Second - Third Level Campaign History DM's Perspective

Second to Third Level History





Having returned to the village arguably victorious and with loots to spend. Crusio appears and further adds to their loot piles from what he claims to have been 'his separate mission.' Saying the the wizard of the party "I think you dropped this," referring to the wand that was treasure reward the party failed to gather from the prior combat with the mist gnome ninjas. As well as gold equally to about 1/2 of the gauntlets the rogue traded away to gnome ninja from the mining town.



With debts forgiven or paid, the party is told by Crusio live it up, as it is the last night before you officially join the academy and you might not make it through tomorrow.



That foreboding thought looming overhead, the some of the party members choose to board up at the academy and attempt to alchemically hodge podge booze in the lavatory.



The rogue chooses to attempt to buy himself a flat to live in, and finds and upstairs that has recently had a vacancy because of someone passing away in the place (later discovered to have been killed in a similar manner to the girl in the fire caves).



The paladin bored chooses to work out in a training facility next to the academy where he finds a beautiful girl wielding a nodachi, who wants to spar with the newest member of the jupin-naga, claiming to be a member herself introducing herself as Sharina. They spar a matched combat until the rest of the party emerges from their misadventures.



The fighter, being the only one with family returns home for yet another bout of can you survive the trial of dinner in a family who follows the ways of Kord - where even mundane household living is a test of your battle readiness. At dinner the fighter listens to reports from his family of unexplained deaths in the village, that apparently happen most at night and are similar to animal attacks, but he decides it's too late to do much about it before the big day at the academy.



The rogue having bribed an old drunk to buy him booze drags his new found liquors home to get snookered.



Eventually everyone regroups the next morning to head to the academy, and their captain obvious insight checks tell them as the new kids they are equated to Genichi (freshmen) or fresh meat.

But before they reach the academy they are provoked into a street battle with a bunch of thugs from a non-military but rival academy who are defending their turf. A through use of the overkill button happens and the combat ends quickly without a hitch.

The party enters the grounds of the academy from the nearby training facility and see a mass of students of different ranks all gathered waiting for classes to begin, and they immediately can tell that all of them are looking at them with the potential to strike but can't discern which actually will. When someones insight check gives enough warning that the Amnefu group (a club of casters 'ninjutsu' users, warlocks, wizards etc.) will be the one's leading off an attack - allowing most to act in the surprise round.



The bout is a rough battle for the party with the Amnefu all being ranged of some sort, and seemingly already in better positions on the field, either upstairs firing from windows or spaced far enough away on the grounds to negate most of the melee combatants. Opening with a cold based staff weapon and ability that knocks prone or immobilizes, and following it up with flaming spheres damaging all who are unable to move away quickly enough. This combat outpaces the party with all of them falling to unconsciousness, awaking to the leader of the Amenfu group berating his club for taking action as they are followers and seekers of knowledge, and though it is good they wanted to gain knowledge of this new club's power, it is not through combat that this knowledge should be gained. Thus as a punishment Amenfu awards the part with a cold based staff weapon of the wizard of the group that lead the attack.



The party manages to make it to their next class avoiding another combat, at which point their fearless club leader Crusio shows up late pissing off the instructor, which another conversation along the lines of

Instructor - "You must be on time to class Crusio, I'm tired of you coming in late like this."



Crusio - "Stow it in your pipe, I'm here aren't I? That should be good enough."



Instructor - "You listen to me you brat, I don't care who you work for or what special privileges they might give you, as long as you are a student here you will follow my instruction. Understood?"



Crusio - "Pft ... Whatever teach, it isn't like you don't work for them too."



Again trying to allude to the fact that there is more going on with this school and Crusio that anyone is willing to let on at this point.



Everyone stares blankly at the instructor until the next class when in the hallway they are met with another club of challengers from another club this time specializing in Taijutsu (Martial powers, fighters, warlords etc.) This challenge is delivered formally and is to be conducted in the training facility after the academy ends session for the day. The party of course accepts and then heads on to the next class - which then endure with the same enthusiasm as the last.

They run into Lissera in the hallways who offers to help them understand the academy and explains that combats on academy grounds are overlooked so long as it doesn't result in student death. She tells them of the main clubs each of which have a tournament ranking in the school with the highest ranked club being the student council for the next year, decided by a tournament held midterm. Also each club typical reflects only one of the major ninja arts Ninjutsu(arcane), Taijutsu(martial), or Genjutsu(divine) though some clubs are mixed and work effectively - she gives the names and the ranks of the current groups and their general outlooks which helps the party better know how to deal with each group. She heads off claiming to have to get to class or such and tells them good luck with their next class.

