DFRPG Session 28: Teleport Rugs and Baboons

Date: 

Tahsday, 18th of Besemios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cool, rainy

Player Characters: 

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Thronebreaker (Thrainor Ironvein), Dwarven mercenary fighter (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Creon, pawnbroker

Theopilos, locksmith

Egill Flat-nose, tavern owner

Wicktrimmer, Imperial goblin merchant factor

Grugga, cavewoman leader

Many cave people

Stamelis, animated head, formerly Librarian of Thoth

2 crocodiles

otyugh

Yamki, giant 3-armed intelligent baboon

Trefko, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon

Many baboons

2 goblin women who are honorary baboons

Burris, Thorcin warrior

3 mantari

Ghost of Ptirasa, priestess of Thoth

Skalla, skeleton warrior

Bottleneck, goblin master sergeant

Many goblins

The Plan:

Vallium's plan for the week was to trade with the cave people to the west of the waterfall below Arden Vul, see if the Rugs of Instant Access had enough range to bypass climbing the Long Stair, clear out the pits near the Ruby Chair and find the control rod for the indoor pyramid teleporter, test the indoor pyramid teleporter, perform the Litany of Light again, talk to Yamki and Stamelis, donate a lot of alcohol to the goblins, and explore more of the Well of Light or Halls of Thoth levels.

What Actually Happened:

Vael got a tip from Creon the pawnbroker than an interesting item was available, and it turned out to be the Eyes of Set, some goggles that allegedly allowed seeing through magical darkness cast by Settites.  Vael purchased them.

Vallium went to Theopilos to have copies of Plumthorn's keys made for the goblins.  He also went to Egill at the Baliff's Truncheon tavern and purchased several barrels of moonshine for the goblins.  He also bought several axes for trade with the cave people.

Wicktrimmer sent the Right for Riches Company a note that he had information about their shopping list.  Vallium, Vael, and Uvash showed up at the Rarities Factor, where Wicktrimmer told them that his agents in Narsileon had found a magic broadsword that Vallium might like and some magic scale armor that might meet Michael's requirements, but that neither Bracers of Force nor any giant spider silk had been found.  Vallium and Vael (speaking for Michael, who was off in the woods somewhere on another hunting trip) approved the purchases, which Wicktrimmer said should arrive via mule train in a few weeks.

Wicktrimmer then said that His Sources had revealed the presence of strong teleportation magic in Gosterwick, and asked if they knew anything about that.  Vael admitted the existence of the teleportation rugs but said they hadn't told Wicktrimmer because they were still testing how well they worked.  Wicktrimmer asked for a description of the rugs, and said they sounded like Rugs of Instant Access, which Sligo the Devious famously used to assassinate Leonidas of Archontos.  He asked for an update after the rugs were tested, and said that if they had enough range to teleport someone from Gosterwick to Narsileon, he would pay a whole lot of money for them.

Trying to avoid being predictable, someone rolled a 7-sided die to figure out the day of their next delve.  It came up Tahsday, so very early Tahsday morning they set out for the caves west of the Swift River.  There were several cavemen standing guard outside their cave, They called into the cave for reinforcements, and a couple dozen more people came out.  Nobody shared a common language or had language magic, but Vallium gestured a desire to trade, and pulled 5 good quality metal axes out of Larel's Sack.  The cave people were impressed by the axes, and their older female leader (who turned out to be named Grugga) sent someone back into the cave to get something.  A few minutes later he emerged carrying a metal axe head, and being yelled at by a women who apparently didn't want him to trade the axe head.  Vael saw that the axe head was magical, and so told Vallium that trading 5 whole axes for that one axe head was a good deal.  The trade was made, and then the Right for Riches company tried gesturing back and forth with the cave people for a while but gained no significant information (beyond the gestured version of "snake people basket fall down go boom", which they already knew because they had been the ones to make the basket fall down), before leaving.

They walked a bit into the woods and spread out one Rug of Instant Access across the ground, then Vael cast Levitation and flew to the top of the cliff, holding the other Rug.  Vael spread out his Rug across the ground at the top, then stepped on it and said the command word "viator", and appeared on the other Rug near the others.  The others then used the lower Rug to teleport to the upper Rug, one at a time.  Finally Vael grabbed the lower Rug and flew up to the top of the cliff with the others.  The total time for two flights up the cliff was about six minutes, compared to well over an hour to climb the Long Stair (depending on climbing skill, load carried, and risks taken), so everyone agreed this was a success.

The group walked north through the ruins of Arden Vul to the top of the Well of Light.  Vael dropped a Continual Light rock down the Well and didn't see a bright reflection at the bottom, which indicated that the bottom mirror had probably been covered.  He Levitated down the shaft carrying one Rug, saw that the fixed mirror was indeed covered in muck and the portable mirror and stand were gone, but didn't see anything dangerous in the area.  He landed, spread out the Rug, teleported through it, sent the other 3 through the top Rug, then grabbed the top Rug and flew down the Well again to rejoin the others.  They spent several minutes cleaning baboon feces off the fixed mirror, then went south to visit the head of Stamelis in the Library of Thoth.

