Sunday, March 06, 2005

Session #17

This adventuring started off slow tonight. At some point everyone got sick of the slow pace, so the DM pushed things along that were pretty much the same stuff the players had seen already, but nothing major or anything plot-related.

Over 30 points of smartass damage was dealt to Justin & Joe tonight. Munchkins.

Brian was unable to make this night. Justin played Torin. Brian will probably not be able to make this coming week either.

Map

The group last spent the night back in a safe-room in region E. After finding out that the celestials knew nothing about the room beyond the north door of room I41, the party returned to that point.

Note: The DM does roll for random encounters, but the party takes direct routes on their travels from region I to E and back. The random encounters are either nothing, something that would not fit, or monsters that the party have easily destroyed before. The creatures in region I may be evil and chaotic, but they're not (that) stupid. Accordingly, the party receives a wide berth in the southern section of region I.

Room I41: Detect Evil still showed a faint evil beyond the norther door. Dalron's investigation of the door gave the same results; a very complicated, but even more fragile, trap. Clerical buffs increased his skills, but the die roll was insufficient.
Crunch: the gears of the trap were broken.
Zorak used his Wand of Knock.
Click. The lock unlocks.
Dalron investigates the door.
No traps are found but there's another lock behind the first. Even more complicated and just as fragile.
Dalron attempts to pick the lock.
Crunch.
Zorak uses his Wand of Knock.
Click. The lock unlocks.
Dalron investigates the door.
No traps are found but there's another lock behind the first. Even more complicated and just as fragile.
Dalron, yet again, attempts to pick the lock.
Crunch.
Zorak uses his Wand of Knock. Now down to 30 charges. (The wand was found in the room where the party had to fight the fiendish dire wolverine.)
Dalron investigates the door.
No traps are found. The door is totally unlocked.

Room I42: The winding hallway had some interesting grafiti on the walls. To Dalron, Torin, & Zorak saw nothing beyond some odd colored stones. To those with darkvision, Krieg, Valden, & Thunderclease, the grafiti had a much more profane appearance. It was a series of depictions of atrocities that would make a Nazi scientist cringe in horror.

Then to make it worse, the group could faintly hear the screams and anguish of the beings in the display. And the party could see the pictures moving out of the corner of their eyes. Although creeped out, the party moved past the hallway.

All they found was a column of stone in the middle of the room. As always, to an adventuring group, finding nothing means you've found something, it's just hidden. "No one protects nothing with 3 locks".

Dalron searches the room (nat 20). He finds something hidden at the top of column, designed to appear as though it was connected to the ceiling.
He's pulls out a 20 pound book that is about 5'x5' when open and has at least 300 pages. This is what is radiates the evil. The markings on it indicate that it is a spellbook, but the evil from the book means that they aren't opening it.

A spellbook that big means some sweet gold.

Room I43: Detect Evil showed nothing beyond the door. They open the door to find a surprised drow elf sitting at a table full of alchemical materials and such. Torin's Detect Evil suddenly registers moderate evil. The half surprised drow talked to the group for about 2 seconds. Only Dalron and Thunderclease realize that the drow is about to ...
Throw the table over causing the chemicals to spread a nasty gas out of the room. Dalron, Torin, & Krieg failed their saves and each took 1d4 wisdom damage.
The combat involved the party rushing the drow and doing almost 100 points of damage in a matter of 2 rounds. The drow simply tries to flee.
It gets the door open and moves out of sight.
When the party enters the room they find nothing but another bare room.
A new casting of Detect Evil finds nothing.
Combat is over. It got away.

What really happened (this had to be explained to the party so they wouldn't cry foul - and it's easier to gloat when mor than just you know what's happening):
It wasn't a drow. It was a shapeshifter.
The room was under a temporal stasis effect. That's why Detect Evil showed nothing.
When it escaped, it simply changed shape and climbed onto the ceiling.
The 2nd Detect Evil spell did not get the square that it was in.
All spot checks failed.
Two rounds later, I deemed that it had escaped.

Then the secondary effects of the alchemical poison hit. All 3 saves failed.
2d6 points of wisdom damage.
Krieg took a whole 3 points of wisdom loss.
Zorak had a wisdom of 3.
Dalron had a wisdom of 0 (actually -4 but eh, the rules say no lower than 0).

After some discussion of what a sorcerer with a wisdom of 3 might do, the party returned to region E. Apparently when the DM said that a sorcerer with a low wisdom would have trouble with wise decision making during combat. It was all I could do to keep from having/letting the guy go "Steve Buscemi in Armageddon" crazy.

Nothing else of interest was found. Everything of interest was only the drow.

The party spent 24 hours resting and healing up the wisdom damage. The celestials inform the party that the drow may have been Mahir, or at least looked like him.

Room I24: The party prepares themselves before entering this room. The last time they entered this flesh-choked room, they caught some diseases that they cured.

Room I26: This room was almost identical to room I24, flesh and slime are thicker here than in other areas of the dungeon. Their searching only finds a drow that has died and now his body has been half-absorbed by the walls. They pull on the drow's body but only pull his upper torso out. The only thing of value on the drow was a simple locket worth 5gp.

