Session date: Monday, May 4, 2015
Game date: Saturday, March 30, 208
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 2, hp 14, xp 3105/4000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 2571/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 3599/5000
Vito Aneti, Thief 2, hp 10, xp 1516/2400
Retainers:
Brother Jibber, Cleric 1, hp 5, xp 1155/1500
Rutger, Fighter 1, hp 9, xp 614/2000
Ylil, Thief 2, hp 5, xp 1273/2400
Brother Jedidiah, Cleric 1, hp 1, xp 24/1500
This was to be the last session before a three week hiatus, as I was going on vacation with my family, so I told my players to make it a doozy. And while I'm not sure it turned out the way they hoped, it certainly left the campaign on an interesting cliffhanger!
Tod, Gulleck, Caryatid, and Vito reunited at the Rusty Lantern, ready to head back down to the catacombs in search of the necromancer Gregor Snapespindle and the brazen head he had stolen from the Runcible Trading House auction. Rather than bring his retainer Sprat along, Vito invited Brother Jedidiah to come with them again, with the idea that two clerics would be extra useful in the undead-ridden crypts below the city.
When they arrived at the Rusty Lantern, they found the tavern occupied by the Night Walkers, an unfriendly NPC party whose relationship with the PCs had escalated from rivalry to venomous hatred. Led by a pair of arrogant elf brothers named Death Watch and Cobweb, the Night Walkers mostly consisted of equally cutthroat and mercenary scoundrels, except for two dimwitted but good-natured dupes. One of those dupes was no longer with the party now.
"Ah, the 'Rat Catchers'," quipped Death Watch grimly. "It seems you have lived up to your name and caught a rat: our dearly departed friend George." It transpired that the Night Walkers had found Vito's offering of wine, that he had tainted with rat poison, and the elf brothers had ordered George to be their taster. "I hope you are proud of yourself. We shall abide by the rules of the Adventurers' Guild up here, but make no mistake - we shall have avenge our comrade."
(This was honestly all the result of a series of random die rolls that I make at the top of every session to determine if anyone else is at the tavern and what their situation is, but it fit so perfectly with the events of prior sessions. Sometimes the dice just seem to "know"!)
Leaving the Night Walkers behind, the Infestation Managers descended into the ruined city of Ancient Idalium. Down along now familiar corridors went the party, making their way to the plaza of the dead. They were cautious, in case the temple was still claimed by the bandits they had skirmished with a few days prior. In the plaza they encountered a group of giant bees, lapping at a sticky puddle of spilled wine. They seemed groggy and sluggish, and the party was able to pass them at a distance and move on by.
In the vestibule of the temple, Gulleck's attention was quickly drawn by a drop of blood which fell from ceiling to floor before him. He looked up, and discovered a flock of stirges clinging to the ceiling, bloated and sleepy. Blood dripped from their ruddy beaks. They seemed satiated, and did not stir as the group crept nervously beneath them.
In the hall of the temple, the group beheld a dreadful sight. Roughly a dozen knockers were dragging a dead human body deeper into the temple. The body was pale and dessicated in appearance, but they recognized it as being George, formerly with the Night Walkers.
"What do you think you're doing?" yelled the party at the horrid, shriveled gnome-like creatures.
"We come for the bounty," hissed the lead knocker, and they continued with their grim funereal procession.
The party argued briefly over whether to kill the monstrosities out of respect for George, but curiosity overruled that urge, and they cautiously followed the knockers into the chapel. In the chapel, they encountered a terrified bandit, presumably from the gang they faced several days before. His face was aghast at the sight of the knockers and their horrible cargo.
"You still here?" snapped Gulleck.
"Uh, we don't want any trouble this time!" whimpered the bandit. "The Night Walkers tricked us. This place isn't safe at all! We're just trying to get out of here."
They left the pathetic bandit behind and followed the knockers behind the large statue of the skeletal reaper and set eyes upon an even stranger sight. The great iron doors to the catacombs had opened, and a party of walking skeletons had emerged. The skeletons handed a few tarnished grave goods to the knockers - a copper urn and a bronze torq - and then took up the body of George and carried off down the stairs into the darkness. The knockers likewise retreated back out of the temple, glaring at the party as they did.
After taking a moment to collect themselves, and newly concerned about Snapespindle now that it seemed he was paying a bounty for corpses to the knockers, the group descended into the catacombs. The giant rats were still scurrying around the room at the bottom of the stairs, squeaking and hissing at the adventurers. Coins still lay scattered throughout their nests of shredded shrouds. Several of the party lit torches to frighten the rats away, and then Vito had an idea to put his remaining rat poison to its intended use. Gulleck had some rations in his backpack, and they quickly sprinkled the rest of the poison powder over the food and then tossed it towards the rats.
But then, a terrible thing happened. While they were taking the time to mess around with the rat poison, a wandering pack of ghouls approached from the western crypt hall. So many things went wrong here. I rolled arguably the most dangerous monster on the wandering monster table, and then rolled the maximum number appearing (six). The PCs were scattered around the room rather than in a tight battle formation in a doorway or hall. And then they lost initiative for the first round. On the bright side, the rats scattered in fear of the ghouls and didn't seize the opportunity to pile on as well.
The ghouls fell upon the party, tearing at them with tooth and claw. Rutger and Caryatid were struck before they could react, and were stricken with a paralyzing fear, and every muscle went rigid in their bodies, as though they were trapped in the sort of nightmare where you are being chased but you can't move or run. The rest of the party attempted to regroup into a proper formation and fall back to the foot of the stairs where they could fight the ghouls one or two at a time.
Brother Jedidiah raised his holy symbol aloft and uttered a nervous prayer. Though terrified, he mustered enough faith to ward off one of the savage beasts, which retreated back to the crypt hall, snarling and hissing at the elderly acolyte. Brother Jibber took a more direct approach and rummaged through his backpack for his vials of holy water. He hurled the blessed water at one of the ghouls, and it recoiled in agony. The dead flesh on its face rippled and melted where the water had splashed it, and the unholy creature fell to the ground in spasms, and then was still.
Gulleck, in desperation, dug in his belt pouch for the paper-wrapped fruitcake (labelled "Eat Me" with chopped nuts) that they had found in the bank vault many weeks ago. He quickly chewed and swallowed the small cake, and suddenly he felt terribly odd indeed, as his body doubled in size and suddenly there was an eight foot tall dwarf standing in the hall. This gave the others behind him a bit of protection, but Gulleck himself quickly fell under the paralyzing fear that had gripped Rutger and Caryatid. The ghouls crawled and squeezed past the bulky dwarf to get at Vito and Ylil behind him. They too were quickly rendered immobile.
Brother Jedidiah took one last pot shot with his sling, as he watched his entire party of employers go stock-still and silent, and then turned tail and ran up the stairs, with a final cry of "God be with you!"
All was quiet for a moment. And then the ghouls turned towards their immobile prey with a look of hunger and anticipation on their savage faces. The air filled with the sound of ripping flesh, cracking bones, and snapping teeth.
So... Total Party Kill? I took a bathroom break and considered my options while the players joked about who their next party should be.
Now, I'm certainly not afraid to let PCs die. I don't see much point in having any "danger" in the game (like combat) if it's not "real", with the actual risk of losing your character. And when I'm a player, I take a PC death as an opportunity to try something new and fresh. So I'm certainly not interesting in pulling punches or fudging dices. But TPKs are a bit more problematic. By cutting off the continuity of the party, it can really take the steam out of a campaign. Sure, you can start over with a new party, but it's basically going to have to be a new campaign at that point. So, how can this defeat move the story forward rather than bringing it to a screeching halt?
I returned to the table.
Another lantern light flickered on the walls of the room. A cold voice commanded, "Leave the rest of them, my pets." A man in plate armor stepped into view, accompanied by several more ghouls, which lurked near him like guard dogs. It was Gregor Snapespindle, but his eyes now burned with malevolence. "Well, well, well. What shall I do with you? My pets would like nothing more than for me to allow them to feast on you, but I wonder if you could be more useful to me alive. You are going to come with me, and we shall have a little conversation, and then you will decide your own fate. Serve me, or be left to the tender mercies of my pets." And here he idly stroked the ragged, filthy hair of one of the ghouls, creeping everyone out.
"Bring them!" he barked, and led the way out of the room. More ghouls seemed to crowd in around the PCs, grabbing and pulling at them. Still helpless and unable to move a muscle, the party members were dragged roughly along the flagstones and cobblestones of the crypt, through grim halls lined with wrapped bodies. Eventually they were brought to an empty tomb and bound with rope. Snapespindle said he would return once they were able to converse, and he left them there, watched by several ghouls that he warned to restrain themselves from devouring them.
The minutes passed anxiously, and one by one the PCs regained control of their bodies. Gulleck's enormous visage deflated back to his stout but diminutive norm. Now that they were able to look around themselves, it was discovered that Gulleck's retainer Rutger was no longer with them. Alas, there is always a price to paid when the DM converts a TPK to a more interesting plot twist, and in this case it was the loss of a randomly rolled retainer.
There was some discussion between Tod and Gulleck over whether they could take Snapespindle and his ghouls, but sanity prevailed and they decided to play along with Snapespindle until they could get out of this accursed place. Snapespindle soon returned to them, guarded by several more ghouls. He was clad in blackened plate armor and carried a wicked looking warhammer at his belt, whose head was forged into a leering skull.
Gregor Snapespindle declared calmly to the adventurers that their lives belonged to him now. He told them that there was some source of malevolent power in these catacombs, that was disturbing the sleep of the dead. He sought that source of power, for he believed it would grant him power and control over the dead and bring him forbidden knowledge of the nature of death and how to transcend it. He believed the adventurers could help him find that source of power. He gave them a Hobson's Choice: serve him loyally, or be fed to the ghouls.
He told them how he had stolen the brazen head because the legends told that it was able to answer questions that no one else could. "Shall we go and perform the ritual now?" he asked the group. Surrounded by ghouls, they could only nod and cheerily reply, "After you!"
"How, uh, how do you control them?" Tod asked as they walked, nodding towards the ghouls.
"They know me to be a kindred spirit," replied Snapespindle. "They serve me, and I feed them."
Snapespindle brought them to an empty tomb that he had repurposed as a sort of study. Bookcases held various leather-bound books and scrolls. On a small table in the center of the room sat a silver platter, on which was a life-sized brass head, constructed of riveted brass plates. Its eyes were shut. In the corner of the room lay the body of George, looking still worse for the wear. Snapespindle took up a ewer and a curved knife, and then slashed at the neck of George's corpse and let his blood drain into the ewer. This he mixed with oil from another urn, and poured the combined liquids over the brazen head. He recited a series of incantations from an ancient book over the head, including words in a disturbingly alien language. Then he lit a wooden splint on a candle and touched the flame to the oil and blood in the platter.
Blue flames leapt up around the brazen head. Its brass eyelids snapped open, revealing what looked like living human eyes inside, which darted back and forth frantically.
