DFRPG Arden Vul Session 35: The Scepter / Flute of the Goblins

Date: 

Demmasday, 26th of Dikaios, 2993 AE

Weather: 

Cold, freezing rain

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Coinbase, Mercenary illusionist (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Lyssandra and Pelteon, co-owners of the Arcane Practitioners' Club

Wicktrimmer, Imperial Goblin head of the Rarities Factor

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Freydis, Steward to Lady Alexia

Trillis and Noredden Galesson, elven leaders of Arcane Vengeance

Bottleneck, goblin master sergeant

Many goblins

Roger the Rapier, leader of the Five Fingers of Destiny adventuring company

Clavinia, mage

Clavinia's men-at-arms

Temrin, goblin Royal Artist

Several lizardmen

Several orge guards

Lukor, leading a mysterious group of wizards and their bodyguards

Many beastmen

Count Skleros, beastman commander

Many stirges

4 zombies

2 construct spearmen

The Plan:

• Visit Temrin in the Goblin Market; get his magic map to the gold Rudishva ID
• Try to commission another map from Temrin
• Covertly explore behind the secret door on the upper wall of the Goblin Market
• Visit the Obelisk of Thoth near Upper Goblintown and ask Thoth for one of his secret names
• Cast Analyze Magic on the floating head in Upper Goblintown
• Test out the teleportation squares with the teleportation ring near the floating head
• Explore the glowing room northwest of Upper Goblintown
• Explore the unexplored rooms northeast of Upper Goblintown

What Happened:

A note appeared in on the bulletin board in the lounge of the Arcane Practitioners' Club, instructing that members renting apartments may not keep explosive or flammable items powerful enough to damage the structure of the building in their rooms.

A letter arrived from Wicktrimmer, indicating that he was in Narsileon, found some of the items on the group's shopping list, and should be back to Gosterwick in a few weeks.  He expressed condolences on Uvash's temporary death and concern at the burglary (and explosion and fire) in their apartment.

Vael (providing management and Shape Earth spells) and Basil (providing the muscle) expanded the library in the Annex of the Beacon and dumped all the excess stone in the vacant lot next to the Arcane Practitioner's Club.  Vael wrote a letter to Freydis, Lady Alexia's steward, indicating that the stone was a gift to the town for use in the future town walls.  The stone disappeared, but the letter was not answered.

Vallium bought a pair of earrings, intending to give one earring to Craastonistorex as tribute and keep the other.

The group picked up Coinbase at the Grudge Brigade headquarters and hiked to Arden Vul through freezing rain.  The climb up the Long Stair looked unsafe in the ice, so three members stepped through a teleport Rug and Vael and Coinbase Levitated up.  After bringing everyone back through the Rug, they hiked to the dam to leave tribute for the dragon.  Coinbase suggested that a single earring looked suspicious, so everyone threw in some coins, and Vael also included a note apologizing for the meager tribute and saying it was because their apartment had been robbed and they were temporarily short of treasure.

They continued northeast toward the Pyramid of Thoth, but ran into a group of elves, also out in the freezing rain, who were casting spells and mapping.  One of the elves recognized Vael and introduced himself as Trillis Galesson, co-leader of Arcane Vengeance.  He inquired on whether Vael knew the location of any large amounts of arcanum.  Vael did not.  The elves left to resume their triangulation.

They went down into the Pyramid of Thoth, where the entry door was wide open, and most of the goblins inside were drunk.  All had a new patch on their uniforms, featuring a sack overflowing with golden coins.  Some asking around revealed that the Five Fingers of Destiny had found an ancient goblin treasury somewhere in Upper Goblintown (but the exact location was a secret) and had rightfully declared that part of the treasure belonged to King Weskenim.  They also announced that that it was too much treasure for them to carry, so they got Bottleneck's permission to hire off-duty goblins to carry treasure down to the King and up to the top of the Pyramid, and Bottleneck had modified the duty roster so that all the goblins in his command got to carry at least one bag of coins down to the King.  King Weskenim had decorated every goblin who had participated in the operation, and they were still celebrating.

After some whining about other people finding treasure, Right for Riches went south to the secret stairs behind the baboon door, then through the Cave of Gog and the Wet Caves to Goblintown.  They reached the goblin market and found several other visitors: a red-haired woman (with bodyguards) trying to sell relics to Claudine, a squad of beastmen standing around, and a group of lizardmen trying to buy potions from Jobim using broken Archontean.  Vael introduced himself to the woman, who said she was Clavinia, a mage.  He asked to see the items that Claudine didn't buy and purchased them for himself.  The beastman sergeant whispered something about one of their men being held captive and asked if anyone could intervene with the king to set him loose.

Vallium went over to Temrin, who was wearing a new patch with a picture of himself holding a paintbrush.  An inquiry about the patch got Temrin to reveal that he had been promoted to Royal Artist.  He got Master Leifcrim to open the vault, and came back with the map he had made to the golden oval plaque.  He also returned the rust-colored oval plaque he had used as a focus to help make the map.  Vallium tried to commission another map, but Temrin said that as Royal Artist he had been commissioned by the King to make a map to the Scepter of the Goblins and had been told to accept no other jobs until he was done.

Temrin's map, with Vallium's annotations

Not knowing exactly what the Scepter of the Goblins looked like, but wanting to find it before the Five Fingers of Destiny or some other group did, Vael tried a Seeker spell.  Surprisingly, it appeared to work, and gave him a vision of a long bone in an urn surrounded by smaller wooden sticks.  Vael followed up the Seeker with a Trace, which told him the Scepter was up and south.  Using his Absolute Direction, he estimated that this was somewhere in the northeastern part of the Great Cavern.

With business concluded, the group set out to explore behind the secret door high on the wall.  Coinbase flew around the room (attracting the attention of many young goblins) and tried to sneakily cast a Silence spell and a Complex Illusion of the undisturbed wall over the secret door, to help avoid attracting attention if they had to open it.  The whole group then went south into the empty corridor, out of sight of all the goblins, so they could use the Rug unobserved.  The ogre guards initially stopped them, but then believed Vael's story that they had to talk to the wizards back there and let them through.  Everyone except Vael went through the Rug to the Beacon, then Vael used Larel's Cloak to turn invisible, and Levitated back past the ogre guards and up the wall to the secret door.  He tried Blinking blind through the door.  His first attempt failed, but he retried and ended up in a dark empty place.  He cast Infravision, which let him see that the room was about ten by ten by ten feet and empty, with stone walls.  He then pulled out his Continual Light stone so he could see better, spread out the Rug, and waited for the others to join him.  They searched the room until Vallium found a secret door on the north wall, then let Vael search it for traps, then pushed it open.

On the other side was a larger storeroom, looking like it had not been disturbed in centuries.  It was full of stuff: a suit of amazing armor composed of steel plates molded to the shape of a human body (kind of like the armor that Sir Sorrow the Sun-Scarred Knight wore, but not quite as fancy), several prayer rugs (two of them magical), a few larger carpets, some wooden planks, some construction equipment, and some chests and barrels.  The chests contained a few old legionary shortswords, a crossbow, and a small magical metal rod covered in runes.  The barrels were mostly empty, but Uvash spotted some red gems glued to the inside of one of the lids.  They put the Rug on the floor and carried everything in the room except the empty barrels back to the Beacon.  When they were done, Vael (who was still invisible) picked up the Rug, Blinked back through the secret door, Levitated back to the southern passage, and put the Rug down so the others could join them there.  

They then went back to talk to the wizards to reinforce their cover story.  One of the bodyguards opened the door, and one of the wizards came to talk.  He asked some questions about the large treasure he had heard the King had found.  He again refused to identify his group, saying his leader had not permitted him to share that information.  He did say that his name was Lukor.  Vael suggested that he talk to his leaders and get permission to share more in the future.

