The group had a long run into the spider's lair and went whole hog right for the McGuffin needed to get larger. I had run this adventure (or VERY similar to it) twice before over 20 years ago and one group never made it this far, and the other was TPK'ed in a spider choked room filled with over running fires that burned them all.
The party had some serious luck with a few Summon Nature's Ally spells which allowed them to clear the way to the McGuffin.
Write up follows:
The party hit the three Brown Recluse Spiders with a flurry or sword blows and strikes, dropping two of them and wounding the third but Nyssa took a nasty bite that had our shieldbearer taking a hefty dose of poison and had her reeling in pain. The thought of the party was that we had to get into the room and head towards whatever Marcus had detected earlier and we had to do it no and fast before more spiders came and overwhelmed us. Avidius managed to cut his last limb free and was yelling at the group that there were more orb spiders coming into place.
Flimflam called out for his most powerful summon nature’s ally spell but as before, there was a stuttering in the spell as it reclassed itself for our new smaller impact and dimensions. The group was surging forward, passing under the archway, trying to make their way further in. A final produce flame was tossed into the webbing, setting another section ablaze.
The King of the Web called out to Arachne and the final Brown Recluse that the party was fighting surged, enlarging to a gargantuan monster 20’ in height as a Giant Vermin spell took effect. The group ran under the massive creature, avoiding its stomping eight legs, and moved enmass to the right. Marcus shot off another Dispel blast, burning a hole that the group turned and ran towards.
Flimflam’s Summon Spell enacted and a 40’ long iguana appears with an exploding blast of concussive air. He then pointed into the room and told it the charge in and tear up the webbing, which the iguana did, scattering spiders in all directions as we raced along. The King of the Web called out a loud benediction and from the hall we heard the yowling cry of the castle’s cat as it answered and began to climb up to our level. We had to go and go now. The Orb spiders that were over the arch attached webs and began rappelling down, and we ran through the scattered webs. The Giant Spider was able to give chase but the parameters of the room were preventing it from striking at us effectively.
Erd’s poor health and Avidius’ numerous painful wounds as well as his poisoned blood, had these two party members flagging as we ran along, spiders dropping from the webbing above our head and raining to the ground behind us. The Orb spiders were giving chase and we noted there were too many of them for us to effectively turn and fight. We had to find our way to the source and do it now.
The Iguana managed to come close enough for Flimflam to call out to and Marcus shot off another Dispel Magic blast which drove a line of red sparks through the room. And Flimflam ordered the Iguana to chase it. The Iguana blurred its way into the dark interior, scattering more webs and driving a path for us directly to the amber glowing source that had the group shrunk. Any spiders in the iguana’s way were smashed and devoured.
The Giant Spider was getting closer and Steiner hurled out a blast from his fear staff, striking the spider and turning it away where it skittered in terror. Avidius slipped back and was losing ground, falling and tripping as he tried to run. We now had almost 10 spiders chasing us, the Orb spiders plus the new ones that fell from above as we passed under them. Fermius and Steiner each draped and arm over their shoulders and hoisted Avidius up, carrying the wounded and weakened thief.
From the hall we heard the Cat had arrived, was looking around the room, and started to chase the group. Meanwhile we drew ever closer to the amber light – which was now revealed to be a ring almost 7’ in diameter floating on top of a 10’ column. The spiders were now closer to us and we started throwing caltrops, bags of sharpened rocks, even a few flasks of greasy water behind us.
And it worked.
The number of spiders right behind were rapidly reduced and the party ran on, out distancing most of them except for one determined Brown Recluse. Meanwhile the cat was closing in and it plowed over a number of the orb spiders that had been tripped up, smearing them as it yowled and leapt closer.
Horace and Geld, two of the best conditioned people in the party, were ahead of the group at this point, racing for the column. Flimflam called to Demeter to summon another massive natures ally, and we had to wait for the stuttering to pass before the spell enacted. And the party was now strung out with more and more of the party losing ground.
We tried to distract the cat with lights and glowing balls but it had no effect and it was now very close. Flimflam’s summon spell fired and we got a large huntsman spider – which Flimflam had appear over the rotating ring and attack the King of the Web who was trying to grab Geld in her attempt to get the ring (which she missed in her leap). The King was fighting another spider, the webs above were writhing with numerous spiders flailing about. The cat was too damned close when Steiner blasted it with a wave from his fear staff – and sent it running away!
We made it to the column, Erd was one of the next ones there, and he LEAPT up, finger just touching the ring – and suddenly he was full size and wearing it. He willed the ring to enlarge Flimflam and then Tranis – but time seemed to slow down as the ring was talking (telepathically in his mind) about a price and costs and Erd would have to pay – and he had magic powers, yes? Erd (a fighter) replied no and the ring was disturbed – which followed by a whizzing sound and Erd’s ring finger was severed, taking the ring with it.
The ring hit the ground and Tranis wore it next. Enlarging a few other party members while the party was stomping around (at full size) the vermin in the area. Tranis was also asked about a price and he HAD magical powers but he chose to remove it and the ring hated him but he was able to take it off. Steiner went next, enlarging even more members of our group and when the ring talked about a price, he was able to remove it without antagonizing the powers within.
That then led us to Marcus who went through the process of enlarging the party one at a time. When it was time to “pay the cost” he agreed to keep the ring and was given 4 more uses – but the cost would be either a spell slot (permanent) drain, a permanent hp loss, hp loss for Tranis, or another finger loss for Erd.
Marcus willingly lost a permanent hp and enlarged more party members. He was able to deduce some of the artifact’s powers and when he used up the 4 uses, he was AGAIN asked for the price – and again he settled on another permanent hp loss. By now the group was almost entirely back to normal and he learned even more of the ring’s uses – getting the clue that the ring is normally made for Ogres and Orcs but for now was happy with Marcus.
And there were three members left to increase and AGAIN he had to pay the price – this time 2 hp, 1 from Tranis, or a finger from ERD – or he could once again sacrifice a permanent high level spell slot. He went for the 2 hp for himself (now having lost 4 permanent hps) and the ring gave him a relent by enlarging the last 3 in one swoop. Marcus also learned that if he waited too long before using the ring’s powers, he would get some debilitating headaches to remind him to use it.
So it was after 2 PM on Icemonth the 1st, everyone was together and we didn’t lose anyone (but some of us were pretty screwed up) but we were large again and standing in some upper hallway and gathering our wits on what to do next.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Meet 10, Adv B2, 2/21/16 - Youth Group
Their 3rd member came back for today’s game but the first part of it was a bit off since they had to resupply and were on an emotional high from the TPK and death of their friend from the prior meeting. And the 3rd person at the table did not have ANY of that angst – so the entire party was clunky and unfocused at the start.
However, once they were out of the Keep and back on the road they managed to reconnect with the adventure and gel again as a group.
Write up follows:
The three friends arrived back at the keep where they were brought to the Castellan’s office for a meeting, debriefing, and the find out what has gone to pass in the intervening 2+ months. Loq was going to make sure the Corg’s remains (read: head) went back to his family as well as whatever riches and coins had been squirreled here at the Keep before we had gone out (very little, but it was there).
While we were given some clothes, and a chance to wash up, a page had gone to the Pig and Whistle to find Proserpine (their elven companion from a prior trip) and invite her to the Castellan’s chambers. She agreed, noting the sorrowful state of her purse and her need to get back out there or admit this trip from the Greensward Forest was a failure and return home.
Prosperpine was thrilled to see William and Charlotte again and once the reintroductions wound down the Castellan was able to talk to the party. Long and short, he was willing to bankroll the party’s losses and re-equipping – but ONLY if they agreed to two caveats: 1) they willingly accept the title of Vassal to the Baron (meaning they are answerable to him and eligible to be called in times of war, need, and civil unrest) and 2) they donate half of any coinage treasure found until they have paid back the loans given (which have a 10% penalty on them). And even though Proserpine was not there at time of capture, she also had to agree to the terms because if anyone skipped out on their debt or vassalage, the other members of the party would be held responsible.
Everyone agreed.
So we hit the markets and purchased just about everything we thought we would need, and then turned in early on the assumption we would be heading off the next day early.
It was Airmonth the 4th and after loading our ration bags and our waterskins we were out the main gate by 8 that morning and on our way to the ravine and the Caves of Chaos. The road was quiet, the fog already burning off, and the air was cool and clear. We arrived at the ravine and crawled our way through the wreckage until we arrived the mouth. The trees were budding and we noted a vulture (the same one from so many months ago?) was winging lazily to another tree and croaking out at the late morning sun.
The group then spent some time discussing our options – returning to the goblin cave and kicking ass or trying another cave? Although we wanted our revenge – we knew that as of 2 months ago there were at least 30 goblins in 1 direction…and 13 hobgoblins (according to the gnomes) in the other. And we were still only 4. Nothing was materially different. So we opted to NOT go to the goblin cave for now, instead to try one of the caves on the opposite side of the ravine but still near the mouth where the dangers should be less.
There was one close by, some 30’ upslope but not too difficult for us to get to. So we crawled over to it, inched our way up the slope, and then had a chance to look into the cave. It went straight into the mountain at least 30’ and then seemed to “T” at the end. After discussing the matter amongst ourselves we decided to risk it.
With torches lit we made our way forward, the smell of the place reminding us of a cross between a locker room and burnt bacon. We heard some noises from ahead but couldn’t place where they were coming from. However, at the end of the “T” were a number of niches and alcoves, in which severed and rotting heads of various creatures were displayed.
It seemed macabre and we talked about what to do and where to go when we heard a “whish” and “Thump” coming from the right – and what seemed like a burger attached to a grappling hook was tossed to us. When we went to reach out and take it, arrows flew down the hall and we had to retreat.
Burger? On a hook? Trap, yes. But we still didn’t know what we were facing. So, with his shield held out like a wall, William darted out and hacked the rope just at the end of the grapple and cut the burger free. We then goosed the grapple and burger back and took a look. Ok, burger. Grapple was a bit rusty and old, and the sandwich was driven through one of the prongs. As we were feathering the burger off the grapple the voice from the right was calling out in accented common that it wanted the grapple back.
Proserpine assured us it was orcs talking to us and from the sounds, less than 5 of them. We discussed what we knew of orcs and determined they were about as tall as humans, but definitely wider and stronger on average, had some porcine features, but were sloppy and not disciplined. Emboldened by our exchange, we accepted that we could parlay and came out into the hall to talk.
The orcs were asking us odd questions that seemed to require the group to answer many of the questions when Charlotte heard a faint noise and whirled around to see…4 more orcs sneaking up on the group from the left corridor.
Trapped between two orcish fronts.
The party immediately lined up back to back – Loq and Proserpine (who was suffering from the effects of eating the burger – which was not only made of rat – but was laced with a cramping poison as well!) tackling the newer orcs, while Charlotte and William went toe to toe with the other orcs charging at us.
The combat was furious and without pause, both fronts whittling away at each other until the party managed to put down a few of the orcs with some really brutal blows and the remaining 3 (still in the far room) asked the party to parlay and discuss terms for surrender (or at least to stop hacking their hurt and dying friends to pieces).
However, once they were out of the Keep and back on the road they managed to reconnect with the adventure and gel again as a group.
Write up follows:
The three friends arrived back at the keep where they were brought to the Castellan’s office for a meeting, debriefing, and the find out what has gone to pass in the intervening 2+ months. Loq was going to make sure the Corg’s remains (read: head) went back to his family as well as whatever riches and coins had been squirreled here at the Keep before we had gone out (very little, but it was there).
While we were given some clothes, and a chance to wash up, a page had gone to the Pig and Whistle to find Proserpine (their elven companion from a prior trip) and invite her to the Castellan’s chambers. She agreed, noting the sorrowful state of her purse and her need to get back out there or admit this trip from the Greensward Forest was a failure and return home.
Prosperpine was thrilled to see William and Charlotte again and once the reintroductions wound down the Castellan was able to talk to the party. Long and short, he was willing to bankroll the party’s losses and re-equipping – but ONLY if they agreed to two caveats: 1) they willingly accept the title of Vassal to the Baron (meaning they are answerable to him and eligible to be called in times of war, need, and civil unrest) and 2) they donate half of any coinage treasure found until they have paid back the loans given (which have a 10% penalty on them). And even though Proserpine was not there at time of capture, she also had to agree to the terms because if anyone skipped out on their debt or vassalage, the other members of the party would be held responsible.
Everyone agreed.
So we hit the markets and purchased just about everything we thought we would need, and then turned in early on the assumption we would be heading off the next day early.
It was Airmonth the 4th and after loading our ration bags and our waterskins we were out the main gate by 8 that morning and on our way to the ravine and the Caves of Chaos. The road was quiet, the fog already burning off, and the air was cool and clear. We arrived at the ravine and crawled our way through the wreckage until we arrived the mouth. The trees were budding and we noted a vulture (the same one from so many months ago?) was winging lazily to another tree and croaking out at the late morning sun.
The group then spent some time discussing our options – returning to the goblin cave and kicking ass or trying another cave? Although we wanted our revenge – we knew that as of 2 months ago there were at least 30 goblins in 1 direction…and 13 hobgoblins (according to the gnomes) in the other. And we were still only 4. Nothing was materially different. So we opted to NOT go to the goblin cave for now, instead to try one of the caves on the opposite side of the ravine but still near the mouth where the dangers should be less.
There was one close by, some 30’ upslope but not too difficult for us to get to. So we crawled over to it, inched our way up the slope, and then had a chance to look into the cave. It went straight into the mountain at least 30’ and then seemed to “T” at the end. After discussing the matter amongst ourselves we decided to risk it.
With torches lit we made our way forward, the smell of the place reminding us of a cross between a locker room and burnt bacon. We heard some noises from ahead but couldn’t place where they were coming from. However, at the end of the “T” were a number of niches and alcoves, in which severed and rotting heads of various creatures were displayed.
It seemed macabre and we talked about what to do and where to go when we heard a “whish” and “Thump” coming from the right – and what seemed like a burger attached to a grappling hook was tossed to us. When we went to reach out and take it, arrows flew down the hall and we had to retreat.
Burger? On a hook? Trap, yes. But we still didn’t know what we were facing. So, with his shield held out like a wall, William darted out and hacked the rope just at the end of the grapple and cut the burger free. We then goosed the grapple and burger back and took a look. Ok, burger. Grapple was a bit rusty and old, and the sandwich was driven through one of the prongs. As we were feathering the burger off the grapple the voice from the right was calling out in accented common that it wanted the grapple back.
Proserpine assured us it was orcs talking to us and from the sounds, less than 5 of them. We discussed what we knew of orcs and determined they were about as tall as humans, but definitely wider and stronger on average, had some porcine features, but were sloppy and not disciplined. Emboldened by our exchange, we accepted that we could parlay and came out into the hall to talk.
The orcs were asking us odd questions that seemed to require the group to answer many of the questions when Charlotte heard a faint noise and whirled around to see…4 more orcs sneaking up on the group from the left corridor.
Trapped between two orcish fronts.
The party immediately lined up back to back – Loq and Proserpine (who was suffering from the effects of eating the burger – which was not only made of rat – but was laced with a cramping poison as well!) tackling the newer orcs, while Charlotte and William went toe to toe with the other orcs charging at us.
The combat was furious and without pause, both fronts whittling away at each other until the party managed to put down a few of the orcs with some really brutal blows and the remaining 3 (still in the far room) asked the party to parlay and discuss terms for surrender (or at least to stop hacking their hurt and dying friends to pieces).
