Date:
2018-08-24
Weather:
Warm, cloudy
Player Characters:
Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 184 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 229 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 217 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 205 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 239 points
Significant NPCs:
Lord Granger Flitwick, noble and artist
Lady Chauntessa, inn owner
20 Piercers
9 Troglodyte Warriors and assorted Troglodyte non-combatants
The party met at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake. Elias had visited the temples of Elyr and Justicia, but again failed to find an exorcist willing to travel to Castle Whiterock. Ibizaber and Garreth had been around town, looking for information and beer, but hadn't found much information.
Garreth was able to commission a penetrating katana at Bao's Blades. Elias tried to purchase some heavy dwarven plate armor from Alrux at the Sign of the Silver Armiger, but did not like the asking price.
Lord Granger Flitwick offered to sell copies of his drawings from inside Castle Whiterock to Lady Chauntessa, which rubbed the party the wrong way, since they thought they had exclusive rights, even though Flitwick had explicitly refused to sell those. Some threats were exchanged and Ibizaber stalked Flitwick to find out where he lived, but Elias eventually talked the others down. Seépravir did some research on Flitwick and his family at the Hall of Worms, looking for dirt.
Polly, bored of all this town nonsense, talked the others into going back to Castle Whiterock to kill more bad guys. It took them a long time to hike there, because they were pushing a heavy wheelbarrow, but the weather was good, and nothing accosted them on the way.
Elias cast another Bless on Ibizaber, since the previous one had been used up saving him from a crossbow bolt. Seépravir cast Dark Vision on everyone, Keen Vision on Ibizaber, and Lighten Burden on Elias, and they went down two flights of stairs to the level where they had fought the orc zombies. They opened the secret door leading to more stairs down, Seépravir cast Invisibility and Mage Stealth on Ibizaber, and they went downstairs with Zaber scouting ahead.
The stairs opened into a large cave, with stalactites on the ceiling and a few small piles of faintly glowing rocks arranged in kind of a double-square pattern. Invisible Zaber went forward to check out the rocks, and saw that they were covered with some kind of plant life or fungus that emitted light. Polly though the pattern of rocks was interesting, and asked Zaber to stand in one place while she stood in another to complete all the corners of a double square, but nothing happened. Then Seépravir wandered across the middle of the room, and a piercer dropped on her from above with total surprise, wounding her pretty badly but not enough to be life-threatening. Garreth ran over to help, and Elias lifted his shield over his head in case there were more.
While Polly filled the first piercer with arrows, keen-eyed Ibizaber scanned the ceiling for more, and found a bunch, which he then called out to the others. (He couldn't point effectively because he was invisible, but he yelled out general locations.) A battle then ensued, where Ibizaber found piercers, Polly rapidly murdered piercers at range with her bow, while Garreth stood wherever he thought piercers were going to drop, waited for them, and then killed them with his katana in flight. One almost got Elias, but he had his shield up and it bounced off. Eventually, twenty piercers died.
Garreth started collecting dead piercers, but found that they exuded some kind of caustic fluid. It didn't damage him through his heavy leather gloves, but he thought better of picking them up. Elias healed Seépravir, everyone rested a bit, and then the group started exploring two exits from the cave, to the northeast and southeast.
Ibizaber started down the southeastern passage, but then saw something suspicious on the floor, which turned out to be a pit trap covered with debris. He thought about triggering it to explore inside, but decided it would make a lot of noise, and chose to jump over instead. Four of the group jumped over the pit, but then Polly saw a second pit on the other side. Elias was stuck, as he couldn't jump far enough to clear either the pit without a running start, and had no space to run. He asked Seépravir to come cast Levitate on him, while the three better jumpers jumped over the second pit, and found a third pit. They jumped over that one too, and found no fourth pit. Seépravir Levitated herself and Elias and the wheelbarrow across, and then needed to rest.
While the group was resting in the tunnel, three troglodytes with javelins and clubs came around the corner and ambushed them. They led with their stench attack, which everyone managed to resist, and Polly resisted so well that it turned out she was naturally immune to these troglodyte's stench. Then they followed up with some thrown javelins. Despite being surprised, Elias managed to block one with his shield. Another troglodyte horribly missed Garreth. The third hit Polly with his javelin, but not very solidly.
The group recovered from surprise quickly, as the troglodytes readied their clubs and stepped toward the intruders. Polly shot one in the vitals twice and killed it. Ibizaber pulled out his long knife. Garreth tried chopping another one, but it dodged. Seépravir, not really a fighter, and a bit behind the others, took a little while to notice the ambush.
Polly was suspicious of the wall behind the group, and asked Zaber to guard it, while she shot another troglodyte. Zaber checked it out, and found that Polly's suspicions were right and there was a secret door there. Garreth chopped up the third troglodyte, Elias cast Stop Bleeding on Polly, and the group rested again, then went up the secret passage behind the secret door. It ended in a dead end, which seemed like an obvious spot for another secret door, which was there. Ibizaber opened it, and it turned out to lead back near the room with the piercers, just a secret bypass passage around the one with the pits.
