Chapter 1 - "Foundations"

First combat, against bandits, while travelling north - Sharana nearly kills Lirien with fumble.

Calion falls off a 70-foot cliff, grabs tree roots, is lucky to be heard and rescued by rest of Party.

Dibs buys Perry the Falcon in Durweston, by day's end already realizes it isn't very bright.

Reach adventure site; Lirien and Drogmac almost killed by 2 Orc archers.

Riddle wall resets to a different riddle; Drogmac solves while rest of Party gets carved up by Orcs.

Once inside, much exploring finds a few foes, and Fundin killed by a trap.

Dibs finds and purifies a 328-year-old half-keg of beer.

Party finds a lower level and befriends Brick, a starving Orc; he guides their explorations for a while.

A gang of Orcs arrives and traps Party in armoury; Lirien killed, along with Brick, and Sharana to -9.

Slowly begin to realize not all the Orcs here are unfriendly; one guard lets Party escape, which they gladly do only to be attacked upstairs by Dibs' forgotten and now very hungry falcon.

A sentient bush nearly kills Pearl, Sharana, and Drogmac; its trunk is so tough Throy breaks his flamberge trying to cut it down.

Arrabella finds some coins in a pool, gets greedy, and takes all of them; Party plunged into pool as punishment, but saved when Arrabella puts the coins back. (pool probably a shrine to a water goddess)

Another sentient bush doesn't last as long as the first one.

Exploration reveals this complex doesn't entirely obey the laws of physics; either that, or it is its own little demi-plane.

Fundin's body recovered and buried in garden where first sentient bush had stood.

Yet another venture to lower level; Party gets thrashed but finally gains a beachhead, and a captive Orc.

Captive, Malkoc, tells much about complex; it still takes a command spell to get the leader's name: Sylune.

Orcs attack as Party tries to leave; Malkoc tries to help them and gets killed for his trouble, Party escapes.

Return to Sachem, weather unnaturally hot, and Dibs' Precipitation spells fail twice.

Report to local militia but intentionally don't mention knowledge of the link with the Orcs (and thus cause many headaches later; see Gruumsh's Revenge).

Party meets various important-looking people rushing north in hopes of meeting Arevane, who had manifested in Portloe this morning for some reason or other and not in a good mood.

Arrive Riveria; Shining Band people surprised to see Party but cover well, congratulating them on a job well done and putting Band (i.e. their own) resources at Party's disposal to help evaluate treasury.

By now, Party knows that parts of two other Shining Band proto-parties made it back from their missions and have since been combined and sent out again; none would return.

Drogmac, now trained to WrC-2, becomes concerned about his brother.

Find another 2 corpses from Gormac's party while exploring inland.

Realize animals etc. on island are all undead; battle a skeletal Ogre and lots of other undead that can operate in daylight. (!)

Arrive back at island, battle Bugbears outside ruins.

Wade inside and downstairs, do fine against undead but cold drives Party back; rescue some cold rats.

Party finds a large spellbook, then loses it to an invisible foe during a battle with Bugbears.

Somehow, Nildhevin gets spooked by the invisible person and flees in terror; Party would later find her corpse at the base of a steep bank she ran off the top of: Nildhevin killed.

Track invisible person to Bugbear camp but cannot find; retreat, notice previously-killed Bugbear corpses not where they were left so start burning all they can find.

Another sortie into ruins finds 3 Ghouls; everyone paralyzed except Cnutkum who defeats the last Ghoul and saves the Party.

Kermut prays during this and gets divine intervention but doesn't realize it, though all his weapons vanish.

Recovering Party hears noises nearby; investigation finds a Ghoul and Human in combat, Party helps the Human, so Lars Svendsen (NrC-1) joins along with Fulvin Griseo(NrC-1/T-1) who had been hiding in the darkness; these two were the divine intervention Kermut summoned earlier!

Party disturbs a Coldwraith; Lars and Sharana get frozen by its touch, Lars killed when he fails to recover.

Party finds a small opening, Dibs goes through and finds a Gray Ooze the hard way: Dibs killed.

Return to boat and find a pigeon nailed to the mast.

Arrive Riveria and find Shining Band warehouse deserted; investigation reveals it was never theirs at all, they had rented it from the Fishers' Guild.

Kevin the Helm Cleric dispels charm on Throy.

Teimperian the Bigger Mage questions Telvar and learns spellbook he stole is still on island.

Detective work leads Party to Llandreesa of House Merillion(MU-2/T-3), who joins, and Thomas and Gamford, who don't - yet; Party learns Sereka is dead and rest of Shining Band has vanished.

