Rappan Athuk #4 - The Mausoleum

This week’s session started off a little rocky, but proved to be pretty productive as the group finally made it inside the dungeon of graves known as Rappan Athuk.

We are once again rejoined by Justin. His character is a min/maxed dwarf fighter/barbarian named Slam, and is the first evil PC in the group.

Joy’s replacement PC is just a modified character from the ill-fated Cormyr campaign we had. Her name is still Saeri and she’s an elf fighter/ranger.

This week we had a full table of six of us, which I hoped would make the combats a little more even.

Now get this; I’m getting flack because they don’t have enough healing. As of this session they had 5 PC’s each with 2 classes. Of those 10 classes, they have 2 favored souls. They also have around 50% more hit points because of the changes I’ve made to the game. As a result the group feels that I should make healing and such a bit more available.

I can see where they’re coming from. I threw a fight at them that was a hair over their abilities, in spite of them handling a similar (and equal EL) fight previously with a much better outcome.

What really messed up that fight were the two big critical hits. First Sasha’s crit against the fiendish dire wolf gave them a little hope of survival. Which was then followed by the crit the crippled Sasha and the series of decisions afterwards which ended in them running, several rounds after they probably should have.

It’s all hindsight, but I looked at the whole thing and came to two conclusions.

#1 – Someone has to step up as full time healer. With 5 PC’s they have 3 full time melee freaks and 2 other PC’s who are part time healers at best.

#2 – Critical hits hurt the party more than they help. I’ve heard this for years, but always figured that only those special “crit charts” did that.

For #1 the group thought I should rethink some of my decisions and allow the party to hire a cleric, take the Leadership feat to get a cleric cohort, or allow an alternate version of the cleric as a class option.

My response was that they have a lot more hit points than they’re used to, and it’s filled them with a kind of false sense of security. They have more hit points, but not more healing or armor class. So they take damage just as often as before, and regain it from healing just as slowly, but they can stand up a little longer.

I figure it’s only a matter of time before they get used to the change and someone in the groups bites the bullet and becomes the group’s healer. Once again no one wants to be the healer, and this time I won’t help them by creating an NPC healer.

I’d like to see what they’re doing exactly for 4E, and see if it’s easily adaptable to what we have now. Maybe we can revisit that in a month or two.

For #2 we already have something usable from 4E that can be adapted with just an afterthought of work. Throw out critical hit confirmation rolls and crits do max damage rather than a multiplier of damage. It’s simple enough to convert most weapons over. A longsword does a base of 8 damage on a roll of 19-20. A greatsword does a base of 12 on the same rolls. For those weapons that do x3 damage on a crit, you just increase their threat range by 1.

Yeah the balance of some weapons cost is a little off now, but in the grand scheme I don’t see that as a big problem. Balancing the prices of weapons is pretty low on the priority list I think.

Of course the party will never be able to deal out 100+ points of damage in a single melee attack, but they won’t have to face it either.

Now on to the game…

Last we stopped with the Mouse and Saver fleeing back to town after the above-mentioned combat.

Rather than wait until the group got to town to introduce new PC’s, I decided that moment was a good time to do it.

Mouse and Saver came across an unfortunately familiar sight; a dozen skeletons in formation had stopped a group of people along the trail. As usual the lead skeleton was holding out his hand to the party they were facing, as if waiting for the party to hand something over.

Mouse and Saver immediately hid as best they could and waited to see what happened.

Facing the skeletons were three adventurers, Vars (who Saver knows), Slam, and Saeri.

Slam brought 5gp to the lead skeleton, and dropped it on the ground in front of it. When the skeleton “looked” down, Slam punched it in the skull.

Unlike last time, where the party had a rough time taking on the skeletons, this fight was minor thanks to the brute force that Slam brought to the table.

After introductions, the two groups joined up and headed back to their new base of operations – the ruined tower and surprisingly had a peace-filled night of sleep.

In spite of having lost it, their map wasn’t exactly very complicated and the party was able to find the trail leading to the graveyard.

The only thing they encountered on this nice morning trek to their doom was a stone obelisk very similar to the one they found before (session #2 I believe). They searched it thoroughly and concluded that it was solid stone, but hadn’t always been here – mainly because they had crossed the trail at this point two days ago but hadn’t seen it.

They made note of the curiosity and moved on after Mouse marked it with a piece of chalk.

Less than an hour later they were standing atop the hill looking back down into the cross-shaped, sunken graveyard left with the same decisions as last time – check out rat holes again, dig up coffins, search the dwarf statue, investigate the mausoleums without gargoyles, investigate the mausoleums with gargoyles, take another look at Saver’s tombstone, or go down the well.

Mouse started off with spelunking the rat holes again, coming to the same results as last time (nothing good and lots of squeaks).

The dwarven hero statue was the next target of their attentions.

On the base of the statue, written in dwarven was “Blessed is he who spares these stones, and cursed be the man who moves my bones.”

In spite of their rampant (probably justified) paranoia, they searched the statue and found a stone drawer holding an iron key which Vars pocketed.

Shortly after, they spotted a troupe of ghouls pulling themselves out of the ground with hungry eyes for the party.

Given how good the spot checks were I gave the party 5 rounds to prepare, but the amount of time they spent discussing a plan forced me to knock it down to 4.

When it got down to it they made the best of those rounds and weakened the ghouls with ranged weapons to make them easy to mop up when melee was required.

After that they did a search of the ground the ghouls pulled themselves out of, and found nothing.

Next on their agenda were the green stone mausoleums without any gargoyles resting on them.

They searched around them, and even climbed on top, before picking the lock and going inside (the iron key didn’t work).

Outside they found nothing of interest, and inside they found empty and knocked over sarcophagi.

All they had left to search was the mausoleum with the gargoyles and the well – and they were avoiding the well like the plague.

Their level of paranoia of the gargoyles was pretty funny. When they finally grew a pair and approached the last mausoleum the gargoyles didn’t budge.

They now figure the gargoyles are waiting for them to run from another fight before they animate and attack. Thanks for the idea.

The door to the place was locked like the other mausoleums, but this time the iron key worked (after some failed picking attempts).

The large stone doors opened inwards of their own accord and the key disappeared out of the lock.

Once the party had safely entered the 40’ x 60’ mausoleum, the doors closed.

Other than the litter of broken weapons and spent torches, only a single sarcophagus resides in the mausoleum. Resting on it is a pair of iron candelabras with black candles lit by enchanted flames.

They give a cursory examination of the room, and other than the obviously evil and vile acts shown on the walls, nothing is found. That ends up being fairly unfortunate for the party, because there is a secret door, and it is vital to their survival.

