For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:6-7
Merry Christmas!
2013-12-24
PDF
2013-11-19
session recap, 11/14/2013
CAST
--------
Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (2) and Bunny the Thief (2), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his stuntman, Colt "Rottweiler" Seavers the Type III Bounty Hunter (2)
Pai Mei and Colt Seavers waded through the glowing green mist in the room and approached the stone sarcophagus - inside was a roughly coffin-shaped machine of silvery metal and transparent pipes flowing with green fluid. As they examined the techno-coffin, the mist suddenly gathered up into a humanoid form - a horrible chitinous creature with bug eyes, pincer hands, and a giant brain-shaped head.
Ki-Ris: "I am Ki-Ris of the planet Duvan'Ku! Now, you will help me return to my ship!"
Gutboy: "Whoa, hold on! Why are we going to do that?"
Ki-Ris: "You have no choice! You have destroyed the Suppressor, and now the animated dead have risen!"
Gutboy: "Are you from space? How did you get past the Veil?"
Ki-Ris: "The Veil? You must refer to the extra-dimensional shields around this planet. My people are from this dimension! Your veil is no barrier to us!"
Gutboy: "So, you're from space then? Can you destroy Thor?"
Ki-Ris: "I know not of what you speak, earth-man."
Gutboy: "He's one of the gods that orbit the planet. Don't you fear them?"
Ki-Ris: "No! Our technology is far superior to anything you humans possess!"
Gutboy: "Why do you need our help?"
Ki-Ris: "Thousands of years ago, my comrades betrayed me. I killed them all, but I have been trapped here, and cannot venture far from my life support capsule."
Pai Mei: "Why did you come here?"
Ki-Ris: "My planet was a paradise. Our technology allows the dead to be reanimated and to serve us in all manner of menial labor. We lived as gods. Sadly, our women were killed by the living dead"
Gutboy: "I thought you controlled them?"
Ki-Ris: "Mistakes were made. Accidents happen. My people are doomed without females! We have come to this planet to take your women back as our brides, and to slaughter the men, who shall rise again as our eternal slaves!"
Gutboy: "You can mate with human women?"
Ki-Ris: "Yes! It is one of the great Laws of the Universe!"
Gutboy: "Makes sense."
Pai Mei: "You could marry Madame Prepin"
Madame Prepin: "I... uhh... I'm kind of seeing someone already..."
Ki-Ris: "It matters not! All women shall be taken! Your human civilization shall fall, and you shall all die! Now, take me to my ship!"
Gutboy: "Why would we do that?"
Ki-Ris: "You have no choice! You have destroyed the Suppressor, and the dead have arisen! Only I can stop them from devouring your living flesh!"
Gutboy: "Prove it - control this zombie!"
Madame Prepin: "You mean Goonie!"
Ki-Ris ordered the captured zombie to dance, and the ancient corpse began awkwardly prancing about.
Ki-Ris: "There is your proof, humans. Now, we shall go to the Duvan'Ku Promise Machine, and the Bargain shall be made."
Gutboy: "Where's this machine? In the sarcophagus?"
Ki-Ris: "No! That is my life support capsule. The Promise Machine is down the hall."
Gutboy: "We're going to need to think this over..."
Pai Mei: "Forget it! Colt Seaver, go break that capsule!"
Colt Seaver reached down into the capsule - and Ki-Ris moved faster than any human could, gripping the bounty hunter by the throat. Colt struggled feebly as his flesh visibly withered, and Ki-Ris dropped the dried husk to the ground. The party ran out of the room in a panic, slamming the door shut, and leaving the catatonic grad student behind. A shout of "You'll be back!" was heard as they ran down the corridor.
They followed the corridor to its end - a dead end, to be precise, covered with ancient dried blood, and with the words "Thank you, my dear ally, for sacrificing your life force for my own" inscribed in Duvan'Ku upon the wall. Pai Mei briefly considered reciting them aloud and sacrificing the grad student, before realizing he had been left behind with the alien.
They followed the corridor back to its other end, and found a pit in the floor. The words "Jump, My Child, and Experience the Infinite Forever" were etched on the wall in Duvan'Ku. Gutboy stared down the pit, at the glowing phosphorescent patterns spiraling along its walls, going down so very very very far... and then snapped out of it, realizing he had been momentarily hypnotized.
A brief argument ensued about the next course of action - and then a massive tarantula clambered out of the hole! Trezgar cast his somnolescent magic, and the tarantula was put into a gentle repose - until Trezgar stuck a sword through its head.
That threat past, the party returned to the secret door between this portion of the tomb, and the room that had held the Suppressor "vine" they had destroyed. They listened at the door, hoping that the zombies were trapped in their crypts - but they heard the shuffling and moaning of the living dead beyond. The corpses had figured out how to turn the valves on the doors to their tombs. Rufus II briefly "blinked" to the other side, and saw that the living dead had piled themselves into a corpse-pyramid, allowing others to clamber up the hole in the ceiling to the surface. He blinked back before getting torn apart by the brain-hungry mob.
The party then began opening various barred doors in the corridor. They came across a fast-moving corpse, and destroyed it - and then in another room found a sarcophagus on a strangely uneven floor. A mummified corpse with an emerald crown burst through as Bunny hammered on the uneven section of the floor, but Gutboy's faith (or non-faith) in the satellite entities above drove the mummy away. They tracked it down to the end of the corridor, and Bunny used the Sword of Unlife to force the mummy to obey her commands - the first of which was to relinquish its emerald crown.
They then opened a third room, choreographed a corpse-fight between the mummy and the living dead within, and discovered what must be the Duvan'Ku Promise Machine. A metal orb sat on a pedestal, with ten knobs protruding from its circumference. Bunny handed the mummy a hammer and ordered it to destroy the Promise Machine.
As the mummy began banging away, a green mist flowed down the corridor and coalesced into Ki-Ris. The alien grabbed Bunny and she began to wither, as Colt Seaver had done, losing 2 levels in the process. The alien released Bunny, and walked over to the machine (yanking the hammer out of the mummy's hand).
Ki-Ris: "Enough of this idiocy! It is time for the Bargain! I need four of you to carry my life support system to a clearing wide enough for my ship to approach! Without proper equipment, I cannot control the undead reliably, only repel them - I need you to serve as my bearers."
Gutboy: "How does this machine work?"
Ki-Ris: "The Promise Machine of Duvan'Ku will link our minds sympathetically. Any attempt to break a Bargain will cause eternal torment! Now, come, grab the knobs and we shall declare our Terms and Conditions!"
Gutboy: "You said you needed four - that's not enough. It has to be all of us!"
Ki-Ris: "That is acceptable. Now, enough wasting time! Let the Bargain be struck!"
The party grabbed the knobs (Rufus II gripping with his teeth), and the Bargain began:
Ki-Ris: "You shall, in good faith, carry me and my life support capsule to a clearing at least a mile wide, and place the capsule into the cargo elevator when my ship approaches. In turn, I shall in good faith prevent these living dead from harming you until that time."
Gutboy: "And what happens after we put you on the ship? Promise not to harm us ever!"
Ki-Ris: "Ridiculous! I shall enslave and destroy all human males! Under the condition you depart immediately, I shall not cause you any harm for a twenty-four hour period after returning me to my ship"
Pai Mei: "Good enough!"
The Bargain was struck, and the party could feel their minds linked to Ki-Ris's. He bore them only hatred and malevolence, but they could also feel that the Bargain was in force, and even the slightest thought of betrayal caused great anguish.
All was as Ki-Ris claimed - he returned to his capsule, and the party dragged it through the undead hordes, back up into the cabin, and out into the graveyard, where thousands more corpses were clawing their way up from their graves. The cart and cage were still there, and contained the reanimated corpses of Zeke and his wife. They forced the captured zombie into the cage, and to meet Madame Prespin's quota, they forced three more walking dead into the cage as well. From within the coffin, Ki-Ris yelled "Move it along already!" and they slowly made their way down the mountain, and after a day's journey turned north until they found a meadow large enough to meet Ki-Ris's specifications.
