# The Lochmar Clan Storyhour (aka Men in Skirts)



## Ao the Overkitty (May 2, 2004)

Okay.  This is going to be the home of the Lochmar campaign’s story hour.  Orchid Blossom will be taking over this story hour after I finish with the recapping.  We are currently in the second year of the campaign so, once I finish recapping year one, she can start on year two.

First off, the notes we have from the first year are in the form of a journal of my character.  He has got above average intelligence and used to be a bard, but is a singer and bagpipes player.  So, his writing is not exactly the best.  Also, they were written as something no one but he would see, so it does assume knowledge of the world around him.  I’ll try to sum up world knowledge in this post and along the way.  Since I’m not the DM for this campaign, I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer all questions, but I’ll try, should they arise.

Another note is that spelling in this world is relative.  The DM has said several times that no one spells things everything the same way.  I’ll try to stick to spelling things the same way, but if things have very similar names, they’re probably the same thing.  Examples are Steven and Stephen, Kantu and Cantu.

For the rest of this post, I’ll be giving out some background information on the setting.  This is just a bunch of information we’ve picked up as we went along that doesn’t necessarily show up in the journal entries.

The campaign world itself is rather large.  We play in Kingdom of Arleans, which is a member of the Seven Kingdoms of Kant.  From my understanding, the Seven Kingdoms is a confederation that works together.  They each have their own king, but sovereignty over all seven kingdoms falls to one king each year.  So each king has a six-year break between his terms as overall ruler.  As king of the seven kingdoms, his edicts hold more power than they do during the other years of his reign.  As such, when a king makes an edict while being the ruler of the seven kingdoms, he cannot retract that edict until he is once more the ruler of the seven kingdoms.

Arleans itself is a Scottish modeled society.  Kilts, bagpipes, claymores and the Catholic Church.  There are forty-eight noble clans that help the king rule the area.  Our characters (with two exceptions at the moment) are all members of the Lochmar clan, the 3rd noble family of Arleans.  All clans in the area have an affinity to at least one of the six elements (water, earth, air, fire, life, & death).  Clans are split into dual colors and tricolors.  The dual colors are the older and generally more traditional clans.  These clans all have a single elemental affinity.  For example, the Lochmar clan is aligned with the element of water.  The tricolors are the younger clans and are aligned with two elements.  The youngest eight clans of the tricolors each have three elemental affinities.  The dual color clans are generally distrustful of the tricolors, though I’m not sure why.

These elemental affinities make clan members more proficient at using effects connected to the element and make them more likely to withstand effects liked to that element.  Also, those that become Clan Initiates, which is a homebrewed prestige class, gain such an affinity to their element that they achieve a Resist Element spell of their opposed element as a spell-like ability once per day.

The main church of the world is Catholic in basis.  All churchgoers worship the same god, though most have a specific saint they consider their own.  Priests each choose a saint to call upon for spells, but there is nothing stopping them from calling upon another instead.  There are no alignment restrictions on Saints, though worshippers of Saint Eshua generally become Lawful Evil through their career.  The philosophy is that they do what others of the church cannot, damning themselves to save others.  The only nonaligned Saint is Saint Nexus, who is generally just referred to as Saint N to not draw his attention.  Saint Nexus’s followers rule the Isle of Logan, which is determined to conquer the world, it seems.

For the most part, only humans and some half-breeds belong to the church while other races have their pagan religions.  There are no pagan churches in Arleans, since they only occur in places where there are large pockets of races other than human.

Sixty years ago, members of Clan Darsguard massacred our clan when they were accused of being Darkling worshippers.  The survivors were kicked up of the lands and had their property divided between their two neighbors, Caledon Vale and Darsguard.  Thirteen or fourteen years ago, the clan members were allowed to return by the king of Arleans as and edict as the leader of all seven kingdoms.  Before he could change his mind, his term as leader of the seven kingdoms ended.  This left the Lochmars six full years to reclaim their lands and honor.  That group of Lochmars came very close to succeeding, but failed in the final battle.  Over one year ago, the king once again allowed Lochmars to return.  That is when the latest group started arriving.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 2, 2004)

Here is a listing of the PCs throughout the game.  Some of them you won’t see for a while here.  Unless specified, assume human.

The current group consists of Seth, Fiona, Padraic, Simon, Leetah, Tellsford, Dalys, & Patrick.

Seth Lochmar (Bard/Paladin/Lochmar Clan Initiate of Saint Steven of the Moors and Laird of the Lochmar Clan): This is my character and the one that is writing the journal.  He is originally from Bennet, which is a Byzantine modeled society situated north of the Kingdoms, past the mountain range.  He had lived his life as a commoner until he came to Arleans.  He was in the family mortuary business as a gravedigger, dirge singer, and estate lawyer.  His connection to the Lochmar family came from a never-do-well grandfather who kept dumping his debts on his children.  After Seth died at the hands of a skeleton and was subsequently raised, he decided to find out if all Lochmars were as bad as his grandfather.  He is pretty much just a figurehead in the position of laird, since he has no real clue how to effectively lead.  He looks to Fiona and Padraic for courses of action in social settings.

Fiona Lochmar (Aristocrat/Sorcerer/Lochmar Clan Initiate of Saint Raphael and Heir of the Lochmar Clan): Orchid’s character.  She is originally from Kantu, which is a fifteenth century Venetian modeled society set in a tropical jungle area.  She started out a spoiled little rich girl who was mostly ignored by her father.  Since no one would ever tell her what is going on, she got good at sneaking around and listening in on conversations.  When she got her letter, she had a fight with her father and left for Arleans.  She has come into her own power since then and is generally considered to be the most powerful of the Lochmars and of the group in general, since her silent and still spell feats make it very hard to take her out of a fight.  Since her homeland has been invaded by the Loganites, she has brought refugees into the manor to give them shelter and jobs.

Arvin Lochmar (Rogue/Nomad Psionicist of Saint Raphael and former Exchequer):  He is originally from Speculation.  He was a bit of a loner, hated the tricolors clans, and believed in the ends justifying any means necessary (preferably ones that left perceived enemies in pools of their own blood).  His family was the horse breeders of our clan and it was his goal to get the stables back to being filled and in working order.

Brother Padraic Lochmar (Aristocrat/Monk/Lochmar Clan Initiate and House Priest):  Formerly of Kantu, he originally was a cleric as well, but opted out those levels when we made the switch to 3.5.  He was raised in a monastery alongside his friend Doyle.  He acts as the family’s spiritual leader and as a good advisor to the laird.  He has unbelievable luck and skill when it comes to pulling off crazy stunts no one thought would be possible.

Analeetah Lochmar (Aristocrat/Rogue/Lochmar Clan Initiate and Exchequer):  Formerly of Kantu, she arrived for a brief time in the beginning, and then returned home for a while.  She holds the title of Baroness there and is a member of the thieves’ guild in Speculation, which runs the affairs of the state.  She has a good head for numbers and engineering and has a very forceful personality.

Lamard Lochmar (Aristocrat/Rogue PC turned NPC):  A man blessed with the gift of the gab.  His abilities in the social arts rivals much more experienced nobles.  He died defending Fiona in battle and now lives in the Ironwood forest on our property as a Centaur.

Tellsford Lochmar (Ranger/Rogue/Lochmar Clan Initiate of Saint Steven of the Moors and Huntlord):  An exceptional archer and tracker.  A loner like Arvin was, he is devoted to the destruction of the clan Caledon Vale and evil outsiders.  He wasn’t originally a religious man, but his death and subsequent raising by Saint Steven seems to have changed that.

Simon Highwatch (Figher/Barbarian/Exotic Weapons Master/Urban Ranger/Highwatch Clan Initiate): Though a member of the Highwatch clan, his skills seem to be more geared towards being a sheriff than being a judge.  He has a reputation of being a ladies man that he can’t seem to shake and likes to party.  He seems to feel one of the best things about hanging around with the Lochmars is he gets to beat up naughty creatures.  It has also led him to meeting Ursula Lochmar, whom he appears smitten with.

Dalys Lochmar (Bard/Lochmar Clan Initiate):  A Half-Elf formerly from Eshan, a nation of mercenaries and capital of the long ago destroyed Elven nation.  

Father Patrick Suffolk (Priest of the Cathedral of Arleans):  A member of the Suffolk clan, which is an offshoot of the Lochmar clan.  They’re a very poor clan who has a bitter feud with their neighbors, another very poor Lochmar offshoot named Norfolk.  The Suffolk clan aligns themselves with Caledon Vale, which makes his involvement with our clan odd.  However, priests are supposed to give up any obligations to their family when they join the church, so that may have something to do with this.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 2, 2004)

Here is a listing of important NPCs.  Some of them you won’t see for a while here.

Galibur Lochmar:  Likes the ladies and living the good life.  His methods for helping the family related to his being a lot more locally savvy than us and procuring items for us.  It was a while before we learned more about him and his past.  He did take a shine to Miriam and Fiona.

Miriam Lochmar:  A soft-spoken young woman who arrived with her dowry.  A very nice person who wanted to help in the ways she could.  She spends most of her time with Galibur.

Lumin (Cohort of Seth Lochmar):  A Lantern Archon which we found guarding an altar in a chapel on our property.  He has since become a priest of law and good and has traveled with Seth.  He spent several months dead, but is now back among the existing.  He spends most of his time right at Seth’s side, or in the little temple meditating.

Sir Constantine (Cohort of Seth Lochmar):  Constantine wasn’t exactly the wisest Paladin of the cathedral of Arleans had.  This fact led to Padraic having to teach him a lesson in reason by pulling him off his horse when he wouldn’t listen.  Constantine then followed Padraic back to the Lochmar estate, feeling he needed better clarity and atonement for his actions.  Since then, he came under the leadership of Seth and gone on a couple of adventures with the Lochmars.  He has strayed from the path of Paladin, becoming a Knight Protector of the Greater Realm as well as Captain of the Lochmar’s guard.  He’s still not the wisest of people, but has Brother Doyle to consult with in matters of action and defense.

Ursula Lochmar (Cohort of Simon Highwatch): A nice young priest who arrived with her friend Bethany later in the season.  She took a liking to Simon early on, but gets upset whenever he takes stupid risks.  More than a few comments and jokes around the table have centered on whether or not Ursula would approve of Simon’s actions.  She is not a priest of the church.

Brother Doyle (Cohort of Padraic Lochmar): A childhood friend of Padraic, he became a Priest and Rogue instead of a Monk.  He is a security specialist and the chief advisor in such matters to the Lochmars.  He made the trip to Arleans with several monks from their monastery after Padraic offered them a chunk of our land to set up a monastery in exchange for their help.  He is a very serious man who could really do to take a day off once in a while.

Peak (Cohort of Leetah Lochmar):  Leetah returned to Kantu followed by one of the remaining merchant vessels of her Grandfathers fleet and a large amount of household goods for the manor.  A disgruntled customer of her Grandfather, the half-ogre Peak, decided to hold the ship as payment.  In the end, the Lochmars offered to properly magic up his adamantine axe.  He got used to being around while the work was done, and seems happy to stay with Leetah.

William Monroe (Follower of Seth Lochmar):  While just a 1st level warrior at the time, this man has the prestige of being the only follower to not only fight off the affects of the meenlocks, but take down three of them as well when they tried to kidnap Ursula and Bethany.  He was the first and only of Seth’s followers to actually get a name.

Kelwyn McLar:  Tenant of the Lochmar clan.  He is a decent Ranger who helped out the last group of Lochmars as well as this new group.  He is unofficially in charge of letting us know if there are problems on the lands since he traverses them regularly.  His dog, Harvey, stays in the gatehouse, for the safety of everyone.

Taggert McLar:  The groundskeeper of the Lochmar estate.  A very OLD man, his exact age is unknown.  What we do know is he was old when the last group of Lochmars were around.  Still, he is a very kind man and devoted to the Lochmars.  The poor guy tried to do everything for the new arrivals and got distressed whenever Seth did menial labor like grave digging. When the gypsies came by, they stole all of his chickens (which they seem to do every year).  He was a little upset when the Lochmars couldn’t get any chickens to replace them, so got him bunnies instead.

Robert Cornaro:  A childhood friend of Fiona and business associate of her father.  Robert had just completed negotiations with her father to marry her, but she left before he could propose.  Fiona continues to be unaware of this and considers him only a friend.  His arrival in Arleans caused quite a stir because he was stabbed and thrown overboard from the ship he was traveling on and washed ashore with a fever.  He arrived just after Maker, and told Fiona that Maker has “the old people’s disease.”  What we modern people would call Alzheimer’s.

Maker:  An employee of Fiona’s father, he showed up to try and coerce Fiona into returning home.  A flustered old man who really did not seem to like Robert’s presence.  Fiona was suspicious of the offers from her father that he brought, and even more suspicious of that fact that he is to stay and help her should she refuse to return to Kantu.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 2, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 5th*

Journal of Seth Lochmar – Volume One
Former Estate Lawyer & Undertaker of Bennet
Paladin of the Church of Saint Michael
Laird of the Lochmar Clan
May 18th 1002 -​
July 5th, 1002

Due to my self-imposed solitary confinement in the Manor house’s library, I’ve decided to start writing down my experiences to date.  This will give me something to do during the times I get bored of reading the law texts.  I may be a lawyer at heart, but they bore even me at times.  And I’ve got to do something with that time.  I have yet to cool down from our recent encounter in the woods.  That idiot Arvin has cost us something big.  He really needs to learn to keep his mouth shut from time to time.  I do admit, at least to myself, that this situation is partially my fault.  I should have been more firm with him and outright denied him to go hunt, but we have not been getting along too well as of late and I didn’t think this was one of those battles I should choose to fight.  It turns out I was very wrong in that assessment.  As expected, the druid was more then pissed.  Hopefully she will not see us worth destroying.

I suppose should start at the beginning of the journey that brought me here.  I’ve been here two months already and really should write down what has transpired before I forget about it.

The first wave, as I shall refer to it, since a lot of people seem to view the return of our family as an army in need of destruction, came by boat.  I met my cousins Fiona and Arvin upon the boat.  Arvin comes from Speculation and Fiona from Kantu.

Fiona started out as a flighty little rich girl, though she has been growing up lately.  She has certainly gained a knack for talking her way out of a situation and making a person see our point of view.  Also, her ability in the arcane arts is growing.  With a little more growing up to do, she’ll fit right into her role as Heir.  Yes, it is quite odd in these parts to have a female heir, but I fear none of the others here could step into the shoes of lairdship if I were to die.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure even I really qualify as a good laird, but I’m trying.  Of course, I seem to focus a bit too much on making everyone happy, but if you have unhappy family members, they won’t work as hard as needed to strive past the wretches that were our predecessors.  Besides, I see a lot of my sister Sara in her: smart, resourceful, quick-witted and quite the charmer.  She at least has our cousin Galibur wrapped around her little finger.  Though I feel it is wrong to think in these terms, she will be a very good bargaining chip down the line for political alliances with one of the other houses.

Arvin…. Now there’s a troubled chap.  We have been at odds since nearly the beginning.  A bit ruthless and stubborn, we seem to have very different viewpoints on how we should go about restoring the family name.  We disagree on almost everything.  He’s bound determined to get the vineyards running again, but we can’t seem to get it through his mind that our lands are blighted/cursed/corrupted/unholy.  Anything that grows on our lands becomes twisted.  Certainly nothing good enough to eat, let alone sell.  We’re going to have to rely on Taggert and our tenants for food this winter.  Maybe by next spring we will have garnered some support in the church to get someone to hallow our ground.  But anyway, back to Arvin.  His part of the family ran the stables and bred the horses.  At times I think that they should have spent less time focused on their horses’ breeding program and a bit more time on their own, but that’s not a nice thing to think.  Arvin is a skilled exchequer, though he needs to learn a bit more of the laws before he goes about making credit edicts.  His last attempt bordered on seriously illegal.  It was a good thing he had enough sense to check it over with me beforehand.  He is, at least in his mind, fanatically loyal to the laird.  I am sure that his arguments with me are for what he believes to be the family’s greater good.  He has risked his life to save us, though I must add mostly me, several times in our work to retake the lands from its inhabitants.  I fear I have been a much greater drain on our resources then a help to the family.  Sometimes I feel they’d all be better off if I just left in the night; mostly after arguments with Arvin.  There is also this new power that he has come into lately, much to my displeasure.  I know that such abilities are not of one’s own choosing, but they are still an abomination.  It would probably be best for the family if he was to leave, but I cannot find it in my heart to kick him out.  He has saved my life far too many times, though he has also bungled up several negotiations.  I fear that this new power of his, besides being further fuel in our disputes, will also lead to our family getting in lots of trouble at a later date.

