Category Archives: Journal Entries

Journal entries for the Jade Regent campaign

February 4th, 2017

Character: Olmas

Annals of the Order of the Dragon

as written by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia, himself.

Starday, 22 Kuthona

The machine now silent, the group moderately weakened (at least spellwise), and with yet another floor above us, Kali asked for time to recover 3 spells.  Radella continued playing with the controls, and while it could not be said she mastered it, she could get it to do what she wanted about, I don’t know, half the time.  It was apparently pretty complex, even for her. A couple of others slowly recovered from a touch of idiocy that the little glass scorpions had bestowed upon them.  When you’ve been touched by idiocy, time is your friend.

Kali then announced she was going to do some recon.  She summoned a small air elemental to (easily) go up the still-windy center and report back on what it found up there.

It reported, and I’m paraphrasing here, that “there was a great tumult of wind in the center, the room held many frozen dead, the room had gems with lightning passing between them.” Kali concluded that the only thing lacking was a fireball, so from the edge of the shaft, she sent up a fireball to complete the scene.

Kali sent up another surprise: two earth elementals who were told to push any undead down the shaft.  Then we quickly arranged for us all to have cold resistance (Suishen supplied it for me) and prepared to head up ourselves.  Before we could summon the platform, we did see two bodies fly down the shaft so apparently the elementals were following instructions.

Ivan gave us Hide from Undead, and Qatana put a circle against evil on me, and all the fighters got fly or air walk.  Upon arriving at the next level, a quick glance filled in the details the air elemental had not been able to provide. Six equally spaced gem circled the outer wall, with great arcs of lightning going from them up to the ceiling, where they converged in a giant blue all of energy.  Also on the outside edge, 4 platforms rose from the floor to the level of the gems – at least fifty feet – with each ending near an open window.  Standing on one of the platforms was a blue-skinned woman: Katiyana.

As we arrived she looked down upon us and produced an energy burst which seemed to affect some of us worse than others. I did not escape damage, but seemed to fare better than some  of my companions. Kali hasted us all, and I started airwalking my way up to the sylph.

Then the sylph started som intense chanting that seemed to take way longer than a regular spell. Kali yelled, “Summoning!” and I closed the distance to to try to attack her. But the wind from the center blew me against an outer wall as I stopped moving, so I used the ring of ram to try to smack her – and missed. Little did I know that that broke the hide from undead spell for everybody; I had thought as long as I left the undead alone the spell would hold.  Oh well. Qatana successfully inflicted a touch of idiocy on Katiyana, but below us suddenly the undead noticed Ivan and Kali and began attacking them.

Allowed to finish her spell, Katiyana did indeed summon a demon, but because of my circle of protection, it was forced off the ledge and dropped 50′ to the ground.  That did not start off its involuntary visit to the material plane on an up note.  In a quicker move, she also conjured a being of pure force using a spell that Qatyana recognized as spiritual ally, and she briefly warned me that I could not attack it physically.  It, of course, would have no trouble attacking me.

Below me, it turned out, the demon was looking at an easy, paralyzed target named Ivan.  Kali, however, created a pit underneath it and it dropped another 20′ and could no longer reach Ivan.  Welcome again to the material plane.

I, however, was learning a big difference between air walk and fly. The latter allowed for the possibility you might be able to reach a point and hold it, even in a strong wind.  Air walk, however, was an automatic fail – if I wasn’t walking, I was being pushed by the very strong wind. Another attempt got me blown right next to one of the arcing crystals and almost out a window.  A thought occurred to me – if I can’t get to the sylph, perhaps I can get the sylph to come to me.  I turned and attacked the crystal, which terribly vexed Suishen, who wanted me to attack living creatures. That would make me happy too, but I’m working with what I’ve got …

Radella finally made it to the demon, and smacked it so hard she splattered whatever constitutes demon blood all over the walls. Welcome to the material plane.

In general, our resistance to cold was helping a great deal with the frozen undead.  However their ability to paralyze us we had no defense against, and once held in place we were easy targets.