Stamelis seemed happy to see them, but didn't have a lot of news.  Nothing had come into the locked Library, though he had heard some baboons hooting.  He was annoyed that he had a whole library of books to read but no ability to fetch books or turn pages, and requested that the group find a nice priest of Thoth to assist him.

Everyone headed north to the Hall of Judgment.  They pushed studs on the Ruby Chair until both pits opened.  One still contained 2 crocodiles, though they weren't moving much, possibly due to hunger.  The other contained some kind of creature with tentacles, and that was the pit that Vael's Seeker spell had said the pyramid control lever was in.  The tentacles weren't long enough to reach the top of the pit, so Vael decided to un-sportingly use Wall of Lightning in the water-filled pit to electrocute the monster from afar.  This worked, and after a while the whole room smelled of an unholy combination of wet dog and burned fish.  Vael rested for a while, then Vallium tied a long rope around the punishment pillar, and Vael levitated down into the pit while Uvash climbed down the rope to guard him.  Vael spotted the control rod for the pyramid and a magic wand and grabbed both.

The group discussed whether they should also kill the crocodiles, and then thought there might be treasure in that pit too, so they had to.  Vael repeated the remote electrocution trick.  This time Vallium went into the pit with Vael, because he wanted to try using his survival skills to try to extract valuable crocodile skin, and also see if there was anything valuable in their stomachs.  He failed to skin them cleanly, destroying the hides.  He also didn't find anything valuable inside them.  He did, however, make a giant stinky mess.  Meanwhile Vallium picked up a few silver coins.  The missing mirror was also in the pit, along with its stand, which was broken into two parts but looked fixable.  Vallium loaded the heavy mirror into the Living Wheelbarrow and Levitated it up.

With both pits cleared, the group turned their attention to the Ruby Chair.  Both dwarves agreed it sure looked like it was carved from one giant hunk of ruby, but that was impossible as rubies didn't get that big.  Vael cast Seek Earth for ruby, and it pointed right at the chair.  Thronebreaker tried using his considerable strength to move the chair, but it didn't move.  There was a Mithric inscription behind the chair that said “Speak the Secret Name and Claim Thy Reward.”  Vael read the inscription out loud, which did nothing.  He didn't know any secret name, but they thought Stemelis might, so they went back to the library to talk to him.  Stamelis didn't tell them any secret names.  Vael started looking through the books hoping one would have the secret name, but most of the books in the Thoth section were written in the Secret Language of Thoth, which Stamelis would not teach him because Thoth's Secrets Are For Thoth's Children.  After various attempts to trick, fast-talk, or persuade Stamelis, they left again.

Wanting to test the pyramid control rod, the Right for Riches company went west to the indoor pyramid, where Vallium installed the rod.  They then flipped the rod and appeared on top of the nearly identical pyramid one level down.  They they moved the matching rod there, and were back on the Well of Light level.

The group headed east toward the Howling Caves, and found Yamki the Three-Armed in a room just north of the portcullis leading to the Caves.  At that point there were some pointed questions about how the mirror got re-pooped.  Yamki said he didn't do it and his loyal baboons didn't do it but there might be some renegade baboons who didn't respect his authority and management was hard.  Vallium offered Yamki a bunch of meat in exchange for leaving the mirror alone and telling them who had vandalized it.  Yamki wasn't sure exactly who, but said that Trefko the old four-armed baboon, and several female baboons who had formerly been Sisko's harem, were still living to the west of the Hall of Judgment, and didn't listen to him.  The group headed that way to talk to the other baboons.

They went north past the Ruby Chair, the west past a trap door up with a rope hanging out of it, which they had seen before but hadn't explored.  They declined to explore it again and went south.  Eventually they listened at a door and heard loud snores behind it.  Opening the door found Trefko stumbling to his feet.  Trefko said that he hadn't been the one pooping on the mirror, but he didn't want to live in the Howling Caves because there were too many young baboons there and they were too loud.  He would stay in his room.  He agreed to not cause any trouble with the mirrors, in exchange for meat.  He also wanted a contract that said he was in charge of all the baboons, but Vallium said that was impractical and they had to work that out among themselves.  Uvash and Thronebreaker noticed that Trefko was wearing a Dwarven Life Stone around his neck, and asked whether he'd be willing to trade it.  He said that might be possible, for gems or large quantities of meat.  Vallium said they'd bring him a whole live goat next time.

Heading south, the group found the room with Sisko's former harem, which consisted of 4 baboons and 2 goblins.  They had a human male prisoner manacled to the ceiling.  These baboons couldn't talk, but the goblins could, and said they considered themselves part of the baboon tribe and didn't need rescuing, and also that King Weskenim sucked.  Also that Sisko was the king of the baboon tribe, so with his death they were the reigning queens, and they could poop wherever they wanted as this was their territory.  Vael went with diplomacy trying to talk sense into them to avoid violence, while Thronebreaker went with intimidation and ripped the prisoner's chains apart.  With the harem somewhat cowed by this display of brute force, Vallium told them that they had given Yamki a bunch of food to avoid further vandalism of the mirror, and that if the harem wanted some of it they should go over there to get it.  Once they left, Uvash healed the prisoner, a Thorcin warrior named Burris.  Vael levitated up to search two sacks hanging from the ceiling, and it turned out one was full of coins and the other full of miscellaneous treasure.  All of that went into the Bag of Holding.  Someone felt a bit bad for taking all the stuff, and suggested leaving some of the booze that was intended for the goblins in exchange.

