Completing the Keep and Arrival at the Hall of the Fire Giants: Game 16
General Summary
The Company of the Furies: Eumenides completed their retaking of Adlerweg Keep, and freed Lord Raymond Ilios, Marquess of the Reaches and Lord of Sentinel Fortress and Count Berghof. Count Berghof was left with a rump force and the casting of the wards and guards spell to defend the Keep in case of a counter attack by the gnoll, ogre and other monster attempt to retake the Keep (and an attack by the gnolls on the top of the Keep). Etienne teleported his father, Lord Raymond, back to Sentinel Fortress to deal with the imposter with doppelganger like ability to disguise itself. The Company was teleported to the Hall of the Fire Giants, along with their newest companion the necromancer priestess of Hecate, Basillea.
Key Learnings
There is a magical room which teleports or otherwise transports individuals from the Keep, which allows communication between the Keep, and its allies in Sentinel Fortress, the Fire Giants at Hellfurnances, the Demons in Hell, and the Drow of the Underdark. The Company must kill the Fire Giant King to be able to reactivate the magical room and use its teleportation powers to travel back to the Keep, or one of the other locations. Etienne has finally earned the respect of his father by rescuing him. While his father disagrees with Etienne choosing to assist his friends by returning to the Hall of the Fire Giant King rather than assist him in retaking Sentinel Fortress, Lord Raymond respects Etienne's decision to assist his friends in a fight against evil. The Company has arrived at the Hall of the Fire Giant King at a time in which the fire giants will hopefully not be at the full strength because many of them had marched to the Glacial Rift as part of the great giant invasion. However, the Company prevented the fire giant and orc army from arriving at the Glacial Rift in games Descent into the Frost Giant Narl's Glacial Rift: Game 9 and [Frost Giant Rebellion. The Company hopes that many of the fire giants did not survive the return trip, or they have not yet returned. Therefore, time may be important, if there is an army of fire giants that could return at any time.Floor 2
Room 13: Necromancers' Experiments and Playground
The Company first explored in this room briefly in Taking the Keep: Game 15. In Game 15, the Company discovered that the walls are upholstered with the skins of human beings, there are tables with wizard's experiment equipment, three men in cages, book cases and chests. This room was first entered by Etienne, who first scouted the room, then through his powerful magics, including a cloud of killing, avoided being killed by two high level crossbowmen, and then single handedly routed the seemingly never ending army of darkness. There are three men in cages, including Lord Raymond, who's arms have been flayed, an unconscious Count Berghof of Adlerweg Keep, and an unknown third man. In Game 16, the Company further explored the room, discovering Necromancer Books:- Making Friends: A History of Necromancy
- Book of the Necromantia
- Human Anatomy
- Darkness: Creating, Dispelling and Exploiting It
- How to Kill Paladins
- Hecate’s Encylodeia of Herbal Components
- Undead: How to Dead Them
- Sylloge Tacticorum (200 year old military manual)
- Art of War (1,000 year old military manual)
- Bellum Hibernum (winter military handbook)
- Glacies Agriculture (winter farming)
- War of Gnolls (military handbook for fighting against gnolls)
- Ignis Magna: Cultus et Ecclesia (Fire Giants: their culture and religion)
Room 14: Defense Room
This is an important room in the Keep because contains a mechanism for springing a trap. The room is large, irregular in plan, with arrow slits in the south and west facing walls. It is dominated by a device designed to pour burning oil into a room below. The device consists of several components, including large iron cauldron mounted on brackets in the fireplace. A pipe with a tap runs out from the base of the cauldron and down to an empty, blackened, shallow trough cut into the floor. On either side of the trough, three short tunnels with metal sluices lead to holes in the floor. Closer inspection of these holes reveals that, immediately below the floor level, they each sub-divide into six pipes slowing obliquely downwards. To operate the device, the tap is opened, allowing oil to pour into the trough. The oil can then be ignite and sluices opened, allowing it to pour down into the death room through the holes. Burning oil cases damage to anyone in that room, and burns for five rounds. The device can be used only once per six rounds. There is enough oil in the cauldron for six uses. There are seven jars next to the fire-place and each contains enough oil to operate the pouring device three times, but this oil is of low grade and must be heated for two hours in cauldron before it will burn. There are two winch mechanisms, which are used to raise and lower the gates to the death room. Each winch has a bell which rings if the gate is moved. There are numerous benches, tables, chairs, lockers, weapons and miscellaneous items like wine, cups, dice, whetstones, etc. most of which have been destroyed or damaged in the fighting. A great fight occurred in this room in which the Company defeated undead death nights with magic smoke swords riding nightmares.Room 15: Gate Watch Room