Krieg & Valden both get a particularly nasty disease, the Demon Fever. But before it has a chance to take hold, the 2 clerics have cured themselves of it.

Room I25: This room is a temple to Lolth. Everything in the room is ruined and burned to cinders. The party finds nothing and moves on.

Room I45: After further exploration the party decides to investigate the more ruined areas. And this ruined area was more than they asked for. The further they went through the broken passageway, the more foul smelling and ichor filled it became.

Evenatually they came to the northern room I45. The chamber walls pulsed like a heart. It time is pulsed, fluid that could be described as bile gushed out of the flesh. It formed into a small rivulet that flowed into the central I45 room. There it joined up into a puddle that combined with similar fluids from the other I45 rooms.
North room: Black Bile
South room: Yellow Bile
East room: Blood
West room: Phlegm
Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Tasty.

The grossed out party wanted to see what a fireball would do. Zorak complied. The gas that spewed out of the room caused everyone make a fortitude save. Everyone made theirs. Dang.

Not wanting to investigate further, the party got out of there.

Room I53: Further exploration led the party to this interesting room. There is no flesh, living or dead, in this room. The walls have had sheets of iron hammered into the walls to in fact become the walls. And, the room is utterly silent. Magically induced silence. The party makes note of this and moves on.

Room I57: This room caught the attention of the party. The walls of this room are more flesh than slime. Veins, arteries, and muscles can be easily seen. The whole room itself seems to roil and squirm both aboth and belove the surface. Additionally, Detect Evil shows light evil everywhere, instead of the standard faint evil.

As the party slowly walks along the room, they discover that the room gets more agitated the faster they move.

Valden, out of curiosity, decides to stab his sword into the floor. Well that made the room angry. Ropes of muscle and sinew shoot from the floor and grab at Valden. Once he's been grappled, the floor itself attempts to "swallow" him. If he can't get free he will be suffocated by the room.

The party is able to save him in time. But now they have a new level of respect for this room.

The group then moves through the hallway to the east. Dalron searches the southern door. He rolls a natural one. So he found a horrid trap that would cause the floor to fall out from under the area under the door, then the ceiling would collapse into the pit. The party said "screw that" and moved on to...

Room I56: Detect Evil says that there's something of moderate evil inside the room, in addition to the light evil "background radiation". When Dalron attempts to listen at the door, a loud anguished scream comes from inside the room.

So the buffs begin: Prayer, Bless, Haste, Enlarge on Thunderclease, Zorak casts Invisibility on himself, and Valden casts Divine Power on himself.

The party busts into the room and finds a room in chaos. The walls have eye and mouths that begin screaming at the party's entrance. The whole room heaves much worse than the rest of the local rooms. In the corner they a much larger and more focused mass of goo, mouths, and eyeballs.

Round 1: Thunderclease, Dalron, Krieg, and Valden are able to enter the room 10'. The room conditions prevent them from moving along any further unless they want to deal with the grappling of the room.
The pile of goo, mouths, and eyeballs erupts in a wail of insane caterwauling. It is a gibbering mouther, and everyone had to make a Will save or become confused for d2 rounds. Dalron and Zorak fail their saves. Then the mouther spits acid at Thunderclease and disappears under the slime.
Zorak, in his confused state, runs away...at full speed. So Zorak is now being swallowed by the floor and is unable to do anything about it. But Torin is - he'd rather save the sorcerer than be stuck in a combat room he can't move around in.

Round 2: Thunderclease readies his action to wait for the thing to appear. Krieg casts Fire Shield. Dalron stands dazed and babbling mindlessly for the round. Valden casts Detect Evil, hoping that it will help him locate it. It worked. It was moving behind Thunderclease. When it appeared, Thunderclease beat the living daylights out of it. But it was still quite healthy and hit him with a Lighting Bolt breath weapon. Zorak became lucid and was able to break free with Torin's help.

Round 3: Thunderclease continued to punish the gibbering mouther. Dalron was still in his confused state and this time the confusion chart result was "attack nearest creature". The nearest creature was Krieg.
Well I have not seen Dale roll that well in a long long time. Dalron was hasted and duel-wielding his longsword +2/short sword +2. He hit once with the longsword +2, and critted with his short sword +2. It was the most damage Dalron had ever done in 1 round. Luckily it didn't qualify for sneak attack damage.
Now that part is both funny and sad. But it got funnier when Aaron rolled the Fire Shield damage against Dalron. 30+ dealt by Dalron. 20+ taken by Dalron.
The mouther hit Thunderclease with all 7 attacks, but 4 of them did no damage. But 4 mouths were able to grapple him and would allow it to attack 15 times next round. Valden pounds the thing a couple of times.
Zorak and Torin begin their slow trek back to the combat.

Round 4: Thunderclease breaks free and gets a swing in. Valden pounds it a couple of times and it stops moving. The walls stop screaming.

It's dead.
Note: "It" was a fiendish, half-dragon, gibbering mouther.
Message to Jim Hague (the author of region I): Get some help man.

