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.

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.

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.