DFRPG Arden Vul Session 56: War Against Kerbog Khan

Date:

Demmasday 12th of Toternios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Hot, overcast

Player Characters:

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

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Lacrymosa, Elven mercenary archer (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Pelteon, Archontean wizard and co-owner of the Arcane Practitioners' Club

Onyx, cat

Fael, half-elven druid

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Dragonfly construct of Kerbog Khan

Explorer constructs of Kerbog Khan

Battle constructs of Kerbog Khan

Doorkeeper construct of Kerbog Khan

Nurse construct of Kerbog Khan

Borer construct of Kerbog Khan

2 Child constructs of Kerbog Khan

Paratus, Head of Thoth, former logothete

The Plan:

• Feed the baboons
• Find and kill Kerbog Khan

What Happened:

Ioannes had a scheduled therapy session with Akla-Chah, who diagnosed that he was afraid of women, and prescribed a medicinal dose of Rudishva aquavit from the Nutri-Vore 2500.  Fortified with the aquavit, Ioannes teleported back to the Arcane Practitioners' Club and asked Pelteon to go for a walk with Onyx and him.  They had a nice walk, and she brought Onyx a whole lake trout in her Bag of Holding.  Pelteon told Ioannes that he was a good guy but she had two conditions if he wanted to date.  She wanted joint custody of Onyx even if things didn't work out, and he had to tell her where the mysterious Rug of Instant Access in their room led.

Ioannes then paid Fael for a Speak with Animals spell so that he and Pelteon and Onyx could have a conversation.  Onyx said that he liked Pelteon as a person and was happy to spend more time with her, but he needed to speak to her as his landlord.  The Arcane Practitioners' Club had too many interior doors that he could not open, and he either needed some of them removed or cat-sized holes made in them, so that he could freely move about his territory without having to constantly ask people for help.  Pelteon said she'd have to ask Lyssandra about the doors.  Ioannes said he'd have to ask the rest of his Company about sharing the secret of the Rug.

The whole Right for Riches company was at the Gosterwick Market on Demmasday, spread out looking for anything interesting, when the Command Bracelet alerted Vael of an incoming call from Akla-Chah.  She said that Basil had been in the library and had heard noise in the workshop, like something knocking things off of shelves.  He thought it could just be rats, but he wasn't sure, so he hadn't opened the door and had gone to tell Akla-Chah instead.  Vael started sending Message spells to the rest of the Company and to Lacrymosa at the Grudge Brigade to meet at the Arcane Practitioners' Club and go check on the Beacon.  

Vallium, the fastest runner in the company, didn't wait for the others.  He sprinted to the Arcane Practitioners' Club, then up the stairs to their rooms, where Basil was standing next to the Rug.  Basil repeated the story about noise in the workshop and said that Akla-Chah had told him to teleport to Gosterwick.  Vallium went thorough the Rug, then ran south down the passage to the workshop.  Inside were a dragonfly automaton watching the door and a spider-shaped exploration automaton, which was scooping up their entire collection of Rudishva laser rifles.  The exploration automaton teleported out with the stolen artifacts, while Vallium chopped the dragonfly automaton in half.  The rest of the group rushed in a few seconds later.

Vael tried a Seeker spell to find the location of Kerbog Khan, using the broken dragonfly construct as a focus, but it didn't work.

Knowing that Kerbog Khan had found the Beacon, the company went back to Akla-Chah on the lower level, and Ioannes went back through the Rug to get Basil.  They announced a new plan: skip feeding the baboons, and just go find Kerbog Khan.  They assigned Basil to watch the workshop in case any of Kerbog Khan's constructs returned, but told him to have his Lover's Token ready so he could alert Vael if they did, and then to just run back to Akla-Chah's room and close doors behind him to keep any intruders from the most sensitive parts of the Beacon.

The group went through the Rudishva teleporter to the Cloister, then went through the secret passage and down a level, then over to the magic pool of disturbingly yellow liquid near the Tomb of Marius.  Everyone except Ioannes drank from it.  Vael and Uvash and Vallium got buffs, but Lacrymosa got her dexterity reduced.  Next they climbed up the suspiciously perfectly round sloping passage toward the Rudishva medical pod.  They went back to the room where they had fought the invisible stalkers and the surgical construct and freed Gevorda, and tried the exits they had not tried before, but both were locked.  Not wanting to waste time, they searched a few more rooms then found some vertical lift shafts, which were disabled.  Vael and Vallium Levitated up, Ioannes flew up using the cloak with magic bat wings, and Vallium dropped a rope so Uvash and Lacrymosa could climb up.

