DF Whiterock Session 21: Clockwork

Date:

2018-09-21

Weather:

Overcast, chilly

Player Characters:

Bojack Axeman (Infinitepudding), Dwarf Martial Artist, 180 points

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 204 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 249 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 237 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 223 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 259 points

Significant NPCs:

Animated pushcart

Xorn

3 Shocker Lizards

After successfully plundering a small dragon horde, the party spent a week in Cillamar training and shopping.  Zaber looked for some high-quality lockpicks to get a better shot at picking the excellent lock on the Clockwork Academy's front door, but couldn't find any.

Seépravir took the magical jade strings from the dragon hoard, and went looking for an expert who might be able to figure out if they went with a harp.  She found a gnomish luthier named Russet, who thought the strings were kind of thick for a harp, and might go better with a bass lyre.  Russet offered to build a harp for the strings, but Seépravir decided to wait.

Zaber and Garreth spent some time drinking and looking for rumors, and heard more tales of undead gnome wererats in the sewers under Cillmar, and secretive arcanists meeting at Castle Whiterock under the full moon.

Elias visited the templates of Elyr and Justicia, looking for help and quests, and found out that swamp rot was going around and that anyone with Cure Disease could do some good.  So he went looking for a scroll of Cure Disease, but failed to find one.  Then Garreth went looking for a scroll of Cure Disease, and rolled a critical success.  So Garreth gave Elias the scroll and Elias learned Cure Disease and spent some time helping sick townsfolk and refugees.  (How does a half-orc warrior find a cleric scroll that a wealthy cleric can't find?  I'm not sure.  Maybe I need to change the rule to one roll per item, rather than one roll per PC.)

The party gathered at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake in Cillamar.  There was a dwarf there, looking confused because it's more of an elf inn (lute playing, hard carrot juice) than a dwarf inn (drinking songs, bobbing in kegs of ale for more ale).  Immediately recognizing a new PC, Garreth introduced himself to the dwarf, whose name was Bojack, and who had no armor but incredibly thick and tough skin.  He gave Bojack his extra beer (Garreth is a big guy with Resist Poison so tends to order two drinks at a time) and immediately made a friend.  Polly quizzed Bojack to make sure he didn't like orcs, which he didn't, so that was good enough for her.  Ixnay the shoulder dragon saw Garreth giving free beer to the dwarf and decided to get in on that action, then went back to sleep.  Polly enjoyed some hard carrot juice.

Everyone decided they'd had enough town and started heading for the exit, then Garreth remembered they had dragon scales to sell, but Quintus the alchemist wasn't in the room, and at that point the party was hiking, so they decided to deal with dragon scales next week.  They were pushing four wheelbarrows (the thrifty adventurer's wagon) between the six of them.   Bojack critically succeeded on his Hiking roll, showing a real knack for leading the way.

Seépravir had learned some annoying interesting new spells, Seek Magic and Seek Earth and Shape Earth and Seeker and See Secrets.  So suddenly the GM needed to know the nearest spell, magic item, magical being, and every kind of metal and stone.  The first couple of castings were foiled by finding stuff on the party, but then Seépravir remembered to exclude those and it was time for the treasure sonar.  She found some silver and magic in a spider cave that had been cleaned out last week; the PCs had searched a pit, and searched the walls for secret doors, but hadn't done a proper search of the whole room.

They went back down to the cave with the Flowstone Organ, the imprisoned air elemental, and the locked (and hidden behind an illusion, that Katanya had showed them how to bypass last time) door to the Clockwork Academy.  Garreth tried the key that they'd found on the draconic troglodyte priest, and it fit!  He told Bojack to just walk through the wall, as it was an illusion, but the dwarf was skeptical.  He made his Will roll to trust Garreth and just walk smack into the wall, and managed to walk through the illusion.

At that point, an intra-party debate ensued.  About half the group wanted to go forward to the Clockwork Academy, and the other half wanted to go loot the spider cave for leftover treasure first, then visit the Clockwork Academy.  After about five minutes of indecision, I asked the players to just vote so we could move forward.  It was 4-2 to get the treasure first, so they went to the spider cave.  

