Session date: Monday, April 9, 2018
Game date: Saturday, May 22, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 70250/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18996/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 7804/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 6814/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 5, hp 17, xp 16098/32000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3633/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 1355/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 2015/2400
The party came together once again, with an eye to finally ridding the underworld of the Goblin King. Adrien purchased shortbows for herself and her retainer Jack, after several awkward combats in which she yet again realized she had forgotten to ever acquire one. Orin wrote out another Sleep scroll. Adrien fed Norman the giant weasel another serving of blood from her bruised and constantly bandaged hand.
They descended into the ruins of Idalium and made quick time to the second level, passing swiftly through the dungeon and into the caverns that led to the Goblin Palace. Curiously, the big double doors were unbarred, and the guardroom within seemed empty and still. The doors leading deeper into the palace stood open. The adventurers cautiously moved into the room and towards the inner doors. Suddenly, there was a whoosh of wind, and three small daggers clattered across the stone floor. A fourth dagger embedded itself in Jack's arm! Something in the air seemed to rush through the inner doors and down the hallway, an eerie tinkling of bells lingering after them.
Unsure of what had just ambushed them, Gulleck and Simon nervously led the party into the hall. The normally brightly-lit hallway was dark now, the torches in the wall sconces all cold. Caryatid lit a torch and began to light the wall torches as she passed them, in order to mark where they had been. Likewise, Gulleck drew forth a stick of chalk and began periodically marking the walls. When they got to the intersection with the large stuffed flightless bird (still pincushioned with arrows), Simon pulled out a ball of twine and tied one end to the bird and started unwinding the ball as they moved on. But Caryatid decided to really leave her mark on this intersection, and set the bird on fire. The dessicated stuffed bird quickly went up in flames, and acrid smoke filled the hall.
This triggered an immediate wandering monsters check, which came up as "yes" but turned out to be a small posse of intrepid dungeon urchins sneaking into the palace in search of their kidnapped friends. This was cause for some guilty grimaces from some of the players, as they've known about the abducted urchins for literally months and months but have never quite managed to do anything about it. But now Gulleck assured the urchins that the adventurers were taking care of it and this was no place for children and they would keep an eye out for their friends, and the adventurers hurriedly ushered the urchins back out the front door.
Returning to the hallway and the smoldering remains of the stuffed ostrich, the group made their way to an empty kitchen and beyond that to the great banquet hall where they had fought the big battle in the last session. The hall was now deserted, and a long sideboard table had been pushed up against the main entrance doors that they had come through last time. They pulled the table aside in case they needed to beat a hasty retreat, and then moved on, deeper into the palace. They came to a locked door, decided that the direct approach was the simplest, and Gulleck began to systematically swing her magical axe into the door. Wood splintered and split, and the thumps of the axe echoed through the halls. This drew the attention of a half dozen goblins, who came scurrying down the hall with rusty swords drawn but Orin cast his Sleep spell, and they all fell in a heap before they even made it to the adventurers.
Gulleck cleared enough of the door for the adventurers to step through into another hallway, and after a few turns they found themselves back at the still smoldering ostrich (which of course did not make any cartographic sense). They kicked open a door they hadn't been through yet, and suddenly again found themselves the target of small knives flew from somewhere above them. The same sinister tinkling of bells filled the air as several "somethings" flew above their heads and out the door. Gulleck followed the sound and was just able to make out a vague shimmer in the air like waves of heat in the summer, moving quickly down the hall into the darkness. Gulleck charged after the departing shimmers, followed by the rest of the party. The pursuit took them around several corners and eventually to a four way intersection, where they were attacked from multiple sides by four goblins and a hobgoblin, as well as the invisible flying beings, who dipped through the air and slashed at them with invisible daggers.
The battle went well enough at first, although Adrien managed to fumble her sword and drop it on the stone floor. Two of the goblins and the hobgoblin were killed, but then two bugbears ran in from the hall to the north and another five hobgoblins arrived from the east to reinforce the battle. And standing in a luxuriously appointed room behind them was the Goblin King himself, resplendent in a high-necked brocade doublet and tight leather breeches. He was idly spinning several small crystal balls between his fingers. Four more bugbears stood guard around him, and further back in the room were four more hobgoblins.
"Fear not, my subjects, your King stands with you!" he called, and the hobgoblins seemed emboldened and confident in their attack.
And then Caryatid cast Sleep and the last of the goblins and hobgoblins all passed out. One of the creatures in the air fell asleep, and as it fell to the floor it turned visible, revealing itself to be some sort of faerie, no more than a couple of feet high, with pointed ears and elfin features. The other faeries lost morale at this point and scattered down the hallways, the tinkling bells receding into the darkness.
The Goblin King's smirk turned to anger as his subjects slumped to the ground. He cast the crystal balls aside and drew his longsword, which burst into scintillating, multicolored light, casting moving prismatic patterns across the dungeon walls.
"He's got a disco sword!" gasped Adrien's player. "I want that!"
The actual fight was somewhat anti-climactic. (That's what happens when your players don't finish level 2 of the dungeon until many of the PCs are level 4 or above!) Orin cast his Sleep scroll, putting two of the bugbears and one of the hobgoblins to sleep. Caryatid cast Magic Missile and used the Big Green d30 to roll for damage. In rare cases like this I reserve the right to a Big Green d30 roll myself, and used it to win initiative, so that the Goblin King was at least able to dodge out of Caryatid's line of sight, forcing her to take out one of the other hobgoblins instead. But then Gulleck and Adrien stormed into the room and finished the Goblin King off in a single round.
The two surviving hobgoblins turned out to be Margleton and Clabberpus, the very first hobgoblins the adventurers had ever met. Margleton surrendered, offering to leave Idalium for good if their lives were spared.
"You know where the King kept his treasure?" asked Gulleck.
"Oh yes, it's just around the corner, in the vault."
"Is it locked? You got a key?" prompted Gulleck.
"Fine, you can have the treasure; it's little use to us now," said Clabberpus, tossing a large key to Gulleck.
"You had better be quick about it, though," advised Margleton. "The death of the Goblin King has surely caused a great magical disturbance. Who knows what you have unleashed by your reckless act?"
Gulleck made them swear that they would never again return to Idalium and then let them go. Margleton and Clabberpus smiled slyly, thanked them for their mercy, and with one last affected laugh, strolled arm in arm down a hallway to the south. (Exeunt stage left.)
The group turned their attention to the body of the Goblin King, but it was suddenly engulfed in a plume of thick green smoke, and when the air cleared the body was gone, leaving only the scintillating sword and a pile of clothes, including a necklace, behind. Adrien took the sword and Caryatid picked up the necklace, which held a polished moonstone within a gold pendant. Suddenly, the ground trembled and shook. Plaster crumbled from the ceiling.
"Uh oh, he was a load-bearing boss," quipped Gulleck's player.
They left the King's sitting room and headed up the northern hallway that several of the bugbears had come from. At the end of the hall was a very sturdy looking door with a large keyhole. Gulleck used the key from Clabberpus to unlock the heavy door, and pulled it open to reveal a small room containing several barrels brimming with gold and copper coins, in addition to several pieces of jewelry and artwork. The frame of the door seemed to twinkle with some strange magical light.
Gulleck noted the twinkling with some anxiety, but decided to risk it and stepped over the threshold into the vault. As she did, she felt an immensely powerful force that seemed to press in on her, but she crossed the threshold into the vault without mishap (dwarves have excellent saving throws!). She picked up a finely crafted cuckoo clock and a golden goblet and walked back to the rest of the party, feeling the same powerful magic but she resisted it as before.
Alarmed by this sensation, Gulleck went back to the intersection and grabbed one of the goblin corpses, dragging it back into the antechamber to the treasure vault. She picked it up and tossed it into the treasure vault, and as it passed the threshold of the doorway there was a flash and suddenly instead of the body of a goblin there was a small crystal ball like those the Goblin King had been juggling in his hand. The ball hit the ground and rolled into the far corner of the vault.
Meanwhile, Caryatid was examining the pendant with the moonstone that they had retrieved from the Goblin King's remains. There was writing inscribed around the perimeter of the pendant, that read "Down in the Underground". Gulleck spoke these words aloud, and the twinkling faded from the door frame. The group entered the vault and took inventory of the contents. There was a rather nice painting of the Goblin King. The frame was bulky, but Gulleck stripped the painting from the frame, loosely rolled it up, and tucked it in her backpack. Father Chase pulled on a flamboyant fur robe, and Caryatid was pleased to recover the gold and emerald belt that the Goblin King has once taken from her as tribute. There were five large barrels full of coins. It was judged that each barrel would need at least two people to roll it through the halls, so they rolled out three barrels and left two behind, planning to return later to retrieve them.
The tremors in the ground seemed to be increasing as they returned to the four way intersection, and more dust shook loose from the ceiling periodically. They made their way back to the entrance of the palace, using some now-familiar landmarks for navigation, and as they traveled they noticed a strange silvery mist starting to seep into the halls. Eventually it was as if they were walking through a cloud, although there was no dampness. Oddly, the mist almost seemed reflective. Finally they came to what they thought were the main doors of the Goblin Palace and they hurried through them.
The mist cleared, and the adventurers looked around in amazement, for they were outside and it was daylight. They were standing on an unusually well-manicured grassy lawn. The bluest of skies hung above them. Some distance away they could see what looked like an ornate garden full of neatly trimmed hedges and colorful flowers.
Clearly they had been magically transported following the death of the Goblin King, much as had happened when they had slain the Goblin Prince. But where and what was this place?
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Idalium Game 95: The Goblin Battle
Session date: Monday, April 2, 2018
Game date: Saturday, May 15, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 70093/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18800/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 7598/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 6618/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 5, hp 17, xp 16000/32000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3530/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 1257/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1912/2400
Now that Meat had been restored (after a fashion), the party set their sights on the vanquishing of the Goblin King. They did a little pre-delve shopping, buying some gemstones from a jeweler near the Rusty Lantern Tavern (to feed to the animated stone column they had befriended). Adrien was feeling reckless, and intentionally did not feed her demonic giant ferret Norman the weekly dose of her blood that she had been told he needed in order to remain bonded to her. After exchanging some friendly words in the tavern with the Brothers Fruthwood (another adventuring party made of three hobbit brothers and a couple of others), they descended below and hurried towards the second level.
In the Street of Temples, they were swooped upon by four blood sucking stirges. Norman strained against his leash, and Adrien let go of it and let him lunge forward. He snapped a stirge right out of the air (natural 20!), crushing it between his foaming jaws. Gulleck deftly swung her axe and another stirge fell, sliced in twain. But the remaining two stirges descended upon Norman, impaling him with their long proboscises and sucking the foul blood from his mangy body. But the stirges had little time to drink the ferret's blood, because Adrien and Gulleck stepped up and stabbed them through. Norman twisted on the ancient cobblestones, whining and lapping at his wounds. Adrien took pity on him and decided to feed him, slicing her palm open on her sword and letting him lap at her blood. The other party members turned away in horror.
They moved on, through the Temple of Hedonism, and down into the basement den where the two magical fountains bubbled merrily away. To their surprise, two hobgoblins were present, filling flasks from the fountain on the west side of the room, the one that could cause the drinker to become magically enamored with the first person they saw. (A pair of orcs had once fallen for Caryatid and Gulleck this way.) They talked to the goblins, who slyly heckled them, encouraging them to drink from the fountains and see what happened.
Well, it turned out that suited Meat just fine. Unlike Gulleck, she apparently was uncomfortable with the sudden transportation of her memories as a man into a woman's body. Meat drank deeply of the shimmering water from the fountain on the east side of the room, and after a few grotesque convulsions, she turned... well, not back into Meat as they had known him, but a male version of the "new" Meat, still dark haired and pale of skin and considerably weaker than before. And now his armor fit oddly again after Gulleck had just paid to have it adjusted.
The hobgoblins were disappointed to see that the party members were not more impressed and dismayed at this transformation, and sauntered off, saying "Perhaps we shall meet again soon!"
"Oh, I'm sure we will," laughed the adventurers to each other after the goblins had left, because their next move was to head directly to invade the Goblin Palace.
The group entered the caves and made their way down the twisty passage that led to the grand double doors that were the entrance to the palace. When they arrived, they found the doors guarded by a pair of tall, lanky bugbears.
"We have an appointment for Saturday!" Gulleck cried out, which was technically true, as they had once left an entry in the appointment book for "Any Saturday". Alas, the bugbears were not in a humor to indulge them.
"His Majesty the Goblin King is not receiving visitors today."
Well, Orin put an end to the conversation with a Sleep spell and Gulleck quickly put an end to the bugbears. Caryatid checked the big double doors and found that they were locked. So she went ahead and knocked on the door.
"Yes?" came the hooting, querulous voice of a bugbear from the behind the doors. Caryatid decided to bluff, and tried to imitate the strange, hollow voice of the bugbears.
"There's some people here who say they have an appointment. Let us in so we can check the appointment book."
Well, to me this seemed unlikely to work, so I made Caryatid's player roll 4d6, trying to roll her Charisma score (which is 10) or lower. She rolled a 17, so I guess her bugbear voice wasn't very convincing.
"Go get lost!" came the reply from behind the doors.
The group conferred in whispers for a minute, and then Caryatid and Orin slipped on invisibility rings and hid in the corner of the cave chamber, while the rest of the party retreated around the corner of the passage, loudly and conspicuously calling out, "Okay, we're leaving now!"
After a minute or so the double doors were unbarred and two bugbears poked their heads out. Their baleful yellow eyes widened as they saw their dead comrades lying on the cavern floor, and they cautiously moved into the chamber to drag the bodies back inside. Caryatid slipped invisibly through the doors into the guardroom. There were another two bugbears on guard here. Caryatid began to push the door closed, but the closing door was noticed by one of the bugbears, who leaped forward to try to pull it back open. I had Caryatid made an opposed hit dice roll against the bugbear (this is how I handle grapples and other struggles, adapted from an article by Gary Gygax in an early issue of The Strategic Review). Somewhat surprisingly, Caryatid succeeded in the opposed roll and managed to slam the door shut on the bugbear's fingers.
Outside, Orin shouted "Come get them!" and the party fell screaming from around the corner upon the two bugbears in the cave. They made quick work of them, with Adrien landing both killing blows. Inside the guardroom, Caryatid cast Sleep but unfortunately only one bugbear fell unconscious. The other turned to her (now visible) with an evil glint in his yellow eyes and pulled a thin leather cord from his belt and with horrifying speed had it around her throat and was throttling her. Fortunately, before she expired the rest of the gang burst through the doors and struck the last bugbear down. He surrendered and begged for mercy but they weren't interested.
Caryatid cast Wizard Lock on the outer door and then they began their explorations of the Goblin Palace. A short hall led to an intersection marked by a large stuffed ostrich. Gulleck decided to mark the bird in some way in case there was more than one. First she slashed its side open with her axe, revealing filthy old stuffing, and then reached up and cut its beak right off. The group explored some of the halls, and found them confusing as ever. They went up and down short flights of stairs and along hallways that eventually led back to the same place they had started in ways that seemed topologically impossible. Eventually they returned to the stuffed bird, which was still missing its beak.
Gulleck got tired of wandering around these insane halls, and decided it would be best to find some goblins and force them to lead them to the King. She banged her axe on her shield loudly and hollered, and soon eight goblins came running into view at the end of the hallway to the south with small drawn. Orin put on his invisibility ring and hid behind the stuffed ostrich. Gulleck sized up the situation and decided to run headlong into the goblins. Arrows flew through the air, clattering in the hall and making a pincushion out of the ostrich that Orin was hiding behind. Gulleck was hit by three arrows but kept running at the goblins, but then she took an arrow to the knee (natural 20) and her charge was stopped short. But Orin had been murmuring the words of Sleep behind the ostrich and completed the spell, and all of the goblins fell in a clatter of bows and swords at the end of the hall.
Before the adventurers had time to reach, another ten goblins came running in at the north end of the hall. Gulleck and Adrien ran to attack this second group. Arrows flew around them, but ricocheted off armor and shield, and then Adrien and Gulleck were laying into goblins left and right and the poor goblins had little defense. In fact, the worst injury Gulleck received was when Simon's player rolled a 1 and Simon managed to shoot Gulleck in the back with an arrow. A majority of the goblins were killed and the last three broke morale and fled around a corner.
Caryatid didn't want to wander these maze-like corridors, but was persuaded to continue on with the party under duress. They explored a bit further and Simon used his mind-reading amulet to listen at a door, but as he was doing so, the party was attacked by surprise by half a dozen hobgoblins at the end of the hall they were in. Adrien was hit by an arrow, but then Gulleck and Chase charged the goblins down. Gulleck killed one and the other five bolted. Gulleck took the opportunity to run after them, screaming and threatening them the entire time. The hobgoblins led the party down a long hall that turned several times and then suddenly opened into a large banquet hall, in which a goblin feast was is full swing. Counting the five hobgoblins that had just run in, there were nine goblins, fourteen hobgoblins, and one bugbear. Nine hobgoblins were sitting at the large u-shaped table eating meats and fruits, and nine goblins were carousing merrily. Some were lying under the taps of barrels of beer, guzzling the beer as it poured into their mouths, some were swinging from chandeliers, and some were just shoveling food into their mouths in the most gluttonous way. When the five hobgoblins and the party burst through the door into the hall, it was one of those "record scratch" moments where everyone stopped dead and stared at them. And then chairs were shoved back and goblins leaped to their feet, drawing swords and jumping forward to engage the intruders.
As the battle began, Orin cast another Sleep spell from a scroll, which took all of the goblins and one of the hobgoblins out of the action immediately. Caryatid attempted to frighten the hobgoblins by casting a Phantasmal Force spell to create the illusion of their erstwhile adventuring companion Krang the pyromaniac dwarf. Krang came running through the door with a bandolier of oil flasks stoppered with oily rags and a lit torch. "BUUUUURRRRRRN!" he bellowed, and threw a lit flask at a hobgoblin, who fell to the ground screaming and rolling around trying to put out the illusory flames. Krang didn't last long before one of the hobgoblins stabbed at him with a sword and he blinked out of existence, but it was funny while it lasted.
The battle raged on, and the party was taking some severe injuries, even as they were doling them out. There were moments when it looked like the tide was turning against them, but eventually they rallied and hobgoblins were falling left and right. Eventually there were just two hobgoblins remaining, and Caryatid cast Magic Missile to take out one of them. As her glowing arrow slew the hobgoblin, he turned to the sole remaining hobgoblin and croaked, with his dying breath, "Go inform His Majesty!" The last hobgoblin, pale of face, ran out the door at the opposite end of the feast hall, screaming "Your Majesty! Invaders, Your Majesty!"
The adventurers caught their breath and looked around at the piles of goblin bodies. They were bloodied and exhausted, and the mages had no useful spells left. They decided to take advantage of this lull in the action by retreating, hoping to return in a week to finish the job. Luckily, they were able to retrace their steps to the entrance and made it back to the surface without further encounters.
Game date: Saturday, May 15, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 70093/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18800/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 7598/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 6618/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 5, hp 17, xp 16000/32000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3530/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 1257/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1912/2400
Now that Meat had been restored (after a fashion), the party set their sights on the vanquishing of the Goblin King. They did a little pre-delve shopping, buying some gemstones from a jeweler near the Rusty Lantern Tavern (to feed to the animated stone column they had befriended). Adrien was feeling reckless, and intentionally did not feed her demonic giant ferret Norman the weekly dose of her blood that she had been told he needed in order to remain bonded to her. After exchanging some friendly words in the tavern with the Brothers Fruthwood (another adventuring party made of three hobbit brothers and a couple of others), they descended below and hurried towards the second level.
