DFRPG Arden Vul Session 23b: Disrupting Services in the Temple of Set

Date: 

Basilsday, 16th of Gerakios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry

Player Characters: 

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

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

Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Significant NPCs:

Lillian, captured Canon of Mitra

Susarra, Archontean fighter

Many Set guards

Many Set cultists

Several Set acolytes

Several Set deacons

Continuing from the previous session, Vallium came through the gas-trapped doorway, with Vael, Ioannes, and Susarra close behind him.  Uvash and Michael were well behind.  There was one Set guard in red scale armor peering around a corner ahead, shouting back reports to his allies.  Vallium charged, while yelling for nobody to stand right behind him.  The guard waited until Vallium was two yards away to fire his crossbow -- and somehow missed.  Whether this was due to Vallium's Amulet of Missile Shield, or the guard just panicking, was hard to tell.

The guard backed around the corner.  There was a short staircase up, with a 4' tall barricade at the top, and several more guards behind the barricade, holding crossbows.  A couple more took shots at Vallium as he and the first guard ran up the stairs, then dropped their crossbows and pulled out maces or potions.  Meanwhile Michael and Uvash caught up to Vael, who cast Great Haste on Michael.

Vallium neared the barricade as a couple of the guards threw down Alchemist's Fire potions, but missed him.  By then Michael was double-timing up the stairs behind him, and Vael was near the bottom of the steps casting a Grease spell.  The Set deacon at the top of the stairs concentrated on a spell for a couple of seconds, so Vallium let go of his sword (letting it hang from a lanyard), reached into his potion belt, and smashed a Magebane potion.  This emitted a sickly smoke that kept everyone within a few yards of Vallium from casting wizard spells for a while -- but the caster was a cleric and was not affected.  He finished his Dispel Magic spell, catching Vallium and Michael and Susarra in it.  He was trying to dismiss Vallium's Missile Shield (which failed because it was a permanent magic item, not a spell) and Michael's Great Haste.  The attempt was successful, and also dismissed a couple of Continual Light rocks as well as Vallium's Bless.

It didn't get the Grease though, which was cast behind the barricade outside the area of effect of the Dispel, and the guards started slipping and sliding.  Michael stabbed the one on the stairs.  Vallium recovered his sword and hit a couple behind the barricade.  Susarra got to the barricade and got a couple of axe swings in.  As the battle turned against his side, the deacon commanded one of the unwounded guards to run north and set reinforcements.  A badly wounded guard broke ranks and followed him.  After taking a hit, the deacon retreated west.  Uvash reached the top and opened the gate in the barricade, and the party poured through.  They eventually took down all but one of the guards, but the one survivor ran north into an area with a red tiled floor, pulled open a black curtain, and ran into the large room beyond while yelling for help.

Vallium used his Ring of Illusion Disguise to look like the cleric they had just defeated, whose guards had called Deacon Hurub.  He followed the guard into the big temple room to the north while yelling "The Azure Knights are attacking, there are too many, retreat."  A couple of set clerics were leading many cultists in a service nearby.  Many of the cultists broke and ran in various directions.  Vallium waited at the curtain for a few seconds, while Vael cast Great Haste on both Vallium and Michael, and Ioannes followed up with Flaming Weapon.  Once they were fully buffed, everyone ran into the temple.  Michael chased the retreating guard to the west, trailed by Vael, and eventually caught and killed him, but by then about eight more guards were streaming out of two rooms north and south.  Uvash and Ioannes and Susarra went east toward a huge statue of Set in Set animal form, and killed a few cultists.  Vallium chased some clerics to the northeast into a room with a portcullis, and killed them both before they got it open.  There was a brief difference of opinion about who was the real cleric of Set and who was the traitor or imposter, but Vallium won the argument using his sword, and the nearby cultists helped him finish off the acolyte.

Michael was beset by a lot of guards, but he had Great Haste, and Vael cast two Grease spells and a Smoke spell among the guards to help him.  Michael eventually downed all of them.  Meanwhile Susarra ran between two long rectangular pools to come help Michael, when a huge crocodile unexpectedly emerged from one of the pools and tried to eat her.  She avoided being surprised and eventually killed it with a couple of solid axe blows.  A second crocodile came out later, and she wounded it badly enough that it went back under the water to hide and wait for easier prey.

Uvash and Ioannes, after running out of nearby cultists, decided to try to desecrate the evil temple.  Ioannes first tried to knock over the huge statue, but it was just too heavy.  They then decided to take its ruby eyes.  The statue was 25' tall, so its eyes were well out of reach.  Uvash climbed up the statue with his Ring of Climbing, then dropped a rope to help Ioannes up, since Ioannes had the Apportation spell and could take the rubies without actually touching them.  This plan worked, and Ioannes magically grabbed two huge rubies and dropped them in Uvash's pouch, before climbing back down.  Ioannes then stole everything he could find on the Settites' evil sacrificial altar.  He and Uvash then knocked it over.

Vallium chased down and killed two more deacons who were trying to escape down a wide staircase to the west, then dragged them back into the temple and took their portable valuables.  He and Vael shut the huge bronze doors, and Vael Magelocked them.  Vael ran around the room looking for magic items, and Susarra explored the temple looking for other valuables.  Everyone then retreated to the room to the south, outside the temple's Set-aligned sanctity, to rest and heal.  Both Michael and Susarra were fairly wounded, so Ioannes used Stop Bleeding and Major Healing to patch them up.

After the long battle, and with the Set Cult fully alerted to their presence, it was time to decide whether to head back to Gosterwick or press on looking for Lillian.  The group unanimously decided to keep looking for Lillian rather than retreating, so they ended the session, very close to where they started it, but surrounded by a lot of dead Settites (and one dead crocodile).

