Oops.
Apparently it's been a while since I remembered to write a summary for the Pathfinder game. We've had... I think... three sessions since the last one?
Sure enough, they defeated the Evil Room of Shrinking by leaving through the open doorway.
The next room was full of Evil Looking Statues some of which were golems of course. They had to fight them but nothing especially terrible happened.
The room after that was some sort of furnace trap? But there was a hallway to just go around it so they did that.
That took them to a big spooky hall with a big spooky door which would only open with a key, and otherwise it would summon something nasty. So they decided to check all the other doors in the hallway first, even though the door was labelled 'library' and that was where the boss was supposed to be waiting for them.
Most of the other doors just had rubble behind them, though. The one that didn't had thick mist, and creepy teleporting dog monsters (not Blink Dogs, they were creepier) waiting in the mist. Phoof tried to clear the mist away with a swirling ball of wind, which sort of worked but not really well enough, and everyone else just kind of dealt with it, June for example by using fireballs.
At any rate, after fighting the dogs they really wanted to go home and rest, but that wasn't a real option. It would basically mean abandoning the whole idea of confronting Mokmorren, since he'd just have more defenses set up to intercept them if they gave him that much time. Assuming they even found somewhere to hide where they wouldn't be found -- the trail of death they'd left behind them would certainly be noticed.
So they explored the misty room further, looking for the key. Instead, they found a corridor with more creepy dogs and more, thicker mist.
Halfway down the corridor, the mist was layered with an additional darkness spell, and then a cloudkill. Mokmorren -- the boss, who was apparently in this room and not in the library as advertised -- started mocking them from (as people could only see once they advanced forwards out of the mist and darkness) atop a stairwell.
While the others were busy fighting creepy dogs, Kaito ran forwards to try to get to the boss. He leapt up onto the railing of the -- no wait, the railing was blocked by a wall of force. He climbed up a pillar near where Mokmorren was sitting, and lunged at him with his rapier, only for it to go right through him, along with several ranged attacks from other party members. Another projected image! Just like every other cult leader they'd run into had used! They probably should have prepared for that.
In a way they sort of had, since June had a See Invisible spell up and was able to point out the real Mokmorren hovering near the ceiling, spraying quickened scorching rays (which mostly fizzled against the protection from fire June had put up earlier to guard against his own fireballs) and nasty, high-level spells like Disintegration that would have been much more effective if the targets had ever failed their saves.
The party's melee folks -- including the Paladin who suddenly took on an angelic form, growing wings and all -- closed in on him, and hit him a few times (although not as many as they would have if they could have seen him clearly and reached him easily), and then he teleported away, just like every other cult leader they'd run into. They probably should have prepared for that.
But they hadn't, and really couldn't have since none of them knew any anti-teleport spells, there hadn't been any where to shop since Marimar really, and they were all basically out of spell slots. So what was plan B, if they couldn't kill Mokmorren?
Loot everything, of course. There was lots of treasure in the room they'd fought in, since it was apparently Mokmorren's magical laboratory. They gathered up everything they could carry, and tried and failed to destroy the things they couldn't carry because somehow all his lab equipment was made out of mithril. Then, they started heading back out of the giants' lair so that they could try to find somewhere to rest, before maybe making another attempt or else just giving up and going home with the information they'd found, which was enough to give them some hints as what to do next.
But unfortunately, Mokmorren hadn't panicked and teleported far away -- he'd stopped to set up defenses against them leaving. They were able to make their out of the sub-basement ruins easily enough, but the murder hallway where they'd fought the trolls was full of giants now.
Kaito tried to ask if they were on Mokmorren's side, just in case this was part of the rebellion, but he didn't speak giant and their reply was to try to kill him since he'd broken stealth to do that. He (and Altei, and Elyssie) ran back to the rest of the group, still waiting back on the looong spiraling tunnel down to the sub-basement. The giants followed them, of course, but they could only fight in single-file and Phoof managed to talk the giants down, after they made a (nonlethal) example of the one in front. Noggin, of all people, also helped with the convincing bit.
With the giants at least letting them pass, they headed through the empty barracks to the kobold's hoard that guarded the secret passage out... but the kobold was gone too, which was odd.
So once again, they sent stealthy people out to scout. Apparently, Mokmorren and the giant matriarch they'd made a deal with were up at the top of the pit, with basically all the giants from inside the fortress. It would have been the perfect time to escape... but if this was her finally making her rebellion, they shouldn't just abandon her, despite their lack of... much of anything to fight with aside from harsh language and pointy sticks.
But it didn't sound like she was rebelling. It sounded like she was pretending to be on Mokmorren's side all along, while he organized a massive man-hunt for the party. The party took a vote -- stay or go? And then ignored it because Elyssie absolutely refused to back down and none of them really wanted to abandon her to certain death. June and Phoof between them did have just enough Dimension Door spells left to take them into the fight, and then out of the fight and hopefully away if it went bad.
Also, three powerful Harpy Monks were charging straight at them, so running away wouldn't be as simple as they'd hoped.