The Green Comet of Undying Flesh hung in the sky above, and as they watched, it grew larger and larger, a halo of flickering green flames surrounding it as it approached the earth. The ship, for that is what it was, was fully a mile in diameter. It hung several hundred feet above the ground, and a tube slowly descended. Once it reached the ground, a door slid open, and the party carried the life support capsule inside. They quickly ran out, and watched as the tube ascended - the ship, however, remained stationary, floating above the field.
The party draped their tents over the cage to hide the living corpses within, and made their way to Chelmsfordshire as fast as they could. The marching of undead hordes coud be heard behind them, and the ship appeared to be an unmoving green moon low in the western sky. They marched straight through Chelmsfordshire without mentioning a word to anyone, and then onwards to Denethix, where Madame Prepin quickly contacted some of her associates and the covered cage was whisked away.
Pai Mei: "So where's our money?"
Madame Prepin: "Look, let's keep this between us right now - it wouldn't be prudent to let the Academy or anyone else in the city know too much about what just happened. You'll get paid, it just has to wait til the political climate is right."
The party eyed some of the broadsheets being sold - the headlines spoke of the Unyielding Fist having been sent north to deal with the inexplicable predations of Ferayn's Exterminators upon the northern villages. With the army so occupied, what fate would befall Chelmsfordshire, and Denethix itself?
Gains: Emerald crown, six required "Goonies" per the Academy contract
Kills: Giant tarantula, zombie, ghoul, mummy (subjugated rather than destroyed)
Losses: Colt "Rottweiler" Seaver, two of Bunny's levels, one forgotten grad student, most likely all of Chelmsfordshire
--------
Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (2) and Bunny the Thief (2), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his stuntman, Colt "Rottweiler" Seavers the Type III Bounty Hunter (2)
Pai Mei and Colt Seavers waded through the glowing green mist in the room and approached the stone sarcophagus - inside was a roughly coffin-shaped machine of silvery metal and transparent pipes flowing with green fluid. As they examined the techno-coffin, the mist suddenly gathered up into a humanoid form - a horrible chitinous creature with bug eyes, pincer hands, and a giant brain-shaped head.
Ki-Ris: "I am Ki-Ris of the planet Duvan'Ku! Now, you will help me return to my ship!"
Gutboy: "Whoa, hold on! Why are we going to do that?"
Ki-Ris: "You have no choice! You have destroyed the Suppressor, and now the animated dead have risen!"
Gutboy: "Are you from space? How did you get past the Veil?"
Ki-Ris: "The Veil? You must refer to the extra-dimensional shields around this planet. My people are from this dimension! Your veil is no barrier to us!"
Gutboy: "So, you're from space then? Can you destroy Thor?"
Ki-Ris: "I know not of what you speak, earth-man."
Gutboy: "He's one of the gods that orbit the planet. Don't you fear them?"
Ki-Ris: "No! Our technology is far superior to anything you humans possess!"
Gutboy: "Why do you need our help?"
Ki-Ris: "Thousands of years ago, my comrades betrayed me. I killed them all, but I have been trapped here, and cannot venture far from my life support capsule."
Pai Mei: "Why did you come here?"
Ki-Ris: "My planet was a paradise. Our technology allows the dead to be reanimated and to serve us in all manner of menial labor. We lived as gods. Sadly, our women were killed by the living dead"
Gutboy: "I thought you controlled them?"
Ki-Ris: "Mistakes were made. Accidents happen. My people are doomed without females! We have come to this planet to take your women back as our brides, and to slaughter the men, who shall rise again as our eternal slaves!"
Gutboy: "You can mate with human women?"
Ki-Ris: "Yes! It is one of the great Laws of the Universe!"
Gutboy: "Makes sense."
Pai Mei: "You could marry Madame Prepin"
Madame Prepin: "I... uhh... I'm kind of seeing someone already..."
Ki-Ris: "It matters not! All women shall be taken! Your human civilization shall fall, and you shall all die! Now, take me to my ship!"
Gutboy: "Why would we do that?"
Ki-Ris: "You have no choice! You have destroyed the Suppressor, and the dead have arisen! Only I can stop them from devouring your living flesh!"
Gutboy: "Prove it - control this zombie!"
Madame Prepin: "You mean Goonie!"
Ki-Ris ordered the captured zombie to dance, and the ancient corpse began awkwardly prancing about.
Ki-Ris: "There is your proof, humans. Now, we shall go to the Duvan'Ku Promise Machine, and the Bargain shall be made."
Gutboy: "Where's this machine? In the sarcophagus?"
Ki-Ris: "No! That is my life support capsule. The Promise Machine is down the hall."
Gutboy: "We're going to need to think this over..."
Pai Mei: "Forget it! Colt Seaver, go break that capsule!"
Colt Seaver reached down into the capsule - and Ki-Ris moved faster than any human could, gripping the bounty hunter by the throat. Colt struggled feebly as his flesh visibly withered, and Ki-Ris dropped the dried husk to the ground. The party ran out of the room in a panic, slamming the door shut, and leaving the catatonic grad student behind. A shout of "You'll be back!" was heard as they ran down the corridor.
They followed the corridor to its end - a dead end, to be precise, covered with ancient dried blood, and with the words "Thank you, my dear ally, for sacrificing your life force for my own" inscribed in Duvan'Ku upon the wall. Pai Mei briefly considered reciting them aloud and sacrificing the grad student, before realizing he had been left behind with the alien.
They followed the corridor back to its other end, and found a pit in the floor. The words "Jump, My Child, and Experience the Infinite Forever" were etched on the wall in Duvan'Ku. Gutboy stared down the pit, at the glowing phosphorescent patterns spiraling along its walls, going down so very very very far... and then snapped out of it, realizing he had been momentarily hypnotized.
A brief argument ensued about the next course of action - and then a massive tarantula clambered out of the hole! Trezgar cast his somnolescent magic, and the tarantula was put into a gentle repose - until Trezgar stuck a sword through its head.
That threat past, the party returned to the secret door between this portion of the tomb, and the room that had held the Suppressor "vine" they had destroyed. They listened at the door, hoping that the zombies were trapped in their crypts - but they heard the shuffling and moaning of the living dead beyond. The corpses had figured out how to turn the valves on the doors to their tombs. Rufus II briefly "blinked" to the other side, and saw that the living dead had piled themselves into a corpse-pyramid, allowing others to clamber up the hole in the ceiling to the surface. He blinked back before getting torn apart by the brain-hungry mob.
The party then began opening various barred doors in the corridor. They came across a fast-moving corpse, and destroyed it - and then in another room found a sarcophagus on a strangely uneven floor. A mummified corpse with an emerald crown burst through as Bunny hammered on the uneven section of the floor, but Gutboy's faith (or non-faith) in the satellite entities above drove the mummy away. They tracked it down to the end of the corridor, and Bunny used the Sword of Unlife to force the mummy to obey her commands - the first of which was to relinquish its emerald crown.
They then opened a third room, choreographed a corpse-fight between the mummy and the living dead within, and discovered what must be the Duvan'Ku Promise Machine. A metal orb sat on a pedestal, with ten knobs protruding from its circumference. Bunny handed the mummy a hammer and ordered it to destroy the Promise Machine.
As the mummy began banging away, a green mist flowed down the corridor and coalesced into Ki-Ris. The alien grabbed Bunny and she began to wither, as Colt Seaver had done, losing 2 levels in the process. The alien released Bunny, and walked over to the machine (yanking the hammer out of the mummy's hand).
