Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Session Report – Barrowmaze – Session 12

[Rise of the Revengers – the player characters get back on the horse that threw them.]

[Also?  SPOILERS!  This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]

PCs (The Revengers)
Lothair Foxflight – male human Explorer, 2nd level
Daphne – female human Bladedancer, 3rd level
Boris the Fighter – male human Fighter, 3rd level
Tunrock Shadowfury – male-ish Elven Spellsword [he’s an elf – what do you want?], exploring Barrowmaze for the loot, still 1st level
Jaxby – male-ish Elven Spellsword [yes, another one], also 1st level

Recovering from Injury
Quillian the Green – male human mage, exploring Barrowmaze for the loot to establish a chantry [but mostly for the loot]
[Kord is now officially retired as an adventurer]

NPCs
Dergos – male human guide, still sold on the glory of adventuring
Morgullen – professional torchbearer, prefers to be called “Len”


Magusday, May 22th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Word spread to Ironguard Motte that the adventuring group The Motley Crew had died at the Barrowmaze.  This caused some level of consternation amongst a few merchants in the small town that had outstanding orders for equipment from members of the group.  One of the armorers, Otto Darkeye, had finally secured a suit of magical armor for Brock and now Brock was dead.  Conveniently, an associate of Brock’s came by, asking for enchanted armor, so Otto sold the armor to him.

Boris and Tunrock [recently working as caravan guards] decided to form a new group together, The Revengers.  They spent a couple days recruiting to fill out the group.

Yggsday, May 25th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
With three additional adventurers added to the group [Lothair, Daphne, and Jaxby], The Revengers walked to Helix.  Arriving in the afternoon, they stopped by the Mercenary Guild.  Osen was very pleased to see Tunrock and [to a lesser extent] Boris.  They hired Dergos, a guide, and Morgullen, a torchbearer.  Those two worthies were told to be ready early in the morning the next day to get started.

Tunrock was able to purchase a new copy of the Barrow field.  The person selling it swore it was “accurate and updated” but wouldn’t give his name.  Seemed as legitimate as the previous map, so Tunrock bought it.  [I modified the previous map so it showed which barrows had been opened and moved a few barrows so their placement was a bit more accurate.]

Sunday, May 26th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
The group headed south, into the Barrowmoor.  Lothair, skilled at moving through the wilds, safely directed the group around a frogling hunting party.

Arriving at the field of barrows, the group decided to enter Barrow 12 and descend into the dungeon below it.  Tunrock knows the way as he has been down there before.  Down in the Barrowmaze itself, the group went down the main passage, stopping at the second intersection to look.  Seeing only more corridor, they decided to back up and check the doors on the right-hand wall.

The first door opened onto a 20x20 room with a large number of hungry giant rats scavenging the debris in the room.  To the hungry giant rats, the adventurers looked like food and so they attacked.  Despite the large number of giant rats, the adventurers quickly put an end to them with cleaving attacks.  [This was supposed to be room 5, but I mis-read the entry and ended up swapping the room contents.]

After killing the giant rats and doing some healing, the adventurers opened the door on the far wall.  This opened to an empty room [Room 20] with a door in each far corner and a passage in the near-left corner.  Looking down the passage, they saw some doors on the left wall and decided to investigate those first.  The first door opened on another 20x20 room, with a door on the far wall that matched up with a door in the main passage.  The next door down opened on a 20x30 room with some conspicuous footprints and graffiti on the wall stating, “Cannot get out!”  This seemed ominous.

Tunrock and Jaxby noticed a secret door further down the hallway, near where the passage ended and opened up on a chamber.  The adventurers looked into this chamber, which turned out to be empty, but had a door on the far wall.  Rather than pushing on any further, they opened the secret door in the hallway and found an L-shaped room with a large number of triangular, empty, burial alcoves in the walls.  There were also two backpacks, partially full of supplies; a sledge hammer; 50’ of rope; a quiver with 4 arrows; and two potions of healing.  The arrows and the potions were the only magic items in the stash and The Revengers helped themselves to them.  Needing to rest, they entered the chamber and pulled the door closed behind them.  They used Tunrock’s sword as their only light source to avoid smoke from the torches.