The group explored the passage to the northeast, and found a big pile of rubble. It looked like it would take a while to clear, and that sounded too much like hard work to some, so they decided to go back south and keep exploring. Elias and Polly got a bit too far ahead of the others, and ran into another ambush, this time six troglodytes. This time the troglodytes failed to achieve surprise. Their stench didn't affect anyone too badly, and Polly started shooting while Elias started smashing with his morningstar. They each took a troglodyte down before their friends caught up, and then the numbers were on their side.
Garreth missed one with a thrown sai (with Continual Light on it), Polly shot another couple, and Seépravir cast Smoke to mess up the last two. (She botched her casting badly, with so many spells on, but used Luck to fix that.) Elias hit the one in front but not very hard, then shield rushed the one in back to knock it prone. Ibizaber moved into position to finish the one in front off, and then Garreth ignored dibs and chopped its head off with his katana. Polly ran around the smoke to shoot the one that Elias had knocked down, and that was all the moving trogs.
At this point the passage was very stinky with dead and unconscious troglodytes, but Seépravir remembered the orcish recipe to harvest troglodyte stench organs and make stenchpots out of them, and started cutting. She got most of the stench organs out intact, but pierced a couple, which made the smell even worse. Elias had to hide in the corner to get away from it. Eventually the butchery was complete, everyone rested, and Seépravir cast Invisibility and Mage-Stealth on Ibizaber and Polly so they could scout ahead.
They found a huge cave, with many small cave alcoves coming off the sides, which appeared to be a great troglodyte living area. A few noncombatant troglodytes were spotted on the far side, but they ran away and the group decided (after some debate) not to hunt them down. The two invisible scouts found various primitive pottery and stone furniture, but no treasure. One side cave contained meat, corpses of cave lizards and sheep or goats and orcs. One had some graffiti in Common: "Bronwyn was here." They also found two passages leaving the big cave, one to the west and one to the south.
The scouts went back to the others to report their findings, and, after some debate, the group decided to go back to the northeast and clear the rubble. It took about an hour, with Garreth and Polly doing most of the rock-moving, Elias smashing rocks with his Penetrating Morningstar (which worked better than you'd expect), and the others standing guard. Finally, there was a wide enough passage to squeeze through, and they did, with Ibizaber in the lead.
They found another cave, long and narrow, this one with a weird flowstone rock formation to the south, leading to some kind of stone pipe organ built into the rock wall, complete with stone piano bench and stone keyboard. Unlike the rest of the caves, this one did not smell like troglodytes. When Ibizaber approached the organ, some moaning speech in a language nobody understood came out, like something was trapped in there. Seépravir's best guess based on the windiness of the language was that it might be Auran, but she wasn't really sure. Nobody had any spells to speak or understand random languages, so communication seemed impossible. Seépravir tried playing the magical jade flute that they had found earlier, and whatever was inside the organ said some other things that nobody understood in response, but it didn't have any obvious effect. Ibizaber tried playing the organ, which had no definite effect. He found a bump on the piano bench, but pushing on it didn't have any clear effect either.
The group decided to go back to town and come back with a way to speak and understand more languages. They made it out of Castle Whiterock and back to Cillamar with no significant difficulties.
GM's Comments:
I thought we might see some violence toward Lord Flitwick over the rights to his drawings, but somehow calmer heads prevailed.
Polly was onto something with the positioning of the glowing rocks, but nobody knew it was piercers above, until one dropped on Seépravir. Twenty of them was a lot, but the piercers had no tactical coordination, and the PCs were lucky to have positioned themselves so that not many piercers got to attack at once. Once the group stopped panicking and figured out how to group together and let Garreth kill them as they dropped, and Polly kill the rest at range, it was not much of a challenge.
The first few troglodytes also achieved surprise (very difficult against high-Perception PCs who tend to send invisible and silent scouts ahead, but they got lucky while the wizard was messing around levitating things over the pits), but the one javelin hit was a weak one, and then the PCs recovered from mental stun quickly, and five on three wasn't a fair fight.
A couple of PCs wandered ahead, briefly leading to a six-on-two ambush, which could have been fatal, but this time the troglodytes failed to achieve surprise, and Elias and Polly did a good job fighting them off until their friends arrived.
The group failed to solve the mystery of the stone organ, but I suspect they'll be back next time with Gift of Tongues to figure out whatever's in there.
GURPS / Dungeon Fantasy RPG campaign set in Castle Whiterock megadungeon
2018-08-20
DF Whiterock Session 16: Art!
Date:
2018-08-17
Weather:
Warm, cloudy
Player Characters:
Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 179 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 224 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 212 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 200 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 234 points
Significant NPCs:
Lord Granger Flitwick, noble and artist
Hugin, mercenary fighter
11 Orcs of the White Roc tribe
Green Slime
Four of the party met at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake in Cillamar. Polly was off in the woods somewhere, and Bernard was still out of town.
