The World of Yön

Session Date:  September 14, 2007.  Campaign Date:  7 to 28 Brighor 1460 TR.

1. The heroes are wakened from their well-earned rest in the Harvale Inn by a commotion outside.  A small caravan outside was attacked en route, if the tales of the merchant and his guards can be believed, by swarms of vicious squirrels.  The heroes decide to accompany the caravan back to Parnella after it finishes trading in Harvale.
2. The caravan is again attacked, if the heroes’ eyes can be believed, by swarms of fiendish black squirrels (six at CR 2 each) and a dozen fiendish dire black squirrels (CR ⅓ each).  Although they are able to fight off the ravening hordes, the heroes decide to make haste to Parnella in hopes that the evil squirrels will not regroup and pursue in time.
3. The heroes, fearing the fiendish squirrels are but a sign of worse things in the offing, consult the priest of the church of Rytha in Parnella.  He directs them to speak to Lysira in Duilghlam, a village north of Yrsingen.  He says that she would know more of such things and would also be able to contact druids willing to help.
4. On the way to Duilghlam over dusty roads during a hot, dry, summer day, Cart spies a large goat looking furtively at the approaching party from a large stand of bushes.  He appears not to notice as he informs the others, then sees a lion’s head peer over the bushes.  Cart spurs his horse and charges the bushes to surprise the chimera (CR 7) waiting to ambush the party.  The chimera’s timing is off and Cart wounds it badly.  The creature, in anger nearly rips Cart limb from limb, and he limps from the fight as a storm of magic and arrows pound the monster into the ground.  After receiving healing magic, Cart examines the bushes and notices a large patch of loose soil without grass.  Digging there, the heroes discover, under a pungent layer of the chimera’s dung, a sack of 1100 gold pieces, three art objects, and armor later identified as +1 leather armor.
5. The heroes arrive in Duilghlam, a village with a mixed population of humans and centaurs living in harmony.  They seek out Lysira, who turns out to be a half-celestial centaur and a paladin reportedly chosen by Rytha to be the village’s defender.  (The stories have it that a paladin that led the village to defend centaur families seeking refuge from their fiendish counterparts died and was reincarnated as a half-celestial centaur, who then led the villagers and the centaurs to victory.  Since then, one centaur in every generation has been born half-celestial to take up the role as the village’s defender.)  The heroes tell of their encounters with large numbers of fiendish creatures, and Lysira thanks them for their efforts and promises to speak to the druids at once about investigating the origins of these fell creatures.

Session Date:  August 24, 2007.  Campaign Date:  4 Brighor 1460 TR.

