The Downfall of a Paranian Kingdom:
Hermit and the Frog
The four of us left Bethu on our journey to the Capital City Paran. We encountered little
resistance across the grasslands, and then we entered the forest that surrounds the capital.
We tried to enter the city, but were turned away as we were not merchants with approval. We
were unable to bribe our way into the city, so we circled the city and eventually gave up and
started our journey towards the eastern swamp lands.
As we moved through the forest, we began to hear voices warning us not to continue along this
path, but we continued anyway. We came upon a open grove, Shiver's Grove, inhabited by six
wraiths. The wraiths charged us, and we had a difficult time defeating these ethereal creatures.
We examined the area and found a hidden stairwell that went down into a tomb. Under the ground
there were a dozen more wraiths. Blurp charged right into the middle of them, while Malyus
unleashed an Ice Storm on the pack of wraiths. Ahlara and Greggor charged after Blurp,
and Malyus continued to unleash destructive magic on these creatures, as it seemed to be the
most reliable weapon against them. A few of us got struck by those foul creatures, and our
strength was drained. This required us to sneak into the city and look for a church to restore
our lost power.
After making a donation to the church, we continued east towards the swamp. Before we got to
the swamp, we had to cross a couple rivers, and a group of ogres was guarding a bridge that we
needed to cross. Not wanting to pay a toll of any sort, a battle ensued. Malyus called down
an Ice Storm and Sonic Storm on a pair of ogres, and Blurp and Ahlara attacked
an ogre and an ogre-magi. And Greggor flanked both remaining ogres with Blurp and Ahlara,
allowing them to slaughter the band of ogres. We crossed the bridge and started to enter the
swamp, and Malyus became very familiar with a frog who helped guide us through the swamp.
One night while the party slept, we were captured by a group of people covered in caked on mud.
They tied us up, and carried us to their city in the swamp. We were brought before the leader
of this clan, the Dartans. He informed us that we were trespassing in their homeland without
permission. We let him know that we seeked a hermit who came from the west, the leader realized
who we spoke of, and sent for him. On his arrival, we spoke of Master Dilherst and his instructions
to seek the hermit out. The hermit remembered Dilherst, so our lives were spared by the Dartans.
The hermit took us to his hut and we spoke more of our mission to seek out a dragon for assistance
in our attempt to hold back the Paranian Army. He gave us a Wand of Dragon Control to use on
the Ancient Black Dragon from the swamp to the north. We accepted his gift and went to the
leader of the Dartans and informed him of our mission, and that we would earn their trust by
defeating the Evil creature. He wished us luck and never expected to see us again.
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In Search of a Dragon
We purchased a new pack animal indigenous to the swamp to help us traverse the swamp land.
A few days into the swamp, we found a corpse of one of these same creatures, so Malyus added
it to our little army. Later that day we felt the ground rumbling, the water was vibrating,
and then we heard a big roar of a Tyrannosaurus Rex as it charged us. It took a big hunk out
of our living pack animal, allowing for the rest of the party to hack, slash, and electricute
the huge beast. We continued northward and were ambushed by a small pack of Raptors. Once
they were slayed, Malyus released all of his remaining undead, and animated four Raptors as
his new "army".
We finally came upon a lake with an island in the middle of it. We found a fallen tree, and
used it as a flotation device to get to the island. Once we got to the island, we found nothing
there. Blurp eventually went into the water, and he found an entrance under the water. We
followed him into the water and up through the entrance. We descended down a long tunnel and
found the Ancient Black Dragon. The dragon sensed something about Malyus, who has the Dragon's
Stone, and told us a tale about David of Arimithaya, and how Malyus is a decendant of David,
and how I'll be the cause of the downfall of Paran. We weren't confident in the strength of
the wand, so we left him alone. But as we left the cavern, three young dragons waited for us
up on the surface of the island. We used the wand on one of them, and tried to use it on the
other two, but there was only one charge with the wand. The dragon that we controlled dove
back under the water to get us help for our destructive plans, while the other two saw through
our magic and attacked. These young dragons were no match for us, but we took part of their
corpses as proof of our survival against the dragons.
