Campaign Journal 16 - The Perla Mines

We last left our heroes in the town of Linden, leveling up and resting after a couple of weeks in the northern wild on the Dawnstone adventure...

June 17, Monday - Malachy (human barbarian), Arian (high elven sorcerer), Thalmyr (dwarven paladin), Melior (wood elven druid) and Mordecai (NPC human fighter) were having dinner in the Linden Inn, in Linden, when Raglin Tindall, the proprietor of the Inn, approached them. He told them a tale about a cousin of his and another investor, who came west from Mercia to check out the abandoned Perla Mines, located a few miles east of the hamlet of Tardesk (in the Shearingvale).

The story of Perla and the Perla Mines is that of a short-lived iron mine and its supporting hamlet. The mines were established about 20 years ago, and lasted only about a year before the mines and the nearby village of a dozen wooden shacks were abandoned. The mines were rich, but the surrounding area was not safe, and the cost of maintaining the mines was not justifiable given the wildness of the region.

Raglin Tindall, whose business is struggling, contacted a distant cousin of his in Mercia who had mining experience. His cousin and one of the cousin's noble friends (with money) came to the Vale to investigate the mine, with the end goal of buying the claim to the mine and the surrounding land if the mine seemed viable. Raglin's cousin Trillek and his noble investor friend left Linden to go to Tardesk back on June 12 (6 days ago) and hadn't been heard from since. Given that Tardesk is a mere 9 miles northeast of Linden, and the ruins of Perla and the Perla Mines are only 3 miles further east, news from these two is many days overdue. Raglin wanted the party to investigate the Mines and report back, with the promise of the opportunity to invest in the Mines depending on the outcome.

June 18, Tuesday - Leaving Linden late in the morning, the party (5 strong) made their leisurely way to Tardesk, and found a room for the night in the Regal Stallion Pub. Tardesk is a village of 150 or so people, and is known for the horse ranches surrounding the village. The party could have easily pressed on to the mines in the remaining daylight, but decided to spend the night in the village and discreetly see what information they could gather. A serving girl in the tavern did recall two strangers meeting the missing mens' descriptions having stayed at the pub perhaps Thursday or Friday of the past week (June 13 or 14). She didn't know where they went when they left.

Tardesk and Perla (maps in Hexographer - 1 mile hexes)

June 19, Wednesday - Rising early, the party headed east across the stream and on toward the low rolling hills a few miles away. Three miles east of Tardesk, very near the edge of the hills, they came to the ruins of the tiny village of Perla. The failed mining hamlet consisted of a dozen or so buildings, mostly with rough field stone foundations and wooden uppers. The shells of the buildings were fairly intact, but the roofs had mostly caved in, and the walls were rapidly deteriorating. There were well-used campfire rings, some stacked firewood, and signs that animals had been grazed nearby. The party guessed that this spot was used by shepherds as a camping spot.

Continuing east, the trail was easy to follow and was still in obvious use. Raglin had told them that shortly after entering the hills, the trail to the old mines would veer off to the north, and a trail to some very small ruins from the Elder days continued east, deeper into the hills. When they reached the junction, they could see that the trail continuing east was still getting some use, and that the trail north was much more overgrown, but had been used fairly recently. A quarter mile up the trail, they came to a clearing against a tall hillside, and the overgrown but obvious entrance to the mines. The collapsed and decaying remnants of a few wooden shacks dotted the clearing.

The Abandoned Perla Mines, part 1

Entering the mines, it was obvious that two people had been here recently, with two discernible sets of tracks leading in and out of a pair of mostly empty storage rooms near the entrance. All that remained in these rooms were some rusty tools and bits of mining equipment. Side passages were mostly ignored, and the party pressed forward down the main passage. Rounding the first corner, they came to an ore storage room partially heaped with what Thalmyr the dwarf determined to be high quality iron ore. Continuing onward (and downward), they quickly came upon a dead body sprawled on the ground. The body was a bloody mess, having been torn up by some sort of rending attacks (they were not clean cuts). The body matched the description of Raglin's cousin. A blood trail continued deeper into the mines...