Oh my... I do tend to ramble on, don’t I?  Anyway, we met on the boat, but we also met another of our cousins.  A being, for lack of a better word, named Cohen.  He looked human enough, but was very much otherworldly.  He mentioned having been in the Shadows, which I took to mean the Shadow plane.  He knew lots of what was going on and seemed to have a few allies.  He said he was a member of the last attempt to restore the family name.  He warned us of the ensuing attack upon our vessel by a Loganite vessel (a Death Knight of Saint N with Trolls and an undead army at his beck and call).  He then went off to gain help from a nearby Blue & White.  We barely weathered the time it took for the Blue & White to arrive.  I was truly pitiful in combat back then and, though even then I was always properly equipped for dealing with undead, had the worst time dealing with them.  I think that those vials of holy water and the sureness of Arvin’s blade are what kept Fiona and myself alive.  We were transferred over to the Blue & White and had our wounds tended to by priests.  The captain turned out to be a friend of Cohen and we arrived in Arleans without further adieu on the eighth day of May.

Upon arrival, new to the area, we were immediately flagged down by a loud, gabby woman named Toby McArlen.  Warning bells went off in our heads at this, but avoiding her would probably been a bad idea.  She brought us to see a “friend”, Minister Nicene.  Oh, how I wish I could have detected evil back then.  That probably wouldn’t have saved us from the trouble to come, but probably would have protected our clothes.  I do so miss my pants.  These kilts are far too drafty.  If it weren’t such a social faux pas, I’d commission a tailor to make me some pants again.  Of course, that would require money, of which we have little, or would take us further in debt for a luxury at best.

Anyway, we walked right into Minister Nicene’s trap like good little pigeons.  He assured us that our best chance of survival was to get out of town and to the estate as quick as possible (neglecting to tell us we needed to register as nobles to be recognized as such).  He secured us a nice, “trustworthy” ferryman to take us down the river.  We took a small amount of time reequip some of the supplies lost on the ship voyage.  The ship captain of the original ship we sailed upon gave us each a reward for defending his ship and not hiding in the hold with the rest of the passengers.  I used my reward to replenish my holy water and curing potion that got used up.  It went better then most occurrences since I’ve been here, since we actually broke even.

The ferryman was very good at his guise.  He turned out to be the oddest thing I’ve ever seen… a Weretoad.  He glued us to our seats and tried to shuffle us off to meet Saint Stephen.  I remember that fight well, for it was the first in my life I actually shined.  I don’t think he anticipated how quickly Fiona would cut herself out of her travel dress and defend herself.  Arvin as well was quick to free himself.  I, however, took the time to trip this fellow with my whip before freeing myself.  Neither Arvin nor Fiona had thought to arm themselves with Silver, so their attacks were ineffective.  The beast however, was doing some serious damage to Arvin.  I got in a lucky hit with my first attack, downing the creature.

We struck ground on Caledon land.  Fiona was smart enough to have brought a change of clothes, but I was stuck in my skivvies and Arvin in even less.  Fiona was forced to negotiate our way past a group of guards under the employ of the Sheriff of Caledon Vale.  They had us in a bad situation and Arvin & myself were forced to remain in the shadows for sake of decency.

We finally made it to the Lochmar lands that night, meeting the old groundskeeper Taggert; a nice guy and very loyal to the family.  He lent me one of his old kilts until I was able to procure one of my own (which was a long time coming).


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 3, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 7th*

July 7th, 1002

	The following day, the second wave arrived.  Miriam, Wallace, Padraic, Galibur, & Leetah all arrived in Miriam’s coach.  Apparently they had a much less eventful trip then us.

	Miriam is a soft-spoken woman who left home with her dowry, in hopes of using it to help the family.  She really wanted to help and offered her money for many occasions, but didn’t understand my urging to keep her money for a rainy day.  It certainly came in handy when that rain came.  While she had given a small amount of it to Galibur for his several trips into the city for supplies, there was just enough of it left to cure Arvin of his affliction.  I wanted to make her the family’s Exchequer, but she declined the position.  Arvin seems to at least have the mind for figures.

	Wallace is a strong man.  A bit morally challenged and a follower, not a leader.  Though, he seems competent enough to be our Huntslord.  Still he too was quite loyal to the family.  All this loyalty must have come out of pride of some better stock then what runs in my veins.  He’s quick to anger and is not afraid of voicing his opinion of people.  Completely lacking in social skills, I’m not sure which of them does more damage to our appearance, himself or Arvin.  At least Arvin seems to be trying to sound diplomatic.  Still, Wallace is quite good with a sword and brought some much needed silver weapons with him.  They came in quite handy in the fight to retake the manor.

	Padraic hails from a monastery in Kantu.  Originally a simple monk, he has taken up the ways of the cloth in a minor capacity, following Saint Michael’s guidance.  He has made the little monastery his refuge and has formed a strong alliance with the guardian of the altar there.  As a member of Saint Michael’s monastic order, he is chiefly concerned with the security of our grounds and manor.  Before he followed his calling into further service with our lord, we were seriously lacking in healers.  Fiona and I could manifest a few weak healing spells, but we had to rely on potions and time for the most part.  Padraic and I see eye to eye on most things.  We both saw that the church was the first place we needed to garner support in; especially due to our lack of healing power.  But they were also the ones hurt most by Troy’s betrayal in the last attempt.  We have also later found out that the last group uncovered some devil worshippers in the cathedral, which lends more to their calling us devil worshippers, trying to cover up their past mistakes.  I believe that Padraic will make a good clan chaplain and will play a key role in winning over the other sects of the church.

	Now Galibur is an interesting combination.  At first, he reminded me too much of my grandfather; the useless money squandering gambling drunk.  Never much help around the manor, he came with the sole intent of living it up as a noble, I believe.  But, while we were in jail, he risked his neck to help us get out.  Also, he made several trips to the city, a place very dangerous to members of our family, to retrieve supplies, even though we had not asked.  Of course, he also spent these trips living it up in the city, spending a fair amount of cash.  That is, until he discovered that the family had credit.  I fear to think of just how much in debt the family is because of him.  His heart is in the right place, though.  If only I can teach him a bit of temperance.

	I did not know Leetah long or well, for she left not long after she arrived, returning to Speculation on her own accord.  Another one from Speculation, she had a blatant disregard for the law and would fight to the last man against the Sheriff when he caught us on a technicality.  She had no social graces and took an immediate liking to an evil little troll named Olva.  She also did very little to help, always wandering off to do her own thing.  Thankfully, when she left, she agreed to bring letters from Fiona and Padraic back to their families and friends.  I would have wished to send a letter to my sister and cousin as well, but my home was too far out of her way to do so.  Also, she thankfully took that little witch with her.  Too bad she couldn’t take the kobolds too.

	Within a few days of their arrival, the Sheriff’s men rode onto our grounds and attempted to arrest us for trespassing.  Since we did not have our papers, thanks to our “friend” Minister Nicene, whom we now knew to belong to the House Risenson, the sheriff had a legal point for doing so.  Of course, they refused to listen to us and set their hunting dogs loose.  This made for an interesting fight, since we had been moving bunk beds at the time.  With only Leetah and myself still conscious by the time a second contingent of guards approached, I was able to get enough out of the guards to know that they were technically in the right and surrendered.  Which was a good thing cause Leetah had started taking shots at the guards.  Luckily, she was just a very bad shot.

	We were forced to carry the unconscious members of our family back to Caledon Vale and to the jails.  Luckily, they did not search Taggert’s for Miriam & Galibur.  While we were imprisoned, Galibur was able to procure writs for myself, Fiona and Leetah.  When trial came around upon the eighteenth day of May, we got to meet Judge Highwatch. He is a no nonsense kind of guy, but is fair and willing to cut someone a break when he sees someone is trying to screw someone else in his court.  Seemed to see it as fitting justice that the Sheriff had to pay for incarcerating us.  The Sheriff’s grudge against us roots from the last contingent of Lochmars killing his evil father.  Course, he doesn’t know what his dad had done, so he blames our clan for his death.  At least he has a better reason then most of the people around here that hate us.  From what I’ve read and heard of the last group, they were a less then savory group that skipped merrily along the path of evil.  Hell.. The former family chaplain, Father Troy, not only animated the dead for fun, but he became one of Saint N’s general.  And it’s any wonder they failed.

	We spent some time getting our butts handed to us by Kobolds and other things over the next few weeks.  Seems we’d go out investigating, I’d get taken down quickly, then I’d take several days to recuperate.  It really was the complete opposite of fun.  Things sped up a little when my healing powers improved a little.  I was able to manifest a light healing spell, which was the best the family had at the time.  It was about this time that Minister Nicene’s latest little trick arrived.  An arrogant man by the name of Dancin arrived with his little witch of a fortuneteller in tow.  Seems he was destined to lead the Lochmar clan as laird.  Well... That’s what this creature named Olva told him, at least.  Seems Minister Nicene had met the guy and took him under his wing; got him his writs and instructed him on the ways of the city.  Also hired a few guards for him.  Guess he figured this guy would clean my clock good.  Now, when this guy challenged me to battle for the lairdship, I was a little worried.  Here is a guy with a claymore and nice armor, while I walk around with a carpenter’s hammer and a whip and no armor at all.  It didn’t help that my track record in combats to this date was to drop in the first few seconds and start bleeding, mostly without scoring a hit.  Well... I tried to choose the weapon of choice to be song.  That is, who could play the bagpipes the loudest.  He wasn’t happy about it, but it seemed to be working.  Of course, Olva had a trick up her sleeve.  She was armed with thunderstones and was ready to throw them when Dancin went.  But things degenerated before that point.  After we had gotten the Salisbars, some of our tenants, to judge the contest, Dancin got confused and attacked me.  Things degenerated into a free for all, with Dancin on me.  Knowing I couldn’t take on a guy that was well equipped and seemed to know how to use them, I quickly charmed him.  First time I had tried that spell, and was quite glad to see it worked.   Of course, just after I charmed him, a thunderstone, tossed by Olva went off, which deafened both Dancin & Arvin.    She also lobbed an alchemist’s fire, which hit and started me on fire.  I almost burned to death, but I’m told my new friend Dancin was the one to put the flames out.  Olva finally gave up and Fiona got Dancin to formally state that he no longer wanted to take the lairdship from me (before the charm ended, of course).  This was helped by a little prodding of Olva to change her vision of Dancin’s future.  I’m told it took a bit of work to restrain him from killing her.

	Once revived, I didn’t want a good fighter to go to waste.  Dancin was sorely in need of a moral compass.  I think he may have actually been more ruthless then Wallace or Arvin.  I convinced him to stay, for glory and honor and the good of the family.  He seemed to buy into it, so I guess it was a good argument.  I had to make sure from now on to include him and Arvin in conversations by writing stuff out for them.  He appreciated this, but Arvin was resentful.  Arvin became even more moody after this, taking to heart even more when I disagreed with him.

	Olva, on the other hand, also was thinking of staying, much to the displeasure of everyone but Dancin & Leetah.  She was spineless and “saw in the stars” exactly what you wanted to hear.  I guess Leetah liked that in her.  Regardless, she and Leetah didn’t stick around too long after that.  She never stated a reason, but Leetah decided to just go home to Speculation.  Can’t truly say she was missed.

	With Dancin around, we were able to make our first true foray into the Manor house.  Inside, we found a bunch of melted people which I recognized as the weakest of the Devils, named Lemures.  The rest of the group had no clue what they were, so I told them they needed silver to harm them.  Wallace proceeded to hand out his large collection of silver daggers at this point, being the only other person besides me so properly equipped.  This first venture went well, but we were still wounded and decided to retreat for the time being.

	It was on this same outing, I believe, that we found the little monastery.  This is a place that Padraic has spent a lot of time at, come of late.  Commanded to guard the altar by Father Troy was a lantern archon.  Not sure why he actually used a being of good, besides perhaps feeling most other people would think twice about harming a celestial.  The freaking ball of light, as we have come to call it, zapped us a few times before we were able to hammer out an agreement with it; we don’t touch the altar, it doesn’t zap us.  Padraic has since established a good relationship with this pulsing ball, and it has been showing promise as a minor priest, which is something we truly needed.  One of these days, perhaps we’ll be able to coax it out of the sanctuary, but for now, we run to it for healing whenever necessary.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 4, 2004)

*Journal of Seth Lochmar - July 9th*

July 9th, 1002

	While Fiona, Arvin, and myself were out meeting the rest of our tenants on a truly abysmal day, a woman fell from the sky while lightening cracked.  Rushing over to her, we were attacked by some creature that was gnawing on her head, but seemed to be going right through it.  We were able to fight the creature off, but not until it did the same thing to me, clouding my brain and making it much harder for me to think.  Checking out the woman, we were attacked by some kind of scarab.  When slain, a rip in the air formed where it died.  The rip was closing too quickly for us to safely venture in and still get back out.  Seeing that the woman was a tricolor, Arvin was dead set against bringing her home.  He seemed to want to just leave her there in the ditch.  Luckily, Fiona agreed with me that it was not an option and we carried here back to the estate, Arvin sulking all the way.

	When we got back, we discussed what to do with her.  Wallace, Leetah, & Padraic were off elsewhere at this point, so the discussion fell between Galibur, Miriam, Dancin, and the three of us that brought the woman in.  Olva was also around, but she knew her opinion wasn’t required.  I should point out at this point that Galibur was in a frightful mess.  He had been horribly beaten while trying to acquire a scroll of remove deafness for Arvin & Dancin.  Of course, as I have mentioned, the church isn’t too happy with our family, and when they finally connected him to our clan, they beat him severely and were going to kill him.  But, luckily Galibur is quite the charmer and wooed one of the female attackers to smuggle him back to our estate, with promises of marriage.  When she arrived with a severely beaten Galibur on horseback, Arvin pulled him off his horse forcibly, smashing him to the ground and knocking him unconscious.  I was seriously tempted to deck Arvin at this point for his deplorable behavior, but it would not have looked good in front of our “guest.”  While Fiona and I were trying to politely explain to this woman that Galibur was in no state for any type of courtship at the moment, Leetah was much less diplomatic.  She threw some coins at the woman, told her to take it and leave, cause Galibur would not be marrying below his station.  The woman rode off with tears streaming down her face.  Unfortunately, we did not have the transport or the time available to go after her.

	Anyway, in the arguments about what to do with this tricolor, Arvin & Dancin were all for tying her up, throwing her in the basement, and beating what she knew out of her.  Galibur, who was still recuperating in the bedroom after his ordeal in the city, asked how cute she was and offered to give her a private interrogation session.  Miriam wanted to nurture this poor woman back to health, doing whatever was needed to do so.  We were able to come to a compromise of sorts.  We removed the woman’s belongings and placed all of it in a corner of the room, but she was left untied.  Arvin did not consider this to be a good choice and stormed off outside to sulk.

	After reviving her with some minor healing spells, we were able to get out of her that she had been on the Astral Plane fighting something called a Githyanki and she needed to reach her family, the Bluestones, immediately.  She was quite dismayed that we did not have a priest capable of Sending a message to her estate.  She wanted to ride off for her estate that night, but she was in no condition to do so.  We were also not in much shape to go out that night either.  But, before we could discuss any further what to do, Arvin return to Taggert’s house, with something in tow.

