DFRPG Arden Vul Session 66: Killing Craastonistorex, In Way Too Much Detail

Date:

Lunday 10th Ligarios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Warm, stormy

Player Characters:

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

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

Lacrymosa, Elven mercenary archer (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Craastonistorex, green dragon

Veridian, wyvern

Briar, wyvern

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

2 invisible stalkers

Galeth, wight

Many ghouls

The Plan:

• Sneak up on Craastonistorex using Invisibility and flight magic
• Kill Craastonistorex
• Cut up his corpse
• Explore the surface ruins of Arden Vul

What Happened:

The group hired Lacrymosa for help kill the dragon.  They gathered at their apartments in the Arcane Practitioners' Club to prepare for the assault.  

They started casting buffing spells that they could maintain for a long time.  Uvash Blessed Ioannes (using Contingency Casting) and Ioannes Blessed Lacrymosa.  (The other three already had Blesses from Ioannes.)  Vael cast Invisibility on everyone but himself, Levitation on himself, and Walk on Air on Uvash, Ioannes, and Lacrymosa.  Vael cast See Invisible on Vallium.  Ioannes cast See Secrets on himself.  Lacrymosa cast Keen Vision on herself.

Everyone except Vael put on an Serpent Amulet to resist poison.  Vael wore a Salamander Amulet because they didn't have a fifth Serpent Amulet.  Vallium, as usual, wore Boots of Levitation.

The group left Gosterwick at dawn, with only Vael visible.  Vael Levitated unchallenged over the future north wall of Gosterwick, toward Arden Vul.  The other four followed him, all holding a rope to stay together, since three of them couldn't see each other.  Like kindergartners on a field trip, except more heavily armed.

They reached the cliff west of the waterfall and started Levitating or Walking on Air right up.  When they approached the top of the cliff, they paused to use their shorter-duration buffs.  Vael used Larel's Cloak to turn himself invisible, and drank a Potion of Wisdom.  Lacrymosa drank a Strength Potion, an Agility Potion, a Speed Potion, and a Perception Potion.  Vallium drank an Agility Potion.

Finally, Ioannes gathered the group together and cast Bravery on everyone.  This caused everyone to feel a bit like immediately charging the dragon, but they all kept it together and stayed with the stealthy plan.  Everyone made it to the top of the wall, just east of Craas's tower in the southwest corner of Arden Vul.

They crept up quietly to the eastern door from the top of the wall to the tower.  There was a stone door there, with a visible lock.  Vael cast Lockmaster on the lock, and heard it click open.  He then cast Great Haste on Vallium, while Lacrymosa cast Concussion.  As Vael finished the spell, Uvash tried pushing the door open -- and it didn't budge.  There was something else besides the lock holding it closed.

Vael didn't want to waste any more time, so he cast Shape Earth on the door, to basically shove it out of the way and make a hole in the tower.  He critically failed, used Luck, then succeeded.  The door went away, leaving a hole into the tower.  Inside the tower was a wyvern (Veridian), playing with some coins on the floor.  Veridian made a Perception check, so the PCs did not achieve surprise.  She saw the hole appear and saw or heard or smelled the people standing outside and started howling in alarm so Craas and the other wyvern Briar would know that there was trouble.  (Speech is a free action.)

I determined turn order (if nobody is surprised, it's Basic Speed first, with DX as a tiebreaker, and then you can roll dice as a second tiebreaker if needed).  Vallium was fastest.

Just After Start of Turn 1, Vallium attacks Veridian

Vallium immediately Moved into the room (first maneuver) then attacked Veridian (second maneuver).

Aside on Levitation: Levitation says that it requires Concentration to move the subject if the caster is not the subject, but requires no Concentration if the caster is the subject.  So if the caster is the subject, they move 3 yards per second in any direction as a free action.  So Levitation essentially gives a free 3-hex Move in any direction, which because it's free equates to a 3-hex Step in combat.  This is ridiculously good for such a basic spell, though typical starting mages with Levitate at 15 or so can only afford to maintain Levitation on up to 160 lbs without burning FP every minute.  (This may be where the stereotype of skinny, unarmored wizards comes from; if going on a diet and not carrying much let you fly all day, you'd do it too.)  Anyway, the Boots of Levitation that Vallium usually wears are powerful enough to Levitate even a strong fighter with armor on, which make them an extremely powerful magic item.  That said, Vallium started too far from Veridian for even his 3-hex Step to get him within attack range, so he used his first Maneuver on Move, and his second on Attack.  (He could have done a Move and Attack with his first, but chose not to, since Move and Attack caps skill to 9.)

Vallium had Extra Attack 1, so an Attack maneuver gave him two swings.  He had a base Broadsword-17 skill, plus his magical broadsword was balanced (+1 skill) and had Accuracy 1 (+1 skill) for an effective Broadsword-19.  He has another +2 to almost everything from Bless, so Broadsword-21.  He had Weapon Master, so the usual -6 penalty for Rapid Strike was halved to -3.  Finally, he rolled +6 (max) on that Agility Potion he just drank, and got +2 to *that* for Bless +2 (Bless is broken), so he was currently at +8 to DX and DX-based skills like Broadsword, so effectively Broadsword-29.  So if he took a Rapid Strike on one of the Swings on the Attack maneuver, those two swings turned into three swings, one of them unpenalized and two of them at -3 for Rapid Strike.  The wyvern was SM +4, giving +4 to hit it, so he was rolling against 33 on the unpenalized attack and 30 on the Rapid Strikes.  A final modified skill above 16 would be wasted (because 17 is always a failure and 18 always a critical failure, no matter how high your skill), so Vallium used the extra margin for 8 levels of Deceptive Attack: -16 to hit to give the target -8 to defend.  After all the math, Vallium got 3 attacks, needing 16 or less to hit on the regular strike and 14 or less to hit on the 2 Rapid Strikes, and Veridian would defend at -8.

So Vallium got to try to hit Veridian up to 3 times.  Veridian would try a Retreating Dodge against all of them, with Retreat giving a +3 bonus.  (She got the +3 to all 3 Dodge attempts, since they were all against the same opponent.)  Veridian's base Dodge was a 9, and so her retreating Dodge would succeed on 12 or less, pretty good.  Except for the -8 from the Deceptive Attacks reduced that to 4 or less.  Basically, Veridian needed to roll a 4 or less to Dodge.  She failed all her Dodges.  (Note: We didn't actually roll all the attacks first, then all the dodges, then all the damage, because the damage could stun or slow Veridian and reduce her future Dodges, or kill her and render further attacks moot.   We rolled, attack, then defense, then damage, three times.  I'm just grouping things together to make this recap shorter.)

Vallium had ST 17, giving 3d-1 basic swing damage.  A swung broadsword does swing+1 cutting, so 3d-1+1 = 3d cutting.  He had Weapon Master, adding +2 per die of base damage, so up to 3d+6 cut.  The broadsword had fine, for +1 to damage, and Puissance 1, for another +1, so 3d+8 cut total.  The sword also had Penetrating Weapon for an armor divisor of 2, so the wyvern's DR would be cut in half, rounded down  (So its DR3 would become DR1).  Finally, he had an extra 2 damage tacked onto the final damage from the Gauntlet of Flaming Fury he was wearing, which gave any weapon in that hand the Flaming Weapon spell, for 2 extra burn damage.  Essentially, Vallium would roll 3d+8 and generate that much cutting damage, then I would subtract 1 from that for (reduced) DR, then I would multiply the final damage by 1.5 because it was cutting damage to the torso, and finally I'd tack 2 points of burn damage on at the end.  (This all sounds very fiddly, and it is, but a lot of it is pretty much always the same for the same PC using the same weapon, so you compute it once and write it on your character sheet and then just reuse the calculation.  Also, software like GCS (GURPS Character Assistant) and GGA (the GURPS Game Aid for Foundry) does a lot of the math for you.)