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Meet 107, Adv 6, 2/20/16
I like a low to middling magic game - there shouldn't be piles of +1 swords littering the landscape neither should there be a magic user at every corner and clerics slinging miracles left and right. It makes those items when the do come up special, noteworthy, and defining.
So when it came to the King of the Web - I always knew he was going to be a Huntsman Spider of larger than normal size, and was going to be "awakened" thanks to the constant and close proximity to the artifact in Castle Sterling - but making him a druid just seemed to be right to me.
He has his own agenda, his own long and short term goals, and he has the power of the goddess Arachne at his fingertips answering his prayers as needed. The goal of the King though is to NOT be reactive to the party's actions, but to be the initiator of the momentum - to be the one that the party reacts to.
Write up follows:
We scouted and crawled under the door from the grand room in Castle Sterling to the hallway, the mouse leading the way. The hall was large and dark, heading off in all directions. We headed back to the main room and discussed our options before the mouse (named Dartagnin – no relation) became agitated and we heard a heavy presence on the other side of the door snuffling around and scratching the area. Cat. Big assed cat – especially at our size. It yowled and growled a bit, thumping the door and we all stood quiet.
And then it was gone. We heard some faint movement and it was heavy but went away quick. Content that it was gone, we then crept under the door, trusting Dartagnin that the colony and the Den Mother were in an area that the cat could not get to (doors closed between here and there). We hit the hallway, drew back into a square formation, and then proceeded to cross the large hall (hundreds of feet to our senses).
We also then heard the cat yowling…from the other side of the door we just vacated. Somehow it had found a way around the castle to the grand room and if we had stayed, we would have victim to its attack. We moved quickly, leaving the great room behind and hit the other side of the hall, then found another door where we crawled under and followed the mouse as he led us to the right hand side for some 500’+ until we came to another door. The vinegary smell of urine was growing heavier the further we proceeded, along with it a humidity to the air that made the scent cloying and foul.
Dartagnin’s voice was mere noises once again to Flimflam but we followed the mouse without delay under the door and we came to another chamber. The floor was smoother, less porous, and had regular valleys in it every 10’ or so where a type of mortar was in place. The humidity was much higher here and from some of the scattered torn up fabric about. We were in a bathroom. And from the number of mice here and the feces abounding, it was their warren.
We were surrounded and led to the mound of torn up towels where an older female mouse came out and started squeaking at us. Flimflam had Demeter give him the ability to speak with animals again and took the time to introduce us to the Den Mother and explain why we were here. The discussion ran about for a bit but effectively, we wanted to go up the stairs (from the hall we had just run through) to the 2nd floor and try to get to the room with the King of the Web (big spider that lives there with lots and lots of other spiders). The Den Mother thought we were nuts and hinted that there were also rats up there.
However, after talking, agreed that she would ask for volunteers to lead us up the steps. We decided to go in the middle of the hot part of the day tomorrow, when the cat would be least likely to bother us. For now we could rest here (we thanked her, but took up a camp area far away from the warren of towels and mice crap) and prepare for the morrow.
We awoke the following morning, Icemonth the 1st – heart of winter. The castle felt warmer to us (at our size) and we agonized over spells and spears and swords. Then the morning moved on until about 11. We had 24 mice coming with us (Dartagnin was one of them) and they led us out of the bathroom and to the side hall. We travelled down until we arrived back at the main hall and now it was lit from sunlight. It was long, maybe half a mile to us and there was some 4-500’ width to it. But there was a set of spiral steps to the south that we headed towards and looked on with deep concern.
Between the mice, rope, out lighter size, and the almost 20 of us, it was 5-8 minutes each step to climb and navigate. But we counted them off. Four, Seven, Eleven, Thirteen…At 12:30 we were at the top and 15th step. There was another hall here, also very long. There were also some webs in the area, wide rope like ones. But there was an opening, an arch of stone to the right, 200’ or so away, 150’ wide, and maybe 200’ tall. Many many more webs littered the sides and base of that archway. Thick and heavy, layers deep.
The mice all turned and left us, returning back to the main floor, only Dartagnin stayed with us. We wanted to get closer, but not too close. So we stayed in the middle of the hall and headed towards the opening until we could see properly inside. It was like something out of this world. There was some oversized furniture in there, a table or chairs. But every available surface was covered in webs from the ceiling down to the floor. Paths, 60, 70’ wide meandered through the room, in places the ceiling of webs dropped to 40’ in height. It was macabre, gothic, unnatural.
And nowhere we wanted to enter but someplace we had to go. A trio of torches were lit and Log of Everburning was cast upon them, given to Erd, Dugan, and Corane. At this point it was decided that Marcus would use his wand once more and try to zero in on where the artifact might be. So he fired one off, and it streaked away into the room and veered to the right, punching through the webs there and disappearing into the gloom. Bingo, right room, right place.
We gave some thought on burning the webs and Tranis lit a fire arrow, arcing it high and letting it fall into a funnel shaped web near the ceiling, we watched the dusty web smolder and burn, wider and wider, also noting other webs deeper in the room burning. It was then that a number of large orb spiders came out and proceeded to cut away the burned section of webbing until it fell from the structure and hit the floor. At the end of that short action, a breeze blew in behind us, raced through the archway, and coalesced into a sudden downpour of rain in a huge column of soaking wet air.
This extinguished all signs of fire and soaked the area making further fires in that section of the room impossible (at least until the water dried away). So we thought about our options. We wanted to go in with torches and discussed doing so when another sucking breeze blew in behind us, then centered overhead – and down poured on the entire party, soaking us to the skin and extinguishing our torches.
Ok, someone is making a statement about us and our fire. We know there were spiders in there, some movement went about towards the entrance but we couldn’t see anything. At that point we heard a cavernous voice echo from within after some benediction to Arachne. It identified itself as the King of the Web and from its tone and conversation, seemed…untrustworthy. Its words said one thing but the gut reaction of the group was opposite – this was not going to end well at all. It offered to talk to one of us and we agreed in theory to do so.
Then we discussed who would go in and although Horace was willing, the party settled on Avidius. Flimflam hit him with an Invisibility to Animals spell and the scout was willing to go in and try to find a way through the webs to get to the magical artifact. He moved slowly, picking his way through the humongous arch and looked around. The smell was old and dusty, the reek of spider was strong. Looking up he noted over a dozen brown recluse spiders on the lintel over the arch frame – none of them could see him. He moved on, staying to the right and disappearing down a wide path between the webs.
While he made his way along, he did note there was a large rat here, 20’ long, on its hind leg, waiting and looking – but it also did not see him. As the path between the webs grew smaller and the ceiling seemed to hang lower, the passages becoming thicker and he still wasn’t near the artifact, Avidius was stopped by the voice of the King of the Web speaking much closer and lower so only the thief could hear him.
He admitted he could see Avidius and that he wasn’t going to just let him through. He allowed the thief and him to talk and when it seemed that Avidius wasn’t going to risk coming close, the King of the Web stepped out – a very large, 5’ tall, 9’ diameter Huntsman spider. This was not going to work and Avidius wanted to return to the party, so he backed up and the King let him, talking crooningly the entire time, always staying for 40’ away. Avidius also noted there were lots of smaller spiders in the webs above, immature ones. This place crawled.
Once he was past the giant rat and was back in the clearing, the king gave a throaty chuckle and outlined Avidius in Fairie Fire – making him visible to the brown recluse spiders and the rat. Avidius turned and ran. Seeing him changing towards us, Erd and four others stepped out with spears and shields, approaching the arch but not stepping through – just getting ready to receive charge. The rat was gaining on Avidius who choked down a stoneskin potion, the gap between the two narrowing. As for the recluse spiders, half of them crawled to the other side of the arch and began climbing down to face the party while 4 others attached webs and began to drop and try to cut off Avidius. The last 4 turned and were shooting strands of webbing down to the floor, hoping to catch the running thief.
As Avidius came close to the archway and the rat was almost on him, the King of the Web called out to Arachne and hit him with a Hold Person spell. Avidius fell to his face and the rat unable to stop mowed him down and kept going, roaring and squeaking as it charged the fighters. Two of the spiders hit the ground by Avidius and bit him, injecting the thief with poison on top of his hold person spell and draining more hit points and constitution from our floundering thief.
Steiner called out a bless spell which encircled the party as our archers sent arrow after arrow into the charging rat. It ignored the shafts and bounded on as we prepared for its impact, noting the 7 recluse spiders coming towards us were more than halfway down wall and closing. A dispel magic from Marcus’ wand slammed out and hit Avidius, dropping the Hide from Animals spell and the Hold Person, but not the Fairie Fire spell. That was enough though for Avidius to start hacking at the webs the closer spiders had attached to his leg and arm – cutting his leg free.
The rat hit the spear wall like a freight train and the spears and shields held although Erd took the brunt of the assault. For their efforts though, the spears had penetrated deep and the rat fell over dead. Bolstered by this we redrew lines and prepared to face the spiders who were even closer now. A produce flame spell followed by Steiner who hurled the burning ball high and deep to the right, setting another section of the webs on fire. A summon animal spell had a giant centipede appear, actually right by Avidius who was on his feet now but still had his left arm bound by the webbing. Marcus called out a sleep spell and sent 4 of the 7 recluse spiders to sleep, dropping our concern to 3. The King of the Web called another Cloudburst spell, dousing his webs and putting out the fire made there.
The centipede actually got tangled in the web that was attached to Avidius, which meant the other spiders that had gone up to “hoist” him up were now unable to do so. However the 3 other spiders that had made it to the ground did engage the party and Whosea was bit and poisoned. We were knee deep in combat with 3 brown recluse spiders, the King of the Web was barely one step ahead of the party in dousing the flames, and Tranis and Steiner were getting ready to send more flaming arrows and produce flame balls in the room.
So when it came to the King of the Web - I always knew he was going to be a Huntsman Spider of larger than normal size, and was going to be "awakened" thanks to the constant and close proximity to the artifact in Castle Sterling - but making him a druid just seemed to be right to me.
He has his own agenda, his own long and short term goals, and he has the power of the goddess Arachne at his fingertips answering his prayers as needed. The goal of the King though is to NOT be reactive to the party's actions, but to be the initiator of the momentum - to be the one that the party reacts to.
Write up follows:
We scouted and crawled under the door from the grand room in Castle Sterling to the hallway, the mouse leading the way. The hall was large and dark, heading off in all directions. We headed back to the main room and discussed our options before the mouse (named Dartagnin – no relation) became agitated and we heard a heavy presence on the other side of the door snuffling around and scratching the area. Cat. Big assed cat – especially at our size. It yowled and growled a bit, thumping the door and we all stood quiet.
And then it was gone. We heard some faint movement and it was heavy but went away quick. Content that it was gone, we then crept under the door, trusting Dartagnin that the colony and the Den Mother were in an area that the cat could not get to (doors closed between here and there). We hit the hallway, drew back into a square formation, and then proceeded to cross the large hall (hundreds of feet to our senses).
We also then heard the cat yowling…from the other side of the door we just vacated. Somehow it had found a way around the castle to the grand room and if we had stayed, we would have victim to its attack. We moved quickly, leaving the great room behind and hit the other side of the hall, then found another door where we crawled under and followed the mouse as he led us to the right hand side for some 500’+ until we came to another door. The vinegary smell of urine was growing heavier the further we proceeded, along with it a humidity to the air that made the scent cloying and foul.
Dartagnin’s voice was mere noises once again to Flimflam but we followed the mouse without delay under the door and we came to another chamber. The floor was smoother, less porous, and had regular valleys in it every 10’ or so where a type of mortar was in place. The humidity was much higher here and from some of the scattered torn up fabric about. We were in a bathroom. And from the number of mice here and the feces abounding, it was their warren.
We were surrounded and led to the mound of torn up towels where an older female mouse came out and started squeaking at us. Flimflam had Demeter give him the ability to speak with animals again and took the time to introduce us to the Den Mother and explain why we were here. The discussion ran about for a bit but effectively, we wanted to go up the stairs (from the hall we had just run through) to the 2nd floor and try to get to the room with the King of the Web (big spider that lives there with lots and lots of other spiders). The Den Mother thought we were nuts and hinted that there were also rats up there.
However, after talking, agreed that she would ask for volunteers to lead us up the steps. We decided to go in the middle of the hot part of the day tomorrow, when the cat would be least likely to bother us. For now we could rest here (we thanked her, but took up a camp area far away from the warren of towels and mice crap) and prepare for the morrow.
We awoke the following morning, Icemonth the 1st – heart of winter. The castle felt warmer to us (at our size) and we agonized over spells and spears and swords. Then the morning moved on until about 11. We had 24 mice coming with us (Dartagnin was one of them) and they led us out of the bathroom and to the side hall. We travelled down until we arrived back at the main hall and now it was lit from sunlight. It was long, maybe half a mile to us and there was some 4-500’ width to it. But there was a set of spiral steps to the south that we headed towards and looked on with deep concern.
Between the mice, rope, out lighter size, and the almost 20 of us, it was 5-8 minutes each step to climb and navigate. But we counted them off. Four, Seven, Eleven, Thirteen…At 12:30 we were at the top and 15th step. There was another hall here, also very long. There were also some webs in the area, wide rope like ones. But there was an opening, an arch of stone to the right, 200’ or so away, 150’ wide, and maybe 200’ tall. Many many more webs littered the sides and base of that archway. Thick and heavy, layers deep.
The mice all turned and left us, returning back to the main floor, only Dartagnin stayed with us. We wanted to get closer, but not too close. So we stayed in the middle of the hall and headed towards the opening until we could see properly inside. It was like something out of this world. There was some oversized furniture in there, a table or chairs. But every available surface was covered in webs from the ceiling down to the floor. Paths, 60, 70’ wide meandered through the room, in places the ceiling of webs dropped to 40’ in height. It was macabre, gothic, unnatural.
And nowhere we wanted to enter but someplace we had to go. A trio of torches were lit and Log of Everburning was cast upon them, given to Erd, Dugan, and Corane. At this point it was decided that Marcus would use his wand once more and try to zero in on where the artifact might be. So he fired one off, and it streaked away into the room and veered to the right, punching through the webs there and disappearing into the gloom. Bingo, right room, right place.
We gave some thought on burning the webs and Tranis lit a fire arrow, arcing it high and letting it fall into a funnel shaped web near the ceiling, we watched the dusty web smolder and burn, wider and wider, also noting other webs deeper in the room burning. It was then that a number of large orb spiders came out and proceeded to cut away the burned section of webbing until it fell from the structure and hit the floor. At the end of that short action, a breeze blew in behind us, raced through the archway, and coalesced into a sudden downpour of rain in a huge column of soaking wet air.
This extinguished all signs of fire and soaked the area making further fires in that section of the room impossible (at least until the water dried away). So we thought about our options. We wanted to go in with torches and discussed doing so when another sucking breeze blew in behind us, then centered overhead – and down poured on the entire party, soaking us to the skin and extinguishing our torches.
Ok, someone is making a statement about us and our fire. We know there were spiders in there, some movement went about towards the entrance but we couldn’t see anything. At that point we heard a cavernous voice echo from within after some benediction to Arachne. It identified itself as the King of the Web and from its tone and conversation, seemed…untrustworthy. Its words said one thing but the gut reaction of the group was opposite – this was not going to end well at all. It offered to talk to one of us and we agreed in theory to do so.
