DFRPG Arden Vul Session 72: Shadows

Date:

Tothsday 16th Jelenios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Cool, light rain

Player Characters:

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

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Lasselanta "Chrysalis" Ashcroft, Half-Elven mercenary martial artist (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Kaliyani scout

2 Off-white runny slimes

Rust-colored jelly-like slime

Unknown man with crossbow

Ecath, Varumani lift operator

2 Bestial Varumani lift assistants

Many shadows

Many vorantes demons

Greater vorantes demon

3 skeletal wights

Nalgi, Varumani hunter

The Plan:

• Cast Seeker and Trace on Klibo
• Find and kill the Bad Neighbors
• Search the nearby area

What Happened:

The Right for Riches company hired Chrysalis to help them hunt down the Bad Neighbors, the group that had ambushed them and forced them to flee.

Using a blood samples from Kerbog Khan's blood bank, Vael cast Seeker on Klibo, the alleged leader of the Bad Neighbors.  He saw Klibo and several other people they recognized in a cavern they didn't recognize, as some men in green berets tried to pull a dead body off a meat hook.  He followed up the Seeker with a Trace, so he could home in on Klibo's location.  From the Beacon, Vael felt like Klibo was below him.

From the Beacon, they used the Rudishva teleporter to teleport to the Bastion, off the bottom of the Great Chasm.  Vael felt like Klibo was above him and southeast.  Next they teleported to the Rudishva prison area.  From there, Vael thought Klibo was about the sample level, and southeast.  They teleported again to the Rudishva area where they'd killed the black goo, and Vael said Klibo was down and east. They teleported to the garden island floating in the Great Chasm, and Vael felt Klibo was down and southeast.

After all that teleporting, they decided to just fly down the Chasm.  Vael cast Levitation on himself and Walk on Air on everyone except Vallium (who had his Boots of Levitation) and then the group descended until Vael thought they were on the same level as Klibo.  At that point they started exploring along the edge of the Great Chasm, starting at the southeast.  They found a natural passage into the rock.  There was a sloping passage down, which they felt went too deep, so came back up.  There was a concealed door heading north.  Vael cast Glass Wall and saw a room with some of the small round Vorantes Demons, so they didn't go that way.

Doubling back, they flew up a ledge, where Vael's See Invisible spell spotted a kaliyani hiding on the floor.  He didn't respond to anything they said, except by throwing a javelin at Vael.  Chrysalis parried it.  Vael cast Wall of Lightning around the kaliyani, who tried throwing more javelins through it.  Eventually they tired of the kaliyani and Vael cast Shape Air to blow it through the Wall of Lightning, doing damage.  Vallium then killed it.  They took its fangs, javelins, and silver jewelry.

They went back out to the Great Chasm and kept exploring along the walls, when they were ambushed by three slimes.  Two of them were off-white and running, while the other was rust-colored and jelly-like in consistency.  Vallium killed two of the slimes, Chrysalis killed the other, and they continued exploring the Chasm.  Eventually they found an offshoot of the Chasm to the east, which ended at an arrow slit.  Looking within, Vael spotted a man with a crossbow, looking south through a different arrow slit.  The man didn't look like a Bad Neighbor, so they decided to keep exploring.

They went south and found a landing, with graffiti on the walls.  They read one, which said "The First Adept will

pay for specimens of plants and animals" in Varumani.  They heard conversation in Varumani to the south, and went that way and found the bottom terminus of the Varumani Lifts.  The operator there was named Ecath.  He asked how they got down there without taking the Lift, and they said they flew.  Vael asked if he had seen their "friends" and he said he had not.  They asked him for information, and he said there was an old temple to the north, and they had better bring good lights if they went east.

They went east. down some stairs, and then through a room with columns down the center and raised areas north and south.  The room was brightly lit with orangish Perpetual Light.  The raised areas contained eight circles of rose quartz.  They powered past the room, ignoring the circles.  On the far side, some stairs down led to a statue of Anubis, holding an ebony staff in one hand and a magical golden torch in the other.  Beyond the torch's light, the room beyond was pitch black.  As they approached the darkness, the light from their Continual Light stones didn't penetrate the darkness.  Vael cast Dark Vision on everyone, and then they could see into the darkness.  He then grabbed the torch, which welded itself to his hand.  It was another one of those cursed blacklight torches.  As he took the torch, another one appeared in the statue's hand.