The party isn't allowed into the next class room being called unworthy to enter the temple (shrine to bahamut and kord). Paladins and Clerics block the path into the shrine/classroom, saying to enter they must prove their worth. The party of course accepts and surprisingly has little trouble defeating the encounter, gaining a magical lifedrinking longsword as a reward, and entry into the classroom.

The last class ends and we take a vote to end the seemingly endless/pointless other than xp awards, battle after battle for the session for sake of advancing the main plot. We fast forward to the group outside the training facility next to the academy where the bout with the Taijutsu group was suppose to take place, and they discover inside that the entire club was slain by the slashing blade of a nodachi and bite marks resembling those on the girl in the fire cave. the party chooses to take the horned helm they find on the ground, and leave everything else as it was for the Ombu (Military Police/assassin squad) to investigate.

Later that night the group gets together back at the rogue's place discovering the ombu outside the first floor which they later sneak in to find the owner had been slain and the blood that leaked through the floor of the second floor was from the severed head thrust into the ceiling of the first floor.

The party chooses to go investigate the killings that night and discover a body of a woman in the street her throat missing and see a glimpse of a silver Chinese dragon move off over the top of a nearby house. No way to resolve the current dilemma they each return to the rogue's place to find it had been cleaned up presumably by the ombu, and there is a note upstairs from Crusio saying that he purchased the downstairs and basement for the Jupin-naga as base for training and his Sharina to stay where the rogue had been upstairs. The party finding it all a little weird or suspicious but still go along with the general idea of 'yah free place.' Get together for a little drinking of the rogue's booze, and the paladin is dragged off for a walk by Sharina, who run into Crusio and Lissera at the river side with Crusio halfway paying attention to Lissera and halfway distant, with Lissera clearly enjoying what attention he was managing to give her.

But as soon as Crusio notices Sharina and the Paladin his face goes somber and all of his attention focuses on the two of them, Lisseras face going from happy to instantly forelorn turns away and slowly starts to walk off the riverside to the bridge and over looks Crusio. Sharina leads the Paladin immediately away back to the group, who had discovered a nodachi upstairs and decidedly with it pulsing and making vibrating sounds on the upstairs floor, mage hand it downstairs and unsheathe the sword, at which point they see the blade with what looks like a moving dragon on it, and the shifting of faces in the reflection of the blade.

Sharina immediately starts to drag the paladin at a run to the rogue's place where the blade had started spinning in a violent motion cutting up the place. She calls the nodachi by name Kyonaga, and orders it to return to it's sheath. The sword obeys and she binds it with the rope of the sheath, and proceeds to see who wants to play a drinking game with her, trying to pretend as though the whole thing just didn't happen.

the next day the fighter over hears an ombu talking to his father about a family friends farm being plagued by some sort of creatures that kill the livestock. The party having the whole weekend chooses to investigate the strange occurrence.

The party meets and old man on the road pulling a cart full of his possessions that tells them he had to abandon his home, because he lost all of his livestock due to some creatures killing them. He tells them if they see his wife along the way to point her his direction, the party head over to his place to check out what was going on, and never find his wife along the way. They first check the first floor then work their way down into the basement where there is a chest and some straw bails. The rogue pops the chest failing to disarm it and a couple party members get struck by needles, the popping of the chest triggers dire rats to come out from beneath the hay bails that hid their holes. and a swarm of rats and a shadow bat assault the party. Apparently all trained to do so. The swarm combat was more difficult that intended as the party had few area of affects outside of 2 dragonborn and a wizard to contend with the swarms damage mitigation.

Nevertheless the combat is victorious, and they party discovers a parchment with a compass on it, a bottle of oil, bottle of vinegar, and a piece of chalk the color of the parchment. The party discovers the two different bottles reveal different messages on the parchment one tells them of a lure being set for the dragon, the other shows the map to a fang cave and unfortunately they used the chalk on the map before they could see the ultimate destination. (the chalk having the property to write and cover the reactive agents.)

