GURPS Dungeon Fantasy - Session 148, Felltower 114, Lost City 13 - Amphitheatre

Sunday was the latest game in our DF Felltower game. For more notes and summaries, check the DF Felltower campaign page.

Date: February 21st, 2021
Weather: Cold, ground still very snowy.

Characters:
Aldwyn Hale, human knight (340 points)
     Varmus the Hanged, human apprentice wizard (155 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (490 points)
Gerrald Tarrant, human wizard (418 points)
     3 skeletons (~35 points)
Ulf Sigurdson, human cleric (343 points)
Wyatt Sorrel, human swashbuckler (354 points)

The PCs gathered in Stericksburg, gathered rumors, and then headed out. Their plan was to go to the Lost City, so generally the PCs armored up a little lighter and carried a little less overall gear. The only rumor that really interested them was one that the front doors of Felltower lead deep into Felltower and bypass the upper levels . . . and that mostly interested Gerry.

They headed in the trapdoor extrance, having the skeletons dig them down to it through the snow. They opened it and proceeded down. They worked their way to the "gate level" unmolested, with only Ulf suffering from the stale air on that level.

They made to the "Lost City" gate after a minor navigation error that got them lost briefly. They passed through the gate and found excellent weather on the far side. "Because it's winter," said Galen, demonstrating that Absolute Direction and his high Weather Sense didn't help him realize they're in the southern hemisphere.

They spent some time checking the map outline on the wall, and the images on the wall, which for some reason several characters (and their players) didn't realize were there. They climbed down from the building and moved along Cliffview Terrace (as they've named the streets along the western cliff). They bypassed various buildings, choosing to climb over rubble that blocked the streets instead of choosing a different route. Eventually they decided to check out one building that was a "ziggurat" or "step pyramid." The door was hard to open, and it took Might on Aldwyn to get it open.

Inside it was pretty much empty, but at the very top level was a red-mosaic floored room lined with windows and faded frescoes. In the center was a mosaic oval of circular stones with a red mortar holding them together. Gerry and Varmus, thanks to being wizards, could see a six fingered hand (wrist east, fingers west) made of slightly-magical stones. It was slightly slick with accumulated slime from element exposure, but yes, it was there and visible only to the magically sensitive. The oval was illuminated slightly from above - the ceiling was a dome of greenish translucent stone or glass. It let in a greenish light, but with all of the sunlight-bright lightstones of the group it was hard to see until they covered them up.

They had each one of the non-undead members of the group stand on a finger tip, but nothing happened. So they climbed down, exploring the building as they went, but finding nothing. They decided the hand must point to a nearby building. So they forced their way in and explored much of the building, but found nothing but empty 6' x 6' rooms and some other rooms mostly empty. One had a stone bed that had been moved. So they moved it back, since it clearly had been moved to cover some loot. Nope, no such luck.

They finally headed to the "ampitheatre." They proceeded down an overgrown path and found a small building on a path leading off of the main path. Although it had windows, they headed straight to the door and Aldwyn knocked. No answer. So they forced the door open. Inside was totally empty; unlike the other floors it was dirt, not stone. They searched it - which by this point means See Secrets, Mage Sight, and other spells occasionally - but found nothing.

Beyond it was a natural amphitheatre that had clearly been finished out with proper stonework, with rows of benches to sit on. At the "stage" end was a tunnel mouth.

They moved carefully toward the tunnel mouth. Soon, they were within about 10 yards of it.

Suddenly, out charged a gigantic deadly black tarantula, with a 10' body and 30' width by legspan, immediately biting at Galen. Galen was able to get three arrows off at what he was sure were its vitals before it chomped down hard on him - but he used his Iron Arm bracer and blocked it. The rest of the fighters closed in and attacked. Wyatt sheared off a leg at the end of a Run and Hit. The spider bit at him, instead, and critically hit but Luck averted it.

Varmus charged up a Fireball as Gerry started in on Great Haste and Ulf backed off to make some room. Meanwhile, 12 "baby" spiders - each 3' across including the legs - charged out to feed! Wyatt shifted to them and killed one and wounded another. Varmus narrowly avoided getting bit and hit one with his Fireball and wounded it and ignited its hairs.

The big spider eventually landed a bite on Wyatt, and the fangs did 5d+2 impaling . . . and I rolled 14 damage. (sigh). That was enough to pierce his light armor, and he was poisoned. (I had him roll a die after he was poisoned, and he rolled a 1. Unbeknownst to any of them, he was going to drop dead in 2 seconds.)

