Adventures in the World of Wearth

Game Session One

Session One: Saturday, Nov. 25, 2000

This was the first session and the party was made up of four 1st level characters:
Cebo- Human fighter
Moss - Half-Elf ranger
Roth Brandvar - Human barbarian
Belfin - Elf ranger

Players map of Session One

The game opened on Flocktime 1, 3080 YE. The fighter Cebo had an old map that purported to show the location of an ancient Dark Elf Citadel that was sunk into the earth thousands of years ago during the Uttermost War. The map showed the location as being along the "old road" that used to run from Ruti to Tarsh over the Braen Hills.

Gathering together a few stout friends the party arrived in the mining town of Ruti just in time for a quick breakfast at the Ol' Boar Inn and a little small talk with the barkeep Garon at the Ol' Boar. Finding out that the Old Road had fallen into disuse because of goblin bandits combined with the increased river trade with Orclands. He had heard about the Citadel, along with the fact that it was also a Dragon Cult, with the Braen Hills getting their name from the devastation caused by a dragon named Ashardalon. They also found out that another group of adventurers had left for the Citadel just a month ago and hadn't returned.

Travelling along the Old Road they party came to a dark ravine with broken pillars jutting over it and a fairly recent knotted rope hanging down. Dropping a torch down they discovered the rope led to a ledge about 50 ft. down. Cebo climbed down the rope by himself while the others waited above. Landing on the ledge Cebo was immediately attacked by a pack of large dire rats who circled him and started biting. After the surprise of the initial attack wore off the Belfin and Moss rained arrows down on the rats while Cebo defended himself. They managed to defeat the rats with only minor damage to Cebo.

Descending down a series of switchback stairs the party realized that thee was an entire large fortress sunk into rubble below the surface. Ending up in a crumbling courtyard that was once the top of a crenellated battlement they discovered a door leading into an old tower. Trying the door Belfin triggered a pit trap that dumped him 10 feet into a pit with some goblin skeletons and another dire rat. After dealing with the rat and looting the goblin body they found in the pit, they lifted Belfin out of the pit they slowly opened the door to the tower.

Inside the shell of the ruined tower they discovered the bodies of four more dead, rat chewed, goblins, including one pinned to the wall with a spear. Lowering the body of goblin from the wall (and looting their bodies) they discovered an inscription written in Draconic carved into the wall, unfortunately the only party member who spoke Draconic was Roth the barbarian, who can speak Draconic but doesn't know how to read!

Searching the tower room the elf ranger Belfin discovered secret door in addition to two other wooden doors in the room. As Belfin opened the secret door a still working needle trap managed to pierce him for 1 hp of damage. Inside the room they noticed three skeletons of ancient Dark Elf archers who rose and started coming toward them, quickly closing the secret door the party made a battle plan to let them come out into the open and made short work of them. Searching the room they discovered it was rubble filled archer slit. After looting bows for the members who lacked them they also discovered 6 arrows that somehow were in still excellent condition after all these years.

Turning their attention to the other doors in the tower room, they went first to the southern most door. This opened up into a rubble filled hallway that was collapsed at the far end. In the hallway was a stone doorway carved with the images of dragons in flight, an easily seen keyhole was found in the mouth of one of the rearing dragons. After dealing with another dire rat that came out of the rubble they tried to open the door. Having no rogues and Cebo being the only one with any small skill at locks they were unable to open the locked door. Several attempts at trying to bash the stone door down were also futile. Forgoing the idea of somehow smashing the door down with their weapons they decided to leave it for now and went on to the other door from the tower.

The northern door from the tower room led to a long corridor. The corridor had doors at the end and two doors in the middle. The southern door in the middle of the corridor was another locked stone door, this one with relief carvings of dragon-like fish swimming in an aquatic setting. Again unable to open the lock they had to leave the door unopened. The door to the north of the corridor open to just an empty room.

