Lunadain, Kaldmont (month 12) 15, 1027
We resurrect the Pride, and our dead comrade, Fritz.
Corsha tells us that there's a meeting place, where we should be able to find someone who can tell us where to find Yuan-ti. It's a place where privateers can get together, and it has supplies and bars.
The captain feels we should take in one of the native Dark Pyrondian life ships to this place, not one of our own ships.
It will take a week to repair the smaller ship that we captured.
Gromdain, Kaldmont (month 12) 16, 1027
Lani teleports back to Mystara to get Tess, who will do sneaking around stuff for us.
Tess gives us an update of the Hollow World. Minora chose to stay there. They spoke to the Oracle of Petra. They found the Staff of Life. Safranna chose to stay undead. She's a pure strain vampire - she will not be corrupted by being a vampire, whereas most vampires will go insane in some way or another. Thora and Remus are pure strain were creatures. Apparently Remus was made a were creature by Freya.
Pure strains of Vampirism and Were creatures were created by the Alphatians in an attempt to achieve immortalirty/super race.
Thorhilde is no longer undead, nor is Arni.
Tess believes Minora may have been compelled to return to the Hollow World.
Tess familiarises himself with the ship and crew, and starts figuring out how to disguise himself as a Dark Pyrondian.
We also try to learn about how to fly the life shaped ships. Standard piloting ability helps, but having animal handling also helps. Lani tries to befriend the smaller ship we captured.
Gromdain, Kaldmont (month 12) 23, 1027
We teleport to a place near the meeting place. Lani had some trouble coaxing her ship to fly into the Star Seeker.
Lani flies our small life ship over to the meeting place, but only Tess disembarks, disguised as a Dark Pyrondian. It looks like a bare rock with some buildings on it.
The place is full of Dark Pyrondians being served by Green Skinned humanoids, probably Pyrithians.
Tess finds out the location of a major Mind Flayer base - we already know about this one. There are probabky hundreds of Mind Flayers, and maybe thousands of slaves there.
Tess also learns that a Yuan-ti ship was spotted heading towards the third moon of Valerius.
There are no life shapers here.
Gromdain, Kaldmont (month 12) 23, 1027
There are no priests here, and there are no history buffs here.
No-one knows where to find life shapers - most lived on Damocles.
There's also a major Pyrondian base, now cut off because Damocles is gone. It's reputed to have many valuables there. It's a sector away. Many Dark Elves would like to raid it, but it's likely to be too tough for them.
The Dark Pyrondians are also selling Pyrithians. We get Tess to buy one, for information. Most of the specimens are from Pyrithian outposts which were cut off when Damocles was destroyed.
The Pyrithians generally don't keep slaves - it depends on country.
Tess buys two slaves, both unbroken in spirit. The first was the second in command of a mining operation, and the second was a watchmen.
These two were originally from Damocles, but were on (different) mining asteroids when Damocles was destroyed. The Pyrithians were the dominant race on Damocles. They had heard a little bit about what was happening on Damocles before its end. The end of Damocles is referred to as the Last War. The grand druid of the Pyrondians, the high Trunk of the Pachydermions, the Empire of Pyrithis, the Damoclides (also Pyrithians), all allied against a Dark Pyrondian army (the Damoclean alliance versus the Dark Pyrondians).
The Dark Pyrondian army consisted largely of life shaped creatures (mogrelmen, gibberlings, urds, and yuan-ti - they could also life shape Pyrithians into yuan-ti). The Dark Pyrondians had come back from the asteroid belt to initiate the war (originally Pyrondians left for the asteroid belt to take its riches, some of them turned themselves into Dark Pyrondians, occasionally raided Domocles, but were generally scattered throughout the belt, and collectively were weaker than any one nation on Damocles).
The Dark Pyrondians on Damocles also, interestingly, had arcane spells.
The alliance was to defeat one individual, Pheazar. He was the leader.
We all go to chat to the ex-slaves, Raen and Mir, Salla and Missa, and Denvan.
[addendum: Tess also buys two females, a housewife and a cook, and a male cook]
Salla is faintly evil, none of the rest detect as evil, and faintly lawful. Mir detects as lawful.
