DFRPG Arden Vul Session 23c: Set Jailbreak and Down to Goblintown

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:

Susarra, Archontean fighter

Many Set guards

Hidlat, Set wizard

Kathroc, Set torturer

Lenuel, Set jailer

Eadgithu, enslaved Thorcin ranger

captured fishman

Geleg, captured wizard

Lillian, captured Canon of Mitra

Azgallatu, captured cleric of Mitra

Grist the Hammer, captured dwarf fighter

Gribble, captured goblin noble

Killik, goblin boss of the Wet Caves

Pelestrim, goblin major-domo

Weskenim, goblin king

Several ogre guards

Many, many goblins

Jador the Just, chief priestess of Mitra in Gosterwick

Anaximander, ancient sage and cleric of Mitra

We resumed in the dungeon, after the party killed or chased off everyone in the Temple of Set and spent a few minutes looting.  The group retreated south out of the temple, back into the guard room atop the barricade, where until the sanctity level (for non-Settites) went back to normal, then rested.  They then searched the western wall, where the Set deacon had been running, and found a door concealed behind a screen.  They went west through a torture chamber, then through a black curtain into some kind of waiting room with pews, then south into a robing room.  There were some red Settite robes there, but not enough for everyone, and Uvash refused to wear them anyway.  With some of the group disguised and some not, they searched for secret doors and found one on the south wall, leading to a narrow spy corridor. Heading west, they found some peepholes into a prison, with seven cells, six prisoners (including Lillian), and four guards.  Without a way into the prison from here, they doubled back north, east, and then south down some stairs.

Suddenly some candles lining the stairs start smoking, and loud screams came from somewhere.  Magically alerted, several guards poured out of a room to the southeast.  A six-on-six battle commenced.  Susarra, Vallium, and Michael filled the corridor to the south, with Uvash, Vael, and Ioannes behind them.  On the other side were 4 Set guards, a Set torturer with a long whip, and a Set wizard who was throwing Force Missiles at Michael from the doorway.

The Set ranks held for a few seconds, while Vael cast Great Haste on Michael.  Then once Michael started attacking twice as fast, he downed an enemy and charged forward to get the wizard, while Uvash moved up to fill the hole on the left.  Vallium and Susarra kept holding the line and stabbing Settites, and Ioannes cast several Stop Bleeding and Major Healing spells to keep his allies up.  As the Settites started to fall, they yelled for help, and reinforcements started coming from the west.  It was the four guards the party had seen before, plus a jailer they had not spotted.

As the original Settites to the east fell, the battle moved west toward the approaching reinforcements.  Vael dropped a Grease spell in the hallway, which resulted in several Settites missing attack or defense rolls or falling over.  Michael, with his Ring of Free Action, was unaffected by the bad footing, and mercilessly hacked through the Settites before his Great Haste could run out.  Susarra and Uvash and Vallium followed behind him, staying out of the Grease but helping finish the Settites.  Eventually, all 11 of the Settites went down.

Vael and Michael were exhausted after the battle, so took a few minutes to rest, with Ioannes casting Lend Energy.  Once everyone could stand up, they took a preliminary pass over the bodies looking for magical loot, then they went west.  They heard a woman yelling from behind an open door to the north.  In the room was the jailer's prisoner Eadgithu, manacled to the wall.  Vallium grabbed the jailer's key ring and tried keys until one freed her, at which point Eadgithu thanked them and went to grab a sword off the jailer's body.  Vael saw a lockbox in the room and cautiously opened it using the keys and an Apportation spell, finding some coins and gems and a spellbook.  The group then went west to the prison.

