Averlorn Campaign: Run Aground and Trouble in Medea's Gate

Recap from 1-5-2011

So after completing our storyline last session by dispelling the gate glyph in the Maw of Torment, we decided to take the "safe route" back to Medea's Gate from Limus Town by booking passage on a merchant ship rather than traveling through the now snow covered mountain pass where we had had so much trouble previously with the Ogres and Ice Toads. The Ice Toads actually killed one of our henchmen with their frosty breath weapon. We had Cyrcla, an Elf character (basic D&D fighter/wizard Elf class) raised by the Surgeons when we arrived in Medea's Gate two sessions ago. The comments on the Day of the Ice Toad thread "I told you we should have taken the damned boat" and the illustration there pretty well sum up our feelings about how dangerous the pass was after that encounter. Se we were thinking, take the boat, its a cake walk then we were planning on taking the winter off and spending a little of our hard earned cash on rest and relaxation. Things don't always go as planned however.

While traveling through the Dormant Lady Lake on the ship, we were hit with an early winter squall and started singing the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald "when the storms of November came early" by Gordon Lightfoot (Tony rolled boxcars on the sailing roll). We got lucky though in that the boat didn't sink but barely managed to run aground due to the skill of the captain. So we set off on horseback for Medea's Gate to bring word for someone to help the ship's crew to get the boat off of the shoal before they got frozen in. We were thinking no problem, its only a three day's ride to the city. First, one of our horses was killed when it was attacked by a big cat of some sort overnight which Arceus and Lykaos quickly dispatched. The next day when we started traveling again, we ran into three really nasty evil chimpanzee or monkey creatures (they were Ketch) that ambushed us with a snare trap that broke the paladin's horse's leg (sadly, we had to put him down later). Then all three jumped on the prone Paladin Lykaos and nearly killed him before Brummbar managed to cast hold person (Hold Monkey?) on all three and they failed their save. They were quickly dispatched and we healed the injured Lykaos. The next day, we were thinking we were in the home stretch but then ran into three Owl Bears next to the water that decided that we were on the menu. Another one of our horses went down when they attacked Tarus and Teth-En-Aire and both adventurers were nearly killed before the rest of the group managed to come to the rescue with Lykaos the paladin and Lucias the fighter in the front to kill the evil beasts. The two were rent horribly by the evil creatures and lucky to make it out of that fight alive. We healed them up and headed towards Medea's Gate, down two horses but otherwise alive.

Then we finally made it to town and we quickly realized that the boat wasn't always as safe a method of travel as it seemed when things went wrong. So we set about trading magic items, paid our taxes, did our year end stuff, made some interesting random event rolls where a few players managed to find or earn some money and a very high level cleric scroll for removing a curse from someone. And then we did our carousing - Lucias and Arceus were the biggest partiers who ended up spending the most (more money = more experience points) but nothing seriously bad happened to them (Lucias had a wicked hangover though). Lykaos, the Paladin, abstained of course, and Brummbar, the dwarven cleric partied a little but not nearly with the gusto of the younger humans. Teth-En-Aire, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. Apparently, he got mixed up in some gambling at a seemingly high quality establishment called the Iron Urn, and was taken for almost all of the money he had on him. He finally fessed up when pressed and told us he lost about 4000 g.p. at the table - essentially all of his loot was gone except his money in the bank but he did get to roll for "starting gold" again. But that wasn't all he lost. Apparently, he thought his hand was so good (he kept saying but I had Ace King!) that he bet not only his +1 platemail but also his +1 ring of protection and lost them both! OUCH!!!!! So that was about 20k or more gold pieces down the tubes...

Thus ended our very eventful and entertaining session.  There were some errands to attend to in the city but also a lot of unexpected action in the wilderness and a bit of comedy at the end with the carousing rolls. The carausing rolls definitely add a very swords and sorcery feel to the game like you would read in a Conan or Fahfred and the Gray Mouser book or something...