Stone Age Sorcery Team Crush Necromancy!

Last session was mostly character tweaking, magic item making, infrastructure
and management projects and planning what rival civilisation or relic of ancient
evil they needed to crush next.

Party today
-Orco the 13th Lv , a greatest known living wizard with own school of wizardry
-Sourberry the 13th level Elf lord founder of the twilight elf clan
-Lanos the 8 foort tall giant-warrior with his magic dog pals

All had been working from their towers in their floating giant cloud castle and the orc and human villagers were settled in well. Mostly they were awaiting Inteliegence and were sure the dragons would be the first enemy. Dwarves have left an ambassador. As a teleporting plane shifting elf noble was was on talking terms with the pine elf queen (though she is a bit snarky and implies the twilight clan wont last). They had allies of lizard folk monks and the mammoth and elk clan. Characters have lots of followers and their own strongholds in the area too.

The flying castle was parked over the cave where the tribe darkness (snake and spider too) and some orcs lived in the cave surrounded by gardens where they traded with the Sunderland and a cave hag some worship. 

Red ape valley has a ziggurat of the Sky god with a clan of warriors and clerics. The giant had a cave full of giant dogs there, some are becoming intelligent. These dogs forme a scout-communication link through the mountains and to the coast via a route the Dragon and Death temples don't know about. Dinosaur valley with the reptile monks has a crystal library the elf learned to access and found mention of the blue dragon worshipped by the cult. 

The flying castle had 5 outer towers and an inner control tower.
The central tower has the helm and power room and the left has a lab there and lets griffons nest in the roof. Lanos keeps the giant lord's tower and chambers. The orcs and the humans had towers for residence. The human took the doors off. The humans and orcs in the city have been using ancient coins of prehumans as shiny jewellery and decorations on their clothing. Most wearing 30gp in coin as shiny pretty stuff. Trade with underland has made some aware of the value.

The wizard Orko has a tower for his school of wizardry. In his lab he has been making abhumans. Early ideas included griffon abhumans or something but the process needs a human and an animal usually and the animal dies with its parts surgically donated to the survivor. But with his orc followers he worked out they could catch bad orcs and use them to make allied orcs into abhuman super orcs. So now he has 7 foot tall musclebound orc bodyguards. Some other people started to ask "hey sometimes i wonder if Orko the wizard is really good guy". Turnsout he is a balanced-nuetral weirdo. He also made a homonculi duplicate and considered polymorphing it into female to be his GF. Been preaching to students dont bother with mortal lovers, just get your levels up and make dream lovers or summon them.

Wizard and Elf has been summoning earth elementals to do gardening, building, tunneling and building.

Surprisingly a messenger from the dragon cult offering to meet and fight the undead. The party were wary but willing to go. They flew over by griffon and saw the temples and shrines and hundreds in robes to welcome them. When party made clear they were interested in peace and territorial border limits rights and working to fight undead were allowed to meet the dragon. The big blue dragon named Lord Cyan was charming mostly. Mention of dwarves made him twitch excitedly so they played down this possibility they knew where any were. Dragons apparently had beef with heretics who made dragons into undead so they hated all necromancers now. Party were suspicious of dragon cult slave pens of captives from tribes they had never met. Elf had an invisible spy trip till smelled by a draconian guard and saw the hydra temple had a golden Hydra, the Nidhogg shrine had wyverns and the Tiamat shrine had a gate to somewhere. So a plan to meet for war in a week to plan made with draconic cult leaders. The dragon gave them ancient blue lotus wine and each a gift, the giant got a featherfall headband, elf got a elfcloak (just had one spare) and wizard got a jug that turned any potion into a 2d4 HP healing potion. Dragon invited wizard to drink lotus wine and share wizard spells.

Elf spied on the death temple and saw they were mostly zombies and skeletons with a few suspicious undead and a lich. There was a core of templar evil clerics and a priest and then slaves they were rounding up with help of hyena clan of tribals. They too had slaves from the mountains but it was clear they were intended to become undead. The undead were building a road north.

So the Elf visited the queen and she was cordial but sneery and offered to provide refuge for his clan to be reabsorbed if they needed. Not a great offer. The party spoke to dwarves and debated how many dwarfs could be called on. The dwarves had lots of isolationists but if called to fight undead a core of dwarf death cult haters could be called on. The party offered aid of earth elementals for 80 dwarf heavy troops to burrow under the death cult ziggurat or castle-temple. Dwarves stated they wanted all dwarves and technology to be returned to them and for humans to protect them from the dragon. 

So the Dragon cult war leaders came and a plan was nutted out. It worked pretty well. The dragons offered to seize the slave camp of the necromancers with a hydra and lizard folk. The party planned to secretly get slaves out first via a tunnel to cheat the dragons. 

