[Digging down and exploring tombs.]
[This session took place sometime in 2005, I have no indication of when. We were playing Champions 5th Edition with the Second Edition Fantasy Hero supplement.]
Player Characters
Crunch – male ogre from the Free City of Freegate, representing the Temple of Toth
Dangar Stonekleaver – male dwarf from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom
Peter Peterman – male human, representing Outlands University
Wendell Dorshield III – male gnome, Captain and Architect of the Yardbird
Malwyn – male High elf fighter and military expert
Darkfox – female human thief from Freegate, secret ID of socialite Karlyn Gryphshaw
NPCs
Lucan Prasuta – male human from Freegate, joined SDG to impress Karlyn Gryphshaw
Session Begins
July 7, 20 IC
The Outlanders started their excavations by digging down to the tomb of Crenshaw Pinchpenny. The group consisted of Malwyn, Dangar, Darkfox, Crunch, Wendell, and several of Wendell’s gnome bodyguards. Peter was assisting in the negotiations elsewhere [which means the player was unavailable for the session]. Using Wendell's Rod of Excellent Engineering, they bored a pit straight down to the entrance of the tomb and used a ladder to climb down.
They found the lock on the tomb door was of an old type and the tomb was protected by the cheapest measures possible – painted on magical glyphs. Darkfox quickly bypassed the lock and the tomb was opened.
The inside, at the bottom of a set of stairs, was rectangular and mostly empty except for a sarcophagus in the center and three chests on the far wall. The sarcophagus’ right side faced them, making it an additional barrier to the chests beyond. The paint the protective glyphs were made of was pealing and flaking, but contained enough power to maintain a force barrier that sealed off the back two thirds of the tomb. The attending “funerary frescoes” on the walls were merely paint directly applied to the stone walls and were perfunctory at best.
Darkfox used her knowledge of bypassing magical traps to disarm the wall of force. Leaving the sarcophagus for last, Darkfox walked past it to investigate the three chests. Dangar followed and stood directly behind her, ready to pull her out of harm’s way or strike at anything nasty that came out of the chests. The rest of the group held back until Darkfox determined whether or not it was safe.
Darkfox carefully looked over all three of the chests and determined that all three were locked, but only the middle one was trapped. She picked the lock on one of the untrapped chests, oiled the hinges, and opened it. Inside was Treasure but at exactly the same time, a baleful howl arose from the sarcophagus and a spectral figure appeared over it.
The spectral figure was of an old man wearing the ragged clothes of a much older style. The man pointed a boney finger at Dangar and started haranguing Dangar in a language none of them understood. Dangar felt the dread chill of the apparition’s anger flow over him and was dumbfounded, not knowing what to do [high-level Presence Attack]. The rest of the group immediately stepped up and attacked the spectral creature with whatever magic attacks they had at their disposal. Crunch cast Voice of Toth, a specialty spell of the clergy of Toth where the voice of Toth whispered unyielding secrets that shake undead to their foundation. The entire group heard the quiet susurration of Toth’s words in the spell’s area of effect, but only Dangar, who was inside the area of effect, and the ghost of Crenshaw Pinchpenny heard anything distinct.
Whatever the ghost of Crenshaw Pinchpenny heard greatly affected him. He screamed out, slapping his hands over his ears, and his form became less distinct and more tattered. Dangar only heard the words, “he means to kill all of you,” whispered into his ears. Suspecting the ghost was tied to the sarcophagus; Dangar grabbed the opened chest and called out for people to run for it.
The gnomes immediately pulled back out of the crypt, as did Malwyn and Darkfox. Crunch stood his ground and re-cast Voice of Toth to keep the ghost from laying its soul-chilling touch on Dangar. Once again the quiet susurrations were heard. This time, Toth’s truths completely blew the ghost back to the ether from whence it came, but Dangar only heard, “the treasure is cursed,” whispered into his ears.
With the immediate threat removed, the exodus from the crypt stopped. Dangar set down the chest and relayed what he had heard. After some discussion, Darkfox stated that she may know someone who could handle the problem. She recommended that everyone return above ground and wait for her to return.
While the rest of the Outlanders had a short lunch, Darkfox went to the guildhouse of the Rare Art Brotherhood and made inquiries. She returned with a specialist who was calm and detached and a bit of a cipher for the Outlanders. He asked everyone to leave the crypt and went to work while the Outlanders watched from the crypt’s entrance. He worked with his back to the Outlanders, so they could not see everything he did or hear everything he said. Crunch was able to recognize some of the items being used as tools made and used by the Temple of Usher.
After a while, he finished laying the ghost of Crenshaw Pinchpenny to rest and picked up his gear to leave. He did not answer any questions about who he was or who he worked for except in oblique terms. It was never determined if he was part of the Temple of Usher, merely associated with them, or something else entirely.
The treasure in the chests was cataloged [but never written down in my notes]. The locked chest turned out to contain only personal items that once belonged to Crenshaw Pinchpenny. They were left in place and the chest relocked. Dangar tipped over the sarcophagus to see if anything was hidden underneath it and a copper penny was found. It was taken by Darkfox.
