[PCs] [NPCs]

Cimosco's Island was the original quest that brought the party together. In those days it was Morwen, Karl, Seth, Lientei and Kaer, but they were soon joined by Angor and Frayer. The original five were all in Craje on the same day and the local wizard, Oax Pelleren, gathered them together to perform a number of tasks for him. The first was the retrieval of a golden statue for him from a 'disused' temple in Amir'Shaan. This brought Sisski into their little group - she joined them without explanation.

Their second task was to free a local town, Ural, from besieging by orcs. It transpired that Oax's daughter was the mayor of this town and that the orcs were sent by a copper dragon called Adrian in order to get the attention of the mage. This adventure brought Angor into the group as a much-needed invincible sword-arm. Once the conflict was resolved, they returned to Craje where Oax gave them their third task - to go to the capital city of Chunn and find out what was going on as the city had been declared under martial law and no one had been allowed to leave since.

The journey to the great city was eventful, as they rescued a young maiden from a tower only to find that the girl was in fact a wizard called Cimosco. Adrian saved them from him, but Karl was nearly killed by his first trapped lock. As they approached the city, they found a mile wide area of devastation left by the Palatial Knights of Chunn City, and they were perplexed. Then they met a small group of adventurers led by a priest of Betram called Plath, who told them that this wizard called Cimosco had hired them to take him to the city, where they were shot at by the town guards and Cimosco turned into a bird and flew off.

Swiftly they realised that entry to the city was restricted to guard patrols only and in the end they bluffed their way in by splitting up. Some pretended to be a guard patrol with a confiscated wagon (where Seth was hiding) while others went in via the corpse-clogged sewers. Infiltrating the city was easy, finding out who the factions were was easy, solving the problem was… easy. All they did was find Sorcerer King Platir and say hello - with new adventurers in town to distract the other two factions (his apprentices who were rebelling) he took charge of the situation and killed the one apprentice, Dirrl, sending the other (Abram) into exile. And that was that. Although Seth had to be left behind as they fled the city.

Their return to Craje was nearly blighted by death when they were attacked in the night by some undead - which Lientei confidently identified as zombies. Morwen turned them and the party gave chase, only to find that they were ghouls. They nearly all died, but for the timely return of Seth to heal them and help fight them off.

Back in Craje, Oax and Adrian sat the group down and explained that hundreds of year's ago there had been a terrible war and that during the war a vicious weapon had been developed that threatened the safety of the whole world. The war ended abruptly and the weapon was thrown into the sea and presumed destroyed… but a mage called Cimosco had been making a concerted effort to locate the item and seemed to have been successful. The party were to go to his home, aptly named Cimosco's Island, and slay Cimosco, destroying the weapon as well if he had located it.

They agreed, and spent a couple of nights in the Calatrap Inn in Craje before they headed off. This was of significance because the day they were due to leave, they were attacked by a savage band of half-orcs and without Angor, who was sleeping, they were a bit buggered. Only the timely intervention of Plath and his party managed to save the party from a nasty mincing. Then Frayer came in and joined the party as fled the bloodbath in a hurry.

The journey to the Island was to be quite a trip indeed, and involved them travelling south through Epratium, through Shaani'del (the halfling lands) into Ger'Shaan, from which they intended to get a ship to the Jandarr Empire. They were due to meet the Sorcerer King of the Empire then who would equip them and send them on to Cimosco's Island from there.

Well, Kaer got kidnapped by orcs, then the whole party were enslaved and slew the slavers to the very last man. And almost burnt a plain to cinders, as well as murdering a Duke of the realm. Then in the halfling lands there was the old wizards tower haunted by misshapen half-men, a hydra rampaging through a town, a wand of wonder and two skilled and prejudiced dwarven blacksmiths who managed to rile Frayer quite a lot… Crossing the mountains they stopped off with the dwarves and that was where Lientei was killed - he went off with two trollslayers to find some trolls and instead just found a rather unpleasant death as he was literally gutted. Only Angor survived and he returned to the party to fill them in on the story. It was around this time that they discovered that Karl was a werewolf - a matter that caused them some trouble at various points in the future (on a ship, on a magic carpet…)

In Ger'shaan they managed to save a town from the storm of the century, before locating a ship to sail them to the Empire. However, the Wayward was attacked by the pirate vessel Senorita and sunk. More howeverly, the Senorita had both a magic carpet AND a triton in a jar who was so grateful to the party for freeing him that he speeded up their journey to the Empire… by throwing the ship there. Their arrival was bordering on disastrous as they destroyed a pier, failed to pay any sort of docking tax and were accused of piracy. Also there was a magical explosion that nullified the magic carpet.

