Session date: Monday, August 24, 2015
Game date: Saturday, June 15, 208
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 4209/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 3, hp 15, xp 5040/10000
Caryatid, Magic-user 3, hp 14, xp 5040/10000
Retainers:
Gaspar, Fighter 1, hp 3, xp 804/2000
Today's delve sought to continue the exploration of the abandoned wizard's quarters on the second level. Again, we had a short roster (foreshadowing: and it was about to get shorter!). At the end of the last adventure, Caryatid (both of them, actually!) had gained enough experience to achieve 3rd level. Caryatid the magic-user is now officially the toughest PC in the party (except of course for the slight issue of having an armor class of 9). Caryatid chose Phantasmal Force as her new 2nd level spell. This spell requires a lot of creativity, and negotiation with the DM on how to rule on the outcome, but it seems like it will really lend itself to a lot of interesting situations that can send the game off in all sorts of unexpected directions. I look forward to seeing it in use.
Down into the dungeon the Infestation Managers descended, but before they got down to the second level of the dungeon, they ran into a pack of undead skeletons, the result of my random dungeon restocking between sessions. Skeletons are weak, but still bad news in Classic D&D: they always attack on sight and never fail morale. The group had no cleric today, making the situation worse. Gulleck and Gaspar stood in the doorway and prepared to meet the charge, and then farcical tragedy struck. "Green Caryatid" (the one that emerged from the pool of rebirth) rolled a 1 while trying to throw a dagger at the skeletons, and then rolled "well" on her subsequent attack roll, and high on her damage roll. Gaspar gasped in shock as Caryatid's dagger plunged into the back of his neck, and then collapsed to the floor with a rattling gurgle.
"Oops," offered Caryatid.
The skeletons pushed inward, trampling Gaspar's lifeless body and scratching viciously at Caryatid. Gulleck swung his magic axe and took the skull of one skeleton, but there were clearly too many. Reluctantly abandoning the body of their comrade Gaspar, the party retreated out of the room, slammed the door shut, and ran as fast as they could back to the rope ladder that led back to the Rusty Lantern tavern.
Not the most auspicious beginning for a session.
The group rested for a couple days to heal their wounds, and Gulleck made some rounds looking for a replacement for Gaspar. He ended up hiring a rather dim but sturdy fighter, whom they nicknamed "Meat". A random name generator gave him the actual name of "Manley". Oh, great, "Manley Meat", our inner 12-year-olds will never stop sniggering at that.
With their new henchman in tow, the group descended back into the dungeons of Idalium. The room they had fled was now vacant of skeletons and the remains of Gaspar, and they descending down to the second level. In the temple of hedonism, they found that abandoned leftover meat had attracted a hoard of dirty rats, swarming over the beds and sofas. They tried to creep past the rats, but the rats took an aggressive turn, and swarmed around the ankles and legs of the PCs, nipping and biting. After Gulleck and Meat slashed a few of them apart, the rest took flight, and the rats never even got to use their signature move of dragging their opponents down to the ground. :-(
The PCs decided to take another route to the wizard's apartment, passing what they suspected to be the lair of the orcs that live on this level. Two orcs stood guard at an intersection glaring at the PCs, and the party lucked out (maybe) and one of the orcs was the very same orc that had befriended Gulleck months ago under the influence of the magical waters of the temple of hedonism. Although Graggle no longer held the same devotion for Gulleck as he once did, he retained enough good will to cut the orcs' toll from 50 gold pieces down to 30.
In an effort to avoid the toll, the group attempted to explore the weird permanently dark room across the hall from the orcs' lair. The room was full of a pitch blackness that even Gulleck's infravision could not penetrate. Gulleck took one end of a length of rope and carefully explored the dark room. The room was pervaded by a cold, foreboding feeling, and the orc guards had looked alarmed as Gulleck entered. He could feel old broken-up furniture like benches or pews. Gulleck traced the wall, and just as he reached a doorway that led out of the room, he came to the end of his rope. Annoyed, he retraced his steps back to the hall, they paid the orcs' toll, and proceeded to the wizards' apartment.
From the sitting room with its eternally-flickering illusion of a fire, the group headed east, finding themselves in a library. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and on the south wall, one bookshelf had been swung away from the wall, revealing a secret room beyond it. Unfortunately, it had long been plundered, and nothing of value remained in the secret study beyond. The books in the library were mostly general interest books (histories, botanical references, etc.) rather than the magical grimoires that Caryatid hoped to find. Regardless, the group sacked up a dozen of the books in the best condition, and returned to the sitting room.
They attempted to go north to explore a hall they hadn't got to last time, but the door was stubborn and Gulleck made a colossal amount of noise trying to force it open. As he finally opened it and they began to proceed northward, they heard a familiar sardonic voice behind them.
"My goodness, Gulleck, we could hear you all the way up and down the hall outside. Try to be a bit more quiet, will you?" It was Shorty "the Mouse", the leader of a rival party ("Shorty's Sirens") with whom the PCs are friendly. The two parties bantered back and forth a bit, and then bid a cheery farewell.
"Try to make less noise on the way out!" called Shorty over her shoulder, laughing as she left. And then there were screams. And the shrieks and howls of some sort of beasts. The Infestation Managers hastily ran back into the sitting room to find Shorty's Sirens under assault by nine large, savage, ferocious baboons. They were wielding broken femurs as clubs, and biting with sharp yellow fangs.
The battle raged. The savage apes were battle-crazed, and Shorty's group was in disarray, being caught offguard and out of formation. Shorty was surrounded by two baboons, and fell with a scream as one sank its teeth into her neck. Talia, her leather-clad thief, was also brought down by a femur to the head. The PCs rushed to aid in the battle. Meat fought the baboons that had killed Shorty, and Gulleck fought bravely against two more. The two Caryatids made good use of their unerring magic missile spells. "Psycho" Sally, the high-strung hobbit, carved baboons up and down with her short sword, giggling hysterically all the while.
Finally, all was still. The room was strewn with the filthy and blood-spattered corpses of the apes, as well as those of Shorty and Talia.
"There's this pool..." began Gulleck.
"Yes, we know of it," replied Father Cedric, the only male member of the Sirens. "But none of us have dared enter it."
"Well, I think now is the time."
So the survivors of Shorty's Sirens carefully lifted their deceased comrades and carried them through the halls of the dungeon to the room of the pool of rebirth. One at a time Shorty and Talia were undressed (Father Cedric turned his back, looking so red that it seemed he would burst afire) and lowered into the pool, emerging moments later completely healed and revitalized. "You can turn back around now, Ced!" smirked Shorty.
"Gulleck, you saved my life. Take this as a token of appreciation for you guys," said Shorty, removing a gold and emerald bracelet from her wrist and handing it to Gulleck.
"Well, thank you, Shorty. Your group have been good friends to us as well. It's the least we could do."
While this sweet exchange was taking place, "Psycho" Sally had been eyeing the pool and now jumped in fully armored with a splash ("Cannonball!"). She clambered back out, looking more hale and hearty than ever (with a permanent +1 bonus to Constitution). And then, shortly afterwards, another Sally climbed out of the pool as well, in identical armor and weaponry.
They goggled at each other.
"No way!" they exclaimed together.
"This is totally awesome! I've always wanted a twin!"
"Yeah, that's how I felt at first, sweetheart," said the original Caryatid in blue. "It isn't quite as cool as I expected," she mused with a suspicious look at the green-clad Caryatid.
Gulleck acquired enough experience on this delve to achieve third level, matching Caryatid in hit points. He has been biding his time, hoping to acquire enough experience and gold to embark on an expedition through the wilderness to his ancestral Dwarven home, where he hoped to bury the bones of his grandfather. So it may be in the future that we bid the megadungeon farewell for a little while, and experience a harrowing journey through the unpatrolled wilderness. We shall see where the adventure leads.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Monday, August 31, 2015
Idalium Game 31: The Goblins, the Prince, and the Wardrobe
Session date: Monday, August 17, 2015
Game date: Saturday, June 8, 208
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 4025/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 10, xp 4838/5000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 10, xp 4838/5000
Retainers:
Gaspar, Fighter 1, hp 3, xp 712/2000
Another short roster, but the players were eager to continue exploring the northern reaches of the second level. Down through the Temple of Hedonism the party went, towards the area they had left off in at the end of the last session. Instead of continuing to the north, they turned east down a long common hall that they had previously passed by.
A short ways along this hall they found a pair of doors on the left wall. Pictorial signs hung next to them, the first depicting a pair of steaming kettles and the second showing several rolled scrolls. In the first room they found the remains of what appeared to have once been a snack shop. Rusty old kettles and cauldrons stood at the back of the shop, and shelves and counters filled the front. The front counter had a locked drawer that no one in the party was equipped to open, so Gulleck took the direct approach and pried it open with a crowbar. Inside was a strange metal cone, somewhat like a small trumpet horn. They vaguely remembered finding one of these before, but nobody could remember where. Eventually, someone got the idea to put it to their ear while asking someone else to speak to them. They were startled to discover the cone converted the words to an unfamiliar language, though Gulleck thought perhaps it sounded like the Ancient Idalian spoken by the statues in the town square and the skeleton statue in the Temple of the Dead. Meanwhile, Caryatid was investigating the cauldrons in the back of the shop, and found one with a false bottom. Gulleck's crowbar hooked and pulled out the bottom, and they were pleased to see hundreds of silver coins, neatly stacked in the cauldron. Gulleck filled a large sack with coins and Gaspar filled his backpack.
The door to the shop next door was extremely stubborn and Gulleck and Gaspar pounded on it repeatedly before it would open. All the noise echoing through the halls drew forth four goblins from farther down the hall to the east. They were giggling and snickering as they watched the PCs bashing on the door. "Shhhh! You'll wake something awful!"
Gulleck exchanged some curt words with the goblins and went back to working on the door. The goblins watched with amusement and cheered when he finally got the door open. Inside was another abandoned shop, a newstand full of rotting and faded papers. None seemed to be salvageable, but beneath a heavy canvas tarp in the back of shop the PCs found a large wooden check, secured with a large padlock. Again, Gulleck's crowbar was put to good use, and the padlock was snapped off. Quietly cursing the decision to go without their thief retainer, Ylil, today, the decision was made to have Gulleck carefully open the chest. There was a loud TWANG, and a crossbow bolt embedded itself in the wall behind Gulleck. This sent the goblins into paroxysms of laughter. Gulleck peeked inside to find hundreds of silver and gold coins within. He calmly closed the lid and declared, "Nothin' in there!" to the goblins.
The goblins narrowed their eyes and became more serious. They guessed the score, and made an offer to the party. "Well, now. There are four of you and four of us. I think that means we should split that treasure evenly." They sat themselves down in the doorway and refused to move.
Gulleck and Caryatid laughed outright, but the goblins would not be deterred. In the end, the goblins made a curious threat: split the treasure with them, or they would sing at the top of their lungs and see who or what showed up to investigate the sound. "Fine, go ahead," said Gulleck. "Teach it to me and I'll join in." The goblins started singing a strange, yodelling song, which echoed down the corridor. Gulleck attempted to pick up the chorus and join in. I think he was hoping for something that hates goblins to show up, but when I rolled on the wandering monster table, the thing that did show up was... four more goblins!