Ki-Ris: "Enough of this idiocy! It is time for the Bargain! I need four of you to carry my life support system to a clearing wide enough for my ship to approach! Without proper equipment, I cannot control the undead reliably, only repel them - I need you to serve as my bearers."
Gutboy: "How does this machine work?"
Ki-Ris: "The Promise Machine of Duvan'Ku will link our minds sympathetically. Any attempt to break a Bargain will cause eternal torment! Now, come, grab the knobs and we shall declare our Terms and Conditions!"
Gutboy: "You said you needed four - that's not enough. It has to be all of us!"
Ki-Ris: "That is acceptable. Now, enough wasting time! Let the Bargain be struck!"
The party grabbed the knobs (Rufus II gripping with his teeth), and the Bargain began:
Ki-Ris: "You shall, in good faith, carry me and my life support capsule to a clearing at least a mile wide, and place the capsule into the cargo elevator when my ship approaches. In turn, I shall in good faith prevent these living dead from harming you until that time."
Gutboy: "And what happens after we put you on the ship? Promise not to harm us ever!"
Ki-Ris: "Ridiculous! I shall enslave and destroy all human males! Under the condition you depart immediately, I shall not cause you any harm for a twenty-four hour period after returning me to my ship"
Pai Mei: "Good enough!"
The Bargain was struck, and the party could feel their minds linked to Ki-Ris's. He bore them only hatred and malevolence, but they could also feel that the Bargain was in force, and even the slightest thought of betrayal caused great anguish.
All was as Ki-Ris claimed - he returned to his capsule, and the party dragged it through the undead hordes, back up into the cabin, and out into the graveyard, where thousands more corpses were clawing their way up from their graves. The cart and cage were still there, and contained the reanimated corpses of Zeke and his wife. They forced the captured zombie into the cage, and to meet Madame Prespin's quota, they forced three more walking dead into the cage as well. From within the coffin, Ki-Ris yelled "Move it along already!" and they slowly made their way down the mountain, and after a day's journey turned north until they found a meadow large enough to meet Ki-Ris's specifications.
The Green Comet of Undying Flesh hung in the sky above, and as they watched, it grew larger and larger, a halo of flickering green flames surrounding it as it approached the earth. The ship, for that is what it was, was fully a mile in diameter. It hung several hundred feet above the ground, and a tube slowly descended. Once it reached the ground, a door slid open, and the party carried the life support capsule inside. They quickly ran out, and watched as the tube ascended - the ship, however, remained stationary, floating above the field.
The party draped their tents over the cage to hide the living corpses within, and made their way to Chelmsfordshire as fast as they could. The marching of undead hordes coud be heard behind them, and the ship appeared to be an unmoving green moon low in the western sky. They marched straight through Chelmsfordshire without mentioning a word to anyone, and then onwards to Denethix, where Madame Prepin quickly contacted some of her associates and the covered cage was whisked away.
Pai Mei: "So where's our money?"
Madame Prepin: "Look, let's keep this between us right now - it wouldn't be prudent to let the Academy or anyone else in the city know too much about what just happened. You'll get paid, it just has to wait til the political climate is right."
The party eyed some of the broadsheets being sold - the headlines spoke of the Unyielding Fist having been sent north to deal with the inexplicable predations of Ferayn's Exterminators upon the northern villages. With the army so occupied, what fate would befall Chelmsfordshire, and Denethix itself?
Gains: Emerald crown, six required "Goonies" per the Academy contract
Kills: Giant tarantula, zombie, ghoul, mummy (subjugated rather than destroyed)
Losses: Colt "Rottweiler" Seaver, two of Bunny's levels, one forgotten grad student, most likely all of Chelmsfordshire
2013-11-10
Nitty gritty of dungeon design
My players are pretty much at the end of Death Frost Doom. They're probably going to want to head back into the dungeon, so the horror of an unwritten 4th level is staring me in the face.
Going back a few years, check out this post on keying level 1 - I still follow that process by counting the total # of rooms and using that to calculate how many of each different encounter type I should have.
I have a big Word document full of ideas that I haven't put in the dungeon yet. I cull some for being too stupid (choco-medusas, you are DENIED), delay even more to deeper levels, and then assign the tiny remainder to rooms in the 4th level. Finally, I'll mark off the "monsters", "monsters w/ treasure", "specials", etc. that I've used, so I know roughly how many more I have left.
Then - I randomly write little notations in all the unassigned rooms ("M" for monster, "MJ" for monster with treasure, "T" for trap, etc), until I've assigned everything. None of it makes sense now, but it's a starting point.
As I go through writing up each room, occasionally the placement will strike me as ludicrous, and I'll move things around until it works better. But when you've got a few hundred rooms staring you in the face, you have to start somewhere - and for me, it's with this process.
Finally, I figure out how much treasure to put in the entire level by taking the amount of XP it takes a fighter to go from 4th to 5th level, multiplying it by 5 characters in a party, and then multiplying again by 0.8 as roughly 80% of XP comes from treasure, and then doubling because I don't expect players to go through more than half before heading down to the next level. That total number will get divvied up among the dungeon - I'll keep a countdown as I add treasures to the encounters.
All this is a long-winded way of saying I'm actually working on the 4th level now, for those of you wondering when I'm going to publish it...
Going back a few years, check out this post on keying level 1 - I still follow that process by counting the total # of rooms and using that to calculate how many of each different encounter type I should have.
I have a big Word document full of ideas that I haven't put in the dungeon yet. I cull some for being too stupid (choco-medusas, you are DENIED), delay even more to deeper levels, and then assign the tiny remainder to rooms in the 4th level. Finally, I'll mark off the "monsters", "monsters w/ treasure", "specials", etc. that I've used, so I know roughly how many more I have left.
Then - I randomly write little notations in all the unassigned rooms ("M" for monster, "MJ" for monster with treasure, "T" for trap, etc), until I've assigned everything. None of it makes sense now, but it's a starting point.
As I go through writing up each room, occasionally the placement will strike me as ludicrous, and I'll move things around until it works better. But when you've got a few hundred rooms staring you in the face, you have to start somewhere - and for me, it's with this process.
Finally, I figure out how much treasure to put in the entire level by taking the amount of XP it takes a fighter to go from 4th to 5th level, multiplying it by 5 characters in a party, and then multiplying again by 0.8 as roughly 80% of XP comes from treasure, and then doubling because I don't expect players to go through more than half before heading down to the next level. That total number will get divvied up among the dungeon - I'll keep a countdown as I add treasures to the encounters.
All this is a long-winded way of saying I'm actually working on the 4th level now, for those of you wondering when I'm going to publish it...
2013-11-04
session recap, 10/28/2013
CAST
--------
Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (2) and Bunny the Thief (4), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his stuntman, Colt "Rottweiler" Seavers the Type III Bounty Hunter (2)
Having explored a series of unoccupied and featureless rooms to the north of the chapel, Gutboy and Pai Mei turned their attention to the bronze door with no handle. Next to it were stone basins, built in to the wall, each full of teeth. They looked up at the toothless skulls hanging by chains from the ceiling, and a thought occurred - "What if we added fresh teeth?"
A quick scan of the room provided one likely candidate: the dead grad student.
Pai Mei (to living grad student): "You! Go yank out his teeth!"
Grad student: "What? No! NO! IT'S TOO MUCH!"
The constant life-threatening abuse overwhelmed the grad student, and he threw himself at Pai Mei in a burst of psychotic rage. Colt Seavers quickly stepped in, hurling his bola at the student's feet, incapacitating him. The student curled into the fetal position and became unresponsive. Not even threats to his grades by Madame Prepin could make him respond.
Bunny pulled a set of pliers from her thieves' tools and yanked out the dead student's front teeth. She tossed them into the basins, and the door clicked open.
