DF Whiterock Session 65: Dead Unicorns

Date:

2019-09-20

Weather:

Warm, sunny

Player Characters:

Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 421 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 418 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 409 points

Significant NPCs:

Soras, centaur leader

Grisby, faerie dragon

5 huge spiders, one able to assume human form

Undead unicorn spirit

Madhorn

Redcap fae

Jae Porrel, human girl

The PCs started in Dawn-on-Stream, having returned Ninia Porrel to town, and ready to set out to find Jae Porrel.  Unfortunately, two players couldn't make it, so the group was down a wizard and a cleric, both of whom were, um, busy helping Grisby research a better Seeker spell.  Meanwhile, the less magical adventurers set out to find the missing girl the old-fashioned way: using Tracking skill and random guesswork.

They headed east toward an abandoned, ruined tower where the Porrel children might have stayed.  They still had Flight spells active, so were able to fly to the tower rather than walking like peasants.  And Zaber had his Ring of Invisibility on.  The three landed on top of the tower, and failed to land completely silently, so someone inside heard them and came out to investigate.  It was (apparently) a human male with a bow.  Garreth revealed himself and had a conversation, while Zaber and Polly hid.  The archer claimed to be hunting for bounties on evil goblins, and had chosen the abandoned tower as a base for his raids.  He invited Garreth in to share lunch.  Meanwhile, Zaber snooped around outside the tower, but didn't find anything very interesting.  His Danger Sense gave him a bad feeling though.

Eventually, Garreth came in to eat lunch with the archer (though he brought his own food because martial artists are picky eaters), and then several huge invisible spiders ambushed him, as spiders tend to do.  The archer turned out to, shockingly, be allied with the spiders.  The spiders managed to achieve partial surprise, with their Invisibility and Stealth.  Unfortunately for them, Garreth was wearing heavy enough armor that there just wasn't a good place to bite him from behind.  And they foolishly were spread around the room rather than all clumped on Garreth to maximize the number of attacks they could make while he was surprised.  The first spider got a successful bite to Garreth's unarmored face, but the damage wasn't enough to seriously bother him, and he easily resisted the poison.  The archer pulled out a rapier and managed to stab Garreth with it, but did little damage.  Then Garreth got to make a roll to recover from surprise, and made it easily thanks to Combat Reflexes, and that was the end of easily hitting Garreth.

Garreth yelled, which brought Zaber and Polly in through the collapsed north wall of the tower.  Both made their Escape rolls to squeeze through.  Zaber invisibly flew toward backstab position.  Polly loosed 3 arrows at the human.  He dodged the first two, but the third was in his head and hard enough to knock the target out.  As he passed out, the archer turned into an unconscious spider.  Garreth fast-drew his katana (rolling a critical success which resulted in a cool "schwing!" sound) and chopped up the spider, wounding it badly.

At that point two more invisible spiders appeared and tried to bite Polly's unarmored head and leg, but she dodged both.  Zaber kept sneaking up behind a spider.  Polly switched to her edged rapier, and killed one of the spiders with it.  Not to be outdone, Garreth chopped a spider in half with his katana.

A surviving spider tried to bind Polly with a web attack, but she dodged it.  Zaber moved into backstab position, while Polly chopped it up.  The last surviving spider tried to run away, but Zaber stabbed it hard enough to slow its movement, and then Polly killed it.

After some quick first aid on Garreth's minor wounds, and some futile attempts to find good treasure, the PCs started looking around the tower for any sign of the Porrel kids.  Zaber eventually found a trail leading north, of a single light humanoid wearing boots with pointed toes.  Hoping that was Jae, the three headed north after the trail.

Eventually, they found what looked like a dead horse on the trail.  On closer inspection, it had a gaping wound in its forehead.  Polly thought it might have been a unicorn, which someone had removed the horn from.  While investigating the area, a disturbing spectral unicorn appeared.  It seemed evil, undead, and hostile.  It charged Polly.  She stabbed it with her rapier, which passed right through it. All three adventurers took a bit of damage from its negative energy.  Garreth threw his spear at the spectral undead unicorn, which also passed right through it.  At that point the PCs were pretty sure they had no chance without a weapon that could affect insubstantial creatures.  Since they'd returned the bastard sword that could affect spirits to the angel, and Elias wasn't around to cast the spell, they were pretty much doomed.  Fortunately, they had Flight, and the spectral unicorn didn't fly.  So, they all retreated upwards, having sustained only minor damage.  Once out of range, Garreth tried throwing his returning spear at the unicorn several more times, in case he was doing some minor damage, but this had no noticeable effect.  Eventually the undead unicorn got bored of this game and  ran off into the woods.