Teimperian disappears from Riveria.

Pandora Periwinkle(NtC-1) joins.

Party leaves Riveria; Gamford Rowbottom(A-3) and Thomas Crathom(T-2) join by stowing away on Party's boat, presence given away hours later by their noisy seasickness.

Party finds Teimperian and his cronies stripping everything they can find of value off the island; cautiously watch until they leave, realize Bugbears are all dead as a side effect.

Return to ruins, realize Teimperian and crew missed a lower level, and wade in.

Find a statue of Sefia; Kermut gains a Commune.

Dig out a passage to a Mirror of Opposition; Gamford, Pearl, and Thomas all vanish but rest of Party ignore and keep right on going: meanwhile, Gamford, Pearl, and Thomas all killed by their clones in Mirror.

Kermut finally decides to return and go in after them, and Cnutkum follows; Cnutkum beats his own clone and helps Kermut beat his, they gather corpses and return.

Meanwhile, rest of Party abandon those in Mirror (again!) and start exploring; are somewhat embarrassed when C + K return and ask where their backup was.

Much argument with a room that charms all who enter, then retreat to camp with half of Party tied up.

Spend hours gaining safe entry to charming room; find an intelligent skeleton here chained to the wall.

Llandreesa and Pandora release it; Pandora gains and uses a Wish, thus Dibs, Pearl, Lars, Calion, Drogmac, and Nildhevin all resurrected but Drogmac and Nildhevin both killed again almost immediately as they came back to life while buried, and promptly suffocated. (oops!)

Sharana, who had been left behind in Riveria to recover, also appears; she had been guiding a rescue force to the island and they were upstairs even now, probably wondering where she'd gone.

Party goes outside and meets Kevin, Charles, and a bunch of Clerics who proceed to clear out ruins.

Party goes to pub, finds Green Man to be a Bard paid to pass secret messages in his songs; through much subterfuge Party brought to secret meeting with Teimperian.

Teimperian fills Party in on fake Shining Band people, tells them Sereka really was from the Band, suggests Party might want to leave Riveria for a while, and actually tells them his own plan (!) under guise of speculating what might be behind all this.

Teimperian offers to take Fulvin, Llandreesa and Pandora into hiding, while Kermut stays at the Helm temple.

Make it to site of Temple of Gruumsh adventure, find it much more active, start bashing Orcs until no more health and cures are left.

Arrabella eats her Humorn herb but nothing happens, for now.

While herb-hunting, Arrabella meets the Ent Tallbranch, summoned by her Humorn herb days ago and only just now getting here; she takes him back to Party. (and respect for her herb-hunting grows immensely!)

Tallbranch explains how the universe, deity structure, etc. works, and that Gruumsh is a major deity.

Party and Tallbranch arrive at Orc compound, start causing major havoc until Dibs captured; thus Dibs leaves, as does Tallbranch, having done what he came for.

Pursuit of Dibs' captors fails; instead finds Lt. Nelson - a local militiaman - near death in the woods after his own men turned on him.  Party takes him in.

Party sets an ambush on Orc trail but get ambushed themselves and barely escape.

Arrabella meets a Dryad, tries to matchmake with Calion "the Stallion" but he wants none of it; Dryad warns of lots and lots of Orcs approaching.

Party splits in two; Calion, Arrabella, and Pearl stay in woods to monitor Orcs, rest go back to town for help.

C, A + P harass a large gang of Orcs using an Ogre as a pack animal; cause Ogre to rampage until Orcs kill it, delay Orcs for hours.

Orcs animate the dead Ogre and continue; Calion grapnel 'ooks it and it falls apart, thus more delay.

Main Party arrives at Durweston, meets Major Minor, enlists militia help.

Back in woods, attempt to infiltrate Orc camp fails utterly.

Pearl gets thrashed while trying to lay another ambush; Calion and Arrabella madly dash to Sachem before she dies, delaying tactics abandoned.

C, A + P back to temple; Pearl walks right into a mountainside and out again, to no useful effect, they then try attacking from below and get nowhere so try the outdoor approach again.

Main Party has dinner with Baron Boscombe and daughter Sylune, make lots of plans, head back to woods.

Calion and Arrabella get themselves captured; Pearl rescues late at night and nearly gets killed in process.

Two Party groups reunite near Sachem, militia set up roadblocks.

Arrabella killed in a battle with a few Orcs, just before Major Minor and a lot more militia show up.