Having finally proved their innocence, and with Angor having avenged the death of Giffy his war-pony by poisoning Captain Rombarto, the party got the magic carpet restored and then sped to Agatan, capital of the Jandarr Empire. Again, their entrance was less than proper as they crashed into the palace roof and then proceeded to act as if the palace guards were in the wrong for being suspicious. When they finally met Sorcerer King Hena (who was, in fact, a woman) she explained the situation again, gave them a couple of magical items and tried to cast a geas on them but was eventually convinced otherwise. She also gave them a few magical items and an ally in her champion, Christine.

They decided to assault Cimosco by getting onto his ship as it went by. This they achieved by pretending that their magic carpet had run out of power while over the sea and that they were stranded - however, Cimosco sent them all to sleep and when they awoke they were naked and in the hold of the ship as it was gently sinking.

Overcoming their embarrassment rapidly, the group escaped from the hold and hurried around the ship, collecting their equipment and encountering a number of odd devices. For one, the ship was being rowed by undead, for another they were not the only prisoners on the ship. Oh, and there was the minor fight with the kraken… they left the other prisoners behind when they were sucked in by a magical bowl, and fled the ship only to be attacked by an animated net that. They left their wand of wonder behind on the ship, and a number of items they would have liked to have investigated further and made their way onto the island itself.

They decided to assault Cimosco by getting onto his ship as it went by. This they achieved by pretending that their magic carpet had run out of power while over the sea and that they were stranded - however, Cimosco sent them all to sleep and when they awoke they were naked and in the hold of the ship as it was gently sinking.

There was a village that they went to, and they broke into the hut of one of the tribesmen. When he came home they interrogated / questioned him about the island and about Cimosco. This guy was called Ashitti and he lived in a hut on stilts. He explained that Cimosco was a god and lived in the volcano at the heart of the mountain. He was afraid of his god, but not unhappy when he was told that this group of heavily armoured foreigners intended to slay his deity.

They made their way up to the volcano, fighting a roc on the way and falling prey to a trap that made them fall down the mountainside. But the abode of this 'god' was quite strange indeed. There was a room with a chasm through it, a river of boiling mud, a room with gold circles that spewed out poisonous spore clouds that killed Karl (he was resurrected by a ring a few moments later), and even a temple filled with imaginary priests. There were quite a few real denizens of the place, who were slaves to Cimosco, bound by metal rings on their ankles that prevented them leaving the room they were in and reduced them to a pile of dust when they died. They managed to befriend a few of these: a warrior monk called Brother North Wind, a strange chap who tended to lie pointlessly called Brother Mib and a dwarven runesmith called Mekar. They also encountered Cimosco's evil cleric brother, Malagur, who tried to kill them but ended up being killed himself. The saddest thing they encountered was a young fire giant called Tallwalker who was too big to leave the cavern and was like a 12' tall 4 year old.

They found a red dragon who was battered but didn't speak, just toasted Morwen a couple of times with his flaming breath. They also managed to get into Cimosco's actual home and meet his rather terrified family. They left them alive and went to find the master of the house. They eventually cornered him in his own family tomb where he tried to pretend he was just a servant… but he was caught out when he turned invisible on his way out (hoping no one would think he had actually vanished). The party then cornered him and killed him, although there was a hairy moment when he exploded…

Afterwards the volcano started to erupt and the party were forced to flee, and rescue whomsoever they could on the way. They managed to find Adrian stuffed in a cage in the lair of the red dragon, so they pulled him out and took him with them. They killed Tallwalker as they couldn't save him, and the tried to help all the women and children who lived and worked for the dead wizard. His family, however, had made their escape. On their way out they picked up Brother North Wind, Brother Mib and Mekar, but people started falling prey to the gold circles that killed Karl. At the chasm, Frayer and Christine started lowering people to the bottom, but at one rather frantic moment, one of the pins holding the rope gave way and Frayer was flung over the egde of the cliff - only Christine's quick reactions and good footing saved our warrior heroine and all the people they were lowering.

Crossing the river of boiling mud, Kaer fell in and Karl thrust a hand in to pull him out. The elf was dead but succumbed to a resurrection from the ring. Later, when faced with a log to cross a ravine with, Christine tried to cross the log with a rope tied to her, and Karl followed because he was in love with her (due to a love potion). However, the rogue fell and although Christine caught him, she fell off the log too and her grip slackened when the two of them collided with the wall. Karl fell 90' to the bottom of the ravine and was lucky to be alive… but he died when he fell down the cliff face while trying to climb 10' to the rope.

When they managed to get to the shore with a river of lava chasing them, they decided the only thing to do was to take Ashitti's house, chop the legs off it and knock down the walls to make a crude raft. They watched the island in its death throes from the sea as they drifted away…