Session date: Monday, February 12, 2018
Game date: Saturday, April 17, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 36173/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 18041/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6918/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 6223/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 497/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6220/8000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 3131/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 933/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1704/2400
Having recovered from their skirmish with the ratmen last week, the Infestation Managers prepared to head back done to loot their lair, and to mop up any remaining ratmen if necessary. At a jeweler's in the neighborhood of the Rusty Lantern tavern, they bought a handful of gemstones to feed to the old forgotten god (the talking stone column) on the third level. At the Temple of Hedonism, they knocked on the door and were let through by a group of nine partying hedonists (thankfully they were still at the toga-wearing portion of the party). They went to see the stone column and found that his chamber was occupied by nearly a dozen of the black-cloaked cultists. The cultists greeted the adventurers with smirks and sarcastic jibes, and brushed through them rudely on their way out. Their leader walked out in a curious pose; he seemed to be shielding his face from view with his cloak. Simon attempted to trip him as they passed, but rolled a 1 and managed to trip himself somehow. The cultists laughed and pointed ("haw haw!") and left the room.
The adventurers went in to talk to the judge, who was pleased to see them and said it had been an unusually busy day, what with the other folks visiting him as well.
"It's so rare that people come to see me. Usually I just stand here all alone..." he grumbled.
Gulleck told "the judge" that they had brought some "shiny stones" for him, and the column rotated noisily to turn to a hungry, greedy face. Gulleck gingerly reached forward with a polished piece of coral and fed it to the face, which crunched it into dust in savage frenzy.
"Ahhh, delicious!" he cried and his face turned to a pleased, satisfied expression. "What question can I answer for you?"
"Do the ratmen have any particular weaknesses?" asked Gulleck.
"They are vulnerable to silver," said the judge.
Simon fed a handful of gems to the judge and asked who has the largest treasure on this level.
"Hmm..." the judge considered. "Those people you just met must have a fair amount, as they sometimes trade shiny stones with me for information. And of course, the Queen of Nightmares, although thankfully she never comes to talk to me."
Adrien gave him a garnet and asked what the secret was to getting through the Goblin King's palace.
"It can be mapped," said the judge, somewhat unhelpfully.
Back to the wererat's temple they then went, and they found Father Jed and his gang of reformed bandits poking around in the room where they had killed the giant rats. They exchanged pleasantries, and Jed said that the door to the north seemed to be locked from the inside (Caryatid smirked, knowing that she had wizard locked it). Jed's Boys departed, and Caryatid opened the northern door and they entered a hallway beyond it. There were empty bedrooms with bunks on either side of the hall and they seem to have been evacuated in a hurry. At the end of the hall was a somewhat better appointed room, also clearly abandoned in a rush. A wooden chest stood open and empty. Gulleck found a pair of smelly shoes under the bed, but no treasure. Then Simon examined his map and deduced that there was an empty space between this room and the bedroom to the west. Jack searched for secret doors and found a camouflaged latch. He flipped it up and pulled open a portion of the stone wall, revealing a hidden closet containing some very ancient emergency supplies, now long rotten and crumbling. But in a tattered burlap sack were almost a thousand silver coins.
They took the coins and returned to the main room of the temple and proceeded down a hall to the east. A giant statue of a bipedal rat had been erected here, and a bloodstained altar squatted before it. They rummaged through their belongings looking for something to help destroy this idol, and Caryatid remembered she had been carrying around a very fine silk rope, that seemed to vibrate with magical power as she held it. She tossed it at the statue and it fell to the floor, but then thought to order the rope aloud to tie itself to the statue's neck. The rope wriggled with magical life and snaked its way across the floor and up the statue to tie itself securely around its neck.
Gulleck, wearing her "Hulk hands" (gauntlets of ogre strength), pulled the statue of St. Rathmus down singlehandedly. It toppled on its plinth, fell roughly across the altar in front of it, and smashed into several pieces on the stone floor. Several bags of copper and gold coins had been hidden in a compartment in its torso, and the adventurers gleefully collected these and left the wererats' temple for good.
They headed north to a hall lined with old paintings and tapestries, and investigated a door on the south side of the hall. This led to a small antechamber with doors leading east and west. Simon "listened" at the east door with his mindreading amulet, and coincidentally enough, discovered that this was the final hiding place of several wererats that had escaped the temple! Gulleck tried to boot in the door, but found that it a barricade of furniture had been assembled on the other side.
"OK, this is your one chance to surrender. Otherwise, I'm smashing this furniture to pieces and then you."
"Leave us alone! St. Rathmus shall curse you to a life of misery and wretchedness!"
"OK, I offered..."
And, having all the time in the world, Gulleck brought her battle axe to bear against the door and the barricade behind it. It took a little while, and the ratmen hurled curses and invective against her the entire time, but soon enough she broke down enough of the barricade to force the door open. ("Heeeeere's Gulleck!") The wererats lunged forward in their tiny room, snapping with fangs and claws at Gulleck, but between Gulleck's axe and Adrien's magical lycanthrope-killing sword, two of the ratmen were quickly killed, and the other two dropped to their knees and surrendered.
"Oh, now you want to surrender," grumbled Gulleck.
The wererats wanted to be let go and promised never to return to Idalium, in exchange for their treasure. This wasn't much of a deal to Gulleck, who counteroffered to take them to the Great Cathedral of Idalium to see if their wererat curse could be lifted.
"Never!" swore the ratman. "Those accursed priests will kill us!"
Well, the argument seemed to be going nowhere, so Caryatid cast Sleep on them. They were bound with rope, their treasure (many electrum pieces, four valuable pieces of jewelry, and many plans and maps detailing potential targets in the aboveground city of Idalium). Then they lifted the wererats and awkwardly carried them back through the dungeon, up towards the surface. In the Temple of Hedonism, the party had died down, leaving only a single young couple necking in a corner.
"Don't mind us!" chirped Caryatid as they carried the two unconscious ratmen through the temple den and up the stairs to the first level. They had almost made it home when the ratmen awoke. There were some squeals, and a sudden convulsion and then the ratmen were shrinking and falling through the ropes to the floor and scurrying away. But before they could escape, Orin cast his Sleep spell and the small rats stopped in their tracks. Adrien and Simon strolled up and drove their swords through the rats, and that was the sorry end of the Brotherhood of St. Rathmus beneath Idalium.
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Player Journals from Session 90
Diary of Caryatid
Dear Granny,
I apologize for the long delay since my correspondence. I am well, so no worries there.
My conspiring adventurers are thriving, more or less. I was able to finally learn the magick to grace Marcel with wings. He continues to be a constant & fiercely loyal companion. He is truly a dedicated member of our troupe. Marcel is a severe contrast to the demon ferret that one of our members acquired at the Goblin market. I fear that at anytime this horrible creature could turn rogue at any moment and kill us all. I especially fear for the well-being of the half-ling in our group: surely to be the first eaten by the demon rodent should it no longer be linked to its owner.
We have discovered some very bizarre entities while adventuring in the depths below Idalium: one being a morose, eons-old deity of sorts who will trade knowledge only for valuable gem stones (to eat!) Finding treasure in the deeper levels has become scarce and I often wonder if we are pursuing folly. We did recover a Dark Magick book from an unlikely coven, that of which cannot be touched with bare hands. Instead of trying to investigate the Dark Magick, we agreed to sell that awful item for profit at the local auction house, and we received a fair price for it. I constantly hope to find magickal items whose powers are not Dark. I know you would disapprove, but I doubt that by ignoring Natural forces I may stumble upon similar gifts which have settled upon you through your sheer refusal to participate. I would love to have another wand.
Oh, did I tell you that the annoying Dwarf, Goo-lick, was resurrected as a she-dwarf! I love irony sometimes. “She” is still as stubborn as any Dwarf and refuses any of my excellent suggestions for a new identity such as Gullikina or Gulleka. I fear Dwarves may never evolve…good thing someone invented mountain caves for them to retreat into.
Deliver my best wishes to Nanny Ogg, You, and Magrit, I miss you all so very much.
Fondly,
Cary
Dear Granny,
I apologize for the long delay since my correspondence. I am well, so no worries there.
My conspiring adventurers are thriving, more or less. I was able to finally learn the magick to grace Marcel with wings. He continues to be a constant & fiercely loyal companion. He is truly a dedicated member of our troupe. Marcel is a severe contrast to the demon ferret that one of our members acquired at the Goblin market. I fear that at anytime this horrible creature could turn rogue at any moment and kill us all. I especially fear for the well-being of the half-ling in our group: surely to be the first eaten by the demon rodent should it no longer be linked to its owner.
We have discovered some very bizarre entities while adventuring in the depths below Idalium: one being a morose, eons-old deity of sorts who will trade knowledge only for valuable gem stones (to eat!) Finding treasure in the deeper levels has become scarce and I often wonder if we are pursuing folly. We did recover a Dark Magick book from an unlikely coven, that of which cannot be touched with bare hands. Instead of trying to investigate the Dark Magick, we agreed to sell that awful item for profit at the local auction house, and we received a fair price for it. I constantly hope to find magickal items whose powers are not Dark. I know you would disapprove, but I doubt that by ignoring Natural forces I may stumble upon similar gifts which have settled upon you through your sheer refusal to participate. I would love to have another wand.
Oh, did I tell you that the annoying Dwarf, Goo-lick, was resurrected as a she-dwarf! I love irony sometimes. “She” is still as stubborn as any Dwarf and refuses any of my excellent suggestions for a new identity such as Gullikina or Gulleka. I fear Dwarves may never evolve…good thing someone invented mountain caves for them to retreat into.
Deliver my best wishes to Nanny Ogg, You, and Magrit, I miss you all so very much.
