Session 6: June 28th, 2025
In Game Dates: The month of Shul in the year 52 New Sky
- Star the 13th
- Sun the 14th
- Moon the 15th
- Nova the 16th
The Adventuring Party
The party begins traveling to Mitra’s Cross on Star the 13th. The trip in uneventful until Moon the 15th, when the party crosses paths with a giant monster at dusk.
Hidden Rolls
[TOWER] [TABLE] Overland Travel Encounters = [d14 = 11] Troll
[TOWER] [TABLE] Reaction Random Encounter = [d20 = 13] Friendly
The party hides until the creature is in range.
- Drack runs in to attack.
- A creature stinks so badly that men within 20′ must make a DC 12 Fort save each round or succumb to a fit of retching (-2 to all rolls while retching).
- Chungus knows a guy who told stories about weird creatures.
Chungus – Luck check [vs. Luck score 13] [FAILURE] [d20 = 14]
CHingus does not recognize the creature.
Chungus – Luck check [vs. Luck score 13] [FAILURE] [d20 = 17]
Chungus moves carfully, but draws the creatures attention.
Chungus pees himself a little. - Osrick attacks with his bow.
- Rhaskos recognized the brute and calls out a warning to the party. TROLL!
- Rhaskos – casts Choking Cloud at the Troll.
- Osrick “The Wanderer”- [CHECK] Intelligence [d20 = 10]
- Few living man have seen a troll, for to behold one is to die. The troll is a relentless pursuer, a calm hunter, a non-sentient beast that ravishes all it encounters. Like a mindless slime or an unthinking insect, it simply hunts, striving evermore to satiate an endless hunger, devouring man, metal, flesh, and vegetable–not to mention offal, tree trunks, and, on occasion, rocks and bones. Standing twice the height of a man with rangy limbs, it has a rubbery flesh, a long green nose, and no internal organs. Its beady black eyes stare from a winding cavernous lair whose stench wafts on the breeze for miles around.
- Rhaskos – [CHECK] Intelligence [d20+3 = 13]
- The troll heals at a prodigious rate, regenerating 1d8 points of damage at the end of each round, including the round it is killed. It can only be truly put down by taking its hit points negative such that its final regenerative burst does not raise its total above 0. A troll’s severed head or limbs will even crawl back and re-attach. The troll’s only vulnerability is to fire, from which it does not regenerate.
- Rhaskos casts Color Spray at the Troll. The troll is blinded and knocked unconscious.
- Chungus and Drack plung torches into the trolls eyes.
- The troll expires as the party piles on the fire!
Mitra’s Cross – Nova the 16th
The Adventuring Party
Parched and covered in dust, your party has arrived at the tiny waystation of Mitra’s Cross. The hamlet is little more than a dirt packed road surrounded by a few weather-beaten structures.
To the southeast is a small mud-brick building adorned with a sign which reads, “The Inn of the Weeping Maiden.” From an open window, an elderly woman watches your approach.
Further down the path is another slightly larger structure with an attached animal pen currently housing four camels. The animals look lethargic and slightly underfed.
Between the two buildings, a stone marker points up a trail leading into the rocky hills. Another smaller path winds around the base of the hill to the southeast.
The Weeping Maiden Inn
The main room of the inn consists of a serving area with four tables and an unlit fireplace. A set of stairs leads up to the guest rooms, and a rear door leads into what appears to be the kitchen.
At a corner table, two dwarves are drinking and quietly chatting to each other in Dwarvish.
At the table nearest the fireplace, a middle-aged man is slumped over and sleeping, a half-consumed tankard of warm beer on the table in front of him. The man’s lips and skin have taken on an unhealthy gray pallor.
Near the rear door stands a lean young man wearing a simple cotton kilt. He has the dull-eyed look of a simpleton.
Finally, a toothless, elderly woman, with skin so thin and dry it appears translucent, greets you. She wears a simple cotton dress and a bracelet with gleaming gems. Her chapped lips crack open into a smile as she says, “Welcome, pilgrims, to the Weeping Maiden! What can I offer you to slake your thirst?”
It is midday. The party refreshes itself at the in and then heads up to the Temple.
The Cairn
In a clearing between two rocky outcroppings rises a cairn of stones over 50 feet high. Atop the great cairn is a modest structure resembling a simple church.
On the way up the Cairn, the party is attacked by 3 desert salamanders.
Desert salamanders are slender 3-foot-long reptiles and are natural predators to the area. They have a rubbery, sand-colored hide which secretes poison when close to prey.
As you reach the crest of the hill, you finally lay eyes on the Temple of Mitra before you. The simple wooden structure has a single weather-beaten door and no windows. From this vantage point, you can see the inn far below, smoke slowly wafting up from its two chimneys.
Approaching, the players knock on the door to the temple. The door is answered by Dak, a young man wearing a simple homespun robe and wool gloves.
The Temple of Mitra is much more modest than you expected, consisting of not much more than a long hall with a few pews.
Several incense burners filling the chamber with a sweet, minty scent.
Down the aisle, slightly obscured by incense smoke, you see the outline of a statue, and can hear the faint sounds of religious chanting.
When asked about offering to the Weeping Maiden, Dak says
“Five upon five and then again, the Maiden sets her price Pilgrims traveling across the sands, will pay for Her advice Wisdom sought is wisdom earned, her countenance will convey If one considers wisdom delivered as solely Yay or Nay”
Suspicious, Vi’sil cast detect evil. Dak lights up. The statue lights up. Behind the curtain, Vi’sil see a all of eerie light pointing to a hidden evil in the next room. Chaos erupts.
There are a series of strikes. Four skeletons brandishing swords, their jawbones flapping disturbingly as they chant emerge from behind the curtain.
Fear chant: The chanting skeletons transform their chant from harmless vocals into a frightful dirge. Any target within 30’ must make a DC 12 Willpower save or experience fright. Frightened opponents immediately flee the area at maximum speed for 1d4+1 rounds. All the skeletons are chanting the same hymn, so the save only needs to be made once.
Chungus is compelled to flee.
The statue of the maiden moves. Drack charges forward swinging his weapons at the basalt maiden.
Dak attempts to turn himself invisible, but fumbles loosing the spell. He retreats, fleeing down the cairn.
The basalt maiden strikes Drack down.
The four skeletons form ranks and push forward to attack.
Va’Sil evokes his patron.
Sealab 