Salla and Missa don't like each other. Denvan doesn't like Raen.
They all came from the Empire of Pyrithis. It covered most of one continent. It did not keep slaves. Not quite renaissance technology. They had serfs. It was a militaristic empire.
Most life shapers these days are Pyrondians.
The ship Lani pilots is called Troy.
We decide to head off to where the yuan-ti ship was spotted.
During the trip, Tess discovers that Denvan is actually fairly intelligent. When he talks (which isn't often), it's generally worth listening to.
Soladain, Nuwmont (month 1) 14, 1028
We delayed for five days (past the day of dread, which didn't effect us out here), and after travelling for two weeks, we have arrived at Valerius. Valerius was believed to be closest to the sun (although a closer one has now been discovered).
We are above a cloudy green and gold planet. We look for the third moon. Two are lumps of grey rock. The third moon is greenish and bluish, with grey clouds. The moon is probably about half the size of Patera. There are lights spread all over. None are huge clusters of light as might be found on Mystara.
We find a small light, and fly down to investigate.
Zim and Tess sneak ahead to investigate what turns out to be a small village, with dog- and sheep-like creatures. Tess looks inside a window, and finds a Pyrithian women nusing a baby. On looking further, Tess sees more Pyrithians, and no other races. There are no sentries. There is a tavern that appears to be closed.
Lunadain, Nuwmont (month 1) 15, 1028
Tess disguises himself as a local Pyrithian peddlar, and heads in. People ask for news, etc. They also ask if he wants to see the dragon...
There is no living dragon there - they're legends only. The village dragon is a mythical dragon who went up to te dragonsbreath basin. The dragon died there, and you can still see its corpse there. Occasionally it still belches fire (a volcano?). Apparently the hoard is still there, in the neabry pools, and that supposedly other dragons come every so often to leave treasure behind in respect. Someone else says that stuff is all crap. In truth, he says, you can go there and leave behind sun warmed gold, three pieces, in exchange for three wishes. Other people say this is true.
Nearby is a big town, perhaps a thousand people - a centre of civilisation.
Apparently, recently, someone has gone missing, just last week. Apparently they saw them leaving in the company of a young woman.
It appears life here is very idyllic. They've heard tales of monsters, but have never met any. They have no magic, not even priestly. Tess only saw hunting bows.
We go to the Dragonsbreath Basin. There's a crumbling archway, the smell of sulfur, and a passageway heading underground.
We head down. Further in, a Pyrithian fellow in a brown woolen smock steps out, saying hello. We appear to be in an antechamber. His name is Visinbin Anen. He asks Tess if we are here for the wishes. He's undecided about whether to go in or not. Tess pushes past. The rest of us do so as well.
We enter a chamber, caustic and hot. From a pool a massive stone statue arises, vaguely dragon shaped. The pool of water is clear, and various spots of gold can be seen within. The statue moves, and a slightly golden shape moves out of the statue.
Visim starts bowing and scraping. It seems angry that we have appeared with items of violence. It demands our weapons as tribute. It then blasts us when we don't act, and looks angry.
We leave. Tess notices Visin is magical. We dispel it, to reveal a dark skinned, red haired male. He cries help, and the sounds of a big creature come from the direction of the cave - it looks like a ten foot tall giant with flaming red hair.
Combat begins. Visin draws a scimitar and attacks.
The combat is over pretty soonish though. Visin isn't very tough, and the creature from the cave is held easily. Lani thinks the creature from the cave is an Efreeti. The other guy is a Janni.
It seems the geyser is a natural thing.
Zim casts arcane eye, and finds another chamber, beyond the pool of water.
We wake up Visin, and ask him questions. He's from the City of Brass, and accidentally got sucked through a vortex to here. Whilst here, they've been getting money and other goods from the peasants in exchange for wishes. They've noticed that the village is very idyllic, unnaturally so.
We allow them to leave.
We go back to the falcon, and head to a nearby town.
Gromdain, Nuwmont (month 1) 16, 1028
Tess infiltrates the town, and finds out that six people have gone missing recently, most strangely.
In the town there is actually a city guard. Most of the missing people are town drunks and derelicts. However, the son of a prominent local merchent family has disappeared.
