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.