GM's Comments:

This was by far the biggest battle we've fought in this campaign, 5 PCs and an NPC against over 20 Settites and a couple of crocodiles.  It took almost the whole session.  I should have taken some screenshots.

Achievements:

None

XP:

None until they get back to town, but they explored even more new territory and found some more loot.

Next Week:

They're pretty sure they're close to Lillian now, so they're going to try to rescue her and get out before whatever portion of the Set cult is left gets their revenge.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 23a: Gelatinous Cube and Slime Kraken

Date: 

Basilsday, 16th of Gerakios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry

Player Characters: 

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

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

Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Significant NPCs:

Lillian, captured Canon of Mitra

Kronos, Innkeeper at the Sign of the Broken Head

4 Ghouls

Gelatinous Cube

Slime Kraken

Susarra, Archontean fighter

Several Set guards

Vallium formulated a plan to rescue Lillian.  They would avoid the halflings, bribe the beastmen (who rumor claimed had taken Lillian) with food for information on Lillian or for her release, bring her back to the Church of Mitra, and profit.

The first part of the plan went pretty well.  They loaded up their mule with food and took it up to the ruins of Arden Vul.  Not wanting to take the mule into the Halls, they instead took it to the Sign of the Broken Head and paid Kronos for boarding.  They then loaded the food into a wheelbarrow, went down through the basement entrance to avoid the halflings, and headed south toward the beastmen.

On the way, they searched for secret doors in the Thothian burial niches, and found one.  Opening it up found a crypt containing some elaborate sarcophagi and 4 angry ghouls.  The ghouls surprised Michael, but failed to hurt him.  A quick battle ensued, with Michael and Vallium smacking down the ghouls.  The grave goods included a couple of magical white gold rings, a high quality spear, and some silver torcs and alabaster urns.  The party took the light loot and left the heavy stuff in the secret tomb to grab on the way out.

As they approached beastman territory, Vael cast Seeker looking for Lillian.  The spell showed her bound, gagged, and injured, in a prison cell.  It said the cell was somewhere to the northwest, away from the beastmen.  Vael followed up the Seeker with a Trace so he could keep homing in on Lillian.  At that point they decided to turn around and not talk to the beastmen after all, since it appeared they didn't have Lillian.

They went north and west until they reached the room with 3 portcullises and 3 levers.  Vael, who hadn't been there before, wanted to go up the stairs to the south, but Vallium explained that it led to parts of the Well of Light lever that they had not fully explored, and pulled him back on target.  Vael, not wanting to touch anything he didn't have to, used Apportation to move the middle lever and open the middle portcullis.  They then headed west into a maze of catacombs, filled with burial niches whose plugs had been removed.  Knowing it would take forever to search all the niches, everyone kept their eyes open for obvious doors or treasure, but nobody took time to search.

At one point Uvash was in the lead and almost ran right into a nearly invisible form ahead.  He saw some coins just hanging in the air, and stopped before becoming enveloped.  It was a large gelatinous cube.  Uvash backed away and called for help, as the others ran up.  The cube was huge but fairly slow.  Uvash was a bit worried that it might damage his fancy mace, but took a swing at it anyway, and did a bit of damage.  Michael and Vallium ran up and started rapidly hacking at it.  It kept trying to hit them with slimy pseudopods, but didn't aim very well.  Eventually they hit it enough that it slowed down further and stopped dodging effectively, and then they just kept hitting it until it stopped twitching.

There were some coins and gems inside the cube's body, along with a wand.  Michael, wearing heavy armor and a Ring of Free Action, was able to crawl in and grab the gems and wand without getting hurt, but his armor was smoking a bit.  Manually getting all the coins didn't seem worth the risk, but since coins are pretty sturdy, Vael used Create Fire to just melt the remains of the cube to ash, and they picked the coins out of the remains.

They found a door heading south, but it had no obvious handle, did not budge when they tried pushing it open, and appeared too strong to break down without mining tools.  Vael tried using Apportation to push the door in every direction, but his spell failed to move the door.  Giving up, the group resumed walking around the catacombs looking for secret doors.  Ioannes found one to the northwest, but it led to stairs down, and Vael was pretty sure Lillian was on this level, so they didn't go that way.

Giving up on finding another door, they went back to the heavy door, and Vael used Shape Earth to dig a small tunnel through the rock a few yards away from the door.  His first couple of tries didn't go far enough, but eventually he managed to dig a small tunnel through to another room.  Vallium volunteered to crawl through it first, and didn't find anything dangerous in the room, just the bodies of a couple of humans and a couple of ghouls.  Everyone else crawled in, and they looted a shortsword and a ring.  There was a door on the north wall, which led to a short passage and then the door they had been unable to open from the other side.  From this side, it was possible to push it open with enough effort.  However, it closed itself shortly after they stopped pushing on it, and nobody had any spikes to keep it open.

Heading east, they found another room with doors south and east.  The southern door was spiked shut.  Vael confirmed that Lillian was still southwest, so they pulled the spikes and went south.  They saw doors south and west.  The western room was small and completely trashed.

To the south, however, was a very large room, containing a circular pool with a statue of Thoth inside it.  The temple had been thoroughly and deliberately trashed, and both clerics felt like it was a place of negative sanctity.  There was some anti-Thoth graffiti on the walls, and a picture of a crocodile eating an ibis, indicating that the vandalism was probably the work of Settites.  Worse, when Vallium went into the room, a lot of tentacles emerged from the pool to grab him.  Everyone retreated back north out of the room, with Vallium chopping off a couple of the tentacles as he parried their attacks.