The party focuses on the sarcophagus, and after a lid-lifting competition between Saeri and Slam, Slam wins and the lid is now off the sarcophagus.

Surprise Round:
A humanoid skeleton made of black bone and wielding dual short swords jumps up from his prone position inside the sarcophagus, laughing evilly.
Saver, being paranoid, gets an action for this round. He spends it casting Bless.

Round 1:
Mouse hits the skeleton with his morning star (I think) but no damage penetrates the thing damage reduction.
Saver casts Magic Missile doing some damage.
Saeri pulls her longsword and hits it, but does no damage.
Slam pulls his greatsword and misses.
The skeleton stops laughing long enough to let out a piercing shriek that sends Mouse, Slam, and Vars running to the corners of the room in a panic (failed a DC15 Will save).

Unseen by the party, the ceiling begins to lower, or the floor begins to rise.
To make things worse the only available exit out of the room is now just a secret door on the floor which can only be opened by pulling a special (and just as hidden) handle-mechanism on the wall. That handle will be out of sight within 1 minute’s time.

Round 2:
Saver casts another Magic Missile.
Saeri pulls her short sword to dual-wield against the thing, but for the entire remainder of the combat she does zero damage to it.
The black skeleton hits Saeri with each of his short swords, but does minimum damage (1) with each one, and then drains a point of strength from her for each hit (4 consecutive 1’s on d6’s). The DM’s rolls continue to miss her for the remainder of combat.
The room continues to vertically shrink and the party remains unaware.

Rounds 3-6:
Saver casts Magic Missile or Disrupt Undead.
Saeri and the skeleton dance around.

Round 7:
Saver uses his Wand of Magic Missiles (level 5 caster, 4 charges now left) killing the skeleton.

As the fight ends and the fear effect wears off, everyone has a chance to spot their new problem, and luckily they do.

What was even luckier for them, their dwarf (Slam) notices the secret stone door and the mechanism.

Round 8:
Slam pulls on the handle but it doesn’t budge (DC22 strength check)
Mouse quickly searches the coffin, finding nothing.

Round 9:
Slam tries again on the handle once again, and with success, opening the secret door on the floor.

They discuss using this opportunity to do a more thorough search of the place, since it will take a while for the ceiling to touch the sarcophagus and stop.

But then they notice a cutout in the ceiling, perfect in size and location for the sarcophagus.

Over the next few seconds the party flees down the stairs beneath the door and into the worst smelling place they’ve ever been in.

(Saver and Mouse are now level 4, the rest are 3.)

This entire new region smells like a well-used latrine on a hot summer day, after a chili cook-off. While in this entire region everyone has to make a DC10 Fortitude save every half hour or be nauseated until they leave.

This new region is part natural caves and part carved out with very little debris but not very clean.

Their path takes them to a door that is untrapped and unlocked. After that they have multiple paths to choose from, but none of them very interesting. One path dead ends into a cave in and another natural passage closes up.

Their first big score of money was a whopping 22cp lying on the floor under a dead rat infested with green slime (which barely missed dropping onto Saeri).

So far they aren’t very happy with what they’ve found, so they take a quick look back at the passage to the mausoleum, hoping to leave and rest up. They find that the ceiling and floor have met, and probably won’t be fully separate for another two days. And since the doors of the mausoleum open inward, they are stuck here for the duration unless they find a new way out.

So back to the dungeon they go, and instead of monsters they encounter small trap after small trap.

They had a fake stair that almost poisoned and trapped Mouse’s leg. Then there was a deck of cards with contact poison on it. And finally a 20’ pit.

Aaron, planning for the future, has Mouse mark each trap with his chalk.

(Joy left early. Saeri poofs out.)

After finding a sarcophagus with the silver inlays pried out, the party realizes that the upper dungeon levels are probably going to be stripped clean by other adventurers. To find some treasure they have to lucky, good, or both.

As they travel east, they come to a north/south T-intersection. The party chooses to head south.

This time Mouse’s stone cunning notices a secret door.

Inside the room was a very lonely ghast. He hadn’t seen adventurers in so he praised them on their cleverness and asked them to come in.

Of course all the party heard was a voice, so they cautiously entered the room until the ghast claws at Mouse, starting the combat.

Round 1:
Mouse casts Bless.
Saver, who is down to cantrip spells and his wand only, casts Disrupt Undead.
The ghast bites at Saver, who makes his saves vs. disease and paralysis.
Vars attacks and misses
Slam moves into the room, but can’t attack yet as he was too far back.

Round 2:
Mouse attacks and misses.
Saver goes on full defense.
The ghast bites Saver, who then fails the paralysis save.
The ghast then turns around and claws at Slam, who is also then paralyzed.
Vars swings again and misses.

Round 3:
Mouse casts Magic Weapon on Vars main bastard sword.
The ghast bites at Vars, paralyzing him as well.

Round 4:
Mouse casts Cure Light Wounds as an attack spell. He holds the charge and runs to the other side of the room forcing the ghast to come after him.
The ghast charges Mouse, but misses.

Round 5:
Mouse releases the held spell on the ghast, hurting it but not enough to matter.
The ghast misses Mouse with all three attacks.

Round 6:
Mouse runs to the other side of the room.
He has the feat Mobility, so his AC increases by 4. Unfortunately a nat 20 still hits, but at lease he makes his saves.
Saver shrugs off the paralysis and uses his Wand of Magic Missile on the ghast.
The ghast responds with another charge attack, resulting in Saver being paralyzed again.
Vars shrugs off the paralysis and with the ghast conveniently right their gets to attack with both of his bastard swords. The ghast is cut down.

They search the room, heal up as best they can and all that.
They find a chest with 200cp, 600gp (later found out to be lead), and a secret compartment with 3 magic scrolls. The party is out of read magic spells so they can’t figure out what is written on them.
The party is very low on spells, hit points, and so on and resting here will be hard thanks to the smell.
What will they do?

Rappan Athuk #3 - The Graveyard

Ok, everyone congratulate the babies are their continuing improvement and allowing Dad to have a night a week away from home to be around other adults he doesn’t work with to enjoy a game he’s been playing since he was 12.

Now, if you tuned in to see if the party actually made it to the dungeon, well they almost did, but they chickened out. You’ll have to read on for more.

No Brian this session. Since he has the only rogue, and rogues are required for survival in this campaign, I allowed one of the other players to make a rogue character as a backup PC. Dale made a human monk/rogue and Aaron made a deep halfling favored soul/rogue. The group went with Aaron’s version for the bonus of emergency healing and the darkvision and other dwarf-like bonuses that deep halflings have.

