D&D Dynasty: 3rd Path of King Alzar the Mighty - FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar checks the underwater viewing platform and it’s nice and quiet. He heads to OtherSpace and grabs the items that work underwater. He jumps into the water and swims down. There are some fish here but they aren’t attacking him, for once. He finds the nest of the creature easily, enough, and in here is:

Atmosphere Analyzer
Poison Gas Grenade

Metal Chest with – 100 100 gp gems;

He heads back and finishes exploring this level. There’s nothing left. He heads over to the tube and heads down to the 5th level.


This level is very similar to the 2nd. It very open. In fact, most of the level is the lower level of water from the pond above the water, and support statures for the above floor. Otherwise you just have some pillars and storage.

Alzar searches it. It has some machinery in it too. He kills some grey ooze and yellow mold in places. He finds two dead repair robots and another analyzer. That’s it, so he heads down.

[Abe Sargent]

According to the schematics he saw before, this is a recreational floor, and it supposedly had large areas for that purpose. Alzar and his Stalker head out. They begin next to a cargo hold, and in here are a group of….




…stasis cages with various robots around them – 6 robots in all. The cages are used to capture various monsters until needed for later. The robots are shut down right now. As Alzar moves around in the cargo hold, the robots comes back to life, and then move to tilt the floor and open the doors on the far side. And Alzar falls out of the vessel and onto the ground. As he does, two more upend a stasis cage that has a Bulette on it.

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar heads back in before the door closes, and the creature awakens. The robots have begun to go back to sleep.

A violet door makes way to the hallway and Alzar heads left. He cracks grey card for a cargo hold as well, and back here is some storage. As he does, he feels a familiar sensation. A mental blast from an illithid!



Alzar is immune and runs up to melee. As he does, it uses Domination instead and….Alzar rolls a 4, which….fails….but….destroys a Protective Amulet instead. 3 vs 8. Alzar tries to card its AC5. He hits 3 times for….51 damage and…dead mind flayer. Boom!

On the body, and in the room, he finds:

Temporal Shift Cube, 6 charges
Orange Card
Blaster Pistol, 1 charge
Portable Spotlight, 3 charges
1 Poison Gas Grenade


4000 gp worth of jewelry

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar finds a theater with some props and lurker above his Stalker killed outright. There’s a robo-snack room and then another.

Soon enough a gymnasium opens up and in here are some physical training androids.


They want to box and wrestle:



Practice swordplay:



And Martial arts:



Alzar chooses not to spare with any of them.

[Abe Sargent]

A store room he comes across has:

Anti-Grav Belt, 6 charges


Later on, Alzar will find a physical fitness workout and again, skip an opportunity to work out with a android:



A major section of this floor is taken up by a large swimming a pool and another by an auditorium. A few more empty rooms pass by. One of the final cargo holds has a huge crate that shifted and landed on a android. As Alzar nears, he turns back on and asks for assistance. Even with 18/00 strength, Alzar can’t move the heavy crate. He conjures a greater Earth Elemental, who moves the crate easily. The Android stands up, for the first time in decades, and checks. Some auto-repair function has fixed its internal circuitry.

It was a bodyguard android, and then its master died when the hip crashed. Alzar offers for it to be a bodyguard for him, and it agrees and changes its functions over ot consider Alzar as the person to bodyguard.


Android Bodyguard –

AC -1, HD 7, HP 40, THAC0 – 8, 1d8+4/1d8+4 attacks.

Programmed to use any human weapon, from missiles and physical weapons to the energy weapons on the ship. Immune to cold, and all of the normal construct immunities. Half damage from acid or fire. If hit with electrical attack, 1% chance per damage point dealt that it shuts down. As a guard android, has full stats = 18 dexterity, 18/90 strength, 18 constitution, can see 150% vision, hearing, and has infravision. Intelligent. It can self repair minor damage, major damage cannot be repaired save by returning to the ship and finding a way to do so.

[Abe Sargent]

The bodyguard shows him how to use the various items he didn’t know. One of the benefits of having this mobile attack platform is that he can use the best weapon for a battle without any disadvantages. For example, if they are fighting fire creatures, give the android a Frostbrand sword. Give it the vorpal yataghan normally, and maybe Wyrmcleaver or the +3 Flail of Disruption against undead and so forth. It punches twice or can use a weapon in each hand or a shield and a weapon and so forth. Plus it can use a weapon that might normally try to control the user or dominate it without any issues.


Alzar heads back out from this chamber, and the rest of the area is cleaned out. Alzar emerges and heads home. It seems the vegepygmies were the ones causing the ruckus, they had emerged in droves and Alzar killed both tribal leaders.

After returning home, and unloading all of the many things he collected from the boat of the stars, Alzar begins to discreetly do some investigating. It turns out that Pandius has had a few such visitors in the history books, and probably more to boot.


End of S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

Well, I hope you enjoyed the classic.

Alzar left with a lot of stuff, and he knows how to use it all. Some aren’t that great.

[Abe Sargent]

CM6. Where Chaos Reigns



This module is the last of the CM series we’ll be doing. After this it’ll be craziness in the DA series, and then moving on to bigger and better things. This module is odd and I’m folding it’s history into the planes. In the mainline adventure, you are saving another Prime, and were chosen to do so for no reason at all. Random? Here we’re making this a part of the main arc.


Published in ‘85, this module has all of the quirkiness of the UK modules you’ve come to love and respect (or not I suppose). Get ready

[Abe Sargent]

Two hours later, Alzar is moving his items out of his Bags of Holding and Other space and pulls out the Temporal Shift Cube. As he does, a mist begins to rise up.

In a moment, an immortal’s servant has appeared and informs Alzar of an immediate need that Pandius has for him. What has happened is that a race of creatures, named the Oard, from another planet in this realm, arrived at Pandius a few years ago.

The Oard hate magic. They are a technological race only, and they pilot their starships with great power and destruction. They wanted to create a base of operations here on Pandius for their empire in this region of space. But the problem is that Pandius is not the right place for them. It’s too magical, too powerful, and would never work.

So the Oard have sent their people back in time to several places along the history of the planet and in particular, here in Norwold. Ancient Norwold, named Aelos, is the area that the Oard seek to subvert, by removing various adherents of magic and pushing those of technology.


Oard –



(Ignore the Borg to the right, I can’t find an image of just an Oard).

The Oard have used anti-magic technology to prevent a bunch of ways of getting someone to their area, but the Cube Alzar just acquired is technological in nature, not magical. It can penetrate their shell, and Alzar can arrive in various places along the timeline, stop the Oard from pushing the anti-magic agenda that results in Pandius following their lead and becoming technology-only and a part of their empire.

Alzar’s Cube has just been set up, and he can go at any time. He asks a few questions first. If the changes were made in the past, why hasn’t the future already reflected them? Because Alzar has already gone into the past and fixed things and succeeded. Now all that’s left is actually to do it. The Oards are pretty violent, it’ll be easy to figure out what their plans are.

Alzar agrees, and he packs some stuff into his OtherSpace and memories some different spells. He has the tabi, imp, and two of his constructs – Fangs and Coils, in the OtherSpace. Meanwhile the stone and bronze golems are in the flask and marble. Alzar can’t take anything or anyone else with the Cube, they have to be stored, so no Android or Amber Golem or anything else. The next day, with his stuff ready, Alzar uses the Cube.

[Abe Sargent]

In The Beginning

Alzar arrives and the landscape is gorgeous and virginal, pristine and dangerous. He heads to his OtherSpace and grabs Azzil. As he leaves, he hears a raid that is currently ongoing. He unfurls the Carpet of Flying and heads over to check it out.

There is an elven village here of about 25 huts, and there are almost 100corpses scattered around. Alzar sees around 12 villagers running in a panic, and 13 small rocs, with 13 brutish humanoids on them are attacking.

The Flying Carpet swoops in and Alzar needs a distraction. Wanting to get their attention, he casts Death Spell and two of the pilots die. The rocs are too powerful, but two of the 13 are now riderless. Others turn to face him. The riders have spears add gourds, and a few throw them and the guards ignite into small fire, like a flask of oil might. Alzar takes 19 fire damage. Init.

2 vs 4. With many of them having moved near him, Alzar casts Wail of the Banshee. 4 Rocs and 3 more riders die. The rest attack him for 15 fire damage from another pair of gourds, and then the group beaks and flies off individually. Alzar uses Finger of Death to slay one more rider as she’s flying away.

Dead – 6 riders, 4 small rocs

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar flies down after the elves. There are 30 more in an underground chamber beneath the village, so 42 survived, mostly women and children. Alzar can’t make out what they are saying until he quaffs a Potion of Tongues and can speak with them .

They thank him profusely for his aid, and invite him to come with them to the dangers of the forest to Loralis.

Everything here is primitive, their weapons, his foes’, the huts, their clothes, and more. This forest is untouched by civilization and teems with game. There are just three villages left with the destruction of Callafae that Alzar witnessed. Alzar has two wounded placed on his Carpet and has a 4th to give him the lay the of land. Loralis is the last elven village, and Jo-Lak the last human one, and Galgrove the last treant one.

The creatures, called, garls, and their rocs have been attacking and destroying for some time. Alzar is given the layout with various landmarks and such shown to him. A few hours pass, and the village is on the horizon and Alzar and his group arrive.

Alzar is introduced to the village elders, and the elves celebrate him but they don’t want to feas t or anything, it’s just not appropriate right now, but the elder Halliani apologizes to hm. . A few humans from Jo-Lak are here as well, including an emissary. After dinner, an ambassador from Galgrove, Ffertting arrives at the village.

The treants have spotted a large army of Garls moving this way. He urges that the elves join the humans in one community to fighter together against the threat. After a council is held, the elves agree. They will leave their village, but they have to go through swamps, and the treants are guarding a “Great secret” and can’t help.

[Abe Sargent]

Post council, Alzar is approached by all three ambassadors or leaders. The treant wants him to join them in protecting their secret, the elves want him to accompany their trek through the swamp and the humans want him to go to Jo-Lak, learn where they live, and that the fight to them.

Alzar asks for some information. How big is the army? (I’m massively increasing it from the module) it’s 10 Mastodons, with howdahs on top and 5 garls in each howdah, 10 on small rocs, 1 leader on a large roc, and 25 unmounted garls, with 10 sabretooth tiger pets. There is also an advance guard of 10 gnarls and 5 kitty cats.

