Rappan Athuk #14-15 - The Temple of Orcus

It’s less than two weeks to go for 4E.

I’m ready to play it, though with the trepidation I’ve yammered on about here for the past 9 months or so.

It looks like we’re going to play Keep on the Shadowfell, but not until 4E is actually released. Dale doesn’t get his copy until the core books are released.

The disadvantage is that other groups will be playing it and probably finished it before we even started it.

The advantage is that we could use our own PC’s instead of the pre-generated ones supplied in the module.

Dale will be running it. He should do a good job so long as WotC didn’t make the intro-module difficult to follow and so long as Dale doesn’t tweak the module to match his wants, needs, and perceptions.

The Return to Castle Ravenloft is the perfect example of both of those.

Session #14

All of us were at this session, so replacement PC’s poofed out and main ones poofed in.

It was also day 35 of the campaign, making this the first night of the full moon. Thus Justin’s PC Spotted Dragon would get to show his new lycanthropic side.

Last we stopped with them resting inside Saver’s Rope Trick spell, making for relatively convenient resting in the dungeon.

After their rest they went back down to level 4 to explore some more.

They found an ogre along the way. The poor thing only got one swing in before it was swarmed and brought down. The swing missed.

This particular level is humorous to me. Although it’s not immediately obvious, this level of the dungeon almost a straight line. The PC’s almost had to go in numerical room order to get to the stairs leading to the next level.

And that’s what they did.

Connected to the ogres’ room was a trash-filled cavern. They searched a bit through it, but after getting poked with rusty nail after rusty nail and only 4gp, they stopped searching and moved on; though they always had the feeling as though they were being watched.

The next cavern they found had a passage leading up about 80 degrees. They figure it probably leads up to the ogre room on level 2.

Next was a room filled 4’ high with oily water. Most of the group declines to even enter the room, except for Spot, who dives in and searches around.

He finds a room out of the water and out of sight of the rest of the group, but it only contains mushy and moldy bedding, books, and desk.

The only thing of interest was the faint glow of magic on the door to the room. What the group didn’t know was that it was a silent Alarm spell warning the priests of the Temple of Orcus of the party’s presence.

The next room was a large natural cavern that had been set up as a training ground (combat dummies, archery targets, wood weapons, etc.). They tried to surmise how recently the place had been used, but since none of their 8 classes was listed as ranger, they received no information.

Attached to that room was a sleeping quarters with 6 simple beds with chests at the foot of each.

Giving in to stupidity, they decided that GI, Javier, and Spot would each open a chest simultaneously.

The result was GI getting blasted by a Lightning Bolt, Javier blasting the room with a cold Fireball, and Spot releasing a poison gas (Burnt Othur Fumes) that cost Spot and Javier 1 point of constitution permanently.

Then they decided to open the remaining chests one at a time with spells protecting them.

Ironically the remaining traps were not as bad to the group, though many level 2 spell slots were spent on Lesser Restoration.

The treasure they gained was not something worth the cost, except maybe to GI (an evil favored soul). Each chest contained a cloak and robe with the symbol of Orcus on it, and a simple dagger. One chest had a Book of Vile Darkness (that GI alone could read the title of thanks to his Helm of Comprehend Languages) and a cursed ring that reduces your will saves by 4.

They debated to pause and rest or push on, with pushing on winning.

GI, the leader of the pushing on argument, opened the door and triggered yet another trap.

He failed the will save versus the Feeblemind spell by one.

After reading the spell, I decided that Feeblemind was a bit too harsh, effectively killing a PC. So I had Aaron hand in all of his coupons (13 of them) and called it a made save.

In hindsight, maybe leaving GI brain-dead was a lesser of potential evils.

GI, who had nothing happen to him, pushed on with the group.

The hallway beyond was oddly warm and the door at the end of it had what Dale called “demon porn”. In other words it had carvings of unspeakable acts of evil.

Still they pushed on.

Inside was a large room in the shape of a six-pointed star, with a large golden statue of Orcus in one of the points, and a lava pit with stairs above it in the center of the room.

Nineteen of the cult of Orcus finished their chant as the party opened the door.

Their leader, a man standing atop the arched stairs above the lava pit did the standard “You have invaded the sanctum of the Temple of Orcus. For that the penalty is death.”

Now looking at the encounter I knew the party would make mincemeat of most of the combat, so I slight altered the encounter to make it more balanced.

