GURPS DF Session 113, Felltower 85, Lost City 7

After the near-TPK last session, the pool of delvers had been severely depleted. Losses of major figures such as Hjalmarr, Vryce, and Mo plus lots of up-and-coming delvers left limited options. Still, there was a will to explore Felltower, and more delvers were gathered.

A rare last-minute (he said he could play a few hours before game) appearance by Dryst helped immensely.

January 20th, 2019

Weather: Early snow followed by driving rain, icy winds, and then sunny cold.

Characters:
Aldwyn, human knight (264 points)
Bruce "the Mild" McTavish, Jr., human barbarian (250 points)
Crogar, human barbarian (250 points)
Dryst, halfling wizard (461 points)
Felix Aurelius, human cleric (250 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (389 points)
Gerald Tarrant, human necromancer (332 points)
     5 Skeletons (~25 points)
Wyatt Sorrell, human swashbuckler (250 points)

The group gathered in Stericksburg, around a core of vets - Galen, Aldwyn, and Gerry - plus some new or recent additions - everyone else. They gathered rumors and stocked up on gear. They headed out and up to Felltower without Dryst, who said he'd come but be late.

The mountain top was windy and cold, but the castle was unguarded. They went in through the gates and to the trap door. Gerry had a skeleton try the door but it was zapped by the black energy and mildly damaged. Someone or something that locked the door again. They headed for the main entrance.

Galen went down first, with Dark Vision and Invisibility on, and spotted an orc facing away inside an open pillbox shutter on the left side. He loosed an arrow and the orc went down. A second orc looked out for a split second and Galen put two arrows his way, too. The orc dodged one (with a 3!) but narrowly failed the dodge the other, which knocked him down and either dead or unconscious. Dead, Galen figured, and signaled to the group that there weren't any guards.

They made sure, and Wyatt jumped across and strung up a rope. The climbed across.

Once across they went right, but without a crowbar they couldn't get open the doors. Bruce managed to fit Wyatt's knife in and pry the door open enough to get fingers in, but the dagger snapped in the process.

Just then, Dryst showed up, and created a crowbar which he insisted Bruce needed to hang on to.

They moved to the noisy room, which Felix quieted with a Silence spell (he rolled a 3 on that.) They made their way down the stairs, past all of the usual rooms, and to the intersection near the giant staircase known as the "intersection of hate." They moved past it, hoping to turn over to the base of the pillboxes and retrieve the two fallen orcs for Gerry to turn into zombies. That did not work - they first found noisemakers and boards with bent and rusty nails in them (cleared under Silence by a servant) and second they found the corridor past the "animal smells room" had been blockaded. They didn't want to dig, and simply gave up on the orc zombies.

They headed down the GFS, checking for traps. They made it to the "apartment level" and cautiously moved along. They eventually reached the gate to the Lost City of D'Abo. Dryst scried the gate, from both sides. Each revealed the exact same scene - you can't go in "the back" and come out facing another direction. Worried about getting smote by golems again, they sent in servants first and then fighters second, some facing "back." Nothing waited for them except blasting heat, a big change from the icy winds of winter around Stericksburg and the clammy chill of Felltower.

This trip matched the last trip in a lot of ways. First, they couldn't locate the stairs down, thanks to having re-sealed off the floor after using Shape Earth last time. So they climbed down to the lower level. Dryst sent a Wizard Eye to scout, but closed doors impeded that.

Heading down the street to the east, they carefully sent the Wizard Eye into each and every window or open doorway they found, finding only stone furniture and emptiness. At the end of the street, however, a 15' anaconda crawled out of the ruins and headed for them!

Galen thumped it with arrows for several seconds, although it dodged a couple of them. Felix cast Sunbolt and zapped it, but it was too weak to harm it. Crogar and Bruce charged, with Aldwyn walking and then running after them. As the snake closed, however, Galen put an arrow into its skull and stunned it badly. Crogar halted, waiting for it to advance. The other fighters halted, waiting for Crogar to engage it. He waited. The snake was stunned. Galen held his shots. Crogar kept waiting. After a few seconds, the anaconda recovered from stunning and chose to escape with its life. Galen put two more arrows into it as it turned away, killing it.

The barbarians closed, and Aldwyn slashed it repeatedly in the "neck" but - luckily - failed to decapitate it. Luckily because Gerry wanted to make a Zombie snake.

So Gerry did . . . but rolled an 18. Oops. The snake snapped into unlife . . . and attacked Gerry, grappling him in its coils! Gerry cast Phase and passed through it, and that was the signal for Bruce to kill it. Oops.

From there they found the armoury that was looted by the original group (including Gerry) years back. All they found was moldy and moldering armor and weapons, none of them in anything like serviceable condition. They wasted a good amount of time searching for secret doors or additional weapons and found nothing of value.

