get out!”  Uliver panicks, waving people out the door.  “If someone like Jovos was nervous enough to rush out of here, there’s no way I’m sticking around.”  As soon as everyone is shoved out of the door, Uliver teleports the hell out of there.

(Chicken.)

Iema wants to know more about the fever iron, and since Corin mentioned that there were lots in the Jade Islands, Iema decides that a wizard from the Jade Islands would be the best bet.  He meanders around the fair until he finds one.  When he asks her for her assistance, she seems suspcious at first.  She asks if he’s a “dine,” which I guess is a Shotenese noble. (Sidenote:  Jim describes the country of Shoten is being very Japanese-like in nature.)  Iema admits that he isn’t, that he didn’t always see eye-to-eye with his people and chose the bardic life instead.  He asks for information on the metal; or, if she would like, she can purchase it from him.  The Jade Islander wizard then talks to Corin in their native tongue.  Corin pulls out that nice dagger we bought him a couple games ago.  She turns to Iema.  “You know this is not an artifact, right?  It’s just a magical weapon.”

Iema did not know.  Neither did I.  Hell, in this part of the game, Phil and Jim had to explain to me what an artifact was in the D&D world.  Because I didn’t know already, I couldn’t share in Phil’s disappointment because I always thought it was just a nice dagger in the first place.  See, ignorance really is bliss!

The wizard goes back to talking to Corin in Jade Islander again.  Corin then turns to Iema and explains that since Iema came to her to buy the iron, he must want the sale more, and so she thinks Iema should offer her something.  Personally, while I was listening to this and taking notes, and I was thinking 1) what a money-grubbing bitch, and 2) she would totally be my mom’s idol, hehe.  (Not, uh, that my mom’s a bitch because she’s seriously the sweetest woman on the planet, but she IS the coupon queen.)  Anyway, Iema agrees to give her information on Shoten.  It’s not like there’s any love lost between him and his country, anyway, from the sounds of things.

Something that I noticed Iema is very good at:  People will demand information from him, and he’ll freely give it, but whether they mean to or not, they always end up giving him information, too.  I guess that comes with being a bard.  And I don’t think this woman intended to give him information, but she did.  She started talking about the Jade Islander legend of the Green Keel, which (she says), is not a myth.  The Green Keel is a boat that (again, she says) is alive.  She says it can do things that other boats cannot.  Example:  Long ago, giants sailed out of Fasset along the Nubraran coast and to Jade Islands.  Only the Green Keel was larger than any of their boats.  Turns out the giants weren’t completely stupid; upon seeing the Green Keel, they turns tail and left.  The Green Keel followed them, headed them off.  Eventually, the giants lost the Green Keel.  Or so they thought–when they finally arrived at their own ports, the Green Keel was waiting for them.  It sank every one of their vessels.

I was impressed listening to Jim-as-the-lady-wizard tell this story.  Now that is shit legends are made of.  That also explains why the Jade Islands are considered the masters of the sea in this world.

After they’re done swapping stories, Iema asks the wizard for her name.  She only introduces herself as the Gray Lady.  She leaves.

“Corin,” Iema says, looking a little embarrassed (or I imagine he does anyway, heh), “just so you know…it turns out that dagger isn’t an artifact.”

As it turns out, Corin already knows.  Hell, he probably figured it out before we did.  After all, he’s a smart kid–WAY smarter than Natalia.

Back in my dirt-patch on the night of the 5th, Natalia’s spell is complete.  I finally talk to Beta, aloud, like a human, for the first time.  Guess what?  He doesn’t have much to say.  

Briezen the 6^th-9^th

By the 6th, the fair is over, and Raelan chooses to go hang out with his wizard-friends at some bar rather than go with Iema, Natalia, and Corin.  I imagine he’s gotta rub robed-elbows or something to get ahead in the world.  Whatever–we’re leaving, but to make things go a little faster, Natalia turns into a horse so Iema can ride her (keep your dirty thoughts to yourself) and Corin hops on Beta.

In a day or so, we reach Derrikol again.  No encounters.  We keep going.  The second day is also uneventful.  We keep on truckin’.  Finally, Phil rolls a 12 on a D12, which means we’ve got an encounter, folks.  And a nasty one at that.