So they POOFed into the courtyard just before the harpies arrived. Noggin had already been there, inciting rebellion, and the matriarch and many of the giants seemed to be accepting his argument -- that Mokmorren was a runty little bitch who'd run from the party, and thus unsuited to lead, and would get them all killed. It helped that he freely admitted his goal was to get them all killed for the glory of Karzogg, the Lord of Greed.
But some of the giants stayed by his side, including his bodyguards with the annoying Bodyguard feat that let them intercept Elyssie and Kaito as they charged in. They didn't survive long after doing that, though, and between the two of them and Altei's sneak attacks and the Paladin's still-running Smite Evil against him, he was driven back and reached for a scroll.
Phoof prepared to silence him as soon as he started reading it, but before she could even cast her spell, he suddenly went white, and his head twisted around 180 degrees, and a demonic voice cackled from his now-dead throat -- Karzogg himself, gloating that the party's efforts were futile, and that soon he would be reborn, powered by the greedy souls of his followers! Then his spirit fled, to cackle about his rebirth somewhere else.
That ended the Giant Civil War, at least. The harpies also bugged out, having just flown up from the pit and lined up an attack on the party. The matriarch announced that the giants would go back to their old ways -- living in separate tribes in their old territories, and not having anything to do with any war on the humans or this horrible cursed fortress.
Which left the party to loot Mokmorren and -- oh. He had the library key on him. Of course he did.
After resting up, and sharing a victory feast with the giants, the party headed down to the library, where they spent several days reading all the books in the world -- or at least, all the books that had been in the world a few millennia ago. It was a lot of books, but there was a helpful index golem to make sense of it for them.
While none of the information they found was really earth-shattering -- they'd heard bits and pieces of it before from other sources -- it confirmed that their true foe was Karzogg, Lord of Greed, one of the seven lords of the ancient Thelosian Empire which had fallen when the seven virtues embodied by their leaders degraded into seven sins and they all tried to kill each other. As a last ditch effort to survive the apocalypse caused by their out of control wars, Karzogg (at least, probably some of the others as well) had banished themselves to a dimension outside of time, from which their surviving followers could retrieve them once things settled. Except that none of their followers survived, so instead it was left to a stupid cult of stupid cultists thousands of years later.
There was some other stuff about a Runeforge and Hellfire Sentries and the old capitol of Karzogg's kingdom way up on in the mountains on the other side of the continent... so they'd probably have to do something about that, since even if they'd defeated the cultists they knew about, it was probably too late or Karzogg wouldn't have shown up to gloat.
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Sure enough, they defeated the Evil Room of Shrinking by leaving through the open doorway.
The next room was full of Evil Looking Statues some of which were golems of course. They had to fight them but nothing especially terrible happened.
The room after that was some sort of furnace trap? But there was a hallway to just go around it so they did that.
That took them to a big spooky hall with a big spooky door which would only open with a key, and otherwise it would summon something nasty. So they decided to check all the other doors in the hallway first, even though the door was labelled 'library' and that was where the boss was supposed to be waiting for them.
Most of the other doors just had rubble behind them, though. The one that didn't had thick mist, and creepy teleporting dog monsters (not Blink Dogs, they were creepier) waiting in the mist. Phoof tried to clear the mist away with a swirling ball of wind, which sort of worked but not really well enough, and everyone else just kind of dealt with it, June for example by using fireballs.
At any rate, after fighting the dogs they really wanted to go home and rest, but that wasn't a real option. It would basically mean abandoning the whole idea of confronting Mokmorren, since he'd just have more defenses set up to intercept them if they gave him that much time. Assuming they even found somewhere to hide where they wouldn't be found -- the trail of death they'd left behind them would certainly be noticed.
So they explored the misty room further, looking for the key. Instead, they found a corridor with more creepy dogs and more, thicker mist.
Halfway down the corridor, the mist was layered with an additional darkness spell, and then a cloudkill. Mokmorren -- the boss, who was apparently in this room and not in the library as advertised -- started mocking them from (as people could only see once they advanced forwards out of the mist and darkness) atop a stairwell.
While the others were busy fighting creepy dogs, Kaito ran forwards to try to get to the boss. He leapt up onto the railing of the -- no wait, the railing was blocked by a wall of force. He climbed up a pillar near where Mokmorren was sitting, and lunged at him with his rapier, only for it to go right through him, along with several ranged attacks from other party members. Another projected image! Just like every other cult leader they'd run into had used! They probably should have prepared for that.
In a way they sort of had, since June had a See Invisible spell up and was able to point out the real Mokmorren hovering near the ceiling, spraying quickened scorching rays (which mostly fizzled against the protection from fire June had put up earlier to guard against his own fireballs) and nasty, high-level spells like Disintegration that would have been much more effective if the targets had ever failed their saves.
The party's melee folks -- including the Paladin who suddenly took on an angelic form, growing wings and all -- closed in on him, and hit him a few times (although not as many as they would have if they could have seen him clearly and reached him easily), and then he teleported away, just like every other cult leader they'd run into. They probably should have prepared for that.
