2011-03-29

Level 2 partially complete in CC2

I've been getting my level 2 map converted to CC2 over the past few nights, it's partially complete now.  I have to add doors all over the place, and come up with some cool little pictures for the various features in the big cavern.

I'll probably split this into two maps, one of the big cavern, and one of the rest of the dungeon.  The map is just too big to deal with one one page right now.

2011-03-26

Thoughts from the last session

So first off - I'm part of a group now.  I'm moving on up!

So during Wednesday's session, a few comments:

a. The parties ran into the misty-archway room and secret conference room I had previously described here.
b. Unpredictably, the dwarf decided to drink all the water out of the jug.  They were then stymied by the fact they had to pour a full jug of water down a drain to get something to happen.
c. Predictably, the party left all the expensive furniture in the secret conference room.  Mongo's been wanting to furnish his apartment, so when he gets back, I predict he hires an army of movers to get the stuff out of the dungeon.
d. The players who showed up are entirely responsible for the presumed Mongo-P.W. romance.  If you can't make the session, this is what happens...
e. Yes, the players started arguing about the map as I announced incoming wandering monsters.  When I said "all right enough, roll initiative" there were many sudden announcements about all the tactical arrangements of their dogs.  Yeah, no, not happening.  Once again, I was overjoyed by the ability of the screechmen to drop from the ceiling and surround the party, negating the annoying wall-of-dogs
f. Strangely, the dogs are always muzzled except when they're about to go into combat - then, the players somehow forgot to muzzle them after the last fight...
g. Guns make LOUD NOISE.  Not sure that Justin will use his rifle much after seeing what it does to wandering monster checks.
h. I did enjoy the huge numbers of checks I got to make as the party was crawling out of the dungeon with massive piles of silver weighing them down.
i. I was very non-immersive and just said "no" to more dogs.  Four is enough.  It was late, so I didn't have any creative explanations - just a flat refusal to sell them anymore.
j. Gutboy made 3rd level.  So we've got a 3rd level cleric, 2nd level fighter, 1st level elf, 1st level dwarf, and 1st level halfling.  Plus henchmen and dog armies.  I'm hoping they find one of the many entrances to the second level soon, things are getting a little easy for them.

2011-03-25

Session recap, 3/23/2011

THE CAST:
---------
Gutboy Barrelhouse the Cleric (level 2), his henchman Serlo the Elf, and his dog Rufus
Justin the Dwarf (level 1) and his dog Bailey
Netal the Elf (level 1) and his dogs Moe and Bitey

The session begins with P.W. weeping from the horrible rash the beetle-spittle has given him.  Horrified by his boils, he no longer feels like a pretty little halfling and runs off into the darkness.  Mongo and his two henchmen follow, feeling pity for the little fellow, and perhaps hoping for romance.  Who can tell?  As they run off into the darkness, Justin the Dwarf, who had been trailing the party from the distance, emerges from the shadows to join in the killing & looting.

The party arranged their dogs in front of the door, and Gutboy instructed Serlo to open the door.  The dogs leaped at the beetles, chasing them to the other side of the room, and the party followed up with arrows - soon, all the 3' long insects were dead.  The beetle-room turned out to be another rhombus-shaped chamber with peeling pressboard furniture and brass floor-lamps.  A thorough search revealed a secret door, activated by rotating one of the lamps.  Behind the door lay an impressive room filled with magnificently preserved mahogany furniture.  Several bottles of wine, a black bottle labeled "Orange Water from Fountain, Level 3, Thaumaturgically Preserved", a scroll, and letter opener of protonium-metal were recovered after searching the cabinet & desk in the room.  A crystal decanter & 4 crystal ashtrays were also shoved into a pack, safely wrapped in a bedroll.

Moving further along, the party followed a corridor southeast from the beetle room to a Y-shaped intersection.  Heading south, they found themselves at another room, about 30'x40', with thousands of tightly-spaced holes in the floor.  Each hole was about 1" wide, and they were spaced only 2" apart.  Pressing down on the floor with a 10' pole caused metal blades to spring up from the holes.

Some discussion was made about how to get across the room, and eventually Justin gathered up the party's shields and used them to safely walk across the blades.  He picked up the shield behind as he stepped forward, laying it in front, and was able to make it to the other side of the room.  There were three doors here - one with a sign reading "Warning: Anomaly Ahead.  Authorized Personnel Only".  The other two were featureless.