"This is not exactly how I hoped this would go," reflected Gulleck. The new goblins seemed less interested in playing games with the party. "There's eight of us, and only four of you. How about you just give us that treasure?" They drew swords and prepared to charge into the room to fight for it. Caryatid drew forth the ever-useful wand of fear, and with a flick of the wrist released its magic upon the malevolent creatures. All but one goblin failed their saving throws and fled, and the one remaining one abruptly failed its morale check and scrambled frantically after his fleeing companions. The terrified screams of the goblins echoes along the hall, eventually fading away.
It now became an issue that the party only possessed one sack, the one Gulleck had filled with coins. They filled their backpacks with gold and silver, but the chest still remained over half full when they had done so. They made the uncomfortable decision to leave the rest of the silver here, return to the Rusty Lantern with what they could carry, and hopefully return for the rest later. (D&D is in many ways a game about logistics and trade-offs, so this kind of situation is important not to just hand-wave away. The players were forced to make a difficult decision here, in part due to the fact that they neglected to bring enough carrying capacity for a bulky haul like this.)
As they left the shop to return home, the drums started up, echoing through the corridors of the dungeon, the drums that indicated that the orcs were conducting some foul frenzied ritual in the desecrated temple near the Temple of Hedonism. And indeed, on their way back to the exit, the party encountered a group of orcs on their way to the ceremony.
"Hey, whatcha got in that sack?" asked one of the orcs of Gulleck.
"Goblins!" bluffed Gulleck.
"Er... live goblins?"
"They were alive."
The orc grunted. "We could have used live goblins for the ceremony."
Another orc hastened his fellow along, and they turned the corner and headed away towards the pounding drumbeat.
They crept by the orcs' temple, where amid the drums and the gutteral yelping they thought they heard a panicked clucking of chickens. This wasn't enough to entice them into a battle with the orcs, and they crept quietly onwards. And then the wandering monster table came up with my beloved dungeon-wide "Other" entry, exactly as it did in this very stretch of hallway where they met the Queen of Nightmares!
Much like that incident, the party became aware of a large entourage coming their way. Tinny trumpets bleated out, and a goblin voice called, "Make way! Make way and pay tribute to his pre-eminance, his magnificence, his extravagance, the Goblin Prince!" The PCs flattened themselves against the walls and willed the entourage to pass by. There were over a dozen goblins, a half dozen of the tall goblins (sometimes called hobgoblins), and a pair of the tall lanky hairy monsters with their eerie staring eyes. Among the entourage of goblins strode a jolly and rotund goblin in ridiculous finery. Although he had the same pallid gray skin and strange features of all goblins, he looked for all the world like a fat spoiled schoolboy.
"Oh, greetings to my subjects!" he called to the adventurers. "I see you have come to pay me tribute! How kind of you to bring such a full sack of gifts!" He pointed to the sack of coins Gulleck carried over his shoulder. Gulleck attempted to hand over a bottle of wine instead. This was happily accepted by the prince, but he would not be put off. Nor would the magical earpiece serve as a substitute. One of the very tall hairy goblins loomed over Gulleck intimidatingly. "His Highness is ready to receive your tribute!" it hooted in its bizarre hollow voice.
"Oh, fine," grumbled Gulleck, realizing that at least the bag only contained silver coins.
"Excellent!" chirped the Goblin Prince. "Enjoy your stay in my domain!"
And the entourage struck up the bleating of trumpets and marched off into the dark, past the pounding drums of the orcs.
Annoyed at losing their coins but relieved to have escaped the goblin entourage, they swiftly made their way back upstairs and up to the Rusty Lantern. After taking a few hours to visit some of the shops near the tavern and buy a few more sacks, they returned to the dungeon to collect the rest of the coins and continue their explorations.
Luckily, the chest of coins had not been disturbed in their absence, and the PCs were able to distribute the remaining silver pieces among the four party members. Then they explored further along the hallway, and found a door that led to an old apartment. They found a living room full of musty old furniture. On a stand was a broken harp and an intact lute. There were shelves full of faded and mildewed papers. Most were unreadable, but they did find a scroll full of small punched-out holes. It was labelled, "An Air of Prosperity", just as the one they had found all chewed-up in the hydraulic organ in the Temple of Music.
Beyond the living room, they found a grand hall with a long dining table. The walls were painted with spooky portraits, whose eyes seemed to follow the PCs as they moved through the room. Beyond this hall, they found a bedroom with a tattered velvet canopy bed, and a pair of wardrobes. One wardrobe contained just a few moth-eaten cloaks, but the other was surprisingly full of coats and robes, such that the back of the wardrobe could not be seen.
The players were immediately suspicious of this! Gulleck ventured into the wardrobe at the end of a rope, and found that the coats and robes continued far deeper than one could possibly expect from this wardrobe. After about 15', he found another pair of wooden doors, like the inside of the wardrobe doors. Light glimmered behind the crack in the doors.
Gulleck returned to the bedroom and conferred with the party. They tied one end of the rope to the bed and then entered the wardrobe together. Pushing the doors open at the other end, they saw an empty, dusty room with bleached wooden floorboards. Late afternoon light streamed in from an open window, and dust motes hung in the light. From the window came the faint cry of gulls. Thoroughly weirded out, the party emerged from a plain wooden wardrobe against one wall, the only furniture in this room. Crossing the room to the window, they looked out and discovered themselves to be on the third floor of a house in what looked to be the neighborhood of The Steps, the old and rundown district that lay across the river from the city of Idalium. They could see the harbor to the south, and to the left they could see the city. It was approaching twilight, and the air above the city was already starting to haze over with smoke from its many chimneys.
The four adventurers crept out of the room, and entered a hall where doors led to other rooms, and creaky wooden stairs led down two flights to the entrance of the house. The front door and windows were boarded over with planks. Gulleck's crowbar came in handy again as he tore the planks off the front door, and the party carefully stepped out into a desolate side street on the hillside to the west of the city. There were only a few houses here, and they were similarly boarded up and decrepit. The two Caryatids and Gaspar waited at the house, while Gulleck crept down the street to investigate. He emerged onto a larger street, and was relieved to see other inhabitants going about their business. They gave peculiar looks at his plate armor, shield, and battle axe, and he hurried back up the side street. (I think for a moment there he was concerned they have traveled in time or to some alternate reality!)
Pleased at finding another entrance/exit to the dungeon, they re-entered the house, made an effort at nailing the planks over the door again, and went back upstairs to the wardrobe. When they passed through it, they were relieved again to find that they returned to the same bedroom in the dungeon that they had left from.
They left this set of rooms, and moved further along the hall. An ornately carved archway led north to a heavy wooden door. Above the arch was inscribed, "Quake, mere mortals, as you enter the realm of the great Frobnitzim." The door led to a once-elegant sitting room. A fire burned without noise or heat in a fireplace without a chimney. Doors led in all four directions.
To the west, they found a large room with a circle and triangle inlaid in brass on the floor. Braziers stood at the points of the triangle and the four cardinal directions on the circle. The braziers contained burnt remnants of various spices and herbs. The "newer" Caryatid took a great interest in this, and collected samples of the substances in the braziers for later investigation.
To the north of the sitting room, they found a bedroom with a large bed without legs, floating incongruously in mid-air. They made a great deal of noise trying to open the door to this room, though, and were startled by five tall goblins who strolled up behind them. One of the goblins was Margleton, who they had met many weeks ago in the Temple of Hedonism.
"Shush now! The homes of wizards still hold many dangers. There is a saying in our realm: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. This may hold true even for long-departed wizards."
The party conversed amicably with the goblins, and were invited to their palace. "Oh, you must come and feast with us! We would simply love to have you for dinner."
"What sort of food do you serve?" asked Gulleck nervously.
"Oh, the most wonderful foods, the likes you have never seen. Fruits of such ripeness and beauty! Once you have tasted them, you will never want to leave! You will want to stay with us, and dine with us forever and ever! Oh, but I am being too forward. Come to the palace, and see for yourself!"
"Now there's somewhere I don't think I ever want to go," mused Gulleck after the goblins had departed with a flourish. The party, too, decided it was time to depart. They returned to the Rusty Lantern with vague ideas about buying or renting the abandoned house in The Steps, to have a quick entrance or escape route from the dungeon. And perhaps it might be a worthwhile investment, as the party returned to the Rusty Lantern just as the guards were making preparations to seal the trapdoor for the night.
Game date: Saturday, June 8, 208
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 4025/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 10, xp 4838/5000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 10, xp 4838/5000
Retainers:
Gaspar, Fighter 1, hp 3, xp 712/2000
Another short roster, but the players were eager to continue exploring the northern reaches of the second level. Down through the Temple of Hedonism the party went, towards the area they had left off in at the end of the last session. Instead of continuing to the north, they turned east down a long common hall that they had previously passed by.
A short ways along this hall they found a pair of doors on the left wall. Pictorial signs hung next to them, the first depicting a pair of steaming kettles and the second showing several rolled scrolls. In the first room they found the remains of what appeared to have once been a snack shop. Rusty old kettles and cauldrons stood at the back of the shop, and shelves and counters filled the front. The front counter had a locked drawer that no one in the party was equipped to open, so Gulleck took the direct approach and pried it open with a crowbar. Inside was a strange metal cone, somewhat like a small trumpet horn. They vaguely remembered finding one of these before, but nobody could remember where. Eventually, someone got the idea to put it to their ear while asking someone else to speak to them. They were startled to discover the cone converted the words to an unfamiliar language, though Gulleck thought perhaps it sounded like the Ancient Idalian spoken by the statues in the town square and the skeleton statue in the Temple of the Dead. Meanwhile, Caryatid was investigating the cauldrons in the back of the shop, and found one with a false bottom. Gulleck's crowbar hooked and pulled out the bottom, and they were pleased to see hundreds of silver coins, neatly stacked in the cauldron. Gulleck filled a large sack with coins and Gaspar filled his backpack.
The door to the shop next door was extremely stubborn and Gulleck and Gaspar pounded on it repeatedly before it would open. All the noise echoing through the halls drew forth four goblins from farther down the hall to the east. They were giggling and snickering as they watched the PCs bashing on the door. "Shhhh! You'll wake something awful!"
Gulleck exchanged some curt words with the goblins and went back to working on the door. The goblins watched with amusement and cheered when he finally got the door open. Inside was another abandoned shop, a newstand full of rotting and faded papers. None seemed to be salvageable, but beneath a heavy canvas tarp in the back of shop the PCs found a large wooden check, secured with a large padlock. Again, Gulleck's crowbar was put to good use, and the padlock was snapped off. Quietly cursing the decision to go without their thief retainer, Ylil, today, the decision was made to have Gulleck carefully open the chest. There was a loud TWANG, and a crossbow bolt embedded itself in the wall behind Gulleck. This sent the goblins into paroxysms of laughter. Gulleck peeked inside to find hundreds of silver and gold coins within. He calmly closed the lid and declared, "Nothin' in there!" to the goblins.