In the darkness they saw some shadows moving around, staying back from the torch.  Vallium readied his Ghost Weapon broadsword, while Ioannes cast Affect Spirits on several other weapons.  Vallium threw the Returning Javelin at a shadow, wounding it.  When the javelin returned, all the shadows fled to the edges of the room.

Deciding they could not just kill all the shadows from range, the group advanced into the darkness.  The shadows charged them.  The blacklight torch in Vael's hand didn't work in the darkness.  A long fight ensued, but the combination of Dark Vision and Affect Spirits negated the shadows' main advantages, and they were defeated.  However, as the last shadowsl, some skeletal wights entered the room from the east, along with some vorantes demons from the south.  The battle continued, and as the wights and demons fell, some more shadows attacked.  Finally, some more of the small vorantes demons poured in, along with one larger vorantes demon.  When those were defeated, the attacks stopped.

Vallium led the group back to the light of the statue to rest and recover.  While they were there, they heard the call of a varumani from the west.  It was Nalgi, one of the hunters, and he was looking for kaliyani.  Vael informed him of the kaliyani scout they had killed to the south, and Nalgi offered to buy the kaliyani's fangs and save them a trip to varumani territory.

After Nalgi went back to the Lift, the group decided to temporarily suspend their search for the Bad Neighbors to search and loot the area.  They didn't find any more enemies.  They did find a dozen rooms, including two secret rooms.  There were a bunch of mundane weapons and armor, a couple of suits of magic armor, a magic broadsword that shocked both Vallium and Vael when they picked it up, a magic crossbow missing its string, a pile of gold coins, a few gems, some potions and scrolls, some rugs and furniture, and an odd book called The Honey Project about raising giant bees.  They also found a Thothian Teleportation Circle, which Vallium found in their book of teleportation circle addresses, so they could return to it.

After thoroughly looting the area, everyone but Vael went through a Teleportation Rug back to the Beacon, then Vael turned off all his spells, picked up the Rug, and cast Pol's Recall to join them.  They had failed to find the Bad Neighbors.  However, they had found, cleared, and looted a new area.

GM's Comments:

I think this combat had the most groups of reinforcements since the PCs took down the Forum of Set.  It's amusing when the players think they're about to win, but then it's time for More Shadows.  It wasn't that hard a combat, though, because of the ability to spam Dark Vision and Affect Spirits.  Without those spells, it would have been brutal.  (But the shadows didn't want to get too close to the statue, so retreat would have been an option.)

The way I interpret the Trace spell, it gives a direction but not a distance.  So it helps a lot to find someone, but doesn't make it completely trivial, if the local terrain is complicated enough.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 21 new locations, 2 XP
• Loot: A decent amount, 1-2 XP depending on how much they sell
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: 3-4 XP

Next Week:

No game; GM on vacation.

In Two Weeks:

They're planning to resume their pursuit of the Bad Neighbors.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 71: Exploring the Rudishva Teleportation Network

Date:

Tothsday 9th Jelenios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Cool, mostly sunny

Player Characters:

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

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Rudishva dust ionizer

Black goo creature

2 black goo skeletons

Several chasm cephalopods

Stone nataraja

2 Rudishva point defense arrays

Several heqeti slime zombies

Many baindara

2 giant rudishva skeletons

2 wraiths

Ghost of Paimu the Chanter

Fire nataraja

Many goblins

Ichthelon, Ptoh-Ristus of Thoth

Remagis, priest of Thoth

2 Guardians of Thoth

Many ogre guards

Many varumani

Otyugh

The Plan:

• Explore as much as possible of the Rudishva teleportation network
• Search for non-Rudishva loot

What Happened:

Uvash had church business.  The rest of the Right for Riches company decided to explore the Rudishva teleporters.  Vallium compiled their maps and noted teleporters that they had not yet taken.

First they used the teleporter from the Beacon to the Bastion.  They used Salamander Amulets to bypass the fire trap, then recovered the dust ionizer bot, which they had brought to the Bastion to charge.  They also brought a palm-locked chest to try opening it with the hands of Rudishva corpses in the Bastion, but this failed.

Next, they took the eastern teleporter in the Bastion, which took them to a teleport nook near the a prison facility.  They went through the other teleporter there, which led to a previously unexplored area full of destroyed Rudishva technology.  While there, a creature made of black goo animated two skeletons with some of its goo, then both the primary blob of goo and its two skeletons attacked.  Vallium stabbed them a lot, while Vael lobbed Magical Bolts from a wand at them, until they were destroyed.

