The Higharvestide Festival
Higharvestide Festival, 1369: (half moon, waxing)
The day began with Steve getting up an hour and a half before
sunset and heading to the New Olamn campus to join the other bards
climbing the side of Mount Waterdeep for the Festival Blessing.
Before he left, Darius gave him a candle, "since he had just bought
a bunch and was happy to see one go to a good cause." When he got
to the campus, he was told that he was to join Lord Danilo Thann,
the young member of a Waterdhavian noble house who is largely
creditted with restarting the bard's college in Waterdeep. Lord
Thann explained to his group that he always liked to be the escort
for the newcommers to the ceremony, as it was a great joy to him to
see new faces around the college.
Lord Thann struck Steve as way too finely dressed and neatly styled
for a hike up a mountain, and somewhat buffoonish, but he did get a
bard's college started, so Steve tried to be polite to him.
Stevelit his candle along with everyone else and discovered that
Darius had slipped him a candle that gave off a different color
flame every 5-10 seconds. Lord Thann was delighted.
They hiked up a trail that started from the campus. The hike took
about 45 minutes, during which Lord Thann kept up a continuous
monologue about how pleased he was with how New Olamn was turning
out and everybody should consider studying there because it offered
so many wonderful services and it was a great place for bards to
meet and "cross-fertilize" and Waterdeep was such a wonderful city
and it made an ideal location for a bard's college...
Lord Thann invited Steve to take a place close to him, "with that
charming candle". This put Steve high enough up the slope that he
could actually see Ramdomaren Taask, the current Dean of New Olamn
cast the Festival Blessing. The music went off well and was
clearly heard well beyond the walls of Waterdeep. Everyone in the
party enjoyed the music, although they couldn't pick Steve out.
The sky began to clear over the city almost immediately.
When the spell was completed, Lord Thann lead his group back down
the mountainside, resuming his previous chatter. About 15 minutes
later, the group noticed a strange sight in the city. There seemed
to be flashes of colored light going off, first in Castle Ward and
then spreading at random throughout the city, like the static
discharge off a wool blanket on a dry night or the flashes of light
in a storm cloud, only more colorful. The group stopped to watch
the display, which took about 10 minutes. Lord Thann expressed his
opinion that it seemed that the Watchful Order of Magists &
Protectors had gotten jealous of New Olamn stealing their thunder
and decided to put on a show of their own. When the display was
over, the group resumed its descent and Lord Thann resumed talking.
Thankfully he ran out of steam shortly thereafter and at a branch in
the trail announced "Well, I'm sure you can all find your way down
from here. I'd love to keep you company the rest of the way, but it
is Higharvestide after all, so I must be running. So many taverns,
so little time in a day." After that he trotted off down the side
trail towards the heart of the city.
The rest of the party had agreed to wait for Steve at the entrance
to the campus. When he finally arrived, amoung one of the first
group of bards, they were already impatient to get going to the
House of Good Spirits. So the party immediately headed for the
tunnel into Castle Ward proper. They were nearly there when they
heard screams coming from the tunnel. They rushed ahead and came
around the entrance to the sight of several women fleeing the
center of the tunnel. Normally the whole tunnel is illuminated by
Continual Light spells, but a 100' section in the center was
darkened. The corridor was also filled with a horrible stench.
From the flashes of spellcasting in the darkened area, the party
could make out that a fight was taking place between 7 young bards
and at least 2 dozen vaguely humanoid monsters.
By the time the party joined the fight, most of the bards had
fallen, although they had taken out nearly half of the reptilian
humanoids (which the party had originally identified as lizard men
but later learned were troglodytes). Two bards Radoeeche
Trollblight who was fighting with a longsword, and Dheliach
O'Stars who was using a sling and enchanted bullets from a
distance where still standing. After several round of fierce
combat, the party defeated the last of the trogs and bandaged as
many of the bards as they could. One bard, Alphorrae Mardesphocap
and a washer-woman who had also been passing through the tunnel,
were dead.
2583xp to party for Troglodytes
Shortly after the fight ended, the watch arrived. They took all
of the troglodytes weapons (pointing out that the party would owe
the standard "sword tax" of 1gp per edged weapon if they didn't)
and told the party to clean up the mess. The party ignored this
and helped Radoeeche and Dheliach carry the unconcious and dead
back to New Olamn for care. The party then returned to Fair Winds
to clean themselves up before heading back out to the House of
Good Spirits.
On their way through the tunnel the second time, the party noticed
several children playing around the troglodyte bodies and trying
to set them on fire. Maanamere suggested to them that it might be
fun to drag bodies to the sea wall and throw them over.
The party got half way there this time before they walked into an
alley and saw an Umber Hulk coming down it from the other end!
The Umber Hulk charged them, but they managed to keep it at a
distance through a combination of entangle and web spells while
they killed it with range weapons. Maanamere used his Mount spell
to procure a (very unhappy) beast of burden to transport the
carcass back to Fair Winds. The party headed back to Fair Winds
again to store the carcass for possible sale for spell components.
