The names below are the ships listed inside Akemeledain:

• Sorabuel, Skywater, Hibana, Tatterei, Pinnsillia, Noble Song, Earnest Song, and Olympia.
• Pinnsillia and Olympia were the ones at the “front” of either wall's procession.

From Frost Moon the 15th, 494:

• 20 foot tall war machines of unknown origin have been spotted crawling atop the hills north of Macetor and Rosebluff. The machines appear to be made of stone and gold, have an upper body in the shape of a man and a lower body in the shape of a spider. The forces of Macetor are recalling troops and building a garrison in that city and northern Rosebluff. They aren't standard siege engines, they are shaped like man-spiders and move with their legs. They have only been seen singly or in pairs. Morric did some investigating regarding the War Machines under the Frost 15 news thread as follows:
  • “Morric hears that the sightings of these strange machines have been seen only during overcast skies and at dusk. There have only been a handful of sightings and no one has been able to find their source, and no one has risked getting close. Sounds like Lord Macestein of Macetor is presently recalling patrols and troops to ensure a garrison around Macetor, and is also sending troops to Rosebluff. Some griffons have been sent over the hills for scouting purposes, but they haven't been able to locate the machines' source. The air scouts have noticed, however, that they are accompanied by humanoids and that there seems to be activity at an old bastion on the northern side of the hills. The handful of war machine sightings has been between Macetor and that ruin.”

• Lady Fancin, ruler of Elsewater, has given birth to a daughter. Folk of high regard have arrived in that city from Mombafra, bringing Lord Thompson's regards and a caravan of wines and meats for a celebratory festival.

• The famous adventuring cleric Handoof of the Lake has serendipitously returned to Elsewater just in time for the revelry, bearing incredible treasures and tales from an expedition to the Thunderlands.

• A Ripper Clan Orc prisoner held in High Dell has claimed to know the fate of the 100 shock troopers who vanished in the mountains last year. The troopers were among the most elite soldiers in the High Dell region and were escorting a mysterious ark, which Lord Red has refused to comment on.

• Folk in Qarn were awoken one night to a rumbling on Lake Qarn. Lights were sent out in the night, and the lake was found to be bubbling. Huge bubbles arising from the depths about a mile offshore. The rowboats were promptly turned around.

This session we plan to go the ruins of Delbo!

Characters Played:

• Morric - +2 plate mail (7), +1 battle axe (8), potion of climbing, potion of heroism, AC 0/2
• Ghrul - +1 m shield (4), +1 spear (6) AC 3/4.
• Maervahr - Paid 400 gp upkeep, AC 10/10.
• Davlan - +3 sentient sword (1), AC 1/4.

The weather is cold and overcast and there are no men-at-arms available in Gren right now.

The group discusses Retainers and their costs. Retainers can be met at taverns over the course of 8 days or so. We can decide to hire one or all or none but we must buy all their equipment and we can choose how fast they level up. 50% of the treasure is penalized based on what you give them. They get a full share of combat xp.

The party is setting out at 8 am.

Delbo is built over a large prison. It has a tower with no doors or windows, a cave of a beast and a haunted graveyard area. The keep was built over a prison and it was built at the same time. Delbo existed as a functioning city around the same time as Lorelai, the spirit that they destroyed near Gren. This was researched by Dan after we defeated the spirit of Lorelai. Dan went to Criss Antha to research this information. Delbo was a city approximately 600 years ago.

The calendar date was established continent wide. This dating method was arbitrarily chosen by different groups. The apocalypse happened long before this when civilization was loose and disconnected. There were no cities 494 years ago other than what was located in the Cradle Lands.

We leave headed north east on mounts with Porters and Link Boys on the cart. Our group will go around the tip of the hills. We can see the great hills to the north where we have been warned of the dangers. It is said they may contend with flying beasts there and Delbo is on the edge of the hills.

We can see some ruins of a keep with crumbled walls. It has been unoccupied for the past 2 seasons, with only visits by the patrols from around Qarn to ward off people taking up residence in the ruins.

Further ahead and high up in the hills see the Ruins of Delbo. It is surrounded be a wall that is over a quarter mile in length. The surrounding “suburbs” and such are long gone. As we approach from the south side of the walls, we can see that they are crumbled in a few places. At the corners of the walls are some towers that rise up some 70'.

Clairaudience is used by Maervahr to listen in the northwest tower. He can hear a jarring noise in his brain, like a high pitched squeaking and grumbling with some abrasive speech of some creature. It was not Orcish. We look for a gate into the city. There are two sections of the wall on the south side that are collapsed in with a small collapsed portion on the western side. It seems to have fallen just from pure age.

We peek in through the southern opening and see that the walls are collapsed in a large pile. Heading inside, we step over the rubble and climb over the boulders.