The group went back up to Upper Goblintown.  At that point they reconsidered their previous plan and decided they needed to find the Scepter of the Goblins while Vael had an active Trace on it, and before the Five Fingers of Destiny or some other lesser adventuring party did.  Since it was in the Great Cavern, they could either go up to the surface then south to the Long Stair then down to the secret entrance then back north, or just go south through beastman territory.  The latter was closer and didn't require going out in the freezing rain, so they went to the border room with the barricade down the middle and yelled to get a beastman guard's attention.  They said they wanted to negotiate passage, so the guard got his sergeant.  Vael proposed giving the beastmen some planks of lumber in exchange for passage to the Great Cavern.  The sergeant went to get Count Skleros, and they eventually agreed on ten boards.  Vallium took the Rug around the corner and carried ten boards back out through it, which he piled up for the beastmen troops to collect.  Skleros and a sergeant, flanked by a couple of troopers, escorted the group through their rooms to the Great Cavern.

Vallium asked the Count about the mailed fist symbol they had seen on a beastman corpse, and Skleros said that was the insignia of the third cohort of the Imperial Tagmata, the Emperor's own guard unit, which had been wiped out in Arden Vul during Adrienic's failed expedition over 200 years ago.  He said that some of the Children of Deino had an affinity for that unit and had adopted its insignia.  Vael asked if Skleros knew about Ambrosia.  He did not.  Vael revealed that there were some beastmen loyal to Ambrosia rather than Deino somewhere in the Great Cavern, possibly charmed.  Skeleros was alarmed by this.  Vael asked if Deino herself might want to meet with them.  Skleros revealed that she might, but he did not recommend it.

When they were reached the Great Cavern, most of the group stepped through the Rug again, and Vael and Coinbase flew east toward a side cave where Vael thought the Scepter was.  When they reached the entrance, Vael didn't want to go in without more backup, so he Apportated the Rug to the floor and magically unfolded it.  The others stepped through and they started exploring a cave system.  Uvash got a bit too far in front of the group and got ambushed by about a dozen stirges.  They surrounded him and started trying to feed on his blood, but fortunately his armor was thick enough to stop most of their attacks.  Vallium quickly ran to his aid, then Vael used a Shape Air spell to focus a strong wind on Uvash, which was not enough to blow Uvash over but was strong enough to repel any strix that came too close.  After a few striges were blown into the cavern wall at high speed, the rest fled through a crack in the south wall.  Vael used Shape Earth to seal the crack.

Exploring more cautiously, the group went north, up a slippery slope, and then found a room with six urns.  Vael's Trace spell told him that one urn contained the Scepter, surrounded by a lot of wooden sticks.  It was a three-foot-long legbone, possibly from an ogre or troll.  It was hollowed out, with holes drilled along one side, like a gigantic flute.  It was magical.  They took the scepter, then searched all the urns.  One was full of black sand.  One was full of small white rocks that they thought were non-valuable calcite.  One was full of some kind of disgusting rotten plant material.  One had a few inches of oil on top of a lot of water.  And the last had a few inches of water on top of a big block of what looked like gold.  The urn was heavy enough to be full of gold; Vallium could barely move it.  Coinbase cast Lighten Burden on him to make it easier, and he carried it through the Rug back to the Beacon.

There were some wooden scraps on the east wall that looked like the remains of a ladder, and a couple of holes in the floor where it may have been based.  Vael flew up and searched for a secret door up on the wall, and found one.  Vallium pulled an intact ladder out of Larel's Sack and set it up against the wall, then climbed up and bashed the secret door open.  On the other side were some zombies and construct spearmen.  Vallium initially fought them from the top of the ladder.  He then stepped into the room to make space for Uvash and Coinbase to join him.  The zombies went down pretty quickly.  The constructs were much tougher, but one went down after three good hits, and then they surrounded the other.  One hard blow stunned it and caused it to drop its spear, and once it was on the ground the three of them smashed it from all sides until it stopped moving.

On the far wall of the room was a sarcophagus.  Coinsbase and Vallium pulled the lid off.  Inside were some decayed remains, buried with a lot of ancient silver pennies, and a few other valuable objects like a magical torc, a golden ceremonial helmet, an ebony magic wand, and a few potions.  They scooped up everything in the sarcophagus except the remains, and headed back out to the Great Cavern.  They again had most of the group go through the Rug while Vael and Coinbase Levitated south over the lake, and then landed to reform the party.  Vallium led them through the eastern side passages then south to the secret exit.  At that point most of the party went into the Rug again, and Vael and Coinbase Levitated all the way to Gosterwick through the freezing rain.  It was a cold flight, but they made it back to town intact.

GM's Comments:

The Right for Riches Company learned that other adventuring parties can find treasure too.  They did not like this.

They got their map to the Gold Rudishva ID from Temrin, and spent some time figuring it out.  The map seemed to lead them deeper than they have gone so far under Arden Vul.  We'll see if they follow it soon, or prioritize goals that seem easier to reach.

They found a giant bone flute that Seeker said was the Scepter of the Goblins.  They plan to bring it to King Weskenim.

They also found a second set of the Rugs of Instant Access.  The first set has been very useful.  Do they keep the second set for themselves, or sell it to Wicktrimmer?

XP: 

• Exploration: 6 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: They will sell enough of the loot they found to get 2 XP
• Achievements: None
• Total: 3 XP

Next Week:

They plan to being the Scepter / Flute to King Weskenim.  After that, they're considering two options.  One would be resuming the plan from this delve that they aborted to find the Scepter: use the Obelisk of Thoth to get a secret name of Thoth, identify the floating head, and explore some unexplored areas near Upper Goblintown.  The other is to go after Ambrosia in the Great Cavern and bring the charmed beastmen back to Count Skleros, to try to gain an alliance with the beastmen and free passage through their territory.  We'll see which one they pick.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 34c: Burglary and Death

Date: 

Lunday, 12th of Dikaios through Lunday 19th of Dikaios, 2993 AE

Weather: 

Cold, partly cloudy

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Significant NPCs:

Onyx, cat

Unidentified dead human thief

Lyssandra, co-owner of the Arcane Practitioners' Club

Pelteon, co-owner of the Arcane Practitioners' Club

Many Disciplined

Several trained large albino baboons

Tikun Thane, wizard, slaver, and baboon kidnapper

Eustathios Skleros, Drome investigator

Barnaby Goodbarrel, lawyer

Sakeon, horse dealer

Ravi, groom and teamster

Bobo and Bifki, kidnapped large albino baboons

Aelfred, enslaved Thorcin man

Ragnar, enslaved Wiskin man

Basil, enslaved Archontean man

The Plan:

• Rescue Bobo and Bifki from Tikun Thane

What Happened:

While the rest of the Right for Riches company was invading the Tower of the Ape, Uvash was in the House of the Gods in Gosterwick, discussing Zodarrim with his small group of mostly dwarven faithful.  He was surprisingly interrupted by Onyx the cat, who ran into the House at full speed, meowing at Uvash like someone was standing on his tail.  He grabbed the hem of Uvash's mail vestments and started tugging, until Uvash excused himself and followed the cat to the south.  Onyx led Uvash to the Arcane Practitioner's Club, where many people were standing outside, watching a fire on the top floor.  They saw Lyssandra through the top floor windows, using spells to put out the fire.

With the fire out, Lyssandra came out and saw Uvash.  She said the fire had started in one of their apartments and asked if he knew what was going on.  He did not.  She asked if he knew where the others were, and he said they had gone to Arden Vul without him because he had church.  She asked about the crispy dead guy in their apartment, and Uvash had no idea what she was talking about, and went up with her to look.  There was a horribly burned body in their apartment, with a backpack full of their stuff, and their other things scattered all over the room, some of them intact, some destroyed.  The statue head they had recovered from the Great Cavern under Arden Vul sat alone in the closet, grinning malevolently.  A knife Uvash did not recognize sat next to the statue.

