5th session:
This session followed a three week break due to scheduling issues. As I had heard nothing from the missing players, their characters officially became NPCs. also, the Warlord's player had left the country for a new job and was un-interneted.
The session began with the characters waking in the village, the mood in the village is much improved as the river is almost clean and no longer turning people insane! Ryan meets the PCs, thanks them and pays them their reward over breakfast. After the money is shared out, Vorgoth(wizard) and Sorok(cleric) decide to set off on their own to a larger town. Vorgoth also takes the arcane supplies from the warcaster. Trogdar (warlord) remains with the party but is NPCed.
As the (now diminished) party is enjoying a post-breakfast beer, they are approached by a gregarious halfling who is traveling with a hulking dragonborn. The halfing introduces himself as Perrin Orchardborn (Well, I think he does, my notes are elsewhere). Perrin congratulates the party on their heroism, victory and good deeds, then confides in them about their own quest.
Perrin explains that he is part of a group of adventurers who seek out supernatural threats to the land and fight them! They have reason to believe that there is a hidden location near the town that conceals a constrained but ancient evil. Perrin and Balasar (the dragonborn) know of a ritual that can re-bind the evil, but this ritual takes some time and leaves them vulnerable, to make matter worse, Perring thinks he is being followed!
Perrin offers the party a deal, If they guard the ritual site and there is no trouble, Perrin will pay them a small fee (I think it was 25gp each) but if they are being followed and their is fighting, Perrin will pay a larger fee (not sure how much). In either case, the party will have the satisfaction of doing a good deed as well. The party accepts and Trogdar goes to buy supplies (I prefer having NPCs deal with stuff like this, as it's generally boring, also he has the best CHA/diplo for haggling).
Moulie (ranger) also shakes things up a bit by going to buy oil flasks and ground pepper (so I had to decide on rules for grenade-like weapons and pepper-bombs. Thank you DMG pg 42!)
The party travels to a nearby set of standing stones called "the four kings" so called because there are four tall stones with smaller circular stones set on top, like crowns. The party scouted around the stones and Perrin revealed a small tunnel (medium creatures have to crawl along) that lead under the stones. Perrin and Balasar head off and the party watches and waits. Moulie uses some of his oil to prepare a simple trap in the tunnel.
After an hour or so, a brutish human and 4 minions step out of the undergrowth. I had originally planned a bit of conversation here, followed by fighting, but it was already getting late, so I skipped straight to the fighting! The human berserker and his minions charged in, but the presence of the stone circle limited their access. Meanwhile a elven archer and halfing rogue (in stealth) attacked from other angles. The berserker was effectively hit at range by a number of effects and was bloodied before he could hit melee, so he didn't get to use his free hit
The halfling rogue dealt effective and unexpected damage from behind to moulie, and attempted to dodge behind some cover to re-hide, however this didn't work and he was struck down by Moulie and Rhogar (leaving the NPCed warlord to fight the berserker alone for half the fight.
The elven archer dealt damage from a distance but was ultimately hunting down, dropping a healing potion in the process.
After combat, the party rested up and looted the bodies. They found some coins, some silver pendants (1 each, matches the tabards), some tabards (blue with a falling star in silver or white, 3 in total) and a healing potion. It's not decided who ends up with the potion, putting it a state of quantum flux (something to avoid next time).
The party waited for the four hours Perrin had asked them to wait... then an hour more, but nothing happens. Eventually they decide to enter the tomb and see what has happened.
Underground, the players activate a couple of lights and explore. The small tunnel opens up until it's two-people wide and it leads to a large, square, underground chamber with paved stone floors and magical effect muting all sounds. As a slip-up, i failed to put some LOS items in, so the players can see what's in the middle of the room.
Rhogar: so, that big pile of bones in the middle of the room... is that standing in for something else?
GM: nope. Wait, you can see that?
players: o.O
mapping: inside the tomb was built with elements of the Skeletonkey tiles. looks awesome.
macros: no new macros (although a typo produced a 1d101 warhammer...)