4E must haves

Hello everyone.

I just got a heads up from a friend of mine about some pretty cool tools for 4E. Check them out HERE.

Also... there official erratta posted on June 11. They make some clarifications and some rule changes. Check em out.

Finding Alek and Losing him (7/6/08)

Dugobras (the very intelligent and talented firegiant) eagerly put his equipment away and is ready to help you with the upcoming battle. He explains the rest of the dungeon and makes some agreements with the party in regards to who can live in the compound and some other party members have some ideas for trade relations.

Being quite happy with the outcome of the talks, he hands over a two handed blade to Connell who looks at the +3 blade and covets it gleefully. Dugobras says that Connell can have it if they agree to the aforementioned discussions about who can live in the compound with Dugobras.

With that the party sets out to slay the rest of the inhabitants contained within. Dugobras is quite adamant that he will not enter the room with the mirrors.

Moving ahead the party enters a room that looks quite holy. Four pillars support the ceiling and inset into each pillar is transparent globe, half full of a purplish liquid. this liquid flows out of the globe and down a channel cut onto the inside of each pillar into a central pool. Here, there is a shallow pool of the liquid and a beautiful golden chalice. Barrett quickly swipes the chalice and Dugobras warns the party that the liquid is VERY powerful, but is also very, very addictive and ultimately leaves the imbiber much worse off.

The next room is a throne room with bas releaf carved at the base of the 7' tall dias. the throne is huge with three sets of arm rests (obviously for the spell weavers). Dugobras says there is some nasty undead that the hags have made. At this the party moves to the next room. In the room is the last remaining Hag and six, 6 armed, huge skellitons.

Pepper gives everyone a haste and Dugobras wades into the fray taking down two of these skeletons in 4 swings. Then the amazing undead basher Bolgrim has a turn and to everyones shock he evaporates only one. the combat ensues, but between Dugobras and Bolgrim, the skeletons pose very little threat and the Hag is no match for the five others.

After searching the room the party finds quite a bit of treasure, but most importantly they find Alkalast and 20,000 GP. It is decided that Churchkey will wield Alkalast. So in a private chamber Churchkey does a short ceremony, imbibes the potion given to the party by Nidrama and awakes the soul of Alkalast.

In the mean time the rest of the party is going through the loot and conversing with Dugobras.

After churchkey emerges the party heads into the "Throne" room. It is bizarre chamber....that.... that... oh, its too hard to explain. Let me find some pictures and post them.

Sitting on the throne is Alek. He looks withdrawn and slack jawed. The Mirror is black and perfectly reflective. The party moves into the room being careful not to cross the "thresh hold" of the colored tiles and lines on the floor. Others are searching the mirror and around the mirror and yet others are trying to talk with Alek.

Alek is morbid and sad. He stands and stumble steps his way over towards Pepper. He then drops the dagger that was in his hands and with that four creatures emerge from the mirror akin to Stargate special effects. The battle ensues. Most remarkably is that Alek brandishes from seemingly know where a crystal blade and slides the blade deep into Peppers back. It takes no time at all for the party to rip this crystalline creatures apart.

It becomes quite evident that "Alek" is not the real Alek but a disguised crystalline creature. However, the dagger he was holding is a dagger with the symbols of the Tercival family engraved on it.

With this the question is how to enter the mirror and what are the clues.

To make a long story short the mirror puzzles is quite complex. If you don't have both the order of the colors and the number pattern then you are totally hosed. However, even if you have both it took many minutes of contemplation and communication with one another to solve the puzzle. A couple of intelligence checks later and some ideas came forward to help solve the puzzle.

Upon completion of the puzzle the party shows up in some kind of burial chamber. there are 12 7 foot tall urns (6 on each side of the room) a huge iron door is on the other side of the room from which the party appeared and leaning against the door is a severely mentally unbalance Alek Tercival. He has been stuck in the mirrors for a few days before he figured out the puzzle and then has spent a few weeks stuck in this room.

He has come to the conclusion that despite his heart being true, he was blindsided and used by the hags to carry out their evil deeds. He thought he was conquering evil, when in fact he was helping evil carry out a larger plan. The destruction of Cauldron. Alek is mental broken as is his spirit.

It takes some work, but after a few hours they party is able to break down the Iron door. They opt, that when the door is about a 1/2 hour from coming down that they should sleep, memorize spells etc.

The door comes down and they enter a hall with steps that climb about 15' and enter into a large room that exits into a rough, rocky, scrub desert. It is morning and the heat is already in the 80's. The party gets ready to head out and see what they can find when telporting next to them is a huge 15' tall, 4 armed daemon. He spouts angerly at Alek and the party, "My work shall not be thwarted, Cauldron will fall and that means that Alek must die!". At this Alek charges into melee having regained his strength and spirit.

Battle ensues against this behemoth. The Demon seems to forgo his other abilities and seems to just focus on killing Alek. The rest of the party swings and finds that not only it this creature amazingly well armored, but has many damage resistances. However, Alkalast seems to cut through the daemons resistances like butter.

Alek screams, "You shall fall to the ground and lick the sand Nabthatoron! Just as I may do the same, you will come with me."

Unfortunately Alek is totally decimated the following round. His leg is severed and a good part of his intestines are spilling out onto the sandy soil. However, Nabthatoron his heavily wounded. Having become so single minded in his actions he let his defenses down and teleports away from the party.

At this... Alek begins to breath. Churchkey runs to his side where coming from Aleks mouth are the following words:

There is naught left for you in Cauldron, heroes! To return is to enter your own graves and to bring doom upon all you love! Trust the sign of the Smoking Eye if you wish to save them all."

Those words are spoken in the voice of Nidrama.

At this the party spends some time preparing the body of Alek and deciding what to do. There are some message spells sent back and forth to Anna Taskerhill and among those messages is the information that the Lord Mayor is missing and that Vhalantru has taken over the ruling of the city. Anna is doing some research on "the smoking eye" and will get back to the party ASAP.

By the end of the day the party finds a rough road cut into the desert scrub. It is not much, but it is something. Connell determines that the party is far south of their homeland (from the stars) but no idea how far east or west.

In another day they make their way to a community that is more like a watering hole for travelers and another 2 days from there they come to the city of Jennen. A large city of around 5,000 permanent residence about close to 300 visitors are in the city at any time. For this is the last major inhabitants before one is to cross the desert.

the party finds they are about 500 miles from Cauldron but spend the week in Jennen training, buying equipment and resting after the arduous last week.