Fondly,
Cary
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Idalium Game 90: Running the Gauntlets
Session date: Monday, February 5, 2018
Game date: Saturday, March 20, 210 and Saturday, April 10, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35901/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17701/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6561/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5883/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 240/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6050/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2952/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 763/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1525/2400
The first half of this session was a flashback a few weeks of game time ago to play out the annual auction of magical and esoteric artifacts. The auction was held at the Runcible Trading House in the wealthy quarter of Idalium, as it had been the first year the party attended. That auction had been interrupted by one of the artifacts being stolen from the cellar vault by a ghoul that burrowed its way right through the wall, and now Lord Runcible announced that everyone could be assured that all of the cellar vaults had since been reinforced with iron bars along the walls.
All of the usual suspects were at the auction, a mix of Idalium's wealthiest aristocrats and businessmen with other scruffy adventurers like the party members. There was time to mingle before the start of the auction, and Gulleck and Caryatid made sure to talk up the finer points of the unusual tome that they had placed in the auction. They chatted up Vincent Patrenzi, the gaudy and tacky nouveau riche investor who collected ominous occult artifacts. His interest definitely seemed to be piqued, when they told him that the book had been taken from a coven of witches in some sort of other world.
The auction got underway. Moonpetal's Marauders bid aggressively and won a magical sword that could burst into flame on command, as well as a magical wand that could turn people into other forms. Vincent Patrenzi got into a bidding war for the party's book with Lady Mary Jameson, a young noblewoman fascinated with the occult, and the book finally sold for 66,000 silver shekels, far beyond the 10,000 shekel minimum bid. Father Jed and his band of merry bandits acquired two separate lots of magical potions, and another set of potions went to Sallies Forth, a party composed entirely of magical duplicates of "Psycho" Sally, an unhinged hobbit formerly with Shorty's Sirens. And Gulleck had set greedy eyes upon a pair of magical gauntlets said to bestow the strength of an ogre. Gulleck's player was quite excited to bypass Gulleck's absurd Strength score of 5, so the party bid most of their newly-acquired wealth of the gauntlets, and eventually outbid all the other adventuring parties to acquire the gauntlets for the low, low price of 59,500 silver shekels. (That actually is very low, given the presumed cost to craft such a magical item!)
Having finished with the auction, we jumped forward three weeks to the current date, and rejoined the party on another delve down to the third level of the dungeon below Idalium. They talked briefly to the lonely old stone pillar, and then headed west and north to assault the lair of the wererats. Coming to the door with a large rathole chewed in the bottom, they listened but heard nothing beyond it. The door would not open, so Simon the hobbit slipped on an invisibility ring and crawled through the ragged hole. On the other side he felt blindly in the dark and found a wooden bar holding the door shut. This he removed and let the party in, drawing his sword to provide light. Once some light was shed on the situation, they found that they were in a short hallway leading to another door, with a similar hole chewed near the bottom. A grotesque woven wicker effigy of a giant rat's head was mounted on the inner door. Gulleck strode up and smashed the wicker head to the floor. Apparently responding to the commotion at the door, a sinewy giant rat came angrily through the hole in the door. Gulleck, surprising herself with the unfamiliar strength flowing from her gauntlets, deftly beheaded the rat with the single slash of her axe.
They waited to see if any more rats would be forthcoming, but when no more emerged, Simon repeatd his trick with the invisibility ring and crawled under the door to unbar it from the other side. In the dark, he could hear the shuffling and squeaking of many other rats. I began to declare that he was immediately pounced upon by multiple rats, but was reminded that we had previously established that magical invisibility renders one invisible to all forms of sight, including infravision. Scent was a different story, and the rats grew agitated at the unfamiliar smell, but before they could react Simon had unbarred the door, let the rest of the party in, and drawn his sword for light. There were a couple dozen giant rats slinking around this defiled old temple. The walls were painted over crudely with dreadful images of rats cruelly dominating over cats, dogs, eagles, humans, etc. Filthy shredded nesting material was strewn around the room, and several pieces of expensive-looking jewelry glittered among the filth.
Orin and Caryatid both cast Sleep spells and sent most of the rats into slumber. Gulleck and Meat stepped forward to deal with the few that evaded the magic, and Adrien's demon ferret Norman tore into two of the rats with a horrible savagery that sent spouts of rats' blood fountaining into the air and drenching his mangy fur. While the adventurers were dealing with the giant rats, a door was thrown open at the north end of the room, and four bipedal ratmen burst in.
"How dare you invade the Temple of St. Rathmus!" the lead ratman hissed. "You shall surely die in pain and fear for your impertinence!"
Well, they lunged forward to bite and claw at the adventurers, but Orin read from his scroll of Sleep, and three of the wererats collapsed to the flagstones. Two more wererat reinforcements arrived at the north door and surrounded Meat, snapping at him with slavering jaws. But Adrien drew her magical sword with the hilt engraved with heads of rat and wolf, and it sang as it cut into the flesh of the ratmen. She killed two of them, and then Gulleck killed everyone, the surviving wererat as well as systematically dispatching all of the sleeping wererats and giant rats.
It was late and the party had taken some damage from the wererats, so they quickly gathered up the jewelry in the room, and Caryatid wizard-locked the north door, in hopes that any other treasure would not be plundered before they could return (having learned their lesson from the lost treasure of the Goblin Prince). Then they headed back to the surface with their plunder, which gave them enough experience points that Brother Chase made it to level 3, being promoted to Father Chase by his "supervisors" at his "temporary clerical staffing" chapel.
Game date: Saturday, March 20, 210 and Saturday, April 10, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35901/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17701/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6561/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5883/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 240/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6050/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2952/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 763/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1525/2400
The first half of this session was a flashback a few weeks of game time ago to play out the annual auction of magical and esoteric artifacts. The auction was held at the Runcible Trading House in the wealthy quarter of Idalium, as it had been the first year the party attended. That auction had been interrupted by one of the artifacts being stolen from the cellar vault by a ghoul that burrowed its way right through the wall, and now Lord Runcible announced that everyone could be assured that all of the cellar vaults had since been reinforced with iron bars along the walls.
All of the usual suspects were at the auction, a mix of Idalium's wealthiest aristocrats and businessmen with other scruffy adventurers like the party members. There was time to mingle before the start of the auction, and Gulleck and Caryatid made sure to talk up the finer points of the unusual tome that they had placed in the auction. They chatted up Vincent Patrenzi, the gaudy and tacky nouveau riche investor who collected ominous occult artifacts. His interest definitely seemed to be piqued, when they told him that the book had been taken from a coven of witches in some sort of other world.
The auction got underway. Moonpetal's Marauders bid aggressively and won a magical sword that could burst into flame on command, as well as a magical wand that could turn people into other forms. Vincent Patrenzi got into a bidding war for the party's book with Lady Mary Jameson, a young noblewoman fascinated with the occult, and the book finally sold for 66,000 silver shekels, far beyond the 10,000 shekel minimum bid. Father Jed and his band of merry bandits acquired two separate lots of magical potions, and another set of potions went to Sallies Forth, a party composed entirely of magical duplicates of "Psycho" Sally, an unhinged hobbit formerly with Shorty's Sirens. And Gulleck had set greedy eyes upon a pair of magical gauntlets said to bestow the strength of an ogre. Gulleck's player was quite excited to bypass Gulleck's absurd Strength score of 5, so the party bid most of their newly-acquired wealth of the gauntlets, and eventually outbid all the other adventuring parties to acquire the gauntlets for the low, low price of 59,500 silver shekels. (That actually is very low, given the presumed cost to craft such a magical item!)
Having finished with the auction, we jumped forward three weeks to the current date, and rejoined the party on another delve down to the third level of the dungeon below Idalium. They talked briefly to the lonely old stone pillar, and then headed west and north to assault the lair of the wererats. Coming to the door with a large rathole chewed in the bottom, they listened but heard nothing beyond it. The door would not open, so Simon the hobbit slipped on an invisibility ring and crawled through the ragged hole. On the other side he felt blindly in the dark and found a wooden bar holding the door shut. This he removed and let the party in, drawing his sword to provide light. Once some light was shed on the situation, they found that they were in a short hallway leading to another door, with a similar hole chewed near the bottom. A grotesque woven wicker effigy of a giant rat's head was mounted on the inner door. Gulleck strode up and smashed the wicker head to the floor. Apparently responding to the commotion at the door, a sinewy giant rat came angrily through the hole in the door. Gulleck, surprising herself with the unfamiliar strength flowing from her gauntlets, deftly beheaded the rat with the single slash of her axe.
They waited to see if any more rats would be forthcoming, but when no more emerged, Simon repeatd his trick with the invisibility ring and crawled under the door to unbar it from the other side. In the dark, he could hear the shuffling and squeaking of many other rats. I began to declare that he was immediately pounced upon by multiple rats, but was reminded that we had previously established that magical invisibility renders one invisible to all forms of sight, including infravision. Scent was a different story, and the rats grew agitated at the unfamiliar smell, but before they could react Simon had unbarred the door, let the rest of the party in, and drawn his sword for light. There were a couple dozen giant rats slinking around this defiled old temple. The walls were painted over crudely with dreadful images of rats cruelly dominating over cats, dogs, eagles, humans, etc. Filthy shredded nesting material was strewn around the room, and several pieces of expensive-looking jewelry glittered among the filth.
Orin and Caryatid both cast Sleep spells and sent most of the rats into slumber. Gulleck and Meat stepped forward to deal with the few that evaded the magic, and Adrien's demon ferret Norman tore into two of the rats with a horrible savagery that sent spouts of rats' blood fountaining into the air and drenching his mangy fur. While the adventurers were dealing with the giant rats, a door was thrown open at the north end of the room, and four bipedal ratmen burst in.