	Looking behind him, we saw what could only be the Githyanki Heather Bluestone spoke of fighting, claymore raised to chop Arvin in half.  With our warning shouts, Arvin dodged the blow and a great battle ensued.  Everyone present except Olva fought valiantly and, by the end of it, Galibur had retreated back to the bedroom, Miriam was hiding in the kitchen, Olva cowered in the corner, Arvin & Heather laid unconscious and bleeding, Fiona was staggering but still upright and Dancin laid dead, along side the Githyanki.  It had a very nice, magical mithral suit of armor which Arvin claimed, a Claymore of superb craftsmanship with Githyanki writing upon it which I took, several blue stones (soul stones of the house Bluestone), and three moderate cure potions, which were used to heal up those that could be healed.

	Picking up the house and burying Dancin, Wallace returned from where he had wandered off to.  He also felt we should help this woman, but worried about getting the horse back if we just let her go on her own.  So, I decided that I, at least would travel with her to as far as she needed to go.  Arvin seemed very upset that I would choose to help a tricolor, whom he was always told were not to be trusted.  He didn’t seem to have a rebuttal when I reminded him of our own reputation as devil worshippers and that we had to give trust in order to earn trust.  Fiona, Wallace, and Miriam also chose to go along, though Miriam knew I had another reason for her going along.  I had been trying to get the family to go to the city for supplies for a while now.  We were dreadfully low on healing potions, antitoxins, paper, and several other minor necessities.  As to be expected, Arvin was always against going into town, stating that we should be securing our lands first and there was nothing in the city that could help us.  Still, he decided to go along with us.  His arguments were seriously tempting me to not do the one thing I really wanted to do in town, which was get him cured of his deafness.  This was the main reason why Miriam was going along, since she was in charge of her dowry money and had been a little bit ignored lately.  Of course, I knew the city was dangerous, and I’d have to make sure Miriam was safe.  She was, after all, the most like a proper lady between the three female family members that have shown up.

	Heading out in the morning with the horses and Miriam’s Wagon, Wallace, Fiona, Arvin, Miriam, Heather, and myself headed to town.  This was the first time it actually looked like our plans to head to town would work.  Every time previous that we had decided to head to town, something would crop up to distract us.  Actually, that was happening a lot whenever we’d make a decision in the beginning.  It’s like the lord or the devil did not like our decisions and decided to make us do something else.  Quite frustrating, to say the least.  But we made it to the city with only a minor incident with a hobgoblin horse thief.

	While we were prepared to go all the way to the Bluestone estate if necessary, Heather directed us to the Bluestone townhouses.  We returned her to her family, along with her belongings and the soul stones found on the Githyanki.  Preventing Arvin from making several social blunders was quite a chore.  I mean, you don’t just bluntly say, “Minister Nicene tried to kill us,” in front of people you just met; especially since we have no admissible proof of his actions, just coincidental circumstances.  The Bluestones seemed nice enough, though.  When we later returned to the Lochmar estate, they sent us a thank you gift for the safe return of Heather and the blue stones in the form of a magical light mace capable of hitting creatures either incorporeal or on the ethereal plane.  Our chats with them were nice, if a bit awkward due to our lack of common topics.

	They informed us of where the Lochmar townhouses were and provided us with some mercenaries for our protection, so we headed there without further delay.  We found the place in renovation.  Someone had hired an interior decorator in our name and credit.  This, of course, pleased us to no end.  More credit debts to deal with.  At this time, I am not sure who hired him.  My guess is that it was either one of Minister Nicene’s lackeys dressed in our colors or Dancin at the Minister’s insistence.  We let it be for now.  Only Arvin & Dancin to this date had had proper nobles’ clothes, which would have aided the sheriff’s case, if he had seen to bringing it up at the trial.  So, we retrieved nobles’ clothes for each of us at a local tailor which Galibur had commissioned for us.  Fiona was the only one who could afford to pay for her clothes straight out, so most of it went on credit.  Since it is illegal, at least in the church’s view, to give credit we could only ascertain that there was indeed interest, but not how much.  I must also point out that shortly after we left the townhouses that Arvin wandered off.  I should have been more worried about him, but decided if he wanted to wander off, he could take care of himself.

We knew someone had been watching us throughout our time in the city, because we kept seeing this black cat around.  I figured it was someone’s familiar, which was being used to Scry through, but that was never confirmed.  Someone spooked a knight’s horse into attacking us, which Fiona had to put to sleep for a little while, pleasing the knight wearing a tripple blue coloroed kilt to no end.  While staying the night at the townhouse, Miriam went upstairs to sleep while the rest of us sat in the kitchen a little bit before going to bed.  Of course, that cat we had seen earlier was back, and this time he brought friends.  I cannot stress enough how humiliating it is to be beaten up by a bunch of kittens.  I mean, how sad is it that a group of four humans can be taken down and almost killed by a pack of ordinary housecats.  Even if it were those fiendish crows that had taken up residence in our manor house, at least then it would have saved us some face, since there was something special about them.  But these were just ordinary kittens, egged on by some spell caster into doing his bidding, I guess.  I’ll say one thing about this guy; he certainly knows how to demoralize us.  Even being beaten up by kobolds is less degrading.

They barged through the back door in the kitchen, taking us by surprise and left me staggering after their first attack.  I had used my minor healing spells earlier when dealing with the horse, so I was lucky and managed to get my light healing spell off, but was unable to move away from them before they could attack me again, leaving me staggering once again.  Seeing I’d be of no use in this fight, I managed to get out into the hall.  Luckily, the little pests didn’t pursue me.

Wallace faired a little better against them.  He managed to take several out before they dropped him to the ground bleeding.  Fiona did much better, getting atop a table and letting loose several magic missiles.  Arvin took down several with his crossbow.  After the battle was done, Fiona had to use what was left of her minor healing magic to bring Wallace back to consciousness.  We had hoped to get some sleep that night, so that we could regain our paltry amount of healing, but the caterwauling outside all night kept everyone but Arvin (who’s deafness was actually a benefit for once) up all night.  Lucky for us, the downpour the following morning scattered the cats for a while.  Bleary-eyed and staggering, we started to make our way out of town.  Some how, we managed to find a small church with a priest who did not recognize our family colors.  Donating pretty much all of our gold, we were able to get healed up enough to travel and get Arvin’s hearing fixed.  I don’t think we ever heard a thank you; just grumbling about misuse of family funds.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 5, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 11th*

July 11th, 1002

Resting for a few days after our journey, the thank you gift we received from the Bluestones made us feel a little better about helping them, but we decided that we seriously needed to improve our fighting power.  Arvin took this time to draft up an edict with regards to credit to the Lochmar clan.  That piece of paper was so full of illegalities and shady sections that he decided to forgo the thought entirely.  It was also at this time that I heard my calling from the lord, bringing me into a greater servitude of Saint Michael as one of his Paladins.  Padraic returned from where he had been, also having had a religious experience.  He only told me to begin with, but we soon told the rest of the family that, while he had been meditating in the little monastery, the freaking ball of light had heard his prayers for a healer and, while taking some of Padraic’s experiences, manifested the powers of a priest of our lord.  He shared with us that, by donating experiences and memories to the lantern archon, we could help it become a better priest.  Padraic also came into the lord’s service at this time, as one of Saint Michael’s priestly monks.

It seemed like a flood of divine power when a Fletcher McLar and his bodyguard brother from the Basilica of Arleans showed up looking to help.  We decided that this day would be a good day to go check out the winery and its state.  Of course, as with all things on our lands, it was overrun with Kobolds.  Disgusting little creatures, but apparently loyal to the former laird, Andreas.  It seems he thought it would be a good idea to uproot a village of Kobolds, bring them back to the family lands, and force them to work as grounds security.  So now we have hundreds of kobolds living on our property, considering it their home, and loyal to the former laird, who has supposedly locked himself in the tower.  It’d be nice if we could just get them all to leave and set up camp elsewhere, but I am at a loss as to how to do so.  So, we are stuck with negotiating with them.  The McLars were very surprised that we knocked on the Winery doors when we arrived there.  Hearing stories of those that took part in the last attempt, it seems they expected us to kick down the doors, swords drawn and spells ready.  I think I should point out that this Winery is fairly new; certainly constructed a few years after those of the last attempt arrived.  After some discussion with the door guards and Padraic sitting on a windowsill and waving at the kobolds inside, we were told that if we left our armor and weapons outside, we could speak with the subchiefs.  We felt we still had enough firepower to make a break for it if things grew ugly, so we went in.  The subchiefs were wary of us, but used magic, with my consent, of course, to see that I am an honorable man.  We discussed a change in hierarchy.  They seemed to hate Father Troy as much as anyone else, so it just shows that these creatures aren’t all bad.  Negotiations degraded though, since most of them were in favor of just killing us all now and saving themselves the trouble.  It also didn’t help that we were less then happy when we found out they had drunk a lot of the wine stored there and replaced it with water (thus giving us several gallons of severely watered down wine). We made a hasty exit that day, but apparently we made some allies, since a small band of them broke off from the Winery lot and came to us, looking for food, shelter and orders.  We put them in the cottages down by the pond (formerly known as the Duck Pond).

While we were dealing with finding housing for the kobolds, we received a visit from Father Clancy Dunkirk.  He is a member of a slightly rogue sect of the church who are devoted to Saint Stephen of the Moors.  His sect has elevated Saint Stephen above all the other Saints, possibly over even the lord himself.  Since his arrival, it was obvious he was sent to spy on us.  Well… perhaps spy is too harsh a word, but he was certainly doing a little reconnaissance.  Nice enough guy, but talks about Saint Stephen too much.  He agreed to venture into the Manor house with us, to kill Devils.  Wearing the splint mail I had picked up a while back was still an odd feeling.  It certainly hampered my mobility and movement.  Wielding the Githyanki Greatsword, however, just felt right.

While venturing through the house, we came upon a very evil looking hall with fiendish crows, bloody hands sticking out of the walls holding torches, and an eerie silence.  While putting the crows to sleep, a frighteningly large creature with pale, bloody skin and barbed beard, a glaive in one hand and a bottle of Lochmar Gold in the other burst out of one of the rooms (which turned out to be the bar), yelling for the crows to shut up, and then shutting the door again.  We were about to beat a hasty retreat when the door opened again.  Apparently he had noticed us after all.  Reacting quickly, Father Clancy cast an aid upon myself and Padraic made my Greatsword magic.  I charged into the room, right up to him just as he was summoning a bunch of Lemures to come and join his party.  He just laughed at my actions, not even considering me a threat.  He did, however, when I scored a really good hit on him with my sword.  Thankfully, he had filled the room with Lemures, so he could not back up and attack me with his wicked looking glaive.  He seemed too shocked as my next blow dropped him to the ground, killing him.  At this point, however, I was not doing very well.  While the creature was unable to hit me, the Lemures surrounding me had given me several wounds.   I was about to call for a retreat when I noticed that Padraic had tumbled his way to the back of the room and was now trapped there by the Lemures.  I cut myself a path back out and Arvin held the door while Father Clancy healed me.  We started rotating who was in the doorway and who would get healed until we had a workable number of Lemures.  Though we were seriously hurt by the end of it, we were sure we had just dispatched the leader of these Lemures.

Father Clancy seemed to consider taking part in that fight to be a great honor.  He stayed for services on Saturday, and then left on Sunday.  He took his memories of the events with him, along with a rocking chair Arvin had repaired and gifted to him.

Now that we had struck such a blow to the denizens of our house, we were more determined then ever to finally clean it out.  There were several Lemures left, plus the nest of giant bees that had inhabited one of the wings.  There was also the Ice Mephit that had taken up residence in the Cold room.  During our first encounter, he was nice until he found out all we had had was Silver daggers.  That is when he demanded our stuff, claiming we couldn’t hurt him.  That fight had not gone well, but the little bastard was absent now that we had a magic weapon and spells.

Having seen the library and met the librarian (who disturbs me greatly), we ventured down one of the halls we had not been down before.  We found a room full of the crows which, upon seeing us, started summoning something.  Though we tried to, we were unable to stop them from summoning a HUGE, fiendish octopus.  Seeing this thing, we knew we couldn’t defeat it and fled out of the house.  Still a much more honorable retreat then it would have been running from those kittens.

We returned a few hours later to find it gone.  We ventured further down the corridor, past a set of doors.  In our infinite wisdom, we decided to close the doors behind us, so that we couldn’t be attacked from behind.  When we got to the Entrance room of the Manor (we had started our quest from the kitchen) we found it full of Lemures.  Quickly falling back to the hallway, we set up a front line and bottlenecked them.  They were still able to do some serious damage to us.  It was then that we heard giggling behind us and the locking of the door.  That damned Ice Mephit had struck again.  We were trapped now; seriously wounded and almost out of spells.  Only luck saved us that day.

	It was during the cleaning of the bees that I first noticed the change in Arvin.  He affected me somehow, boosting my abilities.  I thought that was just something Padraic did at first, but then he did some amazing feats; almost superhuman.  I also later found out that Fiona and Padraic were similarly affected, though it was not their doing.  I worry that if he can affect us in such ways, what is truly stopping him from killing us with a thought or shriveling our minds and making us mindless drones.  He has been loyal to us so far, but how long will he go with simply arguing with me, when he knows he has the power to change my mind for me?


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 6, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 13th*

July 13th, 1002

	Ah. I’m almost done recapping, it seems.  All that is left is Arvin’s blunder.  For some reason, the others all thought this would be a good time to go meet with the druid in the forest.  I would have been much happier cleaning up the Manor, but felt I should let Arvin win for once.  If I had known what Arvin’s true desire in going into the woods was, I would have stopped the whole expedition.  While traveling to find the Druid Sunny, we came across a deer.  Arvin immediately whipped out his bow and took a shot, barely wounding the poor creature.  The arrow merely broke the skin, but stuck in the poor creature, nonetheless.  He bounded off after it, following it and sticking another arrow in its side.  His shots weren’t truly damaging the animal, just causing it pain.  Of course, after bounding off after it again, he met up with the Druid, who was calming the poor animal and started trying to talk his way out of the situation.  As I have stated before, Arvin has all of the social skills of a small, retarded newt.  By the time we caught up, he had already more than incriminated himself.  He had dug a hole for himself, and the family by extension, so big that none could get us out of it.  We just left, hoping the Druid does not consider us to be at war now.  She met up with us again before we made it out of the forest, asking us why we invaded her land.  I do not know how she caught up with us so quickly, but she is obviously very powerful to do so.  It is because of this that I have locked myself in this library, trying to glean as much knowledge out of the laws of this land as possible.  The area we really need to get into, the archives, is locked, and the damn Mephit has the key.  In there lies all of the maps, territorial borders and other pertinent things the last group did.  Or, at least, we think that’s what is in there.  No clue until we try.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 7, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 14th*

July 14th, 1002

	I realized I haven’t said a thing about our tenants.  Now, I haven’t gotten to know them all well yet.  There are still a few I haven’t met at all.

	Kelwyn was the first I met.  He’s a Hunter and a decent tracker.  He supposedly helped that last group a lot, so he’s been around a while.  He’s got a wife and daughter, and a few hunting dogs.  One of his dogs, which became unsafe, now lives in our gatehouse.  He figures that as long as it’s in there, it can’t hurt anyone.

	The Salisbars are a big family.  They’ve been making sure things run smoothly in the family’s absence.  The oldest, Carlan, married one of Dame Edith’s daughters and was bequeathed some of the Pollards’ land by the last group as a wedding present.  They’re farmers, like most of the tenants and another of the sons is to marry another of Dame Edith’s daughters.  I sense a theme here.

	The Pollards were a family that lived on the lands when the last group was here.  They were supporters of the Dars, our neighbors to the East, and weren’t happy the Lochmars returned.  They made some kind of dark pact, so now their lands around their homestead are blighted and they haunt the place as Wights.  Gonna have to put them to rest soon.

	Dame Edith is an old widow with lots of children.  Her oldest still living with her, Lila, is very beautiful and slightly older then marrying age.  The fact that the less pretty and younger sister was getting married before Lila perplexed Fiona, until she learned that Lila was engaged.  Fiona suspected that Lila was engaged to Andreas, and it was later confirmed.  Considering how old she would have been while he was around… the cradle robber.

	I haven’t officially met Varney, but Arvin says he makes a damn good moonshine by fermenting potatoes.  He doesn’t like authority figures.