The sylph did seem annoyed at my attacks on the crystal, which by now was greatly diminishing its arcing contribution to the ball of lightning. It was not yet destroyed, but clearly significantly damaged. The battered demon swung at Radella and missed, but Radella returned the favor with a powerful swing and sent it back from whence it had come. Thank you and please don’t visit again.

The crystal I’d been hacking on finally shattered and electricity ceased to flow from it. I (air) walked down to the ground but as I did so, the wind suddenly stopped. I looked up and Kali had flown up and blocked the input somehow, so now there was no downflow. I could walk to and attack Katiyana again!

But I was too late. The rest of the party had been slowly but steadily diminishing the frozen undead, and I’d seen at least one tumble into the shaft when the platform disappeared.  And the sylph had tried to impudently walk pasr Sparna while he had a weapon ready, and he simply struck her down as she passed.  How ignominious.  Or desperate.  Maybe it was just a cry for attention.

From her body we collected

[424] scroll of cleanse
[425] magic breastplate +1
[426] MW buckler
[427] headband of mental superiority +2
[428] spell components
[429] unholy symbol of Sithud

and just in case they should prove useful,

[430] crystal shards

We took the time to destroy each of the crystals, and as we suspected, the ball of lightning faded and finally disappeared altogether, and when it did, the wind stopped.

Returning to the ground floor, it was apparent that it was not just the central shaft that had lost the wind. The surrounding area was no longer suffering the effects of storm. In fact, the clouds had cleared and we could see stars.

There was still the mushroom room on the ground floor that we had not inspected, and in the interest of being thorough, we decided to go there and encounter the invisible carnivorous fungi.  Using my last favor from Suishen today, I asked for see invisible and I was able to strike some down as well as direct others in their battles and spells.  Whenever the man-sized fungi attacked they became briefly visible, so we knew they were real 🙂 For our troubles, upon defeating the four of them we were able to harvest a modest amount of (allegedly edible, according to Qatana) mushrooms to add to dinner.

Character: Qatana

Qatana’s Journal for Kuthona 22, 4712

Starday, Kuthona 22, 4712 noon
Storm Tower

“You never listen to me — you should have killed her!” Star fumed.

“I took the best action available given our situation, and the sylph was killed more quickly because of that,” I replied.

This argument had been going on for some time, and I was already weary of it. Sending Radella up to attack Katiyana had been the tactically wise thing to do. Radella was much better at melee than I, and we needed to take the sylph down as quickly as possible.

I would have joined Radella and Sparna in pressing the attack had Katiyana not died so soon after two of our primary fighters got their first real chance to engage her.

But Star was beyond reasoning with, and I noted from their silence that some of my other friends had taken her side. Only Huffy and McLovin tried to calm her down, but they had always been the most reasonable of my cadre. Something needed to be done or I’d never hear the end of it.

“How about this,” I offered as a compromise, “we’ll spend more time practicing and improving our fighting techniques from now on.”

There was a moment of silence followed by a reluctant, “As long as you really mean it” from Star. The others relaxed, sensing that the most bellicose of them was standing down.

It had really been a tough battle, and was a hair’s breadth away from ending in disaster (for us).

From the tower’s mid level Radella had experimented with the control panel, figuring out how to send a platform up to the top level with a covering to protect us from the terrific wind that howled down the center shaft.

Kali sent up an air elemental to scout up above, and it reported back that their was a great tumult of wind with lightening arcing out from large gems. Frozen undead were walking about.

By this time Radella was fairly confident she could summon the covered platform, and so Kali detonated a fireball and sent two earth elementals up to wreak as much havoc as possible. She was rewarded a few moments later when a pair of bodies fell down from above.

The rest of us prepared for combat with a Magic Circle Against Evil, Protection from Energy spells (for both cold and electrical damage), and Ivan cast Hide from Undead upon all of us. I then cast Fly upon myself and used a wand to confer the same on Kali, Radella, and Sparna.

We took the magical platform up.

Stepping off I could see six large blue glowing gemstones set high in the walls about us. Bolts of lightening zapped from them up and out a thirty foot hole in the ceiling, above which hovered the enormous swirling blue ball of energy. Beneath each gem was a small platform at least fifty feet above the floor.