"How dare you invade the Temple of St. Rathmus!" the lead ratman hissed. "You shall surely die in pain and fear for your impertinence!"
Well, they lunged forward to bite and claw at the adventurers, but Orin read from his scroll of Sleep, and three of the wererats collapsed to the flagstones. Two more wererat reinforcements arrived at the north door and surrounded Meat, snapping at him with slavering jaws. But Adrien drew her magical sword with the hilt engraved with heads of rat and wolf, and it sang as it cut into the flesh of the ratmen. She killed two of them, and then Gulleck killed everyone, the surviving wererat as well as systematically dispatching all of the sleeping wererats and giant rats.
It was late and the party had taken some damage from the wererats, so they quickly gathered up the jewelry in the room, and Caryatid wizard-locked the north door, in hopes that any other treasure would not be plundered before they could return (having learned their lesson from the lost treasure of the Goblin Prince). Then they headed back to the surface with their plunder, which gave them enough experience points that Brother Chase made it to level 3, being promoted to Father Chase by his "supervisors" at his "temporary clerical staffing" chapel.
Monday, May 7, 2018
Idalium Game 89: Siren Songs
Session date: Monday, January 22, 2018
Game date: Saturday, March 27, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35718/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17472/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6321/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5654/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 0/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5935/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2831/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 648/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1404/2400
On the Spring Equinox of each year, an annual auction is held in Idalium, co-sponsored by the Adventurers' Guild, of which the party are members, and the Runcible Trading House, an importer of expensive artifacts, curios, and art objects. The players intended to sell the sinister spellbook they had somehow returned with from Castle Ravenloft. But, today we had a new player, a friend of the players of Simon and Adrien, and so rather than have her first session be a simulated auction, we thought it would be better to spend the session with a regular dungeon delve, and then do a flashback to the auction later.
Our new player was familiar with computer role playing games, but had never played a pencil and paper RPG before. She wanted to be an elf (regardless of their slow advancement) and named her elf "Orehoe". I suspect inspiration from the package of cookies on the table. For her single first level spell she chose Ventriloquism.
Down into the buried ruins of old Idalium they went, heading for the Temple of Fate on the second level so they could "haze" their new companion. They ran into some skeletons in the town square, but Brother Chase presented his holy symbol and they cowered away from him, and were easily dispatched by the rest of the party. While they were catching their breaths after the quick battle, a half dozen horrid stirges flapped into the town square. The adventurers wasted no time in running from from bloodsuckers, and fortunately they were not pursued into the tunnel leading south to the Street of Temples.
They made their way downstairs without incident. In the Temple of Fate, they heard the cruel laughter of eight hobgoblins, who were just finishing hazing one of their own company on the wheel, and egged on the party to take spin and spin on the great wheel of fortune. Adrien was blessed with good luck for the day, her giant ferret Norman did a nimble backflip upon being released after his spin, and Jack would have lost a level but luckily made his saving throw. Orehoe took a spin on the wheel in good humor, and she too was lucky to make a saving throw against some unknown curse.
Having had their fun with the wheel, they proceeded to the third level and explored some new areas towards the west. They found a long corridor stretching north and south far into the darkness, and the western wall of this corridor was ornamented with decorative architecture that gave the impression of an ornate palace wall. They came to a rather fancy door, and Simon used his mind-reading amulet, sensing the bored minds of several creatures on guard duty. Gulleck knocked tentatively at the door, and the eerie hooting voice of a bugbear echoed back to him.
"What business do you have with Her Majesty, the Queen of Nightmares?"
"None!" blurted Gulleck in a hurry, and they all continued along to the north. They found a much plainer door in the west wall, and Gulleck attempted to open it but somehow managed to fail (she only fails on a 1 in 6 due to her gauntlets of ogre strength). Simon was concerned that the pounding on the door might have drawn attention (they were still too close to the Queen of Nightmare's palace for comfort) so he used the amulet again, and sensed several creatures on the other side who were preparing to ambush anyone who came in.
There was some debate over whether they could bluff their way in, and Orehoe even cast her Ventriloquism spell to try to make a bugbear voice (which she had only heard once in her life!) call out "They're probably friendly, why not let them in?" But the bugbear guards were not fooled by this nonsense.
"You sound ridiculous! Go away and stop bothering us!"
So they did, continuing their exploration to the north, beyond the palace. They came to a place where the hall opened into a large room. They peered into a ruined and wrecked feast hall and caught a glimpse of many white bones strewn among the rubble covering the floor and table. Before they had time to react to this sight, a surreal vocal harmony floated forth from the darkness. Several feminine voices joined to create a wordless song that saturated the air, overwhelming the senses of the adventurers. All rolled saving throws versus magic, and only Simon and Orin made their saves. A blank, enraptured mask fell over the faces of the others in the party, and they staggered slowly forward into the feast hall, the better to hear the entrancing song. Simon and Orin followed in nervous fear, and the light from Simon's sword fell upon five hideous creatures, half woman and half giant eagle. Their hair was tangled and matted with filth, and their faces were pale and drawn with hunger. The beauty of the song that pervaded this room was bizarrely incongruous with the hideous appearance of the creatures. Their hands were outstretched in long claws, and the party members were sleepwalking directly towards them.
Orin began speaking the words of the Sleep spell, and several of the monsters launched themselves into the air, flapping towards him on heavy wings. He completed his spell, and three of the fiends fell asleep where they were. Two sprawled across the table and chairs, and one fell out of the air and landed heavily on the floor. But another one raked him with her claws, for three hit points of damage (out of only four hit points he had!).
Now, this called for some DM judgment. The Basic rules are rather vague about how the harpies' charm effect works. Presumably the charm wears off if the harpy stops singing (the general rules about charm attack say, "The death of the charming monster will usually break this type of charm"). But are the party members charmed by all of the harpies at once, or an individual one? My thought was that this looked like a TPK in the works if all of the harpies had to be silenced in order for the rest of the party to snap out of it, so I decided that each character is charmed by a specific harpy, and I rolled a d6 for each charmed character, to see if "their" harpy was one of the three that had fallen asleep and ceased singing. This worked out well for the party: Gulleck, Caryatid, and Adrien all came to their senses and Caryatid was able to use her own Sleep spell to deal with the remaining two harpies. Gulleck wasted no time in putting the sleeping monsters to the axe.
Harpies are kind of like ghouls in that they are potentially a TPK because they have the potential to remove PCs from the entire combat. I'm not sure my ruling was the best way to handle it (I'm not sure it's thematically convincing for the PCs to snap out of it while the other two harpies are still singing), but I'm not sure Simon and Orin could have defeated the remaining two harpies on their own. I'm open to suggestions on a better way of handling the harpies' singing.
Amongst the filth and bones and rubble, the adventurers found three valuable pieces of treasure: a jeweled necklace and bracelet, and a gold and silver goblet, worth over 2,000 gold darics altogether. They quickly collected the treasure and the group made their way back to the surface, satisfied with their harrowing escape.
Game date: Saturday, March 27, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35718/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17472/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6321/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5654/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 0/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5935/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2831/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 648/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1404/2400
On the Spring Equinox of each year, an annual auction is held in Idalium, co-sponsored by the Adventurers' Guild, of which the party are members, and the Runcible Trading House, an importer of expensive artifacts, curios, and art objects. The players intended to sell the sinister spellbook they had somehow returned with from Castle Ravenloft. But, today we had a new player, a friend of the players of Simon and Adrien, and so rather than have her first session be a simulated auction, we thought it would be better to spend the session with a regular dungeon delve, and then do a flashback to the auction later.
Our new player was familiar with computer role playing games, but had never played a pencil and paper RPG before. She wanted to be an elf (regardless of their slow advancement) and named her elf "Orehoe". I suspect inspiration from the package of cookies on the table. For her single first level spell she chose Ventriloquism.
Down into the buried ruins of old Idalium they went, heading for the Temple of Fate on the second level so they could "haze" their new companion. They ran into some skeletons in the town square, but Brother Chase presented his holy symbol and they cowered away from him, and were easily dispatched by the rest of the party. While they were catching their breaths after the quick battle, a half dozen horrid stirges flapped into the town square. The adventurers wasted no time in running from from bloodsuckers, and fortunately they were not pursued into the tunnel leading south to the Street of Temples.
They made their way downstairs without incident. In the Temple of Fate, they heard the cruel laughter of eight hobgoblins, who were just finishing hazing one of their own company on the wheel, and egged on the party to take spin and spin on the great wheel of fortune. Adrien was blessed with good luck for the day, her giant ferret Norman did a nimble backflip upon being released after his spin, and Jack would have lost a level but luckily made his saving throw. Orehoe took a spin on the wheel in good humor, and she too was lucky to make a saving throw against some unknown curse.
Having had their fun with the wheel, they proceeded to the third level and explored some new areas towards the west. They found a long corridor stretching north and south far into the darkness, and the western wall of this corridor was ornamented with decorative architecture that gave the impression of an ornate palace wall. They came to a rather fancy door, and Simon used his mind-reading amulet, sensing the bored minds of several creatures on guard duty. Gulleck knocked tentatively at the door, and the eerie hooting voice of a bugbear echoed back to him.
"What business do you have with Her Majesty, the Queen of Nightmares?"
"None!" blurted Gulleck in a hurry, and they all continued along to the north. They found a much plainer door in the west wall, and Gulleck attempted to open it but somehow managed to fail (she only fails on a 1 in 6 due to her gauntlets of ogre strength). Simon was concerned that the pounding on the door might have drawn attention (they were still too close to the Queen of Nightmare's palace for comfort) so he used the amulet again, and sensed several creatures on the other side who were preparing to ambush anyone who came in.
