All the Ways the PCs Know They Can Go in Arden Vul

One of the players posted a list of all the ways they could explore next on the campaign Discord.  Here's a shortened version:

• 2 caves behind the waterfall (beneath 35-40' of rough water)
• Ruined tower near the base of the waterfall (ghost)
• Secret entrance 2/3 of the way up the Long Stair, leading to the Great Cavern
• Ruins of the city of Arden Vul
• Northern island
• Multiple watch towers
• Square tower near Forum with bronze double doors
• Square tower (bees)
• Square tower and cistern (baboons)
• Down the Well of Light (baboons and giant 4-armed baboons)
• Pyramid of Thoth, move statue west 
• Halls of Thoth (halflings)
• Great Chasm
• Lever on top of triangular pyramid, teleporter to Well of Light
• Beastman territory
• Stairs down, behind secret door in baboon mosaic
• Chute down, opened by manipulating a statue
• Pyramid of Thoth, move statue east
• Black portal (demons)
• Selket statue, teleporter to Great Hall (beastmen)

At least so far, Arden Vul has a large branching factor.  The PCs choose where to explore, and then instead of having one less choice (as they would if they exhausted a dead end), they usually find a couple more choices.

This makes prepping the dungeon more difficult for the GM, because I can't always guess where players will go next, so I have to have a lot of areas prepared.  This is probably good though, because it gives me incentive to prep more each week, so I'll finish prepping the whole adventure sooner.

I think having a lot of choices is good for players, because if they get stuck in one place they can go somewhere else.  However, it does require players to have good memories, or take good notes, or buy Eidetic Memory, so they don't forget about all those loose ends.

DFRPG Session 7: Why Did It Have to Be Plants?

Date:

Demmasday, 25th of Lucrios, 2993 AEP


Weather:

Cool, light rain

Player Characters:

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

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Based Cosmo)

Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)

Ethereum "Coinbase" Thuringwador, Elf Illusionist (Mercenary) (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Mountain Lion

6 Stirges

Pig-Headed Beastman

Several Large Albino Baboons

Assassin Vine

Shambling Mound

Ioannes spent some time reading the Book of Priors the group had found in their last delve.  It was thousands of pages long, written in dense Mithric by a succession of Priors of Thoth, over the years 937 to 1782 AEP.  Amidst all the church records, he found about twelve levels of the Halls described.  There was also mention of two different species conquered by the great Archon Marius Tricodor: the varumani (big strong regenerators) and the heqeti (demon-worshipping amphibians).  He also managed to find a spare healing kit at the Temple of Demma and made a donation to have it reassigned to him.

Vallium went looking for rumors of Plumthorn's halflings, and heard that they were selling "exploration licenses" (confirmed!) and also that messing with them was a bad idea because they had magic wands.

Vael was still tied up in magical research and/or getting his new robes to look right, but Michael had returned from his latest trip into the wilderness.  Short a mage, the group hired the Grudge Brigade leader Coinbase again, since he was available and definitely good at selling treasure, as well as allegedly being able to cast some spells.

The party woke up before dawn on a rainy Demmasday and trudged the usual several hours toward the Ruins.  Nobody slipped on the Long Stair, but a very brave or very hungry mountain lion decided that Vallium, at the back of the group, looked like a nice meal, and pounced on him from behind.  It managed to bite him hard in the back of the neck, but did not account for how thick his armor was, and mostly just hurt its teeth.  Vallium stabbed the big cat to death, and Coinbase reminded them that his minion Goat would pay for corpses of animals he hadn't previously seen, so they stuck the body behind some trees and hoped it would still be there when they returned.

Continuing up the Long Stair to the Ruins, the group had a brief discussion on where to go.  They didn't feel ready to fight the halflings (though as usual they spent some time talking smack about them).  Vallium suggested exploring the islands in the middle of the Upper Swift River.  Ioannes and Coinbase mentioned exploring some more of the ruined city wall and its guard towers.  They compromised by starting with the towers since they were closer, planning to visit the islands later.

Heading east from the entry into the ruins, they inspected a crumbling piece of city wall, then found a mostly intact round tower in the southeast corner.  Four of them were able to climb the more stable looking wall to the east of the tower, but Coinbase failed to climb it and doubled back to the ruined wall to the west, which was easier to climb but looked more likely to collapse.  The two groups entered the tower from opposite sides, and were able to see each other across the mostly empty upper floor of the tower.  They heard noise above, like loud chittering birds.  As they entered the tower, several stirges dove down from above to defend their lair.  The angry birds fought without any tactical sense, just charging at the nearest intruder.  Vallium and Michael swatted a couple down, while Coinbase summoned a semi-illusionary Phantom.  With three of the stirges dead, the others decided to retreat, and they were too fast to catch.  The group searched the tower but found no treasure.  They grabbed a strix corpse to sell to Goat.

Continuing north, they found a ruined square tower containing a large bees nest.  Giving the nest a wide berth, they saw another square tower ahead, and spotted a pig-headed beastman peeking around the corner of the tower at them.  They approached warily, but by the time they summoned the courage to peek around the tower, the beastman was nowhere to be seen.

There was a break in the city's eastern wall, and then another square tower ahead.  When the group got within about 20 yards of the tower, a large white baboon stuck its head out a window and hooted at them, then threw a rock at Vallium.  The rock missed.  A lot of hooting ensued in the tower, and a couple more rocks.  Some more hooting answered from a cistern east of the tower.  The group discussed rushing the baboons, then decided that wasn't a great idea, and backed away.

There was a semi-intact ruin of a manor house to the west.  Most of the group spent about an hour digging through it, while Vallium stood guard.  They didn't find anything particularly interesting; maybe this ruin had already been picked over.  While they were searching, a wyvern flew by to the south, took a good look at them, then flew off to the west.  This time, it didn't try to drop anything on them.

At this point they decided to head northwest and explore the islands.  There was a foot bridge leading from west of the forum to the southern island.  The bridge was only about five feet wide and appeared to be made of iron, so it was impressive that it was still standing.  With some caution they crossed it, and it did not collapse.  They continued north through some nondescript ruins until they saw a ruined palace, with some kind of domed greenhouse still standing in its east wing.  The front doors were also still standing, about fifteen feet tall and black.  As they approached the door, a voice shouted out in Mithric "Stand aside, citizen.  This is not your home."  They tried talking to whoever was inside, but got no answer.  Eventually the voice repeated the same line again, and they decided it was pre-programmed rather than someone actually talking.

The front doors looked sturdy, but parts of the wall had collapsed, so they went around.  They walked into a ruined antechamber that held a couple of desiccated corpses, but no treasure.  They went east to the greenhouse, which was surprisingly intact.  It was about four stories tall, with catwalks crisscrossing the building, a transparent roof that let light in, and plants and even a few trees everywhere.  There was a fountain in the center of the greenhouse, still working.  They poked around looking for something of interest, and something of interest found them.

