Session II: The Mongrels Report
General Summary
Chapter 3 - The Mongrels
After a relatively restful night in the restored shrine of
Torag, the party gathered their supplies and returned to where they had dispatched the dwarf, the now rotten corpse had begun to attract flies, and they decided to continue forward. The path forward, led them up, but not up enough to escape from the underground. Instead, it continued along a path up into the darkness, winding through paths unknown until they heard and saw some movement ahead.
Ahead, they spotted three individuals, all looking more horrible than the next individual. It appears that these were
mongrelman, combinations of material plane races with demonic or monstrous races, resulting in a half-breed of unknown quantities. These two individuals were pulling a third out from underneath a collapsed tower. The two individuals spotted the party and took up a defensive stance in front of the third, and one spoke up in eloquent but lisp-filled common, asking the party what their intentions were. The party, taking stock of the scene, decided to assist in digging out the third individual. Unfortunately, the party did not have the necessary skills to be able to dig out the individual without any further harm and partially crushed the pelvis of the third
mongrelman. After that, they rushed to remove the rock and render emergency aid to the individual. That is when
Lann introduced himself.
He introduced himself as one of many
mongrelman that could be found in the underground of , and agreed to bring the party to
Neathholm, the city of the
mongrelman which can be found further into the cavern. The party decided to take him up on his offer, and the party proceeded onward into the darkness.
As the party continued with their new compatriots,
Lann noted that one of the tunnels had collapsed which led directly to the city, and they would need to take an alternate route. That alternate route would lead through the lair of the “spore cougher,” a creature
Lann notes that he is not prepared to deal with, but they are hoping that the creature is out of its lair hunting instead, and they will be able to slip past without interaction with the creature.
Proceeding forward, the party comes across a massive chasm blocking their path, an obvious cave-in caused by yesterday’s events that trapped the party down in the caverns. Normally, a party would be able to traverse this 10-ft wide chasm that blocks their path by jumping it, or climbing down and climbing back up the path. However, with one blind individual, and another with a crippled leg, the options for the party were extremely limited. After assessing the chasm’s dimensions,
Aurius takes a running start and jumps over the chasm to the opposite side. He soars over the 30-foot deep chasm and lands on the other side. Collecting himself, he throws a rope to the other side.
Thinking that his frail body is not so much of an issue,
Reid then steps back and tries to take a running leap at the chasm, but instead, doesn’t get enough air, and ends up colliding with the wall.
Aurius, with his quick reactions, catches
Reid and pulls him back, keeping him from falling. Scrambling down the side of the chasm, and back up the other side, the three
mongrelman successfully make their way to the other side, with the third one, the one that had a crushed pelvis, having to try multiple times to get up due to his injuries.
Jorryn follows the same procedure as the
mongrelman, getting over successfully.
Bosco uses a rope to get down, and is easily able to, but can’t grip the rope correctly on the way up and ends up slipping before he can get off the ground of the chasm. After another try, he ascends to the other side.
Yuhia remains on this side of the chasm with the three individuals which are not adept at climbing. The party’s plan is to wrap the people that can’t climb around a rope on both sides, allowing them to swing the individual over to the side without impacting the side of the chasm. It works wonderfully for
Horgus, with them able to slowly swing the complaining noble over to the other side without much issue. However, when they get to
Anevia,
Yuhia isn’t able to hold the rope as well, and accidentally releases the rope on her side, and
Anevia collides with the far side of the chasm, and the rest of the party pulls her to safety. With
Aravashnial, they are able to get him across without much issue. The only remaining thing is to get
Yuhia across, she climbs down the chasm to the ground, and then attempts to climb up the rope, also not able to get a decent grip and slips before she even gets off the ground. Taking a little bit of time to steady herself,
Yuhia grabs onto the rope and pulls herself up to safety, joining the rest of the group, to head further through the caves.
The party then travels for about 30 minutes before
Lann pauses and warns the party that the upcoming cavern is the “spore-cougher’s lair.” The party slowly sneaks up to the edge, looking down into a 30-ft-diameter chasm 15 foot down, and sees a very interesting sight… a mass of plants and tentacles that have collapsed on two bodies of some individuals. The party decides to investigate, and
Yuhia and
Bosco climb down to investigate. At the bottom, they find the corpse of a basindrond collapsed onto two humans, wearing armor of
Iomedae. However, what is odd about these individuals is they are not carrying longswords, they are carrying glaives and spiked gauntlets. Also, clutched tightly in the hands of one of the humans is a brass symbol of a bull with red gemstone eyes. They decide to remove the armor, valuables, gear, and weaponry of the humans, and have it raised to the rest of the party above, then climb up.