Ibizaber had spent part of the week carousing for rumors, and heard that the symbol of the swan is used by the local thieves' guild.
Elias had checked with the temple of Elyr, and found they were concerned about the poor refugees from the Warlands entering Cillamar. He had also checked with the temple of Justicia to see if they had anyone available to help exorcise a temple, but all of their holy warriors were smiting other evil.
Seépravir had researched mining at the Hall of Worms, and was convinced that the tunnels that the White Roc orcs had dug were looking for something, rather than mining for minerals. She asked if Chauntessa wanted to come to Castle Whiterock to see the murals of cloud giants and white birds, but Chauntessa was unable to leave her Inn.
Seépravir then came up with the idea of hiring an artist to copy the murals for Chauntessa. After some asking around, the group found that Lord Granger Flitwick, a local minor noble often found drinking in the Inn, had some artistic talent and was willing to go on a little adventure. They also found that Hugin, a mercenary they had previously rescued from orcs, was available to go along as Flitwick's bodyguard. The negotiated deal was that Flitwick would come along for free, owned the originals of anything he drew, but would be willing to make copies at a reasonable price.
Flitwick got his horse and his art supplies, everyone else got their gear, and the group traveled to Castle Whiterock. They made it there unmolested, Flitwick left his horse in the castle's stable, and everyone proceeded down two levels. Seépravir cast her full ensemble of scouting spells (Dark Vision, Invisibility, Mage-Stealth, Keen Vision) on Ibizaber, and he went off by himself for a while, making sure he knew the way to the tower, and that there were no hostile creatures around.
Ibizaber came back, and the group followed his voice (since he was invisible) to the tower. Once they got there, Flitwick started sketching the mosaics on the bottom level. Ibizaber got bored waiting, and was persuaded not to open the giant iron doors while the artist was working, so went exploring a bit more. He eventually found a blue gem, with some green dripping slime on the ceiling above it. He went back to get Seépravir, who followed Ibizaber back to that area and Apportated the gem away from the green slime.
Flitwick finished his drawings of the bottom level, and went up the ladder to the huge middle level of the tower, with its great spiral staircase surrounded by murals on the walls. Hugin, Garreth, and Elias also came up, to guard him and watch.
Eventually, the art was all done, and the group was ready for Ibizaber to open the iron doors. They were too heavy for him though, so Garreth helped. They were also too heavy for Garreth, and Hugin also helped, and eventually they managed to open the doors. Behind was just a blank stone wall, though. It looked like the tower was somehow thrust into the ground here, and the current entrance to the tower was dug through the back wall, and the actual front door didn't lead to anything.
With Flitwick's work done, he and Hugin went back up to the stables at ground level, to rest and watch his horse and wait for the rest of the group. Polly showed up, late as usual. Everyone else went to the northwest corner of the level, where they thought there might be some places they hadn't explored. They found the passage past the desecrated temple of Justicia continued south a bit, ending near door leading east and a stairway up to the west.
Ibizaber listened to the door, and heard sounds of humanoid conversation inside. Everyone else was watching him, when suddenly a barrel came bouncing down the stairs. First Garreth, then Seépravir (needing Luck), then Elias, and finally Ibizaber all heard it coming, and all managed to dodge it. (Polly was a bit north of the others, out of the line of fire.) The barrel crashed into the door, and some yelling in Orc came through the door. It appeared the group was between enemies on both sides.
Polly charged up the stairs, fired an arrow into the darkness, and didn't hit anything. Garreth and Ibizaber and Elias set up an ambush next to the door. Seépravir dropped 4 spells (leaving 7 on) and cast Smoke on an area centered on the door, including some unseen space on the other side.
Polly kept going up the stairs, saw an orc, and shot him, taking him down. There were four more orcs up there, with crossbows and flails and barrels to roll down the steps. Garreth decided to follow Polly upstairs, leaving the other three guarding the door. An orc threw a barrel at Polly, but she saw it coming and jumped it, as did Garreth when it reached him. This one stopped at the bottom of the stairs, before the other three had to dodge it. The remaining three orcs upstairs all aimed crossbows at Polly.
Garreth threw a sai (with very bright Continual Light on it) at one of the orcs, and hit, but didn't do much damage. Polly shot another orc. All three orcs fired their crossbows at Polly. Two missed (and the one that had Garreth behind Polly also missed Garreth), and one was an accurate shot that Polly acrobatically dodged.
The door opened, behind the smoke. An orc ran through it, right next to Ibizaber, who was hiding behind the smoke waiting to backstab. He stabbed the orc in the face, and the orc failed its stun roll by enough to be knocked out instantly. Seépravir started casting Death Vision.
