Dicehaven

Tabletop RPG Podcast and Roleplaying Resources

Author: Robert Miklos (Page 4 of 6)

Up In the Air

June 14, 2016 /

IMG_0531constanta%20cazino_4ac528e41915e_hiresJustin IronOak and Neara BloodOak led our intrepid party through snowy mountain passes, through the worst of the MindSpire Mountains, before coming upon the Village of the BloodOaks.  A vital village, the party immediately saw the battle damage done to the town’s wooden palisade, where the Frost Giants and the Black dragon broke through on their raid.  Talking with the captain of the Guard, Taliera Barkskin, the party learned that the giants had been aided in the Chevauchee by Harren Fire Oak and the White Wizard.  The giants apparently broke through the palisade, and quickly made for the Blood Oak’s Arbrearum.  the party quickly suspected betrayal, and further learned that the Bloody Acorn had dropped just moments before the raid, and had been handled in the Arbrearum and delivered to the giants.  Only a member of the blood of the Blood Oak Clan could have entered the Arbrearum and handled the Bloody Acorn.

 

The party immediately visited the lord and his lady, who protested that no family member would have betrayed the family.  Soon the party left the court, and visited Neara’s sister Cantara in Cantara’s hut (emanating blue flickering eldritch light).  Immediately suspicious, Maldrin IronOak prepared a spell, and muttered that Cantara must be the traitor.  Alas, Cantara was merely a precocious 14 year old hanging out with her friends.

The party next visited Neara’s brother Fin.  Fin’s hut was deserted, with only a white robe and a suspiciously convenient note confessing to being the traitor on his end table.  The party wasn’t buying it.  The party crossed back to the lord and lady BloodOak, and while grilling them, the sound of artillery shook the Blood Oak palace.  The party rushed outside, to see a floating Ice Fort on a mound of earth high in the air.  Frost Giants were rolling huge snowballs off a landing, and destroying parts of Blood Oak village. The party quickly determined they must somehow get to the floating Ice Fort.  Conveniently, the Frost Giants, a year past, had tried to engage in trade with the Blood Oaks, and had left a small Air Boat that was fueled by human blood.  Neara quickly summoned four towns people, opened up wounds, and had them fuel the Air Boat.

The Airboat ascended to a landing, where the party confronted three Frost Giants.  The battle was touch and go, but soon the party had prevailed.  Leaving the exsanguinated townsfolk to recover in the docked boat, the party rushed into the Ice Fort.  They soon discovered a gruesome workshop, where a Storm giant was being “fitted” for an artificial heart, the size of the bloody acorn.  After another tough battle, with almost all of their healing spells used, the party left the strange laboratory to scale the fort and seek further danger.

Onwards and upwards, for there is no choice!

 

The Gathering

June 10, 2016 /

The Party continued their struggle against the mighty Hill Giant stedding, fighting both giant and fire.  The Rogue, having appeared to have fled the battle, instead came around to the front of the stedding, He first scaled the tower, and then lit it on fire. It went up like an Aradene candle, and turned night into day for miles around.  Assisting in the inferno were several casks of Hill Giant Ale. The party continued to fight their way into the fort, soon coming face to face with King Snaggi Irontooth of the Hill Giant Jarl. The battle ebbed and flowed, with several characters being struck down temporarily, until finally Snaggi was gutted, large giant entrails spilling unto the hot log floor, making a sizzling sound and reminding the party they hadn’t had breakfast.

In searching the main floor of the hold, the party discovered the two ever flowing Fonts of Mymirdion.  The water’s origin unknown, the water ever flowing, the party had discovered the Giant’s true wealth.  The two fonts gave the ancient healing aqua blue waters to whoever possessed the fonts.  One catch, the glass flasks that could hold the Healing waters of Mymidion had to contain human bone.  This gruesome catch gave the body pause.  But not enough to stop them from filling all twenty of the available flasks and distributing them throughout the party.

Soon the party made it through the rest of the first floor of the hold, and went downstairs into the dungeons of the stedding.  They quickly found the cells which held several prisoners, including Randolph FireOak.  Reunited with his loyal son Derrick, the two then joined the rest of the party in fighting off four elementals, summoned by the eveil white wizard, paired with the traitorous Harren Fire Oak.  Having occupied the party, Harren and the white wizard fled, leaving the party to battle the elementals.

The party emerged victorious from the partially destroyed stedding.  The cleric began to make plans to gather his brothers to occupy the powerful site, now partially burned.  In the meantime, the party crossed the small plains to the Town of Fire Oak, to find not only that the Fire Acorn had dropped, but that almost all of the Oak Clans had gathered, having seen the Stedding fire of the Hill Giants as  a beacon.  Randolph Fire Oak and  Justin IronOak found a table, and rolled out the ancient Oak Scrolls.  On the top, the two quickly read the Prophesy of the Oaks.

 

When Acorns drop and clans depart, all the Oaks will leave their home.

Abandon hearth, abandon glades, all of the clans will start to roam.

Through foaming waves, to distant shores, the twelve bound Oaks will sail the seas.

In search of Oak land, the promised land, away from hardship, rise from their knees.

Iron, Silver, Fire and Blood. Live, Ice, Water, and Black. Post, Pin, Heart and Golds

Abandon all their hard won holds.

To join so strong to leave the fall, to build anew, with gathered all.

 

And so, absent the Blood Oaks, 27,000 Oaks all stood ready for one last march through Westmarch, to relieve Silverthorne.  The party, led by Justin and Neara BloodOak, requested the party journey to Blood Oak, as a message had arrived that the Blood Oak had dropped, but been taken by a band of Frost Giants and a Black Dragon. IMG_0091[1]

One Minute More

May 2, 2016 /

This is the Last Chronicle of Thorvald, the Undertaker.