Vael searched for secret doors, and found one on the east wall.  It was very hard to figure out how to open it, but a critical success on a Lockmaster spell did it.  Beyond the secret door was a narrow cobwebby corridor that looked like it had been unused for centuries.  Everyone explored it and found a tunnel heading east and a suspicious dead end to the north.  The dead end found another secret door, near the Ruby Chair, so once they opened that one to confirm they had a safe exit, they closed the first one so the harem wouldn't know about the secret passage.  Everyone then took the tunnel east.  Thronebreaker lent Burris an axe, just in case.

The tunnel led to a rough cavern, with an old corpse and some ancient rotted food.  There were dead end passages northeast and southeast.  The one northeast led to a secret door, which Thronebreaker opened.  That led to a room with a sarcophagus, but before anyone could explore it, three mantari (small flying ray-shaped creatures with stingers) ambushed Thronebreaker.  One of them actually hit and slightly wounded him, and then he and Vallium killed one and scared the other two into flying away.  The sarcophagus was empty, but there was a bridge over the Great Chasm (which was pretty narrow here) further east.

Crossing the bridge led to a room with a bunch of funerary gisants and some rotted crates.  After a bit of poking around, a ghost appeared and did not attack.  She revealed that she was Ptirasa, a priestess of Thoth, and warned the others that Arpostas was a traitor.  They had no idea who Arpostas was, though.  She also revealed that there were some nasty bugs in the crates and they should stay away from them.  Vael used Create Fire to keep the bugs away, and then the group found a secret door to the east, leading to a north-south passage they'd found before.

With exploration to the east complete, they doubled back to the west and explored more secret passages.  They eventually found a room with a pile of baboon skeletons on the floor, along with one human skeleton with an apparently magical axe, and a female elf skeleton on a bed.  Someone tried to take the axe, and the human skeleton predictably stood up and fought them.  However, it was four on one, and when the skeleton turned to face Vallium, Thronebreaker got behind it and did a Power Blow plus Rapid Strike from behind.  The skeleton managed to avoid one of the blows, but the other hit it hard enough to shatter its brittle bones.

With the skeleton no longer a threay, Vael started searching the room for magic, and they grabbed the magic axe and nonmagical mail and shield from the human skeleton, plus a magic pouch, a single magic gauntlet, a couple of magic arrows, and a spellbook from the elf skeleton.  There was a stone chest under the bed, but it was empty.  Nobody wanted to believe that, so an intensive search ensued.  When that didn't find anything, the whole stone chest went into the Bag of Holding for further investigation.

With little time left in the session, Vallium still hadn't delivered the booze to the goblins.  So the group went back to the small pyramid, flipped the lever, and ended up in Upper Goblintown (formerly the Halls of Thoth).  As they headed toward the Glory of Weskenim (formerly the Glory of Thoth), they greeted each squad of goblins they met and gave each of them a small barrel of liquor.  By the time they reached Bottleneck Halfling-Slayer, Master Sergeant of Upper Goblintown, they had a fan club of a few dozen already drunk goblins following them, while a few Designated Sober Guards had to stay behind.  Vallium tried to get some information from the goblins, and learned that Gislu the False Prophet had last been seen in the Forum of Set.

GM's Comments:

The plan to trade with the cave people actually worked, despite having no language in common.  It appears that even people who don't know your language know that getting 5 whole axes for one axe head is pretty good.

The party confirmed that the Rugs of Instant Access were useful for skipping the long climb up the Long Stair, at least if someone with Levitation was available.

The Seeker spell once again proved its worth by finding the pyramid control rod in the pit (and incidentally helping find some other treasure in that pits).  But the party already knew of two stairways between the Well of Light level and Upper Goblintown, so this was mostly completionism.

The baboons once again showed that, left unattended, some them will eventually poop on the mirrors.  (I once lived in a huge all-male freshman dorm, so I can confirm this is true.)

Everyone (especially the dwarves) seemed very interested in the Ruby Chair but nobody found a way to move it or break parts off it.

The head of Stamelis seemed to know things, but also seemed reluctant to share Thoth's secrets with random tomb robbers.  Similarly, the ghost of Ptirasa was a mix of helpful and obscure.

Vallium's plan to give goblins $500 of moonshine was a roaring success.  For most of the goblins anyway.  The ones who got Sober Guard Duty with the promise they could have some leftover moonshine later probably didn't like it much.