His name was Mouse.

For speed’s sake we just assumed that Brian’s PC, Vars went off on his own for a short time and the party had already chatted with Mouse and joined them for the time being. Vars will pop back in sometime during the next session Brian attends.

A new rumor supplied by Mouse: An immense red dragon has been seen flying around of late. It is heard that he flies over the seas to return to his lair. All adventurers that seek him there are never seen again.

We started this session off with some minor and non-consequential role-playing before they group decided to move on out to find the dungeon and hopefully a large stash of money.

The group does not like this town at all and compares it to Gatlinburg or some other tourist trap. I compare it to something more like Hawaii; goods must travel a difficult route to get there, so extra money is required. Hawaii has a large swath of the Pacific Ocean and Lhend has a barely safe road in and out of the village plus plenty of wild lands surrounding it. The extra money is required for anything that has to travel the road.

For random encounters outside the dungeon I have someone in the group roll 1d6. A roll of 1 means an encounter of some kind occurs, a good or bad one (at my whim, because I’m there to have fun too).

In this case they saw a squad of a dozen soldiers with the king’s banner marching towards them along the same path they were on. Unfortunately the party failed multiple spot checks (you have to love the lower levels) and it wasn’t until the squad was right upon them when they noticed something was terribly wrong.

The king’s banner was torn and had some dried blood on it, and all of the soldiers were human skeletons.

The lead skeleton stepped forward and held his bony hand out, signaling to the party for them to hand something over.

The party took this as the universal symbol for “bribe”, so Sasha stepped forward and threw him a copper piece.

The lead skeleton pulled out his sword and the rest of the squad followed suit.

The two groups charged at each other.

Emanuel got the first kill with a smite evil at the lead skeleton, hoping that maybe the other skeletons would flee without their leader. He was wrong.

Sasha jumped towards the main squad of skeletons, alone. She was subsequently surrounded by eight skeletons.

The bonus hit points I gave the PC’s turned this FUBAR from a TPK to one of those fights where you hope someone else in the group is slower than you.

Of the 12 original skeletons only 3 were taken out before the group ran in three directions.

Eventually the two groups lost sight of each other as everyone ran back to town.

Back in town the group used most of their healing and headed back out of town.

Another 1 on a 1d6 random encounter roll later and they had 9 familiar-looking skeletons marching towards them.

Like before, one of them approached the lead skeleton that was holding his hand out, but this time Emanuel cast Mage Armor when Saver was walking forward.

Combat began anew.

This time around the party was smarter about sticking together improving their chances of survival. But a series of lucky rolls on the DM’s part dropped Sasha pretty handily (literally I rolled 20, 20, 19, 19, and 19 in that order).

The party still won the combat, but they were no longer in any kind of shape to fight another fight, so they headed back to town.

And yet they rolled another 1 on a 1d6 random encounter roll. But this time the DM was nice enough to have the squad of guards to be living guards in the service of the king.

So far, for random encounters the party has rolled three 1’s on three 1d6 rolls.

They are now very low on money, so they stayed in a single room, uncomfortably for the next two nights.

I went ahead and let the party level to level 3 since they were close enough in XP, and it would save time to have them go ahead and level now.

Once that was all completed they set about in search of Rappan Athuk for the billionth time. This time Sasha had Tracking as a feat, making finding the road so much easier.

But it didn’t mean that they were able to avoid random encounter rolls.

They made it all the way to the forest before they rolled that 1 and a pair of man-sized, green-skinned trolls dropped out of the trees and ripped into them with their poisoned claws.

Wow that Con damage poison sure does scare PC’s, and for good reason.

In spite of that, the party was able to kill one troll and make the other run away.

After one little fight, well not that little, the party had to find shelter and hole up for a few days. They couldn’t go back to town because they had no money, and were sick of running back to town like the low levels of Dragon Warrior I.

So Sasha was able to follow the party’s own week-old tracks back to the ruined tower they stumbled upon last session.

And of course they rolled another random encounter and killed a couple of angry, red-eyed fiendish dire badgers living in the front yard of the tower.

They cowered in that place for two full days before they left.

Now while they were inside they heard a bunch of canines growling outside, then a bunch of yelping and more growling, then less yelping and growling, and then nothing.

That was the result of yet more random encounter rolls while they were hiding in the tower, but the tower itself protected them.

But it could protect the wolves from … well other wolves, skeletal wolves to be exact.

That morning the party opened the door of the tower, they saw a horrific sight torn flesh and fur, blood everywhere, made worse by the rains overnight.

And then there were the 8 skeletal wolves just waiting for them.

After a couple of rounds of this fight, we just called it a wash as the party was going to win, it was just a matter time. They set up a conga-line-of-death and killed each wolf, one at a time. So I just rolled some damage and the party healed it and we moved along.

But they decided to go ahead and hole up for another couple of days to shrug off the damage and heal up some of that Con poison damage.

No more random encounters for those two days. Their luck had changed, for now.

With some difficulty, thanks to the rain ruining their trail, the party was able to get back on the main trail and eventually they found themselves going up a hill to what they knew was going to be the dungeon of Rappan Athuk, the dungeon of graves.

That 50gp Emanuel spent on that map was possibly the best money they dropped in the village. The map was actually correct.

The DM then read the flavor text:

“You crest the hill, and the complex finally comes into view. In stark contrast to the lush greenery of the hills lies a large sunken graveyard, laid out in the shape of a cross. Rather than towering above the ground, the graves have settled into depression, and the main mausoleum, a building of strange green stone, rests in the deepest depression, some 40 feet below the ground on which you now stand. At the other end of the grave-filled hollow stand what appears to be a stone well. There are no gravestones near it. The normal sounds of wildlife are gone, and large carrion birds circle overhead. An ominous silence rests about the place. Each of you knows in your heart that you have found the legendary dungeon of Rappan Athuk. And though none of you dares speak it, you wonder if you will live to return to the warmth of hearth and home.”

The light fog over the area did nothing to obscure their vision, but it did seem to play tricks with their eyes, seeing movement out of the corners of their eyes.

Hundreds of headstones in clusters were spread haphazardly about the place.

The party stopped to investigate any headstones they came across as they journeyed to the center of the cross; finding either no one they had heard of or the stones were too worn or defiled to be legible.

It was probably best that no one in the party had a shovel or they would have spent time digging up graves.