Garreth used his Esoteric Medicine skill to try to repair the negative energy damage to Polly, and rolled well enough that it actually worked.  His subsequent attempt to heal Zaber failed.  Zaber continued following the possibly-child tracks north.  They led to a hill, with a cave in it.

Zaber scouted forward invisibly, and saw a dirty, black-horned unicorn guarding the cave.  He reported back, and then Polly, always optimistic, borrowed some organic health food from Garreth and carried it over to feed the unicorn.  This did not go well; the beast charged.  While it was outside the cave trying to gore Polly, Zaber snuck inside.  He spotted a girl, bound and gagged, against the far wall.  Also a creepy little fae with a red hat and a mace, trying to hide in the shadows and backstab him.

Garreth threw a spear at the unicorn, but it dodged.  Polly didn't attack the unicorn, thinking it was Nature but possibly cursed.  The unicorn leaped up at Garreth and tried to impale him, but he dodged.  The gross parody of a unicorn drooled all over itself.  Garreth threw his spear at the unicorn again, and wounded it this time, in the side.  He flew upward to get out of melee range, so the unicorn turned its attention and its horn back to Polly, gouging her arm for moderate damage.  (Fortunately it hit the half where she had a heavy Bracer of Force.)

Meanwhile, inside the cave, the red-capped fae somehow detected Zaber despite his invisibility, and tried crushing him with the mace, but Zaber easily dodged.  Zaber responded with a knife stab to the face, but the fae dodged too.  Polly decided to shoot the redcap, but he dodged, while yelling insults in Elvish, accusing her of being as ugly as his madhorn.  Unfortunately for him, she shot again while he was busy with insults, and made a decent sized hole in the fae.

Garreth used Kiai to stun the madhorn.  The redcap decided Polly was the greatest threat and tried to smash her twice with his mace, but she dodged both.  Garreth came up behind the unicorn and smacked it in the head with his katana multiple times, until it fell to the ground dead and bleeding profusely.

The redcap switched from his mace to a gaze attack, and tried to injure both Zaber and Polly.  Zaber resisted, but Polly took damage, and the redcap appeared to heal.  Zaber swooped in and tried stabbing him, but he dodged.  Polly advanced, rapier singing, but he dodged more.  Then Garreth came into the cave, and used kiai to stun the redcap.

At that point, it was three on one and the redcap was in deep trouble.  Zaber attacked again, but the redcap retreated and dodged.  Polly landed a rapier cut, slowing the evil fae.  Then Garreth followed up with a vicious neck blow, knocking the redcap unconscious.  He didn't stop swinging even then, and finished the fae off.

The girl was still struggling against her bonds, but Zaber came over and cut her loose.  She did turn out to be Jae, the girl they were looking for.  She then wanted to go look for her sister and brother, but Garreth told her they were both safe in town.  She said that the horrible little fae in the red hat was using her to attract unicorns, then killing them, for some reason.  Before heading back to town, Garreth searched a pit in the cave, and found some coins and a potion.

At that point, the three headed back to Dawn-on-Stream, having saved both Porrel girls.

GM's Comments:

The multi-spider ambush was set up pretty well, but Garreth was just too tough for it, and recovered from surprise quickly, and then Polly and Zaber were right there to back him up.  Monsters really need to learn to do more damage.

The undead spectral unicorn was a potential PC killer: it could hurt them, but they could not hurt it back.  And it was faster than them.  If not for the Flight spells that let them get out of reach, at least one PC probably would have died there.  Adventuring without your cleric is not for the cowardly.

Both the madhorn and the redcap were pretty tough, but Garreth and Polly and Zaber were tougher, and each opponent was surrounded and defeated in detail.

Gimping Great Haste

Great Haste is a very nice spell.  For 10 seconds (read as: one combat), you get two maneuvers per turn.  And the second maneuver determines active defenses, which means that you can basically All-Out Attack without penalty on the first maneuver.  (Unless a nearby opponent with a Wait can interrupt.)

Drawbacks: 3s casting time, 5 FP cost to both caster and subject.  Of course both the casting time and mana cost can be reduced with high skill.  And all casting times can be shortened by the caster self-Great Hasting first.