Vallium's first hit did 18 base damage.  DR 1 (after Penetrating Weapon) made it 17, and then the 1.5 multiplier made it 25 and the Flaming Weapon made it 27 injury.  Veridian had 18 HP, so the first hit put her at -9 HP.  Once she got below 1/3 of her base HP (so down to 5) she was Reeling: half Move, half Dodge (not that it mattered because she already needed a 4 or less to Dodge and a 4 or less always succeeds).  Once she reached zero HP, she needed to make a HT roll to stay conscious every turn that she tried to do anything.  An attack that did more than half of her HP (so 9 or more, so basically any hit from Vallium) was also a Major Wound, requiring a HT check to avoid Stun and Knockdown.  Finally, at every full multiple of negative HP (so -18, -36, -54, -72) Veridian had to make a HT roll to avoid dying.  Veridian had 14 HT, making her very good at passing those HT checks for stun and consciousness and death.  But no matter what, when she got to -5 * HP (-90 HP), she would be dead.  No more rolls.  Veridian made her stun check for the first hit.

Vallium's second hit did 21 -> (DR) -> 20 -> (cutting) -> 30 -> (flaming) -> 32, putting Veridian at -41 FP, so 2 death checks for passing -18 and -36.  She made both, and also made the stun check.  Still standing.

Vallium's third hit did 24 -> 23 -> 34 -> 36, putting Veridian at -77, so 2 more death checks at -54 at -72.  She passed both death checks and the stun check.  Veridian was pretty close to dead, but still standing.

It was then Lacrymosa's turn.  She was holding a Concussion spell, and with her first Action made a ranged Attack and threw it at a hex on the far side of Veridian so that Veridian would be in the area of effect and Vallium would not.  She got +4 to hit an entire hex (she would have also received +4 to hit Veridian because of Veridian's SM) and hit.  Veridian had already used her Retreat for the turn so couldn't Retreat to try to get away from the Concussion.  The Concussion did 10 points of damage, minus 3 for Veridian's DR, so 7.  Concussion does crushing damage, no damage multiplier, so the final injury was 7.  That put her at -79.  Concussion also caused a stun check, at -3.  (I have house ruled the Concussion spell so only large Concussions get the -3, but Lacrymosa made it big enough to get the maximum penalty.)  Veridian made her stun check.  Still standing.  (7 points was less than half of Veridian's base HP, so the Concussion wasn't a Major Wound, so she didn't get another stun check for that.  Just the one that Concussion inherently causes.)

Lacrymosa has Extra Attack 2, so after throwing the Concussion she had two Attacks left.  She also has Heroic Archer, Fast-Draw (arrow) at a high level with the No Nuisance Rolls perk so she doesn't actually have to roll Fast-Draw skill for arrows, and Bow-24.  Yeah, totally not Legolas.  She put two arrows into Veridian, with the first one aimed at the Wing and the Second one aimed at a Leg.  She was rolling against Bow-24, plus something for the Agility potion, +4 for SM, minus a bit of a range penalty, -2 for hit location, probably 16 or less.  Both shots hit.  Veridian was at half Dodge for her wounds, so 4 or less to Dodge.  She didn't Dodge either.  Both arrows rolled a lot of damage, but the blowthrough rule says that if you do more than HP/2 damage to an limb like an arm or leg or wing, the limb is crippled but excess damage is lost.  So Veridian took 9 points to the wing (plus a crippling, which was an automatic major wound, so another stun check), putting her at -81.  Then 9 more points to the leg (plus a crippling which was another major wound), putting her at -90, which was -5 * HP, so automatically dead, no more rolls.  Veridian died and collapsed to the floor.

Uvash charged forward into the room, but had no opponents in sight.  Ioannes stepped forward cautiously, All-Out Defending (Just In Case).  Vael Concentrated on Great Haste (which takes him 3 turns to cast) and Levitated forward.

Meanwhile, outside the PCs' (and players') line of sight, the second wyvern on the roof, Briar, opened the trap door on the ceiling (Ready maneuver) and prepared to charge down the stairs to his sibling's aid.  And, in the basement, Craas used a Wait maneuver to attack anyone coming into reach.  (Craas was a genius with high-level Tactics skill, who had planned for an invasion of his tower for a long time, and had defeated a few such attempts, so had immediately figured from the sounds above that someone had destroyed the door, sprung into the tower, and hit Veridian with a melee weapon at least three times.  So that person was likely magically hastened and could be in Craas's face very quickly.  If there was only one super-fast fighter up there, Craas would rather stay in the cellar and fight him one-on-one than charge up the stairs and also fight the fighter's allies.  Of which there was at least one, because Craas had heard a Concussion spell and two arrows striking home.  And probably another, because he'd heard heavy footsteps.  And quite likely more.)

End of turn 1, Veridian dead, Briar and Craas offscreen

Vallium, under the effect of Great Haste, immediately sprinted down the spiral stairs to confront Craas in the cellar.  (He didn't actually know Craas was there, but Craas had been there when Vael had scouted out the tower with an invisible Wizard Eye in a previous session, so he thought the dragon was likely down there guarding his hoard.)  He used his first maneuver to Move, very quickly.  He saw Craas, closed with him, and triggered Craas's Wait.

Craas had a lot of attacking options.  He had breath weapons, spells, horns, claws, teeth, tail, and wings.  He had Extra Attack 3, so he could use up to four of them.  He chose horns, teeth, claws, and more claws.  His first claws hit Vallium but Vallium rolled a 4 on his Dodge, a critical success, making Craas roll on the Critical Failure Table.  Craas decided he didn't like that, and used his Luck to avoid the critical failure.  Craas hit with another claw, but Vallium dodged.  Craas critically hit with his horns, but Vallium used his Luck to avoid the crit and then dodged.  (Note: if Vallium hadn't used Luck, this would have done 5d+6 cutting damage, probably severely wounding Vallium, even with all his armor.  Luck is good.)  Finally, Craas hit with his bite, but Vallium dodged it.

With Craas's Wait over, Vallium resumed his turn.  His attack on Craas was very similar to his attack on Veridian: go for the torso with Rapid Strikes and 8 levels of Deceptive Attack.  Craas was even bigger, SM +5 rather than +4, but the SM bonus for hitting something is capped at +4, so the attack rolls were the same.

Vallium's first attack hit and got past Craas's parry attempt with his horns, doing 18 basic damage, lowered to 14 by DR, then increased to 21 because of the cutting multiplier, then 23 after +2 for flaming weapon.  Not quite a major wound, (Craas had 50 HP) but putting Craas at just over half HP.  

Vallium's second attack was a Rapid Strike, hit, and Craas failed to Dodge it.  (I made a tactical mistake choosing Craas's defenses here.  He should have used a Blink spell, then a Parry with one claw, then a Parry with the other claw, as his Blink was 7 points better than his Dodge and his Parry was 1 point better than his Dodge, and he could parry once with each of his left claw, right claw, and horns before taking a -4 penalty for repeated parries with the same weapon.  But the -8 from Deceptive Attack meant it didn't matter a whole lot; Craas was going to fail most of his defense rolls, no matter what defense he chose.)  Craas took another 15 HP, putting him at 12.  This was less than one third of his full HP, so his Move and Dodge were halved.

Vallium's third attack was the other Rapid Strike, a hit, and Craas failed again to Dodge.  23 more points of injury, putting Craas at -11.  This meant that from now on Craas needed to make a consciousness check every turn that he did anything.

Lacrymosa followed Vallum down the stairs and fired arrows at Craas.  (She didn't know he had Missile Shield running.)  He "dodged" the first arrow.  He "dodged" the second arrow and she started getting suspicious.  She used a Meteoric arrow for her third shot, which ignored his Missile Shield.  He failed to Dodge it and took 12 cutting to the wing.  This was reduced by DR 9 to 3 cutting, then increased by cutting to 4.  Craas at -15.

Cellar, Turn 2, Vallium and Lacrymosa vs. Craas

Upstairs, Uvash heard fighting below and a trap door opening above, but took a turn to Concentrate on Heroic Might and Heroic Grace, then stepped forward.  (He can activate both at once with a single Concentrate maneuver.)  He rolled +11 DX for 12 turns (obscene) but only +3 ST for 10 turns (merely mighty).  Ioannes continued all-out defending himself (+2 bonus to Dodge) and moved forward a bit.  Vael continued casting Great Haste, now 2/3 done, and also glided forward a bit.