With the first tomb explored, Wendell used the Wand of Excellent Engineering to dig a lateral tunnel over to the tomb identified as belonging to Timothy Brewer. Upon reaching it, Darkfox inspected it closely, looking for traps or anything unusual.
At first, the most unusual thing about the tomb was how plain it was. Looking closer, Darkfox discovered many small glyphs inscribed in out of the way places on the tomb door and lintel. Pointing them out to the rest of the Outlanders, those recently back from the Temple of Watching Twilight [see Adventure 6: Cultists, Cultists, Cultists] recognized certain similarities between these glyphs and those that sealed the temple catacombs. Further exploration was halted for the day.
July 8, 20 IC
The Outlanders split up to find out more information, querying the various temples in the city. This set off quiet alarms at both the Temple of Toth and the Temple of Usher. Both temples sent people to discretely follow the Outlanders.
The Temple of Druuna nearly arrested Wendell under suspicion of being a minion of the undead after his frank retelling of the events of the previous expedition. After some testing and some talking, the Temple of Druuna agreed to let Wendell go on the condition they can test the rest of the team that was at the Temple of Watching Twilight.
Later that day, Wendell had the Outlanders meet him at the Gnome compound along with the rest of the gnomes from the previous expedition. A priestess of Druuna and several Temple Guards were there. After some initial tension, the priestess was able to test all present for undead influence. Everyone but Yacov passed, which surprised no one but Yacov. Yacov was restrained and taken to the Temple of Druuna for treatment.
Session Ends.
NPCs Met
Unknown exorcist associated with the Rare Art Brotherhood, name never given.
Priestess of the Temple of Druuna [cannot find where I recorded her name]
Happening Off-Stage
The gnomes spent some time shoring up the tunnels dug by the Outlanders in order to avoid a cave-in. They scrupulously avoided coming into contact with the tomb currently being investigated.
Karlyn’s parents got wind that their daughter’s name appears as a principle investor of the Skytown Development Group. They both hit the roof, but for different reasons. Her father for “holding out on the family while giving the Pratsuta family a leg up”, her mother for completely disrupting the intricate social plans and arrangements made “on Karlyn’s behalf.”
Now her mother will have to re-evaluate all of the arrangements made based on Karlyn’s new social standing as part of an obviously well-funded business that is associated with the Gnome Consortium and Tim’s Outlanders. Her father started trying to use Karlyn’s name to make inroads into Skytown. Both parents want to talk with Karlyn immediately and have sent messages saying such. She studiously ignored the messages.
The Allied Construction Trades Guild was originally pleased with the amount of new work the Skytown Project was bringing in. Now that they have a better appreciation of the scope of the gnomes’ plans, they are starting to balk, claiming they do not have enough skilled guild members to do all of the work in the time scale the gnomes are pushing. They are extremely resistant to the idea of bringing in workers from Fordsway and negotiations are starting to get tense.
There has been an increase of goblin raiding parties attacking merchants on the trade route to Orpheon [west of Freegate]. Rumor had it that a new tribe, the Uz-Uzs [Fire Suns], had started raiding close to the HNTR Terminus, leading to the increase in attacks. The Uz-Uzs appear to be organized and have spellcasters among their raiding parties. With the ongoing Mountain War, the Imperial Legionnaires stationed at the Terminus cannot spare troops to deal with this problem at this time. The commander of the Terminus is contemplating posting rewards for handling the situation at the Freegate Adventurers Guild.
DM Discussion
[Prior to finding the folders with notes (see Original Post, below), I did not have anything for July 8 in my notes and had forgotten about it entirely. This is exactly why I started typing up my notes and writing up what happened during sessions in the past – I was losing important information to maintain consistency in the campaign as I naturally forgot it over time. The notes were mostly to jog my memory when I started, but later I realized I needed better notes than that, especially to remember things 3+ years after they happened.]
[My recovered notes also remind me that 2005 was when I started writing adventures for the Bandit Kingdoms region of Living Greyhawk, which was a lot of fun. I was also running my superhero campaign at the same time, trying to patch over that I was out of ideas for my fantasy campaign. Eventually I explained to the players that I was tapped out and shutting down the Tim’s Outlanders Campaign.]
Tim's Outlanders Landing Page
Tomb Raiders
Previous session: Session 2
Next Session: Session 4 [missing?]
Original Post:
So just as I was wrapping up this entry and ready to post when I came across two folders containing my original hand-written game notes and a complete printout of the adventure notes. There is enough material that I need to update my [rather scanty] Session 3 notes that survived the hard drive crash plus supplement material for Sessions 1 and 2.
I'll post the full session notes with supplemental material this afternoon. Sessions 1 and 2 will get updates afterwards and have a note up top when they get updated, so you can quickly tell once that is done.
I also found some hand notes on the end of the Cultists, Cultists, Cultists adventure that has the actual in-game dates of the Outlanders return from the mountains, so I will add that to the relevant posts.