They will arrive at the forest in 7 days, and it will take 2 days for the elves to pack up and leave. That’s it? Just 100ish bad guys in the army and 15 in the advance party? Yes, that number is confirmed., and 6 days until they even get here? Yes.

By that time, Alzar promised to have cleaned out the army and advance party, both. They grin, but he ignores them and grabs a Crystal Ball. After scouring the area, Alzar heads to OtherSpace and grabs the right items. Then he casts Mount, and gives himself a Griffin to ride, and casts Teleport.

He’s about five miles from the advance guard. This guard is mounted on 10 small rocs with the tigers in the brush. Alzar grabs the skull and bones and sets up a blast area with Skulltrap and Blastbones. It’s right in the way of their tigers. He sets up behind the Tigers, and uses Conjure Earth and Conjure Greater Earth and Invisible Stalker to give himself some strong allies that will remain behind the traps. He chose well, there are hills to both sides so the tigers will have to come over the Skulltraps.

He moves to the Carpet and uses the Griffin as a spare aerial fighter if needed. He flies up and soars toward the bad guys. They see him and move in. He prepares a spell and casts Polymorph Other on a Roc in the front, trying to turn it into a pig and….it works. The Roc falls and both will die. The other 9 begin to swoop down towards him.

Alzar uses he Carpet to pull away, but they are faster than the Carpet. Their fire missiles fly at him, and although they miss (due to his Cloak they hit close enough to still catch him for 11 damage).

[Abe Sargent]

He drops down to the area where the Elementals (and Stalker) wait, and soon he hears the cats coming. Fire pots begins to move in. One and two begin to swoop down to attack. Alzar uses his Pearl of Power to regain the Polymorph Other.

Init!

5 vs 6. Alzar casts Ray of Ondovir on the front Roc as it dives down. Does it save? 10. Nope, it crashes into the ground instead, and it mostly dies, it has a bit of HP left, and the Garl crawls away a bit. The Elementals are guarding Alzar and he has the Stalker charge the Garl and Roc while down. Alzar is missed by melee attacks (Cloak). The tigers, racing to the scene, blows into his traps, and they are all killed to a cat. Dead smilodon.

5 vs 3. They hit Alzar for 15 damage from a pair of rocs and then swoop up and begin to move out. They clearly want to get away. Alzar casts Polymorph Other on one roc as they do and…it rolls a 7 and falls dead. The Stalker kills the wounded roc before it can get free, and the Elementals move into the blast zone to make sure nothing else is there. He sees the one in the back order a retreat.

3 vs 7. Alzar’s Carpet is up and chasing. They made a mistake. They are flying back in formation. That’s an error Alzar will need to teach them. Alzar casts Time Stop, and then speeds into their midst for a turn, and casts Mass Domination and then Power Word Kill on the leader’s roc. The Stop lifts and the roc dies, the leader falls and dies too, and Alzar dominates three garls. He forces them to attack their brothers, and in the carnage, Alzar turns a roc to stone of one fleeing away.

At the end of the battle Alzar has slain the advance party – none got away.

The .leader polymorphed into an Oard after death. On the body was:

Image Amulet

Technology, not magic.

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar uses Animate Dead to give him some nice servants, and then he Mass Teleports the Elementals, and undead and Griffin and Stalker to close to the army. Using this temporary army, and supplementing it with a Searing Serpent, Summoned Shadows, and Faithful Shield-Maidens, Alzar sends the mixed group and controls them with the Crystal Ball observing battle from far away. He is missing a lot of magic and doesn’t want to get too close. But the army manage to kill:

2 tigers, 6 unmounted garls

Before dying.

Alzar heads back to bed, and then memorizes a slightly different set of magic the next day.

The next day is the day he raises an out and out strike force. Near a stream, he casts Conjure Earth, Water, and Air Elementals, Invisible Stalker, Mount, Greater Earth, and then uses the two stones to make two more earths, the Censer to make an Air, and the Face to make three more 16 HD elementals. He then animates bodies from last night and adds them to the horde as well.

The opponent is a little more defensive today after his raid on them last night. He suspects the leader on the big roc is another oard in garl’s clothing. Today he wants to assassinate that guy, and then take out their group, as much as feasible. He has grabbed the Fire Resist Ring and has it on one hand, since the Free Action one seemed not needed.

Alzar scrys the army, and then uses the Dust of Disappearance and casts teleport. He arrives about a half mile above the army, on the Flying Carpet. About three miles away is his own little army. He teleported here because beneath him, about 120 feet, is the leader on the giant roc.

Alzar casts Time Stop. Then he casts Power Word Kill on the leader…..Flesh to Stone on the Roc and…runs out of time. Which work?

The leader dies, and the roc? Is petrified (rolled a 709 and both are dead, and the roc is going to break to pieces in their army).

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar knows they know he’s there, so he begins to move towards his army.

They split up into smaller units or around 2 mammoths and some support in each unit. Alzar heads to the one that’s going tangentially to the one near his place and lands right behind them and casts Wail the Banshee. He kills many, but the elephants are still there. A Skulltrap finishes the small army.

Other have left and the two moving towards his army and now running there

In ten minutes, Alzar’s army will kill both of those smaller units. All opposing enemies are in small groups of 3 or 4 and fleeing everywhere. The Air Elementals and Griffin are flying about searching and killing survivors.

By the end of the day, the force will have been reduced to 18 total people (cats, rocs, garls, and mammoths combined) and will have broken and been ended as a force.

On the leader, Alzar finds:

3 Fireball Gems
Image Amulet



Alzar teleports back and reports on his success. That night they have a feast in his honor. He scouts with crystal balls after wards.


The next day Alzar intends to hit their camp. It seems they have:

40 female garls, with spears
8 mounted garls on small rocs
30 unmounted garls
10 beast handler garls
2 mastodons, 10 tigers


They have cruel defenses, like palisades and such.

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar can’t rely on the use of his items, but that’s okay. He has the rest of his spells. Again he conjures, animates and Stalkers a nice army, and this time, using the Crystal Ball, with himself in the center, he Mass Teleports the lot right into their home and past their defenses!


In a moment they are devastated. That many creatures, including many that can’t be taken out by anything other than magical items are just going to tear through the force. Alzar casts mount and rides his Griffin around, and making sure that people and creature wanting to leave and flee are moved down by himself and his spells.

The bodies show that no Oard were left, Alzar just killed the Garl outpost.

Alzar frees 60 human slaves that were kept by the garls. He also finds 33,000gp in uncut gemstones (right now, it’ll increase epost-cutting). He teleports back and teleports over allies from the villages to help escort the slaves back home. He helps as well.

In a few days time, Alzar is held as a huge feast. The treants present the elves with trees of life that they have been growing, and that will become the center of their communities much later on. A elvish craftman gives Alzar a leaf-shaped amulet of crystal worth 4000 gp.

Alzar gains a level, and is now rocking 79 HP and has an additional 9th level spell.


And with that, Alzar uses the Cube to move to the next place and defend against the next Oard attack.

[Abe Sargent]

Forge of Power

After a moment, Alzar appears on a boat. It’s sailing east. The boat is rocking gently from side to side and a few birds can be made out. Alzar heads out and sees an olive-skinned man wearing a plain grey tunic and carrying a wooden bowl. He shouts out something, and Alzar uses another potion of Tongues.

A second or two pass, and from the top deck emerges Captain Selios, greets Alzar, and brings him into his cabin. He explains that he has been a merchant all of his life, and he is a middle-aged human man, short, stocky, with a full beard.

They are leaving the shores of Aelos because he has just visited with the five oracles and they told him that he would never find rest until he had been reforged on the anvil of the world in the company of strangers. The stranger would come with least expected. And here Alzar is. Fate has bound them together. Five Oracles? Alzar gives a brief description of the Crones he encountered. “Exactly! You must have met them too!”

[Abe Sargent]

They are sailing to an island called Kol (in Alzar’s day, it’s off the Isle of Dawn). They’ll be at sea for a few days, and arrive within a week. Alzar switches to his water-friendly equipment.

The Deltara is a galley and sailing ship combo, since it was just a merchant vessel. Crew of 90 men.

That evening the Deltara comes in sight of a low rocky islet that’s about 50’ across and 300’ away. By the islet are what look like harpies and they are beginning a song. Alzar detects something else though and tries to control it. It’s undead, not harpies. It’s a vision showing the death f sailors here. Broken from the spell, Alzar moves over and pulls the ship away before it can land while everyone else is engaged with the vision.

Alzar flies over to the islet and searches and finds the ship that crashed here, and pulls out the body of the undead Vision and buries it under a small cairn he erects. That’ll end the Vision. He also finds….


Jeweled Belt and Armband – 10500 gp
Ring of Water Walking


The next day, there is a small hill of grasslands with small patches of woodlands about three miles across. Alzar heads over to check things over, and there are two Cyclopes that live on the island with about 75 giant sheep. Alzar has the vessel bend around it, and then they steer clear of any potential danger.

At dusk the next night, the ship is attacked by a large sailing ship manning by shadows that rounded a bend. The ship is made of shadow stuff as well. Alzar controls some shadow sand has them attack each other, and then controls a few more, and soon enough the ship is under attack by some many shadows that their own ship passes by, unmenaced.

[Abe Sargent]

On the final day, the winds are becalmed and mist rises from the water. In a few moments, and huge bone ship, with a bone golem and 400 skeletons emerges and moves to attack. As before, Alzar orders everyone back and to use missile weapons. He conjures a water elemental to hit the ship before they collide and then begins to control skeletons. He can control them very quickly, and the water elemental is killed, but the vessel slows down and Alzar has roughly 50 skeletons under command attacking the others, and gaining more and more of the crew. Eventually, the ship also falls back under the water under its own power and they emerge free and safe.

They arrive at the island a few hours later. The island is rocky and barren with only the wind as a sound. There are high, rugged cliffs all along the cast. On the eastern side is a large bay, and that’s where they’ll berth. As they sail around the island, 2 chimera and 16 harpies fly from the island to attack them.

After casting mount to fly up, Alzar drops a few spells like Mass Domination and Wail of the Banshee to slay half and drive the remainder off and he returns to the vessel.