It gets really broken when you have a caster with Great Haste-25 that self-hastes on the first turn of combat (or, better yet, right before combat starts, though this requires knowing that combat is about to start), then hastes the whole party, two per turn.  Buff mages are amazing in GURPS.

The real issue is that it's multiplicative: your casting skills multiply someone else's combat skills.  (It wouldn't be as broken if you could only haste yourself, since all the points you spent to get Great Haste-25 means you're not so great at non-IQ non-spellcasting things.)  Great Hasting a vanilla weak fighter with one attack per turn turns that into two.  (Or three, if they All-Out Attack (Double) on the first maneuver.)  But Great Hasting someone who has Extra Attack and Weapon Master so they can Rapid Strike can give someone enough maneuvers for the rest of the players to fall asleep while you execute their turn.

How to make multi-player games fun: keep each player-turn short.  How to make multi-player games awful: make one player's turn last forever, so the other players tune out and then aren't paying attention by the time their turn comes up.

Anyway, my current fix to Great Haste:

PCs are limited to three attack rolls per turn, from any source.  Feints count.  Great Haste is still useful for doing other things like fast movement, or for getting characters without extra attacks up to 2 or 3, but it's not useful for turning a fast attacker into a cuisinart.

There are probably more elegant fixes, but this one is dead simple.  I hate changing house rules in mid-campaign, but I hate quitting campaigns because they're not fun even more.


Other options I considered:

AD&D first edition's Haste spell aged the recipient one year, guaranteeing that the spell would be used fairly rarely (at least on humans without magical fountains of youth).  But since long-lived PC races and anti-aging magic exist, I don't think this is enough.  (Then you need to start charging elves and dwarves more points for longevity if it's actually useful.  Or make the aging proportional to lifespan.)

Make the two maneuvers non-consecutive, eliminating the risk-free All-Out Attack.  Or, patch All-Out Attack to always eliminate all your defense rolls for one turn.  Either works to eliminate the cheesy AoA on the first maneuver of a Great Hasted turn, but I fear that's not strong enough, as Great Haste is still too good even without abusing AoA.

Gimp wizards generally.  Limit Magery to 3, worldwide Low Mana Zone, base spell skills on 10+Magery rather than IQ+Magery, reduce FP cost / casting time bonuses for high skill, etc.  There are many options, but it's tricky to get the balance right so that people are still willing to play wizards but wizards don't rule the world.  I felt this was way too much to do in mid-campaign with a live wizard PC in play, though.

DF Whiterock Session 64: Dawn

Date:

2019-09-13

Weather:

Warm, sunny

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 352 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 418 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 415 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 406 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 425 points

Significant NPCs:

Goblin wasp rider

Stagheart, human druid

Braxilant, skeletal chimera

Haele, centaur

Soras, centaur leader

Grisby, faerie dragon

Dalen Porrel, human boy

Giant scorpion

Ninia Porrel, human girl

We started on the other side of the mysterious portal, immediately after the PCs defeated four goblin wasp-riders and their huge wasps.  Three of the goblins were dead, but one survived, and Garreth convinced everyone to capture it alive for questioning.  The group recovered the goblins' bows and shortswords and arrows and leather armor, while Zaber checked out the portal from the other side, and the goblin gradually recovered from being knocked unconscious.

Zaber tied up the goblin, while Seépravir cast Possession on it, while gave it access to all the goblin's memories.  The goblin worked for Trag, a great bugbear leader, who was invading the Far Garden from another portal, which was guarded by a giant bug.  The goblins were at war with the woodland creatures native to the Far Garden, led by centaurs.  The goblin wasp-riders had been sent to investigate signs that this portal had been reassembled.

After they finished interrogating the goblin, Seépravir Charmed it, Elias Healed it, then they sent it through the portal with a note for Hugin.  (They believed that notes sent alone did not make it through, so thought maybe attaching a note to a goblin would work better.)  Polly then played with the moss-covered stone columns near the portal, to no effect.  Zaber looked around from the hill, and noticed a tent town to the northwest.  The group could easily fly that way magically, but they had a heavy wheelbarrow, and pushing it would work better on a trail than through heavy overgrowth.  The only trail led north, so the PCs went that way.