Brother Jibber's involuntary scream pierced the air.
"Speak," croaked the head, its brazen jaws moving stiffly.
"I seek the source of power that awakens the dead in this place. Where is it?" implored Snapespindle.
"You seek the Beating Heart in the Hero's Tomb." And then the brass eyelids snapped shut, and the flames died out, and all was again still.
"The Beating Heart in the Hero's Tomb," repeated Snapespindle. "Now you know what your aim is. Go now, seek it out, and bring it to me. So long as you are loyal to me, you shall be allowed to live. But do not think to betray, for my servants will be watching you. Return to me when you have what we seek."
He ordered several of his "pets" to escort the party back out of the catacombs. Once they were safely at the top of the stairs in the temple of the dead, they fled as quickly as possible back to the Rusty Lantern tavern, relieved to have been spared a horrible death indeed but deeply disturbed by the Faustian deal they had made.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Idalium Game 21: Friendly Fire
Session date: Monday, April 27, 2015
Game date: Monday, March 25, 208 to Thursday, March 28, 208
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 2546/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 3576/5000
Vito Aneti, Thief 2, hp 10, xp 1491/2400
Retainers:
Rutger, Fighter 1, hp 9, xp 601/2000
Ylil, Thief 2, hp 5, xp 1261/2400
Brother Jedidiah, Cleric 1, hp 1, xp 24/1500
After a day of rest so that Brother Jedidiah could assist with Sunday services at the Great Cathedral, some of the Infestation Managers regrouped as usual at the Rusty Lantern tavern. A few days ago in game time, Gulleck had left a message for Shorty "The Mouse", the leader of one of the NPC parties that the PCs were generally friendly with. Gulleck hoped to recruit her help especially because of the magical sword she had purchased at the auction, engraved as it was with skeletal designs. Shorty had received the message, and agreed to accompany the group for a full share of treasure and first dibs on any magical items that they might find. With Shorty temporarily joining their ranks, the group descended into the dungeon and quickly made their way to the temple of death, intent on finding Gregor Snapespindle and recovering the stolen brazen head.
When they arrived at the plaza of the temple of death, they found a group of nervous men gazing anxiously at two of the statues of weeping angels, which were bent over a body on the ground of the plaza. When the men heard the approach of the party, they whipped around in fear, drawing their swords in panic.
"Back off," one of the bandits exclaimed. "This is our headquarters now! Find your own place!"
Gulleck was completely unimpressed. "You guys are complete idiots. Do you realize there's a guy raising an army of the dead underneath there?"
"You can't fool us!" The bandits thought they had a handle on what was going on. "Hey, it's those guys the Night Walkers warned us about. Cobweb said they played dirty tricks!"
"If you guys are taking advice from the Night Walkers, you are in way over your heads!" Gulleck and Vito continued to harangue and mock the naive bandits. And then Caryatid said something particularly rude, and one of the bandits yelled, "We'll cut those words out of your mouth!", and then the mob of them charged, screaming.
"Oh, for God's sake," sighed Gulleck. He and Rutger attempted to defend themselves against the bandits without inflicting lethal force in return. But Gulleck was viciously wounded by the sword of a paranoid bandit, and blood trickled down his left arm.
Behind him, Brother Jedidiah drew forth his sling and stone with quivering hand. "Repent, sinners!" he shrieked, and let a stone fly unerring into the knee of one of the bandits fighting Rutger. The bandit howled in agony, dropping to the ground and rolling in pain, clutching his shattered knee. Vito wounded another bandit with a crossbow bolt, and Brother Jedidiah sent another vicious stone across the fray, cracking across the pate of yet another bandit and dropping him senseless to the ground.
The remaining bandits turned tail and fled back towards the temple. "Really?" shouted Gulleck. "You're really gonna run into there?"
The wounded bandit told them, between whimpers, that the Night Walkers had struck a deal with them where the bandits could have the temple as their hideout from which to launch burglaries and thefts, as long as the Night Walkers were allowed safe passage through the temple.
Gulleck sighed and prepared to enter the temple to drag out the remaining two or three bandits who had fled. With the party behind him, he entered the temple vestibule and called out, "Now come on, we don't want a fight, just come out and let's talk about it." He opened the inner doors to the temple and cautiously moved in, looking around. Suddenly, the original bandits plus a larger group of men came charging from two directions - "There they are! Get 'em!" - with swords drawn and rage on their faces. Gulleck and Rutger were staggered by the furious attack. Gulleck's sleeve, already stained with his blood from the earlier attack, turned dark with his blood as a sword bit into his shoulder. Unprepared for the intensity of this fight, Gulleck and Rutger pulled the door shut again, with the mocking laughter of the bandits echoing behind the door.
"All right," said Gulleck, "you wanna play that way..." and he pulled out hammer and iron spikes and began spiking the door shut. Vito ran a length of rope between the handles of the temple doors and tied them tightly shut.
They took the wounded bandit with them back to the surface and handed him over to the master of the Thieves' Guild, and then spent a couple of days resting, to allow Gulleck and Rutger's wounds to begin to heal.
When the group reconvened on Thursday morning, Shorty again accompanied them into the dungeon. They made their cautious way down to the temple of the dead again, and noted with some concern that the weeping angel statues had now vanished entirely from the plaza. The group approached the temple doors with caution, and saw that their ropes now lay on the floor in fragments, and a piece of paper was tacked to the doors. "To 'The Rat Catchers'", read the salutation. It was from Death Watch and Cobweb, the elf brothers who led the Night Walkers, and upbraided the party for interfering with their recent hires. The Night Walkers gave the party one last warning: interfere with them again and their rivalry would turn to outright war.
Vito felt that this had already happened, when the Night Walkers employed the bandits to ambush them, and decided to take matters firmly into his own hands. He set out two wineskins full of wine, one of them adulterated with a large quantity of everyday rat poison. He wrote his own note - "For the Night Walkers" and set it on top of the wineskins. Then the party passed into the temple of the dead and headed down into the catacombs.
They passed the nest of giant rats at the base of the steps, using flaming torches again to frighten the rats away as they passed them, and made their way to explore new areas of the catacombs. Eventually they found themselves at a heavy stone door with inscriptions in Ancient Idalian that declared it to be the mausoleum of a wealthy family. There were scratches on the floor that suggested that this door had been opened and closed more often than one might hope for a mausoleum door. Rutger pulled the door open and the party cautiously entered a long hallway lined with alternating crypt doors.
They pushed open the first door and their noses were assailed by a familiar sickly sweet stench, and a hideous corpse-like creature turned towards them, dropped a bone it had been gnawing on, and leaped at them with ravenous hunger in its dead eyes. Gulleck and Rutger quickly brought the creature to senselessness, but the noise of the battle had drawn the attention of another half dozen of the ghouls, and the adventurers' stomachs sank as they heard the sound of multiple crypt doors creaking open along the hallway.
The party attempted an orderly fighting withdrawal, hoping to get back to the door and use the time-honored "close the door and run away" strategy. Gulleck and Rutger were scratched and bitten by the filthy ghouls, and a tremendous nearly-paralyzing fear coursed through their souls, but they both kept their cool and fought on. Gulleck and Rutger hacked away at the ghouls from the front, while the others looked for openings for arrow, bolt, and stone. Brother Jedidiah attempted to repel the horrible monsters, but his faith wavered and he turned to his sling with more effective results.
"Try this, Gulleck," came Shorty's voice from behind him, and she passed up her magical sword, engraved with skeletal patterns. As Gulleck's hand closed around the hilt, he could feel the magical power thrumming through his arm, and the sword quivered as if it longed to plunge towards the undead abominations. He lunged forward with it, his hand almost guided by the sword itself as it sank itself effortlessly into the chest of the beast in front of him.
"Shorty, your sword is awesome!"
"Yeah, I'll want it back after this, too."
The tide seemed to be turning for the party, but then Ylil made a terrible, terrible blunder. His player rolled a natural 1 for his sling attack. This is the only situation where I enforce a possibility of friendly fire, and I randomly determined the target of his attack among the three allies in front of him. Poor Brother Jedidiah was the unfortunately target, which was bad because old Jed only had one hit point. This time Ylil's player rolled nice and high for the attack, and as Brother Jedidiah was refilling his own sling to attack the ghouls, Ylil's sling stone cracked him in the back of the head from point blank range, fracturing his brittle skull and sending the old cleric crashing to the floor of the crypt.
The party managed to get clear of the mausoleum door and pushed it closed against the scrabbling claws of the ghouls. The mission now became to get Brother Jed's body down to the resurrection pool on the second level. I think they were concerned that the Church wouldn't loan them any more acolytes if they kept losing them. And so they quickly crossed the undercity to the temple of hedonism, passing through and down the corridor to the resurrection pool.
Right outside the door to the room of the pool, they encountered a group of tall goblins, including the two they had met before: Margleton and Clabberpus. They were as friendly as before, in that rather unnerving way. The party explained that they needed to use the pool, and Margleton said, "Oh, be our guest! But you do know, of course, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and for every gift there must eventually be a repayment." Some of the players are already suspicious about the long-term effects of this pool, and this did nothing to make them feel any better. But the goblins strolled off into the darkness chuckling sinisterly, and the party entered the room of the pool and lowered Brother Jedidiah's frail and bloodied body into the slippery water of life.
Moments later, his feeble arms came thrashing above the surface of the pool and they pulled him carefully out. I'm not sure if they ever explained to him what actually happened back there with the ghouls. Yet another (albeit temporary) entry on the Memorial Roll of the Idalium campaign.
Game date: Monday, March 25, 208 to Thursday, March 28, 208
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 2546/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 3576/5000
Vito Aneti, Thief 2, hp 10, xp 1491/2400
Retainers:
Rutger, Fighter 1, hp 9, xp 601/2000
Ylil, Thief 2, hp 5, xp 1261/2400
Brother Jedidiah, Cleric 1, hp 1, xp 24/1500
After a day of rest so that Brother Jedidiah could assist with Sunday services at the Great Cathedral, some of the Infestation Managers regrouped as usual at the Rusty Lantern tavern. A few days ago in game time, Gulleck had left a message for Shorty "The Mouse", the leader of one of the NPC parties that the PCs were generally friendly with. Gulleck hoped to recruit her help especially because of the magical sword she had purchased at the auction, engraved as it was with skeletal designs. Shorty had received the message, and agreed to accompany the group for a full share of treasure and first dibs on any magical items that they might find. With Shorty temporarily joining their ranks, the group descended into the dungeon and quickly made their way to the temple of death, intent on finding Gregor Snapespindle and recovering the stolen brazen head.
When they arrived at the plaza of the temple of death, they found a group of nervous men gazing anxiously at two of the statues of weeping angels, which were bent over a body on the ground of the plaza. When the men heard the approach of the party, they whipped around in fear, drawing their swords in panic.
"Back off," one of the bandits exclaimed. "This is our headquarters now! Find your own place!"
Gulleck was completely unimpressed. "You guys are complete idiots. Do you realize there's a guy raising an army of the dead underneath there?"