Saver, using a Detect Magic spell, swept the area with it on this slow journey, finding that only the mausoleum spoken of in the flavor had anything magical on it. Specifically it was the eight greenstone gargoyle-looking statues that sat atop the mausoleum.

They gave that mausoleum plenty of breathing room and never stepped any closer than 40’ to the building, just knowing that those gargoyle things were out to get them.

Dale: “I have prodigious faith that we would do something stupid to trip them all off.”

They had hoping for some easy score and grab a bunch of money then head back to town. That concept is best described as delusional.

Thanks to some good spot checks they made note of some small holes in the ground that they saw rats fleeing into, a large statue of some great dwarven warrior, and a cluster of fresh dug graves.

They started with the fresh dug graves. On the tombstones were names of heroes of their own time, except for one open grave with a gravestone engraved with the name “Saver Die” (Dale’s PC’s name).

That particular grave caught their attention, as it should. First Mouse gave a search of it and found nothing, then curiosity got the best of Saver and they tied a rope to him and lowered him in to the fresh dug earth so he could search for himself.

Other than a horribly creepy feeling, he found nothing and they pulled him out.

Next were the rat holes. Being 3’ wide only Mouse could easily move around in the holes. So they tied that 50’ long rope to him and let him scurry around in them.

His first attempt to navigate the holes brought him up out of another nearby hole.

His second attempt led him downwards quite a bit, but he had to abandon it when the rope ran out.

His third and fourth attempts ended in him coming out of a hole in another section of the graveyard, but not that far away.

The party was quite creeped out at this point, and everything they encountered reeked of a trap, so they turned around and left the place with their tails between their legs.

So much for adventurers being brave souls.

They headed back to town, hoping to have yet another random encounter, but luck had turned on them again, and they made it back to town after dusk.

They were exhausted, but the inn was full, and they didn’t have the money to start a bidding war for the rooms. So they were left with the dreaded common rooms, which were effectively a breeding ground for mold and disease. They could barely afford the 1gp per person for the place, and had no other safe option.

When the morning came, they stocked up on rations and headed back out to the wilderness, hoping for a random encounter that might bring them money and maybe something that will help them in the dungeon.

In the forest they got a something they wished for, but you what they say about that.

Along the path they heard some growling as a pair of glowing red-eyed fiendish dire wolves moved to block their path, and combat began.

Round 1:
Saver casts Ray of Enfeeblement, draining 7 points of strength from wolf #1.
Emanuel casts Mage Armor on himself.
Wolf #1 charges Saver and smites Saver, doing 11 points of damage.
Sasha turns to wolf #1 and crits it with a power attack, dealing 51 points of damage. That doesn’t kill it, but it’s limping.
Mouse is able to sneak attack wolf #1 for 10 points of damage but it still doesn’t drop.

Now had the party dropped the first fiendish dire wolf, the second would have ran for the hills, but they didn’t, so it didn’t.

Wolf #2 charges Sasha with a smite attack, and crits her. She takes 47 points of damage, leaving her at -8 hit points.

Round 2:
Emanuel hits the wolf with paltry a 5 points of damage, but it only had 3 hit points. One wolf down.
Saver hits wolf #2 with a Ray of Enfeeblement and drains 6 points of strength from it.
Mouse casts Cure Light Wounds on Sasha, bringing her up to -2 hp.
The wolf misses Emanuel, barely. The strength loss saved him there.

Round 3:
Emanuel attempts to smite the wolf, but misses.
Saver tries to cast Command at the wolf to fall, but Saver fails the spell resistance check. Dale fails to realize that the Command spell won’t work on the wolf.
The wolf tears into Emanuel, doing 15 points of damage and trips him.

Round 4:
Emanuel attack from on the ground, rather than stand and give an attack of opportunity, but he misses.
Mouse tries to maneuvers to get flanking, but his 20’ movement prevents that. He does hit the wolf, but only for 2 points of damage.
Saver tries to Command the wolf to fall again.
The wolf leaves Emanuel on the ground and instead attacks and trips Mouse, dealing 8 points of damage to him as well.

Round 5:
Emanuel stands up triggering an attack of opportunity. The wolf barely misses.
Saver as able to reach Sasha and casts Cure Light Wounds on her, bringing her to 2hp.
Mouse stands up since the wolf has already used its attack of opportunity. He then attacks the wolf but misses.
The wolf hit Emanuel for another 15 points of damage, dropping him to negatives.

Round 6:
Mouse makes a run for it. His Mobility feat saves his life when the wolf gets a free attack.
Sasha stands up and moves Emanuel’s side, hoping to grab him next round and run with him.
Saver tries to cast Command for the third and final time, failing to break through the spell resistance for the third time as well.
The wolf bites at Sasha, but a natural 1 misses.

Round 7:
Sasha runs for it, provoking an attack of opportunity that brings her from +2hp to -10hp. Goodbye Sasha. Eh, even Joy admits that Sasha should have bought the farm on more than one occasion this session.
Saver then casts Obscuring Mist and runs for it.
Wolf #2 has a couple of snacks.

The combat is over with 50% casualties on both sides, but the wolves won.

The party has also lost some magical bracers, their PC with tracking, and their hand drawn map to Rappan Athuk.

Next week Joy will be bringing a fighter/ranger.
Aaron will probably use Mouse as his main PC.
And Justin might be returning. I’ve no clue what he’ll be using.

Rappan Athuk #2 - The Ruined Tower

Well if you’re tuning in this week to see if the party made it to the dungeon, sorry.

Maybe next session they’ll make it there, but I did some planning to make sure the party didn’t quite make it to the dungeon right off. It appears that my plans worked.

Hey, it happens occasionally.

Our last session we stopped after the party helped Itchy and Mayor Wyrm (nicknamed Mayor McStealy by Brian).

Vars, Sasha, and Saver dislike the mayor quite a bit and are entertaining thoughts of getting rid of him. Emanuel, being a paladin, believes that in spite of the mayor’s problems (using village money for himself), he was legally elected by the village and it is not his responsibility to remove the mayor unless he is ordered to do so or the mayor does something obviously evil.

(I’m sure some puritan paladin type people think this is not very paladin-like, but I can see Aaron’s logic. Besides, maybe there’s a law on the books that says the mayor can charge what he likes, and can use the village’s taxes however he sees fit.)

But anyway, making sure not to flaunt it and thus attract attention, the party took their meager new money to the inn and paid for their rooms, all in copper and otherwise wasted the night away in the Grey Horse Inn.

They heard no new rumors, but they did find out that the waitress in the place is a “pro”. That gave the group a minor shudder as they realized where she did her business.