A few miles up the trail, Zaber noticed someone hanging upside-down from a tree.  It was a shirtless, barrel-chested, unconscious human male.  On closer investigation, the man was badly wounded, with a lot of bruises and some puncture wounds.  The group cut him down and laid him down gently on the trail.  Elias tried an Awaken spell, but the man did not wake up.  He followed up with Major Healing, which healed some of his wounds, then another Awaken, which still failed.   Garreth tried his chi-based Esoteric Medicine and rolled a critical success, which told him that the man was poisoned and how to dilute the poison with healing dirt.  Then man then woke up.  His name was Stagheart, he was a druid (and before that a cart-pusher), and he'd been out looking for some lost kids, when a goblin patrol caught him and beat him up.  Stagheart asked for food and water, then volunteered to push the wheelbarrow to the tent town, called Dawn-on-Stream.

However, before the group reached town, they heard crashing sounds coming through the trees, and saw small animals fleeing.  Through the trees burst a huge skeletal creature with three canine heads.  It looked evil enough that the party didn't bother with negotiation, and Polly just started shooting arrows at it.  It dodged two out of three, and the third left a small mark.  Zaber invisibly flew behind the creature.  Garreth used the pearly spear's Great Haste power.  Elias ran right in front of the monster, and it responded by trying to bite him with all three heads.  He blocked one, parried the second, and got bit by the third.  Fortunately his heavy armor prevented most of the damage.  Seépravir, not paying enough attention, cast a redundant Great Haste on Garreth.

Zaber backstabbed the creature in the foot, doing some damage but not crippling it.  Polly shot more arrows, which got dodged.  Garreth concentrated on Uninterrupted Flurry, then threw a spear (which was dodged), then fast-drew his katana.  Elias used his Heroic Grace and Might.  The chimera spun and tried to bite Zaber with all three heads.  He managed to dodge all of them, though it required using his Luck.  Seépravir cast Great Haste on Polly.  Zaber flew away, not wanting to deal with all those attacks again.

Polly fast-drew her rapier and started smashing the skeletal creature, knocking off a few small bones.  Garreth flew up and unleashed a ridiculous number of attacks, horribly wounding it.  Then Elias followed up with two very strong crushing attacks with his flail, and finished it off.  (The creature's bones seemed particularly brittle to crushing attacks.)  Garreth threw one of the skeletal heads into the wheelbarrow, but then Stagheart mentioned that there might be a reward for killing this thing, and they threw the other two heads in there too.

The trail continued north, then west, then as it approached the town, a patrol of centaurs appeared.  They spoke to Stagheart in Sylvan, then one centaur ran back to town to report, while the other centaurs continued their patrol to the east.

The group continued toward town.  As they walked and flew, Zaber spotted a house on a hill, a few miles to the southwest.  Nobody else could see it.  As they continued into town, a centaur named Haele greeted them in broken Common, and asked them to visit Soras in the big tent.  They complied, and inside the pavilion they saw an old centaur, a young human boy, and a tiny faerie dragon.   

Soras, the old centaur, thanked them for killing the goblins and the skeletal chimera.  Grisby, the faerie dragon, mentioned that Soras owed them a reward.  Then Dalen, the boy, started telling them about his missing sisters.  The group had already heard that story from Stagheart, so Seépravir short-cut the exposition and asked if he had any of his sisters's stuff, that could be used as a focus for the Seeker spell.  He led the PCs to a tent, where he pulled out a doll and a book.  Seépravir cast Seeker twice, seeing a vision of six-year-old Ninia in a burrow surrounded by huge badgers, and then twelve-year-old Jae tied up in a cave.  Neither spell gave an exact location, though, so some tracking was needed.  Seépravir asked if there were a ranger or scout around who could help with the lay of the land.  Dalen recommended talking to Grisby.  Grisby mentioned that caves are mostly found in hills, which are to the north-central, southwest, and southeast parts of the Forest.  He recommended checking the southwest first because it was closest.

The group, minus Elias who stayed in town, flew southwest to the house on the hill that Zaber had spotted.  The house was quiet and shut up, so Zaber flew in through the chimney.  (It was a tight fit but he has a good Escape skill.)  Inside was the body of a deceased elderly human male.  There was a locked door inside, which Zaber picked.  This led to a room with a bed and a chest.  When he approached the chest, a giant scorpion appeared.  Rather than fighting it, Zaber flew away, back up the chimney, back to the others.  They decided this didn't look like a place the girls would be, and would come back to it later.