But they hadn't, and really couldn't have since none of them knew any anti-teleport spells, there hadn't been any where to shop since Marimar really, and they were all basically out of spell slots. So what was plan B, if they couldn't kill Mokmorren?
Loot everything, of course. There was lots of treasure in the room they'd fought in, since it was apparently Mokmorren's magical laboratory. They gathered up everything they could carry, and tried and failed to destroy the things they couldn't carry because somehow all his lab equipment was made out of mithril. Then, they started heading back out of the giants' lair so that they could try to find somewhere to rest, before maybe making another attempt or else just giving up and going home with the information they'd found, which was enough to give them some hints as what to do next.
But unfortunately, Mokmorren hadn't panicked and teleported far away -- he'd stopped to set up defenses against them leaving. They were able to make their out of the sub-basement ruins easily enough, but the murder hallway where they'd fought the trolls was full of giants now.
Kaito tried to ask if they were on Mokmorren's side, just in case this was part of the rebellion, but he didn't speak giant and their reply was to try to kill him since he'd broken stealth to do that. He (and Altei, and Elyssie) ran back to the rest of the group, still waiting back on the looong spiraling tunnel down to the sub-basement. The giants followed them, of course, but they could only fight in single-file and Phoof managed to talk the giants down, after they made a (nonlethal) example of the one in front. Noggin, of all people, also helped with the convincing bit.
With the giants at least letting them pass, they headed through the empty barracks to the kobold's hoard that guarded the secret passage out... but the kobold was gone too, which was odd.
So once again, they sent stealthy people out to scout. Apparently, Mokmorren and the giant matriarch they'd made a deal with were up at the top of the pit, with basically all the giants from inside the fortress. It would have been the perfect time to escape... but if this was her finally making her rebellion, they shouldn't just abandon her, despite their lack of... much of anything to fight with aside from harsh language and pointy sticks.
But it didn't sound like she was rebelling. It sounded like she was pretending to be on Mokmorren's side all along, while he organized a massive man-hunt for the party. The party took a vote -- stay or go? And then ignored it because Elyssie absolutely refused to back down and none of them really wanted to abandon her to certain death. June and Phoof between them did have just enough Dimension Door spells left to take them into the fight, and then out of the fight and hopefully away if it went bad.
Also, three powerful Harpy Monks were charging straight at them, so running away wouldn't be as simple as they'd hoped.
So they POOFed into the courtyard just before the harpies arrived. Noggin had already been there, inciting rebellion, and the matriarch and many of the giants seemed to be accepting his argument -- that Mokmorren was a runty little bitch who'd run from the party, and thus unsuited to lead, and would get them all killed. It helped that he freely admitted his goal was to get them all killed for the glory of Karzogg, the Lord of Greed.
But some of the giants stayed by his side, including his bodyguards with the annoying Bodyguard feat that let them intercept Elyssie and Kaito as they charged in. They didn't survive long after doing that, though, and between the two of them and Altei's sneak attacks and the Paladin's still-running Smite Evil against him, he was driven back and reached for a scroll.
Phoof prepared to silence him as soon as he started reading it, but before she could even cast her spell, he suddenly went white, and his head twisted around 180 degrees, and a demonic voice cackled from his now-dead throat -- Karzogg himself, gloating that the party's efforts were futile, and that soon he would be reborn, powered by the greedy souls of his followers! Then his spirit fled, to cackle about his rebirth somewhere else.
That ended the Giant Civil War, at least. The harpies also bugged out, having just flown up from the pit and lined up an attack on the party. The matriarch announced that the giants would go back to their old ways -- living in separate tribes in their old territories, and not having anything to do with any war on the humans or this horrible cursed fortress.
Which left the party to loot Mokmorren and -- oh. He had the library key on him. Of course he did.
After resting up, and sharing a victory feast with the giants, the party headed down to the library, where they spent several days reading all the books in the world -- or at least, all the books that had been in the world a few millennia ago. It was a lot of books, but there was a helpful index golem to make sense of it for them.
While none of the information they found was really earth-shattering -- they'd heard bits and pieces of it before from other sources -- it confirmed that their true foe was Karzogg, Lord of Greed, one of the seven lords of the ancient Thelosian Empire which had fallen when the seven virtues embodied by their leaders degraded into seven sins and they all tried to kill each other. As a last ditch effort to survive the apocalypse caused by their out of control wars, Karzogg (at least, probably some of the others as well) had banished themselves to a dimension outside of time, from which their surviving followers could retrieve them once things settled. Except that none of their followers survived, so instead it was left to a stupid cult of stupid cultists thousands of years later.
There was some other stuff about a Runeforge and Hellfire Sentries and the old capitol of Karzogg's kingdom way up on in the mountains on the other side of the continent... so they'd probably have to do something about that, since even if they'd defeated the cultists they knew about, it was probably too late or Karzogg wouldn't have shown up to gloat.
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