Usually I overdo that kind of tweaking, but this time I believe I truly balanced the combat.

First I made all of the cultists gestalt cleric/fighters. Before you think I went overboard, realize that all it did was increase their base attacks by 1-3, increased their hp by 1 per level, and gave some fighter feats.

Then changed the spectre-wizard (level 9) to a spectre-sorcerer (level 7) and tweaked his spells something more to my liking.

And believe it or not, the combat was actually quite balanced, leaving only dice-rolling and combat-decisions.

Early rounds:
Initially it was GI alone in the corridor to the temple, but the rest of the party moved up. Oddly, the combat was mostly within 20’ of the doorway.

Saver nuked every cultist he could see with alternating Fireballs and Coldballs.

Cultists that do not die swarm the party, cast healing spells, or cast offensive clerical spells at the party. One cultist successfully gets a Hold Person on GI, leaving him held for several rounds thanks to Aaron’s horrible dice rolling.
Eventually the cultists begin retreating out of Fireball range and heal up.

Javier spends several rounds trying to dispel the various divine spells being tossed at them. Unfortunately he unintentionally dispels the Death Ward spell on GI while trying to get rid of the Hold Person on him.

Spot mostly fights clean up thanks to the limited fighting area. He saves GI’s life when a cultist attempts a coup de grace but is killed with the attack of opportunity.

The spectre harasses the party with spells like Lightning Bolt, Slow, and Web, before it has to retreat and get healed up by the Fireball-harried cultists.

The high priest does much the same as the rest of the cultists during this time, while marching directly at the party. Once in melee he attempts to cast Finger of Death on Spot, but fails to cast it defensively, twice.

Eventually a vrock demon enters the fray, acting as a kind of reserve force as he summons 17 dretches to replace the lost cultist fodder in melee and swarm around the party.

Eventually GI finally breaks free of the Hold Person spell.

Middle rounds:
Javier is both slowed and stuck in a Web spell, so spend time healing, buffing, and pushing out of the Web.
Saver casts a much needed Haste spell and then must go on the defensive when the vrock teleports behind the party to wreak some havoc.
Spot and GI both wade into the sea of dretches, dropping maybe 2 a round thanks to the dretches’ damage resistance. They both feel relatively safe as the dretches only hit on nat-20’s.
The high priest took a lot of damage from the party, so he flees to heal up, relying on his subordinates to heal him.
Eventually the spectre and Javier face off as the spectre walks through the walls to get into the middle of the party.

Late rounds:
Javier and the spectre spend rounds missing each other. Eventually Javier is able to land two solid hits, removing the spectre as a threat.
Saver, unable to stand toe-to-toe with a vrock, casts Rope Trick and hides in it for a couple rounds healing and buffing up with a Freedom of Movement spell.
The vrock teleports back to the front lines and maneuvers to get into melee with all 5 of his attacks. But Spot and GI keep moving around, making it hard for it to get on more than a swing or two.
GI and Spot continue clearing out the sea of dretches while the dretches tirelessly claw at them.
The remaining cultists move back into melee as the dretches are slowly taken out.

The high priest also moves back into melee, and faces off against the worn-down GI.
Although the dretches could only hit on a nat-20, with the new rules a nat-20 is max damage (5 or 7). After scores of attacks, GI only had 13hp left.
The high priest uses his death touch special ability, killing GI instantly. No save. (Death Touch is a death domain special ability.)

Final rounds:
Saver emerges from the Rope Trick and clears out many of the remaining low-level opponents with a Coldball, leaving only the vrock and high priest.
Javier heals Spot with what little spells he has remaining.
Spot continues clearing away the low-level trash, but eventually has to face the vrock. He deals paltry damage to the vrock.
The vrock returns with his own full attack, ripping Spot a new one with nearly 60 points of damage.
Spot has only 5hp remaining and still has a few swarming dretches to worry about.

Javier continues to heal Spot, but the vrock take Spot down anyway.
Javier heals Spot back to consciousness, and Spot does some healing of his own. But he once again knocked back down by the vrock.
A cultist ends the up and conflict by casting Death Knell on Spot, killing him.

Saver casts Magic Missile at the high priest, but the high priest is immune to the spell.
That’s enough for Saver. The following round he casts Improved Invisibility and flees combat.

