Prince of Darkness

Summary

Adventure: Prince of Darkness
GM: Jon
Season: Spring 797 WK

Party

Kel, Elf leader and military scientist.
Pent, Halfling scribe and fighter.
Merthac, Halfling but easy to wind up.
Dunlan, Human alchemist who makes bad tasting potions.
Sasha, Human good looking noble.
Tso, Human philosopher from The Five Sisters.
Ty Trident, Human knight and healer.

Time on adventure: 1 Thaw 797 to 27 tHAW 797 WK
Employer: Aldred, Count of Karrack
Mission: Duke Branden has given the fiefdom of Ereworn to the Evil necromancer Saydar (Guild Member). The Earls of Cornumbria and Karrack (Aldred) have sent messages to King Durindar at Glissom. Alas he seems to be returning the messages unopened and has become a recluse in his own castle, only being seen by his Steward Kilnded. Our mission is to deliver the Count's message to King Durindar. We are to join the Kings guard temporarily over the time of their festival, as outsiders are hired so the regular guard can join in the celebrations.
Pay: 120 gold sovereigns between the party.
Original Scribe Notes: Media:Snsp9705.zip

Scribe Notes

1st Thaw 797 WK

Kel spent today checking the guild library for references to the area we are travelling to. She found information on Glissom, King Durindar, The Mountains of Brack, The Prince of Darkness, Prince Fengil, Eltrandor

We then spent 1000 sp. on party equipment.

2nd Thaw 797 WK

Left the guild with horses and portaled to Brandenburg. Rode north to a town and stayed the night. Stayed in the local Inn. (15 sp. 1 cf.)

3rd Thaw 797 WK

Rode north through the forest passing wagons laden with food and wool until we reached a village called Pillaton. Stayed in another Inn. (8 sp.)

4th Thaw 797 WK

Rode for half a day to village of Ingham. Yet another Inn. (6 sp.)

5th Thaw 797 WK

Rode through farmland to Axebridge. The Inns are getting cheaper. (5 sp.)

6th Thaw 797 WK

Rode north towards Ashmore. We spotted and avoided a hungry bear. Later on the trail some hobgoblins, including an air mage, attempted to ambush us but we killed a whole lot of them and interrogated one. They were just pretending to be bandits. We recovered some coppers (147 cf.) to offset our expenses and continued on to town.

Ashmore does not have an Inn as it burnt down last year.

7th Thaw 797 WK

Rode through the forest to the river then across the ford and into a village. Stayed in an Inn owed by the widow Morde. (48 cf.) Inquired of the road ahead.

8th Thaw 797 WK

Rode through the next village then on to Glissom. Crossed with the ferry (8 cf.) run by Ned whose brother Hyden owns "The Silver Griffin", a reputable Inn. We negotiated for lodgings until the 14th (30 sp. 80 cf.) and went to the commons for dinner. (5sp.) Kel went upstairs to her room to rest.

Met Doron, local prince and heir to throne, who bought us drinks and wanted to hear adventuring stories. Doron told us of a suspicious package delivered to the castle a few days ago by an Azurian ship.

He also told us of his wandering in the Siren forest, which is inhabited by fey (fairies, nymphs, pixies), searching for the Ruins of Mimir. Generally you are safe from the fey if you don't stray from the path. In the north of the forest is a small village that used to deal extensively (many years ago) with the city of Nem (Now frozen in the lake). He then got drunk, went and picked a fight with a big peasant and had to be rescued by the guard.

9th Thaw 797 WK

Held morning conference on next step then went to see the steward Kilnded with regard to being the guards over the festival. He agreed to hire us for 50 sp. each for the one night (the 14th, also a full moon). Afterwards we found out that he is a Necromancer allied to The Prince of Darkness. We looked around the castle, so we could better protect it, and saw King Durindar on his throne. He wasn't moving and didn't look well, also he hadn't touched his food and seemed to have a lot of makeup in his room.

We went back and talked to Doron who said he personally wasn't very popular around town, especially with the local council. He also told us of a couple of notable personages around town.

Hadron
Lord Rockwall
Chang

Also Doron told us of The White Tower in the Siren forest which apparently contains a powerful weapon (sword he thinks) We decided to try and get a closer look at the King tomorrow, as we were worried about him.

10th Thaw 797 WK

We had another look around the castle grounds, looking for good spots to do our guarding from, and noticed that Kilnded had quite a lot of personal guards. He had six normal guards and two Guntan barbarians. Phon carried a great axe and a battle-axe, and Mut wielded a two handed sword and a crossbow. Duncan hunted and captured a pigeon then Sir Ty slipped in to have a look at King Durindar. King Durindar was not alive but instead had been turned into a zombie (Sir Ty has seen this before), all the food was rotten and the makeup was clearly there to make him seem alive for his annual address to the people.

This disturbed us and we felt that Kilnded (a necromancer remember) had turned King Durindar into a zombie to rule the kingdom. So we went to the prince (who should actually be the king now) and told him what we'd found. We then discussed the best way to reveal Kilnded for who he was.

11th Thaw 797 WK

We watched Kilnded carefully most of the day and observed that he seemed quite paranoid. At night he slept to midnight when he climbed up on his roof and performed some sort of strange ritual for two hours. Now we're really worried.