Craas made his consciousness check.  He realized he was beset by a very powerful fighter who was clearly cheating with magic and an archer with access to meteoric arrows, also totally cheating, and that they had severely wounded him in the first second of combat.  He had prepared for this unlikely contingency, and used his Blink spell (which he had neglected to use as an active defense earlier) to Blink through the wall to the northeast.  He made his Body Sense roll, so he did not lose his next turn recovering from teleportation.

The surviving wyvern, Briar, charged down through the trap door on the roof and down the spiral stairs.  This Move maneuver only got him about halfway to Uvash and Vael and Ioannes, all of whom were still invisible as none of them had actually attacked yet.

Vallium, seeing Craas disappear, and having See Invisible so he knew the dragon was gone not just invisible, still had two maneuvers from Great Haste.  For his first, he took a Move and ran back upstairs.  He rolled Fast-Draw (Potion), succeeded, and so had the potion ready as a free action.  He used his second maneuver to drink a Flight Potion.  (He already had Levitation from his boots, but Levitation is Move 3 and Flight is Move 10.)

Lacrymosa took a Move and Attack maneuver, followed Vallium up the stairs, and saw Briar coming down.  She fired a cutting arrow at one of his legs, rolling a 16, which was good enough to hit.  He rolled a 14 and failed to dodge.  The arrow did 20 points of damage, which was reduced to 17 by DR, still way more than Briar's HP/2, so the leg was crippled, Briar fell prone (-3 to dodge), and Briar took 9 HP of damage.  He made his stun check.  The second arrow was to a wing.  Briar rolled a 10, failed to dodge, and 19 points of base damage because 16 after DR, which was again more than HP/2 so enough to blow through the wing, causing 9 HP of damage.  Briar made his stun check again, but with one leg and one wing crippled, he would not be very mobile.  He was also at 0 HP so he would be at half Move and Dodge from his wounds, on top of the effects of the crippled limbs, and would need to make a consciousness check every turn.  But none of that mattered because the third arrow was to his skull.  He failed to dodge again (at half dodge plus a penalty for being prone he needed a 4), and the 21 points to the skull got reduced a little bit by DR, but then multiplied by 4 for a skull hit.  Briar was at about -80 HP, 4 death checks.  He failed the first one, mercifully preventing any more dice rolls.

Seeing Briar die before he got a chance to hit him, Uvash ran after Vallium toward the destroyed door.  Vael finished his Great Haste spell and targeted Lacrymosa.  Ioannes cast Lend Energy, using his power item rather than his personal FP, and restored Vael's FP.

Craas made his consciousness check, concentrated on Invisibility, and disappeared.  He started flying north away from the tower, over the swamp.

Vallium charged through the missing door and started looking around for a dragon.  After a couple of seconds, he spotted Craas, flying away a bit to the north.  Vallium started flying north after Craas.  Craas had Air Move 21, but was slowed by his wounds so could currently only fly at Air Move 10.  Vallium also had Air Move 10 from Flight, but was under the influence of Great Haste, so if he took two Move maneuvers he could achieve Air Move 20.  Under the current circumstances, Vallium was faster, but his Great Haste would expire soon, and then they would be the same speed.

Turn 3. 
Craas flies away to the north, as PCs on the wall prepare to chase

Vallium, still Great Hasted, took a Move maneuver followed by a Move and Attack.  He flew 10 yards toward Craas, then 11 more yards (with the sprint bonus) toward Craas.  He tried sneaking up behind Craas, but Craas had Peripheral Vision and rolled a critical success on his Perception check, so he totally saw Vallium coming.  Move and Attack is skill -5, capped at 9.  Vallium rolled a 9, hitting.  Craas tried parrying with his hind claws, failed, and took 14 more injury.   His second swing (from Extra Attack) missed.

Lacrymosa, Great Hasted and using Walk on Air, took a Move and Attack maneuvers to run on air after Craas while loosing arrows.  She first fired a regular arrow and Missile Shield avoided it.  She then stopped and took an Attack meneuver, using a meteoric arrow and shot Craas in the wing.  He failed to dodge and took some damage, but it wasn't enough to cripple the wing.  She shot another arrow using Extra Attack and winged him again, again doing some damage but not enough to cripple.

Craas Concentrated on Invisibility, and successfully cast it.  (He had High Pain Threshold so he didn't have a penalty from all the damage he'd just taken.)  Four out of five PCs could no longer see him.  Vallium had See Invisible on, though, so Craas just looked a bit blurry to him.  Normally Concentrate just allows a Step, but I decided that since Craas was flying he could have a couple of extra hexes of glide from his momentum.  (I know there there are rules for this in GURPS Basic Set, and probably extra rules for it in some other GURPS book or Pyramid article, but I didn't look anything up.  I just winged it and scooted him a few extra hexes, in addition to his Step.  Don't waste time looking up rules in play unless it actually matters.  Here, Vallium could still catch him, so it didn't, so I didn't waste time.)  

Uvash and Ioannes, with Walk on Air, started running after Vallium.  (They could no longer see Craas but figured Vallium was in the right area.)  Vael cast Haste on Uvash, trying to give him some more Move so he could catch up, but failed the roll.  (Vael had a lot of spells on and there was a range penalty, so his skill 20 was reduced to 13, and he rolled a 16.)

Vallium, still right behind Craas, kept swinging.  Craas remembered to use Blink this time, and Blinked away, getting 3 hexes of free move.  He also made his Body Sense roll.  Vallium used his Boots of Levitation to close the 3 hexes and swung some more, doing more damage to the dragon.

Lacrymosa could not longer see Craas, so she just used Move and chased after Vallium.

Uvash and Ioannes and Vael followed, but without Great Haste or Haste were not fast enough to keep up with the others.

Craas didn't attack, not wanting to lose his Invisibility, and just Moved, trying to get away from his attackers.

Vallium attacked Craas again.  Craas Blinked away, successfully, but critically failed his Body Sense roll.  This meant he couldn't do anything on his next turn while he recovered his bearings.  Vallium closed the range with Levitation and made the rest of his attacks.  Craas failed to parry or dodge any.

On his next turn, Vallium realized Craas was too dizzy to fight back, and switched attack maneuvers to All-Out Attack (Double) to get even more attacks.  He rolled a stupid number of attacks with a stupid level of Deceptive Attack.  Once again Craas Blinked away from one attack (and made his Body Sense roll this time) but failed to parry or dodge the others, and took a lot of damage.  He made all four of his death checks and all of his stun checks (it's good to have HT 15), but when he reached -250 HP (-5 times his starting 50 HP), the game was up.  He splashed into the swamp.

Vallium landed behind him and immediately started cutting up the dead dragon, taking a bunch of his hide, his teeth, his claws, several vials of his blood, and his heart.  This took a while (dragons are big), so Lacrymosa stood guard in case something snuck up on Vallium while he was busy butchering.  Vallium also found a fancy necklace around one of the dragon's claws, and took it.  Ioannes, Vael, and Uvash went back to the tower to loot it.

The floor where the wyvern had been playing only had a few copper and silver coins.  The cellar had 14 chests, containing coins and gems and jewels of many kinds.  Vael searched them all for traps, found none, then opened them all up and took out everything that looked valuable, except they left piles of coins in the chests because it would be easier to move the entire chests.  After they finished looting they looked for secret doors but didn't find any, then went up to the roof and didn't find anything, then went back outside to see how Vallium's butchery was going.  Ioannes contributed some surgery skill to help Vallium extract a couple of weird dragon organs.  Eventually Vallium realized he had all the dragon parts he was going to get today.  He carried them back to dry ground where they could place a Teleport Rug to take them back to the Beacon, then he put all the dragon parts in the refrigerated room to avoid fast spoilage.  Vallium came back and they relocated the Rug to the cellar of the tower, so they could carry all the heavy chests full of coins back to the Beacon as well.  There was also a huge statue of Vul's head there, which they left for the moment.

With no dragon patrolling the ruins of Arden Vul, they decided to spend some time looking for other treasure.  From the swamp, Vael cast Seek Magic.  The nearest magic was coming from just west of the city walls, so they went there and found the ruins of a villa.  Another Seek Magic said something was in the basement, so he started digging with Shape Earth until he found some stairs down.  They explored the ruined basement for a bit, until a couple of Invisible Stalkers on guard ambushed them and tried to kill them.  Vallium got stabbed in the back, but kept fighting.  Vael cast a couple of See Invisible spells to help the others see their targets, while the other four gradually wore down and killed the Stalkers.