Now, knowing there was leftover treasure there, they headed back and started looking for treasure, but nothing was obvious.  So Seépravir cast Seek Magic again to home right in on the right part of the room, against the wall behind some webs.  Seépravir was adamant that nobody burn any webs because they might be valuable, so some labor-intensive minimally-destructive web clearing was needed.  Garreth rolled a critical success (the third one of the session already, all on little minor things) and figured out that a little bit of spit in the right place could disentangle webs from walls.  So he made a nice pile of spider silk in the corner, while others looted.  Zaber found a short sword (which Seépravir thought was fine quality), a pouch with a few coins, and a copper scroll case.  The scroll case contained a magic scroll, which Seépravir rudely grabbed from Zaber, and which ended up being a scroll of Shape Earth, which Seépravir had just learned.  Zaber did a bit more searching in the other corner, and found a silver necklace, with a black spider on it.  It looked like creepy Drow jewelry, but it also looked valuable, so they took it.

At that point Polly announced that it had been enough time playing with webs and treasure without killing any bad guys, so everyone headed back toward the Clockwork Academy.  Behind the door was a straight passage, only 5 feet high (so everyone but Bojack and Polly had to duck), with some writing in Gnome on the walls, and also some happy pastoral art with squirrels.  Rather than being pitch black like most dungeon passages, this one was dimly lit by occasional permanent Continual Light spells, so that the people with Night Vision could function fine, and those without it could at least see a bit.

Nobody read Gnome, so Elias cast Gift of Letters on himself.  He was at -5 for maintaining Bless spells on everyone else in the party (including Bojack who got Blessed about 5 minutes after he showed up), so it took him a bunch of tries, then some rest, then some more tries, but he eventually cast it.  And found out that the signs said "Right: Dormitory" and "Left: Assembly Hall."  The group picked left.

The passage went left for a while, then there were some stairs down into a room.  I said "stop" because I wanted to read the room description, but before I could finish reading the room description, half the party went running in, while the other half stayed put and waited for more information like good adventurers.  Oops.

The room was a workshop, full of bits of metal and tools and with a crane on one side.  The ones who charged forward got ambushed from behind by an animated pushcart.  It slammed into Elias from behind, with total surprise, hard enough to knock him prone and leave a mark.  Then it went after Zaber, and hit him, but not hard enough to knock him down.  By that time the PCs had recovered from surprise and were turning to face the pushcart and fight it.  But Polly didn't have to run up, just shoot it with her overstrength bow, and she did, and the pushcart stopped moving and became a regular pushcart with a broken wheel.  (Animated pushcarts have a pretty good failure mode, like escalators.)

Zaber jumped on the cart because he could, and the rest of the PCs ambled into the room, and Elias used some Major Healing scrolls to fix his back where the cart had run him over, and Polly recovered one of her arrows.  And then something tried to Death From Above Garreth.  He made his hearing roll, and wasn't surprised, but the dropping monster rolled a critical hit.  Of course he used Luck, which turned the crit into a regular hit, and then he dodged it.  And found he was standing toe-to-toe with a trilaterally symmetrical rock creature with 3 arms and a huge centrally-located mouth.  Nobody knew what it was, except that I had labelled the token "Xorn" in Roll20, so I guess everyone kinda knew what it was.

Garreth fast-drew his katana and chopped at the xorn twice, but it dodged.  Bojack used Uninterrupted Flurry, a chi power that would let him move at double speed for a few seconds, after wasting a second to start it up.  Seépravir started casting Death Vision.  Polly fired arrows, but it dodged them.  Zaber fast-drew his knife.

The xorn tried to bite Garreth, but he parried.  This time he went with a single Deceptive Attack to greatly reduce the xorn's defenses, and it worked, with the penetrating katana taking out a big hunk of rock.  Elias ran up.  Bojack readied his pick, then went for an All-Out Attack (Double) to smash the xorn, but he didn't do enough damage to penetrate its thick rocky hide.  Seépravir finished casting her Death Vision, and the xorn was stunned, No Saving Throw.  (That's a joke because this is a converted D&D adventure; of course the proper GURPS / DFRPG terminology is No Resistance Roll.)  