Dalron decides to check the mouther's insides for loot. And surprisingly comes up with some nice magic items that the group is able to identify later:
- Warhammer +2
- Composite shortbow +1 (+2 str)
- Pearl of power (2nd)
- Lens of Detection
- Scroll of Delayed Blast Fireball (inside a sealed scroll tube)

The group is happy.

Room I46: This room has the same muscular floors and walls as before. Investigation of the eastern door discovers a trap, but is unable to disable it. So they move on.

Room I55: Dale's on a rolling streak tonight. This room is just like the other local rooms, but the room seems even more agitated than the others. Dalron is able to find a backpack amongst the insanity (another natural 20). Inside are 2 25' ropes, a couple vials of oil, 4 torces, a potion (later ID's as a cure light wounds wounds potion). And hidden inside a secret compartment in the backpack is an Immovable Rod.

Room I54: This room was even worse than the previous and it was filled with fog. Dalron was sent in to investigate. The moment he entered the room he seemed to move in slow motion & got another odd look on his face. When he started babbling incoherently, the party threw a loop of rope around him and pulled him back in.

They returned to region E to rest.
They leveled!
Thunderclease went up a level in barbarian (barb 6/ftr 2)
Krieg is now a level 8 cleric.
Zorak is now a level 8 sorcerer.
Torin went up a level in rogue (ranger 3/ftr 2/rog 2)

More next week!

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Doesn't a Wisdom of 0 kill a character?

7:03 PM  
Blogger BlueBlackRed said...

No.
A constitution of 0 kills a character.
A strength or dexterity of 0 makes you drop like a rock.
A wisdom, intelligence, or charisma of 0 puts you into a coma.

7:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ahh well, I knew it was bad at least.

4:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Krieg's Assement of the I56 fiendish, half-dragon, gibbering mouther combat:

It was blind luck (a few 17's on saves) that the Barbarian didn't get confused and either kill us all or (equally fatal) fail to kill the gibbering bugger.

Not only did the Rogue finally got some good hits in Round 3, but my flame shield did a decent amount of damage the first time I cast it. Infortunatly all the damage was within the group, and I had to turn around and restore it.

The undulating floor in was creepy, and the map of the area somehow conveys it well. I am considering ideas on how to kill the region.

The Rejuvination domain has come in quite handy in this module. IIRC The second level domain spell is lesser restoration, and third is remove disease. I'm glad I took them.

Slightly off topic: I've never been particuarly impressed with turn undead. Even with my specialization (my charisma could be higher) it hasen't proven to be that overwhelming. One region E encounter, I couln't roll an 11 after four rounds and had no effect. In a situation where there are defenses (unhallow) I needed a 20 (if that). In a situation where we come across mobs of undead where it would be devistating, great cleave or fireball would be equally or more impressive. Clerics don't have easy acess to great cleave or fireball, so I'll work with the path I've chosen.

I like the idea of posting comments observations on the blog. I think I'll do this more frequently, and encourage the rest of the group to comment too.

1:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi everyone, Jim Hague here. Naturally I've been tracking the party's progress through I (and Region M, coming soon!)...and I've got to say, I've been cracking up at what's been going on. No spoilers, of course, but BBR's doing a bang-up job of portraying the Region.

The party did better with the living lock and other assorted goodness in Mahir's cache than I expected...damn clever players! But I's got a few surprises still in store. Wait'll you get to Arioch, guys.

And wouldja believe I wrote most of I during Thanksgiving? Get help...pshaw! ;)

8:54 PM  
Blogger BlueBlackRed said...

Hiya Jim! Thanks for the kind words.

Clever players? Yeah. When these guys focus on a task, they get it done. Plus this region has them on their toes. Actually the whole dungeon did that, but region I alone has made super-paranoid.

They haven't met Arioch yet. And they may not. Some of the stuff I'm planning is going to ... well you'll have to wait for that.

And as for Region M, sorry, but they may be heading East this time. But that's not 100% for sure.

10:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, I notice you're in the cincinnati area. I'm kind of new to gaming (my friend got me into it, and we've been playing War Machine like crazy for a while now).

anyway, my friend and I are about to vacation in Cincinnati and I was hoping you could tell me of any places to game for free in the area around Colerain Ave. (we have a place here at home where you just walk into the place and you can play with others without putting down cash, and we were hoping to hang with some new players in a new city.)

Any help you can give me would be appreciated.

6:00 AM  
Blogger BlueBlackRed said...

Yottaquest
7607 Hamilton Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45231
(513) 923-1985

That's our general gaming supplier.
The guy who runs it is Matt (senior) with the help of his son Matt (junior).
The place is not that far from Colerain. There is a game store in Colerain, but it has no room for table-gaming (it's just a store).

As for the game you're playing, I don't know if I've heard of it. Doesn't sound familiar though.

At Yotta's you just walk in and there is usually plenty of playing space open. I say usually because Fridays & Saturdays can get very busy for them.

It costs you $0.00 to play there.

Give them a call for better information. And tell them that Sean from Cincidnd sent ya.

:)

P.S. - There are a few other places but they are either a 45 minute drive to get there, the place is a dive, or I don't trust/like the owner.
You can trust the Matts.
I think everyone in the Cincidnd group would agree.

9:45 AM  

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