Lyssandra asked Uvash to stick around to answer questions from The Drome's investigators.  She left, and Uvash started tidying up the room.  He put the slightly burned Rug of Instant Access back in the center of the room, and started separating the broken and intact items.

Meanwhile Vael and Vallium stepped back through the teleportation portal from the Tower of the Ape back to the ruins of Arden Vul to join Ioannes, who was just waking up after being horribly wounded by a Disciplined's scimitar and then being force-fed a Great Healing potion.  All three were exhausted: Vael from spellcasting, Vallium from fighting under the influence of Great Haste, and Ioannes from being stabbed.  All three rested for a few minutes, then Ioannes started using Recover Energy to help the others recover, while Vallium watched the portal in case anyone followed them through it.  Nobody did, so Vael eventually tried the Rug of Instant Access again, and ended up back in the apartment in Gosterwick, where Uvash was still cleaning up.

After an explanation of the mess and the dead guy from Uvash, Vael went downstairs to talk to Lyssandra and Pelteon and try to get them to recharge his power item.  They asked him to stay around to talk to the Drome, but he said his friends were in mortal danger and he'd be back later.  He and Uvash then went back through the Rug to Arden Vul to join Vallium and Ioannes.  All four then used the portal to the Tower of the Ape.

The level of the tower with the teleporter was empty.  They went down a couple of levels and found three Disciplined waiting in formation, with a couple of baboons with spears behind them.  Tikun Thane was not in sight.

Another combat against the Disciplined began.  Vael cast Blur on both Vallium and Uvash.  Uvash used Divine Grace, then stepped into combat beside Vallium.  Vallium and Uvash injured all three Disciplined, but one of them landed a fatal blow on Uvash in reply.  Vael and Ioannes dragged Uvash's body up the stairs, while Vallium kept fighting the Disciplined and baboons.  He critically injured one and disarmed another, but hurt his weapon arm to the point where he could no longer fight effectively.  He tried a couple of shield bashes, and Vael dropped a Smoke spell to distract the baboons.  Vallium eventually decided he could not defeat the Disciplined without his sword, and they all retreated back up the stairs and back through the portal.  The surviving Disciplined and baboons did not pursue.

Ioannes took Uvash's body back through the Rug to Gosterwick, then dragged him to the Church of Mitra, as he knew Jador the Just was capable of Resurrection.  Jador needed a very large donation, plus the help of all the clerics of both Mitra and Demma in town (including Ioannes) to perform the ritual.  After a few hours of holy ritual, Uvash rose from the dead, exhausted.  Ioannes got one of the lesser clerics of Demma to cast a Major Healing on Uvash, and then they went back to their apartment and through the Rug back to Arden Vul.

Vael and Vallium were watching the portal there.  Vael went back through the Rug to get his recharged power item, and ran into the Drome's investigators.  After answering a bunch of questions about the thief and how he ended up burned to death, the investigators let him go.  He went back through the Rug.  They then tried going back through the portal, but it failed to activate.  Vael looked it it closely and said he thought the portal on this side looked the same, but theorized that the one on the other side had been disabled.

Not wanting to give up on catching Tikun Thane and rescuing Bobo and Bifki, the party went back to the Beacon, then used the Rug to teleport to Gosterwick.  First they went to their lawyer, Barnaby Goodbarrel, and explained what had happened in their apartment.  He said he didn't think they'd done anything illegal, and advised telling the truth to the Drome.  He went with them to the House of Sight, where they gave a statement to the investigator.  Not wanting to walk the three days to Newmarket if they could help it, they then went to Sakeon the Horse Whisperer to hire a carriage.  Sakeon said there was no regularly scheduled carriage service, but he did have a carriage and some horses and could spare a man to drive them to Newmarket.  They paid Sakeon and took a long, cold, boring carriage ride to Newmarket.  When they arrived, Vael conspicuously went shopping, and actually found some Giant Spider Silk.  Then they rented a room and ate dinner.  Late that night, the other three stepped through the Rug to the Beacon, then Vael turned invisible with Larel's Cloak and Levitated over to the Tower of the Ape.  He flew around the tower, didn't see anyone through the windows, but detected a low-mana zone around the tower.  He flew through it to the balcony, spread out the Rug, stepped through to alert the others, then they all went back to the Tower.

The doors from the balcony to the middle tower level were barred, but Vael used Lockmaster to break in.  They searched the top two levels of the tower and didn't find anyone.  They went downstairs and didn't find anyone there either.  They looked at the teleporter, and Vael confirmed that it had somehow been deactivated but not destroyed.  They searched the library and saw that about half the books were gone.  They went through some doors they had not previously opened and found some barracks, a storeroom, and a magical cold storage room full of fresh meat.  Having found no sign of the wizard or any captured baboons, they started looking for secret doors.  Ioannes eventually found one, but it was locked.  Vael magically unlocked it, revealing stairs down to a basement.

The basement looked like a wizard's lab, but it had clearly been mostly emptied.  There was some lab equipment remaining, along with a few broken pieces of magical items.  There was a locked door, as well as some stairs down.  The door resisted Vael's Lockmaster spell, so they went down the stairs.  There they saw 2 cells, one with 3 men, the other with 2 baboons.  The men asked for water, and then the baboons gestured for the same.  Vallium gave food and water to both groups through the bars, then went looking for keys, while Vael talked to the men.  All three had been captured by Settite slavers, then sold to Tikun Thane at the slave market in the Forum of Set.  They had been fed a diet of mostly raw meat and forced to perform exercises and fight each other with sticks while one of the Disciplined had given combat instructions and whipped the losers.  Then, about three days ago, their guard had run upstairs to deal with some emergency, and since then nobody had returned to feed them.

Vallium found a key and unlocked both cells.  Vael searched both cells and surprisingly found a no-mana zone in one corner of the baboons' cell, but nothing else interesting.

Asking the prisoners to wait, the group went up a floor and Vael used Shape Earth to punch a hole in the wall next to the door he could not open.  Beyond was a large storeroom full of shelves.  It had been mostly emptied of valuables, but Ioannes grabbed a bunch of mushrooms, and Vael took some empty chests.  Before leaving, Vael cast Seeker on Tikun Thane, and got a vision of him in a windowless room, surrounded by piles of wizardly stuff.  He followed up with Trace and found that Tikun Thane was in Narsileon, meaning he'd made a three-week trip in three days.  They assumed he'd used some kind of teleportation.

Vael talked to the three men, saying they were free and could stay here in Newmarket, or come back in the carriage to Gosterwick, or that they'd be interested in hiring one of them if any of them could read.  None claimed to be able to read, but Basil said he'd be willing to learn, so Vael hired him to turn pages for Akla-Chah and Stamelis in the Beacon.  Ioannes used his Animal Handling skill to convince the baboons to let Vallium lift them through the Rug back to the Beacon, where Vael used Blink Other to pop them through the roof to the surface ruins of Arden Vul.  From there, both ran over the bridge and back toward the cliff face.  Seeing that the baboons knew the way back to the Howling Caves, Vael and Vallium went back to the Tower, took Basil through the Rug to introduce him to Akla-Chah and Stamelis, then went back through the Rug one more time to the Tower.  They detached the non-functioning teleportation portal from the wall, trying not to destroy it, and Vallium carried the heavy thing back to their carriage.  They then took the three-day carriage ride back to Gosterwick, along with the other two prisoners.  When they reached Gosterwick, Vallium gave both men some money for supplies, and they thanked their rescuers and left for their respective farms.

GM's Comments:

Uvash was the first PC to die in Arden Vul.  Fortunately for him, his body was recovered and there was enough money and goodwill for a Resurrection.

The PCs were unlucky to have their apartment burgled.  The thief was unlucky to touch the wrong statue's eyes and experience a 9d Explosive Fireball at point-blank range.  The PCs were lucky to have their Rug of Instant Access survive the fireball, though they lost a lot of other stuff.  (Never in my life have I rolled so many item survival rolls.)