The goblins narrowed their eyes and became more serious. They guessed the score, and made an offer to the party. "Well, now. There are four of you and four of us. I think that means we should split that treasure evenly." They sat themselves down in the doorway and refused to move.
Gulleck and Caryatid laughed outright, but the goblins would not be deterred. In the end, the goblins made a curious threat: split the treasure with them, or they would sing at the top of their lungs and see who or what showed up to investigate the sound. "Fine, go ahead," said Gulleck. "Teach it to me and I'll join in." The goblins started singing a strange, yodelling song, which echoed down the corridor. Gulleck attempted to pick up the chorus and join in. I think he was hoping for something that hates goblins to show up, but when I rolled on the wandering monster table, the thing that did show up was... four more goblins!
"This is not exactly how I hoped this would go," reflected Gulleck. The new goblins seemed less interested in playing games with the party. "There's eight of us, and only four of you. How about you just give us that treasure?" They drew swords and prepared to charge into the room to fight for it. Caryatid drew forth the ever-useful wand of fear, and with a flick of the wrist released its magic upon the malevolent creatures. All but one goblin failed their saving throws and fled, and the one remaining one abruptly failed its morale check and scrambled frantically after his fleeing companions. The terrified screams of the goblins echoes along the hall, eventually fading away.
It now became an issue that the party only possessed one sack, the one Gulleck had filled with coins. They filled their backpacks with gold and silver, but the chest still remained over half full when they had done so. They made the uncomfortable decision to leave the rest of the silver here, return to the Rusty Lantern with what they could carry, and hopefully return for the rest later. (D&D is in many ways a game about logistics and trade-offs, so this kind of situation is important not to just hand-wave away. The players were forced to make a difficult decision here, in part due to the fact that they neglected to bring enough carrying capacity for a bulky haul like this.)
As they left the shop to return home, the drums started up, echoing through the corridors of the dungeon, the drums that indicated that the orcs were conducting some foul frenzied ritual in the desecrated temple near the Temple of Hedonism. And indeed, on their way back to the exit, the party encountered a group of orcs on their way to the ceremony.
"Hey, whatcha got in that sack?" asked one of the orcs of Gulleck.
"Goblins!" bluffed Gulleck.
"Er... live goblins?"
"They were alive."
The orc grunted. "We could have used live goblins for the ceremony."
Another orc hastened his fellow along, and they turned the corner and headed away towards the pounding drumbeat.
They crept by the orcs' temple, where amid the drums and the gutteral yelping they thought they heard a panicked clucking of chickens. This wasn't enough to entice them into a battle with the orcs, and they crept quietly onwards. And then the wandering monster table came up with my beloved dungeon-wide "Other" entry, exactly as it did in this very stretch of hallway where they met the Queen of Nightmares!
Much like that incident, the party became aware of a large entourage coming their way. Tinny trumpets bleated out, and a goblin voice called, "Make way! Make way and pay tribute to his pre-eminance, his magnificence, his extravagance, the Goblin Prince!" The PCs flattened themselves against the walls and willed the entourage to pass by. There were over a dozen goblins, a half dozen of the tall goblins (sometimes called hobgoblins), and a pair of the tall lanky hairy monsters with their eerie staring eyes. Among the entourage of goblins strode a jolly and rotund goblin in ridiculous finery. Although he had the same pallid gray skin and strange features of all goblins, he looked for all the world like a fat spoiled schoolboy.
"Oh, greetings to my subjects!" he called to the adventurers. "I see you have come to pay me tribute! How kind of you to bring such a full sack of gifts!" He pointed to the sack of coins Gulleck carried over his shoulder. Gulleck attempted to hand over a bottle of wine instead. This was happily accepted by the prince, but he would not be put off. Nor would the magical earpiece serve as a substitute. One of the very tall hairy goblins loomed over Gulleck intimidatingly. "His Highness is ready to receive your tribute!" it hooted in its bizarre hollow voice.
"Oh, fine," grumbled Gulleck, realizing that at least the bag only contained silver coins.
"Excellent!" chirped the Goblin Prince. "Enjoy your stay in my domain!"
And the entourage struck up the bleating of trumpets and marched off into the dark, past the pounding drums of the orcs.
Annoyed at losing their coins but relieved to have escaped the goblin entourage, they swiftly made their way back upstairs and up to the Rusty Lantern. After taking a few hours to visit some of the shops near the tavern and buy a few more sacks, they returned to the dungeon to collect the rest of the coins and continue their explorations.
Luckily, the chest of coins had not been disturbed in their absence, and the PCs were able to distribute the remaining silver pieces among the four party members. Then they explored further along the hallway, and found a door that led to an old apartment. They found a living room full of musty old furniture. On a stand was a broken harp and an intact lute. There were shelves full of faded and mildewed papers. Most were unreadable, but they did find a scroll full of small punched-out holes. It was labelled, "An Air of Prosperity", just as the one they had found all chewed-up in the hydraulic organ in the Temple of Music.
Beyond the living room, they found a grand hall with a long dining table. The walls were painted with spooky portraits, whose eyes seemed to follow the PCs as they moved through the room. Beyond this hall, they found a bedroom with a tattered velvet canopy bed, and a pair of wardrobes. One wardrobe contained just a few moth-eaten cloaks, but the other was surprisingly full of coats and robes, such that the back of the wardrobe could not be seen.
The players were immediately suspicious of this! Gulleck ventured into the wardrobe at the end of a rope, and found that the coats and robes continued far deeper than one could possibly expect from this wardrobe. After about 15', he found another pair of wooden doors, like the inside of the wardrobe doors. Light glimmered behind the crack in the doors.
Gulleck returned to the bedroom and conferred with the party. They tied one end of the rope to the bed and then entered the wardrobe together. Pushing the doors open at the other end, they saw an empty, dusty room with bleached wooden floorboards. Late afternoon light streamed in from an open window, and dust motes hung in the light. From the window came the faint cry of gulls. Thoroughly weirded out, the party emerged from a plain wooden wardrobe against one wall, the only furniture in this room. Crossing the room to the window, they looked out and discovered themselves to be on the third floor of a house in what looked to be the neighborhood of The Steps, the old and rundown district that lay across the river from the city of Idalium. They could see the harbor to the south, and to the left they could see the city. It was approaching twilight, and the air above the city was already starting to haze over with smoke from its many chimneys.
The four adventurers crept out of the room, and entered a hall where doors led to other rooms, and creaky wooden stairs led down two flights to the entrance of the house. The front door and windows were boarded over with planks. Gulleck's crowbar came in handy again as he tore the planks off the front door, and the party carefully stepped out into a desolate side street on the hillside to the west of the city. There were only a few houses here, and they were similarly boarded up and decrepit. The two Caryatids and Gaspar waited at the house, while Gulleck crept down the street to investigate. He emerged onto a larger street, and was relieved to see other inhabitants going about their business. They gave peculiar looks at his plate armor, shield, and battle axe, and he hurried back up the side street. (I think for a moment there he was concerned they have traveled in time or to some alternate reality!)
Pleased at finding another entrance/exit to the dungeon, they re-entered the house, made an effort at nailing the planks over the door again, and went back upstairs to the wardrobe. When they passed through it, they were relieved again to find that they returned to the same bedroom in the dungeon that they had left from.
They left this set of rooms, and moved further along the hall. An ornately carved archway led north to a heavy wooden door. Above the arch was inscribed, "Quake, mere mortals, as you enter the realm of the great Frobnitzim." The door led to a once-elegant sitting room. A fire burned without noise or heat in a fireplace without a chimney. Doors led in all four directions.
To the west, they found a large room with a circle and triangle inlaid in brass on the floor. Braziers stood at the points of the triangle and the four cardinal directions on the circle. The braziers contained burnt remnants of various spices and herbs. The "newer" Caryatid took a great interest in this, and collected samples of the substances in the braziers for later investigation.
To the north of the sitting room, they found a bedroom with a large bed without legs, floating incongruously in mid-air. They made a great deal of noise trying to open the door to this room, though, and were startled by five tall goblins who strolled up behind them. One of the goblins was Margleton, who they had met many weeks ago in the Temple of Hedonism.
"Shush now! The homes of wizards still hold many dangers. There is a saying in our realm: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. This may hold true even for long-departed wizards."
The party conversed amicably with the goblins, and were invited to their palace. "Oh, you must come and feast with us! We would simply love to have you for dinner."
"What sort of food do you serve?" asked Gulleck nervously.
"Oh, the most wonderful foods, the likes you have never seen. Fruits of such ripeness and beauty! Once you have tasted them, you will never want to leave! You will want to stay with us, and dine with us forever and ever! Oh, but I am being too forward. Come to the palace, and see for yourself!"
"Now there's somewhere I don't think I ever want to go," mused Gulleck after the goblins had departed with a flourish. The party, too, decided it was time to depart. They returned to the Rusty Lantern with vague ideas about buying or renting the abandoned house in The Steps, to have a quick entrance or escape route from the dungeon. And perhaps it might be a worthwhile investment, as the party returned to the Rusty Lantern just as the guards were making preparations to seal the trapdoor for the night.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Player Journals from Session 30
Journal entry from Caryatid:
Dear diary:
It
has been the weirdest several weeks in the Adventurers Guild! First,
that Vito guy has simply disappeared, haven't seen him in over a month, I
fear he has suffered a horrible fate, or worse, joined another band of
adventurers!
Our untiring group finally did find Snapespindle
in the catacombs and it was my mighty magic missile spell that defeated
his sorry butt! Our dry spell of no treasure finally ended and we have
found and sold many items including the Brazed Head, Blood Ankh, some
gems, and many coins. We even found a punching bag piñata filled with
silver coins.
The most bizarre thing ever happened; in a
moment of selfish stupidity, I took a dip in the rebirthing pool hoping
to gain some strength or wisdom or some other random benefit and
something very weird occurred: I got duplicated. Now, I am keenly aware
that I am the original, but this clone, or "Dopplemage" can't seem to
wrap her brain around the fact that she is a magically-created twin.
Sometimes frustrating, but having double the magic power has been
advantageous, so I tolerate her. I don't see why no one else can tell
the difference, but that's on them. I hope to make the trip to the
mountains to see Granny Weatherwax soon and learn some more powerful
magic. She will know what to do about this extra twin.
Idalium Game 30: Take Me to the River
Session date: Monday, August 10, 2015
Game date: Saturday, June 1, 208
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 1, hp 5, xp 1592/2000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 3904/4400
Tyrriel, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 3309/4000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 10, xp 4717/5000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 10, xp 4717/5000
Retainers:
Brother Jibber, Cleric 1, hp 5, xp 1464/1500
Gaspar, Fighter 1, hp 3, xp 651/2000
Wilhelm, Magic-user 1, hp 4, xp 1386/2500
Today we had the full crew of four regular players (Vito's player has had all his free time crushed out of him by a new job, though we hope to eventually see him again someday). Having discovered the Goblin Market last session, the group now turned their focus to exploring some of the northern areas of the second level. They had a scrap of a treasure map from the gnomes, though it didn't really tell them how to find it, just how to recognize it when they stumbled upon it.