He opened one of the featureless doors, and saw a corridor leading south and then down a set of stairs.  Behind the other featureless door, he found a stack of 8 quarter-inch-thick stainless steel plates, each 3' wide and 5' long.  He slid these plates across the tops of the blades, and was able to create a path for the party to get to the "Anomaly" door.

Justin and Gutboy had a brief discussion about what this could mean - Gutboy advanced his theory again that this place was an "adventurer's playground" or some other sort of adventurer tourist trap, while Justin argued that it was a research facility, and there was a nuclear reactor in there somewhere.  The discussion quickly petered out, and they decided to investigate the "Anomaly".

As they began to head down the metal path, the party heard screams from somewhere off in the dungeon - more of the screaming freaks!  They quickly closed the door to the blade-floor-room, and headed across.  Justin threw open the "Anomaly" door, and the party followed the corridor as it went down several sets of stairs and opened into a room full of arches.

This room had a total of 8 arches, each filled with a different colored mist - red, orange, yellow, white, black, green, blue, purple.  In the middle of the room was a stone pedestal with a bronze jug, with an image of a monkey-headed winged serpent on it, and filled with clear water.

Justin tried taking a sip of the water - nothing unusual happened.  He then decided to chug-a-lug the entire jug, drinking the whole thing down.  Again, nothing happened.

Feeling bold, Justin walked through the white mist.  Walking through, without a torch, he found himself in a 10' square alcove, featureless except for a stone basin with a drain hole at the bottom.  He tried a few other arches - same thing.  Grabbing the torch from Gutboy, he tried going in again, and was able to see what his wide-spectrum vision had missed in the absence of visible light spectrum - the walls and ceiling were painted in these alcoves.

Red: Flames & burning coals
Orange: field of orange poppies
Yellow: costume ball, with guests cringing in fear from some guy in rags with white mask.  Gutboy wondered if it was the King in Yellow
White: blue sky, with fluffy white clouds
Black: everything painted entirely black
Green: jungle scene, with thick vegetation
Blue: undersea scene
Purple: veins of purple color, ranging from near-black to lavender

Justin tried putting a little bit of water in the jug, and pouring it down one of the drains.  Nothing happened.  He then urinated down one of the drains.  Again, nothing happened, except for the blessed relief of his swollen bladder.  Finally, they tried pouring a little bit of the orange fluid in the black bottle they had just found into the jug and poured that down a drain.  Once again, nothing happened.

Wondering if they had screwed something up, the party headed out of this room, and explored the other corridor leading from the blade-room.  It led to a platform overlooking a sunken room.  On the platform was a large glass cylinder, cracked open, with shards of glass everywhere.  In the sunken room were tattered gray bits of cloth hanging from rotted poles - Justin thought they may have been flags at some point.  Leaving the sunken room through exits in the northern wall, they boldly walked across a corridor beyond, straight to one of a pair of doors, and fearlessly opened it.

Inside, a dozen goblins were busy prodding two captive Scientists with spears.  The goblins watched the players expectantly, waiting to see what their intentions were.  Their intentions turned out to be incredibly violent.  The last sleep spell was cast, and those who remained alive were quickly slaughtered, Justin firing his rifle several times.

The Scientists thanked the party profusely for freeing them, but there was no time for celebration - the gunshots had attracted something.  The party closed the doors quickly, and something began scratching at the other side.  The four dogs gathered around the door and barked furiously.

Unimpressed, the party searched the room - they found a massive pile of treasure under a pile of filthy rags, 9,000 sp and 1,000 gp.  They also found eleven gray pods in a corner of the room, attached to the wall.  Slashing one open, a larval goblin spilled out and fell to the floor, twitching.  Disgusted, the party slashed open the rest of the sacs and put the goblin-larvae to the sword.

Finally, the party decided to deal with the threat outside.  They tried opening the second of the pair of doors, but the creatures saw the light and rushed over - Justin saw that they were black dog-like creatures with pyramidal heads.  He slammed the door shut, and the party decided to let their own dogs deal with the threat again.

Serlo was ordered to pull open the door, and the dogs charged out.  Short work was made of the two creatures, and the party began the long trek back to the surface.  As they headed into the dark, something horrible heard them - the Scientists gave a cry as something snapped at them.  A gray spider-like being with a goblin-like head, at the end of a long neck and with a massive jaw, had come upon them!