"You can't fool us!" The bandits thought they had a handle on what was going on. "Hey, it's those guys the Night Walkers warned us about. Cobweb said they played dirty tricks!"
"If you guys are taking advice from the Night Walkers, you are in way over your heads!" Gulleck and Vito continued to harangue and mock the naive bandits. And then Caryatid said something particularly rude, and one of the bandits yelled, "We'll cut those words out of your mouth!", and then the mob of them charged, screaming.
"Oh, for God's sake," sighed Gulleck. He and Rutger attempted to defend themselves against the bandits without inflicting lethal force in return. But Gulleck was viciously wounded by the sword of a paranoid bandit, and blood trickled down his left arm.
Behind him, Brother Jedidiah drew forth his sling and stone with quivering hand. "Repent, sinners!" he shrieked, and let a stone fly unerring into the knee of one of the bandits fighting Rutger. The bandit howled in agony, dropping to the ground and rolling in pain, clutching his shattered knee. Vito wounded another bandit with a crossbow bolt, and Brother Jedidiah sent another vicious stone across the fray, cracking across the pate of yet another bandit and dropping him senseless to the ground.
The remaining bandits turned tail and fled back towards the temple. "Really?" shouted Gulleck. "You're really gonna run into there?"
The wounded bandit told them, between whimpers, that the Night Walkers had struck a deal with them where the bandits could have the temple as their hideout from which to launch burglaries and thefts, as long as the Night Walkers were allowed safe passage through the temple.
Gulleck sighed and prepared to enter the temple to drag out the remaining two or three bandits who had fled. With the party behind him, he entered the temple vestibule and called out, "Now come on, we don't want a fight, just come out and let's talk about it." He opened the inner doors to the temple and cautiously moved in, looking around. Suddenly, the original bandits plus a larger group of men came charging from two directions - "There they are! Get 'em!" - with swords drawn and rage on their faces. Gulleck and Rutger were staggered by the furious attack. Gulleck's sleeve, already stained with his blood from the earlier attack, turned dark with his blood as a sword bit into his shoulder. Unprepared for the intensity of this fight, Gulleck and Rutger pulled the door shut again, with the mocking laughter of the bandits echoing behind the door.
"All right," said Gulleck, "you wanna play that way..." and he pulled out hammer and iron spikes and began spiking the door shut. Vito ran a length of rope between the handles of the temple doors and tied them tightly shut.
They took the wounded bandit with them back to the surface and handed him over to the master of the Thieves' Guild, and then spent a couple of days resting, to allow Gulleck and Rutger's wounds to begin to heal.
When the group reconvened on Thursday morning, Shorty again accompanied them into the dungeon. They made their cautious way down to the temple of the dead again, and noted with some concern that the weeping angel statues had now vanished entirely from the plaza. The group approached the temple doors with caution, and saw that their ropes now lay on the floor in fragments, and a piece of paper was tacked to the doors. "To 'The Rat Catchers'", read the salutation. It was from Death Watch and Cobweb, the elf brothers who led the Night Walkers, and upbraided the party for interfering with their recent hires. The Night Walkers gave the party one last warning: interfere with them again and their rivalry would turn to outright war.
Vito felt that this had already happened, when the Night Walkers employed the bandits to ambush them, and decided to take matters firmly into his own hands. He set out two wineskins full of wine, one of them adulterated with a large quantity of everyday rat poison. He wrote his own note - "For the Night Walkers" and set it on top of the wineskins. Then the party passed into the temple of the dead and headed down into the catacombs.
They passed the nest of giant rats at the base of the steps, using flaming torches again to frighten the rats away as they passed them, and made their way to explore new areas of the catacombs. Eventually they found themselves at a heavy stone door with inscriptions in Ancient Idalian that declared it to be the mausoleum of a wealthy family. There were scratches on the floor that suggested that this door had been opened and closed more often than one might hope for a mausoleum door. Rutger pulled the door open and the party cautiously entered a long hallway lined with alternating crypt doors.
They pushed open the first door and their noses were assailed by a familiar sickly sweet stench, and a hideous corpse-like creature turned towards them, dropped a bone it had been gnawing on, and leaped at them with ravenous hunger in its dead eyes. Gulleck and Rutger quickly brought the creature to senselessness, but the noise of the battle had drawn the attention of another half dozen of the ghouls, and the adventurers' stomachs sank as they heard the sound of multiple crypt doors creaking open along the hallway.
The party attempted an orderly fighting withdrawal, hoping to get back to the door and use the time-honored "close the door and run away" strategy. Gulleck and Rutger were scratched and bitten by the filthy ghouls, and a tremendous nearly-paralyzing fear coursed through their souls, but they both kept their cool and fought on. Gulleck and Rutger hacked away at the ghouls from the front, while the others looked for openings for arrow, bolt, and stone. Brother Jedidiah attempted to repel the horrible monsters, but his faith wavered and he turned to his sling with more effective results.
"Try this, Gulleck," came Shorty's voice from behind him, and she passed up her magical sword, engraved with skeletal patterns. As Gulleck's hand closed around the hilt, he could feel the magical power thrumming through his arm, and the sword quivered as if it longed to plunge towards the undead abominations. He lunged forward with it, his hand almost guided by the sword itself as it sank itself effortlessly into the chest of the beast in front of him.
"Shorty, your sword is awesome!"
"Yeah, I'll want it back after this, too."
The tide seemed to be turning for the party, but then Ylil made a terrible, terrible blunder. His player rolled a natural 1 for his sling attack. This is the only situation where I enforce a possibility of friendly fire, and I randomly determined the target of his attack among the three allies in front of him. Poor Brother Jedidiah was the unfortunately target, which was bad because old Jed only had one hit point. This time Ylil's player rolled nice and high for the attack, and as Brother Jedidiah was refilling his own sling to attack the ghouls, Ylil's sling stone cracked him in the back of the head from point blank range, fracturing his brittle skull and sending the old cleric crashing to the floor of the crypt.
The party managed to get clear of the mausoleum door and pushed it closed against the scrabbling claws of the ghouls. The mission now became to get Brother Jed's body down to the resurrection pool on the second level. I think they were concerned that the Church wouldn't loan them any more acolytes if they kept losing them. And so they quickly crossed the undercity to the temple of hedonism, passing through and down the corridor to the resurrection pool.
Right outside the door to the room of the pool, they encountered a group of tall goblins, including the two they had met before: Margleton and Clabberpus. They were as friendly as before, in that rather unnerving way. The party explained that they needed to use the pool, and Margleton said, "Oh, be our guest! But you do know, of course, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and for every gift there must eventually be a repayment." Some of the players are already suspicious about the long-term effects of this pool, and this did nothing to make them feel any better. But the goblins strolled off into the darkness chuckling sinisterly, and the party entered the room of the pool and lowered Brother Jedidiah's frail and bloodied body into the slippery water of life.
Moments later, his feeble arms came thrashing above the surface of the pool and they pulled him carefully out. I'm not sure if they ever explained to him what actually happened back there with the ghouls. Yet another (albeit temporary) entry on the Memorial Roll of the Idalium campaign.
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Player Journals from Session 20
My players have been sort of slacking on campaign journals lately! I think it is partly because we've been doing these role-playing heavy sessions lately that have not given them any opportunities to earn experience points. But now that we have returned to our regularly scheduled program of dungeoneering, it starts to make more sense to earn that 10% bonus to experience points.
Gulleck's tenth journal
Gulleck's tenth journal
Turns out humans aren't totally crazy after all. At least some of em make sensible catacombs.
The other fellas did some investigating while I was dealing
with cousin Darneck's latest... issues. Sounds like they maybe forgot
what subtlety is, but that's about normal.
Seems like the skull was stolen by a nasty stinker looking
to raise a dead army. Not real good, so we headed down to the catacombs
where he may be holed up. Had to get a cleric from the temple cause most
of our group got busy with other stuff. Weird old guy. Real excitable. I
wasn't too sure we'd be able to get him back in one piece, but we did.
The humans showed at least a little bit of crazy even
there... Statues that move on their own are weird enough, but a door
that only opens if you bump a dead thing into em? That's pretty dang
nuts.
And since they're humans, the clues to open the door hadda
be hidden away in a skeleton statue that talks into your brain. Why not,
right? Never the easy way with those guys.
Down below we mostly didn't find much yet. Bunch of rats we
kept away with torches, and a dang big spider. Got its attention by
burning the webs. I find that's a good way to deal with that crud
without getting all hung up. Found a little treasure, finally! Been too
long.
Ran into another bunch of adventurers. Nasty pair of elves
and their bullyboys. They offered Muscle Boy a job, and he declined.
Figured he would, we get along pretty good. Offered their bullyboys the
same. Could make good trap-catchers at least, if they take us up on it.
We left em and went on. Didn't explore too much more as we
were getting tired, but we found an old dead fella holding a rolled up
scroll. Seemed like a caretaker type fella. The text was in that old
language, but it wasn't regular words. With Old Cleric's help and cousin
Birrel's big brain, we managed to get the thing translated. I'll attach
that at the end, in just a second.
On our way out we got jumped by an ugly dead thing. Old
Cleric didn't help a whole lot, but we managed to get it dead anyway.
Magic and axes work pretty good for most things.
And here's that translated text:
"Idalium has fallen. The barbarians have sacked what is
left of the city. The battle will not reach me here, but there will be
no replenishing my food and water once I have exhausted what remains
here. The treasure beyond the sea will be of no use to me now. I have
spent my last days completing the index to the roll of the deceased. I
have placed the map of the catacombs in the records room. Perhaps some
day our departed citizens will be remembered and honored once again. I
choose to believe I have done my duty in protecting their legacy.
Antovinius Nerpatian, Caretaker."
Idalium Game 20: Down Among the Dead Men
Session date: Monday, April 20, 2015
Game date: Saturday, March 23, 208
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 2494/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 3524/5000
Retainers:
Ylil, Thief 2, hp 5, xp 1237/2400
Rutger, Fighter 1, hp 9, xp 575/2000
Brother Jedidiah, Cleric 1, hp 1, xp 0/1500
We were short a few players this session, but the game went on. Our typical standard had been to have a week of game time pass per week of real time, but due to the introduction of a "time sensitive quest" into the game, the players were keen to pick the campaign up immediately where we had left off last time. Knowing they were going to explore the unquiet catacombs below the city of Idalium, and being absent Brother Jibber, their usual cleric retainer, Gulleck and Caryatid made their way to the Great Cathedral to inquire into hiring another acolyte for this expedition. I rolled up the stats for this new retainer at the table - Constitution 5, hit points 1 - and decided that their new retainer was a frail elderly man who entered the clerical order late in life as a second career. So that was fun, I got to use my goofy quavery old man voice. The players weren't so sure about Brother Jedidiah's long term prospects: "Can't we look for someone else?" "No, he's the only acolyte they can spare." "Yeah, I wonder why that is..."
