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.
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.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 7:11 AM
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