DF Whiterock Session 35: Smelly Illusions

Date:

2019-01-25

Weather:

Freezing, light snow

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles not present, played by Demented Avenger), Wood Elf Cleric, 262 points

Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 314 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 307 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 291 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 325 points

Significant NPCs:

Aboleth, possibly illusory

2 Leech Swarms

Huge Leech

Derro Skum Wizard

Quintus, Wizard/Alchemist

We started the session in mid-battle, though all that was left was the huge aquatic wizard monster (later identified as probably an Aboleth) and a leech swarm.  (Some other leech swarms, several skum zombies, and a possibly illusory Roper had already been defeated.)  The sea wizard was swimming (at insanely fast speed) toward an exit in the southeastern corner of the big pool room.  The leeches were on the slippery sloping passage with the PCs, trying to suck some blood from anything warm-blooded.

Garreth got swarmed by the leeches, for significant but not terrifying damage, but he easily made his 2 HT rolls to avoid whatever follow-up effects the leeches caused.  (His Resist Disease helped on one of the two rolls; his Resist Poison helped on neither.  So one of the rolls was something else.)  Elias, with Heroic Grace still active boosting his DX to 19 and Great Haste doubling his attacks per turn, closed in on the leech swarm and flailed them multiple times, finishing them off with a messy splat.  Seépravir finally remembered to dispel the Levitate spell on Zaber, that she had cast for emergency evacuation purposes but which was now hanging him uselessly in the air, so he could move freely.  Zaber easily made his Acrobatics roll, landed on his feet, and avoided sliding down the slippery passage.  Zaber considered jumping in the pool, but then remembered that Seépravir had dropped the Warmth spell on him, and decided it wasn't a good day for hypothermia.

Polly leaned out over the edge of the ledge to get line of sight on the retreating sea wizard, and fired a couple more arrows at it.  One was bounced aside, probably by a Deflect spell.  Another sunk deeply into the creature's hindquarters, resulting in more green blood spurting out.  Then the creature managed to retreat out of sight.

At that point the PCs decided not to swim across open water at a giant aquatic wizard monster, and instead to go back uphill for a skiff.  Everyone managed to climb up the slippery slope, except Elias, who Garreth pulled up behind him with a rope.  At that point Polly and Garreth both asked Elias for a Stop Bleeding spell, and then everyone took a little rest.  Their usual wandering monster luck prevailed, and everyone managed to get all their FP back without getting ambushed.

At that point there was a discussion on whether to take the skiff down the waterslide passage (if it fit) to have a boat at the bottom, or use the Folding Boat down there instead, or leave that area alone for now and continue down the underground river.  The eventual consensus was to drag the skiff downhill, saving the Folding Boat for emergencies rather than subjecting it to possible damage.  Garreth and Elias managed to portage the boat down the narrow passage without falling over.  When they got to the pool at the bottom, there were no enemies to be found.

At that point Zaber asked Seépravir to renew Warmth and Invisibility on him, so he could scout safely.  He then did a couple of of slow laps around the pool, looking for secrets.  He found a hidden underwater passage to the north, which the group decided not to explore yet.  He also found a dry-ish passage to the southeast, featuring a green blood trail that went for a few yards then abruptly disappeared.  Seépravir decided to cast Seek Magic, which found some magic nearby to the south, which was enough to convince everyone to go that way.

Zaber scouted ahead and saw that the room ended in a round room with a flat floor, but also (with his excellent and also magically-enhanced Perception) that the flat floor was an illusion and there was actually a pool of water there, with an island in the middle.  The room also contained a bunch of slimy yellow-green writhing cocoons about 5' in diameter hanging from the ceiling, and smelled very strongly (strongly enough to force HT rolls) of rotting fish.

The combination of the ichor trail stopping abruptly, the illusion, and the sea monster not being here caused everyone to get very suspicious.  Zaber doubled back and searched for secret doors, but didn't find any.  A lot of discussion ensued, and while everyone was discussing, another leech swarm came out of the water and surprised the party.  First they tried to get Seépravir, but she was Levitating a few feet up and they couldn't get through her (minimal) armor.  Then they went for Polly, bleeding her a bit.  At that point everyone recorded from surprise, Garreth started killing leeches with his katana, and Polly started killing leeches with her rapier.  Soon the leech swarm was dispersed.

Not long after, a huge (SM+2) leech came out of the water at the group.  This time they weren't surprised, so it wasn't much of a fight.  Garreth smacked it a couple of times with his katana and stunned it, and then Polly put a couple of arrows into it, and then Garreth hit it some more and Polly shot it again and the giant leech stopped moving.

While everyone else was fighting leeches, Zaber was carefully observing the water, and he spotted a small humanoid, underwater, about 15 yards away.  As Zaber started telling the others about it, the little guy fired a bolt of mana at Elias.  Elias tried to dodge, failed, used his Luck, and succeeded.

At that point a ranged attack war began between Polly and the creature, that turned out to be a Derro Skum.  Polly would fire arrows, accurately despite the penalty for firing into water, and then the Derro would dodge.  And then the Derro would fire mana bolts at Polly, who would acrobatically dodge.  Meanwhile another leech swarm came out of the water, but it failed to achieve surprise, and mostly just gave Elias and Garreth something to do while Polly and the Derro failed to hurt each other.

Meanwhile, Seépravir cast Swim and Warmth Breathe Water and Dark Vision on Garreth, enabling him to go swimming after the Derro without freezing to death or risking drowning or being really slow and heavily penalized.  Garreth jumped in and started swimming at the Derro.  Invisible Zaber also jumped in and started circling around behind the Derro.

Polly finally managed to put an arrow into the Derro Skum, though it only did half damage because of the water.  Garreth swam within range and went for a Slam attack.  The Derro Skum did a retreating Dodge, which kept in from getting Slammed, but put it within Zaber's reach.  Zaber went for an All-Out Attack (Double), stabbing the Derro Skum twice in the skull.  First one hit, second one was a Major Wound, and the Derro Skum, rolling Stun at -10 for a brain hit, failed by enough to be knocked out.  That ended the fight.  Garreth, in his usually Bloodlusty way, decided to decapitate the unconscious Skum and bring both parts back to shore for looting.  It turned out to have nothing.

Zaber circled the pool, and didn't find any other secrets or exits.  Seépravir cast enough Seek Magic to home in on whatever magic she found earlier, and found that there was something magic on the island.  Zaber hadn't wanted to explore the island earlier because it was all slimy from slime dripping off the cocoons overhead, but magic was enough to motivate slogging through slime.  Zaber found a bracer (below-the-elbow forearm armor), and a few minutes later found the other one.  Seépravir found a magic ring.  Zaber found several bags of salt, and then a (non-magical) shortsword.  Seépravir cast Seek Magic again, and found no more magic in this room, with the nearest unknown magic a ways to the north.

Elias was pretty sure that the things in the cocoon were evil undead and all needed to die.  Polly was happy to shoot one, and then they cut it open and found a dead derro halfway morphed into a skum.  That was enough for everyone to agree with Elias, and kill all the others.  This made the stench in the room even more overpowering, and Elias and Seépravir got badly nauseated and had to leave the room.

Seépravir checked out the suspiciously disappearing ichor trail, and decided it was probably an illusion.  She cast Dispel Magic, and it went away!

At this point, the group discussed whether to press on down the underground river, explore the secret passage to the north, or go back to town.  They decided on town.

When the group reached Cillamar, Garreth remembered to ask Quintus about the slimy green stuff they found in a glass box a few sessions ago.  Quintus said it was demon toads eggs and would pay $200 for them.  Garreth asked if they'd be used as potion ingredients, or hatched into demon toads.  Quintus reassured Garreth that he had no intention of breeding demon toads, so the group agreed to sell the eggs.  Zaber searched for Flitwick's servants again, but didn't find any.

