[Anonymous]

This thread will be used for the new Baldurs Gate gaming group.  Anyone is welcome who might want to join in!  Just post below.

Please also use this thread to organize play sessions.

Ground Rules We've Set:
-At least 3 people from the group must be present to have a play session
-Those who've played before shouldn't spoil the game for those who haven't (let the newbies lead!).  The story is well worth it!
-Everyone creates 1 character – if you have yet to play you should create a new one
-If someone isn't playing, just select “reform party” and leave their character in either the Friendly Arm Inn, the Jovial Juggler in Beregost, or the inn in Nashkel.  Export their character file as well just in case its lost somehow.
-When we have less than 6 (almost always), fill out the rest of the party with NPC's and distribute them to various players for anyone that wants a second one

If you'd like to try to get a group together to play:
-Send out a google calendar invite to this group for the time you'd like to start.  If you get at least 3, go for it.

After your play session:
-Try to respond to this thread with developments / stories of glory or death / quests complete along with a list of who played so we can stay up to speed with progress.  Nothing complicated – just a brief note.

Characters:

B (Brian George)	Philbro (Phil Grenier)	Tybo (Chris Thibeault)	BeinBein (Tanner DeBien)
Tycho (Mike Grenier)	jdizzle (JD Tarwater)	aC (Franco Logozzo)	DDay (David Day)

[Anonymous]

We played last night from about 9:30 – 11:30.  Adding Jeff Smyth to the list – he mentioned he'd like to join from time to time.  Welcome Jeff!

Players:

-Mike
-Tanner
-JD
-Brian
-Tybo (for about half the time)

NPC's:

-Kagain
-Faldorn

Quest Updates:

-We finished up the Cloakwood portion of the main story arc.  We finished ransacking the Iron Throne base in the Cloakwood.  From notes in the leader's store room, we learned that the Iron Throne was attempting to stockpile iron, while starving other sources of iron in the region.  Why, we still do not know, but we decided to flood the mine on our way out to prevent them from using it in the future.  We freed the miners who were enslaved there and got a nice reputation bump from it.  From the notes, we learned that the leaders of the Iron Throne have a building in Baldurs Gate which is their home base.  Someone named Rieltar was communicating with the leader at the mines.  Another leader, Sarevok, was gathering an army nearby – again, for what we do not yet know.  The notes also referred to Tazok, whom we encountered at the bandit camp but were not able to kill.  Our next step will be to investigate the base in the city of Baldurs Gate.
-After returning to Beregost to rest and restock, we decided to set out to help an NPC, Kagain, regain some of his lost store shipment due to bandits.  We went to the south of Beregost, encountered 12+ ogres, saved a farm from an Xvart attack, and took out groups of roaming bandits.
-We returned to a previously explored zone and found the caravan we were looking for for Kagain.
-We decided to explore a ruin nearby called Ulcaster.  We destroyed groups of undead around the ruins, and found a ghost who told us about the history of the ruins (it was a school) and asked us to find a lost book at the bottom of the ruins.  We proceeded underground through an entrance we found, battling groups of undead wolves and finding a lot of good items.  After dying to several traps, we found the book and returned it for a good chunk of XP.

[Anonymous]

A small group played for a while late last night (2-14-2014).

Players:
-Mike
-Brian
-Tybo

NPC's:
-Minsc
-Dynaheir
-Kaigan

Quest Updates:
-We decided to hold off on the main quest until more folks could join in.
-Brian elected to lead the group to the Firewine Bridge
-We encountered an odd priest who got mad at us for not listening to him (random).
-We listened to a bard's tale about the Firewine Bridge ruins
-We encountered a lady who was complaining about a voice talking to her from a “jar” she had.  We offered to take the jar off her hands, but in the process she exploded and whatever was in the “jar” came out – a very powerful ogre mage with mirror images, protection from normal missles, and a globe of invulnerability.  Normally, an extremely difficult opponent – however, Tybo's nuke mace left him immobile in the first few seconds of the fight and we brought him down easily.  Good loot.
-We fought a guy who ran up to us and called himself an “expert swordsman” and attacked us.  Decent sword on him.
-We descended into the Firewine Bridge Ruins –  a massive maze network of tunnels, disarming traps and taking out tons of kobold commandos with fire arrows.  Found a group of ghosts who wanted the return of their comrade.  Found ancient armor on a skeleton and returned to the ghosts, who were now at peace – good XP gain.
-Defeated a tough group of ogrillons, a mage, and an ogre mage guarding an exit.
-Left the dungeon through an exit to the Hobbit village of Gullykin.  Spoke to the mayor who thanked us for clearing the ruins since its inhabitants where terrorizing the halflings.  Brian proceeded to pilfer goodies from the innocent hobbit holes.