	I also haven’t met Argyle, but apparently he raises great hunting dogs.  The Sheriff has told him we’re going to tax the hell out of him, so he’s planning on leaving in August.  Luckily, Arvin came up with a very good taxation plan.  It should convince him to stay.

	Right near Caledon land is the Jings.  Yet another family I haven’t met, but supposedly they were very rude to Fiona and Arvin.  The Jings kept telling them that they lived on Caledon land, not Lochmar land, and to get off it.  Yet another fun thing we need to get into the archives to deal with.

	A woman named Megan runs her household.  She has lots of men hanging around and was very suspicious of us when we visited.  She’s an herbalist and openly lied to me when I asked her if she’d been having any problems (She said no).  The Spurmans called her a witchy woman.

	The Spurmans are a family of Half-Orcs who used to live in the Free village.  They’re sheepherders.  For some reason, no creatures seem to bother them.

	Finally, there is Chelsea & Henrietta.  They have the land closest to the Dars (and thus the worst for farming).  They are VERY wary of men.  Chelsea was the one who did all of the talking.  There is a little girl who lives there named Linnea (I believe she is Henrietta’s daughter).  She’s a cute little thing.  When we went by on our way to the city, she waved back at us.  Should not send any men to check on them without the accompaniment of a woman.  If possible, should only send women to see them.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 8, 2004)

*Lochmar Portrait*

I was just reminded after the game tonight that I should post the portrait of the party.  We had this commisioned by Joe Minns as a gift for our DM.







From left to right, the characters are: Dalys, Simon, Padraic, Fiona, Seth, Leetah, & Tellsford.

We also have a one of just Padraic, Fiona, & Seth as well.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 8, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 16th*

July 16th, 1002

	Having finished the last of the law books, I returned to Taggert’s today.  While we had decided to go do some cleaning in the manor house for today, since it was raining yet again, we had a rider approach.  A frail, emaciated boy rode up to the manor house looking for Father Clancy, who had apparently visited during my sojourn.  When told that Father Clancy had been gone for two days, he looked rather upset.  We offered him our help.  He didn’t seem too happy with that we were the best he could do, but took it.

	This man, Bean Moorhouse, led us past Caledon Vale into some Moors, which were the lands held by Moorhouse.  Apparently the Clan’s Laird, as well as most of their more experienced members were all off fighting somewhere when the trickery of their undertaker was found.  Apparently, he had not been properly burying the deceased, and had even animated some.  While Maxi Moorhouse is a very powerful Illusionist, the undead were more then she felt she could handle (I guess she didn’t stock any attack spells).  She is a rather beautiful woman, if a bit severe in appearance.  She had set up an illusion masking the undead guarding the morgue.

	Booth Moorhouse made no attempt to hide his hatred of our family.  Bean informed us that he was an instigator and have done so with the last group of Lochmars.  Bean, Maxi, & Booth did a lot of arguing amongst each other, before letting us do what Bean had asked us to.

	The front guards, a group of Zombies in Scale mail, were not too tough.  Arvin took most of the damage, but not enough that my light healing spell couldn’t fix.  I also took a few nicks myself, but nothing major.

	Inside, a mummy guarded the first room.  With Padraic having our only magic weapon, we could not seem to harm the thing.  It took a lot of quick thinking on our part, along with all of our holy water to take it out.  It saw that only Fiona was doing substantial damage, so singled her out.  We managed to take it down enough that a single arrow shot by Bean could slay it when it followed Fiona outside.

	Further inside, we found a lot of unburied bodies.  One of them was very unhappy about not having been put to rest yet.  We quickly took care of that.  A secret passage was pretty easy to spot.  But this is where things turned ugly.  Splint Mail doesn’t allow for a whole lot of nimbleness, not that I have much to begin with.  So, when the pit trap opened up beneath me, I was unable to stop my fall.  Forty feet and two spikes later, I should have been dead.  The only reason I had been left staggering was I had not gotten around to asking Arvin to not use his powers upon me.  In fact, I have yet to inform anyone that I know what is going on with him at all.  The temporary health he granted me saved me from death.  While I’m still not too sure of him and his abilities, I will have to muse on them further.  After stripping myself and using my last minor healing, I replaced my armor.  The others hoisted me up, where we took a breather.

	I helped bury the dead while the others went to go talk to the Undertaker.  It sounds like it was a good idea I did not go in.  He would have made it far too hard for me to deal with him.  It turns out he had fallen in love with the Baker’s daughter and neglected the other corpses.  He animated her and maintained her appearance, so that they could… Ugh.  I can’t write anymore on it.  It is far too disgusting.  Needless to say he was a very sick man.

	I was in no condition to be in combat again, so I handed Wallace my Claymore and decided to stand in the bodies’ room, at the front end of the secret hallway.  The others entered the room, waking her.  She got up and ran past them, but as she mowed down Fiona, Wallace got two very good hits on her with my sword.  When she got down to me, it only took a light smack with my Carpenter’s hammer to take her down.  It would have been very bad if she had managed to make it outside and terrify the Baker; very bad indeed.

	When Laird Whallical Moorhouse returned, Bean gave us stellar praise, while Booth’s damning was somewhat lacking.  Not happy about it, Whallical told us he was in our debt.  With that, we headed back to Taggerts.  Hopefully we’ll have the manor house cleaned up soon so that we can move out of his house.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 9, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 17th*

July 17th, 1002

	Well… yesterday’s triumph has yet again been turned into a defeat.  I’m really starting to hate when this happens.  Arvin, Fiona, and Wallace woke up sick this morning.  It was worse than Arvin suspected when I diagnosed it as Mummy Rot.  It seems the only reason why I was spared was because of my recent connection with our lord.  Against my better judgment, Wallace decided he was going to head home to seek the help of his father, a great healer by his own accounts.  I am sad to see him go and fear he will not make it more then a day, but he would not see reason and it is not right to force someone to stay against their will.

	Now I fear we must venture into the City once again.  That seems to be the only place that will likely to have anyone capable of removing this disease.  That means a trip to the Basilica.  Hopefully we can search out Father McLar and gain his help in this.  Of course, for this, we need cash; something we are lacking.  Sure, we have lots of sellable items, but we need someone who will actually buy from us; at a reasonable price, that is.  That will be the tricky part.

	There are also our unknown enemies within the city.  Last time, we barely made it out of town alive.  I do not hold out much hope that we will have the same amount of luck this time.
------------
	Well... things went much better then expected.  It seems that, if we do not stay overnight in the city, it does not give our enemies enough time to deal with us.  But anyway, here is what transpired.

	Before leaving for the city, two more family members arrived, riding one horse together. Nio-lu Lochmar is a brash sort.  He is prone to bold statements and seems stubborn.  I wouldn’t say he’s quick to sling insults, but he certainly stands his ground and openly challenges those that may subtly challenge us.  Though he claims to be a hearty warrior, his skills in combat left a bit to be desired, but perhaps he just had a bad day.  In his first confrontation, he fled like a little girl (admittedly, there was magic at work).

	The second one was Lamard Lochmar.  Now this one was gifted with a smooth tongue.  He has a way with words I have not seen before.  I swear, he could convince Galibur to become a monk if he tried.  He has already smoothed over many confrontations in just this one day.  I feel that he will swiftly become the spokesman for our family.

	On our way to the city, while on a narrow part of the Dars we ran into a trio of Darsguards.  While I did not get all of their names, Rob Darsguard was a pompous ass who spoke down to us and generally just taunted us.  Louis Darsgaurd, a mage of some sort, went along with Rob’s lead.  The final one of the group was a woman who’s name I did not catch, but she wanted Rob to just leave us alone.  It took a bit of time, since we were trying to avoid a fight.  When Fiona got down off the wagon to deal with them, I tried to charm Louis, to no effect.  Louis used some sort of scare tactic, but thanks to the courage our lord has placed in me that I now exude, only Lou, as he has said we can call him, bawked and ran away.  Fiona was much more successful in charming Rob and with well chosen words got him to just move past us.  That encounter could have gone much worse; Saint Michael must have been watching over us.

	Within the city, we first made for the marketplace, to raise some capital.  Haggling and bargaining, we were able to sell most of our stockpiled items.  We also found out that Andreas used to buy cases of Potions of Maximized Extended Bull’s Strength.  Gah!  To think of what we could do with the money it would take for such a case.

	Moving on to the Basilica, we met a snooty priest and found out that Father McLar leads the chapel of St. Andrews.  They also told us to piss off when we saught to have Arvin & Fiona cured of their diseases.  Apparently the Lochmars are supposed to be paying a tithe of 1,000 a week to the Basilica.  Not likely!  We made our way to the chapel of Saint Andrews, where we saw Fletcher again and now met his father, Father McLar.  A nice guy, if a bit lacking in the judgment department when it comes to the Lochmar family.  He was more then willing to help us, but did not have the healing power himself.  He did have a solution for our dilemma, though.  Apparently the shrine of Saint Raphael had become inhabited by a toad daemon.  He was trapped there by some binding spells, but was still considered a nasty foe.  With Saint Raphael being the Patron Saint of Healing, the fount within his shrine had the power to heal diseases.  Of course, this is also where the toad daemon was trapped.  We agreed to take down the daemon for the use of the fountain’s water.

	The chamber was locked up and the keys were entrusted to two individuals.  Lamard used his glib speech to talk them into allowing us entry.  Father Craig was a nice enough, if inexperienced priest.  Still, he was better off then Father Torrent.  Father Torrent had fallen under the influence of the daemon and tried to talk us out of our errand.  Of course, when he saw we would not do this, he set up a trap to spring upon us within the shrine, outside the door.  His betrayal came as no shock to us and we made quick work of him.  Seeing that a dead priest on our hands would not help us any, I tried to knock the man out, while the rest aimed to kill.  After he was knocked out and tied up, we proceeded to enter the chamber of the fount and daemon.  We made short work of the daemon, though Lamard did free him from his prison before we killed it.

	The fount itself did much more then cure diseases, though.  We were quite happy to find that it also heartened our bodies and strengthened our breath.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 10, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 21th*

July 21th
	I’ve been spending some time with the Lantern Archon lately.  We’ve mostly been talking about faith and religion.  Most of what I’ve learned on that subject has come from it.  On the subject of religion, though we have truly only had that one experience with the Church of Arleans, I was left with a loss of faith in the clergy.  Father McLar and his son Fletcher are the only ones so far that truly seem to care more about helping people then improving their lifestyle and position in the church.  One that devotes themself to god should do so to help all who live in his glory, not do it for power.  Yes, I know that I’m hopelessly idealistic, but I have to believe in a better world.  The clergy from home never seemed to be this wrapped up in heirarchy and politics to help those in need.  Sure, we’ve got a bad reputation, but to just write someone off because of what their family has done in the past (which, while there is a lot of bad on Troy’s side, the part they’re angered about seems to be the exposure of devil worshippers in the church).  Even Father McLar seems a little skewed, since he seems to think that Troy wasn’t that bad a guy.  Perhaps at first he wasn’t, but anyone that follows Eshu crosses the line far too much to be considered a good person.

	Perhaps our relations will improve some, but so far I’ve found the Dunkirks to be a much more amiable and holy people then those at the Basilica.  As long as they still worship god above all, their heracy isn’t as much as others make it out to be.  Sure, they are raising an icon, but not above the worship of our lord.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 11, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - July 26th*

July 26th

	  We had a run in with a giant poisonous snake.  It took me a couple of days to recover from its venom.  From what the others have told me, we apparently have had more devils living in our manor house.  Padraic, Fiona, & Arvin took on a winged lady who beguiled Fiona.  She seems a bit shaken up from the experience.  The winged lady & her honey have been enslaving people from the free village, it seems.  From what Arvin has told me of her honey, I’m seriously afraid.

But anyway, it seems Padraic has done a fair amount of work repairing the damage done with the Druid Sunny.  She sent a messenger to get us.  She had an important mission for us, as she put it.  The Oracle of the White Pines, whatever that is, pretty much told her she shouldn’t do this one herself.  Apparently one of her dryad friends had some friends stolen (rose bushes) and ran off to find them.  Sunny needed us to return the dryad before sundown or she’d die.  Of course, being all city folk, none of us could track.  Sunny lead us to the edge of the forest, the border with Caledon Vale, while her messenger retrieved Kelwyn and our horses.

We found out that the Sheriff has an unofficial bounty on Lochmars; two hundred gold a piece.  Oh, how I want to catch him in that.  An ogre that seemed to be trying to take us alive ambushed us.  Could he possibly work with Honey?  Got a nice Greatsword off of him.

We ended up at the house of the Huntslord of Caledon Vale, though we didn’t know it. With all the plants around, I think he was either a druid or a ranger, though I can’t be sure which.  His little Goblinoid things affected the minds of everyone but Padraic and myself.  I’m not sure what they did, but my family members were acting very strangely.  While searching around, the Huntslord came down from upstairs, ready for battle.  He was very furry; a werewolf.  He had on some weird, horned hide armor and wielded a longspear.  Seeing Nio-lu near where Lorna the Dryad was being kept, he charged the unaware man, skewering him and nailing him to the wall.  He never even had a chance to look his killer in the eye.  The man’s pet, a wolverine, came at me while Padraic tumbled in to trade blows with this Marcus Caledon.  While I probably should have stayed and dealt with the wolverine, I figured it was a very bad idea to hit it, since those things get REALLY angry if attacked, I’m told.

I charged in to try and knock out Marcus, but he skewered me like a pig on a spit and everything went black.  The next thing I saw was Arvin was standing over me while Fiona was talking to Marcus.  Padraic used the last of his healing magic upon me, so that I would remain conscious when Arvin’s temporary healing wore off.  Padraic made his way out to the horses and collapsed back into unconsciousness.  Thankfully, he had thought to make sure he wouldn’t die from his wounds before hand.  Looking around, I could see Lamard was also dead, over where myself, Fiona, himself, and the wolverine had been.  Fiona later told me that Lamard sacrificed himself to protect her, stepping between the wolverine and herself.  He is a true gentleman.  I could tell that Arvin was twitching to take down this Huntslord, so we had to get him out of the house quick.  If he had attacked, we surely would have all died.  I’m not sure that was effectively holding him back.  Given a few more seconds, I’m sure he would have attacked Marcus anyway.

Fiona seemed to have Marcus well under her spell and was able to get Lorna and her friends back from him.  Lorna was to be used in a meal, though I do not know who was going to partake in the feast.  For some reason, I hope it would have just been the goblins, but I’m not sure.

With speed being the issue, I took Lorna and one of the horses and rode hard back to the dryad’s tree.  After she was back in her tree, I told Sunny of what had transpired in our journey.  The others arrived a while later, slowed down by four rose bushes, two corpses, and not enough horses for the lot of them.

It’s kind of weird to see Lamard as a Centaur now, but we are all very grateful that Sunny reincarnated him.  He has decided to stick around with Sunny for a while, to get used to his new body.  Perhaps she can teach him a little about the forest while he’s there.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 12, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - August 4th*

August 4th
	It has been a busy couple of days.  Geffen Sandhaven, the Laird of Clan Sandhaven, visited us.  Friendly man looking for strong allies.  Apparently history repeated itself in misfortune because, when he visited the clan for the first time with the last group, he was murdered by agents of Risenson, in an effort to frame the family.  At least the last Lochmars had the means to Raise the poor man (and I do mean raise and not animate).  No corpse, no crime.  Well.. this time, he was captured by the skulks that worked for “Honey.”  Accompanying us on our mission of rescue were two new arrivals for the family, along with Mary and Anne McSaven, redheaded twin tenants of the Sandhavens.

	Cyrus Lochmar, Lamard’s brother, are complete opposites.  Where Lamard is a lover and a diplomat, Cyrus is a fighter and a jerk.  He managed to insult the McSavens several times in the course our conversation with them.  He is, however, very good with his sword.  The skulks stood no chance against his cleaving sword.

	Conrad Lochmar is kind of Galibur with a work ethic.  He flees in fights a lot, but is good at finding the traps laid out by the former inhabitants.