The tunnel beyond had several bronze doors, sealed with valves. They opened the valves, and found crypts beyond, full of thousands of bodies. The few crypts they inspected had but a few gold coins (in addition to their non-zombie occupants) each, so the party decided to ignore the crypts, and sealed them shut again. Madame Prepin was becoming increasingly outraged at the non-shambling-and-brain-eating behavior of the dead within.
They also found a small room with four bloodstained stone slabs. Next to the slabs was a podium, and upon that was an aluminum book, filled with glowing green alien letters, and occasional simplistic anatomical illustrations. The contents were a mystery, until the party stumbled across another room containing something that looked like a jeweler's loupe sitting on a pedestal, and more leatherbound books in the same alien writing. Bunny was able to use the loupe to read the alien writing, although it gave her a headache - the aluminum book they had taken earlier was a manual for the revivification of tortured dead flesh, and the leather-covered books were "The History of Duvan'Ku", volumes one through eighteen.
In a room nearby, they found another podium, with an alien inscription ("Oh brave ones, mark your defiance against the ones who oppress!"), atop which were needles and a vial of glowing green ink. Surmising it was for tattooing, Pai Mei took the needle and inscribed "Do Not Resuscitate" upon the comatose grad student's chest.
Along the long tunnel, they also found more basins, apparently full of coins, and tossed more coins in, to little effect, and then tossed a corpse in one of the basins, also to no effect. Finally, the corridor ended at a room stuffed full of a strange plastic-like vine or hose, covered with holes, thorns, and cobweb-like material - the source of the strange whistling noise.
Pai Mei approached, using the comatose grad student as a human shield between him and the plastic vine. He shone a flashlight through the vine, and saw that it was the same room pictured in the painting in the cabin above, with the skeleton and altar. There was no door next to the altar, just a blank section of wall - perhaps a secret door would be found?
Bunny started poking and prodding the vine with a 20' extensible pole - and the vine lashed out. It only had a short reach, about 5', so Gutboy bravely lobbed oil at the vine. Eventually the party was able to burn the vine away entirely, leaving patches of melted plastic on the floor, and the crypts were now eerily silent.
The party approached the altar, and found a pair of golden goblets atop it, along with an alien book (titled "The Book of Unspeakable Shame", and full of descriptions of shameful acts perpetrated by the cult that worshiped at this site). Inspecting the skeletal statue, Pai Mei found an inscription detailing a ritual to open a secret door, involving a living sacrifice. He eagerly began to push the grad student towards the altar, but was dissuaded when Gutboy easily found a second secret door where the opening was shown in the painting in the cabin above.
As they discussed what to do next, a soggy-bottomed corpse meandered into the room, groaning "braaaiiiiins" - the same corpse they had stuffed into one of the basins. Madame Prepin was ecstatic, and shouted "Behold! The Goonies have arisen! A new Golden Age of Prosperity awaits us!"
Colt Seaver easily captured and bound the "Goonie". As he tied a rope leash around it, the banging of fists on bronze doors was heard from the tunnels - the thousands of dead interred within the crypts had surely arisen. The party decided to make a retreat through the secret door.
Following the ancient stone corridors, they passed several barred doors, most with corpses banging on the other side. Finally, they reached an unbarred door, and opened it to reveal a mist-filled room, with a stone sarcophagus in the center.
And that's where our tale (and its accompanying run-on sentences) ends - for now.
Gains: Two gold cups, Build-Your-Own-Frankenstein book, Book of Unspeakable Shame, glowing green tattoo ink, Loupe of Comprehending Alien Texts, a single "Goonie" on a leash
Kills: None
Losses: None
--------
Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (2) and Bunny the Thief (4), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his stuntman, Colt "Rottweiler" Seavers the Type III Bounty Hunter (2)
Having explored a series of unoccupied and featureless rooms to the north of the chapel, Gutboy and Pai Mei turned their attention to the bronze door with no handle. Next to it were stone basins, built in to the wall, each full of teeth. They looked up at the toothless skulls hanging by chains from the ceiling, and a thought occurred - "What if we added fresh teeth?"
A quick scan of the room provided one likely candidate: the dead grad student.
Pai Mei (to living grad student): "You! Go yank out his teeth!"
Grad student: "What? No! NO! IT'S TOO MUCH!"
The constant life-threatening abuse overwhelmed the grad student, and he threw himself at Pai Mei in a burst of psychotic rage. Colt Seavers quickly stepped in, hurling his bola at the student's feet, incapacitating him. The student curled into the fetal position and became unresponsive. Not even threats to his grades by Madame Prepin could make him respond.
Bunny pulled a set of pliers from her thieves' tools and yanked out the dead student's front teeth. She tossed them into the basins, and the door clicked open.
The tunnel beyond had several bronze doors, sealed with valves. They opened the valves, and found crypts beyond, full of thousands of bodies. The few crypts they inspected had but a few gold coins (in addition to their non-zombie occupants) each, so the party decided to ignore the crypts, and sealed them shut again. Madame Prepin was becoming increasingly outraged at the non-shambling-and-brain-eating behavior of the dead within.
They also found a small room with four bloodstained stone slabs. Next to the slabs was a podium, and upon that was an aluminum book, filled with glowing green alien letters, and occasional simplistic anatomical illustrations. The contents were a mystery, until the party stumbled across another room containing something that looked like a jeweler's loupe sitting on a pedestal, and more leatherbound books in the same alien writing. Bunny was able to use the loupe to read the alien writing, although it gave her a headache - the aluminum book they had taken earlier was a manual for the revivification of tortured dead flesh, and the leather-covered books were "The History of Duvan'Ku", volumes one through eighteen.
In a room nearby, they found another podium, with an alien inscription ("Oh brave ones, mark your defiance against the ones who oppress!"), atop which were needles and a vial of glowing green ink. Surmising it was for tattooing, Pai Mei took the needle and inscribed "Do Not Resuscitate" upon the comatose grad student's chest.
Along the long tunnel, they also found more basins, apparently full of coins, and tossed more coins in, to little effect, and then tossed a corpse in one of the basins, also to no effect. Finally, the corridor ended at a room stuffed full of a strange plastic-like vine or hose, covered with holes, thorns, and cobweb-like material - the source of the strange whistling noise.
Pai Mei approached, using the comatose grad student as a human shield between him and the plastic vine. He shone a flashlight through the vine, and saw that it was the same room pictured in the painting in the cabin above, with the skeleton and altar. There was no door next to the altar, just a blank section of wall - perhaps a secret door would be found?
Bunny started poking and prodding the vine with a 20' extensible pole - and the vine lashed out. It only had a short reach, about 5', so Gutboy bravely lobbed oil at the vine. Eventually the party was able to burn the vine away entirely, leaving patches of melted plastic on the floor, and the crypts were now eerily silent.
The party approached the altar, and found a pair of golden goblets atop it, along with an alien book (titled "The Book of Unspeakable Shame", and full of descriptions of shameful acts perpetrated by the cult that worshiped at this site). Inspecting the skeletal statue, Pai Mei found an inscription detailing a ritual to open a secret door, involving a living sacrifice. He eagerly began to push the grad student towards the altar, but was dissuaded when Gutboy easily found a second secret door where the opening was shown in the painting in the cabin above.
As they discussed what to do next, a soggy-bottomed corpse meandered into the room, groaning "braaaiiiiins" - the same corpse they had stuffed into one of the basins. Madame Prepin was ecstatic, and shouted "Behold! The Goonies have arisen! A new Golden Age of Prosperity awaits us!"
Colt Seaver easily captured and bound the "Goonie". As he tied a rope leash around it, the banging of fists on bronze doors was heard from the tunnels - the thousands of dead interred within the crypts had surely arisen. The party decided to make a retreat through the secret door.
