GM: DGM
Party: Glen, Oxalis, Ssej, Dexter, Indarasul, Kepesk, Cally
we put together a team to investigate some cottage near the ghostwood march, investigate the mist there, and keep an eye out for the undead while at it. found the cottage easily enough:
was boarded up to let no light in, but contrary to first impressions not a den of vampires but a meeting place for kobolds and gnolls. they didn’t bother with an outhouse, but just used one of the rooms there. stinks accordingly. looks like they met there to negotiate an alliance of sorts. gnolls came from the north, kobolds from the swamp. we followed the kobold tracks.
came across a wall of mist. could be patrolled, by what one of the night watches reported when we rested near it, but they didn’t spot us or didn’t care for people outside. hunting parties of kobolds seem to have been sent out to the east. we followed the tracks of a returning group inside, and met other kobolds. approached them in the hopes that these were the friendly kobolds we were told lived in the woods. learned that they are the minions of grimmys, whom they worship like a god. part of the group were adamant about talking to the wyrm, and talked over any objections. being promised they’d pay tribute to grimmys, and bribed by a coin of gold, the not so bright kobolds led the even less bright party to be sacrificed talk to grimmys. oxalis and i refused to go in front of the cave, and bribed the kobolds with a silver each so we could just sit outside. the ground shook with the approach from the wyrm. those who survived and saw him told me it was at least 20 meters tall, and i do not doubt them. they made their offerings, the wyrm demanded entertainment, and commanded one to subdue another. when the screams and the awful crunching sounds started, oxalis and i started running. been told that dexter heroically sacrificed himself to allow others to escape, and saved ssej with his magic and potions. they also told me that they saw a one-eyed gnoll approaching as they fled, and he said something about meeting them on the battlefield soon. i was too busy running to look back, that only slows you down.
one of the night watches – after we collapsed somewhere outside the mist and made camp as best as we could – reported an army of kobolds being led by that gnoll marching west towards the road, but they didn’t spot us or also didn’t care. when we arrived at the outpost, it had been attacked by that army, but it held. barely, by the looks of it, and it needs immediate reinforcements, but at least when we passed through it still was there to provide us shelter.
oh, and we found a couple of huge statues of halflings in the swamp, but the inscriptions were too eroded to easily read, once the war is over it’d be nice to go there and investigate them further. marked that with the yellow dot on the map, too. the black dot is where i think grimmys’ lair is, but being led there by kobolds in dense fog makes that just a rough guess.