Basement (month 1, day 12)

After they rescued Lavinia, Tolin and Zan, the Tropic Thunder tied up Drevoraz and Bua-Gorg, and healed Tolin and Zan. They then asked Tolin to guard the prisoners, while Lavinia and Zan would go seek help, and the heroes would look for Liamae and Kaskus.

On their way to he basement, the Tropic Thunder heard croaking from the trophy hall. Graim went through a few other rooms in his effort to surround their enemies.

Row upon row of bookshelves filled to bursting with tomes on all manner of subjects lined the first room. A hearth sat against one of the walls, embers glowing softly within. A reading table sat near the fireplace.

An old musty diary written in a strange archaic language rested on the reading table. The diary's current page was marked with a strange card of flexible gray material with holes and bumps along its surface.

The next room was a dismal excuse for a gallery that obviously once held dozens of works, but now most of the frames stood empty, save a few exotic landscapes and a portrait of Lavinia's parents.

The contents of this room suffered recently, as Lavinia was forced to sell most of the paintings herein to collectors and merchants to pay off the most critical of her inherited debts.

The exhibit hall displayed many hunting trophies, all well-preserved by taxidermy. Great saber-toothed cats, a crouching deinonychus, a bloated toad the size of a pony, and a strange badger-like creature with golden fur and eight legs rounded out the menagerie of more mundane leopards, wolves, and bears. The carpet in this room was terribly stained with mud, especially around the door in one corner of the room.

The door in that corner of the room led down to the basement.

The bullywugs hid behind the dire toad trophy when the alarm was raised, but were soon killed by the Tropic Thunder.

Water from the central pool in the courtyard flowed through the basement, cascading through a grate in one wall and then out through a second grate in the opposite wall. This second grate was nearly completely rusted through; only a few jagged chunks of metal remained. Great swaths of mud stained the floor there.

A Medium or smaller creature could use the missing grate to exit and enter the Vanderboren Estate relatively unnoticed.

The muddy floor was difficult to walk through. Bullywugs could move through mud like this with no penalty.

When the Tropic Thunder first reached this area, the sounds of deep slobbery laughter, a woman's cries of distress, and a weird thrilling chitter echoed into the area from one of the chambers.

Liamae Teslikaria, one of the Jade Ravens, wore nothing more than a tattered sheet into which three spoons and a single fork were threaded. When the Tropic Thunder arrived, she used a spell to distract the bullywugs. Covered with rust monster bites, she did not survive the attack which followed her casting.

The bullywugs had with them a pony-sized creature with four insectlike legs and a squat, humped body protected by a thick, lumpy hide. Its tail was covered in armored plates and ended in a bony projection that looked like a double-ended paddle. The creature sported two long antennae on its head, one beneath each eye.

The creature attacked Harold and the three bullywugs gathered around each other to prevent the Tropic Thunder from flanking them. The bullywugs fought to the death, but the creature waddled off into a corner to eat when it got Harold's armor and mace to gnaw on. Unfortunately, that left Harold vulnerable to the attacks of the bullywugs, which managed a fatal blow on him, before them and the creature were killed by the remaining heroes.

The bullywugs had stacked Liamae's gear next to a rough overstuffed chair. This consisted of a ring, a vial, two thin batons and tens of gold pieces.

Dire Toad

These small amphibians are generally nonaggressive insect hunters. In large groups, however, they can make good use of their poison attacks.

Dire toads inject a poison through their bite that affects the victim's constitution. A dire toad that hits with a tongue attack can use improved grab. If it gets a hold, it can attempt to swallow the foe.

Dire Animals

Dire animals are larger, tougher, meaner versions of ordinary animals. Each kind tends to have a feral, prehistoric, or even demonic appearance.

Belt of Ogre Power

This belt is made of tough leather with iron studs running across its length. It grants the wearer great strength, adding a +2 enhancement bonus to his Strength score.