There were 6 prisoners visible.  Three of them (Lillian, an overweight man, and a tough-looking man) were manacled to the back of their cells and gagged.  The other three (a goblin, a fishman, and a well-muscled dwarf) were not tied or gagged.  Half of the prisoners showed obvious wounds, while the others appeared to be in better shape.  Vallium used the jailer's keys to free Lillian first, and Ioannes healed her wounds.  She then explained who some of the other prisoners were.  She said the tough-looking man was Azgallatu, a warrior cleric of Mitra who had been captured trying to find her, and he should definitely be freed.  She stated that the goblin (who showed no wounds) was some high-ranking noble captive, at which point Gribble interrupted to introduce himself and said he was the brother of King Wiskenim, who would certainly reward his rescuers.  Lillian and Gribble agreed that the fishman was unfriendly and also didn't seem to speak any languages they knew, so he was left in his cell.  The overweight man was Geleg, a wizard, who when ungagged immediately thanked his rescuers then asked if anyone had seen his spellbook.  Vael admitted to having found a spellbook but asked if he could copy any spells, and Geleg immediately agreed to let Vael copy anything he wanted.  The dwarf seemed a bit unfriendly, so Vallium passed the keys to Uvash to deal with him.  Grist asked Uvash several questions, apparently suspicious that he might be a doppleganger, before agreeing that he was an actual dwarf and warming up slightly.  He was badly wounded, so he appreciated the healing spell Ioannes gave him.  Azgallatu, when freed, thanked the party then immediately took up position at Lillian's side.

With a horde of rescued prisoners in tow, the party went back east to loot the room at the bottom of the stairs.  There were several heads mounted on the walls, of a lion, some kind of reptile man, a member of Gog's species, and a goblin.  The goblin head appeared to be magical.  Gribble wanted to throw it in a nearby disposal hole, but because it was magical Vael argued that it couldn't be left where the Settites could recover it, so Gribble reluctantly put it in a chest (where he didn't have to look at it) and carried it out.  Meanwhile each of the other prisoners was asked to carry a suit of red Set scale armor.  So burdened, the group went back north up the stairs, east over the barricade, north through the gas-trapped room (the trap had not reset), and back into the desecrated temple of Thoth were the slime kraken had been killed.

There was some debate on whether to go north or east.  Vallium argued that east was closer to the halflings so north was safer.  Ioannes countered that with so many of them, the halflings would probably be too scared to fight.  But the decision was made to go north and try to avoid contact.  Vael re-cast Shape Earth to cover the ends of the passage he had made next to the one-way door, and everyone went north through the one-way door then east through the catacombs to the portcullis.  They closed the portcullis behind them, then went south through the burial niches to the secret room where they had stashed a wheelbarrow full of food.

Vael and Vallium wanted to give the food to someone rather than waste it, so they asked Lillian the story of her capture.  She said she had been looking for Settite activity when she had been grabbed by the Green Fang Kobolds, who traded her to the beastmen, who traded her to the Settites, who threw her in their jail and tortured her.  This dropped everyone's opinion of the beastmen, and they decided to give the food to Gog instead of the beastmen.  They instructed everyone to leave the heavy scale armor in the secret door, grabbed the wheelbarrow of food, and headed south and east to the concealed door behind the baboon fresco.  They took the hidden stairs down to the Cave of Gog.

Gog heard them coming, and was waiting outside the secret door when it opened.  He was pleased to see the wheelbarrow of food and asked if it was for him.  Pleased to hear that he was, he got his boat and had them dump all the food from the wheelbarrow into it.  Gribble said that goblin territory was just to the south and asked if the party would like to meet his brother the king.  The other freed prisoners were not so enthusiastic about tromping through goblin territory, but they didn't want to go back to Gosterwick without their heavily armed escort either, so they came along.  Gribble led them south into a room full of many goblins, who enthusiastically greeted him.  Their leader led Gribble and his huge entourage east to Killik, the Boss of the Wet Caves.  Killik then appointed one of the other goblin captains Temporary Boss and went with Gribble down a long staircase to Goblintown.