To our right and up ahead, we see that the place is covered in rubble and nothing resembling a building still stands within most of the keep. The top of the northeast tower is gone and there is no movement from the other towers. As we look around the ruined city, we see that its about a quarter mile wide. The rubble piles are 10-15' high rubble. We believe that many buildings must have been here before. Off to the north east, the entire wall has collapsed and it looks as if it was pushed in, leaving behind a huge pile of rubble.

We do not see a sign of a natural cave in the area but there could be a cave entrance somewhere that we do not see. The tower near the north east area is still intact. It appears to be a mage's tower with a conical style roof and it is 5 stories tall, made of black stone and it has no windows.

In the south west, the ground rises up a bit leading to an area that is kind of elevated. We see two things: a keep that looks like it was 2 stories with walls that are still intact; to the left are countless tombstones of a large graveyard. In the center of the pile of rubble, it is much taller than anything else in town as if it was intentionally piled high.

The stones of the rubble are too big for a trebuchet and they appear to be parts of the collapsed buildings. The wall towers have normal entrances but there are no entrances to the black stone mage tower.

We decide to check out the south east tower where Maervahr had heard nothing inside. There is a smell and a little bit of campfire smoke in the city. We enter the city and as we do so, we do not see any movement. We turn to the right and follow the southern wall to the south east tower. Part of the inside is somewhat curved but the outside is triangular. There is a wooden gate or door at the base of the tower that looks very old.

We try to open the door but it is stuck on some rubble but with further struggle we get it open and there is an earthy scraping noise. There is a dark base of the tower but sunlight gets in. We see a stone staircase winding along the wall to the second floor but there is otherwise no furniture but there is refuse.

Maervahr lights a hooded lantern and the party heads up the stairs which is a winding stone stair case. We are in our 5' marching order going up before we come to a trap door in the ceiling. The trap door pulls down and opens. Maervahr does not hear anything above the trap door and then the trap door snaps open.

Continuing up, we climb to second story of the tower. In this area we find wooden chairs with iron studs on them. It looks like they once held upholstery but it has since decayed away and now the chairs are toppled over. There are a couple of barrels in the corner and we notice a clay mug on top of a barrel. On the ceiling there is another trap door with a much shorter stair case leading up to it. The air smells of death but it is not coming from inside this room.

Ghrul picks up a jug and we find some residue inside of a mug. Ghrul then opens a barrel to look inside and finds it is filled with coal. Maervahr's Weasel Familiar, Atena, smells a dead humanoid nearby.

There is another barrel that is also filled with coal with a heavy black coal color around the base of barrel, as though the coal was once liquified. The wood looks as though it was once saturated with moisture and part of it decomposed unnaturally. He turns over the barrel and sees that the bottom third of the coal had turned into a foul slime. It smells like a foul sewer.

We go up to the next floor. The second trap door has a black residue along its edges as though something leaked out or in but there are no markings on the handle. There is some residue on the stairs, mostly on the side of the stairs. When we check on the door we find that it is stuck heavily shut but Ghrul is able to pop it open. An awful smell of death pours through like a blanket of foulness. Ghrul looks around with his lantern light. He finds a corpse of a humanoid wearing armor and a sheathed sword. However, slithering on the ground nearby is a massive Ochre Jelly. It sloshes toward us…

Maervahr goes psionically invisible, Ghrul grabs the trap door and closes it after we head down the stairs back to the second level. The tar like Jelly pours in a column and slaps onto the stone floor below. It forms a 4' tall slime column then falls back into the form of a pancake.

Maervahr reappears as he throws a burning oil flask. The barrel of coal weighs about 80 pounds and theoretically could alight but Davlan throws an oil flask directly at the Ochre Jelly. The Jelly sloshes forth and gathers itself into a column form and attacks. Davlan sidesteps the Jelly as it slams into him and his boots start smoking.

Maervahr missed with his oil flask and it goes off target 5' in some direction. After a roll on a d8, it goes in the direction of Morric and hits! He takes 2 damage then 5 damage from the continued burning. Ghrul hits the Jelly with his spear for 3 damage while Davlan spills some of the coal next to the Ochre Jelly.

Maervahr casts Burning Hands and spreads flames onto the Jelly and the spilled coal. The Jelly starts to bubble and pop and the burning coals grow hot. Smoke rises in a stream as though the creature is in pain. It takes 4 damage.

Davlan throws a flask of flaming oil and it hits! The barrels worth of coal spilled out next to the Ochre Jelly are blasing and it continues to burn and takes 3 splash damage. Morric and Ghrul hit for 8 and 3 damage respectively. Parts of the Jelly burn and smokes from the fire. It attacks Ghrul but he blocks the strike and hits back, causing a chunk of the Jelly to fly off into the darkness.

