Session two of the D&D
campaign almost did not happen – almost.
Jason earlier in the week had caught some dreaded lurgy from Leslie the
previous weekend and on Friday had to cancel due to poor health and not wishing
to contaminate everyone.
I was lucky to have recruited a
new played to the group and with the remaining players of Pat and Mic salvaged
a game of three players. Sufficient to
allow a game to succeed – I hoped. On
the fly I came up with a mini-adventure for the three, which I modified to some
degree as the party advanced through the dungeon.
What was the premise of the day’s
adventure? The new adventurer to join
the group is a Warlock who has chosen the Otherworldly Patron of the
Archfey. This worked very nicely into
the “outdoors” feel to the group, a Druid, a Ranger, a Barbarian, the Bard (the
traveling con man) and now the contracted consultant with the Fey. Oh the possibilities I had with the campaign
now was eternal!
How did I deal with the missing
two party members? A otherworldly mist rises from the ground as they journeyed
to their destination. This meshed nicely to the introduction with their Warlock
player character. The mist interfered
with the senses, and despite the best intentions of all concerned the players
were all separated and lost. Time became
immaterial, they could have been lost for days, or mere seconds – after all
time works at such a different time in the world of the Fey. Mic and Pat found themselves on opposite
sides of a clearing and so the adventure started.
Introducing the new adventurer
was easy. I had originally planned a
riddle encounter for the group as they journeyed to their next encounter. I modified this, making poor Celina (Simon’s
Warlock) the trapped soul in the riddle.
She had been boorish at one of the Fey courts festivals and imprisoned
in a cage of thorns for sixty years as punishment for her behavior. I had sourced a riddle from Cloud Kingdom
Games “Riddle Rooms 2, Wilderness Puzzles & Perils” (p4) and used it, Ashes
to Ashes Encounter #1. When the old man
was freed, it was the Warlock who was revealed instead and the story of her
misdemeanor was told to one and all. As
part of her final absolution she was to “rescue” Lord Oberon’s Pixie that was
in the clutches of an unpleasant orc tyrant lurking in an unsavory dungeon
nearby.
The Phoenix gifted the Barbarian
and the Ranger a feather from its plumage for having solved its riddle and
rescuing it from the odious role of prison guard for the Warlock. While sixty years may seem a short time for
some, it is still a tedious time frame for others. The Phoenix tells the group that the burrow
of the creatures is nearby but is vague as to where exactly. It also tells the Barbarian that part of his
heritage can be found within as well as a reward for the Warlock for freeing
the Pixie – apparently nothing for the Ranger.
What happened to the Druid and
Bard? Well they are trapped in the magical mists of the Fey and will be
reunited with the rest of the party at the next group meeting. Nice and simple!
The Ranger spent some horrible
rolls searching around attempting to find the entrance to the “dungeon” continuing
to earn his nickname of “urban” Ranger with the Game Master (that’s me if you
have worked it out). Eventually tiring
of not locating the entrance, even with the inexpert help of his friends, he
decided to acrobatically climb the tallest tree (think of Bilbo in Mirkwood) to
find himself looking out at a sea of trees, some occasional clearings,
mountains in the distance (their destination), but no location screaming here
lies an underground dwelling! Right
after that he made he made his successful search and found the location that
had spent and unknown amount of time searching for.
Spooky mist is a great aid for
game masters. It hides the floors and
surfaces and adds atmosphere to locations.
In this case the mist gently rolled downed the stairs hiding the fact
the stone was slippery from moisture.
The fact the Barbarian rolled a 1 (I think) did not help in the matter
and help slipped and did nothing but hurt his pride and dignity as he slid to
the bottom of the stairs. The others,
now aware of this condition, did not follow his fate.
At the bottom of the stairs they
found themselves confronted by a metal portcullis with no visible means to
activate its opening or closing. The
Barbarian with his strength of 18 had a good go at it however he needed the
Ranger to add his strength to raise the gate.
Using a staff and little knowledge they wedged the gate open. The staff
bowed a little, creaked, but held.
The room. The party had to sort out a light source
issue. The party is for the most part
human, with the exception of the half-orc in the original founding. The Warlock is a half-elf which now adds
another non-human into the group, so the light issue underground is the first time
they have had to encounter this problem.
After a debate over who carries the torch they survey the room before
them.
In this room there was an
overturned urn emitting a green vapour.
A circle with spinning spines was etched into the stone square tiled
floor. As the Barbarian investigated he
stepped onto the etched section and heard a distinctive click – he had
activated something! Ah the paranoia of
adventurers. This created some debate
over getting to the corridor leaving the room.
Running around the room. Not
touching the etched floor panels.
Running back out (the Warlock).
Mind you the Warlock then played with the urn that had the vapors coming
out of it! She (well he, the player but
I’ll refer to the character as she from now on) righted the urn, only to see it
topple over. Closer inspection showed
that it did not have a flat base. The
Warlock then turned it upside down, where upon something fell out and clinked
onto the groun, but the vapor obscured it.
She then placed the urn over the top of the object. It then started to rattle link a kettle with
steam building up. I think this may have
been the catalyst to spur the party on to leave the room for the corridor.