Notable items found:
-Level 5 spell Cloudkill
-Level 3 spells lightning bolt, fireball, and hold person
-Wand of magic missles
-+1 Longsword
-Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise
-+2 Dagger of Venom (purchased from Smithy in Beregost)
-Sling +1

[Anonymous]

We held a brief play session this afternoon.

Players:
Mike
Tanner (half the time)
JD
Brian

NPC's:
-Jaheira
-Khalid
-Kagain

Quest Updates:
-We finished exploring the Gullykin (hobbit town) zone.  Only other thing we found was a group of assassins (sent from the Iron Throne) to kill us.  Tough fight but we came out on top.
-We decided to head north to a wilderness zone.  We encountered MANY tough Bassilisk enemies (a new one).  They can shoot a petrification ability.  We killed several using a protection from petrify spell but after our burglar got turned to stone, we had to return to town to stock up on Stone to Flesh scrolls.  We returned and finished off many other Lesser and Greater Bassilisks,
-We freed a woman in stone and she thanked us – gained 1 rep and bunch of XP.
-We encountered a new NPC – SharTeel.  She wanted to fight a male representative in the group.  Tanner was the nominee and he won the fight, and then she offerred to join us.
-We encountered a crazy gnome who was controlling a group of Bassilisks and creating “stone sculptures”.  Took him out.
-We encountered a cocky group of adventurers.  Our smooth talking burglar talked his way into a fight, and we took them out.  Lots of good loot.

Notable items found:
-un-ID'd belt
-un-ID'd gauntlets
-2 +1 morningstars
-2 +1 longswords

In other news, JD jumped 10k XP in the stats!

[Anonymous]

This update includes 2 play sessions – Wed 1/19 and Fri 1/21.  Lots of good progress!

Players:
-JD (half the time)
-Tanner
-Brian (half the time)
-Tybo
-Mike

NPCs:
-Khalid
-Jaheria
-Baeloth
-Coran
-Xan

Quest Updates (lots of updates): 
-We began by going for sidequests since we didn't have a critical mass for crashing baldurs gate and going ahead with the main storyline.  We decided to set out for a zone 2 north of the hobbit villiage Gullykin.
-It turned out to be a pretty light zone.  We found one guy who asked for a scroll to be returned from some ettercaps.  We killed them and returned it for some XP.  In the middle of the zone was a shrine with a big group of red wizards (4).  They attacked us after a brief convo and we took them out thanks to an effective silence spell which rendered them ineffective.
-After clearing the zone we found a forest zone to the west called Larswood.  In this zone we found a druid grove and were attacked by a mad druid (Brian's aggressive talking ensured we fought).  We took him out and found a nice spear.
-We found a huge group of gibberlings (20+) and took them out, and at the end of the fight a drow wizard randomly appeared out of nowhere.  It turned out he was a hidden NPC we found named Baeloth (owner of the Black Pits arena).  Incredibly effective wizard and we brought him along.
-After clearing this zone, we proceeded north to a farm zone.  We found a large hole in the ground which turned out to be a network of ankheg tunnels.  Taking out many of them we found a treasure hoard and a body.  We returned the body to a local farm and it turned out to be the farmers son (we returned the body and donated money for a nice XP and rep bonus).
-We found a group of fisherman complaining about a local witch using the weather to harm their business.  We agreed to help and proceeded north to the bridge to baldurs gate and found her.  Some aggressive talking by Brian (again 🙂 ), found us in another fight and she surrendered toward the end of the battle and warned us the fisherman weren't everything they seemed.  We left her alive and returned to talk to the fisherman and learned they were actually in league with a rival “god”. We took a water elemental summoning bowl they had stolen.  For good measure, we returned to the witch and took her out, keeping the bowl.