They explored a bit of the upper level of the medical pod, and found a looted room with a hole in the ceiling.  Levitating up through the hole, Vael and Vallium found they were on the algae-covered roof of the medical pod, and there was water to the north.  They flew around a bit and found a porch to the north, with some kind of construct in front of a strong door.  The construct started reciting some Kerbog Khan spiel about trade and how all deals must be sealed with blood.  They flew back to talk to the others.  Everyone except Lacrymosa drank a Resist Fire potion, and Vael cast See Invisible.  The others then stepped through the Rug to the Beacon, then Vael and Vallium flew north to the porch and brought the others through the Rug to join them, then Vallium walked over and stabbed the Doorkeeper construct until it stopped moving.

Vael tried a Lockmaster spell on the door, but it resisted.  Deciding Kerbog Khan's Magelock was too strong to defeat, they first considered a Shape Earth spell to make a hole in the wall, but decided that would be too expensive.  They switched tactics to brute force, and pulled a four-person portable battering ram out of Larel's Sack.  Everyone but Vael grabbed a handle, with Uvash pointing out where to aim the ram, and the door yielded after several blows.

Everyone followed Vallium down a passage to the north.  He spotted a construct ahead, which resembled a statue of a nurse.  Vallium paused to drink an agility potion.  Uvash stepped past him into the room and saw four more constructs waiting in the corners to ambush him.  Three of them were battle bots, and they started firing lasers at Uvash.  Enough lasers hit him that he probably would have been seriously burned, except for the Resist Fire potion.  Uvash feigned injury to encourage the bots to keep using the ineffective lasers.  Vallium joined Uvash in the room and they started attacking the battle bots.  Kerbog Khan, inhabiting one of the bots, cast some kind of death spell on Vallium, which defeated his resistance and his Luck, but Vallium was saved by his Bless.

One of the battle bots tried using its flamethrower on the group bunched up in the hallway.  Everyone except Lacrymosa had Resist Fire, but she had missed the message to drink a potion and got burned.  She fell, stunned.  Vallium and Uvash gradually defeated the battle bots and a bipedal exploration bot.  The nurse bot fled the room to the west and apparently disappeared.  Ioannes cast Stop Bleeding and Minor Healing and Awaken on Lacrymosa to bring her back into the fight.  Ioannes then re-Blessed Vallium.

With all visible constructs defeated, they explored the area.  There was a grille on the north wall, with a small enchanted varumani head behind it.  There was a small room to the west with a couple of statues and some spare parts on tables.  There were some stairs to the east, leading to a closed portcullis.  Uvash found a couple of levers, one of which opened the portcullis.  This led to a flimsy wooden bridge over the water to the east, then another portcullis.  Uvash hit the other lever and opened that one.

Beyond the second portcullis was a storage room full of stuff, some of it interesting looking.  As Vael and Vallium started investigating, a large construct shaped like a giant drill bit attempted to ambush them and bore holes in them.  It wasn't very stealthy, they saw it coming, and Vallium chopped it up.  There were exits north and south, but Vael thought Kerbog Khan was probably back to the west since that's where the levers were.  They grabbed only the lightest and most obviously valuable loot from the storage room, and went back west.

More searching revealed a secret door on the northern wall of the western room, which they could not open.  Vael Blinked blind through it, then found a handle on the other side and opened it.  A narrow passage led to a larger passage with many doors.  There were doors east and west, a door south back toward the grille room, and double doors leading north.

They went east and found a luxurious bedroom with carpets on the floor, walls, and ceiling.  Nobody was there, so they spent a bit of time searching the room, and took the most obviously valuable treasure.  East was a door to a stinky privy.  Vallium stepped inside so he could say he'd been in that room, they immediately left.  West was a sturdy locked door, that they ignored for the moment.

The double doors led to a large workshop.  Inside was the nurse construct, through which Kerbog Khan cast a death spell at Vael.  Once again, it defeated his resistance and Luck, but Bless saved him.  Lacrymosa filled it with arrows.  There were a couple of child-sized bipedal constructs hiding in a corner.  Vallium ran over and asked if Kerbog Khan could cast spells through them.  They said no, and Vallium spared them but told them to run away from the room.  Vael said this seemed like a poor decision to him, but did not attack the constructs.  They searched the room and found Kerbog Khan's Build-a-Bot workshop, a magical forge, a couple of summoning circles, some tools and building materials, a bunch of Rudishva power supplies, and what Vael identified as a power supply charger.  There was no sign of Kerbog Khan himself.  They found the broken body of the surgical bot, next to the pile of laser rifles that had been stolen from their workshop.  They retrieved their rifles.