Achievements:

• The Rescuers: 1 XP for freeing Burris from the baboon harem

XP:

• Exploration: 9 new locations: 1 XP
• Loot: magic axe head, magic axe, Bottomless Purse, Wand of Illumination, coins, etc: 2 XP
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: 4 XP

Next Week:

I expect more testing of the teleport rugs.  Vallium is still looking for a priest of Thoth.  There are still unexplored areas on both the Well of Light and Upper Goblintown levels.  Ioannes may be able to help with some of the mysteries of language or religion that stumped the others.  And if they run out of other things to do, they can always resume their war with the Cult of Set, or explore deeper.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 27: The Tomb of Ptoh-Ristus

Date: 

Mitrasday, 10th of Besemios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cool, dry

Player Characters: 

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

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

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

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

Significant NPCs:

Vivian, priest of Demma

Wicktrimmer, Imperial Goblin banker and trader

Sanguinette, Basilisk's bat familiar

8 Set cultists

Bottleneck, goblin sergeant

Lots and lots of goblins

4 huge spiders

2 animated spearman constructs

2 mummies

Uvash, Vael, and Ioannes were all very sick.  Ioannes had no idea what it was but suspected something magical, so they went to the Temple of Demma, where the head priest Vivian diagnosed them with a magical curse and cast a Remove Curse spell on each of them, in exchange for a suitable donation to feed the poor.  They were never quite sure where the curse came from, but the spell seemed to fix it.  They grumbled about the cost anyway.

Vael went to visit Wicktrimmer at the Rarities Factor, found out that there was no news on their shopping list in Narsileon, and discussed whether Wicktrimmer would be willing to take over running the Forum of Set if the Right for Riches company successfully destroyed the Settites.  Wicktrimmer was non-committal.

Trying to keep their delve dates and times unpredictable, the Right for Riches company left at midnight on Demmasday.  Uvash wasn't happy about having to get up in the middle of the night.  The lights were shining in the entrance to the Set level, so Vael turned invisible and Levitated up to spy on the Settites, with Basilisk climbing the wall nearby and Basilisk's bat familiar Sanguinette flying beside.  The Settites charged with raising and lowering the basket were out of sight from outside.  Then some red-robed Set cultists started waving lanterns and torches below, and the Settites at the top lowered the basket and hoisted 4 of them up.  After a brief whispered discussion with Vael, Basilisk cut the rope, and the basket and its four cultists fell a very long way and smashed into the ground below.  The remaining cultists who had been waiting for their turn in the basket ran away, but the Right for Riches company chased them down and killed them.

With their daily quota of Settites eliminated, the PCs crossed over the Swift River at the northern bridge, then climbed up the Long Stair toward the ruins of Arden Vul.  They left a Hand of Glory (an evil Settite magic item they didn't think they could safely use) on top of the dam as tribute to Craas the green dragon, then headed for the Pyramid of Thoth.  They manipulated the statue arms to open the trap door to the safer set of stairs down, and went down into the pyramid.  At the first large landing below they met a guard party of goblins, who said this was now goblin territory.  Vael said something about how they were the Right for Riches company and were allowed, and the goblin sergeant checked his notes and said they were indeed expected and should check in with Master Sergeant Bottleneck near the Glory of Weskenim.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, there was a closed door with a little window in it, and a goblin guard watching through the window.  After they announced themselves, the guard went to get Bottleneck, who let them in.  He seemed happy to see them, and gave Vael, Vallium, and Ioannes similar embroidered patches featuring a goblin impaling a halfling, commemorating the liberation of Upper Goblintown from the evil halflings.  (Uvash and Basilisk didn't get patches.)  Bottleneck pointed around the new goblin territory, warned the PCs about a couple of pit traps and the dangers of wandering zombies and Settites to the west, and said they were welcome to visit anytime.  He asked them to tell any other surface dwellers who wanted to visit the new goblin territory to bring booze.

Vael suggested a slight detour to the southwest to the small inside pyramid, because Vael wanted to cast Seeker to see if he could find the teleport control lever for the other pyramid on the Well of Light level, and figured that doing so while looking at an identical lever would improve his odds.  Sure enough, he got a vision of a lever sitting at the bottom of a wet pit, next to some kind of slimy monster, in the room with the Ruby Chair.  The group briefly discussed going after that lever, but decided that finding treasure in the new goblin territory was more urgent, in case the goblins found it first.

They went east, through the gray smelly mist, past the disgusting pool that the goblin guards called their new swimming pool, through a couple of secret passages, and into a room full of pillars.  They went east to where there were two adjacent doors that both led to known traps.  They opened the eastern door, which they knew led to a pit trap.  Vallium spiked it open, worried about self-closing doors.  They avoided the known pit trap, went to the end of the hall, tried to open a false door, and opened the known pit plus three previously unknown ones.  They were somewhat prepared for this, with Vallium secured to Uvash by a rope and Vael Levitating, so nobody actually fell in.  After verifying that none of the pits had anything useful inside and that the door was actually false, they went back out.

From there Vallium led them east toward the room of Prior Jacobus, which he said they'd never searched for treasure since helping Jacobus's ghost to his final rest.  Sure enough, when they found the room they found some very small orange Thothian robes, a key, a ring, and a couple of maps.  Vallium led the others through the rest of Jacobus's area, but they didn't find any other treasure.

Vael then cast Walk on Air on everyone, and everyone flew back across the Great Chasm to the west and searched the rooms there.  They found a magic stone chair again, but didn't sit in it.  They found a porch overlooking the chasm, with some abandoned rope and spikes.  There were also some stairs down, which they didn't take, but while they were searching the area, some huge spiders dropped from above and tried to eat Vallium.  Unfortunately for the spiders, his scale armor was stronger than their teeth, and he quickly recovered from surprise and killed all of them.