An assassin vine, basically a human-sized pitcher plant with a couple dozen tendrils for dragging prey into its maw, greeted them with a couple of tendrils each.  They were surprised by this and stood around watching for a couple of seconds while the tendrils grabbed most of them.  Ioannes was as surprised as the rest of them, but he was wearing the Ring of Free Action they found in the Priors' hoard, and the tendrils were unable to get a good grip on him.  Michael, though theoretically as surprised as the rest of them, showed off his Combat Reflexes by rolling a natural 3 on his dodge, jumping away from both tendrils and also snapping out of stun.

The assassin vine was very strong, and managed to knock both Vallium and Uvash prone and drag them forward toward its mouth.  However, the tendrils were not very tough, and everyone started chopping them to release their friends.  Michael chopped the tendril holding Coinbase, freeing the elf to cast a Phantom, which fooled the not-very-smart plant that it was real, and started ripping off tendrils. Ioannes chopped a tendril off Vallium.  Vallium started cutting the tendrils grabbing him, but as the plant dragged him within range of his body, decided to concentrate on the larger target instead, and hit the plant's body hard enough to stun it, causing it to release its grappled victims.  With the plant stunned, Michael ran up, and he and Vallium stabbed the plant from both sides enough to make it stop moving.  The whole group then spent some time making sure it was dead.

Near the dead plant, the group spotted the ancient corpse of what looked like a noble woman.  Ioannes tried to diagnose the cause of death, but the body was too old.  However, there was some kind of huge rod of office, and a platinum circlet, and a signet ring, and a shortsword.  Ioannes was pretty sure both the rod and the sword were magical.  They searched the corpse and also found a few rubies, a key, three small silver ankhs, and a fist-sized chunk of orange rock, which Ioannes thought was magical and the group suspected might be the rumored Arcanum.

After looting the body, the group checked out the fountain, but didn't find anything interesting in it.  They continued to the east of the solarium, and ran smack into another plant creature.  This one was a big smelly bipedal slimy mess.  This fight was a lot faster than the previous one, Vallium hit it quickly and got if off-balance, and then he and Michael and Coinbase's Phantom triple-teamed it.  Ioannes cast Flaming Weapon on Vallium's sword, but the fire didn't seem to do anything to the soggy plant.  However, by then the Phantom had pinned it to the ground, and Vallium and Michael were taking turns chopping off large bits of plant matter.  Uvash joined in and smacked it with his mace and finished it off.  The Shambling Mound had no treasure.

Leaving the solarium and returning to the ruined palace, Ioannes found a magical ring of paving stones, about 6' in diameter, with a rectangular grid of 6 8" by 8" squares nearby.  Vallium asked if the squares were the same size as the glass squares they had found.  They didn't have the glass squares with them, but they looked about the same size.  They searched the palace a bit more, and Uvash found a tapestry of a hunt in decent condition, but otherwise they found no other treasure.

After leaving the place through the hole in the wall, they saw larger bridges east (back toward the forum) and west (to the west side of the Swift River.)  To the east was a plinth with the feet of a large statue, but the rest of the statue was nowhere to be seen.  They crossed and took a closer look, and the feet were sculpted with heavy boots, possibly representing armor.  Someone asked if the feet matched the statue part they'd found in a basin to the east, and they appeared to be about the same scale and material, but since this was feet and the other part was an arm and hand, it would not be possible to fit them together and be sure.

Heading back south toward the Long Stair, Vallium suggested stopping at the obelisk to see if the silver ankhs they'd found matched the indentations on the obelisk.  Sure enough, all three ankhs matched.  However, inserting one didn't cause anything obvious to happen.  They reclaimed the ankh rather than leaving it in the obelisk.  They tend continued south to the Long Stair.  The mountain lion corpse was still where they left it, so they put it in the wheelbarrow and dragged it home for sale.

GM's Notes:

I don't think I ran the stirges very well.  One problem with random encounters is the GM doesn't know what's going to happen until it does, so there's not a lot of time to review the monster description -- but I should do it anyway.  It's worth burning 5 minutes at the start of a long fight to make the rest of the fight run more correctly and smoothly.

The assassin vine, though, worked pretty well.  It was the first monster to achieve decisive surprise against this party.  Fortunately for them, it's not a fast killer -- it takes a while to grapple its victims, then knock them down, then drag them toward its maw, then digest them.

I rolled for whether the shambling mound heard the fight with the assassin vine and decided to join in.  Fortunately for the PCs, it did not.  Getting tag-teamed by both of them at once would have been much harder than fighting them one at a time ended up being.  This week demonstrated that dumb monsters do not always have the best tactics.

Amusingly, none of the monsters they found this session had any treasure (unless you count their bodies), but the dead noble lady's body in the Solarium had a bunch of it.

Achievements:

The Archon's Palace was an Arden Vul Iconic Location

XP: 

• Exploration: 6 new locations explored, good for 1 XP
• Loot: The rubies and platinum circlet they found will be enough for 1 XP each.  If they want to hit the 2 XP bonus loot threshold, they'll need to sell the dead noblewoman's magic rod and/or magic shortsword.  Based on past behavior, they'll probably do that, after identifying them.
• Achievements: 1 XP

Next week:

There was more smack talk about the halflings.  We'll see if they actually decide to fight them, or if they keep exploring other areas.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 6: Good Ghost, Bad Ghost

Date:

Demmasday, 18th of Lucrios, 2993 AEP


Weather:

Warm, sunny


Player Characters:

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

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Based Cosmo)

Ashe "Goat" Maykum, Goblin Druid (Mercenary) (Archon Shiva)


Significant NPCs:

Camilla, created goat

Other created goats

Created bat swarms 

Created rat swarms

Angry scary ghost

Roskelly Winterleaf, halfling underground toll collector lieutenant
Several halfling toll collectors

3 chasm cephalopods

Jacobus, former Prior of Thoth, current friendly ghost

6 ghouls

Wight

In Gosterwick, Ioannes did some additional research into Lady Alexia's Regalia and found that the Ebon Spear was the actual spear wielded by Arden when she was a mortal warrior hero, thousands of years ago.  Vallium again tried finding rumors about Plumthorn's halfling gang in various drinking establishments, and instead heard something about Ptarmis, a wizard who lived in the fungal caverns.

Michael was still out wandering in the wilderness, and Vael was busy studying (or possibly customizing his new wizard robes), so the group was an adventurer short this week.  They hired Ashe, the goat-summoning druid, from the Grudge Brigade.  There was some discussion on whether to visit the Great Cavern again or bring food to the beastmen, but Vallium suggested avoiding the Cavern since they didn't have a wizard with Levitation to deal with cliffs and water.  Instead they would just go down the Great Pyramid stairs and investigate unexplored parts of the Halls of Thoth. 

