Caelesti's notes

Date

3/25/2010

Log

A sage showed the party a map of the area and pointed out where he suspected the giants were, in the southern part of the Jotens (the mountains south of Istivin). The party, not wanting to confront lots of giants simultaneously, planned to do lots of aerial scouting. The party scouted out a patrol of soldiers, and decided to meet with them to get more giant information. The patrol blocked the party's path until they saw a writ saying that the party's job was to go into the mountains to fight giants. They didn't tell the party much that they didn't already know.

The party continued on, while Carric and Tan Kuran scouted the area ahead and deeper into the mountains. The party found a pass into the mountains and continued south.

One night, Yoshi had a prophetic dream ... he interpreted it to mean that the giants camp in a valley in a large building and are being controlled or manipulated by something. On the third day, Carric located the valley with the giant building that Yoshi dreamed about. As Carric rejoined the party, a man was coming down the mountain whistling a tune. The party bargained with the man and agreed to pay him 500 gp to lead the party to a suitable cave near the giants that they can hide in while scouting the giants. The man led the party, got paid, and left.

While the party camped in the cave, Carric scouted the giants' big house form the air. He saw one huge building, one smaller building, and a clearing with 14 dire wolves in between them. Carric reported back, and the party made plans.

Nessey's notes

Torin: http://www.hambo.com/images/Wilderness%20Map.jpeg
Scribe: We are in Istivin. King's agents 3. 1 of which is a Wizard and very, very arrogant. He sends us after the Giants.
Scribe: Lord Lashton
Scribe: Algorthas
Scribe: Temple of Arianrhod
Scribe: Randos
Scribe: We expect to find the Giants in the Jotens. (mountains)
Scribe: We have to cross the Davish River.
Yoshi: http://pandius.com/orcshead.html
Scribe: Jotens are the most accessible mounttain range and covered with pine forest and maple trees and other decidous trees. It is almost all under the timber line.
Scribe: DM shows us a map. He says 8 miles per hex.
Scribe: Winderness hex.
Scribe: We plan to dream and scout and dream and plan.
Yoshi rolls Ability:Wisdom: (d20+4) : [12 + 4] = 16
Scribe: Yoshi has a dream that night in Istivin.
Scribe: Starts out as a flying dream. Soaring through the air as if an Eagle.
Scribe: In the hills. Soar over a valley. See a huge featureless building. You start falling.
Scribe: As you fall, you keep trying to slow down, but can't. Looks like you are about to strike the roof. Then your perception shifts. You are lying on your back looking up, up, up. A very large man stands over you. He has a beard. He is larger than any giant you have seen before. He stands over you and shakes his finger. You see s shadowy form behind him whispering in his ear.
Scribe: Giant cocks his head and listens and looks back at you with determination in his face. Raises large axe and swings it at you.
Scribe: What Yoshi gathers is - whatever is going on the Giants are being manipulated. It was a seeing dream. There is something behind the Giants. The plan is not the Giants' idea.
Scribe: And he thinks the Giants live in a very large featureless building in a valley.
Scribe: Let's take the mule.
Scribe: Tictok.
Scribe: We discover that Carric could turn into a Pombi.
Scribe: It is like a Dire Bear.
Scribe: Torin suggests we go a ways to the West, so as not to be traveling the normal raiding path.
Scribe: South and along the mountains.
Scribe: We debate sneaking up on them or not. Will they be more wary in one area or another.
Scribe: Caelesti says, with a really good scout, we could avoid being set upon.
Scribe: As we travel south, we meet up with people fleeing their farms. And meet patrols of soldiers.
Scribe: Shall we talk to the soldiers and ask if they have intel?
Scribe: Talon asks her companions.
Scribe: Did we get a Writ from that Lord guy such that we can proceed without trouble from the patrols?
Scribe: Lord Lashton.
Torin: http://www.hambo.com/images/QotS.jpeg
Scribe: You are authorized to proceed into the Jotens to seek out Giants. Signed Lord Lashton and with a red or black wax seal with his ring insignia.
Scribe: That is the writ we are given which we can show to the patrols so they do not waylay us.
Scribe: Patrol tries to tell we can not go into the Jotens. But we have the writ which they say makes us official fools.
Scribe: Talon asks where they last say the Giants.
Scribe: They say they saw a bunch head to a village with mastadons and smash up the village.
Scribe: They look with suspicion at our mastadon.