Hoarfrost spirits were shambling about, and a winged blue skinned woman was leaning out from one of the platforms above. She released a spell in the midst of us, but I could not sense any affect, although some of my companions looked alarmed. This was obviously Katiyana, whom Tunuak had so idolized.

The plan seemed obvious: slay the sylph first and then mop up the undead.

Kali cast haste upon us as the woman hit us with another spell, and a sphere of color exploded about us.

Radella, Sparna and I began the arduous task of flying up to Katiyana, battling the hurricane force winds. Olmas had earlier asked Suishen for Airwalk, and he too began to climb up, but as soon as he stopped the winds slammed him against the wall near the sylph.

I assumed we would all fly up, but for some reason Kali and Ivan remained on the floor, trusting in the Hide From Undead spell. Surely they realized that the spell would end once we attacked. Ivan had to know, right? And Kali was smart, she must know. I returned my attention to Katiyana.

Olmas whacked at Katiyana as I moved in and bestowed Touch of Idiocy upon her. Radella landed nearby and hit her hard.

She was not a happy sylph.

With Hide from Undead now cancelled, the hoarfrost spirits shuffled towards Ivan and Kali. I saw them close in on Kali, but so had Sparna who swooped down to her aide, thus freeing the three of us next to Katiyana to focus on her.

Unfortunately for us she summoned a red daemon. Unfortunately for her Olmas had been the focus of the Magic Circle Against Evil spell, and as the daemon appeared it was forced off the platform, plunging fifty feet onto the hard stone floor.

Later I found that this was not as fortuitous as it could have been. Ivan was standing directly beneath us, and had been paralyzed by the touch of an undead. The daemon landed next to him, and while injured it was still alive, and seriously pissed off.

Sparna had faired no better, and he too was paralyzed, standing rock still next to Kali. Those of us above were oblivious to their plight.

Katiyana flew away from us, but whereas we had to struggle through the wind, she flitted about as if it were dead calm. In her place appeared a daemon made of pure force.

“Hurray! Pookie called out.

“No, Pookie, that one isn’t ours.”

I chased after the sylph and touched her with Bestow Curse, as Beorn cackled loudly (it being his favorite spell). Radella joined me, carving deep gashes in our foe.

Katiyana was even less happy now, and she dispelled Fly from Radella, who drifted dow to the floor.

Katiyana’s force daemon flew over to harass me, giving the sylph the perfect opportunity to use Hold Person.

“Move, move, move!” my friends chanted. But I was held firmly in place.

Olmas then tried to Airwalk into combat, but the winds threw him across the room into another wall. Realizing the futility of trying to move about in this fashion he climbed up to the nearest gem stone and began to smash it.

Clearly this had been the right thing to do, because Katiyana sent her force daemon to stop Olmas. Katiyana flew to another platform, and Sparna, who had since recovered from his paralysis, flew up and bashed the crap out of her.

“Bitch!” shouted Badger.

Down on the floor Radella wasted no time in pulverizing the daemon, which vanished with a pop! and a cloud of greasy black smoke.

Kali had not been idle all of this time, and suddenly the wind in the room ceased. She had flown up to the ceiling and used a spell to summon a structure of force, which blocked the wind.

I broke free from the Hold Person effect and briefly pondered my course of action. “Kill her! Kill her!” screamed Star. Yes, this clearly needed to be done, but how to do so as quickly as possible?

I flew down toward Radella, with Star screaming shrilly all of the way, and touched her with the wand of Fly. “Go, kill her!” I yelled, pointing up at Katiyana.

And as quickly as that it was over. Radella grievous wounded Katiyana, and when the sylph tried to flee Sparna and Radella put an end to her.

We next focused on the undead (with Star spouting obscenities the whole time), and once they were gone we flew up to the gem stones and smashed them all.

The lightening stopped and the glowing maelstrom above soon dissipated. The winds stopped.