After some discussion, the group decided they needed to get past the tentacle beast, but since they now knew it was there, they could buff themselves first.  Vael would cast Great Haste on the fighters, while Ioannes cast Flaming Weapon.  Vael flubbed his first couple of attempts to Great Haste Michael, but the third try worked, and then Michael opened the door and charged south.  He ran right into the pool, not slowed because of his Ring of Free Action, and started cutting off tentacles as the slime kraken tried dragging him under.  At one point it looked like Michael critically failed an attack and crippled his own shield arm, but his Bless spell sacrificed itself and prevented the self-inflicted attack.  A few seconds later, Vallium also came charging into the room at double speed, and now the slime beast was surrounded.  Both Vallium and Michael kept cutting off tentacles, then went after its body.  With all its tentacles gone, the beast started biting with its beak.  Uvash used Divine Grace then followed them into the room, but Michael finished the slime creature off with multiple rapid strikes from behind before Uvash arrived.

With the battle over, Vael was very tired after casting multiple Great Hastes, and Vallium and Michael were tired from fighting.  While they rested, Ioannes started searching and found a magical sheet of yellow glass in the pool.  Rather than reaching into the murky water, he Apportated it out.  After resting, everyone started circling the room and looking for secret doors.  Vael found a secret door in the north wall, with a small empty alcove behind it.  Later he searched in the same spot on the south wall and found a matching secret door and empty alcove.  There were doors in all four corners of the rooms.  Both of the ones on the east side led to ramps up to galleries overlooking the temple.  One of the ramps had a bit of adventuring equipment left on it, and Vallium grabbed some spikes.

The most promising door, in the southwest corner, led to a small passage south, another door, and a cave-in.  The cave in was large enough that Vael did not feel he could use Shape Earth to get past it.  Everyone returned to the temple and searched again for secret doors.  They did not find any, but Uvash spotted an iron key in the fountain, which Vael Apportated out, dried off, and added to their keyring.

Giving up on manually searching, Vael pulled out the Wand of See Secrets and used a charge.  At that point a secret door to the southwest and a peephole high on the west wall became obvious to him.  He ran around the temple while the spell lasted, finding another secret door off the southeast gallery.  He then doubled back north through the other rooms they had searched.  He did not find any more secret doors there.  There was one door to the east which they had not opened, and, caution thrown aside while racing the spell duration, Vael opened it rather than waiting for Vallium and Michael to catch up.  There was an armed and armored woman hiding in the room.  Fortunately for Vael, she did not attack, and instead asked who he was and what he was doing there.  Vael didn't want to talk, as he was trying to find secret doors, but he explained that they were looking for Lillian.  The woman didn't know who Lillian was, but said that her name was Susarra and her friends had been killed by ghouls and she was looking for a way out past the tentacle monster.  When Vael indicated that they had killed the monster and invited her to tag along, she followed him out of the room.

They listened to the southwestern secret door, opened it, and found a room full of trash.  There were some footprints leading from the secret door to the middle of the room, then vanishing.  Everyone started searching for more secret doors.  While searching, Vallium triggered a spear trap.  It barely penetrated his helmet, scratching his face.  Vallium broke the spear in half to make sure that didn't happen again.  They eventually found a concealed door on the south wall.

When they opened the door, a trap went off, and gas started pouring into the room with a loud hiss.  Everyone managed to hold their breath before breathing any of the gas, and then Vael cast a Purify Air to clear the room.  The group went south through the door, and saw some Set guards in their distinctive red scale armor, looking angry.  There wasn't enough time left in the session to fight the battle, so the session ended there.

GM's Comments:

Slime Kraken might be my new favorite monster name.

Gelatinous Cubes are fun, but they're also slow and stupid, so unless they surprise you and get a free attack, or corner you, they're not as dangerous as they seem.

You would think that the combination of Seeker and Trace and Shape Earth would make reaching a prisoner within one four-hour session pretty easy.  Find the prisoner, head toward the prisoner, and if you can't find a way toward the prisoner, dig one.  But four hours flew by this week, despite only finishing three fights.

Achievements:

None

XP:

None until they get back to down, but they explored some new territory and found a bit of loot.

Next Week:

We know they'll be starting the session fighting those Set guards, and then, if they win, presumably resuming the search for Lillian.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 22: The Oracle of Thoth and The Litany of Light

Date: 

Basilsday, 9nd of Gerakios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry

Player Characters: 

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

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

Merenuithiel "Lacrymosa" Armaris, Elven mercenary archer (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

6 ghouls

Yamki, wounded giant 4-armed intelligent baboon

Many large albino baboons

Anaximander, ancient insane cleric of Mitra

Voice of Thoth, ancient god for magic, moons, secrets, etc.

Skeleton cook

Flaming skull

Animated bust of Stamelis, Librarian of Thoth

2 Ibis constructs of Thoth

Ioannes did some research on the copy of the Litany of Light they had found in the Library of Thoth, which pointed to it being a forgery, so he wasn't sure if it was a good idea.  Vael learned the location spells Seeker, Pathfinder, and Trace, and tried using them to find the Troll Lifts and Lillian the missing cleric of Mitra.  Vallium tried and failed to find some magic scale armor, and decided not to put down a deposit on fine-quality scale armor.

Vallium decided the company should try to finish exploring the Well of Light level (except the caves full of baboons), try installing the mirror below the Well of Light, and have Ioannes conduct the Litany of Light if willing and able.  Michael was still off in the mountains somewhere and Uvash had a church emergency, so the shorthanded party hired Lacrymosa the bloodthirsty elf archer.  She asked if it was time to kill the halflings yet, then came along to kill whatever else they needed her to kill.

They got up early on a sunny Basilsday, made good time to the cliff face beneath Arden Vul, then tied themselves together and climbed up the Long Stair (except Vael, who didn't believe in climbing when you could Levitate).  They made it to the top without any problems and hiked to the top of the Well of Light.  Vael cast Flight on Vallium, who carried Ioannes down the Well, while Vael Levitated down and Lacrymosa used Walk on Air to walk down the well as if there were an invisible spiral staircase.  This time, there were no baboon hordes waiting for them at the bottom, so they were able to rest safely.

