A short history lesson

Every so often, I like to talk more on this blog than simply about the WLD. And at this time I’m going to chat about the ghosts of this gaming group’s past.

Over the past decade and a half of its existence, this gaming group has changed. In fact I think the only constant is that Dale has been a member of it for so long.
Well technically, I don’t think I can call it the exact same group. But to me it is. And since I’m the writer of this blog, that’s all that matters now isn’t it?
:)

Long ago there was a game store, and that game store had a nice big room where a lot of people could come in and play a game. And every Saturday evening, there would be a D&D game in that room that would last until past midnight.

This group got to be huge. Such as over 20 people at one point. I even attempted to join the group at this time, but was told I could only play when enough people left. That was a bit offensive to me because there were some people in the group that I thought were sub-human. And in my 19 year old oversized head, they were picking the sub-humans over me. So I would just do other things that on my Saturday evenings. Magic: the Gathering was in full swing, so it’s not like I had nothing to do.

Fast forward a few years. That game store had gone under, as did many others after Magic all but died. This left only one game store around that had an area for gaming. By this time the same gaming group had moved to a player’s house because this last game store basically catered to their biggest money source; the 10-15 year old crowd.

Well at this time I was bored on the weekends, having recently broke up with the girlfriend I had back then, and needed something to do other than get into a new CCG-of-the-month. So I asked someone if they still gamed with a group, and what-do-you-know, it was the same group. And in a much more manageable size as well.

Well that was about 7 years ago. And since then the players have changed dramatically. It has gone from 2 dozen players down to a lowly 3 at one point.

Heck for about 6 months, the game died. Basically it was because I had found a new girlfriend, the woman I ended up marrying in fact. And that left the group with 4 total players, but one half of the group didn’t care for playing with the other half. So the group dissolved until I called Dale about 6 months later.

Edit: My wife "asked" me to jump in here and say that she had nothing to do with me quitting the group. That is true. The reason is that I wanted to spend more time with her and I was not enjoying gaming with one person in particular. So rather than drop-kicking the guy out of the group, I chose to quit. A decision I have regretted since. I will not be making that mistake again.

The rest is history.

Recently I gave it the title of “The Cincinnati D&D Group” simply because I couldn’t think of anything better. I even tried to get the group think of something new and original, but nothing came of that. And since we’re now on the net with that title, it’s not likely to change.

Here’s a list of various gamers we’ve played with in the past, good, bad, or otherwise.
There are probably a lot more out there, but I can’t remember every single one of them.

(No names on some... just in case.)

Craig – He was fun to pick on, and he loved picking back. After a rough start, his first attempt at being a DM went over quite well with everyone who played. And his second one went just as well. Both were year long grand campaigns with heavy influence from Lord of the Rings (and this was prior to the movies). Eventually he decided that he hated where he lived and moved to California.

Player A – He was the standard “I’ve played everything and can’t be impressed” kind of gamer. And he always seemed bored or bothered to be at the game. And boy did he not like it when I ran. I think it was because I wouldn’t allow him to spend half the night dominating the game with his solo-adventuring while everyone sat on their thumbs. Eventually he stopped showing up after people stopped letting him know when I was running a game.

Jesse – I miss this guy. He was with the group long before I was. He started with the group when he was merely 12. After that I’m amazed he came out normal (his first session involved several evil group members doing very evil and adult things). Eventually he quit and joined the marines (and was in it during 9/11). Afterwards he went to college and is working on becoming a lawyer. I heard he got married not too long ago.

Player B – This gamer simply needed a good old-fashioned “attitude adjustment”. He only liked you if you could do something for him. Otherwise you’re treated like dirt. Had he been in this group 7 years ago, I would not have joined.

Doc – He was the primary DM when the group had its 2 dozen players. How he did it I have no idea. He quit because of a girl, so I can’t put any blame on him there. But I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing him game again. I know Dale would love to have him in our group.

Player C – This guy was an awesome player, but had some anger issues. He could join a game and fix all of the little things wrong with it, simply by speaking calmly and pointing out a few things. Unfortunately his patience would run thin after a while. Then if someone got to him or the DM made a call he didn’t agree with, he’d get aggressively angry. He eventually left the group after a couple of months where we weren’t gaming very steadily.

Tony – I would let this guy join our group in a second, without question. He never got angry, never raised his voice even. He always thought before acting, and the idea of power-gaming was just wrong to him unless the situation 100% warranted it. But unfortunately I quit the group, and it subsequently collapsed. When we reformed the group, he was too much into the online role-playing games and chose not to play again. And that’s a darn shame. Recently I ran into him again, but unfortunately he already has a group he is happy with. Good for him, bad for us.

Player D – This guy always seemed like he was just waiting for the opportunity to take over and dominate the group. He always was sure that he was 100% correct about everything. Teamwork meant that you do everything he said. He even went so far as to make character that had a high charisma and a maxxed out diplomacy skill, just so he would be the one talking all the time. When the group collapsed and was reformed, he was not called. He just seemed like a guy who was one step away from snapping at all times.