The orcs upstairs dropped their crossbows and readied their flails. Polly shot at another one, but he dodged it. Garreth fast-drew his katana and tried to chop off both of an orc's arms with a Rapid Strike, but the orc retreated and dodged both blows. With a reach disadvantage, the orc needed a Committed Attack to do a two-hex step to get close enough to swing his flail at Garreth, but Garreth retreated and dodged in turn. Another orc ran up behind Garreth, trying to surround him.
An Alchemist's Fire bomb that someone had flung blind came flying through the smoke and the open door, and didn't hit anyone, but left an area of floor in front of the door on fire. Another orc came through the door, and Ibizaber stabbed him, missing his face but accidentally hitting his (well-armored) torso. Seépravir stopped casting Death Vision and cast Stun on the orc instead, failing because of the penalty for lots of spells on.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Polly shot and dropped another orc. And Garreth chopped the weapon off clean off another orc. It fell into the well in the center of the room, with a loud splash. Garreth suggested that the orc go get it.
Ibizaber tried stabbing the orc in the face again, and this this time hit the face and stunned him, also knocking him down and causing him to drop his flail. Elias followed up with his morningstar, and the knocked out and stunned and weaponless orc failed to dodge and was knocked out.
The one-armed orc upstairs decided to keep fighting, by trying to kick a barrel at Polly. He missed. This made Garreth angry, and he said that would cost him that leg. True to his word, Garreth attacked the leg that kicked the barrel. Initially the orc rolled a critical success on his Dodge, causing Garreth to critically miss, but Garreth used Luck to make the orc reroll, and the dodge failed, and the leg was crippled. At that point there were no armed orcs left upstairs, so Garreth decided to help out downstairs.
Seépravir decided to cast Shape Fire and used it to move the hex of Alchemist's Fire onto the unconscious orc that had foolishly come through the door. Adding to the already severe wounds the orc had taken from Ibizaber and Elias, this killed it, probably Seépravir's first direct kill in this game. (She has a ton of assists though.)
No other orcs came through the door, so Seépravir dropped the Smoke and continued using Shape Fire to move the fire into the room, trying to burn more orcs with it. The others weren't unconscious on the ground, though, so they weren't such easy targets. One was hit, but the fire damage wasn't enough to penetrate his armor. Polly, having just reached the bottom of the stairs, fired an arrow at a recently revealed orc, initially missed badly, used her Luck, and then rolled a critical hit that knocked out the orc.
Ibizaber ran into the room to try to stab an orc, and a waiting orc with a crossbow shot him. He failed his Dodge initally, used Luck, failed to dodge twice more (he chose not to Drop and Dodge), and took a solid crossbow shot that would have wrecked his day. At that point his Bless came into play, turned the hit into a miss, and was dispelled. The bolt kept going at Seépravir behind Ibizaber, who failed to dodge, but used her Luck and dodged. The bolt then continued into a barrel, but nothing interesting came out of it. (Ibizaber was hoping it was full of booze.)
Elias was in the room, and the remaining three orcs ganged up on him. The first fired a crossbow bolt, which he blocked with his shield. The second swung a flail, which he dodged. The third swung a flail, which he parried with his morningstar, despite the penalty for parrying flails. Seépravir cast another Smoke, covering all the orcs around Elias, but not Elias.
Polly shot and downed another orc. Elias used Divine Grace to give himself +4 to DX for 9 seconds. The last few of orcs swung flails at Seépravir and Polly and Elias, who dodged and dodged and was missed. And then Divinely Graceful Elias killed one, and the final two surrendered. Surprisingly, the last two were allowed to run away, after having their gear taken. I guess Garreth and Polly, the Bloodlust twins, were too sleepy to argue this time.
We were out of time, so that was the end of the session. The group returned to town. They had gotten Flitwick to paint pictures of the mosaics and murals in the tower, and had cleared two more rooms of orcs and earned a small fortune in scale and mail armor, flails, and crossbows. (Elias's Very Wealthy advantage means that he can sell loot at 100% of book value instead of the usual 40%.)
GM's Comments:
Hiring an artist to draw pictures was an interesting move. We'll see next time what the pictures are worth.
Everyone has Luck, and almost everyone needed it this session. Everyone also has Bless (Elias can cast it), and it saved Ibizaber from a nasty crossbow wound. It's really hard for the orcs on this level to hit the PCs.
I thought the orcs throwing barrels down the stairs was amusing, but in practice the PCs dodged them all and then Garreth and Polly murdered the barrel-throwing orcs.
Smoke is a nasty spell. Blocks all vision past one hex, plus causes rolls to avoid blindness and nausea. Seépravir cast it on an area that spanned both sides of a door, which felt a bit wonky, but I don't think there's a rule against it, so I allowed it. (She knew there were enemies on the other side, so it wasn't completely cheesy, just a question of whether a closed door should affect casting area spells through it)
Divine Grace is really good. Elias used it kind of late in the fight, so only got to demolish one orc with it. I suspect he'll get more use out of it in the future. Weapon Master is also really good, but Garreth was already wrecking these orcs without it, so it didn't make a really obvious difference.
