Happenings and Going Ons in the Red Frontier Part 2

These events took place during August thru October of 2022

While the Urgak and Wier were preparing to fight against the forces of Law, the players were busy making their own plans. Using the Eagle Eye treasure found in Cahn's treasure hoard, Boldvay cast levitation and invisibility on Mark the Thief to have him fly far into the air to spy on the forces of Chaos to the east and southeast. He managed to see a large force getting ready in some ancient city on the coast of Crystal Lake. Made up of hill giants, neanderthals, green dwarves, bugbears, iron golems, a dragon, and many others. It was more than enough to wipe out Pottsfort and the surrounding areas. And towards the east, Mark saw the burning fort of the Knights of Chic Fa'lar.

Lord Commander Roggett commanded most of the civilians to seek shelter in the Power Station with a company of his troops and some mercenaries for protection. He and most of his troops decided to stay and fend off the oncoming armies. Zappos, the eccentric wizard, decides to use the Black Eidolon for the upcoming battle. Boldvay decides to summon two efreeti to aid the forces of law. He also decides to the scroll of summon undead legion. The only problem is finding enough corpses for such a task. Zappos approaches him and tells he know of a place where he can contact a being who lords over another domain. A being who could aid him with supplying with such a force. But doing so is dangerous, and could very well cost Boldvay much. Boldvay doesn't hesitate and asks Zappos to lead him to such a place.

Zappos, using his teleportation mirror, takes Boldvay to a small secluded lake in the southwest. They arrive at night and it's cold. Boldvay can hear whispering in the back of his mind. Zappos uses words of power to summon the DM of Brovenloft, Moundshroud of the Mists. 

Anyway, Boldvay and Quirkus soon set out to the north shore of Crystal Lake before Wier's forces can get there. Quirkus, in the crab mech, casts invisible, uses the control dragon potion and takes possession of one of Wier's dragons and manages to destroy some of the Dark Lord's forces. Boldvay then meets Wier and the rest of his forces at the northern shore of Crystal Lake while Quirkus gets out of sight. The powerful mists Brovenloft emerge from the woods just north of coast. Through the mists, a large army of undead make their way to the invaders. Ghostly tendrils and envelops the beached army. In no time, it kills the remaining forces and takes their souls and Boldvay to it's fog-drenched realm.

 

Wier then returns to the ancient city and realizes that his remaining troops found an underground bunker containing a cache of ancient, future tech weaponry, including nukes and a stargate. Wier's player, who is also a patron in both in Dubzaron and Brovenloft, will surely put such weaponry to use in those campaigns! I'm sure this in no way will come back to bite me in the ass (it does)!

With Boldvay gone, the Efreeti were no longer under his control, and decide to burn down most of Pottsfort before leaving. The Lord Commander declares Boldvay a wanted man. Another thing, between making a deal to destroy an undead army, and allowing the efreeti to run destroy Pottsfort, Boldvay's alignment changed to Chaotic. 

Soon some of the players travel to Brovenloft themselves. I don't know much about those adventures as I only ran two sessions in that setting. The first the players had to drive a tank from Boldvay's fort to aid the force's of Eddie. Not much happened other than encountering some giant snakes and hippogriffs. The next session though proved to be game changing to Brovenloft itself. 

They meet up with my patron there, Reverend Hopkins. Hopkins gives them the idea to nuke the Brovenloft city of Dublin due to him thinking that the Irish there were going to become a major threat later on. Two of the players gleefully accepted the mission and managed to out maneuver angels sent by the Pope himself and ultimately kamikazed themselves by flying the nuke, which was powerful Tsar bomb originally found in the Red Frontier, into the city of potato demons. This was hilarious! I used a combination of grenade throwing rules from AD&D 1E with this website. It was a hit and proved to be devastating. Not really sure what happened afterwards but it was fun. Eventually some of the players, and Boldvay himself, managed to make it back to the Red Frontier. And that's it for now!

Session 17: Harley's Death and Wirrow's Trail of Tears

 Between session 16 and this one, Wirrow Warren's patron rolled some encounters for his small domain. He came up with a travelling level one fighter whose name I've forgotten, and a twelve headed hydra. Oh boy, it's a big un'! Over the weeks that the players travelled to and from Rivertown, Harley the river dragon they made friends with, was staying at Wirrow's before heading up river to the Old Bastard. Then the twelve headed hydra showed up. It gained surprise on the likeable river dragon, and in one round managed to tear the poor beast apart. It didn't spare the hobbits either as it then claimed the Bloated Badger as it's own. Wirrow and his hobbits fled to Woodshome and since then began selling whiskey out of the back of his wagons. He's also put a 10,000 gold bounty for the death of the hydra.