Arriving in Goblintown, Killik and Gribble led the party through a confusing maze of passages.  At one point they were led across a rickety bridge "maybe not so strong for big people go one at a time."  Uvash actually broke one slat of the bridge when crossing it, but managed not to fall.  They eventually reached a room with ogre guards outside, where the goblin major-domo, Pelestrim, greeted Gribble and went into the room to arrange an audience.  A minute later, Gribble and his rescuers were invited in to meet King Weskenim.

King Weskenim asked Gribble a lot of questions in Goblin, then thanked his rescuers in accented Archontean, and said he wasn't prepared for their arrival but promised them a reward next time they visited.  He also mentioned the need to recover the Scepter of the Goblins.  When Vael asked if the goblins knew about any other entrances to the Halls, Weskenim said that was a sore point, that Plumthorn's Halflings were squatting on his rightful entrance to the surface, and needed to be removed.  After hearing how many Settites they had killed, he said the Right for Riches company were just the halfling exterminators he needed and to please take care of the infestation at their earliest convenience.  He warned them that the halflings had a wizard and used poison.  At some point during the meeting, Weskenim's cat jumped onto his shoulder, at which point the king had to end the meeting to play with the cat.

With the royal audience concluded, Killik led the party and their freed prisoners back up to the Wet Caves, this time taking a longer route that didn't involve any bridges that might not be strong enough for armored humans or dwarves.  At one point he rushed them past some kind of demon imprisoned in a summoning circle reciting obscure mathematical formulae, but didn't answer any questions.  They went back up to the Wet Caves, then back to Gog's Cave, where Gog was happily sorting his newly acquired food.  Gog ferried everyone across the underground stream in his boat, and they went upstairs, then out to the surface through the basement exit, then back to the Broken Head to get their mule, then back to the dam to stow their wheelbarrow, then finally back to Gosterwick.

In Gosterwick, Jador the Just at the Temple of Mitra was excited to see Lillian had been rescued, and detailed a lesser cleric to go with Ioannes to the Silent Factor and transfer the reward money to his account.  Anaximander, the ancient sage they had rescued previously, had been healed of his insanity, and was dictating the events of 250 years ago to some other clerics.  Vael asked for access to Anaximander, and Jador agreed to let him read the notes the clerics had compiled so far, and also personally visit him.  Lillian and Azgallatu said they would stay at the the Temple of Mitra for a few days before heading to Newmarket, while the other freed prisoners got rooms or bunkroom beds elsewhere in Gosterwick.

GM's Comments:

Another large battle, but not as large as last week.  Great Haste is still very good.  Grease is pretty good too.

I need to spend more time with the Foundry Token Attacher module so I can quickly make a train of NPCs follow a PC.

I was not really prepared for the PCs to go down to Goblintown (I should have been, since they were heading for Lillian and Gribble was in the next cell over, but I had wrongly assumed they would just let Gribble go rather than following him home) so had to scramble to find the right paths for everyone to take around the Goblintown map.  Since there wasn't a lot of time left in the session, I rushed through the first meeting with King Weskenim and had him invite them back for another one.

Achievements:

• The Rescuers: for rescuing Susarra, Lillian, Gribble, Eadgithu, Geleg, and Grist.
• Quest: for bringing Lillian back to the Temple of Mitra
• Knockback: 1 XP to Uvash for the first hit with a blunt weapon hard enough to achieve knockback.  (This happened all the time in GURPS 3E, but is rarer in 4E and DFRPG due to some rules changes.)

XP:

• Exploration: about 47 rooms (across 3 sessions) (many of them led through goblin territory), 2 XP
• Loot: reward money, 2 giant rubies, coins and gems and weapons and armor: 2 XP
• Achievements: 2 group achievements, 1 individual achievement for Uvash
• Total: 7 XP for Uvash, 6 XP for Vael/Vallium/Ioannes, 4 XP for Michael (missed a session)

Next Week:

The PCs have a lot of options.  The obvious ones are to try to get their reward from King Weskenim, further battle the Cult of Set, or finally deal with Plumthorn's Halflings.  But they also have several parts of the Halls to explore.