The room starts to fill with black smoke while the Ochre Jelly continues its attacks against Morric but misses as he blocks the attack. Ghrul and Morric both hit for 4 and 9 damage. The Jelly is destroyed and it loses consistency as it disperses across the ground!

We put out the fire and the coals and move them onto the body of the dead Ochre Jelly.

There are some small windows on this floor and through them, we can see the outside, Morric scans toward the north west area of the outside tower and sees two things: in the north west tower he sees a brigade of 19 Goblins that are heading toward the keep; a pack of 5 Jackals at the base of windowless tower that are eating some small animal.

It is apparent that the walls of the city are walkable and there is a visible door leading into the walls. The Goblins are carrying spears and shields but there were no missile weapons in the possession.

In this room we can see a discarded longsword, helmet, chainmail and a shield that looks to be of standard quality. Maervahr looks around the room and finds a backpack of an adventurer. It is filled to the brim with something and is currently latched shut by two straps. There is also a chest under a nearby table with copper coins inside. The body of a dead adventurer still wears a bandoleer with a potion attached to it. Maervahr grabs it.

• 2400 cp in a chest.
• Potion.
• 400 cp.

The backpack has 400 cp in it. Morric takes a sip of the potion and immediately spits it out as it is an oil, like a blade oil.

The Goblins we watched outside finally went into the keep through the doorway that goes into the keep wall. There is still one doorway that goes into the palisade and heads straight out toward the central part of the city of Delbo.

We open the door and see that the palisade wraps around the tower and the area of the north has a collapsed wall. We also see a huge gate here leading to the west. It is still intact on west side and the north east corner gap is about 60' wide. The top room of the north east tower has a normal palisade door that we can enter.

We head north along the wall and pass through easily. We can see that whatever destroyed the north east tower also destroyed that part of the wall as if struck by a huge boulder. The ground here looks normal as if the destruction was done a long time ago. There is another palisade door that we can access.

We notice some of the Jackals are down at the base of the tower. We have caught the eye of one but it is eating something that looks like a dead animal. The door is hanging off the hinge from the palisade. Looking inside the tower we can see that most of the floor is gone. From the top down it looks like a broken tower on the north side and there was only a stone floor. There is a birds nest in the corner.

Davlan peers over the edge and finds there is no second floor. It looks like the floor was collapsed from the top down by a great force and there is a tough remainder of the city wall still left. With some rope we could descend down.

Maervahr ties a rope around Davlan so he can check out the birds nest but once he gets there, he can see only some old egg shells. Davlan is then lowered down further past the second floor since there is no floor on the second level and the bottom level has no room to stand.

We go back to the base of the first tower and then down to the north west tower, crossing across the city. We see that the Jackals we saw earlier look like regular Jackals.

We head diagonally, against the better judgement of Maervahr but Davlan insists. Off in the distance, we can see that the Jackals are off to the right and are not getting closer. As we come around a certain collection of ruins we find some long rectangular buildings, with some more intact than others.

Outside, in the front, is a single Jackal that surprises us as it gets up on 4 legs. It barks one time at us and then there is a flash of movement from corner of our eyes that comes from within the building. It is a humanoid but also animal like form from the window. We see the Jackal sitting next to the figure and it is being fed some meat. It is a human sized creature standing in the window.

Davlan fire his sling at the Jackal while Ghrul and Morric charge at the Jackal Humanoid.

The Jackal is struck and takes 4 damage. It dies instantly from Davlan's hit! There is 5 damage done to the Jackal Man but their attacks bounce off harmlessly.

It charges at the party members that are in range. Spears clash, battle axes clash and the Jackal Man is impaled!

The Jackal Man was completely naked except for a bow and a spear. It had a longbow and 10 arrows that look normal. We drag the bodies into the building and find lots of remains inside. There is a chest inside, located under a table. Davlan checks it for traps but does not find any. Davlan cracks open the lock on the chest and opens it. It is filled with coins:

• 7000 sp (350 gp).

There are two separate rooms in here and a room in back that looks like it was once a kitchen. There are steel pots tossed around in here and an old bed roll under a counter. We find an empty dagger scabbard inside the bedroll and Maervahr searches through the floorboards and such for anything.

Davlan sees around the corner, about 80' away, and sees 2 more Jackal Men with their bows out. He also notices two more in the window.

One Jackal Man fires two bow shots at Davlan, who has 75% cover. Both of the arrows bounce off the window. He sees the other Jackal Men grab the spear laying on the ground where we left it. Gruhl steps outside to throw a javelin but misses.