The PCs have now explored all of that level that they have found, so they'll probably have to go deeper next time. Stay tuned.
2018-08-17
Weather:
Warm, cloudy
Player Characters:
Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 179 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 224 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 212 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 200 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 234 points
Significant NPCs:
Lord Granger Flitwick, noble and artist
Hugin, mercenary fighter
11 Orcs of the White Roc tribe
Green Slime
Four of the party met at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake in Cillamar. Polly was off in the woods somewhere, and Bernard was still out of town.
Ibizaber had spent part of the week carousing for rumors, and heard that the symbol of the swan is used by the local thieves' guild.
Elias had checked with the temple of Elyr, and found they were concerned about the poor refugees from the Warlands entering Cillamar. He had also checked with the temple of Justicia to see if they had anyone available to help exorcise a temple, but all of their holy warriors were smiting other evil.
Seépravir had researched mining at the Hall of Worms, and was convinced that the tunnels that the White Roc orcs had dug were looking for something, rather than mining for minerals. She asked if Chauntessa wanted to come to Castle Whiterock to see the murals of cloud giants and white birds, but Chauntessa was unable to leave her Inn.
Seépravir then came up with the idea of hiring an artist to copy the murals for Chauntessa. After some asking around, the group found that Lord Granger Flitwick, a local minor noble often found drinking in the Inn, had some artistic talent and was willing to go on a little adventure. They also found that Hugin, a mercenary they had previously rescued from orcs, was available to go along as Flitwick's bodyguard. The negotiated deal was that Flitwick would come along for free, owned the originals of anything he drew, but would be willing to make copies at a reasonable price.
Flitwick got his horse and his art supplies, everyone else got their gear, and the group traveled to Castle Whiterock. They made it there unmolested, Flitwick left his horse in the castle's stable, and everyone proceeded down two levels. Seépravir cast her full ensemble of scouting spells (Dark Vision, Invisibility, Mage-Stealth, Keen Vision) on Ibizaber, and he went off by himself for a while, making sure he knew the way to the tower, and that there were no hostile creatures around.
Ibizaber came back, and the group followed his voice (since he was invisible) to the tower. Once they got there, Flitwick started sketching the mosaics on the bottom level. Ibizaber got bored waiting, and was persuaded not to open the giant iron doors while the artist was working, so went exploring a bit more. He eventually found a blue gem, with some green dripping slime on the ceiling above it. He went back to get Seépravir, who followed Ibizaber back to that area and Apportated the gem away from the green slime.
Flitwick finished his drawings of the bottom level, and went up the ladder to the huge middle level of the tower, with its great spiral staircase surrounded by murals on the walls. Hugin, Garreth, and Elias also came up, to guard him and watch.
Eventually, the art was all done, and the group was ready for Ibizaber to open the iron doors. They were too heavy for him though, so Garreth helped. They were also too heavy for Garreth, and Hugin also helped, and eventually they managed to open the doors. Behind was just a blank stone wall, though. It looked like the tower was somehow thrust into the ground here, and the current entrance to the tower was dug through the back wall, and the actual front door didn't lead to anything.
With Flitwick's work done, he and Hugin went back up to the stables at ground level, to rest and watch his horse and wait for the rest of the group. Polly showed up, late as usual. Everyone else went to the northwest corner of the level, where they thought there might be some places they hadn't explored. They found the passage past the desecrated temple of Justicia continued south a bit, ending near door leading east and a stairway up to the west.
Ibizaber listened to the door, and heard sounds of humanoid conversation inside. Everyone else was watching him, when suddenly a barrel came bouncing down the stairs. First Garreth, then Seépravir (needing Luck), then Elias, and finally Ibizaber all heard it coming, and all managed to dodge it. (Polly was a bit north of the others, out of the line of fire.) The barrel crashed into the door, and some yelling in Orc came through the door. It appeared the group was between enemies on both sides.
Polly charged up the stairs, fired an arrow into the darkness, and didn't hit anything. Garreth and Ibizaber and Elias set up an ambush next to the door. Seépravir dropped 4 spells (leaving 7 on) and cast Smoke on an area centered on the door, including some unseen space on the other side.
Polly kept going up the stairs, saw an orc, and shot him, taking him down. There were four more orcs up there, with crossbows and flails and barrels to roll down the steps. Garreth decided to follow Polly upstairs, leaving the other three guarding the door. An orc threw a barrel at Polly, but she saw it coming and jumped it, as did Garreth when it reached him. This one stopped at the bottom of the stairs, before the other three had to dodge it. The remaining three orcs upstairs all aimed crossbows at Polly.
Garreth threw a sai (with very bright Continual Light on it) at one of the orcs, and hit, but didn't do much damage. Polly shot another orc. All three orcs fired their crossbows at Polly. Two missed (and the one that had Garreth behind Polly also missed Garreth), and one was an accurate shot that Polly acrobatically dodged.