As we journeyed back toward the Dartans to see if they would be willing to provide us with
help against Paran, Malyus decided to replace his Raptors with something bigger. So he dismissed
his Raptors, and animated the T-REX. We went to visit the hermit first, and he told us that
the Paranians had come to the swamp, and have taken over the Dartan city. The hermit told us
that the Paranians were rounding up all of the Dartan clans into small internment camps. We
figured that if we were able to defeat the Paranians, then the Dartans would feel obligated
to help us... and killing Paranians is always fun anyway. Our first objective was to rescue
the leader of the Dartans. We went invisible and snuck into the main house, and found the
leaders of the Paranians in the Dartan leader's chamber. Blurp snuck up to the leader and
slayed the leader, and he left the remaining members to the rest of us. We then found the
Dartan leader in the same dungeon that we were stuck in. We released the leader, and Greggor
was sent to the internment camps, and he began an uprising from the camps. While Greggor was
gone, Blurp, Ahlara and Malyus began to kill the Paranians.
After the Paranians were defeated, the leader of the Dartans agreed to help us against the
Paranians, if Gunther would also seige the city. We informed him that Gunther's army was already
on route, we didn't mention that we were Gunther's army, and that we would get even with the
Paranians.
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The Seige of Paran
When we reached the city of Paran, we found that the city was already under seige by the
Kesanans, a clan from the north that is usually peaceful with the Paranians. However, the
Paranians have stopped all trade routes with the Kesanans, so the Kesanans have come to
investigate. While investigating the city of Paran, we discovered that the Paranains had
already sent it's main force out after Gunther, thus why they were having to negotiate with
the Kesanans. And they had recruited the Tabatan clan as militia for the city.
One of our plans of attack was to poison the people of Paran, so we cut off dying flesh from
the T-Rex, aka Sparky, and Malyus went invisible and infiltrated the city and began poisoning
the wells by dropping in the dead flesh. While he was on this task, a blind man approached
him and called out to him. The blind man asked him to follow him, because his master wished
to speak with him. Malyus, still invisible, complied, so he followed the blind man down some
alleys and into a small building. Inside stood two people he recognized and a third person
was sitting down, it was Krytir and her henchmen. Krytir was the head priestess of the
Paranian chruch, and she was weaving a chaotic chain of events in the name of Kortamus, the
god she really worshipped. She told me of her planned events, and urged us to do something
before peace can be made between the Paranians and the Kesanans. And that is exactly what
we planned on doing...
We saw that the Kesanans and the Paranians were close to coming to terms over the stopped
trade routes, so we decided to intervene for the betterment of... us. We killed a couple
Paranian guards, and carried their bodies into the Kesanan encampment and slaughtered a few
Kesanan guards and left the Paranian bodies behind. Later, we snuck into the encampment and
discovered that Reiko was leading the Kesanan force against Paran.
We then met up with the Dartans who were coming from the south, and informed them that another
ally was attacking from the north, and that we, Gunther's Army, were attacking from numerous
points to the west. We instructed the Dartans to prepare their encampment to the south, as
that would be their staging area for the assault. After we left the Dartans, we headed to
the west in order to begin our Reign of Chaos... No, we didn't go play WarCraft III, it wasn't
out yet.
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Assaulting Paran
As the party moved into position on the western side of the city, they encountered a group of
four trolls in the forest. The trolls were tracking the big foot prints from Sparky, and they
were looking for a big meal, unfortuantely for them, they found out that Sparky had friends.
After killing the trolls, we turned them all to stone with our dagger of petrification... as
we had plans for them later.