The next morning the group got together to discuss their plans prior to going downstairs to the tavern section of the inn.

Emanuel went along with the party, though not sure what it would gain them. He would cast his paladin Detect Evil and scan the village, starting with the inn patrons. Since he only had to concentrate to keep the spell going, it wouldn’t be obvious to most people what they were doing.

Sasha led the way, making sure no one would accidentally bumped Emanuel and ruining it for them. And they found not a single spec of evil in the tavern, not even Kriel, the owner.

So they headed out to the street, but Emanuel wasn’t paying attention to the door frame and ruined his own concentration (Aaron rolled a natural 1 on a d20).

With that plan out the window, the party decided to go with Emanuel’s plan – to find the graveyard that leads to Rappan Athuk.

They looked out nearby but found no signs pointing the way.

Not sure who to ask, they started with the logical first choice; the innkeeper. At this point I think the group finally got it through their heads about this village being the adventurer equivalent of a tourist trap.

A few minutes later the party left the inn with a hand drawn map of the region, showing where Rappan Athuk was, 50gp lighter, and they weren’t even sure that the map was legitimate.

The map did show a faint trail, a trail they were able to find with a little difficulty as they have no one with tracking.

(I had Sasha do Survival skill checks that became more difficult the farther they followed the trail.)

A little more than an hour later they had made it out of the nearby plains and farmlands and into the forest to the south of the village. But an hour into the forest Sasha lost the trail and couldn’t find the trail behind them to backtrack. All she could do was determine which direction was north, so using their map they decided to head east until they hit the swamp and then could head back north and to the village the long way, assuming everything went their way.

Another couple hours later they spotted some light from a clearing and some grey stone some 100’ away. Being adventurers, they had to check it out. Vars and Saver searched 50’ ahead of Sasha and Emanuel.

They found a ruined tower surrounded by a rusting iron fence. The tower was currently 2-3 stories tall with plenty of rubble in the courtyard with scorch marks evident from the inside of the rubble they could make out. They surmised, probably correctly, that a magic-user was involved.

Prior to them getting a chance to check out the gate to the iron fence, something invisible started beating the daylights out of Saver.

They found out after they killed it that it was a phantom fungus, but it took them forever to kill it. That 50% conceal roll just hurt them.

Once they confirmed the gate was unlocked and untrapped they moved into the courtyard to check the door to the tower in the same way.

Vars found no trap, but Saver’s Detect Magic spell showed evocation magic, so Vars checked again and found a trap again. But his removal/bypass of the trap triggered it, costing him a giant 2 hit points from a level 1 Burning Hands spell. Everyone else had moved a safe distance away.

But them being farther away was not a good thing as an allip rose from the rubble on the ground babbling about extraplanar creatures, mathematical concepts, schizophrenia, and the soul. The babbling hypnotized Saver and Emanuel, putting them out of the fight.

This left Sasha and Vars to fight the creature by themselves, which was going to be difficult as it did Wisdom damage (so their extra hit points meant nothing), was incorporeal (50% miss chance), and had DR5/Magic.

When it was over Vars had a wisdom of 5 (from 12 or so), and the two hypnotized PC’s snapped out of it 1 round later, as always.

(Party hits level 2.)

Eventually Vars was able to disable the trap and unlock the door to the tower.

Inside was nothing but rubble everywhere and a somewhat intact set of stairs leading up to the second story.

They searched through what rubble they could get to and did find a ruined rug covering something metallic on the floor. It would take an hour to remove the rubble, so they made a note of the spot and went upstairs.

Well first Vars had to check every single stair. Apparently a wisdom score of 5 means you’re paranoid.

When he reached the door at the landing he found no trap and the door was unlocked, so he slowly opened the door an inch.

He was so cautious at opening the Emanuel yelled out “Ok, that’s enough! Being careful is one thing, but this is ridiculous.”

The room was utterly spotless and tidy, containing only a desk and chair, and a stool circled by 4 covered easels.

A Detect Magic showed that whatever was on the easels was magical and the room was magically lit.

They searched the rest of the room, but found nothing. Then the desk – also nothing.

Emanuel went alone to search the nearest easel, causing the trap to trigger.

The tarrasque burst from the floor, but Emanuel made his Will save, so he saw the illusion for what it was, negating the power of the Phantasmal Killer trap.

But mirrors resting on the easel’s falling and breaking was real, as were the four feral demons that burst from them.

Note: Feral demons come from one demon being split into multiple separate creatures. As one feral in the pack is killed, each of the others get stronger (+1 AC, strength, hit dice, BAB, 1/3 increase in CR).

The ferals were a tough fight, and it took forever because the ferals had DR5/magic, giving them plenty of time to beat the daylights out of the party.

Alas the DM barely rolled double-digits a quarter of the time.

But on the bright side the changes I made to combat movement worked quite well. There were attacks of opportunity, but players’ movements took moments rather than half a minute. I was quite pleased with that.

On the PC side, everyone put a lot into the fight and no one could say they didn’t add something this fight.

Sasha’s greataxe didn’t hit a lot (poor rolling), but it left a big mark when it hit.
Emanuel’s high AC allowed him some freedom to be in the center of the combat and to pick and choose who to attack.
Saver’s Sleep and curing spells did a lot to keep the ferals on the defensive and himself standing (Dale loves unintentionally making his PC’s targets).
The star of this combat was Vars who got to put his dual-wielding bastard sword to use and combine it with sneak attack.

The only treasure they found was a simple bronze key and a bunch of broken easels and mirror shards.

After confirming that there were no viable exits in this room (destroyed stairs up that lead to the new roof), they went back down to the first floor to check out the metallic thing in the floor they found earlier.

They cleared the rubble and debris covering it; they found a bronze door on the floor with a keyhole in the center of it.

They unlocked it easily with the bronze key, after Vars checked it for traps of course.

Inside was a very tight set of spiral stairs leading beyond their sight, which they descended.

They estimated they climbed down about 100’ into a semi-natural cavern.

It was warm, big enough that their light sources didn’t show any edges beyond where they were.

They were very low on spells and other resources, so they headed back up the staircase, locked it, fortified the front door with rubble and rested the night.

Surprisingly no random encounters happened upon them.

They discussed using this place as a base of operations, but they’re lost, so they have just a rough idea of where in the woods they are. So maybe they’ll think about that another time.

When morning came, back down the hole they went.

They circumnavigated the cavern, figuring it to be about 200’ wide, roughly round, and about 70’ high.

With no small amount of trepidation they walked towards the center of the room.