Ioannes and Vael searched a large pile of debris nearby and found several minor treasures and Rudishva artifacts, while Vallium stood guard, facing a nearby small chasm.  Some chasm cephalopods rushed Vallium from the chasm, but he was alert, and rushed forward to stab the largest one.  This knocked it out and caused it to fall into the chasm, and then all the smaller cephalopods fled.  Vallium Levitated back up using his magic boots.  When Vael and Ioannes declared that they were done searching, they all flew across the chasm, and on the western side of the chasm found some stairs leading up.  They led to an iris door.

When Vael opened the door using his yellow Rudishva identity plaque, a stone nataraja on the other side jumped at them, ignoring the plaque, and attacked Vael with its scimitar.  Vael Blinked away, while Vallium chopped it to bits.  On the far side of the door was a Rudishva room containing a Nutri-vore food dispenser, a couple of non-functional entertainment consoles, and a Rudishva board game.  They grabbed some Desert Avian Flavored nutrient cakes from the Nutri-vore, then explored the rest of the complex.  There were five more rooms.  One was a laboratory, with some destroyed consoles and some intact futuristic lab equipment.  One was a bedroom, with a video recorder and a few data crystals.  One of the crystals indicated that they had found the correct chemical reaction to fuel a shuttle for interstellar flight.  One was a bunkroom, with a couple of bulky green sealed suits.  One was a control room, with a destroyed console, some Rudishva and Kaliyani bodies, and some kind of one-person high-tech vehicle with skis mounted on brackets to the wall.  Vallium was able to lift the vehicle, and carried it through a Teleport Rug back to the beacon.  The final room was an entry corridor with a couple of point defense arrays.  They tracked the group but did not fire.  Vallium cautiously backed out of the room, drank a Potion of Fire Resistance, put on his Amulet of Missile Shield, then entered the room alone.  The arrays fired many small projectiles at him, which all missed thanks to the amulet.  Vael then saw the arrays on his Command Bracelet, and told them to stand down.  He then reprogrammed them to not fire at anyone holding a Rudishva identity plaque.  There were some stairs out of the entry corridor, but they decided not to go that way.

With the Rudishva area explored and looted, they went back down the stairs.  They took another set of stairs up, which led to an area they had explored, near the Rudishva Cloister.  They went back down and took the last teleporter in the area, which led to a dark room containing two teleporters and an iris door.  They opened the iris door and found that they were on a floating island in the center of the Great Chasm.  There were a few of the baindara (small creatures that looked like a cross between monkeys and flying squirrels).  A couple of the other hills on the island also had iris doors.

They opened the northern one and entered a Rudishva room and were immediately attacked by some slime zombies.  After dispatching the zombies with sword and fire, they removed a few Rudishva artifacts from the room, and found that one of the consoles still worked.  It showed an image of an underground ziggarut, with several creatures that looked like heqeti moving on it.  Some Rudishva glyphs on the screen gave a direction and distance reading.  With Akla-Chah's help, they were able to translate it to about 100 yards south-southwest.

They opened the southern door and found another Rudishva room, this one with no zombies or working consoles, just a few minor Rudishva items to take.  They went back to the central hill and went through the other teleporter.  It led to a Rudishva room with two teleporters and a pool full of sparkly opalescent liquid.  Nearby was an iris door.  Vael opened it with the yellow Rudishva identity plaque.  Inside were two giant Rudishva skeletons on stone thrones, who whirled and barked a challenge.  Vael brandished the yellow ID at them, while Vallium and Ioannes showed them silver IDs.  The skeletons sat back down.  On the far side of the skeletons was a large vertical shaft.  Having seen a Rudishva video describing the transit shaft, Vael explained that you needed to fully coat and object in the sparkly liquid from the fountain, and then it could levitate up and down in the shaft.  Vael submerged himself in the fountain then dove into the shaft, with his Levitation spell ready in case the video lied.  He was able to Levitate without his spell.  Ioannes then also covered himself with the liquid.  Vallium declined and said he preferred his Levitation Boots.  All three levitated up to the top of the shaft.