Basil is the Right for Riches Company's first employee.

XP:

• Exploration: 63 new locations across 3 sessions: 2 XP for most of the party, 1 XP for Uvash
• Loot: They found quite a bit.  Not sure what they'll sell or how they'll split it, but probably 2 XP.
• Achievements: The Rescuers, 1 XP for rescuing 3 human and 2 baboon prisoners

Next Week:

They plan to go back to Goblintown to get their map from Temrin and have Vael invisibly explore the secret door they found high on the wall of the Goblin Market.  Then they plan to go to Upper Goblintown and ask Thoth for one of his secret names, then investigate the bronze floating head, then explore the glowing room in the northwestern part of the Halls of Thoth, then check out the unexplored parts of the northeastern parts of the Halls of Thoth mentioned on a map they found.

Limited Point Consolidation House Rule

In DF Whiterock, I allowed fairly unlimited point consolidation.  For example, I let a PC reduce 10 DX skills from [2] to [1] points each, plus pay 10 more points, for a point of DX [20].  As long as nothing went down.  See https://dfwhiterock.blogspot.com/2018/09/update-on-trading-in-house-rule.html

I think that was a bit too good.  So in DFRPG Arden Vul, I have restricted this further.  I'm still allowing buying attributes piecemeal: you can trade in 1 HP [2] and 1 point of Striking ST [5] along with 3 points to get a full point of ST [10].  And I'm obviously still allowing leveling up leveled advantages: obviously you can trade Fit [5] plus 10 points for Very Fit [15].  (I think the latter is RAW, not even a house rule.)  But I'm not allowing taking points out of skills (including spells) to bump attributes anymore.

(The fine print: you can only trade in secondary attributes that were bought independently; you can't do this with stuff from a racial template.  If you're a dwarf and you got Lifting ST 2 [6] as part of your dwarf template, you always have to keep that Lifting ST 2.  You can't just trade it in when you raise your ST.)

My justification for not allowing it for skills is that skills aren't always used against their base attribute.  For example, Traps is listed as an IQ-based skill, but it's very often used with Per (for finding traps) or DX (to disarm traps) instead.  So when you take points out of a skill and put them in the controlling attribute, it gets worse when you use it with another attribute, which breaks the "nothing gets worse" goal of the house rule.

I see the counter-argument for spells: they're only used against IQ+Magery (or Power Investiture or Bardic Talent), so taking points out of spells to boost IQ or Magery (etc.) should be fine.  I see the point, but I reject it for two reasons.  One, I want simple house rules, not complicated ones full of exceptions.  Two, spellcasters are already too good, so they don't deserve house rules to make them even better.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 34b: Tower of the Ape

Date: 

Lunday, 12th of Dikaios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cold, partly cloudy

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Significant NPCs:

Bobo and Bifki, kidnapped large albino baboons

Many Disciplined

Several trained large albino baboons

Tikun Thane, wizard and alleged baboon kidnapper

The Plan:

• Rescue Bobo and Bifki from Tikun Thane

What Happened:

The battle resumed, with Great Hasted, Blurred Vallium at the front of the murder room fighting two Disciplined and four trained baboons, with Ioannes and Vael behind him.  

Situation at the start of the session

The disarmed Disciplined ran to a weapon rack in the northeast corner of the tower to grab another scimitar, while Vallium defeated the remaining Disciplined and parried and blocked several baboon spears.  Meanwhile, a murder hole opened in the roof of the murder closet, and a Disciplined above dropped an Alchemist's Fire grenade.  Ioannes heard something above and got his shield up, to try to block the grenade against the wall.  The grenade burst against the shield, dousing Ioannes in flame, but he was unharmed thanks to his Salamander Amulet.

Vallium charged into the tower to engage the remaining Disciplined, and Ioannes followed him into the room, on fire, and shield rushed a baboon.  The baboon dodged.  The Disciplined took a stab at Ioannes's open back, and would have grievously wounded him, but Ioannes was saved by his Bless, which went away.  Meanwhile Vael cast Create Fire up through the murder hole, igniting the floor above, and forcing the Disciplined grenadiers above to retreat.

Vael finished off the baboons, then headed up the spiral stairs to the west, with Vael and Ioannes behind him.  The the top of the spiral stairs was a short hallway to the east, ending in a closed door.  Vallium tried opening the door, but it was locked.  Then the door started jiggling, with the metallic scraping sound of someone inserting a key.  Vallium stepped back and waited to attack anyone coming through.  The door opened, there were two Disciplined on the other side.  Vallium defeated both of them.

Vael went north, to a room with a magical fire still burning on the floor to the west.  There was a staircase leading up.  Vael went up the stairs and found an attic room with no exits, but a backpack and some clothes along the wall in the corner.  He gathered all the clothes into the backpack, then took the backpack back down the stairs.

Meanwhile, Ioannes and Vallium saw some more Disciplined coming up the spiral stairs to the west.  Vallium took position at the top of the stairs and defeated several Disciplined.  Then he saw a man in a black robe at the bottom of the stairs, who started firing magical missiles at him.  Vallium got hit by a couple; they went right through his armor and shield, and also appeared unaffected by his Missile Shield amulet.  But he dodged most of them, while he continued beating back the Disciplined.  He pulled out a Magebane potion and threw it down the stairs.  It exploded, releasing a cloud of green gas.  Tikun Thane held his breath to avoid breathing the gas, and retreated away from the cloud.  A few seconds later, he cast a Purify Air spell, clearing the Magebane gas, then resumed position at the bottom of the stairs, throwing missiles at Vallium.

Vael came back down the stairs from the attic, used Larel's Cloak to turn invisible, and then Levitated over the stairway to ambush Tikun Thane.  He charged up a Lightning spell, aimed, then fired it at the wizard directly below him.  The lightning was accurate, but did surprisingly little damage to the wizard, and failed to stun him.  As Tikun Thane refocused his missile attacks on Vael, Vael turned invisible again, and retreated out of line of sight.

Vallium eventually defeated all the Disciplined on the stairs, and started down after the mage.  The battle continued back on the level where they had teleported in.  When Vallium caught up with Tikun Thane, the wizard Blinked away, out of sight.

With their opponent temporarily out of sight, the Right for Riches company spent some time running around the upper levels of the tower.  They went back up to the room with the magical fire, and opened two singed chests, one with silver coins and one with gold coins.  They found a bedroom but only found clothing and bedding to steal there.  They then went out the doors on the level where they started, and found a balcony around the middle of the tower.  On the balcony was a small shack, but after they all gathered outside to attack whatever was inside, they found it was only an outhouse.

They went down another level, and found a library, a dining room, and a kitchen.  They took the one magical book in the library (a spellbook, with a warning on the cover that anyone taking it would be killed), as well as a few jars of spices from the kitchen.  The spiral stairs ended there, but they found another staircase down.

As they took the stairs down, they saw Tikun Thane, with almost a dozen more Disciplined and a few more baboons, formed up in formation for a final battle.  Not wanting to charge into the room, they went back up the stairs to the level with the teleporter.  Vallium drank potions of Agility, Flight, and Strength.  A few minutes later the Disciplined started coming up the stairs in formation.

While Vallium fought them, Tikun Thane showed up on the balcony and started firing missiles from behind.  Vallium responded by flying at him, much faster than the wizard expected.  Tikun Thane Blinked away from Vallium's attack, farther north on the balcony.  Vallium kept up his pursuit, and Tikun Thane eventually Blinked out of sight, presumably back down.  With Vallium no longer holding the line, the Disciplined engaged Ioannes, and one of them managed to hit him in the back, wounding him badly.  (Vael was nearby but still invisible.)  Ioannes ran for the teleporter, and one of the Disciplined hit him in the back, almost killing him.  He fell down, and passed out a couple of seconds later.  With Tikun Thane gone, Vallium returned to the fight.  Meanwhile, Vael picked up Ioannes and pulled him through the portal.  Back on the other side, he pulled a Greater Healing potion out of Ioannes's pouch and poured it down the cleric's throat.  Once Ioannes no longer appeared to be in danger of dying, Vael re-activated the teleporter and came back through to the Tower of the Ape.  He arrived to see Vallium finishing off the last Disciplined on that level.