	The search for Honey’s base was mostly not fraught with peril.  However, I did think we were dead, or worse, slaves when we ran into a pair of Mind Flayers while we were dealing with some Hobgoblins.  For some reason, those of us with the gift of the gab, namely Conrad and Arvin, went off to fight the Hobgoblins, leaving myself and Fiona to talk our way out of the situation with the Mind Flayers.  Lucky for all of us, Fiona was very persuasive.

The confrontation with Honey was tough going.  Between him, his hound, and one of his buyers, we had our hands full.  It seems that Geffen’s abduction was just a ploy to get me down there.  Near the beginning of the fight, I moved in to take out Honey.  Unfortunately, he was very wicked with his Urgosh.  A hit when I approached and another shortly after and I went down once again.  I woke up some time later to Cyrus pouring a bottle of healing wine down my throat.  The buzz I felt wasn’t just from its curative ability.  Stepping back, I quickly healed myself some more before rejoining the fight.  Honey was on his last legs, his pooch was dead, and the buyer was chasing Fiona around the lower half of the room.  After Honey got knocked out, I forced him to drink a vial of acid, taking him out for good.  The buyer soon followed.

As expected, we were all, with the exception of Fiona, seriously hurt.  Arvin, however, laid dead on the ground.  I know that is not right to say such things, but I cannot say that I feel much remorse at his passing.  The two of us never got along and a major confrontation between us would have happened eventually.

We found Geffen, along with several others that were taken as slaves, and limped our way back out.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 13, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - August 8th*

August 8th

	We have Duergar in the basement… Isn’t that… lovely?  Zaran, the Dwarven Blacksmith that we freed, along with twenty-four other Dwarves, invoked the covenant and I agreed to honor it.  Fiona has set the shaft to alert us if something tries to use it.  That way we’ll know if something is going down.

A momentous couple of days.  Myself, Fiona, Padraic, Galibur and Miriam have moved into the Manor house.  It’s still kinda messy, but at least we’re there should the alarm go off.  Still have to go down to Taggert’s to eat meals.

Oh yes… we met Andreas.  Not quite what I expected.  When we came up from downstairs, we found a bunch of men in clan colors striping the house of cold iron.  Andreas was ordering them around.  Very brief encounter.  He abdicated his position as Laird, saying that it was more trouble then it was worth, since everyone was always trying to kill him.  Turns out he’s been waging a war on the Nine Hells with his army.  At least we know where the soldiers are now.  We also managed to get the keys to the Archives from him before he left.  It is a mess and will take lots of time to sort through it.  Feels weird to be officially the laird, though.  Always kind of figured he’d return some day to try and take back his position.

After an accounting of our funds, we’ve got a lot more money then Arvin was telling us about.  The tinkerer that we rescued a while back came buy.  In gratitude for saving his life, he offered us a nice belt at cost.  Padraic wears it for now.  We also bought a lot of nifty stuff from him.  Of course, that belt cost us roughly half of our resources.  Let him roll in his grave, just so long as he doesn’t rise from it.

Had an interesting encounter with the Dars.  Apparently they’re a splinter from our clan.  And it seems they took out some assassins that were heading our way.  We are very greatful.  The three Knights we met on the road, Arthur, Waltor, & Holland were very nice and sent word back to Laird Carlisle that we sent our greetings and an offer of help.  His response was a somewhat cryptic one.  It seems to be a test of our desire to restore the alliance between our clans.  While it requires a bit of research, I am up to the challenge.  Hell… after spending ten days reading law books, reading history should be no trouble at all.

One other thing… The Anne and Mary McSaven returned with gifts from Geffen; a thank you for saving him.  Things he felt we needed, apart from soldiers, that is.  The Bracelets of Stabilization will come in handy.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 14, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - August 20th*

August 20th

	I guess I’ve forgotten about this for a while.  Things have been very busy these past few weeks.  We’ve had another new arrival for the family.  Tellsford is a woodland type.  I really haven’t spent much time with him.  He seems to be off in the woods somewhere whenever I’m around.  The only time I’ve truly been around him is during the beginning of our recent troubles with the kobolds.  They decided to shoot at him.

	It turns out some of the tribes questioned my leadership, due to one of them having seen Andreas when he was around briefly.  We made nice with Yellowfeather, giving him a nice little ceremony to let him know he was important and even got him a miniature courtier’s outfit for him to stand out.  We declared we were going to smite the unbelievers in a couple days.  With the help of Mary and Anne McSaven, we were able to do so.  It took a few forays into the Winery and ended with the kobolds having kidnapped a few people (including Kelwin’s daughters).  We had to fight a battle with their “champions.”  These consisted of Kelwin, who had to because his daughters were hostages, a Doppelganger disguised as Gramps Howard, and a man named Geoffrey Freeman, whom Fiona has since taken a liking to.  We pitted Cyrus up against Kelwin, insisting that he use my Greatsword.  I’m no fool, so did not tell him how to turn off its subduing ability.  It was a very close fight, but Cyrus just barely prevailed.  Padraic faced ‘Gramps’, with Gramps turning into another Padraic during the fight.  We were a little unsure which one won, but I was able to determine it was indeed our Padraic.  Finally, I faced this unknown, who we later learned was named Geoffrey Freeman. A skilled man in combat, but I seriously outmatched him.  Unfortunately, he disarmed my Greatsword and I was forced to actually draw his blood with my longspear.  The kobold leaders were very surprised that we actually won the contest, and as expected by the rest of our expedition, they attacked us.  I was currently under the effects of a charm spell, so didn’t see it coming.  However, when the little bolts of light smacked into me, it broke the charm.  We made sure the children were safe while we took out the remaining combatant kobolds.  Thankfully, most of the kobolds acknowledged our victory over their champions.  We should not have problems with them again.

	We have also had several encounters with other clans recently.  The first was Kelvin Larkhal.  A Magineer, as he calls himself, a man that builds with magic.  Apparently he used to be Ariel’s fiancé, before she broke it off to go gallivanting with the Prince.  A nice enough guy, and still seems to have a hang-up on Ariel.  He lent us the use of some of his cleaning staff to clean up the manor.

	The second of encounters during the kobold problems was Harold and Jay Risenson.  The kobolds were in a panic about members of Rising Son being on our lands.  Conrad made the mistake of telling them these men were our friends, which further freaked them.  Anyway, Harold is the new laird of Rising Son.  He wanted to make sure that what was in the past was in the past and said that his family was on a short leash these days.  He said they were the victims of several accusations and to go to him if they were suspected of something.  I don’t really trust them…


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 15, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - August 27th*

August 27th

	A mostly quiet week.  I’ve been researching in the study on the items dealing with the Dars.  The book “Words of Wisdom” is a religious text from somewhere other then Arleans.  That’s all I know on it for now.  Also, we’ve had an intruder.  A Half-Orc from the Scorpion gang was trying to steal a book named Blue in the archives.  Thomas stopped him.  These are the same people as the woman that came back with the beaten up Galibur a while back.  I can see why they wanted to steal Blue, though.  It’s good source material.

	Padraic, Cyrus, Conrad, Tellsford, and Galibur went into town on the twentieth.  It took Padraic and Galibur a week to return, and the others still haven’t.  Apparently they had a very eventful time.  Padraic returned with a friend in tow.  Sir Constantine, a paladin who feels he has sinned and needs to make penance, has decided to follow Padraic for a time to repay for his actions.  He hasn’t told me the whole story, but apparently it involved Padraic pulling him down off his horse.  As for what they’d done, they were dealing with a Plague village of some kind that was actually infested with Shadows.  Apparently Cyrus came very close to becoming a shadow himself.  Of course, that man is not all right in the head.  Well… he at least has a sick sense of humor.  He had a custom made wineskin for me that looks like a human skull.  It’s just not right.

	After waiting a week due to other obligations, Fiona and myself set out to the city in search of the others.  This is when we met Padriac and Sir Constantine on the road, past the Caarnbridge.  As we headed back to our lands, we were welcomed to meet with Laird Charion Caarnbridge, which we, of course, accepted.  Their house is quite impressive.  It is made out of the same material as the bridge itself; the bones of their ancestors.  We got along pretty well with them and found that I share a lot of views with Charion, though our view on some undead do differ…

We ended our meeting on a good note and I think we made good progress there.  When we got home, I took Padraic aside and showed him the Half-Orc intruder.  Oh, in addition to Padraic’s friend Sir Constantine, Fiona has made friends with the Half-Elf named Jeffrey Freeman.  He’s not exactly a pacifist, but he doesn’t believe in killing.  A very diversified man, he’s a deserter from the army, a former priest, and a bit of a delinquent in his youth.  Fiona thinks he’ll fit right in.

	We spent the next day trying out our new friends in battle.  We decided to clear out the rest of the vines in the vineyard.  Sir Constantine and Jeffrey performed adequately in the fight.  Now Fiona informs me that she has a visitor from home that I should meet.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 16, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - September 5*

September 5th

	Yet another eventful couple of days.  A servant of Arvin’s family arrived with a letter for Arvin and a foal for breeding.  The servant seemed most upset to learn that Arvin was deceased, especially since they had received a letter from him saying he was fine.  Apparently his mother is the worrisome type, to the point of making herself deathly sick.  This is not going to go over well when we get the news to them that Arvin is dead.  Father Clancy believes that a letter in Arvin’s own handwritting would suffice to quell her fears.

	There is too much around to fuel my paranoia.  We were attacked in the middle of the night by an Ogre Mage assassin.  He targetted Miriam, and it was only her bracelet from Sandhaven that kept her alive.  Tellsford also almost died in conflict with this creature.  It fled after Fiona started casting spells at it, and we could find no trace of it once it left the manor.  Since then, we’ve taken to sleeping in Galibur’s and Padraic’s rooms with alarm spells up to ward us.

	The next day, two carriages and two riders arrived on the land, and were attacked by Hill Giants illusioned to look like Trees.  The driver of one of the carriages got squished by a rock, leaving that carriage unmanned and the horses panicking.  The riders, Mary and Anne McSaven, went off to fight another of the Tree Giants while we worked on taking out another.  Conrad was most gallant, running up, jumping on the runaway carriage, stopping it, then taking down the Tree Giant that was about to kill Mary and Anne.  Of course, that Giant had a rather large hole in it, due to a disintegrate spell cast by one of the passangers in the second carriage.  The first Tree Giant almost took me out before I was able to fell it.  Luckily, Father Clancy had gotten out of the first carriage and moved up to heal me just before it could take another swing on me and drop me.

	Geffen Sandhaven and James Bearsden had come to discuss the issue of the frigates.  Big Jim, as he prefered to be called, is a very ostentatious man.  He wears ritzy clothing and a huge diamond ring.  His family, of course, owns the only diamond mine in the area.  He seems far to interested in his own wealth and power.  He also seems to be a man that holds grudges and not someone you should cross lightly.  The two of us didn’t really get along and he had the “it’s my way or the highway” attitude.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one that staged the assassination attempts to try and show that the other side was not playing fair.  Obviously, I do not like the guy.

	After they left, and Father Clancy stayed, we dug up Arvin’s body, only to find it missing.  Checking the others, Dancin, Lamard, & Lou’s bodies were also gone.  We have since found out that their corpses were stolen and turned into a hideous type of creature.  What puzzles me is that these creatures are created from extreme torture of the person before death.  If they were all dead, and one must be willing to return, how could this have been done to them.  We are told that some of Troy’s apprentices may still be on the grounds.  They are most likely to blame for this.

	We have met the Laird of Highwatch.  An interesting man, and seems trustworthy.  This came about when we were exploring some tunnels that we had found underneath our lands.  Fiona had brought up once seeing something within a hole in the Gardener’s Shed.  We figured they were connected to the meenlocks, so we investigated.  The tunnels are quite small and and winding.    It is very tiring and hard to crawl around in full plate, especially since once you pick a tunnel, there is not enough room to turn around in it.  Anyway, we found a secret burial chamber underneath the shed that was guarded by some strange snakes.  I recognized them as creatures used to guard the graves of nobles and, sure enough, there were some Lochmar corpses further on.  We also ran into a couple of Meenlocks, who attacked us.  When one of them dropped and the rest were injured, the lot of them disappeared the next chance they could.  It was odd, because one of the Meenlocks was missing his left hand.  In a secret compartment along the wall, we found a rather extravagantly decorated sceptor.

After visiting the lantern archon for healing I had a short chat with him.  I explained that we had more tunnels to explore to try and find the missing family members.  He explained that, after gaining so many of our memories, it made him want to go out and explore.  He said that he needed a name.  His kind don’t usually have them, but now he wanted one for some reason.  I think some of our humanity rubbed off on him.  He seemed to like the name Lumin, when I suggested it to him.

	So Fiona, myself, Constantine, Padraic, and Lumin picked another tunnel, which turned out to be very long.  We crawled for hours, all the way under the Mountain.  It was nighttime before we reached the end of the tunnel.  We were all dirty, standing in the middle of a forest, unsure of exactly where we were.  Lumin made for a nice beacon for a Hippogriff rider to spot us.  He led us back to the Highwatch Manor, where we cleaned up and met Laird Leslie.  He actually seemed glad there was a tunnel between our lands, claiming that building one had been an old plan between the clans.  He gave us lodging for the evening.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 17, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - September 11th*

September 11th, 1002

	It seems the others have been busy while I’ve been busy reading Words of Wisdom.  It was a rather interesting book.  Though it took me a while to read, I feel I have gained much from the experience.

	During the night at Highwatch, something evil tried to kill Fiona.  Thankfully, she had placed an alarm upon her bed and the creature was scared off by the noise.  We informed Laird Leslie of the attack, but they could find no trace of the intruder, save for the forced open window.

	In the morning, we returned to our Manor via Hippogriff.  I sat down to start reading while Tellsford went to talk to some plants to see if he could find the Meenlocks.  They explored another tunnel, which opened up into a chamber with four other exits.  The farthest right tunnel did not go very far before it turned upward and ended at a closed hatch.  When Conrad opened it, water rushed in, pushing everyone back into the chamber.  Conrad was almost drowned as he was pushed into their entrance tunnel.  Luckily Cyrus was able to get some rope down to him and pull him into a side tunnel.  They were all able to get outside through the side tunnel to see Minter Creek empty and Minter Lake draining.  Cyrus quickly found a Giant Toad and killed it.  Conrad took the toad and threw the corpse in the lake. When the lake had settled, Cyrus swam down and closed the hatch.  He then freed the toad corpse from the entrance tunnel, escaping through the side tunnel and allowing the water to drain.  Feeling they had done enough damage for the day, they returned to the manor.

	That evening, I got to meet Simon Highwatch.  He was rather happy about the fact that had been asked to come over to help us and the prospect of getting to hit things with his sword.  Friendly enough guy, but I had to get back to reading.  He spent the Sabbath with our family before accompanying Fiona, Padraic, Tellsford and Conrad back to the chamber under Minter Creek.  The water had drained from the main tunnel, but left the left most tunnel submerged.  After Conrad disabled a summoning trap on the middle tunnel, they continued on.  They were attacked by some flying heads that said they guarded the family catacombs.  From what they’ve been able to piece together, the heads attacked them as they left the catacombs.  They left entrance to the catacombs and entered what looked to be a basement.  There, they were attacked by something Tellsford identified as Feyrs.  He obviously considered them to be very frightening since I’m told he yelled, “Feyrs!” and promptly ran away.  I’m told that fight consisted of a lot of Simon and Tellsford running away and running back.

	After the Feyrs were finished, they found a small room filled with stuff, including a heavy crossbow with a cross carved into it, a cloak, and several barrels full of copper coins.  On one of Tellsford’s trips away from the battle, he had run up into a church where he saw a man knelt before an altar.  They all retreated back to the Manor for some healing before continuing into the church.  Conrad decided to stay behind.

	Walking into the church from its basement, the four of them saw the front door to their right, stairs up to another level ahead of them, and an opening into the church proper to their left.  Past the pews, they saw a large man bent over in front of the altar.  After a quick nod to the others to follow, Padraic started forward. Almost upon the man, the group could hear him praying.  But it was the oddest praying they had ever heard before.  One line would be in Latin and another would be in Common.  It was almost as if he was responding to his prayers as he made them.