Main Quest:
-We decided to proceed into baldurs gate!  Upon crossing the bridge, we encountered the captain of the guard of BG.  He said strange things were happening in the city and asked for our aid in investigation.  He mentioned one of the major trading companies in the city – the Seven Suns, was making odd business deals and a contact he knew personally there was not acting himself.  We agreed to investigate and proceeded into the city.  We also know there is an Iron Throne base somewhere in the city.
-In the first zone in the city, we found many shops (some with very good items and spells) and inns.  We briefly went into the sewers and found an ogre mage controlling carrion crawlers who were apparently eating people on the surface.  We took them out. 
-We went back to the surface and ran into a thief who approached us with a job offer.  Going into the thieves guild, we were offered several thieving jobs – one to raid 3 items from a nobles house related to construction of airships.  This was time sensitive so we did this first.  Brian effective snuck into the estate and pilfered the items on the first try.  We returned them to the guild but were betrayed and attacked.  Killing the assassin, we gained the respect of the guild and got free run of the place.
-We encountered a man who attacked us for killing some hunters in the cloakwood (and found an odd ring on the ogre mage that bore his name).
-We heard a rumor about an untrustworthy mage and found him randomly in a house.  He wanted some bodies from the sewers and we brought him one for some XP.  Unsure what he will do next.

Notable items found:
-Backbiter (cursed spear +3)
-Sling +2 (bought in Sorcerers Sundries in BG)
-Wand of Paralyzation
-Cloak of Protection +1 (bought)
-Ring of energy
-Wand of Fire

[Anonymous]

Play session on 3/9.

Players:
-Mike
-Tanner
-Brian
-Tybo's character, w/o Tybo 🙂  (we thought he was going to join us, but did not)

NPC's: 
-Coran
-Baeloth

Quest Updates:
-Since we didn't have the full crew, we decided to focus on side quests in Baldurs gate.
-We decided to pursue a side quest we had in our journal involving freeing a captive nymph.  The nymph was held captive by a mage named Ragefast.  Another mage who owned a huge tower in the city hired us for the task, and we were to bring the nymph back to him.  We traveled to the southwest corner of the city and found Ragefast's home.  Through some smoothtalking by our burglar, we managed to get him to see the error of his ways and free the nymph.  The nymph gave us a lock of her hair and left.  We ended up taking the lock of hairy to a magic shop and they wove it into a cloak for us which boosts charisma.
-Upon returning to the mage that hired us, he was angry that we had freed the nymph, and teleported to the top of his tower.  We decided to ascend the tower floor by floor battling his minions – groups of mustard jellys, elite hobgoblins, kobold commandos and ghasts, and ourselves at one point (yes, the old mage – me – blew up our party by accident with a fireball).  We made it to the top and our burglar single handedly took him down using his magic items.  Lots of great loot.
-While tracking down the nymph, we had met a priest of Tymora who's son had been killed by a rival temple – the Water Queen.  We took a quest to retrieve the body from the temple.  Upon arriving at the temple, we were denied the body, and ended up fighting the evil priestesses.  We returned the body to the Tymoran priest and he resurrected his son.  We were awarded a good pair of bracers.

Notable Items found:
-Bracers of THACO +1
-Nymph Cloak – Charisma +2
-Wand of Palatalization
-Book of Intelligence +1
-Ring of Protection +2

[Anonymous]

We held a play session on 3/10.