Drew – We all miss Drew. He was simply your standard good guy gamer. He was also a good DM, and had many nonstandard and interesting ideas for dungeons that I swiped and have added to my repertoire. He joined us when we restarted the group. Unfortunately for us, he wanted to go to law school. And the law school that accepted him was in Toledo. He frequently reads this blog, so I won’t say anything bad about him ;)

Player E – Something about this guy just drove me nuts. He would actually make snoring sounds when his character was sleeping. And he would go so far as to be so loud that you couldn’t hear the DM. Plus you couldn’t trust your stuff around him as he was rumored to be a thief. His version of fun was simply to make things more difficult for you. He was another person I made sure that wasn’t in the group before I joined in.

Joy – She is Dale’s daughter and is Justin’s ex-girlfriend (something they both hate being reminded of). She shows up to game about once a year when she’s bored. She’s also fun to pick on, but only from a distance. She can leg-press more than twice of what I weigh (I’m not even close to kidding), but luckily for me, she has bad aim with dice. Unfortunately for Justin, she was within…uhm “knee-shot”…when he made a comment she didn’t appreciate hearing. He woke up a couple seconds later, doubled up on the ground, tasting concrete.

Player F – This fellow is your standard “old-timer-gamer”. He has played table-top war games long before D&D came along. And when he plays or runs D&D, he’s an absolute jerk. Rules mean nothing unless you can use them against someone else. And if you cheat and you aren’t caught, then it is 100% legal. Would you let a guy like that in your house?

Player G – This guy joined us when we restarted the group. He showed up the first session, the third session, and the seventh session. We just stopped inviting him after the tenth session and he came up with another last minute reason why he couldn’t make it. I wanted to uninvite him sooner, but Dale reminded me that a little niceness can go a long way.

Player H – This poor fellow was another standard good-guy gamer. But he didn’t have a car, so he missed the game whenever he had to work, or his ride couldn’t bring him. His character lost an arm in one of those optional “devastating criticals” table. He eventually got it back, only to lose the other arm a couple weeks later. He didn’t find it as funny as the rest of us. He quit playing not too much later.

Player I – This fellow told everyone he had cancer. He didn’t of course, it was just a ploy to get sympathy from others, and then exploit them. I never trusted him because something just didn’t seem right (he gave off the snake oil salesman vibe). Eventually he disappeared from the game store. A couple months later the police later came to the game store looking for him. He had allegedly written tens of thousands of dollars in bad checks. There’s another person who I’d never want in my house.

Player J – Another nice guy I wouldn’t mind joining the group again. Unfortunately he is close friends with someone I would never game with again and this guy wouldn’t play without him. Damn shame too.

Player K – Although this guy is fun to game with, he’s a little too aggressive and selfish for my tastes. While I would certainly game with him, I don’t think he’s a good fit for the group as it is right now. (We’re more into teamwork.)

Player L – This guy was a nice guy, but thinking before acting was a totally foreign concept to him. He never seemed to understand that actions have consequences, in the game or the real world. He joined group after group, but eventually just drifted off because he never felt he received the respect he thought he deserved.

And finally,
Nergal (his nickname) – I despised this pile of wretched flesh. He claimed to bathe, but there was no proof of it. You could actually tell if he was in the game store without even seeing him as he wreaked so much, hence the nickname. Another person I would not game with again. I’ve heard rumors that he is back into gaming and that he shows up to Yottaquest about once a month. Man he’s nasty.

I bet you might recognize some of the player characteristics in your own group.
Hopefully the better ones.
:)

Session #32

A new region! Yay!

10 sessions for us in a single region is just too much.

I found a way nerf (read as "screw over") Wind Walk to prevent its use in scouting, and it's all legal (as far as I'm concerned). If Wind Walk gets dispelled while the party is in the gaseous form, they lose all the movement benefits of Wind Walk and they can't do squat until they become solid, involuntarily, after 5 rounds. Granted, it's a slim chance of happening, but it only needs to happen once. Aaron had expected this, and wasn't surprised. I knew this had to be done when most everyone thought it was going to be a breakfast spell. Plus it prevents the spell from being exploited through "clever usage".

And now it's time for Sean's Movie Reviews:

I've seen a fair number recently actually...

War of the Worlds - It didn't suck. I didn't think it would either. But I try to boycott anything that contains a Scientologist (read as cult member). But Lady Ao used her amazing powers of guilt against me saying a single sentence "I saw Hulk & Daredevil with you". Curses foiled again.
There are a few scenes that show true human nature. At least in my cynical expectation of human nature.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Actually pretty good. And it really doesn't step on the toes of the original movie. It's like you're watching the original book as it is being read to you. Unless you are a true cynical bastard of course.

Fantastic 4 - Boy is that title a lie. Well it didn't suck. But it certainly wasn't good. It was better than I expected. I expected a giant pile of a movie and only got a small one.

It is definitely time for the superhero movies to stop. I've heard good and bad things about the most recent Batman movie. But since I thought that ALL of the Batman movies sucked, I had no will to even give it a shot. It was obvious that Elektra was horrid just from the commercials.

The X-Men movies rocked. The Spiderman movies rocked. But every other superhero movie in recent memory has blown.

Hollywood, stop it!
Why must you drive a movie genre into the ground if it might make a single penny?
Don't force me to punch Stan Lee in the back of his head.

Ok enough of that.
Man, I need to make a ranting blog...