Most of the people who have gone missing have disappeared in the last ten days.
All people who have gone missing are men. The merchant son was seen leaving an inn in the company of a young woman. They have all gone missing from the east section of town.
All of the missing people are youngish men.
Tess goes to the local bar, and looks for "female company."
Tess gets approached by an attractive woman. She comes onto Tess. Her eyes are slightly more almond shaped, and indeed many of her features are slightly out of whack. Tess also notices that there's another women watching the interplay, and the other women seems to be a bit pissed. She's specifically appears to be hanging around Tess.
The person coming on to Tess is named Saralinda.
Later, Saralinda uses magic to compel Tess to follow her. Tess fails his save, but has a slippery mind...
She leads Tess outside of town. She takes Tess to a secluded spot, and then tries to bash Tess over his head with a rock. Tess attacks in return, before she can act, knocking her unconscious.
She does appear to have green skin, but her features are slightly off. She has a ring of mind shielding. She also has a note and a key. The note says: Milena, please ensure all meals brought to the crumbling tower are strong and healthy, preferably weak minded. They are no good to me cold. Kalivilya.
Lani gets disguised as a mostly humanoid Yuan-ti, casts tongues, and charms the captive.
They look for Tess for a bit, before she says they should head back and warn the others. They carefully move away to a crumbling tower, on a hill. As they get closer, Milena waves into the gloom, and some people come out. Two pyrithians, and a big black dog (2' tall, jet black - a shadow mastiff). There is something wrong with the gait of the people walking over to Lani.
At the same time, we get a message from Captain Rolph, indicating that they're being attacked by several somethings, probably dragons. They're scrambling fighters.
Lani and Milena chat to the patrol briefly, before the patrol continues to patrol. Lani and Milena head in to the tower - Lani, as a "new recruit", is going to be inducted.
Tess notes that the guards are undead. We are going to take them out.
Grey approaches at speed. The guards hear him approaching. Milena tells Lani she'll go in to warn the other. Lani touches her, zapping her comatose. Lani then tries to zap one of the guards unconscious, but fails, as he's undead.
Lani then blasts him with a song of greater thunder, but he's still up afterwards.
Tess attacks the shadow mastiff, which is very difficult to see, but kills it in one hit with his Sunblade. It glows brighter after being hit.
Lani demands the surrender of the one she's facing, and he surrenders.
Tess charges over and slays one of the vampires.
Grey moves towards Lani, who has a kneeling vampire (presumably) in front of her. The vampire is bound (not free willed). He has not been a vampire long. He looks like a local villager. We get little information from him, and leave him outside.
We enter the building. Milena's body is gone. Tess cuts down a door, beyond which are two vaguely snake-like people, and Milena lying on the ground. Zim did not detect them as being undead.
We deal with them easily. The vampire we left outside is forced to attack us. Lani blasts him, he goes gaseous, and leaves...
We search around. Grey finds a statue where the gaseous vampire fled. Lani finds a concealed trap door.
We get various magical items from the unconscious bodies, whack them more, and get Lani to zap them.
There are stairs leading up to the roof, but nothing beyond. The second floor of the tower has collapsed sometime in the past.
The trapdoor is trapped. Tess bypasses this. We then open the trapdoor. It smells of snakes.
Below there's either a variety of medium sized snakes, or one big snake. The entire floor is covered with snake. A big snake head moves through the trapdoor. Combat ensues.
A dark aura crackles around its teeth, and it bites Tess. The dark aura burns Tess. It grapples Tess. Grey steps up and chops into the snake, severing it's head after a few blows.
Lani and Zim enter the chamber. It has what might be arcane markings on its body. It was a huge snake. Lani thinks it's a fiendish snake. Lani summons an invisible stalker, and sends it off to explore. It finds a four legged quadruped beyond, some sort of guard.
Grey heals Tess up. Grey and Tess join Zim and Lani. We head further in. Zim has a projected image which leads the way. After a short passageway, Zim spots a normal looking wolf, and a snake head. THe snake head belongs to a Yuan-ti, which reaches down with an arm, and pull a blind fold up. They take a half hearted swing at Zim (it goes straight through Zim, naturally) with a flaming scimitar.