At the Rusty Lantern, Gulleck left a message for Shorty "the Mouse", who had bought that magic sword with ominous skeletal patterns at the auction the other night. He was hoping to extend an offer to team up for this mission, thinking her sword might come in handy against the undead. Shorty was not to be found, however, and the group descended into the undercity and made their way back to the temple of the dead.
When they arrived at the plaza of the dead, they were disturbed to note that half of the angel statues were no longer on their plinths, but frozen in mid-stride in the plaza. The group quickly made their way past the angels and into the temple. Beyond the vestibule, they found a wide hallway with walls painted to depict a funeral procession. At the end of the hall, a tattered curtain of blueish-gray linen hung. Near the curtain was the body of what seemed to be an adventurer. He looked fairly recently killed, with his body marred with savage claw and gnaw marks. In rooms off the halls, they found a room full of embalming equipment and work tables, and other rooms containing ceremonial robes and prayer books containing funeral rites.
Beyond the curtain was a large chapel. Several rows of pews faced inward on an open area before a lectern. Behind the lectern was a larger than life statue of a frightful skeleton on a throne, dressed in a shroud, and holding a large scythe in one hand and a bundle of what seemed to be soothing herbs in the other.
Archways on either side of the throne led to a hall behind the chapel and a large pair of metal doors. The doors had no lock or even handle, and appeared to simply be two heavy plates of metal held tightly closed. No matter what they tried, no one in the group could pry the doors open.
Caryatid returned to the chapel and tried pulling on the scythe of the skeleton statue to see if she could somehow trigger a locking mechanism. The scythe did not move, but as she touched the statue it boomed out words in an unknown language. "Words from Ancient Idalium!" exclaimed Brother Jedidiah, who rather fortuitously knew some of that ancient tongue. "How fascinating! It said, 'Let the last act of the dead be to open the door to their place of eternal sleep.'" They puzzled over this at great length, and eventually deduced that only the touch of the dead could unlock the doors. The corpse from the hall was unceremoniously dragged through the chapel and up to the doors, and as they propped it up against the doors, there was a hollow metallic boom, and the great doors slowly opened, revealing a stone staircase that descended into the dark.
Down they went into the cool of the catacombs. The stairs led to a large square entry hall, with narrower catacomb halls exiting to the west and south. This room was overrun with more than a dozen giant rats, and the filthy vermin scampered and scurried around the shredded and befouled shrouds that had become their nest. The reflected glitter of hundreds of coins could be seen in the shrouds and on the floor, but Gulleck and Caryatid, remembering the rats to be surprisingly vicious in numbers (and keenly aware of their lack of a sleep spell) chose to deal with this more cautiously. They lit torches afire, and proceeded cautiously through the room, waving the flaming brands at the rats, which recoiled from the open flame and let the adventurers pass. They passed through the archway to the south and entered the crypts.
They moved through a long narrow hall lined with burial niches on both sides. Shroud-wrapped bodies, some embalmed and still preserved and some long reduced to skeletal remains, lay silent as they passed by nervously. Eventually they came to a door, beyond which was an old abandoned workroom, full of corroded tools, workbenches, sawhorses, etc. Beyond the workroom were other rooms, including a records room of some sort, full of shelves containing scrolls and books, as well a card catalog that seemed to provide an index to the documents on the shelves.
The party also found some sparsely-furnished living quarters here. In a bedroom a skeleton lay silently on a bed, and seemed to be clutching something to its chest. They nervously approached it, and drew a rolled up parchment from its grasp. It turned out to be a letter, but while the writing was in Ancient Idalian letters, the words were unrecognizable. Gulleck reckoned it to be some kind of cipher, and tucked it away to try to decode later.
Beyond the living quarters they found more catacomb hallways, and within one of the halls the found a heavy stone mausoleum door, standing ajar. Cautiously looking within, they found that the room was full of enormous spiderwebs. Corpses lay on the ground and on stone slabs, but seemed to be wrapped in silk rather than shrouds. A silver chalice sat glittering on a shelf, but it too was draped in webs. Gulleck lit a torch from Caryatid's lantern and set the webs on fire. They evaporated in the flames quickly and satisfyingly, but in response, an enormous shiny black spider came squeezing through a doorway on the opposite side of the crypt. It was easily six feet across, and an ominous red hourglass marking was visible on its bloated abdomen as it pulled itself into the tomb. It rushed at Gulleck, venom-dripping fangs snapping at him as he took cover behind his shield. Caryatid spoke the words of the Magic Missile spell, and a glowing golden arrow appeared at her shoulder and then shot past Gulleck to embed itself in the spider. Then Gulleck's battleaxe came crashing down firmly into the spider's head and it shuddered and fell still in the tomb.
There was a similar mausoleum on the opposite side of the hall, and the party heard voices within. As they cautiously entered, a rough-looking hobbit spotted them and called out, "We got company!" And from out of the inner tomb strode the arrogant elf brothers Death Watch and Cobweb, the leaders of the Night Walkers, a rival party from the Adventurer's Guild. As usual, a variety of barbs were exchanged, the elf brothers scoffing with condescension and Gulleck offering deadpan putdowns. Both sides made employment offers to the others' retainers. Eventually, the groups parted and the party decided it was time to begin returning to the Rusty Lantern.
As they walked through yet another catacomb hall, Ylil suddenly heard something shift behind him, and turned to see a corpse drag itself from one of the niches and begin sprinting towards him with frightening speed and unnervingly silent. It looked much like the creatures they had fled in Snapespindle's basement apartment, and as it approached they got the same whiff of sickly sweet stench that had accompanied the creatures there. Gulleck and Rutger quickly moved to get between Ylil and the creature. Brother Jedidiah raised his holy symbol and pronounced in a quavering voice, "Begone, thou abomination, in the name of God!" But his fear was greater than his faith, apparently, for the creature kept running. Caryatid and Gulleck repeated the same one-two punch that had worked on the spider, with Caryatid's Magic Missile softening it up, and then Gulleck's axe taking the head off the creature with one well-aimed blow.
They returned to the surface without further event, glad to be out of the oppressive, claustrophobic catacombs, but knowing they would soon have to return.
Game date: Saturday, March 23, 208
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 2494/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 3524/5000
Retainers:
Ylil, Thief 2, hp 5, xp 1237/2400
Rutger, Fighter 1, hp 9, xp 575/2000
Brother Jedidiah, Cleric 1, hp 1, xp 0/1500
We were short a few players this session, but the game went on. Our typical standard had been to have a week of game time pass per week of real time, but due to the introduction of a "time sensitive quest" into the game, the players were keen to pick the campaign up immediately where we had left off last time. Knowing they were going to explore the unquiet catacombs below the city of Idalium, and being absent Brother Jibber, their usual cleric retainer, Gulleck and Caryatid made their way to the Great Cathedral to inquire into hiring another acolyte for this expedition. I rolled up the stats for this new retainer at the table - Constitution 5, hit points 1 - and decided that their new retainer was a frail elderly man who entered the clerical order late in life as a second career. So that was fun, I got to use my goofy quavery old man voice. The players weren't so sure about Brother Jedidiah's long term prospects: "Can't we look for someone else?" "No, he's the only acolyte they can spare." "Yeah, I wonder why that is..."
At the Rusty Lantern, Gulleck left a message for Shorty "the Mouse", who had bought that magic sword with ominous skeletal patterns at the auction the other night. He was hoping to extend an offer to team up for this mission, thinking her sword might come in handy against the undead. Shorty was not to be found, however, and the group descended into the undercity and made their way back to the temple of the dead.
When they arrived at the plaza of the dead, they were disturbed to note that half of the angel statues were no longer on their plinths, but frozen in mid-stride in the plaza. The group quickly made their way past the angels and into the temple. Beyond the vestibule, they found a wide hallway with walls painted to depict a funeral procession. At the end of the hall, a tattered curtain of blueish-gray linen hung. Near the curtain was the body of what seemed to be an adventurer. He looked fairly recently killed, with his body marred with savage claw and gnaw marks. In rooms off the halls, they found a room full of embalming equipment and work tables, and other rooms containing ceremonial robes and prayer books containing funeral rites.
Beyond the curtain was a large chapel. Several rows of pews faced inward on an open area before a lectern. Behind the lectern was a larger than life statue of a frightful skeleton on a throne, dressed in a shroud, and holding a large scythe in one hand and a bundle of what seemed to be soothing herbs in the other.
Archways on either side of the throne led to a hall behind the chapel and a large pair of metal doors. The doors had no lock or even handle, and appeared to simply be two heavy plates of metal held tightly closed. No matter what they tried, no one in the group could pry the doors open.
Caryatid returned to the chapel and tried pulling on the scythe of the skeleton statue to see if she could somehow trigger a locking mechanism. The scythe did not move, but as she touched the statue it boomed out words in an unknown language. "Words from Ancient Idalium!" exclaimed Brother Jedidiah, who rather fortuitously knew some of that ancient tongue. "How fascinating! It said, 'Let the last act of the dead be to open the door to their place of eternal sleep.'" They puzzled over this at great length, and eventually deduced that only the touch of the dead could unlock the doors. The corpse from the hall was unceremoniously dragged through the chapel and up to the doors, and as they propped it up against the doors, there was a hollow metallic boom, and the great doors slowly opened, revealing a stone staircase that descended into the dark.
Down they went into the cool of the catacombs. The stairs led to a large square entry hall, with narrower catacomb halls exiting to the west and south. This room was overrun with more than a dozen giant rats, and the filthy vermin scampered and scurried around the shredded and befouled shrouds that had become their nest. The reflected glitter of hundreds of coins could be seen in the shrouds and on the floor, but Gulleck and Caryatid, remembering the rats to be surprisingly vicious in numbers (and keenly aware of their lack of a sleep spell) chose to deal with this more cautiously. They lit torches afire, and proceeded cautiously through the room, waving the flaming brands at the rats, which recoiled from the open flame and let the adventurers pass. They passed through the archway to the south and entered the crypts.
They moved through a long narrow hall lined with burial niches on both sides. Shroud-wrapped bodies, some embalmed and still preserved and some long reduced to skeletal remains, lay silent as they passed by nervously. Eventually they came to a door, beyond which was an old abandoned workroom, full of corroded tools, workbenches, sawhorses, etc. Beyond the workroom were other rooms, including a records room of some sort, full of shelves containing scrolls and books, as well a card catalog that seemed to provide an index to the documents on the shelves.
The party also found some sparsely-furnished living quarters here. In a bedroom a skeleton lay silently on a bed, and seemed to be clutching something to its chest. They nervously approached it, and drew a rolled up parchment from its grasp. It turned out to be a letter, but while the writing was in Ancient Idalian letters, the words were unrecognizable. Gulleck reckoned it to be some kind of cipher, and tucked it away to try to decode later.