This session was some good old fashioned hack-n-slashing fun. I rolled lots n lots of dice. And lots of them were damage dice.

It was a good change from the last few weeks which mostly involved investigative work.

This week's map was a little too tall for me to deal with in my usually manner. So it's a little hacked up.

Map

Alright, in the last session, I failed to mention that Vrisht told the party about the 3 doors into the undead prison and that there were guardians of the doors.

So the party at least had an inkling of an idea that something was there. But this dungeon has taught them to expect the unexpected. So they took their standard precautions. But one thing they failed to do was...cast their pre-combat buffs.

Day 44, 8am (starting the 1 month countdown).

After the party had left Tyrus's newly frozen lair, they decided to take their naps right there at the foot of the lair. Well the DM thought that warranted plenty of random-encounter rolls...and not a single encounter came up out of 8 rolls. And it happened again later on too.

Oh well. I'm sure they'll get one of the more interesting ones.

Gate N4: The entirety of the eastern wall towered above the party. The gate to enter the prison stood over 30' tall. The relief on the door depicted clawed skeleton enjoying the moment while standing upon a mountain of butchered corpses. Making up part of the door's frame were 2 giant executioner's, their axes forming the top of the arch. About the top of the axes were 5 sneering demons.

Standard scanning showed nothing, mostly because the door blocked any detection spells.

So Torin moved into search the door. He found a nice and complex lock. He attempted to pick it...

What Torin didn't know is that the DM put a big sign on his back. It was "My name is Dalron".

Surprise round: 4 of the 5 demons were really powered-up gargoyles. And one of the executioners was a shield guardian.
The guardian took a single swing at Torin with its giant greataxe. Anything but a natural 1 guaranteed a hit with its bonuses (+38 for 3d8+21). It hit of course.
Each of the gargoyles dropped down into melee and each got a single swing on Torin. 3 hits for 1d8+6 a pop.
Torin ends up with less than 30hp.

Round 1:
Zorak casts Haste.
Senmonious use his lay-on-hands on Torin.
The shield guardian uses its stored spell on Torin; Phantasmal Killer. Torin makes his will save.
The gargoyles have swarmed Torin, each getting their full attack on him.
2 claw attacks (+17 for 1d8+6), 1 bite attack (+15 for 1d8+6), 1 gore attack (+4 for 1d8+3). They leave Torin with less than 20hp.
Thunderclease is happens to be standing merely 5' away, so he gets to take a 5' step and do his full attack action. Thunderclease hit with most of his attacks, doing over 120 points of damage.
Valden casts Righteous Might.
Torin takes a swing and a 5' step away from the gargoyles and towards Krieg.
Krieg casts Heal on Torin.

Round 2:
Zorak casts Disintegrate at the shield guardian. He hit and the guardian failed its save. It took 74 points of damage.
Sen takes a few swings on a gargoyle and does about 40% of its hp.
The shield guardian and the gargoyles chase after Torin (they're going after the guy who touched the door). His full hit points are 92. They do a combined 98 hp in damage. Torin drops.
Thunderclease continues to rip into the guardian. He leaves it in chunks on the ground.
Valden foregoes his combat swings to cast his Heal spell on Torin.
Torin stands up and takes the free swings from the gargoyles.
Krieg casts Cure Critical on Torin, but his die rolls suck.

Round 3:
Zorak casts Magic Missile on a gargoyle.
Sen continues to take chunks out of the same gargoyle.
The gargoyles continue to go after Torin. They do 86 points of damage to him. He drops again.
Thunderclease hits with 3 of his 4 attacks and drops a gargoyle. His cleave attack hurts another.
Valden heals Torin, despite Brian's statement that Torin has failed the test of survival of the fittest and deserves to be left to die.
Repeat Torin's previous actions.
Krieg continues to heal Torin.

The rest of the combat is a wash.

And they get a small reward. They get to look into room N11 because the shield guardian did a Wile E. Coyote. when he left the archway.

Room N11: This rubble filled room has many glowing runes on the walls and the rubble. And the most disturbing thing the party finds is a transparent, white-blue glowing wall in the center of the room.

Detection spells couldn't penetrate the wall either. Detect Magic just showed it to be an overwhelming abjuration magic.

The party, decides to check the other doors before they walk through this room.

Gate N2: Another 30' tall gate. This time the relief on the door was that of a giant cloaked figure. His face was hidden in the hood of his robe. In one hand he carried a giant gavel. In the other hand was a giant scale, with a giant skull on each of the trays.

That part of the door screamed giant-ass guardian. So the party moved on.

Gate N3: And the final 30' tall gate depicted an old man being led down a path by a skeleton. Making up the door's frame were a couple of statues. One held a giant staff, the other a giant shield.

Having seen all they need to see, the party moved back to...

Room N11: The party was a bit jittery about going through the magical wall. And far be it from me to not exploit that.
The brave Senmonious took the first step through the wall. Then the rest of the party began walking through. Torin was to be last because he is not of good alignment.
So I said, "Nothing happens to those of you that have gone through. Just let me know when Torin goes through."
So, as predicted, the group stopped dead in their tracks and gave Torin a few buffs.
And when Torin passed through...nothing happened.

