Session 50 happened Wednesday, October 26, 2011. Play was delayed because the DM was scheduled to work every night this week, despite asking for Mondays off. We almost didn’t play at all, but he was able to get Wednesday night off.
This campaign used the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game as a starting point, but has now moved on to new material from the DM-in-training. I heartily recommend Dyson's Delve as a beginning adventure.
Adventuring Group:
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Elspeth (female half-elf rogue)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)
NPCs:
Aziz of the Light (male human paladin, cohort of Harkaitz)
Sarisvati the Sun-touched (female Ifrit oracle, cohort of Aziz)
Midnight (female half-elf witch, cohort of Frankie Hu)
Macha (female human fighter, cohort of Elspeth)
Estrela (female Aasimar druid, cohort of Tre-Ba)
Short John Copper (male halfling expert, hireling)
The Red Keffiyehs (human warriors, followers of Harkaitz)
Carnish (male gnoll spellcaster of some sort)
Professor Walsh (male human expert)
Later in the Afternoon, August 4, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, whose power smites the undead.
After some quick discussion, I sent the following reply to Brek’nok’s sending:
We made a deal with Nionel to “never see each other again” after killing the drow matriarch and sealing the Drow Gate, meaning they would not invade the surface anymore and we of the surface would not invade them again. I feel bad about breaking that promise and if there was a way to destroy the phylactery without breaking the promise I’d take it. I may have to do something to make up for it to Nionel after we save the world. Maybe Wednesday and her group can do the job without killing anyone or getting caught.
Probably not.
We discussed using nap stack before entering the pyramid, but decided that there was not enough benefit from doing so. Coming around a corner of the pyramid, we found three skeletons (skeletal champions as it turned out) guarding the entrance to the pyramid interior. We took them out fairly quickly, but it made us wonder if they indicated the lich and Lucien are here. Either way, we were committed to the attack at this point and entered the pyramid.
The first chamber we entered was 40 ft square with the ceiling supported by four columns equally spaced around a 20 ft quare in the center. The walls were decorated with scenes of priests fighting the undead. Elspeth searched the room and found a lever on one of the pillars. It was a trap, rigged to drop the ceiling on anyone in the chamber. She disabled it and then then pulled the lever. This caused sections of the walls to slide down into the ground, exposing two doors each on the back and side walls.
After Elspeth cleared the doors as safe, Frankie opened the left-most door. Beyond was a long room full of evenly spaced stone coffins and no other exits. Contemplating this, we decided to open all of the doors first, and then decide which way to go. The doors on the right and left walls each opened into a long room with many stone coffins. The back two doors opened onto corridors, one leading left and one right.
While we were deciding which way to go, a patch of mist moved into the room from the left door on the back wall. Aziz, suspecting what this was, detected evil on it and confirmed the mist was evil. He warned us that it was a vampire and we stood ready as it formed into a corporeal body. It was a vampire. It was also a woman, not Lucien like we were expecting. She was somewhat expecting us, claiming "the master" said we would eventually arrive. After the usual threats she gave us “one last chance to leave”. At this point there was an awkward silence because this is usually when our opponents attacked, thinking they would surprise us. After a couple of moments of nothing happening, she turned to mist and left – just as several stone coffins in each of the side rooms opened, expelling undead.
Each room contained a different type of undead, with four or five in each room. From left to right there were burning skeletons, regular skeletons, fast zombies, and bloody skeletons. We quickly shouted out a plan to block the doors so we would not have to fight them all at once. We were partially successful as we blocked two of the four doors before one of the burning skeletons and one of the bloody skeletons stepped just outside of their rooms.
I took a position in the center of the chamber and activated my nimbus of light, which slowly damaged all of the undead while I sent out multiple pulses of positive energy to further damage them. Macha was enlarged and used her enlarged tower shield to completely block off the room with normal skeletons in it. Frankie destroyed the bloody skeleton at that door and, after being enlarged by Midnight, blocked the door to that room and the fast zombie room at the same time.
This combat was long and a bit touch and go at points, but because we controlled the access points to the room, the undead could not swarm us. We cleared the burning skeleton room first. They explode in flames when destroyed, which was an unpleasant surprise. Luckily, Sarisvati was able to provide fire resistance to those fighting them (mostly Aziz and Macha), which kept the burning to a minimum.
After the burning skeletons we destroyed the bloody skeletons. They heal rapidly if left alone, so we piled damage on them until they were destroyed. After that, Frankie finished off the fast zombies with assistance from Tre-ba and Asmo. We then did some healing before Macha let the regular skeletons out of their room and we pummeled them to dust.
At this point we were out of most of our undead fighting capabilities. With the sun still high in the afternoon sky and having access to nap stack, we decided to pull back and camp for two hours to recuperate. Now it is time to sleep for a bit and then take on the vampire minion. The sun should keep us safe, but we will still have a watch and Estrela will cast hide camp to cover us.
I miss having a good meal cooked by Short John at camp.