The room at the top contained another fountain full of the sparkly liquid, plus iris doors west and southwest.  They chose the west door.  After opening it, they saw the desiccated corpses of three men in Thothian robes on the floor.  They also saw two wraiths rushing to attack them, while a ghost yelled in Mithric to run away from the wraiths.  Vallium fast-drew his new Ghost Weapon sword and started hacking the closer wraith.  Both wraiths used their ranged Drink Life attack on Vael, and failed to damage him.  They switched targets to Vallium, and mostly failed to hurt him as well.  Vallium started taunting the wraiths to attack him instead, as he thought he had the best resistance.  Vallium kept chasing the first wraith, which kept dodging him, until he got one good hit in and slowed it, then it didn't last much longer.  The second wraith was similar, except Ioannes came up to help, and the surrounded wraith could no longer retreat.  When both wraiths were destroyed, the ghost thanked them for their help.  He said the three of them had been priests of Thoth, but in death the others had become evil wraiths, while he had been cursed to haunt the hallway until his ring was taken to the Temple of Thoth.  He pointed to his corpse and asked the group to take his ring.  They did, and also looted the other corpses.

From there they visited a couple of storage closets and took a few items.  They also found the Rudishva forge that Vael had seen a video about, and looked at a lot of lava, but didn't try to manipulate any controls.  They continued west to the fire nataraja, which was dismissed when Vael waved his yellow identity plaque at it.  They stepped through the hole into the transport nexus room and took the teleporter that led to the Cloister.  From there they took the well-known path past the slime pit, through a hole in the ceiling up to the Temple of Set, then over to the Temple of Thoth.  There they gave the ghost's ring to Ichthelon, who told Remagis to hold onto it for him.

With the ghost's task complete, Vallium suggested going to the Varumani level to get a reward for all the kaliyani fangs they'd just found.  They went east past the Glory of Weskenim to the room with the Thothian teleportation circle, then used the correct sequence of glass activation tiles to teleport to the former vampire lair.  From there they went southeast through the Varumani caves to the Varumani court.  One of the ogre guards checked their passport.  They spoke with a Varumani courtier, who said that Trijax, the overseer of the Varumani Lifts, could take the fangs and give them their reward.  They went over to the lift and showed the fangs to Trijax.  He said he didn't quite have enough gold on him for 32 fangs, but sent an ogre running to another part of the complex to get more.  The ogre returned a few minutes later with a pouch containing the rest of their reward.

They Levitated off the Varumani Lift platform into the Great Chasm, exploring southeast.  Vael's See Secrets spell spotted a concealed door on the edge of the Chasm.  This led to a rough passage, ending in a secret door.  Opening it, they reached the quarters of the Varumani Hunters.  Several hunters confronted them.  Surprisingly, the hunters forgave their trespassing and apologized for not being allowed to hunt kaliyani near the Goblin Forum, due to the Thegn's new peace treaty with the goblins.

They left the hunter's room and went back to the Chasm, and contined exploring east.  They found another cave leading south off the Chasm.  The cave smelled awful.  While they were complaining about the smell, a many-tentacled creature dropped from the ceiling and ambushed Ioannes from behind.  Fortunately for Ioannes, its attack failed to penetrate his armor.  Ioannes yelled and healed himself, while Vallium whirled around and stabbed the creature to death.  Ioannes thought it was an otyugh.  Vallium decided to dissect it in case it had any valuables inside, but it smelled even worse on the inside, and he eventually agreed it wasn't worth it.

Vael didn't want to put their Teleport Rug on the disgusting floor of the cave, so he used a Create Fire spell to scorch a section of the floor with fire for a few minutes, and a Purify Air spell to clear the air.  After the floor cooled enough to not set their Rug on fire, they put the Rug there.  Vael picked up the Rug and cast Pol's Recall to teleport back to the Beacon.  After arriving at the Beacon, he tried a Seeker spell to find the legendary dwarf Zhorek, but the spell failed.