In the Street of Temples, they were swooped upon by four blood sucking stirges. Norman strained against his leash, and Adrien let go of it and let him lunge forward. He snapped a stirge right out of the air (natural 20!), crushing it between his foaming jaws. Gulleck deftly swung her axe and another stirge fell, sliced in twain. But the remaining two stirges descended upon Norman, impaling him with their long proboscises and sucking the foul blood from his mangy body. But the stirges had little time to drink the ferret's blood, because Adrien and Gulleck stepped up and stabbed them through. Norman twisted on the ancient cobblestones, whining and lapping at his wounds. Adrien took pity on him and decided to feed him, slicing her palm open on her sword and letting him lap at her blood. The other party members turned away in horror.
They moved on, through the Temple of Hedonism, and down into the basement den where the two magical fountains bubbled merrily away. To their surprise, two hobgoblins were present, filling flasks from the fountain on the west side of the room, the one that could cause the drinker to become magically enamored with the first person they saw. (A pair of orcs had once fallen for Caryatid and Gulleck this way.) They talked to the goblins, who slyly heckled them, encouraging them to drink from the fountains and see what happened.
Well, it turned out that suited Meat just fine. Unlike Gulleck, she apparently was uncomfortable with the sudden transportation of her memories as a man into a woman's body. Meat drank deeply of the shimmering water from the fountain on the east side of the room, and after a few grotesque convulsions, she turned... well, not back into Meat as they had known him, but a male version of the "new" Meat, still dark haired and pale of skin and considerably weaker than before. And now his armor fit oddly again after Gulleck had just paid to have it adjusted.
The hobgoblins were disappointed to see that the party members were not more impressed and dismayed at this transformation, and sauntered off, saying "Perhaps we shall meet again soon!"
"Oh, I'm sure we will," laughed the adventurers to each other after the goblins had left, because their next move was to head directly to invade the Goblin Palace.
The group entered the caves and made their way down the twisty passage that led to the grand double doors that were the entrance to the palace. When they arrived, they found the doors guarded by a pair of tall, lanky bugbears.
"We have an appointment for Saturday!" Gulleck cried out, which was technically true, as they had once left an entry in the appointment book for "Any Saturday". Alas, the bugbears were not in a humor to indulge them.
"His Majesty the Goblin King is not receiving visitors today."
Well, Orin put an end to the conversation with a Sleep spell and Gulleck quickly put an end to the bugbears. Caryatid checked the big double doors and found that they were locked. So she went ahead and knocked on the door.
"Yes?" came the hooting, querulous voice of a bugbear from the behind the doors. Caryatid decided to bluff, and tried to imitate the strange, hollow voice of the bugbears.
"There's some people here who say they have an appointment. Let us in so we can check the appointment book."
Well, to me this seemed unlikely to work, so I made Caryatid's player roll 4d6, trying to roll her Charisma score (which is 10) or lower. She rolled a 17, so I guess her bugbear voice wasn't very convincing.
"Go get lost!" came the reply from behind the doors.
The group conferred in whispers for a minute, and then Caryatid and Orin slipped on invisibility rings and hid in the corner of the cave chamber, while the rest of the party retreated around the corner of the passage, loudly and conspicuously calling out, "Okay, we're leaving now!"
After a minute or so the double doors were unbarred and two bugbears poked their heads out. Their baleful yellow eyes widened as they saw their dead comrades lying on the cavern floor, and they cautiously moved into the chamber to drag the bodies back inside. Caryatid slipped invisibly through the doors into the guardroom. There were another two bugbears on guard here. Caryatid began to push the door closed, but the closing door was noticed by one of the bugbears, who leaped forward to try to pull it back open. I had Caryatid made an opposed hit dice roll against the bugbear (this is how I handle grapples and other struggles, adapted from an article by Gary Gygax in an early issue of The Strategic Review). Somewhat surprisingly, Caryatid succeeded in the opposed roll and managed to slam the door shut on the bugbear's fingers.
Outside, Orin shouted "Come get them!" and the party fell screaming from around the corner upon the two bugbears in the cave. They made quick work of them, with Adrien landing both killing blows. Inside the guardroom, Caryatid cast Sleep but unfortunately only one bugbear fell unconscious. The other turned to her (now visible) with an evil glint in his yellow eyes and pulled a thin leather cord from his belt and with horrifying speed had it around her throat and was throttling her. Fortunately, before she expired the rest of the gang burst through the doors and struck the last bugbear down. He surrendered and begged for mercy but they weren't interested.
Caryatid cast Wizard Lock on the outer door and then they began their explorations of the Goblin Palace. A short hall led to an intersection marked by a large stuffed ostrich. Gulleck decided to mark the bird in some way in case there was more than one. First she slashed its side open with her axe, revealing filthy old stuffing, and then reached up and cut its beak right off. The group explored some of the halls, and found them confusing as ever. They went up and down short flights of stairs and along hallways that eventually led back to the same place they had started in ways that seemed topologically impossible. Eventually they returned to the stuffed bird, which was still missing its beak.
Gulleck got tired of wandering around these insane halls, and decided it would be best to find some goblins and force them to lead them to the King. She banged her axe on her shield loudly and hollered, and soon eight goblins came running into view at the end of the hallway to the south with small drawn. Orin put on his invisibility ring and hid behind the stuffed ostrich. Gulleck sized up the situation and decided to run headlong into the goblins. Arrows flew through the air, clattering in the hall and making a pincushion out of the ostrich that Orin was hiding behind. Gulleck was hit by three arrows but kept running at the goblins, but then she took an arrow to the knee (natural 20) and her charge was stopped short. But Orin had been murmuring the words of Sleep behind the ostrich and completed the spell, and all of the goblins fell in a clatter of bows and swords at the end of the hall.
Before the adventurers had time to reach, another ten goblins came running in at the north end of the hall. Gulleck and Adrien ran to attack this second group. Arrows flew around them, but ricocheted off armor and shield, and then Adrien and Gulleck were laying into goblins left and right and the poor goblins had little defense. In fact, the worst injury Gulleck received was when Simon's player rolled a 1 and Simon managed to shoot Gulleck in the back with an arrow. A majority of the goblins were killed and the last three broke morale and fled around a corner.
Caryatid didn't want to wander these maze-like corridors, but was persuaded to continue on with the party under duress. They explored a bit further and Simon used his mind-reading amulet to listen at a door, but as he was doing so, the party was attacked by surprise by half a dozen hobgoblins at the end of the hall they were in. Adrien was hit by an arrow, but then Gulleck and Chase charged the goblins down. Gulleck killed one and the other five bolted. Gulleck took the opportunity to run after them, screaming and threatening them the entire time. The hobgoblins led the party down a long hall that turned several times and then suddenly opened into a large banquet hall, in which a goblin feast was is full swing. Counting the five hobgoblins that had just run in, there were nine goblins, fourteen hobgoblins, and one bugbear. Nine hobgoblins were sitting at the large u-shaped table eating meats and fruits, and nine goblins were carousing merrily. Some were lying under the taps of barrels of beer, guzzling the beer as it poured into their mouths, some were swinging from chandeliers, and some were just shoveling food into their mouths in the most gluttonous way. When the five hobgoblins and the party burst through the door into the hall, it was one of those "record scratch" moments where everyone stopped dead and stared at them. And then chairs were shoved back and goblins leaped to their feet, drawing swords and jumping forward to engage the intruders.
As the battle began, Orin cast another Sleep spell from a scroll, which took all of the goblins and one of the hobgoblins out of the action immediately. Caryatid attempted to frighten the hobgoblins by casting a Phantasmal Force spell to create the illusion of their erstwhile adventuring companion Krang the pyromaniac dwarf. Krang came running through the door with a bandolier of oil flasks stoppered with oily rags and a lit torch. "BUUUUURRRRRRN!" he bellowed, and threw a lit flask at a hobgoblin, who fell to the ground screaming and rolling around trying to put out the illusory flames. Krang didn't last long before one of the hobgoblins stabbed at him with a sword and he blinked out of existence, but it was funny while it lasted.
The battle raged on, and the party was taking some severe injuries, even as they were doling them out. There were moments when it looked like the tide was turning against them, but eventually they rallied and hobgoblins were falling left and right. Eventually there were just two hobgoblins remaining, and Caryatid cast Magic Missile to take out one of them. As her glowing arrow slew the hobgoblin, he turned to the sole remaining hobgoblin and croaked, with his dying breath, "Go inform His Majesty!" The last hobgoblin, pale of face, ran out the door at the opposite end of the feast hall, screaming "Your Majesty! Invaders, Your Majesty!"
The adventurers caught their breath and looked around at the piles of goblin bodies. They were bloodied and exhausted, and the mages had no useful spells left. They decided to take advantage of this lull in the action by retreating, hoping to return in a week to finish the job. Luckily, they were able to retrace their steps to the entrance and made it back to the surface without further encounters.
Friday, September 14, 2018
Idalium Game 94: Fresh Meat
Session date: Monday, March 12, 2018
Game date: Monday, May 3, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 70003/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18688/20000
Retainers:
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3471/6000
We had only two players for this session, so they knew they had to be cautious. But Gulleck's retainer Meat was still laying dead in his apartment, so another delve was undertaken to retrieve the mysterious Elixir of Life for him. Gulleck, Caryatid, and Father Chase descended into the ruins of Ancient Idalium. They were missing Simon and his magical glowing sword, so Caryatid had to resort to carrying a lantern, its yellow flickery light a marked change from the pure light of the sword. They swiftly made their way to the second level of the dungeon. On the way they encountered a batch of venomous snakes and later a group of giant beetles, but both were rapidly dealt with using their rings of animal control. They crossed the rope bridge over the underground river (much more cautiously this time than the last) and slowly moved through the natural caverns that make up the eastern half of this level.
They passed by the Goblin Market, and heard voices and activity echoing through the caves. Gulleck investigated, wearing a ring of invisibility, and saw that the entrance to the Market was guarded as usual by a pair of looming bugbears. Since the party were not exactly in the favor of the goblins at the moment, Gulleck retreated to Caryatid and Father Chase and they took an alternate route that did not involve passing through the market hall.
While they were walking through a narrow cave passage, Caryatid's lantern flame suddenly guttered and turned blue and feeble. A cold wind seemed to blow through the cave, chilling them to their bones. And then the Wraith Lord came floating out of the darkness, his tattered and rotting robes seeming to trail off into nothingness. All three of the adventurers found themselves stricken with fear, unable to move from the spot. The Wraith Lord stopped and seemed to stare at them from the blackness beneath his rotting hood, and then finally he moved on into the darkness to the east. Caryatid's lantern slowly regained its cheer, and the horrible fear finally subsided, though the adventurers decided it was as good a time to rest for a few minutes before moving on.
Further into the caves, they were suddenly attacked by a flock of hideous stirges that had been perched on a stone ledge. Five swooped down to peck at Father Chase, but none could penetrate his plate armor, and Caryatid made swift work of the flock with a Sleep spell. Gulleck made the rounds with her axe.
Beyond the ledge was a tight crawl that led to the chamber of the Elixir of Life. Gulleck took off her backpack and crawled through the low space, accompanied by Caryatid's pet monkey Marcel. Caryatid gave Marcel the lantern and chose to wait, invisible, in the dark for their return. On the other side of the crawl, Gulleck was suddenly attacked by another small flock of stirges, but her axe sang through the air and the stirges did not last long.
Brushing herself off, Gulleck approached the eternal flame that burned in a crevice in the southern wall, casting eerie reflections on the shiny walls of the chamber. The stone was formed into a natural bowl below the flame, and a syrupy liquid exuded from the wall behind the flame, slowly collecting in the hollow of the bowl. Gulleck collected as much of the elixir as she could into an empty potion flask, and then she and Marcel returned to Caryatid and the three of them made their way back home.
On the way out of the caves, however, the trio were suddenly surrounded and attacked by eight fierce baboons! Gulleck was bit on the wrist and dropped her battleaxe in shock. Caryatid let the lantern fall to the ground (I rolled to see if it would go out upon impact) and slipped on her invisibility ring to avoid combat. Gulleck drew her backup axe and cut down a baboon with a single blow. The rest of them failed a morale check and fled howling into the dark.
The rest of the trip back to the surface was uneventful. The adventurers hastened back to Meat's apartment, where his body was getting a bit worse for the wear. Awkwardly, Gulleck spooned the elixir into the mouth of the corpse, and then they stood back and waited. Meat's body suddenly twitched and spasmed, and then there was a light and a roar of sound that seemed to crowd out every other sensation. They squinted their eyes and covered their ears and just as it reached a crescendo it was gone, and where Meat had lain was an entirely new person, wearing Meat's garments which were now oversized and ill-fitting.
As usual, we rolled dice to see who Meat became. Meat remained a fighter, but was now female! (Frankly, this is starting to get silly...) She had black hair and pale white skin, and was in her early 20s. Her ability scores were now thoroughly mediocre: S10 I10 W11 D8 C7 Ch5. On the bright side, she gained a couple of levels, becoming a level 5 fighter with 17 hit points (amusingly, the rerolled hit points stayed the same). Gulleck's player has some quite powerful fighters now!
Then I made Gulleck spend 30 gold pieces to get Meat's plate armor adjusted.
Game date: Monday, May 3, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 70003/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18688/20000
Retainers:
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3471/6000
We had only two players for this session, so they knew they had to be cautious. But Gulleck's retainer Meat was still laying dead in his apartment, so another delve was undertaken to retrieve the mysterious Elixir of Life for him. Gulleck, Caryatid, and Father Chase descended into the ruins of Ancient Idalium. They were missing Simon and his magical glowing sword, so Caryatid had to resort to carrying a lantern, its yellow flickery light a marked change from the pure light of the sword. They swiftly made their way to the second level of the dungeon. On the way they encountered a batch of venomous snakes and later a group of giant beetles, but both were rapidly dealt with using their rings of animal control. They crossed the rope bridge over the underground river (much more cautiously this time than the last) and slowly moved through the natural caverns that make up the eastern half of this level.
They passed by the Goblin Market, and heard voices and activity echoing through the caves. Gulleck investigated, wearing a ring of invisibility, and saw that the entrance to the Market was guarded as usual by a pair of looming bugbears. Since the party were not exactly in the favor of the goblins at the moment, Gulleck retreated to Caryatid and Father Chase and they took an alternate route that did not involve passing through the market hall.
While they were walking through a narrow cave passage, Caryatid's lantern flame suddenly guttered and turned blue and feeble. A cold wind seemed to blow through the cave, chilling them to their bones. And then the Wraith Lord came floating out of the darkness, his tattered and rotting robes seeming to trail off into nothingness. All three of the adventurers found themselves stricken with fear, unable to move from the spot. The Wraith Lord stopped and seemed to stare at them from the blackness beneath his rotting hood, and then finally he moved on into the darkness to the east. Caryatid's lantern slowly regained its cheer, and the horrible fear finally subsided, though the adventurers decided it was as good a time to rest for a few minutes before moving on.
Further into the caves, they were suddenly attacked by a flock of hideous stirges that had been perched on a stone ledge. Five swooped down to peck at Father Chase, but none could penetrate his plate armor, and Caryatid made swift work of the flock with a Sleep spell. Gulleck made the rounds with her axe.
Beyond the ledge was a tight crawl that led to the chamber of the Elixir of Life. Gulleck took off her backpack and crawled through the low space, accompanied by Caryatid's pet monkey Marcel. Caryatid gave Marcel the lantern and chose to wait, invisible, in the dark for their return. On the other side of the crawl, Gulleck was suddenly attacked by another small flock of stirges, but her axe sang through the air and the stirges did not last long.
Brushing herself off, Gulleck approached the eternal flame that burned in a crevice in the southern wall, casting eerie reflections on the shiny walls of the chamber. The stone was formed into a natural bowl below the flame, and a syrupy liquid exuded from the wall behind the flame, slowly collecting in the hollow of the bowl. Gulleck collected as much of the elixir as she could into an empty potion flask, and then she and Marcel returned to Caryatid and the three of them made their way back home.
On the way out of the caves, however, the trio were suddenly surrounded and attacked by eight fierce baboons! Gulleck was bit on the wrist and dropped her battleaxe in shock. Caryatid let the lantern fall to the ground (I rolled to see if it would go out upon impact) and slipped on her invisibility ring to avoid combat. Gulleck drew her backup axe and cut down a baboon with a single blow. The rest of them failed a morale check and fled howling into the dark.
The rest of the trip back to the surface was uneventful. The adventurers hastened back to Meat's apartment, where his body was getting a bit worse for the wear. Awkwardly, Gulleck spooned the elixir into the mouth of the corpse, and then they stood back and waited. Meat's body suddenly twitched and spasmed, and then there was a light and a roar of sound that seemed to crowd out every other sensation. They squinted their eyes and covered their ears and just as it reached a crescendo it was gone, and where Meat had lain was an entirely new person, wearing Meat's garments which were now oversized and ill-fitting.
As usual, we rolled dice to see who Meat became. Meat remained a fighter, but was now female! (Frankly, this is starting to get silly...) She had black hair and pale white skin, and was in her early 20s. Her ability scores were now thoroughly mediocre: S10 I10 W11 D8 C7 Ch5. On the bright side, she gained a couple of levels, becoming a level 5 fighter with 17 hit points (amusingly, the rerolled hit points stayed the same). Gulleck's player has some quite powerful fighters now!
Then I made Gulleck spend 30 gold pieces to get Meat's plate armor adjusted.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Player Journals from Session 93
Journal Entry of Tod P. Quasit, Jr.
In the distance I see a drop of quicksilver hovering at the end of a long fingernail belonging to an old friend who I haven't seen for years. I am on a boat, adrift on an ocean of thought, forever floating without meaning.
In the distance I see a drop of quicksilver hovering at the end of a long fingernail belonging to an old friend who I haven't seen for years. I am on a boat, adrift on an ocean of thought, forever floating without meaning.
Idalium Game 93: Chasing Waterfalls
Session date: Monday, March 5, 2018
Game date: Sunday, May 2, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 70000/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18684/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 7594/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 6614/8000
Orehoe Hüfflestüff, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 1173/4000
Retainers:
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3469/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 1255/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1910/2400
When we last left our intrepid party, Gulleck's stalwart retainer Meat had been killed by a living statue that sprayed lava from its fingers. Meat had already been revived once in the resurrection pool on the second level, so that was no longer an option. The players and I discussed the various options: Gulleck could hire a new retainer (who would start at first level but quickly advance, assuming their survival); they could pay 1,250 gold darics to have Meat raised from the dead at the Great Cathedral of the All-Pervading Light. (Gulleck had been raised in such a way, and then sent on a quest for the next few months, so Gulleck's player was a bit leery of going back there for help.) Finally, there was the Elixir of Life produced by the Eternal Flame in the caves on the second level. This elixir had reincarnated Gulleck into her current body, and it was decided to try the same with Meat. And if Meat came back as a monster, all the more fun!
And so the group descended into the undercity, and were immediately derailed trying to figure out exactly where the Eternal Flame was and how best to get there. They struggled with their maps, turning pages around and over and trying to fit them together. Fortunately no wandering monsters showed up while they were puzzling over the scraps of paper, in the light of Simon's magical sword, as they stood in the empty, echoing town square.
Eventually they determined their course, and headed down through the Temple of Hedonism to the second level. In the vestibule of the temple, they encountered a dozen knockers on their way out. Gulleck used to hate the tiny, wizened imps with a murderous rage, but her new personality was a bit more easy going and she didn't immediately put her axe into them.
"Trade gold for information?" the lead knocker hissed.
"Why, what kind of information do you need?" asked Caryatid mischievously.
"No," growled the knocker, annoyed. "You pay gold, we give information about this place."