GM's Comments:

The leech swarms were a challenge to one PC, but died pretty quickly when multiple PCs started damaging them.  The big leech never managed to hit, as it was stunned then reduced to goo pretty quickly.  The derro skum wizard abused the underwater combat rules nicely to keep plinking mana bolts at the PCs while mostly avoiding Polly's arrows, but once Garreth and Zaber both came into the water after it, it was doomed.

The party doesn't know if the sea monster was real or an illusion, but they can't find any sign of it, and the ichor trail it left was an illusion, so they're suspicious.

The illusion of a solid floor over a pool (containing leeches) was a nice simple trap, but Zaber's Perception was too good to be fooled.  3/5 of the PCs never saw the illusion, but they trusted Zaber and Seépravir, and didn't step where they were told not to step.  I wish Roll20 let me draw two versions of the map, one for the players who saw through the illusion and one for those that didn't, but that's beyond its capabilities.

We quit 30 minutes early, because I warned the players that if they continued exploring, they might run into a fight that they couldn't finish this session and get stuck in the dungeon again.  Which isn't a huge deal, but means they can't buy equipment or sell loot or spend character points.

Whispering To One Player vs. Just Telling Everyone

One nice feature about virtual tabletop programs like Roll20 is that the GM can whisper to one player without anyone else overhearing or even noticing.  You can do this in a face-to-face game, but then it requires either passing notes or pulling one player aside, both of which are usually obvious to the other players.

I often forget to whisper, though.  And sometimes deliberately don't bother.  It's easier to just speak to everyone: it doesn't require typing any fancy commands, and it means you only have to deliver the message once.

One case where I almost always remember to whisper is when the PCs are not fully in agreement with each other.  In that case the player whose PC wants to do something different than the rest of the group might not want to share private information with them, so it's only fair to give them the option.  This group has seen some intra-party conflict in the past, but the current group of 5 PCs get along pretty well, with one exception: Elias (a cleric of Elyr, a goddess strongly opposed to all undead) thinks Loras the lich is pure evil and needs to die (or re-die or un-un-die or whatever) as soon as possible, while the other PCs think a friendly lich librarian might come in handy and also don't want to be killed by a lich.  So, anything Loras-related is likely to be delivered in whispers unless the whole group saw it.

A different challenge is when one or two PCs are scouting ahead, and the rest are waiting behind, bored.  In this case I tend not to use whispers, simply so the players who are not involved in the action can at least watch.  (Also, because if there are two scouts, having to whisper everything twice would get old.)  This does risk revealing too much information to the PCs in the back though, in the event that the scout runs into trouble and does not return.  So I have to watch for anyone taking unfair advantage of information that their character should not have.

Another problem is when only some of the PCs can see an enemy.  This sometimes happens due to some PCs suffering from limited light radius while others have Dark Vision, sometimes due to See Invisible.  Roll20 does a pretty good job with light radius and line of sight (if you pay for those features), so I take advantage of those.  But I don't think it's possible to directly make a token visible to some players and not others.  So in such cases I tend to make it invisible to all players (by putting the token on the GM-only layer) and then whisper to the players with See Invisible what they see.  This is mildly annoying to everyone, but helps project the right level of confusion that invisible opponents should.

Another case involves hearing rather than seeing.  Sometimes only some PCs make a Hearing roll, or sometimes only some of them understand a language that's being spoken.  I think this is the easiest place to use whispers.  Typically the keen-eared character or the one who speaks that language will relay the message to the other players, so it's just an opportunity for some in-character conversation.

The final big one in the dungeon is item detection.  In a party where the thief helps himself to extra treasure, it's vital to not reveal every found item to all the players, or you end up with an angry and then dead thief.  But DF Whiterock features a cooperative thief, so it doesn't matter too much whether I announce his findings to the whole team.  (Of course Zaber isn't the only PC who finds treasure, but the combination of his high Perception, and the fact that he's the one who knows how to detect traps and pick locks, means that he finds a lot of it.)  In a lot of games the Wizard is the only one that can detect magic and has an opportunity to reveal or hide detected magic, but in this game 3/5 of the party are elves with Magery (in GURPS, Magery gives free chances to detect magic without needing to actually cast a spell), so there's rarely much point.

"Don't split the party" is an almost universally understood and sometimes even followed rule among adventurers, so with the exception of 1-2 PCs sometimes scouting ahead, this party does a pretty good job of sticking together, minimizing the times when only one player sees something.  But town is a big exception.  Typically we spend the first 20 or 30 minutes of a game session talking about what the PCs did in town that week, and they don't always stick together there, since it's a relatively safe place and they have different interests and abilities.  So I need to remind myself that when someone did some lone research, whether in a library or a tavern, they should get the fruits of that research first, and get to choose whether to share it with the other players.  One rather flagrant violation of this rule was when I posted the translation of a book on this blog, rather than lore-dumping several paragraphs of whispers at Seépravir (the character who learned enough written Celestial to translate the book).  I thought it was worth it to get all the players up to speed, but I probably should have asked Seépravir's player first and given the wizard a chance to censor any information she didn't want the other players to know.

In summary, information hiding is a key part of GMing.  Every GM has to choose how much they want to restrict information that only some PCs would know to just their players, versus sharing it with the whole party and expecting the other players to ignore it.  I'm not sure I'll ever get the balance perfect, but I'm trying to think harder about what to share and what to keep private, rather than following my first instinct of just blurting everything out as quickly as possible.

DF Whiterock Session 34: More boats

Date:

2010-01-18

Weather:

Very cold, snowing

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Human Cleric, 257 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 309 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 302 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 286 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 320 points

Significant NPCs:

3 Duergar slavers

5 Giant Clams with Harpoons

5 Zombie Skum

2 Leech Swarms

1 Roper (possibly illusionary?)

1 Huge Aquatic Wizard Thing

The party started in Cillamar as usual, as the weather got colder and snowier.

Though she'd spent the last week learning a bit of written Celestial and translating the book found in the Fane of Justicia, Seépravir didn't really talk to anyone about it.  Instead she did some private research about the Order of the Sundered Scale in the Hall of Worms, but didn't find anything major.

Zaber went looking for Lord Flitwick, or his servants, and found none of them, but heard more rumors about Flitwick abusing his servants.

Garreth went looking for rumors and heard something about the local Thieves' Guild.  Garreth also tried singing for beer money and was rewarded with a nice bottle of brandy by a wealthy fan.  Polly found a Balanced sai for Garreth.  It was the only one currently available in town, but Garreth was able to order a case of 16 more for future delivery.

Elias cast another Bless +2 on Garreth, to replace the one that had worn off last week to save Garreth's skin.  This meant fully discharging and recharging Elias's power item, for which Elias charged Garreth a fair market rate.

Finally, Polly went looking for a boat, since the group has destroyed two skiffs so far and doesn't want to run out.  Despite the middle of winter being a low time for the boat business, a very good roll meant a skiff was available.  The good news was that it was only $250, easy to afford.  The bad news was that it was 1000 lbs. and portaging it 30 miles over rolling terrain was going to be very difficult.  But Seépravir cast Lighten Burden -50% on both Garreth and Polly (the spell is written to reduce the encumbrance of a person rather than to reduce the weight of a particular item, so I ruled it took two spells if they were going to carry the boat together), reducing the effective weight from 1000 lbs. to 500 lbs.  And Garreth and Polly are both strong.  And the wandering monster rolls were once again kind to the party; even with their greatly reduced speed meaning extra rolls, nothing ambushed them.  When they reached Lake Whiterock, the group again decided to portage the boat around the lake rather than rowing across, fearing attack from the hydra they suspected was still down there somewhere.  (Also, the lake was starting to ice over.)

Once they reached the castle, the party had to drag their boat across the courtyard, down the stairs to the second level, then down the elevator to the river level.  There was a lot of fiddling at the elevator, about who goes with the boat and who works the controls (which are at the top and bottom, not in the elevator basket itself).  Zaber got impatient and just scaled down the elevator cable to the bottom.  (This is the kind of crazy thing you can get away with when you have very high Climbing skill and Luck and a Bless.)  Eventually they decided to have Garreth in the basket holding the boat (to reduce its weight from 1000 to 500 lbs.) while Polly turned the elevator crank.  Then Garreth removed the boat and everyone else took the elevator down.   Then Garreth and Polly dragged the skiff the last few yards from the elevator landing to the underground river beach, which was pretty trivial compared to dragging it 30 miles.