Ioannes healed Vallium, then noticed a secret door.  They went through it and found some ancient wine casks.  Vael sampled the wine and declared it all rotten.  They continued to search the basement and found a bunch of rotten books, plus a well-preserved book labeled Grimoire of Kel Bormol.  They took that, and found some ancient silver pennies, a few scrolls, and a couple of wands.

Going back into the ruins, Vael cast Seek Magic again, which led him to the broken statue of Vul, missing its head and hands.  They went back to the tower, used a Teleport Rug to teleport the head to the Beacon, then went back to the statue and carried the head through the Rug and placed it on top of the statue.  It fit, but not well, so Vael cast a Repair spell to glue it in place.  The spell didn't restore the statue's missing hands, though.

Another Seek Magic led them to an only mostly ruined long house, which smelled foul.  Vael used Glass Wall, but it just showed an entry room and more doors.  They went in, and eventually ran into some ghouls.  Another fight ensued, and all the ghouls died.  The ghouls were led by a wight, which also died.  They searched the house, took some treasure, and left to escape the smell.

Everyone but Vael went back to the Beacon through a Teleport Rug.  Vael picked up the Rug then cast Pol's Recall to teleport himself back to the bridge of the Beacon.  Vallium, having spent several hours literally crawling inside a dead dragon trying to remove any valuable parts, was utterly filthy, while the others weren't that much better.  Everyone needed a bath, and, not for the first time, regretted that the bridge section of the Beacon lacked the advanced Rudishva bathing facilities they had seen in the Bastion.

GM's Comments:

The Craas battle was pretty interesting, but I didn't think Craas had much of a chance if they used all their resources well, and they did.  A fully buffed Vallium just had too many strong Deceptive Attacks for Craas to stop them all for long.  His only real chance was to land a lucky and very hard hit on Vallium quickly.  Which he almost did, but it was negated by Luck.  He used Blink to escape the tower, and Missile Shield to not get shot by Lacrymosa (though meteoric arrows defeated that), and Invisibility to try to hide (though See Invisible defeated that).  Craas also had a lot of DR and HP, but Vallium's Penetrating Weapon reduced the DR, and HP don't last forever if you keep getting hit.  His fear and terror abilities were defeated by Ioannes's Bravery spell.  His poison breath weapon was mostly made moot by the Serpent Amulets.  Ultimately, Craas's only chance was probably to Blink out of the tower while he still had full Move and could outrun his persuers, but he wasn't going to surrender his hoard without a fight.

I started off trying to do a blow-by-blow account of the battle to do a decent demonstration of high-powered DFRPG fight, but it was just too many blows and would have taken hours and hours to finish at the level of detail I started with, so it got less detailed as I went.  This is probably why you don't see a lot of high-level combat examples.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 4 new locations, 0 XP
• Loot: Lots, probably 2 XP, though as always it depends on what they keep versus sell
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: Probably 2 XP

Next Week:

They plan to try to demolish the Tower of Scrutiny, using some combination of GOAT's elephant drops, Shape Earth, pickaxes, and Rudishva devices.  They will then try to get GOAT to speak to Tuftwillig the oak tree and explain that Craas is dead and the tower is smashed.  They will try to put the hands back on the statue of Vul and figure out what it does.  They will also start restoring the statue of Arden, though they don't know where all the parts are yet.   They will explore the lake in the ruins some more to see if they missed any entrances, then go back down to the entrance at the base of the waterfall and explore that area more.

More Loot XP Complexity

DFRPG Arden Vul gives XP for exploration, loot, and achievements.

Exploration is pretty easy.  I just decide when a new location is explored enough to count, and mark it down.  At the end of a session I add all the new locations explored to my script, which de-duplicates them so they don't get credit for a location in session 65 if they already visited it in session 42.  And it spits out a zero (not much exploration) or a one (decent exploration) or a two (lots of exploration).

Achievements are also pretty easy, because they're totally GM fiat.  Players sometimes lobby for them, but usually not successfully.  Also, the bar goes up over time.  What might be an achievement for a 150-point newbie isn't necessarily still an achievement for a 300-point veteran.  Act like you've been in the dungeon before, kid.  Nobody's impressed that you knocked back a giant anymore.

But loot, loot is the problem.  At some point I published the exact rules for XP for loot, so now the players have a spreadsheet.  And they try to sell exactly enough to hit breakpoints.  And sometimes they split loot unevenly so that someone can get an extra XP.  It's gross, but they have fun, so I don't try to stop them.

Anyway, the problem is that if you get XP for the value of loot, loot has to have a fixed value.  Economics has the Law of One Price.  The real world isn't always that simple; sometimes all the details that economists like to abstract away aren't actually abstracted away yet.  A Coca-Cola really costs more in rural Alaska than it does in New York; air freight to the middle of nowhere isn't free.

As an example, the Arden Vul adventure says that Rudishva Lesser Power supplies are worth 5000 gold pieces, which I converted to $5000.  That's a lot.  The thing is, nobody will actually pay anywhere near that for one, unless they have an essential device that needs Lesser Power Supplies, or know a rich guy who does.  If you want to sell one in Gosterwick, where nobody the PCs know of has any laser pistols, maybe you'll get $20 for it as a curio.  "What a finely made metal disk!  Maybe I can cut a hole in it and put it on a necklace and give it to my wife for our anniversary."  Similarly, if you sell a laser pistol with no power supply, maybe you'll get $100 for it.  "Weird looking toy crossbow.  Maybe I'll give it to my kid for solstice."  But if you sell the laser pistol and the power supply together, along with a bit of training on which end to point at the enemy and which button makes them burn, yeah, full price.  Except now you've given away the secret of laser weapons.

So, basically the dilemma is that the PCs found a bunch of valuable Lesser Power Supplies and would like to extract full value from them, without telling anyone in Gosterwick about Rudishva or laser pistols.  Which means they can only sell them to someone who already knows about Rudishva and laser pistols.  That currently means the Varumani, deep within Arden Vul.  (There was also Kerbog Khan, but they killed him.  As a general rule, dead people tend not to buy stuff, especially from their killers.)  So they plan to visit the Varumani and sell them power supplies.  But they can't do that during downtime, as only safe activities are allowed during downtime.  (If the GM allows dangerous activities during downtime, then the GM has to introduce the "Did your PC die during downtime?" table, which no player wants to roll on.)

So we have a new house rule.  Any loot you want XP for, you have to sell as soon as practical.  However, if the only decent market for it is in the dungeon, that means the next delve, rather than downtime between delves.  So loot XP for things you can't really sell in downtime gets delayed a session.

Worse, sometimes a PC plays in Session n but not in Session n+1.  If they find an item in Session n and sell it in Session n+1, and the party composition changed between those sessions, who gets what cut?  The full party members already act as a loot-sharing commune, so they can figure it out.  Mercenaries demand a full fair share, though.  And this is always rounded in the mercs' favor.  If they were on either delve, they want their full cut.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 65: Frost Mother and the Residential Pod

 

Date:

Lunday 3rd Ligarios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Warm, mostly sunny

Player Characters:

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Sister Valya "Basilisk" Hushbreaker, halfling monk (Mercenary) (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Several frost ghouls

Frost Mother

Several giant lizards

Many slime zombies

Many slimes

Sumuksu

Unknown adventuring party

The Plan:

• Drink from the Yellow Fountain of Marius
• Explore the cold area south of the Shrine of Marius
• Explore the underside of the floating island in the Great Chasm
• Trade lesser power supplies and kaliyani teeth with the Varumani

What Happened:

Ioannes had to do a favor for Chief Priest Vivian and was unavailable.  The group hired Basilisk and figured that, along with Uvash, that was enough clerical help.  Uvash used Contingency Casting to Bless Basilisk.  They took a Teleport Rug to the Beacon, met with Akla-Chah and Basil, then took a Rudishva teleporter to the Cloister and walked to the area near the Tomb of Marius.  They opened a secret door leading to the Yellow Fountain of Marius.  Everyone drank from the fountain, with everyone except Uvash receiving a minor benefit, and Uvash taking a bit of internal damage.

