The Slumbering Tsar Saga, Session 1

Welcome to the Edge of Oblivion

The party arrived at the Camp, just in time to notice a maddened hill giant rampaging through town, with the PCs right in the way. After dispatching him, Thorgrim used his knowledge of the environment to track down his last movements, along with Arliden's brief mental connection to get a sense of the giant's fate. It turns out that the giant was the leader of a mercenary band of ogres, offering to escort representatives from Bard's Gate to a fissure in the Chaos Rift, only to be ambushed by gargoyles. The giant said some things in his native tongue, a language none of the party knew but could remember a few choice words for later reference.

Following the trail, the party set sight on the Chaos Rift, a deep series of trenches seemingly slashed into the land itself. Although their attempt at sneaking into the gargoyle aerie failed, the party's fast reflexes got the drop on several of the winged monsters. After wiping out 8 of their number without suffering any casualties, the gargoyles offered a truce. They not only will stop fighting and give their only prisoner (an elf from Bard's Gate named Holcolm), they would give one piece of hidden treasure to the party if they can find their lost leader. The party accepted, venturing deeper into the cave, only to find the gargoyle leader's fate at the hands of a fungal slime colony. After readily dispatching it and a close call with an infestation of said fungus, the party returned. Alexis conjured up a wild tale of heroism to the assembled gargoyles, explaining how after valiantly dying in battle, the gargoyle passed on leadership of the tribe was granted to him. Amazingly the gargoyles fell for it, and from then on became loyal minions. The party decided to use their knowledge of the Rift first, deciding to call upon them for battle only when the time is right.

Arliden offered to take Holcolm back to the relative safety of the Camp, while the rest of the party followed up on rumors of a monster named Old Death who managed to do in a few of the gargoyles. They also heard word of two stony pillars where green lightning pulses from on a plateau in the middle of the canyon, but first came the monster.

The party hardly entered Old Death's canyon before coming into view of legions of petrified adventures, and was promptly attacked by an abyssal basilisk. Using spell-conjured mud and fog to blind it they kept the fiend's foul gaze at bay while they slowly worn down its defenses. Afterwards the group came into contact with a giant spider corpse made to look like a living being in the middle of a giant web and killed its two ettercap architects. But at this point the day was growing late, and so the party decided to retreat and make camp.