Doubling back to the west room, they found it was colder than expected, due to a couple of magical cold balls up against a cabinet on the north wall.  On the south side of the room was a desk containing a crystal ball and an arcanum sphere with a finger-sized slot in it.  The cabinet contained many glass vials full of blood, with names on them.  The slot on the arcanum sphere seemed to match a vial.  The arcanum sphere was too heavy to take in one piece, so Uvash went through a Teleport Rug back to the Beacon to get a pickaxe.  He broke the arcanum sphere into smaller pieces, breaking one pickaxe in the process.  They took all the blood vials, the cold balls, the crystal ball, and the arcanum chunks back to the Beacon.  

Finally, they went through the south door.  In addition to the enchanted varumani head they had seen through the grille, there were many other heads in the room.  Most of them were just statue heads, but there were a few magical heads as well.  One was a Head of Thoth of some bureaucrat named Paratus.  One was a very foul-mouthed and rude shrunken head, which they destroyed.  They also destroyed the varumani head, with fire.  They kept an enchanted demon head and an enchanted devil head, but worried about both.

With all the known doors explored, they went back to the bedroom and used the battering ram to break the secure door.  This caused some screams from the privy; checking revealed the child constructs were hiding in there.  Beyond the secure door were five large stone bins, full of coins and gems.  They looted everything except the copper pieces.

With Kerbog Khan still not found, the group went back to the east, and found that the northern exit led to a slope down and the southern exit led to stairs up.  We paused at that point.

GM's Comments:

Kerbog's Khan's battle bots were not the best design, as their ranged weapons were lasers and a flamethrower, both stoppable by Resist Fire.  And their melee weapons were a spinning cutting blade and a needle, both stoppable by heavy armor.  Vael's decision to use a goat to test if Resist Fire was effective against laser fire was a good one.  Lacrymosa forgetting to drink her Resist Fire potion when everyone else drank theirs was a mistake, but she survived.

Whatever death spell Kerbog Khan cast was serious; it almost killed Vallium twice and Vael once.  They were both lucky to be Blessed.

Though they smashed several of his bots and took a lot of his treasure, the Right for Riches company has still not actually laid eyes on Kerbog Khan.

Achievements:

None yet, will be resolved next week.

XP:

None yet, will be resolved next week.

Next Week:

We paused in mid-delve, with the group still hunting for Kerbog Khan.  Will they find him?

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 55: Varboka the Varumani Thegn

Date:

Lunday 7th of Toternios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Hot, fair

Player Characters:

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

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Thrainor "Thronebreaker" Ironvein, mercenary dwarf (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI

Dragonfly construct of Kerbog Khan

Many Varumani

Gorlen, Varumani lift operator

Trijax, Varumani lift operator

Many ogre guards

Sir Prudence, Sun-Scarred Knight

Beavon, Sir Prudence's varlet

Fat Yeskim, goblin food seller

Jacoby, halfling barkeeper

Lyssandra of Newmarket, Archontean merchant

Coelrith, Archontean alchemist

Chaudri, Archontean relic dealer

Jordan, Thorcin jeweler

Skalla, Wiskin arms dealer

Hallar, Elvish scribe

Varboka, Thegn of the Varumani

6 Varumani housecarls

Poltergeist

3 ogres

Gribble, Goblin prince

Many goblins

Dworm, food merchant

The Plan:

• Meet with the Varumani Thegn
• Visit the Varumani Market
• Explore the cold area near the Varumani Lifts

What Happened:

Vael found a bronze Varumani passport for sale at Cleon's Curios and Pawnshop.  Despite already having an ancient plasteel Varumani passport, he immediately bought it.  The group went to the Grain Hall, where they purchased two live goats and two crates full of live chickens as gifts for the Varumani Thegn. 

The Church of Demma sent letters to all members of the Right for Riches company, asking for donations for the spring anti-childhood-hunger program.  Ioannes donated and got a personal thank-you from High Priest Vivian.  Vael and Vallium did not donate.

Uvash had church business and was not available to adventure.  The others hired Thronebreaker as a backup dwarf and went through the Teleport Rugs to the Beacon.  After sharing their delve plan with Akla-Chah and Basil, they used the Rudishva teleporter to the vault near the Cloister, then proceeded through the secret door from the Cloister to the western part of that level.