They went west, then north, and found a door that was spiked shut.  They prepared for battle and Vallium ripped the spikes out.  Opening the door revealed 6 angry ghouls.  A quick fight ensued, where Vallium stabbed the ghouls, Lacrymosa show the ghouls, Ioannes finished off one ghoul with his axe, and Vael supervised while preparing a Great Haste spell just in case they needed it.  They did not.  Digging through the trash in the room found a few platinum coins, a tall bronze magic helmet shaped like an inverted flowerpot, and a wand.  They grabbed the treasure, unspiked a second door into the room for good measure, then continued exploring north and west.

Eventually they doubled back and explored south and west.  They found an empty room, then a room with Continual Light, a fresco of an ibis with orange glowing eyes, a scroll along the wall full of obscure phrases in Mithric, and three blocks of granite shaped like open mouths, with black holes of magical darkness.  They explored the room for a while, until the ibis's eyes flashed and a burst of energy filled the chamber, dispelling all their spells (including all their Blesses, all their Continual Light rocks, and Vael's Levitation) and destroying some of their potions.

After depositing their surviving potions outside the room in case that reoccurred, Vael cast a Light spell into the air, then cast Trace on his Returning Pebble and threw it into the eastern mouth.  He sensed that it teleported way down and northeast, then was still.  A few minutes later, the dispelling effect repeated, taking out both the Light and the Trace.  The Returning Pebble eventually returned, and Vael returned the experiment with the middle mouth.  This time the pebble went down and in the direction he threw it, as if there were stairs or a ramp there.  He waited until the second Trace was dispelled and the Pebble reappeared in his pocket, then returned the experiment with the western mouth.  This one seemed like another teleporter, moving the stone down and southeast.

Meanwhile, Ioannes, re-cast Bless on his other companions, who stayed out of the room to keep from having it dispelled again.  He finally cast it on Vael, and then everyone crawled into the magical mouth.  After going through a brief area of magical Darkness and Silence, they emerged onto narrow stairs leading down, then the passage turned west and they went down some more, until they reached a dead end with a square hole in the ceiling.  Vael re-cast Levitation and popped up into a hemispherical room containing an dais with a magical marble chair and a ibis statue whose wings wrapped around the chair.  In the chair sat a very old, disheveled man who was twitching and mumbling.

Everyone climbed up into the room.  The man did not respond.  Everyone tried talking to him, but he did not respond.  Eventually Vallium pulled the man out of the chair, and then the man noticed them, but did not speak coherently, just babbled about things they mostly did not understand.  It took a lot of prodding to reveal that his name was Anaximander, he was a cleric of Mitra, and he'd been in that chair for a very long time.  Ioannes told the others to pull him out if anything weird happened, then sat in the chair.  He felt a warm layer of air, then a deep voice told him to "Speak Thy Desire."  Ioannes said that he wanted to know the correct way to perform the Litany of Light.  The voice told him that he already had a book that said exactly how to do it, and that instructions could not get much more detailed that that, but maybe he could find a version with more pictures.  Ioannes was then stunned.  After a couple of minutes, Vallium pulled Ioannes out of the chair, and he soon recovered.

The old guy asked a few jealous questions about how Ioannes had gotten answers and said maybe it was a good idea to bring friends along to pull him out of the chair.  While he rocked on the floor, the group went out an exit to the south, into a room with a magic pool, whose water was overflowing the basin and streaming out of the room to the southeast.  Vael cast Analyze Magic, which said that the pool was designed to increase its user's intelligence.  That was enough for Ioannes, who immediately took a drink and felt smarter.  Impressed, Vael also took a drink, but felt sicker rather than smarter, then felt his guts twisting.  Ioannes cast a couple of Stop Bleeding spells and a Major Healing on Vael to help repair the damage, and the poisoning eventually subsided.  Vallium explored the water damage crack, but it wasn't big enough to go far, and he didn't find anything in the water.

Returning to the Oracle room, the group grabbed Anaximander and headed back up the stairs.  They left the dispelling room before it got another chance to ruin their spells, and headed for the Library of Thoth.  There they introduced Anaximander to the animated bust of Stemelis, and let the two ancient guys keep each other company while they explored more.

Vael found a secret door north of the kitchen, which led to a dusty narrow corridor.  In the corridor was a skeleton with a chef's hat and a cleaver, who was angry at the intrusion.  He was only one skeleton though, and Vallium and Lacrymosa finished him off pretty quickly.  The skeleton had a scroll in its hand that turned out to be a recipe for baboon stew, which they took.  Continuing east, they found another secret door at the other end of the passage which led to an area north of the baboon cave.  They saw Yamki, the giant 4-armed baboon they had wounded before, leaning on a stick, standing in the entrance to the cave watching them.  Neither side made any threatening moves, and the group moved away from the baboons.

They went north to a room with a baboon statue and a door they had not tried before.  The door had a picture of an ear on it, so everyone listened to it, but heard nothing.  It was locked, and Vallium pulled out his collection of keys.  The first one he tried fit, and he unlocked the door, but a needle trap was triggered.  He pulled his hand out of the way in time to avoid being pricked, if there was ever any chance of the needle penetrating his armored gauntlets.  After some brief discussion of whether they could try to recover poison from the needle, they decided the risk to reward ratio was poor, and Vallium carefully broke off the needle and threw it into a corner.

The room to the north was large, with columns, a dais in the center, and an opening to the Great Chasm to the east.  Vallium checked out the chasm, while Ioannes and Vael looked at the dais.  There was an ivory oliphant, and a Mithric note that said to "Name Thyself and Whisper They Message and Thou Shalt Be Rewarded in Thine Ear."  Vael complied, but the message he received was some stupid song about 99 flagons of ale on the wall.  Ioannes also tried, and heard a very deep voice saying "Me hide pretty rock in water.  Nobody find it now!"