Javier attempts to do the same, but he doesn’t have the Freedom of Movement that Saver had and has a Web spell to deal with.

Things look even worse for him when the vrock teleports to block the escape route, and we write off Javier’s existence.

Only Saver survived of the party.
Only the vrock, a single cultist, and the high priest survived of the cultists.

Session #15

Since we had just had a near TPK, and the campaign is winding down, I allowed everyone to bring in their new PC with the same XP from their last PC.

Plus I gave everyone something decent for a magic item.

I boosted Saver’s AC with an Amulet of Natural Armor +3 and gave him a Pearl of Power for level 3 spells.

Karth, Brian’s fighter/favored soul, was given an intelligent greatclub and some minor magic boosts on his armor.

Justin brought back Skwee and he was given a Cloak of Resistance +2 and a Rod of Lesser Maximize (those are always nice).

And finally Brad, Aaron’s new half-orc fighter/rogue, was given a +1 Keen/+1 Keen orc double-axe.

This session was not much more than a repeat of session #14.

We started the session with Saver running away from last week’s combat, all the way back to the room with the locked stone door.

He had just finished climbing into his new Rope Trick spell when the three new PC’s burst through the stone door, running in terror from something behind them.

He recognized them from town and after a very brief chat he allowed them inside to rest.

He told them what happened, and they told him that they had just had a run-in with an illusory demon that tricked them into killing their cleric. When they fled to the great cavern, a purple worm blocked their path forcing them to return.

After resting, they went back to the Temple of Orcus for some revenge.

(Remember, this is Rappan Athuk and our last hurrah for 3E. Our reasons don’t have to make sense.)

Now the cultists of Orcus knew they needed some back up, so they hired a few goons from town for some quick defense (or early warning) with an eye to take out the remaining defiler of their temple (Saver).

Waiting to ambush the party in the acolyte bedroom (see session #14) was a squad of five level six gestalts:
Grobbog, half-orc barbarian/rogue whose job was to deal melee damage
Victor, fighter/ranger dual-wielding short swords whose intent was to get flanking and slice-n-dice the opposition
Ailes, favored soul/sorcerer whose job was anti-magic and utility
Vreen, ranger/scout using a composite bow to take out irritants, like rogues and mages
Mallel, scout/sorcerer specializing in ray spells

Grobbog died on round 1.
Victor died on round 2.
The rest died shortly thereafter.

That was with a surprise round against the party.

It was a good thing I didn’t expect to do much more than suck up some resources.

The party healed up and moved on (the Feeblemind door was open).

Now the priests of Orcus did loot the bodies of the dead PC’s and used the items appropriately, or destroyed them, sold them, etc. (the same thing PC’s do).

I also leveled the high priest to level 10 and the sole surviving priest to level 6. They hid in the walls of the temple using the Meld to Stone spell once they heard fighting.

The other priests had been brought back as ghasts or replaced with ghasts, and dressed in robes imitating the same set up as last week.

Revenge was sweet though as the party had been able to appropriately prepare.

Karth made mince meat of the ghasts, taking out 5 in one round on his first swing thanks to Power Attack and Great Cleave.

Aaron didn’t have to worry about Hold Person spells this week. He was buffed with a Freedom of Movement spell.

The vrock demon got lucky and was able to gate in a second vrock. Too bad for them the party had prepped up their weapons with the Align Weapon spell.

The combat looked good and scary, even though the ghasts dropped like flies.

The vrocks killed Karth, but they couldn’t stand up to a Brad who deals minimum 40 damage per hit, an (greater) invisible Saver who kept moving and casting spells, and a mobile Skwee.

The combat took less than half the time as session #14.

Next session, another new level of the dungeon.

Rappan Athuk #13 - The Kidnapping

We have a running joke in our group about WotC owning D&D: One day you’ll have to buy a case of PHB’s in order to get that rare wizard class.

It’s a silly joke referring to the makers of Magic: the Gathering turning D&D into a collectible book game, but these last couple of weeks we’ve seen something disturbing.

Over the past few years we’ve used note cards with pertinent information written on it for buffs and effects and such to help speed our game.

With all the special powers and abilities that 4E PC’s someone on ENWorld decided to print them out and glue the printout onto Magic cards.

Although humorous to us, it did give us pause.

But anyway…

Justin couldn’t make it to this session for work related reasons and Brian was on vacation (I think).