Following the ancient stone corridors, they passed several barred doors, most with corpses banging on the other side. Finally, they reached an unbarred door, and opened it to reveal a mist-filled room, with a stone sarcophagus in the center.
And that's where our tale (and its accompanying run-on sentences) ends - for now.
Gains: Two gold cups, Build-Your-Own-Frankenstein book, Book of Unspeakable Shame, glowing green tattoo ink, Loupe of Comprehending Alien Texts, a single "Goonie" on a leash
Kills: None
Losses: None
2013-10-11
session recap, 10/10/2013
CAST
--------
Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (2) and Bunny the Thief (4), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his stuntman, Colt "Rottweiler" Seavers the Type III Bounty Hunter (2)
Gutboy - last seen in the Livid Fens, mourning the death of Mongo - reappears. He and his remaining henchmen fled the giant tank known as the Red Demon in the flying stone head, but the unusual vehicle ran out of power halfway to Denethix, falling into the swamp. Fortunately, a group of froghemoth hunters nearby came to investigate, and he was able to return to the city with his loot.
And what loot it was! The bulk of the treasure from the Red Demon was sold off, with Gutboy only keeping an argonium shield and a robotic repair spider. Trezgar and Bunny snorted their share of the profits, while Rufus II wined and dined his human concubine Candy. Gutboy had no time for those sorts of shenanigans - instead, he visited Fitzy's in Chelmsfordshire, who had a newly-acquired license to sell heavy armaments, and purchased a machine gun, a drum of 100 bullets, and a drum of 100 silver bullets. Having a bit of cash still burning a hole in his pocket, he blew the rest of his earnings on an engraved gold ring.
After some investigation, he discovered his companion Razoe had headed off west with an inscrutable Oriental wizard and a professor of astrophysics from the Academy. A few days journey, and he stumbled upon the petrified cabin where Pai Mei stood inspecting a deep shaft in the floor. Razoe and Boxer stepped out to take a leak as Gutboy entered. There, continuity, happy?
The duo investigated the harpsichord room once again - there was music behind the door, and they opened it to see Boxer the quantum henchman playing.
Pai Mei: "Who told you to come in here?"
Boxer: "Razoe"
Pai Mei: "When was that?"
Boxer: "Just a few minutes ago"
Tired of harpsichords, they headed down the shaft. At the bottom, a corridor led to a great bronze door, the lock carved into a skull with a key sticking from the keyhole in the mouth. The walls, floor and ceilings were carved with screaming faces. They unlocked the door, and found another room with ten tables, each holding a skeletal left hand, and a large bronze doorway on the east wall with an odd circular symbol on it.
Gutboy: "So what are we doing here? We're supposed to get zombies? I could animate some for you"
Madame Prepin: "We don't need the tyranny of the gods! There are potentially 40,000 Funeral Friends here for us to exploit, and you want to involve the temples?"
Gutboy: "OK, so where are the zombies?"
Madame Prepin: "Look, I need a name that's more kid-friendly. I'll offer a 1,000 gp bonus to the man who can come up with a better name."
Gutboy: "Goonies?"
Madame Prepin: "Hmm, I like it. That'll do for a provisional name, I'll see if somebody comes up with something better."
Gutboy: "And 40,000 of them? Won't they smell?"
Madame Prepin: "We'll all be flying above them in our air cars while they work the fields! It will be a paradise!"
Pai Mei ordered the grad students to open the door, and they did so once Madame Prepin threatened that their grades would suffer if they didn't obey. Beyond was a great chapel with marble pews, an altar inside a giant stone skull, an organ made of bones, a pair of stone basins next to a knob-less bronze door heading east, and a "normal" bronze door heading north.
The grad students were ordered to approach the altar - on it was a bowl containing a gold dagger and ruby necklace. The grad students each picked up an artifact, and began shaking and complaining of being cold. They placed them into a pouch, which one of the nameless students shoved into his belt.
The party then approached the stone basins - they were full of black water.
Pai Mei: "Go wash your hands in that. It'll probably clear up the shaking"
One of the grad students cleansed himself in the black water, and came back up with a fistful of human teeth. They fell from his still-shaking hands back in the water. "That didn't help at all! This assignment sucks!"
The other student was ordered to play the organ. He walked over and pressed one of the keys - a cloud of yellow spores bellowed forth from the organ, and an onyx bowl and a jewel fell from under the organ where they had been hidden. The student began choking and soon collapsed to the floor. Bunny approached carefully, stepping over the wheezing student, and scooped up the loot.
As the student breathed his last, Bunny extended Mongo's old 20' collapsible pole, and began banging the keys some more. The first hit sent up a small clouds of spores, but the second flooded the room with the yellow death. Bunny successfully held her breath as everyone fled the room.
Once the spore cloud settled, the party re-entered the chapel, and headed through the north door. There were several deserted rooms beyond it, including a pair of dungeon toilets. The only item of interest found was a copper ring among some debris, which Gutboy pocketed.
And there the adventure ended for the evening, cut short due to an extended session of Grand Theft Auto V.
Gains: Cursed gold dagger, cursed ruby necklace, onyx bowl, sapphire, copper ring
Kills: None
Losses: Grad student
--------
Gutboy the Cleric (6), his henchpeople Trezgar the Elf (2) and Bunny the Thief (4), and his blink dog Rufus II
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his stuntman, Colt "Rottweiler" Seavers the Type III Bounty Hunter (2)
Gutboy - last seen in the Livid Fens, mourning the death of Mongo - reappears. He and his remaining henchmen fled the giant tank known as the Red Demon in the flying stone head, but the unusual vehicle ran out of power halfway to Denethix, falling into the swamp. Fortunately, a group of froghemoth hunters nearby came to investigate, and he was able to return to the city with his loot.
And what loot it was! The bulk of the treasure from the Red Demon was sold off, with Gutboy only keeping an argonium shield and a robotic repair spider. Trezgar and Bunny snorted their share of the profits, while Rufus II wined and dined his human concubine Candy. Gutboy had no time for those sorts of shenanigans - instead, he visited Fitzy's in Chelmsfordshire, who had a newly-acquired license to sell heavy armaments, and purchased a machine gun, a drum of 100 bullets, and a drum of 100 silver bullets. Having a bit of cash still burning a hole in his pocket, he blew the rest of his earnings on an engraved gold ring.
After some investigation, he discovered his companion Razoe had headed off west with an inscrutable Oriental wizard and a professor of astrophysics from the Academy. A few days journey, and he stumbled upon the petrified cabin where Pai Mei stood inspecting a deep shaft in the floor. Razoe and Boxer stepped out to take a leak as Gutboy entered. There, continuity, happy?
The duo investigated the harpsichord room once again - there was music behind the door, and they opened it to see Boxer the quantum henchman playing.
Pai Mei: "Who told you to come in here?"
Boxer: "Razoe"
Pai Mei: "When was that?"
Boxer: "Just a few minutes ago"
Tired of harpsichords, they headed down the shaft. At the bottom, a corridor led to a great bronze door, the lock carved into a skull with a key sticking from the keyhole in the mouth. The walls, floor and ceilings were carved with screaming faces. They unlocked the door, and found another room with ten tables, each holding a skeletal left hand, and a large bronze doorway on the east wall with an odd circular symbol on it.
Gutboy: "So what are we doing here? We're supposed to get zombies? I could animate some for you"
Madame Prepin: "We don't need the tyranny of the gods! There are potentially 40,000 Funeral Friends here for us to exploit, and you want to involve the temples?"
Gutboy: "OK, so where are the zombies?"
Madame Prepin: "Look, I need a name that's more kid-friendly. I'll offer a 1,000 gp bonus to the man who can come up with a better name."
Gutboy: "Goonies?"
Madame Prepin: "Hmm, I like it. That'll do for a provisional name, I'll see if somebody comes up with something better."