The party panicked, and ran forward, hoping to find a better place to fight than the narrow corridor they were trapped in.  Throwing open a door, they found themselves in a 30' wide corridor - enough room to fight.  The spider picked up one of the Scientists (presumably "Brian", as that name was tattooed on his forehead) with its jaws and effortlessly flung him aside.  The dogs had run ahead of the party, and the players were forced to actually fight - the other Scientists, "Dave," took a horrible wound and was left bleeding and unconscious, but the party managed to kill the goblin-spider.

Gutboy used one of his healing spells on Brian the Scientist, and he was brought to semi-consciousness.  He then poured a flask of the colorful healing slime down Brian's throat, and the surge of healing removed all wounds and fatigue from the Scientist.  He was ordered to carry the body of his unconscious and slowly-dying comrade Dave, and the party slowly began the long march out of the dungeon.

Finally nearing the stairs to the upper level, the party began to cross the hall of bones.  A noise ahead though - screaming!  More of the screaming freaks!  As the screams became louder and louder, Gutboy become completely baffled about how they had wandered into the Hall of Bones.  He and Justin pored over the map, oblivious to the screams descending upon them.  Netal nonchalantly stood and watched, and Brian wet his pants in terror.  The screaming freaks were not going to stand idly by while this argument ensued, and they streamed forth along the ceilings and walls, surrounding the party.

Combat was engaged - with no sleep spells left, and flanked by the wall-crawling freaks, it was a hard-fought battle, Serlo was knocked unconscious and Gutboy took a frightening wound - but in the end, the party prevailed.  Finally, they made it to the stairs, only to be confronted by a half-dozen giant earwigs.  Fortunately, the earwigs seemed uninterested in the party, and after Gutboy blessed them in the name of Nisus, they spun around in circles and departed up the stairs.  The party followed soon after, and made it back to Chelmsfordshire without further incident.  Well, except for the death of Dave the Scientist - as they left the dungeon, Gutboy used his healing spell on Serlo, restoring him, while Brian begged for some assistance for Dave.

Brian: "Don't you have more of that healing slime?  Anything!  Please!"
Gutboy, lying through his teeth: "Uhh.... no... we only had that one bottle"

The party rested for a few days at Chelmsfordshire, and Gutboy used his divine powers to discover that both the black bottle and the protonium-metal letter opener were enchanted.  Netal had a discovery of his own - the scroll he had taken was inscribed with a sleep spell.  Gutboy also took the time to commission the construction of a small roadside shrine dedicated to Nisus - which, given the amount he was spending, ended up being more of a roadside table dedicated to Nisus.

Victorious, the party headed back to Mongo's apartment in Denethix, hoping they would not find a sock hanging on the doorknob on arrival.

Inquiries were also made at various merchants:

a. Dogs - the dog-sellers refused to do business with the party.  No reasons were given
b. Grenade launchers - the gun-seller didn't know what a grenade launcher was, but did know the Fist had grenades - but they were restricted items, and he didn't have any for sale

2011-03-21

Land of One Thousand Towers - The Map is Done!

Barring any whimsical changes I make at the last minute, the map of the Land of One Thousand Towers is done.  I won't be explaining much in great detail about it, it's more of a visual aid than anything else.  I ended up going with "Lanthanide Wastes" - that lets me cover whole piles of ridiculous elements.  I didn't see Chris's suggestion for yttrium until after finishing the map, but that's also a wonderfully obscure metal - I'll make use of it somewhere.

Just a little bit of write up about the areas, and some stats & tavern names for the big streets, and I'm ready to begin editing.  I'll do a first pass of editing myself, to spare my volunteer editor some pain - but I'll be getting it off to him by this weekend at the latest.

Anyhow, here's the map all gussied up in CC2:

2011-03-19

Land of One Thousand Towers

This map is the least important of the bunch - it's for yanking place names off of in a hurry, when the players meet some NPC from foreign lands, or if I have to figure out which direction a wandering wizard may have come from.

The Land of One Thousand Towers is the name for the world, due to the vast number of wizard towers.  It's a terrible place, but with one bright shining light - the city of Denethix, which is experiencing a glorious renaissance.  I'm sure the players will wreck that for the poor people of Denethix in some horrible and unintentional way, but right now it's all butterflies and roses.