They went east to the frosty locked door.  Vallium tried some keys and failed to unlock it.  Vael used a Lockmaster spell.  On the other side of the door were some very cold rooms, with floors covered in ice and snow.  Vael wore the magic fur boots of the north and was comfortable.  Everyone else was freezing.

They went south, and found a room with the western half thawed and containing a huge statue of a woman's face, with some sayings inscribed in the wall in gold.  Uvash briefly considered taking the gold, but did not.  Vallium went back to the Beacon through a Teleport Rug and got a couple of Tripods of Heating to try to melt some ice.  

They went north to the room with the fountain where they had previously destroyed some constructs.  Uvash drank from the fountain, again, and it was bitter, again.

They went east and found a room with several frost ghouls, and the Frost Mother in her stone throne.  The frost ghouls surrounded and attacked Vallium but failed to get past his defenses.  The Frost Mother unleashed a Cone of Cold at Vallium but failed to hurt him through his armor.  She did deposit some very slick ice on the floor, but Vallium hovered over it then stabbed the Frost Mother several times.  When she died, all the frost ghouls also collapsed into bones.  Meanwhile, everyone except Vael got very cold, and eventually went back to the statue room to warm up.  Basilisk tried to Share Vitality on Uvash but critically failed and accidentally vampire drained some of his health, a totally honest mistake that could happen to anyone.

After warming up a bit, Vallium set up a few more Tripods of Heating in the throne room.  Meanwhile Vael used Create Fire and Shape Fire to make a portable campfire and move it around so everyone could stay a bit warmer.  They explored several other snowy and icy rooms, but found only a few bones on top of the snow.

Southeast from the frost rooms was a cavern, containing a couple of dead giant lizards.  Vael investigated the bodies and decided they were probably killed by some kind of powerful fire magic, or maybe dragon breath.  The cave passages eventually led to a hole in a Rudishva-architecture passage.  There was an iris valve along one wall, and another hole high up on the opposite wall.  Everyone flew up to the hole and then went south along another Rudishva wall.  They ran into a couple more giant lizards, these ones still alive and angry.  Vallium and Uvash stabbed one and bludgeoned and stunned a couple of them, and the others decided to run away.

Continuing around the Rudishva wall, they found a hole leading inside.  The floor inside was corroded, as if something had melted the high-tech flooring.  Inside was a Rudishva building containing one intact iris door, and then several rooms that appeared to have been quarters, with their doors destroyed and their interiors completely trashed.  The intact iris door opened to Vael's yellow Rudishva identity plaque.  Inside was a desiccated Rudishva corpse, hung from the neck from a lighting fixture.  Searching the room revealed quite a bit of Rudishva equipment, including a communication bracelet.  A call to Akla-Chah got her opinion that they had found the Beacon's Residential Pod, where many of the crew lived from the crash until the Kaliyani treason.  The deceased crew member appeared to be Mol-Prev, the Beacon's Morale Officer.

The group did a quick search of each room, with Uvash finding a marble statue hand wearing a cheap silver ring.  In another room, a huge constrictor snake hiding in the bed jumped out and tried to strangle Uvash.  Basilisk stunned it with kiai, Vallium stabbed it, and Vael Blinked Uvash away from the snake's grip.

With the level explored, the group focused their attention on a couple of null-grav shafts leading down.  Vallium started down into one, then saw a bunch of slime zombies below and immediately Levitated back up.  Vael prepared a couple of large Concussion spells and lobbed them below, causing very loud explosions.  Vallium went down again, and all the slime zombies in the immediate area had been destroyed.  However, more were circling in.  The group gathered on the lower level to fight.  Vael used Create Fire to burn a lot of zombies, while Vallium and Uvash stabbed and smashed them, and Basilisk stunned them.  A large tentacled creature appeared, sending out long tentacles at Uvash (who avoided them) and Vael (who was facing the other way and was totally defenseless and got grabbed).  As the creature started to drag Vael towards its waiting mouth, Uvash crippled one tentacle, and Vael Blinked away from the other one.  Vallium, Uvash, and Basilisk converged on the tentacled creature, with Basilisk using a vampiric bite on it then deciding it tasted horrible.

Once all the zombies were gone, there were still several small immobile slimes around the area.  They turned out to be flammable, so Vael just drove his fires around burning them.  When all the enemies were gone, the company searched the level.  They found a dining room, a game room, a gym, and a closed with a large humming device.  Most of the Rudishva items were covered with slime, but a few still worked.  A conference with Akla-Chah indicated that the humming device was some kind of nuclear power generator and was better left alone, as if it exploded everyone would die.

The game room contained a still-working claw game, with three prizes to grab inside.  Vallium played it for a long time until he managed to grab all the prizes, while Basilisk shouted that they could just smash the machine open instead.  There was also a magic backpack under a slimed game table, and a magic broadsword stuck in a corner.  The group spent some time gathering everything valuable they could find.  There was a mysterious pail of some kind of unknown sticky paste-like substance, which Uvash decided to taste.  They headed back.

On the way out they explored a few more caves, and found a campsite containing seven adventurers.  Vael greeted them diplomatically, but the leader of the other group told him to go away.  Vael started bragging about killing Settites, and the others said that they'd killed some Settites too, and they could also kill trespassers, seeing as they had the Right for Whatevers outnumbered seven to three.  (He hadn't noticed Basilisk sitting on Uvash's shoulder.)  After a brief discussion with Vallium on whether rudeness justified murder, they decided not, and left, and went back to the Beacon.

GM's Comments:

Turns out you can use Concussion for damage, not just for stunning.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 15 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: Depends on what they keep, but they found some good stuff.  Probably 1-2 XP
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: 2-3 XP

Next Week:

They claim they're going after Craastonistorex the green dragon!  Granted, they've been saying that for months, so I'll believe it when I see it, but they sound serious.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 64: Looting Behind the Fireball Traps

Date:

Lunday 26th Lucrios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Cool, sunny

Player Characters:

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

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Lacrymosa, Elven mercenary archer (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Harfang, Owl

5 Invisible Stalkers

Dire Wolverine

Vivian, Chief Priest of Demma

Many baboons

Yamki, three-armed giant intelligent baboon

Bumpko, four-armed giant intelligent baboon

Stone Nataraja

Several ogres

The Plan:

• Use the Teleport Rug to travel back to the gold dragon statue
• Search the area around the gold dragon statue
• Use Analyze Magic on the four magic statues
• Use Seek Earth and Seek Magic to find treasure
• Finish exploring passages off the Great Chasm near the Well of Light

What Happened:

The Right for Riches company decided to avoid taking their usual week of downtime between delves, and to instead return the next day.  However, this did not fit Uvash's church schedule, so he could not attend the delve.  They recruited Lacrymosa from the Grudge Brigade as a substitute.

The group went back to the Beacon, then through the green Teleport Rug to the gold dragon statue.  Vael pointed at the secret door on the plinth of the statue, which was slightly ajar.  This revealed a 5' wide vertical shaft with handholds, descending into darkness.  They could not see the bottom with their Continual Light stones, so Vael used Dark Vision, and verified that it went down about 30', and the floor below was covered in silver coins.

Vallium and Vael Levitated down, Ioannes descended using Walk on Air, and Lacrymosa climbed down the handholds.  They reached the bottom and saw several tables covered with items, some of them apparently magical.  One table held a disarticulated human skeleton.

Vael reached down and deliberately picked up a silver coin from the floor.  Immediately, four Invisible Stalkers who had been hiding under the coins rose up to attack him.  Vael had See Invisible up, so saw them coming.  He yelled a warning to the others, as he Blinked away from the first attack.  Vael cast See Invisible on Vallium, Lacrymosa, and Ioannes.  Meanwhile Vallium hacked up the Stalkers, while Lacrymosa filled them with arrows.  The Stalkers appeared to be diffuse, not taking much damage from sword or arrow, so Ioannes tried casting Affect Spirits on Vallium's swords.  This didn't seem to help; perhaps they were not spirits.