They land in the bay and put up sail and arrive at the island. Captain Selios is in front. There is a large cave here on the island and they explore it. There are two great bronze golems here guarding the entrance. Alzar grabs his Whistle and tries and fails on the first but succeeds on the second and makes one fight the other, and then nips in to attack the uncontrolled one. Then leading with the damaged one that survived the battle, they head in.

[Abe Sargent]

There is a great cavern here that was widened by hand, and is huge – big enough to have giants. In fact, there are six stone pillars all female giants here.

Meanwhile a tall, carven giant is here, protesting their arrival. Alzar sends the controlled Bronze at it and then conjures an greater earth elemental while it is distracted, followed by an Invisible Stalker. He damaged golem dies quickly and Alzar has the summoned creatures join the assault. The giant takes 15 damage from a elemental punch and then retreats to the next room and casts Wall of Iron, and seals themselves off.

Alzar grabs his forces, summons some shadows and a pair of earths from the Stones he has and then lobs a Dispel Magic at the Wall and brings it down

In this room is forge, a giant, a oard, and its two tigers. They aren’t golems, but instead are robotic tigers. Alzar has the force concentrate on the dangerous giant while he heads in to take out the Oard.


Initiative.

4 vs 9. Alzar casts Power Word Kill and drops the Oard. The giant takes two hits for 22 damage. Then it smashes the Stalker dead, and the tigers bite Alzar and hit hit for 13 damage (they are immune to the Cloak’s effects)

3 vs 2. They hit Alzar for another 16 and the giant misses. Alzar casts Time Stop, then drops Maze on a robot, and then Finger of Death at the giant. Maze works, Finger…15 rolled, sorry. Living giant. The elementals hit the giant for 19 more.

5 vs 7. Alzar attacks a Tiger and…hits for 28 damage. Alzar takes another 14 and the giant connects with an elemental for 20. 5 vs 8. Alzar kills the robo-tiger and the giant takes 22 from two hits, then smashes and kills the elemental.

6 vs 7. Alzar casts Vampiric Touch on the giant for 22 damage and the giant then takes some elemental damage and dies. Alzar takes the Mattock of the Titans it was using as a weapon.



Alzar checks the forge, and on the oard finds:

Ray glove
Fireball Gem

He takes the dead robo-tiger and the other one comes back from the Maze, kills and take sit.


There is a Forge of Power in here, the relics used by every dwarf-hold. After rescuing one early in Pandius in Hammerhelm, he knows it. A door to the south heads to some dwarves that were driven back underground by the giant and the oard. They return to the chamber, collect the Forge of Power, and the first dwarf hold begins here.

Alzar has now stopped the enemy here as well.

He rests the night, the Captain is now a hero, and memorizes new spells, and then uses the Cube again.

[Abe Sargent]

There is a great cavern here that was widened by hand, and is huge – big enough to have giants. In fact, there are six stone pillars all female giants here.

Meanwhile a tall, carven giant is here, protesting their arrival. Alzar sends the controlled Bronze at it and then conjures an greater earth elemental while it is distracted, followed by an Invisible Stalker. He damaged golem dies quickly and Alzar has the summoned creatures join the assault. The giant takes 15 damage from a elemental punch and then retreats to the next room and casts Wall of Iron, and seals themselves off.

Alzar grabs his forces, summons some shadows and a pair of earths from the Stones he has and then lobs a Dispel Magic at the Wall and brings it down

In this room is forge, a giant, a oard, and its two tigers. They aren’t golems, but instead are robotic tigers. Alzar has the force concentrate on the dangerous giant while he heads in to take out the Oard.


Initiative.

4 vs 9. Alzar casts Power Word Kill and drops the Oard. The giant takes two hits for 22 damage. Then it smashes the Stalker dead, and the tigers bite Alzar and hit hit for 13 damage (they are immune to the Cloak’s effects)

3 vs 2. They hit Alzar for another 16 and the giant misses. Alzar casts Time Stop, then drops Maze on a robot, and then Finger of Death at the giant. Maze works, Finger…15 rolled, sorry. Living giant. The elementals hit the giant for 19 more.

5 vs 7. Alzar attacks a Tiger and…hits for 28 damage. Alzar takes another 14 and the giant connects with an elemental for 20. 5 vs 8. Alzar kills the robo-tiger and the giant takes 22 from two hits, then smashes and kills the elemental.

6 vs 7. Alzar casts Vampiric Touch on the giant for 22 damage and the giant then takes some elemental damage and dies. Alzar takes the Mattock of the Titans it was using as a weapon.



Alzar checks the forge, and on the oard finds:

Ray glove
Fireball Gem

He takes the dead robo-tiger and the other one comes back from the Maze, kills and take sit.


There is a Forge of Power in here, the relics used by every dwarf-hold. After rescuing one early in Pandius in Hammerhelm, he knows it. A door to the south heads to some dwarves that were driven back underground by the giant and the oard. They return to the chamber, collect the Forge of Power, and the first dwarf hold begins here.

Alzar has now stopped the enemy here as well.

He rests the night, the Captain is now a hero, and memorizes new spells, and then uses the Cube again.

[Abe Sargent]

Bronze and Iron


Alzar is in a dim, rock-cut chamber, with its far end hidden in shadow. It’s contents are strange and familiar too. A table sized grey slab of rock before, a jug and some fruit upon in and a basket of fireflies hanging from the ceiling providing light. The walls are carved and the air heady with the smell of honey. Then from the darkness, a older woman in green garments approaches. She intones:

Greetings Lord of Wood and Fire! You are come in answer to my summons. Scorn now upon those who say you are but legend, a phantom by which mothers comfort their infants. Fear not and follow me, the circle awaits to welcome you!”

Alzar follows her and she introduces herself as Sewynne. She leads Alzar to the far end of the chamber and then along a rock-cut passage which slopes gently up to ground level. It emerges in a circle of 30‘ feet tall trees, that focus the night sky, rich with stars. At the foot of the trees stand members of the druid’s circle. When Alzar fully emerges they cease chanting and proclaim that he is the Lord of Wood and Fire.

Then, without further ceremony, Sewynne and her entourage begin to give Alzar all of the information about what has been happening. A few decades ago, a cruel, vindictive tribe called the Kolmedes were given the ability to work iron by strangers from the stars. Ever since they have moved to dominate all of the other human tribes, and grown in power, then adding some demi-humans as well. The various tribes and clans did not unite, they stood apart, and they lost to the Kolmedes.

And now the Kolmede have an empire they have carved, and only Arqwen stands against them. The druids have failed to unite the various groups within Arqwen, and they believe that only Alzar, the Lord of Wood and Fire, can do so. According to legend, he was the one who gave the elves and dwarves their clan items and helped the humans survive. His tales are just impressive. And so he has been summoned here to help the people in their final dark hour, to unite Arqwen, and to stand against the Kolmede Empire, and their anti-magic ways.

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar asks for a layout of the area, and a druid pulls out a crude map. There are 8 areas that are claimed by various human warlords and a dwarf, elf, and halfling hold here in Arqwen, the northern part of the region. The humans are barbarians, tribal in nature. Alzar asks if there is a neutral place the 8 barbarians would come for a grand council, and the druids suggest here, in Bara. Alzar has the druids to head out, and the human leaders should be here in a week, tops.

With that done, Alzar gets more information about the various holds. He scrys them out and teleports to each in turn, beginning with the halflings.

The halflings of Arqwen are the first group of halflings in Pandius. There are only around 300 halflings all told. They greet Alzar warmly, and give him some information about the army. The foes of Kolmedes are near the halfling hold, and they tell Alzar about the incoming armies. They should arrive at the southern borders of Arqwen in 7 weeks time. They won’t fight, they don’t want to lose their people in the battles, but they will help scout and give Alzar information. That’ll work. There’s a nearby elf-hold, so he flies 2 miles and three-quarters of another over to it with a pair of halfling guides on the Flying Carpet, and lands.

This clan of elves live in the tangled depth of the Erydall Forest. Alzar lands and the halfling introduces him as the Lord of Wood and Fire to the elves. Alzar greets them and after some time, he shows them the elven-made pendant he was given after defeating the oard inspired attack against him, and they agree to give him command of their forces during the upcoming struggle.

Alzar thanks them, leaves behind one halfling to be a go-between, and then scrys the dwarf-hold a few hundred miles away and teleports over with the other halfling. He arrives and they are introduced. After dinner in their mines, they refuse to believe that Alzar is the one from 431 years ago that helped their race. That’s just magic puffery. Even his pendant doesn’t convince them (it was elf-made and given after all, not dwarven). After insisting, one dwarf does point out that an ancient dwarf, Heorlbold, was with the first group of dwarves that emerged from underground and was there that day. If Alzar is who he claims to be, then Heorlbord would confirm it.

[Abe Sargent]

Of course, Heorlbord isn’t here. In fact, no one has heard of him in some time, at least a few months. Alzar heads out to the pass where he is supposed to live, flying his Carpet over. After a bit, a pair of large wyverns waft up to Alzar and move to attack. A Power Word Kill droops one and as the other flees, Finger of Death….nope, it’s fine. It can’t escape Alzar though, so it turns and attacks as he casts Time Stop. Then he casts Polymorph Other and Flesh to Stone, and when it pops back it dies since it’s not a pig without wings.

After killed the two creatures, Alzar finds the cabin where Heorlbord supposedly lives, and lands. He knocks and the old dwarf opens it, and then in a moment amazement glares on his face. Astonished that Alzar is there, and Alzar tells him about the army attacking, and the wyverns and everything. The wyverns kept him from heading back home. He head sup on the Carpet and they head back.

In a few moments, the dwarves meet him, and then after Heorlbord tells them of Alzar’s deeds, including the slaying of the two large wyverns, they agree to submit to him. Alzar leaves the halfling behind and teleports back. He has secured the various demi-humans. They will send emissaries to the council as well as the 8 tribes.

Alzar uses the night to scry some more.

Days pass, and the preparations ensue. The meeting commences 6 days later. After hearing of the dangerous army coming from the Kolmedes, two warlords agree to unify. After hearing of the alliance by the demi-humans already, more join the cause, and more when Alzar is told to be who he is, and a demonstration with his magic unfolds. At the end, the 8 warlords agree to unify as well, and Alzar begins to look over troops and such, trying to figure out what is what.

