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.