This room was used by guards of the Keep whose job it was check the identity of visitors before admittance. The room was disheveled with food, broken weapons, fire wood, torches, a large hourglass, and slate with a piece of chalk attached to a string that was used by the human guards to note down passwords, times of arrival, duty roosters, etc. The gnolls have covered the slate with almost illegible, crude scrawls.Room 16: Stables
This is a stable, with five stalls against the eastern wall.Room 17: Tackroom
Having little interest in horses, the gnolls merely ransacked this room leaving most of the contents intact. The room has many hooks, pegs and shelves on its walls, but all are bare. Everything in the room, consisting mostly of tack, harnesses and feed, has been thrown in a large, untidy heap on the floor.Floor 1
Area 10: Battlemented Platform
The platform overlooks the track below and was unoccupied. It is an open, flat area with a crenellated parapet. It extends outwards from the foot of the main fortress building in the south and west sides. The walls of the Keep look down menacingly.Room 11: Guard Room
This is a simple guardroom, with a stairway down to Floor 1. This stairway is not shown on the map provided, which omitted any way to get from the Undercroft to Floor 2, except for the secret passage. Poor game design.Room 12: Death Room
This entire room is a trap, operated from the defense room 14 above. It is designed to prevent attackers who have overrun the platform from entering the tower. The room is plain, hewn from solid rock, w with blackened walls and ceiling. There are many suspicious holes in the ceiling, each an inch across. There are two door ways, each only five feet high and barred by stout metal gates. The gates are opened by the winches in room 14.Undercroft
Room 8: Painted Room
This is the teleportation room that transported the Company to Hellfurnaces and the Hall of the Fire Giant King. This is an octagonal room with a painting of a slender, stone pillar near the wall in each corner. The ceiling is painted to represent a domed roof, supported by these pillars, and the walls show a country sense which continues all the way around the room. With a little imagination, a person could feel as if they were standing in a summer house, surrounded by pleasant pastures and woodlands, at the top of a grassy slope leading down to a large lack. The beatific scene has been shattered by crude, defacing drawings and runes on four opposite walls showing fire giants, demons, drow and an almost illegible drawing of Sentinel Fortress. The room is magical and teleports or otherwise transports individuals from the Keep to one of three locations: 1) Sentinel Fortress, 2) Hell itself and home to Demons, 3) the Underdark; and 4) the Hellfurnaces, a number of volcanoes in the Ulsprue Mountains far to east of Fultar. The magical teleportation room has the following remaining charges: 2 for Sentinel Fortress, 7 to Hell, 1 to the Underdark, 2 to Hellfurnaces, and 3 to Adlerweg Keep. From reading the book Iignis Magna: Cultus et Ecclesia (Fire Giants: their culture and religion), the Company has learned that the only way for them to use the teleportation room to return to the Keep or another location is obtain the heart of a Fire Giant King. The person who eats the heart, can then read the magic runes to return to any of the four locations. The party also learns about fire giants, including information in the Monster Manual that they are more intelligent, better organized and have greater military tactics than frost giants.Next Steps
Etienne teleported his father, Lord Raymond, back to Sentinel Fortress, cast a magic warding spell on the Keep to protect it, and took 10 potions of superhealing from Count Berghof's private collection. Without knowing it at the time he cast the spell, the Keep has a magical protective quality that quadruples the duration of any protective magic cast upon it. Thus, the Keep should be protected for a long period of time. The Company decided to rest in the teleportation room for the night to heal and be able recoup spells. Twim was sent to do a small amount of reconnaissance, and entered a short passageway which led into a great cavern. This place is entirely natural, with the tunnel and the cavern showing no market of being hallowed out. The passage way is about 20 feet high. Illumination is dark and still, with red glow coming from the cavern. There is a huge cavern which is lit up in rhddihsin light from a bubbling, streaming river of molten lava that flows through the place. The cavern stinks of sulfur and heat rock, and the room is oppressively hot, although occasionally a strong draft cools it somewhat. The roof is at least 60' high. There is a rope bridge suspended about 15 feet above the lava river, offering safe access across to the outside of the cavern. The cavern has many places in which guards can be placed to spy upon anyone entering the room, and Twim decides that he should not enter the cavern, but instead return to report to the group so that they can make an informed decision about their next steps.
Report Date
01 Jun 2022
Room 14: Defense Room
Floor 1