It was dead calm, and some of us flew out the hole in the roof to gaze at the silent star lit landscape surrounding the tower.

Down below we stripped Katiyana’s corpse and flung her into a bag of holding.

[424] scroll of Cleanse
[425] +1 breastplate
[426] masterwork buckler
[427] Headband of Mental superiority (+2 INT, WIS, CHA) (Radella)
[428] spell component pouch
[430] shards of blue crystal (from the walls)

We descended to the base of the tower via another magical platform, and wondered if there might be a basement level and began to search. We moved into the previously unexplored mushroom side of the tower.

Mixed in with the small edible mushrooms were much larger, invisible fungi that wanted to eat us. They would appear briefly just before biting, and then vanish.

Suishen had granted Olmas the ability to See Invisible, and with his direction we were able to kill the fungi. My inability to consistently hit the creatures did nothing to improve Star’s mood.

Image by Jeff Deuchler

We collected bits of the aggressive dead fungi, which turned visible shortly after perishing, and I harvested a good number of the mushrooms for cooking.

We have rested a short while, and I have taken this opportunity to write a journal entry and sooth an irate battle mouse.

Character: Kali

Kali’s Journal, Kuthona 22, 4712

Kuthona 22, 4712 (afternoon, Storm Tower)

Stupid, stupid, stupid! I need to stop making little mistakes like this before they get someone killed. The speed with which one bad decision can cascade into a crisis is alarming. It is basically my fault that both Ivan and Sparna ended up in danger—I could have dealt with it if it was just one of them, but both? How do you make that decision? Gods, we got lucky.

How did all this happen?

I summoned a small air elemental and sent it up the core to just scout around for us, and it told us about the winds, and the frozen dead aimlessly wandering about. The former were strong and would hamper our flight, and that meant we couldn’t ignore the latter. After discussing it with the others, we tried a simple, opening salvo to thin their ranks: a fireball sent up the bore to detonate in the room, followed by earth elementals to push one or two down. This mostly worked. Two bodies flew down the central shaft, one crashing onto the floor we were on and the other dropping all the way to the bottom. When we ascended, we saw the burned corpses of two more.

Almost nothing went right after that. Before we even stepped off the platform we were hit by something—a spell of some sort. My air elemental hadn’t scouted the whole room—I needed it to survive or the scouting would do us no good—so naturally it didn’t see Katiyana. She had just announced her presence.

She flew through the air as nimbly and gracefully as can be. It was like the wind wasn’t even there, and yet it was all around us like some raging storm. It was a spell, obviously, and I felt my stomach sink. We’d had access to it, with the emphasis on had. Tunuak’s staff carried it, but we sold it in Unaimo. It never occurred to me that we might need the thing, or that traveling to a place called the Storm Tower might involve, well, storms. It was foolish of us.

Here’s the thing: they count on me to think about stuff like this. If I can’t make these obvious connections, then what purpose am I serving?

I watched from the ground as Olmas was literally blown into the walls by the winds. The others were struggling against them as they flew up to meet Katiyana. It was a losing battle from the very start, with her tossing spells at us at her leisure and us unable to respond. I stayed on the ground too long, moving undetected among the frozen dead thanks to Ivan’s spell. Then someone finally got a shot at her and the spell collapsed, and I was suddenly surrounded.

Ivan called out to me. “Are you OK?”

And I wasn’t OK, but I shouldn’t have said so. Ivan came down to help, and then he got hit and went down. And then Sparna did the same. And I couldn’t help both of them. It was an impossible choice. I did what I could, trying to get the demon Katiayana had summoned away from Sparna while I engaged the frozen dead to protect Ivan, but it was only delaying the inevitable. Then, miraculously, Ivan broke free of whatever magic was binding him and we just barely turned it around before killing blows arrived. It was that close.

And that’s the other thing: they count on me to tip the scales in our favor, and I can’t do that if I am occupied saving myself, or worse, salvaging some debacle of my own creation. We lost valuable time—time that needed to be spent eliminating Katiyana’s advantage over us.