Due to the randomness of half our players’ attendance anymore, we’ve discussed recruiting someone new to the group, but I don’t think we’re going to just yet. We’re probably just going to keep our eyes open just in case.

Dale thought he found someone near us but he steadfastly refuses to play 4E, so we won’t bother him any. Though you have to wonder about people like that sometimes – they don’t have a group and want to be in one, but limit themselves to a restriction that may prevent them from finding a group.

So with just Aaron and Dale, each got to play 2 PC’s, and that meant Dale got to poof in a new PC.

Sir Daroughten, a lawful-evil, flail-wielding knight/fighter with a penchant for tripping

Since we only have a few weeks (6 at most I would guess) I’ve decided to just have fun with the game.

So for Sir Rotten’s equipment (yeah, I said rotten) I gave him some interesting items, with the best item being a cursed one.

The Ivory Skull is obviously a flail made of enchanted ivory shaped into a spiked skull. When underground or in darkness it is a +1 Undead Bane flail, when in sunlight it is a -2 weapon, and when not in either of those (overcast) it just a masterwork flail. The curse is that the wielder will never use another weapon except his own fist (and even then only if he has to) and jealously protects the Skull from would-be thieves.

The best part of the skull (in my opinion) is that when its wielder is killed, he is immediately raised if possible and has 25% of his maximum hit points. This effect ages the wielder 1d4 human equivalent years and drains the color from the wielder’s hair and skin, leaving him with a skeletal visage for the world to see.

We stopped last week with the party leaving the lair of Scramge the Illusionist.

Out poofed Spot and in poofed Sir Daroughten, and we began.

On this level they have only one unexplored door to the south, so off they went.

The door opened to a winding passage that ended in a door with several gold pieces scattered on the floor in front of the door.

An obvious trap, but it needed triggering, so GI volunteered.

Only two of the six arrows hit him, for a whopping 3 damage.

The gold pieces were painted lead to boot.

The next room had a pair of solid stone doors and the door the party chose led to a ruined church-like room with a dozen ghouls (not even a fight for the group now). What the party didn’t know was that the door was a one-way door and now they’re forced to move forward.

They contemplated using their pick to hack open the door, but decided it wasn’t worth it. They’re good on food and have all the spells they need to survive in the dungeon for a good long while.

Level 4

Note: The second incarnation of Dargo is named Dargotu. Yeah, Aaron and Dale stopped trying to think of clever names a long time ago.

While the party was investigating a door, Dargotu was scouting out a side tunnel. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t have darkvision so the Everburning Torch he carries got him some unwanted attention.

When he hadn’t returned in a timely manner the rest of the party went to check on him.

The side passage opened up into an ogre lair. The ogres had grabbed Dargotu and stuffed him in a bag, presumably for later eating.

So when the party got to the end of the natural 5’ winding passage, they were greeted by 6 ogres and 2 ogres pulling a bag along with them.

The ogres lasted 3 rounds maybe, even though they tried to throw their longspears at the obvious wizard. I rolled very poorly for the combat.

When they confronted the 2 ogres with Dargotu’s feigning unconscious body in bag, the ogres threatened to smash the halfling to goo (two coup de graces).

They were forced to let the ogres escape down another size tunnel.

The party backed away and decided to try to sneak around and use what they thought would be a back door and cut off the ogres’ escape route.

Too bad for the party they were missing two crucial bits of information. First the ogres were heading down to another level of the dungeon, and second the door they were trying to open was part of a trap.

The trap was supposed to be triggered at the end of the passage the party was in, trapping them in a dead-end passage with a dropping portcullis while the door opened and released a black pudding that would then slide through the portcullis and swallow up the party.

But they prematurely bashed open the door and released the pudding.

Since the pudding is so slow and the party wasn’t trapped, they were able to evade the pudding and return to the passage the ogres took and chase them down.

The ogre had been moving slowly through the passageway meant for medium creatures allowing the party to reach them just as they had reached the end of the passageway.

A Web spell from Saver prevented the ogres from getting out of the tunnel. The rear ogre turned to face the party (he was doomed) while the front ogre kept the sack holding Dargotu and tried to push his way out of the Web.

With the rear ogre down, Saver dismisses the Web so the rest of the group can get at the last ogre.

The ogre tosses the bag one way and runs another, but thanks to spells like Spiritual Weapon, Magic Missile, and Scorching Ray he became just another corpse in the dungeon. He almost got away though.