The door on the other side of the room was thick enough to block detection spells and abilities, so the party had to risk it.

Rooom N12: This room was one small earthquake from collapsing. Throughout the room were several lit braziers, 2 statues, and an unlit brazier in front of each of the statues. One statue was of a fleshless warrior wearing the skin of its enemies as its armor. The other statue was a skeleton with no eye sockets sitting upon a throne.

The door to the east showed a relief of hundreds of tiny figures climbing the bones of a giant corpse. The door showed no way of opening it. Searching came up with nothing. A charge from the wand of Knock did nothing.

So the party looked to the unlit braziers in front of 2 statues.

First Torin investigated the statues and came up with nothing.

So they lit the northern torch.
Nothing happened with the door.

So they lit the southern torch.
An empowered lightning bolt ripped through Senmonious and Thunderclease.
Nothing happened with the door.

They tried all possible variations with no luck.

So they took a closer look at everything. A couple of Knowledge: Religion checks later and it was revealed to the 2 clerics (but not the 8 intelligence paladin) that the 2 statues and the eastern door were the 3 aspects of death (the judge, the guide, and the executioner).

That connected the dots for the party. They realized that each of the gates showed an aspect as well.

So they left the room and made a new resting place. Krieg had a Wall of Stone spell still memorized. So he started to build the group's very own fort. He decided that every day, if he still has the spell at the end of the day, he'll add to it.

Note: No sofa was hurt in the making of the fort.

Gate N3 (again): This time Thunderclease was going to touch the door while heavily buffed, including Greater Invisibility.

So Thunderclease tries to open the door...

Two shield guardians, one swinging a giant staff, the other bashing with a giant shield, do not swing at Cleez.
Instead they blasted out with their stored spells. The entire party is in range of both Shout spells.
End result: minor damage to most of the party, Zorak is deafened, and Krieg, who is protecting Cleez with a Shield Other spell, is now under 50%.
Thunderclease rips into the shield guardian. Well not really. He misses with all 4 of his swings.
Senmonious and Torin double-team one guardian while the rest of the party goes for the other. Torin doesn't do his usual in-and-out combat movement, as he's fairly sure that Thunderclease is the only target the guardians are going to deal with.

The rest of the rounds blur together.
Thunderclease, Krieg, Valden, and Zorak take longer to take out their one guardian than Torin and Senmonious do for theirs.
Thunderclease takes a huge pounding, even while being protected by Invisibility. Well actually Krieg and Thunderclease do. Krieg is even forced to swing blindly with a Heal on Cleez.
And Cleez only hits one time the entire combat. The very last swing on the last shield guardian standing.
It only had 4hp left.

Once again, a Wile E. Coyote effect, allows the party to move in to the next room.

Room N5: Another transparent, blue-white wall of energy split this room in 2. Otherwise the room is empty save for the east and west doors.

Room N6: This room's walls are full of glowing runes. A Comprehend Languages spell reveals them to be just a bunch of names, with nothing else about them.

Room N7: Another room with 2 statues, a relief on the eastern door, and 2 unlit braziers.

And we stopped there for the week.

There will be no game next week, and possibly not the week after.
Next week several of us have plans.
And the week after because we've played for 8 weeks in a row, and there's about to be a wife revolt.

Session #31

Ok, the players asked this session "Why didn't Serratine use that Ring of Wishes against us?"

Good question. The absolute honest answer...it didn't even occur to me. That ring became so much of a plot item that her using it was not even a concept. But having said that, I couldn't have used it anyway. Had she used it, the game would have been over. The whole campaign, 10 months of our lives, out the window because of a single magic item. Not something any of us were keen on doing.

Ok, now are you here for a dragon fight?!? Well too bad. It didn't happen. You'll have to read on to find out exactly what happened.

Joe had to skip this session, and Dale had to leave 20 minutes into it. Bad cheeseburger or something...

He apologized to my wife for what he did to our bathroom...(shudder)...

Ok, I didn't let the party know, but they changed regions.

For the first time they mapped out almost every single room in region J. So their map showed an obvious gap of where the dragon's prison/lair was.

But this DM wasn't giving them jack-squat for information. Including, this time, not telling them when they were changing regions. It's just plain fun messing with players' heads like that. Keeps them off balance.

But anyway, this map has some obvious problems with it. Nothing you can't ignore though.

Hack-a-map

The map won't even come into play for awhile though.

The party had to return to the garrison for some information and assistance.

I'm beginning to really hate the Wind Walk spell.

First, they went to talk to Mythlyrian once again to ask for help. He had just a few moments to spare. He mentioned that the garrison made contact with some another remnant of a garrison or two. (Read that as: more regions were being cleared as the party clears their own regions.)

Long story short, the party asked him for any assistance with defeating Tyrus. Mythlyrian said he could promise nothing, but would look for volunteers. He also told them that it was direct divine intervention by Tyr that imprisonned Tyrus.

After that the party, well Krieg, was forced to cast Commune. About an hour of game time was killed debating on the exact questions to ask.

100xp later...

12 questions that can be answered in "yes", "no", "maybe", or "I don't know".