Down into the dungeon and along well-trodden paths they went. As always, I roll after each session to restock the dungeon rooms previously visited, and they had a few speed bumps on the way down to the second level. In a robing room behind the temple with the basin of blood, they encountered half a dozen skeletons. Tod swiftly took the skull off of one with his sword, and Brother Jibber's earnest exhortations repelled the skeletons far enough that the others could pelt them with slings and arrows until they moved no more. Then, slightly further along, in the vestibule of the Temple of Hedonism, they found two dessicated knocker corpses on the floor. Gulleck cautiously stepped forward and was pounced on by a giant crab spider! Three more of the venomous beasts emerged from behind the statues that flank the entrance. Tyrriel put two of them to a deep magical sleep, and Caryatid used her wand to instill a frenzied fear into another. It had nowhere to run except back behind a statue, where it and the others were destroyed easily. The wand of fear has been very useful and the players are a bit nervous about what they will do when its power is finally consumed.
Down to the second level they went. They headed west from the Temple of Hedonism, past the room with the pool of rebirth, and turning north. They walked past a door that led to a room of unnatural darkness, and past a crevice in the left wall, where a continuous trickle of smoke carried an exotic spicy aroma up a chimney in the natural rock. They listened at a door where Tyrriel heard a low droning buzz, and no one wanted to go in to find out if it was giant bees or something else.
Farther north they explored. A door on the left led to an old bathhouse. In the middle of a 30' square room, a large pool lay covered in murky, scum-topped water. Old crumbling mosaics on the wall depicted nymphs frolicking gaily. The party considered the water of the pool with some skepticism. Tod assembled his ten foot pole (it collapses into three pieces) and dragged the pole across the bottom of the pool. The pool was perhaps three feet deep, and near the center, Tod felt the pole hit something that felt yielding but heavy. It couldn't be moved with the pole, so Tod decided to wade into the pool and retrieve it by hand.
The cold, scummy water chilled his legs as he strode into the pool. The thing in the middle of the pool turned out to be a rotting leather satchel full of coins. As Tod looked up to tell the news to the rest of the party, who were anxiously watching him, his eyes widened as he saw the mosaic on the far wall seem to come to life! The alluring nymphs seemed to twist and warp before his very eyes, until they looked like malevolent nixies with seaweed for hair. The nixies beckoned Tod to join them in the water, and he suddenly found himself overcome with a horrible compulsion to lay down in the water. Water filled his nose and mouth, but the urge to breathe seemed to have lost its usual urgency.
The party all yelled at each other at once, trying to decide what to do, but in the end Tyrriel quickly waded into the pool to grab Tod's body from the bottom of the pool. She too saw the beckoning nixies, but was able to withstand the compulsion that nagged at her mind. Tod was heavy, but she was able to lift his face above the water and drag him to the edge of the pool. He was still clutching the leather sack, which turned out to contain several hundred gold and silver coins. After spending some time to allow Tod to cough up the cold and dank water from his lungs and catch his breath, the group moved on, exploring further north along the long common hallway.
A tarnished brass plaque next to a door read (in Ancient Idalian), "Lorinthus, Centurion, 4th Century, 6th Cohort". Tod pushed the door open and the group found themselves in a short interior hallway with three doors leading off it. Through the left door they found what was once an exercise room, full of rusted athletic equipment, including a mildewed and tattered punching bag hanging from the ceiling by a chain. Tod gave it a punch and was surprised to hear the unmistakable clink of coins. Gulleck's axe tore through the seam on the side and hundreds of silver coins spilled out of the bag. They shook their heads once again at the oddity of the Ancient Idalians (as they collected the coins).
Beyond this room they found a nearly bare bedchamber, decorated in a very spartan and martial manner. There was nothing of value in this room, but beyond an open doorway they could see what looked to be a room full of trophies of wall. Battered shields and broken weapons were mounted on the walls, and a life-sized statue of a man worn a beautiful, still-shiny suit of plate armor, including a helmet with a dyed crest of horse hair. The statue was of a dull metal, possibly iron, and had merely the suggestion of a face and was not a likeness of any particular person.
Gulleck stepped forward to investigate the statue and was surprised when it leapt into motion, drawing back its immense iron fists to attack him. It pounded him again and again, leaving heavy dents in his shield as he ducked behind it to avoid the onslaught. Tod and the others were unable to land a blow on the statue, but Caryatid sent two Magic Missiles into its iron torso and it staggered backwards and came to the a halt on one knee, the animating principle seemingly gone from its now inert body. Tod carefully removed the fancy suit of plate armor from the inert statue, and strapped in on in place of his own. Some of the retainers were enlisted to carry out the pieces of his old armor for later resale.
(As a DM, I used to think the Magic Missile spell was kind of weak compared to other spells like Sleep or Charm Person, but I have to say, the ability to always hit is incredibly useful, especially in a "swingy" system like B/X D&D where finishing a fight as soon as possible is always in your best interest. Caryatid has been absolutely crucial in defeating several "boss" type encounters singlehandedly, and we all have a definite appreciation for the Magic Missile spell now!)
Further up the same hall to the north, the party investigated an apartment decorated with a definite maritime theme. Mosaics and frescoes depicted fish and fishermen, etc. Beyond a closed door they found a bedroom where seven bandits were standing around discussing a large stuffed and mounted bass. They went through the roof when the door burst open behind them, and drew swords and screamed at the party to leave. Tod pulled the door shut again, and then called, "How much do you want for that fish?"
There was a sudden silence, and then a more subdued voice replied, "How much you offerin'?"
Gulleck asked, "Depends. Does it sing or something?"
Silence again, and then from behind the door came a warbling, off-key rendition of some old song: "I wanna know, can you help me, I love to staaaaaay..."
Nobody fell for that. Eventually Tod paid the bandits 20 gold darics for the fish, for novelty value alone, I guess. The bandits suspiciously crept out of the bedroom, handed over the fish, and bolted for the hallway.
Burdened by a large stuffed bass but keen to explore a bit more, they trekked farther north. They found a room marked by a sign that read, "Hotel Lethia - Office". Inside were a half dozen stirges, the grotesque mix of bird, bat, and insect hanging from the ceiling. Wilhelm wasted no time in putting the lot of them to sleep, and they were dispensed with. This room was, as advertised, a hotel reception room and office. In a drawer in the desk they found another pair of the magical spectacles that could translate Ancient Idalian writing.
Across the hall from the office they found an ornate door. A brass plaque to the side read, "Hotel Lethia", but the door itself was an ominous sight. What looked like wax-soaked rags had been stuffed into the cracks between the door and the jamb and floor, and a big red "X" had been painted across it.
"Yeah... nope!" deadpanned Gulleck, and the group decided to call it a night and hightail it back to the tavern.
It had been a moderately lucrative delve, and Tod had acquired a fancy new suit of armor. Brother Jibber had gained enough experience to achieve level 2! Of course, the irony is that now that he exceeds Tod's level, he will have to go away on Church business until Tod reaches level 2 - we can't have retainers working for people of lower level than themselves! "Hey Tod, you wanna be my retainer now?" was the joke.
Brother Jibber's promotion is a big deal (he will be granted the authority to work miracles!) and we will play that out in a future session.
Game date: Saturday, June 1, 208
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 1, hp 5, xp 1592/2000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 3904/4400
Tyrriel, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 3309/4000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 10, xp 4717/5000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 10, xp 4717/5000
Retainers:
Brother Jibber, Cleric 1, hp 5, xp 1464/1500
Gaspar, Fighter 1, hp 3, xp 651/2000
Wilhelm, Magic-user 1, hp 4, xp 1386/2500
Today we had the full crew of four regular players (Vito's player has had all his free time crushed out of him by a new job, though we hope to eventually see him again someday). Having discovered the Goblin Market last session, the group now turned their focus to exploring some of the northern areas of the second level. They had a scrap of a treasure map from the gnomes, though it didn't really tell them how to find it, just how to recognize it when they stumbled upon it.
Down into the dungeon and along well-trodden paths they went. As always, I roll after each session to restock the dungeon rooms previously visited, and they had a few speed bumps on the way down to the second level. In a robing room behind the temple with the basin of blood, they encountered half a dozen skeletons. Tod swiftly took the skull off of one with his sword, and Brother Jibber's earnest exhortations repelled the skeletons far enough that the others could pelt them with slings and arrows until they moved no more. Then, slightly further along, in the vestibule of the Temple of Hedonism, they found two dessicated knocker corpses on the floor. Gulleck cautiously stepped forward and was pounced on by a giant crab spider! Three more of the venomous beasts emerged from behind the statues that flank the entrance. Tyrriel put two of them to a deep magical sleep, and Caryatid used her wand to instill a frenzied fear into another. It had nowhere to run except back behind a statue, where it and the others were destroyed easily. The wand of fear has been very useful and the players are a bit nervous about what they will do when its power is finally consumed.
Down to the second level they went. They headed west from the Temple of Hedonism, past the room with the pool of rebirth, and turning north. They walked past a door that led to a room of unnatural darkness, and past a crevice in the left wall, where a continuous trickle of smoke carried an exotic spicy aroma up a chimney in the natural rock. They listened at a door where Tyrriel heard a low droning buzz, and no one wanted to go in to find out if it was giant bees or something else.
Farther north they explored. A door on the left led to an old bathhouse. In the middle of a 30' square room, a large pool lay covered in murky, scum-topped water. Old crumbling mosaics on the wall depicted nymphs frolicking gaily. The party considered the water of the pool with some skepticism. Tod assembled his ten foot pole (it collapses into three pieces) and dragged the pole across the bottom of the pool. The pool was perhaps three feet deep, and near the center, Tod felt the pole hit something that felt yielding but heavy. It couldn't be moved with the pole, so Tod decided to wade into the pool and retrieve it by hand.
The cold, scummy water chilled his legs as he strode into the pool. The thing in the middle of the pool turned out to be a rotting leather satchel full of coins. As Tod looked up to tell the news to the rest of the party, who were anxiously watching him, his eyes widened as he saw the mosaic on the far wall seem to come to life! The alluring nymphs seemed to twist and warp before his very eyes, until they looked like malevolent nixies with seaweed for hair. The nixies beckoned Tod to join them in the water, and he suddenly found himself overcome with a horrible compulsion to lay down in the water. Water filled his nose and mouth, but the urge to breathe seemed to have lost its usual urgency.
The party all yelled at each other at once, trying to decide what to do, but in the end Tyrriel quickly waded into the pool to grab Tod's body from the bottom of the pool. She too saw the beckoning nixies, but was able to withstand the compulsion that nagged at her mind. Tod was heavy, but she was able to lift his face above the water and drag him to the edge of the pool. He was still clutching the leather sack, which turned out to contain several hundred gold and silver coins. After spending some time to allow Tod to cough up the cold and dank water from his lungs and catch his breath, the group moved on, exploring further north along the long common hallway.