There was some debate over whether they could bluff their way in, and Orehoe even cast her Ventriloquism spell to try to make a bugbear voice (which she had only heard once in her life!) call out "They're probably friendly, why not let them in?" But the bugbear guards were not fooled by this nonsense.
"You sound ridiculous! Go away and stop bothering us!"
So they did, continuing their exploration to the north, beyond the palace. They came to a place where the hall opened into a large room. They peered into a ruined and wrecked feast hall and caught a glimpse of many white bones strewn among the rubble covering the floor and table. Before they had time to react to this sight, a surreal vocal harmony floated forth from the darkness. Several feminine voices joined to create a wordless song that saturated the air, overwhelming the senses of the adventurers. All rolled saving throws versus magic, and only Simon and Orin made their saves. A blank, enraptured mask fell over the faces of the others in the party, and they staggered slowly forward into the feast hall, the better to hear the entrancing song. Simon and Orin followed in nervous fear, and the light from Simon's sword fell upon five hideous creatures, half woman and half giant eagle. Their hair was tangled and matted with filth, and their faces were pale and drawn with hunger. The beauty of the song that pervaded this room was bizarrely incongruous with the hideous appearance of the creatures. Their hands were outstretched in long claws, and the party members were sleepwalking directly towards them.
Orin began speaking the words of the Sleep spell, and several of the monsters launched themselves into the air, flapping towards him on heavy wings. He completed his spell, and three of the fiends fell asleep where they were. Two sprawled across the table and chairs, and one fell out of the air and landed heavily on the floor. But another one raked him with her claws, for three hit points of damage (out of only four hit points he had!).
Now, this called for some DM judgment. The Basic rules are rather vague about how the harpies' charm effect works. Presumably the charm wears off if the harpy stops singing (the general rules about charm attack say, "The death of the charming monster will usually break this type of charm"). But are the party members charmed by all of the harpies at once, or an individual one? My thought was that this looked like a TPK in the works if all of the harpies had to be silenced in order for the rest of the party to snap out of it, so I decided that each character is charmed by a specific harpy, and I rolled a d6 for each charmed character, to see if "their" harpy was one of the three that had fallen asleep and ceased singing. This worked out well for the party: Gulleck, Caryatid, and Adrien all came to their senses and Caryatid was able to use her own Sleep spell to deal with the remaining two harpies. Gulleck wasted no time in putting the sleeping monsters to the axe.
Harpies are kind of like ghouls in that they are potentially a TPK because they have the potential to remove PCs from the entire combat. I'm not sure my ruling was the best way to handle it (I'm not sure it's thematically convincing for the PCs to snap out of it while the other two harpies are still singing), but I'm not sure Simon and Orin could have defeated the remaining two harpies on their own. I'm open to suggestions on a better way of handling the harpies' singing.
Amongst the filth and bones and rubble, the adventurers found three valuable pieces of treasure: a jeweled necklace and bracelet, and a gold and silver goblet, worth over 2,000 gold darics altogether. They quickly collected the treasure and the group made their way back to the surface, satisfied with their harrowing escape.
Monday, April 23, 2018
Idalium Game 88: Along Came a Spider
Session date: Monday, January 8, 2018
Game date: Saturday, March 13, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35651/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17388/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6233/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5570/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5893/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2787/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 606/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1360/2400
In just over a week (game time) it would be time for the annual auction of esoteric and magical artifacts. The adventurers had a mind to sell the strange hidebound book that had come back with them from the dreamlike excursion to Castle Ravenloft. To hopefully spur interest in the book and bolster its selling price, they commissioned a pair of "matching" leather gloves from Elsbeth Finley, a neighborhood leatherworker. She charged them 50 gold darics for the pair, as they would have to be made of an unusual and scarce leather that approximated the unknown covering of the book. After a couple of weeks the gloves were ready, and the party trekked across Idalium to the wealthy quarter, to deliver the book and gloves to Lord Runcible at Runcible Trading House, the co-organizers (along with the Adventurer's Guild) of the auction. Lord Runcible heard the story of Gulleck and Caryatid about how the book held significant power and danger, as it could strike a person down if handled without gloves. He raised an eyebrow skeptically when they told him it came from another realm, but accepted it into the auction anyway.
Back at the Rusty Lantern, Heady (the animated wooden face hacked out of a door) greeted them jovially and asked if they had heard the latest gossip in the Adventurer's Guild: Rugger's Raiders had undergone some upheaval, and was now being led by the elf Moonpetal. In fact, they were now calling themselves "Moonpetal's Marauders".
"I don't know what happened to him, but Rugger is totally whipped by that scrawny elf! Hoo-boy!"
This unsettled the adventurers greatly, as last they knew, Moonpetal had parted company with Rugger and was taking some time off "to find himself". They were deeply suspicious that something had gone wrong in the pool of resurrection, as usual...
They bought a few gems from a jeweler who was hanging out at the bar, to take to the talking stone pillar down on the third level, and then descended into the dungeon. But when they got down to the third level, who should they find in the first room at the bottom of the stairs but Rugger's Raiders, er, Moonpetal's Marauders! Moonpetal was clearly the same elf that they had seen last month, but his entire composure was transformed. He was haughty and arrogant, and Rugger had lost his brash presence and seemed meek and humble.
"Oh, hi, Gulleck!" waved Rugger with a dopey smile. "Are you exploring this level too?" It soon became obvious to the party that Moonpetal's magical duplicate (Caryatid immediately dubbed him "Moonloaf") had charmed his entire party (much as the magic-user Silvana had done to his original) and taken command of the group. He expressed annoyance and hurt that the adventurers had just left him in the resurrection pool. From his perspective, they went into the room and he entered the pool to heal his palpitating heart, and when he emerged from the soothing waters, the chamber was empty. He had crept out into the dark hallway and made his way back to his sleeping comrades, and returned alone to the surface. He accessed their treasure vault in the Rusty Lantern and seized all of the party treasure and then over the next week he researched the Charm Person spell. Then he tracked down Rugger and charmed him. The rest of the party didn't seem to care who their leader was; it seemed they didn't actually like Rugger all that much.
Moonpetal's group haughtily took their leave of the Infestation Managers and headed upstairs, while the party headed south to visit "the judge", the talking stone pillar of impossibly many faces. They fed him five ornamental stones worth 10 gp each, which he wolfed down like some demented Cookie Monster.
"More, more!" he cried hungrily, and Gulleck gave him a slightly more expensive gem worth 30 gp. The pillar still seemed unsatisfied, and Simon asked if he knew where they could find more gems, or treasure in general.
"There are ratmen to the north. I'm sure they have a great deal of treasure, and from what I'm told, they also like shiny things. And then there are the people in the black cloaks to the west. They are always buying and selling food, and weapons, and... things. So they must have some wealth to speak of."
Well, the group didn't feel up to tangling with either the wererats or the cultists today, so they decided to head back upstairs and see if the big snakepit in the orcs'/goblins' apartment complex led anywhere. They made their way to the apartments, last occupied by the Goblin Prince and his goblins, but when they entered the courtyard, they found it was lit by torches carried by a number of the cultists. They wore their customary black cloaks over plate mail and disturbing goat head amulets around their necks. They were led by the dark-haired witch known as Ms. Frost, whom the adventurers had met before. She looked at them sourly.
"Oh, it's you. We heard someone wiped out the Goblin Prince" - ("Yeah, that was us," interjected Simon) - "so we came to see if there we could collect any... useful materials. But it looks like other scavengers got here before us. Come on, everyone, let's go." And she led her party of cultists past the adventurers and out of the courtyard.
The adventurers climbed up onto the wooden stage and examined the lever next to the Goblin Prince's throne. Gulleck pulled it and a trapdoor dropped open several feet in front of the throne. Simon peered down into the hole with his sword, and saw that the stage was covering the snake pit. All that was left of the giant pythons that had occupied this pit were two large skeletons, clad in tattered remnants of snakeskin and rotten bits of overlooked snakeflesh. Scattered throughout the rubble and bones Simon could see the glittering of hundreds of silver and gold coins. But moving amongst the bones and rubble was something else as well, three enormous hairy spiders! Their bodies were at least as wide as a man was tall. They noticed Simon's light and reached towards him, stretching upwards with their front legs, but fortunately they were too far below to reach him. Simon decided to use his animal control ring on the spiders, but was surprised that it was unable to get any grip on their minds. He took the ring off again, and the spiders eventually grew bored with him and shuffled off into the darkness.
They tried to hatch a plan: they would lure the spiders back into the space under the trapdoor by dropping some planks hacked free of the wooden platform, and then Orin would cast his Sleep spell on them. This mostly worked: they dropped some planks into the pit, and two spiders crept forward to investigate. Orin cast his spell, and one of the spiders went limp and slumped onto the ground. The other retreated back into the dark. Then the plan turned weird. Orin was ordered to descend into the pit with one foot on a loop at the bottom of a rope anchored to the throne, one hand holding the rope, and the other hand carrying a loaded crossbow and ready to shoot any spider that approached. But then the two enormous spiders, wider than he was tall, lunged out of the dark at his, mandibles snapping and clacking. His crossbow bolt went wild into the dark, and then one of the spiders sank its fangs into him, killing him instantly. He let go of the rope and fell to the bottom of the pit.
Caryatid cast her Sleep spell, putting one of the spiders to sleep. Gulleck decided to go for broke, and dropped through the trapdoor with her axe held over her head, trying to fall onto the remaining spider and sink her axe into its thorax. Unfortunately, her player rolled a 1, and so she missed the spider completely and hit the rubble and snake bones hard, taking 5 hit points of damage, and to make matters worse she fell on her own axe, taking a further 10 points. For a lesser dwarf (or human) this would have been enough to kill them several times over, but as a level 6 dwarf, Gulleck was able to roll as she fell and luckily convert a fatal impaling into a mere flesh wound.