	Up close, they could see that the man was a bit of a brute.  Large, but had a bit of a lopsided hunch, causing him to lean to the left.  Without turning, the man’s head twitched as he said in a gravely voice, “More Lochmars to raise?”

The conversation that followed was an odd one.  Sometimes this man, whom they learned was named Mentahl, would answer their questions and other times his responses just didn’t make any sense.  And it seems his head twitch rather unnerved Fiona.  It turns out that Mentahl was Troy’s acolyte.  He is fanatically devoted to the Lochmars and Saint Eshua.  He had been raising the bodies the “Little Lochmars” had been bringing him, though they always seemed to come back screaming.  This makes me wonder what the Meenlocks did with Lamard’s body.  Since he was reincarnated, his body no longer has a soul to be brought back for raising.

When Fiona asked Mentahl what the Meenlocks do with the people, he got a frightened look upon his face.  “HE takes them… HE tortures them!”  It was then that Padraic noticed that Mentahl’s focus had been on a point above and behind them.  Turning around and looking up, his eyes focused upon an Infernal being standing upon the balcony.  Fiona described him as a Large Orange Furry Ape (think orange cookie monster).  As Padraic laid eyes upon Mentahl grabbed his head and cowered, yelling out, “NOOOO!!!  I won’t kill them!!!”

As the Torturer grinned at those below him, the group sprung into action.  Fiona cast a glitterdust upon the being, somehow getting through his resistances and blinding him.  Simon drew his bastard sword as he ran and took a mighty leap off of some pews to reach the balcony above.  As he came down in front of the beast, he put his strength behind his sword, slashing hard into it.  Padraic sprinted back out of the church and up the stairs to get behind the Torturer.  The fiend roared in pain and surprise as it wildly swung at Simon.  Seeing what should have been a fun taunting session turning into a losing battle, the Torture screamed in rage as he vanished back from where it came.

I don’t know what all went on after that, but Simon now has a rather nice heavy crossbow and Padraic has a nice cloak.  The next day, when they came back from exploring tunnels, Padraic and Tellsford had to be dragged in they were so weak.  They didn’t tell me what went on, just mumbled something about a purple wyrm.  So, of course, the assassin struck again that night, and once again managed to escape.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 18, 2004)

*Journal of Seth Lochmar - September 13th*

September 13th, 1002

	Yesterday would have been Arvin’s birthday.  Kind of fitting it rained all day.  Almost as if the weather knew just how much he cursed the rain here.  We started out for Loch Mar yesterday.  Fiona had a feeling she needed to go up there.  I’m interested in exploring more of our lands, so I didn’t have a problem with taking the trip.  Simon, Padraic, Tellsford and Lumin also went along on this trip.

	On the way up, we were attack by some Bugbears along the trail and, when we had camped for the night, a Dire Lion decided we’d make a good meal.  When we got to the end of the trail, we found a large rock wall with a crack in it large enough to walk through.  Simon decided to try and show off by taking a running leap over the rock wall.  He got about halfway up before he smacked face first into it.  Padraic decided to show him how it was done by pulling out his new cloak and flying up to look around above.  While Padraic was up there, Fiona noticed an Elven figure within the crack in the wall, beckoning her to enter.  When we got closer, we could see that the figure wasn’t quite solid.  He led us up a set of stairs through the rock face into an area with a lake and an A-Frame cabin.  A short while later, Padraic joined us on the other side.  He acted surprised to see all of this, claiming to have just see rock from above.

	We explored the A-Frame first.  It was just a simple cabin with another door at the other end of it.  When Tellsford opened it, all he found was water.  It didn’t come flowing out.  It just stayed there where the door had been, as if held back by some force.  Simon decided to poke the water a couple of times. I think that man needs to learn something about tempting fate.  Sure enough, as you’d expect from disturbed waters, something noticed.  Just after I had told him that wasn’t wise, a tentacle came out of the doorway and grabbed hold of Simon.  Padraic acted quickly and moved to shut the door on the tentacle.  Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to like having it’s tentacle crushed by a closing door, because it dropped Simon and retreated back into the water.  It did immediately try and force the door back open, though.  It took four of us on the door to make sure it didn’t reopen.

	When we stopped feeling resistance, we quickly moved out of the cabin and towards the water’s edge.  There was a large rock on the beach which Fiona took to stand on while the rest of us stood back.  We were pretty sure we needed to summon whatever was this Lochmar dragon we had read of in Donnel’s diary, but we weren’t sure how.  Tellsford, decided to try his new horn, which I’m guessing he got from Mentahl’s church basement.  As he blew the horn, the noise reverberated off the rock walls surrounding the Loch.  I think they could have heard that all the way down in Caledon Vale.

	Everything was still for a few minutes afterwards, as we waited.  Then we started to feel a rumbling in the ground.  As the water stirred, a head emerged.   It certainly didn’t look like a dragon.  A large reptile, definitely, but its skin was smooth and had a long, thin neck, its body was massive, but it had no wings that I could see.  He asked which of us was to be initiated further into the Lochmar clan.  When Fiona said that she was, he asked for a story and a memento to remember the story by.  The creature then bent down so that he and Fiona converse more quietly.  I do not know what went on between the two of them, but Fiona came away from the conversation deep in thought.

We’re staying in the A-Frame tonight, posting watches to keep an eye on the door.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 19, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - September 16th*

September 16th, 1002

	We got back to the Manor yesterday evening just in time to greet some riders from Horsedowns.  Apparently Robert has taken a turn for the worst and cannot be moved.  They’re here to also accompany us through the crease to get to Robert, but could not leave until dawn.  Who is this Robert they speak of?  Apparently the others have known about this Robert fellow is and Fiona seems rather disturbed by his getting more ill.  No one tells me anything around here…

	Well, it turns out that, like Bluestone, Horsedowns uses planar travel to move distances more quickly.  But, instead of using the Astral plane, Horsedowns uses the Shadow Plane.  They enter and leave the plane during the times when it is neither night nor day; the creases in between, as they call them.  Horsedowns themselves are a relatively small clan.  If you don’t count the meenlock Lochmars we have burrowing underneath our lands, we are the only clan that has fewer numbers than them.  It seems that almost their entire clan got wiped out when the Risenson vampires went on a recruiting spree back during the last group’s time.  When the vampires were destroyed, that left just a handful of daughters at the university to take up the family titles and lands.  So, while our clan is considered a bit radical for having a female heir, theirs is considered even more so because they have a young, female laird only two years younger than I.

	We still hadn’t found the assassin yet, so we feared it attacking our guests.  In order to insure the safety of the Horsedowns mounts, Tellsford decided to sleep down in the stable.  Fiona set up an alarmed area that he could trigger if there was a problem.  But, when early morning came, there was no Tellsford, just a deeply slumbering Pickard.  Fiona recognized his slumber has the result of a sleep spell, but that didn’t leave us with much of a clue as to where Tellsford was.  We decided to try and find Tellsford before dusk and leave with Horsedowns then, with or without him.

	Padraic felt our best chance was to get a divination from Mentahl.  I was less than pleased with having to seek help from an Eshuan, but it seemed like our only option.  So, we headed for Minter Creek entered the tunnels to get to the church.  Once there, we realized that we did not have enough cash for a donation to get a divination.  Padraic quickly used his cloak to take flight and head back to the Manor.  When he returned, he was struggling to keep afloat as he brought Tellsford’s body in.  It turns out that the body had been stashed on the top of the tower.  It was just luck that he was able to spot it.  Tellsford was seriously wounded and on death’s door, but alive and stable. Mentahl healed him up and we headed back to the Manor through the tunnels.  Tellsford told us that the Assassin attacked him in the stable during the night, but Pickard slept through the attack.  He was rather worried about the stallion’s well being, since he hadn’t seen it when the assassin attacked.

Since we now had some time before dusk, we tried to find the assassin.  We were able to narrow down its arrival to coincide with the arrivals of both Pickard and Maker.  We first checked out Maker, setting up a scene where I could discretely scan for evil in him.  There are spells that block such scans, but this ogre mage didn’t seem to have any abilities above and beyond that of a normal ogre mage.  Maker noticed me scanning, but not until after I had finished scanning him and finding no trace of evil.  He was shocked that Fiona would suspect him, but was more interested in putting her suspicions to rest than being outraged.

This left us with Pickard looking like the only suspect.  As we approached the stable, I made an offhand comment of, “Watch. It’ll be the stallion.”  Sure enough, after we set ourselves up to look like we were appraising the horse and I finished my scan, the stallion detected as the only evil in the stable.  No sooner had I given the word then the horse shifted into the form of an ogre mage and attacked us.  This time, however, we were ready for him.  Since we had him surrounded and the exits were blocked, his escape attempt ended with him lying on the ground, dead.

With him dealt with, we can leave in a couple of hours, feeling better about leaving those around the house without protection.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 20, 2004)

*Journal Entry of Seth Lochmar - September 18th*

September 18th, 1002

	It has been a rather eventful past two days.  Just before dusk on Monday, we gathered on our mounts outside of the Manor.  Simon, Tellsford, Padraic, Lumin, and myself had decided to accompany Fiona to Horsedowns and then on to Towerview so she could see this Robert.  

The story goes that Robert was pushed overboard on his way into Arleans by boat.  We’ve pieced together that it was the Ogre Mage that knocked him overboard.  The real stallion also went overboard, pulling Robert to shore, where members of Towerview found him and began to treat him.  The stallion has been housed at Horsedowns since then.  Tellsford was looking forward to seeing the real thing.

So, as the sunset over the horizon, we set out on our journey down the drive.  Once we had past the gates for the estate and turned onto the road, the man that accompanied the two Horsedowns women started to chant.  As he continued to chant, the sound of our horses’ hoof beats changed.  They started to become muffled, almost like they were hitting softer and softer ground.  The world around us began to distort, turning darker.  As we rode past the orchards, they took on a twisted look.  The houses on the property looked warped and more sinister.  And I could have sworn I saw an extra house out there.  Lumin’s glow was much more dim.  His radiance did not extend more than ten feet around him.  We could see a path ahead of us.  Though it did not always appear straight, the Horsedowns riders assured us it was.

As we rode on, we found a castle in the way right near the end of our journey.  We were told we would have to go through the castle, because if we went around it, we would lose our path and probably get lost in the Crease forever.  It was obvious someone was trying to stop us from getting to Horsedowns, but there was not much we could do about that right now.  So, we left the Horsedowns riders and their chanter further back and moved on to clear the path for them.

When we approached the gates, they opened to let out some hounds.  Large, shadowy creatures that seemed to ooze an icky aura out of them.  It was enough to frighten Simon off, sending him away from the hounds and the path.  After the hounds were dispatched, Tellsford decided to go off after Simon.  The Horsedowns riders were very surprised when Tellsford actually returned, let alone with Simon in tow.

After letting the dogs out, the doors remained closed, so we decided to try and gain entry another way.  Padraic flew Fiona over while the rest of us climbed up the palisades with grappling hooks.  The castle itself was divided into four courtyards with a keep in the middle.  The courtyards each had their own defenders in it.  This first one was filled with 40 statues that attacked us once we touched ground from going over the wall.  Another courtyard was guarded by gusts of wind.  Fiona seemed to be far too happy about killing one of the air elementals with a punch from her gauntlet.  Each courtyard had a tower in it, guarded on top by Will-O’-Wisps.  The tops of the towers were slanted and greased, making the Wisps nasty to deal with.  After the first time I slid off and met a very painful ground, I decided I was best staying down there and healing those that came to me.  Lumin went up there and zapped the wisps with his light beam while Padraic held Fiona in the air so she could sling spells.  Simon and Tellsford went up and came down a lot.

	After we had gotten through the first three courtyards, we found our way into the keep.  Once inside, we found a room filled with Black Tentacles.  We saw the stairs in the middle that we had to get through, so we just to slice and dispel our way through.  Padraic and Simon were the first to make it to the staircase, where an invisible dog bit Simon.  Padraic tumbled his way past the first only to be bitten by a second one.  Their barking surely alerted their master to our presence, if all the commotion outside and in hadn’t already.  By the time the rest of us made it to the stairs, the faithful hounds had vanished.

At the top of the stairs, we found another room filled with tentacles.  This one, however, was much smaller and two levels.  About halfway in was a ten foot high ledge where a Slaad was spread out like a big slug.  And, the oddest of all in the room was that it was sleeting in there.  Everything was slippery and it was rather hard to see.  This Slaad was the most peculiar of creatures.  He wore big glasses, was very greasy and called himself Frank.  He seemed to be the most spineless of people, wanting us to go away.  Sure he was being paid to impede us, but he didn’t want to actually get hurt.

I’m really not sure how it happened, but we ended up fighting him.  It seemed like a very silly thing to be doing, but when he went to recast his protection spells, Simon and Tellsford twitched and let loose on the guy.  There was a lot of slipping and sliding and falling down, but Fiona managed to take care of dispelling the tentacles.  I spent most of the fight on my back from the slippery ground.  I did eventually get up onto the ledge with Tellsford’s help.  Simon really seemed to want to kill the creature, but I made sure that it was only knocked unconscious by hitting it with my merciful sword.

In a hidden crawlspace underneath the ledge we found a lot of items along with a bound and gagged man.  After we woke him up we found out his name was Sirius and he was one of Cohen’s apprentices.  I remembered that Cohen had said he had been searching for his two lost apprentices, so we offered for him to come with is.

We were running out of time, so we had Fiona and Padraic scope out the last courtyard while the rest of us went back for the horses and Horsedowns riders.  When we returned, Padraic reported that all they found was a cave and a tree in front of the cave.  The Horsedowns riders said that the cave would be the exit and we should head for it immediately.  We were all weary of the tree.  Something about it screamed trap.  Sure enough, when Padraic approached the cave, the tree attacked.  He let loose at the tree with bows, crossbows, and spells.  The tree didn’t seem to like that, so it grabbed a hold of Padraic and disappeared.

Not sure what had happened to Padraic, we weren’t sure what to do.  However, the Horsedowns riders shouted that we only had seconds before we wouldn’t be able to leave for a day.  So, we all ran and rode for the cave.  Upon entering it we were exiting another cave into a hilly area.  We could just see the last vestiges of light as dusk gave way into night.  A little ways off, we could see a figure shooting crossbow bolts at a tree from a distance.  When the tree vanished, Padraic ran up to us.

We all rode on to Horsedowns from there to get a good night’s sleep.  In the morning we had breakfast with Laird Bellany Horsedowns.  She informed us of a meeting of Lairds that was going to happen the next day in Stockport to discuss the upcoming vote.  We all decided that it was in our best interests for me to attend while the others went on to Towerview to collect Robert.  Tellsford decided it wasn’t safe for me to go on alone so decided to act as my guard.  While I wasn’t exactly alone, he didn’t seem to feel Lumin could adequately protect me.

On the trip to Stockport, Tellsford worked out an agreement with Horsedowns for the use of the stallion for stud with Laird Bellany.  She also seemed interested in using my horse for stud.  It seems she felt that a Paladin’s Mount would give exceptional offspring.  And, I’m not entirely sure about this, but I don’t think she was just looking for stud services from my mount.

Stockport was exactly what you would expect from its name.  It was a very smelly place with cattle, swine, and other stock in corrals waiting to be shipped to their prospective buyers.  The meeting itself was held in a large tiered assembly hall with tables set on the upper tiers for private conversations.  There was a refreshments table near the center platform, where lairds could get up and give speeches to the hall.

Geffen was once again rather nervous when I greeted Bearsden.  He was even more so when I said I hadn’t had time to further consider the loan Big Jim had offered the clan.

Donnel NewGable definitely falls under the category of interesting.  While my other family members seem to think I’m paranoid, this man was the very definition of the word.  He talked very emphatically and with large arm movements.  Basically, he acted as if he has had far too much of that coffee Fiona and Padraic are so fond of.  He greeted me as if we were long time friends.  That seems to be just because I’m a Lochmar.  After all, he used to be a Lochmar and even held the title of Huntlord when Andreas was actively Laird.  After the great battle at the Cairnsbridge, he has since gone on to start his own clan.  But, he kept asking me what our next move was. Also, he acted as if assassins were a very common thing for Lochmars.

