The Danger in Dark Dweomer End

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About the Saga

The adventurers search for the Scarecrow haunting the Strange Quarter's Dark Dweomer End and instead discover horrifying, extraplanar entities operating from an abandoned guard tower near the Obsidian Tower.

Timeframe

Cast of Characters

  • Prug, the humble half-orc monk
  • Gruffud, the half-elf (human!) paladin of Lendor
  • Corash, the elvin wizard in search of arcane knowledge
  • Kerth Greenfield, a divine sorcerer of Pelor
  • Thom Silverbow, a half-elf bard looking for a new fortune
  • Vargas, the aristocrat and shadowmancer apprentice

Notable Quotes

"Thom, we meet again!" -- the Scarecrow

What Has Come Before

No adventure summary available.

The Saga

Harvester 18, CY 591

As their colleagues Prug and Gruffud go looking for the boyfriend of the missing girl Kayla's boyfriend. Find him at the Poormans' gate (a formerly busy gate, now relegated to second-class status as an inner city gate). The young man -- maybe 20 -- proves to be evasive. The two adventurers get permission from his commander to talk with him in private; he explains that he snuck away from his guard duty shift to met her the night she disappeared, in the End, He then left, and next thing he knew she was gone. Also learn that a patrol was out and about.

Learned that one of the old towers leading to the Obsidian Tower is being walled over as it is now disused. Learn from someone working on the tower that there was no patrol operating from the tower, nor should there have been one in the End.

Meet up with the party, who then retreat to the Fire-Eaters to talk … all but Korash, who goes to talk with his new master and tells him what he has found … including sample of demonic pumpkins found in the sewers. He then goes off to buy a vial of alchemist fire.

Meanwhile, Kerth goes to consult with the temple of Pelor. He explains that he has been working with some adventurers to track down a missing girl, and tells him about the strange pumpkin-headed humanoid monster in the sewers.

Party gathers once again at Fire-Eaters, then decide to go out on patrol. Decide to go to Resh's Herbs, where in interviewing them they discover that the fool harvested pumpkins from the old Obsidian Bay garden, then used their seeds to plant pumpkins. The party realizes that these seeds -- which look like normal seeds, but stranger, with odd stripes.

Jogs Thom's memory about a Halloween-like holiday on Patchwall 18 in which people set out pumpkins to keep Nerull's monstrosities away.

Rest for the night. Then meet up the next morning.

Harvester 19, 591

Kersh, Prug, Gruffud and Thom head to the temple of Pelor, learn of Issroth, former Tower mage who specialized in raising exotic, and possibly intelligent plants. Then meet up with Corash and plan to head into the sewers.

In the sewers, they start working their way south until start smelling salt wwater, then decide to turn and go back toward something more friendly to plants, and work their way toward the center of the End.

Hear another group slushing through the water, dressed in heavy leather wading boots; say they're working for the Sewers Guild, cleaning out the pumpkin plan vines, but Thom is suspicious. Prug asks if they saw the missing girl; they hem and haw, and the half-orc doesn't believe him.

Other men try to get past them; scuffle -- and then a fight -- breaks out. The men draw odd-looking daggers and swords. Thom is hit, and is cut by one of the blades, leaving an exceptionally clean cut. Thom and Corash realize that the blades are strangely wavy.

Gruffud joins the fight, bull rushing into combat, knocking back one of his enemies and slamming into another. Prug, in the middle of the melee, unleashes a flurry of blues, hitting once. Two of the combatants, who withdrew from the battle, use a strange ray attack on Prug, sapping his strength.

Then another of the combatant color sprays Prug, Corash and Gruffud, blinding the paladin. Corash sends a barrage of magic missiles streaking into an opponent, wounding him badly.

Kersh hits one of the enemy with a mace, dropping him and causing him to drop its human visage and reveal a faceless, blackskinned creature. Thom rushes up, hoping to pierce one with his rapier, but seeing the fallen creature throws off his attack. Prug and Gruffud continue their unrelenting assault, further hurting the creatures. The creatures counterattack, but fail bitterly.

Then the party hears a sinister voice "Thom, we meet again!" And horror grasps Thom's chest, and doesn't let go. The creature advances, its fear effect cascading before it, and the bard runs screaming from the pumpkin creature.