They charge the bowmen and both shoot their bows at Ghrul and hit! Ghrul takes 3 damage. Both Morric and Ghrul also hit with their charge dealing 7 and 8 damage. They drop the other Jackal Man. Davlan hits one for 8 damage also but it is still standing. The Jackal Man pulls out a longsword and misses. Davlan retaliates the strike and hits dealing another 8 damage. It does not yet fall…

However, it fails its Morale roll and attempts to flee. Davlan hits it yet again for another 11 damage and kills it!

We inspect the bodies and determine that these Jackal Men are Jackalweres.

The other Jackals by the tower are totally gone now. We head toward the northwest where we see little shapes moving on the first and second floor of the tower. We are being watched.

We pass by the mound, near the great rock. It looks like they were not stacked intentionally and there is the mouth of huge cave that rises up from the earth. It is a 15' wide opening that faces north. The location is pretty strange and we hear a loud noise from deep within the earth, a rumbling sound that ends in a great roar. It echoes for a few more times.

We bypass the yawning cave and continue toward the tower. Maervahr goes invisible as we pay attention to the figures in the keep.

Suddenly, arrows begin flying past us as they are firing at 4 of us.

There are 7 Goblin attackers with shortbows and they get triple rate of fire! There are 6 shots on Ghrul.

We have an 8“ encounter distance and there is 10” distance from the tower. None of the shots hit Ghrul but on Morric there is one hit that does 3 damage. There are 4 volleys on Davlan who has an AC -2. 1 shot hits for 3 damage. We can see that up on the 2nd floor of the tower the figures are all holding shortbows.

We run toward the tower with Maervahr being invisible. The Goblins lean out of the tower so we get +4 AC due to a cover bonus. On Ghrul there are 2 hits dealing 8 damage total! There are 2 shots on Davlan but they miss.

The door bursts open revealing two Dire Wolves. Maervahr stays in the back, invisible. Davlan, Ghrul and Morric attack the Dire Wolves. They each hit for 6 damage, 4 damage and 10 damage. Morric, Ghrul and Davlan dispatch all the Dire Wolves!

The Goblins shout in panic. They are saying things like “Did you hear that?” and “Why aren't the Wolves biting?” They are still firing their bows downward.

We see the stairs going up around the perimeter of the tower. Ghrul goes up the stairs while Morric shouts in Goblin to “jump out the window”. None of the Goblins jump out the window though. Morric eventually breaks in and finds that there are 7 Goblins waiting inside but we are too fast for them to react and Davlan charges in.

They have AC 6 and Davlan hits for 8 damage. The Goblins pull out spears and surround Davlan but he dodges all the spears.

There are 6 attacks against Davlan. He has a buckler (small shield, so he can have 2 defense attempts). All missed! Morric hits for 3 damage and Davlan hit for 8 damage, 2 more Goblins dead.

There are 4 Goblins left and all are quickly dispatched!

We search around the chamber and find 6 hemp sacks that smell foul due to the cut up corpse of a deer. There is also the remains of a small fire in the tower. All the Goblins had shortbows, spears and shields along with their coin pouches. We can see a trap door that goes up a level.

• 83 sp.

All of sacks are filled with nothing other than rotten meat. Morric opens the trap door and sees that it leads to the top level. Here there are some sacks along with a chest and a thick lock. Maervahr looks around and discovers one Goblin had a small key. He slides the key into the keyhole but not before he notices at the last second, a small needle in the keyhole. The needle is broken off and the lock is turned. Inside the chest are:

• 1650 ep.
• 3800 cp.

There is another trap door here leading up. Davlan and Morric open up the top trap door, revealing the top conical shaped room of the tower. There is a large hook in the center and a big coil of rope ending in a knotted ball. Nothing hangs in here anymore and the room is full of dust and debris.

We head back to Qarn and are not waylaid.

12 miles from the ruins of Delbo is Qarn, a large city. It is 10 times the size of Gren and is currently held by LADY QARN. They hold frequent executions here.

Detect Magic costs 150 gp per casting. The found items are all detected for magic and we find that the spear is magic with a strong magic enchantment! The vial of oil is also magic!

Morric equips the spear and claims it. Maervahr claims the magic oil. (There are 3 doses and he uses one dose to identify it - his dagger becomes a +5 weapon) The spear has a +2 enchantment.

We find a buyer for the poisoned chest which is 50 gp.

It is Oil of Sharpness with one of the more rare qualities and it lasts for 9-12 rounds. There are 2 uses left.

Our XP from coin: 376

Coin share per person:

• 72 pp
• 4 gp
• 7 sp
• 5 cp

Totals:

Ghruls 1189 Davlan 1189 Maervahr 1489 Morric 2189

Back to Gren on 10-13. Davlan ready on the 21st.