Ulf saw him bit and ran up 4 yards to get closer to try Instant Neutralize Poison on him. Meanwhile, Galen backed off a bit and started shooting the baby spiders three at a time. They dodged here and there, but mostly he killed 2-3 per second.

Ulf got off his spell, and made the roll - Wyatt was cured.

The fight ended almost immediately after - Aldwyn hacked off four legs from the spider, leaving it with three. Wyatt stabbed it in the eyes about 5-6 times over two seconds, and Galen finished shooting the baby spiders. One was climbing up Wyatt in the end, and Aldwyn wouldn't swing, worried he would hit Wyatt. Galen shot it off, since he never worries about hitting his friends at all.

The spiders dead, they healed up the wounded.

Despite the total lack of any webs, and the tarantula-like appearance of the spiders, the group was disappointed at the lack of giant spider silk to loot. They did manage to drain out four vial's worth of its venom - Gerry did the work, defaulting from Alchemy, protected by Resist Poison.

Inside the tunnel mouth was a cave area - the spider nest. They found two egg "shells" and some loot - a weird suit of vines, an ornate broadsword, two potions, a D'Aboan leather helm, and a pouch. The pouch had a dozen gems (they turned out to be worth ~300 each) and a folded square of vellum. They very carefully opened the vellum, to make sure it didn't spill anything out. It did not. It was a map, showing this area of the Lost City with an X marking the tunnel mouth of the ampitheatre. They looked around with See Secrets and Mage Sight and Search but didn't find anything extra.

They proceeded to explore the tunnels. Long story short, it was a way out . . . but to get there, they had to cross a 90' or so chasm (a few hundred feet deep) with stairs to an overlook on the city side of the chasm, climb down into a cave from an outlet 30' up, force some doors in a worked section, through a room with a smashed, empty chest in the middle, and a beach along an underground water system. Ulf feed some white-ish fish with some elven rations. They checked for tracks but only thought to do so after tramping around for a while.

They sent a Wizard Eye out to scout and found there was another beach out of side around some intervening floor-to-ceiling rock formations. That beach had five 3-man canoes, all hacked up and with multiple holes, in front of a statue. The statue was a snake-bodied six-armed female - a peshkali, clearly. It was a relatively crude statue, with its arms folded along the body and shoulders so the "swords" lay flush with the body. In front of it were two braziers, empty, on metal tripods. See Secrets, Mage Sight, and so on didn't help spot anything. Gerry sent the wizard eye along a wide, worked area of tunnel that eventually led to a vine-choked exit to a jungle. It was clearly outside because the sunlight from the mid-summer evening was still bright.

After a long discussion about going over to fight the peshkali, and to search it for treasure, and to activate its braziers so they could find out what evil powers it had and defeat them . . . they gave up and headed back.

They made their way back, climbing up to the cave mouth they'd climbed down from (which took Wyatt three tries before he could re-hammer in spikes and lower the rope ladder,) again crossing the chasm with Levitate, and worked their way back to the gate. It was open, and they returned to Felltower. There, Aldwyn got really ill from the poor air (-3 on all rolls, after a critical failure on his HT check.) Otherwise, they weren't molested.

On the way out, of course, they stopped at the temple that Ulf has been trying to "cleanse" every delve for months now. He managed to excorcise it last time, but still took damage. This time, he cast Sense Evil on the area. He sensed evil, but not a particular kind of evil. He stepped in, and took damage for 4 seconds, trying to discern the type of pain and injury he felt. He didn't accomplish much other than to feel the pain is within his skull and his body . . . in general. But he plans to ask the church about this.

They checked the two front doors as best they could from the wrong side of the portcullis, but couldn't see anything special, just a pair of double doors with big locks, with concealed hinges (I said they swing out, but they'd swing in, actually), decorated with evil motifs and the occasional cone-hatted type. After that, they left by crossing the pit.

Notes:

- the group pretty decisively headed to the Lost City. Sadly, they found nothing as a tag end to start next time, although I'm sure at some point they'll make a trip to the "peshkali statue" to try and light the braziers and make it do whatever it'll do when that happens . . . and then try to fight it. It's this thoroughness, by the way, that every group I've GMed for has shown on some level. It's even parodied in Another Day, Another Dungeon by Greg Costikyan, so it's not just my group. What's amusing is how mystifying it is to the players when they find, say, doors spiked for no reason, perfectly useful things destroyed so no one else can use them, traps reset after the loot is gone, and furniture moved and broken for no discenable reason. What's amusing to me is that it's not always me simulating some other group looting. Sometimes, it's this group, who have long forgotten as players (and may not know as characters) that they did this.