"How much?"
"One gold piece. Each."
Well, everyone expected to be extorted for much more than that, so they were quite jolly about handing over a dozen gold coins. I don't even remember what question the group asked, but what I do remember is that the knocker gave them a real sarcastic smart aleck answer that wasn't helpful in the least. Adrien lost her patience and let go of Norman's leash. The demon ferret, which had been growling and straining at his leash, pounced forward, nipping one of the knockers. It drew its rusty knife and stabbed Norman, while the rest of them fled back into the temple. Norman tackled the knocker and ripped it to pieces, and once that furious activity subsided, the group followed the path of the fleeing knockers and found that they had excavated a crude tunnel into one of the changing rooms off of the hallway that led to the stairs down. It was too small for any of them to fit through (except perhaps Simon) so they abandoned the pursuit and went down to the second level.
They passed quickly through empty rooms and halls, and made their way to the rope bridge across a chasm. Down in the darkness, rushing water echoed and a cool mist floated up. There was discussion among the party regarding how to carefully harness themselves to the ropes of the bridge. Then Caryatid's player got bored.
"I'm just going to run right across."
"You're going to run across?"
"I'm going to hold the two ropes on the side with my hands, and just... scamper right across."
"So you're not tying yourself to the rope, or taking any special precautions, or going slowly and carefully..."
"Nope."
"OK. Roll a d6."
"A five! That's good, right?"
So while Gulleck and Simon were debating the best knot to use to secure a safety line to the bridge posts, Caryatid just scampered across, lost her balance, and plummeted through the inky darkness into the river below. Some forty feet down, she hit the cold water hard, knocking the wind out of her, and struggled to swim back to the surface and keep her head above the water as the current carried her away. A short while later, she came to an abrupt halt, washed up onto a shallow ledge where the river turned into a waterfall, pouring down into some unseen sea. Various bits of flotsam had become wedged on this shelf, and as Caryatid groped in the dark for a more secure position, her hands fell on what could only be the orcs' two sheet metal gongs that they had dumped into this chasm many months ago!
Meanwhile, back at the rope bridge, the party scrambled to find a way down to Caryatid. Adrien tied a rope to one of the bridge posts, and Simon descended with his sword, while Orehoe lit a lantern back at the top. Simon could see that the river passed through a tunnel on either side of the bridge and that the roof of the tunnel was a good ten feet above the surface of the water. He considered dropping down into the river, but the idea of swimming in cold water wearing plate armor seemed like a bad idea, so he remained hanging from the rope fretting about how to go after Caryatid.
Then Adrien called down, "Wait, don't you have flying boots?"
Well, levitation boots! Simon used the power of the boots to suspend himself in the air and then Caryatid's pet flying capuchin monkey, Marcel, was enticed to push Simon downstream into the tunnel. Finally, spending all that money researching a single use spell to give Marcel wings paid off!
Simon found Caryatid clinging to the waterfall ledge as cold water rushed over her. They hollered back up the tunnel as best they could, hoping the rest of the party would be able to hear them over the roar of the water. Gulleck had climbed down the rope to be nearer the mouth of the tunnel, and faintly heard Simon (made a Hear Noises check successfully). She called back that they were going down to the third level to find them, and then climbed back up the rope to rejoin the group. They returned to the worked stone area of the dungeon and took the mossy stairs down to the third level.
They first went to see "the judge", the talking stone pillar in the room near the stairs, though they had not brought any gems for him to eat. When they entered his room, they were surprised to see a man sitting casually in the wooden chair against the side wall, chatting idly with the pillar.
"Oh, my friends from above!" said the judge. "Today is a rare day indeed, so many visitors. Have you met my friend Bor? He comes to visit once in a while. Bor has made this place his home for some time now."
Bor was thin and lanky, with straggly unkempt hair. He had an odd, unfocused look about him. He wore a suit of plate armor, draped with a dirty and tattered tunic bearing the heraldry of the Great Cathedral of Idalium. A tarnished holy symbol hung around his neck, and they recognized the stylized sun of the All-Pervading Light. Father Jibber had worn a similar symbol.
The judge asked the adventurers what they were up to, and Gulleck explained that they needed to explore the underground sea to the east of here, and what they really needed was a raft.
"Hmm. I don't know of anything like that around here..."
"A raft, you say?" mused Bor. "Actually, I think I might have something like that stowed away. It was a long time ago, to be sure... I wonder if I still have it. Would you like to come and take a look? If I do still have it, I'd be happy to loan it to you for, shall we say a hundred gold darics?"
"Well, that's mighty kind of you," said Gulleck.
"Oh, I'm sure if you are friends of my stone friend here, you're trustworthy enough. Come on and let's see if we can find it."
The judge bid them good luck, and Bor led them back out of the room and down a hall to the west. On the way, Gulleck tentatively inquired about Bor's holy symbol and tabard.
"Oh, do you know, I'm not sure, really. I think I might have been a member of some kind of order, once upon a time. It was a long, long time ago, whenever it was." Bor's speech was rambling and distracted, and he seemed to have difficulty following a train of thought. "Yes, I think there were several of us traveling together, much like you all are now. But that was before..." He trailed off into confused silence.
"And now you live down here, by yourself?" Adrien prompted.
"Oh yes! It's not too bad, as long as you know how to stay out of trouble. Most of the trouble leaves me alone anyway. Not worth bothering with, I suppose." Bor gave them a weak grin.
Bor led them to a place where a long corridor stretched north into the darkness. The wall that ran along the west side was ornately decorated like the walls of a palace, and they recognized this as part of the same wall they had seen farther north. Bor opened a plain wooden door above which was written "Servants' Entrance" in Ancient Idalian. They entered a small anteroom and then went through a door to a somewhat larger room. Bor drew forth a large set of keys on a ring and unlocked a sturdy door on the opposite side of the room. Next to the door was a large sandwich board sign, upon which had been written in Common, in bold black paint:
MONSTERS STAY OUT!
(This means you, Queen of Nightmares!
(I have enough nightmares of my own, thank you very much.))
"This guy's all right!" declared Gulleck. Bor pulled the door open and escorted the party into a small room packed full of crates and barrels of various supplies, seemingly scavenged from different parts of the dungeon. Bor gazed distractedly over the clutter and then mused, "Hmm, there's no raft here, maybe it's in the other closet. Come along, come along..."
He led them through a door on the other side of the room into a large L-shaped room set up as a bedroom. A dingy bedroll lay in one corner next to a barrel with a tarnished old lantern on it. In another corner was a strange little shrine of sorts. Gulleck ventured over to get a closer look, and saw that it contained a few stubbly candles and some crudely whittled wooden idols that depicted strange figures with clawed, webbed hands, and grotesque lamprey-like sucker mouths. Gulleck nudged the other party members and nodded at the shrine, trying to be discreet but Bor noticed her interest.
"Paying your respects? That's wise of you. They are the source of all, be it good or ill. They brought us together today," he murmured, seeming to get lost in his thoughts.
"I, uh, thought you were one of those All-Pervading Light people?" asked Gulleck nervously.
"All-Pervading...? Yes, yes, that seems familiar. But that was before my mind was opened." ("Oh no," muttered Gulleck.) "That was before they showed me the truth beyond the veil."
"Who are they?" asked Adrien.
"They are beyond names. They are ancient, older even than these stones. I call them the Great Ones..." ("Oh no," muttered Gulleck.)
"What about that raft?" chirped Orehoe.
"Oh, yes, the raft. Just wait a moment..." Bor opened a door at the north end of the room and rummaged around. A few minutes later he emerged, dragging a dusty old raft of logs and rope. "It must be years since I used this last. It's so hard to keep track of time down here. It must have been back when the others were still..." And he trailed off again. "Well now, bring it back when you're done with it, won't you?"
The adventurers paid Bor 100 gold pieces and then awkwardly dragged the raft back the way they had came, passing the Judge's doorway and heading east to the shore of the Underground Sea (the infamous "Rocco Beach"). They shouted out for Caryatid and Simon, and Orin's sharp Elvish ears picked up faint return cries off to the left. The adventurers debated briefly, and then Orin and Jack were sent out on the raft to rescue Caryatid and Simon. (This required morale checks for the retainers, but they passed and so both nervously did as they were told.) The water was almost unnaturally still and silent, and once Jack and Orin were far enough away from the rest of the party, it was as though they were moving in a bubble of lantern light through a dark void, featureless apart from the rocky cave walls that they kept within sight on their left. Even the paddles slipping into the water seemed oddly muted. At times, water splashed up from the paddles onto Jack and Orin and they found that it seemed to sap their strength, leaving them feeling unnaturally fatigued and listless. But soon enough, they rounded a bend in the cave wall and spotted the light from Simon's sword. The water from the river plunged down some 15 feet in a waterfall, but even that seemed to lose all its energy and potency as it struck the quiet sea. The roar of the waterfall seemed muted at the bottom, and Orin and Jack had surprisingly little trouble bringing the raft quite close to the base of the waterfall without being disturbed by its wake. As they drew near, they saw a live fish wriggling as it went over the waterfall and slip into the dark sea, and they were alarmed to see it float motionless back to the surface a moment later.
"Don't touch the water!" shouted Orin up to Caryatid and Simon. Caryatid was carefully lowered down to the raft by Marcel the flying monkey and Simon's levitating boots. Once they were safely on board, Jack and Orin paddled quickly back along the cavern wall until they returned to the rocky beach where the rest of the party was waiting. They carried the raft back to Bor's room and returned it to him with thanks. Then they called it a day, and headed back to the surface.
And so a day went by, and Meat's body got a little riper where it was lying back in his apartment. We would pick up next time with another attempt the next day to find the Elixir of Life that could revive him.
Game date: Sunday, May 2, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 70000/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18684/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 7594/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 6614/8000
Orehoe Hüfflestüff, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 1173/4000
Retainers:
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3469/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 1255/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1910/2400
When we last left our intrepid party, Gulleck's stalwart retainer Meat had been killed by a living statue that sprayed lava from its fingers. Meat had already been revived once in the resurrection pool on the second level, so that was no longer an option. The players and I discussed the various options: Gulleck could hire a new retainer (who would start at first level but quickly advance, assuming their survival); they could pay 1,250 gold darics to have Meat raised from the dead at the Great Cathedral of the All-Pervading Light. (Gulleck had been raised in such a way, and then sent on a quest for the next few months, so Gulleck's player was a bit leery of going back there for help.) Finally, there was the Elixir of Life produced by the Eternal Flame in the caves on the second level. This elixir had reincarnated Gulleck into her current body, and it was decided to try the same with Meat. And if Meat came back as a monster, all the more fun!
And so the group descended into the undercity, and were immediately derailed trying to figure out exactly where the Eternal Flame was and how best to get there. They struggled with their maps, turning pages around and over and trying to fit them together. Fortunately no wandering monsters showed up while they were puzzling over the scraps of paper, in the light of Simon's magical sword, as they stood in the empty, echoing town square.
Eventually they determined their course, and headed down through the Temple of Hedonism to the second level. In the vestibule of the temple, they encountered a dozen knockers on their way out. Gulleck used to hate the tiny, wizened imps with a murderous rage, but her new personality was a bit more easy going and she didn't immediately put her axe into them.
"Trade gold for information?" the lead knocker hissed.
"Why, what kind of information do you need?" asked Caryatid mischievously.
"No," growled the knocker, annoyed. "You pay gold, we give information about this place."
"How much?"
"One gold piece. Each."
Well, everyone expected to be extorted for much more than that, so they were quite jolly about handing over a dozen gold coins. I don't even remember what question the group asked, but what I do remember is that the knocker gave them a real sarcastic smart aleck answer that wasn't helpful in the least. Adrien lost her patience and let go of Norman's leash. The demon ferret, which had been growling and straining at his leash, pounced forward, nipping one of the knockers. It drew its rusty knife and stabbed Norman, while the rest of them fled back into the temple. Norman tackled the knocker and ripped it to pieces, and once that furious activity subsided, the group followed the path of the fleeing knockers and found that they had excavated a crude tunnel into one of the changing rooms off of the hallway that led to the stairs down. It was too small for any of them to fit through (except perhaps Simon) so they abandoned the pursuit and went down to the second level.
They passed quickly through empty rooms and halls, and made their way to the rope bridge across a chasm. Down in the darkness, rushing water echoed and a cool mist floated up. There was discussion among the party regarding how to carefully harness themselves to the ropes of the bridge. Then Caryatid's player got bored.
"I'm just going to run right across."
"You're going to run across?"
"I'm going to hold the two ropes on the side with my hands, and just... scamper right across."
"So you're not tying yourself to the rope, or taking any special precautions, or going slowly and carefully..."
"Nope."
"OK. Roll a d6."
"A five! That's good, right?"
So while Gulleck and Simon were debating the best knot to use to secure a safety line to the bridge posts, Caryatid just scampered across, lost her balance, and plummeted through the inky darkness into the river below. Some forty feet down, she hit the cold water hard, knocking the wind out of her, and struggled to swim back to the surface and keep her head above the water as the current carried her away. A short while later, she came to an abrupt halt, washed up onto a shallow ledge where the river turned into a waterfall, pouring down into some unseen sea. Various bits of flotsam had become wedged on this shelf, and as Caryatid groped in the dark for a more secure position, her hands fell on what could only be the orcs' two sheet metal gongs that they had dumped into this chasm many months ago!
Meanwhile, back at the rope bridge, the party scrambled to find a way down to Caryatid. Adrien tied a rope to one of the bridge posts, and Simon descended with his sword, while Orehoe lit a lantern back at the top. Simon could see that the river passed through a tunnel on either side of the bridge and that the roof of the tunnel was a good ten feet above the surface of the water. He considered dropping down into the river, but the idea of swimming in cold water wearing plate armor seemed like a bad idea, so he remained hanging from the rope fretting about how to go after Caryatid.
Then Adrien called down, "Wait, don't you have flying boots?"
Well, levitation boots! Simon used the power of the boots to suspend himself in the air and then Caryatid's pet flying capuchin monkey, Marcel, was enticed to push Simon downstream into the tunnel. Finally, spending all that money researching a single use spell to give Marcel wings paid off!
Simon found Caryatid clinging to the waterfall ledge as cold water rushed over her. They hollered back up the tunnel as best they could, hoping the rest of the party would be able to hear them over the roar of the water. Gulleck had climbed down the rope to be nearer the mouth of the tunnel, and faintly heard Simon (made a Hear Noises check successfully). She called back that they were going down to the third level to find them, and then climbed back up the rope to rejoin the group. They returned to the worked stone area of the dungeon and took the mossy stairs down to the third level.
They first went to see "the judge", the talking stone pillar in the room near the stairs, though they had not brought any gems for him to eat. When they entered his room, they were surprised to see a man sitting casually in the wooden chair against the side wall, chatting idly with the pillar.
"Oh, my friends from above!" said the judge. "Today is a rare day indeed, so many visitors. Have you met my friend Bor? He comes to visit once in a while. Bor has made this place his home for some time now."
Bor was thin and lanky, with straggly unkempt hair. He had an odd, unfocused look about him. He wore a suit of plate armor, draped with a dirty and tattered tunic bearing the heraldry of the Great Cathedral of Idalium. A tarnished holy symbol hung around his neck, and they recognized the stylized sun of the All-Pervading Light. Father Jibber had worn a similar symbol.
The judge asked the adventurers what they were up to, and Gulleck explained that they needed to explore the underground sea to the east of here, and what they really needed was a raft.
"Hmm. I don't know of anything like that around here..."
"A raft, you say?" mused Bor. "Actually, I think I might have something like that stowed away. It was a long time ago, to be sure... I wonder if I still have it. Would you like to come and take a look? If I do still have it, I'd be happy to loan it to you for, shall we say a hundred gold darics?"
"Well, that's mighty kind of you," said Gulleck.
"Oh, I'm sure if you are friends of my stone friend here, you're trustworthy enough. Come on and let's see if we can find it."
The judge bid them good luck, and Bor led them back out of the room and down a hall to the west. On the way, Gulleck tentatively inquired about Bor's holy symbol and tabard.
"Oh, do you know, I'm not sure, really. I think I might have been a member of some kind of order, once upon a time. It was a long, long time ago, whenever it was." Bor's speech was rambling and distracted, and he seemed to have difficulty following a train of thought. "Yes, I think there were several of us traveling together, much like you all are now. But that was before..." He trailed off into confused silence.
"And now you live down here, by yourself?" Adrien prompted.
"Oh yes! It's not too bad, as long as you know how to stay out of trouble. Most of the trouble leaves me alone anyway. Not worth bothering with, I suppose." Bor gave them a weak grin.
Bor led them to a place where a long corridor stretched north into the darkness. The wall that ran along the west side was ornately decorated like the walls of a palace, and they recognized this as part of the same wall they had seen farther north. Bor opened a plain wooden door above which was written "Servants' Entrance" in Ancient Idalian. They entered a small anteroom and then went through a door to a somewhat larger room. Bor drew forth a large set of keys on a ring and unlocked a sturdy door on the opposite side of the room. Next to the door was a large sandwich board sign, upon which had been written in Common, in bold black paint:
MONSTERS STAY OUT!
(This means you, Queen of Nightmares!
(I have enough nightmares of my own, thank you very much.))
"This guy's all right!" declared Gulleck. Bor pulled the door open and escorted the party into a small room packed full of crates and barrels of various supplies, seemingly scavenged from different parts of the dungeon. Bor gazed distractedly over the clutter and then mused, "Hmm, there's no raft here, maybe it's in the other closet. Come along, come along..."
He led them through a door on the other side of the room into a large L-shaped room set up as a bedroom. A dingy bedroll lay in one corner next to a barrel with a tarnished old lantern on it. In another corner was a strange little shrine of sorts. Gulleck ventured over to get a closer look, and saw that it contained a few stubbly candles and some crudely whittled wooden idols that depicted strange figures with clawed, webbed hands, and grotesque lamprey-like sucker mouths. Gulleck nudged the other party members and nodded at the shrine, trying to be discreet but Bor noticed her interest.
"Paying your respects? That's wise of you. They are the source of all, be it good or ill. They brought us together today," he murmured, seeming to get lost in his thoughts.
"I, uh, thought you were one of those All-Pervading Light people?" asked Gulleck nervously.
"All-Pervading...? Yes, yes, that seems familiar. But that was before my mind was opened." ("Oh no," muttered Gulleck.) "That was before they showed me the truth beyond the veil."
"Who are they?" asked Adrien.
"They are beyond names. They are ancient, older even than these stones. I call them the Great Ones..." ("Oh no," muttered Gulleck.)
"What about that raft?" chirped Orehoe.
"Oh, yes, the raft. Just wait a moment..." Bor opened a door at the north end of the room and rummaged around. A few minutes later he emerged, dragging a dusty old raft of logs and rope. "It must be years since I used this last. It's so hard to keep track of time down here. It must have been back when the others were still..." And he trailed off again. "Well now, bring it back when you're done with it, won't you?"
The adventurers paid Bor 100 gold pieces and then awkwardly dragged the raft back the way they had came, passing the Judge's doorway and heading east to the shore of the Underground Sea (the infamous "Rocco Beach"). They shouted out for Caryatid and Simon, and Orin's sharp Elvish ears picked up faint return cries off to the left. The adventurers debated briefly, and then Orin and Jack were sent out on the raft to rescue Caryatid and Simon. (This required morale checks for the retainers, but they passed and so both nervously did as they were told.) The water was almost unnaturally still and silent, and once Jack and Orin were far enough away from the rest of the party, it was as though they were moving in a bubble of lantern light through a dark void, featureless apart from the rocky cave walls that they kept within sight on their left. Even the paddles slipping into the water seemed oddly muted. At times, water splashed up from the paddles onto Jack and Orin and they found that it seemed to sap their strength, leaving them feeling unnaturally fatigued and listless. But soon enough, they rounded a bend in the cave wall and spotted the light from Simon's sword. The water from the river plunged down some 15 feet in a waterfall, but even that seemed to lose all its energy and potency as it struck the quiet sea. The roar of the waterfall seemed muted at the bottom, and Orin and Jack had surprisingly little trouble bringing the raft quite close to the base of the waterfall without being disturbed by its wake. As they drew near, they saw a live fish wriggling as it went over the waterfall and slip into the dark sea, and they were alarmed to see it float motionless back to the surface a moment later.
