What We Do in the Realm of Shadows - Episode Seven

Previously, on What We Do in the Realm of Shadows... our "heroes" confronted a force of Maggotkin that were attempting to summon a Great Unclean One. They failed to prevent the worshippers of Nurgle from doing so and ended up fleeing the scene with Sir Raven's lifeless corpse in tow... 

They fled through endless leagues of foetid swamps, corrupted with the taint of Nurgle. 

Just when they thought they would never escape this recently mire, they spotted a mound rising out of the dank marshlands. Upon the mount rose a tower. It was an old stone watch tower, in a state of some disrepair, but still clearly in use as warm light shone through the upper windows. 

The Characters climbed the small hill and approached the front door - a large and heavy wooden door reinforced by many bands of steel. After considerable banging on the Knocker, the view port opened up and strange eyes stared at them, silently for an uncomfortably long moment. The Port then closed, followed by the sound of many locks and bolts being undone on the other side of the door and the door opened inward, creaking loudly. 

Inside was a warm and comfortable looking parlour, with plush couches and a raging fire in a fireplace warmed the entire building. From a massive old char, with it's back facing the door, an ancient vampire leaned around becoming the group to enter and warm themselves by the fire... 

None needed to be asked twice and all barged in past the extremely large doorman... and something immediately seemed... wrong... the Old vampire started laughing at them and then reality swirled and then turned black and all were falling. 

When they regained consciousness they found themselves upon an ornate platform surrounded by the blackest void... After some time, a glowing magical portal opened and all stepped through, as there was little else to do! 

in the room beyond they encountered several Tzangors, which attacked them... and were slain. 

Beyond that room was another filled with Karic Acolytes and gibbering daemons... they too were slain... The room was filled with piles and piles of coin which made traversing the room challenging - especially in high-heeled shoes the vampires like to wear! Sir Raven slipped and fell mid-combat! 

Beyond that there was a library occupied by a solitary Pink Horror, who was looking at books and muttering to itself... 

Sir Renmould charged in and chopped it to pieces before it could even say a word... 

Then a Tazangor Shaman and two guards, all on discs of Tzeentch, were battled... 

the pace was incredible as all charged through this maze of rooms. 

All were required to finish off the Tzangor Shaman and friends... 

That Shaman was hard to take down and dealt some damage... 

Finally they entered a great hall with large prisms focusing the light that shone from above that burned to a crisp anything the beam passed over... 

while dodging the beam, the group had to fight off another group of Tzangors... and dodge spells being hurled at them by an Ogroid Thaumaturge!  

Eventually they figured out how to turn the prisms and shone them both on the statue of the eldritch entity... and that cracked and the Thaumaturge disappeared and they met their host - a Gaunt summoner of Tzeentch who had trapped the group in his Silver Tower. The Deamon-Wizard gave them a fragment of a shattered amulet and said if they could pass the Nine Challenges and gather all the shards of the amulet, they would be granted a boon and released from the Silver Tower... if they failed, they would be trapped here for all eternity... and/or die...  

And that's where we left it with the Gaunt Summoner fading away laughing just as the ancient vampire did in the old watch tower they encountered at the beginning of the episode! 

If that weren't enough gaming for one day... afterwards we had some pizza then set up a game of Spearhead DOUBLES to try out those new rules...  

Still very behind on game reports... I've had very little time or energy for any hobby pursuits this past week or so as I've been adjusting to my return to school. Hopefully I'll get a few more done this weekend... but I will likely not be keeping up with the same level of gaming and miniature painting as I did last year...