They woke before dawn, and walked uneventfully toward Arden Vul on a warm spring day.  At the base of the waterfall, Ashe used a Water Vision spell to see through all the spray, and made out a couple of cave entrances, behind the waterfall and 30 to 40 feet underwater.  While Ashe was staring into the water, Ioannes noticed a crumbling tower near the side of the road, and suggested (via gestures because the waterfall was too loud for speech) that they check it out.

The group entered the remains of the tower.  The top levels had fallen, but the ground level was fairly intact.  Vallium poked around in the rubble and found what he thought was a trap door to a cellar.  Ashe cast Shape Earth to help move rubble out of the way.  Vallium opened the trap door, and a terrifying ghost emerged, yelling something about Settite murderers.

Both Ioannes and Uvash fled in terror.  Vallium was a bit less scared but decided that following them made more sense than dealing with any angry ghost.  Ashe, however, stuck around to have a conversation.  The ghost attempted to possess Ashe, but failed.  It then shot some kind of magical bolt out of a finger and missed.  Ashe eventually gave up on discussion and followed the others out of the tower, surrounded by goats and rats and bats.  The ghost did not pursue outside the tower.

After recovering from their fright, everyone hiked up the Long Stair, with Vallium pushing a new wheelbarrow containing everyone's backpacks.  Nobody slipped.  When they reached the top, the group headed toward the Pyramid of Thoth and managed to avoid any encounters.  They manipulated the statue's arms, read some graffiti, and walked down several hundred stairs to the Glory of Thoth.  There they were greeted by their favorite halfling extortion gang, who collected 25 pieces of silver from Vallium for an Adventuring License for Ashe.  (Roskelly generously allowed the goats and swarms to adventure for free.)

Since Ashe had Water Vision, the group headed south through the gray-green mist to the smelly murky pool, hoping the spell would reveal some treasure.  Sadly, it did not.  Ashe complained about the people who failed to throw coins into fountains, and then threw a single coin in.  Vallium suggested going east to avoid beastman territory.  The group went through a previously discovered secret passage, into a room full of columns that had previously contained some flying jellyfish-like creatures.  There were 3 more of the cephalopods there this time, and they appeared hungry.

A battle ensued, but the jellyfish weren't very tough, and went down fairly quickly to a combination of Vallium's sword blows and Ashe's bat swarms.  One of them did manage to shock a goat before it died.  All the bodies in the room had already been looted, so the group headed east, then north to an unexplored door.  It was difficult to open, but Vallium got some help from Ioannes and the door opened to a long narrow north-south corridor, this one not full of corpses.  Vallium carefully checked for a way to open the door from the other side, then stepped into the passage.  Only a couple of steps in, the floor collapsed under him, revealing a 20' deep pit.  Vallium grabbed the edge of the pit and pulled himself up.  There was no obvious treasure in the pit, and the group decided that this area would be safer to explore with Levitation available.

They doubled back to the column room and took the southern exit on the east wall.  This led to a room with a lot of trash on the floor and a door on the far wall.  The door was very stuck and Vallium had a hard time opening it, so Ashe sent two goats repeatedly ramming into the door until it eventually opened.  (Somehow, all the noise failed to draw any wandering monsters.)  Beyond the stuck door was a room with stone benches on every wall.  Ioannes painstakingly searched every bench, and was rewarded with a secret compartment in the last one he searched.  It contained a bolt of yellow silk, a lantern and oil, and a book written in some language that nobody knew.  They took everything.

A passage led east out of the room.  Following it, they saw a door to the south and a room to the east, and they went east into the room.  It had a mosaic of the stars on the floor, and a sky blue ceiling with stars painted on it.  Ashe thought the stars were the constellation of the Ibis, but the others were less sure.  There were wooden stalls on the walls all around the room, with one larger stall in the middle of the eastern wall, and an exit further north on the eastern wall.  Vallium searched the larger stall, and thought there was a secret door behind it, but couldn't figure out how to open it.  Ioannes suggested searching all the stalls, and after a long search the group found a couple of potions (one of them looking magical, one not; Ashe thought that was was poison), some old silver coins, a fancy ceremonial headdress, a couple more of the magical colored glass squares (green and yellow), and an ancient erotic book called The Seventy-Four Ways of Opening the Lotus, in Mithric, but with pictures.  Once everyone tired of looking at the book, Vallium asked for help figuring out the secret door.  Nobody could find a hidden catch or keyhole, so Ashe told the two goats to again take turns ramming into the door.  After a few smashes, one of them accidentally hit a hidden catch and the door opened.

On the other side of the door was a combination bedroom and study.  A very short translucent figure sat up from the desk and warmly greeted the party with gestures.  They could not hear his voice when he tried to speak, but he apparently understood them.  He pointed at some blueprints on the desk, which said "Tomb of Jacobus, the 52nd Claustral Prior of the Chapter of Thoth."  There was a map there, of three rooms.  Jacobus pointed to the map then pointed to the north.  After a lot of gesturing and nodding and shaking of his head, he got the idea across that this was his tomb and his body wasn't properly buried in it for some reason and he'd like some help with that.  He then pointed to an armoire, and when they opened it, to a hat inside, and then when Ioannes looked at the hat he found it contained a key.  Jacobus pointed to the key and then led the group out the secret door, north, east down a passage to a looted storeroom.  Jacobus pointed to the north wall, then to the key, until the PCs searched and found a secret door.

A short passage led north, then jagged left a bit and suspiciuously dead-ended.  Everyone searched for a secret door in the obvious place, and found one.  Jacobus had stayed behind in the storeroom.  Vallium figured out how to open the secret door, and stepped through.

On the other side was a room full of burial niches and sarcophagi, many of them looted and destroyed.  A couple of ghouls were charging toward the party.  They decided to let the ghouls come to them, allowing a retreat through the secret door if needed.  This tactic lasted a couple of seconds before Ashe decided to send his goats and bat and rat swarms into the room to draw attacks.  Two ghouls were visible at first, and later five more ghouls and a wight were spotted.  Ashe cast a Hail spell between the undead and the party, which meant the undead had to take Hail damage in addition to swarm damage before they could hurt anyone important.  It was a long grinding fight, but ultimately Vallium's sword and the swarms took down all of the undead.  The ghouls landed a couple of hits on Vallium, but failed to penetrate his armor.  The undead managed to kill a couple of the swarms, but Ashe said that was fine and he could just make more.

With the undead gone, the party investigated the room.  There were open double doors to the southwest, facing the Great Chasm.  There was a single tomb with a fancy gisant to the northeast.  And there was a rather short skeleton on the ground near the east wall.  Ioannes went back to get the blueprints, which showed where the secret door leading to Jacobus's tomb should be.  The group found the secret door in the expected spot, went in, and found an unoccupied sarcophagus and a bunch of treasure.  Vallium reverently put Jacobus's skeleton in the sarcophagus, as both Uvash and Ioannes said a few appropriate words.  Jacobus's ghost came running into the room, bowed to everyone, and dived into the sarcophagus on top of his skeleton.  Before disappearing, he pointed to the side of the sarcophagus.  Uvash thought Jacobus was just saying to close it, but Vallium thought he might be pointing to something, and searched.  There was a secret compartment there, containing a belt and a ring.