Looking over the chasm, Vael thought he saw something to the southeast.  He Levitated over the chasm to inspect a creepy magical soapstone idol of some kind of salamander, with empty eye sockets and a gaping mouth.  He came back and cast Flight on Vallium so that Vallium could carry the others over the chasm.  They avoided the statue and explored a cave filled about 3 feet deep in bones.  After not finding anything in the bones for a few minutes, Vael searched for secret doors, and found a concealed exit to the east.   He then cast Seek Magic, then Seek Earth twice, for gold and platinum.  When these spells revealed nothing in this room and platinum off to the east, he suggested they stop searching and go east.

It led to a large round cavern, with a shaft in the middle, in which there was a huge creepy triangular obelisk, clearly crafted not natural.  The obelisk continued up about 20' above their heads, and down farther than their Continual Light went.  Vael Levitated up to the top of the obelisk and saw a pentagram on top, with a metal coffer within the pentagram.  He avoided touching the pentagram and tried Apportating the coffer open, but it appeared to be welded shut.  He looked at the pentagram to see if it looked like platinum, but it looked more like silver to him.  

Vael flew back down, informed the others, then flew down the obelisk about 90' without seeing the bottom.  Not wanting to stray too far, he flew back up, cast Trace on his Returning Pebble, and dropped it.  It fell about 150' before stopping.  Vael then flew down to the bottom and found the obelisk sat in a natural cave, with nothing very interesting within range of his light.  Not wanting to explore solo, he returned to the others.

Leaving the obelisk, they went north down a narrow tunnel until they found two bodies, one wearing slightly glowing orange mail, in front of a stone chest.  As they inspected the bodies, a flaming skull flew out of the wall to attack Vallium.  He parried, and a quick combat ensued, where Vallium kept stabbing it (while not doing much damage, as his sword mostly passed through the flames) and Lacrymosa tried both arrows and her cloak.  Eventually Vallium scored three critical hits in a row and the skull was dispelled.  They searched the bodies and found a small magic silver eye, a few coins, a scroll, and a couple of potions.

Iaonnes went to open the chest but Vael yelled him away and tried using Apportation instead.  That failed because the chest was locked.  Vael thought he noticed some writing on the chest and cautioned the others against reading it.  Eventually he opened the chest with a Lockmaster spell followed by an Apportation, without setting off any traps.  Inside the chest were a bunch of silver coins, a few of the extremely valuable huge ancient octagonal platinum coins, a magic silver torc, another copy of the Litany of Light (this one much shorter and less fancy than the one from the library), a magic pick, and a few potions.

With their desire for treasure temporarily met, they went back to the Well of Light to try replacing the mirror and saying the Litany of Light.  Vael cast Flight on Vallium again so he could ferry the others across the chasm, and then everyone went back to the library.  Stamelis looked ready to have Anaximander taken off his hands, then was disappointed when Vallium just grabbed the huge mirror from behind the stacks and went right back out the door.  Vallium maneuvered the mirror onto the tripod while Vael and Ioannes gave helpful hints.  Eventually they placed it correctly and light went out in all directions, then Vael went to play with some of the secondary mirrors and bounce the light around.

With the mirror in place, Ioannes conducted the Litany of Light.  He went to the four small rooms surrounding the Well of Light, and in each room said the correct Mithric words.  His poor Mithric pronunciation was just good enough to trigger each effect, and he ended up with Infravision, an intelligence bonus, See Secrets, and Invisibility.  Vael and Vallium followed him around and repeated the rituals, and each of them got the same bonuses.  Lacrymosa did not participate.  With See Secrets in effect, everyone started running around looking for secret doors.  They found one northeast of the Ruby Chair, and another one northwest.

They opened the secret door northeast of the Ruby Chair (with the hidden catch on the floor made obvious by Thoth's blessing) and went east into a room, with an apparently accurate magically animated star field on the ceiling (despite it being daytime outside), and a couple of mosaics, one depicting the room with the Ruby Chair, another depicting some unknown large room with a bunch of statues.  They continued east to find a room with a couple of corpses, which Ioannes thought had been killed by some kind of strong impaling damage.  Both were wearing red ceremonial robes and hats.  One had a belt pouch, which they took without opening.  Another was lying on a big bronze key.  One was wearing magic boots.  They took all the loot but left the old rotted robes and hats.

Continuing east, they found a room containing two ibis statues.  The statues unfortunately did not seem to like visitors, and animated and attacked Lacrymosa, the only visible intruder.  Looking at their beaks, Ioannes now had a pretty good idea how the corpses to the west had been impaled.  Invisible Vallium had a free shot at the back of one of the constructs, and hit it squarely, but not hard enough to take it down.  Lacrymosa ran away while rapidly firing arrows, which the other construct dodged with amazing speed.  Ioannes and Vael tried to stay out of the way and stay Invisible.  After a few more tries, Lacrymosa finally managed to nail one of the constructs in the leg, slowing it and knocking it down.  It didn't dodge so well after that, and stopped moving after a few more arrows hit it.  Meanwhile Vallium landed a second, harder hit on the other ibis to slow it, then finished it off.  With See Secrets still running, everyone noticed a secret door on the south wall behind where one of the constructs had been standing, but nobody opened it.

In a hurry to go home, the party took a quick look to the east and saw a dead-end room with some spiral stairs down.  They then doubled back, closing the secret door behind them.  They went back to the Library, retrieved Anaximander, then went back to Gosterwick.  Vallium took Anaximander to the Temple of Mitra to see if they could help him, while Vael and Ioannes went back to the Arcane Practitioners Club to start identifying their loot.