The avoided the etched sections
of flooring, with the exception of the Barbarian, who could of leapt? At least I don’t remember him telling me he
leapt. Mind you I am writing this 24
hours after the event so my memory recall may be a trifle dodgy. Talking about dodgy – my reading maps and
putting them out on the table. Was I bad
or what. Thankfully it was not to a
point that it did any real damage to the adventure. I had placed a corridor section out with an
intersection leading to a door. I had
failed to remember the sodding huge burial crypt off to the side EVEN though it
was pictured bold and clear on my map.
Yes even the obvious can be missed in the heat and excitement of an
adventure and storytelling.
There was this nicely lit
room. This worried the party. They didn’t light nicely lit underground
rooms. They were suspicious. When the Barbarian stood on the first
flagstone tile and heard the ominous “click” he feared the worse. This time he took the time to prize the stone
up, examine the mechanism (remember that the party has no thief) and worked out
to deactivate the plates from working – that is stop the “click”. With the “click” deactivated, and the Warlock
frothing at the mouth to get inside the sarcophagus to “loot” the suspected
goodies. Saner heads prevailed and a
closer inspection was made of the tomb.
It had scorch marks – the Warlock lost all interest then, especially
when she found she could not move the lid on her own. How the group decided to still open the
“obvious” trap still makes me wonder, but they did and damage was dealt out
accordingly! Yes it was a trap. The tiles were like those barbeque starter
mechanisms, in this case with each “click” you primed the explosion one step
(so to speak). Simple. With no treasure (no one searched in the oil)
they left.
The crossroad section they found
a skeleton lying there – pointing at the closed doors! Was the something to worry about? The stone doors had a riddle and collection
of stone letters lying in a number of trays on either side of the
corridor. Each door half had two slots
that would take a letter and there was a riddle which required a one word answer. The answer was supplied by the Ranger and the
doors opened, whereupon the tiles returned to the trays.
The room was perplexing in its
size. It was large. The eight columns of darkness were also
unsettling. Here is where as a game
master the use of premade tiles is of limited use. When I created the dungeon I just could not
fashion the room (with the limited tiles I had) to my liking. Hence one of the darkness columns ended up
right in front of the open door way. I
also had a gaff in my monster placements which thankfully no one picked up on
when the door swung open. That is, why
didn’t the goblin hiding in the column immediately get hit or become visible as
it dodged out of the way. Opps! Yes, I make mistakes, but in the end as long
as everyone is having fun, did it really matter? It’s only as I’m writing up my after game
report I’m finding where I stuffed up.
So indeed there were goblins
hidden in the eight column of darkness.
I had hoped that I could have ambushed the party and done some damage
here. However, the goblins now are
proving poor sport and went down like a dose of castor oil. It was while they searched the corpses that
the real “villain” of the room appeared?
I had a “water elemental” trapped in the well. It appeared up out of the well. The poor thing could not even attempt to
communicate its intent, but was immediately attacked by the Warlock. A few rounds of combat was played before the
party moved out of range, the elemental was restricted to a short range of the
well. Once it could not harm the vile
attackers, it withdrew into the well.
Had they killed the creature? The
party had no idea? The Warlock went to
have a look? The Warlock went too close
with the torch, lent over the lip (forgetting the slippery surface) and fell
into the well. (Party should have lost a torch? Well at least recorded one as
soaked, needs time to dry out.) There
she was at the mercy of the “vile” elemental. A tense atmosphere
developed? What was going to
happen? It asked “why did you attack me”? The rest was history as the Warlock did some
dodgy thinking as a way of explaining her and the party’s actions. She found out that the way to release the
elemental from its entrapment in the well was to bring it the elemental stone
located in the enchanted circle they had already discovered. The elemental deposited the Warlock back on
the lip of the well in a wash of water, almost sending the Ranger and her back into
the well (nice try by me). The Warlock
then took off at speed, almost forgetting to even tell the other two members
what she was doing.
It’s always easy to forget that
while role playing and sitting at a table you are privy to all that occurs. So
while your character can rush off to do something thinking they have the
understanding of the other characters, in “reality” they have not. Right then, the Warlock used Mage Hand to
grasp the elemental stone, but to her horror the moment she took it outside the
circle and progressed down the hallway to where the water elemental was, the
green vapors started to exponentially increase in volume with each step. The
stone was returned to the circle and a debate started as to how to get the
stone to the elemental with as little chance of anyone breathing any of the
vapor in? The curse of no Cleric in the
party! No one wanted to run the risk of
testing the vapor. In the end the Ranger
and Barbarian hid outside the dungeon while the warlock used Mage Hand to hurl
the stone down the corridor into the well.
It worked. There was a flash of green
light, the green vapor faded. The
Warlock screamed out to the waiting party members that it was safe to come
back! (So much for any secrecy – but I
think the monster denizens knew they were coming anyway!)