Up above, worried faces peered through the trapdoor, as Caryatid cast a Magic Missile at the spider before it could finish Gulleck off. She rolled the big green d30 and did 15 hp damage, and then Meat rolled a natural 20 for his bow, firing an arrow directly into one of the eyes of the spider. It squealed in pain and rage. Gulleck tried to defend herself but rolled a 1 (again!) and got her axe tangled in the snake bones, but she pulled it free as the spider lunged around blindly, and then plunged the axe into the abdomen of the beast. Ichor spewed forth and the spider collapsed in a twitching pile. She killed the two sleeping spiders, and then brutally hacked the head off of one, intending to clean it out and wear it as a decorative helmet accessory.
Gulleck collected the scattered coins, and then Orin's body was tied to the rope and hauled back out of the snake pit. Then they carried him to the resurrection pool, where he was revived. Curiously, as he climbed out of the pool, he found himself uncontrollably twitching spasmodically in a rhythmic fashion for a few seconds. This passed quickly, though, and the group quickly made their way back out of the dungeon with their loot.
Game date: Saturday, March 13, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35651/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17388/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6233/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5570/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5893/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2787/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 606/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1360/2400
In just over a week (game time) it would be time for the annual auction of esoteric and magical artifacts. The adventurers had a mind to sell the strange hidebound book that had come back with them from the dreamlike excursion to Castle Ravenloft. To hopefully spur interest in the book and bolster its selling price, they commissioned a pair of "matching" leather gloves from Elsbeth Finley, a neighborhood leatherworker. She charged them 50 gold darics for the pair, as they would have to be made of an unusual and scarce leather that approximated the unknown covering of the book. After a couple of weeks the gloves were ready, and the party trekked across Idalium to the wealthy quarter, to deliver the book and gloves to Lord Runcible at Runcible Trading House, the co-organizers (along with the Adventurer's Guild) of the auction. Lord Runcible heard the story of Gulleck and Caryatid about how the book held significant power and danger, as it could strike a person down if handled without gloves. He raised an eyebrow skeptically when they told him it came from another realm, but accepted it into the auction anyway.
Back at the Rusty Lantern, Heady (the animated wooden face hacked out of a door) greeted them jovially and asked if they had heard the latest gossip in the Adventurer's Guild: Rugger's Raiders had undergone some upheaval, and was now being led by the elf Moonpetal. In fact, they were now calling themselves "Moonpetal's Marauders".
"I don't know what happened to him, but Rugger is totally whipped by that scrawny elf! Hoo-boy!"
This unsettled the adventurers greatly, as last they knew, Moonpetal had parted company with Rugger and was taking some time off "to find himself". They were deeply suspicious that something had gone wrong in the pool of resurrection, as usual...
They bought a few gems from a jeweler who was hanging out at the bar, to take to the talking stone pillar down on the third level, and then descended into the dungeon. But when they got down to the third level, who should they find in the first room at the bottom of the stairs but Rugger's Raiders, er, Moonpetal's Marauders! Moonpetal was clearly the same elf that they had seen last month, but his entire composure was transformed. He was haughty and arrogant, and Rugger had lost his brash presence and seemed meek and humble.
"Oh, hi, Gulleck!" waved Rugger with a dopey smile. "Are you exploring this level too?" It soon became obvious to the party that Moonpetal's magical duplicate (Caryatid immediately dubbed him "Moonloaf") had charmed his entire party (much as the magic-user Silvana had done to his original) and taken command of the group. He expressed annoyance and hurt that the adventurers had just left him in the resurrection pool. From his perspective, they went into the room and he entered the pool to heal his palpitating heart, and when he emerged from the soothing waters, the chamber was empty. He had crept out into the dark hallway and made his way back to his sleeping comrades, and returned alone to the surface. He accessed their treasure vault in the Rusty Lantern and seized all of the party treasure and then over the next week he researched the Charm Person spell. Then he tracked down Rugger and charmed him. The rest of the party didn't seem to care who their leader was; it seemed they didn't actually like Rugger all that much.
Moonpetal's group haughtily took their leave of the Infestation Managers and headed upstairs, while the party headed south to visit "the judge", the talking stone pillar of impossibly many faces. They fed him five ornamental stones worth 10 gp each, which he wolfed down like some demented Cookie Monster.
"More, more!" he cried hungrily, and Gulleck gave him a slightly more expensive gem worth 30 gp. The pillar still seemed unsatisfied, and Simon asked if he knew where they could find more gems, or treasure in general.
"There are ratmen to the north. I'm sure they have a great deal of treasure, and from what I'm told, they also like shiny things. And then there are the people in the black cloaks to the west. They are always buying and selling food, and weapons, and... things. So they must have some wealth to speak of."
Well, the group didn't feel up to tangling with either the wererats or the cultists today, so they decided to head back upstairs and see if the big snakepit in the orcs'/goblins' apartment complex led anywhere. They made their way to the apartments, last occupied by the Goblin Prince and his goblins, but when they entered the courtyard, they found it was lit by torches carried by a number of the cultists. They wore their customary black cloaks over plate mail and disturbing goat head amulets around their necks. They were led by the dark-haired witch known as Ms. Frost, whom the adventurers had met before. She looked at them sourly.
"Oh, it's you. We heard someone wiped out the Goblin Prince" - ("Yeah, that was us," interjected Simon) - "so we came to see if there we could collect any... useful materials. But it looks like other scavengers got here before us. Come on, everyone, let's go." And she led her party of cultists past the adventurers and out of the courtyard.
The adventurers climbed up onto the wooden stage and examined the lever next to the Goblin Prince's throne. Gulleck pulled it and a trapdoor dropped open several feet in front of the throne. Simon peered down into the hole with his sword, and saw that the stage was covering the snake pit. All that was left of the giant pythons that had occupied this pit were two large skeletons, clad in tattered remnants of snakeskin and rotten bits of overlooked snakeflesh. Scattered throughout the rubble and bones Simon could see the glittering of hundreds of silver and gold coins. But moving amongst the bones and rubble was something else as well, three enormous hairy spiders! Their bodies were at least as wide as a man was tall. They noticed Simon's light and reached towards him, stretching upwards with their front legs, but fortunately they were too far below to reach him. Simon decided to use his animal control ring on the spiders, but was surprised that it was unable to get any grip on their minds. He took the ring off again, and the spiders eventually grew bored with him and shuffled off into the darkness.
They tried to hatch a plan: they would lure the spiders back into the space under the trapdoor by dropping some planks hacked free of the wooden platform, and then Orin would cast his Sleep spell on them. This mostly worked: they dropped some planks into the pit, and two spiders crept forward to investigate. Orin cast his spell, and one of the spiders went limp and slumped onto the ground. The other retreated back into the dark. Then the plan turned weird. Orin was ordered to descend into the pit with one foot on a loop at the bottom of a rope anchored to the throne, one hand holding the rope, and the other hand carrying a loaded crossbow and ready to shoot any spider that approached. But then the two enormous spiders, wider than he was tall, lunged out of the dark at his, mandibles snapping and clacking. His crossbow bolt went wild into the dark, and then one of the spiders sank its fangs into him, killing him instantly. He let go of the rope and fell to the bottom of the pit.
Caryatid cast her Sleep spell, putting one of the spiders to sleep. Gulleck decided to go for broke, and dropped through the trapdoor with her axe held over her head, trying to fall onto the remaining spider and sink her axe into its thorax. Unfortunately, her player rolled a 1, and so she missed the spider completely and hit the rubble and snake bones hard, taking 5 hit points of damage, and to make matters worse she fell on her own axe, taking a further 10 points. For a lesser dwarf (or human) this would have been enough to kill them several times over, but as a level 6 dwarf, Gulleck was able to roll as she fell and luckily convert a fatal impaling into a mere flesh wound.
Up above, worried faces peered through the trapdoor, as Caryatid cast a Magic Missile at the spider before it could finish Gulleck off. She rolled the big green d30 and did 15 hp damage, and then Meat rolled a natural 20 for his bow, firing an arrow directly into one of the eyes of the spider. It squealed in pain and rage. Gulleck tried to defend herself but rolled a 1 (again!) and got her axe tangled in the snake bones, but she pulled it free as the spider lunged around blindly, and then plunged the axe into the abdomen of the beast. Ichor spewed forth and the spider collapsed in a twitching pile. She killed the two sleeping spiders, and then brutally hacked the head off of one, intending to clean it out and wear it as a decorative helmet accessory.
Gulleck collected the scattered coins, and then Orin's body was tied to the rope and hauled back out of the snake pit. Then they carried him to the resurrection pool, where he was revived. Curiously, as he climbed out of the pool, he found himself uncontrollably twitching spasmodically in a rhythmic fashion for a few seconds. This passed quickly, though, and the group quickly made their way back out of the dungeon with their loot.