Above,
Reid inspects the items that were found, a
scroll of cause fear, and
Horgus, surprisingly, denotes that it’s the symbol of Baphomet, which disgusts
Anevia, but makes
Aravashnial more intrigued, especially after he is told they were wearing the vestments of
Iomedae. Inspecting the scroll one of them had, they found the scroll was cause fear. Its during the time, they talk about their earlier discovery of a bat brooch, which they show to
Lann, and he exclaims that
Chief Sull, the head of
Neathholm would love to see the brooch.
Continuing on through the cavern, they travel for another half an hour, to what looks to be a 30-ft wide domed area with a large stone door beset into the wall, guarded by two mongrelmen.
Lann speaks to the two mongrelmen, and they let the team inside. Inside, is a place that is starkly different than the caverns that they have been navigating. Past the massive stone door resides a huge cavern with almost a hundred domiciles, cut out of the rock. The entire town is aglow with blue luminescence coming from bioluminescent algae located on the ceiling. Coming from almost all the windows is an orange light from what the party expects to be lamps, candles and other indoor light sources.
The blue light mixed with the orange light gives the place an almost homey and welcoming feeling.
Lann leads them towards the center of
Neathholm: an island surrounded with a natural lake. Mongrelmen and Mongrelwomen climb onto small boats of all kinds to ferry themselves between the mainland and the “island shore.” Each of the figures that the party sees are definitely not human, but part of them consist of mixes between Human, Elf, Dwarf, or Gnome and some other demonic or monstrous race.
Getting onto the well-built boat, they are ferried across by
Lann, which helps them out of the boat, and leads them towards the center of the island, where a large longhouse stands.
Lann ushers the group into the longhouse and talks with the very confused receptionist, which goes into another room, returning after a few moments and letting the party inside. The entire group heads inside where they find a rotund individual that looks to be half-hamster, half-human, with an eye that seems to have been replaced. The individual stands up, and
Lann introduces him to the party as
Chief Sull. He walks over and talks to the Chief for a short minute out of earshot, and then the Chief speaks up to the rest of the party, “Well, it seems
Lann has taken a liking to you.”
Chief Sull’s Common, while he is attempting to make his words sound as close to Common as possible, cannot help but have a lisp due to the shape of his mouth and face. He looks over the party and nods, “Its good that you helped out one of my guards, and I would like to thank you for that.
Lann also tells me that you found a brooch?” He looks around at the party, and one of the party speaks up, showing him the brooch, explaining that it was found in a pile of consumed supplies by giant cockroaches.
Chief Sull’s good eye mists up at the news and accepts the brooch. He then notes, “Thank you for returning this. I can’t offer much, but I can give you my morningstar for your work.” He holds out his morningstar, which one of the party takes. “I would like to offer you room and board on my tab here, I just ask that you hear me out on an offer for a job.”
Chief Sull then looks at the rest of the party and explains the situation: while
Chief Sull’s
mongrelman have been down here for quite a while, they do not seek to return to the surface, for they feel like they would be persecuted. However, another tribe not only seeks to return to the surface, but, misguidedly, they wish to destroy the surface dwellers for forcing them below ground. The problem is, the initial ancestors of
Neathholm chose to enter in the underground on their own accord. They were crusaders of the first crusade and were infected with the demonic energies of the Worldwound, changing their appearance. In order to prevent the possible spread of this demonic problem, and to prevent people from persecuting these poor individuals, they instead went below ground and founded
Neathholm underneath the very city they defended. Over time, the surface had forgotten the
mongrelman, and faded into myths and legends. The traitors to the mongrelmen wanted to march against the surface, and left
Neathholm to do that, forcing
Chief Sull to exile them. He asks that the party dispatches the traitors, and, as he has no other route known to the surface, he tells the party that it will be through their encampment will be the only way the party will make it to the surface anyways.
The party discusses for a second and returns to talk to the patiently awaiting
Chief Sull. The party tells him that they will accept the task, and
Chief Sull nods, “Alright, well,
Lann will get you setup at the tavern for food and room.” The party then heads out of the chamber and returns to the boat, following
Lann to the tavern to be setup for the night.