The party picked up all the portable treasure from the tomb.  This included a locked chest.  Ashe suggested smashing it with goats, but Uvash said that if there was anything fragile inside that might smash it, so they decided to just take the chest and pay someone in Gosterwick to open it.

Discussion of the chest made everyone remember the halflings.  Vallium mentioned maybe just giving them their 10% for once, but Ashe scoffed and suggested using Mystic Mist instead.  The plan was to approch the Glory of Thoth from the northwest entrance, only 10 yards from the stairs up to the pyramid, then cast a big Mystic Mist over the whole northeast corner of the room, and march the treasure out while the halflings were confused by the mist.  One of Roskelly's fighters saw the mist appear, and Roskelly sent a couple of halflings in to investigate, but both ran back out screaming, and then the PCs were up the stairs,  Roskelly was yelling after them, though; this time the halflings knew they'd been cheated of their share of the loot.

GM's Comments:

Three fights this week: quickly running away from a ghost, quickly dispatching some chasm cephalopods, and then a long grindy fight against some ghouls and a wight.  Only Vallium and Ashe got to do much, but the PCs won.  Summoned swarms are pretty powerful, but more combatants mean slower combats.  They found a lot of treasure in Prior Jacobus's tomb, and only had to split it 4 ways, so it was a profitable delve.

Achievements:

Quest: Prior Jacobus's Ghost

XP:

Exploration: 10 new locations explored, for 1 XP.

Loot: That locked (and trapped!) chest was full of coins.  2 XP.

Achievements: 1 XP for giving Prior Jacobus a proper burial.

Next week:

The party has progressed from sneaking treasure past the halflings in deniable ways to brazenly walking treasure past them with obvious magic.  We'll see if they return to the scene of the crime or decide to go somewhere else.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 5: Parleys and The Great Cavern

Date:

Demmasday, 11th of Lucrios, 2993 AEP


Weather:

Cool, overcast, rainy


Player Characters:

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

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Based Cosmo)

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


Significant NPCs:

Lyssandra Astorion, principal of the Arcane Practitioners' Club

Freydis, steward to Lady Alexia Basilion

Lady Alexia Basileon, ruler of the town of Gosterwick

Roskelly Winterleaf, halfling underground toll collector lieutenant
Several halfling toll collectors

Many beastmen

Count Skleros, beastman military commander

2 ghouls

giant salamander

giant crab

clockwork dragonfly

Ptarmis, strange robed human

3 rock reptiles

Bellringer, goblin sub-chief

2 other goblins

After identifying the magical gem they found in the Pyramid of Thoth as a very valuable Gem of Insight, the group decided to sell it rather than keeping it.  Lyssandra mentioned the Gem to Lady Alexia's steward, Freydis, who invited the party for a meeting to discuss the Gem.  After some questions about the group and the Gem, Freydis arranged an audience with Lady Alexia herself.  Lady Alexia purchased the Gem, and also told the group about her Regalia, four items within Arden Vul that were extremely important to her, and for which she would richly reward the finders.  The Regalia named were the Bone Ring of Jagri-Naz, the Tablet of the Beacon, the Ebon Spear of Arden, and the Iron Circlet of Ghanor.  Lady Alexia did not go into further detail, saying that various delvers with whom she had shared information had failed to find any of the Regalia for years, so she'd prefer that new groups go in with fresh eyes lest flaws in her intelligence led them astray.  Asked if there was anything Gosterwick could do to assist the group with finding the Regalia and other important treasure, there was a general grumbling about a lack of magic items and special purpose adventuring gear for sale in town.  Lady Alexia said that she had some healing potions available for sale and would continue trying to improve the supply of other gear, but that Gosterwick was not exactly Archontos.

Ioannes decided to research the Regalia, but didn't find anything interesting in the Arcane Practitioners' Club's small library.  He also ordered some finer quality leather armor and a new axe.  Vallium spread more coin around the local taverns looking for information, visited Astableon the Scribe and Bookseller to buy a history book, and visited Chairduster's Fine Metallurgy to buy some gold and silver jewelry for dragon tribute.  Vael picked up his fancy new robes and also purchased some mundane adventuring equipment to leave in the ruins.  The group visited all three merchant factors in Gosterwick (Rarities Factor, Prosperity Factor, and Silent Factor) to look for a place to set up bank accounts, and Vael also got a reference to a lawyer who could set up an adventuring company as a legal entity.  Uvash returned from the House of the Gods to join the others on the trip, but Michael was once again out in the wilderness somewhere, so the group recruited the on-call mercenary at the Grudge Brigade, a tiny halfling monk called Basilisk.

They set out for the ruins of Arden Vul early the next morning.  Uvash recommended roping themselves together for safety in case of another slip on the Long Stair, but they didn't have enough rope for everyone.  Vael once again Levitated himself up the cliff face, and Basilisk rode in the wheelbarrow that Vallium was pushing.  This time everyone made it to the top without a slip, despite the rainy conditions.

They decided to first deliver the tribute to the dragon.  The party walked over to the dam and checked that the lock they had installed the week before was intact, stowed some equipment inside the dam, and left the tribute jewelry on top of the dam in a sack as the dragon had commanded.  They then proceeded to the Pyramid of Thoth and manipulated the statue's arms forward to open the safer entrance.

On the large landing room halfway down the steps inside the pyramid, they encountered Roskelly and a couple of his halfling toll collectors.  Basilisk hid.  After a brief conversation, the halflings went back downstairs to their territory, followed by the party.  Vallium walked over to the statue of Thoth and the base of the stairs, put his book in the offering chest, and loudly proclaimed that the offering was in Thoth's name.  Nothing happened.  They added some coins to the offering chest.  Nothing happened.  Vael theorized that maybe a mundane book wasn't good enough and it had to be magic scroll, but they didn't have any, so they recovered their book and coins.

The group proceeded south toward beastman territory.  When they crossed the barricade they yelled out for parley, rather than trespassing.  First a beastman trooper, then a sergeant, came to investigate.  After a brief discussion the sergeant said to wait, and returned a bit later with a beastman leader, Count Skleros, and his honor guard.  Skleros asked if they were the Cheese and Crackers group that had been trying to negotate, and after confirmation asked what they wanted.  Vael said they wanted safe passage through Children of Deino territory and access to any other dungeon entrances that faction might control.  Skleros wanted to know what they could do for him in exchange, and Vael asked what he needed.  Skleros gave a list: for the dragon to stop eating his troops, wood, iron, steel, mushrooms particularly a variety called Cloud Caps, fresh fruits and vegetables, magic items, and coins.  Vael said something about putting a good word in with the dragon and bringing some food next time, which Skleros said was fine, and they would give them safe conduct through their territory and tell them where the entrance was next time.  Vael asked if there was anything they could do today, and Skleros mentioned a small ghoul problem.  A couple of ghouls were in a room near a beastman guard post, and they were barricaded inside so they weren't currently a serious problem, but they were costing the beastmen the use of that room and also terrifying some of the soldiers.  He asked if any of the party were the kind of clerics who would make undead dead.