1. While Krall is recovering from spider poison, the heroes bring the crate of cold iron they recovered to Gerston, the Harvale blacksmith, so that he might fashion some cold iron weapons for them.  He discovers a dirty object lodged between the thick wooden slats in the crate bottom.  Discovering it to be a strange gold object perhaps five inches long resembling a human skull with a skeletal arm extending from it, he takes it to the heroes, wanting nothing to do with creepy and possibly dangerous magic items.  Sinjiin and Marick both recognize it as a tomb key, a strange artifact, seemingly nonmagical, that nevertheless can open any mundane lock three times a day.  More importantly, when inserted into a lock and twisted while saying the words inscribed upon it, "Turn and call Æshagon", that door will then open into a vast tomb of some sort in an unknown location.
2. Naturally, the heroes, being adventurers, can’t resist trying it.  They use the door of one of the rooms they are renting at the inn to invoke the key’s legendary power and find that the legend is true:  the door, rather than opening into their room, reveals a dusty old chamber of filthy granite covered in spots with the eroded remnants of bas relief along with old scratchings left by other travelers.  The door slams shut behind them with a definite click.  They take the righthand of the three visible three exits.
3. Down a short corridor, they find a chamber with a small sarcophagus, like that of a child or a halfling—which, they were unable to determine.  At the end of the sarcophagus is the mummified remains of a hratt, obviously killed by a spring-loaded bar deguised as a rail along the side of sarcophagus, that snapped out from the top to swing over and down and smash its skull.  The trap is long since rusted but the hraat’s masterwork thief’s tools, scattered around his corpse, are still in usable condition.
4. Leaving from the other exit from the room, the heroes travel down a long, ten-foot-wide corridor covered in an inch of dust, when Allyrianna hears the rustle of many things ahead moving through the dust.  Sinjiin casts a flaming sphere down the corridor to reveal a swarm of skeletal rats (3 CR 2) skittering through the thick dust toward them.  A brief fight ensues as the heroes crush and burn the bony little horrors.
5. Further down the corridor, the heroes find a narrow door—no more than 1½ feet wide—that opens into what appears to be space.  They see what appears to be twinkling stars in the shadowy darkness above and below the narrow doorway and no apparent way across it.  Sinjiin gathered some dust and flings it out into the room, revealing a narrow invisible path, no more than a foot wide, crossing the room.  He follows that with a coin enchanted with a light spell, revealing a floor covered with obsidian shards about 20 feet below the path.  Allyrianna squeezes through the door and walks out onto the path, where a gargoyle (CR 4) attacks her.  Sinjiin cleverly casts a floating disk spell (one plot point) to give her better footing as the creature swoops down on her.  Missile fire and spells pelt the creature as it attacks and Allyrianna brings the wounded creature down.  The “stars” turn out to be gems magically emitting light worth about 50 gold pieces each.  Eighteen of the gems are recovered from the floor, along with Sinjiin’s coin.  The heroes have no way to recover the gems above the path and decide not to explore the corridor through the door on the other side of the path.
6. The heroes continue down the dusty corridor.  Cart notices the floor “feels different” under the his feet.  Sinjiin carefully blows some of the dust away revealing that the floor now seems to be made of smooth iron.  The heroes are suspicious but continue forward, stepping past the fulcrum on which the iron slab was balanced, causing the slab to slam forward.  Most of the heroes keep their footing but Maeve slides and stumbles down the ramp, plowing into the hungry ingester (advanced, CR 4) at the bottom of the ramp.  Its secretions quickly numb the hapless sorceress.  Cart and Allyrianna rush forward to cut her free, but the monster engulfs Cart as well.  Despite the reduction in their fighting effectiveness, the heroes destroyed the gooey monster and rescue their comrades with not much more than blisters and peeled skin to show for it.  They decide to continue down the corridor, bypassing the ramp.
7. The heroes come to a fault in the corridor, a place where it fractured and sank about nine feet, leaving just a one-foot gap at the bottom of the wall.  They slide through the gap, drop down to the floor and continue onward.
8. The cooridor floor is laced with cracks, some which emit tiny wisps of steam.  They pass by several rooms that have been clearly destructively searched, possibly by other adventurers, many years ago.  The air becomes humid and the floors somewhat scummy.  One large room whose wall and door collapsed out into the hallway to formed a chamber.  Here, walls are covered with mold and the floor has shallow puddles of water.  Before the heroes are able to investigate the room, they are attacked from behind by something large and invisible (CR 4).  They drive it off but never really find out what it was.
9. Upon searching the room, Sinjiin finds the body of a dead adventurer covered with yellow mold (CR 6), which he disturbed causing it to emit poisonous spores to which he did not succumb.  Cart tried to kill the mold by pouring alcohol on it, which just disturbed the mold again.  Fire was finally used to burn it off, and the party managed to rescue some of the contents of the backpack:  a wand later determined to be a wand of bull’s strength (10 charges), two art objects appraised at 300 gold pieces each, and 3600 in gold coin.
10. The heroes make their way back to the entrance door and back to Harvale inn, startling the innkeeper.

Session Date:  July 27, 2007.  Campaign Date:  27 Hræyn through 1 Brighor 1460 TR.