We stopped there, with Ioannes unconscious on the Arden Vul side of the teleporter and Vael and Vallium in a middle level of the Tower of the Ape, surrounded by bodies of about a dozen Disciplined and several baboons.  They had made Tikun Thane retreat, and eliminated many of his minions, but had not yet achieved their goal, and had decided not to return to Arden Vul or Gosterwick just yet.

GM's Comments:

Full-session battles are exhausting.  It was actually four separate battles, but they were all in the same tower against the same group of opponents, so it felt like one long slog.

By the end, Tikun Thane had been forced to retreat three times (once by a Magebane grenade, once by Vallium eliminating all the Disciplined on the stairs, and once by Vallium flying past all the Disciplined in the tower to engage him in melee on the balcony) and had been singed by lightning once, but had not been defeated.  Many of his minions were down, though.

On the PC side, Ioannes was nearly fatally wounded; he lost his Bless and later needed Luck to survive a death check.  Vallium lost his Bless and needed Luck several times.  Vael spent most of the battle invisible, so was not injured, but burned a lot of energy casting spells.

XP: 

They stopped again in mid-delve, so no XP was awarded.  Anything they did this session and the previous session will be added to next session's XP, if they make it out.

Next Week:

They're still trying to defeat Tikun Thane and try to rescue Bobo and Bifki.  After that, they can try to reunite with Uvash and figure out why their Rugs of Instant Access stopped working.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 34a: Hunting the Thane

Date: 

Lunday, 12th of Dikaios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cold, partly cloudy

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Significant NPCs:

Yamki, 3-armed intelligent giant baboon

Bobo and Bifki, kidnapped large albino baboons

Many large albino baboons

Inkor, 4-armed intelligent giant baboon

3 sand worms

Ranko, 4-armed intelligent giant baboon

2 carcass creepers

4 huge spiders

6 ibis gargoyles

6 shadows

3 Disciplined

4 trained large albino baboons

Tikun Thane, wizard and alleged baboon kidnapper

The Plan:

• Buy some meat
• Perform the Litany of Light
• Give meat to the baboons
• Get Yamki to show the paths south of the Howling Caves, where the Thane went
• Track down the Thane and rescue Bobo and Bifki

What Happened:

Uvash had church business and no Grudge Brigade mercenaries were available, so only three members of the Right for Riches company were on hand to try to find The Thane (who Vallium presumes is the same person as the wizard Tikun Thane in Newmarket) and rescue Bobo and Bifki.  They used the Rugs of Instant Access to teleport from Gosterwick back to the Beacon, under the ruins of Arden Vul.  Vael used Blink to pop through the stone cover over the stairs to the surface, then set down a Rug so the others could join him.  They walked over a bridge then across the Forum to the Well of Light, where Vael Levitated down, then again used the Rug to bring the others.

It was a mostly cloudy day, so they decided not to try the Litany of Light, which requires sunlight.  They went east toward the Howling Caves, where Yamki was waiting with many other baboons.  Yamki agreed to lead them south across the Howling Caves and show them the passage leading toward the Cliff Face, but he said he couldn't take them all the way there, as he needed to stay in his territory and didn't get along with some of the other baboons to the south.  He warned the group about Ranko in particular.

In the cave immediately south of the Howling Caves, they ran into several other baboons.  Yamki had a conversation with them, and said they had seen the Thane and his minions when they had come to kidnap Bobo and Bifki, but not where they had come from.

The group continued roughly south through the caverns, looking for both any sign of Tikun Thane and for an exit to the Cliff Face.  They encountered several groups of large albino baboons.  The aggressive-looking ones were intimidated away using Vael's Thunderclap spell.  They found a few pools of water, and Vallium dove into each looking for treasure.  One contained a silver ring inscribed "To Guivrel, with love from Lankios."

Eventually they reached a cavern containing a 40' tall cliff, over which a four-armed baboon with a huge bow presided.  The baboon, Inkor, gave them a chance to explain their business.  They explained that they were looking for Bobo and Bifki for Yamki, and after some discussion with the smaller baboons, Inkor decided to let them pass.  Vallium used the Ring of Climbing to climb down the cliff, then Vael Levitated back up carrying the Ring so that Ioannes could also use it.

They continued south and west until they found the exit to the Cliff Face.  It was high above the Long Stair, a difficult climb down, though the baboons fleeing from Vael's latest Thunderclap managed it easily enough.  Vael flew around a bit looking for a better trail, but concluded that it would require excellent climbing skills or magical assistance to be worth the risk.

They headed back north into the twisty passages and explored different routes.  At one point they found a cave with a sandy floor and some occasional rocks breaking through.  When they tried crossing it, Vallium spotted something moving under the sand and warned the others back.  Vael used a Windstorm spell to move sand around until a sand worm was revealed, and then Vallium ran up and killed it.  A couple more worms came out of the sand to ambush him, but they failed to bite through his scale armor, and he killed them too.  When no more worms emerged they dug around in the sand for bit, then Vael decided that was a waste of effort and cast Seek Earth and Seek Magic to look for treasure.  The nearest gold and platinum were pretty far below, but both silver and magic were a bit to the south.  So they headed that way until they found a couple of corpses, one of whom had a silver magical eye, along with some other items like a sword and some notes and a rose quartz stone.

Continuing to explore, they ran into another giant 4-armed baboon, Ranko, and his followers.  He was aggressive and seemed ready to fight, but the group bribed them with the meat they were carrying in Larel's Sack and were allowed safe passage through Ranko's territory.  They found a beastman corpse, with a spear and some armor and an interesting badge of a mailed fist.  Later they found a cave-in.  Vael thought it looked dangerous to try to crawl around it, and cast several Shape Earth spells to try to make it safe to pass.  This uncovered a corpse with some fancy boots and a wand.  It also uncovered some Carcass Creepers who were waiting in ambush, and who were surprised by their cover suddenly evaporating.  Vallium made quick work of them.

Heading north past the cave-in, they were ambushed by a few huge spiders.  Vallium killed them, and Vael cut through some webs to reveal the body of a dwarf, with a magic metal shield and another magic silver eye and a magic green glass square.  Vallium said they should use the Rug to put the fragile square (and any other heavy stuff they'd rather not carry) back in their apartment.  However, when he spread out the Rug and said the command word, nothing happened.  They retried several times, and Vael cast Seek Gate to try to diagnose the problem, but the Rug still showed itself as a closed magic gate, as expected.  It just would not open.

With their map of the caverns complete and no sign of the Thane, they decided to use a charge from their Wand of See Secrets to look for secret doors, and found a concealed door on the west wall of the spider cave.  Moving quickly to try to find as much as possible before the wand's effect ran out, Vael went west and saw a secret door on the western cavern wall.  He also spotted a hidden needle trap on the door.  He disabled the trap and opened the door, into a short dead-end passage.  There were some manacles on the wall, covered in white fur.  Ioannes looked for another secret door in the obvious place on the far end of the passage, found it, and Vael figured out how to open it.

This led into some worked passages.  There was a heavy stone door to the south, and a widening passage with pillars to the west.  They listened to the door and tried opening it, but it was locked, so they went west.  The passage to the west opened into an upper level of a huge room, with a bridge crossing it from east to west, and a drop farther than their Continual Light rocks could see.  The bridge was lined with statues of ibises, and as they approached, the statues animated and flew at them.  Vallium killed two of the ibis gargoyles, and the others changed their mind about fighting and flew away.