We don’t have have time to size up the enemy; we’re straight into combat as an arrow flies through the air and pins Iema’s arm to his side.  He falls off Natalia-the-horse and lands on the ground.  Another arrow sails through the air and hits Corin.  He slides off Beta and is also knocked out.  Natalia looks over to see who has attacked us.  She recognizes it as a forest giant, about 18 feet tall.  ZOMG.

Immediately, Natalia summons a dire lion, who charges the giant while Natalia shifts back.  Beta also lunches in, bets, and tries to trip the giant.  She just shakes him off, turning instead toward the dire lion, and killing it.

Damn.  DAMN.  Just like that, huh?

The giant then announces that this land belongs to the Spruce Circle.  Natalia shapeshifts back into her human form.  “I am part of the Spruce Circle!”  she spits out.  “Ask them!”

The giant eyes her warily.  “Then what is the leader’s name?”

In real life, this took scrambling on mine and Phil’s parts to try to remember his name.  Jim, by the way, was not going to help us on this.  After much swearing up and down to Jim that he would TOTALLY NOT GET LAID IF I DIE IN THIS COMBAT, I remember:  “Vueliss.”

Satisified with that answer, the giant says that she can leave but Corin and Iema can’t.  Then, deciding that would be too merciful, she changes it to Natalia can live but she has to kill Iema and Corin.  And, in typical Natalia-fashion, she refuses the giant flatout–and resumes combat.  Between Natalia and Beta, we get some bites in as well as a Poison and eventually bring the giant down.  Corin and Iema wake up.  While Natalia heals herself and Beta up, Iema collects the loot.  Turns out the giant has lots of loot.  I’d tell ya about it, but I don’t record the loot.  You’d have to ask Phil.

Now, the giant also had some interesting stuff on her that I did make note of:  Elven bread and leaf rations, furthering evidence that the Spruce Circle is, indeed, behind attacks on travellers in the forest.  Natalia explains to Iema what happened while he and Corin were out.  Corin seems quickly grasp how pissed Vueliss is going to be if he finds out we just killed his giant.

“Gee,” he jokes nervously, “it’s too bad she fell on her own club.”

We all laugh but quickly agree we need to get rid of the corpse.  Beta attempts to bury her, but she’s too big.  Finally, Beta suggests that we burn her.  We set up a funeral pyre and leave the scene as quickly as we can.

Brizen the 10^th

We finally get to Devies.  When we get there, the gates are closed.  The guards demand our names.  I’m not doing well with names today, and I try to remember the little nickname that the townspeople of Stilldale gave me.  Finally, I remember, and Natalia says, “Natalia the Stillwitch.”  Wincing while she says it, incidentally.

With that, they let us in  but quickly close the gates behind us.  As soon as we’re in, Beta dumps Corin on the ground.  Just because he accepts riders now doesn’t mean he likes it.

“Hey,” Natalia scolds him, “could you at least give Corin a little warning next time before dumping him like that?”

Beta grunts in response.

Around us, there are lots of people walking around in armor.  A guard approaches us, telling us that he’s been instructed to bring us into the hall.  We go with him.  The City Hall has changed since Natalia last saw it, as now it is covered in scorch marks.  We go inside to a room with a circular table and a map of the world.  Sitting at the table is Julium.

Awesome.  Just the person we wanted to see.

This is Iema’s first time meeting Julium.  He seems impressed.  Behind Julium is Allista, peering at Iema strangely.  She tilts her head.  It dawns on me at thsi point–and probably Phil, too–that Allista, the ultimate mind-reader, is probably wondering what’s keeping her from reading Iema’s mind.  (Remember his ring of mind-shielding?)  Of course, we’re also probably reminded of this because Jim suddenly asks Phil which hand Iema is wearing the ring on.  (Answer: right hand.)

At this point, Jerth, Julium’s cohort, steps forward and introduces himself, shaking Iema’s hand.  Suddenly, Jim has Phil run some sort of check, one that I didn’t catch.  I guess Phil failed it because he feels a rummaging inside his brain.  Apparently, Corin feels it, too.  “What the heck is THAT?” he says, shaking his head.