Faint transmutation; CL 6th; Craft Wondrous Item, bull's strength; Price 4,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.

Dog, Riding

This category includes working breeds such as collies, huskies, and St. Bernards. Riding dogs have the scent special quality.

If trained for war, these animals can make trip attacks just as wolves do. A riding dog can fight while carrying a rider, but the rider cannot also attack unless he or she succeed on a Ride check.

Bullywug

Life as a bullywug is nasty, brutish, and wet. Bullywugs kill for sport, systematically destroy their own hunting
grounds, and make a religious fetish of summoning monsters who may or may not stay within their control. Bullywugs are frog-headed amphibious humanoids with green, gray, or mottled yellow skin. They have long, flicking tongues that can barely fit themselves around a form of stunted Common. They stand 4 to 7 feet tall, weigh 100 to 300 pounds, and fight with spears and other sharp weapons they can poke out of the water. Bullywugs make it a point of pride to wear at least leather armor, even though swimming in armor isn't easy.

Most bullywugs encountered outside their homes are warriors. Bullywugs prefer to fight in or near water. Whenever possible, they use summoned monsters as the first wave of attack. In any given fight, there is therefore a chance that bullywugs will fight to the death, no matter how stupid that seems, and a chance that they will flee for their lives when some of their numbers have fallen, even if they could otherwise win the fight. Bullywugs suffer no movement penalties for moving in marshes or mud.

Bullywug clerics are notorious for their powerful but unpredictable summoning abilities. When a bullywug cleric uses a summon monster spell, there is a chance that one more monster than what the spell would ordinarily summon would appear. In such cases, there is then a chance that the summoned monster will not be in the bullywug's control, rampaging and attacking at random. It is not uncommon for bullywugs that have summoned monsters and failed to control them to spend all their efforts fighting their own summoned creatures instead of attacking their original foe. The biggest bullywug in the pond frequently is a barbarian.

Bullywugs hunt things, bully things, and worship their noxious deities. There are many bullywug clerics. Bullywug clerics are more limited than those of other races, and can only choose three types of spells: summon monster spells (their culturally preferred choice), inflict spells, and their domain spells.

FROGS IN THE HOUSE (month 1, day 12)

Bullywugs arrived at Vanderboren Manor only a few hours before the Tropic Thunder arrived.

It wasn't long before the invaders clashed with the Jade Ravens, another adventuring party employed by Lavinia. Further, Lavinia herself  had taken up her interest in fencing and had honed her skill as a swashbuckler. But the bullywugs eventually defeated them, capturing most before they settled into wait for Vanthus' arrival.

A bullywug is a froglike humanoid with green, gray, or mottled yellow skin. They have long, flicking tongues and typically speak with thick, sloppy accents. They stand four to seven feet tall, weigh 100 to 300 pounds, and reek of the swamp. Bullywugs are fanatic creatures loyal to their tribe; they fight to the death. The encountered bullywugs had already taken some damage in the fight to wrestle the manor away from the Jade Ravens and Lavinia. Some bullywugs were at full health, as they held back from the initial fights or had already been healed by their shaman, Bua Gorg.

The bullywugs had posted no guards outside Vanderboren Manor so as not to draw any attention to the grounds during their invasion, making it relatively simple for the Tropic Thunder to approach the manor. They approached openly shouting Lavinia's name, and a bullywug noticed them through one of the manor's windows and raised the alarm.

The Tropic Thunder had been to the mansion numerous times by now, and while they had not visited every room in the building, they were familiar with its layout. The manor itself was a well-made structure. The bullywugs had lit the manor's numerous wall-mounted lamps at night. Doors were made of wood and were unlocked.

Although many of these rooms had valuable objects, the honorable Tropic Thunder haven't looted their employer's home yet.

The Tropic Thunder entered the manor through the atrium. This enormous great hall's marble stonework was smooth and white. Two oak stairwells with burnished brass railing ascended to an open first-floor landing. Tapestries depicting a beautiful and savage frontier of sprawling jungle landscapes and an eerie shoreline hung from the upper landing. A glass chandelier hung form the atrium's ceiling.