The wizard towers do not have any wizards assigned to them, that will be done on the fly.  The jungle I expect I'll change to pine forest.  I want a Cretaceous-era feel to the map (thus the "Western Interior Sea"), and I don't need jungles for that.

I haven't tossed in much flavor yet, I'll add that as I re-do the map in Campaign Cartographer 2.  I'll probably also rename the Titanium Wastes to a more obscure element.  It's a good place to drop in a lanthanide.

Click the map to enlarge.  Each square equal 20 miles.

2011-03-16

Custodians of Fiduciary Duty

The Bank Inviolable makes a nice juicy target - the only bank in the only civilized city in all the land.  Why hasn't it been robbed?  Well, this is why:

Custodian of Fiduciary Duty
No. Enc: 1d4 (1d4)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 150' (50')
Armor Class: -2
Hit Dice: 12
Attacks: 2
Damage: 5d8 or 6d6
Save: F1
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: See below
XP: 6,000

The Custodians are the massive guardians of the Bank Inviolable.  They are man-shaped robots, 20’ tall, of iron and gold.

Embedded in each arm is a minigun  and a rocket launcher.  A Custodian has 10,000 rounds stored in its abdomen to feed the minigun, and a burst from the gun does 5d8 points of damage.   Alternatively, the Custodian may fire a rocket from its arm, doing 6d6 points of damage to all within 30’ of the target (save vs. spell for half damage).  Custodians only carry 4 rockets, however.  The miniguns have a range of 200’, and rockets may be fired up to 1000’ away.

This robot has searchlights built into its head to illuminate dark areas and blind a selected opponent (as if a light spell was cast upon it, save vs. spells to look away or be blinded for 1d10 rounds).  This blinding can occur simultaneously with the rocket and/or minigun attacks.  The robot’s eyes are sensitive to light across the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums, and it is additionally capable of using echolocation to detect opponents.  Unless these capabilities are suppressed, it is impossible to surprise one of these machines.

Each Custodian is equipped with a cooling system that causes it to take half damage from fire-based attacks (and no damage on a successful save).  This mitigates the risk of explosions from the ammunition stored in their abdomens.  This causes them to be more susceptible to cold-based damage, and a Custodian will take an extra point per die of cold damage.

A Custodian is only partially susceptible to mind-affecting spells, due to its three independent electronic minds.  Each mind “votes” on every action independently, and the body will act upon the decision of the majority.

If destroyed, 10,000 gp worth of gold may be recovered from the Custodian’s body.

2011-03-13

The little d30 that couldn't

So a few notes on Wednesday night's session:

a. There was a certain amount of fear around the Malignant Spheres, which I had worried would be lame in practice.  Just being an unknown monster was enough to put the fear into the party

b. When they found the locked door to the healing-potion-room, the guys decided they wanted in.  I had them pointlessly rolling d6's, just to make themselves feel better, as they hammered away on it - "force door" rolls are for jammed-up doors, heavy-duty locked doors aren't budging without some serious damage.  Finally Mongo's player asked, "So what do I need to roll?"  "An 8."  So, one by one they tried using the d30 house rule to force it - 8 or higher and it's open.  Three failures in a row, total flubs - nothing beats rolling a "1" with your only d30 roll for the day. Finally Mongo's d30 rolled true - and that was that, no more d30 rolls left for anybody.

c. Anything aerial is a much bigger challenge for the party.  The dogs couldn't get at the floating Malignant Spheres, and the screechmen were able to surround the party by dropping from the ceiling.  They were forced to retreat to more defensible ground, which was nice - they had been steamrolling over a lot of stuff lately, with all the sleep spells and the dogs.

d. Sadly, I wasn't able to whittle down the henchmen, but I arbitrarily gave the unconscious dog a 50% chance of catching a terrible disease.  One less hound to worry about, and the party didn't want to hoof it back to the city to try to find another.

e. The party mistook their own footprints (with mostly different characters) from the near-TPK a few sessions ago, for the Scientists traipsing through the dungeon.  There was a reason so many bootprints proudly walked forth, and only 2 returned...  short memories!  I had to keep that bit of unholy DM glee to myself

f. The looks I get from the mapper when I describe the shapes of rooms in the dungeon is priceless.  When they're already bitching about the clipped corners and triangular rooms, try dropping a "rhombus" on them - endless fun.

g. So the next day, the guy who maps for the party and I are walking back from lunch (we work for the same company) - he says "man that's a big dungeon you've got".  I told him he didn't know the half of it - they still don't know it's a "megadungeon," or even what a megadungeon is.  Gutboy's player is convinced they're three or four levels down - ha!  It's all been the first level!  I'll announce "WELCOME TO LEVEL TWO" just to see the annoyed looks on their faces when they finally stumble across one of the ways down.