Gutboy: "And 40,000 of them? Won't they smell?"
Madame Prepin: "We'll all be flying above them in our air cars while they work the fields! It will be a paradise!"
Pai Mei ordered the grad students to open the door, and they did so once Madame Prepin threatened that their grades would suffer if they didn't obey. Beyond was a great chapel with marble pews, an altar inside a giant stone skull, an organ made of bones, a pair of stone basins next to a knob-less bronze door heading east, and a "normal" bronze door heading north.
The grad students were ordered to approach the altar - on it was a bowl containing a gold dagger and ruby necklace. The grad students each picked up an artifact, and began shaking and complaining of being cold. They placed them into a pouch, which one of the nameless students shoved into his belt.
The party then approached the stone basins - they were full of black water.
Pai Mei: "Go wash your hands in that. It'll probably clear up the shaking"
One of the grad students cleansed himself in the black water, and came back up with a fistful of human teeth. They fell from his still-shaking hands back in the water. "That didn't help at all! This assignment sucks!"
The other student was ordered to play the organ. He walked over and pressed one of the keys - a cloud of yellow spores bellowed forth from the organ, and an onyx bowl and a jewel fell from under the organ where they had been hidden. The student began choking and soon collapsed to the floor. Bunny approached carefully, stepping over the wheezing student, and scooped up the loot.
As the student breathed his last, Bunny extended Mongo's old 20' collapsible pole, and began banging the keys some more. The first hit sent up a small clouds of spores, but the second flooded the room with the yellow death. Bunny successfully held her breath as everyone fled the room.
Once the spore cloud settled, the party re-entered the chapel, and headed through the north door. There were several deserted rooms beyond it, including a pair of dungeon toilets. The only item of interest found was a copper ring among some debris, which Gutboy pocketed.
And there the adventure ended for the evening, cut short due to an extended session of Grand Theft Auto V.
Gains: Cursed gold dagger, cursed ruby necklace, onyx bowl, sapphire, copper ring
Kills: None
Losses: Grad student
2013-10-01
Murder hobos meet Death Frost Doom
If you read the session report I posted last night, you can see why a lot of James Raggi's modules will never, ever work quite as he intended when I run them - there's no way to build mood with guys who view every NPC as a pawn in a quest to acquire XP. Yes, I could change the way I run the game to penalize that sort of behavior, but that's not what I want to do, and my players wouldn't stick around if I did. This is pretty much how we play and how we like it, not a request for suggestions.
So back on point - something like Death Love Doom would fall apart completely, and even the Monolith with its murderous host of brain invaders would just be an opportunity to wreak havoc. Poor Zeke never stood a chance. He didn't even get off his one-liner, because he was gagged and I foolishly didn't anticipate his murder at the time he was tied up.
The players have really been all about doing random wilderness adventures lately, which means there's no pressure on me to actually work on the dungeon levels. You can blame them if you're wondering why ASE4-5 isn't out. I'm too lazy to do anything without a deadline.
Anyhow, if you're wondering about the hiatus, I spent a whole lot of time working on designing guitar amps and watching Breaking Bad start-to-finish instead of playing D&D.
So back on point - something like Death Love Doom would fall apart completely, and even the Monolith with its murderous host of brain invaders would just be an opportunity to wreak havoc. Poor Zeke never stood a chance. He didn't even get off his one-liner, because he was gagged and I foolishly didn't anticipate his murder at the time he was tied up.
The players have really been all about doing random wilderness adventures lately, which means there's no pressure on me to actually work on the dungeon levels. You can blame them if you're wondering why ASE4-5 isn't out. I'm too lazy to do anything without a deadline.
Anyhow, if you're wondering about the hiatus, I spent a whole lot of time working on designing guitar amps and watching Breaking Bad start-to-finish instead of playing D&D.
2013-09-30
session recap, 9/12/2013
CAST
--------
Razoe the Fantra Paladin (3), his quantum henchman Boxer the Fighter (1), and his compsognathus Dino
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his stuntman, Colt "Rottweiler" Seavers the Type III Bounty Hunter (2)
Companions Razoe and Pei Mei had a need for adventure - but first, henchmen. Razoe's previously dead henchman Boxer reappeared once again, appearing both corpse-gray and healthy simultaneously, as he appeared to exist in the two states simultaneously. "I should've kept my job at the box factory," he lamented/stood silently.
While the not-quite-alive/not-quite-dead Boxer was an excellent resource for renewable henching, the duo had a need for further reinforcements. A few interviews later, and Pai Mei had hired the bounty hunter/stuntman Colt Seavers, who preferred to go by the nickname "Rottweiler". All he had for equipment was a bola, so the inscrutable wizard was forced to purchase armor and a more lethal wepaon for the bounty hunter.
One dilemma solved - and another arose - where to go for adventure? With only two PC's in the party, the dungeon seemed too dangerous, but a pair of broadsheets advertising lecture series at the Academy of Elevated Thought caught their eye.
The first, a lecture by Dr. Brian Falk, Professor of Criminology, theorized that crime was caused by defective bone structures, and promised reductions in crime through aggressive amputation. This did not appeal to the duo (perhaps due to their own less-than-legal inclinations).
The second was right up their alley - Madame Nicole Prepin, Professor of Astrophysics, was discussing her theory that the Green Comet of Undying Flesh was due to make another appearance in the skies above Denethix.
"The last appearance of the Green Comet coincided with a massive rebirth of the dead. Tens of thousands arose from their graves to devour the brains of the living. But that was in a darker age, an age of mysticism and confusion! Now, with the learning we've attained here at the Academy, we can harness these formerly deceased and usher in a new Golden Age of Prosperity! With the second coming of the Green Comet, the living will be free from toil and suffering. Our children shall sip champagne as they ride in air cars above fertile fields tended to by the less-living! To end this lecture, I would like to announce that the Academy is seeking non-academic assistance for our field work."
Her Utopian vision was deeply attractive to Pai Mei and Razoe, and the pair quizzed Madame Prepin about the job opportunity:
Pai Mei: "You need us to capture zombies, then?"
Madame Prepin: "No! Not zombies! I never want to hear you use that word, it's so prejudicial. I was thinking Morgue Pals. Or maybe Morticiafriends."
Razoe: "Where is the job?"
Madame Prepin: "The last time the Green Comet arrived, the Morgue Pals arose from a vast cemetery on a mountain far to the west of Denethix. It'll be at least a week's worth of travel. I'm authorized to offer each of you 1,000 gp if the expedition successfully brings back formerly-living-but-still-ambulatory specimens."
Pai Mei: "How many undead do we need to capture?"
Madame Prepin: "Please! Morgue Pals! A half dozen should be sufficient for initial trials. If we leave tomorrow, our arrival should roughly coincide with the Green Comet's appearance. Come up with a list of equipment you'll need and I'll see that the Academy provides it."
Razoe: "We'll need guns. And explosives."
Madame Prepin: "That's the one thing I can't get you. The chair of the Munitions Department has had it out for me for years now, he'll never cooperate."
Nonplused by the lack of things that go boom, Razoe and Pai Mei came up with a list of supplies, including a lighter-on-a-stick and a large wheeled wooden cage pulled by donkeys. The equipment acquired, the pair, their henchmen, a newly-purchased compsognathus, Madame Prepin, and a pair of grad students headed off into the wilderness. The trip to the funereal mountain was uneventful - a warband of moktars was heard, but the expedition simply skirted around them in silence.
Once at the mountain, they began following a trail to the cemetery at the top. At the halfway point, they found a smelly old man in buckskin clothes. He was busy manufacturing low-quality grave markers from tanned hides and sticks.
Pai Mei: "Who are you?"
Zeke: "I'm Zeke! This is my mountain! So, what are you doing up here?"