[Abe Sargent]

Meanwhile, more scouting is coming in from the Halflings. There are three enemy armies, one advance force of 200 that will arrive in 10 days from the eastern edge of a mountain chain, and one that is heading for the mountains and their main force that’s moving west of the mountains. Alzar tells the assembled committee that he will destroy the advance force himself, personally. Of course they doubt his word even though they know who he is.

The next day, after preparing the right magic, he teleports over a halfing, elf, dwarf, and two humans – all leaders, or sub-chiefs, and has them watch from a hill.

Alzar builds a huge fire, and the over the course of the next 10 minutes, Alzar summons elementals, even two fire elementals, his Stalker, Griffin, Shadows, and such. Then he uses similar tactics as before, and flies to the other side of the army and uses mass attack spells like Skulltrap, Death Spell, Wail of the Banshee, Chaos, Mass Domination, Mass Charm, and more to dominate that area of the battle. Then as they retreat before him, they run into his assembled forces. The group is thoroughly destroyed as a fighting unit and suffers more than 50% casualties. Alzar was safe with his Bracers of Protection Against Normal Missiles and flying overhead. (It’s hard to damage when you have eschewed magic – that makes it hard to take out the elementals as well). As they break and flee, Airs and Griffins chase them down and a slaughter engulfs. 143 soldiers have died, while the remaining 67 include 22 that are now Alzar’s friends. The friends give Alzar detailed information about the battle plans, including a fourth army that has set sail and intends to land behind their forces.

Alzar lets them head back, he wants the sort of these 45 people to demoralize the rest. The five he brought are Mass Teleported back and give a great story.

The next day, Alzar memorizes the four Elemental spells again (Conjure Greater, Conjure Air, Water, Earth) and then Mass Teleports them into the middle of the main army. It takes them a while to kill them (they do, the oards are with the army and their weapons work on it), but again, Alzar wants to slow them down. That night Alzar teleports over and scouts the ships that are sailing. They are about 18 days away from the area ,but they have 1200 soldiers on board more than 100 ships. It’s a major army, and not just some small force. He heads into the OtherSpace for tonight and learns new spells and readies himself for the morrow.

The next day, Alzar has memorized a pro-water campaign and will be a little different – stealthier. He uses a pinch of dust of disappearance and then flies down. Using his Ring of Water Command, Alzar can walk on water, purify it, create it, water breath cast Airy Water, and then cast spells Lower Water, Part Water, Wall of Ice and summon a water elemental. He moves to one of the boats and casts Virus Charm on a crew member and then leaves it. He then heads to another ship and casts some other spells here and there. He conjures a water elemental and it punches up through the bottom of a ship and will sink it. But that’s the only overt thing he does. The rest of the hour or so he spends here he casts subtle spells, like Sleep (and then knocks them overboard) or Charm Person or Mass Charm/Domination. He uses Dire Charm and someone attacks their neighbors and is killed. He uses the Eyes to Charm a full boat of people, he uses Summon Swarm to summon a swarm of small dragonflies who attack the sailor in the top deck, who dies. And the one or two people he suspects may have seen him do something he uses Forget or Ray of Oblivion on. By the end of the day, three ships are been charmed enough to be under his control, and a 4th was destroyed.

[Abe Sargent]

And using different version of this story, over the next 6 days, the same things happen. One ship will be destroyed (under different circumstances.) and then ships will, quietly, come under Alzar’s control while he uses quiet spells like Hold Person and Power Word Stun to freeze people, and keeps things on a natural level. By the end of the week, there are 93 ships left, and 21 ships of those are now friends (or dominated) by Alzar.

Alzar then appears to the ships on the morning of the 8th day out, and he gets them to veer off and pull away from the fleet. He conjures three water elementals (Ring, Mask, Spell) and three airs (Mask, Spell, Censer). And they are a smashing force that moves against the others. He uses range spells like Death Spell and more and at the end, 10 ships have been destroyed. With 21 veering off in another direction, and 7 more destroyed in the week before, that drops their numbers. They change their plan and retreat, having lost too much of their number to pull out.

With the two armies that were going to create flanking issues handled, Alzar heads back to check on the preparations. He wants all 8 humans together in one army, and they have bene working together. The dwarves and elfs are in separate support armies. The humans lack missile fire, but the elves have it.

Alzar is informed by the halflings that the main army has a huge iron dragon that has been brought with them. He scrys on the army and they are partially correct. There is a very large war-oriented four legged robot that the oard have assembled and “dragon” is a term that works, only because of its size and threatening nature. There are two oards on top, guarding it as it moves. An hour later, Alzar conjures an greater earth elemental, uses his Zoster, and then the two teleports over, next to the thing to take it out. He is immediately hit by beams coming from the alien’s ray gloves. He takes 13 damage. They were on the lookout for him, and got the jump on him.


Initiative.

6 vs 9. Alzar hacks at the robot with his axe and shield. 14, 10, and 12. He hits three times for…44 damage. The elemental needs a 5 and rolls….6. Hits for 13. The “creature” roars at Alzar and stabs him with a spiky tongue for 12 damage (Robots ignore all illusions, including his Cloak). The Oards use a pair of fireball gems at him and his friend, and hit for 19 and 22 damage. Alzar is reeling.

Alzar 15/79

4 vs 7. Alzar switches out the shield for a potion, carves the robot twice more for 22 damage and it dies and the oards fall. He quaffs a superhealing potion to gain 40 life. 7 vs 6. They use rays and strike him, and then he carves and kills one and the Elemental smashes the other for 20 damage. 3 vs 5. Alzar kills the wounded one.

Their army is moving towards them. Alzar orders the Elemental to charge into them and conjures other aid, like shadows and the Stalker. Then he uses the time they buy him to collect various items:

2 Ray Gloves
4 Fireball Gems
Parts from large robot

He teleports back home after taking out the dragon and reports his success.

[Abe Sargent]

On day 39, their main force arrives in the area. Alzar troops are one day away. His Banner is back in Evenarrow, but he brought the Rod of Victory out for battle from his Otherspace.

Their foe:

Kolmede Main Force – 1500 troops (After Alzar softened them from 1600)
BFR – 109, current BR 132

They are coming after:

Elves of Erydall - 400, 191 BR

Dwarves of Jalndrup – 320, 125 BR

Humans Tribes of Arqwen – 2590, 104 BR – Led by Alzar

Their enemies have to divide. They split into 500 each.

Elves vs Kolmede –

Elves are defending - +10 – 69 difference. 24 vs 30. Win by +63. 20% casualties for elves, 50% for enemies. Moderate vs Severely exhausted.

Dwarves vs Kolmede - +10 for defending, 3 difference…27 vs 39 – lose by 12. 20% losses for dwarves, 0% for humans

Humans vs Kolmede – Defending +10, Rod of Victory, +25. +60 for Troop ratio. _95 diff. 65 vs 87. 73 win. 30% vs 60% losses.

Humans, Elves, kept the map. Humans lost more, but are not tired. Alzar sends them against the not tired Kolmede.

Kolmede get +10 for winning against dwarves, and Alzar gets +10 for wining too – cross that off no longer defender. Alzar’s forces are not just +45 for size, +25 for Rd - +41 overall. 60 vs…20. 81 victory. 10% vs 50% losses.


Although it was bloody, Alzar’s forces lost 40% of their group (20% permanently). But they forced 60% and 50% in two engagements and won the day. The Elves also lost 40 of their number completely, but destroyed their unit. The dwarves may have lost, but they helped to split the numbers.

With more than 50% of their main army killed, the ocean one retreating and the advance one destroyed, they halt their offensive and begin to retreat. Alzar orders harassing attacks by everyone for days, and does so himself, not let them sleep, hitting them with Mass Teleported elemental.

They won’t try that again.

At the end of the war, Alzar is hailed as the great hero and Lord again. Each of the four groups give him a powerful item of themselves. From the halflings, he receives a +4 Sling of Seeking. From the elves a set of Elven Cloak, Elven Boots, and +3 Bronze Elven Scale Amor. From the humans, a s+4 shield. But from the dwarves? After seeing his love for the axe, they have crafted for him a truly inspired creation they have named Selinor, dwarf for “Frost Speech”. They carved the name on it in runes. Meanwhile the halflings, barbarians, and elves also carved symbols in their gifts.


Selinyr - +5 Axe, with two talents – Translating and Extinguishing.

When on his person, he always translates every language that is said, and can speak them back. And, the axe is cool to the touch, extinguishes normal fires when placed in them, and is +10 to hit and damage vs fiery foes (Red Dragon, Fire Elemental, Hellhound, etc).

Alzar thanks them profusely for the gift. After the celebration is over, he uses the Cube and disappears.

[Abe Sargent]

Island of the Sorcerers


Alzar finds himself in a hexagonal chamber. In one wall is an open lancet window, and there is the russet orb of the sun beyond, sitting behind a placid sea. In a tree beneath the window, a nightingale is singing, and the scent of jasmine drifts in on the gentle breeze. The chamber is lit by a glowing gem hanging from the ceiling and has a bench fixed to the wall opposite the window. The remaining walls are decorated with frescoes of fabulous beasts and in the bench is a crystal vial, some powders and a dish of black residue. A trapdoor in the floor is open and a figure is coming up, and spies Alzar, mouth agape.

The man introduces himself as Sfar, a servant of the great wizardess Giagfena. He grabs the items that were meant for her from the bench, and then begs Alzar to follow him, and leads him to the refectory. There are a dozen or so mages here eating dinner. Alzar is introduced to them. He is at The Bibliotheca, an underground library on an island that is the center of knowledge and research for all things magical and arcane in the known world.

The complex includes the guesthouse here, as well as modest ports and such. Then there is the library itself with nine floors of books, one for each level of spells. The center of the library sports the Luminance. This is a powerful artifact in the form of a shimmering crystal (sometimes shifts to a throne) that protects and defends the Bibliotheca. It prevents any magical travel to the location, and Alzar’s arrival, although not possible by the laws of magic, was probably enabled via the usage of chronomancy – in other words, he was already on the island, he just shifted in time. Apparently chromomancy is a loophole in a lot of things.