Large military assault on Orc holdings; Party goes in back way and painfully captures upper level.

Orcs reply, trapping Party and remaining militia in same armoury as during Temple of Gruumsh; at one point every Party member either unconscious or paralyzed except Drogmac.

Sharana dies in armoury: 3 people below 0 h.p., only 2 cures, and she got the short straw.

Calion gets on a bed and unexpectedly teleports to Sylune's bedroom in Boscombe's palace in Durweston.

Party and militia invade castle through bedroom, much fast talking prevents an all-out battle in hallways; Boscombe at first refuses to believe Sylune's guilt but is eventually convinced.

Party arrives at Riveria by boat (much to Teimperian's surprise!) and meet he and Charles here.

Arrabella fails raise from Charles.

Sharana raised by Charles.  Pearl begins training under Teimperian, but he's away so often it takes twice as long as it should; unknown to her, he sets a few magical "homing triggers" during this.

A long training break begins.

Party enter Drowsaptre swamp, get mugged by Troglodytes, fail to notice a person (Teimperian) watching battle from above.

Reach ruins, scout, enter an outbuilding, find a secret door; behind it is Pandora, so Pandora re-joins. (and Party thus neatly avoids an entire adventure - see below)

Decide to abandon ruins, get mugged by more Troglodytes; a treasure map is looted from one.

Find and explore a huge cavern complex that leads into the back of a Dwarven town; Party realize this when breaking into a door puts them in a Dwarven housewife's kitchen, and retreat smartly. (Calion gets1 ExP for the break-in)

Explore a different direction; Throy almost killed by a Lurker.

Meet Garim and Join, a couple of Dwarves; Party warns about pirate band outside.

Realize map in fact leads into and out of Khazatza, the Dwarven town, so press on.

Set off a cave-in trap the hard way: Drogmac killed; everyone else at or below 0 hp, Kermut saves Party by curing Pandora without passing out.

Find a treasure trove, including a delicate ship in a bottle along with some vital curing potions, and sack out.

Discover the grave of Fred the Fearless, odd in that he was supposedly one of the Shining Band recruiters, and also find a miniature ship's wheel in a secret hole. (see below for details about this wonderful item)

Jumped by a large band of pirates on exiting the caverns; Throy and Kermut parley while everyone else gets clobbered, soon realize they're all on the same side and Fred is - or was - the common foe.

Learn that the pirates are seeking the ship's wheel and little else, and a deal is struck: pirates get the wheel and some gold, Party gets everything else, along with some information, and stays alive.

Pandora etc. reach Riveria; learn of a hefty (and illegal) bounty on heads of Calion, Sharana, Cnutkum and Drogmac, take shelter in the Helm temple.

Teimperian brought to temple by Kevin, spends a few days figuring out what the ship in a bottle does (he wants it too), tells them it's a real ship waiting to be activated but they dash his hopes by refusing to sell it to him; he can't outright steal it from them in the Helm temple, so he has to let it go.

In a quiet bay on Windward Isle, Calion opens the bottle and an 85-foot 3-masted ship - the "Dagger of the Winds" - appears; he then has to swim out and save it from drifting away.

Rest of party row out and board; when Drogmac sets foot on the deck the whole Party gets teleported to somewhere completely different...

Party appears on separated bits of rock in a tiny sea surrounded by black space; on one larger island is a small building.

Throy falls in water and nearly gets swept into space, but is rescued in time.

Lots of rope used to get people to the larger island in stages; a whale attacks during final stage and swallows Pandora whole.  Pandora killed instantly, but she gets stuck in whale's teeth; thus rest of Party use her as a fishhook to haul the whale to shore, where they kill it.

Reach building; on arriving an Angel appears, tells Party this place is a test - they have to find three amber keys - but despite much questioning gives no other useful information before leaving.

Enter building, find themselves in a maze, get teleported all over the place at regular intervals and thus are constantly getting separated just as they have reunited.

Full exploration of maze finds an amber pyramid behind an illusory wall.

Pearl finds a door and knocks on it, getting no answer she bellows loudly at it and thus provides a beacon for rest of Party to find her and reunite; they promptly make camp.

Behind door is a stairway to a funnel-shaped room; below this are hallways with trap doors every so often, doesn't take Party long to realize they're finding the same trap doors over and over again.

Pearl nearly killed when Party lowers her into a Gelatinous Cube in a pit below one of the trap doors.

Lots of little combats with other pit guardians but no further serious menace.

One pit has no bottom: Kermut is lowered in here and finds himself floating weightless in a large hollow area; using a net he catches an amber cube, overeager Party just about kill him hauling him out.