The wolf charges Lani and bites her, to no effect.
Meanwhile, a medusa pretends to cast a spell, drawing Zim's gaze. Zim manages to not turn to stone. This explains the statue Grey found outside.
Grey attempts to bull rush the wolf, so as to get into combat with it. The wolf gives Grey a nasty bite. Grey fails to bull rush the wolf, and is pushed back.
Zim attempts to Slow the medusa, but fails. Zim stops looking through his projected images eyes.
The wolf bites Lani, to no effect, but it does trip her.
Grey bull rushes the wolf back.
Lani summons a greater earth elemental.
The Yuan-ti slashes at the elemental three times, inflicting fire damage.
Zim acid arrows the wolf, noticeably hurting it.
The elemental takes some pain by way of negeative levels (four of them).
Grey chops down the wolf, and moves to engage the medusa.
The earth elemental turns to attack the medusa. The medusa has damage reduction.
The Yuan-ti continues to attack the earth elemental.
Zim casts grease under the Yuan-ti, but to little effect.
The medusa gazes in the direction of Grey, but Grey resists. It then slams Grey, causing negative levels, and also bites Grey with her snake hair, attempting to inflict poison. It is a vampiric medusa.
Lani moves into melee to touch the Yuan-ti.
Grey tries to disintegrate the medusa, but fails.
Tess moves in to melee with the medusa as well.
Zim uses his circlet of blasting against the vampire. She gets hurt badly, goes gaseous, and escapes under a nearby door.
We open the door, and find her coffin. She solidifies within it. Tess attacks her within it, then stakes her.
The Yuan-ti warrior is still going, although almost dead.
Lani paralyses the Yuan-ti with a touch.
We continue to explore, as there is another door. Beyond is an earthen tunnel. A secret exit.
With some effort, Grey destroys the medusa using a disintegrate.
We return to explore where the other vampire went, where the statue was. We find evidence of there possibly being a coffin underground. We dig, and find a coffin.
Zim detects undead, and finds more undead auras, one in the coffin we just dug up, and two more underground.
Grey starts excavating the other two undead, revealing two more coffins. Two have the vampires we defeated, and the third has a different vampire, a female.
Tess starts waving his sunblade above his head, creating sunlight in the area of the three vampires. The women flees, but the other two burst into flames in their coffins.
Grey attempts to disintegrate Tess' sunblade, but fails. [Tess uses a hero point]
Tess moves away, utters a command word, and disappears.
Grey casts halt undead on the fleeing vampire. Zim, who was going to attack the vampire, stops.
Grey questions the captured vampire, and questions them. Sevestrin, the snake Yuan-ti, with Kalivilia, the medusa. The medusa was already here. Sevestrin convinced Kalivilia to stay here. We have dealt with all of the vampires.
Melina's purpose was to get new individuals here, to turn into vampires, or to eat.
They had a good little thing going here, the three different types of them working here.
The snake men believed that many more snake men would be coming, but they felt they might have been too far south. They arrived from the sky in a flying vessel, but were slightly off course.
Apparently it is not possible to live on Valerius. [The main planet]
Formerly this women was a scribe. She was nothing, and was not treated well.
She confirms the country is very peaceful.
Grey, Lani, the captive Vampire, and her coffin, teleport away, leaving Zim behind.
Zim almost stakes Milena, thinking she's another vampire, but manages to spot she's living.
Zim fixes the stone bodies.
Tess demands a double share in order to help out anymore.
Inttra-party conflict skipped.
Tess says he could try to resurrect the two vampires he killed using the Staff of Life. We will get the staff later. In the meantime, Tess will disguise himself, and go to the merchant who's son went missing, and will offer to find the son. He'll get some personal possessions of the son, with which we can then scry for the son.
We'll take the prisoners back to the Star Seeker.
Tess suggests that maybe a disease or process could be created to purify Vampires, making it so that they do not go insane over time (much like pure strain vampires). Grey and Tess talk. [Things get smoothed over gradually...]