GM's Comments:

That was a lot of exploration.  They went through several unexplored teleporters, explored several new areas, and made some new connections on their map.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 25 new locations, 2 XP
• Loot: A lot of Rudishva stuff, which they don't like to sell.  A few other things.  1 XP
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: 3 XP

Next Week:

They plan to go after the Bad Neighbors.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 70: Shopping in Archontos

Date:

Tothsday 2nd Jelenios, 2994 AE

Weather (Gosterwick):

Cool, overcast

Weather (Archontos):

Cool, rainy

Player Characters:

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

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Stone Nataraja

Basil Choumnos, Castellan of Pol

Several librarians and clerks at the Royal Library

Many Imperial Guards

Cosmas, mapmaker

Niketas, guide

Baris, half-elven magic seller

Tychios, weapons and armor seller

Leto, shoemaker

Hypatia, alchemist

Bellicus, professor, College of Macrina

Baldwin Greenore, dwarven priest of Zodarrim

Craster, dwarven metal worker

The Plan:

• Go to the Tower of Pol in the Drowned Canyon
• Give a Longevity Potion for Basil Choumnos for the use of his gate to Archontos
• Explore Archontos and go shopping
• Use a Bead of Rescue to teleport to Narsileon and get a reward for Kerbog Khan's head
• Return using the Mirror of Life Trapping and the Pol's Recall spell

What Happened:

Everyone gathered at the Beacon, then went through the Rudishva teleporter to the Secure Vault.  From there they took the teleporter to near the Engine Room.  Vael brandished the yellow Rudishva identify plaque to keep the Stone Nataraja from attacking, and they went north through the engine room they west through the former vampire lair.  Vael cast Levitation on himself and Walk on Air on the others so they could all cross the small chasm, leading to a passage down to near the Tower of Pol.

As they neared the Tower, Vael sent a Message spell to Basil Choumnos telling him they were nearby.  They dropped a Teleport Rug and took turns going back to the Beacon and changing into their travelling gear, leaving anything they didn't want to bring to Archontos.  When properly equipped, they went down to the cavern near the Tower of Pol.  Choumnos was on the roof, and yelled down, asking if everyone was able to fly up.  They were.  Vallium gave Choumnos the agreed Potion of Longevity.  Choumnos magically opened the trap door into the tower, then led everyone down the stairs to the level with the gates.  He pointed at the southeastern gate and said that one led to Archontos.  He handed Vael two books and asked him to return them to the Royal Library.  He said that if the librarians gave him a hard time, to just say he found them, but if the librarians were happy to have them returned, he should say they were being returned by Basil the Wizard, his "library name."

Vael used a Scry Gate, but the other side was featureless, with no differences in heat discernable with infravision.  They went on through, entering a dark basement.  Vael cast The Bracteros Effect on his Continual Light rock to make it less noticable.  They searched until Uvash found some a door.  Vael used Glass Door to look through it, and saw stairs up.  They went up, Vael used Glass Wall again, and found another basement room, holding some boxes of rotten old books and some cleaning supplies.  They went in, then up some more stairs to another door.  Glass Wall on that one revealed a better-lit room with library stacks.  Vael cast Invisibility on everyone, then they all snuck in.

They walked around the library for a while, all holding hands because they couldn't see each other and didn't want to make noise.  After finding the front entrance and information desk, they went back to an empty area and formulated a plan.  Vael would dismiss the Invisibility on the others and they would just act like library patrons, asking questions and reading books.  Meanwhile Vael would try to sneak out invisibly, holding the Mirror of Life Trapping that he didn't want anyone to see.

The first part of the plan worked.  Uvash and Ioannes asked questions about various books and got shown to the right part of the stacks.  Vallium said he needed to step out for some air, and opened the door for Vael.  Once outside, Vael and Valllium headed for the bridge connecting the island that was the Emperor's Palace to the main city.

There was a guard gate before the bridge, and at first the guards just watched Vallium with routine boredom.  But then a guard wizard came running up, blowing a whistle and yelling "invisible!"  Suddenly about a dozen guards appeared, surrounding Vallium and (still invisible) Vael.  Realizing he was caught, Vael dispelled his invisibility and started apologizing.  He was just carrying this mirror and didn't want to get in trouble, but it was his, not stolen or anything.  Also it was magical and dangerous and if he removed the sheet covering it, someone might get hurt.  The guard sergeant summoned an officer, who asked more questions, but eventually they let Vael and Vallium go.  They went across the bridge, through another gatehouse, then asked a guard where a hotel was.  He pointed to a nearby building and said "that's the Golden Horn, if they let you in."

Vael and Vallium went to the Golden Horn, a very ornate building featuring a lot of marble and glass.  When they entered, a snooty clerk asked who they were and if they were representing someone better.  They were not.  He informed them that no rooms were currently available, but he could recommend another hotel.  He gave them directions to the Hippo House, two fora east then a bit north, near the Arena of Ferricus, funny animal on the sign.