Emanuel cast Dancing lights to get a better view of the place before stepping into something they couldn’t handle. The many little lights illuminated a large pile of coins in the center of the room.

Then a long, red, serpentine head peered at them from out of the darkness.

“Why does such a tasty morsel disturb my sleep?”
After a few moments of “Oh crap” player conversation, Sasha responded.
“Do you know the owner of the tower?”
“Oh yes, I do.”
“We killed him.”
“Oh really? I see.”

Then the head pulled away from the light, they heard a woosh in the air, and they never saw the head again.

The party, being very cautious because they’re used to my DM’ing style, didn’t trust that the thing had left. But eventually they couldn’t help themselves and checked out the pile of coins.

They found some gems and jewelry (400gp’s worth overall), a suit of masterwork half-plate, a pair of magical bracers, and a potion (later identified as a potion of Darkvision), and 10,000 coins – all copper.

The weights involved in everything cost a lot of time while the group figured out how to best handle it. This will improve in time as they learn more on how to deal with it, and they come to the conclusion that some money isn’t worth carrying around, especially when it reduces your effective dexterity score for armor class.

When they were sure the tower was cleared out, they left it and continued their journey east towards the swamp.

A while later they once again saw a bit of grey stone in the trees; a 12’ tall stone obelisk (6’ wide at the base).

They found no writing, but detected some faint magic. They had heard no stories, nor read any books about such a thing (i.e. skill checks failed).

Saver attempted to talk to it by naming deities and what not, but the obelisk seemed unimpressed by his knowledge.

With no options left, they decided to ask about it back in town, then continued east.

Eventually they did actually run into the edge of the swamp, then followed that edge north until they got to the delta of the Mudd Flow at which point they headed west.

They arrived back at the village of Lhend shortly after 4pm and seven hours of walking.

(Note: their lack of random encounters was uncanny. Had they actually had one more XP-giving encounter, they probably would have made level 3. Level 3 is where the fun begins and this was a pretty heavy XP session thanks to the ferals.)

Their first stop was Trake’s Armory where they traded in the masterwork full-plate for some gold and a masterwork bastard sword consignment.

Saver then committed a minor faux pas when he asked if Trake could enchant some armor and weapons. Last session Trake made it clear he could help make items if a description was made, but he could not (and would not) enchant any items. Trake less than politely scolded Saver and asked everyone to leave so he could get back to work.

Saver also irritated Korjo (the half-orc baker) by asking for a free sample and Georg (the butcher) for haggling – all while trying to buy some simple trail rations. It wasn’t the best role-playing night for Dale.

Once again the party paid for their room at the Grey Horse Inn all in copper.

The party went to Tantagel’s Magic Emporium to have the bracers identified, but were rudely informed by Teebin that they don’t perform that service.

At this point the entire party is not happy with the way the village is treating them (price gouging and the like) and all but Emanuel began entertaining ideas on how to improve that.

The party split up to take care of their individual agendas.

Sasha bought some more trail rations then went back to the inn to clean it…again.

Emanuel went to the shrine of Pelor for prayer and to help clean it, then went to help Sasha with her giant task of cleaning the inn rooms.

Vars and Saver went to the Enchanted Temple of Wee Jas hoping that a temple to the goddess of magic would be interested in identifying magic items. Jorgleen coolly informed them that the temple does no such things. Saver handed her 10gp and asked if she knew of anyone who would perform that task and she mentioned that a fellow named Grulsim could do what they asked.

Then Vars asked her if she was involved with Tantagel or Teebin (now nicknamed Teabag). She responded no. That made them happy and they left.

Eager for another irritating conversation with Teebin, Saver returned to Tantagel’s and asked how much a scroll of Identify would cost, if they had one. Answer: 250gp.

Then Saver talks with the mayor about creating a shrine to Fharlanghn. The mayor responds that for a simple shrine, the construction fees and various taxes should come to around 1000gp.

Vars, with an excellent Gather Information skill check, found out plenty about Grulsim: He lives on the outskirts of the village, charges 200gp for a single magic item identification, the item must be left with him overnight, and that the party has seen Grulsim before at the inn but had no reason to talk with him.

Vars finds Grulsim at inn, buys him a drink, and begins a conversation with him. Not long into it, the conversation leads to Tantagel’s Magic Emporium. Grulsim tells Vars that the items may be high priced, but the store only needs to make a small sale a week to be profitable, it is the only such place in town, and it has some items delivered from outside the town.

Vars then alludes to maybe Grulsim being the front man for such a store with the party’s backing rather than just being the guy who identifies items. Grulsim replies that he’s not interested as he is happy with his position and ends the conversation, not liking where it’s heading.

When Sasha and Emanuel finally get their rooms as clean as they can, they find the old potion lady they talked to last session. She identifies the potions the party has for 5gp a piece. They ask her how much to get her business back up and running. She answers 250gp for materials, but it won’t matter as Tantagel will just drop his costs to less than she can price them and she’ll end up back where she was. But she appreciates the thought and if they are willing to help an old lady, she’d be more than happy to make up the costs to them.

And with that the session was over.

Will they finally get to Rappan Athuk next session? I sure hope so, but that’s really not up to me.

Rappan Athuk #1 - The Village of Lhend

(Here we go. It's a long one.)

Well here you are; the village of Lhend, the last speck of civilization on your journey.

Once you leave here, you’ll be on your way to Rappan Athuk – The Dungeon of Graves.

Many hundreds of years ago, the forces of good allied to destroy the main Temple of Orcus in the city of Tsar. With their temple in ruins, the surviving high priests of this accursed demon-god fled the city with an army of enemies on their trail – an army of heroic warriors, priests, and paladins led by Zelkor, a powerful wizard. The exact fate of these evil priests was then unknown, for not only did the remnants of the followers of Orcus disappear from all human reckoning, but so did the army of light that followed after them. Some said that in the eternal scales the loss of so many good men was a fair price to pay to rid the world of so much evil.

The evil cult, however, had not been destroyed. The surviving priests and their followers instead settled on a hill. They found a vast underground complex of caverns and mazes carving out a volcanic intrusion beneath the hill. There the priest of Orcus found the perfect lair to continue their vile rituals. For many years they carried on in secret, hidden from the light and from the knowledge of men.

