The Chronicles of Etinerra

Aramin’s Travelogue for 19 Apr and 3 May

Summer is nearly over and that worries me a great deal. All the other people in the group seem to be working much like the grasshopper. I would prefer to be more like the ant. But they think that honor and glory will keep them warm this winter. Personally, I think it is time we find an abandoned building and get it set to survive the winter. Trying to put a roof on something with 6 inches of snow on the ground and a roaring wind is the wrong way to go about it. Well, we have a few months left, to get set up, hopefully everyone else won’t wait to long to listen to sense.

Since the last time, we went out to the monastery, we finally delivered Melchert’s head to Phaellym. He was upset. Evidently he was more attached to the boy, than any of us thought. We tried to explain the situation to him, but it was to no avail. At least he didn’t hold it against us too personally.

Personally, I see no reason why not to bring back just the head of such a deadly enemy to the light. He was summoning and creating Skeletons and Zombies. By the Light! How much more evil do you need to be! Human sacrifice and cannibalism?

Besides, once the spirit is released from the body there is nothing left but meat. Where I come from, we burn our dead to release the soul more quickly…

Anyway, Phaellym admonished us to stay away from the monstery, so we will do that for a while we will stay away from it. Instead, we have made 2 raids on the Mines. I Had thought that they were already all picked over. It seems I am wrong. We found a whole new section full of traps, and I do mean full. We found 4 or 5 traps in an area of halls that encompassed less space than some inns that I have been in.

We found a section where some people have been digging and discovered a few gems there.

Joe, a new member of the party discovered a large statue in another side room. It was a weird thing that I didn’t much like, but Joe seemed to be fascinated by it. Go figure?

Just for the hell of it, we decided to tear down a section of one of the many barricades we have found scattered around the mines and uncovered a stairwell that went very deep into the earth. We traveled down a long distance on a steep and narrow staircase, for more than a half hour until we nearly reached the bottom. We came up on a rent in the staircase, where we were attacked by some type of Brachiopod, somebody later identified them as probable dark mantles. In and of themselves they were no great threat, except for one that managed to smother Claude, one of my bodyguards. At this point, we decided to leave.

Next time we went down about a week later, we came with most of our present membership available for action. We reached the bottom of the stairs without incident, but the party began to spread out too quickly, and alerted a pack of Dwarf sized skeletons to our presence. It took a while to feed the rest of the party down to the floor and into the fight, but we were eventually able to defeat these vermin.

At this point there was a healthy debate on whether we should turn back or continue on. It was then that we discovered that the scrap of map I had found a couple of weeks ago on a body on the upper level, matched the level we were now searching. This started a major greed attack among several members of the party, because one of the symbols for treasure was very close by.

Before we found this treasure though, we ran into a group of ghost or wraith like beings that feared a significant chunk of the party and tried to chew on the rest. It might be interesting to note here that the people most in a hurry to find said treasure seemed to be the first to succumb to the effects of the undead. Ragnar, was the only one to suffer major attacks from the undead and if I had not run back to get him, he may well have stayed and joined. Even so, if it wasn’t for the heroic efforts of several slingers and archers in the party, I may not have been able to escape either.

At this point, there was no more discussion on staying and we hightailed it out of there as fast as possible.

The trip back was uneventful. Once again, we reached the town to find the guard on the gate increased yet again! I tell you, soon there will be more guards than citizens at this rate. I don’t know how much longer it will be before we will have to fight our way into the city. This is something else that worries me. Where is it all going?

At the end of each trip, I have taken stuff over to the jeweler, who is more than happy to look the other way in the interest of a good profit. I won’t say that he is willing to accept stolen goods, but if we happen about with trinkets we find in our adventures, and forget to mention it to the tax collector, he feels no need to do it himself.

