Spoiler: This series of posts cover actual game play of the War of the Burning Sky campaign arc from EN Publishing.

This post covers the first session of the campaign in which the heroes meet and begin their quest to save the world from destruction. The heroes were introduced here.

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Our intrepid group of heroes find themselves outside the Poison Apple Pub in Gate Pass shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve. All of them, except one, have been asked by the resistance leadership to meet a woman named Torrent at the pub for a mission of vital importance.Shortly after the arrival of the last recruit, a woman opens the alley door of the pub and lets the men inside. Most of the furniture has been pushed to one side of the room and covered with a sheet, but a lone table with six chairs is still setup. Atop it sits a small keg of beer and several mugs.

“I am Torrent,” says the woman. “Thank you for coming.” She tells the men of a case of military intelligence that has been smuggled from the capital of the Ragesian Empire by a gnome named Rivereye Badgerface. He was to meet a contact within the resistance named Peppin Tallman, but Peppin was murdered several days before. Fortunately the resistance acquired his signet ring and locker key, as well as information regarding his planned meeting with Rivereye, through a speak with dead ritual.

One of the men asks Torrent, “Wait a minute, there’s an army coming towards Gate Pass?”

“Hey, aren’t you Vandin? Are the rumors true that you’re a drunk?” asks one of the large men.

“It’s Vandalin, and no. Not always. So what’s this about an army?”

The group fills Vandalin in on the recent events in the world, including the Ragesian army marching on Gate Pass. Torrent explains that the city council is considering letting Ragesian Inquisitors into the city so they can seek out arcane mages in an effort to appease the invaders. She outlines their need to acquire this case and get it to the Lyceum Academy far to the south in Seaquen. She has determined that the best route to get there is down the Old Elf Road south out of the city and through the Fire Forest of Innenotdar.

Several distant thumps and explosions are heard by the party followed by a commanding voice outside the Pub, “Front door, go!”

The front door to the pub comes crashing down. A halfling runs into the open doorway spinning a pair of bolas. He is followed by a man dressed in leather armor and wielding a mace. Four thugs with clubs come in after him. The intruders demand the party’ surrender. Our heroes, who have since come to call themselves the Suicide Squad, did not surrender. Instead they proceeded to lay into the thugs with reckless abandon. The halfling spun his bolas up and restrained Vandalin and Thaikou for a brief second during the fight. In return, Thaikou drew his throwing hammer and whipped it at the halfling’s head, causing a mortal wound. Aukan dropped his maul atop the head of another intruder completely smashing him into the floor. The party thought the reverberations of the impact shook the entire building, but it was actually a Ragesian bomb that hit the pub, causing flaming oil to seep down from the second floor and the ceiling to collapse on Thaikou. He made an attempt to exit the pub through the alley door, only to find it guarded from the outside. The rest of the party escaped thought he front door chasing after a fleeing intruder only to find another man outside with a pair of attack dogs and a formidable man atop a horse. Vandalin and Aukan proceeded to chase down the fleeing man along with his companion while Thaikou emerged from the collapsing pub to engage the horseman.

After a few minor blows and all of his companions slain or fled, the horse man said “It appears Renard underestimated your capabilities.” With that, he turned and galloped down the snowy street, but not before Thaikou took one last mighty swing with his maul. The horseman was almost thrown from his saddle by the impact, but managed to stay mounted and flee the scene. Omicron would later realize that these men wore the insignia of the Black Horse, a group of  mercenary bounty hunters native to Gate Pass.

The party quickly regrouped and moved on from the now completely collapsed Poison Apple Pub towards the next district to the east and their meeting with Rivereye at the depository. They almost ran over a frail man holding an unconscious woman with three children straggling behind. Their clothes smoldering from the fires in the building they just exited. “Help me please,” than man implores the party. Aukan, ever the guardian, immediately comes to the woman’s aide, administering healing as bet he can. After stabilizing her wounds, he asks if there is a place nearby they can take the family. Torrent suggests a small temple down a side street and the party takes the family there. The man, named Rensar, thanks the heroes and promises to return the favor in the future.

Further along the main street, a crowd is gathered near house aflame. A woman is standing in the upstairs window, flames licking at her heels. The twins immediately jump into action using their height (both are 7 feet tall) to overcome the challenge. Aukan climbs on his stronger brother’s shoulders and reaches up to grab the woman from the window. Thaikou loses his grip and they fall, but not before Athos and Vandalin help soften the blow with the ground. The crowd immediately converges on the woman to see to her wounds as they give thanks to our heroes.

Explosions and fires are creating chaos in the western districts of Gate Pass. Crowds of fleeing citizens make their way towards the gate to the next district to the east. The party joins to moving mass of people. A wave of fear spreads over the crowd as a flying creature, identified as a Wyvern by Aukan, passes overhead pursued by one of Gate Pass’ own griffon riders. As the crowd becomes more dense, Omicron feels someone bump into him, he turns and sees a young boy running off through the crowd. Quickly inspecting his belt, he discovers his coin purse is missing. The heroes immediately give chase through the crowd. Aukan’s superior height allows him to see the culprit’s moves while he yells at the crowd to make way. Athos conjures eldritch blue flames into his hands striking fear into many of the citizens causing them to back away from the party. Omicron catches a glimpse of the boy and uses mage hand to trip him so the pursuing heroes can catch up. The men successfully catch the boy after Omicron causes a ghost sound of a terrible monster in front of the boy who immediately curls up in the fetal position in fear. The party finds Omicron’s purse along with a nice gold ring and a potion of healing. The boy confesses to stealing the other two items. The men take them and let the boy go, threatening him that they will find him if he steals again.