Working south around the huge room, there was a larger ibis statue facing north into the room, and it was possible to step inside the statue from behind.  Ioannes did so, and saw that he could look through the statue's eyes, and see a magically lit and enhanced view of the whole room in front of and below him.  They left the statue and continued around the perimeter of the huge room, to a door to the west.

In the western room where three living mosaics on the floor, showing the Great Hall of the Halls of Thoth level with a beastman patrol walking through it, a stone platform in the middle of a large cavern surrounded by many mushrooms, and an interesting-shaped room with many pillars and a red dot at one end.  They decided that was the room with the Ruby Chair, north of the Well of Light.

They continued south through an archway, then found a room with two odd magical leather helmets with yellow lenses over the eyes.  Both lenses on one helmet were intact; both lenses on the other were broken.  They took both.

They went southwest and found a looted barracks full of junk and corpses.  As they entered, some spooky undead creatures emerged from the corpses and came at them.  As Vallium started fighting, Vael cast a powerful Wall of Lightning (using his power item for extra mana) and managed to catch all the undead in it.  This was very effective, and all of them were destroyed.  In the room were several suits of archaic scale armor, a few gems, and an ivory token labeled "Overseer of Truth" in Mithric.  They took the gems and token and as much of the armor as would fit in Larel's Sack.  (They tried the Rug again, just in case the problem had fixed itself, but it had not.)

To the south, they found a room with a Mithric sign saying "Danger."  Hanging from a rope in the middle of the room was a single leather boot.  They avoided that room and headed east to a heavy stone door, which they could not open.  Vael decided to use Shape Earth to wreck the door, and it failed -- the door was somehow shielded.  With no more obvious exits, they decided to use another charge from the See Secrets Wand.  Vael ran around looking for secret doors, and found one to the west.  It was difficult to open, so he used Lockmaster, which worked.

The room beyond had a spiral staircase running up.  They were excited to possibly find another exit to the surface.  The stairs led up around 250', to a basement room with a couple of doors on the north and east walls, in what they decided was probably the Tower of Scrutiny.  Not wanting to fight any wraiths, they immediately went down the stairs.

Heading back east to the door they could not open, there was another spiral staircase, this one heading down.  They were less excited about this one, but took it down about 100'.  This led to a room with a passage heading out to the east.  Not wanting to get distracted, they went back up.

With all other routes exhausted, they went back east to the first locked door they had found.  Vael used Lockmaster and managed to defeat a magical lock.  This led to a very interesting room.  It contained what looked like a table with a linen cloth covering it, a statue of a baboon, some manacles on a wall, a work table with a bunch of alchemy supplies and potions and some random other magical stuff, a large magical wooden frame with Thothian decorations mounted to the southwest wall, a smokeless magical fire burning in the center of the room, and a magic sink along the north wall.  There was a screen separating the northwest part of the room; behind the screen were a bed and a chest.

They methodically worked their way around the room searching each thing.  Under the linen cloth was a chessboard, with the squares black and white rather than the traditional Archontean purple and orange, with a pyramidal glass cover over it.  On the board were six black pieces, some piles of dust, and one oddly colored non-standard piece that looked like a little man with copper-colored skin, wearing robes covered with eyes, and carrying a twisted staff.  The little chess-piece-sized man was looking up at them and gesturing upward with his staff and free hand.  They looked at each other, and put the linen cloth back over the chessboard.

The baboon statue looked Thothian but not very interesting; it didn't have gems for eyes or arms on pinions and did not appear magical.  The manacles contained some white fur, like the ones in the secret corridor outside.  The work table had a bunch of interesting stuff: potions, scrolls, a notebook with some spells, a padded bag with a complete set of 6 glass activation squares, a decent alchemy lab, and a book titled (in Mithric) "Kel Bormol's Chess Diary."  The chest contained a bunch of clothes that seemed like they would fit a human man, along with some gold coins and a small box with 6 black opals.

Vallium said something about doors with Thothian symbols possibly being teleporters, and Vael cast Seek Gate which revealed that the frame was indeed a teleporter.  It was currently disabled though, which Vallium confirmed by stepping through it and walking into the wall behind it.  Vael spent several hours repeatedly casting Analyze Magic until he got the command word for the teleporter -- "noobab."

Meanwhile Iaonnes and Vallium used the alchemy lab to try to identify the potions, and were pretty sure what about five of the seven were.  They also flipped through the chess diary.  Most of it appeared to be records of chess games from about 1100 years ago, in Mithric.  The last few pages appeared to be records of some kinds of experiments, in Archontean, in different handwriting.

After Vael was done finding the command word, he needed to rest to recover from the repeated spellcasting, and Ioannes helped with Lend Energy.  Once everyone was recovered, they decided to activate the teleporter and step through.

It led into a small closet-sized room, with stone walls and a very secure-looking metal door, with a large sliding peephole, currently open.  There was an empty frame like the one they'd just walked through on the back wall, looking inactive.  A human guard on the other side of the door saw them appear in the room and started yelling, and someone ran off.  Several guards with scimitars started taking position on the other side of the door, along with some large albino baboons with collars and spears.

Vael started casting Great Haste on Vallium, but when the guards made no move to open the door, he aborted it and started casting Lockmaster.  Meanwhile Ioannes used the same command word to activate the teleporter on this side, and Vallium held his shield over the peephole to keep the guards from seeing what they were doing.  Once Vael finished Lockmaster, the door clicked unlocked, but he said "wait for Great Haste."  He then cast Great Haste on Vallium while the guards held position.

Once the Great Haste took effect, Vallium threw the door open and started stabbing guards.  There were three human guards in the room, unarmored and wielding scimitars.  There were also three of the trained baboons, with spears.  Vallium managed to kill one of the guards.  Another dropped his weapon.  The third parried all of Vallium's blows.  Vallium managed to dodge, block, or parry several scimitar cuts from the guards, as well as several spear thrusts from the baboons.  Vael cast Blur on Vallium to make him harder to hit, as Ioannes stood defensively with his shield up, ready to heal anyone who needed it.

We ran out of time at that point, pausing in mid-battle.

Battle in the Tower of the Ape

GM's Comments:

It's sometimes hard for me to predict when the players will be cautious and when they will be brave.  I was a bit surprised they went after the Thane with only 3 PCs.  I was also surprised they went through the teleporter with only a few minutes left in the session.  (They knew Uvash would not be available next week either, which factored into that decision.)

This was a very good session for exploration, with a whole lot of a new level explored, a new exit to the Cliff Face found, and a couple of new stairways discovered.  They also found some treasure, though haven't identified much of it so they don't really know how good it is.  Except that after spending months collecting a full set of 6 teleportation tiles, they just found a full second set all together in one place.

XP: 

They stopped in mid-delve, so no XP was awarded.  Anything they did this session will be added to next session.

Next Week:

Since we stopped in mid-battle, I know exactly what they'll be doing at the start of next week's session: continuing to fight trained baboons and Disciplined guards with scimitars.  After that it depends on how that fight goes.  Guessing they press on as long as things go well, and try to dive back through that teleporter if they go poorly.