With the teamster part of the adventure complete, the group got back to underground river exploration.  (The ale barrel in the Derro cave is empty, so Zaber didn't get to stop to take a beer break, though Garreth did drink his new brandy.)  They decided to take the same skiff they used last time, rather than the new one they just brought, or the Folding Boat that Garreth carries.  Zaber wore both the Ring of Water Breathing and the Ring of Swimming (that most of the PCs forgot they had for the last few sessions) and Seépravir cast Warmth and Invisibility and Alertness and See Invisibility and Dark Vision on him, so he was able to swim a few yards ahead of the boat and scout.  Garreth navigated the first set of rocks deftly (he's made all his Boating rolls so far despite only having 1 point in Boating; high DX and Bless +2 are handy).

But then the group spotted an apparently empty skiff coming upstream toward them.  Garreth asked which way the current was going, and it was pushing the party's boat downstream, so something was definitely fishy about the empty boat.  Zaber had See Invisibility so could see 3 Invisible, Huge Duergar in the boat, one rowing, one aiming a pistol crossbow, and one standing on the prow holding a hammer, preparing to board.  (See Invisible makes Invisible things look translucent, so you know they're invisible to others.)  He swam back toward his allies and whispered a warning, then moved to the side of the stream to avoid getting accidentally hit by any boats.  

Polly couldn't see the opponents, but with Zaber having told her they were there, and seeing where the oarlocks were on the boat, she made an educated guess and fired at the primary rowing position, aiming low to avoid shooting over a dwarf's head.  (Zaber had mentioned that they were dwarves but not that they were huge.)  She had -10 to hit an invisible target, but made the shot anyway, and one of her two arrows (Heroic Archer, Extra Attack, No Nuisance Rolls perks for the Fast-Draw and Fast-Ready, so she basically just fires two arrows every turn) hit.  Her arrow disappeared as it lodged in a duergar.  Some blood splatter was visible in the boat.  The injured duergar was pretty tough, as he didn't cry out.

Seeing that Polly was a highly skilled archer who could hit invisible targets, the duergar with the crossbow did a logical thing and tried to shoot her.  This made his Invisibility go away.  Because Polly couldn't see the crossbowdwarf until after he shot her, I made her make a Hearing roll to be allowed to Dodge.  She made her Hearing roll, made her Acrobatics roll, and made her Dodge roll (with +2 for Acrobatic Dodge).  Then the fun continued, because the dwarf had cleverly lined up all 4 PCs in the boat with his shot, so it got a (small) chance to hit all of them if it missed Polly or she dodged it.  (The rule is you have roll 9 or less to hit someone by accident, or the number it would have taken to hit them on purpose -4, whichever is worse.)  The bolt missed Seépravir, was on target for Garreth but he made his Hearing and Dodge rolls, then missed Elias.  Oh well, so much for that crossbow.  No way that duergar was going to live long enough to reload it.

After he missed, the crossbow duergar yelled to the others in Undercommon (which only Garreth knew) to kill the archer before she killed them.  Seépravir cast Great Haste on herself.  (She has it at 25 now so can do this in 1 turn.)  Zaber swam under the duergar boat.  Polly shot the (now visible) crossbow duergar in the eye, he failed to dodge, and that was 15 points of damage to the eye, through the eye, into the brain, multiplied by 4 to give 60 points of injury and multiple death checks, and he rolled an 18 on his second death check for a no-doubt don't-need-to-check-his-HT kill.  (GURPS GM pro tip: when someone gets smashed from above zero HP to seriously negative HP in a single attack, and you need to roll death and consciousness and stun checks, roll all the death checks first, then the KO check, then the stun check.  That way if the opponent is dead or knocked out, you can stop there without making as many rolls or playing with status counters that might not matter.)  When he died, the duergar shrunk back to normal dwarf size, showing that it was some kind of magical effect rather than a Dire Duergar.  Seépravir immediately said that she wanted that spell.  Not done yet, Polly fired her second arrow at the still invisible duergar in the rowing position, hitting him for the second time.

Elias, in the back of the boat, didn't see any way to reach the opponents and decided to yell loudly, which echoed throughout the tunnel.  Seépravir cast See Invisible on Polly to remove those pesky -10 penalties for not being able to see her targets.  The duergar on the front of the boat decided to jump across to the PCs' boat and tackle Polly.  Unfortunately for him, with her new power to see him, Polly easily dodged.  Also unfortunately for him, this counted as an attack which made him visible, and Garreth was nearby with a katana and chopped him for pretty good damage.

Zaber, under the duergar boat, tried to flip it over and dump the remaining duergar in the river.  Unfortuately, it was a pretty heavy and stable boat and he's not really strong enough to easily do that.  (I ruled it was a ST-4 check and he failed it.)  But he came close enough that it forced the duergar remaining in the boat to make a DX check to keep his feet, and he rolled poorly enough to have to spend a turn grabbing onto the boat to steady himself.  Unfortunately for him, that was the last turn he was going to get.  Polly shot him in the eye, and he made his death and KO checks, but failed his stun check (with -10 for an arrow through his eye into his brain) by more than 5, enough to knock him out.  He stopped holding onto the boat and fell in the water, and stared sinking due to his mail armor.  She put her final arrow into the duergar who had foolishing boarded the PC boat, and knocked him out too.

Garreth rolled a check against his Bloodlust self-control number, failed, and decided the unconscious duergar needed to be dead duergar.  Zaber, still in the water, helpfully fetched the overboard duerger and dragged him into a boat for looting; it turns out this just turned death by drowning into death by katana.   The total bounty from the fight was an ornate pistol crossbow with mother-of-pearl accents, a few crossbow bolts, some small vials of an unknown substance that Zaber was pretty sure was some kind of poison, a couple of suits of dwarf-sized mail, a couple of hammers (basically just maces with cool ethnic flair, as GURPS lacks separate weapon stats for blunt hammers), a potion, a magical suit of dwarf-sized leather armor, a shortsword, and another skiff (with some manacles).

There was a brief detour to take the extra skiff back to the beach, and stow the extra dwarf-sized armor in the hidey-hole in the derro cave.  I decided to save time by not actually moving tokens on the map, just calling for two Boating rolls (Garreth, and Zaber at default for the captured boat) to make it past the rocks on the way back to the beach, and one Boating roll (Garreth) to make it back to where they had been.  All three rolls were successful, and the party was back at the scene of the battle, discussing whether dead duergar made good Giant Clam food.  (They know from a previous session that there are five giant clams with harpoons just upstream, and they're still trying to figure out a humane way to harvest pearls from them without hurting them.)  Garreth chopped the duergar corpses in half so that there would be enough for all the clams, then Zaber (Invisible again after having Seépravir re-cast the spell on him) guided the gory pile of half-dwarfs to the appropriate place in the stream so that they would drift to the clams.  The clams didn't have to be told twice, and there was a lot of harpooning and eating.  Unfortunately, the clams were huge enough to be able to easily close on half a duergar, so any plans to take advantage of the feast to steal pearls wouldn't work.  Garreth suggested they think of something larger to feed the clams, that would force them to keep their shells open for a while.

The party took their skiff around some more rocks, giving the clams a large berth, and Garreth made yet another Boating roll to avoid hitting anything.  Around the next bend, there was a waterfall down, which Garreth had navigated before.  Zaber decided to climb in the boat rather than swimming it or climbing the wall, and Garreth made yet another Boating roll to avoid drama.  Then the skiff came up to the site of the illusionary wall on the west side of the cavern, where the skum had ambushed the PCs last time and the barbarian skum with the big magic axe had destroyed their boat.  This time, there was no ambush, and 4 of the 5 PCs could clearly see the illusion.  Garreth was the only one who couldn't, but he believed his friends.  Further north, the group spotted a beach where they could land their skiff.  Garreth suggested bypassing this area for now and going to the beach, but Zaber's Curiousity got the better of him, and he couldn't resist climbing through the illusionary wall and seeing what was there.