Unfortunately none of the clerics had undead destroying powers, but Vael had Create Fire, so he asked some details about the room where the ghouls were barricaded and whether anything important was inside.  Told it was about 25 feet square and there were no known valuables there, Vael cast Seek Earth looking for gold or silver inside to confirm.  Finding none, he used the newly found magic ring of seeing through things to look through the door of the room, then tried a large Create Fire to incinerate the ghouls without opening the door.  The first casting of the spell surprisingly failed, but eventually Vael managed to torch the room.  A few minutes later the group formed up and Vallium unbarred and opened the door, revealing a very hot room containing two charred corpses.  Ioannes chopped off their heads just to be sure.  Vael was very tired after incinerating a decent-sized room, but two clerics and a monk all started Lending Energy and pretty soon everyone was rested.

With the ghouls taken care of, Skleros instructed a sergeant to guide the party through their territory to the Great Cavern and give them directions to the exit.  The sergeant and a few troopers led the group across the Great Hall (telling them to run across before any gargoyles above noticed them and attacked), then through several rooms full of beastmen.  One room contained a bunch of parchments, possibly maps, that had been quickly turned upside-down to hide them from untrusted eyes.

At the south end of beastman territory, the sergeant handed the group off to another sergeant who said he was with the Long Range Cavern Patrol.  He said to climb down the cliff, go south until it wasn't possible to go south any more, than go east until they found a cave entrance, then go south and west until they found the exit.  He also said the cliff was infested with giant centipedes, and gave the group a bucket full of nasty smelling paste that he said repelled them.  He led them out to a cage, high in the air above a huge cavern full of glowing mushrooms.  The cage had a locked door leading to a ladder down into the cavern.

Everyone climbed or Levitated down to the cavern floor, then walked south to the top of a cliff, with the sound of running water below.  Vael Levitated down the cliff to scout ahead, and saw a stream with a small island with a worn stone statue on it.  But when he moved closer to investigate, a giant salamander showed interest, so Vael noped back up to the group.  Between them, they had more than 50' of rope, so Uvash tied everyone's ropes together and then tied one end to a spike the beastmen had placed at the top of the cliff, then everyone put on the giant centipede repellent and started climbing down.  (Except Vael Levitated, and the tiny Basilisk rode down on Vael's shoulders.)

Unfortunately, Uvash had critically failed his Climbing roll to set the rope, so the group was unknowingly actually free-climbing, not getting the bonus for the rope.  Fortunately, they all made their Climbing rolls without the bonus, so nobody fell.  Vael flew back up and untied the rope (which detached from the spike suspiciously easily) and returned it to its owners.  No giant centipedes had made an appearance, but nobody knew if that was because the repellent worked.

The group followed the north edge of the stream west until it emptied into an underground pond.  They walked along the north edge of the lake west until they saw a dock with a couple of fresh but unlit torches, and a couple of rowboats.  They lit the torches, which was mostly redundant because their Continual Light rocks were brighter, then continued walking west until they reached the other side of the pond, up against a rock wall.  There was no obvious way around; they needed to swim or boat or fly across.  Nobody in the group had any Boating skill, and they didn't know if they could trust the boats, so Vael decided to Levitate across to scout, with Basilisk on his shoulders.

Flying across, they saw a cave entrance high up above the water, with some interesting crystal formations inside, but did not go in to investigate.  They also spotted a sandy island in the middle of the pond, with a huge crab sitting on the beach, and a bit of apparently magical treasure in the sand.  Finally they spotted a second dock with another rowboat on the south side of the pond.  Vael and Basilisk flew back to the group to discuss their findings, and they all decided that fighting the crab was probably unnecessary and they might be able to scare it off and grab the treasure.

Vael and Basilisk flew back above the crab, and Vael dropped a Create Fire on top of it.  The crab jumped in alarm and then dove into the water.  Once the crab had been gone for a few seconds, Vael and Basilisk landed on the island and picked up three things that looked magical: a shield, a green square of glass, and a rusty suit of scale armor.  The armor was a bit heavy, so Vael cast a separate Levitation spell on Basilisk, who clung to the armor while Vael guided them both back to the north shore.

The scale armor was heavy and annoying to carry, so they decided to cast Analyze Magic right there in the cavern, despite it taking an hour, to see if it was worth the trouble.  While Vael was casting, a beastman came down the cliff to their north, hailed the group, then retreated back north.  Later, an 8" long clockwork dragonfly with blue gem eyes flew up to investigate them silently, then eventually flew away.  Finally, the Analyze Magic was finished, and revealed that the scale armor was not magical.  Vael asked Ioannes for a second opinion, and it didn't look magic to him either.  Vael had apparently critically failed his earlier Perception plus Magery check.  Scowling, they abandoned the rusty armor, but packed away the green glass square and took the magic shield.

Still not trusting the boats, Vael cast Levitation on the entire group and shuttled them all south above the lake.  It was tedious as he could only concentrate on moving one of them at a time, but it was only 20 yards from dock to dock, so the whole operation took less than a minute.  There were paths through the fungal forest to the southeast and southwest.  Following the earlier instructions, they went southeast.   To the south was a platform about 20' high covered with marble pavers.  Vael flew up to investigate, and on top of the platform saw a huge stone chair, containing a human wearing worn wizard robes and years of accumulated body odor.  The man identified himself as Ptarmis, the master of the cavern.  Deciding this guy was creepy, Vael excused himself and flew away.  Meanwhile the others climbed some stairs up to the south end of the platform and saw some huge block rock doors into the rock wall to the south, with no visible handles or keyholes, and a purple glowing light around the doors.

Everyone continued down a path to the east, which eventually became a cave entrance into a rock wall.  The path south was blocked by a cave-in, but Vallium led the group north then east then south down another passage.  The passage opened into a larger room, where they were ambushed by 3 rock reptiles.  The rock reptiles achieved surprise, but their initial Move and Attacks did not hit, and Vallium in front quickly regained his wits and was ready to defend against their next attacks.  Vael threw a Smoke spell to blind and confuse the reptiles.  The reptiles retreated from it while everyone else recovered from surprise.  Vael dropped the Smoke and cast a Thunderclap to try to deafen the reptiles, Ioannes cast Flaming Weapon on Vallium's sword.  Two of the reptiles decided that the Smoke followed by the Thunderclap were scary, and ran away.  The third on stood its ground, until Vallium stabbed and badly wounded it.  It failed its stun check, fell over, failed its consciousness check, and passed out.  The group finished it off then noticed there was a bit of treasure in the cavern: a couple of silver ingots, a potion, a small stone snake head that looked like it was broken off a statue, and a single magical boot.

