GoCorral

This session was attended by Trajan, Avery, Jamie, Will, and Tyler. The session was held using Roll20 for a virtual tabletop and Skype for voice and video chat.

Bavastatner Book Learning

After enjoying their vacation the bad boys of Lakatia decided their next objective was taking down Bavastatner the blue dragon. Bavastatner lives in the Shacklack Desert. He was one of the original ten dragons that terrorized the world before Danar and his friends imprisoned them in the Orbs of Dragonkind. Bavastatner broke free later on and now he and his children cast an ominous threat over Mars’ Oasis, the main city-state in Shacklack.

Mars’ Oasis, in addition to dealing with dragon problems, also has dealt with undead attacks from the Lich Shade and giant ant attacks from the formian hives in the desert. All these offensives have made the people of Mars’ Oasis very good at fighting lawful enemies, draconic enemies, and undead enemies. Guess which looming power in the west matches all three of those descriptions? That’s right! The dragovinians!

The people of Mars’ Oasis would love to fight the dragovinians but they can’t risk leaving their own city undefended against all those other threats. The party has been working hard to solve that problem. First, they took out the Bane, leader of the undead armies assaulting Mars’ Oasis. Second, they negotiated a peace treaty with the formians. This treaty was contingent on the party slaying Bavastatner within two months.

Which brings us to action item number three, killing Bavastatner. The party read up on him using the libraries of Aractrash, looking for any weaknesses they could exploit. Bavastatner is capable of the typical blue dragon things. He breathes lightning, he can alter his voice to mimic that of any voice he has ever heard, he can fly, his scales can only be penetrated with a magic weapon, he has power over illusions, he is an accomplished spellcaster, and he can burrow through sand. But what sets Bavastatner apart from other blue dragons aside from his size and status? Not only can Bavastatner breathe lightning, he can breathe fire, acid, and ice as well. Bavastatner has also been known to wear armor into combat.

While researching Bavastatner the party also found a drawing of one of the old rulers of Mars’ Oasis, King Biveso. He had marched against Bavastatner wearing a full panoply of Dythalid infused armor, intent on slaying the beast. Biveso had failed miserably. The finest treasures in Bavastatner’s hoard are rumored to have been taken from the corpse of King Biveso.

Bavastatner lives in a cave on the eastern side of the Dominarie Mountains bordering the Shacklack Desert. Surrounding his cave are a number of draconic humanoid tribes that act as his servants.

Keep Your Eye on the Dragon

That was about all the useful information the party could gather from books. Next up, gathering information with spells! Scrying would be the go to spell for investigating a lair, but it has problems associated with it. First, you have to cast it on an individual. Bavastatner is the only creature the party knew to inhabit his cave and his innate mental defenses were high enough that any scrying attempt on him was doomed to failure. Second, even if the scrying succeeded Bavastatner might detect it and come raging for the party in Lakatia. Going in into the cave invisibly would also be out of the question. Dragons are well known for being able to detect even invisible intruders. Fortunately, Danar had the perfect spell for this situation, arcane eye. The spell summons an eye within the caster’s sight which can then be used to explore beyond what the caster can see, relaying all visual information back to its master.

Danar and Tagenadi were made invisible and used Tagenadi’s teleport boots to arrive two and a half miles away from the cave entrance. They found themselves in the middle of a large grassy field. Here and there throughout the field were camels grazing. Guarding the camels were large, winged, draconic humanoids with draconic dogs following them around. Looking towards the cliffside in which the dragon’s cave lay the duo saw a field of some crop on their right. The wind blew the smell of barley to their nostrils.

Danar cast arcane eye, summoning his dweomer near the cliffside. He put his hand over his eye and looked through his new one. As Danar used the spell he repeated all that he saw to Tagenadi. Danar saw not one, but three caves entering the cliffside. The rightmost cave entrance was smaller and a few average-sized humanoid figures were leaving it towards the barley fields to the right. A waterfall separated the middle cave from the right cave. A pool formed below it, draining towards the barley fields. Atop the cliff to the left of the waterfall, three draconic ogres stood watch, keeping an eye on the plains. While the right cave looked too small for a dragon of Bavastatner’s size to fit into, the left cave and the middle cave looked about the right size.

Danar sent his eye down the middle cave. The tunnel snaked on for several hundred feet before reaching a large room filled with draconic trolls. They were milling around the cave, sleeping on bed pallets by the cave walls, counting treasure piles, or playing cards. There were three other exits from this room, one to the left and two straight ahead. All the exits were too small for a fully grown dragon.

Danar investigated the left exit first. It led to a large room with close to a dozen cages in it. Within the cages were red draconic dogs. The dogs were chewing on bones, snarling at the cage doors, or napping in their cages. No other exits left the cage room. Danar tried the other two exits from the main troll room. The first led to a troll sized bathroom. Danar was thankful that the arcane eye did not transmit smell. The second room led to a bedroom. This room had actual furniture along with a bookcase containing a few volumes, some of which Danar recognized. A large draconic troll lay upon the bed reading a book.