Healing! Yes the party was a little battered from the
battle with the goblins and the water elemental. They needed to rest. The Barbarian came up with the brilliant idea
of testing the riddle door room. It
worked until he decided to take a letter (one needed to open the door) into the
room with him. Rather than test this
hypothesis with someone still on the outside, he effectively locked everyone
inside with no hope of escape. Feeling
doomed, the group decided to sleep on the problem, hoping that the morning
would provide a better solution. Well
they dove into the well and searched for a way out. Nope, but did find the treasure chest that
was there. Searched for secret doors –
none. The word tile would not fit under
the door. In the end the Barbarian
decided that shattering the tile might free them. This did, allowing them to open the door and
to further explore the dungeon for the captured pixie.
While in this room they found the
treasure in the well. The trapped chest
had fizzled thanks to water damage and the years at the bottom of the
well. (See treasure at the end for what was there.)
Back to the intersection they
went. The other direction had a
portcullis like the entrance. Similar
story, no activating can be found (or did they at this stage?). They did need the combined strength to open
the portcullis. The corridor beyond did
have the appearance of a unstable and cracked stone tiled surface. Closed inspection found that while the areas
they had travelled had proven travelled through, this broken area did not show
evidence of traffic at certain points which would have been obvious. With a supply of dead goblin bodies (I need
to introduce an overnight or immediate corpse removal system in my dungeons)
the party tossed a dead goblin down the corridor to see what happened. To this (not disbelief) the body fell into
the crevasse, though it did appear as though it was a natural affect. Not at all happy with this initial test, they
selected another dead goblin and dropped another corpse closed to their
feet. Similar result. Warlock asked for a rope to be tied around
her, she then had to clarify her waste, not neck (yes there is a lot of humour
in this group). She found the floor was an illusion, there was a 50’ drop to an
unpleasant spiky demise to the floor below.
A narrow ledge did run around the walls, on either side that allowed
passage to the other side.
Another crossroad passageway was
found. The Barbarian found that the
magic glow lights also worked as the activation lever for the portcullis. Finally a lever was found, the group was
happy to know there were some working parts in this dungeon! Looking down the longer corridor they saw it
lead to a room, where the other shorter corridor led to a huge and impressive
set of stone doors. They chose to
explore down the corridor towards the open room (therefore not needing to open
the door).
As soon as they started down the
corridor the “click” traps started.
Again the Barbarian set to jamming them.
That allowed him to work out that the area at the opening of the room
probably had an illusion and most likely a trap, it also warned him of the ambushing
occupants. Needless to say the poor
Hobgoblins, while harder to hit and longer to kill, did die eventually. The illusioned “trap” was a delaying obstacle,
which didn’t work as well as I had hoped.
This left the last room…
The last room had the nightmare
waiting for them. Well armed and
waiting. The room was very large. It was well lit thanks to the large oil lit
braziers. The leader of the group was an
Orc War Chief, his Gnoll Pack Lord underling and its two henchmen, the rest
were cannon fodder, some eight kobolds – which included a champion and a
cultist/cleric. At the entrance was a
massive collection of bones and in there lurked a swarm of insects. The fight was brutal and the Barbarian “died”
a few times but thanks to the help of the Ranger staved off the inevitable long
enough to live to see the light of day. Truly
having the advantage and placing the Orc War Chief constantly at disadvantage
was the only thing that saved the party in the end, that and my bad die rolls.
The pixie was trapped in a cage
which she was released from. She was
giving lip the whole time the battle was raging, hurling insults (particularly
at the Warlock) and maligning the adventurers as poor substitutes for “heroes”. I think nobody really wanted to free her in
the end, but feared the consequences if they did not. Once freed her attitude changed and she
granted to the Warlock the services of the Sprite “Jynxto”, which she can
summon once a day for fifteen minutes.
She also identifies the items the party has found in the dungeon and
teleports them to the clearing the found the Warlock where they find the other
members of their party.
Treasure
12gp from dead goblins (yes these were very rich ones)
"x"sp from dead hobgoblins (stingy with these guys and I forget to write it down
Art Objects (worth 25gp each)
Dented golden crown with its gemstones pried out.
Ivory cameo on a pearl necklace.
Glass eye with an azurite iris and obsidian pupil.
Toy horse carved from bone.
Dark soapstone sculpture of a large crouching cat.
Stone of Good Luck (Barbarian) - in a velvet bag
which when dried out can be seen to have the scenes of swans sewn into it.
Bracers of Archery (Ranger) – artistically embossed
with scenes of the hunt, all involving the bow.
Sword of Vengence (Warlock) Cursed to the Warlock
at present…
Pipes of the Sewers (?) – constructed of rat bones
(or so the urban ranger tells you?)
Bracers of Defence (Barbarian) - artistically
embossed with swans into the leatherwork.
Party members attained 1066xp each (such an auspicious number, I remember meeting the Bastard...)
The Warlock’s research is able to
tell the Barbarian that the Swan motif is associated with Aengus Óg.
So ends another session. I hope
that I continue to entertain everyone, I certainly enjoyed the session.
I must thank Pat very much for his generosity of the Wilderness dungeon tiles that he gifted me. These will be put to good use with the group and I am deeply touched by the kindness that he and others show me. Particularly at this time of year, which is always a critical period for me health wise. Thank you everyone.
Till next time.
The Honourable John.
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