All the gems we found, have been raw, uncut and unrefined, but have peaked his interest and gained us a tidy little profit in the process. No doubt he stand to make a great deal more from the final product but that is the nature of business. For lack of a better source, we are taking most of our stuff to him now, because there are just no buyers for this kind of stuff in a town of this size. He has sent off messages to dealers and collectors to see if there is interest and good buyers for our finds and we wait for replies for these messages.

At present we are holding the following items waiting for interested buyers.

  • 8 sets of dwarven chain mail at least 500 years old
  • 8 Short swords, filigreed and rune marked made by dwarves again 500 year old.
  • 1 Gold inlaid and rune marked ancient dwarvish helmet
  • 150+ coins of ancient and beastial design.
  • There are probably some other items that escape my mind right now…

Aramin, tracker, ranger and hunter of the dark

View
10 Apr 09 - Travelogue from Aramin

The Travel Logue of Aramin Olbander,

10 Apr 09

It is less than a week before the festival of Summer’s End, and we decide to set out to kill a bridge troll. The intrepid party leaves heavily armed with every piece of war gear we own. There are no less than 10 of us. One Thief to check the way. A cleric to heal the wounded. A wizard to bespell the troll. Two Rangers to Track the way and find the beast and no less than 5 fighters to hack it to death. We go out to where the troll is expected to hide and … We leave the Princess and return to the village, 6 members of our group join her retinue.

Two days later, we travel back to the Monastery of Agix, and explore more of the first sublevel. We take a new large group of adventurers with us. These people are replacements for those who have joined the Princesses retinue.

We are attacked by Goblin Zombies, who seem to be the very same ones we killed as live Goblins a week ago. Ragnar attempts to turn and…fails. We destroy them. We meet another party of Gombies, and defeat them (No help from the supposed cleric again). We find several Skeletons defending an evil Cleric (Worshiper of the Dark Side). We defeat all these beings (Once again, without the help of our “Cleric”). We kill the evil cleric and take his head. There is reason to believe that this was Phaelum’s one time apprentice, Melkrit. We bring back the head as proof that he is dead. I do not know, whether Phaellum will be happy or upset about this, but I figure he needs to know.

Aramin

P.S. This is Written by Ragnar the aforementioned Cleric. There is no princess! As far as we can tell, the ranger has been charmed by that troll magi. It actually killed the 6 missing members of our party. One was pummeled horribly, and left to bleed out on the field of battle. The other 5 were all frosted by a Cone of Cold (Yes we said Troll Magi). It seems there is no way we can lift the glamour that is on the ranger at this time, so we will just have to stay away from the troll until we are strong enough to try again, of course most of use weren’t there, we don’t really know what happened, we got it all second hand from the Elf woman Kee. I record here the list of the dead of this mercenary group.

Lanosh the Deadly Fighter

Grey Leaf the Dreaded Elven Wizard

Golfrod, Bowman and Strong Arm

Cadmus the Pious One

Adue, always First into Combat

Tolliver the Ever Faithful

Isham, some idiot no one ever heard of…

P.P.S.S. Oh that part where I couldn’t turn the undead… Well I did a lot of important things. I was just overawed by the power of the dark side. I mean, I’m only a newly frocked cleric… It’s not my fault… I tried… No one else turned anything … stop picking on me…

View
29 Mar 09 - Travelogue from Aramin

29 Mar 09

We met today with a number of new people, well they considered me the new guy, but I have been here first. As a matter of fact, Lanosh is the only one I know from previously. We got together at the Mug & Pott this morning after several days of rest.

In actuality, most of these people, I have seen around town before, we just have never talked before.

It was decided, much at Harold’s instigation, that we would travel north and search out the Monastery that supposedly somewhere out that way. Finding it was actually very easy but in the process, we ran into a pack of badgers. They tore Adue up pretty badly. “But, They’re just badgers…”, I kept saying. Yet the ‘just badgers’ were pure dynamite. We took the hides, and meat, that we sold the next day and got 3GPs for them. By far the best return on anything we have done to date. The more I see on this, the more that just hunting for the town must be the way to go. The cost of food in town is quite unbearable. How a normal person would just be able to survive, I have no idea.