GM's Comments:

That was an exceptionally productive delve.  All the previous visits to the Well of Light level had been interrupted by periodic baboon attacks, but with the baboons apparently herded into the Howling Caves to the southeast, there were fewer interruptions this time, which made exploration easier.

Using a Trace spell on the Returning Pebble was a creative way to figure out what the 3 dark mouths did, without actually risking crawling in.  Vael used a lot of caution this session, not touching the salamander statue or the pentagram on top of the obelisk, and trying to open every container with Apportation rather than his hands, but still got poisoned by the magic pool.

Anaximander seemed too crazy to give the party useful information, but Ioannes still dared climbing into the marble chair that they pulled Anaximander out of, and got an answer about the Litany of Light.

Replacing the mirror and performing the Litany of Light correctly got four useful magical effects with long (but not permanent) durations.  See Secrets revealed three secret doors, two in areas the group had walked past before without searching.  And Invisibility gave Vallium a free rear attack on the ibis construct, which contributed to quickly winning that battle.

Achievements:

• The Rescuers: 1 XP for pulling Anaximander out of the Oracle of Thoth and bringing him back to town
• The Litany of Light: 1 XP for restoring the mirror and performing the full Litany

XP:

• Exploration: About 17 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: A few magic items plus 5 of those valuable huge ancient platinum coins, 2 XP
• Achievements: 2 XP
• Total: 5 XP

Next week:

They left a couple of secret doors and a staircase unexplored at the end of the session, so they'll probably be back.  Though there was some talk of trying to rescue Lillian, the canon of the Temple of Mitra in Newmarket, now that Vael has some knowledge magic that might make it easier to find her.  (Of course there was also talk of killing Plumthorn's halflings, but pretty much only from Lacrymosa, who always wants to kill the halflings.)

How I'm dealing with friendly NPCs in DFRPG Arden Vul

Arden Vul is full of NPCs, some of them in town, some of them in the Halls.  Some of those NPCs are actually adventurers who might be happy to visit the Halls.  Some are friendly to the PCs, and might be happy to accompany them.

But I'm not generally letting the PCs bring NPC companions into the Halls with them, for meta reasons.  My general rule is that I limit delves to 5 PCs, because each additional player or token slows everything down.  NPCs don't slow things down quite as much as PCs do, because they don't add additional players, just additional tokens.  But they still add significant overhead.  I tolerate this for key PC powers that they paid points for -- the GOAT's summoned animals are annoying to manage, but he's a druid and summoned animals are a major part of a druid's powers so if I allow druids I pretty much have to allow summoned animals.  But I'm not letting PCs buy the Ally advantage (which isn't in DFRPG, only GURPS, so it appears Kromm agrees with me), or pay hirelings to come into the dungeon with them.

So, basically, my rule is that if you rescue an NPC in the Halls, they may stick with the party until you get them back to town, and they may be your friend in town or even let you hire them in town to do non-dungeon jobs, but they're not coming back into the Halls with you.  Because I don't want to deal with a party of 15 dragging the game to a crawl, making it less fun for everyone, and eventually killing the campaign.  Of course like all rules there may be very specific exceptions -- if one particular NPC really wants to do one thing in the Halls, they may ask to come along for one targeted mission.  (As an example, Thalia, the ranger the PCs rescued in Session 21, really wanted to kill the vile 4-armed baboon Umsko.  But since Uvash already killed him, she no longer needs to go back to do that.)

Note that this kind of rule varies from campaign to campaign, and from game system to game system.  If I only had 2 players, I would let them each bring an Ally, and probably have them run each other's Allies.  If I were running a very lightweight system with no VTT maps, I could be freer with NPCs, as they would require less work to keep up with.  So I'm not saying that GMs who allow tag-along NPCs are wrong, just that it's something to carefully consider rather than blindly allow.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 21: The Library of Thoth

Date: 

Basilsday, 2nd of Gerakios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cool, dry

Player Characters: 

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

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

Sister Valya "Basilisk" Hushbreaker, Halfling mercenary monk (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Giant lizard

Many large albino baboons

Isocritis Half-Hand, Archontean wizard

6 baboon zombies

8 logovores

Magically animated head of Stamelis, Librarian of Thoth

Umsko, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon

Yamki, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon

Thalia, Thorcin ranger

Fetch, elderly Archontean slave prisoner

In Gosterwick, Vael paid Creon the pawnbroker to let him know about any particularly interesting items before putting them up for general sale.  Creon let Vael know about a Wand of Air Jet that came in, but Vael declined to buy it.  More graffiti appeared on the town walls, in a slightly different style than the previous graffiti, this time depicting some chickens killing a huge red dragon, then running from tiny halflings.  Vael and Uvash went to the Demmasday market looking for Elven and Dwarven rations.  Neither found what they were looking for, but Octavian's Cucina had some Arden Vul Cakes available, which Vael purchased.  Nobody was quite sure of the origin of the cakes, except that they were occasionally found in the ruins of Arden Vul, were highly nutritious if not very tasty, and lasted forever if kept dry.

Vallium, newly nominated as the Right for Riches Company's official destination planner, decided that they would go down the Well of Light and look for the Library of Thoth.  With Michael still off in the mountains somewhere, they hired Basilisk, the tiny halfling monk with the piercing high-pitched kiai shout.  As usual, Basilisk asked to ride on someone's shoulder rather than walking all the way to Arden Vul on her very short legs.  When they reached the Long Stair, however, she somehow walked right up the side of the cliff.  Vael Levitated, and everyone else climbed up the steep and treacherous path the regular way, without incident.

As they walked north through the ruins of Arden Vul, a giant lizard attempted to ambush them from behind a tree.  Its attempt at surprise failed, and Vallium stabbed it.  Noting the lizard's thick hide might be useful, Vallium skinned it, and Vael used his Levitation to carry the hide up and stow it in the top of a tree.