*End of Session*
This campaign used the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game as a starting point, but has now moved on to new material from the DM-in-training. I heartily recommend Dyson's Delve as a beginning adventure.
Adventuring Group:
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Elspeth (female half-elf rogue)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)
NPCs:
Aziz of the Light (male human paladin, cohort of Harkaitz)
Sarisvati the Sun-touched (female Ifrit oracle, cohort of Aziz)
Midnight (female half-elf witch, cohort of Frankie Hu)
Macha (female human fighter, cohort of Elspeth)
Estrela (female Aasimar druid, cohort of Tre-Ba)
Short John Copper (male halfling expert, hireling)
The Red Keffiyehs (human warriors, followers of Harkaitz)
Carnish (male gnoll spellcaster of some sort)
Professor Walsh (male human expert)
Later in the Afternoon, August 4, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, whose power smites the undead.
After some quick discussion, I sent the following reply to Brek’nok’s sending:
Go after phylactery soonest. Disguise Wednesday seriously before going down to drow city. Don’t get caught! Entering Throne of Ra now. ~Harkaitz
We made a deal with Nionel to “never see each other again” after killing the drow matriarch and sealing the Drow Gate, meaning they would not invade the surface anymore and we of the surface would not invade them again. I feel bad about breaking that promise and if there was a way to destroy the phylactery without breaking the promise I’d take it. I may have to do something to make up for it to Nionel after we save the world. Maybe Wednesday and her group can do the job without killing anyone or getting caught.
Probably not.
We discussed using nap stack before entering the pyramid, but decided that there was not enough benefit from doing so. Coming around a corner of the pyramid, we found three skeletons (skeletal champions as it turned out) guarding the entrance to the pyramid interior. We took them out fairly quickly, but it made us wonder if they indicated the lich and Lucien are here. Either way, we were committed to the attack at this point and entered the pyramid.
The first chamber we entered was 40 ft square with the ceiling supported by four columns equally spaced around a 20 ft quare in the center. The walls were decorated with scenes of priests fighting the undead. Elspeth searched the room and found a lever on one of the pillars. It was a trap, rigged to drop the ceiling on anyone in the chamber. She disabled it and then then pulled the lever. This caused sections of the walls to slide down into the ground, exposing two doors each on the back and side walls.
After Elspeth cleared the doors as safe, Frankie opened the left-most door. Beyond was a long room full of evenly spaced stone coffins and no other exits. Contemplating this, we decided to open all of the doors first, and then decide which way to go. The doors on the right and left walls each opened into a long room with many stone coffins. The back two doors opened onto corridors, one leading left and one right.
While we were deciding which way to go, a patch of mist moved into the room from the left door on the back wall. Aziz, suspecting what this was, detected evil on it and confirmed the mist was evil. He warned us that it was a vampire and we stood ready as it formed into a corporeal body. It was a vampire. It was also a woman, not Lucien like we were expecting. She was somewhat expecting us, claiming "the master" said we would eventually arrive. After the usual threats she gave us “one last chance to leave”. At this point there was an awkward silence because this is usually when our opponents attacked, thinking they would surprise us. After a couple of moments of nothing happening, she turned to mist and left – just as several stone coffins in each of the side rooms opened, expelling undead.
Each room contained a different type of undead, with four or five in each room. From left to right there were burning skeletons, regular skeletons, fast zombies, and bloody skeletons. We quickly shouted out a plan to block the doors so we would not have to fight them all at once. We were partially successful as we blocked two of the four doors before one of the burning skeletons and one of the bloody skeletons stepped just outside of their rooms.
I took a position in the center of the chamber and activated my nimbus of light, which slowly damaged all of the undead while I sent out multiple pulses of positive energy to further damage them. Macha was enlarged and used her enlarged tower shield to completely block off the room with normal skeletons in it. Frankie destroyed the bloody skeleton at that door and, after being enlarged by Midnight, blocked the door to that room and the fast zombie room at the same time.
This combat was long and a bit touch and go at points, but because we controlled the access points to the room, the undead could not swarm us. We cleared the burning skeleton room first. They explode in flames when destroyed, which was an unpleasant surprise. Luckily, Sarisvati was able to provide fire resistance to those fighting them (mostly Aziz and Macha), which kept the burning to a minimum.
After the burning skeletons we destroyed the bloody skeletons. They heal rapidly if left alone, so we piled damage on them until they were destroyed. After that, Frankie finished off the fast zombies with assistance from Tre-ba and Asmo. We then did some healing before Macha let the regular skeletons out of their room and we pummeled them to dust.
At this point we were out of most of our undead fighting capabilities. With the sun still high in the afternoon sky and having access to nap stack, we decided to pull back and camp for two hours to recuperate. Now it is time to sleep for a bit and then take on the vampire minion. The sun should keep us safe, but we will still have a watch and Estrela will cast hide camp to cover us.
I miss having a good meal cooked by Short John at camp.
*End of Session*
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