4000xp to party for Umber Hulk
100xp to Maanamere for his first succesful spell use
On the way back, they heard a town crier announcing that due to
"inclement weather" the Higharvestide festivities had been
posponed until further notice. All citizens were advised to stay
indoors, also until further notice. In addition, any members of
the following adventuring bands were asked to report to Castle
Waterdeep:
The Twilight Hunters
The Company of Crazed Venturers
The Sundered Shield and Bright Gauntlet Society
Valdon's Moonfinders
The Arctet Armament
The Neverwinter Wolves
The Knights of the Sword Coast
A little later, they spotted the head of a frost giant over the
tops of the nearby buildings. They were preparing to attack when
Darius explained that he was one of the good guys. He was
Harshnag, one of the better known members of Force Grey - a
special operations group working for the city.
Passing through the tunnel, they noticed that it smelled extremely
bad. Narthan cast a dust devil to reduce the smell.
50xp to Narthan for intelligent spell use
When they got back to Fair Winds, Darius was surprised by a
bugbear in the kitchen. He yelped, which brought everyone else
running, but when they arrived they were faced with a bugbear who
was apparently trying to get Darius to drink soup. The bugbear in
question was a particularly tall specimen with black fur.
Mrs. Amtirask bustled in and explained that this was Rarchnarorg,
a Deep Bugbear who had been out on patrol in the Underdark with
two comrades when they had suddenly found themselves standing
outside Fair Winds. His comrades had sadly had an unfortunate
encounter with Dexter's bear, but Mrs. A. had had a talk with him
and they had agreed that he would be quite happy working as a cook
at Fair Winds.
Having suited up, the party headed back into the city. This time
with the goal of checking on the temple of Selune to make sure
they were ok. They got about one third of the way there when a
metal rabbit came running around a corner, skittered to a halt
when it saw them and dashed down a sewer grating (they heard
crashing noises). The rabbit was being chased by 4 huge blue
hounds, who came around the corner immediately after that. The
hounds had bluish-white or cyan fur and blue, sparkling
eyes. Their markings, teeth, and tongue were steel grey. The
smaller ones stood two to three feet high at the shoulder, and
they had a distinct odor of ozone. Their baying sounds had an
eerie, hollow tone that sent a shiver through any who heard them.
Seeing no rabbit, they settled for attacking the party. The party
managed to defeat them, discovering that they had a lightning
breath attack in the process.
2660xp to party for St. Elmo's Hounds
They brought the bodies back to Fair Winds in the hope that
Rarchnarorg could A) identify them and B) skin and possibly cook
them. He had never seen such things before, but he was willing to
skin them. The party headed back out to the temple.
Things were going fine at the temple of Selune. There were
several high-level Moon Knights guarding the entrances and the
temple was offering Sanctuary to anyone who needed it. Seeing
that things were ok, the party decided to head on to the D&D
Brewery to check on Darius' uncle, Darill. On the way they saw
part of an arial battle between a pair of manticores and a squad
of Waterdeep's Gryphon Riders.
The party stopped on the way to the brewery to check out a tavern.
There was a sign outside, propped up by a heap of kobold corpses,
advertising a free kobold shoot with your drinks. The party were
intrigued. Inside they found that the area near the firplace had
been cleared and walled in with overturned tables. The patrons at
the tables around the outside of the wall were all armed with
crossbows or other range weapons and watching the fireplace
intently. AFAL learned that since dawn, kobolds (and occasional
other creatures) had been appearing in the fireplace at random
intervals. The tavern owner had converted the fireplace into a
shooting range and the servers could even provide a few range
weapons to interested patrons. A jar on the mantel held all the
coins taken from dead kobolds. Whenever the jar had enough money,
a round was bought for everyone. The arrangement was very
popular. The party got a table near the fireplace and hung around
for one drink and two kobolds. The kobolds tended to die within
12 seconds (2 segments) of appearing.
1xp to party for shooting fish in a barrel
While sitting in the tavern, the party heard speculation that
Halaster had declared war on Waterdeep and that there had been a
pitched battle inside the Yawning Portal since dawn. Several
people were agitating for a frontal assault on Undermountain and
others were demanding to know why the city hadn't cleaned the
whole place out years ago.
The party eventually made it to the brewery and discovered that
Darill was doing all right. He did ask them to run an errand for
him and pick up a net at Nueth's Fine Nets. When the party got
there they learned of a strange phenomenon - throughout the day,
large objects had been streaking across the shop from one alcove
to another on the opposite side, knocking over everything in their
path, and then disappearing as quickly as they appeared. The
party purchased a net and managed to catch one of the passing
objects (3.5gp from party treasure). It turned out to be a very
surprised kobold.
10xp to party for a high velocity kobold
The party decided to check out the fighting at the Yawning Portal,
but discovered that it was closed and quiet, with a small
contingent of guards keeping the curious out.
After leaving the Yawning Portal, the party heard a scream from an
alley and went to investigate. They discovered a six-armed,
spider-headed, humanoid with a web breath weapon that had trapped
several townsfolk. Three were paralyzed, one was dead. The party
managed to dispatch the creature, although a misfired spell
reduced Darius for a while. They collected 3gp, 1ep, 6sp from the
creature, for party treasure.
1000xp to party for Narleth
Shortly after that, there was an announcement that the crisis had
been resolved, and the party went out drinking. The rest of the
day was comparitively uneventful.