Then we discussed who would go in and although Horace was willing, the party settled on Avidius. Flimflam hit him with an Invisibility to Animals spell and the scout was willing to go in and try to find a way through the webs to get to the magical artifact. He moved slowly, picking his way through the humongous arch and looked around. The smell was old and dusty, the reek of spider was strong. Looking up he noted over a dozen brown recluse spiders on the lintel over the arch frame – none of them could see him. He moved on, staying to the right and disappearing down a wide path between the webs.
While he made his way along, he did note there was a large rat here, 20’ long, on its hind leg, waiting and looking – but it also did not see him. As the path between the webs grew smaller and the ceiling seemed to hang lower, the passages becoming thicker and he still wasn’t near the artifact, Avidius was stopped by the voice of the King of the Web speaking much closer and lower so only the thief could hear him.
He admitted he could see Avidius and that he wasn’t going to just let him through. He allowed the thief and him to talk and when it seemed that Avidius wasn’t going to risk coming close, the King of the Web stepped out – a very large, 5’ tall, 9’ diameter Huntsman spider. This was not going to work and Avidius wanted to return to the party, so he backed up and the King let him, talking crooningly the entire time, always staying for 40’ away. Avidius also noted there were lots of smaller spiders in the webs above, immature ones. This place crawled.
Once he was past the giant rat and was back in the clearing, the king gave a throaty chuckle and outlined Avidius in Fairie Fire – making him visible to the brown recluse spiders and the rat. Avidius turned and ran. Seeing him changing towards us, Erd and four others stepped out with spears and shields, approaching the arch but not stepping through – just getting ready to receive charge. The rat was gaining on Avidius who choked down a stoneskin potion, the gap between the two narrowing. As for the recluse spiders, half of them crawled to the other side of the arch and began climbing down to face the party while 4 others attached webs and began to drop and try to cut off Avidius. The last 4 turned and were shooting strands of webbing down to the floor, hoping to catch the running thief.
As Avidius came close to the archway and the rat was almost on him, the King of the Web called out to Arachne and hit him with a Hold Person spell. Avidius fell to his face and the rat unable to stop mowed him down and kept going, roaring and squeaking as it charged the fighters. Two of the spiders hit the ground by Avidius and bit him, injecting the thief with poison on top of his hold person spell and draining more hit points and constitution from our floundering thief.
Steiner called out a bless spell which encircled the party as our archers sent arrow after arrow into the charging rat. It ignored the shafts and bounded on as we prepared for its impact, noting the 7 recluse spiders coming towards us were more than halfway down wall and closing. A dispel magic from Marcus’ wand slammed out and hit Avidius, dropping the Hide from Animals spell and the Hold Person, but not the Fairie Fire spell. That was enough though for Avidius to start hacking at the webs the closer spiders had attached to his leg and arm – cutting his leg free.
The rat hit the spear wall like a freight train and the spears and shields held although Erd took the brunt of the assault. For their efforts though, the spears had penetrated deep and the rat fell over dead. Bolstered by this we redrew lines and prepared to face the spiders who were even closer now. A produce flame spell followed by Steiner who hurled the burning ball high and deep to the right, setting another section of the webs on fire. A summon animal spell had a giant centipede appear, actually right by Avidius who was on his feet now but still had his left arm bound by the webbing. Marcus called out a sleep spell and sent 4 of the 7 recluse spiders to sleep, dropping our concern to 3. The King of the Web called another Cloudburst spell, dousing his webs and putting out the fire made there.
The centipede actually got tangled in the web that was attached to Avidius, which meant the other spiders that had gone up to “hoist” him up were now unable to do so. However the 3 other spiders that had made it to the ground did engage the party and Whosea was bit and poisoned. We were knee deep in combat with 3 brown recluse spiders, the King of the Web was barely one step ahead of the party in dousing the flames, and Tranis and Steiner were getting ready to send more flaming arrows and produce flame balls in the room.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Meet 9, Adv B2, 2/7/16 - Youth Group
This meeting started out great, but fell apart as the 4 count wandered into a room where they were outnumbered 7 to 1 and didn’t turn and flee. It was a TPK, but I rolled a dice in front of them and let them know that the higher the number, the greater chance of being killed outright and have to re-roll. We rolled a “2” – which meant a band of wandering clerics did not show up and save the day.
Testament to the two young ones at the table, they were visibly upset and crying when it happened and I was describing their 2 months of abuse and torture, but amidst the “I hate this game” noises – they had fire and determination in their voices and mindset that they were going to come back here soon and kill every god damned goblin in the cave.
Write up follows:
Charlotte and William spent the afternoon at the inn grabbing a long meal, a drink or two, and chatting with the locals. A minstrel was playing a mindless tune near the fire, sort of background noise for the two friends. After 6 PM, they went looking around for former adventurers who had been to the caves, just to get a feel for what they might have faced.
They were led and guided to a beaten man named Bailey, an ex-adventurer who lived near Beggar’s Corner, a crappy section of the keep where many of the drunks and homeless congregate. Bailey was a big guy, almost 6’ 3” and 280 lbs. He had a wicked scar running from under his hair line and down to his jaw. He didn’t want to talk to us, content to drink his beer. William had brought him a jack of ale and the only advice we got from the broken man was that if the battles ever get too big or beyond your control, just run. Better to drop your pack and escape and live then to fight on and die.
Disturbed by this we thanked him and left him to his devices heading back to our room and getting some sleep for the day tomorrow.
On the 26th of Deathmonth we awoke and met Loq and Corg. We all went shopping, a variety of throwing knives, some cloaks, and an additional sword (William was seriously going to use it to give to the Lizardman in the Capashin Swamp). By 9:30 AM we were on our way and were heading back to the Caves of Chaos. We talked to Proserpine to invite her along for this but she asked for one more day before coming along.
We left, making good time on our trip to the Caves. We were pleased to run into the gnomish party that we had met earlier. A few of their members were wounded but they seemed to be of good cheer. It seems they had pressed on to the Hobgoblins, made some headway against them, but then gave ground when reinforcements showed up and the tide of the battle was changing. They did manage to snag some loot before leaving but in reality, they excursion seems to have cost them more than they made. They were heading back to the keep and would rest a day or two before trying again tomorrow.
Shortly after 11 we were back at the ravine and it still seemed empty. Assured that no one was paying us much mind, we made our way to the goblin cave and entered. We discussed options and decided that we wanted to head further into the goblin cave and get the 25 pairs of ears we needed for Quasar and his goblin sword. So we readied torches and set off.
We passed the original split, then the side corridor where the fountain was, continued on through the former guard room (stripped clean of everything) and the secret door where the ogre once lived. There were a few smaller alcoves but they were empty and we moved on, getting deeper and further than we ever had dared to go before. There were goblin voices ahead and some light. It sounded like a lot, and Charlotte let us know there was over a dozen voices. It seemed like a lot, but we figured if we went in and hit hard at least once, we should startle the goblins and maintain the initiative.
It didn’t go that well.
The group went in and the goblins within were sort of prepared for us. There were not a dozen, or even 20, but more like 30 of the greenskins. Men, women, children. The children swiftly were herded back to the rear of the cave and two women ran on to alert we assumed others. Charlotte tried to shoot an arrow but missed and the goblins there disarmed her and tossed her bow behind where the string was snapped. This caused the thief to draw her dagger and try to engage them in a fight but she was surrounded by 4 of the goblins and they beat her savagely.
Log, Corg, and William tried to press in and get to Charlotte but the three warriors were separated from each other and then picked apart and hacked and beaten. William received a terrible blow to the chest and he passed out and he heard Loq screaming out for Zeus’ help.
The party was then taken, stripped of their gear and belongings and after that they were abused and tortured by the goblins for the next 2 plus months. Charlotte had her head shaved, William developed a rasping cough, and the two of them were whipped and burned often. Loq had his right hand beaten cruelly by hammers so that he couldn’t wield a holy symbol in that hand again (or so the goblins assume). Corg though, our friend and companion for months no, he was the last one standing when the party went down, so the goblins made an example of him and tortured him for days before cutting his head off and feeding his body to the goblin tribe.
Finally we heard some human voices were arranging to sell us back to the Baron for some amount of money that was going to further enrich the goblin tribes. They were evil sounding and their voices made the group ill to hear. But the transfer was made on the road north of the Capashin Swamp on the 3rd of Airmonth. We had Corg’s head in a basket, we were wearing crude homespun bits of fabric wrapped around us, and the goblins took a bag of gold in exchange for us and we were helped onto a wagon and headed back to the Keep.
We had tears in our eyes and were exhausted, happy to be going home, but haunted at everything that happened. Charlotte and William and Loq all looked at one another and made a vow at that point. “We swear that we will go back and make those bastards pay.”
Testament to the two young ones at the table, they were visibly upset and crying when it happened and I was describing their 2 months of abuse and torture, but amidst the “I hate this game” noises – they had fire and determination in their voices and mindset that they were going to come back here soon and kill every god damned goblin in the cave.
Write up follows:
They were led and guided to a beaten man named Bailey, an ex-adventurer who lived near Beggar’s Corner, a crappy section of the keep where many of the drunks and homeless congregate. Bailey was a big guy, almost 6’ 3” and 280 lbs. He had a wicked scar running from under his hair line and down to his jaw. He didn’t want to talk to us, content to drink his beer. William had brought him a jack of ale and the only advice we got from the broken man was that if the battles ever get too big or beyond your control, just run. Better to drop your pack and escape and live then to fight on and die.
Disturbed by this we thanked him and left him to his devices heading back to our room and getting some sleep for the day tomorrow.
On the 26th of Deathmonth we awoke and met Loq and Corg. We all went shopping, a variety of throwing knives, some cloaks, and an additional sword (William was seriously going to use it to give to the Lizardman in the Capashin Swamp). By 9:30 AM we were on our way and were heading back to the Caves of Chaos. We talked to Proserpine to invite her along for this but she asked for one more day before coming along.
We left, making good time on our trip to the Caves. We were pleased to run into the gnomish party that we had met earlier. A few of their members were wounded but they seemed to be of good cheer. It seems they had pressed on to the Hobgoblins, made some headway against them, but then gave ground when reinforcements showed up and the tide of the battle was changing. They did manage to snag some loot before leaving but in reality, they excursion seems to have cost them more than they made. They were heading back to the keep and would rest a day or two before trying again tomorrow.
Shortly after 11 we were back at the ravine and it still seemed empty. Assured that no one was paying us much mind, we made our way to the goblin cave and entered. We discussed options and decided that we wanted to head further into the goblin cave and get the 25 pairs of ears we needed for Quasar and his goblin sword. So we readied torches and set off.
We passed the original split, then the side corridor where the fountain was, continued on through the former guard room (stripped clean of everything) and the secret door where the ogre once lived. There were a few smaller alcoves but they were empty and we moved on, getting deeper and further than we ever had dared to go before. There were goblin voices ahead and some light. It sounded like a lot, and Charlotte let us know there was over a dozen voices. It seemed like a lot, but we figured if we went in and hit hard at least once, we should startle the goblins and maintain the initiative.
It didn’t go that well.
The group went in and the goblins within were sort of prepared for us. There were not a dozen, or even 20, but more like 30 of the greenskins. Men, women, children. The children swiftly were herded back to the rear of the cave and two women ran on to alert we assumed others. Charlotte tried to shoot an arrow but missed and the goblins there disarmed her and tossed her bow behind where the string was snapped. This caused the thief to draw her dagger and try to engage them in a fight but she was surrounded by 4 of the goblins and they beat her savagely.
Log, Corg, and William tried to press in and get to Charlotte but the three warriors were separated from each other and then picked apart and hacked and beaten. William received a terrible blow to the chest and he passed out and he heard Loq screaming out for Zeus’ help.
The party was then taken, stripped of their gear and belongings and after that they were abused and tortured by the goblins for the next 2 plus months. Charlotte had her head shaved, William developed a rasping cough, and the two of them were whipped and burned often. Loq had his right hand beaten cruelly by hammers so that he couldn’t wield a holy symbol in that hand again (or so the goblins assume). Corg though, our friend and companion for months no, he was the last one standing when the party went down, so the goblins made an example of him and tortured him for days before cutting his head off and feeding his body to the goblin tribe.
Finally we heard some human voices were arranging to sell us back to the Baron for some amount of money that was going to further enrich the goblin tribes. They were evil sounding and their voices made the group ill to hear. But the transfer was made on the road north of the Capashin Swamp on the 3rd of Airmonth. We had Corg’s head in a basket, we were wearing crude homespun bits of fabric wrapped around us, and the goblins took a bag of gold in exchange for us and we were helped onto a wagon and headed back to the Keep.
We had tears in our eyes and were exhausted, happy to be going home, but haunted at everything that happened. Charlotte and William and Loq all looked at one another and made a vow at that point. “We swear that we will go back and make those bastards pay.”
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Meet 106, Adv 6, 2/6/16
I ran this (or something very much like this) adventure about 22 years ago and the group that did it had a great time until a fire got out of control and consumed them faster than they could run from it. It's outside the box and not normal - at least for the party. Getting shrunk down to 1/24th size and dealing with the much smaller world that is in front of them.
The castle exploration is not feasible - we spent 3+ hours to take care of 1/3rd the main entrance room/parlor and didn't make any headway. What the group needs to do is find a way to get "big" first and then take care of the castle and eventually the vault.
And to do that they need to find the artifact that fired off at them and take control of it (even if just temporarily). I have a few road blocks in their way though and they will need to bring their "A" game to get past the final hurdle(s) if they expect to prevail.
Write up follows:
To our new size, the crawl under the 8’ wide and roughly foot and a half tall space was numbing. We emerged onto a large stone rough platform covered with some sort of thick sand-like grit. There was a strange ambient light coming from the east and west, but we were in a gloom broken only by our lanterns. We did light a torch or two, but the fire was strange and rounded, not flickering. It did illuminate the area for us and we just felt…small.
After discussing it for a bit, we wanted to stay near the wall if at all possible, so we lined ourselves up into a square and proceeded to head west (right) for the time being. We travelled some 100’ or so (our relative size that is) until we noted a break in the stone ahead. It dropped off and curved around to the north until it was lost in the gloom. So we approached carefully and looked down at the edge.
18’ from the crumbled rounded stone edge down to the next platform of stone below. A thick layer of gauzy dust like balls and mounds of residue filled the base of the stone cliff. And to our eyes, it moved slightly. So we attached the found grapple to a length of rope and let it drop to the airy dirt to disturb anything hiding within.
And it emerged. Grey in color, plated and segmented, perhaps two feet or so long and with a pair of wavering antenna that twitched around with started jerking motions. From our vantage we had to look at it for length of time before someone realized it was a silverfish. To our normal size, a non-consequential bit of vermin one would find in a closet or musty carpeted room. But now? An unknown and large creature we wanted to avoid.
So we made noise and startled the other silverfish from the dust and fibers, watching as they crawled forward to the edge of the NEXT cliff (step?) and pass over it heading down and out of sight. We took out an iron spike and drove it into the top of the current step (it echoed strangely and without a long ringing vibration) and then one by one, ferried our way down. Climbing was easier for some reason, and there was suspicion that we could both jump further and fall farther that we would be able to if we were normal size.