They flew back to the trail where they met the druid, and started looking for giant badger tracks.  They eventually spotted some, heading into the woods off the side of the trail.  They followed the tracks to a small cave.  A huge badger jumped out and hissed at them.  Seépravir called out for Ninia, who yelled that she wasn't there.  At that point there was a long negotiation.  Seépravir fast-talked Ninia into coming along to help save her sister Jae, but the badgers weren't having it.  However, Zaber had Animal Handling (Mustelids) for wrangling Logan the Wolverine, and it came in handy, as he was able to establish dominance over the badgers and get them to let Ninia go.  Seépravir cast Flight on her.  There was then some debate on whether to go after Jae immediately or get Ninia safely back to Dawn-on-Stream first.  Garreth convinced the others that they really didn't want a six-year-old along on a dangerous mission, and they flew her back to Dawn-on-Stream.  They asked where she had last seen Jae, and she described a tower.

We stopped for the session at that point, though the PCs were going to grab Elias and head immediately out to find Jae, rather than waiting.

GM's Comments:

Great Haste is getting annoying in this game.  It's not just that it's very powerful, it's also that it makes player-turns take forever.  And then the players who have to wait too long for their turn to come around tend to get distracted, and the flow of the game suffers.  So I'm ruling that Uninterrupted Flurry is not cumulative with Great Haste since they do the same thing.  I will probably need further house rules to tone down the action abuse, though.  I'm considering a hard limit of three attack rolls per second for PCs, from any source.

DF Whiterock Session 63: Through the Portal

Date:

2019-09-06

Weather:

Cool, overcast

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 348 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 415 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 412 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 403 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 422 points

Significant NPCs:

Master Naburu, Human Martial Artist

Ruben, Human Guard

Ashryn Yeldove, Half-Elf Student Enchanter

Hugen, Human Mercenary

Fjorjek, Stone Giant Wizard

5 more Stone Giants

Vulgaris, Minyad Druid

4 Goblin Wasp-Rider Archers

4 Giant Wasps

The group started in Cillamar, but wanted to take a trip to Galaron for Garreth's training.  Zaber heard one interesting rumor, that portals across dimensions sometimes have a heavy cost on the user.

After some fiddling with their gear to reduce encumbrance, Seépravir cast Flight and Haste and Invisibility on everyone.  The group flew northwest toward Galaron all day, then got tired and landed in the Ice Mire to sleep for the night.  Seépravir used Shape Earth to dig a sleeping hut, then closed it behind them to keep the non-digging wandering monsters away.

The next morning, Seépravir opened up the hole, re-cast the flying spells, and everyone flew the rest of the way to Galaron.  Outside the gate, everyone landed and became visible to avoid annoying the guards.  Unfortunately, the guard rolled a 3 on his reaction to Garreth, and it appeared His Kind was not welcome in town.  Garreth went outside to wait, while Zaber (who was allowed in) went to find trouble and Master Naburu.

Unfortunately, Zaber decided to slip on his Invisibility ring, which caused some Mage guard to scream "Invisible intruder!", and then cast Dispel Magic.  Zaber appeared, and several guards tried to tackle him, but he evaded and then outran them, and then turned Invisible again and slipped out the gate.

Zaber and Seépravir flew on to Mystenmere.  In Mystenmere, Seépravir found Ashryn at her apartment.  Her Wand of Smoke was ready.  She paid the balance and left.  Zaber offered Ashryn money for tuition but she decided he was creepy and closed the door.  Zaber then went looking for an instructor and offered to pay some of Ashryn's tuition.  The instructor gladly took his money.

Garreth trained with Master Nuburu, who told him that magical Drunkenness was no substitute for the real thing when fighting.

Polly found a job guarding a fishing boat from sea monsters, but sadly no sea monsters attacked it.

Elias visited the Temple of Elyr and looked for quests and artifacts.  They asked him to check out the Hidden Fane of Justicia under Castle Whiterock and see if the holy basin of healing there still worked.

Zaber and Seépravir flew back to Galaron.  Zaber walked through the gate -- and they dropped the portcullises at both ends and opened the murder holes.  They told him that he was guilty of resisting arrest and needed to pay his fine.  He eventually left $4000 on the ground, and they let him go.  At that point, the group decided to fly back to Cillamar before anyone got in any more trouble.

Polly found Hugin at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake, and asked if he wanted to guard the portal for them.  After much negotiation, they agreed to pay him $100 per day plus expenses, and to try to get a couple of the stone giants to help.  Once negotiations were concluded, the group bought some supplies, then went back to Castle Whiterock, with Hugin in tow.  They went down to the Immense Cavern to try to get some giants to help guard the portal.  Fjorjek asked if Seépravir knew the Drunkenness spell, and if she could teach it to him in exchange.  She did, and so Fjorjek assigned 2 giants to go with the group.