Many years later, their underground delving completed, the evil priests erected a hideous mausoleum and a sunken graveyard atop the hill. It is believed that these graves are in fact the final resting place of the pursuing army of heroes that been destroyed to the last man. Soon after the mausoleum was erected the peaceful creatures began to vanish. Though many rangers and druids investigated the happenings, the cause of the creatures’ disappearance was not immediately determined. Some years later, a powerful group of adventurers, led by Bofred, a high priest of Heironeous, investigated the evil happenings and found the sunken graveyard leading to a labyrinthine underground complex. Bofred and his companions found great hordes of evil creatures in the caverns beneath the graveyard. Though some of his companions returned from their expedition telling tales of fantastic treasure and ferocious monsters, Bofred himself was never seen again – presumed lost in the catacombs beneath the cursed mausoleum.

For the last one hundred years, ranks of adventurers swarmed to the newfound dungeon. Many fell prey to bandits and monsters in the surrounding wilderness. Of those adventurers who survived to reach the mausoleum and the sunken graveyard, rumors suggest that most were slain by guardians of green stone before they even entered the dungeon or that they perished on the very first level. Those rare few who return from deeper treks speak of horrible undead and of creatures that cannot be slain. All who have explored Rappan Athuk offer this one universal piece of advice: “Don’t go down the Well.”

Beyond this well known story and a few unreliable rumors you have no knowledge of what the place is like.

Your family and friends begged you not to do this, but seeking fame, fortune, and power is not for the weak of heart.

At the moment you need to rest and re-equip yourself. Hopefully this one road town will have what you need.

This above is the intro given to the players just before we began playing.

We had a pretty good first session. A lot of minor plot lines were laid out, but not too many, and there are many more to discover all in good time (no need to dump everything on the players the first night).

I increased the rumor list from 60 to 100 and gave plenty of opportunities for the group to hear/find more, but in the future there will be less opportunity to do so.

I handed out 4 or 5 “coupons” to the players throughout the night, but the flow of them will also most likely slow down as time goes on.

I did go ahead and give the party their level 2 and 3 hit points at level 1. In spite of that being a 4E thing, I had heard about this long before 4E was announced. It’s just added to reduce the fragility of low level characters.

Also, I’ve mentioned before about the issue of skill points and gestalt PC’s, there usually aren’t enough to go around. So I took something I heard about from 4E, classes have some skills they are already maxxed out on. For barbarians this is intimidate and survival, for the sorcerer and favored soul it is concentration. I basically took the number of skill points a class gets per level, cut that in half and picked the most appropriate skills that class would have.

For the most part, it gave the PC’s some extra skill points.

Yes, I know I’m being ultra-generous to the PC’s. Once they actually get into the thick of the module I think you’ll see why.

Here are the PC’s made by the players, all humans:

Brian’s playing Vars, a fighter/rogue who specializes in fighting with two bastard swords (he blew a lot of feats to get that, and I allowed it, after a lot of deliberation).

Joy is playing Sasha, a barbarian/fighter greataxe wielding melee freak whose only job is to kill things.

Aaron is playing Emanuel, a paladin/sorcerer. It’s an odd combination, I know, but Aaron usually has something up his sleeve.

And finally Dale is playing a favored soul/sorcerer. He originally was going to play a monk/rogue or favored soul/rogue to deal out nasty amounts damage in combat, but changed his mind when he saw that no one was making a healer and the DM made it quite clear he isn’t going to supply one.

Dale’s PC’s name is Savor Dye. He chose it as kind of homage to the loss of all save-or-die type spells and effects that 4E will not be using. Usually I would make Dale pick a new name, but not this time. The wussification of D&D in 4E bugs me; no save-or-die spells, the probably nerfed rust monster, removal of level drains, and all that stuff that they believe is “un-fun” for players.

Hey WotC! How about you let us decide what is un-fun and instead give us alternative rules to use instead of making us wear kids’ gloves?

Ugh, but anyway, here’s a list of some of the rumors the members of the party heard either prior to entering town or after spending a day or two there:

- “Beware of purple worms”, as the great mage Speigle said. The wise man heeds his advice.
Of course they saw the wisdom in this.

- A demonic spider queen lurks near her pets.
Immediately everyone thought of Llolth and drow elves.

- Beware small holes in the ground. Vicious little creatures have been known to make a meal out of the offending head or hand that searches within.
This gave the party and idea of buying a leg of lamb in the events they came across a hole in the ground.

- Beware the fairy with the purple wings. Her tricks have lead many to their deaths while she laughs at them.
Dale has a soft spot for the faerie-kind, so he was a bit concerned at that.

- Trolls are almost as numerous as undead around these parts.
That didn’t give the party the “warm and fuzzies”.

- Something is wrong with Itchy; the well doesn’t smell like it usually does.
They immediately figured that the well mentioned in the intro was one in the same with the one referred to here. They were wrong. It was just the plot hook for the party’s first adventure.

Starting just at the edge of the main street of the village, they set about going into the only inn around; the Grey Horse Inn.

They found out later that the Grey Horse Inn was previously the White Stallion Inn, but when Kriel bought the place, he hasn’t cleaned much of anything since, so he just renamed it after it got dirty.

Everything about the place was overpriced and poor quality, if not downright disgusting. They rented 2 rooms for 10gp a piece, and found that the sheets may not have been cleaned since Kriel bought the place. Everyone but Joy had a bedroll, so she had to risk it for the first night – after which she bought her own bedroll, but only after she had to take a one night job at the place as a serving wench and potential bouncer because she was broke and Kriel has a high turnaround on employees.

In spite of the décor of the place, it was still an inn, and the town attracts adventurers like flies. In fact, adventurers are the money source of the town, kind of like tourists.

And of course Mayor Brague Wyrm knows this, so when he saw some new people in town, obviously wet-behind-the-ears adventurers, he had to collect the usual adventuring fees. With a big smile he introduced himself and collected the fees right there at the bar of the inn. The party didn’t know what they liked less about the guy; the fact that the fees aren’t the same for everyone (Savor was charged 10gp while everyone else 5gp), or that he paid for his drink with the same coins the party just paid him.

Savor did strike up a conversation with a lone elf in the bar casually crafting some arrows. The elf had no interest in talking at first, but a few cups of wine helped him be a little friendlier. His name was Varasilisin and he’s been in town for a few weeks, looking for the right group to go adventuring with. In the meantime he just crafts arrows to sell to adventurers willing to buy them.

The elf gave Savor a few bits and pieces of information over the next few days. The first was giving vague directions to find the druid of the wood that occasionally harasses villagers when they get a little too destructive for her tastes, and he prevented Savor from casting a spell in the inn; Detect Evil.

The party figured there was wisdom in not knowing at this time who is and isn’t evil, considering they were on the edges of civilization and maybe stirring up trouble in their possible base of operations was a bad plan.

