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...
2013-11-10
PDF
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
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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
2013-07-02
Fruiting Towers gets some playtime
The adventure from last session was Fruiting Towers, from Fight On! #13, authored by yours truly. So if you want to see what's what with the tower-crusted hill, now you know where to go for more details. I made a deliberate choice in that adventure to use book treasure to save space, instead of coming up with unique items, so I had to tweak the censer on the fly to have a little more flavor.
It's fairly easy to figure out who Mongo's new character is - witness the ignoble death of henchwoman "Click."
The house rules I've got on character death revolve around how far the party has penetrated the dungeon. If a single PC dies, they can bring in a new character at a level equivalent to the deepest level the party has found, minus one. Since they spent 30 seconds in the 4th level, that means new PC's start at 3rd level. If there's a total party wipeout, then new PC's get to start with levels equal to the deepest level, period. There is an incentive to go deeper to just peek at the lower levels, but my players are fairly cowardly, so they've been ignoring the many staircases they've found.
My one regret from the last session is my complete failure to roll a single wandering monster encounter as they traipsed around the countryside. Ahh well, I almost always let the dice roll as they will, not as I want.
It's fairly easy to figure out who Mongo's new character is - witness the ignoble death of henchwoman "Click."
The house rules I've got on character death revolve around how far the party has penetrated the dungeon. If a single PC dies, they can bring in a new character at a level equivalent to the deepest level the party has found, minus one. Since they spent 30 seconds in the 4th level, that means new PC's start at 3rd level. If there's a total party wipeout, then new PC's get to start with levels equal to the deepest level, period. There is an incentive to go deeper to just peek at the lower levels, but my players are fairly cowardly, so they've been ignoring the many staircases they've found.
My one regret from the last session is my complete failure to roll a single wandering monster encounter as they traipsed around the countryside. Ahh well, I almost always let the dice roll as they will, not as I want.
2013-07-01
session recap, 6/27/2013
CAST
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George P. Burdell the Cleric (4) and his henchmen, Slick Eddie the Thief (2) and Relgar the Elf (1)
Razoe the Fantra Paladin (3) and his henchman Boxer the Mysteriously Reincarnated Fighter (1)
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his henchmonster, Q'klik'tak the Insect-Woman (1)
The adventurers gathered together in Denethix, and plotted their next move. Through some mystery of fate, the henchman "Boxer", who had died back in March, had returned to Razoe's service - a clerical error had resulted in his return from the Great Beyond. George and Razoe, together with Pai Mei, a wu jen from the Secret City of the Shoguns and now bosom companion, headed towards Chelmsfordshire, to once again hire a henchman.
There was a diverse array of potential henchmen offering their services in the newly-erected mall in the center of the village. Pai Mei quickly met with and rejected an enfeebled old man looking for one last score, and a foppish dandy named Julian Wysan, who swore revenge when he was told he wasn't invited. The sorcerer finally settled on hiring a baby-eating Insect-Woman Q'klik'tak, who was quickly nicknamed Click. The risk of encountering babies in the dungeon seemed slight, after all.
And into the dungeon they went - heading back towards the first level, to experiment with the green crystal skull they had recovered. In the "gatehouse" level, they ran into a party of friendly Scientists, who recognized George. They warned the group about a gigantic screaming freak that was stalking the first level - so large it had to crawl on its hands and knees through the corridors below.
Warned, the group cautiously made their way to the Hall of Bones, former lair of the much smaller screaming freaks - and saw that the bones had been crushed and pushed aside to make a ten foot wide path down the hall. They quietly made their way to the end of the hall, where there was a stone box, and a bas relief of a tree carved onto the wall behind. A niche with three metal pins was cut into the tree-sculpture, and George placed the skull upon it. It glowed green - clearly the skull was meant to be there. The party could not figure out the significance of placing the skull there, and so removed it and left.
They next headed towards the cross-shaped room with the four possible-portals - each with a skull-niche above it. The green skull, when placed there, vibrated noisily and sparks shot from the pins - clearly, this was not a spot for the green skull. Disappointed, they put the skull into their pack and decided to try their luck somewhere outside the dungeon.