When that time finally came, it took me a couple of tries to get it right. I’m not going to be hard on myself on this one: it was not an easy problem. How do you stop gale-force winds blowing down out of a 20′ hexagonal hole in a ceiling with lightning arcing through it? On the second go at it I had an idea that worked. Those platforms Radella had managed to operate? The one leading to the third floor? Sometimes she was able to create one that had a dome covering it. It looked an awful lot like a spell I had picked up but never had occasion to use.

It’s mostly a camping spell, but I am told that some wizards use it for defensive cover because it creates a dome that you can see out of while those on the outside can’t see in. It doesn’t block spells or weapons, but what it does block is wind—just like the little platforms we used to go up and down in the Storm Tower blocked the wind—because when you’re camping, who wants the wind blowing in your face? And that dome? It’s not actually a dome: it’s a sphere. It just looks like a dome when you use it on the ground.

That spell was my answer, except for the small detail where I hadn’t prepared it for the day. So I pulled that trick Eudonius had taught us, morphing a spell I had into the one I needed. (What would he think of how often I’ve been doing this? I’ve certainly felt the toll it takes on me. I don’t think I’ve done it lightly.) In an instant the winds stopped, and I looked down to see my friends converge on Katiyana in the air. If only I could have done this sooner.

Katiyana was a sylph, a being connected to the plane of elemental air. They are genie-kin, born from the mating of a djinn and a human. How a sylph ends up in the service of Sithhud, though, is anyone’s guess. I am sure it’s fascinating story that we’ll never get to hear.

Of more immediate concern is whether she was working alone or had help, and we’ll take a shot at getting some answers to that tomorrow. The Tower itself had no obvious living quarters, and there are no other structures for hundreds of miles that we know of. So if she wasn’t living there, then where? And if there is a somewhere else, is there a someone else to go with it?

For the immediate future, at least, it seems our problem has been solved. As soon as the sphere collapsed on itself the weather broke overhead. It’s been positively pleasant, with stars shining on us through clear skies.

Or maybe it’s not. A few days ago, before we even got here, I overheard Ivan talking with Koya around our nightly campfires. He’s been having these recurring dreams about being surrounded by frozen undead. In those dreams, I send a ball of fire into the advancing hoard, but the spell he manifests is strange and ineffective. Dreams are like that sometimes, but what troubles me is not his distress over his spell so much as the whole setting. I didn’t used to put much faith in dreams as omens or as being somehow prophetic, but my time with Etayne has taught me not to be so dismissive. It could just be coincidence that we found ourselves on the third floor of the Storm Tower surrounded by hoarfrost spirits, or it could be that his dreams really are a warning of sorts about the road ahead. We are only half-way across the Ice, after all, in the winter season when unknown dangers abound.

I said earlier that my friends rely on me to think ahead, and to make connections that might otherwise be missed. Is this one of those?

I think it is. The question now is, what do I do about it?

Character: Ivan

Ivan’s journal Kuthona 22nd, 4712

Kuthona 22nd, 4712

Today we extinguished the storm tower. I just have to hope that these creatures never make their way down to Iqaliat.  I have never seen beasts like this before it was truly an experience to remember.

The wind was howling to the extent that using my longbow was not even possible in parts of this tower. There were times during the assault on the tower where the others didn’t really need my help and I was wondering if they even needed me here at all.

After fighting undead at the entrance of the tower we found a tree that tried to kill us. This was a vicious tree that grabbed Qatana and then kind of spit her out in some type of pod. While the others were working on killing the living tree I ran over and started cutting Qatana out of the pod. I later found out that it was using acid to finish her off.  After the tree was dead I think they said something about the tree being carnivorous. I am not sure if I will every look at trees the same way after this.

We found a control panel and Radella spent some time trying to figure out how to make it work. She was finally able to get it to work well enough to get us to the second floor. The worms on the second floor were vicious. I spent the entire battle running from or trying to escape from the worms. Both worms ended up dead at the hands of the others but I really couldn’t tell who killed which worm from the vantage point of inside one of the worms. Upon the death of the worm holding me I was thrown out and made a perfect landing but I was still invisible so no one witnessed my great feat.