Anyway, the Luminance also creates a powerful storm cover, summons creatures to defend it and the Bibliotheca, and can be a powerful weapon. In fact, when it’s in throne form, a powerful (24+ level) wizard can sit in it and control, to some degree, the defenses of the island. Anyone who sits in the throne can also gain inspiration in their research for golems, magical items, spell learning or crafting, potion brewing, scroll making, and so forth.

[Abe Sargent]

After learning about various places, and such, Alzar begins to move out to the Bibliotheca proper. The guesthouse is just about 1000 feet from the library proper, but no Fly, Levitate, Dimension Door, Blink, Teleport, Astral Spell, Gate, etc will work here, except the Luminance’s.

He’s about halfway there when suddenly a group appears from being invisible and strike! Multiple spells are cast at him!

Three spells get off from three casters, and they are….

Polymorph Other (to a pig); Disintegrate, Power Word, Kill. Alzar rolls…1…15…(No Need, currently too many HP to be PWK)

Now, when he fails to the PO, instead a Protective Amulet is destroyed and he’ll need to reup that tomorrow.

Initiative!

2 vs 3. Alzar casts Time Stop! Three wizards are visible and he casts Power Word Kill on the one that led with a 4th level spell, probably a lower level mage, and then Major Globe of Invulnerability and then...nothing else.

Time Stop ends and…The one had a Contingency spell in place that triggers and fires an Anti-Magic Shell, rather than killing. The wizard is still alive, but won’t be able to cast anything. 6 vs 8. Alzar casts Mass Domination and actually does not dominate the other two, but instead frees them from Dominations to others (Akin to how two charm effects break each other) and they stop and shout and drop their weapons. The three reach over and wrestle the last one to the ground and tie him up, under his Shell. Then Alzar uses Cleaving on the Shell to drop it, and then casts a normal Domination and ends that one, and all three are good.

[Abe Sargent]

They tell Alzar that when they were on the throne incarnation of the Luminance, that something was used against them to dominate them and they were going to leave the island and do the bidding of something else, but now that’s gone. But they are also confused – nothing magical should have worked on them while they were on the artifact, so how were they effected?

Alzar moves to the Bibliotheca, bringing those three with him, and begins to inspect things. Very soon thereafter, he uncovers something interesting. After they arrive at the Luminance at the heart of the area, the others unanimously pointed to one spot that was controlling them. Alzar heads over and while Detect spells find nothing, he uses his axe and pries open the wall. Inside it is a metallic construct, similar to the ones made by both the race that landed the starship in the mountains, and also the oards. This is a Hypnosis Cube. Alzar secures it,

The three wizards mention that others may have been dominated as well. They know a few Domination spells, and use them to free others, who do the same. In two days, all of the controlled mages in the Bibliotheca have been freed.

[Abe Sargent]

And Alzar is already feeling the pull of the Cube. It’ll only be a day before he is forced to use it. He spends that day learning a few spells from the Bibliotheca.

9th – Worldwalk – Lasts 1 turn/level, opens up large gate between two planes that anyone can cross, user must know and have an item from the other plane 70+Level% of it working, requires item from each plane that is destroyed on casting

6th – Wizard Seal – Like many spells, this spell protects an item and seals it. Opening it causes a save vs spell or be cursed, as per 4th level spell, but permanent. Unlike other protections, this one is removed via Remove Curse spell from the book, scroll, etc, not by Dispel Magic. Requires 1000 gp gem, crushed and used at the end of the spell

2nd – Zala’s Lifeforce Guardian – When targeted by an effect that drans life, such as energy drain, finger of death, death spell, trap the soul, etc, Grants a save, and if made, the Guardian absorbs it and dies. Duration is 2 rounds/level. No material component to the spell

7th - Younger – Spell which requires a pound of marrow from a newborn dragon, can be cast once/year. Target loses one year/caster level, and the caster loses one point of CON for one year. Roll 5% cumulative for each time spell is cast, the loss is permanent, and the effect cannot be duplicated on any target more than once, ever. So if he cast it on himself, he’d lose 26 years, and have a 5% of losing 1 CON permanently, but would still lose it for 1 year.

7th – Hold Golem – Used, no save, to detect and hold one golem, even those not normally able to be held or immune to magic. It works for 1 rnd/level.



And after frenzied spell-memorizing, Alzar disappears and…

[Abe Sargent]

The Entropy Bubble

The four attempts by the oards to break the power of magic on the planet, and the region of Aelos/Norwold specifically was stymied by Alzar. The foundation of their future reality have been critically undermined. They have prepared for this and crated a refuges where they could gather their strength before moving off on another assault on the planet and perhaps from a new angle.

This refuge is called the Entropy Bubble. Inside it is the outpost of Cijal. There are robots, high level technology, and more all over. There are moving images on the walls, bright twinkling lights, three-dimensional illusions, and more.

Alzar doesn’t want to be seen, so he uses a pinch of dust of disappearance. Then he flies up. Their technology is immune to his magic, and vice versa.

He passes by buildings such as outposts and such. The oard have various slaves and people serving them. A large number of rope-like cables can be seen coming from a central building to the lef,t so Alzar flies over and checks it out. A large, horn-like substance is here, about a foot high, and there is energy running from it, and it’s a central object somehow. Alzar’s axe carves into it and destroys it, and suddenly the power goes out in the outpost, and the various slaves and servants, now freed begin to turn on their masters.

And as the chaos erupts, Alzar is pulled from the oard outpost. He grabs the Temporal Shift Cube and disappears….


End of CM6. Where Chaos Reigns

Well, that’s about as crazy a ride as you will ever see in a D&D module. Zang!

[Abe Sargent]

DA2. Temple of the Frog




Now the Temple of the Frog has a major pedigree. The Blackmoor supplement was the 2nd released for D&D, and although most were the introduced of new items, spells, monsters and such, in the back was an adventure – the first published adventure for an RPG – Temple of the Frog.


I was initially going to run DA1 – DA4. But after rereading DA1, I don’t see it. The basic framework for DA1 is extremely simple. Adventurers find a tavern that is only mentioned in legends and myth. The inn is between worlds. After exploring the inn and its people, they end up in the inn 3000 years ago when a king was abducted. That king was taken to the inn of the near future (From when the adventures entered, like 3002 years or so). Adventurers need to go to that inn and free the king. That’s it. Not exactly a world-beating adventure, and hard to tie into Alzar’s campaign. And I’m not 100% sure about DA4 either. But DA2 and 3? Get ready…

[Abe Sargent]

….and Alzar appears in a swamp, deep in the dank, smelly, sweaty Swamp of the Frog. In front of him about a half mile in the distance is the grandiosely named City of the Frog. It’s no city at all, but rather a small cloistered settlement.

Hidden at the end of an inlet on the northern shore of a small river is a Frog Island, a tangled jungle of sawgrass and mangrove swamp in northeastern part of Loch Gloomen, the city consist of four areas separated from each other by walls or water barriers the temple compound, out bailey, temple garden, and Frog Town.

Surrounding the City of the Frog is the Frog Swamp, a pestiferous fen populated by all manner of carnivorous horrors, with waters of the swamp roughly 2 feet deep and sinkholes not uncommon drilling deeper than two Alzars. Dotting the swamp at various intervals are sand barriers and grassy hummocks of dry ground.

Alzar flies up with the Carpet to get the lay of the swamp. From here, Alzar can make out a large moat surrounding the temple compound and garden as well. There are three drawbridges that support three iron-barred gates that are each glowing magically, and appear to extend below the water one of the moats.

The local avoid the dangers of quicksand and deep water by using flat bottomed canoes and a set of poles and ropes alongside the waterways that Alzar can follow if he wants. Or he can just fly. Today there is a dense fog over the area, but the place around the Frog Swamp, City and Temple have ebbed and can be made out.

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar thought that he was done with the oard invasion plans, but perhaps they have created new ones after he destroyed their outpost, or maybe even they have renewed a different attack here. (Alzar is 4032 years in the past)

He heads to OtherSpace to pull out Azzil and some items that are probably good for this area, such as his Ring of Water Command and Bracelets of Swimming (Which increase his swimming speed considerably). He flies over to a large tree to hide behind it, in the air, and uses the Crystal Balls to scry (With three Crystal Balls, he can scry 9 times a day.) He uses these to get a feel for the surrounding environment.

After he spends some time with his magic, he returns and flies down to the swamp. Frogs are clearly considered holy or special here, since there are multiple species of frogs kept in cages and roosts, and a special version of frog people in a nearby villa (Frog Town) as well as the motif of the frog everywhere.

He’s confused. This doesn’t have the feel of another press by the oard. There is some updated, non-Mystaran technology here it seems, but it’s not like the oard.

Here is the front view of the Temple of the Frog





As you can see, there is another interstellar vessel here of some sort, and this is not the style of the oard. It’s too soon to tell, it could certainly be another vessel from another group, but that’s a bit odd.
 
There have been a few animals in the great Frog Swamp that have missed him, like giant leeches and crocodiles. He is going to float over aerially, rather than float over water, in order to keep clear of the creepy crawlies and to keep his presence undetected for now.


The carpet slides over and Alzar drifts from tree to tree, taking things in and watching to make sure that nothing is coming after him.


After a short while, Alzar unloads from the swamp and enters the temple compound and uses his Ring of Invisibility.

[Abe Sargent]

And this is a good place to do an aside on Alzar and illusions and invisibility.

As you might recall, Alzar is a Path Mage, a specialization he created himself in a book he penned called The Fivefold Path to Power. He wants spells that have longer durations or are permanent. That includes knowledge, summoning, creating, enchanting, and animating.

Because of its insubstantial, temporary, and unreal nature, Alzar absolutely can’t stand illusion magic. He sees illusion as weak, and thereby not powerful. And that’s the goal of magic, to go things you can’t do on your own, to imbue yourself with power. And if illusion is the weakest form of power, then Alzar doesn’t want to be a part of it.

And that applies, to a lesser degree, to evocation magic.

So since Alzar is not a fan, invisibility, which is an illusion that the user is not there, when they are, is a false path to power. There are better things to do with your time. And yet, Alzar gained that Sword of Lyons back on Thorasia, an invisible short sword, and every time it was drawn the user would turn invisible until sheathed. That was a powerful, but permanent tool, that used invisibility.

