SUMMARY

Session of April 11, 2004

Covering afternoon of Evensday, 20 Workmoon, through Mountday, 25 Workmoon, CY 937

"Lo, the Resurrected Will Redeem the Saviors"

Where to begin? Well, this session saw the highest body count of any yet, and that
has to count for something...

You met Curdan II at the rally point with dead Tak and deceased Footstool, and
after agreeing to serve the crown as a party for three months, he approved a Raise
Dead for Thoor (via Emile the cleric of Pelor) and a Reincarnation for Footstool
(via Graymalkin the Druid). An appropriate Easter beginning...

Curdan believed the witch you encountered might well be the cause of this Spectral
Orc infestation (you have him fooled -- mwah hah hah!) and he ordered you to pursue
her, learn about her, and kill her. Reasonable enough! And you had a score to settle...

In Overwood you followed the stream to a large living cathedral growing in the trees
(that'd be a catreedral), of ancient Elven design, but currently defiled by many
bugbears, and from it wafting the horrendous odors of rot and poo.

After conducting a courageously superficial survey of the property, it was decided
a frontal assault would be the best approach. Tak did a little head-scratching in
front of the guards, Footstool threw in a "Malvolio sent us," and soon enough you
were ushered right through the front doors.

The flaw in this plan came when your bugbear escort announced "Mistress Ishana, friends
have come!" Ishana being no less than the deranged, scarrified flying witch from
the forest, and a woman with a good enough memory, turns out, to know that you mooks
were no friends of hers, this established a Situation.

She initiated an attack, then fled, leaving you to contend with more than 20 bugbears.
Er, 23, to be exact, plus a couple of sergeants and a powerful cleric. They rushed.
You stood your ground (a.k.a. got rushed) and a vicious fight ensued during which you
could not buy a hit. Aziz's first-ever fireball might as well have been a handful
M80s chucked at them and Footstool went down before the end of the first round. In
some respects these two early strokes nearly sealed your doom, but in hindsight,
based on the rolls Tak and Thoor were throwing, even Foot's magic missiles prob'ly
woulda missed.

In all seriousness, this was the most nail-biting battle you've had yet. As
eventually the embiggened Tak went down, and then Thoor (after reviving Tak) and
Aziz, every swing you missed felt like it had the potential to doom your party,
and every hit landed needed to be fatal. In the end, Tak clove the last one and
grabbed all three miraculously stabilized, unconscious friends, and booked out the
door. As Tak had a single hit point while doing this, a closer call is inconceivable.
And the one surviving bugbear, the crossbow sniper, breathed a sigh of relief too...

Please don't ever do that again.

Once you stopped to rest, a little leveling occurred, and some consciousness was
regained, and the wand of CLW with a zap-zap here and a cure-cure there, well, pretty
soon it started to seem like a good idea to charge right back into the catreedral
before, you know, the witch could reorganize. (Lots of times, it's the quick charge
right back in that wins the disorganized enchilada. Ask anyone.)

A quick peek through the door showed the place full of distraught female bugbears,
and Thoor, feeling especially shiny and noble, charged in radiating light and said
"The power of Christ compels you!" -- er, no, that was something else... He said
the women should leave, this was their big chance, Cuthbert recommended it. They
looked up from the hacked and burnt corpses of their lyin cheatin no-good husbands,
(I assume; bugbears are CE) and blinked. Huh?

A few fled. And Thoor spotted Ishana, and ran for her.

There was to follow a brief search for some meaning in what then took place.
The trip attempt, its fail, the trip-you-right-back, the bleeding, the pow, the once
more gratuitous cruelty, the WHO'S your Mommma -- Eventually, it was decided; Thoor's
brave sacrifice, in distracting Ishana by providing plenty of opportunity for repeated
Scything, delayed her escape just long enough that a madly sprinting Tak was able to
cleave her asunder as she attempted to claw her way out a leafy window. At last,
the woman who killed three-fourths of your party -- was no more.

Decidedly so. You put most of her in the sack to bring back, catlike, to Curdan.

Now a pretty decent investigation of the catreedral turned up piles of cool magic,
a little cash, a small band of goblins who ran off with their freed goblin women,
and a Flesh Golem. Obviously the Golem was nothing to worry about (although Aziz
tried to warn everyone -- what a square, man!), and you proceeded to restore the
flow of water through the channels. Good thinking!

You also copied down a couple of interesting inscriptions. Hmm...

Soon enough you saw the cathedral begin to restore itself before your very eyes as
cool mists rose from the chapel pools -- and you discovered some of these had clear
benevolent effects. Aziz, ever so cautious, had waited outside for the others to
quit fooling around in a place quite possibly filled with hidden dangers, but was
finally lured back in by Footstool's "you gotta see this!" With a long wizardly sigh,
Aziz gave up on keeping the horses company, and alright already, he quit playing
the doomsaying let's-go-guys wizard, and he agreed to check out the chapel pools. Thus
casually wandering from pool to pool on his own, he happened past the Flesh Golem
only to discover abruptly that it was apparently set on "Kill humans who enter." A
brief fight was fought, consisting of one punch, upon which Aziz became airborne,
and not long afterward the sadly pulverized Suhndi was discovered by his now-lonelier
survivors, close chums Tak and Footstool.