We take prisoners back to the Star Seeker. Three dragons appeared and attacked the Star Seeker. Greenish dragons (but probably not green dragons). They destroyed some fighters, and captured some of our pilots, and questioned them. They then called a truce. They believed we were Yuan-ti. The dragons are the protectors of this moon, and they do not allow any interference on the moon. They are its protectors, and they come from Valerius. Many Yuan-ti have been coming to the moon recently, more than the dragons can handle.
None of our men were killed. Two of our fighters were destroyed. Since we work against the Yuan-ti, we have now allied with the dragons. They will pay reparations.
Many dragons live on Valerius, but most do not care what happens elsewhere. Some dragons on Valerius do care though.
It seems the Star Seeker and the dragons were pretty evenly matched.
The Star Seeker is also damaged, and needs repair.
A few dozen Yuan-ti ships have arrived here, meaning there should be over a hundred Yuan-ti on the moon by now.
Tess acquires an item of clothing, and copies a portrait of the merchants son.
Tserdain, Nuwmont (month 1) 17, 1028
We meet back with Tess. We try to scry on the merchants son, but it fails. He's probably dead.
We get a description of items worn by the merchants son, and find his remains via a locate object spell.
We return to Mystara, get the staff, and come back. It has three uses: one to stop the fight, and to channel the health, and one to bring life using the occult.
Tess uses it on the dead merchants son, but fails. It drains all the spells Tess knows from memory, and then falters.
Incidentally, the staff looks different based upon who looks at it.
Zim has a go. Zim loses lots of spells (all 0th-5th level spells, and one 6th level spell - about 86 spell levels - Tess lost 3 spell levels). Light shines on the staff, covers the body, and they wake up. They seem confused. The son is Tirak. He probably believes that Tess is a quack, and doesn't seem to be taking the situation very seriously.
Tess gets clothes for the merchants son, and takes him back to the merchant. He gets his reward.
We return to the carrier to watch what's going on, and to see where the Yuan-ti are from orbit.
Nytdain, Nuwmont (month 1) 19, 1028
Three dragons turn up - they are Jade dragons. Jade dragons are always neutral with respect to law/chaos. With respect to good/evil, they are mostly neutral, with some tendencies towards good more than evil. They are moderately powerful as dragons go. They breathe poison.
They bring 100 lbs of mithril to help repair our craft, along with some useless iron. It's clear they want to save face by saying we should use it to repair our craft, despite the fact that we don't use mithril on our craft (quite obviously).
We land the Star Seeker on the moon to acquire wood and start repairs, and leave some fighters in the void to scout. There are also dragons in the void doing the same thing.
We also interrogate our prisoners. Sevestrin is a leader, but not one of the big bosses. He came hear in a pod, but were attacked by dragons, and landed wherever they could. The dragons came looking. They ran away, and got split up. By luck, he found Kelivilea, the vampiric medusa. They fell in with each other, and they felt a kinship since she was a serpent creature. They became lovers.
There has been a call put out all across the void to use this moon as their new home, and possibly as a launching off point for further invasions. They didn't know about the dragons. Mystara is their ultimate goal, the holy grail.
Sevestrin knows the techniques for turning someone into a Yuan-ti. Milena was recruited from the locals. Over time, she would become more Yuan-ti like, and less Pyrithian like. They have not done this to anyone else. They need special materials (religious materials prepared by the priest), of which they only had one dose. It also takes some time to do this conversion.
People can resist the conversion process. It seems they automatically become positively inclined towards snakes as a result.
His superiors, the abominations, knew to come here. He wasn't in control of where to go.
Purebloods are the most human looking. Severus is a half breed. The abominations are the masters, and are the most snake like.
The call was put out three weeks ago. All Yuan-ti are to converge here.
We discuss our options.
We need to get information, and we need to know what the dragons will allow, and how they can help us (money, etc). We need to repair the carrier, and we need to find out the location of the Yuan-ti base. We will probably need troops: we can use our own, mercenaries, perhaps void Pyrithians, and (unlikely) train locals...
Nytdain, Vatermont (month 2) 5, 1028
The Star Seeker is repaired (the dragons breath rotted the wood). The marines pretty much act as labourers during this time. We replace the destroyed fighters.
The captain negotiates with the dragons as to what is going on. The dragons on the ground keep an out on things, and eliminate external influences.