After their rest, the group left the secret chamber and backtracked a bit to a door on the south wall.  A nearly physical wave of decay-stench rolled over them when they opened the door.  Lothair, Tunrock, and Jaxby immediately started vomiting from the smell.  On the far wall were the corpses of two adventurers pinned to the wall by spears and apparently fed upon.  They appeared to be 2-3 weeks dead.

Boris entered the chamber cautiously, looking for a spear trap of some sort or monsters lurking in the two corners he could not see from the door.  The walls were covered with square burial alcoves, each holding an urn.  Boris checked the corpses and noticed one had a backpack on.  He investigated it and found some handfuls of silver coins and one of gold coins.  Not slowing to count the coins, he transferred them to the loot sack and returned to the doorway where the air was a little cleaner.

The group decided to investigate the alcoves, but started working in teams, one searching, and one with a weapon at the ready in case anything showed up.  After 10 minutes of that, they split up into single people and kept searching.  It took a total of 50 minutes to complete the search.  [They stopped part way for a rest, which is not part of that total.]  They found nothing but ashes and bone shards in any of the urns.

Closing the door to that room behind them, the group backtracked [to Room 20] to check a different door.  Four zombies immediately attacked from the small room on the other side of the door.  Tunrock went down to a zombie attack, but Daphne healed him before as the fight finished.  It was noticed that one of the zombies had an electrum necklace on, and that was taken and added to the loot bag.

On the back wall of that room was another door.  The adventurers opened it [cautiously] and found another small chamber beyond it.  This room had four pedestals, each with a black velvet funerary box atop it.  Tunrock also noticed a secret door in the left corner, but could not determine how to open it.  The adventurers immediately assumed something in one of the boxes let it open.  Boris entered the room and removed the funerary box from the closest pedestal.  This exposed a concealed area containing a lever.  [This was a mistake on my part – the lever was supposed to be in a hidden compartment and I mis-read it as just concealed under the box.  My bad.]

Being thorough, Boris removed the boxes from all four pedestals, finding a level under each one.  He then opened one of the boxes and found bones and a velvet right-handed glove.  He took the glove and checked the other three boxes, finding the same in each.  He took all four gloves, stuck them in a pocket and put the boxes back on the pedestals.  The group was close to a rest break and took it early to talk over what to do next.  They decided to wait on putting on the gloves and on trying any of the levers until the next time they returned.  It was approaching the time they wanted to leave the area, so they backtracked to the surface.

On the way back to Helix, they ran across another group of adventurers heading to the barrows.  The Revengers tried to warn the group [Bertrand’s Brigands] that it was getting late and they should head back.  The Brigands ignored the warnings and continued to the barrows.  The Revengers shrugged and let them go.

Back in Helix, Boris stopped at The Axe and Anvil, the dwarven smithy in Helix and commissioned a magical axe [+1].  Karg, the smith, told him it would take a month to prepare and he required half payment up front.  Boris didn’t quite have that, but Karg took pity on Boris for “the recent loss of your companions” and offered to take 2000 gp now and 3000 gp in a month.  Boris accepted.

End of Session

[The group decided to sell off one of the healing potions as the XP granted by it was just enough for Lothair and Jaxby to level.]

[So I need to re-read the Barrowmaze room descriptions again.  It’s been too long since I did so the first time and I’m missing some of the details.  That said, I’m pleased the adventurers are finally exploring the actual dungeon.  I expect they’ll split time between the barrows and the dungeon for a bit.]

[Something I forgot to mention in my “How I Run the Game” posting – I highlight the areas the PCs have adventured on the maps.  This helps me remember over time where they’ve been and also find the entrances on the giant map of the dungeon itself.  I don’t have a plotter, so I cannot print it out on one sheet, so I’m using the sectional maps.  It is very convenient to have both in the product as the large scale map lets me see how things fit together and the smaller maps let me see the detail.  I’ve been highlighting in yellow, but that seems to be too faint for detail, so I’m going to get either a light blue or light green at Office Depot so I can see it better.]


Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 7
Session 8
Session 9
Session 10
Session 11

Session 13


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