The Cursed: A Horrible Death

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

Alleon's troop finds the old man at the standing stones who welcomes them openly. He says "The bonded serve one more master," and then grins as he turns into a demon. "Me! You want your freedom? Come find me at Myth Drannor."

"Detect Evil" totally failed I guess.

With that the man vanishes, and Alleon decides to march on to said location in the middle of the forest reaching the outskirts which looks to be an overgrown cemetery. Thrikeen patrol the place but apart from dealing with a few grave robbing insects they generally stay away from the explorers.

Elven spirits are also present and generally help the team with information and equipment. Everything is looking up, until Gavion accidentally steps into a sink hole sending the entire party into a nest of giant spiders!

Spells are let loose and steel hacks into chitin as the squad attempts to escape. Aika is the first that gets bitten, and is immediately slain by the toxin. Meanwhile Olive is jumped and dragged away screaming to be used to feed the young. They are almost out when Alleon is also bitten on the ankle, and vomiting into his helmet, dies a horrible death.

The Cursed: Full Circle

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

With Moander defeated, all the monsters including swarms of vegepygmies that had skulked away earlier came on the offensive and the party had to fight their way tooth and nail out of that pit but followed Dragonbait's nose to finally reach daylight.

Tiny plant men. Ridiculous.

Once there Alleon's contingent headed to the river to meet up with Ragner and Rollo and their stolen ferry which they used to escape upstream to Daggerfall (wait what?). Reinforcements in the form of Faeris, Kelaide, Shelumu and Gavion joined the squad here and a visit to the magic shop saw them loading up with expensive gear to hunt down the last curse master.

Before they could depart, alarm bells rang throughout the town as a mob of ettins had descended from the nearby hills to attack! The party leaped into action, driving them back but Mercedes was brutally squashed by a giant club in the encounter.

Alias and Dragonbait opted to remain to hunt down the troublesome ettin tribe, leaving the rest to board the ferry once more and sail down the river fork, almost back to Tilverton. From there Alleon instructed Ragner and Rollo to go find reinforcements while the remainder began the march up to the standing stones that Siegfried heard Dynrigg speak of back at Hap.

The Cursed: Garden Goblin

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

Finding the main cultist temple on the deeper floor was made easier as most of the inhuman creatures steered clear of the party. This turned out to be intentional, as upon arrival Alleon's bond was activated while the others were held in place by a burst of tentacles holding them in unbecoming places.

The head priestess then channeled the power of the bond into a huge pile of corpses, intent on raising Moander, the god of decay. Fortunately as the power drained away, so did the bond, leaving Alleon free to rescue the others and begin combat against the cultists in earnest.

Apparently Moander knows MJs "Thriller" dance.

Despite Aika head shotting the head priestess, three massive segments of Moander made it through the closing portal. This was Gevlon's time to shine, as the bone wand he had looted was one of defoliation - almost specifically designed to combat shambling mounds and plant life, which happened to be what Moander was made of. And so, with the others tanking, the little goblin destroyed the god.

The Cursed: Common Foe

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

The fully rested team heads out into Yulash city at dawn, and encounter a number of Zhentarim "terror teams" in the ruins who prove to be much stronger than their counterparts who were working for Fzoul - mainly because of all the enchanted gear they were equipped with.

Ulfert also proves to be his own undoing when he strikes a fleeing Zhentrim mage, killing him but also triggering the fire shield around his target which does double fire damage in return, melting Ulfert's flesh from his bones.

They also run into shambling mounds dragging bodies into a pit, and while the plant monsters are tough adversaries, defeating them leads to a reward in the form of a bone wand which Gevlon quickly pockets.

Finally they find an entrance to the underground pit and descend, only to find a whole bunch of cultists already dead within. Following the bodies, they find two other adventurers - Alias and Dragonbait (the Saurian) already clearing the way. Clearly having a common foe, they decide to join forces.

An odd pair, and an oddly descriptive scent.

The Cursed: Short Ones

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

The team doesn't get far before they run into Olive Ruskettle and her associate, a greedy goblin mage named Gevlon, looking for their employer. After delivering the bad news, the two short ones lead the squad out, fighting past a few more drow and manticores.

That's a spikey winged lion.

With the keep now in full riot, the team escapes to the next town of Yulash which happens to be a war front between the Zhentarim and the Red Plumes of Hillsfar. Having experienced the "hospitality" of the Zhentarim, the team decide to try ally with the Red Plumes and are successful when they aid in slaying some Zhentarim spies.

At the local barracks they find another curse bond bearer, Commander Alleon, who takes charge of the party as their new employer and explains that a strange cult has taken up residence beneath the crumbling, war torn city... and one of them is the next curse master.

Eador: Too Good a Teacher

[Part of the Masters of Eador story.]

As masters were unable to manifest as themselves, they needed proxies to lead their crusades for them in capturing shards. Nesturs found his first proxy in an untested commander named Alleon, who was equal parts brash and violent - using sheer numbers of basic troops to overwhelm the local lords on the first two shards (basically zerg rush), which were then absorbed into Nestur's mainland. Power hungry, Alleon even destroyed Oinor's forces on the second land - an action the old wizard frowned upon.

The standard battle map.

Commander Marogund, Nestur's next servant was sent to a desert shard whose theme is stamina draining combat. Marogund is more of a pacifist, (very) slowly buying out the nearby settlements to increase his territory and resources, leading to a heavily supplied force when it comes time for him to lay siege to Oinor's castle. Defeating the adventurers employed to guard it, Oinor is once again forced to concede the shard to Nesturs whose mainland now equals Oinor's in size.

Through gritted teeth, the old wizard congratulates him and resigns as being his mentor.