The fighters find Yuan-ti coming in, which is bad as our coverage of the airspace is small. We spot 12 ships coming in, each of which could carry six Yuan-ti. We also find the base, as some enemy pod ships are spotted leaving. The Yuan-ti have conquored the local city - about 4000 people.
The dragons realise it's too late to keep the Yuan-ti a secret - at least from the people in that region.
Some of the dragons are willing to fight.
We capture and interrogate some of the Yuan-ti. They only have 1000-1500 Yuan-ti. Uknown how many are converted locals.
The dragons plan is to come down and smash the Yuan-ti. They would like our help, and will even pay us for it - about 12000 gold worth in mithril.
With respect to troops, the Heldans can send a short division, about 750 guys. Serraine can send 2 ack ack guns (magic missile guns) and 20 pegataurs, the Rajahirajah can send a regiment of light infantry (300), we will hire 1000 of Lord Garan's troops @ 5000gp per week, and Baratkand can supply almost 900 troops (135 light infantry, 75 spearmen, 75 longspearmen, 105 longbowmen, 150 light cavalry, 50 mounted archers, 61 personal guard, 40 elephants [4 archers per elephant], 10 ballista [1 crew each], 10 light catapults [2 crew each], 4 heavy catapults [5 crew each], 5 ack ack guns, and 10 pegataur guards).
We will have the aid of 20 dragons.
To get the troops here, we're going to use teleport circles.
Who leads the troops? The leader of the Heldannic short division, Warlord Lehrer, has substantial battlefield experience. Both Tess and Grey have heard of him. He commanded the strike against the city of Oceansend. They had hard fighting, they fought dragons on the other side, but they did eventually win - although possibly through spies in the enemy city. He is meant to be quite competent. However, Grey appears to be more competent. Grey is put in chard of the military operation, so Grey won't be able to do special manouevers such as attempt to assassinate the enemy leader, or scout.
We'll ship troops in nearby, then march them overland to engage the enemy. Dragons and fighters will be useful for maintaining air superiority.
Grey's general is also here, as is Turia, who is here for the fun. Safranna and Roland also rock up for the fun.
Nytdain, Vatermont (month 2) 12, 1028
We have the troops assembled. Quickly and hurriedly.
Individuals decide what they're going to do.
Options for individuals:
Protect the HQ.
Catastrophe.
Scouting.
Confounding the enemy (special move).
Strike against the foe.
Block.
Assassinate enemy leaders.
Turia will defend the HQ (Grey). Roland and Safranna will do generic blocking of enemy special actions. Lani and to a lesser degree Tess will attempt to assassinate the enemy. With Mark Sutherland, Tess will also perform some scouting. Zim and a Hedannic Hero will be striking against the enemy, and also buffing Tess and Lani.
Yuan-ti are paranoid, egotistical, and have a superiority complex. This will no doubt infuence the actions of their heroes.
The heldannic division have 100 knights (heavy warhorse, full plate), 300 light infantry (leather, long sword, heavy crossbow), another 300 light infantry (leather, pike, shortsword), and 50 support.
The Rajahirajah troops are all light infantry (scimitar, large wooden shield, and spear).
Garan has 300 light infantry (leather, longsword, large wooden shield), 300 heavy infantry (chainmail, large wooden shield, and longsword), and 400 archers (leather, crossbow, and short sword).
The Heldans also bring one piece of artillery, Bertha. It's a Trebuchet, the range of which is magically enhanced. It's massive, and has a range to match.
Grey, with his knowlede of military tactics, believes that our troops, when fighting as units, will be about as effective as the Yuan-ti (on a one-to-one basis), as the Yuan-ti have not trained with each other. It helps we have lots of archers and artillery.
The battle begins.
Our point allocation: 19 points on protecting HQ, generic blocking 38 points, assassinate enemy leader 42 points, scouting 15 points, strike against the foe 24 points.
The enemy allocates 15 points for scouting, 5 points for blocking scouting, no points to assassinate enemy leaders or strike against the enemy. They have allocated some points to defending their leaders. They have no other blocking actions.
Roland and Safranna kill all of the enemy scouts.
