White Plume Mountain Log

Settings

CAST OF CHARACTERS:
* Bahkgarr (Rusty), a boastful bullywug cavalier turned mercenary adventurer, hailing from the Mistmarsh region southeast of the City of Greyhawk. He rides his faithful giant toad, Krok.
* Ehrendil Stone (James), an exotic druidic being born of a noble elven mother and an ancient earth elemental lord father.
* Nora Brithel (Colette), a dwarf with a knack for magic and machines, said to come from the mountains surrounding the closed-off Valley of the Mage.
* Rose Flickflower (Lexi), a halfling paladin in touch with ancient primal nature magics.
* Sariel Galanodel (Cecilia), a high elven enchanter from another planet, adventuring to live down a family shame.
* Mister Hiddlebottoms (NPC), a traumatized halfling rogue, cousin to Rose Flickflower.

SOMETIME DURING GOODMONTH 576 CY (COMMON YEAR), WEEKS BEFORE THE ADVENTURE: Three highly-valued magical weapons with the cryptic names of Wave, Whelm and Blackrazor disappear from the vaults of their owners in the midst of the City of Greyhawk. Rewards are posted, servants hanged, even the sanctuary of the Thieves’ Guild is violated in the frantic search for the priceless arms, but not even a single clue is turned up until the weapons’ former owners – all wealthy collectors – each receive a mocking note signed by a legendary wizard thought dead for the past 13 centuries…

EARTHDAY, 13th DAY OF HARVESTER, MIDDAY (session 9/2): Ending of high summer. City of Greyhawk Lord Mayor Nerof Gasgal, backed by the Thieves Guild and Society of Magi, hires the adventurers Bahkgarr the bullywug barbarian, Gorrmidoc the half-elf arcane trickster and Fletcher Dandairia the bard to recover the missing magic items.

The trio is teleported close to White Plume Mountain and journey by foot into a flooded underground dungeon beneath the active volcano. Fletcher uses magic to scare away a gynosphynx guarding the entrance, and the group heads northwest past a couple of traps and an ambush by a pack of ghouls. Bahkgarr’s giant toad mount Krok burns to death in a corridor trap. Fletcher uses clairvoyance to scout ahead several dungeon chambers. The surviving heroes go to a room with a floating stream and use a kayak and a magic item to navigate an underground stream into a large room where armored knights lie in wait…

EARTHDAY, 13th DAY OF HARVESTER, EVENING (session 9/9): Leaping into combat, Bahkgarr, Gorrmidoc and Fletcher battle the knights who are led by a powerful champion. During the fight, Nora Brithel the mountain dwarf evoker, Rose Flickflower the halfling paladin and Sariel Galanodel the high elf wizard each awake with missing memories while prone in the dark of a secret passage. They exit a secret door into the northern room and join in the battle against the knights, who seemed to have expected their aid. The critically wounded Fletcher jumps into the floating stream and escapes; her fate is unknown. Eventually, all the knights are slain.

EARTHDAY, 13th DAY OF HARVESTER, INTO THE MORNING OF FREEDAY, 14th DAY OF HARVESTER (session 9/16): Bahkgarr, Gorrmidoc, Nora, Rose and Sariel attempt to rest inside the secret passage when a pair of wights sneak up and attempt to offer them safe passage in exchange for a magic item or the sacrifice of one of the heroes. One wight is destroyed as the other flees and escapes, leaving behind a ceiling-crawling black pudding that gets dispatched by various fire magics. Rose uses the Rod of Resurrection to restore Krok the giant frog. Gorrmidoc turns invisible and scouts ahead, discovering a terraced aquarium chamber full of giant crawfish, giant scorpions, mer-lions and manticores. The heroes fall back to consider their next steps.

FREEDAY, 14th DAY OF HARVESTER (session 9/23): The party slaughters a chamber full of giant crawfish, giant scorpions, mer-lions and three sassy but flightless manticores. A vault of treasure is plundered of its silver coins, and a corridor is followed to find the missing Mister Hiddlebottoms, a halfling rogue, smoking up a blue haze in a very posh room.

CHARACTER BRAINSTORMING (session 9/30): No play this week, but Colette and James built out some character backstories.

FREEDAY, 14th DAY OF HARVESTER (session 10/7): The party finds the missing Mister Hiddlebottoms smoking in a posh room where he claims to have been tasked as a guard. Nora finds the sword Blackrazor and gives it to Rose, and the party quickly learns their “host” is a magical creature capable of causing darkness, flying and covering itself in illusions and invisibility. The real Mister Hiddlebottoms is found near death and missing his right leg while locked inside a treasure chest. The creature is defeated, revealed to be an oni (ogre mage), and behind a secret door is found another prisoner: The elemental/elf Ehrendil Stone. The party opted to wait out the day and camp here that night.

STARDAY, 15th DAY OF HARVESTER (session 10/14): The party camped in the posh room, during watch shifts first seeing bugbears then ogres try to break the spell by brute force. After ending the rest, the surprised party fought an invisible stalker that had been left in the room. While protected in the hut, water began to flood the room – just a few inches now but steadily rising. Sneaking back to the ruined inverted ziggurat chamber, Sariel’s arcane eye helped trigger a frost glyph trap and spy on four bugbear guards posted on the far end of the top tier of the room – most quickly dispatched thanks to a fireball and other attacks. One bugbear, a sniveling but practical fellow named Ullu, surrendered and agreed to help as a guide through the dungeon. He also said the ancient wizard Keraptis wasn’t behind the most recent thefts of Blackrazor, Wave and Whelm, but those responsible used the legend as some sort of cover.

Thanks to a hidden passage, the party found a partially flooded “control room” where Ullu said duergar dwarves did things to people to turn them into servants and alter their memories. Sarial and Nora also found a note written in two languages, alternating between dwarven and some script none in the party could identify…

“##### XARDOROK ##### NOT ##### YOU ##### DONE ##### DUE ##### ABOUT ##### PLUME ##### OR ##### TRUE ##### BEHIND ##### RUSE, ##### PLAYING ##### THE ##### OF ##### DWELLERS ##### FORBIDDEN. ##### SHINING ##### INSISTS ##### WILL ##### THIS ##### MUST ##### HONORED. ##### INFERNAL ##### PROFESSES ##### WIZARD ##### IS ##### HIS ##### LONG ##### AND ##### SECRETS ##### STOLE ##### THE ##### OF ##### MAGE ##### LONG ##### ARE ##### WITH ##### YOU ##### DISCOVER ##### NEW ##### THAT ##### RETURN ##### THE ##### BRING ##### THREE ##### AND ##### FURTHER ##### THE ##### OF ##### IS ##### REACH.” (Ends with the runic symbol for a duergar clan.)

Ullu then led the party up an “airlock elevator” of sorts which put them back at the three-tunnel fork at the dungeon’s entrance, where a sphinx stood guard waiting to either ask her (easy) riddle or pounce to attack. A brief melee followed by answering the riddle gave the group a moment of pause to decide which way to go – north toward where Wave is guarded behind more “airlocks” and someone named Snarla and Bennett await, or east toward where Whelm is guarded by someone or something called “Ctenmiir.”