Thursday, February 1, 2018

The Copper Scrolls 1

It all started with the party being tasked with retrieving an ancient scroll. The contents of the scroll were unknown to the party, but the person asking was someone they had done business with frequently in the past, Auron. Auron is the de facto ruler of Hillsfar. It is ruled in name only by a 31 member senate comprised of guild masters and wealthy merchants, of which Auron is one. However, they can rarely agree with each other on anything, and Auron has taken over the day to day ruling of the city-state, and the other members of the senate are content to let him do so. Auron trades mostly in gems and weapons, and has managed to amass a sizable fortune in the process. He is also known to collect any artifacts that are arcane related, and any scrolls that contain information about the arcane arts. He pays well for these. He uses many groups of people to track these items down for him, of which the current party is but one, albeit his most trusted group.

That group consists of Kaldric, a Human Wizard with some ties to the Red Knight, Kai a Human Wizard who uses her magic to avoid direct confrontation, and Ariatriel a Human Ranger who is not afraid to fight and has a particular hatred of Goblins. They questioned Auron about the scroll for which they were tasked to track down. He provided them with a map to its location, along with a vague warning about possible protections that may, or may not, be in place. He also stated that the scroll may not exactly be in the building indicated, but was able to provide no more information.

The party traveled through the woods of Cormanthor for 4 days before reaching the correct building. In the basement of the building, they searched for a long time before Kai stumbled upon the portal and accidentally triggered it by rubbing her hand across a ruin etched into the wall. The rune was of no language anyone in the party knew, but looked vaguely Elven. The portal gave the stone on part of one wall a slightly watery look. Touching it caused ripples. Ariatriel shot an arrow through, and it seemed to pass through with no trouble. A sword was stuck through and pulled out, and it returned unharmed. Still cautious, Ariatriel tied a rope around her waist and went through the portal while Kaldric and Kai held the other end of the rope, ready to pull her back if something should go wrong. On the other side, Ariatriel yelled that she was fine, but the others were unable to hear her, just as she was unable to hear them. Ariatriel tugged on the rope twice, letting Kaldric and Kai know it was safe. They walked through the portal as well.

Here the party found themselves in a square room that was 50 feet on each side. In the middle was a 5 foot square dais that was about a foot tall. In the center of the dais was a 5 and a half foot pedestal. The group was unable to see what, if anything, was on the pedestal. There were also bones littering the room, along with various arms and armor. They also noticed that it was noticeably warmer in this room, than the room they had previously been in. Upon inspection Kaldric noticed that not only was the armor and arms ancient, they were from vastly different time periods. Almost all of the metal was rusted and pocked. Kai cast DETECT MAGIC in the direction of the pedestal, and then began to turn and sweep the room. She found that whatever was on the pedestal had the most powerful magical aura that she had ever come across in her travels. She also came across another much fainter magical aura among the bones and metal. Ariatriel went searching and found a sword that despite everything else in the room seemed to be in perfect condition. She took the sword and the group kept investigating the pedestal. Kaldric and Ariatriel lifted Kai on their shoulders to see what was on the pedestal. It was a copper colored cylinder that had glowing blue marks on it. The group, worried about a trap, next threw a couple of pieces of armor onto the dais, but nothing happened. They then devised a plan. Kaldric and Ariatriel waited by the doorway back. Kai cast INVISIBILITY on herself, and made ready to grab the object. Right as she was to grab it, Kaldric would cast FLAMING SPHERE at one of the corners of the dais. Once the object was in hand, the group would make their way out of the room with all haste. With the plan in motion, Kai grabbed the object, and a sphere of flames appeared. As the object was grabbed it flashed with light and 3 spots of light flashed in the bone piles. Three Skeletons materialized out of bones and made to attack Kai. One of the Skeletons arose right in the flaming sphere and took damage, but stayed up. The other two skeletons made there way towards Kai and swung swords at her, but her invisibility prevented them from hitting her. Kai then ran towards the doorway, and the Skeletons once again missed their attacks against her. The entire party left the room through the portal as the room seemed to be crumbling.

Back in the relative safety of the stone room, Kai looked at the object, and determined it to be a scroll case that was copper. It was significantly heavier than a normal scroll case, leading her to believe it was made out of copper, and not just colored that way. Once against Kai noticed the same script on the outside of the case that seemed to be an Elven dialect. When she looked though, the glowing blue lines seemed to move and change around and formed into Common. The case now read “Theories of Arcane Magic. What is known must not be forgotten.” The party decided to wait until they were closer to Hillsfar before opening the scroll case. They ventured about a hour away from the buildings before making camp for the night. They had an uneventful next day and night as well. Their second day back, Kaldric overheard some words in Goblin that about a fight and ambush, and it was coming from the direction the group was traveling. Kai cast INVISIBILITY on herself again, and used PHANTASMAL FORCE to make a duplicate of herself that went off to the right, while the group went off to the left. Kaldric cast SHIELD in preparation for an attack and shortly, they encountered a pair of Goblins who charged the party. They were cut down by a MAGIC MISSLE spell from Kaldric and arrows from Ariatriel. After the battle, they could hear more Goblins coming to them from the direction of the image of Kai. The group braced for another attack. These Goblins were again fells by Ariatriel's arrows and Kaldric's sling. Two of the Goblins were able to successfully attack Kaldric, but only 1 hit and it did not do any major damage. Before the 3rd Goblin was able to attack again it sprouted a pair of arrows, with another couple of arrows hitting the ground around the Goblin. Kai yelled asking if those arrows came from friend or foe, and was answered cryptically. An Elf then stepped into sight and introduced himself as Ninthalor. He told the party that Goblins have become more common in Cormanthor of late, and that it was troubling to the Elves. Ninthalor asked the party if they wished to join the Elves is searching for the cause of the Goblins. The party turned him down, stating that they had a prior obligation that they needed to complete before taking on more work.