"Don't touch the water!" shouted Orin up to Caryatid and Simon. Caryatid was carefully lowered down to the raft by Marcel the flying monkey and Simon's levitating boots. Once they were safely on board, Jack and Orin paddled quickly back along the cavern wall until they returned to the rocky beach where the rest of the party was waiting. They carried the raft back to Bor's room and returned it to him with thanks. Then they called it a day, and headed back to the surface.
And so a day went by, and Meat's body got a little riper where it was lying back in his apartment. We would pick up next time with another attempt the next day to find the Elixir of Life that could revive him.
Monday, July 23, 2018
Idalium Game 92: The Statue Got Me High
Session date: Monday, February 26, 2018
Game date: Saturday, May 1, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 36486/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18432/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 7329/8000
Orehoe Hüfflestüff, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 908/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6416/8000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3337/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 1129/4000
In the downtime between delves, Orehoe spent some of her newly acquired wealth to research the Read Magic spell. After two weeks of furious study and the expenditure of 1,000 gold pieces worth of esoteric books and other research materials, she emerged triumphant with a new spell to go along with her Ventriloquism spell. Meanwhile, Simon paid for his retainer Orin to scribe two more Sleep scrolls for his personal use.
The adventurers had only just descended into the buried city below the Rusty Lantern tavern, when they encountered a now-familiar figure, the veiled witch who sold potions and elixirs at the Goblin Market. She was accompanied by a pair of large, dog-like creatures, who growled quietly at the party while she conversed with them in her slightly sibilant voice, offering them a variety of potions. The adventurers balked at the high prices, however.
"Very well," the woman spoke from behind her opaque black veil. "Seek me out on my island in the underground sea, should you change your minds."
The group continued on their way, and in the upper sanctuary of the Temple of Hedonism, they encountered a trio of sketchy looking men; bandits, by the look of them. The two groups traded insults, but it was clear that the ruffians were outnumbered, so they backed down and rudely pushed their way past the adventurers on their way out of the temple. Some time later, Caryatid would discover that one of her magical wands was missing! (I made a pick pockets roll for a 1st level thief, fully expecting the attempt to be detected with hilarious consequences, but I rolled something like 4%!)
The party continued down to the third level, picking up their explorations where they had left off, at a door next to the room where the wererats had made their last stand. They opened the door, revealing a sitting room full of mildewed and tattered old furniture. Three odd statues squatted on stone pillars, bat-like wings folded behind their backs. Examining the statues cautiously, the adventurers noted that one was wearing a pair of jeweled bracelets, and another wore a golden torc around its neck. Meat stepped gingerly forward and reached for the torc, when suddenly the gargoyle sprang to life and swiped at him!
The group jumped into combat with the three bizarre creatures, which lifted themselves into the air on slowly flapping stone-like wings. Orin tried a Sleep spell with no affect, and Meat landed a devastating blow (a natural 20!) with his sword that unfortunately just rebounded off the chest of the gargoyle with an echoing CLANNNNNNG! Meat dropped his useless sword to the ground and borrowed Gulleck's magical "second best axe".
Gulleck, meanwhile, had ripped a vicious wound in the side of one of the gargoyles, and a dark gray sludge, like wet cement, came pouring out. Caryatid shot another one with a Magic Missile spell, and then Gulleck finished her opponent off with another axe strike. Father Chase was slashed badly across his handsome face by one of the gargoyles and retreated into the corner to pray for miraculous healing. Caryatid blasted another gargoyle with a second Magic Missile spell, and Simon used the Big Green d30 to one-shot one of them, and then finished off the third on the next round.
After collecting their breath and the treasure, the adventurers left the room, crossed the large, ornate hall and opened a door on the other side. They entered a dusty, cobwebbed feast hall. A long banquet table stood in the center of the room, still set with tarnished and web-strewn silver plates and goblets. But what drew their attention first and foremost was yet another statue. A tall (maybe eight feet tall) abstract granite sculpture of a man stood next to a chair at one end of the table. The chair was oddly scorched looking, as if burnt in a fire many years ago. The statue held one hand extended towards the chair as if in welcome.
I think most of the players were intimidated by this setup, but Gulleck's player knew a good set piece when he saw one, and Gulleck gamely sat in the chair and took the statue's hand. A brilliant white beam of light shot from its eyes into hers, and then she was engulfed in flame. All the other party members could see was her plate armor, and within that a raging furnace. Then the statue yanked its arm upward, and seemed to fling the column of fire upward into the ceiling, and Gulleck was gone. All that was left was a charred and smoking chair. And then the statue turned slowly towards the rest of the party, arms outstretched, smoke rising from its hands.
Orin started to panic (with his four hit points) and Simon quickly gave him his invisibility ring to stay out of trouble. Orin and Orehoe both scrambled beneath the table to hide. While Simon was distracted, though, he was blasted with a gout of glowing red lava that sprayed from the statue's fingers. He barely dodged out of the way to avoid being hit full on.
Meat ran up and landed a solid blow on the statue, and Caryatid used a Magic Missile scroll to chip away at the granite foe. Simon recovered his bearings and raked his sword across the statue while avoiding another blast of lava.
Caryatid tried to command her magical silk rope to entangle the statue's arm, but this didn't seem too effective, and Father Chase took a blast in the face ("Not the face!") while everyone tried ineffectively to land a solid blow on the statue.
Meat was sprayed again, taking serious damage. Caryatid, somewhat desperate now, cast Sleep but to no effect. Meat was hit again with a full blast of lava to the chest and fell to the ground with a gurgling dying scream.
The next couple of rounds were tense. Simon and Chase had very few hit points left. Caryatid didn't seem to have any useful spells left, and Meat was gone. Simon's player rolled the Big Green d30 to win initiative but both Simon and Chase were unable to do any more damage to the statue. In desperation, Orin and Orehoe used their backs to lift the heavy banquet table a few inches off the ground, and rammed it into the statue, doing a few points of damage. Father Chase then brought his mace smashing down into the neck of the statue, and the internal lava glow faded and it slumped into immobility.
Meanwhile, Gulleck found herself sitting in a chair in a familiar yet different room. It was the same banquet hall, but there were no cobwebs or dust. Torches burned brightly in wall sconces, and the table was set with fragrant meats and vegetables and goblets of wine. Gulleck felt full of new knowledge and wisdom, as if the statue had shown her things that she could only vaguely consciously remember now. (In game terms, she had gone up to level 7!)
As Gulleck looked around, she saw the granite statue standing at the other end of the table, hands outstretched towards her, fingers smoking and spurting orange lava. Flush with new power, Gulleck jumped onto the table, knocking goblets and platters down clattering to the floor, and charged screaming towards the statue, axe raised over her head. Fiery lava sprayed all around her as her ran, spattering on the stone floor and hissing where it fell on the wooden table. She slammed her axe into the statue again and again, while it sprayed her with glowing molten rock. No other party member would have likely survived such a frontal assault, but Gulleck's hit points outlasted the statue's, and within four rounds she finished it off.
Back in the real world, the rest of the adventurers were catching their breath and mourning Meat, when they saw the inert statue suddenly shudder and rock. Then a gauntleted dwarven fist punched its way out through the chest of the statue, and began to pull the burnt-out husk of the statue apart. The other adventurers ran forward to help, and quickly freed a soot-smudged and singed Gulleck from the steaming rubble of the statue.
They gathered up their fallen comrade and hurried back out of the dungeon and up to the surface. Would they bury Meat's body and hire a new retainer for Gulleck? (Although honestly, does Gulleck even need a retainer now?) Would they pay to have Meat raised from the dead at the Great Cathedral? Would they venture into the caves to find the Elixir of Life that could bring a person back to life in a new body? Time would tell!
[A note about this encounter, which was loosely adapted from a song by the band They Might Be Giants (that also gave its title to the title of this session report): This is one of those set pieces you dream up and then wait for months or years for the players to find and you just hope they take the bait. The way it worked is that I kept track of how many rounds it took the party to destroy the statue (a rock living statue, by the way). Then, when we switched to the alternate world with the character that sat in the chair, they would have to survive that many rounds in solo combat against the statue. The exit from the room would turn out to be bricked up if they tried to escape via the door. If they perished in the alternate world, the character would be dead forever with no chance of resurrection. I think it was very lucky for the players that Gulleck was the one to sit in the chair!]
Game date: Saturday, May 1, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 36486/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18432/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 7329/8000
Orehoe Hüfflestüff, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 908/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6416/8000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3337/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 1129/4000
In the downtime between delves, Orehoe spent some of her newly acquired wealth to research the Read Magic spell. After two weeks of furious study and the expenditure of 1,000 gold pieces worth of esoteric books and other research materials, she emerged triumphant with a new spell to go along with her Ventriloquism spell. Meanwhile, Simon paid for his retainer Orin to scribe two more Sleep scrolls for his personal use.
The adventurers had only just descended into the buried city below the Rusty Lantern tavern, when they encountered a now-familiar figure, the veiled witch who sold potions and elixirs at the Goblin Market. She was accompanied by a pair of large, dog-like creatures, who growled quietly at the party while she conversed with them in her slightly sibilant voice, offering them a variety of potions. The adventurers balked at the high prices, however.
"Very well," the woman spoke from behind her opaque black veil. "Seek me out on my island in the underground sea, should you change your minds."
The group continued on their way, and in the upper sanctuary of the Temple of Hedonism, they encountered a trio of sketchy looking men; bandits, by the look of them. The two groups traded insults, but it was clear that the ruffians were outnumbered, so they backed down and rudely pushed their way past the adventurers on their way out of the temple. Some time later, Caryatid would discover that one of her magical wands was missing! (I made a pick pockets roll for a 1st level thief, fully expecting the attempt to be detected with hilarious consequences, but I rolled something like 4%!)
The party continued down to the third level, picking up their explorations where they had left off, at a door next to the room where the wererats had made their last stand. They opened the door, revealing a sitting room full of mildewed and tattered old furniture. Three odd statues squatted on stone pillars, bat-like wings folded behind their backs. Examining the statues cautiously, the adventurers noted that one was wearing a pair of jeweled bracelets, and another wore a golden torc around its neck. Meat stepped gingerly forward and reached for the torc, when suddenly the gargoyle sprang to life and swiped at him!
The group jumped into combat with the three bizarre creatures, which lifted themselves into the air on slowly flapping stone-like wings. Orin tried a Sleep spell with no affect, and Meat landed a devastating blow (a natural 20!) with his sword that unfortunately just rebounded off the chest of the gargoyle with an echoing CLANNNNNNG! Meat dropped his useless sword to the ground and borrowed Gulleck's magical "second best axe".
Gulleck, meanwhile, had ripped a vicious wound in the side of one of the gargoyles, and a dark gray sludge, like wet cement, came pouring out. Caryatid shot another one with a Magic Missile spell, and then Gulleck finished her opponent off with another axe strike. Father Chase was slashed badly across his handsome face by one of the gargoyles and retreated into the corner to pray for miraculous healing. Caryatid blasted another gargoyle with a second Magic Missile spell, and Simon used the Big Green d30 to one-shot one of them, and then finished off the third on the next round.
I think most of the players were intimidated by this setup, but Gulleck's player knew a good set piece when he saw one, and Gulleck gamely sat in the chair and took the statue's hand. A brilliant white beam of light shot from its eyes into hers, and then she was engulfed in flame. All the other party members could see was her plate armor, and within that a raging furnace. Then the statue yanked its arm upward, and seemed to fling the column of fire upward into the ceiling, and Gulleck was gone. All that was left was a charred and smoking chair. And then the statue turned slowly towards the rest of the party, arms outstretched, smoke rising from its hands.
Orin started to panic (with his four hit points) and Simon quickly gave him his invisibility ring to stay out of trouble. Orin and Orehoe both scrambled beneath the table to hide. While Simon was distracted, though, he was blasted with a gout of glowing red lava that sprayed from the statue's fingers. He barely dodged out of the way to avoid being hit full on.
Meat ran up and landed a solid blow on the statue, and Caryatid used a Magic Missile scroll to chip away at the granite foe. Simon recovered his bearings and raked his sword across the statue while avoiding another blast of lava.
Caryatid tried to command her magical silk rope to entangle the statue's arm, but this didn't seem too effective, and Father Chase took a blast in the face ("Not the face!") while everyone tried ineffectively to land a solid blow on the statue.
Meat was sprayed again, taking serious damage. Caryatid, somewhat desperate now, cast Sleep but to no effect. Meat was hit again with a full blast of lava to the chest and fell to the ground with a gurgling dying scream.
The next couple of rounds were tense. Simon and Chase had very few hit points left. Caryatid didn't seem to have any useful spells left, and Meat was gone. Simon's player rolled the Big Green d30 to win initiative but both Simon and Chase were unable to do any more damage to the statue. In desperation, Orin and Orehoe used their backs to lift the heavy banquet table a few inches off the ground, and rammed it into the statue, doing a few points of damage. Father Chase then brought his mace smashing down into the neck of the statue, and the internal lava glow faded and it slumped into immobility.
Meanwhile, Gulleck found herself sitting in a chair in a familiar yet different room. It was the same banquet hall, but there were no cobwebs or dust. Torches burned brightly in wall sconces, and the table was set with fragrant meats and vegetables and goblets of wine. Gulleck felt full of new knowledge and wisdom, as if the statue had shown her things that she could only vaguely consciously remember now. (In game terms, she had gone up to level 7!)
As Gulleck looked around, she saw the granite statue standing at the other end of the table, hands outstretched towards her, fingers smoking and spurting orange lava. Flush with new power, Gulleck jumped onto the table, knocking goblets and platters down clattering to the floor, and charged screaming towards the statue, axe raised over her head. Fiery lava sprayed all around her as her ran, spattering on the stone floor and hissing where it fell on the wooden table. She slammed her axe into the statue again and again, while it sprayed her with glowing molten rock. No other party member would have likely survived such a frontal assault, but Gulleck's hit points outlasted the statue's, and within four rounds she finished it off.
Back in the real world, the rest of the adventurers were catching their breath and mourning Meat, when they saw the inert statue suddenly shudder and rock. Then a gauntleted dwarven fist punched its way out through the chest of the statue, and began to pull the burnt-out husk of the statue apart. The other adventurers ran forward to help, and quickly freed a soot-smudged and singed Gulleck from the steaming rubble of the statue.
They gathered up their fallen comrade and hurried back out of the dungeon and up to the surface. Would they bury Meat's body and hire a new retainer for Gulleck? (Although honestly, does Gulleck even need a retainer now?) Would they pay to have Meat raised from the dead at the Great Cathedral? Would they venture into the caves to find the Elixir of Life that could bring a person back to life in a new body? Time would tell!
[A note about this encounter, which was loosely adapted from a song by the band They Might Be Giants (that also gave its title to the title of this session report): This is one of those set pieces you dream up and then wait for months or years for the players to find and you just hope they take the bait. The way it worked is that I kept track of how many rounds it took the party to destroy the statue (a rock living statue, by the way). Then, when we switched to the alternate world with the character that sat in the chair, they would have to survive that many rounds in solo combat against the statue. The exit from the room would turn out to be bricked up if they tried to escape via the door. If they perished in the alternate world, the character would be dead forever with no chance of resurrection. I think it was very lucky for the players that Gulleck was the one to sit in the chair!]
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Idalium Game 91: The Ratcatchers
Session date: Monday, February 12, 2018
Game date: Saturday, April 17, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 36173/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18041/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6918/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 6223/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 497/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6220/8000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3131/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 933/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1704/2400
Having recovered from their skirmish with the ratmen last week, the Infestation Managers prepared to head back done to loot their lair, and to mop up any remaining ratmen if necessary. At a jeweler's in the neighborhood of the Rusty Lantern tavern, they bought a handful of gemstones to feed to the old forgotten god (the talking stone column) on the third level. At the Temple of Hedonism, they knocked on the door and were let through by a group of nine partying hedonists (thankfully they were still at the toga-wearing portion of the party). They went to see the stone column and found that his chamber was occupied by nearly a dozen of the black-cloaked cultists. The cultists greeted the adventurers with smirks and sarcastic jibes, and brushed through them rudely on their way out. Their leader walked out in a curious pose; he seemed to be shielding his face from view with his cloak. Simon attempted to trip him as they passed, but rolled a 1 and managed to trip himself somehow. The cultists laughed and pointed ("haw haw!") and left the room.
The adventurers went in to talk to the judge, who was pleased to see them and said it had been an unusually busy day, what with the other folks visiting him as well.
"It's so rare that people come to see me. Usually I just stand here all alone..." he grumbled.
Gulleck told "the judge" that they had brought some "shiny stones" for him, and the column rotated noisily to turn to a hungry, greedy face. Gulleck gingerly reached forward with a polished piece of coral and fed it to the face, which crunched it into dust in savage frenzy.
"Ahhh, delicious!" he cried and his face turned to a pleased, satisfied expression. "What question can I answer for you?"
"Do the ratmen have any particular weaknesses?" asked Gulleck.
"They are vulnerable to silver," said the judge.
Simon fed a handful of gems to the judge and asked who has the largest treasure on this level.
"Hmm..." the judge considered. "Those people you just met must have a fair amount, as they sometimes trade shiny stones with me for information. And of course, the Queen of Nightmares, although thankfully she never comes to talk to me."
Adrien gave him a garnet and asked what the secret was to getting through the Goblin King's palace.
"It can be mapped," said the judge, somewhat unhelpfully.
Back to the wererat's temple they then went, and they found Father Jed and his gang of reformed bandits poking around in the room where they had killed the giant rats. They exchanged pleasantries, and Jed said that the door to the north seemed to be locked from the inside (Caryatid smirked, knowing that she had wizard locked it). Jed's Boys departed, and Caryatid opened the northern door and they entered a hallway beyond it. There were empty bedrooms with bunks on either side of the hall and they seem to have been evacuated in a hurry. At the end of the hall was a somewhat better appointed room, also clearly abandoned in a rush. A wooden chest stood open and empty. Gulleck found a pair of smelly shoes under the bed, but no treasure. Then Simon examined his map and deduced that there was an empty space between this room and the bedroom to the west. Jack searched for secret doors and found a camouflaged latch. He flipped it up and pulled open a portion of the stone wall, revealing a hidden closet containing some very ancient emergency supplies, now long rotten and crumbling. But in a tattered burlap sack were almost a thousand silver coins.
They took the coins and returned to the main room of the temple and proceeded down a hall to the east. A giant statue of a bipedal rat had been erected here, and a bloodstained altar squatted before it. They rummaged through their belongings looking for something to help destroy this idol, and Caryatid remembered she had been carrying around a very fine silk rope, that seemed to vibrate with magical power as she held it. She tossed it at the statue and it fell to the floor, but then thought to order the rope aloud to tie itself to the statue's neck. The rope wriggled with magical life and snaked its way across the floor and up the statue to tie itself securely around its neck.
Gulleck, wearing her "Hulk hands" (gauntlets of ogre strength), pulled the statue of St. Rathmus down singlehandedly. It toppled on its plinth, fell roughly across the altar in front of it, and smashed into several pieces on the stone floor. Several bags of copper and gold coins had been hidden in a compartment in its torso, and the adventurers gleefully collected these and left the wererats' temple for good.