A tarnished brass plaque next to a door read (in Ancient Idalian), "Lorinthus, Centurion, 4th Century, 6th Cohort". Tod pushed the door open and the group found themselves in a short interior hallway with three doors leading off it. Through the left door they found what was once an exercise room, full of rusted athletic equipment, including a mildewed and tattered punching bag hanging from the ceiling by a chain. Tod gave it a punch and was surprised to hear the unmistakable clink of coins. Gulleck's axe tore through the seam on the side and hundreds of silver coins spilled out of the bag. They shook their heads once again at the oddity of the Ancient Idalians (as they collected the coins).
Beyond this room they found a nearly bare bedchamber, decorated in a very spartan and martial manner. There was nothing of value in this room, but beyond an open doorway they could see what looked to be a room full of trophies of wall. Battered shields and broken weapons were mounted on the walls, and a life-sized statue of a man worn a beautiful, still-shiny suit of plate armor, including a helmet with a dyed crest of horse hair. The statue was of a dull metal, possibly iron, and had merely the suggestion of a face and was not a likeness of any particular person.
Gulleck stepped forward to investigate the statue and was surprised when it leapt into motion, drawing back its immense iron fists to attack him. It pounded him again and again, leaving heavy dents in his shield as he ducked behind it to avoid the onslaught. Tod and the others were unable to land a blow on the statue, but Caryatid sent two Magic Missiles into its iron torso and it staggered backwards and came to the a halt on one knee, the animating principle seemingly gone from its now inert body. Tod carefully removed the fancy suit of plate armor from the inert statue, and strapped in on in place of his own. Some of the retainers were enlisted to carry out the pieces of his old armor for later resale.
(As a DM, I used to think the Magic Missile spell was kind of weak compared to other spells like Sleep or Charm Person, but I have to say, the ability to always hit is incredibly useful, especially in a "swingy" system like B/X D&D where finishing a fight as soon as possible is always in your best interest. Caryatid has been absolutely crucial in defeating several "boss" type encounters singlehandedly, and we all have a definite appreciation for the Magic Missile spell now!)
Further up the same hall to the north, the party investigated an apartment decorated with a definite maritime theme. Mosaics and frescoes depicted fish and fishermen, etc. Beyond a closed door they found a bedroom where seven bandits were standing around discussing a large stuffed and mounted bass. They went through the roof when the door burst open behind them, and drew swords and screamed at the party to leave. Tod pulled the door shut again, and then called, "How much do you want for that fish?"
There was a sudden silence, and then a more subdued voice replied, "How much you offerin'?"
Gulleck asked, "Depends. Does it sing or something?"
Silence again, and then from behind the door came a warbling, off-key rendition of some old song: "I wanna know, can you help me, I love to staaaaaay..."
Nobody fell for that. Eventually Tod paid the bandits 20 gold darics for the fish, for novelty value alone, I guess. The bandits suspiciously crept out of the bedroom, handed over the fish, and bolted for the hallway.
Burdened by a large stuffed bass but keen to explore a bit more, they trekked farther north. They found a room marked by a sign that read, "Hotel Lethia - Office". Inside were a half dozen stirges, the grotesque mix of bird, bat, and insect hanging from the ceiling. Wilhelm wasted no time in putting the lot of them to sleep, and they were dispensed with. This room was, as advertised, a hotel reception room and office. In a drawer in the desk they found another pair of the magical spectacles that could translate Ancient Idalian writing.
Across the hall from the office they found an ornate door. A brass plaque to the side read, "Hotel Lethia", but the door itself was an ominous sight. What looked like wax-soaked rags had been stuffed into the cracks between the door and the jamb and floor, and a big red "X" had been painted across it.
"Yeah... nope!" deadpanned Gulleck, and the group decided to call it a night and hightail it back to the tavern.
It had been a moderately lucrative delve, and Tod had acquired a fancy new suit of armor. Brother Jibber had gained enough experience to achieve level 2! Of course, the irony is that now that he exceeds Tod's level, he will have to go away on Church business until Tod reaches level 2 - we can't have retainers working for people of lower level than themselves! "Hey Tod, you wanna be my retainer now?" was the joke.
Brother Jibber's promotion is a big deal (he will be granted the authority to work miracles!) and we will play that out in a future session.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Idalium Game 29: The Goblin Market
Session date: Monday, August 3, 2015
Game date: Saturday, May 25, 208
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 3752/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 4565/5000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 4565/5000
Retainers:
Gaspar, Fighter 1, hp 3, xp 575/2000
Wilson, Thief 1, hp 1, xp 654/1200
It had been several weeks since our last adventure, both in real time and in game time. We caught up on a few housekeeping tasks. Caryatid created a couple of Shield scrolls for her emergency stash. Life with a clone has become increasingly annoying, since both lay claim to the same purse and possessions.
The Night Walkers sent Albert, a naive and dimwitted hobbit who seemed to be the only good-natured soul in their party, to negotiate with the Infestation Managers for the return of all their stuff. Gulleck was kind-hearted and returned all of their valuables (over the grumblings of the two Caryatids), as well as giving Albert some advice to find some new adventuring companions.
A notice had been posted in the Rusty Lantern that a group of merchants were interested in hiring adventurers to escort them to the Goblin Market that allegedly lay below the streets of Idalium. The merchants were staying in an inn over by the river docks. The group decided to scout out the Goblin Market on their own, before offering to escort the merchants.
Down the trapdoor they went, as always, and along the familiar back alleys through the buried city of Ancient Idalium. They passed through the Temple of Hedonism, using the embroidered togas they had found here to pass by the crystal statue that guarded the stairs to the second level. They headed north from the temple's basement room, and then down a hall to the east, where they had seen an entrance to the caves earlier.
Indeed, after a short distance the worked stone of the hallway just petered out into rough natural cavern walls. The ground was uneven, with stalagmites and other protrusions interrupting an easy traversal. To the right, they could see an alcove or nook in the cave, and a pair of enormous lizards hissed at them aggressively. The leathery ruffs on their necks stood erect and rippled as the beasts growled at the intruding adventurers.
There was another passage leading north, but to get there the party had to walk past the lizards. They very cautiously began moving that way, clinging to the wall as far from the lizards as possible, making a show of open hands and non-aggressive gestures. The lizards continued to stand warily in front of their nest and growl at the party, but they allowed the adventurers to move past them without being attacked.
The northern passage abruptly ended at a ledge overlooking a large cavern. Running water could be heard far below, an underground river or stream. About 30 feet across the cavern, another ledge could be barely seen at the edge of Caryatid's lantern light, and a primitive rope bridge spanned the cavern. And primitive it was: no wood planks, just three strands of rope stretched across the gap and tied to iron rods embedded in the rock.
It took them a long time to cross the bridge, tying ropes to each other and crossing one at a time. Wilson and Gaspar went first, and stood on the other side chatting while Gulleck nervously crossed. The way I handled this was that the bridge was safe to cross as long as you went slowly or carefully, but took a long time, subjecting the party to wandering monster checks. A dexterity check (roll d20 at or below your dexterity score) determined whether you crossed in 5 minutes or 10.
As Gulleck reached the other side, he was startled to find someone coming down the passage on the northern side of the cavern. "Who're you?" said a suspicious man in somewhat foreign-looking clothes. After some conversation it transpired that the man was leading a party of traders who were attempting to find the Goblin Market. They understood it to be somewhere in these caves, but claimed to have got turned around and lost and they weren't sure where to go. They were hoping to open up trade relations with the goblins, and several of their party carried large packs stuffed full of goods.
Since they were all going to the same place, the two groups decided to travel together. The two Caryatids made their crossing, but as they reached the ledge, I finally did come up with a successful wandering monster check. Back on the other side of the cavern, a burning torch drew their eyes to the ledge, where two small figures had emerged from the passage. Childlike voices called across the cavern: "Hello? Who's over there?" It turned out to be members of the subterranean gang of urchins that the party had encountered some months ago, in the temple with the Wheel of Fortune. This pair, named Ben and Vicki, said they were relatively new to the gang and that James, their leader, had sent them to do some shopping at the Goblin Market (apparently this was the standard hazing for new recruits). Gulleck grudgingly invited them to come along with the rest of the group for protection.
"Now, how are you going to get across the bri--" And before he could finish the sentence, the girl had clamped the burning torch between her teeth, grasped the ropes with both hands and trotted lightly across the rope bridge, landing with a curtsey in front of them. Kids!
The caves were disorienting, twisty and uneven, and difficult to map. The unusually large party found a strange room where lights twinkled like stars high above them. Gulleck asked for the lantern to be covered, and with his infravision he thought he saw what looked like twisted humanoid bodied clinging to the ceiling some 40' above. This greatly unsettled everyone, so they backed away and sought another route. They saw a large cavern filled with a soft blue phosphorescence, the product of a pale lichen that covered most of the surfaces. They saw a cavern where one of the walls seemed to be covered in a dark sticky liquid, and chose not to investigate it. And then they found the Goblin Market.
A short cave passage abruptly turned into worked stone again. The floor was laid with a black and white marble checkerboard, but strangely crooked and uneven, as if laid by someone who didn't understand or care about the concept of right angles. A short way down the hall, the group could see flickering light and the sound of many creatures in conversation. But looming ahead of them were a pair of the frightful lanky, hairy monsters that had been in the employ of the Queen of Nightmares.
"Welcome to the Goblin Market!" one hooted in its eerie hollow voice. "You must leave your weapons here. All breaches of the peace will be dealt with most severely." There was a rack full of all sorts of armaments (many of them rusty and poorly maintained). The party nervously handed over their weapons, receiving a scrap of paper with a number written on it that matched the one tied around their weapons. And then they entered the Goblin Market.
The Goblin Market was in a huge, brighly lit pillared hall. Passages led out to the west, north, and east - it seemed to be incongruously sited in the center of the cavern system. The floor was tiled in the same uneven way as the hallway, and the marble pillars seemed similarly odd, crooked and angled strangely. Goblins and hobgoblins stood behind tables laden with all sorts of goods, haggling and carrying out business. At the north end of the hall, cages and pens contained a number of live animals for sale, including giant rats and shrews, as well as other creatures the PCs didn't recognize.
Besides the goblins, the market was full of all sorts of other people here to buy and sell. The group saw a gang of orcs, jabbering at goblins who were selling jugs of beer or wine. Another young urchin waved at Ben and Vicki from across the room, and they ran over to join their friend after thanking Gulleck for helping them get here safety. There was another group of scruffy looking merchants selling goods from the surface world to the goblins, and at another table the party saw a half dozen knockers buying roasted giant rats and centipedes and other hideous foods.
There was a curious group of people who were wearing clothes that clearly came from the city above. One wore the tabard of the King's Guard, and another wore the insignia of the Church. But they all seemed slightly dazed and blissed out.