The format is:
Question
Answer
Their response

Question #1 - Do we need to defeat Tyrus to make it to the next region?
No
Hooray

Question #2 - Is he weakened?
No
Boo

Question #3 - Is he frozen?
No
Boo

Question #4 - Can a wish imprison the dragon?
Maybe
Jerk

Question #5 - Will wishing directly to Tyr to restore Tyrus's imprisonment work?
Maybe
Jerk

Question #6 - Will "I wish for Tyrus's prison ceiling to collapse on him" work?
No
Thought so

Question #7 - Will wishing Tyrus to be reburied in ice work?
No
Eh

Question #8 - Is he in the northwestern section of the Pyrefaust?
Yes
Alright, we got one.

Question #9 - Do we get to his prison by digging through the room with the ice devil?
No
Hmmm

Question #10 - Is he a god?
No
Well that's a relief.

Question #11 - Do we get to his prison by going through the wyvern rooms?
No
Whew

Question #12 - Can we defeat him in a straight up fight?
Maybe
You bastard

They should have known better on that last one. While not probable, it is possible for everyone to roll natural 20's over and over again while the DM just can't help with getting natural 1's.

But oh well. They knew that asking the DM for excessive divine answers was risky.

While Wind Walk is still in effect, the party goes with their only route.

So while flying the party scouts out...

Room N1: This is a central area of tunnels. While the party is investigating a still smoldering fire, Valden makes his spot check.

What happened was that the noise that the mephits make whenever the party is around alerted the drow to the coming of the party. So the drow prepped for an ambush.

But the DM rolled like crap. Two Dispel Magics from the drow failed miserably.

The party flew away at high speed. Apparently the 5 rounds it would take for the party to return to solid form during combat wasn't too appetizing.

The party flew away, buffed up, and returned.
But the drow were gone.

I spent like 2 hours making some custom NPCs. Out the window. Eh, at least I can't say it's the first time that happened. Plus the party missed out on some minor loot that could have helped in a dragon fight.

So now on with the real Room N1.

Now that the party was in physical form, the dwarves got a closer look at this area. They realized that it any loud sounds or explosions could collapse the whole area.

And they also found a large skeletal creature rooting through the fire pit.

It, a devourer, attempted to talk to the party, talking to them in a very Gollum kind of way. "Yes master. Kind master. I'm not evil because I have a choice master, I must swallow the souls of the dead because of the hunger." And so on.

Senmonious: "Is he evil?" (Radar on.)
DM: Yup
Krieg: "Ash him boys."

Thunderclease charges him. Does 40% of the devourer's hp in a single hit. The devourer runs for it. Cleez's attack of opportunity leaves it with 4hp.
Cleez follows...combat over.

So the party moves on through the tunnels. Quietly and quickly so the ceiling won't fall in on them. Going so far as to casting a Silence spell on a rock and carrying it with them.

Then the party runs into a floating red ball of light. The party approaches and it moves away, never letting them get closer than 5'.

Finally someone realizes that Cleez is holding the Silence rock. Cleez moves away.

Then they are greeted with barrage of comments and questions from the sphere of light.

Another long story short:
- Tyrus's lair is indeed to the south.
- A cloud of fire recently flew past this area.
- The area to the east is in fact a prison for some powerful undead. And their is one particular undead in there that is trying to break free. Just like Tyrus.
- Tyrus and this other undead have a pact to free one another.

During this entire time, Vrisht, the lantern archon, turns into a needy, bored, and lonely celestial who can't leave his post. He all but begs the party to return soon and talk with him.

Krieg: "So is there anything to the south we need to worry about?"
Vrisht: "Yeah, there's a dragon down there."
Heh, walked right into that one.

Room J72 The Lair and Prison of Tyrus, Devourer of Kingdoms:
The party came to a large puddle of water, created through a slow steady trickle of water coming from a wall of ice, with a tunnel in it. The tunnel went straight up 60' in a matter of 20'. It was just wide enough for a burning hot ogre-magi to go through :)

Zorak cast Fly on only 2 people. The party had decided that unless there were some new and interesting circumstances, they weren't going to fight the dragon.

Why? Oh it's pretty simple. It's a CR23 and they are a group of 6 10th-12th level PCs armed with some toothpicks and a wish.

So Thunderclease and Valden flew up to scout things out. Cleez had the rock of Silence. Valden had the Ring of Wishes and he was a cleric of the Luck domain (he gets one free reroll per day).

What they saw:
A large cavernous room coated in ice. On the floor, in the center of the cavern, was a large pile of gold. And on the pile of gold was a giant sleeping red dragon.

Well that was enough to make the party think twice. If Thunderclease could sneak up to the dragon and get a coup de grace on the dragon, it would be an immediate win. A backup plan was being conceived. If an Otto's Irresistable Dance worked, the party would have a surprise round, and 2-5 rounds more of the party attacking a helpless dragon.

Ok, now here's what the DM knew...
The pile of treasure was real.
The dragon was not.
He was waiting behind a column of stone waiting for the party to fall for the ruse.

Can you imagine the cry of anguish from a group of players who fell for a simple trap like that?

I know I can...but nooooo.
The party chose to be cautious.

There are old adventurers and there are bold adventurers. But there are no old, bold adventurers.

Thunderclease tossed the rock of Silence and Valden raised up his hand with the Ring of Wishes and spoke.