The first couple of Invisible Stalkers finally went down, but then one landed a nearly fatal stab on Lacrymosa.  She managed to stay on her feet, barely, as Iaonnes healed her.  Vallium and Lacrymosa finished off the last of the Stalkers.  The room contained enough coins that they used Teleport Rugs to go back to the Beacon for shovels and extra bags, then started shoveling them all up.  There were a few ancient gold and platinum coins mixed in with the silver.  The shelves contained various treasures, which Vael briefly glanced at while shoving them into a Bag of Holding.

With the secret room cleared, the group went back up the shaft.  There were more exits from the sandy room, on the north, south, east, and west walls.  They decided to start at the north.  The door was locked, and none of Vallium's keys fit the lock.  Vael used a Lockmaster spell.  Beyond was a storeroom containing many 4' tall amphorae, sealed with wax.  Vallium opened a couple, one of which contained some kind of fish paste, and the other wine.  They re-sealed the amphorae (Vallium using a flaming sword, Vael using a Repair spell), then pulled out a Teleport Rug so that Vallium could carry them all to the refrigerated room in the Beacon.

Next they tried the east room.  This one had double doors.  One of the keys they had found in the secret room actually fit.  Beyond was a large bedroom, office, and meeting room.  There were a couple of statues, of male and female Archontean artistocrats in togas.  There was a single bed, a dresser, and armoire, a few settees, a small table, and a couple of Tripods of Heating.  Searching the furniture revealed some dirty clothes, some formal silk robes of the Order of Thoth, and a couple of rings.  One said "CP" and had an amethyst carved into the image of an Archontean man.  The other was a gold signet ring with the image of Priscus Pulcher.

The south room had a door that required magic to unlock.  It was a storage room, with piles of furniture.  There was a magical stringed instrument, which shocked Ioannes when he picked it up.  Vael used Apportation to put it in a bag without touching it.  They took the most valuable appearing carpets and furniture, and left the rest.

Finally, the west room opened to the other key that Vallium had found in the basement.  It was the mirror image of the east room.  The statues flanking the entrance were Priscus Pulcher and the familiar woman whose illusion had warned them away from the fireball trapped room.  The furniture included a double bed, some nice carpets, and more Tripods of Heating.  There was quite a bit of jewelry around, along with some women's clothing, a few magic items, and some stone bins full of coins and gems.

With everything on this level looted, Vael suggested going upwards from the four bodies around the dragon statue, looking for where they fell from.  They group flew up to the top of the shaft, where the center of the ceiling did not reflect light the same way as the rest of the walls and ceiling.  Vael probed with his staff, which went right through the illusory ceiling.  Flying up through it revealed a storeroom, full of crates and barrels, with a mosaic of Priscus and Isadora in the center of the floor.  The mosaic was an illusion, and stepping onto it would result in a fatal fall.  Searching the crates and barrels just found spoiled food, but Vael saw a secret door on the west wall, leading to spiral stairs up.

At the top of the stairs was another secret door, which led to a foul-smelling room.  When they opened it and went through, they were attacked by a wolverine the size of a grizzly bear.  Vallium managed to parry its attack despite being surprised, and then he and Lacrymosa destroyed the beast.  Vallium skinned the wolverine, while the others searched the room and picked up a few minor treasures.  There were some stairs up, that led to a ruined villa, to the northeast of the ruined walls of Arden Vul.  While they were up on the surface, they heard a the call of a wyvern from above, and immediately dove back down the stairs.  The location of the villa seemed to match the map they had found on one of the corpses near the dragon statue.

The secret door had closed behind them, and the panel hidden behind an illusory wine cask had some letters "ORCUSAIDSPAIRS".  Vael hit a few letters at random, and another Invisible Stalker appeared and attacked.  Once again, Vallium and Lacrymosa fought it fairly ineffectively at first, until Vael cast See Invisible on them, then they wrecked it.  After some perusal of the letters, Vael tried spelling "PRISCUS", which did not open the door.  After more investigation, he tried "ISADORA", which also failed.  Eventually he tried "PRISCUSISADORA" and the door opened.  They went back down, then flew through the illusory floor mosaic to the middle balconies.

Vael cast Analyze Magic on the western statue a couple of times, which revealed that the head and body were a key and were connected to the other statues.  Vallium opined that they'd probably already solved the statue puzzle, and that's why the secret door below had been ajar.

They flew back down to the sand level, where Vael cast Seek Earth for gold and platinum, getting a null reading each time.  He then dropped a silver coin in the sand, cast Seek Earth for silver and did not ignore the coin he knew was there.  The spell still didn't find anything.  He concluded the area was secured against scrying, which might explain why all the treasure had still been there.  He wanted to look under the sand for more treasure, but couldn't think of another available spell to use, so they gave up and flew back up to the balcony level.

They decided to go back to the west, but the secret door could not be opened from this side, so Vallium Blinked through it.  They went back west to the smashed constructs, and spotted a door they had never opened.  Vael Lockmastered it open, revealing a passage with a wooden chest at the far end.  This looked suspicious.  Vael Levitated down the passage, tapping his staff on the floor.  When he reached the area near the chest, tapping on the floor triggered a pit trap, opening the floor.  Nobody fell in.  A quick look into the pit didn't spot anything.  Vallium also flew over, and Vael Lockmastered the chest, revealing a bunch of silver coins.

While they were shoveling silver coins into their bags, Vallium suddenly started babbling like a child.  He had a silver coin stuck to his hand that he could not drop.  Vael used Mage Sight and noted that Vallium actually had three magical coins.  Since Vallium already appeared cursed, he had Vallium keep picking up the silver, while watching carefully with Mage Sight for more magical coins.  He spotted two more, and Apportated them away.

When they were done picking up coins, Ioannes took Vallium through the Teleport Rugs back to Gosterwick, to the Temple of Demma.  He went looking for the Chief Priest, Vivian, who would have the best chance of removing a curse.  Vivian agreed that he could probably help, in exchange for a donation to help feed all the children of the area.  He blasted Vallium with a Remove Curse spell, which let him drop the first Cursed Penny, the one that had reduced his intelligence.  Back to his usual mental state, Vallium noted that they had some Remove Curse scrolls and could remove the other curses for free.  Ioannes said he preferred to make a donation to a a good cause, and save the other scrolls.  Vivian removed the other two Cursed Pennies, while Ioannes helped restore his mana.  Ioannes and Vallium went back to the Arcane Practitioners' Club then back through the Teleport Rugs.

The group went back out through the fireball trapped room, using Salamander Amulets to avoid getting burned.  They explored some nearby passages near the Howling Caves and the Great Chasm.  They found a group of baboons who could speak broken Archontean, in a cave with a magic fountain.  The baboons said that it was their fountain and that only those who brought great gifts of food could drink from it.  Vael went back through the Rugs to Gosterwick, returning with a wheelbarrow full of food.  As the baboons divided up their take-out order, everyone drank from the fountain, and felt a bit smarter.  (Sadly the effect was temporary.)

Another cave nearby was full of less friendly baboons.  They charged, and Vael cast a Thunderclap spell to intimidate them.  This worked, and they ran back to the Howling Caves.  Both Bumpko and Yamki eventually met the group to mediate, and combat was avoided.  The group explored the Howling Caves further, finding another of the creepy salamander statues, which Yamki said was "bad juju" and best avoided.

With the day's main goals achieved, the group went west to the Well of Light, then north to the Ruby Chair, then east to a Thothian teleporter.  Vallium pulled out the book of teleporter addresses and mentioned a few they had not scried yet.  Vael cast Scry Gate on three of them.  Two ended up being fairly featureless Archontean-architecture hallways.  They went through one of them, and ended up back in the lair of the (mostly dead) vampires.  Another one was a creepy room with corpses and Set bas-reliefs on the walls, which Vallium noted as a good place for future exploration, but not today.  Another looked like the quarters of a group of ogres.  They went back to the Engine Room, where a stone nataraja ran toward them, but was deterred by Vael's yellow Rudishva identity plaque.  South of the Engine Room was a Rudishva teleporter leading to the Vault near the Cloister, where there was another teleporter back to the Beacon.