They headed north to a hall lined with old paintings and tapestries, and investigated a door on the south side of the hall. This led to a small antechamber with doors leading east and west. Simon "listened" at the east door with his mindreading amulet, and coincidentally enough, discovered that this was the final hiding place of several wererats that had escaped the temple! Gulleck tried to boot in the door, but found that it a barricade of furniture had been assembled on the other side.
"OK, this is your one chance to surrender. Otherwise, I'm smashing this furniture to pieces and then you."
"Leave us alone! St. Rathmus shall curse you to a life of misery and wretchedness!"
"OK, I offered..."
And, having all the time in the world, Gulleck brought her battle axe to bear against the door and the barricade behind it. It took a little while, and the ratmen hurled curses and invective against her the entire time, but soon enough she broke down enough of the barricade to force the door open. ("Heeeeere's Gulleck!") The wererats lunged forward in their tiny room, snapping with fangs and claws at Gulleck, but between Gulleck's axe and Adrien's magical lycanthrope-killing sword, two of the ratmen were quickly killed, and the other two dropped to their knees and surrendered.
"Oh, now you want to surrender," grumbled Gulleck.
The wererats wanted to be let go and promised never to return to Idalium, in exchange for their treasure. This wasn't much of a deal to Gulleck, who counteroffered to take them to the Great Cathedral of Idalium to see if their wererat curse could be lifted.
"Never!" swore the ratman. "Those accursed priests will kill us!"
Well, the argument seemed to be going nowhere, so Caryatid cast Sleep on them. They were bound with rope, their treasure (many electrum pieces, four valuable pieces of jewelry, and many plans and maps detailing potential targets in the aboveground city of Idalium). Then they lifted the wererats and awkwardly carried them back through the dungeon, up towards the surface. In the Temple of Hedonism, the party had died down, leaving only a single young couple necking in a corner.
"Don't mind us!" chirped Caryatid as they carried the two unconscious ratmen through the temple den and up the stairs to the first level. They had almost made it home when the ratmen awoke. There were some squeals, and a sudden convulsion and then the ratmen were shrinking and falling through the ropes to the floor and scurrying away. But before they could escape, Orin cast his Sleep spell and the small rats stopped in their tracks. Adrien and Simon strolled up and drove their swords through the rats, and that was the sorry end of the Brotherhood of St. Rathmus beneath Idalium.
Game date: Saturday, April 17, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 36173/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18041/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6918/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 6223/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 497/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6220/8000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3131/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 933/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1704/2400
Having recovered from their skirmish with the ratmen last week, the Infestation Managers prepared to head back done to loot their lair, and to mop up any remaining ratmen if necessary. At a jeweler's in the neighborhood of the Rusty Lantern tavern, they bought a handful of gemstones to feed to the old forgotten god (the talking stone column) on the third level. At the Temple of Hedonism, they knocked on the door and were let through by a group of nine partying hedonists (thankfully they were still at the toga-wearing portion of the party). They went to see the stone column and found that his chamber was occupied by nearly a dozen of the black-cloaked cultists. The cultists greeted the adventurers with smirks and sarcastic jibes, and brushed through them rudely on their way out. Their leader walked out in a curious pose; he seemed to be shielding his face from view with his cloak. Simon attempted to trip him as they passed, but rolled a 1 and managed to trip himself somehow. The cultists laughed and pointed ("haw haw!") and left the room.
The adventurers went in to talk to the judge, who was pleased to see them and said it had been an unusually busy day, what with the other folks visiting him as well.
"It's so rare that people come to see me. Usually I just stand here all alone..." he grumbled.
Gulleck told "the judge" that they had brought some "shiny stones" for him, and the column rotated noisily to turn to a hungry, greedy face. Gulleck gingerly reached forward with a polished piece of coral and fed it to the face, which crunched it into dust in savage frenzy.
"Ahhh, delicious!" he cried and his face turned to a pleased, satisfied expression. "What question can I answer for you?"
"Do the ratmen have any particular weaknesses?" asked Gulleck.
"They are vulnerable to silver," said the judge.
Simon fed a handful of gems to the judge and asked who has the largest treasure on this level.
"Hmm..." the judge considered. "Those people you just met must have a fair amount, as they sometimes trade shiny stones with me for information. And of course, the Queen of Nightmares, although thankfully she never comes to talk to me."
Adrien gave him a garnet and asked what the secret was to getting through the Goblin King's palace.
"It can be mapped," said the judge, somewhat unhelpfully.
Back to the wererat's temple they then went, and they found Father Jed and his gang of reformed bandits poking around in the room where they had killed the giant rats. They exchanged pleasantries, and Jed said that the door to the north seemed to be locked from the inside (Caryatid smirked, knowing that she had wizard locked it). Jed's Boys departed, and Caryatid opened the northern door and they entered a hallway beyond it. There were empty bedrooms with bunks on either side of the hall and they seem to have been evacuated in a hurry. At the end of the hall was a somewhat better appointed room, also clearly abandoned in a rush. A wooden chest stood open and empty. Gulleck found a pair of smelly shoes under the bed, but no treasure. Then Simon examined his map and deduced that there was an empty space between this room and the bedroom to the west. Jack searched for secret doors and found a camouflaged latch. He flipped it up and pulled open a portion of the stone wall, revealing a hidden closet containing some very ancient emergency supplies, now long rotten and crumbling. But in a tattered burlap sack were almost a thousand silver coins.
They took the coins and returned to the main room of the temple and proceeded down a hall to the east. A giant statue of a bipedal rat had been erected here, and a bloodstained altar squatted before it. They rummaged through their belongings looking for something to help destroy this idol, and Caryatid remembered she had been carrying around a very fine silk rope, that seemed to vibrate with magical power as she held it. She tossed it at the statue and it fell to the floor, but then thought to order the rope aloud to tie itself to the statue's neck. The rope wriggled with magical life and snaked its way across the floor and up the statue to tie itself securely around its neck.
Gulleck, wearing her "Hulk hands" (gauntlets of ogre strength), pulled the statue of St. Rathmus down singlehandedly. It toppled on its plinth, fell roughly across the altar in front of it, and smashed into several pieces on the stone floor. Several bags of copper and gold coins had been hidden in a compartment in its torso, and the adventurers gleefully collected these and left the wererats' temple for good.
They headed north to a hall lined with old paintings and tapestries, and investigated a door on the south side of the hall. This led to a small antechamber with doors leading east and west. Simon "listened" at the east door with his mindreading amulet, and coincidentally enough, discovered that this was the final hiding place of several wererats that had escaped the temple! Gulleck tried to boot in the door, but found that it a barricade of furniture had been assembled on the other side.
"OK, this is your one chance to surrender. Otherwise, I'm smashing this furniture to pieces and then you."
"Leave us alone! St. Rathmus shall curse you to a life of misery and wretchedness!"
"OK, I offered..."
And, having all the time in the world, Gulleck brought her battle axe to bear against the door and the barricade behind it. It took a little while, and the ratmen hurled curses and invective against her the entire time, but soon enough she broke down enough of the barricade to force the door open. ("Heeeeere's Gulleck!") The wererats lunged forward in their tiny room, snapping with fangs and claws at Gulleck, but between Gulleck's axe and Adrien's magical lycanthrope-killing sword, two of the ratmen were quickly killed, and the other two dropped to their knees and surrendered.
"Oh, now you want to surrender," grumbled Gulleck.
The wererats wanted to be let go and promised never to return to Idalium, in exchange for their treasure. This wasn't much of a deal to Gulleck, who counteroffered to take them to the Great Cathedral of Idalium to see if their wererat curse could be lifted.
"Never!" swore the ratman. "Those accursed priests will kill us!"
Well, the argument seemed to be going nowhere, so Caryatid cast Sleep on them. They were bound with rope, their treasure (many electrum pieces, four valuable pieces of jewelry, and many plans and maps detailing potential targets in the aboveground city of Idalium). Then they lifted the wererats and awkwardly carried them back through the dungeon, up towards the surface. In the Temple of Hedonism, the party had died down, leaving only a single young couple necking in a corner.
"Don't mind us!" chirped Caryatid as they carried the two unconscious ratmen through the temple den and up the stairs to the first level. They had almost made it home when the ratmen awoke. There were some squeals, and a sudden convulsion and then the ratmen were shrinking and falling through the ropes to the floor and scurrying away. But before they could escape, Orin cast his Sleep spell and the small rats stopped in their tracks. Adrien and Simon strolled up and drove their swords through the rats, and that was the sorry end of the Brotherhood of St. Rathmus beneath Idalium.
Player Journals from Session 90
Diary of Caryatid
Dear Granny,
I apologize for the long delay since my correspondence. I am well, so no worries there.
My conspiring adventurers are thriving, more or less. I was able to finally learn the magick to grace Marcel with wings. He continues to be a constant & fiercely loyal companion. He is truly a dedicated member of our troupe. Marcel is a severe contrast to the demon ferret that one of our members acquired at the Goblin market. I fear that at anytime this horrible creature could turn rogue at any moment and kill us all. I especially fear for the well-being of the half-ling in our group: surely to be the first eaten by the demon rodent should it no longer be linked to its owner.
We have discovered some very bizarre entities while adventuring in the depths below Idalium: one being a morose, eons-old deity of sorts who will trade knowledge only for valuable gem stones (to eat!) Finding treasure in the deeper levels has become scarce and I often wonder if we are pursuing folly. We did recover a Dark Magick book from an unlikely coven, that of which cannot be touched with bare hands. Instead of trying to investigate the Dark Magick, we agreed to sell that awful item for profit at the local auction house, and we received a fair price for it. I constantly hope to find magickal items whose powers are not Dark. I know you would disapprove, but I doubt that by ignoring Natural forces I may stumble upon similar gifts which have settled upon you through your sheer refusal to participate. I would love to have another wand.
Oh, did I tell you that the annoying Dwarf, Goo-lick, was resurrected as a she-dwarf! I love irony sometimes. “She” is still as stubborn as any Dwarf and refuses any of my excellent suggestions for a new identity such as Gullikina or Gulleka. I fear Dwarves may never evolve…good thing someone invented mountain caves for them to retreat into.
Deliver my best wishes to Nanny Ogg, You, and Magrit, I miss you all so very much.
Fondly,
Cary
Dear Granny,
I apologize for the long delay since my correspondence. I am well, so no worries there.
My conspiring adventurers are thriving, more or less. I was able to finally learn the magick to grace Marcel with wings. He continues to be a constant & fiercely loyal companion. He is truly a dedicated member of our troupe. Marcel is a severe contrast to the demon ferret that one of our members acquired at the Goblin market. I fear that at anytime this horrible creature could turn rogue at any moment and kill us all. I especially fear for the well-being of the half-ling in our group: surely to be the first eaten by the demon rodent should it no longer be linked to its owner.
We have discovered some very bizarre entities while adventuring in the depths below Idalium: one being a morose, eons-old deity of sorts who will trade knowledge only for valuable gem stones (to eat!) Finding treasure in the deeper levels has become scarce and I often wonder if we are pursuing folly. We did recover a Dark Magick book from an unlikely coven, that of which cannot be touched with bare hands. Instead of trying to investigate the Dark Magick, we agreed to sell that awful item for profit at the local auction house, and we received a fair price for it. I constantly hope to find magickal items whose powers are not Dark. I know you would disapprove, but I doubt that by ignoring Natural forces I may stumble upon similar gifts which have settled upon you through your sheer refusal to participate. I would love to have another wand.
Oh, did I tell you that the annoying Dwarf, Goo-lick, was resurrected as a she-dwarf! I love irony sometimes. “She” is still as stubborn as any Dwarf and refuses any of my excellent suggestions for a new identity such as Gullikina or Gulleka. I fear Dwarves may never evolve…good thing someone invented mountain caves for them to retreat into.
Deliver my best wishes to Nanny Ogg, You, and Magrit, I miss you all so very much.
Fondly,
Cary
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Idalium Game 90: Running the Gauntlets
Session date: Monday, February 5, 2018
Game date: Saturday, March 20, 210 and Saturday, April 10, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35901/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17701/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6561/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5883/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 240/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6050/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2952/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 763/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1525/2400
The first half of this session was a flashback a few weeks of game time ago to play out the annual auction of magical and esoteric artifacts. The auction was held at the Runcible Trading House in the wealthy quarter of Idalium, as it had been the first year the party attended. That auction had been interrupted by one of the artifacts being stolen from the cellar vault by a ghoul that burrowed its way right through the wall, and now Lord Runcible announced that everyone could be assured that all of the cellar vaults had since been reinforced with iron bars along the walls.
All of the usual suspects were at the auction, a mix of Idalium's wealthiest aristocrats and businessmen with other scruffy adventurers like the party members. There was time to mingle before the start of the auction, and Gulleck and Caryatid made sure to talk up the finer points of the unusual tome that they had placed in the auction. They chatted up Vincent Patrenzi, the gaudy and tacky nouveau riche investor who collected ominous occult artifacts. His interest definitely seemed to be piqued, when they told him that the book had been taken from a coven of witches in some sort of other world.
The auction got underway. Moonpetal's Marauders bid aggressively and won a magical sword that could burst into flame on command, as well as a magical wand that could turn people into other forms. Vincent Patrenzi got into a bidding war for the party's book with Lady Mary Jameson, a young noblewoman fascinated with the occult, and the book finally sold for 66,000 silver shekels, far beyond the 10,000 shekel minimum bid. Father Jed and his band of merry bandits acquired two separate lots of magical potions, and another set of potions went to Sallies Forth, a party composed entirely of magical duplicates of "Psycho" Sally, an unhinged hobbit formerly with Shorty's Sirens. And Gulleck had set greedy eyes upon a pair of magical gauntlets said to bestow the strength of an ogre. Gulleck's player was quite excited to bypass Gulleck's absurd Strength score of 5, so the party bid most of their newly-acquired wealth of the gauntlets, and eventually outbid all the other adventuring parties to acquire the gauntlets for the low, low price of 59,500 silver shekels. (That actually is very low, given the presumed cost to craft such a magical item!)
Having finished with the auction, we jumped forward three weeks to the current date, and rejoined the party on another delve down to the third level of the dungeon below Idalium. They talked briefly to the lonely old stone pillar, and then headed west and north to assault the lair of the wererats. Coming to the door with a large rathole chewed in the bottom, they listened but heard nothing beyond it. The door would not open, so Simon the hobbit slipped on an invisibility ring and crawled through the ragged hole. On the other side he felt blindly in the dark and found a wooden bar holding the door shut. This he removed and let the party in, drawing his sword to provide light. Once some light was shed on the situation, they found that they were in a short hallway leading to another door, with a similar hole chewed near the bottom. A grotesque woven wicker effigy of a giant rat's head was mounted on the inner door. Gulleck strode up and smashed the wicker head to the floor. Apparently responding to the commotion at the door, a sinewy giant rat came angrily through the hole in the door. Gulleck, surprising herself with the unfamiliar strength flowing from her gauntlets, deftly beheaded the rat with the single slash of her axe.
They waited to see if any more rats would be forthcoming, but when no more emerged, Simon repeatd his trick with the invisibility ring and crawled under the door to unbar it from the other side. In the dark, he could hear the shuffling and squeaking of many other rats. I began to declare that he was immediately pounced upon by multiple rats, but was reminded that we had previously established that magical invisibility renders one invisible to all forms of sight, including infravision. Scent was a different story, and the rats grew agitated at the unfamiliar smell, but before they could react Simon had unbarred the door, let the rest of the party in, and drawn his sword for light. There were a couple dozen giant rats slinking around this defiled old temple. The walls were painted over crudely with dreadful images of rats cruelly dominating over cats, dogs, eagles, humans, etc. Filthy shredded nesting material was strewn around the room, and several pieces of expensive-looking jewelry glittered among the filth.
Orin and Caryatid both cast Sleep spells and sent most of the rats into slumber. Gulleck and Meat stepped forward to deal with the few that evaded the magic, and Adrien's demon ferret Norman tore into two of the rats with a horrible savagery that sent spouts of rats' blood fountaining into the air and drenching his mangy fur. While the adventurers were dealing with the giant rats, a door was thrown open at the north end of the room, and four bipedal ratmen burst in.
"How dare you invade the Temple of St. Rathmus!" the lead ratman hissed. "You shall surely die in pain and fear for your impertinence!"
Well, they lunged forward to bite and claw at the adventurers, but Orin read from his scroll of Sleep, and three of the wererats collapsed to the flagstones. Two more wererat reinforcements arrived at the north door and surrounded Meat, snapping at him with slavering jaws. But Adrien drew her magical sword with the hilt engraved with heads of rat and wolf, and it sang as it cut into the flesh of the ratmen. She killed two of them, and then Gulleck killed everyone, the surviving wererat as well as systematically dispatching all of the sleeping wererats and giant rats.
It was late and the party had taken some damage from the wererats, so they quickly gathered up the jewelry in the room, and Caryatid wizard-locked the north door, in hopes that any other treasure would not be plundered before they could return (having learned their lesson from the lost treasure of the Goblin Prince). Then they headed back to the surface with their plunder, which gave them enough experience points that Brother Chase made it to level 3, being promoted to Father Chase by his "supervisors" at his "temporary clerical staffing" chapel.
Game date: Saturday, March 20, 210 and Saturday, April 10, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35901/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17701/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6561/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5883/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 240/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6050/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2952/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 763/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1525/2400
The first half of this session was a flashback a few weeks of game time ago to play out the annual auction of magical and esoteric artifacts. The auction was held at the Runcible Trading House in the wealthy quarter of Idalium, as it had been the first year the party attended. That auction had been interrupted by one of the artifacts being stolen from the cellar vault by a ghoul that burrowed its way right through the wall, and now Lord Runcible announced that everyone could be assured that all of the cellar vaults had since been reinforced with iron bars along the walls.
All of the usual suspects were at the auction, a mix of Idalium's wealthiest aristocrats and businessmen with other scruffy adventurers like the party members. There was time to mingle before the start of the auction, and Gulleck and Caryatid made sure to talk up the finer points of the unusual tome that they had placed in the auction. They chatted up Vincent Patrenzi, the gaudy and tacky nouveau riche investor who collected ominous occult artifacts. His interest definitely seemed to be piqued, when they told him that the book had been taken from a coven of witches in some sort of other world.
The auction got underway. Moonpetal's Marauders bid aggressively and won a magical sword that could burst into flame on command, as well as a magical wand that could turn people into other forms. Vincent Patrenzi got into a bidding war for the party's book with Lady Mary Jameson, a young noblewoman fascinated with the occult, and the book finally sold for 66,000 silver shekels, far beyond the 10,000 shekel minimum bid. Father Jed and his band of merry bandits acquired two separate lots of magical potions, and another set of potions went to Sallies Forth, a party composed entirely of magical duplicates of "Psycho" Sally, an unhinged hobbit formerly with Shorty's Sirens. And Gulleck had set greedy eyes upon a pair of magical gauntlets said to bestow the strength of an ogre. Gulleck's player was quite excited to bypass Gulleck's absurd Strength score of 5, so the party bid most of their newly-acquired wealth of the gauntlets, and eventually outbid all the other adventuring parties to acquire the gauntlets for the low, low price of 59,500 silver shekels. (That actually is very low, given the presumed cost to craft such a magical item!)