We found another control panel that even Radella couldn’t figure out. Luckily for us Qatana had a spell that could cut holes into stone.  These fascinating crystal creatures inside used some type of teleport magic to move around and attack us. One by one we destroyed these crystal creatures but they also had the ability to cast the spell—

“Qatana what was the spell those crystal creatures used on Olmas and Sparna? It’s for my journal. “

“Tooch of idiocy”

“How do you spell that?

“Oh you said ‘touch’. Thanks”

Touch of idiocy

Qatana, Kali, and Sparna figured that these crystal creatures were somehow have been keeping this

“Qatana what did you call that blue crystal thing in the room? ‘Machine’, right.”

Machine running for hundreds or maybe thousands of years. It only took Qatana and I about 40 minutes to pull all of the crystals out of the walls. 4 of the crystals radiated magic.  Kali seemed most concerned with the two that could cause blindness but there were also two crystals that will protect us from the extreme cold.

In the meantime Radella was working to get the platform to go up to the third floor. I am not exactly sure how she figured this out as it was very complex. Before going up to the third floor Kali sent an elemental up to see what was up on the third floor. With the information that there were undead she sent a fireball up to the third floor that exploded with boom. She next sent up some earth elementals and less than a minute later two of the undead bodies went flying by.

With resist energy from the wand providing electric and cold plus my hide from undead we head up to the third floor on the platform. We all moved off the platform. There was a blue female creature with wings up on a platform 50 feet in the air.

“Qatana what was the name of that blue woman?”

Oh guess since Qatana isn’t here anymore I will have to just refer to her as the ‘blue woman with wings’.

The blue woman with wings looked tough and everyone but Kali and me flew up to engage her. This is the first time I have ever used hide from undead so I did not realize that as soon as someone attacked the blue woman with wings that it would break the spell. I suddenly found myself unable to move after being hit by one of the undead. From my vantage point I watch as Sparna flew down and vanquished one of the undead before he himself was unable to move. Things got worse as I heard a thud to my right. I wanted to turn and look by I was just not able to clearly see what it was, It definitely didn’t look friendly.

I was able to break free from the paralyzing hold this creature had on me and dashed over to Kali and Sparna to recast the hide from undead spell. This provided us with some time. I was able to free up Sparna and watched as Kali headed to the celling and surprisingly blocked the strong winds.

The battle finally turned in our favor as Sparna and Radella converged on the blue woman with wings and ended her reign of terror.  Once all of the undead had been allowed to pass onto the next life those that could fly smashed the blue crystals bring calmness to the tower of storms.  Clearly this is no longer the tower of storms.

We looked over the gear and her headband looked really nice. Qatana, Radella, and I all had interest in the item but in the end both Qatana and I kind of decided that it may not be the right item for us so Radella will be the one buying this from the party.

After some time Radella figured out how to make the platform go down. Seems like we could have saved time by just jumping. On the first floor Radella wanted to check out the control panel more and Olmas wanted to pick mushrooms. As it turns out the mushrooms byte back, well at least the invisible ones do. Olmas was showing off when the sword granted him the ability to see invisible. It must have been funning to anyone watching us swing at nothing. A few minutes after killing a mushroom creature it became visible. Parts were gather and we headed back to the caravan.

Since leaving Iqaliat I keep having the same dream. I am looking down at a group of undead. Right after Kali casts her fireball I cast this mysterious spell. As the spell goes off all of undead are attacked by pastel light pink and blue butterflies with imagines of stars, suns, and moons upon their wings.  In what sounds like Koya’s voice I hear

“Desna’s wrath affects those farthest from her the most while those deemed worthy will be spared her wrath. “

So clearly the spell that I asked the gods for is not the one they chose to give me.  Koya just tells me to trust in Desna’s wisdom and that I should have let her dance at the wedding. Turns out people in a small town can’t keep a secret.

Sesi when you read this I admit that your suggestion that maybe we should wait for my friends to return would have been the correct thing to do.  After watching everyone go through the struggles of adjusting to the high ice I can see where a party would have been good for them.