Session 8, 1/7/25
VALEUCOUX, FIGHTER 1
NISSA, M-U 1
PRIASNOS, THIEF 1
TEMP, PALADIN 1
Our party starts off with a lot of money, in Kelling. They do some shopping and head East to Tor, where Priasnos and Nissa level up to 2. They then head North along the river to try and find some godflesh; they read about the presence of godflesh under the obelisks at Nomad shrines and found an obelisk (small) in the barrows they raided for demon-cultists, as well as an obelisk (large) at the big ol' Nomad shrine they visited one time.
They pass North through Ambell and a logging camp, then exit into the forest and hills. At a confluence of rivers, they pass by an abandoned quarrying town, and continue on Northwest until arrival at the barrow mounds. Near the mounds, they have a random encounter with a merchant, who mentions that one of his men thinks the quarrying village is haunted, but only on the night of the full moon. They enter the barrows, now largely dug out, and find nothing. Quickly, they dig around under the overturned obelisk, and find something - a piece of meat, like raw chicken glistening with oil. The paladin attempts to Detect Evil - the thing pings as absolutely, nauseatingly vile. Valeucoux, the Nomad, takes it and secures it in his pack.
With that in tow, they head North to the shrine, which last time had been taken over by strange amphibioid creatures. At the site, they see them again - clammy, grey-skinned men, like newts or salamanders, clad in red armor. The shrine is constructed on a high stone-brick platform in the end of a mountain valley, with a handful of buildings in the front. They can see a dozen or so on the top, and another dozen on the bottom, with four more riding birdlike creatures. The four mounted creatures engage the party, charging full-tilt forward - the magic-user Sleeps the lance-wielding ones, leaving them careening to the valley floor, but the leader, with a long sword, arrives and engages the fighter and paladin. The lizard-like creature unleashes a breath weapon on Valeucoux, then slashes at him, leaving him nearly unconscious, but is brought down soon after. They loot a sleeve of gold-and-silver scales from the creature - 800 GP.
Further up the valley, the foot-newts form a fighting line - among them is a priest, with a crown and mace, and a leader with sword and shield. Beside that is two sword-newts and ten with spears. The party attempts to caracole on their riding horses with darts and oil, but the attack has minimal effect, and the oil's damage is markedly reduced. They then send the paladin (who, due to excellent dexterity, has an AC of -2) forward with two war dogs to soak hits while they attack from the flank and the thief attempts to backstab the priest.
This collapses into disaster almost immediately. The magic-user lets off her second Sleep spell at the enemy, dropping a handful of the creatures, but this isn't enough - they've got more than 2 HD, so she can only drop 1d4 of them in a single go. The paladin takes a number of bad hits, but fails to deal out any real damage of her own; seeing this, the fighter whips out the hunk of godflesh, which provokes rage within the amphibian creatures' ranks. They give chase, heedless of danger, but aren't killed by a sword stroke to the rear, either. A round or two later, the paladin is knocked unconscious by spear thrusts and then killed by Heat Metal on her armor and the dogs follow two or three rounds later. Meanwhile, the thief gets a successful backstab on the priest, but fails to kill the creature, and is then beaten to death with a Footman's Mace while unable to score a subsequent hit.
Seeing this abject disaster, Nissa and Valeucoux, who wisely stayed in the back, mount their horses and break for it. As the enemy's entire mounted force was slain, they make it safely back to Ambell and then Tor, where Valeucoux pays for training to level 2. There'll probably be some more shopping between sessions.
RUNNING MILLIWHACKS: 207