The party returned to the ogres’ lair and looted it for plenty of treasure, then went back smashed the black pudding into whatever a black pudding turns into when it’s dead.

Next they returned to the third level of the dungeon and rested in a room inside a Rope Trick spell of Saver’s and we stopped there for the night.

Rappan Athuk #12 - The Worm and the Oracle

I read something positive about 4E a week ago that gave me hope.

Someone on ENWorld said that after playing a sample 4E game, it makes 3.5 feel too clunky and he kept thinking about how many things in his 3.5 games would be so much easier to do with 4E rules.

So long as that remains true, 4E should be easy to adjust to and that will help the group embrace the new edition more than any other factor.

The easier the game is, the sooner we can switch over to it.

My thinking is around 2 weeks after the game is released we’ll be ready to play it and Dale will have enough to get something started for his campaign.

He probably has the outline of the game ready and just needs to fill it in with 4E information.

He’s also not worried about any rules issues. If he messes up a rule, we usually catch it, or if not, we’ll throw out a flag of “doesn’t make sense” and then house-rule it.

Once I get the 4E books, I’ll probably start doing some prep work for my own Valley campaign. I expect to have to run it when Dale has to start skipping Fridays again.

We started off this session with Dale trying to curse my dice. There was no obvious effect.

In response I pulled out our DDM mini of a purple worm. There was a psychological warfare effect.

Justin was a bit late. That probably saved his PC, but cost him 3600xp.

So until Justin showed Aaron played Dargo as a second PC. When Justin showed Dargo poofed out and Spot poofed in.

We stopped last week with the party searching around the western region of a large natural cavern.

This week the party resumed searching many of the large cracks in the walls for treasure or other passages.

While Dargo was searching away, the rest of the party was hanging back a bit, wary of purple worms thanks to Spiegel’s warning at the entrance of this level.

Then the random encounter came up for a purple worm. I gave Dale the opportunity to randomly determine the direction and distance it was coming from.

For distance he rolled a 19 on 1d20, putting the worm 95’ away from the party. That distance gave the party a needed extra round to prep up or damage the worm as it rushed towards them.

And if you’re thinking to yourself “purple worms only have 60’ blindsight how could it have found the party?”
Well the party only has 30’ of light and another 30’ of shadow, so it’s all good in my opinion.

The surprise round involved the worm bursting from the ground and screeching, making itself known to all.

Round 1:
Dargo ceased his search, moving close to the party and hitting the worm with a Scorching Ray for 20 points of fire damage.
Saver cast Haste on the party.
GI hit the worm with an arrow for 7 points of damage.
Javier cast Divine Favor on himself.
The purple worm rushed at the party, covering nearly 2/3 of the distance.

Round 2:
Dargo moved and cast Scorching Ray again, getting to add his scout skirmish bonus to damage for 4d6+2d6 damage, doing 22 damage.
Saver cast Bless and moved farther away from the worm.
GI shot three arrows at the worm, all misses.
Javier moved into melee with the worm and hits it for 20 points of damage. This turns out to be a bad trade.
The purple worm stung Javier (who roles a nat 20 on the poison save), and then bites him. Javier took over 40 points of damage and is stuck in the worm’s mouth, to be swallowed next round.

Round 3:
Dargo moved and cast another Scorching Ray for 13 points of damage.
Saver cast Ray of Enfeeblement, taking away 4 points of strength from the worm.
GI quickdrew the greatsword Saraseck used and charges the worm, hitting it for 17 points of damage.
Javier struggled to break free of the worm, but just couldn’t make it.
The purple worm swallowed Javier and then its tail stung GI.

Dale: “You’re going to get good tail Aaron.”

GI needs a 19 or better to save against the DC25 poison, and rolls a 19.

Aaron: “Somebody should have warned us of this.”

Round 4:
Dargo moved and cast another Scorching Ray for 11 points of damage.
Saver cast Scorching Ray himself, getting two rays. He rolled nat 20’s for bother attacks, dealing 48 points of fire damage automatically.
GI hit the worm once for 26 points of damage and 1 point of con-damage, just barely dropping the purple worm to negative hit points.

They quickly ripped the worm open and pulled Javier out before he was melted by the worm’s stomach acids. He was alive, but only barely.

The only treasure they found was a measly 17 copper pieces.