Scribe: We get though the first day.
Scribe: We travel along happily
Scribe: Talon says we need matching hats.
Scribe rolls Knowledge Nature: (d20+10) : [17 + 10] = 27
Carric rolls Kno Nature: (d20+11) : [14 + 11] = 25
Scribe: Talon and Carric wonder about the kinds of things Giants like. What fascinates them.
Scribe: We have very large weapons from Giants we slay and also the one who was riding the mastadon.
Scribe: The weapons we found worth salvaging are straped to the mule.
Scribe: Do we still have that big wheel of cheese.
Scribe: It is very nourishing.
Scribe: We can give out wedges of cheese to the sad people.
Scribe: We travel two hexes, 16 miles. We set up watches. Nothing attacks us.
Scribe: Next day, afternoon, Carric communtes with Belanus at noon.
Scribe: We come to entrance to Jotens.
Scribe: Mountains to south and east.
Scribe: We seek a passage. There are valleys.
Scribe: Carric has to keep retrieving Smokey, who keeps wandering off and stomping his feet with a feral gleam in his eyes.
Scribe: We head West before entering the mountain range. Eagles, Carric and Tan Kuran head off to scout over the mountains.
Scribe: southwards.
Scribe: Carric can be an Eagle for 9 hours. He can travel 4 hours out and back.
Scribe: Speed of 80.
Scribe: 2 and 1/2 hexes per half day, for instance.
Scribe: Carric will give himself from extra time, not cut it too close.
Scribe: Carric and Tan Kuran fly out over the mountains as and like eagles.
Scribe: They see valleys and passes.
Scribe: Flowers.
Scribe: Little rodents of intense interest.
Scribe: Do not see any inhabited valleys, so far. Do see passes through mountain ranges, though.
Scribe: Carric returns and turns back into a human just in time.
Scribe: He does not fall out of the sky. He does not fall on any of us.
Scribe: He does not fall on the mastadon. Which is like a wooly mamoth except perhaps not wooly and with longer tusks. Perhaps.
Carric: Splash
Scribe: We camp uneventfully. Talon tunes her voice and other instruments. Curls up with her cloud pillow and stuffed dragon toy and dreams of --
Scribe: Sean.
Scribe: Carric perhaps dreams of Nuala.
Yoshi: it
Yoshi: ir correctly
Scribe: Sean AND Nuala.
Torin rolls d6: (d6) : [2] = 2
Scribe: Carric prays at noon. The sun does not fall from the sky. It stays up as Carric prayed it would.
Scribe: We proceed through the mountains.
Scribe: Scouting time? Yes.
Scribe: We continue traveling south while Carric and Tan Kuran scout and eat rodents together lovingly.
Torin rolls d6: (d6) : [1] = 1
Scribe: By the by, Carric and Tan Kuran spy a valley with a very large building. They return before Carric changes and he finds he would have had more time to explore and get to us. Encounter time!
Torin rolls d100: (d100) : [83] = 83
Scribe: This is the third day of travel.
Scribe: We encounter - one useful one we could have gotten by random.
Scribe: 5% chance.
Scribe: Just as Carric is flying down to us and changing, we see a whistling human coming along the path.
Scribe: Yoshi says that's suspicious and we should be as friendly as usual.
Scribe rolls Diplomacy: (d20+19+4) : [3 + 19 + 4] = 26
Scribe: Talon prepares to be diplomatic.
Scribe: But we digress........sssssssssss.......
Scribe: The DM salivates over female necromancers.
Torin rolls d20: (d20) : [19] = 19
Yoshi rolls Initiative: (d20+4+2) : [1 + 4 + 2] = 7
Scribe rolls Initiative: (d20+2) : [12 + 2] = 14
Caelesti rolls Initiative: (d20+4) : [19 + 4] = 23
Scribe: He looks and shugs, but seems uneasy about the pet mastadon. He stands on a rock 30ft high.
Carric rolls Initiative: (d20+2) : [2 + 2] = 4
Scribe: He is wearing a floppy hat, perhaps.
Carric rolls TK Initiative: (d20+3) : [5 + 3] = 8
Scribe: He found us from a sidepath.
Scribe: He is carrying a big backpack and has a pick hanging from his belt.
Scribe: He looks down at us - Well met, travelers.
Scribe: We greet him too.
Scribe: Caelesti says he was being noisy, whistling, in Giant country.
Scribe: Talon asks if he is a miner.
Scribe: He says his name is Amos (or Mad Amos, as his friends call him). He is a prospector.
Scribe: Caelesti - so you have a mine up here.
Scribe: Amos - I search these mountains for gems. He thinks he knows the mountains well.
Scribe: Carric says we are looking for Giants who live in a big house.
Scribe: He says he knows of a Hill Giant hold.
Scribe: Talon asks if he knows why the Hill Giants have turned nastier?
Scribe: He seems to think they are just as nasty as always.
Scribe: Yoshi and Carric ask if he could help us find it.
Scribe: He says yes for right fee.
Scribe: He looks Yoshi and Carric up and down.
Scribe: He smiles at Caelesti and Talon.
Scribe: He says he could take us right to the "steading" for a mere 2,000gp.