However, in the chamber with the slime pits, Ioannes spotted a dragonfly construct, watching and waiting.  Vael spoke to it, and a few minutes later, the distinctive voice of Kerbog Khan emerged.  The Khan seemed happy that the party had led his dragonflies to this secret area for his constructs to explore.  Vael was less happy and told the Khan not to have his dragonfly follow them.  Vael watched behind them as they walked away, but the dragonfly did not appear to be following.

They went down a slope to the level below, then through the cavern where they killed the gray slime and the rooms where they killed the rogue bestial varumani.  They took a detour through a secret door to the magic pool, where Vael and Vallium and Thronebreaker all took a drink.  (Ioannes did not.)  Vael and Vallium got temporary boosts to dexterity, and Thronebreaker got a permanent boost to health.  They continued east until they reached the barricade behind the Varumani Lifts.  They pounded on the barricade until Gorlen the lift operator asked who was there.  After identifying themselves, Gorlen let them through.  After some negotiation about the cost to transport the goats, Gorlen relented and said they could be moved for free if they were marked as the Thegn's property.  He was then rewarded by Vael and Vallium deciding to Levitate rather than paying to ride on the lift, so he only got to charge Ioannes and Thronebreaker.

Arriving at the other Lift station a level down, Trijax asked to see their passport.  Vael showed him both the modern and ancient passports.  Trijax tried to buy the ancient one, but Vael refused.  He said that they could all travel on one passport as long as they stayed together; anyone straying from the group could get in trouble.  He also noted that most of the varumani who didn't have critical jobs like standing guard or operating the Lifts were doing a Cleansing of the Sorrows ceremony today, so the visitors were unlikely to meet anyone important today.  However, they could still walk around public areas or go to the market and buy things from non-varumani shopkeepers.

From the Lifts they headed west past three statues of varumani, reaching a large columned hall.  The hall was quiet, but there was a Sun-Scarred Knight and his varlet present, along with a few ogre guards.  The Knight introduced himself as Sir Prudence, and his varlet as Beuvon.  He said that he was an emissary from the Knights to the Varumani, and asked about the party.  He recalled their names from Sir Sorrow and Sir Simonet.  They spoke a bit about the fall of the Settites and the new Goblin Forum.  Sir Prudence indicated that most of the varumani were doing a private holiday ritual so it would be a bad day to see them, but he pointed southeast and said the market was open.

The Varumani market was a large cave, with elevated wooden platforms and walkways erected about 20' above the floor, and then shops in small side caverns off the main cavern.  The party systematically visited all the shops.  One was a bar run by a halfling named Jacoby, where Vael bought an ale.  Another was a food stand run by a goblin named Fat Yeskim, where Vael and Ioannes got some stew.  They bought a Token of Arden, a book, and a random key from a man named Chaudri.  They got another book and a scroll of Pol's Endless Sneezes from an elf named Hallar.  After they got done shopping, they went back to the long hall and sat on the floor and waited for the varumani ceremony to finish.

Hours later, a few varumani appeared.  One approached the group and then led them north to a comfortable room, where some ogre guards took all their weapons.  A while later, the Thegn came in, flanked by several housecarls.  He dismissed the ogre guards, then greeted the visitors in accented Archontean and thanked them for the gifts of goats and chickens.  He quickly got to business, noting that Kerbog Khan had done unspeakable things to his sister Gevorda and needed to die for his crimes.  He also said that varumani politics were complicated and it was a bad time to declare war directly on the Khan, whose constructs were popular visitors to the Varumani Market, so he would like the outsiders, who had already demonstrated their power by defeating the Settites and Kerbog Khan's Invisible Stalkers and Surgical Construst, to kill the Khan for him.  He said that the Khan was probably also after them for destroying his surgical construct, so that taking him out was in their own best interests as well.  He would reward them with his friendship and any one item from his personal hoard.  (But not the treasure that belonged to the entire tribe.)  He said he had many magic items such as a Rod of Resurrection and Girdle of Strength and some magic armor and weapons sized for little people like them, plus some Rudishva relics including a Sky Sled.  He said that he expected the Khan to have a large stash of Rudishva power supplies, and asked that he receive half of any power supplies found.  He also noted the Rudishva Command Bracelet on Vael's risk and asked if it was for sale.  Vael said that it was not, at any price, and the thegn smiled.

