Experience: 2420 xp (each)

Experience: For sessions 3/3 and 3/9
4,250 xp (Each)

Treasure: 308gp, 110pp, Reddragon hide plate (15.6k gp value), Pouch Dust of Disappearance, Oil of Bless Weapon, Potion of Darkvision, Wand Cure Serious Wounds 34 charges, Scroll Foxes Cunning, Scroll of Remove Curse, 4 Barrels of Foodstuff, a Crate of Silk (500 gp value)

Returning to the Crossroads, the party decides to get Gorim Halfblood raised before seeing Miles Howl. The cost, is almost every scrap of treasure they have acquired thus far. His negative levels need to be dealt with on top of the raise dead, and it drains the coffers of treasure they obtained within the ruins.

Seeing they had little left, they speak with Miles Howl. They offer to be his agents when they are more experienced. They hand over the expensive ancient dragon holy text, and then part ways. Tannim somehow convinces the party to let him keep the Vis Dragonheart they had found earlier.

The party rests in town for a few weeks while Gorim receives his restorations. Some discussions at the inn lead them to deciding to investigate the trade route disruption on the road to Salt.

This was a short session to work out some logistics.

Experience: 2900 each

Rewards:
3 emeralds 1000gp each, 3 diamonds 1000gp each, gold censor w plat inlays 400gp, gold chalice w griffon inlays 600gp, decorated gold plate 700 gp, mithral scepter gold inlays 600 gp, crystalized dragon heart (vis) 7,500 gp, holy dragon text 5,000gp, 700 gp, 22 pp, ring of feather falling, potion of draconic resevoir, wand of bless 15 charges

The T&A Company, resting up from their latest encounter along the road with trolls were taking a day off from travel to fully heal up and recover their magic. A lone rider comes into their camp, calling himself Gorim Turnblood. An orc from South Manest, he was part of another adventuring party that was hired by Miles Howl a few days before they were. His adventuring band had entered the ruins of Dragonhold, but were immediately assaulted by hoards of undead creatures. He managed to escape, but the rest of his party had not been so lucky.

After discussing it, they decide to band together. Gorim is an agent of Howl as well, so they figure it won’t hurt to have him along. The group pushes into the edges of the city the next day. On the approach, they see the old towers and floating sky islands in the air, but the city itself is shrouded in a dark miasma that blocks out almost all light. Even in bright sunlight, the outer city is shrouded in complete darkness. A couple of quick light spells and they head inside, picking through the city streets, planning to head toward the eleven great towers.

Their journey is quickly cut off by the appearance of strange rotting corpses, that vomit spells from their mouth. Lightning bolts, magic missiles and burning hands quickly decimate the party, but they recover enough to fight back the undead. More and more pour out as they push further into the city. Strange Black Boned skeletons appear, their blades stealing strength when they hit. A couple more battles, and they look back to see they have only made a little progress into the city. They contemplate turning back, but decide to push forward.

Characters: Arimar, Tannim, Tirian, Ox, Gorim
Experience: 800 (each)

Rewards:
3 pp
30 gp
potion cure light wound x 2
wand of animate rope 47 charges

Continuing on from their journey, with their wounds mostly healed, the T&A Company make their way toward the Ruins of Dragonhold. As the sun is setting on the forth day they come across an area of sparse tree cover that would make a decent campsite. It is quickly revealed as unsafe and the hunting ground of a rough-green hide troll. The setting sun seems to be impairing the trolls vision, as it sniffs around for them. The T&A Company decide to try and flee, but are ambushed by a second troll coming around a large copse of trees.

Tirian and OX’s horses freak out, and bolt away into the woods with their riders. Arimar’s horse also bolts, but right between the trolls! He jumps free to try and hide in the tree and brush cover. Out of all of them, only Tannim manages to keep control of his horse.

While his horse is fleeing Tirian manages to get off a spell to conjure forth a cloud of fog to obscure their path, then rides off into the forest on his wild horse. Ox leaps from his horse as he sees Arimar get cut off from the rest, rushing in to try and help. The trolls close on them.

Arimar quickly runs behind the approaching trolls. A third troll appears, but grabs the fleeing horse and begins feasting. Arimar makes it to Tannim’s horse and hops onto the back, but the new rider upsets the horse and it bucks and starts to flee right toward the trolls! Tannim hops off when he is unable to control it, but Arimar uses the horse as cover, since it looks like they’ll have to fight, and hops off behind the two closing trolls.

The first troll nearly kills Tannim, while Arimar and Ox fight the second one. They cut and slash deep wounds that heal up almost as quickly as they are being delivered. Arimar’s dagger seems to be more effective thanks to it’s corrosive acid enchantment. Tirian finally knocks out his horse with a punch before running to join the others, arriving to find most of the party almost dead. He charges in on the troll fighting Tannim to try and distract it. Tirian makes himself invisible with a scroll and uses another scroll to haste the party.

Arimar and Ox down their troll, with Arimar taking the time to finish it off with his corrosive dagger, Ox moving to help Tannim and Tirian with the other troll. The third troll by now has disappeared, moving somewhere unseen behind the trees. The haste proves to be a valuable boon, allowing the party to dispatch the second troll much more quickly than the first.

