Session date: Monday, January 14, 2019
Game date: Saturday, February 26, 211
PCs:
Caryatid, Magic-user 5, hp 24, xp 20808/40000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 4, hp 15, xp 9596/16000
Adrien, Fighter 4, hp 16, xp 8479/16000
Retainers:
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 4506/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 2213/4000
Jack, Thief 3, hp 10, xp 2888/4800
Unusually, Gulleck's player had to be absent, so we had a smaller than usual party. Three weeks had passed since the last delve, and as a hobbit of average intellect, Simon got to make a weekly saving throw to see if he snapped out of the Charm Person spell that had enchanted him. Amusingly, he failed all three saves, and thus Simon was quite racked by guilt at having let three weeks go by without finding a bugbear for his best friend in all the world.
On their way down to the third level, the party encountered a group of friendly gnomes (their favorite entry on the level one wandering monsters table), and a rival adventuring party dubbed "Sallies Forth" that was composed of a deranged hobbit and three increasingly corrupted magical clones from the malfunctioning resurrection pool. The Sallies were aggressive and rude, but hostilities were narrowly avoided, and the adventurers proceeded below.
They knew that the Queen of Nightmares kept bugbears as slaves, and they knew her palace was at the west end of the third level, so they made their way in that direction, hoping to find a single bugbear that they could trap or put to sleep. They followed the long, ornate palace wall that ran north and south until they found an ornate and grand door. Simon used his mindreading amulet, and sensed the presence of over half a dozen bugbears on the other side.
Somehow they lost their courage here, and decided that this was too many bugbears to take on inside the Queen of Nightmare's palace, so they retreated south to find an alternate entrance, perhaps hoping to double back and catch the bugbears by surprise. To the south, they found another ornate door, and Simon used his amulet to "listen" there as well.
Everyone was so eagerly awaiting the results of Simon's extrasensory perception that they didn't notice something very large and bizarre creeping up to them from the north: a giant ten-foot cube of some sort of glistening, transparent jelly-like substance. In fact, they only realized it was there when it bumped up against Simon and he yelped as he leaped backwards in shock. Where it had touched his bare flesh he felt numb and tingly.
Father Chase quickly pulled the door open and they all hurled themselves into the room as fast as they could. Unfortunately, Orin was the last in line, and just wasn't nimble enough. The gelatinous cube moved inexorably towards him and engulfed him as he attempted to run to the door. The rest of the party members, inside the room, turned and watched in horror as the enormous cube slid past the door with Orin suspended inside it like a lump of orange peel in some horrible marmalade, his insensate face frozen in a look of perpetual shock.
Caryatid thought fast and pulled out her magical rope of climbing. She ordered it to burrow right into the cube and tie itself around Orin. This was a rather unorthodox use of a rope of climbing, so I had Caryatid make an attack roll to see if the rope could successfully penetrate the cube. She rolled very well, and then Father Chase and Adrien rolled well on strength checks to heave on the rope and pull Orin out. With a grotesque slurping sound, Orin's limp body emerged from the gelatinous cube and slid across the stone floor. They quickly pulled him into the room, and slammed the door shut before the cube could reverse direction and retrieve him.
Orin was covered in bits of transparent jelly and he was not breathing or showing any other signs of life. Father Chase channeled the power of his staff of healing through Orin, and miraculously, Orin's eyes fluttered and he began to draw trembling breaths. Orin had narrowly escaped death, but he could not be awakened. They debated over what to do, and decided to explore the palace a bit, since everyone else was still fine. To the west, a door led to the grand hall that they had explored last month. A passage to the north was decorated with unfamiliar heraldry, and led to a door that was barricaded with a heap of old furniture. Again they ignored this door, and explored another side room off of this hall. Simon used his amulet at a door and detected some sort of primitive animal mind whose thoughts were only of hunger. They passed on this door as well, and opened a different door to find a sort of supply closet filled with old brooms and mops and other maintenance and cleaning equipment. There was a large winch apparatus in the corner, with a chain that disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. There was also a large chest poorly hidden under a pile of rags. Jack tried to pick the lock but couldn't manage it, so Simon waved everyone back, and proceeded to smash in the lid with the pommel of his sword. There was the sound of breaking glass and a green gas hissed out of the box right in Simon's face. He felt woozy for a moment, but made his saving throw and managed to hold his breath and avoid the worst of the fumes. Inside the chest he found 300 silver coins, and these were dutifully packed away in their backpacks.