When it came time to getting the 4 dogs down, we instead rigged up a stretched blanket to catch them, leaving Avidius and Tranis still upstairs to gently toss the animals down. The party caught them one after the other until just the ranger and thief were left. The thought was to toss Tranis and then Avidius would climb down, but they didn’t account for how far Tranis would go (both up and out) and had to scramble to catch him. As for the climb down, Avidius did slip, but again, the pains received were minimal at best.
We navigated to the other step and looked out on the floor of the castle – heading off in all directions into the darkness. The base of this step had a number of silverfish milling about again and we startled them away from the landing. However before we climbed down we noted that they began to leave the area and head enmass towards the walls and some cracks there. Before they all escaped, a skink (at 10+ long and powerfully fast) charged out of the gloom and snatched up a silverfish before running away.
Ok – quiet and safe.
We climbed down and drew ourselves back into a square formation. We didn’t hug the wall since we know there were the odd long cable like spider webs hanging down, but we did stay together as we travelled off to the west and tried to get some feel for the size of the room and where to go next.
There was a glow from ahead and some slashing beams of daylight were coming in and illuminated the floor away from the wall. It was a shuttered window and we decided to head away from the wall and head towards the beam of light where it struck the floor. We came to an area where there was a column heading up to the ceiling over 50’ in diameter (to us) and rising to god knows how high. We used a mirror and flashed the sun light beam everywhere to get a feel for the size of the chamber. We did find the far western wall at some point and the column was we guessed over 200’ tall. However the chamber was larger than our mirror could illuminate and we did not know what to do. We did come across a torch sconce on the wall though and although it was some serious height off the ground, we figured we could try to climb the wall and light it to illuminate the chamber.
So we all headed back to the wall and gave Avidius the tools he would need to climb as well a torch to light the…real full size torch. So he climbed, slowly and with great care, until he eventually made it to the base of the torch in the sconce. Then he climbed onto the sconce and took a breather before daring to walk OUT from the wall along the sconce support beam to the torch itself. Once there, he scaled the wooden structure until he was on the charred and sooty 7’ wide platform. There were webs here, a few of them, so he didn’t want to spend too much time. So he lit his tinderbox, then the torch he had, then he placed the glowing ball of fire on the torch he was standing on and made sure it was caught before coming to the edge of the torch and jumping off to be caught by the party and the stretched out blanket below (again, taking only minimal damage thanks to our size and lightness).
After this, the torch far overhead burst into light and illuminated a portion of the great entry hall we were in. There WAS a door along the western wall and it had a step in front of it. A few tapestries were on the wall, old and worn. But nearer the ceiling were webs, big 100+ diameter hanging cable like webs. And we opted to not go there if we could help it.
Marcus was getting a headache and we hoped to try and find out where the “whatever” was the magicked us small. So he took out his rod of dispel magic and held it aloft, firing a bolt upward. He hoped it would disrupt whatever had enchanted us, but the bolt behaved strangely, it seemed to be pulled UP from the rod, stretch impossibly long, then it arced toward the east and bent before firing away and passing through the ceiling above. What the hell? We discussed it and came to the conclusion that something VERY magical was above us (2nd floor) and was a bit to the east of where we were standing. Maybe the thing that shrunk us? Make us grow? Instead of wandering the castle at our size, we decided to find the whatever it was and reverse the curse.
We needed to know where it was sort of overhead so we were going to head back east across the room, try to find another torch on the wall on that side of the room, get an idea how big the chamber might be, and then fire off another bolt from Marcus’ wand.
It was when we were passing the step we had come down originally that we heard something in the dark and the silverfish in the area departed. We guessed skinks, based upon the scratching dragging sound (the skinks hang low to the ground and their guts drag when they are stalking). Flimflam fired off a speak with animal spell and spoke to one of them that was creeping closer. And closer. There were 7 of them and we found ourselves encircled, back towards the steps. As we were shuffling positon one of them darted forward and went to snatch and grab one of us – Tranis!
The ranger was hit like from a bull and he held on, torn off his feet as the skink then knocked down other party members in its mad dash to take its prize away. We fired and stabbed and shot and made all sorts of noises and assaults happen, scaring away a few of the skinks but 3 of them did come forward to join the attack. Flimflam managed to get one of them charmed and it distracted a second so we only to fight the one against Tranis and the 2nd one that barreled into the party.
Our forces were split on two fronts but we pressed the attack on the skink holding Tranis first, inspiring the lizard to let our ranger go and then finishing it off before it could make its escape. The second skink required less effort and was swiftly surrounded by our group, Avidius and Viridia making attempts at backstabbing the distracted reptile as it was being assaulted by us.
From here we then turned our attention to the last skink that our “charmed” one was fighting until it too went down and we had a chance to rest. Healing was dispensed (a little on our wounded skink) but we started talking – this room was huge, and according to our skink, there were most likely LOTS of them in the area. We had to get out of here and get somewhere else. Where were we to go? Upstairs to the “magic” place and break the curse? What about other denizens in here? And we still didn’t know how big the place was.
We continued on until we arrived at where we assumed the other full sized torch would be and then had Flimflam arrange a rope harness of some sort for the skink. He held on and coaxed it up the wall. It was jarring and rough, mixed with bursts of speed and sudden stops. There was also a slip and fall at one point, some jarring and aching, but eventually the skink and gnome made it to the top. From here they a good look at the area above – dismayed to see spiderwebs her, big ones as made by orb spiders – nothing we want to face at our current size. The torch was lit and skink and gnome jumped off and were caught back on the ground (again, with minimal falling damage).
We wandered back to the steps area and discussed our options – the room on the east side matched the room on the west side – and with the torch lit we had Marcus fire off another blast from his wand – and the shaft of dispelling was sucked straight up to an area sort of over the front door. So we knew we had to go upstairs, and it would have to be over this room. Do we climb the walls and look for cracks? Go the long way around and find stairs?
We were being watched – 6 spiders (orb) had come down and were over the lintel of the foyer door looking at us. A speak with animals did not have them talk back, but they did eventually go back up to their webs and disappear into the ceiling. Ok – climbing from here wasn’t going to work. We were going to have to climb and find stairs. We decided on the western door and then talked about where we were going to camp out. It was approaching 7 and we were getting hungry and tired from our activity. The thought was to climb back up and sleep in the coat room – but figured it would be crawling. And there were cockroaches in the foyer so that was a no.
We traveled to the western door, dodged some silverfish in the area (talking to them revealed how cowlike and slow they actually were) and were checking out the door there (after climbing up) when we figured we would need some wood for a fire. So we were hacking splinters off the bottom of the door and our banging attracted the attention…of a mouse!
It was curious about us and another speak with animals had us chatting with it. It was willing to take us to see the den mother, there WAS a cat wandering the castle on and off (usually down my the laundry room – far from here) and there was a spider or some sort on the second floor the mouse referred to as “The King of the Web”. Se we all gathered at the western door at 7:15 and proceeded to crawl underneath it to enter the hallway and hopefully not attract the attention of the cat that might or might not be wandering the area at some point.
The castle exploration is not feasible - we spent 3+ hours to take care of 1/3rd the main entrance room/parlor and didn't make any headway. What the group needs to do is find a way to get "big" first and then take care of the castle and eventually the vault.
And to do that they need to find the artifact that fired off at them and take control of it (even if just temporarily). I have a few road blocks in their way though and they will need to bring their "A" game to get past the final hurdle(s) if they expect to prevail.
Write up follows:
To our new size, the crawl under the 8’ wide and roughly foot and a half tall space was numbing. We emerged onto a large stone rough platform covered with some sort of thick sand-like grit. There was a strange ambient light coming from the east and west, but we were in a gloom broken only by our lanterns. We did light a torch or two, but the fire was strange and rounded, not flickering. It did illuminate the area for us and we just felt…small.
After discussing it for a bit, we wanted to stay near the wall if at all possible, so we lined ourselves up into a square and proceeded to head west (right) for the time being. We travelled some 100’ or so (our relative size that is) until we noted a break in the stone ahead. It dropped off and curved around to the north until it was lost in the gloom. So we approached carefully and looked down at the edge.
18’ from the crumbled rounded stone edge down to the next platform of stone below. A thick layer of gauzy dust like balls and mounds of residue filled the base of the stone cliff. And to our eyes, it moved slightly. So we attached the found grapple to a length of rope and let it drop to the airy dirt to disturb anything hiding within.
And it emerged. Grey in color, plated and segmented, perhaps two feet or so long and with a pair of wavering antenna that twitched around with started jerking motions. From our vantage we had to look at it for length of time before someone realized it was a silverfish. To our normal size, a non-consequential bit of vermin one would find in a closet or musty carpeted room. But now? An unknown and large creature we wanted to avoid.
So we made noise and startled the other silverfish from the dust and fibers, watching as they crawled forward to the edge of the NEXT cliff (step?) and pass over it heading down and out of sight. We took out an iron spike and drove it into the top of the current step (it echoed strangely and without a long ringing vibration) and then one by one, ferried our way down. Climbing was easier for some reason, and there was suspicion that we could both jump further and fall farther that we would be able to if we were normal size.
When it came time to getting the 4 dogs down, we instead rigged up a stretched blanket to catch them, leaving Avidius and Tranis still upstairs to gently toss the animals down. The party caught them one after the other until just the ranger and thief were left. The thought was to toss Tranis and then Avidius would climb down, but they didn’t account for how far Tranis would go (both up and out) and had to scramble to catch him. As for the climb down, Avidius did slip, but again, the pains received were minimal at best.
We navigated to the other step and looked out on the floor of the castle – heading off in all directions into the darkness. The base of this step had a number of silverfish milling about again and we startled them away from the landing. However before we climbed down we noted that they began to leave the area and head enmass towards the walls and some cracks there. Before they all escaped, a skink (at 10+ long and powerfully fast) charged out of the gloom and snatched up a silverfish before running away.
Ok – quiet and safe.
We climbed down and drew ourselves back into a square formation. We didn’t hug the wall since we know there were the odd long cable like spider webs hanging down, but we did stay together as we travelled off to the west and tried to get some feel for the size of the room and where to go next.
There was a glow from ahead and some slashing beams of daylight were coming in and illuminated the floor away from the wall. It was a shuttered window and we decided to head away from the wall and head towards the beam of light where it struck the floor. We came to an area where there was a column heading up to the ceiling over 50’ in diameter (to us) and rising to god knows how high. We used a mirror and flashed the sun light beam everywhere to get a feel for the size of the chamber. We did find the far western wall at some point and the column was we guessed over 200’ tall. However the chamber was larger than our mirror could illuminate and we did not know what to do. We did come across a torch sconce on the wall though and although it was some serious height off the ground, we figured we could try to climb the wall and light it to illuminate the chamber.
So we all headed back to the wall and gave Avidius the tools he would need to climb as well a torch to light the…real full size torch. So he climbed, slowly and with great care, until he eventually made it to the base of the torch in the sconce. Then he climbed onto the sconce and took a breather before daring to walk OUT from the wall along the sconce support beam to the torch itself. Once there, he scaled the wooden structure until he was on the charred and sooty 7’ wide platform. There were webs here, a few of them, so he didn’t want to spend too much time. So he lit his tinderbox, then the torch he had, then he placed the glowing ball of fire on the torch he was standing on and made sure it was caught before coming to the edge of the torch and jumping off to be caught by the party and the stretched out blanket below (again, taking only minimal damage thanks to our size and lightness).
After this, the torch far overhead burst into light and illuminated a portion of the great entry hall we were in. There WAS a door along the western wall and it had a step in front of it. A few tapestries were on the wall, old and worn. But nearer the ceiling were webs, big 100+ diameter hanging cable like webs. And we opted to not go there if we could help it.
Marcus was getting a headache and we hoped to try and find out where the “whatever” was the magicked us small. So he took out his rod of dispel magic and held it aloft, firing a bolt upward. He hoped it would disrupt whatever had enchanted us, but the bolt behaved strangely, it seemed to be pulled UP from the rod, stretch impossibly long, then it arced toward the east and bent before firing away and passing through the ceiling above. What the hell? We discussed it and came to the conclusion that something VERY magical was above us (2nd floor) and was a bit to the east of where we were standing. Maybe the thing that shrunk us? Make us grow? Instead of wandering the castle at our size, we decided to find the whatever it was and reverse the curse.
We needed to know where it was sort of overhead so we were going to head back east across the room, try to find another torch on the wall on that side of the room, get an idea how big the chamber might be, and then fire off another bolt from Marcus’ wand.
It was when we were passing the step we had come down originally that we heard something in the dark and the silverfish in the area departed. We guessed skinks, based upon the scratching dragging sound (the skinks hang low to the ground and their guts drag when they are stalking). Flimflam fired off a speak with animal spell and spoke to one of them that was creeping closer. And closer. There were 7 of them and we found ourselves encircled, back towards the steps. As we were shuffling positon one of them darted forward and went to snatch and grab one of us – Tranis!
The ranger was hit like from a bull and he held on, torn off his feet as the skink then knocked down other party members in its mad dash to take its prize away. We fired and stabbed and shot and made all sorts of noises and assaults happen, scaring away a few of the skinks but 3 of them did come forward to join the attack. Flimflam managed to get one of them charmed and it distracted a second so we only to fight the one against Tranis and the 2nd one that barreled into the party.
Our forces were split on two fronts but we pressed the attack on the skink holding Tranis first, inspiring the lizard to let our ranger go and then finishing it off before it could make its escape. The second skink required less effort and was swiftly surrounded by our group, Avidius and Viridia making attempts at backstabbing the distracted reptile as it was being assaulted by us.
From here we then turned our attention to the last skink that our “charmed” one was fighting until it too went down and we had a chance to rest. Healing was dispensed (a little on our wounded skink) but we started talking – this room was huge, and according to our skink, there were most likely LOTS of them in the area. We had to get out of here and get somewhere else. Where were we to go? Upstairs to the “magic” place and break the curse? What about other denizens in here? And we still didn’t know how big the place was.
We continued on until we arrived at where we assumed the other full sized torch would be and then had Flimflam arrange a rope harness of some sort for the skink. He held on and coaxed it up the wall. It was jarring and rough, mixed with bursts of speed and sudden stops. There was also a slip and fall at one point, some jarring and aching, but eventually the skink and gnome made it to the top. From here they a good look at the area above – dismayed to see spiderwebs her, big ones as made by orb spiders – nothing we want to face at our current size. The torch was lit and skink and gnome jumped off and were caught back on the ground (again, with minimal falling damage).
We wandered back to the steps area and discussed our options – the room on the east side matched the room on the west side – and with the torch lit we had Marcus fire off another blast from his wand – and the shaft of dispelling was sucked straight up to an area sort of over the front door. So we knew we had to go upstairs, and it would have to be over this room. Do we climb the walls and look for cracks? Go the long way around and find stairs?
We were being watched – 6 spiders (orb) had come down and were over the lintel of the foyer door looking at us. A speak with animals did not have them talk back, but they did eventually go back up to their webs and disappear into the ceiling. Ok – climbing from here wasn’t going to work. We were going to have to climb and find stairs. We decided on the western door and then talked about where we were going to camp out. It was approaching 7 and we were getting hungry and tired from our activity. The thought was to climb back up and sleep in the coat room – but figured it would be crawling. And there were cockroaches in the foyer so that was a no.
We traveled to the western door, dodged some silverfish in the area (talking to them revealed how cowlike and slow they actually were) and were checking out the door there (after climbing up) when we figured we would need some wood for a fire. So we were hacking splinters off the bottom of the door and our banging attracted the attention…of a mouse!