(They spent probably 10 minutes on wording this one just right too.)

"I wish that the god Tyr will hear my request to restore the justful imprisonment of the ancient red dragon, Tyrus, the Devourer of Kingdoms, who now is before us."

Had I really wanted to, I could have totally punched some major holes in the wording. But their intentions were clear, and since their wish was a request from a god, it was granted.

A large apparition appeared before the 2 adventurers. It was a 10' tall man with an eye missing and a hand missing. Valden immediately recognized it as Tyr, the god of justice.

"Arrogant mortals, you have called on the power of the gods. But your goals are just, and your deeds are true. So I shall grant your wish. But only for a time. In one months time (4 tenday weeks), you must return to give justice to this dragon. Should you not return, or should you fail in defeating him, he will once again be free."

The apparition fades. And charging from the background is a very angry dragon.

(In the same kind of voice of Megatron from Transformers: Beastwars.)
"You will pay for this. Yes. You will suffer for this dearly."

Then the ice begins growing rapidly from everywhere.

Valden and Cleez dive back down the tunnel.

Hokey ending? Yeah. But hey, we're a bunch of grown men playing with little figurines and speaking in funny voices. If you expected more than that from us, then you're not reading the right blog.
:)

Would Tyrus have slaughtered the party had they tried to fight him?
Most likely.
It wouldn't have been a one-sided fight, but the party simply doesn't have the ability to withstand the amount of firepower a dragon of that magnitude can dish out.

Now, would I have killed them had they attacked the dragon foolishly?
Definitely. Momma didn't raise no chump dragons.

Next week. A new region.
Finally.

Planning

Man oh man is the group doing some planning.

There are e-mail discussions and questions left and right this week.

I wouldn't be surprised if Aaron was trying to tweak the wording of a wish just right for about 10 different possibilities.

They aren't even sure of what they know anymore.

Tomorrow evening should be really interesting.

For all I know, tomorrow could just be 100% planning. Not a single dice roll.

All because of a simple ancient red dragon fight.

Like a red dragon ever hurt anyone...


Edit 2 hours prior to game time:
This is going to be an interesting night.
That's for darn sure.
I have only been involved in 2 dragon fights in 3rd edition. Both as a player.
One went incredibly well.
The other went horribly wrong.

Assuming there is a dragon fight tonight, it's going to be huge. Well I guess gargantuan is the correct size :)
I'm trying to be as prepared as possible. But every DM knows that while some players are predictable, when 6 of them are thrown together, predictability goes right out the window.

The players are probably about as ready as they're going to be.

Will they be victorious? Will they be TPK'd? Will the put their tails between their legs and run?

I don't know.
Yet.

Session #30

"Celebrate the birth of your nation by blowing up a small part of it."

Dungeon masters, did you ever have a day where your players made things harder on themselves than was needed?

Well welcome to this session. The party played it slow and smart. But they overdid it at one point.

Sometimes the way to go is to shoot first and ask questions later.

Well this session and its attendance were interesting. Brian, Justin, Dale, and Aaron arrived on time. A couple hours later Joe showed up. Then Brian had to leave after the main fight ended. A couple minutes after that, Jeff showed up just to see what he missed (his work had him do a single-day out of town business trip).

Map

The heroes woke from their rest. Currently they have 2 tasks at hand; to find and defeat Tyrus, and to save the long-haired lady from the "Dark One".

At this time the party has mapped out the vast majority of the region. But not every single nook and cranny. And sadly this region, unlike the previous ones, needs to be scoured to solve its puzzles and find it secrets.

First the party thought they had solved the puzzle of the lady. So Zorak cast Invisibility on everyone (to hide from the mephits) and they all went to the ziggurat/pyramid that is... (well after they worked out the logistics of everyone being invisible)

Area V1: This ziggurat is only about 10' tall at its highest point. It had only 2 tiers and a statue of the long-haired lady, her hand outstretched as if to hold something. A plaque at the base read (in celestial):

Five to unbind,
One to complete,
My beloved children,
Rise to their feat.

Senmonious had the mithril orb so he placed it in her hands. Nothing. The party waited. Still nothing.

So he retrieved the mithril orb.

Now the party had thought they had solved all of the puzzles, but no. They only had flipped 2 of the switches, rather than all 5. The party had made the mistake of thinking that the puzzles to get to the switch-statue rooms were also part of the overall puzzle.

So now the party had to go find themselves 3 more statues with switches.

First they used their remaining time being Invisible to scout out more of the map. But that turned up nothing.

So they put their scout to use. Zorak casts Invisibility and Fly on Torin, allowing Torin to investigate unseen and unfettered by nasty obstacles...like gravity and lava.

So Torin spent the next 10 minutes scouting out the river of lava and the open areas near it.

But that also turned up nothing more than where the first 2 fire giants attacked the party oh so long ago.

And since the party has killed most of the non-mephit inhabitants of the region, once again random monsters are all but unheard of. (That does not mean the DM isn't rolling :)).

So now the party has to pull out their map and begin looking again at what they've missed.

Room J50: The party had been here before. This is where the powered up rasts nearly TPK'd the party and Senmonious's quick thinking saved them.

