Category The Tormentors

The group departs the region and journeys back to Impiltur to settle accounts with the church and dispose of some items collected. Papers and scrolls are read and analyzed, and it becomes clear that the spider silk operation is being used to generate money to fund the infiltration of the region by the forces of the Horned One.

The cleric gets advice from the church: “get back out there and uproot the evil, root and branch”, so the group saddles up and travels back to the region. Along the way they make contact with Miles and his band, as well as the gnomes of the region. Both agree to help the group with securing the pyramid and establishing a base of operations. Eventually the goal is to restore Miles to his rightful position as the ruler of Ludensheim.

The journey is mostly uneventful,...

The priest of Torm assembles a new group, drawing on his contacts in the church and with the assistance of Malchor, they are returned to full strength. The long journey to the Barony of Botkinburg is accomplished with a minimum of fuss, and the group manages to obtain a couple of potions they hope will aid in the defeat of the Witch Queen. Which queen? Witch Queen!

All made invisible by Malchor, they manage to find the secret entrance to the lower levels, after narrowly avoiding an encounter with some robe-clad humans that have some sort of discussion in the courtyard before heading off in the direction of Ludensheim. The entrance is opened and the trap is disarmed.

Once inside they seek out the lower level of the place and (after suitable magical preparations) quickly make their way to ...

The group rallies and enlists one of Miles’ men and retraces their steps to the lair of the ‘witch queen’. They are all invisible thanks to the efforts of The Malformed and manage to navigate the steps to the 5th level of the zighurat. They begin searching for the concealed door that they know is present, but are unable to find it until the changing guard shift alerts them to it by exiting in the midst of the party. This begins a running battle that carries into the zighurat, and attracts the attention of the crowd in the town square. Eventually, the guards are slain, but the alarm has been raised.
The group swiftly returns to the area where the crystal vial of fire claimed the life of Kruss and explores further...

Following the liberation of the gnomes and the removal of the local Redhat leaders, the group journeys to Botkinsburg with the news. They meet with the Baron and borrow the Baron’s personal prestidigitator to suss out a thing or three about the mirror of mind enslavement. They get news that it is a tool of the agents of the Horned One – in particular the Witch Queen – and some vague directions and a target – a ziggurat built when the Horned Lord ruled these lands, many centuries past.

The group dispatches itself to the regions surrounding the ziggurat and scope it out from afar. A massive seven-stepped pyramid caps the end of a broad avenue flanked with two and three- story buildings on either side. They approach and encounter slaves – downtrodden and dispirited, malnourished and sullen...

The group pauses for a moment and reflects on the fact that the orcs are more active at night, polish up their brass balls and saunter back through the orc squalor. Their luck holds and they ride back to the mines. There, they use water from the spring to restore the minds of the mining gnomes.
By the time morning comes, the party is backed by about 300 enraged gnomes that are armed with scaveneged weapons, shovels, picks and sticks. The tide sweeps into the village at dawn, slaughtering all who stand before them. The party rushes ahead of the rest and is unopposed until they encounter a pair of guards who are swiftly slain, and then the group has penetrated a second mine.
They creep about for so e time until it runs across a drunken orc and a basket of deep fried spiders…with tiny human ...