Session recap, 3/9/2011

Gentlemen,

So here's what went down Wednesday night.

Our cast:

MONGO the Fighter, level 2, and his elven henchmen Rogar and Melzgar
NETAL the Elf, level 1, and his dogs Moe and Bitey
P.W. the Halfling, level 1
GUTBOY BARRELHOUSE the Cleric, level 2, his elven henchman Serlo, and his dogs Rufus and Ruby

The party re-grouped in Chelmsfordshire and prepared for another expedition into the bowels of Mount Rendon.  Gutboy met with the few followers he had gathered in the village, and listened to their experiences.

Dirt farmer:  "Yeah, we've been digging up lots of these worms and bugs.  We rub 'em in our hair, but now I've got a horrible rash."
Gutboy: "No, no, don't rub them in your hair.  Bury them, in the dirt."
"We just dug them out of the dirt!"
"They belong in the soil, bringing nourishment to the crops."
"OK, you heard him, boys.  Put 'em in the hole!"

That bit of dogma cleared up, the party prepared to head off.  Gutboy briefly harassed one of the soldiers of the Unyielding Fist, trying to get him to join the party for a "mission," but the soldier was in no mood to become a deserter.  That conversation ended quickly, and the trip to the cave passed uneventfully.  The lights were seen in the sky again, shining from several points on the mountain, but they were ignored.

At the cave, they found a dead donkey, still tethered to a tree.  It looked like it had died of thirst.  Inside the cave were the crates of rations the Scientists had brought, with not too many missing - the Scientists hadn't been eating them.

The party entered the well-lit upper level of the dungeon, and wandered around exploring, and trying to make some sense of their very confusing map.  They saw no sign of the missing Scientists, or of anyone who could figure out their map.  Despite this setback, they eventually made their way to the staircase that led to the deeper portion of the dungeon.  There, at the top of the stairs, was the first sign of the missing Scientists - a severed head with the name "PHIL" tattooed on its forehead.

Mongo considered having it stuffed and mounted for his new apartment, but sadly it was too decomposed.  The party left the head, and headed down the stairs into the dark.

They walked through the dark corridors, making their way to the throne room, and Mongo opened the door to the southeast that they had ignored in the past.  As soon as he did, two long translucent tendrils swung out at him from above the door, barely missing him.  He slammed the door shut, and the party prepared for battle.  Arranging themselves in a semi-circle around the door, with missile weapons ready, P.W. then opened the door and ran to the side.  Translucent bubble-like spheres floating out the door towards the party, but were shot one-by-one as they entered the throne room.  All said and done, a half dozen spheres were pierced and popped.  In the room beyond the door were only empty crates and barrels, and clothes racks with rusty wire hangars.

Disappointed, the party went north into the unfinished room.  There, the resident earwigs took some notice of Gutboy, but were not acting aggressively.  He blessed them in the name of Nisus, and they spun in circles, acknowledging him.  Cheered by this sign, the party continued east down the long hall.

They stopped at a side corridor they had not explored.  At the end of this short corridor was a stout, reinforced door - and it was locked.  P.W. feebly beat at it, slapping with his puny little wrists - but couldn't budge it.  Netal and Gutboy likewise pawed and scratched at the door, but their pitiful efforts had no effect.  Finally, Mongo gave it a mighty bash, and the door crashed inwards, the lock mechanism tearing out of the door entirely.

Behind the door was a semi-circular chamber, with five smiling, bearded faces carved into the wall, above five niches.  Each niche held a small stone bowl, and a slow trickle of multicolored slime ran from the mouths into the bowl.  The bowls were nearly full of this slime.