The party made camp that night, and arrived at the decision to open the scroll case. Kai removed the end of the case, and pulled out a set of 50 scrolls. The scrolls were on copper pages that have been hammered thin and worked to be as thin as parchment. Upon the pages were more of the Elven looking runes that were on the outside of the scroll case. Upon beginning to read, the runes once again moved around and reformed into Common. Kaldric, Kai, and Ariatriel all took turns studying the scrolls since only 1 person could read them at a time. They found that the scrolls were broken into 5 chapters of 10 scrolls each. The chapters were titled ‘Arcanus Fundare - Foundations of Magic’, ‘Magicus Creare - Spells of Creation’, ‘Maior Creare - Major Creation’, ‘Planus Mechanus - Studies of the Planes’, and ‘Are Factum - Of the Creation of Artifacts’. A cursory study of the scrolls showed Kaldric and Kai that this showed ways of using magic and interacting with the weave. It showed subtle but distinct differences from how they already interacted with the weave. They also came to the conclusion that it would takes many weeks to fully study these scrolls. They discussed whether they should only give Auron some of the scrolls, or perhaps even none. In the end they decided that they needed to warn Auron about how powerful and potentially dangerous these scrolls could be.

They made it back to Hillsfar after dark and went directly to Auron’s manor in the merchant’s quarter. They were escorted into a sitting room and provided with food and drink. Auron joined the party shortly and asked about the scrolls. After paying the agreed upon amount of 50 gold per person, the group reluctantly handed over the scrolls. Auron seemed confused at first, but opened the scroll case. He quickly perused the scrolls, and was shocked. He asked the party if they had any idea what these were. Kai responded that other than containing powerful arcane knowledge they did not. Auron proceeded to explain that this was a full set of the Nether Scrolls. He explained the the Nether Scrolls contained the sum amount of arcane knowledge at the time they were written thousands of years ago. They helped the Netheril Empire ascend to the power that it had. They were able to enchant mundane items to due their intended purpose without having to be worked by a non wizard. The Nether Empire was a magocracy and was home to the most powerful wizards to ever walk Faerun. During a war with unspeakable evil creatures not from this plane, the leader of Netheril, Karsus, cast a spell only known as KARSUS’S AVATAR. When cast he grew to godlike proportions, and gains godlike knowledge. His goal was the wrest the mantle of deity from Mystryl in order to end the war once and for all. However upon gaining godhood he realized his mistake, and the aftermath was that the weave failed for a brief period of time when Mystryl died. Then Mystra took over control of the weave, and was able to make magic work again, but put limits on magic for the future. Auron explained that this set of scrolls was previously unknown to all. It was thought that only 2 sets of the Nether Scrolls existed, one on gold, and one on platinum. They were long thought to be either destroyed or scattered across the world. He speculated that perhaps even the Gods did not know this set of the scrolls existed.

The party was concerned about Auron being able to protect the scrolls and suggested they split them up. Auron assured the party that he was more than capable of protecting the scrolls, and when pressed by Kaldric led the group to his private vault that was below ground. He opened the door and urged Kaldric to attempt to steal something. Upon walking into the vault, Kaldric was immediately repelled by a force-field of some sort. When Auron dismissed it, Kaldric went in the vault to find that everything in side was under the effects of an invisibility spell. The party then realized and had it confirmed that Auron was in fact a wizard. He was intentionally vague about what if any his specialty was. He went into his vault, and retrieved a handful of scrolls and showed them to the party. They discovered that the scrolls were in fact spell scrolls of some extremely powerful spells. These were spells that even Kaldric and Kai knew were beyond them. The party then agreed that Auron could protect the Nether Scrolls. They asked if they could study the scrolls if Auron kept them, and he agreed. The party then suggested that Auron track down the person that sold him the location of the scrolls, and Aura assured the party that he would make sure the problem was taken care of. They then retired to their room in The Tipsy Elf which Auron had set them up in.

Over the next several weeks, the group spent their time studying the Nether Scrolls in Auron’s house, trying to learn as much as possible from them.

DM Recap
This was my first session running a game with the AD&D 2e rules. I have played for several years with them, but had not used them as a DM. I felt that I did a decent job, but had to refer to the PHB more than I would have liked. I also still have trouble with the math involved in determining if an attack hits. I will get better at it with more practice, but that will take time.

I felt like the session went well overall. The players took longer with parts of the game that I expected to go quickly. I also will have my hands full adjudicating illusion spells, but I look forward to the challenges. The session ended in a very open-ended manner, and the players will have some interesting decisions to make for the next session.

Loot and XP
The players successfully made it through 2 encounters, and since they were able to make it back to Hillsfar safely XP will be awarded. The size of the story award is high because the PCs convinced Auron to allow them to study the Nether scrolls. The group earned 2870 XP, which breaks down to 956 for each character or 1051 for those with an XP bonus. The XP totals have been updated. The XP breakdown is shown below.

Skeleton x3 - 195
Goblins x5 - 75
Magic Sword - 600
Story Award - 2000

In addition, since the characters spent several weeks studying the Nether Scrolls, they are all awarded 1 Wizard spell slot and spell 1 level higher than they already know. That means that Kaldric and Kai each get a 3rd level spell slot and spell and Ariatriel gets a 1st level spell and spell slot. I have decided that since the characters were not able to focus their training as they did within their specialty, that the spell they learn will be chosen at random via a die roll at the beginning of the next session.

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