They looked for the second boot and failed to find it.  Vael cast Seek Magic to try to find the second boot, and the spell said the nearest magic (excluding what they carried) was outside the cave, back in the big cavern.  The group decided to stay on target and left the cave to the south, then took a tunnel generally west.  Turning south, they found 3 goblins in a cave.  One of them spoke some Archontean and indicated that he did not want a fight.  He said that his name was Bellringer, he was a goblin sub-chief, and his group was returning from the Arena 3 levels down when they decided to look for King Weskenim's missing brother Gribble,  when they got ambushed by beastmen and most of them were killed.  He asked if the party had any food or knew a way down to the goblin caverns.  They gave most of their rations to the goblins, but told them that they didn't know the way.  Bellringer thanked them for the food and asked their names, and asked that if they met King Weskenim before he did, to relay the news.

The group left the goblins and continued north and west.  Ioannes was worried they were lost and wondered if they should double back to the Great Cavern, but the group decided to press on.  They found a giant boulder in a cave, and Vael Levitated up and saw that it had a flat spot on top that had been used as a campsite.  They found a passage south, which contained a couple of moldy beastman corpses.  Ioannes said they were too old to determine cause of death, and they had no treasure.  Continuing south, the group found a dead end, with a suspicious amount of graffiti.  The graffiti was in a mix of languages: Archontean, Elvish, and Dwarvish.  They decided to search for secret doors, and eventually found one.  Once they managed to open it, they found the Long Stair was right outside, and they were about two-thirds of the way up.

Vael didn't want to go home without finding the other magic boot, so having found the exit, the group doubled back to the Great Cavern.  Vael then flew up on top of the big rock where Seek Magic had pointed him.  Atop the rock was an old, creepy-looking pillar.  Vael tried inspecting the pillar closely, but doing so made him dizzy.  He backed away and found a hole on the other side of the big rock, leading down past the range of his Continual Light.  He dropped a purple glowing rock inside and saw the rock fall about 80' into another cave.  It was interesting, but a bit scary to investigate right now, so he flew back to the rest of the group, and they went back to the secret door, down the Long Stair, and back to Gosterwick.

GM's Comments:

The group achieved their goals for this week: talking with the beastmen and finding another entrance to the dungeon.  They weren't planning for the entrance to be all the way across the Great Cavern though.  They parleyed with Lady Alexia and Count Skleros and Bellringer.  They set ghouls on fire without opening the door and letting them hit back.  The got surprised by rock reptiles but killed one and scared the others off.  And they avoided every other possible fight.

Achievements:

Iconic Location: The Great Cavern

XP:

Exploration: 25 new locations explored, for 2 XP.

Loot: Magic shield, Flight potion, silver ingots, minus dragon tribute.  Selling the potion was enough for 1 XP.

Achievements: 1 XP for finding (with beastman help) and exploring the Great Cavern. 

Next week:

They are really sick of paying tribute to both halflings and the dragon, so it sounds like they'll be going back to the newly found entrance at the south end of the Great Cavern.  We'll see whether they decide to explore the cavern more or just use it as a route back to the Halls of Thoth.

Current Foundry VTT Configuration for GURPS

About a month into DFRPG Arden Vul, here is what we're using in Foundry VTT.

Core VTT software:

Foundry VTT version 12.

This is the latest stable version.  I try to avoid updating Foundry in the middle of a campaign, because even though Foundry core tends to be stable, it takes a while for modules to support the new version, so if 13 or 14 or 15 comes out and we're still playing Arden Vul, I'll stay on 12.

System:

GURPS 4e Game Aid (GGA)

This is what everyone uses to run GURPS on Foundry.  It's great.  DFRPG is GURPS for most purposes; there's no need for a separate Foundry system for DFRPG.

Modules:

About Face

Controls token facing, for games where facing matters.  Works great.  Sometimes the little arrows it projects into adjacent hexes to show facing get lost, though.  You can tweak the size and color of the arrow, but I'd really like one that automatically contrasted with the current background color.

Combat Booster: Turn Marker, Recent Actions and more

The "Turn Marker" module didn't get updated for v12, so I tried this one instead, and it does indeed mark the token whose turn it is.  I'm not using the other features.

Dice So Nice!

Animated pretty configurable dice.  This is probably the most popular Foundry module, so if you've used Foundry you probably know about it.

Hide GM Rolls

In base Foundry, if the GM makes a private roll, the game tells the players that the GM rolled dice, just not the exact roll.  This properly shuts that up, so I don't have to waste time making fake die rolls to keep my players guessing about when I'm actually making hidden Per or wandering monster checks.

Hurry Up! Combat Timer

Puts a timer on each token's turn in combat.  By default it's 5 minutes, which is forever, but at least it reminds everyone why combat is slow.  (Quit complaining about traffic if you are traffic.)  If things bog down I'll gradually reduce the time limit.

libWrapper

A dependency for other modules.  I don't use it directly.

Monk's Wall Enhancements

Adds support for one-way doors.  It doesn't do every kind of one-way doors though.  For example, you might want a realistic door that only opens from one side, but once it's open, you can pass through either way.  But if a one-way door is more restrictive than it should be, the GM can move tokens for players.

It also has other features, like if you drag an intersection point of two walls, it moves both walls, not just one.  But the one-way doors were why I added it.

Ownership Viewer

Puts player colors next to tokens, journal entries, etc. to show who has permissions.  Permission issues are annoying so making them easier to spot is good.

PopOut!

Lets you put a character sheet in a separate browser tab or window.  This is a huge quality-of-life improvement for some players.  (Less so for GMs because we need to juggle lots of sheets.)

Token Attacher

Lets you attach a wheelbarrow token to a PC token and then when the PC moves, the wheelbarrow also moves.  And then you can attach the halfling token to the wheelbarrow token and now the PC is pushing the halfling around the map.  You can do much more with it, like building complex prefabricated objects out of lots of tokens, but that's the basic idea.

Tokenizer

This is an easy way to attach portraits and token pictures to tokens, and reuse one image for both.  The UI isn't amazing, but once you figure it out, it's pretty quick.

Universal Battlemap Importer

Lets you import a .dungeondraft file as a scene with the walls and lights intact.  Manually walling a complex scene is a lot of tedious work, so if a map was built in Dungeondraft and the wall data is already there, better to use it.  (But most of the maps I'm using are plain image files so I'm mostly stuck manually adding walls.)