The party, happy to be in beds again, meets with the tavern owner and gets rooms for the night. The NPCs continue up to their rooms for resting, while the rest of the party heads out into the town to see if they can sell their recovered items from the last 24 hours. They locate a smithy that takes their armor and weapons off of their hands, and also some of their jewelry. The mongrelmen dwarf also points them towards a gnome magician that could purchase their magical items, which they go to the gnome to see if they can sell their items. The gnome takes their magical items off their hands and gets the idea to melt down the holy symbol for its raw components and sell the eye gems. They also commission the magician to make a wand of cure light wounds and purchase some potions for their journey. They are told to come back tomorrow when their item will be completed. They rent the use of the smithy’s smelter, and successfully melt the holy symbol down and sell the gem eyes to the mongrelmen dwarf. With that, the party heads back to the tavern to sleep for the night.
Chapter 5 - The Neathholm Traitors
As the party wakes in the morning, they find
Lann waiting for them in the Tavern common room. The Tavern keep asks if the party would like some eggs, and they accept, and, sitting down for breakfast,
Lann explains to the party that he suspects that the
Neathholm traitors may have something to do with the surface attacks, and he asks that the party see if they can discover anything that links them to the attacks. He also pulls out a satchel filled with vials, all labelled. They consist of various healing potions and notifies the party they are thanks for returning the brooch and taking on the task. He also asks if they could talk with the surface and see if they need the assistance of the mongrelmen. If the party can secure assurances with the surface Kenebres, they will assist in repelling the invaders.
Reid asks if they can provide it in writing, and he nods, leaving the tavern, going to talk with
Chief Sull about just that task.
With that, the party decides its best to check on their commission at the magician’s shop and finds that their commission is completed. They leave and head towards the center of town, where a
Lann waits for them at the front door to the longhouse. He carries with him a treatise of introduction and intent, as well as a well-drawn map of the caverns leading towards the
Neathholm Traitors’ encampment. It is with this information, they depart
Neathholm, eager to return to the surface.
After travelling for 45 minutes out of town, they reach the encampment of the
Neathholm Traitors, which seem to have dug into this position. It is here the opening combat begins, with two outer mongrelmen traitors. They try to attack the party from afar, which doesn’t work when the party closes the distance quickly, and so they switch to clubs to try to damage the party. Inside, two sleeping traitors attempt to get into their armor, but with the ease that the party dispatches the entry traitors, they encounter the sleeping traitors before they can get on their armor, and the mongrelmen attempt to defend themselves from the onslaught coming in. However, it is there that, coming out of the south door, a single shot over the head of
Jorryn. An expert marksman mongrelman stands, attempting to take out the unaware human.
As half the party works on dispatching the remaining enemies, the other half heads south into the room of the incoming arrows. On route, it appears that
Horgus has finally got the hang of their crossbow and takes out the fleeing mongrelmen in the second room. With that, the rest of the party joins the small room where they are attempting to flank the single mongrelman which seems to be eluding almost all the attacks incoming from the party and doing quite some damage to
Jorryn with pot shots from across the room. Its then that when
Jorryn’s health dips low, that
Anevia moves into the room with her bow and tries to shoot at the single evasive mongrelman, which gives the unknown mongrelman an idea to shoot at
Anevia, which
Anevia suffers from some damage from the incoming shots from the expert marksman. Taking the fight much more seriously after the mongrelman decides that attacking crippled enemies is the best route, they unload on the mongrelman, taking them down.
It is with that, the party takes stock and looks around the room, healing wounds, and cleaning up the bodies, searching their possessions.
Rewards Granted
Dead Cultists
- 1x potion of cure light wounds
- 1x scroll of cause fear
- 129 gp
- 2x glaive
- 2x spiked gauntlet
- 1x small symbol with brass bull's head with tiny red gemstone eyes (unholy symbol of Baphomet worth 50 gp)
Given by Chief Sull
Mongrelmen Traitors x4
Wendaug
- 2x potion of cure light wounds
- 1x wand of longstrider (10 charges)
- 1x mwk chain shirt
- 1x club
- 1x mwk longbow
- 20x arrows
- 1x obsidian unholy symbol of Baphomet (20 gp)
- 34gp