Another hundred feet or so down the passage, the blood trail disappeared into a very narrow natural fissure in the wall. One by one the characters were barely able to squeeze through the opening and descend a steep passage into a natural cavern. There were several narrow passages leading out of the cavern, and another body, mangled much worse than the first, in the center of the uneven rocky floor. The body was inspected, and presumed to be Raglin's cousin's friend. The party heard sounds of something knocking on stone somewhere nearby.

To investigate further, Melior the druid shape changed into a giant spider, and went up the gently rising southeast (lower right) passage. After ~75 feet, he came out into a small chamber in which was yet another prone body. Unlike the others, this figure was wearing fighter's gear (helmet, chainmail, shield and sword), and had been dead for at least a few weeks (judging from the state of decomposition). There were signs of some of the same kind of rending damage seen on the other corpses. Not wanting to shift back into his natural form, Melior postponed investigating the body further until later, and went down a steep and narrow side passage branching off near the chamber. It came out into a broader passage, sloping down to the northeast. It proved to connect back (to the SW) to where the others were waiting. The party joined up and headed northeast. There was more of the sound of knocking on stone.

Moments after emerging into a much larger natural cavern, three large monstrosities dropped from the walls and ceiling and quickly got into combat with the party. These three Hook Horrors were very tough, and as difficult as the ensuing fight was, it would have been that much more so if it weren't for a very successful Crown of Madness spell cast by Arian on one of the creatures. It repeatedly failed its saving throw, and remained under the control of the sorcerer for the duration of the battle, attacking one of its fellows instead of attacking the party. As it was, the melee characters were badly beat up by the end of the fight (Malachy with only 13 of 49 HP remaining, Melior with 7 of 34, Thalmyr with 5 of 28, and Mordecai with 19 of 28). Nobody went down, but most of them got close...

With the three creatures dealt with, the party paused to regroup.

Next - Probably some healing, and then more of the mines...

GM Commentary - Another really good session. There was a chance that we were going to have all 7 players for the first time ever, but then a few people were unable to make it, and we were back to the more typical 4 players. Add in a returning NPC who had been offstage for a while, and we had a comfortable sized party of 5.

The beginning of the session was cleaning up some details on level advancement for a few of the characters, followed by some local area history development and "color", followed by a bit of dungeon crawling and a good fight.

The characters still have some of the Perla Mines left to explore, and it can be a future expansion area for me. Which is good.

Campaign Journal 15 - Orc Village and Back Home

We left our heroes in the midst of a fight with orcs, wolves and an ettin, in the foothills of the Shadow Wall...

June 2, Sunday (cont) - The ettin (a two-headed giant) quickly charged into combat with Malachy and Badric, our two best melee warriors. Despite dealing some very impressive damage, the combined might of our warriors, aided by the un-engaged spellcasters, made short work of the giant. Thalmyr, largely left to his own against the orc sub-chief (assisted by Arian's spells), finished the monster off after taking a lot of damage.

After a significant amount of very necessary healing, and some treasure looting, the party headed back toward the road to camp for the night.

June 3, Monday - The party heads back south, and camps near the Dawnstone.

June 4, Tuesday - The party travels south/southwest, and camps north of the familiar cluster of hills containing Castle Langborne.

June 5, Wednesday - The party loops west of the Langborne hills, through the grasslands, and camps in the grasslands west of Castle Langborne.

June 6, Thursday - The party continues south through the grasslands and then through the eastern end of the Silver Hills (filling in a blank space on their map) and camping on the southern edge of the Hills (at the northern edge of the Shearingvale).

June 7, Friday - The party makes the easy journey overland to the village of Olmsby, and spends the evening in the familiar accommodations of the Half Pint Tavern.