Going south from the porch, Ioannes found a secret door, and Vallium went through it and fell in a pit trap.  It hurt a bit, but his armor cushioned the fall.  The pit was full of a bunch of corpses and their equipment, so Vallium started looting, and Vael flew in to help identify the treasure.  The pit closed over their head before they were done, but they yelled up to have the others re-open it, then came out.

Continuing west, they found another secret door, leading them back to the giant stone chair overlooking the Chasm that Ioannes had previously sat in.  This time they avoided the chair and Vael cast more Walk on Air spells to help everyone fly up the chasm.  The spotted a room on the far side with another, much bigger stone chair.  That room had a large stela on the floor, featuring a carving of some kind of large biped with horns, surrounded by some glyphs in a totally unknown language.  Vael thought the language looked similar to the one on the orange oval object he had purchased in the goblin market.  They decided not to explore that room or its exits and went back to the Chasm.

Continuing north and west up the Chasm, they spotted a narrow passage heading east that Vael's Wizard Eye had spotted last week, but didn't follow it.  They then found a secret door on the west wall, in the area where they were hoping for treasure based on Seek Earth and Seek Magic castings.  Everyone went into the short secret passage, and Ioannes found a second secret door, into a room with treasure piled on the floor.  Vael opened it, and a needle trap failed to poke through his armor.  There was a big chest full of ancient coins, a matched pair of magic rugs, a bunch of alabaster vases and a silver ibis and a golden feather, a cleric scroll with a previously unknown and powerful spell to raise the sanctity level of an area, and a book in an unknown language.  They shoveled all the treasure into their magic bags.

A dead end passage south looked like an obvious place for another secret door, but there was no obvious way to open it.  Everyone looked, and then Vael tried a Lockmaster spell, but nothing worked.  Uvash suggested a pickaxe, but that seemed like too much effort so Vael used a Shape Earth spell.  That opened a hole into a larger room, containing two normal-sized white marble sargophagi and a huge black basalt sarcophagus.  There were also a couple of man-sized statues of spearmen.  When Vallium went into the room, the statues animated and charged.

A short fight ensued, where Vallium stabbed the statues while Basilisk glided down from the ceiling while attempting to stun them with kiai yells.  Once both constructs were smashed, the group continued into the room to look at the large sarcophagus.  It had a Mithric inscription saying “Ptoh-Ristus, Servant of the Lord Thoth, Knower of Secrets and Founder of these Halls”.  Vallium removed the lid, at which point the lids of the other two sarcophagi popped off and two mummies came out.

There were then two somewhat separate fights, with Vallium and Vael fighting the southern mummy and Uvash and Ioannes fighting the northern one, with Basilisk gliding around and yelling kiai at whichever one was closer.  One of the mummies hit Uvash pretty hard once, then knocked his Bless spell off with another punch.  Vael cast Great Haste on Vallium, who finished off one mummy then ran across the room to help with the other one.  Eventually Vallium downed it, while Uvash and Ioannes cautiously defended themselves.

The large sarcophagus contained another mummy, this one inert, with a magical golden death mask.  It also held some coins and some doll-sized furniture, including a tiny magic chair.  The group took everything that looked valuable, but Vael was suspicious they might be missing something, so used a charge from the Wand of See Secrets.  This didn't find any more treasure, but it showed a secret door in the southeast of the room, a huge falling stone block trap inside the secret door, and a bunch of poison dart traps along two walls.  Vael avoided touching any of the trapped areas and used magic to open the secret door, then Levitated down the secret passage to finish mapping the area.  It led back to an area he already knew, so he returned to the group.

With a decent amount of treasure found and everyone feeling tired, the group rested a bit, then Vael cast Walk on Air on everyone again.  They continued north up the Chasm until they reached a goblin-occupied room, where they greeted the goblin guards then walked over to the Glory of Thoth and up the stairs to the Pyramid of Thoth.  They then headed back to Gosterwick.

GM's Comments:

The players knew (due to knowledge magic) there was gold, platinum, and magic in the area southeast of the former halfling territory, but not exactly where, but they did a pretty good job of staying on target and using their map to search for secret doors until they found it.  They actually found the "back door" from the chasm to the Tomb; the "front door" that they didn't find until the end was actually much more dangerous as it had the worst traps, including the 10'x10'x10' stone block of "if this lands on you, you are just dead.  We don't need to roll the damage."

Two of the magic items they found in the tomb were very interesting.  The pair of magic rugs were Rugs of Instant Access, which allow teleportation from one to the other.  This seemed very useful, but they weren't sure about the exact limits yet.  The Death Mask of Ptoh-Ristus had a bunch of useful powers (Infravision, See Secrets, Will bonus, bonus to detect lies and illusions), but also some remaining magic that appeared very difficult to identify, as Vael and Lyssanra and Pelteon all failed.  We'll see if the Right for Riches company sells these items or keeps them for use.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 6 new locations, good for 1 XP
• Loot: Looks like 1 XP if they don't sell the good magic items, 2 XP if they do
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total:  Probably 2 XP

Does Goblintown Count as Town?

The Right for Riches company has now visited Goblintown twice, and they are currently friendly with King Weskenim and the goblins.  At the end of the last session, one of the players asked me if Goblintown counts as "Town".  I thought for a second, and said "not yet."