Ragnarok was close at hand.  The party rushed from Dublin to the Baltic States on a quest to find the way to Musspielheim, to find the tree branch that would fuel the renewal of the mechanical sun.  We wasted no time crossing the marshes and forests of Samogitia, until we summoned that old mistress, Baba Yaga, and her hut.

The strange apparition, part chicken, part hut, came to us.  We were eventually invited in, and talked to the old lady.  That is Mrs. Yaga to youse guys.  *pause* .  Anyway, soon enough Mrs. Yaga gave us a quest to prove our worth.  We left down stream, until we came upon the wreckage of a forest area, and a recently roused troll with the village totem pole in his hand, wielded like a club.  The party acquitted itself well, and soon the troll was again sent to meet its maker.  We debated keeping the totem pole, but then settled upon returning it to the villagers, who were thankful and gave us a warm welcome.

Mrs.   Yaga soon returned, marveling at our steadfastness.  Without further debate, she delivered us just outside Dublin, where we rushed through the guardian tree, grabbed the tree branch that we needed, and ran as fast as we could.  Having obtained the tree branch, we quickly delivered it to the mechanical sun, to reignite the sun.  But the minions of Musspielheim would not let such an action occur without a fight, and fight they did.  The evil scourge poured through our defenses, slaying most of the party (but not all).  We defended just long enough, and killed enough of them however, to allow the sun to ignite.  Defeated, the evil spawn, what was left, withdrew to their ship. What remained was a mass of bodies, both there’s and ours. I had been knocked unconscious, and burrowed out of a mass of bodies only to see most of my comrades dead. A costly victory.

Regaining my senses, I drew up my wounded body, and again called to Baba Yaga to return to me.  Only moments passed, and the strange hut with giant chicken legs returned.  The door opened, and Mrs. Yaga herself asked what I could want.  I told her that she already knew, and she laughed an old, raspy laugh.  A pulse of the new sun struck the battlefield, and there, where my Ingrid’s coffin had been, there she stood, alive, and in her wedding vestments.

The ceremony took just a minute.  “In hardship and in plenty, until the final battle horn sounds…” Ingrid, my bride, smirked at that, and said “they got that right.” Then we kissed. At that moment, the three witches bellowed a mournful scream, a scream of defeat and hatred for all people. Baba Yaga flicked her withered left hand up, and dispelled the storm cloud that held the three witches. The crowd, that had gathered, relieved, began to cheer. Baba Yaga smiled, and Ingrid and I felt the warmth of the sun.

Here ends the last chronicle of Thorvald the Undertaker. A note.  It is said that the crowd who witnessed the marriage of Thorvald and Ingrid saw a last burst of the New Sun, and Thorvald and Ingrid (and Mrs. Yaga and her strange hut) were gone.  But the crowd remained for quite a while, and soon, the story went out all the way back to Gotland that the witches had been defeated, that they could not prevent Thorvald and Ingrid from marrying.  And more importantly, the crowd, and all who heard the story from that time forward knew that the witches had failed, and that hope had prevailed.  Because what importance is there of the sun shining high in the sky if there is no hope.

A Giant Problem

April 18, 2016 /

IMG_0081[1]Harren Fireleaf rules in Fire oak, but for how long?  He convinced the Fire oaks to betray all other Oak Kin, and at first the act was profitable.  centuries of old grudges against the other Oaks allowed the payback to be sweet.  But soon, Randolph Fire Oak decided the cost was too high.  honor and a sense of family was lost, and no amount of profit could compensate.  But Harren, cousin to the ruling family, anticipated this weakness, and after consultation was a one Milas Homar, moved a robust group of Hill Giants to a nearby hill fort, to watch over and guard the Fire Oaks.

Push came to shove finally, as Randolph announced the end of the alliance of the fire oaks and the Hill Giants, upon which Harren had Randolph arrested and taken to the Giant Stedding as a prisoner.  derrick, oldest son of Randolph, barely escaped the Orc, Bugbear, and Hill Giant patrols, and made his way to Silver Oak.  There, was no expectation, but only hope, he asked the party to aid him in the liberation of his father, and thus, all Fire Oaks.  The Prophsy of the Oak gathering foretold that all the Oak Clans would reunite, and depart these lands.  Justin and Kurst agreed to come to the Fire Oaks aid on one and only one condition.  That the Fire Oaks would help lift the siege of Silverthorne, and allow all the Oaks escape.  They agreed.

Upon their arrival at Fire Oak, the party quickly dispatched a group of bugbears, and restoked the everlasting Fire Oak Flame (that had almost been extinguished).  Harren fled to the Giant Stedding, where the party followed. Storr, the intrepid and tentative rogue, scouted the Stedding, to find overwhelming numbers of Giants, Harren Fireleaf, and another human, the Old Man in White, in the Stedding.  Awoken and losing surprise, the party set upon a battle to end all battles, taking on one giant after another.  Who knows what the result will be…

The Society of the Nine Knives

April 13, 2016 /

IMG_0090[1]The Oaks discovered that Milas Homar, banker extraordinaire, supplier of fruit in bozes throughout Westcrown and Westmarch, may not be the friend people keep telling the party he is.  Yes, Milas Homar evidently sent a team of assassins to infiltrate the Society of the Nine Knives.  After uncovering the conspiracy to murder the Silver Oaks, and the conspiracy to let Orcs and bugbears into Silverthorne, the other shoe dropped.  Yes.  Milas Homar has been manipulating the Nine Knives and the Orcs and the Dragonborn to cause chaos and destruction.  And who has profited from the warring and Chaos?  None other than Milas Homar, humble proprietor of the Lock and Leave Bank in Westcrown. now the party must undo the damage, if there is still time.

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