Having finished with the auction, we jumped forward three weeks to the current date, and rejoined the party on another delve down to the third level of the dungeon below Idalium. They talked briefly to the lonely old stone pillar, and then headed west and north to assault the lair of the wererats. Coming to the door with a large rathole chewed in the bottom, they listened but heard nothing beyond it. The door would not open, so Simon the hobbit slipped on an invisibility ring and crawled through the ragged hole. On the other side he felt blindly in the dark and found a wooden bar holding the door shut. This he removed and let the party in, drawing his sword to provide light. Once some light was shed on the situation, they found that they were in a short hallway leading to another door, with a similar hole chewed near the bottom. A grotesque woven wicker effigy of a giant rat's head was mounted on the inner door. Gulleck strode up and smashed the wicker head to the floor. Apparently responding to the commotion at the door, a sinewy giant rat came angrily through the hole in the door. Gulleck, surprising herself with the unfamiliar strength flowing from her gauntlets, deftly beheaded the rat with the single slash of her axe.
They waited to see if any more rats would be forthcoming, but when no more emerged, Simon repeatd his trick with the invisibility ring and crawled under the door to unbar it from the other side. In the dark, he could hear the shuffling and squeaking of many other rats. I began to declare that he was immediately pounced upon by multiple rats, but was reminded that we had previously established that magical invisibility renders one invisible to all forms of sight, including infravision. Scent was a different story, and the rats grew agitated at the unfamiliar smell, but before they could react Simon had unbarred the door, let the rest of the party in, and drawn his sword for light. There were a couple dozen giant rats slinking around this defiled old temple. The walls were painted over crudely with dreadful images of rats cruelly dominating over cats, dogs, eagles, humans, etc. Filthy shredded nesting material was strewn around the room, and several pieces of expensive-looking jewelry glittered among the filth.
Orin and Caryatid both cast Sleep spells and sent most of the rats into slumber. Gulleck and Meat stepped forward to deal with the few that evaded the magic, and Adrien's demon ferret Norman tore into two of the rats with a horrible savagery that sent spouts of rats' blood fountaining into the air and drenching his mangy fur. While the adventurers were dealing with the giant rats, a door was thrown open at the north end of the room, and four bipedal ratmen burst in.
"How dare you invade the Temple of St. Rathmus!" the lead ratman hissed. "You shall surely die in pain and fear for your impertinence!"
Well, they lunged forward to bite and claw at the adventurers, but Orin read from his scroll of Sleep, and three of the wererats collapsed to the flagstones. Two more wererat reinforcements arrived at the north door and surrounded Meat, snapping at him with slavering jaws. But Adrien drew her magical sword with the hilt engraved with heads of rat and wolf, and it sang as it cut into the flesh of the ratmen. She killed two of them, and then Gulleck killed everyone, the surviving wererat as well as systematically dispatching all of the sleeping wererats and giant rats.
It was late and the party had taken some damage from the wererats, so they quickly gathered up the jewelry in the room, and Caryatid wizard-locked the north door, in hopes that any other treasure would not be plundered before they could return (having learned their lesson from the lost treasure of the Goblin Prince). Then they headed back to the surface with their plunder, which gave them enough experience points that Brother Chase made it to level 3, being promoted to Father Chase by his "supervisors" at his "temporary clerical staffing" chapel.
Monday, May 7, 2018
Idalium Game 89: Siren Songs
Session date: Monday, January 22, 2018
Game date: Saturday, March 27, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35718/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17472/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6321/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5654/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 0/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5935/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2831/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 648/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1404/2400
On the Spring Equinox of each year, an annual auction is held in Idalium, co-sponsored by the Adventurers' Guild, of which the party are members, and the Runcible Trading House, an importer of expensive artifacts, curios, and art objects. The players intended to sell the sinister spellbook they had somehow returned with from Castle Ravenloft. But, today we had a new player, a friend of the players of Simon and Adrien, and so rather than have her first session be a simulated auction, we thought it would be better to spend the session with a regular dungeon delve, and then do a flashback to the auction later.
Our new player was familiar with computer role playing games, but had never played a pencil and paper RPG before. She wanted to be an elf (regardless of their slow advancement) and named her elf "Orehoe". I suspect inspiration from the package of cookies on the table. For her single first level spell she chose Ventriloquism.
Down into the buried ruins of old Idalium they went, heading for the Temple of Fate on the second level so they could "haze" their new companion. They ran into some skeletons in the town square, but Brother Chase presented his holy symbol and they cowered away from him, and were easily dispatched by the rest of the party. While they were catching their breaths after the quick battle, a half dozen horrid stirges flapped into the town square. The adventurers wasted no time in running from from bloodsuckers, and fortunately they were not pursued into the tunnel leading south to the Street of Temples.
They made their way downstairs without incident. In the Temple of Fate, they heard the cruel laughter of eight hobgoblins, who were just finishing hazing one of their own company on the wheel, and egged on the party to take spin and spin on the great wheel of fortune. Adrien was blessed with good luck for the day, her giant ferret Norman did a nimble backflip upon being released after his spin, and Jack would have lost a level but luckily made his saving throw. Orehoe took a spin on the wheel in good humor, and she too was lucky to make a saving throw against some unknown curse.
Having had their fun with the wheel, they proceeded to the third level and explored some new areas towards the west. They found a long corridor stretching north and south far into the darkness, and the western wall of this corridor was ornamented with decorative architecture that gave the impression of an ornate palace wall. They came to a rather fancy door, and Simon used his mind-reading amulet, sensing the bored minds of several creatures on guard duty. Gulleck knocked tentatively at the door, and the eerie hooting voice of a bugbear echoed back to him.
"What business do you have with Her Majesty, the Queen of Nightmares?"
"None!" blurted Gulleck in a hurry, and they all continued along to the north. They found a much plainer door in the west wall, and Gulleck attempted to open it but somehow managed to fail (she only fails on a 1 in 6 due to her gauntlets of ogre strength). Simon was concerned that the pounding on the door might have drawn attention (they were still too close to the Queen of Nightmare's palace for comfort) so he used the amulet again, and sensed several creatures on the other side who were preparing to ambush anyone who came in.
There was some debate over whether they could bluff their way in, and Orehoe even cast her Ventriloquism spell to try to make a bugbear voice (which she had only heard once in her life!) call out "They're probably friendly, why not let them in?" But the bugbear guards were not fooled by this nonsense.
"You sound ridiculous! Go away and stop bothering us!"
So they did, continuing their exploration to the north, beyond the palace. They came to a place where the hall opened into a large room. They peered into a ruined and wrecked feast hall and caught a glimpse of many white bones strewn among the rubble covering the floor and table. Before they had time to react to this sight, a surreal vocal harmony floated forth from the darkness. Several feminine voices joined to create a wordless song that saturated the air, overwhelming the senses of the adventurers. All rolled saving throws versus magic, and only Simon and Orin made their saves. A blank, enraptured mask fell over the faces of the others in the party, and they staggered slowly forward into the feast hall, the better to hear the entrancing song. Simon and Orin followed in nervous fear, and the light from Simon's sword fell upon five hideous creatures, half woman and half giant eagle. Their hair was tangled and matted with filth, and their faces were pale and drawn with hunger. The beauty of the song that pervaded this room was bizarrely incongruous with the hideous appearance of the creatures. Their hands were outstretched in long claws, and the party members were sleepwalking directly towards them.
Orin began speaking the words of the Sleep spell, and several of the monsters launched themselves into the air, flapping towards him on heavy wings. He completed his spell, and three of the fiends fell asleep where they were. Two sprawled across the table and chairs, and one fell out of the air and landed heavily on the floor. But another one raked him with her claws, for three hit points of damage (out of only four hit points he had!).
Now, this called for some DM judgment. The Basic rules are rather vague about how the harpies' charm effect works. Presumably the charm wears off if the harpy stops singing (the general rules about charm attack say, "The death of the charming monster will usually break this type of charm"). But are the party members charmed by all of the harpies at once, or an individual one? My thought was that this looked like a TPK in the works if all of the harpies had to be silenced in order for the rest of the party to snap out of it, so I decided that each character is charmed by a specific harpy, and I rolled a d6 for each charmed character, to see if "their" harpy was one of the three that had fallen asleep and ceased singing. This worked out well for the party: Gulleck, Caryatid, and Adrien all came to their senses and Caryatid was able to use her own Sleep spell to deal with the remaining two harpies. Gulleck wasted no time in putting the sleeping monsters to the axe.
Harpies are kind of like ghouls in that they are potentially a TPK because they have the potential to remove PCs from the entire combat. I'm not sure my ruling was the best way to handle it (I'm not sure it's thematically convincing for the PCs to snap out of it while the other two harpies are still singing), but I'm not sure Simon and Orin could have defeated the remaining two harpies on their own. I'm open to suggestions on a better way of handling the harpies' singing.
Amongst the filth and bones and rubble, the adventurers found three valuable pieces of treasure: a jeweled necklace and bracelet, and a gold and silver goblet, worth over 2,000 gold darics altogether. They quickly collected the treasure and the group made their way back to the surface, satisfied with their harrowing escape.
Game date: Saturday, March 27, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35718/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17472/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6321/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5654/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 0/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5935/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2831/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 648/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1404/2400
On the Spring Equinox of each year, an annual auction is held in Idalium, co-sponsored by the Adventurers' Guild, of which the party are members, and the Runcible Trading House, an importer of expensive artifacts, curios, and art objects. The players intended to sell the sinister spellbook they had somehow returned with from Castle Ravenloft. But, today we had a new player, a friend of the players of Simon and Adrien, and so rather than have her first session be a simulated auction, we thought it would be better to spend the session with a regular dungeon delve, and then do a flashback to the auction later.
Our new player was familiar with computer role playing games, but had never played a pencil and paper RPG before. She wanted to be an elf (regardless of their slow advancement) and named her elf "Orehoe". I suspect inspiration from the package of cookies on the table. For her single first level spell she chose Ventriloquism.
Down into the buried ruins of old Idalium they went, heading for the Temple of Fate on the second level so they could "haze" their new companion. They ran into some skeletons in the town square, but Brother Chase presented his holy symbol and they cowered away from him, and were easily dispatched by the rest of the party. While they were catching their breaths after the quick battle, a half dozen horrid stirges flapped into the town square. The adventurers wasted no time in running from from bloodsuckers, and fortunately they were not pursued into the tunnel leading south to the Street of Temples.
They made their way downstairs without incident. In the Temple of Fate, they heard the cruel laughter of eight hobgoblins, who were just finishing hazing one of their own company on the wheel, and egged on the party to take spin and spin on the great wheel of fortune. Adrien was blessed with good luck for the day, her giant ferret Norman did a nimble backflip upon being released after his spin, and Jack would have lost a level but luckily made his saving throw. Orehoe took a spin on the wheel in good humor, and she too was lucky to make a saving throw against some unknown curse.
Having had their fun with the wheel, they proceeded to the third level and explored some new areas towards the west. They found a long corridor stretching north and south far into the darkness, and the western wall of this corridor was ornamented with decorative architecture that gave the impression of an ornate palace wall. They came to a rather fancy door, and Simon used his mind-reading amulet, sensing the bored minds of several creatures on guard duty. Gulleck knocked tentatively at the door, and the eerie hooting voice of a bugbear echoed back to him.
"What business do you have with Her Majesty, the Queen of Nightmares?"
"None!" blurted Gulleck in a hurry, and they all continued along to the north. They found a much plainer door in the west wall, and Gulleck attempted to open it but somehow managed to fail (she only fails on a 1 in 6 due to her gauntlets of ogre strength). Simon was concerned that the pounding on the door might have drawn attention (they were still too close to the Queen of Nightmare's palace for comfort) so he used the amulet again, and sensed several creatures on the other side who were preparing to ambush anyone who came in.
There was some debate over whether they could bluff their way in, and Orehoe even cast her Ventriloquism spell to try to make a bugbear voice (which she had only heard once in her life!) call out "They're probably friendly, why not let them in?" But the bugbear guards were not fooled by this nonsense.
"You sound ridiculous! Go away and stop bothering us!"
So they did, continuing their exploration to the north, beyond the palace. They came to a place where the hall opened into a large room. They peered into a ruined and wrecked feast hall and caught a glimpse of many white bones strewn among the rubble covering the floor and table. Before they had time to react to this sight, a surreal vocal harmony floated forth from the darkness. Several feminine voices joined to create a wordless song that saturated the air, overwhelming the senses of the adventurers. All rolled saving throws versus magic, and only Simon and Orin made their saves. A blank, enraptured mask fell over the faces of the others in the party, and they staggered slowly forward into the feast hall, the better to hear the entrancing song. Simon and Orin followed in nervous fear, and the light from Simon's sword fell upon five hideous creatures, half woman and half giant eagle. Their hair was tangled and matted with filth, and their faces were pale and drawn with hunger. The beauty of the song that pervaded this room was bizarrely incongruous with the hideous appearance of the creatures. Their hands were outstretched in long claws, and the party members were sleepwalking directly towards them.
Orin began speaking the words of the Sleep spell, and several of the monsters launched themselves into the air, flapping towards him on heavy wings. He completed his spell, and three of the fiends fell asleep where they were. Two sprawled across the table and chairs, and one fell out of the air and landed heavily on the floor. But another one raked him with her claws, for three hit points of damage (out of only four hit points he had!).
Now, this called for some DM judgment. The Basic rules are rather vague about how the harpies' charm effect works. Presumably the charm wears off if the harpy stops singing (the general rules about charm attack say, "The death of the charming monster will usually break this type of charm"). But are the party members charmed by all of the harpies at once, or an individual one? My thought was that this looked like a TPK in the works if all of the harpies had to be silenced in order for the rest of the party to snap out of it, so I decided that each character is charmed by a specific harpy, and I rolled a d6 for each charmed character, to see if "their" harpy was one of the three that had fallen asleep and ceased singing. This worked out well for the party: Gulleck, Caryatid, and Adrien all came to their senses and Caryatid was able to use her own Sleep spell to deal with the remaining two harpies. Gulleck wasted no time in putting the sleeping monsters to the axe.
Harpies are kind of like ghouls in that they are potentially a TPK because they have the potential to remove PCs from the entire combat. I'm not sure my ruling was the best way to handle it (I'm not sure it's thematically convincing for the PCs to snap out of it while the other two harpies are still singing), but I'm not sure Simon and Orin could have defeated the remaining two harpies on their own. I'm open to suggestions on a better way of handling the harpies' singing.
Amongst the filth and bones and rubble, the adventurers found three valuable pieces of treasure: a jeweled necklace and bracelet, and a gold and silver goblet, worth over 2,000 gold darics altogether. They quickly collected the treasure and the group made their way back to the surface, satisfied with their harrowing escape.
Monday, April 23, 2018
Idalium Game 88: Along Came a Spider
Session date: Monday, January 8, 2018
Game date: Saturday, March 13, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35651/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17388/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6233/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5570/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5893/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2787/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 606/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1360/2400
In just over a week (game time) it would be time for the annual auction of esoteric and magical artifacts. The adventurers had a mind to sell the strange hidebound book that had come back with them from the dreamlike excursion to Castle Ravenloft. To hopefully spur interest in the book and bolster its selling price, they commissioned a pair of "matching" leather gloves from Elsbeth Finley, a neighborhood leatherworker. She charged them 50 gold darics for the pair, as they would have to be made of an unusual and scarce leather that approximated the unknown covering of the book. After a couple of weeks the gloves were ready, and the party trekked across Idalium to the wealthy quarter, to deliver the book and gloves to Lord Runcible at Runcible Trading House, the co-organizers (along with the Adventurer's Guild) of the auction. Lord Runcible heard the story of Gulleck and Caryatid about how the book held significant power and danger, as it could strike a person down if handled without gloves. He raised an eyebrow skeptically when they told him it came from another realm, but accepted it into the auction anyway.
Back at the Rusty Lantern, Heady (the animated wooden face hacked out of a door) greeted them jovially and asked if they had heard the latest gossip in the Adventurer's Guild: Rugger's Raiders had undergone some upheaval, and was now being led by the elf Moonpetal. In fact, they were now calling themselves "Moonpetal's Marauders".
"I don't know what happened to him, but Rugger is totally whipped by that scrawny elf! Hoo-boy!"
This unsettled the adventurers greatly, as last they knew, Moonpetal had parted company with Rugger and was taking some time off "to find himself". They were deeply suspicious that something had gone wrong in the pool of resurrection, as usual...
They bought a few gems from a jeweler who was hanging out at the bar, to take to the talking stone pillar down on the third level, and then descended into the dungeon. But when they got down to the third level, who should they find in the first room at the bottom of the stairs but Rugger's Raiders, er, Moonpetal's Marauders! Moonpetal was clearly the same elf that they had seen last month, but his entire composure was transformed. He was haughty and arrogant, and Rugger had lost his brash presence and seemed meek and humble.
"Oh, hi, Gulleck!" waved Rugger with a dopey smile. "Are you exploring this level too?" It soon became obvious to the party that Moonpetal's magical duplicate (Caryatid immediately dubbed him "Moonloaf") had charmed his entire party (much as the magic-user Silvana had done to his original) and taken command of the group. He expressed annoyance and hurt that the adventurers had just left him in the resurrection pool. From his perspective, they went into the room and he entered the pool to heal his palpitating heart, and when he emerged from the soothing waters, the chamber was empty. He had crept out into the dark hallway and made his way back to his sleeping comrades, and returned alone to the surface. He accessed their treasure vault in the Rusty Lantern and seized all of the party treasure and then over the next week he researched the Charm Person spell. Then he tracked down Rugger and charmed him. The rest of the party didn't seem to care who their leader was; it seemed they didn't actually like Rugger all that much.
Moonpetal's group haughtily took their leave of the Infestation Managers and headed upstairs, while the party headed south to visit "the judge", the talking stone pillar of impossibly many faces. They fed him five ornamental stones worth 10 gp each, which he wolfed down like some demented Cookie Monster.
"More, more!" he cried hungrily, and Gulleck gave him a slightly more expensive gem worth 30 gp. The pillar still seemed unsatisfied, and Simon asked if he knew where they could find more gems, or treasure in general.
"There are ratmen to the north. I'm sure they have a great deal of treasure, and from what I'm told, they also like shiny things. And then there are the people in the black cloaks to the west. They are always buying and selling food, and weapons, and... things. So they must have some wealth to speak of."
Well, the group didn't feel up to tangling with either the wererats or the cultists today, so they decided to head back upstairs and see if the big snakepit in the orcs'/goblins' apartment complex led anywhere. They made their way to the apartments, last occupied by the Goblin Prince and his goblins, but when they entered the courtyard, they found it was lit by torches carried by a number of the cultists. They wore their customary black cloaks over plate mail and disturbing goat head amulets around their necks. They were led by the dark-haired witch known as Ms. Frost, whom the adventurers had met before. She looked at them sourly.
"Oh, it's you. We heard someone wiped out the Goblin Prince" - ("Yeah, that was us," interjected Simon) - "so we came to see if there we could collect any... useful materials. But it looks like other scavengers got here before us. Come on, everyone, let's go." And she led her party of cultists past the adventurers and out of the courtyard.
The adventurers climbed up onto the wooden stage and examined the lever next to the Goblin Prince's throne. Gulleck pulled it and a trapdoor dropped open several feet in front of the throne. Simon peered down into the hole with his sword, and saw that the stage was covering the snake pit. All that was left of the giant pythons that had occupied this pit were two large skeletons, clad in tattered remnants of snakeskin and rotten bits of overlooked snakeflesh. Scattered throughout the rubble and bones Simon could see the glittering of hundreds of silver and gold coins. But moving amongst the bones and rubble was something else as well, three enormous hairy spiders! Their bodies were at least as wide as a man was tall. They noticed Simon's light and reached towards him, stretching upwards with their front legs, but fortunately they were too far below to reach him. Simon decided to use his animal control ring on the spiders, but was surprised that it was unable to get any grip on their minds. He took the ring off again, and the spiders eventually grew bored with him and shuffled off into the darkness.