Beyond the living quarters they found more catacomb hallways, and within one of the halls the found a heavy stone mausoleum door, standing ajar. Cautiously looking within, they found that the room was full of enormous spiderwebs. Corpses lay on the ground and on stone slabs, but seemed to be wrapped in silk rather than shrouds. A silver chalice sat glittering on a shelf, but it too was draped in webs. Gulleck lit a torch from Caryatid's lantern and set the webs on fire. They evaporated in the flames quickly and satisfyingly, but in response, an enormous shiny black spider came squeezing through a doorway on the opposite side of the crypt. It was easily six feet across, and an ominous red hourglass marking was visible on its bloated abdomen as it pulled itself into the tomb. It rushed at Gulleck, venom-dripping fangs snapping at him as he took cover behind his shield. Caryatid spoke the words of the Magic Missile spell, and a glowing golden arrow appeared at her shoulder and then shot past Gulleck to embed itself in the spider. Then Gulleck's battleaxe came crashing down firmly into the spider's head and it shuddered and fell still in the tomb.
There was a similar mausoleum on the opposite side of the hall, and the party heard voices within. As they cautiously entered, a rough-looking hobbit spotted them and called out, "We got company!" And from out of the inner tomb strode the arrogant elf brothers Death Watch and Cobweb, the leaders of the Night Walkers, a rival party from the Adventurer's Guild. As usual, a variety of barbs were exchanged, the elf brothers scoffing with condescension and Gulleck offering deadpan putdowns. Both sides made employment offers to the others' retainers. Eventually, the groups parted and the party decided it was time to begin returning to the Rusty Lantern.
As they walked through yet another catacomb hall, Ylil suddenly heard something shift behind him, and turned to see a corpse drag itself from one of the niches and begin sprinting towards him with frightening speed and unnervingly silent. It looked much like the creatures they had fled in Snapespindle's basement apartment, and as it approached they got the same whiff of sickly sweet stench that had accompanied the creatures there. Gulleck and Rutger quickly moved to get between Ylil and the creature. Brother Jedidiah raised his holy symbol and pronounced in a quavering voice, "Begone, thou abomination, in the name of God!" But his fear was greater than his faith, apparently, for the creature kept running. Caryatid and Gulleck repeated the same one-two punch that had worked on the spider, with Caryatid's Magic Missile softening it up, and then Gulleck's axe taking the head off the creature with one well-aimed blow.
They returned to the surface without further event, glad to be out of the oppressive, claustrophobic catacombs, but knowing they would soon have to return.
Friday, April 24, 2015
Idalium Game 19: The Great Detectives
Session date: Monday, April 6, 2015
Game date: Thursday, March 21, 208 to Friday, March 22, 208
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 2, hp 14, xp 3105/4000
Tyrriel, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 2743/4000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 3524/5000
Vito Aneti, Thief 2, hp 10, xp 1491/2400
Retainers:
Brother Jibber, Cleric 1, hp 5, xp 1155/1500
Wilhelm, Magic-user 1, hp 4, xp 1102/2500
Ylil, Thief 2, hp 5, xp 1237/2400
Sprat, Thief 1, hp 3, xp 254/1200
Picking up where the last session left off, the Infestation Managers (sometimes known as The Proper Authorities) continued their investigation of the murder and theft that occurred during an auction of strange and occult artifacts. Gulleck's player, and therefore Gulleck, had family obligations and couldn't attend the game.
The party regrouped in the morning, short of sleep, at the Rusty Lantern and then set out to pay a return visit to the apartment of Gregor Snapespindle. Finding the front door of the apartment house unlocked, they entered a small entrance hall. A flight of stairs led upwards, and next to a single door a wooden plaque was engraved, "#2 Andrew Goodman, Manager".
Tod knocked on the door, and it was answered by a gruff, middle-aged man. He didn't seem particularly interested in discussing his tenants' private affairs with strangers. The players tried all sorts of interesting conversational tactics ("He's our old friend and we wanted to surprise him!" "We met him at a party and he dropped something there." "We think he might be a murderer."), all of which only seemed to increase the landlord's skepticism. Tod decided to come straight, announcing that they were representatives of the Adventurer's Guild (thereby breaking the First Rule of the Adventurer's Guild: "You do not talk about the Adventurer's Guild"). Tyrriel tried to bribe him with a single gold daric. Perhaps her elvish heritage gave her a strange perspective on the value of currency, but Goodman was not impressed. He closed his door and would not speak to them anymore.
The group then went upstairs, checking nameplates. On the second floor, a sign read, "#3 Richard Holtson", and on the top floor was "#4 Walter Dornsby". Neither resident seemed to be home, so the group returned downstairs. They found the landlord peering suspiciously from his door. He dropped some blatant hints that he was willing to give them some information for a better price. Eventually they coughed up 10 gold darics, and he told them the peculiar story of how Gregor Snapespindle came to be his tenant.
A couple of years ago, Snapespindle came to him asking to rent a flat. The house was fully occupied, so Goodman tried to turn him away. Snapespindle, however, told him he was specifically interested in renting the basement. The basement was just an unfinished storage room, but that didn't bother Snapespindle; he was willing to have it built out as an apartment at his own expense. It seemed a bit bizarre to the landlord, but Snapespindle had ready cash and was willing to sign a five year lease, so he agreed to the deal. Snapespindle has been a perfectly acceptable tenant since then, keeping mostly to himself but always paying his rent on time.
The group walked around the block, and then approached the back of the house from a rear alley, so as not to be seen by the landlord. Listening at the door that seemed to lead to the basement, they heard nothing, so Vito picked the lock (his player used the Big Green d30 to improve his odds) and they cautiously entered. Gulleck's nose picked up a faint trace of that sickly sweet smell they had noticed at the auction house. They found a candle near the door, and lighting this, they quietly explored the basement apartment. They found a sparsely furnished living room, a small library filled with books and scrolls covering topics ranging from medicine to theology to occult spiritualism, a dining room and kitchen, and then a bedroom, where the sickly sweet stench was stronger than elsewhere. Inside a closet, they discovered a false floor, and below the planks, a trapdoor. They heaved the trapdoor open, revealing a dark shaft plunging into the Earth, with ladder rungs set into the side of the shaft. The smell was suddenly nearly overpowering now.
Vito grabbed some bedclothes from the bed, lit them afire from the candle, and tossed them into the hole. They could see what looked like a stone floor, some 30 feet below, before the sheets burned out. The players debated at great length whether it was foolhardy to climb down into this pit with no weapons or armor, or whether they needed to finish this investigation now, before Snapespindle discovered they had been in his home. Eventually Vito got sick of the arguing and decided he was going below.
The room below was horrible. The walls seemed to be made of slabs stolen from mausoleums, and the rooms was festooned with "tapestries" made of death shrouds and bone fragments. A wooden door led away from the room, and a small table and chair sat in the middle of the room. On the table was an open book, which turned out to be Snapespindle's journal. Tyrriel glanced it over. The last entry confessed to plans to steal the brazen head from the auction, in hopes that its legendary powers would give Snapespindle knowledge and wisdom regarding the true nature of death and what lies beyond it.
The group had little time to discuss this discovery, however, for as they skimmed the diary, the wooden door was pulled open. The sickly sweet stench became overpowering, as four horrific humanoids lunged into the room. They were the walking dead - rotting flesh dripping off their dirty faces, yellowed fangs and claws bared as they snarled with hunger and rage at the group.
"Run!" was the order of the day, and they all backpedalled for the ladder as quickly as they could, Tyrriel snatching up the diary as she went. Vito threw a dagger with perfect aim into the chest of the monster in the front, but it barely seemed to bother it. Fortunately for the party, they were not encumbered by armor and were able to quickly scurry up the ladder before the horrible fiends could reach them. They could hear them snarling below as they pulled themselves back up into the bedroom. They closed the trapdoor and covered it again with the planks, and then fled this sinister apartment.
They chose to take refuge in Tod's apartment, above a pub not too far from the Rusty Lantern. They ate lunch and perused the diary. Gregor Snapespindle appeared to be a man obsessed with, and afraid of death. "What truly occurs at the moment of death? Is it possible that our essential identity survives this transition? Are those spirits that take the form of our predecessors truly the same as they were, or is it merely some sort of trick by demons that have stolen their faces and memories? Is it possible for a man to stave off the inevitable? My communion (in many forms) with the dead has brought me wisdom, but not the ultimate answer."
Snapespindle wrote of his lair within the catacombs and crypts of Ancient Idalium, below the city. He said that the dead were restless there, that there was some unknown power disturbing their sleep. He had not yet found the source of that power, but if he did, he believed it would give him dominion over the dead and access to all of their secrets. He believed that the brazen head could tell him how to find the source of power. The diary described the necessary rituals that would bring the head to life and force it to answer his questions.
The next morning, the group met at the Rusty Lantern to make a scouting run to the catacombs. Unfortunately, they weren't sure where to find such a thing! The diary spoke of a "temple of death", and they were studying their maps in vain to find it. Eventually, they were reduced to asking the Night Walkers for help, who happened to be in the tavern celebrating a successful delve. The haughty elf brothers Deathwatch and Cobweb took 50 gold darics from the PCs and then told them to search in the area of Ancient Idalium where the grand civic buildings are.
So the party descended into the dungeon and made their way to the grand avenue where they had found the bank and the hall of records, etc. At the south end of the avenue, a huge wrought iron gate stood ajar. A sign above it read, "Through these gates all must pass in their own time." Inside the gates, a wide plaza stretched out ahead of them. Two statues of skeletal reapers flanked the entrance. The plaza was dotted with stone benches, on which reclined several crumbling skeletons. There were also little wicker baskets on the ground of the plaza, some of which contained tiny infant skeletons.
A paved path led south from the entrance, lined with three pairs of statues. The statues appeared to be angels, wings held behind their backs, but their faces were covered mournfully by their hands, and they bowed their heads over the central path. The party chose to take the long way around the plaza, eventually coming to the temple of death itself.
Tod pushed the double doors open, and they walked into a vestibule, and were shocked to discover they were not alone. Fortunately, the other party turned out to be the Brothers Fruthwood, an NPC party with whom the group had a cordial relationship. The three hobbit brothers and their comrades were on their way back out of the temple, and the PCs, unnerved enough by the plaza (and short of actual time in the session), decided to accompany them back to the surface.
As they returned to the plaza of the dead, they were alarmed to see that the statues of angels were no longer covering their faces, but now held their hands to their sides. Their faces looked impassively down on the path between them. The Brothers Fruthwood walked between the lines of angels, gazing at them with wonder and trepidation. The party followed hurriedly after, and the two groups made their way back to the Rusty Lantern.
On the way, however, they had a strange encounter. As they turned a corner, they saw some 60 feet along, a humanoid figure holding a torch. It seemed possibly female, and was wearing a full veil that completely obscured its face. It was accompanied by two large dogs, or some kind of dog-like creatures in any event. The figure stared at them for a few moments, and then stepped through a door off of the alley and closed it behind her and her animals.
"She closed the door and ran away! That's our signature move!"
With this strange apparition to speculate on, the two parties swiftly returned to the surface, again short on treasure and experience, but with a clear goal in mind for next week.