June 8, Saturday - The party sleeps in, has a late breakfast, and travels the last easy 7 miles to Linden, arriving in the early afternoon. They check into the Linden Inn (their usual place), Raglin Tindall proprietor, and relax for the evening.

June 9, Sunday - A day of rest. Having left Linden for this "Dawnstone" adventure on May 28 (12 days ago), the characters are content to rest. As a result of their experiences, Duncan (the wizard), Melior (the druid) and Malachy (the barbarian) all reach level 4, and will require some training time. Arian (the new sorcerer) reaches level 3 (and has some "metamagic" options to study and learn).

June 10, Monday - Melior and Thalmyr head the few miles south to the hamlet of Bornil, so that Melior can meet the person who requested his presence (in a cryptic druidic language letter). They go to the small temple of Nysera in Bornil, where they meet a half-elven cleric named Sabedril. They also find an elven craftsmen named Teneval, who makes excellent quality bows and arrows. Soon Mareth Silverbeam, a druid, meets them, and leads them south into the Greenreach Woods. After journeying through the woods for most of the rest of the day, they arrive at a sacred druid grove (near dusk) and are introduced to Nalisander, leader of the druidic circle of the northern Greenreach Woods. Nalisander introduces Melior to some of the other members of the circle, including druids, rangers and some others, and tells Melior about their goals - to protect the northern Greenreach Woods. Nalisander (nicknamed "Nighthawk") has no requirements of Melior, but tells him that the members of his circle gather at this sacred grove each full moon and new moon to exchange information, and that they bathe in the pool in the sacred grove that has some mystical powers. As darkness falls, Nalisander asks Melior to run with them, and transforms into a stag. One of the others, a reckless druid nicknamed "Tempest", transforms into an eagle, but Nalisander says (in deference to Melior) "No, tonight we run, not fly". Melior transforms into a panther and runs off with the druids. Thalmyr returns to Linden, arriving on June 11.

June 11, Tuesday through June 18, Tuesday -  Melior spends several days running with Nalisander's druidic circle, learning his new level 4 shape-shifting ability of swimming creatures [In game terms, he uses his increase of 2 ability points points to increase his WIS to 18, which is his spell casting ability, with bonus from +3 to +4]. Malachy communes with his bear totem spirit and gains his level 4 benefits [in game terms upping both DEX and CON from 15 to 16, for a +3 bonus each instead of +2]. Duncan studies to advance to level 4 [exact details TBD, since Duncan's player has missed sessions 15 and 16, and we don't know what he will choose...]. Arian, our new high elf sorcerer, studies to understand his new metamagic options [he chose "careful spell" to protect friends from area of effect blasts and "distant spell" to increase his spells' ranges]. The remaining characters, who weren't leveling up, spent this time relaxing, since they have been adventuring almost non-stop for the last 10 weeks or so.

June 16, Sunday - Malachy and Thalmyr are having dinner in the common room of the Linden Inn, along with copious tankards of ale, when Mordecai (our NPC fighter) walks into the Inn. Mordecai left the party in Rimini back on May 12, when he returned to his home in Drayvan, near Alten in Alsberg, with the intent to use some of his share of the group's treasure to help out his father. For the expenditure of a few hundred gold coins, Mordecai was able to buy some additional acreage adjoining his father's struggling farm, and was able to hire on some tenant farmers to help work the new land. Leaving Drayvan in early June, Mordecai's father Edmund was now set up as a gentleman farmer, and could continue his work as a potter with no real concern over his financial security.

Next - Raglin Tindall, proprietor of the Linden Inn, comes to the party with a problem...

GM Commentary - This was a nice mix of a threatening combat, some limited exploration, and some character development (with hooks for future expansion). The stuff with the local druid circle that impacted Melior served two purposes; it allowed a seamless "this is how you get to level 4", along with planting the seeds for future engagement with these NPC's in the future. We don't ever need to run into Nalisander's Circle on anything but the most superficial level, but they are there to use if I need them...