Friday, April 13, 2018
Idalium Game 87: Bad Company
Session date: Monday, December 11, 2017
Game date: Saturday, February 14, 210 to Sunday, February 15, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35519/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17223/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6060/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5405/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5810/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2726/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 523/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1272/2400
It was the holiday of a minor but seasonally popular cult of some obscure saint devoted to the pursuit of romantic love, and the adventurers took refuge in the Rusty Lantern tavern from the enthusiastic parade crowds outside. The place was fairly empty today, as most of the regulars were outside enjoying the festivities. The party geared up and descended into the cool silence of the underground ruins of Ancient Idalium, intending to continue their explorations of the third level. On the street of temples on the first level, they encountered a nest of giant rats in some crumbling rubble. They could see coins glinting in the rubble, so they used their animal control rings to make the rats fight amongst themselves. That worked so well that when they encountered a handful of giant centipedes further up the hall, they used the same trick again. Adrien's giant ferret snapped one in half with a single bite, and quickly ate the two halves. Unfortunately, one of the centipedes nipped Brother Chase on his ankle, and he was soon overcome with nausea, retching and heaving. It was no use continuing on with him in this state, so they turned around and went back to the surface and called it a day.
The next morning, Brother Chase was feeling no better, having spent most of the night throwing up water, so they went to the Great Cathedral of Idalium and asked if anything could be done for him. Well, they balked at the "suggested donation" of 7,500 silver shekels for the working of a miracle that would cure him of this illness, and when asked "Don't you have any cheaper options?" they were offered a cot in the convalescence hall for a mere 100 shekels per day. Simon paid 70 gold darics in advance for the week, and they left Brother Chase in the capable hands of the acolytes of the Great Cathedral and then returned to the Rusty Lantern.
They had barely got into the dungeon when they encountered a band of 10 skeletons, in the big town square. The skeletons lunged towards the adventurers with surprising speed.
"We could really use a cleric right about now," grumbled Gulleck.
Caryatid drew forth her wand of paralysis and flicked it at the skeletons. There was a flash of blue light, and four of them collapsed into piles of twitching bones. The wand turned chalky and ashen and crumbled into smudgy charcoal in her hand. Gulleck, Simon, and Adrien fought well, and dispatched the remaining skeletons. There was some hilarity when one of the skeletons rolled a 1 and tangled up its sword between the radius and ulna of its buddy next to it, spoiling its attack. Soon the skeletons were dealt with, and the adventurers continued on.
They encountered more giant animals on their way to the temple of hedonism, first giant bats in the street of temples and then more rats in the temple. Both groups were dealt with using the animal control rings.
"It's busy down here today!" commented Simon.
In the basement of the temple of hedonism, Simon and Caryatid sniffed around for gold with their magically enhanced noses, and discovered a burlap sack underneath one of the divans. Inside it they found hundreds of silver and gold coins, plus a scroll of two magical spells, and a letter written in Common in a cramped, scratchy hand.
"As agreed, here is payment for the weapons and supplies you are providing to us. Use this money to purchase the following items in the city, and bring them to us at our temple downstairs." Then there was a list of mundane supplies and various weapons and ammunition. The letter was signed, "The Brotherhood of St. Rathmus, Idalium Chapter".
"Oh no, you don't!" said Gulleck. They took the treasure and then decided to wait around to see if anyone showed up to pick up the money. The exits from the room were barred from within apart from the stairs leading back up, so it seemed secure enough. The party hid themselves in one of the curtained-off boudoirs off of the main room and waited. Several hours passed, and then the door scraped as it opened. A familiar face peered into the room: the dwarf Rugger. Seeing no one in the room, he cautiously moved inside and beckoned the rest of his party, "Rugger's Raiders" to follow. He walked over to the divan and peered underneath it. Caryatid and Orin leaped into action, both casting Sleep spells and putting everyone to sleep before they could react. Everyone was trussed up with rope except for the elf Moonpetal, who had always seemed to be a decent if spineless fellow who had fallen in with bad company. They woke Moonpetal up and talked to him.
Moonpetal was understandably distressed to see his party asleep and bound. He tried to scream to wake them up but Gulleck silenced him with a shake of her head and a meaningful wiggle of her axe.
"We found this letter," she said, showing him the note. "Do you understand you're trading with ratmen?"
"Ratmen? No, no, no," wheedled Moonpetal. "They're just these nice old men who live down in the dungeon, and we were going to help them get some supplies to defend themselves with."
Gulleck tried to explain about the monastery in the mountains, where they had met the Brotherhood of St. Rathmus and discovered them to be horrible wererats who were scheming to invade Idalium.
"No, I can't believe that," whined Moonpetal. "Miss Silvana said they were just nice men that we were helping out, and Miss Silvana would never ever lie to me. She's my very best friend in the entire world, and she would never have us take part in something bad." Silvana was the party's magic user, currently lying asleep nearby.
"Moonpetal, I don't mean to be unkind, but has it ever occurred to you that maybe Miss Silvana is, well, taking advantage of you?" asked Gulleck.
"Oh no, I love Miss Silvana and she loves me! Every week she even casts a very special spell to make sure that nothing ever comes between us..."
"Oh, that does it," muttered Gulleck, and swung her axe directly into Silvana's neck.
Moonpetal screamed in horror and cast his only offensive spell at Gulleck. Unfortunately that spell was Light, and since Gulleck made her saving throw, the spell landed a foot above her head, just providing a bit of additional brightness in the room.
Moonpetal collapsed into a sobbing wreck. His mind had cleared with Silvana's death and he now fully realized that he had been magically enchanted by her all this time. Caryatid had some sympathy for the pathetic wretch and offered to hire him as her retainer, since Brother Chase was feeling under the weather. That made him feel a little better, though he quickly revealed the depth of his disturbance:
"And will you cast a very special spell on me, too?"
"Oh no! No, no, no, no!" Caryatid said hurriedly.
So, in the end, they looted the surviving members of Rugger's party, collecting a very nice throwing axe from Rugger, a few dozen silver and gold coins, and a vial of some kind of sparkling potion. Caryatid left a note on top of Rugger's face, that read as follows:
"You have been abandoned by your elf Moonpetal. You have been tried and found guilty of aiding and abetting wererats. You will find that you have been relieved of all harmful items. Please stop doing bad things. Love, The Infestation Managers."
Then they untied Rugger and his associates and left. They took Moonpetal to the Temple of Fate to spin him on the Wheel of Fortune, as was their custom with new retainers. Unfortunately, Moonpetal came back off the wheel feeling queasy and ill. His heart was skipping and jumping. So they took him to the small room containing the pool that revives the dead and heals the wounded. At Caryatid's urging, Moonpetal lowered himself into the pool, and smiled as the healing magic of the water smoothed out his unstable heartbeat and filled him with a deep sense of well being. He emerged happy and grateful to his new friends. They walked back, past the sleeping Rugger's Raiders and back upstairs to the Rusty Lantern.
Simon ended up paying for another three days of convalescence for Brother Chase. (I'm not quite sure why Caryatid let him pay for her retainer, but she didn't speak up when he offered!) Eventually, Brother Chase's fever broke and he felt well enough to leave the Cathedral and get on with life as usual.
Game date: Saturday, February 14, 210 to Sunday, February 15, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35519/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17223/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6060/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5405/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5810/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2726/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 523/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1272/2400
It was the holiday of a minor but seasonally popular cult of some obscure saint devoted to the pursuit of romantic love, and the adventurers took refuge in the Rusty Lantern tavern from the enthusiastic parade crowds outside. The place was fairly empty today, as most of the regulars were outside enjoying the festivities. The party geared up and descended into the cool silence of the underground ruins of Ancient Idalium, intending to continue their explorations of the third level. On the street of temples on the first level, they encountered a nest of giant rats in some crumbling rubble. They could see coins glinting in the rubble, so they used their animal control rings to make the rats fight amongst themselves. That worked so well that when they encountered a handful of giant centipedes further up the hall, they used the same trick again. Adrien's giant ferret snapped one in half with a single bite, and quickly ate the two halves. Unfortunately, one of the centipedes nipped Brother Chase on his ankle, and he was soon overcome with nausea, retching and heaving. It was no use continuing on with him in this state, so they turned around and went back to the surface and called it a day.
The next morning, Brother Chase was feeling no better, having spent most of the night throwing up water, so they went to the Great Cathedral of Idalium and asked if anything could be done for him. Well, they balked at the "suggested donation" of 7,500 silver shekels for the working of a miracle that would cure him of this illness, and when asked "Don't you have any cheaper options?" they were offered a cot in the convalescence hall for a mere 100 shekels per day. Simon paid 70 gold darics in advance for the week, and they left Brother Chase in the capable hands of the acolytes of the Great Cathedral and then returned to the Rusty Lantern.
They had barely got into the dungeon when they encountered a band of 10 skeletons, in the big town square. The skeletons lunged towards the adventurers with surprising speed.
"We could really use a cleric right about now," grumbled Gulleck.
Caryatid drew forth her wand of paralysis and flicked it at the skeletons. There was a flash of blue light, and four of them collapsed into piles of twitching bones. The wand turned chalky and ashen and crumbled into smudgy charcoal in her hand. Gulleck, Simon, and Adrien fought well, and dispatched the remaining skeletons. There was some hilarity when one of the skeletons rolled a 1 and tangled up its sword between the radius and ulna of its buddy next to it, spoiling its attack. Soon the skeletons were dealt with, and the adventurers continued on.
They encountered more giant animals on their way to the temple of hedonism, first giant bats in the street of temples and then more rats in the temple. Both groups were dealt with using the animal control rings.
"It's busy down here today!" commented Simon.
In the basement of the temple of hedonism, Simon and Caryatid sniffed around for gold with their magically enhanced noses, and discovered a burlap sack underneath one of the divans. Inside it they found hundreds of silver and gold coins, plus a scroll of two magical spells, and a letter written in Common in a cramped, scratchy hand.
"As agreed, here is payment for the weapons and supplies you are providing to us. Use this money to purchase the following items in the city, and bring them to us at our temple downstairs." Then there was a list of mundane supplies and various weapons and ammunition. The letter was signed, "The Brotherhood of St. Rathmus, Idalium Chapter".