George had heard a rumor from his gossipy fellow clerics that a bright light had been seen falling from the sky, some miles north of the city. The party decided to investigate, and they headed north, stopping first in the well-to-do town of Wickshire. The main street through was lined on either side with giant weathered stone heads. Pai Mei interrogated one of the locals, a well-to-do farmer, plied him with the local clam-ale, and heard a rather typical story of a lovelorn suicide's ghost haunting one of the stone heads. The details were sketchy, but the farmer swore that he knews a fellow who saw the ghost and aged ten years in a night.
Giving short thrift to the farmer's tale, the party continued north to Lannington, a small village of cranberry bogs and frog poachers. They stopped at the inn, and were beckoned by a merchant named Hrezling.
Hrezling: "I tell you, I was robbed by a bunch of bandits only a day's march north of here - they kidnapped my daughter, who had my necklace! Living in stone huts, as weird as that sounds. Look, I'm offering good money for the return of my necklace. Hrezwina's a fine girl, but surely despoilt, and her marriage contract virtually worthless. 1500 gold for the return of my belongings! Not that it's valuable - it's a family heirloom, is all, and I'm a sentimental man."
George: "Did you see a light from the sky about a month ago?"
Hrezling: "What? No, I wasn't here a month ago. I was out among the Towers, selling my goods to the villages out there. There's not many who will risk it, so it's good money!"
The party accepted the offer, and headed north - and eventually saw a hill in the distance, topped by scaly stone towers, which were in turn topped with stone huts. The party approached, and saw that the closest towers were guarded by crocodile-headed men.
George hailed the crocodilians, and asked to meet with their later. The crocodilians told the rest of the party to wait, and escorted George up to the top of a tower. The floor was lined with furs, a strange hard-to-read book was laying on a small writing desk, a naked woman reclined on a pillow, and a strange half-man, half-machine - split right down the middle - greeted him.
Malazar-Left: "Behold! I am Malazar-Left, greatest of wizards! I command you to take your fellows and attack my treacherous brother, Malazar-Right! His behavior is intolerable!"
Naked woman (rolling eyes): "Yeah, hi. I'm Hrezwina."
Malazar-Left: "Silence, woman! I am commanding this wretch!"
George: "I'm sure we can work out a deal."
Malazar-Left: "A greedy one! If you obey, you shall receive a portion of my brother's treasure - but none of my own! It was taken from me through stealth! Disobey, and your reward shall be only death!"
George: "Ok, we'll attack your brother for you. Let me go tell my team."
Malazar-Left: "I'm watching you! Betray me, and you shall feel my wrath!"
George left the threatening wizard and returned to the party. They proceeded to skirt around the hill, scouting out the defenses of Malazar-Right. Both sides seemed evenly matched, each with at least a dozen crocodilians (for Malazar-Left) or weird three-eyed helmeted beast-men (for Malazar-Right). The wizards' minions patrolled a crudely-constructed rock wall dividing the hill, eyeing each other watchfully.
The party convened, discusses the results of their surveillance, and decided it was best to keep heading north, looking for the fallen light. They followed the road for days, leaving the hill country and finally terminating at the edge of a lake - the Eater of Cities. A small village of decrepit mud huts had been established at the end of the road.
Filthy villager: "Hello there! My, you're a tough looking crew - just the type we need living in our village!"
Pai Mei: "Not going to happen. Did you see a light a month ago?"
Filthy: "What? Oh, something flashed way south of here, in the hills."
Pai Mei: "Why do they call it the Eater of Cities?"
Filthy: "Oh, it's creepy. You can see abandoned towns and villages under the water of the lake. Some people think it's cursed, but not us. This is way better than life in the Feasting Trees - the trees were getting way too aggressive. How many people have to get eaten by a tree before you decide it's time to move? I've had my fill!"
Pai Mei: "Well, good luck with that. See ya."