They tried to hatch a plan: they would lure the spiders back into the space under the trapdoor by dropping some planks hacked free of the wooden platform, and then Orin would cast his Sleep spell on them. This mostly worked: they dropped some planks into the pit, and two spiders crept forward to investigate. Orin cast his spell, and one of the spiders went limp and slumped onto the ground. The other retreated back into the dark. Then the plan turned weird. Orin was ordered to descend into the pit with one foot on a loop at the bottom of a rope anchored to the throne, one hand holding the rope, and the other hand carrying a loaded crossbow and ready to shoot any spider that approached. But then the two enormous spiders, wider than he was tall, lunged out of the dark at his, mandibles snapping and clacking. His crossbow bolt went wild into the dark, and then one of the spiders sank its fangs into him, killing him instantly. He let go of the rope and fell to the bottom of the pit.
Caryatid cast her Sleep spell, putting one of the spiders to sleep. Gulleck decided to go for broke, and dropped through the trapdoor with her axe held over her head, trying to fall onto the remaining spider and sink her axe into its thorax. Unfortunately, her player rolled a 1, and so she missed the spider completely and hit the rubble and snake bones hard, taking 5 hit points of damage, and to make matters worse she fell on her own axe, taking a further 10 points. For a lesser dwarf (or human) this would have been enough to kill them several times over, but as a level 6 dwarf, Gulleck was able to roll as she fell and luckily convert a fatal impaling into a mere flesh wound.
Up above, worried faces peered through the trapdoor, as Caryatid cast a Magic Missile at the spider before it could finish Gulleck off. She rolled the big green d30 and did 15 hp damage, and then Meat rolled a natural 20 for his bow, firing an arrow directly into one of the eyes of the spider. It squealed in pain and rage. Gulleck tried to defend herself but rolled a 1 (again!) and got her axe tangled in the snake bones, but she pulled it free as the spider lunged around blindly, and then plunged the axe into the abdomen of the beast. Ichor spewed forth and the spider collapsed in a twitching pile. She killed the two sleeping spiders, and then brutally hacked the head off of one, intending to clean it out and wear it as a decorative helmet accessory.
Gulleck collected the scattered coins, and then Orin's body was tied to the rope and hauled back out of the snake pit. Then they carried him to the resurrection pool, where he was revived. Curiously, as he climbed out of the pool, he found himself uncontrollably twitching spasmodically in a rhythmic fashion for a few seconds. This passed quickly, though, and the group quickly made their way back out of the dungeon with their loot.
Game date: Saturday, March 13, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35651/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17388/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6233/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5570/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5893/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2787/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 606/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1360/2400
In just over a week (game time) it would be time for the annual auction of esoteric and magical artifacts. The adventurers had a mind to sell the strange hidebound book that had come back with them from the dreamlike excursion to Castle Ravenloft. To hopefully spur interest in the book and bolster its selling price, they commissioned a pair of "matching" leather gloves from Elsbeth Finley, a neighborhood leatherworker. She charged them 50 gold darics for the pair, as they would have to be made of an unusual and scarce leather that approximated the unknown covering of the book. After a couple of weeks the gloves were ready, and the party trekked across Idalium to the wealthy quarter, to deliver the book and gloves to Lord Runcible at Runcible Trading House, the co-organizers (along with the Adventurer's Guild) of the auction. Lord Runcible heard the story of Gulleck and Caryatid about how the book held significant power and danger, as it could strike a person down if handled without gloves. He raised an eyebrow skeptically when they told him it came from another realm, but accepted it into the auction anyway.
Back at the Rusty Lantern, Heady (the animated wooden face hacked out of a door) greeted them jovially and asked if they had heard the latest gossip in the Adventurer's Guild: Rugger's Raiders had undergone some upheaval, and was now being led by the elf Moonpetal. In fact, they were now calling themselves "Moonpetal's Marauders".
"I don't know what happened to him, but Rugger is totally whipped by that scrawny elf! Hoo-boy!"
This unsettled the adventurers greatly, as last they knew, Moonpetal had parted company with Rugger and was taking some time off "to find himself". They were deeply suspicious that something had gone wrong in the pool of resurrection, as usual...
They bought a few gems from a jeweler who was hanging out at the bar, to take to the talking stone pillar down on the third level, and then descended into the dungeon. But when they got down to the third level, who should they find in the first room at the bottom of the stairs but Rugger's Raiders, er, Moonpetal's Marauders! Moonpetal was clearly the same elf that they had seen last month, but his entire composure was transformed. He was haughty and arrogant, and Rugger had lost his brash presence and seemed meek and humble.
"Oh, hi, Gulleck!" waved Rugger with a dopey smile. "Are you exploring this level too?" It soon became obvious to the party that Moonpetal's magical duplicate (Caryatid immediately dubbed him "Moonloaf") had charmed his entire party (much as the magic-user Silvana had done to his original) and taken command of the group. He expressed annoyance and hurt that the adventurers had just left him in the resurrection pool. From his perspective, they went into the room and he entered the pool to heal his palpitating heart, and when he emerged from the soothing waters, the chamber was empty. He had crept out into the dark hallway and made his way back to his sleeping comrades, and returned alone to the surface. He accessed their treasure vault in the Rusty Lantern and seized all of the party treasure and then over the next week he researched the Charm Person spell. Then he tracked down Rugger and charmed him. The rest of the party didn't seem to care who their leader was; it seemed they didn't actually like Rugger all that much.
Moonpetal's group haughtily took their leave of the Infestation Managers and headed upstairs, while the party headed south to visit "the judge", the talking stone pillar of impossibly many faces. They fed him five ornamental stones worth 10 gp each, which he wolfed down like some demented Cookie Monster.
"More, more!" he cried hungrily, and Gulleck gave him a slightly more expensive gem worth 30 gp. The pillar still seemed unsatisfied, and Simon asked if he knew where they could find more gems, or treasure in general.
"There are ratmen to the north. I'm sure they have a great deal of treasure, and from what I'm told, they also like shiny things. And then there are the people in the black cloaks to the west. They are always buying and selling food, and weapons, and... things. So they must have some wealth to speak of."
Well, the group didn't feel up to tangling with either the wererats or the cultists today, so they decided to head back upstairs and see if the big snakepit in the orcs'/goblins' apartment complex led anywhere. They made their way to the apartments, last occupied by the Goblin Prince and his goblins, but when they entered the courtyard, they found it was lit by torches carried by a number of the cultists. They wore their customary black cloaks over plate mail and disturbing goat head amulets around their necks. They were led by the dark-haired witch known as Ms. Frost, whom the adventurers had met before. She looked at them sourly.
"Oh, it's you. We heard someone wiped out the Goblin Prince" - ("Yeah, that was us," interjected Simon) - "so we came to see if there we could collect any... useful materials. But it looks like other scavengers got here before us. Come on, everyone, let's go." And she led her party of cultists past the adventurers and out of the courtyard.
The adventurers climbed up onto the wooden stage and examined the lever next to the Goblin Prince's throne. Gulleck pulled it and a trapdoor dropped open several feet in front of the throne. Simon peered down into the hole with his sword, and saw that the stage was covering the snake pit. All that was left of the giant pythons that had occupied this pit were two large skeletons, clad in tattered remnants of snakeskin and rotten bits of overlooked snakeflesh. Scattered throughout the rubble and bones Simon could see the glittering of hundreds of silver and gold coins. But moving amongst the bones and rubble was something else as well, three enormous hairy spiders! Their bodies were at least as wide as a man was tall. They noticed Simon's light and reached towards him, stretching upwards with their front legs, but fortunately they were too far below to reach him. Simon decided to use his animal control ring on the spiders, but was surprised that it was unable to get any grip on their minds. He took the ring off again, and the spiders eventually grew bored with him and shuffled off into the darkness.
They tried to hatch a plan: they would lure the spiders back into the space under the trapdoor by dropping some planks hacked free of the wooden platform, and then Orin would cast his Sleep spell on them. This mostly worked: they dropped some planks into the pit, and two spiders crept forward to investigate. Orin cast his spell, and one of the spiders went limp and slumped onto the ground. The other retreated back into the dark. Then the plan turned weird. Orin was ordered to descend into the pit with one foot on a loop at the bottom of a rope anchored to the throne, one hand holding the rope, and the other hand carrying a loaded crossbow and ready to shoot any spider that approached. But then the two enormous spiders, wider than he was tall, lunged out of the dark at his, mandibles snapping and clacking. His crossbow bolt went wild into the dark, and then one of the spiders sank its fangs into him, killing him instantly. He let go of the rope and fell to the bottom of the pit.
Caryatid cast her Sleep spell, putting one of the spiders to sleep. Gulleck decided to go for broke, and dropped through the trapdoor with her axe held over her head, trying to fall onto the remaining spider and sink her axe into its thorax. Unfortunately, her player rolled a 1, and so she missed the spider completely and hit the rubble and snake bones hard, taking 5 hit points of damage, and to make matters worse she fell on her own axe, taking a further 10 points. For a lesser dwarf (or human) this would have been enough to kill them several times over, but as a level 6 dwarf, Gulleck was able to roll as she fell and luckily convert a fatal impaling into a mere flesh wound.
Up above, worried faces peered through the trapdoor, as Caryatid cast a Magic Missile at the spider before it could finish Gulleck off. She rolled the big green d30 and did 15 hp damage, and then Meat rolled a natural 20 for his bow, firing an arrow directly into one of the eyes of the spider. It squealed in pain and rage. Gulleck tried to defend herself but rolled a 1 (again!) and got her axe tangled in the snake bones, but she pulled it free as the spider lunged around blindly, and then plunged the axe into the abdomen of the beast. Ichor spewed forth and the spider collapsed in a twitching pile. She killed the two sleeping spiders, and then brutally hacked the head off of one, intending to clean it out and wear it as a decorative helmet accessory.
Gulleck collected the scattered coins, and then Orin's body was tied to the rope and hauled back out of the snake pit. Then they carried him to the resurrection pool, where he was revived. Curiously, as he climbed out of the pool, he found himself uncontrollably twitching spasmodically in a rhythmic fashion for a few seconds. This passed quickly, though, and the group quickly made their way back out of the dungeon with their loot.
Friday, April 13, 2018
Idalium Game 87: Bad Company
Session date: Monday, December 11, 2017
Game date: Saturday, February 14, 210 to Sunday, February 15, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35519/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17223/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6060/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5405/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5810/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2726/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 523/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1272/2400
It was the holiday of a minor but seasonally popular cult of some obscure saint devoted to the pursuit of romantic love, and the adventurers took refuge in the Rusty Lantern tavern from the enthusiastic parade crowds outside. The place was fairly empty today, as most of the regulars were outside enjoying the festivities. The party geared up and descended into the cool silence of the underground ruins of Ancient Idalium, intending to continue their explorations of the third level. On the street of temples on the first level, they encountered a nest of giant rats in some crumbling rubble. They could see coins glinting in the rubble, so they used their animal control rings to make the rats fight amongst themselves. That worked so well that when they encountered a handful of giant centipedes further up the hall, they used the same trick again. Adrien's giant ferret snapped one in half with a single bite, and quickly ate the two halves. Unfortunately, one of the centipedes nipped Brother Chase on his ankle, and he was soon overcome with nausea, retching and heaving. It was no use continuing on with him in this state, so they turned around and went back to the surface and called it a day.
The next morning, Brother Chase was feeling no better, having spent most of the night throwing up water, so they went to the Great Cathedral of Idalium and asked if anything could be done for him. Well, they balked at the "suggested donation" of 7,500 silver shekels for the working of a miracle that would cure him of this illness, and when asked "Don't you have any cheaper options?" they were offered a cot in the convalescence hall for a mere 100 shekels per day. Simon paid 70 gold darics in advance for the week, and they left Brother Chase in the capable hands of the acolytes of the Great Cathedral and then returned to the Rusty Lantern.
They had barely got into the dungeon when they encountered a band of 10 skeletons, in the big town square. The skeletons lunged towards the adventurers with surprising speed.
"We could really use a cleric right about now," grumbled Gulleck.
Caryatid drew forth her wand of paralysis and flicked it at the skeletons. There was a flash of blue light, and four of them collapsed into piles of twitching bones. The wand turned chalky and ashen and crumbled into smudgy charcoal in her hand. Gulleck, Simon, and Adrien fought well, and dispatched the remaining skeletons. There was some hilarity when one of the skeletons rolled a 1 and tangled up its sword between the radius and ulna of its buddy next to it, spoiling its attack. Soon the skeletons were dealt with, and the adventurers continued on.
They encountered more giant animals on their way to the temple of hedonism, first giant bats in the street of temples and then more rats in the temple. Both groups were dealt with using the animal control rings.
"It's busy down here today!" commented Simon.
In the basement of the temple of hedonism, Simon and Caryatid sniffed around for gold with their magically enhanced noses, and discovered a burlap sack underneath one of the divans. Inside it they found hundreds of silver and gold coins, plus a scroll of two magical spells, and a letter written in Common in a cramped, scratchy hand.
"As agreed, here is payment for the weapons and supplies you are providing to us. Use this money to purchase the following items in the city, and bring them to us at our temple downstairs." Then there was a list of mundane supplies and various weapons and ammunition. The letter was signed, "The Brotherhood of St. Rathmus, Idalium Chapter".
"Oh no, you don't!" said Gulleck. They took the treasure and then decided to wait around to see if anyone showed up to pick up the money. The exits from the room were barred from within apart from the stairs leading back up, so it seemed secure enough. The party hid themselves in one of the curtained-off boudoirs off of the main room and waited. Several hours passed, and then the door scraped as it opened. A familiar face peered into the room: the dwarf Rugger. Seeing no one in the room, he cautiously moved inside and beckoned the rest of his party, "Rugger's Raiders" to follow. He walked over to the divan and peered underneath it. Caryatid and Orin leaped into action, both casting Sleep spells and putting everyone to sleep before they could react. Everyone was trussed up with rope except for the elf Moonpetal, who had always seemed to be a decent if spineless fellow who had fallen in with bad company. They woke Moonpetal up and talked to him.
Moonpetal was understandably distressed to see his party asleep and bound. He tried to scream to wake them up but Gulleck silenced him with a shake of her head and a meaningful wiggle of her axe.
"We found this letter," she said, showing him the note. "Do you understand you're trading with ratmen?"
"Ratmen? No, no, no," wheedled Moonpetal. "They're just these nice old men who live down in the dungeon, and we were going to help them get some supplies to defend themselves with."
Gulleck tried to explain about the monastery in the mountains, where they had met the Brotherhood of St. Rathmus and discovered them to be horrible wererats who were scheming to invade Idalium.
"No, I can't believe that," whined Moonpetal. "Miss Silvana said they were just nice men that we were helping out, and Miss Silvana would never ever lie to me. She's my very best friend in the entire world, and she would never have us take part in something bad." Silvana was the party's magic user, currently lying asleep nearby.
"Moonpetal, I don't mean to be unkind, but has it ever occurred to you that maybe Miss Silvana is, well, taking advantage of you?" asked Gulleck.
"Oh no, I love Miss Silvana and she loves me! Every week she even casts a very special spell to make sure that nothing ever comes between us..."
"Oh, that does it," muttered Gulleck, and swung her axe directly into Silvana's neck.
Moonpetal screamed in horror and cast his only offensive spell at Gulleck. Unfortunately that spell was Light, and since Gulleck made her saving throw, the spell landed a foot above her head, just providing a bit of additional brightness in the room.
Moonpetal collapsed into a sobbing wreck. His mind had cleared with Silvana's death and he now fully realized that he had been magically enchanted by her all this time. Caryatid had some sympathy for the pathetic wretch and offered to hire him as her retainer, since Brother Chase was feeling under the weather. That made him feel a little better, though he quickly revealed the depth of his disturbance:
"And will you cast a very special spell on me, too?"
"Oh no! No, no, no, no!" Caryatid said hurriedly.
So, in the end, they looted the surviving members of Rugger's party, collecting a very nice throwing axe from Rugger, a few dozen silver and gold coins, and a vial of some kind of sparkling potion. Caryatid left a note on top of Rugger's face, that read as follows:
"You have been abandoned by your elf Moonpetal. You have been tried and found guilty of aiding and abetting wererats. You will find that you have been relieved of all harmful items. Please stop doing bad things. Love, The Infestation Managers."
Then they untied Rugger and his associates and left. They took Moonpetal to the Temple of Fate to spin him on the Wheel of Fortune, as was their custom with new retainers. Unfortunately, Moonpetal came back off the wheel feeling queasy and ill. His heart was skipping and jumping. So they took him to the small room containing the pool that revives the dead and heals the wounded. At Caryatid's urging, Moonpetal lowered himself into the pool, and smiled as the healing magic of the water smoothed out his unstable heartbeat and filled him with a deep sense of well being. He emerged happy and grateful to his new friends. They walked back, past the sleeping Rugger's Raiders and back upstairs to the Rusty Lantern.
Simon ended up paying for another three days of convalescence for Brother Chase. (I'm not quite sure why Caryatid let him pay for her retainer, but she didn't speak up when he offered!) Eventually, Brother Chase's fever broke and he felt well enough to leave the Cathedral and get on with life as usual.
Game date: Saturday, February 14, 210 to Sunday, February 15, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35519/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17223/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6060/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5405/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5810/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2726/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 523/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1272/2400
It was the holiday of a minor but seasonally popular cult of some obscure saint devoted to the pursuit of romantic love, and the adventurers took refuge in the Rusty Lantern tavern from the enthusiastic parade crowds outside. The place was fairly empty today, as most of the regulars were outside enjoying the festivities. The party geared up and descended into the cool silence of the underground ruins of Ancient Idalium, intending to continue their explorations of the third level. On the street of temples on the first level, they encountered a nest of giant rats in some crumbling rubble. They could see coins glinting in the rubble, so they used their animal control rings to make the rats fight amongst themselves. That worked so well that when they encountered a handful of giant centipedes further up the hall, they used the same trick again. Adrien's giant ferret snapped one in half with a single bite, and quickly ate the two halves. Unfortunately, one of the centipedes nipped Brother Chase on his ankle, and he was soon overcome with nausea, retching and heaving. It was no use continuing on with him in this state, so they turned around and went back to the surface and called it a day.
The next morning, Brother Chase was feeling no better, having spent most of the night throwing up water, so they went to the Great Cathedral of Idalium and asked if anything could be done for him. Well, they balked at the "suggested donation" of 7,500 silver shekels for the working of a miracle that would cure him of this illness, and when asked "Don't you have any cheaper options?" they were offered a cot in the convalescence hall for a mere 100 shekels per day. Simon paid 70 gold darics in advance for the week, and they left Brother Chase in the capable hands of the acolytes of the Great Cathedral and then returned to the Rusty Lantern.
They had barely got into the dungeon when they encountered a band of 10 skeletons, in the big town square. The skeletons lunged towards the adventurers with surprising speed.
"We could really use a cleric right about now," grumbled Gulleck.
Caryatid drew forth her wand of paralysis and flicked it at the skeletons. There was a flash of blue light, and four of them collapsed into piles of twitching bones. The wand turned chalky and ashen and crumbled into smudgy charcoal in her hand. Gulleck, Simon, and Adrien fought well, and dispatched the remaining skeletons. There was some hilarity when one of the skeletons rolled a 1 and tangled up its sword between the radius and ulna of its buddy next to it, spoiling its attack. Soon the skeletons were dealt with, and the adventurers continued on.
They encountered more giant animals on their way to the temple of hedonism, first giant bats in the street of temples and then more rats in the temple. Both groups were dealt with using the animal control rings.
"It's busy down here today!" commented Simon.
