2020/10/25: Second Battle of New Hallownest Report
General Summary
Knight, Ba'alzamon, Pele, Blythe, Avalon, Bael (Bael’ithar)
Strange monsters and one-eyed gremlins have been showing up near New Hallownest. The drow are being suspicious. There have been more undead. The shadow ants have been helping (and caused a minor political incident with the dwarves).
Undead are mostly coming from lower down to the north. Uncoordinated.
Alvidar has mostly withdrawn its militia, but they can still be contacted through the dwarves. The dwarves have been hiring locals to build businesses. Most of the normal bugs are now in the employ of the Thorandul Empire; the dwarves sort of taking over the economy is a potential issue to deal with, but it’s not something to deal with during this session.
Nightmare claws are attacking people from the shadows in New Hallownest. Undead are marching from the north and east, and are at least a day away. The nightmare claws seem to be being channeled through the lifestream somehow, and Renedge isn’t happy about it. Kuran Alvidar, the paladin we revived after finding his corpse in the basement of the temple of Lolth near New Hallownest, showed up to help fight the shadows while we went after the sources.
A giant ethereal spider supercharged by Lolth had puppeted the drow civilians near New Hallownest and had built a new altar to Lolth in the old temple. We managed to thoroughly clear that out (with Pele purifying the altar so hard it was like Lolth got a burning punch to the face) without any of the drow dying. We did some investigation later with Blythe providing truth analysis, and found one low-tier cleric of Lolth amid the refugees. She was (probably?) responsible, but she made honest statements of her desire to repent, so Blythe took her as a semi-willing recruit rather than just taking her soul.
We checked one of the amplifiers that were causing the problems, and it turned out to have been one of several created by Ngel Sfet to enhance her range and the number of shadow ants she could control. We destroyed the amplifier and then went to find out if Ngel was secretly plotting against us. When we found her in her castle area southeast of New Hallownest, she was starting to panic, as she was under attack by undead and they (as far as she knew) had destroyed one of her amplifiers. It turned out she had no idea it even could be hijacked by others for nefarious purposes, nor that it apparently was disagreeable to Renedge itself. We clarified the situation and evacuated her to New Hallownest, where she continued controlling shadow ants to defend the city. (The shadow ants were extremely valuable in the defense, both before and after the amplifier was destroyed.)
We left the other amplifiers alone for the time being, though they’d need to be taken down after the battle for safety reasons. I’ll be working with Ba'alzamon (as representative of Renedge) and Ngel to try to design a safer version of the amplifiers, because they are really useful.
While Blythe stayed to very thoroughly defend the city, the rest of us went after one of the two artifacts we’d been pointed to as a source for the attacks. We found an orc lich shaman, Orby the death knight (an old former paladin ally of Pele who had been corrupted somehow), and a bunch of orcs and trolls. The fight was very difficult, but thanks to excellent buffs, exceptional mid-battle thievery (including the shaman’s hat, his boots, and most of his teeth), and Blythe’s final intervention, we emerged victorious. Pele was able to purify Orby, though he’s still insane and will need further specialized help.
Final tally: 72 dead, 40 brought back by Blythe. ~1/3 of dead were civilians, the rest were defending troops. Even more wounded.
Specific losses: 9 civilian bugs, 1 menderbug, 4 City of Tears sentries, 1 Crossroads guard, 4 Mantis Warriors, 13 militia infantry
The party still needs to track down and kill Dreadgaze, lich beholder. He was one of the three main factions attacking the city, the others being Lolth and the orc lich shaman’s group. Also need to track down the orc lich shaman and start regular check-ins and sweeps with the drow farming settlement to counter Lolth’s plots.
The Cult of Karnifax is growing. There is now a small group of deformed bugs following her and gaining a few priest levels.
Missions/Quests Completed
Defend New Hallownest from the undead attack
Created Content
Report Date
25 Oct 2020
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