Realizing their mistake, the party headed back south - eventually making their way past the towered hill, and back to Lannington. They saw the merchant Hrezling packing up his carts and preparing to head south.
Razoe: "We saw Hrezwina."
Hrezling: "What? Great! Where is the necklace? And Hrezwina, of course. But yeah, give me the necklace and I shall produce your reward!"
Pai Mei: "A half-man half-robot wizard had her. Look, we need some money up front to hire an army."
Hrezling: "What? You lying frauds! Get out of here! I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you were nothing but cheats!"
Razoe: "So where are you heading?"
Hrezling: "Back to Denethix! Now get out of here!"
Razoe: "Oh, us too. We'll go with you."
Hrezling (suspicious): "Oh, I don't think so."
Pai Mei: "It's the way we're going."
Hrezling whispered something to one of his servants, who returned in an hour's time with a pair of the Unyielding Fist.
Soldier: "You lot! What do you think you're doing harassing this merchant?"
Pai Mei: "We're just going south to Denethix, that's all."
Soldier: "Are any of you citizens? I didn't think so. Because Hrezling is, and we don't tolerate harassing citizens."
The party eyed Hrezling angrily, but after consulting with each other decided it would be best not to tangle with the Fist. They headed back north, returning to the towered hill - about a week had passed since their first visit with Malazar-Left.
They found the hill entirely deserted. New towers had sprung up from the ground as well, and there were a few yellow stone globes 5' wide protruding from the surface. They investigated the towers - the stairs inside spiraled up around a central 10' pillar, and the floors of the huts at the top each had a spiral aperture-like pattern cut into them. Razoe prodded the pattern with a 10' pole, but was unable to make the aperture open.
Eventually, the party discovered a tower that had no stairs - the thief Fast Eddie climbed the tower and lowered a rope. Inside the hu at the top was a shaft leading down into the hill. The shaft was lined with a purple fleshy substance, and it exhaled and inhaled air at regular intervals.
The crew climbed up the tower, and then down through the shaft. At the bottom of the shaft were openings leading into a vast cavern. Inside the cavern were several thorny towers rising from floor to ceiling - most glowed, but one was black and dead-looking. Some of the towers had stairs leading to their entrances, and others were only accessible via narrow bridges passing between the upper stories.
The tower had plentiful "life" inside it - flying red bat-things with needle-tipped probosci instead of faces, blue winged worms with razor-sharp mandibles, squat 2' tall brown humanoids with snuffling noses, but no eyes or mouth - a bizarre menagerie made its way through the cavern.
The brown humanoids were busy pulling bones from a liquid-filled ditch around one of the towers, and then tossing them into a another ditch at the base of another tower. The party made a beeline for the bone-ditch tower, and rushed through an opening in its base. They saw that it too had a flesh-lined shaft leading up to the surface, roughly corresponding to the location of a shallow bone-strewn pit at the top of the hill. There was no light shining from above, and no obvious way to climb up and open the floor of the "pit" above.
The party then quickly rushed towards a set of stairs leading into the black tower. Inside was an empty chamber, with stairs leading up and down. Heading down, they found another circular chamber, with three 7' tall humanoids covered in yellow pus inside, making threatening gestures at a brass censer laying on the floor.
Confused, the party decided the best idea was to kill - and kill they did. The pus-monsters were tough, but eventually succumbed to the distortion-laden chops of Razoe's Metal Axe, the magical hail of stones from Pai Mei's secret Eastern magic, and a withering hail of missile fire from the henchmen on the stairs. The censer was stuffed in a sack, Click extruded her ovipositor and deposited a clutch of eggs in the corpses, and the party headed upstairs.
On the upper floors, they found a narrow bridge connecting to another tower - and above that, a chamber with over a dozen blue winged worms feeding on fluids seeping from cracks in the black stone walls. One of the worms detached and flew at Razoe, hungry for human flesh - and he beat a hasty retreat downstairs before slaughtering it with his axe.