Most frightful was the site of the Queen of Nightmares herself, accompanied by several of her tall lanky hairy servants. She was inspecting weapons and other goods. Her palanquin sat "parked" along one wall of the room. The Infestation Managers made it clear that they were avoiding her. One of the hobgoblin vendors noticed their wariness and said, "You do well to keep clear of her. She respects the truce while at the market, but woe to those who catch her eye outside these walls."
All sorts of things were available for sale at the Goblin Market. There were weapons and armor for sale, mostly rusty and dirty, but available quite cheaply. There was a junk seller who had all manner of bric-a-brac: from the useful to the useless. There were tailors selling clothes in the style worn by the goblins (brighly colored rags) and hobgoblins (strange parodies of aristocratic garb). There was food for sale, both the mundane (biscuits, preserved meats) and the less appealing (giant centipedes on sticks, live hedgehogs). There was beer and wine. There was a table full of the most beautiful fruits the PCs had ever seen, in the prime of their ripeness though many were quite out of season in Idalium or not even known in these parts. For some reason, this table seemed to be avoided by many of the visitors.
There were tables with all sorts of strange and mysterious curios on display. The PCs walked down the table looking at the goods for sale. They saw a framed collection of fairy wings, pinned to a card and labelled with type and the time and location of collection. Nearby was a basket containing what a goblin claimed were the meticulously preserved heads of sprites, wrapped in gauze made of spider silk. There was a box of small paper cards, each painted or drawn with pictures of strange vistas of cities and wilderness unknown to the party. The cards were cracked and faded, and gave off a sense of melancholic nostalgia for these places which may or may not exist.
There was a collection of letters of unrequited love - "a hundred broken hearts", pitched the goblin vendor. There was an ominous looking potion in a crystal vial that was said to produce the flawless appearance of death for 42 hours, after which the drinker would awaken again, alive as ever. And there was a plain wooden box. The hobgoblin vendor called it "The Box of Jhana", and told them, "What this box contains cannot be described, it can only be experienced. But it will change your life!"
Gulleck was intrigued by the box, but when he expressed an interest, the hobgoblin told him that he did not deal in things as prosaic as mere currency. These items were meant to be traded for something of equal value, something with a story, something with emotional weight. Caryatid smelled a scam right off the bat.
Gulleck considered and rummaged through his backpack, looking through the odds and ends he had collected over the months. He drew forth an empty velvet pouch. "What this pouch contains can also not be described but only experienced." The hobgoblin considered his offer with amusement. "And will it change my life?" "You'll have to find out!"
The hobgoblin laughed, and said, "You have a wit about you, dwarf. I will take your trade!" Gulleck examined the box and made to slide it open, but the hobgoblin wagged a finger: "Ah ah ah! Not here! That is for you alone."
The party left the market and retraced their path through the cavern. They found another way back into the worked stone area of the dungeon, happily avoiding the rope bridge, and found themselves in the room where they were recently ambushed by orcs. They made their way back through the Temple of Hedonism, where they encountered a single spotty-faced young acolyte who was in the temple all by himself "studying the ancient scriptures". (Random dice rolls often seem to have their own sense of humor!)
They made their way to the first level and headed back along the alley that runs behind the temples. They had just passed the door of a house when they were surprised by a group of orcs! I decided that one orc would leap out and attempt to pick off Wilson from the rear of the party and put him in a chokehold to shake the party down for loot. But the dice had other ideas. The orc rolled a 1, so he slammed head first into the brick wall across the alley and collapsed in a dazed heap.
"Boys, you want to try that again?" smirked Gulleck. The orcs, embarrassed, attempted to save face by shouting at the party and trying to scare them off, which conveniently was where they wanted to go anyway. They left the orcs to salvage their dignity and returned to the Rusty Lantern safely.
As they were storing their gear away in their "vault" in the tavern cellar, Gulleck slid the lid off of the Box of Jhana. He was startled by a primitive cloth puppet that was launched out of the box on a spring. He recovered his composure and started to laugh, but then noticed something odd about the empty wooden box. It seemed there was a light that shone from all around, and a strange low humming that grew to an overwhelming throbbing. Everyone in the room squinted their eyes and covered their ears to stave off the onslaught. It grew to a crescendo and then suddenly, everything was as it was. The two Caryatids and Wilson felt normal again, but Gulleck and Gaspar were profoundly affected by the experience. Everything seemed fresh and new. How miraculous to be alive! How incredible that this stone wall could exist, how beautiful the gold and silver coins. Everything seemed to vibrate with life and energy, and the idea of doing ever harm to another creature seemed unthinkable to them. They walked upstairs to the tavern, staring in amazement at this new and wonderful world.
Game date: Saturday, May 25, 208
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 3752/4400
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 4565/5000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 4565/5000
Retainers:
Gaspar, Fighter 1, hp 3, xp 575/2000
Wilson, Thief 1, hp 1, xp 654/1200
It had been several weeks since our last adventure, both in real time and in game time. We caught up on a few housekeeping tasks. Caryatid created a couple of Shield scrolls for her emergency stash. Life with a clone has become increasingly annoying, since both lay claim to the same purse and possessions.
The Night Walkers sent Albert, a naive and dimwitted hobbit who seemed to be the only good-natured soul in their party, to negotiate with the Infestation Managers for the return of all their stuff. Gulleck was kind-hearted and returned all of their valuables (over the grumblings of the two Caryatids), as well as giving Albert some advice to find some new adventuring companions.
A notice had been posted in the Rusty Lantern that a group of merchants were interested in hiring adventurers to escort them to the Goblin Market that allegedly lay below the streets of Idalium. The merchants were staying in an inn over by the river docks. The group decided to scout out the Goblin Market on their own, before offering to escort the merchants.
Down the trapdoor they went, as always, and along the familiar back alleys through the buried city of Ancient Idalium. They passed through the Temple of Hedonism, using the embroidered togas they had found here to pass by the crystal statue that guarded the stairs to the second level. They headed north from the temple's basement room, and then down a hall to the east, where they had seen an entrance to the caves earlier.
Indeed, after a short distance the worked stone of the hallway just petered out into rough natural cavern walls. The ground was uneven, with stalagmites and other protrusions interrupting an easy traversal. To the right, they could see an alcove or nook in the cave, and a pair of enormous lizards hissed at them aggressively. The leathery ruffs on their necks stood erect and rippled as the beasts growled at the intruding adventurers.
There was another passage leading north, but to get there the party had to walk past the lizards. They very cautiously began moving that way, clinging to the wall as far from the lizards as possible, making a show of open hands and non-aggressive gestures. The lizards continued to stand warily in front of their nest and growl at the party, but they allowed the adventurers to move past them without being attacked.
The northern passage abruptly ended at a ledge overlooking a large cavern. Running water could be heard far below, an underground river or stream. About 30 feet across the cavern, another ledge could be barely seen at the edge of Caryatid's lantern light, and a primitive rope bridge spanned the cavern. And primitive it was: no wood planks, just three strands of rope stretched across the gap and tied to iron rods embedded in the rock.
It took them a long time to cross the bridge, tying ropes to each other and crossing one at a time. Wilson and Gaspar went first, and stood on the other side chatting while Gulleck nervously crossed. The way I handled this was that the bridge was safe to cross as long as you went slowly or carefully, but took a long time, subjecting the party to wandering monster checks. A dexterity check (roll d20 at or below your dexterity score) determined whether you crossed in 5 minutes or 10.
As Gulleck reached the other side, he was startled to find someone coming down the passage on the northern side of the cavern. "Who're you?" said a suspicious man in somewhat foreign-looking clothes. After some conversation it transpired that the man was leading a party of traders who were attempting to find the Goblin Market. They understood it to be somewhere in these caves, but claimed to have got turned around and lost and they weren't sure where to go. They were hoping to open up trade relations with the goblins, and several of their party carried large packs stuffed full of goods.
Since they were all going to the same place, the two groups decided to travel together. The two Caryatids made their crossing, but as they reached the ledge, I finally did come up with a successful wandering monster check. Back on the other side of the cavern, a burning torch drew their eyes to the ledge, where two small figures had emerged from the passage. Childlike voices called across the cavern: "Hello? Who's over there?" It turned out to be members of the subterranean gang of urchins that the party had encountered some months ago, in the temple with the Wheel of Fortune. This pair, named Ben and Vicki, said they were relatively new to the gang and that James, their leader, had sent them to do some shopping at the Goblin Market (apparently this was the standard hazing for new recruits). Gulleck grudgingly invited them to come along with the rest of the group for protection.
"Now, how are you going to get across the bri--" And before he could finish the sentence, the girl had clamped the burning torch between her teeth, grasped the ropes with both hands and trotted lightly across the rope bridge, landing with a curtsey in front of them. Kids!
The caves were disorienting, twisty and uneven, and difficult to map. The unusually large party found a strange room where lights twinkled like stars high above them. Gulleck asked for the lantern to be covered, and with his infravision he thought he saw what looked like twisted humanoid bodied clinging to the ceiling some 40' above. This greatly unsettled everyone, so they backed away and sought another route. They saw a large cavern filled with a soft blue phosphorescence, the product of a pale lichen that covered most of the surfaces. They saw a cavern where one of the walls seemed to be covered in a dark sticky liquid, and chose not to investigate it. And then they found the Goblin Market.
A short cave passage abruptly turned into worked stone again. The floor was laid with a black and white marble checkerboard, but strangely crooked and uneven, as if laid by someone who didn't understand or care about the concept of right angles. A short way down the hall, the group could see flickering light and the sound of many creatures in conversation. But looming ahead of them were a pair of the frightful lanky, hairy monsters that had been in the employ of the Queen of Nightmares.
"Welcome to the Goblin Market!" one hooted in its eerie hollow voice. "You must leave your weapons here. All breaches of the peace will be dealt with most severely." There was a rack full of all sorts of armaments (many of them rusty and poorly maintained). The party nervously handed over their weapons, receiving a scrap of paper with a number written on it that matched the one tied around their weapons. And then they entered the Goblin Market.
The Goblin Market was in a huge, brighly lit pillared hall. Passages led out to the west, north, and east - it seemed to be incongruously sited in the center of the cavern system. The floor was tiled in the same uneven way as the hallway, and the marble pillars seemed similarly odd, crooked and angled strangely. Goblins and hobgoblins stood behind tables laden with all sorts of goods, haggling and carrying out business. At the north end of the hall, cages and pens contained a number of live animals for sale, including giant rats and shrews, as well as other creatures the PCs didn't recognize.
Besides the goblins, the market was full of all sorts of other people here to buy and sell. The group saw a gang of orcs, jabbering at goblins who were selling jugs of beer or wine. Another young urchin waved at Ben and Vicki from across the room, and they ran over to join their friend after thanking Gulleck for helping them get here safety. There was another group of scruffy looking merchants selling goods from the surface world to the goblins, and at another table the party saw a half dozen knockers buying roasted giant rats and centipedes and other hideous foods.
There was a curious group of people who were wearing clothes that clearly came from the city above. One wore the tabard of the King's Guard, and another wore the insignia of the Church. But they all seemed slightly dazed and blissed out.