I've enjoyed these role-playing heavy sessions, and they are a nice change of pace from the usual dungeoneering, but I think we are all ready for some successful treasure hunting. It's been quite a few sessions since the group had a significant haul of treasure.
Some of my readers may have found the auction scenario a bit familiar. I adapted this from an old Call of Cthulhu scenario called "The Auction", changing the names and setting to better fit my campaign world and the D&D level of technology, etc. It is interesting to see how a Call of Cthulhu scenario adapts to D&D, where the usual reaction to horrible undead monsters is simply "kill it dead again" rather than being filled with primal horror. It helps that my campaign is set in a big city where you can't just walk around all day in full armor and military weaponry, and so descending into the pit beneath Snapespindle's apartment still managed to make the players feel vulnerable and anxious for the safety of their characters.
The next few sessions I expect will take place in the catacombs, a more traditional dungeon setting but I hope I can still carry across a sense of dread and unease. I don't care how well armored you are - creeping around in a crypt full of the restless dead should always be unnerving.
Game date: Thursday, March 21, 208 to Friday, March 22, 208
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 2, hp 14, xp 3105/4000
Tyrriel, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 2743/4000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 3524/5000
Vito Aneti, Thief 2, hp 10, xp 1491/2400
Retainers:
Brother Jibber, Cleric 1, hp 5, xp 1155/1500
Wilhelm, Magic-user 1, hp 4, xp 1102/2500
Ylil, Thief 2, hp 5, xp 1237/2400
Sprat, Thief 1, hp 3, xp 254/1200
Picking up where the last session left off, the Infestation Managers (sometimes known as The Proper Authorities) continued their investigation of the murder and theft that occurred during an auction of strange and occult artifacts. Gulleck's player, and therefore Gulleck, had family obligations and couldn't attend the game.
The party regrouped in the morning, short of sleep, at the Rusty Lantern and then set out to pay a return visit to the apartment of Gregor Snapespindle. Finding the front door of the apartment house unlocked, they entered a small entrance hall. A flight of stairs led upwards, and next to a single door a wooden plaque was engraved, "#2 Andrew Goodman, Manager".
Tod knocked on the door, and it was answered by a gruff, middle-aged man. He didn't seem particularly interested in discussing his tenants' private affairs with strangers. The players tried all sorts of interesting conversational tactics ("He's our old friend and we wanted to surprise him!" "We met him at a party and he dropped something there." "We think he might be a murderer."), all of which only seemed to increase the landlord's skepticism. Tod decided to come straight, announcing that they were representatives of the Adventurer's Guild (thereby breaking the First Rule of the Adventurer's Guild: "You do not talk about the Adventurer's Guild"). Tyrriel tried to bribe him with a single gold daric. Perhaps her elvish heritage gave her a strange perspective on the value of currency, but Goodman was not impressed. He closed his door and would not speak to them anymore.
The group then went upstairs, checking nameplates. On the second floor, a sign read, "#3 Richard Holtson", and on the top floor was "#4 Walter Dornsby". Neither resident seemed to be home, so the group returned downstairs. They found the landlord peering suspiciously from his door. He dropped some blatant hints that he was willing to give them some information for a better price. Eventually they coughed up 10 gold darics, and he told them the peculiar story of how Gregor Snapespindle came to be his tenant.
A couple of years ago, Snapespindle came to him asking to rent a flat. The house was fully occupied, so Goodman tried to turn him away. Snapespindle, however, told him he was specifically interested in renting the basement. The basement was just an unfinished storage room, but that didn't bother Snapespindle; he was willing to have it built out as an apartment at his own expense. It seemed a bit bizarre to the landlord, but Snapespindle had ready cash and was willing to sign a five year lease, so he agreed to the deal. Snapespindle has been a perfectly acceptable tenant since then, keeping mostly to himself but always paying his rent on time.
The group walked around the block, and then approached the back of the house from a rear alley, so as not to be seen by the landlord. Listening at the door that seemed to lead to the basement, they heard nothing, so Vito picked the lock (his player used the Big Green d30 to improve his odds) and they cautiously entered. Gulleck's nose picked up a faint trace of that sickly sweet smell they had noticed at the auction house. They found a candle near the door, and lighting this, they quietly explored the basement apartment. They found a sparsely furnished living room, a small library filled with books and scrolls covering topics ranging from medicine to theology to occult spiritualism, a dining room and kitchen, and then a bedroom, where the sickly sweet stench was stronger than elsewhere. Inside a closet, they discovered a false floor, and below the planks, a trapdoor. They heaved the trapdoor open, revealing a dark shaft plunging into the Earth, with ladder rungs set into the side of the shaft. The smell was suddenly nearly overpowering now.
Vito grabbed some bedclothes from the bed, lit them afire from the candle, and tossed them into the hole. They could see what looked like a stone floor, some 30 feet below, before the sheets burned out. The players debated at great length whether it was foolhardy to climb down into this pit with no weapons or armor, or whether they needed to finish this investigation now, before Snapespindle discovered they had been in his home. Eventually Vito got sick of the arguing and decided he was going below.
The room below was horrible. The walls seemed to be made of slabs stolen from mausoleums, and the rooms was festooned with "tapestries" made of death shrouds and bone fragments. A wooden door led away from the room, and a small table and chair sat in the middle of the room. On the table was an open book, which turned out to be Snapespindle's journal. Tyrriel glanced it over. The last entry confessed to plans to steal the brazen head from the auction, in hopes that its legendary powers would give Snapespindle knowledge and wisdom regarding the true nature of death and what lies beyond it.
The group had little time to discuss this discovery, however, for as they skimmed the diary, the wooden door was pulled open. The sickly sweet stench became overpowering, as four horrific humanoids lunged into the room. They were the walking dead - rotting flesh dripping off their dirty faces, yellowed fangs and claws bared as they snarled with hunger and rage at the group.
"Run!" was the order of the day, and they all backpedalled for the ladder as quickly as they could, Tyrriel snatching up the diary as she went. Vito threw a dagger with perfect aim into the chest of the monster in the front, but it barely seemed to bother it. Fortunately for the party, they were not encumbered by armor and were able to quickly scurry up the ladder before the horrible fiends could reach them. They could hear them snarling below as they pulled themselves back up into the bedroom. They closed the trapdoor and covered it again with the planks, and then fled this sinister apartment.
They chose to take refuge in Tod's apartment, above a pub not too far from the Rusty Lantern. They ate lunch and perused the diary. Gregor Snapespindle appeared to be a man obsessed with, and afraid of death. "What truly occurs at the moment of death? Is it possible that our essential identity survives this transition? Are those spirits that take the form of our predecessors truly the same as they were, or is it merely some sort of trick by demons that have stolen their faces and memories? Is it possible for a man to stave off the inevitable? My communion (in many forms) with the dead has brought me wisdom, but not the ultimate answer."
Snapespindle wrote of his lair within the catacombs and crypts of Ancient Idalium, below the city. He said that the dead were restless there, that there was some unknown power disturbing their sleep. He had not yet found the source of that power, but if he did, he believed it would give him dominion over the dead and access to all of their secrets. He believed that the brazen head could tell him how to find the source of power. The diary described the necessary rituals that would bring the head to life and force it to answer his questions.
The next morning, the group met at the Rusty Lantern to make a scouting run to the catacombs. Unfortunately, they weren't sure where to find such a thing! The diary spoke of a "temple of death", and they were studying their maps in vain to find it. Eventually, they were reduced to asking the Night Walkers for help, who happened to be in the tavern celebrating a successful delve. The haughty elf brothers Deathwatch and Cobweb took 50 gold darics from the PCs and then told them to search in the area of Ancient Idalium where the grand civic buildings are.
So the party descended into the dungeon and made their way to the grand avenue where they had found the bank and the hall of records, etc. At the south end of the avenue, a huge wrought iron gate stood ajar. A sign above it read, "Through these gates all must pass in their own time." Inside the gates, a wide plaza stretched out ahead of them. Two statues of skeletal reapers flanked the entrance. The plaza was dotted with stone benches, on which reclined several crumbling skeletons. There were also little wicker baskets on the ground of the plaza, some of which contained tiny infant skeletons.
A paved path led south from the entrance, lined with three pairs of statues. The statues appeared to be angels, wings held behind their backs, but their faces were covered mournfully by their hands, and they bowed their heads over the central path. The party chose to take the long way around the plaza, eventually coming to the temple of death itself.
Tod pushed the double doors open, and they walked into a vestibule, and were shocked to discover they were not alone. Fortunately, the other party turned out to be the Brothers Fruthwood, an NPC party with whom the group had a cordial relationship. The three hobbit brothers and their comrades were on their way back out of the temple, and the PCs, unnerved enough by the plaza (and short of actual time in the session), decided to accompany them back to the surface.
As they returned to the plaza of the dead, they were alarmed to see that the statues of angels were no longer covering their faces, but now held their hands to their sides. Their faces looked impassively down on the path between them. The Brothers Fruthwood walked between the lines of angels, gazing at them with wonder and trepidation. The party followed hurriedly after, and the two groups made their way back to the Rusty Lantern.
On the way, however, they had a strange encounter. As they turned a corner, they saw some 60 feet along, a humanoid figure holding a torch. It seemed possibly female, and was wearing a full veil that completely obscured its face. It was accompanied by two large dogs, or some kind of dog-like creatures in any event. The figure stared at them for a few moments, and then stepped through a door off of the alley and closed it behind her and her animals.
"She closed the door and ran away! That's our signature move!"
With this strange apparition to speculate on, the two parties swiftly returned to the surface, again short on treasure and experience, but with a clear goal in mind for next week.
I've enjoyed these role-playing heavy sessions, and they are a nice change of pace from the usual dungeoneering, but I think we are all ready for some successful treasure hunting. It's been quite a few sessions since the group had a significant haul of treasure.
Some of my readers may have found the auction scenario a bit familiar. I adapted this from an old Call of Cthulhu scenario called "The Auction", changing the names and setting to better fit my campaign world and the D&D level of technology, etc. It is interesting to see how a Call of Cthulhu scenario adapts to D&D, where the usual reaction to horrible undead monsters is simply "kill it dead again" rather than being filled with primal horror. It helps that my campaign is set in a big city where you can't just walk around all day in full armor and military weaponry, and so descending into the pit beneath Snapespindle's apartment still managed to make the players feel vulnerable and anxious for the safety of their characters.
The next few sessions I expect will take place in the catacombs, a more traditional dungeon setting but I hope I can still carry across a sense of dread and unease. I don't care how well armored you are - creeping around in a crypt full of the restless dead should always be unnerving.
Monday, April 6, 2015
Idalium Game 18: The Auction
Session date: Monday, March 30, 2015
Game date: Wednesday, March 20, 208
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 2, hp 14, xp 3105/4000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 2494/4400
Tyrriel, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 2743/4000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 3524/5000
Vito Aneti, Thief 2, hp 10, xp 1491/2400
This evening's session was a total change of pace for the campaign. There was no dungeon delve tonight, or combat against hideous monsters. Tonight the party attended the semi-annual auction of strange and magical artifacts. We also welcomed the return of Vito's player after a hiatus of several sessions.