P.W. examined the slime - it was barely moving, and had probably taken months to fill the bowls.  He jammed a piece of wood into the slime, and nothing happened.  He got a little braver, and stuck his finger into the slime - still nothing.  Gutboy took one of the bowls and tried to get one of his dogs to eat it (nice try there), but the dog would have none of it.  Finally, P.W. took a swig of the foul stuff, and despite the lousy taste, he found that a hangnail that had been troubling him miraculously healed.

The party quickly emptied flasks of oil and holy water, and filled them with this miracle-slime instead.  Full of confidence, they decided to head back to the long hall full of bones that they had found earlier, and explore that.

P.W. confidently entered the throne room, and saw the backside of a hound-like creature with a terrible pyramidal head.  The party quickly streamed forward, before the hound-thing noticed them, and they peppered it with arrows.  It died quickly and silently.  Netal gutted it, looking for treasure it may have eaten, but only found a half-digested humanoid hand.

The rest of the trip to the hall of bones was uneventful.  As they marched through the bones, heading southeast, they made a terrible racket.  The hall extended for over 80' before they found a narrow corridor on the side - from which they heard terrible screaming, coming closer!  The party pulled out their weapons as a horde of blind, fanged screaming freaks swarmed out of the opening, crawling on the walls and the ceiling.  The creatures dropped down all around the party, and everyone was suddenly fighting tooth and nail, with no time to unmuzzle the dogs.

The elven henchmen Rogar and Melzgar went down under the teeth and claws of the fiends, and Gutboy's dog Ruby was left unconscious.  Netal and Serlo unleashed their powerful sleep spells, and the ten freaks collapsed into slumber - and their throats were quickly slit.  There was no time to lose however - more screaming was coming from the narrow tunnel.

Panicking, the party dragged the bleeding elves and the unconscious dog along as they slowly waded through the bones to the exit.  They were moving too slowly, however, and the screaming freaks were catching up.  In the corridor outside the hall of bones, the party decided to make their stand, and made ready their battle formation.

A half dozen freaks swarmed over, dropping on the dogs.  A short battle was fought, and the party slaughtered the creatures without too much more damage.  Rogar and Melzgar were nearly dead, but Gutboy used the healing touch of Nisus on one of them, and P.W. poured healing slime down the other's throat, and their bleeding stopped.  Mongo gave Rogar some more healing slime, and his wounds disappeared, and he was again ready for action.

P.W. grabbed a torch and decided to head back to see if there was anymore screaming to be heard.  He reasoned that the screaming freaks had no eyes, and wouldn't see the torchlight, and he could move far quieter than the rest of the party, being a halfling.  It was still a noisy affair wading through the bones, which rose to his waist - but he made his way back to the small side tunnel.  He did hear screaming, but it was quieter and more child-like.  He returned to the party and told them what he had heard.

Mongo's eyes lit up with murderous glee.  "Kill the younglings!" the party exclaimed.  The prospect of easy murder was too much to resist, and despite the wounds they had taken, they decided to drive deeper and finish off the screamers.  The side tunnel led to a room full of feces and chewed bones, and beyond that into a nesting chamber, where a dozen juvenile screaming freaks sat in a massive piles of silver, playing with the coins, screaming.  The party's blades ran red as the screamers were silenced, and the bloodthirsty crew gleefully began stuffing their bags full of the silver.

Weighted down with loot, the party made their way back to Chelmsfordshire, to rest for a while.  Sadly, the dog Ruby succumbed to a vile case of dungeon-funk, and Gutboy used the corpse as part of a service to Nisus.  "Return her to the earth, so that the body may nourish those that crawl beneath."  "Right, boss, toss it in the hole!"

As the elven henchmen drank themselves into a stupor, assisted by rotten-toothed trollops, Gutboy wrote a letter to Head Scientist Gregory - "We have found the head of Phil.  We still seek Bob." - and gave it and a gold piece to a young boy who promised to deliver it to Denethix.  Certain doubts were expressed that the letter would ever be delivered.  Regardless, after a few days of healing, the party dragged their henchmen out of the tavern and headed back to the dungeon.

They made a beeline for the hall of bones, determined to see what lay at the end.  Following it another 75' past the side corridor, they found that it ended at a bas-relief sculpture of a tree on the wall, extending from floor to ceiling.  6' up the trunk of the tree was a niche with three metal pins at its bottom - much like those in the cross-shaped room.  In front of the tree, was a six foot long, three foot wide, and three foot deep stone box, carved from the same stone as the floor of this hall.