The door opened, behind the smoke. An orc ran through it, right next to Ibizaber, who was hiding behind the smoke waiting to backstab. He stabbed the orc in the face, and the orc failed its stun roll by enough to be knocked out instantly. Seépravir started casting Death Vision.
The orcs upstairs dropped their crossbows and readied their flails. Polly shot at another one, but he dodged it. Garreth fast-drew his katana and tried to chop off both of an orc's arms with a Rapid Strike, but the orc retreated and dodged both blows. With a reach disadvantage, the orc needed a Committed Attack to do a two-hex step to get close enough to swing his flail at Garreth, but Garreth retreated and dodged in turn. Another orc ran up behind Garreth, trying to surround him.
An Alchemist's Fire bomb that someone had flung blind came flying through the smoke and the open door, and didn't hit anyone, but left an area of floor in front of the door on fire. Another orc came through the door, and Ibizaber stabbed him, missing his face but accidentally hitting his (well-armored) torso. Seépravir stopped casting Death Vision and cast Stun on the orc instead, failing because of the penalty for lots of spells on.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Polly shot and dropped another orc. And Garreth chopped the weapon off clean off another orc. It fell into the well in the center of the room, with a loud splash. Garreth suggested that the orc go get it.
Ibizaber tried stabbing the orc in the face again, and this this time hit the face and stunned him, also knocking him down and causing him to drop his flail. Elias followed up with his morningstar, and the knocked out and stunned and weaponless orc failed to dodge and was knocked out.
The one-armed orc upstairs decided to keep fighting, by trying to kick a barrel at Polly. He missed. This made Garreth angry, and he said that would cost him that leg. True to his word, Garreth attacked the leg that kicked the barrel. Initially the orc rolled a critical success on his Dodge, causing Garreth to critically miss, but Garreth used Luck to make the orc reroll, and the dodge failed, and the leg was crippled. At that point there were no armed orcs left upstairs, so Garreth decided to help out downstairs.
Seépravir decided to cast Shape Fire and used it to move the hex of Alchemist's Fire onto the unconscious orc that had foolishly come through the door. Adding to the already severe wounds the orc had taken from Ibizaber and Elias, this killed it, probably Seépravir's first direct kill in this game. (She has a ton of assists though.)
No other orcs came through the door, so Seépravir dropped the Smoke and continued using Shape Fire to move the fire into the room, trying to burn more orcs with it. The others weren't unconscious on the ground, though, so they weren't such easy targets. One was hit, but the fire damage wasn't enough to penetrate his armor. Polly, having just reached the bottom of the stairs, fired an arrow at a recently revealed orc, initially missed badly, used her Luck, and then rolled a critical hit that knocked out the orc.
Ibizaber ran into the room to try to stab an orc, and a waiting orc with a crossbow shot him. He failed his Dodge initally, used Luck, failed to dodge twice more (he chose not to Drop and Dodge), and took a solid crossbow shot that would have wrecked his day. At that point his Bless came into play, turned the hit into a miss, and was dispelled. The bolt kept going at Seépravir behind Ibizaber, who failed to dodge, but used her Luck and dodged. The bolt then continued into a barrel, but nothing interesting came out of it. (Ibizaber was hoping it was full of booze.)
Elias was in the room, and the remaining three orcs ganged up on him. The first fired a crossbow bolt, which he blocked with his shield. The second swung a flail, which he dodged. The third swung a flail, which he parried with his morningstar, despite the penalty for parrying flails. Seépravir cast another Smoke, covering all the orcs around Elias, but not Elias.
Polly shot and downed another orc. Elias used Divine Grace to give himself +4 to DX for 9 seconds. The last few of orcs swung flails at Seépravir and Polly and Elias, who dodged and dodged and was missed. And then Divinely Graceful Elias killed one, and the final two surrendered. Surprisingly, the last two were allowed to run away, after having their gear taken. I guess Garreth and Polly, the Bloodlust twins, were too sleepy to argue this time.
We were out of time, so that was the end of the session. The group returned to town. They had gotten Flitwick to paint pictures of the mosaics and murals in the tower, and had cleared two more rooms of orcs and earned a small fortune in scale and mail armor, flails, and crossbows. (Elias's Very Wealthy advantage means that he can sell loot at 100% of book value instead of the usual 40%.)
GM's Comments:
Hiring an artist to draw pictures was an interesting move. We'll see next time what the pictures are worth.
Everyone has Luck, and almost everyone needed it this session. Everyone also has Bless (Elias can cast it), and it saved Ibizaber from a nasty crossbow wound. It's really hard for the orcs on this level to hit the PCs.
I thought the orcs throwing barrels down the stairs was amusing, but in practice the PCs dodged them all and then Garreth and Polly murdered the barrel-throwing orcs.