In the basement of the temple of hedonism, Simon and Caryatid sniffed around for gold with their magically enhanced noses, and discovered a burlap sack underneath one of the divans. Inside it they found hundreds of silver and gold coins, plus a scroll of two magical spells, and a letter written in Common in a cramped, scratchy hand.
"As agreed, here is payment for the weapons and supplies you are providing to us. Use this money to purchase the following items in the city, and bring them to us at our temple downstairs." Then there was a list of mundane supplies and various weapons and ammunition. The letter was signed, "The Brotherhood of St. Rathmus, Idalium Chapter".
"Oh no, you don't!" said Gulleck. They took the treasure and then decided to wait around to see if anyone showed up to pick up the money. The exits from the room were barred from within apart from the stairs leading back up, so it seemed secure enough. The party hid themselves in one of the curtained-off boudoirs off of the main room and waited. Several hours passed, and then the door scraped as it opened. A familiar face peered into the room: the dwarf Rugger. Seeing no one in the room, he cautiously moved inside and beckoned the rest of his party, "Rugger's Raiders" to follow. He walked over to the divan and peered underneath it. Caryatid and Orin leaped into action, both casting Sleep spells and putting everyone to sleep before they could react. Everyone was trussed up with rope except for the elf Moonpetal, who had always seemed to be a decent if spineless fellow who had fallen in with bad company. They woke Moonpetal up and talked to him.
Moonpetal was understandably distressed to see his party asleep and bound. He tried to scream to wake them up but Gulleck silenced him with a shake of her head and a meaningful wiggle of her axe.
"We found this letter," she said, showing him the note. "Do you understand you're trading with ratmen?"
"Ratmen? No, no, no," wheedled Moonpetal. "They're just these nice old men who live down in the dungeon, and we were going to help them get some supplies to defend themselves with."
Gulleck tried to explain about the monastery in the mountains, where they had met the Brotherhood of St. Rathmus and discovered them to be horrible wererats who were scheming to invade Idalium.
"No, I can't believe that," whined Moonpetal. "Miss Silvana said they were just nice men that we were helping out, and Miss Silvana would never ever lie to me. She's my very best friend in the entire world, and she would never have us take part in something bad." Silvana was the party's magic user, currently lying asleep nearby.
"Moonpetal, I don't mean to be unkind, but has it ever occurred to you that maybe Miss Silvana is, well, taking advantage of you?" asked Gulleck.
"Oh no, I love Miss Silvana and she loves me! Every week she even casts a very special spell to make sure that nothing ever comes between us..."
"Oh, that does it," muttered Gulleck, and swung her axe directly into Silvana's neck.
Moonpetal screamed in horror and cast his only offensive spell at Gulleck. Unfortunately that spell was Light, and since Gulleck made her saving throw, the spell landed a foot above her head, just providing a bit of additional brightness in the room.
Moonpetal collapsed into a sobbing wreck. His mind had cleared with Silvana's death and he now fully realized that he had been magically enchanted by her all this time. Caryatid had some sympathy for the pathetic wretch and offered to hire him as her retainer, since Brother Chase was feeling under the weather. That made him feel a little better, though he quickly revealed the depth of his disturbance:
"And will you cast a very special spell on me, too?"
"Oh no! No, no, no, no!" Caryatid said hurriedly.
So, in the end, they looted the surviving members of Rugger's party, collecting a very nice throwing axe from Rugger, a few dozen silver and gold coins, and a vial of some kind of sparkling potion. Caryatid left a note on top of Rugger's face, that read as follows:
"You have been abandoned by your elf Moonpetal. You have been tried and found guilty of aiding and abetting wererats. You will find that you have been relieved of all harmful items. Please stop doing bad things. Love, The Infestation Managers."
Then they untied Rugger and his associates and left. They took Moonpetal to the Temple of Fate to spin him on the Wheel of Fortune, as was their custom with new retainers. Unfortunately, Moonpetal came back off the wheel feeling queasy and ill. His heart was skipping and jumping. So they took him to the small room containing the pool that revives the dead and heals the wounded. At Caryatid's urging, Moonpetal lowered himself into the pool, and smiled as the healing magic of the water smoothed out his unstable heartbeat and filled him with a deep sense of well being. He emerged happy and grateful to his new friends. They walked back, past the sleeping Rugger's Raiders and back upstairs to the Rusty Lantern.
Simon ended up paying for another three days of convalescence for Brother Chase. (I'm not quite sure why Caryatid let him pay for her retainer, but she didn't speak up when he offered!) Eventually, Brother Chase's fever broke and he felt well enough to leave the Cathedral and get on with life as usual.
Monday, April 2, 2018
Idalium Game 86: Easy Come, Easy Go!
Session date: November 27, 2017
Game date: Saturday, January 31, 210 to Sunday, February 1, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35515/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17218/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6054/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5400/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5807/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2722/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 520/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1268/2400
It had been a couple of weeks between sessions. Jack had been away celebrating his instant levelling up, but now he was back, and Simon had spent some gold to allow Orin to scribe a Sleep scroll. The party regrouped at the Rusty Lantern to continue their exploration of level three. In the basement of the Rusty Lantern, they met another adventuring party, St. Dwindum's Heroes, gearing up and getting ready to head down into the dungeon. They were also heading to the third level. Father Michael, the nominal although rather meek leader, warned them against the wererats, and the garrulous Brother Randy winked at them and told them to keep an eye out for those black-robed cultists that hung around down there.
The adventurers suited up and climbed down the rope ladder into the buried city of Ancient Idalium. However, they only got as far as the big town square before they were attacked by half a dozen angry goblins, who swore to kill them all to avenge the Goblin Prince. They actually scored a few hits before several of them were killed and Gulleck chased the rest screaming into the mine tunnels to the east. Adrien was quite badly hurt and Brother Chase had to call forth a miracle to heal her of her wounds. They were all a bit demoralized after taking some injuries just a few hundred feet from the entrance to the dungeon, and decided to go back home and try again the next day. Gulleck decided to bring a goblin body with her (I'm not quite sure why). She dragged it back to the rope ladder, but then decided she didn't want to be bothered hauling it up to the Rusty Lantern, so she left it there in the shop's storeroom.
When they returned the next day, the goblin corpse was gone, and in its place was a single beautiful peach. Gulleck stomped on it, squashing it beneath her boot, and thought she saw some wormlike grub crawl from the pulp into a crack in the floorboards. The adventurers resumed their march down to the second level, but in the Temple of Hedonism they found something unusual: the dead body of a young man, lying in a heap in front of the crystal statue that guarded the stairs down to the second level. He was clad in leather armor and wore a bulging backpack. The backpack contained some basic dungeoneering equipment (rope, iron spikes, etc.) and a burlap sack full of about a hundred silver shekels. The coins were swiftly relocated to party member's backpacks, and then the adventurers decided they might as well do a good deed and bring this poor sap back to life.
(I should point out that this was a simple dungeon restocking roll that resulted in unguarded treasure and I improvised the dead thief to make it a little more interesting and make more sense. I didn't expect them to resurrect him!)
They carried the body down to the second level and brought him to the resurrection pool that had revived so many of them before. They tossed him right into the pool fully clothed, and after a moment he came thrashing to the surface in a panic. Meat reached down and pulled the sodden fellow out of the pool. He sat dripping and gasping at the edge of the pool and then asked the party what had happened.
"Well, we found you dead, and now you're alive again," explained Gulleck. "What's your name?"
"I'm Rocco," the young man replied. He told them he was a new recruit to the Thieves' Guild, and he and a few other rookies had been sent down to the dungeon to bring back whatever unguarded loot they could find. Unfortunately, when they tried to pass the crystal statue it had come to life and lunged at him and that was all he could remember.
Caryatid felt sorry for this green kid, and brightly offered, "You ever consider becoming an adventurer's henchman?"
"Uh... I don't know, I hadn't really, but I owe you my life, so..."
"Great! Do you feel lucky?"
"Well, I did just come back to life, so..."
And with smirks on their faces they brought him to the Temple of Fate so he could get "initiated" by spinning on the Wheel of Fortune.
"Fortune?" asked Rocco, confused, as they strapped him onto the great wheel. "Am I going to get rich?"
They spun him on the wheel, raising an enormous clatter. Then he came to a stop and looked around uncertainly.
"Did it work? Am I rich?" he asked, and then his face contorted in a shriek as his body convulsed. His hair grew gray and coarse, and his skin tightened over his face. Finally all that was left was a withered husk, its skin shriveled and stretched, dead eyes bulging and staring. (Caryatid rolled "lose a level" and he failed his saving throw, and since he was only a first level thief, well, easy come, easy go!)
"Well, that was new," murmured Gulleck in shock.
They brought his body with them across the hall to the old abandoned temple that the Goblin Prince had converted into a feast hall, and set the body on top of the long table. The wall behind the altar was still painted with a grotesque portrait of the pompous Goblin Prince, and Gulleck whipped out a piece of chalk and drew a big Snidely Whiplash mustache on his face. This close up, she noticed that there were several layers of paint on the wall: the Goblin Prince's face, the horrible tentacled monster worshipped by the orcs, and then something beneath that. The adventurers took a few minutes to scrape away the paint, and discovered a secret door buried behind the paint. They pried the door open, discovering a hall lined with mosaics of soldiers and farmworkers being healed by the priests of Ancient Idalium. At the end of the hall was a tattered curtain, and behind that was a small alcove containing a plain wooden throne. Leaning against the throne was a tall wooden staff. Brother Chase examined it and said he could feel that it was imbued with powerful healing magic. They touched the staff to the husk that had once been Rocco, but alas, nothing happened. So they abandoned his body on the feast table and headed off, down the stairs to the third level.
In the very first room after passing through the great stone door, the adventurers surprised a group of eight black robed cultists. The cultists were haughty and ordered the adventurers to get lost, and absolutely not to trespass on their territory to the west unless they were bringing the bodies of goblins "or whatever" for their ceremonies.
"Rude!" complained Gulleck.
The cultists stormed off, and the adventurers went south to visit the odd talking stone column, who was glad of the company, but whined when he discovered that the party had not brought him any "shiny stones".
"I should have known it was too good to be true. You're all just like the others, making wonderful promises but once you're gone you forget all about me. But don't worry about me, I'm used to it by now..."
They eventually disengaged themselves from the morose old forgotten god, and headed east, down the hall towards where they had fought the ratmen last time. They opened a door opposite that room and found another small shrine with an eerie and disturbing idol atop an altar. Jack stepped forward to examine the altar, and Gulleck took a few moments to smash the freaky idol just on principle, but the next moment they were alarmed to discover that everything they spoke came out backwards! This lasted for the rest of the day.
East of these two shrines the hallway opened up into a large natural cavern. There was about 20 feet of a rocky, pebbly beach, and then a vast and immense underground lake that stretched out as far as the light from Simon's sword could illuminate. In the distance there was the sound of rushing and splashing water, but from where they stood the lake seemed almost unnaturally still and placid. They explored the beach in each direction and found that eventually the cavern walls converged with the sea.
Caryatid, apparently still taken aback by the sudden loss of her short-lived henchman, declared that "Henceforth, this rocky beach shall be known as Rocco Beach."
And having no boat and seeing no other exits apart from entering the water, the party returned to the hallway and headed west past the entry hall, now that the cultists had been gone for some time. They came to a four way intersection and explored to the north, eventually finding a stout wooden door with a giant mousehole (maybe two feet high) gnawed through at the bottom. This made them suspect "ratmen!" but they heard nothing and Simon used his mind-reading medallion and didn't detect any presences on the other side of the door. There were discussions of making Molotov cocktails and rolling them through the hole, Gulleck being reduced to playing charades and miming "torch". Eventually, they left this door for later, and continued along the hall exploring.
They found a series of rooms that seemed to be part of a theatre. There was a room full of smiling masks hanging on the walls, and another full of frowning masks. There was a room full of costumes of all different sorts, and a room cluttered with all sorts of miscellaneous objects, including a variety of fake weapons.
"Props to me!" joked Simon.
But it was late and they didn't feel like searching the room, so they returned to the entry hall, ignoring the needy whine of the stone column, and went back to the Rusty Lantern, with no treasure apart from the bag of silver they had taken from the ill-fated Rocco.
Game date: Saturday, January 31, 210 to Sunday, February 1, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35515/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17218/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6054/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5400/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5807/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2722/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 520/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1268/2400
It had been a couple of weeks between sessions. Jack had been away celebrating his instant levelling up, but now he was back, and Simon had spent some gold to allow Orin to scribe a Sleep scroll. The party regrouped at the Rusty Lantern to continue their exploration of level three. In the basement of the Rusty Lantern, they met another adventuring party, St. Dwindum's Heroes, gearing up and getting ready to head down into the dungeon. They were also heading to the third level. Father Michael, the nominal although rather meek leader, warned them against the wererats, and the garrulous Brother Randy winked at them and told them to keep an eye out for those black-robed cultists that hung around down there.
The adventurers suited up and climbed down the rope ladder into the buried city of Ancient Idalium. However, they only got as far as the big town square before they were attacked by half a dozen angry goblins, who swore to kill them all to avenge the Goblin Prince. They actually scored a few hits before several of them were killed and Gulleck chased the rest screaming into the mine tunnels to the east. Adrien was quite badly hurt and Brother Chase had to call forth a miracle to heal her of her wounds. They were all a bit demoralized after taking some injuries just a few hundred feet from the entrance to the dungeon, and decided to go back home and try again the next day. Gulleck decided to bring a goblin body with her (I'm not quite sure why). She dragged it back to the rope ladder, but then decided she didn't want to be bothered hauling it up to the Rusty Lantern, so she left it there in the shop's storeroom.
When they returned the next day, the goblin corpse was gone, and in its place was a single beautiful peach. Gulleck stomped on it, squashing it beneath her boot, and thought she saw some wormlike grub crawl from the pulp into a crack in the floorboards. The adventurers resumed their march down to the second level, but in the Temple of Hedonism they found something unusual: the dead body of a young man, lying in a heap in front of the crystal statue that guarded the stairs down to the second level. He was clad in leather armor and wore a bulging backpack. The backpack contained some basic dungeoneering equipment (rope, iron spikes, etc.) and a burlap sack full of about a hundred silver shekels. The coins were swiftly relocated to party member's backpacks, and then the adventurers decided they might as well do a good deed and bring this poor sap back to life.
(I should point out that this was a simple dungeon restocking roll that resulted in unguarded treasure and I improvised the dead thief to make it a little more interesting and make more sense. I didn't expect them to resurrect him!)
They carried the body down to the second level and brought him to the resurrection pool that had revived so many of them before. They tossed him right into the pool fully clothed, and after a moment he came thrashing to the surface in a panic. Meat reached down and pulled the sodden fellow out of the pool. He sat dripping and gasping at the edge of the pool and then asked the party what had happened.
"Well, we found you dead, and now you're alive again," explained Gulleck. "What's your name?"
"I'm Rocco," the young man replied. He told them he was a new recruit to the Thieves' Guild, and he and a few other rookies had been sent down to the dungeon to bring back whatever unguarded loot they could find. Unfortunately, when they tried to pass the crystal statue it had come to life and lunged at him and that was all he could remember.
Caryatid felt sorry for this green kid, and brightly offered, "You ever consider becoming an adventurer's henchman?"
"Uh... I don't know, I hadn't really, but I owe you my life, so..."
"Great! Do you feel lucky?"
"Well, I did just come back to life, so..."
And with smirks on their faces they brought him to the Temple of Fate so he could get "initiated" by spinning on the Wheel of Fortune.
"Fortune?" asked Rocco, confused, as they strapped him onto the great wheel. "Am I going to get rich?"
They spun him on the wheel, raising an enormous clatter. Then he came to a stop and looked around uncertainly.
"Did it work? Am I rich?" he asked, and then his face contorted in a shriek as his body convulsed. His hair grew gray and coarse, and his skin tightened over his face. Finally all that was left was a withered husk, its skin shriveled and stretched, dead eyes bulging and staring. (Caryatid rolled "lose a level" and he failed his saving throw, and since he was only a first level thief, well, easy come, easy go!)
"Well, that was new," murmured Gulleck in shock.
They brought his body with them across the hall to the old abandoned temple that the Goblin Prince had converted into a feast hall, and set the body on top of the long table. The wall behind the altar was still painted with a grotesque portrait of the pompous Goblin Prince, and Gulleck whipped out a piece of chalk and drew a big Snidely Whiplash mustache on his face. This close up, she noticed that there were several layers of paint on the wall: the Goblin Prince's face, the horrible tentacled monster worshipped by the orcs, and then something beneath that. The adventurers took a few minutes to scrape away the paint, and discovered a secret door buried behind the paint. They pried the door open, discovering a hall lined with mosaics of soldiers and farmworkers being healed by the priests of Ancient Idalium. At the end of the hall was a tattered curtain, and behind that was a small alcove containing a plain wooden throne. Leaning against the throne was a tall wooden staff. Brother Chase examined it and said he could feel that it was imbued with powerful healing magic. They touched the staff to the husk that had once been Rocco, but alas, nothing happened. So they abandoned his body on the feast table and headed off, down the stairs to the third level.
In the very first room after passing through the great stone door, the adventurers surprised a group of eight black robed cultists. The cultists were haughty and ordered the adventurers to get lost, and absolutely not to trespass on their territory to the west unless they were bringing the bodies of goblins "or whatever" for their ceremonies.
"Rude!" complained Gulleck.
The cultists stormed off, and the adventurers went south to visit the odd talking stone column, who was glad of the company, but whined when he discovered that the party had not brought him any "shiny stones".
"I should have known it was too good to be true. You're all just like the others, making wonderful promises but once you're gone you forget all about me. But don't worry about me, I'm used to it by now..."
They eventually disengaged themselves from the morose old forgotten god, and headed east, down the hall towards where they had fought the ratmen last time. They opened a door opposite that room and found another small shrine with an eerie and disturbing idol atop an altar. Jack stepped forward to examine the altar, and Gulleck took a few moments to smash the freaky idol just on principle, but the next moment they were alarmed to discover that everything they spoke came out backwards! This lasted for the rest of the day.
East of these two shrines the hallway opened up into a large natural cavern. There was about 20 feet of a rocky, pebbly beach, and then a vast and immense underground lake that stretched out as far as the light from Simon's sword could illuminate. In the distance there was the sound of rushing and splashing water, but from where they stood the lake seemed almost unnaturally still and placid. They explored the beach in each direction and found that eventually the cavern walls converged with the sea.
Caryatid, apparently still taken aback by the sudden loss of her short-lived henchman, declared that "Henceforth, this rocky beach shall be known as Rocco Beach."
And having no boat and seeing no other exits apart from entering the water, the party returned to the hallway and headed west past the entry hall, now that the cultists had been gone for some time. They came to a four way intersection and explored to the north, eventually finding a stout wooden door with a giant mousehole (maybe two feet high) gnawed through at the bottom. This made them suspect "ratmen!" but they heard nothing and Simon used his mind-reading medallion and didn't detect any presences on the other side of the door. There were discussions of making Molotov cocktails and rolling them through the hole, Gulleck being reduced to playing charades and miming "torch". Eventually, they left this door for later, and continued along the hall exploring.
They found a series of rooms that seemed to be part of a theatre. There was a room full of smiling masks hanging on the walls, and another full of frowning masks. There was a room full of costumes of all different sorts, and a room cluttered with all sorts of miscellaneous objects, including a variety of fake weapons.
"Props to me!" joked Simon.
But it was late and they didn't feel like searching the room, so they returned to the entry hall, ignoring the needy whine of the stone column, and went back to the Rusty Lantern, with no treasure apart from the bag of silver they had taken from the ill-fated Rocco.
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