The group, with Hugin and two giants in tow, went up to the underground river level, and then south to Vulgaris's mushroom farm.  They introduced her to Hugin and the giants, and she showed them where the disassembled portal was.  It was basically a pile of cut stones, with writing (in an unknown language) on some of them.  Seépravir cast Gift of Letters to read the writing, which allowed putting the stones together in the right order, to make an arch.  But one stone was missing.  Seépravir cast Seeker to find it, and it was in the former Derro cave to the northwest.  Garreth went to fetch the stone, and a giant came along in case he needed help carrying it.  (It turned out to not be too heavy for Garreth to lift.)

With the final stone in place, the portal was ready to test.  Polly and Zaber went through first, with a note to pass back when they made it.  They went through, into a purple mist, and disappeared.  No note came back.  After about 5 minutes, Garreth and Seépravir and Elias followed.  They found Polly and Zaber on a hill, outdoors, next to a matching portal.  They had tried to send a note through, but it had never gotten there.  The portal was flanked by several moss-covered stone columns, which looked quite old and weathered.

As the group started exploring the hill, Zaber heard a buzzing sound to the north.  He warned the others, then looked that way, and saw some flying creatures approaching.  As they got closer it appeared that they were some kind of giant insects -- with riders on their backs.  There were four of them, and two started heading around the sides of the hill.  Polly decided that attempting to flank the PCs counted as hostile behavior, so it was time to start shooting arrows.  As the enemies got closer, it appeared that the insects were giant wasps, and the riders were goblins with bows.

Polly fired three arrows at a goblin.  Both the wasp and the goblin failed to dodge the first two, and it took heavy damage, enough to stun it.  Zaber Invisibly started flying up and forward toward the central goblins.  Garreth concentrated on Uninterrupted Flurry.

The three unstunned goblins flew in from all sides, to surround Seépravir and loose arrows at her.  Garreth parried one with his katana.  Seépravir dodged five.  One of the arrows then targeted Garreth, but he dodged it.  Elias flew up and tried to slam a wasp, but it won the contest and knocked him aside.  Seépravir turned herself Invisible to reduce the incoming fire.  Zaber jumped onto a wasp's back, behind the goblin rider.

Polly shot the wounded goblin again, this time in the skull, and killed it.  She then tried a couple of shots at a wasp, but missed one and had one dodged.  Garreth closed with a wasp.  The riderless wasp tried to sting Polly, but missed.  Another wasp tried to sting Garreth, and rolled a critical hit, but he averted it with Luck, then rolled a 17 on his dodge.  However, the wasp's damage wasn't enough to penetrate his armor.  The goblin on the wasp's back fired two arrows at Garreth at point-blank range, but he dodged both.  Another archer took a couple of shots at Elias's eye, but missed.  The final goblin shot two arrows at Polly, but she acrobatically dodged one and dodged the other.

Elias tried a highly deceptive flail attack at a goblin, and missed.  Seépravir Great Hasted herself.  Zaber "stepped" off the wasp's back to avoid the penalty for mounted fighting, then stabbed the goblin in front of him in the vitals, doing enough damage to stun it.  Polly fired some arrows at a goblin's skull until it died, then shot a wasp until it was knocked out and crashed.  Garreth All-Out Attacked the nearby goblin for two hits, the first one injuring it and the second killing it.  Then he used his leftover attack from a Rapid Strike to kill the wasp it had been riding.

There was one riderless wasp left, and it tried to escape.  The group decided that could not happen, so they pursued it.  Seépravir cast Great Haste on Polly, making her fast enough to catch the wasp, and she plinked it with arrows from behind until it crashed.  One goblin was unconscious but still alive, and Garreth made his Bloodlust roll and decided he wanted to keep it alive for questioning.  Polly also made her Bloodlust roll and reluctantly agreed not to kill it.

We stopped there, with the PCs standing on a hill on the opposite side of the portal, surrounded by dead goblins and giant wasps.  Next week, we'll find out if the goblin knows anything.

GM's Comments:

Half-orcs have Social Stigma (Savage), which keeps them out of town on a reaction roll of 6 or less, and that finally happened for the first time.  (I don't roll anymore in Cillamar, since the group rescued the slaves from the orcs and became known good guys there, but Galaron is another town.)  Garreth's strategy of hanging around outside until Master Naburu came to get him worked fine.  But Zaber couldn't keep from getting in trouble with the guards...

