The Twice Damned Prince A House Divided  They decided, after cashing in treasure, returning stolen goods and buying equipment, to visit the nobles. They found that the main two families they needed to approach were rivals but were bizarrely living in two wings of the same house. They visited the Mhartis family first, a family down on their luck as their own house had been destroyed when the inferno had erupted through the mayors house. When they inquired at the house after the family, they were politely turned away, as the Mhartis family were mourning the loss of their son and were not receiving visitors. They next went to the Ciucci half of the mansion, where they were given similar treatment by the butler. In the midst of his refusal to allow them entry, a young female voice interrupted and asked him who was there. She introduced herself as Delilee, explaining that since the murder of his wife, the patriarch of the family was unavailable. They spent a little time talking to her but swiftly realised that they needed to speak to the patriarch, Guxer Ciucci and so bade her farewell. Knowing that many old houses in the city had entrances from the sewer left over from the days of the civil war when they were used as escape route, they decided to do some sneaky investigation and so, as so often before, they went sewer diving (after Ruby had changed her clothes). After a short search, they found a secret door and, once they had unlocked it, made their way into a wine cellar. This lead into the ground floor of the Ciucci mansion, but before they continued, they decided to check a door on the far side of the sewer. This proved a good idea, as beyond it, in the Ciucci family crypt, they found the body of Delilee Ciucci, who had clearly been dead more than the hour or so when they had last seen her. This strengthened their resolve, and they headed back into the Ciucci mansion to apprehend whoever was imitating Delilee. Things then degenerated somewhat, as they searched the house. First Damon found the cook and wrestled her to the floor, in case the master of disguise had switched disguises. Then Janek broke into the master bedroom and managed to knock Guxer out, just in case he was the disguise artist (and also because it was clear he was insane and had a rapier). Meanwhile, Gorac and Ruby heard a noise towards the front of the house and began searching rooms quickly in that direction. Ruby found a locked door and, on opening it, was confronted by the butler, dripping wet and wearing only a towel, threatening her with a loofah. After he had apologised for his state of undress, she shut the door to allow him to make himself decent. Gorac heard a window break as she moved in to the library but was unable to stop whoever had broken it from escaping. The Mhartis House They did their best to restore Guxer and managed to get his agreement to aid them. Next, they set off back into the sewers to investigate the Mhartis house. Searching the sewers, they came across a Otyugh, which made the battle hard by refusing to move from the water it was sitting in. The battle was decisively turned when Ruby started casting fly on the fighters and the Otyugh fell. The party moved into the house and came up in the kitchen and started to look around, quickly finding a group of cutthroats and rogues lounging around in the main hall. These put up little resistance but did act as a warning to the rest of the house. They found two of the younger Mhartis family members held by rogues and rescued them, putting the rogues to flight or the sword. The Council Strikes Back They continued to search for the missing hostages, who Janek eventually found in a storeroom, trussed and gagged. Damon meanwhile, with Ruby and Gorac, found the last of the remaining  thieves who were stupid enough to resist and paid for it with their lives. The elder Mhartis family members seemed happy to help restore the city to order but less pleased that it would also require the Ciucci family. With some persuasion, a meeting of the two families was arranged and their cooperation gained. Next on the agenda were the Hellknights. Damon led the diplomatic negotiations and the Hellknights proved remarkably cooperative, Paralictor Chard being particularly impressed with the lads attitude. Unfortunately, it transpires that the Hellknights were having a little internal disagreement at the moment, with their keep outside the city closed and the few knights in Taranik House cut off, due to a split in their ranks. The leader of the rebels had been driven off and had fled north and the Paralictor offered the party a reasonable sum for the capture of Signifier Verennie, the traitors leader. They decided to use Gorac's divination powers on the following day to try to find the traitor and retired to the haven of the shrine to plan. This proved a most fortuitous decision, as that night, while Gorac was on guard, she heard sounds of stealthy people shortly before a group of thieves burst into the common room. A brief and bloody skirmish took place, with the thieves attempting to kidnap one of the children of Westcrown, unsuccessfully. However, during this diversion, a