Vallium and Vael walked through the city following the directions to the Hippo House.  Vael indicated that they needed a room for four people with good security.  The clerk recommended the Imperial Suite on the top floor, at a rather high price, but said they could only have it for three days as it was reserved afterward.  Vael agreed and dropped a bunch of platinum coins on the desk.  They went up to their room, where Vael set down the huge mirror and then sent a Message spell to Ioannes telling him where they were.  He tried contacting Basil on the Rudishva command bracelet, but got no answer.

Ioannes and Uvash finished their reading and followed the directions over to the Hippo House.  The group went downstairs and asked the clerk if a guide was available.  He said he would contact one for them.  A bit later, an older man named Cosmas came in.  He said he was a mapmaker and could sell them maps of the city, if they agreed not to resell them or make copies.  Or he could provide the services of one of his sons as a tour guide.  (Cosmas regretted that he was no longer a fast enough walker to make a very good tour guide.)  Vael indicated that he would like both a map and a tour guide.  Cosmas asked if he wanted a fancy map suitable for framing, like the one that he had given to the Emperor, or a plain paper map that he didn't mind getting rain on.  Vael said he would take one of each.  Cosmas thanked Vael for his purchase and said that his son the tour guide would arrive in a few minutes with his maps.

The tour guide was named Niketas.  He said that he knew every part of the city and would take them wherever they wanted to go.  What did they want to see?  A discussion ensued, but they mostly wanted to go shopping.  They wanted a magic item store, a shoe store, an alchemist, a fish market, and a source of seagull feathers.  Niketas led them through the wide streets and narrow alleys while pointing at various buildings.

At the shop of Baris, a half-elven magic broker, they found a Ring of Free Action and a Ghost Weapon broadsword,  They paid cash for both, as they didn't like the price Baris offered for the magic shortsword and sling they wanted to trade.  Baris gave them a tip that they might find a magic belt at the shop of Tychios.

At the shop of Tychios, they indeed found a magic belt, a huge gaudy Belt of the Ogre that fit both Vallium and Uvash.  He also had some dwarf-sized magic scale armor, but it wasn't light enough for Uvash's taste.  Once again, they paid cash as Tychois didn't offer enough for their items.

At the shop of Leto, a humble working-class shoemaker, Ioannes found a pair of shoes for his girlfriend Pelteon.  Leto then talked him up to three pairs.

Niketas took them over to the Galeta Grand Harbor and Fish Market, where there were a lot of seagulls.  He said he could find them some feathers, or a whole seagull if they preferred.  They bought some salted fish snacks, and a fishmonger told them that if they wanted the freshest fish they should buy first thing in the morning when the boats came in.

Eventually they wandered over to the Great Library (different from the Royal Library), and spent most of the rest of the day doing research.  Vael researched Vul and the Bridge of Wisdom and found something about supplicants spending three days on the bridge reciting Vul's Insight every quarter hour, but failed to find the words to Vul's Insight.  Uvash researched Zhorak and his Forge and found that the great smith Zhorak had indeed moved to the human city of Arden Vul and established his Forge there, for some dumb reason, and had never returned to dwarven civilization, so he was presumed to have died there.  Ioannes researched bringing dead constructs back to life, and found that it was not possible.  Vallium looked up the Ligareon family, and found that they were one of the Five Families of the Empire, and that they had an estate here in Archontos.

As sunset neared, a clerk carried a sign around saying that the Library would close soon.  Vael used the Copy spell to copy a few pages from books, then they left and went back toward their hotel.  Niketas asked if they were ready for bed or wanted any evening entertainment.  They decided to watch the Arena show.  Tickets were sold out, but Niketas said the Hippo House probably had some for guests, and was correct.  Their tickets in an upper-middle-class box let them see three different bouts.

The first was two teams of gladiators, red versus green, in a fight to the third serious wound.  Eventually the third green gladiator went down, red was declared the winner, and red- and green-robed healers ran out to treat the wounded.

The second bout was one blue-clad gladiator against six large wild cats.  He easily and showily defeated all of them.

The final fight was Braticles, the champion of the purple team and the number three ranked gladiator in the whole arena, against a dozen captured bandits, in a trial by combat.  Any bandits who defeated Braticles would be declared innocent of their crimes by the gods, and released.  Braticles dispatched three of the bandits at range with javelins, then closed in and killed the rest with his spear, then his sword.  Guilty as charged.