What was there was a ledge, and behind the ledge a narrow passage sloping down to the southwest, wet enough to be quite slippery.  Zaber couldn't resist exploring down it a bit, and saw that the passage led to a large pool of water, containing 5 aquatic zombies.  Not wanting to fight aquatic zombies alone, he prepared to head back up the sloping passage to his allies, when he was attacked by a swarm of leeches.  (Leeches attack based on body temperature rather than sight, so his Invisibility didn't save him.)  Garreth stabbed leeches with his knife while trying to head back up the passage, while the leeches sucked his blood.  There were enough of them that he couldn't dodge them all, and they did a bit of damage (but not enough for his Bless to trigger) each turn.  They also inflicted HT checks, but Zaber passed them.  Eventually Zaber yelled for help, and then Garreth ran the skiff into the illusionary wall (and through it, beaching on the ledge) and all the PC had to make a DX roll to keep their balance in the boat crash.  Everyone except Elias made it; he failed and lost one turn getting back up.

Going down the slippery slope required a DX roll.  Polly rolled a 4, a critical success, which gave her "Legolas mode" (or Lego-lass mode if you ask Zaber) for this particular waterslide: she could surf down at up to double move, or climb up at full move, with no more DX rolls needed.  Which she immediately did, sliding down the slope toward Zaber.  Elias activated his Heroic Grace before wading into the fight, rolled horribly, used his Luck, and rolled great, getting +7 to DX.  Garreth used Fast-Draw (potion) to quickly pull out a Major Healing potion to give to Zaber when he reached him, and started heading down the slippery slope.  Seépravir cast Great Haste on herself.

Zaber had been carrying the Bag of Wolverine for a long time, and had never actually used it after initial testing, but he decided that being reduced to 1 HP by a leech swarm was a good time, and opened it up.  Out popped Logan the Wolverine, who looked around, saw leeches, and started biting leeches.  This helped Zaber in two ways.  Once, it was more damage against the leeches every turn.  Two, it was another target for the leeches who wasn't Zaber and wasn't at 1 HP.    

The leeches, now with three targets in range, randomly decided to bite Polly.  She took minimal damage.  Then she decided to keep sliding downhill toward the other enemies.  Seépravir Levitated herself down-slope a bit and cast Great Haste on Garreth.   The leeches decided to bite Logan and hurt him a bit.  Elias moved down the slope and made his DX check.  Garreth slide downhill, made his DX check, and started stabbling leaches.  Those were the last remaining leeches and the swarm was dissipated.

Polly, down at the bottom of the slide, saw 5 Aquatic Zombies in the pool below.  She shot the closest one twice and knocked it out.  Elias slid down the slide toward the zombies.  Zaber staggered toward a healing potion at half speed.  Garreth passed him the Major Healing potion, then went downhill toward the zombies.  

Polly shot another zombie (this one looking and smelling like it used to be a troglodyte) and stunned it.  Polly and Garreth (also within range of the stench) both made their HT checks.  As Elias and Seépravir came within range, they also needed to make stench HT checks.  Seépravir missed hers, but decided to use Luck to reroll, and then made it.  Zaber drank the Major Healing potion, rolled badly, used his Luck to reroll, and then healed 9 HP plus 2 more for Bless, back to full HP.

The zombies crawled out of the pool onto the bottom of the sliding passage to get the PCs.  Garreth went into helicopter-parry mode, stopping 4 different attacks in one turn, which I think is a new record.  Polly shot one, Elias (with 19 DX thanks to Heroic Grace) rapid-strike flailed one to bits, and Garreth chopped one.  As this happened, some more bad guys came out of the water: another leech swarm, and some kind of flying rock beast with rope-like tentacles.

Seépravir cast Great Haste on Elias too so he could use his Heroic Grace twice as much.  Zaber, fully healed, wanted to slide downhill to join his friends, but found that Seépravir had cast Levitate on him a couple of turns ago, for medivac purposes that had seemed necessary at the time, and he was hanging in the air uselessly.

The leeches came within range, and Garreth (who had had a Wait) attacked them and killed some of the swarm.  (Swarms are diffuse so limited to 1-2 points of damage from most attacks, so it takes a lot of hits to kill them, even if you're Garreth.)  The tentacle beast (which I will call a Roper even though I'm not sure any of the PCs figured out that it was a roper) also came within range and Elias flailed it a lot.  Then Garreth stabbed it, but his attacks passed right through, like it was insubstantial or an illusion.

Meanwhile, the group spotted yet another opponent still in the large pool: some huge unidentified aquatic monster that was swimming along from the northwest corner of the pool to the southeast.  Polly, using the rule "if in doubt shoot it in the eye", shot it in the eye.  Four times.  (It had quite large eyes, as befit a SM+4 monster, easier to hit than most eyes.)  The first arrow was magically deflected.  The second arrow was dodged.  The third arrow was dodged.  The fourth arrow seemed to hit, sinking into the creature's torso (missed the eye), but not doing much obvious damage.

Then Elias flailed the snot out of the possibly-illusionary roper multiple times, doing lots of damage, and it dissipated.

We ran out of time there, and stopped there in mid-battle, with one leach swarm and one unknown huge aquatic creature that can possibly cast blocking spells remaining.  We'll resume in mid-fight next week.  Tune in then to see what the heck that huge thing in the water is.

GM's Comments:

It's funny to me that despite having plenty of money and not much to spend it on, the PCs still do little things every week to try to earn a few extra coppers.

Dragging a 500 lb. (after magical lightening) boat across 30 miles of terrain using only muscle power in cold weather is a truly annoying task.  I tried to make it annoying for the players to give them a taste of what they were putting their PCs through.  It's especially funny to me that they went through all that pain when they have a Folding Boat in Garreth's backpack.  They did it anyway, of course.  Can't be too safe.  Knowing that things break their boats, they want to keep the Folding Boat as a lifeboat for emergencies, rather than actually using it.

I have detailed rules written down for failing Boating rolls in each place and still haven't got to use any of them.  Garreth is really good at Boating, despite only having one point in it.  Zaber also made his one Boating roll, despite only having it at default.  Good DX and Bless make everything easier.

I like making up rules for critical successes on the fly, at least for critical successes that don't already have good rules.  Polly has been the beneficiary of at least two of these: she rolled a critical success on her first roll to resist Troglodyte stench and I ruled that she was completely immune to that tribe's stench forever (forever, or for the lifetime of that tribe, which was two or three sessions), and this session she rolled a critical success against the waterslide and I ruled that she was totally immune to its negative effects but could still use it for extra speed downhill.  I also like making up rules for critical failures on the fly, but the whole party has Luck and tends to use it to avoid critical failures, so I hardly ever get to.

Sometimes it's a tough call whether a threat is bad enough for Bless to avert it and then go away.  The leech attacks against Zaber were more "death by a million paper cuts" than one big hit, so he kept his Bless even though he got down to 1 HP.  (I would have had the Bless stop the next one, as going to 0 HP with a leech swarm on you is bad, but there was no next one as Logan and Polly arrived to take the next 2 leech hits, and then the leeches died.)  As with many things, players are free to ask "Does Bless stop that?" but the GM has the final judgment call on whether the threat was bad enough for the spell to intervene.

This party is not well prepared for diffuse opponents, and pretty much had to finish off the leech swarm one 2 HP attack at a time.  Pretty much the only things that work well against diffuse opponents are explosive attacks, which mostly come from wizards, and Seépravir has mostly chosen to avoid direct damage in favor of buffs and stuns.  But it turns out that Great Haste works pretty well against everything.

Testimony of the Order’s Investigation of Castle Whiterock and Efforts to Slay the Wyrm Benthosruthsa

This book was found in a secret room inside the hidden shrine of Justicia, in the underground river level of the dungeons under Castle Whiterock.  It's a large, leather-bound tome, containing a cloth-of-gold bookmark that was placed about one third of the way into the book.  The entire book is handwritten, in Celestial.  All but the last page are written in a pleasant, curving script.  The last page is written in a different hand, spiky.  The last two-thirds of the book are blank.