Meanwhile Prug is hit by a fatiguing ray created by the creature; Thom doesn't even see this, and instead runs screaming. The creature growls "Let us retreat to our lair!" and as he does, Kerth sends forth a burst of brilliant sunlight.

And Thom still runs, Vargas following to make sure that Thom doesn't get into trouble.

The minions flee, as the rest of the party keys up on scarecrow. Corash summons two burning spheres to attempt to corner the Scarecrow. Kersh and Pruge advance, braving the creature's fear effects, trying to intimidate it with their brilliantly glowing light (Prug also having summoned his nimbus of good). The scarecrow holds up his hand toward Prug, and the monk is wracked with pain as his flesh shrivels.

Thom finally masters his fear, stops running, and heads back to the fight. Arriving there, he finds that the scarecrow has once against fled, leaving behind two minions, one dead, one fatigued. The party binds the survivor, drags him up onto the street and into an alley. He covers them with a cloak and goes to look for his master.

Return to the sewers to deal with the pumpkin patch and burn it. They then continue their search of the sewers, eventually returning to their first fight with the scarecrow. They find that the corpses of the dark stalkers they had fought were gone, and that the vines they'd destroyed were growing back.

Slowly work their way through the sewers, toward the abandoned watch tower, and find … a large hexagonal room, overgrown with vines, that once served as the main sewer outlet. See an exit shaft that's been walled over.

Thom uses mage hand to try and examine the plants; find they don't react to brooding. Then the party sends Prug -- with a rope around his waist -- and Gruffud into the room. They see the hole in the center of the room, and see a slow trinkle of sewage running down through it, and waves crashing in a cave below. They then examine the wall, and realize its' been drywalled, and Prug starts hammering it. Gruffud cautions him; saying perhaps that's not a great idea, and that there's nothing there of any importance.

Eventually decide to break it down anyway. Reveals a resin filled corridor that looks similar to what the adventurers saw on the creatures they fought earlier. Beyond they find a square-sized room against coated in resin, eventually find stairs going up into the abandoned guard tower. They find two alien creatures waiting in the room, and a girl collapsed off to one side.

Prug charges into the room, where he is weakened by a magical effect spawned by one of the creatures while the paladin Gruffud runs into the room and drops one of the creatures with a mighty blow. Thom charges up the stairs, enters the room and throws a dagger, hitting one of the creatures between the eyes. The creature responds by stepping up and slashing him brutally with one of his wavery blades, instantly dropping the bard. Fortunately, Kersh is nearby, and is able to instantly heal Thom, restoring him to full vitality. Then Gruffud sidesteps, slashes at the creature and kills it.

Prug examines the girl and finds that she's been laid out on a slab of resin, bound to it by even more of the substance. Kersh steps up, examines the body, and finds that she has been tortured. Corash comes over, helps slice away at the resin while the paladin watches the stairs. Examining the bodies, they realize that they had fought one of these creatures before.

The party then falls back to the temple of Pelor, sending word for her mother and her boyfriend -- actually her fiancé. She is exceedingly grateful, and rewards the party with a fine bracelet. Once she comes around, she says that she was arrested by members of the city guard and knocked unconscious. She awoke in the horrible corrupted watch tower, and explains she was tortured for information about the Strange Quarter. She explains that the creatures they fought were wearing armor, and that beneath it they have translucent skin and strange, dog-like heads. These creatures would then try and bite her for some bizarre reason.

Examining the bracelet, they realize that it has the Flan word for "luck" engraved on it; Prug gives it to Gruffud who suddenly feels slightly luckier.

Meet up with Vargas, who explains that Saheed had determined that the monsters were strange creatures from the Far Realm who raid into our reality, that they secrete the resin to protect themselves, forge their weapons, and to seal themselves in protective armor. They must wear the armor to protect themselves from our reality, which they find toxic. Also learn that they have magical powers that allow them to conceal themselves behind illusions.

Party decides to fall back and rest, then alerts the Strange Quarter guards to the nature of the threat they faced, and how the tower is being used.

Experience

  • Prug: 880
  • Corash: 880
  • Gryffudd: 880
  • Kerth: 880
  • Thom: 880
  • Vargas: 400
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