Now the party waited out in the hall, while Sen moved in to scout out what would be Room J53. Originally Torin was with Sen, but...

When they entered, the rasts came out and got near the party, but not within striking range. The agitated rasts freaked out Torin and Sen enough to make Torin head back to the hallway.

So Sen went through this puzzle alone. Sen tried the door to room J53, but it was locked. So he went back to J50 and noticed the 2 alcoves, one with a statue, and one without.

Since this puzzle was repeating itself, he knew what to do. He moved the statue from one alcove to another and then heard a click.

Room J53: Another lichen covered statue of a beautiful, long-haired woman. He searched the statue and found a switch.

Hooray! Kind of.

Everytime the party flipped one of these switches something bad has happened. The first time Krieg got blasted with a Harm spell. The second time the whole party was hit with a Dictum spell.

But this time, nothing happened. Afterwards Sen was to flip all of these switches. They suspected, and were correct, that only those of lawful good alignment could flip these switches without harm.

And there was singing off to the west.

Room V1 (again): Zorak returned here alone and invisible, just in case. Nope, nothing again.

Back to the map...

Ok, now last session the party had defeated the fiery ogre magi. But they were in such bad shape afterwards that they didn't investigate too much afterwards. And at the beginning of this session, they had forgotten about it. Until now anyway.

Room J48: Another puzzle where the party had to turn some statues...snore...

And the image of the beautiful woman returned and said something to the party about slving the puzzle...snore...

This time the party heard 2 clicks from secret doors they had found but had not tried to open yet.

Room J47: Another statue of the woman. Sen flipped the switch and singing was heard.

Room J49: And another statue of the woman. Sen flipped the switch and singing was heard.

Now the party returns to their sleeping room and rests up. They don't quite trust this woman. They think the celestials may have put her in here for a reason. But they had to check it out. They accepted that for all they knew, this was how you find the dragon.

Area V1 (one more time): Rested up and invisible again, the party puts the mithril orb in the statue's hands. The statue moves and slides to the left, revealing a stairway below and the horrid stench of death coming from it.

After a couple seconds the statue was fully open. Then, as the party descended the stairs, the statue began sliding back closed.

Region V

(This map had to be scanned in directly from the book. Sorry for the curve.)

Room V2: As the party descended the stairs into this tomb, they saw a relief of angelic beings fighting demonic/devilish beings and at the bottom of it was the depiction of fallen celestial.

In a sweet voice, "At last, my heroes have come to save me! Come quickly, I am trapped by fiends..."

The party attempted to ask questions by yelling them, with no results.

Room V3: (Room V4 was not entered, but was very similar to this one)

Three granite sarcophogi lay closed in the center of this hallway.

"You may calm down. There is no purpose in further ruses. Come in, my heroes. It is not often I receive visitors. I am so lonely in this dreadful place. Come visit me and share conversation with an old soul."

The party attempted to ask her questions again by yelling down the hallway. Still with no response.

By now the heroes knew this was all a trap. A woman that desperately needed their help turns out to be just fine after they enter an unopenable tomb, and then they see sarcophagi...riiiight.

Zorak cast Detect Magic. One of the sarcophogi radiated some necromancy. So the party chose not to molest them.

Rooms V5, V6, & V7: More sarcophogi. More radiated necromancy. One radiated evocation and it was open.

"Do not be afraid, revered guests. My children are safe with me."

Children? Wouldn't that fill you with joy?

Once again the party attempted to ask questions, with the same result.

After that they checked out the open sarcophogus that radiated evocation magic (V6). Torin's searching turned up nothing except a couple of rats frozen together in a block of ice.

Thunderclease moved the rats after it was determined the magic came from beneat them. He was then blasted with 12 points of cold damage.

He kept the rats.

Room V8: As the party entered this room, it burst into light as several candles. Sitting atop a single sarcophogus was the angellically beautiful woman that the party had seen many times. Effectively dressed in her very thin "night clothes", this woman oozed seduction and acted upon it. Around the room were a dozen of her "servants".

"What took you so long? You may call me Serratine. Please take a seat."

The party chose to stand.

The entire time in this area, Senmonious had been detecting evil. So he decided to scan Serratine. Bad move. One bad saving throw later and Sen took a seat on the floor.

Afterwards she told them that she had been the most beautiful of all of the angels in the heavens. Many angels sought her to be their own. But she was with Kator, and he became jealous. He eventually rallied those in the heavens to cast her down out of his jealousy.

She says that she can never leave this tomb, but she does seek revenge and that's where the party comes into play. She has a Ring of Wishes that she is willing to give to the party if they promise to bring her the one who closed her tomb, a celestial named Cyrlebrai.

Basically the next 10 minutes resulted in circular question asking by the party to her where she basically repeated herself. In the process Torin sat down in the same manner as Sen.

Eventually Zorak came into a verbal confrontation with her, while avoiding her gaze. (He even avoided looking at the DM during this time.)

Her last words before combat began were, "Foolish, grotesque mortal, you shall be consumed with a vile unrest."