One of the last people I talked with was Sheriff Todd Towerview.  His clan, as those that patrol the seas, was put in charge of dealing with the Death Knight situation.  He is a very serious man and takes his job very, well… seriously.  He is very purpose driven with little time fro frivolities.  I thanked him for taking care of Robert, but his attitude towards that was along the lines of ‘It’s my duty, why are you thanking me?’  Still, I was somehow able to convince him to accept our help in the Death Knight problem.  I’m really not sure how I did that.  I think it just came down to my actually getting through to him that he would not lose any face from accepting our help and we really felt we should be involved in this matter.  Donnel had jumped into the conversation to try and help me convince him, but I’m not sure if he helped or hindered.

Not much else was accomplished at the meeting.  A couple of lairds got up and announced why we should either send the frigates or keep the frigates, but nothing was actually agreed upon.  Still, it was good to see where some of the other clans stood on the issue.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 20, 2004)

Okay.  I've hit the end of what I have prewritten, so updates are going to come slower now.  I've still got 4 months to cover before orchid picks this up.

Hopefully I'll be able to get some writing done on Sunday, maybe earlier if i slack off on studying.

Hope you've enjoyed it so far.


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## orchid blossom (May 23, 2004)

I think it deserves mentioning that our short stay in Horsedowns is when Simon began to pick up his unfortunate reputation as a ladies man.  One of the young ladies of the Horsedown clan, Diamond was her name I believe, took our Simon out for a late night "walk" in the gardens.

Horsedowns has a unique problem.  With their clan being so small and over half women, to have the girls marry and become part of their husbands clans would seriously weaken Horsedowns.  Getting a girl to marry into the clan would be difficult, since they are in such a bad position.  So, the only real way for the clan to grow again is for the women to have children without getting married.  I'm afraid those girls are going to develop a bad reputation fairly quickly.

Only a couple sessions ago did Simon realize he'd really been used for stud.  He was trying to find out if he's soon to be a daddy.  (it doesn't appear that he will)


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 25, 2004)

*Journal of Seth Lochmar - September 21st*

September 21st, 1002

The family that went to Towerview arrived in Stockport Thursday about midday. Having ridden in on horseback, I’m assuming they purchased mounts from Horsedowns.  Besides Robert, they also had a face I hadn’t seen in a while with them.  It seems Leetah had returned from Speculation and Kantu, thankfully without Olva.  Fiona caught up with Geffen and arranged for transport for us up to their lands.  It’s easier travel back to home from there, since this area is rather hilly.

They were all rather impressed that I convinced Sheriff Todd to let us help him.  It seems they met him before he left for the meeting and considered him to be rather stubborn.  Now we just had to come up with a plan to actually confront the Death Knight.  His fleet usually stayed underwater until they were ready to attack.  Then they’d surface and take their prey by surprise.  There didn’t seem to be a way to get the drop on them.  After all, you’d have to know exactly where they were going to be.  Hmm... perhaps setting up a decoy boat as a trap, but we’d have to hide the rest of the fleet somehow.  Well, we’ve got a few week’s to plan this.

But anyway, while we were sailing upon the Sandhaven boat, we noticed a distress flag being flown on a nearby island called Kobold Island.  According to Geffen, there was a Lochmar settlement on that island.  Well… it used to be a Coastham settlement, until the last group of Lochmars wiped out Coastham.  Geffen understood our need to go check it out and arranged to have the boat come back for us in one day.  We took a dingy to shore and headed inland to the settlement, where we found a bit of a scuffle going on.  A human woman in McLar dress and a gnomish woman in armor were arguing and coming to blows over something.  After I broke the fight up, I found they were fighting over what to do in the situation they were in.  There were several people milling about, having been watching the fight.  What passed for the island’s militia was seriously beaten up.  Apparently, the local Locathah population had taken over the settlement’s watermill and taken up residence there.  Sen McLar, who was apparently the mayor of this settlement, had tried to talk to the Locathah.  Of course, she didn’t speak Aquan, so her attempts had just resulted in her getting shot.  Harriet Cleverbrawl, who was head of the militia, had tried a full frontal assault, which had ended in the lot of the militia getting shot.

Now, apparently the previous group of Lochmars had negotiated with the Locathah, offering them a place to live in an abandoned town by a lake, which fed the river that the watermill resides along.  Troy bound a water elemental at the bottom of the lake to raise the water level over the abandoned town to make it more hospitable for the Locathah.  The water elemental’s binding was made with the proviso that it would stay as long as soul resided in the town.

We approached the Watermill loudly proclaiming in Aquan that we wanted to talk.  After leaving our armor and weapons outside with the mayor, we went inside to talk to Shooshl, the Locathah shaman.  Apparently a Locathah ghost named Oosa had taken up residence within the water town and scared off the rest of them.  Not having a place to stay, they moved into the watermill.  Oosa had arrived to their town corporeal and alive as a druid from another settlement.  He later died while visiting.  Shooshl told us he was an odd sort, being obsessed with the bottom of the lake and chased them all away from that area.  We agreed to get rid of the ghost so that they could leave the settlement’s watermill and return to the underwater town.

When we got up river to the lake and town, Fiona made it possible for the others to all breathe the water.  Thanks to a pear we had picked up in the Crease, I was able to move through the water and breathe with ease.

Finding Oosa wasn’t hard since he came to us.  He didn’t attack us.  In fact, he wanted us to help put him to rest.  I knew he was lying to us about how to put him to rest and he was just using us, but I led him lead the way, since he knew the area better.

He led us to a trapped entrance of an underwater cave, which Leetah quickly disabled.  Once we found a laboratory with notes on binding water elementals, Oosa tried to possess Tellsford.  A long fight ensued with him possessing people and Lumin moving to knock him out with his magic circle against evil.  It took a while, but we finally managed to dissipate him for a day.  By now, we had figured out that what was keeping him here was his desire to control the water elemental.  So, by changing the requirements of its binding, we could make Oosa go away for good.

While searching around, we found mention of one of Troy’s pets being kept there.  Rettis Obbis, a vampire sorcerer kobold of some notoriety, was imprisoned her for only Troy knows why.  He was trapped in an upside-down glass dome with a raised platform and running water underneath.  He had cast obscuring mist within the dome and hid within the mists when he heard us approach.  His magic missiles really stung and he did a good job of taking out Fiona, Leetah, and Tellsford, but Padriac, Lumin and I helped keep the others up and together we all managed to turn Rettis gaseous for good.  Since he had no coffin and could not escape through the water, Rettis had no way to reform and heal.  At least Troy was smart.

In the river underneath Rettis’s home, we found a magic goblet mentioned in Troy’s notes for use in binding the water elemental.  Lumin and I went down and talked to the Elemental while the rest of the group headed back to the watermill.  He was very lonely, so I stayed and talked with him for a while.  The rest of the family went on back to meet the Sandhaven boat while Lumin and I stayed behind to perform the rebinding ceremony.  Now that the Locathahs know about the elemental, they’ve promised to come down and play with it and keep it company.

Tomorrow, I’ll be returning to Arleans when a Sandhaven boat comes by to pick me up.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 27, 2004)

*Journal of Seth Lochmar - September 23rd*

September 23rd, 1002

	Another fun and exciting two days.  I got back to town on Sunday to find a party going on in the town house.  Apparently Galibur had found a rather interesting solution to dealing with assassins in the city.  Since he and Miriam had been there since shortly after the first Ogre Mage attack, he’s been holding parties at the townhouse every day but Saturdays.  A crowd certainly keeps the assassins away, but being the host of the party everyday is very tiring.

	I didn’t find the rest of the family at the house, though.  Apparently they had all headed to the docks to see Leetah’s arriving ship.  Heading back there, I found them all standing before the roped off dock which lead to Leetah’s ship.  They weren’t sure if we were allowed to cross or not, but I quickly assured them we were permitted to.  Obviously something was up, so we proceeded cautiously.  When we got close to the ship, a large vase smashed down on the deck in front of us.  A rather drunk Half-Ogre on deck started yelling, demanding we bring him a crew.  When we approached to negotiate, his pet cats attacked us.  Well, they weren’t really cats so much as strange catlike beasts with floppy skin.  I was a little leery of fighting these things, but at least they weren’t real cats.

	It didn’t take too long to subdue the Krenshar.  Padraic and Simon got a little wet from being knocked overboard, but the Half-Ogre just broke down and cried after a couple of whacks.  Apparently Leetah’s grandfather had cheated him out of furs and other items in trade.  He had offered to make Peak’s axe more sharp, but had merely cast a spell that lasted a couple of hours instead of actually enchanting the ax.  Leetah coaxed him off the boat, promising to actually make his weapon keen.  When he turned his axe over, it took a couple of us to carry it.  It was a very nice large adamantine axe.  We told Peak where our Estate was, since he seemed to want to go up into the mountains with his cats.  We told him it would take a bit more than a week to enchant his weapon, so we figured we’d see him in about that much time.

This left us with the problem of getting the axe enchanted.  I had heard tales of three different mages for hire in the area that could do the job.  Unfortunately, my knowledge was sketchy.  We had found a slip of paper back at the manor a while back that looked like transcribed conversation between Ariel and the Grey Mage, but we had no clue how to contact him.  I had heard stories of a mage named Vectur who, if you tossed a copper piece in the air in a graveyard, he’d catch it before it hit the ground.  I had only heard of the existence of the third, with no other knowledge.

Padraic and Leetah headed off to the graveyard, dragging the axe behind them, while the rest of us returned to the town house.  There, they caught me up on their activities over the past couple of days.  It mostly consisted of getting restorations for Tellsford, Leetah, and Simon, and some partying.

	When Padraic & Leetah returned, they said that one of them would have to return in a week to pick up the axe.  We gathered up all our people and said goodbye to Miriam and Galibur as we rode home.  Simon stopped off at Highwatch on the way with intentions to arrive at the Lochmar Estate late in the evening.

	When we actually got home, we were shocked into silence by what we saw.  The lawns were covered in tents and people milling about.  There were several men in armor, some in robes, and a few that just looked odd.  Sir Constantine was talking with a few of the armored men while Jeffrey Freeman was chatting with a woman in clerical vestments and another in a breastplate.  Padraic seemed to recognize one of the men in robes and rushed over to greet him.

	Fiona and myself headed over to talk with the woman Jeffrey was talking to.  She introduced herself as Ursula Lochmar and her bodyguard as Bethany.  She seems to be a rather nice person.  She’s seems rather devoted to helping people and has a particular knack for healing, which is something we could really use around here.

	Padraic then introduced me to his friend from home, Doyle.  They had grown up in the orphanage together and Leetah had carried a letter to him from Padraic a while back.  Doyle was a security specialist and a priest.  He had brought a small contingent of monks from their monastery to set up a new one on our lands.  In exchange, they would help secure our estate and help keep an eye out for threats.  Doyle wasn’t the happiest when he found out he’d be working with kobolds, but was at least grateful he had some resources here to draw upon.

	While Padraic introduced me to his friend Doyle, Fiona was approached by the contingent of odd-looking monks.  They were definitely not from the Kingdoms of Kant, or any place I had heard of.  I later learned that they had traveled for eight years to get here.  They had brought along a, for lack of better word, being named Neron.  She is an intelligent sword with a very child-like personality who had a vision of the last group of Lochmars.  She felt she and her caretakers could possibly be helpful to us.

	While Doyle took Padraic off to meet with a group of armored men that bore the crest of the Templars, I was introduced to another group of armored men.  Apparently, they had all been just hanging around Arleans and they had heard a few good things about me and decided to come out here to, well, follow me.  I really wasn’t sure exactly what to do with these people.  I mean, I know we need guards and an army and such around here, but it still just feels weird to have people looking to me for orders.

	Well, once we got introduced to everyone, we headed inside for a short meal.  Tellsford let us know that a Percival Darsguard had been by while we were gone, having wanted to use our library.  Having been allowed to do so by Conrad, he went in search of information on a place called the Isle of Souls.

Fiona had a big itch in her butt to go and explore the tower.  Ever since she had gone up to the Loch and talked to the dragon, she had a feeling she’d be able to clearly see the door and open it.  It had been a long day, but we figured that now was a good time as any, since we were without our Highwatch spy.  So, we headed up to where we knew the door was.  Funny thing is, I could see the door clearly now too.  Not sure what exactly changed with me.  I mean, only Fiona and myself could see it clearly and I didn’t talk to the dragon at the Loch.  Perhaps it was my experience with the Water Elemental on Kobold Island that altered my perception of things somehow.

	But anyway, Fiona opened the door and we entered the tower.  The first room was a throne room.  I guess they must have had a steward who could open the door and let people in and out to receive.  Or maybe they just left the door open all of the time.  There must have been some way all the servants got in and out to clean the rooms.  The throne room itself was very nice looking.  It had flags and crests lining the walls and a set of steps on each side of the throne for the laird and lady of the clan, leading up to a door behind them.  I had remembered an old bit of etiquette about always keeping your left side to your lord, so he could watch the evil in you.  This turned out to be good advice, since we later found out from an older family member that the stairs were trapped with pressure plates.  If you went up or down the wrong side of stairs, it would trigger a large explosion that would surely kill any man.

	The next room held a staircase in the middle that went both up and down and was lined with several doors.  We didn’t get to do too much exploring, mostly because the place was lined with bunk beds and unconscious soldiers in armor.  The Trophy room seemed to be the only room on this not occupied on this floor.  In Andreas’s bedroom, we found a rather large bed with Andreas sleeping on it.  Also on the bed was a pair of pseudodragons with a litter of little ones.  We couldn’t progress further into the room without the pseudodragons hissing at us.  Now, I know Andreas is waging a war in hell and all, but what are they all doing just sleeping in there.  Shouldn’t they be, like, in Hell?

Deciding it was getting late, we returned back out to the Manor proper to find we had two more guests.  While we had been inside, Simon had returned from Highwatch and Braiden Moorhouse had dropped by.  Braiden had been traveling towards the city and had heard good things about us from his cousin Bean, so decided to stop in for the night.

Simon had a request from the Highwatch clan to deal with the large bats that had been living in the Great Barn on our property.  The bats were making it unsafe for Highwatch to patrol the skies at night.  Braiden decided it would be fun, so volunteered to assist us in this.  Since the bats housed in themselves inside the rafters of the barn, we could only get to them when they were entering or leaving.  We decided to go out to the Great Barn a little before dawn to catch the creatures as they returned.  Braiden felt he could easily hypnotize them so that we could more easily take them out.

Before we went to bed, Braiden also informed us that some people, or things, had been wearing our colors, even though they weren’t of our house.  Also, a Coastham ship has been spotted off the shores of an island, despite their being mostly slaughtered and banished.  My knowledge is still a little sketchy on why Coastham was banished, exactly.  I know they tried to take over our place as the primary water clan and I think they aligned themselves with the Risenson vampires back before the great battle.  Once the vampires were destroyed, Coastham was banished.

In the morning, Fiona, Padraic, Simon, Braiden and myself loaded up for battle and headed to the Great Barn.  What we saw inside was definitely not what we expected.  A man in Lochmar colors was bound by a strange rope and being suspended in midair.  He appeared to be in a lot of pain, though the cause of said pain was not readily apparent.  Standing near him was a man in Wizards robes but no colors and an Ogre Mage.  The wizard seemed to be conversing through a small orb.  At our approach, he whipped around to look at us, and then snarled at the Ogre Mage, “I thought you said they never come in here?”

The mage moved up into the air while the Ogre Mage moved over to engage us.  Braiden moved up to take on the mage while Padraic took a beating for the Ogre.  I scored a particularly nasty hit with my sword, downing the creature with a single blow.  As this happened, we were pelted with a barrage of crossbow bolts from Skulks hiding in the stands.  Braiden had his hands full with the mage, since he seemed to be dodging all his spells.  It took a few moments to realize that the mage wasn’t really there at all.

While we took a beating from the Skulks, Simon and Fiona made quick work of them.  Padraic pulled the bound man down, at which point a little fungus creature that looked a lot like a gingerbread man jumped off of him and cackled as it tried to flee.  I whapped it with my sword before it could get too far.  While I was only trying to subdue the creature, I did a bit more damage to it than I intended.