The party recalled the cross-shaped room had similar niches, and headed back there to get the two crude stone skulls that had been in those niches.  They quickly made their way to the cross-shaped room, grabbed the stone skulls, and headed back to the hall of bones.  As they entered the hall, they saw four yellow-and-red long multilegged creatures, with horns protruding from one end.  They looked something like giant walking krullers.  P.W. decided to take a pot shot at them, and they turned to attack.  A short but fierce battle ensued, and the creatures were taken down, but one of Netal's dogs was injured.  Netal sliced the creatures open.  Their bodies were made of yellow spongy material, and their was no blood, or any kind of organs inside - although Netal did find a goblin skull embedded in one of the creatures.

Slogging through the bones back to the niche, the party put one of the stone skulls into the niche - nothing happened.  Puzzled, they decided to explore further into the dungeon.  They made their way to the balcony room were they had been attacked by screaming freaks a few sessions earlier, and left through a door underneath the balcony.  This led to a tunnel with a side door - opening this revealed a dusty, empty room, with many footprints leading towards the door they just opened, and just two sets heading back, towards a tunnel in the north wall.  The party surmised that the missing Scientists had come that way.

Rather than explore that room any further, they continued following the tunnel, which ended in a door.  Opening the door, they found themselves in a vast 30' wide corridor, heading east and west farther than they could see.  At 10' intervals along the walls were alcoves with strange and varied contents.  P.W. found that he recognized this tunnel and the alcoves - he had been here before, on an earlier disastrous expediition.  They went east for a ways, and decided to investigate what was behind a door in an alcove to the south - there was a tunnel beyond, with many branches.

Choosing one branch, they headed west and found a room filled with debris and bits of fungus.  The south wall was entirely covered with a thick layer of fungus.  Opposite the opening into the room was a door.  P.W. bravely went in alone to investigate, but halfway across his foot snagged a tripwire and net weighted with chunks of metal fell on him from the ceiling.  The chunks of metal clattered loudly as they hit the floor.  The rest of the party whirled around as they heard a door open - a half dozen pale humanoids with shaggy gray hair, sharp teeth, and loincloths were rushing at them.  Serlo fired off his sleep spell, and five went down - the party then peppered the last one with arrows, and got busy with the throat-slitting.  Mongo surmised that they were Morlocks (nice guess, Mr. H.G. Welles fan).

They then released P.W. from the net, and he noticed that the tripwire ran under the debris, up the wall behind the fungus (where it had been pulled off and carefully replaced), up to the ceiling where the net was hung.  He cursed his carelessness, but went to the door on the west wall to see if it squared with what his map predicted - beyond was the many-doored corridor he remembered, and to the south would be the lair of the horrible spider-like creature that had eaten Too's head (and presumably the rest of him).

P.W. closed the door and followed the party back to the door the Morlocks had burst through.  Behind it, a stairway led down 10', which filled the party with trepidation - did they want to explore a deeper level?  Curiosity getting the best of them, they headed down the stairs and into an empty room.

The party performed a careful search, and Netal found a loose stone in the south wall.  Pressing on it, a secret door opened, and they headed south into the room beyond.  This secret room had a metal table, metal cabinets, and a metal urn with a wire sticking from the bottom.  The cabinets proved to be empty, and the party headed south through a door on the south wall.

This next room was rhombus-shaped, and had a massive table, made of some kind of pressed paper that was peeling apart at the edges.  There were many wheeled chairs surrounding the table, but the upholstery was rotting and they were in very poor condition.  There were also six oil-fueled brass lamps, on brass posts eight feet tall, with rotted lampshades.  Mongo thought they might look nice in his apartment, because they came from a dungeon - who can question that sort of reasoning?

Another door led south from this room, and P.W. leaned against it to listen.  He heard some skittling noises from the other side.  He swung the door open, sword at the ready, and three four-foot-long beetles rushed at him - they spit streams of liquid at him, burning his skin and causing swelling and blisters.  He slammed the door shut, tears in his eyes from the painful chemical burns - but as he did so he did take note of the furnishings of the room beyond - very similar to the one they were in, and there was another door exiting the beetle-infested chamber.

And here our session ended.  See you all on Wed March 23rd.