Description of battle: we land nearby, have some interactions with the locals. We march to the city. The Yuan-ti became aware of us earlier (unsurprisingly). They close the gates of the city. The Yuan-ti don't really know what's going on.
We kill some outlying Yuan-ti that are still arriving.
The Yuan-ti at the city have no artillery. We set up shop, trumpets blaring.
Meanwhile, the dragons and the carrier take shifts to maintain air superiority.
There are no Pyrithians outside the city, but there are Pyrithians in the city.
We use artillery to bash down walls, etc. Ballista and Big Bertha pick off enemy defenders. Big Bertha, firing rocks, shoots across the length of the city, killing Yuan-ti from behind.
Zim buffs Tess and Lani, and they head in to find the enemy leader. They find the area he is in, one of three buildings.
Lani starts summoning an earth elemental, but one of them hears her. Some of them spot the invisible Lani and Tess.
One of the Yuan-ti casts Deeper Darkness over Lani. Some of the Yuan-ti run inside various buildings. Lani finishes summoning her elemental, which she gets to attack the Yuan-ti spellcaster.
Lani starts summoning another creature.
Tess tries to sneak into a nearby building, but is spotted by a Yuan-ti. The Yuan-ti tries to get Tess to Flee by casting suggestion, but fails. Tess kills the Yuan-ti. Another Yuan-ti spots Tess.
Lani finishes summoning a fire elemental. The fire elemental finishes off the Yuan-ti who cast Deeper Darkness.
A Yuan-ti from within one of the three buildings casts Dispel Magic at Tess. Tess can see the Yuan-ti spellcaster. Tess' Greater Invisibility is dispelled, although he now looks like a Yuan-ti from a Seeming spell.
Tess kills another pleb, then moves to engage the spellcaster.
Lani summons an air elemental.
Lani's elemental moves into a building and kills another pleb.
Lani's air elemental bashes a door down, into the same building from which the Yuan-ti spellcaster cast Dispel Magic at Tess. The air elemental is on the ground floor, Tess in flying outside the upper level.
The air elemental sees two pure bloods, two abominations, and a half blood on the ground floor.
Lani's fire elemental bashes down the door to the third building. Within are three half bloods, and three abominations.
Each of the three buildings has one of Lani's elementals inside of it.
An abomination shoots arrows at Tess, from the top floor of the building he's at.
Lani's fire elemental becomes afraid of snakes, and runs away.
Tess moderately wounds the Yuan-ti spellcaster.
Lani's earth elemental causes structural damage within it's building, but is currently finding few Yuan-ti.
Lani's air elemental kills a Yuan-ti.
Lani summons a huge fire elemental, which manages to kill a Yuan-ti.
Each of the three buildings are two stories tall.
Tess gets attacked by the Yuan-ti spelllcaster, but is protected by stoneskin. Tess' Mind Blank also protectes him from a spell effect from another Yuan-ti.
Lani's new fire elemental becomes scared of snakes, and also runs away.
Tess kills the Yuan-ti spellcaster, and moves into the top floor of his building (the air elemental on the floor beneath).
Lani summons an air elemental, which helps out her other air elemental by killing a Yuan-ti new to the scene. Her first air elemental kills another Yuan-ti.
Lani's earth elemental starts tearing down the roof of the building it's in. It hears a Yuan-ti above it.
Lani moves into the building from which her fire elemental fled, and casts Song of Greater Thunder. The five Yuan-ti in the room all have spell resistance, but this poses no problem for Lani. None of the Yuan-ti are deafened. One of the Yuan-ti Lani is fighting, at the back of the room, is decorated by various colourful objects, possibly medals.
A Yuan-ti attempts to grapple Lani, but fails to start a hold. Another one attacks, but is ineffectual against Lani's stoneskin. Three other Yuan-ti cast polymorph at Lani, but undead are immune to polymorph effects.
Two more Yuan-ti attempt to grapple Lani, but miss due to her invisibility.
Tess moves to help Lani.
More Yuan-ti arrive on the scene.
Lani activates her fear aura. Some of the Yuan-ti outside of the building containing the decorated Yuan-ti commander are afraid - none of the Yuan-ti within the building are afraid.