Continuing north into the Forum of Arden Vul, Vael expressed suspicion about the giant oak tree growing out of the center of the ruined pavement.  Ioannes took a close look at the tree and said it was really old, but looked like a regular oak to him.  Uvash climbed the tree and didn't see anything odd.

As they reached the Well of Light, Vael first dropped several very bright Continual Light stones down the well to try to scare away light-averse baboons.  He then cast Flight on Vallium, who could carry Ioannes then Uvash down the Well.  Vael Levitated down, while Basilisk walked down the side of the well, but both were much slower than Vallium's Flight.  Ioannes, alone at the bottom of the Well, heard the loud hooting of baboons to the east.  He raised his shield and waited, until Vallium returned carrying Uvash.  The three then saw four baboons charge.  Vallium, with Flight still active, counter-charged and shield rushed one, but failed to knock it over.  The four baboons tried to swarm him, as Uvash and Ioannes ran up to help, but Vallium's thick scale armor kept him from getting hurt as he crippled one baboon and knocked another unconscious.  The survivors broke and ran, and nobody pursued, as they waited for Vael and Basilisk to arrive.

Once the group was together and the baboons were out of earshot, they went due south toward where they thought the Library was.  They saw some double doors at the end of the passage.  Everyone listened at the doors, but nobody heard anything.  Vallium went through his collection of keys, and one of them (which had been taken from Gerrilad) unlocked the door.  Opening the door, they saw a Continually Lit library, with 6 hooded figures seated at some nearby tables, a human in robes with one withered hand sitting at a librarian's table in the center of the room, then a row of pillars across the room, and some stacks of shelves filling the southern part.

The robed human gestured for silence and then whispered "Who are you and why are you in my library?"  Vael and Ioannes were not very happy that this guy claimed to own the library, and Ioannes failed to whisper his reply, so the man gestured toward the doors and indicated that they should continue their conversation outside.  When they got near the door he made it clear that he was an wizard, and that this was his library because Gerrilad, the owner of this level, gave it to him.  Vael and Vallium countered that they had killed Gerrilad, so it was their level and their library now.  The man said that, despite that, he was an archmage and they were not and if they did not leave he would have to demonstrate his powers.  Vael took affront and Blinked behind the man, then tapped him on the shoulder.  At that point a potentially fatal electrical shock moved from the wizard's shoulder to Vael's hand, but Vael's Bless spell caused his hand to jerk away supernaturally quickly, as a bolt of lightning arced to the floor instead.

Isocritis the wizard, affronted that he had been flanked and also that Vael had cheated by bringing divine assistance to a wizard fight, waved to his allies sitting around the tables, and the robed forms revealed themselves to be zombified baboons as they scampered to his assistance on all fours.  However, Vallium was directly behind Isocritis, and took advantage of the opportunity by shoving the blade of his broadsword into the kidneys of the wizard while he was distracted by Vael.  Isocritis's spellcasting ability failed to protect him from the mighty stab, and he collapsed, dead.

One of the baboon zombies tried to punch Vael, who Blinked back to the other side of the doors, out of reach.  Vallium, standing in the doorway, started stabbing any zombie within reach.  Uvash and Ioannes both stayed behind the doorway.  8 creatures that looked like baby baboons, who had been hiding within the stacks south of the pillars, ran forward, with one of them yelling "Need New!"

When he recovered from the disorientation of Blinking, Vael cast Grease inside the doorway.  He followed this up with Create Fire in another area, after making sure there were no books there.  The Grease and Fire channeled his allies as much as they did the enemies, though, and Ioannes and Uvash remained stuck behind Vallium.  Basilisk, with her wall-walking ability, suffered no such constraints, as she walked along the wall over the fire, throwing flash nageteppos, then a smoke nageteppo, and continually shouting stunning kiais at the nearest targets, to both stop them from attacking and make them more vulnerable.

As the baboons gradually went down, Ioannes went into the east side of the room around the fire, while Uvash crawled over the Grease into the west side.  The baby baboons kept yelling "Known!" and "Need New!" as they adorably tried to kill everyone.  There was some speculation about what the baboons wanted.  Vael tried speaking Elvish, and the baboons liked that a lot, and all grew a bit bigger.  Fortunately for the Left for Loot Company, the baby baboons didn't have time to get too big before they were all dead.  One of them landed a solid claw hit on Ioannes, but otherwise the party was uninjured.

With the fight over, the group started looting the wizard's body and then searching the room.  There were hundreds or even thousands of books in the stacks, so a thorough search would take forever.  Vael suggested locking the doors and searching until they were done, but Ioannes wanted to go grab the statue head of Stamelis the Librarian and bring him to the library.  The group went east to Gerrilad's quarters were Stamelis was, and while they were there they stuck Isocritis's body in the mulch pit.  Vallium dragged the heavy bust back to the library and set it in a place of honor on the librarian's station.

Ioannes then had a conversation with Stamelis, while Vael searched for secret doors, and Uvash started going through the stacks looking for interesting books.  In addition to the books, Uvash found a large mirror, which appeared to be related to the Well of Light.  Eventually they decided they should go find more treasure, and Vael cast Seek Earth for platinum, which showed there was some platinum a bit northeast.  He then tried finding gold, but the nearest gold was down a level.  He then cast Seek Magic, which revealed some magic in the stacks.  He went and found Isocritis's spellbook.  He tried Seek Magic again and found another spellbook, this one belonging to Tresti Iredell, the half-elven mage they had rescued from Gerrilad's prison.  Not wanting to keep burning expensive spells, Vael went through the stacks looking for more magic books, but failed to find any.  He tried Seek Magic one more time and the nearest magic was a bit to the southeast.  That did not jibe with their map, so they thought there was probably a secret door somewhere.