"Oh no, you don't!" said Gulleck. They took the treasure and then decided to wait around to see if anyone showed up to pick up the money. The exits from the room were barred from within apart from the stairs leading back up, so it seemed secure enough. The party hid themselves in one of the curtained-off boudoirs off of the main room and waited. Several hours passed, and then the door scraped as it opened. A familiar face peered into the room: the dwarf Rugger. Seeing no one in the room, he cautiously moved inside and beckoned the rest of his party, "Rugger's Raiders" to follow. He walked over to the divan and peered underneath it. Caryatid and Orin leaped into action, both casting Sleep spells and putting everyone to sleep before they could react. Everyone was trussed up with rope except for the elf Moonpetal, who had always seemed to be a decent if spineless fellow who had fallen in with bad company. They woke Moonpetal up and talked to him.
Moonpetal was understandably distressed to see his party asleep and bound. He tried to scream to wake them up but Gulleck silenced him with a shake of her head and a meaningful wiggle of her axe.
"We found this letter," she said, showing him the note. "Do you understand you're trading with ratmen?"
"Ratmen? No, no, no," wheedled Moonpetal. "They're just these nice old men who live down in the dungeon, and we were going to help them get some supplies to defend themselves with."
Gulleck tried to explain about the monastery in the mountains, where they had met the Brotherhood of St. Rathmus and discovered them to be horrible wererats who were scheming to invade Idalium.
"No, I can't believe that," whined Moonpetal. "Miss Silvana said they were just nice men that we were helping out, and Miss Silvana would never ever lie to me. She's my very best friend in the entire world, and she would never have us take part in something bad." Silvana was the party's magic user, currently lying asleep nearby.
"Moonpetal, I don't mean to be unkind, but has it ever occurred to you that maybe Miss Silvana is, well, taking advantage of you?" asked Gulleck.
"Oh no, I love Miss Silvana and she loves me! Every week she even casts a very special spell to make sure that nothing ever comes between us..."
"Oh, that does it," muttered Gulleck, and swung her axe directly into Silvana's neck.
Moonpetal screamed in horror and cast his only offensive spell at Gulleck. Unfortunately that spell was Light, and since Gulleck made her saving throw, the spell landed a foot above her head, just providing a bit of additional brightness in the room.
Moonpetal collapsed into a sobbing wreck. His mind had cleared with Silvana's death and he now fully realized that he had been magically enchanted by her all this time. Caryatid had some sympathy for the pathetic wretch and offered to hire him as her retainer, since Brother Chase was feeling under the weather. That made him feel a little better, though he quickly revealed the depth of his disturbance:
"And will you cast a very special spell on me, too?"
"Oh no! No, no, no, no!" Caryatid said hurriedly.
So, in the end, they looted the surviving members of Rugger's party, collecting a very nice throwing axe from Rugger, a few dozen silver and gold coins, and a vial of some kind of sparkling potion. Caryatid left a note on top of Rugger's face, that read as follows:
"You have been abandoned by your elf Moonpetal. You have been tried and found guilty of aiding and abetting wererats. You will find that you have been relieved of all harmful items. Please stop doing bad things. Love, The Infestation Managers."
Then they untied Rugger and his associates and left. They took Moonpetal to the Temple of Fate to spin him on the Wheel of Fortune, as was their custom with new retainers. Unfortunately, Moonpetal came back off the wheel feeling queasy and ill. His heart was skipping and jumping. So they took him to the small room containing the pool that revives the dead and heals the wounded. At Caryatid's urging, Moonpetal lowered himself into the pool, and smiled as the healing magic of the water smoothed out his unstable heartbeat and filled him with a deep sense of well being. He emerged happy and grateful to his new friends. They walked back, past the sleeping Rugger's Raiders and back upstairs to the Rusty Lantern.
Simon ended up paying for another three days of convalescence for Brother Chase. (I'm not quite sure why Caryatid let him pay for her retainer, but she didn't speak up when he offered!) Eventually, Brother Chase's fever broke and he felt well enough to leave the Cathedral and get on with life as usual.
Monday, April 2, 2018
Idalium Game 86: Easy Come, Easy Go!
Session date: November 27, 2017
Game date: Saturday, January 31, 210 to Sunday, February 1, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35515/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17218/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6054/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5400/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5807/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2722/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 520/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1268/2400
It had been a couple of weeks between sessions. Jack had been away celebrating his instant levelling up, but now he was back, and Simon had spent some gold to allow Orin to scribe a Sleep scroll. The party regrouped at the Rusty Lantern to continue their exploration of level three. In the basement of the Rusty Lantern, they met another adventuring party, St. Dwindum's Heroes, gearing up and getting ready to head down into the dungeon. They were also heading to the third level. Father Michael, the nominal although rather meek leader, warned them against the wererats, and the garrulous Brother Randy winked at them and told them to keep an eye out for those black-robed cultists that hung around down there.
The adventurers suited up and climbed down the rope ladder into the buried city of Ancient Idalium. However, they only got as far as the big town square before they were attacked by half a dozen angry goblins, who swore to kill them all to avenge the Goblin Prince. They actually scored a few hits before several of them were killed and Gulleck chased the rest screaming into the mine tunnels to the east. Adrien was quite badly hurt and Brother Chase had to call forth a miracle to heal her of her wounds. They were all a bit demoralized after taking some injuries just a few hundred feet from the entrance to the dungeon, and decided to go back home and try again the next day. Gulleck decided to bring a goblin body with her (I'm not quite sure why). She dragged it back to the rope ladder, but then decided she didn't want to be bothered hauling it up to the Rusty Lantern, so she left it there in the shop's storeroom.
When they returned the next day, the goblin corpse was gone, and in its place was a single beautiful peach. Gulleck stomped on it, squashing it beneath her boot, and thought she saw some wormlike grub crawl from the pulp into a crack in the floorboards. The adventurers resumed their march down to the second level, but in the Temple of Hedonism they found something unusual: the dead body of a young man, lying in a heap in front of the crystal statue that guarded the stairs down to the second level. He was clad in leather armor and wore a bulging backpack. The backpack contained some basic dungeoneering equipment (rope, iron spikes, etc.) and a burlap sack full of about a hundred silver shekels. The coins were swiftly relocated to party member's backpacks, and then the adventurers decided they might as well do a good deed and bring this poor sap back to life.
(I should point out that this was a simple dungeon restocking roll that resulted in unguarded treasure and I improvised the dead thief to make it a little more interesting and make more sense. I didn't expect them to resurrect him!)
They carried the body down to the second level and brought him to the resurrection pool that had revived so many of them before. They tossed him right into the pool fully clothed, and after a moment he came thrashing to the surface in a panic. Meat reached down and pulled the sodden fellow out of the pool. He sat dripping and gasping at the edge of the pool and then asked the party what had happened.
"Well, we found you dead, and now you're alive again," explained Gulleck. "What's your name?"
"I'm Rocco," the young man replied. He told them he was a new recruit to the Thieves' Guild, and he and a few other rookies had been sent down to the dungeon to bring back whatever unguarded loot they could find. Unfortunately, when they tried to pass the crystal statue it had come to life and lunged at him and that was all he could remember.
Caryatid felt sorry for this green kid, and brightly offered, "You ever consider becoming an adventurer's henchman?"
"Uh... I don't know, I hadn't really, but I owe you my life, so..."
"Great! Do you feel lucky?"
"Well, I did just come back to life, so..."
And with smirks on their faces they brought him to the Temple of Fate so he could get "initiated" by spinning on the Wheel of Fortune.
"Fortune?" asked Rocco, confused, as they strapped him onto the great wheel. "Am I going to get rich?"
They spun him on the wheel, raising an enormous clatter. Then he came to a stop and looked around uncertainly.
"Did it work? Am I rich?" he asked, and then his face contorted in a shriek as his body convulsed. His hair grew gray and coarse, and his skin tightened over his face. Finally all that was left was a withered husk, its skin shriveled and stretched, dead eyes bulging and staring. (Caryatid rolled "lose a level" and he failed his saving throw, and since he was only a first level thief, well, easy come, easy go!)
"Well, that was new," murmured Gulleck in shock.
They brought his body with them across the hall to the old abandoned temple that the Goblin Prince had converted into a feast hall, and set the body on top of the long table. The wall behind the altar was still painted with a grotesque portrait of the pompous Goblin Prince, and Gulleck whipped out a piece of chalk and drew a big Snidely Whiplash mustache on his face. This close up, she noticed that there were several layers of paint on the wall: the Goblin Prince's face, the horrible tentacled monster worshipped by the orcs, and then something beneath that. The adventurers took a few minutes to scrape away the paint, and discovered a secret door buried behind the paint. They pried the door open, discovering a hall lined with mosaics of soldiers and farmworkers being healed by the priests of Ancient Idalium. At the end of the hall was a tattered curtain, and behind that was a small alcove containing a plain wooden throne. Leaning against the throne was a tall wooden staff. Brother Chase examined it and said he could feel that it was imbued with powerful healing magic. They touched the staff to the husk that had once been Rocco, but alas, nothing happened. So they abandoned his body on the feast table and headed off, down the stairs to the third level.
In the very first room after passing through the great stone door, the adventurers surprised a group of eight black robed cultists. The cultists were haughty and ordered the adventurers to get lost, and absolutely not to trespass on their territory to the west unless they were bringing the bodies of goblins "or whatever" for their ceremonies.
"Rude!" complained Gulleck.
The cultists stormed off, and the adventurers went south to visit the odd talking stone column, who was glad of the company, but whined when he discovered that the party had not brought him any "shiny stones".
"I should have known it was too good to be true. You're all just like the others, making wonderful promises but once you're gone you forget all about me. But don't worry about me, I'm used to it by now..."