Most frightful was the site of the Queen of Nightmares herself, accompanied by several of her tall lanky hairy servants. She was inspecting weapons and other goods. Her palanquin sat "parked" along one wall of the room. The Infestation Managers made it clear that they were avoiding her. One of the hobgoblin vendors noticed their wariness and said, "You do well to keep clear of her. She respects the truce while at the market, but woe to those who catch her eye outside these walls."
All sorts of things were available for sale at the Goblin Market. There were weapons and armor for sale, mostly rusty and dirty, but available quite cheaply. There was a junk seller who had all manner of bric-a-brac: from the useful to the useless. There were tailors selling clothes in the style worn by the goblins (brighly colored rags) and hobgoblins (strange parodies of aristocratic garb). There was food for sale, both the mundane (biscuits, preserved meats) and the less appealing (giant centipedes on sticks, live hedgehogs). There was beer and wine. There was a table full of the most beautiful fruits the PCs had ever seen, in the prime of their ripeness though many were quite out of season in Idalium or not even known in these parts. For some reason, this table seemed to be avoided by many of the visitors.
There were tables with all sorts of strange and mysterious curios on display. The PCs walked down the table looking at the goods for sale. They saw a framed collection of fairy wings, pinned to a card and labelled with type and the time and location of collection. Nearby was a basket containing what a goblin claimed were the meticulously preserved heads of sprites, wrapped in gauze made of spider silk. There was a box of small paper cards, each painted or drawn with pictures of strange vistas of cities and wilderness unknown to the party. The cards were cracked and faded, and gave off a sense of melancholic nostalgia for these places which may or may not exist.
There was a collection of letters of unrequited love - "a hundred broken hearts", pitched the goblin vendor. There was an ominous looking potion in a crystal vial that was said to produce the flawless appearance of death for 42 hours, after which the drinker would awaken again, alive as ever. And there was a plain wooden box. The hobgoblin vendor called it "The Box of Jhana", and told them, "What this box contains cannot be described, it can only be experienced. But it will change your life!"
Gulleck was intrigued by the box, but when he expressed an interest, the hobgoblin told him that he did not deal in things as prosaic as mere currency. These items were meant to be traded for something of equal value, something with a story, something with emotional weight. Caryatid smelled a scam right off the bat.
Gulleck considered and rummaged through his backpack, looking through the odds and ends he had collected over the months. He drew forth an empty velvet pouch. "What this pouch contains can also not be described but only experienced." The hobgoblin considered his offer with amusement. "And will it change my life?" "You'll have to find out!"
The hobgoblin laughed, and said, "You have a wit about you, dwarf. I will take your trade!" Gulleck examined the box and made to slide it open, but the hobgoblin wagged a finger: "Ah ah ah! Not here! That is for you alone."
The party left the market and retraced their path through the cavern. They found another way back into the worked stone area of the dungeon, happily avoiding the rope bridge, and found themselves in the room where they were recently ambushed by orcs. They made their way back through the Temple of Hedonism, where they encountered a single spotty-faced young acolyte who was in the temple all by himself "studying the ancient scriptures". (Random dice rolls often seem to have their own sense of humor!)
They made their way to the first level and headed back along the alley that runs behind the temples. They had just passed the door of a house when they were surprised by a group of orcs! I decided that one orc would leap out and attempt to pick off Wilson from the rear of the party and put him in a chokehold to shake the party down for loot. But the dice had other ideas. The orc rolled a 1, so he slammed head first into the brick wall across the alley and collapsed in a dazed heap.
"Boys, you want to try that again?" smirked Gulleck. The orcs, embarrassed, attempted to save face by shouting at the party and trying to scare them off, which conveniently was where they wanted to go anyway. They left the orcs to salvage their dignity and returned to the Rusty Lantern safely.
As they were storing their gear away in their "vault" in the tavern cellar, Gulleck slid the lid off of the Box of Jhana. He was startled by a primitive cloth puppet that was launched out of the box on a spring. He recovered his composure and started to laugh, but then noticed something odd about the empty wooden box. It seemed there was a light that shone from all around, and a strange low humming that grew to an overwhelming throbbing. Everyone in the room squinted their eyes and covered their ears to stave off the onslaught. It grew to a crescendo and then suddenly, everything was as it was. The two Caryatids and Wilson felt normal again, but Gulleck and Gaspar were profoundly affected by the experience. Everything seemed fresh and new. How miraculous to be alive! How incredible that this stone wall could exist, how beautiful the gold and silver coins. Everything seemed to vibrate with life and energy, and the idea of doing ever harm to another creature seemed unthinkable to them. They walked upstairs to the tavern, staring in amazement at this new and wonderful world.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Player Journals from Session 28
Journal of Tod P. Quasit - May 4, 208
I finally got up enough energy to go back down into the UnderCity with the gang. It has been a while. I don't remember that much of the last few weeks. Drowning my sorrows in the Twisted Ankle.
So I hooked back up with Gunkle the Happy Dwarf and suddenly two of those Caryiatid dudes. Apparently the pool of resurrection duplicated her or something. Sure. Why not right? Why wouldn't that happen is the better question if you're even bothering to ask. I found Jibber proselytizing over in the Steppes area of town, handing out pamphlets and threatening to revoke people's tickets to heaven if they didn't repent. He had quite the gathering when I found him but later I found out it was because he had promised free sausages and beers to the first 100 people that declared their love to The Light. Which explained why the crowd looked angry and hungry and thirsty. But mostly angry.
He was happy to see me. Apparently the priests in the church had let him conduct mass last week and it hadn't gone well.
I hadn't seen Gunkle in a while. Boy did he look like crap. All scabby and pale and balding and somehow his teeth had shrunk a little and turned a nasty brown color and he had this weird sheen to his skin. Apparently he had grown quite attached to that accursed Heart and it was sucking the very health from him. Our mission - destroy the heart at all costs.
So we go down into the UnderCity and who do we stumble into before we even get to the stairs down to the second level? The stinking filthy Night Soils. And they freaking start a fight with us. Still pissed about that poisoned wine I guess. Their stupid fighter tried to steal Gunkle's axe and it was on. Before I could even get a strike in, they were all asleep. Bam. We decided not to kill them but we re leaved them of all their stuff and tied them up, wrote "Bad Elf" on some foreheads and then we went back to the Rusty Lantern to drop off their weapons and store all the stuff we had taken.
One of the items we confiscated was a short wooden pole that apparently the elves and magic users thought was sucking the magic from their souls. Someone had the bright idea to poke the heart with it, so I did. Kablamo! Pole and heart cracked and the heart sure looked dead. Not only that but Gurkle felt much better. He got that little gleam back in his eyes. And Tyriel said she felt better too. She had taken charge of the heart to give Gurkle a break.
So we went back down, and trying to avoid the what would probably be very pissed off and ill-humored Night Soilers, we went a different way and ran into nine skeletons. They got in one good shot at me. A flesh wound, but it hurt. But we killed them all. Gulleck was on FIRE! Hitting everything he looked at. It was awesome. Then we decided we were running out of time and went to explore the Music Temple which we hadn't finished. Jibber and I got a lung full of mildew and couldn't breath. Then we fought some spiders. All we found was some wads of wax and a nice silk blouse. That's adventuring for you.
Oh, and we sold the head back to Lord Fauntleroy. That was nice deal. And got a cool book.
I have to go. Meeting Jibber at The Round Bottom for drinks.
Tod -
I finally got up enough energy to go back down into the UnderCity with the gang. It has been a while. I don't remember that much of the last few weeks. Drowning my sorrows in the Twisted Ankle.
So I hooked back up with Gunkle the Happy Dwarf and suddenly two of those Caryiatid dudes. Apparently the pool of resurrection duplicated her or something. Sure. Why not right? Why wouldn't that happen is the better question if you're even bothering to ask. I found Jibber proselytizing over in the Steppes area of town, handing out pamphlets and threatening to revoke people's tickets to heaven if they didn't repent. He had quite the gathering when I found him but later I found out it was because he had promised free sausages and beers to the first 100 people that declared their love to The Light. Which explained why the crowd looked angry and hungry and thirsty. But mostly angry.
He was happy to see me. Apparently the priests in the church had let him conduct mass last week and it hadn't gone well.
I hadn't seen Gunkle in a while. Boy did he look like crap. All scabby and pale and balding and somehow his teeth had shrunk a little and turned a nasty brown color and he had this weird sheen to his skin. Apparently he had grown quite attached to that accursed Heart and it was sucking the very health from him. Our mission - destroy the heart at all costs.
So we go down into the UnderCity and who do we stumble into before we even get to the stairs down to the second level? The stinking filthy Night Soils. And they freaking start a fight with us. Still pissed about that poisoned wine I guess. Their stupid fighter tried to steal Gunkle's axe and it was on. Before I could even get a strike in, they were all asleep. Bam. We decided not to kill them but we re leaved them of all their stuff and tied them up, wrote "Bad Elf" on some foreheads and then we went back to the Rusty Lantern to drop off their weapons and store all the stuff we had taken.
One of the items we confiscated was a short wooden pole that apparently the elves and magic users thought was sucking the magic from their souls. Someone had the bright idea to poke the heart with it, so I did. Kablamo! Pole and heart cracked and the heart sure looked dead. Not only that but Gurkle felt much better. He got that little gleam back in his eyes. And Tyriel said she felt better too. She had taken charge of the heart to give Gurkle a break.
So we went back down, and trying to avoid the what would probably be very pissed off and ill-humored Night Soilers, we went a different way and ran into nine skeletons. They got in one good shot at me. A flesh wound, but it hurt. But we killed them all. Gulleck was on FIRE! Hitting everything he looked at. It was awesome. Then we decided we were running out of time and went to explore the Music Temple which we hadn't finished. Jibber and I got a lung full of mildew and couldn't breath. Then we fought some spiders. All we found was some wads of wax and a nice silk blouse. That's adventuring for you.
Oh, and we sold the head back to Lord Fauntleroy. That was nice deal. And got a cool book.
I have to go. Meeting Jibber at The Round Bottom for drinks.
Tod -
Idalium Game 28: Street Fighting Man
Session date: Monday, July 13, 2015
Game date: Saturday, May 4, 208
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 1, hp 5, xp 1470/2000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 3630/4400
Tyrriel, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 3192/4000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 4454/5000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 4454/5000
Retainers:
Brother Jibber, Cleric 1, hp 5, xp 1402/1500
Gaspar, Fighter 1, hp 3, xp 519/2000
Wilhelm, Magic-user 1, hp 4, xp 1327/2500
We had the full group of regulars today, but we got a late start and as a result had a shorter than usual session. It had been awhile since Tod and Tyrriel had been part of the group, and they were shocked to see how changed Gulleck had become, as his possession of the dismal Beating Heart took its toll on him. His face was pale, his hair was falling out, and he found himself somewhat short of breath. His Constitution score dropped by another 3 points, causing him to lose 2 hit points as well! And then there was the surprise of the two Caryatids. The two of them had spent much of the last week bickering about the ownership of their possessions. Having a duplicate was turning out to be less of a thrill than expected.