If a day’s worth of travel food costs 2 GP and in that is about ½ pound of dried jerky and the average deer can provide 50-100 lbs of jerky out of 1 carcass; we should be able to glean 5-10 GP+ for a whole deer, including hide, hooves, horns and organs. There are lots of valuable items in a single animal.

Anyway, we continued on to the monastery, and arrived in about 3 hours travel. It only took about ½ hour to find a passage leading down into the temples bowels. In the course of the day, we covered about half the catacombs, routed out about a dozen goblins, some large spiders, numerous giant rats, and a few other creatures that were unidentifiable. We found no direct treasure, but located a number of items, including a candlestick and a couple of books. We decided to head back when everyone in the party were sporting wounds to a greater or lesser extent, Harold was unconscious, and Adue looking like he had been chewed on by an army of beavers. We left the temple just a little before sunset and traveled back that night arriving in town about 2 hours before dawn.

Arriving at town, we agreed to keep information about the catacombs as quiet as possible to avoid other raiders from trying to horn in on our work like what is happening at the mine. We will keep this news quiet…

Tolliver, his girl friend, Adue, and Parabellum went out to sell some of the stuff we picked up. They did sell the Candle stick for it’s metal content and received 12 GP for it from a new friend of ours. (Name withheld for safety’s sake).

We are now looking to codify the party into an orderly and controlled organization. We need to find a name, a charter and other items to develop our ‘New’ identity. To this end, all members are urged to pay a CP/week in dues, which are presently being held by Tolliver (at least when he’s not holding Anya anyway. I’d say they act like a bunch of teenagers, except that I think that they ARE a Bunch of Teenagers). Right now, my records indicate we have 14 CP in our coffers, not much but it’s a start.

Aramin

View
3-22-09 Travelogue of Aramin Olbander

Travelogue of Aramin Olbander

22 mar 09

I set out to see what there was to be seen in the world, with my two body guards that my father acquired for me. They are supposed to keep an eye on me and keep me out of trouble. So far they have done an excellent job.

I very much doubt that I will be able to afford to extend their contract in six months when it expires, but I will be able to write Claude and Ogdin a glowing recommendation that they can use for their next employer.

I have been hired by a group of farmers in Enonia (a badly run down heap of a village) to help them establish a new community some days south of the Town. We have been working with these people for about four months and initially thing were pretty good. We concentrated on getting land cleared for planting and got about ten acres cleared and planted in time this spring, Once the crops were in the farmers started serious work on the village itself that they intended to name New Hope.

In the meantime, I was traveling back and forth between Enonia and New Hope, bringing them supplies, mail and other miscellaneous necessities that any new community would need.

At first all things went well. But as summer came on and the weather continued to warm, there was trouble. The crops began to be trampled, and livestock started to disappear or be killed. There was one such incident when I was down at thw village and I managed to discover that Kobold were involved. I slew a couple but most escaped. There was a rain storm that night and they managed to evade me.

The raids increased in fury and frequency as time went on.

I spoke with the leaders of the village, and it was decided that I would continue to travel to Enonia and collect supplies for the settlement. I think this was a fatal mistake.

People in outlying areas started to disappear. The attacks added burning of barns and houses as well as murder, and wholesale slaughter of the remaining livestock on the farms. The last time I stopped and talked to any of the farmers a desperate air hung over the few survivors. The few families still present intended to try and fight.

There were stories of new larger humanoids involved in the raids. I never saw any while I was in the village, and never found any good tracks to identify or follow.

Five days ago, my worst fears came true. I arrived at the village to find all the buildings and fields burned. No one was left alive. My bodyguards and I buried the bodies and headed north to report back to Enonia.

Luckily about a third of the families got out earlier. Mostly in small groups, abandoning the village before it was too late.

Two days after leaving the village for the last time. We took the detour for water that is a couple of hours into the Dalewood of the South trail. While we were filling our skins, Ogdin noticed smoke coming from about a mile East of us.\

We decided to investigate.