And ever since then, Alzar has been comfortable using items of invisibility to penetrate the defenses of an area. Now he’ll use others, like a Hat of Disguise or polymorphing to a new shape completely, but why reject an item that you came across? It’s not like Alzar made potions of invisibility (which he can’t do – if you can’t cast the spell, you can make the item) but he certainly can drink it when he finds one. And the same is true of a Ring of Invisibility and Dust of Disappearance and more.

So let’s get all invisible. Because it may not be that powerful, but it’s still something.

[Abe Sargent]

This 90-yard square walled compound built atop an outcropping of rock 200 yards from
the lakeshore is a veritable fortress. Its 10-foot thick limestone walls loom 20 feet over
the surrounding moat, and the gatehouse and four big corner towers top the walls by another
10 feet. A wooden drawbridge in the gatehouse connects the compound with the
temple garden.The order’s massive temple is built in the likeness of a giant frog. Its windowless,
green limestone walls soar 130 feet above Ihe temple compound. Between its front legs are a pair of monumental bronze doors whose surfaces are blueish green with verdigris. Here and there, greasy
smokes emanates from vents in its sides or roof to mingle with the mists that cloak the city

The temple’s doors are electronically sealed except during services, and that’s not right now. So they are closed closed.

The courtyard is laid out with rough white marble chips and a wide walk that leads from place to place. He checks out the gatehouse from beyond and…spies “Sunk into the right wall of this tunnel is a smooth red plastic alarm button. Hitting this button causes the computer to sound the alarm throughout the temple.”


There are two towers at each of the two gatehouses on this side of the compound, and each seem to have a soldier on top. Alzar heads over to the Temple Garden.

when the first monks dug a moat around their new temple and a U-shaped canal from Loch Gloomen to carry supplies to their doorstep, the resulting channels drained the water from a 90-yard by 180-yard segment of Frog Swamp. This area became a wooded garden, a stretch of solid ground over which the monks could stroll for exercise and refreshment of the spirit. Since various species of nasties kept wandering in from the nearby swamp and sticking fang and claw into the soft-bodied monks during their constitutionals, the brothers
eventually walled this garden off from the swamp. Like the temple compound, the garden today is protected by a 10-foot thick, 20- foot high limestone wall

[Abe Sargent]

The temple looms large. There are some guard towers, and a beautiful arbor walled of rare species of flowers that are donated to the Cult by someone named St. Stephen. (According to the tablet on the bottom – Alzar’s Axe, Selinyr, can read it for him perfectly). There’s a large lily pond that large frogs are using, and giant fish can be seen in, and so forth.



There is a third gate here, with a giant frog statue in front.



It looks like it could come alive at any moment, and it’s currently playing with a human creature made of an unknown metal.

There hasn’t been a lot of traffic for Alzar to dodge. He’s passed by small numbers of people or priests of various sorts. There just haven’t been a lot of them. No need to play dodge-em priests or anything to prevent being noticed.

The Outer Bailey is next. As the temple grew, the monks drained the swamp to the east of the temple and walled the area in with a barrier almost identical to that around the temple compound. Part of this area was a natural harbor, which became the center of commerce. Even a temple compound and the surrounding area has to trade and connect with others.

There are 5 lay brothers working on docks here. Alzar passes more sentry towers, and a common house, and then pens of sharpened close-set palmetto stakes pounded into the ground to create a makeshift palisade. There are some draft horses, slaves, and more in here. There is a trade block in front where slaves and animals are purchased.


Alzar skips them and moves past some barracks as well and warehouses for storage of less-vital things like dry goods and such. There are open doors that reveal casks of clean water, low quality wine and beer, lumber, and grains from trade.

[Abe Sargent]

He passes guest houses and such, and then makes his way into the Frog Town section of the city. Here’s a very long copy and paste about it:

During the temple’s early days, some fur
traders wheedled permission to set up trading
posts along the southern shore of Frog Island
beneath the walls of the outer bailey Over
time, others came to these posts-drifters,
bawds, criminals on the run. They formed a
small community called Frog Town. As it
grew, Frog Town ceased to he a haven for
traders and became a nest of bandits who
preyed on the Duchy of Ten and the Barony
of the Lakes. When their many depredations
finally threatened to bring too much attention
to the temple and draw a punitive expedition
down on the monks’ heads, the order
acted.
The newly installed high priest, Saint
Stephen, led the monks and their armed lay
brothers in a surprise night attack on Frog
Town. Once they had control of the town,
they executed its leaders and worst bandits
(generally one and the same). The survivors
were brought under temple control, exercised
by an inner circle monk who served as its
“resident” and had veto power over all activity.
Thereafter, Frog Town became a dumping
ground for persons whose services were desired
by the temple, but whom it could scarce
enslave and did not want to recruit as lay
brothers. Now, it is little more than a labor
pool for the order, a kind of warehouse for
their hirelings. Most of the members of the
order’s slaving parties dwell in Frog Town. So
do the “swamp rats,” the hunters and fishermen
who provide the temple with fresh meat
and fish. Bawds, publicans, and a few slaves
round out the little town’s current population.
The residents of Frog Town are pretty
much left alone within the town, but they
can’t leave without permission. To ensure
that they abide by this restriction, they all
wear plastic collars containing miniature
transmitters similar to those worn by the
killer frogs. The collars emit a steady signal
showing the wearer’s location. The Frog
Towner’s collars also contain a self-destruct
feature that causes them to explode (doing 8-
32 points of damage to the wearer) if tampered
with.
This and other indignities have spawned
much resentment in Frog Town. If given the
opportunity, at least half of the slavers and
most of the other residents would sack the
temple and win their freedom. For the
present, Frog Towners keep their mouths
shut and bide their time, hut, unless otherwise
noted, if the PCs reveal their true purpose
to a Frog Towner other than Ratty Tom
(1-28), there is a 50% chance that their confidant
will assist them and a 5% chance that he
will turn them in to the order.
Even if the players make no attempt to
raise Frog Town against the order, it is an excellent
place to gather information. During
the day, almost all of the residents are abed,
and no Froggies are visible. At night, the
place comes alive, and most Frog Towners
are at revel in one of the taverns or bawdy
houses. Since Frog Town boasts the only real
entertainment in the City of the Frog, most
off-duty Froggies below the rank of saint usually
end up there. None of the celebrating
Froggies speak of the temple’s lower
dungeon, but there is much “shop talk” on
other order-related matters.

Many of the dwellings here are in much lower disrepair and condition. There is a tavern and here a brothel, and then a low-quality gambling house. Slaver shacks and sheds, and shacks. As Alzar moves around, a man with an odd gait walks out of one of the stores and stares straight at him, and then he comes over and pulls Alzar into his den.

He introduces himself as Weewak, a cyborg who was created to destroy the Temple of the Frog and all of it’s technology. Alzar learns more about the Order of the Frog from Weewak. Their opposition, the Order of the Frog, is led by a man of resource and ambition. High Priest Saint Stephen and his four sainted companions appeared out of nowhere and took over the order five years ago. They now rule it with an iron hand. Though Stephen and his companions appear normal enough (except for the slight greenish cast of their skin), they are quite literally not of this world. They are aliens, members of a scientific expedition that crashlanded on this planet some years ago.

A minority, led by Security Officer Stephen (“the Rock”) Rocklin, argued that rescue was uncertain and that the crew might be forever trapped in their sealed hibernation chambers. This faction maintained that contact with the locals would be the key to survival if no rescue materialized. When the captain and chief science officer overruled them, Rocklin and his faction mutinied. their bid to take over the stranded ship failed, and a mere handful of them escaped in their lifeboat. As they sped away, a loyalist sent a Hellbore missile after them. Try as they might to evade the deadly seeker, it caught up with the lifeboat and knocked it down in Frog Swamp. That lifeboat is now a part of the Temple of the Frog.

[Abe Sargent]

Stephen pretended to be a prophet from the Order of the Frog. Set u[p shop, took over everything, and the Order has been a lot more antagonistic ever since. Meanwhile the captain had one of the officers create Weewak to infiltrate the Temple and blow it up. It can sense Alzar’s mission is similar, and wants to join up. Alzar is incognito though. A potion or somesuch work on the cyborg. Alzar tries a pinch of Dust of Disappearance and it works. Weewak and Alzar will penetrate the Temple together.

In a few minutes, they head back over as a loud bell rings, and a post-dinner audience begins in the temple, and the doors are opened up.



More cut and paste:

The walls of the frog-shaped temple building are constructed of finely dressed 500-pound blocks of green limestone, closely morticed to make it appear that the entire structure is an organic whole-as if it is, in fact, a giant frog. Even the limestone flags that cover the floors of all of the rooms are tightly joined to further this effect. Generations of sculptors have labored to carve the exterior stone ofthe temple in the likeness of a frog, softly rounding angles to make them appear more lifelike. Inside the temple, these same sculptors have
decorated walls and pillars with spectacular friezes of frogs and froglike beings in all manner of poses.

Nor have the sculptors confined themselves to the walls. Every doorway inside the aboveground temple boasts an elaborately carved door hand-crafted from a single slab of white oak. Sconces carved in the shape of grinning upthrust frog faces are set in the walls of all halls and corridors at intervals of 10 feet, the mouth of each frog accommodating a white candle symbolizing the purity of the frog. The tops of pillars are decorated with carved ferns, through whose leafy fronds peek dozens of tiny, grotesque amphibian visages. Alien technology multiplies the impact of this weird decor. In fact, the temple is permeated with the magic of technology.


From the lighting to the plumbing, this temple is rife with the technology of the landed craft’s escape vessel.

They enter into the temple nave and the great temple itself opens before them. There are a bunch of columns, and doors, and strong beams of light from a cupola high above the altar. Priests are gathering to begin the post-dinner service, and there are a variety of people entering or milling about, and it’s much more crowded than anywhere else.

[Abe Sargent]

There is some machinery behind the altar and a short hall there leads to a dusty ramp that rises in the darkness and slants off over the altar and ends there. It raises the alter by a few feet though, for the service.

There is a small door back here, found by the Star of Mo-Pilar, and a mechanic lock that Weewak picks instantly. Inside is an alcove with five brass shelves, and they include a large green statue statue of a frog on a lily pad and holding a struggling human in its mouth -like the one outside. (Worth 11,000 gp) There is an unlocked jade box, and he opens it to reveal a jade ring.

