GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Session 178, Brotherhood Complex 2 - Iron Knights

Date: 1/9/2023
Game Date: 1/9/2023 left Stericksburg, delved on 1/12/2023, returned to Stericksburg 1/14/2023.

Characters:
Ambassador Durinn, dwarf cleric (250 points)
Belmek Battlebeard, dwarf barbarian (250 points)
Connor "Low Key" O'Neill, human thief (250 points)
Desmond MacDougall, human wizard (278 points)
Kaylee, half-elf knight (250 points)
Lenjamin Gundry of Cornwood, human knight (250 points)

The PCs gathered in Stericksburg and headed out to the brotherhood complex, aka the Unopenable Doors.

They took a few days to travel there - there really isn't a better base than Stericksburg, other than some remote farms and smallish villages still miles away. Once there, they checked the entrance, sending Low Key in to check for traps. He found none, and no one has enough Tracking to see if use patterns changed.

They headed in, and used the passphrase to open the doors, and headed right down. They explained to the new guys how their extensive expirimentation with the statue enabled them to pass through the illusionary wall.

Once though the illusionary wall and down the stairs, they moved to check the triger's lair. Once it again, they heard it roaring - it wasn't dead (Durinn suspected maybe undead, but wrongly.) They advanced slowly on it, using Opportunity Fire to cover the area. They closed in on it, but as they did, they saw three guards rush in from the darkness deeper in the complex. Also, they heard clanking, whirring, and metal-on-stone clangs.

In moments, they faced three guards with swords and shields and robes and two metal-armored men with metal shields and all-metal one-handed warhammers. Belmark threw his axe at a guard but missed. Lenjamin threw a hatchet at the triger as it rushed out as well, and also missed.

Attacked from two directions, Lenjamin found himself pounced on by the triger - and Dodged out of the way, leaving the triger to circle around and attack Desmond. The armored knights met up with Kaylee, who crippled the pick arm of the lead one with a massive sword blow; it cracked at the elbow and dangled loosely. The other clanked up to Belmek.

Desmond Blinked away from the triger's next pounce and put Loyalty on one guard, just after he'd fumbled an attack and his weapon became unready. Connor rushed one and critically missed, falling and dropping his sword. Belmek feinted the same guard for a -1, the guard critically missed Connor and went off balance, and then Dismond put Mental Stun on him.

The triger closed on Desmond and bit him three times, landing two solid chomps onto his groin. He wasn't hurt thanks to his garishly painted Mage Scale, but he was grappled. Meanwhile, the guard he'd cast on ran over to protect him, as Desmond called for him to do. Kaylee crippled the other arm of the knight, as the other spiked Lenjamin and wounded him badly. Lenjamin tried to parry, of course, but strained his shoulder, crippling it for 30 minutes! Then for some reason it just stopped moving. Lenjamin tried to pull himself off of the pick, after Durinn healed him. He got partly off. Another pull a second later finished the job.

Belmek butchered the other two guards - the wounded one, and another one - with axe blows. The crippled knight kept shoulder checking Kaylee, who eventually managed to hit it a couple more times and drop it. She then turned and cut down the triger before it could do Desmond's groin any lasting harm.

Belmek chopped the other knight down a second after it started moving again. Like the first, it collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.

With that, the fight was over. The charmed foe, Oliver d'Guard, was questioned by Desmond in his folksy, mostly scolding way. "Listen sport, in my day (yadda yadda yadda) . . ." The equipment was policed up. And the knights examined. They were clearly constructs. They smelled of oil, had protruding bolts, and limbs too thin to have someone inside. Lenjamin recognized them as mechanical knights, a form of built-from-parts golem somewhat common in Cornwood but not elsewhere. They're a staple in the armies of King Titanius Anglesmith. Desmond took a look with Physiology (Constructs) and determined that they don't have any notable weak points. They also don't have any weapons that aren't part of them, and their steel armor is low-grade and salable only as scrap.

They dragged the two dead guards to the triger's den, checked that for loot and exits (and found none), and left the mechanical knights in place.

They checked the guard room and ensured there was nothing there, and then followed Oliver's directions towards a room with his leaders - Brother Alester and Brother Cedric. He knew little else - he'd only joined the cult five days before, and they didn't involve him in anything yet, or allow him deeper into the complex. One of the other guards was equally new. They couldn't find what he was talking about, and he said he was sure the Brothers came from that way but must have been wrong.

So they wandered around, carefully mapping. Long story short, they found a lot of empty rooms. Often small, sometimes larger, and usually locked or just jammed shut. Durinn had brought a crowbar, and Belmek went around prying doors open. A few locked ones were easily taken care of by Connor "Low Key." They also found a gurgling, bubbling acidic pool, which they avoided. And closer to the entrance, a puddle of water that water spell expert Desmond declared was an ordinary puddle. They spent a good 40 minutes or so wandered around before they decided to check a hallway they'd bypassed earlier. Belmek ran ahead . . . and was zapped by a spell, which he resisted. Desmond couldn't see anything that set it off, so they sent Connor ahead. Zap. He critically failed a resistance roll and took 15 injury from Dehydrate. It was a set of evil runes. They could avoid them by not going that way, or just hope to resist. They had Belmek and Connor back out, and healed Connor up.

Oliver had told them they were told not to go that way, but I don't think anyway was listening by that point. They pried open a few more doors, ignoring "the shitter" that Oliver pointed out. They made their way back to where they started.

But coming from another angle, they saw a large tapestry on one of the walls - a good 30' by 10' or so. It was heavy, clearly well-made, and in fine condition. It depicted the mountain of Felltower, with a squat black fortress on top . . . the old Black Brotherhood fortress, which was destroyed long before Sterick arrived. (Amusingly, in the VTT, the players lined themselves up in front of it like museum goers. We joked that previous delvers had stolen the bench.)