1. [27 Hræyn] The heroes run to the walled area and climb the ladder leaning against the wall there to discover that Stander’s youngest son, Aihett, slipped and fell into the pen of an assassin vine, one of six that Stander’s son-in-law brought him.  Stander, having left the house without the magical rod that can control the plants, sends another son, Sivin, running back to get it as he follows the heroes.
2. The assassin vine is chopped up and Aihett rescued.  Stander invites the heroes for dinner.  His wife, Leitha, provides a sumptuous if simple repast—pork chops, mashed potatoes with chopped onion, bread with fresh-churned white goat’s butter and honey, cheese, apples and pecan pie for dessert.  After dinner, Stander invites Cart into the sitting room, which is clearly decorated by his wife:  overstuff chairs with cloth protectors for the armrests and headrests; small, intricately carved tables and cabinets full of porcelain figurines and other knickknacks, framed needlepoints and the scent of potpourri.  Stander agrees to the compromise price suggested by Cart for the Twenty Vales wine.
3. [28 Hræyn]  The next day, the heroes return to Harvale with Stander, where Cart and Stander sign an agreement with the village steward as witness, who seals the contract.  Stander gives the party a crate of 24 bottles of his finest wine, the corks all burned with the goatshead sign of wine from his vineyard, in thanks for rescuing his son.
4. [29 Hraeyn] The heroes decide to help Krall find his friend Krissa, who was last seen heading toward the Godsteeth, mountains to the north and east of Harvale.  They are ambushed by a half a dozen kryg warriors (6 CR ½), who drop rocks (and unintentionally, themselves) on the heroes as they make their way through a narrow spot of the trail.  One of the dead kryg was wearing an dragon amulet that belonged to Krissa.
5. The heroes work their way along the kryg’s trail to an small, abandoned dwarven mine not too far into the Godsteeth.  There, they fight a confused, bloody battle on the upper level with kryg warriors (11 CR ½), barbarians (2 CR 2) and a massive kryg almost nine feet tall (1 CR 5).  The kryg are armed with battleaxes and wore dirty studded leather armor and used large wooden shields, except for the nine-foot fellow, who wielded a Large masterwork greataxe and wore a Large masterwork breastplate and carried three vials, 250 gold pieces and 500 silver pieces in a belt pouch.  The single surviving kryg warrior escapes down a trapdoor.
6. [30 Hræyn] The party seals the trapdoor and rests for the night.

Session Date:  June 29, 2007.  Campaign Date:  27 Mykir through 22 Hræyn, 1460 TR.

Note:  events 1 and 2 are slightly altered from the original events to make the narrative, such as it is, flow better.  This has no game or role-playing effect on anyone.

1. The players abandon Senger’s Mill, taking the survivors of the ghoul attack there with them.  Sonjia offers to go with the priest and the survivors to the village of Duilghlam to the south, which is closer and better equipped to handle refugees.  The party continues east toward Parnella.  (Perhaps she had feelings for the brave priest?  Who can say? ) 
2. [7 Hræyn] Further east, in the hamlet of Annsne (pronounced like “Ann's knee”), the adventurers meet Allyrianna Drossel, who believes that a stick determines her destiny.  Currently, the stick believes that she should travel with our intrepid heroes.
3. [14 Hræyn] The heroes find a small covered wagon driven off the road and lacking its driver and horse.  The wagon seems to belong to a seller of potions and other small magics.  A voice inside the wagon comes from a book, an intelligent grand grimoire, which tells the heroes that his owner's horse panicked and rode off the road, wrecking the wagon and dislodging several potion bottles and jars of powders and such.  Several of these broke, and the book’s owner, a wizard yclept Abcarna, ran screaming into the night.  (The players correctly surmised that one of the spilled powders induced a confusion effect.)
4. The heroes, with the grand grimoire floating along with them, track the wayward wizard to a tree surrounded by several dead cocktrices and four live ones.  The wizard is out of combat spells (he wasn't prepared for a fight, after all) and is using the tree’s foliage to avoid the petrifying touch of the cockatrices.  He see the heroes and warns them.  The heroes defeat the cockatrices (4 x CR 3) but Allyrianna is turned to stone.  The grateful wizard uses a scroll of break enchantment that the players salvaged from the wagon to remove the petrification effect from Allyrianna.  He gives them what scrolls and potions the survived the wreck of his wagon and the heroes escort him to the next village, named Achchadh (pronounced “akh-chahd", as if rhyming with “Loch Cod”), where he can start restocking.  They arrive there on 16 Hræyn.
5. [22 Hræyn] The heroes defeat a pair of fiendish centaur bandits (2 x CR 4).  They acquire a heavy steel shield that radiates magic, a wand, and a set of magic panpipes.  They have not yet identified what these items do.

Session experience points:  2160.

Session Date:  May 18, 2007.  Campaign Date:  4 through 11 Mykir, 1460 TR.