Early rounds: The 12 servants rush towards the party. Senmonious ends up receiving a few negative levels thanks to the servants (who are now obviously vampire spawn).
Zorak casts Haste on the party and Fireball on the spawn.
Thunderclease, not being afraid of combat when there's no giant around, wades into melee and barely receives a scratch. He mows down at least one spawn a round. And in one round he takes out 4.
Valden casts his combat prep spells.
Krieg attempts to turn, but Aaron's on a low rolling streak and there's something hampering his turning abilities.
Torin and Senmonious team up to protect the casters while letting Cleez go on the offensive.
Serratine casts Fly and Greater Invisibility. Eventually she flies in behind Cleez and drains a couple of levels from him.

Middle rounds:
There's only a handful of spawn left. Krieg uses his mega-turn from his clerical sun domain to finish them off.
Serratine wades around the battlefield while invisible, draining a few more levels here and there, including from the use of Enervation.
Valden responds with an Invisibility Purge.
That causes Serratine to fly up to the ceiling to avoide melee, and then out of range of the purge spell. While she is doing that, Krieg and Zorak attempt a targeted Dispel Magic on her. But they both fail on all attempts.

Late rounds: Serratine is backed up into her own crypt room so she can remain invisible. The party tosses a few nuke spells in there, but they see no signs of her dying.
Valden moves forward to bring her back into the range of the Invisibility Purge. And she is still on the ceiling casting spells.
Valden casts Heal and holds the charge, intending to use it as a touch attack on Serratine the vampire. And since he's large size now from his combat buffs, it's more than likely that he'll hit her.
She, knowing full well what that spells mean, casts Hold Monster on him. And he fails his save.
The party, who has no one that can reach her, and has no ranged weapons that can hurt her, stand back and look on impotently. They all believe they have no way to defeat her now.
So while they twiddle their thumbs, Serratine uses this opportunity to wreak more havoc. Including casting more Enervations at the party.
Round after round, Valden fails his Will saves (his best save too).
Further Dispel Magic spells remove a few of her spells, but not the Fly spell.
Aaron, desperate, looks at Krieg's spell list and character sheet to find a spell that will help. He finds one and the DM rolls a mere 2 on the saving throw.
Serratine is now blind.
She turns to gaseous form and attempts to the flee the battlefield. She knows this tomb well, she's been here 1000 years after all. So even being blind only hampers her a little.
So Krieg messes with her head and puts a Wall of Stone in the center of the battlefield. That slows her down.
And when she gets around that and moves into room V6, he blocks her in there with another Wall of Stone. And it's air-tight.

The combat is over, kind of.
The party searches her tomb and finds nothing.
The Hold Monster spell wears off before Valden can remove it (that's how bad Aaron was rolling all night).
And when he able to move again, he makes sure to touch absolutely nothing. The party may need that Heal spell. So he basically stands around touching nothing with his right hand.

Torin and Zorak go searching the area for any doors, secret or otherwise.

The rest of the party goes about staking the vampire spawn, by converting their 10' wooden pole into a dozen stakes.

Several thorough searches later and the party has found nothing, even while using their Wand of Detect Secret Doors.

They realize their only way out is to kill Serratine. But they don't have the proper materials to kill her. They give it a shot anyway.

So Thunderclease and Torin begin working at clearing away the Wall of Stone. Two hours later and they have made a 2" hole in the wall to converse with her.

They say, "Let us free."
She says, "Remove this blindness and we'll talk."

So the party goes back to clearing away the wall.

Twenty more hours later, and a thoroughly exhausted party has removed enough of the stone wall to be able to move through. And through some amazing rolls by Jeff (who recently showed up to the game), Valden still has the Heal spell running (yeah this is stretching the intent of the "holding the charge" rules, but eh).

Round 1:
Thunderclease moves into the room.
Zorak casts Haste.
Krieg casts Silence on Serratine.
Serratine flails blindly, hitting Thunderclease once and draining him.
Krieg begins to very slowly and deliberately move into the room.

Round 2:
Zorak Enlarges Cleez.
Cleez takes a chunk out of Serratine.
Valden makes it through the hole.
Serratine flails about blindly but Cleez makes his Fort saves this time.

Round 3:
Zorak Enlarges Valden.
Valden uses his Heal spell touch attack on Serratine. She makes her save, so only takes 55 damage.
Thunderclease hurts her some more.

She turns gaseous and flies up. But she is not out of the party's range any longer. So she turns back to her solid form.
One last swing by Valden and she's out of hp.

She turns back to gaseous, but her clothing and ring does not.
She rapidly flies back to her tomb, which then seals up and all of her spawn in their sarcophogi burn into nothing.

The party says, "What the..."

But now they have a Ring of Wishes (2 wishes remaining). And can leave.

And Krieg thought the garrison would come save them.
Puh-lease.

One carefully worded wish later, and the party leaves the tomb.

They then return to their room and rest for 2 days.

Note: I don't play where negative levels can become permanent. It is just too nasty. And in this dungeon, it would be a death sentence. So they just keep the negative levels until they shrug them off or get them restored.

And on that note:
Thunderclease leveled (10 barbarian/2 fighter)
Senmonious leveled (11 paladin)
Others are painstakingly close

Next week: Dragon fight?
Man I sure hope so. This region has lasted 2 sessions longer than each of the other regions.

Oh another thing, if you hate 3rd edition. Keep it to yourself.
Thanks.

:)