At this point they decided to head back home (although Simon was getting increasingly antsy about not having found a bugbear for his friend). Father Chase carried Orin's comatose body, and they returned to the entrance of the third level, decided to stop in to visit "the Judge" on the way. It turns out the talking stone column had company, however: five black-robed cultists, including the young lady who had "befriended" Simon three weeks ago!
"Oh, I've been looking all over for you, Simpson!" she said, somewhat tentatively.
"Uh, it's Simon actually. And uh... I'm drawing a complete blank on your name right now, it's the strangest thing..."
"Oh, it's Elfstar," she replied with a knowing smile.
"Elfstar, of course! Stupid me, how could I forget? Don't worry, we're trying really hard to find that bugbear for you."
"Good, good! You know it's very important to our... rituals that we find one."
Meanwhile, Caryatid was casting a Charm Person spell of her very own. Elfstar realized what she was doing just before the enchantment hit her. A momentarily look of confusion passed over her face, but then she smirked.
"Nice try, lady!" And Elfstar and her companions ran out of the room, snickering. The party declined to follow them but turned to the Judge.
"I hope those people weren't disturbing you," said Caryatid.
"Oh, not at all," said the Judge. "They are a bit unsavory, that's true, but they do bring me shiny stones every so often, in return for information about this place."
They offered the Judge a gem from their own funds and asked if he knew where they could find a bugbear off on its own (I guess forgetting that they had asked basically the same thing last session).
"Well," he replied, "there used to be many more bugbears, who were in the service of the Goblin King, but now it seems that only the slaves of the Queen of Nightmares remain."
They fed him another gem and asked what he knew about bugbears and their weaknesses.
"They are very nimble and quiet, and can creep up on the unaware. But they are as mortal as any other flesh creature, and can be killed like an ordinary man. And I know more about that than most."
Spurred by this somewhat cryptic comment, the conversation turned to the Judge's past. He told them how he had been worshipped as a god by the Ancient Idalians, for no one could conceal the truth in his presence. The Idalians would bring those accused of the worst crimes before him and he would judge them, and those guilty he would deliver judgment upon.
The stone column revolved to display a proud face. "Would you like me to demonstrate?"
"Um, sure!" said Caryatid.
The Judge turned to look at the lonely wooden chair in the corner of the room, the chair with the leather ankle, wrist, and head restraints and the curious scorch mark in the back of the chair. A strange glow began to build within his eyes, and a high-pitched crackling whine grew in volume. The hair on the backs of the adventurers' necks stood on end. Then there was a brilliant flash of light, and an enormous spark like a bolt of lightning cracked between the Judge's face and the chair. Their eyes swam with the afterimage, and when it faded the back of the chair was smoldering and smoking. The Judge rotated back to face them with a giddy, sated look on his face.
"Oh, it's been a long, long time since I did that. Just like old times! Tell you what, if you find any ne'er-do-wells in this city, feel free to bring them to me for... judgment. Oh, I would like that!"
"Uh... Okay, we'll definitely keep that in mind!" said Simon nervously. And they all made their polite goodbyes, and returned to the surface.
Simon failed his saving throw for next week, and remained blissfully enchanted by his "best friend" Elfstar.
Friday, July 26, 2019
Monday, July 8, 2019
Idalium Game 103: Like a Moth Before a Flame
Session date: Monday, December 17, 2018
Game date: Saturday, January 29, 211
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 71702/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 5, hp 24, xp 20761/40000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 4, hp 15, xp 9547/16000
Orehoe Hüfflestüff, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 1177/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 5, hp 17, xp 16982/32000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 2189/4000
Fritzenbürg, Cleric 1, hp 1, xp 0/1500
Moonpetal, Elf 2, hp 12, xp 4652/8000
Finally, some regained momentum; we managed to meet two weeks in a row for the first time in six months! Adrien's player was unable to attend, but Orehoe's player was able to join us, and rolled up a retainer for herself: a cleric named Fritzenbürg, to offset Father Chase's absence after the last session. Caryatid decided to temporarily replace her retainer by hiring Moonpetal, the naive and dimwitted elf, whom the adventurers had rescued from the party of the cutthroat dwarf Rugger.