The group came up with the plan to lure the worms down a few at a time, and kill them in small groups. Razoe poked his head up and attracted the worms' attention - and four responded. The battle did not go as intended - the flapping worms had their choice of targets, and several went for the weaker members of the party. Razoe's axe sang a metal tune as the worms were halved beneath its blade, but he was not fast enough - by the time the battle was through, most of the henchmen were unconscious. George and Razoe used their divine healing magics to restore most, but the disturbing insect-woman Click was left to bleed out.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, the party fled the hollow hill and headed back towards Denethix. They consulted with Frondgar the Elven Sage, who informed them that they had recovered the Censer of the Ancestors - if a full ten minutes were spent honoring the ancestors in the appropriate fashion, the ancestor spirits would serve them in the form of an air elemental. The spirits are quick to take offense, though - the invoker must continue to honor them, and take no other actions other than slow movement, or else they will turn on the summoner.
Gains: Censer of Controlling Ancestor Spirits
Kills: 3 pus-monsters, 5 flying blue worms
Losses: Malazar (both halves), Hrezwina, unknown number of weird minions, Click
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George P. Burdell the Cleric (4) and his henchmen, Slick Eddie the Thief (2) and Relgar the Elf (1)
Razoe the Fantra Paladin (3) and his henchman Boxer the Mysteriously Reincarnated Fighter (1)
Pai Mei the Wu Jen (3) and his henchmonster, Q'klik'tak the Insect-Woman (1)
The adventurers gathered together in Denethix, and plotted their next move. Through some mystery of fate, the henchman "Boxer", who had died back in March, had returned to Razoe's service - a clerical error had resulted in his return from the Great Beyond. George and Razoe, together with Pai Mei, a wu jen from the Secret City of the Shoguns and now bosom companion, headed towards Chelmsfordshire, to once again hire a henchman.
There was a diverse array of potential henchmen offering their services in the newly-erected mall in the center of the village. Pai Mei quickly met with and rejected an enfeebled old man looking for one last score, and a foppish dandy named Julian Wysan, who swore revenge when he was told he wasn't invited. The sorcerer finally settled on hiring a baby-eating Insect-Woman Q'klik'tak, who was quickly nicknamed Click. The risk of encountering babies in the dungeon seemed slight, after all.
And into the dungeon they went - heading back towards the first level, to experiment with the green crystal skull they had recovered. In the "gatehouse" level, they ran into a party of friendly Scientists, who recognized George. They warned the group about a gigantic screaming freak that was stalking the first level - so large it had to crawl on its hands and knees through the corridors below.
Warned, the group cautiously made their way to the Hall of Bones, former lair of the much smaller screaming freaks - and saw that the bones had been crushed and pushed aside to make a ten foot wide path down the hall. They quietly made their way to the end of the hall, where there was a stone box, and a bas relief of a tree carved onto the wall behind. A niche with three metal pins was cut into the tree-sculpture, and George placed the skull upon it. It glowed green - clearly the skull was meant to be there. The party could not figure out the significance of placing the skull there, and so removed it and left.
They next headed towards the cross-shaped room with the four possible-portals - each with a skull-niche above it. The green skull, when placed there, vibrated noisily and sparks shot from the pins - clearly, this was not a spot for the green skull. Disappointed, they put the skull into their pack and decided to try their luck somewhere outside the dungeon.
George had heard a rumor from his gossipy fellow clerics that a bright light had been seen falling from the sky, some miles north of the city. The party decided to investigate, and they headed north, stopping first in the well-to-do town of Wickshire. The main street through was lined on either side with giant weathered stone heads. Pai Mei interrogated one of the locals, a well-to-do farmer, plied him with the local clam-ale, and heard a rather typical story of a lovelorn suicide's ghost haunting one of the stone heads. The details were sketchy, but the farmer swore that he knews a fellow who saw the ghost and aged ten years in a night.
Giving short thrift to the farmer's tale, the party continued north to Lannington, a small village of cranberry bogs and frog poachers. They stopped at the inn, and were beckoned by a merchant named Hrezling.
