Dramatis Personae
Beltin (Aasimar Dirge Bard/Cleric 10).
Bradley Weatherby (Human Dervish Dancer 10/Knife Master Rogue 7/Duelist 3). - MISSING PLAYER
"Jake" aka Alex, the actual character name but I refuse to go back and edit the old entries (Human Wizard/Rogue 10).
Astar Luno (NG Human Kata Master, Many of Many Styles Monk 10/Sacred Fist War Priest 10). Astar came in with the recent batch of Crusaders and is known by and affiliated with the group, but is not officially a member. This has not stopped the Usurer from gouging him like the rest of the Crusade though. He came to the Desolation to spread freedom and good and such and is now looking for a group to join up with. He heard of all of the members of the party from different people and realized these people were the rising stars of adventuring groups in the Camp and decided joining up with them would be awesome as they must be good people fighting the good fight against evil. What an idiot.
BW's rep grinding pays off as Astar mostly hears good things about him. Beltin and Jake come off as feared and respected, but also generally seen as fair.
Dorf Fortress II - A Night in the Ghost House, Session 12.3 - 9/6/14
Day 19, night
The party enters the keep and finds it opens into a hall filled with wounded dwarves lying around. At the back is a door into a smaller room and here the party sees two dwarves of obviously higher station.
One is much older and wears a prominent symbol of Mordin around his neck and the other is younger but would have the air of a capable leader if it wasn't for the exhaustion and despair that is also palpably radiating from him. The older man introduces himself as Gorrak, cleric of Mordin and steward of the clan Shalemace, and then gives the proper titles of the younger man with the dead-eyed gaze, Thane Fenris Shalemace, thane of the Shalemace clan.
Through asking questions the party eventually gets the following:
The Shalemace clan has been in decline for the last few generations since the battle of Tsar, seemingly through no fault of their own. It has led some of the wisemen among the clan to come to the conclusion that they have been cursed by their ancestors. Why? Well, because of King Kroma.
Kroma was perhaps their greatest king and led the Shalemaces and a coalition of other lesser clans in the battle of Tsar, but he fell to his death in the Dead Lands and his remains and the clan relics he bore were never recovered. It is believed that if the relics are restored to the clan and the remains of Kroma exhumed from the cursed ground of the Desolation, then the curse on the clan will be broken.
Clan tradition says that Kroma fell in battle near a stronghold on a hill in the Dead Fields. And so here they are. They have been in the Desolation for about two weeks and found this area about a week and a half ago. Ever since they have been excavating around the fortress attempting to find the remains of Kroma, which shouldn't be too hard to spot given the relics he bore. It had all seemed so simple when they begun, says Fenris with a thousand yard stare, but now...
They have been under almost constant nightly attack from undead, not just normal undead rabble, but those that seem guided by some kind of intelligent malevolence. The attacks have escalated and over half their force has been killed, hence the fresh graves Jake saw. Very few of the true warriors brought with them remain, the rest being better suited to mining and excavation.
The last few nights have been relatively quiet, but there is a feeling of impending disaster, as though a storm is gathering. Each day flocks of strange birds circle overhead, clearly watching their movements. They know if they try to flee back into the mountains they will never make it alive. The undead will be on them and that will be the end of them. All they can do is hold their defenses as they lose men one by one and the food begins to dwindle. Another thousand yard stare from Fenris.
The party scorns their believe in a curse and calls them stupid for coming here. Fenris bitterly laughs, but doesn't disagree. He knows he has led his expedition to its doom.
The party says they will help defend the fort and ask about where the undead come from. Gorrak explains that masses of undead seem to appear from nowhere a few hundred yards away, almost at random, around the fort. They followed the back trail in the day and found the obvious tracks of many feet, but then suddenly they disappeared like they somehow all blinked into existence and then out.
Teleportation, wonders Jake, but on that scale?
The dwarves sent out some scouts earlier today to try to gather intel, but they never came back. They are most likely dead. With that, there is not much more to say. Gorrak explains that the party will need to camp in the courtyard as the keep is mostly reserved for the wounded; he has done as much as he could to keep everyone in fighting shape, but he is only one man.
Astar volunteers to help and a few channel energy's later, everyone is feeling much better. Out of gratitude some of the dwarves offer to let the party sleep in the keep in their stead, but the party refuses, citing they need it more. Shalemace Clan rep increased.
Outside in the courtyard the party creates a magical cabin to sleep in; the magical accommodations definitely compare favorably to the stone floor the dwarves offered in the keep. Win/win, the party gets to look humble while simultaneously living in relative luxury.
The party goes to bed and doesn't bother leaving a watch; that's what the dwarves on the walls are for after all. They sleep until about 2 a.m. when screams and the sound of battle from the keep brings them suddenly into consciousness.
The party runs in with Beltin calling his archers to follow. Inside the party sees two dwarves from the walls laughing and swinging wildly, surrounded by several other dwarves wielding weapons trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Nearby two dwarves are dead, obviously from getting axed in the head while sleeping. The two dwarves in the middle would appear to be the culprits.
As the party watches, the dwarves surrounding the crazies cut down one of them, and then it becomes clear what is happening. The body falls, but there is still something standing there, laughing maniacally. A ghost. That body-snatching bastard!