Jerth politely returns Iema’s ring to him.  Apparently, he had swiped the ring of Iema’s finger during the introductions.  “Sorry about that,” he says to Iema, “but we have to be careful.”

“They’re clean,” Allista announces.

Once it’s been verified to Julium that Iema and Corin aren’t traitors or out to get him, the gossip begins.  We tell him about the mage fair, Raelan’s presentations and their potentials, how he has potential allies in the Palm Circle, how we met a Lady Harod of the Guild of Scholars, who told us he was wanted–

“She’s dead,” Julium says.  “She was found rended outside on the gates.”

Oh.  Poor lady.  Even if I was suspicious of her wanting to get Julium, she seemed all right otherwise.

Julium continues that he needs to take care of Vueliss.  Julium is trying to deal with Cadram and bury a very old hatchet with them in order to proceed with his plans, but Vueliss’s attacks are making it difficult.  He wants to send Natalia in to talk to him.  She sincerely hopes by “talking” to Vueliss, Julium actually means skinning that evil elf Willow-style.  (Er, Buffy reference, if you didn’t catch it.  Sorry.  Just know that it’s gross and evil and he’ll be very, very dead.)

Before she forgets, Natalia sends  a message to Raelan via her clasp, letting him know to be careful in the woods.  Something that makes me infinitely more nervous:  The druids want everyone outside the Spurce Circle dead, which would include wizards.  Raelan’s tower is protected from being found by everyone but druids.  Ugh.  That’s a nightmare waiting to happen.

We decide to go to bed, as it’s in the wee hours of Briezen the 10th (I think) that we get into town, so we wake up on the actual morning-morning of Briezen the 10th the next day.  The first thing Natalia does is cast Greater Magic Fang on Beta.  I want to check out my treehouse to see how it’s holding up.  Iema agrees to go with.  On our way to the treehouse, we get an encounter. 

Jim says we hear arrows flying.  This scenario is eerily familiar.  But it’s worse:  This time, an arrow goes right through Corin’s temple, killing him instantly.  Iema soon after finds himself stuffed with two arrows himself.

Ahead of us, we find 13 people.  There’s a bunch assembled, 4 men across, 3 lines deep.  Behind them, there’s a sergeant or something of sorts.  They’re all human and in uniform.

The sergeant yells, “Surrender!”

“On whose authority?” Iema yells back, hopping of Natalia-the-horse.

Sensing that I’m being ignore because they think I’m an actual horse, I tell Jim and that Natalia is going to wander off into some bushes, shapeshift back, and wait to see if she’s needed for spells or anything.  Before she wanders off, she signals to Beta to stay with Iema.

The sergeant yells back that his name is Sgt. Oshwin.  Ever the diplomat, Iema asks if he can talk to Sgt. Oshwin personally to discuss our terms of surrender.

Suddenly, we hear footsteps of someone running wildly towards the scene.   Then we hear then screaming.  Then we see a tall, gangly orc with tattoos on his face jump in from behind and start going ballistic.

“It’s Grugor!” I say excitedly.  Grugor is defintely, by far, my favorite.  We haven’t had in our game in what seems like AGES, so I’m glad to see him back. 

Grugor jumps in on the sergeant and gets hit hard.  Iema quickly dives into battle by casting hast and improved invisibility.  Natalia, from the bushes, casts Ice Storm.  Which, by the way, is a lovely spells, causes lots of damage to lots of people–I highly recommend it for some awesome SLAUGHTER.

Another arrow comes from nowhere, but this time, it’s not on Team Evil–it actually is aimed for the sergeant’s neck.  It hits.  Blood pours out of his mouth and he keels over.  We quickly look around, but we have no idea who aided us. 

Not that we had much time to find out.  There is, after all, twelve other people to contend with.  Beta gets some bites and trips in.  Natalia is still at her secret spot, doing Flame Strike now.  Iema, invisible at this point, dodges the bad guys and gets Grugor back up and running.  One of the baddies tries to run away, but the moron gives Beta an attack of opportunity, which Beta took, killing the guy swiftly.  Good pup!