After the fights, the group went back to thier hotel.  Vael sent a Message spell to Basil, then another one to Pelteon for Ioannes.  He used extra mana to make the Messages travel faster, since they were so far from Gosterwick.

The next morning, they met Niketas again after breakfast.  He took them back to Leto's shop to pick up the shoes, then over to the College of Macrina.  The students at the door said that entry before noon required bringing food, so they sent Niketas out to get some food.  A student then took them to Professor Bellicus, who taught a course on constructs.  Bellicus mocked them a lot for being from Narsileon (though they were not actually from there.)  They showed him Kerbog Khan's petrified head, and he pulled out a wanted flier for a rogue wizard named Cerbactos and some stolen highly classified magical books, and told them they could get a reward back in Narsileon for that head and the books.  He opined that the reward would be cows or sheep, though, since that's all there was in Narsileon.  Vael and Ioannes tried to get information about reviving a dead construct, and Bellicus said that was impossible, or at least dangerous and illegal, because dead constructs tended to go crazy and kill people if revived.  It was better to start over and make a new one.  They talked about the Emperor's re-acquisition of the book The Art of Becoming (found by the Archon of Narsileon, after it was given to him by some minor noblewoman, after it was given to her by some goblin, who presumably found it under a sheep) and the possibility that the Emperor might hire the College to make Imperial Stone Guardians for him.

Giving up on Bellicus, they went over to Dwarftown, where Vael managed to eat some spicy mushrooms and drink the chunky beer without obvious stomach upset, impressing the dwarves.  Uvash talked to Priest Baldwin in the Temple of Zodirrim, who referred him to a metal worker named Craster, who Uvash hired to make a bronze statue for his future temple.  Vael went looking for a trap-finding kit but offended a dwarf with limited comprehension of Archontean, who told him to stay away from his daughter.

They went back to the fish market, where Niketas gathered large numbers of seagull feathers like his tip depended on it, while Ioannes bought a large piece of a huge tuna.  They went to Hypatia the Alchemist and purchased recipes for a couple of potions, while dropping off three more potions for her to attempt to reverse-engineer.

Finally they went back to the Hippo House, paid Niketas, and went up to their room.  Everyone but Vael stripped down and put all their clothing and gear into their various magical bags, then looked at the Mirror of Life Trapping until they were sucked inside.  Vael picked up all the bags and the Mirror, then, while straining under the weight, cast Pol's Recall, and was teleported back to the bridge of the Beacon.  He released everyone from the mirror, as Basil burst onto the bridge, brandishing a laser rifle and reminding them to call him on the communication bracelet before teleporting in, to avoid scaring Akla-Chah.

Vael cast a Seeker spell, looking for the corpse of Zhorak, but didn't get a hit.

GM's Comments:

That was an exhausting session.  Mostly improvising a city for four hours is much harder than running a detailed megadungeon.

Despite it being a mostly safe trip, Vael almost managed to get himself in deep trouble by trying to invisibly sneak past Imperial Guards.  He was saved by some very good die rolls.  

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 0 XP (Being led around a peaceful city by a tour guide doesn't count)
• Loot: 0 XP (Shopping doesn't count)
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: 0 XP

Next Week:

They're planning to explore more of the Rudishva teleporter network.

Exploration XP Complexity

As any economist will tell you, people respond to rewards.  So reward the behavior you want.  As a game designer or GM, XP are one of the primary rewards, so you should carefully choose what to award them for.  Don't want people murdering baby kobolds?  Then don't give XP for murdering baby kobolds.  Don't want murderhobo behavior in general?  Don't give XP for killing anything.  Don't want loot goblins?  Don't give XP for treasure.  Want PCs to explore more?  Give XP for exploration.  Want them to solve your precious little story quests rather than thinking up goals for themselves?  Only give XP for solving your quests, nothing else.  (Train whistle sound effect.)

(There is, as always, a tradeoff between not railroading and not letting the campaign devolve into "let's do nothing and get free XP."  Ask any manager who let their employees set their own goals, there's always that one guy with the goal of doing no work and getting promoted for it.  So you have to have some standards for what's XP-worthy, to keep the game interesting.  In DF Whiterock I got kinda lazy and just handed out fixed XP for showing up, and the players responded by exploring as slowly as possible and never taking a risk and then getting overpowered for the level they were on to the point where the dungeon was no longer a challenge and then whining when I reduced XP awards.  So, again, award XP to encourage the behavior you want, but in a way that hopefully intersects with behavior the players are also okay with.)