Solving the mystery of why the Rugs of Instant Access stopped working will certainly be a high priority next session, if the PCs make it back to Gosterwick.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 33: Nyema

Date: 

Lunday, 5th of Dikaios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cold, partly cloudy, windy

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Lacrymosa, Elven Mercenary Archer (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Yamki, 3-armed intelligent giant baboon

Bumpko, 4-armed intelligent giant baboon

Many large albino baboons

Stemelis, enchanted bust of former Librarian of Thoth

2 zombies

Bottleneck, goblin master sergeant

Gog, varumani hermit

Many goblins

Many goats

Temrin, goblin artist

Claudine of Narsileon, Archontean arms dealer

Archontean merchant

Several Thorcin merchant guards

Leifcrim, halfling merchant

Set sergeant

Set acolyte

6 Set guards

3 Crocodiles

Wild boar

Mummy

8 huge spiders

Yrtol, ghost

The Plan:

• Buy a lot of meat
• Take meat to the baboons
• Do the Litany of Light
• Take Stamelis to the Beacon to keep Akla-Chah company
• Take meat to Gog
• Get information about Varumani Passports from Gog
• Go to the Goblin Great Hall and get the magic map from Temrin
• Follow the magic map to Nyema's remains, killing any Settites in the way
• Take Nyema's remains to Yrtol

What Happened:

Vallium bought 250 lbs. of meat in Gosterwick and put it in Larel's Sack.  Vael had Vallium put the dancing Nataraja Watcher statue on the stairs to the Beacon, to act as a guard and remote viewing device.  He said the command word to activate it.  (However, he forgot to leave a light source there, so once they took their lights out of the room, the remote viewing just showed blackness.)

Vael had everyone except Vallium step through a teleport Rug, then used Blink Other on Vallium to put him above the cover over the starts, then used Blink to join Vallium.  He then had the others step through the Rug again.  Nobody seemed to be watching, so Vael and Lacrymosa spent a few minutes further camouflaging the roof over the stairs.  The group then walked over the narrow bridge then northeast toward the Well of Light.  When they got there, everyone stepped through the Rug, then Vael Levitated down the Well, cast Apportation on the Rug, and magically moved it to the floor and opened it up, until the others eventually stepped through, then flew down to the ground to join them.

The group went east to the north portcullis to the Howling Caves.  Yamki met them a few minutes later and asked to meet in private.  He explained that The Thane had come to the Howling Caves with a bunch of his ugly bald human followers and kidnapped Bobo and Bifki, two strong young baboons.  Bumpko had led many baboons to attack the Thane and his minions and try to protect Bobo and Bifki, but the Thane has used bad juju to stun Bumpko and several of the other baboons and then his followers had fought off the others as they withdrew.  By the time Yamki arrived and Bumpko recovered, the Thane and his minions were gone.  The group had a lot of questions, so Yamki got Bumpko to help answer them.  The Thane had come from the south, where a passage connected the Howling Caves to the Cliff Face.  The Thane had done this before, in the bad old days before The Master had come, but had never dared enter the Howling Caves while The Master had been there to protect them.

The group said they could not go after The Thane today, but would do so soon, and left 200 lbs. of meat with Yamki as a consolation prize.  They said they would be doing the Litany of Light soon, sunlight permitting, and told Yamki to warn the others.  Yamki sent another baboon north to warn Trefko that things might be bright soon.

The group went west to the mirror at the bottom of the Well of Light and waited for a gap in the clouds to put bright light down the Well, then pulled the blanket off the mirror to illuminate everything.  They then went to the four nearby rooms, and everyone attempted the Litany of Light.  Ioannes and Uvash did it correctly, and were granted See Secrets, Infravision, Invisibility, and an IQ bonus.  The others did not execute the ritual properly.

Vallium lead the group north then east to the stairs down to the Halls of Thoth.  They then went west across the chasm, and south toward the Glory of Weskenim.  Ioannes yelled out to stop -- he had spotted a secret door.  He pointed but was invisible so nobody could see him pointing, so he grabbed Vallium's arm and pointed with it, until Vael saw where the secret door was.  Vael then figured out how to open it, and did so.  As the door opened to reveal an ancient barracks, two zombies charged.  Vallium killed one with his sword.  Uvash bashed the other one with his mace, and Lacrymosa finished it off with an arrow.  There was a chest in the room, which contained a small red jasper gem and a magical blue glass square.  This completed their set of six colors of teleportation squares.  Vallium wanted to make sure it was safe, so asked Vael to spread out the teleport rug, and took the square back to their apartment at the Arcane Practitioners Club, where he had all the other glass squares wrapped up carefully in cloth.

When Vallium returned, they put the Rug back in the Bag of Holding, and continued south to the Glory of Weskenim.  There Vallium unlocked a door with one of Plumthorn's keys.  Bottleneck came over with several goblin warriors, surprised that someone had a key to that door, but then saw it was Vallium and waved the Right for Riches company through.  They went south to the baboon facade concealing a door to stairs down, then took the stairs and exited another secret door to Gog's cave.

Gog was there, and greeted them happily, since he'd asked them to bring food next time.  They indeed had food for him, 50 lbs. of meat, which Gog asked Vallium to put in his canoe.  They then asked Gog a lot of questions about Varumani passports and the Varumani Thegn (not the same person as the Thane) and then tested Gog's linguistic skills.  He seemed to understand Elvish and Dwarvish and Rudishva, though he said he didn't speak or read any of them as well as he understood them, since he didn't get much practice with those languages.  Vael asked him for information on Varumani lifespan and also why Gog wasn't allowed to return to the Varumani territory.  Gog didn't give a lot of details on his exile, besides being wrongly accused of something he didn't do, but not wanting to defy the thegn's authority anyway.

They went south, through the goblin Wet Caves, then down the stairs to Lower Goblintown.  On the way down the final stairway they ran into a squad of goblins carrying a large quantity of meat for someone or something called "Mr. Heads" and saying anyone carrying a heavy load had the right of way.  They continued into the Goblin Great Hall, and saw Temrin sitting in his stall, while some merchant way trying to sell a lot of spears to Claudine.  Temrin said he had their map but it was locked up in Leifcrim's vault for safekeeping.  Temrin went over to Leifcrim's stall, and Leifcrim let Temrin into his vault to get the map, then brought it over to the group.  The map showed going east and down some stairs from the Goblin Great Hall, then north, then over a chasm and up some stairs, then north up a lot of stairs to the Forum of Set, then up some more stairs to the Temple of Set, where Nyema's body was apparently in one of the crocodile pools.

Meanwhile, Ioannes, still Invisible, was sneaking around the Goblin Great Hall looking for secret doors with the See Secrets from the Litany of Light.  He didn't spot any at ground level, but he saw one inexplicably high up on the wall, far out of reach of anyone without flight magic or extreme climbing skills or a really long ladder.  He went to get Vael, who Levitated up, while Ioannes whispered directions in Lacrymosa's ear and then Lacrymosa yelled them to Vael in Elvish.  Vael eventually found the secret door that Ioannes had spotted, but there were a bunch of goblins (and some goats) below him watching him fly around, so he decided not to open it.  Instead they just made a note to check it out another time.

Very happy with Temrin's map (even though they hadn't followed it yet), Vael proposed commissioning another one, and offered twice as much money.  After some brief discussion with the others on the thing they most wanted to find, he pulled out the orange Rudishva oval identity plaque and asked Temrin to draw a map to a gold one.  Temrin said he could try, and asked if he could keep the orange one to focus on.  Vael said no, as they only had the one orange one, but gave Temrin one of their rust-colored plaques since they had several.  Temrin said he could paint it gold, pretty much any shade of gold they wanted, but Vael clarified that changing the color would not work and the gold color was inherent to the object they really needed.  Understanding that, Temrin said he would start working on their map, and they should give him a few days.

The actual path on the map looked dangerous, as it went though a lot of Settite territory including the Forum of Set, but the group knew a back entrance to the Temple of Set, so now that they knew Nyema's body was there, they went back up to the Glory of Weskenim, then west through a secret door to the destroyed Temple of Thoth.  Ioannes and Uvash used their See Secrets along the way, but didn't find any more secret doors.  They went southwest to the guard room south of the Temple of Set, where 8 Settites were waiting for them behind a barricade at the top of the stairs.  The Right for Riches Company were expecting a fight there, so Lacrymosa had drank an Agility potion, and Vael had cast Great Haste on Vallium, so the fight was over pretty quickly.  Lacrymosa filled several Set guards with arrows, while Vallium ran up the stairs, hopped over the barricade, and then alternately shield-rushed and stabbed other guards.  Two of the guards made it north to the temple, yelling for reinforcements, before one was cut down and the other was shot.  There were no reinforcements in the temple, though.