Down into the dungeon they went, seeking to explore more of the third level. In the big town square near the entrance from the new city, they encountered four stirges, perched on the rubble of the statues surrounding the dry fountain. Gulleck and Simon attempted to use their rings of animal control, but were disappointed to find that stirges don't qualify as normal animals. Moonpetal, full of unexpected bravery, charged in and dealt a massive blow to a stirge with his sword. Unfortunately, he was then bit by one of the other stirges and grew pale as it sucked away his blood.
Caryatid cut the whole thing short with a Sleep spell, and after stabbing the slumbering stirges they proceeded on their way. In the Temple of Hedonism, they were surprised to find a pair of dwarves engaged in a fight at the far end of the room with several giant bees in the hallway beyond. Remembering how the dwarves had been content to watch their battle with the dancing dolls last week, only to sarcastically applaud them at the end, the party decided to stand and watch. Both dwarves were then promptly stung by bees and with terrible gurgling screams, fell to the ground dead. The bees then buzzed into the room towards the adventurers. Orin cast a Sleep spell, but before he could complete it, one of the two bees stung Moonpetal, who twitched spasmodically before collapsing in a crumpled heap, his face pale in death. Then the last bee fell asleep under the effect of Orin's spell.
The adventurers weren't sure if Moonpetal had ever been revived in the pool of resurrection, but they figured it was worth a shot. Meat hoisted his spindly body over his shoulder, and they proceeded down to the second level, gingerly stepping over the two dead dwarves without a thought of bringing them to the resurrection pool. Cold!
They quickly made their way to the resurrection pool, stripped off Moonpetal's plate armor, and dunked the elf waif into the slippery liquid of the pool. He came up a few moments later, sputtering and gasping, and thoroughly besotted with Caryatid for bringing him back from the doors of death. Once he had a moment to recover his composure and put his armor back on over his sodden undergarments, they moved on, heading down the mossy stairs to the third level.
No sooner had they opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, they were surprised by a group of black-robed men and women. One was murmuring words and tracing patterns in the air as they walked in, and before they could react, she finished her spell, and turned to Simon with a broad grin on her face.
"I'm so glad you're here! We've been looking everywhere for you! I need your help!"
"Uh, sure, what do you need? How can I help?" said Simon, who recognized this lady as one of his dearest friends in all the world (although he couldn't quite remember her name at the moment).
"We really need you to catch us a bugbear! We need one for our... rituals... but we haven't been able to catch one unaware. But you and your friends are so strong, I just know you'll be able to catch us one!"
"Absolutely, friend, I'm on it! I won't let you down!" promised Simon, while the rest of his party rolled their eyes and sighed audibly.
The black-robed cultists reminded Simon to bring the bugbear alive to the Temple of Diana, just down the hall to the west, and then left with knowing smiles. The party then paid a brief visit to "the Judge", feeding him a gemstone and asking him if he had any suggestions about catching a bugbear.
"Hmm... The Queen of Nightmares keeps an entourage of bugbears slaves, but I don't suggest making an enemy of her."
Leaving the Judge behind, the group explored a new area to the west and then south, where they found a largely empty room that was eerily full of tiny white moths fluttering about. There were silken cobwebs draped throughout the room. Another doorway led west to another room, where the moths were even thicker in the air. The doorway was partially shrouded in strange curtains of silk threads. The group cautiously approached this room, to find it choked in silk webs. Scattered among the silk, the party could see a number of silver coins, a polished bit of ornamental stone, and what looked like a scroll case. On the ground were a number of what looked like enormous silk cocoons, pulsating grotesquely. The air was thick with moths here, and as the adventurers looked around, the small white moths suddenly gathered together, coalescing into eight giant moths, each with a four foot wingspan.
The moths surged towards the adventurers, lunging at them with their rasping proboscises. Gulleck and Moonpetal were both bit by the enormous moths. Gulleck swung her axe at the nearest moth, but found to her dismay that the moth's body parted like water around the axe into hundreds of its constituent tiny moths, reforming immediately after the axe passed through.
The party backed away into the main room, and the moths followed. There was a lot of arguing at the table around what to do. Orin read from a Sleep scroll, and managed to put three of the moths to sleep. As they fell to the ground, they lost their shape and dissolved into a mass of tiny moths again. Gulleck tried to swat a moth with the flat of her axe, and while this was very clumsy it did seem to do some damage, dozens of tiny moths dropping dead from the body of the giant moth.