At the end of the corridor, a third door opened into a large chamber covered with crudely executed symbols and glyphs, scribed in bright green dye. These writings were in Draconic, again with nobody able to read them. There was a metal cage with a gaping hole standing empty in the southern part of the room along with a wooden bench on which was a sleeping kobold who was whimpering in his sleep. Deciding to not slay the kobold immediately the party woke up the kobold who claimed to himself to be Meepo, Keeper of Dragons. Meepo babbled on about how the clans dragon, Calcryx, was lost to the evil goblins. How the goblins stole Calcryx. How miserable he was without his dragon and all. The party tried to question Meepo about the citadel and the goblins and the dragon, but all they got was "Meepo don't know", "clans dragon was big", "Meepo take you to leader, Yusdrayl", "you promise to rescue clans dragon, leader answer all your questions".

Seeing how this was an easy way to get further into the citadel the party agreed to meet with the kobold leader Yusdrayl. Meepo led them down some corridors to throne room at the end of a large hall filled with a double row of stone columns carved with entwining dragons. At the western end was a small throne made of stacked bits of old masonry, set against an old altar carved with even more dragons. Sitting on the throne was a small female kobold dressed in red robes flanked by a guard of six more kobolds. The party immediately noticed several shiny things upon the altar along with a metallic key held firmly in the mouth of a rearing dragon.

The female kobold was Yusdrayl, the kobold leader. After a short discussion with Yusdrayl, which consisted mostly of the party saying "how much for the key" and her saying "200 gp, You go return our dragon". After sizing up the odds, four fighters against at least 10 kobolds (they noticed a few others moving among the columns), the party decided to go with Meepo to the "back way" into goblin territory and recover the dragon.

Meepo led the party down some deserted corridors to a room with a with a old dried up fountain in it. The fountain which was ornately carved with a diving dragon had a worn inscription in Draconic, as did the locked stone door in the room. Too bad nobody could read the inscriptions. Going further Meepo led them to a empty room with a door in the northern wall. "This is start of goblin territory". Checking out the door the party discovered that it led to a short hallway strewn with caltrops and guarded at the far end by two goblins behind a low wall who immediately threw javelins at the party. Any surprise was lost as when the door was open it set off bells attached to the door. Quickly thinking the barbarian Roth took off the other door to the room and they used that as a shield to sweep the caltrops out of the way and advance upon the goblins. One goblin ran away yelling "intruders, intruders" while the other made a vain attempt to stop them, dying in the process.

Any chance of surprise lost the party moved forward to a room that was obviously used for javelin target practice. The south wall of the room holding straw dummies of human height. Peering around the corner they saw the northern end of the room had another low wall behind which was five more goblins with javelins ready. Retreating back they decided to look for another way into the goblin territory.

Back in the long hallway was a short section which contained six slightly ajar doors leading to a large room with at least one open pit visible. When they were in this area before they noticed tracks of four human sized people went down the hallway, with tracks of only three returning. They went down the hallway kicking open each door as they went. In the process three dire rats came out of different doorways at once attacking the party. The fight was fierce with the party finally managing to bring down the large rats but leaving Belfin with negative hip points and Cebo with only a single hit point left. The party tried several times to stabilize Belfin and stop him from dying. Their efforts did no good, but Belfin managed to stabilize on his own, remaining unconscious at -3 hit points

Checking out the rat infested cells they found several gold and silver pieces along with some gems. They quickly looked around the room at the end of the hallway, finding another dried up fountain carved with dragons and more unreadable to the party inscriptions in Draconic. Looking at the pits they noticed the tracks led to a door in the west wall. Fours sets went in, three sets went out. With the party in such bad shape they decided that going further was foolish.

Dragging the body of Belfin the party decided to return to Ruti and find some sort of healing before going further into the citadel.

As the session ended the party had just lifted Belfin's body out of the ravine, leaving Meepo back down below, waiting for their return to help recover his dragon. All in all the adventuring took less than a day. The next session will start on the morning of Flocktime 2, 3080 YE
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