DavesGaming

The first part of this covers the new Lava mod “The War of Bloom and Rot.” I will keep it brief and low spoiler. But it is a new mod, so for those who wish to remain completely spoiler free skip to the second line of asterix after the 5th render.

*****

After a night of good sleep we were ready for the next challenge. We were packing up to head back to the glacier when Psyche reminded me of the journal we had found referencing a dragon cave right nearby here, a little past the Vale of Shadows. We should probably check that out quickly first.

After falling and tumbling for a while we came to a stop in an abandoned campsite. A little poking around led us to another cave.

They had been in a War with followers of Zuggtmoy and begged our aid. Obviously this could have bearing on our surface world too. Agreeing to help was not a hard decision. We battled a number of different and exciting foes. This has been a unique and slightly mind bending adventure. I look forward to fresh air again.

After an epic clash we finally returned back to where we started, and still had to finish off the homocidal Brown Dragon.

It was very satisfying to return back to Kuldahar and get clean.

*****

Obviously I chose to go very light on the write up here. This really is new. There are a number of long drawn out melees against multiple foes, largely new types I’ve not seen before. This was fun, almost every screen was a lot of eye-opening color and wierdness. Very fun. Lava advises for difficulty it should be played after clearing the glacier. I went a little longer and did Heart of Winter and Trial of the Luremaster, so my team was a little overpowered. Only the last two battles were a little hard and that was partly because I only had long term buffs up heading into the first boss fight. I did buff more completely for the rematch with the dragon, but did not rest (so some buffs were not available to me). But yeah, next time I play I’ll likely do this a little earlier in the game.

Regardless, it is beautiful and full of new renders. And a lot of fun.

*****

The next morning we set out for Lower Dorn’s Deep.

This priest has come up several times in our investigations. We are all quite certain he is no force for good. And talking with our poor paladin friend only strengthened that impression. Poquelin seems to be right at the root of the evil we’ve been hunting.
We battled the paladin and he fell, out of the fight. But his battered suit of armor was still humming with magical energy, it seems likely he will face us again.

We cleared most of the main floor, at the far end was an old well. We could hear voices at the bottom, so we quickly decided to decend and check it out.

Leaving the oubliette we came up along a different side of this vast cavern, and saw a watch tower that seemed to be manned. As we cautiously approached, a young gname slave-girl was approaching with a basket of fruit.

We gave those slavers a good working over, they won’t be cutting out any more tongues. We had learned there was a palace not far from here, a thug named Marketh “ruled” over the slave work crews and should be in residence. We set out for the palace right away. There was a “garden” area we had to pass through first, it was inhabited by a number of unfriendly Myconids.
Then we entered the palace. It was obviously a sort of thieve’s hangout. We were attacked at every turn and from every shadow. In theory. Moya cast True Seeing after the first ambush. She assures me seeing a thief hiding in a shadow she can see right into is sort of amusing.
We entered an opulent bed chamber on the lower level, its only occupent a battered Drow woman. I called Psyche forward, again.

Her name was Ginafae and she confessed quite quickly she’d been beaten by Marketh for the crime of speaking Drow in his presence. Psyche calmly and wisely gave the woman a gentle hug, Shuri siggested she could stick her spear up his…
Gina begged for his life! What the heck. She offered information if we agreed not to kill him. We agreed, with a fair amount of grumbling. The worst of it all was that she was under a Geas cast by her brother that bound her to this place on pain of death. We will see what we can do for her.

Sadly, he surrended all his possessions and all his claims of leadership here in exchange for his life. On my word, we had to let him go. Knowing full well he would not have done the same if roles were reversed. I truly hope to meet him again in the future.

When we left the palace we loaded up as much food as we could carry and headed back to the oubliette.

The gnomes were deeply appreciative (and surprised!) when we returned with food. They pointed us towards a small, hidden gnomish settlement nearby.
Living in the shadow of so much evil, these gnomes lived a dangerous life. We talked about what the greatest threats were. We had to put down a pack of Umber Hulks just to enter the town! And a priest of their’s had been taken as a slave by Salamanders. So we would look for their Priest!