What is Town?  Town is a place where you can safely rest for a week between delves (so no significant risk of dangerous random encounters).  There are other things PCs want in a Town (like stores and healers and trainers), but I think safety and a place to rest are the absolute bare minimum.

Goblintown seems pretty safe and friendly, but the PCs haven't fully explored it yet, so they can't be sure it's safe, so it's not considered Town yet.  Also, they haven't found a place in Goblintown where they can sleep yet, so even if it were safe, it wouldn't be appropriate for a whole week of downtime, just for a short visit.

On a meta level, for a game where not all the players are available every session and some players control multiple PCs, another purpose for Town is to have a way to swap out PCs between sessions.  For that purpose, you want there to either be exactly one Town where all the PCs stay between sessions, or multiple Towns with totally safe travel between them, so you can handwave the logistics.  The path between Gosterwick and Goblintown currently requires traversing some dangerous wilderness and dungeon, so even if Goblintown itself counted as Town, having some of the PCs in Gosterwick and others in Goblintown would be a bit of an issue.

So what would the PCs have to do to make Goblintown count as town?  First they'd have to explore it fully enough to be sure that it didn't contain hostile random encounters.  Second they'd need to find a place to sleep.  Third, they'd either have to gather all the PCs together in Goblintown, or find a safe way to travel back and forth to Gosterwick.  If they achieve all three of those goals, then Goblintown becomes Town, just like Gosterwick, but with a shorter commute to the rest of the dungeon.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 26: The Scouring of the Shire

 

Date: 

Lunday, 1st of Besemios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cool, 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)

Lacrymosa, Elf Grudge Brigade mercenary archer (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Craastonistorex, green dragon

Briar, Wyvern

Giant Tick

Phlebotomas Plumthorn, Halfling mob boss

Roskelly Winterleaf, Halfling toll collector and mob lieutenant

Blandveg, Archontean mage, alchemist, and poisoner

Many halfling fighters

Many halfling thieves

Many goblin fighters

Bottleneck, goblin sergeant

Killick, goblin Big Boss of the Wet Caves

Weskenim, Grand King of the United Goblins

Gribble, goblin prince

Palestrim, goblin major-domo

Skimmel, goblin advisor

Reeflik, goblin advisor

Sir Sorrow, Sun-Scarred Knight

Huguette, varlet to Sir Sorrow

Rizzit, demon

Claudine of Narsileon, Archontean arms merchant

Thorgrim the Easy, Wiskin food and drinks merchant

Leifcrim, halfling curios and magic items merchant

The Right for Riches company decided it was finally time to take down Plumthorn's extortionist halfling gang.  But they waited until the Lunday after the Voluptarian Days intercalary period to go back to Arden Vul.  Uvash was unexpectedly ill (some suspected a hangover after the harvest festivals, but that was also unusual for a dwarf), so they hired Lacrymosa the mercenary archer from the Grudge Brigade.

They woke up very early, with the goal of arriving at the base of the Cliff Face beneath the ruins of Arden Vul around dawn.  Vael Levitated himself and a Living Wheelbarrow containing a Bag of Holding up the cliff, while the others roped themselves together for safety and climbed the Long Stair.  As they walked north through the ruins of Arden Vul, a huge green shape flanked by a merely large green shape appeared overhead, then dropped down in front of them into the Forum of Arden Vul.  It was Craastonistorex the green dragon, and he was angry.  He informed them that Someone Had Messed With the Water Level Again, and that as Wardens of the Dam, it was their job to keep that from happening.  He also informed them that they were late with their tribute.  Vael apologized, said they'd fix the dam right away, and that they'd bring tribute next week.  Craastonistorex said that next week wasn't soon enough, and he needed a magic item now or he would eat one of them.  Lacrymosa set down a potion.  Craastonistorex appeared to consider eating her for such a paltry gift, but magnanimously let it slide, as Briar the wyvern picked up the potion in his claws.  The dragon repeated his instruction to fix the water level immediately, and flew away, flanked by his pet.

The group immediately headed for the dam.  They saw their lock was gone from the door.  Inside the dam, all the tools they had been storing were gone.  Vallium immediately used the dam controls to reset the water level to the dragon's preferred setting.  Meanwhile, Vael cast Seeker looking for the wheelbarrow they had kept in the dam, and saw that it was in Newmarket, about 30 miles to the South.  He then cast Trace to prepare to hunt down the thieves, but they realized 30 miles was a long walk and keeping the spell up that long was impractial, and let it lapse.  He finally used Shape Earth to close some of the dam's stonework over the door, so that nobody else could easily go in and manipulate the water level again.

Vallium led the group to the basement entrance southwest of the Pyramid of Thoth.  As they walked through the ruined basement, a giant tick (roughly the size of a large dog) attempted to surprise and eat Lacrymosa.  She saw it coming, didn't deign to waste any arrows on it, and called from help while running away.  Michael, nearby, pulled out his sword and chopped the vermin in half.  The group then continued north through the basement and down the spiral stairs.  Halfway down the spiral stairs to the Halls of Thoth, Vallium tripped over a tripwire, connected to some bells.  He did not fall, but the bells made a lot of noise.  The others stepped over the tripwire, but they were worried that whoever placed the tripwire was now alerted to their presence.