2011-03-09

Hot Elf Chick welcomes you to the OSR

This is silly, and I'm a sucker for silly, so at James's orders, here's Hot Elf Chick welcoming you to the OSR:


If you don't know what the OSR is, it's old school D&D gaming - using original D&D, 1st/2nd edition AD&D, or Basic/Expert D&D.  Stands for "Old School Renaissance".  You should go play it, and not just for the make believe hot elf chicks.

I mostly post about my campaign and how I design my mega-dungeon.  I don't do any talking about what the OSR is or isn't about.  For commentary about old-school gaming, go check out Grognardia - the most popular OSR blog.

There are also clones of the old games out there, which you can download for free if you don't have the original rules.

OSRIC is a clone of 1st edition AD&D.  You can get it here.
If you're more of a Basic/Expert kind of person, you can download Labyrinth Lord here.  The "Advanced Edition Companion" of Labyrinth Lord gives you rules to play it more AD&D-like than Basic/Expert-like.
If you want a clone of original D&D, Swords & Wizardry is the thing.

You can also pick up the old rulebooks off eBay dirt cheap.


Best of luck!

The wealthy of Denthix

The wealthy elite of Denethix are entirely modeled off of Judge Smails & Danny.  Ascots & blazers forever!





2011-03-07

Old wilderness maps

Some old wilderness maps.  There were some map keys with them, referring to locations that I couldn't find on these maps at all.  These are all pretty old, probably from the mid or late 80's.  I'm terrible with cameras, so the pictures are lousy - I upped the contrast after taking them so they'd display a little better.


2011-03-03

Cover Art by Brian "Glad" Thomas

So here's the cover art, by Brian "Glad" Thomas (click to see bigger version).  It's totally awesome!

2011-03-01

Random Henchmen

I'm almost done with the content.  Then it's cleaning up the maps, getting them embedded, and editing.  Hope to have the content & maps done this weekend, and have editing complete in the next 2-3 weeks.

What I'm working on now is the random tables.  I plan to have a lot of them - they're useful when the players suddenly decide they want to hang out in the city.  So here's my random henchman table.  I don't bother rolling stats up for my henchmen, and they start out without equipment, so it's just names, classes, & personalities.  Do you think that's enough for a henchman table?  I've been putting in what works for me, but if other people's play styles require more detail, I'd love to hear about it.

Without further ado, some henchmen to abuse:

1. Laerdan, Fighter, Male. Won a hard-boiled egg eating contest once.
2. "Twitch", Thief, Male. Twitches violently when he talks.
3. Francis del Grok, Fighter, Male. Sixth son of a wealthy merchant. Out-of-work snob.
4. Slezgar, Elf, Male. Enthusiastic about hanging out with those short-lived humans.
5. Melzgar, Elf, Male. Strange fascination with halflings.
6. The Claw, Magic-User, Male. Behaves in sinister fashion, trying to live up to the strange name his parents gave him.
7. Rollo, Dwarf, Male. Believes he is cursed to die young, along with all his heirs.
8. Doug Bickerin, Cleric, Male. He doesn’t have a drinking problem, he’s just thirsty.
9. Hobbs, Halfling, Male. Wishes he was much, much taller.
10. "Bunny", Thief, Female. Love of bubble gum, hair spray, and grand larceny.
11. Margaret the Flame, Magic-User, Female. Her hair is black; the nickname is because she keeps setting things (and people) on fire.
12. Black Harris, Cleric, Male. Hates people in general, unemployed filthy peasants in particular.
13. Markus, Fighter, Male. Agent of the Starry Wisdom. Will turn on the party when he thinks he can get away with it.
14. Karo the Sweet, Fighter, Male. You know who’s hot? Karo’s hot, baby.
15. Borgonar, Dwarf, Male. Obese even by dwarf standards.
16. Arto Heavensward, Halfling, Male. Former taxidermist, makes inappropriate comments about how well employer’s features would preserve.
17. Nancy the Wrathful, Fighter, Female. Beat a man to death with his own severed arm, but she’s gotten better about her anger problems. Really.
18. Brilena, Fighter, Female. Mothers employers, other NPC’s, captured monsters, etc.
19. Niberius, Fighter, Male. Seeks man with conjoined twin who murdered his family.
20. Mighty Yord, Fighter, Male.  Barbarian from the Worthless North, looking to get rich quick.