Every six months, on the spring and fall equinoxes, the Adventurer's Guild cosponsors an auction of exotic and obscure artifacts. It attracts two groups of bidders: adventuring parties like the PCs and wealthy collectors seeking exotic curiosities. The players received an auction card of the 14 lots that were to be auctioned off, and read through it with interest, deciding which items they were interested in bidding on and how much money they had available to bid with.
At the appointed hour after dark, the party arrived at the Runcible Trading House, an elegant mansion in the wealthy section of the city of Idalium. They were invited into the house by a well-dressed butler, and quickly met by a representative from the Adventurer's Guild, who brought them upstairs to the graciously appointed room where the auction would be held.
In the auction hall, musicians played harp and flute softly in a corner and a buffet dinner was laid out along a series of side tables. The group was shown around the room and introduced to some of the other attendees. The party recognized several other rival adventuring parties from the Rusty Lantern: Rugger's Raiders were there, as were the Night Walkers and Shorty's Sirens.
At the other end of the class spectrum, the PCs were reunited with Baroness Millicent Trenevant and her servant Roger, whom they had met several months ago. Lady Trenevant was at the auction to purchase interesting and artistically pleasing pieces to display in her home. Also at the auction was a Lady Mary Jameson, a snob but one who seemed intrigued and excited to talk to such roughnecks as adventurers. She was here to bid on obscure and intriguing artifacts, and was particularly interested in a brass head on the auction block.
Next the group was introduced to Mr. Vincent Patrenzi. Whereas Lady Trenevant and Lady Mary were dressed expensively but with impeccable taste, Patrenzi (who was not from an old wealthy family but was "nouveau riche") wore gaudy and flashy clothes, showing off his significant wealth. He was looking for exotic curios for his home, and mentioned a special interest in the "hand of glory", a preserved human hand that allegedly held many mysterious powers.
Finally, their host introduced the group to a man named Gregor Snapespindle, a somewhat withdrawn and quiet man. He said he was a collector and researcher of the occult and obscure, and was interested in artifacts with great historical value such as a metal ankh that was being auctioned.
The group had some time to chat with the other attendees of the auction, and eventually the dinner was cleared away, the attendees took their seats in front of a table and the auctioneer's podium, and Lord Runcible himself, the owner of this trading house and the chairman of this auction, stepped forward. He welcomed them to the evening's auction, wished everyone good luck, and began the auction. Each piece was brought forward and displayed to the bidders for several minutes, and there was an opportunity to ask questions about the piece or for it to be displayed from different angles or manipulated. Once the bidders were satisfied, the auction began. As each piece was sold, it was brought to a side table labeled with a card with the winning bidder's name.
The party soon discovered that the bids quickly rose beyond their available funds, and while they bid on a few items, they were not able to bid high enough. Gregor Snapespindle was the winning bidder on the ankh he had his eye on, paying 23,000 silver shekels for the exotic item. Rugger's Raiders paid 12,500 shekels for a magician's cassock, wand, and athame, all decorated with astrological signs. A shaman's medicine bag from the northern barbarians was purchased by Vincent Patrenzi for 7,000 shekels, and he also acquired the hand of glory for 52,800 shekels after a heating bidding war against Rugger's Raiders. Shorty bid 12,000 shekels for a carved wooden fetish and drum from the people who lived far to the south across the Great Sea, and then managed to acquire a magical sword engraved with skeletal patterns for the opening bid of 50,000 after Rugger was unable to bid, having exhausted his party's funds on the magician's accoutrements.
The next item on the agenda was a smoking urn from across the sea to the east, a brass and hold bottle that was warm to the touch and trickling a continuous stream of smoke. There was a delay in fetching the urn from the preparation room, and Lord Runcible filled the space with graceful conversation. After a few more minutes passed, he began to look concerned and sent another servant to see if there was a problem. That servant left the room, and moments later, there was an earsplitting scream from outside the auction room!
Lord Runcible excused himself and left the room, and then returned a few moments later, ashen-faced. "I'm very sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but the auction cannot continue tonight. If you would please collect your winnings and then move quickly to the exit, my staff will escort you out. I offer my humblest apologies. I will let you know when and if we are able to reschedule the remainder of the auction."
The wealthy elite nervously gathered their belongings and left, but most of the adventuring parties lingered behind in case they could help. The Night Walkers were uninterested in extracurricular activities: "We came here to buy magic items, not put our lives at risk! Come, Cobweb, let us leave this place." The two condescending elven brothers and their entourage turned and left. The representative from the Adventurer's Guild looked very concerned. Since the Guild was a cosponsor of these events, an incident that threatened the safety and stability of this auction could undermine any future ones. Lord Runcible accepted any help that was offered, and brought the adventuring groups to the preparation room near the room the auction had been held in.
The servant who had been sent to see what the delay was lay at the threshold of the preparation room, apparently frozen in shock and fear. His eyes darted wildly and his lips trembled but he could not speak or move. Beyond him, the room was a horrible sight indeed. The remains of the first servant who had been retrieving the urn were scattered across the room, torn limb from limb. There were visible claw and perhaps gnaw marks on the body parts. The items for the auction were here, scattered across the floor. The PCs checked the items against their auction card, and noted that only one item was missing - the brass head mentioned by Lady Mary Jameson. Lord Runcible said that there were legends surrounding the brazen head that claimed that with the right ritual it would come to life and answer questions of metaphysical import, but whether there was any truth to that he did not know.
Rugger and his group took one look at the carnage and decided they had had enough for one night. "Good luck everyone, but it's getting kind of late for us." Only Shorty and her sirens remained with the Infestation Managers.
There was a dumbwaiter at the far wall that was used to bring auction items up from the vault in the basement. Trails of blood led to the dumbwaiter, and there a strange, sickly sweet smell that hung in the air. Lord Runcible led the adventuring parties down to the basement. The vault was locked, but when Lord Runcible had it opened, they saw that a tunnel had been dug through the wall and into the vault. The sickly sweet smell was thicker here and there were bloody footprints on the stone floor as well. They didn't quite look human, although they seemed bipedal. Gulleck took a look at the tunnel and judged it to be a very poor tunnel indeed, with no support structure of any kind. Whoever came through simply pushed the dirt and stone aside without regard for air or sight.
The party asked Lord Runcible if he knew of anyone with a particular reason to steal the brazen head. Lord Runcible said he suspected three of the attendees. Lady Mary Jameson, Vincent Patrenzi, and Gregor Snapespindle had all approached him prior to the auction and offered to buy the brazen head. He refused them, as it was already published in the auction listing, and all were visibly disappointed. Snapespindle even stormed angrily from the trading house. The party asked for the addresses of these three and decided to drop by on the pretense of inquiring after their safe arrival home. Shorty's Sirens decided to bail at this point, since it was well after midnight.
Lady Mary's mansion was first on their tour. They were met at a door by a rather stuffy footman, but soon Lady Mary herself came to the door. "Oh, it's the adventurers! Have you come to take me out for drinks? Oh, I'm just teasing, my father would never allow it! Wasn't that thoroughly scandalous tonight!" When Gulleck attempted to tactfully explain that someone had been killed and ripped limb from limb, Lady Mary became quite contrite. "To think I was making light of it and someone has died! How dreadful..." They asked to see her basement, "just to make sure you're not in danger", but there were no signs of any disturbance at the outer walls here.
Then they went to see Vincent Patrenzi. His mansion was as gaudy as his clothes, and he met them at the door and invited them in. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in his basement, either.
Finally, they left the wealthy district and headed back towards the working class neighborhood that houses the Rusty Lantern tavern. On the way, they passed through a middle-class district of craftsmen and merchants, and found the dilapidated three story house that Gregor Snapespindle was said to live in. The front door was closed and they could see no lights in any of the windows. They quietly crept between buildings to investigate the back of the house. Steps led down from a dingy alleyway to a door that apparently led down into a cellar. There were no cellar windows. Gulleck peered into the keyhole and could dimly see (with his infravision) a short hallway ending in another door).
As it was now very late at night, the group decided to return to their homes and get some sleep and reunite in the morning to continue their investigations. Like I said, a definite change of pace, but one that seemed to go over well. The auction was fun to plan for and then simulate the bidding process. Next week, instead of advancing a week forward in game time as usual, we will pick up the situation right where we left off, with the PCs busy investigating a brutal murder and the theft of the mysterious brazen head.
Game date: Wednesday, March 20, 208
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 2, hp 14, xp 3105/4000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 2494/4400
Tyrriel, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 2743/4000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 3524/5000
Vito Aneti, Thief 2, hp 10, xp 1491/2400
This evening's session was a total change of pace for the campaign. There was no dungeon delve tonight, or combat against hideous monsters. Tonight the party attended the semi-annual auction of strange and magical artifacts. We also welcomed the return of Vito's player after a hiatus of several sessions.
Every six months, on the spring and fall equinoxes, the Adventurer's Guild cosponsors an auction of exotic and obscure artifacts. It attracts two groups of bidders: adventuring parties like the PCs and wealthy collectors seeking exotic curiosities. The players received an auction card of the 14 lots that were to be auctioned off, and read through it with interest, deciding which items they were interested in bidding on and how much money they had available to bid with.
At the appointed hour after dark, the party arrived at the Runcible Trading House, an elegant mansion in the wealthy section of the city of Idalium. They were invited into the house by a well-dressed butler, and quickly met by a representative from the Adventurer's Guild, who brought them upstairs to the graciously appointed room where the auction would be held.
In the auction hall, musicians played harp and flute softly in a corner and a buffet dinner was laid out along a series of side tables. The group was shown around the room and introduced to some of the other attendees. The party recognized several other rival adventuring parties from the Rusty Lantern: Rugger's Raiders were there, as were the Night Walkers and Shorty's Sirens.
At the other end of the class spectrum, the PCs were reunited with Baroness Millicent Trenevant and her servant Roger, whom they had met several months ago. Lady Trenevant was at the auction to purchase interesting and artistically pleasing pieces to display in her home. Also at the auction was a Lady Mary Jameson, a snob but one who seemed intrigued and excited to talk to such roughnecks as adventurers. She was here to bid on obscure and intriguing artifacts, and was particularly interested in a brass head on the auction block.
Next the group was introduced to Mr. Vincent Patrenzi. Whereas Lady Trenevant and Lady Mary were dressed expensively but with impeccable taste, Patrenzi (who was not from an old wealthy family but was "nouveau riche") wore gaudy and flashy clothes, showing off his significant wealth. He was looking for exotic curios for his home, and mentioned a special interest in the "hand of glory", a preserved human hand that allegedly held many mysterious powers.
Finally, their host introduced the group to a man named Gregor Snapespindle, a somewhat withdrawn and quiet man. He said he was a collector and researcher of the occult and obscure, and was interested in artifacts with great historical value such as a metal ankh that was being auctioned.