- Ulf really bailed out Wyatt, here. He was literally going to die the next second . . . but a timely Instant Neutralize Poison spell saved him. I can't help but think the spider might have been a bigger threat if the PCs had kept going to the ampitheatre back in Lost City 1.

- As usual, I was very disappointed with my high-damage monsters. I don't think I've rolled more than average damage, and usually considerably less, most of the rolls for should-be scary monsters. 14 HP of damage on 5d+2? That's an average of 2 points per die, instead of 3.5, which would have been more like 19.5 damage (so, 19 or 20). It's like when the giant guardian statue did 13d+7 and never rolled even close to average damage in three hits. I'm not saying random damage is bad, but if a monster has a high-damage attack, needs a critical hit to actually land one - and maybe multiple critical hits, because of Luck or magically perfect defenses, and then rolls pitiful damage . . . then it's not really doing any of the stuff it's actually threatening to do. The spider got off one effective attack and may as well have been doing 2d+2. I totally get why D&D 5e has a flat damage option.

- They sold the sword and the gems, along with the poison (out of concern for an inabilty to keep it useable) - which got them $500 per dose - but kept the vine-suit and the two potions. Those turned out to be Cloud of Fire bottles (now published in DFRPG Magic Items, p. 19)

- I've noticed an extra-detail-seeking tendency amongst my players recently. "You sense evil" "Is it a particular kind, do I get any sense of the type?" - no, or I would have said so. "It's magical." "Do I know anything about the kind of magic it is?" No, I would have said so if you could sense such. "You see a standard door, wooden with iron banding, that opens away from you." "Is there anything special about the construction of the door?" No, it's a standard door made of wood with iron banding that opens away from you . . . not sure what else to add there. "Is the floor level?" "Yes." "Do we see any bones, maybe a fire pit, or anything like that?" No, I'd absolutely mention that the floor is covered with bones surrounding a firepit if there was one. Those are all just from this session. I'm not sure why, but "just making sure" and "just clarifying" questions - that are digging for additional information - are coming up very regularly now. I have to figure out if it's a reaction to something I'm not doing - that is, not providing the full explanation unless prompted. I don't think so. I won't provide detail on something no one examines at all (if you don't look in the chest, or at the ceiling, or whatever, you're probably not noticing fine details), but I do provide information in general that I thought was complete. At least I think so. I'm not sure I've ever provided additional information when asked for clarification that I didn't already provide. I get that sometimes people don't hear what I said because of Zoom issues or mic issues, but it's beyond that - people are deliberately digging. So either it's them, or it's me, and I'm not sure which. I joked that I felt like Inspector Clouseau. "Do you know what kind of bomb it was?" "The exploding kind."

- Ulf wants to ask the Church about the damage he suffered. I treat all of this as hiring a Sage, or spending your week doing Research (but possibly with a different check.) It's just another way to get information, and that's not free, usually, and it's takes time. Besides, "the church" isn't a bunch of elder researchers hanging around waiting for questions. Ulf will need to talk this priest, who recommends talking to this monk, who says the nuns over someplace else know stuff . . . while he drops coins in the poorboxes so they think well of him next time, and so on. Or he can just donate a signficant chunk to one person to do that for him. So either he's doing it himself instead of other in-town activities, and paying money for better (or any) results, or hiring a "sage" by another name. Players say, "Ask the Church" or "Ask the Wizard's Guild" and I game that out as "talk to members of that group and use my contacts and knowledge to find things out." I think Ulf's player understands that, but the shorthand sometimes becames the actual thing if not detailed out in this way. "While they're casting Remove Curse for me, I ask about demons, and how to kill liches, and if yeth hounds hate Holy Water, and if silver helps with exorcism." Er, no, not that.

- XP was 4 each for loot because they gave $4K to Galen and then divvied up the rest, then 1 xp for exploration. MVP was Ulf for saving Wyatt's life. Funniest vote was when Galen's player voted for "Galen, for all of the Levitate spells." Heh, it was pretty late. Still funny.