DnD Encounters - War of Everlasting Darkness - Week 6

Greetings Dungeoneers,

     We spoke a bit more about what characters players would prefer for the custom time travel adventure, and I revealed that the characters would be around level 15-16, putting us on to the Paragon Tier. And I also found out that the next season of Encounters would start on 2013.02.10 for us.

     For the first time in a while, we didn't have any new adventurers join us. This started the adventure with a bit of a problem as we didn't have many characters capable of setting trolls on fire, but we worked our way through the session without too many problems.

     This week had our characters helping to fortify the town of Nesmé in preparation for a large troll army. A lot of work was spent dealing with NPCs and rebuilding damaged defenses.

     And now for a recap of this week's adventure Trolls of the Evermoors.

Trolls of the Evermoors

• After spending some time escorting Axelcrantz to Silverymoon, our party headed to Nesmé. As they arrived, they found the town in disrepair with a small fore of trolls attacking. While the towns people take on several, our party engages two of the uglier trolls.
• With a quick Nature check, our party finds out that trolls regenerate from damage of any type other than fire or acid, as well as that their health and defenses are quite high. Trolls are also prefer the flesh of humanoids so every one was in danger, except SeanPrime's Shardmind. Without a dedicated Wizard, the party had a difficult fight. Josh's Warlock powers managed to summon some arcane fire to keep the trolls from regenerating and his Warlock Curse kept them taking damage. Jeremy's leadership skills allowed Unika to use some extra strikes as he saw openings in the the trolls's defenses.
• As the fight wore on our party saw that the town was even less defended than it initially seemed. With the trolls finally defeated, the party entered Nesmé.
• A town guard quickly lead our party to the First Watcher, the current mayor. An Insight check from SeanPrime revealed that the secrets of this man's mind: he was unprepared for this role and desperate to save his town. After our party offered to help, the First Watcher revealed many of the areas that Nesmé needed assistance (Riders of Nesmé, town watch, catapults, and sharpshooters)  In return for that help, he'd give the party some Alchemist's Fire to assist in fighting trolls as well as a holy relic that cast back the darkness.
• Josh and Unika used their stealth to observe the troll camps, and after four days they learned all that they could. There were four troops: Drow mage support (attacking from the bridge), main troll force (attacking the main wall of Nesmé, especially the weak points in the catapult defense), smaller trolls attackers (sneaking on to the docks), and the troll chieftains vanguard (will need to be met on the field). The final thing they learned before returning to town was that the horde would attack on the tenth day.
• Justin2 spent four days of work using his Artificer training - as well as dwarven heritage - to rebuild the catapults. He went a step further and enchanted them to imbue fire into to the ammunition, and he even had time to build a cannon to devastate any large group of trolls.
• SeanPrime and Jeremy spent a day teaching a couple of the town watch to train the troops, and then spent another day investigating what was up with the famed Riders of Nesmé failing to fight the trolls when out adventurers came to town. They quickly learned from one of the riders that their morale was shattered over a schism amongst the riders. A younger and ambitious member, Selinus, had accused the leader, Varen, of aiding horse thieves. After investigating things, SeanPrime became very angry that the riders would allow such a thing to impair their helping Nesmé. With a forceful probe of Varen's mind and Jeremy's Intimidation check, they learned that the accusations were true and Varen had succumbed to his greed. SeanPrime told Varen to step down and for the riders to elect an impartial third-party to lead them. SeanPrime also told Varen it would be best to leave Nesmé after the fight, or he'd find him and trap Varen's mind in a hell he could never escape.
• While waiting for their friends to finish their tasks, SeanPrime and Jeremy went to work spending four days collecting additional troops from mercenary gangs in the area and further volunteers from the town. They even had the First Watcher call in favors from previous adventurers that had visited Nesmé. Then they brought up the morale by showing how the catapults were being rebuilt and the riders were once again joining Nesmé in their fight with the trolls.
• Josh and Justin2 went about solving the problem the sharpshooters were having. It seems that the bulk of the sharpshooters were humans and could not aim well in this everlasting darkness. Using the Wand of Tir'Lien and the ritual they had learned from Axelcrantz, they were able to dispel the darkness over the area over a four day period.
• Unika snuck into the local church to steal the holy amulet, but upon SeanPrime's psychic nagging, she returned it.
• Jeremy and SeanPrime researched the previous battle plans used by troll invaders and devised a means to prevent their retreat.
• Unika, Josh, and Justin2 used the plan on the last day to set up traps. Josh used the spear traps he had acquired on the first mission. Unika and Justin2 set pitch lines where the trolls would most likely retreat to, and informed some Rangers to light them if the trolls decided to flee.
• On the final night, the party made their plans for the assault. The town watch would protect the docks, the sharpshooters would attack the drow mages on the bridge, the catapults would attack the main force of the troll army, and the riders and our party would meet the chief's vanguard on the field of battle.
• The next day brought word from Rangers in the area that the trolls were attacking, our party had managed to make their preparations in time.
• As the trolls attacked Nesmé: the main force was met with far more catapults than they expected and they could no longer find the weak points they had scouted days prior, the drow were met with archers that could now see them in what they thought would be covered by darkness, the smaller trolls that planned to sneak in from the docks were met with confident and well trained militia, and the our party rode out with the riders to strike the chieftain's vanguard.
• While the riders handled most of the vanguard, our party encountered three of the largest trolls they have ever seen and the troll chieftain (who they could hardly believe was just a troll with how large he was). Having learned from their previous round with trolls, they were far more prepared and sprung their ambush. Before the chieftain had time to attack, they have dispatched him with a thought scorpion from SeanPrime that restained him while Unika attacked under Jeremy's advice. Josh placed curse after curse upon the trolls and lobbed Alchemist's Fire with his tail. The other three trolls were dispatched with the same concerted effort with Justin's construct exploding to add even more fire damage. The two trolls who tried to escape were struck down before they could even move more than a few feet.
• With the chieftain and his vanguard destroyed, as well as the army taking heavy losses, the survivors tried to flee only to run into the trap set by our party. With such devastating losses, Nesmé would be safe from trolls for many years to come. In addition, Silverymoon would be safe from trolls and Axelcrantz could continue his research to end the Darkening.
• The townsfolk could hardly believe the success they had, with barely a week ago they knew that their doom was all but guaranteed. Praises were heaped upon our adventurers as minstrels created songs to tell of their deeds.