Vael went to the big doors west from the Temple and Magelocked them shut.  He then went south to several other doors that Settites might infiltrate through, and Magelocked them too.  He then sat down to rest.  Meanwhile Lacrymosa went over to the crocodile pods and shot the three surviving crocodiles to death before any of them managed to get onto dry land to fight her.  With the threats gone, Vallium jumped into the southern pond and pulled out Nyema's body, with her platinum torc identifying it.  He put it in Larel's Sack.  He searched the northern pond, but didn't find anything interesting.

With no Settites around, they decided to further explore the temple area.  They went north and saw a jeweled snake, but it was moving back and forth so they didn't touch it.  They also found a wild boar, chained to a wall, and left it alone.  Vallium tried all his keys at a metal grate until one (presumably taken off a Settite a long time ago) opened it up.  It led north into a cavern.  There was a nest full of bones, where Ioannes found a magic ring.  Continuing west, the still active See Secrets spotted a secret door high up the south wall of the cave.  Vael flew up and opened it, revealing a finished passage to a room with a sarcophagus.  There was an amphibian skeleton with a candle on top sitting on the sarcophagus.

Everyone got in position, then Vallium pulled the heavy lid off the sarcophagus.  A mummy sat up, and a fear effect almost made Vallium run out of the room, but he used his Luck and discovered he wasn't scared after all.  Lacrymosa, who had been standing with her bow pointed at the sarcophagus hoping that would happen, shot it a lot of times, until the mummy decided to lie down again.  They looted the sarcophagus of a magic sword, a magic torc, a key, some ancient gold solidi coins, and some potions.

Continuing east, they found a room with the marble floor descending toward a basin in the middle, which was full of some kind of liquid.  The floor was quite slippery, and Ioannes, still Invisible, slipped and almost fell in.  His Luck didn't save him.  His Bless spell did, and he found himself lying on the floor, right next to the edge of the basin, with his Blessing gone, one foot in the liquid, and that foot slightly burning from the contact.  Falling in might well have been fatal, since if he were both Invisible and unconscious, it might have taken his friends a while to find him and fish him out.

Vael, still Levitating, carefully flew over the liquid and filled Lacrymosa's four empty potion bottles with whatever was in that pool for later analysis.  Not wanting to touch the liquid, he used Apportation to dip the flasks in the basin.  When he was finally done filling containers, they investigated a hole in the floor in the east side of the room.  A pebble with a Trace spell on it said the hole went down about 200 feet, so they decided not to explore that way today.

Doubling back to the large cave, they found a passage leading to stairs down to another level, then another trap door in the floor leading 250' down to another level, and a hole in the floor in another place with a rope ladder installed, that only dropped about 20' to the Catacombs of Thoth.  They noted all those exits, then went back to the Temple of Thoth and the Prison of Thoth.  The prison was empty, but Ioannes spotted a secret door in the back of one of the cells, behind the body of a fishman that had apparently starved or dehydrated to death after they had killed all the guards.

They followed the narrow passage from the cell to a tight squeeze around a cave-in.  Vael used Shape Earth to make the narrow part a bit wider so they could fit through more comfortably, and everyone continued until the passage unexpectedly led to a white marble room with rounded corners, much like the architecture on the Beacon.  There were small pictures repeated all over the walls: Rudishva, Varumani, some kind of bird-people, and some kind of snake-people.  Parts of the walls had been burned out, either collateral damage from a battle or someone deliberately destroying some art.  Going west, there was a round iris door to the north, and Ioannes spotted a secret door to the south.  Surprisingly, nobody could figure out how to open the secret door, even with Ioannes and Uvash still having See Secrets active.

Vael's orange ID opened the iris door, into a ruined room full of spider webs.  8 huge spiders attacked.  Vallium, Lacrymosa, and Uvash killed them fairly quickly, while Vael and Ioannes stood back.  Uvash got bit once, and was slightly poisoned, but his dwarven poison resistance meant the damage was not that severe.  Scattered around the floor were some coins, some gems, a copper slate with some writing, and three different stone hands.  One had a stone mace, one held a metal magical scimitar, and one held a stone rod with a platinum tip.  Vallium put all the items in Larel's Sack.  The room continued to the west, but it felt like time to go visit Yrtol, so they turned around at that point.  They went back up to the Set temple, then back east to the Glory of Weskenim, then up through the Pyramid of Thoth to the surface ruins of Arden Vul. They hiked south across the Forum to the Long Stair, then everyone else stepped through a teleport Rug and Vael flew down.  He landed, set out the Rug, let everyone else step through, and they walked to the ruined watchtower that Yrtol haunted.

When they reached the watchtower, Vallium took out Nyema's skeleton, still wearing her platinum torc.  The others banged on the trap door to the basement to get Yrtol's attention.  Yrtol flew out through the closed trap door to see who was intruding, and saw Nyema.  His voice changed and he asked Vallium to bury her.  Wanting to get it done quickly, Vael used Shape Earth to quickly make a grave.  After checking that Nyema's torc was neither magical nor incredibly valuable, they decided to bury her without taking it off.  As they covered her body with another Shape Earth spell, Yrtol disappeared.  Under where he had been floating there were two huge eye-shaped sapphires on the ground.  They did not appear magical, but when someone picked one up, it delivered a serious but not truly life-threatening electrical shock.  They used Apportation to put the sapphires in the sack without touching them, then everyone stepped back through the Rug and Vael flew them back up to the top of the cliff.  There the group walked back to the Beacon.  Vael looked through the Watcher's eyes to get a good picture before Blinking through the stone cap, then realized it was too dark in there to see.  The others stepped through the Rug, then he managed to Blink blind without hurting himself (on the third try) and then everyone was back in the Beacon.  They placed Stamelis near Akla-Chah, where the magical bust holding the spirit of a former librarian and the holograph representation of a Rudishva AI could entertain each other.

GM's Comments:

Some enemies are pretty much immune to arrows.  For everything else, there's Lacrymosa.

See Secrets is really good, especially with a long duration.  (It normally costs 2 mana per minute to maintain, so only those who have it at level 20 can keep it up for long.  Thoth doesn't play by normal rules though.)  This session it found at least three secret doors in places the PCs probably wouldn't have even thought to look.

The most broken combo in DFRPG (and other flavors of GURPS Fantasy that allow the Bless spell) is Luck plus Bless.  PCs with both, who use their Luck strategically for emergencies rather than blowing it every time they miss a roll, are really hard to kill.  Ioannes came very close to falling into a Pool of Scary Mystery Liquid while invisible (making finding him to fish him out harder).  He missed his DX check, used Luck, missed his DX check twice more, fell in, took enough damage to possibly knock him unconscious, and then his Bless decided this was a truly lethal threat and sacrificed itself to retroactively make him just barely make his DX check and end up on the edge of the basin with one foot in the liquid sizzling a bit.  Thanks to having a two-cleric party, Ioannes wasn't even running around without a Bless for very long; he got Uvash to replace it (albeit with a mere Bless +1 rather than a proper Bless +2) a bit later.

Temrin's map led them right to Nyema, though the route it gave was not the safest.  The PCs definitely felt like they got their money's worth though, as evidenced by Vael immediately commissioning another map and offering to pay twice as much for it.

XP:

• Exploration: 11 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: They found quite a bit.  I think they'll sell enough for 2 XP
• Achievements: 0 XP.  (Apparently burying Nyema was not the end of a quest.)

Next Week:

They plan to go after The Thane, who Vallium thinks is Tikun Thane the wizard from Newmarket.  They also want to head back to the Goblin Market and get Temrin's new map.  Finally, they have discussed trying the teleporters now that they have all 6 colors of activation squares.  Vael is thinking about magically expanding the area next to the Beacon.