Hrezling: "I tell you, I was robbed by a bunch of bandits only a day's march north of here - they kidnapped my daughter, who had my necklace! Living in stone huts, as weird as that sounds. Look, I'm offering good money for the return of my necklace. Hrezwina's a fine girl, but surely despoilt, and her marriage contract virtually worthless. 1500 gold for the return of my belongings! Not that it's valuable - it's a family heirloom, is all, and I'm a sentimental man."
George: "Did you see a light from the sky about a month ago?"
Hrezling: "What? No, I wasn't here a month ago. I was out among the Towers, selling my goods to the villages out there. There's not many who will risk it, so it's good money!"
The party accepted the offer, and headed north - and eventually saw a hill in the distance, topped by scaly stone towers, which were in turn topped with stone huts. The party approached, and saw that the closest towers were guarded by crocodile-headed men.
George hailed the crocodilians, and asked to meet with their later. The crocodilians told the rest of the party to wait, and escorted George up to the top of a tower. The floor was lined with furs, a strange hard-to-read book was laying on a small writing desk, a naked woman reclined on a pillow, and a strange half-man, half-machine - split right down the middle - greeted him.
Malazar-Left: "Behold! I am Malazar-Left, greatest of wizards! I command you to take your fellows and attack my treacherous brother, Malazar-Right! His behavior is intolerable!"
Naked woman (rolling eyes): "Yeah, hi. I'm Hrezwina."
Malazar-Left: "Silence, woman! I am commanding this wretch!"
George: "I'm sure we can work out a deal."
Malazar-Left: "A greedy one! If you obey, you shall receive a portion of my brother's treasure - but none of my own! It was taken from me through stealth! Disobey, and your reward shall be only death!"
George: "Ok, we'll attack your brother for you. Let me go tell my team."
Malazar-Left: "I'm watching you! Betray me, and you shall feel my wrath!"
George left the threatening wizard and returned to the party. They proceeded to skirt around the hill, scouting out the defenses of Malazar-Right. Both sides seemed evenly matched, each with at least a dozen crocodilians (for Malazar-Left) or weird three-eyed helmeted beast-men (for Malazar-Right). The wizards' minions patrolled a crudely-constructed rock wall dividing the hill, eyeing each other watchfully.
The party convened, discusses the results of their surveillance, and decided it was best to keep heading north, looking for the fallen light. They followed the road for days, leaving the hill country and finally terminating at the edge of a lake - the Eater of Cities. A small village of decrepit mud huts had been established at the end of the road.
Filthy villager: "Hello there! My, you're a tough looking crew - just the type we need living in our village!"
Pai Mei: "Not going to happen. Did you see a light a month ago?"
Filthy: "What? Oh, something flashed way south of here, in the hills."
Pai Mei: "Why do they call it the Eater of Cities?"
Filthy: "Oh, it's creepy. You can see abandoned towns and villages under the water of the lake. Some people think it's cursed, but not us. This is way better than life in the Feasting Trees - the trees were getting way too aggressive. How many people have to get eaten by a tree before you decide it's time to move? I've had my fill!"
Pai Mei: "Well, good luck with that. See ya."
Realizing their mistake, the party headed back south - eventually making their way past the towered hill, and back to Lannington. They saw the merchant Hrezling packing up his carts and preparing to head south.
Razoe: "We saw Hrezwina."
Hrezling: "What? Great! Where is the necklace? And Hrezwina, of course. But yeah, give me the necklace and I shall produce your reward!"
Pai Mei: "A half-man half-robot wizard had her. Look, we need some money up front to hire an army."
Hrezling: "What? You lying frauds! Get out of here! I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you were nothing but cheats!"
Razoe: "So where are you heading?"
Hrezling: "Back to Denethix! Now get out of here!"
Razoe: "Oh, us too. We'll go with you."
Hrezling (suspicious): "Oh, I don't think so."
Pai Mei: "It's the way we're going."
Hrezling whispered something to one of his servants, who returned in an hour's time with a pair of the Unyielding Fist.
Soldier: "You lot! What do you think you're doing harassing this merchant?"
Pai Mei: "We're just going south to Denethix, that's all."