Title: "Testimony of the Order’s Investigation of Castle Whiterock and Efforts to Slay the Wyrm Benthosruthsa"

Section One: "The Call to Muster"  This describes the Order of the Sundered Scale, a group of six holy warriors of Justicia dedicated to killing evil dragons, based in Galaron (the capital of the Kingdom of Morrain, about 250 miles northwest of Cillamar).

The commander of the Order was Knight-Commander Usila Fairglade, a half-elven female.  The Order's wizard was Knight-Arcanist Argent Theophal, a human male.  Their cleric was Knight-Chaplain Benden Talbusk, a human male.  Other members were Knights Lorio Ranither (a halfling male), Ancival Dupre (a human male), and Felgin Forgefire (a dwarf male).

The order was engaged in their usual business of researching dragons and planning trips to faraway dragon lairs, when a woman calling herself Lady Chauntessa approached them with apparent proof that the great red dragon Benthosruthsa (who had destroyed Cillamar almost 300 years previously and had not been seen since) was still alive, and living deep under Castle Whiterock.  Chauntessa challenged them to slay Benthosruthsa.  They didn't have to be asked twice.

Section Two: "Knowing Thine Enemy"  Gives background information on Benthosruthsa.  He is supposedly directly descended from the noble red dragon line of the mythical Sunscratch.  His sire was Vaulnox of Ul Dominor (slain, 2829).  His brother Dorvenruthsa (cross-referencing Lord Mirias Stormwarden) and is son Pyraxus of the Trolltooth Peaks are thought to still be active.  There are several accounts of Benthosruthsa's almost total destruction of Cillamar, 289 years before the book was written.  It was done quite methodically and skilfully: first the large siege engines were destroyed, then the wizards and archers were picked off, then the rest of the defenseless town was razed.

Section Three: "Assayance of Castle Whiterock"  This gives a level-by-level description of major factions within Castle Whiterock and the dungeons beneath, as of about 30 years ago when the book was written.

Ground level: goblins and hobgoblins of the Twisted Tooth tribe
First level: orcs of the White Talon tribe
Second level: orcs of the White Talon tribe
Third level: orcs of the White Talon tribe
Fourth level: troglodytes, ruled by a Evil Cleric of the Toad-Fiend Bobulbubilz
Fifth level: underground river, secret Fane of Justicia placed here as a base
Sixth level: huge cavern, featuring a pyramid (unexplored)
Seventh level: Bleak Theater, an evil arena run by Duergar and Drow
Eighth level: Narborg, fortress of the duergar Thane Vejik
Ninth level: lower levels of Narborg
Tenth level: Burning Maze (?)
Eleventh level: Benthosruthsa's Lair (?)


Section Four: "Progress of the Mission"  This gives a history of the quest to slay Benthosrushsa.

The Order of the Sundered Scale defeated the goblins and orcs, fought the troglodytes and toad-cultists to a draw, found another entrance to the dungeon on the fourth level, then decided to build the Hidden Fane of Justicia to serve as a base deeper in the dungeon so they wouldn't have to constantly fight their way past the troglodytes and any other monsters that invaded the upper levels.  After completing the Fane they fought their way through the Bleak Theater and down into Narborg but were repulsed.

The Fane contains a Basin of Cleansing that can convert water to holy water, convert holy water to healing potions, and (with a sufficiently large gift left for Justicia) even raise the dead.  It has one-way doors that can only be opened by a good believer with a holy symbol of Justicia, and so should be safe from invasion.

The Thane Vejik is a tough opponent, with many duergar mercenaries.  Worse, he figured out that the Order was there, and started sending assassins.  Finally, a duergar deserter named Vinfol came to the Order, saying he wanted to renounce evil and worship Justicia, and that he could help them defeat the Thane.

The last page of the journal is in a different hand, Talbusk's.  Vinfol was lying.  He told the Order of a chance to kill the Thane, but it was an ambush, by the Pack of the Night Wolf, and five of the six paladins were killed.  Talbusk was the sole survivor.  He escaped, then recovered the bones of his companions.  But he does not have the means to bring them back to life, yet.  He needs to kill the Thane, then sacrifice the Thane's treasure to the Basin of Cleansing to persuade Justicia to raise his companions from the dead, so they can continue exploring past Narborg and find and kill Benthosrushsa.

DF Whiterock Session 33: Justicia's Shrine

Date:

2010-01-11

Weather:

Just below freezing, dry

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Human Cleric, 252 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 304 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 297 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 281 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 315 points

Significant NPCs:

Vinfol, Duergar Mohrg

Elias visited the Temple of Justicia to tell them about the underground area of high sanctity.  They were interested, and gave him a wooden holy symbol of Justicia and a few prayers.

Garreth went back to the dwarf miner who taught him a bit of Undercommon, to see if he also knew any Celestial, but the dwarf laughed.  So Garreth also went to the Temple of Justicia, to learn a few words of Celestial to try to figure out the magic spear.  One of the priests was willing to read all the words from the spear's inscription.  When Garreth tried reading back all of the words, the word "diasta" ("faithful" in Celestial) triggered the spear's Great Haste power.  

Zaber went looking for dirt on Lord Granger Flitwick, and found that he fired his maid Skyla before going south for the winter, rather than continuing to pay her to keep up his town house.  Zaber went looking for the maid but could not find her.

Having destroyed two skiffs on their last delve, the group decided to try to buy a boat, but failed to find any for sale in mid-winter.  So they started hiking for Castle Whiterock.  They made it there without incident, electing to walk the long way around the lake, rather than pulling out their Folding Boat and rowing across.  (Surprisingly, the lake isn't frozen solid yet, so they can't just walk across.)

Seépravir cast a bunch of spells (Lighten Burden on Elias, Alertness and Keen Vision and See Secrets and See Invisible on Zaber, Invisibility on Zaber and Polly, Dark Vision on Zaber and Polly  and herself, and Levitate on herself), and then everyone went downstairs to the first orc level, then over to the secret room with the elevator, then took the elevator down to the underground river level.

Zaber scouted ahead, found nothing waiting in ambush, but remembered there was still some beer left in a cask in the Derro cave, and walked over to get some.  It was pretty skunky but didn't do any actual damage.  Garreth mentioned that it wouldn't be good much longer so they should finish it on the way home.

Everyone piled into the last undamaged skiff, except Seépravir chose to show faith in Garreth's boat-handling by Levitating slightly above the boat rather than actually riding in it.  Garreth turned east at the fork in the river, avoided some rocks, and then they were near the holy place.  Garreth lifted Elias up to the trail, then everyone else climbed or flew up.

Elias pulled out his Justicia holy symbol (not his usual Elyr holy symbol, but Elyr and Justicia are friends), and said a prayer to Justicia, and the stone slab ahead turned translucent.  Elias then walked right through the stone wall.  Polly followed him, and then everyone else followed.  On the other side was a small vestibule, with a basin containing some brown residue.  There was a wooden door and another translucent stone wall.  Elias opened the door, revealing a room containing a weapon rack full of knightly weapons, and a couple of straw dummies.  The weapons appeared to be in good shape, but none were magical.  Both Zaber and Polly searched inside the dummies, but didn't find anything.  Seépravir cast Seek Magic and detected some magic a bit to the southwest, not in this room.

There was another wooden door on the far side of the room with the weapon rack, and it led to another vestibule with stone not-doors on both sides.  Elias prayed again and the stone door to the east went translucent, while the one to the west did not.  Zaber and Polly went through, and found they could not come back.  The doors were one-way.  After a lot of fooling around with the doors, everyone went out to the west, and found themselves back in in the passage outside the vestibules.  Then Elias prayed with his holy symbol again, and the door to the north went translucent again, and the party finally figured out how to get all the way through multiple one-way doors into a big room.