Z Scatter

If you put multiple tokens in the same hex, it offsets them a little so you can see and click on them rather than playing the "which token is my token hiding under?" game.  This is great and should be the default.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 4: Cheese and Crackers and Thoth and Demons

Date:

Demmasday, 5th of Lucrios, 2993 AEP


Weather:

Cool, overcast, rainy


Player Characters:

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

Michael J Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Lacrymosa Merenuithiel Armaris, Elven archer (mercenary) (Archon Shiva)


Significant NPCs:

3 small ball-shaped demons

2 Ibis-headed gargoyles

About 6 small flying jellyfish

3 groups of beastmen

Dog-headed beastman sergeant

Voice of Thoth, one of the Twelve ancient greater gods

Alleged huge ball-shaped demon

Roskelly Winterleaf, halfling underground toll collector lieutenant
Several halfling toll collectors

While in Gosterwick, Vallium visited the Baliff's Truncheon tavern and bought a lot of shady-looking people drinks attempting to find information about the halfling Phlebotomas Plumthorn, but didn't hear anything he thought was truthful and useful.  Ioannes researched the Krakteros clan, whose sigil they saw on a tomb, but didn't find anything beyond them being one of the Empire's Five Families, with much wealth and power, mostly back at the capital Archontos.  Vael bought a lock to help keep the dam secure for the green dragon Craastonistorex, and commissioned some high quality robes at Tasha's Tailor Shop.  Uvash was still tied up in intense theological debate at the House of Gods, so the group decided to hire the mercenary on call at the Grudge Brigade, a female elven archer named Merenuithiel.

Very early Demmasday morning, Vallium bought three sweetrolls wrapped for travel from Matrona the baker.  The group hiked to the cliff face without significant incident.  Vael Levitated himself up the Long Stair (and rolled a critical success, for faster than normal movement), while the others hiked up the slippery wet trail.  At one narrow treacherous bit about two-thirds of the way up, Ioannes slipped and almost went over the edge, but Vallium caught him and pulled him up.

Arriving at the ruins of Arden Vul, the group debated about where to go, then decided to first visit the dam and install the new lock, to keep the dragon happy.  They made it there without any problem and the lock seemed to hold the door reasonably well.  Vael kept one key and gave the other to Michael.

Next they discussed exploring the ruins, but decided to go back to the Pyramid of Thoth.  But then they took a small detour to look down the Well of Light and see if anyone had undone their cleaning of the mirror at the bottom.  It was a rainy day, but less light than before seemed to be reflecting.  They dropped a Continual Light rock down into the Well and confirmed that the large mirror at the bottom wasn't reflecting the light, so it was again covered with some kind of dirt or debris.

The group climbed the pyramid and discussed which door to take.  Merenuithiel had brought some spikes, so they decided to manipulate the pyramid's arms into the straight-up position to open the second, scarier entrance, with corpses and no handle to open the door from inside, then try to spike the door open.  The spikes seemed to hold, so they went down.  There was much less graffiti in this passage than the first one, but someone had drawn a scorpion in chalk and written "Where is it?" in Archontean underneath.

Vallium led the way down the next staircase, which ended in a small room with a door on the far wall.  As he stpped into the room, a pit trap opened underneath him.  Vallium almost fell in, but caught the edge and pulled himself up.  The pit was only about 5' square, but it was 25' deep, enough to seriously injure or even kill someone who fell in.  And the bottom of the pit was full of bones.

Vallium went around the pit and tried to open the door, but it would not budge.  Everyone searched and found no way of opening the door, or evidence of space on the other side; it appeared to be a false door.

With no other exit available, Vael levitated down into the pit, and found many bones and the glint of a few coins.  He came back up and cast Levitate on Ioannes as well, to have help searching.  While they were digging around in the bones looking for treasure, a small ball-shaped demon that was mostly teeth popped into the pit through a previously unseen entrance in the east wall, and tried to bite Vael.  Vael used his Luck to successfully dodge, and then Levitated himself and Ioannes straight up.  The small demon snapped at their heels, but wasn't tall enough to reach.  Once she had a clear line of sight, Merenuithiel filled it with arrows from the top edge of the pit above.

After resting for a few minutes at the top, Vael Levitated everyone but Merenuithiel down into the pit, two at a time, while Merenuithiel kept watch at the top.  They saw the small secret door the demon had came through led into a small room with a 5' high ceiling.  The room contained a small scary void of magical blackness, a magical bust of a woman Ioannes thought was the goddess Selket with a scorpion on her head, and a few scattered items on the floor. The items included what looked like a couple of magic rings, a couple of magic gems, and a magic wand, which were enough to make everyone overcome their caution and enter the room.  While they were picking up loot, two more of the small spherical biting demons came through the black gate.  Vallium and Michael, who were waiting for something like that to happen, surrounded and killed one.  The last surviving demon, heavily wounded, jumped back into the black gate and disappeared.  Nobody followed it into the gate.

After all the obvious portable loot had been picked up, the group discussed the bust with the scorpion on its head.  Eventually Michael touched the scorpion and disappeared.  The rest of the group talked about what to do for a minute, then Vael Levitated Merenuithiel down, and they all grabbed the scorpion together.  They all teleported to the same place as Michael, a huge room they had briefly stuck their heads into previously, the Great Hall, in beastman territory.  The room was big enough that they couldn't see the ceiling or the south or east walls with their Continual Light, but they saw several knocked-down columns, and scorch marks on the floor indicating some kind of magical battle.  Vael and Merenuithiel were both exhausted (from spellcasting and firing a bow way too big for her, respectively) and sat down to rest.  After a few minutes of rest, a flying stone gargoyle with the head of an ibis swooped down to attack.  Michael heard it coming and yelled a warning.  Merenuithiel failed to dodge the attack clumsily enough that she fell down as the gargoyle slightly wounded her, but fatally shot the gargoyle while lying on her back. A second ibis-headed gargoyle swooped down, and Merenuithiel shot that one too, without having time to stand up first.  She was very tired, on the verge of passing out, so Ioannes cast Lend Energy.  Everyone then left the room through an open pair of doors to the west, looking for a more secure resting place.

They passed the same beastman guard post they saw last week, and made some excuses through an arrow slit about having hit a teleport trap.  They went north (but not all the way out of beastman territory) and were resting in the hallway when a patrol of beastmen came to check on them, said they were trespassing, listened to the story about the teleport trap again, and decided not to attack them.  Vael again tried to parley with the beastmen about other matters, and the beastman sergeant said he did not have authority to conduct negotiations but would ask his Count.  The sergeant asked for the group's name, and they didn't have one and Vael made some comment about cheese and crackers, so the sergeant said "okay, Cheese and Crackers, I will tell my Count that you would like to parley.  Announce yourself loudly next time before entering our territory."  Vallium gave the sergeant a sweetroll.

They went north to the room with the makeshift wooden barricade that used to have a spear with a halfling head on it, then tried a previously unexplored door to the east.  It led to a room with another group of beastmen.  They party apologized for making a wrong turn and went north over the barricade into known non-beastman territory.