Exploration XP is pretty popular among both players and GMs.  Players like to explore (though perhaps maybe not as boldly as the GM would like), and GMs want players to actually engage with more of the adventure, so it's a win for everyone.  In DFRPG Arden Vul it's one of the two main sources of XP, along with loot.  (Yes, my players are loot goblins.  You should see their spreadsheet.)  Exploration XP is easier to calculate than loot XP though.  You just decide on what counts as a new location, what counts as exploring, and then count how many new locations they explored each session, and then give the appropriate amount of XP for that number of locations.

GURPS/DFRPG has "big" XP, where 1 XP is enough to buy one level in a new skill.  Improving a skill may take up to 4 XP, and buying a new advantage might be 5 or 10 or 15 or even more.  But contrast with games with "small" XP where you need thousands of XP to "level up" and get a prefab pile of bonuses.  So, basically, I'm awarding 1 or 2 XP at a time, not hundreds or thousands.  Human-scale, not pinball-score-scale.

Here's the chart I've been using for DFRPG Arden Vul:

New locations	XP
0-4	0
5-19	1
20+	2

Pretty simple.  The first question is what counts as a location.  I've mostly just deferred to the Arden Vul adventure.  The adventure has keyed room locations, so I use those.  Sometimes there are edge cases, like there might be a 1-1A and a 1-1B right on top of each other and I might decide that together they only count as one location.  But for the most part, the locations on the map are the locations I track.  And I use the actual room numbers from the adventure rather than adding my own set of labels.

The second question is what counts as exploration.  This is trickier.  If the PCs merely glimpse the location from far away (like with scrying), that's not good enough.  I've seen Los Angeles on TV many times, but I've never actually been to LA.  No XP for me.  So the first threshold is that they need to actually personally enter the location.  No crystal balls, no Wizard Eyes, no possessed scout bats.  (Those are all useful for gathering information, but they don't count for XP.)

Now, does just running through count?  I've changed planes in Detroit Airport, but does that mean I've actually been to Detroit?  I think not.  And I'm not talking about technicalities of whether the airport is actually within city limits.  I mean, if you've only seen the inside of the airport, you haven't actually seen enough of the city to tell it apart from the hundreds of other cities with large airports.  Exploration means actually exploring an area, not just sticking a toe into it.  You should have heard the full room description and probably interacted with most of the interesting things in the room.

Now, some rooms are just barren, so no matter how much you interact with them you don't get much.  There aren't a lot of those in Arden Vul; modern dungeon design (even modern dungeon design for ancient games like AD&D 1E) discourages too many empty rooms.  If you've found whatever there is to find, sure, you've explored enough.

On the other hand, some rooms are complicated.  They contain monsters and treasure and secrets and features to interact with.  Do you have to completely experience everything in the room to have explored it?  I don't think so.  But you need to have at least interacted with the room a reasonable amount.  Maybe you haven't fully solved the 13 clocks puzzle, but you need to have at least noticed that there were 13 clocks.  If you were too busy fleeing from rabid weasels to see the clocks, you haven't actually explored that room yet.  Come back later after you've had your shots.

Finally, I'll mention long-term tracking of explored rooms over the course of a long campaign.  A feature of a megadungeon is that PCs tend to revisit the same areas over and over.  But you don't want to credit them for exploring the same room more than once, or they'll notice and stop exploring and start hiking back and forth over safe territory for XP instead.  As the PCs explore, I note each room they explore in a text file, along with other notes like who they meet or what they take.  I have a simple Python script containing a dictionary of session number to set of room numbers explored, and after each session I update the dictionary with the explored locations for that session.  Something like:

"s1": {

        "EX-2",

        "EX-8",

        "EX-9",

        "EX-10",

        "AV-1",

        "AV-5",

        "AV-6",

        "AV-7",

        "AV-8",

        "AV-14",

        "AV-15",

        "TS-12",

        "TS-13",

    },

So in session 1 ("s1"), the PCs explored 13 locations, good for 1 exploration XP.

The value of using code for this rather than just tracking on a piece of paper is that the script puts all the previously explored rooms into a set, to avoid double counting.  So if they visit TS-12 again in session 45 and I've forgotten they've already explored it, the script should avoid giving double credit for the location.