Many many weeks after its discovery, the trip through the portal finally happened.  Though the fact that they were immediately attacked by the wasp-riding goblin archers means that the group doesn't really know much about what's on the other side, yet.

DF Whiterock Session 62: Riders of the Purple Worms

Date:

2019-08-30

Weather:

Warm, overcast

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 344 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 412 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 409 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 400 points

Significant NPCs:

Vulgaris, Minyad Druid

13 Dire Bats

Purple Worm

Fjorjek, Stone Giant

Sard, Armadillo

Lowrek, Stone Giant

4 more Stone Giants

Pedunkle, Gnome Submariner

The group started in Cillamar, except for Seépravir, who was out of town.  The first order of business was finding beer for the giants.  After some shopping around, they decided to get 10 $150 kegs of Sylvan Gold.  Next they found clothing and musical instruments for Pedunkle, spending $2000 for high-quality items.  Zaber went looking for information on Lord Flitwick, but found nothing very interesting, just their own reflected propaganda.

Without Flight spells, the party had to walk to Castle Whiterock, pushing two heavy wheelbarrows full of beer.  Fortunately, they were not attacked on the way.  They dragged their burden across the top dungeon level, down the elevator, and over to Vulgaris's mushroom farm, where Polly placed a Minyad Deepwine order for Chauntessa.  Then they piled the wheelbarrows into a skiff, and Garreth rowed them across the underground river level, to the Immense Cavern.

A bit after they started hiking across the Immense Cavern, they were ambushed by a large group of Dire Bats.  However, Zaber saw them coming, and alerted the others before the bats achieved surprise.  Zaber Invisibly waited in ambush.  Polly fired three arrows, with one hitting a bat and two being dodged, then fast-drew her rapier.  Garreth readied his spear, and Elias kept pushing his wheelbarrow.

Four of the bats swooped in to bite Polly.  Three missed, and she parried the fourth, then swatted it in the head and knocked it out.  Garreth threw the pearly spear at one, but it dodged.  Six bats then swarmed Polly.  One bit her, but failed to penetrate her armor.  Another came in range of Zaber, who backstabbed it, not hard enough to knock it out.  One more tried to bite her, but she parried it.

Elias tried a shield slam, but the bat dodged.  Zaber stabbed the bat from behind again, and killed it.  Polly killed one.  Garreth threw a sai at a bat and critically hit it, but didn't knock it out.  One of the bats tried to bite Zaber, but he dodged.  Another one tried to get Garreth, but he parried.  Yet another went for Polly, but she parried too.  Two more went for Elias, but he just let them bite his heavy armor, and they failed to penetrate it, with one chipping a tooth.  Feeling invulnerable, Elias All-Out Attacked (Double), hitting a bat twice and stunning it.

Zaber stabbed a bat in the face, stunning it.  Polly stabbed two bats multiple times, killing one and knocking the other out.  Garreth swuing at a bat twice, missing once then knocking it out with the second blow.  At that point, the remaining bats realized they were overmatched, and started flying away.  Polly pulled out her bow and shot one of the retreating bats; the others escaped.

The bat bodies looked edible, so a couple were thrown in a wheelbarrow.  There was then some discussion on whether to visit the gnome or the giants first.  Zaber argued successfully for the giants, then led the group northwest toward them.  As they approached the giants' lair, the ground started rumbling, and a huge purple worm emerged with surprise.  It tried biting Zaber despite his Invisibility, and his Luck failed to make it miss, but his Bless saved him, converting the huge worm's bite into a miss.  While the PCs recovered from surprise, the worm prepared to make a second attack on Zaber, when suddenly a large rock smacked into its head.  And then another one.  The worm retreated back underground.  Looking west, the group saw two stone giants, holding more boulders.

One of the giants asked if the group brought the beer.  Seeing multiple kegs, they welcomed the PCs up the trail.  The smallest of the giants, named Fjorjek, asked where the wizard was.  When he found out she wasn't there, he asked who was in charge in her absence.  The anarchic collective eventually nominated Zaber as their spokesman.  Fjorjek said that to join their club, they needed to ride a worm.  And the first time they ride a worm, they had to bring beer.  And they could not tell the duergar about the club.  That was all the rules.

Polly noticed a small armored creature behind the giants.  It introduced itself to her as Sard, Fjorjek's familiar.  Nobody else heard anything.