Finally returning from their trip to Rivertown, the players heard the sad news and began making plans. Laughing Fox, over the week back, managed to recruit a small army of giant catfish, and Boldvay hired a local "scout" to go and see what he could discover about the hydra in it's new domain. He never returned. After a bit, they decided to head back down to Crystal Lake and retrieve the crab mech. On their way there, they came across twelve mummies wondering to the side of the road. After a long battle, including the use of Web, Holy Word, and Holy Weapon, along with their magical weapons, the team managed to decimate the vile dust bags. But some of the party, including Laughing Fox, Dogbreath, and Laurentius contracted Mummy's Rot. That said, the began to follow the mummies' trail and by afternoon found their tomb.

Inside the tomb, they found twelve sarcophagi, an evil altar to the ancient being Yog-Sothoth, and four treasure chests. They managed to unlock three, one containing 6,000 electrum pieces, a second with eight ivory skulls worth a 1,000 gp each, and finally the last, which contained 7,000 gold pieces and a silver scepter with a bloodstone carved into the shape of Yog-Sothoth. They left and put the chests on the wagon and continued to spider lair with the crab mech. Reaching their, they retrieved the mech and began the march back to Woodshome. On their way back, the encountered two giant black widow spiders which were quickly dispatched and later, five black panthers. The panthers didn't attack and seemed curious or in awe with the crab mech that was being piloted by Hellena Keller. The group charmed the beasts and them and the panthers finally reached Woodshome and look for a cure for their Mummy Rot.

Total XP: 

4 Hench: 1,063 XP each 

Players:

(0%) = 4,251 XP 

(5%) = 4,464 XP 

(10%) = 4, 676 XP

Session 16: Crystal Lake and Stargates

With most of their main characters out of play for a bit, our players return with new PCs. They are: Dark Mark, Tethro Jull, Eric Cromson, along with Hellena Keller, and Laurentius returning. Not too worried about death, they set out to explore the unnamed lake on the southeaster part of the map. I told them that the lake is not named and whatever they come up with will be it's name from now on. They went with Crystal Lake. Because of course they did. Anyway, they take their time exploring, and I roll for an encounter for each hex, plus one for night as they bed down. They made slowly made their way down to the southern shore of the lake, following an ancient road.

Surprisingly, they only had one encounter during this exploration. They came across three giant black widows who were looking for some food. The food being the party. Needless to say, the spiders weren't a match for the party. Tethro and Eric go down to the bottom of the spider lair that they found, and were surprised and webbed by two of the spiders. While being webbed, they see five tunnels, each about five feet wide and ten feet tall. Tethro also hear the spiders laughing. The group up top uses their strength to pull them out of the webs and slowly made their way back up. Though they did manage to kill one PC and nearly killed another, Tethro Jull. He was bitten on his way down the spiders' lair, but charmed one of the spiders to help him. The spider brought him into one of the tunnels and dropped him into a glowing pool. He managed to heal his wounds. The other two spiders were killed by the other players up top. Tethro, being a bard, managed to convince the other spider to go back up top and help its friends. It followed through and was quickly killed.

Once all the spiders were killed, the remaining party went down and began to explore the spider lair. They found some loot, but also, down the hall with the healing pool, they found a manmade chamber. This chamber has two smaller chambers on each side. At the back of the chamber they see a large round disk with a silvery liquid surface. They explore a bit and find an astral map, some ancient books, and what appears to be ancient, small, crab-mech. After searching, Tethro jumps in the portal and disappears. 

The rest of party decides not to follow him in and instead leave out of the chamber and spider lair and come back next session for the mech. Tethro on the other hand found himself on a strange new world. He sees to his north jungles of a zircon color, the south a desert, west mountains, and the east, a ruined cityscape. Hovering above him, a red sun and two moons: one green with lines of fire webbed around it and a smaller red, cracked moon. No stargate though, just a large stone pad. He makes his way to the city. Tethro soon comes across a group of humans, three white and two green. He impresses them, and though he can't understand their language and vice versa, they lead him to a makeshift inn in the city. The rest of party had no other encounters on their way back. 

TOTAL XP:

(0%) = 194 XP

(5%) = 204 XP

(10%) = 214 XP