Smoke is a nasty spell. Blocks all vision past one hex, plus causes rolls to avoid blindness and nausea. Seépravir cast it on an area that spanned both sides of a door, which felt a bit wonky, but I don't think there's a rule against it, so I allowed it. (She knew there were enemies on the other side, so it wasn't completely cheesy, just a question of whether a closed door should affect casting area spells through it)
Divine Grace is really good. Elias used it kind of late in the fight, so only got to demolish one orc with it. I suspect he'll get more use out of it in the future. Weapon Master is also really good, but Garreth was already wrecking these orcs without it, so it didn't make a really obvious difference.
The PCs have now explored all of that level that they have found, so they'll probably have to go deeper next time. Stay tuned.
2018-08-12
DF Whiterock Session 15: Rocks and Zombies
Date:
2018-08-10
Weather:
Warm, mostly cloudy
Player Characters:
Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 174 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 207 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 197 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 229 points
Significant NPCs:
Katanya Glimer, Gnome sorceress
Durkerle, Dwarf cleric of Danethar
Cookie, Ogre bouncer
Or'dimisas of Kassantia, Human sage of Delvyr
2 Rasthnums, spiky poisonous rocks
7 Orc Zombies
After a week of training and selling loot and looking for information, Elias, Ibizaber, and Seépravir met at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake in Cillamar. (Bernard and Garreth were out of town on other business, and Polly was out doing something in the woods.)
Seépravir then taken the sheet of paper written in Gnomish, which the party had found in the laboratory of an orcish alchemist, to Katanya for translation. Kat revealed that it was some kind of advertising flier for a gnomish institution of mechanical learning called the Clockwork Academy.
Seépravir had visited the Hall of Worms, a library and temple of Delvyr, looking for information about the Ring of Water Breathing (and possibly other abilities that Analyze Magic wasn't able to discern) that Nemoura the nixie had given the group in exchange for killing a giant crayfish. The sage Or'dimisas was quite impressed with Seépravir's knowledge of Thaumatology, and allowed her free admission to the library as a professional courtesy. But there was no information about the ring to be found. The library did contain a book that mentioned the Clockwork Academy, but only in passing. Its location was specified as "near Castle Whiterock."
Ibizaber had visited most of the taverns in Cillamar, and someone had told him that a secretive league of arcanists congregates at the castle ruins on moonless nights to conduct terrible rituals. But he couldn't remember who told him that. The moon was currently about half full.
Durkerle showed up to collect his share of the loot from the previous delve, then left to serve Danethar in another town.
Elias needed someone to cock his overstrength hand crossbow, and Garreth wasn't around, so he got Cookie, the Inn's ogre bouncer, to do it in exchange for a small tip. Then the three left a message for their friends that they were heading for Castle Whiterock, and set off with Elias pushing a wheelbarrow.
This time they reached the Castle without incident, and then went down through one locked door (they still had the key), two secret doors, and two flights of stairs to the level that had been occupied by the White Roc orcs. Seépravir cast 11 spells: 3 Dark Vision, 3 Invisibility, 3 Mage-Stealth (which allows talking), a Keen Vision, and a Lighten Burden. And the invisible and silent (except when talking to each other to make sure they were still in formation) group started exploring the level, looking for anything they missed before.
Eventually, Ibizaber found some writing on the floor in Orc: a rune and an arrow. None of the three could read it, so Elias cast Gift of Letters, which revealed that the rune said "Danger". Thus warned, the three went that way anyway. At that point, a spined rock on the ceiling (a creature that Quintus the alchemist had identified as a rasthnum, and which Polly the elf had identified as containing poison by drinking said poison), tried to fall on Ibizaber's head. (How it detected him, they weren't sure.) Zaber saw it coming and jumped back, and then a fight ensued. Seépravir dropped some spells to reduce her "spells on" casting penalty, and tried to Glue the rock to the floor, but failed. Ibizaber tried stabbing the rock with his knife, but it dodged. Elias smashed the rock with his very fancy morningstar, and did some serious damage. Seépravir tried Glue again, and it worked the second time. The severely wounded rasthnum stopped struggling against the Glue and reverted to acting like a rock.
...At which time a second rasthnum had moved into position and also tried to drop on Zaber's head. He dodged again, Elias crushed it with his flail for excellent damage, and it quickly stopped struggling. Then the looters went to work extracting treasure: Ibizaber removed the poison from both rasthnum into empty vials, Seépravir borrowed a scalpel from Elias and de-spined one rasthnum, and then Polly, who had just come bounding down the hallway, removed the spine from the other one.
After a quick rest, Seépravir cast Dark Vision on Polly (to avoid having any lights to give them away), and recast Invisibility on herself and Ibizaber, and they resumed exploring. Far to the northwest, the group found two doors they hadn't seen before, and also, nearby, the desecrated altar to Justicia that they had tried cleaning up before, before getting distracted by a fight between Durkerle and a rasthnum. This time, the whole group tried cleaning up the altar, with instruction from Elias. Nobody knew Exorcism, but they figured some elbow grease and heartfelt prayers couldn't hurt. They also moved some orcish archery targets out of the room with the altar, as disrespectful, though Polly couldn't resist shooting one first (and wasted a critical hit on it).