Next on their list of businesses to visit was Trake’s Armory. This was a guy they liked. A hard working dwarf who makes non-magical armor and weapons of decent quality (the inn made the group afraid that the whole town would be a cesspool of shady businesses). He was nice and helpful to the party and willing to make anything he could for them so long as they gave him a decent description of what was needed, but anything that takes a good amount of time (masterwork) required payment ahead of time. Trake has had one too many adventurers request a masterwork weapon, only to be never seen again thanks to Rappan Athuk.

While the main group was checked out the armory, Savor wanted to take a look at Tantagel’s Magic Emporium. This place definitely did not belong in the village, since magic stores are located in much larger cities. But the nearby dungeon does supply many adventurers with money to spend and magic items to sell, and this place exploits it.

When Savor checked the place out, he found a sparse and small room with a mousey sort of man minding the store. Teebin was his name and he immediate insulted Savor by asking him if he was in the right place. Once Savor opened his coin pouch, Teebin apologized and set about looking to make a sale, only to be disappointed by Savor’s lack of interest in paying 100gp for a Comprehend Languages scroll.

Next was Georg’s Butchery. The man was not nice, but got his job done. He twice the usual amounts, but oh well. It’s not like he has easy access to farm animals, so the cost has to be increased due to increased risk, lower supply, and such economic tools as that.

Near Georg’s was a horrible smelling well, but no bucket there to gather water. The party’s information gathering told them that it was the town’s “garbage chute” and the town’s pet “Itchy” lived there, taking care of things for them. But for now the party still thinks that this is well spoken of about Rappan Athuk. It’s not until the next day that things are cleared up for them.

Then on their walk of the town was the General Store. It had all the basic tools the party needed (like bedrolls) at standard costs. They were happy for that.

Since it was too late to take a chance traveling down the river to find the druid lady (Teela was her name, as they would find out later), they decided to call it a night.

They didn’t have an entirely comfortable sleep, but if you’re going to whine about sleeping in a less than comfortable bed, perhaps adventuring isn’t the best career for you.

The next morning, while the fog from the Mudd Flow River (a stream at best) was still in the air, they began their trek along the edge of the river. They had been told that the druid’s home was to the west, near where the plains, forest, and hills met at the river.

About an hour into their journey they heard many footsteps marching in unison, but the nearby hills echoed the sounds, and the fog had not yet burnt off. By the time they had seen the hobgoblins, over 20 in number, it was too late, they had been seen as well.

But it turned out to be a patrol for the king of land. After a quick questioning by the hobgoblin’s leader (show arms, who is your king, etc.) they were sent about their way.

Hours later, when the party came to the last edges of the forest, they found no signs of any druid lady, just the hidden voice of man coming from within the woods. It explained to them that Teela knew of them and would speak to them if she had a reason to.

A few questions went back and forth and the party found out that the voice knew of no fairies that were malicious or evil, beware of any animals with glowing red eyes, and they were requested to get that dwarf in town to stop using so much wood in his forge (Trake).

They wanted to earn some brownie points with the druid, but they also liked Trake.

So when they got back to town, Emanuel tried to talk to Trake about either using less wood, or planting trees or what not, but Trake flatly refused. He barely had enough time to get what he needed done during the day; much less plan a nature hike for some hippy girl.

They wrote this one off as a fail for now, but hope to figure something out in the future.

Paying 20gp per night for some poor quality rooms was outrageous to the party and not sustainable for very long, so they decided to see if anyone in town had room and board options or maybe find a place to stay in tents.

They quickly determined that living in tents was not looked upon well, plus tents offer no safety to whatever lurks out there.

They knocked on a few doors, but found no takers of any kind. They did strike up a conversation with a nice old woman. Her story was that she used to make potions for a living, but that bastard magic store owner, Tantagel drove her out of businesses by undercutting her prices until she had no choice but to retire.

The party wrote that down as a potential plot hook, and moved on, not knowing how to do anything about it yet.

They were about to head back to the inn for the night when they heard a commotion of angry voices. Several villagers had cornered the mayor and were demanding to know what he was doing to fix the problem with Itchy and the well. The mayor caught sight of the party and immediately claimed that he was talking with the party about fixing this very problem.

After a lot of negotiation the party agreed to find out what was wrong with Itchy and the well, but only if they were guaranteed that any disease they caught would be cured, and they had one month of no taxation from the mayor.

The mayor very reluctantly agreed and took the party to the Enchanted Temple of Wee Jas to make sure that this was possible when the party wanted more proof than his word.

They noted a sign on the door to the temple, “Adventurers – No resurrections. Ever.” and weren’t pleased.

There they were introduced to Jorgleen, a cold, humorless woman with a permanent scowl etched into her thirty-something year old face.

After some closed door negotiations, Jorgleen agreed to back up the mayor’s promises.

So they bought some handkerchiefs to protect them from the smell and airborne diseases, and climbed down ropes into the well.

They found ankle deep slime, trash, and more at the bottom (the whole area was considered rough terrain).

The first room they found was an almost organized room with multiple piles of the trash almost arranged in some manner.

Then they saw a light coming from around a corner, so they naturally investigated.

The light was simply part of a trap. A few feet down the corridor and the ground gave way beneath Emanuel, dropping him 10’ down onto a small pile of coins and trash.

And hiding in the nasty pit was a ghoul pressed up against the side and covered in trash.

Before Emanuel had a chance to respond, he was paralyzed by the ghoul’s touch. And when Vars attempted to get a rope around him and pull Emanuel out, the ghoul paralyzed Vars as well.

Then the ghoul climbed up to get to Sasha and Savon, but it was then pelted with Magic Missiles and the large edge of a greataxe. The round after the ghoul was killed, the paralysis wore off.

They gathered up their new treasure and moved on to the next room, which conveniently contained Itchy.

Itchy was in bad shape. He is a standard otyugh, but the ghoul made him into a play-toy and chew-toy. When the party found him, they cautiously chatted with Itchy (he had been known to be indiscriminate in the foods he ate), told him they had killed the ghoul, and even cast a healing spell on him.

Itchy told them that there was another creature living in a cavern nearby that was becoming a nuisance, and there were plenty of rats (dire and normal), but Itchy liked having them around as snacks.

The party found the creature, a choker, and took it out with very little difficulty (Sleep spell, poor DM rolls, and a crit from a greataxe will do it).

Itchy was happy and thankful, he even offered them a particularly nice smelling glob of something. The party declined.

Feeling that they were done, the party climbed back up their rope and headed straight to the river to clean themselves off.

Being a sleazy politician, the mayor took the credit.