Ring of Frog Calling – Once/day, wearer can summon a frog swarm, obscures vision, and drives off creatures of less than 3 HD. Swarm stays for up to a day or until dispersed. Only be used if swamps are nearby and frogs can reach the user.

A few rooms open off the back corridor as it bends. A quick check shows no one is in the Sexton Horis Tisa’s quarters, and Alzar grabs:

72 theological books, Temple of the Frog

Really quickly and places them in his Bag of Holding.

They pass a guard room with a lot of priestly vestments and arrive at a latrine. The corridor bends and there is a organ room that overlooks the temple, a few rooms of prayer or resting, and a command center with a metal cabinet dotted by jewels. It controls light and sound during the service. There are slots to recharge power packs here too.,

[Abe Sargent]

An outer sanctum is off the room as the service is underway and there are tapestries and such, with the expected frog motif. Alzar moves into the next room, and inner sanctum with a variety of books and cabinets and pillows and such. In here is a man in powered battle armor, who can see both Alzar and Weewak, and the armor apparently ignores his protection. This is Saint Stephen,

Alzar’s mighty Selinyr axe escapes the thong it has and they get ready for battle. 6 vs 7. Alzar…rolls a 8 and a 11, and hits twice for…..38 damage. His shield rolls a 12 for 10 damage Weewak stabs out with each fist for 10 and 4. That’s one hit for 1d8 damage….4 – and that’s enough to kill St. Stephen.


As the leader of the Cult dies, a few acolytes move into the chamber and shout out an alarm. Alzar moves out and casts Wail of the Banshee, which doesn’t effect Weewak but kills a bunch of the local clergy. Three cast Silence at him and 2 work.

Init. 2 vs 8, Alzar casts Vocalize, which will ignore the Silence spell. Alzar is attacked a few times by missile weapons and many acolytes chose to begin to flee.

5 vs 6. Alzar casts Time Stop, then moves in and casts Mass Domination and Mass Charm to either force or befriend virtually all of the remaining acolytes. Those left will be killed easily enough by the dominated acolytes.

Battle ends, they have the first floor secure.

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar hands a spare Bag of Holding to a few friends and has them empty a bunch of books into them (gently of course)

He’ll wind up with:

232 Light Reading Books, 1st Floor Temple of the Frog

St. Stephen’s Damaged Battle Armor
2 Hand Blasters

Temple Ring

The ring will open up virtually everything here, including the metal cabinet that holds open a computer terminal, that Weewak jacks into. After a moment, the alarm was ended, and doors have bene opened and such.



In an office on this level, the ring opens a stash of weapons and armor:

4 heavy blasters
2 hand blasters
6 spare power packs
6 vibro-swords
4 vibro-maces
2 Inner Circle, 2 Outer Circle Rings

With Weewak now using a hand blaster he secured from a dead acolyte (deals 6d6) damage they are moving out. Just before the exits is a chancellor, trying to put all of the temple’s supplies away and run with them, but they stop him and he surrenders. They take his:


Power Armor

Off and secure it.

They now have 4 of the 5 leaders of the Cult of the Frog down.

[Abe Sargent]

They arrive at the Hall of Peace, and here the enemy has chosen to set up their defenses from below. The final leader is here, organizing a variety of guards, acolytes, and such. All of the remaining people from levels 3-6 are here:

3 people in powered armor, including the last leader
10 guards
4 acolytes
Norn, a cyborg
4 draco lizards as pet/guards

Norn has an autocannon blaster that is plugged into the main circuitry and can fire twice a turn and dole out a massive amount of damage.


Initiative

4 vs 9. Alzar casts Death Spell and…6 guards and 2 lizards die. Weewak charges in. He orders the Stalker to cover, and people can see it. Blasters ignite Alzar for 23 damage (no illusion with the Cloak) and the autocannnon nails the Stalker.

Alzar - 57/79

8 vs 3. Alzar takes…..24 from several hits. Norn kills the Invisible Stalker with the autocannon. He grabs the Gem of Delusion from his belt and uses it. A flash rings out and everyone (other than Norn and Weewak and the people in powered armor) save and if they fail or make it, they are stunned and then enfeebled for a few rounds each. Weewak tears into a powered armored defender for 14 damage.

34/79

1 vs 8. Alzar summons a greater Earth Elemental who is blocking the line of sight. Weewak finishes the damaged dork. Others fires and the Elemental takes some hits and Weewak takes some from Norn.

9 vs 3. They carve out some damage again. Weewak took 13 and the Elemental some more. Alzar conjures a normal Earth and advises Weewak to pull back from behind the Earths and he does.

2 vs 5. Alzar’s axe is out and he take down one, two guards. Weewak blasts a draco lizard, who is finished by the elementals, and they take out the stunned group before they can recover. The final leader orders a general retreat. And Norn covers for them, moving into the breach.

3 vs 2. Norn hits Alzar for another 10 damage. They smash-hammer Norn to death, and then fire weapons at the retreating two powered armored folks, and they both drop after two turns.

They have cleaned up the rest of this place


8 hand blaster
2 heavy blaster
3 damaged power armor
1 blaster autocannon

Alzar and Weewak and the elementals spend the time recuperating, and fixing his various wounds and searching the last three floors, all smaller.

[Abe Sargent]

They find bedchambers and bathrooms, storage and meditation chambers, and then a large computer room and power plant. Alzar has the items they grabbed recharged. There is a machine shop, cistern, and a map of the area carved into the floor. Apparently there is a basement to the temple, and it’s reached outside the main building. They head out and use the ring to enter.

Alzar grabbed the bags of holding from his “friends” before leaving the floor.

They penetrate the dungeon, led by the elementals, and Alzar summons for shadows to join them.

This is a place for storage of undesirables like slaves, prisoners, and such. After hearing the alarm upstairs, many of the guards have fled. They took some of the good stuff with them. Here are some slaver’s quarters and there some guards. Here a wash room and there a wine cellar. Some food storage here and some slave pens there. But Alzar knows of a lower level, according to the schematics they saw on the 6th floor. Alzar’s shadows find it first and report it to him. Here is a rector’s chamber and few monk quarters. All empty.

[Abe Sargent]

Behind the monk’s quarters was the secret door to a secret archive.

This 20x30 room is lined with glassed-in shelves containing leather-bound books and green-lacquered scroll cases and a 15 foot long carved oak table flanked by 6 chairs is in the center of the room.

These are the secret records of the Cult. They include the information on how to make frog people, the various frog-oriented magic items and wizardly, and more. A quick Star search reveals a few magical items in here, but Alzars wants the library too and cleans it out in ten minutes:

Secret Archives – 4 lined shelves of Cult of the Frog secrets, including how to make items, spells, and frog people.

Ring of Frog Control (Like a Ring of Animal or Mammal Control, for just Frogs)

The Lower Dungeon is behind these archives, and they head down.

The first room us a tunnel running south, and along it is a main watch room, and this is a choke point with a keeper and soldier, and there, people have not fled, but after the shadows penetrate their defenses, they scream and try to run but are brought down after a low level cleric tried and failed to control them.

In a waiting room beyond are a triad of mutated frog folk that are strapped to the beds.



After being turned into frog people, they are still being held by the locals. Alzar frees them and speaks to them in their own tongue to get the lay of the land, and then they head upstairs.

[Abe Sargent]

As Alzar moves forward, a large group of people on this floor have assembled and move to attack them.

1 bronze golem
1 monk
10 solders
4 keepers
1 Commander in battle armor
70 killer frogs controlled by a Ring of Frog Control by a monk

Alzar suggests to Weewak that he hold back and he casts Skulltrap and waits until he can get the majority of the frogs and takes them out, killing a few shadows, and hitting himself for 22 damage. Most are dead.

Init.

8 vs 6. They hit and kill some shadows, and even a wounded greater elemental with blaster fire. Alzar casts Power Word Kill on the commander and she dies. Weewak fires blaster fire at a monk and kills him.

3 vs 5. Alzar casts Hold Person and 2 soldiers stop in their tracks from firing. Weewak and an elemental smashes into some of their forces and destroy them. Their golem punches and kills a shadow. Alzar takes 10 damage.

4 vs 3. Alzar takes 13. They finish some more soldiers, and the rest retreat. Alzar orders his minions to chase them down while he animates some dead to assist. Eventually they report back that all is clear.

6 Ichor-Green Potions – Turn drinker into frog-person if they fail a save

They free some special prisoners in the back, but the secret level was exclusively for creating and holding killer frogs and frog people and prisoners for turning into frog folk.

After all of the slaves and prisoners and frog people are freed from the dungeons, Weewak heads up to the control room and self-destructs, destroying itself in the process, but taking the Temple with it. As the Temple of the Frog collapses and the technology is destroyed, the Cube begins to pull. Alzar grabs the two Bags of Holding and spends an hour or so moving many of the books to his OtherSpace. Then he spends the night there, and memorizes new spells the next day, and he uses the Cube.


End of DA2 Temple of the Frog

[Abe Sargent]

I removed a lot of the story behind why you wanted to take out the Temple (in the main story, the Temple has kidnapped a Baroness of Blackmoor and the King wants you to find and retrieve her). Here, we have a different reason for taking this thing out.

But get ready…


I think it’ll be really interesting for me to do a deep copy and paste from DA3 for you:

Far from the sun that helps Blackmoor, almost a third of the way around the galaxy lives light and life to
The Federation, a loose confederation of planets and peoples dedicated to the preservation of internal order and peace. Within the vast bureaucracy that governs this federation is a small bureau that is a tiny part of a big department that is but a fraction of a huge secretariat. This microscopic organization, the Galactic Survey Bureau (GSB), is charged with the long-term mission of exploring and mapping the galaxy, specimens of its flora and fauna, building a comprehensive directory of planets. One of the ways the bureau accomplishes its mission is by sending forth hundreds of Federation Survey Ships to visit
and catalog the stars and their planets.