Then Caryatid decided to shortcut everything with a fireball. This was a tricky situation, because she was trying to carefully target the spell to erupt at an exact point where it would hit the moths but not her fellow party members, and also she needed to launch the fireball between several people who were in melee with the moths. I ruled that she would need to roll a d20, and on a 1-6 the outcome would be bad (the fireball would explode premature on Gulleck or Simon's back) and on 7-20 she would hit her intended target. Caryatid's player rolled the Big Green d30 for this, and successfully hit her target. A fiery bead glowed at the tip of her finger, like a glowing ember, and then streaked forward between Gulleck and Simon, impacting on the floor at the far end of the room. The western half of the room went up in roaring flames. Curtains and cobwebs of silk ignited instantly, and three of the five moths were instantly destroyed in the conflagration. The other two moths failed a morale check and fled back into their nest, dispersing into hundreds of small moths as they flew away.
Cautiously, the adventurers crept past smoldering silk and charred moths to peer into the room. All seemed still, with the remaining moths clustered in the southern portion of the room. The coins and scroll case were quickly gathered up, Gulleck went around stomping the pulsating cocoons into a grisly pulp (hundreds of malformed, immature white moths oozed out as the cocoons were crushed), and the party made their return to the surface, with only a few coins to show for their disturbing experience.
The scroll case later turned out to contain not a scroll, but a fragment of a map and a note. The map showed a columned room labeled "throne room hall" and several rooms off of this hall, with an X in one room. The note was from a man who had been enslaved by the Queen of Nightmares, and who had hidden a potion of invisibility in a barrel in a pantry of the Queen's Palace, and sketched out this map in hopes that someone might be able to use it to free him and his fellow slaves...
Game date: Saturday, January 29, 211
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 71702/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 5, hp 24, xp 20761/40000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 4, hp 15, xp 9547/16000
Orehoe Hüfflestüff, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 1177/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 5, hp 17, xp 16982/32000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 2189/4000
Fritzenbürg, Cleric 1, hp 1, xp 0/1500
Moonpetal, Elf 2, hp 12, xp 4652/8000
Finally, some regained momentum; we managed to meet two weeks in a row for the first time in six months! Adrien's player was unable to attend, but Orehoe's player was able to join us, and rolled up a retainer for herself: a cleric named Fritzenbürg, to offset Father Chase's absence after the last session. Caryatid decided to temporarily replace her retainer by hiring Moonpetal, the naive and dimwitted elf, whom the adventurers had rescued from the party of the cutthroat dwarf Rugger.
Down into the dungeon they went, seeking to explore more of the third level. In the big town square near the entrance from the new city, they encountered four stirges, perched on the rubble of the statues surrounding the dry fountain. Gulleck and Simon attempted to use their rings of animal control, but were disappointed to find that stirges don't qualify as normal animals. Moonpetal, full of unexpected bravery, charged in and dealt a massive blow to a stirge with his sword. Unfortunately, he was then bit by one of the other stirges and grew pale as it sucked away his blood.
Caryatid cut the whole thing short with a Sleep spell, and after stabbing the slumbering stirges they proceeded on their way. In the Temple of Hedonism, they were surprised to find a pair of dwarves engaged in a fight at the far end of the room with several giant bees in the hallway beyond. Remembering how the dwarves had been content to watch their battle with the dancing dolls last week, only to sarcastically applaud them at the end, the party decided to stand and watch. Both dwarves were then promptly stung by bees and with terrible gurgling screams, fell to the ground dead. The bees then buzzed into the room towards the adventurers. Orin cast a Sleep spell, but before he could complete it, one of the two bees stung Moonpetal, who twitched spasmodically before collapsing in a crumpled heap, his face pale in death. Then the last bee fell asleep under the effect of Orin's spell.
The adventurers weren't sure if Moonpetal had ever been revived in the pool of resurrection, but they figured it was worth a shot. Meat hoisted his spindly body over his shoulder, and they proceeded down to the second level, gingerly stepping over the two dead dwarves without a thought of bringing them to the resurrection pool. Cold!
They quickly made their way to the resurrection pool, stripped off Moonpetal's plate armor, and dunked the elf waif into the slippery liquid of the pool. He came up a few moments later, sputtering and gasping, and thoroughly besotted with Caryatid for bringing him back from the doors of death. Once he had a moment to recover his composure and put his armor back on over his sodden undergarments, they moved on, heading down the mossy stairs to the third level.