Soldier: "Are any of you citizens? I didn't think so. Because Hrezling is, and we don't tolerate harassing citizens."
The party eyed Hrezling angrily, but after consulting with each other decided it would be best not to tangle with the Fist. They headed back north, returning to the towered hill - about a week had passed since their first visit with Malazar-Left.
They found the hill entirely deserted. New towers had sprung up from the ground as well, and there were a few yellow stone globes 5' wide protruding from the surface. They investigated the towers - the stairs inside spiraled up around a central 10' pillar, and the floors of the huts at the top each had a spiral aperture-like pattern cut into them. Razoe prodded the pattern with a 10' pole, but was unable to make the aperture open.
Eventually, the party discovered a tower that had no stairs - the thief Fast Eddie climbed the tower and lowered a rope. Inside the hu at the top was a shaft leading down into the hill. The shaft was lined with a purple fleshy substance, and it exhaled and inhaled air at regular intervals.
The crew climbed up the tower, and then down through the shaft. At the bottom of the shaft were openings leading into a vast cavern. Inside the cavern were several thorny towers rising from floor to ceiling - most glowed, but one was black and dead-looking. Some of the towers had stairs leading to their entrances, and others were only accessible via narrow bridges passing between the upper stories.
The tower had plentiful "life" inside it - flying red bat-things with needle-tipped probosci instead of faces, blue winged worms with razor-sharp mandibles, squat 2' tall brown humanoids with snuffling noses, but no eyes or mouth - a bizarre menagerie made its way through the cavern.
The brown humanoids were busy pulling bones from a liquid-filled ditch around one of the towers, and then tossing them into a another ditch at the base of another tower. The party made a beeline for the bone-ditch tower, and rushed through an opening in its base. They saw that it too had a flesh-lined shaft leading up to the surface, roughly corresponding to the location of a shallow bone-strewn pit at the top of the hill. There was no light shining from above, and no obvious way to climb up and open the floor of the "pit" above.
The party then quickly rushed towards a set of stairs leading into the black tower. Inside was an empty chamber, with stairs leading up and down. Heading down, they found another circular chamber, with three 7' tall humanoids covered in yellow pus inside, making threatening gestures at a brass censer laying on the floor.
Confused, the party decided the best idea was to kill - and kill they did. The pus-monsters were tough, but eventually succumbed to the distortion-laden chops of Razoe's Metal Axe, the magical hail of stones from Pai Mei's secret Eastern magic, and a withering hail of missile fire from the henchmen on the stairs. The censer was stuffed in a sack, Click extruded her ovipositor and deposited a clutch of eggs in the corpses, and the party headed upstairs.
On the upper floors, they found a narrow bridge connecting to another tower - and above that, a chamber with over a dozen blue winged worms feeding on fluids seeping from cracks in the black stone walls. One of the worms detached and flew at Razoe, hungry for human flesh - and he beat a hasty retreat downstairs before slaughtering it with his axe.
The group came up with the plan to lure the worms down a few at a time, and kill them in small groups. Razoe poked his head up and attracted the worms' attention - and four responded. The battle did not go as intended - the flapping worms had their choice of targets, and several went for the weaker members of the party. Razoe's axe sang a metal tune as the worms were halved beneath its blade, but he was not fast enough - by the time the battle was through, most of the henchmen were unconscious. George and Razoe used their divine healing magics to restore most, but the disturbing insect-woman Click was left to bleed out.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, the party fled the hollow hill and headed back towards Denethix. They consulted with Frondgar the Elven Sage, who informed them that they had recovered the Censer of the Ancestors - if a full ten minutes were spent honoring the ancestors in the appropriate fashion, the ancestor spirits would serve them in the form of an air elemental. The spirits are quick to take offense, though - the invoker must continue to honor them, and take no other actions other than slow movement, or else they will turn on the summoner.
Gains: Censer of Controlling Ancestor Spirits
Kills: 3 pus-monsters, 5 flying blue worms
Losses: Malazar (both halves), Hrezwina, unknown number of weird minions, Click
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