With the altar cleaned up as much as possible, they proceeded to the southern door, which Zaber checked for traps, found was unlocked, and opened. Inside was a huge bed, about 12 feet long. Also a desk covered with papers written in Orc. Polly looked under the best, and found a chest. Ibizaber checked it for traps, didn't find any, picked the lock, and got a sheet of fire in the face. Oops. Fortunately it only singed him a little bit.
The chest contained some coins, a small pretty box which in turn contained a silver and onyx necklace of a bird, and a magical silver and jade flute. Zaber tried playing the flute and made a high-pitched flatulent noise. Seépravir tried playing the flute and made a few pleasant notes. Nothing obviously magical happened either time. Seépravir found a secret door in the southern wall, which led to a small room containing a heavy stone model of Castle Whiterock. The upper level looked familiar, but the model showed a lower level that did not, which looked like it would be under the lake now. Seépravir also searched the chest for a false bottom, and found one, which contained a parchment with a few runes of Orcish.
Having taken everything except the (very heavy) model castle, the group continued to the northern door. This one was locked. Zaber picked the lock, and opened the door. This revealed a large, roughly circular, room, with niches in the walls, containing dead orcs. Or, rather, undead zombie orcs, which started coming out of their niches to attack.
Polly started the fight by shooting an arrow into an orc zombie in mail, and downing it. Ibizaber (still invisible and silent) snuck around behind a zombie to the north to backstab it. Elias got his flail ready to smash zombie skulls. Seépravir invisibly moved into position. And the zombies all charged forward.
Then Polly unluckily dumped her whole quiver of cutting arrows. She decided not to use her Luck and just to rely on impaling arrows for the fight. (They're not as good against zombies.) Zaber backstabbed a zombie in the foot and scored really good damage, cutting its foot off. The zombie hit the floor. Elias whomped on a zombie with his flail. Seépravir noticed that the nearest zombie was wearing a silver necklace, decided it might be important, and tried Apportation to filch it. This succeeded but didn't have any noticeable effect on the zombie.
Polly fired a couple of arrows that zombies were lucky to dodge. Zaber, happy with his foot attack, tried it again on a second zombie and chopped off another foot, but now had two one-footed angry zombies crawling at him. Elias was fighting two zombies, but managed to block two attacks and parry one. (His fancy morningstar is Dwarven, allowing parrying after attacking.)
Not liking the two-on-one odds, Ibizaber decided to All-Out Defend (Dodge) and run away from the crawling zombies a bit, so he could return and fight one at a time. Elias, fighting two zombies, took the wounded one down with a second solid flail hit to even the odds. Polly and Seépravir and two more zombies were in another melee, but both Polly and Seépravir dodged every attack that came close, and Polly kept shooting arrows. Seépravir decided Polly wasn't shooting fast enough and cast Great Haste on her.
Eventually Elias finished his last zombie, Polly took down both of the standing zombies near her, and all that remained were the two one-footed zombies crawling around after Ibizaber. They were slow enough for Polly to dispatch from a distance at her leisure, but both Ibizaber and Elias felt the need to come within range and get another shot in. Then all the zombies were dead for good. Each had a necklace, several had maces and tattered leather armor, and one had a mail shirt. Searching room revealed some stairs down. But the group had enough treasure that they decided to return to town, and save those stairs for another time.
GM's Comments:
Invisibility plus Mage-Stealth plus Dark Vision is a great combination for stealthy exploration. With all of them up, the party can explore with a small chance of being detected, but still talk to each other. (Of course talking increases the chances of being heard.) But with only one mage casting all these spells, eventually the penalty for number of spells on gets ugly.
The three PCs who started the session "forgot to bring any damage". No Garreth, no Bernard, no Polly. But Elias and his super-flail actually put a pretty good dent in the rasthnum. Seépravir's Glue spell wasn't really needed.
Polly rolled 18 on a Fast-Draw (arrow) roll, a critical failure which spilled the whole quiver. I think everyone expected her to use Luck, but she preferred to save it for something more lethal, and just used her other quiver of arrows. That worked out okay, since the zombies weren't super-tough.
Elias has Bless, so now the entire party (including Elias: you can't Bless yourself but there was a scroll) is running around with Bless, for +1 on every die roll. Plus when something horrible happens to one of them, the Bless will prevent it then go away. The combination of Bless, Luck, Seépravir's combo of stealth spells, careful exploration, and good luck on defense rolls means that nobody took any damage this session, except Ibizaber getting burned a bit by the fire trap on the chest. I think that despite their low starting point totals, this group is starting to feel a bit overpowered for the current dungeon level. But, they just found some stairs down, so we'll see if that continues.
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