Game Date: 6/14/2026
Weather: Hot and partly cloudy.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (367 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (347 points)
Rogar Thane-Blood, human barbarian (259 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (373 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (333 points)
We started off in town, with the PCs gathering rumors and sorting out a lot of purchases.
The PCs headed down into the dungeons, and made their way to the gate level, using the taxidermied six-fingered hands to open doors. That worked, but didn't mitigate any downsides (like the one door that inflicts injury when touched.) On the gate level, they noted the Lost City gate was open. They found that the black hemisphere in the room where they'd fought the slorn was back, so Vlad shot it apart with Cornucopia Quiver arrows.
They found their way towards the "will wall," but stumbled into a huge pudding - three yards across and a yard high! They lit it up with a lightstone, briefly, as it was tossed too far. Then Hannari lit it on fire with a splash from a close miss from an alchemist's fire. It charged them. Rogar charged back. He blocked its slam but was still overrun and smothered down to the floor. Chop but Resist Acid on the front line before contact, so he was more-or-less fine. The pudding got chopped into submission by Percy (with an axe), Hannari (with two axes), and Thor (with his flaming sword). Thor dealt a crazy amount of damage to it, and soon it was motionless. They pushed it up enough to get to Rogar and drag him out, and then climbed over it to safety. First, of course, they gave it a once-over to see if any loot was stuck to or in it. I blame D&D for making everything thing slimes and such have treasure in them.
They pressed on, and soon to the first landing. They used Walk on Air spellstones to cross the floor, but they soon expired. Hannari downed two Speed potions and Thor two Strength potions (since the first turned up a "1") and they got to exploring, ready to fight at any time. Eventually it fell to just exploring.
Several times, they found small rooms with floor that inflicted damage (Deathtouch, they believe), mostly on Vlad before they swapped scouts. They found a room with some meditation mats, well-worn yellow ones, of no clear value. Chop had See Secrets on to help explore.
They found a stone chest with a 4 x 4 grid of buttons, and despite some clever investigation they couldn't figure out how to puzzle out the puzzle. So Hannari tried his dwarven lockpicks to directly spring the lock. He rolled a 6 on an effective skill of 25 or so. It was enough - a critical, assuming a penalty of -9 or less, but either way, it was enough to work.
Inside was 10,000 sp (40 pounds . . . ) in coins, four gold necklaces, and three potions (they eventually turned out to be Giant Strength and two Oil of Puissance.
In another room they found an iron chest with a different puzzle lock. Thor tried to force it, hear a noise, and found he'd jammed the lock. Hannari found it was never going to open for his lockpicks, and a try with the crowby by Thor was a disaster. He jammed it tn and rolled an 18 . . . oops. So he decided to carry the chest by the handle. Coins shifted inside, but something also made tinkling noises. Hannari used an alkahest on it to dissolve the lock entirely. Inside was 1000 gp ($20k, and 4 pounds) and the broken bits of a semi-corporeal ruby dagger. Oops. Was it magical? Was it one of the "glass monsters" recent rumor had pointed to? Was it a magical key? Who knows? Thor likes to think it was a cursed item of great danger and clearly already broken when he did his thing.
Next, they found a room with four levers. They managed to convince Thor not to play around with them, but it took some work.
After this, they found an armoury of sorts, and recovered three suits of magescale, a few grenades (nothing special, just normal stuff), two pieces of star-shaped soapstone, and a bracelet of silver with golden D'Aboan horses on it.
Then they found a room with a damaging floor, again, so Thor drank a flight potion and flew over. And kept going. And going. He's Impulsive and Curious, and it showed. Eventually Hannari jumped the floor's length to catch up to Thor, who'd found a scenic overlook, and then another room overlooking a large cavern that smelled of ammonia and something gone sour.
They regrouped, spotting three rooms with gemstone-patterend walls along the way, and did a little mapping before they headed out.
Back to town.
Notes:
- Puddings are fun, but it's pretty much all or nothing for them as monsters. Against a high-damage-output squad, it's nothing. I was interested to note the PCs never even tried to back off, see if it would move on, tried to lure it away - they just stood to fight it. Rogar will rush into a fight, always, but that doesn't mean before one starts they can't find another option. Who am I kidding? They were curious if any of the rocks embedded in the pudding were valuable. If you regard monsters as something you must kill on the off chance they may have loot, well . . . you'll fight everything.
- the loot total was $32,350 per person. That didn't include any of the jewelry because they didn't want to sell them without having a PC evaluate them. Duncan is currently the only person who has the skills to evaluate magic items, gems, jewelry, and assorted luxuries. They're really cleaning up, which is the reward for the heavy fighting that it took to open up these areas. Megadungeon play is both immediate and cumulative.
- I'll reveal it here - the puzzle lock was solvable either of two ways - the players figure out either of the codes, or someone makes an IQ-based Lockpicking at a steep penalty. Or, you know, brute force. I doubled the penalty for the complexity of the lock to swap to DX, and that made that 6 not nearly a critical . . . but still enough to pop the lock.
- MVP was Hannari for his lockpicking. XP was 4 each for loot, 1 each for exploration. Thor really should have gotten extra for exploration but he didn't quite get enough extra places. But he really leans into his disadvantages and it makes for a better game. That's a pretty good reward.
It was a little surprising—but not totally—and very satisfying to see that after that really intense battle last time where we basically eliminated all but the main bad guy ("the Master"), he apparently relocated to another level, leaving some (if not most) of the spoils. (Unlike what happened in the Cold Fens, where we really beat up some bandits, but didn't push on, and eventually they left with most of their loot).
ReplyDeleteVlad's theory is that the "right hand side of the map" was populated by the Golden Swordsmen, and perhaps the Gith didn't have access to their chests (and do not care much). Somewhat surprising, though, that some of the magescale was left, so maybe this is where some of the Gith also resided. Either way, very interesting, and now there are more areas opened up for exploration. This is definitely the "cumulative" part of "immediate and cumulative."
Too bad about the dagger.