Lani's elementals continue to bash away at Yuan-ti elsewhere.
Yuan-ti attempt to grapple Lani again, this time one of them is successful, also managing to pin her.
Tess wounds a Yuan-ti, staggering it.
Lani calls her elementals to aid her. They come forth. The earth elemental attacks Tess, not realising Tess is only disguised as a Yuan-ti.
Lani touches her grappler, paralysing him.
Yuan-ti attempt to grapple Lani again, successfully.
One of the Yuan-ti inside the building mvoe to engage one of Lani's air elementals that has turned up.
The boss takes a hammer from one of his bodyguards, and moves over to attack Lani.
A Yuan-ti throws alchemists fire at Tess, but misses.
Tess moves to help Lani, killing the one grappling her.
Lani commands her elementals to kill the Yuan-ti with frilly bits on him. She then casts insanity on the boss, but ineffectually. The boss then hits Lani three times. Her stoneskin helps out.
Combat continues. Tess engages the boss in melee.
Lani's air elemental runs away to help its summoner elsewhere in the city, after failing to resist a suggestion cast at it.
Lani casts Hold Monster at the boss, but fails to penetrate his spell resistance.
Lani's earth elemental moderately wounds the boss.
Lani gets wounded by the boss again, badly.
Tess gets attacked by one of the bodyguards, and is hurt a little.
More Yuan-ti arrive on the scene.
Lani's earth elemental bashes the boss, badly wounding him. The air elemental joins in, downing the boss. The Yuan-ti are demoralised by this.
Tess, Lani, and her elementals kill a couple more Yuan-ti.
Lani's air elemental pick up the body of the boss, and Lani teleports them all out.
We killed a boss. It turns out that there are two other bosses. This helps the battle a bit.
Back to the main battle. One of their fronts weakens a little, but the fact that they have two other commanders helps out, so the loss to them of one commander is comparatively marginal.
In any case, we soundly beat them. Zim creates illusions of ships coming to save the Yuan-ti, and they fall for it. They take heavy casualties.
One third of their force is wounded, and one third killed outright. In addition, Zim's ploy kills another 70 purebloods.
The Yuan-ti still hold the city.
Three percent of our force are killed, and three percent wounded. [We lose 90 people, and another 90 people dead] One of the pegataurs also gets killed. Grey lost 25 killed out of his own troops.
This was one day of battle.
Some Yuan-ti from the void have been arriving. Some of them leave on seeing the fighting.
Loshdain, Vatermont (month 2) 13, 1028
Day 2 of the battle commences. It is evident that something has changed in the enemy city: their overall tactics are now better. There is only one commander issuing orders now.
Our special tactics cancel each other out.
Unfortunately, we only win, not soundly win.We overextended ourselves. However, the efforts of our heroes concentrated largely on increasing their casualties does have an effect.
Of their fighting men, they lost about 20%.
We lost 640 men, half dead, half wounded. [no dead elephants]
Soladain, Vatermont (month 2) 14, 1028
Day 3 of the battle. We don't do that well, relatively speaking. Our tactics were overly cautious.
They lose more abominations this time. Previously, pure bloods were doing the dying. Abominations are the most powerful. They took 28% casualties. They are now down to about 500 guys.
We lose 216 men, half dead, half wounded.
Lunadain, Vatermont (month 2) 15, 1028
Day 4 of the battle.
This time, our tactics stabilise, and we score a resounding victory. We rout them, scoring 94% casualties. We slaughter their wounded. The city is ours.
Their are only minor atrocities against the Pyrithians.
There are Pyrithians left in the city, but less than epected. The Yuan-ti were converting locals to boost their numbers.
We lose 21 guys, 11 of which are dead.
As far as we can tell, not a single Yuan-ti escapes alive.
We take some captives, including five purebloods (all Pyrithians), and two half breeds. Their leaders fought to the end.
Overall, we took 439 dead. In addition, Knight Captain Lars Brenner died manning a gun. His body fell out of the carrier, so recovery may be difficult. Lani uses Discern Location, so it's not a problem.
We resurrect Lars Brenner.
Grey lost 127 troops.
After some mop up, we get to leave this moon. The dragons should be able to take care of any further problems.