Players:
-Mike
-Tybo
-Brian
-Tanner

NPC's:
-Baeloth
-Coran

Main Quest updates:
-We completed one thieving quest before starting out on the main quest.  Brian met a fellow thief outside of an Inn, and stood watch while they went in to do some thieving.  A guard approached Brian and he signaled the alarm as ordered.  We ran from the guards and met back at the thieves guild for a 100 gold reward.  We received a new quest to do something similar.
-We decided to head off and do the main quest next.  We began investigating the Seven Suns trading coster as requested by the head of the guard, Scar.  We found the building in the southern end of town and went in and began talking with merchants.  The first merchant we talked to left saying he saw other merchants “changing faces”.  We spoke with others and kept pestering them for information until we eventually confronted them with what we knew.  They all instantly changed into dopplegangers and we defeated all of them.  We proceeded to the basement and found Jhasso imprisoned, who we had been sent to talk to.  He thanked us, implicating the Iron Throne, and we returned to Scar to report our findings.
-Scar rewarded us for succeeding in getting to the bottom of the issue with the Seven Suns.  He requested that we investigate the disappearance of some citizens of baldurs gate in the east part of town – looking to the sewers.  Since we had already found the ogre mage responsible, we simply reported that and were rewarded handsomely. 
-Scar then asked us to sneak into the Iron Throne compound and try to find evidence of criminal activity related to the iron crisis in the region.  We proceeded to the large building in town and entered, talking to various folks and asked whether we could be “hired”.  They directed us to the 4th floor.  On the way up, some smooth talking by Manslaughter got us into a fight (big surprise 🙂 ).  We began working our way up the floors of the tower.  Coming to the 4th floor, we were mistaken for an emissary and played along to gain entrance to the 5th floor.  At the 5th floor, we were confronted with a large company of well-equipped Iron Throne leaders.  They quickly realized our deception and we were into a tough fight.  After dying once due to dough flamestrike hits, we reloaded and tried again with better buffs, using some valuable potions, managing to take out the group which included at least 4 mages, and 3 tough fighters.
-After the battle we obtained documents implicating the organization in the iron crisis, and called it quits for the night.

Notable Items Found:
-Halberd +2
-Wand of the Heavens
-Wand of Lightning
-Several good protection scrolls
-Gauntlets of THACO +1
-Ring of Free Action

[Anonymous]

Play sessions on 3/13 and 3/14:

Players:
-Mike
-Brian
-Tybo (half the time)
-JD (half the time)
-Tanner (half the time)
-Phil (a little while)

NPC's:
-Baeloth

Quest Updates:
-Since we didn't have everyone, we decided to take on some of the expansion content.
-We proceeded north to a farm and found many zombies roaming around.  We took them out for a small reward from the farm owner.
-We proceeded east to Ulgoth's Beard – a small town.  Upon entering town, we spoke with a tour guide running groups to the dangerous Durlag's tower.  We paid 50 gold to go on the tour and decided to meet him there later.
-We talked to a mage in town next who requested that we retrieve a missing cloak for him.  We agreed and he immediately whisked us away to an ice island in the middle of nowhere (to our surprise).  Apparently the island was a trap for teleporting mages, and had trapped many who were stuck on the island.  We had to battle our way through several groups of insane mages looking for ways off the island.  We finally found the mage with the cloak and managed to escape the island, returning it for a good chunk of XP.
-Next we decided to go on the tour.  We traveled to Durlags.  Roaming around outside were two Battle Horrors – two tough hand-to-hand fighters that our barbarian helped dispatch.  Another guy was selling some nice stuff for adventurers.
-We met the tour guide and went inside – there were a group of other tourists there.  After listening to the tour, we saw a tourist get demolished by a flamestrike trap, and he warned us about the danger of the place, etc.  After finishing the tour, a demon knight appeared out of nowhere and fireballed all the tourists (and us, twice), telling us to leave. then disappeared.  We decided to go downstairs to a lower level.  Upon going downstairs, we encountered an injured adventurer who had left his companions who were at a lower level.  He warned us of the danger of the place – saying it smelled like death.
-We proceeded into the first level of the dungeon, encountering several ghasts and skeleton warriors, and many very difficult traps (with many deaths and reloads resulting).  We found several contraptions and cryptic messages indicating we had to do something with them, but did not solve any of the puzzles.  We managed to clear most of the level.  We found a boat load of gold and loot, potions, ammo, etc, and a door to the next level that we did not yet try.

Notable Items Found:
-Un-ID'd Plate Mail
-Ring of Protection +1
-Bullets, arrows, bolts +2, others
-many assorted potions
-Wand of paralyzation and wand of monster summoning

[Author]

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