It was curious about us and another speak with animals had us chatting with it. It was willing to take us to see the den mother, there WAS a cat wandering the castle on and off (usually down my the laundry room – far from here) and there was a spider or some sort on the second floor the mouse referred to as “The King of the Web”. Se we all gathered at the western door at 7:15 and proceeded to crawl underneath it to enter the hallway and hopefully not attract the attention of the cat that might or might not be wandering the area at some point.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Meet 105, Adv 6, 1/30/16
Not all items found in my game have an explanation.
I mention this because sometimes after the game session, the party will ask me questions about things they have found in the game that they couldn't deduce and might want to know. If it has no impact on them and any further game enjoyment, I'll let them know about what they saw and why it was there.
Like the tower with the dead donkey, barred door, three dead guys (one of which ate the legs and arms of the other two) and the grapple on the roof. I mean...WHY???
So in the game the party was just disturbed as all fuck as to what happened and couldn't figure it out, but after it was over I didn't mind letting them know (out of game) what they saw. Was a party of 5 at one point, got hit with a poison blast trying to force their way into the castle - two failed the save, one made it. The 2 healthy ones dragged the dying ones to the nearest tower and tried to make they comfortable. They couldn't go out the main door/gate since SOMETHING had chased them to the tower so they used a grapple to go over to the swamp and were going to get antidote or the like for the poisoned men. Meanwhile the two who failed died and the remaining one grew hungry and in order to try and survive, cut off pieces from the two dead men and lasted 8 more days until HE died from his poison. The donkey starved to death.
Now...does any of this matter? No, but it adds to the world around the party as they play and explore, giving more scope and breadth to the land they travel in.
I didn't have to tell anyone what was going on with the strange and macabre scene, but it didn't remove anything from the game telling those who were interested AFTER the meeting was over.
Write up follows:
It was after midnight and we split up the watch, vowing to spend up till noon the next day resting since most of us were already exhausted from the grueling trip. We established a good round robin of watches and tucked in for the night. Those who were on watch went up to the top of the guard tower often to look over the landscape, hearing the sound of the not too distant Black Water River gurgling its way north and past Castle Sterling.
Dawn came slowly, bringing with it a heavy ground choking fog. And even after everyone mostly woke up and got themselves ready, it still took till almost 11 for it to burn off. All of our watching and looking showed that there were no lights or smoke coming from Castle Sterling, or anywhere in the surrounding countryside as well.
After we had eaten lunch and took stock of the tower again, we decided that a few of us were going to look over the courtyard before the rest of the party got themselves together. Tranis (and Ringer), Avidius, Viridia, Liscinia, and Flimflam (along with Whosea) gave the cobbled courtyard a good exploration. Once satisfied it was empty and clear, they approached the main doors of Castle Sterling itself.
A set of double steps led up to the front door which was closed and from what we were able to tell, not locked or trapped. What was discovered was a small metal token, a bit larger than a gold crown and shaped like a shield. It was very thin and we didn’t know what it was. There were 4 ridges on the back of it but other than it being scratched up, nothing else could be told about it. We kept it and continued our exploration until after over a half hour, we were convinced the courtyard was safe and the rest of the party could join us.
Before entering the Castle, we wanted to walk around the entire courtyard and check out the other 3 guard towers to make sure there was nothing hidden or dangerous sitting around to grab us later. We travelled clockwise around the courtyard, coming to the Southwest tower next. The door was ajar and the interior was set up similar to the tower we had spent the night in. About the only material difference after checking all 3 floors (and the roof) was the chimney sleeve on the stove here was not in as good shape as the tower we had stayed in, and had slipped down during the intervening years.
We left the tower and proceeded to the northwest one where we stopped to see a dead crow in the courtyard. It’s neck was broken and it seemed a bit bloated but not chewed on, guessing it to be dead a few days tops. The fact that it was still here made us more comfortable that there were no cats about (since a cat would have most likely devoured the crow). Even so, we were spooked and gave it a wide birth, heading further along to the next tower.
The door to this tower was sealed shut from the inside and when we looked through the arrow slits we saw a skeletal donkey lying at the base of the stairs. We debated opening the door for a bit but eventually let Marcus cast knock on it and disturbing the locking bar. We entered and gave the dead beast a once over. It had some adventuring gear (spikes and lantern and what not) in its bags but little else. We then climbed the stairs to the sleeping room and there were three bodies here in the beds. Two of them had limbs missing but the limbs were in the bed with the last body. There were also 8 scratches on the wall behind the lone body and all that was found was an eating belt knife – no swords, weapons, books, notes. At the top of the tower we discovered the remains of a grappling hook and some scraps of rope that led to the side of the tower and down the outside.
We took the grapple and left the bodies, disturbed that something had happened here and it was some 4 or 5 years ago. From here we walked out and looked at the back of Castle Sterling.
For the most part, the courtyard was 40-50’ wide around the castle itself, except for the rear of the Castle. The main building was shaped like a fat “E” with the middle leg sticking further out than the two outer ones. In addition, there was a tower that abutted the center leg which meant the spacing in the courtyard between the outer wall and the tower was not 50’, but only 7’. And no one wanted to risk walking in that narrow space.
What we did do was look over the courtyard space here. It was the remains of an overgrown garden of some sort, most of it had gone to weed but there were stills signs of planters and paths that once dominated the area. What we did note was there was no door so far into the Castle except the main one in the front.
The party walked all the way back around to the front of the courtyard and then from there, proceeded to the last tower in the northeast corner. Satisfied it had no issues or problems for us; we looked over the final courtyard here and noted it had fruit trees that had grown wild over time. We DID find a secret passage INTO the castle from here, but there was no obvious way to open it. After talking we decided that forcing a secret door open was not a good idea and we should just go back to the main front door. Just to satisfy our sense of symmetry we went back to the other courtyard and researched the area again, this time finding a secret door here in the exact mirrored space as the other courtyard. Again, we opted not to open it.
Back at the front (it was after 2 PM now) we discussed opening the main door and other things we could and should do. We did note there was a crow here on the roof looking down at us. Flimflam cast a speak with animals, the crow was immediately disturbed and try to fly away when our gnomish leader then hit it with a charm animal spell and it stayed, but was disgruntled.
Turns out it had been hit by animal friendship spell in the past and reported that others had come here and tried to open the door. When they do, the crow said “You hear a Poof then AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Did not fill any of us with confidence. There is also an owl that lives on top of the wizard’s tower. It was going to watch us and wait.
Before opening the door, Marcus stood in front of it and announced himself as a Tower Wizard and was here legally to get the items Wizard Lord Erazmus had stuck aside for him. We all felt a faint rumbling and vibration…but then nothing. So we opened the door…and beheld a foyer.
There was a cloakroom to the left, and the foyer had 3 dusty couches here. We took a couple of the doublets that were in the cloakroom but there was little else. There was a double door leading further into the castle so after verifying it was free of traps and not locked, the party readied weapons and opened the door.
And there was a loud inrushing of air, a great wind blew us all from behind, and the party was yelling but losing consciousness from the forces battering our bodies.
Only Horace and Whosea remained conscious and they had to scramble because now it appeared we were in a strange ghostly darkish grand chamber or cavern with a wooden wall in front of us that had a foot and a half gap underneath it. And we were being assaulted by three 10’ long hairy insectoid monsters that tried to drag Viridia away into the darkness. The two standing party members jumped on the nearest one and proceeded to bash and beat at it, with Horace now seeing there was a glowing metal shield here on the floor. He picked it up and it flared blue and wrapped around his forearm, light to his grasp and easily turning the chittering monsters’ bites aside.
They managed to hold the line for a few minutes as the rest of the party awoke and added their weight to the battle line. It was Flimflam who first discovered our problem as he tried to call on Demeter to summon some aid but the spell was delayed and did not return an ape as he expected…instead it deposited an 11’ tall rat. He pressured it into helping us and them let it go on its way when the three insectoid monsters fled.
Taking stock we could not tell exactly where we were, the ground had a gritty layer of small stones upon it, and the light was indistinct in the distance. As for the wooden wall, we were going to crawl underneath it (it was an 8’ crawl) but after taking a better look at the place we deduced that we were still in the foyer in Castle Sterling…Except that we were now small. Much smaller than we originally were. Our best guess was that whoever was 6’ before the blast of magic hit us was now only about 3” tall.
We wanted to get further into the castle and try to find out what happened to us and how to return to regular size so we girded our wares and crawled “under” the inner double doors from the foyer and into Castle Sterling itself.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Meet 104, Adv 6, 1/16/16
The group had a chance to meet the remnants of the thieves guild/leader of Varohelm this meeting. Varohelm was always a strange place years ago for my players. Tucked away in the southwestern section of a larger Duchy that was always sending its young and gold further north to feed a distant and seemingly uncaring monarch and its dozens of stupid wars and causes - the people of Varohelm had nothing in common with the rest of the duchy.
Not insular, just overwhelmed and out of place. Two major wizards lived here at one time: Erazmus and Ceril Stormbringer - and neither was a white and black hat. Both were pretty despicable in their own way - depending on which side of the line you stood on. What I did for this group was fast forward time 15 plus years after the two wizards finally killed each other off and imagined what the place would look like.
And it looks like shit.
Spells and ensorcelled creatures run amok, broken cities and shattered people, the one time mantra of "Lead the Evil to Our Door, Good we Are we'll take No More" that the populace would chant when the roustabouts and elfhunters would march was silenced and broken. The church was a ruin of its former self, poverty was rampant, and everyone who could possibly leave...had already left. What they had remaining was serf and peasantry with little or no way to get out of the land safely and cheaply.
And as for the thieves guild? They took over the nobility, sort of disbanded and broke up as every high ranking member eventually left and each time they left, they took more and more riches and wealth from the land. So what was left was a handful of thugs and degenerates who had been left behind to run things, fleecing the flesh off what few riches were left behind, and leaving a progressively less capable mix of thieves and thugs to run things.
And that's what the party has now. There is no longer a guild, any guild organization left long ago. What you have are the last of the guild trained thieves (the ones who weren't smart, capable, or rich enough to leave any of the other times) in control of the river trade, ripping everyone off, and they are looking to cash out and leave the Helmian Lands/Darkenwoods behind. But they need money - lots of it to pay all the bribes and graft, and transport they need for their people to go with them (otherwise they'll never get out) - but there isn't any money left over, nothing else to take.
Until a group shows up and the stories say of a magic vault of some sort at Castle Sterling that no one was able to open before. And who knows about it? Two capos/rulers who heard it from their bosses who heard it from their bosses some 15 years ago. And the story they know is that it has wealth. The group opens it up? They keep half. If they don't? There isn't a civilized spot anywhere in the Helmian Lands the party can hole up in before they are exposed and hunted down, slain, and end up with nothing.
They can go it alone and stick to the wild if they want, but the land is crawling with other things that would kill them or at least try.
Write up follows:
We went over a number of plans and possibilities for us for the trip, at one point talking about getting a ballista, but settled on going to the stabler and getting a few donkeys and then hitting the greengrocer and seeing about getting some rations.
We purchased two donkeys including bags, blankets, leads, and bridles. We also purchased two switches, one of them scourging, the other not. We also purchased food stuff, knowing that after 3 days it would start to spoil. However, between Steiner and Flimflam, the two priests felt confident that their god would help them to have the food either not spoil or purify at a later date.
Meanwhile, we asked subtly about the land nearer to Castle Sterling, learning that it was most likely a bog of swamplands and we should be ready and prepared for the worst. A trip to the moneychanger (and his arrogant attitude) had us convert some of our coinage. We were…surprised to learn that the exchange had new Argosian coins, stamped with this year’s date marking available – which disturbed us since most likely Shakun doesn’t have them available yet and it’s not yet 30 days into the new year. Is this something that might come up later? A problem? Something we should be aware of? For now we noted it and moved on.
We talked to our people about leaving tomorrow and that we should eat well and expect a long trip through some difficult terrain. All the henchmen and hirelings were thrilled to actually get to the meat of the adventure and promised to be ready. During the evening and our meal, Flimflam was invited to see Lord Gongruck, apparently the high honcho and leader of Varohelm. Expecting a similar situation as we had with Sir Balderi, Flimflam had himself mentally prepared.
It was when he learned that he was supposed to come alone that the group grew concerned. A group of 4 went together and three were asked to wait outside, including his dog and any weapon bigger and more dangerous than a knife. Finally assured this would be without any issue (not that the gnome didn’t believe this) he was escorted into the faintly decaying manor house that Lord Gongruck presided from.
Lord Gongruck was an older man past 60, balding white hair, gout, heavy set, jowly. He had two associates with him, Antonius and Vincius – both of them that could best be described as either muscle or lieutenants. Conversation was difficult at first since most of the façade and ruse the party had established was pulled back and exposed as flimsy at best. The hunting for great cats story held, barely, but Lord Gongruck just KNEW that the party was interested in Castle Sterling and the lands around it – suspecting that magic was involved on some level.
Turns out that there is a vault there, supposedly, it’s been years since anyone has been there to check. But this vault was never opened and according to some records it has some treasure in it and Lord Gongruck and his people want it. Or at least half of it. If the party goes there and opens the vault, Gongruck wants half of the monetary treasure within and in exchange will arrange safe passage and transportation out of Varohelm and the Helmian Lands for the group. If we don’t? Then things will not be nearly as easy or safe for the party.
Flimflam was being given an offer he couldn’t refuse…so he didn’t. Handshakes were exchanged and blowjobs were provided for by a bevy of broken women Lord Gongruck had at his disposal. The druid left with the deal…but he did not think it was going to end so simply.
By 9:30 he was back at the Shining Sword and passed on what he had learned to the party. We discussed it briefly but decided for now to focus on our trip to Castle Sterling tomorrow. Spells were studied, goodberries prepared, and all manner of readying was done.
We awoke on the 29th at 6AM and broke our fast, prayed, and packed up. Our keys were given to the innkeeper and we went to the stables to get our donkeys and loaded provisions. Between ourselves and our hirelings, we had enough people to handle to animals. At 7:15 we left town and proceeded on our way.
The main road curved around the north edge of Helm Lake, most of the land showing older signs of clearing and newer signs of planting and fieldwork. However as he left Varohelm further behind the trees of Darkenwood were reclaiming the land and turning the former fields of rye and wheat back into forests. A stout dwarven made bridge of arched stone spanned the western section of the lake at its narrowest point after the two rivers joined together to form the Lake. We turned northward from here (where the western road would take us to Mount Ada and the mining encampment) and headed onward.
The quality of the road began deteriorating rapidly. We could see the land rise ahead of us as the Blackwater River headed downstream towards up from Mount Despair, most of the hills and smaller peaks were tree covered and still some distance away. But the road became fouler, rutted, pocked, and then eventually broken and difficult. Our pace slowed to a couple hundred yards every half turn of a glass as we navigated our way onward through swampier and fouler land.
Flimflam tried to have a talk with plant spell conversation with the Cypress and Cedar trees in the area but didn’t get much of a definitive answer. The day passed on and as the night settled down and the temperature dropped, we shivered and shuddered and pressed onward through the moonlit landscape of swamp, bog, and fen – convinced that Castle Sterling could not be much further. Our druid called on Demeter to keep him in the know if any cats were in the area, hoping that the 600’ radius would be enough of a warning for us to be prepared. Torches were lit, enhanced thanks to Steiner’s log of everburning, and the group slogged their way onward.