In keeping with Aziz's religious sentiments, they added him to the sack with the
feces-smeared witch.

The Golem seemed to have settled down. So there was nothing to do but leave, take
the friends back to Dunlevao and -- but wait, what's this? Some yellow sort of
powder? Footstool tasted it, and collapsed in terrible pain -- only to rise a moment
later, feeling superhuman.

Although a Gnome On Crack is everyone's ideal traveling companion, Tak confiscated
the powder, and the ride to Dunlevao was enjoined. Dewbud? -- oh yeah, right where
you left her. Picking her up, onward, until -- Footstool, consumed with craving
for the powder, actually fell comatose. Tak, seeing this was no good, revived him
with a small taste, and all lived happily ever after.

Except for the part where the opposite of that happened. As many surviving Luhix
addicts will tell you (ask either of them), it is a viciously controlling substance,
and Footstool chose a pro-active, self-starting, outside-the-box paradigm shift for
his addiction: he wished to control the supply. So he politely snarled something
about Give It To Me Now, and soon enough Tak, in an effort to spare his good friend
from the poison, took to beating him senseless. When Footstool reacted with real
fighting, scorching off half Tak's hit points, Tak got unusually annoyed, and in a
burst of "I caught my kid smoking so I locked him under the sink until he finished
the whole carton" logic, he grabbed Footstool's mouth and, shouting "YOU WANT IT?
FINE! YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT!" he poured the rest of the powder right in there.

Footstool did not resist much (though, once again, hindsight being 20/20...) and
to the surprise of both friendly combatants, he immediately died the most painful
death of anyone ever.

Thus did Tak and Dewbud arrive at Curdan's house with four corpses, news of a Big Elf
Treehouse, wide-eyed tales of many bugbears slain, and a good deal of gee-whiz
innocence on the subject of whether any treasure was found. Also he "gifted" the
King, "my highness," with Dewbud as privvy-scrubber. (Apparently he rolled a Will
Save against her charms, or perhaps failed a Fort Save.)

It remains to be seen whether the King will find it in his heart to accept this
gift. His advisors, however, were able to determine that you killed Ishana Tahirah,
a half-Elf, half-Suhndi priest and, apparently, disciple of the slug-devil (I just
can't bring myself to say the name aloud...) It remains uncertain though, just what
is the extent of her involvement in all this.

Now, what can be said about your work today, except that you fought hard because
you fought unlucky, and that while it is hard to accept a death in pitched combat,
it is downright tragic to have to assimilate a one-punch KO and a drug OD after it
seems your problems are solved. Today, every mace-swing felt oppressive, like
another blow in a series that would never end. On the other hand, as a party you
continue to play seriously and play well, always in character and always ready to
push your limits. That's fun to watch, and is the reason you deserve to be raised.
Further, it is fun to watch how far you have come -- to see you are a party that
now will still charge the witch who killed two of you previously, and that you feel
sure enough to run past half a dozen club-waving bugbears as if they don't even exist.
And in the end, you destroyed your first nemesis. A hearty congrats on that score.

And now, the Moment You've All Been Scrolling For: considering everyone's Time of
Death and need for raisolution, here's what your XP will be when you're all back
walking and talking, having a mead with the king and telling him/omitting the details
of what you've done/seen/taken:

Aziz: Started the day with 10662, after the Bugbear Battle rose to 14099, then
after the Ishana Pursuit reached 17749, however then losing single combat versus a
Flesh Golem and so dropping to 12500, and receiving credit for that combat after
raising, Aziz ends the session with 13500 XP.

Footstool: Started the day with 5566, after the Bugbear Battle rose to 9686, then
after the Ishana Pursuit rising to 13561, then being killed by Tak and so dropping
to 8000, but after being raised receiving credit for the battle with CR 3 Tak, as well
as a small suicidal role-playing bonus, thus ending the session with 8900 XP.

Tak: Started the day with 3266, after the Bugbear Battle attaining 7386, then after
the Ishana Pursuit ending at 11261, and finally receiving partial credit (not full; he
didn't intend to kill his opponent) for battling CR 3 Footstool, ending with 11661 XP.

Thoor: Started with 9090, after the Bugbear Battle reaching 13090, then dying in the
Ishana Pursuit and so dropping to 8000, but afterward receiving credit for that
action and rising back to 11650 XP.

On a related note, it occurs to me it's past due time to set in stone a policy w/r/t
leveling, which is this: a Full Day of Rest will henceforth be required to accrue
all effects of leveling, including new hit points.

Furthermore, my lawyers ask me to state clearly that although Tak and Footstool
got XP for battling each other, it is by no means acceptable to kill your fellow
party members as a means of "power leveling."