Taking Lusi’s advice on simple names, I named him Tim. Tim had returned from his patrol to find the camp empty with only the party’s tracks leaving any indication of what had happened.

Don’t blame me for THAT choice!

Also, they’ll finally meet the culprit behind their recent woes and attempt to stop her. (reminder: she’s feeding the villagers’ hearts to the birds and using the blood of the dying to fuel her magic in an attempt to open a portal to the elemental plane of ice

Leave her alone! She’s just trying to emigrate!

If the bridge is destroyed in the conflict next time (which I will help along if possible) then they may have to leave the upper tower via the crypts while protecting however many villagers they’ve managed to save

Solution: save no villagers.

That’s what I thought!!

Imitanis Gaming Entertainment? Moment
Back to D&D this week!

Previous Session Recap
Player Character Bios

When last we’d left our “heroes” they’d abandoned the helpless townsfolk they’d pledged to protect, leading to a flock of murderous elk-birds carrying off every last one of the poor saps. As the party charged to the rescue, they had difficulty defeating just two of the birds while crossing any icy bridge and chose to retreat, leaving their charges to an unknown fate atop a mysterious tower surrounded by blood-thirst predators.

This session they left the tower (the place is actually two towers abreast a chasm with a crumbling bridge spanning the gap) and hid out in the woods to lick their wounds. While there, they ran into one of the town guards from the villiage that the kidnapped people are from who had been out patrolling at the time. Taking Lusi’s advice on simple names, I named him Tim. Tim had returned from his patrol to find the camp empty with only the party’s tracks leaving any indication of what had happened. Following them, he found the party as the were constructing makeshift shelters/blinds from local flora and offered his help in recovering the captured citizens. In the first hours of the night, the player on watch (Rekennen) saw several more flocks of birds flying in and out from the tower and witnessed the top level flashing unnaturally bright blue on and off. Several screams of agony were heard on the wind. The players don’t know this yet, and neither does Tim, but Tim’s wife Anna was among those stolen away by the birds. I may change this to his daughter or add his daughter depending on how dark I want it to be if the players fail to save them. I’m taking suggestions.

I applaud the party for thinking through the next part. They knew, that with all of the monster birds flying around that they would need to attempt their re-entry more stealthily. They decided to approach under cover of darkness and the Arabella (the cleric) performed a ritual to help mask their passing and they found a tree that excretes white sap and managed to cover a bit of themselves with it.

Once inside they decided that they needed a more sure way of crossing the broken bridge than jumping as several members of the party wear heavy armor and suck at jumping. They decided that they should make some bridges to help cross the gaps. They found some old busted up crates and and created some make shift plank bridges. After nearly falling into the chasm 3 or so times, they managed to cross the bridge to the second tower.

Inside the first tower they came across creatures of living ice and fought them. Arabella, who usually does the least damage in an encounter (again, cleric) managed to get 3/5 of the killing blows against their enemies. One of these kills was by critical fail with a flaming burst spell which caused a section of the frozen tower to explode violently. After their victory the players decided to take 15 minutes to explore their current level of the tower and to patch up their wounds. There are a few patches of chaotic energy fields around the tower which the players can use to help them create fire attacks now that they’ve studied them. We ended the session for the night there.

Looking Forward:
Next time the players will likely confront a young white dragon pulled from the ether by the powerful magic being woven on the tower. Also, they’ll finally meet the culprit behind their recent woes and attempt to stop her. (reminder: she’s feeding the villagers’ hearts to the birds and using the blood of the dying to fuel her magic in an attempt to open a portal to the elemental plane of ice).

The players made friends with an NPC druid (Fellara) who is also captive atop the tower. The PCs will likely have to choose between rescuing her and/or Anna and stopping the sorceress, I know which way Tim is going to go.

Further on:
Arabella’s ruby amulet is also beginning to be a bit less benign and has been giving her nightmares of flame. It also contributed to her critical fail explosion. From now on her critical fails will cause gouts of flame to erupt instead of her intended effect.

Beneath one of both of the towers is a crypt. If the bridge is destroyed in the conflict next time (which I will help along if possible) then they may have to leave the upper tower via the crypts while protecting however many villagers they’ve managed to save. Perhaps there will be a way back across the chasm under the crypts where the players will have to literally ‘cross over’.

Dysentery is total crap!

I don’t know what a podcast is or how I learned of the term, but whatever it is, this is a pretty rad one.