Heading northeast toward the platinum, the group found a room containing a statue of a baboon.  There was a passage heading south, and they heard the hooting of baboons that way.  They also heard the deeper grunts of giant baboons, giving commands.  They spent a few seconds casting spells to prepare for a combat, then they saw two giant baboons charging toward them from the south, followed by a mass of smaller baboons.

Vael cast Create Fire in the middle of the pack of smaller baboons to split the baboons in half and prevent more reinforcements from arriving.  That left 2 huge and 3 normal-sized baboons still in the fight.  Vallium chopped an arm off Yamki, one of the huge ones, as Basilisk used kiai to stun him.  Yamki realized he had been defeated, and surrendered.  This enraged the other huge baboon, Umsko, who slammed into Yamki from behind in frustration, then charged.  Uvash dodged and parried Umsko's attacks, then Basilisk stunned him.  With both nearby opponents stunned, Uvash made a huge all-out attack targeted at Umsko's skull, connected cleanly, and killed the giant baboon.  That caused all the baboons north of the wall of fire to stop fighting.

Some negotiation commenced with Yamki.  Vael's main argument was that all the baboons could die, or they could peacefully let the party have the run of the level and take whatever treasure they wanted, and the baboons could live and even be provided with food.  Yamki was badly wounded, though, and passed out before the negotiation reached a conclusion.  Uvash bandaged the giant baboon to keep him from bleeding to death, and then the group searched the room to the east.

In the room was a naked human woman, chained to the wall, trying to free herself from her shackles.  Vallium called Vael over asking for a Lockmaster spell, but the woman indicated that Umsko had the key, so they went back to Umsko's body and searched it, then used the key they found.  The woman crawled under a bed and pulled out a lot of equipment that she said was hers, and then hurriedly put on some clothes and some scale armor and started picking up weapons.  She said her name was Thalia, that she was a ranger, and that this was her gear.  She thanked them for freeing her, and said she had a lot of baboons to kill.  They informed her that Umsko was already dead, which calmed her down a bit.  She thanked Uvash for killing Umsko, and managed to not charge through the fire into the remaining masses of baboons to the south.

Thalia found a few other things under the bed that she said were not hers, and threw a scroll case to Vael, and pointed Vallium at a sack (which contained the platinum coins that Vael had detected, as well as some gold) and some potions.  With Umsko's room looted, they crossed the hall to Yamki's room, where they found a heavy ebony chair, which Vael judged as not valuable enough to be worth its weight.  They also found a silver goblet and a small wooden box containing silver coins, a potion, and a magic pebble.  Remembering a previous magic pebble, Vael said to avoid touching the pebble until it was identified, and Vallium just took the whole box.  A pile of rags in the corner surprisingly contained something magical, and Vael pulled out a magic cloak and added it to the loot pile.

There was one more door in the passage, which led to a storeroom.  Inside was an old human man, who was chained to the floor, and cowering at their approach.  Vallium tried Umsko's key again, and it worked.  The man was not thrilled to be freed, and didn't seem to speak Archontean.  He hooted a bit and hid in the corner, then tried running for the door at record-slow speed.  Vallium grabbed the old man, determined to rescue him rather than letting him run off and get killed.  The room was full of various things that the baboons ate, most of which were in no way appetizing to humans, so they didn't take any of them.  But when looking behind some crates, Ioannes spotted a magic bullwhip on the floor, and grabbed it.

At that point the party decided to head for home.  They went north and west back to the Well of Light, then went into the library to see if the mirror fit into the Well.  It did, but they put it back in the Library for now, because they could lock the doors.  Vael once again cast Flight on Vallium, and he ferried most of the others up the Well, in addition to Thalia and the old man.  When they got back to Gosterwick, Vallium took the old man to the Temple of Mitra, who told him that the man's name was Fetch and he had apparently been a slave to the baboons for most of his life, and didn't know many words in any human language.

GM's Comments:

Neither of the random encounters I rolled, the giant lizard or the troop of 4 baboons, were much of a challenge.  I thought the baboons might be a challenge since they attacked when the party was split while moving down the well, but Vallium had too much armor for the baboons to easily hurt him.

Isocritis was a challenge, and he might have killed Vael except for the Bless spell.  But he got himself surrounded, and a surrounded wizard is in deep trouble.  He probably should have stayed behind his baboon zombies, but he was trying to keep the invaders quiet to keep them from making the logovores grow.  With hindsight maybe he should have had a long, loud conversation instead, so that when the logovores appeared they were huge, but he was overconfident.

The logovores were a really neat monster, and the players eventually figured out how they worked (they grow when they hear enough new words) based on the monster name (leaked by Foundry VTT; maybe I need to find a way to avoid showing token names) and the "Known!  Need New!" and the way they grew after Vael spoke Elvish.  But between Basilisk's stunning and Vallium's stabbing, they didn't last long enough to grow to be a real threat.

The 4-armed giant baboons are tough except most of them are too overconfident to use weapons.  Fighting with your bare hands without the Striker advantage is a good way to get your arm cut off by an aggressive parry on your own attack.  If Gerrilad had just taught them to use giant clubs they might have killed a couple of PCs by now.  This is one of the challenges of converting D&D monsters to GURPS; sometimes the flavor carries over but the power level changes.

With more baboons defeated, we'll see if the PCs have the run of the Well of Light level, or if there are still enough baboons willing to fight for their territory.

Achievements:

The Rescuers: 1 XP for rescuing Thalia from Umsko.

XP:

• Exploration: 5 new locations, good for 1 XP
• Loot: Isocritis's and Yamki's and Umsko's stuff.  Not a huge amount, but enough for 1 XP
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: 3 XP

Next Week:

I expect they'll come back to the Well of Light and try to finish searching the Library or play with the mirrors or explore more.  But every time I expect them to focus on the same job for two weeks in a row they surprise me, so we'll see.