Next, they moved building by building, heading toward the tetrahedron by way of a badly collapsed building they'd spotted and decided needed investigation. This took a long time - much time was spent checking rooms, even once moving a bed, scanning for secret doors, checking for anything of value or interest. For the most part, there was none, and the heavy stone doors often took Bruce and Crogar together to move - or no effort at all, depending on the condition of the rolling mechanisms.

They checked an intact building with a courtyard of sorts, and found nothing but moldy grain in a single room. But a second level structure had a purple-and-black colored ceiling and walls decorated with weird symbols. Dryst was scouting via Wizard Eye and knew they were Elder Tongue symbols, but it was a puzzle what the meaning was. They all denoted history and religion, and the past. But since the Elder Tongue has thousands of symbols, often readable in both directions (or in circles, or lines, or specific patterns, etc.) he couldn't figure them out. Fleix went next with another PC (I forget who) and decided the best way to check these was a room full of Sunlight. That caused the symbols to char immediately into black circles of soot!

Dyrst groaned, but Felix was well pleased.

They continued down the road, exploring more ruins. Dryst put Earth Vision on Galen to spot basements (there were none.) As they approached the ruined building they sought, some a half-dozen vegepygmies and two thornies came around the corner at the next intersection, some 120-130 yards away. Galen put an arrow into each of the lead two immediately, and then said, "There are some vegepygmies coming." The ones he hit, though, had little reaction except from the thump of impact. They started to strike their chests and deployed.

The PCs formed up. The vegepygmies suddenly were obscured by growing grass about 6-7' tall. Clearly they had a spellcaster.

The PCs warily advanced, but when they reached the intersection they found no vegepygmies. They cut their way through the grass.

The eventually searched the ruined building they sought, but it turned out to be just an old building falling apart under the relentless creep of the swamp.

They made it to the tetrahedron. Several of them climbed up, and they began the process of exploring and looting it.

What followed was basically identical to the last time. First, they dropped a light. It dimmed and slowly went out.

Next, worried about slimes, Felix held in a mirror to look up through the crack. A slime fell on his hand. They tried to burn it off, Gerry not recalling that this doesn't work. Felix tried to scrape it off, but only ended up sliming up his knobbed club. Bruce tried with his knife and got slime on his bare hands. Eventually Felix pulled off the glove and tossed it. They couldn't figure out how to kill the slime and moved away from it.

Then they decided to send someone down, but wanted to ensure it was safe. So they lowered a skeleton. Just like last time, it last a few seconds and fell apart, destroyed.

Oops.

So Dryst put a Force Wall across the apex, to cut off some of the slimes (not all of them, but enough.) They sent Bruce down to look around. With no Search skill, poor Perception (he has a 10), and darkness, he stumbled around for a few minutes finding nothing and taking damage from the miasma of death. He came back up.

Galen eventually volunteered that he has excellent night vision and high Per and high Search. So they sent him, next. He found a scroll, a soapstone statue of a half-man half-snake (see below), an amulet depicting two snakes facing each other, and a small statuette. He also found a stone chest full of coins. He filled a sack with coins, digging deep in case the good stuff was at the bottom, dumped in the the assorted stuff he found and came back up via the rope.

They examined the loot - the coins were all copper, with snaky motifs. Still, it was a significant value even at $0.10 per coin. They checked the snake-man statue, and it seriously unnerved Crogar.

Felix wanted to read the scroll, even though it was some creepy snake-like skin. But he was convinced to do so later.

Galen went for another scoop, this time trailing twine made with Create Object to tie onto the chest so other, stronger guys could follow the twine. He did so and scooped coins. But even before they could haul him up, the twine went slack - it had been partly dispelled by the magic-draining of the bottom of the interior.

Bruce went back down anyway to "follow where the string was." That resulted in a couple minutes of fumbling around (and a slime missing him, actually, and a failed Per roll to even notice) and then coming back, hurt.

They broke off the looting at this point, as they saw birds flying in their direction in slow, lazy swoops. They climbed down and took cover in the buildings.

They waited, with weapons and spells ready. But a horrifying shriek rang out. Galen was stunned. Aldwyn was stunned, and picked up a new quirk (Unnerved by woman's voices). Crogar was so stricken with fear he puked. But a few held on. A harpy flew down and past them, clearly having come in for a low shriek-by. Dryst, Bruce, and Felix released at it. It avoided Felix's Sunbolt and Bruce's harpoon, but Dryst's Stone Missile hit it and wounded it very badly. Barely conscious, it tried to fly away.

(I actually forgot to require a Per roll to spot the harpy in time, and just let everyone shoot. I often forget those.)

Dryst cast Hawk Flight on nearby Wyatt and sent him after the harpy. He flew after it using Move and Attack. He fended off a dire vulture attack on the way before outdistancing them. After several seconds, he managed to hit the harpy in the hand and sliced it off. That did for her, and she fell and plowed into the water of the swamp near the vegepygmy stockade. Wyatt swooped back, slowed down, and stabbed her four times as she floated.