GM's Comments:

That was a lot of treasure.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 10 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: Lots, 2 XP
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: 3 XP

Next Week:

The plan is to drink from the Fountain of Marius, then explore the snowy and icy area near there.  Then explore the underside of a Floating Island in the Great Chasm, looking for some gold that had been detected.  Then visit the Varumani, to gather rewards for Kaliyani teeth and recharging Rudishva power supplies.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 63: Angry Constructs

Date:

Basilsday 25th Lucrios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Warm, foggy, rainy

Player Characters:

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

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Watcher Nataraja

Kronos's guards

Kronos, Innkeeper

Estelle, Innkeeper

Many goblins

Bottleneck, goblin sergeant

Killik, goblin chief

Several ogre guards

Palestrim, goblin majordomo

Weskenim, goblin king

Many baboons

Yamki, three-armed giant intelligent baboon

2 Imperial stone guardians

3 Stone golems

4 Orator constructs

Iron golem

The Plan:

• Commission a map from Temrin in the Goblin Market
• Check the Hall of Shrines to see if the force fields have changed
• Continue exploring beyond the fireball-trapped room

What Happened:

Akla-Chah called Vael on the Command Bracelet.  She said that Basil had discovered a hole in the roof over the stairs to the Beacon, and the Watcher Nataraja was gone.  Vael sent Message spells to the other members of the Right for Riches Company to meet at the Beacon.  They went to the entry room and found Basil watching the new hole in the ceiling with his laser pistol ready.

Forgetting he could see through the Watcher Nataraja's eyes, Vael cast Seeker to see where it was.  This gave him a vision of the outside of the Inn of the Broken Head.  Vael and Uvash investigated the hole in the roof and decided it had been dug with tools.  There was some discussion on whether it was safe to go outside and what they'd do if they met the dragon, with half the party deciding it was a good day to kill the dragon and the others wanting to avoid a fight in the open.  Everyone put on their poison-resistance Serpent's Amulets just in case.

Vael sent the others out through the hole with a Teleport Rug, then stayed behind to cast Shape Earth to seal up the hole, then went through the matching Teleport Rug to meet them.  The group then piled some debris on top of the newly sealed hole to camouflage it.  Everyone then walked north around the lake toward the Inn of the Broken Head.  Some of Kronos's guards in a tower along the north wall yelled to them.  The guard explained that some evil statue had chased some of their comrades, and everyone should be careful.  Continuing to the Inn, they saw the Watcher Nataraja aggressively dancing, facing the inn.  Kronos and three of his guards were standing outside the Inn, facing down the Nataraja but not actually fighting it.

Vael used the command word to tell the Nataraja to stand down.  He then spoke with Kronos, who said that some of his men had been looking for treasure in the ruins and had been attacked by this statue.  They fled and it followed them all the way back.  Vael explained to Kronos that the statue was theirs and it was guarding their territory and that he would pay Kronos and his men to forget what they saw and never go back to that island.  Kronos asked to step out of the rain into the stable (also away from his guards) to continue the discussion.  Vael offered a very large bribe to comply with his instructions, and also said to remember the dead Settites and dead halflings before turning it down.  Kronos took Vael's money (actually Vallium's money, as Vallium was the only one carrying that much cash) and then went to give some of it to his men.  Kronos promised that he and his men would never return to that island and would never tell anyone what they saw there.  He also invited the company into the Inn for a free drink.  (Well, a very expensive "free" drink, considering the stack of platinum coins that Vallium had just handed him.)

Ioannes was sad that the Inn didn't have any milk today, and had some water.  The others enjoyed some high-quality locally brewed beer.  Vael asked Kronos about Craas, and Kronos admitted that they'd had encounters with the dragon, and had come to an agreement where they paid the dragon regular tribute in exchange for leaving the Inn and his men alone.  Vael also spoke with Estelle, who told the same story about the dragon.

Vael commanded the Nataraja to follow him, and they all went back toward the Beacon, but stopped at the palace ruins to use the Thothian Teleportation Circle there.  Everyone teleported to the Circle in the Hall of Shrines, with Vallium carrying the Nataraja through the teleporter.  The force fields had not changed since their last visit.  Vael used a Teleport Rug to carry the Nataraja back to the Beacon.  The rest of the group used the Teleport Circle to go near the Red Bridge, then Vallium decided it was too long a walk from there, and had them teleport again to the room next to the Glory of Weskenim.

Their emergence surprised a goblin guard, who raised the alarm, but Bottleneck came over and realized who it was and told the guards to stand down.  The company went through the former halfling portcullis, past the barricade that formerly marked the border between halfling and goblin territory, and down the sloping passage to the Wet Caves.  After a brief discussion with Killik, they continued down the passage to Goblintown.  They took the long, safe way all the way around the perimeter of Goblintown until they reached the Goblin Court.  Palestrim, the king's majordomo, was not in his usual chair outside the King's room.  One of the ogre guards explained that the majordomo was talking to the king and the visitors should wait.

Vael got bored of waiting after a couple of minutes, so used a Message spell to tell Palestrim they were outside and wanted a meeting.  Palestrim came out a few seconds later in a huff, saying that nagging using magic was Not The Correct Protocol but that the King would see them anyway.  He asked them to leave all their weapons with the ogres, though.

King Weskenim was in his room, petting several of his cats.  He asked why they wanted a meeting.  Vael said they were looking to commission a map from Temrin.  The King asked if any of them were married; only Uvash was.  He asked Uvash how many wives he had, and after some sputtering Uvash said only one, as Zodarrim commanded.  Weskenim noted that he had eighteen wives, and the politics of his harem were vicious.  And that, after asking for a group photo, his queen had decided that she wasn't the tallest wife in it, so it had to be redone.  And so Temrin's time would be consumed by that for a while, unless the Queen were bribed with serious jewelry.

Vael offered to speak with the Queen, but Weskenim said that no intact males other than himself were allowed to enter the harem, so Vael would not be speaking with the Queen unless he wanted to become a eunuch first.  Vael declined.  Vael then showed the King his fancy armband and asked if the Queen was looking for something like that.  Weskenim agreed, but said the Queen was a bit shorter than Vael so it would need to be a bit smaller.

Leaving the King's room, the group went to their private guest room within Goblintown.  Vael used the Teleport Rugs to go from there to the Beacon and then to Gosterwick, then met with Chairduster the jeweler to explain the piece he would like to commission.  Chairduster agreed to perform the work, and said that, given the amount of money involved, he could move it to the top of his priority list and finish it within a week if all the necessary materials were available in Gosterwick, or a few weeks if he needed anything brought from Newmarket.

Vael went back to the Arcane Practitioners' Club then through both Teleport Rugs to meet the others in Goblintown.  They retraced their steps back up to the Glory of Weskenim, then used the teleporter on top of the indoor pyramid to the other pyramid near the Well of Light.  They walked east toward the howling caves, when they heard some loud hooting and then a group of four baboons charged them.  As the lead baboon got close, he realized who they were charging, then abruptly stopped, tackled the second baboon, and lead the four baboons running back the way they came.

When the group reached the portcullis near the Howling Caves, they saw a baboon in heating conversation with Yamki.  Yamki said that the baboon was apologizing for almost attacking them; he thought they were intruders, not the Bringers of Food, until he got close.   Vallium said it was fine, and asked if they could go through the Howling Cave to the Chasm.  Yamki said that was permitted, but warned them that the Scary Glowing Orange Room was that way, and to be careful.

The group entered the arcanum geode again, with Ioannes warning everyone that the place might collapse and to be careful, while Vael and Uvash took a quick look for any easily-removed chunks of arcanum.  Finding none, they all continued to the Great Chasm.  Vael cast Walk on Air on Uvash and Ioannes, and everyone Levitated or Air Walked across the Chasm.  The passage leading east showed another baboon staring at them from a nearby cave.  Three of them put on Salamander Amulets to avoid fire damage, while Vael hung back.  When they entered the room, the illusion of the blonde woman again appeared and told them in Mithric to go away.  They ignored her and Vael cast a Lockmaster spell to unlock the secret door, which caused a fireball to go off.  Nobody was hurt because of the fire resistance.  Vael and Ioannes went through the door, and Vael passed Uvash his amulet to carry back to Vallium, so he could safely cross the room.  The illusion of the woman appeared again as Vallium entered the room, but this time no more fireballs went off.  Everyone went down the stairs to the east.