The fang cave is near to the family farm of the fighter so they venture there first, discovering many of his cattle on the back part of his land near the fang cave on the map have gone missing, the obvious way to go was towards the fang cave. The party heads that way discovering a cliff face with multiple cave openings, but only one they discover with ratlike foot prints leading into it. They proceed in and discover a staircase and two rooms, the first they check has the hides of the missing cattle piled up, the other many little rat nests. The party lingers too long in the rat nest room and provokes multiple swarms from the holes beneath the nests and an elite were-rat.

The new wizard helps the fighter hold the staircase leading down into the nest room and those that opened the door to exit the upstairs room were met by another were-rat and swarms. The combat was tough and eventually I got to kidnap a party member and leave a trail to the real destination. All according to the map's instructions of luring 'the dragon,' who or what dragon the party didn't know but they discovered they were the bait.

The party fractures as to what to do, exhausted of abilities but with a member kidnapped some stay behind to rest and other trod forward risking it to not loose track of their lost party member.

The group that remained was rewarded with potions and a bit of loots.

The group that left to track was rewarded with a little extra xp, and first crack at that night's puzzle, two pillars one the open mouthed head of a human the other of a wolf, and a dial on an altar to the phases of the moon. Vials of blood and vials of water in a semi-hidden storage room. The party discovers they have to put blood in the wolf mouth and have the dial on the full moon, for it to stay closed, and water in the human mouth and the dial on the new moon for it to stay closed, and trigger the altar to move revealing a hidden stair case.

The elite were-rat that got away fights with the trackers until the resting group catches up and lures all but one party member into a sealed chamber with a pressure switch under the rats foot, when he dies his foot raises and the room seals and fills with water (the hint being all of the other rooms had drainage gates but this one didn't). the wizard figures out that if he uses cold spells I allow him to freeze the water so that they will not drown in the room. (also this forced or allowed those that didn't rest, to rest before the big solo battle).

The party escapes the frozen room and find a cistern at the end of the celled hallway, and figure that the only way the bubbling bottomless cistern was maintaining the current water level is if there is an opening of equal pressure on the other side. One member dives in and swims the tube into secret room where awaits a werewolf solo who suprised at seeing him says "you're not the dragon?!" The party member sees the paladin tied to a statue in the corner and convinces everyone to swim through the cistern and rescue their friend.

I allow each member as they emerge to start their intiative with the full round of actions rather than having suprise round on each of them as they emerge unprepared. The room has a 2 square wide 4 square deep drop between the center 6x6square cistern staired entrance and the 2 square wide outside ledge. The party sucessfully use this to their advantage knocking the solo into the hole multiple times, discovering push and bullrush has advantages in the new system.

Upon his defeat the magical but unused staff on his back merges with the solo's spine tearing a white dragon out from within his body. The dragon says you were too weak you are unfit to wield me. The party as a wtf moment and some what beaten up from the solo battle is in no shape to fight a white dragon, when a green chinese dragon bursts through the ceiling from above and kills the white dragon. The green chinese dragon turns out to be Crusio using some form of ninjutsu or family lineage ability to transform into a chinese dragon. He appologizes for being late and says he had other missions he had to take care of, but not to worry he's been watching out for the party the whole time.

He says he has to get going there are things he has yet to do, and asks if the party can make it back to the village alright. They of course say yes and head off to the village after reporting back to the family friend that they vanquished the critters and get a reward.

The party return to the village only days after they left, but now the village is on fire and much of it's defenses in rubble. They find Lissera underneath a pile of rubble who in shock utters before falling into unconsciousness "Death comes on Crimson wings, the cursed awakens ... forgive me father."

At the center of the village above the Hokage's office, the Hokage riding a griffon is locked in battle with a Red Chinese Dragon. Around them is a semi-opaque triangular prism held in place by a female harpy, a crone hag, and a boy githerazi.
Hokage - "Do not give into fear and anger. Stop the senseless destruction. You must have faith in the strength of the village and it's people to protect her."

Dragon - "Look around you old man, the village is crumbling, it's people are dying. What strength is that, they cannot even protect theirselves. They cannot protect her, only I can protect her."

Hokage - "You must not give into the darkness my boy, believe in the power of the light to triumph."
As the crimson dragon death spirals the hokage and his mount into the earth.
Dragon - "She is the light! ... Ceractors you've proved your point, now return her to me!"

This ends 2nd to 3rd level, with the party breaking for out of session side quests to further them from 3rd to 4th.