Under WhiteFang Mountain

Our five characters (cleric, thief, agent* and two fighters) in our party fought our way with ease through the tunnels of the troglodytes. The wily troglodyte shaman unleashed his worse on us; poisonous snakes, flaming strike, devil rays, but to no avail, he and his minions were soaking up damage. Realizing all was lost, the trog shaman tried to flee behind an obscuring mist. But our pseudodragon, Whiskers quickly tracked the cool trail of blood from the retreating shaman to a arrow crevice. The wounded troglodyte made a defiant final stand with his viper rod, but was decapitated by my battle axe.

This all was leading up to a showdown with a scheming dragon, Rathulagon. Our hope centered on the other fighter, George making a lucky hit from his masterwork composite bow with an arrow of evil slaying.

Upon entering the dank lair of the evil Rathulagon, the thief was well-prepared with his potion of invisibility and his stealth sword. My fighter, Clovis drank his potion of haste. The lawful good cleric blessed the party and cast fire resistance upon Clovis (front and center), then hung back in gaseous form waiting to aid the injured or dying with her staff of curing. Whiskers flew high and right armed with a wand of magic missiles. The agent (house rule - mage/thief), Lexus prepared her lightning bolt spell. Our intention was to scatter quickly; the dragon wouldn’t get all of us, but I feared, he would get enough of us. The surprise/initiative dice were rolled . . . Drat, a tie. At least we weren’t surprised, and ties go to player characters.

“Who disturbs my rest?”, bellowed the mighty Rathulagon (AC 23, 152hp).

Clovis’ reply was a solid strike in the chest with a javelin of lightning. Lexus let loose with a lightning bolt to the head. George rolled a ‘2’ and his arrow of evil slaying bounced pathetically and impotently off a stalactite. The red dragon shrugged off the 40+ hit points (hp) of electrical damage and breathed fire, searing both fighters, Clovis and George. Fortunately, we both made our reflex saves and were only moderately injured (18hp).

The next round, our thief pounced from hiding, rolling a natural ‘20’, but Rathulagon had a +12 fortitude save and no critical hit was obtained. The thief inflicted merely 6 hp with his back stab. The thief earned no glory that day, but he did gain the ire of an all ready angry dragon. The rest of our party did their best to inflict damage with melee weapons, but Rathulagon was a brutal and dangerous adversary. This was going to be a brutal battle of attrition; axes, swords and magic missiles, versus fangs, talons and dragon fire.

Six rounds latter, after failing his attempt to take escape, the smoldering dragon corpse lay adjacent to the bodies of an eviscerated thief and a crispy critter, we used to call George. Battered, burned and bleeding, the survivors gathered up the loot; gold, silver, gems, a flaming sword, and a mithral suit of elven mail. It was going to be expensive to reincarnate our fallen comrades, but our previous good deeds had earned us the respect and sympathy of the provincial church. Fortunately, our prior generosity also allowed us access to a high level (10th) priest.