After a bit of small talk and drinking, one of the giants walked to the bottom of the trail, then hammered on a spike in the wall for a while, causing loud booming noises.  The giant ran back up the trail.  A few minutes later, a worm emerged from underground.  A giant said that if you could stay on its back for 10 seconds, you win.

Garreth volunteered to try first.  He readied his spear, then waited for the worm to come near the ledge they were standing on, and jumped onto its back.  He stuck the spear into the worm's back to help hold on.  The worm didn't like that, and reared up to knock him off.  It was a lot stronger than Garreth, and knocked him off, even after he used his Luck to reroll.  Fortunately, Acrobatics let him land on his feet and reduced the falling damage he took, and he was able to run back up the trail before the worm bit him.

Zaber tried next.  He jumped onto the worm's back easily, then stabbed it with a spear.  Sadly, he didn't manage to hold on any longer than Garreth had.  Zaber went flying off, into the cavern's wall, taking damage from both the wall and the floor.  Fortunately he made his Acrobatics roll, landed on his feet, and got away.

Polly decided to grab a rope from the wheelbarrow.  She jumped onto the worm as it passed, and just barely managed to grab on.  She then tried to use the rope to attach herself to it, but, lacking Knot-Tying or Lasso skill, didn't really figure out how before the worm noticed her and reared up.  Once again, the worm was stronger than the rider, and Polly went flying off.  But she landed on her feet and managed to run for safety.

Elias went last, but he seemed to be playing a different game than the rest of the party.  He jumped on the worm's back, then started trying to smash it in the skull with his flail.  The worm didn't like that at all, and decided to dive underground, with Elias still on its back.  As it broke through the ground, Elias knocked the worm unconscious.  One of the giants yelled out "Dude, please stop pounding on the worm.  We need to worm to bring newbs into our club."  That was enough to persuade Elias to stop hitting the worm and climb up the trail to the others, where his companions were all asking for healing spells after sustaining falling damage.

Fjorjek proclaimed that all four had honorably (mostly) attempted worm riding, and were now free to share their beer and their clubhouse.  He also said that he should tell them the password to the duergar fire trap.  The password was "All Hail Thane Hrolad Vejik, and May His Beard Grow Long", in Dwarf.  Apparently Thane Hrolad Vejik was the duergar in charge of the Bleak Theater.  The PCs had a long discussion with the giants about the duergar, and drank a lot of beer.  Polly asked how much the giants would charge to help assemble and then guard a portal.  It appeared some kind of deal involving beer could be reached.

Then the PCs decided to go deliver supplies to Pedunkle the gnome.  They walked south, along the edge of the cavern avoiding the worm fields, then east until they found the passage south, then Polly hit the letter "O" in the sign to activate the teleporter.  Once again, as soon as they got there, the submarine was surfacing to greet them.  Pedunkle asked if they brought his stuff.  Polly said they had, so he jumped across to take a look at the clothing, lute, and mini-harp.  He went back into The Incomprehensible (Mark I) and got the bag of coins, and dropped it on the ground.  Zaber asked the gnome if he wanted a drink, but he said he didn't really drink anymore.  Polly asked if she could have a ride in the submarine, but the gnome said the Big Person Seat was full of stuff, and he needed to go tune his lute and harp, so not today, maybe another time.  He then jumped back in his submarine and drove away.

Polly mentioned that they had never looked down the left passage in the giant lair.  So the group went back to where they killed the dire bats to collect more corpses, then went back to the giants' cave with the bats.  After presenting their gift of food, they asked if they could explore the other caves.  The giants said they could visit the guest caves if they wanted, so the party went back, and found two more caves, each full of large bedrolls, but no more giants.  Polly tried a bedroll and found it reasonably comfortable.

Not wanting to challenge the duergar again without their wizard, the group headed back up.  Garreth skillfully rowed the skiff back to the other side of the underground river level, then the group went to warn Vulgaris that they might have some giants come by.  She told them that that was acceptable, if they could get her a nicer edged rapier.  Then the group went back to Cillamar.

GM's Comments:

The session was mostly fetch quests for NPCs.  Pedunkle got his supplies, and the PCs made a nice profit.  The giants got their beer, and the PCs got to drink some of it with them, and also get thrown off a purple worm.  Though the giants did probably save Zaber from getting swallowed whole by the worm, so it might have been a good deal.

Next time, we'll see if the PCs try assembling the portal or go back downstairs to meet the duergar.