A little over five years before the events related in this module, one of those survey vessels, the FSS Beagle, suffered a serious malfunction in its drive pod while in orbit around the sole inhabited world in a minor and heretofore uncataloged star system. Based on what was known, this accident was not supposed to happen. In fact, the engineers flatly maintained that it was impossible. Nevertheless, a power plant explosion destroyed the ship’s spatial discontinuity field and even damaged its conventional
drive. As a result, the crew of FSS Beagle found itself in a decaying orbit around a primitive world in a ship that was never meant to enter atmosphere.

Fortunately, Captain Bork Riesling found what appeared to be a dead sea bottom and managed to bring his ship down on it by badly abusing his conventional drive. Riesling’s maneuver saved both ship and
crew, but Beagle’s propulsion pods were so badly damaged that the vessel would never lift again-at least not without a new drive and power plant. Following the standard operating procedure, the captain sealed the ship and sent out survey robots to examine surface conditions. When their data was processed, there could be hut one unhappy conclusion.

The Beagle was stuck on a Class 9 pretechnological world inhabited by a number of sentient
species, of which the dominant species seemed to be genetically related to the principal species on the Federation Board of Governors. In fact, many members of Beagle’s crew, who were drawn from that principal species, could easily be mistaken for the dominant sentients of this planet except that their skin appeared to have a slight greenish cast under the light of the local sun. It would have been
extremely easy for the aliens to mix with the locals and gain global dominance within a few decades. But the very backwardness of the planet was its protection.

Federation regulations clearly prohibited cultural intervention in Class 9 worlds. Of course, regulations can be bent; and this was an emergency situation. The Beagle could not repair itself, and it could not lift.
There was enough power to keep the ship operational for decades, for perhaps as long as a century with a reduced crew. And, in a few years, the vessel would be missed, and a Federation rescue mission would begin backtracking its planned itinerary. Any vessel that came within a light year would almost certainly
pick up Beagle’s powerful distress beacon.

There always the chance, though, that some combination of events would delay the rescue. Budget cuts in 2946-2958 had delayed the rescue mission that was to search for FSS Foxglove, and the ship ended up being forgotten for almost 50 years until a minor bureaucrat noted that the vessel was still reported overdue.

In weighing these factors, there were those in the Beagle’s crew who favored a radical course of action. They wanted to contact the locals, establish cultural ascendency over them, and mobilize them to create an industrialized civilization. Using Beagle’s technological resources and with an entire planet to draw
from, it would be possible to establish a comfortable colony on the planet that would remain viable even if rescue was delayed for 500 years! The local sand folk, who occupied the desert surrounding Beagle, were already overawed by the aliens, calling them gods and their ship the City of the Gods. If the
other planetary cultures were as easily swayed, control of the globe might be established within a few short years and a global industrial base built within two decades.

It was a compelling argument, but one that Captain Riesling rejected. Regulations, he felt, could not he so easily flouted. When the rescue mission did show up, he would be accountable for all action taken; and the last captain to flout the nonintervention regulation had been cashiered and shipped to the ice
mines afFreya as an involuntary colonist. So FSS Beagle would adhere to regulations. Most of the crew would be placed in stasis. The robots would utilize the time to gather specimens on this world (thus impressing the superiors who would eventually review Riesling’s performance). A watch crew would run
the ship until the rescue mission arrived.

One of the crewmen who opposed Riesling’s decision was Security Officer Stephen (“the Rack”) Rocklin. As a senior line officer, Rocklin was part of the watch crew, charged with establishing groundside defenses against the natives. During the course of his duties, Rocklin became aware of some very strange aspects to Beagle’s new home. Many of the species captured by the e-bots (ecology robots) used as scouts displayed remarkable characteristics never encountered anywhere else in the galaxy. At first, it was thought that these were manifestations of unique parapsychological talents, but further
investigation showed that they were related to a strange energy field permeating the planet, but strongest just north of where the Beagle was grounded. Some of the aspects of this energy field were so bizarre that Rocklin and others took to referring to them as “magic,” (which, of course, is what they are).

After months of exposure to the bizarre phenomena of this world, Rocklin reached the conclusion that Beagle’s crew absolutely had to explore the planet further. The power represented by its energy field was a unique treasure that could change the lives of countless billions of yet unborn sentients throughout the galaxy. It must be studied and understood.

Knowing that the captain would never allow the cultural contact needed to accomplish this end, Rocklin recruited others to his cause and plotted a mutiny. Some crewmen joined because they agreed that what they had discovered on the planet justified breaking any and all regulations. Most, though, were simply scared that they would never he rescued.

As so often happens, the mutiny failed because it was betrayed. When Riesling was informed of the plot, he tried to arrest the ringleaders. Rocklin and his people fought back. It was touch-and-go for awhile, but the captain eventually regained control of the ship. Opening all of the envoi-pods in order to
create a diversion, Rocklin and a handful of mutineers managed to escape in a stolen lifeboat.

Though most of the loyal crew members were occupied rounding up the specimens who had wandered out of the open envio pods and into the ship’s corridors, one gunnery officer noted the lifeboat’s departure and sent a hellbore missile winging after it. The missile eventually caught up with the
lifeboat and sent it plunging into Frog Swamp, where Racklin and the survivors made contact with the Order of the Frog, which he eventually took over and turned into a personal power base.

[Abe Sargent]

DA3. City of the Gods




….Alzar is flung roughly two years into the future. Rocklin was resurrected after the Temple of the Frog incident by an itinerant priest, and Capt. Riesling became increasingly unstable, suspicious of everyone, and Rocklin is rebuilding his forces.

Meanwhile Alzar arrives in front of an egg in the desert, about six miles from the City of the Gods.

About 20 yards east of where you stand is a large, smooth, ovoid metal object. One end of the metal object is slightly crumpled
as if it had struck something, and a long burrow of plowed earth behind it appears to mark where the object skidded to
a stop. A closer examination reveals that the surface of the abject is not as smooth as it at first seemed. At one point, the base is
broken by an etched circle three feet in diameter. The surface of the circle is depressed except where it is bisected by a
7inch wide undershot bar. Beside the etched circle is a legend written in red runes.

The runes are a set of instructions written in Galactica and mounted on a decal. They can he read using a read languages spell.

They say: Warning! Authorized personnel only. Entry to this vehicle is restricted. To open manually, grip handle and turn all
the way to the right. Pull hatch out.

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar heads to OtherSpace and grabs his imp familiar, and then moves towards the egg. As he does, the hatch opens out, and out comes a small, rotund figure, and then another. They are a pair of brothers from the local Blackmoor government, wizards, who were dispatched to figure out what this egg structure is.

After Alzar introduces himself, they recognize him from reports of the one who helped to bring down the Temple of the Frog. After magically confirming his identity they explain their issues with the egg and such. One takes Alzar over and shows the various objects they gathered from the egg, two of which are working and they demonstrate it.

They think the egg is some sort of craft, and they are able to get it operational and show him how to move it if it could lift off. It can’t leave the area, it’s too badly damaged.

As they are detailing this for Alzar, when one of the rectangular areas that has been blank until now suddenly lights up. And the mage is extremely agitated by this phenomena since he has never seen it before and did not touch any studs or protrusions that could account for it. Etched into the rectangle is a bewildering array of glowing green shapes, most of them
straight lines. There are six pulsing lights. Alzar looks out and six large humanoid robots are flying towards the vessel.


High in the sky, Alzar can see six flying objects. You stand transfixed for a moment, then the mage cries with dismay, “Men. They’re flying men. And they’re made of metal.” As you squint in their direction, you can now see that they are indeed flying men whose glossy black bodies gleam like burnished steel in the bright sunlight. As fast as rocs, they speed toward you, and the
Two people are now clearly disturbed. Both of them dash from the egg.

The robots split into three groups each and one group moves towards Alzar and the two people and the often towards the craft. Suddenly, something shoots from the hand of one of the metal men, and a billowing green cloud forms in their midst. Another of the metal men swoops down and snatches Bosero, the wizard. Cradling the wizard in his arms like a small child, he flies off to the southwest before anyone can react.

Alzar is able to carve his axe into one as it flies overhead, and the robots are just too fast and he can’t catch them in his Flying Carpet. Then he hears the sound of breaking and turns around.

The egg has been destroyed. Smoke drifts through large rents in its shell and fire licks at the magic doorway.

Alzar heads back in and does a quick search and finds:


Alien Translator Badge
Medkit

Still operational. Alzar grabs them and flies off, on the Flying Carpet, in their general direction. They are heading to the nearby City of the Gods.


The spacecraft, still operational, is two miles long and around 3/4s of a mile wide. It’s an enormous, sprawling design.

[Abe Sargent]

Alzar flies around a bit and can make out considerable defenses. There are multiple places where the ship was breached where it landed. There are glowing security fields around the entire ship, huge autoblasters on wheels and leveled formations at the breeches and airlocks, and who knows what else. Alzar stops, around a mile and a half above the ship, and grabs the Crystal Ball and uses it to scout around. There appear to be explosive devices in the ground and various robots here and there patrolling the area.

It will not be easy to penetrate the City of the Gods. Could he do so magically? Even areas that have no breach or air lock have the fields, mines, robot patrols and autoblasters.

Because of the robots that captured the wizard have long since returned to the City, Alzar slides back to do some additional scanning, and investigating, to see if he can figure out a way in. For example, maybe there is a way from underneath – any caves or caverns that run close by? Unfortunately, the walls of the City are keeping his scrying from penetrating, and he can’t see it to there’s no chance to trying to teleport in.

After staying back and watching, a few hours later, a huge party of robots, powered armored folks, and dozens of frog people, carrying technological weapons like blasters and light sabers arrives, landing in 10 of those scout craft that were shot down just outside of the range of weapons to the south of the City of the Gods. Alzar is more than a mile away, but his Crystal Ball scries over and he can see St. Steven, the guy he killed – he was probably resurrected, leading an attack on the Beagle. Steven has more than 100 well equipped troops including major weapons, carving a path. There is a large breach from the landing in front they are likely targeting.

This might be why he was brought here today of all days. But is Alzar supposed to side with the Cult of the Frog? Or the captain and his ship? Or is he here for something else?

Whichever reason, this is certainly his chance. Robot patrols are redeploying and taking local defenses with them to counter this assault. Alzar waits a few moments, and then swings down to hit the fields and mines in the northern part of the City. He hits several explosives and takes some damage, and sets off an alarm, and then arrives at a breach newly denuded of its other defenses. And heads in.