By 11 (our guess) that night, the party was tired, cold, damp, and miserable. But they were also frightened because according to Flimflam, a feline presence was shadowing us at a few hundred feet away to our east on the other side of the river. We couldn’t see it, but a few of us were convinced we could see its eyes reflecting in the dark. Our adrenaline firing and our strength renewed (briefly) we marched on, Tranis assuring the group that we were very close to the Castle.
And he was right.
Rising up out of the gloom ahead were the 35’ tall palisaded walls of Castle Sterling. Taller warding towers were seen along the corners and through the open gateway was the flagstone courtyard covered in debris. The man house of the Castle itself was beyond and it appeared there was a tower of some sort along the back of the complex. We fired off a fire arrow far to the east and over the river to attract the attention of the cats (2 of them now according to Flimflam) while we entered the courtyard and looked around.
It seemed to be empty (outside of trash and a dozen years of neglect) and the entire Castle was leaning slightly to the right/east at 5 degrees, testament to the instability of the ground, the encroaching swamp, and the not too distant river from where we were standing.
It had to be midnight and we were worn out and stretched thin. Some of the party lifted and shoved the gateway closed, finding the blocking bar nearby and bracing it in place; the rest of the group went to the closest tower – Southeast, and gave it a look over. Narrow arrowslits covered both the front of the castle and the courtyard, a door that was open but could be closed, three levels, tall ceilings, some racks and pallets, and most importantly, a potbellied stove on the 3rd floor that we could use for heat and comfort.
We coaxed the mules into the tower and left them on the bottom floor while the party made their way through the floors and proceeded to hack up one of the pallets for firewood and started amuch needed warming fire in the stove. We looked at the top of the tower and saw signs that a ballista had been mounted here once upon a time but was gone now. From here we knew we could see far and decided we would look more in the morning. For now we kicked off our boots and the mass of 20? Of us huddled on the 3rd floor to discuss what was to happen next and eventually get some much needed sleep.
Not insular, just overwhelmed and out of place. Two major wizards lived here at one time: Erazmus and Ceril Stormbringer - and neither was a white and black hat. Both were pretty despicable in their own way - depending on which side of the line you stood on. What I did for this group was fast forward time 15 plus years after the two wizards finally killed each other off and imagined what the place would look like.
And it looks like shit.
Spells and ensorcelled creatures run amok, broken cities and shattered people, the one time mantra of "Lead the Evil to Our Door, Good we Are we'll take No More" that the populace would chant when the roustabouts and elfhunters would march was silenced and broken. The church was a ruin of its former self, poverty was rampant, and everyone who could possibly leave...had already left. What they had remaining was serf and peasantry with little or no way to get out of the land safely and cheaply.
And as for the thieves guild? They took over the nobility, sort of disbanded and broke up as every high ranking member eventually left and each time they left, they took more and more riches and wealth from the land. So what was left was a handful of thugs and degenerates who had been left behind to run things, fleecing the flesh off what few riches were left behind, and leaving a progressively less capable mix of thieves and thugs to run things.
And that's what the party has now. There is no longer a guild, any guild organization left long ago. What you have are the last of the guild trained thieves (the ones who weren't smart, capable, or rich enough to leave any of the other times) in control of the river trade, ripping everyone off, and they are looking to cash out and leave the Helmian Lands/Darkenwoods behind. But they need money - lots of it to pay all the bribes and graft, and transport they need for their people to go with them (otherwise they'll never get out) - but there isn't any money left over, nothing else to take.
Until a group shows up and the stories say of a magic vault of some sort at Castle Sterling that no one was able to open before. And who knows about it? Two capos/rulers who heard it from their bosses who heard it from their bosses some 15 years ago. And the story they know is that it has wealth. The group opens it up? They keep half. If they don't? There isn't a civilized spot anywhere in the Helmian Lands the party can hole up in before they are exposed and hunted down, slain, and end up with nothing.
They can go it alone and stick to the wild if they want, but the land is crawling with other things that would kill them or at least try.
Write up follows:
We went over a number of plans and possibilities for us for the trip, at one point talking about getting a ballista, but settled on going to the stabler and getting a few donkeys and then hitting the greengrocer and seeing about getting some rations.
We purchased two donkeys including bags, blankets, leads, and bridles. We also purchased two switches, one of them scourging, the other not. We also purchased food stuff, knowing that after 3 days it would start to spoil. However, between Steiner and Flimflam, the two priests felt confident that their god would help them to have the food either not spoil or purify at a later date.
Meanwhile, we asked subtly about the land nearer to Castle Sterling, learning that it was most likely a bog of swamplands and we should be ready and prepared for the worst. A trip to the moneychanger (and his arrogant attitude) had us convert some of our coinage. We were…surprised to learn that the exchange had new Argosian coins, stamped with this year’s date marking available – which disturbed us since most likely Shakun doesn’t have them available yet and it’s not yet 30 days into the new year. Is this something that might come up later? A problem? Something we should be aware of? For now we noted it and moved on.
We talked to our people about leaving tomorrow and that we should eat well and expect a long trip through some difficult terrain. All the henchmen and hirelings were thrilled to actually get to the meat of the adventure and promised to be ready. During the evening and our meal, Flimflam was invited to see Lord Gongruck, apparently the high honcho and leader of Varohelm. Expecting a similar situation as we had with Sir Balderi, Flimflam had himself mentally prepared.
It was when he learned that he was supposed to come alone that the group grew concerned. A group of 4 went together and three were asked to wait outside, including his dog and any weapon bigger and more dangerous than a knife. Finally assured this would be without any issue (not that the gnome didn’t believe this) he was escorted into the faintly decaying manor house that Lord Gongruck presided from.
Lord Gongruck was an older man past 60, balding white hair, gout, heavy set, jowly. He had two associates with him, Antonius and Vincius – both of them that could best be described as either muscle or lieutenants. Conversation was difficult at first since most of the façade and ruse the party had established was pulled back and exposed as flimsy at best. The hunting for great cats story held, barely, but Lord Gongruck just KNEW that the party was interested in Castle Sterling and the lands around it – suspecting that magic was involved on some level.
Turns out that there is a vault there, supposedly, it’s been years since anyone has been there to check. But this vault was never opened and according to some records it has some treasure in it and Lord Gongruck and his people want it. Or at least half of it. If the party goes there and opens the vault, Gongruck wants half of the monetary treasure within and in exchange will arrange safe passage and transportation out of Varohelm and the Helmian Lands for the group. If we don’t? Then things will not be nearly as easy or safe for the party.
Flimflam was being given an offer he couldn’t refuse…so he didn’t. Handshakes were exchanged and blowjobs were provided for by a bevy of broken women Lord Gongruck had at his disposal. The druid left with the deal…but he did not think it was going to end so simply.
By 9:30 he was back at the Shining Sword and passed on what he had learned to the party. We discussed it briefly but decided for now to focus on our trip to Castle Sterling tomorrow. Spells were studied, goodberries prepared, and all manner of readying was done.
We awoke on the 29th at 6AM and broke our fast, prayed, and packed up. Our keys were given to the innkeeper and we went to the stables to get our donkeys and loaded provisions. Between ourselves and our hirelings, we had enough people to handle to animals. At 7:15 we left town and proceeded on our way.
The main road curved around the north edge of Helm Lake, most of the land showing older signs of clearing and newer signs of planting and fieldwork. However as he left Varohelm further behind the trees of Darkenwood were reclaiming the land and turning the former fields of rye and wheat back into forests. A stout dwarven made bridge of arched stone spanned the western section of the lake at its narrowest point after the two rivers joined together to form the Lake. We turned northward from here (where the western road would take us to Mount Ada and the mining encampment) and headed onward.
The quality of the road began deteriorating rapidly. We could see the land rise ahead of us as the Blackwater River headed downstream towards up from Mount Despair, most of the hills and smaller peaks were tree covered and still some distance away. But the road became fouler, rutted, pocked, and then eventually broken and difficult. Our pace slowed to a couple hundred yards every half turn of a glass as we navigated our way onward through swampier and fouler land.
Flimflam tried to have a talk with plant spell conversation with the Cypress and Cedar trees in the area but didn’t get much of a definitive answer. The day passed on and as the night settled down and the temperature dropped, we shivered and shuddered and pressed onward through the moonlit landscape of swamp, bog, and fen – convinced that Castle Sterling could not be much further. Our druid called on Demeter to keep him in the know if any cats were in the area, hoping that the 600’ radius would be enough of a warning for us to be prepared. Torches were lit, enhanced thanks to Steiner’s log of everburning, and the group slogged their way onward.
By 11 (our guess) that night, the party was tired, cold, damp, and miserable. But they were also frightened because according to Flimflam, a feline presence was shadowing us at a few hundred feet away to our east on the other side of the river. We couldn’t see it, but a few of us were convinced we could see its eyes reflecting in the dark. Our adrenaline firing and our strength renewed (briefly) we marched on, Tranis assuring the group that we were very close to the Castle.
And he was right.
Rising up out of the gloom ahead were the 35’ tall palisaded walls of Castle Sterling. Taller warding towers were seen along the corners and through the open gateway was the flagstone courtyard covered in debris. The man house of the Castle itself was beyond and it appeared there was a tower of some sort along the back of the complex. We fired off a fire arrow far to the east and over the river to attract the attention of the cats (2 of them now according to Flimflam) while we entered the courtyard and looked around.
It seemed to be empty (outside of trash and a dozen years of neglect) and the entire Castle was leaning slightly to the right/east at 5 degrees, testament to the instability of the ground, the encroaching swamp, and the not too distant river from where we were standing.
It had to be midnight and we were worn out and stretched thin. Some of the party lifted and shoved the gateway closed, finding the blocking bar nearby and bracing it in place; the rest of the group went to the closest tower – Southeast, and gave it a look over. Narrow arrowslits covered both the front of the castle and the courtyard, a door that was open but could be closed, three levels, tall ceilings, some racks and pallets, and most importantly, a potbellied stove on the 3rd floor that we could use for heat and comfort.
We coaxed the mules into the tower and left them on the bottom floor while the party made their way through the floors and proceeded to hack up one of the pallets for firewood and started amuch needed warming fire in the stove. We looked at the top of the tower and saw signs that a ballista had been mounted here once upon a time but was gone now. From here we knew we could see far and decided we would look more in the morning. For now we kicked off our boots and the mass of 20? Of us huddled on the 3rd floor to discuss what was to happen next and eventually get some much needed sleep.
Friday, January 22, 2016
Behind the Screen - Weather Effects
Weather Effects
I know there are tons of more complicated and in detail charts to use out there, I still own a pristine copy of the Wilderness Survival Guide and have just about every printed Dragon Magazine since issue #50 proudly displayed on the shelf in my basement, however I also like my game to flow and having a book of charts and tables to refer to so often and not get any real material worth out of them just seems crazy and bogs the game down.
So I use a simplified weather system in my world.
Type of Weather (d10)
1-3 Sunny day (with 3 being a few passing high altitude clouds)
4-6 Cloudy day (with 6 being a threat of rain/snow/storm)
7-9 Precipitation
0 Something special
And Temperature (d6)
1 15 deg F cooler
2 5-10 deg F cooler
3-4 Normalish
5 5-10 deg F warmer
6 15 deg F warmer
That’s it. The system is simple, sweet, and easy. No odd charts, it’s off my head and memory, and I move on.
Now some of the nitty/gritty/detail sections.
The area the party is in now is roughly the same latitudinal location as Georgia, North Texas, or lower California (sorry for the USA-centric positioning, I am a native of the country – Let’s call it 32 degrees North). This means that in the depths of the seasonal months (Feb, May, Aug, November – Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall respectively) I use 35, 60, 85, 60 as the normal temps. I’ll drift that number accordingly 5 degrees from normal for each month in the equinox season, and 10 degree swing for each month in the vernal/autumnal season.
WTF does that mean? Lol. Easy explain:
Jan 40 Apr 50 Jul 80 Oct 70
Feb 35 May 60 Aug 85 Nov 60
Mar 40 Jun 70 Sep 80 Dec 50
This means that I can have in Feb a day where the temp can swing wildly between 20 degrees and 50 depending on the dice roll and it makes sense since most of them will be 35 degrees. That helps when I check for snow/melting if there is any on the ground and I don’t need a chart. Remember – these weather systems are supposed to be easy and easily remembered on the fly without having charts or complex systems or tables in place.
The area that my group was in last time was much further north, latitudinally the same as North Jersey, Central Pennsylvania and the like (Call it 40+ degrees North). So my seasonal month temperatures were a bit different: 25, 50, 80, 50. Colder winters and seasonality, and the summers were only a bit off.
The difference between the two areas means/meant that for the first grouping, 5/6 days were cold enough to have snow and keep it on the ground with only infrequent melting. The second grouping has a different swing of things with only 1 or 2 tops out of 6 days being cold enough to generate frost/snow.
I mention it because the party has been doing a lot of travelling lately and the weather, state of roads and ease of travel is pretty important right now and they have been in situations (before) where there were freak snow squalls that gave 2 feet of precipitation.
And that leads us back to the 1st chart/random numbers – the type of weather and rain/snow.
To see the type of precipitation, again the handy d6 comes out with: 1-3 light, 4-5 medium, and 6 – heavy.
Again – WTF does that mean?
Light – Drizzle on and off, maybe a brief but sudden summer type storm – lots of rain but short. Overall the total accumulation hovers between annoying and getting wet. Rainfall for light is between 1/10 inch and ½ inch. If it is snow – it’s between 1 and 5 inches.
Medium – A regular rain storm. It comes in and rains all the day. Great for plants, not so good for travel unless you like mud. Rainfall runs from ½ to 1 inch. If it’s snow, between 5 and 10 inches.
Heavy – A serious soaking. You are going to wet and miserable. Baladrana’s will give up the ghost after a few hours and expect to make a sickness check. Hope you have extra clothes and underwear since you are going to be unhappy without it. Rainfall runs 1 to 2 inches. Again, if snow, 10 to 20 inches.
Snow is 10x the accumulation as rain – easy to remember. As for qty, you can hand wave it or a d5 (d10/2) gives you your total for the day.
And that brings us to the “0” on the chart – Special. All random tables need a special. And for that I pull it out of my hat. I have had freak storms that drop 26” of snow, heat waves that spike the temperature up 30 from base or cold snaps dropping the temp the same amount down from normal. Hurricane? Sure! Tornado touch down? Why not! The long and short of it, anything that seems like it would make sense OR I haven’t had/done in a while comes up on that magic roll of “0”. Could I make a chart and plot some stuff out? Maybe, but it defeats the purpose of the way I do it, and that is to keep the game flowing, have some sort of logic, a viable and easy to use weather system, and keeping it simple.
I know there are tons of more complicated and in detail charts to use out there, I still own a pristine copy of the Wilderness Survival Guide and have just about every printed Dragon Magazine since issue #50 proudly displayed on the shelf in my basement, however I also like my game to flow and having a book of charts and tables to refer to so often and not get any real material worth out of them just seems crazy and bogs the game down.
So I use a simplified weather system in my world.
Type of Weather (d10)
1-3 Sunny day (with 3 being a few passing high altitude clouds)
4-6 Cloudy day (with 6 being a threat of rain/snow/storm)
7-9 Precipitation
0 Something special
And Temperature (d6)
1 15 deg F cooler
2 5-10 deg F cooler
3-4 Normalish
5 5-10 deg F warmer
6 15 deg F warmer
That’s it. The system is simple, sweet, and easy. No odd charts, it’s off my head and memory, and I move on.