More soliders try to run away.  Iema casts haste on Grugor.  We think the idea of a hasted, raging half-orc barbarian is hilarlious.  Iema also heals Grugor up.  He’s doing way more healing in this battle than Natalia is, that’s for sure.  Speaking of, Natalia is now casting Entangle because the rest of the soliders are starting to flee.  Sadly, Grugor is the only one who fails his reflex save and thus the only one who actually gets entangled.  Beta runs toward the men and also gets entangled.

SIGH.

Still, though, Beta at least manages to get another guy nearby and kill him.  Meanwhile, Natalia casts another Entangle.  (Yes, I love Entangle so much that I usually keep about 3 on my spell list at all times.)  This time, the Entangle catches the remaining guy.  Iema sneaks up behind the remaining guy and, as Phil says, does “sticky sticky” with his weapon. 

Beta finally gets out of breaks out of his Entanglement and Natalia dispels Grugor’s.  (It took a little bit for me to remember that I could do that.)  Grugor doesn’t waste time.  He rushes towards the remaining baddie, lifts Beta out of the way (no small feat, considering that my wolf is the size of a horse), and finishes the last guy off.

The poor Grugor collapses to the gorund, panting.  Between me and Iema, we get the half-orc healed up.  We loot.  One of the objects is a signet ring, identifying the sergeant as the fourth son of…someone.  I don’t remember.  I’m sure Jim will remind me in the notes.

Speaking of Oshwin, when we check him and the mystery arrow out, which, incidentally, is still sticking out of him, we see that it’s causing his veins to turn black.  Creepy.  And ew. 

Finally, a moment for pleasantries.  “Hi, Grugor!”  Natalia says.

He waves.  “Hi, Natalia!”

Okay, moment over.  “Do you know where this arrow came from?” Iema asks.

“No,” Grugor says, “but I see dem before.  Never archer, though.”

We see no signs of the mysteriously helpful killer about, but we decide not to waste time looking, either.  The treehouse is going to have to wait.  Natalia turns into a horse, carrying Iema and the dead Corin back to town.  Grugor rids Beta.  At first, Beta looks grumpy about it, but Grugor whispers something to him, and suddenly, Beta goes racing off.  Later, Grugor will explain to Natalia that orcs are good with wolves or something to that extent.

Hm.  Wonder if Natalia should be jealous, ha.  The newly-awakened Beta seems to have taken more quickly to Grugor than Natalia, in some ways.

Instead of going to Devies, this time, we head to Stilldale, where we know Roan is.  We get there with no problems.  When we do get there and find her, she sees Corin, and the presses upon us the dangers of bringing kids on our adventures.

Iema is almost apologetic.  “I know,” he says.  “But the boy insists on coming with us.  It’s what he wants.”

“Besides,” Natlaia adds, “he’s at the age where he can decide for himself.”  Note, by the way, the SPRING does not believe that thirteen year olds can decide SQUAT for themselves.  But Jim had once explained to me that thirteen was considered an adult where Corin is from; therefore, Natalia feels it’s perfectly within reason to treat Corin as such.

Roan resurrects Corin.  He gets up, confused.  Then he walks around stiffly.

“Oh, no,” I groan, “Corin’s a zombie!”

Thankfully, I’m just stupid: After rolling on the Shit Gone Bad table, Corin just gets -2 to initiative.  Way better than a zombie.

While Corin is trying to unstiffen himself (not an uncommon dilemma for a 13 year old boy, I’m told, haha), Roan tells us that Stilldale hasn’t had any vistors recently.  We tell her the sitaution in the woods, how we were attacked by the forest giant on behalf of the Spruce Circle, and how we were ambushed while trying to get to my treehouse.  Suddenly, it makes sense to Roan why Stilldale hasn’t had visitors.  Personally, I’m starting to think it’s better if it doesn’t.

And here concludes the 17th game of “Homebrewed,” rushed, yes, but hey, I’m DONE WITH THE PUMPIN’.  Another dilemma Corin could relate to, I’m sure.

Tags: D&D, dork training, first D&D game, gaming, homebrew D&D, Homebrewed

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