After this they noticed they'd walked past a hallway and headed down it. It had a door - Belmek was all about opening doors today. He failed to force it. So Desmond used Glasswall to see through it. Beyond was a hexagonal chamber with stuff all over the place, and a man in robes with a shield and staff! The wizard ran over to a wall near the door but out of immediate sight. Desmond moved but still couldn't see him. So he moved and Kaylee and Belmek teamed up to force the door open. This time, it worked, breaking the light bar holding it closed and rushing inside.

No wizard.

So Durinn cast See Secrets and spotted a secret door near where Desmond last saw the mage go. They quickly opened it and raced through a rough-hewn natural cave in pursuit.

On the far end, they found crates and barrels and a trio of casks. They poked and swung around and behind them, and then into a pit behind the crates. Nothing. Belmek jumped down and found a one-yard-diameter hole heading out of the pit. Connor jumped down, put his knife in his teeth, and crawled through about 40-50 feet or so of narrow passage. (Having Flexibility helps a lot; it wasn't even a roll for him, while others would need Escape)

At the other end he popped out into the bottom of a pit. Standing on the edge was a wizard (Gormundel, although the PCs didn't know that except from the combat tracker) standing just in front of a pair of chests to either side of him. He saw Connor and carefully stepped back and then backed up. Connor jumped up and rushed him, passing between the chests. As he moved to do so, Gormundel yelled, "NO NO NO NO!" Connor yelled "YES YES YES!" but felt pressure and a snap - he'd run through a tripwire. Gas began to billow out of one of the chests - greenish, fast-moving stuff.

He moved after Gormundel, who turned and ran. He threw his knife, and rolled a 4! Sadly, he also rolled only a little damage, and it bounced off of the wizard's robes.

Connor wasn't cowed, though, and he readied his shortsword and rushed forward, just ahead of the expanding gas. The wizard disappeared. Connor tried hunting him in the area with hearing (the wizard was breathing hard) and guesses to his location, but mostly swung and missed. The gas expanded further. Then suddenly it stopped, and then a moment later more disappeared, but only on one side. He heard the wheezing of the out-of-shape wizard and decided to rush down the gap. He ran into the wizard but didn't knock him over. A second later, though, he managed to knock him flat. From there, he dropped his sword, grappled him, and took about 10 seconds to finally wrestle him into submission. The wizard's Invisibility broke when he attacked to break free. Then he sat on him and pulled out a knife, pulled his hood back, and cut the man's throat over his repeated calls not to do so.

The wizard dead, he stripped him of gear, and then got on to the chests. He checked them for more traps - avoiding the settling gas was easy, the wizard had gotten rid of a lot - and found nothing else. He opened them and found one empty except for an empty animal membrane bladder for gas. The other had ~1600 cp and ~3000 sp (So around $4600). The chests could fit through the hole, barely. So he put one down the hole, tied rope to it, and dragged it out with the loot and wizard's stuff.

They debated going back to get the wizard so someone could learn Summon Spirit and question him, or just taking his head for that purpose, but that's not a thing people in town are keen on. So they decided it was possible but not a good idea. They went back to the wizard's room and looted it. Connor blew a self-control roll on Kleptomania and pocketed the few gold coins and other small change he found there, succeeding on Sleight of Hand just well enough to avoid Durinn noticing.

They headed back to the entrance, dragged the triger out with them, and headed to the hills.

They failed to skin the triger, ruining its value as loot. But they took other things home - a set of Hooded Robes of Protection with Fortify 1, a staff with Staff on it (sold), a potion belt, some paut and healing potions, and some cash. They also disarmed and robbed Oliver, Desmond scolded him, "Listen Oscar, you need to make better life choices!" and then let him go. Soon enough, though Desmond missed old Omar. Er, Sport. Or Kid. Whatever. They hiked back to Felltower.

Notes:

- the first fight started with so many critical failures by PCs and NPCs alike that we joked that "one side's coach has to call a time out." This wasn't how they wanted things to go. Once the triger grappled Desmond, Durinn was briefly close to a knight, Connor was prone, and Lenjamin spiked, Belmek's player quipped, "Exactly how we drew it up." Heh. They did have everyone in the fight overmatched, though, except maybe the triger, but animals have their own problems with heavily-armored folks with weapons.

- (Cornwoodian) mechanical knights are a new monster. I'll see if I can't work their stats out into some kind of publication. If not, I'll post them here. You can see from the action above that they're well armored but not overly sturdy, and hit pretty hard. Like many golems, they're from the golem (there they say "robot") ruled kingdom of Cornwood.

- Having a thief is helpful. You can do most of what they do another way, but everything is harder. Suddenly the group didn't have to have a high-HP guy try for traps because he can survive it, or hack down locked doors, or strip down one of the warriors and have them squirm down a narrow passage in the face of opposition. It was just simple tasks for a thief. The thief's lack of Wrestling made his task harder, and so did his low damage output, but he still did fine.

- There are active, intelligent foes in the dungeon. They've been attacked twice. What will they do to deal with a third attack? It's tough when you don't have the initiative, and yet need to stay where you are. What will they think up?

- They gave the Hooded Robes of Protection to Low Key. Technically, this has no effect except to give him DR. It doesn't seem like good clothing for some thiefly activities, though. Also, he now resembles a cultist when he wears them. But no one else who could benefit from a 25 FP power item could wear them. Oh well.

- XP was 4 for loot, 1 for exploration (not too many areas of real consquence - I don't count empty rooms), 1 xp MVP for Low Key for solo'ing the wizard Gormundel.