2023/12/20: The Formian War Part 4 Report
General Summary
Knight, Ba'alzamon, Kit, Terana, Sunderfury, Zaran Two days after the previous session: Knight, Ba'alzamon, and Terana checked out a few magma pools that could be used to flood the formian farms. Terana made friends with some little magma lizard things. Ba'alzamon set up the portal and dumped magma directly into the main formian farm cavern. The first portal stayed open for fifteen minutes before magic suddenly stopped working on the other side. The second portal, aimed at the toxic resort cavern, only managed three minutes. Still, it was a successful attempt. General recon info: Main difficulty was numbers. Tons of formians with spears. Only the player party ran into the golem guardians. Ba'alzamon scanned the anomalous egg. Mutant formian. Highly enhanced intelligence, psionic potential. May have been exposed to weird energies and dimensions such as the Far Realm. Gestation period of about 3 months, which is weird. Some signs that its genetics have been tampered with and heavily modified within the last few generations. Some signs that someone attempted to put some magical controls over it, but those didn't function. Written into its genetics. Basically sentient bioweapons. This particular one is in relatively mediocre health. Not getting all the nutrients it needs. It apparently has the means to connect to a neural network, but it isn't currently connected. Ba'alzamon recommended Stephen King as someone who would be able to provide more insight into this creature. Apparently he's a neogi? He's come up before, but I don't remember much. Ba'alzamon called him up for a consult. Ba'alzamon shared his senses with Stephen to make it easier. This formian is more of a light green, not yellow. This may be a throwback to before the formians were made yellow slaves. The grell probably weren't the ones responsible for the arcane parts of the change. "A wizard did it." Further clarification: Multiple layers of changes. Influence from the Far Realms and the grell. Influence from magical manipulation. Ba'alzamon put the egg in temporal stasis to ensure it wouldn't get mentally linked to the rest of the formians while the conflict continued. Terana took a look beforehand with veterinary healing. To make it not come out as a runt, magic could be used to fill the egg more, healing potions could be used to speed development, food goop could be injected into the egg with a syringe... She decided to get it proper nutrition before they stasised it. While going to give nutrition, Terana checked the egg out in her lab on Dragonheart. Apparently it has a geas encoded into its DNA, but it's not currently active. May have been geased without an actual objective. Terana fed the thing magical holy nanites. This will definitely turn out well. While the party was considering their next strategic move, an earthquake struck New Hallownest. Scrying showed it had also hit the formian city, and had originated somewhere between the two cities (though fortunately not at the mithril mine). Apparently dwarves were responsible. The dwarf seen in the scrying was surrounded by lightning and had no beard. May be a dwarven mad scientist responsible for the pipe golems that have been bothering New Hallownest. May be a derro. Stephen King requested space for some 1700 human refugees who needed somewhere to stay for a while. Guardia had plenty of space. Stephen King, in turn, provided mental concealment while Lume provided visual and scent concealment for a sneaky strike mission into the formian territory. Advanced pipe golems appear to be heading for the mine. Averigor and his army are heading to intercept. New Hallownest sent the Lightning Tuskers, Order of the Bloody Brand, Erevan's Folly, and Bramble Flame Bandits along with reinforcements from Kalgrid to push the golems back and try to find the source. The party continued with their plan to infiltrate the formians, though they stayed in touch in case they needed to head home quickly. The formians were seriously riled up. They had felt the earthquake, and now thresher golems of some sort were attacking the outer borders. While it was very concerning, it was the best distraction the party could have asked for. And Stephen King knew exactly where the formian queens were. Meanwhile, the evil derro in charge of the golems was projecting a hologram of himself above the city, where he was laughing evilly while surrounded by lightning. "It is the ride of the Rohirrim reenacted via farm machinery. And ants." The party sat it out and watched for a while, until the queen that entered the battle was down to her second stage and a giant super-golem had arrived and was chasing her. At that point, the party dove in after both targets. Terana, fully buffed, tore the ultimate golem to pieces in seconds, while Knight and Kit assaulted the queen. Kit's Old One dagger didn't fully eat the spirit form the queen tried to take as her body died, but it did prevent it from fully forming, so she died for good. Ba'alzamon killed perhaps fifty of the surviving formian adventurers with a firestorm as they tried to retreat. Terana got hit by some nasty perpetual wasting curse, but she's fortunately immune to its effects. It'll take some pretty powerful magic to knock off. At this point the formians are down to two queens. The golem attacks have been widespread. The mithril mine has fallen to the golems, but most of the defenders survived. Darkhome is under attack, but is well-defended and holding.
Rewards Granted
3 xp (or a full level for those under level 20)
Character(s) interacted with
Stephen King, Mr. Sharps, the crazy derro
Notes
Apparently Stephen was made by the neogi as a mind-controlling weapon? Unfortunately for the neogi, they made him sentient, and then he got philosophical. Then he ran into friendly adventurers. Stephen King has three tails, three heads with vicious fanged mouths. No eyes. Scorpion leg setup. Has pincers. Weird hybrid between a hydra and a scorpion. 20 feet long. Inky, wet-looking black scaly surface. Ba'alzamon has a caster level of 61.