Not wanting to attract any more worms to their party, they gave up their in depth searching and found a non-natural passage to the south and left the large cavern.

The first room they entered contained a table with a book with ink spilled all over it on a table, and several doors - one each east, west, and south.

The passage led past a latrine and into a complex of hexagonal and triangular rooms, interconnected in an odd path.

In the third hexagonal room they encountered a group of four black-robed figured, displaying the symbol of Orcus.

There was an attempt at parlay, but it didn’t go so well and a fight broke out.

The orc acolytes of Orcus were no match for the party. There was one orc who cast Silence at the party and then cast Hold Person and Bestow Curse at GI, but all saves were made.

When that orc was the last one standing:
GI: “Care to surrender?”
Orc: “Orcus will reward me.”

All of those orcs are dead now.

They looted the orcs (some minor magic items) and continued their searching of the hexagonal complex.

When they were nearly to the end of the complex, they found one room with a pentagram and skull in the center of it.

The moment they stepped into the room the skull rose into the air and with flames burning in its eyes it spoke:
“I am the Oracle, possessor of all knowledge. Ask what you wish and you shall learn the answer to what you seek.”

The party had heard some rumors of an oracle, and that information could be obtained from it, for a price.

After some questions they found out that the price could be money, magic items, stat points, or even life levels.

That life level thing marked the Oracle as evil to the group, but they made no attempt to attack it.

Aaron had Saraseck’s greatsword identified as “Hell’s Kiss” and +2 unholy and wounding greatsword.

Having other magic items identified would cost from 500 to 2000gp each.

For 1000gp they learned that the purple worms were many in number and part of a circle of life that involved the worms feeding off things traveling through the great cavern, and that there were other creatures that fed off the worms. But if that circle is disturbed too much, their will be an imbalance and chaos will result.

Afterwards they decided to rest in the last small triangular room in the complex, and adjacent to the Oracle.

That was definitely a ballsy move, but amazingly there were no random encounters to disturb them.

The next morning they head back to the first room past the great cavern and choose the eastern door.

Beyond that door was an orc barracks with half a dozen orcs torturing a screaming wizard tied to a rack.

The orcs threatened to kill the party. Spot bluffed stating that Orcus had sent them. The orcs responded that Orcus had no power here.

So Saver opened up the negotiations with a salvo of Fireballs.

As expected, the party was tearing the orcs apart, but the wizard in the rack was shouting for the party to stop because they bring “him”.

Shortly thereafter the room went from dark to a smoky reddish color and Javier’s skin began to glow red.

When the orcs were dead and the party approached the wizard on the rack, the man was terrified of Javier and told him to stay away.

When Javier fled the room, Saver started to glow, so he fled the room, but only after a glowing red ball started chasing him.

While that was going on Spot and GI freed the wizard from the rack, who’s first action was to teleport away.

Once Saver fled the room, the red ball went after GI. When GI tried to flee the room, the door slammed shut.

That door didn’t survive long as Javier and Saver were now trying to get back in the room. (They did not glow red when they re-entered the barracks.)

Choosing an alternate route, Spot chose to flee deeper into the barracks. He turned around when he saw a large red and winged demon in the next room.

This story played out for a little while longer, but it was all an illusion.

The demon, the glowing red ball disappeared, replaced by a well kept room with the smell of incense in the air.

A voice from nowhere spoke to the party:

Scramge: “You’ve proven your abilities well.”

Party: “Um we heard this is the place to come to kick ass and chew gum.”

Scramge: “You defeated my illusions quite nicely. But you are intruding upon my privacy. I will have to ask you to leave.”

Party: “We will after we search the corpses.”

Scramge: “You will find nothing on them.” (The dead orcs are replaced by dead men dressed in rags.)

Party: “Since we defeated you illusions, I don’t think you have a right to say what we can and can’t do.”

Scramge: “Hahahaha. Do you think you can defeat a master of illusions? I can make dozens of creatures, and some will be genuine.”

Party: “Who are you?”

Scramge: “My name is Scramge. Perhaps we can be of use to each other. I have information, and you have ambition. Somewhere in this dungeon there are daggers, 3 special but unremarkable daggers, which are special keys to a lock. Bring them to me and I will pay you quite well.”

Party: “Who is the Oracle?”

Scramge: “He has been here since long before the temple.”

Then they got the hell out of there and we called it a night.