At the bottom of the stairs, Vael cast Keen Vision to reduce the chance of further surprise, and cast Bracteros Effect on his Continual Light rock so that nobody could see it from a distance.  He asked the others to put their lights away, and then moved up to the front next to Vallium to look for trouble.  The group continued south and east until they were near the cavern, then halted to discuss tactics.  After some discussion Vael borrowed Lacrymosa's Lion's Cloak to gain Infravision, cast Wizard Eye, cast Invisibility on it, and sent the invisible Wizard Eye down the chasm to investigate.  The Eye peeked into the first room full of halflings and saw three guards by the chasm and several other halflings within the room.  It continued south and peeked in the second room, spying Plumthorn, Blandveg, and three more guards.  It continued south further and found another chasm exit on the east side of the chasm, then a couple of rooms they had previously found even further south, then winked out of existence as Vael decided not to maintain the spell.

With the Wizard Eye confirming that Plumthorn and Blandveg were there, they finalized the plan.  Vallium would drink a Flight Potion, Vael would cast Flight on Michael and maintain Levitation on himself, Vael would cast Invisibility on all the others and use Larel's Cloak to make himself invisible, and Vallium and Michael would carry Ioannes and Lacrymosa across the chasm.  They would attempt to bypass the first room full of halflings and enter the room with Plumthorn and Blandveg, kill those leaders, and then induce the other halflings to surrender.  While the others discussed the plan, Lacrymosa drank a Strength Potion and an Agility Potion and cast a Concussion spell, holding the small magical stone.

Flying from the Chasm into Plumthorn's room

The group flew invisibly and silently past the first group of halfings, and into the room with the leaders.  Lacrymosa threw the Concussion at the three halfling chasm guards, stunning two of them and knocking the third unconscious.  She then put an arrow into Blandveg's heart, killing him quickly.  Michael dropped her and flew toward Plumthorn, while Vallium dropped Ioannes and flew toward Plumthorn, leading with his shield.  Plumthorn was a bit slow to react, and took a shield to the face from Vallium, knocking him prone, then a hard sword blow, wounding him and causing him to move slowly.

As Michael flew in to help finish off Plumthorn, the halfling leader asked for a parley.  While the negotiations commenced, Lacrymosa brutally put arrows into the eyes of both stunned halflings, killing them.  She they saw two halfling guards behind the portcullis 40 yards to the west charging toward the battle, and shot both of them too, this time going for vitals instead of eyes.  Plumthorn asked a lot of questions, while Vallium asked for unconditional surrender in return for the lives of Plumthorn and his surviving followers.  Roskelly led his followers from the Glory of Thoth through the portcullis.

Shooting West toward the Portcullis

Vael, still invisible, attempted to intimidate Plumthorn by explaining that everyone else in the room was dead and the reinforcements to the west were also dead and any other reinforcements who appeared in the hall would also be dead and he had better surrender soon.  Possibly because of the effects of Larel's Cloak, this was very effective, and Plumthorn gave up and yelled to the others to surrender.  Roskelly decided to run rather than surrendering, and Lacrymosa didn't like that, and shot him many, many times, not stopping even after Roskelly was clearly very dead.  Nobody else ran after that.

Ioannes cast Stop Bleeding on Plumthorn to keep him from bleeding out, and then the group stripped all the halflings of all their armor, metal weapons, and valuables, allowing them to keep their clothes and very cheap weapons like clubs and slings.  Vael instructed Plumthorn to lead his survivors out of Arden Vul, all the way back to Newmarket, and never come back or they would be killed.  The halflings filed up the stairs, leaving behind a giant pile of smelly extra small leather armor, spears, shortswords, and knives.

Vael and Vallium went south to parley with the goblins on the other side of the barricade separating halfling and goblin territory.  They informed the goblins that all the halfling territory would become goblin territory, and to send a messenger to King Weskenim.  The goblin sergeant, Bottleneck, was very excited by this news, and sent one of his warriors running down the tunnel to the Wet Caves.

Vael re-cast Keen Vision and went through all the halfling rooms.  In one sarcophagus, he found a secret compartment that the halflings seemed to have missed, with some treasure inside.  He used one of Plumthorn's keys to open Plumthorn's chest and found some more loot.  He found one wall that looked like new construction, but didn't find any secret doors in it.  Finally, Vael went to the approximate center of the halfling territory and cast Seek Earth for both platinum and gold, and Seek Magic.  All three spells pointed the same way, around 30 yards southeast, which did not correspond to a known room, so they noted that as a place to search for later.

The group then went west into the Glory of Thoth and searched the unexplored rooms that directly connected to it.  One led to a false door that opened a pit trap, but Vael had Levitation on and Vallium was quick enough to grab the edge of the pit as he fell, so nobody was hurt.  Another room was full of trash, and they decided not to spend much time searching it, since the Seek Earth and Seek Magic hadn't found anything there.  A third room contined both a Thothian teleportation circle and a magical bust floating in the air.  The bust could not be moved or taken, and did not respond to conversation, so they left it for now.