Pai Mei: "Madame Prepin, I think this one's for you"
Madame Prepin: "Oh, you've found a department chair out here in the wilderness? Tell me, what subject is this smelly bumpkin a professor of? I don't think so. Handle it, that's what you're paid for."
Razoe: "Do you live here alone?"
Zeke: "Oh, yes, it's just me, my wife died nigh on 50 years ago. Now I keep myself busy making grave markers for her, they don't last long. Buried her right over there, I did."
Pai Mei: "Well, I think we'll be moving on."
Zeke: "That's right! You'll want to head back down the mountain, bye, nice seeing you!"
Pai Mei: "We're heading up."
Zeke: "What? No! Don't! It's not safe!"
Razoe: "What do you mean?"
Zeke: "Their souls! They aren't at rest! I need to make more markers! They get restless! Can't you hear them?"
Pai Mei: "Can you?"
Zeke: "No! Sometimes! In my dreams! Don't go! You're doomed! DOOMED!"
Pai Mei and Razoe ordered the team to continue on, and Zeke rushed at the paladin. Colt "Rottweiler" Seaver flung his bola at Zeke, tangling his feet and tripping him up, and Razoe tied up the old man and gagged him. He then tossed the old man into the cage-on-wheels.
Razoe: "Hey, you grad students, go dig up his wife's corpse."
Grad student: "What? That's messed up. No way."
Razoe: "Well I'm not going to do it."
Madame Prepin: "You two! You want to pass this course? Listen to the man!"
The grad students reluctantly obeyed, and after a short time digging exhumed the bones of Zeke's wife. They tossed them in the cage with Zeke, who began sobbing uncontrollably. Razoe felt moved by his weeping, opened the cage door, and then beat Zeke to death with a rock. As Razoe had received no divine orders not to beat old men to death on the side of a mountain, his status as paladin remained intact - his oath and duty was to obey the gods in all their caprices and whims, not to uphold a moral standard that those divine machine intelligences themselves did not follow.
Grad students: "Aigh! No! What did you do that for?"
Razoe: "Ok, so there's two test subjects."
Madame Prepin: "You two! Shut up! This is science! You can't make a utopia without breaking a few skulls!"
Razoe: "When is the comet coming, so we can see if these two turn into zombies?"
Madame Prepin: "Morticiafriends! And it should be overhead this very night, according to my calculations."
The expedition headed further up the mountain, and reached a peculiar graveyard, with a few hundred grave markers. The markers were all made of rotting leather attached to thin sticks, with various names on them - "Bob", "Bob II", "Bob 72", "Linda 24", etc. The old man appeared to have been just making up names. In the center of the graveyard was a leafless, petrified stone tree, and beyond that, a cabin made of petrified wood.
As they approached, they heard a weird whistling noise. Pai Mei and Razoe became a bit nervous, and bravely sent the grad students to the cabin.
The pair poked their head in the front door - "It's empty!" "Then go in!" - went inside, popped back out - "There's someone in there, I hear music!" "Well find out who's playing" "No, you do it!" "There's going to be two more bodies in the cage!" - went inside again, and ran back to the expedition - "There's nobody playing music! You're the adventurers, you figure it out!"
Grumbling, the entire expedition headed to the cabin. The first (and largest) room in the cabin had several things in it:
a. A desk with a book on it, bound in leather, possibly elven. It is full of thousands upon thousands of names. The writing ranges from thousands of years old to possibly only 100 years old.
b. Fireplace w/ deer head mounted above it
c. Mirror, that for some reason doesn't reflect Razoe, Pai Mei, or Madame Prepin. The rest of the expedition is reflected normally
d. Trapdoor with a padlock
e. Clock, reading the wrong time (5:45)
f. A few easy chairs
They were puzzled about the mirror, but decided to move on and secure the rest of the cabin. There was a room with some travel bags and other gear that lookd to have been left recently, a room with a thousand-year-old painting of the current expedition standing before an altar, with a giant skeleton looking over it and an open door behind it. Razoe was depicted as sipping from a goblet as a light shone down on him from above. Razoe carefully poked it with his ten-foot-pole, but not carefully enough, as the ancient canvas suffered an inch-long tear.
They also heard music coming from behind a closed door. Opening it, the music stopped, and there was nothing in the room but a silent harpsichord. They closed it again - music! - opened again - no music! Then they had Boxer go in the room with the harpsichord, closed the door - music! - opened it! And there was Boxer, standing at the harpsichord.
Razoe: "Were you playing that?"
Boxer: "Yes."
Razoe: "Don't do that!"
They closed the door again - music! - and opened it again. Boxer was once again seated before the harpsichord.
Pai Mei: "Did you play that?"
Boxer: "Oh, right. Sorry. Yeah, that was me."
Pai Mei: "How long were you playing?"
Boxer: "Oh, hours."
Confused, they called Boxer out of the room again, closed the door, and once again heard music. They opened the door, and saw Boxer somehow back inside, seated at the harpsichord.
Pai Mei: "How'd you get there?"
Boxer: "You told me to come in here while you closed the door."
The party, puzzled and slightly disturbed, headed back to the main room. They saw that the easy chairs had changed position, and were now facing inwards towards them. The clock had also changed time - it now read 9:28. Grumbling at the oddities, Razoe decided to get on with it and broke off the padlock on the trap door.
Razoe: "Ok, you two grad students, open the trap door."
Grad student: "No way! You're treating us like crap! You don't even know our names!"
Razoe: "Fine. What are your names?"
Grad students: "I'm F***, and he's You."
Razoe: "Well, F*** You, open the trap door!"
Under duress, the grad students lifted the trap door, and the eerie whistling sound from the graveyard was even louder coming from the darkness below.
Gains: Zeke's body, Zeke's wife's skeleton
Kills: Zeke
Losses: the respect and admiration of a pair of grad students
--------
Razoe the Fantra Paladin (3), his quantum henchman Boxer the Fighter (1), and his compsognathus Dino
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his stuntman, Colt "Rottweiler" Seavers the Type III Bounty Hunter (2)
Companions Razoe and Pei Mei had a need for adventure - but first, henchmen. Razoe's previously dead henchman Boxer reappeared once again, appearing both corpse-gray and healthy simultaneously, as he appeared to exist in the two states simultaneously. "I should've kept my job at the box factory," he lamented/stood silently.
While the not-quite-alive/not-quite-dead Boxer was an excellent resource for renewable henching, the duo had a need for further reinforcements. A few interviews later, and Pai Mei had hired the bounty hunter/stuntman Colt Seavers, who preferred to go by the nickname "Rottweiler". All he had for equipment was a bola, so the inscrutable wizard was forced to purchase armor and a more lethal wepaon for the bounty hunter.
One dilemma solved - and another arose - where to go for adventure? With only two PC's in the party, the dungeon seemed too dangerous, but a pair of broadsheets advertising lecture series at the Academy of Elevated Thought caught their eye.
The first, a lecture by Dr. Brian Falk, Professor of Criminology, theorized that crime was caused by defective bone structures, and promised reductions in crime through aggressive amputation. This did not appeal to the duo (perhaps due to their own less-than-legal inclinations).
The second was right up their alley - Madame Nicole Prepin, Professor of Astrophysics, was discussing her theory that the Green Comet of Undying Flesh was due to make another appearance in the skies above Denethix.
"The last appearance of the Green Comet coincided with a massive rebirth of the dead. Tens of thousands arose from their graves to devour the brains of the living. But that was in a darker age, an age of mysticism and confusion! Now, with the learning we've attained here at the Academy, we can harness these formerly deceased and usher in a new Golden Age of Prosperity! With the second coming of the Green Comet, the living will be free from toil and suffering. Our children shall sip champagne as they ride in air cars above fertile fields tended to by the less-living! To end this lecture, I would like to announce that the Academy is seeking non-academic assistance for our field work."