second group of rogues managed to kidnap Janiven. A Plague of Undead The next day, using divinations, they learnt that Verennie was in the north of the city, in a district overrun with undead. They decided that the continuation of their mission to calm the city would have been the wish of Janiven and headed that way. After a few skirmishes with minor undead on the streets, Janek decided to pick a random house and see what lurked in the basement – finding several ghouls. They then decided to investigate the cemetery where a specific mausoleum caught their eye – that of the Nymmis family. This proved to have been taken over by a group of mohrgs as their home and conflict ensued – to the detriment of the mohrgs. Realising that this approach was going slowly nowhere, they looked for a tower and seeing one, decided that that was where they needed to be. While this proved erroneous, they did get to meet a vampire and his spawn – the spawn proving little threat, the vampire more so until Damon unleashed the sunbeam power of the Morrowfall upon it. As they wandered the streets trying to come up with their next target, they had a stroke of luck – they spotted two Hellknights heading into a house on the waterfront. The Restless Heretic They broke into the house, after Damon had knocked at the front door, with Damon going in the front while Gorac went in at the back. Inside were two Hellknights, although there was something odd about them – they were actually earth elementals looking like Hellknights. They began to search the house, with a constant stream of earth elemental Hellknights of various sizes making the task difficult. Eventually, in an upstairs room, Damon and Janek found the corpse of Verennie with a dagger in its throat. Damon removed the head, enraging the ghost sorcerer who had been summoning the earth elementals. She tried to protect her corpse from further desecration with a wall of fire but Ruby dispelled it and they were finally able to lay the ghost to rest. They set off for Taranik House with the grisly proof of the demise of the heretic Hellknight. Trouble at Taranik House They set off through the town to Taranik house, reaching the area with no real issues. Suddenly, two crossbow bolts thudded down from the rooftops at them, causing Gorac and Ruby some momentary discomfort. Janek used his boots to teleport up to the roof, where a very surprised rogue did not last long. Gorac went and knocked on the door of the house opposite where the other rogue was hiding, just as the body of the first hit the ground. Damon marched on down the road, wondering why his comrades were mucking about. Ruby flew up and the other rogue did not last much longer than  his companion. As they neared Taranik house, they could see Hellknights on guard around it and, perhaps more surprising, a filthy goblin hidden in a bush, beckoning to them. Introducing himself as Jinkoo, he regaled them with stories of his bravery and loyalty when the rogues, with the help of heretic Hellknights, had attacked the small fort. Obeying orders, he had sounded his horn and run away into the sewers. He asked the party to help relieve the fort and so they followed him into the sewers to his lodgings, opposite a secret door into the forts basement.  There, they found several of the rogues in a state of alert, as the party had had a lengthy discussion about secret doors, finding them and opening them, before doing so. After an initial hail of bolts, the rogues were swiftly dealt with at close quarters. all save one - whom Damon determinedly took alive. As the party searched the basement, they heard someone sneaking down the stairs and so Damon positioned himself to one side of them – the rogue coming down to see what was going on didn’t stand a chance. Damon and Janek moved upstairs while Ruby and Gorac tried to release two good (ish) Hellknights from the room they were barricaded in. As Damon and Janek fought the remaining rogues upstairs, Ruby was a little perturbed to be attacked by four heretics entering through the sewers. She wisely ran away as Gorac moved to help her. For a while it looked dicey, until Damon and Janek came back and the two good (ish) Hellknights joined in, finally removing the heretical threat in the basement. Janiven Rescued They finished the breaking of the siege of Taranik House, finding Chard and the last few Hellknights in a heavily barricaded room. After being thanked by the Paralictor, they retired for the night to consider their options. They decided the rescue of Janiven was the next priority and set off to Skarx prison on the strength of a surprisingly straightforward divination. Arriving at the prison, they found a stout blockhouse with a quay at which a barge was moored. Ruby did some reconnaissance and on the strength of her report, they barged ion through the front door. Janek claimed the four prison guards as his own personal combat and Damon went to an inner office to ask the prison commandant, a female Tiefling, to surrender – with the usual results, initially. This left Gorac and Ruby to explore the quayside, where they found themselves under attack from four Erinyes. This