Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
A number of Club members have taken the opportunity to start an AD&D campaign, making full use of the internet and playing entirely online during the evenings.
Despite some losses and casualties on the way, the characters have grown and developed over the course of the adventures and the group has increased in numbers.
This is their story so far.........
Humble beginnings
Our story started with an unlikely band of prospective adventurers who accepted an offer of employment by the Duke of Bissell to travel to a remote and outlying village of Orlane. Their task to establish answers to the strange and mysterious occurrences that had been reported as happening in and around the village.
The band started with a human fighter, a human magic user, an elf fighter, a halfling thief, a half elf druid and a human cleric ....they readied for their seven day journey and departed for Orlane.
Early on, the druid was called away from the party to take care of troubles in his native woodland realm and the halfling, under a cloud of suspicion, slunk away in the night during one of the rest stops.
Later in the journey they were met by another half elf Druid who sought the group’s help to tackle a goblin raiding party. The group successfully put the goblins to flight and freed a halfling that had been captured. Both the Druid and halfling agreed to stay with the group and to travel to Orlane with them.
Against the cult of the reptile god
The group reached the sleepy, but strangely hostile, village of Orlane without further incident. Over the course of the subsequent weeks, the group established that the village had slowly but steadily fallen under the spell of an enigmatic cleric who resided in a large temple on the outskirts of the village. With the group not knowing who they could and could not trust, they decided to visit the temple.
During the course of the subsequent exploration of the temple the party came into conflict with the denizens of the temple and briefly encountered the cleric. The group’s magic user, in a rash moment, sprung a poison needle trap and was lost to the party.
The group did however establish that the temple
cleric was acting under the influences of a malign force operating from the Great Swamp.
The group recuperated in the village and found an ally in the form of an old hermit - this enabled the party to obtain some valuable local knowledge and to determine a safe route to the Great Swamp. Whilst the group was making its plans, they also engaged the services of a travelling dwarf mercenary.
The group successfully located the source of the malign force’s in their swamp lair and dispatched the mysterious reptile creature that was the source of the areas problems. During the final battle the human fighter was poisoned by the creature and fell, and the Druid was also killed.
Returning to the village, the group rested whilst witnessing the village people returning to normal. The group purchased one of the run down buildings which also gives them a base of operations for the future. The whereabouts of the temple cleric is still unknown and presents a potential challenge
to the group.
The sinister secret of saltmarsh
The group’s cleric, elf and halfling returned to the Duke of Bissell to report back on what they had uncovered in
Orlane. The remainder of the group rested in Orlane.
At the point, the group’s cleric received an urgent message from his order requesting him to find out what had become of a fellow cleric in Saltmarsh....a coastal village in the far south of the province.
The group enlisted the help of a wandering gnome illusionist, a half elf druid and a human fighter. The group then embarked for a two week journey to
Saltmarsh.
At Saltmarsh, the Order’s temple was deserted but it was found out that there were strange goingson
reported an emanating from the deserted wizards house outside of the village.
An exploration of the wizards house revealed various deceptions covering for a smuggling operation. The smugglers were dispatched and the group led a raid on the smugglers ship, which revealed that weapons were being brought ashore....but the reasons remain unclear.
The story is to be continued.......