Polly fired a couple of arrows into the stunned xorn, and it failed its consciousness check.  Which didn't stop Garreth from chopping it up a bit more just to be sure.  Elias healed Zaber.  Polly recovered arrows then rested (firing that huge bow is tiring), then went to check out the beam with the crane on it.  The crane had a crank, but it was rusted stuck.  Zaber climbed up to check it out, rather than using the nearby stairs like a normal person.  Garreth ambled over to exert strength on it, but it still just made a lot of noise and didn't move.  Seépravir then tried a Grease spell, which unstuck things, but it still didn't do anything useful, as something had been broken.

Zaber started scrounging around the room for useful stuff, and found a few pieces of interesting-looking metal without too many Xorn bite marks.  Seépravir found a glass panel under the crane, with some Gnomish writing near it and a magical scarab behind it.  Elias cast Gift of Letters again, and the writing said "In emergency, break glass."  Seépravir decided to cast Analyze Magic on the scarab, a multi-hour process.

While she was doing that, Polly got bored and decided to do some exploring.  She found a rubble-filled passage to the east.  After a few minutes of clearing rubble, it led to a room, with a small hatch, leading to a very narrow vertical passage down.  Polly couldn't help herself, and atttempted to squeeze in.  She made an amazing roll on her default Escape check, and squeezed in, as the other players cringed.  Polly went 20 feet down a chimney, and found an iron door.  She opened the door, and saw 3 small blue lizards, which charged her.  Polly fired a couple of arrows at a lizard, which dodged them.  Then two lizards run up next to Polly and attacker her with lightning!  One hit, but she resisted with DX for half-damage, which caused some mild complaints as that wasn't a very GURPSy mechanic.  The other missed, and the third one closed up.

Outnumbered 3 to 1 by lizards that could shock her, Polly did the sensible thing and slammed the door.  Unfortunately, lightning attacks go through metal doors, and a big electrical zap came through.  Polly made her DX roll for half damage, but half damage was 15 hit points, enough to put Polly in deep trouble.  At that point, her trusty Bless spell decided that, nope, she wasn't hit by that lightning after all, and fizzled out.  And Polly started climbing up the shaft as fast as she could.

Eventually, Seépravir's Analyze Magic finished and determined that the scarab had Detect Golems, and more powers still to be detected.  Garreth decided that was good enough, smashed the glass, and took the scarab.  It didn't zap him or anything, so he passed it to Seépravir.

There were two more small hatches in the workroom, and Zaber checked them for traps, but they were full of rubble.  Zaber tried to squeeze in, but failed.  Seépravir tried detecting golems with the scarab, but didn't find any.  We were just about out of time, so the group decided to go back to town.

GM's Comments:

I was surprised the group missed the spider's treasure last session, because they're usually pretty good at remembering to search everything.  But Seek Magic and Seek Earth (for silver) both led to that room, so they only postponed finding the treasure for a week.  Long-distance divination spells are annoying for the GM, because it's that much more information that he has to have ready.  But I'll figure something out.

The animated pushcart was pretty good at slamming, but not so good at taking damage.  The Xorn was pretty buff, but not quite up to being chopping by Garreth and shot by Polly while being stunned by Seépravir, who now has at least 3 different ways to stun you.

Impulsiveness almost killed the elf.  The skinny little chimney meant that nobody could help Polly, and the three lightning lizards almost shocked her to death.  But Bless is the most broken spell in GURPS, and it saved her long enough to run away.  Those might be the first enemies in Castle Whiterock that the PCs have fled from.  (Granted, it was only one PC.)

Elias once again saved someone's life with Bless and multiplied the value of all the treasure found by 2.5 with Very Wealthy.  And he can cast healing spells, though not particular well because of the -5 from keeping 5 Bless spells up.  I think basically every adventuring party on the planet would try to recruit Elias.

Bojack's an interesting character, but we didn't get to see him do much yet.  His pick didn't penetrate the Xorn, and then it was unconscious before he got a second try.  Stay tuned to see his varied talents.

Next week, I suspect the PCs will be back for another shot at the Clockwork Academy.  Do they go down the skinny shaft after the shock lizards, or do they go straight or turn right instead of left?  We'll find out next time.