So the dragon and its army wame from the east to the Death cult castle drawing out their main troops to form ranks leaving the slaves less guarded and the dwarfs for them out and the remainders in the docks and shanty down were destroyed by marine strike force. The party with dwarf allied burrowed into the castle and began massacring templars and preist and a zombie mastadon. The Dragon hurt the lich which most spell casting or non flying players couldn't. Orco rained meteor storm on the undead army. The cloud caste arrived and the human death cultists were broken. The dragon got a second breath on the lich but fled after a 18d6 fireball hit and fled to get healed. The lich tried to get to his priests but thew were destroyed by multiple fireballs. The lich cast a huge area death spell affecting only zero level types which was pretty devastating to lots of humans on battlefield, half all normal humans, orcs and dwarves dies except the slaves in their tunnels. Griffon riding priests and warriors of the red ape valley ziggurat to mop up undead and heal wounded. The anti magic shell lich was a pain and a power Lanos made an oath to get was ineffective. The dragon had done most to lich snuffed the lich who got to 8HP.  

The lich holed up in an adamantium keep spell with a few HP for breathing space. The party had it buried and everyone mopped up the remaining undead. Prisoners of the cult were given to the dragon and the draconics yielded the slaves they originally claimed. Party grabbed lots of magic loot and found undead digging up an ancient machine that could turn a man and a woman into a new hermaphrodite super race by burning gems and using 80 trained animals to operate the controls. Party smashed lots of the crystal complex and buried it. The lich had long gone and was very close to being destroyed. At least he had no cult or home or hermaphrodite machine. Apparently, he hoped to make the hermaphrodites with 4 arms and four legs into undead.

The Dragon claimed the coastline. Elf wondering if the machine was why necromancers came and if dragon looking for some draconic secret. Coins and shiny loot and remaining weapons, armour and metal went 80% to the dragon and Dwarfs got 20% and happy the party tribe uninterested in metal. Dragon and the party agreed to renegociate in peace and not put troops in each other's land without invitation and free travel for the common folk. So many of this lawful evil dragons treaty plan seemed reasonable including a renegotiate in a year. The dragon and its allies include lots of flying troops which the cloud castle would be vulnerable to which party worried about.

So a great victory and some more training and research and magic making. Research into elder giant and dragon lore and party pleased they are players among the mythic powers of the region. Cross-pollinating of skills in campaign tribes has been interesting. Now orcs have bows. A bunch of sorta sky cults have sort of merged. 

Some research revealed there were once thousands of giant sky castles made from fragments of the previous world left after recreation (many became chunks of the abyss) or various demi planes. Most of these castles were destroyed in wars with giants against dragons and gods that were over before demihuamns even were around. Many were taken to the top of the sky and dropped on enemy targets usually great monsters or magical engines of divine beings. 

So now the Elf had plane shift teamed up with giant who wanted to go to giantland to get a giant flying dog sled or a magic chariot so griffons could carry him like they do other characters. So some research about locations and went to visit gnomes who knew a place that gnomes use to go to the world tree. So they cast the spell and crawled into the tiny wooden door and ended up in a wooden passage with tunnels and doors so they found one the to the outside bark encrusted surface of the cosmic tree. There were precarious walkways, huge branches, and several tiny adorable doors in the tree trunk. The curvature of the tree seemed to make the tree a kilometre wide nad they seemed to be over 500 yards up. The giant was glad he got a headband of featherfall. Above the tree branched out into a canopy that seemed to cover most of the visible sky. Giant squirrels and birds were scuttling about.

So Elf cast fly on giant and popped out his wings and they both flew up. They say a wooden mansion in tree and had a look. Had a rude note telling inhabitants to move out. Elf was unconvinced "not enough plot hooks here and were not cops everywhere we go lets move on". Giant was sure people here seemed nicer and might know directions. Destroyed note and knocked for directions. An old billygoat adopt lots of beast folk orphans and was happy to invite party in for tea and show them a gate to giantland. So the next morning they found in a giant branch knot a huge door to giantland. This was once bigger than fairy land which had annexed most of giantland. Once all the sky castles were linked and the lawful sky giants had an infinite sprawling walled city at the core of giantland. So the explorers from the mortal world were disappointed it was a ruined overgrown empty dump.

Wandered around and found a hill giant having a baby guarded by her cave bear. She was scared of party but elf and giant convinced her they were not enemy sky giants (Lanos is one). She was being hunted by enemies and they found 3 ogre magi after her baby which that killed. Remembered that time one ogre magi almost killed whole party. The giantess was friendly and grateful and off to go home (she was hunting her deadbeats ex).

Found two young wimpy zero level elves hiding from giant and a book of giant supremacy and plans to dominate the universe and how humans were the problem of the future. Sourbetty accepted the two as followers and to join his clan, They were lame adventurers who were disappointed by the local monster might that the name giantland was not warning enough. 

Satisfied they had a place to visit again by plane shift they returned home. Next time they could go back to where they had left and not bother with giant squirrels or tree elves. 

Was good to use tables I did years ago especially in my elf book. 4-5 years go so my prep got a payoff at last. Enjoying the high level antics and hoping world breaks. Now the elf has enough spells to blast away for a long time his bow arm getting slack and finding it hard to bother with a new weapon skill. Im still hoping they will fly their castle to another plane to invade or get something.

Wishing you best in your own battles and elfgames