Now some of the nitty/gritty/detail sections.
The area the party is in now is roughly the same latitudinal location as Georgia, North Texas, or lower California (sorry for the USA-centric positioning, I am a native of the country – Let’s call it 32 degrees North). This means that in the depths of the seasonal months (Feb, May, Aug, November – Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall respectively) I use 35, 60, 85, 60 as the normal temps. I’ll drift that number accordingly 5 degrees from normal for each month in the equinox season, and 10 degree swing for each month in the vernal/autumnal season.
WTF does that mean? Lol. Easy explain:
Jan 40 Apr 50 Jul 80 Oct 70
Feb 35 May 60 Aug 85 Nov 60
Mar 40 Jun 70 Sep 80 Dec 50
This means that I can have in Feb a day where the temp can swing wildly between 20 degrees and 50 depending on the dice roll and it makes sense since most of them will be 35 degrees. That helps when I check for snow/melting if there is any on the ground and I don’t need a chart. Remember – these weather systems are supposed to be easy and easily remembered on the fly without having charts or complex systems or tables in place.
The area that my group was in last time was much further north, latitudinally the same as North Jersey, Central Pennsylvania and the like (Call it 40+ degrees North). So my seasonal month temperatures were a bit different: 25, 50, 80, 50. Colder winters and seasonality, and the summers were only a bit off.
The difference between the two areas means/meant that for the first grouping, 5/6 days were cold enough to have snow and keep it on the ground with only infrequent melting. The second grouping has a different swing of things with only 1 or 2 tops out of 6 days being cold enough to generate frost/snow.
I mention it because the party has been doing a lot of travelling lately and the weather, state of roads and ease of travel is pretty important right now and they have been in situations (before) where there were freak snow squalls that gave 2 feet of precipitation.
And that leads us back to the 1st chart/random numbers – the type of weather and rain/snow.
To see the type of precipitation, again the handy d6 comes out with: 1-3 light, 4-5 medium, and 6 – heavy.
Again – WTF does that mean?
Light – Drizzle on and off, maybe a brief but sudden summer type storm – lots of rain but short. Overall the total accumulation hovers between annoying and getting wet. Rainfall for light is between 1/10 inch and ½ inch. If it is snow – it’s between 1 and 5 inches.
Medium – A regular rain storm. It comes in and rains all the day. Great for plants, not so good for travel unless you like mud. Rainfall runs from ½ to 1 inch. If it’s snow, between 5 and 10 inches.
Heavy – A serious soaking. You are going to wet and miserable. Baladrana’s will give up the ghost after a few hours and expect to make a sickness check. Hope you have extra clothes and underwear since you are going to be unhappy without it. Rainfall runs 1 to 2 inches. Again, if snow, 10 to 20 inches.
Snow is 10x the accumulation as rain – easy to remember. As for qty, you can hand wave it or a d5 (d10/2) gives you your total for the day.
And that brings us to the “0” on the chart – Special. All random tables need a special. And for that I pull it out of my hat. I have had freak storms that drop 26” of snow, heat waves that spike the temperature up 30 from base or cold snaps dropping the temp the same amount down from normal. Hurricane? Sure! Tornado touch down? Why not! The long and short of it, anything that seems like it would make sense OR I haven’t had/done in a while comes up on that magic roll of “0”. Could I make a chart and plot some stuff out? Maybe, but it defeats the purpose of the way I do it, and that is to keep the game flowing, have some sort of logic, a viable and easy to use weather system, and keeping it simple.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Meet 103, Adv 6, 1/9/16
This was our first meeting back of the new year and we spent some of the game time just catching up and chewing the fat before getting down to play. It was a travel meeting (with at least 1 more planned after this) and I decided I was NOT going to hand wave travel this go round. It drags out the adventure but I think gives the distance and places traveled more scope and weight. Long and short of it, we are FAR from home and way out of our normal comfort zone.
Write up follows:
Before the afternoon pressed on too much, we traded some of our Argosian coins for the local Helmian ones – noting the age of the coins, as well as their distress and chipping (heavily worn, edges chipped, diameters slightly off). Our normal coins would raise too many flags we thought and we wanted to avoid any odd entanglements in the future. Not wanting to run afoul of any issues in the morning, we went to bed early and slept well.
The morning of Deathmonth the 27th was cold and foggy, but the party broke their fast and was down at the docks before 6 in the morning. The barge master met us, reviewed our writ allowing us to not only board his barge but the fact that it took us upriver to Varohelm, and begrudgingly let us on. He reminded us that the writ did NOT allow us to get off at any time; neither did it allow us to do anything other than be passenger during the entirety of the trip. We were given the back third of the barge as a staging area for ourselves. We gave Captain Dornus 20 nobles to various dock crossing fees that we would have to pay when we arrived at Varohelm and assured him we would be no trouble.
By 6:30 an 8-donkey team had been assembled and with a number of handlers, leads, and poling, the barge was towed slowly upriver and we left Last Town behind. The trip was slow but steady and we got a chance to see the majority of the Black Water River in this area as well as Darkenwoods itself. Surprisingly, the amount of swamps were fairly small although the banks of the river were heavy with Cypress and Cedar trees. There was a short area where about a mile of the north bank was pretty swampy and the roadbed the donkeys were travelling on became a raised platform of wooden timbers.
As the evening was getting on we arrived at Midway’s Crossing, a mouthy name of a converted waystation that had grown to some sort of town. There was an arcing bridge that crossed the river here and from the look of things and the map that Steiner had the presence of copying from memory after we had left Sir Balderi’s earlier; there was a road north out of here that went north to someplace called Danver’s Clearing. However, as had been explained to us, we would NOT be leaving the barge since we didn’t want to a) piss off the locals, b) pay for 2 dock crossing fees (off and on the boat), c) give anyone a reason to separate the party for any reason AND possibly suss out both Marcus and Erd as elves on board. Captain Dornus told us that we would stay here at Midway’s Crossing for 2 hours or so in order for the men to stretch their legs and to get a new team of donkeys hitched up to tow us the rest of the way upriver.
Whether it was the citizens of Midway’s Crossing or some plants by Captain Dornus and his crew, a number of people did come to the dock to entice the party. First a group of hookers and their pimp tried to either get the party to come off or to come on board to take care of the group; we rebuffed them often and hard. Then in the dark, a shadowy figure offered to give us a sealed metal box and some coins if we could deliver it to a contact in Varohelm; we also said no and wished his well and to get the fuck away from us.
By 8:30 that night we were off and from what the Captain was telling us, it was 15 or so hours from Midway’s Crossing to Helm Lake (body of water that Varohelm was on, north side of the lake). It was dark and we were getting tired, plus being on the barge another more than half a day was going to make the party useless when we arrived. So we decided that we would stagger our sleep for now, with everyone getting a full night by spacing it out so that as many party members that could be up at one time would do so. It’s not that we didn’t trust the Captain or his crew…it’s just that we didn’t trust them.
It might have been for the best because at least twice, crewmen had some reason to come back to our area of the barge to “check lines” before leaving us alone. Eventually the dawn rose and the plodding donkeys and their handlers brought us further along. By 10:30 the trees were thinning and showed eventual signs of being harvested. Small fields of wild wheat and rye were dotting the land and in the distance we could see the waterway widening and a walled city taking up an area on the north shore.
We passed into Helm Lake by 11 and the current disappeared. Many smaller fishing boats and barges dotted the lake – over 3 miles wide and ¾ of a mile or so long. The city itself, Varohelm, was 2 or 3 times the size of Shakun and from our expectation, should house between 6 and 9 thousand people. The walls were over 30’ tall with numerous out pointed punji stakes fastened to the tops. Assorted towers stuck out further, some of them with ballista on top. Everywhere we looked though showed signs of decay, wear, assault, and undermanning.
When the donkeys were finally allowed to pass through the gate and tow the barge into the city itself, we had a chance to see how rough things really were. Varohelm was in a state of decay. At least a fifth of all the buildings we saw were either abandoned or demolished. It looked like swaths of the town were destroyed some time ago and although it was cleaned up, the rubble and foundations remained behind.
A number of docks stuck out from the city and we were pulled up to one where we paid Captain Dornus and disembarked. We walked the wharf area for a bit, eventually passing northward through the warehouse district. People were about, almost none of them in serious armor, but just about everyone was armed so we did not stand too far out. There was a hollowness to the people, as if they were tired or didn’t get enough nutrition in their diet.
We were given advice on two main inns in town, Shining Sword and the Flame Bolt Inn (the later one supposedly where Wizard-Lord Erazmus himself had stayed in the past). We went to the Shining Sword, reserved a room or two (at what felt was a SERIOUSLY reduced price – like 15% or so of what we would normally pay). We learned that the town is pretty hungry, empty, and poor. Although the citizenry are happy about their lot in life, they all seem to have this interest and desire to move away and making it “past Last Town and to the riches of Brewersbridge beyond.” However, the cost to move is very heavy with lots of graft and payoffs needed along the way. A few have hoofed it overland but with the giant Cats and the Risenwald, it’s pretty much assumed to be a suicide mission.
We got a layout of the two main streets and what shops were about and where we needed to go. As for Castle Sterling, the word is that the land has gone to swamp around it and a trip that might have taken 8 hours once upon a time with the roads, is now something to take much longer. We were going to need boots for the party. A cobbler was on the far end of town so we left the Shining Sword and proceeded our way there. Two main temples in Town: Ares and Gaia. There were a militant arm of the temple of Ares called Elfhunters and there was a reward if anyone was able to provide information towards the capture and sighting of an elf.
We avoided them.
Stopping at the Flame Bolt, we took a look at the two stuffed cat heads they had on display (learning that the first one was taken down by a group of 42, after which 10 of the party had died, While the 2nd one was a surprise attack on 17, where 4 of the party managed to survive the assault), and then moved on to the cobbler.
His prices were also crazy low. We bought 20 boots from his stock (high hard), spent a fraction of what were we would normally and left with our purchases happy and informed the man that his skills would go far in Shakun if he could make it there.
It was now 3 PM on Deathmonth the 28th and we were talking about what our next place to visit would be if we were to head off to Castle Sterling tomorrow.
Write up follows:
Before the afternoon pressed on too much, we traded some of our Argosian coins for the local Helmian ones – noting the age of the coins, as well as their distress and chipping (heavily worn, edges chipped, diameters slightly off). Our normal coins would raise too many flags we thought and we wanted to avoid any odd entanglements in the future. Not wanting to run afoul of any issues in the morning, we went to bed early and slept well.
The morning of Deathmonth the 27th was cold and foggy, but the party broke their fast and was down at the docks before 6 in the morning. The barge master met us, reviewed our writ allowing us to not only board his barge but the fact that it took us upriver to Varohelm, and begrudgingly let us on. He reminded us that the writ did NOT allow us to get off at any time; neither did it allow us to do anything other than be passenger during the entirety of the trip. We were given the back third of the barge as a staging area for ourselves. We gave Captain Dornus 20 nobles to various dock crossing fees that we would have to pay when we arrived at Varohelm and assured him we would be no trouble.
By 6:30 an 8-donkey team had been assembled and with a number of handlers, leads, and poling, the barge was towed slowly upriver and we left Last Town behind. The trip was slow but steady and we got a chance to see the majority of the Black Water River in this area as well as Darkenwoods itself. Surprisingly, the amount of swamps were fairly small although the banks of the river were heavy with Cypress and Cedar trees. There was a short area where about a mile of the north bank was pretty swampy and the roadbed the donkeys were travelling on became a raised platform of wooden timbers.
As the evening was getting on we arrived at Midway’s Crossing, a mouthy name of a converted waystation that had grown to some sort of town. There was an arcing bridge that crossed the river here and from the look of things and the map that Steiner had the presence of copying from memory after we had left Sir Balderi’s earlier; there was a road north out of here that went north to someplace called Danver’s Clearing. However, as had been explained to us, we would NOT be leaving the barge since we didn’t want to a) piss off the locals, b) pay for 2 dock crossing fees (off and on the boat), c) give anyone a reason to separate the party for any reason AND possibly suss out both Marcus and Erd as elves on board. Captain Dornus told us that we would stay here at Midway’s Crossing for 2 hours or so in order for the men to stretch their legs and to get a new team of donkeys hitched up to tow us the rest of the way upriver.
Whether it was the citizens of Midway’s Crossing or some plants by Captain Dornus and his crew, a number of people did come to the dock to entice the party. First a group of hookers and their pimp tried to either get the party to come off or to come on board to take care of the group; we rebuffed them often and hard. Then in the dark, a shadowy figure offered to give us a sealed metal box and some coins if we could deliver it to a contact in Varohelm; we also said no and wished his well and to get the fuck away from us.
By 8:30 that night we were off and from what the Captain was telling us, it was 15 or so hours from Midway’s Crossing to Helm Lake (body of water that Varohelm was on, north side of the lake). It was dark and we were getting tired, plus being on the barge another more than half a day was going to make the party useless when we arrived. So we decided that we would stagger our sleep for now, with everyone getting a full night by spacing it out so that as many party members that could be up at one time would do so. It’s not that we didn’t trust the Captain or his crew…it’s just that we didn’t trust them.
It might have been for the best because at least twice, crewmen had some reason to come back to our area of the barge to “check lines” before leaving us alone. Eventually the dawn rose and the plodding donkeys and their handlers brought us further along. By 10:30 the trees were thinning and showed eventual signs of being harvested. Small fields of wild wheat and rye were dotting the land and in the distance we could see the waterway widening and a walled city taking up an area on the north shore.
We passed into Helm Lake by 11 and the current disappeared. Many smaller fishing boats and barges dotted the lake – over 3 miles wide and ¾ of a mile or so long. The city itself, Varohelm, was 2 or 3 times the size of Shakun and from our expectation, should house between 6 and 9 thousand people. The walls were over 30’ tall with numerous out pointed punji stakes fastened to the tops. Assorted towers stuck out further, some of them with ballista on top. Everywhere we looked though showed signs of decay, wear, assault, and undermanning.
When the donkeys were finally allowed to pass through the gate and tow the barge into the city itself, we had a chance to see how rough things really were. Varohelm was in a state of decay. At least a fifth of all the buildings we saw were either abandoned or demolished. It looked like swaths of the town were destroyed some time ago and although it was cleaned up, the rubble and foundations remained behind.
A number of docks stuck out from the city and we were pulled up to one where we paid Captain Dornus and disembarked. We walked the wharf area for a bit, eventually passing northward through the warehouse district. People were about, almost none of them in serious armor, but just about everyone was armed so we did not stand too far out. There was a hollowness to the people, as if they were tired or didn’t get enough nutrition in their diet.
We were given advice on two main inns in town, Shining Sword and the Flame Bolt Inn (the later one supposedly where Wizard-Lord Erazmus himself had stayed in the past). We went to the Shining Sword, reserved a room or two (at what felt was a SERIOUSLY reduced price – like 15% or so of what we would normally pay). We learned that the town is pretty hungry, empty, and poor. Although the citizenry are happy about their lot in life, they all seem to have this interest and desire to move away and making it “past Last Town and to the riches of Brewersbridge beyond.” However, the cost to move is very heavy with lots of graft and payoffs needed along the way. A few have hoofed it overland but with the giant Cats and the Risenwald, it’s pretty much assumed to be a suicide mission.