1. Hoping for a lead to those responsible for Havery Darcy's kidnapping, the adventurers go to the Tarenkoth hall of the Order of Magical Arts to see if any wizard there might have cast the trap the soul spell that first captured her.  When the heroes see him, the guildmaster admits to casting the spell for a young man fitting Temal’s description.  He was told that he needed the spell to help her elope.
2. [10 Mykir] Using his father’s contacts in The Silver Palm, Cart manages to track Temal Bascom, Havery Darcy’s wayward fiancée, to a warehouse district.
3. [11 Mykir] The adventurers go to the warehouse district which, typical of the efficiency of the dwarven engineers that directed the rebuilding of Tarankoth, is neither run-down nor poorly lit.  They soon catch sight of Temal.  Unfortunately, so does another group of bravos looking for Temal.  A fight breaks out between the adventurers and the second group.
4. While the fight is going on, Temal tries to escape through the allies.  Some of the thugs persue, so does Sonjia and eventually Cart.  Sonjia corners Temal, and as she approaches, he surrenders just before someone on the rooftop shoots him with a poisoned arrow.  The adventurers can heal the wound but not the poison.  Temal confesses what he knows—only that the people that were helping him had money and he didn't think they were using real names.  He told Sonjia to tell Havery that he loved her, then died.
5. Askril Darcy, while unhappy with the result (although not nearly as much as Havery, who cried for a very long time), did not fault the adventurers for their performance.  He paid them and thanked them for what they were able to do.

Session Date:  April 20, 2007.  Campaign Date:  11 Avyrna through 3 Mykir, 1460 TR.

1. [20 Avyrna] Two members of another adventuring group, a human male rogue named Raska and a human male wizard named Kesten, slip into the sleeping caravan to attempt to rescue Havery Darcy from her “kidnappers”, Cart, Sonjia, Sinjin, Marick and Maeve.  Cart overheards the two slipping into the double-decker housewain where Havery is sleeping.  Cart wakes his companions, and in a brief fight, disables the Raska and forces Kesten to surrender.  Kesten eventually believes that the adventurers are not at fault and agrees to withdraw without further attempts to liberate Havery.
2. [29 Avyrna] A harpy decides to seek a meal from the Yellowspoke’s clan caravan, using her beguiling song to attract victims.  Wounded, she seeks to fly back to her lair, but is brought down, at last, by a lucky shot by Cart (CR 4).  The adventurers travel along her last line of travel and find a large dead tree near the edge of a wide marsh.  Cart climbs the tree to look in a hole in the trunk about thirty feet up and triggers a trap (CR 3), a stone balanced on a thick branch above him.  The stone strikes him and narrowly misses knocking him to his death below.  In the trunk he finds bags of containing 31,000 silver pieces, a small pouch with three gems worth 5, 120 and 400 gold pieces each, and a scroll with the divine spells remove paralysis and resist energy.
3. [3 Mykir] The caravan arrives at Tarankoth.

Session Date:  March 23, 2007.  Campaign Date:  1 Avyrna, 1460 TR.

Official start of Yon: Late for Dinner.  The first appearance of player characters is noted in green.

1. Nikolai Gregor Leonid Joseph Ivanov III, better known as “Cart”, arrives at the city of Yrsingen with his friend, Sonjia Legier.  He is there to fence some gems given to him by his father, a senior member of The Silver Palm, a less-than-legitimate organisation within the city of Tarenkoth.  While on his way to meet one of three fences within the city, he and his friend are ambushed by five hratts.
2. The sounds of battle attract the attention of several people, including Sinjiin St. Claire, Marick O’Case, and Maeve Sullivan, who go to investigate.  Their appearance turns the tide of battle against the hratts.  They capture one hratt deafened by a thunderstone thrown by Sonjia.  Another slips away unseen, having lifted Cart's belt pouch  A city militia patrol shows up as the players try to question the hratt.  The militia sergeant draws a sword to finish off the captured hratt and avoid some paperwork, but Sonjia “convinces” him to arrest the hratt instead.  The sergeant and his men take the hratt away but kill him just out of sight of the others.  (Four CR ½ hratts)
3. Cart convinces Sonjia, Sinjiin, Marick and Maeve to follow the fifth hratt’s trail, which leads through a house whose back door opened into the alley where the ambush took place, through the front door down another alley, and finally into the sewers.  The group gets within earshot of the fifth hratt delivering Cart’s belt pouch to an unidentified human, who is clearly unhappy that the gems are not in the pouch.  The hratt is killed and the pouch left with its body as the human escapes.