No sooner had they opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, they were surprised by a group of black-robed men and women. One was murmuring words and tracing patterns in the air as they walked in, and before they could react, she finished her spell, and turned to Simon with a broad grin on her face.
"I'm so glad you're here! We've been looking everywhere for you! I need your help!"
"Uh, sure, what do you need? How can I help?" said Simon, who recognized this lady as one of his dearest friends in all the world (although he couldn't quite remember her name at the moment).
"We really need you to catch us a bugbear! We need one for our... rituals... but we haven't been able to catch one unaware. But you and your friends are so strong, I just know you'll be able to catch us one!"
"Absolutely, friend, I'm on it! I won't let you down!" promised Simon, while the rest of his party rolled their eyes and sighed audibly.
The black-robed cultists reminded Simon to bring the bugbear alive to the Temple of Diana, just down the hall to the west, and then left with knowing smiles. The party then paid a brief visit to "the Judge", feeding him a gemstone and asking him if he had any suggestions about catching a bugbear.
"Hmm... The Queen of Nightmares keeps an entourage of bugbears slaves, but I don't suggest making an enemy of her."
Leaving the Judge behind, the group explored a new area to the west and then south, where they found a largely empty room that was eerily full of tiny white moths fluttering about. There were silken cobwebs draped throughout the room. Another doorway led west to another room, where the moths were even thicker in the air. The doorway was partially shrouded in strange curtains of silk threads. The group cautiously approached this room, to find it choked in silk webs. Scattered among the silk, the party could see a number of silver coins, a polished bit of ornamental stone, and what looked like a scroll case. On the ground were a number of what looked like enormous silk cocoons, pulsating grotesquely. The air was thick with moths here, and as the adventurers looked around, the small white moths suddenly gathered together, coalescing into eight giant moths, each with a four foot wingspan.
The moths surged towards the adventurers, lunging at them with their rasping proboscises. Gulleck and Moonpetal were both bit by the enormous moths. Gulleck swung her axe at the nearest moth, but found to her dismay that the moth's body parted like water around the axe into hundreds of its constituent tiny moths, reforming immediately after the axe passed through.
The party backed away into the main room, and the moths followed. There was a lot of arguing at the table around what to do. Orin read from a Sleep scroll, and managed to put three of the moths to sleep. As they fell to the ground, they lost their shape and dissolved into a mass of tiny moths again. Gulleck tried to swat a moth with the flat of her axe, and while this was very clumsy it did seem to do some damage, dozens of tiny moths dropping dead from the body of the giant moth.
Then Caryatid decided to shortcut everything with a fireball. This was a tricky situation, because she was trying to carefully target the spell to erupt at an exact point where it would hit the moths but not her fellow party members, and also she needed to launch the fireball between several people who were in melee with the moths. I ruled that she would need to roll a d20, and on a 1-6 the outcome would be bad (the fireball would explode premature on Gulleck or Simon's back) and on 7-20 she would hit her intended target. Caryatid's player rolled the Big Green d30 for this, and successfully hit her target. A fiery bead glowed at the tip of her finger, like a glowing ember, and then streaked forward between Gulleck and Simon, impacting on the floor at the far end of the room. The western half of the room went up in roaring flames. Curtains and cobwebs of silk ignited instantly, and three of the five moths were instantly destroyed in the conflagration. The other two moths failed a morale check and fled back into their nest, dispersing into hundreds of small moths as they flew away.
Cautiously, the adventurers crept past smoldering silk and charred moths to peer into the room. All seemed still, with the remaining moths clustered in the southern portion of the room. The coins and scroll case were quickly gathered up, Gulleck went around stomping the pulsating cocoons into a grisly pulp (hundreds of malformed, immature white moths oozed out as the cocoons were crushed), and the party made their return to the surface, with only a few coins to show for their disturbing experience.
The scroll case later turned out to contain not a scroll, but a fragment of a map and a note. The map showed a columned room labeled "throne room hall" and several rooms off of this hall, with an X in one room. The note was from a man who had been enslaved by the Queen of Nightmares, and who had hidden a potion of invisibility in a barrel in a pantry of the Queen's Palace, and sketched out this map in hopes that someone might be able to use it to free him and his fellow slaves...
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