He pretty shamelessly boasted of being the arms dealer who supplied the War between the Elves of the Severed Hand and Dwarves of Dorn’s Deep… and was behind the “betrayal” that each side blamed on the other. He won’t ever do such a thing again.

The obvious thing from here was to storm the lab of Malavon, the mad mage.

He was the most plainly insane of the foes we had faced. Fortunately he was too much of a loose cannon to have any allies. WE put him down fairly easily. And we found a potion that would release Ginafae from the Geas spell. After a quick stop by the palace to release Gina we set off for a mining site where we believed a Gnomish priest was being held.
The working area was mostly Gnomish slaves over seen by Salamanders. This was a pretty straight forward sort of free the slaves mission. We did find the missing priest, and sent the bunch of them back to their settlement.

Meanwhile we explored deeper, into the old Dwarvish forge. We had to fight through many Elementals, and then Fire Giants.

As near as we could tell, the only threat remaining here was an old Temple of Ilmater, being led by Brother Poquelin? Odd to storm a temple of a good and gentle deity, but it had clearly been corrupted.

We fought our way towards one of the priests, who confessed to serving evil, which immediately freed the cursed paladin. Then we just had to battle a room full of undead. Towards the rear of this large chamber we found a sort of evil idol, which was apparently sustaining the evil here.
We destroyed it and things grew quite. The remaining undead fell to pieces. The priests were all confused. They had been badly violated, aware of their own voices and bodies serving the malevolant force. And the one name at the head of it all was Poquelin.

The priests said a magically sealed staircase at the back of the temple would lead us to the corrupt priest. We needed the seals of all of his leading minions, which we now had.

This led to a more natural sort of cave, where Poquelin held court with a number of ordinary animals. Psyche warned this was all heavy with illusion. The critters all transformed into beasts; minotaur, salamander and others. Poquelin fled in the battle, but we were able to follow through a portal.

And we were back in Easthaven. Now a shattered and ruined town.

We rendered aid where we could and offered food. The old Priest of Tempus was here, Everard advised Poquelin had been eager to get to the artifact, Jerrod’s Stone in the cellar beneath the Temple of Tempus. We took off in pursuit.

And we found the corrupt priest right where Everard said. Poquelin laughed and chortled in true villain fashion, and opened the portal of Jerrod’s Stone! Two demons stepped through into our world!
Everard entered the room behind us and leapt to the portal making his own sacrifice to seal it closed. Wow. Everard had struggled with accepting a hero had been unable to find a better way of sealing the gate than throughing himself into the breach. But now, Everard had made the same sacrifice Jerrod had so many years ago. No doubt he had been a great man.

But that still left us facing Poquelin, two demons, and two Iron Golems?

The new demon introduced himself and bragged about his coming domination and destruction of Faerun…
Honestly I wasn’t listening. We killed his demons and iron golems.

We saved him for last. Because with all his bragging and boasting he was clearly the lesser threat.

Epilogue

Peace had returned to Icewind Dale. We were all fine. And back in Easthaven.

So many had lost so much. Livelihoods had been destroyed. Every family had lost someone. And much of the local power base, or *protection* had been wiped out. We found ourselves the most powerful force remaining in the north. And after an epic couple of months we had amassed a lot of wealth.

It was an easy decision to stay and help rebuild. Restoring homes and businesses. We bought food from friends in Neverwinter and had it shipped up to avoid famine.

We had always expected to return home at some point. To return to our own friends and familiies as great heroes! But that no longer was what any of us wanted. We had made friends here, and felt their pain. So we all decided to make this our new home. We would replace the safety net they had lost.

Moya built a new Temple of Lathander at the other side of town. Garaint stayed on to lead a small group of Temple Guards.

We all did travel, explored much Faerun. But Easthaven was home. Kuldahar and Lonelywood were special in their own ways. The warmth of the north was in the friends and families we all built there.