Zaber invisibly scouted ahead, and saw a huge statue of a women holding a flaming sword and shield (probably Justicia) with an empty basin in front of it.  There were also a 6 more wooden doors, all around the room.  Nothing jumped Zaber, so after a bit the rest of the party joined him.  Elias (who has Theology) was sure the statue was Justicia, and also that her right hand with the sword pointing at a door to the south represented her smiting-evil side, while left open left hand pointing at a door to the north represented her merciful side.  There was some Celestial writing next to the basin.  Elias's Gift of Letters spell (with a big +3 bonus for Sanctity) revealed that it said "All things

when purified can serve the cause of good."  There was some other Celestial writing back by the entrance and exit doors, but nobody bothered to go back and read it.

Zaber had the idea of taking the tabard of Justicia that they had found down in the evil frog god temple, and dunk it in the basin to purify it.  The basin was empty, though.  Seépravir cast Create Water and put 5 gallons of water in the basin, but somehow half of the water disappeared and only half remained.

Meanwhile Elias decided to open a door to the north (it was locked but the key was hanging on a string on a hook next to it), which led to another door, behind which was a smaller statue of Justicia, and a candlestick, and some white candles, and some Celestial writing that said "Come humbly before the Lady of Mercy."  Zaber decided to open a similar door to the south, and found another statue of Justicia.

Elias opened a door to the northwest, and found a barracks, with 3 bunk beds (two full-length and one a bit shorter) and 6 chests.  Each of the chests had a different appearance.  Zaber got to searching

The chest covered with gems (which turned out on closer inspection to be fake) was full of letters from relatives asking for money.  Seépravir went looking for dates on the letters and found that one was dated 32 about years ago.

Zaber opened a chest made of reeds, and found several reed dolls inside, like the one they found with the tabard and bones in the evil frog god's temple.

The chest with a music note contained a flute and some sheet music.  Seépravir, a flutist, decided to go play the songs to the big central statue of Justicia and see if anything happened.  Nothing did, at least not immediately...

...and then everyone's peaceful exploration was interrupted as a very fast dwarf-sized skeleton with guts and a huge tongue came running up to where Seépravir was playing the flute and tried to slam into Garreth.  (Garreth tends to bodyguard Seépravir, and this showed why having someone beefy keep an eye on the wizard is a good idea.)  It rolled a 6 on its slam attack for a critical hit.  Garreth used his Luck, forcing it to reroll twice and take the worst roll.  It rolled another 6 and then another 6.  Oops.  Garreth was slammed, hard, for a Major Wound.  But then his Bless decided that wasn't allowed to happen, and prevented the damage, disappearing in the process.  The mohrg hadn't done any damage, but he still had Garreth grappled, and followed up with a paralyzing tongue attack.  Garreth made his HT-2 resistance roll, exactly, and wasn't paralyzed.

Garreth fast-drew a knife and tried to stab the Mohrg, but missed.  Seépravir started casting Great Haste.  Polly came running out of the barracks room and took two shots at the mohrg.  The first one missed.  The second one was on-target, and the mohrg chose to release its grapple on Garreth to dodge, which succeeded.  Elias and Zaber started running toward the fight.

The mohrg tried tonguing Garreth again.  He failed to dodge, but again made his resistance roll and was not paralyzed.  The mohrg screamed "LEFT ME TO DIE!"  

No longer grappled, Garreth dropped his knife and fast drew his katana, then started chopping.  The mohrg had really good Dodge though, and managed to avoid all the attacks.  Polly first a couple more arrows at close range, and finally hit the mohrg once.  Seépravir finished Great Hasting Garreth, while Zaber and Elias kept closing toward the fight.

The mohrg went for Garreth with its tongue yet again, and critically hit again, but once again Garreth resisted.  It went for a second tongue attack, but this time Garreth parried.  Seépravir dropped a Grease spell on the floor under and behind the mohrg, giving it -1 to dodge and a chance to face plant if it tried to move.  Great Hasted Garreth went for a rapid strike (dodged/dodged), followed by a feint to try to lower the mohrg's defenses next turn.  Polly fired two more arrows at the mohrg, and once again it failed to dodge one of them, but it still appeared to be moving at full speed.

The Mohrg got tired of having Garreth resist its tongue attacks and decided to step up to Seépravir and attack the squishier target.  But it rolled a 17 on its DX check to move across Grease, and face planted.  It still got to attack (at a penalty for being prone), but Garreth sacrificially parried both attacks on Seépravir.  Seépravir tried Rapier Wit to stun the mohrg, but it was unaffected.  So she cast Haste on Garreth.

Garreth rolled his Feint from the previous turn, but tied with the mohrg (they both beat their weapon skill by 7), so no defense penalty.  The mohrg was prone, though, which made it a bit easier to hit.  He hit it, hard, three times out of four swings.  This was enough to slow the mohrg, reducing its amazing dodge to less amazing levels, and also to make it pass a consciousness check, two death checks, and three stun checks.  It made all of them.  Polly plugged it with another arrow, which gave it a third death check, and this time it rolled a 15.  Once again Garreth whined about doing all the damage and having someone else steal his kill, but that wasn't entirely true, as Polly put three arrows into the mohrg.

With combat over, Seépravir needed to recover some mana, so she went into the barracks to lie down on one of the beds.  Zaber went back to searching chests in the barracks.  The iron chest contained metal polish, steel wool, rags, and a whetstone.  The brass chest contained a book about the Theophal family, some of whom were vampires.  The chest with a swirl on the lid contained a sketchbook, some parchment, and various colors of charcoals.  The sketchbook was partly filled with sketches of six knights (human, halfling, dwarf, elf), sometimes hanging out in this temple, sometimes smiting evil.

Zaber went back to the southeast, and found a small room whose door had been busted open, containing a bed (which had been gnawed on) and a stool (also knawed on) and an Everburning Torch.  There was another door to the northeast, which he opened, and behind it was a storeroom full of various equipment.  Most of it was mundane stuff like rope and casks of oil and wooden holy symbols, but there were also some pearls, diamond dust, ruby dust, and a miniature sword made of precious metals.  Zaber took the valuables and left the mundane equipment.

The last unopened door to the southwest led to a crypt, with 6 niches with names on them.  Knight Felgin Forgefire, Knight-Arcanist Argent Theophal, Knight-Chaplain Benden Talbusk, Knight Lorio Ranither and Knight Ancival Dupre.  Five of them contained bones, but one (Talbusk) was empty.  Garreth immediately said that they should recover the bones from the evil frog god temple and bring them up here for proper burial.  With only 25 minutes left in the session, the GM rolled for a couple of random encounters, got none, then declared it was time to use the power of montage to finish the bone-fetching as quickly as possible.  The party boated back to the beach then took the stairs back up to the lower Troglodyte level (without actually bothering to move them on the Roll20 map), then Seépravir cast Swim and Warmth on Zaber and made her Will roll to lend him the Ring of Water Breathing, then (still Invisible) Zaber swam through the dark cold water to the wrecked temple with the bones and brought them out, then everyone went back downstairs and got back in the skiff and boated back over to the temple, then Elias prayed them back through the stone door, and finally they interred Talbusk's bones in his designated resting place.

When that was done, the group heard some loud stone-on-stone noise.  Everyone went out to see what had happened, and they found the statue of Justicia had bowed her head, and a secret door had opened behind the statue.  Zaber went in there and found a large book (in Celestial) on a pedestal.  Elias cast Gift of Letters and found that the title of the book was "Testimony of the Order’s

Investigation of Castle Whiterock and Efforts to Slay the Wyrm Benthosruthsa."  There wasn't enough time to read the whole book, since Elias doesn't have the ability to maintain that spell indefinitely, but a quick flip through found that it was full of information about Castle Whiterock and definitely warranted further research.  At that point the party decided to head back to Cillamar.