We came on a clearing where a huge and foul smelling bonfire was burning. There were about a dozen bodies merrily cooking down to their constituent parts. If you have never smelled burning human flesh, consider yourself lucky. It is a horrible sickly sweet smell, that is way to reminiscent of roast pork.

There were 4 warriors two of whom were women and one of those women was an Elf! Never actually having met an elf personally, it was a fascinating experience.

Anyway, they said that they had come down here looking for water and had found this hut in the clearing surrounded by dead naked bodies. When the bodies were approached, they jumped up and attacked this party, very violently. Evidently they were able to destroy these Damned (we found the name out later in Enonia) with the loss of only one of their party. The one who died was named Isham and from the looks of where he died, he was quite literally torn apart. There was blood splattered in every direction for 15 feet.

Anyway, we stayed to make sure there was nothing left of any of the bodies, and then we moved to where I was getting water before we discovered their smoke. By now it was getting dark and it was too late to make it back to the South trail in the dark. We set up camp here. It was necessary to move away so we weren’t quite so close to the mess, that would probably attract trouble.

The new people decided to travel with me and my companions. This was decided when I told them about the village I just came from. Evidently, they had some sort of plan of going down there to help out the farmers, but they are at least a month too late.

So we set up camp together. They have evidently been foraging along the way because, they made up a savory stew with a number of small game animals and plant items they had gathered along the way.

The next day we got back to the road and headed north.

There was a quick ambush by 2 kobolds, they popped out of the grass, threw javelins and ran away, we didn’t chase them.

Sometime during the day, I noticed that a mob of small creatures were shadowing us in the woods. At our next stop, I apprised the rest of the party of the threat. Forewarned and forearmed, we traveled on. About mid afternoon we were assaulted by about a dozen kobolds that came out the trees and grass around them. There were 7 warriors in our party now and there was no contest. In less than a minute, only 1 kobold (the leader), went scampering back into the woods alone.

That night about midnight, we were again attacked by 8-10 kobolds who raided our camp around midnight. Again this fight lasted only a few minutes with all the kobolds dead and only minor wounds amongst us.

The next day, we travelled the rest of the way to Enonia. We met several hunters who were trying to scare up some game for the town, but were not successful. We told them about our adventures which only seem to upset them. (note to self: in future lets keep our exploits to ourselves). After a short talk we all headed back to the village, the hunters hurrying far ahead, evidently not wanting to be too near us.

When we finally arrived at the gate I was in for a new surprise.

The gate guard was not only larger, but more alert, and very nosy compared to any time I had seen them in the past. They were very rude considering I have seen several of them many times in the past. I even have bought a couple of them drinks previously. (Note to self: Really keep all our future exploits to ourselves). We eventually got into town and after getting directions to their lodgings (such as they are) I headed over there. The other people that joined us went to the temple to talk to the Vicar. When they returned, I got the impression that they only managed to upset the Vicar. (Note to Self: Never ever talk about our exploits to outsiders).

I will leave of here, but I expect to add more chapters in the future.

Aramin

View
The World So Far
Session #2 in The Dark Ages

This is Tolliver’s account of his ongoing adventures on the Eastern Borders.

Three days ago we made it back to Enonia, having pushed as far as we dared into the wilds of the Dark Woods. Caution got the better of us, despite the fact that we faced down a patrol of sniveling goblins in the shadowy forest. I have unfinished business there yet…

Today, however, my business took me south, to the abandoned abandoned mines and the rumors that persist there. I was not alone; with me traveled Parabellum the mage, Cadmus the cleric of Hermes, a fierce she-fighter named Anya, and a curious littleling named Harold who proved brave almost to a fault.

We encountered a sloping ridge about four hours south of Enonia. This hillock showed signs of having been clear-cut at some point in the distant past, and as we moved closer we saw several crude tunnels leading into the rock.