The crowd of people is dispersing at this point since they have passed through the gates into the next district, but the screams of terror come back as the wyvern approaches the main street. His pursuer engages in combat in flight and causes the wyvern to crash down into a nearby house. After a few moments, the party hears a woman’s curdling scream cut short and the cries of a small child. Aukan and Vandalin immediately run towards the small building. Vandalin kicks in the door to find a half-orc Ragesian soldier dressed in nice black scale armor, wielding a battleaxe and large spiked shield. In his arms he holds a small boy with his battleaxe at the boy’s throat. “Move and let me go!” The half-orc demands.

The party engages the soldier. In response, he slits the boy’s throat and moves to defend himself. The battle lasts several minutes with the heroes laying into the Ragesian with all their might. Several times the soldier slammed Vandalin with his shield, knock him to the ground several feet away. Aukan summoned all of his strength for one attack, heedless of defending himself, but imparting a serious blow on the soldier with his mighty maul. The half-orc proceeded to hack his way through the men to reach the street outside, but his wounds began to take the best of him and the party slew him in the snowy street. The heroes discovered the soldier’s dead wyvern in a large pile of rubble int eh corner of the building. In his saddlebags were 70gp and a potion of healing. They removed the Ragesian’s armor after discovering it is magical and provides resistance to fire and necrotic damage. Thaikou replaced his own scale armor with the magical suit. It was snug, but seemed to morph itself to fit his immense frame. The party survived their first direct encounter with the Ragesian army, barely. Vandalin and Aukan were both severely hurt, but they pressed on to the depository and their quest to retrieve the case of military secrets.

Torrent imparted some healing to the young boy, barely saving his life. She instructed the men to continue their mission while she took the boy to the Mercineum nearby. She would meet them there once they retrieved the case. The party decided Omicron was best suited to impersonate Peppin since they were both human merchant/mage-types. With Tallman’s key and signet ring in hand, the group entered the depository to meet with the ugly gnome Rivereye Badgerface. The gnome approached the men at the base of the stairs asking for Peppin by name. Omicron replied he was Pepping and the two moved up to the second floor. Rivereye asked about the code phrase to which Omicron replied “Ramshorn.” Immediately after ofering this bit of information, Omicron got a feeling Rivereye was not who he pretended to be. The gnome’s legs were a little too long for his height even though he was stopped over like a hunchback. The gnome walked over to a door and on to a balcony. Omicron asked about the case to which the gnome said it was in the locker. The mage located locker 222 and opened it using Tallman’s key, but nothing was inside. He called to his companions downstairs and the party looked for the gnome, but he was nowhere to be seen.

A bright light on the third floor drew the party’s attention. They investigated to find it was a wisp solon, a small sun floating in the middle of the room. Omicron informed the party that solons were creations of the primordials to fight the angels of the immortals. They often aligned with good mages and sorcerers. The solon proved to be a very gregarious conversationalist with the party discovering that the imposter was an eladrin named Larion. His companions had taken the case to their master, a mage named Shealis at Gabal’s School of War in Gate Pass. The solon then teleported away in small bursts of flame leaving the heroes to discover the real Rivereye and several orc guards on the fourth floor. The gnome was sad to hear the news of Peppin’s murder and asked the men to take him to Torrent as he was ill and needed rest before they confronted Shealis. He offered them Larions’ cape and belt, which the eladrin had swapped out for the gnome’s own in order to better his disguise. The identified the cape as one that magically aides its wearer’s defense and has the ability to teleport him out of harm’s way. With the current fiery issues with teleportation, the party gives the cape to Thaikou who seems to have the ability to withstand the fires of telportation due to the black scale armor he is wearing. The belt magically imparts vigor to its wearer. Vandalin puts it on.

The heroes escort Rivereye to the Mercineum and Torrent. Buron Watcher, the priest of Pelor who runs the temple, takes the ill gnome downstairs to an infirmary the resistance has set up. After some deliberation with Torrent, teh heroes agree that they need time to rest before confronting Shealis later that morning.

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So ends part 1 of the Scouring of Gate Pass. The players were all very excited to continue and have decided to play every week rather than every other, at least until schedules dictate we change. Overall I thought the session went well. There were no rules arguments, every had fun, one or two players came very close to death each encounter, and each player had the chance to shine at different moments. As a DM, I like to make every encounter challenging enough to the point where player’s feel a sense of danger, but not so much that they are unable to progress. I think I accomplished that with these first few encounters. I was a little concerned the solo fight might be too much for the Suicide Squad, but they put out so much damage that I gave the solo his full 188hp rather than start him at bloodied. The two defenders came very close to dying, but the team manged to kill the solo just in time.

I am looking forward to this coming Friday’s session as two of the encounters we should get through are ones I really enjoyed changing from the published adventure. Hopefully the heroes prevail.

Until next time…