Back to funnel room; a blaze of smoke and fireworks along with very loud music distracts Party long enough they don't notice a new arrival, thus Shauna Lightfingers(I-7/T-9) joins in her trademarked manner.

Sharana very bluntly asks Shauna to turn off the pyrotechnics; at swordpoint, she complies.

Throy finds an amber sphere in a compartment hanging from the ceiling, Party then exits building and reenters using the three amber keys.

Building now consists of a single room with a window looking out onto snow and a hole in the floor leading to starlit space.

Shauna throws her dice through the window; they land in snow and sink.  On seeing this Pearl and Drogmac step through, turn around, and find the window gone.  Pearl recovers and keeps the dice.

Shauna jumps down hole in floor and floats off into space, so Shauna leaves for good.

Throy levitates in to try and rescue her and also floats away, so Throy leaves for now.

Arrive at a small fishing village and learn they're in the Norselands, not far from Luskan.

Kermut gets robbed by a village cutpurse while trying to find a ship heading south.

Arrive at Culavera after an uneventful voyage on a trading ship.

Meet Sharana's family.  Party doesn't like them, they don't like Party, Sharana stuck in the middle.

Arrive back at "Dagger of the Winds"; find Pandora's corpse lying on the deck and Throy standing near the mainmast, grinning like an idiot and hanging on to the ship's bell, so Throy rejoins.

Party learns Throy has been here for 9 days; he reappeared on ship but could not find Shauna, so he tied the ship to shore and then searched it thoroughly.  He put himself in stasis when he rang the ship's bell – he came to only when his hand was pried loose from it by Party.

Drogmac realizes ship has a crew at his command, but only he can see them; they cannot speak at all and only Drogmac can speak to them, but he knows nothing about sailing and must translate orders from Sharana in order to get the ship moving.  Predictably, the result is something of a disaster.

Set sail for Durweston, meet the Mary Rose en route and are lucky not to be sunk: Party forgot to fly their safe passage pennant.

Arrive Durweston after a much more co-ordinated sail, learn Major Minor was court-martialled and given a dishonourable discharge during the fall for her poor handling of the Gruumsh's Revenge engagement.

Party does some recruiting: Aliri the White(NrC-3), Christophe(B-2), and Boris Broomwalker(R-2) join.

Set up an ambush at a likely raid target, a nearby farm.

Several battles during night with Orcs and Ogres; Calion nearly killed by a ballista bolt, so Party retreats.

Sneak up valley past mine and find a cave behind a waterfall; start exploring, get jumped by cave's resident Ice Toads, and Drogmac barely survives.  Lots of snow outside.

Boris falls into an ice-cold lake on leaving cavern, Party have to spend an hour drying him out.

Try to stealthily approach mine entrance, but sentries notice Party; a Frost Giant charges to attack but the only damage it does is by falling onto Boris as it dies.

Sharana leads a very disorganized charge toward the mine entrance, most of Party soon involved here but Boris is still stuck under the Giant.

Pearl loots Giant and finds a wand; a test shot into a cliff generates a fireball, so yelling "Get back!" she charges at the cave mouth and lets off a badly-aimed blast: Calion killed, Throy barely survives.

Party retreats again after digging Boris out.

Return to cave and wade in almost unopposed, start exploring.

An empty picture frame on a wall turns out to be a long-range scrying and one-way communication device after some amusing experimentation involving Cnutkum.

Meet Sigurd the Frost Giant, half of Party tries to fight him while other half tries to parley; Sigurd does both at once until he learns the Party are not willing to make themselves the replacements for all his hired help they've killed off.  Then, he just gets mad and fights.

Aliri (now NrC-3) killed by a Sigurd boulder; Pearl killed by her own fireball, but Sigurd defeated.

A group of Goblins provide surprisingly stiff opposition; Party capture one and kill the rest, so Kookus(--) joins despite Sharana's best attempts to kill him too.

Boris nearly killed by another band of Goblins; much exploring follows.

A huge treasury is found, with amber sphere; guarded by an animated statue that extends Party to its limit.

As Party readies to leave, Boris kisses the feet of another statue - of Sif? - and it starts talking to him. 

Boris determines statue can teleport people, and asks for fast transport to Riveria; statue's geography is a few thousand years out of date but it knows there's something called the "Temple at Ajainya" in the right direction, so Boris asks it to take Party there.

Party and statue find themselves in total darkness and 4 feet of water; quickly realize they're in a building at the bottom of a lake, and correctly guess this is a long-sunken Sif temple.