They eventually disengaged themselves from the morose old forgotten god, and headed east, down the hall towards where they had fought the ratmen last time. They opened a door opposite that room and found another small shrine with an eerie and disturbing idol atop an altar. Jack stepped forward to examine the altar, and Gulleck took a few moments to smash the freaky idol just on principle, but the next moment they were alarmed to discover that everything they spoke came out backwards! This lasted for the rest of the day.
East of these two shrines the hallway opened up into a large natural cavern. There was about 20 feet of a rocky, pebbly beach, and then a vast and immense underground lake that stretched out as far as the light from Simon's sword could illuminate. In the distance there was the sound of rushing and splashing water, but from where they stood the lake seemed almost unnaturally still and placid. They explored the beach in each direction and found that eventually the cavern walls converged with the sea.
Caryatid, apparently still taken aback by the sudden loss of her short-lived henchman, declared that "Henceforth, this rocky beach shall be known as Rocco Beach."
And having no boat and seeing no other exits apart from entering the water, the party returned to the hallway and headed west past the entry hall, now that the cultists had been gone for some time. They came to a four way intersection and explored to the north, eventually finding a stout wooden door with a giant mousehole (maybe two feet high) gnawed through at the bottom. This made them suspect "ratmen!" but they heard nothing and Simon used his mind-reading medallion and didn't detect any presences on the other side of the door. There were discussions of making Molotov cocktails and rolling them through the hole, Gulleck being reduced to playing charades and miming "torch". Eventually, they left this door for later, and continued along the hall exploring.
They found a series of rooms that seemed to be part of a theatre. There was a room full of smiling masks hanging on the walls, and another full of frowning masks. There was a room full of costumes of all different sorts, and a room cluttered with all sorts of miscellaneous objects, including a variety of fake weapons.
"Props to me!" joked Simon.
But it was late and they didn't feel like searching the room, so they returned to the entry hall, ignoring the needy whine of the stone column, and went back to the Rusty Lantern, with no treasure apart from the bag of silver they had taken from the ill-fated Rocco.
Game date: Saturday, January 31, 210 to Sunday, February 1, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35515/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17218/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6054/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5400/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5807/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2722/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 520/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1268/2400
It had been a couple of weeks between sessions. Jack had been away celebrating his instant levelling up, but now he was back, and Simon had spent some gold to allow Orin to scribe a Sleep scroll. The party regrouped at the Rusty Lantern to continue their exploration of level three. In the basement of the Rusty Lantern, they met another adventuring party, St. Dwindum's Heroes, gearing up and getting ready to head down into the dungeon. They were also heading to the third level. Father Michael, the nominal although rather meek leader, warned them against the wererats, and the garrulous Brother Randy winked at them and told them to keep an eye out for those black-robed cultists that hung around down there.
The adventurers suited up and climbed down the rope ladder into the buried city of Ancient Idalium. However, they only got as far as the big town square before they were attacked by half a dozen angry goblins, who swore to kill them all to avenge the Goblin Prince. They actually scored a few hits before several of them were killed and Gulleck chased the rest screaming into the mine tunnels to the east. Adrien was quite badly hurt and Brother Chase had to call forth a miracle to heal her of her wounds. They were all a bit demoralized after taking some injuries just a few hundred feet from the entrance to the dungeon, and decided to go back home and try again the next day. Gulleck decided to bring a goblin body with her (I'm not quite sure why). She dragged it back to the rope ladder, but then decided she didn't want to be bothered hauling it up to the Rusty Lantern, so she left it there in the shop's storeroom.
When they returned the next day, the goblin corpse was gone, and in its place was a single beautiful peach. Gulleck stomped on it, squashing it beneath her boot, and thought she saw some wormlike grub crawl from the pulp into a crack in the floorboards. The adventurers resumed their march down to the second level, but in the Temple of Hedonism they found something unusual: the dead body of a young man, lying in a heap in front of the crystal statue that guarded the stairs down to the second level. He was clad in leather armor and wore a bulging backpack. The backpack contained some basic dungeoneering equipment (rope, iron spikes, etc.) and a burlap sack full of about a hundred silver shekels. The coins were swiftly relocated to party member's backpacks, and then the adventurers decided they might as well do a good deed and bring this poor sap back to life.
(I should point out that this was a simple dungeon restocking roll that resulted in unguarded treasure and I improvised the dead thief to make it a little more interesting and make more sense. I didn't expect them to resurrect him!)
They carried the body down to the second level and brought him to the resurrection pool that had revived so many of them before. They tossed him right into the pool fully clothed, and after a moment he came thrashing to the surface in a panic. Meat reached down and pulled the sodden fellow out of the pool. He sat dripping and gasping at the edge of the pool and then asked the party what had happened.
"Well, we found you dead, and now you're alive again," explained Gulleck. "What's your name?"
"I'm Rocco," the young man replied. He told them he was a new recruit to the Thieves' Guild, and he and a few other rookies had been sent down to the dungeon to bring back whatever unguarded loot they could find. Unfortunately, when they tried to pass the crystal statue it had come to life and lunged at him and that was all he could remember.
Caryatid felt sorry for this green kid, and brightly offered, "You ever consider becoming an adventurer's henchman?"
"Uh... I don't know, I hadn't really, but I owe you my life, so..."
"Great! Do you feel lucky?"
"Well, I did just come back to life, so..."
And with smirks on their faces they brought him to the Temple of Fate so he could get "initiated" by spinning on the Wheel of Fortune.
"Fortune?" asked Rocco, confused, as they strapped him onto the great wheel. "Am I going to get rich?"
They spun him on the wheel, raising an enormous clatter. Then he came to a stop and looked around uncertainly.
"Did it work? Am I rich?" he asked, and then his face contorted in a shriek as his body convulsed. His hair grew gray and coarse, and his skin tightened over his face. Finally all that was left was a withered husk, its skin shriveled and stretched, dead eyes bulging and staring. (Caryatid rolled "lose a level" and he failed his saving throw, and since he was only a first level thief, well, easy come, easy go!)
"Well, that was new," murmured Gulleck in shock.
They brought his body with them across the hall to the old abandoned temple that the Goblin Prince had converted into a feast hall, and set the body on top of the long table. The wall behind the altar was still painted with a grotesque portrait of the pompous Goblin Prince, and Gulleck whipped out a piece of chalk and drew a big Snidely Whiplash mustache on his face. This close up, she noticed that there were several layers of paint on the wall: the Goblin Prince's face, the horrible tentacled monster worshipped by the orcs, and then something beneath that. The adventurers took a few minutes to scrape away the paint, and discovered a secret door buried behind the paint. They pried the door open, discovering a hall lined with mosaics of soldiers and farmworkers being healed by the priests of Ancient Idalium. At the end of the hall was a tattered curtain, and behind that was a small alcove containing a plain wooden throne. Leaning against the throne was a tall wooden staff. Brother Chase examined it and said he could feel that it was imbued with powerful healing magic. They touched the staff to the husk that had once been Rocco, but alas, nothing happened. So they abandoned his body on the feast table and headed off, down the stairs to the third level.
In the very first room after passing through the great stone door, the adventurers surprised a group of eight black robed cultists. The cultists were haughty and ordered the adventurers to get lost, and absolutely not to trespass on their territory to the west unless they were bringing the bodies of goblins "or whatever" for their ceremonies.
"Rude!" complained Gulleck.
The cultists stormed off, and the adventurers went south to visit the odd talking stone column, who was glad of the company, but whined when he discovered that the party had not brought him any "shiny stones".
"I should have known it was too good to be true. You're all just like the others, making wonderful promises but once you're gone you forget all about me. But don't worry about me, I'm used to it by now..."
They eventually disengaged themselves from the morose old forgotten god, and headed east, down the hall towards where they had fought the ratmen last time. They opened a door opposite that room and found another small shrine with an eerie and disturbing idol atop an altar. Jack stepped forward to examine the altar, and Gulleck took a few moments to smash the freaky idol just on principle, but the next moment they were alarmed to discover that everything they spoke came out backwards! This lasted for the rest of the day.
East of these two shrines the hallway opened up into a large natural cavern. There was about 20 feet of a rocky, pebbly beach, and then a vast and immense underground lake that stretched out as far as the light from Simon's sword could illuminate. In the distance there was the sound of rushing and splashing water, but from where they stood the lake seemed almost unnaturally still and placid. They explored the beach in each direction and found that eventually the cavern walls converged with the sea.
Caryatid, apparently still taken aback by the sudden loss of her short-lived henchman, declared that "Henceforth, this rocky beach shall be known as Rocco Beach."
And having no boat and seeing no other exits apart from entering the water, the party returned to the hallway and headed west past the entry hall, now that the cultists had been gone for some time. They came to a four way intersection and explored to the north, eventually finding a stout wooden door with a giant mousehole (maybe two feet high) gnawed through at the bottom. This made them suspect "ratmen!" but they heard nothing and Simon used his mind-reading medallion and didn't detect any presences on the other side of the door. There were discussions of making Molotov cocktails and rolling them through the hole, Gulleck being reduced to playing charades and miming "torch". Eventually, they left this door for later, and continued along the hall exploring.
They found a series of rooms that seemed to be part of a theatre. There was a room full of smiling masks hanging on the walls, and another full of frowning masks. There was a room full of costumes of all different sorts, and a room cluttered with all sorts of miscellaneous objects, including a variety of fake weapons.
"Props to me!" joked Simon.
But it was late and they didn't feel like searching the room, so they returned to the entry hall, ignoring the needy whine of the stone column, and went back to the Rusty Lantern, with no treasure apart from the bag of silver they had taken from the ill-fated Rocco.
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