12th Thaw 797 WK

Kel decided we should go with prince Doron and investigate Lord Rockwall and Hadron, both council members, to see if they were in league with Kilnded. We went to Lord Rockwall's (a large manor house for lunch. Apparently Lord Rockwall had come to Glissom 12 years ago and Kilnded had been installed as steward only 10 years ago. Also Hadron (the Healer) had only been living with Lord Rockwall only the last few years. Having previously lived with Sordin. Hadron was very old, a human around 150 years old or more, and a little hard of hearing. Hadron is apparently a Seer, Alchemist and Healer (who can resurrect).

Sasha had little tour of the manor house and it seemed pretty normal. Discussions over lunch dealt with the Ruins of Mimir (also known as the City of Knowledge) that was in the forest. Also Hadron wanted to do a "Reading" on some one and would require a little blood for this. Kel went off with Hadron.

After lunch we chatted with Lord Rockwall who alluded to a mysterious adventuring past, he also showed us his axe collection and his magic chain armour of shattering. Sir Ty inquired about invested items that Lord Rockwall said he could make as well as some sort of experimental powder and potions. Generally seemed quite expensive though.

Meanwhile Hadron, in his seer capacity, was seeing all sorts of horrible visions with Kel. Merely by touching her arm he saw a vision of a huge head with big mandibles clipping off the top of someone's head and eating their brains (he says seers are MORE reliable than astrology). Hearing of this Kel decided this blood "seeing" might be a good idea. The results of this were more disturbing :

"There were three dark forces and one gray at work. We had to travel into the mountains to stop them, If we didn't darkness would befall and devastate the land."

She came back and Dunlan also had a reading (Hadron could only do two per day) and he got this :

"A very powerful Dark Force would be released if we do not stop it. There is one who plots you ill and a servant of the dark one who seeks to betray all."

After discussion we pretty much decided that the servant was Kilnded and we should do something about him. We went back to the Inn and Dunlan did an Astrology reading early in the evening, asking the question "When will the powerful dark force return to the land." and he found out the following :

"On the darkest night when the moon no longer shines, the prince of darkness will arise."

Sir Ty says the next new moon is two weeks after the festival, so we have two weeks and two days to do something.

Another further reading indicated that it mattered not whether Kilnded was present at this time or not. We decided we needed to check our Kilnded more thoroughly and perhaps have a chat to him. We went to the prince's house then popped over to see Kilnded. He didn't want to come with us so we had to subdue him and his bodyguard Mut. He had some suspicious stuff one him :

Dagger of Death - no sheath
Skull Ring - Rank 10 Necrosis.
Amulet made from alligator's teeth. (Amulet of Luck)

Also Mut had the following :

Potion of night vision.

This caused an uproar in the castle and they sent the captain of the guard to ask us to look for Kilnded. He also said he had sent for Lord Rockwall to come to investigate the incident. We searched Kilnded's room for clues as to his disappearance (and for evidence of his complicity with the dark forces) and found:

A copper rod with a gray blob on the end. Gold detection!
A pouch of gold coins. (150 gs.)
Phial of Lithon potion.
Potion of night vision.
Potion of strength.
Keys. (To the royal treasury!)

We then left the castle and went back to our Inn to wait for Lord Rockwall. After investigation we found that Kilnded had had a number of magic's upon him recently.

Detect Undead.
Ventriloquism - a necromancy spell cast 10 weeks ago.
Strength of Stone.
Mind Speech.

We left a note at the north gate for Lord Rockwall telling him to meet us at the prince's house. He came (at around three in the morning) and there was a lady called Dawn (actually a Mind mage) with him. We told him everything we had found out and they went up to the castle to have a look. They returned and Lord Rockwall said that he would call together the council and convince them to go and look at King Durindar, as he was a zombie. They also said that they were worried about The Fire of Balor, otherwise known as the Sacred Hearth Fire, as it is said that Glissom cannot fall will it still burns in the Kings tower. I kept watch as Dunlan did another astrology reading and everyone else slept. Dunlan asked :"Will Dawn betray us on our quest." and he found out the following :

"Moon, Reversed temperance, Death, Reversed chariot, Reversed king of pentangles, Two of cups, Queen of swords, Ten of swords."

He had no idea what this meant.

13th Thaw 797 WK

With Dawn assisting we interrogated Kilnded and found out all about his evil plot. He has made a deal with Prince Fengil to assist him in releasing Balor. On the evening of the Festival the legendary Hawks of Balor will swoop down upon the Kings tower and take the kings body and the Sacred Hearth Fire to Prince Fengil. Prince Fengil would then use the fire to melt the magical ice that is imprisoning Balor that Crocell created. Prince Fengil is currently occupying the temple of Balor on the northern side of Lake Nimmur that covers the frozen city of Nem. Kilnded's job is to cast a spell to put out all the fires to allow the Hawks of Balor to approach unseen. Since he liked Dawn so much Kilnded offered to marry her and make her his queen thus keeping her safe when Balor returned. Kilnded found an ancient invocation that allowed him to summon Balor to pact with him. As a result of this pact he learnt the following spells :

Call Master - Normal. This is bad enough.
Darkness
Darkvision
Eclipse the moon - Creates a localised Solar Eclipse. This also makes a large area of fear.
Extinguish Light - Turns off all lights in a large area.
Javelin of Darkness - Creates a magical Javelin. This will blind the target if they fail a MR.
Shadow Fall - Creates twilight for a 1-mile radius.
Shadow Form
Shadowed Self - Turns into a shadow and travels like that. Reduces the caster's life force.
Summon and Control Dark creatures
Travel Home - ?
Ventriloquism
Wall of Darkness