Loaded up a new world, mountains in the north protecting some elves and dwarves, everyone else are goblin slaves, except for one human Civ, The Fancy Nation. They have a single hamlet and a line of forts guarding their various goblin borders. I started with a party consisting of a human demigod hearthperson swordsman riding a war grizzly bear worshipping the fort god, a human hero clerk with public speaking and persuasion skills (and a copper whip) ardently following the goddess of light, and a "Sarenecenene's Hand" (necromancy experiment on elves, humanoid with puffy black feathers and a horn) armorer and smith who happens to be good with her silver war hammer and her stoneware lute. Also brought some other pets but they got stuck in our starting fort.
Scouted around the fort, which is the most remote out of the three. Got ambushed by lots of goblin/dwarf patrols, but claimed one of our old hamlets and declared the demigod as Lord. The goblin recruits were all armed with books that they had written, and they were harmless, so we persuaded them to yield and give up all their stuff. The soldiers were thoroughly mauled by the bear.
The party ventures west to the ruins of a dwarf fortress, where one of the three great stones of necromancy is said to be kept.
The party claimed another abandoned castle and hillocks, spreading out the titles evenly. They reached the fortress, and it was clear from the watchtowers that the site was occupied by the gobbos. We were not prepared for what lay in wait for us as soon as we stepped through the door. Various goblin traders, artisans, artists, and warriors were fleeing through clouds of smoke while their bodies fed hungry pyres of flame. Camel demons belched fire in the ruins of an ancient dwarven temple, balls-deep in the butchered remains of various goblins the library beat each other to exhaustion wielding books that they had written during the lengths of their lengthy lives. The tavern was home to a spirit of fire that had turned the surrounding stone into lava while a couple of goblins thrashed madly in the liquid death.
The party scuttled away behind a watch tower as flaming goblins fled for the hills, followed by a belch of fire that started a brush fire in front of the gate.
After waiting for the smoke and goblins to clear out, we sneaked around the fire and inside the fortress, sneaking towards the central stair case.
Unnoticed, we descended to the treasure room and hunted for the slab. We found some fine arms and gemstones, in addition to sacred goblin-skull totems, but no slab was to be found. Along the way, we collected dice and earned a week of luck and a polar bear pet before tempting fate- both humans were transformed into blood-sucking creatures of the night. It then became clear that we were looking in the entirely wrong fortress: the one that we wanted was on the other side of the mountain. We sneaked back through the milling groups of brawling goblins until a camel demon noticed us and got stuck in an "identify yourself!" loop. The human demigod took on the identity of a goblin-sounding civilization, which turned out to be at war with them, as the demon then aggro'd. The party booked it and managed to avoid engaging the demon, aided by their vampiric stamina, and the heroic sacrifice of the divine polar bear and a stalwart adopted kitten.
The party took a detour to some hillocks occupied by goblins - we conversed with the administrator, the clerk convinced her that violence is immoral, and then we claimed the site. Unfortunately the bear decided to ignore the yielding administrator and just maul her instead. We rescued some fleeing prisoners who were passing through and happily accepted them into the ranks of our vampiric coven.
The party spied a necromancer's tower in the midst of the cursed lands south of the western mountains, and marched through the blighted canyons until they reached its outskirts. Unsure of the strength of the enemy, the entire company waited at a camp to the south while the demigod ventured in alone. He sensed warm blood inside many of the barrows and pyramids surrounding the tower, and ventured in to investigate. Assorted feathered horse-snakes, meat-clumps, feathered-man-spiders and fog-belching...things peered back at him with disinterest, resuming whatever tasks occupied their idle existences as slaves to the master of the tower. Inside, the demigod encountered more of the same, in addition to babbling ghoul-children of incredible age, playing make-believe in their own worlds while utterly ignoring the presence of the intruder.
He explored the tower, reading the various books and scrolls that lay around on diverse subjects, many of which contained titillating titles relating to death and resurrection... but no fantastic secrets were found beyond the sad circumstances of the perversion of various childrens' lives and the disturbance of the rests of a myriad deceased persons.
Eventually, he entered a room containing a skink woman necromancer, clearly the mistress of the tower and perpetrator of all these sad abominations. Addressing her, she called him out as an intruder and threatened his life, drawing her knife and then... fleeing.
He pursued her through winding tunnels, up and down stairways, and through galleries filled with leering, apathetic creatures and babbling ghoul children.
She made it outside and to the top if a small pyramid before he managed to lunge and sever one of her feet. She scrambled through the toxic fog of one of her creations, dodging a few blows before one went through her head.
And it was over. The monsters gazed blankly at their mistress' corpse.
The demigod returned to hunt for books in the tower and found none that were of particular use. He claimed the tower.
Rejoining the party, the adventurers finally addressed the prisoners , asked their names and the locations of their families and homes. Several were fellow countrymen while others came from goblin bastions from faraway lands. Breaking camp, the group traveled far, far north through the warped and cursed wilderness before coming across the great expanse of swamps that surrounded the great rivers that divide the center of the world. Here they ventured for leagues without meeting a single soul, before finally they reached the embattled north, where the subjugated forests and hamlets of elves and humans lay surrounded by goblin-infested pits and fortresses. Further north still, they finally reached the tiny patch of corruption where lay the abandoned tower of the world's greatest necromancer, a parakeet man of particularly perverse tastes, and the party hammerer's creator. Nothing of value besides four old books were found inside.
The party finally ventured south along the mountain's shadow, claiming several razed and abandoned castles that lay amid the fens which goblins had long forgotten about. Eventually, they reached the fortress where the secrets of life and death were said to be kept.
A sight similar to before awaited them. The entire company descended the central staircase while stealthily stepping past goblins. And hurrying along when the demons asked for their papers. They eventually found the gabbro slab on which the slab was enscribed, and the two humans drank deep of the immortal writings. The night creature, it turns out, was not privy to these secrets, being already immortal and imbued with a necromancer's power.
All this while, the party, companions, and pets had ignored a camel demon's repeated requests for identification, and a lot of things happened at once. The demigod and the other two ended up separated, with the clerk and hammerer stuck behind a door with a spirit of fire standing in pools of melted zinc furniture. The companions and bear's zombies were being repeately pulped by the camel demon while being resurrected and dueling with various goblins. The demigod was in the middle of an insurrection between three goblin factions. The end result was that the three adventurers managed to get around the two demons, fight their way through several goblin factions in addition to the two groups of resurrected corpses which were hostile to each other and all living things... it was very tortuous, and bodies kept flying down the staircases and knocking everyone else back down. The final hurdle came while fighting a group of goblins at the very top of the stairs and escaping through the door, past all of the angry demons, goblins, and zombies.
The party fled far, far away, minus a few limbs and other body parts, in addition to most of their possessions, which melted or caught fire.
The prisoner rescue missions were written off...
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Topic: What's going on in your adventure? (Read 2130975 times)