They went north into the gray-green mist, past the two competing Magic Mouths, then east to a room with a gross sludgy pool that might be the source of the mist.  Ioannes threw a rock in, but nobody wanted to enter the pool or drink the black water.  They proceeded east to a room that looked like a chapel to Thoth, with some benches and a magical onyx pillar and some Mithric writing high up on the wall, obscured by grime.  Vael Levitated up, cleaned it, and saw that it said "Thou May Ask of Thoth What Thou Will, Provided Thou Accept His Judgment."  Ioannes grabbed the onyx pillar and asked Thoth the correct method of making an offering to His statue.  Thoth actually answered, both with a strong electric shock through the pillar that burned but did not quite stun Ioannes, and also by saying in a booming voice that one must loudly invoke Thoth's name while putting the gift of knowledge into the offering chest.

Ioannes tried casting Minor Healing on himself, failed, and didn't try again with the penalty.  Vael gave him some best effort First Aid, which didn't do much but made him feel a bit less singed.  The group continued down the passage to the east and found another room, with no other exits but a lot of trash on the floor.  Sifting through the trash for valuables, Vael found a magical 8" x 8" x 1/2" square of white glass on the floor.  Vallium wrapped it up in a blanket for protection and put it in his pack.

Vael suggested searching for secret doors, and eventually found one in the southeast corner.  Vallium eventually figured out how to open it, by sliding a wall panel sideways, and it led to a narrow corridor, which went south about 50' to a dead end.  Michael found a matching secret door at the other end of the corridor and opened it, into a large room with several gold-painted columns and a mixed group of corpses (human, halfling, and beastman) on the floor.  As the group emerged from the secret passage to search the bodies, several small creatures that looked like jellyfish flew slowly at them.  Everyone piled back into the secret passage for cover, while Merenuithiel threw a Concussion spell into the room, stunning the 3 nearest jellyfish.  While the jellyfish were stunned, Vallium chopped one in half with his sword, and Merenuithiel filled two others with arrows.  The other jellyfish fled the room to the east.

The group looted the bodies, then saw that there were two exits east and a door west.  The door was back toward what Ioannes thought was beastman territory, so they chose east, and took the left passage because "left for loot."  They saw two heavy-looking stone doors to the north, but continued east past them.  The passage turned north and then reached a room with a big stone chair, facing a chasm wider, higher, and deeper than their Continual Light reached.  The chair had a glyph on the seat, which nobody recognized.

Ioannes eventually sat in the chair, and saw a demon.  It was the same ball shape as the small demons they had fought in the Pit of Bones inside the Pyramid of Thoth, but much, much bigger.  Terrified, he started running.  Luckily, he ran away from the chasm rather than into it.  He wasn't very fast, so Vael chased him down and held onto him.  Ioannes didn't calm down, but he wasn't quite freaked out enough to attack his friends, so the group detailed one of the large fighters to keep hold of him for the rest of the mission.  Ioannes agreed that was a good idea to give him a bodyguard, as long as everyone else also watched for the demon.

Vael decided to explore the chasm a bit.  He Levitated far enough across to see there was another room on the far side of the chasm, but didn't enter it.  He saw that it went up and down past the range of his light, and didn't see any sunlight above.  He flew up about 30 yards and still didn't see an exit, then flew back down to the group.  The chasm was definitely big, but they weren't sure exactly how big yet.  They decided to defer further exploration of the chasm until Ioannes was in better shape.

They doubled back to the west, to the two stone doors, and decided to open the west one, again using the "left for loot" axiom.  It was too heavy for Vallium to open, so Michael helped, and eventually they managed to open it.  Inside was a long straight hallway full of about 20 bodies in various stages of decay, some with obvious loot.  Vael and Vallium started dragging bodies and loot out, while Michael kept watch on Ioannes, and Merenuithiel helped watch for demons or other wandering monsters. At one point the door closed, and Vallium was unable to re-open it from inside.  Michael was fortunately able to open it from outside, and they realized how all those people had died in that hallway -- the entrance was a one-way door, and it was stone and too sturdy to smash.  Fortunately only two of them had gone in.

They thought they had enough loot for one day, so they started discussing whether to fight the halflings or sneak loot past the halflings.  (The idea of actually paying 10% of the loot to the halflings didn't come up.)  Merenuithiel was in favor of fighting them, but the group eventually decided to try stealth this time.  The plan was to circle around known dungeon passages to the west of the entrance room to get as close to the stairs as possible before the halflings saw them, and to have Vael cast Invisibility on both Michael (who could carry a lot of loot) and Merenuithiel (who had not purchased an Adventuring License and would prefer not to).  Then Vael and Vallium would lead Ioannes, still raving about the demon, past the halflings and grudgingly pay 10% of a small decoy haul of non-magical weapons and coins, while the good stuff went by invisibly.  The combination of Invisibility and Ioannes's ranting were enough to cover the two people sneaking, and the group paid a total of 3 spears (which would have been annoying to carry anyway) as their tithe for the week.

Ioannes wasn't in great shape for climbing down the Long Stair, so Vael Levitated the two of them down while the other three walked.  They all eventually made it back to Gosterwick, and took Ioannes straight to the temple of Demma for a Remove Curse spell.  Vael then set to learning Analyze Magic so he could avoid paying the Arcane Practitioners' Club to identify every magical item they found.  And one of the items they found in the pit was truly amazing, a Gem of Insight, which could permanently boost someone's intelligence.

GM's Comments:

This was the second week in a row the group hit a teleporter.  This time it at least took them somewhere they recognized.  They had three fights this week, all of them pretty easy with the archer along.  They looted the victims of two different one-way door traps (one with a hidden escape teleporter, one possibly with no way out at all) that had each bagged many victims over the years.

Ioannes rolled a natural 3 when trying to figure out the pillar, which gave him the insight that he needed to grab the pillar while asking Thoth a question.  In addition to getting what sounded like an actual answer from Thoth, he also got an electric shock serious enough to result in a Major Wound, because that's how Arden Vul works.

Achievements:

Iconic Location: The Great Hall

Iconic Location: The Great Chasm

Thus Spake Thoth: All clerics talk to gods.  But Ioannes was the first PC to get a direct answer from one in this campaign.

XP:

Exploration: about 15 new locations, good for 1 XP

Loot: They found a lot of good stuff.  If they sell enough of it it should definitely qualify for 2 XP each.  If they insist on keeping the most valuable items then they will earn 1 XP instead.

Achievements: 2 XP for everyone for 2 Iconic Locations.  Ioannes got another 1 XP for getting a response from Thoth.

Next week:

Sounds like they definitely want to talk to the beastmen.  Maybe they'll fight the halflings, but Merenuithiel mentioned several times that they should do that when she's around, so maybe they'll wait until they have her available again.