Drogmac tries to pry open a window, but generates a leak; building starts slowly filling with water.

Boris, desperate, asks statue to just take Party anywhere it can; Party plane-shifts to Sif's realm but for some reason Calion's corpse disappears. (it winds up with Kermut and Cnutkum, in fact)

Meet with Sif Herself; Pearl raised and Kookus killed by Sif, rest of Party told to find the other 2 amber keys and then plane-shifted to a road north of Waterdeep.

Party arrives at Waterdeep and starts a long treasury and training break.

Calion raised in Caradon; he and Kermut start cautiously heading for Waterdeep.

Attacked by bandits; Party makes a complete mess of a simple combat, Calion killed among much blundering from all concerned, and Pearl's wand of fireballs runs out of gas but not before starting a forest fire.

Calion raised, 8 rounds later, by an Elixir of Life potion.

Party and local villagers spend rest of day putting out fire.

Arrive at castle, start exploring outbuildings and clobbering occupants; Calion now realizes he is slowed by something he looted off the bandits.

Enter main castle; interior walls are invisible to begin with, causing much confusion.

Pearl sent in on end of a rope to map but gets captured, Party too slow to react but send everyone in.

Boris twice meets an armoured skeleton; on second meeting he leads it back to Party and they attack, and in a huge upset defeat a full Skeleton Warrior without losing anyone!  A golden skull is looted off this skeleton, this would prove highly significant later.

Find a robot persistently trying to walk through a wall.

Boris finds a miniature staircase, steps on, and shrinks to scale; everyone else follows.

Staircase leads to a wizard's den-prison; Pearl is here, in process of being fused to a robot, but Party is able to trick wizard into letting her go.

Throy disbelieves wizard, sees something worse instead, and flees screaming.  Rest of Party follow after carving up the robot, though Pearl gets shrunk to 1/3" tall, and retreat to outbuilding.

Everyone back to normal size and recuperated, resume exploring; another tiny staircase shrinks Party again.

A giant ant attacks; Drogmac killed.

Pearl uses golden skull to try and raise Drogmac but only manages to animate his corpse.

Meet Fintera, another wizard who lives here; he imprisoned the one met earlier (actually a variant Lich, as Throy saw) and at one time trained Teimperian.  Parley, then retreat to outbuilding again.

Pearl uses golden skull again here, animating Drogmac in the outbuilding and an army of thousands outside it!  But they cannot understand her commands, and grow increasingly hostile.

Calion tries to steal skull from Pearl; Drogmac-as-zombie attacks Calion and all undead outside try to get in to help.

During brawl that follows, Calion briefly grabs skull but then loses his grip, to his utter shock it goes sailing into the waiting hands of Teimperian, who at last reveals his true colours to Party by teleporting in and stealing the skull.

The undead army, now under Teimperian's command (as Party correctly guessed), forms up and marches off; Drogmac tries to join them but is restrained.  The army then returns and collapses in courtyard.

A Thief announces her presence by trying to break into Party's outbuilding, thus Leshendra Shadowstalker(T-3) joins; she is here due to a Fintera mistake.

Pearl does not awaken until noon; when she does, she is a level higher (to MU-5) and very evil.

Later that afternoon, an Ogre crashes through door just as Pearl strikes by putting half of Party to sleep; a messy brawl breaks out:

 o Leshendra's first action is to fumble into Sharana; Sharana, already suspicious of this new Thief, takes this as an attack, and they fight each other;
 o Pearl continues dropping spells into Party while the Ogre causes mayhem;
 o Once Ogre dies, Throy turns his big sword crosswise and tries to crosscheck the whole room into the basement below; he does, but not before Calion cuts Pearl's arm off and Sharana almost kills Leshendra;
 o Pearl then subdued (and almost killed), and everyone cools off.Frantic contact with Fintera; he agrees to try an experimental teleport spell to get Party to safety, and very illegally plants them in Waterdeep's Helm temple - where they are all promptly arrested.

Two important Clerics - Aurora Roaringhorn and Belmonder - assigned to Party to sort out their mess.

Curse removed on Pearl but she loses the level that came with it, so back to MU-4.

Drogmac fails raise.

Everyone fined 50 g.p. each for illegal entry into temple and must be escorted at all times while in town.

Pearl gets her arm regenerated.

Leshendra goes into town and bolts from escort, so Leshendra retires; spends the next year or so as a reasonably successful Thief in Waterdeep until rejoins campaign in Evils of Tymore Island.