Astar quickly moves and hits the other crazy dwarf so hard with non-lethal damage that he almost one shots him. The body is knocked clean off the ghost who was possessing him. The dwarves swing now at the ghosts, but lack magic weapons to hurt them.
Beltin quickly takes control of the ghost from the first dead dwarf and seeing this, the other one decides that shit isn't cool and tries to possess Beltin. Luckily he fails. The archers arrive and put some magic arrows in the ghost and then after succeeding against an attempt by Beltin to command him, the ghost sinks into the floor, apparently fleeing.
Astar heals the man he nearly beat to death one punch and Beltin interrogates the captured ghost, who finds the whole situation still inexplicably hilarious. Gorrak and Fenris watch and listen.
They learn that the ghost serves a lord of Tsar, a necromancer tasked with defending the Desolation. The party asks where his base is and learns that he roams around. They ask where the undead army comes from and he mentions a scepter, a relic of Tsar, that seemingly pulls the army from nowhere.
As the ghost puts it, "He needed an army so Orcus provided him with on."
Next they ask about where the necromancer is now, but all the ghost can say is that he commanded them here from the Crossroads about 2 hours ago. Near midnight. The party gets a sinking feeling that they may have met the necromancer before, but the ghost clarifies that the entity at the Crossroads is not the necromancer, nor do they have dealings he is aware of.
Jake and the party consider teleporting to the Crossroads right now to see if they can catch him there or find some clues, but decide against it.
Finally Beltin asks why the ghosts were sent here. Why, to weaken and harass the defenders of course. To kill, weaken, wound, and distract them. To soften them for the final assault. They were commanded to stay until destroyed and to cause as much trouble as possible.
Beltin notes that the other ghost disobeyed and fled. The captured ghost just grins, and the people watching don't like that, not one bit. The ghost mentions gleefully how it seems awfully quiet outside and weren't those dead men standing guard over the gate?
Gorrak leads some men outside. He returns a few minutes later and reports that the gate is intact, but they found another dead man on a remote corner of the wall. Recently slain, still warm. He seemingly cut his own throat.
That makes 4 dead dwarves. They have 28 left, including Fenris and Gorrak.
Fenris commands everyone inside. Now. Beltin tells him to line up the men, all of whom seem shaken, and then he Detects Undead. And there the ghost is, hiding inside another dwarf, acting just as nervous as the rest. Beltin walks up and down the line, until suddenly turning casting Hold Person on the possessed man; he fails, but the ghost quickly disengages and sinks back into the floor.
Gorrak casts Magic Circle and the group huddles together, except for some men sent outside to watch the gate. They are stay together no matter what and to never let the others out of their sight.
The captured ghost, still floating on the spot where his meat suit was slain, laughs and laughs, and tells them how they will all die until Beltin commands him to shut up.
Time passes but no one can sleep. Suddenly a hand reaches up from the floor and grabs an ankle. A dwarf screams as wounds open up on his leg, and then the wand withdraws. About 15 minutes later it happens again. And it seemingly will forever now unless they can stop it.
The party wonders if they can force their ghost to kill the other, heavily wounded ghost, but realize they have no way of affecting each other besides a 1d4-5 unarmed strike.
New plan. Jake summons an earth elemental, gives it one of his magic daggers, and tells it to go through the floor and kill the ghost. The issue is it has no way to find it. Percentile rolls! 20% chance to randomly run into it and Jake has it for 10 rounds.
Fail upon fail, until suddenly, with two rounds left, the elemental finds the ghost! And stabs it! And it still has 4 HP left! And then the ghost gets away. And the elemental pops. And Jake realizes his dagger is lost under the ground. Son of a bitch!
Finally the party decides to wait for as long as it takes with readied actions. Beltin is going to cast Ghostbane Dirge, which should impede the ghost somewhat if it tries to slink through the floors.
They wait. And wait. Finally an hour later, perception checks! A hand rising from the ground to grab an ankle! Spell! Arrows! Attack!
And finally, finally the ghostly hand breaks down and dissipates. Slain. The sun is now rising. Restful night all around, the remaining ghost seems to be saying with his smirk, but then the party casts Nap Stack and everyone gets a full 8 hour sleep in only 2 hours. Yay, that spell was useful for once!
Day 20
The ghost is disappointed. Beltin commands it to fly east as fast as it can and not to stop. It has no choice but to obey. Hopefully it will be well out to sea before he loses control of it, thinks Beltin.
The dwarves are so glad they let the PCs in.
That afternoon things are as normal as can be in the fort. Birds circle high above. The digging continues. The party waits.
Suddenly roars from the excavation pit! Holy fuck, are those T-Rex skeletons?! The party begins to head down the slope but Jake teleports himself and Astar into the pit. Dwarves begin to line up into ranks to engage the threat, but two excavators weren't so lucky, with one bit in half and the other barely conscious in the the T-Rex's mouth.
Astar is having none of that and Pummeling Styles the T-Rex attempting to devour its dwarven treat into dust. It goes down like a bitch and the party begins to think Astar isn't such a fuck up after all. Haha, just kidding.
Beltin lazily wiggles his fingers and takes command of the other. Crisis averted and Beltin now has a T-Rex skeleton for his menagerie. He laments the fact he can't make it bloody.
Dwarves cheer for the party and their morale is raised and they begin to dream of what once seemed impossible; maybe this Dorf Fortress won't crash and burn after all!
27 dwarves remain.
End of session. No casualties.