Vael asked to confer with his team in private.  The thegn opened a door to the west and dismissed the ogre guards that were waiting in that chamber, making it available to the party.  They had a long conversation about which reward was best, but they were all in favor of going after Kerbog Khan.  They came back and asked the thegn for more details about the reward items and any intelligence about the Khan.  He said that, if they brought him the Khan's head, he would let them personally analyze the items for magical potency before picking one.  He didn't have much intelligence about the Khan's location beyond knowing it was near the surgical bay where they had rescued Gevorda.  He said the Khan would probably be hiding in his fortress, protected by many of his constructs, including some combat constructs.

After agreeing to the deal, Varboka asked to see the ancient passport that his ambassador had told him about.  Vael showed it to him, and Varboka was impressed.  He offered the group four modern bronze passports for the ancient one, saying the modern ones were just as good for entering varumani territory, but the ancient one was a historical relic of his people.  Vael and Vallium were reluctant to part with anything unique, but agreed to the deal, with the condition that if they found place where they really needed the ancient passport, the thegn would lend it back to them.  Then thegn unlocked a desk drawer and pulled out four modern bronze passports, issuing one to each of them.

With business concluded, Varboka said they could get their weapons back from the ogre guards to the west, and then left the room to the south, escorted by his housecarls.  After recovering their weapons from the ogres, the group went west into a cavern containing a lot of large mushrooms, with a few varumani picking mushrooms and a lot of varumani standing around talking.  They found a worked  passage that looked like Archontean construction, heading north and west from the cavern.  They followed it toward a door.  A varumani popped out of a small side cave and said something in varumani, that Vael caught as "bad juju don't go that way stupid."

Ignoring the possibility of bad juju, they listened at the door.  Vael then used Glass Wall to look through the door, seeing a room full of trashed furniture.  They opened the door, entered, and started poking around.  Some furniture flew at Vael, but went around him due to his Missile Shield amulet and flew at Thronebreaker instead, who dodged it.  There was also an aura of fear, which both resisted.  More furniture flew at Vallium, this time missing and heading for Ioannes, who blocked it.  Both resisted fear.  More furniture flew at Thronebreaker, who parried it, and again was not afraid.  Vallium ran around stabbing where he thought a hypothetical invisible creature throwing furniture at them might be standing.  Vael cast See Invisible on Vallium, while Ioannes started casting Affect Spirits.  Once the See Invisible spell took effect, Vallium spotted an the invisible poltergeist, then Vallium ran up to it and destroyed it with his sword.  It was dispelled with a scream.

Searching the room found nothing beyond broken furniture.  The group exited through a door to the west and saw a dead-end corridor.  Ioannes immediately said "obvious secret door" and everyone searched, but didn't find one.  They headed north, and found a room with some spiral stairs going up, and three ogres guarding it.  One ogre starting loudly banging on a cowbell, while the other two readied large round maces and attacked.

The ogres didn't last very long.  Vallium and Thronebreaker downed two of them quickly, then Thronebreaker terrified the third one into running away, and Vallium cut him down.  The ogres had a sack holding a mix of rotten apples, rotten potatoes, and gold coins.  The group took the sack, the maces, and the cowbell.

They went north and found a little side corridor with an Archontean teleportation ring.  They continued north and found a spot they had already mapped, where they had fought some wights.  They went east and found a room that looked like an old shrine to Isis, with a pile of bodies on the floor and a low-quality statue of Isis.  Ioannes investigated the bodies and decided that at least all the fresher ones had had all their blood drained.  The group investigated the walls for secret doors and the statue for anything interesting, but didn't find anything.  The floor felt a bit unstable, but didn't collapse.

They left and went back to the teleportation ring, then inserted some teleportation tiles in the correct order to teleport to south of the Red Bridge, near the Goblin Forum.  They walked north over the Red Bridge to the Forum, talked to Gribble and Dworm, went to their room nearby, and went through the Rug to the Beacon to get another wheelbarrow full of food.  They brought the food to Dworm to sell, keeping commerce flowing through the Forum.  They then went back to the Beacon, then back to Gosterwick.

GM's Notes:

This session was mostly talking to the merchants in the Varumani Market and to Varboka.  There was a decent amount of exploring Varumani territory, but very little treasure was found.  The poltergeist and the ogres didn't last long.

XP:

• Exploration: 19 rooms, 1 XP
• Loot: very little, 0 XP
• Achievements: none, 0 XP
• Total: 1 XP
• Note: Thronebreaker got +1 HT from a fountain, good for 10 XP

Next Week:

The PCs plan to possibly use a Seeker spell on Asrotelion, the mage they think was sent after Kerbog Khan, to help locate Kerbog Khan.  They will then try to find and kill Kerbog Khan.