Venturing down, we came upon a culture of feral humans living almost like animals in the dim caverns. The sure-spoken words of Cadmus calmed them, however, and they gave us leave to pass through their meager realm and explore deeper into the tunnels. They lived in fear of a clan of kobolds who lurked in the deep tunnels, and indeed these feral men had barricaded the adjoining tunnels to prevent the vile creature from harassing them.

Undeterred, we broke through into the kobolds’ tunnels and almost immediately ran afoul of them. Two sellswords we had brought with us from Enonia fell almost immediately, and disarray almost dissolved our party. We managed to pull ourselves together long enough to push back the initial kobold assault and explore the first few rooms of what was likely a massive cave complex inhabited by the kobolds. On our way back out, having scraped together a pitiful pile of copper pieces from the kobolds’ territory, we received assurances from the feral chieftain that his men would be willing to join us if we returned for another delve into the mines.

Having cheated death for another day, we returned to Enonia and managed to convince the castellan of the keep, Sir Yinivax, to pay us good coin for any information we could dredge out of the wilderlands. Our spirits thus refreshed, we retired to the Mug & Pot Inn to plan our next move.

View
2-15-2009 Pregame Notes

I’ll call Games Plus and see if we can get a table starting at 11am, assuming everyone can be there at 11am. If not, we’ll shoot for 1pm.

We’ll have at least 1 new player (Scott’s littleling) and possibly my wife as well. So that might bring us to 5 (assuming Alex and Rich also can play).

Players are going to determine where they want to go, feel free to edit this note and put your thoughts here.

If you like, please be sure to do an adventure log for 1-24. What do you want to share with other players and prospective new players? It’s up to you guys… I’m not going to do much in the way of “continuity” between games in terms of recaps – that’s up to the adventurers of previous games to share.

View
Story Setting

Some say it was sight of the three greater planets joining together in the sky the heralded the downfall of Man in the Lands.

Some say that the great silver sphere that plunged through the sky, bringing fire and destruction in its wake delivered the retribution for our sins.

Some say that the plagues that stalked the towns and keeps of our frontiers were the final stroke before the bestial beasts ravenged our farms and villages and drove the decimated Legions from the Far Reaches.

Whatever they say, it could not possibly fully account and list all of the calamities and travails that Man has suffered since the Darkest Hours. Our Doom has been multiple and ceaseless in its entirety. Its effects are long lasting, as we sit huddled in our small cities and fortified keeps. Slowly, we learn to adapt and we learn to live in this new Age – the Dark Age.

And yet, there are those who will seek out the frontier again, who will seek to advance their station and plumb the secrets of the ancients, beat back the hordes of beasts and maybe perhaps cleanse our old lands of the Damned… those rare few who have decided to step forth. The so-called Kings will not. The few armies that remain will not. But someone will…

— Ta-Shanarbiya, Priest of Yallowforth Keep, Year 52 of the Darkness

It is a dark time. Much has changed in the world that your forefathers and granddams knew. It almost two generations ago that the skies lit in flames, the world cracked open, the beasts and bestials poured from the dark and civilization retreated.

Man, Elf and Littlelings have retreated to the safety of numbers, abandoning much that they had gained in many generations. Kingdoms fell, fortresses crumbled and the tramp of foul feet was heard across many leagues. The Dwarfs have not been seen in generations and rumors abound of the “Dark Ones” return.

Man has survived in the face of Chaos and Doom, but much has been lost. Now, the Kingdoms bicker amongst each other while holding the line against the ever-present Darkness. Survival is never certain, especially on the now sparsely populated frontiers. Once, these were well-known lands, but since the Doom of Man, they have fallen into darkness, now the story of legends and whispered myths. The other races, Elf and Littleling, they sit in their lands and hold their own, both cursing Man for the Doom of the lands and reaching out in the hopes that all may join to regain what was lost.

Other links of interest:
Timeline of history
Five Year History Prior to the Doom
The Line of Kings for the Lands of Men

View