Tyrriel had spent the last two weeks sequestered with her wizardly master, researching a new magical spell. After spending 1,000 gold darics on rare and esoteric powders, inks, and liquids of various types, Tyrriel mastered the Read Magic spell, allowing her to read scrolls or spellbooks that they might discover in the dungeon. The party had heard tell of an abandoned wizard's apartment somewhere on the second level, and perhaps she was hoping to find magical scrolls there.
Concerned about Gulleck's worsening appearance, the group sought out the aged Professor Zinn in his apartment on the fifth floor of the teetering house that overlooked the city of Idalium from its perch on the hill across the river. The professor had little new information to offer them and did not know of any specific way to destroy the Beating Heart, although he recommended that perhaps they should share the burden of the carrying the Heart, at least to give Gulleck more time. The legends did indicate that the Heart could be freely given to another person, but Gulleck insisted that he would not wish this upon anyone. The professor promised to continue researching the Heart, in hopes of discovering some clue that might lead to its destruction.
After leaving the professor, the group made their way across the city to the Runcible Trading House, where they returned the Brazen Head to a visibly relieved Lord Runcible. He asked them if it was true that the Head could answer any question, and they confirmed that this was so, but averred that the cost (a blood sacrifice) was too great. In thanks for their efforts, Lord Runcible gave them a reward of 18,000 silver shekels as well as one of the items from the auction, a book written in the very early days of the new city of Idalium, detailing the heathen cults and idolatries of the former civilization.
And then it was time to continue their exploration of the underground city of Idalium. Again, the party sought to find the oft-mentioned Goblin Market, but they had not got very far into the dungeon when they were surprised to encounter their despised nemeses, the Night Walkers! The rival adventuring party was apparently on their way back out of the dungeon, crossing a room that led to a ladder up to the surface of the city. What followed was a standoff with a lot of posturing on both sides. The snide elves Death Watch and Cobweb demanded that the party pay them in order to pass by, and the party scoffed at this demand. Then, one of the Night Walkers, Randall - a big brutish thug - said, "That's a nice axe you got, Gulleck. I think I'll take it." They argued back and forth again, and then Randall got bold and tried to grab the axe from Gulleck's grasp.
Everyone jumped into action, and it's a very fortunate thing the PCs won initiative. Tyrriel and Wilhelm both cast Sleep and suddenly the entire party of the Night Walkers was snoring in heaps on the dungeon floor. Some of the party were all in favor of killing these obnoxious and ruthless rivals where they lay, but cooler heads prevailed. The Night Walkers were carefully tied up and relieved of all of their valuables and potentially magical items. "Bad Elf" was written on the foreheads of Death Watch and Cobweb using their own mapper's supply of ink, they were left to sleep the spell away while the Infestation Managers returned to the Rusty Lantern to stow their valuables and a note was left with the guards that return of their items could be negotiated later.
Among the items taken from the Night Walkers was a curious wooden rod, made of a dark wood like ebony or mahogany. Tyrriel and the party's magic-users all felt a disturbing sensation when they touched the rod, as though it was trying to drain the magical essence out of their souls. On a whim, Tod decided to strike the Beating Heart with the rod. He opened the metal box in which they were storing the Heart, and carefully prodded the Heart with the wooden rod. There was a clap of thunder and a flash behind everyone's eyes, although it was difficult to tell if the light was actually in the room or just in their heads ("I know that sensation well," quipped Tod). When their eyes cleared, they saw that the rod has turned ashen and chalky. But they also saw with satisfaction that the Beating Heart, once purple and glistening, had also turned gray and dry, and had split open, broken and dead. Tyrriel (who had taken possession of the Heart after their discussion with Professor Zinn) felt a burden lifted from her, and Gulleck too felt relief at seeing the Heart shattered.
Pleased with their apparent victory over the Heart, the group returned to the dungeon, seeking an alternate route to avoid the Night Walkers. It was late, and so plans of finding the Goblin Market had to be postponed. They retraced some old paths. They fought a group of skeletons (perhaps they wished they still had the Heart!) that Brother Jibber proved completely unable to repel. But the dice were hot for Gulleck's player, and he sliced through skeleton after skeleton with his axe.
They decided to explore some rooms in the Temple of Music that they had never returned to. In the main room, they found several hundred silver and gold coins scattered around the hydraulic organ in the center of the temple. The organ had a compartment where a scroll could be placed, like a player piano, and there was a mangled and shredded scroll in this place. The scroll was damaged beyond repair, but they could read the Idalian title at the top: "An Air of Prosperity".
They explored several of the side rooms in the Temple of Music, fighting some giant crab spiders and Tod and Jibber getting lungfuls of mildew and mold spores from a long-sealed closet, but finding little of value except for a brick of malleable wax, which they found on a desk in one of the rooms. Portions of the wax had long ago been molded into small blobs and placed on a wooden tray.
With little to show for this excursion, but pleased to be free of the Beating Heart and with their reward for the safe return of the Brazen Head, the adventurers returned to the surface.
Game date: Saturday, May 4, 208
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 1, hp 5, xp 1470/2000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 2, hp 10, xp 3630/4400
Tyrriel, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 3192/4000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 4454/5000
Caryatid, Magic-user 2, hp 8, xp 4454/5000
Retainers:
Brother Jibber, Cleric 1, hp 5, xp 1402/1500
Gaspar, Fighter 1, hp 3, xp 519/2000
Wilhelm, Magic-user 1, hp 4, xp 1327/2500
We had the full group of regulars today, but we got a late start and as a result had a shorter than usual session. It had been awhile since Tod and Tyrriel had been part of the group, and they were shocked to see how changed Gulleck had become, as his possession of the dismal Beating Heart took its toll on him. His face was pale, his hair was falling out, and he found himself somewhat short of breath. His Constitution score dropped by another 3 points, causing him to lose 2 hit points as well! And then there was the surprise of the two Caryatids. The two of them had spent much of the last week bickering about the ownership of their possessions. Having a duplicate was turning out to be less of a thrill than expected.
Tyrriel had spent the last two weeks sequestered with her wizardly master, researching a new magical spell. After spending 1,000 gold darics on rare and esoteric powders, inks, and liquids of various types, Tyrriel mastered the Read Magic spell, allowing her to read scrolls or spellbooks that they might discover in the dungeon. The party had heard tell of an abandoned wizard's apartment somewhere on the second level, and perhaps she was hoping to find magical scrolls there.
Concerned about Gulleck's worsening appearance, the group sought out the aged Professor Zinn in his apartment on the fifth floor of the teetering house that overlooked the city of Idalium from its perch on the hill across the river. The professor had little new information to offer them and did not know of any specific way to destroy the Beating Heart, although he recommended that perhaps they should share the burden of the carrying the Heart, at least to give Gulleck more time. The legends did indicate that the Heart could be freely given to another person, but Gulleck insisted that he would not wish this upon anyone. The professor promised to continue researching the Heart, in hopes of discovering some clue that might lead to its destruction.
After leaving the professor, the group made their way across the city to the Runcible Trading House, where they returned the Brazen Head to a visibly relieved Lord Runcible. He asked them if it was true that the Head could answer any question, and they confirmed that this was so, but averred that the cost (a blood sacrifice) was too great. In thanks for their efforts, Lord Runcible gave them a reward of 18,000 silver shekels as well as one of the items from the auction, a book written in the very early days of the new city of Idalium, detailing the heathen cults and idolatries of the former civilization.
And then it was time to continue their exploration of the underground city of Idalium. Again, the party sought to find the oft-mentioned Goblin Market, but they had not got very far into the dungeon when they were surprised to encounter their despised nemeses, the Night Walkers! The rival adventuring party was apparently on their way back out of the dungeon, crossing a room that led to a ladder up to the surface of the city. What followed was a standoff with a lot of posturing on both sides. The snide elves Death Watch and Cobweb demanded that the party pay them in order to pass by, and the party scoffed at this demand. Then, one of the Night Walkers, Randall - a big brutish thug - said, "That's a nice axe you got, Gulleck. I think I'll take it." They argued back and forth again, and then Randall got bold and tried to grab the axe from Gulleck's grasp.
Everyone jumped into action, and it's a very fortunate thing the PCs won initiative. Tyrriel and Wilhelm both cast Sleep and suddenly the entire party of the Night Walkers was snoring in heaps on the dungeon floor. Some of the party were all in favor of killing these obnoxious and ruthless rivals where they lay, but cooler heads prevailed. The Night Walkers were carefully tied up and relieved of all of their valuables and potentially magical items. "Bad Elf" was written on the foreheads of Death Watch and Cobweb using their own mapper's supply of ink, they were left to sleep the spell away while the Infestation Managers returned to the Rusty Lantern to stow their valuables and a note was left with the guards that return of their items could be negotiated later.
Among the items taken from the Night Walkers was a curious wooden rod, made of a dark wood like ebony or mahogany. Tyrriel and the party's magic-users all felt a disturbing sensation when they touched the rod, as though it was trying to drain the magical essence out of their souls. On a whim, Tod decided to strike the Beating Heart with the rod. He opened the metal box in which they were storing the Heart, and carefully prodded the Heart with the wooden rod. There was a clap of thunder and a flash behind everyone's eyes, although it was difficult to tell if the light was actually in the room or just in their heads ("I know that sensation well," quipped Tod). When their eyes cleared, they saw that the rod has turned ashen and chalky. But they also saw with satisfaction that the Beating Heart, once purple and glistening, had also turned gray and dry, and had split open, broken and dead. Tyrriel (who had taken possession of the Heart after their discussion with Professor Zinn) felt a burden lifted from her, and Gulleck too felt relief at seeing the Heart shattered.
Pleased with their apparent victory over the Heart, the group returned to the dungeon, seeking an alternate route to avoid the Night Walkers. It was late, and so plans of finding the Goblin Market had to be postponed. They retraced some old paths. They fought a group of skeletons (perhaps they wished they still had the Heart!) that Brother Jibber proved completely unable to repel. But the dice were hot for Gulleck's player, and he sliced through skeleton after skeleton with his axe.
They decided to explore some rooms in the Temple of Music that they had never returned to. In the main room, they found several hundred silver and gold coins scattered around the hydraulic organ in the center of the temple. The organ had a compartment where a scroll could be placed, like a player piano, and there was a mangled and shredded scroll in this place. The scroll was damaged beyond repair, but they could read the Idalian title at the top: "An Air of Prosperity".
They explored several of the side rooms in the Temple of Music, fighting some giant crab spiders and Tod and Jibber getting lungfuls of mildew and mold spores from a long-sealed closet, but finding little of value except for a brick of malleable wax, which they found on a desk in one of the rooms. Portions of the wax had long ago been molded into small blobs and placed on a wooden tray.
With little to show for this excursion, but pleased to be free of the Beating Heart and with their reward for the safe return of the Brazen Head, the adventurers returned to the surface.
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