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The Storyline
The PC's first adventure was quite simple... they were in the Empty Tankard tavern, quaffing ale, when they heard the sounds of a battle outside. It turned out to be two ogres, laying waste to the castle guards. After some planning, they pumped the ogres full of arrows, then charged in to melee range to waste them with longswords and axes. After defeating the ogres, one PC, an elven ranger, was hit by a crossbow wielded by a black-cloaked man... the Black-Cloaked Man. Unbeknowest to the ranger, the quarrel was coated with a slow-acting poison, concocted to force the PCs to seek out the BCM. Every 1d4 weeks, it drains a point from a random ability.
After the ogres, the PCs stuck around in town for a little while, hoping that the king would call on their services. Little did they know, the BCM had placed a price on their heads... a big one. On several separate occasions, bounty hunters attacked them. Then, a black-cloaked figure was seen by the elven monk leaving the city. That turned out to be an ambush set up by a goblin encampment, who wanted to claim the bounty for themselves. The monk was easily captured, and a note was sent to the other PCs: "We hav yor frend. If yoo want too see him agin, cum too ar camp." (only one of the goblins spoke common, and he didn't write it very well). Well, the went in, took out a goblin patrol, then stupidly charged the camp head on, I guess figuring that with the ease they took out the seven-man patrol, they could deal with the camp. Wrong. They were all captured.
They awoke in a wagon, tied up with several guards sitting atop their equipment. Suddenly, the wagon stopped, and the sounds of a battle reached them. The guards, after debating in Goblin for a few moments, joined their comrades, at which point one of the PCs escaped with his Escape Artist skill, and untied the other PCs. Exiting the wagon, they saw that two armored figures were fighting off goblins, and decided to help. After the goblins were dead, the PCs said, "We come in peace, please don't harm us!" Stupidly, they believed the fighters (actually bounty hunters after their heads) when they said, "We won't harm you!" The bounty hunters just walked right up and clubbed them upside the head.
Then began the real fun. The PCs were forced to walk, at sword- and crossbow-point, for days on end without food or water, with sacks over their heads. They were then tossed in a wagon, and someone paid for them. Someone with red leather boot stitched with the image of wings. This man's people were ambushed, and the PCs changed hands once again... several more times, in fact, as fights kept going on around them as they stood, tied and helpless. Finally, they were snagged by a well-armed group who fled to the swamps after capturing the PCs. They got on board a water-running vehicle called a Swamprat, and sped through the swamps.
The monk got the idea to try and use his legs (which their captors left unchained, unlike their hands, which were bound in masterwork manacles) to grab a person and fling him over the edge of the Swamprat. His check failed, but I ruled that he managed to grasp the man's neck with his legs. The monk jerked the man in the way of a crossbowman who was raising his weapon, and the quarrel struck the man square in the back of the head, killing him. The ranger lashed out and kicked another crossbowman off the edge of the Swamprat. The pilot, turning around, caused the Swamprat to veer sharply to one side, throwing the other crossbowman and himself off of the Swamprat. The vehicle then flipped over, and the PCs had a tense moment trying to break free.
In the swamp, trying to collect their gear which was scattered all about, the ranger found a falchion, and the monk found a pendant, but very little of their gear. After an encounter with lizardfolk, the dwarven fighter/barbarian, technically minded as he is, repaired the Swamprat enough to be able to use it to navigate through the swamp quickly. During a fluke accident, they found that a lightly-weighted Swamprat can lift into the air if it's propeller is angled sharply enough and it's speed control is turned up high enough. They had a mishap trying to land the thing, where the monk found that the Swamprat operates on alchemist's fire. It was not pretty, and they barely survived the fall.
After fighting off a young black dragon that wandered in and sprayed them with it's breath weapon, the party patched up the holes in the hull of the Swamprat, and got it to take off again. After flying to a town about 3 days up the river, they made much-needed repairs and refueling. Willing to help the party out due to generous "donations," the town officials managed to squeeze some alchemist's fire out of a gnomish inventor in the region. About 20 pints, five of which went into the Swamprat, the other 15 being entrusted to a newly-arrived half-orc barbarian. The barbarian, looking for trouble, broke up a bar by screaming, "I HAVE A BOMB!" at the top of his lungs. When the town guard came, he smiled, said, "You want some of this?" and opened the top of the alchemist's fire's storage container. After turning into a flameball, he ran into the back, opened a barrel, and tried to extinguish the flames... with a barrel of Dwarven fire ale, some of the most alcoholic, potent drink you can buy anywhere. WHOOSH! The barbarian barely survived, and that only by keeping his cool and jumping thirty feet from the bar to the river. He had one hit point left when he crawled out of the water. The townspeople, now extreemly eager for the party to leave, insisted that they take more alchemist's fire along, to make sure that the party wouldn't be coming back.
Current Activities
The party is currently staying at Halven, a city about a day and a half (on the Swamprat) from the town that they practically wiped out from the blazing fire. The barbarian is in the hands of bounty hunters, chained, gagged, and blindfolded. No one else in the party knows of this. The monk, the fighter/barbarian, and the ranger are all working on the Swamprat, fixing it up and tuning it.