As the party finished their searches, the goblin sergeant Bottleneck came back up to the barricade.  He said his messenger had informed Killik, the Big Boss of the Wet Caves, who had gone to see King Weskenim, but they had not heard back from the King yet.  Vael advised that the goblins could take their new territory but should not go west of the Glory of Thoth because there were Settites there.  The group then followed a goblin guide down to the Wet Caves, then down to Goblintown.  The goblin led them over a frail bridge (none of the big people broke through), and over to the Goblin Court.  Killik was there, waiting for King Weskenim to come out of his harem.

A few minutes later, the King emerged from the harem room, spoke to Killik, went into his audience room, spoke to his advisors, then invited the Right for Riches company in.  He informed them that he was very happy that the rightful goblin territory had been restored, and rewarded them with a large perfect diamond.  He also said that he still owed them a reward for freeing his brother Gribble from Set prison, and pointed at a human-sized set of magical scale armor on display.  It was the armor of a huge ancient goblin king, but it was too big for Weskenim, so he was awarding it to them.

At that point Vael started negotiating with the king.  He would happily present the former halfling territory to the goblins, but wanted free passage through goblin territory.  The king agreed, but said that some goblin territory was dangerous so they should get an escort.  Vallium asked about Gislu and the Scepter of the Goblins.  The king said that Gislu was some kind of fake mystic and the Scepter seemed like a ploy to steal power, and it might not exist, but if it did exist, it was the rightful property of the king and he would reward them for finding it.  They also asked about the Regalia that the Green Lady was looking for, but the goblin king didn't know anything about that.  Weskenim also noted that he had a guest room that was currently occupied by a Sun-Scarred Knight, but that if the occupants moved on, the Right for Riches company would be welcome to use it.  In the meantime they would be welcome to visit the Goblin Great Hall for shopping and dining.  Vael also asked about the Troll Lifts, and the king said they were east of the goblin territory in the Wet Caves and Killick could point out the way.  And also that the trolls preferred to be called varumani.

The group asked if they could meet the Knight, so an escort took them to the guest room nearby.  The door was opened by a large angry woman with magical armor and an axe, who didn't appear to want visitors.  She was overruled by her superior, Sir Sorrow, an equally large but less angry woman who invited the company into the guest room.  She was wearing amazingly heavy armor of a type the group had never seen, plates like a giant lobster which looked like they were probably impervious to harm.  A long discussion ensued, about who the Sun-Scarred Knights were, their role in preserving the peace within the Halls, what the elimination of the halflings meant, what the attacks on the Setties could do, the leader of the Knights, where they could get some armor like that, etc.

At the conclusion of the conversation, the company said farewell to Sir Sorrow, and were led by a random goblin guide east then north past Rizzit the imprisoned creepy purple wax demon (who asked to be freed) then down a spiral staircase then into the Goblin Great Hall.  This was a huge cave filled with many goblins, quite a few goats, and probably some other creatures.  There was also a huge bonfire in the middle, which some goblins were using for cooking.  There were several merchants set up behind tables in the southeast corner, so the group went that way for some shopping.

The first merchant was an Archontean woman selling weapons and armor, but nobody saw anything magical, so they kept walking.  The second merchant was an angry Wiskin guy selling food and drink, but nobody was hungry. The third merchant was a halfling named Master Leifcrim selling curios, and a couple of them looked magical, so they stopped to shop.  He ended up selling them another Returning Pebble (and explained that if a proper sales contract was written out, the magic of the pebble somehow knew that it had a new owner and would return to them), another magic fish-shaped rod of unknown use (but probably something to do with boats), and a small non-magical orange oval object made of a strange substance (it felt kind of like insect chitin) with strange glyphs and no known use.  They weren't sure they wanted the orange thing, but Leifcrim hinted that he had some really good magical items for really rich good customers, so they paid full price for the orange thing hoping that would lead to good deals in the future.

At that point, it was time to go back to Gosterwick, so the Right for Riches Company took their wheelbarrow and magical bags full of halfling loot and headed back up the stairs, then up the slope to the Glory of Thoth, then up the stairs to the surface and down the cliff.  They did not see Plumthorn or his followers on the way.

GM's Comments:

They finally got around to taking out the halflings.  It would have been a hard battle if it had happened months ago.  At this point, with the combination of a good ambush plan, flight and invisibility magic, and Lacrymosa (enhanced to superhuman strength and dexterity with potions and also using a Bless spell) shooting everything that moved, it wasn't very hard at all.  Plumthorn tried to negotiate, from a position of weakness, until Vael's critical success on an Intimidation roll showed him that he would be very dead very soon if he didn't give up immediately.

King Weskenim was happy to be gifted the halfling territory and rewarded them with free passage, loot, information, and an introduction to Sir Sorrow.  Sir Sorrow told them a bit about her order, the Sun-Scarred Knights, and the balance between factions in the Halls.

Achievements:

• Quest bonus: 1 XP for eliminating Plumthorn's Halflings
• Iconic location bonus: 1 XP for reaching the Court of the Goblin King and the Great Hall of the Goblins

XP:

• Exploration: 6 new locations, good for 1 XP
• Loot: 2 XP (diamond, whole bunch of halfling stuff)
• Achivements: 2 XP
• Total: 5 XP

Next Week:

With the halflings eliminated, the Right for Riches company needs to pick a new goal.  Do they explore more of the former halfling territory, explore more of Goblintown proper, go looking for the Troll Lifts, or resume their war against the Cult of Set?  I have no idea.