GM's Comments:

The PCs spent a whole session exploring a the hidden temple of Justicia.  The only fight was the surprise attack from the mohrg who was annoyed enough by Seépravir's flute playing to rip the door off his cell.  Otherwise it was just exploring the temple of Justicia and figuring out who these six people were and why they had a temple here.  The players figured out the "restore the bones to their proper resting place" puzzle right away, and got the book, so they'll probably find a lot of answers, as soon as Seépravir learns enough written Celestial to be able to read it all.  The book will be detailed in a future blog post, to save the players from spending precious game time having a book monologued at them.

DF Whiterock Session 32: Free At Last

Date:

2010-01-04

Weather:

Unseasonably warm, snow has melted

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Human Cleric, 247 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 299 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 292 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 276 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 310 points

Significant NPCs:

Iolas, Elf Musical Craftswoman

Brie, Half-Elf Bard

Aeraelith, imprisoned Air Elemental

Vulgaris, Minyad mushroom farmer

Lurker Above

Lurker Below

5 Giant Clams

Barbarian Skum

4 Skum

After taking a couple of weeks off from adventuring for the winter holidays, the 5 PCs assembled at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake in Cillamar to plan their next delve.  They needed someone to play their jade-stringed harp to help free an imprisoned air elemental, so they asked Brie, a bard who often played at the Inn, if she would do it.  While the harp wasn't her favorite instrument, she claimed she could play one well enough, and they hired her for $200 to accompany them to Castle Whiterock.

Nobody heard any particularly interesting rumors over the holidays, though Zaber started using his newly acquired Propaganda skill to start spreading nasty rumors about Lord Granger Flitwick, who was still out of town somewhere to the south.  Garreth found a dwarven teacher who knew Undercommon and started taking some language lessons.

The group went together to the shop of Iolas the musical crafts-elf, where the harp she had constructed for them around the magical jade harp strings they had found in the dungeon was finished.  They paid the balanced owed, handed the harp to Brie, and started hiking to Castle Whiterock.  It was a much easier than usual hike for winter, thanks to uncommonly warm weather over the past few weeks.  They made it to the castle in reasonable time with nothing eventful happening.

After casting a few spells, everyone walked over to the castle's stairs, down through the former upper orc level, then down through the former lower orc level, to the former upper troglodyte level, past the cave formerly full of piercers, and over to the flowstone cavern containing the strange organ and Aeraelith the imprisoned air elemental.  The elemental was making a bunch of whoosing and whistling noises that nobody understood.  Brie started playing the harp, Seépravir joined in on the flute (which she plays quite well), and Polly played the drum (at default skill, but playing a single drum isn't that hard).  Apparently they played the song from the stone tablets found inside the organ's bench well enough, because there was a bright flashing light and the smell of sulfur and then a huge wind that knocked Seépravir down, followed by a lot more whistling sounds.  

Elias eventually cast Gift of Tongues to figure out what the air elemental was saying, and it was the expected "thank you"s plus some crude mockery of the drow female who had imprisoned him.  Elias asked if there'd be a reward, but the elemental said he'd been locked up for 500 years and didn't really have anything to give as one.  But if his friends ever needed any wind, they could call on him.  Elias asked how, and Aeraelith said they could use a summon spell or something.  Elias wasn't impressed.  The elemental said it wanted to go experience some sun and fresh air, and left.  Her work done, Brie also decided to head back to Cillamar on her own, rather than waiting for the others.  She took their harp with her, promising to deliver it to the Inn.

Something had happened to the Ring of Water Breathing that Seépravir usually wears; she found that she now understood Aquan and could cast Create Water.  (Though she could already cast Create Water so that wasn't a huge win.)  

With the elemental freed, everyone decided it was time for more underwater river boating.  So they headed down to the lower former troglodyte level, then to the underwater river level, where Vulgaris the Minyad was tending to her fungus.  When the visible members of the party revealed themselves, she emerged to ask if they brought a rapier to trade, and managed not to say "to replace the one you took from me after almost killing me."  They had, so she offered a couple of fungal Major Healing potions for it, and the group accepted.  She went off to practice trimming mushrooms with her new rapier, while they headed west toward the underground beach.

Zaber mentioned something about leftover old Derro beer in the nearby cave, but the others eventually lured him back out to scout ahead.  Seépravir cast Warmth and Swim on him (to go with the Invisibility and Dark Vision he already had), and gave him the Ring of Water Breathing (and Aquan and Create Water).  With the spells and ring, Zaber was able to scout ahead easily, while the others followed in a boat.  After a brief debate of which boat to take (there were three on the beach, plus the Folding Boat that the group found last delve in Garreth's pack), Garreth picked a random skiff that looked watertight, loaded everyone, and started rowing.

The group hadn't gone far at all when they were ambushed by two huge raylike creatures, one swimming below the water and one flying above.  The creatures somehow managed to achieve surprise despite Zaber's watchful eye, and the underwater one tried to smash the boat and turn the air-breathers into drowning dinner.  Fortunately for the PCs, while it put a hole in the boat, it didn't quite do enough damage to capsize or destroy the boat, and they all recovered from surprise pretty quickly.  (Everyone except Elias made their first IQ roll, and he made his second.)

The underwater lurker's second attack on the boat was ineffective (it rolled a 16), and by then Garreth was chopping it up with his katana.  The flying one tried to swoop in and grab Seépravir, but she dodged.  (She didn't have Levitate up, so didn't get to retreat unless she was willing to fall in the water, since there wasn't enough empty space in the boat, but she made her Dodge roll anyway.)  Polly started filling the flying one with arrows.  Zaber swam up and grabbed the front of the boat.  Realizing that the skiff she was in might not be floating much longer, Seépravir cast Levitate on herself.

The flying lurker went after Seépravir again, but Garreth used his sacrificial parry to defend her.  Then he used his katana to slice up the underwater lurker some more, until it stopped moving.  Seépravir cast Shape Water to make water stop coming in the hole in the skiff.  The flying lurker went after Elias, but he blocked.  And then Garreth sliced that one too, and it went down into the water.  

At that point the PCs went back to the beach and traded their skiff with a big hole in it (granted, with no water currently coming in thanks to a magical patch job) for a skiff without a big hole in it.  Then they headed down the river again, exploring past the spot where the cave fishers ambushed them last time, then back to the southeast, until Elias noticed a high sanctity area.  A quick check revealed a ledge with a hallway back into the rocks.  The group beached their skiff then went up to explore the passage.  It ended in an artificial-looking dead end with two 45-degree-angle passages, some writing in a language nobody knew, and some kind of supernaturally projected holy symbol of Justicia (a sword and shield, with the sword piercing a dragon's head).  Elias tried praying, but this didn't have any obvious effect.  Polly and Zaber looked for secret doors, but didn't find any.  Elias cast Gift of Letters and was able to read that the writing (in Celestial) said "Believer, wield your faith to gain entry."  But apparently his Elyr-oriented faith wasn't good enough, as he couldn't figure out how to gain entry.  The group went back to their boat.

Heading back to the north, Zaber spotted a group of rocks ahead, with a gap to the right that should allow safe passage.  Everyone was immediately suspicious of this, and Zaber invisibly snuck up to find what evil must lurk in the "safe" part of the river, and saw several giant (bigger than man-sized!) clams.  He went back to the skiff and there was a discussion about pearls and weather Giant Clams counted as Nature and should be left alone.  The conclusion was to go get one of the Lurker corpses and have Zaber feed it to the clams and see what happened.  So they rowed back, chopped off as much Lurker as they could fit in the boat, returned to near the clams, then had (still Invisible) Zaber carry the Lurker bits near the clams then let go, having them become visible.  The experiment worked, and one of the clams opened up and fired some kind of spear at the lurker bits, then reeled it in and closed on the tasty treat.  Zaber tried to get a look inside while the shell was open to see if there were any giant pearls, but didn't see any.  Seépravir was pretty sure these kind of clams should have pearls, though.  After some more discussion, the group decided to leave the clams alone for now, and instead try to boat between the rocks on the other side of the stream.  Garreth did a good job controlling the skiff, and the clams didn't mess with group as they went past.  So, possible combat avoided, for now.