Three bullywugs hid behind tapestries and prepared to ambush anyone who moved through the atrium.

During the fight, Quarion went around the manor and entered the kennels. Four locked cage-stalls filled one portion of this room. The air reeked of unkempt dogs.

Three mastiff hounds named Leshton, Ealia, and Kurz, diligently raised as hunting dogs by Lavinia's father, were kept here. Normally, the dogs had free run of the estate most of the time. The dogs were agitated and whimpered with fear - they could smell the bullywugs in the mansion. The fight with the bullywugs ended before Quarion released the hounds.

The Tropic Thunder ran up to the second floor, where the bedrooms were. Once there, they heard noise coming in from the master bedroom. This room was dark and cloying; the shutters were closed, and the air smelled of a rank combination of body odor and swamp mud. The desk, chairs, and most other furniture in this room had been draped with white canvas dust covers, giving this room the eerie feeling of a tomb. Only the large four-poster bed in one corner of the room had been uncovered, its dust covers lying in a heap at the side.

Having secured the manor as best he could, Drevoraz claimed this room as a place to wait for Vanthus to return to the manor. After she was captured, Lavinia managed to convince Drevoraz that she'd heard from Vanthus, that he was en route to Sasserine and that he was arriving home by the end of the day. Her plan to delay Drevoraz worked. Drevoraz relaxed on the bed, passing the time reading a racy novel he swiped form the library and tormenting the prisoners to fight off boredom before Vanthus' arrival. Also present in the room was the disgusting spiritual leader of the bullywugs - a cleric named Bua Gorg. This bloated bullywug had soaked one of the dustsheets in water and sat on an overstuffed chair in one corner of the room, swaddled in the soaking sheet for comfort as he offered prayers to his patron, Dagon.

Four hostages were tied to chairs, back to back, in the center of the room. The hostages included Lavinia, two of the Jade Ravens (Tolin Kientai and Zan Oldavin), and Kora Whistlegap, Lavinia's one remaining house servant. Of the four, only Lavinia was conscious, regarding her captors silently with eyes narrowed in fury. Tolin and Zan were both stable but unconscious. Poor Kora was dead, her throat cut by Drevoraz in a brutal display of power intended to cower the other three prisoners into compliance.

Drevoraz was a muscular half-orc dressed in studded leather and decorated with numerous tattoos.

Bua Gorg was the most grotesque bullywug, with sickly yellowy skin and sagging throat pouch, disgustingly deflated. Now when the priest breathed heavily in delighted anticipation of bloodshed, his ruptured throat pouch sucked and dribbled noisily. He worshiped an entity called Dagon.

When the alarm was raised, Bua Gorg moved to a position near Drevoraz and prepared to start casting as soon as he saw intruders. Drevoraz stood near Lavinia, his scimitar at the ready to strike the woman at a moment's notice. When the Tropic Thunder entered the room, Drevoraz demanded the heroes lay down their arms or he'd hack off their pretty employer's head.

The Tropic Thunder failed to bargain with the half-orc and he tried to strike Lavinia down. Unknown to him, Zan had already managed to work Lavinia free from her bonds and as soon as he started to approach, she lunged free. Drevoraz moved up to her and made a single attack against her. When Drevoraz took lots of damage, the bullywug moved in to use a stick to heal the half-orc.

Drevoraz attempted to flee when severely injured. The Tropic Thunder prevented him from doing so and he fought till he was knocked unconscious. Bua Gorg fought till he was knocked unconscious as well.

Drevoraz had stacked all of the gear he'd taken from Lavinia, Tolin, and Zan in a heap next to the bed.

Lavinia begged the Tropic Thunder to help rescue Liamae and Kaskus; none of them knew where the other two had been taken, but the basement was the first place she suggested checking.