We got a layout of the two main streets and what shops were about and where we needed to go. As for Castle Sterling, the word is that the land has gone to swamp around it and a trip that might have taken 8 hours once upon a time with the roads, is now something to take much longer. We were going to need boots for the party. A cobbler was on the far end of town so we left the Shining Sword and proceeded our way there. Two main temples in Town: Ares and Gaia. There were a militant arm of the temple of Ares called Elfhunters and there was a reward if anyone was able to provide information towards the capture and sighting of an elf.
We avoided them.
Stopping at the Flame Bolt, we took a look at the two stuffed cat heads they had on display (learning that the first one was taken down by a group of 42, after which 10 of the party had died, While the 2nd one was a surprise attack on 17, where 4 of the party managed to survive the assault), and then moved on to the cobbler.
His prices were also crazy low. We bought 20 boots from his stock (high hard), spent a fraction of what were we would normally and left with our purchases happy and informed the man that his skills would go far in Shakun if he could make it there.
It was now 3 PM on Deathmonth the 28th and we were talking about what our next place to visit would be if we were to head off to Castle Sterling tomorrow.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Meet 8, Adv B2, 1/9/16 - Youth Group
The next youth meeting took place on a Saturday a few hours before my normal group got together. The new girl, Ashley, could not make the meeting since it was her sister’s birthday (as she indicated – she’d rather be over playing D&D) so I pulled her character out for the time being while the rest of the party revisited the goblin cave and pressed onward.
Write up follows:
The hobgoblins kept pace with the fleeing party for some time before giving up and turning back, their laughter taunting us as their voices echoed behind. As one, the party had retreated all the way back to the main entrance by the garbage pit and took the time to catch their breath and decide on what was to happen next. Proserpine was the most winded and freaked out, so we allowed her to leave, the elven spellsword making her way out of the caves and ravine, where she would meet with us at the wood line in a few hours after the party was ready to leave for the day.
One down now, the four remaining members went over our choices and decided going back to the hobgoblins now that they were aware of us and most likely prepared would be foolish. Instead we opted to head to the right corridor, which we knew led back to the goblin guard post and at some point the ogre that had been working with them.
So torches lit and swords and hammers at the ready, the party moved their way down the hall until they arrived at the “T” intersection – the right opened up to the goblin guard room (now dark, quiet, and empty) and the left led down a corridor we had never been at before. Discussions were hissed back and forth in the gloom but it was resolved we would look left and see what was down there.
Charlotte went first, checking for traps as we went. The corridor went 15 paces or so and turned to the left again, but at the end of the hall were over a half dozen large barrels and at least two oversized shipping crates. We approached with care, noted the shipments were all still sealed and had markings from Lyon on it – trade goods and quite some distance from here.
Looking past the stored goods the corridor went another dozen paces or so and ended at what seemed to be a dead end. A chipped and weathered water fountain took up the back wall and at the base of the fountain was a wooden chest banded in iron straps, latched and locked. No one wanted to touch the fountain (water was only trickling down the face) and the chest was inviting, but we were concerned.
It was decided that William and Loq would guard the “T” section of the hall while Charlotte and William went to work on what we’ve found. The barrels seemed to have wheat and rye – not flour, the seeds and chaff. As for the end of the hall, after 10’ poling the area and splashing the water a bit – it was assumed that there were no traps. Charlotte also couldn’t get the chest lock opened no matter how hard she tried. We discussed options and settled on William beating the wooden chest near the hasp with his sword for a bit until it gave way. This was going to make some noise – but we figured a minute or two tops and then the hell with it.
The problem became apparent after 30 seconds when we realized that we were making a REAL hell of a racket. So much racket that Loq and William were very worried. So worried that they kept looking back down the hall towards the main entrance – and that’s when they saw over a dozen small dog-faced lizard looking creatures coming down the hall towards us armed with bone knives and fire sharpened sticks. When they saw us at the end of the hall, the leader of them pointed at us, arced his head back, and roared something in his language long and loud – which inspired the rest of the kobolds to charge us.
William and Loq together took two of the flasks of oil off William’s backpack and hurled them at the ground by the entrance of the “T” – and then set it alight. The flames roared up but the spreading oil let us know that this wasn’t going to last very long. So we backed up down the hall, and the four of us shoved the barrels and boxes into a sort of barricade to slow the kobolds down.
But before we could finish it, a crazy kobold was hurled over the fire, rolled to a stop, and screamed his head off charging the party. And then another one followed. And another. They were tossing/leaping their warriors OVER the fire – and they kept on coming in 2’s and 3’s!
Arrows were shot, swords were swung, and the barrels actually helped to slow down the first few who died at the end of the corridor. But there were others, and they kept coming. And the dead and wounded were mounding up, which made the next jumping leaping lizard-like dog men easier to get to us. And there were lots of them.
One of them actually cleared William’s head, landing in the back ranks with Loq and Charlotte, bone knife slashing. Corg was holding his own but at one point we had 5 of them pressing our front rank and one of them behind us. Charlotte switched over from her bow to her enchanted dagger we got from Martigan the man holy man and his mountain lion. As she drew it and began to swing, a wave of peace slowed over her and she noted she was not as worried, at ease and calm, and moving a tick faster than the world around her – making her blows that much more likely to hit and hit a vital area.
As the combat went back and forth, it seemed that at one point the kobolds were going to break and run, but the fire died out and the last of them behind the flames joined the fight and the dog-faced monsters morale was renewed.
One of them ran to the goblin guard post and returned with a chair that he held on to his shoulders for some reason. We didn’t know what and why until one of the kobolds jumped onto the chair and brought his crossbow to bear against the party. And another kobold still at ground level did the same. This would allow them to shoot into the party AND still have one of them hit the back ranks.
Like Charlotte and her Leather Armor.
The bolts fired and William’s shield took one quarrel while Charlotte managed to dodge one that whizzed by her head. Loq’s Warhammer smashed one of the kobolds that was dancing on a barrel and stabbing at Corg while the party was finally getting the upper hand against the monsters, whittling the numbers down.
And then William was shot in the chest and his new platemail breastplate failed. The bolt punched in, dropping the warrior almost to 0, forcing William to man the front line alone. Charlotte swapped to her bow while another crossbow bolt just missed her by 4 inches. Loq had a healing elixir ready and was trying to yank the bolt out without killing the party’s fighter and leader. And the kobolds kept on attacking and shooting us.
Charlotte’s arrow only wounded the aloft crossbower who returned the favor again – and missed our thief again!! Corg finished off another front line kobold and William was finally stood upright, the minty taste of the healing elixir fresh on his tongue. The party rallied back and a lucky shot from Charlotte caught the held aloft crossbower in the neck, knocking him from the post and falling to the ground. Down to only a few, the kobolds looked at one another, spoke in their own language unhurriedly, and turned to leave – and from our biggest fears – to get a shit load more of their clan and kill off the group.
We could not get over the barricade of barrels, boxes, and dead bodies nearly fast enough and were bemoaning that we would have to leave and leave now, giving up all the found barrels and chests and what not when we heard the sounds of combat down the hall and then a few pitched screams. Light came around the corner and we beheld a wandering party of armed and armored gnomes coming towards us, lantern held high and long spears pointed ahead.
There were 6 of them and they were here to try and make their fortunes here at the caves. They killed the leaving kobolds and we talked a bit. Honest and friendly, forthright and lawful, they discussed what they had seen, took the crossbows and bolts as a thank you for their efforts, and were given a heads up of the hobgoblins down the left hall since they indicated they wanted to go that way.
On their leave we decided to take the barrels and boxes that we could carry, and the inside of the chest had three cotton shirts dyed in a striped red and brown pattern that made no sense to us. Shirts? In a locked chest? We took it with us and then left.
Rejoining Proserpine we had a slow hoof back to the Keep, the trip taking longer due to our belongings. Upon arrival back at the keep we “gave” the trade goods we had rescued back to the Castellan who rewarded us 30 crowns (we split it up). We also learned the shirts were the daywear of a troupe of priest of Ares who had been missing from the area now for 2 weeks.
Resting for the night, we wanted to seek out other adventurers who had been further through the caves to try and get their heads up on what might be ahead of us and what we might see. Lastly, it was noted that Loq and Charlotte had performed pretty well in the caves and their skills seemed to be better that we gave them credit for. Loq was going to pray to Zeus as he felt a higher connection with his god and we hoped that this would help us out and pay off for us on the next trip out to the caves.
Write up follows:
The hobgoblins kept pace with the fleeing party for some time before giving up and turning back, their laughter taunting us as their voices echoed behind. As one, the party had retreated all the way back to the main entrance by the garbage pit and took the time to catch their breath and decide on what was to happen next. Proserpine was the most winded and freaked out, so we allowed her to leave, the elven spellsword making her way out of the caves and ravine, where she would meet with us at the wood line in a few hours after the party was ready to leave for the day.
One down now, the four remaining members went over our choices and decided going back to the hobgoblins now that they were aware of us and most likely prepared would be foolish. Instead we opted to head to the right corridor, which we knew led back to the goblin guard post and at some point the ogre that had been working with them.
So torches lit and swords and hammers at the ready, the party moved their way down the hall until they arrived at the “T” intersection – the right opened up to the goblin guard room (now dark, quiet, and empty) and the left led down a corridor we had never been at before. Discussions were hissed back and forth in the gloom but it was resolved we would look left and see what was down there.
Charlotte went first, checking for traps as we went. The corridor went 15 paces or so and turned to the left again, but at the end of the hall were over a half dozen large barrels and at least two oversized shipping crates. We approached with care, noted the shipments were all still sealed and had markings from Lyon on it – trade goods and quite some distance from here.
Looking past the stored goods the corridor went another dozen paces or so and ended at what seemed to be a dead end. A chipped and weathered water fountain took up the back wall and at the base of the fountain was a wooden chest banded in iron straps, latched and locked. No one wanted to touch the fountain (water was only trickling down the face) and the chest was inviting, but we were concerned.
It was decided that William and Loq would guard the “T” section of the hall while Charlotte and William went to work on what we’ve found. The barrels seemed to have wheat and rye – not flour, the seeds and chaff. As for the end of the hall, after 10’ poling the area and splashing the water a bit – it was assumed that there were no traps. Charlotte also couldn’t get the chest lock opened no matter how hard she tried. We discussed options and settled on William beating the wooden chest near the hasp with his sword for a bit until it gave way. This was going to make some noise – but we figured a minute or two tops and then the hell with it.
The problem became apparent after 30 seconds when we realized that we were making a REAL hell of a racket. So much racket that Loq and William were very worried. So worried that they kept looking back down the hall towards the main entrance – and that’s when they saw over a dozen small dog-faced lizard looking creatures coming down the hall towards us armed with bone knives and fire sharpened sticks. When they saw us at the end of the hall, the leader of them pointed at us, arced his head back, and roared something in his language long and loud – which inspired the rest of the kobolds to charge us.
William and Loq together took two of the flasks of oil off William’s backpack and hurled them at the ground by the entrance of the “T” – and then set it alight. The flames roared up but the spreading oil let us know that this wasn’t going to last very long. So we backed up down the hall, and the four of us shoved the barrels and boxes into a sort of barricade to slow the kobolds down.
But before we could finish it, a crazy kobold was hurled over the fire, rolled to a stop, and screamed his head off charging the party. And then another one followed. And another. They were tossing/leaping their warriors OVER the fire – and they kept on coming in 2’s and 3’s!
Arrows were shot, swords were swung, and the barrels actually helped to slow down the first few who died at the end of the corridor. But there were others, and they kept coming. And the dead and wounded were mounding up, which made the next jumping leaping lizard-like dog men easier to get to us. And there were lots of them.
One of them actually cleared William’s head, landing in the back ranks with Loq and Charlotte, bone knife slashing. Corg was holding his own but at one point we had 5 of them pressing our front rank and one of them behind us. Charlotte switched over from her bow to her enchanted dagger we got from Martigan the man holy man and his mountain lion. As she drew it and began to swing, a wave of peace slowed over her and she noted she was not as worried, at ease and calm, and moving a tick faster than the world around her – making her blows that much more likely to hit and hit a vital area.
As the combat went back and forth, it seemed that at one point the kobolds were going to break and run, but the fire died out and the last of them behind the flames joined the fight and the dog-faced monsters morale was renewed.
One of them ran to the goblin guard post and returned with a chair that he held on to his shoulders for some reason. We didn’t know what and why until one of the kobolds jumped onto the chair and brought his crossbow to bear against the party. And another kobold still at ground level did the same. This would allow them to shoot into the party AND still have one of them hit the back ranks.
Like Charlotte and her Leather Armor.
The bolts fired and William’s shield took one quarrel while Charlotte managed to dodge one that whizzed by her head. Loq’s Warhammer smashed one of the kobolds that was dancing on a barrel and stabbing at Corg while the party was finally getting the upper hand against the monsters, whittling the numbers down.
And then William was shot in the chest and his new platemail breastplate failed. The bolt punched in, dropping the warrior almost to 0, forcing William to man the front line alone. Charlotte swapped to her bow while another crossbow bolt just missed her by 4 inches. Loq had a healing elixir ready and was trying to yank the bolt out without killing the party’s fighter and leader. And the kobolds kept on attacking and shooting us.
Charlotte’s arrow only wounded the aloft crossbower who returned the favor again – and missed our thief again!! Corg finished off another front line kobold and William was finally stood upright, the minty taste of the healing elixir fresh on his tongue. The party rallied back and a lucky shot from Charlotte caught the held aloft crossbower in the neck, knocking him from the post and falling to the ground. Down to only a few, the kobolds looked at one another, spoke in their own language unhurriedly, and turned to leave – and from our biggest fears – to get a shit load more of their clan and kill off the group.
We could not get over the barricade of barrels, boxes, and dead bodies nearly fast enough and were bemoaning that we would have to leave and leave now, giving up all the found barrels and chests and what not when we heard the sounds of combat down the hall and then a few pitched screams. Light came around the corner and we beheld a wandering party of armed and armored gnomes coming towards us, lantern held high and long spears pointed ahead.
There were 6 of them and they were here to try and make their fortunes here at the caves. They killed the leaving kobolds and we talked a bit. Honest and friendly, forthright and lawful, they discussed what they had seen, took the crossbows and bolts as a thank you for their efforts, and were given a heads up of the hobgoblins down the left hall since they indicated they wanted to go that way.
On their leave we decided to take the barrels and boxes that we could carry, and the inside of the chest had three cotton shirts dyed in a striped red and brown pattern that made no sense to us. Shirts? In a locked chest? We took it with us and then left.
Rejoining Proserpine we had a slow hoof back to the Keep, the trip taking longer due to our belongings. Upon arrival back at the keep we “gave” the trade goods we had rescued back to the Castellan who rewarded us 30 crowns (we split it up). We also learned the shirts were the daywear of a troupe of priest of Ares who had been missing from the area now for 2 weeks.
Resting for the night, we wanted to seek out other adventurers who had been further through the caves to try and get their heads up on what might be ahead of us and what we might see. Lastly, it was noted that Loq and Charlotte had performed pretty well in the caves and their skills seemed to be better that we gave them credit for. Loq was going to pray to Zeus as he felt a higher connection with his god and we hoped that this would help us out and pay off for us on the next trip out to the caves.
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