Haven-Fara Campaign Synopsis - October 2008

[Greylen]

As you were trekking through the forest, leaving Hell's Keep behind you, the fog around you thickened and crackled with arcane power. You hurried on through the day, following the trail you knew had no branches, when the fog began to lift.

With the lifting, you found yourself far from your intended course and the sharp nose of Aon finding someone nearly invisible watching the group from the forest edge. His name was Jesse and he was the Ranger of a town named Haven-Fara.

He informed you that these areas were dangerous and you should come with him to talk to the town council. You agreed and followed him to the rim of a large valley, where the town of Haven-fara was encased in cobwebs, with large black spiders roaming over the top. You estimated about 40 spiders. Jess Furrier was as shocked as you in seeing the town and quickly scouted out the perimeter.

Finding a way in, you were attacked by 5 spiders. After defeating them, Jesse led you to a house where a pretty young lass, Patience, and her father, Dr. Gryll, are frantically examining the spiders as they scurry over the web above the house. You gather that Dr. Gryll is fascinated with spiders and is in seventh heaven being able to examine them so closely.

During one of his excursions out, he is snared by a spider, as is another party member. You get them back, killing another 5 spiders. Jess then is very adement in taking you to the 'Council' at the center of town, which is an old beached ship named the 'Good Fortune'. A knowledge check by the bard revealed this name to be the ship used by a Notorious Pirate named Captain Grist Haven, about 200 years ago.

You determine that going outside is not the best course of action, so you tunnel underground to the ship, coming up under it. You surprise the folk there, but before you start a fight, Jess explains why you are there.

The 'council' consisted of four men. Captian Arden 'Cap' Galen, Harc Longarm, Seth 'Keel' Friston and Westin Mimetae, but you find that Westin has been 'detained' by Captian Galen for insubordination when he tried to get the remaining folk to find out what happened to about 50 people who had mysteriously disappeared in the night.

Harc and Seth are excited to see you and offer you a reward for finding the townfolk, though for some reason Captain Galen does not seen to agree.

You decide to think it over and retreat back down the tunnel for a brief conference. Deciding you want more information, you tunnel over to where Jess says the jail is that holds Westin.

At first suspicious of you, Jess conviences Westin to allow you to help. He tells you of a tunnel that leads out of town. While you tunnel over there, Westin with you, you hear shouting behind you and realize that Galen and his cronies are trying to find you and have discovered that you let out Westin.

You surface and Westin quickly leads you over to the General Store and a secret passage. Descending, you are assaulted by four large spiders, but before anyone can react, Westin casts a spell that flashes and drives the spiders back to the forest. No one knows the spell he cast.

He asks you again to find out what happened to the missing townfolk and describes where the spider lair is located. Then follows you to the end of the tunnel before heading back into town.

In the forest, you are about half-way to your target, when out of the trees comes the largest spider any of you have ever seen. A Gargantuan spider who's legs were over 20' tall moved too quickly for any of you to escape. During the battle you cut off a number of legs, and the dwarf is alive only by his amazing fortitude saves.

Since I do not have the files from that time, I am granting you all the time to camp, rest-up and get back any spells you've lost. We will start at the entrance to the spiders lair, as described by Westin.

Please take the time to write a journal, so we can get back the 'personality' of your various characters. Especially since it has been so long since we played them.

This will be especially true when we get back to the main campaign, DM'd by Troy.

[Greylen]

Other Bits of information you MAY have overheard from someone...

1. About 50 people disappeared last night. The Machy brothers reported finding spider 'footprints' outside the village leading toward the spider lair.
2. Galen technically jailed Councilman Westin for 'looting' which you know was a pretext.
3. Entire Families are either untouched or totally missing.
4. About half the town is away on 'business'. They are expected back in about 1 week.

That's it for now. I'll post anything else I determine you may have picked up in our last session for a reminder.

[Greylen]

Guys, it was fun using the projector again. In the future it will just get better as we learn some of these new tools we have to use.

I want to reiterate for those not there to please put together your journal entry for the last encounter and this one, if you were there.

For a journal entry from the time before, I will give you 8 RP's (2800 XP for those level 7) and for any journal entry from this round, you'll double the normal amount, 2.

I will also start being more generous for in-character playing. This last round, I was pretty consumed with the technology. Next round I should have it down.

So, get to it and let's get this done before the next game night. (see November part Duex)

[Theylan]

Okay I ran the XP for everyone and excluding the logs it's 3072 per PC. Which should be enough to level up. At least it was for me.

[Ghostwheel]

Catchup log for Aug-Oct 2008

We followed the scout back to the town and were amazed at the scene. Even the scout's mouth fell open in awe. The entire town was covered in webs. Spiders of all sizes were crawling everywhere. There was a ship at the center of the town/web.
After scouting around, we found what must be an entrance and proceeded to get attacked by large black spiders. They were no match for us, and we quickly entered the town.
Going around town turned out to be not so easy as if you didn't watch out, a spider would descend from the top of the web and carry you off as an appetizer for the rest of the eight legged beasts. This happened on more than one occasion so we decided to use our dire badger's tunneling ability to make our way around town. Even a town doctor who seemed mor intent on studying the spiders was taken this way. He was suspiciously happy to see the spiders anyway. He treated it more like a boy's antfarm and only thought they were benign.

As we gathered information about the spiders, we came under suspicion ourselves and the local law wanted us arrested. We managed to get out of custody and made ready to pursue a lead we found to the south of the town. The information is shaky, but it implies that some of the leaders in the town are to blame. We have to confirm this information. The house we found towards the south had more info, and we found a cavernous tunnel that would hopefully lead us to more answers. It had already provided more proof that the councilmen were acting in concert with the spiders somehow. It still didn't make sense though and we would have to follow the trail to the spider lair.
We traveled along the best path we could make out when something in the distance began to approach us.
It sounded BIG. And it was BIG.
A gigantic black spider tore through the woods towards us. A few failed attacks by our party and the dwarf sprung into action. He was going toe to toe with the ferocious beast and winning despite the thing sinking it's fangs into him time after time. If not for his heritage, he would have been dead many times over.
The rest of us hurried into a hole to survive and heal. I was at the top covering the opening with my shield. I had a good view of the dwarf and could possibly get to him if he fell or needed an extra bit of healing to finish off the spider.
He was victorious and I expect our bard will be writing a tale and song about this mighty victory. When the rest of us were defeated, Azaar really showed his resolve. much needed healing later, we found a spot to rest the night. I hope there aren't any more of those giant beasts around...we are short of dwarven heroes to battle them.