Her Utopian vision was deeply attractive to Pai Mei and Razoe, and the pair quizzed Madame Prepin about the job opportunity:
Pai Mei: "You need us to capture zombies, then?"
Madame Prepin: "No! Not zombies! I never want to hear you use that word, it's so prejudicial. I was thinking Morgue Pals. Or maybe Morticiafriends."
Razoe: "Where is the job?"
Madame Prepin: "The last time the Green Comet arrived, the Morgue Pals arose from a vast cemetery on a mountain far to the west of Denethix. It'll be at least a week's worth of travel. I'm authorized to offer each of you 1,000 gp if the expedition successfully brings back formerly-living-but-still-ambulatory specimens."
Pai Mei: "How many undead do we need to capture?"
Madame Prepin: "Please! Morgue Pals! A half dozen should be sufficient for initial trials. If we leave tomorrow, our arrival should roughly coincide with the Green Comet's appearance. Come up with a list of equipment you'll need and I'll see that the Academy provides it."
Razoe: "We'll need guns. And explosives."
Madame Prepin: "That's the one thing I can't get you. The chair of the Munitions Department has had it out for me for years now, he'll never cooperate."
Nonplused by the lack of things that go boom, Razoe and Pai Mei came up with a list of supplies, including a lighter-on-a-stick and a large wheeled wooden cage pulled by donkeys. The equipment acquired, the pair, their henchmen, a newly-purchased compsognathus, Madame Prepin, and a pair of grad students headed off into the wilderness. The trip to the funereal mountain was uneventful - a warband of moktars was heard, but the expedition simply skirted around them in silence.
Once at the mountain, they began following a trail to the cemetery at the top. At the halfway point, they found a smelly old man in buckskin clothes. He was busy manufacturing low-quality grave markers from tanned hides and sticks.
Pai Mei: "Who are you?"
Zeke: "I'm Zeke! This is my mountain! So, what are you doing up here?"
Pai Mei: "Madame Prepin, I think this one's for you"
Madame Prepin: "Oh, you've found a department chair out here in the wilderness? Tell me, what subject is this smelly bumpkin a professor of? I don't think so. Handle it, that's what you're paid for."
Razoe: "Do you live here alone?"
Zeke: "Oh, yes, it's just me, my wife died nigh on 50 years ago. Now I keep myself busy making grave markers for her, they don't last long. Buried her right over there, I did."
Pai Mei: "Well, I think we'll be moving on."
Zeke: "That's right! You'll want to head back down the mountain, bye, nice seeing you!"
Pai Mei: "We're heading up."
Zeke: "What? No! Don't! It's not safe!"
Razoe: "What do you mean?"
Zeke: "Their souls! They aren't at rest! I need to make more markers! They get restless! Can't you hear them?"
Pai Mei: "Can you?"
Zeke: "No! Sometimes! In my dreams! Don't go! You're doomed! DOOMED!"
Pai Mei and Razoe ordered the team to continue on, and Zeke rushed at the paladin. Colt "Rottweiler" Seaver flung his bola at Zeke, tangling his feet and tripping him up, and Razoe tied up the old man and gagged him. He then tossed the old man into the cage-on-wheels.
Razoe: "Hey, you grad students, go dig up his wife's corpse."
Grad student: "What? That's messed up. No way."
Razoe: "Well I'm not going to do it."
Madame Prepin: "You two! You want to pass this course? Listen to the man!"
The grad students reluctantly obeyed, and after a short time digging exhumed the bones of Zeke's wife. They tossed them in the cage with Zeke, who began sobbing uncontrollably. Razoe felt moved by his weeping, opened the cage door, and then beat Zeke to death with a rock. As Razoe had received no divine orders not to beat old men to death on the side of a mountain, his status as paladin remained intact - his oath and duty was to obey the gods in all their caprices and whims, not to uphold a moral standard that those divine machine intelligences themselves did not follow.
Grad students: "Aigh! No! What did you do that for?"
Razoe: "Ok, so there's two test subjects."
Madame Prepin: "You two! Shut up! This is science! You can't make a utopia without breaking a few skulls!"
Razoe: "When is the comet coming, so we can see if these two turn into zombies?"
Madame Prepin: "Morticiafriends! And it should be overhead this very night, according to my calculations."
The expedition headed further up the mountain, and reached a peculiar graveyard, with a few hundred grave markers. The markers were all made of rotting leather attached to thin sticks, with various names on them - "Bob", "Bob II", "Bob 72", "Linda 24", etc. The old man appeared to have been just making up names. In the center of the graveyard was a leafless, petrified stone tree, and beyond that, a cabin made of petrified wood.
As they approached, they heard a weird whistling noise. Pai Mei and Razoe became a bit nervous, and bravely sent the grad students to the cabin.
The pair poked their head in the front door - "It's empty!" "Then go in!" - went inside, popped back out - "There's someone in there, I hear music!" "Well find out who's playing" "No, you do it!" "There's going to be two more bodies in the cage!" - went inside again, and ran back to the expedition - "There's nobody playing music! You're the adventurers, you figure it out!"
Grumbling, the entire expedition headed to the cabin. The first (and largest) room in the cabin had several things in it:
a. A desk with a book on it, bound in leather, possibly elven. It is full of thousands upon thousands of names. The writing ranges from thousands of years old to possibly only 100 years old.
b. Fireplace w/ deer head mounted above it
c. Mirror, that for some reason doesn't reflect Razoe, Pai Mei, or Madame Prepin. The rest of the expedition is reflected normally
d. Trapdoor with a padlock
e. Clock, reading the wrong time (5:45)
f. A few easy chairs
They were puzzled about the mirror, but decided to move on and secure the rest of the cabin. There was a room with some travel bags and other gear that lookd to have been left recently, a room with a thousand-year-old painting of the current expedition standing before an altar, with a giant skeleton looking over it and an open door behind it. Razoe was depicted as sipping from a goblet as a light shone down on him from above. Razoe carefully poked it with his ten-foot-pole, but not carefully enough, as the ancient canvas suffered an inch-long tear.
They also heard music coming from behind a closed door. Opening it, the music stopped, and there was nothing in the room but a silent harpsichord. They closed it again - music! - opened again - no music! Then they had Boxer go in the room with the harpsichord, closed the door - music! - opened it! And there was Boxer, standing at the harpsichord.
Razoe: "Were you playing that?"
Boxer: "Yes."
Razoe: "Don't do that!"
They closed the door again - music! - and opened it again. Boxer was once again seated before the harpsichord.
Pai Mei: "Did you play that?"
Boxer: "Oh, right. Sorry. Yeah, that was me."
Pai Mei: "How long were you playing?"
Boxer: "Oh, hours."
Confused, they called Boxer out of the room again, closed the door, and once again heard music. They opened the door, and saw Boxer somehow back inside, seated at the harpsichord.
Pai Mei: "How'd you get there?"
Boxer: "You told me to come in here while you closed the door."
The party, puzzled and slightly disturbed, headed back to the main room. They saw that the easy chairs had changed position, and were now facing inwards towards them. The clock had also changed time - it now read 9:28. Grumbling at the oddities, Razoe decided to get on with it and broke off the padlock on the trap door.
Razoe: "Ok, you two grad students, open the trap door."
Grad student: "No way! You're treating us like crap! You don't even know our names!"
Razoe: "Fine. What are your names?"
Grad students: "I'm F***, and he's You."
Razoe: "Well, F*** You, open the trap door!"
Under duress, the grad students lifted the trap door, and the eerie whistling sound from the graveyard was even louder coming from the darkness below.
Gains: Zeke's body, Zeke's wife's skeleton
Kills: Zeke
Losses: the respect and admiration of a pair of grad students
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