He came back after this.

The group was still dealing with the fear. Poor Aldwyn just couldn't snap out of it, even with slaps, the (Loretta Venturini-like) Command to "Snap out of it!" and so on. (He had to roll a 5 or less.) Deciding they just couldn't wait for him to relax on his own, Bruce come up behind him and put him in a rear naked choke (doubly so, Bruce wears nothing but a kilt) and put him to sleep over a few seconds of struggle. Dryst said moments later, "I could have used Sleep."

Next was a pair of scouting trips - first Galen, buffed out the wazoo and with Invisibility, No-Smell, and Dark Vision plus Flight and numerous buffs, was sent to see where the harpies lived. He found two holes but no second harpy.

He came back.

They sent out even more buffed Wyatt to find those holes and kill the remaining harpy (Gerry having forgotten they'd killed one way back when.) He explored and looted the holes, confusing the dire vultures that couldn't see or smell him but which could hear him. He flew back the long way, checking out the vegepygmy fort (which Galen had estimated would hold between 60-100 vegepygmies and about 20 thorn hounds) and then the east side of the city. He found a nest along the water, the ape cave, and the metal gates.

He came back with the loot.

At this point, they headed back to the gate. Galen flatly refused to do more looting now that the slimes were likely down on the floor, no longer sealed behind a Force Wall. So they had to bow to his decision.

They made it back to the gate, and this time found the staircase below. While they debated how to open the stairs up to the gate floor and then if to reseal them, Dryst cast Earth the Air and ended the discussion.

Felix suggested sealing off, or trapping, the stairs or the gate room (I'm not sure which) to ensure the next non-PC people to go through would stumble into it. No one seemed keen on trapping their own path, so they let that go.


As they headed back to the stairs, they heard a weird hooting / piping noise. Bruce was sure it was of no animal he'd ever heard of (thanks to Naturalist), while Crogar was sure it was a burrow owl (thanks to a critical failure on Naturalist), and wanted to go check it out. He was overruled.

The went to the hidden hand on level 2 and had Gerry touch it, along with Wyatt, Bruce, and Crogar. They lost HP and FP, got the chills, but otherwise were able to function. They headed out via the trap door, once again trying to decide if they should/could disable it. They decided against trying (Wyatt strenuously arguing that smashing/"securing" exists is why there are so many fewer than before) and left.

They made it back to town and dealt with their treasure. (I'll get a post about that tomorrow.) They had enough for a solidly profitable delve.

Notes:

Early on in the session, Felix's player said, "We'll save the Pyramid [sic] for when we need loot." He was quickly corrected . . . loot was goal #1. That's a good point, there - most of the time the group gets into trouble, it's one of two things: prioritizing something other than loot, and then the "we need loot!" rush at the end of the session leads to bad decisions or it's having Plan A, and then executing Plan B because something even slightly unexpected happens. This was almost the second, where "go to the Lost City" became, briefly, "with a detour to get some orcs from the orc-held pillboxes" which could have turned into a full-out dig-and-fight row with the ors. In any case, "loot first" has served very well when it's been pursued.

Fright Checks are nasty. They don't come up too often, so generally my players don't prepare for them. Gerry's player always did so, especially because he think they're too nasty. I've noticed most fighter-types are the least prepared . . . since being afraid is a roleplaying decision, most play fearless . . . but failing a Fright Check is a character ability effect and it pays to invest in actual fearlessness if you don't like being useless in a scare-fest.

We had some issues with adjudicating Sunlight. Can you cast it mid-air and have it extend downward? There doesn't seem to be a reason why not, but I can see all sorts of problems that will cause me. We decided you need to cast it on the "ground floor" just to save my sanity.

Once again we've hit the highly amusing cycle of "he's charmed/confused/scared/mentally stunned and can't get out" so they beat the poor guy unconscious to "fix" this. Command was an interesting attempt, but it's not curative. Sleep would have been a good way to go, as would Relieve Madness. There was a lot of rules confusion over this, too - that it was Will, and recovering from fright, not mental or physical stun. So no Awaken, no Combat Reflexes bonus, nothing of that sort.

Overall not a bad session - pretty good loot, everyone except Dryst hit threshold. Add in some good exploration (+1 xp) and everyone ended up with 5 xp (Dryst 3 xp). I forgot to mention to Felix's player that he got a bonus point for destroying the elder writings with Sunlight.

Four of us - the players of Wyatt, Gerry, and Crogar and I - rode home together as part of our winter weather planning and talked about the session. It sounds like Crogar's player is beginning to get that loot, not combat, drives the game. Maybe. He's still young - as young as I was when I first learned to game - and we don't have a play style that matches his attention span and interests too closely. But he likes XP.

Fun session.