The middle cave proved a dead-end so Danar brought his arcane eye outside and sent it into the left cave. The first room was massive. Little pieces of trash were strewn around it. The party guessed that this room was used by Bavastatner to address all of his followers. Next was a room with a waterfall coming down into it and forming a pool. The pool drained via a waterfall going down into another room below

Danar’s magic eye continued exploring. There was what looked like a dormitory/hospital, two or three dragon bathrooms, and twos room filled with baby dragons sitting on their little hoards. One room had a bunch of pits, short columns that didn’t reach the roof, and chains hanging from the roof. Another room held a number of eggs waiting to hatch. A library held hundreds of books in large aisles.

Armored Lightning

Danar was interrupted as he prepared to send his arcane eye down another passageway. A rumbling in the desert stirred and then Bavastatner burst from the sand! He wore dazzling mithral armor over his body. Glittering emeralds were interspersed between his dull blue scales. He wore a ring upon each of his foreclaws. As he came out of the ground he unfurled his wings and took flight, soaring directly over the party. The great dragon snapped his jaws down as he passed by, bringing Danar along for the ride.

Danar reacted quickly, dropping his arcane eye and dimension dooring himself out of the dragon’s mouth. Bavastatner whipped around in the air faster than any of the adventurers had thought possible. Facing the party members who were clustered around Danar’s previous location, the dragon breathed pure crackling lightning!

The blast hit Amalius, Origenes, and Eathirilu. Eathirilu had buffed the party with electricity resistance that was still in effect. He’d saved the best stuff for himself, making him immune to all electrical damage. Amalius and Origenes were not so blessed. Each suffered burns as the ozone smelling energy enveloped their bodies. The lightning clung to them, preventing all movement and thought. Bavastatner also blasted the party with a little bit of evil energy, sickening those who were exposed to it.

Eathirilu began casting a summoning spell to bring in some helpful rocs. Tagenadi moved forward, and then transferred some of his energy to Eathirilu giving him the power to finish his spell. Eathirilu summoned his rocs and boosted them with a brilliant energy spell to circumvent Bavastatner’s armor. The rocs moved in and began to pester Bavastatner.

Danar returned to the fight. He empowered his longaxe with an arcane strike and a wraithstrike. Putting into action the manuever they had spent so much time practicing, Danar ran forward, leaped up onto Tagenadi’s shoulders, and then blasted off of them to reach where Bavastatner flew in the air. He got his axe in reach of the dragon’s hide and went to town. He cut a bloody swath into Bavastatner’s belly as he sailed by. Blood rained down covering the ground where Danar landed.

Bavastatner looked to the ground, thinking to himself, “This one must be punished.” The dragon dropped the ground and ripped into Danar, nearly killing him.

Tagenadi used his white raven hammer technique to try to incapacitate Bavastatner for a few seconds. As the blow struck home Bavastatner smiled and the emeralds on his hide glimmered. No stun would work on this beast.

Speaking of stuns, Eathirilu cast heal on Amalius to undo the stun on him. Amalius flew away from where Origenes and Eathirilu were standing to avoid all of them being caught in Bavastatner’s breath a second time. From his new location, Amalius sent his psicrystal, Merlot, close to Bavastatner to hit the beast with a swarm of crystals. The crystals made thousands of little cuts in the dragon’s skin.

Danar, fearing for his life, dimension doored away. Without his target prey, Bavastatner turned on the only other party member who had damaged him, Amalius. He flew forward and snapped Amalius into his jaws.

Tagenadi took a chunk out of Bavastatner’s hide while Eathirilu’s rocs continued to harass the dragon. Eathirilu turned into a roc as well and began to power up by casting strong short term buff spells on himself. Unfortunately, Origenes remained stunned.

Amalius used temporal acceleration inside the mouth of Bavastatner. While in his accelerated time pocket he escaped, reapplied his vigor spell, and grabbed Merlot. He crawled back into Bavastatner’s mouth with Merlot and placed the psicrystal as deep as he could inside of the dragon’s mouth. Amalius got himself out of the tooth filled maw. When time resumed, he ordered Merlot to blast Bavastatner with a swarm of crystals from inside. Bavastatner shrieked and began climbing into the air to escape. Unfortunately for the dragon, the danger remained inside of him as he flew away. Amalius channeled a few more swarms through Merlot, bringing an end to the mighty dragon up in the sky.

There’s a thing about flying dead dragons though. They fall. And Origenes was right underneath Bavastatner. Seeing the danger, Tagenadi grabbed the stunned Origenes and teleported away from Bavastatner’s landing spot. Eathirilu also backed away to escape being crushed. Bavastatner smashed into the ground. The whole party breathed a sigh of relief. The beast had been defeated.

But the fight wasn’t over yet. The sand rumbled off to their left. Another enormous blue dragon came up from the desert! This one was smaller in size than Bavastatner, but it still dwarfed the size of a common human. The dragon shrieked, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY HUSBAND?!? I’LL KILL YOU!”