Just as Simon, and Fiona were finishing up the Skulks, the bats rained in.  Braiden hypnotized most of them, leaving us to clean up a few stragglers.  Once they were dealt with, we turned our attention back to the bound man.  The little fungus man was a type of mind mold that drains the memories of the person it is applied to so that someone can eat the mold and absorb the memories.

Having heard rumors that Othello had returned from Eshan, we were pretty sure that this was him.  We untied him and woke him up, but he was delirious.  He recovered some after we fed him the moss.  It was at this time that Braiden bid us adieu.  He saw we had a family matter to attend to, so hurried off to the city.

Once Othello had recovered his thoughts, he actually gave us a wealth of information.  But very little got out before he noticed the orb on the ground.  After looking into it, the orb immediately went dark.  He growled as he chucked it against a wall.  He told us he had seen Nicene through the orb before it went dark.  Othello cast a couple of spells to confuse nosy people before he continued.

He seemed more than happy to answer his questions.  He asked about Andreas and Thomas and was happy to hear that we had met Narthas.  He told us that there was a fountain at the center of the hedge maze that unlocked a person’s psionic power.  If Cohen’s apprentice was about and made his way through it, he would certainly become more powerful, because of the effect it has on those who have already unlocked their powers.

He said that he didn’t trust Troy.  While Troy thought what he was doing was right, he works for Nicene now.  That seems to make Fiona think that the Death Knight might be Troy.  I have a feeling that, when we meet Troy, we’ll definitely know it.

Well before Troy was turned, a fledgling priest named Nexus had accused the family of being Darkling worshippers.  This is what led to the slaughter of the Lochmars, but the church continued to support and propegate the stories hoping to cover up their own corruption by shifting suspicion to Othello’s group.  Now this sounds like a pattern with the church, with their condemnation of us as devil worshippers.  After all, why else would Father Lars, a Church Inquisitor be sniffing around the Cathedral?

We picked up some knowledge about Ardella, but he told us to check with the clan’s bookkeeper, a man named Token one hand.  Other than that, he let slip a couple of things about the Dars riddle.  Apparently the Dars and Lochmars are sitting on a holy relic called the Altar of the Peace.  Together, the clans keep it hidden and safe from those that would seek to use it for evil.

The only other shocker of the morning was, when we mentioned cousin Galibur, Othello chuckled.  Apparently he’s been here a long time; since Othello was an active member of the family and still Minister of the Sewers.  Oh yeah, he said that we need to make sure that position is covered, because it is a very important title in the city.  But anyway, apparently Galibur isn’t actually a Lochmar by birth.  He won a letter off of an actual Lochmar in a poker game and showed up to live the high life.  It was years before they figured out he wasn’t actually related.  When they did find out, Othello made sure he was inducted into the clan quickly and quietly.  Andreas was one of the last to find out and I don’t think they ever did tell Troy.  But the real kicker came when we found out what title Galibur held.  It seems that, when all the other Lochmars went off to take care of their own quests, he didn’t feel it was safe anymore to be in such a public place, so he went into hiding and came out to the Manor with us as a new arrival.  Certainly explains how he was able to get writs for everyone so easily, being the King and all.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 27, 2004)

The game with Othello involved was a rather interesting one.  We knew that one of the DM's old Buffalo group would be visiting, so we'd get a chance to actually meet one of the old Lochmars, as played by his own player.  Before that, our meetings with Andreas and Donnel were just done by the DM.  Knowing Othello would show up, we actually made a list of questions to ask him.

The DM has a secondary campaign in Buffalo, of which Percival Darsguard and Braiden Moorhouse are a part of, for when he made trips back there.  It was fun to have a crossoer between the two games.

But the best part was when we found out Galibur was the King.  He hasn't had much of a presense in the storyhour and he didn't have much more of a role in the actual campaign, but we found the fact that Fiona had manipulated the King a couple of times rather funny.  What was even better was Tellsford's player wasn't there that night, so we made sure no one would mention it until the next game.  The look on his face when he found out that he, as Arvin, had pulled the king off of his horse and knocked him unconscious was priceless.

We decided to not let on to Galibur that we knew, but some of the group was less than subtle about their change in attitude towards him at our next encounter.

Well... the next post should be coming in a day or two.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 28, 2004)

*Journal of Seth Lochmar - September 26th*

September 26th, 1002

	They’re watching us.  Eyes everywhere, watching.  When we eat, when we sleep, and even when we bathe.  Probably especially when we bathe.

I know this because Fiona told me so.  Of course, she could be lying.  How do I know she doesn’t have some ulterior motive?  After all, I’m just her puppet.  She would have off’d me and be ruling in my stead if there wasn’t a social stigma against female lairds.

But she seemed as shocked as I when she found out so many people were watching us.  Fiona told us she has manifested a new power to be able detect when people are watching us.  She said that, the first time she cast the spell, there were something like ten people watching us, though she couldn’t see them all.  Those that she could see were a man sitting at a desk wearing Bearsden colors, a woman in a room of mirrors wearing Loudwood colors, a man in Dars colors, a man in Risenson colors, and just darkness.  But perhaps she did see the others and she’s just withholding the information.  Or maybe she’s just been making it all up.  She did, after all, say she saw a ghost in the mirror of an upstairs room telling her to save Olag.  “In the vineyard, it took him.  Below the vineyards, in pain.”  I think she is just hearing voices.  After all, her friends from Kantu aren’t all right in the head.  They constantly bicker between each other and fight for her favor, denouncing the other’s use.  But that Maker is a suspicious sort.  How’d an old guy like him make the trip out here so easily?  And I know he’s holding stuff back.

The guy in the basement is in league with the Ice mephit.  I think he sent the little guy to assassinate us in the night and was just covering himself when we followed it back to his lair.  He even armed it with wands of Melf’s Acid Arrow and Knock.  When we followed it down the well in the cold room, we found out the iced water was just an illusion and it was a back entrance into an underground laboratory.  We beat up his shield guardian, which made him very irate.  I think he was just covering for the fact that he was angry Frosty had done a bad job.  His name is Prestard Lochmar and he was, at one time, the House Mage.  Nowadays he just stays in his laboratory doing experiments and crafting items.  He says he got bored with the house politics after his first couple of lifetimes.  He sold the wands to Fiona as a cover and punished Frosty while we let ourselves out.  I don’t trust the guy, if for no other reason than he owns a cat.

We found out what the meenlocks did with Lamard’s corpse.  They corrupted it into a Crypt Thing to guard a false throne room.  He tried to convince us to leave the meenlocks alone, but Lamard has gotten less persuasive since he lost his flesh.  Lamard teleported Fiona, Simon, Tellsford, and Lumin away, leaving Leetah and myself to deal with Lamard.  Leetah’s rapier wasn’t very effective against Lamard, but thankfully Lumin returned shortly after he had left and assisted in destroying the undead Lamard.

Lumin said he ended up in a cabin he had never seen before.  Sirious was there, meditating.  When Fiona got back, she said she had ended up in Andreas’s bedroom.  Simon had ended up in Mentahl’s chapel and Tellsford up at the hunting lodge.

We had one last tunnel, so we explored it the next day.  After going underwater for a while, it turned upwards back to an air pocket before dead-ending in sandy soil.  We fought some more meenlocks and Tellsford managed to kill one of them.  Well, if it didn’t turn out that Olag was the one he killed.  I think he intended it.

Fiona’s ghost was raising hell in the upstairs of the Manor.  She was very, very upset that Olag was dead, or so I’m told.  Some of the others decided we had to go see Mentahl.  I had to go along to make sure they weren’t plotting behind my back, so followed behind Fiona, Padraic, Simon, Leetah, and Robert.

It was decided that, since time was of the essence, we’d travel overland to the church.  This meant going over the Minter Creek Bridge that was guarded by Bugbear skeletons, but they didn’t pose much of a challenge to us this time.  Between Fiona’s Lightening bolts, Simon’s smashing, and my turning the creatures, they were gone in seconds.  We continued on, but once in the forest, we found we were going in circles.  It seems the land itself lent to hiding the church from others.  We had to take the roughest route possible to move in the direction of the church.  Any other path just led us around it.

Just as we had the church in sight, we also saw some weird symbols written on the rock face leading up to it.  Unable to fight back the searing pain, Fiona and myself doubled over in pain.  While we were trying to recover, a group of Rasts came out from behind some boulders to find their easy prey.  They paralyzed Simon and Leetah, making it a very tough fight.

	The others took Olag’s body into Mentahl’s temple while I stood guard outside.  While waiting, I noticed a holy symbol left on the ground, underneath some plant growth.  It looked like it had been there a while, so I picked it up. When the others came out, they had an old man with them.  Supposedly Olag changed back into a human when he was raised.  I’m wondering if they didn’t just switch out the meenlock for an assassin.

	That night, I was awoken to the sounds of battle outside the Manor.  I grabbed my Greatsword and jumped out my window, casting Feather fall as I went.  As I fell, I could see Simon hitting the ground hard as he too had jumped out his window.  Casting Expeditious Retreat, I ran towards the commotion with Simon following behind. Lumin floated out of my window shortly after, following quickly behind.  My guards were fighting off some meenlocks, which had grabbed Ursula and Bethany and were dragging them towards the tunnels.  As I joined the fray the meenlocks still had the advantage.  It took a couple of them to carry each struggling person and a few more to occupy the guards.  I could see the rest of the family approaching in the distance.  My men were dropping like flies.  By the end of the battle, only one of them was still standing.  In fact, William Monroe had killed several meenlocks in as the others retreated into the tunnels.  Even I felt my joints lock up from a strike from one of the meenlocks.  Simon and Padraic had forced the meenlocks to abandon Bethany after taking most of those carrying her down.  Lumin and Fiona managed to take out one of those with Ursula, slowing them down as they entered the tunnels.  Lumin and Padraic followed the meenlocks into the tunnels.  Though it was a cramped fight for Padraic, the two of them managed to down another meenlock and force them to abandon Ursula as well.

	When they emerged, Lumin was acting a little weird, skirting around the air more than usual.  When I talked to him, he sounded a little paranoid.  I think the meenlocks did something to him.  Or maybe Padraic did while they were out of my sight.  He could have been trying to take control of Lumin, to draw him away from me.

	Those of us that were paralyzed were dragged back to the camp, where we waiting for our joints to unlock.  We made sure everyone was all right before going back to bed.

In the morning, we resolved to make a final assault upon the Meenlocks.  It occurred to us that, while they could Dimension Door to other tunnels, they could not carry stuff with them.  So, they had to have some connected tunnels to drag victims and plunder in through.  The sandy soil we found at the end of that tunnel would make for an easily movable entrance.  I made sure everyone was armed with a sap so that they could not claim accident if someone tried to kill more meenlocks.

On the crawl there, we ran into several meenlocks.  Their presence seemed to drain the sanity of my family and friends.  Only I seemed immune, though the others could have been faking to draw me into a false sense of security.  Lumin was the first to fall.  I had never seen a catatonic ball of light before.  I scooped him up and stuck him in my pocket as we crawled on.  Tellsford was the next to fall, followed shortly after by Simon.  We had to drag them back to the surface so those up top could care for them.  By the time we had made it through the sand into a large chamber, it was only Padraic, Fiona, Leetah and myself left.  The cave was oddly shaped and more than tall enough for us to stand in.  From above it surely would have looked like a left hand with the palm up.  A large pile of items lay just below the palm, by where we entered.  The palm itself was a pit, which we could not see the bottom, except for pillar in the middle that’s height was equal to ours.  The fingers were each small caverns also at the same height as our own.  Several Meenlocks inhabited each of the finger caverns, but a weird creature rested beside a meenlock on the pillar in the middle of the palm.  A Blood Imp, I remember them being called.  Blood red colored imp with a large, translucent belly, half full of sloshing red fluid.

The blood imp cackled, offering to spare us if we left the meenlocks alone.  When we declined, meenlocks appeared beside us.  As one appeared behind Leetah she dropped to the ground in a fit of paranoia.  I sent dancing lights to light the caverns as Padraic leapt across the black pit to one of the other caverns.  No sooner had he made it across then a meenlock ran into him, pushing him over the edge.  Fiona blasted the blood imp and a couple of meenlocks behind it with a bolt of lightening, but the imp just laughed and remained unsinged.  The meenlock next to me shouted, “I will be laird!” and slashed at me with its claws.  I smacked Dancin with my merciful sword and made him take a nap before moving up to the edge.  Fiona sent some magic missiles at the Imp, but they just splashed harmlessly off of it.  Then a meenlock slashed at her from behind and her joints froze up on her.  I could see Padraic climbing up into another of the caverns and taking out some meenlocks as the Blood Imp once again cackled at me.  As I fought another meenlock, the Imp floated over to me, stopping over the pit.  As it moved to try and bit me, I called upon the might of our lord to smite this creature down.  I slammed my greatsword down on the beast with a very mighty blow, knocking it out.  It hit the ground some distance below with a satisfying thud.  As I continued to deal with knocking out meenlocks, I could see Padraic stiffen up in another of the caverns.  Their claws had done much damage to me, but only two remained.  I felt rather weary, but my job was not done.  Though the others may have taken the time to be rid of me while in a paralyzed state, I would not do that to them.

As I dropped the last of the meenlocks, I knew the battle was not over.  I jumped off the cliff and cast feather fall as I drifted into the darkness below.  I directed one of my lights to accompany me so that I could see the blood imp’s wounds healing themselves.  The creature had not yet regained consciousness and I would not let it.  With a final swing, I separated the creature’s head from the rest of its body and its wounds stopped mending.

Now I was stuck at the bottom of the pit, alone.  Just as I thought they were going to leave me down there to rot, a rope was lowered and I climbed out.  I helped drag the unconscious back to the opening of the tunnel before sneaking off on my own.  I am sure now is the time that they would chose to rid themselves of me, so now I have hidden myself in the tower, amongst Andreas’s army.  I have changed the loom of my armor to match the style of dress of the sleeping soldiers and lie here as still as I can.  When I have to eat, I sneak out down to Taggert’s, again switching my dress to look like that of my men.

When they make their move, I’ll be ready for them.


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## Ao the Overkitty (May 28, 2004)

By the time the meenlock adventure was done, Seth was walking around with an effective wisdom of one, having had 13 points of wisdom drained by paranoia.  I decided to have a little fun with writing this entry before he was cured.

	Our DM had planned the abduction of Ursula & Bethany to give Simon the opportunity to be the knight in shining armor that heroically rescues the maiden.  He didn’t expect Seth and Simon to jump out of the second story window or for Lumin and Padraic to keep going when the rest of us were paralyzed or occupied.  They just pushed it until there was only one meenlock left to drag Ursula’s body.  He just decided to give up and D-Door away.  If I remember correctly, Fiona and Tellsford were too far away to make it to the tunnel in time and Simon and Seth were paralyzed.

	It was also during this fight that one of my followers earned himself a name.  Despite being just a first level warrior, he critted several times, downed three or four meenlocks and made every single fort and will save thrown at him.  All nine other first levels and the one second level were paralyzed.

	With the blood imp, it was rather funny.  He was floating where Seth couldn’t hurt him.  I don’t think Fiona managed to hurt him once.  Spell Resistance was giving her trouble at this time.  He got cocky and floated over to Seth.  Lets just say that critical merciful smites are very nasty.  But, the falling damage he took was just icing.

	Also, the ghost in the mirror was introduced many months before, player time.  But, Arvin never told anyone about her.  We tried to set up situations in the game for him to tell our characters, but it didn’t happen.


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## scholar (Jun 17, 2004)

oooo the next part is fun... and the soon to be lawful good monk shows his ongoing dislike for paladins
 scribe boy must write faster, it's been three weeks!!!


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## Ao the Overkitty (Jun 23, 2004)

Sorry. I've come down with a case of writers block.  I'm trying to work through it by writing an adventure.

I've got the next part partially done.  I've got to get orchid to translate some passages in her notes for me, though.  And I don't think we have all of the names for the NPCs.  At least we've got the important ones, I think.


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