Scribe: Yoshi says we could hire him for 200gp.
Scribe: He says he could show us a good cave we make our home base while we inspect the Hill Giants.
Scribe: Yoshi - I still think we could get there for 200gp.
Scribe: Talon offers him half a wheel of Stone Giant cheese.
Scribe: He is skeptical.
Scribe: Caelesti appeals to his sense of honor and charity for good of people who farm near there on other side of mountains.
Scribe: Yoshi rejects his cave services. He says we have other terrain experts.
Scribe: Amos says he will reduce fee to 1,000gp.
Scribe: Carric points out that he has aleady seen the house.
Scribe: Yoshi says he agrees with Amos it is worth 500gp for him to take us to the caves.
Scribe: Amos keeps saying 1,000gp.
Scribe: He is finally out negotiated by Yoshi into paying *us* to lead him to the steading and we pay him 500gp to find the caves.
Scribe: So, we suggest he pays us 500gp and we pay him 500gp.
Scribe: But he does not fall for that.
Scribe: He says he knows a better way.
Scribe: Talon offers to play music.
Scribe: He says he will whistle for us.
Scribe: Will Talon do a Suggestion or will Caelesti do a Charm.
Torin rolls d20: (d20) : [3] = 3
Scribe: Talon does a Suggestion.
Scribe: She suggests 500gp is adequate considering our means and all others we must help.
Scribe: She suggests he deliver us to the steading area and to the cave.
Scribe: We proceed farther south.
Scribe: He does know some passes Carric did not notice from the air above the trees.
Scribe: Amos can find a way through for us and our mastadon.
Torin rolls d6: (d6) : [3] = 3
Scribe: He camps with us that night.
Scribe: Talon does a Leomunds hut for us all and plays music. Amos whistles a happy tune. He is happy to sleep in the hut with us and he snores loudly.
Torin rolls d6: (d6) : [5] = 5
Torin rolls d6: (d6) : [4] = 4
Scribe: Next day he leads up farther through the mountain paths into the Jotens. We come to edge of valley and in distance can see a building, which must be very, very large indeed. He says we can camp here, but not have a fire. He says he will show us a cave to camp in and have a fire next day.
Torin rolls d6: (d6) : [4] = 4
Scribe: We set watches, but uneventful night.
Scribe: We continue and he find several caves for us. One better hidden and another we see the building from.
Scribe: He says he will head back into the Jotens when he leaves us. He likes to stay away from Giants in order to survive.
Carric rolls Survival (above Gnd): (d20+18) : [10 + 18] = 28
Scribe: Talon asks about other strange creatures.
Scribe: He mentions Manticores.
Scribe: Talon asks what that is.
Scribe: He says large creature with man's head and tails of spikes of missiles, lionish, man's head.
Scribe: Will eat human flesh.
Scribe: Which cave does Carric think is better for us.
Scribe: He picks the better one.
Scribe: Talon prefers the one where the Giants can't see us.
Scribe: or our mastadon.
Scribe: That is the farther away one.
Scribe: We pay Amos and he smiles.
Scribe: Yoshi lends Talon 100gp to help pay Amos.
Scribe: DM moves us aside to "publish" his privates.
Scribe: map
Scribe: The big house, as seen from bird's eye view and general view from not above.
Scribe: Huge timber stronghood. 3ft diameter logs, timber. 300ft across in each director.
Scribe: each direction.
Scribe: Do not appear to be any windows.
Scribe: A road goes up to large double doors.
Scribe: 15 ft across doors, each for total of 30 ft across.
Scribe: Other doors are 20ft across combined.
Scribe: To north and west are the 20ft across doors.
Scribe: Road to east to 30ft wide door set.
Scribe: Open area, couryard seen on west side of building from air.
Scribe: Open compound has 14 large canine creatures running free.
Scribe: (courtyard)
Scribe: Dire wolves.
Scribe: Carric knows them well - as creatures he can summon or conjure.
Scribe: Very thick walls.
Scribe: We can see openings into smaller sub=buildings.
Scribe: That is all Carric can see from above.
Scribe: Carric reports. And we camp in good cave with a nice fire and plan ahead.
Scribe: Caelesti says, surprisingly, that we don't want to just go directly to the Big House.
Scribe: But she says we could track down patrols one at a time.
Scribe: Talon says how can we hide the bodies and won't they figure out someone is ambushing.
Scribe: Talon says we could make it look like they are being killed by mastadons.
Scribe: Caelesti suggests Dire Wolves.
Scribe: Yoshi wants to get to the core of the matter, finding out who is provoking them. But will that creature or creatures ever appear where we can get to them.
Scribe: It rains every day.
Scribe: Talon mentions she bought a wand that has enough invisibility spells for all of us.
Scribe: Goodnight.