Continuing to the west, the group first heard then saw a waterfall.  Garreth back-rowed to keep the skiff from going downstream toward it, while they discussed the options.  Seépravir used Levitate to fly ahead and check the waterfall out, and was able to report that it was about a ten-foot drop with reasonably deep water at the bottom, possibly safe to boat down.  Zaber climbed up on the slippery rock to on the side of the passage near the waterfall.  Garreth decided to try it, and successfully piloted the boat down the waterfall without crashing it.  This left Zaber behind, but he decided it was safer to climb past the waterfall than swim down it, even with the Swim spell and Water Breathing ring making him basically a fish, and he didn't have any problem climbing on the slippery rock.  So everyone was back together under the waterfall.  Someone mentioned that making it back up might be a pain, but that was a problem for later.

The group continued down the underground river as it bent north, with Zaber invisibly swimming ahead, until he spotted some kind of humanoids lurking underwater.  He swam back to the boat to alert the others, not wanting to call out and make noise.  But they took a bit too long, and one of the ambushers got impatient and decided to swim under the skiff rather than waiting for it to come to him.  And then hit it with his axe for 5d+3 damage.  BOOM!  That was enough to turn the skiff from a single cohesive boat to a collection of floating boat bits.  Fortunately for the PCs, the skiff was made of inherently buoyant wood, rather than being completely reliant on its shape for all flotation.  So they had the option to attempt a DX roll (to grab onto some wreckage) or a penalized Acrobatics roll (to stand on some wreckage and keep their hands free), or to go into the water and roll Swimming.  Polly and Garreth both chose Acrobatics and both succeeded at surfing on skiff bits.  Elias chose to drop his flail (fortunately attached by a lanyard for such emergencies) and grab onto some wreckage and succeeded in staying above water.  And Seépravir had been Levitating above the skiff rather than sitting in it, so the skiff breaking up had no great effect on her.

Still, three of the PCs were now perched on floating bits of wood, not the best fighting perch, as the underwater axe-Skum and his band of merry ambushers prepared to knock them off and drown them.  Fortunately, Seépravir was able to use Shape Water to make a nice solid (er, okay, actually liquid, but well- behaved liquid) four-hex platform for them to stand on.  While she was doing this she got a good look at the big guy with the axe and called out that the axe looked magical.  And she also happened to notice that the west wall of the passage was looked like an illusion, maybe worth checking out when the group wasn't busy trying to survive.

Polly asked if the unknown humanoids had visible eyes, and they did, so she tried shooting one in the eye.  It dodged the first arrow, but not the second, and took an arrow through the eye and presumably into its brain, stunning and slowing it.  Zaber, still Invisible, decided to use the Ring to Create Water over the head of one of the nearby skum.  This worked, and wasn't an actual attack so didn't make him visible, but had no apparent effect.  Elias stood up on the magically Shaped water platform and used his lanyard to deftly yank his flail back into his hand.

The big underwater Skum with the magic axe decided to kill Garreth with it.  Garreth initially failed his parry, but used his Luck, and then rolled a 4 for a critical success on the retry.  The huge guy went to the critical failure table, and dropped his weapon, and no longer had his magic axe, which went splashing into the water.  (Unlike Elias, he didn't have a lanyard.)

Garreth tried to stab the disarmed huge opponent, but the -2 for attacking into the murky water plus the big deceptive attack penalty he chose were enough to make the 5 he rolled not a crit, and the opponent dodged it, while Retreating downward toward his axe.  (He was a very impressive dodger and obviously had Amphibious.)  Polly shot the stunned opponent in its other eye, rendering it blind, and also unconscious.  She shot her other arrow at a different opponent that was climbing onto the water platform, but it dodged.

At this point invisible aqua-Zaber had a new mission: go steal that axe before its owner recovers it and gets to roll 5d+3 damage again.  With the Swim spell he was fast enough to get their in one Move, and with Invisibility, once he grabbed it, the axe turned invisible too.  Elias decided to double strike a nearby opponent.  His first attack rolled a 3 for a critical hit, a major wound, good damage, and a (rare in GURPS 4E) hex of knockback.  His second attack hit too, as the skum splashed back into the water, stunned.

Another skum came onto the water platform and tried to claw Elias, but he blocked with his shield.  A different one tried to grab Polly, but she acrobatically dodged, jumping over its grasping clawed hand.   Seépravir started casting Great Haste on Garreth, and a couple seconds later he was super-fast.  Garreth unleashed four high-speed Deceptive stabs at the big skum in the water looking for his invisible axe.  It failed to dodge the first one and was hit hard enough to be slowed, reducing his crazy-high dodge to a much less impressive level, allowing two more hits, for a combined massive amount of damage.  The huge skum was super-tough though, and made all his death checks and consciousness check and major wound checks, so was still moving down there.

Polly shot another skum in the eye and rolled 16 damage that was quadrupled to 64 points for a brain hit and the skum rolled an 18 on its death check, so that was one less enemy I had to track.  Elias laid into a skum twice more with his flail, getting two hits but not managing to knock it out.  Zaber Waited, axe in hand, for the big skum to come out of the water.  And he did, jumping out of the water to come kill Garreth with his bare claws.  Unfortunately he never saw Zaber there, who got a backstab neck-chop with the axe.  Zaber didn't actually have Axe/Mace skill, but he had a lot of DX and a pretty good default and Bless+2, and managed to hit.  The big skum had no idea that was coming, didn't get to defend, and took a solid chop to back of the neck, which was just enough (when added to all the damage Garreth did last turn) to get a third death check, which he rolled a 16 on.  Dead skum.  Garreth once again did most of the damage to an opponent then had Zaber swoop in and get the kill with one hit.

There was one skum left.  Seépravir tried Death Vision on it, which didn't work, so apparently skum aren't alive or don't fear death.  Garreth tried multiple-katana-chops on it, did a bunch of damage, and it failed its first death check, so it turns out that not fearing death doesn't make you immune to it.

We were out of time, and the group wanted to go back to town.  Their skiff was destroyed but they still had the Folding Boat in Garreth's backpack.  Since there was no time left, I used my usual "getting back to town is safe" house rule and ruled that they figured out how to use Levitation and Climbing and ropes and stuff to get back up the waterfall, off camera, and they made it back to town.

GM's Comments:

Freeing Aeraelith the air elemental was something the group had been working toward, part-time, forever, so it was neat to see it finally happen.  They didn't get much of an obvious reward for doing it, though.

I was kind of surprised the group was willing to trade a rapier for a couple of Major Healing potions, considering they have way more healing potions than they ever use, but maybe they're just trying to stay on the Minyad's good side.

The lurker ambush was a neat encounter, and they rolled a 6 on surprise to actually manage to ambush this high-Perception group, but the underwater one didn't do quite enough damage to wreck the boat on its first attack, then completely whiffed on its second attack, and then it was dead.  Turns out two lurkers were not a match for 5 PCs in a boat.  If they'd managed to sink the boat, maybe that would have changed things: surface dwellers don't fight so well underwater.

I was also surprised that the group decided to bypass the Giant Clams rather than murder them for their pearls.  For once, Sense of Duty to Nature defeated Greed and Curiosit.  Of course that might do that later.  Clams tend not to move very fast.

The skum ambush was a very scary encounter.  This time the enemy didn't achieve total surprise but the PCs spent too much time discussing while too close to an enemy, and the enemy snuck around them and unleashed 5d+3 axe damage to their skiff.  I thought I was pretty generous allowing Acrobatics rolls to surf on boat bits, but it still would have been a very tough fight with the (fully Amphibious) skum trying to knock them off, grapple them, drag them underwater, and drown them.  But Seépravir's ability to Shape Water and make a stable platform to stand on, combined with Garreth's Luck creating a critical success on a parry leading to disarming the huge Skum with the axe, then Zaber invisibly stealing the axe before the skum could get it back, won the fight.  The moral of the story: if you have a $10000 magic axe, consider buying a $1 lanyard for it.

Total casualties this session: 2 skiffs.  Total treasure found this session: 1 magic axe.