With the party just catching their breath the third troll appears around the trees, pulling out a massive crossbow. Ox rushes it to prevent it from getting a shot off. It drops it’s weapon and mauls him, nearly killing him in one trio of attacks, leaving him bleeding and unconscious on the ground. Arimar runs over to the fog cloud to gain cover, sneaking into the trees to try and recover the fallen Ox.

The troll, stuffed from the horses it had killed wanders away as the others put some distance between them. Tannim using a scroll of fly to get some distance before circling around and picking up the other two.

All of them are nearly dead, quaffing potions, out of spells and using their wands to heal themselves. Tannim says “These ruins better be worth all of this.”

The party holds up deeper in the woods, away from the road. Spending a whole day recovering from the last battle. If this is just the road, what awaits them inside of the legendary cursed Ruins of Dragonhold?

Characters: Arimar, Tannim, Tirian, Ox
Experience Rewards: (Each)
Trolls: 1200 XP

Treasure:
None, but much was used.

The T&A Company gathers in the Dragon’s Roost one afternoon to discuss the formation of their new adventuring company. Seeking work and bearing stories from their travels they discuss the various rumors and odd-job listings available around the Crossroads.

Arimar seems interested in opposing local cultists, who he heard had kidnapped a child from a farm last week. There is some debate where Tannim supplies his own overheard rumors about witches in the Forlorn Woods stealing children for some dark purpose. Ox the Cleaver suggests they do something more lucrative as there is not much money in charity. Some arguments break out before they eventually settle down as Tirian suggests that they kill two birds with one stone. He has heard of a plague near the Ruins of Dragonhold, and that there is a poster up advertising an individual in town looking for adventurers interested in heading that way. One more round of drinks and they head out to speak with the man from the poster, Miles Howl.

After asking for directions they locate the home of Sir Miles Howl. The closest thing to a noble in the area, his well appointed mansion tells that he is a man of some well-doing. Met by the butler, they are brought to see Mr. Howl in a sitting room, where he offers them refreshments and discusses his agenda.

He seeks the relatively unspoiled riches of Dragonhold, specifically objects of art and valuable things to display or trade at his discretion. For the lion’s share of the profits he agrees to outfit them with gear that they would need for the journey, and more importantly, his official writ that would grant them support in various cities as well as a substantial amount of leeway when dealing with government and city guards. Patronage in Korin has it’s benefits.

They step out onto the porch, enjoy some chilled wine, before returning inside to accept the deal. He hands them a letter of credit for four hundred gold pieces, four fine riding horses and two pack horses, as well as his official letter or marque; a special certificate that allows agents to operate in an official capacity with another’s authority.

They hit the road the next morning after using the remainder of the day to supply themselves for the journey to Dragonhold. Heading out in the morning, they travel for several days along the Southern Old Road, until they take the path that was once a wide road toward Dragonhold. On the morning of the fourth day, just after breakfast and beginning their trek, they are ambushed on the road by a group of heavily armed gnolls with massive pet Hyenas.

The battle is fierce, with Ox charging off, who ends up facing two Hyenas and three gnolls himself. He would of been overrun, if not for the force missiles of Tannim which send their foes toppling each time they strike. They discover after a few quick jabs and strikes that the large hyenas are the bigger threat.

Tannim casts a spell to make Tirian the size of an ogre, which then allows Tirian to begin crushing his opponents. Arimar suffers several attacks and is dragged to the ground by a Hyena, but quickly crawls under Tirian’s legs and starts attacking from the flank and murdering his opponents. After a few minutes of learning each other’s capabilities the new adventuring company is victorious. Dispatching the last fleeing gnoll, they look around and heal up their wounds, preparing to be on their way.

They are down spells, but the day has just begun. Repacking their gear and gathering their horses (And looting the bodies) they return to the road and continue on.

Session Log

Characters: Ox, Arimar, Tirian, Tannim
XP (each)
Story Reward: 200 XP
Gnolls: 400 XP

Rewards: (total)
Letter of Credit
Letter of Marque
Agate (10gp)
Hematite (12gp)
Red Garnet (55gp)
Coins: 54 gp. 178 sp. 120 cp

You have gathered in the Dragon’s Roost, a comfortable – if somewhat wild – inn and tavern in the Crossroads of South Manest. The tavern is possibly one of the most famous locations in the east, with the fantastic decorations on the walls catching your eyes. A large, twenty foot long steel blade of blue frost lines one wall, framed by the stuffed head of a dire moose and a pickled eye of a cyclopes in a jar. A stuffed Beholder, eyestalks and all, is mounted above the bar itself. Your waitress, a young redheaded half-elf lass brings you the last of your drinks. For the moment the tavern is safe, with the patrons more interested in their food and drink than starting any of the places famous brawls.

You’ve come together to seek your fame and fortune as adventurers. Every last one of you has something to bring to the table. Deeds that make you somewhat noteworthy, but not enough. There is glory and gold to be won, wrest from the hands of the undeserving. You just need to go out there and take it.

Small talk commences. Where do you go to make yourselves rich? How will you be splitting your wealth? As a new adventuring band, these questions and more are left up to you to decide.

(As a note, each character will be given a random number of adventure rumors. Some of these might be false, but they are leads to help you decide what you want to do.)