Vael pressed both eyes of the statue, which opened the secret door straight ahead.  They went east down a rough passage to the room where they'd destroyed the Orator constructs a week before.  Vallium asked if they had properly searched the room, and nobody was sure, so they searched it again, and didn't find anything.  There was a portcullis on the far wall.  As they approached it, a couple of statues on the far side of the portcullis animated and started blasting them with Magical Bolts.

Vael cast Blink Other on Vallium then Uvash, to teleport them past the closed portcullis.  Vallium and Uvash smashed the constructs with sword and mace until they stopped firing Magical Bolts.  They didn't find a lever to open the portcullis, so they lifted it instead.  While Vallium held it up, Uvash got a chunk of broken construct to place under it to hold it up while the others crawled under.  When Vael entered the room, with his See Secrets spell running, he spotted a secret door to the north and a hidden button on the wall.  Pushing the button raised the portcullis.  There was also an obvious wooden door to the east.

Vael pushed on the secret door and it just opened, with no tricks required.  This led to another rough passage, which ended in a blank wall.  Vael spotted a stone secret door there, and a button on the floor.  He stepped on the button, and the wall swung open, leading to a narrow balcony inside a huge vertical shaft, with walls of some kind of reflective crystal.  In front of them was a magical statue of a woman, with a plaque saying that she was Placida Gorgitrex, a judge.  Ioannes investigated the statue closely and noticed that the head, of a smiling young woman with short hair, could be moved up and down.  Vael Levitated up and actually removed the head, which was on a pin.

Their Continual Light rocks didn't throw off enough light to see the top or bottom of the shaft, so Vael cast Dark Vision.  This revealed that the shaft went up around 40' and down about 70' from where they were standing.  The bottom of the shaft featured a sandy floor, with some statues on plinths, and some kind of roof over a structure in the center, and four corpses on the floor around the structure.

They decided to explore around the shaft.  They found three more balconies, each with a statue.  Some of the statue heads didn't match the bodies.  They spent some time trying to figure out which head went with which body, and moving the heads around.  When they put the correct head on the correct body, it loudly clicked into place, and would no longer move.  There was also another secret door, near the north balcony, but there was no obvious way to open it.  Vael used a Glass Wall spell to look through the secret door and saw a lever on the far side.  He used an Apportation spell to remotely activate the lever and open the door.

The group went west down another rough corridor, until they reached a large room with three large statues facing away from them.  The statues appeared to be of a man in robes, a woman with long blonde hair, and a snakelike gold dragon.  Vallium Levitated toward the statues.  When Ioannes followed him, actually walking on the ground like some kind of farmer, he detected that the floor was an illusion, by falling through it.  He tried grabbing the floor behind him, but missed, and fell past it.  Vael cast Blink Other, and was quick enough to bring Ioannes back up a few yards, giving him a second chance to grab the floor.  This time Ioannes latched on and then pulled himself up to safety.

Vallium and Vael Levitated down through the illusory floor, and found an empty pit about 60' deep.  The statues were actually on solid ground in the middle of the room.  They flew up out of the pit and near the statues to take a look.  The statue in the middle looked like Priscus Pulcher, and the statue to the north looked like the same blonde woman from the fireball room.  All three statues had valuable-looking gems for eyes.  Vael cast Walk on Air on Ioannes and Uvash again, so they could cross the pit.  When everyone was in the center of the room, Vallium used his knife to pry one of the blue sapphire gems out of the Pulcher statue.

At that point the statues got angry and attacked.  Two of the statues tried magic on Vallium and one on Uvash, but all resisted.  A melee ensued, and Vallium and Uvash eventually smashed all three statues.  When the statues stopped fighting back, they took the rest of their gem eyes.

The room continued beyond the statues.  Everyone looked for, and found, a matching illusory floor pit trap.  This pit was also empty.  Everyone flew over it and down a passage to the west.  It eventually dead-ended, with a secret panel in the ceiling.  Vael noticed that there was a gasket of gum around the panel.  He used Glass Wall to look up through the secret panel, and saw a murky fountain above.  Everyone realized where they were, under the room where they had taken the Mirrors of Life Trapping.  They decided not to bother opening the secret panel and getting wet, and turned around and went back to the balconies around the shaft.

Next everyone flew down to the bottom of the shaft.  When they got closer they realized the four statues in the corners of the room looked like the orator constructs they had fought last week, but were currently dormant.  There were four doors out of the room.  In the center of the room were four columns holding up a roof, and under the roof was a large plinth, holding a huge golden statue of a gold dragon.  Ioannes checked out the corpses on the floor, and decided they had died from falling from a great height.  He noticed that one of the bodies was wearing magical mail armor, which led the whole group to start searching and looting the victims of gravity.

While they were searching the bodies, Uvash was eyeing the gold dragon statue.  Eventually his greed got the better of him, and he asked for the pickaxe from Larel's Sack, then smashed it into the statue's golden eye.  It sunk right in, so the statue was definitely softer than steel.  He removed a chunk of statue and examined it closely, then decided it was iron pyrite, not real gold.  Oh well.

The unprovoked attack on the defenseless dragon statue woke up the orator statues in the corners of the rooms, which all started pelting Uvash with magical bolts.  Meanwhile, the sand to the west of the statue started rumbling and shifting.  Vallium charged the orator in the northwest corner of the room, while Vael followed him to cast buffing spells.  Uvash charged the one in the southwest corner, while Ioannes healed him.  The orators sent magical missiles at everyone, with Uvash getting more than his fair share.  Uvash and Ioannes were both hit a few times and badly wounded.  Vallium reached the construct in the northwest corner as Vael finished casting Great Haste on him, and just slashed it to bits.  Uvash, badly wounded, took longer to wound the southwest statue.

The rumbling sand disgorged a huge iron golem, which came after Vallium with a huge greatsword.  Vallium chose not to parry the huge weapon, dodging it instead.  Under the effect of Great Haste he hit the golem about half a dozen times before it went down.  Meanwhile both Uvash and Ioannes were bleeding a lot and reaching for healing potions.  Ioannes almost passed out, and was saved by his Bless spell, which went away.  Vael used Larel's Clock to turn himself invisible and make the orators stop shooting him, then cast Invisibility on Ioannes as well, and Haste on Vallium to make him even faster.

Vallium ran around the room, killing the two eastern orator constructs while dodging their magical attacks.  Uvash stayed conscious and got a few blows in on the southwestern construct, almost finishing it off, before Vallium came rushing back over and landed the final blow.  With all four constructs and the iron golem down, they took a quick look around the room.  Vael magically spotted a secret door on the eastern side of the dragon statue's plinth, but they decided to come back and open it tomorrow, when they were rested.

They dropped a Teleport Rug on the floor and just teleported back to the Beacon.  When they got there, they remembered that they wanted to test the Mirror of Life Trapping.  (They had found three of them, but had sold two and only kept one.)  Vallium volunteered to be the test subject.  He looked deeply at his reflection in the mirror, and disappeared, leaving a pile of equipment and clothing behind.  Vael used the mirror's command word and managed to make the mirror release Vallium.  (It didn't know him by name, but "prisoner one" worked.)  Vallium looked into the mirror again, and this time Vael tried summoning "prisoner one" to the front of the mirror for conversation.  This worked, and Vallium's image appeared in the mirror.  He was able to talk to Vael, but he was not able to command the mirror to release him from inside, even with the command word.  Vael told the mirror to release him again, and Vallium got dressed.  Vael commanded the Watcher Nataraja to follow him back to the room with the stairs and resume standing guard.

GM's Comments:

That was a lot of angry statues.  The Orator Constructs did a lot of damage, hitting every member of the party with their magical bolts, and severely wounding both Uvash and Ioannes.  The iron golem looked huge and strong and mean, but didn't actually manage to hit with its oversized greatsword before Vallium destroyed it.  The stone guardians and stole golems didn't do as much damage.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 10 new areas, 1 XP
• Loot: They found gem eyes and some loot on the bodies.  Probably 1 XP since they won't sell everything.
• Achievements: 0 XP

Next Week:

They plan to go back to the bottom of that shaft the next day, rather than taking their usual week of downtime.  They want to fully explore the area around the dragon statue, including the secret door and the four doors around the room.  If they finish exploring that area, they will go back to the Well of Light level and continue exploring the tunnels off the Great Chasm.