looked grim for a while, as the Erinyes did not seem to find the fact that Ruby was invisible any problem to them targeting her. Fortunately, they were soon joined by Janek who, as soon as Ruby had enabled him to fly, joined the fray with gusto. Meanwhile, ion the prison, the commandant had discovered the difficulty inherent in combat for a lone rogue when faced with a fighter of equal status and had decided to surrender, leading to a lengthy conversation with Damon before she let slip as a bargaining chip that Lady Chammady had a lover called Ghivel. Outside,after some shaky moments, the Erinyes were defeated and Janiven rescued from the prison cells. This left them with several leads: Ghivel who could lead them to  Chammady Drovenge Mysterious fires apparently started by fiends towards the south in the richer part of town Shadow beast attacks in the south Undead terrors to the north More Undead and Some Devils They decided to return to the undead threat and went to the north of the city, where Damon looked hard for the barracks, drill grounds and mess halls of the undead army. Finding nothing, they tried divination instead, receiving clear instructions on where to go, the gods being a bit short of time to be cryptic at the moment. They headed for the sunset gate where they found many zombies to get a bit of sword training on before, the party spread out a little, Janek opened a door and was confronted by a Devourer. This proved a challenge even to his skills and it was only with the aid of the others that the undead general was defeated. After a bit of a rest, they headed for the dock district to try to find out what the rumours of devils setting fire to things were all about. As they wandered around, a man on fire burst out of a side street and collapsed. Janek immediately charged off to see what had caused this as Gorac tended to the man, with Damon's aid. Ruby flew up to see what was going on, just in time to see Janek in a life and death struggle with a Barbed Devil. Struggle as he tried he could not break its grip and was slowly being speared to death by the wicked barbs covering its body. As Ruby started to magic missile it to help the plucky dwarf, a second barbed devil wrestled Gorac to the ground and started to impale her on its barbs. This one had chosen its fight a little less carefully, as Damon waded in with great violence and helped the cleric out. Once Gorac was free, they went to the aid of Janek and rescued him just in time. As the battle ended,Ruby gave her opinion that the devils had been summoned. Fire Fighting They rested and decided to continue with the fire issues. After several nights of waiting, they were rewarded with a fire at a warehouse on the docks. This time, they stuck together, more or less, and the barbed devil which had set the fire proved less of an issue. Ruby, meanwhile, had flown above the site and saw a second barbed devil crouched down on a rooftop. As she saw it, it stood, said ‘How irritating’ and disappeared. This lead them to the belief that this was the cause of the barbed devil arsonist situation and they decided to look into shadow beasts instead, leading to an entertaining and rather dangerous battle with some shadow mastiffs and a shadow fire giant – Damon was unnerved by the mastiffs howling, leading to Ruby trying to fireball a fire giant. However, despite these setbacks, they prevailed. Next they tried a divination on the location of the barbed devil seen by Ruby – this gave them the information that he was in the heart of Aroden – they decided this must mean the huge status of the god in the south of the city, known as the Arodennama. Diabolic Cavalry As evening fell, they set off for the Arodennama. As they strolled along a broad boulevard with ruined houses to either side, they were greeted to the unusual sight of a couple of Bearded Devils riding Hellcats. The fighters applied their tactical knowledge to the situation and prepared for a charge, which inevitably came. The devils vanished and left the cats to their own devices as they teleported into the ruins to attack the party from the rear. Meanwhile, the rest of the devils patrol circled round to gain a tactical advantage. There followed a very untidy and potentially dangerous situation, as the members of the party became separated and, in some cases, grappled. Ruby cast fly just before being grappled and then teleported straight up, to cast lightning bolts into the melee from a position of safety. Damon had his own private battles in the rubble at the edge of the street, while Gorac and Janek more or less worked as a team. Eventually, the enemies began to fall, easing the pressure and the day was theirs. They decided to rough it for the night in a secure shelter (the cheap one, not Leomund’s branded one) and had a good nights sleep. In the morning, as Janek lead them out into the early morning sun, Damon thought he saw a movement in the rubble to the right and dived for cover, shouting ‘incoming’. Four Erinyes rose from the ruins and fired flaming arrows at the remaining members of the party, causing Ruby to retreat into the shelter, swiftly followed by Janek asking for