We used Sparky to break down sections of the walls, killing off a few guards and priests whenever
we could. We caught a messanger coming from the west. His letter told of a Battle at Bethu,
and that many of the men have died fighting Gunther. We bribed the messanger, and wrote a new
letter to the King of Paran, informing him that the army was bored, can't find Gunther, and
wished to come home. We never saw any action from this, but we had hoped it would inspire
the King of Paran to recall his troups to save his city.
Later that night our attack on the city began. The first goal was to cause distractions within
the city, so attention would not be directed wholely against us. Distraction began by turning
one of the statues back into a troll, and then with Malyus Levitating, Greggor pulled
a rope and got Malyus, Greggor and the Troll flying over the city. Malyus droppped the troll
in one section of the town. Also while flying over the town, Malyus unleashed a Fireball
into the Tabatan area, igniting a large section of rations and equipment. Malyus also used
one of his rings to cast Plant Growth on the orchards surrounding the catherdral. Once
Greggor and Malyus arrived back on the southern side of the city, the party began it's journey
towards the city.
Ahlara, Blurp, Greggor, Malyus and Sparky invaded the city, we spotted a
few guards, but we were not able to kill all of them before they fled, and they just seemed
to watch us from other alleys. We destroyed many buildings as we moved deeper into the city.
When we came into a large courtyard, troops began attacking. Archers came in from the northwest
and northeast. Ahlara engaged one group of Archers, Greggor did what Greggor does and helped
flank Archers with Ahlara. Sparky and Blurp engaged the other group. Malyus levitated up into
the air to get a better vantage point of the battle. Fighters and priests came in from the
southwest and southeast to complete their ambush. The archers were getting slaughtered by
Ahlara, Blurp and Greggor. Sparky turned his attention to the priests, while Malyus cast
Dispel Magic against the priests enchantments and brought down Storms and Bolts against
the enemy. However, the Archers and Fighters were beating the crap out of the 60 foot tall
T-Rex, and Sparky was almost dead, but Malyus used the Amulet to cause terror in the remaining
enemy force. We returned to the outside of the city to regroup, and let Sparky rest.
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Downfall of Paran
While we were resting, we could hear the continuation of battle between the forces of the
Paranians, Tabatans, Kesanan and Dartans. And during the night, an elf entered our camp. The
elf introduced himself as Kcalb, from the elven clan that we banished from the Paranian Kingdom.
He told us of a plan by Krytir to animate a horde of undead from elven corpses, which we had
no problem with, but he told us that she had plans to use them to defend the city of Paran,
which we did have a problem with.
We went back into the city, and snuck our way towards the overgrown cathedral. Inside we saw
Krytir creating a huge magical portal, and her henchmen were standing guard. Greggor snuck up
to one of them, while Blurp snuck up to the other. They both attacked at the same time, and
they both slayed the henchmen. Krytir stopped her spell of summoning to grieve over her fallen
friends, and we informed her that we could not let her prevent the fall of Paran, and she said
she was trying to summon Gunther because he was in trouble. At that moment, Kcalb entered the
cathedral, and the doors slammed shut behind him. He told us that he was here to avenge his
brothers, and he polymorphed back into a Black Dragon. The Dragon spewed it's breath at us,
and we unleashed our fury back at the beast and slayed it within minutes. Outside the cathedral,
the city was full of Dartans and Kesanans running through the streets, looting buildings, and
ransacking the town... The City of Paran was no more. With our work here done, Krytir packed
up her things, and we left the Ruins of Paran and began our journey home.
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Epilogue
When we got back to the Academy, we found out that Gunther was slain during a battle at Bethu,
and that Mistress Dileia, Gunther's elven wife, was now in charge of the Academy. Master Dilherst
was at her side, along with the new Captain of the Guard Tiberius. Krytir continued her journey
to another region to cause more chaos. Blurp convinced Mistress Dileia to construct a Gladitorial
Arena in the Academy, Malyus began to research new spells, Ahlara sharpened her axe, and Greggor
practiced his defences. What they did after that is for another time and place...
Prior Adventures...
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