The Convoluted History of My Campaign*, Part Two B: Giraffes and the City (In Character)

The First Bit

The countryside near the City of Vek is more varied than usual due to forgotten ancient deeds of wizards, or something. First, the intrepid party passed through a forest. They were attacked by a polar bear, a stirge and a rather ineffective giraffe. They managed to kill the stirge and the fleeing giraffe, and subdued the polar bear enough so that when the owner of the circus it had escaped from arrived he was able to recapture it. Unfortunately a misunderstanding about the circus folks intent led to the wizard setting them on fire. Dungeon Master appeared, furious. He took the wizard with him when he vanished and later on a dragonborn warlord who also claimed to be Tom turned up. They were beginning to get used to this sort of thing.

While stopping to rest at an inn, their cart and horse was stolen along with two others by a hapless group of goblins. The party soon chased them down and retrieved the stolen goods, although one horse was slain and its cart destroyed in the process. Next, they passed through a desert. On hearing of some gnoll raiders that had a base to the south of the road, they decided to go "deal with" them. The gnolls were sharing their lair with a grell, which posed more of a challenge. Finally, they passed through a swamp. A foolish young black dragon decided to attack them. It failed to stay out of their reach, and was slaughtered. Charles reluctantly took only the head as a trophy.

On finally reaching the city, they gained entry by claiming to be merchants, and promptly got involved with some gang warfare and became acquainted with a wanted criminal. They cleanly sorted out both problems by helping the criminal to escape the city and faked his death using a magical amulet and the body of an alchemist who'd been supplying bombs to the gangs. They were then able to claim the bounty on the outlaw, and as part of it were given the deeds to a house in the west. They explored much of Vek's sewers, hunting down an escaped mutant crocodile and allowing it's prey, a giraffe, to escape. A straight-forward task involving retrieving stolen property led them to uncover a group of assassins. While wiping out the assassins, they encountered a young elf ranger called Mouse, and her animal companion, Cat. The head of the assassins turned out to be a crippled black dragon who'd made her home in the sewers. The five of them soon made short work of her, before retiring to the inn.

During the night, Mouse was woken by another assassin who had just slit Chuck's throat. The assassin and his partner were soon captured and while claiming to not know who had hired him, they admitted he was ordered to kill all of them except the Warlord, who they were to kidnap and leave at an arranged spot at dawn. Dropping the assassins off with the authorities (and leaving Chuck's body for someone else to deal with), the remaining four made the rendezvous and discovered those sent to collect the Warlord were warforged soldiers from the castle. Suspecting the Magus, the King's advisor, to be behind this, they decided that they possibly still weren't ready to take him on. After exploring the sewers some more, and finding a way into the Magus' undead guarded tower from there, they left town and headed to their new house.

Approaching the estate, it was obvious something was wrong. The crops in the surrounding fields grew progressively sicklier and warped as they got nearer the house, with the nearest plants being almost unrecognisable as anything of this plane. Searching the outhouses carefully, they found only a shadow-tainted horse who had apparently been recently fed. On entering the house through the main door, they discovered it to be overrun with demons and the restless spirits of the cultists who summoned them. After killing all the invaders they came across, they went down to the basement where a portal (presumably to the Abyss) lay. Dungeon Master appeared to help them close it. He then informed them of a set of magical stones, scattered across the world, that had untold power when reunited. One of these stones happened to have surfaced in the nearby town of Port Haven. As the party wished to engage craftsmen to rebuild the ruined wing of their house, they resolved to go there next. However, while searching the house for valuables, they came across a walled in mirror that was obviously magical. Throwing caution to the wind, they touched the mirror one by one and vanished from that place.

* Still need to think of a name.