The group had some time to chat with the other attendees of the auction, and eventually the dinner was cleared away, the attendees took their seats in front of a table and the auctioneer's podium, and Lord Runcible himself, the owner of this trading house and the chairman of this auction, stepped forward. He welcomed them to the evening's auction, wished everyone good luck, and began the auction. Each piece was brought forward and displayed to the bidders for several minutes, and there was an opportunity to ask questions about the piece or for it to be displayed from different angles or manipulated. Once the bidders were satisfied, the auction began. As each piece was sold, it was brought to a side table labeled with a card with the winning bidder's name.
The party soon discovered that the bids quickly rose beyond their available funds, and while they bid on a few items, they were not able to bid high enough. Gregor Snapespindle was the winning bidder on the ankh he had his eye on, paying 23,000 silver shekels for the exotic item. Rugger's Raiders paid 12,500 shekels for a magician's cassock, wand, and athame, all decorated with astrological signs. A shaman's medicine bag from the northern barbarians was purchased by Vincent Patrenzi for 7,000 shekels, and he also acquired the hand of glory for 52,800 shekels after a heating bidding war against Rugger's Raiders. Shorty bid 12,000 shekels for a carved wooden fetish and drum from the people who lived far to the south across the Great Sea, and then managed to acquire a magical sword engraved with skeletal patterns for the opening bid of 50,000 after Rugger was unable to bid, having exhausted his party's funds on the magician's accoutrements.
The next item on the agenda was a smoking urn from across the sea to the east, a brass and hold bottle that was warm to the touch and trickling a continuous stream of smoke. There was a delay in fetching the urn from the preparation room, and Lord Runcible filled the space with graceful conversation. After a few more minutes passed, he began to look concerned and sent another servant to see if there was a problem. That servant left the room, and moments later, there was an earsplitting scream from outside the auction room!
Lord Runcible excused himself and left the room, and then returned a few moments later, ashen-faced. "I'm very sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but the auction cannot continue tonight. If you would please collect your winnings and then move quickly to the exit, my staff will escort you out. I offer my humblest apologies. I will let you know when and if we are able to reschedule the remainder of the auction."
The wealthy elite nervously gathered their belongings and left, but most of the adventuring parties lingered behind in case they could help. The Night Walkers were uninterested in extracurricular activities: "We came here to buy magic items, not put our lives at risk! Come, Cobweb, let us leave this place." The two condescending elven brothers and their entourage turned and left. The representative from the Adventurer's Guild looked very concerned. Since the Guild was a cosponsor of these events, an incident that threatened the safety and stability of this auction could undermine any future ones. Lord Runcible accepted any help that was offered, and brought the adventuring groups to the preparation room near the room the auction had been held in.
The servant who had been sent to see what the delay was lay at the threshold of the preparation room, apparently frozen in shock and fear. His eyes darted wildly and his lips trembled but he could not speak or move. Beyond him, the room was a horrible sight indeed. The remains of the first servant who had been retrieving the urn were scattered across the room, torn limb from limb. There were visible claw and perhaps gnaw marks on the body parts. The items for the auction were here, scattered across the floor. The PCs checked the items against their auction card, and noted that only one item was missing - the brass head mentioned by Lady Mary Jameson. Lord Runcible said that there were legends surrounding the brazen head that claimed that with the right ritual it would come to life and answer questions of metaphysical import, but whether there was any truth to that he did not know.
Rugger and his group took one look at the carnage and decided they had had enough for one night. "Good luck everyone, but it's getting kind of late for us." Only Shorty and her sirens remained with the Infestation Managers.
There was a dumbwaiter at the far wall that was used to bring auction items up from the vault in the basement. Trails of blood led to the dumbwaiter, and there a strange, sickly sweet smell that hung in the air. Lord Runcible led the adventuring parties down to the basement. The vault was locked, but when Lord Runcible had it opened, they saw that a tunnel had been dug through the wall and into the vault. The sickly sweet smell was thicker here and there were bloody footprints on the stone floor as well. They didn't quite look human, although they seemed bipedal. Gulleck took a look at the tunnel and judged it to be a very poor tunnel indeed, with no support structure of any kind. Whoever came through simply pushed the dirt and stone aside without regard for air or sight.
The party asked Lord Runcible if he knew of anyone with a particular reason to steal the brazen head. Lord Runcible said he suspected three of the attendees. Lady Mary Jameson, Vincent Patrenzi, and Gregor Snapespindle had all approached him prior to the auction and offered to buy the brazen head. He refused them, as it was already published in the auction listing, and all were visibly disappointed. Snapespindle even stormed angrily from the trading house. The party asked for the addresses of these three and decided to drop by on the pretense of inquiring after their safe arrival home. Shorty's Sirens decided to bail at this point, since it was well after midnight.
Lady Mary's mansion was first on their tour. They were met at a door by a rather stuffy footman, but soon Lady Mary herself came to the door. "Oh, it's the adventurers! Have you come to take me out for drinks? Oh, I'm just teasing, my father would never allow it! Wasn't that thoroughly scandalous tonight!" When Gulleck attempted to tactfully explain that someone had been killed and ripped limb from limb, Lady Mary became quite contrite. "To think I was making light of it and someone has died! How dreadful..." They asked to see her basement, "just to make sure you're not in danger", but there were no signs of any disturbance at the outer walls here.
Then they went to see Vincent Patrenzi. His mansion was as gaudy as his clothes, and he met them at the door and invited them in. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in his basement, either.
Finally, they left the wealthy district and headed back towards the working class neighborhood that houses the Rusty Lantern tavern. On the way, they passed through a middle-class district of craftsmen and merchants, and found the dilapidated three story house that Gregor Snapespindle was said to live in. The front door was closed and they could see no lights in any of the windows. They quietly crept between buildings to investigate the back of the house. Steps led down from a dingy alleyway to a door that apparently led down into a cellar. There were no cellar windows. Gulleck peered into the keyhole and could dimly see (with his infravision) a short hallway ending in another door).
As it was now very late at night, the group decided to return to their homes and get some sleep and reunite in the morning to continue their investigations. Like I said, a definite change of pace, but one that seemed to go over well. The auction was fun to plan for and then simulate the bidding process. Next week, instead of advancing a week forward in game time as usual, we will pick up the situation right where we left off, with the PCs busy investigating a brutal murder and the theft of the mysterious brazen head.
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Player Journals from Session 17
Journal of Tod Quasit for March 16th
Just
one more thing to note. Jibber hasn't stopped smiling in two weeks. And
he's not nearly as judgmental as he used to be. I hope it's just a
phase.
Gulleck's ninth journal
Caryatid's Diary
It is with a heavy heart that I must report the
death of our beloved Elf friend and staunch retainer Twiffle. He
managed to die not once but twice, and that's better then most. This
week he was done in by those most hideous monstrosities we call
Knockers. Like deformed and evil gnomes with hearts of coal and souls of
fungus.
I
suppose it was partially my fault for thinking we could take on a dozen
of them. I don't understand it though. We were well armored. They
shouldn't have been able to keep hitting us. But they did. And Twiffle
is dead. I will drink to his memory when we gather for his wake at The
Thumping Pipes. They put on a good buffet there and the taps are usually
clean.
Did
I mention Jibber died too? Now that's a story. So, we entered the
Under City full of confidence and swagger, because we knew we were the
Proper Authorities. Our plan was to go through the Temple of Lust to
the Under Under City and explore more of the ruins down there. We met
another group of people, led by a terrifying woman going by the name of
Frost. They had black robes on and fancy medals around their necks.
Frost had a very fancy shield. Oh yeh, that reminds me. Enough with the
two-handed sword. I'm through with it. I'm switching to a regular sword
and I'm going to start carrying a shield. Never seem to hit anything
with that two-handed sword anyhow. But back to the story. After a brief
but tense encounter, we parted ways. They were just leaving. We met a
few gnomes with a sack full of coins. And then we discovered someone had
destroyed that beautiful crystal statue that was guarding the way down.
Never thought of fighting the thing. I mean, it was a magical miracle
of technology and an astounding piece of Art! Oh well.
Then
we had to check on the dead rat room. Hah ha!! Full of knockers.
Gulleck and I started stood in the door and let them attack us. For some
reason they kept going after Gulleck. Maybe I scared them. At any rate,
they started hacking away at Gulleck pretty good. He withdrew and
Jibber, resplendent in his shimmering plate mail and large pointy hat
took his place in the door. I'm not sure how, but those little knockers
got through Jibber's plate mail in no time at all and he dropped dead.
In my desperation I started smashing deformed Knocker heads together.
They just kept coming, and the ones in back kept throwing things at us.
It was actually quite impressive. That's when it happened. One of the
knockers threw a dead rat at Twiffle and as if his neck was made of the
most delicate dry wood, it snapped and Twiffle dropped dead on top of
Jibber. After another forty-five minutes, we eventually managed to kill
all the knockers without anyone else dying. I mean, they snapped his
neck with a dead rat. He must have had some sort of severe calcium
deficiency or something right? It was a hell of a shot though. Smack dab
right in the face.
Now
it was time to race with our fallen comrads to the pool of rebirth. And
that's when we ran into the orgy in the temple below. They wouldn't
open the door and I couldn't break it down. Finally they let us through,
we raced to the pool and dumped Jibber in. After what seemed like a few
minutes, he emerged, healthy, happy and apparently enlightened. He just
kept smiling. Then we dumped Twiffle in and nothing. Just nothing.
Gulleck heroically dove into the pool to retrieve Twiffle's body and
when he emerged, he seemed more robust and healthy somehow. So the pool
only works once. Good to know.
Our
spirit broken and our egos bruised, we took Twiffle's soggy body back
to the surface. Once again we had no treasure to show for our troubles,
Just sorrow. Twiffle, I didn't really know you, but I will sort of miss
you. Adieu.
Gulleck's ninth journal
Ol pointy ears is dead. Damned Knockers killed him. Killed
Brother whosit too, but the weird pool brought him back. Guess it only
works once each.
Gonna rip those things apart. Hated em before, hate em more now. Vile abominations of everything natural.
More mad humans down below, too. Cultists and lunatics. Why
anyone would go down into a bunch of ruins for an orgy I just don't
understand. Maybe the sun turns em off or something. Crazy, crazy,
crazy.
Caryatid's Diary
Dear diary:
Death,
death, and more death. Last week we resumed our adventures under the
city, presumably in pursuit of treasure which has been quite elusive of
late. We find creatures, bandits, even orgy-ism-ists, but alas no
treasure. New favorite thing to hate: Knockers. These evil bastards
simply won’t die fast enough, are nearly impossible to kill, and are FAR
too deadly. In an awful fight minutes into our adventuring, We lost
Bother Jibber AND Twiffle to the horrible creatures! We managed to
revive Brother Jibber but the magic bath could not resurrect Twiffle. I
expect to head on over to the magical items auction before we adventure
down below again. I’m in the market for Instant-Death-To-Knockers wand,
or something similar!
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