a fly spell. Gorac  likewise got airborne as Damon used a crossbow to fend off one of the Erinyes. With Gorac and Janek flying and Ruby summoning a large air elemental, things were never going to be great for the Erinyes and one of them quickly teleported away. The others fought on to the bitter end, which was not too long in coming. While Heroes Sleep.... As they continued towards the statue, it suddenly started to cry tears of fire, which was not a normal event even for Westcrown. Damon took this as a sign that they should destroy the Aohl and they spent a little time working out how. They joined the Totemrix and Morrowfall together, thus creating the Aohl and then Janek whacked it one with his hammer, destroying it and badly damaging the table it was resting on. They then went to bed, leaving Ruby on guard. Soon, news arrived that there was a big battle between demons and rogues up at the statue. Janek went to watch as Ruby continued her watch until she woke Gorac. By this time, the battle was more or less over, the rogues having vanquished the demons and Ecarrdian, as leader of the victorious forces, was carried through the streets as the war barges of General Vourne arrived at the docks. It was at this point they realised that they may have missed a trick. Janek and Damon went to the statue while Ruby and Gorac set off to investigate a strange light that Janek had seen atop a hill. They flew in to find a large pentagram inscribed on the hilltop and came to the conclusion, from the mass of demonic footprints in it that this was where the demons had arrived. However, it also looked as though they had left from here as well, which called into question the events of the night. Meanwhile, Janek and Damon had decided to investigate inside the statue, using Janek’s boots of teleportation to bypass the dreaded locked door. Inside, they found a Shaitan genie, who caused some minor problems before being defeated. As they started to explore, they heard the door behind them open and so took up ambush positions. However, it was just Gorac and Ruby (Ruby having spent some time getting the contract between Mammon and Ecarrdian to the council of war deciding the fate of Westcrown). Exploring further, they had an epic and mildly frustrating fight with the Barbed Devil they had seen earlier, who eventually teleported to the wrong place and was killed. They retired to mull over the events of the night and plan a way of saving Westcrown from the clutches of Mammon (as well as removing a despot who had sold his sisters soul for power). Victory from the Jaws of Defeat Our heroes retired to the shrine to plan a response to the cataclysmic events that had befallen them. Damon came up with a plan – a full frontal assault on the war barges currently sitting at the docks. Janek immediately aid ‘Lets go’, while the others sat considering this. Realising that they would have to come up with some form of alternative plan, they readily agreed that the only way was Damon. That decided, they remembered that they had made some allies over the course of their adventures and set about recruiting them to their cause. The nobles wives (since the nobles were busy in the concordat at the time), the Hellknights and even the Hag were recruited, when someone (Damon on the day) remembered Dog Tongue – possibly the most dangerous and helpful ally they could have. Delicate negotiations began with the Red Cap – basically, promising extreme violence and possibly alcohol did the trick. Before the assault, as Janek tried to control the Red Caps in a disused warehouse rather too near to the pub, he was surprised to hear a half forgotten, dusky voice – the Succubus he had surrendered part of himself to. She joined them, on the grounds that he had finally become amusing enough to bother with, which caused some difficulty with the surrounding Red Caps who were all quite interested in having a nice ‘chat’ with her. Dog Tongue appropriated her, saving both the Red Caps and Janek from too many complications. At dusk, they prepared their assault, with the Hellknights and  (unknown to them, the Hag) controlling access to the dock front, they commenced their charge, lead by the fey. The Red Caps cleared the crowd, with hearty cries of ‘Psychopath coming through’ and similar, less subtle calls. Having boarded the main barge, they fought their way forward to the conference room – Janek reaching it first. As he entered, he saw General Vourne with an unconscious Red Cap, with two other Red Caps rather annoyed that he had nicked their hats. The General asked Janek what he wanted – the reply ‘We are her to restore order to Westcrown with his head’ (while pointing at Ecarrdian) seemed to please him and he set about getting the nobles and Red Caps out of the way using brandy as an incentive.  From there on, things went badly for Ecarrdian, as Damon came in through another door and Ruby and Gorac joined in. Once Ecarrdian had been vanquished, the general looked the party over and, admiring their direct and effective approach, promoted Damon to ruler of Westcrown, answerable to him. Damon’s life had suddenly got a lot more complicated.

Annals